Afterburn: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 1) Read online

“You might be onto something with this ‘baby’ angle,” Lars said. “Maybe they want all the babies in the world or something. Turn them into geniuses.” When he saw Tara tense, he hastened to add, “Hey, hey, hey, that means they’re not going to hurt her. They’ll treat her well until we can find her.”

  DeVontay finished his food and licked his fork clean, then went to the window with his rifle. “All clear, from what I can see. No birds.”

  “What are those things, anyway?” Lars asked.

  “We knocked one down,” Rachel said. “It’s kind of like a drone made to look like a bird, but it acts like it has a mind of its own. It’s made out of the same kind of weird polymer or plastic as the Zap suits. The one we knocked down managed to repair itself and take off, like it carried a 3-D printer, if you remember those.”

  “Where it carves something out of plastic using a computer program?” Lars asked.

  “Yeah,” DeVontay said. “If all these birds are able to fix themselves, how can we ever fight them?”

  “If the Zaps are manufacturing now, they must have some sort of power source,” Lars said. “And an infrastructure.”

  “We know they congregate in towns,” Rachel said. “When I was trying to communicate with them, they had gathered in Newton, which is about thirty miles from here. They used a school as their headquarters and held some human captives to teach and care for their babies. They were organized, almost hive-like, but they showed no capacity to invent or produce things.”

  “Except death,” Tara said. “They produced plenty of that. Cornered the market, at least until these monsters came on the scene.”

  “I’ve got a theory about that,” Lars said. “I think the planet suffered a fundamental breakdown during the solar storms and the effects are still manifesting. People have always tracked the sun’s cycles and patterns and tried to match it up with other natural phenomenon. Some used it to explain economics and that heightened solar activity stimulated growth. Others linked the solar cycles to human behavior.”

  “I’d say that sounds like astrology or New Age crap,” DeVontay said. “Except we already know that the sun can affect us, because it’s nearly wiped us out.”

  “I designed a website for a book publisher whose catalog contained all of that kooky stuff, aliens and Atlantis and time travelers. I admit, I spent a lot of time down those rabbit holes. There was one Russian dude, name of Chizhevsky, who correlated wars and revolutions throughout history with peaks in sunspot activity. Stalin kicked his ass into a labor camp over it, but his work eventually was accepted by mainstream Russian scientists. He did a lot of work on how geomagnetic forces affect biology and the movement of blood and all that—seeing the sun as changing life at the most basic levels. If the solar storms tore down the world, maybe they’re building back something we can barely recognize.”

  “The solar activity could have wiped us clean and rewritten our DNA,” Rachel said. She’d swapped numerous theories with Franklin, DeVontay, and the others, and she wasn’t sure there was a scientific explanation for all that had happened. “But radiation, pollution, whatever rays are coming through our damaged magnetosphere, who knows? Maybe ‘aliens’ is as simple an answer as any.”

  “Or the devil,” Tara said, causing the other three to fall silent.

  DeVontay cleared his throat and checked the window of the adjoining wall while Lars idly tapped the blade of his axe with his fingers. Finally, Rachel said, “Good and evil don’t exist anymore. That died with the human race. Do you think Zaps care about whatever resurrection myth we believed before they came along?”

  “Of course they wouldn’t care. They’re a blasphemy, and look at those birds they build. More blasphemy, trying to play God.”

  Rachel had suppressed and then relinquished her faith over the course of her trials and tribulations. Perhaps her spirituality had always been weak, and she was annoyed that this woman still clung to some of the uglier parts of faith—particularly its dependence upon a fall guy.

  Most proselytizers could be defeated by turning their own logic against them.

  “Do you think God punished you by taking Squeak away?” Rachel asked.

  “Maybe,” Tara said. “I’ve sinned, but always out of love.”

  Ha, the other escape clause. I did wrong, but for the right reasons.

  “So if God is punishing you, don’t you think it would make Him unhappy if you tried to get your daughter back?”

  “Rachel,” DeVontay said in a cautioning tone, as if Rachel was the evil one for debating a mentally unstable woman.

