After: Red Scare (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 5)

by Scott Nicholson

  Jorge had just reached the locker when the shot rang from somewhere on the school grounds, then another, then a full burst of automatic weapons fire.

  The chanting fell away outside and was replaced by human screams.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Rosa Jiminez heard the wet splat a split-second before the concussing thunder of gunfire.

  A gush of red spurted from the face of a Zaphead two rows behind her, the bullet peeling a furrow into dirty flesh. The Zaphead’s eyes widened and the wild glittering died away in them. Then the mutant pitched backward without uttering a sound.

  Several of the humans screamed, shrieked, and scurried, but the Zapheads merely sat silently in the stadium, either oblivious to the threat or careless of the danger they faced.

  Rosa instinctively wrapped Marina in a protective hug and dragged her to the concrete landing in front of the metal seats.

  “It’s people,” Marina whispered, even as more shots popped from the distance. “Why are they shooting us?”

  “Stay down.” Rosa shielded her daughter as several Zapheads collapsed with gashes in their bodies.

  Judging from the locations from which the shots originated, Rosa guessed there were three gunmen. Some of the bursts were automatic fire, suggesting military weapons, although Jorge had told her of rogue bands of survivors who defended themselves with high-grade firepower. She could no longer keep score. All she knew was that they had gone through too much to die here mistaken for Zapheads.

  The Wheeler woman still stood down on the field, holding the baby Bryan and glaring up at the trees that girded the little valley of the stadium. Tufts of sod flew up as bullets stitched the ground around her feet. The baby uttered a high-pitched command that Rosa couldn’t make out, but the Zapheads responded, rising nearly as one and descending to the field as steadily and somberly as if they were leaving a funeral.

  In a way, they were, because a couple of dozen Zapheads lay sprawled across the bleachers, blood leaking away from their bodies. The other humans took refuge behind the corpses, ducking low.

  Even in their panic, they maintained a possessive grip on the Zaphead infants in their care, as if they were more afraid of failing the mutant tribe than taking a bullet. Like Rosa, they were carriers—responsible for the care and education of the supremely intelligent mutant infants.

  She met the eyes of a Catholic priest she’d befriended, a bilingual man in his forties who’d offered comfort and confession to those who sought him out—careful, of course, not to draw the attention of Zapheads, who might see religion as some sort of rebellious act. He transformed his defensive crouch into a genuflection, then closed his eyes and made a sign of the cross with his right hand while mouthing a prayer. A bullet sparked the concrete two feet beside him, the ricochet skeeing off and burying into fallen meat.

  “Where do we go, Mommy?” Marina asked, her voice muffled by Rosa’s embrace.

  “Better to stay until we see what happens. Keep your head down.”

  The Zapheads moved steadily across the field toward the gunfire, fanning out in an absurd mockery of military formation. The Wheeler woman was among them, near the front, the baby clutched to her chest.

  That’s my baby, Rachel Wheeler. Take care of him.

  Wounded mutants dropped onto the unkempt grass and brown mud, and the ones behind just stepped over the fallen as if they were puddles. A couple of the victims tried to rise despite the large holes blown in their bodies, disregarding any pain they might have felt from their injuries. One flopped out an arm that hung from the elbow by a slender thread of tendon, taking three steps before the sinew gave way and the limb plopped to the ground. The mutant kept trudging forward, a stream of red pumping from severed arteries.

  Rosa had more than safety in mind by remaining hidden in the metal bleachers: she didn’t want Marina to witness the carnage. She had veered dangerously close to shock on several occasions, and any more stress might push her into darkness. But there was no disguising the rich, sweet stench of the gore.

  Rosa forced herself to remain calm, for both of their sakes. “The shooting will stop soon.”

  “Is Daddy okay?” Marina asked.

  “He’s safe.” But Rosa wondered if that was true or mere words of comfort. He was probably safer than they were.

