He didn’t realize he’d almost drowsed off until he blinked to find the glimmering greenish glow of night cast upon him. He wiped the grit from his good eye and gazed blearily up at his rescuers.
Kelly extended a hand. “It’s almost morning. Sleepy time’s over.”
DeVontay gripped her wrist and allowed himself to be pulled up, Millwood grabbing him by the shoulder of his jacket and lifting. He slid free and sprawled on the hard, rough surface, gaping at the mountains of rubble where a city had once stood. A parking garage down the street had folded like an accordion, crushing vehicles between tons of cracked concrete. Smoke spouted from scattered fires.
It was a miracle anyone had survived.
“Antonelli?” he asked them.
Kelly shook with a sob and blinked away tears, while Squeak sat beside Marina like sisters in survival. They must’ve had time to bond while DeVontay was down and out.
Millwood said, “Dude saved us. He was righteous.”
Kelly sniffed wetly and stood at attention. “He did his duty,” she said with forced conviction. “He made a sacrifice for all of us.”
DeVontay nodded and rose on trembling legs, surprised at how enervated he’d become from the hours of confinement. “And we’ll honor that sacrifice,” he said.
“Your Zap friend, we don’t know about,’ Millwood said. “He took off after you left.” He kicked at a scrap of alloy fabric. “He probably died out here with his buddies.”
“We need to get out of here,” Kelly said, already assuming Antonelli’s role. DeVontay was fine with that—the captain had trained her well.
He was surprised to see a splint on Marina’s lower leg, the ankle heavily bandaged. “How are you doing?” he asked her.
She pounded the ground with the iron pipe Rachel had used. “I can kind of walk. Whatever it takes to get away from here.”
“Captain said there might be fallout,” Millwood said. “Zap radiation from hell.”
“Great,” DeVontay said. “Good times just keeping better.”
“Marina told us about Kokona,” Kelly said. “The mission’s not over yet. Not until the little bitch is dead.”
DeVontay wasn’t ready to sign on for that job. Despite Kokona’s betrayal, he was sort of a father to the fiercely intelligent mutant. And Mama had raised him through his own maladjusted ways. Still, he needed Kelly’s help to find Rachel. Her training and skills might make the difference, and he couldn’t drag Marina along on such a dangerous and arduous journey.
“What about you, Mr. Millwood?” Kelly asked.
The hippie clawed at his beard in thought, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, and said, “Well, you guys destroyed the landing zone, so I guess the mothership’s out. If these Zaps are aliens, they’re the most pathetic excuse for an advanced species I’ve ever seen.”
“And just how many have you seen?” Marina asked.
“Three or four, nothing serious.” He lit his smoke. “Never been anal probed, though.”
“Something to live for,” DeVontay said.
“Hey,” Squeak chimed in. “There are kids present. Don’t be gross.”
DeVontay helped Marina onto her feet and they stood looking around at the wastelands of Wilkesboro. He wondered if even now they were drawing contamination and toxins into their bodies and what the subsequent results would be. As Millwood drew in the known carcinogens of a nasty human habit, DeVontay thought: At least he’s got a filter. Maybe he’s not as dumb as he looks.
“Which way?” Marina asked, and they all looked at Kelly, who slung her rifle over her shoulder and squinted up at the glorious pink hues pushing back the smoky aurora and gilding the east.
“Heading toward a new day makes as much sense as anything,” she said and began walking.
DeVontay realized she was the only one that was armed. All the more reason to stick close. He tucked one shoulder under Marina and helped her hobble forward, Squeak on the opposite side and doing what she could to help.
Millwood brought up the rear, probably daydreaming about distant civilizations that were advanced enough to avoid the mutant soup of Planet Earth.
Wherever you are, Rachel, I’ll be there.
WHATever you are.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“We’ve beefed up perimeter security and added some more surveillance posts,” Gen. Alexander said.
“No more surprises,” President Abigail Murray said. “We can’t afford to let our people get any more demoralized.”
“That was unforeseen,” Alexander said. “We thought all the Zaps were organized in clusters around their energy sources. But these must be rogues that split off or maybe even took a different evolutionary path.”
“It’s your job to foresee.” Murray didn’t want to be too hard on the leathery old battle-axe, because much of the past five years featured horrors, tribulations, and changes that no one could imagine.
As they toured the base camp surrounding the caverns, Murray personally greeted each soldier they met. Few enough remained that she could remember most of their names. It wasn’t a testament to her political talents or social skills—it was a damning depiction of just how far the world’s greatest military force had fallen.
“We’ve not had many field reports,” Alexander replied, ashamed that he was reduced to excuses. “Not enough manpower and gear out on patrol, and with limited radio contact with the outside world, we have no idea if the Earth Zero Initiative is still a mandate.”
“That garbled message from Moscow might’ve been encouraging,” Murray said. “Too bad nobody on staff knows Russian.”
“It tells us that humans are still alive there. That’s a good thing.”
