He saluted and patted his gun with a slightly crazed grin. “Been wanting to do some killing for a long time. I ain’t going nowhere.”
Murray hurried down the trail to the military base. She thought of Helen in her little tree house but forced herself to focus on her duty. Several soldiers ran through the forest ahead of her, dressed in their makeshift uniforms and carrying full battle gear. She came to a cluster of tents where a squadron of infantry camped, but it was empty, a tin kettle steaming over a fire, clothes hanging on a line, and food cans and pouches littering the ground, a typical day that had been interrupted by an unknown enemy.
Murray had agreed to Gen. Alexander’s suggestion to establish the military base outside the caverns. Even though they were exposed to increased risk from attacks by either Zaps or monsters, Alexander said the equipment, vehicles, and helicopters should be protected at all times. Moving the camp out here would also be safer for the civilians inside the cavern network.
Most distressingly, Alexander reasoned that the army could be more easily wiped out if everyone was holed up in a cave, due to the lack of escape routes. At least being in the open would allow some of them to escape and for the human race to keep on fighting.
A vehicle motor rumbled and she ran to the wide dirt road that ran between the tents. The Hummer came around a bend, throwing dust from its wheels. Murray was raising her arm to flag it down when she saw the general in the passenger seat.
“Madame President,” he bellowed in greeting as the Hummer braked to a squealing stop, the formality designed for the sake of the driver, a young man with tired, stubbly cheeks and fear in his eyes.
“What’s going on?” she asked, a question that applied to every aspect of this horrible world and would never be answered.
“Zaps,” he said, sitting awkwardly due the sling supporting his injured left arm at the elbow. “Stragglers, from what we can tell.”
“What are they doing way out here?”
“They’re disorganized. Different from the field reports we received from Munger and Antonelli, and nothing like we encountered in D.C. Hard to say for sure, but I’m guessing these are rogue Zaps, acting more like they did in the early days. No silver suits, no weapons, no real awareness of how easily we can kill them.”
“Can we handle it?”
Alexander winced as if she’d slapped him in the face. “Of course. A few casualties, but this is what we trained for.”
She nodded, not entirely satisfied. “Carry on, then.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The driver put the Hummer in gear, but before he could release the brake, Alexander motioned him to wait. He fished his sidearm from this holster with his good arm and held the weapon out for her.
She was about to refuse it, but his expression warned her of the example she was setting to the driver. Her life mattered. Not just to the general, but to the community and New Pentagon, and even the Earth Zero Initiative. This wasn’t a time to think of herself. She took the gun and thanked him.
“I’ll report back when we have this cleaned up,” he said. He saluted and motioned the driver onward, and in seconds the Hummer roared out of sight between the trees.
Relieved that the Zap incursion wasn’t a battle on the scale of Alexander’s devastating defeat in D.C., Murray headed for Helen’s house. Already the gunfire was diminishing. She imagined the job was down to mop-up, hunting the last of the mutants.
Helen lived to the west of the camp, less than a quarter of a mile from the caves, but the path was winding and uneven. Murray came upon two soldiers standing over a Zap corpse, and she looked at it with no emotion. In mortal repose, it was indistinguishable from the people living in the tented city inside Luray Caverns.
Sure, the clothes were threadbare rags, the hair wild and greasy, and the exposed skin gray with dirt and filth, but it had once been a human. Only a random mistake of physics had set it apart from them. Murray was struck with the horrible notion that maybe they hadn’t been attacked by Zaps after all—maybe these were desperate survivors who had come looking for aid and comfort.
No, these soldiers would’ve seen their eyes. Arnold’s right—this is what we’ve trained for.
The Zap was also similar to a human in two very important ways—it bled red and it died only once, and there seemed to be no angels come to escort the soul to a better place.
Murray kept moving before the soldiers acknowledged her presence, making sure the gun was visible so she wouldn’t be mistaken for a Zap and shot by accident. A couple of isolated gunshots echoed off the hills, and then an uneasy silence fell over the valley, as if Time was holding its breath.
