Half Life: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 6)

by Scott Nicholson

“Everywhere,” Finn said.

  Several blocks in the center of the city near the plasma sink slid together and melded into a larger, rectangular shape while the rest of the city collapsed into a silvery puddle. The rectangular shape, which was perhaps twenty feet tall and ten feet wide, rolled toward them as if surfing, only there were no waves.

  Rachel drew back as the shape sped toward her, but remembered there was no going back now. She held Finn close to her breast and waited for whatever happened. The shape softened as it neared, slowing even as it loomed over her. DeVontay yelled at her but she ignored him. The shape stopped four feet in front of Rachel and sagged into a rounded heap.

  Two arms emerged from the metal and the shape began sculpting itself, pushing, raking, and chopping bits away until a humanoid statue stood there, twice as tall as she. Its stubby, crude hands squeezed out a lump of material above the shoulders and mashed out a head, then began wiping at its rudimentary face. When a few angles and features emerged, a maw opened in its midst and said, “I am Carter.”

  Rachel looked at Finn for help and tried to form a telepathic connection, but Carter’s sheer force of personality and power seemed to overwhelm them both and create interference. Finn’s mouth opened in surprise, his little pink tongue lolling out. Joanna, who was farther away and perhaps less influenced by the entity, yelled, “Carter! Where is your carrier?”

  “You and Finn made your own carriers. I BECAME mine.”

  “He’s locking us out, Rachel,” Finn said. “I can’t read his mind.”

  The large pool of fluid metal—larger than a pool, more like an entire pond—rippled and swirled gently, glinting in the light of the plasma. The swarm of tiny drones dove into the metal and merged with it, but they might return at any moment. DeVontay tried to drag Rachel away from this Carter-robot creation but she shrugged him off.

  “This is wrong!” DeVontay roared. His eye was as bright as the plasma, like iron ore dropped in a forge and becoming molten.

  “You have to work with wrong sometimes,” she said as she stepped even closer to Carter. She was in the pool of metal now but she didn’t sink—rather, she stood on its yielding, spongy surface. She looked into his infantile, silver-enclosed face and waited for him to unleash whatever fate he intended for her and Finn.

  Carter’s wildly shimmering eyes mellowed to a slow burn, and his lower lip curled up into a pout. “You’re supposed to be scared.”

  “I don’t always do what I’m supposed to do,” she said. He clearly possessed great power—beyond anything Finn and Joanna had hinted at—but his massive metallic body almost seemed too large for him to manipulate. As if he’d pumped himself up in self-defense or fear.

  “And you’re Zap, but human, too.”

  “It’s a long story. We came to ask for your help.”

  “I know why you came.” The baby now seemed more curious than paranoid or petulant.

  “We didn’t mean to trespass on your territory,” Finn said. “We have to stop the—”

  “I’m already doing what is necessary.”

  “How do you know what is necessary?” Rachel asked. Franklin and DeVontay moved closer, although they were clearly uneasy. She wanted to signal them to stay back, but Carter might take that as a sign of weakness. His arrogance and ego were even greater than Kokona’s had been, and given the powers he exhibited, he was many times more dangerous.

  “This is mine.” He waved his massive arms over the city, to the ruins around it, and to the bridge where the robots and Zaps had now turned around to monitor the proceedings. “All of this is mine.”

  “What about Luray?” Munger shouted. “What did you do to the people there?”

  “I saved them. They were attacked by savages and I helped them.”

  Munger’s challenge seemed to provoke Carter. His metallic shell siphoned up gallons of metal from the pool. Rachel wondered how large he could grow and how mobile he would become if he transformed the entire mass of the city’s material into a single humanoid form. But he’d barely gained in stature when Munger brought his rifle to bear and fired a burst of shots.

  The bullets missed Rachel by inches and entered Carter’s torso, pocking little holes in a line up toward his face, Rachel expected the metal to fully encapsulate him as a protective shield, but one struck his cheek, splintering bone and causing thick, scarlet blood to pour down.

