Bone And Cinder: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Zapheads Book 1) (12 page)

“Mackie, what’s—?”  Kara asked.

“It’s a cat.  Her name’s Sabbath.”

“A cat.”

“Not now,” Mackie said.  “Pay attention.  This is what you’ll use for the diversion.” He held up the jar of gasoline.  Kara clicked her lighter in order to see better.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Mackie said.

The flame bobbed in the reflection of the glass.  “Is that—”

“Gasoline,” Mackie said.  “Use it to create a fire, an explosion that will send Krider, Herrera, and McRae out to investigate.  I’m assuming they spend most of their time in the student union, so make sure the flames are fully visible from there.  Once they’re outside, take everyone else and hide them away somewhere.  I’ll position myself where I can pick off Krider, Herrera, and McRae easily enough.”

“But maybe they don’t all come out to investigate the fire,” Meredith said.  “What then?”

“Never claimed the plan was perfect.”

“And a roaring blaze on campus?  What if we can’t contain it?”

“There’s plenty of fire extinguishers on campus,” Mackie said.  “We only need the flames to serve as a distraction for just a few minutes.  We won’t let it spread too far.”

Mackie handed the jar of gasoline to Meredith.  “Make Molotov cocktails and create a series of explosions, or use it all and make one big bang.  Whatever you think is best.  Just make sure you get their attention.  Whenever I smell smoke and see flames, I’ll know it’s time to make my move.”

“Mackie?”  It was Kara.

“Yes?”

“Why is there a
cat
in your backpack?”

“I found her in one of the houses on Faculty Hill.  A piece of normal to keep me grounded.  And I like the company.”

Mackie pulled Sabbath from the backpack.  She shivered and curled into a tight ball in Mackie’s arms.

A strictly indoor kitty easily frightened by the overwhelming expansiveness of the outdoor world.  Mackie understood.  With most of the people gone and others turned into violent killers, the planet had become an awfully big and scary place.

Meredith and Kara stroked Sabbath’s fur as if it were a talisman of better days ahead.  “Are you going to keep her?” Meredith asked.

“Yes.  Now get going.”

Kara and Meredith headed toward campus, their steps tentative, using the lighter’s flame to guide them between the trees.  Mackie fed Sabbath and placed her inside the backpack again.  He began his trek toward the cottages that were nestled in the little valley behind campus.  He would take shelter in one—after clearing it of any Zapheads and securing it—and wait there for the smell of smoke and the glow of flames.

Mackie kept his gaze on the ground, wary of the roots and rocks that were difficult to see in the low light.

Kuh-whack.

When the pain detonated across the back of his skull and filled his vision with bursts of light, Mackie’s first thought was that he’d been shot in the head.

17.

He was on his knees, and then flat on his face, and even through the ringing in his ears he could hear Sabbath’s startled meow as her sanctuary seemed to drop from the sky and crash hard to the ground below.

Mackie rolled over onto his left shoulder.  Artiss loomed above him holding what appeared to be a thick tree branch.

But that couldn’t be right because this guy had a thicker build than Artiss, even though the hair looked mostly the same.  The roaring ache in Mackie’s skull felt as if the bones comprising it were being ground to powder.

And then the kid standing above him was shouting, and Mackie couldn’t make out the words, which seemed strange to him because he had no problem hearing Sabbath’s meows from inside the backpack.

It sounded like the kid was calling him.  Which made no sense at all.

“Where the hell is Benny?”

The kid lunged at Mackie, the tree branch raised in a two-handed grip, and brought the club down toward Mackie’s head before Mackie realized he was still holding his Glock.

Mackie shifted slightly so that his right shoulder took the brunt of the branch’s impact rather than his head or neck.  Even with the electric burst of pain that shot down the length of his entire arm, Mackie was still able to raise the Glock and slam the barrel into the kid’s groin.

The kid barked and bent forward at the waist, still clutching the branch, but the inclination and ability to use it as a weapon had left him in a hurry.

Mackie whipped a kick into the kid’s knee.  He fell onto his side, discarded the branch, and clutched the leg, his face clenched in a tight mask of pain.

Mackie slipped off the backpack, Sabbath thrashing and meowing inside, and stood over the aggressive newcomer, the Glock held low and pressed against his thigh.

He’d club the little bastard again if need be, but he wouldn’t even think of squeezing off a shot—unless the kid had a gun of his own, which didn’t seem to be the case.

And then the kid was on his knees, lunging half-assed at Mackie, wrapping his arms around Mackie’s waist, trying his damndest to get Mackie off his feet with all the effort his shattered knee and ruptured balls would allow.

Mackie cracked the Glock’s handle against the kid’s ear. The kid yelped and fell flat on his face, sobbing.

“Who are you?” Mackie asked.

“I’m just...I’m just looking for Benny.”

“Don’t know who that is.”

“I know he was at the college.  What the hell did you people do to him?”

Oh shit.

Now Mackie recognized him.  “You were the one on the stairwell.  In town.”

“Yuh-yeah.”

“Why did you run away?”

“A crazy guy with a gun? You kidding me?”

“What’s your name?” Mackie asked, letting the kid get a good look at the Glock.

“Jason.  Jason Hartsoe.”

“You from Wendover Home, Jason?”

“Yeah.”

Which meant that Benny was Despondent Guy from the dining hall.  The one Herrera iced without so much as an eye blink.

“Is Benny your friend?”

“Yeah.”

“Get up.”

Jason braced his hands on the ground beneath him like a kid doing push-ups, Mackie standing over him with the Glock like a sadistic gym coach.  The kid made it to his knees, winced at the pain from Mackie’s kick, and slowly got his feet beneath him, hunched and shaky.

“Benny, he’s from Wendover Home, too?” Mackie asked.

