After (Book 3): Milepost 291 (10 page)

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

Rachel’s
head throbbed like drumbeats in the distant jungle of her mind.

She
opened her eyes to a gauzy and gray world that slowly came into focus. A sheet
was pulled up to her chin, and a blanket spread over her lower legs. She was
numb, unable to feel her limbs, and she wondered if she had died.

So
much for going toward the light.

Then
a hand squeezed hers, and she realized she was lying on her back. She tried to
clench her fingers in return, but she didn’t have enough strength. She sensed
movement around her, dim shapes circling like great, lumbering beasts. Every
few seconds, one of the shapes blocked the source of the light and threw her in
shadows again.

Her
skin was cool, although a little moist and clammy. The fever had broken.

My
leg…did someone say something about an infection…a knife?

Horror
sluiced through her as she recalled images of that guy—Campbell—helping her
across the meadow, followed by hordes of Zapheads. She vaguely remembered a
two-story farmhouse, which is where she must be now. The window allowed the
last of the evening light to suffuse the walls and reveal a deer-head trophy
with dark glass eyes that made her think of DeVontay.

“Welcome
back,” said a voice, from the man holding her hand.

She
blinked her watering eyes and squinted at his face. He looked different
somehow, and she wondered if the fever had affected her sight.

“How…”
she rasped, realizing her throat was parched and lips cracked. She shivered.
The room was chilly.

“Easy,”
Campbell said, releasing her hand. He put a glass to her lips and she sipped
at it. The water tasted metallic and stale, but she was thirsty enough to
relish it like wine. After several painful swallows, she closed her mouth.

“Where?”
she whispered.

Campbell
was also whispering, which was odd since the shapes
still orbited them. She was propped on a couch and could make out bookshelves,
an entertainment center, and some hulking pieces of rustic furniture. The room
smelled of old cobwebs and sweat, and she realized her own body reeked with
sour tension.

But
the sweet, rotted-meat smell that had clung to her for days was gone.

My
leg…did they really cut it off?

She
dug her left hand under the covers and along her body, which felt like an alien
landscape. Then she found her bare leg and realized someone had removed her
pants. She was relieved to discover she still wore underwear. Her fingers
continued their slow crawl downward until she reached the wound.

“I’m
one hell of a doctor,” Campbell said.

Several
voices pitched in by repeating “Doctor!” a few times before falling silent
again. Rachel realized the room was full of Zapheads.

Not
just the room—their slow movements continued outside it, a steady pacing like
pilgrims with no destination.

But
her dismay at their presence was muted by the shock of discovering her leg had healed.
The skin on her calf was flawless, with not even a scab or crease to mark what
had been a pustule-ridden volcano in her flesh.

“My
jeans,” she said.

“Don’t
worry, I didn’t look. Me and the professor have been tending you. And we had a
little…help.”

“How
long have I been out?” Rachel felt as if she’d drifted for days, and even with
modern health care she doubted the wound would have completely closed up in
less than a month.

“Since
noon.”

“
Today?
”

Campbell
exhaled a sigh. “Been a long day.”

The
blood now pulsed slowly through her body and feeling returned. She was amazed
to be pain free. Even her headache had vanished. Aside from a weakness that
enervated her into lethargy, she felt better than she had in weeks.

Since
Taylorsville, before we killed those Zapheads…

“Who
else is here?” she said, trying to lift her head but soon giving up.

Campbell
adjusted a musty throw pillow beneath her neck. She
could barely make out his face in the gloom of dusk. His face cheeks bore dark
stubble and he sported deep, violet half-moons of flesh beneath his eyes, but
he smiled at her. “You and me and the professor. And about fifty Zapheads.”

“Why
haven’t they killed us?”

“You’ll
have to ask them that. But do it quietly, or they’ll be yelling back at you for
hours.”

Rachel
was struck by an itching sensation where her infected gash had been. At first
she chalked it up to a sign of healing, but then the feeling expanded. The
flesh below her knee was trembling, almost like it was being massaged. By many
hands.

“You
had a knife,” she said, almost accusing him. “Where is it?”

“Shh,”
he said. “Keep your voice down or it will be like a monkey house asylum in
here. The knife is under the couch cushion. You’re lying on it.”

“You
were going to cut me.”

“No,
no…I mean, the professor…we were afraid the gangrene was going to reach your
heart. We…
he
…wanted to amputate.”

“Are
you fucking
crazy
?!?”

The
room erupted with gleeful shrieks that thundered in the rooms beyond and
reverberated on the floor above. “Fucking crazy! Fucking crazy! Fucking crazy!”

Rachel
cupped her hands over her ears, but it was like the words were echoing inside
the curved bone of her skull, over and over, becoming a nonsensical round of
random syllables.

“Shh,
shh,” Campbell hissed softly, stroking her hair. “It’s okay now.”

Even
after the Zapheads died down, still engaged in their ceaseless patrol, Rachel
heard the chorus in her head. Maybe the infection and fever had caused brain
damage.

But
brain-damaged people usually don’t contemplate brain damage
.
They think they’re normal.

