After: Red Scare (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 5) (7 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I don’t like to pry in personal business,” Wanda said, “but if you ask me, your wife’s a little touched in the head.”

Jorge looked over the town from the third-floor fire escape. “She’s not psychotic. She’s a mother by nature. She wants to be helpful.”

From up here, the town looked much smaller than it did from the mountains. The wall of flames along the outskirts of town now licked at the surrounding forest. The skeletal outlines of houses stood in silhouette, and an advertising sign along the main thoroughfare heading south was bright as a torch. The school building and courthouse were little more than smoldering piles of rubble, and several downtown blocks consisted of nothing but blackened stacks of brick.

The Zapheads still wandered the streets, but they seemed to have more purpose now. When one met another, each of them stood silently for a moment, as if communicating. But the only sound was the crumbling of scorched masonry and weakened steel, the crash of broken glass, and the hissing spit of flames.

“Funny, only a few months ago, this would be a mess of flashing red lights and sirens, with news helicopters flying around and everybody wondering if the terrorists had hit us,” Wanda said. Although still a little drunk, the air had cleared her head enough that Jorge could make out her words despite the slurring.

“We’re all terrorists now,” he said.

“The cavalry sure didn’t stick around long, did it? I haven’t heard any shots in at least an hour. Must’ve turned tail and headed for the high country.”

“That was a feint. Knowing Sgt. Shipley, he’d have no problem sacrificing a few men in order to test the enemy’s strength. If the fires caught and burned down the whole town, he’d take the victory, but I suspect this was the first blow in a larger plan.”

Wanda leaned over the railing and straightened one arm, eyeing down her upraised thumb towards a dazed mutant. “If I only had my shotgun.”

“Perhaps we should search these apartments. Maybe we can find something.”

“Or the streets. Fallen heroes don’t need their rifles anymore, do they?”

“I’m not so sure they’re heroes,” Jorge said.

Wanda turned to him, her breath sweet and strong from the liquor. “Don’t you be talking like that. I thought you said you were an American.”

“There isn’t an America anymore.”

She chuffed. “Guess you don’t have to worry about your green card, huh?”

“If we manage to survive, we’ll build our own government. I doubt it will be as good as your country’s was, but we’ll have to make it work in the world that is, not the world we wish it could be.”

“So far it looks like every man and woman for themselves. I’m fine with that, as long as they live and let live. The trouble is, like these Zaps here have shown, the minute you think you rule the world, you start making up rules for everybody else.”

The dim glow emanating from the café window was visible halfway up the block. Jorge didn’t think the Zapheads would notice, considering the chaos, and Marina and Rosa should be as safe there as anywhere for the night. Unless those babies somehow summoned their Zaphead clan.

“Let’s try some of these windows,” Jorge said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

He headed along the fire escape, which expanded into a metal catwalk that ran the length of several buildings. He considered mounting a ladder to survey Newton from the roof, and then decided it would change nothing. He peered into the first window they came to, and found the room dark as expected.

“How we going to see anything in there?” Wanda asked. “Should have brought some matches and a candle.”

“At least we know there are no Zapheads inside, right? We’d be able to see their eyes.”

The window was shut tight, an air conditioning unit blocking much of it. Jorge was debating whether to smash the glass when Wanda called out. “Might be easier over here.”

She stood at the next window, where the lower sash slid up easily. She poked her head in the opening and said, “No death stink. Not sure that’s a positive sign or not.”

As she rolled her girth into the room with a beguiling grace, Jorge conducted a quick surveillance of the street. Four Zapheads walked together in single file, but they were already past the café.

Wonder where they are going. Regrouping? Preparing to gather their dead? Or getting ready to launch a counterattack of their own?

No matter what plans the Zapheads had before, they undoubtedly saw their own existence threatened. Despite what the mutant babies claimed, Jorge couldn’t imagine a world where mutants and humans toiled side by side for a better future. And even if the mutants pursued their mission to convert the remaining humans into New People, few would willingly embrace the opportunity.

Rosa would.

He didn’t like that thought, so he busied himself crawling over the sill and into the dark apartment, where Wanda was already banging around in her search for weapons and supplies. Jorge found that his eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom, aided by the distant conflagration. While some corners and cabinets remained awash in solid black, most of the apartment was visible.

“This is America, the odds got to be fifty-fifty that whoever lived here owned a gun,” Wanda said.

