The Book of Ashes

By Jamie Mason

The Night Plague devastated humanity. Vancouver Island is a feudal wasteland ruled by the Hell's Angels. In a trailer by the forest, retired school teacher Cory O'Neal composes a history of the plague. But the more he writes, the more his history resembles a confession.

Beautiful, haunted Joanna Ward was Cory's most brilliant and gifted student. During a troubled year at a dysfunctional private school, they forged a bond that led to accusations of improper conduct and Cory's departure. His one mistake as a teacher ended his career.

It may also end mankind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Permuted
• Release date: Dec 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781682610459

Jamie Mason

Jamie Mason was born in Oklahoma City and grew up in Washington, DC. She’s most often reading and writing, but in the life left over, she enjoys films, Formula 1 racing, football, traveling, and, conversely, staying at home. Jamie lives with her husband and two daughters in the mountains of western North Carolina. She is the author of Three Graves Full, Monday’s Lie, and The Hidden Things.

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Praise for THE BOOK OF ASHES:

THE BOOK OF ASHES is an intensely personal story not only of the apocalypse, but the reasons--emotional, mental and familial–behind it.

– William Vitka, author of A BOY AND HIS ROBOT

… a dangerous and seductive demagogue … sinister religious cults and a collapsing world. Engrossing, intense, and surprising.

– Martin Rose, author of BRING ME FLESH, I’LL BRING HELL

THE BOOK OF ASHES is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece.

– Sean T. Smith, author of OBJECTS OF WRATH

A deeply engrossing and very intimate apocalyptic vision. THE BOOK OF ASHES reminds us that the end of the world can have very human beginnings.

– Gareth Wood, author of RISE

Recalling Tiptree's The Screwfly Solution and Herbert's The White Plague, yet never feeling derivative, Jamie Mason's THE BOOK OF ASHES goes beyond mere weaponization in its apocalyptic depiction of the Battle of the Sexes taken to extremes, escalating the conflict into a full-fledged biological shooting war. Yet this novel is neither partisan rant nor misogynistic screed; instead THE BOOK OF ASHES is heartfelt, personal, emotionally resonant, and tender in its telling. Jamie Mason is a talent to watch.

– Ross E. Lockhart, author of CHICK BASSIST, editor of CTHULHU FHTAGN!

Gritty and visceral, Mason's dark vision of the future puts you in an emotional choke hold and doesn't let go. An expertly crafted tale!

– Toby Tate, author of THE LILITU, PRIMORDIAL and THE CAIN PROPHECY

THE BOOK OF ASHES

Jamie Mason

A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

Published at Smashwords

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-68261-045-9

THE BOOK OF ASHES

© 2015 by Jamie Mason

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Christian Bentulan

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Permuted Press

109 International Drive, Suite 300

Franklin, TN 37067

http://permutedpress.com

Dedicated to those who appear in this story as: Karen, Zane, Billie, Kelli, Lou, Dean and De Laurent.

All other characters are figments of their own imaginations.

"And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness."

- Leviticus 16: 8-10

"You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second."

- Niccolò Machiavelli, IL PRINCIPE

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

- T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1: TERMINUS

2: STORM ORPHANS

3: NOWHERE

4: THE BOOK OF ASHES

5: DARK WINTER

6: OMEGA’S LAST GLEAMING

1: TERMINUS

Duncan, British Columbia

May, 2020

They are burning bodies in the Canadian Tire parking lot again. I can see the oily black smoke rising from my back porch. No electricity again this morning, so I have to heat water for coffee on the barbecue.

The smell of the burning bodies has been diluted crossing the river yet still hovers there, faintly oily. There will be ash, too, settling atop the layer from last summer when the Evacuations began. It’s bad on the bridge; the water seems to draw it. I have to wet a rag and wear it across my nose when I thread my way through the throng of abandoned cars to visit town.

I hear footsteps. My neighbor Wayne is crunching across the drain rock fronting his mobile home. He is wearing his insulated work boots and hauling an unpainted Adirondack chair. Look what I got!

I squint. That from Dexter’s porch?

You bet. Wayne sets it down by his boat trailer. Can you help me bust it up? I’ll give you some.

Nah, save it for tonight. We’ll use it for the barbecue.

Think you’ll be in the mood for barbecue after that? Wayne flaps a hand toward the black pillar of smoke from town. Smell it?

Hard not to.

