After (Book 3): Milepost 291 (12 page)

He
didn’t care at the moment. As their bare feet tracked across the high pastures,
all he could think about was the looming concealment of the ebony forest and
enough distance to drown out the professor’s agonized shrieks.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

At
first, DeVontay thought only a few children were lurking back in the dark pens.

But
more and more small faces appeared, pressing against the wire and looking out.

“These
are my friends,” Stephen said. “I guess you call them that. Rooster calls them
something else.”

“Rooster?”

“The
man who runs this camp,” came a female voice from the shadows.

She
stepped out into the dim circle of light cast by the kerosene lamp. She was
vaguely Asian-looking, although she could have been a Pacific Islander of some
sort, with exotic almond-shaped eyes and straight dark hair. She was as filthy
as any Zaphead, and she nervously glanced at the door.

“Hello.
I’m DeVontay.”

“So
you know Stephen?”

“We’re
traveling buddies. We got separated two weeks back.”

“We
thought you were dead,” Stephen whispered.

“I
thought…” DeVontay forced a smile and rubbed Stephen’s frowsy head. “I thought
you guys would already be at Milepost 291 waiting for me with a big cake and
silly party hats. So where did you lose Rachel?”

“The
other night. We were out in the woods and…” Stephen’s head tilted in shame and
his shoulders shook with a sob. “I got scared and ran. I tried to be a little
man like you told me.”

DeVontay
knelt and gave him a hug. “Hey, hey, my man. We’re all scared these days. It’s
okay.”

He
wanted to know more but until he made sense of their current situation, he
didn’t see any way he could find her or help her. He looked at the woman, who
now clutched a kid at each hip. They were about eight or nine years old, with
runny noses and dirty faces, and had slipped out of the darkness without a
sound.

“Why
is everybody hiding back in the dark?”

“When
we hear the doors open, we hide.”

DeVontay
let that sink in for a moment. “How many are in here?”

“Fourteen.
Three of us are women, the rest are kids.”

The
little boy at her left flank looked up with anger. “I’m not no kid.”

She
patted his shoulder. “You’re right, James, we’ve all had to grow up fast.”

Apparently
sensing the two armed men had gone and the door locked and bolted from the
outside, others began to emerge into the light. They were all unkempt and
sallow, as if suffering from lack of sunshine and poor nutrition. “How long
have you been in here?” DeVontay asked the woman.

“Some
of us have been here since the beginning,” she replied. “Rooster’s gang picked
me up the day after the Zap. West Jefferson was packed with Zapheads so I got
out of there. I was so relieved when I finally found some humans…”

“I
was hiding in a sewer pipe,” James said, proud of his ingenuity. “When I saw men
with guns, I thought they were the Homeland Security.”

Her
face darkened and she bit her lip. “They’ve been collecting us.”

“They
ain’t Homeland Security,” DeVontay said. “I don’t know what they are, but they
shouldn’t be locking you up in here.”

The
woman put a finger to her lips. “No need to scare the children.”

DeVontay
nodded. “Okay,” he said to Stephen. “Why don’t you show me around, and then
we’ll figure out what to do next?”

Stephen
took DeVontay’s hand, and then James ran forward and took his other hand. The
woman collected the kerosene lamp.

“They
make us keep the lamps hanging by the door, in case they need to come inside,”
she said. “They get really mad and don’t feed us if we take them. But I don’t
think they’ll be back tonight.”

DeVontay’s
anger rose but he suppressed it. The door was far too thick for him to break
through, and the only windows appeared to be high narrow slits that were
covered in wire mesh.

“What’s
your name?” he asked the woman.

“Keikilani.”

“You
ain’t from around here, are you?”

“Are
you
? Just call me ‘Kiki.’”

“Zappers
would love that name, they way they repeat everything.”

“She’s
nice,” Stephen said. “She takes care of us.”

“That
makes her an angel in my book.” DeVontay’s eyes adjusted to the dim interior and
he could make out the big pens with open doors. Hay was strewn around on the
floors and pushed into piles, with blankets spread on top of it. An older
woman, maybe fifty, sat cross-legged on one with three toddlers sleeping around
her. A feeding trough had been turned upside down to serve as a makeshift
table, and plastic wrappers and Styrofoam containers littered the dusty floor
around it. A plastic jug of water hung from a wire on one wall.

