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

by Scott Nicholson

  Rosa could see the confusion on her husband’s face. “Joey led us here. That’s why we left Franklin’s place.”

  “We thought you were dead then,” Marina said, her mood darkening. “We were scared.”

  Scared of Joey, Rosa wanted to add but didn’t trust the infant’s reaction. She and Marina had grown used to the cunning, unnatural intelligence of the mutant babies, but it would be a shock to Jorge.

  Joey saved her some explaining. “I am glad we didn’t have to kill you,” the infant said. “Bienvenidos a nuestra casa.”

  Jorge’s mouth parted and his eyes widened, but Rosa shook her head as a warning.

  “Bienvenido,” said one of the adult Zapheads, and then others repeated it.

  “They speak Spanish now?” Jorge asked, pressing Marina against him and wrapping a protective arm around Rosa.

  “Hablamos español,” Joey said. “And English. And any other languages we hear.”

  “But you’re just a few months old!”

  “The newer, the better.”

  “Come meet the others, Jorge,” Cathy said. “Settle in, so Rosa and Marina can go back to their work.”

  The Zapheads that had blocked Jorge’s exit now retreated, letting the door swing closed and sealing off the gym. Rosa took Jorge’s hand and led him to the bleachers where a couple of dozen humans sat whispering to one another. She introduced him to some of her new friends—fellow inmates—and Marina showed her father the two blankets, bundle of clothes, and pile of food that marked their quarters.

  “The New People brought this for us,” she said. “From the houses in town. There’s food in the cafeteria, too, and we catch rain water from the roof in pots and pans.”

  “What else have they brought here besides people?” Jorge said.

  “They let us help the babies,” Rosa said, knowing she was rationalizing their impossible situation. “They haven’t threatened us. But they won’t let us leave.”

  “We’ll leave when we’re ready.”

  “No, we can’t do that. It’s too dangerous.”

  Jorge looked around at the bizarre nursery and mutant community center. “And staying isn’t?”

  “I like it here,” Marina said. “You get used to them after a while. I even like little baby Rachelle that I’m teaching Spanish. And there’s a New People girl that knows my name now. She doesn’t have a name, though.”

  Jorge’s fists clenched. “We’re not ‘New People.’ We’re human beings. Americans. How can anyone live in this filthy prison?”

  “We’re functioning here,” Rosa said. “We have a place to use the restroom—”

  “It’s out in the woods,” Marina said. “You have to squat like we did at Mr. Wheeler’s place, but there’s a lot of toilet paper from the school. And there are other children here to play with.”

  Rosa was worried about her daughter. Marina had adapted easily to this strange place, almost as if it was a summer camp. She had made a few friends in the little free time the Zapheads allowed them, and the humans ate meals together and talked in low voices about their situation. Some had been separated from loved ones, or were the last living members of their family, and many wallowed in a persistent state of numbness. A couple of the men talked of rebellion, but the odds were a hundred to one against them. Even Rosa herself had come to accept this school as her new home. One she didn’t particularly like, but a place she was determined to make the best of.

  Before Jorge could respond, a commotion erupted and the double doors flew open on the far side of the gym. A cluster of mutants pushed their way in, and a chubby woman shouted and grunted as she struggled against the encircling mob.

  “Get your freaky hands off me, you monsters,” the woman screeched.

  “You monsters,” the Zapheads repeated, and the phrase spread across the expanse of the gym, the highly intelligent infants saying it first, and then their adult guardians.

  Once inside, the crowd parted and the woman tumbled to the wooden floor, kicking at her assailants. “Get away from me!”

  “Wanda,” Jorge said.

  “Do you know her?” Rosa asked.

  “She helped me. Brought me to town. I thought they had killed her.”

  Wanda wobbled to her feet and the Zapheads backed away, several of them shouting at her, “Here now stay.”

  Cathy walked over to her, carrying Joey, and Jorge followed. Rosa wrung her hands for a few seconds, wishing her family would not become involved, but Marina skipped after her father, cheerfully humming “Ring Around the Rosie.” By the time Rosa caught up, Jorge was helping Wanda to her feet.