The kid nodded.  Mackie wouldn’t have been able to see the motion if the kid hadn’t been standing so close and the moon wasn’t so bright overhead.

“Benny’s dead,” Mackie said.

“Shut up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut up.”

Give him a second to process.  Let him ask the questions.

And then Jason was on him, screaming and swinging wildly.  Mackie blocked the shots with his forearms and shoved a hard palm into the kid’s solar plexus, dropping him on his ass.

“We fought them together...when they changed...became monsters,” Jason blubbered.  “All of a sudden people started dropping dead all around us.  But the ones that didn’t die, their eyes got all weird, like fires were burning inside them.  One of them tried to get Benny, but we knocked him over and holed up where it was safe, wondering what in the hell was going on.”

“There was a solar storm, lots of flares,” Mackie said, wondering how technical he should get.  The kid probably didn’t understand electromagnetic pulses, and nobody had figured out what kind of radioactive effect had spawned the Zapheads.  “They sent off these waves of energy that scrambled the wiring in their brains.”

“Kind of like zombies?”

“Something like that, but these things just want to destroy us instead of eat us.  For some reason, some of us don’t seem to be affected.”

“Like those people on campus with the guns?  Those are
normal
people?”

“They aren’t Zapheads, but they’re not normal.”

“I should have been with him. He...”  Jason heaved his shoulders as he choked with anger and sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” Mackie said again.

“Did those things get him?”

“They’re called ‘Zapheads,’” Mackie said.  “That’s what the news called them before everything shut down.  But it wasn’t them that killed Benny.”

Jason drew in a sharp breath.  “Who then?”

“Survivors.  At the college.”

“What did
you
people do?” Jason’s voice splintered into sobs.

“Not me.  There are some bad people on campus.  One of them...he thought your friend was a threat.  And he killed him.”

“Benny, he’s...if he doesn’t take his meds, he’s not right.”

Mackie could relate. He’d been off his own meds far too long, and the psychological craving squirmed inside his head like a slick worm.

Jason cleared his throat and asked, “Who did it?”

“A man named Herrera.  He’s a psychopath, a murderer.”

“Is he your friend?”

“No, Jason.  He isn’t.”

“I want to kill him.”

“So do I.”

Mackie opened his backpack, took out a bottle of water, the remaining Ritz crackers, and the jar of peanut butter.  Sabbath swatted playfully at his hands with her paws as he removed the items.  She’d seemed eager to escape a few moments earlier, but now that things had settled, she was comfortable once more.

Mackie placed the food and water next to Jason.  He didn’t touch them at first, but eventually he opened the sleeve of Ritz and popped a few in his mouth.  And then suddenly, the jar of peanut butter was open and Jason was shoveling in handfuls of a muddy cracker and peanut butter mixture, guzzling the water to flush the thick globs of salty sweetness down his throat.

“Go easy,” Mackie said.  “You’ll make yourself sick.”

Jason just kept shoveling in the food and draining the bottle of water.  Soon the cracker sleeve was empty and the jar of peanut butter had been almost fully depleted.  Out of crackers, Jason used his fingers to shove in mouthfuls of peanut butter.

Mackie rolled his eyes.  So much for saving the rest of the jar for later.

After the crackers, peanut butter, and water were gone, Jason asked, “You have any more?”

“Yeah, but you’ve had enough for now.”

Mackie sat down beside Jason.  “What are you doing out here?”

“Told you.  I was looking for Benny.  I looked for him at the college for awhile, saw people hanging around with guns.  Couldn’t find him and I didn’t wanna get shot, so I headed back this way.  Saw you and those two girls talkin’.  Thought you might know something about Benny.”

“But you couldn’t ask?” Mackie said.  “You thought it’d be better to just brain me with a tree branch?”

“Hey, I don’t know who the hell you people are.  Looks like you’ve all got guns.  I was scared.  And I wanted to find my friend.  And what if you were one of those things...those Zapheads?”

“Why did you think he’d be on campus?”

“That’s where we were headed when we got separated.”

“You guys knew the way?”

“We’d take field trips from Wendover, sometimes get special tutoring at the college, like we were their guinea pigs.  When all hell broke loose, we locked ourselves in this room—there were three of us: me, Benny, and this girl Anna—and we waited there for awhile.  Nobody showed up to help.  We climbed out a window and ran.  Bunch of those crazy people chased us for awhile.  We found these houses up on that hill back there...we stayed in one of them for awhile.  And then Anna got hurt.”

Mackie checked the forest around them for signs of either Zapheads or Krider’s crew, exhaustion creeping in as Jason continued.

“She went outside one morning, and one of those things was out there...I don’t know what happened.  When she came back inside, she had blood all over her.”

Jason wiped at his eyes again.  “We tried to take care of her, but she just got worse and worse.  Benny, he said he was gonna go to the college, look for help.  But he hadn’t had any of his meds for awhile...I mean, he just wasn’t himself.”

Mackie understood.  By the time Benny found his way to campus, his brain was in such a fog that he probably couldn’t remember why he had come in the first place.

“Where’s Anna now?” Mackie asked.

“She’s gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I tried to, y’know, bury her out here.  Couldn’t find a shovel, just one of those hand tools people use in their gardens—”

“You mean a spade?”

“Think so, yeah.  I didn’t do such a good job.  Maybe you could come with me, take a look?”

Mackie glanced through the trees in the direction of campus.  No orange flame glow.  No scent of smoke.  He had no idea how long it would take Meredith and Kara to put the plan in motion.  There were so many moving parts involved that the probability of failure was high, if not inevitable.  There was no time to take a walk with this kid and look at his friend’s makeshift grave.

But until he saw flames or smelled smoke, there was nothing but time.

“Is it far?” Mackie asked.

“No, just on the edge of the woods.”

“Okay, then.  Sure.”