After: Whiteout (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 4) (9 page)

“I
don’t like this,” Rosa said. “Maybe we should all go upstairs.”

Cathy
didn’t answer, but Rosa hadn’t really addressed the comment to her. No, she’d
been speaking to the baby. And she realized she was deferring to Joey, not
exactly giving him an order, but more like testing his limits. If his strange
powers allowed him to perceive things beyond their senses, he could help them
survive.

Unless
he knew he was a Zaphead and that the last of the human race had declared
all-out war on his kind.

“No,
no, no,” Joey said, and Rosa could have sworn those chubby cheeks dimpled with
a mischievous grin. “Wait.”

Marina
was back with her Lego, pretending to play with the
plastic blocks, but her neck kept straining to look at the front window. Rosa
should have sent her upstairs where it was safer, but she didn’t want to leave
her daughter alone with that corpse—especially given the way someone had
arranged it like a life-size Barbie doll.

“There’s
more,” Cathy said, drawing Rosa’s attention back to the street.

Two
Zapheads dashed into the open, coming from the same direction as the previous
two. One was an old man with only a few strands of wiry black hair stuck to his
bald head, his blue dress shirt featuring dark stains beneath the armpits, his
necktie knotted into a frayed snarl. His ample belly bounced with each step,
undulating with such watery weight that Rosa expected his skinny legs to snap
at any moment. But he kept running, eyeglasses askew across his nose and
dangling by one earpiece.

The
other was a brown-skinned boy of maybe six, wearing only socks and dirty
underwear. His little legs pumped furiously, and he was somehow able to keep
pace with the old man, both of them approaching the Honda where the female
Zaphead was hidden.

Then
a shout erupted, echoing off the concrete bones of the dead town.

“Hold
still, you starry-eyed fuckers!”

The
two Zapheads kept running. The thunderclap of a gunshot was followed by a
metallic
ping
, and the rear window of a pickup truck shattered. The old
man slowed a little, letting the boy run ahead. In the next instant, he jerked
violently, a red geyser spouting from his chest. He pitched forward and
collapsed on the asphalt, a pool of blood expanding around him.

“Got
him!” yelled a second voice.

Then
the shooter came into view, popping out from behind an SUV and jogging toward
his prey, his rifle at a forty-five degree angle. He wore blue jeans and a moss
green T-shirt, a billed military cap atop his close-cropped head. A khaki
backpack hung from one shoulder, a grenade, knife holster, and other utensils
attached to a canvas belt. His gear seemed to slow him down, because by the
time he knelt to take aim at the nearly-nude Zaphead boy, his quarry was out of
sight.

“He’s
across the parking lot,” the man called, presumably to a partner.

A
second armed man appeared, wearing sunglasses, a black bandanna tied around his
scalp. He had the build of a wrestler, topless except for a camouflage vest
with many bulging pockets. He strolled down the street like a tourist on
vacation, taking in the sights without a care in the world. “We’ll get him,
Roger Dodger,” he said, slinging his rifle high on his shoulder. “See any of
them others?”

“Nah,
they scattered like cockroaches.”

“Maybe
they went into one of these stores.”

Rosa
crouched lower as the man looked around. “Bad men,”
whispered little baby Joey.

“Shh,”
Cathy said.

Franklin
had warned them about a possible secret military
outpost in the area. The old man’s paranoia had painted the soldiers as
marauders intent on imposing tyranny on any surviving civilians. Rosa should have welcomed their presence, because they had weapons and supplies. But
something about them—perhaps their heartless hunting of the Zaphead boy—chilled
her deep inside.

The
two men gathered around the fallen Zaphead. In death, the Zaphead looked
utterly human, just a pile of frail bones and pale, wrinkled skin. The one in
the cap took out a knife, and for a horrifying moment, Rosa thought he was
going to claim whatever scalp still clung to the old man’s skull. Instead, he
brought down the blade in a swift stroke that severed one of the man’s fingers.
Then he wiped the blade on the leg of his blue jeans and shoved the appendage
into one of his pockets.

