After (Book 3): Milepost 291 Read online

  When massive solar flares wipe out the technological infrastructure and kills billions, Rachel Wheeler sets out across the Appalachian Mountain wilderness in search of her notorious grandfather’s survival compound.

  AFTER #3:

  MILEPOST 291

  By Scott Nicholson

  Published by Haunted Computer Books

  Scott’s Tao of Boo newsletter

  Copyright ©2014 Scott Nicholson

  CHAPTER ONE

  The end of the world had taught Rachel Wheeler many lessons, but the most recent one was this:

  Running for your life was a bitch when you only had one leg.

  She tightened the moist, stained bandana that kept the worst of the leaking to a minimum, then hobbled forward another ten feet. The wild dog that had bitten her could have inflicted any number of infections, but it wasn’t like she could hobble into the ER and have modern medicine deal with it. In After, there were no insurance plans.

  She leaned against a tree, its rough bark rubbing her spine as she sneaked a look down the forested slope. The Blue Ridge Mountains were sheathed in October’s mellow gold, but the leaves were steadily raining down in the breeze as the forest braced for winter’s sleep.

  She couldn’t see them, but she could hear them. Their footfalls were heavy in the crisp leaves, as if the Zapheads had no awareness of the noise they were making. Stephen was higher up the ridge, making better time than she was, but the boy had stopped to wait for her.

  Little dude better start listening if he wants to make it out of this alive.

  But she could understand his hesitation. Without her, he’d be all alone, lost in the woods with no food, no destination, and no way to fend off the Zaps. They’d made it two weeks since the gas-station explosion, hoping DeVontay Jones would catch up to them. But now Stephen believed he was dead, and Rachel’s little motivational speeches were becoming more hollow and halfhearted by the hour.

  Not that it would be a problem for much longer, because this was looking like her final hour.

  They’d not seen a Zaphead for two days, ever since leaving the highway and taking the Old Turnpike Road, a winding dotted line on the map that promised few houses and even fewer murderous mutants. The bite wound on Rachel’s left calf had gotten steadily worse, passing from mere red irritation to a festering purple mess. The stuff coming out of it now was more pus than blood, and although she’d packed it with antibiotic ointment she’d found in an abandoned farmhouse, the infection had now caused a mild fever.

  And a fiery volcano of agony with each step.

  She’d lost the pistol DeVontay had given her, but she’d found another in the house they’d slept in two nights before. It was heavy and shiny and had probably never been fired. The bullets in the revolver’s chamber were fatter than what she was used to, so she assumed it would pack a hefty kick. But she hadn’t had a chance for target practice.

  Until now.

  She fished it from her pack and leaned more heavily against the tree, taking some of the weight off her injured leg. If she fired the gun, Zapheads would come from miles around. The weapon was a last resort. Five down, and the last bullet for herself.

  No. She’d never kill herself. She’d already faced that demon. And she’d promised to live for Chelsea, the younger sister she’d lost to drowning. Stephen was counting on her, too.

  And DeVontay’s out there somewhere…

  “Rachel!” came an insistent whisper.

  She squinted through the trees above for Stephen. Finally she spotted him in a golden copse of poplar saplings, his brown jacket blending in with the fall foliage. “I told you to keep moving.”

  “I got scared.”

  “Grandpa Wheeler’s camp can’t be too far. Find the parkway and walk until you see Milepost 291.”

  He scanned the woods below, his face pale. “What if they’re on the parkway?”

  He meant the Zapheads. They didn’t talk of them much, Rachel reinforcing the idyllic life they’d have once they reached the Wheeler Compound, and Stephen only too eager to buy into the fantasy after the horrible death of his mother.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “I’m coming.”

  She gave one last glance down the slope. Branches moved, and then a figure shambled out into the open. It was partially nude, long hair and grime rendering it sexless. It didn’t seem to be moving toward them, but that didn’t mean anything. Zapheads had senses that operated beyond the human plane, like a cat’s range of night vision or a dog’s sense of smell. Rachel had wondered if Zapheads were telepathic, but she’d been too frightened to test the theory. But she was positive they were changing—becoming something different with each passing day.

