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

eleven of them.
    They
were all ages, a cross-culture of former humans: a couple of teens like the
girl who’d mimicked Stephen, three middle-aged women, a fierce-looking man in a
ragged delivery uniform, an overweight young man whose balance and grace seemed
almost uncanny, and a wiry old woman who looked like she could walk a thousand
miles with neither bread nor water. A nude, dark-skinned man hovered close
behind her, muscular as an athlete, his presence like obsidian tar. The others,
besides their filthy and ragged clothing and their dancing eyes, were as
ordinary as any customers she might have once found in a supermarket line.
    Throughout
the seemingly endless night, she worried about Stephen. Without his backpack,
he had no basic supplies, charcoal-filtered water pump, or food. Was he out in
the woods, lost and frantic in his solitude? Had Zapheads found him and taken
him captive as well? Or had he met some other horrible fate in the wilderness?
    As
the sun burned away the lingering morning mist, the strange group emerged onto
a mountain valley. The scrub gave way to a barbed-wire fence, and beyond that
was knee-high golden grass that would have been cut and baled as hay weeks ago
if the world hadn’t ended. Lower in the valley, a two-story white farmhouse and
a tin-roofed barn stood among other small structures and a rectangle of dirt
that had once been a garden. Small figures moved in the driveway and yard— people! —and
she nearly called out for help.
    But
Rachel’s heart sank as she realized they moved with the same stilted yet oddly
balletic movements as her escorts. Zapheads, dozens of them, milled around the
house and barn. The Zapheads closed around her, forcing her against the fence.
If she didn’t cross, they would crush her against the strands of barbed steel.
She lifted the top strand and stretched her wounded leg in the gap above the
middle strand, afraid to put any weight on it. Something broke loose beneath
the bandage and a smelly, dark juice leaked from beneath the cloth.
    She
groaned in pain and revulsion. The Zaps around her immediately began groaning
as well, their calls like the mooing of cattle in a slaughterhouse. Rachel
forced herself through the opening and rolled to the ground, flattening the
brittle, damp grass.
    The
Zapheads were on the other side of the fence. This was her chance.
    Rachel
bolted to the left, following the fence line even though the route was uphill,
because the forest was nearer on that side. She didn’t have any plan besides
putting distance between herself and the odd mutants. Her leg throbbed with
each jarring step, and her heart hammered against the inside of her rib cage.
The dewy grass soaked her jeans in seconds. She thought about peeling her
backpack to shed weight, but if she reached the woods—when she escaped—she
would need the food, blanket, first aid kit, tools, and weapon to survive.
    At
first the sound in her ears thundered in sync with her racing heartbeat, but
then she realized the noise wasn’t in her head. She glanced to the left and the
nude black Zaphead was running beside her, keeping pace on the other side of
the fence. While Rachel was slowed by having to wade through tall grass, the
Zaphead was totally oblivious to the branches and thorns on his side of the
fence. The others trailed behind him, the sound of snapping vegetation reveling
that they trailed them both by thirty or forty feet.
    Unable
to endure the Zaphead beside her, Rachel veered down the slope of the pasture
even though that path brought her nearer to the farmhouse and the Zaps below.
One of them must have seen her, because a small, dark figure headed up the hill
toward her. As if all the Zapheads below were of one mind, they turned in her
direction and closed in. Rachel spun to try another direction, but no avenues
remained—the Zapheads behind her had crossed the fence and approached in a
line, fanning out to enclose her again.
    Frustrated,
on the verge of tears, Rachel