Bone And Cinder: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Zapheads Book 1) (3 page)

Kara sat on the lower bunk, where Mackie had been just a few moments before.  “Did you get anything else while you were at the hospital?” she asked.

“Antibiotics.  Some basic first-aid supplies.  Raided a vending machine, too.”  A hefty dose of prescription pain meds, as well, though he chose not to mention it.  Vicodin, morphine, Oxy.  Mackie had, up to this point, restricted his pill intake to Vicodin, a weaker branch of the opioid family tree.  He found comfort and fuel for denial in that small bit of self-control.

But if he needed an excuse to up the ante, the end of the world certainly qualified.  He realized he’d hatched a fallback plan after all.

“We have some food here,” Kara said.  “Some soup cups and chips.  Ramen noodles, Chef Boyardee.  I’ve tried feeding Allie a little, but I can’t get much in her.  And, y’know, I don’t want her to choke.”

Mackie hadn’t even considered that Allie may not have eaten recently.  Kara had even changed her soiled clothes, apparently.  He felt a sudden rush of gratitude toward the young woman.  Maybe she’d only stayed here out of fear, but she could have rid herself of Allie at any time.

They rested in silence for awhile as something thumped in the floor below.  Mackie’s gaze moved around the room.  Little about it had changed since he’d been here last.  The posters were different and reflected Allie’s changing tastes in music, but the small millennial-era television and dollar-store DVD player were the same.  In one corner of the room, a dust-coated Fender acoustic guitar sat.  Allie had used it to strum songs by Nirvana, Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins, and other bands that had enjoyed their greatest popularity during her early childhood.

He’d teased her about playing “Wonderwall,” the cliché for solo guitarists the world over. What he wouldn’t give now to hear that familiar chord progression ring out from beneath her fingers again.

And the smell.  Aside from the Zap stench, the room had the same odor Mackie remembered from his first visit here, years ago.  Musty, but flavored with a light floral scent, a faint but not cloying undertone of incense.  The only difference was the smell of urine from Allie’s soiled blankets.

“She talked about you some,” Kara said.  “You know...before.”

Mackie lowered his chin to his chest again.  “I can’t imagine she would’ve had much good to say.”

“I could tell she cared about you.  She was worried, I think.  About the pills.  The people you worked for.”

Mackie nodded.  “She had a reason to be.  I made some bad choices.”

Mackie listened to the wind blowing through the trees, fresh summer air drifting through the gap in the window, a bird chattering somewhere as if its world hadn’t changed a bit.

“You showing up here like this, with everything that’s happening out there...you obviously care about her a hell of a lot,” Kara said.

“She ever tell you anything that suggested she thought otherwise?” he asked.

“Well, no.  She knew how you felt.  I don’t think she questioned that.”

Mackie sighed, closed his eyes.  “I was a couple of months away from graduation, and all I could think about was how I didn’t really want to go home.  I’d lie in my room every night and all I could think about was the uncertainty...what do I do next?  What kind of job will I get?  How do I be...y’know,
significant
?  All I really wanted to do was just stick around here.  Then I met Allie and she gave me a reason to.”

Kara smiled.  “You wanted to be one of those creepy guys who never leaves college?”

“Allie was here.  There was nowhere else to graduate to.”

Allie’s restless motions had eased now, the Haldol soothing the fires burning inside her skull.  She still appeared conscious, but Mackie hoped she’d fall asleep soon.

Do Zaps even sleep?  What would she dream about?  Being human again?

He stood, picked up the blanket from where it had landed when he threw it off Allie earlier, and draped it over her again.  The act of tenderness was in wild contrast to the tension in her features.

“She told you other things too, didn’t she?” Mackie said.  Something about the shape of Kara’s face and wavy hair seemed familiar, and he wondered if he’d seen her photo among Allie’s Facebook friends.  “About the pills.”

Kara’s gaze tried and failed to meet his.  “You don’t seem like...well, you don’t seem—”

“Like a junkie?”

Kara’s thin lips pulled upward into a slight smile.  “Like an asshole.”

“Well, I am that.  But an addict, too.”

”How?” Kara asked softly.

“How--?”

“Becoming an addict.  How did it happen?”  The questions were coming more easily now.

“Just like the solar storm. Shit happens.”  Mackie took his seat beside Allie again.  He draped her legs across his own.  It was how they had often sat when watching television or reading together.  Something about it seemed perverse now, a mockery of a human relationship, but it still felt comforting.

“So, what, you started working for a drug dealer?”

Mackie leaned his head back.  “I started working for a man named Lucas Krider.”  He looked closely at Kara’s face for any signs of recognition at the mention of Krider’s name.

Kara sensed that Mackie was waiting for a response.  “Should I know that name?” she asked.

