by Mark Tufo
Five more of the monsters charged toward the line of troops. The scream came again, and Antonelli located the source this time—one of the beastadons retreated with a human leg clamped between its jaws, dripping blood and slobber as it carried away its treasure.
A flashlight beam blinked off and on, a signal from Randall. “The 240’s up, sir,” the lieutenant barked.
“Light ‘em up,” Antonelli ordered.
The machine gun spat metal hell all over the bald, rattling the rocks and knocking down several of the monsters. One galloped from the trees fifty yards to the left of Antonelli, and several soldiers brought their weapons to bear against it. The captain fired his Beretta even though he was out of range. The four-hundred-pound animal reared up on its haunches like a grizzly bear, its talon-tipped paws slapping angrily at the air.
A couple of soft pops were followed almost immediately by muffled bursts that kicked up dirt around another of the beastadons. The grenade launcher heaved several more explosives at it, ripping great canyons of gore along its flank.
It squealed and snorted and dropped to its knees, then tried to crawl toward its attackers. The M240 unleashed a fusillade in its direction, and it collapsed.
The remaining monsters, perhaps just intelligent and cunning enough to realize their prey was formidable, turned and retreated, the humps of their backs rising and falling like those of dolphins in a saltwater bay.
“Hold your fire,” Randall called, and a few sporadic shots rang out before fading away.
Antonelli walked the line, praising the wide-eyed soldiers who’d held their positions in the face of such an unnatural assault. Smoke hung in the air, and so did the tension, as if the unit was braced for another wave of the monsters. In Antonelli’s experience, the beastadons employed sudden, savage attacks with no stealth, and when they were done they were done.
Not that their behaviors can’t change. God knows everything else has.
When Antonelli arrived on the scene where the wounded soldier writhed and moaned, the matted grass around him was already slick with blood. Antonelli knew this one, a Marine who’d served with him at Lejeune before the Big Zap.
Thomas Hollister. From Abilene, Texas. Such a fan of the Dallas Cowboys football team that he wore their blue star emblem as a tattoo on his neck. Loves country music—Merle and Waylon, not that “slick, modern shit”—and girls who can hold their whiskey. His big goal in life is to make sergeant, go back home, and join the local police force.
His leg was gone just below the hip, and there wasn’t enough left for a tourniquet. The medic packed white bandages against the stump, but blood gushed out with each dwindling beat of Hollister’s heart. Antonelli parted the ring of soldiers standing silently around their fallen comrade, and then ordered them back to camp except for the sentries.
Antonelli knelt by the young man, who gazed up at him with bleary, wobbling eyes. His night-vision goggles had fallen around his neck, covering his “America’s Team” tattoo. They would remove the scarce and valuable goggles as soon as the soldier was dead. Antonelli held the man’s hand.
Hollister licked his chapped lips. “Am I going to make it, Captain?”
“We’ll have you on your feet in no time, son.”
The medic jabbed a syringe of morphine into Hollister’s arm, blood painting his rubber gloves black in the gloom. The kid would die a thousand miles from home in a world that had all but forgotten him. A world where his kind might be forgotten before long.
The medic gave a slight shake of his head, no longer pressing the bandages against the red maw of the bite wound. Some godforsaken creature would eat well tonight, and probably sleep with no conscience at all. While Antonelli’s conscience would haunt him all night long.
“What…what next?” the soldier asked. He was pale and going into shock.
Antonelli managed a smile. “I think the Cowboys are going to the Super Bowl.”
The soldier’s eyes were glassy and diffused.
“And I think they’re going to win it all,” Antonelli said.
Hollister tried to smile but lacked the strength. He died before he even managed to lift one corner of his mouth. Antonelli patted the corpse on the shoulder.
Maybe nostalgia isn’t so bad after all. It’s one of the things that make us human, right?
Chapter 189
“What’s that noise?” Rachel said.