“This
is the dining hall,” Kiki said. “No need to put on airs, we’re casual here.”

“Good
to know,” DeVontay said.

“That’s
Carole McLaughlin, totally Irish,” Kiki said, and the blue-eyed older woman
gave a wave. Despite the trying conditions, she appeared tireless and young at
heart. “You can meet all the kids later. It may take a few days for you to get
everybody’s names straight.”

“I
ain’t staying here a few days,” DeVontay said.

“That’s
what the last guy said, too.” Kiki carried the lantern down the concourse to
reveal other pens. The next resembled the first, except a young woman barely
out of her teens waited by the opening. She was clad only in a bra and panties.
DeVontay figured false modesty was the first thing to go when you were
imprisoned and there were no men around.

“Your
turn?” the woman said. She smelled of liquor.

“He’s
not one of them,” Kiki said. “Not yet.”

She
rolled her eyes up and down his body. “Too bad.” She turned and sauntered into
the darkness and whatever comforts she may have had stowed away there.

“What’s
that all about?” DeVontay asked Kiki, keeping his voice down so Stephen and
James couldn’t hear.

“Guess.”
She moved on to illuminate another pen. Two children slept on a bare mattress,
curled against one another for warmth. They were covered with only a thin
blanket despite the chill in the big unheated building. More kids slept on
another mattress nearby.

“They’re
keeping you guys here like animals,” DeVontay said. “Why?”

“You’ll
have to ask Rooster, but I’ve got a good idea. You’re the third to come along.
The first man refused to play their game, and they took him away.”

“Took
him away?”

“I
can’t say for sure what happened, but I heard a single gunshot.”

DeVontay
wished Stephen hadn’t heard that. Bad enough to watch the world go to hell and
mutant Zappers tear people from limb to limb, but to see humans reveal their
worst natures when they should be working together—

He
dug in his pocket and pulled out a couple of the Slim Jims he’d pillaged from
the store. They were still dry inside their wrappers, or at least wet with only
pork grease. “Stephen, why don’t you and James go round me up something to eat?
I’ll be up front in a minute.”

“Don’t
go back there,” Stephen said, staring bug-eyed at the darkness behind Kiki.

“I
promise I won’t leave the light,” he said, giving the boys the Slim Jims.

“Race
you!” James said, grabbing his treat and sprinting down the midway. Stephen
bolted after him, momentarily just a boy again instead of a witness to the
world’s horrible ending. After they were out of sight, DeVontay said to Kiki,
“Look, I don’t know why they’re holding you guys prisoner, but we’re getting
out of here. One way or another.”

“Don’t
you think we haven’t tried? The second guy they put in here jumped them when
they brought us dinner. They beat him to a pulp and we didn’t eat for two
days.”

“So
what’s their ‘game,’ if that’s the word you want to use for it?”

Kiki
gave him a rueful smile. “We’re breeding stock. Rooster wants us to provide him
with an army.”

“He
can’t be for real.”

“You’ll
find out.”

DeVontay
looked past her into the darkest depths of the barn. “What’s back there that
Stephen didn’t want me to see?”

“The
bathroom. And we had to bury two children. Plus there are more dead in the very
back, in what used to be the loading bay. Those are from the Zap, as far as I
can tell.”

“They
wouldn’t even take the bodies out?”

She
shrugged. “Rooster.”

DeVontay
shook his head. “When things go to shit, crazy fuckers sure seem to ascend to
the throne, don’t they?”

“I’d
better hang this lamp by the door in case they come to check on you.”

DeVontay
clenched his fists. “I hope they do. I sure hope they do.”

After
a quick meal of cellophane-wrapped snack foods that left him thirsty, DeVontay
went to the pen where Stephen slept with James and another boy. The lamp flame
burned low and then faded to nothing, leaving the building in darkness. A child
cried softly somewhere deep in the building. DeVontay lay down but his mind
raced too fast for sleep to dig in its hooks.

