Afterburn: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 1) Page 9

  “It might come to that, Rachel,” DeVontay said, lifting his head to scan the town through the truck windows. “And you’ll have to decide whose side you’re really on.”

  That’s unfair. I’ve already chosen you and the others. Isn’t four years long enough to prove my commitment?

  But part of her realized she had removed herself from choice. Aside from Kokona, she had no interaction with Zaps and stayed well away from any potential communication. Like faith, could loyalty really be considered true if it hadn’t been tested?

  “I’m with you,” Rachel said.

  “Then how come you saved that Zap last night?”

  Before she could answer, the voices entered her head again.

  “Do you hear that?” DeVontay said.

  And she realized the voices were audible. The Zaps emerged from a curve in the road, three of them. Like the dead one in the cottage, these wore silvery suits and had a uniform, sexless appearance. They didn’t seem to carry any weapons, and they moved almost casually, with a liquid smoothness. They headed directly for the cottage.

  “We’ll wait to see what they do,” DeVontay said. “Then we’ll make a run for it.”

  But they never found out whether the Zaps were in Stonewall to retrieve their fallen companion. Before they reached the cottage, one of them stopped and lifted its tonsured head as if smelling or hearing something. Rachel gripped DeVontay’s forearm, afraid they sensed her.

  Instead, there was a faint whirring in the air and one of the metallic birds swooped out of the forest and glided toward the outdoor outfitters’ shop.

  “How many of those things do they have?” DeVontay asked.

  Before Rachel could answer, a gunshot boomed in the quiet of the town. The Zaps broke into a fluid run in the direction of the shot.

  “Humans,” Rachel said, unconsciously bringing her own rifle into firing position and aiming around the hood of the truck.

  The metal bird hovered above the outfitters’ shop, cutting ever-tighter circles in the air as if homing in on a target. Its electronic eyes glinted bright green, the color of auroras. As the Zaps approached the shop, a side door flew open.

  A gaunt man with wild, flowing hair and bushy beard burst from the building. He carried a pistol that he alternately pointed at the bird and the Zaps, although he didn’t fire, as if he was conserving limited ammunition. A broad axe was attached to his belt, the blades clotted with dark blood.

  “I think we’ve found our killer,” DeVontay said. “And I’ll bet the Zaps know it.”

  “We can’t let them take him,” Rachel said, standing up and moving into the open. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to protect the hairy man or prove to DeVontay she was willing to kill Zaps if necessary.

  The Zaps were now only thirty feet from the man, closing the distance with stunning speed. The man fired at the nearest mutant, but he either missed or the bullet was resisted by the silver suit.

  I hope I’m making the right choice.

  Rachel sighted her M16, knowing the Zaps were out of her effective range but firing anyway. The burst of shots caused the Zaps to slow and look around uncertainly. The metal bird, though, didn’t hesitate. It looped in the air above the shop and dived right toward Rachel.

  “Damn it, Rachel,” DeVontay said, popping up from concealment and firing at the bird. “This wasn’t our fight.”

  The bird seemed to have some kind of guided intelligence, because it took evasive action. It veered behind a tree, and then rose over the tree’s crown, using the leaves as concealment. Then it swooped and approached by circling around a car and came into the open again flying low and fast. It would be on them in seconds.

  Rachel and DeVontay focused their firepower at the bird, and she lost track of the man and his Zap pursuers. One of their bullets must have clipped the bird, because it briefly tumbled in the air before righting itself and continuing its attack. Rachel didn’t know what kind of weaponry the bird employed, or if it simply used its stiff, streamlined beak to pierce its target. All she knew was she didn’t want to find out.

  The bird was nearly on them when DeVontay lowered his rifle, grabbed the barrel with both hands, and swung the M16 like a baseball bat. The butt struck the bird flush on the head, and glittering pieces rained to the ground around them. The bird’s torso bounced in the high grass and lay intact, the wiry legs scrabbling for purchase.

  “That wasn’t so tough,” DeVontay said.

