Blood in the Ashes (8 page)

Ike both felt and heard the man's skull pop under the hickory club. He quickly dragged the robed and hooded man into the room and closed the door, after checking the lock. He damn sure didn't want to get locked back in with a stiff.

Ike stripped off the robe and put it on, grimacing as he did so. The robe stank of old sweat. Fanning the body, Ike discovered a .38-caliber pistol and a pocket full of cartridges. He found a package of cigarettes—Lord only knew how old they were—and a Zippo lighter. Even though Ike had been trying to quit smoking for years, he made up his mind he'd sure fire one up if he got out of this loony bin in one piece.

He smiled. After he wasted a whole bunch of these kooks, that is.

He slowly opened the door and looked up and down the dimly lit hall. Must be a gasoline generator producing the power, he thought. The hall was quiet and deserted. he slipped out into the hall, stood for a moment, trying to get his bearings, then walked in the opposite direction his guard's footsteps had always sounded. He passed a room that smelled strongly of kerosene. An idea came to him. He smiled grimly and entered the room.

He found two five-gallon cans of kerosene and a carton of rags. Ike saturated the room with raw kerosene and ran back to the room where he'd been held captive, leaving a trail of kerosene as he ran. He doused the dead man with kerosene, and threw the rest of that can of flammable liquid on the walls and floor. He lit a handful of rags and dropped them to the floor, backing out of the room.

He backed right into a breathing body.

“Brother Jake?” the man said. “Why ... you're not Brother—”

That was as far as he got. Brother Whatever-in-the-hell-his-name-was felt his throat explode in pain as Ike ruptured his larynx with the knife edge of his hand. Brother Yo-yo hit the floor and began flopping around, slowly suffocating, gagging and making horrible choking sounds. Ike hastened death's touch by kicking the man in the temple with the toe of his boot. The man croaked once and was still. Fanning the body, Ike found another .38 pistol, more cartridges, and a long-bladed hunting knife in a leather sheath.

Ike took the seconds required to check both pistols. Fully loaded. He tossed Brother Yo-yo into the burning room, shut the door, and picked up the second can of kerosene. He ran down the hall, slopping kerosene on the walls and floor, the fire trailing behind him as he ran.

Smoke was rapidly filling the corridored building as Ike came to a dead end. A dirty window faced him. He unlocked the window and climbed out, closing the window behind him.

The outside air was clear and cold. Ike breathed deeply, gratefully. It felt good to be free. Even better to be armed. Now to get his bearings and find some heavier weapons. Then to do some damage, draw some real blood.

He could hear the sounds of men and women yelling, some of the yelling pain-filled as the fire spread quickly through the old, wooden building. It had been some type of old warehouse, Ike guessed.

A man ran around a corner of the building, carrying an M-16. He ran toward Ike, crouched in the darkness. When the robed man passed the kneeling Ike, Ike jammed one end of the hickory stick hard into the man's gut. The air left him in a rush. Ike cracked the man's skull with the club and hit him again for insurance. He grabbed up the M-16 and tore the full ammo pouch from the man. He checked the M-16. It was one of the older models, manufactured long before the M16A2 came to be. This old baby was full auto.

Ike checked the clip. Full. The clips in the ammo pouch were all full, a mixed bag of twenty and thirty round clips.

“Now for a little fun,” Ike muttered. “My kind of fun, kids.”

Using the heavy brush around the burning building, Ike slipped into deep cover, edging into the prone firing position. He found a group of robed men and women standing about two hundred yards from the burning structure. He blew a full clip into them, knocking half of them sprawling, kicking and screaming on the ground.

“Bastards!” Ike growled.

The roaring of the fire completely covered the stutter and crack of the M-16. Ike jammed home a fresh clip and began picking his targets.

He knocked the props out from under a half dozen more hooded and robed persons before deciding it was time for him to haul his ass out of that area.

One man came close to Ike's position and Ike shot him, one slug hitting the magazine of the M-16, the rounds exploding, mangling the man's belly and chest. Ike tore the ammo pouch from the man and ripped a pair of field glasses from around the man's neck. He ran into the woods.

