Afterburn: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 1) (8 page)

CHAPTER NINE

“Do you sense it?” DeVontay asked.

“No,” Rachel said. “Not anymore. It was there, and then it wasn’t.”

“That’s weird.”

“I’d like to think that a Zap
not
putting messages in my brain is normal.”

They were checking out an encampment where DeVontay had been held captive by a band of survivors years ago. They’d searched it before, along with every other store and shop in Stonewall, but DeVontay insisted the former slaughterhouse might be the best chance of finding overlooked food or supplies. His reasoning went that the original scavengers had picked the town clean, and that rats always carried their goodies back to the nest.

“So, if you can’t pick up any signal, that probably means it’s gone,” DeVontay said, kicking over a five-gallon bucket that oozed sour syrup. The slaughterhouse had been ringed with chain-link fencing topped with barbed wire, with rows of tractor trailers used as walls along with a series of metal sheds. It was one of these sheds they now searched, but it mostly contained trash and dead people.

“I don’t think I’d get off the hook that easily,” Rachel said. “And it’s possible that
it
senses
me
, but I can’t sense it. I’m only half Zap, remember, and who knows how much I’ve lost by being separated from the tribe.”

That’s too much to hope for, that the “disease” will cure itself. But I can’t think of it as a disease. More like an involuntary possession.

“But you’re around Kokona all the time,” DeVontay said.

“We’ve developed our own bond, but who’s to say we’re not a tribe unto ourselves now? As fast as they’re evolving, maybe we’ve been left behind.”

“Stuck with the humans,” DeVontay said. “A fate worse than death.”

“Look at it this way,” Rachel said, raking through a sodden stack of collapsed cardboard boxes. “Zaps probably outnumber us a hundred to one. As far as we can tell, they’re organized and thriving while we’re scrounging for lizards under rocks.”

“And hoping those lizards don’t bite back,” DeVontay said.

“But if they wanted to wipe us out, they could do it at any time,” Rachel said. “We’re like lizards under rocks to them. Don’t turn over the rock, and we don’t really exist.”

“I can live with that deal,” DeVontay said.

“Don’t you want
more
? Has it been so long that you can’t remember walking down the street to get a cup of coffee, hearing the birds sing without worrying if they were going to swarm you, or jumping in a river without any clothes on?”

“I never went skinny dipping, honey,” DeVontay said. “I’m way too shy for that.”

“But you’re accepting the way things are.”

“Yeah, because things could be
waaaay
worse.”

Rachel sifted through the contents of a wooden shelf that contained tools, spools of wire, nuts and bolts, and various types of saw blades. She imagined the blades had once been used to butcher cattle, pigs, and deer. No wonder the Zaps considered her race barbaric.

“Nothing here,” DeVontay said. “Maybe we should check the refrigerator units.”

“Ooh, I bet those things smell really great.”

DeVontay sniffed one of the armpits of his flannel shirt. “I don’t smell so hot myself. Maybe I could stand to jump in a river.”

“I wouldn’t do it naked, though.” She rolled her eyes down the length of his body. “You might come up with something missing.”

Despite the lingering chill of morning, Rachel had also worked up a sweat. As claustrophobic as life in the bunker had become, being beyond its concrete walls and steel door triggered a different kind of unease. In the bunker, they’d established a routine that allowed for some leisure and comfort. Outside, every breath might bring a new way to die.

As they crossed the enclosure to a series of metal refrigerator units, Rachel glanced at the sky. The sun was bright enough to burn away most of the aurora. The sunspot activity was down. But Rachel didn’t need to see the sky to know. The background hum that constantly ran through her like electricity was diminished to a trickle.

They were nearly to the first of the big refrigerator units when DeVontay said, “Didn’t you close the gate?”

“I thought you closed it.”

DeVontay leveled his rifle in front of him at waist height. “Well, one of us did, because we’d never be dumb enough to go into a place like this and not close the gate.”

Rachel scanned the enclosure. “Looks pretty dead to me.”

“Yeah, that’s probably what the cows used to say, before they got turned into hamburger.”

