CHAPTER FOUR
“It’s a fire,” Pete said.
Campbell didn’t believe it. He’d insisted it was electric lights, maybe even automobiles moving beyond the dark trees, the wind causing them to flicker. Then the wind shifted, although there wasn’t much of it, and a faint trail of acrid wood smoke drifted past.
“What should we do?”
“Go in.”
Pete was drunk. Shortly after the close encounter with the Zaphead in the plumbing van, they’d come across a Budweiser truck. Pete had filled his backpack with 12-ounce cans and even made some makeshift saddlebags with a tool satchel he’d taken from the van. He’d stopped his bike every two miles or so to bust open one of the warm beers and down it. Their pace had slowed considerably as the evening wore on, and Campbell had nearly pedaled headfirst into a jackknifed tractor trailer because he thought he’d seen someone move inside one of the stalled cars.
But Pete wouldn’t let him check out the movement, coming back with, “Haven’t you learned your lesson yet?”
And Campbell had buried his hope that maybe there were others like them, normal people, survivors who weren’t driven by a homicidal impulse. Now, with a campfire a hundred yards away in the dusk, they were faced with a choice, and Pete’s judgment was about three times over the legal limit.
“What if it’s a bunch of Zapheads?” Campbell asked.
Pete pulled the tab on a fresh brew, and it fwooshed and sprayed into the dusk. “Then we shoot the hell out of them.”
“You say that like you’d enjoy it.”
“Fuckers trying to wipe us out, man. This is about the survival of the species.”
“I think they’re the same species we are. They’re human.”
Pete wiped foam from his mouth with his sleeve. “Humans don’t jump on you and rip out a chunk of skin with their teeth. Unless they’re Mike Tyson or Jeffrey Dahmer.”
The fire was in the forest beside the highway, set down a gentle slope. They’d passed a bridge about three hundred yards back, and a silvery creek slid beneath it, laughing and gurgling as if all was merry with the world. Survivors—human survivors—would likely follow evolutionary instinct and camp by the water.
“Maybe we ought to keep going.”
“What if it’s like that last camp?” Pete was starting to slur and his sibilants were mushy.
“I didn’t trust them.”
“You’re just mad because you didn’t tap ol’ Gypsy Rose.”
“They were talking prophecies and wacko stuff.”
“Well, maybe they were onto something.”
Campbell wished they’d snagged some binoculars. Full dark was setting in, and they’d have to make a decision on where to sleep. They usually locked themselves in an empty car for the night, but Campbell always felt trapped and claustrophobic, and Pete’s drunken snores pushed away any chance of rest. One night they’d slept out in an open field, taking turns keeping watch. Campbell had jerked awake sometime long before dawn and found Pete had dozed off, leaving them ridiculously vulnerable.
So, maybe the idea of sticking with a group was worth a little risk.
“Okay,” Campbell said. “Let’s check it out.”
Pete leaned his bike against the guardrail and drew his pistol from his jacket pocket. “Lock and load, my man.”
Campbell drew his revolver. It didn’t have a safety switch, but he’d test-fired it twice on the day he’d found it in the sporting-goods shop. He hadn’t shot a gun since he was 12 and his grandfather had taken him squirrel hunting. The double action required a serious pull of the trigger, which meant the gun would be hard to fire accidentally, but also that he’d have to be serious if he wanted to shoot somebody.
Some THING, I mean. These Zapheads aren’t “somebodies.”
He flashed back to the face of the creature that had attacked him and shuddered at the brief illusion that it had been his mother.
“Got your flashlight?” Campbell said.
“I only got two hands.” Meaning that Pete wouldn’t put down his beer.
Campbell fished in his wire basket until he found his flashlight, but he didn’t switch it on. The purple dusk revealed large, bruised clouds overhead, so the moon would be of little use. He looked up the highway toward the last hilltop they’d crested. Something moved there, a distant stick figure that soon blended with the shadows of stranded vehicles.
Pete chugged his warm beer, then belched. “What you waiting for?”
Campbell swung over the rail and started down the slope toward the campfire. The revolver was heavy in his hand, and he let his arm dangle so the barrel pointed at the ground. He used the flashlight for ballast as he descended. The slope leveled out at a ditch, and briars tore his khakis as he stumbled through the granite riprap.
Above him, Pete stumbled and fell, cursing once before remembering they were supposed to be in stealth mode.
“You okay?” Campbell whispered.
“That better be the good guys or I’m going to be pissed,” he whispered back.
Campbell switched on his flashlight, hooded it with his forearm, and illuminated a path for Pete, who kicked, stumbled, and staggered down the hill. Pete’s body odor overwhelmed the beery stench.
Sweet. We’re all turning into animals.
After crossing the ditch, they entered a thicket of scrub pine, thorns, and ragged rye. The elusive flickers of fire showed here and there through gaps in the trees, and as full dark settled in, the orange light took on the quality of a jewel forged from a mysterious source.
