Eliot Pattison - Ashes of the Earth: A Mystery of Post-Apocalyptic America

ASHESOF THE EARTH

AMYSTERY OF POST-APOCALYPTIC AMERICA

ByEliot Pattison

Copyright 2011 by Eliot Pattison. All rights reserved underInternational and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Thisis a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents arethe product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Anyresemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirelycoincidental.

Theauthor would like to acknowledge that the lyrics on page 240 are fromBobby Darin's song Beyond the Sea, first recorded by US Atco in 1960.

Libraryof Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN:978-1-58243-644-9

Coverdesign by Domini Dragoone Interior design by Megan Jones Design

Printedin the United States of America

COUNTERPOINT1919 Fifth Street Berkeley, CA 94710 www.counterpointpress.com

Distributedby Publishers Group West

10987654321

CHAPTER O ne

thefaces of themany child suicides Hadrian Boone had cut M from nooses or retrievedbelow cliffs never left him, filled his restless sleep, andencroached in so many waking nightmares that now, as the blond girlwith the hanging rope skipped along the ridge above, he hesitated,uncertain whether she was another of the phantoms that haunted him.Then she paused and reached out for the hand of a smaller red-hairedgirl behind her. Hadrian threw down the shovel he was using to digout the colony's old latrine pit, gathered up the chain clamped tohis feet, and ran.

Hescrambled up the steep slope of the ravine, ignoring the surprised,sleepy curse of his guard and the shrill, angry whistle thatfollowed. Grabbing at roots and saplings to pull himself forward, hecleared the top and sprinted along the trail, his spine shuddering atthe expectation of a baton on his back, his gut wrenching at thesound of a feeble shriek from the opposite side of the ridge. As hereached the open shelf of rock, he sprang, grabbed for the swingingrope that hung from a limb over the edge, heaving it up with a groanof despair. He froze as he hauled the child at the end of it backonto the ledge. What he found himself holding was an old coatfastened over a frame of sticks, and he was looking into the blankeyes of a pumpkin head with dried wheat for hair.

Theshriek sounded again, and Hadrian suddenly realized it was one oflaughter. The two girls behind him tittered with delight as hecradled the effigy in his arms. More children joined in the laughter,at least half a dozen in the shadows of the trees.

"Nomore, Sarah," he scolded the older girl as he rose, dumping thefigure onto the ground. "Not this game. I taught you better."He saw now the photograph pinned to the effigy's chest, anadvertisement torn from a long-forgotten magazine showing a womandriving a red convertible filled with joyful children eating bags ofhamburgers. Such photos were considered by many children to be proofof the paradise on the other side and were the reason so many soughtto reach the heaven they depicted. Carthage colony had long agobanned the private possession of salvaged books and magazines fromthe past century, which guaranteed their hoarding by the young. Therewere no more cars, no more drive-through fast food, and the onlyreligion in most families was that invented by children as they triedto decipher the forbidden annals of a lost world.

"Whythe stones?" he asked, bending to roll the pumpkin figure's headtoward him. The eyes carved into the flesh, the most prominentfeature of the effigy, had pupils of blue pebbles.

Sarahglanced back at a thin boy in the shadows, taller than the others."Dax said his eyes would disappear. He's seen it, in the otherswho cross over. He says that's what you take with you to the otherside, your eyes, because that's where your soul lives."

"Tobe or not to be, amen!" interjected the younger girl.

"Tobe or not to be, amen!" The children under the trees quicklyechoed the words.

Hadrianshuddered at the strange, frantic homily, then braced himself on atree trunk. His despair was like a physical weakness. He'd opposedthe withholding of the truth from the younger generation, arguing,begging, and shouting until he'd been removed as the head of thecolony's school. Left without the truth about their world, the youngwould always find their own version of it. Hadrian had begun to thinkof the children of Carthage as one more population of prisoners. Heglanced at Dax, filled with foreboding over the boy's familiaritywith suicides, then shook his head at the girls and began todismantle the figure.

Sarahand her younger sister put on the wounded expressions so familiar tohim at the school. "We found something special for you,professor," Sarah offered, handing him a little cylinder ofrolled maple leaves tied with vine. "I was going to bring themto the jail window tonight after"

Thebaton slammed into Hadrian's shoulder like a hammer, the first blowknocking him to his knees, the second causing him to collapse ontohis hands.

"No!"the older girl cried. She lowered her head and charged the guardwho'd materialized behind Hadrian, ramming him in the belly.

"Getback, you damned vermin!" Sergeant Kenton snarled, slapping thegirl as he was pushed against a tree. "I told you last nightyour gangs are finished! I'll find your" his fury meltedinto confusion, then fear, as he recognized Sarah. "I didn'tmean ..." he muttered to her. "We can't have prisonersescaping, Miss. You know the governor sentenced Mr. Boone to morehard labor for destroying government property again."

Sarahstraightened, rubbing her cheek where he'd struck her. "Andwhat, Sergeant," she asked in a stern, grown-up voice, "shallwe tell our father when the prisoner he sentenced cannot work becauseof the beating you gave him?"

Kentoncast a baleful glance at Hadrian. They both knew he would be willingto haul dried dung himself just for a chance to use his baton onBoone. The burly sergeant swallowed hard, bobbing his head to thegirl with ill grace. Governor Lucas Buchanan was the most powerfulman in the colony of Carthage, on the entire planet for all anyoneknew, but in his own household his daughters reigned supreme."Lawbreakers owe a debt to all," Kenton murmured. It wasthe safest of responses, a slogan carved over the entry to thecolony's courthouse.

Hadrianclutched his throbbing shoulder a moment, then rose, brushing driedleaves and dirt off his clothes.

"Didyou know, Dora," Sarah declared to her sister in an exaggeratedwhisper, "that back in the days of the world Sergeant Kentonsold shoes?"

Theyounger girl laughed derisively and raised her necklace, shaking itsamulet at Kenton, who reflexively jerked backward. It was a rattlefrom one of the local diamondback snakes, a favorite adornment of theadolescent gangs.

Thepoliceman clenched his fists, then glared again at Hadrian, as thoughhe must be the one broadcasting the sergeant's secret past. Kentonoffered a servile nod to Sarah, then feigned a retreat for two stepsbefore springing into the brush where he seized the lanky boy by hishair. Dax squirmed for a moment before Kenton brutally slapped him."I'll have you begging with the half dead in another week!"he spat at the boy.

Bloodstreaming from his nose, Dax pushed back his shaggy blond hair andgrinned as Kenton marched back down the trail. "Jackals run withghosts!" Dax shouted at his back. "Keep hold of your eyes,Sergeant!"

Hadrianstared at the boy, as disturbed by his bizarre words as by thepoliceman's behavior, then turned to the girls with a disappointedgaze. "No more pretending about the other side," he said,the words strangely choking in his throat. The last time he'd found achild suicide, he'd not been able to stop weeping for an hour. Hegestured toward the golden fields of grain and the sprawling town oflog, stone, and scrap-metal houses beyond. "This is theparadise that belongs to you." He gathered up his chain andfollowed his jailer.