From the Ashes Read online

  Rylik was enjoying his second beer and the music when he received another call. This one he could take where he sat. It was Lena. He smiled as he answered, “Hey, you.”

  He was listening when he stopped his hand in mid air, then put his beer down. “Slow down. Let me call you back, it’s kind of crowded in here. I’ll call you when I get in my truck. Give me five minutes.”

  Rylik walked quickly to his truck, an antique left to him by his grandfather. The fifty-year-old truck fired right up like it did every time he turned the key. In addition to farming and basic carpentry, his grandfather had taught him how to turn a wrench. Together, they had restored his grandfather’s prized four-wheel drive Chevy. He called Lena back and put the call on speaker.

  “Ok, I can talk to you now,” Rylik said. “Where are you? It sounds like you’re driving.”

  “I’m an hour out of Charlotte, coming your way,” she told him. “I threw everything in my SUV and left.”

  “But, it’s Thursday,” Rylik said confused. “I thought you were coming tomorrow, after work.”

  “I’m calling in tomorrow,” she explained. “I have days built up. I need to exit, traffic is heavy this time of day. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  Rylik thought about the call as he drove the few miles to the old farm. It was unlike Lena to take a day off of work. As an intelligence specialist in the Obsidian Corporation, she rarely took full weekends off, much less weekdays. The war with Teledyne had been going on for two years. Between his missions and her job at the corporate offices, their time together was limited. Whatever her reason for taking an unprecedented day off, he wasn’t going to complain. In hindsight, he probably should have.

  Two and a half hours later, lights flashed through the front window curtains and across the wall of the living room as Lena pulled into the yard. Rylik put down the book he was reading—one from his grandfather’s collection of ‘How to Build’ books on solar power. Years ago, as a Mother’s Day gift, he had helped his grandfather build a small greenhouse powered by solar energy. His grandmother had been thrilled to be able to grow a few miniature tangerine and lemon trees so far away from their normal climate. Rylik still pruned them back every year in her memory.

  Rylik stepped off the porch to help Lena carry her overnight bag, when he noticed there was far more in her back seat than an overnight bag or two. She opened the door, stepped out, and walked straight into his arms. Surprised, he held her. They were an item, spending time with each other when they could, but neither had expressed a desire to take the relationship to a truly emotional level, so this was unusual. It was then that he noticed she was shaking, crying, and trying to hold back her sobs.

  Rylik stepped back and held her at arm’s length. “What’s wrong? Are you ok?” He brushed her long, dark hair away from her face.

  Lena Coldstream looked into the eyes of the man she had promised herself she wouldn’t fall in love with, no matter how much time they spent together. That promise had been a lie. She wouldn’t lie to him now.

  “I’m not…we’re not,” Lena said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Rylik heard her plain as day. He also heard the tremor in her voice. The nanite treatment he had received as an Agent not only enhanced his bone density and muscle mass, it heightened his senses. He could see the details of her face even though the light from the front porch put her in shadows.

  “We?” Rylik questioned.

  “Us…the whole world,” Lena said, her words coming in a rush. “It’s happening, and there’s nothing they can do about it. It’s going to snowball until there’s nothing left. Nothing.”

  “Slow down,” Rylik said. “Come in and tell me what you’re talking about. We can get your things later.” He glanced at the full backseat, still wondering about it.

  Inside, she told a tale that truly scared him. Her high-level job in intelligence gathering and data analysis made her part of a team that was attempting to determine whether a recent Agent’s report was true or false. According to the report, Teledyne, the corporation Obsidian was at global war with, had an issue with their weapons of mass destruction, specifically their nuclear weapons. A missile had accidentally been programmed to launch on May 1st, and though they were trying, no amount of reprogramming could stop the countdown clock.

  Every member of the team, except Lena, believed it was a ruse by Teledyne to get Obsidian to place their nuclear weapons in safe mode. They were currently set to automatically retaliate should a launch come from the other side. If that happened, Obsidian’s subsidiaries would launch, causing the same reaction from Teledyne’s subsidiaries. It would be global nuclear war, and civilization as the world knew it would cease to exist.