They came to a wooded path that ran along a creek that provided most of the community’s drinking water. Some enterprising people had developed a system of rainwater catches and basins, the beginnings of a municipal plumbing system, but without the raw materials and heavy equipment needed to lay miles of pipe, its completion was years in the future. Murray supported the effort, though—both to keep people occupied instead of dwelling on negativity and encouraging the illusion that they actually had a future.
“If only we could coordinate a worldwide nuke strike,” she said. “Surely Moscow has some operable warheads left in their vast arsenal. If we need a hundred to trigger nuclear winter and guarantee the extinction of all higher forms of life, then we’d only require a few each from Israel, Beijing, and France. We haven’t had any contact with New Delhi or Islamabad, and it’s difficult to know how they’d react to such a proposal.”
“Religious differences are insignificant now,” Arnold said, watching the creek for signs of mutant amphibians.
“Or maybe those differences become more stark,” Murray said. “You only see the devil you know, not the devil that’s actually doing the dirty work.”
“I’ve never known you to legislate by theology, Abigail,” he said, using her first name as he only did when no one else was around.
Besides Helen, but she’s gone.
Her loss deeply altered Murray’s optimism. Perhaps she’d been going through the motions all along to impress Helen. Arnold’s role was obvious, the strong right arm of the power she wielded. But Helen had been more than just the Director of Homeland Security—she was a personal touchstone and symbol of just what “home” meant.
Try as she might, she couldn’t separate her duties from her personal life. That was the cost of being human.
The crisp morning wind turned, heralding the Arctic fronts that would soon blow from the Northwest. They’d need more firewood, as well as more stores of food. Even with motorized vehicles and the remaining two helicopters, scavenger runs were reaching their limits. Soon they’d have to start producing most of their own food and quit relying so heavily on the agricultural and processing capabilities of their lost civilization.
I’m not sure we have the will and the stamina to pull that off. All the more reason to enact Directive 18 and bring down the
whole house of cards.
“My beliefs don’t matter,” Murray said. “What does matter is that others have beliefs.”
“We now know the threats are more varied than before,” Alexander said as they began scaling a rocky slope populated by hardwoods whose last few leaves clung as desperately to life as Murray’s community did.
“High-tech Zaps developing advanced weaponry, mutant predators prowling the land and sea and air, and primal Zaps driven to peel our faces from our skulls. Is that about it?”
Alexander stopped and gazed off a rocky, rhododendron-stippled promontory at the valley below. “You forgot the plasma sinks. We don’t yet understand the physics behind them, or the possible environmental effects.”
“The sinks power their weapons and somehow create a unifying telepathic bond,” Murray said. “Those are pretty solid theories supported by observation and evidence. We’ve tried to take those hand blasters apart and there’s no ‘there’ there—no internal power source. Yet they can burn holes in metal.”
“We now believe there’s another danger. We were getting low-level radiation readings anyway, just from the hundreds of nuclear power plants that melted down around the world when the power grid failed. We don’t have much of a science department, but examination of the crashed helicopter that brought us back from D.C.”—Alexander unconsciously touched his left arm that was still in a sling from that mission—“shows elevated levels of radiation exposure.”
“I know about the background radiation. Helen was monitoring that. But now it’s increasing?” Murray couldn’t help conjuring up ominous images of massive mushroom clouds, even though she was actively working up a plan to destroy the world through exactly such means.
“The helicopter was reading about twenty millisieverts, which used to be the maximum safe threshold for uranium miners, X-ray technicians, and nuclear scientists. But because of the chopper’s composition, the actual exposure was probably much higher.”
Murray had a hard time separating the silent, invisible contamination with the pastoral autumn colors of the Virginia valley, where dark green blended with ocher and scarlet. “Exactly how high?”
“Well, they ran the counter over me, and it’s around two hundred.”
Murray studied the man’s hooded eyes that were set into a wrinkled, gray face. She’d attributed his appearance to strain and exhaustion, but what if he was hiding a serious illness? It would be just like him to soldier on, refusing assistance, and keeping his shoulders thrown back and his chin up.
She tried to remember her high school science classes and the few committee reports she’d read on nuclear weapons and uranium processing. “So that’s like possible cancerous levels?”
“Increased risk, but no guarantees.” He said it with ambivalence. “The pilot registered less than ten, which suggests that my exposure on the ground caused the higher reading.”
“And that probably came from the plasma sink. The Calvert Cliffs plant is about forty air miles from D.C., but the prevailing winds would push any fallout to the Atlantic. It’s hard to believe that a meltdown would boost the readings so high.”
“Well, it sure didn’t help,” Alexander said. “But the team thinks my exposure is at least double what it would have been because of the plant alone, so, again, the evidence supports the theory. Those plasma sinks are spitting a dozen isotopes we don’t understand.”
Murray wiped her mouth in thought. In a clearing a hundred feet below, two children carried buckets of water while an armed woman escorted them, hauling a heavy and full plastic water tank on her back. The children sang a catchy tune she couldn’t place by a band that no longer mattered.
“This is good news,” she said.
“How so?”
“Every warhead we can deliver to a target will yield double or triple the payload,” she said. “More bang for the buck. That means we can possibly trigger an extinction event even without the other countries.”
