She patted Stephen’s arm, which was curled around Miss Molly. “All I know is it’s not over as long as there’s a single human left,” she said. “We’re here to care for each other as best we can, do the next right thing, and stay in service to the Lord’s will for us. We don’t have to understand it. Our job is to just keep showing up.”
“So, you don’t see all this as a showdown of Good versus Evil?”
“Are the Zapheads evil just because they have destructive natures? Maybe they’re serving the Lord’s will just as we are.”
“Everything happens for a reason, huh? Sounds like the excuse people use for some sucky choice they made.”
“And God gives us free will, so we have the chance to choose goodness and grace and salvation.”
DeVontay stood, clutching the pistol, and peeked out of the high window. Satisfied, he turned back to her, his face now plainly visible in the dawn. He seemed angry, his skin stretched taut over his jawbones, his forehead furrowed. “Except, we didn’t get no choice, did we? We wake up one day and we’re in hell.”
“No,” she said. “We’re alive.” She touched Stephen’s shoulder. “We still have something to live for.”
“Oh, yeah? Come take a look at this.”
Careful not to rouse Stephen, whose snores had quieted, she slipped out of bed and joined DeVontay at the window. Outside, she could see the surroundings that had been hidden the night before. They were in a mixed-use commercial area, a few apartment buildings separated by retail and light industrial uses—a plumbing supply shop, a fenced lot with stacks of wooden beams and piles of sawdust, and a thrift shop with toddler clothes in the window.
But it was the activity in the street that drew her attention. People—Zapheads—were walking up the street. Although they appeared nearly unaware of each other, all of them at least fifty feet apart, they were headed in the same direction. They moved with none of the uncoordinated sluggishness of a few days before, nor did they seem particularly intent on destroying anything.
“Weird,” she said. The scene was rendered even more surreal by their utter silence. If not for their transfixed, unblinking eyes, she would have thought they were fellow survivors. Even now, she wondered if maybe Zapheads and survivors were sharing the same street in relative harmony, perhaps coming to accept one another.
“Creepy as hell. Where they going?”
Rachel looked at the angle of the shadows that stretched from the sides of the buildings and the few cars in the street. “They’re heading east. Back toward the big fire.”
“So, maybe they’re not in hell, just heading for it.”
“It seems like there are more of them.”
“These sons of bitches ain’t coming back from the dead, are they?”
Rachel almost made a joke, but DeVontay clearly was simmering on the verge of exploding. “Whatever instinct is driving them, it’s brought them out in the open. Maybe a lot of them were inside before.”
“Inside killing people, maybe. Don’t forget what they done.”
“Well, maybe they’ve changed.”
“Yeah, right. Praise the Lord, they saw the light. Maybe they’re not even mindless killers anymore. Let’s run outside and start singing Dancin’ in the Street and see what happens.”
DeVontay had raised his voice so much that Stephen let out a plaintive, confused cry. “Mommy?”
Rachel shot DeVontay a venomous glare and hurried to the bed. She swept the boy up in her arms and held him tightly, the sheet swaddling his shoulders. Rocking back and forth, she whispered, “Shhh, honey. It’s okay.”
DeVontay began stuffing his things into his backpack as if preparing to leave. Stephen finally became aware of his surroundings. “Whu-where are we?”
“North of Charlotte,” she said.
He wiped at his eyes with a grimy fist. “Is that close to Mi’sippi?”
“Closer than yesterday,” she said.
“I think we better wait it out,” DeVontay said, again monitoring the street through the beige curtains.
“It’s not any safer traveling at night,” Rachel said. “They don’t seem to sleep.”
“They don’t eat nothing, either. You’d think they’d wear down after a while.”
Rachel didn’t like having this conversation in front of Stephen, but she didn’t see any way around it. “Well, let’s face it. We just don’t know anything. Right after the Big Zap, they were killing every living thing in sight, random destruction, acting mindlessly. Now they’re moving with more purpose, like they’re getting settled into their new lives.”
