by J. Thorn
Rachel sat in the shade of a sycamore, studying the street behind them. The images of the bodies strewn across the courthouse lawn still haunted her. Everywhere she looked, she hallucinated corpses into the shadows and crevices, arranged in horribly artful arrays.
Keep it together, Ray Ray. Stephen needs you.
The boy had grown more animated with every mile they’d walked. Leaving his doll with the dead girl had served to purge some of his melancholy. Rachel wondered if his current ease was even more worrisome than his near-catatonia. But there was no psychological handbook for diagnosing the emotional conditions of After. This was all new ground.
“That way,” Rachel said, pointing vaguely northwest. They had entered a rural area and houses were fewer and farther between, so they were less likely to encounter Zapheads. They’d been following a gravel road for the last five miles or so, encountering only a few abandoned vehicles. Rachel didn’t want to think about the bodies that might have been in them and whether they’d been removed and used as art.
“You sure?”DeVontay studied the ragged map in his hands. “I-77 runs north, and it’s back over that way.”
“We don’t want to follow the interstate,” Rachel said. “We need to stay away from population centers.”
“Where we will find food?”
“House to house,” Rachel said.
“Where will we sleep?”
“House to house.”
Stephen, who was digging in the ground with a stick, looked up. “Does that mean we can have any house we want?”
“Sure,” she said. “Our pick of the neighborhood. As long as no one is living there, I don’t think they’d mind if we used it.”
“I want a house with a swimming pool.” He swung his stick at a moth that was fluttering in a wobbly pattern around him.
“Don’t kill it,” she said.
“Why not?” he said with a pout, although he lowered his stick.
“Because life is sacred.”
“Then how come everybody’s dead?”
Rachel wanted to give an automatic answer, but all the options felt hollow: Because God willed it so? Because the universe is a powerful bitch? Because they were not worthy?
Instead, she settled on the lame response that made her feel painfully like an adult. “Because.”
DeVontay headed up the road, wiping the dust from his forehead with a kerchief, and then wrapping it around his head like Jimi Hendrix. “I bet that house up there has a pool,” he said. “Or maybe a fish pond.”
The two-story white farmhouse had a tin roof that glinted in the dying sun. The yard was fenced, and the surrounding property was broken into several pastures. A tractor was parked outside a red barn, and two spotted Jersey cows picked at the grass, ignoring them. The surrounding land sloped up to forest. A dusty Ford pickup sat in the driveway near the porch. Rachel could see a rifle in a rack through the rear window.
“I wanna fish!” Stephen said, running to catch up with DeVontay. Rachel shouldered her pack and followed them. The house offered good visibility and looked pretty secure, assuming a family of Zapheads wasn’t gathered around the kitchen table…
“Hello?” DeVontay called, cupping his hands. Only the wind answered.
DeVontay was checking out the truck by the time Rachel caught up. “Empty,” he said, although he gave Rachel a look that suggested it wasn’t.
“Stephen, come look at this,” Rachel said. She went to the apple tree in the side yard and pulled a branch low so Stephen could pluck a few of the ruby-red Macintosh apples. When she looked back, DeVontay was rummaging in the truck, emerging with the rifle in his hands before slamming the door shut.
“I’m checking out the house,” he said. “Wait there until I get back.”
Rachel led Stephen to the little garden that had been overtaken by weeds. The tomatoes were mostly rotten and the cucumbers had yellowed, but the mustard and collard greens were dark and healthy-looking. “Help me pick some,” she said, kneeling in the dirt. She stuck a turnip green in her mouth and chewed, savoring its vibrant bitterness.
“Gross,” Stephen said.
“You want to be strong like Spiderman, don’t you?”
“Your teeth are green.” The boy glanced at the barn. “What’s in there?”
“Hay,” she said. “Now, let’s pick. It will be good to have some fresh vitamins after all that canned food.”
“Hay tastes better than this,” he said, heading for the barn.