Even beyond the rumors and suspicions of his criminal enterprises, Krider’s name had a long reach in the South.  Though he was based in Tampa, Florida, he had a particular fondness for the North Carolina mountains, owning several restaurants and vast swaths of property in Asheville, Boone, and in the vicinity of the Evans-Lawson campus.

Krider had a safe house near here, stocked with guns and a supply of narcotics that filtered into the community when his pushers hit the streets, and Mackie was convinced the guy had come here to get revenge.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that son-of-a-bitch is still alive.  He’s like a cockroach.  Well, if he is, I’m going to track him down and squash him.

Because revenge cuts both ways.

As Mackie dove into Krider’s curriculum vitae, Kara’s eyes widened.  “Dixie Mafia?  That’s an actual thing?”

“It’s a little different than what you see on TV, but yeah, it is.”

Mackie felt himself closing down. He didn’t want to take this conversation further.  They needed to leave soon, but all he wanted to do now was sit next to Allie and sleep.  Maybe dream of the good old days.

“I got sucked into his world.  I needed drugs, he needed people willing to do bad shit.  To his competitors.  To anyone that could compromise him in any way. It was just beatings at first, small time shit to make a statement.  He didn’t order me to make kills until later.  He had others for that, people that were good at it, had a taste for it.  But when he made those demands of me, it was too late to walk.  I was trapped, because the people I loved were at risk.”  He glanced over at Allie, the pain of separation just as sharp now as then.

The whole world had been reduced to cinders and rot outside, but if Kara was aware of anything other than Mackie’s story, she gave no indication.  She seemed to be studying him, making up her mind about something.

“You’ve killed people,” Kara said.  Mackie couldn’t tell if she had phrased it as a statement or a question.

He knew his silence was confirmation, but he didn’t give a shit. No way was he hashing this out there with a stranger.

And maybe if he scared her enough, she’d help with Allie just to save her own neck if nothing else.

“That’s freaking insane,” Kara said.

“The people I fell in with, they’re much worse. Believe me.”

“And you can live with that,” Kara said, her eyes crawling back toward the scissors that she had placed nearby.  “With murder.”

Mackie remembered the night he spent puking his guts out after the first time, and the solid hour he spent in his car holding a pistol to his temple.  Somewhere along the line the self-loathing had shifted into a stony aloofness, a sense that he was permanently walled off from the human race.

He had come damn close to
not
living with it.

“I could live with keeping the people I love safe.  If I refused, I’m not the only one that ends up in a drainage ditch somewhere.  This was self-defense and protection for my family.  That’s how I have to look at it.  Of course, none of that means shit now.  Everyone I loved is probably already dead or...” He nodded at Allie.  “Like her.”

Kara’s voice was quieter now.  “Did she know?”

“That’s why I lost her.  My decision, then hers.”

In spite of the room’s humidity, Kara wrapped her arms around herself as if huddling against the cold.  “So what do we do now?”

The Haldol had taken Allie someplace else, and now she looked more peaceful than Mackie himself had felt in years.  He wasn’t sure how much longer it would last, but he had an ample supply of the drug.  And if she stayed violent, well, it wouldn’t be hard to inject a fatal dose.

“We better go soon,” he said.  “Not sure how many more Zapheads are close by, but I killed two from this floor on my way here.  If we move fast, I think we can get out safely.  I don’t have much ammo left, but hopefully it’ll be enough.”

“Hey, at least your goon training helps you in the apocalypse,” Kara said.

“Shooting a Zaphead isn’t murder,” Mackie said. “It’s a mercy killing.”

Kara glanced at the young woman beside Mackie.  “Then why are you trying to save
her
?”

“Maybe there’s a cure. Maybe this is all temporary, some kind of meteorological fluke.  Maybe the sun comes up one morning and everything’s back to normal.”

“Except for ninety-nine percent of the human race being dead?”

“Whatever. I’m not leaving without her.  If you need to go it alone, I understand, but together we might just have a chance.”

Neither of them acknowledged just how difficult it would be to make progress while carrying a body between them.  And even if either of them could think of a safe place to travel to, getting there wasn’t likely—not without a working car and limited ammo left for Mackie’s Glock.

Maybe Allie’s dorm was the safest place they could be right now.  Suddenly he wasn’t in such a big hurry.

Mackie’s lids closed over his burning, aching eyes.  Was he really this tired?

A moment later, all was dark.

5.

When Mackie awoke, the sun had set, and his mouth had the texture of sandpaper and tasted like a dirt-caked sock.  For one panicked moment, he forgot where he was.  A candle burned in the corner, throwing a throbbing wash of red-orange around him.  It reminded him of campfires along the road, when he’d huddled with survivors trying to figure out why the world had gone to hell.

