Bone And Cinder: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Zapheads Book 1) (7 page)

Mackie turned to face Krider.  “Lucas, stop this.”

Krider said nothing.

“Firm commitment, yes or no?”

“Herrera—”

“Firm commitment,
yes or no?
”

More incoherent sputtering from Despondent Guy.

With one smooth motion, Herrera swiped his blade across Despondent Guy’s throat.

A red gash opened across his neck.  Herrera released Despondent Guy’s collar, and he stumbled backwards. He looked confused for a moment, and then he raised his hands as if to probe his sliced throat.

He dropped to his knees and then toppled over on his right side before he could lift his hands high enough to inspect the wound Herrera’s knife made.

Mackie roared and charged at Herrera.  Herrera lifted his right knee and snapped a kick into Mackie’s gut that sent him to his knees.

Screams and shouts erupted in the dining hall as Despondent Guy’s corpse bled out on the floor.  McRae rose from his chair but a look and a raised palm from Krider kept him rooted in place.

Meredith was suddenly in Herrera’s face, shouting.  She raised a hand to strike him, but he easily caught her swing before it could connect.  With her fist in his left hand, Herrera braced his right hand—still holding the knife—against her arm, just above the elbow, and drove Meredith to her knees with a quick counterclockwise spin.  Meredith winced as Herrera applied pressure to her arm.

“Kid was losin’ his mind.  No telling what he might’ve done next,” Herrera said.  “We don’t have room for that here.”

Now Dante was on his feet, aiming his assault rifle at Herrera.  In one fluid movement, Krider stood and pressed the barrel of a revolver against Dante’s temple.  He gave a quick nod to McRae, who had a Sig Sauer unholstered and leveled at Sayles before he could assist either of his fellow guardsmen.  The students and Dr. Lehman seemed frozen, unable to process what they were witnessing, let alone intervene.

“He’s right,” Krider said.  “If anyone wants to lose their shit and become a liability, they’ve got no place with us here.”

“Make him let Meredith go,” Dante said.

Krider nodded at Herrera.  Herrera released his grip on Meredith and backed away.  He made no effort to help her stand.

“You didn’t—my God, you didn’t have to kill him.” It was Dr. Lehman.  The trembling that had overtaken his body had also affected his voice.

“And the alternative was what?  Let a loose cannon like that hurt one of us?  Hell, he could have been turning into one of
them
, for all we know.” Krider lowered his revolver from Dante’s temple.  Both Dante and Sayles had visibly relaxed now that Herrera was no longer holding Meredith down, but the tension hung in the air like the aftermath of an electrical storm.

Herrera stood over Mackie.  “I get the feeling your stay here is gonna be short.  But if you try to get in my way again, I’ll make sure it ends a lot sooner.”  He headed across the room toward Krider and the others.

Kara helped Mackie to his feet.  He could breathe more easily now, but the pain in his stomach kept him from straightening his spine.  He hunched over the bleeding corpse for a moment.  A bubble of blood had collected on Despondent Guy’s lower lip and popped.  Checking for a pulse wasn’t worth the effort it would take to lean down over the body.

Krider was addressing the others, but Mackie couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“I don’t think he was a student here,” Mackie said to Kara.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at him.  He could maybe pass for a college freshman, but he’s younger.  No older than seventeen, I’d bet.”

“My God,” Kara said, a tremor running through her words.  “Just a kid.”

“I think he’s from Wendover Home.”

“The what?”

Mackie lowered himself into a chair.  Taking the weight off his feet eased the pain in his stomach slightly.  “Wendover Home, it’s a—”

“A group home for troubled children.  Not far from here,” Meredith said.

Mackie nodded.  “It explains the erratic behavior.  The kid survives the solar storms, by some miracle makes his way here, but without whatever meds he needed to control his behavior...”

“That psycho murdered a child.”  Meredith’s voice wavered and then cracked.  “An emotionally disturbed child.  So who is the crazy one here?”

Her eyes were damp but fully formed tears weren’t ready to fall just yet.  Even trained soldiers were vulnerable to their feelings, especially under stress like this.

