She assumed the earlier missing children had been taken by some kind of water moccasin or freshwater eel, but the possibilities were nearly endless—salamanders, muskrats, minks, rats, anything could have mutated into a lethal predator.
“Come along, guys,” she said, staying calm and cheerful despite her urgency.
“Aw, do we got to?” said the older boy.
“Yes. It’s almost lunch time.” She glanced warily around, knowing if a pack attacked she would have a hard time defending them.
“Why you got a gun?” said the other.
“I have a gun because we live in a dangerous world. But it’s less dangerous when you can protect yourself. Which is why you should always have a grownup around when you’re playing.”
“Grownups don’t let us have no fun.”
“That’s why we’re grownups. Now come along and let’s see if we can find some candy for dessert. Hurry.”
Murray scanned the silver-green surface of the water for movement. The kids padded barefoot onto the bank and then broke into a sprint, giggling, tagging, and racing each other. Murray felt the great weight of her responsibility to protect them and preserve their innocence, a constant conflict with her duty to destroy the entire world if necessary.
But she also couldn’t let them go into the caverns, so when she caught up with them, she placed them under the care of an older man with a shotgun, cowboy hat, and lawn chair sitting near the camp’s motor pool. The kids protested but Murray told them lunch would be a little late today.
A fusillade of gunfire sounded on the far end of the camp, where a path led to a third entrance to the cave network. Murray came to a clearing leading to the main entrance of Luray Caverns, where extra sentries were posted in the wake of yesterday’s sudden attack.
Half a dozen troops stood on each side of the entrance as well as on the hill above her. Apparently the Zaps had learned from their full frontal assault, because no mutants charged from the woods facing them. She waved to three men in full camo uniforms to follow her inside, and she was barely out of daylight’s reach when she heard the first scream.
Oh God, they’re really in here.
Muffled gunfire came from distant side tunnels and limestone avenues, their direction and origin difficult to place in the labyrinthine network of eroded calcite. She ran to the tented city with her improvised squad, yelling at people to gather their family members and weapons and evacuate to the camp outside.
But the couple of hundred civilians inside the cavern had grown complacent after the years huddled in the dimness. True, they were anxious after yesterday’s attack, but that had been Outside, which was almost a different country to them. Even though all of them ventured out into the sunlight once in a while, psychologically they were creatures of permanent darkness, even with the tiny electric lights and various lamps, candles, and small campfires.
Murray ordered the three soldiers deeper into the cavern, hoping to stunt any Zap attack that might come from the unexplored recesses of the cave system. She shouted and pushed at the people who staggered around in confusion. Murray now realized they should’ve developed and practiced emergency evacuations, but they’d all become complacent, expecting the military forces outside to serve as a protective barrier.
That’s what happens when you lose your self-reliance. You get soft and then you die.
“Everybody out!” she yelled, and a deafening gunshot rang near her ear.
She leaned back to see a woman aiming at a series of ragged shelves just above the tents, where thick stalactites hung down from the ancient drip of minerals. Two small orbs of dancing orange light hovered in the darkness.
The woman fired again, and a shadowy form separated from the black crevice and launched itself into the tents. One of the tents collapsed in a billowing of canvas and nylon, and someone inside screamed.
The Zap rose from the wreckage, a raw red hole in its abdomen. Murray couldn’t judge its gender, but her instinct would’ve been to call the young, long-haired creature a female. She leveled the Beretta, disengaged the thumb safety, and fired. The bullet struck high, chipping bone from one side of its skull, but it didn’t drop.
Instead, it charged Murray, teeth bared in a snarl but no sound issuing forth. She calmly fired again, hoping the magazine was full. This time she hit it dead center in the chest, and the Zap flopped onto the tent, twitching and leaking on the rumpled fabric.
She realized the savage mutants would be easy to hunt in the dark because of their eyes. The people here in the main section of their underground community were the most vulnerable due to the chaos and the relatively bright lighting.
But without an evacuation, they were in danger of inflicting casualties through friendly fire. A few more muffled shots came from the deep caverns, so the attack must’ve been on a scale mirroring the previous day’s numbers, when they’d eventually collected and burned two dozen dead Zaps.
The difference this time was they would never know when the job was done—Zaps could hide in the smallest of niches or fill deep chasms with a silent army, and then come out in the middle of the night days or weeks later.
Even if they cleaned out this swarm of killers, more could infiltrate at any time from the numerous hidden entrances. The fear would weigh on the occupants at every moment, leaving them nervous, exhausted, and unsettled.
We’re done here. Luray is no longer safe.
A scream pealed from inside a tent. She ran toward it, dread building inside her. She knew this tent well. Takeesha and her extended family lived here. She yanked back the flap and entered, momentarily disoriented by the sudden darkness. “Takeesha!”
Something slammed into her from the side and she went down, her fall cushioned by what could only be a body. Fingernails raked into her skin, ripping shallow furrows that leaked slippery fluid. She tried to roll free, but the Zap scrabbled atop her with a fierceness that frightened her.
