The Echo

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Zapheads gathered around the conflagration, drawing as close to the flames as the heat allowed.

Intense ripples of light danced across their faces, and Rachel wondered if this was a new form of sun worship, if something deep inside their beings enticed them to the act of combustion. They exhibited no reaction to pain, although smoke rose from some of their clothes as if the fabric was on the verge of igniting.

“Won’t they catch on fire?” Stephen asked. “Like the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four?”

“I hope so,” Rachel said. The sprint up the hill had opened the bite wound on her calf, and the bandage was soggy and stained with a pink excrescence of blood and pus.

“But the Human Torch doesn’t burn up. He shoots fire out of his arms.”

“That wouldn’t be so good, then.”

From their position on the hill, shielded by low brush and weeds, they could see the entire valley. Flames swarmed the gas station complex, engulfing several cars whose shoppers had probably died there during the solar storms. The thick black smoke drifted toward the west, away from them, but the smell of burning rubber and plastic was pungent.

“DeVontay will see the smoke,” Stephen said.

“Sure,” Rachel said.

“And he’ll come see what caused it.”

“Yes,” she said, although it was more likely DeVontay would avoid the area, knowing the fire would attract Zapheads.

Assuming he’s still alive.

“We’ll be able to see him if he comes down the highway,” she said.

“Following the X-Men bread crumbs!”

She ruffled his hair, noting that it was greasy. “We’re going to have to find you some shampoo soon.”

“I’m not taking no bath.”

“That’s ‘any’ bath.”

“You don’t correct DeVontay when he doesn’t talk right.”

“DeVontay’s a grown man. You’re still a child.”

“A child who helped save your life.”

“Score,” she said. “You’ve got a point.”

Rachel looked around, wondering how long it would take for the fire to spread to the other stores and then the hill. The way the wind was blowing, it might reach the trees and then grow into a wildfire.

“We need to keep moving,” Rachel said.

Stephen shot her a dubious look. “Can you even walk?”

“Of course.”

“Your backpack’s down there.”

“Yes.”

“And we don’t got no…I mean, we don’t have a map.” Stephen hugged his own backpack as if she might claim it, along with his comic book collection.

“That’s okay. We’ll stop at houses along the way and find what we need. And we don’t need a map because we’re almost there.” She pointed to the undulating ridges that rose in the northwest. “The Blue Ridge Parkway runs across those mountains. If we just keep walking, we’re bound to hit it sooner or later. Then we can find Milepost 291 and rest a bit.”

She didn’t believe it would be that simple. Nothing in After had been easy. But all that remained was to do the next right thing, to trust in the vision that her grandfather Franklin Wheeler had imparted.

She could almost hear him now: “Freedom doesn’t come without sacrifice, Rachel.”

She stood, smiling at Stephen to hide her grimace. Her leg felt as if someone had ripped open the flesh with a circular saw, packed it full of battery acid, tied it shut with barbed wire, and then poured salted lemon juice on it before applying the tip of a blow torch to seal the wound.

Rachel took a tentative step and decided that she could endure it. Their progress would be slow, but she wasn’t ready to surrender yet.

The next step, and the next.

For Chelsea. For Stephen. For Grandpa.

Even for me.

“Rachel?”

She’d been so focused on whether her leg wouldn’t betray her that she hadn’t realized she’d left Stephen behind. She turned around to find him watching the Zapheads at the gas station.

One of them, standing near the overturned and blackened hull of the Toyota pickup, reached out a hand as if to touch the fire. His shirt sleeve burst into flames and then the yellow and orange heat licked along the length of his arm.

The Zaphead turned his palm up as if curious about the strange, flickering light. It caught the full fabric of his shirt, and then his beard and hair burst into flames. Soon he was ablaze from the torso up, immolated, but he didn’t beat at the fire or retreat from the heat.

It reminded Rachel of the famous photograph of the Buddhist monk who’d set himself on fire to protest persecution in Vietnam.

Except this Zaphead wasn’t protesting.

Neither did he flee.

Instead, he seemed entirely ambivalent about the blistering and popping of his flesh.

“He looks just like the Human Torch,” Stephen whispered.

She pulled on his arm. He’d seen far too much already.

The nearest Zaphead also reached out a hand to touch the burning creature, which then stepped forward into the larger conflagration. The second one looked at her palm and the smoke rising from scorched flesh, and then she followed. So did another.

All the gathered Zapheads then walked into the fire, one by one, approaching from all sides, their bodies outlined in dark silhouette for just a moment before vanishing into the roaring heart of hell.

“Come on,” Rachel said, nearly weeping, tugging Stephen so hard they both almost tumbled over.

Stephen finally relented and she led him up the slope, disguising her limp, as the fire crackled and spat with the discovery of new fuel. The petroleum smoke changed flavor, and Rachel nearly vomited.

It smelled like barbecue.

They didn’t scream.

God, why didn’t you at least let them scream?