“I told you, I don’t sense any Zaps. And that one we saw last night didn’t threaten us at all.” Rachel didn’t mention that parting, silent communication of “
Thank you
.” She couldn’t explain the intent of the phrase, and he would just worry more about her potential for betrayal.

“Lots of stuff besides Zaps can get us.” DeVontay headed for the chain-link gate and the short drive that connected to the road. “Let’s boogie.”

“We’ve only found two cans of food, and one of them is turnip greens. The kids are not going to be happy campers.”

“We should be getting back anyway. Whoever made those big-boy boomeroos last night might still be in the area.”

Rachel eyed the refrigerator units, relieved to be spared the mystery of their contents. She hurried after DeVontay, her pack jiggling against her back. One benefit of a pathetic supply run was the load was lighter for the return trip.

“Maybe they’re good people,” Rachel said. “Not everybody who has a gun is bad. Just look at us.”

“Odds are against it,” DeVontay said. “And I’m not willing to play those odds.”

“But we came to Stonewall looking for people.”

“Yeah. We want people, not an army.”

“Damn it, DeVontay, make up your mind. You think we’ll be safer in a bigger group, but you don’t want it to be too big. Probably because you’re afraid you won’t get to be boss anymore.”

He stopped at the gate and turned toward her. “You can have the crown any time you want it. But if I remember right, you didn’t like it so much when you were Queen of the Zaps.”

“I didn’t have any control over that. There were so many of them, they just pulled me in. You wouldn’t understand, but they needed me so they could understand
us
—the humans they found themselves killing.”

“‘You wouldn’t understand.’ I’ve heard that a thousand times. You’re right, I wouldn’t. Well, I’m sorry I saved you.”

DeVontay went through the gate without waiting for her.

Why am I blaming him? I wanted to be rescued. I had a choice, and I decided to be human. Why can’t I just be happy that I made the right choice?

Rachel had been summoned to the town of Newton thirty miles to the west, where the Zaps had congregated and taken human captives. A rogue military group attacked the town, planning to destroy the mutant infants, whose telepathic intelligence was rapidly evolving. During the ensuing chaos, DeVontay and Franklin had rescued Rachel as the rest of the humans were wiped out. That had been four years ago, and Rachel still was saddened by the wasteful war.

She’d been a relentless optimist at the time. She hoped her unique, half-mutant status would allow her to serve as a diplomat, but Zaps had no concept of peace and humans had no capacity to forgive the violent slaughter in the immediate aftermath of the solar storms. Now she knew her hope was futile. What she mistook for empathy was actually arrogance.

She didn’t deserve anyone’s crown.

As she caught up with DeVontay once again, she couldn’t evade the deep doubt that constantly plagued her:
What if I made the wrong choice?

“Something’s not right here,” DeVontay said, pointing his rifle along the road to a cluster of houses. “That yellow house there, the one that looks like some grandma’s cute little mountain cottage. The door’s open.”

“So what? Lots of doors are open. Nobody had time for locks and keys when the storms hit, and nobody cared after that.”

“We’ve been to Stonewall half a dozen times, but this is the first time that door’s been open. I know, because I always look at those brass wind chimes on the porch. I’ve been thinking about taking them back to the bunker, but the wind don’t blow underground.”

“So, somebody’s been through this way,” Rachel said. “That could’ve happened anytime since spring.”

“Maybe, but if we’re checking things out, we’re checking things out, right? First the open gate, and now this. Something’s real funny.”

Rachel looked around to see if she noticed anything else different about Stonewall. The stalled cars seemed the same, and the ransacked shops were still cluttered and decrepit. A fire truck, likely scrambled during the original catastrophe, was angled off the road with its front tires in the river, white foam churning around the rubber. A skeleton leaned against a road sign that warned motorists not to pass on double-yellow lines.

“I think we should get back to the bunker,” Rachel said, but DeVontay was already bounding up the hill toward the house. He was getting careless in his desire to discover the human race wasn’t totally down and out.

Rachel watched the surrounding houses as she followed. Their policy was to never enter any building alone. She was confident the town was clear of Zaps, but she couldn’t even guess at the other hidden dangers. She half expected gunfire to erupt as DeVontay stumbled onto some new kind of deadly creature, a rabid dog or feral pig.