  “I see what you’re doing,” Tara said to her.

  “Excuse me, folks,” Lars said, standing abruptly. “I have to take a leak.”

  “Don’t forget your axe,” DeVontay said.

  “What am I doing?” Rachel asked Tara.

  “Talking me into letting them keep my baby.” Tara shook her head. “I knew you were one of them.”

  “We’ll get her back,” Rachel said. “Only it won’t happen because it’s God will, or that somebody prayed hard enough, or somebody sacrificed an animal and muttered a bunch of chants over the blood. It’ll come because we make a plan and work together.”

  “You really mean that?” Tara asked, her eyes welling with tears.

  Rachel felt sorry for taunting and arguing with her. Maybe Rachel still held a grudge from their fight in the outfitters’ shop. Either way, if she wanted to be part of the human race, she would have to make sacrifices of her own.

  “Yes, I mean it. But you need to eat so you’ll be able to handle whatever it takes to get the job done. Okay?”

  Tara nodded with gratitude, the tears making grimy tracks on her cheeks. As the woman scooped up a mouthful of fish, Rachel put a comforting hand on her shoulder and then joined DeVontay by the window.

  Looking out, she saw the sun had already touched the horizon. Fuming red clouds wreathed the ridges to the west and tangled with the aurora like a neon weavework. “Think the kids are okay?”

  “Yeah, they’ve got the bunker,” DeVontay responded. “As long as they stay inside, they’re good.”

  “I trust Marina, but I worry about Stephen.” Rachel didn’t want to bring up Kokona. While Rachel’s mutant ability had faded over time, Kokona’s seemed to have maintained or maybe even increased.

  Their telepathic connection had fuzzed, and Rachel wasn’t sure whether the interference was just an inevitable result of their removal from the rest of Zap Nation or an intentional act by the clever infant.

  “Stephen’s okay, but he’s at that age, you know?”

  “Hormones. And he’s restless. He needs to spread his wings and the walls are only ten feet apart. Maybe we’ve sheltered him too much.”

  DeVontay side-eyed her as if she were joking, the sun on his handsome face casting his skin in a delicious shade of chocolate. “That some kind of school-counselor humor, or is it bunker humor?”

  “Just wondering if we’re doing the right thing. You know, as parents, or whatever we are.”

  “Whatever we are? A one-eyed bruthah, a lily-white Southern gal whose half Zap, a Mexican teen and a gunslinger, and if you count Franklin, the geezery crank. Then throw in a Japanese baby that doesn’t age and gets smarter by the day, and you would have the hottest reality show of the century if we still had television.”

  “Not if there were Kardashian Zaps. People would watch the hell out of that.”

  DeVontay laughed, then lowered his voice. “I’m not worried about us, if you know what I mean. These guys—” he cocked his head toward Lars and Tara who sat talking on the couch—“might be trouble if we take them on.”

  “Isn’t that why we came to Stonewall in the first place? Sure, we need food, but we want people, too. At least to know some are still out there in the world. Now that we’ve found some, you want to scramble back into our hole in the ground just because it’s simpler that way?”

  DeVontay tapped his forehead against the window glass in frustration. “Mayb
e.”

  “That’s not the DeVontay I know.” Rachel gripped his shoulder hard enough to get his attention. “That’s not the man I love. You don’t run from problems, or you’d be a million miles away from me by now.”

  “Damn, I hate it when you’re right,” he said with a sigh. He kissed her and went to join the others, a little swagger in his step. “So, folks, here’s what we’re gonna do.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mark Antonelli found her in a granite crevasse near the lichen-splotched, time-worn rocks of the ridge.

  Or, more precisely, she found him. He walked right past the deeply-shadowed outcropping without noticing. Colleen called out, “All clear?”

  He dropped to his hands and knees and peered under the craggy overhang. He could see only her eyes, wet and shiny in the dark. “You made it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” she said, wriggling out from between the cool shelves of stone. The opening couldn’t have been more than eighteen inches wide. She’d had to ditch her gear to squeeze in, although she still gripped her rifle and now pushed it in front of her as she inched her way to sunlight.