He vaguely recognized the girl leaning over him, but her name escaped him.

For some reason, she was holding his Glock.

He tried to sit up, but the girl used her foot to push him back to the position he had fallen asleep in.

“It’s cool, Mackie.  Just stay there for now.”

Kara
.

Mackie turned his head to the left and saw Allie beside him, her wrists and feet still bound, the panties still bunched inside her mouth.  Mackie last remembered her as relaxed and docile, but now the rage seemed to have returned.  She looked as if she wanted to strip off every shred of her own skin with her teeth and fingernails.

The Haldol wore off
. 
How long was I asleep?

And why is Kara—

“I wanted to kill her, y’know.  That’s what I was here for, actually.”

Mackie wasn’t sure he had heard her right.  The Vicodin hangover fuzzed his brain.  He tried standing again, but Kara pointed the pistol directly at his face.  Mackie also noticed that she was wearing his backpack.

“But plans changed,” she said.

She’s robbing me, the bitch.

Did she even know how to use the Glock?  Not that it was that difficult to figure out, with no safety and all.  Untrained shooter or not, at this range, she could easily do some damage.

He’d have to think his way out of this.  And his bullshit reservoir was bobbing down near the E.

“Kara, what the hell are—”

“Craig Everson.”

Something about the name was familiar.  But why would she blurt it out with a gun pointed at Mackie’s face?

“Stay with me, Mackie.  Do you remember someone named Craig Everson?  I need to know you recognize that name.”

He didn’t.

And then he did.

Suddenly, all the shit happening in the post-apocalyptic solar shitstorm world outside made a lot more sense than what was happening in Allie’s dorm room.

Craig Everson.  Small time lowlife.  A meth head that made the mistake of getting pinched at a routine traffic stop with Krider’s product in the trunk of his car.

And Krider’s orders.

“I know this doesn’t get easier, Macklin.  You’ve done this a few times before and you’ll do it again, but it never gets easier.  Still, I need you to take care of this, and you know you will.  You can leave his family out of it, but you know what needs to happen to Mr. Everson.”

And Mackie had taken care of it.

Followed him home one night after he made bail and put a round in his forehead while his old lady screamed on the front porch.

Krider wasn’t a big fan of witnesses, but Mackie had been sloppy that night, all the Vicodin in his system blurring his good judgment.  Or maybe some buried spark of decency inside him had turned him away from another innocent kill.

“He was an epic screw-up, don’t get me wrong,” Kara said.  “But he did a lot of good for me and my mom.  And when you took him away, she completely fell apart.  All the shitty men in her life, and here was one that had a problem, sure, but he didn’t hit us, did his best to keep the bills paid.  Didn’t try to put his dick where it didn’t belong.  When you killed him, she just couldn’t handle it.”

“I...” He ran down the list of possible excuses but didn’t bother wasting his breath. He justified his actions as protecting the ones he loved, and topped it off with the consolation that he was really just putting lowlifes out of their misery.  But even lowlifes had loved ones who would suffer their loss.

Now he understood why she’d looked vaguely familiar.  He’d probably glimpsed her while staking out Everson, refusing to focus on her features because that would have humanized her.

“I came home one afternoon and found her in the basement,” Kara said, her face sharp with shadows.  “She’d blown out her liver on booze and pills.”

You can leave the family out of it
.

Sure.

“You were his stepdaughter?”

“Almost, But they weren’t married yet. And I don’t think I need to tell you I’m not an Evans-Lawson student, either.” Kara smiled, but the expression held more sadness than amusement.  “Nice place, but who the hell could afford tuition?”

“Then why are you here?”

“I came here for
Allie
.  I wanted to take her away from you the same way you took Craig from mom and me.  That was my plan, to be a new girl in the area looking to hang out with some cool college kids.  Then I’d just happen to be where Allie was one night and strike up a conversation.  I wanted us to be friends, and then I wanted to kill her and make damn sure you knew that it was all your fault.  And I figured you’d hear about it, and like the raging psycho you seemed to be, you’d immediately come gunning for revenge.”

Mackie’s head spun.  Beside him, Allie thrashed and moaned.

“But how did—”

“How did I know it was you?  I knew the kind of circles Craig ran in.  So I started asking questions.  Apparently, that got back to Lucas Krider and he came to see me one evening.  He admitted to selling Craig the meth, but he gave me your name and told me you and Craig were running a little something on the side.  There was a disagreement, so you shot him.”

Krider
. 
The bastard
 probably laughed while he was diming me out.  Hoping she’d do the kind of job he would’ve sent me to do not long ago.

“But you know what I think, Mackie?  I think that was just his way of getting back at you for being so sloppy during that hit, for leaving my mom behind as a witness.”

