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

by Scott Nicholson

  “I’m…her carrier. But my ankle…”

  She wore a shawl around her head, and a long coat pocked with holes, and her feet poked from beneath the fabric. One ankle was twisted so badly that a gleaming bit of bone stuck out of a bloody maw of gore. “Hurt it…” the woman blubbered, tears leaking down the crow’s feet of cracked skin around her eyes. “But I tried…oh Lord, I tried…”

  Stephen could tell she was talking to the infant, but Shipley said, “You didn’t try hard enough if that thing’s still alive.”

  Broyhill drew a wicked-looking knife out of a holster strapped to his lower leg. He grinned with pleasure. “You know what happens to traitors, don’t you?”

  “No!” Stephen shouted.

  He grabbed at Broyhill’s arm but the soldier elbowed him to the ground and plunged the knife into the woman’s throat. She looked up at the sky, mouth gaping for a prayer or one last bloody breath, and Kokona tumbled from her arms as she slumped against the entryway.

  Broyhill wiped his knife on the leg of his camo trousers and bent down for the baby.

  “Nooooooooo!” Stephen screamed.

  That drew a kick from Shipley, silencing Stephen’s cry as he hissed, “Shut that shit now, or you’re next.”

  Stephen closed his eyes and clamped his hands over his ears, not wanting to hear the butchery, but the dim chants of “Come here come now” still reached him. And they seemed to be growing louder. He thought he heard the baby, but it wasn’t squealing, it was…whispering?

  No, that’s impossible. It’s a baby. A mutant, but still a baby.

  “Sarge,” Broyhill said.

  Stephen opened his eyes.

  Zapheads massed at each end of the alley, with eyes like the torches of an angry mob.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “What have you done?” Joey asked Rosa.

  “I’ve made everything simpler,” she said.

  After murdering the other carriers, she’d bolted the building’s front door and returned to the sheriff’s office, where Marina tended the babies. There were eight of them now, and although one more had yet to arrive, Rosa couldn’t afford to wait.

  Marina looked at her with a trembling lower lip and pale face. “You killed them?”

  “One day you’ll understand,” Rosa said. “I’m doing this for you.”

  “Listen to me,” Bryan said. “We needed our carriers to teach us. At least for a little while longer.”

  “I can teach you everything you need to know,” Rosa said. She took Bryan in her arms and gave him a gentle squeeze.

  Those bright, beautiful eyes. What a handsome boy. I only wish Jorge and I could have made such a creature.

  But Jorge now seemed like a dream from the distant past. Even Marina was a little unfamiliar to Rosa, as if they’d been parted for years and had to relearn each other’s ways.

  “The New People are coming,” Bryan said. “Open the door.”

  “I can’t do that, silly bambino. Not yet.”

  While Joey and Father Casey’s baby were propped in chairs at the desk, the other infants lay in blankets on the floor. One of them, a girl with wild tufts of blonde hair, rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled toward Rosa. “We’re almost ready,” she said. “With all of us together, we can teach the other New People to talk.”

  “Yes,” Rosa said. “But we have to make sure we all teach them the right things. That’s where I can help.”

  “Right and wrong don’t apply to us,” Bryan said. “We do what we must, and that is the right thing.”

  “I killed them because it was the right thing to do,” Rosa said.

  “My mother’s gone?” Joey said, as if unsure how he should react.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” Rosa said.

  “Forever?”

  “Not forever. You’ll repair her, in time, and she needs improvement. But until then, we have much work to do.”

  She propped Bryan back in his chair and knelt to scoop up the little girl who was crawling toward the door. “And who are you, precious ninã?”

  “Amelia.” The child’s voice was higher-pitched than the others, and she giggled.

  “Do you need a new diaper, Amelia?”

  “No, I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

  “Your carrier wasn’t serving you properly.” With her free hand, Rosa reached inside her jacket and unbuttoned her blouse. She didn’t like feeding where Marina could see, but her daughter might as well learn what it took to grow and thrive in this new order.

