Scott Nicholson - The Shock

“Lots of them,” Stephen said, enthralled and not at all horrified.

There had to be a few dozen, including some children, although they didn’t seem to be grouped as family units. Indeed, at first, Rachel thought they might have been arranged that way, like a photo shoot for a modern auteur of the grotesque.

“More fresh ones,” DeVontay said, and Rachel realized what had been disturbing her more than the sheer number of dead: they, like the old man leaning against the brick wall, were not yet in advanced stages of decomposition.

“Do you think…?” She didn’t want to continue while Stephen was within earshot, but DeVontay filled in the blanks for her.

“Yeah,” he said. “These are Zapheads. They’re dying.”

Rachel wasn’t sure whether she should be cheered by the news. The Zapheads had been trying to kill her for weeks, sure. But they’d just been following their instincts. And if all Zapheads died, then the world would become that much lonelier. Even more devoid of what had once walked the Earth as a collective humanity.

They followed Stephen to the closest bench, where a girl of about six lay curled on her side. Her pink dress was mussed and her stockings torn, but otherwise, she might have been sleeping.

“She was put there like that,” DeVontay said. “She didn’t die in that position.”

Stephen knelt and spoke to her. “Hey, are you okay?”

Rachel stood behind Stephen and put a hand on each of his shoulders. “She’s with the Lord now, Stephen.”

Stephen looked around the commons. “Which one of them is the Lord?”

“The one up in heaven,” Rachel said, although she looked around to make sure Jesus Christ wasn’t among them at that very minute. After all, if He was planning a return trip to Earth, then Taylorsville, North Carolina, was just a good a spot as any.

Of course, she was also aware that such thoughts could well be the beginning of madness. The great visionaries and prophets of the Old Testament were on the borderline of textbook schizophrenia, with their burning bushes, wheels of fire in the sky, and voices telling them to kill their own children.

“This is creepy as hell,” DeVontay said. “You think these are Zapheads?”

“They understand,” she said, keeping her voice down. If any of them were merely sleeping, she didn’t want to wake them.

“Understand what? Did you get into some happy juice somewhere? Popped into the liquor store while I wasn’t looking?”

“They understand that the world has changed,” she said. “They’re aware.”

“You talking about these same Zapheads that have been trying to kills us for the last two weeks?”

“They’re taking care of their dead,” she said. “It’s the last shred and act of humanity, to honor the dead.” She had the sudden horrifying thought that perhaps these were all victims of a mass suicide, that a group of Zapheads realized something had gone wrong in their heads and they’d chugged the cyanide Kool-Aid, rather than surrender to their baser natures, their killer instincts.

Such an action would have taken higher-order functioning, communication, and socialization, none of which were traits that the Zapheads had displayed so far.

But what do you really know about them? You’ve been too busy running and hiding—and surviving—to really pay attention .

“They don’t look so scary now,” Stephen said.

“Their troubles are over.” Rachel almost added, They’re the lucky ones , but the journey wasn’t over yet. If there was one thing she still believed, it was that God had put here her for a reason.

Even if God was now the architect of greatest mass murder in history, she still believed. Still.

“Let’s get out of here before somebody comes to add to the pile,” DeVontay said.

“Come on, Stephen,” Rachel said.

“Just a second.” The boy went over the bench where the little girl was sleeping. Without touching her, he gently laid Miss Molly in the crook of her arm. Stephen practically skipped back over to Rachel’s side, taking her hand.

“Now she won’t get lonely,” he said, smiling up at her.

Rachel thought of her sister decomposing inside a fiberglass casket in a Seattle cemetery. Beside her pale corpse, Rachel had placed under one stiff, cool arm her sister’s stuffed panda, Farley, a copy of her favorite book, The Princess Bride , and a photograph of the Earth taken by the Hubble telescope. Rachel had prayed her sister wasn’t lonely, either. In whatever After she now knew.

DeVontay led them back to the street, the pistol still dangling near his hip. A few gunshots popped in the distance, and the breeze carried the acrid brusque of smoke, but otherwise, the place was as peaceful as any small-town Sunday afternoon.

As they passed the bridal shop again, Rachel thought she saw movement inside. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look too closely, either.

As Campbell burst into the sunlight, he raised the heavy candlestick, expecting a fight.

Instead, he found that the side door opened onto a little cemetery, with unkempt grass, faded plastic bouquets of flowers, and low marble markers in uneven rows. The graveyard was bounded by a fence about two feet high, designed more as a boundary than to actually keep out vandals and stray dogs. Making sure no Zapheads were on that side of the church, he oriented himself with the view he’d mapped out while in the belfry.

A copse of maple trees offered enough concealment top get him to the street. But he was stunned to see no Zapheads around the church.

Were they all inside?

He imagined the Zapheads closing in on the deranged reverend, reaching for him even as he delivered the Word in an attempt to reach their hearts and save their souls from the eternal flames of hell.

But he was grateful for the martyr act, because it allowed him to slip between an Irish-themed restaurant and an antique store, angling down a side alley flanked with overflowing trash cans, propane tanks, and heating units. A body was splayed out atop a busted garbage bag as if it fallen from above. Campbell didn’t look too closely, but the exposed hands and face were dark and swollen with rot.

Now two blocks from the church, he exited warily onto the street, which was Hardin Boulevard, according to the sign. He recognized the angle of the architecture, with the skyline featuring one five-story building featuring an old-fashioned clock with rusty metal hands standing tall against the smoky horizon. The other buildings on the block were two-story, cars and trucks parked along both sides of the street and only a few vehicles slanted at angles across the median strip.

Looks pretty dead .

Campbell decided to just sprint up the street rather than sticking to the shadows. If he was spotted, he’d have enough lead time to make a decision out in the open rather than risk being jumped from one of the doorways. Besides that, the big brass candlestick was feeling better and better in his hands.

The bar where Pete had entered stood on the corner, with metal tables under an awning. A red vinyl banner ran down the edge of the upper story, sporting the name Fat Freddy’s, with “Pub & Grill” in smaller letters beneath it. Campbell and Pete had passed more than a few Friday nights in such establishments, eating wings and eyeing girls, but mostly drinking whatever cheap domestic beer was on tap.

Campbell wondered if all the Zapheads in the vicinity had been drawn to the church. He’d seen them responding to noise, violence, and fire, but the church had offered none of those attractions. Just when Campbell had become used to—certainly not comfortable or at ease with, but used to —things as they now stood, the rules changed.