After: The Echo (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 2) (21 page)

Campbell paced, eyeing the ten feet to the door and wondering if he could reach it before the Zapheads reacted. They were all watching him now, eyes glittering with whatever deranged fuel burned inside them. Even if he made it to the hall, he had no idea how many more would be waiting downstairs or around the house.

Campbell gave a bitter laugh. “‘Show no fear,’ Wilma said.”

“And she was right,” the professor said.

“
Right
,” one of the Zapheads said.

“
Right
,” said another, and then another.

“Don’t you see?” the professor said. “This is a chance to start over. To teach them—to
program
them, if you will—without all the old sins and failures.”

Campbell sat back down on the bed, its springs squeaking. He’d be sleeping here tonight. Would one of the Zapheads crawl in with him, maybe imitate the positions portrayed in the pornography? Or maybe he’d start snoring and they’d tear his throat apart to see where the noise was coming from.

Yeah, sweet dreams forever
.

“They’re like children,” the professor said. “They become what you feed them, so act with care. It’s the key to your personal survival as well.”

“Nothing personal, professor, but you look like you’ve aged a hundred years since I last saw you.”

The man gave a tense smile. “I have tenure now.”

“Well, you can stay on the retirement track if you want. Me, I’d rather die.”

“
Die
,” said the granny, followed by several others, until the room thundered with their repetitive “
Die, die, die
.”

Campbell tried to shout over them and make them shut up, or at least mock a different word, but the chant continued. Campbell finally did the only thing he could think of, a way to silence them, the only option left besides actually dying.

He pressed his palms together, stuck his hands under his chin, and turned to face the painting above the bed.

Within a minute, the room had grown still and quiet again, all the Zapheads in their bizarre yoga positions with their hands once again clasped in reverence.

What the hell. Prayer works.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Well,” Franklin said. “If this is how they were wasting my money all those years, I should have cheated more on my taxes.”

Jorge was in no mood to endure the old man’s gallows humor. All he could think about was his wife and daughter out there somewhere, facing danger and uncertainty. And he was helpless.

The soldiers had marched them at least five miles through the woods, leading them to a massive outcropping of rock. Jorge had been sure the soldiers were going to shoot them there and leave them for the buzzards, especially because Franklin was cussing and taunting them every step of the way.

Instead, they were led into a narrow crevice that opened into a wider alley of rock, where a thick steel door was set into the stone and held in place with concrete. Franklin had called it “Hitler’s Hideaway” and Sarge had punched him in the stomach, and Franklin had fallen to the concrete floor and coughed and laughed for a full minute, until Sarge kicked him in the head and knocked him unconscious.

Jorge kept his mouth shut so he was largely left alone, although he took in the surroundings of cold steel walls, rusty iron girders supporting the weight of the earth above, and lockers and shelves stacked with supplies. A string of dim bulbs illuminated the long corridor, barely brighter than the lights on a Christmas tree. The passageway was lined with about twenty tiny rooms, the first holding a desk and some communications equipment that looked like it had been gutted and then smashed in frustration. Another large room with cinderblock walls was occupied by uniformed men playing cards at small tables, smoking cigarettes, or reading magazines. Most of the other rooms held twin sets of bunk beds.

It was in one of these beds that Franklin’s limp form had been deposited. Jorge had been ordered into the room, and the door was locked and bolted from the outside. The door featured a narrow grill through which he could see several feet down the hall in each direction. A little slot near the bottom served as a food access, and a metal pail on the floor was apparently intended as a toilet.

Jorge wasn’t sure how long he’d been brooding when Franklin groaned from the cramped, uncomfortable bed. The room only held one weak light that did little more than illuminate the center of the room. Jorge guessed it was powered by a solar-panel system similar to Franklin’s, although occasionally he heard a deep
thrum
that might have been a gasoline-powered generator. He supposed it was possible the military had shielded some equipment and gear from the sun’s effects, just as Franklin’s Faraday cage had protected his radio and batteries.

