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

  “You used to be one of us,” Rachel said. “Before the solar storms, you were human. Part of you remembers that, just like I remember being one of you.”

  “I am me,” the Zap said. “We are us.”

  “It’s going to be morning soon,” DeVontay said in a loud whisper from the top of the stairs. She could vaguely discern his outline against the night. “We need to go now.”

  Rachel took one more look at the Zap, whose eyes smoldered to a deep red. The deep, muted throbbing they’d heard earlier had renewed, seeming to make the whole town shiver at a nearly undetectable level. Then she hurried to join DeVontay, who was frantically scanning the sky.

  “Don’t see any birds,” he said. “But if the Zaps can read our minds, we’re dead meat anyway. Can we believe anything that Zap says? What if it’s a trap?”

  “We were already trapped, remember? What do the Zaps have to gain?”

  “Another test, like with the lizard thing. Well, I’m tired of being their damned lab rat.” He waved to the west, where the buildings were less dense against the horizon and the trees seemed a little thicker. “That way.”

  He tensed to spring from the cover of the stairwell when a hand clamped onto his shoulder. DeVontay turned, fists clenched, to find the Zap.

  “This way,” the Zap said, pushing past them before DeVontay could take a swing.

  The Zap headed into the street and toward the burned-out husks of commercial buildings, streaked sheets of glass in the windows reflecting the brilliant aurora.

  “Do we trust it?” Rachel asked.

  “I trust you,” DeVontay said.

  She gave him a fleeting kiss and dashed after the Zap, crouching in anticipation of mysterious silver birds descending in a deadly flock. DeVontay was right behind her, limping but managing to keep up.

  The Zap only turned back once, as if he could tell they were following without having to look. He slipped into a narrow alley where blackened brick leaned in precarious stacks and trash covered the asphalt beneath their feet. The destruction wasn’t complete, as if the Zaps had evolved beyond their savagery before they’d finished the task of destroying Wilkesboro.

  Rachel tried once more to forge a telepathic link with the Zap but realized he wasn’t allowing her access. Perhaps all his attention was focused on projecting a shield to protect them all. The mutant was now just as much at risk as Rachel and DeVontay were, and it clearly had an awareness of its own mortality. The other Zaps surely would not tolerate a traitor in their midst.

  We’re all in this together now. But we aren’t leaving town without Squeak and the others.

  “We’re going into the heart of town, not away from it,” DeVontay said.

  Even though the words were directed at Rachel, the Zap stopped long enough to say, “If we shut down the energy field, we improve our odds.”

  “What energy field?” Rachel asked, crunching bits of charcoal and gravel underneath her feet. They passed the scorched hunk of a car that sat on rusted metal rims, stained bones sprinkled on the ground around it. Rachel wondered if the victims had died during the storms or in the Zap rampage afterwards, then decided it did not matter at all.

  “Plasmacizer,” the Zap said. “We use it to run our three-dimensional printers and create our titanium fabric. We channel and concentrate the heightened electromagnetic energy of the sun, altering the behavior of electrons in short bursts.”

  “Like that little hand device you used on the lizard?” DeVontay said.

  “That is correct. We have a centralized plasma sink from which we’re drawing energy, but we still haven’t managed to fully control its ionization. You can see our successes—”

  “Like the birds and the suits,” Rachel said.

  “Yes. But we’re also noticing side effects that occur with our altering of electrons.”

  “Side effects?” DeVontay said.

  “I’m possibly one of them,” the Zap said, waving them through a row of dead cars in a parking lot. Rachel felt exposed because of the high ruins rising around them in the center of town, but she didn’t see any eyes burning in those blank windows.

  Where are all the Zaps? Are they stacked in rows in some factory, or are they all sitting awake beneath the silver domes, sharing whatever thoughts Geneva delivers to them. Are they truly sentient, or are they just responding to the commands they receive?

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all some elaborate ruse. But what choice did they have?