“Don’t go in there alone,” she said, lifting the lower front of her shirt to form a sack for the greens. She collected fistfuls of greens, waiting for Stephen to return. She was so intent on her harvest that she didn’t realize for a moment that he’d kept going.
He was almost to the barn. “Stephen!” she called.
The boy stood at the barn’s heavy wooden entrance, which was suspended by metal wheels on a steel track. The door opening was about two feet wide, and thick darkness waited beyond it. Rachel couldn’t imagine the boy would go in there, not after all the horrors he’d endured.
The boy took one look back, but he didn’t seem to notice Rachel. He cocked his head as if hearing distant music, and then slipped inside the barn. Rachel dropped the greens and hurried after him, the weariness and tension of the past days hitting her in a wave and weakening her legs. A blister on her big toe screamed in red electricity, but she pushed herself, thinking of her sister.
She called him again. The word was like a thunderclap in the quiet pastoral setting, birds falling silent in the nearby forest. She reached the door and the dark air inside was almost a solid thing, rich with the dust of hay and manure, and obsidian block framed by rough wooden planks and chicken wire. Rachel didn’t want to touch that miserable darkness, much less enter it, but Stephen was inside.
She’d promised to take care of him.
She stepped inside, calling his name, listening to the ticking of the hot tin roof. She derided herself for growing overconfident. She should have taken the pistol from DeVontay after he’d found the rifle. But the peace of the farm valley had lulled her into a false complacency, allowing her to forget that this was After and the rules had changed with one massive belch of the sun.
Stumbling in the darkness, Rachel fought an urge to wait for DeVontay. She was pretty sure no Zapheads were lurking in the barn, or they would have reacted to her voice. Still, the deep shadows carried the weight of menace, like the held breath of a stalker. Something wasn’t right here.
As her eyes adjusted to the shafts of light leaking through the cracks and windows, she was able to make out support posts and stalls, with tufts of yellow hay littering the dirt floor. On the center beam, three shapes dangled from ropes like old sacks of feed. Stephen stood silently, peering up at them.
“Oh my Lord,” Rachel said, limping to the boy’s side. She tried to pull him away, then cover his eyes, but he wriggled free.
“What happened?” Stephen asked.
The bodies were of a man and two young boys, obviously brothers. Their black tongues protruded from their gaping mouths and their eyes bulged. Although flies swarmed around them, they apparently had been dead no more than a day or two.
“This isn’t good, Stephen.”
“Did they kill themselves?” Stephen’s voice was cold and vacant again, as if his post-traumatic autism had seized control.
Rachel thought it was likely the man hanged his own children before killing himself. It didn’t look like the work of Zapheads. But she didn’t know which answer would give Stephen the most comfort. Perhaps there was no comfort to be found in death.
Perhaps.
Or maybe the man had taken stock of After and made a decision based on love and mercy. Despite the resources of the farm, the man may have seen no future that didn’t end in a violent death. Maybe this was the man’s way of protecting his family from Zapheads, killing his wife in the truck and then ushering his offspring to an eternal peace instead of facing another day of living hell.
Perhaps this had been the ultimate act of faith.
“I don’t know what happened,” Rachel said, and in this, at least she avoided a lie.
“I want my mother,” Stephen said.
Rachel hugged him. “I know you do, honey.”
“And my dolly.”
“I know. Why don’t we go into the farmhouse? I’ll bet these boys had some toys, and I bet they wouldn’t mind if you played with them.”
“They’re dead,” he said. He sneezed from the dust, then sniffled.
Rachel’s eyes were hot with tears, but she wouldn’t allow herself to sob. “Let’s go, honey.”
This time, Stephen allowed himself to be led from the corrupt air of the barn and back into the sunshine. Rachel glanced up at the high, uncertain clouds.
How could you do this, God? What possible plan do You have for all this?
But she couldn’t trust her own faith at the moment, because she was afraid it was slipping away. The one certainty of her life, the power that had given her comfort amid all the sorrow and hardship and added joy to every pleasure, was now as ephemeral as the distant smoke. And without it, who was she?
