After: Dying Light (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 6)

by Nicholson, Scott

  “You’re coming, too.”

  DeVontay reached for the baby and Stephen rolled away, the bundle clutched to his chest. “No! Leave Kokona alone!”

  His cries were loud enough to draw the attention of both Zapheads and Shipley’s unit, but the cars must have shielded their view. DeVontay pulled at Stephen, trying to extract the mutant from his arms, but Stephen leaped to his feet with startling energy. As the boy turned to run, he slammed into Franklin.

  “Rachel’s looking for you,” Franklin said.

  That seemed to get through to him. He blinked, as if finally recognizing DeVontay and Franklin. “She’s…she’s here?”

  “We can take you to her,” DeVontay said. “But we have to do it now.”

  As if to punctuate his urgency, a swarm of bullets strafed the parking lot, penetrating flesh and metal. A cry sounded in the dark, followed by Shipley ordering his men to fall back.

  The boy was ashen-faced, looking down at the baby in his arms. “Kokona?” he whispered.

  “Don’t go,” she said, her eyes ramping up the intensity, like a rocket ship powering for liftoff.

  DeVontay seized the baby and yanked her from Stephen’s arms, ignoring the boy’s pleas. He sprinted toward the row of buses, intending to reach the dark street beyond, his legs aching. Over the roaring in his ears and the crack of gunfire, he heard Franklin and Stephen yelling.

  But he didn’t dare look back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jorge Jiminez was in a dark place.

  Mentally, emotionally, and physically.

  Since the solar storms in August that had disrupted his life as an immigrant laborer on a Tennessee farm, he’d accepted that his relatives in Mexico were likely dead. At the very least, he’d never seen them again. Many of the fellow survivors he’d encountered were now gone as well.

  But the most searing scar came when he killed his wife Rosa. He could almost blame the Zapheads and the controlling power of the babies she’d tended, but he’d witnessed her slow surrender to them as if she found their promises better than the ones Jorge had pledged.

  Her final act of betrayal—offering Marina to the Zapheads—was too much for any man to bear. All the vows he’d made to both his wife and God dissolved in a red tide of fury that led him to aim the grenade launcher at her as she fled with the last mutant child. But that wasn’t the end. Another Zaphead infant remained, and the remaining survivors were determined to find it.

  Well, he’d had enough.

  Dios ha muerto.

  God is dead.

  And so evil wins.

  Entering the ruins of the school and discovering the army of Zapheads had accomplished nothing but the death of his friend Riff Raff. How many more would die? Wasn’t it time they left the world to the Zapheads and retreated to the most remote corners of the Earth? Of course he would prefer his native Baja California, but Franklin’s mountain compound served the purpose just as well. If they had stayed, Marina would have a mother and he’d have a wife, and the world could turn as it wished.

  Jorge wasn’t proud of abandoning Franklin and DeVontay, but this was no longer his war. He would return to the stronghold Hilyard established in downtown Newton, get Marina, and head west. They almost certainly wouldn’t reach the Southwestern desert, but at least they could follow the setting sun each day, carrying the knowledge that each step took them further from the horrible memories of this day.

  He was halfway to the encampment when the gunfire broke out anew, a number of guns that suggested an organized military assault. He didn’t turn back. If anything, he fled even faster, although he was unsure of his direction.

  This section of town featured industrial shops, automotive garages, and building supply stores. The scant starlight reflected off the glass, and he moved from vehicle to vehicle, keeping to the street. He didn’t know what was lurking inside the buildings or houses. For all he knew, the Zaphead hordes could be stirring in a strange slumber, waiting for the moment to attack. Although Hilyard and the militia, as well as Shipley’s soldiers, had massacred rows and rows of Zapheads, the mutants seemed to be congregating on Newton as if summoned from hundreds of miles away.

  Another reason to leave this place.

  The Zapheads were just as likely to rule Mexico, as well as the rest of the world, but he’d rather die at home. America was no promised land after all—without its politics and law and culture, it was just another stretch of dirt in which to dig graves.