  “I figured you for a goner,” Wanda said to him.

  “I heard the gunshots,” he replied. “I thought they would kill you.”

  “Oh, I took a few down before they got me.” The woman rubbed a bloody gash on her forehead. “They bleed as red as we do.”

  “You have a severe injury,” Joey said. “May we heal you?”

  Wanda stared at the infant in a mixture of horror and surprise. She glanced at Jorge, then Cathy, then Rosa. “Is he really…?”

  Jorge gave a grim nod. Rosa said, “They can all talk, but the babies seem to grasp the meaning better.”

  “Great God a’mighty, if it gets any crazier, my brains are going to leak right out of my ears.”

  “We can repair that, too,” Joey said, lifting his tiny hands toward her.

  “Don’t you put your dirty paws on me, you little freak.” Wanda backed away from the infant and Jorge guided her back to the human quarters by the bleachers. The Zapheads went about their business of collecting the dead and teaching their infants and the furor died down to a muted rumble.

  Rosa found a damp cloth to clean Wanda’s wound as the woman and Jorge described how they ended up at the school. Rosa shared their story as well. Jorge’s and Wanda’s disbelief faded a little bit, because the reality was all around them: the Zapheads were forming a community. It was an awkward social order with uncertain rules, and the babies and children were the guiding influences, but it was working in its bizarre fashion.

  But when Rosa tried to express her view, Jorge dismissed her with a frustrated shake of his head. “No. We’re escaping as soon as we get a chance.”

  There was another tumultuous uproar near the double doors and several Zapheads carried in two bloody bodies.

  “Them are the ones I shot,” Wanda said with a defiant sneer. “They got me, but I got my licks in.”

  Cathy carried Joey over to the corpses, who were borne aloft a moment and then balanced on their feet. Rosa had seen this before, and she decided explanation was not only useless, it was beyond her lingual ability.

  The first wounded Zaphead lolled forward, supported by several of its brethren. Joey uttered some phrases they couldn’t make out in the din, and then the baby patted his little hand along the streaming, bloody pocks. The rivulets slowed almost instantly, and the blood turned from wet and shiny to darker, shrinking away until it vanished altogether.

  “¿Lo que está sucediendo?” Jorge blanched until his face was almost wheat-colored.

  “They’re fixing her, Daddy,” Marina said, with childlike happiness. “Good as new.”

  In less than a minute, the seriously ravaged Zaphead stood erect under her own power, fingering the holes in her clothes where the shotgun pellets had entered. Joey then repeated the healing process on the second one, while Jorge and Wanda protested the unnatural aberration.

  But who is to say what is natural now? Rosa didn’t dare challenge her husband in his current state, though. He would learn soon enough. And come to accept the new ways, just as she had.

  Shortly, Cathy came over with her bloody-handed baby, and Joey said to Wanda, “See. I can treat your injury if you like. You will be good as new, right, Marina?”

  Marina clapped her hands in a playful patty-cake motion.

  Wanda drew back and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t have a gun no more, but I still got teeth and fingernails. Come n
ear me and I’ll wrap your diaper around your neck and squeeze until your yellow eyes pop out.”

  Joey giggled. “That’s okay. I can fix myself, too.”

  Cathy sniffed at her mutant wunderkind. “Speaking of diapers…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Why did you run away? DeVontay asked her, leaning against an oak tree and watching a bird.

  Rachel couldn’t explain. If she told him she was afraid of becoming a Zaphead, then he’d keep a close eye on her and maybe even restrain her again. If she told the truth—that she wanted to find the compound and kill her grandfather—then she would be exiled or killed herself. But the truth was an ever-changing thing, because now that she was here, she absolutely adored Franklin Wheeler. All her childhood memories of him came back to her: the patient way he’d taught her to fish and play chess, the support he’d given her when her sister Chelsea had drowned, and all the books he’d given her that weren’t just good but also worthwhile.

