Milepost 291

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Rachel’s head throbbed like drumbeats in the distant jungle of her mind.

She opened her eyes to a gauzy and gray world that slowly came into focus. A sheet was pulled up to her chin, and a blanket spread over her lower legs. She was numb, unable to feel her limbs, and she wondered if she had died.

So much for going toward the light.

Then a hand squeezed hers, and she realized she was lying on her back. She tried to clench her fingers in return, but she didn’t have enough strength. She sensed movement around her, dim shapes circling like great, lumbering beasts. Every few seconds, one of the shapes blocked the source of the light and threw her in shadows again.

Her skin was cool, although a little moist and clammy. The fever had broken.

My leg…did someone say something about an infection…a knife?

Horror sluiced through her as she recalled images of that guy—Campbell—helping her across the meadow, followed by hordes of Zapheads. She vaguely remembered a two-story farmhouse, which is where she must be now. The window allowed the last of the evening light to suffuse the walls and reveal a deer-head trophy with dark glass eyes that made her think of DeVontay.

“Welcome back,” said a voice, from the man holding her hand.

She blinked her watering eyes and squinted at his face. He looked different somehow, and she wondered if the fever had affected her sight.

“How…” she rasped, realizing her throat was parched and lips cracked. She shivered. The room was chilly.

“Easy,” Campbell said, releasing her hand. He put a glass to her lips and she sipped at it. The water tasted metallic and stale, but she was thirsty enough to relish it like wine. After several painful swallows, she closed her mouth.

“Where?” she whispered.

Campbell was also whispering, which was odd since the shapes still orbited them. She was propped on a couch and could make out bookshelves, an entertainment center, and some hulking pieces of rustic furniture. The room smelled of old cobwebs and sweat, and she realized her own body reeked with sour tension.

But the sweet, rotted-meat smell that had clung to her for days was gone.

My leg… did they really cut it off?

She dug her left hand under the covers and along her body, which felt like an alien landscape. Then she found her bare leg and realized someone had removed her pants. She was relieved to discover she still wore underwear. Her fingers continued their slow crawl downward until she reached the wound.

“I’m one hell of a doctor,” Campbell said.

Several voices pitched in by repeating “Doctor!” a few times before falling silent again. Rachel realized the room was full of Zapheads.

Not just the room—their slow movements continued outside it, a steady pacing like pilgrims with no destination.

But her dismay at their presence was muted by the shock of discovering her leg had healed. The skin on her calf was flawless, with not even a scab or crease to mark what had been a pustule-ridden volcano in her flesh.

“My jeans,” she said.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t look. Me and the professor have been tending you. And we had a little…help.”

“How long have I been out?” Rachel felt as if she’d drifted for days, and even with modern health care she doubted the wound would have completely closed up in less than a month.

“Since noon.”

“Today?”

Campbell exhaled a sigh. “Been a long day.”

The blood now pulsed slowly through her body and feeling returned. She was amazed to be pain free. Even her headache had vanished. Aside from a weakness that enervated her into lethargy, she felt better than she had in weeks.

Since Taylorsville, before we killed those Zapheads…

“Who else is here?” she said, trying to lift her head but soon giving up.

Campbell adjusted a musty throw pillow beneath her neck. She could barely make out his face in the gloom of dusk. His face cheeks bore dark stubble and he sported deep, violet half-moons of flesh beneath his eyes, but he smiled at her. “You and me and the professor. And about fifty Zapheads.”

“Why haven’t they killed us?”

“You’ll have to ask them that. But do it quietly, or they’ll be yelling back at you for hours.”

Rachel was struck by an itching sensation where her infected gash had been. At first she chalked it up to a sign of healing, but then the feeling expanded. The flesh below her knee was trembling, almost like it was being massaged. By many hands.

“You had a knife,” she said, almost accusing him. “Where is it?”

“Shh,” he said. “Keep your voice down or it will be like a monkey house asylum in here. The knife is under the couch cushion. You’re lying on it.”

“You were going to cut me.”

“No, no… I mean, the professor… we were afraid the gangrene was going to reach your heart. We… he… wanted to amputate.”

“Are you fucking crazy?!?”

The room erupted with gleeful shrieks that thundered in the rooms beyond and reverberated on the floor above. “Fucking crazy! Fucking crazy! Fucking crazy!”

Rachel cupped her hands over her ears, but it was like the words were echoing inside the curved bone of her skull, over and over, becoming a nonsensical round of random syllables.

“Shh, shh,” Campbell hissed softly, stroking her hair. “It’s okay now.”

Even after the Zapheads died down, still engaged in their ceaseless patrol, Rachel heard the chorus in her head. Maybe the infection and fever had caused brain damage.

But brain-damaged people usually don’t contemplate brain damage. They think they’re normal.

“The professor thinks they’re learning from us,” Campbell said. “Imitating us. You didn’t meet him but he was with us back in Taylorsville. One of Arnoff’s gang.”

“Where are the rest of them?”

Campbell couldn’t meet her eyes. “They came here.”

“And the Zapheads attacked them?”

“It’s not like you think. The Zapheads have established this farmhouse as some kind of home base. There are more of them every day. They’re gathering into a tribe of sorts.”

It was almost dark now and all she could see of Campbell was the glint of his eyes behind his glasses. She couldn’t imagine spending the night in this house, not surrounded by all these Zapheads with their sinister motion and sudden outbursts. She was sure she’d go mad in her sleep, assuming she was even able to close her eyes.

But any nightmare would be more welcome than this disordered, topsy-turvy reality.

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I lost track of the days. But I’d guess two or three weeks.”

“And you didn’t run? Try to escape?”

He shook his head, the movement barely visible. “No point. You saw how they herded you. It’s their world now. We’re just…tolerated.”

“No,” she said. “I’m still going to Milepost 291 and…” She gasped and struggled to sit up, but exhaustion pressed down on her like a stack of sodden blankets. “Stephen!”

“The boy? When I didn’t see him with you, I assumed he’d—”

“He’s out there somewhere, and I’ve got to find him.” Her eyes were hot with welling tears, but she was unable to lift herself from the couch.

“Rachel?”

She rubbed at her face. For a moment she wondered who Rachel was. The name was familiar, but Before had been so very long ago.

Campbell shook her gently by the shoulder until she turned to him. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Your eyes.”

“What are you talking about?”

He looked away. “Nothing. Better get some rest.”