Bone And Cinder: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Zapheads Book 1)

by Nicholson, Scott

  Now he understood why she’d looked vaguely familiar. He’d probably glimpsed her while staking out Everson, refusing to focus on her features because that would have humanized her.

  “I came home one afternoon and found her in the basement,” Kara said, her face sharp with shadows. “She’d blown out her liver on booze and pills.”

  You can leave the family out of it.

  Sure.

  “You were his stepdaughter?”

  “Almost, But they weren’t married yet. And I don’t think I need to tell you I’m not an Evans-Lawson student, either.” Kara smiled, but the expression held more sadness than amusement. “Nice place, but who the hell could afford tuition?”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I came here for Allie. I wanted to take her away from you the same way you took Craig from mom and me. That was my plan, to be a new girl in the area looking to hang out with some cool college kids. Then I’d just happen to be where Allie was one night and strike up a conversation. I wanted us to be friends, and then I wanted to kill her and make damn sure you knew that it was all your fault. And I figured you’d hear about it, and like the raging psycho you seemed to be, you’d immediately come gunning for revenge.”

  Mackie’s head spun. Beside him, Allie thrashed and moaned.

  “But how did—”

  “How did I know it was you? I knew the kind of circles Craig ran in. So I started asking questions. Apparently, that got back to Lucas Krider and he came to see me one evening. He admitted to selling Craig the meth, but he gave me your name and told me you and Craig were running a little something on the side. There was a disagreement, so you shot him.”

  Krider. The bastard probably laughed while he was diming me out. Hoping she’d do the kind of job he would’ve sent me to do not long ago.

  “But you know what I think, Mackie? I think that was just his way of getting back at you for being so sloppy during that hit, for leaving my mom behind as a witness.”

  Mackie’s tongue felt so dry and swollen, he wasn’t sure how words were actually moving past his lips. “Krider plays roulette with other people’s lives just for kicks. You don’t know what you’re stepping in.”

  “Like I care? I told Krider how I wanted to take someone special from you because of how you destroyed my family when you killed Craig. He loved that idea. He wanted to help. So he told me all about your parents and your sister. And all about Allie.”

  That’s why Krider had been so eager to give an assignment that put me back here in the mountains, so close to campus. He knew I’d try to see Allie, and I’d find out what Kara had done to her if she succeeded.

  The end of the world was just a minor inconvenience that screwed up his sick little scenario. Like Kara said, plans change.

  “He gives me some money, so I could rent a place up here. And he tells me that he’ll make sure you’re close by on a job. He knew you’d come look for her. And I think he was hoping that after I killed Allie, one of us would kill the other just to make things easier for him. Either way, I don’t think he intended to let either of us live.”

  Of that, Mackie was certain.

  “But Allie and I got to know each other. We talked. We drank. I liked talking to her. And I realized that I couldn’t punish her for your sins. I wanted somebody to pay, but I couldn’t be what you are. I couldn’t be like the piece of shit that took Craig away and ruined my life.

  “And then...” Kara spread her arms in a sweeping gesture indicating the world outside the dorm room. “All this shit happens. The power goes out, people are either dropping dead or turning into raving maniacs. And now I’m actually taking care of the girl I came here to kill. Waiting to die. Waiting for help to show up. Or maybe walking out that door and letting those things have at me.”

  Kara chuckled. “And then, of course, you show up. I had a feeling you might try, if you were still alive. And then you tell me your story, and while I’m listening, I’m debating whether I should kill you. And you know what? I just stopped giving a shit.”

  “If you want to live, you need me around. You won’t have a chance out there alone.”

  I’m actually trying to talk this girl out of killing me?

  I should be more afraid that she won’t.

  “The shape you’re in, you might be dead weight.” Kara’s smile was cold, the kind that never quite reached the eyes. “After you told me your side of things, all I saw was another stupid junkie that made bad decisions. Not much different than Craig. Not worth hating, either. He didn’t have to die, but then again, he didn’t need to buy his poison from a man like Lucas Krider.”