  Antonelli helped her slide the last few feet and then wrapped her in a hug. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you,” he whispered in her ear.

  “You’d do your duty.” She was as aware as he was of the illicit nature of their affair, but she had nothing to risk. In a world where money had no value, soldiers served only for food and the chance to restore the human race to its former glory. Even medals and rank promotions offered little incentive. No, this was a labor of love all the way around.

  The captain checked her over and saw only some scratches on the backs of her hands and on her cheek. She used the sleeve of her cotton tunic to wipe blood from the side of his neck. He didn’t even know he was wounded until the contact stimulated the exposed nerve endings.

  “Did you get hit?” she asked.

  “I don’t remember. Could’ve been a bird, could’ve jabbed it on a stick in the woods. Either way, I don’t think I’ll be putting in for a Purple Heart.”

  “What were those things?”

  “I don’t know. We found one that was mostly intact and we’re taking it in for examination.”

  “So we secured the bunker?”

  “Sort of.” Antonelli glanced at the sky, where the vultures still cut lazy rings around the sun. He couldn’t be sure but it looked like they were slowly descending in altitude, becoming impatient. “We’d better get inside.”

  As he helped her gather her gear, he wondered if she’d abandoned any of her comrades in the heat of battle. One of them, PFC Sullivan, lay belly down across a fallen log, most of his head sheared from the stump of his neck. Sullivan had served under Antonelli at Lejeune and had been a brave, destructive force during the early days of the Zap rampage. Losing a veteran hurt, both emotionally and tactically.

  This morning, Antonelli had been firm about the customary burial of a fallen soldier, and now he was leaving bodies out in the field to be scavenged by carrion birds. Practicality over protocol. He hadn’t conducted a full head count yet, but he estimated he had fewer than a dozen soldiers left.

  At least Colleen’s one of them, thank God.

  As he led her down a narrow, wooded path to the bunker door, alert for any fresh aerial attacks, he realized he would’ve gladly traded the loss of all of them in order to keep Colleen. He was gone to shit as a soldier and a leader. But Antonelli still wore the bars and so would do his duty just as Colleen predicted.

  He just wouldn’t do it well.

  He’d lost most of his command in a single day. And considering the world was shaped by biological mutation rather than military might, “FUBAR” was an understatement.

  They didn’t teach this shit at VMI.

  They came upon a private that Antonelli didn’t know too well, a post-apocalypse recruit assigned to his unit by HQ. Private Tan Huynh had drawn the scorn of some of the New Pentagon command who were old enough to remember the Vietnam War, but that conflict seemed almost trivial compared to the current one.

  Huynh’s leg was shattered below the shin, a wand of bundled wires protruding from the wound. Sweat dotted his forehead and he was going into shock. Colleen rushed to help him, murmuring in soothing tones while Huynh tried unsuccessfully to remain composed. Antonelli stared at the broken mechanism in the man’s leg as if it had suddenly sprouted from flesh and blood.

  “Mark!” Colleen called to him, breaking the captain from his reverie. She knew better than to call him that when others were around, but he didn’t think Huynh noticed or cared.

  If he lives long enough to remember, it’ll be a miracle.

  “He’s going into shock and he’s lost a lot of blood.” Colleen wasn’t a medic, but, in a bout of old-world sexism despite a sitting president who was a woman, High Command insisted that all female soldiers receive emergency first-aid training.

  “We have to get him inside,” Antonelli said. “Those vultures could drop any second.”

  “No more bird,” Huynh said in his broken English.

  “Rest easy, son,” Antonelli said, then to Colleen. “Get under his arm and let’s lift him.”

  She shouldered her rifle and got into position while Antonelli took the other side. This would hurt, but Antonelli didn’t know any other way to get the job done. Huynh’s dark eyes went wide as he braced for the coming agony.

  “Keep your weight on your good leg,” Antonelli said. He nodded at Colleen and they levered him into a standing position, supporting him between them. Huynh bit his lip, trying not to whimper.

