After (Book 3): Milepost 291 by Scott Nicholson Read Free Book Online

wipe.”
    “No,”
Hayes said. “Too fresh. If it was that old, you wouldn’t be able to smell it.”
    Bandana
Boy pointed to the second floor above and Hayes nodded. “You guys stay close
behind us,” Hayes said to Franklin. “Not that I give a damn, but Sarge has
taken a liking to you.”
    “Yeah,
I’m a regular poster child of the apocalypse,” Franklin said.
    Hayes
didn’t remark on Jorge’s metal fireplace poker, but Bandana Boy stood erect and
alert, eager to pull the trigger. “Okay,” Hayes said, waving them up the
stairs. “Be ready for anything.”
    Upstairs,
Bandana Boy opened the first door on the right. There he found the “anything”
of which Hayes had just spoken. He whistled and uttered a low, “Holy hell.”
    Franklin couldn’t resist closing in behind Hayes for a look.
The room was littered with cellophane food wrappers, tin cans, crushed plastic
bottles, and a stench that made the downstairs bathroom refreshing. A bed
pushed near the window was heaped with blankets. On the dresser beside it was a
makeshift kitchen, with a Sterno burner, a blackened metal coffee pot, and an
Igloo cooler.
    Bandana
Boy waded through the trash and looked around. “Got us a squatter.”
    “No
Zapper did this, that’s for sure,” Hayes said.
    “Must
have heard us coming and hid somewhere.”
    Hayes
poked the bundle of blankets with the tip of his rifle. “As much noise as you
were making, no wonder.” He waved Bandana Boy out of the room. “Search it.”
    “Why
don’t you leave them be?” Franklin said. “They ain’t a threat to you.”
    Hayes
narrowed his eyes. “You heard Sarge. No prisoners.”
    Bandana
Boy pushed out the door between Franklin and Jorge, heading down the hall. He
kicked open doors one by one, each time crouching and sweeping the barrel of
his rifle in front of him. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he called
like a child.
    If
this is the best of the best, it’s a wonder the U.S. military didn’t go to shit
a decade ago.
    Franklin turned to go downstairs, but Hayes blocked his way.
“You’re on duty, Wheeler.”
    Bandana
Boy slammed open the last door at the end of the hall, pointed his rifle into
the room, and said to Hayes, “Jackpot.”

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER
SIX
     
    They
hadn’t hurt Rachel, but she didn’t dare risk provoking them.
    The
Zapheads had closed around her in the darkness, grabbing at her hair, pulling
and squeezing her flesh. One of them touched the pulsing bite wound on her
thigh and she yelped in pain, causing an eruption of mimicked yelps that sound
like a pack of wolves. She couldn’t count them in the dark, but they numbered
at least half a dozen. Their eyes swam like glints of fire thrown off a
grinding wheel.
    At
full strength, she would have made a run for it. But she doubted she would have
made it ten steps before they dragged her down and— then what?
    The
ones behind her nudged her forward, gently bumping her with their bodies. They
were herding her. She soon realized they were guiding her downhill, ninety degrees
from the way she’d come, although she couldn’t be sure in the darkness. She’d
long since lost her way.
    They
fanned out around her, leaving her only one direction. She stepped, staggered,
slid, and limped down the slope, all the while nearly surrounded by the
Zapheads. Their eerie silence was broken only by the times they echoed her
panting and gasping as exhaustion set in. She’d lost all sense of time as well,
and when the blackness eased to gray, she saw that the forest had thinned to
scrub vegetation.
    Once
she edged to one side, too weak and hurting to make a serious run for it, but
the Zapheads closed ranks, their grim, blank faces made all the more horrible
by the bright, animated forges of their eyes. She wondered what they would do
if she stopped to retrieve the revolver from her backpack, but even if she
succeeded in securing the weapon, she only had six shots, and now with the dawn
light she could count