The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers

by Michael R. Hicks

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder, psychological strain,” the professor said. “He might have just snapped and wandered off somewhere.”

  “Turned into a Zaphead, you mean?” Arnoff said.

  “We’ve not seen any evidence of latent effects. The experts predicted the solar event was a one-time phenomenon.”

  “Hell, some horny old bat might have roped him into the back of one of these vans for a go,” Donnie said, grinning at Pamela. “You know how women are.”

  “Hush your mouth or I’ll hush it for you.” She glared back, taking a deep puff of her cigarette, but she seemed bored by her own threat.

  Campbell’s guts knotted in frustration, but he forced himself to remain calm. He didn’t know these people. They were acquaintances of circumstance, and bleak circumstance at that.

  The end of the world makes strange bedfellows.

  Arnoff walked ahead to a BP tanker truck. The silver petroleum tanker reflected the sunlight, causing Campbell to squint. Arnoff shouldered his rifle and climbed a metal ladder on the tanker’s rear. Standing atop the giant cylinder, he scanned with his binoculars in all directions.

  “Zapheads are going to see him,” Donnie said, checking the chamber of his automatic pistol. “This is a time to lay low, not play gold-medal dumbass at the Special Olympics.”

  “Hush your mouth,” Pamela said, sitting on the hood of a green Mercedes. A man was slumped over the wheel, body swollen with rot around the confines of his suit jacket and tie. Campbell was grateful the car’s windows were sealed shut. The man likely had the air-conditioning going, probably some Eagles twanging on the stereo, on his way to rake in money off of other people’s work. And then life made other plans for him.

  Big, big plans.

  “See anything?” the professor called to Arnoff.

  Arnoff lowered the binoculars and shook his head. “No Zapheads, no survivors, no Pete.”

  “Too bad we can’t get a vehicle going. There’s enough gas to get us across the country and back a hundred times.”

  “You’re the egghead,” Donnie said, banging on the roof of a Ford Escort. “Why don’t you hotwire one of these?”

  “As I explained, modern vehicles have electronic ignitions, computerized operating systems, alternating-current batteries and—”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Donnie said. “Everything got zapped. I know all that. But the zap’s over, right? Why can’t we rebuild one?”

  “Possible,” the professor said. “But we’d need newly produced parts, which means manufactured parts, because all the existing circuitry is fried. And it takes high-technology equipment and electricity to make the parts you need. Catch-22.”

  “Sort of like needing a fish for bait so you can catch a fish, right?” Donnie said.

  “Sort of like that, yes,” the professor said.

  Campbell hadn’t thought that far ahead. Sometimes at night, before falling asleep, he’d had little fantasies of the world rebuilding itself, everyone pitching in like it was a community-pride clean-up event. But he always assumed “somebody,” either the government or people from some unaffected part of the globe, would eventually ride to the rescue and restore all the essential services. But what if they were on their own? What if they had to save themselves?

  What if human civilization had come down to isolated clusters like Arnoff’s tribe?

  Then we’re screwed.

  “Zaphead at ten o’clock,” Arnoff said, dropping the binoculars so they dangled from a cord around his neck. He raised his rifle and sighted down the barrel.

  Donnie jumped from the Mercedes hood and ran toward the tanker. “Save some for me. I ain’t killed a Zaphead in three days and I’m getting a little twitchy.”

  “I’m not shooting it,” Arnoff said. “I’m observing it.”

  Campbell eased over to where the professor and Pamela were standing. The tang of tobacco smoke overwhelmed the stench of bodies and distant fires.

  “What do you make of all this?” Campbell asked the professor. He almost asked for the man’s name, but the group seemed to function better with anonymity. Names didn’t seem to matter now.

  “Our tenuous situation as survivors, or the geological effects of the solar storm?”

  Pamela pursed her lips. “I love it when you use them big words.”

  “A little of both,” Campbell said. “I mean, it’s hard to separate them now, isn’t it?”

  Donnie hoisted himself up on the tanker’s ladder and climbed toward Arnoff, who was still peering through the rifle scope.

