After: Whiteout (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 4) (10 page)

“We’ll
find him, but first we have to hide.”

“They’ll
find us, Momma.”

“No,
they want the baby. They’ll leave us alone.”

They
reached the second-floor landing, Rosa panting with exertion while Marina shuddered from dry sobs. Despite the papered-over windows, there was enough visibility
to navigate the clutter of exercise equipment, rocking chairs, broken bicycles,
and dusty glass cases. Rosa considered hiding among the mannequins, but the
Zapheads might be attracted to them because of their human-like shapes.
Instead, she ducked into a small alcove that featured bookshelves on one side
and quilts and bedding stacked on the other.

The
alcove was much darker than the open floor. Rosa knelt and explored the space
beneath the bottom bookshelf. Aside from a couple of boxes of old vinyl
phonograph records, the floor was clear.

“Crawl
in there and don’t make a sound, no matter what,” Rosa whispered, guiding her
daughter into the narrow gap.

“You
can’t leave me.” Marina’s voice was on the edge of hysteria.

If
she breaks, we’re both done. Because I’m not too far from the edge myself.
“It’s just for a little bit, honey.”

They
could both hear the commotion below them, the Zapheads doing their best to
mimic whatever Joey said, although Joey’s command of language seemed much more
advanced than those of the adults. Cathy shrieked at one point, but Joey kept
on with his rant, oblivious to her pain and fear. Rosa felt a sick surge of joy
that it was Cathy being targeted by the Zapheads instead of Marina.

Maybe
they’ll kill Cathy, take the baby, and go.

And
we’ll survive.

Rosa
tumbled some musty bedspreads from the stack and
piled them as if making a nest. When Marina was completely concealed, Rosa
slipped a hand inside the covers and felt along Marina’s body until she reached
her hair. She touched her daughter’s cheek and whispered, “Wait here for me.”

“What
if you don’t come back?”

“You
wait as long as you possibly can, okay? Even if you get hungry or have to go
potty.”

“Don’t
go.”

“I
have to, honey.”

“Stay,
stay, stay here,” Marina said, imitating Joey whether consciously or not.
“Stay, stay, stay here.”

“I’ll
come back. I promise.” Rosa’s vision blurred with tears as she crept out of the
alcove, Marina’s plea burning in her ears.

Rosa
doubled back to the head of the stairs, peering over
the railing to make sure the coast was clear. The Zapheads had seen them flee
but so far didn’t seem interested enough to pursue them. Rosa could only hope
they would leave. She now understood that they’d been drawn to the thrift shop
because of Joey.

And
Joey had been leading them to Siler Creek all along, because he knew his kind
were here. Traps and bait, all along.

Peering
between the banister rails, Rosa watched the two Zapheads gather around Cathy,
cutting off her escape. Joey reached out his arms to the female, crying out
“New people!”

Cathy
tugged at Joey as the Zaphead tried to take him, but the injured male grabbed
her by the shoulders—his amputation smearing blood on her blouse—and yanked her
away. Cathy clawed at him, trying to break free, but she succumbed to the
greater weight and power of her captor. The female Zaphead placed Joey on the
floor, feet first, and released him. Joey’s legs bowed and collapsed and his
head struck the floor. He squealed like a wild beast caught in a cage, but Rosa wouldn’t have described it as a cry of pain.

“No,”
Cathy roared, wriggling out of the male Zaphead’s one-handed grip, leaving him
clutching a ragged lock of her hair. “You don’t know how to hold him.”

She
knelt and scooped up Joey, nestling him against her chest and kissing his
forehead. “There, there, kissy boo boo and make it better,” she said in a
singsong voice.

She’s
gone mad. And I don’t blame her.

“Kissy
boo boo,” Joey said, calm and content once more. Cathy’s eyes shone with the
maniacal triumph of motherhood, lost in the insanity of unconditional love.

The
female Zaphead retrieved the amputated hand and brought it to Joey. The male
Zaphead drew close and brought its stump to the baby’s face. At first Rosa thought the baby was going to suckle from the gruesome wound, but then he waved to the
other Zaphead. The female pressed the hand back into place, bits of pink flesh
and white gristle dangling from the point of reconnection.

“Kissy
boo boo,” Joey said, straining to lift his large, pink head.

Cathy
moved the infant forward until his small lips pressed against the ragged gash.
The female Zaphead held the hand in place with all the patience of a nurse, her
eyes glinting and sparking. Rosa didn’t know what was happening, but the thrift
shop had fallen silent for the first time since the two soldiers had chased the
Zapheads down the street.

Joey
moved his head away. “Make it better,” he said with childish delight.

The
male Zaphead flexed the fingers of the injured hand. They twitched in
uncoordinated spasms, but they curled and unfolded.

The
hand…cannot be.

Modern
medical science was amazing. A trauma ward in an American hospital performed
what many would consider miracles. Limbs could be reattached even hours after an
accident and function restored following months or years of physical therapy. Rosa had just witnessed an almost instantaneous healing through a bizarre and invisible
surgery. Blood still oozed from the man’s wrist, but already the injury was
scabbing over.

Joey
clapped his hands. “Kissy boo boo!”

The
male Zaphead clapped his hands. “Kissy boo boo!” he said in a high voice.

“Patty
cake!” Joey held up his pudgy hands and pushed them at the Zaphead.

He
mirrored the move and their palms bumped. “Patty cake!”

Rosa
backed away, unwilling to witness more. She bumped
into a bureau and a porcelain doll tumbled to the floor, shattering with a
brittle clatter. If the Zapheads had forgotten her, she’d just given them a
loud reminder.