Instead, he called her name, and she gave the town a last scan before entering the house. DeVontay was in the back room, looking down at the floor.

“Now we know what happened to your buddy,” he said.

The Zap lay in a thick puddle of blood, its skull cracked open. Flies drank from the gore, their wings shiny green in the faint light. The blood was still wet, suggesting the mutant’s death was recent.

“I guess we’re not alone,” Rachel said.

DeVontay knelt to examine the body, careful not to touch its skin. Zaps were in no way contagious—they could only pass along their biological changes through reviving human corpses, although in Rachel’s case she was nearly dead from a gangrenous dog bite. But DeVontay wasn’t taking any chances.

He drew his tactical knife and poked the silver suit with the tip. “This material’s the same as what that flying bird-thing was made out of.”

“You’re saying the Zaps made that bird?”

“Look how tough this stuff is.” DeVontay jabbed the body several times with his knife. The material flexed and stretched but didn’t yield. “It might even be bulletproof.”

“Roll him over,” Rachel said. A wave of sadness and regret swept her, but she kept her feelings hidden from DeVontay. “Let’s see if this is the same one from last night.”

DeVontay looked around the room, then collected a floor lamp and used its long stand to lever the mutant onto its back. Its gender was still difficult to discern even up close, but there were some bulges in the crotch that suggested a male, although it also appeared to have slightly enlarged breasts. She didn’t think they would be able to remove the suit for a closer examination, because she saw no seam or zipper. Besides, no way would DeVontay want to see a naked Zap.

“Look at the face,” DeVontay said. “Smooth skin, no facial hair, the eyes are open but with none of the Zap lights. I guess this is the same one, but maybe they all look alike now.”

“They’ll be coming for it,” Rachel said “They always collect their dead.”

DeVontay looked out the window at the woods behind the house. “Maybe we should hide and watch.”

“That wouldn’t be such a good idea. They’ll detect me from a mile away. Besides, we might have a bigger problem. Who killed it?”

“Why is that a problem?” DeVontay said. “One down, a million to go. If you’d killed it last night when you had the chance—”

“The Zap didn’t attack us. So why didn’t it attack whoever did this? It would take some kind of heavy instrument or weapon to inflict this kind of damage, because this blow was delivered from close range. Unless they’ve changed, Zaps only attack in self-defense. And they usually don’t lose.”

“So maybe they
have
changed, Rachel. What are you, the mutant justice of the peace?”

“What if they’re no longer a threat to us?”

DeVontay turned from the window and looked down at the thing that had once been human, then became a mutant, and now was so much meat for scavengers. Life was transformation, and dust was the final state of all living things, no matter how peculiar. The same Mother Nature that had spawned these mutants wouldn’t let them escape her final judgment.

“The only good Zap’s a dead Zap,” he said. “Whose side are you on again?”

A tingle raced up Rachel’s spine and a buzzing arose in her ear canals. She had a feeling DeVontay’s question was about to be answered.

“They’re coming.”

CHAPTER TEN

“Let me in,” Franklin said.

He tossed another rock at the rusted bunker door, which was set a few feet into a hillside and was framed by massive granite boulders. The entrance had been so cleverly placed that it was invisible from twenty feet away. Unless you knew it was there, you would walk right past it, especially given the minimal foot traffic around the bunker. The occupants were careful to alternate routes through the woods while on foraging missions, so any nearby trails could easily pass for animal trials.

He called again, although he knew Stephen couldn’t hear him. A small camera in the lower branches of a towering oak provided surveillance, and Franklin should be visible if anyone was watching the monitors. Stephen had become a little more erratic as the teen hormones raged through his body, but at least he was still smart enough to lock the door like he was supposed to.

Who am I kidding? Marina’s the smart one.

Actually, the little Zap infant Kokona was more intelligent than both of them put together, but Franklin refused to give the mutant any credit. He half expected to visit the bunker one day to find the door open and the baby gone, with Rachel and the others headless and half rotten. Rachel assured him Kokona was part of the family now and that time and distance had erased Kokona’s instinctive connection to the other mutants. But Franklin figured once a Zap, always a Zap.