Mackie’s tongue felt so dry and swollen, he wasn’t sure how words were actually moving past his lips.  “Krider plays roulette with other people’s lives just for kicks.  You don’t know what you’re stepping in.”

“Like I care?  I told Krider how I wanted to take someone special from you because of how you destroyed my family when you killed Craig.  He loved that idea.  He wanted to help.  So he told me all about your parents and your sister.  And all about Allie.”

That’s why Krider had been so eager to give an assignment that put me back here in the mountains, so close to campus.  He knew I’d try to see Allie, and I’d find out what Kara had done to her if she succeeded.

The end of the world was just a minor inconvenience that screwed up his sick little scenario.  Like Kara said, plans change.

“He gives me some money, so I could rent a place up here.  And he tells me that he’ll make sure you’re close by on a job.  He knew you’d come look for her.  And I think he was hoping that after I killed Allie, one of us would kill the other just to make things easier for him.  Either way, I don’t think he intended to let either of us live.”

Of that, Mackie was certain.

“But Allie and I got to know each other. We talked. We drank. I
liked
talking to her.  And I realized that I couldn’t punish her for your sins.  I wanted somebody to pay, but I couldn’t be what you are. I couldn’t be like the piece of shit that took Craig away and ruined my life.

“And then...” Kara spread her arms in a sweeping gesture indicating the world outside the dorm room.  “All this shit happens.  The power goes out, people are either dropping dead or turning into raving maniacs.  And now I’m actually taking care of the girl I came here to kill.  Waiting to die.  Waiting for help to show up.  Or maybe walking out that door and letting those things have at me.”

Kara chuckled.  “And then, of course, you show up.  I had a feeling you might try, if you were still alive.  And then you tell me your story, and while I’m listening, I’m debating whether I should kill you.  And you know what?  I just stopped giving a shit.”

“If you want to live, you need me around.  You won’t have a chance out there alone.”

I’m actually trying to talk this girl out of killing me?

I should be more afraid that she won’t.

“The shape you’re in, you might be dead weight.”  Kara’s smile was cold, the kind that never quite reached the eyes.  “After you told me your side of things, all I saw was another stupid junkie that made bad decisions.  Not much different than Craig.  Not worth hating, either.  He didn’t have to die, but then again, he didn’t need to buy his poison from a man like Lucas Krider.”

The Glock was pointed away from Mackie now.

“I don’t quite forgive you,” Kara said.  “But I’m not all that interested in hurting you anymore, either.  I’m done with this.”

Kara picked up a few items she had removed from Mackie’s backpack. Bottles of morphine and Oxy and Vicodin.  The slightly depleted container of Haldol and a fresh syringe.  She tossed them on the floor beside him.

“I’m leaving,” she said.  “If you want to join me, you can.  Or you can stay here and eat pills and be useless.  Makes no difference to me.”  She nodded at Allie.  “But her...you may want to accept the very real possibility that she’ll never be what she was before.  Killing her might be the kindest thing you can do for her.  But that’s up to you.”

Kara put her hand on the doorknob and looked over her shoulder at Mackie.  He felt like he should say something, offer an apology if nothing else, but no words formed in his parched mouth.  She was right.  He wasn’t much use to anybody right now.

Kara stepped out into the hallway.  The door closed with an echo of finality.

Mackie pulled Allie close to him and held her tightly as her body convulsed.

At least we still have each other.

He cackled a dry laugh and looked at the syringes of morphine in his hands.

Stay or go?

If he left, Mackie couldn’t take Allie with him, knew deep down that there was no cure for what the solar storms had done to her.  He didn’t even know what she was experiencing—she might be in agony, or completely without a soul.

He could end her pain right here.

End his own, as well.

They had both been happy here once.  Now they could die here together.  Why not?  What was left out there worth taking the next breath for?

It would almost be romantic.

Not so special, considering billions were dead, but it would make a cute postcard in hell.

Mackie pulled Allie against him as tightly as he could while she thrashed, pressed his nose against her damp hair.

He wanted to die.

He wanted to be with Allie.

And he wanted to see Lucas Krider dead.

But now, more than anything, all he wanted to do was sleep.

He drifted off as Kara’s footsteps echoed down the hall.

###

Mackie didn’t see them when they burst into the room, had barely opened his eyes before something crashed into his nose and forehead.  The voices came as if he were underwater, one of them with a Hispanic accent, and then the hard tips of boots pounded into his ribs and lower back.

Before everything went dark again, he glanced at Allie’s face twisted into an unrecognizable contortion.  The angry voices in the room drowned out the tortured moans rumbling up from her throat.  Fists and feet flailed around him, belonging to shadows.  Another blow exploded across the back of his skull, lime-green lightning bolts shot across the backs of his eyelids and down to the base of his skull, and all was dark again.