The Last Rebel: Survivor by William W. Johnstone Read Free Book Online Page A

changed.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He just . . . became great. A warrior. I remember how the Blackfeet Indians in the area used to admire him. To us, that was great praise.”
    “Were you ever in any war?”
    “No. I was too young. And I’m glad.”
    Bev was going to ask him why. But the appearance of two homes in the wood distracted her. They investigated. Both were devoid of people, but in one of them they found the skeletal remains of a couple and a small child, all huddled together on the master bed upstairs. It was a very, very sad sight. They left that home immediately after the discovery.
    They continued on, and within a couple of miles they came to a tiny town with a few stores that looked like a holdover from the 1800s, the Wild West days. Jim stopped and parked the HumVee behind the buildings, as they did when they investigated homes. Then, Jim toting the AK-47 and Bev the TT-33, safety off, they entered the stores, all of which were open. There was no one inside. No one alive. Just skeletal remains.
    They had some luck. At a ladies’ fine apparel store she found some panties in their original packages on a shelf, and at a drugstore both she and Jim were able to load up with toiletry articles.
    The other store they entered was a tiny gift shop. Bev picked up a small Bible and put it in her knapsack. She was conscious of Jim watching her and smiled.
    “I noticed you didn’t have a Bible in your gear.”
    He returned the smile.
    “We do now. Good thinking. Get another one for me, will you?”
    She looked surprised.
    “You read the Bible, Jim?”
    “Occasionally. I read anything that contains wisdom. You ready to go?”
    “I’m ready.”
    They pulled out from behind the stores and were soon on the main road. There was no sign of life.
    “It’s hard to believe there’s no one in the town,” Bev said.
    “They either all died, or fled, or were off to look for others who had escaped,” Jim said.
    “Left?” Bev said. “To go where?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Or maybe,” Bev said, “they were rounded up by the Rejects and shot.”
    Jim nodded. Mass executions wouldn’t surprise him at all.
    “We should find a junction heading north about twenty miles from here,” he said.
    “Good.”
    They would both be glad to get away from the Zone.
     

 

 
    FOUR
     
     
    “Look at that home over there,” Bev said, pointing to a house set back maybe thirty yards from the road. Jim had stopped the HumVee because the house was, in fact, beautiful—and unusual. They had traveled a long way down the road, and the houses, when they appeared, were either small ranches or Colonials or trailers, very much unlike this one.
    The house looked as if it had come out of the pages of an architectural magazine whose intent was to show beautiful homes, as if it had sort of arisen out of the earth. It was set on a little hill, and the walls were made with individual stones that had obviously been created by nature rather than man. The roof was a dull orange concrete tile and the windows and door were made of dark wood that looked like it had been coated with some sort of dark, clear material. The house was fringed with all kinds of greenery and flowers at one end of a large pond that reflected it all perfectly. There was no fence, but the entire property was surrounded by evergreen bushes. It was quite obvious that the people who lived in the house loved nature.
    “A beauty,” Jim said.
    ‘You want to check it out?” Bev asked.
    Jim did not answer immediately. He had noticed something else odd about the house. Almost all of the other places they had seen or entered showed some exterior sign that they had been pillaged, such as a broken window or stuff strewn in the yard. And in one case, the siding and roofing had been ripped off. From the outside, at least, this one looked like it was in perfect condition, as if it were oblivious of the chaos in the world swirling around it.
    It occurred to him that, as