Helen’s house came into view, a small plywood box with wraparound windows perched ten feet up in the crotch of a red oak. The ladder had been pulled up, so Helen was inside. Murray was pleased that the stubborn woman had taken at least that much precaution.
The president cupped her hands and called up. Receiving no answer, she circled the tree until she was on the southern side, where the sky reflected off the window. The backlit clouds grew darker as the wind picked up, and that’s when Murray saw the streaks of blood against the glass.
CHAPTER NINE
Rachel and DeVontay followed Antonelli from a distance, not wanting the man to lead them into any more traps.
Private Kelly had apparently decided to trust them, or maybe she was scared into a state of high alert, because she spent more time looking down the alleys and behind vehicles than she did watching the group. She moved in tandem with the captain, still limping from her injuries. They were among a row of buildings and shops with crowded parking lots separating them on each side of the street.
Rachel wondered about the people who had walked and driven these streets in happier times. Could they ever have imagined the ruin and desolation as they sat stuck in traffic, wishing more people used birth control and people didn’t live so long?
A peeling billboard stuck to the side of a shoe store advertised a personal injury lawyer featuring the pitch line, “Been in an accident? Give me a buzz!” The rear of a school bus protruded from a storefront, broken glass surrounding its deflated tires. The awning of a coffee shop hung askew, its canvas canopy in tatters and flapping in the breeze. Two skeletons sat at sidewalk table, propped up by metal chairs, the skull of one lying between their ceramic coffee cups.
From time to time, they saw one of the silver-suited figures ahead of them, but Antonelli moved forward with such caution that the mutants were soon out of sight. It was clear they were all headed toward the center of town and the plasma sink, just as Bright Eyes had predicted.
Even though he was still carrying Squeak, who appeared to have fallen asleep in his arms, Rachel risked questioning the mutant some more. “Why do you think they’re congregating?”
“I’m as disconnected as you,” he said. “I can only assume someone has replaced Geneva and is summoning them.”
Rachel didn’t want to admit she’d heard Kokona call her name. She’d almost willed herself to believe she had imagined it.
“Do you think it’s Kokona?” DeVontay asked, as if reading her mind.
“She wouldn’t do that,” Rachel said. “I know her.”
“How well does anybody know a mutant?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
DeVontay turned away so that she could only see his glass eye, effectively hiding his emotions. “It’s in her nature. She was part of the leadership in Newton when we attacked it. You saw how competitive and cutthroat those babies were—we only defeated them because they squabbled among themselves.”
“She came with us willingly, though.”
“How long has she been with you?” Bright Eyes asked.
“Four years. And she never once gave any sign that she wanted to harm us.”
“She was part hostage and part ambassador,” DeVontay said. “But what if she was really just a spy? Biding her time, gathering information, becoming smarter so that she could be successful when her
opportunity arose. Mutant babies seem to have a natural ambition to rule.”
“She never gave any sign of that while we were raising her,” Rachel said. “You’re starting to sound like Franklin.”
“She would’ve disguised it,” Bright Eyes said. “Like you said, the babies get smarter. Geneva killed off her rivals through manipulation so she could have the entire tribe to herself.”
“What’s the end game, then?” Rachel asked. “Do the babies each develop their own tribes and then fight among themselves for territory and power?”
“All I have is my experience,” Bright Eyes said. His smooth face was smudged with grime from the factory explosion, somehow giving him more of a personality. Rachel had to remind herself that the mutant wasn’t all that much stranger than she was, because they shared the trademark flickering eyes brought on by their condition. At the same time, could she really trust his motivations? What if he was a spy just waiting for a chance to betray them all?
Antonelli and Kelly turned a corner and were out of sight, and DeVontay looked at Rachel as if acknowledging this might be their last chance to flee. Bright Eyes sensed something pass between them and said, “I can take the child away from here if you wish.”
