After: Whiteout (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 4) (3 page)

“We
have to stop her so we can help her,” DeVontay said, as Campbell joined the
fray. Together they managed to hold her so she was no longer attacking
DeVontay, but she bucked and writhed underneath them, mewling and clicking
noises pouring from her throat. Stephen finally realized DeVontay wasn’t trying
to hurt her, and he sat on her legs so that she stopped kicking.

DeVontay
looked up at the lieutenant. “Okay, you’ve gotten a good look. You for us or against
us?”

“I’m
not on anybody’s side but my own.”

“You
didn’t shoot us. So that puts you ahead of all the other people we’ve run into
lately.”

“This
isn’t my fight.”

“We
need to tie her up,” Campbell said. “We can’t sit on her all day.”

“You
have anything in your pack?” DeVontay asked the lieutenant.

“All
my supplies are back at camp. I didn’t plan on playing rodeo cowboy.”

“The
horses. You got a knife? Cut the bridle into leather strips.”

The
lieutenant removed the magazine from the second weapon, slid it into a pocket
of his camo cargo pants, and walked to where Campbell had tethered his horse.
He pulled a Ka-bar commando Bowie from a boot holster, the blade flashing in
the sunlight. “Your horse might run off,” he said.

“It’s
tame,” DeVontay said. “Besides, it’s curious. We’re probably pretty damned
amusing.”

The
horse had drawn as close as it could to the struggle and strained against the
bit of leather running from one of the bridle’s iron rings to the trunk of a
sapling. Its head was cocked as if watching them out of the corner of one eye.

“Easy,
boy.” The lieutenant drew the knife across the leather and then trimmed the
bridle from the horse’s long brown face.

Rachel
gave a lunge beneath them, but she was unable to budge the three bodies atop
her. The bite wound on DeVontay’s arm throbbed and, despite the coolness of the
late-autumn air, sweat poured down his face. His glass eye felt like dirt had
wedged around the socket. His ribs ached from the blow Stephen had landed, and his
legs were sore stems of rubber.

What
I wouldn’t give for a hot tub right now. Just five minutes of the way things
used to be.

Unlike
Rachel, he didn’t have any sort of religion to fall back on in troubled times.
If times
stayed
this troubled, he might have plenty of opportunities to
come up with one. Right now, the best he could do was utter a “Goddamn.”

“She’s
mellowing out,” Campbell said.

DeVontay
sensed that she’d relaxed but was unwilling to trust her. She might be playing
possum, waiting for an opening. And those teeth—she’d definitely been the
beneficiary of white suburban dental care. But her dentist, however much pride
she may have taken in her work, was unlikely to have considered cannibalism as
a possibility.

The
lieutenant parked his rifle in the crook of his arm and knelt over the group.
They were all panting from exertion. The horse, now free to follow its own
volition, poked its head over the lieutenant’s shoulder.

“Tie
her feet,” DeVontay said.

The
lieutenant gave a shake of his head as if to say,
I don’t believe I’m
getting dragged into this
. But he complied, asking Stephen to move up a
little so he could reach her ankles.

“Not
too tight,” Stephen said. “You’re digging into her skin.”

“Got
to be tight enough,” the lieutenant said. “You don’t want her kicking you in
the goose-eggs.”

Rachel
closed her eyes, and DeVontay was relieved to be spared the sight of those
chaotic storms. “How long has she been like this?” DeVontay whispered to Campbell.

“Like
I told you. Ever since the farmhouse. Those Zappers did something to her.”

DeVontay
didn’t want Stephen—or the lieutenant—to hear this, but he needed to know. “Is
she turning into one of them?”

“I
don’t know. I haven’t seen any other cases of spontaneous mutation, have you?
As far as I can tell, the Zaps were formed in the first blast of the solar
storms.”

“But
we don’t know what’s happening out there,” DeVontay said. “It’s not like we can
tune into CNN.”

