After (Book 3): Milepost 291 (16 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

“He
won’t shoot,” DeVontay said when Kiki asked about the guard by the fence aiming
at him. “I’ve got something he needs.”

“He
doesn’t look like the patient kind.”

“I’m
his ticket out of here.”

“I
hope you got a lot of those tickets.”

Kiki
and DeVontay gathered the children in the loading area, still inside the
slaughterhouse but in enough sunlight that they could all see one another. The
gunshots rumbled around them, some far and some near, and the wide-eyed
children trembled with each fresh volley.

“It’s
like a war movie,” James said, miming a pistol with an extended finger and
going “
Blam blam blam, you’re dead
!” at another kid, who burst into
tears. Kiki chided James and Stephen hugged the crying boy until the sobs
halted.

The
other adults, Angelique and Carole, comforted the other children as best they
could. There were ten children in all, ranging in age from a girl slightly
older than Stephen to a toddler who was fortunately oblivious to the
surrounding chaos, although his young lip quivered as if he might erupt into
shrieks at any moment.

“We
need to split up,” DeVontay told Kiki. “If we stay together, we’re going to be
like one long line of Zaphead bait. If we break into three or four groups, it’s
less likely Rooster will see us.”

“Wait
a sec,” Angelique said. She’d barely taken time to dress, throwing on a man’s
shirt which was too large and only half buttoned, so that her bra and panties
showed. Her sallow legs gleamed in the sunlight and DeVontay wondered how long
she’d been held captive. “I didn’t sign up for this shit.”

“You’re
a grown-up,” Kiki said. “That means sometimes doing things you don’t want to
do.”

“Okay,
Mom
,” Angelique said with sarcasm, even though Kiki was maybe five years
older. “Don’t ground me or anything.”

Kiki’s
brown eyes flashed with anger but DeVontay laid a restraining hand on her
shoulder. “The kids,” he said. “We have to keep our cool.”

“You’re
right,” she said, putting her arm around one of the children. “Okay, which way
do we go?”

“I’m
going this way,” Angelique said, strolling outside across the loading dock
toward the main gate.

“Stop,”
DeVontay barked at her. “If Rooster sees you, he’ll know we broke out.”

She
turned and gave a mocking, seductive smirk. “If Rooster sees me, he’ll forget
all about Zapheads. I’d rather be taken care of than stumble around out in the
woods eating roots and berries. Been there, done there. I’d rather earn my keep
on my back, the old-fashioned way.”

She
hopped off the dock, her shirt tails blowing behind her as she sauntered away.

“Want
me to stop her?” Kiki asked DeVontay.

“Nah,
let her go. If we head out now, we’ll be gone before Rooster’s gang realizes
it. Besides, she’d just bitch the whole time anyway.”

That
drew a tired grin from Kiki. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

A
minute later, they were traipsing up the bank like it was recess at a charter
school, Kiki carrying the toddler and Carole shepherding the stragglers from
the rear. The gunfire had eased off a little but was spread across a larger
region, suggesting Rooster’s fighters had either gotten separated or else some
of them had been killed by Zapheads. DeVontay and Stephen hurried ahead so that
they reached the fence first, and the man in the fedora shook his head in
disbelief.

“You’re
even crazier than you look,” the man said, holding out his hand.

DeVontay
passed the wire-cutters to him. “That’s good, because I’ve still got plenty of
crazy that nobody’s ever seen.”

“Any
Zaps out there?” Stephen asked, peering through the fence as he clung to the
chain links.

“Haven’t
seen a one,” the man answered, snipping links down in a row to create an
opening. To DeVontay, he said, “What are you going to do with all these kids?”

“You
ever heard of the Underground Railroad?”

“Escaped
slaves and all that?”

“Yeah.
Same thing, except all we got is the Little Red Caboose.”

Shouts
erupted in the front of the compound, near the main gate. Shots rang out in
unison, and DeVontay noticed the sentries atop the water tower were now gone.
He had just enough of a view to see figures pouring through the gate, several
staggering and falling as more gunfire erupted.

“Goddamn,
we’ve been breached,” the man said, hurriedly digging into the links with the
cutters.

“Hey,”
Stephen said. “I see something.”

DeVontay
followed Stephen’s pointing arm and saw motion in the trees. He hoped it was
one of Rooster’s men, but when he saw the ragged clothes, he knew the Zapheads
had likely surrounded the compound. A man howled in agony below them.

The
gap in the fence was now wide enough for escape, but DeVontay was no longer
sure that was the right move. The man peeled back the severed section of fence,
looked at all the kids, and said to DeVontay, “Three seconds and I’m out of
here. Three…two…one…”

“Go
on,” Kiki said. “Heroes first.”

DeVontay
stepped back and looked around, now unsure. Or maybe scared.