“This is the South,” Jorge said. “I’d say the odds are better.”

Among the laborers at the Wilcox farm where the Jiminez family lived when the solar storms hit, all of them owned at least one firearm—except Jorge, whose wife was concerned about Marina accidentally finding it. When he hunted with the others, he was always humiliated when he borrowed a rifle. He was the worst shot of them all, too. Since then, Jorge had killed more living creatures than he’d ever dreamed possible. Assuming mutants counted as “living.”

He searched the living room while Wanda navigated the bedroom. Nothing in the coffee tables, bureau, TV cabinet, or under the couch cushions.

“That priest,” Wanda said. She was loud, either because of the drink or because she sensed no danger. “What do you make of him?”

“He seems like a man strong in his faith.”

“A man strong in his faith is more likely to make decisions based on morals instead of what’s best for everybody else. I don’t trust him.”

“He became something of a leader while we were trapped in the gym. Except for the
pendejos,
most people respected him.”

“But what did he do when all hell broke loose? He snatched up one of them Zapper brats and hauled it away with him. Just like your wife and that other woman, Cathy. Even with their own necks in danger, they still served their masters.”

“We should be grateful,” he said. “Because now we have some power. The Zapheads can’t enslave us or threaten us because we have three bargaining chips.”

Wanda returned to the living room empty-handed. “Nothing in there but some deodorant and magazines.”

“Let’s think. There must be a better way to win this war.”

“Here’s an idea. If you were the head of a military bunch, why wouldn’t you gather some new recruits? This sergeant of yours wouldn’t be dumb enough to attack on his own when there might be dozens of survivors out there just itching for a chance to kick some Zapper ass.”

“You don’t know Sgt. Shipley. He sees the other survivors as a threat more than a resource. In his mind,
he
is the government. I have no doubt that if he managed to defeat the mutants, he’d immediately put his energy into wiping out the rest of us.”

“He’s supposed to honor and serve his country,” Wanda said.

“My friend Franklin, the one with the compound I told you about? He said once the dust settled, it would be one village and a thousand village idiots, whether we wanted it or not.”

“This Franklin sounds like my kind of guy.”

“Maybe you can meet him soon.”

“Great. Just don’t go playing matchmaker. I already buried three husbands and my shovel’s worn down to the nub. So is my patience for old men and their constant bitching.”

They decided to give up on an apartment-by-apartment search and try some of the businesses. Jorge reasoned that most store owners in an urban area, even a small town such as Newton, would have a firearm handy in case of attempted robbery. Conducting a door-by-door search on the street was risky, but they stuck to the back alleys.

More than a few emergency exits were left open in the immediate panic of After, so prowling was relatively easy. They were aided by the dim light of the distant fires, which offered some scant illumination. After searching a tobacco shop, a mobile phone store, and a clothing boutique without success, they had some luck in the offices of a legal firm.

“Handley Moss & McCutcheon,” Wanda said, reading the lettering on the front window. “Don’t lawyers ever have names like Smith and Jones?”

“They could have used a Martinez or Rodriguez,” Jorge said. “Add a little color to the courtroom.”

The reception area offered nothing of interest, but the largest office—which Wanda said was probably McCutcheon’s because he had the “high-falutinest name”—featured three mounted deer heads, a shiny shellacked trophy fish, and a number of magazines on hunting and the outdoors. A glass case in one corner contained several rifles and shotguns, all of them locked together by a metal chain and featuring trigger guards.

While Wanda looked around for something to break the glass, Jorge searched the drawers of a broad oaken desk. Wanda was about to smash the case with a potted plant when Jorge pulled out a key ring. “I suppose Mr. McCutcheon left in a hurry.”

“Huh,” Wanda said, looking down at the planter in her hand. With a drunken grin, she said, “Well, I’ve gone to this much trouble already, so—”

Kleeeeesh.

The planter and glass shattered at the same time. Wanda stepped back and chuckled. “
That’s
for the court-appointed lawyer who couldn’t even plead me out of a public drunk charge.”

Jorge shook his head and shuffled through the keys, trying the smaller ones until he unlocked the hasp on the chain and removed three of the trigger guards. The locked drawer in the lower half of the cabinet held enough ammo to kill a hundred deer.

Wanda selected a pump shotgun. “Twenty-gauge,” she said. “Nice.”

