Read After: Whiteout (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 4) for Free Online

a
few survivors. Only they weren’t people anymore.”
    “ Monsters ?”
Rachel asked.
    “They
attacked us. We had to defend ourselves. Shipley must have snapped, because he
started ranting about how we were the last outpost of the human race and it was
our duty to establish a new world order. He’d always been a little
unconventional in his views, but I guess he’d just never had the opportunity to
go all Stalin and Mao.”
    “And
you were the only one that got away,” DeVontay said, a mild note of suspicion
in his voice that Hilyard apparently didn’t register.
    “I’d
guess some of the soldiers aren’t on board, but no way they’ll say anything
now. Not after watching Shipley kill seven men. Besides, they’re safe at the
bunker. It’s easy to defend, they have enough supplies to get through the
winter, and nobody really knows what the world is like off the mountain. In the
meantime, they’re sending out patrols to kill or capture whatever Zaps they can
find.”
    “What
about survivors like us?’ DeVontay asked. “Where do we fit in Sgt. Shipley’s
New World Order?”
    “You’re
civilians. That makes you low priority in his eyes. If you don’t have a useful
purpose, you’re just a drain on resources.”
    “And
you call the Zapheads monsters?” Rachel said. The circulation had
returned to her fingers and the tingling, fiery ache had resolved into numb
warmth. The ligature marks on her wrists cut deep red furrows in her flesh. The
men shouldn’t have hurt her. But she couldn’t risk anger.
    Not
yet.
    “We’d
better put out this fire,” Hilyard said. “Dusk is settling in, and we need to
figure out bedding and the sentry schedule. You folks hit the lean-to and
settle in. The boy needs his sleep. I’ll go relieve Campbell for a while and
let you folks work out the next watch.”
    An
owl hooted in the high trees, a harbinger of sunset.
    The
hoot was echoed in the distance.
    “That’s
a good sign,” Hilyard said. “If anything big was moving around, it would have
spooked the owls.”
    Yes , Rachel thought. That’s a very good sign.
    Because
those aren’t owls.
 
     
     
    CHAPTER
FOUR
     
     
     
    When
DeVontay awoke, he thought he was sleeping under the stars.
    But
the air was warm and still, although the stars danced like the universe had
kicked into a carnival waltz, whirling and spinning to a tune beyond the range
of human hearing. Then the tiny sparks slowed, and Lt. Hilyard spoke.
    “It’s
one,” he said, his face thrown into stark shadows by a dim glow below him.
“Your turn as sentry.”
    “Your
wristwatch works,” DeVontay said, his throat cracking from dryness. They both
talked in low tones, aware of the others in the lean-to.
    “I
had it with me in the bunker. Luminous dial. We had some flashlights and spots,
but this is all I had with me when they attacked us.” When Hilyard let the dial
go dark, specks of light still floated across DeVontay’s vision—even in his
glass eye, as if some memory had been triggered there.
    “I’d
forgotten what artificial light is like.”
    “I
keep it covered unless I’m inside. Not that time matters anymore, but it’s kept
me connected to the real world while I’ve been playing Robinson Crusoe of the Blue Ridge Mountains.”
    DeVontay
had slept heavily, with cluttered dreams whose residue haunted him. Hilyard sat
by the lean-to’s opening as if he’d been awake for years. DeVontay reached
beside him in the dark, first feeling Rachel’s hair and then the boy’s. Stephen
snuggled against her, breathing steadily, his body still.
    Rachel
didn’t stir at DeVontay’s touch, but he was struck with the impression that she
was awake. He listened to her breath for a moment, but it didn’t alter from its
slow, shallow state. He rolled away from her and crawled past Hilyard.
    “Here,”
Hilyard said, bumping him.
    DeVontay
reached out in the dark and took a slender cylinder. “What’s this?”
    “Orion
flare for emergencies. If