Milepost 291

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The river widened and grew shallow, and DeVontay’s kayak scraped bottom.

He soon found himself spending more time climbing out of the boat and wading than he did paddling. But at least he’d left the Zapheads behind.

Much of the flood plain featured ragged grass meadows, with a few cows and horses foraging between autumnal tree lines. Houses were set here and there along the banks, built on stilts or higher out of the flood plain, and a narrow paved road meandered alongside the waterway. DeVontay imagined that was the route used by the bicyclists who rented from the outfitters. He wondered if he should have taken a bike instead of the kayak, but something about being out in the water made him feel safer.

Not likely a Zapper is going to pop up and drag me under like an alligator.

He thought about going ashore and checking out some of the houses, maybe finding a secure place to hole up for the night, but he was reluctant to risk encountering any more mutants. He had enough food to make it another day before he’d have to forage again. Mostly he was too disheartened to step over any more dead bodies or smell the stench of a society gone by.

The kayak bottom out on some slick stones, and he stepped into shallow water to free it. At least here in the open air he could almost fool himself into believing he was on a recreational outing. Just a man against nature, a dark-skinned Daniel Boone with a glass eye and a thirst for adventure.

What if the Zapheads ARE nature? What if they’re the way we were meant to be? Maybe they’re normal and I’M the freak.

Exhausted by the sheer demands of survival, he’d given little contemplation to the solar storms and the larger forces that had swept across the planet. Without Rachel and Stephen, he wasn’t sure how much longer he wanted to fight.

If only he—

“Hey, you!”

DeVontay, knee deep in water, nearly lost his grip on the kayak. He shielded his hand over his eyes to block the late-afternoon sun reflecting off the water.

“Who’s there?” he said. The voice had come from the far shore, which was thick with wiry vegetation and shadows.

“You’re not a Zaphead, are you?”

It was a man’s voice, and DeVontay could barely make out a form in the murk. “I’m talking, aren’t I? You ever heard a Zaphead talk?”

“Depends on what you mean by talking.”

DeVontay stood in the cold water, unsure of what to do. His feet were numb and the river ahead boiled with shallow rapids. Even if he wanted to, he wasn’t sure the kayak would skid to the deeper pool below them, where the current seemed to swallow its anger and grow still.

And, of course, the unseen man might have a gun.

“What do you want?” DeVontay said.

Two middle-aged men stepped out from the brush. They were dressed in camouflage fatigue pants and plaid shirts, but little else about them suggested they were military. One wore a bright orange baseball cap and the other’s face was nearly hidden behind a scraggly mass of curly hair and aviator sunglasses. Both wielded firearms, and their rifles were pointed in DeVontay’s direction.

“Come over here, boy,” said the man in the orange cap.

Shit, are these rednecks trying to pull a “Deliverance”? The first humans I’ve seen in two weeks, and they have to be racist assholes.

“Some Zapheads back that way, and I want to get as far away as I can.” DeVontay nodded upstream toward the little community. “You know what Zapheads are?”

The bearded one cackled and the man in the orange cap said, “Everybody knows what Zapheads are, or else they’re dead.”

“I don’t have a gun.”

The bearded man aimed his weapon at DeVontay. “Then you better get your ass over here, hadn’t you?”

DeVontay glanced at the bow and arrows in the shell of the kayak. Even if he reached them before getting shot, he would never nail both of the armed men from thirty yards away. He could also duck into the water and swim downstream, but he didn’t think he could hold his breath long enough to get out of range. That was assuming the rapids ahead were even deep enough to conceal him.

“What do you want?” DeVontay said, stalling for time.

DeVontay heard a crack, then a small splash in front of him, followed by the keening whine. The sounds occurred almost simultaneously, so it was only after a small puff of blue-gray smoke wended from the man’s rifle barrel that he realized a shot had been fired.

He raised his arms, releasing the kayak, which slid downstream and turned sideways before scudding down the rapids.

“Get over here or this river’s gonna be running red,” said Orange Cap.

DeVontay slogged toward the bank, slipping once on the algae-coated stones and going to one knee. The rifle barrel tracked each step. By the time he reached the shore, he was soaked to the waist and chilled to the bone. Neither man made a move to help him out of the water, so he clawed his way up by grabbing fistfuls of slimy weeds.

When he stood on trembling legs, DeVontay found the tip of a rifle barrel against his nose.

“You normal?” asked the man with the sunglasses.

DeVontay risked a little defiance. “Are you?”

The man took off his sunglasses and shoved them in the pocket of his hunting vest, not lowering his weapon. “You traveling alone?”

“Yeah. You’re the first people I’ve seen in two weeks.”

“But I bet you seen a lot of Zaps.”

“Upriver. Dozens of them.”

“They’re ganging up,” said Orange Cap. DeVontay could now see that it bore a white T logo, for the University of Tennessee. “We were picking them off one at a time, a stray here and there, but lately, we’re trying to lay low.”

“What do you want with me, then?” DeVontay asked, glancing down the river where his goods floated on the green surface. “You made me lose my supplies.”

“You’re coming with us.”

“Why?”

“For one, because we said so,” said the bearded man. “For another, this is war, and you’re either with us or against us.”

“Who is ‘us’?”

“We got a little gang together. A few locals, a few oddballs like you. People who don’t want to go down without a fight.”

DeVontay unbuttoned his wet shirt. “I don’t want to fight. I want to run.”

“Ain’t nowhere left to run to. It’s all Zap country now. From sea to shining sea.”

How do you know? Got a satellite feed back at your camp? Or did the aliens beam it straight through your tinfoil skullcap?

“I’d rather take my chances on my own,” DeVontay said. “Besides, they didn’t attack me when they had the chance. They just kind of…monitored me.”

The bearded man plucked DeVontay’s knife from its holster and finally lowered his gun, but it was still pointed in DeVontay’s general direction. “Yeah, seems like they quit raging, burning, and murdering. But it feels like they’re up to something even creepier. Like they already know they’ve won.”

DeVontay didn’t like the idea that Zapheads were exhibiting signs of intelligence and organization, however rudimentary. But that theory didn’t jibe with their filthy clothes, eerie silence, and lack of purpose.

And were these two guys much better? Shooting at him, bossing him around?

He moved his right hand to dig in his pocket, causing both men to raise their weapons to his chest. He held up his other hand, palm open. “Easy. I don’t have any weapons.”

“Take ‘er slow,” warned Orange Cap.

DeVontay pulled out a couple of Slim Jims, which were protected from the water by their plastic wrappings. “This is all I have left after you made me lose my kayak.”

The bearded man turned and headed into the trees, motioning DeVontay to follow. “Better come with us then.”

DeVontay glanced wistfully downstream, where the kayak’s bow bobbed just above the surface as it tumbled along the rapids.

Should have taken a damned bike instead.

The bearded man fell in behind DeVontay, and soon they were through the weeds and knotty trees and following the narrow road.