The front rim was hopelessly warped, but Campbell pretended to check the bike’s condition. The boy eased a few steps closer and Campbell took a bite of the granola bar, chewing deliberately.
“Dang, I forgot this was yours,” Campbell said around a mouthful of honey-coated oats. “You can have the other half. I don’t have cooties or anything.”
The boy almost smiled. He came closer, loosening his grip on the filthy doll, which was wrapped in a makeshift bandana with a length of yarn wrapped around the waist to make a dress. Campbell nodded at it. “That doll’s really rocking that outfit.”
“She’s not real.”
“Nice of you to protect her from the bad guys,” Campbell said, checking both ends of the street for movement. “You must be a superhero.”
The boy shook his head more vigorously. “Just a boy.”
“Me, too. Come on, let’s go over here out of the street.”
“Rachel made the dress,” the boy said, once Campbell had led him to a covered garage that at least gave the illusion of protection. A late-90s model Cadillac was parked inside, the chrome buffed, polished and gleaming like a mirror.
“Rachel? That your sister?”
“No, she brought me here after my mom died, but then she left me. We were going to Mi’sippi to find my dad.”
Jeez, what a heartless bitch. “Yeah, I lost a friend, too. I came here looking for him. His name is Pete.”
“I’m Stephen.”
“I like that name. If I ever had a kid, I’d name him that.” Campbell peered into the Cadillac to make sure it was unoccupied. The keys were in the ignition, taunting him. “Have you seen anyone else around?”
“After Rachel left, some guy in an Army suit let me out of the shed where she hid me. Said I was Zaphead bait and I’d better start running. So, I did. I didn’t stop until you almost run me over.”
So, Stephen knows what a Zaphead is. I guess they grow up fast these days or not all. “This guy in the Army suit? He was one of us? I mean, not a Zaphead?”
“I think there was more of them in a big brick house where DeVontay went.”
“DeVontay?”
“Rachel’s friend.”
“Can you show me the house?”
Stephen shook his head, squeezing the doll. “I don’t want the Zapheads to get me.”
“I promise I won’t leave you like Rachel did.” Campbell wondered if he was doing the same thing Arnoff had done to him and Pete, forcing him into servitude.
“Will you take me to Mi’sippi if I show you?”
“Sure, Stephen. Anything you say.”
“Okay, then. But you have to take Miss Molly, too.” Stephen held out the doll, as if testing Campbell’s commitment.
“Sure, all of us. Even DeVontay if he’s still there.” Campbell looked around the garage for a weapon. On the bicycle, he’d felt relatively safe because he could easily escape a Zaphead, even though they seemed to be faster and better coordinated now. If he was about to travel on foot, he wanted a way to defend himself.
But the garage offered nothing in the least bit deadly. The Cadillac’s owner was as meticulously ordered as the car’s condition suggested. Old issues of Car & Driver were stuck in plastic organizers on a set of metal shelves. Electric power tools were arrayed in a line along the wooden work bench, their cords neatly coiled around the handles. Bottles of motor oil, windshield washer fluid, and antifreeze stood at one end of the shelf, as well as a gasoline can. Campbell shook the can and it sloshed.
Great. Now all I have to do is toss this on a Zaphead, light a match, and walk away. Ridding the world of Zappers, one human torch at a time.
Campbell put down the gasoline can, and then remembered what Arnoff had said about the Zapheads loving to watch stuff burn. Maybe something in their short-circuited brains loved the simplicity of destruction, or maybe it was some deeply buried desire for purification that lived in the ghosts of their human selves. Either way, he might have a way to distract the Zappers until he figured out his next move.
You guys like to play firebug, let me get it started for you.
He twisted the lid from the gas can and poured it all along the bench. The fumes of the gasoline stung his eyes and made his head swim. He flung a trail of gasoline over to the Cadillac, wondering if it would blow like in the movies.
“You ever had a weenie roast, Stephen?”
“No, but my dad likes to barbecue.”