One
of the boys slipped from Kiki’s grasp and scrambled through the opening.
DeVontay snatched at him but missed, and then the kid bounced up and headed
into the forest.

Stephen
gave DeVontay an imploring look. “What if that was
me
?”

DeVontay
shook his head in dismay. “Damn it,” he muttered, and squeezed through the gap
in the fence, the jagged wires digging into his flesh like predator’s talons.
Before he untangled himself, the boy screamed, and so did Kiki. A Zaphead emerged
from the low branches and headed for the kid, not staggering, not hesitating,
not hurrying, just taking care of business.

“Shoot
it!” DeVontay yelled at the man.

“Are
you crazy? They’ll swarm all over us.”

DeVontay
grabbed for the man’s rifle but he stepped out of reach. Stephen beat the man
on the back with his fists, saying, “Give him the gun.”

The
kid’s scream caused DeVontay to turn back to the forest. Three more Zapheads
appeared out of nowhere. The kid fled but he seemed to have lost his sense of
direction in his panic. Instead of returning to the opening, he made a beeline
for a point farther along the fence.

The
Zapheads were on him in seconds, and he kicked and struggled as they lifted him
off the ground. With gunfire clattering all around them now, DeVontay had a
sense of a larger panic, movement just beyond his vision. Kiki ran along the
opposite side of the fence and tried to climb it, ignoring DeVontay’s pleas for
her to stop. She scrambled up several feet before she lost her grip and tumbled
to the ground, landing awkwardly. DeVontay was still trying to free himself
from the snags when she stood and limped forward to try again.

By
then, the Zapheads had swept the boy into the forest, and only his muffled
cries remained.

DeVontay
shifted his rage to the man in the fedora. “I’m going to kill you.”

“To
hell with you,” he said, backing away. “To hell with
all
of you. I told
you it’s every man for himself, and I don’t give a shit if it’s kids or women
or even granny there.”

The
man galloped down the bank, nearly tumbling before regaining his footing, and
soon he vanished around the side of the slaughterhouse. DeVontay finally freed
himself and ran to Kiki, pulling her off the fence. “It’s no good,” he said.
“He’s gone.”

She
collapsed in his arms, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. He knew she was
strong. She’d had to be, to take care of those kids in such horrible
conditions, and now she wouldn’t even let herself break down.

“Let’s
go,” he whispered. “That way wasn’t safe anyway.”

“I
thought we were breaking into groups.”

“Plan
B,” he said. “We’re going back to the slaughterhouse and wait it out.”

“What
if the Zapheads take over the compound and never leave?”

“We’ll
worry about that when the time comes. Right now, we don’t have a chance out here
in the open.”

As
they made their way back to the loading area, DeVontay cursed himself for his
lack of leadership.
Maybe it would have been better if I’d just skipped out
with Stephen. We’d probably be clear of this place by now.

But
as he watched Kiki patiently helping a barefoot young girl who winced with each
step, he knew that would have been the cowardly approach.

Funny
how it’s every man for himself, but the only real men I’ve met in After are
women.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

“You
okay?” Franklin asked.

Jorge
grunted, sitting cross-legged on the rocky promontory with his semiautomatic
weapon across his lap. The Zapheads had carried off the corpses of the
Robertson, Shay, and the two dead soldiers, as well as the dead Zaphead, and
the auditory memory of their feet shuffling through the leaves still
reverberated in Franklin’s skull.

Or
maybe that was the concussion playing hell with his nerves.

Franklin
examined the wound in Jorge’s side. “You’re lucky it
passed right through without hitting any organs.”

“I
don’t feel so lucky,” Jorge said.

Franklin
collected Shay’s jacket, which was all that remained
of her besides a few bloodspots, and tore it into strips. He wrapped a couple
of strips around Jorge’s abdomen and cinched them into a bandage. The bleeding
had already stopped, and if infection didn’t set in, the wound would probably
cause more pain and inconvenience than health risk.

Below
them, muted gunfire echoed up from the valley. Without binoculars, Franklin couldn’t tell where the battle was raging. All he could see was the river winding
through the heart of the valley and occasional stretches of asphalt that ran
parallel to it.

“Doesn’t
sound like Sarge’s men,” Franklin said. “I don’t think they’d dip that far away
from the ridges. And most of it doesn’t sound like semiautomatic fire. More
like shotguns and small-caliber pistols.”

“Why
didn’t you let me shoot them?” Jorge said, not listening.

“Because
they would have killed you.”

“Maybe
I should go after them.”

“What
for? They’re all dead. If you get yourself killed on a wild goose chase, what
do I tell your family?”

“My
family’s dead, just like Robertson and Shay.”

“You
have to keep hoping,
hombre
. Maybe we survived for a reason.”

“We
survived because we’re cowards who wouldn’t fight back.”

