“And these…Zapheads, as you call them…what do you think makes them attack?”
“I don’t know. Different theories, you know. The sun boiled their brains. The radiation mutated them. The electromagnetic pulse scrambled their wiring.”
“Have you considered that maybe they are enlightened?”
“No. I haven’t considered that at all. Been kinda busy staying alive.”
“Do you believe in an all-powerful God?”
“What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? What next, the rack?” She struggled against her bonds. Feeling crept back into her limbs, in tingling pinpricks of fire. She rocked back and forth, testing the sturdiness of the chair. It was a cheap dining-room model, the legs loose and the slats digging into the backs of her thighs.
“We have to know if you are one of us.”
She whipped her head around, taking in the perimeter of the room, at least as much as she could see. Three of The Captain’s chums had changed position, one taking up a post by the window. Rachel couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman until the person spoke.
“Movement on the street,” the woman said. Her tone wasn’t quite military, but it was all business.
These guys have either spent some serious time together, or had something going on before the sun went nuts. Before After.
“Is it one of the enlightened?” The Captain asked.
“Appears to be.” The woman tracked the barrel of a gun across the veiled window.
“Stay quiet, everyone,” The Captain said. “We don’t want to hurt it.”
“Let me get this straight,” Rachel said. “You jump me and tie me up but you let those things wander loose?”
“Live and let live,” The Captain said. “They’re children of the sun.”
“The Sixties are over,” Rachel said. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re all that’s left. And we should be helping each other. We’re on Team Human. Right?”
“We are here to serve,” The Captain said.
The woman at the window raised a hand. “There’s somebody else outside.”
“Enlightened?” The Captain said.
“Hard to tell. Looks like a boy, maybe ten.”
Rachel’s heart froze in her chest. Stephen!
“Time for the test,” The Captain said. “We shall see if she is worthy.”
The doorknob gave a brassy squeak behind her and the shadowy forms moved toward it. The female sentinel reached up, one skinny arm silhouetted against the daylight beyond the sheet. Then the makeshift curtain came down with a rip and sunlight poured into the room. Rachel squinted against the sudden yellow brightness, and by the time she’d recovered her sight, the room was empty. Footsteps echoed down the hall and The Captain said, “She’s all yours.”
Rachel scooted in little hops until she was turned and facing the door. Her first impression was correct. The room was a home office or den, bookshelves lined with paperbacks, loose sheaves of papers stuffed among them with the haphazard care of someone who loved information more than artifacts. A globe on a swivel and a heavy oak lamp stood on a small bureau near the door, with statuettes and photographs behind the glass of the cabinets. The floor was tiled with pressboard, but the hallway beyond the door was carpeted. She twisted against the ropes, chafing her wrists as she cast about the room looking for a sharp edge that could sever the ropes.
Maybe there’s a letter opener or scissors in the desk.
Rachel tried not to think about Stephen wandering around the yard, lost and looking for her, or the circling Zapheads that might kill him. She couldn’t bear another death. Billions had died and she had been helpless, God had abandoned her in her time of greatest need, like He had Jesus when the flesh of his palms shredded beneath the steel spikes and his lungs sagged in suffocation.
Or when the cool water had pulled her little sister, Chelsea, into its deep blue heart.
I don’t like this theme. God is never there when you need Him most.
She gripped the edges of the seat and lifted as she pressed down with her toes. The chair slid forward a good three inches, and she repeated the movement twice, three times, gaining more distance with each bounce. She was so intent on her goal, the metal desk with the computer atop it, that she didn’t notice the person in the doorway until a lamp crashed to the floor.
Rachel twisted her neck around. Budget Bieber came toward her, eyes brightly vacant beneath the brown bangs but somehow fixed on her, just the same. He carried himself in an insouciant slouch, stooping to the floor to retrieve the lamp. He appeared to test its weight with one short swing of the wooden base, as if first learning of its potential as weapon. Satisfied, he yanked at the flimsy lampshade until it tore free.
