Read After (Book 3): Milepost 291 Online

Authors: Scott Nicholson

Tags: #Post-Apocalyptic

After (Book 3): Milepost 291 (9 page)

BOOK: After (Book 3): Milepost 291
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CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

 

The
river widened and grew shallow, and DeVontay’s kayak scraped bottom.

He
soon found himself spending more time climbing out of the boat and wading than
he did paddling. But at least he’d left the Zapheads behind.

Much
of the flood plain featured ragged grass meadows, with a few cows and horses
foraging between autumnal tree lines. Houses were set here and there along the
banks, built on stilts or higher out of the flood plain, and a narrow paved
road meandered alongside the waterway. DeVontay imagined that was the route
used by the bicyclists who rented from the outfitters. He wondered if he should
have taken a bike instead of the kayak, but something about being out in the
water made him feel safer.

Not
likely a Zapper is going to pop up and drag me under like an alligator.

He
thought about going ashore and checking out some of the houses, maybe finding a
secure place to hole up for the night, but he was reluctant to risk
encountering any more mutants. He had enough food to make it another day before
he’d have to forage again. Mostly he was too disheartened to step over any more
dead bodies or smell the stench of a society gone by.

The
kayak bottom out on some slick stones, and he stepped into shallow water to
free it. At least here in the open air he could almost fool himself into
believing he was on a recreational outing. Just a man against nature, a
dark-skinned Daniel Boone with a glass eye and a thirst for adventure.

What
if the Zapheads ARE nature? What if they’re the way we were meant to be? Maybe
they’re normal and I’M the freak.

Exhausted
by the sheer demands of survival, he’d given little contemplation to the solar
storms and the larger forces that had swept across the planet. Without Rachel
and Stephen, he wasn’t sure how much longer he wanted to fight.

If
only he—

“Hey,
you!”

DeVontay,
knee deep in water, nearly lost his grip on the kayak. He shielded his hand over
his eyes to block the late-afternoon sun reflecting off the water.

“Who’s
there?” he said. The voice had come from the far shore, which was thick with
wiry vegetation and shadows.

“You’re
not a Zaphead, are you?”

It
was a man’s voice, and DeVontay could barely make out a form in the murk. “I’m
talking, aren’t I? You ever heard a Zaphead talk?”

“Depends
on what you mean by talking.”

DeVontay
stood in the cold water, unsure of what to do. His feet were numb and the river
ahead boiled with shallow rapids. Even if he wanted to, he wasn’t sure the
kayak would skid to the deeper pool below them, where the current seemed to
swallow its anger and grow still.

And,
of course, the unseen man might have a gun.

“What
do you want?” DeVontay said.

Two
middle-aged men stepped out from the brush. They were dressed in camouflage
fatigue pants and plaid shirts, but little else about them suggested they were
military. One wore a bright orange baseball cap and the other’s face was nearly
hidden behind a scraggly mass of curly hair and aviator sunglasses. Both
wielded firearms, and their rifles were pointed in DeVontay’s direction.

“Come
over here, boy,” said the man in the orange cap.

Shit,
are these rednecks trying to pull a “Deliverance”?
The first humans I’ve seen in two weeks, and they
have to be racist assholes.

“Some
Zapheads back that way, and I want to get as far away as I can.” DeVontay
nodded upstream toward the little community. “You know what Zapheads are?”

The
bearded one cackled and the man in the orange cap said, “Everybody knows what
Zapheads are, or else they’re dead.”

“I
don’t have a gun.”

The
bearded man aimed his weapon at DeVontay. “Then you better get your ass over
here, hadn’t you?”

DeVontay
glanced at the bow and arrows in the shell of the kayak. Even if he reached
them before getting shot, he would never nail both of the armed men from thirty
yards away. He could also duck into the water and swim downstream, but he
didn’t think he could hold his breath long enough to get out of range. That was
assuming the rapids ahead were even deep enough to conceal him.

“What
do you want?” DeVontay said, stalling for time.