  It had been two days since Franklin had brought the group back to the compound. Her joy at seeing DeVontay and Stephen—human joy—had been muted by the sight of Campbell’s body draped across Hilyard’s shoulder. “This is one corpse the Zaps aren’t getting,” DeVontay said, holding his bloody shoulder.

  They’d performed a solemn burial outside the compound, with Franklin offering a rambling eulogy that basically amounted to expressing confusion at the current state of existence. Since then, they’d been busy settling in, storing the last of the vegetables from the compound’s garden, and healing from their long, dangerous journey.

  “I couldn’t trust myself,” she said, choosing a middle ground. They were in the woods outside the compound, collecting firewood. DeVontay’s shoulder was still sore, but fortunately the bullet had passed cleanly without nicking any bones. Still, his left arm was in a sling, and he joked that he was becoming closer to half a man with every passing day. Rachel didn’t find it funny, since she was in danger of becoming half a Zaphead herself.

  “I trust you,” he said. “So does Stephen. Whatever changes you went through didn’t hurt you.”

  “I’m glad we’re all here.” She lifted a fallen locust pole from its blanket of damp leaves. “This is about all I can handle on this trip.”

  DeVontay collected a thick hickory branch and said, “Okay, we’ve got about an hour’s worth of heat. At this rate, we’ll be stockpiled by next summer.”

  “Feels like February already.” She glanced at the sky, which was now clearly visible through the scraggly canopy of bare branches. The gray clouds had lingered for days, which helped suppress the glowing sparks in her eyes. The temperature was below freezing and they were all working hard to prepare for the cold months ahead. She led the way back to the compound, DeVontay scuffing leaves behind her so they wouldn’t leave a trail.

  “Maybe we should have stayed in the city,” he said. “At least it’s warmer there.”

  “We don’t know that. If the weather patterns have wildly shifted, there might be a foot of snow in Charlotte right now. I like our odds better out here.”

  “You said ‘our.’ Do you mean me and you, or all of us?”

  She slowed and gave him a look. “Don’t talk about you and me.”

  “Because of Campbell?”

  “Because of everything. I’m sorry Campbell died. I know he had feelings for me, and he probably saved my life, but it never clicked between us. Even though I figured you were dead, I couldn’t just move on from your memory like that. And then…well, then I changed.”

  “We all change. The important thing is to stick out the changes together. That’s what you do in a relationship.”

  She rested her burden on a stump so she could easily take it up again. “I’m not ready for that. Until I figure this thing out—”

  He tossed his firewood aside and wrapped his good arm around her, tugging her against him. The heat came off his body in waves, despite their bulky jackets. She looked into his eyes, and then focused on his lone good eye. Somewhere in there, the real DeVontay was hiding. She wondered what he saw inside her.

  She wanted to resist as his face dipped down toward hers, but she was frozen, as if the surrounding frigidity had seeped into her bones. His breath wafted across her cheeks in a warm fog. It smelled of the turnips and potatoes they had eaten for lunch. His lips touched hers and electricity raced through her entire body, scaring her.

  Rachel recalled the encouraging words DeVontay often shared with Stephen: It’s okay to be scared. It means you’re still alive.

  But what if this tingling was something else? Some kind of adrenaline trigger or endorphin rush that would kickstart the dormant mutation inside her?

  Could she risk it?

  Love is always a risk. And one I’m not willing to take.

  She couldn’t resist lingering, though, letting their tongues briefly explore. Her heart pounded wildly against her rib cage. Would it really be so terrible to just surrender and accept whatever happens? Isn’t this as natural as anything else that’s happened to the world? Doesn’t love have a right to exist, too?

  “Rachel!” Stephen called from just outside the compound gate.

  She pushed herself away from DeVontay, inadvertently bumping his shoulder and eliciting a grunt of pain. He reached for her again but she danced away, retrieving her log and heading for the compound.

  “He can’t see us,” DeVontay said.

  “I know. But we better catch up with the others.”

  “You can’t run forever. I’ve already covered a hundred and fifty miles to keep up with you.”

  She laughed. “I can run for one more day, at least.”