She’d been drowsing, fighting wild dreams of gleaming cities with airships zipping around the silver spires that were no doubt inspired by the strange synthetic bird that had attacked them. She pushed her way from beneath the musty blankets. As she opened her eyes, their glow illuminated the cluttered interior of the furniture warehouse. DeVontay stood shirtless beside a barred window, looking up at the sky.
“Fireworks,” DeVontay said.
“I’m not much on calendars, but wasn’t the Fourth of July a few months ago?”
“Some kind of flare. And gunfire.”
“Where?” Rachel slid into her jeans and grabbed a shirt as she joined DeVontay at the window.
“Up on the ridge.”
“Do you think it’s the kids?”
“No. They’ll stay in the bunker like we told them. Even that hard-headed Stephen.”
The distant pop-pop-pop was punctuated with muffled explosions. “That’s not my grandfather, either. Somebody’s got grenades or mortars or something.”
“Hard to tell, but it looks like whoever it is may be eight or ten miles from the bunker.”
“Probably military,” Rachel said. “Nobody else would have that much firepower.”
“Maybe,” DeVontay said, squinting at the gloomy dark humps of the mountains. “But we’ve seen civilian groups that scrounged up some pretty kick-ass stuff. Turns out a lot of gun nuts had illegal military-grade stuff hidden away in their closets.”
“Think we should go back?”
“Are you kidding? They’re probably fighting something or somebody, right? The last thing we need is to step in the middle of a pissing match, especially when we’ve got the smallest hose.”
Rachel gave him a gentle squeeze. “I’d go to war with your gun anytime. As long as the kids are safe, it’s no big deal. And Grandpa’s compound is even farther east.”
DeVontay turned from the window, his dark beard and mustache girding his pursed lips. “Could be some survivors got attacked.”
“By monsters, you mean?”
“Either that or Zaps. At this point, I don’t know which is worse.”
“If it was Zaps, I would have sensed them,” Rachel said, uneasy at being reminded of her mutation. But wasn’t every breath, every blink, every cold heartbeat a reminder?
“We don’t even know that. It’s been years since exposure. We don’t know anything, really. All we know is what you and Kokona tell us.”
After one last staccato spew of gunfire, the sound died away. The silence of the night settled around them like the dust that coated the dining tables and bureaus.
“Maybe we should give up on Stonewall and try to make contact,” Rachel said.
“No way. We need to build our own team. We’ve already tried the other way. If they’re military, they’ll kill you the second they see your eyes. If they’re an organized band, then they’re going to make the rules, and they’re probably not going to let us join.”
Rachel knew what he was saying: because she and Kokona were mutants, most humans would be scared of them. “You must really love me.”
DeVontay’s good eye narrowed with his smile while his glass prosthetic remained open, making his face appear slightly lopsided. “I don’t know why you keep requiring evidence.”
She moved into his embrace and kissed him, looking over his shoulder at the psychedelic milieu beyond the window. The aurora, caused by the solar wind’s influence on the earth’s magnetic sphere, was even more brilliant against the darkness. Its shimmering bands of green and yellow cast the Blue Ridge Mountains in an iridescent glow that resemb
led an alien landscape. But maybe this was an alien land now—a planet whose native species had all but vanished as new life forms took their place.
“Let’s stick with the plan, then,” DeVontay said. “No matter what, we need food and supplies for the bunker.”
“One thing that worries me…” Rachel said.
“Only one thing?”
“Franklin said the Army might come to check on its abandoned installations one day. If they’re organized like he said, that day might be coming.”
“So he’s seen a few helicopters,” DeVontay said. “That doesn’t mean much besides the bastards were smart enough to shield some gear. I doubt they still have an army. Besides, you know how paranoid he is.”
“He credits paranoia for his survival so far,” Rachel said. “Maybe there’s something to it.”
“But he’d still rather live alone than stay in the bunker with us.”
“I think Kokona creeps him out.”