DeVontay
heard a crack, then a small splash in front of him, followed by the keening
whine. The sounds occurred almost simultaneously, so it was only after a small
puff of blue-gray smoke wended from the man’s rifle barrel that he realized a
shot had been fired.

He
raised his arms, releasing the kayak, which slid downstream and turned sideways
before scudding down the rapids.

“Get
over here or this river’s gonna be running red,” said Orange Cap.

DeVontay
slogged toward the bank, slipping once on the algae-coated stones and going to
one knee. The rifle barrel tracked each step. By the time he reached the shore,
he was soaked to the waist and chilled to the bone. Neither man made a move to
help him out of the water, so he clawed his way up by grabbing fistfuls of
slimy weeds.

When
he stood on trembling legs, DeVontay found the tip of a rifle barrel against
his nose.

“You
normal?” asked the man with the sunglasses.

DeVontay
risked a little defiance. “Are you?”

The
man took off his sunglasses and shoved them in the pocket of his hunting vest,
not lowering his weapon. “You traveling alone?”

“Yeah.
You’re the first people I’ve seen in two weeks.”

“But
I bet you seen a lot of Zaps.”

“Upriver.
Dozens of them.”

“They’re
ganging up,” said Orange Cap. DeVontay could now see that it bore a white T
logo, for the University of Tennessee. “We were picking them off one at a time,
a stray here and there, but lately, we’re trying to lay low.”

“What
do you want with me, then?” DeVontay asked, glancing down the river where his
goods floated on the green surface. “You made me lose my supplies.”

“You’re
coming with us.”

“Why?”

“For
one, because we said so,” said the bearded man. “For another, this is war, and
you’re either with us or against us.”

“Who
is ‘us’?”

“We
got a little gang together. A few locals, a few oddballs like you. People who
don’t want to go down without a fight.”

DeVontay
unbuttoned his wet shirt. “I don’t want to fight. I want to run.”

“Ain’t
nowhere left to run to. It’s all Zap country now. From sea to shining sea.”

How
do you know? Got a satellite feed back at your camp? Or did the aliens beam it
straight through your tinfoil skullcap?

“I’d
rather take my chances on my own,” DeVontay said. “Besides, they didn’t attack
me when they had the chance. They just kind of…monitored me.”

The
bearded man plucked DeVontay’s knife from its holster and finally lowered his
gun, but it was still pointed in DeVontay’s general direction. “Yeah, seems
like they quit raging, burning, and murdering. But it feels like they’re up to
something even creepier. Like they already know they’ve won.”

DeVontay
didn’t like the idea that Zapheads were exhibiting signs of intelligence and
organization, however rudimentary. But that theory didn’t jibe with their
filthy clothes, eerie silence, and lack of purpose.

And
were these two guys much better? Shooting at him, bossing him around?

He
moved his right hand to dig in his pocket, causing both men to raise their
weapons to his chest. He held up his other hand, palm open. “Easy. I don’t have
any weapons.”

“Take
‘er slow,” warned Orange Cap.

DeVontay
pulled out a couple of Slim Jims, which were protected from the water by their
plastic wrappings. “This is all I have left after you made me lose my kayak.”

The
bearded man turned and headed into the trees, motioning DeVontay to follow.
“Better come with us then.”

DeVontay
glanced wistfully downstream, where the kayak’s bow bobbed just above the
surface as it tumbled along the rapids.

Should
have taken a damned bike instead.

The
bearded man fell in behind DeVontay, and soon they were through the weeds and
knotty trees and following the narrow road.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

 

Franklin
finally caught up with Robertson and his daughter
Shay where they waited behind a big Ford delivery van. The van was axle-deep in
a ditch along the road, and no doubt a rotted corpse was slumped over the
wheel.

“Where
is he?” Franklin asked, trying to disguise his raspy panting.

“Circling
the house,” Robertson said. “I guess he’s checking it out.”

“Finally
getting some sense. Heroes don’t last long in After.”

“We
all have to be heroes now,” Shay said, and Franklin couldn’t tell if she was
putting him on or not. Her generation was weaned on Facebook and texting, and Franklin wasn’t sure they could string more than six words together.