Franklin staggered to the door and yanked at the little window grill as if trying to tear it loose, although the opening was far too small for him to crawl through even if he’d been successful.

“Hey, I want to call my lawyer!” Franklin shouted down the hall. His words bounced off the concrete surfaces.

“You should save your energy,” Jorge said.

“Aw, come on, Jorge,” Franklin said. “You can’t take this shit too seriously.”

The man’s eyes fairly glistened with good humor. Jorge couldn’t understand it. But the man had no family to worry about. Maybe he was relieved to have his conflicts resolved and to be given an opportunity to serve as a martyr for his cause. After all, this tyrannical treatment confirmed everything Franklin had ever believed and preached.

“I remember something you said to me once, while we were digging potatoes.”

“Potatoes,” Franklin said. “The eyes have it.”

Jorge was worried that the man had truly gone over the edge. And here they were, confined in an eight-by-ten room where clocks no longer held sway.

“About ‘The End is Near’ sign,” Jorge said.

“What about it?”

“Take a guy walking around with a sign that says ‘The End is Near.’ Even if he turns out to be right, he’s still an asshole.”

Franklin started guffawing as if he’d never heard the saying before. He slapped his knees, then bent over and wheezed himself into a coughing fit. Finally he sat down on the little bed, still chuckling.

A commotion erupted down the corridor, shouts and blows and curses. Franklin and Jorge crowded at the window to get a look. At first they saw only a group of soldiers, clumped together and waving their arms. Then Sarge emerged from the pack, pulling a rope that was tied to a man’s hands. The man was shaggy, his gray suit hanging in shreds, most of the buttons missing from his shirt. His bearded face was covered in bruises, and blood seeped from one of his nostrils.

“Whoo-hoo,” one of the soldiers whooped. “Finally got you one, Sarge!”

“Bastards are harder to catch than a butterfly in a hurricane,” Sarge said. One of the soldiers opened the door to the room across the hall from Jorge and Franklin. Just before the man was shoved brutally into the room, he turned to face Jorge.

Glittering eyes.

“Get in there, you freak,” the sergeant screamed, releasing the rope and driving a boot into the Zaphead’s spine. The mutant whipped forward and skidded across the rough floor.

Another soldier held up a gleaming knife. “Let me see what makes him tick, Sarge.”

“Time enough for that later, dumbass. First we have to watch him and see what they’re up to.”

“Looks like a commie Russian spy to me,” Franklin said. “Or a commie U.S. spy.”

Sarge charged up to the grill, jabbing a menacing finger. Jorge backed away but Franklin stood his ground.

“You better watch your mouth, or I’ll toss you in there with that thing,” Sarge said. “We could use a little entertainment around here.” He leered in at Jorge. “Maybe we will find us a spicy little
mamacita
to play with.”

Jorge leaped at the door, bones clanging against the riveted steel panels. Sarge walked across the hall and slammed the door on the Zaphead.

Soon after, the lights went out, but Jorge’s mood could not have gotten any darker.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Zapheads gathered around the conflagration, drawing as close to the flames as the heat allowed.

Intense ripples of light danced across their faces, and Rachel wondered if this was a new form of sun worship, if something deep inside their beings enticed them to the act of combustion. They exhibited no reaction to pain, although smoke rose from some of their clothes as if the fabric was on the verge of igniting.

“Won’t they catch on fire?” Stephen asked. “Like the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four?”

“I hope so,” Rachel said. The sprint up the hill had opened the bite wound on her calf, and the bandage was soggy and stained with a pink excrescence of blood and pus.

“But the Human Torch doesn’t burn up. He shoots fire out of his arms.”

“That wouldn’t be so good, then.”

From their position on the hill, shielded by low brush and weeds, they could see the entire valley. Flames swarmed the gas station complex, engulfing several cars whose shoppers had probably died there during the solar storms. The thick black smoke drifted toward the west, away from them, but the smell of burning rubber and plastic was pungent.

