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

“Come on,” she said, taking him by the shoulder and guiding him to the nose of the plane where they would camp for the night. She’d soon be gathering clothes to bundle into makeshift beds, and then starting a campfire to heat a few cans of Campbell’s soup with crackers. DeVontay was busy clearing wreckage from the tilted nose of the plane.

They’d sleep surrounded by the dead.

Just another ordinary day in After.

As Rachel comforted Stephen, she didn’t notice the movement in the surrounding forest, or the eyes that watched them settle in for the night.

CHAPTER TWO

“Need to kill it,” Franklin said.

Jorge didn’t like the way the old man was gripping his rifle, as if he couldn’t decide whether to shoot or hurl the weapon to the forest below. They were perched on a platform twenty feet off the floor of Franklin’s mountain compound, a two-acre, fenced-in patch of claimed wilderness he jokingly called Wheelerville.

Ever since Franklin had welcomed Jorge and his wife Rosa and helped tend his daughter Marina back to health, Jorge had been looking for a way to thank the man. But Franklin was more interested in contribution than gratitude. Jorge had worked hard to tend the man’s garden and livestock, and Franklin seemed pleased with the help.

But after Jorge had rescued the woman and her baby and brought them back to the compound, they’d discovered the baby had been affected by the massive solar storms that had wiped out the world’s infrastructure.

The baby was a Zaphead, the colorful name conjured by the media for those whose personalities had been altered by the first waves of electromagnetic radiation. But soon the waves had grown more intense, until the talking heads on the television were replaced by static and then darkness, as electricity failed and car engines fell quiet and people died by the millions.

And now Franklin wanted to kill more.

“It is only a child,” Jorge said.

“I don’t like it in the compound.” The old man spat off the platform, watching his saliva arc into the golden leaves below. “It’s going to draw more of them.”

“They haven’t attacked us yet.” When Jorge and Franklin rescued the young woman, the Zapheads had been chasing her. But now Jorge wasn’t sure whether the others had wanted to kill the woman or whether they’d wanted to take her infant.

“They’re out there. Watching. Waiting.”

“Do you think they are intelligent enough to wait? The Zapheads”—Jorge was still uncomfortable using that term, because it could just as easily be “spic” or “beaner” in another situation—“that attacked me were like mindless killers, hardly aware of what they were doing.”

“They’re acting weird, all right. Can’t trust ‘em. I liked them better when they were crazy. At least then, a fellow knew what was what.”

Franklin pressed a pair of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the surrounding ridges. “Smoke.”

“Where?”

Franklin passed the glasses and pointed into the distance. Jorge adjusted the lenses until he saw the thin plume of gray rising about five hundred yards to the south. “Think it’s Zapheads?”

Nah,” Franklin said. “I’d bet it’s a recon patrol from the army. I told you they had a bunker up here.”

“And you haven’t found the bunker?”

“They hid it good. Your tax dollars at work.” Franklin gave him a half-lidded look, the leathery skin of his forehead crinkling. “If you ever even paid taxes, that is.”

Jorge didn’t like the man’s implication that Jorge was an illegal alien instead of a worker on an agricultural visa. “I even have private health insurance.”

“Cheating on taxes is the purest form of patriotism,” Franklin said. “But I guess that don’t matter much anymore. Neither does your insurance.”

Jorge was glad the man had changed the subject away from the infant. Jorge himself was conflicted by the baby’s presence. The Zapheads that attacked him on the farm had been intent on killing Jorge and his family, and he’d suffered no remorse about killing them.

But the ones that had pursued the woman, Cathy, and her baby had acted less with malevolence and more with a cautious curiosity. He wasn’t able to articulate the difference, and he doubted Franklin cared.

The baby was much too small to be harmful, and Zapheads didn’t appear to carry an infection that could change those unaffected by the solar storms. Still, the baby’s presence might somehow attract other Zapheads, and that would place Rosa and Marina at risk. They were in the cabin right now with Cathy and her sparkle-eyed little creature.

Jorge was about to ask Franklin what he thought they should do about the baby, but the old man raised an open palm to silence him, and then pointed into the forest.

