Earth Zero: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 2) (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

“Two days late,” Franklin Wheeler said.

“You worry too much,” Stephen Henderson said, with his typical teenage insouciance.

They sat on the floor in a closet-sized room with blankets scattered around them. The cramped space had become their living quarters since the military takeover. Despite a ventilation system powered by a solar array, the room smelled of old socks and spoiled food.

“Our bunker’s been seized by the government, the Zaps have a bunch of flying metal birds dive-bombing any human in sight, the humans are outnumbered a hundred to one by the mutants, Rachel and DeVontay haven’t come back, and you tell me not to worry.” Franklin tugged at his wiry beard that sported the same white, gray, and black colors as an opossum’s fur.

As Rachel’s grandfather, he had a personal stake in their loss. Rachel and DeVontay created the center and foundation of this screwed-up, improvised family unit. If they never returned, Franklin would have to take charge, and he was way too selfish and reclusive at this stage of his life.

“They’ve been late before,” Marina Jiminez said. Although a year younger than Stephen at fourteen, she was calmer and more level-headed aside from her obsession with Kokona, the tiny mutant infant they’d raised for the past five years.

“Raised”? That’s a laugh. The little freak hasn’t grown an inch in that time.

“Yeah,” Franklin said. “Late a few hours. They never get back after sundown, and never two days after they said they’d be.”

“Do you think Captain Asshole will let us out to look for them?” Stephen said.

“I don’t know. He probably wouldn’t trust us with guns, and it would be suicide to go out there unarmed.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Stephen said. “If he wants to get rid of us, that would be the easiest way to do it. No bodies piled around rotting and stinking up the joint.”

“You can’t go out there,” Marina said. “You saw what those birds did to the soldiers. Not to mention the monsters and the Zaps.”

As Capt. Mark Antonelli’s unit approached the former military bunker they intended to reclaim, a flock of metallic birds had swooped from the sky like tiny projectile missiles, penetrating skull and flesh and slaughtering twenty-three people. Franklin and the others had witnessed the attack on video monitors inside the bunker. Franklin could’ve sat tight and let the unit be wiped out, but instead he’d opened the thick steel door and saved Antonelli and a dozen of his troops.

Franklin had been regretting that decision ever since: Antonelli immediately took control, accused Kokona of summoning the flock of birds, and placed her in solitary confinement in a rear room. Only Marina was allowed in to care for the Zap infant, whose startling intelligence kept her two moves ahead of anyone who tried to figure her out. Was she just an innocent child involuntary converted into a mutant, or did an endemic malevolence hide behind those madly sparking, slanted eyes?

Franklin had never trusted the little freak, but he didn’t like Capt. Antonelli deciding her fate. Kokona might be a ruthless, manipulating killer, but she was
their
killer.

Which made Rachel’s absence all the more terrible, since Rachel carried on an intermittent telepathic connection with Kokona. If anyone could tell how responsible Kokona was for the attack, it would be Rachel.

“The captain might let us go if we tell him it’s a rescue mission,” Franklin said. “Sure, we’re safe in here, but prison is safe, too. Worse comes to worse, we can go back to my compound and let these jarheads play hero all they want.”

“Sounds like you just want a revolution,” Stephen said. “As long as it’s not your neck under the guillotine.”

“You’ve been reading too many comic books, son.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m
living
in a comic book.”

“What happens to Kokona if we leave?” Marina said.

Not for the first time, Franklin wondered whose side Marina would choose if it came down to “us versus them.” He’d even wondered the same thing about Rachel. Maybe their prolonged exposure to Kokona had weakened them and allowed the tiny mutant to mess with their minds.

You gotta admit, staying eighteen months old for the rest of your life puts you in a pretty good position to manipulate folks, especially when you can talk and you’re cute as hell.

“Kokona can take care of herself,” Franklin said. “She’s done a pretty good job of it so far.”

“You’ve always hated her,” Marina said in a rare burst of emotion. “Just because you’re a thousand years old and think you know how everybody else is supposed to live. Only you call it ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ when you do it and ‘stupidity’ when it’s anybody else. Well, sorry, but you’re not God. You don’t get to decide who lives or dies.”

Stephen grinned at the girl, his affection clear in his gleaming eyes. Franklin figured if push came to shove, the boy would take her side.

D
a
mn if she’s not right. I’m the only one here who knows how to be free.

“Either way, I’m not sitting around waiting for the captain to decide my fate,” Franklin said. “And every minute we sit here is another minute Rachel might be in trouble.”

“They can take care of themselves,” Stephen said. “They’ve been making supply runs for years.”

“If they’re so good at it, why are you still eating MREs?” Franklin plucked a rumpled pouch from the floor and sniffed it. “Ugh. Anchovy paste.”

Stephen shrugged. “Guilty. So shoot me.”

“I hope you’re not planning on kissing anybody.” Franklin eyed Marina, who didn’t take the bait. He rose to his feet and tossed the empty food pouch at Stephen, who swatted it away. “I think I’m ready to make a stink of my own.”

Stephen opened his mouth like he was about to make a joke, then decided against it. In better times, the occupants of the bunker relieved themselves in the forest, but since the lockdown, they were resigned to the chemical toilets in a washroom near the mess hall. Despite the potent cleansers and deodorants, the low-level stench was slowly expanding along the bunker’s eighteen rooms. The population increase had strained all of their resources, especially filtered water.

While the bunker was designed to withstand aerial bombardment and provide some protection from radioactive fallout, as well as being shielded against damage from electromagnetic pulses such as the solar storms, Franklin felt more secure at his Wheelerville mountaintop compound. A survivalist long before the Y2K panic, he’d installed his own shielded equipment and raised livestock and organic produce. With plenty of wood for cooking and heating, and wild game when he wanted to hunt or fish, he thought of his camp as a vacation retreat that any civilized human would find desirable. The compound was even surrounded by a camouflaged and concealed fence, which came in handy once the wildlife began mutating into dangerous beasts.

He was nearly to the door when Stephen called, “Hold up, I’m coming, too.”

Franklin hid his smile, not wanting to further embitter Marina. He went into the narrow hall to grant the two teens privacy for whatever discussion they needed to have, but after only a few muffled words, Stephen joined him.

“So she’s okay with it?” Franklin said.

“Of course not. She’s a girl.”

Franklin saw no need to explain the delicate nature of relationships. Considering his four divorces, he doubted he had any wisdom to offer. It was impossible to navigate the complex situation, anyway, considering both teens had been orphaned. They’d been informally adopted by Rachel and DeVontay as youngsters, and now they were growing into young adults who would have to decide if they were brother and sister, romantic interests, or merely fellow survivors.

Nostalgia for the good old days was pretty much a waste of time, but Franklin couldn’t help but muse how much simpler romantic crushes were before the apocalypse.

The bunker was quiet in the early afternoon, with lunch finished and most of the soldiers retiring to their bunks or the rec room that was little more than a card table, ashtrays, and a stack of magazines. Because of the indoor pollution, cigarettes were rationed to two a day, but only a few of Antonelli’s crew smoked. Apparently the constant threat of death had made them more health-conscious.

Antonelli had taken the telecommunications room as his headquarters, and they found him there, sitting in a swivel chair and reading a battered paperback. Franklin recognized it as the copy of George Orwell’s
Animal Farm
that Stephen had borrowed from him and never returned. The captain flipped the book on the metal table next to the radio without marking his place.

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 tried 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.