“That’s
seven for me,” said the one called Roger Dodger. “Got you beat by two.”

“Still
some daylight left. You ain’t won yet,” said the man in sunglasses.

“I
claim the kid. He won’t get far on those little legs of his.”

“Fine.
Meet me over at the McDonald’s in fifteen minutes and we’ll figure out the next
move. Sarge wants us back by sundown. He’s gotten a little jumpy since Hayes
and his crew got fucked up.”

“Hayes
was a dumbass,” Roger Dodger said, checking the magazine in his weapon. “And he
had those two civilians slowing him down. They probably got surrounded and
outnumbered. They’re Zap bait now.”

Rosa
had nearly forgotten the two Zapheads that were
hiding. The woman had repositioned herself at the rear of the Honda, putting
the vehicle between her and the men. The mutant obviously had enough
intelligence to understand they would kill her if they saw her, but she didn’t
panic and make a run for it. The one concealed in the doorway had blended back
into the shadows so well that Rosa couldn’t see him. Rosa wasn’t sure now
whether she was more afraid of the soldiers or the Zapheads.

Joey,
however, didn’t harbor any doubts. “Bad, bad men,” he said, louder than before.

Marina
was no longer pretending to play with the toys. She
stood by a clothes rack, one hand gripping the sleeve of a blouse as if that
would provide comfort. Rosa waved at her to stay there, hoping the drama
outside would play out fast and move along.

But
as Roger Dodger worked his way down the street, the man in sunglasses walked almost
straight for Rosa. She thought at first the man had seen her, but he swerved
around a double-parked Prius and hopped onto the sidewalk, heading for the
store next door.

“He’s
looking for those two Zapheads,” Cathy said.

“Not
Zapheads,” Joey said, with petulant force. “New people.”

New
people?
Rosa couldn’t make sense of
the child’s words, and she didn’t want to wait around and find out. They’d
either have to hide in the store and hope the man didn’t see them, or else slip
out the back door and take their chances out in the open. But before she could
articulate a plan, the concealed Zapheads from hiding and followed the man in
sunglasses. They exhibited none of the clumsy, staggering gait Rosa had come to associate with the mutants. Instead, they moved with a calculated animal
grace, as if they’d been playing possum all this time just to gain the element
of surprise.

“We
should warn him,” Cathy said.

“No!”
Joey writhed so hard he almost stood in Cathy’s arms. “He kill us.”

“He
won’t kill us,” Cathy said. “He’s a soldier of our country. He’s one of us—”

“Not
us.” Joey’s tiny lips curled in a pout and then he let out a wail of
discomfort, as if he had colic.

Rosa
scuttled away from the window, crouching low. The
baby’s cries would alert both the soldier and the Zapheads, and she wanted to
be out of there.  But before she could reach Marina, a gun fired and a man
screamed next door, the noise muffled behind the wall. Glass shattered and the
baby erupted with squeals of delight.

Rosa
raced through the musty racks of clothes and grabbed Marina’s arm, using the
golf club as a cane to help maintain her balance on the slick wooden floor.
“Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

“But
Momma, we can’t leave the baby.”

“That’s
not a baby.”

“You
said we had to stick together—”

“Sometimes
mommas change their minds.” Rosa was determined to survive. Marina was more
important to her than all the babies in the world, especially Zaphead babies.

Marina
opened her mouth to argue, but then grabbed a stuffed
bear decked out in princess regalia before allowing Rosa to pull her toward the
rear of the store. As they navigated the cluttered storage room in back, Joey’s
wails changed pitch to a lower register, almost becoming a chant:
“Not us,
not is, not us…”

In
the darkness, Rosa lost her bearings and nearly fell over a row of appliances
and furniture. Nearly frantic, she bumped into a rough cinder-block wall and
followed it, soon coming to the smooth surface of a steel door. She bumped the
push bar with her hip, but it didn’t budge.

