World of Ashes (32 page)

             
“Motion is seconded, but when I was a kid it was the Hansen Brothers versus Marylin Mansen on
Celebrity Deathmatch.
You ever catch that show? I have the entire box set on DVD.”

             
“You mean you
had
the entire box set.” Allen boasted, tossing a stick for the dog to chase.

             
Ethan continued listing things, ignoring that Allen had lifted the box set. “I also won’t miss traffic, or driving even. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to get my car back one day, but I’ve given up on that. If it wasn’t a semi-truck trying to run you over, it was the gas prices trying to run you down. My car was special. And not because Pontiac put more effort into, if anything I think the electrician was drunk that day, but because she was the last thing my grandpa ever gave me before he passed. I took care of her as best I could for more than a decade, and with just the snap of someone’s fingers she was gone. Worth no more in their grandiose schemes than you or I. I do miss smoking the shit out of Mustangs on the roads though.”

“With a stock Grand Prix? You’re dreaming.”

“
It’s not my fault Mustang drivers can’t drive.”

             
“Where is it? Your car, I mean. I think we’ve discussed this, but you know me.”

             
“Rotting in a lemon lot on Fort Leonard Wood, probably.” Ethan tossed the stick after wrestling it from Bogey’s mouth. He wiped the slobber on Allen’s sleeve.

             
“I don’t really miss traffic either, though it never really made any difference to me. I only had my permit for two months before all this. However, something I really don’t miss: hearing about the president and all the stupid crap politicians did on the news every night. I think I’ll miss the news less than anything. My mom watched it religiously. I think it was depressing.”

             
“Get used to that bullshit rearing its ugly head again.”

             
“Yeah, I fucking know. Those lunatics from that church are driving me fucking nuts. They call us like six times a day for piddley stupid shit. Some of it’s not even illegal anymore! Jay walking and strangers near, but not on their property and such.” Allen threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Make’s you almost wish they weren’t your own people, huh? Would be a lot easier if we could just ship ‘em back to wherever.”

             
“There’s a lot of people I wouldn’t mind deporting. Not my place though. I just wish this church group would leave everyone else alone. Shit, we have fifteen Muslims in town. Did you know that? One just got married to a Jewish girl last week. The last thing we as Americans need is another damned Social Divide so soon after we rediscovered brotherhood, ya know?”

             
“Kenly is setting in motion a policy that if anyone makes a false or wasteful police report he’s gonna put ‘em in jail for wasting emergency resources. About the time half their congregation is in the stockade they’ll cut this zealot bullshit out, just you watch. They’re almost as bad as Westbor-“

             
“Don’t even finish, Allen. I don’t want to remember them. My one regret in life is going to be that a zombie might have killed those sadistic motherfuckers, and not me. The families they tortured at those funerals… They’re not going to any afterlife I might be in. There are levels of hell for heathens like me, and there are pits for people like them… And those who talk at the theater.” Ethan sighed as Allen went on, trying to smile. Mary said he should smile more, even if he didn’t mean it. His reputation around town was outstanding, if not somewhat grim. A little good press never hurt.

“I used to follow politics
religiously before the war.” Ethan went on. “Back when I thought my life would go somewhere. I was even a Republican, drinking the coolaid flavored whiskey and questioning nothing. I was stoked at the idea that we would invade Afghanistan right after 9/11. Lee and I were in a JROTC unit that was a bit more hard charging than most. I think that unit had an 80% enlistment rate after graduation, which is like, unheard of for a JROTC.”             

             
“I thought you hated the government and the military and stuff? I can’t imagine you willfully cutting your hair or spinning a rifle for fun.”

             
“I didn’t arrive at my current conclusions overnight, Tonto. Besides, I was a freshman in high school when those filthy fucking Sand Savages hit the towers. There were so many conspiracies and one evil committed after another in the name of a false sense of security you just picked a side and drew a line in the sand, ya know? We didn’t even think about invading Iraq back then. That wasn’t until ’03.”

             
“My brother was a senior on 9/11. He enlisted the day after. You don’t have to explain why you or anyone else was so motivated for payback. What do you think of the theory al-Qaida started the Envier Plague?”

             
“I don’t care.” Ethan admitted with a shrug. His pours were opening as he built up a sweat walking and his second chance vest made him itch. Ethan had made the vest mandatory only because a deputy had been shot and killed over the winter pulling over a very drunk driver. Had he had a vest on, which was SOP for traffic patrol even then, Cpl. Ellis Tower would still be alive and his killer wouldn’t have gotten away. “Last I heard the Middle East from Egypt to Pakistan was nothin’ but corpses and radioactive glass. They got what was coming to them, whether they started it or not.”

