Kiki’s brown eyes flashed with anger but DeVontay laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “The kids,” he said. “We have to keep our cool.”
“You’re right,” she said, putting her arm around one of the children. “Okay, which way do we go?”
“I’m going this way,” Angelique said, strolling outside across the loading dock toward the main gate.
“Stop,” DeVontay barked at her. “If Rooster sees you, he’ll know we broke out.”
She turned and gave a mocking, seductive smirk. “If Rooster sees me, he’ll forget all about Zapheads. I’d rather be taken care of than stumble around out in the woods eating roots and berries. Been there, done there. I’d rather earn my keep on my back, the old-fashioned way.”
She hopped off the dock, her shirt tails blowing behind her as she sauntered away.
“Want me to stop her?” Kiki asked DeVontay.
“Nah, let her go. If we head out now, we’ll be gone before Rooster’s gang realizes it. Besides, she’d just bitch the whole time anyway.”
That drew a tired grin from Kiki. “Okay, what’s the plan?”
A minute later, they were traipsing up the bank like it was recess at a charter school, Kiki carrying the toddler and Carole shepherding the stragglers from the rear. The gunfire had eased off a little but was spread across a larger region, suggesting Rooster’s fighters had either gotten separated or else some of them had been killed by Zapheads. DeVontay and Stephen hurried ahead so that they reached the fence first, and the man in the fedora shook his head in disbelief.
“You’re even crazier than you look,” the man said, holding out his hand.
DeVontay passed the wire-cutters to him. “That’s good, because I’ve still got plenty of crazy that nobody’s ever seen.”
“Any Zaps out there?” Stephen asked, peering through the fence as he clung to the chain links.
“Haven’t seen a one,” the man answered, snipping links down in a row to create an opening. To DeVontay, he said, “What are you going to do with all these kids?”
“You ever heard of the Underground Railroad?”
“Escaped slaves and all that?”
“Yeah. Same thing, except all we got is the Little Red Caboose.”
Shouts erupted in the front of the compound, near the main gate. Shots rang out in unison, and DeVontay noticed the sentries atop the water tower were now gone. He had just enough of a view to see figures pouring through the gate, several staggering and falling as more gunfire erupted.
“Goddamn, we’ve been breached,” the man said, hurriedly digging into the links with the cutters.
“Hey,” Stephen said. “I see something.”
DeVontay followed Stephen’s pointing arm and saw motion in the trees. He hoped it was one of Rooster’s men, but when he saw the ragged clothes, he knew the Zapheads had likely surrounded the compound. A man howled in agony below them.
The gap in the fence was now wide enough for escape, but DeVontay was no longer sure that was the right move. The man peeled back the severed section of fence, looked at all the kids, and said to DeVontay, “Three seconds and I’m out of here. Three…two…one…”
“Go on,” Kiki said. “Heroes first.”
DeVontay stepped back and looked around, now unsure. Or maybe scared.
One of the boys slipped from Kiki’s grasp and scrambled through the opening. DeVontay snatched at him but missed, and then the kid bounced up and headed into the forest.
Stephen gave DeVontay an imploring look. “What if that was me?”
DeVontay shook his head in dismay. “Damn it,” he muttered, and squeezed through the gap in the fence, the jagged wires digging into his flesh like predator’s talons. Before he untangled himself, the boy screamed, and so did Kiki. A Zaphead emerged from the low branches and headed for the kid, not staggering, not hesitating, not hurrying, just taking care of business.
“Shoot it!” DeVontay yelled at the man.
“Are you crazy? They’ll swarm all over us.”
DeVontay grabbed for the man’s rifle but he stepped out of reach. Stephen beat the man on the back with his fists, saying, “Give him the gun.”
The kid’s scream caused DeVontay to turn back to the forest. Three more Zapheads appeared out of nowhere. The kid fled but he seemed to have lost his sense of direction in his panic. Instead of returning to the opening, he made a beeline for a point farther along the fence.