“DeVontay?”
Stephen murmured.

“Yeah,
Little Man?”

“Are
you awake?”

“Yeah.
What about you?”

“I’m
glad you found me again.”

“I’ll
find you no matter where you go. And we’re going to find Rachel, too, one way
or another.”

Stephen
yawned audibly. “I may have done something bad.”

DeVontay
turned toward him in the dark. “What?”

“I
told that man Rooster about Milepost 291. He was acting all friendly and asked
me who I was with, and he gave me candy. He said he knew Franklin Wheeler.
That’s Rachel’s grandpa, isn’t it?”

DeVontay
thought about it. Rooster had his own fiefdom here. Maybe he saw Franklin
Wheeler as a territorial threat, but the man seemed more interested in
consolidating his power here. “Yeah. But you didn’t do anything wrong. Milepost
291 is like a whole other country.”

“Are
we still going there?”

“As
soon as we can, Little Man. Now stop talking and get some shut-eye.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

“Looks
like the rain’s holding off,” Franklin said, checking out the gray skyline of
morning. “We’re in luck.”

“First
time I’ve heard the word ‘luck’ since summer,” Robertson said. “If you don’t
count bad luck, that is.”

The
group had arisen with the dawn, except for Jorge, who had taken the last watch.
They gathered on the porch of the cottage, adjusting packs that bulged with the
food they’d scavenged from the cupboards. Franklin had drawn out a crude map of
the area, using Grandfather and Sugar mountains as landmarks. The Blue Ridge
Parkway was far more sinuous than he’d depicted it, but as long as they headed
north, they would eventually hit it, and then they could just count up the
mileposts to figure out the rest of it.

“The
way I figure it, we can cut across to Stonewall and hit the Appalachian Trail,”
Franklin said. “That will add a few extra miles to the trip, and maybe even
an extra day, but it lowers our chances of running into unwelcome company.”

“What’s
in Stonewall?” Jorge asked. “All I know is the Tennessee side.”

“Then
most of what you know is wrong,” Franklin said. “Folks over there still think
they won the Civil War.”

“Wonder
if they think they won this war?” Robertson asked.

“We
aren’t going to war. We’re outsmarting it. Like Robertson said, Stonewall is
just a little community in the foothills, nothing more than a few stores, a
volunteer fire department, a produce stand, and such as that. We can swing
around it or stop in if we need supplies.”

“The
more stops, the more chance we’ll run into somebody,” Shay said. She’d taken
advantage of the bathroom mirror to brush her hair and tie it back in a
ponytail, which somehow made her look older. She rested one forearm on her
holstered pistol, and she looked like she was getting comfortable with its
presence. Franklin hoped they’d get a chance for target practice, if they could
find a remote area where they could risk the noise.

“We
don’t want to meet anybody,” Franklin said. “Chances are they’ll be marauders
or soldiers.”

“And
there is a chance they have seen my family,” Jorge said.

“We
just can’t trust other people.” Franklin nodded at Shay. “We’ve already seen
what we can expect.”

“I
think you’re just—how do you say, paranoid?”

“And
it’s kept me alive a lot longer than most everybody else in the world.”

“What
kind of life is it to hide out like a hunted animal?” Jorge stepped off the
porch and headed across the yard.

“Wrong
way,” Franklin called after him.

“If
you’re heading north away from people, then I am heading south. Where the
people are.”

Robertson
glanced at Shay and shook his head. “We owe him.”

They
both followed Jorge. Franklin stomped one boot on the pine boards of the porch.
“Goddamn it,
hombre
, you’re going to bust a vein in my head one of these
days.”

Shay
turned around and walked backwards as she goaded him. “I thought you lived
longer than most.”

Franklin
muttered a final “damn,” mostly for the benefit of
the juncos and warblers that perched in the high trees. He debated heading back
to his compound alone.

I
owe it to Rachel. I should be there in case—WHEN—she finds it. Family first,
that’s what I’ve always said.

