Maybe there’s a letter opener or scissors in the desk.
Rachel tried not to think about Stephen wandering around the yard, lost and looking for her, or the circling Zapheads that might kill him. She couldn’t bear another death. Billions had died and she had been helpless, God had abandoned her in her time of greatest need, like He had Jesus when the flesh of his palms shredded beneath the steel spikes and his lungs sagged in suffocation.
Or when the cool water had pulled her little sister, Chelsea, into its deep blue heart.
I don’t like this theme. God is never there when you need Him most.
She gripped the edges of the seat and lifted as she pressed down with her toes. The chair slid forward a good three inches, and she repeated the movement twice, three times, gaining more distance with each bounce. She was so intent on her goal, the metal desk with the computer atop it, that she didn’t notice the person in the doorway until a lamp crashed to the floor.
Rachel twisted her neck around. Budget Bieber came toward her, eyes brightly vacant beneath the brown bangs but somehow fixed on her, just the same. He carried himself in an insouciant slouch, stooping to the floor to retrieve the lamp. He appeared to test its weight with one short swing of the wooden base, as if first learning of its potential as weapon. Satisfied, he yanked at the flimsy lampshade until it tore free.
Rachel pitched forward, away from him, forgetting her feet were tied. When she felt herself falling, she twisted so that the chair toppled to the right. Her elbow banged against the floor, but the flimsy chair broke apart. She tried to roll, but the back of the chair clung to her, dangling from the ropes that bound her wrists.
Budget Bieber hovered over her, the lamp raised. His mouth parted wide as if about to embark on the first note of a churlish pop song, but only a strange deep chuckle emerged. He brought the lamp down toward her head, the bare gray bulb leading the way.
Rachel barely had time to scoot to the left before the bulb smashed into the floor, sending shards of glass into her face. The Bieber Zaphead raised the lamp again, the jagged broken bulb now resembling a row of teeth. This time, Budget Bieber rammed it toward her, as if to pin her against the floor.
She took advantage of his lunge to sweep one leg against his shin. Off balance, he clattered to the floor, again issuing his peculiar low chuckle as the lamp bounced out of his hands. Rachel’s elbow throbbed as she struggled to her knees, shaking violently to rid herself of the remnants of the chair. One ankle slipped free and she was able to stand.
Still splayed on the floor, the Bieber Zaphead made a grab for her leg. She danced out of reach and then jumped forward again, driving the heel of her sneaker onto his wrist. He moaned in the monotone of unheralded pop stardom, although it didn’t seem a reaction of pain. His inner rage was driving him now, the way it apparently compelled all Zapheads to crush, pummel, and slash any living creature that wasn’t like them.
Rachel backed against the desk and yanked open the top drawer. Keeping one eye on the Bieber Zaphead crawling toward her, she rifled among the papers, business cards, and zip drives, looking for something sharp and shiny. She heard a whimper of frustration and realized it had crawled from her own throat, making her angry at herself. Only the faithless gave in to despair.
On the desk was a clay jar stuffed with pencils, pens, and postage stamps. A thick plastic handle protruded from the collection, and she snatched it, sensing the Zaphead’s approach. The object was a flat-head screwdriver, its tip gleaming silver.
She raised the screwdriver like a knife, ready to plunge it into the Zaphead’s vacuous face. But before she could skewer the bangs-covered forehead, she looked into those eyes and saw a glimpse of the human he had once been.
Somebody’s son, somebody’s brother. Maybe somebody’s favorite singer.
His eyes were brown, glittering with a manic golden flecks. She hesitated, holding the screwdriver a foot above his face.
Then he went for her and she fell back onto the desk, knocking the computer to the floor.
Should have killed him while I had the chance. But maybe I’ve killed enough.
She kicked the broken bits of chair and loose rope from her feet and fled toward the door, Budget Bieber in pursuit. Before she could escape, The Captain stepped from the hall, blocking the doorway, and clapped his palms together. “Halt,” he shouted.
Rachel thought he was speaking to her, but no way in hell was she going to stop running until Budget Bieber was shrinking in the rearview mirror of her life. When The Captain repeated his command, she realized he was addressing the Zaphead, and by then she was at the door.
She shoved past The Captain and reached the relative safety of the hall, turning to see how close the Zaphead was to catching her. The Captain stepped into the room, raising one arm and pointing a revolver. “Stop now!”
The Zaphead paused only long enough to take his eyes from Rachel and fix them on The Captain. Rachel backed down the hall, even though the Zaphead had already forgotten her. A new target was closer. The Zaphead hunched for an assault, just out of arm’s reach of The Captain.
“Do not cross this line,” The Captain said to the Zaphead.
He thinks he can communicate with it. He’s even crazier than I thought.
Budget Bieber looked at the gun as if harboring some dim memory of its capacity for harm, then snarled and jumped with outstretched arms. The gunshot roared and echoed down the hall, cordite filling the air. The Zaphead’s skull exploded like a bloated melon, spraying the study with flecks of red and gray.
“I told you to halt,” The Captain said, his voice just as steady as before.
Rachel looked from the Zaphead to The Captain, assimilating this new discovery of After. “Did you expect that thing to listen to you?”
“They must learn that violence is not the answer,” The Captain said, plucking the screwdriver from her hand. “A lesson you apparently need to learn as well.”
“But you and your goons jumped me and tied me to a chair. Doesn’t that count as violence?”
“You are worthy,” he responded. “He didn’t kill you.”
The Bieber Zaphead trembled in the center of the room, as if destruction was the source of his passion and grace. Without the raging intent to kill, he was just a teen. Harmless and lost, abandoned in a world that had changed for all of them. All of them.
“Great, so I’m worthy,” she said. “What about Stephen?”
“Who is that? Your dark-skinned friend?”
“No. The little boy who was out in the street.”
“Oh, him. I’m afraid…I’m afraid he isn’t worthy.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We would have ridden the horses right past it and never noticed.
Jorge cradled Marina against his chest and pushed through the thick rhododendron branches. The trail was little more than an animal path winding through the dense vegetation, but the man in the green jumpsuit navigated it as sure-footedly as a goat. The man paused once in a while to look back and make sure they were following, although he hadn’t removed his cloth mask.
Rosa held back the branches as best she could so they wouldn’t scratch Marina. Jorge had cuts on his cheeks and the backs of his hands, but he’d been able to shield his daughter from the worst punishment.
She is so light. Like a dream.
Jorge didn’t like that idea because it made her seem even more fragile and vulnerable, so he shifted his thoughts to the man in the jumpsuit. Why was he helping them? If he was truly afraid of catching a sickness, he would have watched them pass by on the logging road and gone about his business.