DeVontay pulled one of the curtains wide. “You call that shit ‘life’? It’s like somebody opened up their heads like a jack-o’-lantern and stuffed them full of poisoned cotton candy.”
“Cotton candy?” Stephen said, standing up on the bed and trying to see out the window.
Rachel pulled him back down into the bed and gave him a pack of crackers. “You better keep your strength up. We’ve got a long walk ahead.”
“Why is walking better than staying right here?” DeVontay said. “We can hole up, make a run to a store now and then, wait this thing out.”
“We have no idea what we’d be waiting for. You think the Army’s going to roll in and save us? We’ve already seen how that plays out.”
“Then we ought to find those guys from last night—Campbell and them—and band together so we have a better chance of fighting them off.”
“The Zapheads outnumber us. I don’t think we’ve gotten a good idea of their population. They’ve gone from random, individual acts of violence, where you might only see one or two at a time, to a more open, communal behavior.”
“This ain’t psychology class. This is war. Plus, you don’t even know what those things are thinking about. They might as well be puppets hanging on invisible strings.”
“I like puppets,” Stephen said with enthusiasm, spraying cracker crumbs from his mouth. Then, his face darkened. “But I don’t like Zapheads.”
Rachel again glared at DeVontay, who ignored her anger. “But Zapheads may not be our only problem. Look at The Captain and his storm troopers. What if they’re not an isolated case? What if there are pockets of military forces out there, armed to the teeth and making their own rules? They’re as likely to slaughter us as the Zapheads are.”
“That’s an even better reason to stay here, then. Those idiots might be shooting everything that moves.”
“No,” Rachel said, not knowing how to put it in a way that wouldn’t frighten Stephen even more. But perhaps the fantasy of reaching his father was enough to sustain him for now. “The fires are spreading. Imagine all those toxins in Charlotte. When that city burns, the smoke is going to be a killer.”
“So, our choices are choking to death, getting shot, or getting our brains bashed in by Zapheads,” DeVontay said.
“The one thing we can’t do is just sit here and pray,” Rachel said.
“Oh, is the holy roller losing faith?”
“Faith without works is dead,” Rachel responded, hating herself for reducing a complex passage from the Book of James into a catch phrase. “That means fighting the good fight.”
“Like chopping up Zapheads with that sling blade?”
“I plead self-defense,” she said.
Stephen scooted off the bed, tossing his cracker wrapper on the floor.
“Stephen?” Rachel said. “Did you forget something?”
“No. I got Miss Molly right here,” he said, turning the doll to face her.
She scowled and looked down at the wrapper. “Trash goes in the trash can.”
As Stephen bent to pick up the wrapper, DeVontay said to her, “You make the apocalypse so much fun.”
“Okay,” Rachel said. “Time to go.”
“Go where?” DeVontay said, sitting on the bed.
“Mi’sippi!” Stephen said.
“Stevie, you’re a little too eager to go out there,” DeVontay said to him. “Lots of stra
y bullets flying around.”
“We’ll be better off once we get away from the city,” Rachel said. “Fewer people, fewer Zapheads, fewer fires.”
“Back to nature, huh?”
Rachel was serving as sentinel at the window. The streets outside the motel were quiet. She hadn’t seen any Zapheads for the last hour or so. Distant bursts of gunfire had erupted intermittently, but Rachel didn’t believe that Captain America and his troops were on this side of town. For the one thing, the hunting wasn’t as good.
“We’re heading for Mount Rogers.” Rachel smiled at Stephen. “It’s on the way.”
“What’s up there?” DeVontay asked.
“Somebody who was ready for this.”
“What, you got ESP all of a sudden?” DeVontay asked. “The sun heated you up some new superpowers?”
“My grandfather has a compound there. He’s what you might call a ‘survivalist wacko.’ He got interested in self-reliant living back during Y2K fever, when some people thought the computers would go berserk and throw civilization back to the Stone Age.”
