The punctures were just shallow enough not to be disabling, but they were no less painful for their lack of depth.
Herrera could’ve charged on through and ended this quickly. But this was fun for him. Seeing Mackie try to defend himself when he could barely stay on his feet added to the enjoyment.
Entertainment for the end of the world.
“You knew there was never a place for you here,” Herrera said. “Don’t care if you went to school here and had keggers and played grab-ass with a bunch of co-eds. This is a whole different world, and it’s gonna take strong people to rebuild it. Me and Lucas, we can do that.”
“Lucas ran away,” Mackie said.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure he didn’t go far.”
“He abandoned you. In the end, he was a coward too.”
Herrera’s face shifted. “Y’know, when that little punk-ass down at the cottages was telling me about how I should be running things, you think I needed him to make that sound like a good idea? You think that hadn’t crossed my mind? But, see, I’ve got reasons to be loyal to Lucas. And he and I, we need each other to build things here. Neither of us can do it alone. He’ll be back. That I guarantee you.”
Mackie said nothing. His gaze fell to something propped near the window. And then he smiled. “Krider ran away because he was scared. You were second fiddle to a chickenshit coward. And that makes you even more pathetic than him.”
It was the right button to push.
Herrera’s scarred face clenched. He roared with blind rage and charged at Mackie. Mackie sidestepped, and Herrera tripped and crashed into the doorframe.
Mackie veered to the open window and grabbed Allie’s guitar, which was propped against the sill.
As Herrera turned to charge again, Mackie swung the guitar into his head.
The body of the instrument cracked and splintered, but didn’t quite shatter. Mackie swung again and the remaining pieces of wood broke away from the guitar’s neck, scattering across Herrera’s head and chest.
Mackie was left holding only the neck with six loose strings attached only by the tuning pegs.
It’s only rock’n’roll but I like it.
Herrera was momentarily dazed but far from seriously injured. He looked incredulous. “You thought that was going to save you?”
But it wasn’t the guitar itself Mackie needed.
It was the strings.
Mackie threw another kick into Herrera’s injured knee, more forcefully this time, and when Herrera’s weight dropped onto the injured leg, Mackie dodged behind him.
Mackie wound the cluster of strings around his fingers and then wrapped them around Herrera’s throat and neck. Mackie crisscrossed his forearms and pulled the strings so tightly he thought the veins in his arms would explode.
Herrera stabbed behind him with the Blackhawk in flailing, frenzied motions. The blade pierced Mackie’s forearms and his right bicep, and came dangerously close to his neck a few times.
Though sweat stung his eyes, Mackie kept his gaze on Allie as he pulled the strings tighter.
It’s not her. But it is her.
Stay with the eyes.
Not her eyes, not with that weird glittering. But focus on them anyway.
Don’t look away.
Don’t look away.
Mackie wasn’t sure when Herrera stopped moving, but eventually he crawled away from the limp body.
Herrera’s eyes bulged comically, as if refusing to believe he could die from an ounce of steel. The guitar strings had sliced through the skin of his throat and shredded the tissue inside.
Mackie lay on his back, eyes focused on the ceiling, fingers bleeding as the circulation screamed its way back into his veins.
He could be in the past if he wanted. Allie’s room was the vessel that could take him there.
Let your mind go back.
There is no After.
There is no Now.
Only before.
Eventually he became aware of Sabbath licking his fingers.
He lifted the cat, moved toward Allie, and as he wrapped his damaged fingers around her sweat-slicked hand, darkness overcame him.
He welcomed it.
28.
When he awoke, Rebecca, Meredith, and Dr. Lehman were standing over him.
Desiree knelt at his side, and something soft and warm pressed against his arms and chest. His fingers were bandaged, and his cheeks were slick with ointment.
T-shirts and blankets were wrapped around his cuts. The wounds sang out in a sharp, stinging pain that beat in time with Mackie’s pulse.
He wasn’t sure where he was exactly, but it wasn’t Allie’s room.
He felt a surge of anger that they had moved him. He raised himself, but then Rebecca leaned over him, her hands pressing gently on his shoulders.
“You took care of us, Mackie,” she whispered into his ear. “Now let us take care of you.”
Her lips might have brushed his ear as he sank back into the blackness. Or it could have been the breeze.
###
He awoke covered in blankets. At first he didn’t recognize the feel of the fabric beneath him, but when it came to him, a jagged shard of terror ripped through his gut.
Billiard cloth.
He was back in the student union.
He remembered seeing Krider and Herrera here...how long ago was that?
Months?
Probably not, but it felt like it.
Candles burned around him as if he were on the altar of an Eastern shrine. The room was otherwise dark, but the rec room had no windows, so he had no idea what time it was.
It’s AFTER. From now on, there is no time. Only After.
“Back from the dead, I see,” came Dr. Lehman’s voice.
“Maybe I’m still there,” Mackie said, his lips cracked and dry.
“We brought you here because it’s safer. We’ve got the student union secured. Well, actually Krider did that. No Zapheads can get in here without a fight.”
“Where is he?”
“We never found him,” Lehman said.