She
looked around for a weapon—curtain rods, floor lamps, cast-iron skillets, an
antique walking stick. But how could she fight against creatures that could
piece their bodies back together?

Rosa
dashed to the nearest window, thinking she might be
able to climb out and escape. Marina would be on her own, but if Rosa could lead the Zapheads away from the store and hide long enough, she could sneak back
after dark and rescue her. She had little sense of the town’s layout and even
less of the Siler Creek’s location on a map, but maybe she could sight some
landmarks like a water tower or billboards to guide her. If nothing else, the
golden arches of McDonald’s could guide her back to the center of town.

She
peeled back some of the paper covering the window, realizing she’d fled to the
front of the store. The dead Zaphead still lay sprawled in the street, and
spread out beside it was the corpse of the soldier that had killed it.

As
footsteps creaked on the stairs, Rosa tried to lift the window, but it appeared
to be sealed by ancient layers of paint. She nearly punched the thick glass
with her hand, but then remembered the Zaphead’s accidental amputation.
I
don’t think I can count on Joey to fix me if I get sliced into pieces.

She
swept a pile of National Geographic magazines off a coffee table and scooted it
beside the window, then climbed atop it. In a sitting position, she raised her
legs and drove both feet into the window. It broke in bright thunder and rained
shards to the sidewalk below.

Marina
must be scared to death. Have mercy on her, God.

Rosa
kicked a few jagged pieces of glass out of the way
and straddled the sill. The two Zapheads reached the top of the stairs, and Rosa expected them to shout at her to stop. But they didn’t even look at her. Their
attention was drawn by the cluster of mannequins and the human corpse propped
on the metal rack that Rosa had clubbed.

Rosa
swung her other leg out of the window and eased her
weight down until she gripped the outer concrete ledge. The drop was only about
twelve feet, but if she twisted her ankle—or worse, broke a leg—then both she
and Marina were doomed.

At
least the sidewalk below her was clear, aside from a few wedges of glass that
reflected the red sky of sunset. And what choice did she have? She didn’t
possess the strength to lift herself back into the store even if she wished it.

Her
fingertips ached, scoured raw by the concrete. But just before she let go, a
young voice called out, “
Not us
!”

Coming
up the street was the dark-skinned boy in underwear who had helped lure the soldiers.
Apparently he had survived the hunt.

Not
only that, several other figures—almost certainly Zapheads, judging by their
grouping—were with him. One wore Rodger Dodger’s cap.

A
very
bloody
cap.

The
boy pointed up at her. “Not us.”

CHAPTER
NINE

As
a child in the Baja Californian town of Camalú, Rosa had been raised as the
middle of five children by a mother who cleaned rooms at a hotel that catered
to American tourists. She earned eighty pesos a day. Her father was a
commercial fisherman, bringing in fish for the local restaurants, which also
served the tourists. He’d been lost at sea one stormy winter. At least, that is
what her mother always claimed. Other children in town said he’d
desaperacido—
abandoned
his family to smuggle marijuana north to San Diego and Los Angeles.

Whatever
the real story, Rosa had grown up fast and hard, tending the chickens that ran
free in the yard of their tin-sided shack in the hills. Her two older sisters
talked of marrying
hombres Americano
as if that were the greatest
ambition a woman could muster. Her two younger brothers wore the oversize
counterfeit jerseys of American football teams, tackling each other and tossing
a deflated soccer ball while pretending they were stars of the Dallas Cowboys.
Her mother told her that all dreams, like the compass, could only point
norto
.

She
never wanted to leave Camalú, although her own future had looked little
brighter than her mother’s. Indeed, she’d been on the same career track, coming
in on weekends to help her mother with the laundry. She’d learned plenty about
the filthy secrets of Americans. The stains on their sheets were no different
than those the local women washed in tubs of rainwater captured off the roofs
of their shacks.

Her
teen years marked ever fewer days at the regional school and more shifts at the
hotel, watching her mother’s back become more humped and stooped as premature
gray streaked her hair and hardship eroded deep creases around the brown skin
of her eyes and mouth. Then she’d met Jorge, who delivered dry goods to the
hotel from La Paz in a noisy, rusty truck. At age twenty, Jorge possessed a
driver’s license, a reasonably reliable source of income, and most of his
teeth. Unlike the tequila-loving
pendejos
of the neighborhood, Jorge had
a serious demeanor. Jorge had plans instead of dreams.

“You
should go with him,” her mother said, although Rosa could plainly read the fear
in her mother’s eyes. Of all the children, Rosa would have been the one to stay
in the tin shack until the end. The end of everything.

“I
can’t,” Rosa replied. “You are my family.”

“It
is the way of families. A time comes to leave one and start another.”

“I
feel like each foot is in a separate grave,” Rosa said, hoping the decision
would be taken from her.

“So,
choosing will hold no loss. You die either way. And it’s far worse to be
atrapado
en el medio.
”

Too
poor for telephones, with twenty-five-hundred miles between them, and the end
of the world sweeping in from the sky, those words were among the last she’d ever
heard her mother speak. Now, dangling by her fingertips between likely death
below and above, they came back to Rosa.

Atrapado
en el medio.

Trapped
in the middle.

The
difference now was her choice of graves affected Marina. And Jorge, if he was
still alive.

She
was done, but she could still serve a purpose. If a Zaphead could sacrifice its
life, so could she. If she dropped to the sidewalk without shattering the bones
in her ankles, then she would run. The plan hadn’t changed much: Lead the
Zapheads away from Marina. She would just eliminate that portion of the plan
where she returned for Marina.

She
could almost hear her mother’s voice. Whether they were delivered from heaven
or merely the jolt of microscopic synaptic receptors in her brain, she couldn’t
say. But the words were true nonetheless.