The Echo

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“When’s DeVontay going to catch up?”

Stephen pulled off his Panthers cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Rachel had kept them moving, putting as much distance as possible between them and the Zapheads, even if it meant leaving DeVontay behind. Rachel tried not to think of him—she couldn’t summon the necessary faith to imagine him still alive.

Whenever she let her mind roam, she saw him lying on the ground dead, one eye closed while his glass eye stared up at the heavens. But she couldn’t show it.

“He’ll be along soon.” She scooted Stephen’s backpack up on his shoulders, even though his neck chafed from the straps.

“Yeah, just follow the bread crumbs,” the boy said.

Rachel smiled despite the grim mood. Every half mile, Stephen had ripped a page from a comic book and slid it beneath the windshield wiper of a car, taking care not to look inside. She recalled how Pete had given him a near-mint collection of classic Marvel comics and wondered what had happened to Pete in the weeks since they’d met him in Taylorsville. “Must hurt a lot to damage the comic books,” she said.

“Nah, it’s okay. It’s just the X-Men. I still have the Spidermans.”

“That’s good.”

He looked at her with dark circles under his eyes. “Can we rest?”

“Just one more mile.”

That could well be her new motto, in the face of all the other mantras and prayers she’d wiped from the chalkboard of her past.

Rachel looked back along the highway. The sinking sun glinted off bumpers and windshields. The eastern horizon was mostly clear of the haze from the burning cities, and as they had gone deeper into the Appalachian foothills, the towns were fewer and spread farther apart. Even the number of stranded vehicles had declined noticeably, although the sweetly fecund smell of corpses was inescapable.

Soon they’d be coming up on Lenoir, the last town on the map before the climb into the mountains. Rachel had selected a side route to circumvent the highway, figuring the downtown area was as dead as that of most small Southern towns, while the crowds had convened at Wal-Mart, Cracker Barrel, and Home Depot on the main strip. Local officials, either well-meaning or through naked personal greed, saw national chains as a way to put themselves on the map, throwing their own distinct brick-and-cobblestone identities into the great melting pot of American slime.

Not that any of it mattered now. Ambitions and corporate branding were equally useless.

Dead downtowns are just the way we like them these days.

“Keep moving, munchkin,” she said with false cheer, urging him forward between the silent vehicles. Stephen no longer had the least curiosity about the contents of the vehicles. After witnessing an endless array of corpses in various stages of decomposition, his usual reaction had become a halfhearted “Yuck.”

Rachel took his hand to help energize him, and she even managed a smile. With one wistful backward glance to ensure DeVontay wasn’t running to catch up, she guided him north up a long incline.

Ahead, an Exxon sign came into view above the trees, marking an exit. The gas station was less than a mile away and was likely surrounded by other businesses and perhaps a motel. It was as good a goal as any.

She flung her arm across Stephen’s chest to bring him to a sudden stop.

“What is it?” the boy asked. He was tired, hardly aware of his surroundings. Rachel was grateful, because the pavement ahead was littered with rotten clumps of body parts. A headless torso protruded from the driver’s side of a green Subaru wagon, one stump of an arm dangling. The corpse was black with rot, although red strings of meat trailed out from the wounds.

“Come here, honey,” Rachel said, covering Stephen’s eyes and guiding him to the grass median so that a refrigerated Valleydale sandwich-meat truck blocked his view of the carnage. A marching band of pink cartoon pigs paraded across the side of the truck’s cargo area.

“I changed my mind,” she said. “Sit here and rest a minute. I want to check something out.”

“Okay,” he said, plopping onto the grass. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a Spiderman comic. Before Rachel had taken a dozen steps, he’d immersed himself in a world where superheroes saved the day and evil was always defeated.

Rachel fished a kerchief from her back pocket and held it over her mouth. When she reached the Subaru, she checked the interior. Aside from the driver, the car had apparently held a couple more occupants who must have died during the solar storm’s peak. The back seat was stained with a thick gruel of fluids and dried blood. The front passenger’s seat contained three blackened fingers that curled like slow-baked earthworms.