The Zapheads were on him in seconds, and he kicked and struggled as they lifted him off the ground. With gunfire clattering all around them now, DeVontay had a sense of a larger panic, movement just beyond his vision. Kiki ran along the opposite side of the fence and tried to climb it, ignoring DeVontay’s pleas for her to stop. She scrambled up several feet before she lost her grip and tumbled to the ground, landing awkwardly. DeVontay was still trying to free himself from the snags when she stood and limped forward to try again.
By then, the Zapheads had swept the boy into the forest, and only his muffled cries remained.
DeVontay shifted his rage to the man in the fedora. “I’m going to kill you.”
“To hell with you,” he said, backing away. “To hell with all of you. I told you it’s every man for himself, and I don’t give a shit if it’s kids or women or even granny there.”
The man galloped down the bank, nearly tumbling before regaining his footing, and soon he vanished around the side of the slaughterhouse. DeVontay finally freed himself and ran to Kiki, pulling her off the fence. “It’s no good,” he said. “He’s gone.”
She collapsed in his arms, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. He knew she was strong. She’d had to be, to take care of those kids in such horrible conditions, and now she wouldn’t even let herself break down.
“Let’s go,” he whispered. “That way wasn’t safe anyway.”
“I thought we were breaking into groups.”
“Plan B,” he said. “We’re going back to the slaughterhouse and wait it out.”
“What if the Zapheads take over the compound and never leave?”
“We’ll worry about that when the time comes. Right now, we don’t have a chance out here in the open.”
As they made their way back to the loading area, DeVontay cursed himself for his lack of leadership. Maybe it would have been better if I’d just skipped out with Stephen. We’d probably be clear of this place by now.
But as he watched Kiki patiently helping a barefoot young girl who winced with each step, he knew that would have been the cowardly approach.
Funny how it’s every man for himself, but the only real men I’ve met in After are women.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“You okay?” Franklin asked.
Jorge grunted, sitting cross-legged on the rocky promontory with his semiautomatic weapon across his lap. The Zapheads had carried off the corpses of the Robertson, Shay, and the two dead soldiers, as well as the dead Zaphead, and the auditory memory of their feet shuffling through the leaves still reverberated in Franklin’s skull.
Or maybe that was the concussion playing hell with his nerves.
Franklin examined the wound in Jorge’s side. “You’re lucky it passed right through without hitting any organs.”
“I don’t feel so lucky,” Jorge said.
Franklin collected Shay’s jacket, which was all that remained of her besides a few bloodspots, and tore it into strips. He wrapped a couple of strips around Jorge’s abdomen and cinched them into a bandage. The bleeding had already stopped, and if infection didn’t set in, the wound would probably cause more pain and inconvenience than health risk.
Below them, muted gunfire echoed up from the valley. Without binoculars, Franklin couldn’t tell where the battle was raging. All he could see was the river winding through the heart of the valley and occasional stretches of asphalt that ran parallel to it.
“Doesn’t sound like Sarge’s men,” Franklin said. “I don’t think they’d dip that far away from the ridges. And most
of it doesn’t sound like semiautomatic fire. More like shotguns and small-caliber pistols.”
“Why didn’t you let me shoot them?” Jorge said, not listening.
“Because they would have killed you.”
“Maybe I should go after them.”
“What for? They’re all dead. If you get yourself killed on a wild goose chase, what do I tell your family?”
“My family’s dead, just like Robertson and Shay.”
“You have to keep hoping, hombre. Maybe we survived for a reason.”
“We survived because we’re cowards who wouldn’t fight back.”
Franklin rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers, wondering if he was hemorrhaging blood around his brain. Pressure might be building right now that could leave him blind or trigger a stroke or some type of seizure. That would be ironic—his central nervous system had proven immune to the mutating radiation of the solar flares but had succumbed to a little knock on the noggin.
