CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At first glance, the ranch house appeared to be abandoned.
Rachel parted the waxy leaves of the rhododendron that bordered one edge of the yard. The windows were dark, although the glimmer of the distant bonfire reflected in the windows. Campbell’s act of arson had spread, rimming the twilight sky in the east with an angry red-orange. Flames leaped and flickered above the treetops, casting striations of light across the land. The air stank of smoke, and breathing was difficult, but Rachel couldn’t help thinking of all the cremated corpses whose fine ash now floated into her lungs.
“Dang, Campbell,” Pete said, crouched behind her on the property adjoining the ranch house’s yard. “That’s some bonfire you built. You’re doing your part to wipe the slate clean, huh?”
“Maybe these guys have already left,” he said.
“No,” Rachel said. “I don’t think they’re all that interested in survival. They’re more interested in the war.”
“The war against who?” Campbell said. “I think we’ve all pretty much lost this one.”
“You don’t understand soldiers. Better to go out in a blaze of glory than get your butt kicked.”
Stephen squeezed her hand, the little guy curled into a ball beneath the foliage of the shrubbery. “Don’t go in there.”
“I can’t leave without DeVontay. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, these guys will take you to your dad. Right?”
“Uh…sure,” Pete said. “We’re headed that way anyway.”
“Okay, then.” Rachel said. “I’ll start the fire on the end near the garage. That will give everybody a chance to escape before it gets out of hand.”
“Got any accelerant?” Campbell asked.
“I saw a charcoal grill in the back yard before it got dark. There was a can of starter fluid beside it.”
“Another weenie roast,” Stephen said.
Rachel chuckled, although the sound of reassurance was more like choking on a chicken bone. “Need some paper, though.”
After a moment, one in which something large popped and exploded inside the distant conflagration with the whoosh of an airliner at liftoff, Pete said, “Damn it. Well, so much for the investment potential.” He unzipped his bag and shoved a stack of comics in her hand. “Bye, Spidey. It’s been real.”
“It’s for a good cause,” Campbell said.
“Sacrifice is for suckers,” Pete said, “but this better get me some serious brownie points in heaven.”
“I’ll put in a good word,” Rachel said, hoping she didn’t sound too sanctimonious. She’d been praying fervently in the past hour but had kept it to herself.
Well, yourself and God. Because you’re not in this thing alone.
She checked to make sure her lighter was still in her pocket, then tensed to push her way through the rhododendron. “I’m going with you,” Campbell said.
“We’re more likely to be spotted that way,” she said. “Besides, you need to look after Stephen.”
She felt a strong hand gripping her forearm. She turned and saw wildfire rippling in Campbell’s eyeglasses, and behind that, his gleaming, earnest eyes. “If you go in there, I have to go with you,” he said.
Anger burned inside her, as hot as any fire. “This isn’t the time for some stupid post-apocalypse man-code. In case you haven’t noticed, the codes are pretty much erased. So don’t pull your macho bullshit, because I’ve made it this far without you.”
Stephen drew in a shuddering gasp, and Rachel immediately regretted her outburst. She stroked Stephen’s hair and whispered. “It’s okay, honey. I’ll get DeVontay and be right back. I promise.”
Pete let out a snort of disbelief but Campbell stayed silent. Rachel clutched the small stack of comic books in one hand, her pruning shear held in the other. The ludicrous nature of her position struck her. If she’d seen somebody outfitted like this in a viral YouTube video, she’d have dubbed the viral star a demented supergeek, doomed to a life of cat memes and celibacy.
Just call me Joan of Arc. Hopefully, without the “burned at the stake” part.
A shiver of stray light, perhaps made by a flashlight beam, tracked across the inside of the ranch house. At the same time, a gust of wind pushed the distant fire into a swollen mass of heat, illuminating twisted columns of smoke that boiled up into the heavens.
Rachel thought she heard someone’s voice through the shattered picture window. The corpse had been removed from the sill, although a dark heap lay in the shadows of the flowerbed near the edge of the porch.
“Okay, wish me luck,” Rachel said, bracing to sprint along the perimeter of the lawn. Given the darkness, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be spotted, but she didn’t trust Captain America’s little A-Team. They might just be a little trigger-happy now that one of their number had been killed by the Zapheads.
“You don’t need luck,” Pete said. “You need a shot of booze.”
“Good luck,” Campbell said, giving her arm a squeeze of encouragement. “If anything happens, we’ll create a distraction so you can escape.”
“Mancode?” she asked.
“Nah,” he replied. “Just good, old-fashioned outsmarting-the-bad-guys strategy.”
“Wait,” Stephen said. “I thought those…Z things, the Zapheads…were the bad guys.”
“And your job is to take care of Miss Molly,” Rachel said to him. “Okay, I’ll meet you back here with DeVontay, if everything goes according to plan.”
“Nothing ever goes according to plan,” Campbell said. “Or this wouldn’t be After.”
“Yeah,” she muttered under her breath, and then she launched herself from the shrubs and ran, crouching and keeping an eye on the house, her broken pruning shears held before her like a jousting lance.
The strange glow on the horizon swelled into a perpetual sunset, and Rachel was afraid she was too exposed to make it to the end of the house without being seen. However, she quickly cut across the yard and soon dropped to her knees at the end of the house from which she’d escaped. Above her was the black rectangle of the access from which she’d made her escape—the lack of windows on this side of the house gave her confidence.
The charcoal grill smelled of old grease and soot, with ashes piled around its rusted legs. But the can of starter fluid was nearly full, and she sprayed it against the wooden siding, the heavy petroleum scent pushing the scorched aroma from her nostrils. After soaking the wood, she leaned her weapon against the house and fumbled the lighter from her pocket.
