He didn’t have time to look, especially in the dark, with Zapheads already clawing their way into the room behind him. He squeezed off two shots, barely taking time to aim, and then retreated deeper into the café. He shouted into each room as he went, and when he reached the back door he realized his foolishness.
They were gone.
All of them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Franklin was drowsing, reflecting on his latest detour from utopian idealism—mostly wondering what his goats were up to—when he stirred with a start.
His ass was sore from sitting on a riding lawn mower, but he’d been determined to show how tough he was. In truth, he was probably the oldest member of Brock’s thrown-together civilian militia, and given the way he’d been presented as some kind of grizzled savior, he probably could have claimed one of the rocking chairs or recliners dragged into the yard and circled around the fire pit.
Brock had established quarters in a series of neighboring houses, which allowed for both easier defense and quick communication. The campfire in the yard was a risk, but they decided freezing their asses off was a bigger risk. So while half of the crew slept, a dozen stood guard outside while the rest scouted the town.
Even though lookouts were posted in the second-story windows, Franklin was annoyed to discover everyone else at the fire was asleep.
Brock runs a shitty operation. A bunch of hipsters and grad students who probably still check their cell phones twice a day to see if they’ve received any text messages.
Still, this was better than being part of Sgt. Shipley’s unit, drinking filtered urine in a doomsday bunker. And he had to admit, while his compound offered some nice advantages such as not having to deal with assholes, he was glad to be back among people. Maybe he was a humanist instead of a cynic after all.
But even humanists needed to watch their own asses in the apocalypse, because the next guy might be asleep at the wheel.
Judging by the shift of the stars and the position of Orion’s belt in the sky, Franklin figured it was somewhere between three and four in the morning. Although the burning town was out of sight beyond a forested band of suburban development, the smoke cast a haze that filtered the moon and stars.
Something rattled in the darkness to his left and he sat up, grabbing his rifle. He was about to aim when he saw the origin of the commotion—a gray tomcat licking at the bottom of a tuna can.
I’m going to have to talk to Brock about his security. A Zaphead could walk in and steal his Starbucks card before he even knew what hit him.
Not that Brock cared. Even though Sierra wasn’t falling for his line of bullshit, several of the young women in the camp were only too eager to play tsarina for him. But Franklin couldn’t really blame the guy. You had to strike while the iron was hot. Franklin’s own physical urges were so dormant that he couldn’t even rummage up a dirty memory of any of his three wives.
He was busy searching for one when someone called from the darkness. “Don’t shoot, it’s us.”
Franklin pointed his rifle into the night, already feeling stupid because Zapheads didn’t identify themselves. They just came at you and did what they did.
“Who’s there?” he called back, waking up several of the other sentries.
“Us.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down any.”
A quick golden light fluttered and vanished. Then four figures emerged from blackness at the edge of the firelight.
“I’ll be damned,” Franklin said as Rachel and DeVontay came across the yard, escorted by two of Brock’s crew.
“Found them in town,” said the man on the left, a beefy guy wearing a fedora, leather jacket, and diamond stud earring who was typical of this crowd. Like they’d enjoyed this opportunity to prowl through everybody’s shit and just take whatever they wanted. But he didn’t care if this guy was as big an asshole as Brock; he’d found Rachel, and that made Franklin want to jump up and kiss his bristly jowls in thanks.
Instead, he hugged and kissed Rachel. “Honey! You had me worried sick.”
“I had to go.” Her eyes still held that golden twinkle that was so deeply disturbing but oddly beautiful all the same.
Damn, you’re getting soft in your old age. You’d rather have her as a mutant freak than not have her at all.
She didn’t appear all that different from when she’d left the compound several days ago. Her face was a little dirtier and a couple of buttons of her blouse were missing, and she had to be cold considering how much of her neckline was showing. Then Franklin glanced at DeVontay.
Don’t tell me…shit.
“Hi, Mr. Wheeler,” DeVontay said, extending a hand. A rifle was slung over his shoulder and he looked like he’d marched across eighty acres of hell, with blood spattered on his clothes. His glass eye, always a little unsettling, didn’t seem to fit quite right, and the firelight danced against its surface in a surreal imitation of Rachel’s eyes.
Franklin ignored the outstretched hand. Such useless formalities were for the old ways, not After. “Hi, DeVontay. Were you the one that found her?”
“We kind of found each other,” he said.
The guy in the fedora said, “While ya’ll have your little family reunion, I’ve got to report to Brock.”
“What’s going on in Newton?” Franklin asked.
The other scout, a short woman in a knit wool cap that accented the roundness of her face, said, “Looks like Brock was right. The Zaps are already recovering from the attack, but any humans in the town have scattered. A bunch of them dead, too, whether the Zaps killed them or they got caught in the crossfire.”
“That’s Shipley’s style,” Franklin said. “Shoot them all and let Satan sort them out.”
“He was also right about the Zapheads collecting the dead. Looks like they’re after their own kind as well as the humans, so his plan might work.”
“The stadium,” Rachel began, and then looked off toward the reddish glow of town as if remembering something.
“The bodies are still there,” the woman said.
