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  AFTER THE BURN

  By Ronald Kelly

  First Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital

  Copyright © 2011 Ronald Kelly

  Copy-edited by Kurt Criscione and David Dodd

  Cover Design by David Dodd

  Cover images courtesy of:

  http://traitoriscariot.deviantart.com/

  http://e-dina.deviantart.com/

  http://stiks-1969.deviantart.com/

  This collection was originally published by Thunderstorm Books in May 2011 as Volume #8 of the Black Voltage series.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Due to mature themes presented within, reader discretion is advised.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews).

  The following stories are dedicated to the following folks:

  A Shiny Can of Whup-Ass to Robert R. McCammon

  A cup of Swan Song, a dash of Boy's Life, and a heaping helping

  of Southern-fried inspiration. Thanks for teaching me through example.

  Meat is Life to Fran Friel

  Phyllis Pfizer? New England and a dog named Sandy?

  Who else could it be, darling? Sorry for the outcome, though.

  The Happiest Place in Hell to Hunter Goatley

  What will happen to our favorite vacation spot after the end of the world?

  Popsicle Man to John R. Little

  Wouldn't it be great to have a champion like Popsicle Man when we need him most?

  Evolution Ridge to the late Manly Wade Wellman

  Who would John the Balladeer battle after a nuclear holocaust?

  His beloved mountains, the folks who dwelt there, or, perhaps, even his own traitorous flesh, if it came down to it?

  Taking Care of Business to Joe R. Lansdale

  What if Elvis didn't end up in an East Texas nursing home?

  Flesh Welder to Zach McCain and Steven Lloyd

  Let's tell that ol' tale just one more time, shall we?

  The Paradise Pill to Reilly, Makenna, and Ryan Kelly

  Remember, in our darkest hour, when all seems lost,

  we possess the true key to Paradise.

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  A SHINY CAN OF WHUP-ASS

  MEAT IS LIFE

  THE HAPPIEST PLACE IN HELL

  POPSICLE MAN

  EVOLUTION RIDGE

  TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

  FLESH WELDER

  THE PARADISE PILL

  INTRODUCTION

  I was once an armchair survivalist.

  That phase of my life – and there have been many – occurred when I was in my early twenties; back when my love for art and literature seemed odd and awkward amid boisterous, bullshitting badasses whose main focus in life was football, hunting, and four-wheeling. To compensate for my lack of testosterone-fueled machismo, I grew interested in survivalism. This was the early to mid-eighties, you understand, when the Cold War was still alive – though gasping its final breath – and Ronald Reagan demanded that Mr. Gorbachev "tear down this wall!" The threat of a nuclear war was still a possibility. It was still very real and palpable in people's minds.

  Most folks figured there was nothing they could do about it, putting things like paying the bills and buying Pampers for the baby ahead of nuclear annihilation on their long list of worries. Others – a small and near-fanatical brotherhood – saw the possibility of man-made Armageddon as a challenge and a hobby. They stockpiled food and water, visited the Army surplus stores regularly, and oiled and polished their cold, blue steel. Then they stuck their provisions and their paranoia in their trusty bomb shelter – or their root cellar, if no bunker was handy – and waited for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to gallop in on waves of atomic fire and brimstone.

  I was one of those latter folks back during that time, but not in such an extreme and overzealous way. I had a few guns and, on the weekends, you could find me way out in the sticks, shooting some serious black powder, sighting in my Ruger Mini-14, or trying out hot-loads in my .357 Magnum. I subscribed to magazines like Guns & Ammo and Soldier of Fortune. My bookshelves held survivalist classics like Life After Doomsday, The Anarchist's Cookbook, and The Poor Man's James Bond. Some of these manuals were pretty brutal, with recipes for deadly poisons, bombs, and booby traps; nothing I would have actually used, but it was sort of comforting to know that I could have made them, if necessary. I had combat knives, ninja stars, and nunchucks (which you could easily bust your balls with, if you weren't mighty careful!). I had maps of where the bombs would hit, with blast and radiation saturation zones. The only things I didn't have was the food and water stockpiled in a hidden shelter somewhere. I was still living with my parents at the time and I knew Mama always had the pantry well-stocked. If the Emergency Broadcast System came on the radio and it wasn't one of those annoying tests, I'd pile my guns and a supply of canned preserves and Beanie Weenies in the trunk of my Firebird and hit the road like Mel Gibson in The Road Warrior.

