After: The Echo (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 2)

by Scott Nicholson

  “I’ll ask him when we find him,” she said, and DeVontay shook his head again, this time with a frown instead of a smirk. “Until then—”

  “O-kaaaay,” Stephen said impatiently. “Wicked Witch of the West. Jeez.”

  Rachel let out a cackle that reverberated in the cavity of the wrecked plane. “Hee hee hee hee. I’ll get you and your little dog, too!” She returned to her normal voice. “But you’re still going to clean your plate.”

  Stephen poured some bottled water on his plate and started to wipe it with his shirt sleeve. Rachel didn’t even have to say anything. A scowl did the job. He dragged a T-shirt from the open suitcase beside him, wiped the dish carefully, and tossed the T-shirt back onto the pile.

  DeVontay wiped his pocketknife on his trouser leg without comment and gazed through the plane’s window. Half of the windshield was missing, cool evening air funneling through from the gash where the nose had broken lose from the fuselage. Much of the instrument panel was intact, the radio handset dangling from its taut coil of cord. One of the pilot seats was missing, and DeVontay had taken the other one, building a fire with the help of tiny bottles of Scotch he’d plundered from the shattered galley. He twisted the cap from one and poured half the contents on the fire, and the flames turned blue and oily.

  Rachel hadn’t asked about the bodies he’d encountered. She only knew that there must have been dozens. Even if the plane had tossed them like popcorn during the crash landing, surely a number of them must have followed the final instructions and buckled in. DeVontay was numb to it now, death just another traveling companion on the road to After. Rachel wasn’t sure if his grim equanimity was a necessary survival mechanism or yet more proof that any structure she imposed was just a sham.

  She eyed the encroaching darkness that seemed to seep from the edge of the forest like a watery predator. “Are we safe here?” she asked, hating herself for saying it in front of the boy.

  “Safe as anywhere.” DeVontay’s rifle was leaning behind him against the skewed wall of the pilot’s cabin. “We haven’t seen any Zappers for days.”

  It was true. They hadn’t seen any survivors, either, and Rachel wondered if the solar storms had left lingering damage that upped the body count even weeks later. Right now the three of them could be changing, the microscopic synapses in their brains melting like burnt fuses, their impulse signals falling into darkness.

  How would you know? Rachel wondered. One minute you’re walking and the next you’re walking braindead.

  Stephen rubbed his eyes, red both from smoke and sleepiness. Rachel spread a plush brown jacket on the collapsed floor of the cabin and smoothed it. “We’ve put in some miles today,” she said to him. “Why don’t you hit the hay?”

  Stephen opened his mouth to protest but yawned instead. “How much farther?”

  “A long way,” DeVontay said. “But we’re closer now than we were this morning.”

  Rachel understood the response on a metaphorical level. They might not have a bigger purpose—and she certainly didn’t, not since turning her back on the Lord that had seen her through easier times—but Rachel had convinced them that her grandfather’s mountain compound was the only desirable destination. Stephen believed they would leave from there and go on to find his father in Mississippi, but Rachel couldn’t see past the next day’s walk.

  What happens after After?

  “You’ll like the mountains,” she said, helping Stephen swaddle into the makeshift bedding.

  “Sing me to sleep?” he said, drowsily, exhaustion seeming to hit him all at once.

  DeVontay sensed their need for an intimate moment and retrieved his rifle. “I’ll go take a look around.”

  He ducked through the jagged opening where the nose had torn free from the plane’s body, then slipped into the growing darkness. Rachel stroked Stephen’s brown hair. The bedtime routine had started a week ago, when Stephen announced that his mother used to sing to him. Since they’d left her in a hotel room where Stephen had been trapped with her corpse for three days, Rachel had taken on an ever-deepening mothering role.

  But even that was colored with guilt. She’d been the “responsible one” when her younger sister Chelsea had drowned, and her whole life afterward had been about making amends. Rachel had trained to be a school counselor because she wasn’t Catholic enough to become a nun. Now there were no more schools, and the only person she could counsel was a ten-year-old boy who had seen his world shatter in the blink of an eye.