“The
professor thinks they’re learning from us,” Campbell said. “Imitating us. You
didn’t meet him but he was with us back in Taylorsville. One of Arnoff’s gang.”

“Where
are the rest of them?”

Campbell
couldn’t meet her eyes. “They came here.”

“And
the Zapheads attacked them?”

“It’s
not like you think. The Zapheads have established this farmhouse as some kind
of home base. There are more of them every day. They’re gathering into a tribe
of sorts.”

It was
almost dark now and all she could see of Campbell was the glint of his eyes
behind his glasses. She couldn’t imagine spending the night in this house, not
surrounded by all these Zapheads with their sinister motion and sudden
outbursts. She was sure she’d go mad in her sleep, assuming she was even able
to close her eyes.

But
any nightmare would be more welcome than this disordered, topsy-turvy reality.

“How
long have you been here?” she asked.

“I’m
not sure. I lost track of the days. But I’d guess two or three weeks.”

“And
you didn’t run? Try to escape?”

He
shook his head, the movement barely visible. “No point. You saw how they herded
you. It’s their world now. We’re just…tolerated.”

“No,”
she said. “I’m still going to Milepost 291 and…” She gasped and struggled to
sit up, but exhaustion pressed down on her like a stack of sodden blankets.
“Stephen!”

“The
boy? When I didn’t see him with you, I assumed he’d—”

“He’s
out there somewhere, and I’ve got to find him.” Her eyes were hot with welling tears,
but she was unable to lift herself from the couch.

“Rachel?”

She
rubbed at her face. For a moment she wondered who Rachel was. The name was
familiar, but Before had been so very long ago.

Campbell
shook her gently by the shoulder until she turned to
him. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Your
eyes.”

“What
are you talking about?”

He
looked away. “Nothing. Better get some rest.”

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

They’d
marched maybe two miles, following the road that ran along the river.

The
men escorting DeVontay spoke little, and his attempts to figure out their
intentions were met with sullen smirks. DeVontay’s clothes had dried a little,
but the October air had turned brisk. Now, with night coming on, the
temperature veered toward freezing and the wind rattled the brittle leaves that
clung desperately to the swaying trees.

DeVontay
didn’t know the date—such measured slices of civilization now seemed as buried
in history as pharaohs and hourglasses—but Halloween was probably approaching.
And the whole world was dressed up as ghosts of the humans who had once ruled
this planet.

They’d
passed a number of houses along the way, some of them ransacked, others half
burned with only skeletal timbers remaining, but the two men had shown little
interesting in scavenging. Nor did they seem overly concerned about being
attacked, which led DeVontay to believe their group had established a cordon in
which they felt safe.

At
one point, the man in the orange cap waved at one of the houses, and a man with
a pair of binoculars strung around his neck leaned out of an upper window and
called, “You boys didn’t get zapped while you were out, did you?”

“I
hooked up with your old lady,” Orange Cap yelled back. “But it wasn’t much of a
zap.”

“If
you find her, you can have her. Last I saw, she was trying to mash me into the
ground. All two hundred and fifty pounds of her.”

“Jeez,
Larson, if you couldn’t outrun that, it’s a wonder you survived this long,”
said the man in the sunglasses behind DeVontay.

“A
minute at a time,” Larson responded. “Looks like you got us some fresh meat.”

“Speaking
of old ladies…don’t be getting any ideas.”

DeVontay
wasn’t sure what to make of the exchange, but he decided to keep his mouth
shut. They walked past the house and then turned up a narrow gravel driveway
that sloped up into the hills. DeVontay wondered how many other lookouts they’d
passed along the way that he hadn’t noticed.

The
driveway ran through a copse of pine trees that shielded most of the remaining
daylight, and then the road expanded into a great circle of bare dirt, with
tractors, rusty trucks on cinder blocks, and farm equipment stacked around in a
haphazard array. The perimeter was ringed with chain-link fence, coils of
rusted barb wire atop it.

Several
industrial outbuildings stood in the clearing, dim lights flickering behind
their glass windows. Flames from a series of torches bobbed and flapped on the
compound’s perimeter, spewing oily diesel smoke. The shadow of a man sitting on
a truck hood separated from the larger darkness and came toward them, carrying
an oil lantern whose light played across DeVontay’s feet.

Then
the radiance slashed into his face and burned there for a moment, blinding his
one good eye.

“Better
shape than the last one you brought in,” the man said. His voice was hoarse
with age, but he spoke with an air of command. “So you finally figured out it
was smarter to walk them in instead of breaking one of their legs first.”

“He
was in the river,” Orange Cap said. “On one of them little pointy boats.”

“A
kayak,” DeVontay said.

“Ooh,
we got us a smarty-pants here,” said the man with the lantern. He stepped close
enough that DeVontay could smell the booze and cigarette tar on his breath,
along with a sicker, sweeter aroma as if something was fermenting inside him.
“If you’re so smart, why were you out there all by your lonesome?”

“I
was with some friends but…” He didn’t want to give this yokel the satisfaction
of his pain. It wasn’t fair that Rachel and Stephen were dead and these assholes
were getting by, apparently adapting to After and even enjoying it.