“Help
me push,” she whispered to Marina, as Joey’s voice grew louder, echoing in the
cavernous thrift shop while Cathy tried to shush him. Marina banged her thin
shoulder against the door in time with Rosa, but it still held. Rosa ran her fingers along the jamb and felt an electronic keypad. The door wouldn’t open
without power and an access code. They were trapped.

“Upstairs,”
Rosa whispered, pulling Marina back the way they had come.

But
when she parted the curtain to Joey’s strident mantra, she changed her mind.

Because
standing at the front window, looking in, were the two Zapheads. The male’s
clothes were wet with blood. The female held the soldier’s rifle.

“
Dios
mio
,” Rosa whispered.

But
God likely didn’t hear her, because now the Zapheads chanted in unison with
Joey:
“Not us, not us, not us…”

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Rosa
couldn’t scream, as much as she wanted to release the
hot panic welling in her lungs.

She
forced herself to remain brave for Marina’s sake. But the Zapheads had taken a
horrifying turn. Not only were they speaking, they were communicating with one
another. Even more startling, they had exhibited cunning and teamwork in luring
the soldiers down the street. Rosa was now sure the boy and the old man had
used themselves as bait for the two Zapheads that waited in ambush. They’d been
willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to lay the trap.

The
two Zapheads even managed to separate their adversaries—whether through luck or
cunning—and then killed one. Took his gun. And now looked ready to kill again.

Cathy
backed away while little Joey squirmed and struggled in her arms, still wailing
“Not us.”

“Stay
behind me,” Rosa whispered, grabbing Marina’s shirt sleeve. She edged toward
the stairs, hoping the Zapheads couldn’t see them in the dimness.

The
Zapheads slammed their bodies against the storefront window, smearing blood and
body grease. There was a loud crack, and a jagged fissure appeared in the
glass. Rosa was momentarily paralyzed by the sight of the Zapheads throwing
themselves against the window. Marina dashed for the stairs and Rosa broke from her spell long enough to yell for Cathy.

But
the young mother didn’t move. The window shattered and a large slab of glass
severed a hand from the male Zaphead. He looked down at the red geyser spurting
from his wrist, a silvery strip of tendon dangling, but exhibited no pain or
surprise. He stepped through the storefront, wading through the display of
clothes and household goods, kicking over a table covered with pottery. The
female Zaphead followed, still carrying the gun, although with no apparent
sense of how it operated.

Rosa
instinctively raised her golf club as if she could
swat away bullets, or maybe wave it like a magic wand that would whisk her and
Marina away to some fairy land of happily-ever-after. To her horror, the
Zaphead tilted her gun in the same manner. Rosa swung the club from side to
side, and the Zaphead mirrored the motion.

Rosa
flung the golf club aside. The Zaphead stepped out of
the storefront display onto the sales floor. The Zaphead with the bleeding
stump stooped down and picked up its severed hand, jamming the ragged wounds
together as if the flesh might reattach. Then it turned toward a mannequin in
the storefront that featured only a torso draped with a brocade velvet gown,
without limbs or a head. The Zaphead lifted its ravaged arm to the mannequin as
if comparing, and then tossed the hand aside and followed his mutant sister.

Rosa
called Cathy’s name once more, and the Zapheads
repeated it. Joey’s chubby little arms and legs pumped as he wailed at his
mother: “Stay, stay, stay here.” Cathy glared at Rosa with an expression of
confused shock and shook her head as if to say, “
I can’t. He won’t let me.”

“Up
the stairs,” Rosa whispered to Marina, shoving her into motion. Marina slipped on the first step, nearly falling, and Rosa gripped her upper arm and
half-dragged her upward.

“I
want Daddy,” Marina moaned, the words like needles in Rosa’s chest.