After: Red Scare (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 5) (12 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Hilyard wasn’t alone, either.

Seven soldiers were with him, freighted with equipment and bulging backpacks. He must have had some luck luring the men away from Shipley’s bunker. Three civilians were part of his group, too, and they carried themselves as if benefiting from Hilyard’s guidance.

Hilyard recognized Franklin, Rachel, and DeVontay, and he waved as his unit approached. Franklin almost saluted, and then caught himself. Such an acknowledgement of authority would destroy his reputation.

Hilyard’s men—and the two civilians who were female—carried their weapons at port arms, unthreatening but at the same time easily brought into firing position if necessary. Brock’s band lowered their weapons, and Brock himself swiveled his barrel back and forth like the undisciplined dumbass that he was.

“Better put that down, cowboy, or you’re going to be singing soprano,” Hilyard said.

Brock must have noticed the rank insignia on the lieutenant’s field tunic, but he didn’t flinch. However, he returned his rifle to his shoulder. “Sure thing.”

Franklin waded across the patch of weeds until he was face to face with the lieutenant. “Looks like you got yourself a little army again.”

“Conditions in the bunker have deteriorated, and Shipley’s gone full Section Eight. That’s official military lingo for ‘crazy as a shithouse rat.’ But I guess you already knew that.”

“Lieutenant,” DeVontay said, shaking the officer’s hand. “Glad to have somebody around here to restore order.”

Hilyard eyed the assembled militia with some skepticism. They sported a mix of hunting rifles, shotguns, and semi-automatics, and some carried only pistols. “How many do you have?” he asked Brock.

Brock threw his shoulders back and made of show of formality, as if he were Hilyard’s equal meeting at a command post. “Thirty-seven, unless the four scouts I sent to town didn’t make it back.”

Hilyard shook his head in disbelief. “You sent scouts in? And they
obeyed
you?”

“H-how else are we going to know what’s going on?”

Franklin smiled inwardly at Brock getting knocked off his high horse, but open gloating wouldn’t help matters. At some point, they might have to work together. And they were still fellow members of the same vanishing race.

Rachel gave the lieutenant a hug, embarrassing him a little. He looked at her eyes a few seconds longer than was polite but said nothing. Hilyard made a circling motion in the air with one hand and pointed toward the cluster of houses where Brock had established camp. Hilyard must have conducted some scouting of his own.

“We’ll take a breather here and figure things out,” Hilyard said.

Brock’s group fell in line behind Hilyard’s unit, causing Brock to yell after them. “Hey, I didn’t dismiss you yet.”

Sierra, at the end of the line, turned to him and said, “Shut the hell up, Brock.”

Brock stood looking uncertainly at Hilyard, Franklin, Rachel, and DeVontay.

Probably wondering if he should join us.

When none of them did anything to encourage Brock, he hurried after the group. Franklin could have sworn he was pouting, like a kindergartener whose toy truck had been stolen in the sandbox.

“What’s his story?” Hilyard asked.

“Wrong place at the wrong time,” Franklin said. “Best I can tell, several small groups of survivors met up and Brock kind of claimed the crown because nobody else wanted it.”

“And he was going to make a full assault on Newton? Please tell me he at least had a plan.”

“Sure he did,” Rachel said. “Kick ass and take names because America’s awesome.”

“Well, after monitoring Shipley’s little probe yesterday, I think it’s going to take a lot more than a few dozen English majors and accountants to achieve the objective,” Hilyard said, pulling sunglasses from his breast pocket and snapping them into place across his nose.

“How long have you been watching us?” Franklin said.

“I had scouts of my own, but I wasn’t foolish enough to send them in. We took up posts on high ground and used our binoculars. You can gather plenty of information while staying out of range of the enemy.” Hilyard shook his head and sighed. “Best we could tell, Shipley lost four men yesterday through his stupidity. Sure, they went along with his mutiny and pissed on their enlistment pledge and duty to their country, but they were basically decent men who went wrong.”

