After (Book 3): Milepost 291 (14 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

“Not
looking good,” Franklin said, peering over the edge of the boulder on which he
was laying.

He
passed the binoculars to Jorge. They’d moved into the forest to avoid the open
road, hoping to identify the source of the car fire. Black oily smoke still
threaded into the sky, but it had thinned and the breeze carried the stink to
the east. Franklin had seen three men in fatigues—Sarge’s soldiers,
probably—cross the road beyond them, but he was more concerned about the silent
figures trickling through the forest.

“What
are Zaps doing here?” Robertson asked.

“Must
have smelled the fire or heard the gunshots,” Franklin said. “They’re drawn to
activity. I wouldn’t be surprised if the soldiers lured them here.”

“I
can’t believe there’s so many of them,” Robertson said. “We hardly ever saw any
before the troops rolled through. Two months of nothing, and now they’re
everywhere.”

“Maybe
there are more of them than anyone knew,” Jorge said.

“Or
nobody’s left in the cities for them to kill,” Franklin said.

“Thanks,
Mr. Optimistic,” Shay said, sitting on a rock with an oversize jacket draped
around her shoulders.

“They’re
not wandering around aimlessly,” Franklin said. “It’s like they’re searching
for something.”

From
the rocky overhang, Franklin counted at least a dozen Zapheads in the woods
below them. They were unkempt, some of them half-naked, with tangled, greasy
hair. They walked with a slight jerking motion between the trees, but they
didn’t stagger. They were all headed in the same direction, toward the road and
the burning cars, like penitents on a pilgrimage bound for some sacred shrine.

“So
what do we do?” Robertson asked.

“Lay
those guns on the ground, for one thing,” came a voice above them.

Franklin
rolled onto his back and squinted against the sun.
The silhouetted figure included the long barrel of a rifle. Another man stepped
from behind a tree, his weapon leveled, and Franklin recognized them as the
other two soldiers from their scouting mission.

“We
thought you guys were dead,” Franklin said, with what he hoped was a tone of
earnestness. His semiautomatic was laying on the rock beside him, and he just
wasn’t skilled enough to sweep it up and cut them down like a movie hero. “We
went looking for you.”

“Where
are Jimbo and Hayes?” the silhouette asked. “The guys who were with you?”

“We…we
got separated,” Franklin said.

“Then
how did you end up with their rifles?”

Franklin
couldn’t come up with a reasonable answer to that
one. Jorge said, “They were killed by Zapheads.”

“Is
that so?” said the second soldier, edging forward and kicking Jorge’s rifle
away from him. Then he swung his barrel toward Robertson. “Don’t even think about
going for that shotgun.”

The
silhouette emerged from the sun’s backlighting and scowled down at Franklin. “I’d kill you right here but Sarge is going to want his pound of flesh, and I’m
not dragging your fat ass back up the mountain.”

“What
about the other two?” the second soldier asked his companion. “Girl’s pretty
cute.”

“Leave
‘em for the Zaps. She wouldn’t last five minutes back at the bunker. Those
assholes would tear her into a hundred pieces.”

Shay
had transformed into the same shell-shocked condition she’d been in when Franklin had first encountered her. Robertson twitched restlessly but he made no move for
his weapon. Franklin stood on weary legs. He was tired of all this bullshit. He
wouldn’t mind if they just shot him now and saved him the trouble of getting
tortured by Sarge.

Jorge,
however, gave no sign of fear or panic. “Zapheads are all around us,” he said
in a low voice. “If you shoot, they’ll swarm you.”

“We’ve
got enough bullets for all of you,” the second soldier said. “Saves us the trouble
of hunting them down.”

He
leaned over to scoop up Robertson’s shotgun. Three roaring explosions echoed
off the stones and tree trunks and smoke rose from the front of Shay’s jacket.
Then her hand emerged from the inner folds, brandishing the pistol.

