Afterburn: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 1) (15 page)

“Yes, I mean it. But you need to eat so you’ll be able to handle whatever it takes to get the job done. Okay?”

Tara nodded with gratitude, the tears making grimy tracks on her cheeks. As the woman scooped up a mouthful of fish, Rachel put a comforting hand on her shoulder and then joined DeVontay by the window.

Looking out, she saw the sun had already touched the horizon. Fuming red clouds wreathed the ridges to the west and tangled with the aurora like a neon weavework. “Think the kids are okay?”

“Yeah, they’ve got the bunker,” DeVontay responded. “As long as they stay inside, they’re good.”

“I trust Marina, but I worry about Stephen.” Rachel didn’t want to bring up Kokona. While Rachel’s mutant ability had faded over time, Kokona’s seemed to have maintained or maybe even increased.

Their telepathic connection had fuzzed, and Rachel wasn’t sure whether the interference was just an inevitable result of their removal from the rest of Zap Nation or an intentional act by the clever infant.

“Stephen’s okay, but he’s at that age, you know?”

“Hormones. And he’s restless. He needs to spread his wings and the walls are only ten feet apart. Maybe we’ve sheltered him too much.”

DeVontay side-eyed her as if she were joking, the sun on his handsome face casting his skin in a delicious shade of chocolate. “That some kind of school-counselor humor, or is it bunker humor?”

“Just wondering if we’re doing the right thing. You know, as parents, or whatever we are.”

“Whatever we are? A one-eyed bruthah, a lily-white Southern gal whose half Zap, a Mexican teen and a gunslinger, and if you count Franklin, the geezery crank. Then throw in a Japanese baby that doesn’t age and gets smarter by the day, and you would have the hottest reality show of the century if we still had television.”

“Not if there were Kardashian Zaps. People would watch the hell out of that.”

DeVontay laughed, then lowered his voice. “I’m not worried about us, if you know what I mean. These guys—” he cocked his head toward Lars and Tara who sat talking on the couch—“might be trouble if we take them on.”

“Isn’t that why we came to Stonewall in the first place? Sure, we need food, but we want people, too. At least to know some are still out there in the world. Now that we’ve found some, you want to scramble back into our hole in the ground just because it’s simpler that way?”

DeVontay tapped his forehead against the window glass in frustration. “Maybe.”

“That’s not the DeVontay I know.” Rachel gripped his shoulder hard enough to get his attention. “That’s not the man I love. You don’t run from problems, or you’d be a million miles away from me by now.”

“Damn, I hate it when you’re right,” he said with a sigh. He kissed her and went to join the others, a little swagger in his step. “So, folks, here’s what we’re gonna do.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Mark Antonelli found her in a granite crevasse near the lichen-splotched, time-worn rocks of the ridge.

Or, more precisely, she found
him
. He walked right past the deeply-shadowed outcropping without noticing. Colleen called out, “All clear?”

He dropped to his hands and knees and peered under the craggy overhang. He could see only her eyes, wet and shiny in the dark. “You made it.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said, wriggling out from between the cool shelves of stone. The opening couldn’t have been more than eighteen inches wide. She’d had to ditch her gear to squeeze in, although she still gripped her rifle and now pushed it in front of her as she inched her way to sunlight.

Antonelli helped her slide the last few feet and then wrapped her in a hug. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you,” he whispered in her ear.

“You’d do your duty.” She was as aware as he was of the illicit nature of their affair, but she had nothing to risk. In a world where money had no value, soldiers served only for food and the chance to restore the human race to its former glory. Even medals and rank promotions offered little incentive. No, this was a labor of love all the way around.

The captain checked her over and saw only some scratches on the backs of her hands and on her cheek. She used the sleeve of her cotton tunic to wipe blood from the side of his neck. He didn’t even know he was wounded until the contact stimulated the exposed nerve endings.

“Did you get hit?” she asked.

“I don’t remember. Could’ve been a bird, could’ve jabbed it on a stick in the woods. Either way, I don’t think I’ll be putting in for a Purple Heart.”

“What were those things?”

“I don’t know. We found one that was mostly intact and we’re taking it in for examination.”

“So we secured the bunker?”

“Sort of.” Antonelli glanced at the sky, where the vultures still cut lazy rings around the sun. He couldn’t be sure but it looked like they were slowly descending in altitude, becoming impatient. “We’d better get inside.”

As he helped her gather her gear, he wondered if she’d abandoned any of her comrades in the heat of battle. One of them, PFC Sullivan, lay belly down across a fallen log, most of his head sheared from the stump of his neck. Sullivan had served under Antonelli at Lejeune and had been a brave, destructive force during the early days of the Zap rampage. Losing a veteran hurt, both emotionally and tactically.

