After: The Shock (17 page)

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

Campbell
was still searching the
trees on the side of the road when Arnoff’s tribe caught up with him.

Campbell
emerged from the woods
to see Arnoff poking Pete’s backpack with the tip of his rifle. Pamela, Donnie,
and the professor hung back a little, warily checking the vehicles on the
highway. “Looks like your buddy chickened out,” Arnoff said.

“Somebody
got him,” Campbell said.

“Hell,
yeah,” Donnie said. “Zapheads.”

“It
wasn’t Zapheads. There’s no blood.”

Arnoff
knelt and plucked one of the warm beers from Pete’s backpack. “Well, he didn’t
abandon ship, or he’d have never left this.”

“So,
what do you think happened?” Pamela asked, fishing a cigarette from a pocket of
her floral-print blouse. She was sweating from the heat, and the wind carried a
faint whiff of the distant burning cities. Campbell thought about what the
professor had said, about the four hundred nuclear reactors that would
eventually melt down, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to live long
enough to worry about radiation poisoning.

“Post-traumatic
stress disorder, psychological strain,” the professor said. “He might have just
snapped and wandered off somewhere.”

“Turned
into a Zaphead, you mean?” Arnoff said.

“We’ve
not seen any evidence of latent effects. The experts predicted the solar event
was a one-time phenomenon.”

“Hell,
some horny old bat might have roped him into the back of one of these vans for
a go,” Donnie said, grinning at Pamela. “You know how women are.”

“Hush
your mouth or I’ll hush it for you.” She glared back, taking a deep puff of her
cigarette, but she seemed bored by her own threat.

Campbell
’s guts knotted in
frustration, but he forced himself to remain calm. He didn’t know these people.
They were acquaintances of circumstance, and bleak circumstance at that.

The
end of the world makes strange bedfellows.

Arnoff
walked ahead to a BP tanker truck. The silver petroleum tanker reflected the
sunlight, causing Campbell to squint. Arnoff shouldered his rifle and climbed a
metal ladder on the tanker’s rear. Standing atop the giant cylinder, he scanned
with his binoculars in all directions.

“Zapheads
are going to see him,” Donnie said, checking the chamber of his automatic
pistol. “This is a time to lay low, not play gold-medal dumbass at the Special
Olympics.”

“Hush
your mouth,” Pamela said, sitting on the hood of a green Mercedes. A man was
slumped over the wheel, body swollen with rot around the confines of his suit
jacket and tie. Campbell was grateful the car’s windows were sealed shut. The
man likely had the air-conditioning going, probably some Eagles twanging on the
stereo, on his way to rake in money off of other people’s work. And then life
made other plans for him.

Big,
big plans.

“See
anything?” the professor called to Arnoff.

Arnoff
lowered the binoculars and shook his head. “No Zapheads, no survivors, no
Pete.”

“Too
bad we can’t get a vehicle going. There’s enough gas to get us across the
country and back a hundred times.”

“You’re
the egghead,” Donnie said, banging on the roof of a Ford Escort. “Why don’t you
hotwire one of these?”

“As
I explained, modern vehicles have electronic ignitions, computerized operating
systems, alternating-current batteries and—”

“Blah,
blah, blah,” Donnie said. “Everything got zapped. I know all that. But the
zap’s over, right? Why can’t we rebuild one?”

“Possible,”
the professor said. “But we’d need newly produced parts, which means
manufactured parts, because all the existing circuitry is fried. And it takes
high-technology equipment and electricity to make the parts you need.
Catch-22.”

“Sort
of like needing a fish for bait so you can catch a fish, right?” Donnie said.

“Sort
of like that, yes,” the professor said.

Campbell
hadn’t thought that far
ahead. Sometimes at night, before falling asleep, he’d had little fantasies of
the world rebuilding itself, everyone pitching in like it was a community-pride
clean-up event. But he always assumed “somebody,” either the government or
people from some unaffected part of the globe, would eventually ride to the
rescue and restore all the essential services. But what if they were on their
own? What if they had to save themselves?

What
if human civilization had come down to isolated clusters like Arnoff’s tribe?

Then
we’re screwed.

“Zaphead
at ten o’clock,” Arnoff said, dropping the binoculars so they dangled from a
cord around his neck. He raised his rifle and sighted down the barrel.

Donnie
jumped from the Mercedes hood and ran toward the tanker. “Save some for me. I
ain’t killed a Zaphead in three days and I’m getting a little twitchy.”