She fed five rounds into the magazine and then
clacked
a round into the chamber. Jorge took a lever-action .30-.30 for himself, filling the magazine and pocketing two extra boxes of cartridges. He would have preferred a semi-automatic, but apparently McCutcheon was a sophisticated man of sport rather than a rapid-fire cowboy.

“Think we should take some guns back for the others?” Jorge asked.

“Won’t do no good. Father Casey won’t carry one, and Cathy seems a little too twitchy to trust. Unless you think your wife or daughter can shoot.”

“Rosa’s already killed a Zaphead.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. Of
course
you’d pick yourself a woman who could handle herself in any situation. Even carrying around a Zapper baby. I just meant whether she was mentally fit enough to defend herself.”

“At least she can handle her drink,” Jorge said, as coldly as he could manage given his anger.

But Wanda shook off the words with a laugh and a wave of her hand. “You Mexicans just take everything so personal, don’t you? Well, get used to it. Pissing folks off is the American way.”

“Survival is personal,” Jorge said. “Not everyone will make it. But Rosa and Marina will be among them.”

Wanda gave him a one-eyed squint. “Well, hell, Jorge. Guess I did hit the Crown Royal a little too hard. But it’s so nice to just
forget
for a little bit, know what I mean?”

Jorge didn’t know, but he nodded. “
Si
. Let’s get back to the others.”

But that turned out to be easier said than done. Because a crowd of Zapheads waited at the front door, heads pressed, against the window, and hands tapping against the glass.

“Hell fire,” Wanda whispered. “Guess I should have been a little quieter.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“So, do we head for the hills or look for survivors?” DeVontay asked Rachel.

They had taken refuge in the cab of a pickup truck in the parking lot of a shopping center. He didn’t like being out in the open like this, but he had to trust Rachel’s instincts to protect them both.

Trust. A mutant. Momma was right; I have weird taste in women.

He was shaken by Willow’s death, the struggle with the Zapheads, and Rachel’s strange connection with the mutants. He’d assumed he could just prance in and haul her up on the back of his white horse and gallop off into happily ever after.

But this After was grim and gritty and gray, the air choked with ash and sparks, a nightmare rather than a fairy tale. DeVontay wasn’t even sure which direction was north, because the massive wall of fire had spread around the town, finding fresh fuel among the row houses along the outskirts. They weren’t in immediate danger of immolation, but the wind could turn at any moment.

“I can’t leave them,” Rachel said, face red from the flames.

“Willow told me most of them escaped during the attack. At least, the ones who aren’t dead.”

“It’s not the survivors I’m talking about. I mean
them
.”

She pointed to a hill where the courthouse once stood. Dark silhouettes milled among the mounds of steaming rubble, backlit by the red-orange of the great blaze beyond.

“What are they doing?” DeVontay asked.

“They’re looking for the other babies.”

“So they’ll find Bryan in the basement. I won’t be a baby killer after all.”

“The babies are their hope,” Rachel said, feverishly gripping his hand. “They’re really not so different from us. From humans, I mean.”

“If only eleven are left, the Army could wipe them out pretty easy. So much for a superior species. They can’t even change their own diapers.” Even with the rifle across his lap, DeVontay didn’t buy his own brand of bluster.

“The adults will regress without the children to guide them. At least until they join up with another tribe.”

“
Another
tribe?” DeVontay had understood intellectually that these weren’t the only Zapheads in the world. Groups of them were likely massing all over the world. He recalled all the Zapheads they’d encountered and fought through in Charlotte and Taylorsville, and if those numbers were multiplied by all the major cities, then this war would never end.

Oh, it will end, all right. When humans are extinct.

“It took the babies some time to master their talents, but they eventually knew how to gather into tribes,” Rachel said. “They see the value in social order, just as we do.”

Despite the glow of the fire, the golden glimmer in Rachel’s eyes was evident. As she spoke, DeVontay couldn’t be sure whether she was speaking for the Zaps or herself. He suspected his proximity was enough to disrupt her psychic connection with them, but he didn’t know the tipping point. A Zaphead could pass near the truck and send her right back into the strange trance of otherliness.

“So even if we beat them here, the next wave will eventually come along,” DeVontay said. “They don’t age, they don’t really need to drink or eat, and they get smarter every day. Plus their intelligence will be communal. While we get dumber and weaker and fewer in number.”

