After: Red Scare (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 5) (6 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Another one of us just died,” the baby said.

Jorge stared at the mutant infant in Rosa’s arms. The baby expressed neither alarm nor sorrow at the announcement, but Rosa looked horrified. The candles they’d found in the stockroom cast an illusion of warmth but also stretched flickering shadows along the walls that did little to calm the group’s nerves.

“How do you know?” Rosa asked.

“I felt it. They want to kill us all.”

Yes. Because we’ve figured out what you are and what you plan to do.

“I won’t let them hurt you, Bryan,” Rosa said.

“That’s not Bryan,” Marina said. “That woman at the stadium took Bryan.”

Rosa addressed the baby rather than her own daughter. “You’ll be Bryan for me, won’t you,
muchachito
?”

“He’s not a little boy,” Jorge said. “He’s a little monster.”

Bryan giggled and patted his chubby hands together. “A little monster! Can I be a vampire?”

“Don’t joke about such a thing, Bryan,” Rosa said. “We have to set a good example for others.”

Many men in Jorge’s culture saw putting hands on their women as a duty, hiding behind
machismo
because they lacked the passion and patience required to communicate. Jorge had never raised his hand against his wife or child, but now he was filled with an urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her to her senses.

But Marina was watching, and Rosa was right.
We have to set a good example for others.

If Jorge flew into a rage, the delicate balance of the mood would break apart.

The others sat at booths near the front window, except for Wanda, who had taken up residence behind the bar and sampled exotic liquors. The other two Zaphead babies rested on the floor at Father Casey’s feet. They both appeared to be sleeping, although Jorge had a sneaking suspicion they were pretending, while actually listening intently—or maybe psychically communicating with the Zapheads scattered over Newton.

The skinny woman, whose name was Yvonne, stood guard at the door, as if she could magically summon up a defense if the Zapheads detected their presence.

As darkness crept over town and the sounds of the military attack faded, they debated whether to find a more secure hideout, but the swarming tides of Zapheads showed no sign of dwindling. The wind had shifted to the southwest, and the conflagration on the outskirts of town followed, the threat of fire pushed away from them for the moment. In the end, they could think of no better plan, at least one they could all agree on, than to hold out and wait.

“Bryan,” Jorge said to the infant, forcing himself not to mock the name. He ignored Rosa’s hostile glare. “You know when one of you has died. So the other babies like you know you’re here, correct?”

“The newest New People do.” Bryan seemed pleased at Jorge’s curiosity, as if their social structure was so brilliant he was proud to share the architecture of it. “But some of us died in the attack. Eleven of us are left.”

“So, if you are all connected, why don’t the other New People gather in a group and rescue you? They’re walking around without purpose, and you’ve been telling us all about how efficient and organized the New People will be once your order is established.”

“Mussolini made the trains run on time,” Wanda slurred from her perch on a barstool. “At least until they hung his fat Italian ass upside down from a pole.”

Jorge ignored her and continued. “So why does one minor attack from a weak threat leave you so vulnerable?”

The baby’s forehead furrowed as if not understanding the question. “
E pluribus unum
. From your Latin, ‘Out of many, one.’ Even you Old People understood the concept of unity as strength, despite your American ideal of individualism.”

Jorge, although pleased that the baby considered him an American rather than a Mexican immigrant, said, “That motto was rejected because it celebrated a socialistic mindset.”

“To your detriment,” Bryan said. “According to the textbooks we read, Congress adopted ‘In God we trust’ as your official motto more than half a century ago.”

Father Casey interjected, “Because we realized faith was better placed in Him than in ourselves, especially as we were busy arming enough nuclear weapons to commit suicide a thousand times over.”

“We have no conflict with the concept of God. Unity can go by any name, and ‘God’ is easier to spell than ‘communism.’”

Bryan giggled as if discovering wry humor for the first time. Jorge wondered if he’d learned that from textbooks as well. Although he was chilled by the notion that the Zaphead babies instantly shared all knowledge that one of them acquired.

Maybe we can use that to our advantage.

“So how do we let the others know you’re in danger?” Jorge asked.

“Jorge!” Rosa pulled the infant tighter into her embrace. Marina edged over in the booth to be closer to her mother, as if both of them were afraid Jorge’s temper would boil over.

“We don’t understand danger,” Bryan said, expression unchanging.

“If only eleven of you are left, and we kill three of you, won’t it be more difficult to organize your tribe?”

Bryan’s tiny eyes narrowed until the fiery glitter was almost hidden, and then he said, “I can see the value we possess. I have no information on the benefits and punishments of death, as no textbooks”—he glared up at Rosa with fervid eyes—“or none of our teachers provided insight.”