Then
why did it bug him so much that Jorge was putting his family ahead of his own
safety? Because Franklin ultimately was a coward. He’d isolated himself from
his family because he told himself he was sacrificing for them, planning for a
future none of them hoped would ever arrive.

In
truth, living by himself was easier than getting along with his fellow human
beings. The disembodied voices of survivalists with ham radios made better
company than somebody who might prove inconvenient and demanding.

He
headed after the group, which had now reached the valley road and headed down
where the houses were more congregated.
I’m probably going to regret this.
But at least I’ll be around to get in one last “I told you so.”

He
caught up with them as Jorge was peering through the passenger window of a Chevy
Suburban that had stalled in a ditch. The corpse at the wheel was so far gone
even the flies had abandoned it.

“Keys
are in it,” Jorge said. “Wouldn’t it be nice to drive into town?”

“Every
bit of circuitry in that thing is fried,” Franklin said.

“I read
that older vehicles, without electronic parts, would survive a nuclear attack,”
Robertson said.

“When
the U.S. government tested vehicles near a blast site, many of them did
function after the detonation,” Franklin said. “Problem was they’d borrowed the
vehicles and had to return them after the test, so they were afraid to put them
too close to Ground Zero. When the Russians did a real test, none of the
vehicles started. Just another case of science not being near as smart as
people claimed.”

That
made him think of something Rachel once said at the precocious age of eleven:
“When you think about it, somebody has to be the world’s dumbest scientist,
right?”

Amen
to that, pumpkin.

“Why
didn’t you put one in your shielded box at the compound?” Jorge asked.

“My
Faraday cage. You saw how small mine was, and it cost me twenty thousand
dollars, plus I had to haul the materials up that mountain. I should have
stashed a motorcycle away, or at least some alternators and ignition parts,
but, hell...none of us expected the end to get here so soon, even me.”

As
they started back down the road, Shay said, “But couldn’t others have done it?
Surely some survival wackos—no offense—stashed some wheels. Why aren’t we
seeing or hearing any cars?”

“Our
buddy Sarge back at the bunker had an electrical generator and other goodies
like lights and radios stowed away. He believes the government had a huge
shielded facility near D.C. stocked with helicopters, tanks, and other toys of
mass control. Wouldn’t surprise me none, but I’d imagine the roads around big
cities are all but blocked, and do you know how much fuel a chopper sucks down
per mile? Even the asshole president—if he’s not a Zaphead now—would have a
hard time justifying a joy ride.”

“I
wish we had our horses,” Jorge said.

Shay’s
eyes widened with delight. “You have
horses
?”

“We
turned them loose at the compound so they could free range,” Franklin said.
“Livestock requires a lot of upkeep. But I suppose your generation will be
learning that soon enough. You can’t just look up everything on the Internet
anymore.”

“You
think it’s wise to be walking out here in the open?” Robertson asked.

Franklin
shrugged. “Depends. If Zaps come out of the woods,
it’s a good move. If somebody starts shooting at us from one of those houses,
we’re total dumbasses.”

“I
didn’t ask anyone to come,” Jorge said. “This is my duty. No one else’s.”

“We’re
better off sticking together,” Franklin said.

Jorge
shook his head. “I thought you said you weren’t going to play hero.”

“I’m
playing the odds, that’s all. If some Zapper pops out of the bushes, I’m
counting on you to serve as bait.”

Shay
stopped. “Do you guys smell something?”

Franklin
sniffed at his underarms. “Should have used some of
that soap back at the cottage.”

“Smoke,”
she said. “Greasy, not like wood smoke.”

Franklin
turned his nose into the breeze. Smell was one of the
first senses to fade with age, but even he could make it out—an acrid, pungent
odor like fried wiring. Then they saw the smoke curling up in gray columns at
the far end of the valley.

“Out
of the road,” Franklin said, but they were already scrambling for cover among
the pines that bordered the ditch and fence lines.

Robertson
pulled out a pair of binoculars and thumbed them into focus. “Road’s blocked.
Looks like somebody pushed some cars across it and started a fire.”

Franklin
grabbed the binoculars and took a look for himself.
“If I had to guess, I’d say somebody is sending us another message.”