Kokona opened her eyes. “You could throw a whole lot of funerals with those.”
“Pipe down, you squirt.” DeVontay walked to the back of the shop. The funeral home was still a block away, but it was outside the fortified perimeter Hilyard had organized around the main square. He’d seen the lines of vehicles blocking the streets, and no doubt snipers protected the area from above.
The back of the shop featured a short hallway, with an office on one side and a musty restroom on the other. The back door was latched with an iron bar, and the lock was a button type that simply required a twist. He swiveled the bar and turned the knob, but before he exited, Kokona said, “So you think your ‘human baby’ trick is going to keep working?”
“You have any better ideas?”
“What do they deliver flowers in?”
“Hell if I know.”
“I thought you were a romantic.”
“Yeah, but I was a poor one,” he said. “Didn’t have money for any flowers.”
“Well, now you can have all the flowers you want. But what would you deliver them in?”
He opened the storage closet, where vinyl wreaths, metal stands and rings, and gift boxes were stashed in disarray. The middle shelf featured a selection of wicker baskets, some of them tightly woven and strong enough to carry a cinder block.
Or a baby.
DeVontay glanced outside to make sure no one was coming, and then he placed the basket on the floor and tucked Kokona inside. It was a perfect fit, more snug than a baby carriage. He grabbed some polyester bunting and piled it over her until she was hidden.
He lifted her and tested the weight. The handle strained a little but seemed sound enough. But how would he smuggle her to the funeral home without arousing suspicion?
“Mmmf mmmf,” Kokona said, her voice muffled by the fabric.
DeVontay peeled back enough so that he could see her. “What’s that?”
“I’m food. You found some canned goods in a store and you’re bringing them to the kitchen.”
“I don’t know about any kitchen,” DeVontay said.
“Neither will anyone else.”
DeVontay couldn’t argue with that. And he didn’t want to delay any longer. Rachel had died nearly eighteen hours ago. Kokona had revived Zapheads who were more than three days dead, but Rachel was half human. There were no guarantees, but the sooner the better. “Okay, let’s go for it.”
He hoisted the basket under one arm and leaned it against his hip, and then steadied himself as he limped to the back door and pushed it open. The door led to a narrow alley full of shadows and trash. A strip of sunlight marked the intersection with the street, and DeVontay headed toward it, eyeing the rooftops for sentries.
“Don’t look up,” Kokona said from beneath the fabric. “You’re just going about your business.”
“In a world full of killers.”
“Safe zone. You’re supposed to relax.”
“You act like you’ve done this before.”
“Maybe I read it in a book.”
“Hush, now. Food doesn’t talk.” DeVontay walked into the sunlit street, gave a casual glance at the barricade of cars to his left, and continued toward the funeral home a hundred feet ahead. Two armed women stood talking under a ragged awning, but neither looked his way. DeVontay’s heart pounded not just from the threat of getting caught, but also because of what waited under the casket lid.
He entered the home, which was just as he had left it, and made his way to the viewing room. When he reached the casket, he suffered a horrifying thought: What if she’s gone?
But when he lifted the lid, there she was, which was almost as horrifying. Her skin hadn’t marbled, and she was still warm to the touch. No odor of corruption or decay lingered. The flesh around her eyes was a little purplish, but in the dimness, DeVontay could find no other flaw. Even the fatal wound in the center of her chest seemed unchanged, the blood not coagulated.
“Rachel,” he whispered, and she looked so fresh, he almost expected her to answer.
But she remained silent, and DeVontay set the basket on a chair in the front row. He uncovered Kokona, whose eyes were bright enough to match her smile. She patted her hands together. “Patty cake, patty cake!”
“It’s time.” DeVontay lifted Kokona and held her over Rachel as he’d seen Stephen do back at the school. “Do what you do.”
Kokona put her hands on Rachel’s face. “WHEE-ler, WHEE-ler, WHEE-ler,” she chanted, and then giggled.
It occurred to DeVontay that, days ago, the Zapheads had welcomed Rachel as some kind of queen, perhaps even a messiah, the one who would lead them into the future. But the powers of the mutant babies had intensified, allowing them to summon and influence the rest of their tribe. With all the other babies dead, Kokona was the most powerful creature around. Would Kokona see Rachel as a threat?
Or would Kokona force DeVontay to help her resurrect the other eight babies?
Worry about that later. If there IS a later.
A wave of heat raced through him, like a flash fever, and then he swayed with a rush of dizziness. His ears rang with a high, piercing whine. He was suddenly so weak he could barely hold Kokona aloft. He leaned against the casket to steady himself.
Kokona pressed her hands against Rachel’s cheeks for maybe thirty seconds. DeVontay broke out in a clammy sweat. His mind raced with images of fire and blood, turbulent storms sending jolts of lightning around the perimeter of his skull. Kokona was like a glowing coal in his hands, but he didn’t drop her.
The intense charge quickly faded, and DeVontay whispered, “Is it done?”
Kokona didn’t answer. He half expected her to recite some sort of magic spell, although he’d seen nothing about her powers to suggest the supernatural. Just strange new science. DeVontay pulled the infant into a hug and stared down at Rachel. She lay motionless, not even an eyelid flickering.