DeVontay was waiting on the porch when they reached the house, the rifle angled over one shoulder. “All clear,” he said, almost giddy with relief. “Even some canned food and a gas stove, so we can have us a home-cooked meal.”
Then he noticed their faces and glanced around warily. “What’s up?”
Rachel gave a wave back toward the barn. “We can stay in their house. They don’t need it anymore.”
“Oh. Well, come on in and let’s eat.” He held the door open for them, and Rachel could read the question in his eyes: Was it Zapheads?
“I think we’re safe here,” Rachel said. Despite her subdued anxiety, she found herself eager to escape in exploring the kitchen. “Why don’t you find a place for Stephen while I cook some dinner?”
She couldn’t shake the image of the limp, hanging bodies from her mind, nor the widening gap in the center of her abandoned heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Saw you running down the street and figured you’d lead me to your buddies,” Arnoff said.
“What buddies?” Campbell didn’t like the way Arnoff had his semiautomatic rifle cocked on his hip, a macho posture that would have been cartoonish under other circumstances.
“Your Army buddies.”
“Wouldn’t mess with ‘em,” Pete said, pouring himself another drink without offering Arnoff one.
“I don’t want to mess,” Arnoff said. “I want to join up. Enlist in Team Human.”
“I get the impression they’re not looking for recruits,” Campbell said. He glanced at the tavern door, hoping Arnoff had cleared the street before following him inside. If the Zapheads were gathering into groups, even a semiautomatic might not be enough.
“Their commander will listen to reason,” Arnoff said. “Donnie and the professor can shoot a little, and Pam…hell, she can cook or something, or keep the men happy. Safety in numbers.”
“I’m telling you,” Pete said, his drunkenness taking a belligerent turn. “He’s stars and stripes forever. And he doesn’t need numbers like us.”
Arnoff glanced around the dim room as if noticing the corpses for the first time. “What do you know about it?”
Campbell moved away from the bar, expecting Arnoff to stop him, but the man was more interested in what Pete had to say. Pete muttered something incoherent, but Campbell made out a personal invitation for Arnoff to commit a depraved and self-inflicted sexual act.
He glanced through a grimy window, at the silent cars and still bodies, at a baby carriage tipped on its side near a fire hydrant. A pigeon with a broken wing skipped along the sidewalk, the only sign of life.
“You were with them,” Arnoff said. “They grabbed you on the highway.”
“They wanted me for Zaphead bait,” Pete answered. “Just like you did.”
“We all have a part in the plan,” Arnoff said. “Some parts are bigger than others.”
“What’s your plan, then?” Campbell asked. “Assuming The Captain lets you join the A-Team? You’re going to start a genocide sweep? Gun down all the Zapheads? And kill anybody else that’s not your type while you’re at it?”
“Hold on with the Commie talk. This is about survival of the human race. Survival of the fittest. I don’t know what them things are, or why they want to bash our brains in, but I don’t need the professor to know when something needs killing.”
“They’re changing,” Campbell said, trying to formulate ideas he’d only just begun considering. “I don’t think they’re attacking us…us normal people…just because they want us out of the way. I think they’re as scared and confused as we are.”
“To hell with your Commie talk.”Arnoff waved his arm at the dead bodies, the gray, dreary bar that once had teemed with music and laughter and the communal clink of glass. “They’re a danger to not just our life, but to our way of life. If we want all this back, we’ve got to win today. Then we can fight for tomorrow.”
“I’m done fighting,” Pete said. “I’m ready to drink instead. But you’d be happy with The Captain and his happy little troop. They’re heading for a base up north.”
“A base?”
Pete took a sip from his glass, enjoying Arnoff’s anxiety. “Yeah. Said there was a secret military base up there, underground, total doomsday prep. Built for nuclear war, he said, but outfitted for pretty much anything. And I guess the Big Zap counts as ‘anything.’”
“How far north?”
“Off to see the wizard,” Pete said, voice slurring. Even for someone with Pete’s tolerance levels, the prodigious amounts of whiskey were taking their toll. “Wonderful Wizard of Ozzzzz.”
