After: The Shock (4 page)

As
if he’s afraid of being bitten. But I’ve never seen the Zapheads bite anyone
.

“See
anything?” she whispered.

“Naw,”
he said. She couldn’t place his accent, but it wasn’t Southern. And it wasn’t
quite inner city. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, so maybe he’d moved to
Charlotte for work.

She
didn’t seem to have much in common with him.

Except
whatever kept us from being killed or affected.

Yeah.

Except
for that.

The
only thing left that mattered.

He
motioned with his free hand. “All clear. Hurry.”

And
then they were on the street, exposed to the dying sun and the creeping night
and whatever chuckled in the far distance.

CHAPTER
FOUR

“It’s
a fire,” Pete said.

Campbell
didn’t believe it. He’d
insisted it was electric lights, maybe even automobiles moving beyond the dark
trees, the wind causing them to flicker. Then the wind shifted, although there
wasn’t much of it, and a faint trail of acrid wood smoke drifted past.

“What
should we do?”

“Go
in.”

Pete
was drunk. Shortly after the close encounter with the Zaphead in the plumbing
van, they’d come across a Budweiser truck. Pete had filled his backpack with
12-ounce cans and even made some makeshift saddlebags with a tool satchel he’d
taken from the van. He’d stopped his bike every two miles or so to bust open
one of the warm beers and down it. Their pace had slowed considerably as the
evening wore on, and Campbell had nearly pedaled headfirst into a jackknifed
tractor trailer because he thought he’d seen someone move inside one of the
stalled cars.

But
Pete wouldn’t let him check out the movement, coming back with, “Haven’t you
learned your lesson
yet
?”

And
Campbell had buried his hope that maybe there were others like them,
normal
people, survivors who weren’t driven by a homicidal impulse. Now, with a
campfire a hundred yards away in the dusk, they were faced with a choice, and
Pete’s judgment was about three times over the legal limit.

“What
if it’s a bunch of Zapheads?” Campbell asked.

Pete
pulled the tab on a fresh brew, and it
fwooshed
and sprayed into the
dusk. “Then we shoot the hell out of them.”

“You
say that like you’d enjoy it.”

“Fuckers
trying to wipe us out, man. This is about the survival of the species.”

“I
think they’re the same species we are. They’re human.”

Pete
wiped foam from his mouth with his sleeve. “Humans don’t jump on you and rip
out a chunk of skin with their teeth. Unless they’re Mike Tyson or Jeffrey
Dahmer.”

The
fire was in the forest beside the highway, set down a gentle slope. They’d
passed a bridge about three hundred yards back, and a silvery creek slid
beneath it, laughing and gurgling as if all was merry with the world.
Survivors—human survivors—would likely follow evolutionary instinct and camp by
the water.

“Maybe
we ought to keep going.”

“What
if it’s like that last camp?” Pete was starting to slur and his sibilants were
mushy.

“I
didn’t trust them.”

“You’re
just mad because you didn’t tap ol’ Gypsy Rose.”

“They
were talking prophecies and wacko stuff.”

“Well,
maybe they were onto something.”

Campbell
wished they’d snagged
some binoculars. Full dark was setting in, and they’d have to make a decision
on where to sleep. They usually locked themselves in an empty car for the
night, but Campbell always felt trapped and claustrophobic, and Pete’s drunken
snores pushed away any chance of rest. One night they’d slept out in an open
field, taking turns keeping watch. Campbell had jerked awake sometime long
before dawn and found Pete had dozed off, leaving them ridiculously vulnerable.

So,
maybe the idea of sticking with a group was worth a little risk.

“Okay,”
Campbell said. “Let’s check it out.”

Pete
leaned his bike against the guardrail and drew his pistol from his jacket
pocket. “Lock and load, my man.”

Campbell
drew his revolver. It
didn’t have a safety switch, but he’d test-fired it twice on the day he’d found
it in the sporting-goods shop. He hadn’t shot a gun since he was 12 and his
grandfather had taken him squirrel hunting. The double action required a
serious pull of the trigger, which meant the gun would be hard to fire
accidentally, but also that he’d have to be serious if he wanted to shoot
somebody.