“Rachel, come back,” DeVontay said.
Perhaps hearing him, she opened her eyes.
They glowed like newborn suns formed from the hot mist of nothingness.
DeVontay gasped in a mixture of awe and terror. This was what he wanted, yet he still wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. This was playing God. But he was just human enough to do it anyway.
Kokona squealed and clapped her little hands in delight.
DeVontay leaned close to her face, gripping the edge of the casket with his free hand, Kokona balanced in the other. “Rachel, can you hear me?”
Her eyes shifted back and forth, irises glittering gold against the volcanic sclera. She parted her lips, and a soft popping sound came out, as if air had infiltrated abandoned hollows.
She stared at Kokona, whose own eyes glistened with a surging light.
DeVontay said, louder. “It’s me. DeVontay.”
She kept her gaze on Kokona as she spoke. “WHEE-ler.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
She remembered some things.
Most were from after the change:
The New People healing her gangrenous dog bite and making her New, too. The tribe calling her from the mountain to join with them and build a new way. The babies understanding they had more power than she did. Their voices going blank in her head as she returned to Newton to help them. The wild-eyed woman surrounded by tiny, bloody corpses aiming a gun at her. The universe exploding in her chest, followed by a kind of sleep.
A sleep that wasn’t fully dreamless, because pictures from Before emerged from the whispering murk:
The feel of wet grass under her feet as she chased butterflies on a summer morning. Her first kiss with a boy at a school dance while “I Want To Hold Your Hand” played on bass-heavy speakers. The rush of panic when she realized her little sister Chelsea had been gone for far too long under the dark waters of a laughing lake. The day the sun blasted the planet with enough radiation to alter it forever.
But lying there looking up at the beautiful child, everything seemed new. Air, language, th
e heat burning inside her—a cauldron of life she had never known was so urgent and vital.
A fantasy is as good as a memory. Both are only real because you say so.
And this new state—where her human self ran in the background like files on a computer while the revived Rachel surged with energy and ideas—wedded fantasy and memory into a hallucinatory stew.
She immediately recognized Kokona, although they’d never met. The Asian baby with the beautiful eyes was sister, daughter, mother, and God all rolled into one. Kokona’s smile was warm and welcome, like a sunrise after a long winter.
The dark-skinned man beside her—whose eyes didn’t burn and one was made of glass—made sounds with his mouth, and she repeated those sounds, although they had no meaning. The only meaning in her life was the child he held, and Rachel instinctively understood the man’s only value was in his care of the child.
“Hello, Rachel Wheeler,” Kokona said, and the voice was like warm water poured out and bathing her.
Rachel knew that name. She turned her head from side to side, flexing stiffened cords of muscle. Soft cloth on either side, a satin pillow under her head.
Why am I lying here? I’m not sleepy at all.
She sat up, looking around the strange platform and the rows of padded chairs around the room, its odd podiums bedecked with artificial flowers, thick red curtains hanging as if waiting to be drawn down at the solemn close of a stage play. This was a place for endings. Not New People.
“Careful, honey,” DeVontay said, gripping her shoulder with a clumsy, dark hand. She comprehended his words now—their language was simplistic, it was stored in the nebulous computers inside her—and she understood his crude term of endearment.
Affection. And his face…so serious.
She wanted to laugh, in an imitation of Kokona’s gleeful giggle. His good eye rolled down to the center of her body, and she reached for the itching, wet spot on her chest. She wiped at it, and then concentrated so that the energy flowing through the rest of her swelled to a silent crescendo. She lifted the damage away—the memory of it, the fantasy of it—and tossed it into the air where the world absorbed it. The fabric covering her still bore a hole, as well as the red stains of leakage, but the flesh was now whole.
DeVontay’s lone eye widened, and Kokona said, “Don’t be so surprised. This is what you wanted.”
Rachel felt a ripple of something she identified as jealousy—not of DeVontay’s attention on her, but rather Kokona’s attention on DeVontay. Even though she recognized it as an old emotion, she was aware she would carry two worlds inside her: The human past and the mutant New.
She didn’t want to be in this cushion-lined chamber any longer. She pushed her legs over the side and wriggled down until she was standing. DeVontay nearly dropped the child as he struggled to help her, not realizing she was perfectly capable. More than capable. More of everything.
“How do you feel?” DeVontay asked.
Feel? Feelings don’t matter anymore. You recognize them for what they are. They are fantasy and memory, and neither of those are real unless you make them so.
Feelings aren’t fact. Feelings aren’t truth.
Feelings ultimately fail.
She accepted these truths, but something inside her tumbled and flipped like butterflies over wet grass.
“Where are the others?” she asked Kokona.
“Waiting.”
DeVontay suddenly embraced her in a hug, Kokona pressed between them. He shook with a sob. “I thought you were gone. I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m here. I’m found.” She didn’t hug back. She couldn’t explain with words, because he would never understand. She wasn’t his to lose. She belonged to the New People.
“I found Stephen,” DeVontay said, and that name tugged at her, too, summoning up fantasies and memories. “Franklin’s bringing him. But we need to get away from here. Hilyard and the others will probably kill you. Both of you.”
