Scott Nicholson - The Shock

Budget Bieber hovered over her, the lamp raised. His mouth parted wide as if about to embark on the first note of a churlish pop song, but only a strange deep chuckle emerged. He brought the lamp down toward her head, the bare gray bulb leading the way.

Rachel barely had time to scoot to the left before the bulb smashed into the floor, sending shards of glass into her face. The Bieber Zaphead raised the lamp again, the jagged broken bulb now resembling a row of teeth. This time, Budget Bieber rammed it toward her, as if to pin her against the floor.

She took advantage of his lunge to sweep one leg against his shin. Off balance, he clattered to the floor, again issuing his peculiar low chuckle as the lamp bounced out of his hands. Rachel’s elbow throbbed as she struggled to her knees, shaking violently to rid herself of the remnants of the chair. One ankle slipped free and she was able to stand.

Still splayed on the floor, the Bieber Zaphead made a grab for her leg. She danced out of reach and then jumped forward again, driving the heel of her sneaker onto his wrist. He moaned in the monotone of unheralded pop stardom, although it didn’t seem a reaction of pain. His inner rage was driving him now, the way it apparently compelled all Zapheads to crush, pummel, and slash any living creature that wasn’t like them.

Rachel backed against the desk and yanked open the top drawer. Keeping one eye on the Bieber Zaphead crawling toward her, she rifled among the papers, business cards, and zip drives, looking for something sharp and shiny. She heard a whimper of frustration and realized it had crawled from her own throat, making her angry at herself. Only the faithless gave in to despair.

On the desk was a clay jar stuffed with pencils, pens, and postage stamps. A thick plastic handle protruded from the collection, and she snatched it, sensing the Zaphead’s approach. The object was a flat-head screwdriver, its tip gleaming silver.

She raised the screwdriver like a knife, ready to plunge it into the Zaphead’s vacuous face. But before she could skewer the bangs-covered forehead, she looked into those eyes and saw a glimpse of the human he had once been.

Somebody’s son, somebody’s brother. Maybe somebody’s favorite singer.

His eyes were brown, glittering with a manic golden flecks. She hesitated, holding the screwdriver a foot above his face.

Then he went for her and she fell back onto the desk, knocking the computer to the floor.

Should have killed him while I had the chance. But maybe I’ve killed enough.

She kicked the broken bits of chair and loose rope from her feet and fled toward the door, Budget Bieber in pursuit. Before she could escape, The Captain stepped from the hall, blocking the doorway, and clapped his palms together. “Halt,” he shouted.

Rachel thought he was speaking to her, but no way in hell was she going to stop running until Budget Bieber was shrinking in the rearview mirror of her life. When The Captain repeated his command, she realized he was addressing the Zaphead, and by then she was at the door.

She shoved past The Captain and reached the relative safety of the hall, turning to see how close the Zaphead was to catching her. The Captain stepped into the room, raising one arm and pointing a revolver. “Stop now!”

The Zaphead paused only long enough to take his eyes from Rachel and fix them on The Captain. Rachel backed down the hall, even though the Zaphead had already forgotten her. A new target was closer. The Zaphead hunched for an assault, just out of arm’s reach of The Captain.

“Do not cross this line,” The Captain said to the Zaphead.

He thinks he can communicate with it. He’s even crazier than I thought .

Budget Bieber looked at the gun as if harboring some dim memory of its capacity for harm, then snarled and jumped with outstretched arms. The gunshot roared and echoed down the hall, cordite filling the air. The Zaphead’s skull exploded like a bloated melon, spraying the study with flecks of red and gray.

“I told you to halt,” The Captain said, his voice just as steady as before.

Rachel looked from the Zaphead to The Captain, assimilating this new discovery of After. “Did you expect that thing to listen to you?”

“They must learn that violence is not the answer,” The Captain said, plucking the screwdriver from her hand. “A lesson you apparently need to learn as well.”

“But you and your goons jumped me and tied me to a chair. Doesn’t that count as violence?”

“You are worthy,” he responded. “He didn’t kill you.”

The Bieber Zaphead trembled in the center of the room, as if destruction was the source of his passion and grace. Without the raging intent to kill, he was just a teen. Harmless and lost, abandoned in a world that had changed for all of them. All of them.

“Great, so I’m worthy,” she said. “What about Stephen?”

“Who is that? Your dark-skinned friend?”

“No. The little boy who was out in the street.”

“Oh, him. I’m afraid…I’m afraid he isn’t worthy.”

We would have ridden the horses right past it and never noticed.

Jorge cradled Marina against his chest and pushed through the thick rhododendron branches. The trail was little more than an animal path winding through the dense vegetation, but the man in the green jumpsuit navigated it as sure-footedly as a goat. The man paused once in a while to look back and make sure they were following, although he hadn’t removed his cloth mask.

Rosa held back the branches as best she could so they wouldn’t scratch Marina. Jorge had cuts on his cheeks and the backs of his hands, but he’d been able to shield his daughter from the worst punishment.

She is so light. Like a dream.

Jorge didn’t like that idea because it made her seem even more fragile and vulnerable, so he shifted his thoughts to the man in the jumpsuit. Why was he helping them? If he was truly afraid of catching a sickness, he would have watched them pass by on the logging road and gone about his business.

The man had even let Jorge keep his rifle, although he insisted they leave the horses tethered on the road. Jorge wasn’t sure why, but he suspected the man was afraid they harbored some kind of disease.

“How is she?” Rosa asked, wrinkles appearing around her frown. He’d never seen wrinkles on her before, and he wondered if perhaps the sun had changed them all.

Some changed more than others. Yes, Willard would gladly trade a few more wrinkles in exchange for his hand, and Mr. Wilcox would have given up his “hunnert acres” for another day above ground.

“She is well,” Jorge said. Lying came more easily when one was trying to comfort others. But Jorge wasn’t far enough along in his new morality to believe his own lies. Marina was pale and sweaty, even though her skin was cool to the touch when he pressed his cheek against it.

The trail opened up onto a twin set of ruts that marked another logging road. Or it could have been the same road they had just left. Jorge had been so obsessed with protecting Marina that he hadn’t paid attention to their route, although he suspected they’d been trudging through the dense vegetation for at least twenty minutes.

“Watch your step,” said the man in the green jumpsuit, pointing to the ground near Rosa’s feet. A thin metal wire stretched six inches off the ground. Jorge thought of the American movies he’d seen where the tripwire sprung a trap of sharpened spikes that punctured anyone in its path or detonated a crude explosive device.

The man must have read Jorge’s face, because he said, “Don’t worry none. It’s just a signal wire, not a booby trap. I don’t kill unless I got no choice.”