After: Whiteout (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 4) (11 page)

“It
is the way of families. A time comes to leave one and…”

“And
there’s nothing after,” Rosa whispered, letting go of the window ledge and
falling. She didn’t consciously prepare to roll as she struck the concrete, but
she landed off-balance and one knee buckled, sending her into a tumble that
likely buffered the shock of impact. Her hip throbbed and one elbow was scraped
raw, but as she gathered herself, all her limbs seemed functional.

She
rose into a sprinter’s stance, the Zapheads on the street maybe fifty yards
away, walking toward her with a kind of mild curiosity. There were four of
them, aside from the boy. Three were women, ranging in age from a teenager to a
grandmotherly Asian who had to be at least ninety, although she moved with
almost as much energy as the others. Perhaps Zapheads were all the same age, in
the same way that dead people and unborn babies were the same age. Their count
of days had begun when the sun sickness changed them.

In
many ways, so had Rosa’s. Because this was a new life.

One
where she was still unwelcome, still an outsider, still an immigrant, but with
little hope of ever assimilating. Because Zapheads killed her kind instead of
deporting them.

The
far end of the street was blocked by several multi-car collisions. There were
gaps between the clusters of vehicles, but Rosa couldn’t be sure if Zapheads
lurked there in ambush. She no longer trusted any of her earlier impressions of
the mutants—they were far more cunning, adaptable, and powerful than she had
assumed. So she decided to do the unexpected.

She
exploded out of her crouch and dashed straight for the Zapheads, shouting and
waving her arms. They froze in place for a moment, their cries falling away. Rosa didn’t even know what words she yelled—they were a mixture of English and Spanish,
none of the phrases connected—but some of them came back to her. The Zapheads
waved their arms as well, but hopped up and down in place as she rushed toward
them.

When
she was twenty yards from them, close enough to see the evanescent glinting of
their eyes, she veered hard to the opposite sidewalk, where a line of cars
occupied parallel parking spaces. She passed the Zapheads and continued to the
end of the block, past the wrecked police car and tow truck in the town’s main
intersection. The golden arches of McDonald’s rose like a secular temple before
her, and she vowed to keep them in sight if possible.

The
buildings thinned, and she had her choice of narrow alleys, the picket-fenced
lawns of whitewashed Victorian houses, and patches of tamed forest. She slowed
and dared a last glance behind her. The two Zapheads shouted from the broken
window of the thrift shop, and Rosa prayed that Marina would be brave enough to
stay quiet. And hopefully not sneeze because of the dust.

Rosa
punched the air with a defiant fist and yelled, “
Pudrete
en el infierno
!”

She
didn’t know whether God sent Zapheads to hell, or if they would rot once they
got there, but the insult pushed a fresh surge of adrenaline through her
bloodstream. The Zapheads on the street moved toward her, although with the
same unhurried pace that suggested they had forever.

A
figure lurched from behind a van and said, “
Infierno! Infierno!
”

The
Zaphead was maybe fourteen, a waifish female with blonde hair clipped back in
looping, greasy strands. She was half a foot shorter than Rosa, and probably
weighed thirty pounds less, but her face bore a craggy intensity that
frightened Rosa even more than the adult Zapheads chasing her. She wore a black
T-shirt featuring a skull and the words “Grateful Dead,” and Rosa couldn’t
understand how any parent would allow a child to wear such a dark message. Not
that her parents had to worry about their child’s place in society any longer.

The
girl blocked her route, and Rosa couldn’t retreat toward the advancing mutants.
Rosa lowered her shoulder and lunged straight for the Zaphead, avoiding the
girl’s radiant gaze. The girl snarled just before impact, and her teeth slammed
together with an audible
clack
as Rosa plowed into her. The girl
collapsed, and Rosa managed to stay on her feet. But as Rosa recovered her
balance, the Zaphead wrapped her wiry fingers around Rosa’s ankle. Rosa kicked and tried to dance away, but only succeeded in dragging the girl several feet
along the abrasive surface of the asphalt.

Her
other hand clamped on the legs of Rosa’s pants, dragging herself halfway up
while tilting Rosa toward the ground. Their faces were barely a foot apart, and
the girl’s rancid breath rose like a graveyard wind. For all the Zapheads’
apparent hardiness, this one smelled like she was decomposing inside.

“
Pudrete
en el infierno
,” the girl grunted, and Rosa could have sworn those thin
lips peeled back in a grin.

Rosa
balled the fingers of her right hand into a fist and
raised it high. But she hesitated. This had been some mother’s daughter, a girl
who had probably worried about homework and boys and the proper brand of cell
phone. All-American fears. She hadn’t asked for her mutation, just as Rosa hadn’t asked to be left alive in a world where hell walked.

Rosa
looked into the girl’s eyes, hoping to see any sign
of humanity. The eyes were alive, certainly, even aside from the winking and
glittering of tiny golden lights. But any emotions in them were alien. The girl
could perfectly mimic Rosa’s words and accent, but none of the hatred and fear.

“
Infierno,
infierno
,” the other Zapheads called, now breaking into a brisk walk. The
two Zapheads in the window were gone, and Rosa hoped her ploy had succeeded.
But she couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

She
drove her fist into the girl’s face, splitting the pale skin along her cheek.
Blood oozed out and a red splotch spread around the point of injury. But the
girl’s eyes registered no pain or surprise, just that cold, analytic gaze made
all the more terrible by the flickering of tiny sparks.

And
still the Zaphead clung to her legs. Rosa punched again, her knuckles
throbbing, and the girl fell away. The pack of Zapheads was nearly on her now.
She kicked free of the girl’s grip and fled down the street.

Coming
toward her was another Zaphead, an older man dragging the body of the second
soldier, their trail marked by an uneven ribbon of blood.