Mackie wasn’t surprised. Krider could be close by or far away at this point, but neither made any difference. Krider was hurt and outnumbered now, but he wouldn’t give up the Evans-Lawson campus so easily. They’d have to deal with him sooner or later.
“The girls love the cat you brought back,” Dr. Lehman said. “It’s Sabbath, isn’t it? Evelyn’s cat?
Mackie nodded.
Dr. Lehman’s face clouded. “I’m sorry.”
Mackie sat up, Dr. Lehman helping him. “For what?”
“I shut down out there. I couldn’t help you or the girls. And the other girl, Kara, she’s dead now.”
“Not your fault.”
“I just...I couldn’t do anything and I should’ve—”
Mackie placed an arm on Lehman’s shoulder. “You’re a friend, and one of the most decent people I know. One of the few that’s left now. And I’m glad you’re here. We need people who aren’t cold-blooded killers, too, if we’re going to make this thing work.”
“Speaking of killers.” Dr. Lehman held out his hand, which contained Mackie’s Glock. “We retrieved it for you. And there’s more.”
Mackie checked the clip, surprised to find a fresh load. “More?”
“This way.” Dr. Lehman cocked his head toward a hallway, and then hooked an arm around Mackie, supporting his weight as Mackie rolled off the billiard table with a groan.
His bruises and wounds throbbed in a discordant symphony of pain. He shuffled stiffly down the hall, leaning on Dr. Lehman, bandages tight around his broken ribs.
In the hall was a supply closet, its door handle shattered free. Piles of papers, game equipment, rolled-up posters, and boxes of coffee cups were spilled on the floor. A candle inside the closet revealed a line of rifles and assault weapons, as well as two sawed-off shotguns, leaning against the wall. On a shelf were several Glocks, Sig nines, and Smith & Wesson revolvers. The shelf abo
ve contained boxes of shells, bullets, and clips. The small arsenal also included a compound bow and arrows, four military grenades, five Blackhawk knives with holsters, a machete, and a set of brass knuckles.
Krider, you paranoid son of a bitch. Ready for World War III. God bless you.
“Is everybody armed now?” he asked Dr. Lehman.
“Everybody except me. Meredith organized things, and I’m sort of here watching over headquarters.”
“Good. We’ll start training today. We have to be ready for whatever happens next.”
“You need rest first.”
“I’ll rest when I’m dead.” Mackie gave a parched wince of a smile. “Which I hoping won’t be for a while.”
“Desiree’s been reading up on first aid in the library. She cleaned and dressed your wounds. A few of those cuts probably need stitches, but...she did the best she could.”
Mackie nodded. “Any Zapheads around?”
“Haven’t seen any since yesterday. We laid low and they moved on.”
“Good job. Maybe we’ll make it.”
Without assistance, Mackie limped toward the rec room door, jamming the Glock into one of the pockets of his dirty cargo pants. He paused before exiting. “I took care of her. Ms. Kinney. I put her down. Told her you loved her.”
Dr. Lehman’s eyes glistened as he nodded his thanks, and Mackie left the student union for glorious daylight.
29.
He found Rebecca sitting on a bench outside, Sabbath in her lap, an AR-15 propped beside her.
The air was warm and soft and the sky was a flawless blue. The student union doors were barricaded, except for the main entrance, which had chains dangling from its bars in case it needed to be secured in a hurry. Krider was no rookie when it came to defense.
“Hello.” Mackie sat beside Rebecca and ran his fingers across Sabbath’s fur. The cat purred contentedly. Mackie hoped she was glad to see him, but in truth she probably couldn’t tell one human from another. To the cat, he was just another pair of hands.
Rebecca, though, was thrilled to see him. “You look rough.”
“I feel rough. Where are the others?”
“Meredith, she’s sleeping. She took a pretty hard beating from Herrera. Desiree’s with Allie. The others are either in the student union or on patrol.”
“Kara...the other bodies, what happened to them?”
“Some of them, like the Zapheads, we burned. A few others we buried. Kara was one of them.”
“Can you show me where?” Mackie asked.
“The graves?”
“Yes.”
She looked hesitant, trying to read Mackie’s face. “Umm...well, yeah, I can do that.”
“Thanks.” As she set down Sabbath and followed him, Mackie added, “Forgetting something?”
She gave a sheepish grin and grabbed her rifle.
They walked past the embers of a pair of burned cottages and across a patch of scorched grass.
The fire had spread to one other cottage and large swaths of lawn surrounding them, but had apparently been contained before the flames could climb the grassy slope leading to campus or reach the expanse of forest leading to Faculty Hill.
“How long did that take?” Mackie asked. “Putting the fire out?”
“A while. We used up all the fire extinguishers we could find, made a fire break with shovels and rakes, and took turns hauling in buckets of water. Thought it might rain and help us out. But it never did.”
She pointed to several overturned humps of bare earth near the slope leading up to the woods. “Kara...she’s in the one on the right.”
“We’ll need one more.”
“What? For whom?”
“Wait here.”
Mackie limped toward the first burning cottage and the pair of blackened human husks that lay at the edge of the ruins.
