Earth Zero: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 2) Read online

  He nodded at them but didn’t stand. “What’s the problem?”

  “My granddaughter is the problem,” Franklin said. “She’s out there and I’m in here.”

  Antonelli’s eyes were hooded in shadow, hiding his emotions. “We can’t risk resources for one person.”

  “DeVontay’s with her,” Stephen said, folding his arms in defiance. “So, two people.”

  “Anybody who’s survived this long knows how to handle themselves,” Antonelli said. “I have my orders.”

  “But I don’t have to obey your orders,” Franklin said. “I’m not part of your little pack.”

  “Under the president’s Directive Seventeen, I can declare martial law in the interest of Homeland Security and seize whatever material and personnel I need to complete my mission. You might be used to lawlessness and suffer under the illusion of independence, but not everything’s about you, is it?”

  Franklin wanted to grab the man by the shoulder bands of his tunic and bang his head against the table top. But he eyed the pistol holstered at the officer’s side and decided this was the wrong battle. “I’m not asking you to risk anything,” Franklin said. “Just let me and the boy here—”

  “I’m not no boy,” Stephen interjected.

  “—let me and Stephen arm up and take a field trip. You need to do some recon, anyway. I haven’t heard that radio squawk for a while, and I know how sporadic transmissions can be these days. And if worse comes to worse, you’ve sent out some sacrificial lambs who were only too happy to die for the cause. Hell, they might even give you a medal for it.”

  Antonelli frowned and looked at the three functioning video monitors whose displays were fed by mounted cameras on the outside. Due to technical damage, less than half of the perimeter around the bunker was visible. The autumnal forest and the great granite shelves of the Blue Ridge Mountains looked scenic and peaceful, belying the violence of a few days earlier.

  “We haven’t seen any metal birds or Zaps,” Antonelli said. “That doesn’t mean they’re not out there waiting. We’ll need to mobilize as soon as I get clearance from Field Command. I wouldn’t mind avoiding any surprises if possible.”

  Franklin gave the captain a half-assed salute. “We’re your men. Two M-16s, a buck knife, three days of rations, and a sidearm and we’re good to go.”

  “One magazine of ammo each,” Antonelli said. “That’s all I can spare.”

  Before Antonelli arrived, the bunker held a decent supply of firearms and cases of ammo. True, most of the weaponry had been left by the original occupants of the bunker, a military unit that went rogue and mutinied shortly after the solar storms. Rachel and her group had returned to the bunker after a showdown with the Zaps in Newton, a small town some fifty miles to the south where most of the humans were wiped out and Kokona had agreed to join their group as a cross between a hostage and an ambassador.

  If Antonelli knew the whole story, he’d have us all strung up for treason. And I can’t say I’d blame him.

  Stephen squinted at Franklin and gave a little nod. Franklin sighed and said, “What about the Zap?”

  “Awaiting further orders,” Antonelli said. “And if the brass tells me to kill her, then I’ll do my duty.”

  “If she’ll let you,” Stephen said, turning his back and leaving before the captain could respond.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “What the hell is it?” DeVontay asked, trying to make out the shadowy form behind the slowly rising door.

  “Whatever it is, it sounds big,” Rachel said, as the beast released another abrasive roar.

  “And hungry.” DeVontay pulled her toward the far end of the metal-lined enclosure, even though something just as horrible might be waiting beyond the opposite door. The audience of Zaps revealed by the retracting roof showed no reaction or response to the tableau. If he and Rachel were indeed entertainment, they must not be a comedy skit. He took his gaze off the ominously opening door and glanced at the crowd.

  In the center, at what would be the best vantage point into the enclosure, an apparent female Zap held an infant dressed in a silvery sleeper. The baby wriggled in the woman’s grasp as if straining for a better look, its eyes blinking starlight. DeVontay shook Rachel by the shoulder and pointed at it.

  “Probably the leader,” she said.

  “Try to connect with it,” DeVontay said. “Do some ESP.”

  Her brow furrowed and he expected the sparking in her eyes to increase in intensity, but she shook her head in defeat. “No signal.”

