After: The Echo (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 2) (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Franklin and McCrone reached the compound an hour after dark.

But “dark” was the wrong word, because the aurora cast a green radiance across the sky, like cheap mercury vapor streetlights above an empty parking lot. Although eerie, Franklin had come to enjoy the lack of pure darkness, although the star fields were cloudier and harder to follow.

He’d often wondered if the lingering aurora signaled that the solar radiation was still affecting the planet in ways no one could measure. Did birds still know how to fly south for the winter? Could bees find their way back to the colony? What about dolphins and whales and aquatic life that counted on subtle shifts in tide and temperature?

There weren’t many eggheads left to come up with answers. All their instruments and formulas hadn’t done a bit of good when Doomsday arrived.

He supposed humans hadn’t been the only living creatures affected by the radiation. But the chickens acted much the same as before. The goats—well, you could never tell with goats, because they were already peculiar as hell. Franklin had always enjoyed them, finding more in common with them than with his fellow humans. They were quirky, clever, and often downright ornery, which is why he kept them even though they ate more than they produced in milk.

Franklin stopped before the gate, winded from the long climb through the forest.

McCrone jabbed him in the spine with the tip of the rifle. “Where is it?”

“Right here.”

“Damn, oldtimer. All those years in the survival network must have paid off. We would have never found this place without satellite surveillance and GPS.”

“There used to be a thing called ‘American pride.’ Then the government made it a catch phrase to brainwash folks like you.”

“I told you, I didn’t enlist because I loved my country,” McCrone said. “I signed up because my unemployment ran out and your generation shipped all the jobs to China. Now get us in there. I’m tired.”

Franklin parted the nest of vines and dug for the gate latch. “Locked.”

“Right. And I don’t suppose you have the key. What a coincidence.”

“I got a key, all right. But it’s on the inside.”

“You locked yourself out of your own compound? I thought you preppers were supposed to be smart.” McCrone paced a few steps, feeling the fence himself, marveling at the natural camouflage Franklin had installed. “It’s only ten feet or so. Should be able to climb it easy enough.”

“Topped by barbed wire. Be careful you don’t catch the family jewels.”

“I’m not the one doing the climbing. You are.”

Franklin considered his options. He could climb over and then just leave the gate locked, but first he’d have to deactivate the alarm system. If the woods were crawling with soldiers and Zapheads, they’d zoom in soon enough. But once inside, he’d have the advantage. McCrone had both his rifles, but he still had two pistols, a sawed-off shotgun, several military-grade incendiary devices, and some hand weapons like knives and hatchets stored in a strongbox. He’d also be on his home turf. And if McCrone became impatient and climbed over the fence himself, Franklin would have the element of surprise.

But he was worried that none of the others had reacted to their approach. If Jorge had come back, he would know to be on high alert. And if Jorge hadn’t made it—if the Zaps or the equally brain-dead citizens of Army Nation got him—then Rosa or her daughter should have been on lookout.

Franklin had been uneasy leaving them there alone with that young woman, Cathy, and her Zap brat. He was pretty sure that the solar sickness wasn’t spread by human contact—or else the mom would have gone all mutant long ago, the way that thing gnawed at her milk glands—but maybe the evil was more insidious. Maybe its mere presence contaminated the compound, just the way all the older Zapheads had blighted the planet.

If he was a religious person like his granddaughter Rachel, he’d pray that the Zaps and the army wipe each other out. But a casual glance at the heavens revealed that God viewed this place as nothing more than a carnival sideshow. Maybe His whole purpose for creation was to enjoy the Doomsday. Then He wouldn’t rest on the just the seventh day; He could rest the whole week long.

“Are you going to stand out here all night?” McCrone said.

Franklin shook the gate, rattling its metal framework. “There’s an alarm system. If I climb over, the whole compound will light up and a siren will wail.”

Franklin was exaggerating the power of the system, but if McCrone had swallowed the legend of Franklin Wheeler, Internet Survivalist Guru, maybe he’d fall for it. But McCrone laughed.

So much for respect. I keep forgetting, he’s been brainwashed by the best.