  All her sons and daughters should learn of love and sacrifice.

  “I want Daddy,” Marina said, and for the first time since they’d arrived in Newton, she sounded on the edge of panic.

  “We need to think of other things,” Rosa said. “Like caring for our babies.”

  Something pounded on the front door.

  “They’re here,” Joey said.

  “We’re not ready yet,” Rosa said. “Can you tell them we need peace and quiet so we can decide what the New People will be like?”

  “I don’t understand,” Bryan said. “We already are. We’re just becoming more like us hour by hour.”

  As Amelia latched onto Rosa’s breast and nursed contentedly, Rosa studied the other newcomers. She could easily feed two at a time, but then she wouldn’t have a free hand to care for the other six. And Marina, sitting at the desk with the other three babies, didn’t look like she would be much good for a while.

  “If you want to help us, why did you take our carriers away?” Father Casey’s baby said. “I was learning about the bible and faith and prayer. These are things we will need if we’re to share with our other tribes.”

  “Useless things,” Joey said. “That’s all foolishness. We need math and physics. We should learn how to build electrical generators and extract resources from the soil and construct buildings. We need the books more than we need Old People.”

  “I disagree,” said one of the newcomers, a girl who looked to be the oldest of them at maybe fifteen months. “We should understand all of it. We can learn from their mistakes as well as their successes. Facts won’t change, and we have plenty of time to gather facts, but we should master their emotions while they’re still here. Because once they’re extinct, we won’t be able to recall what they were like. You can’t learn emotions from books.”

  “Yes, you can,” Joey said. “Poetry, song lyrics, novels, and such rubbish as that. The Old People put a lot of effort into their vanity.”

  Rosa was surprised to hear them arguing. They’d always been coldly pleasant, matter-of-fact and businesslike despite their physical frailty.

  They’re learning from us. But they’re learning to become individuals.

  The pounding at the door was louder, now driven by many hands. And something heavier—metal on metal, a screeching and banging that seemed to shake the whole building. The babies had chosen a nearly indestructible facility for their headquarters, with barred windows and thick concrete walls, but any building was only as secure as its door.

  “What does it matter?” Bryan said. “Once we convert the Old People and repair the dead, the human ways will be forgotten. We’ll have plenty of work addressing radiation and pollution and erosion. Why take on the chore of fixing their broken psychologies?”

  Amelia stopped feeding long enough to say, “Maybe when they become like us, their pain will go away.”

  “Pain,” Joey said. “Shouldn’t I feel pain because my mother died? In the books, people are sad when that happens.”

  “No,” Rosa said. “You shouldn’t be hurt, or sad, or anything. You’re beautiful and perfect.”

  Marina moved away from the desk and came to Rosa’s side. She looked down at the nursing mutant and put her mouth to Rosa’s ear. “I don’t like them anymore, Momma,” she whispered.

  The words were like needles through Rosa’s heart, and she could barely hear them over the pounding on the door, but she smiled and said, “Now, honey, we shouldn’t be afra
id.”

  “I want to go home.”

  Rosa had never been so disappointed in her daughter. This was all Jorge’s fault for resisting what was best for the family. She forced herself to remain kind and patient so the babies wouldn’t feel the tension.

  “This is our home now,” she said. “And if you’re a good girl, maybe these little angels will let us become New.”

  Shouts came from the street outside, murmurs from a crowd of voices. It sounded like dozens, maybe hundreds.

  Bryan giggled. His voice seemed deeper now. “They’re heeeeere.”

  “Come here come now,” Joey said.

  The babies all began batting their hands together and shouting in unison “Come here come now.”

  The voices from outside repeated the command. The walls seemed to shake as the mutants threw themselves against the door. Marina trembled and clung to Rosa.

  Amelia looked up at Rosa, milk on her lips, and said, “Let them in.”

  “No! You’re my babies now.”

  She laid Amelia in Marina’s arms. The hum of rhythmic voices outside the building was like a rainstorm. Rosa pulled the pistol from her jacket pocket.

  How many bullets left?