  Yes, short-sighted and naïve to be sure, but like I said… I was an armchair survivalist, not an honest-to-goodness, camouflage-wearing, suspicious-of-everyone-including-their-feeble-old-grandmother commando with a sniper rifle and an Uzi they had bought, piece by piece, through mail-order. Being young like I was – single with no real ties to keep me rooted in one spot – fantasizing about a nuclear-decimated world was, well, glamorous.

  It was sort of fun planning elaborate strategies dealing with defense and survival in the most dire of circumstances.

  Then I grew up, got married, and had kids.

  Now the thought of facing such a man-instigated disaster is no longer fun… it's utterly horrifying. Radiation poisoning, gangrened gunshot wounds, and scavenging for scraps of rotten food is definitely not my idea of a good time. The possibility of a nuclear war is not as prominent as it once was, but it's still out there. Terrorists, unstable third-world countries, and even folks who harbor a grudge against society in general… all could potentially set such a scenario in motion. The internet is a wonderful thing; the fabled Information Highway. But like every highway, it has its share of potholes and hairpin curves. There are at least a half dozen sites you can access giving detailed blueprints for the construction of a nuclear device. And that's a scary thought.

  The Bible claims that the meek shall inherit the earth. I figure, if worse came to worse, it would be the evil and sadistic who would take possession.

  It wouldn't be neighbor versus neighbor like most books and movies depict. More than likely it would be serial killers, rapists, drug dealers, child molesters, and the criminally insane. The moral boundaries of today's society (which are growing less defined by the moment) would be history and they would all come out of the woodwork, ready to take advantage of the situation.

  Being a man of faith, I can't help but wonder what role the Almighty would play in such a scenario. Would He raise His mighty hand and smite the infidels… or would He sit back and allow our version of Sodom and Gomorrah to work itself out on its own?

  Over the past fifty years or so, post-apocalyptic fiction has involved Biblical prophecy (Left Behind), disease (The Stand, I Am Legend), and zombies (The Rising, City of the Dead). I thought it would be fun to return to those fears of yesteryear and explore what sort of chaos and calamity the Big Bomb would dish out. After the Burn is my take on how events would develop in such a grim situation, especially in my homeland o
f the South. I've had this collection of post-apocalyptic horror tales in mind for a long time; about twenty years, in fact, when my story Flesh Welder was first published. (Incidentally, Flesh Welder is included within because it seemed appropriate.) Recently I sat down and, like in the old days, considered the darkness and degradation that a nuclear dawn might promise. Here's what I came up with; a few tales of horror, humor, hope, and humility in the face of the blackest days imaginable.

  Now it's your turn to be the armchair survivalist. So put up your feet, break out the bottled water and freeze-dried rations, and wait for the flash and thunder…

  Ronald Kelly

  Brush Creek, Tennessee

  May 2010

  A SHINY CAN OF WHUP-ASS

  It was a picture-perfect Fourth of July.

  Sam Wheeler opened his fix-it shop as he did every morning at six o'clock, rain or shine, holiday or no holiday. Not that he got much business. Today's throw-away society had made his skills as a handyman dismally obsolete. It was cheaper to simply go out and buy a new radio or phone or television than it was to have someone repair the thing. Besides, a lot of these new-fangled, high definition, laser-driven gadgets were far beyond Sam's expertise. If it didn't have tubes or a rotary dial, the old man pretty much passed on even trying to figure it out.

