After: The Echo (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 2)

by Scott Nicholson

  “You’re a liar, Huynh,” Sarge said. “Unless you don’t count your hand.”

  “What do you want with us?” Franklin said. “We’re not any threat to you.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Sarge said, stepping up to Franklin and exhaling cigar smoke into his face. “Somebody was shooting out in the woods yesterday, and it wasn’t military-grade weapons. In fact, it sounded a lot like those little peashooters you two are carrying. Pop pop pop.”

  Franklin blinked away the smoke but didn’t draw back from the sergeant’s aggressive stance. “So I shot a few Zapheads. That’s not a crime, is it?”

  “Well, maybe I’ll put you in for the Bronze Star. But I’m more concerned about a couple of my boys that went missing.”

  The sergeant moved until he was in Jorge’s face. The officer smelled of old sweat, booze, and gunpowder. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “No, sir.” This was no harder than ignoring the stares and taunts of the rednecks down at the feed store. Jorge had long ago learned how to hide his true feelings.

  The sergeant relaxed a little at the “sir,” obviously feeling that Jorge was beneath serious consideration. But he mistook compliance for weakness, as did many of the gringos Jorge had endured—and survived—in the last few years.

  “Really, Sergeant,” Franklin said. “Don’t you think we have bigger problems than whether some of your boys turned tail and ran?”

  Sarge moved with such sudden ferocity that even his own men gasped and drew back. He slapped Franklin on the side of the head, driving the old man to his knees. “You didn’t respect the old laws, but you’re sure as hell going to respect the new ones!”

  Jorge rushed forward to help Franklin but the sergeant put an elbow in his chest and shoved him away. The Asian soldier jammed the muzzle of his gun into Jorge’s back.

  Franklin spat blood. “Let freedom ring.”

  Sarge tossed away his cigar and pulled his sidearm from its holster. Jorge feared he was going to shoot Franklin, but the man twirled it by the trigger guard, gripped it by the barrel, and whipped the butt onto the crown of Franklin’s head with a loud crack.

  Franklin dropped like a rock. Sarge motioned to the two soldiers. “Grab him and bring him back to the bunker.”

  “Damn it, Sarge,” the Asian said. “Why couldn’t you have beaten the hell of him after we got him back to the bunker?”

  “You want to be next?” Sarge’s cruel sneer was enough to spur the soldiers into action.

  Apparently the new law is whatever this man says it is.

  Sarge waved his pistol at Jorge, motioning him along the trail. “I got a feeling you’re not as hardheaded as Wheeler. So I suggest you get moving.”

  “But my wife and daughter—”

  “They’re Zaphead bait by now.”

  “I can tell you where McCrone is.”

  Sarge got interested in a hurry. “McCrone? How did you know his name?”

  “He begged us to help him. I wanted nothing to do with him. I know better than to take on the U.S. Army.”

  “Damn straight. At least somebody here remembers the Alamo.”

  The army of Santa Anna had actually besieged the Alamo to suppress a revolution by unwelcome illegal immigrants from the United States, but Jorge didn’t think Sarge would appreciate the history lesson. “He said he was running away.”

  “Where he is?”

  Jorge looked the man in the eyes, which were smoky gray and flecked with ice blue. “I killed him.”

  Sarge narrowed his eyes, studying Jorge. Then he slapped his own thigh and gurgled out a laugh. “Goddamn it, Mex, I almost believe you.”

  “The other one is dead, too, but I didn’t kill him.”

  “Damn.” Sarge wiped his mouth with his sleeve, annoyed and impatient. “Zapheads must have got him.”

  The soldiers helped Franklin to his feet. A large red knot appeared on his skull, a trickle of blood trailing down to his ear. He was barely conscious and clearly suffering a concussion, but the soldiers propped him up and hauled him down the trail.

  Sarge pushed Jorge after them. “Get moving.”

  “Why don’t you let me go? I’m no use to you.”

  “You’re guilty of crimes against the state. We’ve already had one breakdown, but things are different now. This time around, we’re doing it the right way.”

