And the bitch of it was, she couldn’t even scream. Her ribcage clamped around her lungs as tightly as the hand locked on her forearm, and one more tug from it cost her the remainder of her balance—then she was in its arms, and flailing, kicking, maybe even spitting, when she heard a grunt of pain.
“Goddamn it, take it easy!” it said.
Could Zapheads talk? She hadn’t heard one speak yet, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe their language of grunts, groans, and odd chuckling had served them sufficiently well so far.
Rachel pulled back, but the grip remained, and she saw its dark face, one eye gleaming wide in the dim light, and then the contrast of its big white teeth, and she thought maybe she could scream after all, and then—
“You’re not one of them,” he said. “Or you would have done bit me.”
“Of course I’m not,” she said. “Any fool can see that.”
“Who you calling a fool? I ain’t the one walking down the street plain as day.”
“You’re not…affected?”
“Affected? Is that what you call it when you want to bust open somebody’s skull and play piddly-pooh with their brains?”
That uncanny eye was still fixed and unblinking in the ebony face, staring deep into her soul as if exposing every sick secret she’d ever harbored, every bad thing she’d ever done. Then she looked at his other eye, which blinked.
“You think I’m one of them freaks?” he said, and she noticed for the first time that he held a pistol in his right hand, barrel tilted up by his shoulder as if he were ready to level and fire at any moment, in any direction.
“I guess not, or I’d be dead.”
“Damn right, you’d be dead. You might be dead anyway.”
She glanced longingly at the street and the sunset that washed the pavement like the surface of a river, the cars like so many storm-swept boats, the corpses and trash like flotsam headed for a distant gray sea. “I think we’re all dead,” she said.
“Don’t you got no gun?”
She realized how vulnerable she was, to him and to the rest of the world. “I’m scared of guns.”
“Well, I’m scared of those things more.”
She studied his face, trying to read his expression, but the glass eye kept throwing her off. It gave the impression of coldness, which belied the rest of his expression. The mouth said “mean,” the slight pinch of forehead said “worried,” and the lifted eyebrows said “easy meat,” but his good eye confused the whole picture, because it was dark brown and teeming with so many human things.
He gave a twisted smile. “What? You think I’m going to rape you?”
“No, just—”
“Kill you for whatever’s in your backpack?”
She shrugged it off her shoulder a little. “You can have it.”
“I don’t want your shit.”
“What do you want? Prove how tough you are? Show your manly power? Why didn’t you just let me go on down the street?”
He eased his grip on her forearm, but only a little. It was the below the point of inflicting pain, but still too tight for her to pull away. “I…just wanted to see if you was real.”
“I assure you, I am quite real. I may be the only real thing left in Charlotte.”
His good eye blinked. “You talk funny.”
“What? Now I have to apologize for being a middle-class white woman with an education?”
His good eye grew as cold as his fake one. “Don’t pull that shit with me.”
“Well, you’re trying to play some sort of half-assed stereotype, the bro’ from the ‘hood jumping the white bitch.” The cussing was foreign to her, and she hated herself for it, but she used anger as an excuse.
He released her, and she shook the circulation back into her arm. “Go on,” he said, subdued, waving his gun back toward the street. “Git.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’d rather be out there with them murdering freaks than hanging with a nigga,” he said.
“It’s not—”
“It’s the eye, ain’t it?”
His accusation caused her to inadvertently stare at it. She’d been glancing, she couldn’t help it, that shiny glass orb was a magnet. She’d heard of the “evil eye,” a belief in many cultures that an ill-intended gaze could bring malady or misfortune. Although she had a hard time attributing such qualities to an inert prosthetic, it seemed to radiate an unsettling power.
A miniature sun casting its own solar flare…
“No, it’s not—”
“Just call a spade a spade and get done with it. We don’t got time for games.”
“I…” She looked back at the street as the insane chuckling echoed down the concrete canyons.
