After (Book 3): Milepost 291

by Nicholson, Scott

  The man in the bedroom was maybe forty, and despite the mess he’d left in the bedroom and bathroom, he’d obviously taken some care of himself. His salt-and-pepper hair and mustache were neatly trimmed, and his cheeks were clean-shaven. Although his clothes were ill-fitting, they were free of wrinkles and tears. He was well-armed with a 12-gauge shotgun and two semi-automatic pistols. Franklin figured the guy had made the best of a bad situation.

  A situation which had just gotten worse.

  “Who are you?” Hayes asked him, his semiautomatic fixed on the man, whose own shotgun was pointed toward the ceiling. Bandana Boy also aimed at the man, although from a much closer distance. Franklin could tell Bandana Boy was just waiting for the man to twitch or cough.

  “Nobody,” the man said in a low, flat voice.

  “You’re under the jurisdiction of Milepost 291 and Sgt. Harold Schrader. We don’t allow nobodies on our territory.”

  “Just trying to survive. I’m not hurting anybody.”

  Franklin admired the man’s attitude: fearless, calm, and cautious. Hayes and Bandana Boy, on the other hand, acted more like doped-up members of a street gang than people trained by the U.S. military.

  “We decide who does the hurting,” Bandana Boy said.

  “Where do you get your supplies?” Hayes said.

  The man rolled his eyes to the left, indicating some direction south. “Country store three miles down that way. A little community called Stonewall.”

  “You expect us to believe you walk three miles for food? Why don’t you just stay near the store?”

  “Safer here.”

  Franklin wondered where Jorge had gone. The Mexican had managed to slip away with none of the others noticing. May as well make a run for it. You have a better chance on your own.

  “Have you seen any Zaps around?” Hayes asked.

  The man nodded, the butt of the shotgun locked against his hip.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Along the road, in the woods. None around here, though. That’s why I stay here.”

  “You know what, Hayes?” Bandana Boy said, voice rising in excitement. “I think there’s somebody else here. I don’t think he could have carried all that food by himself, not that far. And there were tampons in the bathroom.”

  The stranger’s fingers visibly whitened as they gripped the shotgun harder. Franklin took a couple of steps back, anticipating a showdown. “Go easy,” Franklin said. “We’re all on the same side here.”

  “And which side is that, Wheeler?” Hayes said.

  “Survival. The human side. You and Sarge can fight turf wars all you want, but we don’t know how many Zapheads are out there. Could be millions, for all we know.”

  “Probably not millions,” the man said. “Not judging from the population density I’ve observed.”

  The man glanced to the left again, and now Franklin realized he was looking at the closet door. Was someone in there? Should he warn Hayes? He eased a couple of steps toward the exit in case a shootout erupted.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Hayes said. “We’ll kick their asses eventually, even if we have to go hand to hand.”

  “Anybody with you?” Bandana Boy asked the man.

  The man flinched just a little, and Franklin noticed the hesitation. “Just me.”

  “Want to put down that shotgun real slow?”

  “Put yours down first. This is my house.”

  Franklin had to admit the man had balls, although he suspected Bandana Boy was about to deliver a rapid-fire castration.

  “Hey,” Franklin said. “Sarge said no prisoners, but he didn’t say anything about recruits, did he? This fellow”—he glanced at the man—“What’s your name?”

  “Robertson.”

  “Robertson looks like he knows how to handle a weapon, and he sure knows how to improvise. If we’re fighting the Zaps, shouldn’t we better keep every fighter we can get?”

  “Shut up,” Hayes said to Franklin. “I’m in command of this patrol.”

  Sounds like somebody’s feeling his oats. A man on a power trip. I bet Sarge is sleeping with one eye open.

  “Okay, no problem.” Robertson eased the shotgun onto the bed beside him. “If I wanted trouble, I would have shot you when you came through the door.”

  A soft thump issued from the closet. Bandana Boy spun and unleashed a hail of semiautomatic fire, the report pummeling Franklin’s ears. Splinters and drywall dust exploded from the waist-high row of pockmarks as the room filled with the stench of gunpowder.