Stopping once to check the stars, Ike got his bearings and headed southeast. He found a stream and followed it until he spotted a bridge looming dark in the early fall evening in the mountains.

Ike carefully reconnoitered the bridge and the grounds around it while remaining motionless in the brush. First chance he got, he was getting out of that stinking robe. It was insulting his nostrils. People of the Ninth Order must not believe much in bathing, he thought.

Cautiously, he made his way to the bridge. He followed the highway south by staying close to the timberline. He came to a highway marker. He was on Highway 60.

Ike searched his memory. The patrol he'd been leading had been ambushed just to the east of Highway 411, very close to the town of Chatsworth. So the members of the Ninth Order had carried him quite a distance to the east. He still couldn't quite figure out exactly why the Ninth Order had grabbed him. He thought all that questioning about Ben had been to throw him off.

Unless . . .

Yeah, he reflected sourly, that had to be it. Willette and his bunch were probably playing footsie with that gang of kooks. Christ! Ike had hoped they were all through with people like that when they left Emil Hite and his band of fruitcakes back in Arkansas.
²

Ike had to softly chuckle at the memory of Emil Hite. Hite was more harmless hippie than anything else. The man had a scam working for him. But he wasn't dangerous—at least not like the Ninth Order.

The Ninth Order. Sister Voleta. What the hell did they want? Good Christ, there was surely enough land for everybody.

Ike just couldn't figure it.

He walked for half an hour before spotting an old house set off the road, almost completely overgrown with thick brush. He circled the house once before stepping up to the porch. Carefully, he tried the doorknob. It turned with a grinding, unused sound. M-16 ready, on full auto, Ike pushed open the door. It protested on rusty hinges. Ike stepped into a musty-smelling living room.

Something screamed an animal sound and came leaping at him in the darkness.

“We're clean up to that point,” the Rebel said, pointing to an intersection about a half mile from the first barricade just outside Dublin, Georgia. “Beyond that point, General, is the unknown. You want me to send teams in there?”

Ben nixed that quickly. “It'll be full dark soon,” he said. “No point in risking more lives wandering around at night. They—whoever
they
might be—know the terrain. We don't. Let's backtrack a few miles for safety's sake. We'll hit the town in the morning.”

“Whatever is in there,” Susie said, “they're pretty good. I haven't seen any movement since we knocked out that machine gun emplacement.”

“Either pretty good or pretty scared,” Ben said. “Or pretty few.” He turned to another Rebel. “What did you learn from inspecting the bodies at the machine gun nest?”

“Five white males,” Sergeant Greene said. “Dirty. Unwashed. Bad teeth. All different ages. I'd say from twenty to forty-five. All wearing battle dress. None of them wore any type of unit crest or any other type of insignia.”

“Odd,” Ben said, more to himself than anyone else. Once again, Tony Silver's name came to his mind. Suddenly, Ben thought about Ike. He shook that away. “OK. Let's pull back and get our camp set up for the night.”

Gale touched his arm. “I get the uncomfortable feeling we are being watched.”

“I imagine we are,” Ben said. “From a safe distance.”

Gale looked at the ten naked bodies hanging from the rafter across the street. Tortured and mutilated and grotesque. “What are you going to do with them, Ben?”

“Leave them for the time being. We'll cut them down and bury them in the morning. Twelve more hours won't make a bit of difference to them.”

The Rebels backtracked to the interstate and set up for the night around an old motel complex. Ben posted guards on the roof and on both sides of the interstate.

“Heads up,” Ben told his people. “We don't know how many of the enemy we're facing, much less what we're facing.”

“Seems to me, General,” a woman spoke from the ranks, “since we didn't make the first hostile moves to open this dance, those people back in Dublin—the ones who fired on us—are lookin' to get their asses kicked.”

“That is precisely what we are going to do, Judy,” Ben told her with an accompanying smile. “At first light.”

“Good!” she replied. “I'm damn tired of people shootin' at me. Especially since all we're tryin' to do is be friends and help those who need it.”