Franklin related his adventures since the big battle on the mountain, and DeVontay and Rachel shared what they’d learned the night before.

“I wondered what the hell was going on,” Hilyard said. “One of my men reported that the Zapper babies were carried around by humans, and they appeared to be interacting. I thought the private was Section Eight material himself, but then another man corroborated it. That’s about the damnedest thing I ever heard.”

“So you can see why sheer firepower won’t be enough,” Rachel said. “It would be pointless slaughter. If we can communicate with the Central Committee, maybe we can free any captives they still have and come to some sort of
détente
.”

“‘Détente’ is just another word for a temporary truce that crumbles under distrust. It doesn’t resolve anything.”

“Just buying a little time may be the best we can hope for,” Rachel said.

“I’ll think about it,” Hilyard said. “I can’t tell these civilians what to do, but if any of them want to follow me, they’re welcome. Not sure this Brock clown will like it, but last I seen, nobody’s held any elections for king of the world.”

“What else is going on out there?” Franklin said. “See any other groups of civilians? Survivors holed up in the woods? Any sign at all of rebuilding?”

“We saw some signs of recent camps. Trash and fire pits and things. But nothing of any scale. My guess is the people that are good at hiding are going to stay good at hiding. They probably think it’s best to just leave the Zapheads alone and focus on making it through the winter.”

“That’s what I keep saying,” Rachel said. “But nobody listens.”

“No offense, Rachel, but you’re not exactly an impartial observer,” the lieutenant said. “You make reasonable points and you’re coherent, but can any of us really be sure how much influence they have over you? Can you even know yourself?”

DeVontay stepped protectively in front of her, drawing a grin from Franklin. DeVontay was apparently willing to take on a well-armed, battle-trained soldier to protect the woman he loved.

Hilyard understood the gesture and let it slide without a confrontation. “Let’s get a bite to eat and then we can catch up on everything else.” Hilyard took three steps and then looked around, his eyebrows raised. “Hey, where’s Stephen?”

“We lost him,” Franklin admitted. “Poor guy headed out the same night you did. Snuck out of my cabin right behind my back. I feel terrible.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Rachel said. “It’s my fault if it’s anybody’s fault. I should have had a talk with him and explained what I had to do.”

“Enough with all the guilt trips,” DeVontay said. “Let’s not give up hope. The Little Man’s one pretty tough little dude. If anybody four-foot-ten can make it on his own, it’s him.”

As they made their way to the base camp, Franklin explained Brock’s original plan to wait for the Zapheads to collect the bodies his group had piled in the traffic jam.

Hilyard was impressed with that one. “Use their own instincts against them. Maybe Brock isn’t as dumb as he looks. Which is good, because he looks dumb as a turtle egg. And that hat. Christ.”

“Sierra’s the real power behind the throne if you ask me,” DeVontay said. “She goes along with him, but you can see in her eyes that she’s already plotting her next move. With or without him. And she gathered her own group together, so she already has some power if she wants it.”

“You know what they say about women and power,” Rachel said.

“What’s that?” Franklin and DeVontay said in near unison.

“Remember Lady Macbeth?”

Franklin said, “I haven’t read any Shakespeare in decades, but best I can remember that didn’t turn out so well for anybody.”

“Exactly.” Rachel gave a smile that both pleased and reassured Franklin.

There’s still plenty of human in her. And, God help us all, one day ‘human’ will be all that’s left.

When they got back to camp, Hilyard approached Brock as a peace offering, allowing the man to salvage some of his ego. DeVontay and Rachel went into one of the houses to “rest,” and Franklin let them go without comment.

Franklin knelt by the fire and stirred the pot he’d left simmering. The concoction had congealed into a thick gray porridge, bits of bone poking up through the surface. When Hilyard joined him, Franklin said, “Want to try my world-famous bunny gumbo? Odds are pretty good that it’s not mutant meat.”