“Bastard Zappers give me the creeps,” he said, his finger tightening ever so slightly on the trigger. He didn’t seem to be aware of it.
“It’s getting dark.”
“What you going to do? You got a plan?”
She shrugged. “Go west to the mountains.”
“That’s not a plan, that’s a beer commercial.”
“You have anything better?”
He angled his head across the street, to what looked like apartments above a wig shop. “Hole up and lock down for the night, then figure it out. Like I been doing for a week.”
“That’s not a plan, that’s making crap up as you go along.”
He grinned for the first time, and it warmed his entire face. Even the glass eye took on a sparkle. “So far, so good.”
“Okay,” she said. “I have some food, a flashlight, and stuff like that.”
“You got it together,” he said. “I been faking that part, too.”
She held out her hand, the fingers still tingling from the blood returning to her extremities. “Rachel Wheeler,” she said, realizing the use of her last name was awkward under the circumstances, as if they were business associates.
He took her hand, gentle this time. “DeVontay. DeVontay Jones.”
Then he grew solemn again, edging to the corner and peering out of the alley. He was tall, a few inches over six feet, and a little gangly. In the sunlight, she saw that he wore leather pants and a leather jacket, both of which bulged uncomfortably as if he wore several layers of clothing.
As if he’s afraid of being bitten. But I’ve never seen the Zapheads bite anyone.
“See anything?” she whispered.
“Naw,” he said. She couldn’t place his accent, but it wasn’t Southern. And it wasn’t quite inner city. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, so maybe he’d moved to Charlotte for work.
She didn’t seem to have much in common with him.
Except whatever kept us from being killed or affected.
Yeah.
Except for that.
The only thing left that mattered.
He motioned with his free hand. “All clear. Hurry.”
And then they were on the street, exposed to the dying sun and the creeping night and whatever chuckled in the far distance.
CHAPTER FOUR
“It’s a fire,” Pete said.
Campbell didn’t believe it. He’d insisted it was electric lights, maybe even automobiles moving beyond the dark trees, the wind causing them to flicker. Then the wind shifted, although there wasn’t much of it, and a faint trail of acrid wood smoke drifted past.
“What should we do?”
“Go in.”
Pete was drunk. Shortly after the close encounter with the Zaphead in the plumbing van, they’d come across a Budweiser truck. Pete had filled his backpack with 12-ounce cans and even made some makeshift saddlebags with a tool satchel he’d taken from the van. He’d stopped his bike every two miles or so to bust open one of the warm beers and down it. Their pace had slowed considerably as the evening wore on, and Campbell had nearly pedaled headfirst into a jackknifed tractor trailer because he thought he’d seen someone move inside one of the stalled cars.
But Pete wouldn’t let him check out the
movement, coming back with, “Haven’t you learned your lesson yet?”
And Campbell had buried his hope that maybe there were others like them, normal people, survivors who weren’t driven by a homicidal impulse. Now, with a campfire a hundred yards away in the dusk, they were faced with a choice, and Pete’s judgment was about three times over the legal limit.
“What if it’s a bunch of Zapheads?” Campbell asked.
Pete pulled the tab on a fresh brew, and it fwooshed and sprayed into the dusk. “Then we shoot the hell out of them.”
“You say that like you’d enjoy it.”
“Fuckers trying to wipe us out, man. This is about the survival of the species.”
“I think they’re the same species we are. They’re human.”
Pete wiped foam from his mouth with his sleeve. “Humans don’t jump on you and rip out a chunk of skin with their teeth. Unless they’re Mike Tyson or Jeffrey Dahmer.”
The fire was in the forest beside the highway, set down a gentle slope. They’d passed a bridge about three hundred yards back, and a silvery creek slid beneath it, laughing and gurgling as if all was merry with the world. Survivors—human survivors—would likely follow evolutionary instinct and camp by the water.
“Maybe we ought to keep going.”
“What if it’s like that last camp?” Pete was starting to slur and his sibilants were mushy.
