After: The Shock (23 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

They
kept to the shadowed side of the street, moving fast. Rachel led the way,
hoping she was headed north. DeVontay seemed to be even less of a Boy Scout than
she was, so he didn’t question her judgment. Or maybe he was keeping his eyes
in the side alleys, worried less about the destination than the journey.

They’d
gone at least ten blocks without seeing any signs of life—if such a word was
even appropriate under the circumstances. Birds flapped in the eaves of the
buildings and the canopy of trees, and Rachel heard a hound dog baying in the
distance once, but mostly, the town was just a still life of abandoned cars and
silent storefronts. The stench of death emanated from inside many of the
buildings, so they didn’t bother with a door-to-door search for survivors.
Calling out for them was risky as well, since the noise might attract Zapheads.

The
streets were remarkably free of corpses, given the density of the population,
but once they came upon a shrunken man with a stringy white beard, leaning
against a brick wall with his arms tucked under his knees. In the old days, he
might have passed for a homeless man, rags tied around his ankles.

“Hey,
Pops?” DeVontay whispered, afraid to touch him.

The
man didn’t move so they kept going. Stephen’s expression didn’t change, which
saddened Rachel. A boy shouldn’t be hardened to the point of numbness. His days
should be filled with bubble gum, comic books and video games instead of death.

The
street signs were just as ordinary as ever, a mute testament to places gone by:
Hayward Street, Depot Street, Old Bristol Turnpike. They passed a bridal
shop, the front window filled with headless and armless mannequins, impossibly
anorexic, displaying flowing white dresses. Rachel’s breath caught at the
sight. She’d never be a bride now, not like that.

“Yuck,”
Stephen said, bored by the window shopping. He walked to the edge of the street
and bent to play with the trash that had collected in the rain gutter.

DeVontay
pressed close behind her. “That man back there…you notice something funny?”

“Just
another somebody that didn’t make it,” she said.

“He’s
fresh. Not dark and bloated.”

Rachel
glanced at Stephen, appreciating the relatively healthy glow of his skin
compared to the putrefaction all around them. “Just because you survive the
solar flares doesn’t mean you don’t have to die someday.”

“But
he wasn’t beat up, from what I could see. Just curled up like he was waiting
for it.”

Rachel
again thought of the pills the pharmacist had given her. Not everyone had a
spiritual or moral aversion to suicide. For some, suicide might look like an
elevator to the Pearly Gates.

“There
are lots of ways to die,” she said. “He was old. Maybe he had a heart attack.
Or couldn’t get his medicine.”

“Don’t
nobody die from natural causes anymore.”

“Okay,
then. Maybe he had a bullet hole in his back. Shot by the military.”

“No
puddle of blood around him.”

Annoyed,
Rachel checked the reflection in the storefront glass and saw Stephen walking
into the street. She called to him, but he kept going, dragging Miss Molly by
the hair as if he’d forgotten he was carrying a doll. DeVontay took off running
after him, and Rachel broke free of her paralysis and followed.

When
they caught up with Stephen, they were able to see the town square, a
fifty-foot courthouse with a cracked concrete façade and a dome top surrounded
by oak trees whose leaves were darkening with autumn. The courthouse lawn was a
wide public commons crisscrossed with walkways, punctuated with a bronze statue
of some Revolutionary War hero gone green with patina and pigeon poop. The
idyllic small-town postcard was marred by wrought-iron benches that bore a tableau
of corpses. More corpses were slumped on the courthouse steps, which was as
crowded as if district court was holding a brief recess to allow a smoke break
for the accused.

“Lots
of them,” Stephen said, enthralled and not at all horrified.

There
had to be a few dozen, including some children, although they didn’t seem to be
grouped as family units. Indeed, at first, Rachel thought they might have been
arranged that way, like a photo shoot for a modern
auteur
of the
grotesque.

“More
fresh ones,” DeVontay said, and Rachel realized what had been disturbing her
more than the sheer number of dead: they, like the old man leaning against the
brick wall, were not yet in advanced stages of decomposition.

“Do
you think…?” She didn’t want to continue while Stephen was within earshot, but
DeVontay filled in the blanks for her.

“Yeah,”
he said. “These are Zapheads. They’re dying.”

