Afterburn: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 1) (21 page)

And then down came a darkness that swallowed the world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Stephen was dreaming of baseball, standing in left field with those short itchy pants and the sun in his eyes, alone with the odors of cut grass and leather and bubble gum, people in the stands yelling, cheering, booing, the chubby coach in the windbreaker standing beside the dugout clapping his hands in encouragement.

Then came the
dink
of the aluminum bat striking the ball and it rising in the air and coming down, growing larger and larger as he moved under it, and it was too big for his glove, then too big for the field, and then too big for the sky, a fat white globe that kept expanding until—

Boomp boomp boomp.

Stephen sat up, not sure where he was, wrapped in such absolute darkness that he thought he’d gone blind.

“They’re here,” came Kokona’s small, mirthful voice, and then she must have opened her eyes because Stephen could see he’d fallen asleep in Marina’s room. Marina rose up sleepily in the opposite bunk, Kokona bundled in a blanket by her side.

“Open up!” the captain bellowed from outside the door.

Disoriented, Stephen reached for his rifle, thinking the bunker must be under attack from some new threat. He’d taken off his shirt and the ventilated air was cool on his skin, and he felt a little embarrassed that Marina saw him half-naked.

“What do they want?” Marina asked, frightened, hugging Kokona protectively.

“Must be big, if they’re raising that much hell.”

“It’s a small thing,” Kokona said. “They want me.”

The banging continued, echoing in the small room and driving nails of pain into Stephen’s skull. He strode to the door and yelled, “Jeez, take it easy. We hear you, man.”

“Open the door,” the captain said, calmer now.

“Maybe I will, after you tell me what you want.”

“It’s official military business.”

Stephen hadn’t officially enlisted yet, and he and Franklin hadn’t even told the captain of their intentions to join up. So “military business” didn’t mean a damn thing to him at the moment. “We invited you here to save your ass. That doesn’t mean you own the place.”

“This isn’t about you, Stephen. Open the door. Now.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on.” Stephen glanced back at Marina, who had retreated to the corner of her bed, both arms around Kokona as if a strong wind might tear her from Marina’s grasp and whisk her away. Her pretty face was lined with panic, muscles taut.

Kokona, though, just grinned like a little brown cherub, eyes full of delight and fire. “Let him in,” Kokona said. “This will be fun.”

Stephen shook his head. The captain hammered the door again.

“It’s okay, Stephen,” Kokona said. “I can handle him. I can handle
all
of them.”

Stephen looked at Marina, who gave a reluctant nod of agreement. “It’s not like we have anywhere to run,” she said.

Stephen unlocked the door and stepped aside, and Capt. Antonelli stormed in with two other soldiers, all heavily armed. He went directly to Kokona.

“Under New Pentagon Directive 17 and the authority of the Earth Zero Initiative, I am taking you into custody as a prisoner of war,” the captain said to the baby, who giggled as if the officer was a bulb-nosed, mop-haired clown at a birthday party.

“No way.” Stephen reached for the captain. “She’s part of the family. That was the deal—”

One of the soldiers shoved Stephen against the wall and ripped his rifle away. Stephen lunged forward, his fists balled, and the other soldier drove the butt of his M16 into Stephen’s stomach. The blow pushed all the air from his lungs and he hung there for a horrifying moment, wobbling, wondering if he’d ever breathe again and whether he’d puke in front of Marina, and then he was on all fours on the cool concrete floor, slobber dripping from his mouth.

Marina called his name, which made him feel a little better, but not much. He tried to stand, but his muscles were watery mud.

“No!” Kokona said. “Don’t hurt him. I surrender.”

The captain frowned as if unsure what to do next.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t raise my arms like I’m supposed to,” Kokona said. “I’m just a baby.”

Antonelli ripped the blankets away and a silver blur flew up toward his face.

The missing bird…

In that split-second, Stephen realized the bird must have reassembled itself. And either it had found Kokona, or Marina had retrieved it for the mutant baby.

It darted straight for the captain’s face, a high keening whine filling the room. The captain ducked to the side but the projectile grazed his cheek, dribbling blood in its wake.