“Okay, then, think of this as one big backyard barbecue.” Campbell moved a few feet away, wondering if he’d spilled any gasoline on his clothes. He didn’t think he’d impress Stephen much if he managed to accidentally immolate himself.
He pulled one of the issues of Car & Driver from its rack. The cover featured a decked-out muscle car that looked like a ‘69 Chevy Camaro. Campbell ripped a few pages from the interior and pulled a lighter from his pocket. He lit the corner of the twisted, makeshift torch.
“Okay, let’s roll,” he said to Stephen, tossing the torch onto the wet stream of gasoline, which had now soaked into the concrete. It immediately swelled into a thick, bright flame and spread outward in both directions, but they were out of the garage before it reached the Cadillac.
Campbell led Stephen across the backyard of the house, wondering if the Cadillac’s owner was taking the big sleep inside the house. Perhaps he should have checked. It wouldn’t have been right to burn another man’s car without asking, even though the big gas-guzzler was just another dinosaur now.
“We’ll follow the street from over here, then come around to the house from the back way,” Campbell said, the bonfire now crackling behind them as thick smoke roiled into the sky. “Think you’ll be able to find it again?”
“Yeah,” Stephen said, tugging his hand free from Campbell’s. “I’m not a baby, you know.”
“Well, I’m just a little scared.”
“But you’re a superhero.”
“Yeah, but I’m in my secret identity right now.”
“See that big tower? That way.”
Through the trees, Campbell could see a bulbous water tower framed against the scattered iron-gray clouds. The town’s name was spelled out in black letters across the circumference, but the first part was hidden, so Campbell was left to wonder where in the hell “-iston” was.
They climbed over a waist-high fence, Campbell boosting Stephen over after first transporting the baby doll. The rows of houses faced the backs of similar houses, and the gaps in the landscaping and fencing revealed yet another street, as if the neighborhood was just another homogenous suburb, with American flags, lawnmowers, and the occasional corpse lying facedown in the grass.
Campbell saw movement behind one of the sliding-glass doors and wondered if he should check for other human survivors. But then the glass shattered and a Zaphead staggered outside, a half-naked man wielding an aluminum baseball bat. Campbell pulled Stephen into the concealment of a boxwood hedge, covering the boy’s mouth so he wouldn’t call out. The Zaphead passed within twenty feet of them, headed toward the burning garage.
“Bad guy,” Stephen whispered after the Zaphead had vanished from sight.
“Yeah.”
They continued to pick their way across the yards. They came to a dead dog tied to a length of chain. Flies buzzed around the bloated body and the stench was overpowering.
“Why did Rachel leave you?” Campbell said, drawing Stephen’s attention away from the grisly scene of death and the blunt reminder of what was waiting for all of them.
“She went into the Army-man house to get DeVontay.”
“Why did DeVontay go in?”
“He thought there were people like us. You know, good guys.”
Campbell wondered about the wisdom of finding other survivors. So far, his luck had been pretty bad, and he wondered if humans under duress could truly work together for the common good.
Nothing like a good, old-fashioned apocalypse to blow that peace, love, and understanding horseshit to the moon
.
“There’s the shed she put me in,” Stephen said after they’d crossed another yard that featured an unkempt vegetable garden. “She promised she’d be back. But the Army men came and let me out and told me to run or die.”
The door to the shed was open, and Campbell warily scanned his surroundings, wishing he had a gun.
“Somebody’s been in there since I left,” Stephen said. “They threw tools all over the ground.”
“Maybe Rachel came back.”
“Or maybe the Army men did.”
They heard a shout to their left, from the direction of the street. Campbell dropped to his belly and crawled along the ground until he saw the fight. A woman in military garb was fending off a Zaphead, and two bodies were piled around their feet.
“I’d better help her,” Campbell said. “You stay here.”
Stephen grabbed the back of his shirt as he tried to stand. “No. She was one of the ones who told me the Zapheads were going to get me.”
“But she’s one of us.”
“If you help her, she might give me to the Zapheads again.”