The
second soldier cried out and tumbled off the rock ledge, his weapon clattering
down the slope. The first soldier grunted in pain, a raw red breach in the
flesh of his shoulder. But he managed to raise his semiautomatic and squeeze
the trigger, stitching a line of bullets in front of him.

Shay
sucked in her breath and dropped her pistol, clutching at a sudden bloom of
blood on her throat. Robertson moaned her name and scooped her up as she fell,
ignoring the two bullet wounds in his legs. Jorge was also hit, but he rolled
toward his discarded weapon before the soldier could get a bead on him.

Franklin
realized he had no chance to escape the next
fusillade so he stepped backward and went off the ledge, falling ten feet
before bouncing off a mossy stretch of stone pocked with scrub. An orange
sunburst flooded the inside of his head as his skull bounced off rock. He
rolled another five feet as a second hail of gunfire erupted, finally stopping
his fall by jamming one leg into the branches of a tree.

His
left shoulder and upper arm throbbed, and his head felt as if an army had
goose-stepped on it during a long march. The pain brought a sudden tsunami of
nausea. He spat and drew a deep, aching breath, wondering if he’d broken a rib.
The shotgun fired on the ledge above him, and then a sudden silence descended.
The bitter odor of gun smoke drifted down to him.

He
tugged himself back up the ledge, gripping the stems of saplings and whatever
crevices he could find in the stone. Robertson’s sob of “No, no, no” broke the
hush, and somewhere a bird chirped, too smart or dumb to acknowledge the
violence below. Dark spots swam before his eyes, and he closed them so he
didn’t get dizzy and tumble down the ravine.

Jorge’s
face appeared above him, reaching down with a trembling hand. Franklin grabbed
it and Jorge encircled his wrist and dragged him back on the stone, the
treetops careening wildly above him, the sunlit red and yellow leaves like the
bottom of a kaleidoscope.

“Okay?”
Jorge asked.

“I’ve
had better days.”

Franklin
turned his head and saw Robertson huddled over Shay,
her limp head lolling in his embrace. Blood spattered both of them, and
Robertson shook with sobs. At the edge of the rocks, both soldiers lay still.

“Is
she…” Franklin whispered.

Jorge
nodded, his face grave, and it was only then that Franklin saw the raw, jagged
wound in Jorge’s side. Blood trickled from a gash in his shirt.

“If
any more of them are around, they’ll have heard the shots,” Franklin said.

“I
don’t think any of us is good for—what do they say in your crime movies?—a fast
getaway.”

Franklin
tilted his head toward Robertson. “I doubt if he’d
leave her, anyway.”

“She
got both of them. She saved our lives.”

Franklin
could tell Jorge was thinking about his own daughter,
and how it might have been her life lost to violence. Or maybe he had already
accepted Marina was dead, even though he had yet to admit it to himself.

“Her
dad trained her well.”

Robertson
turned to them, bleary-eyed and mumbling incoherently. He kissed the top of
Shay’s head and gently brushed the hair from her face. She was angelic in
death, peaceful, all signs of trauma and horror fled forever. Franklin thought
religion was a tool used for control, but he took a little comfort in the
notion that she might be in a better place.

Wouldn’t
be hard to find something better than this hell.

“Whyyyyy?”
Robertson wailed.

It
was a question Franklin had been asking for two months. Some of the nausea
lifted, although his head still throbbed mightily. He reached up and touched a
welt the size of a duck’s egg. He rolled onto his side, bracing for the pain as
he attempted to stand and comfort Robertson.

Then
he heard a faint sound, almost like the rush of wind building in intensity. But
the leaves overhead were still.

“Where’s
your rifle?” he asked Jorge, keeping his voice level.

The
Zapheads came out of the trees, echoing Robertson’s plaintive “Whyyyyyy?” with
a dozen or more voices.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE

Men
with guns poured out of a storage shed, scattering along the fence lines and
climbing onto roofs and rusting farm equipment. Rooster bellowed orders, waving
his walking stick to direct men to their positions. The men didn’t seem to be
well trained, certainly not when compared to the precision of a military squad,
but they projected a deep eagerness to lock down on their triggers.

