After (Book 3): Milepost 291 (17 page)

CHAPTER
THIRTY

After
the group had gathered in the slaughterhouse’s loading area again, DeVontay and
Stephen had yanked the bay door down into place. There was no way to fasten it
from the inside now that the lock was broken, and DeVontay could only hope none
of Rooster’s men tried to get inside. He didn’t think Zapheads had mastered the
complexities of locks and doors, but tense minutes passed as gunfire boomed
around the compound.

Now
the shots fell only sporadically, along with the shouts and cries of men.
DeVontay had no sense of passing time in the almost complete darkness, but he
figured it had been four or five hours since their escape attempt. Aside from
occasional whispered commands and Kiki’s and Carole’s comforting murmurs, the
loading bay was filled with an eerie hum, as if the decomposing bodies under
the tarp were radiating the last of their fading energy. The smell was corrupt
and fecund, but no more so than the underlying scent of blood and decay that
had permeated the slaughterhouse from its former commercial life.

DeVontay
felt along the base of the bay door until he found Stephen’s hand. He took it
and whispered, “Stay here. If the door shakes even the least little bit, you
call me, okay?”

Stephen
whispered back a parched, “’kay.”

DeVontay
crawled along the filthy concrete floor until he reached the group. Children
sniffled and whimpered, but the two women had done a remarkable job of calming
them. A few seemed to be napping. They were gathered in a pile in the center of
the loading area, and Carole was humming a soft lullaby in an Irish brogue.

Kiki
must have heard him coming. “How much longer?”

“A
little more. I want to be sure it’s dark when we move.”

“The
children haven’t eaten since morning. They’ll need their strength.”

“I
know where the men kept their living quarters. If the coast is clear, I’ll make
a raid and come back. Then we’ll head out.”

“Do
you think they’re all dead?” Carole asked.

“I
doubt it,” DeVontay answered. “I’d bet some are, but most probably either fled
or holed up in the buildings and vehicles. They can’t shoot or the Zapheads
will know where they are. And that’s good, because that means the men probably
won’t bother us.”

“What
about the Zapheads?”

DeVontay
wondered how much he should lie, and then decided they should know the risks. Better
to be panicked than overconfident. “They’re everywhere. I saw a big pack of
them in town yesterday, and they seem to have gathered even more since I was
captured. Even if we make it out of the compound, it’s going to be a dangerous
night.”

“Still
less dangerous than staying here,” Kiki said. “If the Zapheads know about this
compound, they’ll keep coming back.”

“Afraid
so. They seem to be getting smarter.”

“And
Rooster and his bunch seem to be getting dumber.”

One
of the children bumped into DeVontay and reached a hand along his arm until
little fingers touched DeVontay’s cheek. “You’re the man with the glass eye,”
the small voice said.

DeVontay
managed a chuckle. “The one and only. But it’s a magic eye. I can see how brave
you are.”

“Really?”
the voice said with barely suppressed glee.

“And
it’s going to shine our way out of here, like a lighthouse on the beach. So
don’t you worry about a thing.”

The
little fingers left him and they were replaced by Kiki’s. She pulled him close
and put her lips to his ear. “I can see how brave
you
are,” she
whispered, and gave him a delicate kiss on the cheek as she pulled away.

DeVontay
made his way back to the bay door and Stephen. “Okay,” he said. “We’re going to
raise the door just a little bit so I can peek outside. But we have to be real
slow and easy. No noise.”

The
electrical chain drive that had formerly operated the door was still connected,
which made manual opening a rigorous task. A forceful thrust would cause it to
gather momentum and roll up mostly on its own, but eliciting only a crack was
much more arduous. DeVontay skinned his knuckles working his fingers under the
door, using one hand to pull the drive chain.

The
door gave a juddering creak and DeVontay froze at the noise, but after thirty
seconds of silence, he whispered, “Okay, Little Man, up about a foot.”

After
they wrestled a suitable gap, DeVontay laid flat on his back, his cheek against
the concrete. It was twilight outside, the insects in the forest already
embarking on their nightly orchestra. He detected no movement, and the only
light was that provided by the vanishing sun.

DeVontay
reached through the gap and grabbed a wooden packing crate. He scooted it near
the door and said, “Lift until we can jam this under.”

Once
the door was leveraged into position, DeVontay let the weight rest on the
crate, leaving a gap of about two feet. “If anybody comes, kick this crate out
of the way and let the door drop.”

“Even
if you’re outside?” Stephen said.

“No
matter what.”

“Will
you come back?”

DeVontay
hoped his grin showed in the dim light. “We’re sticking together from now on.”

“No
matter what?”

“You
got it.” DeVontay rolled through the opening and rose to his feet, his scalp
tingling as his senses heightened for signs of danger. He crept across the dock
and peered around the side of the slaughterhouse. One corpse was sprawled on
the dirt between the front gate and the old school bus, but DeVontay couldn’t
tell whether it was a Zaphead. The door to the shed that the men had been using
as living quarters was open, so DeVontay suspected it was unoccupied. By
humans, at any rate.