Rachel had seen plenty of rotten flesh in After. But this corruption was different. Someone—or something—had gnawed or torn the bodies and strewn them across the pavement. The mutilation was fairly fresh. Flies still buzzed around the jagged and leaking rips in the skin.

Have the Zapheads run out of live entertainment and now amuse themselves by desecrating the dead?

Rachel resisted the urge to check the Subaru’s glove box. The decadent odor inside the vehicle pushed her away like a sentient wind. The car was unlikely to offer anything of use, and she already carried more weight than she’d like. Cell phones, GPS monitors, and even weapons wouldn’t improve her odds of reaching her grandfather’s compound at Milepost 291.

As she circled the Valleydale truck’s front grille, she plotted a route that would spare Stephen the sight of the bodies. Both sides of the highway featured open rolling fields. Stalks of corn had turned ochre with the autumn, crisp leaves flapping in the breeze. She’d come up with some excuse for the detour, perhaps saying they should collect some ears of corn to save for seed.

Besides, it looks like collecting ears is a popular hobby around here.

But when she stepped onto the gritty shoulder of the median, her ribs clenched and all her plans were forgotten.

Stephen stood beside his open backpack, contents scattered around his feet, his comic book splayed out on the grass. He extended his arm toward a mangy German shepherd. The dog’s tail was curled down, ears pricked up in a wary stance. The moist nose sniffed at Stephen’s hand.

The boy was feeding the dog a Slim Jim. He’d developed a fondness for the cured meat snacks, emulating his new hero DeVontay. While Rachel had nurtured him with healthier fare, she had indulged this one addiction and had allowed him to stock up whenever they plundered a convenience store. Now it looked like that decision was coming back to bite her on the behind.

Or, more accurately, Stephen’s.

“Here, boy,” Stephen said, in a calm, friendly tone. He waved the Slim Jim.

The dog took a hesitant step forward. The animal was gaunt but apparently not starving, and suddenly Rachel recognized its food source. She only hoped the dog could tell the difference between living prey and carrion—and that the dog preferred the latter.

“It’s okay, boy,” Stephen said. “It’s yummy.”

The dog’s tail gave a little wag that was almost forlorn. The depths of Stephen’s loneliness and loss draped over Rachel like a shroud. She wanted to be his mother, his sister, and all his friends, to give him enough love to replace all he’d had before. But at best she was a hollow resonance, maybe even just a cruel reminder of the people she could never be.

Not everything’s about you.

If you’re really all about the sacrifice—the noble school counselor, the savior of the ignored, the sufferer of survivor’s guilt—then do your job. Be what you were born to be and what you shaped yourself to become.

The dog’s nose was now inches from the meat snack. Stephen wore a goofy grin, oblivious to everything but the dog. Its tail lifted and flailed at the air a couple of times.

“Good boy!”

Two more dogs emerged from behind a black Honda. They hunched low, almost stealthy as they approached Stephen. One was a shaggy golden retriever, dreadlocks of filthy hair hanging from its abdomen. It was a breed known for its joyous enthusiasm, but this particular specimen projected a dark menace. The second dog was smaller, a spotted beagle mix, but if anything, it appeared the wilder and tougher of the pair.

But Rachel remained still, hoping the German shepherd would grab the snack and retreat, or that Stephen would drop the Slim Jim and step back.

Instead, the golden retriever growled. It was a liquid, hissing sound, terrible and yet bone-chillingly familiar.

Both Stephen and the shepherd turned toward the two dogs, and Rachel reacted.

“Stephen,” she said, as calmly as she could muster, not wanting him to panic, although she was on the verge herself.

Now all eight eyes turned to her, and she froze as if an icicle had been driven into her heart.

The eyes of the dogs all glittered with that same sick radiance, a million mad suns exploded inside their skulls.

Zaphead dogs.

Stephen was confused, as if he’d been caught doing something naughty. “I…I just wanted to pet him.”