With his thumbs, Mackie pulled the dead boy’s eyelids closed.  Then, without saying anything, he made his way toward the dining hall’s exit, past the students and guardsmen and Krider and his men, and past Dr. Lehman who sat with his head in his palms, his shoulders heaving with sobs.

10.

He would’ve killed for a few Vicodin.

After leaving the dining hall, he sat with Allie in the library until Desiree showed up over an hour later.  With Desiree’s help, Mackie transported Allie to her old room, struggling all the way.

Mackie had also retrieved Allie’s guitar and placed it in a corner.  No one else was going to touch it while he was here.

Now he lay next to Allie in her dorm room.  She was in her bed tucked beneath a pair of blankets.  Desiree was napping on the other bed.

Allie was fully agitated now, the Haldol having worn off long ago.  He had no idea where Krider was keeping his backpack with all the drugs inside.

Mackie’s entire body felt like an exposed nerve.  He closed his eyes and tried to shut out both the sound of Allie’s feverish moans and the hunger pains in his brain and body that threatened to send him scurrying off in search of narcotics.

No more heroin.  Not under any circumstances.

But a handful of Vicodin or a few Oxys or Percs...that would soothe the cravings, allow him to bypass the agony he was in for.

No.  You’d never be able to hide that from Krider.  And you need to be focused.

There was a soft knock at the door.  Mackie had forgotten to lock it, and once he’d settled in beside Allie he couldn’t summon the energy to get up and take care of it.  On the other bed, Desiree snored softly.

The doorknob turned and Krider entered, standing in silhouette against the fading daylight.

His gaze fell first on Desiree’s sleeping form and then on Allie and Mackie.  He smiled.  “Cozy.”

Mackie said nothing.

“You should’ve told me that you were moving her back in here,” Krider said.  He spoke softly.  Out of consideration, Mackie assumed, for Desiree.

“You think I need your permission for that?”

“Well, no, not really.  But I do want to keep track of everyone.  Even the Zapheads.”

“Why are you here?”  Mackie asked.  His own voice matched the softness of Krider’s, but he managed to put a growl of defiance into it.  “You knew I’d be holed up safe and sound.  As far away from your animals as possible.”

“What happened in the dining hall, that didn’t sit too well with you, did it?”

“Your psycho sidekick murdered a kid.  That didn’t need to happen, and that’s not what I signed up for.”

“That kid was unstable.  He could’ve hurt Meredith during that little episode, maybe others, too.  Herrera was trained to quickly assess and eliminate threats.  Whatever you think of him or what happened in the dining hall, he was doing what was necessary, unfortunate as the whole thing was.”

“That kid was no threat to us,” Mackie said.  “He was scared.”

“No threat to you or me or Herrera, maybe.  But what about the students?  Dr. Lehman?  The situation could have spiraled out of control, and we didn’t know if he was armed.”

“He was from Wendover Home,” Mackie said.  His voice was scratchy and saturated in phlegm.

“That place for delinquents and freakshow kids, yeah, I know of it.  You think the kid was from there?”

“You saw the way he behaved.  He was scared, but it was more than that.  I think they kept him medicated at Wendover, but once he found his way here and blended in with the other students—”

“He didn’t have his meds.  So it was only a matter of time before he went off the rails.”

“Exactly,” Mackie said.

“Hell, he could have been turning Zap, for that matter.  It’s not like we’re out there observing their behaviors.  People might still be affected by the storms.”

“And now we won’t ever know.  Either way, Herrera went over the top.  We can’t afford that kind of shit.  We’re barely hanging by a thread as it is.”

“You really think that changes anything?”

Mackie sat up.  “Excuse me?”

“The kid had problems, but let’s cut the shit here: He was dangerous.  You can feel sorry for a rabid dog but that doesn’t change the fact that you gotta put him down.”

“He was a
child
.  If this is what we’ve come to, maybe the solar storms should have just wiped all of us out.”

Desiree stirred.  She sat up and stared blankly at Mackie in the dim light.  When she noticed Krider in the room, her features instantly lost their dreamy haze.

