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

by Nicholson, Scott

  He stood on stiff legs and carried Kokona to the edge of the shrubs so he could study the surroundings. Still no movement anywhere. The coast was as clear as it was ever going to be, and he didn’t want Rachel to lay in that casket another second longer than necessary. No matter what she would be when she rose from it.

  As he navigated the street and headed back toward Hilyard and the others, as best as he could determine the direction, he realized Kokona could have yelled out at any time to summon her mutant tribemates. Even with her tiny vocal chords, her voice could carry for hundreds of yards in the silent night.

  “Will you take care of me?” she asked.

  What kind of question was that? She was a helpless baby. And cute as hell. “Of course.”

  Kokona smiled and cozied into his embrace. “Good. You’re my carrier now.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Uh-oh, SpaghettiO’s.” Franklin pressed the can of pasta into Stephen’s hands, along with a spoon.

  “What does that mean?” Stephen asked in the dark.

  “That TV commercial. Don’t you remember?”

  “I barely remember TV, much less ‘Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs.”

  For the millionth time since the end of the world, Franklin was reminded that he was getting as old as dinosaur dung.

  Their path to the rendezvous point with DeVontay was cut off by a mass of Zapheads who filled the streets beyond the school. The mutants moved like waves in the dark, their bright eyes bobbing on the inhuman sea. Even though Shipley’s attack was over, they were agitated, cruising for the chance to destroy. Or maybe waiting for their dead to return.

  Franklin and Stephen took refuge in a house on the northern side of the school, which afforded some concealment and time to scrounge for food. In the kitchen, with the aid of the night-vision gear, he found some plastic bottles of water, a big box of raisins, the canned pasta, and a sealed package of Oreos. Franklin wasn’t in the mood for cold tomato sauce, but he could just hear Rachel in his head, telling him to mind the boy’s nutrition.

  They ate the meal in silence sitting in the living room, the only sound the smacking of lips and the spoon clinking against the can. Franklin was afraid to light a candle. The cookies were a little stale, but he ate three and Stephen consumed more sugar than he should, but Franklin thought about a condemned prisoner’s last meal and let the boy go for it.

  He was grateful the mutants had collected most of the bodies in the town, but an unpleasant odor lingered in the house. Franklin was tempted to open some windows despite the winter chill.

  “Won’t DeVontay wait for us?” Stephen asked after he was full. The boy huddled under some blankets on the sofa, unable to sleep despite Franklin’s urging. Franklin wanted to nod off himself but every time he closed his eyes, he pictured a mob pushing through the doorway.

  “He can’t stay there all night,” Franklin said. “Too dangerous.”

  “The Zapheads can find them no matter where they go.”

  The boy spoke so quietly that Franklin wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “What’s that?”

  “Kokona can bring them to her with her mind.” Stephen described how he’d found Kokona and escaped Shipley and Broyhill, eventually ending up at the school where he’d helped Kokona bring Zapheads back to life. “She made me help. It was like I was powerless. Even worse, I wanted to help her.”

  Franklin bit back a curse. Why didn’t he think of that? Or maybe DeVontay did suspect Kokona’s powers, which is why he’d insisted on taking the baby. DeVontay was protecting Stephen, or else he had secret motives of his own.

  “Then we have to get back to the stronghold,” he said. “If Kokona reaches Hilyard and the others, the Zapheads will swarm them and there goes the little dream of a new human settlement in Doomsdayville.”

  “Sgt. Shipley and his soldiers are still out there. If he finds us, he’ll kill us. He’s mad at me.”

  “Me, too. Let him get in line. Plenty of Zapheads want to kill us first.” Franklin checked outside the window, and all he saw were a few glimmering ribbons of reflected light. For a wild moment, he thought about heading back to his mountain compound, taking Stephen with him. The two of them could make a good go of it, and Franklin could teach Stephen all the boy would need to know to survive on his own.

  But Stephen wouldn’t want to survive on his own. What kind of future was that? Franklin had even abdicated his own isolationist desires in the face of grim reality—if they didn’t rebuild the world, the human race ended here. Millennia of evolution, adaptation, and migration would come to nothing, and alien archaeologists of the future would wonder what the hell happened here, assuming humans even left a lasting mark.