I figured they were done burning bodies. And houses. You know they burned one on Sherman Road yesterday?

I saw, I say. I was out here yesterday morning doing the same thing, heating water, and saw the white plume climb into the clouds. Burning houses emit a different kind of smoke from the stench of cremation; clean, almost wholesome. The stench of burning dreams.

I coax a flame from the wooden palette strips in my Hibachi. Any time is a good time for steak, Wayne. We should eat it before it goes bad.

When you going back into town?

Tomorrow.

If we go today, we could hitch a ride with that rent-a-cop. What’s his name? The one that collects your garbage?

Hooper.

Hooper, yeah. I’ll go with you. I need gas.

Not a bad idea, I say. An extra gun is always a comfort. Hooper will be by this afternoon.

Sounds good. Wayne takes up a mattock. Just before he begins to cannibalize Dexter’s Adirondack, he pauses, gazing at the smoke from the pyre.

Hey, Cory, did you know that smell is only particles settling on the back of your tongue?

No, Wayne, I didn’t. Thanks for the visual.

My water is done. I take the heated coffeepot and go back indoors, the taste of the dead heavy in my sinuses like chalk dust. The back porch opens directly into what was once my spare room. We busted up the old wooden bed frame for firewood the first winter after the Evacuations. In its place are stacks of newspaper and the piled boxes of print-outs I managed to snatch from on-line before the Internet went dark. My desk is in the corner, the carafe with its crushed beans ready for me. I pour the heated water, set the plunger, then take a seat and begin sorting through what I have written so far.

I am composing a history of the Plague. Vancouver Island being the epicenter, the starting point and home to Patient Zero, is part of why I stayed behind after the Evacuations. There’s a wealth of source material here: back issues of the Times Colonist, eyewitness accounts, broadsheets and placards left over from the first panicked demonstrations. I have a box here somewhere containing hundreds of photographs I captured with my digital camera. As the situation worsened, the camera malfunctioned so I took to drawing. Necessity is a great teacher. I have become a fairly decent artist and a half-decent writer. I possess dozens of sketchbooks crammed with images of abandoned cars, shattered phone poles, darkened buildings, empty sidewalks, the decaying iron superstructure of the bridge, and salmon rotting on the banks of the Cowichan River. One of my favorite pieces is pinned on the wall above my typewriter, a charcoal rendering of the scorched wooden placard standing this side of the bridge:

WELCOME TO DUNCAN

City of Totems

I have been avoiding the one box containing my research material of the earliest days of the Plague. I opened it once, the night Wayne and I got particularly drunk on the hooch brewed by the local Natives. I remember experiencing a swell of nausea when I saw her picture and possessed the presence of mind to run to the toilet before vomiting. The upper right corner of the Times Colonist front page for that day (August 22nd, 2018) still bears a stained memento of the night’s revulsion. And below it the headline:

VICTORIA SCIENTIST NOMINATED FOR NOBEL

And of course a photograph. Like so many of that era, snatched from online, her LiveNet profile picture, the one I like best. She is staring into the camera, blue-eyed and beautiful, her mouth curled in that amused smirk naïve people mistook for friendliness. I know only too well the contempt it betokens.

Writing this memoir is only part of the reason I’ve stayed behind in this deserted trailer park with only Wayne and Nate, our stoner, twenty-something neighbor, for company. You see, I’m expecting a guest. I’ve been waiting for about fourteen years. She should be along any time now.

# # #

I barter some of my grocery credits by way of extra protection to get my trash hauled away. Valley Security won the contract from the Red and Whites to do enforcement patrol in this trailer park and along the boundary of the adjacent reserve. Hooper is the rent-a-cop who drives the Valley Security Pontiac Sunfire up and down this road each Thursday. I have begun timing my visits outside with my white plastic trash bag to coincide with his patrols. Hooper always stops for a chat. I once did his job. I know he’s not allowed to smoke in his patrol car so I provide him a chance to light up and relax in his busy day.

More bodies, he says, squinting at the black smoke rising across the river. They say the worst has passed. I don’t believe them.

You can’t believe anyone anymore, I say. It occurs to me that was the way it was before the Plague, so nothing has really changed. What’s left of the government still lies like a bastard.

Hooper’s mouth twists in distaste and he looks away from the fires. Don’t you get creeped out living here all by yourself?

I like the trailer park, I say loyally. I’ve been here a long time.

Natives don’t hassle ya?