One of the soldiers sprayed a burst of gunfire, deafening them all, bullets ricocheting off the hard walls.

“Hold fire!” the captain roared, flipping the blanket to use it as a net. The wool swept over the bird but it punched through the fabric and turned, its cold eyes reflecting the fiery gleam of Kokona’s eyes.

The soldiers had forgotten Stephen in the confusion. He scooped his rifle from the floor, barrel first, and gave a weak swing as the bird flitted by.

Strike one.

The captain tossed the blanket at the bird but missed, and one of the soldiers futilely jabbed at the hellish fowl with a knife.

Stephen stepped forward and swung again, drawing on muscle memory from Little League. He had more muscle now but not much memory, and the swing was off by inches.

Strike two.

Kokona’s gleeful laugh only added to the chaos, and Marina called Stephen’s name again.

He ignored her. The game was on the line.

The bird skimmed the helmet of one of the soldiers, knocking it to the floor. The other soldier retreated for the safety of the hall. That gave Stephen enough elbow room to rock his weight onto his back foot and concentrate—chubby coach clapping encouragement in his mind—and then shift smoothly forward with the eye on the ball and—

Smack.

The pieces scattered across the room, tinkling off the masonry walls and the steel frames of the bunk. A small fragment struck Marina, causing her to yelp.

When the calamity died down, the captain regained his composure and said to Kokona, “Any more tricks?”

She smiled and batted her plump fingers together. Her eyes glittered red and orange. “I’m at your mercy, Captain.”

The captain ordered Marina and Stephen out of the room. “Conduct a thorough search,” the captain said to the remaining soldier. “Then seal off this room and stand guard.”

The soldier, a young man barely old enough to shave and so white-faced from the action that Stephen thought he might pass out, swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“No one in or out. Nobody talks to her without my permission.”

Kokona looked up from the bed, her sleeper rumpled, her tiny toes curled. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. In fact, Captain, my basic existence hasn’t changed a bit. I’m still just a mutant baby stuck in a bunker.

The captain scowled as if he wished he could think up some kind of harsh punishment to dispense. Solitary confinement? Restrict rations? Take away potty privileges?

Stephen almost laughed with Kokona, but his gut throbbed and he didn’t know how to handle this new situation.

If only Rachel and DeVontay were here…

As the captain closed the door and looked through the little window at his captive, Stephen realized Franklin was their only hope.

And that wasn’t much hope at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Radio Field Command and report the capture,” Capt. Antonelli said to Lt. Randall in the telecom room.

Randall shook his head, his eyes bloodshot. “What are we supposed to do now?” Randall said.

“Whatever the brass tells us to do,” Antonelli said. “This is war, not a tea party.”

“But if the baby was behind the bird attack—”

“I’ll worry about the ‘ifs,’ you just do your duty.”

“Yes, sir.”

Antonelli realized the lieutenant was as exhausted as he was and he regretted snapping at his XO. “After you deliver the message, put Johnson at the main entrance. No one in or out, I don’t care if it’s High President Murray in a red bikini. And then gather the scraps of that bird from the prisoner’s room and destroy them.”

“How do I do that?”

“The mess area. There’s a propane stove. Fry them back to hell.”

The lieutenant gave a crooked grin. “Chicken barbecue. I like it.”

“Let’s just hope the fumes aren’t toxic.”

That wiped the smile from the lieutenant’s face. Antonelli gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder and said, “If you survive that, stand down and get some shut-eye.”

“Oh, right. I’m sure I’ll sleep just fine given what we’ve seen lately.”

“Right now, two dozen of our comrades are sleeping out there with bugs licking their bones.” They both glanced at the monitors, which showed only a few drifting shadows beneath the eerie aurora.

“Yes, sir.”

“How’s Huynh?”

“Doing better. Man, his leg was real messed up. PFC Kelly must have a magic touch.”

Antonelli wondered if Randall was hinting at a sly tease, but decided to let it go. “She does her job. Now, get on the horn.”

