Afterburn: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 1) (12 page)

He ran for the bunker door, thinking the rock overhang would provide cover until he figured a strategy. He glanced at a private hiding behind a tree just as a bird plunged into the man’s chest, burrowing deeply as if wringing out a worm from the dirt. The soldier dropped his gun and reached to pluck the strange invader from his torso, but he was dead before his hands closed.

Antonelli’s chest burned with a flare of sympathetic pain, but most horrifying was the bird’s feet, three wiry toes scrabbling for a perch from which to drive its head even deeper into the target.

The soldier dropped face-up in the clearing, eyes wide as if imploring some unseen power above to undo this blasphemy. But the gods evidently created death for a reason.

Now that the bird was planted, Antionelli had the opportunity to examine it even as brilliant blurs darted around the ridge. Its wings appeared to be a series of three overlapping flaps, a mockery of feathers comprised of some synthetic material. A small, flexing wand rose from the base of what would’ve been its spine and planted against the corpse. When the bird-thing began quivering, Antonelli realized it was trying to extract itself.

No, you don’t get away with that.

Antonelli dashed into the clearing, ignoring the soft hiss of wings around him and the screams and clatter of battle. He jabbed the tip of his pistol against the thing’s body and fired three times, emptying his clip. The exterior material definitely wasn’t metal, as it shredded instead of dented. The smoking gaps revealed little gears and wires and chipboards.

So it was a drone, but unlike anything Antonelli had ever seen. Its articulated limbs and flexible body suggested an obscene life form, and the birds appeared to act with independent design. Even assuming a suitable power source could be employed in a programming such a large-scale, cohesive attack would require supreme intelligence—

Zaps.

In that moment, Antonelli’s image of a triumphant New Pentagon and a human civilization arising from the ashes faded like so much fairy dust. The only thing to do now was survive, even if it meant burrowing into dark crevices like cockroaches.

He ducked low and crawled back to his prior concealment, popping his last clip into the Beretta.

Something groaned behind Antonelli and he thought one of the birds might’ve circled. He raised his pistol, ready to smash or fire or die, and turned.

The bunker door swung open.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When Rachel entered the outfitter’s shop—a site she’d scavenged twice before, so she was familiar with its cluttered aisles and ruined merchandise—she wasn’t quite sure what had led her there.

The shop didn’t offer anything useful. She would need to replace her backpack, but there were already spares in the bunker. The shelves held a few rudimentary weapons such as bows, arrows, and hunting knives, but any guns or ammunition had long disappeared. Much of the camping equipment was gone as well, with only a few lamps and rodent-shredded sleeping bags remaining. Sagging inner tubes and deflated rafts hung on wooden pegs along the walls.

But she suspected the remaining Zap was here, lurking in the shadows.

Or maybe behind that office door.

She’d been in the office before, too, and it was mostly just a desk, papers, and a bathtub-sized aquarium that contained only matted gravel and scum. But it was closed, and no looter would’ve bothered.

Rachel let her rifle barrel lead the way, sweeping it back and forth. The loss of her telepathic connection to the Zaps had her almost in panic, as if it was some core part of her rather than an infused mutation.

The grimed windows muted any penetrating daylight, and Rachel depended on the glow of her eyes to guide her. If her mutant traits were indeed fading, that was one she would miss—portable flashlights that never needed fresh batteries.

Now that she had crossed that ultimate line, she was just as much an enemy to the Zaps as any human. But that worked both ways. Now she was free to do whatever necessary to protect the ones she loved.

She was so intent on the office door, expecting it to swing open with some new Zap surprise, that she didn’t detect the movement to her left before it was too late.

“Run, Squeak!” the female voice shouted, just as a cabinet display of fishing tackle tipped over and knocked her in the shoulder.

The display was made of pressboard and glass, and some of the shelves shattered as Rachel buckled under its weight. Shards of glass, fishhooks, sinkers, and rubber worms rained down as she kicked to free herself. Over the crash and clatter, Rachel heard small footsteps tapping across the floorboards.

“Zap bitch,” the unseen woman hissed, and Rachel turned her head to find a blond woman in a blue headband raising a broken canoe paddle. As she swung, Rachel writhed away, shifting just enough so the cabinet covered her. The paddle thwacked against the pressboard, breaking again.

Rachel’s M16 was pinned beneath her, but if she wriggled enough, she might be able to reach the trigger. The shots would be wild, but maybe she could amputate the woman’s feet.

“I’m not a Zap!” she shouted, and she almost believed it. But all that mattered was that she convinced her attacked.