Franklin
peered around the van and studied the house whose
chimney was leaking wood smoke. It was a one-story, brick ranch house. No
movement in the yard, and the curtains were drawn. Two cars were parked out
front and the garage door was open, but that meant nothing—the house’s original
owners could have been preparing for a trip when the wave of cataclysmic solar
flares swept across the planet.

Only
two other houses were in sight, but Franklin didn’t draw much comfort from the
area’s lack of population density. Even though fewer people meant fewer
Zapheads, Franklin figured any survivors would have headed for safer territory
by now—even though Robertson and Shay had fared pretty well since the storms.

Until
the government happened.

“See
him?” Robertson asked, cradling the shotgun and poking his head up just enough
to peer through the van’s windows.

“I
hope he’s not dumb enough to go up and knock,” Franklin said. “He might get a
bullet in the throat.”

“You
don’t think his wife and kid are still alive, do you?”

Franklin
shook his head. “Doubt it. That little Zaphead baby
was bad news. I knew it from the jump. I should have…”

“Should
have what?” Shay asked after a moment.

He
looked at her big blue eyes. She still had enough innocence for all of them,
despite what those pig-assed soldiers had tried to do to her. But she would
learn.

“Should
have stayed with them,” Franklin finished. No need to tell her about the hard
choices that were now necessary. Soon she’d be making choices of her own.

Then
he saw Jorge, coming out of the trees on the far side of the house. He glanced
up and down the road and apparently saw Robertson through the glass. He stuck
up a thumb in an “all-clear” sign.

Franklin
didn’t trust Jorge’s reconnaissance. The Mexican had
handled himself well in their few skirmishes and at Sarge’s bunker, but the
worry over his family was making him desperate. And desperate people made
mistakes.

“You
guys stay here,” Franklin said. “No use all of us getting shot.”

“I
can sneak up and peek in the windows,” Shay said, her improvised bandolier
sliding down her shoulder.

“No,”
Robertson snapped.

“So
I guess we’re not all heroes?” she responded.

Franklin
’s weariness and annoyance brimmed over. “That’s the
cheapest goddamned word in the dictionary. It’s one of those words that idiots
die over. Same as ‘honor,’ ‘duty,’ and ‘courage.’ If we can get one thing right
in After, let’s make sure we clean out some of the bullshit that clogged up the
start of the Twenty-First Century.”

“Well,
excuuuse
me,” Shay said. “Grampa Grumpypants must not have had enough
prunes in his oatmeal this morning.”

“Shay,”
Robertson said, although he sounded like he was about to laugh.

“You
don’t know who’s in there,” Franklin said. “Maybe some more of Sarge’s
soldiers, ready to finish what your friends up there started.”

That
shut her up, and Franklin’s rush of triumph quickly faded to shame. In Before,
the kid’s biggest concerns were probably girly-haired boy bands, boys,
boyfriends, and fake boys on the Internet. Now she walked among wolves in human
clothing and Zapheads in human clothing. And it was his duty to protect her as
best he could.

Goddamn
it, we’re never going to get rid of those bullshit words.

“We’ll
wait,” Robertson said. “If you need to run, we’ll cover you.”

Shay
pulled the pistol out of its holster. It looked huge in her slender fingers.

“You
know how to aim that thing?”

“Just
like a video game,” she said. “But if I accidentally shoot you in the leg,
maybe it’s because I’m just a girl.”

Franklin
grinned. Maybe he’d underestimated her, or she’d
toughened up more quickly than he’d acknowledged. Anybody that had survived two
months of After deserved a medal.

Honor.
We can’t get rid of honor, either. Shit.

“Okay,”
Franklin said, rising over the hood of the van enough to indicate to Jorge
he’d circle the house from the nearest side. Jorge waved in response.

Franklin
felt exposed on the open road. Even if the occupants
of the house weren’t watching, Sarge’s patrols could be anywhere. They might
even have discovered the bodies of their comrades and connected it to the
absence of Franklin and Jorge.