  “We can’t be certain of the long-term effects on the environment,” the professor said. “But short term, in human terms, we’ve lost our infrastructure. We’ve lost all the systems that connected us with food, safety, shelter, and companionship. And, as I said, manmade problems like the nuclear radiation and other pollutants add to the mix.”

  “Doesn’t sound real good,” Pamela said. “Then again, I never expected there to be a ‘long term.’”

  “But surely we can adapt,” Campbell said, although the argument sounded hollow even to his own ears. “We’re smart and tough and adaptable—”

  “That’s how smart we are,” Pamela interrupted, pointing to the top of the tanker. Donnie had opened a little metal access hatch and was urinating into the opening.

  The professor shook his head in grim amusement. “I think the Zapheads are in far better position to adapt. From what I can tell, they have none of the moral baggage and ten times the survival instinct.”

  “Do you have any theories on why they turned violent?” Campbell asked, warily scanning the sides of the highway. Arnoff and Donnie were so transfixed with one distant Zaphead, they wouldn’t have seen any others approaching from the woods. And if Pete staggered out into the open, Campbell wanted to be the first to spot him so he could prevent Pete from getting shot by the trigger-happy Donnie.

  “Electroconvulsive therapy is used to treat depression,” the professor said. “Everybody thinks of the Jack Nicholson movie, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ where troublemakers get their brains fried, but it has proven clinical benefits. However, the treatment also can cause severe personality change, memory loss, and cognitive impairment. So evidence suggests that exposure to cataclysmic electromagnetic fields could cause varying results, depending on the individual.”

  “So, I guess this proves I’m lucky, huh?” Pamela said.

  The professor dug into his backpack and pulled out a plastic water bottle. “In some ways, we’re better off,” he said, twisting the cap and taking a swig. “Fewer of us to consume the finite resources at our disposal.”

  “What do you mean, ‘finite’?” Campbell asked. “I know we can’t build automobiles, but we can return to an agrarian society.”

  “With what knowledge?” the professor said. “How do we save seeds and know which plants to eat? How do we know the proper planting time? How do we build gristmills powered by water wheels to grind wheat into flour? We can’t just get on the Internet and Google it.”

  “Dang, you’re a real bummer, doc,” Pamela said.

  “I see no need to indulge elaborate fantasies. A realistic assessment of our situation gives us the best chance of survival.”

  Campbell was reluctantly forced to agree. “I’d say the first job—after finding Pete, of course—is to locate others like us and form a bigger group.”

  “That might not be so wise,” the professor said. “Look at the pecking-order problems we have just with a group this small. Put a dozen well-armed, desperate Alpha males in the same place at the same time, and I think they’d make Zapheads look like refined pacifists.”

  “I don’t know exactly what you said,” Pamela said. “But if you’re saying it’s not too smart to put a bunch of Arnoffs and Donnies together, I’d say you’re onto something.”

  The two men stood atop the tankers like statues. Arnoff was ramrod-straight, shoulders back, still holding his rifle barrel steady on his target. Donnie was hu
nched, but he’d also raised his weapon, pointing it in the same direction as Arnoff.

  “If they shoot, every Zaphead within a mile’s radius will come see what’s going on,” the professor said. “They seem to react to stimuli like sudden loud noises and movement.”

  “They can’t be that dumb,” Campbell said.

  “You don’t know Donnie,” Pamela said. “He might do it just for the fun of it.”

  A muffled ka-pow sounded to the west. Arnoff instantly shifted his rifle in that direction.

  “A gunshot,” Campbell said. “Other survivors.”

  Campbell started up the road toward the tanker, but the professor grabbed his arm. “Remember what I said. Bigger isn’t necessarily better. If there was any lesson learned in the Technological Age, it was that.”

  Campbell shook free and walked away, imagining what the other group was like. Had Pete joined them? Did they have adequate food supplies or transportation better than bicycles or horses? Did they have any young women among them so the race could procreate?

  Thinking of sex at a time like this. Sheesh.