“I saw your eyes.” The broken tip of the paddle jabbed toward her, punching into the fabric of her strap. The blow bruised her to the bone but didn’t penetrate her skin.

This pack is going to win a Medal of Honor if we get out of this mess.

“Stop. My name’s Rachel.”

Then she heard DeVontay and Lars shouting from outside the shop. The woman hesitated, the paddle raised like a spear for a killing blow.

“Your eyes,” the woman said, hesitating with her face twisted in a murderous leer. Rachel couldn’t imagine she looked less human than her attacker at that moment.

“I can explain.” She slid her right wrist along the gunstock until her finger hooked against the trigger.

We’ll see who’s the bitch when you’re hobbling around on stumps.

“Tara,” Lars called, blustering into the room. Rachel couldn’t see him, but she guessed he knew this woman. “Leave her alone. She’s cool.”

“Did you see her
eyes
?”

“Yeah, I can explain—”

“And you let her come in here? What if she hurt Squeak?”

Rachel counted down, lifting the rifle barrel as much as she could, fighting to draw her next breath. She’d give this situation three seconds to resolve itself…

“She saved me out there.
From
the Zaps.”

“She’s one of us,” DeVontay said from the doorway. “But there are real Zaps around here, and if you keep raising hell like that, they’ll be on us in no time.”

The woman stepped back, glaring at Rachel as if she were staring at some rare specimen at a freak show. “What’s the deal?”

“Get this thing off of me…and…I’ll tell you,” Rachel wheezed.

The woman dropped the paddle and stepped back while DeVontay and Lars knelt to lift the cabinet. It was so heavy it took both of them several seconds of straining to budge it, and then only enough for Rachel to squirm free. DeVontay helped her to her feet, brushing broken glass and fishing lures from her clothes.

“You okay?” he asked. She nodded, even though her cheeks stung from several small cuts and her shoulder throbbed with deep rushes of agony.

“Where’s Squeak?” the woman, Tara, asked.

“She ran out the door like she was scared to death,” Lars said. “Nice job, Tara.”

“What do you expect? There was a fucking Zap in here—”

“I’m not a Zap,” Rachel repeated.

Tara hopped over the fallen cabinet and dashed for the door. “Wait up,” Lars said, sprinting after her.

“We really know how to pick ‘em,” DeVontay said to Rachel, giving her a quick hug and kiss. “You got some little cuts.”

“Killer dogs, Zaps, and psycho moms, I can survive them all. Who is Squeak, anyway?”

“Little girl, five or six. I almost went after her but I heard that woman shrieking like a maniac.”

“Maybe we should help.” Rachel limped to the welcoming daylight beyond the shop.

Before she reached the door, Tara shrieked again, this time an octave higher. Screaming.

Amid a distant staccato rumble.

Tara and Lars stood twenty feet outside the outfitter’s shop, Tara trembling and shaking her fists as she blared her anxiety like an emergency siren. Lars held his axe limply at his side as if not sure how to respond.

Beyond them, in the middle of town fifty yards away, trash blowing around its ankles, stood the remaining Zap. In its arms was cradled a small child, limbs dangling as if she was unconscious. Or dead.

“Put her
dooooown
,” Tara wailed. She tried to run toward the mutant, but Lars grabbed her jacket sleeve and nearly yanked her to the ground while restraining her.

“Easy,” he said. “We don’t know what it wants.”

“Look at those eyes,” she bleated. “You know what
that
means.”

DeVontay shouldered his weapon and sighted, but then lowered it again. “Too far. I might hit the girl.”

Rachel wondered if that was a hint that DeVontay wanted her to do the shooting. She had no qualms about killing the Zap, but a head shot was the only sure thing. She might try strafing its legs, the way she’d intended to cripple Tara during the attack, but would penetrate from this distance. The weapon certainly was effective at such range; she just wasn’t sure
she
was.

The Zap waited like a gunfighter in a Mexican standoff, although it showed no concern over being unarmed. Its eyes glittered but weren’t raging storms, which Rachel interpreted as a lack of aggression. She wondered if their aspect would change if they charged, but that was even riskier than attempting a head shot.

“What does it want?” DeVontay asked Rachel.

“I’m under radio silence. Can’t pick up anything.”

“Do something, or give me your damn axe and let me,” Tara said to Lars, struggling to escape his grip. “I’ll brain him like did that other one.”

Rachel shot a glance at DeVontay.
Mystery solved.
So SHE’S the stone-cold Zap chopper.

“Careful,” Lars said. “We don’t know what this thing’s going to do.”