Campbell’s hand sweated around the revolver’s grip, even though the air had turned cool and moist because of the nearby creek. He didn’t know where to point the gun, and he took each step gingerly, in fear of snapping twigs. Pete, however, had no such hesitation. The alcohol delivered a stupid brand of courage, and the semi-automatic topped it off with a bow. Pete soon took the lead, muttering under his breath.
“Maybe they got some meat,” he said. “You smell that? Smells like barbecue.”
Campbell rubbed the bite wound on his shoulder. No. I’m not going there. The Zapheads aren’t crazed cannibals or zombies. They’re just…
Just WHAT?
And then he did smell it, smoky and acrid and rich, and he had the image of stumbling into a nest of Zapheads, all gathered around the fire and roasting a child on a slim white sapling, fat dripping onto the hot stones and hissing to greasy steam.
“Plenty of canned meat and jerky still around,” Campbell said. “Years and years of it.”
The wire basket of his bicycle held cans of tuna, sardines, corned beef, and pink salmon. Aside from the one stop at the “gypsy camp,” they’d eaten their food cold. But the smoke didn’t make him hungry. It was oily and tainted.
A bird chirruped high in the trees. The Big Zap had wiped out a lot of animals, but the survivors among them seemed to behave as they always had. It was only humans that seemed to have been affected on a neurological level. So far, anyway. All their homing instincts, territorial boundaries, and migration patterns could have altered in uncertain ways.
A branch snapped behind them, maybe twenty feet away. Pete swung around, bumping Campbell in the arm with his pistol.
At least the dumbass didn’t shoot me. But the night is young.
The rustling came closer, swick swick swick through the dry brush. Then a pause, as if whomever—or whatever—it was had stopped to listen for its prey.
Campbell strained to hear, holding his breath, but Pete was rasping away, the smoker’s rattle rising from deep in his lungs. He wondered if Pete was thinking the same thing he was: Who shoots first?
But what if it was a person? A fellow survivor? Maybe there were more, enough to form a group and—
Campbell beat back the faint flutter of hope. In the week since the event, they’d met only four survivors, and one of those had turned and fled when Campbell had called her. The other three were in the makeshift gypsy camp, and Campbell hoped to God th
at wasn’t a sample representation of mankind’s future.
Swiiick. One cautious footstep through the weeds.
Pete nudged him. Campbell turned, but Pete was just an onyx bulk against the lesser black of night. Then Pete’s mouth was at his ear, spraying saliva as he whispered: “Go left, and I’ll go right.”
Campbell nodded, trying not to tremble. A Zaphead wouldn’t be subtle. It would charge like a rhino through the veldt, using whatever it had in its hands as a weapon. Such a mad, predictable danger was reassuring in an odd way. This, however…
He edged to his left, pushing the barren flashlight before him to test the foliage. The susurration of Pete’s passage let him know the gap between them was widening. Campbell was on his own.
Swiiick. Another step forward.
Or had that been Pete’s footstep?
Campbell turned again, and he was disoriented. He could no longer see the thin licks of fire in the near distance and the night had blended with the canopy until he was unsure of the location of the highway, the forest, or the creek. He nearly surrendered to the impulse to switch on the flashlight, but he pinched his fingers together until the pain cleared the panic.
It’s not a Zaphead. And a survivor has no reason to hurt you.
But the smoke told a different story. The smoke said, “Mmm, tastes like chicken,” and “I’ll bet you’re just dying to join us for dinner” and “We’re pleased to serve you.”
Screw it. You watched too many horror movies back in the Old Days.
Never mind that the Old Days were July or so.
He looked up at the dim stars and mist-hidden wedge of moon, trying to get his bearings. The constellations themselves seemed alien and strange, as if the massive solar flare had tilted the planet’s axis. Maybe the world was all shook up, both literally and figuratively.
Swick swick swick, the steps were fast and close, and he raised the pistol, its sodden weight tugged by gravity until the act was like bringing to bear a field cannon.
And he heard the signature insane chuckling—not in the direction of the steps, but behind him, right behind him—and then the night erupted with a flash and roar. Campbell’s ears rang with sudden pain as he dropped his pistol and fell to his knees.
“You okay?” said a gruff voice above him.
“Yuh-yeah.” Campbell gripped the flashlight before him as if it was a dagger he could use to impale himself.
“What the hell?” Pete said, some distance away, crashing through the scrub toward them.
“Don’t shoot,” the gruff voice said. “Your friend’s okay.”
The man flicked a switch and a bluish Maglite blinded Campbell, although the beam was directed to the side. The light bounced past him and settled on a limp figure pressed face-first into the grass. A dark, wet bloom covered its back and ragged bits of flesh clung to a gaping hole in the back of the shirt. Campbell had the impression of graceful bulk as the man swept past him and stood over the corpse just as Pete burst into the circle of light.
