Ash: Rise of the Republic Read Online Free

before and had
fired that same shotgun, but I made sure to go through the gun
safety stuff again. She settled in to the couch with a death grip
on her new weapon. I almost felt sorry for the next guy who thought
about coming after her with his dick out.
    I wanted to check on the neighbors, so I
decided to get some gear together to keep the ash out. I know you
kids bitch about them, but in those early days I would have killed
for one of these new ash suits. The best I could come up with that
first night was a painter’s respirator, a dive mask, and my rain
gear. It did the job, but that shit clung to the material so badly
that Deb eventually set up a sort of air-lock around each of the
outer doors to keep us from tracking it everywhere. Anyway, I
donned my makeshift suit and shuffled through the drifts on the
front porch and out into the swirling night.
    We lived in a relatively secluded
neighborhood, well out in the country. It was a small development,
only about twenty houses on acre lots. They were all mid-sized,
three to four bedroom, fairly new homes with plenty of space
between them. There was a single street, a soft cornered square
ring road with houses inside and out. The neighborhood was bordered
on two sides by country highways, and there was a short outlet
street that connected the circle with each of them. The lots that
backed up to the highways were bordered with an 8 foot stone wall.
The rest of the perimeter was tangled yaupon thicket. Our house was
in the furthest corner from the main roads, backed up to a dense
wooded area with unused pastureland beyond. The people living out
there were a mixture of oilfield workers and upper-middle class
white collars working mostly for the university. Backgrounds were
mixed, but everyone got along. It was a mostly quiet, relaxed,
country place to live.
    Walking out to the street, I headed to my
left-hand neighbor first. They were a couple about our age with a
toddler, Mike and Jackie, our closest friends in the neighborhood.
We had passed many a drunken night in their driveway playing
washers and eating barbeque. I knew them to be fairly competent and
self-sufficient, but I felt it was my neighborly duty to make sure
they were set up for the storm. Mike answered the door and
immediately started laughing at my get-up. I was confused at first,
I had settled into a serious and somber mood since the events at
the store and it took me a minute to recognize what I must look
like with my respirator and dive mask. I shrugged it off and
laughed with him for a minute, sheepishly removing my gear as I
walked in the front door. He offered me a cold beer and I eagerly
accepted, suddenly realizing how thirsty I was. He was reasonably
well provisioned with food and other supplies, having gone to the
store as soon as he saw the pillar. I let him know about the huge
stock of goods we had lucked into and discussed the dangers of
inhaling the ash. He said he had some paper masks in the garage
that they could use if they needed to venture out. He suggested we
arrange a neighborhood meeting for the morning. He promised to
canvas the left half of the subdivision once he had thrown together
some protective clothing. Beer finished, I left him and headed out
to spread the word to the houses to the right.
    After an hour, I had spoken to everyone I
could find and decided to head back home. Of the ten neighbors I
had visited, only six had answered the door. I spread the word
about the ash and the meeting in the morning. Most seemed at least
temporarily well supplied. I trudged back thinking about the empty
houses, hoping their occupants weren’t trying to buy food at
Walmart a few hours back. They might still be there.
    Once I reached the house I ran into Mike
coming back from his slog up the left side of the street. I
couldn’t resist poking a little fun at the suit he had come up
with: pink child’s swim goggles, a paper respirator, and a yellow
slicker. He flicked me off and told me he would see