“You think those metal birds are acting on their on?” a man asked. “Like robots?”
“They’re alive, in a way,” Rachel said. “But they don’t operate independently. Something must program and operate them in real time. Telepathically.”
Goldberg grinned and said to the others. “See? I told you she’d be a big help. Aren’t you glad you didn’t kill her?”
“What if she’s lying?” said the man who’d been eager to shoot down the metal birds.
“What do I have to gain by lying?” Rachel said. “You’re no threat to the Zaps. If I was a Zap, I’d have summoned those birds and you’d all be dead.”
The man’s mouth trembled as if he wanted to step forward and slap her, but Goldberg interrupted. “She’s right. Even if we can’t believe everything she says, we’re better off with her.”
“If she’s so damned smart, then why can’t she communicate with the Zaps inside the city?” the man said, spitting on the ground in disgust. “For all we know, she’s mind-reading with them right now.”
“Careful, Rachel,” Kokona said. “If they kill you, I won’t have anyone to carry me into the city.”
“Does everything have to be about you?”
“Of course it does. It always has been, ever since I made you love me.”
“You made us teach you everything, but love is something you could never understand. Because we don’t understand it ourselves.”
Goldberg stowed away the binoculars. “We need a closer look. She can take us inside.”
“I can’t,” Rachel said, holding up Kokona. “I have a baby.”
“Why do you think I let you bring her along? I would’ve given her to Trudy, except she’s as valuable as you are.”
Kokona tensed in Rachel’s embrace, like a cornered animal that had no capacity for flight. “Don’t tell them.”
“I’m not taking you in there.”
“You must.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, you’re getting weaker the closer we get to the Blue City.”
Rachel wondered if she could betray Kokona. She’d been surprised how easily she relinquished the baby to Trudy the night before. Perhaps the proximity of the Blue City had somehow loosened Kokona’s psychological grip. In the past, the more she was around Zaps, the less human she felt, but maybe the dome acted as some kind of shield but also created interference that weakened Kokona’s powers.
“We can’t even get close,” said one of the men. “Everything’s dead. It’s open terrain. They’d see us coming from a mile away, and who knows what they’d send out after us?”
“Those metal birds got in, so there must be a way,” Goldberg said.
“Ain’t worth it,” the man said.
“Count me out,” said another.
Goldberg turned on his crew. “I’ve kept you alive this long, haven’t I? And you’re going to back down now?”
“It’s not so bad in the tunnels. Got enough food and fuel for at least a year.”
“You want to live like rats?” Goldberg bellowed. “Let the Zaps have the surface while we wait to get sick from cancer? That was never meant to be our home.” He flung an arm out to indicate the valley. “This is our home.”
The other men looked at the ground, unable to meet Goldberg’s glare. One of them backed away until he was shaded by the brittle autumn canopy.
Goldberg wiped his mouth with his ragged sleeve. “You expected there to be a door? A welcome mat? You knew we’d have to fight for this.”
“Fight, but not die,” said the retreating man. He turned and began retracing the route they’d come.
That’s when Kokona spoke for the first time: “I’ll show you the way.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Winston-Salem’s a mess,” Franklin said as the Humvee approached the city on U.S. 40 heading east and the first collapsed buildings came into view.
“Better stick with the interstate bypass,” Kelly said. “Business district’s likely to be blocked.
“Don’t want to be trapped in the rubble if a swarm of Zaps attack,” K.C. said from behind the wheel. “You need half a city block to turn this thing around.”
K.C. had taken on the role of driver, mostly because she was already experienced at operating the Humvee. Kelly sat in the passenger seat while Franklin and DeVontay crowded into the back with the two girls. Millwood sat on an ammo can stuck between the two front seats, facing the rear window.
They’d covered maybe twenty miles that morning, the blue glow becoming stronger on the horizon despite the brightness of the day. Now they slowed as the number of stranded vehicles increased and the surface of the pavement became pocked with potholes.
“Looks like a war zone,” DeVontay said. “Maybe another plasma-sink detonation.”
