After (Book 3): Milepost 291 (15 page)

The
rush of fetid air almost took his breath away. A single boot protruded from a
lumpy pile that was covered with a vinyl tarp, and DeVontay realized the mound
was decomposing bodies. He tugged the front collar of his shirt over his mouth
and nose and stumbled into the dark depths of the building, calling Stephen’s
name. When his eyes adjusted, he found the main corridor that led from the
loading area.

“DeVontay!”
Stephen’s voice came too him from the slaughterhouse’s interior.

“Can
you see me?”

“Yes,
we’re here,” said Kiki, her voice quavering.

“Zapheads
are coming. Let’s get out of here.”

DeVontay
heard shuffling in the dark and then Stephen stepped into the gray light of the
loading area. DeVontay gave him a quick hug and led him to the loading dock.
“Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

Stephen
froze and looked up with imploring eyes. “What about the other kids?”

“Every
man for himself.”

“But
they’re not men. They’re
kids
.”

DeVontay
remembered how Rachel and the others had saved him when he’d been captured in Taylorsville. If they gave up on one another, and After was now ruled by “Survival of the
Fittest,” then what was the point? To survive for another day of selfishness?

But
Stephen was his first responsibility. And the more people he tried to help, the
higher the odds that Stephen wouldn’t make it.

Kiki
stepped from the darkness, a child at each side. They all blinked as if they
hadn’t seen the sun in weeks.

DeVontay
glanced up at the man by the fence. The man’s rifle was aimed right at
DeVontay.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

The
Zapheads swarmed over them before they had a chance to fight back.

Franklin
closed his eyes, expecting to be ripped limb from
limb, the pain in his head so intense that he almost welcomed death. His heart
leapt into a syncopated gallop and he clawed at the surface of the rock,
wondering if he should roll over the edge back into the ravine.

The
Zapheads still repeated Robertson’s cry of “Why?” although they no longer drew
it out, instead vocalizing different lengths as if they were playing multiple
instruments in some mad orchestra.

But
as the horde moved around them, he realized they weren’t attacking. He finally
opened his eyes to find them gathered around the bodies of the two fallen
soldiers, as well as Robertson and his dead daughter. Jorge sat stunned and
unmoving, apparently unwilling to go for the weapon that lay on the ground ten
feet away from him.

They’re
ignoring us.

Three
Zapheads scooped up one of the soldiers as if he were a sack of grain,
struggling to hoist him onto their shoulders. Another Zaphead, a male with a
long, stringy beard and creased face, moved in to help. They were all dirty and
their clothes soiled and tattered, but they moved with more precision and
coordination than the ones Franklin had previously encountered.

Robertson
tightened his grip on his daughter as the Zapheads pulled at her. “Get away,
you mutant fuckers,” he said, kicking at one of them. Robertson’s boot struck a
skinny Zaphead in the shin and it stopped repeating “Why why why.”

Shouldn’t
have done that, partner.

The
Zaphead’s eyes swelled with radiance, glittering so bright that Franklin could see the change even in full sunlight. The Zaphead grabbed Robertson’s foot
and twisted, causing Robertson to grunt in anguish. That immediately set the
Zapheads off on a grunting spree, until they sounded like a colony of gorillas.
Franklin’s gaze met Jorge’s, who then looked at the gun.

“No,”
Franklin said, trying not to draw the attention of the Zapheads. But he had a
bad feeling about attacking the Zapheads at close range, especially after
seeing the response to Robertson’s kick. The Zaphead who held the boot now twisted
it vigorously, nearly dragging Robertson fully to the ground.

Robertson
kicked again with his other foot, and the blow knocked the Zaphead away. Two
others, who had been lifting the other fallen soldier, turned their attention
to Robertson. The Zapheads holding Shay’s corpse began to yank as if they were
fighting over a rag doll. Robertson lashed out at one of them with a fist,
landing a blow to the face. The woman’s cheek split and blood poured out.

At
least their blood’s still red. As close to human as they get.

“Robertson,”
Franklin said, repeating the name when the man didn’t answer. He raised his
voice, which drew looks from a couple of the Zapheads. “Don’t fight back.”

