After the Flames
Disclaimer: Do I look like Ray Bradbury?
A story set after the book, from the perspective of Montag and the group you remember from the end of the book.
It had been years since Montag and his band of intellectuals had set out from a land that was unloving of their talents and hateful of the knowledge that they possessed. The became the scholarly homeless, and traveled on roads long forgotten, where cars moving hundreds of miles an hour would have contended with natures bends and hills.
In the beginning, Montag, though not the smartest, had become the unspoken leader of the group, choosing the direction they were to travel in the wilderness. He wasn't used to the responsibility, and there were times, in the night, where he could at least admit to himself that he wanted to return to that cold house, to the 'safe' job of burning books, and to his unloving wife with her Seashell radio and her sleeping pills. .There were times when even he missed that.
It was morning, and the rest of the men sat around the fire. The one woman of their band sat back, watching as the cook of the group made a meal of their meager supplies. The woman was new to the group, but inside her head she had some of the works of Frank Herbert, the Republic, the Tempest, and the Book of Genesis. Some, not so useful, but better than nothing. Her parents had raised her on the outskirts of the city, and because no one really knew them, no one got around to sounding an alarm on a suspected family that was already in the poorhouse. She had left a few years ago, traveled around on her own until she met up with Montag, and now, she traveled with him. Not to mention the fact that she had an amazing voice, and could sing the Hallelujah chorus with ease. A little beauty in the wild never hurt anyone.
Montag's eyes flashed for a moment. He remembered Beatty and the burning, he remembered the smell of cooking flesh and the wax-doll appearance of his corpse. What was it? Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse? A mother wouldn't have recognized Beatty, wouldn't have been able to see her son in that jumble of contorted flesh.
Something about that girl, all lazy like, always reminded him of Beatty, of the way he seemed to make you feel guilty, especially if you'd actually done something. He was better at sniffing out people than a Mechanical Hound, only his nose was especially attuned to the scent of lying sweat and guilt.
Montag got up, walked over to a bush and relieved himself. It was going to be a long day and an even longer year, and there was no way he was going to let it start off with that Shakespeare thumping madman.
Inside his head, Montag laughed.