  “Momma!” Marina cried. “Don’t!”

  Rosa placed the tip of the muzzle against Amelia’s skull. “Heal her, Amelia. Fix my daughter or you will die.”

  Amelia grinned, showing her two upper teeth. “I won’t be dead for long.”

  “Kill her,” Joey said. “She doesn’t agree with us anyway.”

  “No,” Bryan squealed. “We need all of us.”

  “Shut up, Bryan. You think you’re so smart, but you’re not. Kill her, kill her, kill her!”

  The other babies joined in. “Kill her, kill her, kill her!”

  The mutants outside the building changed their cry from “Come here come now” to “Kill her,” although the two phrases overlapped for a few seconds as the new words spread through the crowd.

  “Okay,” Amelia said to Rosa. “I’ll do it. I’ll cure your daughter of her humanity.”

  Rosa nodded in gratitude, near tears. A mother wanted nothing more than for her child to be safe, healthy, and happy. And this was the most precious gift she could ever bestow upon her daughter.

  Amelia reached her hands toward Marina’s face. “Just bend down to me and relax,” Amelia said. “The others will help me.”

  “Go ahead, Marina,” Rosa said.

  Tears ran down Marina’s cheeks as she bent her face closer to the baby she held. The others still chanted “Kill her, kill her, kill her,” except Bryan, who looked like he wanted to cry, too.

  Just before Amelia’s hands made contact with Marina’s face, Marina gave Rosa a pleading look.

  “Trust me, honey,” Rosa said. “Would I ever give you anything but the best?”

  The cries of “Kill her” outside were as loud as the chants at the football stadium during Rachel Wheeler’s arrival. Why were the babies so eager to kill one of their own kind?

  Maybe Amelia wasn’t the right one to perform this task. Maybe she should leave the healing to Joey, who exerted power over the others.

  But before she could come to a decision, Marina flung Amelia onto the desk so hard that she slid across the smooth metal top toward the edge.

  Rose dove to catch the baby, dropping the pistol in the process. Marina fled the room as the babies’ cries of “Kill her” changed pitch, as if now they meant Marina instead of Amelia.

  After making sure Amelia was unhurt, Rosa ran from the office to find Marina at the front door, peeling back the thick deadbolt. The metal door was heavily dented, with a couple of gashes allowing slivers of sunlight.

  “Marina, stop it,” Rosa cried.

  “I don’t want to be a Zaphead!” Marina’s shoulders shook with sobs as the girl opened the door and the voices boomed like a roll of thunder. “KILL HER, KILL HER, KILL HER!”

  The mutants poured in like a wave, and Marina was lost beneath the surging tide of arms, legs, bobbing heads, and pairs of wildly glittering eyes.

  Rosa hadn’t taken the time to retrieve the pistol, not that it would have done any good.

  The New People had their orders.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Do you hear that?” Riff Raff said.

  The answer was obvious. Even with one ear mangled, Jorge could hear their chanting just fine. But among the repetitive chants were scraps of sentences and phrases, bits of language that seemed to burst forth almost randomly. The Zapheads massed against the squat concrete facility, pounding on the walls and doors.

  Like the ones on the outskirts, many of these had traded in their rags for clean clothes, and now looked more like a restless crowd at an outdoor rock concert than a mindless, rampaging mob.

  “There must be two hundred of them,” Jorge said.

  “Wonder what’s in there that has them so riled up?” Riff Raff said.

  “Survivors, probably.”

  “You don’t think the police are still in there, do you?”

  “Unlikely. Even if they had enough food, how could they sit here in the middle of all these Zapheads and not get noticed?”

  “Huh. What if the babies and carriers are in there?”

  “No,” Jorge said, although his chest was tight at the thought. “Rosa would not have stayed here in the center of town, especially with all the Zapheads around the hospital.”

  “You sure about that, hombre? It’s hard to make good decisions under stress.”

  Jorge was less worried about her decision-making and more concerned about the influence the babies, particularly Bryan, held over her. “I don’t see what we can do either way.”