But
Robertson’s grief had melded into anger, and he used one arm to push at the
Zapheads while the other encircled Shay’s body.

Franklin
crawled toward Robertson, hoping to calm him down.
One of the Zapheads stepped toward him—a middle-aged woman who looked like she
might have been a lawyer in a former life, although her pants suit was frayed
and her blouse missing its buttons—and he froze, waiting for her response. She
stopped, too, watching him with sparking eyes.

Jorge
finally moved, easing toward the rifle despite Franklin’s command. Maybe he had
enough ammunition to take down the small group of them, but Franklin believed
other Zaps were approaching through the woods, because he could hear their
repetitive chatter. Gunfire would only bring more of them, and they’d never
shoot their way past the entire Zaphead Nation that seemed to be boiling up
from their holes and hiding places.

The
Zapheads holding the first soldier dropped their burden onto the muddy forest
floor and started for Robertson as well. Now half a dozen grabbed at him and
Shay, with Robertson kicking and punching as best he could while still clinging
to his blood-soaked daughter.

“Get
away, get away,” he moaned, nearly blubbering. “Leave her alone.”

Franklin
knew the grief of losing a child, although his losses
had been emotional rather than physical, casualties of Franklin’s libertarian
obsessions rather than gunplay. But he’d had time to assimilate the tide of
pain, and Robertson’s had descended upon him in one shocking avalanche.
Robertson kissed the top of her head even as he cursed at the former humans
that clutched and tugged at her.

“Robertson,
let her go,” Franklin said.

He
looked at Franklin with red-rimmed, watery eyes. “She’s all I have.”

“She’s
gone. Getting killed yourself won’t bring her back.”

“Don’t
give a shit. They’re not taking her.”

Jorge
sprang at the rifle and wrapped a hand around the stock, but before he could
raise it, a Zaphead jumped on the gun and covered it with her body. A muffled
roar erupted as the Zaphead shook, a spurt of blood gushing from the top of its
skull.

The
other Zapheads didn’t seem to realize one of their number had been killed, but
they fell silent in the wake of the sudden noise. Incongruently, a crow cawed
from somewhere in the treetops, and that inspired several of the Zapheads to
caw in return.

As
Jorge struggled to retrieve the weapon from beneath the fallen Zaphead,
Robertson continued his fight. He was now on his feet, holding his daughter as
if they were in a ballet. She sagged from the waist, lolling forward so that
her blood-stained torso was pointed toward Franklin. Then she flopped forward
so that her hair was over her face, nearly falling free of her father’s frantic
grip.

The
Zapheads moved in on all sides, finally succeeding in dragging her away.
Robertson screamed and jumped on the back of the closest Zaphead, causing them
both to fall flailing into the mud. The Zaphead was bigger and beefier than
Robertson, and Franklin joined the fray with the intention of getting Robertson
the hell out of there.

“She’s
dead,” Franklin said, pulling on the back of his shirt. “You’re not. Come on.”

Robertson
swung wildly and struck Franklin on the side of the head, awakening his
slumbering concussion into a red, roaring dragon that caused his ears to ring.
By the time Franklin returned to his senses, Robertson was locked in fierce
combat with three Zapheads while two others bore Shay away from the rock ledge.

Jorge
now grappled with two Zapheads, still trying to free the semiautomatic rifle.
One of his unnatural adversaries, a young teen male clad in only a navy blue
knit sweater and grungy boxer shorts, clawed at Jorge’s wounded side as if
digging for entrails. Franklin decided they weren’t getting out of here alive
after all.

Might
as well go down fighting. I’d just as soon die from these sons of bitches as
get shot by Sarge’s gang.

But
he noticed a difference in the two separate struggles—where Robertson punched
and kicked, Jorge wrestled and shoved.

And
the Zapheads were returning those two physical responses in kind. The Zapheads
around Robertson drove their fists at his head, but he managed to duck the
awkward blows. It was like the Zapheads had never thrown a punch before and
were learning on the spot. What they lacked in skill, they made up for in
determination and quantity, and soon their fists were bouncing off Robertson’s
neck and shoulders.