Randall saluted and began connecting the radio to the battery array. He thought about looking in on Colleen, but she was sharing a room with three other soldiers, finally getting some sleep. The move would’ve been far too obvious and they had to be careful now. Secret affairs and bunkers didn’t mix.

“Captain.”

Oh, great. Just what I needed.

He turned to find Franklin coming down the hall, his feet bare, his stained longhandle underwear doing little to restrain his sagging rolls of old-man blubber. The man would have been almost comical, a Doomsday Santa Claus, if not for the snarl on his cracked lips.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Franklin said. “Stephen told me about that shit. That’s not the deal.”

“New deal, Mr. Wheeler.”

“You fucking traitor. We hauled your ass out of a bloodbath and let you guys make yourselves at home, and then you turn into the very government assholes that I was afraid you’d be.”

“It’s not my call. I’m acting under the guidance of my superiors.”

“Fuck me, I can’t believe I fell for your bullshit. If there’s one thing you can count on no matter how many times the world ends, it’s that the government is gonna fucking government.”

Antonelli forced himself to be patient. He could have the man restrained, toss his rumpled old ass in there with that tiny mutant freak, and even order his execution, but right now the captain just wanted things to settle down so he could get a clear read on the situation. “This isn’t about us. This is about the fate of the world, Mr. Wheeler. That means doing things we don’t necessarily like. But we have to trust in the larger mission.”

“We’re not part of—”

Antonelli motioned toward the front entrance and the big, hostile, insurgent world beyond its steel door. “You have two people still out there, correct? You might want to think about them, and whose side you want to be on here. You might want them to fall under the protection and care of the New Pentagon. You might think about the two teenagers and the sentence for sedition in a time of war.”

“You wouldn’t.” But Franklin looked at the captain’s face and knew that he would.

“We’re winning this war by whatever means necessary.”

Franklin’s gray brow furrowed and his face looked as if he’d aged ten years in the space of those few sentences. He turned and slumped back to wherever he was holed up with the teenagers.

Antonelli walked down the hall, made sure the main entrance was secure and the guard alert, and then went to Huynh’s room.

The Vietnamese soldier was sitting up in bed, his rifle broken down in parts around him, an oily rag in his lap. He was riding the blade of his bayonet along the rough metal edge of the bed frame, sharpening it.

Sniiffft sniiiffft sniiiffft.

He started to stand when Antonelli entered, but the captain motioned him to stay down.

“PFC Kelly told you to rest,” Antonelli said.

“I rest before. Now I finished.”

“Do you know how badly you were hurt? Do you remember anything?”

“Bird,” the man said. In the muted light of the room’s small overhead bulb, his skin looked sallow.

Not surprising, since he was dead not three hours ago.

“Yes, bird,” Antonelli said. He pressed his wrist to the man’s forehead, and the skin was cool. “No fever.”

“Ready for duty, sir.”

That was one phrase the man had memorized, drilled into him during New Pentagon’s basic training. HQ expected to defeat an advanced mutant civilization with a makeshift pack of volunteers who were former store clerks, school teachers, and short-order cooks.

“You’ll get your chance. We’re moving out in two days. Will you be able to walk?”

The man’s face creased in eagerness. “I walk. Make war on Zap.”

“That’s right, Private. Make the
hell
out of war on Zap.”

The captain and Colleen had wrapped a large, bulky bandage around Huynh’s leg, even though the wound had nearly closed. The white cotton even featured a few splotches of dried blood for authenticity. As far as the other soldiers would know, Huynh had really not been injured all that badly, Kelly had a magic touch, and Huynh was toughing it out for the greater glory of Earth Zero and the human race.

An inspiration to them all.

Antonelli inspected the rifle parts and saw they were polished to a prideful luster. This soldier was dedicated.

“Very well, then,” the captain said in parting. “Carry on.”

As the officer left, Huynh returned to sliding the bayonet blade across the bed frame, metal on metal, edge on edge.

Sniiiffft sniiiffft sniiiffft.

“Ready for duty, sir,” he whispered, a tiny gleam in his eye.

THE END