After: The Echo (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 2) (12 page)

“Come here, honey,” Rachel said, covering Stephen’s eyes and guiding him to the grass median so that a refrigerated Valleydale sandwich-meat truck blocked his view of the carnage. A marching band of pink cartoon pigs paraded across the side of the truck’s cargo area.

“I changed my mind,” she said. “Sit here and rest a minute. I want to check something out.”

“Okay,” he said, plopping onto the grass. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a Spiderman comic. Before Rachel had taken a dozen steps, he’d immersed himself in a world where superheroes saved the day and evil was always defeated.

Rachel fished a kerchief from her back pocket and held it over her mouth. When she reached the Subaru, she checked the interior. Aside from the driver, the car had apparently held a couple more occupants who must have died during the solar storm’s peak. The back seat was stained with a thick gruel of fluids and dried blood. The front passenger’s seat contained three blackened fingers that curled like slow-baked earthworms.

Rachel had seen plenty of rotten flesh in After. But this corruption was different. Someone—or some
thing
—had gnawed or torn the bodies and strewn them across the pavement. The mutilation was fairly fresh. Flies still buzzed around the jagged and leaking rips in the skin.

Have the Zapheads run out of live entertainment and now amuse themselves by desecrating the dead?

Rachel resisted the urge to check the Subaru’s glove box. The decadent odor inside the vehicle pushed her away like a sentient wind. The car was unlikely to offer anything of use, and she already carried more weight than she’d like. Cell phones, GPS monitors, and even weapons wouldn’t improve her odds of reaching her grandfather’s compound at Milepost 291.

As she circled the Valleydale truck’s front grille, she plotted a route that would spare Stephen the sight of the bodies. Both sides of the highway featured open rolling fields. Stalks of corn had turned ochre with the autumn, crisp leaves flapping in the breeze. She’d come up with some excuse for the detour, perhaps saying they should collect some ears of corn to save for seed.

Besides, it looks like collecting ears is a popular hobby around here.

But when she stepped onto the gritty shoulder of the median, her ribs clenched and all her plans were forgotten.

Stephen stood beside his open backpack, contents scattered around his feet, his comic book splayed out on the grass. He extended his arm toward a mangy German shepherd. The dog’s tail was curled down, ears pricked up in a wary stance. The moist nose sniffed at Stephen’s hand.

The boy was feeding the dog a Slim Jim. He’d developed a fondness for the cured meat snacks, emulating his new hero DeVontay. While Rachel had nurtured him with healthier fare, she had indulged this one addiction and had allowed him to stock up whenever they plundered a convenience store. Now it looked like that decision was coming back to bite her on the behind.

Or, more accurately, Stephen’s.

“Here, boy,” Stephen said, in a calm, friendly tone. He waved the Slim Jim.

The dog took a hesitant step forward. The animal was gaunt but apparently not starving, and suddenly Rachel recognized its food source. She only hoped the dog could tell the difference between living prey and carrion—and that the dog preferred the latter.

“It’s okay, boy,” Stephen said. “It’s yummy.”

The dog’s tail gave a little wag that was almost forlorn. The depths of Stephen’s loneliness and loss draped over Rachel like a shroud. She wanted to be his mother, his sister, and all his friends, to give him enough love to replace all he’d had before. But at best she was a hollow resonance, maybe even just a cruel reminder of the people she could never be.

Not everything’s about you.

If you’re really all about the sacrifice—the noble school counselor, the savior of the ignored, the sufferer of survivor’s guilt—then do your job. Be what you were born to be and what you shaped yourself to become.

The dog’s nose was now inches from the meat snack. Stephen wore a goofy grin, oblivious to everything but the dog. Its tail lifted and flailed at the air a couple of times.

“Good boy!”

Two more dogs emerged from behind a black Honda. They hunched low, almost stealthy as they approached Stephen. One was a shaggy golden retriever, dreadlocks of filthy hair hanging from its abdomen. It was a breed known for its joyous enthusiasm, but this particular specimen projected a dark menace. The second dog was smaller, a spotted beagle mix, but if anything, it appeared the wilder and tougher of the pair.