  Sam's Fix-It Shop only remained open in the rural town of Watkins Glen, Alabama for one reason and one reason only – because it was an extension of Sam Wheeler himself. Like an arm or a leg, or an ugly birthmark you couldn't erase. Sam had been up to his elbows in repair jobs when he opened the shop in '46. Back then he'd been a twenty-year-old soldier with a new wife, a house financed on the G.I. bill, and a chance for a successful business. Now, at eighty-four, all he had left was his fluctuating health, a rat-hole of a shop full of dusty junk, and a marble stone in the Baxter County Graveyard with his name chiseled on one end, while on the opposite end was another, complete with a somber date of passage.

  Sam – a long, lanky old man with eyeglasses and a shock of snow-white hair, forever decked out in a long-sleeved blue chambray shirt and bibbed overalls – opened the shop from the inside. He lived there now, instead of in the house on Marigold Lane. Stretching, Sam sauntered outside to take his place in his favorite rocking chair. He groaned as he sat down and something in his hip popped, but he merely grimaced and paid it no mind. The rocker next to him was empty. It had been for eight years now. He also paid it no mind… although some days he found it hard to do so.

  Between six and eight was a quiet time for Sam. He pretty much had the town to himself, except for commuters to Birmingham and the local paper boy. It was even quieter that morning, since everyone was off from work. It was then, during those early hours, that Sam liked to take inventory of his hometown. Never mind that the inventory never changed – except for that one shop on the corner that continuously transformed from video store to tanning booth shop to sub sandwich joint, and then back again. The main street – named Maple Avenue for the tall sugar and red maples that stood sentry along the thoroughfare – featured various storefronts that had been there for generations; Millie's Pet Shop, Mercher's Shop-Rite, Pendergast's True-Value Hardware, the Watkins Glen Five & Dime (yes, there were still some of those antiquated variety stores around) and Sam's Fix-It Shop. Further on to the south were the post office and two churches – a Baptist and a Methodist – and the little circular park with its picturesque white wood gazebo, playground, and duck pond. Even further southward was a residential area with street upon street of pretty two-story and ranch-style houses. And beyond that lay the railroad tracks, the junkyard, and the county landfill, along with Baxter County's one-and-only beer joint, The Little Brown Jug.

  But today was not about taking inventory. Today was about observing.

  Observing Independence Day and its freedoms. Observing his friends and neighbors and how they would celebrate it.

  Given his age, observing was about all Sam Wheeler was up to these days.

  Around eight-thirty folks began to show up at Maple Avenue to decorate. Red, white, and blue ribbons, American flags, balloons, the works.

  Draped from the storefronts, from the lamp posts, from the gazebo. By eleven, the thick scent of charcoal grills firing up in the park drifted down the street, getting ready for the big barbeque around noon.

  Around ten-thirty, Sam fell asleep in his chair and napped. He was awakened by George Pendergast from the hardware store. "You eating?" he demanded, more than asked.

  "Hell, yeah!" said Sam. He pried himself out of the rocker and sauntered down the street to the big picnic in the park. About all he could manage to do these days was saunter, which, to Southerners, meant a cross between a walk and a snail-paced creep.

  Oh, what a spread the town ladies had laid out! All manner of casserole imaginable, homemade yeast rolls and cornbread, battered squash, fried okra, macaroni and cheese, seven kinds of potatoes, and corn on the cob (which Sam's aged teeth could no longer abide). Gallon upon gallon of sweet tea and lemonade. And the desserts! Pecan pie, peach cobbler, pineapple upside-down cake, banana pudding, fried apple pies, and red velvet cake.

  The townsmen were manning the grills with authority and pride. Babyback ribs, barbecued brisket, Black Angus burgers, foot long hotdogs, rib eye steaks, broasted chicken. Some had ten-gallon deep-fryers. Catfish and hush puppies galore.

  By the time Sam had eaten his fill, he had to hitch a ride back downtown. Soon, the old man was back in his rocker. The parade started at three and he had the best seat in the house.