  It’s one thing to down a fake bird. It’s another to take on three Zaps.

  The man from the shop fled toward the river, apparently thinking the current would offer some protection. DeVontay had told Rachel about the time he’d taken a canoe down the river and Zaps drowned themselves trying to catch him. Maybe this man had also learned the survival technique.

  The three Zaps fanned out, still in pursuit. One ran around the back of the shop and two others followed the man through the scrub on the riverbank. Rachel tried to listen in on their communication, but she couldn’t pick up anything.

  “Do we help or stay out of it?” Rachel asked.

  “If he goes into the river with that axe on his belt, he’s probably going to drown before they get him. And they didn’t even care that you shot at them.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  DeVontay frowned and then cursed under his breath. “All right, let’s do it.”

  DeVontay led the way, familiar with the town from his prior visits. Rachel followed close behind with her rifle low, one eye on the sky for more metal birds.

  Rachel felt more vulnerable out in the open, especially since she couldn’t tell if more Zaps were around. She wondered if they had detected her presence and then switched their telepathic signals, much the way a radio could shift to different bandwidths. She should’ve been relieved that she was blocked out—maybe that meant the Zaps were rejecting her—but the ability served a benefit, too.

  Mostly, she worried if her status in this world had changed. She’d been involuntarily infused with mutant characteristics, but after the initial shock and as she became used to the change, she considered it more of a gift than a curse. The gift had saved her life and that of her friends more than it had harmed anyone.

  But now she was ready to kill.

  So much for evolution.

  The river grew louder as they neared, its waters swollen from recent rains. The two Zaps were hidden by the thick vegetation. DeVontay motioned for Rachel to watch their left flank as he entered the weeds in case the other Zap showed up. Beggar’s lice and briars clung to his clothes as he crept forward in the crushed wake of the mutants.

  There was a splash nearby, followed by a bellowing voice. “Come on, you nutless bastards, don’t you know how to swim?”

  Rachel backed down the trail to protect DeVontay, and she was turning to see if they were near the water when a heavy weight slammed into her, knocking the air from her lungs. She heard a ripping sound that could only be her canvas backpack.

  The attack was so swift and sudden that she could barely react, twisting her body just enough to land on her shoulder instead of her back. Snarling filled her ear, and hot, wet saliva dripped down her neck.

  She was pinned by some sort of large canine—dogs must love me like bacon—but she couldn’t see much beyond its yellow teeth. The mouth snapped, and she jerked her head just enough to avoid the bite, although its slime-covered nose swiped her with a bruising blow on the cheek. The face was narrow and vulpine, bristling with whiskers and gray fur. She punched at its feral, glowing eye that seemed almost as big as the teeth.

  She didn’t have enough wind yet to scream for DeVontay, and the deranged dog would likely finish its business before the cavalry could arrive. She was on her own.

  Driving her forearm under the animal’s furry throat. She barred its next attack and glanced beside her. The M16 lay a few feet away. She could roll for it, but that would leave her exposed for a split second, plenty of time for Mutant Cujo to make kibbl
e of her throat.

  As a half-Zap, her strength was slightly more enhanced than in her pure human form, but she wouldn’t be able to repel the attack for much longer. The dog’s front paws dug at her torso as if burying a bone—she would have deep red welts on her chest and belly if she made it through this. Fortunately, her clothes seemed to prevent the no-doubt virulent claws from jabbing into her flesh.

  Rachel swept her right arm up and drove a thumb into the creature’s eye. A moist popping was followed by a sluice of fluid pouring from the socket. Some of the ocular juice spattered onto her face, and she closed her mouth and eyes in case it was infectious. The dog howled and whimpered but didn’t diminish its assault.

  She heard a muffled gunshot and thought: DeVontay to the rescue. Finally.

  Then it came again and she realized the shots were coming from the river. DeVontay was probably engaged in his own life-or-death battle. There would be no rescue here.

  Rachel yanked her thumb from the eye socket, incongruously thinking of that old nursery rhyme, “Little Jack Horner,” where the boy’s self-esteem rises after he plucks the prize plum from the pie.