A low growl of agreement spread through the ranks of the Rebels.

“In the morning,” Ben repeated, dismissing the Rebels.

“I'm hungry,” Gale announced.

“I'm sure,” Ben said. “You eat like a horse normally. Now you're eating for two.”

“Three, Ben. Three.” She looked at him. “A
horse!”

Ike sidestepped, tripped the man who came shrieking at him in the darkness, and got the guy in a hammer lock. Ike had dropped his M-16 and was just about to cut the guy's throat when his hand cupped a soft breast.

Ike squeezed gently. He grinned and squeezed again. Soft. Quite a handful.

“Perverted son of a bitch!” the woman said. “Are you gonna cut my throat or just feel me up?”

Not relaxing his hold on the woman, Ike said, “I might decide to do both.” He squeezed again.

“Will you turn loose of my titty? And you're choking me, you bastard.”

Ike eased off and stood up. The woman remained crouched on the floor. She rubbed her throat. In the dim light filtering through the dirty windows, Ike looked at her. She was maybe twenty-two or three, no more than that. Light brown hair, tanned skin. Old work shirt and faded jeans. She was built up nice and shapely. She met his gaze squarely, no back-up in her.

“What are you, a fat monk?” she asked.

Ike stepped back and pulled off the hooded robe. He tossed the stinking garment to the floor. Ike was all muscle and gristle and bone. And he was strong as an ape.

Her eyes swept him from face to booted feet. She nodded her head.

“Did I pass inspection?” Ike asked.

“If that's what you want to call it. OK. So you're not fat. You're a fireplug. But
what
are you? Besides a pervert, that is.”

“I am not a pervert. But you do have a nice set of titties.” He grinned. “I'm Colonel Ike McGowen. Now who in the hell are you?”

“A
colonel!
Sure you are,” she said sarcastically. “A colonel in what?”

“Raines' Rebels.”

She opened her mouth to speak. Closed it. Blinked her eyes. She twisted around and sat on the floor, looking up at Ike. “General Ben Raines? I mean,
President
Ben Raines?”

“Yeah. Ben. I was leading a patrol a couple of counties west of here. Some nutty bastards that call themselves the Ninth Order ambushed us, grabbed me. I broke out several hours ago. That's it in a nutshell. What's your name?”

“Nina. Yeah, I know that bunch of crazies. Know them well. They killed my old man last month. They burned him to death,” she added bitterly, almost spitting out the last. “Stripped him, tortured him, tied him to a stake, then burned him. Made me watch. The men holding me had a good time feeling me up. They told me what they were going to do to me. Real perverted. They were going to
screw
me to death. You believe that? They
meant
it! I kicked one in the balls and split. Been runnin' ever since. Thought they had me a couple-three times, but I always managed to slip past them. Screw me to death. Caught me and my old man, ah, messin' around. Called me a sinner. So that was to be my punishment. Jesus! What a pack of nuts.”

“I agree with you. Your old man? Your husband?”

“Kind of. We never got married, though. How about you?”

Vibrations passed between the man and the woman. Both of them picked up the other's silent message. Strong erotic messages. The meaning was very clear.

“How do you want me to answer that?” Ike asked her.

“The only way to answer it, Ike. By tellin' the truth.”

“I'm married.”

“Faithful to her?”

Something clutched at Ike's guts. “Up to now,” he said with a grin, meeting her pale gray eyes. “You got anything to eat?”

She smiled.

Ike picked it up. He laughed loudly. The laugh felt good; he hadn't had much to laugh about the past few days. “Food, baby,” he said, patting his stomach. “Sustenance for the bod.”

“Yeah. I got a sack of army rations. I swiped it yesterday.”

“C-rations?”

“I guess.”

“Yuk! Well, let's eat. Then we'll get some rest and head out at first light.” Ike tossed her one of the .38s taken from the Ninth Order. “You know how to use that?”

Nina looked at the pistol. An odd look came into her eyes. She pointed the weapon at Ike and jacked back the hammer. “I sure do, sucker.”