  Another distant gunshot sounded, and Arnoff scrambled the length of the tanker and descended the ladder. The professor and Pamela gathered their bags and went to meet him, but Campbell climbed astride his bicycle, determined to solve the mystery.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Arnoff said.

  “I’m your scout, remember? Just doing my job.”

  “You might want to stick with the winners. Sounds like things are getting hairy out there.”

  “Hairier than a gorilla’s cooter,” Donnie said from atop the tanker.

  “Just how would you know about that?” Pamela said.

  “‘cause I been sleeping with you, ain’t I?”

  Campbell was tired of the prattle. “My friend’s out there somewhere, and I’m going to find him.”

  “Your first responsibility is to the tribe,” Arnoff said.

  Campbell glared at the professor. “What do you have to say about that?”

  The professor shook his head. “Survival of the fittest.”

  Another gunshot sounded, causing Donnie to whoop and jump from the tanker to the cab of the truck for better surveillance. If Donnie was the pinnacle of human fitness, then Campbell wasn’t sure whether he wanted to stick around. Evolution had just taken a stinking piss and washed away every grain of hope.

  “I guess some of us have a different idea of what it means to be human.” Campbell pedaled in the direction of the gunshots.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Rachel worked the shadows and shrubs, keeping low as she searched for Stephen. She was reluctant to leave the house where DeVontay was held captive, but she didn’t see how a frontal assault would do much good, since she was without a weapon and vastly outnumbered. Instead, she decided to check on the shed where she’d left Stephen. She found the door open and Stephen’s can of Raid lying on the floor.

  The Captain’s goons had left her backpack, and she slung it over her shoulder. The garden tools taunted her as if to say, “So, violence isn’t the answer, huh? Then what’s the question?”

  Faith into action.

  Even if there’s hell to pay.

  Rachel picked up the pruning shear. The bolt connecting the two handles had broken, so she gave the single handle a test swing. She liked the balance of it, as well as the short metal hook at the end. It wasn’t too heavy to carry, and she liked its prospects better than those of the double-headed ax and the flimsier hand scythe.

  A gunshot sounded somewhere down the street, a couple of hundred yards away. Maybe the goons were hunting Zapheads for sport, although they might be shooting stray dogs, car windows, or even other survivors. Rachel had a feeling that The Captain had imposed a quasi-military protocol in an attempt to control his creepy little platoon.

  Slinking back to the street where she had a better line of sight, Rachel crouched behind a Volvo and considered her options. If Stephen was on the loose, he probably hadn’t traveled far.

  Assuming he’s still alive.

  Rachel was about to take her chances and sprint across the street when she heard shouting and cursing. She peered over the Volvo’s hood and saw two people in camouflage coveralls dragging a young, dark-haired man who struggled in their grip.

  “Goddamnit, I’m one of the good guys,” the man said. He was in his early twenties, hair slick with sweat, wearing a grimy T-shirt.

  The goon on the left, a gaunt-faced woman whose mouth was twisted into a bitchy snarl, put a spidery hand on the hilt of a knife at her belt and said, “Shut up, or I’ll gut you like a fish.”

  The man sagged so that the goon on the right had to grab his arm with both hands and hold him upright. The pair was half-dragging him toward the ranch house where The Captain apparently had set up headquarters and where DeVontay was still confined. Through the Japanese maples on the front lawn, Rachel could see the shattered window and the legs of Miss Daisy’s corpse dangling from the glass-strewn windowsill.

  “You got any beer?” the captive man said. The gaunt woman jabbed him in the ribs with her knuckles, eliciting a hiss of pain.

  The man jerked his elbows out, causing the goon on his right to lose his grip. The man seized the opening and started to break free, but the woman slid her leg forward with practiced grace, tripping him and sending him skidding across the asphalt.

  She chuckled as she bent to pull the man from the road. “We’re trained in the art of pain.”

  The other soldier drove the bottom of his boot against the fallen man’s thigh, causing Rachel to flinch. They were beating him like two television wrestlers who’d caught their quarry in a corner with the referee’s back turned. Rachel gripped the handle of the pruning shear, knotted with anger but helpless. After all, the soldiers had semi-automatic weapons slung across their backs.