  Robertson roared in rage and dug at his hip for a sidearm, but Hayes jutted his gun barrel into Robertson’s gut to stop him. Bandana Boy, almost dancing with sadistic joy, yanked the closet door open to count coup.

  “Get him?” Hayes said, keeping his eyes and his weapon fixed on Robertson, who groaned in rage.

  “Her.”

  Franklin pushed past Hayes, who cussed under his breath. Robertson rose from the bed and took a step toward the closet, but Hayes drove the tip of his rifle into his gut hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs. Then Franklin saw her and understood why Robertson had been so well armed. She was probably fourteen, maybe fifteen, huddled in blankets so that only her face was showing. Her blue eyes were wide and frightened, and blonde wisps of hair curved around her cheeks. If she hadn’t been bundled up on the floor, Bandana Boy’s bullets would have ripped her to shreds.

  “Get back,” Franklin said to Bandana Boy, stepping in front of him and kneeling to the girl. He didn’t see any blood, but she could have been struck by shrapnel. “Are you okay, honey?”

  She stared past him at Robertson, whom Franklin assumed was her dad. Her mouth opened but no words came out.

  She’s probably in shock.

  “What’s your name?” Franklin asked. A hot ring of metal pressed into his neck, scorching his flesh, and he slapped away the gun muzzle that had inflicted the pain.

  “She’s mine,” Bandana Boy said. “Finder’s keepers.”

  Robertson let out a roar of anguish and leapt for Bandana Boy, but Hayes swung the butt of his rifle into the back of the charging man’s skull. The crack was so loud that it surely caused a concussion, and the man flopped heavily to the floor.

  “Daddy!” the girl wailed, and crawled out of the blankets toward him.

  “Get out,” Bandana Boy said to Franklin, pressing the gun against his neck a second time. Franklin balled his fists, stood, and eyed the shotgun on the bed, but Hayes shook his head to deter him.

  “Been way too long for Jimbo,” Hayes said. “I wouldn’t mess with a man who’s been deprived.”

  “She’s just a child,” Franklin said.

  “Not for much longer.” Bandana Boy grabbed her by the back of her jacket and yanked her to her feet. She kicked and screamed, and he snickered wetly in response.

  “Get out of here,” Hayes said to Franklin. “If you behave, maybe you can have a turn later. If you got anything that still works, that is.”

  Both men erupted into animalistic laughter, and Bandana Boy shoved Robertson’s shotgun to the floor and flung the girl onto the bed. He leaned his own rile against the headboard, climbed atop the girl, and straddled her, loosening his belt buckle. Robertson’s head oozed a dark thread of blood, and his splayed fingers twitched.

  Lord, I don’t ask for much, but please let him be dead so he doesn’t have to hear what’s coming next.

  “Better hurry,” Hayes said to Bandana Boy. “The others probably heard the shots and they’ll be coming around before long.” To Franklin, he said, “Now get out of here, you old goat, unless you want to watch a real man in action.”

  Franklin turned as if to leave the room and saw Jorge in the hall, just outside the door. From the angle, neither Hayes nor Bandana Boy could see him. Jorge gave a slow nod, his dark face nearly rippling with barely suppressed rage. Franklin could imagine these pigs treating Jorge’s daughter Marina in the same manner. And so, apparently, could Jorge, judging by the tight
grip he held on the fire poker.

  Franklin walked back to the closet, eliciting a sharp command from Hayes. “Stop it, you bastard.”

  “Thought I saw something,” Franklin said, rubbing at the burn on his neck. The girl whimpered and slapped at Bandana Boy, who only laughed at her struggles as he tried to undress.

  Jorge burst into the room, swinging the poker in a two-handed grip as if it were a baseball bat. The metal bar thwacked Hayes across the back of the skull, cracking bone and jolting the semiautomatic from his hands. Franklin dove for the shotgun, joints shrieking in agony, and he came up with it just as Bandana Boy realized the party was over.

  “Don’t do it,” Franklin said, but the man glanced at him and then Jorge, a sinister smirk crossing his face.

