Crucible: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 5) Read online

  “It’s like they’re melting,” Delores said, a simplistic explanation but perhaps one that wasn’t too far wrong. Who could tell what process of synthesis and decay governed these things?

  “Maybe they’re weaker now,” Lonnie said with a plaintive note of hope in his voice.

  “Don’t try anything,” Murray said, even though her odds of encountering the unknown rulers at the top of the tower now seemed remote. They were still vastly outnumbered, even if the Zap robots had yet to exhibit any kind of weaponry.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” Lonnie said.

  “Bullets couldn’t hurt them. What good would your fists do?”

  “It’ll make me feel better, at least. I never figured you for the quitting kind.”

  “Sometimes you have to lose the battle in order to win the war.”

  The Zap robots closed around them from behind, forcing them against the wall. Night had fallen in the outside world and the aurora was intensified, shimmering bands that still couldn’t penetrate the bleak canyons where they stood.

  A rectangular opening appeared in the wall behind them, a dank, foul breeze issuing from it. The deep pulsing they’d felt as a vibration beneath their feet pounded out a sonorous cadence. The robots surged forward, forcing Murray and the two soldiers inside. For a moment, Murray was completely blind, but her vision slowly adjusted to the gloomy interior.

  Lonnie turned and ran for the street, trying to fight his way past the robots. They slammed into him, sending him sprawling. As Murray bent to help him, the opening vanished with the robots on the other side. In total darkness, Delores ran to where the opening had been, bumping into the wall.

  She pounded on it. “Let me out, you metal pieces of shit.”

  Delores’s cries echoed through the enclosure, suggesting they were in a large, open space. Lonnie was conscious but stunned, and responded when Murray asked if he was okay. He sat up, apparently with no broken bones or major contusions.

  “Fan out, Private Simms,” Murray ordered Delores. “Stay in contact with the walls and see if you can feel anything.”

  “Shut up,” Delores snapped. “This isn’t your make-believe army anymore. There’s no government and there’s no Earth Zero, so just drop the bullshit. It’s just us.”

  Murray couldn’t see the rage in the woman’s face, but her tone was harsh enough. Murray almost issued another order but realized she had no way to back it up. Delores was right—there was no government, no chain of command, and no moral or civil authority granted to her anymore. The laws that had put her in power were now a scorched pile of ash in the ruins of Washington, D.C., already being forgotten by the few remaining survivors.

  “You’re right,” Murray conceded. “But we still have to work together. Could you please check along the wall in front of you? And I’ll go deeper into wherever we are and see if I can find anything.”

  “Holes,” Lonnie grunted.

  “What’s that?”

  “Might be holes in the floor. Be careful.”

  Murray left Lonnie, cautioned by his warning. She slid the soles of her shoes over the floor without applying her full weight until she was sure something solid lay beneath her. The dull pounding rose from somewhere directly beneath them, and she was unable to track Delores’s progress along the wall.

  She estimated she’d covered thirty feet when the room was suddenly flooded with light. It wasn’t a clean, yellow light. It was fulsome greenish glow that oozed through cracks in the floor. The glow was in the outline of a square, and Lonnie’s wide-eyed face was in the center of it.

  She called his name and hurried toward him, even though the light chilled her to the pit of her stomach. Delores called out in alarm, her silhouette backing away into a shadowy corner. Lonnie tried to crawl but he, too, seemed frightened of the light.

  Then the square began descending, moving like an elevator without cables, and the throbbing swelled to ear-splitting intensity. More light spilled into the enclosure, and Murray could see that they were in an expanse much like a warehouse, with the ceiling lost in the darkness high above and the walls smooth and featureless.

  The floor was mostly empty, but Murray spotted a small lump on the floor. She quickly scooped it up, seeking some clue of their environment. It was a crumpled photograph of a child’s face. She didn’t recognize the face.

  Someone’s been here before.