McCrone peered through the fence. “Hey. Something’s moving in there.”

There was a pop and whir in the distance, shrieking like a banshee across the night sky. Then an explosion high above them triggered a shower of sparks that hung in the air. The illumination flare was bright enough to erase the aurora and cast the forest into sudden day.

“Looks like your buddies want you pretty bad,” Franklin said.

In the bright glare of burning nitrate and magnesium, McCrone’s face looked drained of blood. “If they get me, they get you, too,” he said, no longer laughing.

Something bumped Franklin’s foot, and he realized the gate had eased open. He glanced at McCrone, who was still squinting up at the trace left by the flare.

Franklin didn’t hesitate. He yanked the gate wide and lunged inside the compound, intending to slam it closed and then hurry to the cabin for a weapon.

“Hey!” McCrone shouted, breaking from his spell. “Damn it—”

Franklin drew the gate closed but he underestimated McCrone’s speed. The soldier jammed the rifle barrel in the gap and the gate slammed against it with a metallic
clang,
bouncing back open. Franklin reached for the gate to give it another try, but the gate opened to the outside, and McCrone was already on him, cussing and slapping at Franklin with his free hand.

McCrone shoved him to the ground and stood over him. “You old bastard, I’ll string you up by your beard and let the crows eat you.”

For good measure, McCrone drove a boot into Franklin’s ribs. Now inside the compound, he used the fading radiance of the flare to glance around the compound. “Not bad for a Doomsday wacko, Franklin.”

“Go to hell.” Franklin was just about tired of this red-blooded all-American hero standing over him all the time. He was content to go ahead and get shot. At least he’d die a free man on his own turf, not cowering as a slave like the rest of the human race.

Go to hell, all of you. Even freedom’s a burden after a while.

But then he remembered Rachel, and his pledge to her. He’d built Wheelerville out of his own good intentions, but utopia was a luxury. In its way, his ideal was just as selfish and elitist as those of the international banking complex and military-industrial corporate powers that had corrupted the old world, buying and selling human dignity like it was just another commodity on the stock market.

He rolled and staggered to his feet, determined to go down fighting. He wobbled as he faced McCrone, his legs like rubber and his rib burning as if a branding iron was jabbed against the bone.

McCrone pointed the rifle at him, the last of the flare’s illumination furrowing his face with cruel shadows. The soldier no longer seemed boyish in the least. He was like ancient evil, the embodiment of naked arrogance. A perfect product and symbol of the government he served.

“Do it, if you have the guts.” Franklin didn’t know if he was just being an ornery old goat or whether he’d actually swallowed his own belief in a better future, one where Rachel was more than just a symbol of hope, a day when he’d be worth a damn and—

The faint hiss of air came just before McCrone’s skull erupted in a geyser of blood, bone, and gray gore.

The ax blade withdrew, dragging one of McCrone’s ears with it. The soldier’s remaining eye was shocked wide, nearly popping from its socket in surprise, but then it was veiled by a cascade of blood as it blinked shut for the final time. The soldier dropped in a heap on top of the rifle.

Jorge stepped from the shadows, gripping the ax like a pinch hitter digging into the batter’s box with two out in the ninth. He looked down at the corpse with all the dispassion of an overpaid All-Star as blood dripped from the blade.

“Took you long enough,” Franklin said.

“I was just waiting to see if you could sweet-talk your way out of getting shot,” Jorge said.

Franklin bent and retrieved the rifle from beneath McCrone’s corpse. “After you turned tail and ran, I figured you wanted me dead one way or another.”

“There was no need to shoot those innocent people.”

Franklin eyed the way Jorge held the ax. The Mexican was still two swings from a strikeout. “They weren’t innocent. They were
Zaps
.”

“And what did we gain? Are you going to kill every stranger in the world?”

Franklin nodded at the soldier’s damaged skull. “Looks like you’re kicking in your share.”

Jorge flung the ax away. “Rosa and Marina are gone.”

“Damn.”

“So are Cathy and…the baby.”

Franklin didn’t think that word should apply to a Zaphead. “Any sign of a fight?”

