Scott Nicholson - The Shock

He nodded. “Me and Mommy went to church.”

“God will watch out for you. Just pray and you won’t be alone.”

“But God made the Zapheads, didn’t He?”

“God makes everything.”

“Why? Why not just make good people?”

“I’ll be right back. I promise.”

Rachel scanned the wall. The sledge hammer was far too heavy, and the hoe’s long handle rendered it unwieldy. A broken pair of pruning shears leaned against the bench, one blade curving like a rusty eagle’s beak.

Could I hack somebody’s skull if I had to?

They weren’t people, not anymore. But could she be sure of that? Did Zapheads have souls? Even if they didn’t, did she have the right to kill them?

She closed the door, smiling back at Stephen’s worried, puppy-dog face. She hated leaving him alone, but until she knew what had happened to DeVontay, she couldn’t choose a course of action that might expose them both to danger.

By the time she reached the fence again, the Bieb had disappeared, probably inside the house by now. Miss Daisy was doing her peculiar Texas two-step, banging her scrawny shoulder into the screen door as if she had some memory of entrances but didn’t quite have a destination in mind.

Rachel checked the street for other Zapheads, recalling the group behavior of the ones back on the interstate. But apparently none had responded to the noise, or perhaps no more were in the vicinity. She decided to go behind the house and follow DeVontay’s route.

Clenching her fists so tightly that her fingers ached, she crept along the fence until she reached the back yard. A swing set and sandbox were surrounded by bright plastic toys, and two garbage cans were overturned near the fence. Rachel wondered if the children were dead inside the house, maybe facedown at the table, or maybe all tucked into their beds with prayers and bedtime stories.

She found an unlatched gate, probably the same one DeVontay had used, and she slipped into the back yard. A set of four wooden steps led to a screened-in porch, and she couldn’t see through the mesh. She listened for a moment but all she heard was a dull thumping that might be Miss Daisy.

Rachel hesitated, picturing Stephen in the gloomy shed, but that was wiped away by the fleeting image of him lying on the floor with blood leaking from his body.

Angry at herself, and refusing to acknowledge her fear, she sprinted across the yard and up the steps. She flung open the porch door and burst into the house, felling a little silly at being weaponless. Ahead was the kitchen, its door open. She stepped inside the house and had just a moment to register the mess—dinner that had once been underway, sliced onions on a cutting board, and spaghetti clinging to the stove—when the man grabbed her.

They’d gone about two miles along the highway, with Arnoff playing drill sergeant and urging the group forward, when they came across Pete’s bike.

It was lying on the pavement, with no sign of Pete’s backpack. The bike was right at home among the surrounding vehicles, as forlorn and forgotten as any of them. Campbell leaned his own bike, which he’d been pushing since this morning, against a blue Nissan sedan. He glanced into the driver’s-side window and saw a gray-haired man with his head flopped back and mouth open. In death, his dentures had slipped and were perched along his swollen lower lip.

“Doesn’t seem to be any sign of violence,” Arnoff said.

“You shouldn’t have sent him ahead,” Pamela said. She fanned herself with a bandana, her makeup running with her sweat.

“We needed a scout.”

“We needed to stick together.”

“Hush it, Pamela,” Donnie said. He stuck a plug of chewing tobacco into his mouth and mashed it together twice with his teeth, and then pushed the lump into his jaw with his tongue.

“He might have abandoned his bicycle and continued on foot,” the professor said.

“No, Pete’s way too lazy for that,” Campbell said. “If something was wrong with the bike, he would have sat on the bed of that pickup and waited.”

“I don’t see no blood,” Donnie said. “So, he probably wasn’t attacked by a Zapper.”

Arnoff picked up the bicycle and bounced it. “Tires still have air and it seems to be in working condition.”

Donnie walked twenty feet up the highway, his rifle slung over his shoulder. “Nothing up the road.”

Campbell cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Pete!”

“Shut up, now ,” Arnoff barked. “Do you want to draw every Zaphead for miles around?”

“He’s my friend.”

“And it looks like he ran off and left you. Maybe he figured he liked his odds better on his own.”

“In that case, you made a strategic blunder,” the professor said, “because if you sent him ahead as a sacrificial lamb, you lost an asset without getting anything in return.”

“What do you mean, a ‘sacrificial lamb’?” Campbell said.

“Canary in a coal mine,” the professor said. “A loss leader. Bait.”

“He was point man,” Arnoff said. “He knew the risks.”

“You’re crazy,” Campbell said. “This isn’t a war movie or a chess match. This is one of the survivors. He’s one of us .”

“Don’t lose your cool, soldier,” Arnoff said. “Your friend might be sitting up there in the trees, snoozing in the shade. Like the professor said, it doesn’t look like the Zapheads attacked him. Besides, he could have locked himself in one of these cars if he thought he was in danger.”

Campbell pounded his fist into the side of the Nissan. The body inside shifted slightly and the dentures fell into the corpse’s lap.

“Don’t hurt yourself, honey,” Pamela said, rolling her eyes toward Arnoff. “You might need that fist later.”

Donnie opened the rear door of a nearby van and the stench rolled over them like a solid wave. A fleet of flies boiled out, their green wings iridescent in the sun. Campbell buried his face into the crook of his elbow, using the sleeve of his shirt as an air filter. It didn’t help much.

Campbell didn’t get close enough to count, but it looked like half a dozen people of his own age piled in the back of the van. They might have been taking a road trip. One girl’s face was turned toward him, and though her flesh was mottled and corrupted, he could tell she had once been attractive. Her fine blond hair had not yet lost its sheen.

What a goddamned waste.

Donnie reached into the mass of slumped bodies and pulled out a purple bong. “Looks like these hippies was having a pot party,” he said, standing strong in the face of the stench. “Guess they didn’t know their brains was getting fried for free.”

“Don’t mess around in there,” Arnoff said. “You might get some diseases.”

“Not likely,” the professor said. “If the bodies harbored infectious diseases, they usually die with the host. Some pathogens like HIV can survive for up to two weeks, but it still requires a direct transfer of bodily fluids. Cholera outbreaks after natural disasters are usually due to contaminated water. The biggest risk we face is gastroenteritis.”

“You mean, the shits?” Donnie said, wiping the bong on his pants leg and looking into the bowl to see if held any marijuana.

“Still, I wouldn’t put that to your mouth,” the professor added.

“Donnie will put anything in his mouth,” Pamela said.

“Yeah, and I’ve put a lot of your things—”

“Shut up.” Arnoff raced forward and knocked the bong out of Donnie’s hands. “Unless it’s immediately necessary for our survival, it’s off limits. We’re carrying around enough dead weight as it is.”