  She slipped her revolver back into the pack, not letting Stephen see it. She left the pack open in case she needed to retrieve the weapon quickly. The Zaphead was at least a hundred yards away, already lost among the thick gray trunks of poplar and birch, as she took a step and grimaced at the pain. Her lips twitched upward into a faint smile so that Stephen wouldn’t worry.

  “Coming,” she repeated.

  Stephen turned back uphill and started walking. His green backpack was perched high on his shoulders, the weight adjusted for balance. The boy had toughened up considerably since his first days with Rachel. Of course, DeVontay deserved a great deal of the credit for that, but she was proud nonetheless. These days, you counted whatever small victories you could.

  Rachel kept moving, only limping when Stephen wasn’t looking, and soon they moved among large gray boulders pocked with moss. There were fewer trees here, the rocky soil making a graveyard of the ridge line. Juice leaked from Rachel’s wound and dripped down her leg, soaking her wool sock. She could smell it—a rancid, sweet stench that both sickened and scared her.

  They didn’t talk, Stephen keeping a brisk pace and not letting her lag too far behind. His backpack bobbed as he marched onward, and he didn’t slow until the ridge leveled off. A second wave of mountains rose beyond them to the northwest, grayer from lack of leaves, the evening’s shadow already passing across their faces.

  A few tin roofs were visible among the trees of the surrounding hillsides, and the little town of Black Rock lay fifteen miles off their path. There, she would be able to find antibiotics and proper dressing for her wounds, but she didn’t want to detour that far from the direct path to Milepost 291.

  “Can we stop a sec?” Rachel asked with a gasp, unable to fully hide the whine in her voice. She realized she’d subconsciously passed the baton of leadership to Stephen. Considering he was only ten, that was a little pathetic.

  Stephen studied her and nodded. She bit back a groan as she sat on a rock and straightened her injured leg.

  “What do we do when it gets dark?” he asked.

  “We can crawl into some of these big rocks, like over there where there’s a cleft.”

  “It’ll be cold.”

  The sun gilded the clouds and poured red lava over the tops of the mountains as it set in the west. This was all the sun’s fault in the first place—starting with its heating of the primordial soup, sparking the bacterial activity that led to evolution, and then capping off the job by spitting its toxic solar flares across the sky. Those rays had sent their electromagnetic currents into the brains of living creatures, disrupting the wiring and killing billions. Those deaths had been merciful compared to what had happened to the Zapheads, but the few survivors had it even worse—vastly outnumbered, their world shattered, and their future offering little hope.

  “Maybe cold isn’t so bad,” she said.

  At least half an hour of daylight remained, but Rachel needed to take the weight off her leg. She stooped and picked up a fallen limb, testing its str
ength. It bent under her weight but didn’t snap. The makeshift crutch could stand to be a little shorter, but if she broke it, the noise might alert the Zapheads that shambled through the forest. So she tucked the thicker end inside her elbow and angled it against her shoulder and spider-walked forward.

  The granite shelves were gray-rimmed and smooth, caught in the epochal upheaval and slide of geology. Seeing the massive rocks as grit in the hourglass of time, Rachel understood how foolish her perception of Before had been: a world where school counselors could quietly make a difference in the life of a child, where the stock market always rose, where civilization marched inexorably toward enlightenment and peace. The turbulent physics of the universe put that deception to rest in a flash.

  “How’s DeVontay going to find us?” Stephen asked. “We’re way far off the map.”

  “He’s smart. He’ll figure it out.”

  “Maybe we should have left him a trail of breadcrumbs, like in ‘Hansel and Gretel.’”

  “What if Zapheads like bread?”

  “They’re probably too dumb to walk in a straight line. You saw how they burned themselves to death at that gas station.”

