by J. Thorn
She held the light aloft with one hand as she dug into the knot with the longest key. The knot’s author must have been a Boy Scout, because his handiwork refused to come loose. She began sawing the serrated edge of the key across the strands, sending a snow of frayed nylon to the floor.
“What are you doing with keys, anyway?” she asked him. Her fingers chafed to blood and her wrist ached from working the key, but she kept on.
“Got doors to open.”
She extinguished the lighter to let it cool. Its imprint was burned into Rachel’s retinas, fat sparks dancing in the sudden darkness.
“Got any ideas on getting out of here?” she asked. The first strand of rope gave way and she unraveled the rest of the knot as he anxiously flexed his forearms.
“Gun’s in my backpack, wherever that is,” DeVontay said. “After they jumped me, I went down for a while. I didn’t get a good layout of the house.”
“That’s a privacy lock on the door. They can’t lock it from the outside.”
“We could sneak out, yeah. But what if they’re still playing survival games? Could be a dozen Zapheads out in the hall.”
“We’d hear them banging into the walls.”
“Maybe. And maybe that guy—the whatchamadude, The Captain—is waiting there with his gun.”
“Well, it’s the only way out that I can see.” The severed rope untangled beneath her fingers and DeVontay wriggled his wrists to free himself. He shook his hands to restore the circulation as he glanced around the room. He grinned as his eyes settled on the closet.
“You’re just not looking in the right place.”
He stood, rubbing his palms together, and she followed him with the Bic. He shoved aside the lonely jacket and looked up at the ceiling. “Give me some light.”
Rachel shoved the lighter toward him, thinking he’d lost his mind. Stephen was out there somewhere, at the mercy of those soulless killers, and all DeVontay wanted to do was play hide-and-seek?
“Ha,” he said. “That little square is an access to the attic. I had a job blowing ceiling insulation one summer. Hottest damn work I ever did.”
“Great. So, once we get up there, and then what? Wait for the world to end?”
“Funny, ha ha. I gotta boost you up. No way can you lift me.”
“You kidding? You’re only, what—two-twenty?”
“Two-oh-five. I ain’t et that many Slim Jims.”
He stooped and cupped his hands. Rachel hesitated, released the fuel lever on the lighter, and put her sneakered foot into his hands. Something thumped against the door.
“Damn,” DeVontay said. “Hurry.”
He propelled her upward and she put one hand against the wall to steady herself, patting for the ceiling with the other. She found the access and pushed, feeling it slide away with a skiff of abrasion. Rachel reached into the warmer air of the opening and found the ceiling joists, then dangled for just a moment, testing her weight.
“Higher,” she whispered, and DeVontay tightened his arms and lifted her. She put one foot on the closet rod as she scrambled into the attic. The dust nearly made her sneeze, and the attic insulation caused her skin to itch almost immediately. She rolled around, careful to keep her weight on the sturdier ceiling joists, and flicked the lighter again.
“How am I going to pull you up here?” she said.
DeVontay looked up and shook his head. “You ain’t.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“You got to. Ain’t you ever seen a horror movie? The goody-goody white chick always survives.”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“And don’t waste time here when Stephen’s in trouble.”
She looked at him for a moment, pondering ways to help him up. But he was too heavy, the closet rod too weak. “The dresser,” she said. “Move it over here and stand on it.”
“Okay, but—”
Something thumped against the door again, louder this time. DeVontay waved her toward escape. She killed the flame and saw the slatted ventilation windows on each gabled end of the house. The closest one was only twenty feet away. She crawled forward, bumping her head once and getting fiberglass insulation in the creases of her elbows and gaps of her fingers. When she reached the slats, she peered through them to the neighboring property.
A Zaphead wobbled up the street, far enough away that he wasn’t a threat. He didn’t exhibit the excitement and agitation of a Zaphead intent on violence, which might mean Stephen had safely hidden somewhere.