  The Glock was pointed away from Mackie now.

  “I don’t quite forgive you,” Kara said. “But I’m not all that interested in hurting you anymore, either. I’m done with this.”

  Kara picked up a few items she had removed from Mackie’s backpack. Bottles of morphine and Oxy and Vicodin. The slightly depleted container of Haldol and a fresh syringe. She tossed them on the floor beside him.

  “I’m leaving,” she said. “If you want to join me, you can. Or you can stay here and eat pills and be useless. Makes no difference to me.” She nodded at Allie. “But her...you may want to accept the very real possibility that she’ll never be what she was before. Killing her might be the kindest thing you can do for her. But that’s up to you.”

  Kara put her hand on the doorknob and looked over her shoulder at Mackie. He felt like he should say something, offer an apology if nothing else, but no words formed in his parched mouth. She was right. He wasn’t much use to anybody right now.

  Kara stepped out into the hallway. The door closed with an echo of finality.

  Mackie pulled Allie close to him and held her tightly as her body convulsed.

  At least we still have each other.

  He cackled a dry laugh and looked at the syringes of morphine in his hands.

  Stay or go?

  If he left, Mackie couldn’t take Allie with him, knew deep down that there was no cure for what the solar storms had done to her. He didn’t even know what she was experiencing—she might be in agony, or completely without a soul.

  He could end her pain right here.

  End his own, as well.

  They had both been happy here once. Now they could die here together. Why not? What was left out there worth taking the next breath for?

  It would almost be romantic.

  Not so special, considering billions were dead, but it would make a cute postcard in hell.

  Mackie pulled Allie against him as tightly as he could while she thrashed, pressed his nose against her damp hair.

  He wanted to die.

  He wanted to be with Allie.

  And he wanted to see Lucas Krider dead.

  But now, more than anything, all he wanted to do was sleep.

  He drifted off as Kara’s footsteps echoed down the hall.

  ###

  Mackie didn’t see them when they burst into the room, had barely opened his eyes before something crashed into his nose and forehead. The voices came as if he were underwater, one of them with a Hispanic accent, and then the hard tips of boots pounded into his ribs and lower back.

  Before everything went dark again, he glanced at Allie’s face twisted into an unrecognizable contortion. The angry voices in the room drowned out the tortured moans rumbling up from her throat. Fists and feet flailed around him, belonging to shadows. Another blow exploded across the back of his skull, lime-green lightning bolts shot across the backs of his eyelids and down to the base of his skull, and all was dark again.

  6.

  Mackie awoke to a faint smoky odor and a soupy murk. His eyes burned, his parched tongue had a sandpaper texture, and his throat felt as if he’d swallowed a handful of staples.

  He gradually became aware of a soft orange light painting the gloom at intervals. Candles.

  He was lying flat on a thin fabric, a pillow beneath his head and a blanket covering him.

&nbs
p; He ran his fingers over the material beneath him. Not felt. Billiard cloth. He was lying on a pool table.

  Mackie knew where he was then. The student union. He’d racked quite a few games of eight-ball here, ten-dollar bets that he’d lost more often than he’d won.

  Someone spoke, the familiar voice raspy but honeyed with a light Southern inflection. “Almost makes you believe in Providence, doesn’t it, Mackie?”

  Mackie was sure he was dreaming. Dreaming, or in the throes of a massive narcotic overdose. Maybe he had swallowed a bottle of pills before drifting off.

  Maybe he was dead.

  Maybe this was Hell. That would be Providence.

  With Krider and Satan playing chess like a pair of retired seniors in a park somewhere.

  He tried sitting up, but a supernova of pain exploded inside his skull and gravity had its giant hand on his chest. Shards of glass pierced his brain. Electric ice raced through his veins. His breath sat like wet cement in his lungs.

  Again, that Southern-honeyed rasp. Like gravel soaked in cane sugar and syrup, coaxing, sibilant as a copperhead. “I think you can use this. I need you calm for what happens next.”