That didn’t help him figure out Rachel’s constitution, but she was blood kin, so he was compelled to give her the benefit of a doubt. At least until proven otherwise.

A grating, squeaking sound came from the other side of the metal door, and a large flange revolved as the screw turned. The door had once featured electronic locks as well as a manual failsafe, but as the bunker’s battery arrays weakened, solar power alone couldn’t do the job. The remaining solar panels were strained to the limit just providing enough juice for the few cameras, lights, and occasional radio broadcasts.

Franklin waited until the door parted enough to allow his hand to slip inside, then he assisted its swivel as the hinges groaned. When the gap was wide enough to enter, Franklin slipped inside.

“Hello, kid,” Franklin said to Stephen while helping close and secure the door.

“I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Yeah, right, kid. Once you get a few chest hairs, let me know.” He patted the boy’s cheek.

“Too much information, Franklin,” Marina said, as if she’d never seen the boy naked in such intimate quarters.

“Hello, pap-paw,” Kokona said to Franklin, her eyes glinting in the bunker’s dim light.

“I ain’t your pap-paw, runt,” Franklin said. “Changed that diaper lately?”

“I don’t consume much, so I only eliminate solid wastes every four days,” Kokona said, squirming in Marina’s arms.

“Maybe that’s why you’re still a runt.” Franklin didn’t care if the taunts were cruel. He’d never been one to spare people’s feelings, and damned if he was going to do so for a freaky mutant whose tribe had taken over Franklin’s world. Besides, it was true—Kokona hadn’t grown an inch or gained a single pound in the four years she’d lived with Rachel.

“How was your journey over?” Stephen said, helping Franklin remove his backpack.

“Saw one of those raccoon thingies. You know, the kind with the long claws. But I took the fast way down a steep gulley and lost it. So if you’re wondering why the seat of my pants is black, that would be the reason.”

“Still too much information,” Marina said. She had grown since he’d last seen her and her body filled out the army fatigues she wore. Unlike Kokona, both Stephen and Marina were maturing into young adults, which meant trouble of one kind or another. Rachel considered them brother and sister, but Franklin had lived long enough to know that nature was more powerful than personal opinion. The teens weren’t blood relatives, so he didn’t see the harm in a potential romance, and he’d never agreed with most of the self-righteous moral standards of the pre-apocalyptic human race anyway.

Marina was Mexican and Stephen was American, but such a mixed union didn’t trouble him, either. Rachel and DeVontay had been in love ever since Doomsday threw them together, and that was fine, too. DeVontay’s devotion was apparent, and he’d risked his life several times to save her. As long as nobody was trying to hatch little Zaps, he was okay with anything.

But he was pretty sure Stephen and Marina weren’t fooling around while DeVontay and Rachel were away. Kokona never slept, and her senses were acute. Franklin wasn’t around her often enough to know how closely the infant minded everyone else’s business, but Franklin always suspected some kind of alien computer was constantly running and calculating behind those sparking eyes.

Stephen told Franklin the details of his radio chat with Capt. Antonelli and how he’d told the officer he was alone and waiting for them in a van on the parkway. “I’m not sure he believed it, though,” Stephen said.

“They’re going to be looking for this soon. Depending on how good their maps are, they will probably find it pretty fast.

“What about those gunshots and explosions last night?” Stephen said. “Was that them?”

“Most likely. Unless some other group is wandering around out there. Heading for the hills used to be a survival strategy, but I guess only lazy folks are left, because we haven’t seen anybody in at least a year.”

“I can assure you they weren’t Zaps,” Kokona said.

That provided no comfort to Franklin, because he didn’t trust her one bit. “Either way, we’re safe here. We can hold off half of an army if it comes to that.”

“What about Rachel and DeVontay?” Marina asked.

“They can take care of themselves,” Franklin said. “The worst thing we could do is go out there and hunt for them.”

“They should be back this afternoon,” Stephen said. “Assuming nothing goes wrong.”

“What could possibly go wrong?” Franklin said.

Kokona spoke in her eerily childish voice. “Heightened sunspot activity, predatory species, human bandits, paranoid military, the usual risks of radiation and pollution, abrupt weather changes—”

“Cool it, Little Miss Sunshine,” Franklin said. “That was a rhetorical question. Do you know what ‘rhetorical’ means?”