  “You ain’t got the balls,” Bandana Boy said, going for his rifle. Franklin pulled the trigger and painted the walls with the top of his head. The girl screamed beneath him as the corpse wobbled for a moment and collapsed, the soggy bandana dropping to the floor with nothing left to hold it in place.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “You’ve got a fever,” Campbell whispered in Rachel’s ear.

  Despite the anxiety of the circumstances, collecting her from amid the circle of curious Zapheads, he was struck by the clean scent of her hair and skin. Her odor emanating from her leg, though…

  Campbell was afraid to lay her on the table, especially with the Zaps huddled around, watching intently. He didn’t trust the bedroom, either, not considering the atrocities they’d committed on Pamela, so he carried her to the living room.

  “Where are we?” Rachel said.

  “Where are we?” a doddering, toothless old Zaphead said. Immediately other Zapheads took up the phrase, cacophonous at first but rapidly falling into a uniform, deafening chorus.

  “Shhh,” Campbell whispered as he carried her through the hallway to the living room. “Don’t say anything.”

  Soon the echo died away to murmurs, and the Zapheads crowded around as he laid her on the couch. Their cries must have summoned the professor, because his boots drummed down the stairs, followed by whatever group of Zaps he’d been attempting to teach.

  “You…you’re living with them?” Rachel whispered.

  “I wouldn’t call it a life, but it still beats the alternative.”

  The professor entered the living room, and Campbell was startled at the change in him. He’d draped a filthy sheet around his shoulders like some mad Roman emperor and he appeared to be naked beneath. The Zapheads that followed him into the room were nude, including the young Goth Zap he’d been eyeing, and Campbell turned his head away in disgust and shock. He couldn’t even admire them on a physical level, like a farmer might appreciate a prize heifer, because they were so alien and threatening.

  Holy Christ, I wonder what the professor is teaching them up there.

  Rachel looked wildly around, her breath coming in panicked gasps, no doubt having a hard time processing an entire houseful of Zapheads. “Let me out!” she shouted, trying to sit up.

  The Zapheads immediately repeated the phrase, with various inflections and cadences, until once again they built into a massive chorus that seemed to shake the walls. The professor flung open his makeshift robe, raised his arms in the air, and then brought his hands under his chin, palms together. The Zapheads followed suit, and the professor waited until every head was bowed and every eye closed.

  Campbell clamped a hand over Rachel’s mouth and restrained her, and soon she grew exhausted and lay back down, muttering “Sweet Jesus” over and over. The professor eased through the ring of nearly-catatonic Zapheads surrounding the couch, kneeling beside Campbell.

  “I like your new fashion move,” Campbell murmured.

  “Clothes are an ego attachment of the old ways,” the professor said.

  Campbell wasn’t ready for a philosophical debate. If the professor saw himself as some sort of New Age cult leader of the damned, well, at least it gave him a purpose. That was more than Campbell had going. Except now he had a chance to help someone. A real person, not these parroting, sociopathic mockeries of human beings.

  “How long has your leg been like this?” Campbell asked Rachel as he removed the bandage from her leg. His nose crinkled at the odor of rancid flesh.

  “Two weeks.”

  “Infection’s bad. You’ve got a fever, too.”

  “Got some antibiotics in my backpack—”

  “Which is out in the field,” Campbell said.

  “Too late for medicine,” the professor said, keeping his voice low so that it was disguised by the background murmuring of the Zapheads. “Gangrene has set in.”

  “Gangrene?” Rachel said. “No, I’ll be fine. Just need to walk it off.”

  “You’re not walking anywhere,” the professor said. “You’re home now.”

  Rachel raised her voice. “What the hell—” and the murmurs rose and fell, now discordant as unease rippled among the four dozen or so Zapheads crammed into the living room. Campbell put his finger to his lips and she finished in a whisper. “I’m not home. I’m headed for Milepost 291. And I have to find Stephen.”

  “That little boy that was with you in Taylorsville?” Campbell wondered if she was delirious. The infection was likely poisoning her whole system. The boy could be dead and she might be in denial.

  “He’s in the woods all alone,” she whispered.