Rosa
screamed despite herself, a sound instantly echoed at
ear-piercing levels. She changed course and dashed toward the McDonald’s
restaurant, thinking she could hole up in the walk-in freezer. She wasn’t sure
she would be able to lock it from inside, but with the Zapheads closing in, she
couldn’t gamble on escaping into a different building. At least this way she
wouldn’t be too far from Marina.

But
as she opened the door, she knew the restaurant wouldn’t be safe. Sitting at
the tables, propped up with moldering servings of food before them, were the
corpses of maybe a hundred people, more than could have possibly been eating
there when the solar storms hit. Rosa would have vomited if she had eaten
anything that day, and the smell was enough to make her woozy.

Again
she made a plea to God, for mercy on the souls of these desecrated people, but
she couldn’t help thinking of the human mannequin in the thrift store and how
it had been arranged like a doll.

Imitation
life.

The
Zapheads were learning how to be human, even if they couldn’t understand what
it meant to be alive. They were “new people.” They killed because death was
ordinary. They died because life was senseless.

This
was the world that Marina would inherit.

For
the first time, Rosa hoped Marina would die quickly, quietly, and in a place where
no Zaphead would ever discover her corpse.

She
covered her nose with one hand and staggered around the stainless steel
counter, where several hamburgers and congealed fingers of French fries sat on
plastic trays, left by customers whose appetites were erased in a searing
eruption of the sun.

Rosa
now had a new plan.

Instead
of leading the Zapheads away from the thrift store, Rosa would kill as many of
them as she could.

Or
fight her way back to Marina and close her daughter’s eyes to this horrible world
forever.

Either
way, Rosa would need a knife.

CHAPTER
TEN

Rosa
ended up skipping the knife.

The
manager’s office was open, a man slumped facedown over the desk. The back of
his skull was blown open, bits of hair and dried flesh pocking the papers that
were pinned to a bulletin board behind him. The wound was old, with greenish
rot around the edges. A circle of dried blood the color of rust spread out from
his face, the tip of his necktie curled and stiff beside one ear. But Rosa was nearly immune to the tragedy of a man driven to suicide by the actions of the sun.

She
was more interested in the revolver still gripped in the shrunken talon of his
right hand.

Rosa
twisted the fingers off the barrel, the index finger
making an audible
pop
as she peeled it away. The stench of decay was
somewhat mitigated by the rotting food in the kitchen. The cloying aroma of old
grease even helped mask some of the more offensive smells. Several young
employees were scattered along the tiles in various stages of decomposition,
one of them with her head submerged in the congealed oil of a deep fryer.

On
the Wilcox farm where Jorge served as a migrant laborer, guns were part of the
culture. Predators like coyotes and bobcats were a constant threat to the livestock,
and hunters sought wild turkey, deer, and rabbits in the wild. Jorge had given Rosa basic instruction in gun safety, and she suspected Jorge wanted her to be able to
defend herself against the other laborers, who were known for alcoholism and
brutality. They had never owned a gun, but she was comfortable enough with them
to check the chamber. Five bullets remained. The man must have had a low
opinion of his marksmanship, or perhaps his nerve.

The
gun was single action, so she cocked the hammer and carried it back through the
seating area of the restaurant. The silence of the corpses at the tables was so
maddening she fought an urge to let fly with the bullets. If not for Marina, she might have followed the manager’s example, although she would have sought a
more pleasant location to meet the end. As she exited to the parking lot, she
wondered if firing the gun would inspire the Zapheads to use the rifles they
had collected.

And
the math didn’t work out. There were at least eight Zapheads in Siler Creek,
not counting Joey.

She’d
have to blast her way back to the thrift store and Marina. But as she turned
the corner, her plans changed yet again.

Because
the Zapheads were gathered in the intersection, waiting for her.

The
little boy in underwear was in front, with several others clustered around him.
Behind them was Cathy, holding Joey, who clapped his hands in delight as if a
birthday party was starting.

The
Zaphead with the reattached hand stood beside Cathy, as well as the teenager Rosa had punched in the face. Two of them held rifles, although they carried them like
walking sticks, their stocks dragging the ground. Then one of them stepped
forward, and Rosa’s heart did a flip and landed on a jagged stack of ribs.

Marina
.

Her
daughter was among them, penned in and frightened.

Rosa
raised the revolver, her hand shaking. But she didn’t
know which one to shoot. And she couldn’t trust her aim at this distance, not
when she felt like she was riding a tilt-a-whirl at some crazy carnival.

“No
kill,” Joey said.

“Marina?” Rosa called.

Her
daughter looked unharmed, although she was unnaturally pale, as if she were
slipping into shock. Rosa could only imagine the terror the girl must have felt
when the Zapheads discovered her and Rosa was nowhere around. She thought about
aiming the weapon at her daughter and firing and cocking until the chamber was
empty, but murdering out of love had been a stupid plan all along.

Because
she would never be able to harm her precious daughter.

Once
again she was trapped in the middle.

The
Zapheads shuffled forward a few steps, as if waiting for Rosa’s reaction. “No
kill,” Joey repeated.

Rosa
glanced behind her, wondering how many other mutants
were slinking through the ruins of the town. “What do you want?”

Cathy
gently rocked her strange baby and said, “We’re all supposed to go together.”

“But
they’re not us,” Rosa said.

The
Zapheads erupted in a cacophonic echo. “
Not us, not us, not us
.”

“New
people!” Joey squealed.

“Just
let me and my daughter go, and we won’t hurt you.” Rosa couldn’t believe she
was negotiating with an infant, and her threat sounded silly even to her own
ears. She couldn’t hurt the Zapheads. Even if she shot their heads off, they’d
just plop them back in place, apply a little kissy boo boo, and be good as new.