"William W. Johnstone - Ashes 05 - Alone in the Ashes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Johnstone William W)

movement.
Ben pulled out of that locale and spent the night
sleeping in the cramped space under his camper.
He awakened to a cold dawn, under a sky that
promised rain very soon. The dull grayness of the
sky matched the landscape that surrounded Ben.
Everything around him seemed lifeless.
He didn't like this area, didn't like the feeling of
foreboding it offered him. Skipping breakfast of any
sort, Ben cranked the engine and pulled out, finding
Highway 53 and taking that until connecting with a
road that would take him to Interstate 40, at
Lebanon. There, he drove over the interstate and
pulled off the highway at the outskirts of town.
Smoke from wood and coal fires drifted up from
houses in the coolness of morning. But, as
Ben had so often sadly observed over the years, the
homes were not centralized or grouped for safety or
work. They were widely separated, which meant to Ben-and
it had been proved time after time-that the people were not
organized. And in these times of anarchy and warlords, and
roaming gangs of thugs and punks and creeps and
assorted savages, not to be organized was an
invitation to die quickly.
And to let what was left of civilization die.
Ben spotted the gang of young men and women long
before they spotted him.
Go on, Ben! he urged himself silently. Go
on. Just pull out and avoid trouble.
But he knew he would not. That flaw, if it was a
flaw, and Ben thought not, within him was rearing up.
Ben lifted his Thompson and cradled it,
clicking the .45-caliber submachine gun in his
arms. He got out of the pickup and stood by the hood
of the truck, watching as the young people spotted him.
Back in my day, Ben thought, they would be called
punks.
I'll still call them punks, he thought.
Ben stood tall and rangy and loose by his
truck. The years had peppered his hair with gray and
had put a few
lines in his face. But as Doctor Chase had
told him, "For a man your age, Raines, you're in
disgustingly good shape."
"Clean living," Ben had said with a smile, knowing
what response that would bring from the crusty old
ex-Navy doctor.
"Horse shit!" Doctor Chase had replied.
"You're going to be a dirty old man, Raines."
"What do you mean, "going to be?"