Rachel lowered her rifle and handed it to DeVontay. “Let me handle it.”

Tara spun, frantic rage contorting her face. “You? What do you know?”

“I’m a Zap bitch, remember?” Rachel regretted her sarcasm, given the woman’s fraught emotional state, but she was mostly human, after all.

During their discussion, the mutant hadn’t moved in the slightest, as if it had lapsed into a state of suspended animation. Zaps didn’t really sleep, and they had deep reserves of physical energy, so Rachel assumed it could stand like that for days if no one bothered it, or no monsters came out of the woods and attacked.

Or if nobody comes up to it and demands the child back.

She felt the eyes of the others on her as she walked slowly toward the Zap. It was almost identical to the first two Zaps, with the same silvery, one-piece suit and smooth, pale facial features. The only difference was the hair color, which was a lighter shade of brown than that of the others.

The Zap showed no reaction to her approach. She wondered if it detected her mutant half even though she couldn’t divine any telepathic signals from it. Perhaps they had developed the ability to shield their communications.

“Can you hear me?” she asked when she was twenty yards away.

A genderless monotone: “Yes, I can hear you, Rachel Wheeler.”

It knows my name. It knows me.

The bland mutant face showed no strain or emotion, and no real sign of interest. Its eyes might’ve sparked just a little more intensely, but that was difficult to tell in the sunlight.

She could feel the eyes of the other people on her as she debated her next move. She believed she could win a physical struggle—after all, she’d just survived a wild animal attack and a crazy-woman freak-out, and the Zaps, while strong, had apparently lost most of their viciousness.

From closer, she could make out the child’s parted lips and the fluttering eyelids. So she was alive, if unresponsive. She was thin and frail, her hair hanging in fine, dark locks around her rosy cheeks.

One of her shoes was missing, the other a leather slip-on with a brass buckle, a dress shoe wholly unsuitable for apocalyptic life. She wore red stockings and a brown corduroy dress whose straps were held in place by ivory buttons. She appeared to be playing dress-up as if oblivious to the harsh conditions around her.

Or maybe Tara’s made a baby doll out of her.

She thought about sending a telepathic signal but since the mutant had already responded vocally, she decided to stick with what was working. “What do you want with the girl?”

“Everything,” the Zap said.

No menace or humor or apology. Just a fact.

Rachel took another few steps closer. No reaction.

“Her mother wants her. She’s worried you will hurt the girl.”

“We don’t feel pain,” the Zap said, and Rachel wondered if the girl was included in that mutant trait.

“This is a human child. Surely you can see that.”

“It is ours.”

Rachel noted the use of gender-neutral “it.” Maybe the mutant saw humans in the same way humans saw them, as all looking alike and interchangeable. Rachel tried to match the Zap’s emotionless delivery. “No, she belongs to her mother.”

The Zap was unimpressed. “All of you belong to us.”

“We’re not Zaps, or whatever you call yourself.”

“We don’t have names. We’re us.”

Rachel wondered if she could provoke the mutant into a response. Tara and Lars argued and struggled behind her, edging ever closer, and Rachel imagined someone would soon be tempted to solve the problem with a gun, the good, old-fashioned human way. “We killed some of your kind. I shot one down by the river.”

“We will come back to collect them. We will repair us.”

Then what are you waiting for? Why don’t you just leave with the child?

The child jerked awake and stared wide-eyed up at the Zap and then began screaming and kicking. The Zap tightened its grip, almost crushing the girl, who only cried more frantically. Rachel feared the mutant would break the girl’s ribs or accidentally suffocate her. Only it might not be an accident.

“Get out of the way, Rachel,” DeVontay yelled.

“Don’t shoot,” she said, waving him off without turning. She kept her gaze fixed on the Zap, who stared right back, its lips set in a straight, impassive line and its eyes flickering more intensely. The struggle aroused some sort of reaction inside that pale head.

She hurried toward the Zap, figuring this was the last try. “If you want a human, why don’t you take me? Just let the girl go.”

“You’re not a human, Rachel Wheeler.”

“So you know what I am.”

“We know what you could’ve been. We don’t know what you’ve become.”

Tara’s screams and pleas were in harmony with her daughter’s, their voices sure to draw out any hungry predators lurking around the town. Rachel had to act fast. “If we kill you, who will collect your dead?”

“We collect our dead.” The Zap obviously didn’t understand. To its evolved mind, the individual death brought no separation from the rest of the tribe. But if they were so smart now, why did they want the girl? What else was left to learn?