             
Allen scoffed, “And I thought
I
was racist. C’mon, you can’t blame all Muslims for the actions of a few-”             

“Yes
, Allen. Yes I can. I get it, you’ve never seen Fascist Islam up close. The world of suffering and evil and depravity they cultivate under the guise of an outdated and self-serving religion. Your entire generation has been raised to believe everyone but America is the Good Guys, that somehow being the best is wrong, and that everyone else’s culture is somehow better than our own. Not to mention you’re too busy chasing tail to pay attention to shit a teenage boy rightfully has no reason to pay attention to… man, I’m ranting again.” Ethan breathed and collected his thoughts. “Whatever, man. You ever repeat ‘
Islam is the religion of peace
’ in earshot of me again and I’ll shoot your ear
off
. I try to play by rules of police and gentile society, and to be impartial on the job, even with the Muslims we have here. You know I don’t discriminate against Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, or whatever when it’s in the line of duty… But a wise old cop once told me ‘if you ain’t profiling you ain’t doin’ your job.’ When the terrorists attacked us, there was no condemnation of their actions by the Muslim world. Rather, they cheered them on. In the years after did Islamic leaders ever come out and publicly call for peace from Hesbola or al-Quaida? No. Not even once. The entire fucking Arab horde just sat on its ass about the issue of terrorism and migrated to Europe and bled the European economy dry, sucking up healthcare and unemployment on a scale that made our problem with illegal Mexicans look like a nonissue. They came here and bought land to build mosques in inappropriate places, to set up little communities of Sharia Law where they could undermine us from the inside, they turn our own against us… No wonders Europe wasn’t able to fight the dead when they started eating everyone, they didn’t have the money or the will after so many decades of being pacified by the Muslim Sophists.” Ethan spat, something he never did. “If the Arabs did this to the world, then fuck them. If they didn’t, fuck them still. So long as I have this star on my chest the words of Sharia Law will never be upheld in my town. I refuse to see the word of that psychotic, mass murdering, child molesting farce prophet take hold in my home, Allen. I’ve been to their world. It’s a used up, burning trash heap that smells like ten thousand years of oil, death, and suffering. Their streets are garbage dumps and toilets at the same time and their women are of lower status than their lovin’ lambs. I just can’t get over fearing they’ll bring Sharia Law to America in these lawless times.”

             
“…Wow… So if al-Qaeda were the terrorists responsible, do you think they meant to destroy themselves too? I watched CNN when the Saudis lost that last big land battle against the dead. Watched video of every city from Gibraltar to Mecca to Kabul burn like a bunch of match sticks, knowing my home was next.” Allen wasn’t as well versed in world matters as Ethan. To think there was a culture capable of inciting such hatred from someone as usually disconnected and apathetic as Sheriff Ethan Cally was unsettling. Acceptance for all, Except for those who’ve already pissed him off was apparently Ethan’s motto. “Sounds like Karma if it’s true though.”

             
“Shut up for a sec.” Ethan pointed to the old center of town ahead, “You hear that?” The sound of cars and trucks hauling people, workers and goods being moved about by trucks and horses, of bells and whistles and saws and hammers echoing between buildings that had been there a hundred years already. The aroma of food on the grill and beer brewing created a unique smell probably lost since the turn of the last century. Sawdust and wood fire smoke drifted among the trees and Ethan inhaled deep. “That’s the sound of Liberty, just like you were talking about. We might build walls to keep the Huns at bay, but that’s temporary. We’re still citizens of the greatest nation in the history of the world and we have a duty not to let that dream die without a fight. The dead be damned, let alone some punk-ass Islamonazis. I may have laid down my rifle for the plow, figuratively of course, but that rifle is hanging just above my door.”

             
“You are ranting now.”

             
Ethan shook his head. “Yeah, probably. I had too much coffee this morning. But let me leave you with this thought. When the bus carrying us all to Basic pulled into the reception battalion at Fort Leonard Wood, a Drill Sergeant in a Smokey Bear hat boarded the bus, the shadow from the lights made all but his chin and mouth a black shadow I swear must have concealed the face of the Grim Reaper himself. His voice was like a soft drum roll, and then suddenly a fucking cannon… ‘Welcome to the Last Superpower on Earth.’ He started. ‘Want to know how it got that way? PISS ME OFF!’ I think those words explain the American spirit best.”

             
“Look, I think get what you’re saying; you are drastically straying off the original subject I think. Despite all the things my brother went through even he said hate solves nothing. Hate was what took us to the desert in the first place. Hate was what brought them to attack us in the first place, and hate is what caused the dead to rise.” Ethan was about to say something about naturally or synthetically caused viral outbreaks rather than acts of ill-will, but Allen cut him off. “Guess what, Ethan, the badguys are gone now. It’s just them and us.” Allen gestured again at the mass grave for infected corpses.     