Several
men mounted horses, their rifles slung over their saddles, and galloped off
down the dirt road toward the main road. DeVontay admired the grace and power
of the animals and wished he had such an easy means of escape.

As
the compound erupted into action, DeVontay wondered if he’d be able to slip
away while Rooster was distracted. But before he could make a decision, Rooster
tapped him on the shoulder with the walking stick. “So are you with us or
against us?”

DeVontay
didn’t think he had the option of neutrality. At any rate, better to buy a
little more time than get gunned down before he knew the lay of the land. “I’m
in. What do you want me to do?”

Rooster
squinted at him. “Cover up that glass eye a sec.”

DeVontay
placed a palm over it.

“Do
you swear allegiance to the Republic of Stonewall?”

Holy
shit, is this guy some kind of redneck Hitler?

DeVontay
was about to make a wisecrack but Rooster’s face was grim. He believed in his “country,”
apparently. He also considered himself a flawless judge of character. People
like that were dangerous, but also easy to fool because of their vanity.

DeVontay
thought of Stephen in the dark, windowless building with the other children,
frightened by all the chaos. “I swear.”

Somebody
shouted at Rooster but he ignored the man, instead keeping his gaze on DeVontay
as if mulling it over. Then he nodded. “Okay,” he said, pointing his walking
stick—which apparently he used like a baton—to a man standing guard by an old
school bus whose tires had long rotted away. “Go tell Hardison you’ve enlisted.
We’ll talk after we kill some Zaps.”

Rooster
turned away, giving commands to two men who perched on the top of a water
tower. “See anything?”

One,
wielding binoculars, answered, “Looks like a whole herd of the fuckers.”

“Don’t
shoot until we’re in position. We don’t want to attract any more of them until
we’re ready.”

DeVontay
felt Rooster’s eyes on his back as he crossed the compound. Although a few of
the armed men had hurried out of the main gate in the wake of the makeshift
cavalry, most had fanned out around the perimeter. Even if a battle erupted,
DeVontay wasn’t sure he’d be able to get Stephen and slip away without being
seen.

Hardison,
standing at the rear emergency door of the bus, scowled at DeVontay. He had an
old scar on one cheek and a scrap of mustache that looked as if it still held
some of his breakfast. “What’s the password?”

“Rooster
didn’t give me a password. He just said to tell you I’ve enlisted.”

Hardison
swung open the rear door.” That’s the password.”

Stacked
on the floor of the bus were several piles of weapons, mostly rifles, along
with a few shotguns and handguns. “You a peashooter man or a bazooka?” Hardison
asked.

“Excuse
me?”

“Pistol
or a twelve-gauge?”

“Might
as well have a shotgun,’ DeVontay said, shrugging. “With only one eye, my aim
isn’t so good.”

Hardison
dug in the pile and pulled out a Remington pump. “We’ll set you up with a
twenty-gauge. That way if you accidentally shoot yourself in the foot, you’ll
probably not end up dying.”

DeVontay
worked the pump and saw that the chamber was empty. “Won’t shoot much of
anything at this rate.”

Hardison
cracked open a box of yellow plastic-coated shells and gave him a handful.
“Four in the magazine and one in the chamber.”

DeVontay
nodded as if that made sense. He started to shove a shell into the slot on the
side of the gun and Hardison laughed. “Better turn that around.”

DeVontay
shoved the shell in and slid the others into the magazine. He wondered if
Hardison had intentionally limited his supply of ammunition. If DeVontay turned
on them, he’d only be able to take down a few before they got him. Maybe this
was some kind of test. Rooster certainly seemed psycho enough to play deadly games.
His way of weeding out the weak so the new breed would be strong.

“Where
do you want me?” DeVontay asked.