“We can’t sit here and wait for dark,” Franklin said. “Sarge probably has patrols out after us, and the Zaps are liable to return. And I don’t particularly care to be caught in the middle. The way I see it, we can either find a house to hole up in, head on back to Milepost 291, or go down into the valley and see what’s going on. Personally, I’m getting a little tired of these war games. I’m ready to get back home.”
“Easy for you, since you have a home,” Jorge said. “This country is not even my home, not really. As much as I tried to fit in, teach my family to speak English first, I still don’t feel like I belong.”
“None of us belong anymore. May as well be here as anywhere.”
Franklin crawled well away from the ledge and leaned against a slender tree trunk, using it to help steady his legs as he stood. Aside from the painful rush of blood to his head and a moment of nausea, he felt well enough to walk.
“So, what’s your choice?” Franklin asked.
“Same as before. I’m not going anywhere until I find my family.”
Franklin nodded. “Milepost 291 will be there when you find them. Come on up, even if it’s winter or even spring. You’re always welcome.”
He limped into the forest, heading west, planning to backtrack toward Grandfather Mountain and find an abandoned house for the night, then continue his journey tomorrow.
“You’re forgetting something, hombre,” Jorge said.
Franklin turned with effort, fighting a wave of dizziness. “What?”
Jorge pointed to the several weapons lying on the ground. “Your gun.”
“No, I’m not doing that anymore. The Zapheads will kill anyone with a weapon, and I wouldn’t have any chance against a bunch of trained soldiers. From now on, I’m just counting on my wits, as sad as that sounds.”
Their eyes met, and Franklin realized he’d soon be alone for the first time since he’d met Jorge, Rosa, and Marina on a trail and invited them to stay at Wheelerville. Despite his long years spent in contented solitude, the thought of going solo now filled him with an indefinable fear. His vision of life after the apocalypse had never consisted of nights spent alone roasting wild game over a fire, or scrounging in the woods for nuts and berries like a naturalist.
No, the very reason he’d built his ridge top compound was because he expected company. Consciously, “company” had always meant Rachel, as well as any other family members who finally realized Franklin was right after all rather than a schizophrenic hermit. But he’d also prepared to cohabit with total strangers, and together find new ways of living that didn’t embrace the old structure that led to corruption, power struggles, and greed.
Wheelerville at Milepost 291 had been designed as more of a libertarian utopia than anything else. After all, Franklin hadn’t hoarded high-grade explosives or chemical weapons—partly because he didn’t want to draw any more government interest than necessary, but mostly because he wanted to live and let live, not kill or be killed. No, he’d focused on sustainable supplies of food, water, and heat, with just enough security measures to make would-be marauders think twice. Nobody could kill you for your resources if they didn’t even know you existed.
But he also hadn’t anticipated Zapheads. A mutated race of violent, mindless humans had never appeared on his list of end-of-the-world scenarios. He’d even toyed with the idea of zombie outbreaks, since certain branches of the government had wasted taxpayer money foolishly developing protocols for such events. But never in his wildest dreams would they ever be more than material to fill comic books.
“So you’re going to walk fifteen miles through Zapheads and murderous army soldiers and just hope you manage to avoid them?’ Jorge said.
“That’s the plan.”
Franklin continued into the forest, the afternoon sun burning through the dwindling canopy. Jorge called to him a final time. “And if I find Rosa and Marina and they want to come, what about Cathy and her baby?”
Franklin shuddered at the memory of the repulsive little creature with its intense, glittering eyes and the way it watched everything with a quiet cunning. He should have killed it while he had the chance, but something about its gaze—almost like it knew what Franklin was contemplating—had stayed his hand.
But he’d made a mistake. He never should have allowed the baby into his compound. He suspected it was the reason Jorge had lost his family, and then Sarge’s Army had captured him and Jorge while they were searching. And since then, the outcome had been more deaths, with each step leading him farther and farther from the idyllic life he’d spent years building.
