The Reset Read Online Free

into the pot. The blade was dull, but it would
have to do.
    While he sterilized the implements, he
dipped off a cup of water and added half of the iodine. He was nervous about
using so much, but he wouldn’t get a chance to use the rest of it if he acquired
an infection.
    After a few minutes, Ben used tongs to
retrieve his tools.
    He removed the bandage and gripped the
knife as firmly as he could. Wind howled in the darkness outside the kitchen
window, and he studied the changes in his gaunt reflection—he cataloged his own
agony—as he touched the steaming blade to the edge of the wound, and then down,
deep down inside, searching for the slug and searing his flesh along the way.
    Ben screamed—a shrill, pathetic shriek
that filled the room and died instantly at the window pane, the wind outside billowing
ash against the glass and swallowing the frantic cries of a terrified old man
in a barn and an injured young man in a kitchen, a world of difference between
them.

THREE
     
    Ben
lay still in the dark, unable to sleep. The pain in his arm had dulled some—the
aspirin and whiskey and the removal of the slug had seen to that. But his
conscience chipped away at him. With every gust of wind, his thoughts floated
out to the barn.
    That man tried to kill you , he chided
himself. You’re damned lucky to be alive, and you know it. You don’t owe the
bastard any favors!
    It didn’t matter. Sleep wouldn’t come
until he checked on him.
    “All right ,” he finally hissed.
“Shit!”
    He left the warmth of Winston’s bed,
found an ill-fitting jacket and went to the linen closet. He grabbed a
comforter and went downstairs, feeling his way through darkened corridors.
    He looked outside and found that the
clouds had parted. The silver moon offered just enough light to catch the dull
shine of the slug on the windowsill. It was a misshapen mound of metal, and
he’d been fortunate the bone hadn’t shattered on impact.
    He lit the lantern and went outside.
    “Got a blanket for you, old man,” he
called into the gloom of the barn. It was cold and silent and the space felt
empty and dead. He shined the lantern on the stall door and saw that Winston
had vanished, the chains coiled like a timber rattler at the base of the gate.
    “Shit!” he wheeled, thrusting the light
into the center of the barn. The lantern wasn’t much, but it was enough to see
what had happened.
    Bert Winston dangled from a rope he’d looped
over the rafters, up near the loft that had caused the whole damned incident. His
head slumped forward on his chest, his eyes, mercifully, shut.
    Ben crumpled to the barnyard floor. A
sudden rack of sobs gripped him, and he was overwhelmed by the strange sense of
loss he felt for the old man.
    But he shot you! the voices—those
constant companions—chided him. Just be thankful you didn’t have to kill him
yourself. He did you a favor, Ben! A favor…
    They were little comfort.
    The truth was that the world had passed
into shadow—into a state of decay so total that even sunlight rarely penetrated
the gloomy miasma of ash. But this place and this…this dead old man—they
were, in their way, tiny rays of sunshine in their own right.
    They were survivors .
    Over the last three years, Ben had
encountered but a handful of other wanderers. And those, almost to the very
last, had been dangerous, desperate people.
    They had been hungry people, and
he had taken great care in his dealings with them.
    Ben knew there were places where people
were gathering, makeshift towns where survival was predicated on violence and
betrayal.
    He avoided them, and the people that
called them home.
    But Winston had been different. The old
man had coaxed fruit from the trees. Hell, he’d managed to keep the trees alive in the first place. He’d made food from the earth. He’d taken pride in his
home, and he had struggled to build a life for himself, when everything and
everyone else seemed content to simply allow the old ways to wither