“And that’s the good news?” Alexander asked. It was a rhetorical question, something he wasn’t prone to asking.
“It’s good in another way, too,” she said, turning away from the valley and continuing along the path through graying stands of poplar, birch, and oak. “Since the nuclear option is more realistic under this scenario, I’m less likely to rush into it. We have time to scout and research and attack.”
Alexander stopped behind her and she took five more steps before she realized she walked alone. When she turned, he said, “I know it’s Helen’s arena, but I’d be dishonoring her if I didn’t mention the possibility of a diplomatic solution.”
“Are you kidding me, Arnold? You of all people should know the Zaps want nothing more than our extermination. And not all of them are intelligent, anyway. Look at the ones that attacked us. They’re beyond reason. Even the organized ones are bloodthirsty. Christ, you were in a massacre and only made it home through sheer luck.”
“And don’t think I don’t feel guilty as hell about it. My men are probably lying out there getting picked over by vultures the size of an airplane, unless the Zaps came up with an even more fun use for them.”
“The only diplomacy would be our unconditional surrender. Why on Earth would they allow us to live when they don’t have to? We offer nothing to them, we have no essential role in the food chain, and we pose a threat to them, however small. I can’t see any reason they’d want us alive except out of scientific curiosity.” She paused and looked at the ground. “Or for sport.”
They were approaching one of the three secondary entrances to the caverns that were commonly used enough to keep sentries posted. The limestone cavern system stretched for miles, with tiny arteries and tunnels that were nearly endless. There were likely a number of other entrances, some on the opposite side of the mountain, far too many to maintain guards at all of them, even if the openings could be located. But this one, the South Face, was considered the main back door in the event of an emergency evacuation.
“Madame President on deck,” Alexander called to warn the sentry and prevent an accidental shooting.
When they received no answer, Alexander drew his sidearm and called again. Murray was unarmed, as was her custom, but she didn’t immediately feel a pervading sense of worry.
The guard could be in the bushes taking a leak or off getting a snack. Anyone would be bored sitting in one place for four hours with nobody to talk to and no cell phone or Internet. We’re only human.
She followed Alexander to the entrance, the surrounding forest now seeming thick and menacing with shadows. The entrance was roughly triangular, so that a person had to stoop to pass through, and cool, moist air wended from the darkness beyond.
A smooth, flat boulder jutted from the Appalachian dirt near the entrance, the spot where sentries usually sat to enjoy the sun’s warmth. Alexander called again, ducking his head inside the cave.
“Arnold,” Murray said.
He turned, angry and sheepish at this lapse a day after a surprise attack by rampaging mutants.
Murray pointed to the granite surface, where flies crawled over a thick splotch of clotted blood.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Gen. Alexander fired his pistol in the air as a warning.
“Go tell the others,” he said to Murray, preparing to enter the cavern.
“I’m coming with you.”
“No. It’s dark and dangerous, and you’ll be a liability. We need you alive no matter what.”
Murray didn’t exactly agree with that assessment. As leader, she understood the need to serve as an inspiration to her people. As commander-in-chief, though, she didn’t have to take orders from Alexander. As a human pissed off at the constant violence they all endured, she was ready to inflict some terror of her own.
Alexander was right. The rear escape route was cramped and dark, and she could easily become separated from him. Without a weapon, she was useless even if they happened to encounter the invaders.
“Okay. I’ll go. Be caref
ul.” She touched his uninjured arm, a burst of sentimentality that he would normally frown upon but, in the wake of Helen’s death, he now accepted with grace.
“I will,” he said, and was gone, moving with sprightly strides despite his age.
Murray retraced their path down the hill, sounding the alarm as she ran. She was out of breath by the time she reached the creek, where she encountered two soldiers with rifles and combat gear. She told them about the blood and warned that Zaps might’ve infiltrated the cave but could possibly be attacking the outside camp as well.
One gave her a pistol—she recognized it as a Beretta, a model she wasn’t very familiar with—and they both dashed into the woods to follow Alexander. The pistol gave her confidence but also ramped up her bloodlust and craving for revenge. Maybe there was some psychological connection between the means to kill and the desire.
More soldiers occupied outposts along the edge of camp, some in tree platforms and others dug into foxholes. Because this was an unconventional war, they’d also employed some strange tactics, such as hidden traps that would net any living creature that triggered them.
Some people rigged homemade booby traps and improvised explosives, a practice that Murray officially banned because of the danger to children. But now she was glad the troops pushed the limits of her authority, because they needed all the killing power they could muster.
A woman in a brown leather jacket and military cap waved a salute at her as she passed. “What is it, Madame President?”
“Zaps on the inside, we believe. Maintain your post unless ordered otherwise.”
“Aye-aye, ma’am.” She returned to her vigil.
Murray heard laughter in some scrub vegetation along the creek, and she pushed her way through to find two kids, aged nine or ten, splashing in ankle-deep water. Murray was doubly horrified—not only were they unsupervised, but the water harbored silent and deadly predators of unknown origin.
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