  No, they were truly all in it together, no matter how far you ran. They were all clinging to the same soft marble suspended in a vast sea of uncaring universe, where even God needed an all-powerful telescope just to notice you existed, and if He so much as blinked at the wrong time, well, there went your entire history.

  Like Rachel, DeVontay, Hilyard, Brock, and the others, he’d cast his lot here in Newton. Even Jorge, despite his personal tragedy, seemed to find comfort in raising his daughter among other humans. And they needed him. The fiercely idealistic individualism he’d clung to as a badge of honor now seemed like a sick stripe of selfishness.

  What he wanted didn’t matter for shit. Who got what they wanted in this world, anyway?

  Well, psychotic sociopaths usually turned out okay, and heaven knows, we got plenty of them to spare.

  “We probably have a couple of more hours before light,” Franklin said. “We can circle around town to avoid the Zapheads, then figure out how to rejoin the others.”

  “What about DeVontay?”

  “He’s smart. He’ll be fine.”

  Unless Kokona starts controlling him.

  Franklin jammed a couple of the water bottles and the last of the raisins into his backpack. He heard Stephen moving in the dark, bumping into furniture. The boy was undoubtedly exhausted, but hopefully he could hang in there until they reached the stronghold. “Careful. Don’t break a leg, because I don’t want to carry you like a Zapper baby. The door’s over here.”

  Outside, the scorched stench of the school and the rot of a stadium full of corpses gave the air a greasy thickness. The streets were quiet, the houses brooding, and a thin skin of frost lay on the grass and the windshields of cars along the street. Stephen gasped at a burst of movement, but it turned out to be a calico cat scurrying across the sidewalk to vanish in a drainage ditch.

  Look out for the Zaphead mice, my little feline friend. I always figured cats and cockroaches would be the last things standing. Well, and maybe politicians.

  With Stephen keeping close behind, Franklin headed toward what he thought was the east. A patchwork of clouds hid most of the stars, and even with goggles, the darkness slowed their progress. At least the Zapheads’ eyes would be easier to see in such conditions.

  They must have walked half a mile, avoiding open lots and wide streets, instead sticking to alleys and tree-covered yards. Stephen tripped once, ripping the knee of his jeans and scraping his skin, but he gamely refused to stop and rest. The land assumed a mild incline, and they emerged from a stand of bare trees to see the ruins of the courthouse that dominated the town. This section of town featured two-story apartments and townhouses, and their black hulks rose around them like forgotten castles.

  “The stronghold is a few blocks below that,” Franklin said. “We can be there in maybe forty-five minutes.”

  A groan behind them caused Franklin to swivel with his rifle leading the way, finger sliding to the trigger. Over the course of the journey he’d relaxed his guard a little, lulled into a false sense of security, but now the adrenaline surged through him. He was ready to kill in the space of one heartbeat.

  “Duh—don’t shoot me,” came a strained voice some fifty feet away, muffled by its echo.

  Franklin squinted into the darkness. Although he reasoned that the spea
ker wasn’t a threat or else Franklin would already be dead, he still stepped protectively in front of Stephen. “Who is it?”

  “One of you.”

  “One of you who? There’s lots of ‘yous’ running around out here.”

  “A…human.”

  Yeah. Obviously. You haven’t tried to tear my ears off the side of my head and your eyes aren’t glowing like the headlights of hell.

  Franklin told Stephen to wait where he was and he stepped toward the voice, which originated from an apartment vestibule off the main street. Now he could make out the man’s form, sitting up against a low brick wall alongside a metal fence. His hair looked wet, and Franklin realized it was blood. He wore body armor and camouflage gear, but he had no weapon or helmet. One of his legs was twisted at an impossible angle, a sharp sliver of bone sticking out from a gash in his pants below his calf.

  “Are you with Hilyard?” Franklin asked, although he didn’t recognize the man.