DeVontay scowled. “Well, we all saw how that one turned out.”
“Yes, but Grandpa Wheeler figured civilization had gotten too complex, that modern systems would inevitably break down for one reason or another. Like a motor that had too many moving parts and not enough oil. He also believes the world’s governments were serving the will of the very wealthy. At some point we’d have to learn to live outside the structure.”
“He got that right.” DeVontay nudged Stephen. “Get your stuff together, Little Man. We got some walking to do.”
Rachel stuffed her supplies in the backpack, rediscovering the bottle of suicide pills the pharmacist had given her. Why hadn’t she already gotten rid of them?
DeVontay pulled out his pistol, opened the door a crack, and surveyed the street. “This is as good a time as any. Unless you want to make the bed first?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Jorge dreamed of great dragons, their green scales glittering in the sun as they soared over a burning land. Dozens of them poured their flames upon the earth from above. Their gaping, lipless mouths spat sparks and steam, and their brittle cries were like thick sheets of glass sliding across gritty metal.
He awoke in a sweat, not knowing where he was. The dragons faded from his mind’s eye, but the shrieks continued.
He fumbled one hand across the thin blankets until he found Rosa’s warm body, and then rolled to where Marina still slept on the cot. He checked her forehead, pleased to find it relatively cool.
The front door to the cabin burst open, letting dawn rush in. Franklin Wheeler was silhouetted in the opening, a shotgun in one hand, the other tugging up his filthy flannel underwear.
“Goddamn ya, leave my chickens alone,” the old man yelled.
Jorge rose from the makeshift bedding and hurried outside. Franklin stood in the yard, raising the shotgun to the sky as squawking hens raced for the cover of the garden and trees. As Franklin aimed, Jorge squinted against the morning sun and saw a hawk, its wings spread wide in a display of aerodynamic majesty. Its breast was mottled, the tail feathers red, the sharp beak pointing into the morning breeze.
The shotgun belched out a thunderclap, pellets spraying the tops of trees. The hawk lurched and faltered, a few feathers floating away from its body. The wings curled in against the breast and the bird of prey dropped like a wet rock into the forest beyond the compound.
“Got the bastard,” Franklin said, pumping the shotgun and ejecting a smoking red plastic shell to the dirt.
“A red-tail hawk,” Jorge said. Red-tails were common in the mountain forests, territorial and intelligent, and their keen vision served them up small rodents and birds. Mr. Wilcox’s property had harbored several mating couples, and Jorge had occasionally seen one of the hawks swoop down and claim a jackrabbit from the Christmas tree fields.
“Is everything okay?” Rosa called from the doorway, Marina wrapped in a blanket and standing behind her.
“Just killing a predator,” Franklin said, not realizing his words could have a double meaning.
“Is okay,” Jorge said, waving them back into the house.
The hens were still unsettled, although most of them had found clefts in the weeds where they crouched, clucking and fluttering their wings. One, however, lay in a lump by a metal watering tub, one yellow leg poked awkwardly in the air.
Franklin shouldered the weapon and walked over to the dead bird. “I’m glad it’s a white one. I got three just like it, so I didn’t bother giving them names.”
The chicken’s head had been torn from its body, ruby-red giblets hanging from the opening. Jorge looked around but he didn’t see the head. The hawk hadn’t been carrying it, so it must have been planning to eat the bird on the spot until its meal had been interrupted. The flies had already found the corpse.
“You mind getting the shovel?” Franklin asked, scanning the sky as if expecting another hawk to make a dessert run.
“Why?” Jorge asked in return.
“To bury it. Put it in the garden and the nutrients go back to the soil.”
“But it’s in good shape,” Jorge said. “Es sabroso. Tasty.”
Franklin shook his head. “I run a no-kill operation here. The chickens give me eggs in trade for their room and board.”
“It’s dead anyway,” Jorge said. “You didn’t kill it.”
Franklin’s face curdled as he looked at the hen. He shook his head. “I don’t know if I could eat it. Almost like eating one of the family.”
