Scott Nicholson - The Shock

“It’s about community,” Franklin continued. “Getting along and building something better from the ruins.”

“You said others would be coming.”

“I hope so, son.”

Jorge didn’t know how to respond to the term of familiarity. Thus, he ignored it. “We better see how the woman and her baby are.”

Franklin set the tools beside the cabin door, although he kept his rifle slung over his shoulder. They entered to cheerful warmth, with a small fire crackling in the woodstove and several candles ringing the room. Jorge smiled at Marina. She seemed to have grown up in the past week, fully healthy, and now was on the verge of womanhood herself. But Marina didn’t smile back. Her face was grave, lines creasing her forehead and the sides of her mouth.

She and Rosa were flanking the woman, who was nursing her baby.

The woman looked up. “Thank you,” she said, beaming with a mother’s wistful glow. “Thank you for saving us. For saving him .”

She pulled the child away from her breast and turned it toward them. Franklin sucked in a hard chuff of air. Jorge’s chest grew icy and numb.

The child was perfectly formed, its little hands balled into fists, a tuft of wispy hair on the large skull. It was a beautiful little boy.

Except the eyes.

They sparkled with a strange, unnatural glitter, reflecting the candlelight like broken mirrors.

Jorge had seen those eyes before. On the men who had tried to kill him, and on the parkway down by the RV.

The child was a Zaphead.

Stephen coughed again, sending a trickle of unease through Rachel. What if the boy got sick? Really sick?

DeVontay had dragged a couple of extra mattresses into a top-floor bedroom that had belonged to one of the dead boys. Then he’d gone outside to look for a shovel, saying he wanted to give the family a proper burial in exchange for their hospitality. Stephen didn’t fall for it, and Rachel wondered if DeVontay would simply stack the bodies in one of the barn stalls like so much cordwood.

Stephen was bundled under blankets in the dead boy’s bed, staring at the ceiling. Rachel had found an oil lamp, and its soft, bobbing glow send spooky shadows along the ceiling.

“Will the boy’s ghost come back?” Stephen asked. “Will he be mad that I played with his train set?”

Rachel brushed Stephen’s uneven bangs from his forehead, casually testing his temperature. “Of course not. He’s up in heaven, playing with brand-new toys.”

“Is his family there?”

“I’m sure they are, honey.”

“Does he have a doggie?”

“It wouldn’t be heaven without a dog, would it?” Rachel glanced at the window and the darkness that settled over the forest. DeVontay had left the pistol with her and promised tomorrow they would take some target practice with the rifle.

They’d silently agreed they would stay at the farmhouse for the time being. Rachel was excited about the prospects of the garden and the meals she could prepare, and DeVontay said the place could be easily defended if necessary. “Good lines of sight,” he’d said, as if that didn’t mean having plenty of time to shoot anyone who tried to approach.

“I miss Mommy,” Stephen said, staring at the shadows that flickered and danced on the white ceiling. “I hope she’s in heaven, too.”

“It wouldn’t be heaven without a mommy, either,” Rachel said. She smiled. Stephen coughed again, and something in his chest rattled.

Just the barn dust.

“Tomorrow, we’ll gather some apples,” she said. “And maybe play in the creek. I saw a little boat in the closet. Think that will be fun?”

Stephen nodded and coughed again.

Rachel thought of the three bodies hanging in the barn. She wondered if the farmer had hung his pigs there, skinned and salted for curing.

How long had After preyed on the farmer’s mind? How many times did he tell his children everything would be okay? How hard had it been to shoot his wife after she’d changed?

Stephen coughed again, twice.

What courage it must have taken. The farmer must have truly believed a better life, a better world, awaited them. Faith into action, love into purpose.

She rummaged in her backpack and found it. “How are you feeling now, Stephen?”

He rubbed his eyes. “Sleepy. And tired.”

She was tired, too.

She would tell him to think of his mother, waiting for him. Or would that scare him? What if he pictured his mother the way she’d been in the hotel, lying on the bed with the flies roiling around her mouth? What if that stench carried with him to the next After?

She recalled the pharmacist’s instructions. First, the antiemetic to prevent him from throwing up. And then, the Nembutal.

A glass of clean, filtered water from the creek sat on the desk beside the bed. Given his small size, three pills would probably be enough.

She bowed her head and closed her eyes. Dear Lord, is this merciful?

For the first time in her life, she felt the question was issuing forth into the deep vacuum of endless, empty space. A phone call with nothing on the other end of the line.

She had never been so frightened.

“Here, honey, I have something to make that cough go away,” she said, somehow managing to keep the tremor out of her voice, although her fingers shook as she twisted open the pill bottle.

“Where’s DeVontay?” he asked.

“He’ll be here in a minute. Take this, honey.”

She gave him the antiemetic, which he swallowed with a grimace. “Yuck. That’s gross.”

“Drink this.” She handed him the glass of water and he drank.

She was about to give him three of the pills when she looked into his face, hoping to see some sign of peace and acceptance. Instead, she saw Chelsea’s funeral face, the pale and powdered baby-doll skin with eyes forever closed.

She tightened her fist around the pills and then flung them toward the corner of the bedroom, where they rolled across the hardwood floor.

“You’re right,” she said. “Medicine’s yucky.”

Downstairs, the door slammed, and DeVontay called up the stairs.

“How long do I get to sleep in the boy’s bed?” Stephen asked, drowsy now.

“For a few days,” she said. “Then we’re heading to the mountains where it’s safe.”

“I thought we were going to Mi’sippi.”

“We’ll get there,” she said. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”

Aside from doomsday capitalists, hellfire evangelicals, and certain nihilistic madmen, most of us are not all that eager for the world to end. But the sun doesn’t care. It is a ticking time bomb that is likely to belch a fatal stream of radiation at us when we least expect it. And we never expect it, do we?

But the heat is on. Just check out a few of my research links:

A solar storm capturedby NASA cameras

“Light bulb” solar storm

Electromagnetic storms carry risk

Life after an EMP attack

Michio Kaku on solar flare threat

Double solar storm

Best-case scenario, the sun lives to a cranky old age and dies out, turning into a frozen iceball before the universe collapses. Worst-case scenario is…the After series. I hope you will join me for more. Because it can get worse.