He
debated trying for the school bus to see if it contained any more firearms, but
he decided gunfire would only draw attention. Besides, if their situation got
to that point, they had no chance anyway. Likewise, the tool bin might offer
something blunt and heavy he could use as a weapon, but he just couldn’t see
himself defending a group of helpless children via hand-to-hand combat.

No,
this would have to be a stealth mission.

Taking
a deep breath, he crouched and dashed across the compound, expecting a bullet
to strike him in the back at any second. But he reached the shelter of the
school bus without incident, heading from the abandoned vehicle to a concrete
block building with shattered windows that might once have served as an office.
Without checking inside it, he eased around it and moved along the fence until
he reached the storage shed.

DeVontay
put his ear to the metal siding, listening for acoustic disturbances inside the
building. After twenty seconds of hearing only the rapid
thrush
of his
own pulse, he worked his way to the front, once more scanning the compound. A
shot rang out, but it was easily two miles away, almost like a forlorn message
from a lost outpost.

DeVontay
entered the shed. The space was dark, but he was able to make out rows of
makeshift bunks that ran along both walls, stacked ten beds high. He moved away
from the door so that his silhouette wouldn’t make an easy target for anyone
lurking inside.

Guiding
his path by touch, he eased past the bunks until he bumped into a table. He ran
his hands along the cool surface. It held tin cans, greasy dishes, cardboard
boxes, and crinkling plastic bags. He didn’t know which of them contained food,
but this was obviously a dining table.

Then
he felt a cool cylindrical object with a lumpy, waxy top—a candle. Of course
they wouldn’t sit in here in the dark. Excited, he felt around for matches,
found a pack, and put one against the striking pad. Then he realized if he cast
a light, anyone in the compound would be able to see the glowing outline of the
shed door.

His
eyes had adjusted well enough that he could walk between the rows of bunks and
ease the door closed. It gave a rusty groan of protest but he managed, leaving
a gap of a couple of inches in case he needed to make a fast exit.

Retracing
his steps, DeVontay struck the match and applied it to the candle. The sudden
burst of light revealed a messy array of food on the table: half-eaten cans of
beans with flies buzzing around their rims, bags of moldy bread, oil-stained
jars of peanut butter, and boxes of cellophane-wrapped individual snacks that
looked to have been taken from a store, probably the same one in Stonewall
that’d he raided.

He
couldn’t help grinning when he found some Slim Jims among the candy bars and
cheese crackers.
Stephen will be happy
.

No
doubt the men had their own supplies stashed in their bunks or secured inside
the shed, but they wouldn’t be able to carry much anyway. DeVontay yanked a
gray wool blanket from one of the bunks, laid it on the floor, and collected a
pile of edibles and drinks. He gathered the corners of the blanket and hoisted
it like a hobo’s bundle, then blew out the candle and returned to the door.

He
nudged it open wider with his foot and surveyed the compound again.

A
dozen Zapheads walked in a line across the compound, heading for the corpse
sprawled on the ground.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE

“I’m
normal,” Rachel said, almost to herself.

“Anybody
who has to keep reassuring themselves about that may have a problem,” Campbell said.

As
darkness settled in around the house, Campbell had checked all the windows and
door locks. Since Rachel’s strange catatonia from the music, they had spoken
little. Rachel was frightened, but her anxiety only made her more defiant. And Campbell’s concern was beginning to grate her nerves.

Or
is that another symptom of the change?

Campbell
lit a pile of twisted newspaper under logs he’d
stacked in the fireplace. His face was reddish-orange in the glow cast by the
crackling flames. They’d agreed that the heat would be worth the risk since the
smoke would be mostly hidden by darkness. The flickering fingers of light
dancing on the walls suggested Neanderthals huddled in a cave, somehow both
simple and safe.

“I
have to…visit the woods,” she said, too embarrassed to leave her waste in the
dysfunctional toilet.

“I’ll
come with you,” he said.

“Only
if you wait on the porch.”

“I’m
just worried that you might freak out and run off.”

“Worry
about yourself, not me.”

“Hey,
you’re the one that was talking about our future. If we don’t stick together,
we’ll never rebuild civilization and I won’t ever get to play video games
again.”

“I
think evolution took a U-turn,” Rachel said, unlocking the door and stepping
into the cool night. She wondered for a moment if Campbell might slam and bolt
the door behind her, but he followed her down the steps where she made him
stand.

She
went around the dead Volvo in the driveway, pulled down her pants, and
squatted. As she urinated, she ran a palm along the site of her infected bite
wound. No scab, no scar, no pain or itching. Just smooth, healthy flesh.

Above
her the stars winked on, the belt of Orion stitched across the dome of
darkness. The moon rose somewhere in the east, still just a faint smudge of
haze below the horizon. The surrounding treetops hid many of the
constellations, although most of the leaves had fallen to reveal the black
sticks of branches. November would arrive soon, and with it the bone-jarring
wind, snow, and bleakness that would prove far more challenging an opponent
than Zapheads or trigger-happy militants.