“Don’t forget the part where they can heal their own injuries. And heal us, too.”

“They won’t give you up without a fight. You’re the one that can help them figure out what makes us tick, and you can teach the babies about us in ways that books or their carriers never could. You’re special.”

“I’m not the only one,” she said. “Just the first for this tribe. There are dozens of Rachels out there, maybe hundreds, all of them caught between two worlds. And I sense most of them went over to the other side.”

DeVontay put his arm around her and pulled her close. She might be a mutant, or at least infused with whatever biomagnetic changes the solar storms had brought to Earth, but damn if she didn’t feel good in his embrace.

“You are special to
me
,” DeVontay said, and he cupped her chin and turned her face toward his.

She gave him a sweet, human smile. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look a lot better with your glass eye back in place.”

“That so? Well, did anybody ever tell you your eyes hold the light of the world?”

“This is why I can’t totally surrender myself to them. Even if it might help save the world.”

“Why what?”

She closed in, and her breath was warm and full of life. She was thoughtful enough to close her eyes just before their lips met, so DeVontay could forget all about mutants and doomsdays and guns and survivalist compounds. Their differing chemical compositions didn’t matter now, nor the color of their skins, nor the destruction all around them that spread to the four corners of the planet.

He leaned into her, hugging her more fully. He shifted his body toward her, cramped by the pickup’s bench seat and the steering wheel. The rifle slipped to the floor, butt first, the barrel blocking his knee.

His chuckle broke the kiss.

“Damn, this is more awkward than high school,” he said.

“Doesn’t feel very high school to me,” she said, teasing with her hands. Her cheeks were flushed by more than just the wafting heat, and her eyes harbored a brightness that was not just sparked by mutant electricity.

“Feels kind of natural, doesn’t it?”

“Supernatural, even.”

“Don’t go there.”

“How about here?” She slid against him, her limbs enveloping in his.

He pushed the rifle with his leg until it leaned against the steering wheel. Despite the carnage all around them and the Zapheads wandering the streets, DeVontay wanted this. They kissed again, her ardor almost hurting his mouth, her tongue insistently probing. He returned the kiss with an equal hunger.

The mighty blazes had warmed the air, but not enough to completely ward off the winter chill. Their bulky clothing shielded their intimacy, but they wrestled against the fabric as best they could. He suffered a stream of odd thoughts, even as he reached for the top button of her blouse.

What if I catch something? What if she gets pregnant? Will we have a Zaphead baby, a mixed-breed, or a human? Mulatto mutant. Wouldn’t that be something?

But those worries fell aside in the path of a biological drive as old as the Earth. He’d wanted this a long time. He’d been simultaneously afraid, horrified, and obsessed, all the while trying to lie to himself about his desire. Beautiful things had no place in After, and giving in to his desire was selfish in a world where all humans had to fight together if they wanted their race to carry on.

He’d walked hundreds of miles to be here.

He’d endured pain and hunger and danger to be here.

Hell, he’d
killed
to be here.

And there was no denying the surging blood in his veins, the pulsing in his body, and the pounding of his heart.

Rachel removed her lips long enough to whisper, “Is this crazy?”

He nodded. “What’s
not
crazy these days?”

He had three buttons undone, and of course she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breast was like milk and honey rolled into a pillow of heaven. Her own hands were busy exploring, expressing a familiarity with him that suggested she’d taken the journey many times already in her mind.

He was preparing to take a journey himself when three dull, metallic thumps rang off the side panel of the truck.

“
Hey
!” someone yelled. “You better come with us before the Zappers get you.”

Damn. Won’t be any coming with ANYBODY at this rate.

DeVontay’s passion leaked away like a shriveled balloon bobbing along the ground long after the circus has left town.

Rachel folded her coat closed over her chest while DeVontay grabbed his rifle. A man’s face appeared in the driver’s-side window—his eyes bearing none of the fiery mutant gleam—and he wiped at the glass before realizing it was fogged from the inside.

DeVontay glanced at Rachel, who had more or less regained her composure, although her lips were a little puffy. And she was still half Zaphead.
That
hadn’t changed.

“Can’t get no damn peace in the apocalypse,” DeVontay said. “No peace at all.”

“Whichever way you want to spell it.” She smiled, and that made it all right.

He rolled down the window.