Before Campbell could make a decision, the soldier solved the dilemma by plunging a knife deep into the Zaphead’s abdomen, ripping upward in a flash of silver and gush of crimson. The soldier’s high-pitched curses were likely to draw the attention of any other Zapheads in the vicinity.
The boy stared transfixed as the soldier shoved the dead Zaphead away and wiped her knife on the leg of her camouflage trousers. His face showed no real shock or surprise. Campbell wondered if this was how children reacted to warfare, after the repeated exposure ultimately gave way to numbness.
Welcome to the new normal.
“Where’s that house?” Campbell asked him.
“Ruh-round the corner, I think.”
“Okay, we’d better stay away from the street.”
By the time they’d crawled back into the relative seclusion of the back yards, the soldier had recovered and collected her rifle. Campbell didn’t want to be around when the Zapheads came out and the bullets started flying.
He was just about to start jogging when a female voice called out: “Stephen!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rachel hugged Stephen, hardly believing he was alive.
Guess I owe you for another answered prayer, Lord.
They’d ducked into the nearest house after finding the door unlocked. A sweep had revealed that it was empty, the former occupants apparently packing hastily and heading off somewhere after hearing the news of strange phenomena. Pete checked the fridge, finding only molded food and half a bottle of Sprite that had long since gone flat, while Rachel discovered a hand-operated can opener and served Stephen a cold can of chicken soup. They gathered in the darkening kitchen, Pete creating a stink with a tin of sardines that he ate with his fingers.
“You must be Rachel,” said the man who had apparently rescued the boy.
“Yeah,” she said. “Who are you?”
“This is my home boy, Campbell,” Pete said. He punched Campbell on the arm. “Guess you can’t get rid of me so easy after all. Where’s Arnoff and the gang?”
“Back on the highway, looking for World War Three.”
“They’re in luck, then. Apparently there are rogue Marines or some shit around here. They jumped me on the highway and took me prisoner and…hell, I have no idea why.”
Rachel looked past Stephen’s shoulder and said, “Zaphead bait.”
Campbell glared at her. “What’s the big idea, abandoning this kid? Don’t you have any sense?”
Rachel’s grip tightened on the pruning shear and she held it up, letting Campbell see the blood on the metal tip. She forced herself to breathe evenly or anger would overwhelm her. “We got along just fine before you rode in on your white horse like a one-man cavalry.”
Pete gave an uneasy laugh. “Hey, guys, we’re on the same team here, right?”
Campbell shrugged and looked down at the floor. “Sorry. Guess we’ll all wound a little tight right now.”
“She saved me,” Pete said to Campbell. “I’d be lying dead out there in the street if it wasn’t for her.”
Rachel ignored the praise, busy adjusting Miss Molly’s outfit. She gave the doll back to Stephen, who cradled it like a football.
“Did you hurt somebody?” Stephen asked, pointing to the bloody pruning shear.
“No,” she said. “Just a Zaphead.”
So, you’ve made the final leap. Not all living creatures are equal in God’s sight, and it turns out Jesus didn’t die for everyone’s sins.
“She’s pretty wicked with that thing,” Pete said, imitating her swing and giving it a home-run exaggeration.
“I’ll keep that in mind next time I need to chop off somebody’s head.” Campbell looked through the curtains at the surrounding houses. “Is this neighborhood as dead as it looks?”
“Yeah,” Rachel said. “We saw a few Zapheads when we came through.” She pointed to the rising thread of smoke that hovered over the rooftops and trees. “Something’s on fire.”
“I played arsonist to create a distraction,” Campbell said.
“Looks like you did too good of a job. The smoke is getting thick.”
“Let’s roll,” Pete said. “There’s not any beer in this place.”
“Sounds good to me,” Campbell said. “I’ll bet we can borrow bicycles from some of these fine, upstanding citizens around here.”