Rachel
wasn’t sure whether she should be cheered by the news. The Zapheads had been trying
to kill her for weeks, sure. But they’d just been following their instincts.
And if all Zapheads died, then the world would become that much lonelier. Even
more devoid of what had once walked the Earth as a collective humanity.

They
followed Stephen to the closest bench, where a girl of about six lay curled on
her side. Her pink dress was mussed and her stockings torn, but otherwise, she
might have been sleeping.

“She
was put there like that,” DeVontay said. “She didn’t die in that position.”

Stephen
knelt and spoke to her. “Hey, are you okay?”

Rachel
stood behind Stephen and put a hand on each of his shoulders. “She’s with the
Lord now, Stephen.”

Stephen
looked around the commons. “Which one of them is the Lord?”

“The
one up in heaven,” Rachel said, although she looked around to make sure Jesus
Christ wasn’t among them at that very minute. After all, if He was planning a
return trip to Earth, then Taylorsville, North Carolina, was just a good a spot
as any.

Of
course, she was also aware that such thoughts could well be the beginning of
madness. The great visionaries and prophets of the Old Testament were on the
borderline of textbook schizophrenia, with their burning bushes, wheels of fire
in the sky, and voices telling them to kill their own children.

“This
is creepy as hell,” DeVontay said. “You think these are Zapheads?”

“They
understand,” she said, keeping her voice down. If any of them were merely
sleeping, she didn’t want to wake them.

“Understand
what? Did you get into some happy juice somewhere? Popped into the liquor store
while I wasn’t looking?”

“They
understand that the world has changed,” she said. “They’re aware.”

“You
talking about these same Zapheads that have been trying to kills us for the
last two weeks?”

“They’re
taking care of their dead,” she said. “It’s the last shred and act of humanity,
to honor the dead.” She had the sudden horrifying thought that perhaps these
were all victims of a mass suicide, that a group of Zapheads realized something
had gone wrong in their heads and they’d chugged the cyanide Kool-Aid, rather
than surrender to their baser natures, their killer instincts.

Such
an action would have taken higher-order functioning, communication, and
socialization, none of which were traits that the Zapheads had displayed so far.

But
what do you really know about them? You’ve been too busy running and hiding—and
surviving—to really pay attention
.

“They
don’t look so scary now,” Stephen said.

“Their
troubles are over.” Rachel almost added,
They’re the lucky ones
, but the
journey wasn’t over yet. If there was one thing she still believed, it was that
God had put here her for a reason.

Even
if God was now the architect of greatest mass murder in history, she still
believed.
Still.

“Let’s
get out of here before somebody comes to add to the pile,” DeVontay said.

“Come
on, Stephen,” Rachel said.

“Just
a second.” The boy went over the bench where the little girl was sleeping.
Without touching her, he gently laid Miss Molly in the crook of her arm.
Stephen practically skipped back over to Rachel’s side, taking her hand.

“Now
she won’t get lonely,” he said, smiling up at her.

Rachel
thought of her sister decomposing inside a fiberglass casket in a Seattle cemetery. Beside her pale corpse, Rachel had placed under one stiff, cool arm her
sister’s stuffed panda, Farley, a copy of her favorite book,
The Princess
Bride
, and a photograph of the Earth taken by the Hubble telescope. Rachel
had prayed her sister wasn’t lonely, either. In whatever After she now knew.

DeVontay
led them back to the street, the pistol still dangling near his hip. A few
gunshots popped in the distance, and the breeze carried the acrid brusque of
smoke, but otherwise, the place was as peaceful as any small-town Sunday
afternoon.

As
they passed the bridal shop again, Rachel thought she saw movement inside. She
didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look too closely, either.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

As
Campbell burst into the sunlight, he raised the heavy candlestick, expecting
a fight.

Instead,
he found that the side door opened onto a little cemetery, with unkempt grass,
faded plastic bouquets of flowers, and low marble markers in uneven rows. The
graveyard was bounded by a fence about two feet high, designed more as a
boundary than to actually keep out vandals and stray dogs. Making sure no
Zapheads were on that side of the church, he oriented himself with the view
he’d mapped out while in the belfry.

A
copse of maple trees offered enough concealment top get him to the street. But he
was stunned to see no Zapheads around the church.