But Rachel remained still, hoping the German shepherd would grab the snack and retreat, or that Stephen would drop the Slim Jim and step back.

Instead, the golden retriever growled. It was a liquid, hissing sound, terrible and yet bone-chillingly familiar.

Both Stephen and the shepherd turned toward the two dogs, and Rachel reacted.

“Stephen,” she said, as calmly as she could muster, not wanting him to panic, although she was on the verge herself.

Now all eight eyes turned to her, and she froze as if an icicle had been driven into her heart.

The eyes of the dogs all glittered with that same sick radiance, a million mad suns exploded inside their skulls.

Zaphead dogs.

Stephen was confused, as if he’d been caught doing something naughty. “I…I just wanted to pet him.”

“It’s okay.” Rachel took a step toward them, and the shepherd dropped nearly to its haunches, ears pinned back. It let out a high-pitched hiss.

“Good doggie,” she said, feeling stupid. If the dog attacked, she wouldn’t have time to dig in her backpack for her pistol, and she was angry at herself for the lapse in judgment.

She’d grown overconfident, and arrogance usually killed, especially in After.

The retriever and the beagle joined in the hissing, a bizarre howling parody
of a midnight mutt-pound
concerto.

“Drop the treat,” she said to Stephen, taking another step forward. The shepherd was locked in position but the other two dogs crept a few slinking steps forward. Rachel was maybe twenty feet from Stephen, but the dogs would surely be able to move faster than she could. And they were only forty feet away.

Stephen looked down at the shepherd, tears leaking down his chubby cheeks. “I’m sorry, boy.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Rachel said. “We’re just not all friends yet.”

That sounded stupid even to her, but the psychology classes and counselor training led her to paint a thick layer of honey on every situation. In the La-La Land of the counselor’s world, all was dancing gummy bears, rainbows, and fluffy pillows. And that fantasy world was surely just as absurd as this new world in which they all lived, where dog ate dog and dog ate human and maybe even human ate human.

Yes, a stranger is just a person you haven’t met yet. Liberal Arts Horseshit 101.

Rachel took another step, and the shepherd bared its teeth. The other two dogs pawed closer, nails clicking on the pavement.

Stephen opened his hand and let the Slim Jim fall to the ground, but the shepherd didn’t even glance at it.

“Okay, Stephen,” she said. “Here’s what I want you to do. Run around the truck and you’ll see a green station wagon with the door open. I want you to climb in and shut the door and don’t open it until I tell you it’s okay.”

“I just wanted to pet it,” he whined.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m sorry.” He was on the verge of blubbering, and neither of them could afford that right now.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. The dogs are just not used to people.”

If crotchety old Mrs. Federov from Greenwood Academy could see me now, she’d reconsider denying me a recommendation for my resume. Revenge is sweet, bitch.

And so is human flesh, if you’re a Zaphead dog.

“What about my comic books and stuff?” Stephen asked, recovering a little.

“We’ll come back and get them in a little bit, after the nice doggies go home.” She took another step forward, and the retriever and the beagle took four more steps. Now they were closer to Stephen than she was, and she didn’t dare charge them.

She tried to recall what she knew of animal behavior. Smell was a dog’s most powerful sense, and they related to the world on a spectrum people could only scarcely understand. Steaks on the grill were the equivalent of a majestic symphony to them. A Slim Jim was like a painting by Monet, and bacon was like the erotic caress of a velvet glove on the nape of the neck.

But fear also had a smell, a brittle, metallic tang that promised pain or death. Or maybe just easy prey.

“Okay, Stephen,” she said, now taking steady, slow steps forward as the hissing intensified. “When I count to three, run to the station wagon like I told you.”

All three dogs lifted their heads in anticipation of her approach, and their yellow teeth gleamed in the dying light of dusk.

“Run!” she yelled, charging toward the dogs with her arms wide. She’d once seen a show on the Discovery Challenge about animals that made themselves appear larger in order to scare off predators. In that case, she wanted to look like a giant she-banshee from hell.