Rachel reflected on the irony of the mutant serving as the carrier and caregiver for a human child, since mutant babies required human carriers. Perhaps this was a bizarre twist of enlightenment, two different races moving on parallel paths and suggesting compassion was some sort of deeply buried universal trait of intelligence.
Maybe we’re not so different after all. Which is why we want to kill each other.
“We’re staying together,” Rachel said. “If Kokona’s here, then so is Marina.”
“If we find Kokona, Antonelli’s going to kill her,” DeVontay said.
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
“We shouldn’t involve Bright Eyes and Squeak in this. They should get out before the shit hits the fan.”
“You saved my life,” Bright Eyes said. “More than that, I wouldn’t even know what ‘life’ means without your example. There was once a human inside me, and this may be the only chance I ever have to rediscover it. Before, I didn’t know that death was loss. But now that I know the value of my life, I am content to lose it in order to help you.”
“We’re all ready to die for each other if it comes to that,” Rachel said, hating herself for her earlier distrust. “But let’s not let that happen.”
Kelly popped around the corner ahead, motioning for them to catch up. The column of light appeared ever larger as they drew nearer, and even though Rachel had been exposed to it before, its pulse invaded her and gave her a surreal sense of dissolution. She wondered if Bright Eyes was also affected by the proximity of the strange energy source, but his face was as expressionless as ever.
When they caught up to the waiting Kelly, Bright Eyes said, “Remember, if you need to kill us, you have to shoot us in the head.”
“Is that supposed to be some kind of zombie joke?” the soldier asked.
“It’s tactical advice,” he said. “Our suits are impervious to bullets.”
“What about this?” Antonelli said, slapping the short, fat barrel of the grenade launcher. “Low-grade explosive.”
“I can’t say. It’s never been tested.”
“Maybe we’ll find out soon enough,” the captain said.
“We should try for a better vantage point,” Kelly said. “How about getting on top of one of these buildings?”
“Might get a better radio signal, too,” Antonelli said. “Unless this energy source is causing the problem.”
“We could get surrounded and not be able to retreat,” DeVontay said.
Antonelli cocked an eyebrow. “So you’ve got military training, huh?”
“No, I’ve just survived five years of living hell. That’s worth as much as those captain’s bars.”
Kelly snarled protectively. “Don’t forget Directive Seventeen, Jones. The captain can use you as he wishes and dispose of you as he wishes.”
DeVontay winked with his good eye, knowing his glass prosthetic would make him look freakish. “Glad to see Doomsday didn’t end slavery.”
“This isn’t about you or me,” Antonelli said. “It’s about the human race.” Then he glanced at Rachel and Bright Eyes as if he needed to include them under that umbrella of sacrifice. “Directive Seventeen applies to all resources.”
Bright Eyes looked down at the restlessly drowsing child in his arms. “Even her?”
“We’re all collateral damage. And if we can take out that plasma sink and make Col. Munger’s job easier, then it’s worth every single one of us.”
“You don’t even know what will happen if we take out the sink,” Rachel said. “You might set off a chain reaction that will blow this city off the map.”
“Fine with me,” Antonelli said. “A few hundred less Zaps in the world would be ‘Mission accomplished.’ Not to mention whatever metal birds and other surprises they’ve cooked up.”
“Let’s get off the street if we’re going to high ground,” Kelly said. “I don’t like it out here in the open.”
“Just think of all the surprises that could be waiting inside these buildings,” DeVontay said, taunting her. “Rats, roaches, snakes, insurance salesmen. I can hardly wait.”
“Shut up,” she snapped, as if DeVontay was part of her military unit instead of a reluctant recruit.
“Let’s not kill each other just yet,” Antonelli said. “Give the Zaps a chance at it first.”
He picked out an office that bore a sign in Celtic-style lettering that said BLUESTONE COUNSELING GROUP. “There,” he said. “Might pick up some good vibrations.”