Murray turned and the thing’s eyes were just above her, boring down like twin gateways to hell. She jammed the muzzle of the pistol into one of them and popped off three shots. Gruesome juice dripped onto her face before she could push the corpse away.
Takeesha scurried inside the tent carrying a lantern whose flame bobbed wildly and threatened to go out. “Oh my Lord, what’s happening here? Hope? Hope? Where are you?”
Three bodies lay on the floor of the tent—the filthy Zap, one of the women who lived with Takeesha, and a small, frail form that lay on its stomach.
Takeesha uttered a forlorn wail and dropped to her knees. As the mother embraced her child with a desperate and futile hug, wracked with great sobs, Murray gazed at the pallid, smooth face that should never have known such horrors.
The symbolic had become literal.
Hope was dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The first ten miles were the hardest.
They took Highway 421 east, the divided four-lane a graveyard of dusty vehicles and skeletal passengers belted in for safety on their eternal ride. The vegetation in the median had already gone to the second stage of succession, briars and young saplings rising above the bowed, golden-seeded weeds. Here and there dried heaps of spoor suggested a herd of animals working its way along the open route in lieu of the surrounding forests.
Rachel wasn’t sure if the mystery animals did so in order to avoid predators or because the underbrush was tastier than the browsing offered by the trees. Her perceptions seemed to be keener since Kokona’s recent resurrection—her vision and hearing were sharper and had extended range, and even her taste buds were finely attuned, as the contaminated soot lay heavy on her tongue.
Behind them, the skyline was thick with red haze, a writhing dark cloud hovering over Wilkesboro like a living organism. Rachel forced herself to keep DeVontay, Marina, and the others in mind—they’re alive, they made it.
But with each step, their memories and faces dimmed, and she would have to work to retain whatever humanity remained inside her.
&n
bsp; Because of this, she spoke aloud, even though she didn’t need sound vibrations in order to converse with the baby she carried.
“Why did you do it?” Rachel asked.
Kokona adopted a sly grin, knowing she could select whichever thoughts she chose to share or hide, despite their psychic link. In this as in all things, Kokona possessed total control. “Why did I do what?”
“Destroy the city. Marina said you went there to take over Wilkesboro, rule it, and summon an army. You had an energy source and a way to consolidate your power.”
“The plasma sink was always intended as a bomb. Just as all of them are, everywhere. The energy is just a nice fringe benefit that allows new technology.”
“I can understand why you want to exterminate us,” Rachel said. “But why not wait until the army is in the blast zone? And why destroy your own kind?”
“Because ‘my kind’ is a bigger threat than the humans are. Do you seriously believe humans merit any real strategic consideration? They’ll die out soon enough under their own steam. Or rather, the lack of it. They’ve always been a failed evolutionary mistake, a biological experiment gone wrong. We, on the other hand—”
“How could you be threatened by other Zaps? You’re smarter than all of them and you tell them what to do.”
“In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the country of the one-eyed men, the two-eyed man is king. I want to have three eyes.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll see, Rachel. You’ll soon see.”
Rachel’s gaze reflected on the baby’s dark, beautiful, almond face and radiated all the myriad colors of the plasma sink. It was a symptom of the latest change, the next rung on the ladder of her personal evolution. But the world was changing alongside her, too, adopting new laws, new life forms, new purpose.
It was a world that was leaving humans behind, just like she was.
She sensed more than felt the faint quiver of the pavement beneath her. She would’ve ascribed it as a side effect of her recent experience in Ground Zero if not for the crucifix swinging by a chain. It swung gently back and forth from the Honda’s rearview mirror, the cross glinting in the hazy light cast by a dust-veiled sun.
Kokona’s eyes brightened as the vibration carried up through Rachel’s body and to her chest where the baby was nestled. “We should get off the road.”
Rachel probed Kokona’s mind, but Kokona wouldn’t let her in. Rachel glanced at the woods on each side of her, but she was wary of the creatures that might be lurking there. A soft thudding resonated in the distance, rhythmic and growing louder as it approached.
Rachel opened the Honda’s rear passenger door. A small skeleton sat buckled in the seat, a faded paperback resting between the ivory-colored hip bones. The grinning skull was turned toward her, eyeholes gaping.
Holding Kokona with one arm, she dragged the skeleton to the road and climbed in. An even tinier skeleton was strapped in a child safety seat behind the driver, a pink blanket bundled around its legs. Rachel tugged the blanket up so that it completely covered the body, and then crawled into the car, closed the door, and huddled in the floorboard with Kokona in her arms.
The booming footsteps came near and then moved alongside the car. They paused for a moment, causing Rachel’s heart to race. She wanted to risk a glance but was afraid her eyes would give her away. And part of her didn’t want to know what this new evolution had spawned.
She heard a moist chuff as the thing sniffed at the windows. An acrid reptilian odor assailed her, so strong she almost coughed. She clenched her muscles around Kokona, silently imploring the baby not to move. Kokona’s mental mood was one of mirth and triumph, as if the mutant would survive no matter what.
We’re both survivors. No wonder we share such a deep bond.