She let her own hiss rise in her throat, a release of her mounting fear, and Stephen’s mouth opened in surprise. Then he obeyed and broke out of his trance, pumping his little legs as he scooted around the truck.

Just as she suspected, her little freak show stole the dogs’ attention and they didn’t even glance at the retreating boy. Rachel was impressed by the noise she was making, and she unleashed all the rage, frustration, and hopelessness that had been hiding in a black well inside her soul.

Her anguished howl poured over the highway and reverberated off of steel and glass, becoming the lost voice of the forgotten human race and drowning out the hissing of the mutant dogs.

For a moment, she even forgot to be afraid.

Then the shepherd lunged at her.

And then she remembered.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Campbell didn’t believe what he was seeing.

Wilma had led him deep into the forest and they’d suddenly emerged on the edge of a beautiful meadow that exploded with vibrant orange jewelweed, yellow asters, and daisies. A barbed-wire fence marked off the boundaries of the pastoral scene, and a red barn stood at the bottom of the slope. A set of twin brown ruts wound up the opposite hill, leading to a two-story white farmhouse with black shutters on the windows and high columns on the porch. An old Ford truck was parked under a tin shed, along with a tractor and various implements like a disc harrow, plow, and hay baler.

It was like a postcard from a bygone era, nostalgia for a way of life that had never existed.

“If this wasn’t the end of the world, I would think I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he said.

Wilma leaned against a locust post, catching her breath. “Cows all died or they would have eat the grass down.”

“How far are we from the highway?”

“Three miles or so. That dirt road goes past about six more farms just like it. This one is the end of the road.”

Campbell wasn’t sure how to ask the next question. The woman hadn’t shown much concern for the Zapheads as they’d navigated the forest. Campbell had been on high alert for the both of them, but he hadn’t seen so much as a stray blue jay.

“That looks like a solid house. Why don’t you live here instead of—”

“Instead of that trashy little camper trailer?” She spat onto a stalk of pokeweed, and the drop of clotted saliva clung to a cluster of indigo berries.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know your kind. Uppity fellows that go to college and read the
New York Times
and think they know what’s good for everybody else. If the dookie hadn’t have hit the fan, you’da been a lawyer and got yourself elected to the town council, then made up zones and rules for everybody else to live by. When all you really want is for people to be just like you.”

“I—I’m sorry about all that. It’s just…nobody knows how we’re supposed to
live
anymore.”

“And that pisses you off, doesn’t it?”

“All of this makes me realize how fragile we are,” he said, knowing philosophical debates were as useless as ever. “The people we love, the structures we believe in, the investments we make for the future.”

“A little smarts is all we need.” She tore one of the leafy stalks from the pokeweed plant. “Did you know you can eat these? Fine source of vitamins. But the berries will kill you stone dead. People used to know that, but they forgot it when they started relying on ‘structures’ instead of themselves.”

She handed him the leaf and he sniffed it suspiciously. She laughed. “It’s bitter as hell in autumn. You want to eat it in the spring when it’s young and tender. Same as dandelions and ramps. Cleans you out after a long winter.”

Campbell wondered if they would be able to return to the camper trailer before dark. He didn’t like being unarmed with night falling, and he wondered if trusting Wilma had been a mistake. Perhaps his initial impression had been correct and she was mentally ill.

“Shouldn’t we be heading back?” he asked.

“I thought you wanted to see them.”

“Where?”

Wilma nodded toward the house.

“They’re inside?”

“Around back.”

“So we walk around the edge of the fence and watch them from the woods?”

“No. We walk right up to them.”

His suspicions were right. She
was
crazy. “We don’t have any weapons.”

She put a foot on the lower strand of barbed wire and yanked up the middle strand, then slid between the gap with all the grace of a bloated goat. From the other side of the fence, she said, “Suit yourself,” and began walking across the meadow.

He looked back into the woods, where the rising shadows seemed even more ominous. Then he climbed over the fence and hurried after her.

When he caught up, she said, “Whatever you do, stay calm and don’t show any fear.”