Were
they all inside?

He
imagined the Zapheads closing in on the deranged reverend, reaching for him
even as he delivered the Word in an attempt to reach their hearts and save
their souls from the eternal flames of hell.

But
he was grateful for the martyr act, because it allowed him to slip between an
Irish-themed restaurant and an antique store, angling down a side alley flanked
with overflowing trash cans, propane tanks, and heating units. A body was splayed
out atop a busted garbage bag as if it fallen from above. Campbell didn’t look
too closely, but the exposed hands and face were dark and swollen with rot.

Now
two blocks from the church, he exited warily onto the street, which was Hardin Boulevard, according to the sign. He recognized the angle of the architecture, with
the skyline featuring one five-story building featuring an old-fashioned clock
with rusty metal hands standing tall against the smoky horizon. The other
buildings on the block were two-story, cars and trucks parked along both sides
of the street and only a few vehicles slanted at angles across the median
strip.

Looks
pretty dead
.

Campbell
decided to just sprint
up the street rather than sticking to the shadows. If he was spotted, he’d have
enough lead time to make a decision out in the open rather than risk being
jumped from one of the doorways. Besides that, the big brass candlestick was
feeling better and better in his hands.

The
bar where Pete had entered stood on the corner, with metal tables under an
awning. A red vinyl banner ran down the edge of the upper story, sporting the
name Fat Freddy’s, with “Pub & Grill” in smaller letters beneath it.
Campbell and Pete had passed more than a few Friday nights in such
establishments, eating wings and eyeing girls, but mostly drinking whatever
cheap domestic beer was on tap.

Campbell
wondered if all the
Zapheads in the vicinity had been drawn to the church. He’d seen them
responding to noise, violence, and fire, but the church had offered none of
those attractions. Just when Campbell had become used to—certainly not
comfortable or at ease with, but
used to
—things as they now stood, the
rules changed.

Not
that Campbell had ever made much sense of the world even before it had
figuratively tilted on its axis. Grade school had been an indoctrination of
sorts—“Go here when the bell rings, do this and this and this”—but Campbell had been bewildered by the anxiety of sitting in a room with twenty-five other
kids. High school had been just as surreal, mostly because he’d seen those
roles that adults were forced to adopt, and he didn’t see any role he’d be able
to successfully fake. Because he was pretty sure everyone was pulling a mask,
all characters straight out of Central Casting: the chisel-faced military
recruiting officer, the tow-truck driver with the Popeye forearms, the
gum-chewing waitress at the Waffle House, the I.T. nerd with the Batman
fixation.

So,
a world populated by Zapheads wasn’t really too much of a leap, was it?

Regardless,
he was grateful that none of them were around. If the church offered what they
needed, that was just fine with him, and God bless.

Campbell
dashed between a
Mitsubishi boiling with blue bottle flies and a Honda sedan with all four doors
flung open and spilling the stench of corpses. He vaulted over a motorcycle
lying on its side, nearly losing his balance, then came to Fat Freddy’s
entrance. He peered through the oval glass set in the wooden door but couldn’t
see much. He pushed his way in, squeezing the candlestick.

“Bro!
Just in time for Happy Hour!” Pete’s voice came from the darkness somewhere
near the back of the establishment.

As
Campbell’s eyes adjusted, he made out the dim rows of tables, some of them
occupied by dead people fallen face first into their moldering food. A few
candles flickered, reflected in the bar mirror along with rows and rows of
gleaming bottles. Campbell wiped his nose against the rot, still not accustomed
to the sweetly corrupt odor.

But
the smell of candle wax and alcohol were strong as well, creating a lurid
mixture. Pete stood behind the bar, a half-full bottle of brown liquor before
him, along with a water glass. At first, Campbell thought that Pete had somehow
found some drinking buddies, because four other people sat at the bar, perched
on high wooden stools with glasses in front of them.

“Pete,
who are these guys?” Campbell’s heart turned into a frozen stone in his chest.

Pete
merely grinned, tossed back a couple of ounces of whiskey, and slammed the
glass back down with a brittle
thunk
. “Drinks on the house,” he said,
slurring his words just a little.

Campbell
navigated the tables,
holding the candlestick before him as if it was a cattle prod and he might need
to jolt some of these corpses out of the way. “Coast is clear, man. We can get
out of town with no hassle.”

