That was an odd thing to be wishing. He’d rather be dead than a Zaphead, and once he was dead, he wanted to stay that way.
“All right,” Franklin said, peering over Rachel’s shoulder and trying to smile, although he anxiously twisted his beard between his knotty fingers. “We’ll do it old school.”
DeVontay almost smiled back, except he didn’t have the strength. Franklin had actually shown some feelings. That almost made it all worthwhile.
Rachel put one bloody hand over his heart. “Still beating strong,” she said.
“Beating for you, honey,” he whispered.
“I’ll check the store room for bandages and meds,” Franklin said, patting Rachel on the shoulder. To DeVontay, he said, “Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”
Stephen and Marina entered the room. Marina sat cross-legged and pulled Kokona into her lap, soothing and rocking the baby. Stephen laid his rifle on the floor beside DeVontay. “Good thing you taught me to shoot.”
“Good thing,” DeVontay said.
Then he closed his eye and let the concrete pull him down into its dark taffy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
It was a fine morning to be alive, crisp and sunny and quiet.
The Blue Ridge Parkway was clear, although pockets of snow clung to the shadows, and Franklin made good time. A well-disguised access road curled around the mountain where the bunker was located, and it sported just enough undergrowth that most motorists would never even notice it, much less detect that it served to transport supply trucks and heavy equipment.
Of course, there weren’t a whole lot of motorists left to worry about these days. They rotted away inside the Audis, Fords, Mercedes, and Nissans that protruded from ditches, hung between tree trunks, or sat sinking into the grass shoulders where erosion and gravity would eventually drag them into oblivion.
He’d spent a couple of weeks helping the “family” get organized and secure. At first he’d been reluctant to leave them, but Stephen was already teaching Marina how to shoot a pistol, and Rachel had taken to carrying a weapon anytime she ventured outside the bunker with Kokona. DeVontay was well on the mend, and between the impregnable defensive strength of the bunker and the array of high-powered weapons, they were probably in better shape than just about anyone outside of D.C. Although he’d bet his yard gold that Moscow, Bejiing, Tokyo, and Jerusalem all featured happy little holes where useless bureaucrats lived in pampered luxury and safety.
Franklin promised to return to the bunker in a month or so, and he imagined himself as a seasonal migrant for the immediate future, spending a little time with the family while also enjoying the peace and privacy of his compound. They wanted him to stay for Christmas, but nobody knew what day it was, and it could have already passed. Franklin saw no point in celebrating such a holiday anymore, and New Year’s had never been a big marker for him, either. Years didn’t matter anymore.
So he’d taken a backpack full of food and headed down to the parkway, coming off the ridge near Milestone 302. He felt an obligation to the goats, and he missed his books and garden. Stephen pledged to make a trip off the mountain in the spring to find a replacement for the copy of Animal Farm he’d lost, but Franklin asked him to score some classics instead, like Treasure Island and Swiss Family Robinson.
The bunker was only about twelve miles from his compound, an easy day’s walk if the weather was good and no Zapheads roamed the land. He’d seen one while stopping at an overlook to scan the long, rumpled horizon to the east. It wandered around a clearing a few hundred feet below him, moving stiffly and without direction, as if the winter chill had slowed its metabolism. He thought about shooting it, but the noise might draw others.
And what was the point, anyway? Even if he knocked one down, thousands, tens of thousands, still dotted the planet. They didn’t have to exterminate humanity to win. All they had to do was not die, and time would do the job for them.
You don’t know that. Might be some couples out there huddled under blankets and breeding away like hairless rabbits.
That was the only advantage humans had. Unless Zapheads learned to reproduce…but he didn’t want to think about that. Bad enough that they clung to the goal of bringing millions of dead people back to join their mutant horde.
Farther along the horizon, more than a hundred miles to the southeast, a gray-black pillar of smoke rose like Biblical retribution. Charlotte was probably already gone, so he figured either Greensboro or Burlington was adding its fuel to the final fire. Assuming his shortwave radio and solar-power supply still functioned, he’d resume scanning the bandwidths at night, charting out any contacts and tracking the decline of his fellow survivors.
He harbored no illusions of organizing a resistance movement, and as far as anyone on the receiving end of his transmissions would know, he was “in Mississippi.” Too many ears might be out there, and if Zapheads kept evolving, they’d probably get the satellites functioning at some point. Along with drones, computers, nuclear missile silos, and all the other wonderful tools of enforced freedom his race had invented. No doubt the Zaps would even up the game considerably, and he could hardly wait to see what sort of mass destruction they dispensed—microbiology and chemistry added plenty of untapped potential.
He wondered how Sierra had ended it. Did she shoot the eight babies before turning the gun on herself, or did she slip away and leave eight cunning, brilliant, but otherwise helpless dictators wailing away in the casket, crying out for carriers that their tribemates had slaughtered? Whatever the outcome, her sacrifice guaranteed their sphere of influence would likely be limited to Newton for a long while.
