After: Dying Light by Scott Nicholson Read Free Book Online

pretending to be dead, they just waited for Kokona’s silent command. As dark and creepy as it was inside the ghostly shell of the building, Stephen still dreaded going outside where all the bodies and stink were.
    As Stephen carried Kokona down one hallway after another, Zapheads came out of classrooms and office to fall in with the crowd following behind. They made little sound besides a slight shuffle of feet and whisper of soiled clothes, although the smaller ones made occasional clicking noises. Soon they came to an exit and Stephen held his breath to brace for the carnage outside.
    Kokona must have felt him stiffen. “Don’t worry. The danger’s gone.”
    Meaning his friends. Humans were the danger.
    He backed the smoke-stained door open to protect Kokona, and they came out under the stars. Bodies were heaped among the vehicles just as before, only now there were puddles of fluid around them like black oil.
    Kokona ordered him to kneel by the nearest body. It was a woman, middle-aged and sprawled on her back. Her eyes were open but devoid of any spark of light or life. Her makeup was smeared and face dirty, and her white hair was a wiry snarl. In her old life, she could have been a teacher or administrator at this very school. A moist hole appeared high in her shoulder, and the top button had been sheared off her blouse. Blood coated her belly.
    Kokona reached out her delicate hand and placed it on the woman’s face. Stephen felt it more than heard it—a humming like a transformer on a power line. His very bones vibrated on a subtle level, and his toes tingled. Kokona’s voice echoed inside his skull, but the bits of sound didn’t quite form words, but instead reeled like a carnival ride. Her mouth was closed, though, focused on whatever she was doing with her hand.
    She’s inside my head.
    He wondered if this was what Rachel experienced when she’d been altered by the mutants. A wave of dizziness struck him and he sat on the cold asphalt, his arms going limp. Kokona kicked and wriggled out of her blanket to maintain contact with the woman’s flesh. An aroma like baked ham filled the air, sweet and salty and greasy all at the same time.
    Kokona pulled her hand away and the tension left Stephen’s body. She giggled and crawled back into Stephen’s lap. The little finger on the dead woman’s left hand twitched, and then all the fingers curled like a spider drawing back from a flame. Her eyes opened, and a miniature lightning bolt raced across one iris. Then came another and another, and soon both eyes roiled with flickering waves of red, orange, and yellow.
    She writhed for a couple of seconds and twisted to one side, rolling to her hands and knees. She stood, unsteady for a moment, face blank, and then she merged with the crowd of mutants.
    “Over there,” Kokona said, pointing to the next body about fifteen feet away.
    Although his legs felt like Jell-O, Stephen found himself standing, the baby in his arms. Before he was aware of moving, he was already bending over the next dead Zaphead, a young man with a beard and mustache with the top half of his head blown away. Bits of bone and gray matter gleamed beneath Kokona’s radiating gaze.
    “I don’t think there’s enough left of this one,” Kokona said.
    Stephen was glad. Bad enough for Zapheads to come back from the dead without them leaking chunks from their shattered bodies. He wanted to vomit, but he hadn’t eaten in hours. And he couldn’t run, because Kokona owned him.
    He tried to distance himself from the scene, turn it into make-believe so he wouldn’t go crazy. Maybe a comic book, Slave of the Starry-Eyed Baby or Return of the Never Dead . He wanted to laugh but his lungs held no air. Like Rachel, all he’d wanted to do was help, but he’d ended up losing himself in the process.
    He obeyed as she ordered him to the next corpse. This one had a row of bullet wounds stitched up its leg, along its crotch and torso, and around the rib