  “This is some serious Roman gladiator shit here,” DeVontay said, peering at the gap under the door. “Except we don’t even get weapons.”

  He galloped for the wall beneath the infant, limping and wincing. He expected their mysterious little hand blasters to knock him down, but none of the Zaps reacted. He leaped for the lip of the wall, but his fingers slapped three feet short. When he landed, his ankle folded and he rolled into a writhing ball of pain.

  While he was down, he received a better view of what lay on the other side of the door. The concrete surface appeared to continue out as far as he could see, and rising from it were two scaly stumps of legs with long talons protruding from their bases. When Rachel knelt to help him, he said, “Some kind of reptile creature, looks like. Big. Scary. The usual.”

  The door was now about a foot off the floor, rising inch by inch as if the Zaps drew pleasure from slow psychological torture. DeVontay wondered if this was all some kind of experiment or test. The Zaps could’ve easily killed them in the barn, or while they were unconscious in this pen, instead of creating a bizarre and bloody spectacle. Judging from the long, sharp feet of the creature, it was probably as tall as they were, and he could only imagine its blunt lizard face and bulging black eyes.

  “Do we fight it or try to get past it?” Rachel asked.

  “I can’t run. Let it go after me, and then you make a run for it. Head out that door and don’t look back.”

  Rachel glared at him, her eyes intense and strange yet so deeply beautiful that he wouldn’t even mind being torn limb from limb if he could fall into them forever.

  “I’m not letting you die for me, honey,” she said. “Whichever way it rolls, we go together.”

  DeVontay studied the concrete floor. It was old and cracked, obviously not new construction like the walls appeared to be. The Zaps must have superimposed their own material on an existing building, although DeVontay had no idea where they were. The air was cool, so they hadn’t been taken many miles, but if they’d been unconscious for more than a day, they could easily be a hundred miles from the bunker.

  He scraped at a crumbling seam in the concrete, hoping he could dig out a weighty chunk he could use as a weapon. The door continued its slow ascent, and the reptilian beast on the other side padded forward a few steps, its smoked-ivory claws clicking on the hard surface. It seemed to sense prey waiting on the other side and grew impatient. The frantic roars gained in pitch and volume, echoing abrasively along the corridor.

  One of DeVontay’s fingernails ripped to the quick, sending a searing jolt of pain up his arm, but he managed to loosen a small gray hunk about the size of a walnut. Rachel helped him stand, and they faced the door that continued its agonizing upward trek. The small chunk of concrete only made DeVontay feel pathetic and silly, and he pictured it bouncing ineffectually off the lizard’s rounded skull and eliciting laughter from the crowd.

  Either way, it was almost show time.

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I wasn’t a half-Zap, they wouldn’t have found us in the barn. And if I was more of a Zap, I could communicate with them. But—”

  “Hush that talk,” DeVontay said. “You’re just right.”

  The opening was now high enough to reveal the creature’s tail, which whipped and curled in the air like a sinuous python. The thing’s legs were a mottled gray-green, as if its progenitor had once hidden in mossy habitats
. It stooped low as if picking up the scent oozing beneath the door, but apparently it wasn’t agile enough to bend and scurry through the narrow gap.

  At least there’s that. And maybe we’ll get lucky and it will have ticklish sponges for teeth.

  The tail wriggled and curled under the door and into the enclosure, swaying back and forth for a moment like a serpent detecting heat.

  A snake. What was it they said? “If you want to kill a snake, cut off its head.”

  Shrugging free of Rachel, he reared back and balanced on his good leg, then brought his weight forward. He whipped forward the arm that held the concrete, releasing it like a baseball. He’d been a pretty fair pitcher back in high school, and although he hadn’t thrown in more than decade, he let adrenaline make up for what he lacked in muscle memory.

  The Zap baby was only thirty feet away, about half the distance between a regulation pitcher’s mound and home plate. But DeVontay was injured and woefully out of practice, and the missile sailed high of its intended target. The woman holding the baby didn’t flinch or dodge as the concrete flew toward her. It struck her flush in the middle of the forehead with a sickening thwack that punctuated the creature’s roars.