“Sorry to wake you, darlin’,” Krider said.  Turning back to Mackie he said, “Rest up for a few days.  Do what you have to do to get through the withdrawals.  You’re officially in detox mode now.  When you’re feeling better, I’ll need you and another man or two to go on a supply run.  We have enough to go around for awhile, but that won’t last.”

“Supply run?  Where to?”

“Faculty Hill,” Krider said.  “And Wendover Home, too.”

“Why do you need me to go?” Mackie asked.  “Send Krider or McRae or the guardsmen.”

“You’re on a probationary period,” Krider said.  “This will be your chance to prove your usefulness.  I’d advise you to make the most of it.  But ‘til then, no pills, no dope of any kind.”

Mackie nodded.

“And Mackie?  Hope I made that clear.  Because I won’t tell you a second time.  And don’t forget, I’ll have Allie here and the others.”

Krider walked out and closed the door gently behind him.

“What was that all about?”  Desiree asked.

“Hail to the King.”

11.

Once the withdrawals increased in ferocity, Mackie’s sense of time distorted.

At daybreak, he found himself on the floor at one point, shivering uncontrollably and sweating through blankets that had been piled underneath him.  Allie was still lying on her bed, restrained but seemingly comfortable.  Her eyes roamed and glittered, but the tortured sounds to which Mackie had become accustomed had ceased.  He wondered if someone had dosed her with Haldol again while he slept, or if her mutation had entered a new phase.

He awoke from fevered oblivion to find the red sunset leaking through the windows.  He vomited into a trash can that had been conveniently placed near him.  After he finished, he noticed Desiree sitting near him, a book in her lap.  She placed a cool damp washcloth on his forehead after he lay down again.

“You don’t have to stay here with me,” he said.  “I’m too old for a babysitter, and I know this is kind of disgusting.”

Desiree shrugged.  “My mom was a nurse.  She was good at caring for people.  Guess some of that rubbed off on me.  Besides, sounds like you might be taking care of
us
at some point.”

Mackie drifted off again.  He awoke to find the room cloaked in a hot, suffocating blackness.  A layer of sticky sweat coated his skin.  The room’s stale air stank of body odor.

A watery sensation rippled through his bowels and he managed to climb to his feet on shaky legs.  The weight of overpowering fatigue pulled him to his knees and once he connected with the floor again, his bowels gurgled.  He staggered to the door, dimly aware of Allie lying in bed.  Desiree came out of nowhere to help him down the dark hall to the communal bathroom.  The water system no longer functioned and the stink slapped him like a tsunami.

Desiree eased him down onto one of the half-filled toilets as flies buzzed around him in a black storm.

The glamorous side of addiction.

“This is awkward,” Mackie said.

“No shame in this game,” she said. “Only survival.”

After staggering back to the room with Desiree bearing most of his weight, he collapsed on the floor in a cold sweat.  He passed out again before he had a chance to weep.

###

The room felt cooler when he woke next.

He was naked beneath fresh sheets and blankets on the bed Desiree had napped on earlier.  Someone had opened the window, and the sun lit the room with a clean yellowness, tainted only by the cloud of dust motes dancing in the light.  He had awoken in Allie’s room to mornings (
was
it still morning?) like this many times before.  While the thin spider strands of sleep burned from his consciousness, it was easy enough to pretend he was back in those days, had in fact never really left.

“Ready to join the living?”  Dr. Lehman asked.

The professor and Kara sat in wooden chairs to his left.  Allie still had the muted features indicative of chemical sedation.  Someone, Desiree, most likely, had obviously continued dosing her with Haldol.  Mackie wondered how much longer his supply would last, and what would happen to Allie when it ran out.

“How long have I been here?” Mackie asked.  Though he could tell that his energy level was still mostly depleted, the worst of the withdrawals were behind him.

“About three days,” Dr. Lehman replied.  “I found you on the floor last night.  You were...a mess.  I tried to clean you up as best I could.”

So Lehman had stripped him, cleaned the shit off of him, and helped him into bed.

Mackie couldn’t decide which emotion was stronger at the moment, embarrassment or gratitude.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Lehman asked.

“Not good.  Not terrible.  But better than before.”  He asked Kara, “Where’ve you been?”