“If he was around her more, he’d get used to her. He’s accepted you, hasn’t he?”
“But I’m blood. You have to stick with family, no matter what. He knew me from before. When I was…you know, human.”
“Well, we can go back to bed and try to make this family bigger, or we can get an early start and be in Stonewall by dawn.”
“Some choice. No telling what’s out there walking the night.”
DeVontay kissed her again and whispered, “No telling what’s in here, either.”
Rachel had nearly surrendered when a strange humming arose. It was similar to the faint, almost-subliminal buzz a fluorescent light fixture would make when its ballast was going bad. But Rachel hadn’t heard that sound in five years, not since her last horrible day as a school counselor in Charlotte.
And the noise didn’t seem to originate in her ears, either. It seemed to come from a point between them, just at the top of her spine.
She dug her fingernails into DeVontay’s shoulders. He sensed her tension and leaned back to look at her. “Something wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your eyes…they’re sparking hard, girl.”
She could tell their intensity had increased because DeVontay was fully illuminated. Much of the warehouse was visible now, clear plastic covering cabinets, sheets draped over recliners, and mattresses stacked across the cinder-block walls.
The hum grew louder. “Do you hear that?” she asked.
“All I hear is some crickets and that mouse or rat scurrying around in the back of the room.”
The humming swelled and then broke from a drone into intermittent chirps and beeps. After a rush of static, the syncopated sounds settled into looping patterns, like a radio signal fighting through interference. The sounds articulated into syllables: “We’re here.”
No. Not them. Not now.
DeVontay must have seen something in her eyes besides the sparks, because he caught her as she collapsed. “Rachel?”
She didn’t want him to know what it meant. She’d expected this day to come but wanted it to arrive on her terms—that was the secret reason she insisted on accompanying DeVontay on these supply runs. If she encountered the Zaps, she preferred to do so outside the bunker so the kids wouldn’t be at risk. But they were supposed to be far away, in the cities, where they would forever remain out of sight.
And out of mind.
Yet here they were.
As she slid to the floor, her gravity interrupted by DeVontay’s embrace, the words came again, this time crystal clear.
“We’re here.”
It was so much louder that she was sure DeVontay had heard, but his only reaction was one of concern for her. The communication was different from her early encounters with the mutants. Those original rumblings had been conveyed in a chorus of many voices, as if the combined minds of thousands had decoded the English language and contributed their myriad accents. That first telepathic intrusion of “WHEE-ler, WHEE-ler, WHEE-ler” had been a compelling chant, a decree, a summons.
In contrast, this solo voice was thin and genderless. Not delivering a command, just stating a fact.
“We’re here.”
“What is it?” DeVontay asked.
Her throat was dry, and her body felt electric with tension. She’d fooled herself into thinking time had made her immune to their influence, like a virus whose existence created antibodies that eventually vanquished it.
“They…one of them…,” she gasped. “Here.”
“One of what?” DeVontay grabbed his rifle leaning against the wall and crouched by the window, lifting his head just enough to peer at the street outside. “I don’t see nothing.”
Rachel hated her helplessness, but she wouldn’t allow herself to indulge in self-pity. “Zaps,” she said, and the word filled the cavernous room like a storm cloud.
“Damn,” DeVontay said. “In Stonewall?”
“I don’t know. Close enough to know I’m here.”
“I don’t like this. No sign of Zaps for years, and all of sudden they find you on the same night somebody’s blowing up half the damn mountain.”
The humming came again, as if the signal had to power up before delivering its message. Rachel tried to block it in much the same way her grandfather had shielded his tech gear from the solar storms.
Call me crazy, but I’d give anything for a tinfoil hat.
But she couldn’t build walls around her mind, and she had no way of knowing whether the words came from somewhere outside or simply birthed directly in her brain. Hatching like little alien reptile eggs. After all, she was them.