  Jorge had remained in the school’s gymnasium with several of the other humans, caring for the Zaphead infants who weren’t taken to the stadium. A cadre of adult Zapheads kept watch over the makeshift nursery, and though Jorge had tried to organize some resistance, the other survivors were content to serve the mutants rather than risk their wrath. Rosa, too, had urged her husband to adapt to their situation, no matter how strange. It wasn’t as if their time spent scavenging in the wilderness had been so great.

  But she hadn’t considered the danger of the Zapheads coming under attack. Their numbers had grown dramatically in the days since Rosa and Marina had been brought here—although “herded” might have been a better word—and she imagined Newton was a mutant stronghold from which they would eventually take over the region. Based on what she’d seen during the five months since the solar storms had destroyed civilization, she doubted a thousand humans were left alive in North Carolina.

  Meanwhile, the Zapheads probably numbered in the tens of thousands.

  But those numbers were depleted by the minute as gunfire strafed the crowd of Zapheads crossing the field. Some passed the goal posts and reached the bottom of the hill, less than a hundred feet from the hidden assassins. Rosa expected the shooters to flee, but they kept up a steady fusillade that mowed down dozens of targets.

  Marina struggled beneath her. “I can’t breathe, Mommy.”

  Rosa hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been squeezing her daughter. She loosened her motherly grip and glanced over at the priest, Father Casey. He attended to a young woman who was shot in the thigh. The Zaphead infant for whom he was responsible lay on a blanket on the concrete.

  The baby’s little fists beat at the air as she demanded, “Go now go. Take me away from here.”

  Rosa was startled. While the mutant children possessed keen intellect, they were as emotionless as their adult counterparts, seemingly impervious to cold, hunger, and pain. And this one sounded…frightened.

  The baby’s pleas tugged at her heart, and she wondered what had happened to her little Bryan. The Wheeler woman was gone from view, or else was already dead.

  Father Casey wiped the blood from his hands and spoke to the other survivors. He pointed to the top of the bleachers at the announcer’s box and shouted, “If we go that way, we’ll be out of the line of fire.”

  Father Casey helped the wounded woman to her feet, but she cried out and collapsed again. “I can’t,” she wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “Leave her,” the priest’s baby said.

  “What about my baby?” the woman said through her sobs. She was the carrier of a Zaphead boy perhaps nine months old who had tumbled to the concrete when the woman fell. The baby kicked and squirmed but appeared unhurt.

  Rosa glanced from the baby to Marina, then realized with horror she was debating which one needed her more. She motioned Marina to stay down and moved toward the fallen woman and the baby.

  “I’ll take her.” Rosa scooped up the child, who gazed up at her with dispassion.

  A hail of bullets rattled off the bleachers as the gunmen shifted their aim. They must have figured out the Zaphead babies were the leaders of the mutant tribe.

  “Run!” the priest shouted, hurtling up the concrete steps to the upper concourse.

  “He’s a man of God,” the baby boy said to Rosa, no expression on his face but with a quickening glint in his eyes. “Follow him.”

  “Follow him!” repeated the baby carried by Father Casey.

  Rosa nodded at Marina, who sprang from concealment and hurried up the steps. Marina stumbled and nearly fell, and Rosa’s heart clenched as she feared her daughter might have been struck by a bullet
. But Marina recovered her footing and sped onward, passing the priest and the other fleeing survivors, long black hair flying out behind her.

  The shots grew sporadic, and the crowd of Zapheads ascended the slope toward the trees. The gunmen had retreated. The football field was littered with corpses. Rosa didn’t see the Wheeler woman among them.

  Rosa was the last to leave the bleachers, pausing beside the injured woman, who gritted her teeth as she squeezed her injured leg.

  “We can heal you,” the baby said.

  “No,” the woman replied. “I don’t want to become…”

  The woman shut her eyes and leaned back, gasping for air. Blood soaked her pants leg. Rosa gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder.

  The baby repeated the words of the priest’s baby, in the same cold monotone: “Leave her.”

  Rosa’s anger briefly overrode her fear. “She took care of you.”

  The baby’s eyes flashed with fire. “I have a new carrier now. You.”