They don’t tend to venture this side of the Long House much. Although last hunting season one shot a deer in my front yard. I had him in for coffee and we talked. He says the Cowichans believe spirits live out here, kin to the ones that started the Plague.

The Catholics say it’s a judgment from God.

Oh yeah? Where are they gathering these days?

Library. Hooper spits. The Serpent Cult’s still in the chapel downtown. Answered an alarm call there last week. Goddam freaks.

Those freaks may be the most powerful group on the Island these days.

Nah. Hells Angels run Nanaimo, man

I shrug. There’s no love lost between the Angels and the Serpent Cult, or between the Angels and anyone else for that matter. I’ve always been a pragmatist. Make peace with whoever’s in power, I say. It doesn’t matter to me who runs either the chapel downtown or Nanaimo. The Angels keep order in their way since Victoria was reduced to radioactive rubble. Even the bikers have to make peace with the new faith. At least the Serpent Cult is no longer eating the dead.

Me and Wayne want a ride into town. I’ll pay you twenty grocery credits.

Done. We leave in ten minutes.

I sprint to Wayne’s door and knock. He answers, already wearing his camo jacket and ball cap.

We’re in. We split in ten.

‘kay. Wayne picks up his pump-action Mossberg and chambers a few rounds. What’s the plan?

Gasoline, groceries, liquor. Then home. Sound good?

You bet. He racks the shotgun’s slide. I particularly approve of the liquor part.

We convene at Hooper’s patrol car. I am clad in tac pants, black hoodie, Doc Martens. Strapped to my side is the Sig-Sauer, and three extra clips of ammo are jammed in my pants pockets. I am also packing two cans of bear spray and my reusable shopping bags.

Hooper starts up the Sunfire and we traverse the mile between the entrance to the mobile home park and the old back-country river crossing at a crawl. The guard Hooper replaced was killed on this road when he stopped to help an accident victim that turned out to be a decoy for a band of Looners. The Looners flayed the guard alive and took his skin, leaving behind the car and all its valuables, along with his pain-wracked body, red, swollen nerve-endings all exposed. Wayne holds his shotgun at port arms throughout the drive but there is no sign of anyone, only a startled cat who pauses in her inspection of something dead to glare at us before darting off into the bushes. We follow the river to the old bridge and turn right onto the Reserve. The road is open for a change, no masked braves manning roadblocks and demanding tribute in exchange for safe passage.

Think those Looners were Indians? Wayne’s tone is clipped, tense. He is still on alert.

Don’t think so, I say. Those Looner gangs tend to be white boys...

They say some of the tribes around here used to be cannibals back in the old days, Hooper mutters. He steers the Sunfire around the broad curve that leads past the tribal offices. The complex is one of the few places in town that maintains its own set of generators. A pair of armed Cowichans stand in the bed of a pickup truck parked in front of the tribal office doors, watching us gravely until we turn off into downtown.

Hooper follows Trunk Road to the Trans-Canada and hangs a left. The highway bridge across the Cowichan River, snarled with cars, recedes behind us as we follow the highway past the fire-blackened fronts of the strip malls. The old Canadian Tire building appears. I can’t help wondering where the people come from who do the cremations. We pass the deserted parking lot with its huge charcoal-colored smear and I imagine people sneaking from their houses to douse the victims’ bodies in gasoline, say a few words then light the pyre before slipping away again. They always wear black bandanas whenever they do this work. For all I know it could be the same handful of good Samaritans each time. Not surprisingly, they are gone when we drive past. Since the RCMP pulled out, people tend to stay home with the doors locked.

The intersection ahead at Beverly Corners is blocked by a Red and White standing beside his Harley. He raises his Uzi with one hand and flags us down with the other. Wayne and I stow our guns while Hooper glides to a stop.

Whatchya doin’ out here? the Hells Angel growls through his beard.

Taking these guys up to ShopMaxx™. They’re looking for gas, too.

The Angel bends down and glares into the back seat at us. Angels got dibs on all gas on the Island. You boys know that.

We know it, Wayne says. I got generators at home though. Don’t need much. Only a can to run the fridge so our food don’t spoil.

The Angel considers this. You got meat?

You bet! Wayne smiles. Steaks! And part of an elk I shot last year.

The Angel points back the way we came. The parking lot behind the old Tower Apartments has a few cars you can siphon from. Next time you come through I want a pound of that elk. Wrap it and mark it for Louie. Whoever’s on duty will get it to me.