 “Our
intel was that the mutations happened in the first wave of electromagnetic
radiation,” the lieutenant said. “That’s why there were reports of riots and
attacks even before the power went dark. The radiation escalated in waves over
a couple of days, doing the rest of the damage.”

“Damage?
Is that what you call six billion dead?”

The
lieutenant shrugged. “I didn’t sign up for this shit.”

Campbell
moved to one side so the lieutenant could bind
Rachel’s wrists together. Her flesh turned red against the leather, but by the
amount of strength she’d exhibited, DeVontay didn’t want to take any chances.
She grunted as the knot tightened. DeVontay sighed with relief and stood on
trembling legs. Rachel was trussed up like a pig ready for the barbecue spit.

“Sorry
about this,” DeVontay said to her.

She
opened her eyes. The apology was not accepted.

“Now
what?” Campbell said to the others. “We carry her all the way to the top of the
mountain?”

“What’s
wrong with her?” the lieutenant asked. He’d removed his sunglasses and his
crewcut and gray eyes made him look a lot less evil. “She’s acting like those
crazies in the city, right after the Big Zap.”

“She
might be infected,” DeVontay said.

“Bullshit.
These things aren’t zombies. I haven’t heard of any fresh ones turning. If
anything, they’re dying off.”

“Not
as fast as we are. In the past two months, I’ve watched survivors blow each
other to bits.”

“So
have I.” The lieutenant stroked the neck of the horse, which had remained in
their company. The horse snorted in pleasure. “That’s why I’m out here in the
middle of nowhere.”

“You
going to tell us what happened to you?” Campbell said. “Since it looks like
you’re joining us?”

“I
haven’t made up my mind about that yet. Depends on what you do about
her
.”
He nodded to Rachel.

DeVontay
wondered if the soldier wanted to put her down. That seemed to be how the
military reacted to anything they couldn’t understand. Rachel was helpless at
the moment, vulnerable, and he was torn between fear and protectiveness. They’d
come a long way together, but was this the same woman he’d known before?

Stephen
didn’t suffer any doubts about Rachel. He bent over her, whispering soothing
words.

“Don’t
get too close,” DeVontay said, the ache in his arm reminding him of her
capabilities. “She might bite.”

“She’s
okay now,” the boy said. “See?”

Rachel
had stopped squirming and lay there looking up at them, breathing evenly. Her
eyes held none of the strange sparks. They were wet with tears, and thin trails
of them leaked down the sides of her face. Stephen shook her shoulder and said,
“Tell them you’re okay.”

“What
happened?” she asked, lifting her arms and staring at the leather strap that
girded them together. “Really, guys, this is creepy.”

“You…”
DeVontay didn’t know what to tell her. She wouldn’t believe the truth. He
barely believed it himself. And he wasn’t sure if she had fully recovered from
whatever seizure or violent fugue she’d experienced. She might be faking it for
all he knew, just biding time until they freed her and she could attack them
again.

“You
freaked out,” Campbell said. “You jumped these people. You bit DeVontay.”

She
shook her head from side to side, moaning “No.”

“You
don’t believe me, then why is there blood on your chin?”

“Campbell, stop it,” DeVontay said, made uncomfortable by Rachel’s tears. “That’s not
helping.”

“You
people make up your minds,” the lieutenant said. “It’ll be dark soon, and I
don’t want to be standing around in the middle of the woods. All this commotion
might have stirred up some Zapheads.”

“Where’s
your camp?” DeVontay hoped the lieutenant wouldn’t abandon them, especially
without a weapon and ammunition. Firing a shot would only draw more of the
mutants, but he wasn’t willing to leave himself helpless to defend Stephen.

“So
now you trust me?” the soldier said, wiping at the stubble on his chin.

“We
don’t have a choice,” DeVontay said.

“Let
me up from here,” Rachel said. “What’s wrong with you?
All
of you?”

Stephen
helped her sit up, giving her a hug. His eyes were moist with tears, and he
sniffled. “Ray Ray,” he said, like a toddler. “Please don’t be scary anymore.”