Mackie had no way to tell just how much of the human ash in front of the skeletal remains of the cottage belonged to Jason and how much of it was the Zaphead that had burned to death on top of him while he cooked beneath. Maybe it made no difference.
Mackie peeled off his T-shirt and used it to scoop up as much of what appeared to be Jason’s remains as he could find. He carried them up the slope into the woods.
He found the grave they had dug for Anna earlier. As Mackie had expected, scavengers had plundered the grave and scattered pieces of the girl in a large circumference around the turned soil.
Mackie placed the shirt full of Jason’s cremated remains into the hole and then he gathered up as much of Anna as he could find.
The spade was still lying nearby, so Mackie used it to deepen and widen the grave. Then he placed the girl’s remains inside atop Jason’s and covered them with a thick layer of soil.
“Now you can watch out for each other,” he whispered, the closest thing to words of grace he could muster.
He returned to Rebecca and they strolled back to the student union, where they found Sabbath sunning on the bench. Mackie scooped up the kitty and cradled her.
“You can wait out here if you want,” he said to Rebecca.
She nodded and Mackie touched her hair softly, let his fingers trail down her cheek, grateful for human contact.
He limped across the commons to Linvale, his vision blurring with sun-filled tears.
Up the stairs again.
One last time.
Each step still sent heated glass shards of pain through his bones, but even so, it was much easier this time.
He focused on the softness of Sabbath’s fur as he placed a foot on each step.
Inside Allie’s room, he found Desiree leaning over her, wiping sweat from her forehead with a cloth.
She turned to face him, then lowered her gaze to Sabbath in his arms and smiled.
Then her eyes met Mackie’s again, and something in his look told her why he was there.
Her face tightened, and then she nodded.
“You need me to leave?” she asked.
“No, stay,” he said. “Unless you’d rather not.”
“Been with her this far.”
He knelt in front of Allie and placed Sabbath on her chest. She was calmer now, either from another Haldol injection or a rare quiet moment in her sun-scorched brain. He could not know what she was thinking. But had he ever known?
“Hey,” he said softly, stroking Allie’s face. “This is Sabbath. She looks a lot like Haunt, doesn’t she?”
Haunt had been Allie’s black cat during her freshman year. Against residence hall policy, Allie had kept Haunt in her room, and Mackie would often stroke the cat absent-mindedly as he read a Dean Koontz or Richard Matheson paperback on Allie’s bed while she did homework at the desk.
When Haunt disappeared after dashing through a narrow crack in Allie’s partially open door one winter evening, Allie had been devastated. Mackie had held her for hours as she sobbed.
He lifted one of Allie’s hands and rubbed her fingers against Sabbath’s fur.
Then he picked up Sabbath and passed her to Desiree. He touched his lips to Allie’s cheek, and the electric tinge of her sweat told him that whatever she had become was wrong. “I know Haunt’s waiting for you, baby. I’m sure he’s missed you all these years.”
Mackie placed his cheek against Allie’s chest. “I love you. And I let you down. And I’m sorry. If there’s any part of you that can understand that...I’m sorry, baby. For everything.”
He removed the pillow from beneath her head and pressed it down over her face.
I want to keep you here.
I wish I could still be that cruel.
But I can’t now.
“Go look for Haunt, baby. Go find him. And I’ll be there soon.”
Desiree sobbed softly, and beneath him, Allie’s chest rose and fell for the final time.
30.
He and Desiree carried her down past the cottages.
Rebecca followed holding Sabbath and some things from Allie’s room. Meredith and Dr. Lehman remained
on campus to keep an eye on the others.
They laid Allie near Kara’s grave, covered her with a sheet, and then piled brush and dry branches atop her body. He placed her Kurt Cobain poster on the pile, a photograph of her parents she’d kept on her desk, and the pieces of her Fender guitar. Then he splashed on gasoline he’d siphoned from a service vehicle.
He lit a match, dropped it, and then looked away.
He clawed for the handful of pills in his pocket. Desiree hadn’t wanted to tell him where he could find them, but he persisted, and eventually, though it pained her to do so, she relented. Because he’d gotten wild-eyed and edgy, like a cornered animal.
“You sure you want to go that route?” Meredith asked.
Mackie nodded.
“What would Allie think?”
“She can’t think anything now.”
He stuffed the pills into his mouth—eight, ten, maybe a dozen of them—-and chewed frantically.
He turned to watch the funeral pyre.
And then he was on his knees, vomiting out the pills and other contents of his stomach.
Rebecca and Desiree knelt beside him and he felt the warmth of their hands on his skin. Rebecca shook him by the shoulder. “Mackie?”
He wiped his mouth and looked up. “What?”
A Zaphead crept from the forest, drawn by the flames.
It was a male of about Mackie’s age and build. If fate had dealt a different hand when the solar storms hit, that could be Mackie staggering around glitter-eyed and raving, looking for someone to destroy.
Mackie pulled the Glock and blew the mutant into the warm oblivion he had wanted for himself.
There’s no more before.
No more now.
Only After.
Ever After.
THE END
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Look for more apocalyptic adventure in Zapheads #2: Scars and Ashes
Bone And Cinder: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Zapheads Book 1) Page 19