Arnoff swung the barrel of his rifle forward and shattered Pete’s bottle. The strong, sweet odor of the whiskey briefly overwhelmed the fermenting of the dead.
Pete snarled and reached from behind the bar to swipe at Arnoff. “You goddamned animal.”
“How far north?”Arnoff repeated. Even in the bad light, his eyes and teeth gleamed with a fierce menace that briefly sobered Pete.
Pete gave a weak wave of surrender and disgust. “To the Blue Ridge Parkway.”
“I need more than that. The parkway’s nearly five hundred miles long.”
“Milepost 291, he called it. Don’t know what that means.”
“You better not be shitting me, or I’ll track you down and leave you hanging on a lamppost so the Zappers can eat your liver.”
Pete snorted in disgust and reached for another bottle in the row behind him. Campbell watched the tableau in the dusty bar mirror and was startled by the person standing to the left of Arnoff. Campbell tilted his head to the side to be sure the reflection belonged to him. Gaunt and stubbled cheeks, windswept hanks of greasy hair, deep purple wedges under each eye.
I don’t know about zombies, but we’re becoming the living dead.
Arnoff rested his rifle against a bar stool and fished a map and flashlight from his pocket. He wiped away the pool of liquor with one elbow, and then spread the map on the pitted wooden surface. Campbell couldn’t help bending over and looking when Arnoff switched on the light.
“What town is that near?” Arnoff asked Pete.
“Who do I look like, Ranger Rick? I heard him mention ‘Boone.’”
Arnoff ran a stubby forefinger along the map of North Carolina, outward from the red circles he’d drawn to mark their current location and his route since leaving Charlotte. “About a hundred miles. Should be able to get there in a week to ten days of hard walking.”
Pete laughed again. He no longer bothered with a glass, sipping straight from the bottle of Knob Creek and wincing at the taste. Campbell studied the map, noting the small towns that dotted the highway to Boone. Arnoff scowled at him and folded the map with crisp efficiency.
Taking up his rifle, he headed for the door. “You guys coming, or you going t
o wait here for the Zappers?”
Campbell shouldered his pack and followed. Pete, however, didn’t move from his position behind the bar. He stared past them as if lost in a Happy Hour from long ago, where the beer flowed and the Stones kicked from the speakers and the neon lights winked their green and red seductions.
“Come on, Pete,” Campbell said, waiting at the door. Arnoff, after making sure the street was clear, headed across.
“You’re getting to be as much of a bossy asshole as Arnoff,” Pete said, although he came around the bar, nearly tripping on a dead biker whose leather vest was splotched with the excrescence of death.
Arnoff was already down the block, about to turn the corner. Campbell was afraid the man would leave them behind. And as bad as the Arnoff option was, Campbell imagined it would be far worse to spend another night alone in a church steeple. He dodged between vehicles, ducking low in case any Zapheads were around.
When Campbell reached the corner, Arnoff was barely in sight. The man had forgotten all about them.
Campbell turned and motioned for Pete to hurry. Pete had just exited the bar and squinted against the glare of sunset. He dragged his backpack with one hand, and the other gripped a quart bottle of liquor by the neck. As he staggered forward, slumped and skulking and jerky, Campbell fought a wave of irritation.
What a loser. He looks just like a Zaphead, the way he’s—
The distant volley echoed off the canyons of the building facades. Pete’s head lifted, mouth open in shock. The sudden blossom of crimson on his shirt spread across his chest. Then his legs folded and he dropped, the liquor bottle smashing on the sidewalk.
Campbell ran toward him, keeping low. “Hold your fire!” he screamed, not sure it would do any good.
The soldiers clearly didn’t care. Anyone not in uniform was a target. The Captain’s words came back to him: “We’re the government. You’re either with us or against us.”
Campbell expected the next bullet to pierce his own flesh, and he almost welcomed it. But all was silent as he knelt in the dead town beside Pete, whose blood mixed with the tequila in a sick and final concoction. Campbell knelt, muttering to his dead friend, as dusk fell around him.