Rachel wasn’t sure she should trust her instinct, because it was clouded with guilt. She should take Stephen and head north and find Grandpa’s legendary compound on the Blue Ridge Parkway, even if it meant these guys tagging along. DeVontay was probably already dead, thrown to the Zapheads like some perverted version of the ancient Romans throwing Christians to the lions. She could picture The Captain curling his lips in a sour sneer and giving the thumb’s down.
“I’m not leaving without DeVontay,” Rachel said.
“He promised he’d take me to my dad,” Stephen said.
“People just throw around promises like they’re water,” Campbell said.
“We can take care of it,” Rachel said, annoyed with Campbell’s holier-than-thou attitude. “You guys go on with…whatever it is you were doing.”
“We’re just standing around waiting for Zapheads to tear us limb from limb,” Pete said. “Yep. Just killing time.”
“Okay,” Campbell said. “I’d hate to let that white horse go to waste. What do we do?”
Rachel wasn’t sure whether she welcomed the help. Her plan had been to return to the house, wait until nightfall, and then sneak in and free DeVontay. She had to admit it wasn’t much of a plan, because she wasn’t sure where Stephen fit in.
“They’ve got guns and we don’t,” Rachel said.
“Damn,” Pete said. “You don’t think they’d actually shoot us, do you?”
“Their leader is a little unstable, to say the least. Apparently, they were holed up in a military bunker when most of the troop turned into Zapheads.”
“Can’t blame him for going a little nuts,” Campbell said. “I think the flares affected us all more than we realize. I was talking to a scientist and—”
“Jeez, Campbell,” Pete cut in. “That guy couldn’t even hit tenure track, so I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in his babbling.”
“How many people were with this Arnoff guy?” Rachel wondered if more survivors than she realized were around. Maybe most of them were hiding, looking out of the cracks of basement windows and waiting for the Second Coming.
“Four others,” Campbell said. “They may be headed this way, but I don’t think I’d wait on them.”
“Well, we can’t just sit here and wait for the Zapheads to mutate into whatever it is they’re becoming.”
“Or for us to change,” Campbell said.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Pete said.
“Change into what?” Stephen asked. Rachel wanted to cover his ears. And his ey
es. And to spare his nose the scent of burning houses and rotted flesh.
“So,” Pete said, “full frontal assault in a suicide mission. I’m game. Hell, we’re going to buy it one way or another.”
“I’ve got an idea, but it’s a little risky,” Campbell said.
“I hope it involves heavy drinking,” Pete said. “I’m starting to sober up and I don’t like reality.”
Rachel stroked her fingers through Stephen’s hair. It was thick like Chelsea’s, with little curls. She wasn’t going to lose anyone else in this life if she could help it.
“Okay,” Rachel said. “Let’s hear it.”
“Well, it’s pretty easy to start a fire,” Campbell said. “Right, Stephen?”
The boy nodded. “And the Zapheads like it.”
“And the Zapheads like it. So, we create a diversion like they do in the war movies, then when everybody’s running around confused, we go in and get your friend.”
“What if we scorch DeVontay in the process?” Rachel asked.
“I didn’t say it was a good plan. You got anything better?”
Rachel studied Campbell’s eyes behind his thick, black-rimmed spectacles. His pupils were large with excitement, rimmed with a gray-blue the color of Puget Sound in the winter. His hair was mussed and dirty, his chin a little too small for his brow, and his shoulders suggested he lifted more cellphones than weights. He was the kind of guy to whom she wouldn’t give a second glance in a coffee shop or bookstore, but out here, in After, he gained an awkward masculinity and nobility.
Or maybe he was changing from what he had been before, a victim of the sun’s subtle workings.
Maybe YOU’RE the one who is changing.
No. She was pretty sure she was still a good Christian. That little display of violence against the Zaphead had been justified. Hadn’t God of the Old Testament been a vindictive warmonger before Jesus brought peace into the world? If you turned the other cheek in this sad new world, you were liable to get it bitten off.
“I guess we can’t wait for more white knights to ride over the hill,” Rachel finally said. “If this is what the Army becomes when the puppet strings break, maybe my grandfather was right.”
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 88