  The woman’s arms sagged and the baby tumbled from her embrace. None of the surrounding Zaps reacted as the woman fell backwards, blood oozing down her face, and the baby squirmed and flailed, hanging on the top of the wall.

  “You’re crazy,” Rachel said, dashing toward the baby.

  “Got any better ideas?” DeVontay asked, his attention focused on the impending attack.

  The door shook as the impatient beast slammed against it, a claw curling into the opening and swiping at their scent. The baby shouted something that DeVontay couldn’t understand. Rachel yelled back, and DeVontay turned toward her just as the baby jerked its arms and shifted its balance.

  It fell toward the concrete, little fingers grabbing at the sky. Rachel lunged for it, falling to her knees and skidding along the concrete. She caught the baby two feet before impact. She didn’t catch it cleanly, though, and its weight drove her shoulder against the hard floor. She launched into an awkward and painful-looking roll to keep from crushing the mutant, crooking her elbow to protect it.

  Why is she saving it after I was trying to kill it?

  The door was now four feet off the floor and the creature stooped low to look inside. DeVontay got his first glimpse of its face. The lower jaw was sleek and wet-looking, the snout trailing back to tiny dark eyes like a relic of the missing branch of the dinosaur era. The mouth looked lipless but rows of gleaming teeth flashed inside it, a long, thin tongue flickering out in quick thrusts. The thighs were heavy and muscular on the compact, froglike body and the shortness of its spine kept it from bending and crawling through the gap.

  DeVontay figured it weighed maybe three hundred pounds and was as tall as he was. He wouldn’t have any chance battling it unarmed. One bite and those strong jaws would crunch his bones like chalk.

  “Rachel,” he yelled, wondering why she was fooling with a Zap baby when they were about to get eaten alive.

  Then the reptilian beast slithered its way into the enclosure, the door creaking against the leverage it applied. Its swampy odor swept through the enclosure like a tide.

  Once inside, the reptile straightened as much as it could, though its poorly distributed weight tilted its head forward and its upper claws dangled from thin, wiry arms. It approached DeVontay with thundering, cautious steps, the slimy dots of its eyes revealing yellow slits that suggested sinister intelligence. It chuffed wetly through its narrowly set nostrils, as if sniffing for danger.

  Bastard took a wrong turn at Jurassic Park and detoured through Frankenstein’s laboratory.

  A delighted giggle erupted. Since DeVontay had limited peripheral vision due to having only one eye, he couldn’t risk a glance at Rachel. But he was sure the laugh had come from the infant. Zaps had little regard for danger, since they shared a collective consciousness that would outlive them individually.

  “What’s so funny?” Rachel asked.

  “It’s going to eat you,” came the giddy voice of the infant.

  “It’s going to eat you first,” Rachel said. “Let’s see how you like being bait.”

  Now DeVontay understood. Rachel intended to sacrifice the infant so they could make a run for it. The plan had plenty of holes: the reptile might not care for mutant meat, the Zaps might act before she could carry out the plan, and the reptile might move swiftly enough to chomp off the baby’s head and still take both of them down as they fled. But DeVontay didn’t have a better plan, or any plan at all.

  Rachel walked toward the reptile, which paused about fifty feet away, its tail sweeping back and forth across the concrete with a scuffing sound. Rachel held the baby before her like a shield. The Zaps watching from above seemed to stir, and a low rumble arose behind the opposite door. Whatever power source churned out of sight, it seemed to be amping up its output.

  A soft humming arose in harmony with the drone of the engine, and DeVontay realized the Zaps were making the sound. Their voices combined like the choir of some profane and nameless church, their mouths parting in uniformity with their rounded hairstyles and silver outfits. It wasn’t music, exactly, nor was it pleasant.

  The reptile lifted its head at the sound. It had no visible ears, but DeVontay guessed the aural cavities were hidden behind the leathery folds of skin on each side of its skull. The nostrils flared and the gray tongue tasted at the air.