“I’m
not shooting it,” Arnoff said. “I’m observing it.”

Campbell
eased over to where the
professor and Pamela were standing. The tang of tobacco smoke overwhelmed the
stench of bodies and distant fires.

“What
do you make of all this?” Campbell asked the professor. He almost asked for the
man’s name, but the group seemed to function better with anonymity. Names
didn’t seem to matter now.

“Our
tenuous situation as survivors, or the geological effects of the solar storm?”

Pamela
pursed her lips. “I love it when you use them big words.”

“A
little of both,” Campbell said. “I mean, it’s hard to separate them now, isn’t
it?”

Donnie
hoisted himself up on the tanker’s ladder and climbed toward Arnoff, who was
still peering through the rifle scope.

“We
can’t be certain of the long-term effects on the environment,” the professor
said. “But short term, in human terms, we’ve lost our infrastructure. We’ve
lost all the systems that connected us with food, safety, shelter, and
companionship. And, as I said, manmade problems like the nuclear radiation and
other pollutants add to the mix.”

“Doesn’t
sound real good,” Pamela said. “Then again, I never expected there to be a
‘long term.’”

“But
surely we can adapt,” Campbell said, although the argument sounded hollow even
to his own ears. “We’re smart and tough and adaptable—”

“That’s
how smart we are,” Pamela interrupted, pointing to the top of the tanker.
Donnie had opened a little metal access hatch and was urinating into the
opening.

The
professor shook his head in grim amusement. “I think the Zapheads are in far
better position to adapt. From what I can tell, they have none of the moral
baggage and ten times the survival instinct.”

“Do
you have any theories on why they turned violent?” Campbell asked, warily
scanning the sides of the highway. Arnoff and Donnie were so transfixed with
one distant Zaphead, they wouldn’t have seen any others approaching from the
woods. And if Pete staggered out into the open, Campbell wanted to be the first
to spot him so he could prevent Pete from getting shot by the trigger-happy
Donnie.

“Electroconvulsive
therapy is used to treat depression,” the professor said. “Everybody thinks of
the Jack Nicholson movie, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ where
troublemakers get their brains fried, but it has proven clinical benefits.
However, the treatment also can cause severe personality change, memory loss, and
cognitive impairment. So evidence suggests that exposure to cataclysmic
electromagnetic fields could cause varying results, depending on the
individual.”

“So,
I guess this proves I’m lucky, huh?” Pamela said.

The
professor dug into his backpack and pulled out a plastic water bottle. “In some
ways, we’re better off,” he said, twisting the cap and taking a swig. “Fewer of
us to consume the finite resources at our disposal.”

“What
do you mean, ‘finite’?” Campbell asked. “I know we can’t build automobiles, but
we can return to an agrarian society.”

“With
what knowledge?” the professor said. “How do we save seeds and know which
plants to eat? How do we know the proper planting time? How do we build
gristmills powered by water wheels to grind wheat into flour? We can’t just get
on the Internet and Google it.”

“Dang,
you’re a real bummer, doc,” Pamela said.

“I
see no need to indulge elaborate fantasies. A realistic assessment of our
situation gives us the best chance of survival.”

Campbell
was reluctantly forced
to agree. “I’d say the first job—after finding Pete, of course—is to locate
others like us and form a bigger group.”

“That
might not be so wise,” the professor said. “Look at the pecking-order problems
we have just with a group this small. Put a dozen well-armed, desperate Alpha
males in the same place at the same time, and I think they’d make Zapheads look
like refined pacifists.”

“I
don’t know exactly what you said,” Pamela said. “But if you’re saying it’s not too
smart to put a bunch of Arnoffs and Donnies together, I’d say you’re onto
something.”

The
two men stood atop the tankers like statues. Arnoff was ramrod-straight,
shoulders back, still holding his rifle barrel steady on his target. Donnie was
hunched, but he’d also raised his weapon, pointing it in the same direction as
Arnoff.

“If
they shoot, every Zaphead within a mile’s radius will come see what’s going
on,” the professor said. “They seem to react to stimuli like sudden loud noises
and movement.”

“They
can’t be that dumb,” Campbell said.

“You
don’t know Donnie,” Pamela said. “He might do it just for the fun of it.”

A
muffled
ka-pow
sounded to the west. Arnoff instantly shifted his rifle
in that direction.

“A
gunshot,” Campbell said. “Other survivors.”