“I didn’t trust them.”
“You’re just mad because you didn’t tap ol’ Gypsy Rose.”
“They were talking prophecies and wacko stuff.”
“Well, maybe they were onto something.”
Campbell wished they’d snagged some binoculars. Full dark was setting in, and they’d have to make a decision on where to sleep. They usually locked themselves in an empty car for the night, but Campbell always felt trapped and claustrophobic, and Pete’s drunken snores pushed away any chance of rest. One night they’d slept out in an open field, taking turns keeping watch. Campbell had jerked awake sometime long before dawn and found Pete had dozed off, leaving them ridiculously vulnerable.
So, maybe the idea of sticking with a group was worth a little risk.
“Okay,” Campbell said. “Let’s check it out.”
Pete leaned his bike against the guardrail and drew his pistol from his jacket pocket. “Lock and load, my man.”
Campbell drew his revolver. It didn’t have a safety switch, but he’d test-fired it twice on the day he’d found it in the sporting-goods shop. He hadn’t shot a gun since he was 12 and his grandfather had taken him squirrel hunting. The double action required a serious pull of the trigger, which meant the gun would be hard to fire accidentally, but also that he’d have to be serious if he wanted to shoot somebody.
Some THING, I mean. These Zapheads aren’t “somebodies.”
He flashed back to the face of the creature that had attacked him and shuddered at the brief illusion that it had been his mother.
“Got your flashlight?” Campbell said.
“I only got two hands.” Meaning that Pete wouldn’t put down his beer.
Campbell fished in his wire basket until he found his flashlight, but he didn’t switch it on. The purple dusk revealed large, bruised clouds overhead, so the moon would be of little use. He looked up the highway toward the last hilltop they’d crested. Something moved there, a distant stick figure that soon blended with the shadows of stranded vehicles.
Pete chugged his warm beer, then belched. “What you waiting for?”
Campbell swung over the rail and started down the slope toward the campfire. The revolver was heavy in his hand, and he let his arm dangle so the barrel pointed at the ground. He used the flashlight for ballast as he descended. The slope leveled out at a ditch, and briars tore his khakis as he stumbled through the granite riprap.
Above him, Pete stumbled and fell, cursing once before remembering they were supposed to be in stealth mode.
“You okay?” Campbell whispered.
“That better be the good guys or I’m going to be pissed,” he whispered back.
Campbell switched on his flashlight, hooded it with his forearm, and illuminated a path for Pete, who kicked, stumbled, and staggered down the hill. Pete’s body odor overwhelmed the beery stench.
Sweet. We’re all turning into animals.
After crossing the ditch, they entered a thicket of scrub pine, thorns, and ragged rye. The elusive flickers of fire showed here and there through gaps in the trees, and as full dark settled in, the orange light took on the quality of a jewel forged from a mysterious source.
Campbell’s hand sweated around the revolver’s grip, even though the air had turned cool and moist because of the nearby creek. He didn’t know where to point the gun, and he took each step gingerly, in fear of snapping twigs. Pete, however, had no such hesitation. The alcohol delivered a stupid brand of courage, and the semi-automatic topped it off with a bow. Pete soon took the lead, muttering under his breath.
“Maybe they got some meat,” he said. “You smell that? Smells like barbecue.”
Campbell rubbed the bite wound on his shoulder. No. I’m not going there. The Zapheads aren’t crazed cannibals or zombies. They’re just…
Just WHAT?
And then he did smell it, smoky and acrid and rich, and he had the image of stumbling into a nest of Zapheads, all gathered around the fire and roasting a child on a slim white sapling, fat dripping onto the hot stones and hissing to greasy steam.
“Plenty of canned meat and jerky still around,” Campbell said. “Years and years of it.”
The wire basket of his bicycle held cans of tuna, sardines, corned beef, and pink salmon. Aside from the one stop at the “gypsy camp,” they’d eaten their food cold. But the smoke didn’t make him hungry. It was oily and tainted.