Rachel pitched forward, away from him, forgetting her feet were tied. When she felt herself falling, she twisted so that the chair toppled to the right. Her elbow banged against the floor, but the flimsy chair broke apart. She tried to roll, but the back of the chair clung to her, dangling from the ropes that bound her wrists.
Budget Bieber hovered over her, the lamp raised. His mouth parted wide as if about to embark on the first note of a churlish pop song, but only a strange deep chuckle emerged. He brought the lamp down toward her head, the bare gray bulb leading the way.
Rachel barely had time to scoot to the left before the bulb smashed into the floor, sending shards of glass into her face. The Bieber Zaphead raised the lamp again, the jagged broken bulb now resembling a row of teeth. This time, Budget Bieber rammed it toward her, as if to pin her against the floor.
She took advantage of his lunge to sweep one leg against his shin. Off balance, he clattered to the floor, again issuing his peculiar low chuckle as the lamp bounced out of his hands. Rachel’s elbow throbbed as she struggled to her knees, shaking violently to rid herself of the remnants of the chair. One ankle slipped free and she was able to stand.
Still splayed on the floor, the Bieber Zaphead made a grab for her leg. She danced out of reach and then jumped forward again, driving the heel of her sneaker onto his wrist. He moaned in the monotone of unheralded pop stardom, although it didn’t seem a reaction of pain. His inner rage was driving him now, the way it apparently compelled all Zapheads to crush, pummel, and slash any living creature that wasn’t like them.
Rachel backed against the desk and yanked open the top drawer. Keeping one eye on the Bieber Zaphead crawling toward her, she rifled among the papers, business cards, and zip drives, looking for something sharp and shiny. She heard a whimper of frustration and realized it had crawled from her own throat, making her angry at herself. Only the faithless gave in to despair.
On the desk was a clay jar stuffed with pencils, pens, and postage stamps. A thick plastic handle protruded from the collection, and she snatched it, sensing the Zaphead’s approach. The object was a flat-head screwdriver, its tip gleaming silver.
She raised the screwdriver like a knife, ready to plunge it into the Zaphead’s vacuous face. But before she could skewer the bangs-covered forehead, she looked into those eyes and saw a glimpse of the human he had once been.
Somebody’s son, somebody’s brother. Maybe somebody’s favorite singer.
His eyes were brown, glittering with a manic golden flecks. She hesitated, holding the screwdriver a foot above his face.
Then he went for her and she fell back onto the desk, knocking the computer to the floor.
Should have killed him while I had the chance. But maybe I’ve killed enough.
She kicked the broken bits of chair and loose rope from her feet and fled toward the door, Budget Bieber in pursuit. Before she could escape, The Captain stepped from the hall, blocking the doorway, and clapped his palms together. “Halt,” he shouted.
Rachel thought he was speaking to her, but no way in hell was she going to stop running until Budget Bieber was shrinking in the rearview mirror of her life. When The Captain repeated his command, she realized he was addressing the Zaphead, and by then she was at the door.
She shoved past The Captain and reached the relative safety of the hall, turning to see how close the Zaphead was to catching her. The Captain stepped into the room, raising one arm and pointing a revolver. “Stop now!”
The Zaphead paused only long enough to take his eyes from Rachel and fix them on The Captain. Rachel backed down the hall, even though the Zaphead had already forgotten her. A new target was closer. The Zaphead hunched for an assault, just out of arm’s reach of The Captain.
“Do not cross this line,” The Captain said to the Zaphead.
He thinks he can communicate with it. He’s even crazier than I thought.
Budget Bieber looked at the gun as if harboring some dim memory of its capacity for harm, then snarled and jumped with outstretched arms. The gunshot roared and echoed down the hall, cordite filling the air. The Zaphead’s skull exploded like a bloated melon, spraying the study with flecks of red and gray.
“I told you to halt,” The Captain said, his voice just as steady as before.