  Something clattered in the street ahead, as if the wind had knocked over a garbage can and pushed it across the sidewalk. But the air was still and cool. Shadows moved, several of them, stealthy and quick.

  Jorge leaned against the side of a sedan and peered over its hood, his M-16 against his chest.

  No glowing eyes. Not Zapheads.

  He relaxed just a little. The silhouettes were likely members of the militia, sent out by Hilyard to investigate the shooting. It could also be one of the other scout squads. Either way, Jorge would let them pass.

  At least, that was his intention. But he’d learned the hard way that the universe couldn’t care less what he did or didn’t want.

  The click of the revolver hammer behind his head was as loud as metallic thunder.

  “Drop it, Pedro,” the voice said.

  Jorge started to turn toward the familiar voice but the cold muzzle stopped him, indenting a circle in his cheek. “Sergeant. I can explain—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Shipley said. “Whether you lie or tell the truth, I won’t believe you, so may as well save your breath. My guess is you don’t have a whole lot of it left.”

  Jorge shifted his eyes enough to see the man. He was in full battle gear, complete with body armor, night-vision goggles, and helmet. Shipley’s facial hair had grown out, but the rocky terrain of his face was evident around the goggles.

  Jorge took his time setting the rifle on the hood of the sedan. So he would die here, never seeing Marina again. The darkness inside him took on the aspect of the surrounding December. It was season of endings. What man could push against it?

  “Do you know anything about that little shitstorm back there at the school?” the sergeant said.

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. You said as much yourself.”

  “Yes, but I asked you anyway.” The sergeant drew out a cigarillo with a plastic tip, jabbed it into the crevice of his mouth, and flicked a lighter to life, twin flames reflected in his lenses. He kept the revolver steady as he inhaled, and then let a stream of sweet blue smoke roll into the sky.

  “We were looking for Zapheads.”

  “Well, you sure as hell found them. Ever since I sent that advance mission, I figured they’d return to the school like chickens come home to roost. The creatures don’t have much for brains.”

  “We wanted to make sure the baby was dead.”

  “The baby?”

  Shipley seemed genuinely confused by the answer. Maybe he didn’t know of the infant’s intelligence or its leadership role. Jorge suddenly saw a possible way out of this, a bargaining chip. “Yes. We killed all the other babies except one, an Asian baby.”

  “There’s still one left? Where is it?”

  Since Shipley was unlikely to believe him anyway, a lie was as good as the truth. “We captured her downtown after the battle. Lt. Hilyard set up a fortified area, and he plans to hold out there until he can use the baby to control the Zapheads. Or else wait for the Zapheads to come for her, and then wipe them out.”

  “That sounds like bullshit to me.” Shipley puffed hard on the cigarillo, heating its tip to a red cherry. He pulled it from his mouth and waved it beneath Jorge’s nose, the smoke stinging his eyes and making him tear up. The intense heat sent an electric rope of pain through his skull.

  “I swear,” Jorge said, exaggerating his fear a little. But only a little. Enduring Shipley’s captivity with Franklin, Jorge had remained reserved and acquiescent while Franklin bristled with defiance. Shipley likely marked
him as a coward, which would lead the sergeant to believe Jorge would fold under the suggestion of torture.

  Shipley gave a piercing whistle. As he returned the cigarillo to his mouth, several men emerged from the shadows, outfitted in the same manner as the sergeant. Ready for war.

  “Look what I found, Broyhill,” Shipley said to the tallest one.

  “If it ain’t the beaner. Where’s your buddy Franklin?” Broyhill said in a tone as if he’d chewed gravel for dinner.

  “I haven’t seen him since he abandoned me and your men up in the mountains.”

  “We lost four good men on that patrol,” Shipley said. “What happened to them?”

  “We were attacked by Zapheads and got scattered. I don’t know what happened to the others. Franklin ran away, and I got cut off. I was barely able to get away alive.” That was almost the truth, except that he and Franklin had killed two of the soldiers.