  Murray hurried to the edge of the floor where the square had fallen away. Lonnie was already eight or ten feet below, looking up at her with the hollow eyes of a man who had accepted his doom. Murray contemplated leaping down to him, but she saw no use in such an action. She had no rope or pole to throw down and retrieve him with, either.

  But then her attention was drawn to what had been revealed by the absence of the square. It was a series of machines and moving metal parts, vats and coils, and pipes and clear tubes channeling glowing fluid from one part to another. She could make no sense of the many machines, for she had no sane basis of comparison.

  “Get away from it!” Delores yelled.

  “He’s one of us, damn it,” Murray shouted. “He’s a soldier. He’s a human being.”

  Lonnie clasped his hands together under his chin as he knelt. He closed his eyes to the automated nightmares all around him even as he dropped into their midst.

  He was still mumbling prayers when a segmented metal arm swept out from one of the machines and plucked him from his perch. Murray shouted at him but he was apparently so enraptured with his silent communion with God that he didn’t notice. Or maybe he thought it was God lifting him, not a cold robotic arm.

  As Murray watched in horror, the arm ferried Lonnie to a large open vat that she realized was the source of the faint, putrescent stench. Frothing red foam covered its surface, tubes encircling and penetrating it. The arm dipped Lonnie toward the vat and when he was ankle deep in the liquid and it sloshed over his boots, he finally opened his eyes.

  And screamed.

  The liquid began churning, and that’s when Murray saw the thin silver blades whirring like a giant food processor. The high whining noise of the blades dropped a few frequencies in vibration, Lonnie’s screams turning into almost comical squeals. The arm lowered him deeper into the vat, his legs disappearing as he went.

  He must have passed out, because he fell limp and silent as the machines continued with their work. He was waist deep in the grisly miasma when Murray finally looked away. She scanned the rest of the facility, looking for a way out.

  If she dared to jump fifteen feet below, she faced the series of metallic arms that seemed to pick and pluck about the place.

  “What happened to him?” Delores called, still cowering in the shadows.

  “He gave his life fighting,” Murray said. “And I expect you to do the same. Can I count on you, soldier?”

  “Y-y-yes, Madame President,” Delores stammered.

  That’s when the arm dropped Lonnie and then probed its way up toward the opening in the floor where Murray crouched.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I see light,” Millwood said.

  Franklin wasn’t sure if that was good news. They’d been working their way through the tunnel system for at least a couple of hours, with the number of offshoot tunnels and pipes diminishing as they probed deeper into the subterranean network. The darkness had become nearly total, with only the occasional patches of alloy to offer illumination. The structural integrity of the tunnel system was worrisome, with bits of concrete powder and gravel raining down on them as they wormed their way along.

  “Well, go toward the light, then,” Franklin said. “Isn’t that what they say when you’re dying?”

  “No, man, that’s like when you’re a restless spirit that’s trapped here on this plane.”

  “There’s only one plane, Millwood. We may not like it, but it’s the only one we’ve got.”

  “So you don’t believe in alternate realities or the afterlife or reincarnation or any of that
stuff?”

  “God only knows, I wish to hell I did,” Franklin said. The quavering light ahead was roughly in a triangular shape, etched with fallen cables and pipes. It leaked in from an overhead gash. “Cave-in,” he called to Millwood, who was close on his heels.

  “Good, I could use some fresh air.”

  “You just don’t want any rats nibbling on your rear,” Franklin said.

  “Or anywhere else.” Millwood pushed his piece of pipe against a frayed cable to move it out of the way. “But we don’t know what’s waiting up there, either.”

  “Anywhere’s better than here.”

  “You think DeVontay’s all right?”

  “He’s pretty good at taking care of himself.” The water underfoot had reduced to a trickle, but the concrete walls were slimy and mossy. Franklin was surprised anything natural grew inside the dome, and he wondered if maybe they’d accidentally detoured their way outside it. But when they reached the opening, Franklin saw the dome high above as aurora and lightning and plasma tubes illuminated the craziest carnival of all time.

  “Well, looks like we’ve escaped,” Franklin said.