  The Carter-robot shrieked and pitched forward into the pool and the metal began losing its former shape, flowing away like a rapidly melting ice cube. A trail of blood mingled with the material near where the mutant infant’s head had been, and a noxious mist rose into the air. The plasma sink’s processing visibly accelerated, churning in a yellow-green tornado inside its massive clear tube. Rachel felt a vibration under her feet like the beginning of an earthquake or a volcano building to the boiling point.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” Franklin yelled at Munger, already backing away from the tumult.

  “We can’t have something like that living near New Pentagon,” Munger said. “It was a threat.”

  “It’s going to blow,” DeVontay said. “Like in Winston-Salem.”

  “We’ll never get away fast enough,” Finn said.

  “We’re going to try.” Rachel ran toward the sloping hills of the exit ramps.

  DeVontay took Squeak’s hand, throwing his weapon to the ground so he could run faster. They crossed the interstate and headed toward a strip mall, climbing over a chain-link fence. Franklin and the others ran in the direction in which they’d arrived, passing beneath the bridge again. The Zaps and robots above stirred uneasily, either sensing the breakdown of the city and the loss of their Zap master or else suffering a severed connection that left them directionless.

  “How long do you think we have?” DeVontay asked, as they caught their breath.

  “Not long enough,” Rachel said. She lifted Finn so that they faced one another and asked him, “Is Carter still in there? Alive?”

  As the baby closed his eyes to concentrate, fluttering his delicate lashes, DeVontay said, “You got to be kidding!”

  “It’s our only chance.”

  Finn opened his eyes again and said, “He’s under there. But he’s fading fast.”

  Rachel thrust Finn into DeVontay’s arms. “Here, take him and run for that music store. I’ll meet you there.”

  She climbed back over the fence and sprinted toward the silver slag of the city. The ground shook enough that bits of rubble were rolling off the ruined heaps, and a leaning utility pole came crashing to the ground. A jagged crack appeared in the asphalt as she crossed I-81. The bridge shook and swayed, and the creatures on it began spilling over the sides, with some of them pushed along the road in either direction as others fell.

  Rachel was driven by Carter’s words: I helped them.

  Why would he bother helping humans when he wanted to expand his empire?

  She reached the edge of the pool and found the material had softened, creating a shimmering lake that expanded as it grew thinner. She stepped into it, expecting to sink, searching for the place where she believed Carter had vanished. Rocks and broken masonry appeared as tiny islands in the silver surface, and a more rounded lump protruded among them. Rachel waded to it—she was ankle deep now—and pulled Carter from the cool metal.

  His left cheek was ruined, eye already swelling shut, blood caking the side of his head. The metal poured from his body and dribbled down, sliding away from his gown like water on oil. She held the baby’s chest to her ear, listening for a heartbeat over the deep, grinding rumble of the plasma sink’s meltdown.

  He’s dead.

  She wasn’t sure he would even survive without the metal with which he’d formed a symbiosis, but she recalled the way the Zaps had restored her when she was twice at the brink of death. Both times she’d come back even stronger and with even more extreme mutations. But was she strong enough to return the favor?

  I’m probably going to regret this.


  She wasn’t sure exactly how the Zaps had performed the energy infusions that had converted her. But she waved her hands over the infant and imagined a conduit opening from her mind to Carter’s. She dreaded even the slightest telepathic connection with the tiny tyrant, but she didn’t know what else to try. The plasma sink began to whine as the loop of light and colors increased in intensity, the electromagnetic radiation building as it sloughed electrons.

  It wasn’t working. Carter lay still and pale in her grasp, and then she remembered Finn’s plea: even with all his power, he’d wanted love more than anything.

  She tried again, pulling the infant against her chest, pouring forth everything in her heart that she possessed. She’d always believed love was an external force, something routed through all conscious beings, and she considered it an eternally renewable resource—the more it was expended, the more would be created in its place, like a plasma sink of the soul.

  Perhaps it was faith, perhaps it was science, or perhaps it was some bizarre quirk that the universe dispensed at random.