  Something wrapped around Mackie’s right arm just above the elbow, and then a vice-like pressure choked his entire arm.

  A moment later came a sting, followed by a rush of warmth flooding through him, blanketing the pain in his head and face.

  The Haldol? The endorphin rush that flooded his brain a moment later told him otherwise.

  Krider’s favorite candy.

  Heroin.

  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he was knocked unconscious, but he hoped he had been out long enough to allow his metabolism to catch up to the opioids in his system.

  If not, even with his relatively high tolerance for narcotics, this new dose could be just potent enough to flip the switch on his respiratory system to the “off” position.

  His death wish upon discovering Allie’s condition had now given way to a fierce will to survive. Because he wanted his hands around Krider’s throat.

  The rage rising within him after hearing Krider’s voice had been drowned by confusion and a sense of absurd surrealism. Before the anger had a chance to resurface, it was swallowed by the warm bliss produced by the syringe’s contents. In another place and time, he could have enjoyed this.

  “We won’t overdo it,” came Krider’s voice as if from across a softly lapping bay. “Just enough to take the edge off. I’m guessing you’ve probably had a few of your feel-good pills since you got here. The world ends but some things never change.”

  Mackie tilted his head slightly and stared up into the face hovering over him. The reddish beard peppered with flecks of silver. The brown hair that fell just below the base of the neck, thinning at the crown. The feverish eyes of a cruel, cunning madman.

  “So?” Lucas Krider asked. “Do you want to kill me?”

  Every day. More than you know.

  But Mackie couldn’t find the voice to verbalize that response.

  “I’m sure you’ll want to try, once you’re well enough,” Krider said. “And all these guns in the room probably won’t change your mind.”

  He picked up a chair near the pool table and brought it close to Mackie. “But you may want to listen to what I have to say first.” He sat and fished a small ziplock bag from the pocket of his slacks.

  Gummy bears. A treat Krider indulged in frequently. It would’ve seemed endearingly childish behavior for a normal man, but Krider somehow made the habit a perversion. He popped a few in his mouth and chewed.

  “I’m going to miss these,” Krider said, smacking wetly. “But I imagine there are enough of them around to keep me going a few years. It’s a world of supply and demand, as you know better than anyone, Mackie. The supply may dry up, given the collapse of the manufacturing systems, but the demand has certainly died off, too.”

  Mackie’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. A large Hispanic man in a dark T-shirt and cargo pants, his hair shaved to stubble, stood nearby. His bulging arms cradled what looked like a military-grade assault rifle, an M16A1.

  Mackie recognized him. Herrera. A long-time Krider loyalist and one of his most feared assassins.

  Do psychos have some sort of “goon gene” that protected them from the solar flares?

  Mackie didn’t roll too far down that philosophical track or he would have had to account for his own survival. He preferred to think of it as bad luck.

  To Herrera’s right, two men and one female lounged on a sofa near the snack bar. Two other assault rifles leaned against the right side of the sofa, their barrels resting on the arm. With the room lit only by candles, Mackie couldn’t recognize the rest of Krider’s crew.

  When enough saliva drained into his throat to lubricate it, Mackie asked, “How...how are you here?”

  Krider smiled. He was never one to smile coldly; his warmth always seemed genuine even if he intended to order your execution with his next breath. He was a man who took pleasure in every moment.

  “Well, the answer to that has multiple parts. But a big part of it is you, Mackie.”

  Mackie’s real question was how Krider and Herrera had survived the Big Zap. Further proof that God had surely lost interest in what was left of His scorched earth.

  “But...the storms...how did—”

  “Oh yes.” Krider’s smile widened. “Everything just kind of went to shit out there, didn’t it? I was here from Tampa with six men. Two dropped dead immediately, and another Herrera had to put down, ‘cause he was all...” Krider contorted his face in a pantomime of a rage-filled Zaphead. “Creepy, creepy shit.”

  Herrera chuckled, a sound like pebbles tumbling down a metal chute. “Bad horror movie, bro.”