  “What song would you like?”

  Stephen snuggled into the jacket. He looked years younger, almost like a toddler with his thick lashes and pursed lips. “Beatles.”

  That didn’t narrow it down much, but it was too late for the rousing fun of “Yellow Submarine.” And “Help!” would be a little too maudlin. She took a breath and began “Blackbird.”

  She made it fine through the chorus, even though she wasn’t a great singer, choosing a low, sweet lilt. The tune itself was like a bird, sinking and then rising, testing the wind and finding its altitude. And on the final verse, her voice broke, sunken eyes learning to see. She managed to turn the stutter into a vocal embellishment and recover for the finale, wondering if this was the moment they’d been waiting for all their lives.

  “Sing it again,” Stephen murmured, eyes closed.

  “In a little bit, honey. I need to go check on DeVontay. Be right back.” She kissed his forehead and he was asleep before she reached the wreck’s opening.

  Outside, the air was crisp with autumn’s cool, a skein of stars brilliant against the blue-black ceiling of the universe. The vivid lime-green auroras so deep and haunting in the wake of the electromagnetic upheavals had diminished but still hung like a ghost overhead. The smoke of distant cities had grown thinner over the past week, giving her hope that the worst might be over.

  But hope was something she didn’t quite trust, and any temptation to call upon whatever divine force might be beyond the wall of stars vanished when she saw the plane’s shattered passenger area.

  “That was a pretty song,” DeVontay said from the darkness behind her.

  She turned, unable to make out his shape against the trees. “You weren’t supposed to listen.”

  “It’s not like I could put on the headphones and jam to my iPod.”

  “It’s amazing how quiet it is out here.”

  They both listened to the muted chirrup of insects, the orchestra rubbing legs and wings together to warm up for a nightly performance.

  “You can see the stars, too,” DeVontay said. “There’s the Dipper and Cassiopeia.”

  The Big Dipper was obvious, but Rachel squinted against the field above, straining to discern depth. She tried to recall the assignments from her college astronomy lab. Her lab partner had been a tall guy named Randy Woodard who smelled of clove cigarettes, and she’d spent too much of the lab making small talk that she wished would lead to big talk. In the end, Randy turned out to be dating a library assistant and she made a B-minus.

  She hated herself for not knowing Cassiopeia, as if the information would somehow give her control over their place in the universe. “I don’t see it.”

  Then DeVontay drew close behind her, his breath on her neck, reaching one arm around to grip her wrist. He guided her hand until they were both pointing at the sky and waving in the shape of a W. “There,” he said, in a voice that was almost inaudible. “Those five points.”

  He held her hand a moment longer and she stiffened, not sure whether she wanted to sag back against his body. She sensed his muscles coiled like a tiger’s, though she couldn’t be sure whether the tiger would bolt into a run or leap upon its prey. His breathing was fast and heavy.

  She hadn’t thought of him in that way…not like she had Randy Woodard. But wasn’t DeVontay the father to Stephen just as she was the mother? Wasn’t it natural that they…pair off…for whatever this new world intended?

  Didn’t she have a duty to be fruitful and multiply?r />
  And despite her denial of a God above, she couldn’t help but think this was some great practical joke He was pulling. What if God wasn’t an all-knowing force with a predestined plan, but was instead just a childlike entity that had set the universe in motion and then stood back to watch in wonder as it unfolded? Wouldn’t such a God be snickering right now at the absurdity of it all?

  DeVontay tensed and moved slightly away from her. “What’s so funny?”

  She hadn’t realized she’d laughed out loud. But the moment was broken, just like the blackbird’s wings in the Beatles’ song. “It’s just strange,” she said, recalling her astronomy professor griping about urban light pollution that fouled his telescopic view. “Without any lights, you can see better.”

  “That’s real deep, Rachel,” DeVontay said, and she couldn’t be sure if he was stung by the rejection or just being DeVontay. Maybe she’d imagined the romantic gesture. It wasn’t like she had much experience in such matters.

  “Seriously. You could count the rest of your life and still not get them all.”

  “That’s why people invented constellations. They just picked out the big patterns and used them instead of worrying about all the little details.”