Or it could mean he’s already dead.
The idea angered Rachel, and she flipped onto her butt and raised her legs, pointing the bottoms of her feet at the thin wooden slats. She kicked outward and several of the slats shattered. She kicked again and created a wider opening. Shoving splinters aside, she perched in the opening and surveyed the surrounding landscape.
No movement. Even the Zaphead up the street had taken a turn somewhere and was lost in one of the neighborhood houses. From beneath her came the sound of a struggle, and DeVontay shouted something.
His next word was clear through the access hatch: “Go!”
Rachel climbed out enough to minimize the drop to the ground, which was about twelve feet. Not too bad by itself, but it wasn’t a good time for a twisted ankle.
“Just my luck,” she said. “Roses.”
The rose bushes extended in a border around the side of the house, meaning Rachel would have to jump outward several feet instead of merely dropping to the ground. She shoved the lighter in her pocket.
Here goes nothing.
Rachel resisted the urge to yell “Geronimo” as she flew through the air. She had the presence of mind to roll as she landed, taking the brunt of the force on her left leg before tumbling across the grass. Gathering her balance, bruised but otherwise uninjured, she glanced around to see if anyone had spotted her. She wasn’t sure whether to be more afraid of the Zapheads or The Captain and his minions.
She sprinted as best she could with her aching legs, quickly reaching the concealment of the neighbor’s azalea thicket.
Okay, you’re free. You can give up on DeVontay and Stephen and make a run for it. Your chances are better alone. They’re just deadweight anyway, right?
She glanced heavenward, starting to ask for guidance, but realized prayers were never answered with a simple yes or no.
God had granted her longer life for a reason. And that reason wasn’t just to keep on surviving.
She had a mission.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Campbell was still searching the trees on the side of the road when Arnoff’s tribe caught up with him.
Campbell emerged from the woods to see Arnoff poking Pete’s backpack with the tip of his rifle. Pamela, Donnie, and the professor hung back a little, warily checking the vehicles on the highway. “Looks like your buddy chickened out,” Arnoff said.
“Somebody got him,” Campbell said.
“Hell, yeah,” Donnie said. “Zapheads.”
“It wasn’t Zapheads. There’s no blood.”
Arnoff knelt and plucked one of the warm beers from Pete’s backpack. “Well, he didn’t abandon ship, or he’d have never left this.”
“So, what do you think happened?” Pamela asked, fishing a cigarette from a pocket of her floral-print blouse. She was sweating from the heat, and the wind carried a faint whiff of the distant burning cities. Campbell thought about what the professor had said, about the four hundred nuclear reactors that would eventually melt down, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to live long enough to worry about radiation poisoning.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder, psychological strain,” the professor said. “He might have just snapped and wandered off somewhere.”
“Turned into a Zaphead, you mean?” Arnoff said.
“We’ve not seen any evidence of latent effects. The experts predicted the solar event was a one-time phenomenon.”
“Hell, some horny old bat might have roped him into the
back of one of these vans for a go,” Donnie said, grinning at Pamela. “You know how women are.”
“Hush your mouth or I’ll hush it for you.” She glared back, taking a deep puff of her cigarette, but she seemed bored by her own threat.
Campbell’s guts knotted in frustration, but he forced himself to remain calm. He didn’t know these people. They were acquaintances of circumstance, and bleak circumstance at that.
The end of the world makes strange bedfellows.
Arnoff walked ahead to a BP tanker truck. The silver petroleum tanker reflected the sunlight, causing Campbell to squint. Arnoff shouldered his rifle and climbed a metal ladder on the tanker’s rear. Standing atop the giant cylinder, he scanned with his binoculars in all directions.
“Zapheads are going to see him,” Donnie said, checking the chamber of his automatic pistol. “This is a time to lay low, not play gold-medal dumbass at the Special Olympics.”