  “Yeah. That was way too easy. Makes you wonder if they let us go on purpose.”

  “Hey, buddy, I’m supposed to be the paranoid one around here. I got dibs.”

  “If we survive, I’ll gladly give the crown back to you,” Millwood said, squeezing between two slabs of broken concrete. “Until then, it’s keeping me alive.”

  Franklin ignored him. “Something’s weird here.”

  “You just now figuring that out? And it only took five years of mutants and monsters and metal cities?”

  “No metal here. It’s all like human stuff. Pavement, rusted steel, plastic trash, hub caps.” Franklin fished in the rubble around the mouth of the cave-in and retrieved a rounded rectangle featuring a cracked glass screen. “Look at this. A cell phone.”

  “Great,” Millwood said. “Maybe we can call 9-1-1.”

  “No buildings, either. No sign of Zap technology.”

  “Maybe they made the dome bigger. Maybe we’re outside the city but still trapped.”

  “Only one way to find out.” Franklin tucked his pipe weapon under his arm and clambered up the slanted pile of rubble. As he drew closer to the edge of the opening, he saw the silver buildings in the distance, the central tower gleaming with brilliant reflected colors.

  Franklin poked his head up, welcoming the relatively fresh air. The Zaps had obviously installed some sort of filtered ventilation system in the city, which fit his theory that they intended to poison the outside world and were using the dome to shield themselves. But immediately around them was no sign of Zap technology, only the ruins of human civilization.

  A collapsed house stood fifty feet away, piles of asphalt shingles spilled across a spotty patch of lawn. The wild tufts of grass, at least as far as Franklin could tell given the colored lights, were actually greenish-yellow. Like real grass that was dying. A bit of the real world—at least the damaged, forested world where he’d built his survival compound—still existed in this hostile mutant environment.

  A Honda sedan was half-buried by shattered lumber, broken glass winking purple and gold. A stunted dogwood tree stood bare and dead near the wreckage. Other stacks of rubble were strewn around an area maybe a quarter of a square mile that once was a suburban neighborhood. The alloy landscape completely surrounded it, slowly creeping in like a tide.

  “Looks like home,” Millwood said.

  “The Zaps haven’t claimed all the territory yet,” Franklin said. “Look, over there are a few more spots.”

  Franklin pointed them out with his piece of pipe. One section contained what looked like a retail shop, its corrugated metal roof folded over the storefront. Several cars were parked in front of it, and one of them was already encased in alloy and appeared to be sinking into the dirt.

  “The Zaps are coating over it,” Millwood said. “Like we saw those savage Zaps get absorbed into the dome. They’re gobbling up everything we left behind and turning it into their silver bullshit.”

  “It’s connected to that factory we saw underground,” Franklin said. “That must be where this stuff comes from. All those pumps and tubes and stuff must run to the surface and flow out, like when you pour molten metal into a mold.”

  “Is blood part of this silver stuff, or was that just for the robot Zaps?”

  Franklin shook his head. “I think it’s all connected. And I’ll bet Kokona is running the show.”

  Something tumbled to the ground a hundred yards away, where a stand of blackened trees shielded a small cinder-block house with broken windows. Franklin and Millwood both ducked back into the hole. After a few seconds, when there was no further noise, Franklin looked again. He whispered, “I think something’s moving inside that building.”

  “Zap?”

  “I don’t see any flashing lights that might be eyes. But it could be one of the robot Zaps.”

  “I don’t think they travel alone,” Millwood said. “Could be one of the soldiers who entered the city when the dome was down.”

  “Do you think anybody would still be alive after all this time?” Millwood asked.

  “We are, aren’t we?”

  “Well, we either go out there and explore or it’s back down into our little rat-hole” Millwood scrambled up beside Franklin and scanned their surroundings. “I’d feel a lot better if I could find a gun in one of those houses.”

  “I doubt a gun would do much good against whatever we’re up against.”

  “I said I’d feel better, not that I could fight better.” Millwood stiffened beside him. “Hey, I saw it, too. Somebody’s in that building.”

