“Which one?” DeVontay joked. “Rachel, Squeak, Finn, or Carter?”
“Hell, all of them.”
Squeak came in and joined the embrace, and then they let Rachel have him. She hugged her grandfather tightly while Carter and Joanna giggled.
“Thanks for believing in me,” she whispered in his ear. “I love you so much.”
“Don’t go saying anything all mushy. I don’t want these little brats to see me cry.”
“It’s okay, Franklin,” Carter said from his perch in Rachel’s arms. “Joanna’s already told us all about you.”
“Well, don’t believe half of the bullshit that runs through my head, because I sure don’t. As for the other half…well, one day when I’m long gone, I hope you remember the good stuff.”
“Come on, honey,” K.C. called to him. “We’re burning daylight.”
Franklin turned and saluted Gen. Alexander, who sat on a fallen log near the cavern’s entrance. He saluted in return. Sketch, who stood beside the general with an arm around a cute girl about his own age, flashed Franklin a peace sign.
“Watch out for monsters,” Rachel implored Franklin. “Our robots have been thinning them out, but nature has its own plan.”
Franklin patted the M16 Alexander had given him. “I can handle it. And remember, we’ll be spending summer at my compound, once the weather’s nice. I sure miss my goats. I just hope the ornery sons of bitches haven’t turned into meat-eaters on the hoof.”
“We’ll come visit you,” DeVontay promised. “We still plan on moving back to the Milepost 291 bunker when spring comes.”
Franklin grinned at the Zap babies they each carried, and then at Squeak. “Bring the family.”
“Yes, Grandpa,” Rachel said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
As the Humvee rolled away down the dirt road, Rachel took DeVontay’s hand. “Shall we head home before it gets late?”
“It’s not home,” DeVontay said. “It’s just a house.”
They’d chosen a house two miles from the caverns, part of the first neighborhood that had been connected to the new power grid. The metal Franklin had transported to Luray had been the foundation of a new organic metal infrastructure, and Carter had directed it to build a new plasma sink. Even now the factories were producing sentient robots that provided defense, gathered food, and supplied energy to the rebuilding human population. Carter had warned that rogue Zaps still existed, both babies and savages, and so they’d have to continue working together to preserve peace.
Rachel was fine with that. She’d been trapped in the middle of two worlds, and she would sacrifice whatever was necessary to unite them.
The air was sweet and crisp, the winter breeze pushing away the contamination of the past, but plenty of other dangers lurked. Squeak skipped down the road ahead of them, chasing a stray snowflake that drifted down from the smoky sky. Rachel called her to stay within sight.
“You don’t have to carry me any longer,” Carter said to Rachel. “I can get a robot if you want.”
“I’m not ready for that yet,” Rachel said.
“Until we have a baby of our own, you guys will have to do,” DeVontay said, which caused Finn to laugh.
“Why would you want a human baby when you could have us?” Finn said.
“We’re not even sure it would be human,” Rachel said. “It might be whatever this world needs now. It might be the Next.”
“Just make sure you give us some privacy at bedtime,” DeVontay said. “We humans can’t help our primal natures.”
“Perhaps one day you’ll evolve,” Carter said.
“We’ve got time,” Rachel said, squeezing DeVontay’s hand. He now wore an eye patch over his damaged socket, finally relenting to what he called “the post-apocalyptic bad-ass cliché.” But it somehow fit him. They all wore their damage and had grown comfortable with it.
The sun was sinking in the west, the aurora casting a glorious magenta halo around it. The plasma column across the valley swirled with the chaotic electrons that had first changed the planet and then become its genesis. In the dome beneath it, humans, Zaps, and robots worked together for a better tomorrow.
This wasn’t the world they wanted, but it was the world they had.
And Rachel was eternally grateful.
THE END
See how it all started
FREE!
Amazon or at Amazon UK!
AFTER: THE SHOCK
Book 1 in the post-apocalyptic series
By Scott Nicholson
A massive solar storm erases the world's technological infrastructure and kills billions. While the remaining humans are struggling to adapt and survive, they notice that some among them have...changed.
Rachel Wheeler finds herself alone in the city, where violent survivors known as "Zapheads" roam the streets, killing and destroying. Her only hope is to reach the mountains, where her grandfather, a legendary survivalist, established a compound in preparation for Doomsday.
Other survivors are fleeing the city, but Zapheads aren't the only danger. Rogue bands of military soldiers want to impose their own order in the crumbling ruins of civilization. When Rachel discovers a 10-year-old boy, she vows to care for him even at the risk of her own life.
And the Zapheads are evolving, developing communal skills even as they lay waste to the society they will eventually replace.
Get After #1: The Shock free at Amazon US or Amazon UK
FREE!
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
An After spinoff series
By Scott Nicholson and Joshua Simcox
When Mackie Dailey survives a cataclysmic solar storm that wipes out civilization and mutates others into violent killers, he seeks out the one person he cares about most.
