Blood in the Ashes Read Online Free PDF Page B

was eighteen when the balloon went up in ’88. He had been busy running his string of teenage whores and mugging old ladies and terrorizing old men over in Brooklyn when the rumors of war began. Tony didn’t know from jackshit about survival outside the concrete canyons of the Big Apple, but he figured he’d damn well better learn. He also figured he’d better head for the wilderness.
    He went to Paterson, New Jersey. I mean, Christ! How far out in the boonies do you have to go to be safe from The Bomb? Paterson, for Christ’s sake.
    It wasn’t far enough, and Tony got out with only minutes to spare, driving a stolen car. He left the owner of the car dead in a puddle of blood. Just an old fart. Who gives a shit about old people, anyways? He got lost down in southern New Jersey, in the fucking swamps. He managed to cross over into Wilmington, Delaware, just before the bridge became hopelessly jammed up with stalled cars and trucks.
    He got on the JFK Memorial Highway and almost blew it with that move, only at the last possible exit veering off to the north before touching Baltimore. He was in southern Pennsylvania when the lid blew off the pot.
    Tony sought refuge in a barn, coming face to face with a black angus bull. The first bull he’d ever seen up close. Tony had visions of a rib-eye, rare. He shot the bull four times in the head with his .38.
    After making a large mess with a butcher knife, Tony gave up his dreams of a rare steak. He couldn’t figure out how to get the hide off the ugly goddamn stinking brute. He found some chickens, only to have them peck his hands when he tried to grab some eggs.
    â€œMotherfuckers!” Tony yelled in frustration. He blasted the hens with his .38. Maybe he’d have to settle for fried chicken. But how in the hell do you get the feathers off them?
    Tony pilfered the farmhouse, looking for guns and food. He found both. Plus a very frightened twelve-year-old girl. Tony raped her several times. He’d always preferred young pussy. Liked to hear them squall when he stuck it in. But this one wouldn’t quit hollering. Tony cut her throat. Stupid cunt. If she had cooperated, Tony reasoned and rationalized the issue in his punk mind, she could have made both of them some money. Guys like to make it with young chicks. A hundred bucks is nothing to a guy with a hard-on for young gash. Stupid cunt.
    Tony couldn’t believe the next few months. The whole fucking world went nuts. People running around like scared rabbits. And the broads. Christ! They’d do anything for protection from the gangs that began cropping up all over the place.
    Tony had never had so much pussy in his life. Black pussy, brown pussy, yellow pussy, white pussy. It was all the same when the lights went out and a guy got it hung in there good.
    Soon Tony had teamed up with a dozen other thugs, all about his age. In six months time, they had more than a hundred women of all ages. And a dozen boys for those who leaned in that direction.
    President Hilton Logan almost screwed all that up for Tony, with Logan’s police state and secret agents snooping around and relocating the citizens all over the goddamn place. But crime will out if it’s worked right, and Tony was far from being stupid. He knew how to keep his head down and to roll with the flow. And who to pay off. And he knew to keep far away from Ben Raines’ Tri-States out west. Ben Raines was fucking nuts on the subject of law and order. Screw up in Ben Raines’ Tri-States and a guy’s chances of getting much older dropped to damn near zero.
    Tony kept his people far, far away from Tri-States. And he hoped Ben Raines’ conception of crime and punishment wouldn’t catch on nationwide. There wasn’t just a little crime in the Tri-States. There wasn’t any crime. Period.
    By the time Tony Silver hit his twenty-fifth birthday, he was on his way to being an empire-builder. An empire built on