  “Why didn’t you return to the bunker?” Shipley asked, his voice calm as he smoked. “Those were your orders.”

  “I was lost in the forest. When I saw the town, I thought I could find enough food to survive.”

  “Do you know what happens to people who disobey orders in wartime?” Broyhill said, as if he were eager to administer the death sentence.

  “Hold on a second,” Shipley said. “He’s going to tell me more about Hilyard’s plans, and then you can have your fun.”

  Broyhill snorted and stepped back. “Hell, the night is young.”

  A few gunshots burst in the distance, and Shipley cocked an ear to listen. “McCutcheon’s squad must have found some more Zaps. Too bad we couldn’t erase them all when we had them surrounded at the school.”

  “Well, it’s not so easy when they get up as fast as you can knock them down,” Broyhill said. “Them bastards can sure eat some bullets.”

  Shipley moved the tip of his shrinking cigarillo near Jorge’s left eye. “You wouldn’t happen to know what the Zaps were doing there, do you?”

  “Gathering like they always do.” Jorge forced himself not to blink, fixing his gaze on Shipley’s goggles. He could picture the cruel, psychotic eyes hiding behind them. “Becoming a tribe.”

  “Bringing themselves back to life. We saw that shit. We couldn’t see how they were doing it, but first they were dead and then they weren’t. Then they were attacking us.”

  He couldn’t let Shipley know that the ninth baby was at the school. His life depended on planting the belief that the Zaphead’s little leader was in Hilyard’s custody. And that Jorge could give them access to it.

  “They’ll be after the last baby,” Jorge said. “It has the power to summon them with its mind.”

  Broyhill and the other men laughed, but Shipley tossed his smoke to the ground and leaned forward until their faces were only inches apart. “That’s so crazy I almost believe it. Because you don’t have the brains to dream up something like that.”

  His heart was pounding so hard he was almost certain Shipley could hear it, but he forced himself to remain calm. For Marina’s sake.

  “I can prove it,” Jorge said. “I can get you the baby. And Hilyard, if you want him.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Kokona seemed to grow lighter in his arms rather than heavier.

  DeVontay waited by the tractor trailer as planned, hiding in the shrubs bordering the porch of a house. But as the minutes stretched into perhaps an hour, he couldn’t afford to stay longer. Especially as gunshots popped sporadically closer.

  The baby had shut her eyes while held in DeVontay’s embrace. In the darkness, he couldn’t see her, but parental instinct took over and he gently rocked her, even though he knew Zapheads didn’t really sleep. He even started humming “Rockabye Baby.”

  At one point, he must have fallen asleep himself, because he jerked his head alert and realized he’d been talking to Rachel, in a sunny meadow at a farm where they’d spent a few peaceful weeks in autumn. In the dream, there was no apocalypse, but they’d been arguing over a pig. DeVontay wanted to butcher it, but Rachel wanted to keep it as a pet. Despite the grim nature of the dispute, they were both giggling playfully.

  “You were calling her name,” Kokona said. Her wide eyes illuminated both their faces.

  DeVontay was disoriented. “Whose?” he said, although he already knew.

  “Rachel’s.”

  “She wanted to help you. All of the New People.”

  “I know. Partly to help you and the others, partly to help us. Partly to help herself.”

  DeVontay realized Kokona might know more about Rachel than he did. After all, he didn’t have the advantage of a telepathic connection. He couldn’t help but feel the Zapheads had only half the story—Rachel’s human half would have remained hidden from them, beyond comprehension. “We need to learn to live together, or we all die.”

  “Not all of us,” Kokona said.

  Her words chilled him, and he realized his bones ached from midnight’s temperature drop. He shivered against the winter air.

  “I’m cold,” she said, as if picking up on his thoughts.

  DeVontay tugged and folded her blanket so that most of her body was covered except for her face. He couldn’t believe how naturally he accepted her ability to carry on a conversation.

  Adapt or die. Maybe both.

  “And I’m going to need a change soon,” she said.

  “A change?” DeVontay asked.

  She gave a shy grin. “I have to pee pee.”

