Scott Nicholson - The Shock

Stumbling in the darkness, Rachel fought an urge to wait for DeVontay. She was pretty sure no Zapheads were lurking in the barn, or they would have reacted to her voice. Still, the deep shadows carried the weight of menace, like the held breath of a stalker. Something wasn’t right here.

As her eyes adjusted to the shafts of light leaking through the cracks and windows, she was able to make out support posts and stalls, with tufts of yellow hay littering the dirt floor. On the center beam, three shapes dangled from ropes like old sacks of feed. Stephen stood silently, peering up at them.

“Oh my Lord,” Rachel said, limping to the boy’s side. She tried to pull him away, then cover his eyes, but he wriggled free.

“What happened?” Stephen asked.

The bodies were of a man and two young boys, obviously brothers. Their black tongues protruded from their gaping mouths and their eyes bulged. Although flies swarmed around them, they apparently had been dead no more than a day or two.

“This isn’t good, Stephen.”

“Did they kill themselves?” Stephen’s voice was cold and vacant again, as if his post-traumatic autism had seized control.

Rachel thought it was likely the man hanged his own children before killing himself. It didn’t look like the work of Zapheads. But she didn’t know which answer would give Stephen the most comfort. Perhaps there was no comfort to be found in death.

Perhaps.

Or maybe the man had taken stock of After and made a decision based on love and mercy. Despite the resources of the farm, the man may have seen no future that didn’t end in a violent death. Maybe this was the man’s way of protecting his family from Zapheads, killing his wife in the truck and then ushering his offspring to an eternal peace instead of facing another day of living hell.

Perhaps this had been the ultimate act of faith.

“I don’t know what happened,” Rachel said, and in this, at least she avoided a lie.

“I want my mother,” Stephen said.

Rachel hugged him. “I know you do, honey.”

“And my dolly.”

“I know. Why don’t we go into the farmhouse? I’ll bet these boys had some toys, and I bet they wouldn’t mind if you played with them.”

“They’re dead,” he said. He sneezed from the dust, then sniffled.

Rachel’s eyes were hot with tears, but she wouldn’t allow herself to sob. “Let’s go, honey.”

This time, Stephen allowed himself to be led from the corrupt air of the barn and back into the sunshine. Rachel glanced up at the high, uncertain clouds.

How could you do this, God? What possible plan do You have for all this?

But she couldn’t trust her own faith at the moment, because she was afraid it was slipping away. The one certainty of her life, the power that had given her comfort amid all the sorrow and hardship and added joy to every pleasure, was now as ephemeral as the distant smoke. And without it, who was she?

DeVontay was waiting on the porch when they reached the house, the rifle angled over one shoulder. “All clear,” he said, almost giddy with relief. “Even some canned food and a gas stove, so we can have us a home-cooked meal.”

Then he noticed their faces and glanced around warily. “What’s up?”

Rachel gave a wave back toward the barn. “We can stay in their house. They don’t need it anymore.”

“Oh. Well, come on in and let’s eat.” He held the door open for them, and Rachel could read the question in his eyes: Was it Zapheads?

“I think we’re safe here,” Rachel said. Despite her subdued anxiety, she found herself eager to escape in exploring the kitchen. “Why don’t you find a place for Stephen while I cook some dinner?”

She couldn’t shake the image of the limp, hanging bodies from her mind, nor the widening gap in the center of her abandoned heart.

“Saw you running down the street and figured you’d lead me to your buddies,” Arnoff said.

“What buddies?” Campbell didn’t like the way Arnoff had his semiautomatic rifle cocked on his hip, a macho posture that would have been cartoonish under other circumstances.

“Your Army buddies.”

“Wouldn’t mess with ‘em,” Pete said, pouring himself another drink without offering Arnoff one.

“I don’t want to mess,” Arnoff said. “I want to join up. Enlist in Team Human.”

“I get the impression they’re not looking for recruits,” Campbell said. He glanced at the tavern door, hoping Arnoff had cleared the street before following him inside. If the Zapheads were gathering into groups, even a semiautomatic might not be enough.

“Their commander will listen to reason,” Arnoff said. “Donnie and the professor can shoot a little, and Pam…hell, she can cook or something, or keep the men happy. Safety in numbers.”

“I’m telling you,” Pete said, his drunkenness taking a belligerent turn. “He’s stars and stripes forever. And he doesn’t need numbers like us.”

Arnoff glanced around the dim room as if noticing the corpses for the first time. “What do you know about it?”

Campbell moved away from the bar, expecting Arnoff to stop him, but the man was more interested in what Pete had to say. Pete muttered something incoherent, but Campbell made out a personal invitation for Arnoff to commit a depraved and self-inflicted sexual act.

He glanced through a grimy window, at the silent cars and still bodies, at a baby carriage tipped on its side near a fire hydrant. A pigeon with a broken wing skipped along the sidewalk, the only sign of life.

“You were with them,” Arnoff said. “They grabbed you on the highway.”

“They wanted me for Zaphead bait,” Pete answered. “Just like you did.”

“We all have a part in the plan,” Arnoff said. “Some parts are bigger than others.”

“What’s your plan, then?” Campbell asked. “Assuming The Captain lets you join the A-Team? You’re going to start a genocide sweep? Gun down all the Zapheads? And kill anybody else that’s not your type while you’re at it?”

“Hold on with the Commie talk. This is about survival of the human race. Survival of the fittest. I don’t know what them things are, or why they want to bash our brains in, but I don’t need the professor to know when something needs killing.”

“They’re changing,” Campbell said, trying to formulate ideas he’d only just begun considering. “I don’t think they’re attacking us…us normal people…just because they want us out of the way. I think they’re as scared and confused as we are.”

“To hell with your Commie talk.” Arnoff waved his arm at the dead bodies, the gray, dreary bar that once had teemed with music and laughter and the communal clink of glass. “They’re a danger to not just our life, but to our way of life. If we want all this back, we’ve got to win today. Then we can fight for tomorrow.”

“I’m done fighting,” Pete said. “I’m ready to drink instead. But you’d be happy with The Captain and his happy little troop. They’re heading for a base up north.”

“A base?”

Pete took a sip from his glass, enjoying Arnoff’s anxiety. “Yeah. Said there was a secret military base up there, underground, total doomsday prep. Built for nuclear war, he said, but outfitted for pretty much anything. And I guess the Big Zap counts as ‘anything.’”

“How far north?”

“Off to see the wizard,” Pete said, voice slurring. Even for someone with Pete’s tolerance levels, the prodigious amounts of whiskey were taking their toll. “Wonderful Wizard of Ozzzzz.”

Arnoff swung the barrel of his rifle forward and shattered Pete’s bottle. The strong, sweet odor of the whiskey briefly overwhelmed the fermenting of the dead.