Scott Nicholson - The Shock

Campbell wondered where the man had been when the solar flare erupted. Zapheads rarely moved with any sort of real intention besides venting rage on anything that breathed. If they were changing, evolving, and adapting, he hadn’t seen such behavior manifested. But hadn’t the woman in the plumbing van pounced with a glimmer of intelligence?

“I don’t want these things to change,” Campbell said. “I was just starting to get used to the idea of a planet full of mindless killers. I don’t know if I can handle any more surprises.”

“Well, we better catch up with Mister Happy up there.”

“And his friends, apparently.”

“Wonder if they got any beer?”

Campbell led the way, giving the corpse a wide berth. He wondered how many more Zapheads might be lurking in the bushes, watching the campfire and waiting for an opportunity.

Pete staggered by him, wobbling and cussing, hacking at the saplings with his free hand. “Dude could have let us borrow his goggles.”

“I have the feeling he’s not the sharing kind. He’d probably say some jock bullshit like ‘Only survivalists survive.’”

As they neared the forest, the air became moister and cooler. The creek lay beyond them in the dark, gurgling in oblivious merriment. The clouds had spread out in great purple skeins above, backlit by the psychedelic auroras that came in the wake of the solar storms. Somewhere above them, the moon continued its track across the sky. The world continued to turn, all the great cogs of the universe appeared to fit into their proper slots, and the machineries of time functioned in perfect precision, but the one big piece of it was broken.

Campbell looked back toward the road once, wondering about their bicycles, but the night had swallowed all their travels. Now there was only the bobbing fire, and that pungent, tantalizing smoke, and a future where former humans crouched in a depraved hunger for violence.

“Do you see any of them?” Pete said as they entered the silent corridor of trees.

“Shh.” Pete squinted at the crackling fire, playing his flashlight around, wondering where their rescuer was. They stepped into a clearing that contained a couple of tents, a blanket hanging from a wire strung between two trees, and some gray cookware stacked on a sodden stump.

No one was in sight.

Then a deep voice erupted from the surrounding shadows: “Drop your guns and move real slow.”

They’d decided on a room in a Motel 6 on the outskirts of the city, just below the interstate but away from any commercial developments or residential neighborhoods. A convenience store and a Taco Bell were the only other buildings in the little off-road cluster designed to bleed money from travelers on the way south to Columbia or north to Raleigh. In the murky light of sundown, Rachel couldn’t make out any of the vehicles she knew were scattered along the road.

There were fewer cars in front of the convenience store, so they chose that one to explore instead of the Taco Bell. The fast-food restaurant with its darkened glass seemed absurdly like an abandoned temple, a religion whose comforts no longer served the masses. Rachel could smell the spoiled cheese emanating from the place. At least, she hoped it was cheese.

She kept watch out front while DeVontay prowled the convenience store for food and supplies. She clutched the flashlight, afraid to turn it on, figuring that invisibility was the best defense. The world’s silence was oppressive and weighty—a new sort of gravity enveloped her in an alien skin. The only sounds were the occasional crashes as DeVontay pillaged the store.

He soon emerged with his backpack bulging, a bag of Doritos ripped open in his hand. He crunched the corn chips as he said, “Got us enough to get through the night.”

“See anybody?”

“Just a couple dead folks.”

“Were they Zapheads?”

“Why you call ‘em that?”

“That’s what the media was calling them, before the power went out.”

DeVontay headed for the motel and she followed, glancing at the Taco Bell. No more running for the border.

“The solar flares,” Rachel said. “Astronomers knew they were coming. They just didn’t know what would happen.”

“I never was no good at science.” DeVontay held the bag of chips out to her.

“You shouldn’t be eating that junk food.”

“What, it will rot my brain?” He snorted in laughter.

“That stuff’s full of preservatives.”

“I might need me some preserving, if things get any worse.” He pulled his pistol from his belt as they approached the drop-off circle by the motel’s main entrance.

A red Fiat was pulled up to the curb, its front doors open. Rachel gave the car a wide berth but DeVontay peered through the window. “Bad ride.”

“It’s dead, like every other car we tried in the last half hour.”

“Why you got to be so negative all the time?”

“Maybe because everybody I know and love is either dead or trying to crack open my skull,” she said.

“Well, that’s what you get for lovin’ people,” DeVontay said. “I never had that problem.”

He left the Fiat and joined her outside the sliding-glass doors, where she peered into the shadowed lobby. The front desk was unattended. A dark form slumped in one of those stiff, formal chairs that were designed for decoration, not for sitting.

“Somebody’s in there,” Rachel said.

DeVontay tugged his pistol from his belt. “Are they moving?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Should we knock?” Rachel said.

DeVontay pushed at narrow gap where the two sliding doors stood a few inches from meeting. “No electricity. This bitch won’t open.”

“Maybe if you yell a little louder, we can get some Zapheads to bust it open for us.”

“Ain’t nobody here. Not alive, no ways.”

Rachel didn’t want to think about all the bodies spread throughout the motel. There were at least 30 cars in the parking lot, which meant a big slice of America: business travelers, families on vacation, retired people headed to see the grandkids.

“We could break the glass,” Rachel said.

“Like that wouldn’t draw attention?”

“I don’t know how well those things can hear. We still don’t much about them.”

“Wait here.” DeVontay gave her the bag of Doritos headed back to the Fiat, then he stooped through the driver’s-side door. A moment, later, the trunk popped open. DeVontay returned with a scissors jack and handle.

“Lucky it had a manual latch, or I woulda had to bust into it,” DeVontay said. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“So, we can add ‘car thief’ to your list of survival skills. Great.” She put a Dorito in her mouth and the crunch filled her ears from the inside.

“Says the lady eating a stolen Dorito.”

She glanced down at the bag and realized the moral compass, even hers, had shifted with the arrival of the solar flares. Perhaps God’s commandments needed a revision.

She might have thought that the catastrophe had been a punishment for the wicked, except that the apocalypse had punished everyone, good or bad, white or black, believer or infidel. But she couldn’t worry about the big picture right now. First, she had to survive the night.

DeVontay wedged the jack between the bottoms of the motel doors and cranked the handle until it was tight. At first, the doors held, and then they groaned in protest before yielding. The jack handle quivered under the stress, and Rachel wondered if the glass would shatter after all. Then the doors gave a grudging inch, and then another.

When DeVontay had widened the gap to more than a foot, he stepped aside and retrieved his pistol. “Ladies first.”