  Stephen met them and helped Rachel carry the wood while DeVontay obscured their tracks. With all the new traffic, the entrance to Wheelerville was becoming a black quagmire, and Franklin already planned to move the gate to the opposite side of the ridge once the weather cleared. Hilyard and Kreutzman were busy stringing up apple slices on a piece of fishing line, intending to let them dry in the sun. Franklin was in the animal shed, milking the goats. After Rachel and Stephen dropped their contributions on the pile of logs, stumps, and branches, Kreutzman took an ax to the wood and laboriously turned out pieces that would fit in the cast-iron woodstove.

  The rest of the group gathered at the makeshift table outside the cabin. As they pitched in to process the fruit for storage, Hilyard asked, “See anything out there?”

  “Pretty dead.” With only one functioning arm, DeVontay wasn’t much good at slicing apples. But when Rachel reached for the knife, he gave her a narrow-eyed glare.

  “I’m surprised Shipley hasn’t sent out more patrols. After we killed three of his men, I figured he’d declare an all-out war.”

  Kreutzman delivered a crisp blow that cleaved a log in half and paused to rub his hands. “They might have gone AWOL like me. For all we know, the unit has mutinied again. Might be anarchy over there.”

  “Or the Zapheads could have attacked them,” Stephen offered.

  “I don’t think so, son,” Hilyard said. “Even though they’re a few miles away, we would have heard the gunshots. And Shipley has enough ordnance to level a small city. No matter how many Zaps attacked, it would be a massacre.”

  “The Zaps would do it anyway,” DeVontay said. “They seem pretty ignorant of mortality. From all we’ve seen, they’re just as likely to tackle a senseless suicide mission as come up with a plan that might work.”

  Franklin emerged from the shed carrying a tin pail of milk. “Hurry up with that wood, Kreutzman. We’ll need a fire tonight.”

  “As cramped as your little love shack is, we ought to throw off enough body heat to keep each other warm,” the soldier responded.

  “Okay, smartass, you’re welcome to build an addition any time you want. I didn’t expect to provide food and shelter to half the human race.”

  “For all we know, we might actually be half of what’s left,” Hilyard said.

  “Like Noah’s Ark witho
ut the spiders and snakes, huh?” Franklin entered the springhouse, where he kept the milk buckets partially submerged in the ice-cold water.

  “Noah only took two of each kind,” Kreutzman said. “Might make reproduction a little more awkward with what we’ve got. Hard to pair off when we’ve only got one female.”

  Rachel blushed at the implication. She’d abstractly considered that someday humans would have to breed again and replenish their population. But the reality of it—from making love to enduring a pregnancy to delivering and raising a child in this hostile world—was something she could only imagine stronger women pursuing, not herself. She could barely contemplate her romantic attraction to DeVontay, and she still wasn’t sure how much of that was due to circumstance. If she had met him at a party six months ago, she likely wouldn’t have given him a second glance.

  At least you’re feeling something. At least you’re not a New Person. Because when you were like them, you wanted to kill him, not kiss him.

  Hilyard broke the uneasy tension by saying, “So, Private, do you propose a raiding party to steal women from the next village?”

  Kreutman slammed the ax into a chunk of beech and left it there. “Wouldn’t hurt to explore a little. Maybe get a deer to string up for jerky.”

  Franklin came out of the root cellar, shoved the sagging wooden door into place, and said, “If it stays this cold, we can just hang the meat from a tree. Just have to tie it out of reach of bears and coyotes.”

  Stephen held up his palm and stared at it. “Hey! Did you see that?”

  “What?” DeVontay asked.

  Stephen grabbed at the air as if chasing dandelion tufts. “Snow!”

  Rachel tilted her head and gazed at the sky. The soft white specks drifted on their lazy way to the ground, almost lost against the turbulent ceiling of the sky. The afternoon grew suddenly darker and Hilyard gathered the pile of apple slices DeVontay had cut. “All right, people, we better move this circus indoors. Looks like winter’s knocking.”

  “Give me a hand, Stephen?” Kreutzman asked, and then instructed the boy to load his arms with firewood.