After: The Echo (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 2) by Scott Nicholson

Franklin said. “Even though it will take longer.”
    “You’re the ancient one,” Jorge said. “I’m in good shape.”
    “Survival is a marathon, not a sprint, my friend. We’ll see who lasts.”
    “Let’s get on with it, then. I want to be back before dark.”
    They heard one more shot, hundreds of yards away. Franklin nodded. But just as Jorge was about to thread his way through the tangles, Franklin grabbed him by the rifle strap. A hissing filled Jorge’s ear, and he thought the gnats were back. But even as he brushed at the side of his head, he knew this sound had a different origin.
    They came out of the woods as solemn and steady as disciples on a pilgrimage. Jorge knew they were Zapheads right away due to their unkempt hair and filthy clothing. They seemed to seep instead of walk, silent except for their high-pitched vocalizations.
    Jorge wondered if they had responded to the gunshots and came in search of a human to kill. But they moved with little urgency—certainly not as frenzied and bloodthirsty as the soldiers.
    “Creepy as hell,” Franklin whispered. Jorge grimaced, unsure how well the mutants could hear, or to which frequencies they might respond. From a lifetime of handling farm animals, Jorge had seen nature’s range of perceptions in action. And this was a disruption of nature, a disturbing aberration, a new kind of animal with unknown properties.
    There were about a dozen Zapheads, five of them women. Two were adolescents, clothed in T-shirts, shorts, and flipflops, their spiked and greasy hair making them seem like siblings.
    A middle-aged man in a stained white tanktop had tattoos covering his arms, the knees of his blue jeans worn through. Several of the Zapheads were barefoot, as if they’d been napping when the solar storms struck and had risen from dreams to find themselves trapped in a nightmare. One old man was naked, his withered appendage bobbing amid a tuft of gray hair as he worked his scrawny legs.
    “We could shoot ‘em, but the soldiers might come back,” Franklin whispered.
    “Maybe they won’t see us,” Jorge said. The hissing pierced his ears like needles, their tips trying to meet in the midpoint of his skull.
    “Just be ready for anything.”
    You don’t have to tell me twice, gringo.
    The Zapheads converged toward the corpse lying beside the trail, and for one horrible moment, Jorge wondered if they were going to gather around and eat it—like fresh meat on the hoof.
    That’s one kind of “anything” I’m not ready for.
    And he knew he would snap and start shooting wildly if such a blasphemy occurred. No matter how much he warned himself that Rosa and Marina would be at risk if they engaged in gunfire, Jorge couldn’t witness such a horror.
    But the Zapheads didn’t appear in any hurry to do anything—whatever hunger pulsed through their strange veins, they didn’t crave meat.
    Instead, they bent over the corpse and lifted it tenderly from the ground. The hissing suddenly ceased, and the ensuing silence was as shocking as a slap. Jorge’s heartbeat roared in his ears.
    The Zapheads rolled the corpse onto their shoulders, falling into single file. They might have been lumberjacks hauling a log. As they started down the trail with their burden, one of the soldier’s arms lolled out. The naked old man reached up and flopped it back across the dead man’s abdomen.
    At first, the procession was uncoordinated, the shorter Zapheads straining on tiptoes. One of the women let the legs sag so the Zaphead behind her could take the weight, nearly toppling the whole group. But after twenty or so steps, they were moving in unison, a well-oiled machine.
    In a moment, the bizarre spectacle would be around the bend and lost in the trees, and Jorge would be able to breathe again.
    “Bunch of shitterhawks,” Franklin muttered.
    Then he raised his rifle and fired, the sudden explosion like a sonic slap across the valley. The old naked Zaphead collapsed, a gush of red