They
also drove their shoes—or filthy bare feet if they wore no shoes—into
Robertson’s legs. He couldn’t defend himself from all the angles of attack and
soon fell under the fury of the mob.

But
was it really fury? The Zapheads delivered their blows with an almost detached
attitude, as if they were putting in time at a minimum-wage job. The earlier
Zap attacks had been characterized by rampaging, chaotic violence, with
frenetic movements and an almost mewling sound of pleasure rising from their
throats.

Franklin
decided Robertson was a goner and staggered over to
help Jorge. “Stop fighting,” Franklin shouted. “Let your body go limp.”

Jorge
scuffled a few seconds longer, but fell still when Franklin yelled his name.
The Zapheads broke into a chorus of “Hor-hay, hor-hay” but they halted their
attack. It only took them seconds to turn their attention to Robertson.

Franklin
put his hands over his ears as Robertson’s grunts
turned into yelps and then screams, and the mass of Zapheads atop him roiled
like a sack of rats.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

“I’m
not a Zaphead,” Rachel said, checking the mirror again. “I don’t feel any
different.”

Well,
not MUCH different. My eyes have some weird flecks, and I’m a little
light-headed, but I just fought off a serious infection and underwent a miracle
cure at the hands of some bizarre mutants. There’s no medical textbook for
this. Nobody knows how I’m supposed to feel.

“You’re
acting almost the same as before, not that I know you all that well,” Campbell said, sitting on the bed so she wouldn’t suffer claustrophobia in the bathroom.
“But something’s…off.”

“Maybe
the part where these Zapheads healed me with their touch like a tribe of
charismatic evangelicals? Sorry, I don’t believe Jesus came back to Earth in
the form of a zillion dirty walking apes whose sins were cleansed by the sun.”

“The
professor thought something mystical was occurring, which is why he saw himself
as some sort of spiritual leader for them.”

“One
thing history teaches us is that we always nail our spiritual leaders to the
cross, either with actual nails or bullets.”

“Human
history, maybe. We don’t have a Zaphead history yet.”

Rachel
walked out of the bathroom into the brightness of the bedroom. “So they’ve gone
from bloodthirsty murderers to missionary witch doctors in mere weeks?”

Campbell
squinted at her like a husband who’d just been told
of a fashion makeover but couldn’t quite tell where the money had gone. “I
mean, maybe they didn’t infect you. Maybe there’s some sort of second wave of
solar flares to zap the rest of us. It’s not like we have TV talking heads to
warn us this time around.”

“Like
we even listened the last time.” Rachel knew she was just babbling, but she
didn’t want to confront the possibilities suggested by her symptoms. And her
cruelty to Campbell was certainly a defense mechanism, and not a symptom of
some kind of personality change. She hoped. “They warned us about satellite
signals and transmission failures, but nobody said we’d be back in the Stone
Age and the predators would look just like us only without the grooming.”

Campbell
rubbed the bristles on his chin. “Speaking of which,
do you think I should shave? I don’t want to get shot by one of these
survivalist nutjobs I keep running into.”

“Nah,
let it grow,” she said. “Maybe that’s why the Zapheads didn’t kill you back at
the farmhouse.”

“I’ve
been thinking about that, too. They kept me almost like a pet, even though they
mutilated and killed the group who was there before me. And the professor lived
with them even longer than I did.”

“You
saw how that ended. Guess he wore out his welcome.”

“But
they didn’t attack him until he turned violent. And they let you and me walk
right out while they killed him. What do you think of that?”

Rachel’s
stomach growled and she realized she hadn’t eaten since the previous day.
That—hopefully—explained some of her dizziness. “I think I’m hungry. And that
means I’m not a Zaphead because I’m not craving a rare, juicy human
filet
mignon
.”

Campbell
hopped off the bed and headed for the hall. “Well, I
guess we can be glad they’re not zombies, or we’d be on the wrong side of the
law of supply and demand. Come on, let’s break out the can opener.”