  And even though she couldn’t see any Zaps and had no telepathic bond with them, she could feel their presence all around, like the static charge building before a thunderstorm. The ruins ahead of them seemed to shimmer with fleeting bands of light.

  DeVontay edged close enough to whisper without the Zap hearing. “I don’t like this. We could’ve been in the woods by now.”

  “This might be important,” Rachel said. “If we can learn more about the Zaps, we can tell others. Maybe even beat them.”

  DeVontay snorted. “I thought you wanted to make peace.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to survive. Not just for me, but for all of us.”

  The Zap paused fifteen feet ahead of them, waiting at the corner of a building whose smoked-glass windows blocked their view of the next street. If it heard their whispers, it gave no sign. Daylight tinted the sky, the pinkish orange of the rising sun melding with the aurora. The kaleidoscopic hues shimmered against the Zap’s protective suit.

  “We’re here,” the Zap said.

  Rachel braced herself for the most unexpected sights. Based on her previous encounters with the Zapheads, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see an army of dead people, reanimated and lurching mindlessly among the ruins. The Zaps had collected corpses for years with the intention of sparking life back into their flesh. A gleaming metal flying ship seemed possible, given the rapid development of Zap technology. Even a giant metal monster seemed within their powers.

  But what she witnessed as she peered around the building made her doubt the very foundation of her existence.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As President Murray walked the tented city of Luray Caverns, she wondered if Noah’s mythical ark had harbored as much diversity.

  While many of New Pentagon’s residents were refugees from the nation’s capital, others had arrived from the nearby rural areas of West Virginia and Maryland. Authority wasn’t needed, despite Gen. Alexander’s guns and uniforms. By the time New Pentagon was operational, the chaos of the immediate aftermath had transformed into a grim resignation. Aside from occasional squabbles over food, the survivors embraced an understanding of how fragile their position was and how they all were truly in the same boat.

  But even in the face of extinction, there blossomed moments of poignancy and compassion that made Murray’s heart swell with pride, both for her country and the human race.

  Such as the filthy-cheeked young girl, probably eight, who was giving her teddy bear to a child no more than four while the weary mother scrubbed clothes in a metal tub. In front of the neighboring tent, an old man carved what would likely become a wooden crutch for one of the injured soldiers. An older boy tended a blackened kettle perched over a low fire, stirring a soup or stew that gave off a strong aroma of turnips and dandelions.

  Yes, these people were resilient and they had adapted instead of surrendering in the face of loss. She remained on guard against taking any credit for their continued survival, because in truth the society had pretty much rebuilt itself without a governing structure. But a society had to do more than survive. Government gave them a unified vision and inspired dreams of a better life.

  “Madame President,” called a man who sat in a cradle of rock brightened by the morning sun. He waved at her, and she detoured from her destination to talk with him. She recognized his face but couldn’t recall his name. He wore a military camo shirt and orange baseball cap, and as she came near him, she saw the rolled-up khakis that revealed his legs had been amputated
at the knees.

  “Looking good?” she asked, glancing out the cavern entrance at the wide dirt road leading into the hills.

  “Nothing worth shooting,” he said, in a thick Southern accent, propping his rifle against his elbow.

  “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  “Aw, come on. If I can’t go to war, at least let the war come to me.”

  The soldier hadn’t been injured by Zaps or the flaming devastation of the solar storms as civilization collapsed. Instead, he’d been crushed while replacing the drive train of a pick-up truck used to transport supplies from distant towns. The truck had fallen off its support blocks and he’d lain there white-faced and calm while a dozen rescuers worked to remove him.

  Well, most of him.

  But helplessness wasn’t allowed in New Pentagon and the Earth Zero that would follow once humans had retaken the world. Karl Marx might approve of the slogan “Each according to his abilities,” but Abigail Murray simplified it to “Do what you can” with an implied “Or else.” No, she probably wouldn’t have had this man carried into the forest and left for carnivorous beasts if he offered no benefit to his tribe, but he also understood he’d be eaten anyway if he didn’t stay alert at his post.