DeVontay’s silhouette was reflected in the window. The lambency of her eyes would allow anyone or anything outside to know the building was occupied. She would have to close her eyes and trust DeVontay to protect her.
“You’re charged up, like a battery,” DeVontay said. “I can feel it from here. Like you’d shock me if I touched you.”
The hollow voice came to Rachel again, and this time it said her name.
“I see it,” DeVontay said. He chambered a round into his M16 and clicked off the safety.
“It knows I’m here.”
“It’s not getting you.”
Rachel strained to catch any signal that might be radiating from that mysterious mutant source. “I’m not sure it wants me. And there’s only one.”
“You might as well look, then.”
She opened her eyes and noticed their radiance wasn’t as brilliant as before. Their energy must have transmuted into something else, perhaps in summoning will to resist the intruding voice. As he looked out the window, which was fogged by their combined breath, the night seemed to grow colder and more mysterious, with only the brightest stars burning pinpricks in the aurora.
The figure on the road seemed small and forlorn. It was about a hundred yards away, standing on the asphalt that resembled a silver-green ribbon in the strange light. The aurora was echoed in the windshields of the scattered, desolate vehicles, giving the air around the Zap a flowing, ephemeral quality. The Zap wasn’t moving, and just like its voice, the shape offered no suggestion of gender.
When last seen, the Zaps had adopted human clothing—not surprising, given that they had begun their new state of existence as raging, primal humans whose minds had been erased and subsequently rewired by sunspots. But this mutant wore a one-piece uniform made of some kind of reflective material. The aurora reflected off the clothing much like it did off automotive glass. The Zap’s facial features were indistinguishable, but its head was topped with a dark, closely trimmed hairstyle.
As exhibited by Kokona, Zaps didn’t age—they were fixed at whatever stage the solar storms had caught them. That was the one trait of theirs Rachel almost envied, but she was apparently human enough to fall prey to the slow decay of years. She couldn’t tell whether this Zap was old or young, and the overall appearance suggested an attempt at generic uniformity.
It didn’t appear to be armed.
“What ki
nd of suit is that?” DeVontay asked.
“Almost looks metallic.”
“Like that damn fake bird.”
“Maybe they’ve created some kind of synthetic material that’s got the strength of metal but the flexibility of fabric.”
“That’s not no robot,” DeVontay said. “Not like the bird.”
The Zap stood still, arms at its sides. Rachel wondered if she should try to communicate with it somehow—she wasn’t sure she was a transmitter as well as a receiver, since she could not longer link with Kokona. She also wasn’t sure she wanted to know. So much about her bizarre condition was a mystery, one she’d been happily able to suppress for years.
Now the pigeons are coming home to roost. Now you’re going to find out the hard way.
What if the Zaps wanted her again? What if they hurt DeVontay in order to get to her? What if they made her hurt DeVontay?
She went to the bed where they’d been napping and retrieved her own rifle from beside it. She’d kill every damn one of them before she let DeVontay get hurt. And that went for Marina and Stephen, too.
Kokona, however…
She and Kokona shared a bond, but Rachel often suspected the hyperintelligent infant knew more than she was letting on. The baby’s physical helplessness masked a cunning, almost manipulative personality that was belied by those cute, chubby cheeks and dark, glinting eyes.
When she returned to the window, DeVontay asked, “You going to shoot it?”
“If I have to.” She knelt, put the gun to her shoulder the way her grandfather had taught her, pressed her cheek against the stock, and stabilized her elbow against the side of her knee. She focused on the sight so the target was just a shiny blur beyond it, clicked the selector switch from safe, and slid her finger inside the trigger guard.
Leave us alone.
She didn’t know she’d said the words aloud until DeVontay answered, “Maybe it’s going away.”
But the mutant still stood silently on the highway, the black trees and bushes rising around it and a low autumn mist seeping in. There was no hint of dawn yet, so it was impossible to tell the hour. Perhaps time had no meaning to Zaps, since they didn’t age.