The captain led the way into the unlocked building, navigating a waiting room where the gloss had faded from the magazine covers. The check-in desk sported some rusty stains that looked like long-dried blood, and a computer lay smashed as if there had been a struggle. But there were no bodies in any of the rooms—Rachel assumed they’d been collected by Zaps long ago and harvested for raw material.
At the end of the hall, a set of stairs led up into darkness, and Antonelli let Rachel lead the way. Squeak awoke with a cry, as if the lack of light had somehow startled her out of the land of sleep. DeVontay hushed her and told her in a calm voice what they were doing. Kelly was once again in the rear, talking quietly to herself as if needing reassurance.
The second floor featured a narrow hall with a series of closed doors. Rachel assumed the contained more offices behind them, but Antonelli said, “One of these must have a roof access.”
He opened two adjacent doors, and even though their blinds were drawn, enough sunlight leaked in to reveal the dusty, empty rooms. He opened a third door and a male voice said, “You better not be a Zap.”
Antonelli took one step back, anger creasing his face. Rachel gripped her M16 and pressed against the wall so whoever was in the room couldn’t see her.
“I heard you talking,” the hidden man said. “Otherwise I’d have already filled you so full of holes you’d think you were a box of donuts. Who else is out there with you?”
“Me and my wife,” he said, flicking his eyes over to Rachel. “And our daughter.”
“What the hell kind of whomp-ass gun is that?”
“Grenade launcher.”
“Huh. Well, you tell your sweetie pie she better drop her weapon and ease out where I can see her.”
Antonelli nodded to Rachel, who was angry that Antonelli had sold her out. Why couldn’t Kelly take the chance? And dragging Squeak into it…that was just gutless and sociopathic.
DeVontay put a finger to his lips and nodded at her. Rachel leaned her M16 against the wall and stepped into the yellow rectangle of light that framed the doorway. The man was concealed behind an upturned desk, just the top of his head showing behind the gleaming double barrels of his shotgun.
“Don’t shoot,” Rachel said, spreading her arms. “W
e’re friends.”
The man gave a harsh chuff of laughter. “Aren’t any friends anymore. Just fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth.”
Antonelli started to move the grenade launcher, but the man shouted a warning.
“I need to set this down,” the captain said. “It’s kind of heavy.”
“Just do it slow. Where’s that kid?”
Rachel waved Squeak to her, anger and worry fighting for emotional dominance. The girl was pale and trembling, no doubt wishing she was still asleep, but she obeyed. She even had the presence of mind not to look back at the others behind her in the hall. Rachel wrapped her in a hug, shielding her small body as much as possible.
“We’re here to destroy that energy beam,” Antonelli said, gently placing his weapon on the carpeted floor. “The thing making the colored lights.”
“That’s the UFO beacon,” the man said. “Marking the landing zone for the mothership.”
“Are you for real?” Rachel asked.
“Hey, Sister, we’re sitting in a city full of spacemen in silver suits and you’re asking me what is real? What’s wrong with your eyes, anyway?”
In the panic of the confrontation, Rachel had forgotten her literally glaring attribute. “Nothing. The sun through the window is blinding me, that’s all.”
The man stood slowly, his shotgun steady. He was tall, with long, wavy hair and a full beard and mustache, a loose paisley shirt draped around his thin frame. His eyes were dark beneath heavy brows, and a pair of wire-framed spectacles with small round lenses perched crookedly on the end of his nose.
He resembled John Lennon in his Beatle Christ phase, only with psychotic eyes that darted around the room, up at the ceiling, and then at the people in front of him as if he couldn’t settle on any one vision for long.
Or maybe he was experiencing multiple visions at the same time.
“So, what now?” Antonelli asked, staring into the twin muzzles that to Rachel seemed as big and dark as bottomless wells.
Radiophobia: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 3) Page 6