  “You don’t sound so streetwise-Philly now,” she said.

  “Maybe the Zapheads weren’t the only people to get changed by the solar storm,” he said. He moved farther away, restoring their personal space to its previous distance.

  She groped to salvage his feelings without making the moment any weirder. “Where did you learn the constellations?”

  “Virginia Beach. We went there on vacation when I was twelve. I had one of those little star charts on a cardboard wheel. I stood in the sand at night, the waves crashing around, and I taught myself. At the time, I imagined I might get shipwrecked one day and I’d have to sail home by the stars. I figured anywhere I went, at least I’d know where I was.”

  “Do you?”

  “Do what?”

  “Know where you are?”

  She could see his eyes, the celestial light making them sparkle, even the glass one, and then she took the three biggest steps of her life and was in his arms. His lips brushed her temple and she whispered, “No. Just hold me.”

  He didn’t answer, just complied. The firelight bobbed and grew low inside the nose of the plane, outlining the jagged orange mouth where they would soon enter to sleep. They would not sleep together. Not yet, maybe not ever.

  Somehow, it wasn’t that important. For now, his arms were enough, strong and safe and comforting.

  After a minute, DeVontay said, “Here.”

  “Hmmm?” She had closed her eyes against the dizzying and bottomless possibilities of the night.

  “That’s where we are.”

  Somewhere in the forest, just beyond their hearing, a low voice tried out a new trick of sound. It was only a chuckling sound at first, more rodent than human, and then it gained form and shape.

  “Bluh…bluh…blaaa…buhr…flyyyy. Blah bird flyyy.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Campbell followed the soldiers for half a mile, slinking from vehicle to vehicle. Where the road was relatively clear, Campbell either climbed into the drainage ditch that ran along the road, used the concealment of the guardrail, or slipped through the roadside undergrowth.

  The soldiers showed little concern over being followed or attacked. Either their experience or their weapons—or possibly both—made them brave. The skinny one had more of a twitching disposition, occasional stopping to check his bearings or light another cigarette. Crewcut kept a steady pace, prodding their prisoner along.

  Campbell wasn’t even sure why he was following them. Perhaps it was merely a detour from despair. He harbored no fantasies of joining whatever coalition the solders belonged to, even if they would accept him into their ranks. He’d had his fill of groups: first Arnoff’s ragtag militia and then the cultish army from which Rachel and DeVontay had rescued that little boy, Stephen, back in Taylorsville. Campbell was sure one of those groups was responsible for Pete’s murder.

  But he’d also become obsessed with the “Milepost 291” that Pete had talked about before his death. That was the site of a rumored military bunker on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Arnoff spoke of it as a utopia, a resort with hot showers, iced drinks, and all-you-could-eat buffets safe from the threat of Zapheads.

  Campbell wasn’t ready to believe the government had planned for such an unpredictable event as a cataclysmic solar storm. He supposed the preparations weren’t all that different from surviving a nuclear attack.

  He might not reach Milepost 291, but he’d encountered fewer people and Zapheads since heading north along U.S. 321. And following these soldiers had at least silenced the Pete-voice in his head.

  After an hour, the soldiers stopped to rest, Crewcut climbing atop a white service van to survey his surroundings. The prisoner sagged over the hood of a car, face down, hands tied behind his back. The scrawny soldier opened the driver’s side door of a yellow sedan and pulled out the sagging, rotted corpse of what must have once been a young woman, judging by her sporty skirt and blouse.

  The scrawny soldier hooted and spun her around as if dancing, even though he could barely support her weight. Her stiff yellow hair flopped over his shoulder, a barrette catching sunlight as she made a grotesque turn.

  “Hey, honey, you’re my kind of woman,” the soldier drawled. “You don’t talk and you don’t say no.”

  Campbell, peering through the guardrail, again considered shooting at the soldiers. Crewcut was a clear target, standing tall against the graying sky, and his partner was oblivious to danger, thrusting his hips obscenely against the corpse.

  “I can just tell you been without a man for way too long,” the scrawny soldier shouted. He lifted up the dead woman’s skirt, revealing mottled blue skin.