  Franklin squinted, wishing he wasn’t so damned old. The hippie had the benefit of glasses, but Franklin had refused to acknowledge his own weaknesses as he aged. Despite the enforced healthy diet of the post-apocalyptic world, he’d packed on a few pounds and lost some of his wind. And that wasn’t so good when you spent most of your time running for your life.

  “There are two of them,” Millwood added. “No glowing eyes.”

  “Then it’s probably people. Want to chance it?”

  “We can’t stay here forever. I’ll go first, in case the drone-birds are hanging out in those trees.”

  Millwood scrambled onto the dirt and jogged across a cracked patch of asphalt, staying low, holding his pipe in both hands. Franklin followed, swiveling to check behind them. The central part of the city was maybe half a mile away. Franklin could swear there were several more buildings that hadn’t been there when they were captured two weeks before.

  It’s growing. Pretty soon this whole damned bubble will be packed full of Zap goodness.

  He imagined the same process being carried out in dozens, maybe even hundreds, of domes around the world. Zaps could build themselves a suitable environment and then destroy what was left of the world. In such circumstances, they would literally be imprisoning themselves, at least until the toxins naturally broke down. But maybe they didn’t care, as long as they won.

  Millwood led them down what was once a street, complete with sagging picket fence, dented trash cans, a rusted bicycle, and a pickup truck sitting on flat tires. Houses to either side were completely collapsed, furniture and appliances littering the ground as if a tornado had rolled through. A gray recliner leaking cotton sat in one of the yards, and Franklin wished he could slide into it for a few hours and take a nap.

  But the concrete building was just ahead, and now Franklin could see the two figures inside. They were facing away from Millwood and Franklin, watching the city. Franklin slowed as he neared the building. Its metal door was dangling from the frame, brown ivy running up its face.

  Millwood tapped him on the shoulder and mouthed “Look” as he pointed to the nearest window.

  Franklin crept to it and slowly lifted his head. He recognized the battered fedora immediately.

  “K.C.,” he hissed, and she sp
un so rapidly he regretted his stealthy approach.

  She leveled her rifle and her finger tightened on the trigger before she recognized him.

  The roar of the gun was deafening.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The shot pinged off the windowsill, sending shards of concrete digging into Franklin’s face. He wiped at his cheek and touched little wet specks of blood. Franklin was sure every Zap in the dome had heard the noise.

  “Franklin!” K.C. yelled, lowering the rifle. Squeak was with her, now hiding behind the woman in fright.

  “What are you doing here? You were supposed to wait in Winston-Salem.”

  She ran toward him through the open doorway, and then wrapped him in an embrace so powerful that he thought his ribs might break. She broke free only long enough to kiss him. He greeted Squeak and gave her a hug. Millwood nodded and said hello but kept his distance.

  “We got captured, but we escaped,” Franklin said. “DeVontay refused to leave without Rachel so he stayed behind.”

  “You’re lucky you came out here,” K.C. said.

  “Not really. This is the only place we could come out. That metal’s overlaying everything and we didn’t have any way to punch through.”

  “Well, I almost shot you and used up the rest of your luck.”

  “Anybody with you?” Millwood asked her.

  “We came in with some soldiers. Plus some woman about my age who said she was president of what used to be the United States.”

  Franklin sighed. “There’s always going to be one, no matter what.”

  “They got shot,” Squeak said, grabbing and holding K.C.’s hand. “And some of them got tooken.”

  “That’s ‘taken,’ honey,” K.C. said, with a patience Franklin had rarely seen her exhibit. A loner like Franklin by nature, she’d obviously formed a bond with the girl during their time evading the Zaps.

  “We can do Sesame Street later,” Millwood said. “What about weapons?”

  K.C. handed her M16 to Franklin, who acknowledged that having a gun did indeed make him feel better. K.C. unstrapped her belt and removed her holstered pistol, passing it to Millwood. “Glock nine mil,” she said. “A dozen left in the magazine.”