“But our offensive didn’t reach this far east,” Kelly said. “Why would the Zaps detonate a plasma sink if they weren’t under attack?”
“Maybe Kokona did it,” Franklin said, only half joking.
“Or maybe another mutant baby,” DeVontay said. “We’ve seen their little power struggles. They might be knocking each other off so they can be the king of the Zaps.”
“Or the queen,” K.C. said. “Never underestimate the ruthlessness of a female.”
“I’m not that dumb,” Franklin said.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Millwood cut in.
“I could, because you’re easy to fool.”
“Enough,” Kelly said. “This isn’t kindergarten. You guys are worse than Zap babies.”
That insult cowed the two of them for a few minutes, but then Squeak’s high voice said, “Doggies!”
Franklin’s throat tightened as if he’d swallowed a stone as he looked out the thick glass to his left. A pack of massive dogs loped down from the embankment toward them. The animals were of various breeds, but there was a mottled, scruffy-mutt quality to all of them as if they’d evolved from their genetic origins.
Some were elongated like beagles and dachshunds, others compact and muscular like boxers, and still others were long and lean like greyhounds. Each dog easily weighed two hundred pounds each, yellow drool dangling from their muzzles as they chased the vehicle.
K.C. gunned the accelerator until they were doing a dangerous fifty miles an hour on the pitted, congested roadway, but the dogs nearly managed to keep pace. When K.C. came upon an overturned tractor-trailer blocking both lanes, the dogs caught up and hurled themselves against the thick metal doors.
One of the animals clacked its long yellow fangs against the bulletproof glass and cracked it. The two girls screamed as K.C. desperately shoved the transmission into reverse. Kelly climbed over Millwood into the rear and released the latches to the roof access. She cranked the hatch open, letting in the wind and the wild braying of the hellhounds.
“Keep moving!” Franklin yelled at K.C. He felt trapped and helpless, not even able to shoot at their attackers. Between Millwood shouting at the kids to quit squealing, DeVontay telling Millwood to shut up, and the Humvee’s diesel engine whining and chugging, Franklin’s head throbbed.
Kelly stuck her head into the turret and wriggled upward as her feet flailed for the support straps. DeVontay held her legs until she braced herself waist deep in the opening. She squeezed off a three-round burst, but she was pitched back and forth as K.C. braked and made a sharp lurch forward. The front wheels climbed over chunks of rubble, further jarring the Humvee.
Another mutant dog slammed into the bifurcated window beside Franklin, streaking blood and slobber as it snapped its teeth at the glass. It fell away and then leaped again, slamming its snout against the window and causing another crack.
“Hell with it,” Franklin said. “Get down, kids.”
He didn’t have to tell them twice, because Millwood had already shielded their eyes by hovering over them and pushing them to the floor. Franklin noticed the hippie stayed down there himself, quivering like a coward.
DeVontay tried to hold Franklin back. “Wh
at do you think you’re—”
Franklin slapped at the window lock and slid the window halfway down. A deformed Dalmatian stuck its snarling face in the gap and Franklin brought down the butt of his rifle. The dog yelped as something crunched, but its claws still scraped at the Humvee’s metal flanks. It was trying to dig its way in.
DeVontay grabbed the pistol from Kelly’s hip holster and leveled it at the dog’s red-spattered nose.
“Don’t you dare miss,” Franklin said, covering his ears.
Pak pak pak.
Despite taking the three shots, the Dalmatian still held on, apparently just from the strength of its neck muscles. The glittering eyes spoke of a supremely vile form of rabies, a mad-dog disease cooked up in the new biological soup of Planet Zap.
“Oh, shit,” K.C. said.
Franklin looked away from the dog long enough to see both lanes of the highway ahead covered with dogs—dozens of them, a massive pack with their tongues protruding, ears perked, and muzzles peeled back in sinister snarls.
K.C whipped the wheel and the Humvee veered down an exit ramp, slamming into a subcompact Toyota that crumpled like tin foil. Kelly groaned in pain as she was whipped violently forward, but she kept up a steady spray of gunfire.