Unless one of them had lured her within reach at the promise of a healing touch…
Either the mutants were organized and plotting their expansion, or they were scattered as totally random and isolated predators. There were probably other options, but Franklin didn’t want to dwell on them.
He turned away from the view and drew in a deep helping of fresh mountain air. This was the reality—the next breath, the next step, the next Next.
Milepost 291, and the snowy trail that led up between the bare trees to Wheelerville, was just ahead. He didn’t think of it as the last outpost on a hostile planet. It was simply home.
The rumbling came from the distance like static electricity, but thunderstorms were still months away. As it rose up from the floor of the valley, the low droning broke into distinct beats.
Whum whum whum whum WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP.
Franklin jogged out of the roadway, slogged through the muddy shoulder, and took cover beneath a rhododendron thicket. The helicopter soared over, the air throbbing hard enough to hurt his eardrums. The aircraft was dark green and squat, like the torso of a giant metal wasp, the blades a blur as they chopped against the wind. He couldn’t see into the cockpit glass, but the observation windows on the side were bare.
The cavalry rides again.
This was likely just a scouting mission, but it was undeniable evidence that the U.S. government had somehow maintained integrity in the aftermath of the solar storms. Maybe the might of the military would prove to rival whatever technology the Zapheads developed, as well as overcome their sheer advantage in numbers, but as the Blackhawk veered out over the endless rolling ridges and grew smaller and smaller, it seemed awfully insignificant in the vast sea of After.
Franklin kicked the mud off his boots and started up the trail. He wondered if the goats would be glad to see him, or if they’d already forgotten him.
The rest of the world had.
And that was okay by him.
He planned to keep it that way.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Did you turn on the motion detectors?” Rachel asked.
“Yep,” DeVontay said. “Double-checked the lock and set the alarms. We’re as safe as milk.”
The tiny cell they’d made their bedroom was about ten feet by ten feet in floor area. It held only two cots pushed together, a wooden cra
te they’d converted to a nightstand, a gun rack that DeVontay adapted so they could hang their clothes from it, and a potted fern that didn’t seem to care too much about the lack of sunlight. Duct-taped to the wall were a couple of pictures Rachel had torn from magazines, colorful scenic shots that helped break up the claustrophobia.
Rachel lay in bed, waiting. She was nervous, but she was glad of it, because that meant she had a good bit of human inside her. She didn’t know how much stronger the human layer would become over time, or if it would one day overwhelm and consume the mutant biology inside her if she managed to avoid any contact with other Zapheads—and she now thought of them as “Zapheads,” not New People.
In a strange way, she hoped she never lost that part of herself. After all, she would rightly be dead if she hadn’t transformed, and she owed the rest of her life to them.
No, maybe that was God, who kept you human when nature wanted you to be something else.
But was there really any difference between God and nature, when you got down to it? Neither acknowledged any masters. She still believed, but faith evolved, too.
DeVontay leaned his weapon by the metal door. “Kids are tucked in. I tried to read them a bedtime story, but they said I was too slow and didn’t know how to pronounce ‘Rumpelstiltskin.’ I think they just wanted me out of there so they can read comic books.”
“Marina’s already trying to draw her own.”
“Kokona’s a good teacher. How is our babe anyway?”
“She’s down. Maybe one day she’ll learn how to sleep, but at least she’s content to lie still all night now and meditate or whatever it is she does.” Rachel knew a little of what Kokona did in those quiet hours, but she let the child have an independent mind without intrusion. The nursery was in the next cell, and Kokona wasn’t shy about venting her distress just as any normal baby would.
“Unless she needs a diaper,” DeVontay said, unbuttoning his shirt. The bandage ran from his neck to below his rib cage and around his left biceps, but it showed only the smallest blot of red. The wound was healing, thanks to the many antiseptics and antibiotics in the store room.
“Your night to change her,” Rachel reminded him.
“Yeah. The endless joys of parenthood.” DeVontay finished undressing and she admired his body as he hung his clothes beside hers.
He killed the light and the soft glow of her eyes suffused the darkness, guiding him to bed. The intensity of her eyes had diminished, but it was another gift she hoped would never fade completely. If they were going to build a bridge to the future, then the world would need creatures like her and Kokona.
He drew close and she welcomed the warmth and the now-familiar tangle of their limbs. “Are we doing the right thing?” she asked.
“Who knows? Keep playing the game as long as you can spin the wheel. You’re the believer. What does God say?”
“Spin it. Spin it with all your might.”
He patted her belly—her womb, from which life of an uncertain nature might spring forth. “Works for me. If there’s an After, why can’t there be a Next?”
“Besides,” she said. “No matter how it turns out, it will pretty much fit the family. Two orphans, a half-mutant mom, a one-eyed jack for a dad, a crotchety part-time patriarch, and the ultimate special needs child—one that will never grow up and is smarter than any of us. So anything we add to the mix will be just right.”
“Okay, then,” he said, his breath on her cheek. “As long as you’re sure.”
“I love you. That’s enough.”
“I love you, too.”
But she wasn’t sure love and faith would be enough. She didn’t know what would happen if DeVontay and the kids aged while she remained unchanged year after year. What if the military unleashed its hoarded forces, and whose side would she take if war erupted?
Once in a while, in the black, still hours of the night, when the faint hum of the air system was the only sound, she would pick up on Kokona’s thoughts, and sometimes, faint voices would answer Kokona back. Rachel wasn’t sure if the voices were growing stronger or weaker—they were like a radio signal whose source rose and fell with the atmospheric conditions—but they never died completely.
Tonight, though, all were hushed.
“Turn off the lights,” DeVontay said, moving his lips toward hers.
She closed her eyes, and the world went dark.
She might not be just Rachel Wheeler anymore.
But she was human enough.
THE END
****
Thanks for sticking with me on the long journey of AFTER. I hope you had as much fun reading the series as I did writing it. Please sign up for my newsletter to learn about the NEXT series, with Rachel and the others facing a toxic radioactive landscape, more mutant evolution, and humanity’s last stand!
NEXT #1: AFTERBURN
Five years after a devastating solar storm wipes out civilization and spawns a strange race of mutants, Rachel Wheeler and her misfit family must choose whether to hide away or fight to join other survivors.
As their food supply dwindles inside the bunker, radiation from abandoned nuclear plants is altering the world around them. Not only are the mutants building their own cities and weapons, the remaining dregs of the U.S. military are massing for an attack. In this decaying environment, hostile new creatures crawl out from the crevices and up from the waterways to threaten them all.
But as a half-mutant, Rachel’s choice isn’t as simple as mere survival—the mutant way of life might be more promising than anything humans could hope to restore. And Rachel’s next decision could tear apart her family and the entire world.
See Afterburn at Amazon US or Amazon UK
How another group of people faced After.
ZAPHEADS #1: BONE AND CINDER
When Mackie Dailey survives a cataclysmic solar storm that wipes out civilization and mutates others into violent killers, he seeks out the one person he cares about most.
But when he returns to a college campus looking for Allie, he discovers she is a Zaphead—nearly unrecognizable as the human he once loved. Mackie becomes caught in a power struggle among a small group of survivors who turn the campus into a stronghold against the Zaphead threat. His old nemesis, Lucas Krider, has taken charge, but Krider’s vision of a new world is just as horrifying as the extinction they all face.
Will Mackie sacrifice himself so the group has a chance to survive, or will his demons turn out to be more dangerous than the strange, rampaging creatures that nature has unleashed?
See it at Amazon US or Amazon UK
About the author:
Scott Nicholson is the international bestselling author of more than 20 thrillers, including The Home, McFall, Disintegration, Liquid Fear, Speed Dating with the Dead, the Solom series, and the After post-apocalyptic series. His books have appeared in the Kindle Top 100 more than a dozen times in five different countries. Visit his website at www.AuthorScottNicholson.com and follow his Amazon Author Central page.
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VIEW OTHER KINDLE BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON:
Novels
Next #1: Afterburn
After #0: First Light
After #1: The Shock
After #2: The Echo
After #3: Milepost 291
After#4: Whiteout
After #5: Red Scare
After #6: Dying Light
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
Zapheads #2: Scares and Ashes
The Scarecrow (Solom #1)
The Narrow Gate (Solom #2)
The Preacher (Solom #3)
The Home
McFall
Creative Spirit
Disintegration
The Red Church
Speed Dating with the Dead
The Skull Ring
Drummer Boy
The Harvest
Kiss Me or Die
Liquid Fear
Chr
onic Fear
Cursed (with J.R. Rain)
Bad Blood (with J.R. Rain & H.T. Night)
Spider Web (with J.R. Rain)
Spider Bite (with J.R. Rain)
Ghost College (with J.R. Rain)
The Vampire Club (with J.R. Rain)
Meat Camp (with J.T. Warren)
Playin’ Possum (with Milton Bagby)
October Girls
Crime Beat
The Dead Love Longer
Fangs In Vain
Burial to Follow
Story Collections
Curtains
Flowers
Ashes
The First
Zombie Bits
Head Cases
Gateway Drug
Missing Pieces
These Things Happened
American Horror
Children’s Books
If I Were Your Monster (with Lee Davis)
Too Many Witches (with Lee Davis)
Ida Claire (with Lee Davis)
Duncan the Punkin (with Sergio Castro)
Bad Day for Balloons (with Sergio Castro)
BOX SETS
Ethereal Messenger
Mystery Dance
Horror Movies: Three Screenplays
Ghost Box: Six Supernatural Thrillers
Mad Stacks: Short Stories Box Set
Bad Stacks: Short Stories Box Set
Odd Stacks: Short Stories Box Set
U.K. Kindle Links
Next #1: Afterburn
After: First Light
After: The Shock
After: The Echo
After: #3: Milepost 291
After #4: Whiteout
After #5: Red Scare
After #6: Dying Light
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
Zapheads #2: Scars and Ashes
Zapheads #3: Blood and Frost
The Scarecrow (Solom #1)
After: Dying Light (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 6) Page 20