  “Hey, Jonesy, check it out,” he called to Crewcut.

  “If that Zaphead gets away, your ass is grass and I’m the weed eater,” Crewcut answered.

  “One hundred percent prime beef on the hoof.” The soldier gave the dead woman a slap on the rear. The sickening liquid sound curdled Campbell’s stomach, but despite his horror, he couldn’t look away.

  Why doesn’t the prisoner run?

  But Campbell knew why. It was a Zaphead.

  Then why isn’t it attacking them?

  Crewcut clambered down from the van. The scrawny soldier grew bored and gave his ghastly dance partner one last squeeze before dumping her. She collapsed like a bundle of wet laundry, making a sickening splat against the pavement.

  “I never was one for letting ‘em down easy,” the soldier said.

  Crewcut stepped over her without looking down. “Saddle up, Romeo, and don’t forget to wash your hands before dinner.”

  “It’s not an infection. Brainstorm said—”

  “And you’re going to take his word for it? Look around.”

  Campbell ducked to avoid detection, wondering what he would do if they spotted him. Would he run? Shoot? Join them?

  He suddenly felt foolish and exposed. His pulse pounded against his eardrums so hard that he barely heard the scrawny soldier answer.

  “So? Just a bunch of wrecks and dead people.”

  “And you think it’s all an accident?”

  “Sure. The sun did it. Everybody knows that.”

  “Nobody knows nothing. Remember that, and you might just make it to see the next sunrise.”

  Crewcut clomped away and Campbell dared a peek. Crewcut collected his prisoner, who had scarcely moved since being deposited against the hood of the car, and shoved him forward. The scrawny soldier lit a cigarette and hurried after them. Campbell let them gain another fifty yards before he surreptitiously followed.

  Dusk was settling against the foothills, shrouding the autumn canopy, when the soldiers left the highway and headed down a country lane. The vehicles had thinned out quite a bit by the time Campbell reached the detour. Fortunately, the
forest was thick here, pines mixed with scrub locust and crabapple, as if the land had been farmed a generation ago and let back to nature.

  A single-wide mobile home was perched just beside the lane, two ragged flags—the Confederate Stars and Bars above the Stars and Stripes—hanging from a pole by the front door. A junker hot rod sat in the front yard, its hood removed and the engine suspended from a chain wrapped around a wooden crossbeam. A kiddie-sized swimming pool contained a black soup of fallen leaves. The narrow yard was salted with trash, plastic bags and fast-food wrappers. Most of the old world’s packaging had outlasted the items contained inside, as well as the people who had once done the consuming.

  The soldiers stopped near the trailer, and Campbell wondered if this was their camp. He’d expected more of them, a unit like the one outside Charlotte, but maybe these were the last survivors here. He saw no reason why military personnel would have better mathematical odds of surviving the solar storms than civilians.

  Unless, as Crewcut had hinted, there was more going on than met the eye.

  Campbell waited, crouched in the dark forest, waiting for them to continue. The blindfolded prisoner stiffened and jerked, nearly breaking free of Crewcut’s grip. The scrawny soldier was quick to drive the butt of his rifle into the prisoner’s back.

  “Easy there, Zapper,” he said with a grunt. The prisoner still twitched with sudden agitation, tugging against his bonds.

  “Hear that?” Crewcut said.

  The scrawny soldier stood silent a moment and then shook his head. “Nope.”

  “The thing that’s not right.”

  Sounds like night to me.”

  Campbell strained his ears, wondering if Crewcut had heard a barking dog, shouts for help, or maybe a distant scream.

  “Listen beyond the noise,” Crewcut said.

  “What are you, some kind of Zen master all of a sudden?” But the soldier grew quiet again, and this time Campbell heard it, too.

  What he’d taken for insects was actually something else. Sure, there were crickets and night birds and flickering winged things, but also a different type of sound. It was odd but disturbingly familiar, and then Campbell remembered the Zaphead woman that had jumped from the back of a van and attacked him and Pete. He’d had to crush her skull, sickened by her resemblance to his mother.