Franklin rooted in the toolbox until he found a hammer, and then pounded on the Dalmatian’s head until bits of pinkish-gray brains leaked from the blunt skull. The dog managed to hook one paw inside the cabin, and Franklin smashed it, too. The dog fell away and Franklin saw it in the side mirror tumbling along the shoulder, its tail wagging with excitement.
“These are goddamned zombie dogs!” DeVontay said.
“Hush, you’ll scare the kids,” Millwood said, as if the girls hadn’t been frightened with every breath they’d taken over the last five years.
Off the highway now, they were surrounded by collapsed buildings, broken utility poles, and tattered billboards that were folded like schizophrenic origami. K.C. rumbled to the intersection where a massive pileup blocked the exit ramp. The adjoining overpass held another pack of dogs, as if the two packs were fighting a turf war and K.C. had driven right into the middle of it.
As the Humvee slowed, Kelly kicked the magazine out of her M16 and ducked into the cabin, reaching out a hand. “Ammo!” she shouted.
DeVontay opened the metal case between the front seats and pulled out a full magazine. Just as he tossed it to Kelly, Franklin saw a black dog climb the overpass railing. He shouted a warning and poked his rifle barrel through the window and fired without aiming.
Although the bridge was some fifty feet away, the scruffy canine pawed its way over the rails and made a wild leap. Franklin fired another burst that ricocheted off the concrete pilings and clattered off a city bus. The dog hung in the air for a moment, silhouetted against the aurora-stitched ceiling of the sky. Then it landed on the roof with a meaty thump.
K.C. rammed the Humvee forward, shoving into the pile-up like a bulldozer. Metal screeched and glass shattered. Claws clicked across the roof of the Humvee and with a bone-rattling growl, the black dog crawled through the turret hatch, knocking Kelly aside.
Millwood moved with a speed that startled Franklin, flashing bright steel in his right hand. DeVontay swung the pistol toward the dog but didn’t fire, probably afraid of stray rounds bouncing off the cabin walls. Franklin reared back from the snapping, slavering jaws, stinking hot doggie breath misting his face.
The dog was so large that its torso was lodged in the perimeter of the turret hatch. As it batted and writhed, it sent the Humvee rocking on its shock absorbers. One of the girls screamed again, and Kelly struggled to regain her balance and collect her weapon.
Franklin tried to pull her away but the dog’s teeth gnashed on her hand. Fingers cracked like twigs, blood spurting. One mangy ear flopped over the eye nearest Franklin, but before it did, Franklin saw into the boiling hell of the creature, the fury of a storm whose origin was beyond understanding.
More dogs clambered along the flanks of the vehicle, and K.C. grunted as one hopped onto the hood and stared at her through the windshield. As Kelly struggled to free her hand, Millwood released a manic stream of curses and jabbed at the dog’s neck with his knife. The dog’s blood mixed with Kelly’s but still it held on, twisting its jaws back and forth as if it had been starving for weeks.
“Shoot it!” Millwood said.
Kelly grunted in pain, her freckles dark against her ghastly white face. “Don’t…shoot.”
Franklin wrapped her in a bear hug and pulled while DeVontay joined Millwood in attacking the beast. Millwood howled like a dog, as if he’d gone mad from rage, and Franklin’s blood turned cold in his veins. The hippie’s fist was a blur as he jammed the knife into the dog over and over, bits of fur and gore flying from the blade and sticking to his spectacles.
Franklin braced his feet against the back of the vehicle and pulled Kelly again. The soldier broke free, shrieking in pain. Three of her fingers poked from the dog’s mouth like obscene cigarettes.
She grunted in agony, clamping her good hand over the stump. Then she reached for the Glock in DeVontay’s fist with her right hand, yanked it from him, and jammed the barrel between the dog’s teeth. Kelly rapid-fired the entire magazine into the dog’s head. Her fingers dribbled out and fell to the cluttered floor.