This morning, Antonelli had been firm about the customary burial of a fallen soldier, and now he was leaving bodies out in the field to be scavenged by carrion birds. Practicality over protocol. He hadn’t conducted a full head count yet, but he estimated he had fewer than a dozen soldiers left.

At least Colleen’s one of them, thank God.

As he led her down a narrow, wooded path to the bunker door, alert for any fresh aerial attacks, he realized he would’ve gladly traded the loss of all of them in order to keep Colleen. He was gone to shit as a soldier and a leader. But Antonelli still wore the bars and so would do his duty just as Colleen predicted.

He just wouldn’t do it well.

He’d lost most of his command in a single day. And considering the world was shaped by biological mutation rather than military might, “FUBAR” was an understatement.

They didn’t teach this shit at VMI.

They came upon a private that Antonelli didn’t know too well, a post-apocalypse recruit assigned to his unit by HQ. Private Tan Huynh had drawn the scorn of some of the New Pentagon command who were old enough to remember the Vietnam War, but that conflict seemed almost trivial compared to the current one.

Huynh’s leg was shattered below the shin, a wand of bundled wires protruding from the wound. Sweat dotted his forehead and he was going into shock. Colleen rushed to help him, murmuring in soothing tones while Huynh tried unsuccessfully to remain composed. Antonelli stared at the broken mechanism in the man’s leg as if it had suddenly sprouted from flesh and blood.

“Mark!” Colleen called to him, breaking the captain from his reverie. She knew better than to call him that when others were around, but he didn’t think Huynh noticed or cared.

If he lives long enough to remember, it’ll be a miracle.

“He’s going into shock and he’s lost a lot of blood.” Colleen wasn’t a medic, but, in a bout of old-world sexism despite a sitting president who was a woman, High Command insisted that all female soldiers receive emergency first-aid training.

“We have to get him inside,” Antonelli said. “Those vultures could drop any second.”

“No more bird,” Huynh said in his broken English.

“Rest easy, son,” Antonelli said, then to Colleen. “Get under his arm and let’s lift him.”

She shouldered her rifle and got into position while Antonelli took the other side. This would hurt, but Antonelli didn’t know any other way to get the job done. Huynh’s dark eyes went wide as he braced for the coming agony.

“Keep your weight on your good leg,” Antonelli said. He nodded at Colleen and they levered him into a standing position, supporting him between them. Huynh bit his lip, trying not to whimper.

“Okay, let’s all move forward together,” he commanded, unable to quell the urgency in his voice. He wrapped Huynh’s arm around his shoulder and drew his revolver. “One…two…three…”

Antonelli thought at first that Huynh had shrieked in pain, and then he realized the sound was coming from high above.

“Birds,” Colleen yelled, and they broke into a staggering, uneven jog that nearly pulled them all to the ground. But they soon set up a rhythm, Huynh grunting with each step but managing to swallow his screams.

Antonelli braced for the talons and piercing beak of the diving vulture, but it broke away somewhere overhead and settled with a tremendous flapping of its wings that was so powerful it sent a breeze across their backs.

The captain looked over Huynh’s shoulder at Colleen’s taut face, then behind them. The vulture had alighted on the fallen log and dipped its curved yellow beak into PFC Sullivan, tearing through cloth and pulling out a stringy red giblet. The vulture tipped its ugly, bald head back and tossed the glistening meat into its maw, the great curved neck flexing as a piece of Sullivan worked its way to the mutant scavenger’s stomach.

“What is it?” Colleen asked.

“Don’t look. Just keep moving.”

He found himself hoping there was enough meat on the corpse to satisfy the bird. They were nearly to the bunker when another of the birds broke from the circle and descended. Antonelli hoped the cover of trees would protect them, but he was still relieved to round a curve in the path and find the old man from the bunker.

“Not much farther now,” the man said, clacking a round into the shotgun Antonelli had returned to him. “Just keep heading that way and you’ll be on it in no time. Everybody else is in.”

Every grunt left alive, you mean.

As the Marine moved up the trail to cover their rear, Colleen said, “Civilians occupied the bunker?”

“Yeah. They’re trying to help us, at least.”

“They help leg,” Huynh said, as if trying to convince himself.

“Yes,” Antonelli told him. “We have lots of supplies in the bunker. We’ll get you fixed up in no time, Private.”

Lt. Randall came to meet them as they came within sight of the door. When he tried to take Colleen’s place at Huynh’s side, she shook her head and said, “It’s easier if I take him all the way.”