Hilyard sat on one of the lawn chairs arranged around the fire pit and rummaged through his backpack. “No, thanks. That makes even an MRE sound scrumptious.”

As they both ate, Hilyard said, “There’s something I didn’t want to say in front of Rachel.”

Franklin ran down a mental list of horrible things:
Stephen is dead, Zaphead armies are approaching from every compass point, radiation from failed nuclear power plants will kill us all in two weeks, the president and Congress have emerged from their bunker and announced a tax increase.

“She’s been through a lot,” he said. “I don’t know what to make of it all, but she’s still my granddaughter. Pretty much all I got left.”

“That’s more than most. But I have a unit now, and that gives me a purpose. And I suspect that purpose is an extraction mission.”

“Extraction?”

“If these babies are evolving and learning this rapidly, and they’re the ones calling the shots, then the entire tribe is going to evolve, too.”

“So what?” Franklin said. “You can’t possibly believe they have the power to raise the dead like Rachel says, do you? The shift in magnetic patterns has thrown the entire planet askew, but at least there’s some kind of science behind it. I’ll be damned if I could explain it, but I’m sure some theoretical physicists with a nice computer and a lab could figure it all out eventually. But resurrection falls under the realm of religion. Or magic, if you want to roll in that direction.”

“They’re going to adapt much faster than we do,” Hilyard said. “They’re already organizing into large tribes, with a leadership structure—the Central Committee, as Rachel calls it—that apparently has some level of telepathy. And if this talent or power increases as more babies gather in one place, what happens when these tribes start uniting? They’re building a civilization and we’ve barely learned to take a dump without flush toilets.”

“Yeah, but remember, we’re still way ahead of them. We’ve got guns and all of us can talk and think, not just our babies. Free will beats the hell out of communism every damn time.” His gumbo was starting to give him indigestion, or maybe the acid was caused by the implications of Hilyard’s words.

“Every time until it doesn’t,” Hilyard said. “Now, we could send in a stealth team, figure out where the babies are, and take them out. But if they have some humans as hostages, then there’s going to be collateral damage. Plus, that only temporarily solves one problem in one place. There are likely larger Zaphead tribes in Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, and Asheville. Not to mention Atlanta, Savannah, and on and on across the continent.”

“Extraction, then?”

“Yes. Go in, seize their babies, and then have a face-to-face powwow on our turf and our terms.”

Franklin recalled the strange intelligence in little Joey’s eyes, and how Cathy had fallen so completely under his spell. He shuddered, thinking how close he’d come to killing the thing. Because, no matter what Rachel said, the Zapheads were monsters.

“I thought official U.S. policy was to never negotiate with terrorists,” Franklin said.

“I’m not very interested in cutting a deal. If these babies are so smart, I want to see if they can teach the Zapheads exactly what pain is. And why it hurts to die slow.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“How many are out there?” Cathy asked.

“Seven,” Father Casey said. “Two more left.”

Rosa didn’t like waiting. They’d occupied several of the jail cells so that there were enough cots for all of them, but the plumbing was backed up and the smell was horrible. Any inmates who died here had already been removed, but the odor of death lingered about the walls.

“I don’t like this,” Rosa said. “They’ve had Marina in there for at least an hour.”

Not that she could trust her sense of time. The other carriers, who arrived over the morning with their infants, stayed in cells to the rear of the cell block. The babies wanted to meet in private, probably because they were suspicious of humans now, even the ones who carried and cared for them. They asked Marina to stay, though, which filled Rosa with pride but also spawned a little jealous resentment.

They’re going to turn her, and she’ll take Rachel Wheeler’s place. And where will that leave me?

“This is a critical time for them,” Father Casey said. “They’re facing another attack, and if they don’t have some way to defend themselves, the tribe is in trouble.”

“If only the babies didn’t have to be together,” Cathy said. “I wanted to leave, but Joey said that would be treason.”