  Jorge wondered why the sergeant didn’t kill them both on the spot. But he also believed if he resisted, he would be killed, and then he would have no hope at all of finding Rosa and Marina again.

  Even a slim hope was better than none.

  So he marched.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The bedroom allowed enough daylight that Campbell could see the blank faces of those gathered around him.

  He was exhausted and defeated, lacking the energy to even despair. The horrors of Wilma’s death in the night were still fresh in his mind, her screams resonating off the inside of his skull.

  And that can be you, too. All you have to do is stand and walk.

  Campbell sat on the bed, the professor beside him. On a small bedside table were two plates of food for them, laid out much like the place settings on the obscene dining-room table. Fortunately, the food was not human flesh, but instead canned peas, raw dough piled in a sticky white lump, and a wilted carrot.

  At least this bedroom was mercifully free of both the dead and the maimed. In the bedroom next door, Donnie emitted an occasional grunt of pain.

  “We get a window,” the professor said. “And we get food. And we get to live. All in all, it could be a lot worse.”

  Donnie’s muffled scream punctuated the statement.

  Campbell ignored the fifteen or so Zapheads sitting cross-legged on the floor before them, their palms clasped. They stared up at a framed painting on the wall above the headboard. In it, Jesus held his own hands clasped in prayer, a globe of radiance around his long hair and beard. Jesus looked up to the heavens in much the same way the Zapheads gazed up at the painting—with intense adoration and solemnity.

  “How did you end up here?” Campbell asked the professor.

  “Just like you did, I imagine. We met Wilma on the road and she said she had food. Arnoff wanted to push on to Milepost 291, but Pamela bitched and then Donnie found out there were Zah—”

  The professor caught himself and glanced at the assembly, but the Zapheads were intent on their sacred mimicry. “Donnie wanted to shoot some. For sport. He said he hadn’t had any target practice in days. I was ambivalent, and I thought Wilma was a little too eager, but I went along when Arnoff relented.”

  Campbell used his fork to spear a couple of peas and shovel them into his mouth. One of the Zapheads nearest him, a granny with wispy white hair, imitated his motion and chewed air, although she must have lost her dentures long before. Campbell was no longer hungry but he forced himself to eat, knowing he’d need his strength.

  At some point you’re going to run or you’re going to kill yourself.

  “I got suckered by my own curiosity,” Campbell said. “When I saw the way she lived, I thought, ‘If this is what we’ve come to, then it’s stupid to even try. The human race is beat.’”

  “That mangy dog of hers. Peanut.”

  “It’s locked in the camper, but there’s enough food in there for weeks.”

  “So how did she get you guys out here to the house?” Campbell asked. Through the window, he could see Zapheads out in the meadow. They had somehow surrounded a chicken and flapped their arms like children in imitation of its frantic wings.

  “She said there were lots of supplies here. Guns and canned food and a survival shelter in the basement. That got Arnoff hooked. Just like with you, she brought us here just as it was getting dark. They were on us before we knew it.”

  It felt weird to be here among them and talk about their deadly behavior while they sat as meekly as sheep. But everything since the solar storms had been weird. None of the fictional
scenarios of Doomsday or any of his video games had prepared him for the reality of an extinct civilization.

  Not just an extinct civilization, but a profane imitation of society rising to take its place.

  “They took Arnoff’s tongue just to see how it worked,” the professor said, with a resigned equanimity. “All that yelling he did, I guess it drew their attention. They took turns playing with Donnie’s fingers, bending them and snapping them like they didn’t understand what they were for. And Pamela…”

  “I don’t understand. If they are learning, where did they learn to tie ropes? Who taught them that?” Campbell bit into his carrot with an audible crunch. One of the Zapheads turned to look at him, and he quietly ground it between his molars.

  The professor nodded at the Zapheads and then at the painted posture of Christ they imitated. “I believe they learned from pictures. When they…surrounded me…I had run into the other bedroom, and there were magazines and photographs all over the floor. It must have been a teenager’s rooms, because it had a lot of books. And some...uh…”

  The professor lowered his voice. “Bondage porn.”