But when he returns to a college campus looking for Allie, he discovers she is a Zaphead—nearly unrecognizable as the human he once loved. Mackie becomes caught in a power struggle among a small group of survivors who turn the campus into a stronghold against the Zaphead threat. His old nemesis, Lucas Krider, has taken charge, but Krider’s vision of a new world is just as horrifying as the extinction they all face.
Will Mackie sacrifice himself so the group has a chance to survive, or will his demons turn out to be more dangerous than the strange, rampaging creatures that nature has unleashed?
Get Bone and Cinder free at Amazon or Amazon UK
***
And look for the dark A.I. dystopian series, MIM*X, on Kindle
About the author:
Scott Nicholson is the international bestselling author of more than 20 thrillers, including the After post-apocalyptic series, MIM*X, The Harvest, The Gorge, Liquid Fear, and Speed Dating with the Dead. His books have appeared in the Kindle Top 100 more than a dozen times in five different countries.
Visit his website at AuthorScottNicholson.com or view his Amazon Author Central page. Sign up for the Tao of Boo newsletter for giveaways and book releases.
Thanks to Sharon Stogner at Devil in the Details editing, as well as proofreaders Meghan Gurley and Frank Pero, and technical advisor Steve Lowe, SSRG (R).
VIEW OTHER KINDLE BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON:
Novels
After #0: First Light
After #1: The Shock
After #2: The Echo
After #3: Milepost 291
After#4: Whiteout
After #5: Red Scare
After #6: Dying Light
Next #1: Afterburn
Next #2: Earth Zero
Next #3: Radiophobia
Next #5: Crucible
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
Zapheads #2: Scars and Ashes
Zapheads #3: Blood and Frost
The Scarecrow (Solom #1)
The Narrow Gate (Solom #2)
The Preacher (Solom #3)
The Gorge
MIM*X #1: Soft Robots
The Home
McFall
Creative Spirit
Disinte
gration
The Red Church
Speed Dating with the Dead
The Skull Ring
Drummer Boy
The Harvest
Kiss Me or Die
Liquid Fear
Chronic Fear
October Girls
Crime Beat
The Dead Love Longer
Fangs In Vain
Burial to Follow
Cursed (with J.R. Rain)
Bad Blood (with J.R. Rain & H.T. Night)
Spider Web (with J.R. Rain)
Spider Bite (with J.R. Rain)
Ghost College (with J.R. Rain)
The Vampire Club (with J.R. Rain)
Meat Camp (with J.T. Warren)
Playin’ Possum (with Milton Bagby)
Story Collections
Curtains
Flowers
Ashes
The First
Zombie Bits
Head Cases
Gateway Drug
Missing Pieces
These Things Happened
American Horror
Children’s Books
If I Were Your Monster (with Lee Davis)
Too Many Witches (with Lee Davis)
Ida Claire (with Lee Davis)
Duncan the Punkin (with Sergio Castro)
Bad Day for Balloons (with Sergio Castro)
VIEW U.K. KINDLE BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON:
Next #1: Afterburn
Next #2: Earth Zero
Next #3: Radiophobia
Next #5: Crucible
Next #6: Half Life
After: First Light
After #1: The Shock
After #2: The Echo
After: #3: Milepost 291
After #4: Whiteout
After #5: Red Scare
After #6: Dying Light
The Scarecrow (Solom #1)
The Narrow Gate (Solom #2)
The Preacher (Solom #3)
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
Zapheads #2: Scars and Ashes
Zapheads #3: Blood and Frost
McFall
Liquid Fear
Chronic Fear
Creative Spirit
The Home
The Gorge
Disintegration
The Red Church
Speed Dating with the Dead
The Skull Ring
Drummer Boy
The Harvest
Kiss Me or Die
October Girls
Crime Beat
The Dead Love Longer
Burial to Follow
Fangs In Vain
Cursed (with J.R. Rain)
Ghost College (with J.R. Rain)
The Vampire Club (with J.R. Rain)
Bad Blood (with J.R. Rain & H.T. Night)
Spider Web (with J.R. Rain)
Spider Bite (with J.R. Rain)
Meat Camp (with J.T. Warren)
Playin’ Possum (with Milton Bagby)
Collections
Curtains
Flowers
Ashes
The First
Zombie Bits
Head Cases
Gateway Drug
Missing Pieces
These Things Happened
Children’s Books
Bad Day for Balloons (with Sergio Castro)
If I Were Your Monster (with Lee Davis)
Duncan the Punkin (with Sergio Castro)
Too Many Witches (with Lee Davis)
Ida Claire (with Lee Davis)
Half Life
After
Zapheads
About the Author
Kindle Links
UK Kindle Links
Half Life: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 6) Page 20