Some
THING, I mean. These Zapheads aren’t “somebodies.”

He
flashed back to the face of the creature that had attacked him and shuddered at
the brief illusion that it had been his mother.

“Got
your flashlight?” Campbell said.

“I
only got two hands.” Meaning that Pete wouldn’t put down his beer.

Campbell
fished in his wire
basket until he found his flashlight, but he didn’t switch it on. The purple
dusk revealed large, bruised clouds overhead, so the moon would be of little
use. He looked up the highway toward the last hilltop they’d crested. Something
moved there, a distant stick figure that soon blended with the shadows of
stranded vehicles.

Pete
chugged his warm beer, then belched. “What you waiting for?”

Campbell
swung over the rail and
started down the slope toward the campfire. The revolver was heavy in his hand,
and he let his arm dangle so the barrel pointed at the ground. He used the
flashlight for ballast as he descended. The slope leveled out at a ditch, and
briars tore his khakis as he stumbled through the granite riprap.

Above
him, Pete stumbled and fell, cursing once before remembering they were supposed
to be in stealth mode.

“You
okay?” Campbell whispered.

“That
better be the good guys or I’m going to be pissed,” he whispered back.

Campbell
switched on his
flashlight, hooded it with his forearm, and illuminated a path for Pete, who
kicked, stumbled, and staggered down the hill. Pete’s body odor overwhelmed the
beery stench.

Sweet.
We’re all turning into animals.

After
crossing the ditch, they entered a thicket of scrub pine, thorns, and ragged
rye. The elusive flickers of fire showed here and there through gaps in the
trees, and as full dark settled in, the orange light took on the quality of a
jewel forged from a mysterious source.

Campbell
’s hand sweated around
the revolver’s grip, even though the air had turned cool and moist because of
the nearby creek. He didn’t know where to point the gun, and he took each step
gingerly, in fear of snapping twigs. Pete, however, had no such hesitation. The
alcohol delivered a stupid brand of courage, and the semi-automatic topped it
off with a bow. Pete soon took the lead, muttering under his breath.

“Maybe
they got some meat,” he said. “You smell that? Smells like barbecue.”

Campbell
rubbed the bite wound
on his shoulder.
No. I’m not going there. The Zapheads aren’t crazed cannibals
or zombies. They’re just…

Just
WHAT?

And
then he did smell it, smoky and acrid and rich, and he had the image of
stumbling into a nest of Zapheads, all gathered around the fire and roasting a
child on a slim white sapling, fat dripping onto the hot stones and hissing to
greasy steam.

“Plenty
of canned meat and jerky still around,” Campbell said. “Years and years of it.”

The
wire basket of his bicycle held cans of tuna, sardines, corned beef, and pink
salmon. Aside from the one stop at the “gypsy camp,” they’d eaten their food
cold. But the smoke didn’t make him hungry. It was oily and tainted.

A
bird
chirruped
high in the trees. The Big Zap had wiped out a lot of
animals, but the survivors among them seemed to behave as they always had. It
was only humans that seemed to have been affected on a neurological level. So
far, anyway. All their homing instincts, territorial boundaries, and migration
patterns could have altered in uncertain ways.

A
branch snapped behind them, maybe twenty feet away. Pete swung around, bumping Campbell in the arm with his pistol.

At
least the dumbass didn’t shoot me. But the night is young.

The
rustling came closer,
swick swick swick
through the dry brush. Then a
pause, as if whomever—or whatever—it was had stopped to listen for its prey.

Campbell
strained to hear,
holding his breath, but Pete was rasping away, the smoker’s rattle rising from
deep in his lungs. He wondered if Pete was thinking the same thing he was:
Who
shoots first?

But
what if it was a person? A fellow survivor? Maybe there were more, enough to
form a group and—

Campbell
beat back the faint
flutter of hope. In the week since the event, they’d met only four survivors,
and one of those had turned and fled when Campbell had called her. The other
three were in the makeshift gypsy camp, and Campbell hoped to God that wasn’t a
sample representation of mankind’s future.