Franklin
rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers,
wondering if he was hemorrhaging blood around his brain. Pressure might be
building right now that could leave him blind or trigger a stroke or some type
of seizure. That would be ironic—his central nervous system had proven immune
to the mutating radiation of the solar flares but had succumbed to a little
knock on the noggin.

“We
can’t sit here and wait for dark,” Franklin said. “Sarge probably has patrols out
after us, and the Zaps are liable to return. And I don’t particularly care to
be caught in the middle. The way I see it, we can either find a house to hole
up in, head on back to Milepost 291, or go down into the valley and see what’s
going on. Personally, I’m getting a little tired of these war games. I’m ready
to get back home.”

“Easy
for you, since you have a home,” Jorge said. “This country is not even my home,
not really. As much as I tried to fit in, teach my family to speak English first,
I still don’t feel like I belong.”

“None
of us belong anymore. May as well be here as anywhere.”

Franklin
crawled well away from the ledge and leaned against a
slender tree trunk, using it to help steady his legs as he stood. Aside from
the painful rush of blood to his head and a moment of nausea, he felt well
enough to walk.

“So,
what’s your choice?” Franklin asked.

“Same
as before. I’m not going anywhere until I find my family.”

Franklin
nodded. “Milepost 291 will be there when you find
them. Come on up, even if it’s winter or even spring. You’re always welcome.”

He
limped into the forest, heading west, planning to backtrack toward Grandfather Mountain and find an abandoned house for the night, then continue his journey
tomorrow.

“You’re
forgetting something,
hombre
,” Jorge said.

Franklin
turned with effort, fighting a wave of dizziness.
“What?”

Jorge
pointed to the several weapons lying on the ground. “Your gun.”

“No,
I’m not doing that anymore. The Zapheads will kill anyone with a weapon, and I
wouldn’t have any chance against a bunch of trained soldiers. From now on, I’m
just counting on my wits, as sad as that sounds.”

Their
eyes met, and Franklin realized he’d soon be alone for the first time since
he’d met Jorge, Rosa, and Marina on a trail and invited them to stay at
Wheelerville. Despite his long years spent in contented solitude, the thought
of going solo now filled him with an indefinable fear. His vision of life after
the apocalypse had never consisted of nights spent alone roasting wild game
over a fire, or scrounging in the woods for nuts and berries like a naturalist.

No,
the very reason he’d built his ridge top compound was because he expected
company. Consciously, “company” had always meant Rachel, as well as any other
family members who finally realized Franklin was right after all rather than a
schizophrenic hermit. But he’d also prepared to cohabit with total strangers,
and together find new ways of living that didn’t embrace the old structure that
led to corruption, power struggles, and greed.

Wheelerville
at Milepost 291 had been designed as more of a libertarian utopia than anything
else. After all, Franklin hadn’t hoarded high-grade explosives or chemical
weapons—partly because he didn’t want to draw any more government interest than
necessary, but mostly because he wanted to live and let live, not kill or be
killed. No, he’d focused on sustainable supplies of food, water, and heat, with
just enough security measures to make would-be marauders think twice. Nobody
could kill you for your resources if they didn’t even know you existed.

But
he also hadn’t anticipated Zapheads. A mutated race of violent, mindless humans
had never appeared on his list of end-of-the-world scenarios. He’d even toyed
with the idea of zombie outbreaks, since certain branches of the government had
wasted taxpayer money foolishly developing protocols for such events. But never
in his wildest dreams would they ever be more than material to fill comic
books.

“So
you’re going to walk fifteen miles through Zapheads and murderous army soldiers
and just hope you manage to avoid them?’ Jorge said.

“That’s
the plan.”

Franklin
continued into the forest, the afternoon sun burning
through the dwindling canopy. Jorge called to him a final time. “And if I find
Rosa and Marina and they want to come, what about Cathy and her baby?”

Franklin
shuddered at the memory of the repulsive little
creature with its intense, glittering eyes and the way it watched everything
with a quiet cunning. He should have killed it while he had the chance, but
something about its gaze—almost like it knew what Franklin was
contemplating—had stayed his hand.

But
he’d made a mistake. He never should have allowed the baby into his compound.
He suspected it was the reason Jorge had lost his family, and then Sarge’s Army
had captured him and Jorge while they were searching. And since then, the
outcome had been more deaths, with each step leading him farther and farther
from the idyllic life he’d spent years building.

Maybe
he shouldn’t have allowed anyone into the compound. He’d likely be there now,
tending his garden and goats, gathering firewood for winter, drawing on the
solar panels to scan shortwave radio frequencies for other survivors.

Now
it was time to fix his mistake. Even if it meant being alone.

“I said
you’re invited,” Franklin said. “Nobody else but family.
Human
family.”

He
limped into the woods toward home, his head throbbing with each heavy step.