  “I was, in the old days. Before the shit hit the fan.” The man tried to grin but it turned into a wince of pain. “You’re that dude…the hermit. Saw you at the bunker.”

  “So you’re with Shipley.” Even though the soldier looked helpless and, indeed, headed for the buzzards’ breakfast, Franklin kept the muzzle of his rifle trained on him. “Looks like you got what you deserve.”

  “I did what I had to do, after Hilyard deserted us,” the man wheezed.

  “That’s not the way I heard it. Shipley led a mutiny and took command. And that’s what I saw while you assholes were holding me prisoner.”

  “Shipley took command, all right, but somebody had to, once Hilyard went rogue. You got anything to drink?”

  Franklin didn’t have much mercy to spare for the enemy, but a little show of humanity was a good last lesson for the man to take with him to the Pearly Gates. Taking care not to alter his aim, he eased his backpack from his shoulders and fished through it for one of the water bottles. He knelt and held it out, bracing for the man to lunge at him.

  But the man merely reached with a weak, trembling hand and took the bottle, then struggled trying to twist the cap free. He was probably in his early twenties, barely old enough to raise a beard, but trauma had given him a wizened, taut visage that made him look like he was going on eighty.

  The soldier chuckled darkly and said, “I was hoping for whiskey but I guess this will have to do.”

  He finally managed a drink and the first swallow caused him to cough. Franklin stepped back to the street, keeping one eye on the wounded soldier, and called Stephen. When the boy arrived, Franklin said, “Just stay behind me, no matter what.”

  Franklin knelt again in front of the soldier, whose eyes were now closed. A long open furrow of flesh ran from just beneath his jaw to the top of his scalp. For a moment, Franklin thought the man was dead, but he coughed and jerked alert. “Where…am…I?”

  “Paradise.”

  “Where’s that water?” The man still held the bottle but couldn’t feel it.

  Franklin said, “Why would Hilyard go rogue?”

  “We got…word from McLean, Virginia. The government bunkers outside D.C. The president died, but a handful of cabinet members made it out.”

  “Word? How did you get word?” Franklin was so intrigued he forgot his caution.

  “Shielded radio. Shortwave. Lots of bunkers were protected. They have combat gear, trucks, tanks, even some choppers and few single-engine planes. Not just there, but Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Maine, a few other places. And not small bunkers like ours, but goddamned caverns as big as the Superdome.”

  Franklin wondered if the man was delirious, but the information jibed with his own paranoid beliefs: no matter what the catastrophe, the U.S. government would find a way to save its own ass. They didn’t extort all those trillions in tax dollars just to give it to the poor.

  And if the man was lying, he had little to gain. He was dead either way, and this was quite an elaborate story to concoct in the final hours of his life. And, really, with his small, beady eyes and pinched forehead, the man didn’t look all that creative.

  Franklin lifted the bottle so the man could take another sip. He could feel Stephen watching over his shoulder and saw no reason to make the boy look away. He’d already witnessed far worse in the last four months.

  “What’s your name, son?” Franklin asked.

  “Denny Fernandez.”

  “Hell of a name, Denny. So, why didn’t Hilyard like this news from the government? He’s under their command.”

  “Because he was already used to running the show. Once you get a taste of the throne, you don’t want to give it up.”

  Power and ego corrupted people’s minds, but that didn’t match the behavior he’d witnessed in Hilyard. But of course, wasn’t that what was happening right now? Gathering as many people as he could, taking charge, and running things by his own rules? Franklin had gone along with it simply because Denny Fernandez here was right—somebody had to be in charge. But now he was reevaluating all of Hilyard’s actions since the officer had shown up at his compound with Rachel, DeVontay, and Stephen.

  True, Hilyard fought Shipley’s troops, but if this man was telling the truth, then Hilyard was likely hungry to regain his bunker. Shipley was no saint, either, but the throne seemed to drive anyone who perched on it just a little batshit, whether the kingdom was a dozen square miles or an entire continent.

  “The government,” Franklin said. “What’s their plan?”