Pete
waved to the row of bottles, his grinning eyes flashing in the candlelight.
“Leave? I died and went to heaven. Beer’s warm, and there’s not any ice, but
can’t complain. Nosirree.”

Campbell
glanced at the bodies
leaning against the bar. They were in stilted, swollen poses, the stools jammed
under them to keep them erect. One, a biker wearing a sleeveless jeans jacket
and a watchman’s cap, had maggots roiling in his eye sockets.

“Pete,”
Campbell said warily. “Why don’t you just grab a bottle and come with me? You
can drink it on the road.”

“No
way,” he responded, sloshing some whiskey into the biker’s full glass so that
the liquid ran along the length of the bar. The glasses in front of the other
corpses were full as well.

“You…”
Campbell didn’t know how to process the tableau. His best friend had lost it,
finally cracked under the strain. And Campbell felt a chill deeper than fear:
the deep, icy well of loneliness into which he was dropping.

“Party’s
just started!” Pete bellowed to his patrons before tossing down another few
ounces of straight whiskey. Pete wiped his mouth and beamed, the candles making
his face look sinister and red, like a demon in a B horror movie.

Campbell
ignored the stench of
the desecrated corpses, which Pete had obviously dragged from the dining tables
to create his impromptu drinking session. He leaned against the bar as Pete
slammed a glass down on the wood.

“What’ll
ya have, pardner?” Pete said. Then his face took on a sodden solemnity. “You
know what really gets to me about all this? I just can’t wrap head my around a
world without celebrities. Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, Lindsay Lohan. I mean, inquiring
minds want to
know
.”

“In
Lindsay Lohan’s case, I don’t think it would make much difference.”

“LeBron
James. Depp, man. A world without the Deppster.”

“You’re
drunk,” Campbell said, preferring that diagnosis to the prospect of madness.

“Seriously.
Did they turn into Zapheads? Is there a Brad Pitt Zaphead out there somewhere be-bopping
along with a little soul patch?”

“Don’t
dwell on it. Deal with what’s in front of you.”

Pete
looked at his glass and grinned. But he quickly turned maudlin again and
groaned with dramatic flair. “Taylor Swift. Not Taylor? She’s so cute and sweet
and I got a Jodie Foster-level crush on her.”

“You
can’t just sit here and wait for them to find you,” Campbell said, eyeing the
front door. He wondered if any Zapheads were deeper in the building, maybe down
in the basement or in the bathrooms. Pete didn’t have a weapon of any kind, and
his backpack was tossed carelessly by the cash register.

“The
more, the merrier,” Pete said, waving at the impressive array of bottles. “We
got plenty for everybody. Zappers, survivors, and”—Pete gave a benevolent sweep
of his non-drinking arm to indicate the corpses—“the stinking silent majority.”

Pete
started to take another big gulp from his glass but Campbell caught his wrist,
sloshing liquor onto both their arms. “Remember you told me to let you know if
you ever hit bottom with your drinking?”

“I
was probably drunk when I said that,” Pete said, bloodshot eyes narrowing. “You
can’t hold people to stuff they say when they’re drunk. Otherwise, I’d have
been married six times already.”

Pete
laughed at his own miserable joke, but the sound was swallowed by the still,
dusty space. Any mirth and merriment that might have soaked into the walls had
long since evaporated, although the smell of booze, corrupted food, and bloated
corpses did plenty to crowd the air.

Glass
shattered somewhere near the front door, and Campbell swung around with the
candlestick raised. “They found us.”

Pete
didn’t seem to care. He drank straight from the bottle of Knob Creek, then
wiped some of the liquor under his nose like a mortician applying menthol
before digging in on the day shift.

“Get
down,” Campbell said, snuffing the nearest candle. He crouched in the dark,
discomfortingly near the legs of one of Pete’s dead clientele.

The
front door swung open, flooding light into the bar. A figure was framed in
silhouette, and Campbell wondered if Zapheads could see in the dark. Not that
it mattered. Pete stood near the other candle, his face bright in the yellow
circle of the flame.

Campbell
tensed, waiting for the
Zaphead to attack. Instead, the silhouette said, “Thought you might be in
here.”

Arnoff!