“The wages of sin is death,” Father Casey said.

“But we haven’t sinned. So why should we die?”

“Because you’re a starry-eyed little shitstorm,” Wanda bellowed from across the room. “Sure, we had our problems before you come along, and we probably would have wiped ourselves out sooner or later, but at least then it would have been our choice and our responsibility.”

Bryan looked around at the adults and then settled his gaze on Marina. “We didn’t ask to be born. Maybe that’s something Father Casey should ask his god.”

Jorge loomed menacingly over the baby, even though Rosa clutched him ever closer to her chest. “Even if you’re not afraid of dying, your tribe can’t afford to lose you. So you need to let them know what we’re about to do to you.” He nudged one of the sleeping mutant babies with his foot. “That goes for these two as well.”

Their eyes sprang open simultaneously, casting a glow brighter than the candles. “They already know,” they said in unison with Bryan.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Rachel sensed the person before she saw him descending the stairs.

The luminance cast by her eyes and those of the other four Zapheads imbued the cluttered basement with a soft, golden glow. Brightest of all were the child’s eyes—“Bryan,” he’d named himself—and Rachel’s head was filled with his presence. Not his thoughts, exactly, but some sort of pulsing energy. She understood him in a way she could never even know her own self, and through Bryan, she was part of this wonderful new world. These New People.

But this intruder—this dark-skinned human—was like a storm in the calm sky of her thoughts. Worse, it spoke.

“Rachel?” the man said. He carried a rifle, but it was pointed at the floor.

“Go away.” She defensively pulled Bryan closer to her chest. Why didn’t the other New People attack?

“Rachel, it’s me. DeVontay.”

His voice was painful, like a steak knife chewing her brain into ragged slices. The words formed no coherent whole, and she fought them with all her power. The Zapheads stirred around her, restless.

The man spoke again, waiting at the foot of the stairs. “Come with me, Rachel. You don’t belong here.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Bryan demanded in his tiny voice.

“Do you want to stay here and die?” DeVontay said. “The town is burning, and the Army’s shooting everything that moves.”

Rachel hesitated. Bryan wriggled in her embrace, agitated. Maybe he sensed the psychic disturbance as well. Or a different kind of threat—one of extinction.

“DeVontay?” she said. Although she still didn’t grasp the significance of the name, it felt familiar on her lips.

“Yes,” he said, taking another step forward. “I came for you. I want to take you back to your grandfather. Do you remember Franklin Wheeler? Stephen, our Little Man? Lt. Hilyard?”

Fragments of images floated in her mind, like puzzle pieces of unorthodox shapes. Some of the pieces locked together and she pictured Franklin’s bearded, wrinkled face. Then she saw a little boy, pale with fright as she and DeVontay rescued him from a hotel room where his mother lay dead. Other memories followed: the Wheelerville compound, their trip to the mountains, losing Stephen one dark night in the mountains, the chaos of the immediate aftermath of the solar storms.

DeVontay must have realized he was forming a connection with her, one that pulled her farther away from the New People and deeper into his world. He took another step forward, and two of the Zapheads moved toward him. DeVontay kept his gun lowered.

She studied his face, which was imbued with the radiance of their glares. His lone eye didn’t waver from her face, despite the New People around him who could break him down.

Tear his arms off at the shoulders.

Stomp him into a red rag.

Pluck out that gleaming eye and jam it between his teeth—

Eye?

She touched her pocket and the round object inside.

“DeVontay Jones,” she said, more coming back to her. The way he’d sacrificed himself to lure away the New People—
no, they were ‘Zapheads” then—
and allow she and Stephen to escape. She recalled the agony as a vicious, mutant dog tore into the flesh of her leg. Being captured by the Zapheads and enduring their bizarre hands-on healing, ultimately escaping with Campbell and heading toward Milepost 291.

And these new people—
Zapheads
—came for her.

And here she was.

Why am I here?

As if picking up on her unease, or maybe just feeling the signal fade to static, the mutant baby said, “Rachel Wheeler, you don’t belong to them.”

“But it’s DeVontay,” she said. “The man I—”

Love?

What does that even mean?

What did anything mean?

DeVontay took one more step into the cramped space, where wires and cables hung from the wall on steel pegs and wooden benches were piled with gutted televisions, radios, and musical gear like some kind of robot graveyard. Boxes of videocassettes lined one wall, and a widescreen television with a shattered screen reflected the glittering eyes in the room like so many stars off the surface of a turbulent dark pond.