  All Rachel knew was that she hoped, wished, prayed, loved, not just for Carter, but for all she had ever embraced. She glanced over at the strip mall and saw that DeVontay had stubbornly stood his ground—his metal eye was as brightly psychedelic as the plasma sink.

  Her chest grew warm and seemed to fill with helium, and in the chaos of Harrisonburg’s meltdown, she had the sensation of floating away, as peaceful and serene as she’d been at any time in her life.

  I must be dead, too.

  And then the damaged little boy shuddered in her arms, snorted, and opened his mouth and bawled like any other distressed human baby that had ever lived.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “They’re coming!” Joanna squealed.

  Franklin glanced over his shoulder at the bridge. Some of the Zaps had fallen or jumped from the quivering, creaking bridge and lay crippled or damaged on the pavement. Many more poured from the structure and down the weed-choked inclines that lined the exit ramps and sprinted straight for the fleeing group. Franklin had no idea what had roused them from their lethargy but he figured it had something to do with the murder of their creepy little demigod.

  Munger was just ahead of Franklin and almost to the barrier of cars stacked along the interstate, while K.C. had deliberately slowed down in order to help Franklin. Even though Joanna couldn’t have weighed more than nine or ten pounds, Franklin was so winded and weary that she felt like a sack of cement.

  “I’ll cover you!” K.C. yelled, as she stopped, knelt, and aimed her M16. Even though she’d never be able to take down all the Zaps, Franklin admired her bravery as usual.

  She’s about as hard-headed as I am. Too bad we don’t get to grow old together.

  “Forget it and come on,” he yelled at her as he passed, although he was encouraged to hear a volley of rounds pop. Maybe that would slow them down.

  At least the Zaps didn’t seem to be following Rachel and the others. And the robots appeared to be immobilized, or at least confused. But the Zaps were almost robotic with their silver suits, fluid movements, and seemingly coordinated pursuit. But their sibilant hissing and glinting eyes made them far more sinister, as if the savage sleeping inside them had been reawakened. The Zaps were gaining—only half the length of a football field behind—and the barrier of cars looked farther and farther away.

  Even if you reach it, what good will that do? You can’t make it to the Humvee in time.

  He looked down at the baby girl in his arms and her round olive face looking imploringly up at him. She was beautiful and innocent, and he would do whatever he could to protect her. He wasn’t even sure if the Zaps would harm her, but it wasn’t worth the risk to find out. At any rate, she was afraid, and he felt the fear as his own.

  Munger reached the barrier of vehicles and looked back at him. Franklin hoped the man would at least stand like K.C. and buy them all some time, since the trigger-happy psycho had started all this. But Munger didn’t even lift his weapon—he dropped down beside a tractor-trailer and rolled underneath it to the other side.

  The ground shook beneath Franklin’s boots, and metal highway signs twisted and creaked. A rift in the pavement opened before him and he nearly tripped, managing to leap it at the last second. When he reached the barrier, he was limping and gasping, and K.C. soon caught up with him.

  “Where’s Rachel and the others?” she shouted over the groans of crumbling masonry.

  “Don’t know,” Franklin said. “No time.”

  “The plasma sink’s melting down,” Joanna said. “Hurry!”

  “Go ahead,” Franklin said, and K.C. wriggled between two tightly jammed vehicles, climbing up on their tangled bumpers to slide past. Franklin followed her, but his boot slipped halfway and his ankle was caught between the cars. He bounced in order to shift the weight of the vehicles but only succeeded in grinding bruises into his flesh. The Zaps were only thirty yards away now.

  “Take her!” he yelled at K.C., holding out Joanna, who wrenched and flailed in his grasp.

  “I’m not leaving you,” K.C. said, ignoring him and leaning over the hood of a sedan to fire a few more rounds. Franklin’s rifle was strapped across his back, and he was in no position to join her. Not that it would do much good—they were still outnumbered twenty to one and those suits were bulletproof.

  Munger had reached the Humvee and slid into the driver’s seat. Good. He’s going to come get us. But he better hurry.