  The two goons were so intent on inflicting punishment that they didn’t notice movement along the side of the street. A withered vegetable garden stood at the corner of a lot, fenced with two rows of sagging white clothesline strung between wooden posts. The tasseled corn rattled and swayed, and a hunched figure emerged from between the rows. At first Rachel thought it was another soldier, given the swiftness of the movement, but the figure wore a soiled windbreaker and jogging pants, not camouflage gear.

  Zaphead.

  But she barely had time to consider whether to shout a warning when another Zaphead came out of the garden, a middle-aged woman in a business suit, pantyhose pocked with holes and trendy haircut now in tangles. Rachel unconsciously dubbed her “Bridget Jones,” except this particular career gal was carrying a sharp, heavy stick instead of a diary. The corn rattled behind her, with yet another Zaphead following, a squat, Asian-looking man with no shirt.

  What struck Rachel most forcefully was the way they seemed to move in concert, stealthy and intent. In the city, the Zapheads were brainless and shambling, almost like the zombies depicted in film and books but without the taste for flesh. But these were like cunning predators, lurking in the shadows and then sneaking up to deliver their brand of destruction.

  The man on the ground saw the Zapheads and pushed himself along the pavement on his back, trying to get his feet beneath him. The soldiers didn’t allow him to escape, though. The woman jumped knee-first on his chest while the other soldier urged her on. “Captain will love this one,” he said.

  Rachel circled around the Volvo to get closer. The closest Zaphead rushed across the narrow grass border to the street. Three weeks ago, it might have been an insurance salesman out for a morning jog, but now it was a killing machine instead of a workout warrior.

  “Get off me, you assholes,” the struggling young man on the asphalt said. “Here come some Zappers.”

  The sadistic woman soldier chuckled again, and Rachel wondered if somehow she had been affected, too—that maybe the Zapheads were evolving and the surviving humans were degrading until they all would meet in a wordless, violent misunderstandi
ng.

  The jogger Zaphead closed the distance in the blink of an eye, leaping onto the male soldier’s back and driving a grunt from his lungs. They fell forward, the four of them tangled in a pile as the other two Zapheads moved in.

  The female soldier rolled away and tried to free her weapon from her shoulder, but Bridget Jones was on her like a shark after a baby seal. Bridget Jones swung her garden stake and caught the soldier under the chin, the bone-shattering thwack audible to Rachel.

  The shirtless Zaphead joined the first in assaulting the male soldier, while the captive scrambled free of the pile. Rachel could see the fear and determination in his eyes.

  He’s a survivor.

  Rachel stepped from behind the Volvo and raised her makeshift weapon. The guy must have thought she was a Zaphead, too, because he scrambled to his feet and started down the street before Rachel yelled, “This way!”

  The guy ran toward her and Rachel passed him, heading for the Zapheads. Even though the soldiers were part of the group that had tried to kill her, Rachel couldn’t let them get mauled.

  When it comes down to it, we’re still on the same side. Barely.

  The female soldier had recovered enough to pull her knife from its hilt. The blade glistened in the sun for only a moment, and then she drove it into Bridget Jones’s abdomen. The Zaphead mouthed a wet uurk but continued to attack, even as a blossom of red spread across her formal white blouse.

  Rachel struck the asphalt with the curved metal tip of her pruning shear. “Come and get it,” she yelled.

  The two Zapheads clawing at the male soldier turned to Rachel, snarling, their eyes burning cold with some hidden hate.

  Then they did something odd.

  They looked at one another as if in telepathic communication, and the shirtless Zaphead tightened his grip on the soldier’s throat as the soldier flailed helplessly to reach his rifle. The other, the jogger Zaphead, shoved away from them and ran toward Rachel.

  She barely had time to register the sudden change in tactics when the Zaphead was upon her. She swung the shear handle from its position near her hip, tentative and afraid to draw blood. The wooden part of the handle bounced off the Zaphead’s arm as if striking rubber, then the Zaphead grabbed her.