  Rosa fought the urge to drop the Zaphead onto the concrete. Her own daughter was in danger, and this petulant, smug mutant demanded her attention. “Those are my people out there, shooting at—”

  The baby’s skull exploded in her hands, bits of white bone and gray brains splashing her face. She shrieked as the final gunshot echoed off the bleachers. The injured woman cried out in anguish, forgetting her own pain.

  Rosa held the baby’s lifeless body a moment longer, until the woman reached up her arms to take it. Rosa passed the ruined mutant back to her and the woman clasped the corpse to her chest, rocking back and forth.

  Rosa turned away and climbed the steps to catch up with her daughter, wondering if they could take advantage of the chaos to escape.

  No. Not without Jorge.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It turned out that Jorge’s staged distraction wasn’t necessary.

  As the gunfire erupted, the Zapheads drowsing in a dormant state along the wall came alert, their eyes lighting the gloom around them. They joined the other mutants heading for the exit, although none were in a hurry. Either they didn’t understand the danger or they were following some command or instruction that wasn’t readily apparent.

  Not that Jorge cared. He flung open the locker and grabbed two wooden bats, tossing one to Danny, who dropped it. The wood clattered off the gym floor, but no Zapheads turned at the sound.

  “Which way?” Danny whispered.

  Jorge waved him toward the rear exit, which led inside the main school building. Often the school was filled with Zapheads, but with all of them away at their strange assembly, the hallways would likely be empty. As they passed the row of infants, all of them tended by women who now gazed at Jorge and Danny with curiosity, Jorge wondered if he really could have crushed those tiny, fragile skulls.

  Because he was certain the carriers would have fought to protect them.

  The two nearly drunk men yelled at Jorge, but he ignored them. The locker held more bats if they wanted to try their luck, but Jorge had no desire to recruit them.

  “Are you making sport?” one of the shrill baby voices said.

  Danny stopped in surprise. Jorge gripped the bat harder but didn’t turn around. “Come on,” he said, urging Danny toward the exit.

  “Stop now stop right there,” the baby said.

  The baby’s carrier also ordered Jorge to stop, a chilling reminder of the insidious effect the Zapheads had on their captives. Organizing a widespread revolt would have been impossible—many of the humans were too frightened to resist, and most of the rest identified more strongly with the Zapheads than their fellow survivors.

  Franklin Wheeler was right—it’s not our world anymore.

  The baby repeated its command, but Jorge maintained his steady pace to the metal firewall door with its small glass window. The voice wasn’t quite alarmed, not yet, but it quavered with uncertainty.

  As if responding to an unspoken signal, the door opened and two Zapheads entered. In the immediate aftermath of the solar storms, the mutants would have rushed him and Danny, as well as any other humans in the vicinity, and punched, kicked, and clawed them until they were glistening piles of meat. But the Zapheads had grown more sedate over time, resorting to violence only when attacked, more interested in imitating humans than destroying them.

  Now, though, the obscenely intelligent Zaphead infants were building a new social order, one in which humans served a convenient purpose. But it was obvious that the Zapheads considered this enforced coexistence to be temporary. The coming takeover would be more refined, but it would be slaughter nonetheless.

  Jorge didn’t intend to wait for that day. Before the nearest Zaphead—a tall teenager with acne scars and wiry hair—could react, Jorge swung his bat and struck the teen’s arm with a resounding swack.

  Danny delivered a brutal blow to the other Zaphead, this one an overweight female. He wasn’t exaggerating his baseball skills. The woman’s face caved in, her cheek cracking and teeth flying, her remaining eye sparking silent mutant rage.

  The teen’s arm hung useless against his body, but he lunged for Jorge with his good arm. Jorge jabbed the boy in the ribs, then slammed the heavy length of oak into the teen’s knee, causing him to collapse in an awkward heap.

  The Zaphead babies bellowed in agitation, and the Zapheads who had left the gym now returned. But they were on the far end of the gym’s basketball court, a good two hundred feet away.