“We need you,” Bryan pleaded, tugging Rachel’s tattered shirt with his plump little fingers.

“I need you more,” DeVontay said. He was now only ten feet away, and the Zapheads moved behind him, cutting him off from the stairs.

“You live in two worlds, Rachel Wheeler,” Bryan continued, talking fast in his high-pitched, squeaky voice. “But we can become one. You can help us bridge the New People and the Old People.”

Rachel looked at the baby, wondering how it could speak. Then she saw her reflection in the big television. And her eyes.

What happened to me?

DeVontay must have seen the recognition on her face. Ignoring the surrounding Zapheads—two of whom were larger than him—he came to her and knelt at her side.

The baby in her arms kicked and squealed. “He’s one of them. Make him go away. They’re killing us.”

“He’s not killing you,” Rachel said.

“Why do you think we’re hiding?” Bryan wailed. “They’re shooting and exploding and burning and destroying. We can’t turn them into New People if they’re bloody.”

His cries agitated the other mutants, who closed in around them. Their faces were expressionless, but the brightness of their eyes increased in intensity. For the first time since arriving in Newton, Rachel feared them.

She rested Bryan on her shoulder and dug her free hand in her pocket. She brought out the round object and held it up to study it.

“My glass eye,” DeVontay said. “Where did you find it?”

“In the woods,” she said. “I didn’t even know what it was, but I kept it.”

“Remember when I took it out to amuse Stephen?”

She smiled. “That was gross, but cute.”

“Am I still gross?”

“Why is blood all over your shirt?”

“He killed one of us,” Bryan said. “Willow.”

“No,” DeVontay said. “I was trying to protect her. Somebody else shot her.”

“Baby killer!” Bryan shrieked, and the other Zapheads mimicked him, their shrill cries rattling off the concrete walls and shaking sheet metal and glass.

One of the Zapheads bumped into DeVontay and DeVontay shoved back. The Zaphead, a teenager with a swarthy complexion and curly hair, tumbled into the videocassettes, knocking a tower of them to the floor. The sudden motion aroused the other mutants into attack.

“No!” Rachel called, but it was too late. Whatever connection she’d had with the mutants was now lost in the white noise of rage.

“Baby killer!” Bryan screamed in her ear, and she laid the infant on a workbench among coils of wire and tools.

The Zapheads grabbed at DeVontay, who swung the rifle and knocked away their clutching hands. “Killer,” one said.

DeVontay stepped back and lifted the rifle. “Only when I have to be.”

The burst of shots was like thunder in the small basement. Two of the Zapheads collapsed at once, and the third fingered a gap in her sternum where a bullet had pierced her flesh. The thick cordite caused Rachel to cough and her ears rang with the percussion. Bryan squealed all the more frantically.

The Zaphead DeVontay had knocked to the floor rose and lunged at him, but he swung the rifle butt into the teen’s face. The crack of bone made Rachel shudder.

But the teen didn’t drop. Instead, he grabbed at the rifle with both hands, peeling it away from DeVontay with a surge of inhuman strength.

Rachel didn’t even think. She swept a hand onto the work bench, came away with a screwdriver, and plunged the tip deep into the teen’s neck.

The teen took two steps, the lights in his eyes dulling as he gripped the tool’s handle. Rachel thought he was going to pluck it out and use it as a weapon himself, but he staggered forward and fell onto the bench beside Bryan. He hung there for a moment, scattering a pile of vacuum tubes before sliding to the concrete floor.

The last remaining Zaphead pulled her hand from her wound and studied the slick substance on her fingers. The light in the room had diminished considerably.

Too many eyes are closed forever.

A glance at her reflection showed her own glimmering had faded as well, although still present.
I’m one of them.

“Let’s go,” DeVontay yelled, holding out his hand.

She took it. The familiar shape and warmth was comforting.

As they navigated the dim stairway, Bryan called after them. “Don’t leave me! WHEE-ler! WHEE-ler!”

As they reached street level in the back of the repair shop, DeVontay forced open the door that led to a dark alley. The distant fires cast undulating waves of deep red and yellow against the belly of the clouds. Aside from the wind and the brittle collapsing of a distant building, Newton was quiet.

The war’s not over, but it sounds like a cease fire.

She still didn’t know which side she was on. All she knew was that she was with DeVontay, and that felt right.

She gave him his glass eye. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Willow guided me to you.”

“But she’s dead.”

“Like that makes much of a difference anymore? Let’s get out of here, find a safe place for the night, and figure out what the hell’s going on.”

As they headed away from town, Bryan’s little lungs blared a final blast of rage.
“Baby killer!”