  Lena didn’t believe the report was fake. The Agent who sent it in sent it directly to her system as instructed. The last part of the message sealed it for her. It was real.

  “What was the last part of the message?” Rylik asked.

  “The rest of the team thinks it’s code of some sort,” Lena answered. “They want to work on it on Monday. Tomorrow, there is a planning session for the South American mission, so they don’t want to be bothered with it until then. That’s after the 1st.”

  “Do you know what it said?” asked Rylik, understanding from the look on her face, she did.

  “It said, tsiwanihu toeu,” she said softly.

  Lena Coldstream was a quarter Cherokee. She was raised in the western tip of North Carolina, just a few hours from Rylik’s farm. Her grandparents, who were both half Cherokee and on the rolls of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, had ensured she spoke it fluently like her father had. He was gone now, and she was the last in her family to speak the language. It was a rarity these days.

  Rylik didn’t speak Cherokee, though his grandmother had been one-eighth Cherokee, and he was one-thirty-second Cherokee. His family was not included on the rolls due to Tribal Law and the old US Government Registry, but it was enough for him to know where he came from and to respect it. He didn’t know what she said, but he recognized the sound and cadence.

  “I speak the truth,” she translated for him.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  Rylik sat in his grandfather’s favorite chair and looked at Lena sitting on the couch with her legs curled under her, hugging a pillow. She had stopped crying. Being able to tell him, knowing he would believe her, had helped. There was nothing they could do, but at least they were together.

  Rylik stood, the chair creaking as his heavier than normal frame got out of it. At six feet, he had weighed about 180 pounds before the nanite treatment. He now weighed a little over 350 pounds. He began to pace, thinking. “Whoever sent that to you has to know you’re Cherokee,” he surmised. “How?”

  “The same way I know that three of the people working in their headquarters are from the Cherokee Band in Oklahoma,” she explained. “The bands talk to each other, and those of us that work for corporations hear things. It’s not something that’s discussed outside the bands, not even within the corporations. That’s why I couldn’t tell them it was written in Tsalagi, the Cherokee language.”

  She was right. They would have arrested her, and an Agent or two who specialized in interrogation would have questioned her. She didn’t betray the corporation, so they couldn’t get anything out of her. But if she didn’t tell them anything, it would anger them, and she didn’t have the benefit of nanite enhancements. At five-foot-five and 120 pounds or so, she would not have survived the sessions.

  “Well, shit,” Rylik said. “Get up. We have a lot to do and only a couple of days to do it.”

  “What can we do?” Lena asked. “It’s going to happen; the apocalypse is coming. The infrastructure will come crashing down. There’ll be no power, and food will be scarce. The rule of law will be thrown out the window. I don’t doubt people in the cities will start eating each other within months.”

  “You’re right,” Rylik agreed, “but we don’t have to take it sitting down.” He explained
his plan.

  That night, before the stores closed, Rylik and Lena went in two different directions. They bought all of the 9mm, .45, and .380 rounds in four different Walmarts. They bought all of the shotgun shells as well—twelve gauge, twenty gauge, and the few sixteen gauge Rylik lucked upon. They also purchased all of the .30-06 and .30-30 rounds they came across. They spent several thousand dollars on ammo alone.

  Next came canned and dry goods. They filled grocery carts with bags of rice, flour, sugar, dry vegetables, canned meat, and cornmeal. Lena swiped an entire armload of spices into one of her carts along with all the salt on the shelf. They spent thousands more. Both of their vehicles were overflowing.

  When they got back to the farm, they unloaded everything into the antique 30-foot travel trailer in one side of the barn. The trailer was half full, and Rylik hoped the tires would hold. He then sent Lena south toward Cleveland, Georgia. Cleveland had a CVS Pharmacy and a Walgreens, and both were twenty-four hour stores. She bought all the tape, band aids, bandages, pain meds, cold meds, feminine products and antibiotics she could fit in her SUV. He stayed behind, broke out his grandfather’s tools, and headed for the greenhouse.