  Campbell’s stomach curdled around its fresh contents. “Pamela?”

  The professor removed his glasses and wiped the lenses. “I suppose.”

  Campbell was glad he hadn’t gotten a good look at what had happened to her. Outside, the chicken had gotten away and now the Zapheads drifted aimlessly in the meadow.

  “How did you figure out what they wanted from you?” Campbell asked.

  “Same way you found out last night. When I yelled at them, they yelled some of my words right back to me. And I realized if I didn’t fight and struggle like the others had, they calmed down.”

  “It’s creepy as hell when they’re standing all around you like that. I almost liked them better when they were trying to kill me. At least that, I could understand. But this…” Campbell waved at the Zapheads. Two of them in the middle waved back.

  “In a strange way, I’ve come to accept it,” the professor said. “Even embrace it. I’ve always been a teacher and that’s all I really know how to do. Now here I am after the end of the world, still teaching.”

  “But where does it end? Do we teach these things peace, love, and all that happy hippie horseshit? Look at them out there in the field. Like a bunch of flower children on drugs.”

  “So far, all we’ve taught them is violence.”

  “Because we’re afraid.”

  “No wonder. I’ve seen them tear people apart with their bare hands. And enjoy it.”

  The professor looked at the painting of Jesus, whose sad brown eyes seemed to reflect an understanding of the martyrdom that awaited Him. “I’ve never been a religious man, but maybe there’s a reason for all this.”

  Campbell stood and stamped his foot. “No!”

  Half of the Zapheads broke out of their reverie at the commotion.

  “Easy, Campbell,” the professor said. “Don’t rile them up.”

  “How long have you been their bitch? A week? Teaching them to eat, pray, love, and wipe after they crap, like they’re a bunch of senile patients in an old folk’s home? Excuse me if I don’t want to sign on for that.”

  Campbell paced, eyeing the ten feet to the door and wondering if he could reach it before the Zapheads reacted. They were all watching him now, eyes glittering with whatever deranged fuel burned inside them. Even if he made it to the hall, he had no idea how many more would be waiting downstairs or around the house.

  Campbell gave a bitter laugh. “‘Show no fear,’ Wilma said.”

  “And she was right,” the professor said.

  “Right,” one of the Zapheads said.

  “Right,” said another, and then another.

  “Don’t you see?” the professor said. “This is a chance to start over. To teach them—to program them, if you will—without all the old sins and failures.”

  Campbell sat back down on the bed, its springs squeaking. He’d be sleeping here tonight. Would one of the Zapheads crawl in with him, maybe imitate the positions portrayed in the pornography? Or maybe he’d start snoring and they’d tear his throat apart to see where the noise was coming from.

  Yeah, sweet dreams forever.

  “They’re like children,” the professor said. “They become what you feed them, so act with care. It’s the key to your personal survival as well.”

  “Nothing personal, professor, but you look like you’ve aged a hundred years since I last saw you.”

  The man gave a tense smile. “I have tenure now.”

  “Well, you can stay on the retirement track if you want. Me, I’d rather die.”

  “Die,” said the granny, followed by several others, until the room thundered with their repetitive “Die, die, die.”

  Campbell tried to shout over them and make them shut up, or at least mock a different word, but the chant continued. Campbell finally did the only thing he could think of, a way to silence them, the only option left besides actually dying.

  He pressed his palms together, stuck his hands under his chin, and turned to face the painting above the bed.

  Within a minute, the room had grown still and quiet again, all the Zapheads in their bizarre yoga positions with their hands once again clasped in reverence.

  What the hell. Prayer works.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Well,” Franklin said. “If this is how they were wasting my money all those years, I should have cheated more on my taxes.”

  Jorge was in no mood to endure the old man’s gallows humor. All he could think about was his wife and daughter out there somewhere, facing danger and uncertainty. And he was helpless.