“DeVontay will see the smoke,” Stephen said.

“Sure,” Rachel said.

“And he’ll come see what caused it.”

“Yes,” she said, although it was more likely DeVontay would avoid the area, knowing the fire would attract Zapheads.

Assuming he’s still alive.

“We’ll be able to see him if he comes down the highway,” she said.

“Following the X-Men bread crumbs!”

She ruffled his hair, noting that it was greasy. “We’re going to have to find you some shampoo soon.”

“I’m not taking no bath.”

“That’s ‘any’ bath.”

“You don’t correct DeVontay when he doesn’t talk right.”

“DeVontay’s a grown man. You’re still a child.”

“A child who helped save your life.”

“Score,” she said. “You’ve got a point.”

Rachel looked around, wondering how long it would take for the fire to spread to the other stores and then the hill. The way the wind was blowing, it might reach the trees and then grow into a wildfire.

“We need to keep moving,” Rachel said.

Stephen shot her a dubious look. “Can you even walk?”

“Of course.”

“Your backpack’s down there.”

“Yes.”

“And we don’t got no…I mean, we don’t
have
a map.” Stephen hugged his own backpack as if she might claim it, along with his comic book collection.

“That’s okay. We’ll stop at houses along the way and find what we need. And we don’t need a map because we’re almost there.” She pointed to the undulating ridges that rose in the northwest. “The Blue Ridge Parkway runs across those mountains. If we just keep walking, we’re bound to hit it sooner or later. Then we can find Milepost 291 and rest a bit.”

She didn’t believe it would be that simple. Nothing in After had been easy. But all that remained was to do the next right thing, to trust in the vision that her grandfather Franklin Wheeler had imparted.

She could almost hear him now:
“Freedom doesn’t come without sacrifice, Rachel.”

She stood, smiling at Stephen to hide her grimace. Her leg felt as if someone had ripped open the flesh with a circular saw, packed it full of battery acid, tied it shut with barbed wire, and then poured salted lemon juice on it before applying the tip of a blow torch to seal the wound.

Rachel took a tentative step and decided that she could endure it. Their progress would be slow, but she wasn’t ready to surrender yet.

The next step, and the next.

For Chelsea. For Stephen. For Grandpa.

Even for me.

“Rachel?”

She’d been so focused on whether her leg wouldn’t betray her that she hadn’t realized she’d left Stephen behind. She turned around to find him watching the Zapheads at the gas station.

One of them, standing near the overturned and blackened hull of the Toyota pickup, reached out a hand as if to touch the fire. His shirt sleeve burst into flames and then the yellow and orange heat licked along the length of his arm.

The Zaphead turned his palm up as if curious about the strange, flickering light. It caught the full fabric of his shirt, and then his beard and hair burst into flames. Soon he was ablaze from the torso up, immolated, but he didn’t beat at the fire or retreat from the heat.

It reminded Rachel of the famous photograph of the Buddhist monk who’d set himself on fire to protest persecution in Vietnam.

Except this Zaphead wasn’t protesting.

Neither did he flee.

Instead, he seemed entirely ambivalent about the blistering and popping of his flesh.

“He looks just like the Human Torch,” Stephen whispered.

She pulled on his arm. He’d seen far too much already.

The nearest Zaphead also reached out a hand to touch the burning creature, which then stepped forward into the larger conflagration. The second one looked at her palm and the smoke rising from scorched flesh, and then she followed. So did another.

All the gathered Zapheads then walked into the fire, one by one, approaching from all sides, their bodies outlined in dark silhouette for just a moment before vanishing into the roaring heart of hell.

“Come
on
,” Rachel said, nearly weeping, tugging Stephen so hard they both almost tumbled over.

Stephen finally relented and she led him up the slope, disguising her limp, as the fire crackled and spat with the discovery of new fuel. The petroleum smoke changed flavor, and Rachel nearly vomited.

It smelled like barbecue.

They didn’t scream.

God, why didn’t you at least let them scream?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE