After: Whiteout (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 4)

by Scott Nicholson

  “Come on.” Rosa tugged Marina toward the store, every rustle of loose sheet metal sounding like the screams of swooping banshees. Cathy opened the front door without bothering to knock or call out. Rosa followed with Marina, hoping no trigger-happy survivors lurked inside, determined to protect their outpost.

  Then they were inside, blinking as their eyes adjusted to the dimness. Aside from a musky, sweetish odor of old decay, death had left this place relatively untouched. Mabel’s was a thrift shop, dank polyester suits hanging on racks, garish fashions dangling from hooks along the walls, and shelves loaded with the kind of dated kitchen clutter that the wealthy saw fit for nothing but tax-deductible donations. Rosa was quite familiar with such shops—Jorge’s meager wages from Mr. Wilcox had scarcely covered their monthly bills, so any necessities had to be scrounged from thrift shops, flea markets, and yard sales.

  The sales counter was a cash register set atop a glass display case that held costume jewelry and music CD’s. No bodies lay behind it, but Rosa doubted the store had been unattended during the first of the solar storms. The proprietor might have mutated into a Zaphead and could still be on the premises.

  “They’re here,” Joey said in his small, high voice. He no longer squirmed in his mother’s arms, as if he’d accomplished his mission for the moment.

  “Who’s here?” Rosa asked, unable to stop herself. She was conversing with a three-month-old that knew more than she did. They lived in a world where knowledge was the only currency of value. Rosa could now own any trinket or appliance in the store, but she’d never be able to buy Marina’s survival.

  Cathy sat in a faded recliner and pressed the infant against her bosom. “Shh. Nappy nap time.”

  Marina wandered over to a dusty corner where cardboard boxes overflowed with toys, dolls, and stuffed animals. She rummaged through the boxes, making a racket. “Careful, honey,” Rosa called, keeping her voice low.

  Cathy laid Joey on a coffee table and peeled off the towel he wore as a diaper. The stench of his waste suffused the air and conquered the other moldering aromas of the store. Cathy plucked a T-shirt from a discount bin and wiped the infant clean, then clothed him in a fresh towel. The act seemed so ordinary that Rosa had to remind herself the child was a mutant with eerie intelligence and unknown motives.

  Rosa checked the street outside. Still no signs of life, but the wind had picked up a little and rain clouds veiled the sun. Rosa locked the door, feeling foolish since the storefront window would be easy to smash if someone wanted inside. “I’ll check the back rooms and upstairs.”

  Marina looked up from a plastic bucket of Lego pieces she had spilled across the wooden floor. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No, honey, you go ahead and play. This will only take a minute.” Marina fitting together the interlocking plastic pieces was another sight that once would have been ordinary but now seemed remarkable. Fortunately, the distraction wiped much of the tension from Marina’s face, and she could have been sitting in the living room of their mobile home with nothing to worry about except the broccoli she’d be forced to eat at dinner and the fourth-grade boys who made fun of her good grades.

  Rosa walked past the electronics section—twenty-year-old televisions, computer printers, videotape players, and stacked snarls of wire—to the rear of the store. From a rack of sporting goods, she selected a golf club with a thick wooden head. She tested its weight with a short swing. Golf was a game for the wealthy, but a club was a club.

  The back room was partitioned off by a curtain. Rosa poked the club handle through the opening and nudged the curtain to one side, peering into the darkness. From what little she could see, the room was used as storage for the donations that weren’t in good enough shape for resale. There was likely a rear entrance, but Rosa didn’t wish to navigate the clutter in order to find it. Instead, she backtracked until she came to the set of wooden stairs that led above the storage room.

  As she climbed, Cathy began a soft, lilting lullaby: “Hush little baby, don’t say a word, Daddy’s gonna buy you a mockingbird, and if that mockingbird don’t sing, Poppa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.”

  Rosa turned to the front of the store. The fading glow of day revealed Joey nursing from Cathy’s breast, little arms folded over his chest. Marina’s dark hair fell over her eyes as she played, building an imaginary city where little yellow Lego people lived without killing one another.

  Rosa continued on her way, past a hand-painted sign pointing up that read “MORE JUNK IN THE TRUNK.” She carried the golf club like a baseball bat, the old wooden stairs groaning with each step.

  If anything’s up here, it will hear me coming a mile away.

  She didn’t believe the cashier would remain at the store after becoming a Zaphead, because those who had changed were migratory and restless. But nothing in Siler Creek had been burned or destroyed, as far as she could tell. It was more like the entire town had just stopped. The bodies in the cars outside were ravaged by several months of decay, but none of them exhibited signs of brutality or violence.

  The second floor was quiet, with a few shafts of lesser gray leaking from the windows. The merchandise here appeared to be antiques, furniture and glassware mixed with cartons of hardbound books. Rosa was content with a cursory examination, so she didn’t stray from the main aisle. She’d nearly reached the far end of the floor, relieved that the store was unoccupied, when she saw the cluster of figures.

  The foremost of them stood just beyond a hutch, watery light glinting off the glass and revealing its silhouette. “Who’s there?” Rosa called, swallowing her desire to shout in a panic.

  The figure didn’t answer, but it appeared to move. There were three other figures with it, as if they were waiting for her. She didn’t want to frighten Marina—not unless she was sure they were in danger—so she stepped forward and poked at the first figure with the tip of the golf club.

  It fell with a clatter, knocking over a stack of metal trays. Now deeper in shadow herself, she saw the form was a mannequin, draped in dated fashions. Its smooth, eyeless face pointed to the ceiling.

  She was turning to go back downstairs when she realized one of them wasn’t a mannequin.

  It moved.

  She lifted the golf club and swung it around with all her strength, nearly losing her balance. The club head landed with a meaty thwack. A rat tumbled from the figure, skittering to a hidden corner as a putrid stench crowded the dusty air.

  This one has a face.

  That wasn’t exactly true. Mildew and black rot filled the orbital sockets where the eyes had been, and broad, blunt teeth grinned from the green-gray flesh around it. The corpse hung on a metal rack, as if in mockery of the mannequins, and a scarf had been wrapped tightly around its neck.

  Who would desecrate a corpse when there were so many to play with?

  But Rosa had no time to contemplate the mystery. As she pulled the club from the broken chest of the bloated corpse, Joey wailed, “Bad men are here.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The first Zaphead clambered over the hood of a Honda at the far end of the street, dropping to the pavement and huddling by the front tire.

  Rosa couldn’t believe the thing had moved so quickly. The Zapheads she’d encountered—and in one case, killed—moved slowly and stiffly, unsure of their legs. But this one scrambled with the agility of a monkey and coiled with graceful tension. If not for its shabby, torn clothes, she would have assumed it was a survivor.

  “What is it, Momma?” Marina pushed Rosa from behind in an attempt to reach the front window, where Rosa crouched with the golf club, thick, greasy fluid dripping from its blunt wooden head.

  Rosa shielded her daughter as she gave a quick kiss on the forehead. “Go back to the toys, honey. I need you to be very quiet and brave, okay?”

  Marina nodded, black eyes wide with fear. Rosa’s heart twisted at the expression, but she had no way to comfort her daughter. This was a world without mercy, radiating only the barest
glimmers of hope. Rosa gave a tight smile, the skin on her cheeks crinkling into familiar creases with the gesture. The confidence and warmth were false, but they were all she had to give at the moment.

  I’ll protect you somehow. And we’ll find your father, if he’s alive. You’re going to have a future. She tightened her grip on the slender steel handle of the club as Marina dutifully obeyed. No matter who or what I have to kill.

  Rosa returned to her surveillance, and the Zaphead was still huddled beside the car, perhaps two hundred feet away. Rosa was pretty sure the Zaphead wouldn’t be able to see inside the dark store, but she stayed low just in case. The clouds had grown thicker overhead, ushering an early sunset, and the creature’s strangely sparking eyes might offer heightened vision that would allow it to penetrate the gloom. But it seemed to be paying attention to something farther up the street, out of Rosa’s sight.

  Why is it acting that way? As if it is hiding.

  Cathy whispered behind her, startling Rosa so much she almost swung the club. Then she realized it hadn’t been Cathy who had spoken. It was Joey.

  “Bad men,” Joey repeated, wriggling in Cathy’s embrace as if wanting to drop to the floor and crawl around.

  But the Zaphead wasn’t a man—it was a woman roughly Rosa’s age, with pale skin and blonde hair, dressed in a yoga or dancer’s outfit with torn fabric revealing knees scraped raw.

  Cathy helplessly shook her head. “He made me come and look.”

  “Don’t let her see you,” Rosa warned.

  “She not see,” Joey said in his high, surreal voice. “She knows.”

  Then another Zaphead came into view, a teen male, arms flailing in the air as he ran, filthy sneakers flapping as he dodged between vehicles.

  He’s running from something.

  This Zaphead ran past the first one, apparently unaware of it, and Rosa expected him to pass on the sidewalk just yards from them. But the Zaphead veered suddenly to the right and ducked into the entryway of the shop across the street, a lawyer’s or accountant’s office with ornate gold lettering in the window. The Zaphead pressed into the shadows and went motionless, although like the one by the Honda, he projected an air of taut anticipation.

  “I don’t like this,” Rosa said. “Maybe we should all go upstairs.”

  Cathy didn’t answer, but Rosa hadn’t really addressed the comment to her. No, she’d been speaking to the baby. And she realized she was deferring to Joey, not exactly giving him an order, but more like testing his limits. If his strange powers allowed him to perceive things beyond their senses, he could help them survive.

  Unless he knew he was a Zaphead and that the last of the human race had declared all-out war on his kind.

  “No, no, no,” Joey said, and Rosa could have sworn those chubby cheeks dimpled with a mischievous grin. “Wait.”

  Marina was back with her Lego, pretending to play with the plastic blocks, but her neck kept straining to look at the front window. Rosa should have sent her upstairs where it was safer, but she didn’t want to leave her daughter alone with that corpse—especially given the way someone had arranged it like a life-size Barbie doll.

  “There’s more,” Cathy said, drawing Rosa’s attention back to the street.

  Two Zapheads dashed into the open, coming from the same direction as the previous two. One was an old man with only a few strands of wiry black hair stuck to his bald head, his blue dress shirt featuring dark stains beneath the armpits, his necktie knotted into a frayed snarl. His ample belly bounced with each step, undulating with such watery weight that Rosa expected his skinny legs to snap at any moment. But he kept running, eyeglasses askew across his nose and dangling by one earpiece.

  The other was a brown-skinned boy of maybe six, wearing only socks and dirty underwear. His little legs pumped furiously, and he was somehow able to keep pace with the old man, both of them approaching the Honda where the female Zaphead was hidden.

  Then a shout erupted, echoing off the concrete bones of the dead town.

  “Hold still, you starry-eyed fuckers!”

  The two Zapheads kept running. The thunderclap of a gunshot was followed by a metallic ping, and the rear window of a pickup truck shattered. The old man slowed a little, letting the boy run ahead. In the next instant, he jerked violently, a red geyser spouting from his chest. He pitched forward and collapsed on the asphalt, a pool of blood expanding around him.

  “Got him!” yelled a second voice.

  Then the shooter came into view, popping out from behind an SUV and jogging toward his prey, his rifle at a forty-five degree angle. He wore blue jeans and a moss green T-shirt, a billed military cap atop his close-cropped head. A khaki backpack hung from one shoulder, a grenade, knife holster, and other utensils attached to a canvas belt. His gear seemed to slow him down, because by the time he knelt to take aim at the nearly-nude Zaphead boy, his quarry was out of sight.

  “He’s across the parking lot,” the man called, presumably to a partner.

  A second armed man appeared, wearing sunglasses, a black bandanna tied around his scalp. He had the build of a wrestler, topless except for a camouflage vest with many bulging pockets. He strolled down the street like a tourist on vacation, taking in the sights without a care in the world. “We’ll get him, Roger Dodger,” he said, slinging his rifle high on his shoulder. “See any of them others?”

  “Nah, they scattered like cockroaches.”

  “Maybe they went into one of these stores.”

  Rosa crouched lower as the man looked around. “Bad men,” whispered little baby Joey.

  “Shh,” Cathy said.

  Franklin had warned them about a possible secret military outpost in the area. The old man’s paranoia had painted the soldiers as marauders intent on imposing tyranny on any surviving civilians. Rosa should have welcomed their presence, because they had weapons and supplies. But something about them—perhaps their heartless hunting of the Zaphead boy—chilled her deep inside.

  The two men gathered around the fallen Zaphead. In death, the Zaphead looked utterly human, just a pile of frail bones and pale, wrinkled skin. The one in the cap took out a knife, and for a horrifying moment, Rosa thought he was going to claim whatever scalp still clung to the old man’s skull. Instead, he brought down the blade in a swift stroke that severed one of the man’s fingers. Then he wiped the blade on the leg of his blue jeans and shoved the appendage into one of his pockets.

  “That’s seven for me,” said the one called Roger Dodger. “Got you beat by two.”

  “Still some daylight left. You ain’t won yet,” said the man in sunglasses.

  “I claim the kid. He won’t get far on those little legs of his.”

  “Fine. Meet me over at the McDonald’s in fifteen minutes and we’ll figure out the next move. Sarge wants us back by sundown. He’s gotten a little jumpy since Hayes and his crew got fucked up.”

  “Hayes was a dumbass,” Roger Dodger said, checking the magazine in his weapon. “And he had those two civilians slowing him down. They probably got surrounded and outnumbered. They’re Zap bait now.”

  Rosa had nearly forgotten the two Zapheads that were hiding. The woman had repositioned herself at the rear of the Honda, putting the vehicle between her and the men. The mutant obviously had enough intelligence to understand they would kill her if they saw her, but she didn’t panic and make a run for it. The one concealed in the doorway had blended back into the shadows so well that Rosa couldn’t see him. Rosa wasn’t sure now whether she was more afraid of the soldiers or the Zapheads.

  Joey, however, didn’t harbor any doubts. “Bad, bad men,” he said, louder than before.

  Marina was no longer pretending to play with the toys. She stood by a clothes rack, one hand gripping the sleeve of a blouse as if that would provide comfort. Rosa waved at her to stay there, hoping the drama outside would play out fast and move along.

  But as Roger Dodger worked his way down the street, the man in sunglasses walked almost straig
ht for Rosa. She thought at first the man had seen her, but he swerved around a double-parked Prius and hopped onto the sidewalk, heading for the store next door.

  “He’s looking for those two Zapheads,” Cathy said.

  “Not Zapheads,” Joey said, with petulant force. “New people.”

  New people? Rosa couldn’t make sense of the child’s words, and she didn’t want to wait around and find out. They’d either have to hide in the store and hope the man didn’t see them, or else slip out the back door and take their chances out in the open. But before she could articulate a plan, the concealed Zapheads emerged from hiding and followed the man in sunglasses. They exhibited none of the clumsy, staggering gait Rosa had come to associate with the mutants. Instead, they moved with a calculated animal grace, as if they’d been playing possum all this time just to gain the element of surprise.

  “We should warn him,” Cathy said.

  “No!” Joey writhed so hard he almost stood in Cathy’s arms. “He kill us.”

  “He won’t kill us,” Cathy said. “He’s a soldier of our country. He’s one of us—”

  “Not us.” Joey’s tiny lips curled in a pout and then he let out a wail of discomfort, as if he had colic.

  Rosa scuttled away from the window, crouching low. The baby’s cries would alert both the soldier and the Zapheads, and she wanted to be out of there. But before she could reach Marina, a gun fired and a man screamed next door, the noise muffled behind the wall. Glass shattered and the baby erupted with squeals of delight.

  Rosa raced through the musty racks of clothes and grabbed Marina’s arm, using the golf club as a cane to help maintain her balance on the slick wooden floor. “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

  “But Momma, we can’t leave the baby.”

  “That’s not a baby.”

  “You said we had to stick together—”