“Which definition from which dictionary should I refer to?” Kokona said.

Marina cut in with a stream of Spanish that Franklin hoped was a scolding, and the infant replied right back, unfazed. They chattered for another twenty seconds in rapid Spanish while Franklin and Stephen looked at one another.

Finally, with a shake of his head, Franklin left the entryway for the depths of the bunker. He didn’t really feel much ownership of the place, but he was the ranking grown-up and that had to account for something. He was familiar with the layout from his time here, both as an involuntary guest of the original military unit and as a part-time patriarch of Rachel’s strange little tribe.

A string of tiny bulbs not much larger than Christmas-tree lights were strung above the hallway. The first tiny rooms were little more than cells used for bunks and storage, and the second room on the right had been decorated like a nursery, with cartoon animals bounding across its walls.

Even though Kokona never slept, she was apparently put down every night so the grown-ups could enjoy some privacy. Marina bunked across the hall from DeVontay and Rachel, and her room was fairly spartan, with none of the usual teen-girl frivolities like make-up and hair accessories and posters of shirtless teenybopper pop idols.

Farther on lay the telecom room, a munitions and equipment closet, and the cramped kitchen, which featured running water from an outdoor spring that was piped inside and flowed constantly. Some of that water was diverted into a small bathroom and shower beside the kitchen, although the bunker’s occupants often relieved themselves outside when possible.

The last space, which had once been the commander’s headquarters, was now Stephen’s room. The floor was strewn with books, comics, dirty clothes, pieces of machinery he’d taken apart, and empty tin cans. His informal survey complete, Franklin turned to Stephen and said, “Let’s check those monitors.”

The video gear was in the radio room, along with the power conversion system for the solar panels. Even though the military had installed the best equipment that taxpayer money could buy, it was failing bit by bit, and both the ventilation system and the solar panels were weak links in their defensive capability. For that matter, someone could discover and destroy the water source, or poison the spring that fed it. Bunkers might be impregnable to most forms of armed assault, but ingenuity might succeed where firepower failed.

Marina carried Kokona after them, and as Franklin tested the equipment, he was sure the little mutant was watching and learning. The Zap baby probably already knew more than Franklin did about the bunker’s ops.

A chubby-cheeked little spy.

“This one’s going on the blink,” Stephen said, tapping a tiny gray monitor screen. “We keep it turned off so it doesn’t draw power.”

The three remaining monitors allowed for a nearly three-hundred-degree view of the bunker’s perimeter, so unless an intruder came from the north—the steep, rocky ridge from which Franklin had descended—then that person would be visible. Assuming someone was watching the screens at the time, that was.

“Batteries are down to about forty percent capacity,” Stephen said.

“Thirty-seven,” Kokona said.

“That’s ‘about forty,’” Stephen said.

“That margin of error is the equivalent of losing all electricity eight weeks sooner than expected,” Kokona said. “Accuracy matters when your life depends upon it.”

Franklin detected a dark rage in Stephen’s face, and he wondered how often the boy endured Kokona’s corrections and small sleights. Marina seemed perfectly at ease with the infant, even doting on it, and now she smiled contentedly as if she were the proud mother of an honor-roll student.

“I should’ve busted this radio a long time ago,” Franklin said.

“But we need it to connect with other humans,” Stephen said. “I don’t care what anybody says, we can’t just hide out here and wait for the world to finish ending. I’m
glad
I talked to the army. We need to get our shit together and go to war.”

Kokona pursed her pink little lips and said nothing about the antagonism directed toward her tribe. Franklin pointed at Stephen’s sidearm. “You been practicing with that thing?”

“A little. DeVontay doesn’t want us to waste ammo.”

“Marina’s a better shot than him,” Kokona said. Marina blushed slightly, darkening the burnt sienna color of her cheeks.

“What about you?” Franklin said to the baby. “How do you defend yourself?”

“By being vulnerable.” Kokona gave a grin that would have been endlessly adorable on a human baby, but matched with those coruscating eyes seemed more like an expression of utter disdain.