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

shoot unless he had no other choice.
    Franklin, on the other hand…
    Ku-paaak.
    Another shot, another Zaphead tumbling over.
    Jorge flung his weapon to the ground.
    Franklin turned, nearly snarling in rage. Jorge wasn’t sure if the anger was directed at him or the Zapheads—the raw emotion seemed diffuse and directionless, a tsunami finally breaching a seawall.
    “Pick it up,” Franklin said.
    “I’m not killing unarmed people.”
    “They’re not people, Goddammit. They’re Zaps .”
    “I’m done.”
    Franklin lunged toward him with a speed that belied his age. Jorge tried to avoid the charge but fell into the branches, feathers of bark raining down on his face. Franklin clutched him by the front of his shirt, his fist jammed hard into Jorge’s Adam’s apple.
    The Zapheads suddenly hissed and began storming the slope, kicking mud and leaves into the air. Their grace gave way to a kinetic madness that mirrored Franklin’s rage. Jorge fought to suck air into his lungs. Franklin’s breath smelled of old onions, stale coffee, and a metallic tinge that came from somewhere deep in his organs.
    “Guh…guh…,” Jorge grunted, pointing at the approaching Zapheads. But Franklin’s bulging eyes fixated on Jorge’s as if he was oblivious to everything but the adrenalin coursing through his veins. Jorge struggled to get his balance but one knee was jammed in the crotch of a twisted rhododendron. He couldn’t run and he couldn’t fend off the grizzled oldtimer.
    The Zapheads fanned out as they approached, half a dozen of them flitting through the trees and dodging behind the boulders. The two kids spearheaded the charge. Jorge hadn’t noticed before that one of them was a girl—her lithe body was undeveloped and her shape hidden inside a baggy T-shirt. She was close enough that he recognized the emblem on it from a pencil box Marina had owned.
    Hello Kitty.
    Jorge twisted away from Franklin’s grip, a branch scratching his cheek.
    “Fray…Franklin,” Jorge wheezed. This time a glimmer of recognition clouded the burning rage of Franklin’s irises. He blinked as if awakening from a restless nap and looked down at his hands.
    “They’re coming,” Jorge said.
    “Who?”
    Jorge wondered if the old man had suffered a stroke. “Zaps.”
    The man shoved Jorge and scrambled for his rifle. Jorge hung splayed in the branches for another moment before dropping onto the moist loam.
    From his knees, Franklin hoisted his rifle into position and swiveled the barrel left and right. The Zapheads darted between the trees, hissing and chuckling.
    Franklin squeezed off another shot and a bullet pinged off granite.
    An answering shot echoed across the valley from the opposite ridge.
    Soldiers. Damn the ornery old man.
    Jorge couldn’t locate any of the Zapheads. Once they had swarmed the forest, they moved with a predatory agility. He’d see a flash of movement or flutter of cloth and by the time he focused, all was shadows and trees again. If not for their hissing, Jorge would have believed they had retreated deeper into the woods.
    Franklin cussed under his breath. “Did they turn into ghosts?”
    Another shot rang out from a distance and this time Jorge heard a bullet whistle through the treetops above. He crouched low and scrambled on his hands and knees until he was out of the thicket.
    “Where you going?” Franklin said.
    “To the compound.”
    “You forgot your rifle.”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    Jorge took off along the slope, running parallel to the trail. Below, the three females had lifted the woman Franklin had shot and now conveyed their grisly cargo toward a mysterious destination. The naked old man’s body was gone, but the dead soldier still lay where he’d tumbled. The Zapheads had apparently lost interest in the human once they had some corpses of their own kind.
    Franklin fired again and Jorge winced, half expecting a bullet in the back. But he didn’t turn around. Instead, he angled up the slope,