Campbell
started up the road
toward the tanker, but the professor grabbed his arm. “Remember what I said.
Bigger isn’t necessarily better. If there was any lesson learned in the
Technological Age, it was that.”

Campbell
shook free and walked
away, imagining what the other group was like. Had Pete joined them? Did they
have adequate food supplies or transportation better than bicycles or horses?
Did they have any young women among them so the race could procreate?

Thinking
of sex at a time like this. Sheesh.

Another
distant gunshot sounded, and Arnoff scrambled the length of the tanker and
descended the ladder. The professor and Pamela gathered their bags and went to
meet him, but Campbell climbed astride his bicycle, determined to solve the
mystery.

“Where
do you think you’re going?” Arnoff said.

“I’m
your scout, remember? Just doing my job.”

“You
might want to stick with the winners. Sounds like things are getting hairy out
there.”

“Hairier
than a gorilla’s cooter,” Donnie said from atop the tanker.

“Just
how would you know about that?” Pamela said.

“’cause
I been sleeping with you, ain’t I?”

Campbell
was tired of the
prattle. “My friend’s out there somewhere, and I’m going to find him.”

“Your
first responsibility is to the tribe,” Arnoff said.

Campbell
glared at the
professor. “What do you have to say about that?”

The
professor shook his head. “Survival of the fittest.”

Another
gunshot sounded, causing Donnie to whoop and jump from the tanker to the cab of
the truck for better surveillance. If Donnie was the pinnacle of human fitness,
then Campbell wasn’t sure whether he wanted to stick around. Evolution had just
taken a stinking piss and washed away every grain of hope.

“I
guess some of us have a different idea of what it means to be human.” Campbell pedaled in the direction of the gunshots.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Rachel
worked the shadows and shrubs, keeping low as she searched for Stephen. She was
reluctant to leave the house where DeVontay was held captive, but she didn’t
see how a frontal assault would do much good, since she was without a weapon
and vastly outnumbered. Instead, she decided to check on the shed where she’d
left Stephen. She found the door open and Stephen’s can of Raid lying on the
floor.

The
Captain’s goons had left her backpack, and she slung it over her shoulder. The
garden tools taunted her as if to say, “
So, violence isn’t the answer, huh?
Then what’s the question?
”

Faith
into action.

Even
if there’s hell to pay.

Rachel
picked up the pruning shear. The bolt connecting the two handles had broken, so
she gave the single handle a test swing. She liked the balance of it, as well
as the short metal hook at the end. It wasn’t too heavy to carry, and she liked
its prospects better than those of the double-headed ax and the flimsier hand
scythe.

A
gunshot sounded somewhere down the street, a couple of hundred yards away.
Maybe the goons were hunting Zapheads for sport, although they might be
shooting stray dogs, car windows, or even other survivors. Rachel had a feeling
that The Captain had imposed a quasi-military protocol in an attempt to control
his creepy little platoon.

Slinking
back to the street where she had a better line of sight, Rachel crouched behind
a Volvo and considered her options. If Stephen was on the loose, he probably
hadn’t traveled far.

Assuming
he’s still alive
.

Rachel
was about to take her chances and sprint across the street when she heard
shouting and cursing. She peered over the Volvo’s hood and saw two people in
camouflage coveralls dragging a young, dark-haired man who struggled in their
grip.

“Goddamnit,
I’m one of the good guys,” the man said. He was in his early twenties, hair
slick with sweat, wearing a grimy T-shirt.

The
goon on the left, a gaunt-faced woman whose mouth was twisted into a bitchy
snarl, put a spidery hand on the hilt of a knife at her belt and said, “Shut
up, or I’ll gut you like a fish.”

The
man sagged so that the goon on the right had to grab his arm with both hands
and hold him upright. The pair was half-dragging him toward the ranch house
where The Captain apparently had set up headquarters and where DeVontay was
still confined. Through the Japanese maples on the front lawn, Rachel could see
the shattered window and the legs of Miss Daisy’s corpse dangling from the
glass-strewn windowsill.

“You
got any beer?” the captive man said. The gaunt woman jabbed him the ribs with
her knuckles, eliciting a hiss of pain.

The
man jerked his elbows out, causing the goon on his right to lose his grip. The
man seized the opening and started to break free, but the woman slid her leg
forward with practiced grace, tripping him and sending him skidding across the
asphalt.

She
chuckled as she bent to pull the man from the road. “We’re trained in the art of
pain.”

