Part 15 (2/2)
She had awakened that morning with a terrible headache.
She was disoriented and unsteady on her feet. She looked across the bedroom she was sharing with her sister, and a scream boiled out of her throat.
Her younger sister was on the floor, stiff and cold in death. Her face was twisted and blackened in death.
She looked as though she had been dead for some time.
Rani got to her feet and promptly fell down, her legs unable to support her. She crawled from the room, down the hall. The house was so still and quiet. She staggered to her feet and lurched into her parents' bedroom. She had steeled herself as to what she might find.
Both mother and father were dead, lying in bed. Blood had poured from nose, ears, and mouth, staining the whiteness of pillow.
She backed out of the room, fear gripping her like a band across her chest.
She jerked on a housecoat and stumbled into the living room, then out onto the porch. The scene that lay before her eyes was something out of a sci-fi thriller.
Men and women and children lay scrawled on the street, all twisted in various shapes as death struck them and dropped them.
Rani ran back into her house and, keeping her eyes averted from her sister's body, she slipped into blue jeans, tennis shoes, and blouse. She backed her parents' car out of the drive and slowly drove the streets. She could find no one alive.
She still, after all these years, was not certain exactly what happened after that first day. Not for some time. She remembered driving until she ran out of gas. Then she wandered for days, maybe weeks; she still wasn't certain. The death that lay in stinking heaps around her had numbed her mind. Perhaps that was the most merciful thing that could have happened to her. She had only very dim memories of being raped and abused. And she had no idea how she arrived a thousand miles from her home. But she did. Only then did she begin to be aware of her surrounding.
And she never fully understood why she was spared when so many others died.
”People lost faith,” Rani said quietly. ”They just couldn't believe that G.o.d would do something this awfulto the human race. Many of them needed someone ...
something they could see to wors.h.i.+p. They found Ben Raines.
This one human man that rose up out of the ashes and built a nation within a nation. Against all odds, he did it. He fought mutants, warlords, outlaws, and the entire central government of the United States ... and won. A lot of people thought him blessed, so to speak. But he is not a G.o.d, children. He is flesh and blood and bone. Just like us.”
But she could tell by the expression on the children's faces they were not convinced.
”Have you ever met Ben Raines, Miss Rani?”
Paul asked.
”No.” She shook her head.
”Then you don't know for sure, do you?”
”No,” Rani admitted. ”I don't know for sure.”
Chapter 13.
For just a fleeting moment, Ben thought of turning off the interstate and checking out Webb AFB at Big Spring. But he knew from experience what he would find. Nothing. The place would have been picked over a hundred times. And, he smiled, more than likely, most of the gear taken by my own people.
Was it Webb AFB that Sergeant Buck Osgood and his small band of men had barricaded themselves in a concrete bunker against the hordes of mutant rats8*
Ben couldn't remember. He knew it had been someplace in Texas.
He drove on past the exit sign for Webb AFB.
”Got anyplace in particular you'd like to see, Jordy?” he asked.
”Don't know no place, Ben. Don't make no difference, long as I'm seein' it with you.”
Ben grinned. ”OK. Now say your ABC'S.
for me.”
*Fire in the Ashes The boy got them all right-first try.
Already, with three squares a day, the boy was gaining weight, filling out. The pinched look of poverty was leaving his face, and the boy was smiling more.
”We make a pretty good team, don't we, Jordy?”
”Sure do, Ben. Are you gonna keep me?”
”Am I going to what?”
”Keep me.”
Ben laughed. ”Why, I haven't given anything other than ”keeping you” any thought, Jordy.
What did you think I was going to do-toss you out by the side of the road?”
”Naw. I didn't figure you'd do that. But nothing good ever lasts long. Not for n.o.body livin' out here, anyways.”
”Well, we're going to last, Jordy. You andme. We'll hole up this winter and I'll teach you how to read and write-as best I can. Then, in the spring, we'll head on back to Georgia and you'll have a permanent home.”
”With you, Ben?”
”With me, Jordy.”
”Is that a promise, Ben?”
Ben ruffled his hair. ”That's a promise, boy.”
”Close to five hundred men, Jake,” West said. ”With more comin' in. With five-six hundred salty ol' boys, we could rule half of Texas if we played our cards right.”
”That's what I'm thinking, too,” Jake said.
”And I know where to get more.”
”Oh?” West looked at him.
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