He
gave one glance back at the van. Shay had crawled underneath it and lurked by
the back wheel, gripping the pistol with both hands, its butt resting on the
rough gravel. Robertson’s shotgun wouldn’t have the range to contribute much
firepower, but perhaps the noise would create a distraction.

Franklin
crouched and jogged, keeping one finger locked
against the trigger guard of his semi-automatic. Maybe he should have gotten
Sarge to train them a little, like real soldiers. Then he’d feel a little
braver about charging into the unknown.

Courage.
I’ll be goddamned if that one isn’t going to stick around, too.

Then
all Franklin could think about was the house ahead of him, and strange eyes
that might be tracking him even now. The property had no fence, and besides a
few scraggly apple trees, the yard offered no concealment. He wondered if they
should just yell and see if anyone answered.

But,
as had happened with Robertson and the girl, Jorge’s family could have been
captured. They might already have been savaged by Sarge’s psychopaths, in which
case Franklin needed to be the first one inside, because Jorge would be useless
with rage.

And
if Zapheads were waiting behind the closed door, then Franklin was eager to
empty the clip of the AR-15. He figured he had at least twenty rounds left.
Unless they were the Zaphead Brady Bunch, he could handle them.

Jorge
closed in on the house in tandem with Franklin. They were maybe forty yards
from the front door. With luck, it would be unlocked and they could slip inside
owning the element of surprise. Otherwise, they might have to kick the door in
and be ready for all hell to break loose.

“You
sure you want to do this?” Franklin said in a loud whisper across the yard.

“You
can wait by the cars,” Jorge replied, leaning against a tree. “This is my
battle.”

“Don’t
start that with me. We’re a team now, whether we like it or not.”

“I
thought you were a loner, a survivalist.”

“It
was fun while it lasted, but I’ve given up on peace and quiet.” He lifted the
rifle a little. “No wonder these jarheads get addicted to danger.”

“Me
first,” Jorge said. “If Marina and Rosa are in there, I want their lives to be
in my hands, and no one else’s.”

“I
thought you were Catholic. Aren’t you going to leave it up to God?”

Jorge
pointed his rifle to the sinking afternoon sun. “We’ve seen God at work, and
almost everyone was sent to hell. Now it’s our turn.”

Without
waiting for Franklin’s response, Jorge silently charged the door. Franklin swept his rifle barrel from window to window, expecting a shattering of glass and
a hail of gunfire at any moment. But the curtains remained closed, and Jorge
reached the porch and pressed himself against the bricks to one side of the
door.

Then
he reached out with one brown hand and tried the door knob. He nodded at Franklin, and then it turned, and revealing a wedge of darkness as the door swung open.
Jorge stepped inside, and Franklin made his move toward the house.

But
before he could reach the door, Jorge burst back outside and fell to his knees,
flinging his rifle away. He retched and coughed, and then vomited the canned
food they’d eaten at Robertson’s outpost.

Evidently
seeing there was no immediate danger, Robertson and Shay approached from the
van, but Jorge waved them back. “No…for the love of God…”

Franklin
hadn’t loved God for decades, so he had no
hesitation. He stepped through the door that Jorge left open. His heart skipped
a beat and then crammed three beats into one. He took several steps inside to
verify what his mind refused to register.

The
living room was arranged with half a dozen human corpses. Fresh corpses,
judging by the wet blood that still coated their nude bodies.

They
were propped in a mockery of a Sunday afternoon family tableau, three of them
on a sofa facing the big flat-screen television. An old man sat in an E-Z chair
with an open newspaper in his lap, the pages soggy and red. Two hunched-over
children sat cross-legged on the floor, a pile of mutilated dolls between them.
The hearth held a mound of glowing embers, suggesting the fire had been built
sometime that day.

What
kind of sick fuck…

“Zapheads,”
Robertson said from the doorway behind him.

“I don’t
think so,” Franklin said. “Unless Zaps learned how to write.”

He
pointed to the television. Smeared in dark, congealing blood across its black
face were the words “Milepost 291.”

BOOK: After (Book 3): Milepost 291
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