Before
Hardison could answer, a gun fired in the distance. Hardison grinned and closed
the bus door, a shotgun across his arm, a rifle slung on a strap across his
back, and two pistols shoved in his belt. “Get a front-row seat. It’s show
time.”

Hardison
hurried to the front gate where Rooster stood in the bed of a pickup truck
surveying the surrounding terrain. DeVontay slipped between the bus and a storage
shed until he was out of their view. He couldn’t reach the slaughterhouse
without being seen, and the door was barred with a big metal hasp lock. He
wasn’t sure he could find another way inside, but at least Stephen and the
others would be safe. The walls were thick enough to repel bullets and, even if
the Zapheads overwhelmed the compound, they’d have a hard time breaking in.

But
Stephen would have a tough time breaking OUT, as well.

A
few more shots rang out in a staccato burst, maybe half a mile away in
direction of the village. DeVontay circled the slaughterhouse and found more
abandoned vehicles, along with processing equipment, a concrete loading dock,
and piles of warped pallets. Large plastic barrels were stacked on their sides
along the back of the slaughterhouse beside a sliding metal door. That door,
like the front one, was fastened with a thick lock.

Someone
shouted at him from the fence line. A chubby man standing sentinel on a
weed-covered slope motioned him forward. He wore a battered fedora and the top
half of his face was hidden by the shadow of the brim. DeVontay climbed the
bank and the man said, “You must be new.”

“Enlisted
this morning.”

The
man leaned his rifle against the fence, pulled a pint bottle of whiskey from
his coat pocket, and took a swig. He wiped his mouth with the back of his
sleeve and said, “You ever shot one of them?”

“Never
had a reason.”

“You’ll
get your reason soon. They’re all over the place.” He held out the whiskey
bottle but DeVontay waved it away.

“Why
are you here?” DeVontay scanned the trees beyond the fence, but all seemed
quiet at the moment.

“I
was a truck driver,” the man said. “Hauling cow shit one week, ground beef the
next, tankers, fridge units, flatbeds, anything. This was one of my regular stops.
That’s my rig outside the gate. It just stopped running that day, and I got out
to check under the hood. Some meat packer ran toward me, waving a bloody
cleaver and making weird noises.

“I
thought it was a gag—these guys get a dark sense of humor from cutting up parts
all day. I figured he’d say something like ‘Did you know it’s Friday the
thirteenth?’ and all that, but I was pissed because of the truck breaking down.
But when he got close enough, I saw something was wrong with his eyes—and the
look on his face—and I got my ass back in the cab and quick. He knocked the
door a few times with the cleaver, and by then I saw a few other workers come
out of the slaughterhouse, chopping and slicing at each other.”

“And
that’s when you realized everything had gone to hell?”

“The
scientists on the news said to expect weird shit because of the sun storms, but
nobody said nothing about no killing. But I figured they had to be connected.
So I waited for a few of them to wipe each other out. I got my pistol out of the
glove box and climbed into the sleeper to hide. By sunset, only one man was
left, walking around outside the slaughterhouse calling for help.”

“Rooster,”
DeVontay said, changing his mind and plucking the whiskey bottle from the man’s
hand. He took a sip and the liquid burned like molten needles.

“He
was calling out, so I figured he was okay. He told me everyone else was dead,
and I went into the slaughterhouse and he was right. Fifteen corpses in there,
another half a dozen out here. Some of them were guys I knew, teamsters and
such. By then I figured out this was bigger than just Hillbilly Holler, North Carolina, and tried to get my wife on the radio and cell, but neither worked. I live
in Kansas City, and I didn’t see much use in heading that way. So I stayed on
with Rooster, and here we are.”

“You
helped him build the community?” DeVontay mulled another shot of whiskey but
decided he’d better keep alert.

“At
first, but then he got more…
excited
about it than me and the others. I
still don’t agree with all his crazy ideas—like keeping the women and kids
separate—but I’m just biding my time and staying alive until I see the next
move.”