“Stacked like firewood,” the fedora guy said. “Looked like some kind of Hitler shit.”
“Go fill Brock in on what went down,” the woman said, rubbing her hands before the flames. “I’ll make sure these folks behave.”
As the fedora guy entered one of the houses that served as headquarters, DeVontay draped an arm across Rachel’s shoulder. Franklin shot him a glare but DeVontay didn’t remove it. “It’s the babies,” he said.
“That’s what we heard, too,” Franklin said. “Some of the people who escaped made their way here, so we know all about it.” He nodded at Rachel. “Seems like they were expecting you.”
As Rachel explained her strange connection to the babies, Franklin felt as if he was sinking into some kind of psychedelic tar pit. Babies were bad enough under the best of circumstances, tiny little tyrants that demanded nipples and lullabies and warm snuggies or else they’d bawl their fuzzy heads off. And even if you gave them everything they wanted, they still shit their pants and expected you to clean it up.
Cathy’s mutant infant had been bad enough but didn’t act too out of the ordinary. The Zaphead babies had since become so smart now that they were calling the shots, plotting world domination while forcing humans to wipe their asses. As a hardcore libertarian, such a social order really jammed sand in Franklin’s craw.
“So do you know how many of these babies are left?” Franklin asked.
“Bryan said eleven,” DeVontay said.
“Bryan? So you’re on a first-name basis now?”
“Well, that’s just in Newton,” Rachel said. “I could feel there are thousands out there, organizing even now, but a lot of their tribes have faced the same sort of…obstacles as the ones in Newton.”
Franklin was relieved to hear her talk like she wasn’t one of them. But he still didn’t trust her. He’d given in to her once, back at his compound, and let himself be convinced that she knew
what she was doing. But she might have been sucked in and twisted and used by those Zapper bastards to help them wipe out the human race.
“So you’re with us now?” Franklin asked her.
DeVontay pulled her even closer and said, “She figured out what’s important.”
“You guys,” Rachel said. Then she looked around, her brow furrowing. “Where’s Stephen?”
Oh, shit.
“I lost him,” Franklin said, staring into the fire to avoid her fiery gaze.
“You what?”
Franklin dipped his head like a scolded child. “He snuck away during the Zap attack. Said he was going to follow you.” He fished in his pocket and brought out the crumpled note the boy had left.
She tore it from his hand and read it by firelight although Franklin was pretty sure her eyes cast enough illumination to do the job. She wriggled deeper into DeVontay’s embrace and said, “We have to find him.”
“We will,” DeVontay said, kissing her on top of the head.
“He could be anywhere by now,” Franklin said. “Lenoir, Stonewall, hell, even Tennessee.”
“We have to find him,” Rachel said. “He’s already been abandoned once. And I lost all my other kids…”
She’d taken her job as a school counselor seriously, driven by compassion, kindness, and patience. All those attributes were alien to Franklin, but he admired them in a way, mostly because she was so devoted to her children. It was tied up in her religious faith, and although Franklin considered that kind of thinking part of the past, Rachel clearly hadn’t left it behind.
“We’ll find him,” DeVontay said. “But we need to get some rest first. With all we’ve been through, we need to recharge or we won’t be any good at all.”
“Not so fast,” the woman said. “You can’t just go off wherever you want. We need you.”
“I didn’t sign any enlistment papers,” DeVontay said. “I came to Newton to find Rachel. I served as a carrier to do it, I traveled with a pack of Zaps, and I had to kill to make it out alive. So don’t be giving me any shit about sacrificing for the good of the team. I’ve made plenty of sacrifices already.”
Damn. I like this boy more and more every time I see him.
“We’ll see what Brock says about that,” the woman said, heading for the house after the fedora guy.
Franklin smiled at Rachel, feeling like an old fool for being so happy to see her. “Are you back for good? With us?”
She nodded. “I hope so. But we need to find Stephen.”
“First things first,” DeVontay said, guiding her closer to the fire. “I’m freezing. Let’s warm up and then get some sleep.”
“Separate beds,” Franklin said, propping his rifle in his elbow. “Unless you want to get married tonight.”
“You’re so old-school, Grandpa,” Rachel said.
He was glad to hear her call him that. Along with her desire to find Stephen, it was evidence that she might just be one of them after all.
But not so human that she needed to get all goofy in love.
“Some things you shouldn’t rush.”
“I guess you’re right,” DeVontay said, hiding any disappointment. “It’s not like it’s the last day on Earth.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Will Daddy be mad that we left?” Marina asked.
Rosa didn’t want to think of Jorge. She’d been raised to obey her husband, although her own father didn’t stay around for long when she was a child. They’d shared a dream of coming to America and making a good life for their family. But that was a dream for the past.
The New People offered a better dream.
“No, Daddy wants us to be safe and happy, right?” she said to her daughter.
To her new son, Bryan, she added, “And we’re all safe here.”
The Pulliam County Jail was a squat concrete building sitting at the foot of the courthouse hill. It had avoided most of the damage of the fire, being on the opposite side of the hill from the high school. The facility was elevated enough to provide a view of downtown Newton, where dawn revealed a strip of smoldering buildings to the west of town.