  Come on down, Jack, you’re welcome to the other one.

  Before the dog could recover, Rachel wriggled her knee under its belly until it lodged in the vee of bone at the bottom of the rib cage. She flexed her leg and lifted the animal’s rear paws off the ground. It weighed a couple of hundred pounds, and she wouldn’t be able to support it.

  Taking a chance, she jabbed her barring elbow into its throat and pivoted the animal’s mass to her left.

  The jaws poked close and snapped repeatedly, and for a moment she was fully face to face with it, one gory socket ringed with blood and pus, the other eye wide and burning with a thousand fires. Its breath smelled like rotten meat and molten steel.

  She whipped her right arm to her machete, but she was lying on the blade and couldn’t yank it free. She would have to get on top.

  Rachel kicked at the creature’s groin, hoping to find something soft and yielding and terribly pain-inflicting beneath her boot, but maybe it was as genderless as the Zaps. The kick might not have delivered damage, but the motion rolled the dog and allowed her to push the dog’s throat until its head was pinned against the weeds.

  She unsheathed the machete. The dog lunged forward and bit her shoulder, but its teeth sank into the thick nylon strap of her pack.

  Rachel waited until the teeth were locked and the jaws viciously worried the tasteless mouthful, the animal’s primal instinct overriding its cunning. The machete was more effective as a hacking weapon than a penetrating blade, but she couldn’t muster a decent swing with her arms occupied, so she braced the handle against the ground and let their combined weight do the work.

  The wild dog seemed startled by the sudden shift in balance, but instead of regaining its footing, it released the strap and its serrated maw gaped wide for a killing strike. Its remaining eye went wide as the blade pierced its soft underbelly.

  Rachel angled the blade so the cut shifted from the guts into the heart.

  I hope this bitch even HAS a heart.

  Her waist was flooded with warm, viscous fluid. The animal slid down the blade and came to a quivering rest atop her, its neck snug against hers as if it was a precious pet nuzzling her in affection.

  As the dog’s last breath drifted across her skin in a sigh of farewell to a world it never should’ve walked, Rachel resisted an insane urge to pat it on the head and say, “Good doggie.”

  The giddiness of her adrenaline rush faded as a fresh volley of gunshots erupted. Survival wasn’t a one-time event.

  She struggled and squirmed from beneath the dead beast, her clothes coated with blood. She retrieved her M16 and found enough of a clear patch of cloth on her jacket sleeve to wipe some of the grue from her face.

  She pushed through the brambles and goldenrod to the riverbank. The bearded man stood waist-deep in the river, leaning against the current and trying to aim his pistol. The two Zaps stood at the water’s edge as if unsure what to make of the moving liquid mass.

  Where’s DeVontay?

  The Zaps didn’t detect her, and her crashing through the brush was muted by the river’s gushing roar. The man fired a wobbly shot and it dinged off one of the Zap’s suits. So the material was bulletproof, at least for small-caliber fire.

  She dropped to one knee and steadied the rifle the way Franklin had taught her. She sighted at the head of the nearest Zap a dozen yards away.

  No going back. If you kill, you’ve made your final choice.

  If the Zaps will let you go.

  But before she could slide her finger inside the trigger guard, a hand gripped her shoulder. DeVontay whispered, “They can’t get him. They’re afraid of the river.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Where did all this blood come from?”

  “The last thing that snuck up on me. Take that as a lesson.”

  “Damn. I thought you were right behind me.”

  Rachel lowered her weapon. “Too bad we don’t have ESP. You could have shared my near-death experience.”

  “I’ve had plenty of my own.”

  The man gave up taunting and firing at the Zaps and made his way to the middle of the river. At one point, he slipped and went under, and Rachel expected him to be swept downstream. But he emerged a few seconds later, apparently anchoring against an underground rock.

  He flung the water from his hair and shouted at the Zaps again. “Come on, you starry-eyed fucks. Afraid of a little mud puddle?”