  “We were at the safe house when all this happened,” Krider said. “Enjoying a respite from the heat, waiting to see how things played out with you and Ms. McAllister.”

  Of course he’d want to watch, after setting up Kara to get her revenge. He wouldn’t have missed that for the world.

  “Where is Kara?”

  Krider ignored the question. “The few of us that were left, we stocked up with plenty of guns, some other supplies from my safe house, and we made the trek here. Killed plenty of those crazies along the way. Would’ve been a short trip by car, but well, those storms pretty much eliminated that possibility. No chance in hell of getting an engine to turn over now. They’re calling it ‘After.’ Apparently the scientists tried to warn us but the asshole politicians buried it. Typical.”

  “Why come here?” Mackie asked. “Why not stay holed up in the safe house? You wouldn’t have taken that kind of risk just for me and the McAllister girl. You couldn’t have been sure we even survived.”

  “That should be obvious to you, Mackie,” Krider said. “What’s happening out there is happening everywhere. Help is not on the way. America doesn’t exist anymore. Society doesn’t exist anymore. But a college campus like this, it functions as its own little community. A place with plenty of shelter and resources and enough survivors to get by. A castle keep for the New Age.”

  Krider would also want to align himself with other survivors, though Mackie wasn’t aware how many were here, with the exception of Kara.

  “We found Ms. McAllister exiting the campus,” Krider said. “And after Herrera removed a Glock from her person, she and I had a conversation. Seems she didn’t play her part in all of this as expected.” Krider nodded toward the front entrance. “But with all that’s happening out there...well, of course that changes things.”

  Mackie hoped his anger would dull the heroin high. It was in there somewhere, the rage he needed to leap up from the table and put his hands on Krider before a bullet cut him down.

  But all he felt now was, well...floaty.

  “What did you do with her?” Mackie asked.

  “She’s with a few friends of mine. Restrained, but alive. She wasn’t willing to say much, even with a little persuasion from He
rrera, but we did manage to pry your whereabouts from her. She obviously doesn’t feel any great sense of loyalty to you. I guess it didn’t take her long to figure you out.”

  Mackie swallowed hard to flush the sand and cotton from his throat. “You played us both.”

  Krider chewed another green gummy before continuing. “My hope was that Ms. McAllister would kill your girl, and then, in a fit of Shakespearean grief and rage, you would kill her in turn. Of course, if the pieces didn’t fall in place as hoped, I wanted to be here to personally supervise the clean-up.”

  Mackie’s limbs felt weightless, but a dense pressure seemed to keep his head pressed to the pillow. “But that’s not you. That’s not what you do.”

  Krider nodded. “You’re right. It isn’t.”

  As Mackie spoke, it felt as if his words were clouds of mist somewhere above his head. “Why do this? Why go to this kind of trouble? You could’ve had us both killed anytime you wanted.”

  Krider stroked his beard and then ran his hand through his hair. “They were a little before my time, but y’know what I loved when I was younger? Alfred Hitchcock Presents, EC horror comics from the ‘50’s. All those twisty, ironic morality plays. Your wasted life is nothing if not a morality play, Mackie. Your bad decisions brought you to this point, and your failure at a very simple task brought the McAllister girl into your life. I knew I had to cut you loose, but putting all this together and playing the two of you against each other...well, that’s the kind of creativity that’s kept me alive for so long.”

  Mackie’s burning eyes drifted from Krider’s face to the ceiling. “Looks like God just unleashed the biggest morality play of all. Wipe most of the human race off the planet and turn the survivors into raging, mutant killers.”

  “Maybe God isn’t the one who deserves the credit,” Krider said. “But nothing changes in my world. You see, doing what I do and doing it well requires a certain amount of showmanship. Theatrics. Unpredictability. It’s a big part of how I keep the people close to me afraid. And doing what I do only works when people are afraid.” He smiled again. “But now...now everyone’s afraid. No telling how many of those Zaphead things are out there, running wild, tearing people limb from limb.”