The fire had spread south, clearing a swathe of forest, but hadn’t leaped the river and was busy burning the last of its available fuel. The destruction it created served as a fire line, and with nowhere left to spread, the conflagration dwindled to scattered blazes whose smoke gave the early daylight a grayish sheen.
“Plenty of room here for us,” Bryan said, propped in a high-backed chair and held sitting upright by several pillows and blankets taken from the cells. They’d settled into the sheriff’s office, which featured two windows and a glass cabinet housing a menagerie of seized drug paraphernalia, law-enforcement awards, and sports trophies. “This will serve as an excellent headquarters while we regroup.”
“Soon the others will join us,” Joey said. Like Bryan, he sat upright in a swivel chair pushed up to a dusty metal desk, snuggled into his mother’s lap.
“I can’t believe everyone else abandoned you,” Cathy said. “They left you to die.”
“Their fear is understandable,” Bryan said. “We harbor no anger toward your kind. And none of the carriers betrayed us.”
“Except Rachel Wheeler,” Father Casey’s baby said. The priest held his baby high so that it could see over the top of the desk.
Rachel’s arrival coincided with the military attack, and some of the babies suspected her of treachery. The debate about her occupied much of the night, and Rosa sat quietly and listened. She’d changed several diapers and given Father Casey’s baby her breast, which had earned the respect and gratitude of the entire group—except Marina, who’d been sent to take a nap on one of the cell cots and was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Rosa was weary herself, but she wanted to help in any way possible. After Jorge threatened to use the babies as hostages, she’d hidden her revulsion as best she could. The man she’d married, left her home country with, and born a child for turned out to be a heartless monster. Worse, he risked their future—not just his family’s, but the whole human race’s.
If we don’t help them, how can they help us? How can he not see that?
Pride, that was why.
One of the seven deadly sins.
She’d have to ask Father Casey about it, and maybe have him pray for Jorge.
“Rachel taught us much, even though she doesn’t know it,” Bryan said. “We know how humans think and feel. We can learn.”
“Feelings aren’t facts,” Father Casey said. His kind and gentle eyes were bloodshot but, like Rosa, he pushed himself to the limit to be of service. “You can’t just imitate them and expect to understand humans.”
“Oh, but we must,” his baby said. “It’s the only reason left not to kill them all. Because they are scared.”
“You know our history,” Rosa said. “The books don’t tell the whole story, but humans have killed one another since the very beginning.”
“What does your oldest history tell us, Father?” Joey asked. “That man was born into sin, Eve disobeyed God and deceived her husband, and Cain slew his brother Abel. Not a very auspicious start, I would say. I don’t see how we could do worse.”
“But we have a chance for redemption,” Father Casey said. “The message of all our major religions is to love one another and place our trust in a force greater than us all.”
“And what if we are that force?” Bryan said. “What if the solar storms and the resultant change was not a natural phenomenon but a supernatural one? What if we are God’s promise being delivered right in your very lifetime?”
“Many would say you’re a force of evil,” Father Casey said. “Men have prophesized doomsday as long as we’ve had language. The Book of Revelation is the most popular part of the Holy Bible, although understandably people tend to quote the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ more.”
“A tale of redemption, yes,” his baby said, obviously having listened to the father more than
the other babies had. “And what could be more human than desiring someone else to pay for their sins? That grants them a free ride to commit whatever atrocities they wish. Which is why you have no problem slaughtering our tribe.”
“Not all of us are like that,” Rosa interjected. “Some of us want to live in harmony.”
Bryan flashed his gummy grin at her. “If only there were more like you, then that might be possible.”
“The bible doesn’t carry that message anywhere,” Father Casey’s baby said. “It says ‘Accept us or face punishment.’ It says your god is a jealous god, and ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword’ and ‘An eye for an eye.’ Violence, hatred, intolerance, suspicion, and fear have been the story of your race. Why are you so afraid to try a new way?”
“Fear is the only story of our race,” Father Casey said. “And because you’re the Other, and we always kill the Other—”
“Enough!” Joey said, his shrill voice silencing the others. “This isn’t the Council of Nicaea. We don’t have to sell our beliefs. We only have to enforce our beliefs.”
Rosa was shocked. The babies had always been of a singular mind, connected so that one’s knowledge was passed to the next, which was part of their incredible evolution. As the babies became more sophisticated, though, she’d noticed differences among them—not just in their actions but in their words and ideas.
Even though they still sought the same goal—the unification of their tribe, the conversion of the humans, and ultimately the restoration and healing of the dead—they now expressed competing routes to achieve those outcomes.
“So how should we proceed?” Bryan asked, in a quieter, guarded tone. Rosa wanted to encourage him, but she thought it best not to interfere. Children should solve problems on their own.
While the three babies discussed the organizing of the tribe, Rosa went to the lobby and looked out over the town. The New People were busy collecting the dead and carrying them to the hospital in a building complex on the main highway out of town. The three-story structure of brick and glass would hold plenty of bodies until the babies mastered their full powers and revived them.
After: Red Scare (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 5) Page 9