Rachel looked from the Zaphead to The Captain, assimilating this new discovery of After. “Did you expect that thing to listen to you?”
“They must learn that violence is not the answer,” The Captain said, plucking the screwdriver from her hand. “A lesson you apparently need to learn as well.”
“But you and your goons jumped me and tied me to a chair. Doesn’t that count as violence?”
“You are worthy,” he responded. “He didn’t kill you.”
The Bieber Zaphead trembled in the center of the room, as if destruction was the source of his passion and grace. Without the raging intent to kill, he was just a teen. Harmless and lost, abandoned in a world that had changed for all of them. All of them.
“Great, so I’m worthy,” she said. “What about Stephen?”
“Who is that? Your dark-skinned friend?”
“No. The little boy who was out in the street.”
“Oh, him. I’m afraid…I’m afraid he isn’t worthy.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We would have ridden the horses right past it and never noticed.
Jorge cradled Marina against his chest and pushed through the thick rhododendron branches. The trail was little more than an animal path winding through the dense vegetation, but the man in the green jumpsuit navigated it as sure-footedly as a goat. The man paused once in a while to look back and make sure they were following, although he hadn’t removed his cloth mask.
Rosa held back the branches as best she could so they wouldn’t scratch Marina. Jorge had cuts on his cheeks and the backs of his hands, but he’d been able to shield his daughter from the worst punishment.
She is so light. Like a dream.
Jorge didn’t like that idea because it made her seem even more fragile and vulnerable, so he shifted his thoughts to the man in the jumpsuit. Why was he helping them? If he was truly afraid of catching a sickness, he would have watched them pass by on the logging road and gone about his business.
The man had even let Jorge keep his rifle, although he insisted they leave the horses tethered on the road. Jorge wasn’t sure why, but he suspected the man was afraid they harbored some kind of disease.
“How is she?” Rosa asked, wrinkles appearing around her frown. He’d never seen wrinkles on her before, and he wondered if perhaps the sun had changed them all.
Some changed more than others. Yes, Willard would gladly trade a few more wrinkles in exchange for his hand, and Mr. Wilcox would have given up his “hunnert acres” for another day above ground.
“She is well,” Jorge said. Lying came more easily when one was trying to comfort others. But Jorge wasn’t far enough along in his new morality to believe his own lies. Marina was pale and sweaty, even though her skin was cool to the touch when he pressed his cheek against it.
The trail opened up onto a twin set of ruts that marked another logging road. Or it could have been the same road they had just left. Jorge had been so obsessed with protecting Marina that he hadn’t paid attention to their route, although he suspected they’d been trudging through the dense vegetation for at least twenty minutes.
“Watch your step,” said the man in the green jumpsuit, pointing to the ground near Rosa’s feet. A thin metal wire stretched six inches off the ground. Jorge thought of the American movies he’d seen where the tripwire sprung a trap of sharpened spikes that punctured anyone in its path or detonated a crude explosive device.
The man must have read Jorge’s face, because he said, “Don’t worry none. It’s just a signal wire, not a booby trap. I don’t kill unless I got no choice.”
Jorge thought of the bodies back at the farm. Most people never knew the line they would cross before they could kill, but it was thin and almost invisible. Most horrifying of all, it could be triggered completely by accident.
The sun was no accident. It was simply there, doing sun things, with no consideration of the men beneath it.
Rosa stepped carefully over the wire and watched with dread as Jorge also crossed it. The man in the jumpsuit dug his gloved hands into a thick tangle of red vines—”Poison oak,” he said—and retrieved a hidden strand of rope that descended from somewhere in the trees above. He threw his weight against it and with the squeal of a pulley overhead, the vegetation blocking the logging road parted. The metal gate had been so cleverly concealed that, if Jorge turned his head for a few seconds, he wouldn’t have been able to locate it if the gate were closed again.
