“Let’s get out of here,” the man said, grabbing Rachel’s hand and pulling her toward the yard of a nearby house. The gesture reminded her too much of DeVontay, and she pulled free.
“I have to stay,” she said. “I have friends here.”
The man’s face curdled in resentment, then he grabbed her weapon and shoved her back. “Thou shall not kill, maybe, but I, for sure, goddamned shall.”
The man swung the blade against the Zaphead’s temple, and this time, the guy went down like a jogger after a marathon. A shot rang out, and the shirtless Zaphead’s shoulder erupted in a glut of blood and gore, but still, it kept attacking.
“I don’t see any friends around here,” the man said to Rachel. “Come on.”
“This way,” Rachel said, pointing to the house where DeVontay was still being held.
“Fine,” he said. The rancid odor of old beer hung about him and his bloodshot eyes suggested either a lack of sleep or an abundance of alcohol.
Rachel broke into a run, the man right behind her, hanging onto the grisly, blood-coated pruning shear. When they reached the landscaped shrubbery, Rachel burst through and headed for the side yard, where a high wooden fence offered concealment. They ducked behind it just as another gunshot erupted, then another one.
“New around here?” the man said, wiping sweat from his greasy brow.
“Only since After,” she said.
“After?”
She shrugged, lifted her hands to indicate the world. “This end-of-the-world thing. Thanks for saving me back there. I’m Rachel.”
“Name’s Pete,” he said, between gasps of exhilaration. “Just a suggestion, but I’d ditch the Ten Commandments. At least five of them no longer apply.”
“That’s how I was raised. It’s not something you can turn on and off like a light switch.”
“Guess so. I wouldn’t know anything about that. One Sunday morning in the Catholic church gave me enough horrors of hell to last a lifetime.”
“How did they find you?”
“I was bicycling on the highway, stopped to check out a car, and then those unsung heroes jumped me and said The Captain wanted to see me.”
“The Captain? Yeah, I’ve met him.” So, The Captain had a rank. She dug into her backpack and found the small bottle of Nembutal the pharmacist had given her. Her fingers slid away until they hit a water bottle, and she pulled it out and passed it to Pete.
He twisted the cap and tossed it into the weeds, then took a grateful gulp. “What’s up with these guys?”
“I can’t say for sure,” she said. “But I think they were stuck in the bunker a little too long and started getting funny ideas. The Captain thinks he can control the Zapheads if only he can get them to appreciate chain of command.”
“Well, I’m civilian all the way. So, what’s the plan?”
“Did you happen to see a little boy anywhere? About ten, wild hair, maybe carrying a baby doll?”
“Afraid not.”
“Well, that’s my plan.”
“Not much better than mine. I was going to find a bar and plug some quarters into the karaoke machine and sing ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’ ‘til closing time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Turnips,” Franklin said.
Jorge almost responded in Spanish, but remembered his promise. “What?”
Franklin pulled a dark clump of leafy stalks from the ground, revealing the rounded golden root. “Turnips are the perfect survival food. They grow almost year round, the roots store through the winter, and they have just about every vitamin you need.”
They were in the vegetable garden at one corner of the compound. From working on the Wilcox farm, Jorge had an understanding of the shorter growing seasons of the Blue Ridge Mountains, as well as the humid, wet climate. Therefore, he admired the garden’s placement, which allowed nearly a full day’s sunlight while much of Franklin’s camp remained concealed by trees.
“You plan well,” Jorge said.
“No, I’ve just been around so long I’ve figured out a thing or two.” He twisted the yellowing outer leaves from the stalk and tossed them into the goat pen, where the short-horned nanny sucked them between her jaws.
Broad leaves of autumn squash and pumpkins covered one end of the garden, and bean vines twisted along a lattice of sticks. The corn was already making ears, and bees hovered around the golden tassels. A dense orchard of short but bountiful apple and pear trees stood on the other side of the small house, nearly shading a brown Ford van with the wheels removed. The top of the van was covered with solar panels, and Franklin had opened the rear door to show Jorge the rows of batteries that stored the collected energy.
“Something like this takes…,” Jorge searched for the right word, dragging the hoe between the rows to pile fresh soil around the turnip roots. “Vision.”
“Nah,” Franklin said. “Anybody could see it coming that didn’t have blinders on. I was part of the Preparation Network, teaching people how to get ready, but it didn’t do much good. Humans are a funny breed, Jorge. I reckon they’re as funny down in Mexico as they are up here.”
Jorge had given little thought to his brothers and sisters in the Baja, or his mother in their little crowded house. He wasn’t sure whether he wished them a swift and merciful death or if they were even now on the run from the people that Franklin had called the “Zapheads.”
“If this happened all over the world, like your man on the radio said, then I suppose it’s not so funny,” Jorge said, leaning on the hoe and looking out across the mountain ridges in the distance. The nearer peaks were flush with the deep green of summer’s end, but the horizon was draped with wraith-like, ragged clouds.
“That’s the look of cities burning,” Franklin said. “Enjoy this fresh air while you can.”
“Do these Zapheads burn things?”
“Tell you the truth, I don’t know if that’s the Zapheads or the government. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they were ready for whatever opportunity came along. Giant asteroid hitting the earth, nuclear terrorist attack, shift of the earth’s geomagnetic fields. Every ill wind blows somebody some good.”
Although Jorge had little interest in any kind of politics, he didn’t see what the U.S. government would gain by destroying its own territory. Not for the first time, he wondered if Franklin had spent too many years alone, with nothing but his mad dreams, paranoia, and obsessive vision.
Rosa called to them from the doorway of the house. Marina stood beside her, wrapped in a blanket. She still looked pale and her hair was moist with sweat, but she managed a feeble wave before Rosa led her back into the shade.
Jorge decided to ask the thing that had been bothering him. “Mr. Wheeler, you are clearly a man who likes to be alone and to depend on no one. If this is so, then why do you help us?”
Franklin put the turnips into a wooden basket atop some tomatoes and small purple cabbages. “I lived out there once,” Franklin said, waving vaguely off the mountain. “Just about like anybody else. I had a job in industrial design making rich folks richer, found a sweet little woman and settled down. I never did trust the government, and I got in a little trouble because of things I was writing on the Internet. Whatever they say about ‘the land of the free,’ that’s complete bullshit. You’re only as free as they want you to be.”
Then why isn’t your own family here? Why take in mine? But Jorge thought it best to only listen, so he turned his attention back to the weeds that skirted the bed of tufted carrot greens. Besides, it seemed like Franklin was warming up for a rant.