Scott Nicholson - The Echo

The Zaphead in the lead of the procession, a bearded, glittering-eyed man who could have convincingly portrayed a prophet in an Old Testament epic, carried the corpse’s legs. As if mirroring the fierce power projected by his burning eyes, he was strong and steady, mouth expressionless.

The next two were young women, scantily clad, their skin like alabaster in the dusk. They bore the weight of the corpse’s trunk, which was peppered with ragged wet splotches from the gunshots. A dark-skinned teenaged boy held the head, cupping it reverently with both hands as if it were some sacred offering to the sky.

Although the trail meandered thirty yards away from him, with the procession soon blending into the onyx forest, Campbell was still afraid to move. If they spotted him, he wasn’t sure he had enough ammunition to fend them off. Arnoff had shown him how to slide the clip of bullets into the butt of the gun, but Campbell had no idea how many shots he had, and he only had one spare clip in his backpack, even if he had time to find it in the dark.

In the end, he decided to wait it out, even as the noises of night rose around him—insects, a distant owl, and the skittering of tiny paws across the leaves. He debated breaking into the trailer, checking it for food and supplies, and using it as a shelter until morning. But he couldn’t be sure if the Zapheads or soldiers would return.

At that moment, he felt forlorn and foolish for having struck out on his own rather than catching up with Arnoff’s group or Rachel and her friends. If Pete were alive, Campbell might have taken a different course. With a traveling companion, he’d had a sense of purpose, but now he was walking solely for the next step, breathing just to take the next breath, living for no other reason than to be alive.

Campbell pressed the pistol flat against his chest, taking comfort in its cold steel. One shot would do it. An end to the surreal madness, and a purpose at last in providing an easy meal for the foxes and opossums that never second-guessed their survival instinct.

“Do it, asshole,” he whispered. His breath plumed out before him in a moonlit mist, and he realized the night had turned cool. The sound of his own voice startled him back to his senses, and he angrily shoved the gun into his backpack and bundled it up, ready to move on.

Just keep moving. Like the yoga hippies and acidheads say, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey .

He checked the clearing once more. The Zapheads had left at least twenty minutes ago, but Campbell couldn’t trust his own sense of passing time. The trailer yard was bathed in muted moonlight and the greenish cast of the lingering aurora, a glistening puddle of thick blood the only sign of the disturbing encounter.

Go to the dirt road and backtrack to the highway. Then head north. Milepost 291. Milepost 291. Milepost 291.

He repeated “Milepost 291” under his breath like a mantra. It became his Shangri-la, a fantasy land of milk and honey and running hot water and television and full-service banking and cute babes in swimsuits on the cover of Sports Illustrated . He stood and pushed back the branches, heading between the trees in the dark.

He’d taken only seven steps before the hands descended over his face and pressed hard.

Franklin Wheeler stared into the fire, poking the dying embers. Behind him, Rosa and Marina slept side by side on the floor, bundled in blankets. On the mattress curled Cathy and her mutant baby boy. She had the infant cradled against her bare breasts, as if the little monster demanded constant access to her human milk.

Disgusting .

Jorge was standing sentry in the platform, not trusting Franklin’s battery-operated alarm system. No one was around to stop Franklin from grabbing the infant and hauling it into the woods. Franklin could disconnect his alarms and pretend they had failed, that he had fallen asleep. The elements would soon take care of the remains, and Franklin could convince the others that the Zapheads had crept in and stolen the thing.

The others might question the Zapheads’ behavior and whether they were sophisticated enough to carry out such a raid—as well as the glaring problem of why the Zapheads wouldn’t kill them all in their beds—but no one knew exactly how these things operated.

Besides, would anyone be too upset if a creepy little Zap bit the dust? It wasn’t like they were in danger of going extinct.

The mother snorted in her sleep and twitched as if having a bad dream. Franklin turned away and filled a pot to put on the woodstove. In the morning he’d want coffee, even though the beans were old and stale. Caffeine was another of those comforts from the old world he’d soon have to relinquish.

But you can bet your ass the president and his world-banker buddies are sipping organic lattes in a luxury bunker right now.

Franklin wondered if Rachel was still out there, and if she’d be brave and tough enough to trust him. Perhaps he should have abandoned his compound and went out in search of her. He could only imagine how horrible the conditions must be in the cities, even though he’d spent much of his adult life preparing for and envisioning the inevitable.

But his highest function was here, operating the compound as a sane stronghold against whatever challenges the future held. He would wait here for his granddaughter, and he would survive for her. Because, to him, she was the future.

Although a devout loner, he was at the core a family man, which was part of the reason he’d allowed Jorge’s brood into the compound. And there was strength in numbers. While many in the prepper network had toiled away with an isolationist mindset, Franklin understood that simply surviving wasn’t enough.

At some point, after the nuclear holocaust or the viral epidemic or the worldwide civil war, people would have to live together. They would need to build communities and—at some unfortunate and messy point—construct a new social order.

Growing pains.

This whole game of human evolution brought with it eternal growing pains.

And only the strong could fight for freedom.

“Joe?” one of the women called from sleep. It was the mother, Cathy. She rolled over, nearly crushing the infant.

And that gave Franklin another idea. He could smother the baby. One minute with a pillow should do the trick.

Then he could tuck the corpse back under the mother and simply wait until morning. It would look like a case of nature taking its course. Why shouldn’t a Zaphead die in its sleep, anyway? Should anyone expect their bizarre biology to mirror that of living, breathing humans?

“Joe?” the woman called again, and this time it was more of a frightened moan.

Franklin held his hands to the open flame in the belly of the woodstove. The heat sharpened his senses.

Goddammit, she’s one of us. A human. A woman .

He crossed the narrow stretch of wooden floor and bent beside her, taking care not to look at the baby. In the firelight, her bare skin was golden, her blonde hair glistening with sweat.

What if this was Rachel?

Cathy was maybe a year or two older than Rachel. Different physically, a little heavier and with a milky complexion. But these were the women who’d be carrying on the race, the ones who would breed for the benefit of the new order. Could he afford to cast any of them out?

And what if Rachel didn’t make it? Indeed, what if Cathy was one of the few women left outside the government bunkers?

Franklin looked past her restless form to Marina and Rosa huddled together under a blanket. He didn’t even really care that they were Mexicans. The future had no borders. They were fit and healthy, good stock for the cause. And his job was to help keep them strong and to teach them.