  The soldiers had marched them at least five miles through the woods, leading them to a massive outcropping of rock. Jorge had been sure the soldiers were going to shoot them there and leave them for the buzzards, especially because Franklin was cussing and taunting them every step of the way.

  Instead, they were led into a narrow crevice that opened into a wider alley of rock, where a thick steel door was set into the stone and held in place with concrete. Franklin had called it “Hitler’s Hideaway” and Sarge had punched him in the stomach, and Franklin had fallen to the concrete floor and coughed and laughed for a full minute, until Sarge kicked him in the head and knocked him unconscious.

  Jorge kept his mouth shut so he was largely left alone, although he took in the surroundings of cold steel walls, rusty iron girders supporting the weight of the earth above, and lockers and shelves stacked with supplies. A string of dim bulbs illuminated the long corridor, barely brighter than the lights on a Christmas tree. The passageway was lined with about twenty tiny rooms, the first holding a desk and some communications equipment that looked like it had been gutted and then smashed in frustration. Another large room with cinderblock walls was occupied by uniformed men playing cards at small tables, smoking cigarettes, or reading magazines. Most of the other rooms held twin sets of bunk beds.

  It was in one of these beds that Franklin’s limp form had been deposited. Jorge had been ordered into the room, and the door was locked and bolted from the outside. The door featured a narrow grill through which he could see several feet down the hall in each direction. A little slot near the bottom served as a food access, and a metal pail on the floor was apparently intended as a toilet.

  Jorge wasn’t sure how long he’d been brooding when Franklin groaned from the cramped, uncomfortable bed. The room only held one weak light that did little more than illuminate the center of the room. Jorge guessed it was powered by a solar-panel system similar to Franklin’s, although occasionally he heard a deep thrum that might have been a gasoline-powered generator. He supposed it was possible the military had shielded some equipment and gear from the sun’s effects, just as Franklin’s Faraday cage had protected his radio and batteries.

  Franklin staggered to the door and yanked at the little window grill as if trying to tear it loose, although the opening w
as far too small for him to crawl through even if he’d been successful.

  “Hey, I want to call my lawyer!” Franklin shouted down the hall. His words bounced off the concrete surfaces.

  “You should save your energy,” Jorge said.

  “Aw, come on, Jorge,” Franklin said. “You can’t take this shit too seriously.”

  The man’s eyes fairly glistened with good humor. Jorge couldn’t understand it. But the man had no family to worry about. Maybe he was relieved to have his conflicts resolved and to be given an opportunity to serve as a martyr for his cause. After all, this tyrannical treatment confirmed everything Franklin had ever believed and preached.

  “I remember something you said to me once, while we were digging potatoes.”

  “Potatoes,” Franklin said. “The eyes have it.”

  Jorge was worried that the man had truly gone over the edge. And here they were, confined in an eight-by-ten room where clocks no longer held sway.

  “About ‘The End is Near’ sign,” Jorge said.

  “What about it?”

  “Take a guy walking around with a sign that says ‘The End is Near.’ Even if he turns out to be right, he’s still an asshole.”

  Franklin started guffawing as if he’d never heard the saying before. He slapped his knees, then bent over and wheezed himself into a coughing fit. Finally he sat down on the little bed, still chuckling.

  A commotion erupted down the corridor, shouts and blows and curses. Franklin and Jorge crowded at the window to get a look. At first they saw only a group of soldiers, clumped together and waving their arms. Then Sarge emerged from the pack, pulling a rope that was tied to a man’s hands. The man was shaggy, his gray suit hanging in shreds, most of the buttons missing from his shirt. His bearded face was covered in bruises, and blood seeped from one of his nostrils.

  “Whoo-hoo,” one of the soldiers whooped. “Finally got you one, Sarge!”

  “Bastards are harder to catch than a butterfly in a hurricane,” Sarge said. One of the soldiers opened the door to the room across the hall from Jorge and Franklin. Just before the man was shoved brutally into the room, he turned to face Jorge.