             
“I hope so. I often wonder how-“

             
“
Foot Patrol Six, Provost Martial’s Office, over.
” Ethan’s radio interrupted them.

             
“Go head, PMO.”

             
“
Respond to Main Street, possible riot in progress.
”

             
“PMO, Foot Patrol Six, send a car, we’re right under the Ten Million Dollar bridge to nowhere.” Ethan stopped and turned to face the direction the patrol car would be coming from. So much for a casual stroll and light conversation.

             
“
Copy
.”

             
Reynolds came flying up to the guys in his Dodge Charger patrol car, sirens blaring. The tires squalled to a stop within arm’s reach of the Sheriff and his Deputy. They jumped inside and in the blink of an eye were jumping back out in the parking lot of the old Whistle Stop Café. Ethan could barely believe he was running towards an all-out brawl that had been in progress for some time, judging by the number of people involved. Had he even a moment to think before he acted Ethan might have waiting for Lee’s quick response force to arrive in riot gear. Too late now.

             
“You got OC spray?” Reynolds asked, shaking his bottle.

             
“Fuck no.” Ethan snapped open his baton. “I ain’t gett’n that shit on me.” It was obvious the riot was being perpetrated almost exclusively by the parishioners of the Church of The Old Testament. Their throwback style clothing that looked handmade in a world where Armani suits were free to those who found them, and mandatory dresses for women were a dead giveaway. No doubt they had started the fight in the first place, no one else in town ever instigated people they had to live so close to. Ethan just wasn’t ready for who these religious fanatics had picked the fight with. Johansen and Werner, the two ladies were enjoying an early morning trip to one of the dozens of farmers markets around town, having swapped uniforms for jeans and jackets on their days off. The two women were easily beating the crap out of several men twice their size like a real life kung fu movie, but there were too many men making too many problems for the women to handle. Unlike the movies, real attackers don’t wait their turn to take punches while the camera gets a close-up. Three men Ethan recognized from high school or the Boy Scouts as a kid swung batons that used to be hatchet handles and probably broke Tammy’s left arm.

             
Charging headlong into the mêlée three lawmen beat their way through an unwelcoming crowd to the center and joined the women in holding the public gazebo between the train tracks and Main Street. Reynolds sprayed at least a dozen people before running out of OC. Someone had grabbed his baton from his hand and now the veteran cop was drawing his sidearm. This was all about to go from bad to tragic quickly.

             
“Stop! Stop right now!” Ethan tore his sidearm out of its holster and pointed it at a man named Vincent Bass. “Take one more step towards me, Vince and I’ll shoot you dead in front of your kids.” Ethan pushed the thumb safety down with a click.

             
“Sinners! They flaunt their sinful ways in front of our children! How can you claim to be protecting us when you employ those who do not represent us!?” Bass shouted back, finally reaching over and holding the spot on his arm where Ethan’s asp had made contact. It would be a record winning bruise, assuming the bone wasn’t broken too. The stainless steel batons Ethan made every deputy carry would crack a zombie’s skull just as easily as it could break a living man’s bones to pieces. Bass was probably just playing up the glancing blow for the crowd.

             
“We recognize the Separation of Church and State in this town.” Ethan never took his eyes off the three prong sites that lined up to his old classmate’s forehead. “They could walk naked down these streets and that still wouldn’t be
your
problem.
I’m
the Law here, not you.”

             
Bass spat at Ethan. The snot rocket landed between his feet. “
Lesbians.
A cute word created by Zionists to allow demon possessed Witches to undermine the moral fabric of our society! Your type should be burned at the stake like the Good Book says! It was your type that brought this upon us all, brought the Wrath of God. Westboro had it right!” Cheers unbelievably went up through the crowd. Ethan had never wanted to be rescued by Lee so badly, but was astute enough to notice the average citizenry wasn’t involved. These were Old T’s, their idiotic supporters holding the other townsfolk at bay with farming tools and guns.

             
“Fuck you, ya fat bastard!” Tammy Werner shouted back, flipping Vincent Bass off. A brick sailed from another Old T follower and struck Tammy in the collar bone with the corner of the spiraling red stone. Before Ethan, Reynolds or Allen could respond to the woman falling to the ground another brick flew through the air and knocked Reynolds’ hat off his balding head, scratching him along the temple and dropping him too. He was okay, but stayed low to try and help Sabrina wake Tammy. Her collar bone was shattered and she was unconscious, hitting her head as she fell backwards.