At first Jorge saw nothing, but then the golden-brown foliage began to shimmer, the pattern broken. He thought at first it might be the horses, which they’d ridden from the Wilcox farm into the mountains. They’d had to turn the animals into the wild because the compound couldn’t generate enough feed for them.

But this movement wasn’t the flick of a tail or the stomp of a hoof.

A human form moved silently between tree trunks, taking slow, deliberate steps as if to avoid scuffing the carpet of leaves. A patch of red-checkered flannel was visible for an instant, and then the figure was lost in the shadows.

“One of
them
?” Jorge said in a low voice.

Franklin raised his rifle and sighted down the barrel. “Either that, or some hippie sure picked the wrong place for a nature hike.”

“If you shoot, they will know where we are.”

Franklin grinned with yellow, crooked teeth. “Well, the federal troops already know we’re here, and the Zaps are going to find us sooner or later.”

“I thought you didn’t like to kill.”

Franklin held the barrel steady for another few seconds and then lowered it. “Can’t get a half-decent line of sight.”

Jorge studied the southern slope, where giant ropes of poison sumac wrapped the trunks of beeches and poplar, their leaves a startling shade of brilliant red. Another figure moved, again with measured stealth. Jorge didn’t point this one out to Franklin, but Franklin whistled under his breath.

“Damn if there ain’t another one.” Franklin pointed to the east, and Jorge could clearly make out a woman in a tan trench coat, her bare legs descending to the moss beneath her as she padded across a rocky heap. She was moving parallel to the compound’s fence, although she was at least fifty yards away.

Jorge checked the south, and noticed another figure.

“They’re circling us,” Franklin said. “Although I’ll be damned if I know why.”

“Then they already know we’re here.”

Franklin nodded. “So it’s open season.”

“You don’t know what they want.”

“And finding out might get us killed.”

“You said they can’t clear the fence.”

Franklin frowned down at the compound’s interior, where his vegetable garden was still flush with green. The cabin and shed were built against trees and were difficult to spot from a distance, even in the undressing of autumn. The lower portion of the surrounding chain link fence was thick with vines and briars, shielding the structures even more.

“I dragged the materials up with a four-wheeler,” Franklin said. “Took me two years to build this place. And I ain’t giving it up without a fight.”

Jorge was exasperated. “Why would the Zapheads want your compound? They don’t care.”

“Maybe they know the baby’s here.”

“But you said they didn’t follow us.”

“You saw how the Zaps were acting. Right after the sun spit in our eyes, I saw one down there on the road chasing a guy out of his car after they crashed into each other. The Zapper—although at the time I thought it was just some nutball pissed off because somebody damaged his wheels—jumped on this big, heavy guy and took him down like a wildcat takes a doe. Pounded his head into the pavement until it was like a watermelon dropped from a forklift.”

“And you didn’t help him?”

Franklin flashed a one-eyed squint beneath his thick gray brow. “You kidding? I don’t get involved in other people’s business. Besides, it was over before I could even think. Don’t you remember what it is like in the beginning?”

The beginning. Like this was Genesis, a new creation myth. “All people on the Wilcox farm dropped dead. Except for us.”

“So you didn’t see any crazies?”

“Not for days. And then…” Jorge recalled discovering Willard, a fellow laborer on the Wilcox farm, in the barn loft. The man’s fierce grip and mad, sparkling eyes had been shocking, then dangerous, and Jorge had to sever the man’s arm at the wrist to free himself. But Jorge didn’t care to recount the story, because then the vivid details would rise from the sleep of memory. “Yes. We discovered the change.”

“Yeah,” Franklin said, satisfied by the dismay on Jorge’s face. “Change. Remember how the dumbass politicians always had ‘Change’ as their campaign slogans? Then, when they got elected, the slogan became ‘Don’t change.’ Well, we got change, all right. I hope every last one of those squirrel-eyed bastards has been scorched straight to hell. But I got a feeling they’re bunkered up like their Army buddies and living in luxury.”

Jorge scanned the forest and saw movement amid the sumac. It was another Zaphead, circling the perimeter, keeping the same distance as the others. “What are they doing?”