“Get a bed ready,” Antonelli said, not sure of the bunker’s layout and furnishings but knowing they’d need an operating room. “Anybody else wounded?”

“Nothing serious,” Randall said. “Broken fingers, a few puncture wounds, one guy lost some teeth.”

“The vultures are feeding. Get everybody inside.”

“We’re all in except that crazy old man. He was mumbling something about ‘shitterhawks.’”

The shotgun boomed somewhere in the forest, and something squawked and flapped.

Antonelli and Colleen half-dragged Huynh the rest of the way to the bunker and then entered its cool, dank hallway. Behind them, Randall shouted, “Last call! I’m closing it.”

The teen boy who’d lied to Antonelli on the radio came running from the facility’s depths. “Don’t you dare close that door. He didn’t have to let you guys in. We could’ve sat in here and watched all of you die.”

“Give him a minute,” Antonelli ordered. “If he’s not back by then, lock it down.”

Yes, sir,” Randall said.

“Do you have place we can put him?” Colleen asked the teen.

The teen motioned for them to follow, leading them to the first doorway on the right. There were sets of bunk beds on either side of the small room, and they rolled Huynh in the nearest bottom bunk. He looked even paler, his skin felt clammy, and his breathing was shallow.

Colleen yanked a blanket off the top bunk and covered him, leaving his injured leg exposed. She looked at the boy, who watched from the doorway. “Do you have any Medrol or adrenalin?”

“What’s that?” the boy asked.

“Meds.”

“Maybe in the supply closet. We don’t use any of that stuff much.”

“Find one of my men and take him to the closet,” Antonelli said. “We’ll need some local anesthetic as well as any antibiotics and bandages.”

“I’m not in the army,” the sullen teen said. “You’re not my boss.”

Antonelli burned with anger and was ready to dress down the little punk when Colleen said, to him, “Please. This man’s life is in danger.”

The teen waited a second for Antonelli to explode, and when that didn’t happen, he turned and left the room. “I’m going to kick that boy’s ass when this is over,” he said.

“Let’s make sure it’s over first,” Colleen said. Huynh appeared to be unconscious. Antonelli took a closer look at the wound. The projectile appeared to have shattered his shin—he could see shards of bone amid the torn muscle tissue.

“We’re going to have to get this thing out of him,” Antonelli said.

“He’ll need some morphine first, but that’s a risk until we treat the shock.”

He heard an argument in the hallway and squeezed Colleen’s shoulder. “Take care of him,” he said, and after she nodded, he returned to the bunker door.

“You can’t go out there,” Randall was saying to the old man, who clawed at the latch as if trying to open the door.

“Hell if I can’t,’ the old man said, spittle flying as he ranted. “This is still the land of the free unless you got the firepower to say otherwise.”

Now I see where the kid gets it from.

“Calm down, Mister…huh…what’s your name, anyway?” Antonelli said, approaching slowly lest the old man feel cornered.

“I’ll let you know when you
need
to know, and that might be never,” the man said. He stopped struggling with Randall, but Antonelli noticed he didn’t relax his grip on the shotgun, either.

“Okay, sir,” Antonelli said, in a soothing, deferential tone. “I’m Capt. Mark Antonelli, Third Battalion, Eighth Marines acting on behalf of New Pentagon. Seeing as how we’re guests here, perhaps if we ask politely? Is it okay if we keep the door locked until we can assess our damage and casualties?”

“I got people out there, too,” the man said. “I don’t know where they are, but if they come on the run, unlocking that door might cost them seconds that they don’t have to spare.”

“Randall will stay on post,” Antonelli said to the man, and then added to the lieutenant, “If you hear any human voice at all, you yell for us and open that door right away. Understood?”

Randall scowled and opened his mouth wide to protest, and then thought better of it. He muttered only, “Yes, sir.”

Antonelli turned to the old man. “Until we figure out what just happened and what those things are, we’re asking your permission to stay here. Your bunker, your rules, just let us regroup and then we’re on our way. We have our orders.”

The old man peered at him with half-lidded eyes a moment, and then said, “Franklin.”

“What’s that?”

“Franklin Wheeler. That’s my name.”

“Okay, Franklin, thank you for saving me and my troops.”

“Didn’t save them all. Plenty of buzzard bait laying around out there.” Then he looked past the captain and down the hallway. “Take her back to her room,” he said to whoever stood there.

Antonelli turned to see a dark-haired Mexican girl with what looked to be a sleeping Asian infant, although their skin colors weren’t too dissimilar.

She’s too young to be the mother of that baby.

Then the baby opened its eyes and spoke. “Welcome to Eagle One.”