“No. They’re just gone.” Jorge pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket. Now that the flare had faded, Franklin could only see Jorge in silhouette. “Marina wrote, ‘He’s mad.’”

“Who’s the ‘he’? One of the soldiers, maybe?”

“No,” Jorge said, his voice cold. “I think she meant the baby.”

The chill in Jorge’s voice seeped into Franklin’s bones, and he felt old and tired and void of all the hope he’d pretended to harbor only moments before while facing death.

In After, even the small things were worse than death.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Campbell wiped the acidic bile from his mouth, spitting out tiny chunks of half-digested ham.

He couldn’t make sense of what his eyes told him, and he didn’t plan on sticking around for a closer look. He’d rather take his chances breaking the cordon of Zapheads outside. Maybe the backyard would offer better opportunities. He leaned against the stair rail and headed down in the dark, but he’d only taken three steps when the hissing arose.

They’re in the house.

Behind him, the bedroom door creaked open—

And so did the other two upstairs doors.

How many are there?

A beam of light arced across the downstairs hall. He heard voices amid the mad sibilance of the Zapheads—human voices.

“Told you,” Wilma said, although her voice was muffled, as if she were standing on the back porch. “Told you he’d be afraid.”

“Let me handle this,” a man answered—and Campbell recognized his voice.

Or is it just another ghost in your head, like Pete?

He giggled again, and the giddy delirium trickled from the crevices of his mind like ancient water squeezing from stone. The madness was building like floodwaters behind a dam, threatening to breach at any moment.

The man called again. “Campbell? Is that you?”

Campbell took another cautious step, hoping the stair didn’t creak with his weight. He made the mistake of glancing back along the landing, and the constellation of glittering eyes moved closer.

In a panic, Campbell stumbled down the stairs, his mouth metallic with vomit, ears roaring. He didn’t care if they caught him, even killed him, as long as he didn’t end up like those in the bedroom.

He sensed movement below, and the cone of light bounced around the house’s interior.

“Stay calm, Campbell.”

“They…do you know what they did?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“How come you’re still alive?” Campbell was now halfway down the stairs, the choice made for him. Zapheads congregated on the landing above, drawn from the tasks that had occupied them behind closed doors. Unlike the ones downstairs, though, these didn’t hiss; they merely stared in mute solemnity, their eyes sparking.

Campbell took two more downward steps. The house was full of heightened tension, as if a thundercloud was about to deliver lightning. Between the greenish half-light leaking from the various windows and the bobbing flashlight beam below, Campbell felt like he was in some hellish carnival.

“Listen to me,” the professor said, and now Campbell realized who was hanging upside down in the bedroom—Donnie, Arnoff, and Pamela. “Listen.”

And the hissing shifted, in a slushy imitation of the professor. A dozen voices, maybe twenty: “
Lishen. Lishen. Lishen
.”

Campbell screamed, and that broke whatever spell had restrained the Zapheads above. They poured across the landing, their feet thundering on the floorboards. Campbell hurtled down the stairs but lost his balance and tumbled, banging his knee and knocking his skull against the newel post. It was a glancing blow, just above his left ear, but his vision grew fuzzy and it felt as if his veins had been drained of blood and infused with molten lead.

Then the flashlight was in his eyes and the professor knelt down to tend him. “Shhh,” the man said. “Stay down and don’t move.”

The Zapheads who’d been pounding down the stairs had stopped and were now waiting again. Campbell sensed other Zapheads massed behind the professor.

“What they did…to Pamela…” Campbell whispered.

“And what they’ll do to you if you don’t calm down.”

“Please don’t let them…” Campbell tried to sit up but the professor put a firm hand on his chest to pin him in place.

“They don’t want to hurt you,” the professor said, and the hissing Zapheads echoed a chorus of “
Hurchoo, hurchoo, hurchoo
.”

Campbell giggled again, and he hoped he was dreaming. Or even dead. Yes, he’d take dead. That would be okay.

Because then the Zapheads couldn’t do to him what they’d done to Donnie and Arnoff. Well, they
could
, but he wouldn’t care.