“A Zaphead,” the man said.
“Who the hell are you?” Pete said. His Glock was pointed at the man, who gave it an amused glance.
“The king of nowhere,” the man said.
“Shit.” Pete looked at Campbell, letting his aim waver. “You sure you’re okay?”
Campbell nodded, a little embarrassed. He collected his revolver and looked at the man standing over the corpse. The man was bald, a little over six feet, and dressed in a matching gym suit, a khaki hunter’s vest over it. Although the suit was dirty, the man appeared well-groomed and fit, despite his age.
“Who is that?” Campbell managed to ask, pointing his revolver at the corpse.
“What,” the man said. “What is that? These things don’t deserve to be called a ‘who.’”
Campbell couldn’t tell by looking whether the corpse was once a Zaphead. All he knew was, it had once been human. Yet, Campbell had not heard it approaching, and Zapheads weren’t known for stealth and subtlety.
“You sure it’s a Zaphead?” Campbell asked the man.
“It’s not the first one I’ve killed.”
“It was stalking me,” Campbell said. “They’re supposed to charge.”
“It was creeping up, all right. But not on you. It was watching us.”
“Wait a sec,” Pete said. “How come you could see in the dark?”
The man fished around in the hip pocket of his coveralls, eliciting a threatening wave of the Glock from Pete. The man ignored the gesture and pulled out some tinted goggles on a thick strap. “Infrared,” the man said. “Nothing but the best in survival gear if you want to survive, right?”
How come WE didn’t think of that? Oh, yeah. Because Pete’s drunk off his ass and my survivalist training ended in the sixth grade when Mom made me quit the Boy Scouts.
“Is it just you two fellas?” the man asked, tracking his flashlight along the scrub.
“Yeah,” Campbell grunted. “How come this one was sneaking? I’ve never seen any of them sneak.”
“They’re changing.”
“Changing?” Pete said. “Like what, growing a third eye or something?”
“The way they act. Come on, you can ask the professor about it.” The man turned and headed into the forest.
“Damn, man.” Pete said to Campbell. “Hardcore.”
The man stopped ten feet ahead and turned. “You boys ain’t dangerous, are you? With them guns?”
“No, sir,” Campbell said.
“Didn’t think so. I bet you’re too scared to shoot if you had to.” He continued toward the flickering fire.
Campbell switched on his flashlight and pointed it down at the corpse. He imagined he heard a low chuckling but decided it was the thing’s stomach gases. But it didn’t look like a thing, or a veggie, or a Zaphead. It looked like somebody’s chubby uncle, a bus driver or brake mechanic or off-duty cop. The corpse wore a dark short-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and scuffed leather shoes without socks.
Campbell wondered where the man had been when the solar flare erupted. Zapheads rarely moved with any sort of real intention besides venting rage on anything that breathed. If they were changing, evolving, and adapting, he hadn’t seen such behavior manifested. But hadn’t the woman in the plumbing van pounced with a glimmer of intelligence?
“I don’t want these things to change,” Campbell said. “I was just starting to get used to the idea of a planet full of mindless killers. I don’t know if I can handle any more surprises.”
“Well, we better catch up with Mister Happy up there.”
“And his friends, apparently.”
“Wonder if they got any beer?”
Campbell led the way, giving the corpse a wide berth. He wondered how many more Zapheads might be lurking in the bushes, watching the campfire and waiting for an opportunity.
Pete staggered by him, wobbling and cussing, hacking at the saplings with his free hand. “Dude could have let us borrow his goggles.”
“I have the feeling he’s not the sharing kind. He’d probably say some jock bullshit like ‘Only survivalists survive.’”
As they neared the forest, the air became moister and cooler. The creek lay beyond them in the dark, gurgling in oblivious merriment. The clouds had spread out in great purple skeins above, backlit by the psychedelic auroras that came in the wake of the solar storms. Somewhere above them, the moon continued its track across the sky. The world continued to turn, all the great cogs of the universe appeared to fit into their proper slots, and the machineries of time functioned in perfect precision, but the one big piece of it was broken.
Campbell looked back toward the road once, wondering about their bicycles, but the night had swallowed all their travels. Now there was only the bobbing fire, and that pungent, tantalizing smoke, and a future where former humans crouched in a depraved hunger for violence.
“Do you see any of them?” Pete said as they entered the silent corridor of trees.
“Shh.”
Pete squinted at the crackling fire, playing his flashlight around, wondering where their rescuer was. They stepped into a clearing that contained a couple of tents, a blanket hanging from a wire strung between two trees, and some gray cookware stacked on a sodden stump.
No one was in sight.
Then a deep voice erupted from the surrounding shadows: “Drop your guns and move real slow.”