“It’s okay.” Rachel took a step toward them, and the shepherd dropped nearly to its haunches, ears pinned back. It let out a high-pitched hiss.

“Good doggie,” she said, feeling stupid. If the dog attacked, she wouldn’t have time to dig in her backpack for her pistol, and she was angry at herself for the lapse in judgment.

She’d grown overconfident, and arrogance usually killed, especially in After.

The retriever and the beagle joined in the hissing, a bizarre howling parody of a midnight mutt-pound concerto.

“Drop the treat,” she said to Stephen, taking another step forward. The shepherd was locked in position but the other two dogs crept a few slinking steps forward. Rachel was maybe twenty feet from Stephen, but the dogs would surely be able to move faster than she could. And they were only forty feet away.

Stephen looked down at the shepherd, tears leaking down his chubby cheeks. “I’m sorry, boy.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Rachel said. “We’re just not all friends yet.”

That sounded stupid even to her, but the psychology classes and counselor training led her to paint a thick layer of honey on every situation. In the La-La Land of the counselor’s world, all was dancing gummy bears, rainbows, and fluffy pillows. And that fantasy world was surely just as absurd as this new world in which they all lived, where dog ate dog and dog ate human and maybe even human ate human.

Yes, a stranger is just a person you haven’t met yet. Liberal Arts Horseshit 101.

Rachel took another step, and the shepherd bared its teeth. The other two dogs pawed closer, nails clicking on the pavement.

Stephen opened his hand and let the Slim Jim fall to the ground, but the shepherd didn’t even glance at it.

“Okay, Stephen,” she said. “Here’s what I want you to do. Run around the truck and you’ll see a green station wagon with the door open. I want you to climb in and shut the door and don’t open it until I tell you it’s okay.”

“I just wanted to pet it,” he whined.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m sorry.” He was on the verge of blubbering, and neither of them could afford that right now.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. The dogs are just not used to people.”

If crotchety old Mrs. Federov from Greenwood Academy could see me now, she’d reconsider denying me a recommendation for my resume. Revenge is sweet, bitch.

And so is human flesh, if you’re a Zaphead dog.

“What about my comic books and stuff?” Stephen asked, recovering a little.

“We’ll come back and get them in a little bit, after the nice doggies go home.” She took another step forward, and the retriever and the beagle took four more steps. Now they were closer to Stephen than she was, and she didn’t dare charge them.

She tried to recall what she knew of animal behavior. Smell was a dog’s most powerful sense, and they related to the world on a spectrum people could only scarcely understand. Steaks on the grill were the equivalent of a majestic symphony to them. A Slim Jim was like a painting by Monet, and bacon was like the erotic caress of a velvet glove on the nape of the neck.

But fear also had a smell, a brittle, metallic tang that promised pain or death. Or maybe just easy prey.

“Okay, Stephen,” she said, now taking steady, slow steps forward as the hissing intensified. “When I count to three, run to the station wagon like I told you.”

All three dogs lifted their heads in anticipation of her approach, and their yellow teeth gleamed in the dying light of dusk.

“Run!” she yelled, charging toward the dogs with her arms wide. She’d once seen a show on the Discovery Challenge about animals that made themselves appear larger in order to scare off predators. In that case, she wanted to look like a giant she-banshee from hell.

She let her own hiss rise in her throat, a release of her mounting fear, and Stephen’s mouth opened in surprise. Then he obeyed and broke out of his trance, pumping his little legs as he scooted around the truck.

Just as she suspected, her little freak show stole the dogs’ attention and they didn’t even glance at the retreating boy. Rachel was impressed by the noise she was making, and she unleashed all the rage, frustration, and hopelessness that had been hiding in a black well inside her soul.

Her anguished howl poured over the highway and reverberated off of steel and glass, becoming the lost voice of the forgotten human race and drowning out the hissing of the mutant dogs.

For a moment, she even forgot to be afraid.

Then the shepherd lunged at her.

And then she remembered.