  Those images had seared themselves into Rachel’s brain forever. After one had touched the flames, the others followed, eventually immolating themselves in a massive bonfire of human barbecue. The oily stench still clung to the lining of Rachel’s nasal passages. They said scent was the most evocative of the senses, and Rachel wished she could flush that memory out in a trail of snot and disgust.

  “They’re like children,” Rachel said. “Monkey see, monkey do.”

  “Maybe we can teach them to not kill us.”

  Rachel wanted to lay some counselor hoodoo on him, bullshit phrases like “Celebrate diversity” and “Live and let live,” but she was too tired. “That might be a big job. The best thing we can do is get to Milepost 291. Grandpa will know how to deal with it, and there may be other people there. And DeVontay knows we’re heading that way.”

  Ahead of them, so large that it created a clearing, was a massive protrusion of stone, rising like a temple. The sun spilled across the top of it, where scrub vegetation and lichen clung in patches. A black shadow beneath it suggested an opening that might be deep enough to shelter them for the night.

  “Let’s try that,” she said, pointing at the cleft with her crutch.

  “Looks spooky,” Stephen said. “Why don’t we look for a house?”

  “We’re about to hit the national park. There won’t be any houses, but we might get lucky and run into a ranger station or camp site.”

  “Unless Zapheads are there, and then it won’t be so lucky.”

  A covey of birds erupted from the nearby treetops, chirping and squawking. As they fell into a pattern and headed east, their cries were mimicked from the forest floor.

  The Zapheads are doing birdcalls.

  The sounds were far enough away to not signal an immediate threat, but they were chilling nonetheless. Rachel wondered if the birds were in seasonal migration, or if the electromagnetic storms had disrupted whatever directional sense drove them to warmer climates each winter.

  “That’s creepy,” Stephen said as the birds faded into the dusk and the Zapheads fell silent again.

  “At least we know where they are,” she said.

  Stephen slowed as they ascended the hill to the cave, letting Rachel pass him. The bite wound was leaking more heavily, and the fluid had turned darker. Maybe they should have risked Black Rock after all. She could have found a pharmacy and maybe some other survivors. But after their encounter with the rogue soldiers in Taylorsville, Rachel wasn’t optimistic about the odds of a warm welcome. Those who’d assumed an idyllic utopia of peaceful co-existence as the fate of the human race now had evidence of that big fat lie.

  “Think of it as camping out,” Rachel said. “Lots of families come to the mountains to get a taste of the great outdoors.”

  “But we’re not a family.”

  Rachel thought they were much tighter than a family—they were fellow survivors. “We’re just happy campers. How’s that?”

  He tried a smile that wasn’t very happy. “I guess so.”

  Because of the weight, they hadn’t carried any bedding aside from thin blankets wadded into their packs, along with a few cans of food, energy bars, bottled water, a few hand tools, and a first-aid kit. Stephen had ditched the comic books for Lemony Snicket, and Rachel had helped him with some of the longer words. It was the closest she could get to her old life as a school counselor, although she’d had plenty of chances to serve as doomsday psychoanalyst.

  Close to the cave, the moist, cool air struck them. It smelled of ancient forest dirt. Rachel wondered if they would actually get any sleep. They’d have to huddle together for warmth, and Rachel would drowse restlessly because of the Zapheads in the forest. But first they would eat their cold rations and she’d tackle the soggy dressings on her leg.

  Can’t wait to sit down for a while. This pretending to be brave and strong is getting old.

  The cave was only about ten feet deep, the rock sloping back to create a wedge of dark space. A couple of boulders created a sense of fortifications at the opening. “Home sweet home,” Rachel said, shucking her backpack and leaning against one of the boulders.

  “We’ve got enough light to read,” Stephen said.

  “But no glow sticks, ‘kay? Once it’s dark, no sneaking.”

  Stephen groaned a little. They’d found a box of toy glow sticks in a convenience store, although Rachel insisted they save them for emergencies only. She hated to take away his one escape from the bleak reality of After, but she didn’t want any wandering Zapheads to see the stray light. Stephen took off his backpack and knelt in the dirt to open it.