“I’m
not scary. I was just…I felt something.”

Felt
something
. DeVontay wondered if there
were Zapheads around that had somehow influenced her behavior. In the valley,
the glinting in her eyes had faded as they’d put distance between themselves
and the Zapheads that were collecting bodies. And the radiance returned not
long before the lieutenant had appeared. But how could DeVontay tell the
others? He couldn’t abandon Rachel. They still needed her to find her
grandfather’s compound.

And
what about your feelings for her?

They’d
kissed once, a fleeting and untimely intimacy that neither of them was willing
to push further. But under different circumstances…

He
wished he could separate his attraction for her from the immediate demands of
survival, but what point was another day if it held nothing but breath and food
and water? A man needed hope if he wanted to live instead of merely survive.

“We
have to do something with her,” DeVontay said.

“My
camp’s half a mile to the west,” the lieutenant said. “Just a lean-to, but
there’s a rock shelf that provides some cover.”

“Are
you willing to take us on, at least for the night?” DeVontay asked. Stephen
looked at the lieutenant with desperate, pleading eyes. Campbell was sullen and
stone-faced. The horse was the only one of the group who expressed any
excitement at the prospect of an adventure, vigorously twitching its tail as it
nibbled on some ferns.

“I
haven’t made up my mind,” the lieutenant answered after a moment. “It’d be nice
to have a sentry while I slept. But I need somebody I can trust. Right now, you
guys barely seem to be able to handle a woman.”

DeVontay
didn’t know if the man was being deliberately sexist or if he was implying that
Rachel was something more than just a woman. “We’ve handled lots of things.”

“Oh,
yeah? How many have you killed?”

“People,
or Zapheads?” Campbell cut in.

“Either.”

“We’ve
all killed,” DeVontay said. “Even the boy.”

DeVontay
sold the lie with a cold stare. Stephen’s mouth opened in surprise but he
didn’t say anything. Campbell nodded grimly.

The
lieutenant didn’t quite buy it, but he didn’t push the issue, either. Instead,
he tossed the automatic weapon to DeVontay, although he kept the ammunition
magazine. “All right, soldiers. You’re drafted. Now saddle up.”

Wild
West joke. Hilarious.
“Can I borrow
your knife, lieutenant?” DeVontay asked.

“Call
me Hilyard,” the lieutenant said, pulling the commando knife from his boot and
holding it out by the tip. “I’m a civilian now, I suppose.”

“Thanks,
Hilyard. I’m DeVontay, that’s Campbell over there with the horse, and the boy’s
named Stephen. That woman’s named Rachel.”

“You
going to be responsible for her?”

“I
have been for a while.” DeVontay took the knife and knelt beside Rachel. “Are
you okay now?”

“Sure,”
she said. “We’re going to Milepost 291, right? See, I remember.”

“That’s
right.” DeVontay gave a weary smile, relieved that her tears were drying up. He
could handle mutant behavioral changes, but he couldn’t handle vulnerability.
They had to be tough now. Or, at least pretend to be, for Stephen’s sake. “But
we have to rest first.”

“Just
for the night. We need to get to my grandfather’s camp soon.”

“Just
for the night.” DeVontay sliced the leather strap from her legs and helped her
to her feet. “I’m going to leave your hands tied for a little bit, just to make
sure.”

Her
eyes narrowed, shooting hot anger at him, but he ignored her glare. Rage was
better than sadness, as far as he was concerned. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” she
said.

“It’s
not just me,” he said, nodding to Hilyard, who was already heading up the
trail, moving between the cluster of large granite slabs and deeper into the
forest. Stephen took Rachel by the elbow and guided her up the trail, and
DeVontay followed, the knife thrust in his belt and the empty rifle on his
shoulder.

Campbell
tried to capture the horse, but it danced away from
him as if playing a mischievous game. “Okay, pal, you’re on your own.”