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

spurting from his rib cage and mixing with the mud.
    The Zapheads staggered and lost their grip on the corpse and it tumbled off their shoulders to the ground.
    The Zapheads turned as one and stared up at the hiding place in the rhododendrons. Jorge tried to shrink back among the dark leaves and shadows.
    Then the hissing began.

 
     
    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    “You old fool,” Jorge said. “Now the soldiers will come.”
    “Let ‘em,’ Franklin said. His eyes gleamed with liquid malevolence, storms brewing behind them.
    Below, the Zapheads massed, their hisses combining into a near screech. They didn’t approach, not at first, and Jorge wondered why they were hesitating. They showed no fear or anger, and their implacability was more terrifying than if they had swarmed up the slope toward them. The two adolescents were the creepiest—if not for their glittering eyes and ragged clothing, they could have been on a school outing, perhaps a nature hike with a picnic.
    “You shooting, or you running?” Franklin asked Jorge.
    “This isn’t my fight,” Jorge managed to say, although he could barely force air through his windpipe. He hadn’t given a second thought to risking his life to help rescue Cathy and her baby—although he hadn’t known at the time that the infant was a Zaphead. But this confrontation was unnecessary. All they’d had to do was wait it out and the Zapheads would soon be gone.
    He wasn’t going to fight to save a dead man. Not while his family was at risk.
    “This wasn’t part of the plan,” Jorge said.
    “The plan is to survive.”
    “We survive by staying out of sight.”
    “I didn’t hear you saying that back when you were rescuing a damned Zap baby.”
    “I…I didn’t know.”
    “I’ve got enough bullets for all of them,” Franklin said, leveling his rifle again.
    “Do you have enough for whatever army is out there?” Jorge scanned the surrounding forest, wondering if the three soldiers were even now returning to the trail. Or if other soldiers were out on patrol. He’d seen a lot of boot prints.
    The Zapheads remained silent, still facing up the slope. Sweat ringed Jorge’s scalp line. The sweet aroma of sap and autumn decay filled his nostrils, the tension heightening his senses. A bird overhead emitted a piercing cry, and Jorge feared it would set off the Zapheads again. But they waited with an inhuman patience.
    “They can’t take a hint,” Franklin said. “This is my mountain.”
    He fired again, and one of the female Zapheads lurched forward one faltering step, mouth open in surprise. The bullet had entered her abdomen, blowing a pink, stringy chunk of intestine out her back. Judging from her blue blazer and white blouse, she might have been a bank teller or sales executive, someone you wouldn’t expect to ever meet deep in the forest.
    Now she was dead a second time—the solar storms had inflicted a first death on her soul, leaving only her body.
    Still, she was a woman.
    “You’re killing them in cold blood,” Jorge said.
    “Good,” he said. “No need to break a sweat.”
    “You’re not shooting those kids, are you?”
    “They ain’t kids no more. If you’re a Zap, you’re a threat to the human race. A threat to freedom.”
    The Zapheads still didn’t show any distress or excitement, although they took interest in their fallen comrades. Two of them lifted the naked man and settled him across their shoulders, while three female Zapheads lifted their dead sister. They weren’t strong enough to bore her aloft, but they managed to raise her enough to drag her along the trail, one summer sandal sliding off her foot.
    The remaining Zapheads started up the slope toward the rhododendron thicket. They moved with an eerie grace, as if working their way through water. At forty yards, their glittering eyes were like electric jewels.
    Jorge brought his weapon to bear, but only in anticipation of the soldiers discovering them and attacking. He wasn’t going to