  By the time she returned, all the panels of the greenhouse and its heater and solar system were stacked neatly beside the trailer. They were both exhausted and fell asleep in their clothes, trying to catch a couple of hours before they continued with their plan.

  The next morning, they split up and headed to two different gun shops. They each bought several pistols and rifles to go with the ones from the farm. Rylik purchased a sweet Barretta 50-caliber rifle with a tripod and a scope, along with all of the ammunition for it. Like Lena, he didn’t have to wait for a background check once he showed his corporate ID.

  “You looking to start a war?” asked the owner of the gun shop.

  “No, there’s already one on,” answered Rylik. “Let me get those four pairs of binoculars. You have any bear traps and trail cams?”

  When they returned to the farm, they unloaded their vehicles. Rylik noticed that Lena had purchased several bows and crossbows, with boxes of bolts and arrows, along with fishing poles, spools of line, hooks, and a few lures. She had even bought two trot lines. He wished he had thought of that. They stopped to eat lunch and discuss the next part of the plan.

  “My savings account is almost empty,” Lena said. “I don’t earn as much as an Agent, you know.”

  “Here, I went by the bank and withdrew what I could,” Rylik said. He handed her ten thousand dollars. “Use this to buy winter gear, boots, and clothes, if you can find any this time of year. I’ll need the rest. I have an idea.”

  “I can find them,” she assured him. “In thrift stores, if I have to. I can also get a lot of used pots and pans there. What idea?”

  “When I go to buy the generators and gas cans, I have to drive by the Mountain Trails Ranch,” Rylik explained. “On the way back, I plan on buying a few trail horses and one of the wagons they sell. And they may still have those Belgians for sale. Eventually, there will be no fuel and no way to get any. Granddad had those old plows behind the barn with his collection of antique farm equipment. We might have to use them if things go the way I think they will.

  “As much as you weigh, you’d better buy a Belgian,” she laughed. “You’ll need a big, strong horse if you plan to ride.”

  “Now, it’s fat jokes,” Rylik laughed. “Do me a favor, stop by a nursery and buy all the heirloom seeds they have. It doesn’t matter what kind; we’ll figure out what to plant later. And buy several bags of grass seed, fertilizer, and potting soil. They’ll load it for you.”

  They went their separate ways again, spending money like they didn’t need it for the future. Rylik bought three generators, filled ten gas cans, purchased cases of oil, and even bought five ceiling fans of various sizes. He pulled into a farm and feed store parking lot and had them load a boxed windmill kit into the bed of his truck. It hung over the tailgate, so he taped red ribbons to the box and headed to the farm. On a whim, he bought a cage and twenty chicks. By the end of Friday, they had everything Rylik thought they’d need. Saturday would be for buying the things they wanted.

  Saturday in Helen was busy, like always. They went into town in Rylik’s truck so they could load the back. They went straight to the shop that sold knives, throwing knives, throwing stars, hand axes, swords, and spears to tourists. Rylik went through, picking out items that were exceptionally well-made. Some of the things in the store were only for show. Others were made by real craftsmen, like the battle axe and longsword combination on the wall behind the front counter. It came with a helmet and shield. The proprietor was reluctant to sell them; they were more for display than anything else, but five thousand dollars was an amount he couldn’t pass up. Rylik bought the pair of long-handled hand axes under the counter for another thousand.

  He placed them all behind the seat of his truck. The stack nearly reached the window. He turned and saw Lena with her arms full. He took her packages from her and discovered several bags of stones.

  “What are these?” Rylik asked.

  “Flint mostly,” she answered, “and blade sharpening rocks. I need you to come back to that shop with me. They have an antique, foot-pedaled, spinning stone for sharpening plow blades, axes…whatever. The store owner didn’t want to sell it, but for the amount I offered her, she had to. It’s heavy, and I couldn’t carry it.”

  “Nice,” Rylik said. “Lead the way.”