She
thought of Stephen and wondered where he was at that moment. She hoped he was
somewhere safe and secure, hopefully with an adult to care for him. She didn’t
want to consider the likely possibility of his death. She still blamed herself
for allowing him to get lost. She considered offering a prayer for his safety
but no words came, only resentment.

She
finished and let the cool breeze dry her a moment before she pulled up her
pants. Around her the forest was silent except for the faint flapping of
stubborn leaves that didn’t know their time was up. Insects chittered in a
piercing cadence so inviting that Rachel was afraid she’d start imitating the
sound. She clapped her hand over her mouth as she walked back to the house, but
the resonance roared in her ears, digging deeper and deeper until she thought
her skull would burst.

By
the time she reached the porch, she was so dizzy she almost fell into Campbell’s arms.

“Jesus,”
Campbell said, supporting her weight and leading her up the steps. “Maybe
you’re not as healed as we thought you were.”

Rachel
didn’t want to tell him that the dizziness was not caused by anything inside her.
No, it radiated from Out There, as if the insects were merely broadcasting a
message that she would have heard clearly if she’d been tuned to the right
frequency. She almost laughed.

I’m
fine. I’m normal. I’m crazy. I’m a goddamned Zaphead.

Once
inside, Campbell eased her onto the sofa in front of the fireplace. He checked
her forehead for fever, but her body felt as if it was filled with ice water.
The same tingling numbness she’d experienced during her fugue state swept over
her again and she was afraid she was sliding into unconsciousness.

“You’re
burning up, Rachel,” he said, rolling her sweater up her belly and tugging at
its shoulders until it slipped past her neck and arms. He pulled a lace cotton
comforter over her and she closed her eyes.

Campbell
put a bottle of water to her lips and she sipped,
even though the liquid tasted oily and unpalatable. Soon the roaring in her
skull eased a bit, and she wondered if it was because they were now inside and
out of range of the insect calls.

“I’m
okay now,” Rachel said. She didn’t plan on getting into the habit of letting Campbell lay her down on couches and undress her.

“Which
okay is that? The ‘I’m just a normal human being okay’ or the “I’m a freaking
mutant but I’ll survive okay’?”

“Leave
me alone,’ she said.

“I…I
can’t.”

She
couldn’t tolerate his clumsy schoolboy crush any longer. “Look, we’re not soul
mates or anything. You may be glad all this happened, that the sun burned our
world to toast, and that you caught me in a vulnerable state, but nothing’s
going on here. You and me…that’s not a possible future.”

He
groaned in annoyance. “You think that’s what this is about? Sure, I like you,
but I’m more concerned about what you mean for all of us. Think about it. If
you’re a Zaphead, or even a partial Zaphead—“

“A
half-breed, right?”

“You
should see your eyes when you get angry. They’re popping like fireworks on the
Fourth of July. Don’t try to tell me
that’s
normal. But listen—if you
can empathize with them, or function like them, then you can help us understand
them. Maybe one day even communicate with them.”

“What
makes you so sure I’m on your side? What if I turn out to be some kind of spy?
What if they intentionally infected me somehow so that they could send me back
to enemy lines? Maybe that’s why they let us escape when they attacked the
professor.”

Campbell
shook his head. “We don’t really know how they think,
do we? All we’ve seen is larger patterns of organized behavior. But you…you’re
bound to
feel
like they do, at least a little.”

“I’m
trying not to think about that. I want to feel like
me
. I want to feel
normal.”

“There’s
no normal anymore. Not for any of us.”

Now
that the dizzy spell and flush of heat had passed, Rachel was cold, and she
drew the comforter higher up her shoulders. “I need to move closer to the
fire.”

Campbell
dragged some cushions from the other chairs and
arranged them on the floor near the hearth. He left the room and returned
shortly with a stack of blankets which he proceeded to spread out in a
makeshift bed. Then he helped Rachel off the sofa until she was bundled and
shivering, trying not to cry in front of him. She was way more scared than she
wanted to admit.

He
sat beside her and rested a tentative hand on the blankets. “Don’t freak out,”
he said. “I’m not coming on to you or anything.”

“Why
not? Afraid you’ll get Zap cooties?”

“No,
I just want you to know you’re not alone.”

“Right,
because now I’m your pet project. Now I have some value. If you can get me to a
lab somewhere, maybe the Army scientists can crack open my skull and see what
makes a Zaphead tick.”

“No,”
Campbell said, stroking his hand slowly back and forth along her body. “Not
because you’re a Zaphead. But because you’re Rachel.”

She
couldn’t help laughing despite her fear. “You’re so dorky.”

“Schoolboy
crushes do that to me.”

“What
if I turn full Zap in the night and mutilate you?”

“I’ll
take my chances.”

The
crackling of the fire almost seemed like mirthful giggles, building inside her head,
but Rachel didn’t fight them. Instead, she followed them deep inside her head
until at some point they became soft echoes that faded until she was able to
sleep.