Maybe he shouldn’t have allowed anyone into the compound. He’d likely be there now, tending his garden and goats, gathering firewood for winter, drawing on the solar panels to scan shortwave radio frequencies for other survivors.
Now it was time to fix his mistake. Even if it meant being alone.
“I said you’re invited,” Franklin said. “Nobody else but family. Human family.”
He limped into the woods toward home, his head throbbing with each heavy step.
CHAPTER THIRTY
After the group had gathered in the slaughterhouse’s loading area again, DeVontay and Stephen had yanked the bay door down into place. There was no way to fasten it from the inside now that the lock was broken, and DeVontay could only hope none of Rooster’s men tried to get inside. He didn’t think Zapheads had mastered the complexities of locks and doors, but tense minutes passed as gunfire boomed around the compound.
Now the shots fell only sporadically, along with the shouts and cries of men. DeVontay had no sense of passing time in the almost complete darkness, but he figured it had been four or five hours since their escape attempt. Aside from occasional whispered commands and Kiki’s and Carole’s comforting murmurs, the loading bay was filled with an eerie hum, as if the decomposing bodies under the tarp were radiating the last of their fading energy. The smell was corrupt and fecund, but no more so than the underlying scent of blood and decay that had permeated the slaughterhouse from its former commercial life.
DeVontay felt along the base of the bay door until he found Stephen’s hand. He took it and whispered, “Stay here. If the door shakes even the least little bit, you call me, okay?”
Stephen whispered back a parched, “’kay.”
DeVontay crawled along the filthy concrete floor until he reached the group. Children sniffled and whimpered, but the two women had done a remarkable job of calming them. A few seemed to be napping. They were gathered in a pile in the center of the loading area, and Carole was humming a soft lullaby in an Irish brogue.
Kiki must have heard him coming. “How much longer?”
“A little more. I want to be sure it’s dark when we move.”
“The children haven’t eaten since morning. They’ll need their strength.”
“I know where the men kept their living quarters. If the coast is clear, I’ll make a raid and come back. Then we’ll head out.”
“Do you think they’re all dead?” C
arole asked.
“I doubt it,” DeVontay answered. “I’d bet some are, but most probably either fled or holed up in the buildings and vehicles. They can’t shoot or the Zapheads will know where they are. And that’s good, because that means the men probably won’t bother us.”
“What about the Zapheads?”
DeVontay wondered how much he should lie, and then decided they should know the risks. Better to be panicked than overconfident. “They’re everywhere. I saw a big pack of them in town yesterday, and they seem to have gathered even more since I was captured. Even if we make it out of the compound, it’s going to be a dangerous night.”
“Still less dangerous than staying here,” Kiki said. “If the Zapheads know about this compound, they’ll keep coming back.”
“Afraid so. They seem to be getting smarter.”
“And Rooster and his bunch seem to be getting dumber.”
One of the children bumped into DeVontay and reached a hand along his arm until little fingers touched DeVontay’s cheek. “You’re the man with the glass eye,” the small voice said.
DeVontay managed a chuckle. “The one and only. But it’s a magic eye. I can see how brave you are.”
“Really?” the voice said with barely suppressed glee.
“And it’s going to shine our way out of here, like a lighthouse on the beach. So don’t you worry about a thing.”
The little fingers left him and they were replaced by Kiki’s. She pulled him close and put her lips to his ear. “I can see how brave you are,” she whispered, and gave him a delicate kiss on the cheek as she pulled away.
DeVontay made his way back to the bay door and Stephen. “Okay,” he said. “We’re going to raise the door just a little bit so I can peek outside. But we have to be real slow and easy. No noise.”
The electrical chain drive that had formerly operated the door was still connected, which made manual opening a rigorous task. A forceful thrust would cause it to gather momentum and roll up mostly on its own, but eliciting only a crack was much more arduous. DeVontay skinned his knuckles working his fingers under the door, using one hand to pull the drive chain.
After (Book 3): Milepost 291 Page 16