  “You won’t be any good to him if you die,” the professor said, examining her leaky wound. The flesh around the gash was gray, while bubbling pustules cratered up from the raw opening.

  “We need to remove her pants,” the professor said.

  Campbell glanced around at the looming faces and their strange, glittering eyes, lips working as they mumbled. “No way are we getting a knife out in this crowd. They see you cutting her pants away and who knows how they’ll interpret it?”

  “If they wanted to kill me, they would have killed me in the woods,” Rachel said. “I told you, my leg’s fine.”

  With a lurch of effort, she propelled herself upward, attempting to stand. The sudden motion triggered silence among the Zapheads. Before anyone could react, her leg gave way and she collapsed back onto the couch. The Zapheads flailed and swayed in imitation of her movement, each of them falling to the floor. The scene would have been comic if it hadn’t been so unnatural and bizarre.

  The professor slid his makeshift robe from his shoulders and draped the sheet over Rachel. “We’ll fix you,” he whispered.

  Naked, the professor turned to the Zapheads and crouched low, and then stood, motioning them up with his hands. They stood in unison, focusing on him instead of Rachel. The Zap woman Campbell thought might be the professor’s love interest moved to his side and pressed her nude flesh against his.

  Campbell put a hand on Rachel’s forehead, and then stroked her hair to comfort her. Then he untied her boots and removed them. The professor and Campbell rolled up the sheet so her wound was exposed while most of her body remained covered.

  “What do you think?” Campbell whispered, so low that even Rachel couldn’t hear.

  The professor’s gray eyes were solemn but glinted with a mad inner knowledge. “We’ll have to amputate.”

  “Shit,” Campbell said. “No way.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Rachel said, woozily. Exhaustion must have finally hit her like a midnight tide rolling in.

  “She’ll either lose her leg or her life,” the professor said.

  “You’re not a doctor.”

  “No, but I’m a scientist. I know necrotic flesh when I see it, and I know what blood poisoning can do if it reaches the heart.”

  Campbell nodded at the Zapheads. “What about them? You think they’ll just watch like it’s the Packers and Bears teeing off on Monday night football? The first cut and they might go wild. There won’t be enough of her left to fill a chili bowl.”

  “Hey,” Rachel called out, apparently unaware of the professor’s diagn
osis. “Just get me fixed so I can find Stephen.”

  “Hey,” repeated four dozen Zaphead voices. “Hey hey hey.”

  Campbell smelled the wound once more, then headed for the kitchen to get a knife.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Looks like we’re soldiers now,” Jorge said, standing sentry by the front door.

  “Oh, hell no,” Franklin said, checking the magazine of the semiautomatic he’d taken from Hayes. “They’re solders. We’re freedom fighters.”

  Robertson had regained consciousness but was in no shape to fight off the rest of the squad. But Franklin wasn’t even sure the other soldiers had heard the gunfire; otherwise, they would have come barging in minutes ago. Still, he wasn’t going to leave the young lady and her dad until he was sure they were safe.

  At least as safe as anyone could be in After.

  “Does it bother you?” Jorge asked, scanning the yard and the surrounding houses.

  “Does what bother me?”

  “Killing.”

  “You know I treat my goats and chickens like royalty. But those things…” Franklin spat in disgust. “They’re lower than animals. Lower than Zaps, even.”

  “I am ashamed,” Jorge said. “Not for killing them, but because I no longer feel any regret. Or anything.”

  “You ought to feel like a goddamned hero,” Franklin said. “You probably saved that girl’s life. If not her life, at least whatever chance she had at a future.”

  “If that would have been Marina, I would hope someone would do the same.”

  “You’re worried sick about your family, aren’t you?”

  “Some things are in God’s hands.”

  “Well, it was God’s hands that just got yours bloody, so I’d put plenty of salt on that wafer before I swallowed it.” Franklin checked the living-room window, and then looked in the kitchen. “They’re stocked with food and supplies.”

  “Do we take them with us?”

  “They’re better off staying put. They’ve got a system that works, and Zapheads haven’t bothered them. They’re making it.”

  A muted thunderclap erupted in the distance, followed by a staccato burst of noise.