  “There’s going to be plenty of glory to go around for all of us,” Murray said. “Just make sure you don’t let anything in without permission.”

  He gave a coarse chuckle. “One thing you can count on, I won’t run from trouble.”

  She waved a farewell and headed into daylight. Luray Caverns featured a subterranean network that ran for hundreds of miles, and a few of the fissures were like natural cathedrals, resplendent with glittering stalactites. Some of the more reclusive families had taken up homes in the deepest crevices, and others had no doubt isolated themselves so thoroughly that no one knew of their existence. But despite the high ceilings of the caverns, Murray found that a daily walk outside its confines kept claustrophobia at bay.

  A few wooden shelters dotted the forest around the main cavern opening, occupied by soldiers who spent most of their day in the field. In a clearing, New Pentagon’s half dozen helicopters stood with drooping wings, often grounded by a shortage of aviation fuel. A short runway supported two turboprop planes, which was all that remained of the United States Air Force east of the Mississippi. The aircraft, along with a few Humvees, transport trucks, and one motorcycle, had been stored in a cavern chamber shielded from electromagnetic pulses.

  If the former federal government had one damning shortcoming, it had been insufficient paranoia. Murray could only imagine the budget battles over equipment that no one ever thought would be needed. The very existence of the vehicles was probably due to some diligent work by rogue officers who kept everything off the books. Given the general indifference at the effects of EMP, they were lucky to have protected even that much equipment. Still, the planners had never imagined a world where fuel wouldn’t be readily available—no one could foresee a complete collapse of the infrastructure that made the gear useful in the first place.

  Murray didn’t feel danger while walking in the forest. Several children had gone missing in the early days, spawning conspiratorial whispers of midnight Zap raids. Then they’d discovered that predators roamed the woods, oversize beasts that were as odd and alien as the Zaps. Organized scouting runs had depleted their number in the vicinity of the caverns, but Murray imagined populations in the wild were high enough to serve as a threat that rivaled the Zaps.

  When she reached Helen Schlagal’s tree house in the branches of an old red oak, she cupped her hands and called Helen’s name before ascending the rickety ladder leading up the trunk. Schlagal opened the door as Murray reached the platform that served as a porch and helped her guest inside.

  “We better win the war soon,” Murray said. “Another five years and I won’t be able to climb the damned stairs.”

  “I could’ve come to you,” Schlagal said, kissing her.

  “People would talk.”

  “You’re so serious. Like you’re afraid to lose votes. Want a cup of sun tea?”

  “Is it that stuff you make from mint and lemongrass? It always makes me sneeze.”

  Schlagal pulled a glass jar from her windowsill. It was full of a greenish-amber liquid. She poured some of it into two cups and replaced it. Then she gave a cup to Murray. “A sneeze or two would do you good. Blow some of those cobwebs out of your brain.”

  The tree house was small, barely a hundred feet square, but Schlagal had managed to make it look cozy rather than cramped. She’d hung woven fabrics on the walls and the windows allowed enough light to give an airy feel to her home. The cot scavenged from a FEMA disaster shelter could barely hold the two of them, not that they spent many nights together these days. Age had achieved what the prurient morals of society could not.

  As Murray sipped her tea, she said, “What are we going to do about Arnold?”

  “Ah, your honorable general. Just throw him a medal once in a while and he’ll stay happy and loyal.”

  “He’s good at what he does. But I’m not sure he’s on board with Directive Eighteen.”

  “Because he still thinks he can kick the Zaps’ asses by himself,” Schlagal said. “I’m surprised you let him go off to D.C. There’s nothing there that can help us.”

  “It’s an ideological mission.” Murray looked out the window at an unkempt group of soldiers strolling down the dirt road. “He sees Washington as psychologically important to the troops. A morale booster.”

  “Practically speaking, Washington has no value to us at all. Just another settlement that will strain our resources, if we’re lucky enough to capture it in the first place.”

  “Not everything has to be practical,” Murray said.