“Hush your mouth,” Pamela said, sitting on the hood of a green Mercedes. A man was slumped over the wheel, body swollen with rot around the confines of his suit jacket and tie. Campbell was grateful the car’s windows were sealed shut. The man likely had the air-conditioning going, probably some Eagles twanging on the stereo, on his way to rake in money off of other people’s work. And then life made other plans for him.
Big, big plans.
“See anything?” the professor called to Arnoff.
Arnoff lowered the binoculars and shook his head. “No Zapheads, no survivors, no Pete.”
“Too bad we can’t get a vehicle going. There’s enough gas to get us across the country and back a hundred times.”
“You’re the egghead,” Donnie said, banging on the roof of a Ford Escort. “Why don’t you hotwire one of these?”
“As I explained, modern vehicles have electronic ignitions, computerized operating systems, alternating-current batteries and—”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Donnie said. “Everything got zapped. I know all that. But the zap’s over, right? Why can’t we rebuild one?”
“Possible,” the professor said. “But we’d need newly produced parts, which means manufactured parts, because all the existing circuitry is fried. And it takes high-technology equipment and electricity to make the parts you need. Catch-22.”
“Sort of like needing a fish for bait so you can catch a fish, right?” Donnie said.
“Sort of like that, yes,” the professor said.
Campbell hadn’t thought that far ahead. Sometimes at night, before falling asleep, he’d had little fantasies of the world rebuilding itself, everyone pitching in like it was a community-pride clean-up event. But he always assumed “somebody,” either the government or people from some unaffected part of the globe, would eventually ride to the rescue and restore all the essential services. But what if they were on their own? What if they had to save themselves?
What if human civilization had come down to isolated clusters like Arnoff’s tribe?
Then we’re screwed.
“Zaphead at ten o’clock,” Arnoff said, dropping the binoculars so they dangled from a cord around his neck. He raised his rifle and sighted down the barrel.
Donnie jumped from the Mercedes hood and ran toward the tanker. “Save some for me. I ain’t killed a Zaphead in three days and I’m getting a little twitchy.”
“I’m not shooting it,” Arnoff said. “I’m observing it.”
Campbell eased over to where the professor and Pamela were standing. The tang of tobacco smoke overwhelmed the stench of bodies and distant fires.
“What do you make of all this?” Campbell asked the professor. He almost asked for the man’s name, but the group seemed to function better with anonymity. Names didn’t seem to matter now.
“Our tenuous situation as survivors, or the geological effects of the solar storm?”
Pamela pursed her lips. “I love it when you use them big words.”
“A little of both,” Campbell said. “I mean, it’s hard to separate them now, isn’t it?”
Donnie hoisted himself up on the tanker’s ladder and climbed toward Arnoff, who was still peering through the rifle scope.
“We can’t be certain of the long-term effects on the environment,” the professor said. “But short term, in human terms, we’ve lost our infrastructure. We’ve lost all the systems that connected us with food, safety, shelter, and companionship. And, as I said, manmade problems like the nuclear radiation and other pollutants add to the mix.”
“Doesn’t sound real good,” Pamela said. “Then again, I never expected there to be a ‘long term.’”
“But surely we can adapt,” Campbell said, although the argument sounded hollow even to his own ears. “We’re smart and tough and adaptable—”
“That’s how smart we are,” Pamela interrupted, pointing to the top of the tanker. Donnie had opened a little metal access hatch and was urinating into the opening.
The professor shook his head in grim amusement. “I think the Zapheads are in far better position to adapt. From what I can tell, they have none of the moral baggage and ten times the survival instinct.”
“Do you have any theories on why they turned violent?” Campbell asked, warily scanning the sides of the highway. Arnoff and Donnie were so transfixed with one distant Zaphead, they wouldn’t have seen any others approaching from the woods. And if Pete staggered out into the open, Campbell wanted to be the first to spot him so he could prevent Pete from getting shot by the trigger-happy Donnie.