The dog went limp, eyes narrowing to slits. Their fervid yellow gave way to smoldering red and then black. Millwood struggled out of his jacket and used it to help bind Kelly’s wound.
“You okay?” DeVontay asked like a fool.
“Sure,” Kelly croaked over the roar of the diesel engine, gritting her teeth against the intense pain. “As long as I don’t turn into a werewolf.”
K.C. now barreled down a littered avenue, plowing over shopping carts, suitcases, and old cardboard boxes. The buildings here were nearly intact except for their blank windows and the dark smudges of smoke along the walls. They were heading deeper into the city where huge mounds of rubble were piled like dystopian Egyptian pyramids.
The dogs still gave chase, but they were falling behind. When the Humvee turned a corner, Franklin and DeVontay fired from the open window, dropping a couple of the monstrous mutts before they fell from sight.
Kelly crawled into the passenger seat, gamely trying to mask the pain she must’ve felt. Marina and Squeak finally sat up. Squeak reached up and slapped the dead dog’s slick red fur.
“Bad doggie,” she said.
Franklin closed the window and reloaded, wondering if he’d have to put down Kelly before the next full moon.
CHAPTER TEN
High President Abigail Murray wondered if this was how Hitler felt in his Berlin Bunker, trembling with palsy in the final days while his mad fantasies of a Thousand Year Reich crumbled like sand castles.
This bunker was sixty feet below ground level, a chamber used as both the political and military headquarters for New Pentagon. The formality had seemed important in the beginning, a sign to the thousand-plus survivors that some semblance of civilization and order still prevailed. Yes, she’d maintained the illusion of a United States of America, right down to the tattered flag nailed to the cinderblock wall, even though there were now no state or national borders.
She wasn’t even sure if the Earth Zero Initiative still existed, a loose affiliation comprised of the former countries of England, Israel, Russia, and a handful of other scattered outposts that had made shortwave radio contact after the solar storms. They’d quickly agreed to draft a set of Directives designed to ensure human survival, and Murray had been amazed how fast they’d cut through the political bullshit and got the job done. The sense of urgency was not abstract in the slightest—every day of delay or dispute gave the Zaps more dominion over the world.
But the Directives were nothing but ideas on paper. The U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence were lost, presumably already destroyed in the fires that swept most of the major cities. Even the noblest ideas were fragile, pushed aside by the
brute force of change. And no change had ever challenged the human race like an extinction event coupled with the rise of an intelligent, powerful rival—ironically enough, one genetically adapted from humans themselves.
We’ve become out own worst enemy. There could hardly be a more fitting epitaph.
“We need to enact emergency measures,” Col. Munger said, refusing to sit with the others at the small conference table. He paced back and forth before the flag as if he were rehearsing his own portrayal in the forthcoming biopic of his life.
“We’ve never left a state of emergency,” Gen. Alexander said. “The Directives ensured that.”
“We haven’t had radio contact in weeks,” Munger said. “We don’t know if anyone’s alive but us. We can’t worry about Earth Zero. We have to do what’s best for us.”
“Even if we survive for a while, without that next step, there’s no hope anyway,” Murray said. She was surprised how dry and defeated her voice sounded in the small concrete room. The large monitors and computer screens that were intended to show live video of half the Eastern Seaboard were nothing but dark windows into the bleak, nihilistic land of nevermore.
Adam Ziminski, the pimply-faced geek who served as signal officer, was the only other person in the room. He sat at the table fidgeting with his fingernails, no doubt wondering why he was here with the top brass.
“We can’t win the war if we can’t even defend our home,” Munger said. “What do we do now?”
“What’s the casualty count from the last attack?” Murray asked. She hated to reduce the pain, suffering, and loss to a statistic, but she desperately needed some academic distance from the blood on her hands.
“Eight dead, thirteen injured,” Alexander said. “Four of the dead were civilians.”
Murray nodded. Since most of the able-bodied people in their community had voluntarily joined their makeshift army, the civilian population was smaller than ever. So the dead were either the elderly or children. Murray didn’t ask for further details.
Directive 17: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 4) Page 6