Of course they would. The old Rachel thought New People and Old People could live together, but now she saw that was another fantasy. The only way After could work was if the Old People were removed. Old must always make way for New.
But Stephen…
You promised. You said you would be there for him and take care of him.
Because of Chelsea…
“How is he?” she asked DeVontay.
“He carried me,” Kokona said. “He helped me fix some broken people. But the soldiers shot them again.”
“Not all of them,” DeVontay said. “I mean, not all of you. Damn, this is confusing.”
He laid Kokona down in the shiny silver box with the cushions and fabric. “You’ll be safe here.”
Kokona kicked and wailed. “No. You have to hold me. I did what you wanted, and now you belong to me.”
“No,” DeVontay said, his face contorted. “I belong to Rachel. And we’re getting out of here.”
Anger. That emotion always led to violence with humans. That was why you had to deliver violence in return. Words and feelings could never bridge the two tribes. Feelings were not facts, and there was only one truth:
Survival of the fittest.
And the reason why Old and New could never live together.
“Rachel, we need to leave,” DeVontay said, reaching for her.
She flung out an arm to repel his advance, and the blow was so swift and powerful that it drove the wind from his lungs and sent him reeling against the shiny box. He dropped to his knees, gasping and wheezing. He stared up at her in disbelief.
“I’m not leaving,” she said. “I live here.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“I love you.”
Oh, that word. The ultimate fantasy. Laughing would have been too human. The New way was to let such words stay back there in the silent computer, where electrons fired and faded and facts formed themselves.
“You can carry me now,” Kokona said. “You know how.”
“Yes.” Rachel couldn’t save Chelsea, but she could save Kokona and the rest of their tribe. But Chelsea was only a memory. Why did it stir her inside and cause her to suffer an uneasy feeling?
DeVontay got to his feet and took a wary step toward her. “I love you,” he said, without fear or anger.
The way he said it made love sound like more than a fantasy. Like it was a fact.
The veiled computer in her head whirred and smoked. She was new, but not all the way. She was still Rachel Wheeler. Not all the way Rachel either, but enough.
She was afraid to speak. Kokona was in her head, breaking apart her thoughts. She couldn’t trust which was fantasy and which was fact. She brushed past DeVontay and grabbed the baby, then raced for the door. She was across the room in three steps and nearly slammed into the door.
“Rachel!” DeVontay called from behind her. “Don’t go out there. They’ll—”
Kokona’s voice filled her head: GO THERE GO NOW.
She still possessed memories of doors and knobs and streets, as well as bullets, pain, and love. She still carried all the facts of her life, and the new tide of voices and thoughts couldn’t totally swamp them. She remembered the idea that used to glow inside her, the voice that hushed all the others. It was named “God,” and it was just a fantasy, but for her, it was also a fact. The contradiction jarred her and prevented her from slipping into thousands of mutants tugging her under their tide.
She was still human.
No matter how many times the Zapheads changed her, she couldn’t leave herself behind. She couldn’t lose the memories and fantasies. But she also knew her eyes were glowing. The Old People would kill her.
As Rachel burst into the sunlit street, Kokona laughed in her ear. “Let’s find those dead babies.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“What happened out there?” Hilyard asked.
The lieutenant had set himself up a sweet little command post in a bank building, taking the presi
dent’s office in the back. Nice oak desk, oil paintings of sailboats, soft leather chair. Franklin could see how things were now. His natural paranoia had always served him well, and he wasn’t going to give up now just because he had rejoined the human race.
Brock stood behind the officer, rifle slung over his shoulder, arms crossed. The frat boy looked like he was adjusting just fine to military life. Maybe Sierra was impressed, but more likely she was out there running things while the men played tin soldier.
Franklin didn’t think the truth would hurt, although he certainly wasn’t going to share all his information. Just the part that would keep him and Stephen alive until they could figure out the next move. He’d left Stephen in the care of Sierra, who was also watching Marina. Jorge, who’d arrived at the downtown stronghold half an hour after Franklin, slouched in a chair by the door, rubbing his bleary eyes.
“It’s all true,” Franklin said. “We got ambushed at the school and fought our way out. I’d guess there are maybe a hundred of them. I can’t be sure, but it seemed like more showed up as the night went on.”
Hilyard, who managed to remain ramrod straight while perched in the cozy high-backed chair, gave a curt, grim nod. “We heard the gunfire. I didn’t want to risk sending out more resources until we knew the enemy strength.”
So, we’re just a “resource” to you? That’s what career Army does to you. Brass tacks and bullshit.
“We didn’t bug out right away,” Franklin continued. “We wanted to see what the deal was. The baby was there, all right. Bringing the dead ones back to life.”
Hilyard didn’t seem overly surprised, or maybe he maintained his stony countenance as a matter of professional pride. “What did this event look like?”
Franklin shrugged and lied a little. “One of the Zapheads held the baby while it put its little hands on the face of the dead Zaphead. Fifteen seconds later, abracadabra, another Zap on the hoof.”
“Is that how you observed the event, Jorge?”
After: Dying Light (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 6) Page 8