  As they walked down the side street to the stone shop, Rylik saw an old friend. When they arrived at the shop, he lifted the heavy axe sharpener with a grunt, then they headed back the way they came. He crossed the street and set the assembly down to speak to his friend.

  “Pete!” Rylik called out. “Shmitty!” he called loudly enough for the man to hear him.

  Pete Smithers stopped pounding the horseshoe he was making and looked up. A huge grin spread across the big man’s face. He motioned to his wife to turn off the generator powering the mobile furnace’s blower. Behind him sat his farrier truck, filled with all sorts of tools for his trade. He set the horseshoe and hammer down on the open tailgate.

  “Rylik King, as I live and breathe,” the big man said as he pulled his glove off and walked over to shake Rylik’s hand. “I didn’t know you’d be in town this weekend.”

  Rylik had grown up near Pete, and they had gone to initial training together when they graduated from high school. Pete did his initial six years and got out of the service to return home and learn the family trade. His father had run a small blacksmith shop for years as a tourist attraction in Helen. Pete closed the shop after his father passed, but he earned a living as a farrier and all-around blacksmith using his mobile rig to work farms and fairs.

  “If I had known you were working in town, I would have let you know,” Rylik said. “Let me introduce you to Lena…Lena, this is Pete Smithers and his wife, Ellen.”

  “Hi,” Lena said, shaking hands with the pretty redhead. “When is the baby due?”

  Surprised, Ellen said, “I’m only eight weeks along. How did you know? Am I fat already?” She ran her hand over her stomach. She wasn’t showing, yet.

  “I get it from my grandmother,” Lena said and smiled. “I can just tell. The eyes, the face, it’s something, but I don’t know what. She was a medicine woman. She said I had the gift, whatever that means.”

  “Oh, are you Cherokee?” Ellen asked. “They’re the nearest tribe, I think. I thought you had Native American in you. It’s the hair, so beautiful and straight. Not like this mess.” She reached up and ran her fingers through her natural curls. Both women laughed, immediately at ease with each other.

  “How long are you going to be here?” Rylik asked.

  “Just long enough to make this shoe for the Clydesdale pulling one of the tourist hacks,” Pete said. “Then, we’re going baby shopping. A crib, a highchair, and boxes of diapers to start. Why?”

  “We’re going to go buy all
the vodka, white whiskey, and legal shine from the package store, then we’re heading to the farm. Can you meet us there?”

  “Yeah,” Pete said, “but I’m not drinking at your party. I promised Ellen I’d quit since she can’t drink. It sucks, but it is what it is. I have a pint jar of my last batch of apple pie shine staring at me from a shelf in the fridge, too. I can make four jars at a time with my countertop set up.”

  “See you in an hour or so,” Rylik said, and he picked up the sharpening wheel.

  “Did he say…all the vodka?” Shmitty asked his wife as he watched Rylik walk away with an armful that even he would have trouble lifting and carrying.

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  “You’re shitting me, right?” Shmitty asked.

  “I wish I were,” admitted Lena.

  “You saw the horses in the back yard,” Rylik said. “Grandma would tan my hide if she knew I let them back there with her flowers.”

  “I saw ‘em,” Shmitty said. “I thought you’d figured out a way to cut the grass without sweating. When I saw the wagon full of hay bales, I wasn’t sure if you owned them or borrowed them.”

  “I bought them,” Rylik said. “I suppose I could have waited a few days and taken them, but that doesn’t seem right. The folks that owned them are good people.”

  “It’s really going to happen?” asked Ellen, with true fear in her voice. “Pete, what about the baby?”

  “We’ll figure something out, Honey,” Shmitty said, reaching over and holding her hand. He looked at Rylik. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Pack what you can and come back. We can’t stay here,” Rylik said. “This place is indefensible. I hate to leave it, but we need to go somewhere safe.”

  “Into Helen?” Shmitty asked, thinking hard about the problem. He and his wife lived in Cleveland. Their home was the absolute wrong place to be if things became lawless. It was in a subdivision with several entrances.