“How could you even think that?” Rosa said. “What better purpose could you serve than to help the New People?”

“I’m a mother first,” Cathy said. “Just because Joey is special doesn’t mean I’m willing to let him die for his tribe.”

“You should be honored that he’s part of the council. Many years from now when they tell their people’s history, this meeting will be a legend. They might even consider it a mystical event, a time when their gods delivered a new nation to them.”

“I doubt they’ll ever need a god,” Father Casey said. “Not like we do. They are strong and we are weak. We pray for miracles and then wait, but they don’t beg for miracles, they perform them. If anything, they are gods themselves.”

“Then why are you here, Father?” Rosa asked.

“I heard the call. Maybe God is hanging it up and turning everything over to the New People. What if the apocalypse arrived not with a trumpet blast but with a whisper? What if Babylon has fallen and this is the great rejoicing?”

“And humans will be cast in the lake of fire to make way for people that have no sense of right or wrong?” Cathy said. “That would be the perfect atonement.”

“Which sin was the original one? It wasn’t Eve’s disobedience in biting the apple. No, it was the human hunger for knowledge. It was the first time God was ever challenged.”

“He’s achieved perfection, then,” Cathy said. “Little Joey is without sin.”

“He’s not the only one,” Father Casey said with a laugh. “Do you not even see your pride at work? We’re fallible. We all come short of perfection. And the New People are perfect. Individually and collectively.”

Rosa wondered if her desire to join the tribe was driven by jealousy. Yes, she was human. She knew hate and anger and perhaps even a lust for power. But surely all those things would pass away if she could only convince the council of her worth.

Rachel Wheeler was granted a great gift and apparently rejected it. Why should Bryan, Joey, and the others trust another human with the knowledge they offered?

Before Rosa could answer, the metal door to the cell block swung open. Rosa expected to see Marina, but instead it was a woman of maybe fifty that Rosa recognized from the school gym as one of the carriers.

I’ll bet her breasts are far too dry to be worthy of them.

The woman was weary, soot smudged on her cheeks, eyes bloodshot. She nodded and said, “And now there are eight.”

Then she collapsed in a heap on the hard floor.

Father Casey hurried to her side, checking her pulse. He looked up and shook his head.

Two New People entered the cell block, young adults dressed in police uniforms they must have taken from the locker room. The clothes were ill-fitting, and the mutants wore no sidearms, but clearly they had learned either from photographs or through instruction by the council.

They bent and collected the dead woman, then hauled her out with her feet dragging, one dirty slipper left behind.

Rosa fought a surge of pleasure. One less carrier meant that her own value would increase. The mutants needed her now more than ever.

“They worked her to death,” Father Casey said. “Used her up and tossed her aside.”

“What a noble way to go,” Rosa said. “She sacrificed herself for the greater good.”

“She was too old for this job,” Cathy said. “They should have stuck with us birth mothers.”

“You were lucky,” Rosa said. “Most of the mothers died and will never know what a precious gift they gave the world.”

They’ll need another carrier now! Marina is capable. She’s been helping me and she is comfortable with them. She knows how to tend them, and she’s only a few years away from producing milk for them.

But why should each infant need a carrier now? A few of us can provide for all their needs.

Rosa arose from her cot and went to the cell-block door, looking down the hall beyond. The door to the sheriff’s office was still closed, and the front entrance was unoccupied. She could hear the muffled conversations of the other carriers deeper in the cell block.

“Where are you going?” Father Casey called. “They’ll be angry.”

“They don’t understand anger, remember?” Rosa said. “They only know what we teach them.”

“Come back here,” Cathy said, but Rosa slipped into the hall. Doors on both sides bore the names of various deputies and departments, including a double-bolted door that read “Evidence Room.” She tried the third door on the left, featuring a frosted-glass window that bore the name “Capt. Honeycutt.” It was unlocked.