  Maybe they’re more afraid of what’s UNDER the water.

  But Zaps had never shown fear. They reacted when attacked, but otherwise remained coldly calculating and aloof. Their sociopathy only seemed like an aberration to those with a social sense—one based a human version of society.

  Which made this behavior even stranger. The Zaps must have changed drastically in the years since Rachel had last encountered them.

  “Why is he taunting them?” Rachel asked.

  “Maybe he’s luring them away from something. Or somebody.”

  “Looks like he’s smart enough to not need our help. The Zaps aren’t going after him.”

  DeVontay pointed to the sky. “You sure about that?”

  A small flock of metal birds came out of the air, streamlined wings gleaming in the sun. The Zaps turned their heads in the direction of the birds as if issuing silent commands. And those commands appeared to involve the man in the river.

  Without thinking, Rachel aimed her M16, judging their airspeed and leading them by a few feet. She squeezed off a series of three-round bursts. DeVontay joined her, and sheer quantity of bullets made up for their amateur marksmanship.

  Two of the birds shattered and dropped in smoking tailspins, and one was knocked out of formation but continued its descent, wavering unsteadily but still heading for its flesh-and-blood target.

  The man saw the birds just before they arrived, and he dove into the turgid water. The birds swooped low enough to skim the foam and froth, but apparently they harbored the same aversion to water as their masters did.

  As the birds gained altitude for another run, Rachel elbowed DeVontay. “Looks like we got somebody’s attention.”

  The two Zaps tromped along the riverbank toward them, moving swiftly but with utterly blank faces. If only they showed outrage or anxiety, Rachel could have hesitated. But there was no sign of the humans they had once been.

  DeVontay swiveled his weapon and leaned his shoulder against a slender locust tree. “Aim for the head.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Lars broke from the water a second time, he imagined his next gulp of air was as sweet as the first breath of any newborn baby’s.

  The river’s bottom was slick, algae coating the stones, and the depth varied with every step. He wedged his boot against a corrugated shelf and glanced about for those damned birds. He knew the Zaps wouldn’t follow him into the river, but he�
��d forgotten about the birds.

  And what if they’ve got metal FISH?

  But he didn’t want to think about what swam in the waters around him. Tentacles, fins, and eels, oh my.

  He stayed submerged below the neck, reducing the available target size. He didn’t know what kind of damage a bird could inflict if it struck him, but those beaks were as fat as a spear and several inches long. And they flew as fast as hawks, meaning the momentum would easily penetrate his skull.

  He blinked the water from his eyes. The birds were hovering a hundred feet above him, three of them in a triangular pattern. One wobbled against the wind with a drooping wing. Lars braced for them to dive, ready to time his next breath and go under again.

  But they circled as if unsure of their mission, so Lars risked a glance at the Zaps on the riverbank. The two people who had shot at the bird in Stonewall were barely visible in the brush, their guns poking out from red vines and yellow leaves.

  No human contact for months, and now they’re all over the place. Maybe we’re breeding like rats.

  The water had been bracingly cool at first, and then had gone to bone-chilling cold. Now numbness seeped into his limbs, and Lars worried that he wouldn’t be able to maintain his balance. He could just take a deep breath and float downstream, but he wasn’t sure he could float with the axe attached to his belt.

  He’d lost his pistol during the last dive, but the axe was like a talisman. He’d almost rather drown than surrender it after the heavy weapon had kept him alive for so long.

  The two people on the bank opened fire on the Zaps, who didn’t slow their approach. Lars made the connection between the directionless birds and the Zaps’ new target. Apparently the bastards weren’t so evolved that they could engage in multiple attacks at the same time.

  The guns rattled in short bursts, and a geyser of blood and flesh spewed from one of the Zap’s skulls. It dropped onto the muddy bank and rolled toward the river, sprawling in a splash facedown in the water. Lars half expected it to melt away to vapor like the Wicked Witch of the West in the “Wizard of Oz,” but both of those images were mere fantasies. It bobbed on the surface for a moment and then was tugged away by the current.