  When the chants changed to “Kill her, kill her, kill her,” the agitation of the Zapheads intensified. Then the crowd pushed forward and the building seemed to yield under their force.

  “Hey, Mex, check that out,” Riff Raff said, pointing to the four-story building where he and Jorge had passed the night. The four silhouettes atop the building were unmistakable, given their weaponry and the helmets on their heads.

  “Soldiers.” Jorge wondered how long they’d been there. They couldn’t open fire, because their limited firepower would do little more than annoy the Zapheads.

  “Sweet,” Riff Raff said. “I knew Sarge wouldn’t leave us hanging. He must have heard our firefight on the edge of town.”

  Jorge didn’t grant Shipley such noble motives. If anything, Shipley was instigating a follow-up attack and bringing his squads into position. Even with an arsenal of grenade launchers, Shipley wouldn’t have enough troops to clear the town. He was likely mounting a guerilla campaign, planning to hit the enemy with repeated quick attacks and then retreating before suffering casualties.

  That plan hadn’t worked so well yesterday. And the Zapheads had only grown stronger and better organized in the meantime.

  As the Zapheads poured into the jail, Jorge wondered if he and Riff Raff should take advantage of the chaos to dash from their concealment in a storefront to the hospital.

  But just as suddenly as the chants had shifted, they fell away to silence, which was almost as unnerving.

  “What’s going on?” Riff Raff said.

  Jorge decided the young man asked questions as a nervous mannerism, because why should Jorge have any more idea of what was going on than Riff Raff did? But he said, “Just watch the soldiers. They have a better view than we do.”

  The Zapheads came out of the jail again, moving slowly and without agitation. Jorge expected to see them carrying bodies out of the building. But instead they gathered as if opening a path to allow someone to exit.

  “I’m moving closer,” Jorge said.

  “You crazy? We’re good right here. Cover on three sides, and we can see anything coming up the street in both directions. If our boys attack, we can lay down some good fire from here, and with the launcher we can knock some holes in that crowd.”

  “I need to see who’s in there.”
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  “You just said your wife and kid weren’t around here.”

  “Yes, but I need to know.”

  Riff Raff glanced around as if contemplating the terror of being alone again, but said, “All right, but you better travel light. Leave the launcher here.”

  Even though the soldier was right—Jorge’s arms were still sore from carrying the fifteen-pound weapon—he didn’t like leaving the security of its firepower. He opened the .30-.30’s magazine and filled it with cartridges, planning his route across the three blocks to the jail. But before he could head out, the Zapheads murmured among themselves, a cacophonic wave of sound that traveled from one end of the crowd to the other.

  Then a new chant rose from the droning wash of many voices. It was the same as the one from the football stadium, just before yesterday’s attack: “Whee-LER!”

  “Oh, man, not again,” Riff Raff said.

  Jorge hadn’t seen what happened to Rachel Wheeler in the chaos of the attack, and he assumed she was dead.

  But he was less concerned with Rachel’s fate than what he saw in the midst of the Zaphead horde: A small form in a green jacket, crawling along the street between the legs of the mutants.

  Marina!

  He nearly bolted into the street but Riff Raff put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “I see her, but it’s suicide to go charging in like a maniac. You won’t do her any good if you’re dead.”

  Jorge was relieved to see Marina was alive, but she looked hurt. She dragged one leg behind her, her jacket was torn, and her hair hung down over her face as she inched forward. Rage boiled up in Jorge, both at the mutants who had stolen his family and Rosa for endangering their daughter to serve the Zaphead babies.

  But Riff Raff was right. As much as Jorge wanted to run screaming and shooting, that wouldn’t save Marina. For the moment, he could only hope the calm held until he could figure out a way to reach her.

  The chants of “Wheeler” grew louder and the Zapheads spread out along the parking lot and scraggly lawn of the jail. Riff Raff tapped Jorge on the shoulder and pointed down the street in the opposite direction. Jorge expected more soldiers, but instead two figures headed their way, a small group of Zapheads in their wake.