She shrugged.  “Around.  Trying to keep as far from Krider and Herrera as possible.  Most of us are holed up here in the dorm.  Krider’s taken over the student union as his headquarters.”

“What’s it like out there?”

“Nobody’s talking much.  And everybody smells because no one’s bathing, but at least most of the corpses have been collected.  Krider, Herrera, McRae, and those three from the National Guard are always together.  I don’t think we can count on much support from anyone that’s holding a gun at this point.”

Mackie looked at Dr. Lehman.  “Do you know anything about Lucas Krider?  Do you have any idea what he is?”

“Kara filled me in.  Sounds like bad news.”

“It was no coincidence that Krider was in this area when the storms came.  He was here to kill me.  And Kara.”

Dr. Lehman leaned back in his chair.  “Mackie?  I can’t believe—”

“I’ll tell you everything later.”  Mackie sat up, remembered he was nude beneath the sheets and blankets.  “Where are my clothes?”

Kara reached behind her and picked up a stack comprised of Mackie’s jeans, socks, and underwear.  “We washed these for you in the fountain outside, but they’re not dry yet.”

Mackie took the stack from her.  The underwear and socks were dry enough, but the jeans were stiff and damp.

“The kid from the dining hall.  What happened to his body?”

“Saw a couple of those guardsmen, the men, dragging it away,” Kara said.  “Not sure where they took him.  Maybe with the other corpses, over in the basement of the gym.  I heard somebody talking about building a burn pile.”

Mackie slid his underwear on beneath the sheets as Kara looked away.  “Now that I’m feeling a little better, Krider’s gonna send me on a supply run.”

“Where?” Dr. Lehman asked.

“Faculty Hill.  Wendover Home.  Probably the police station and hospital in town.  A big recon mission to get the lay of the land.”

“There are other people he could send,” Kara said.  “Why you specifically?”

“This is his way of testing me.  Of seeing how much of an asset a clean and sober version of me can be.  Or maybe he just wants to divide us all up, keep us from plotting.”

He found his T-shirt rumpled and wadded in a corner.  He sniffed the armpits, winced, and pulled it on.

There was a knock.  Dr. Lehman answered the door.  Desiree was on the other side, a bottle of water and a can of fruit in her hands.

“You’re up,” she said.  Mackie nodded.  He wondered how many people had seen him bottoming out, wallowing in his own waste like a helpless infant.  Some hero.  He hoped none of these people were counting on him.  Because he still planned on bolting at the first opportunity, escaping with Allie and taking his chances in the wild unknown.

After he killed Krider, of course.

“Brought you these.”  Desiree held up the water and fruit.  “You’ve haven’t eaten much these past few days.  I tried to feed you a bit, but you were pretty out of it.”

Mackie had a faint memory of someone pushing something sweet and syrupy between his lips.  Probably more of the canned fruit that Desiree had now.  He was simultaneously touched and horrified by the amount of attention she’d paid him.

“Thanks.  Not now, though.  But seriously, for everything you’ve done for us,” Mackie nodded toward Allie.  “You’re an angel. I appreciate it.”

Desiree smiled.  “I convinced them to let me have your Haldol.  Y’know, for her.”  She tilted her head at Allie.

Mackie gently touched her shoulder as he stepped past her and through the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“There’s something I have to do now,” Mackie said.  “You guys...you look after each other.  Look after Allie.”

“I’m leaving, too,” Lehman said quietly.

“What?  For where?”

“I have to go back to Faculty Hill.”

“Why?”

Lehman sighed.  “Evelyn Kinney.  You remember her?”

Mackie nodded.  A photography professor. Mackie had taken a summer session with her once.

“She and I...we were...we were seeing each other.  I went over to her house before I came here...and she...she was one of them.”

“A Zaphead?” Mackie asked.

Lehman bit down hard on his lower lip.  “I should’ve done something right then and there.  But I got scared.  I ran.  But I can’t leave her like that.”

“I’ll do it, if she’s still around,” Mackie said.  He turned to leave.

“No, I can’t ask—”

“I’ll do it,” Mackie said again.  “You’re safer here, and we can’t afford to lose you.  The good guys are going extinct.”