  “How about if I just…ummm…pull your pants down and let you do your thing?”

  “I can’t stand, silly. I’m only a baby.”

  “Okay, I’ll hold you, then.”

  He laid her down on the blanket and carefully pulled down her little cotton pants. She wore white knitted booties that were gray with neglect. She had no diaper. He avoided looking at her bare bottom as he awkwardly held her over the grass. “Okay, make pee pee.”

  “I’m not the first ‘Zaphead’ you’ve seen naked, am I?” She delivered the slang term for her tribe with a sneer, as if mocking a racist slur. Kokona seemed to enjoy his embarrassment.

  “I don’t know—I mean, that’s not something we should talk about.”

  “It’s okay. We’re just like you.”

  “We’ve killed each other, we’ve worked to establish new societies, and we both think we’re special. So, yeah, we’re just alike.”

  Except one of us can come back from the dead.

  He felt her little ribs tense beneath his hands as liquid spattered against the ground. He was glad it was dark and that her eyes radiated away from him. “Do you believe we can live together?” she asked.

  “I think so. It will take some work, but we can do it.”

  “Rachel believed it, too.”

  “That’s why she was willing to risk everything. For your people as well as ours.”

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  DeVontay was about to ask how she knew, and then just sighed. “Will you bring her back?”

  “I’m finished,” she said.

  DeVontay wasn’t sure at first what she meant. Then he realized, and he laid her on the blanket again. “Sorry I don’t have anything to wipe you with it.”

  “That’s okay. If I get diaper rash, I’m going to cry a lot, though.” She giggled again, and DeVontay almost forgot she was a powerful mutant baby that could talk. “When daylight comes, maybe you can find a drug store and get some Pampers and ointment.”

  “So you’re okay with this?”

  “You have me, don’t you? What am I going to do, run away? Scream for the police? Find a telephone and call in an Amber Alert?”

  “How did you learn so much?”

  “I had good teachers.” She sounded almost wistful, her eyes smoldering to a deeper shade of red.

  “You’ll help Rachel. Won’t you? The way you helped your people in the parking lot?”

  “Bring her back from the dead. It’s okay to say it. We don’t think death is
any big deal.”

  DeVontay swallowed. Assuming it would even work, he wasn’t sure how much Rachel’s body had deteriorated, or if she would have brain damage. The Zapheads seemed immune to death’s degradation, but Rachel was part human. The first of her kind.

  “Will you?” He realized he sounded desperate, like a child pleading for a piece of candy.

  “Yes, but there’s a price.”

  Isn’t there always?

  He pulled up her pants, swaddled her in the blanket again, and held her to his chest. “Whatever it is, it’s worth it.”

  Kokona’s eyes burned with an intensity that he couldn’t look away from. “She’ll become one of us. All the way. Forever.”

  DeVontay didn’t trust himself to speak. Who was he to make such a bargain? But there was only one possible answer. The selfish one. The human one. “Anything,” he whispered hoarsely. “Just bring her back to me.”

  She gave a smile. Her skin looked so soft and flawless, he couldn’t help stroking her cheek. Her tufted hair was solid black and would have been thick and glossy if she had grown up. But of course, this is the way she would stay. Forever.

  He was beginning to hate that word.

  “I can’t wait for them any longer,” he said. No gunshots had sounded for a while, and he felt the battle had moved on. Nobody—Zaphead or otherwise—had appeared on the street, and the stillness of the middle of the night had descended on the area. It was as good a time as any to return to the stronghold.

  And Rachel.

  “You like Stephen,” Kokona said, as a fact, not a question.

  “Yes, we grew close while surviving together. Rachel loves him, too.”

  “Yet you left him back there where he might get shot.”

  DeVontay didn’t like the veiled accusation. Something about Kokona’s expression made him think he was being tested. “Franklin can protect him.”

  “You chose Rachel over the boy.”

  DeVontay couldn’t fend off the burst of temper. He was exhausted and his nerves were raw. “I’d choose her over me, too. I’d gladly die so that Rachel can live.”