  Schlagal, looking neat and attractive with a sky-blue scarf binding her unwashed hair, said, “My job is to take care of what we have. His job is to fight. He sees our differing goals as a conflict. Defense versus offense.”

  “And my job is to keep you from killing each other before the Zaps get around to it,” Murray said. “I think he’s beginning to appreciate your point of view.”

  “And it’s only taken him a decade. Ever since we were on Senator Everhart’s anti-terrorism committee, he’s been ready for me to stab him in the back. I used to think it was because I was a woman, then because I was a Democrat, and then because I was a lesbian. Now I think he likes being a martyr and it doesn’t matter who’s driving the nails.”

  “Well, you can understand how you threaten his worldview,” Murray said, leaning forward from her position on the cot to browse Helen’s bookshelf. “Where did you get these new books?”

  “A month ago on a run into Harrisonburg. Wow, it has been a while since you hung out here.”

  A pistol sat atop the bookshelf, well oiled and gleaming. Murray picked it up and ejected the magazine, making sure it was full. She worried about Helen living alone outside the caverns, even though the military base surrounded her. She was just as worried that one lonely night, the stress and hopelessness of their tenuous hold on existence would lead Schlagal to reach for a fast and easy resolution.

  “If Arnold makes it back, nothing changes,” Murray said.

  “Then you shouldn’t have let him take our transport team. We need those troops and weapons to defend the homeland.”

  “Your homeland is twenty miles wide. His is three thousand. But neither really matters at the cosmic level.”

  “Gee, Sunshine. Where’s that ‘can do’ spirit that keeps the masses inspired and productive?”

  Murray set the pistol back down. “I received a broadcast last night.”

  Schlagal’s wry smile froze, her forehead creased. “From where? Tel Aviv? Moscow? New York?”

  “Colorado.”

  “Colorado. What the hell? I didn’t even know there was a Colorado left.”

  “Neither does most of Colorado, apparently. There’s a little outpost in Boulder that’s been getting messages from our
allies over the past few months. Something about their altitude or their longitude, or maybe just an anomaly in the atmospheric conditions, lets them receive broadcasts from all over the world while all we get is static.”

  Schlagal’s hand shook with excitement, spilling tea on the legs of her slacks. “Then there’s news!”

  “News.” Murray hated to rain on Schlagal’s parade, but the president had to face reality. Murray could lie to Gen. Alexander and ascribe it to strategy, but Schlagal was the one she trusted with her most fatalistic secrets.

  Schlagal read her eyes. “What’s wrong? Of course, I know it’s bad news, but the fact that we’re receiving news at all is kind of good news, isn’t it?”

  “Beijing is gone. Israel still has a framework, but they’re not able to expand their territory. It sounds like Great Britain is on the ropes. Los Angeles, maybe…they’re about like us, a few hundred people holding a few city blocks. In New York, there are some survivors in the subways. Boulder has a helicopter and a couple of tanks. The point is, we may be the very best of what’s left.” Murray flung out her hand to indicate the view of the military base beyond the window. “And look at us.”

  “We have plenty of weapons,” Helen said. “Grenade launchers, bazookas, machine guns, even some tanks—”

  “Stop it.” Murray stared at the rumpled rug on the floor. “You’re starting to sound like the general.”

  “What’s the problem, then?”

  “The Zaps are coming after us. They have weapons now, using some kind of energy field to destroy any settlements they find. There are probably more of us out there than we imagined. But probably fewer by the day.”

  Schlagal clutched her hand and squeezed tightly. “So? Nothing changes. We stay here, protect what we have, and make the best of it.”

  “Something has changed. NORAD has some toys left in Cheyenne Mountain.”

  “Toys?”

  “Thirty-six nuclear missiles with firing systems intact and protected from EMP damage. There’s also an Ohio-class submarine at large somewhere off the coast of South Carolina carrying sixteen more missiles. It was in a shielded dry dock when the solar storms hit and was launched by a skeleton crew of a dozen seamen who’ve managed to stay alive all this time.”