“Looks like they’re putting us under siege.”

“But they’re not attacking and they’re not closing in.”

“If they got any brains, maybe they’re trying to wait us out.”

“Wait for what?”

“Until we do something stupid. Go out there where they can jump us, or get cabin fever and make a run for it.”

“Then they don’t realize you have food and supplies enough for years?”

“Well, that was assuming they had a little brains. It could be they’re as stupid as they look, and they can’t figure out how to get in the front gate.”

Jorge didn’t think the gate would withstand three or four of the Zapheads slamming against it. But Franklin didn’t appear too concerned.

“Do we have enough ammunition to hold them off?” Jorge didn’t relish the thought of shooting them. It would be too much like slaughter. But if Rosa and Marina were threatened, he would joyfully gun down anything that walked into the compound.

“I don’t think it would come to that,” Franklin said.

“Why not?”

“If they come knocking, I’m giving them the baby.”

CHAPTER THREE

They’re behind me.

Campbell wasn’t sure whether his stalkers were Zapheads, rogue soldiers, or that brand of crazed survivors celebrating the utter breakdown of law and order in the wake of collapse.

Since his best friend Pete had been shot to death, Campbell had avoided contact with any other people. That wasn’t much of a challenge—the dead seemed to outnumber the living at least a thousand to one.

And he wasn’t sure whether Zapheads counted as dead or as alive, since they seemed to be something in between.

Campbell was crouched in the shadow of a Nissan Pathfinder, one of those plastic-and-steel behemoths that would have alien archeologists of the future wondering about their use as burial chambers. Judging from the stench oozing from the interior, Campbell was guessing a family of four. Not that he wanted to check.

Instead, he leaned down and looked under the vehicle to scan the road behind him. He’d been walking the shoulder of the highway, both to avoid the clutter of stalled traffic and to take it easy on his knees. He’d compromised on being out in the open by figuring he’d be able to cover ground in a hurry if the need arose.

And the need might be arising.

He fished in his backpack for a Glock pistol he’d taken from the corpse of a cop back in Taylorsville. He didn’t wear a holster because it could be taken as a sign of aggression. Campbell didn’t want to end up like Pete, killed by an unseen sniper. But Pete hadn’t been displaying any weapon besides a beer bottle.

These days, they might kill you just because you’re upright and breathing. Just because you stumbled a little and resembled a Zaphead. Or maybe just because they can.

Campbell had heard occasional whoops in the distance, and shouted phrases that couldn’t have come from Zapheads. As far as he could tell, Zapheads only uttered those strange chuckling and hissing noises. And while those human shouts gave him some comfort that he wasn’t truly alone, he was afraid to meet other survivors.

Anytime he saw movement, he laid low or steered well clear, not bothering to check if the activity had been caused by fellow survivors, Zapheads, stray dogs, or wild animals. For the same reason, he hadn’t dared take target practice with the Glock. Aside from his and Pete’s brief training with Arnoff’s band of scavengers, he had little experience with weapons.

So if someone was trailing him, he’d either have to run or shoot. But a deeper part of him, a tiny voice he’d been conversing with inside his head, assured him that he was just being paranoid. The core problem, though, was that the inner voice sounded a lot like Pete and couldn’t be trusted.

Campbell saw nothing behind him on the road, but his stalkers could easily hide behind the numerous vehicles that trailed up and over the ridge. Zapheads had no interest in concealment, though. They simply came for you.

But nothing came. After maybe half a minute, he sagged against the tire. Maybe he’d fantasized the pursuit just to break the boredom. A deep melancholy had descended upon him the last couple of days, and the nights spent in abandoned vehicles had resulted in restlessness and little sleep. He was exhausted, but it was more than that—Pete had been his last real tie to the normal world, back when Xbox, Friday nights at Clyde’s, and the Carolina Panthers’ losing streak had been his constants.

Campbell slid the gun into his lap, looking at it. One bullet in the roof of his mouth, just like in the movies.

He even tried to raise the gun, tentatively parting his lips and imagining the metallic taste. But he was too much of a coward.