  And what a parade it was. The Baxter County High School marching band playing Queen's "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions." Baton-twirling, somersaulting cheerleaders with miniscule skirts and maroon-and-white pom-poms. The local chapter of the Lion's Club dressed up like clowns riding unicycles and mini-bikes. A procession of John Deere and American Harvester tractors pulling wagonloads of excited grandchildren. Horseback riders, camouflaged four-wheeler drivers, the volunteer fire engine, Jimmy Joe Spencer and his bumper-to-bumper, true-to-the-TV-show replica of the Dukes' General Lee, blaring "Dixie" on the horn until you got plumb sick and tired of it.

  Then came the patriotic portion of the parade. Lanky Tom Hardy on stilts, dressed like Uncle Sam, followed by Boy Scout Troop #343. The Veterans of Foreign Wars. Iraq, Afghanistan, Gulf War, Vietnam, Korea, World War Two. There was even Alabama's last surviving soldier of the First World War, John Harper Millberry, dressed in his vintage uniform, unaware and unconcerned at the ripe old age of 110, pushed in a flag-draped wheelchair by his great-great-great-grandson. Sam had once joined them in the annual march, but he stopped when his knees and hip had gone out on him. And he sure as hell wasn't going to let someone haul him around in a damn wheelchair like a prized pumpkin in a wheelbarrow.

  After the parade, Sam sort of drifted off again. He awoke after dark to the pop and crack of fireworks. They lit up the sky in a myriad of colors against a black velvet backdrop. Pinwheels, roman candles, slithering snakes, hummers, horsetails, glow worms, whistle rockets. And, on the playground, the kids shooting off Black Cats, bottle rockets, and cherry bombs. Some running around with sputtering sparklers in hand.

  As the festivities wound down around ten-thirty, Sam pulled himself up out of his rocker, went into the fix-it shop, and locked the door behind him.

  The prospect of sleep usually filled him with unease and unanswered questions… would he wake up in the morning or not? But that night the excitement of the day and the camaraderie shared by the folks of Watkins Glen had dulled his fears. For a change, he felt strangely contented. He turned off the light in the front room, passed the aisles of shelved junk and appliance parts, to his twin bed against the back wall. He didn't bother undressing, just kicked off his shoes and lay down with his hands folded across his chest. Then, thinking he might resemble a corpse in repose, he put his hands behind his head and slept as he did when he was a younger man.

  He dreamt of Estelle as she had been when they first c
ourted. Honey-blonde and buxom in that angel-white dress she had sewn by hand. Not tiny and gray and withered, ravaged by Alzheimer's and cancer, confined in that Birmingham nursing home that stank of disinfectant and unwashed asses. Then later, in the rose-colored casket, surrounded by flowers, looking like some taxidermist's mistaken interpretation of his beloved. Too much lipstick and rouge. A curl of a stranger's smile that he had never seen upon her lips in fifty-nine years of marriage.

  And he dreamt of a boy. A lover of baseball, bicycles, and fishing. One that had grown into a man; into something even more… or less. One who had abandoned his folks and his town for a world of strangers and endless highways.

  By eleven-thirty, the dreams had passed and Sam's slumber deepened into something akin to death. But one that was never lasting and complete.

  Then at midnight, the sun came up, brighter than a billion sparklers and hotter than Hell unleashed.

  They called it The Burn.

  At least that was what the news media labeled it. Funny how journalists – or those who claimed that distinction – had a snappy label for everything… including the end of world as we knew it.

  Nobody really knew how it happened or why. Some said it was China, some South Korea or Iran. Some said Al Queda was behind it… or Islamic Jihad, the Hezbollah, or two dozen other terrorist organizations. Some claimed the Russians were up to their old tricks again. The trouble was, no one knew exactly who the culprit was. But whoever they were, they had succeeded in sprinkling the world with a shitload of nuclear bombs. No continent, no country, no state had been spared.