The
other soldier drove the bottom of his boot against the fallen man’s thigh,
causing Rachel to flinch. They were beating him like two television wrestlers
who’d caught their quarry in a corner with the referee’s back turned. Rachel
gripped the handle of the pruning shear, knotted with anger but helpless. After
all, the soldiers had semi-automatic weapons slung across their backs.

The
two goons were so intent on inflicting punishment that they didn’t notice
movement along the side of the street. A withered vegetable garden stood at the
corner of a lot, fenced with two rows of sagging white clothesline strung
between wooden posts. The tasseled corn rattled and swayed, and a hunched
figure emerged from between the rows. At first Rachel thought it was another
soldier, given the swiftness of the movement, but the figure wore a soiled
windbreaker and jogging pants, not camouflage gear.

Zaphead
.

But
she barely had time to consider whether to shout a warning when another Zaphead
came out of the garden, a middle-aged woman in a business suit, pantyhose
pocked with holes and trendy haircut now in tangles. Rachel unconsciously
dubbed her “Bridget Jones,” except this particular career gal was carrying a
sharp, heavy stick instead of a diary. The corn rattled behind her, with yet
another Zaphead following, a squat, Asian-looking man with no shirt.

What
struck Rachel most forcefully was the way they seemed to move in concert,
stealthy and intent. In the city, the Zapheads were brainless and shambling,
almost like the zombies depicted in film and books but without the taste for
flesh. But these were like cunning predators, lurking in the shadows and then
sneaking up to deliver their brand of destruction.

The
man on the ground saw the Zapheads and pushed himself along the pavement on his
back, trying to get his feet beneath him. The soldiers didn’t allow him to
escape, though. The woman jumped knee-first on his chest while the other
soldier urged her on. “Captain will love this one,” he said.

Rachel
circled around the Volvo to get closer. The closest Zaphead rushed across the
narrow grass border to the street. Three weeks ago, it might have been an
insurance salesman out for a morning jog, but now it was a killing machine
instead of a workout warrior.

“Get
off me, you assholes,” the struggling young man on the asphalt said. “Here come
some Zappers.”

The
sadistic woman soldier chuckled again, and Rachel wondered if somehow she had
been affected, too—that maybe the Zapheads were evolving and the surviving
humans were degrading until they all would meet in a wordless, violent
misunderstanding.

The
jogger Zaphead closed the distance in the blink of an eye, leaping onto the
male soldier’s back and driving a grunt from his lungs. They fell forward, the
four of them tangled in a pile as the other two Zapheads moved in.

The
female soldier rolled away and tried to free her weapon from her shoulder, but
Bridget Jones was on her like a shark after a baby seal. Bridget Jones swung
her garden stake and caught the soldier under the chin, the bone-shattering
thwack
audible to Rachel.

The
shirtless Zaphead joined the first in assaulting the male soldier, while the
captive scrambled free of the pile. Rachel could see the fear and determination
in his eyes.

He’s
a survivor.

Rachel
stepped from behind the Volvo and raised her makeshift weapon. The guy must
have thought she was a Zaphead, too, because he scrambled to his feet and
started down the street before Rachel yelled, “This way!”

The
guy ran toward her and Rachel passed him, heading for the Zapheads. Even though
the soldiers were part of the group that had tried to kill her, Rachel couldn’t
let them get mauled.

When
it comes down to it, we’re still on the same side. Barely
.

The
female soldier had recovered enough to pull her knife from its hilt. The blade
glistened in the sun for only a moment, and then she drove it into Bridget
Jones’s abdomen. The Zaphead mouthed a wet
uurk
but continued to attack,
even as a blossom of red spread across her formal white blouse.

Rachel
struck the asphalt with the curved metal tip of her pruning shear. “Come and
get it,” she yelled.

The
two Zapheads clawing at the male soldier turned to Rachel, snarling, their eyes
burning cold with some hidden hate.

Then
they did something odd.

They
looked at one another as if in telepathic communication, and the shirtless
Zaphead tightened his grip on the soldier’s throat as the soldier flailed
helplessly to reach his rifle. The other, the jogger Zaphead, shoved away from
them and ran toward Rachel.

She
barely had time to register the sudden change in tactics when the Zaphead was
upon her. She swung the shear handle from its position near her hip, tentative
and afraid to draw blood. The wooden part of the handle bounced off the
Zaphead’s arm as if striking rubber, then the Zaphead grabbed her.