  “Okay, let’s all move forward together,” he commanded, unable to quell the urgency in his voice. He wrapped Huynh’s arm around his shoulder and drew his revolver. “One…two…three…”

  Antonelli thought at first that Huynh had shrieked in pain, and then he realized the sound was coming from high above.

  “Birds,” Colleen yelled, and they broke into a staggering, uneven jog that nearly pulled them all to the ground. But they soon set up a rhythm, Huynh grunting with each step but managing to swallow his screams.

  Antonelli braced for the talons and piercing beak of the diving vulture, but it broke away somewhere overhead and settled with a tremendous flapping of its wings that was so powerful it sent a breeze across their backs.

  The captain looked over Huynh’s shoulder at Colleen’s taut face, then behind them. The vulture had alighted on the fallen log and dipped its curved yellow beak into PFC Sullivan, tearing through cloth and pulling out a stringy red giblet. The vulture tipped its ugly, bald head back and tossed the glistening meat into its maw, the great curved neck flexing as a piece of Sullivan worked its way to the mutant scavenger’s stomach.

  “What is it?” Colleen asked.

  “Don’t look. Just keep moving.”

  He found himself hoping there was enough meat on the corpse to satisfy the bird. They were nearly to the bunker when another of the birds broke from the circle and descended. Antonelli hoped the cover of trees would protect them, but he was still relieved to round a curve in the path and find the old man from the bunker.

  “Not much farther now,” the man said, clacking a round into the shotgun Antonelli had returned to him. “Just keep heading that way and you’ll be on it in no time. Everybody else is in.”

  Every grunt left alive, you mean.

  As the Marine moved up the trail to cover their rear, Colleen said, “Civilians occupied the bunker?”

  “Yeah. They’re trying to help us, at least.”

  “They help leg,” Huynh said, as if trying to convince himself.

  “Yes,” Antonelli told him. “We have lots of supplies in the bunker. We’ll get you fixed up in no time, Private.”

  Lt. Randall came to meet them as they came within sight of the door. When he tried to take Colleen’s place at Huynh’s side, she shook her head and said, “It’s easier if I take him all the way.”

  “Get a bed ready,” Antonelli s
aid, not sure of the bunker’s layout and furnishings but knowing they’d need an operating room. “Anybody else wounded?”

  “Nothing serious,” Randall said. “Broken fingers, a few puncture wounds, one guy lost some teeth.”

  “The vultures are feeding. Get everybody inside.”

  “We’re all in except that crazy old man. He was mumbling something about ‘shitterhawks.’”

  The shotgun boomed somewhere in the forest, and something squawked and flapped.

  Antonelli and Colleen half-dragged Huynh the rest of the way to the bunker and then entered its cool, dank hallway. Behind them, Randall shouted, “Last call! I’m closing it.”

  The teen boy who’d lied to Antonelli on the radio came running from the facility’s depths. “Don’t you dare close that door. He didn’t have to let you guys in. We could’ve sat in here and watched all of you die.”

  “Give him a minute,” Antonelli ordered. “If he’s not back by then, lock it down.”

  Yes, sir,” Randall said.

  “Do you have place we can put him?” Colleen asked the teen.

  The teen motioned for them to follow, leading them to the first doorway on the right. There were sets of bunk beds on either side of the small room, and they rolled Huynh in the nearest bottom bunk. He looked even paler, his skin felt clammy, and his breathing was shallow.

  Colleen yanked a blanket off the top bunk and covered him, leaving his injured leg exposed. She looked at the boy, who watched from the doorway. “Do you have any Medrol or adrenalin?”

  “What’s that?” the boy asked.

  “Meds.”

  “Maybe in the supply closet. We don’t use any of that stuff much.”

  “Find one of my men and take him to the closet,” Antonelli said. “We’ll need some local anesthetic as well as any antibiotics and bandages.”

  “I’m not in the army,” the sullen teen said. “You’re not my boss.”

  Antonelli burned with anger and was ready to dress down the little punk when Colleen said, to him, “Please. This man’s life is in danger.”

  The teen waited a second for Antonelli to explode, and when that didn’t happen, he turned and left the room. “I’m going to kick that boy’s ass when this is over,” he said.