“Rosa will cook it very nice,” Jorge said, knowing his English grammar was slightly off but hoping Franklin wouldn’t notice.
“I…I don’t think I could pluck it and clean it,” Franklin said.
“You give me a sharp knife, the job is done.”
Franklin nodded. “Guess there’s not much use letting it go to waste. Like you said, dead is dead.”
Jorge’s admiration for the man had taken a downward slide. All the defenses and food storage and solar-energy panels meant nothing if Franklin wasn’t prepared to make use of every resource. But Jorge also felt a surge of pride. He and his family had something to contribute here. They could be part of this society and culture, as small as it was.
As Franklin went into the house, Jorge called to him, “Please tell Rosa to start a pot of water boiling.”
Jorge lifted the hen, which was surprisingly light, given its bulk. Birds were deceptive in size because of their feathers and hollow bones. This hen could feed the four of them for at least two meals, assuming Franklin’s springhouse did a proper job of cooling. Besides, the most unpleasant part of the task—chopping off the head and taking the life—had already been delivered as a gift courtesy of Mother Nature.
By the time Franklin returned, now dressed in blue jeans and a wool sweater, Jorge had already plucked most of the larger feathers from the wings. He took the knife and dissected the carcass, splitting down the breastbone to the tail and letting the internal organs spill. He carefully collected the heart and liver, both of which were still warm. The gizzard was packed with crushed grain and a few tiny bits of gray gravel.
“Well, will you look at that,” Franklin said, apparently overcoming his squeamishness. “I guess you might call that her last supper.”
“The rocks help grind the food for them,” Jorge said. He knew most Americans had no hands-on relationship with the meat they consumed. Mr. Wilcox had been the same way. Meat was something that came in clear plastic wrap from the store, or else was seared and slapped between pieces of bread at McDonald’s. Their meat was a stranger to them.
Jorge used the tip of the knife to scrape the lungs away from the insides of the ribcage. After he severed the drumsticks just below the knee joints, he peeled away the skin as if removing a tight glove. Normally, he would dip the fowl in boiling water and pluck the feathers, but he figured a skinless bird would be a lean treat and more easily allow Franklin to for
get it had once been a pet.
“Are you a man who doesn’t like killing?” Jorge asked Franklin, dangling the naked chicken so that any offal and juice could drain.
“I reckon I could kill if I had to,” Franklin answered. “Like that hawk there. Normally, I’d never shoot one. But when you come and mess with what’s mine, that’s when I fight back.”
Jorge told Franklin about the men he’d fought back at the Wilcox farm, and how the men had changed into something threatening and alien.
“No, they ain’t men no more,” Franklin said. “I heard on the shortwave radio they’re calling them ‘Zapheads.’”
“Well, if they come here, you might have to kill them.”
“If they come here, then they’re breaking the one law of this here compound,” Franklin said, sweeping an arm to indicate the garden, the animal pens, and the outbuildings. “And that law is to live and let live, respect the fences, and mind your own business.”
“It is good to be self-reliant,” Jorge said, proud he’d learned such a word in his studies with Rosa. “But there’s another law that applies.”
“Huh,” Franklin grunted. “What’s that?”
“We’re all in this together.” He held up the chicken. “And let us hope this isn’t our last supper.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Two…three…four…
Campbell counted the Zapheads on the streets surrounding the church. After a fruitless search for Pete the night before, he’d broken into a Baptist church, found the stairs to the steeple, and locked himself in. From the ground, the eastern horizon had appeared to be lit by a single bonfire that had spread. But from a vantage point fifty feet in the air, Campbell had seen at least a dozen large fires, dotting the black landscape many miles into the distance.
Now, in the glare of daylight, the fires were largely hidden, although a thick gauze of haze lay over the world. A black circle of ash marked the house that Rachel had set afire last night. He’d traveled maybe a quarter of a mile in the darkness, but it had felt like a marathon of slogging through molasses. He was exhausted.
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 91