His
breath stank like molded cheese as he closed rough hands around her throat. Up
close, his eyes burned with a liquid malevolence, the roiling lava of a hidden
volcano. She kicked at his shin, but he didn’t react to pain.

Rachel
had never had any self-defense training. Aside from playing tackle football
with the neighborhood boys in Seattle, she’d learned most of her moves from
movies. But she discovered that it wasn’t as easy when your would-be killer
wasn’t following the script.

Her
throat was tight and sore, the pressure of his fingers constricting the blood
to her head. Her vision swam as the Zaphead lifted her from the pavement,
pulling her against him. Her arms were heavy and her grip loosened on the
shear.

She
heard a man yell “Back down, bitch,” and then the Zaphead shuddered from a blow
to the head. The deathly clutch eased enough for Rachel to suck in a lungful of
air and regain her balance.

The
man who’d escaped the soldiers swung a fist at the Zaphead, but the Zaphead
flinched away, apparently learning to dodge. But while its attention was
diverted, Rachel whispered a prayer of apology and swung the handle of the
pruning shear.

The
metal tip gouged deep into the base of the Zaphead’s skull, opening a gap in
the flesh and revealing a red weal of raw muscle and gristle. Blood spurted
from the wound.

So
they bleed just like we do
.

“Hit
him again,” the man said, dancing just beyond the outstretched arms of the
Zaphead.

Rachel
thought of the bruises she’d be wearing as a necklace for the next week, then
swung the wooden handle overhead in a two-handed grip and brought the blunt end
flush upon the top of the Zaphead’s skull, like the Biblical Samson
 standing knee-deep in Philistines swinging the bloodied jawbone of an
ass.

The
sickening crack pierced the sounds of grunts and screams as the other two
Zapheads pummeled the soldiers. The concussed Zaphead staggered for a moment,
then wheeled and looked at Rachel. The fire in its eyes gave way to a look of
hurt confusion, and Rachel wondered whether she’d knocked some wiring loose in
his brain—as if maybe she’d pounded some humanity back into him.

“Better
hit him again,” the man said. “Don’t play around with these monsters.”

“Thou
shalt not kill,” Rachel said.

The
man looked at her and shook his head. Behind him, the female soldier drove her
knife into the Bridget Jones Zaphead a second time, opening another bright gash
in her torso. A bit of pink intestine bulged out of the cotton blouse, but the
Zaphead didn’t seem to notice. She drove her small fist into the woman
soldier’s face, shattering her nose and sending a tooth flying.

“Let’s
get out of here,” the man said, grabbing Rachel’s hand and pulling her toward
the yard of a nearby house. The gesture reminded her too much of DeVontay, and
she pulled free.

“I
have to stay,” she said. “I have friends here.”

The
man’s face curdled in resentment, then he grabbed her weapon and shoved her
back. “Thou shall not kill, maybe, but I, for sure, goddamned
shall
.”

The
man swung the blade against the Zaphead’s temple, and this time, the guy went
down like a jogger after a marathon. A shot rang out, and the shirtless
Zaphead’s shoulder erupted in a glut of blood and gore, but still, it kept attacking.

“I
don’t see any friends around here,” the man said to Rachel. “Come on.”

“This
way,” Rachel said, pointing to the house where DeVontay was still being held.

“Fine,”
he said. The rancid odor of old beer hung about him and his bloodshot eyes suggested
either a lack of sleep or an abundance of alcohol.

Rachel
broke into a run, the man right behind her, hanging onto the grisly,
blood-coated pruning shear. When they reached the landscaped shrubbery, Rachel
burst through and headed for the side yard, where a high wooden fence offered
concealment. They ducked behind it just as another gunshot erupted, then
another one.

“New
around here?” the man said, wiping sweat from his greasy brow.

“Only
since After,” she said.

“After?”

She
shrugged, lifted her hands to indicate the world. “This end-of-the-world thing.
Thanks for saving me back there. I’m Rachel.”

“Name’s
Pete,” he said, between gasps of exhilaration. “Just a suggestion, but I’d
ditch the Ten Commandments. At least five of them no longer apply.”

“That’s
how I was raised. It’s not something you can turn on and off like a light
switch.”

“Guess
so. I wouldn’t know anything about that. One Sunday morning in the Catholic
church gave me enough horrors of hell to last a lifetime.”

“How
did they find you?”

“I
was bicycling on the highway, stopped to check out a car, and then those unsung
heroes jumped me and said The Captain wanted to see me.”