  The first of the Zaps reached the barrier and K.C. put three rounds in its face, dropping it in a quivering heap. Franklin turned, leaning at an awkward angle to face the attack. He was too immobilized to pull his knife from its holster strapped to his instep. He shifted Joanna to his left arm, using his body to shield her from the approaching hordes. He wasn’t even able to draw his Glock before the next Zap came.

  Instead of striking Franklin or K.C., it leapt impossibly high and landed on the sedan’s roof, scooting on its belly until it dropped off the other side. It ran straight for the Humvee, which Munger had finally started. The vehicle lurched forward and struck the Zap head on with its brush guard, nearly snapping the mutant in half. It flopped like a broken marionette for a moment before falling.

  Other Zaps swarmed over the barrier, too many of them to count, while Franklin braced for the worst. He had his pistol out now but squeezed off only a couple of ineffectual shots before the Glock was knocked from his hand. The Zap that had struck him seemed not to have noticed the contact, clambering over the car to pursue the Humvee.

  Instead of pulling up to rescue them, Munger gunned the engine and made a circle, tires squealing against pavement as he turned to drive south in the direction in which they’d arrived.

  The rat bastard is leaving us!

  But he didn’t get far—his maneuver of running down the original Zap attacker had allowed half a dozen to reach the vehicle, and they clung to it, pounding on the windows and yanking on the doors. One of them climbed across the windshield, blocking Munger’s view, and the Humvee struck an abandoned cattle trailer and spun wildly. More Zaps caught up to it, and the passenger door flew open. Several Zaps crawled inside the still-rolling vehicle, and then a great gush of red spattered the windows.

  The vehicle rolled to a halt and stalled in the ditch. The Zaps pulled Munger from the vehicle, still screaming, and more of them joined in, grabbing and tearing and clawing. His screams soon died away to gurgles, but not so quickly that Franklin didn’t get the impression they were dragging out the torture.

  Say what you will about these freaks, but they sure know how to carry a grudge.

  “I guess now they’re coming for us,” K.C. said.

  Franklin shrugged his 30-30 from his shoulder and settled in a sitting position so he could place Joanna in his lap. “I’m not running like that coward did,” Franklin said. “Not like I have a choice.”

  But the Zaps seemed unmotivated now that they’d finished their slaughter. They m
illed around vacantly, blood dripping from their hands, while the ground trembled and the bridge finally collapsed with a great, abrasive groan. The plasma sink had taken on a multi-hued chaos, the trapped energy swirling faster and faster.

  “Thank you, Franklin,” Joanna said. “For not leaving me.”

  Franklin lifted the baby so he could rub his beard against her chin, which always delighted both of them. “Forget it, kid. We’re sticking together no matter what.”

  The earth gave a sudden lurch, shifting the entire line of cars, and Franklin’s ankle popped free. He shook the pain from it and hopped down beside K.C. “What’s the plan, sweetheart?”

  “The Zaps are ignoring us so far. Let’s see what happens if we walk right through them to the Humvee.”

  “Might be something not so good that happens.”

  “Getting blown to hell in a plasma meltdown’s not so fun, either,” K.C. said, pushing back her hair. “Lesser of two evils.”

  “Guess not.” Franklin started limping toward the Humvee, K.C. close beside him. Joanna fell still and silent, as if hoping the Zaps wouldn’t see her eyes and become interested. But the Zaps ignored them all.

  Franklin walked past Munger’s remains without looking, but the colonel was spread along quite an impressive stretch of pavement, wet bones scattered and organs glistening in the weird half-light. He piled into the passenger seat, and K.C. got behind the wheel. She started the still-warm engine, put the vehicle in DRIVE, and exhaled with relief. Franklin found a rag on the floor and wiped at the blood on the windows, succeeding mostly in smearing it into red steaks.

  “Head south?” Franklin said.

  “We’ve got people here,” K.C. said. “We’re not like Munger.”

  “What do you propose we do? We have no idea where they are, and besides, we can’t get across the barrier.”

  “You just aren’t dreaming hard enough, Cowboy.” K.C. backed up the Humvee and wheeled it around until she was facing the now-jumbled line of cars.

  She’s not crazy enough to ram it, is she?