  “Orders are to secure…” The man’s voice grew fainter and he closed his eyes again. “My leg hurts like a son of a bitch. But I can’t really feel the rest of me. Just a little cold.”

  “It’s winter, son.” Franklin looked up and the first blush of dawn tinged the ribbed clouds in the east. He pushed his goggles down beneath his chin so he could meet the dying man’s eyes. “But all things must pass.”

  The man attempted to straighten up as if for parade inspection. “Orders are to secure any nearby towns and eliminate any mutant resistance, sir,” the soldier recited as if from some dim memory. His last sentence was spoken with the force of all his remaining energy. “Stand your ground, because the United States Cavalry rides again.”

  The soldier let out a gurgling sigh and sagged into his final rest. Franklin stood and looked at Stephen, who shook his head. “The cavalry?”

  “Television,” Franklin said. “Some asshole always thinks he needs to tame the Wild West instead of letting it be. The only thing that changes is the horses.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DeVontay’s hope that he could sneak the baby into the stronghold proved to be a false one.

  A sentry challenged him three blocks from the square, shouting down at him from a metal fire escape. DeVontay held up his free hand to show he was unarmed, keeping the other under Kokona. “I’m one of you,” DeVontay called up to the man, who kept his weapon trained on him.

  “Tell him ‘Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes,’” Kokona whispered. “Or ‘eye,’ in this case.”

  “You’re a real comedian, aren’t you?”

  “You’d better quit talking to me, or he’ll get suspicious.”

  “He’s got a rifle pointed at me. I don’t think he needs any encouragement.” DeVontay took a few steps forward, glancing around to see if any other sentries were watching. Someone could be behind a window, and the sun reflecting off the glass would conceal him or her. He would just have to chance it.

  “I’m DeVontay Jones,” he said to the sentry, a civilian in a jean jacket and wool cap. “I just returned from a scouting mission.”

  The muzzle didn’t waver. “Where’s the rest of your squad?”

  “They’re on the way. Corporal Volker sent me ahead since I found a survivor.” DeVontay offered the blanketed bundle up for viewing.

  The man squinted down, unsure of what he was supposed to be seeing. “A baby? Surviving after all this time?”

  “Found her in a house, a
long with some fresh blood. The corporal figured the mother or father must have recently been killed.” DeVontay hoped invoking Volker’s rank would carry some weight with the man.

  “That don’t make no sense,” the man said. “There can’t be any survivors in town that we don’t know about.”

  “We both know that’s not true. A smart person can hold out for months without anybody even knowing they exist. Zaphead or otherwise.”

  “I thought you guys were looking for a Zapper baby.” The guy sounded dubious now.

  “We were, but I just follow orders.” DeVontay gave a “whatever” shrug. “Come have a look if you don’t believe me.”

  Kokona kept her eyes closed, and DeVontay made sure her face was toward the dawn. That way, if any light squeezed out from between her lids, it could be mistaken for sunlight. But she looked for all the world like a normal sleeping baby.

  The sentry looked around as if seeking guidance, then eyed the narrow metal stairs leading to the street. “I’m not supposed to leave my post.”

  “I understand,” DeVontay said. “I guess I’d better check in with the lieutenant. He’ll know how to handle this. Going to be a pain in the ass, if you ask me. The thing starts bawling, and next thing you know, every Zaphead east of the Mississippi is going to be closing in on us.”

  The sentry looked out at the horizon as if the worst was already coming to pass. “Those things creep the hell out of me.”

  “Babies, or Zapheads?” DeVontay joked.

  “Both.”

  “Well, I’ll ask Hilyard not to put you on diaper duty, how’s that?”

  “Appreciate it, brother.”

  DeVontay gave a little wave of acknowledgment as he strolled past, careful to hide his limp even though his legs throbbed with several injuries and the strain of the long walk back. Turning the corner, he saw several people gathered around a trash barrel, warming their hands over a fire that oozed greasy black smoke. They didn’t see him, or didn’t care, and he entered the first door he came to, hoping no one was inside. It was a florist’s shop, the refrigerated cases full of wilted brown bouquets behind their glass doors.