In
the kitchen, they cracked two tins of tuna fish, a sleeve of stale Saltine
crackers, and a bottle of grape juice, pouring it into glass jelly jars. “So it
looks like we’re staying here until you get rested,” Campbell said, his words whistling
around the dry crumbs.

“Overnight,
maybe,” Rachel said. The tuna gave her a surge of energy and she already felt
stronger. “But I’m eager to find Stephen and get to Milepost 291.”

“So
let’s say your grandfather’s there, maybe some other people. What if they think
you’re a Zaphead? Will he let you in?”

“Franklin believes in individualism and personal freedom. There’s not a racist bone in his
body. He used to say that was the part of the collapse he was looking toward
the most: when people were too busy surviving to mind other people’s business.”

“Yeah,
but that was before there was a
Zaphead
race. His opinions might have
changed in light of new information.”

“If
we’re lucky enough to get there, you can ask him. From a safe distance.”

Campbell
reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m glad
this happened,” he said. “Not the solar flares or the Doomsday bullshit, but
the fact that we made it.”

She
drew her hand away and unconsciously wiped it on her pants. Campbell noticed
and laughed. “I don’t think you’re contagious.”

“No,
but maybe you are. Besides, all we’ve made it is
so far
. We’re alive
today, and we have a goal, but other than that, I don’t see much hope for the
long haul.”

“Hey,
we’re doing okay for ourselves. Roof over our heads, full bellies, no credit
card debt, and we can get an early jump on Christmas shopping.”

“I
wasn’t just talking about my future. I meant for
us
, the survivors. The
human race.”

Campbell
shoved away from the table and peered out the window.
“Well, we’re probably outnumbered a thousand to one, but this is still our
planet. Top of the food chain until proven otherwise.”

“You
think we have a divine right to rule the world? A manifest destiny? That God
exploded all the matter in the universe just so creatures on a tiny speck at
the edge of an obscure galaxy could believe themselves special? All we did with
our knowledge and power in Before was stockpile weapons, starve the have-nots,
and squabble over fossil fuels. Have you considered maybe God created the
Zapheads precisely because He was sick and damned tired of us?”

Campbell
nudged the living-room curtains together and asked,
“Are you an atheist? You sure talk about God a lot.”

“I
was a believer all my life. A devout Christian. And somewhere lately, I’ve lost
it. It seemed so powerful before, so personal, that I never would have thought
it could turn off like a light switch. And, I hate to say it, but it sucks to
be alone again.”

“You’re
not alone.”

“In
my head I am. In my heart, too. You can be alone standing in a crowd of
millions.”

Campbell
found a guitar case leaning against the sofa and he
opened it, pulling out an acoustic Gibson that gleamed in the penetrating
sunlight. He gave it a soft strum and discordant
twang
filled the room,
hurting Rachel’s ears.

As
he sat on the sofa and began tuning the strings, Rachel said, “Please don’t
tell me you’re going to play ‘Imagine.’”

“How
about ‘Give Peace a Chance’?”

“How
about ‘no.’”

Campbell
coaxed a few chord changes out of the instrument, and
the sweet resonance was welcome after all the screams, explosions, shouts, and
groans of the past two months. Campbell opened his mouth and sang a few
nonsense syllables: “
Ooh-la-la, oh yeah
.”

He
repeated the musical bars and vocal phrases, and Rachel found herself humming
along. Campbell had a strong baritone voice with just enough of a rasp to
project authenticity and warmth. The aural intensity overwhelmed her, filled
her with golden liquid, and she found herself singing along in harmony.

She
swayed in pleasure, the rhythm rolling through her body until her fingers and
lips tingled. The vibrations rising through her throat were almost sexual in
their pleasure, and she surrendered to it.

“
Oh
yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
—”

“Rachel?”

“—
oh
yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
—”

“Rachel!”

She
fell silent and blinked, looking around at the room that appeared to have been
transformed. The walls shook with the echoes, the ceiling swelled into a dome,
and the words “
oh yeah
” still skated across her tongue.

The
guitar was on the couch and Campbell was a foot in front of her face, his eyes
dark with concern. “I stopped playing two minutes ago.”