In the distance, she heard more pops and crackles of the approaching conflagration, and again, she wondered why The Captain hadn’t moved his unit from the area. And, she wondered if DeVontay was still inside.
He will be.
Because you NEED him to be.
And she wondered how much of her need was fueled by guilt over Chelsea. She wasn’t sure of her motivations, but it was easier to believe she was noble and righteous. But Pete’s words came back to her: “Sacrifice is for suckers.”
She wasn’t losing. Not this time.
Rachel sparked the lighter to life and flapped open one of the comic books, fanning the pages. She touched the fire to one corner and a finger of flame crawled up the edge of the paper, the ink giving off lurid colors. She pushed the torch over to the moistened boards and the fire took an enthusiastic drink of the fuel and leaped across the siding.
Rachel was so transfixed by the mesmerizing flame and the way it seemed to hover just over the fuel that she briefly forgot her surroundings. Suddenly, she heard a shout from the street and instantly ducked behind the old charcoal grill, hoping its bulk would conceal her.
Is that Stephen and the guys? What would they be doing in the street?
Then came the pak pak pak of semiautomatic gunfire. A bullet skinned off the wooden siding ten feet above her head. But she didn’t think she was the target.
She lifted her head just enough to see the silhouette of a human figure running down the
street. The hail of bullets peppered the trees as the figure vanished between two cars parked in a driveway. She wasn’t sure whether it had been a Zaphead or someone running from the shooters, but cracked laughter came from the unseen end of the street.
“Goddamn, did you see that sonofabitch runnin’ like it had ants crawling up its zap-hole?” yelled a man with a rural accent.
“Save your ammo, Donnie,” said another voice, lower, calmer, and more authoritative.
It didn’t sound like The Captain, although the arrogant tone of command was similar. By now, the flames had licked along the end of the house, spreading beyond the petroleum-soaked blotch. A thin ribbon of smoke wended into the sky to merge with the gauze of haze overhead.
Rachel crawled around the corner of the house, slapping her pruning shears ahead of her. The screen door hung open, sagging a little on its hinges. Even though she might be visible from the street, she wondered whether she should sneak in the broken window. Depending upon how many of The Captain’s goons were on duty, she doubted she could fight her way to the back room where she’d been held captive with DeVontay.
She decided it might be better to wait until the fire penetrated the house and forced them to flee. They’d likely not waste the time freeing DeVontay.
Assuming he’s even alive.
Well, she could either dwell on the reality of her situation or fall back on her faith. Her faith was always there, wrapping her in its saccharine web, protecting her and restraining her. Jesus, in His darkest hour on the cross, asked why God had forsaken Him, and God didn’t answer. She didn’t expect an answer now, either.
She had nearly decided the house was indeed unoccupied and was about to sneak to the back door when a muffled explosion roared from the open window. Someone was firing a gun from inside the house.
Shouts—human shouts—in the street were followed by return gunfire.
Oh my Lord, they’re shooting at each other. The last living humans are trying to kill each other.
Perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised. After all, killing was what humans did.
The fire licked up the side of the wall, reaching the eaves and the roof shingles. Black smoke boiled into the sky as wood cracked and popped from the heat. The back door burst open and Captain America ran out, his face sweating and shiny in the reddish glow of the fire-lit night. Two soldiers followed on his heels, all three running for the rear of the property. Rachel was relieved to see they were heading away from where Stephen, Pete, and Campbell were hiding. Another soldier, this one the woman who had fought off the Zaphead in the street, hobbled out of the house and ran after them in the dark.
“Bruenig,” she called. “Johnson. Navarro. Wait up.”
She’d barely reached the back hedge when her shoulder erupted in a spout of dark fluid. The gunshot sounded a split-second later, still reverberated between the houses as she sprawled on the scruffy lawn, moaning and leaking.
“Damn,” Campbell called from the concealment of the rhododendron. Then, louder, he shouted, “Arnoff! Hold your fire!”
Rachel realized the group firing on the soldiers must have been Campbell’s and Pete’s traveling companions. She kept low and scrambled toward the back door. Before, there had been more soldiers, but perhaps The Captain had sent them on reconnaissance, or maybe they’d been killed by Zapheads.
Or maybe they were stacked inside the house, executed by their crazy commander, victims of bunker fever.
She didn’t have time to waste. “I’m going in,” she called over to Campbell, and then she burst through the back door, her pruning shears held at the ready. The interior of the house was murky, the smoke hanging thin and stale, and the faintest light oozing through the windows.
“DeVontay!” she called, keeping low and heading for the hallway, banging her shin against a piece of furniture in the dark. Around her, the shell of the house whispered and hissed with the spreading flames. She didn’t have much time.
The hallway was almost completely black, but Rachel recalled the straight shot to the back bedroom where she and DeVontay had been held captive. She slammed her shoulder against the closed door, and then twisted the knob, wishing she’d thought to bring a flashlight.
She sensed movement in the room, so perhaps they hadn’t bound DeVontay to the bed again. That was good, because she needed every second. Fire crawled over the roof, consuming the asphalt shingles with a greasy roar of pure joy.
Rachel shouted his name again, competing with the hunger of the fire. The flames had reached the windows and backlit the house, sending shimmering bands of deep red behind her. A shape hung before her, a black, man-shaped shadow against the glow.
“DeVontay, come on,” she screamed, rushing forward and reaching for him.
The hand snatched her wrist and yanked her forward, the stench of fetid breath cutting through the acrid smoke.
“Rachel?” DeVontay called from somewhere outside.