A bird chirruped high in the trees. The Big Zap had wiped out a lot of animals, but the survivors among them seemed to behave as they always had. It was only humans that seemed to have been affected on a neurological level. So far, anyway. All their homing instincts, territorial boundaries, and migration patterns could have altered in uncertain ways.
A branch snapped behind them, maybe twenty feet away. Pete swung around, bumping Campbell in the arm with his pistol.
At least the dumbass didn’t shoot me. But the night is young.
The rustling came closer, swick swick swick through the dry brush. Then a pause, as if whomever—or whatever—it was had stopped to listen for its prey.
Campbell strained to hear, holding his breath, but Pete was rasping away, the smoker’s rattle rising from deep in his lungs. He wondered if Pete was thinking the same thing he was: Who shoots first?
But what if it was a person? A fellow survivor? Maybe there were more, enough to form a group and—
Campbell beat back the faint flutter of hope. In the week since the event, they’d met only four survivors, and one of those had turned and fled when Campbell had called her. The other three were in the makeshift gypsy camp, and Campbell hoped to God that wasn’t a sample representation of mankind’s future.
Swiiick. One cautious footstep through the weeds.
Pete nudged him. Campbell turned, but Pete was just an onyx bulk against the lesser black of night. Then Pete’s mouth was at his ear, spraying saliva as he whispered: “Go left, and I’ll go right.”
Campbell nodded, trying not to tremble. A Zaphead wouldn’t be subtle. It would charge like a rhino through the veldt, using whatever it had in its hands as a weapon. Such a mad, predictable danger was reassuring in an odd way. This, however…
He edged to his left, pushing the barren flashlight before him to test the foliage. The susurration of Pete’s passage let him know the gap between them was widening. Campbell was on his own.
Swiiick. Another step forward.
Or had that been Pete’s footstep?
Campbell turned again, and he was disoriented. He could no longer see the thin licks of fire in the near distance and the night had blended with
the canopy until he was unsure of the location of the highway, the forest, or the creek. He nearly surrendered to the impulse to switch on the flashlight, but he pinched his fingers together until the pain cleared the panic.
It’s not a Zaphead. And a survivor has no reason to hurt you.
But the smoke told a different story. The smoke said, “Mmm, tastes like chicken,” and “I’ll bet you’re just dying to join us for dinner” and “We’re pleased to serve you.”
Screw it. You watched too many horror movies back in the Old Days.
Never mind that the Old Days were July or so.
He looked up at the dim stars and mist-hidden wedge of moon, trying to get his bearings. The constellations themselves seemed alien and strange, as if the massive solar flare had tilted the planet’s axis. Maybe the world was all shook up, both literally and figuratively.
Swick swick swick, the steps were fast and close, and he raised the pistol, its sodden weight tugged by gravity until the act was like bringing to bear a field cannon.
And he heard the signature insane chuckling—not in the direction of the steps, but behind him, right behind him—and then the night erupted with a flash and roar. Campbell’s ears rang with sudden pain as he dropped his pistol and fell to his knees.
“You okay?” said a gruff voice above him.
“Yuh-yeah.” Campbell gripped the flashlight before him as if it was a dagger he could use to impale himself.
“What the hell?” Pete said, some distance away, crashing through the scrub toward them.
“Don’t shoot,” the gruff voice said. “Your friend’s okay.”
The man flicked a switch and a bluish Maglite blinded Campbell, although the beam was directed to the side. The light bounced past him and settled on a limp figure pressed face-first into the grass. A dark, wet bloom covered its back and ragged bits of flesh clung to a gaping hole in the back of the shirt. Campbell had the impression of graceful bulk as the man swept past him and stood over the corpse just as Pete burst into the circle of light.
“A Zaphead,” the man said.
“Who the hell are you?” Pete said. His Glock was pointed at the man, who gave it an amused glance.
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 75