“Electroconvulsive therapy is used to treat depression,” the professor said. “Everybody thinks of the Jack Nicholson movie, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ where troublemakers get their brains fried, but it has proven clinical benefits. However, the treatment also can cause severe personality change, memory loss, and cognitive impairment. So evidence suggests that exposure to cataclysmic electromagnetic fields could cause varying results, depending on the individual.”
“So, I guess this proves I’m lucky, huh?” Pamela said.
The professor dug into his backpack and pulled out a plastic water bottle. “In some ways, we’re better off,” he said, twisting the cap and taking a swig. “Fewer of us to consume the finite resources at our disposal.”
“What do you mean, ‘finite’?” Campbell asked. “I know we can’t build automobiles, but we can return to an agrarian society.”
“With what knowledge?” the professor said. “How do we save seeds and know which plants to eat? How do we know the proper planting time? How do we build gristmills powered by water wheels to grind wheat into flour? We can’t just get on the Internet and Google it.”
“Dang, you’re a real bummer, doc,” Pamela said.
“I see no need to indulge elaborate fantasies. A realistic assessment of our situation gives us the best chance of survival.”
Campbell was reluctantly forced to agree. “I’d say the first job—after finding Pete, of course—is to locate others like us and form a bigger group.”
“That might not be so wise,” the professor said. “Look at the pecking-order problems we have just with a group this small. Put a dozen well-armed, desperate Alpha males in the same place at the same time, and I think they’d make Zapheads look like refined pacifists.”
“I don’t know exactly what you said,” Pamela said. “But if you’re saying it’s not too smart to put a bunch of Arnoffs and Donnies together, I’d say you’re onto something.”
The two men stood atop the tankers like statues. Arnoff was ramrod-straight, shoulders back, still holding his rifle barrel steady on his target. Donnie was hunched, but he’d also raised his weapon, pointing it in the same direction as Arnoff.
“If they shoot, every Zaphead within a mile’s radius will come see what’s going on,” the professor said. “They seem to react to stimuli like sudden loud noises and movement.”
“They can’t be that dumb,” Campbell said.
“You don’t know Donnie,” Pamela said. “He might do it just fo
r the fun of it.”
A muffled ka-pow sounded to the west. Arnoff instantly shifted his rifle in that direction.
“A gunshot,” Campbell said. “Other survivors.”
Campbell started up the road toward the tanker, but the professor grabbed his arm. “Remember what I said. Bigger isn’t necessarily better. If there was any lesson learned in the Technological Age, it was that.”
Campbell shook free and walked away, imagining what the other group was like. Had Pete joined them? Did they have adequate food supplies or transportation better than bicycles or horses? Did they have any young women among them so the race could procreate?
Thinking of sex at a time like this.Sheesh.
Another distant gunshot sounded, and Arnoff scrambled the length of the tanker and descended the ladder. The professor and Pamela gathered their bags and went to meet him, but Campbell climbed astride his bicycle, determined to solve the mystery.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Arnoff said.
“I’m your scout, remember? Just doing my job.”
“You might want to stick with the winners. Sounds like things are getting hairy out there.”
“Hairier than a gorilla’s cooter,” Donnie said from atop the tanker.
“Just how would you know about that?” Pamela said.
“’cause I been sleeping with you, ain’t I?”
Campbell was tired of the prattle. “My friend’s out there somewhere, and I’m going to find him.”
“Your first responsibility is to the tribe,” Arnoff said.
Campbell glared at the professor. “What do you have to say about that?”
The professor shook his head. “Survival of the fittest.”
Another gunshot sounded, causing Donnie to whoop and jump from the tanker to the cab of the truck for better surveillance. If Donnie was the pinnacle of human fitness, then Campbell wasn’t sure whether he wanted to stick around. Evolution had just taken a stinking piss and washed away every grain of hope.
“I guess some of us have a different idea of what it means to be human.” Campbell pedaled in the direction of the gunshots.