Swiiick
. One cautious footstep
through the weeds.

Pete
nudged him. Campbell turned, but Pete was just an onyx bulk against the lesser
black of night. Then Pete’s mouth was at his ear, spraying saliva as he
whispered: “Go left, and I’ll go right.”

Campbell
nodded, trying not to
tremble. A Zaphead wouldn’t be subtle. It would charge like a rhino through the
veldt, using whatever it had in its hands as a weapon. Such a mad, predictable
danger was reassuring in an odd way.
This
, however…

He
edged to his left, pushing the barren flashlight before him to test the
foliage. The susurration of Pete’s passage let him know the gap between them
was widening. Campbell was on his own.

Swiiick
. Another step forward.

Or
had that been Pete’s footstep?

Campbell
turned again, and he
was disoriented. He could no longer see the thin licks of fire in the near
distance and the night had blended with the canopy until he was unsure of the
location of the highway, the forest, or the creek. He nearly surrendered to the
impulse to switch on the flashlight, but he pinched his fingers together until
the pain cleared the panic.

It’s
not a Zaphead. And a survivor has no reason to hurt you
.

But
the smoke told a different story. The smoke said, “Mmm, tastes like chicken,”
and “I’ll bet you’re just dying to join us for dinner” and “We’re pleased to
serve you.”

Screw
it. You watched too many horror movies back in the Old Days.

Never
mind that the Old Days were July or so.

He
looked up at the dim stars and mist-hidden wedge of moon, trying to get his
bearings. The constellations themselves seemed alien and strange, as if the
massive solar flare had tilted the planet’s axis. Maybe the world was all shook
up, both literally and figuratively.

Swick
swick swick
,
the steps were fast and close, and he raised the pistol, its sodden weight
tugged by gravity until the act was like bringing to bear a field cannon.

And
he heard the signature insane chuckling—not in the direction of the steps, but
behind him, right behind him—and then the night erupted with a flash and roar. Campbell’s ears rang with sudden pain as he dropped his pistol and fell to his knees.

“You
okay?” said a gruff voice above him.

“Yuh-yeah.”
Campbell gripped the flashlight before him as if it was a dagger he could use
to impale himself.

“What
the hell?” Pete said, some distance away, crashing through the scrub toward
them.

“Don’t
shoot,” the gruff voice said. “Your friend’s okay.”

The
man flicked a switch and a bluish Maglite blinded Campbell, although the beam
was directed to the side. The light bounced past him and settled on a limp
figure pressed face-first into the grass. A dark, wet bloom covered its back
and ragged bits of flesh clung to a gaping hole in the back of the shirt. Campbell had the impression of graceful bulk as the man swept past him and stood over the
corpse just as Pete burst into the circle of light.

“A
Zaphead,” the man said.

“Who
the hell are you?” Pete said. His Glock was pointed at the man, who gave it an
amused glance.

“The
king of nowhere,” the man said.

“Shit.”
Pete looked at Campbell, letting his aim waver. “You sure you’re okay?”

Campbell
nodded, a little
embarrassed. He collected his revolver and looked at the man standing over the
corpse. The man was bald, a little over six feet, and dressed in a matching gym
suit, a khaki hunter’s vest over it. Although the suit was dirty, the man
appeared well-groomed and fit, despite his age.

“Who
is that?” Campbell managed to ask, pointing his revolver at the corpse.

“What,”
the man said. “
What
is that? These things don’t deserve to be called a
‘who.’”

Campbell
couldn’t tell by
looking whether the corpse was once a Zaphead. All he knew was, it had once
been human. Yet, Campbell had not heard it approaching, and Zapheads weren’t
known for stealth and subtlety.

“You
sure it’s a Zaphead?” Campbell asked.

“Zaphead?
That’s a funny name for them, but it’s a good as any, I guess. We’ve been
calling them ‘veggies.’”