You
and me both, brother.

Another
volley of gunfire erupted in the east, rumbling like heat lightning on a dry
day. “That would be the cavalry,” the man said. “Rooster thinks it’s the Civil
War all over again and he’s Robert E. Lee.”

“Does
that mean he’s pro-slavery?”

“You’re
still here, ain’t you?”

“So
are you.”

The
man toasted that remark with a hoist of the bottle, and the liquor glinted
golden in the sunlight. “Well, if they get in, I don’t want to be trapped in
here. That gate’s the only way or in or out.”

DeVontay
had assumed the same thing, but he hadn’t scouted the entire perimeter yet.
From his vantage point on the hill, he could see the center of the compound,
the storage shed where the men bunked, and the black-stained diesel fuel tank
on cinder blocks by the school bus. Hardison was nowhere to be seen, and
DeVontay could only locate a few of the sentries, including the two on top of
the water tower. “No retreat, huh?”

“Yeah,”
the man said, taking last drink of whiskey and hurling the bottle into the
weeds. “Like I said, Rooster’s a Confederate. Got that defeatist attitude.”

“And
you’re going to sit here and die?”

“Hell,
no.” He pointed his rifle barrel down the hill to a large metal bin by the
loading dock. “They keep the tools in there. Why don’t you slip down and snag
us a set of heavy-duty wire cutters just in case?”

DeVontay
wondered if this was a test. As far as he could tell, all the compound’s
occupants were sold on Rooster’s vision. “You’d leave?”

“I’m
not from here,” the man said. “My family’s half a country away, in Missouri, if they’re still alive. All I got is what’s in my pockets and the chamber of this
rifle. Nothing here for me to fight for.”

DeVontay
figured he’d better pass the test before he declared his own intentions. “Our
chances are better if we stick together.”

“You’ve
been out there. You know the Zapheads outnumber us a hundred to one. Even with
all our guns, they can soak up bullets until Doomsday and still keep coming.”

As
if to punctuate those words, another volley erupted. It sounded closer than
before. One of the men on the water tower shouted and settled into a firing
position.

“Okay,”
DeVontay said. “Cover my ass.”

“Only
‘til we’re out of here. Then you’re on your own.”

DeVontay
studied the man’s smudged, weary face a moment and nodded. “Cool.”

He
scrambled back down the hill the way he’d come. Rooster had done a masterful job
of inspiring his little community of worker bees. The fence was solidly
constructed and his armed forces seemed to follow his orders. But he’d skimped
on the living conditions and basic needs like food and waste management. A
secluded area near the loading dock buzzed with flies and a heap of dark-brown
matter was strewn with rotted toilet paper.

A
man ran by forty yards away, headed for the main gate. DeVontay hunched into
what he hoped looked like a battle posture and continued to the metal bin. The
bin’s lid was held in place with a lock, but it was a small one. DeVontay
looked around, saw no one looking, and rammed the butt of his shotgun against
the hasp. The stock split but the lock didn’t break. He swung again and the
hasp loosened, and DeVontay was able to wedge the shotgun barrel in the gap and
pry it loose.

He’d
probably damaged the shotgun but he didn’t intend on firing it anyway. Inside
the bin were rows of tools on narrow trays. He found the wire cutters, a thick
pair with rubber handles, as well as a meatier version designed to sever bolts.
He stuffed the wire cutters in his back pocket, laid his shotgun on the ground,
and ran to the back of the slaughterhouse.

Gunfire
had erupted on the opposite side of the compound, along the section of fence he
had yet to see. Now shots clapped and spat in staccato bursts, and men yelled
on the other side of the slaughterhouse. DeVontay brought the bolt cutter to
bear on the lock holding down the rear door. It took three tries before he
worked the heavy blades though the steel, but he was able to kick the lock away
and slide up the door with a rumbling creak.