Scott Nicholson - The Shock

Two weeks? It’s not even been two weeks?

While Donnie and Pamela wrestled their tent into a nylon bag, Campbell woke up Pete, whose bedroll was surrounded by half a dozen crushed beer cans. Pete blinked his bleary eyes and said, “Ugh. I must have turned into a Zaphead, because it feels like somebody cracked my skull open like an egg and took a big electric dump in it.”

“You don’t have time to enjoy your hangover. Sgt. Rock has ordered us to move out.”

“We don’t have to stick with these clowns. We were doing pretty well on our own.”

“Really? Your idea of a Plan A is to go from beer truck to beer truck until we’re in Milwaukee.”

Pete sat up and wiped the crust from his eyes, then grabbed his wool cap and pulled it down to his eyebrows. “Give me a break. At least I’m not thinking I’ll crash my parents’ house and sleep in the basement until I can get back on my feet.”

“Dude, it’s a thing called ‘hope.’ When the shit hits the fan, you hold on to it.”

Pete looked around, spied his sodden cardboard case of beer, and fished out a warm can. It spewed as he popped it. “This is the only thing I’m holding on to.”

“Hey,” Pamela called to them. “You party boys coming with us?”

“Safety in numbers,” Campbell said to Pete.

“Not numbers like these. Look at the professor. You want your life in his hands?”

The professor poured dark, thick fluid from the coffee pot into a tin cup and blew on it. “At least he wouldn’t eat your liver if you were snowed in together,” Campbell said. “And Sgt. Rock seems to know his way around a gun. Unlike you.”

“Yeah, then how come he didn’t give us our guns back? I don’t think this is such a good time to be a control freak. Because there’s shit out there beyond everybody’s control.”

Donnie sauntered over to them, a backpack, a rifle, and the bagged tent slung over his shoulder. “So, which one of you is the momma’s boy?”

“Excuse me?” Pete said.

“Come on, guys like you? You kidding me? You’re doing everything but holding hands. I need a momma’s boy to carry this tent for me.”

“Screw you,” Pete said, still sitting with his blanket wadded around him.

With the ferocity of a wolverine, Donnie slung the tent bag down his arm and hurled it at Pete. The bag knocked the beer from his hand and forced the wind from his lungs with an oomph .

Pete rose from the ground and wobbled a moment, still woozy from his hangover, but rage twisted his face. Campbell had to hold him back, but Donnie was unimpressed.

“Look at the lover boys hugging,” Donnie said, grinning with black teeth. “Ain’t that sweet?”

“Knock it off, Donnie,” Pamela said. “Arnoff won’t like you messing with the guests after what happened last time.”

Last time? Campbell didn’t like the sound of that.

“Look, Donnie,” Campbell said, taking a chance and calling the guy by his name, not knowing how he would take it. “We’re basically what’s left of the human race. If we go fighting each other, we’re no better than the Zapheads.”

“Shit on them,” Donnie said. “I got enough ammo to take care of all of them.”

“We don’t know how many are out there,” the professor said, sipping his coffee like he was kicking around theories at the local barista. It was the first time he had interacted with anyone that morning. Maybe he needed caffeine before he could face the horrors of modern life.

“That’s why Arnoff wants us to stick together,” Pamela said.

“Arnoff this and Arnoff that,” Donnie said. “We were getting along just fine until you made him king of the world.”

The smoky air was ripped by an explosion of gunfire.

Arnoff emerged from the brush. “Good thing I wasn’t a Zaphead, or you’d all be meat.”

“Come on, Arnoff, you’ll scare the children,” Pamela said.

“They ought to be scared. How come you guys aren’t packed?”

Pete and Donnie glared at each other for a moment, and then Donnie gathered the tent from the ground. The professor tossed his coffee into the fire and said, “How was the reconnaissance mission?”

“It’s clear to the west, so we’ll be heading that way.”

“Yesterday, you wanted to go east toward the coast,” Donnie said.

“Changed my mind. People change their minds from time to time.”

“And sometimes the sun does it for them,” the professor said.

“What about our bikes?” Campbell asked. He assumed Pete was sticking with the crowd. Campbell certainly was, at least for now.

“We move as a unit,” Arnoff said. “But it wouldn’t hurt to have fresh legs to do some advance scouting.”

Donnie smirked. “Hear that, pretty boys? Fresh legs.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Donnie,” Pamela said, shouldering her own backpack. Campbell wondered if she had a firearm tucked in one of the bulging pockets of her thin cotton jacket. Even the professor had a rifle leaning against a tree near his pile of gear.

“Do we get our guns now?” Campbell asked Arnoff.

“Get packed up. Then we’ll see.”

Campbell helped Pete roll up his blanket. When Pete reached for a fresh beer, Campbell kicked away the cardboard box. “You’re going to get us killed.”

“If these creeps don’t kill us first. Don’t you think they’re a little unhinged?”

“We’re all a little unhinged. We just got hit with the apocalypse. What do you expect?”

“Yeah, but you’d think they’d be banding together. Instead, they’re ripping each other to pieces.”

“Stress. We’re in a war zone now.”

“We’ll play it your way for a day or two. But if this is the best they have to offer, I’m taking my bike and flying solo.” Pete shouldered his backpack and headed out of the clearing.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Arnoff shouted.

“Getting my bike.”

Arnoff pointed his rifle ninety degrees to Pete’s left. “You might want to head in the proper direction.”

Pete gave an insolent wave and slipped into the woods, Campbell following. When they came to the place where Arnoff had shot the Zaphead, the corpse was gone. Only a crushed section of grass and a rusty brown stain remained.

“What do you think happened to it?” Pete asked.

“Maybe somebody buried it.”

“You serious? You think Arnoff would pass up an opportunity to put us on gravedigger detail? And why would he bother, anyway? They knew they were breaking camp and leaving. So what’s one more corpse?”

“Or maybe he wasn’t dead, just wounded.”

Pete peered into the surrounding trees. “I don’t like it.”

“Come on. Let’s get our bikes before the others catch up.”

As they emerged from the trees and climbed the rocky slope to the guardrail above, Pete said, “At least the professor seems to have his shit together. Maybe we can learn something from him.”

“All he’s got is theories,” Campbell said.

“Beats what we got.” Pete began clambering up the rocks but only made it about ten feet before he stopped.

“What’s the matter?”

“You smell that?”

“I don’t smell anything but your body odor.”

“Seriously. Smoke.”

“The campfire.”

“No. This is like plastic and garbage and stuff instead of wood.”

“Maybe the professor made them clean up their trash. ‘Leave no trace’ and all that.”

Pete kept climbing, and by the time they reached the guardrail, Campbell was out of breath. He could only imagine how Pete felt, with last night’s beer leaking from his pores. The morning was already muggy.

“Look,” Pete said, pointing to the east.

Several massive pillars of smoke boiled in the far distance, shimmering in the heat. “The hell is that?” Campbell said.