Cathy and the priest watched from the cell-block door as if held back by a force field, an invisible line they were afraid to cross.

Great dreams require brave actions.

That was something Jorge used to say, back when dreams consisted mostly of toiling tirelessly enough for a wealthy white farmer to remain in the United States.
If we just work hard, follow their rules, and blend in,
soon we will be Americans
, he would say.

Would he be proud of her for following this new dream?

He would never understand she was doing all this for Marina. They’d always agreed that every brave action was designed to bring Marina a better future, and wasn’t that about to happen? Not in the way they had imagined—no one could have imagined
this
, after all—but a new world with New People where skin color, economic status, and nationality no longer mattered.

Capt. Honeycutt’s office had an outside window on the back wall, and the afternoon sun flooded the room. A metal desk was covered with papers, a coffee cup, a telephone, and a computer. The shelves along one wall were mostly bare, holding a few cardboard boxes, law books, and training manuals. A framed photograph on one wall showed a stout woman in a police uniform shaking hands with a man in a suit and tie. Rosa recognized the man from a photograph in the sheriff’s office, so she assumed the woman was Honeycutt.

Another woman who fought for her dream, even though it was no doubt difficult to achieve her position in the rural South.

But perhaps she didn’t fight hard enough. A rust-colored splotch on the floor trailed away to a long dark smear, clumps of hair dried into the stain. Short blonde hair like that on the woman in the photograph.

Honeycutt must have been in her office during the initial chaos of the solar storms. Her attacker was probably someone here in the office, a fellow deputy or perhaps a prisoner. She wouldn’t have understood what was happening. Maybe in that split-second, she would have seen the strange, glinting eyes and reacted—

By drawing her firearm.

Although the New People had obviously carted the body away, they wouldn’t have bothered with her weapon. Several brass casings were scattered across the floor. Rosa knelt and peered under the desk.

There.

She retrieved the dusty pistol. She saw no safety mechanism and figured, even if there was one, Honeycutt would have disengaged it while fighting for her life. She didn’t know how to release the magazine, but if it filled the length of the pistol’s grip, and only four or five shots had been fired, there were likely plenty more.

Enough.

She thought about searching the office for more bullets or magazines, or maybe even an extra gun, but she’d already been gone too long. The council might want her, or more New People could enter the building at any moment. She stuffed the pistol in the back waistband of her pants, draping her jacket to cover it.

When she returned to the hall, she found Father Casey and Cathy still waiting. Cathy waved her back to the cells. “Hurry, someone’s coming.”

Rosa could hear high-pitched voices coming from the sheriff’s office. It almost sounded like an argument.

That was odd, since the babies had an intuitive connection with each other, and by extension the other mutants. Rosa hoped the human influence wasn’t leading them into bad traits.

She walked back to the cells, where Father Casey castigated her. Cathy sat with her arms folded, smoldering in rage as if unable to believe Rosa’s behavior.

“Great dreams require brave actions,
mujer
,” Rosa said to her.

“You little brown bitch, you could have gotten us all in trouble.”

“Not all of us.”

Rosa pulled the pistol from its hiding place and fired point-blank at the woman’s gaping mouth. The back of her skull painted the cell wall behind her red, white, and gray.

The priest took one step toward her. “Rosa, what are—”

Bam.

He looked down at the little red hole in his chest, eyes wide in disbelief. He reached for it, and then his hand slid up to caress the silver crucifix hanging from his neck as he fell.

The pistol wasn’t as loud as she expected, but her ears rang from the concussive echo. The cell smelled of cordite and bodily fluids.

Shouts came from the other cells, and the four other carriers raced down the corridor murmuring and shouting. Rosa tucked the pistol behind her until they were all close enough to see the bodies, and while they were rigid with shock, she took her time and shot them one by one.

There. Enough bullets after all.

The gun was warm but she tucked it in her jacket pocket and knelt over the priest.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said.