Then the footsteps resumed along the pavement, scraping and clicking along the surface of the road. There was a dull thump as the unseen beast shoved aside a vehicle in its path, and then the steps grew more and more distant.
Several minutes after they faded completely, Rachel opened her eyes. The passenger window was smeared with a streak of congealed goo, the musk of the predator lingering.
Kokona said, “Time to go.”
“Where?”
“The country of the two-eyed men. To kill a king.”
“What about my people?”
“We are your people now.”
“No. I mean DeVontay and Franklin and Marina and Stephen.”
Kokona giggled. “Look at yourself, Rachel. You can never go back.”
Rachel sat up, helplessly hugging Kokona despite her anguish. The gilded crucifix made a slow spin on its twisted chain, the old and discarded symbol of faith burning with the red sky of a new dawn.
Then she saw her face reflected in the rearview mirror.
Tears poured down her cheeks as brilliant and colorful as radioactive rainbows.
THE END
NEXT #4: DIRECTIVE 17
In a contaminated wasteland, Rachel Wheeler and an intelligent mutant baby find shelter in a silver city where neither belongs.
As the dwindling human race desperately fights to survive, they’re forced to adapt to the mutant technology and the new race that threatens them with extinction. But the hostile environment poses other threats as well—strange creatures and giant predators roam the wilderness, fueled by the mysterious radiation leaking from the advanced cities.
Rachel’s friends come to the rescue, but they discover she’s crossed a border from which no human ever returns. But something else might…
See it at Amazon.com or Amazon UK
Look for the rest of the series on Kindle:
NEXT #1: AFTERBURN at Amazon US or Amazon UK
NEXT #2: EARTH ZERO at Amazon US or Amazon UK
NEXT #4: DIRECTIVE 17 at Amazon US or Amazon UK
NEXT #5: CRUCIBLE
NEXT #6: HALF LIFE
Look for After #1: The Shock free at Amazon or at Amazon UK!
AFTER: THE SHOCK
Book 1 in the post-apocalyptic series
By Scott Nicholson
A massive solar storm erases the world's technological infrastructure and kills billions. While the remaining humans are struggling to adapt and survive, they notice that some among them have...changed.
Rachel Wheeler finds herself alone in the city, where violent survivors known as "Zapheads" roam the streets, killing and destroying. Her only hope is to reach the mountains, where her grandfather, a legendary survivalist, established a compound in preparation for Doomsday.
Other survivors are fleeing the city, but Zapheads aren't the only danger. Rogue bands of military soldiers want to impose their own order in the crumbling ruins of civilization. When Rachel discovers a 10-year-old boy, she vows to care for him even at the risk of her own life.
And the Zapheads are evolving, developing communal skills even as they lay waste to the society they will eventually replace.
Get After #1: The Shock free at Amazon US or Amazon UK
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
An After spinoff series
By Scott Nicholson and Joshua Simcox
When Mackie Dailey survives a cataclysmic solar storm that wipes out civilization and mutates others into violent killers, he seeks out the one person he cares about most.
But when he returns to a college campus looking for Allie, he discovers she is a Zaphead—nearly unrecognizable as the human he once loved. Mackie becomes caught in a power struggle among a small group of survivors who turn the campus into a stronghold against the Zaphead threat. His old nemesis, Lucas Krider, has taken charge, but Krider’s vision of a new world is just as horrifying as the extinction they all face.
Will Mackie sacrifice himself so the group has a chance to survive, or will his demons turn out to be more dangerous than the strange, rampaging creatures that nature has unleashed?
See Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder at Amazon or Amazon UK
***
Scott Nicholson is the international bestselling author of more than 20 thrillers, including The Home, Disintegration, Liquid Fear, and Speed Dating with the Dead. His books have appeared in the Kindle Top 100 more than a dozen times in five different countries.
Visit his website at AuthorScottNicholson.com or view his Amazon Author Central page. Sign up for the Tao of Boo newsletter for giveaways and book releases.
Thanks to Sharon Stogner at Devil in the Details editing, as well as proofreaders Meghan Gurley and Frank Pero, and technical advisor Steve Lowe, SSRG (R).
VIEW OTHER KINDLE BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON:
Novels
After #0: First Light
After #1: The Shock
After #2: The Echo
After #3: Milepost 291
After#4: Whiteout
After #5: Red Scare
After #6: Dying Light
Next #1: Afterburn
Next #2: Earth Zero
Next #3: Radiophobia
Next #4: Directive 17
Next #5: Crucible
Next #6: Half Life
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
Zapheads #2: Scars and Ashes
Zapheads #3: Blood and Frost
The Scarecrow (Solom #1)
The Narrow Gate (Solom #2)
The Preacher (Solom #3)
The Home
McFall
Creative Spirit
Disintegration
The Red Church
Speed Dating with the Dead
The Skull Ring
Drummer Boy
The Harvest
Kiss Me or Die
Liquid Fear
Chronic Fear
Cursed (with J.R. Rain)
Bad Blood (with J.R. Rain & H.T. Night)
Spider Web (with J.R. Rain)
Radiophobia: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 3) Page 19