  The door had risen enough that DeVontay could see the cracked, flat avenue of concrete extending along another enclosure, although the floor inclined toward what was likely ground level. This was their chance to make a run for it, but DeVontay took two steps and nearly collapsed when his ankle flared with agony. Rachel kept walking toward the creature, and DeVontay couldn’t do anything to stop her.

  “Wait,” he called to her back, but she was nearly to the reptile now.

  Even above the humming and droning, he could hear her speak to the Zap infant: “Tell them to end it.”

  The reptile took a giant step toward Rachel, the nails of its toes clicking on the concrete. It threw back its head and roared and then suddenly dipped its jaws forward like a hurricane full of butcher knives.

  Rachel shoved the baby headfirst into the slavering, protean maw and the reptile froze before its teeth could close, the tiny, wispy-haired skull trapped as fragile as a robin’s egg. The audience fell silent and the droning engine trailed away to a faint whir.

  DeVontay was afraid to move. The entire scene was like the still frame of a movie, with the only motion a viscid strand of clear drool leaking from the reptile’s mouth and splattering on the hard floor.

  The Zaphead giggled, its head scraping against the rows of serrated teeth and drawing fine red lines of blood as the skin parted.

  “You don’t want to kill us, Rachel Wheeler,” the Zap said, in a high-pitched voice that was eerie coming from a baby that was far too young to talk.

  “I’ll do whatever I have to do,” Rachel said. “You know that.” She raised her voice so that all the Zaps could hear, although DeVontay figured they’d already “heard” telepathically. “I’ll kill you all.”

  That’s pretty ballsy, considering the circumstances. But I guess you’ve never been one to back down from a fight.

  The reptile’s muscles tensed and trembled, as if every instinct was compelling it to bite down on the salty morsel. But some unseen force held it paralyzed. Its slit pupils darkened as if an inner light had been switched off. DeVontay wondered what kind of connection there was between the creature, the Zaps, and that throbbing engine that had now fallen away to a dying whine.

  “Put it down, Rachel,” he said, somehow knowing the baby Zap held sway over their fragile position.

  In years past, he would’ve trusted her instinct and her innate mutant talents, but those were obviously unreliable now. The Zaps had lured her, imprisoned her, and trie
d to make her their leader at various times, but the strange tribe had evolved during the time her human family had isolated itself in the bunker. Rachel didn’t seem to know any more about them now than DeVontay did. And the apocalypse operated under one infallible rule: When in doubt, assume the worst.

  He didn’t think Rachel would heed him, and he tried to reconcile the sweet, compassionate person he loved with this grim-faced, bloodthirsty stranger who seemed eager to murder the child.

  He softly called her name, and she relaxed, pulling the infant back into her embrace and stepping away from the living statue of a creature that never should’ve walked the Earth.

  A soft pulsing filled the air, one that he sensed more than heard.

  Just like at the barn.

  The pulse originated from the opposite enclosure, where a lone Zap stood, pointing one of those strange hand-held devices at them.

  No, not at us. At the creature.

  The reptile quivered and collapsed, snapping its mustard-colored teeth together inches from the infant’s skull.

  The Zap with the device slipped back up the incline, apparently unseen by the crowd. Its eyes glowed softly as it retreated, and Rachel saw it just before it disappeared. She pulled the infant to her chest, wiping blood from its face against her T-shirt.

  DeVontay limped over to her as she waited for whatever the Zaps cared to inflict next. The crowd was so quiet that he could hear the last sigh of air squeeze from the reptile’s lungs. It lay at her feet in a boneless heap and its tail uncoiled to make one final, futile slap against the concrete.

  “What did you do to it?” the baby asked Rachel.

  “I…” When she realized the baby assumed she had some kind of mysterious killing powers, Rachel figured it would be better to let the baby remain cautious, or even afraid. This uncertainty was the only advantage she had at the moment. It was risky since the baby could view her as a threat, but at least it was a hand to play.

  “You’re not the only one who kills for sport,” she said.