  “Let’s do this,” Danny said, blood dripping from his bat. He kicked open the metal door and Jorge entered the hall behind him, tensed in a tight coil while glancing both ways.

  “All clear,” Danny said.

  “Not for long.” Jorge shoved the door closed and jammed his bat inside the push bar that allowed access. The bat handle wedged against the door jamb, creating an impromptu deadbolt. Jorge hated to part with his weapon, but this would buy them a little more time.

  “Which way?” Danny asked.

  “We can see better from the classroom wing.” Jorge pointed to the right. “We can chart a course from there, once we figure out where all the shooting is coming from.”

  He didn’t care whether the attackers were Sgt. Shipley’s soldiers from the Army bunker in the mountains or a band of survivors. The attack sounded like the work of only a handful of people anyway, and the Zapheads would likely swarm all over them in minutes. But if he could find Rosa and Marina, they could be well away from Newton before the smoke cleared.

  Which gave Jorge another idea.

  “Have to make a stop first.” Jorge headed to the left.

  Danny hesitated. The door shook as Zapheads yanked and pounded on it from the other side. Then he followed, grunting, “This better be good.”

  Jorge passed several classrooms, glancing in each to make sure no Zapheads lurked inside. By the restrooms, he came to the janitor’s supply closet. The door was still unlocked from his last visit, and he entered, shoving aside a mop bucket on wheels. He fumbled along the shelves where he’d found the bottle of vodka. The cigarettes were still there, but it was the matches he wanted.

  “What the hell?” Danny said, seeing the cigarettes and reaching past Jorge. “You should have snagged these. They’re worth a shitload in trade.”

  “Toilet paper’s worth more,” Jorge said. He was just glad that tobacco had been banned from most public schools, making it a contraband item that Newton’s janitor had kept carefully hidden away. He wondered what had happened to the person who had apparently enjoyed his bad habits on the job. Was he or she a Zaphead wandering these same halls with wildly glittering eyes, or just another corpse the Zapheads had dragged to the stadium for their community art project?

  The shelves still contained several bundles of toilet paper, as well as stacks of paper towels and cartons of cleaning chemicals. Jorge wasn’t sure which of the bottles were flammable, but he figured they’d emit a nice cocktail of toxic fumes. He unspooled a roll of toilet paper.

  “Hell of a time to tak
e a dump,” Danny said, shucking one of the cigarettes from the pack and jamming it in his mouth. “Now give me a light. May as well have one last smoke before I go down.”

  Jorge struck a match, the smell of sulfur strong in the cramped closet. Danny bent forward, leading with the tip of his cigarette, but Jorge applied the flame to the toilet paper instead. The fire leaped to life, and Jorge tossed the burning roll onto the other paper products.

  “Damn it!” Danny coughed and waved smoke away until he got the cigarette lit, and then he backed out fast.

  “Maybe that will burn the whole school down.” Jorge didn’t want to think about the survivors trapped in the gym. They’d have to make a run for it on their own if they wanted to live. The choice was theirs. At least Jorge had given them a chance, even if they didn’t take it or even want it.

  “I hope them Zapper babies burn in hell,” Danny said, sucking deep drags of smoke from the cigarette.

  Jorge grabbed a mop and smacked the handle against the door jamb, breaking it off just above the gray-stringed mop head. The weapon wasn’t as effective as a baseball bat, but it sported a sharp, jagged edge that might come in handy.

  Instead of passing the gym door again, Jorge led Danny down a different hallway. Although the school building was a labyrinth with additions added over several different eras, Jorge possessed a good sense of the layout from his earlier exploration. Danny followed close behind, complaining about the tobacco that was so stale “it tasted like ass.” The gunfire outside diminished to a staccato popping.

  By the time they reached the front of the building, the smoke had spread to a layer about a foot thick beneath the ceiling. The air was oily and warm, already becoming difficult to breathe. Danny tossed the cigarette away and said, “Well, if I’m going to get cancer, I may as well get it straight from the source.”