Will do, and thanks.

Hooper turns around and follows Beverly back behind the Canadian Tire and past the roundabout to the road that passes in front of the school district building. The side street linking the highway to the sports complex is lined by apartment buildings, most of them deserted. Hooper slows at the entrance to the lot of the one the Angel suggested.

Turn in here, Wayne says.

No way. Hooper sets the parking brake. I’m not going in there. Could be Looners. Could be Snake Cult. Or angry residents. No way I’m turning into that kill zone.

I stare out the window at the sign beside the parking lot entrance: Children at Play. Though the lot is mostly empty, the residents having fled in the first wave of Evacuations, a group of cars are clustered together in the middle. I look for ambush spots, indications the lot has been mined, and see none. I poke Wayne’s shoulder.

Let’s go.

Cory, you don’t have to come.

Fuck that, neighbor. Let’s go.

We slip out of the car, weapons up, and edge into the lot. If this is a fuel dump for the Hell’s Angels then there is a very good chance Scavengers or Looners will be lurking. Wayne keeps a sharp eye on the perimeter of the lot while I move in on the circle of parked cars. The gas cap of the nearest one, a Hyundai, is pried open. I bend and sniff.

Fuel here, I tell Wayne. Got a siphon?

Wayne tugs a coil of clear plastic hose from his tac pants pocket and I stick the sharp end down the Hyundai’s gas tank. I put the round end to my mouth and take a good hard suck. Two. Three. Six. Then –

A sick, cloudy blast of gas ignites in the back of my throat. I gag and press the pissing hose into the opening of the gas can. A gurgling melody rises.

Tracking, Wayne says. Movement. Three o’clock.

What? I ask, still spitting. The can is one-third full.

Two legs. Moving in toward us. Through the bush. Moving fast.

Human. I draw my Sig-Sauer. I wait through the small eternity of moments as the gas can fills watching the stilled bushes at the edge of the lot. There is someone there - someone being very cautious. I hear a splash as the siphon hose shifts in the can.

I bend my ear to check. The note from the splash has risen a semi-tone. The can is half full.

Let’s cap it and go. Wayne begins edging toward the street. I yank the hose loose, cap the gas can, and follow.

The bushes part when we are a dozen steps away from the Sunfire. Wayne and I crouch and open fire. A figure freezes in the storm of lead, then pitches backward into the woods. We slip in close to check. It is a boy, no more than thirteen years old. Blood drifts from the edge of his lips in a loose thread to stain the collar of his t-shirt.

Meat? he whispers.

I press my eyes against tears and cradle his body to me. I smell blood, leaves, cordite.

This is the story of how the world ended. Or almost ended. That’s still open to debate. Perhaps not. You decide. But I’m here, holding this dead body, and I am telling the story. Scars and all.

# # #

ShopMaxx™ is a huge American retail multi-conglomerate that everybody claims to hate and shops at anyway. I worked there for ten years. Once the Plague hit, ShopMaxx™ adjusted their business model to accommodate prevailing circumstances (i.e., the collapse of civilization) and laid off everyone, including me. The entire big box is now essentially a serve-yourself warehouse staffed by three assistant managers connected by walkie-talkies who tear around on golf carts helping customers as best they can. The facility is guarded by a small army of black-suited mercenaries flown up from the States and rotated out for a fresh batch every two weeks. As we join the line-up to pass through the metal detector, I read the sign above the door proclaiming in bold red letters:

SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE SHOT

The attack dog held by the guard nearest the door growls and lunges as I approach and his handler yanks him back. I keep my distance and flash my worn employee ID. O’Neal, I say. A second merc leans to compare my face to that of the seven year-old photo. I am now thinner and have more grey hair. Two guests, I say. Barter for chits. I extend my hand and the merc wands the chip implanted in my wrist. My severance with ShopMaxx™ included $100 weekly in grocery credits (pre-adjusted Canadian currency) for life.

Security! My old job title winks onto his scan-screen. Sheathing his wand, he asks, You an LP?

Was.

We’re hiring, you know. He glances down at my side-arm. If you’re handy with a gun it’s a sweet deal.

No thanks. I don’t wanna relocate to the States. I like it here.

I can tell the guard wants to reply to this with some condemnation of our little town, where law and order has completely disintegrated and bands of marauding lunatics prowl the byways skinning people alive and bodies are routinely