The man ushered them through the gate, gave a slow scan of the road and surrounding forest, and entered behind them before closing it. They were in a compound that blended with the trees and boulders and was constructed with such genius that Jorge doubted it could be detected by a low-flying airplane. If airplanes still flew, that was. He hadn’t seen one since the solar storms.
Rosa gripped his arm, and then felt Marina’s forehead. “Her fever is worse.”
“Get her in the house,” said the man in the green jumpsuit, motioning to a massive maple tree with low-hanging branches. A structure was built into it, sided with sheaves of bark so that it blended with the tree. Narrow slits of windows glinted here and there. A couple of smaller sheds, roofed with rusted tin, stood in a cleared area that featured a garden and a pen where goats and chickens scratched at the ground.
The man led the way to the cabin. He opened the thick wooden door, stood on the log that served as a front step, and motioned to Jorge. “Can you carry her? Hand her here if you can’t.”
Jorge didn’t want those gloved hands touching his daughter. “I can do it.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, entering the tree house.
Rosa whispered, “Can we trust him?”
“He could have killed us on the trail, or just let us pass,” Jorge said. “Besides, he let me keep the gun.”
“Why would this strange gringo help us? “
“Not all gringos are like Mr. Wilcox. Some of them are human beings.”
“I don’t like this.”
“What choice do we have? We have to let Marina rest and recover. And if she has the sun sickness…”
Neither of them wanted to contemplate the thought. Before Rosa could respond, the man stuck his head out the door. He’d removed his mask, but his mouth was still disguised by his bushy beard and mustache. “You folks coming or not?”
Jorge gave Rosa his backpack and the rifle, balanced Marina on his left shoulder, and ascended the rungs. The interior of the tree house was surprisingly spacious and bright, with the windows placed for maximum sunlight. The man removed his gloves and placed them on a shelf which also contained an assortment of hand tools, two pistols, a pair of binoculars, and an oil lantern.
“Put her down over there,” the man said, motioning to a bundle of blankets on the floor. Jorge thought for a moment the man was going to extend his hand, and Jorge wondered if he would shake it. But the man turned his attention to an old radio on a hand-hewn table, fidgeting with the dials.
Rosa smoothed the blankets
, giving them a suspicious sniff, and Jorge laid Marina among them. Her eyelids fluttered and parted, and Jorge tried his best to smile at her, but his face felt as if it were carved from wood. “Hola, tomatilla, how are you feeling?”
“Where are we?” the girl said, her voice so small that Jorge had to lean forward to make out the words.
“Somewhere safe,” Rosa said, immediately taking the caregiver’s role.
“Will you have to shoot anybody else?”
“No, there are no sick men here. They were all back at Mr. Wilcox’s farm.”
“But I’m sick, too. Will I be like them?”
Rosa looked at Jorge, who bent forward and kissed her forehead. “No, you just have a small fever. We will rest and then be on our way.”
“Our way where?”
“Hush, pequeña tomatilla, you don’t have to think about that.”
“Where’s my pony?”
“Eating sweet grass. He’s resting, too, while he waits for you to get better.”
“There’s water in that pantry,” the man in the jumpsuit said, and Jorge walked over to a wool blanket suspended on a wire. He pushed the blanket to the side, revealing a small closet sporting shelves packed with food, some in cans, some in glass jars, with bulging burlap sacks on the top shelves. The pantry was cool and moist, with a sink at the far end, clear water streaming into it from a pipe.
Jorge found a clean glass jar by the sink and filled it with the frigid water. Looking out a window above the sink, he saw the metal pipe angled up into the rocks on the slope above the tree house, allowing gravity to carry the water from a spring.
This man has been planning for something like the sun storm.
After taking the water back to Rosa, he joined the man at the table. The man barely looked at him, intent on calibrating the radio, which was a jumble of glass tubes, wires, and plastic knobs connected to a series of car batteries.
“I want to thank you,” Jorge said.
“I should have let you go on about your business,” the man said. “I hate meddlers.”
“My daughter—”
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 84