The
man with the lantern gave a dismissive wave. “But they died. Big fucking deal.
Everybody dies. That’s what we do. The point is to make others die first.”

“Is
he a keeper?” said the man behind DeVontay, who was still wearing his
sunglasses despite the twilight gloom.

“We’ll
figure it out tomorrow. For now, put in him in the Block.”

“This
way,” grunted Orange Cap, motioning DeVontay toward a large Quonset hut with
curved metal sides. At least they weren’t jabbing him in the back with their
rifle barrels.

The
building’s wide doors were made of thick planks and reinforced with several
steel plates. Kerosene lanterns hung along the wall near the entrance, glumly
illuminating a midway. The floor was packed dirt and shredded straw, and the
distinct tang of old manure and fur hung heavy in the dusty air. Mixed with the
odor was a coppery stench that seemed embedded in the walls.

As
DeVontay’s vision adjusted, he could see that the midway was lined on both
sides with a series of wire-mesh enclosures featuring crude wooden frames. A
massive hook rigged to a pulley-and-chain system descended from the beams of
the roof, and DeVontay realized the place had once been a slaughterhouse.

At
least there’s no fresh blood on the ground.

As
the two men guided him deeper into the building, DeVontay forced away fantasies
of a redneck cannibal cult, gleefully cranking out their own down-home brand of
human sausage. Despite the collapse of the food distribution network, plenty of
canned goods remained, as well as the bounty of abandoned gardens and fruit
trees. Hell, there were enough Slim Jims in the world to keep them all going
another hundred years.

Low
voices trickled out from the darkness beyond the building’s entrance, and the
two men stopped at the edge of the kerosene lamp’s reach. DeVontay stopped with
them, straining to make out the words. Something bustled behind a sagging
stretch of wire, and then a milky face appeared. Before DeVontay could really make
sense of the shape, it was gone.

What
the hell?

“Go
on,” said Orange Cap.

DeVontay
didn’t budge. “Who is in there?”

“You’ll
find out.”

DeVontay
took one scuffing step forward, but the men stayed where they were, as if reluctant
to touch the darkness. Or allow
it
to touch
them
.

DeVontay
didn’t have much choice. Even if he somehow knocked over the two men and made
it outside the building—
a pen; it’s a PEN
—he was sure a dozen rifles
would be trained on him before he could escape the compound.

Besides,
whatever was back there couldn’t be much worse than the world beyond these
walls.

“Don’t
I get a lamp?” DeVontay asked.

“You
don’t need one,” said the man with the sunglasses. “Trust me. You don’t want to
see.”

He didn’t
want to smell, either, but he couldn’t escape it; despite the drafty tunnel of
the midway, the stink of death and disease crowded him, seeming to smother the
insides of his lungs like a corrupt coat of paint.

Then
another face pressed against the grid of thick wires, and another.

Small
faces.

Children.

“Hello?”
DeVontay said.

A
giggle leaked out from the darkness, followed by a scurrying like that of a
nest of oversize rats. DeVontay thought of the expression the lookout had used:
“Fresh meat.”

No.
It’s just some scared kids. At least their eyes aren’t glittering.

The
men had retreated to the entrance and one of the kerosene lamps was
extinguished, casting the cavernous space even deeper into darkness.

“Don’t
let the bed bugs bite,” said Orange Cap. “Or anything else.”

The
door banged shut behind him, and DeVontay was grateful for the one remaining
lamp, even though its glow was already diminishing.

“Who’s
there?” he asked.

Another
giggle. The rattle and clatter of something hard, dry, and brittle, like bone.

No,
like WOOD.

“I
won’t hurt you,” DeVontay said.

The
giggle rose by a notch into a gleeful cackle.

DeVontay
thought about retreating back toward the lamp and huddling there until it
sputtered away the last of its fuel. But if these men were holding others
captive, there were likely beds, or least blankets. But why would they cage up
a bunch of kids? Even in the best of times, kids were a burden, a drain on
resources and a constant annoyance. Heartless men like these would have more
readily killed the weakest instead of offering shelter, food, and compassion.

But
how heartless are YOU, DeVontay? If they’re kids, they probably need some
comfort and help.

DeVontay
thought of Rachel. She wouldn’t hesitate. Even if it cost her life, she would
offer everything she had to help the weak and innocent. “Hell with it,” he
wheezed under his breath.

“Okay,
guys,” he said, striding into the darkness toward the faces pressed against the
mesh. “My name’s DeVontay, and it looks like we’re all getting to camp out tonight.”

“DeVontay?”
came a small voice.

A
familiar voice.

“Stephen?”

One
of the little lesser shadows came out from the wire and sprinted toward him.
“DeVontay!”

DeVontay’s
heart soared despite the grim surroundings as he bent down and embraced the
boy. “Hey, Little Man, I never thought I’d see you again!”

“What,
did you your good eye get poked out, too?” the boy said.

DeVontay
rubbed the boy’s greasy, matted hair. “Where’s your Panthers cap?”

“Lost
it.”

“Where’s
Rachel?”

“Lost
her, too.”