  “What’s on the menu?” Rachel said, unwrapping her bandage and letting the blood flow to the wound. The slit she’d cut in her jeans allowed her to see the damaged flesh. It looked green around the scalloped edges, and she wondered again if the dog might have been carrying some new sort of disease. After all, if the solar storms had altered many forms of life, why wouldn’t they mutate bacteria?

  Zombie herpes. Just my luck.

  She didn’t want to dwell on it. The Zapheads were bad enough, but at least they were large enough to detect and avoid. All things considered, it could be worse. And she didn’t want to dwell on that, either.

  “What’s for dinner?” she asked Stephen, who was rummaging in his pack.

  “Clif bars. You want chocolate chip or vanilla yogurt?”

  “Two wonderful flavors of hippie goodness.” She heard the crackle of wrappers and figured Stephen had made the decision for her.

  “What’s that?” Stephen said.

  “What’s what?”

  The crackling grew more vigorous. Stephen looked over at the boulder across from Rachel. A large gray-speckled shape was coiled on the stone, its blunt, diamond-shaped head tucked against its body, tail lifted and quivering in the air.

  Rattler.

  “Snake!” Stephen shrieked, flinging the snack food away and nearly tripping over his backpack as he fled past Rachel. She reached out to grab him but nearly fell herself as pain flared up her leg.

  “Snake!” Stephen shouted again, and the word was echoed in the distance as Zapheads heard the boy’s panic.

  The snake was probably out of striking distance, but Rachel was in no shape to flee or dodge if it rose to bite her. She grabbed her makeshift crutch and swung it like a baseball bat, nearly losing her balance. The wood connected with the snake’s body and knocked it into the dark crevices of the cave. She didn’t know whether she’d killed it, but she wasn’t going to risk recovering Stephen’s pack.

  She called after him but he kept running and was quickly swallowed by the trees. He shouted “Snaaaake!” as he ran.

  Without stopping to wrap her wound, she grabbed her pack and limped after him. The sun was dying beyond the hills and would soon leave the world in darknes
s. And she wasn’t sure Zapheads ever slept.

  And she also discovered a new phobia of her own: Zapheads across the forest repeating “Snake! Snake! Snaaaake!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jorge wasn’t sure what time it was, and therefore couldn’t tell how many days he’d been imprisoned in the cell with Franklin Wheeler.

  The military bunker’s strands of weak lights burned constantly, supporting Franklin’s belief that they were wired to solar panels. Once they’d heard a gas-powered generator humming, and the bunker had reeked of exhaust, a reprieve from the stench of the metal bucket they were forced to use as a latrine. While Franklin sprawled on the bottom bunk, Jorge paced, worrying over his wife and daughter.

  “Better get some rest,” Franklin mumbled without opening his eyes. “They’re going to have to let us out of here sooner or later.”

  “I need to find my family.”

  “Rosa is a strong woman. She’ll be all right.”

  Jorge couldn’t tell if the elderly man was just trying to comfort him. Rosa had worked hard at Franklin’s survivalist compound, digging in the garden and tending the goats. Even little Marina had helped. But after Jorge had rescued a young mother, Cathy, and her Zaphead baby, Franklin had become paranoid and aloof, seeing the infant as a threat. Jorge wondered if Franklin was right—that the Zapheads somehow sensed the baby’s presence and attacked the compound.

  The problem with that theory was there had been no sign of a struggle. Jorge and Franklin had been away on a scouting mission and had returned to find the compound empty. They were attempting to track the others when the sadistic Sarge and his troops surrounded and captured the two of them, and they’d been confined in this cramped, dim cell ever since. Two weeks of stale air, military meals from cans and pouches, and taunting soldiers who issued veiled threats.

  “If they’re out there, these Glory Boys will probably find them,” Franklin said. He sat up and removed one of his filthy socks to rub the sole of his foot.

  “That’s what I am afraid of. These men are animals.”