Free After: Dying Light by Scott Nicholson

survive.”
    “Do you know what happens to people who disobey orders in wartime?” Broyhill said, as if he were eager to administer the death sentence.
    “Hold on a second,” Shipley said. “He’s going to tell me more about Hilyard’s plans, and then you can have your fun.”
    Broyhill snorted and stepped back. “Hell, the night is young.”
    A few gunshots burst in the distance, and Shipley cocked an ear to listen. “McCutcheon’s squad must have found some more Zaps. Too bad we couldn’t erase them all when we had them surrounded at the school.”
    “Well, it’s not so easy when they get up as fast as you can knock them down,” Broyhill said. “Them bastards can sure eat some bullets.”
    Shipley moved the tip of his shrinking cigarillo near Jorge’s left eye. “You wouldn’t happen to know what the Zaps were doing there, do you?”
    “Gathering like they always do.” Jorge forced himself not to blink, fixing his gaze on Shipley’s goggles. He could picture the cruel, psychotic eyes hiding behind them. “Becoming a tribe.”
    “Bringing themselves back to life. We saw that shit. We couldn’t see how they were doing it, but first they were dead and then they weren’t. Then they were attacking us.”
    He couldn’t let Shipley know that the ninth baby was at the school. His life depended on planting the belief that the Zaphead’s little leader was in Hilyard’s custody. And that Jorge could give them access to it.
    “They’ll be after the last baby,” Jorge said. “It has the power to summon them with its mind.”
    Broyhill and the other men laughed, but Shipley tossed his smoke to the ground and leaned forward until their faces were only inches apart. “That’s so crazy I almost believe it. Because you don’t have the brains to dream up something like that.”
    His heart was pounding so hard he was almost certain Shipley could hear it, but he forced himself to remain calm. For Marina’s sake.
    “I can prove it,” Jorge said. “I can get you the baby. And Hilyard, if you want him.”

 
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
     
    Kokona seemed to grow lighter in his arms rather than heavier.
    DeVontay waited by the tractor trailer as planned, hiding in the shrubs bordering the porch of a house. But as the minutes stretched into perhaps an hour, he couldn’t afford to stay longer. Especially as gunshots popped sporadically closer.
    The baby had shut her eyes while held in DeVontay’s embrace. In the darkness, he couldn’t see her, but parental instinct took over and he gently rocked her, even though he knew Zapheads didn’t really sleep. He even started humming “Rockabye Baby.”
    At one point, he must have fallen asleep himself, because he jerked his head alert and realized he’d been talking to Rachel, in a sunny meadow at a farm where they’d spent a few peaceful weeks in autumn. In the dream, there was no apocalypse, but they’d been arguing over a pig. DeVontay wanted to butcher it, but Rachel wanted to keep it as a pet. Despite the grim nature of the dispute, they were both giggling playfully.
    “You were calling her name,” Kokona said. Her wide eyes illuminated both their faces.
    DeVontay was disoriented. “Whose?” he said, although he already knew.
    “Rachel’s.”
    “She wanted to help you. All of the New People.”
    “I know. Partly to help you and the others, partly to help us. Partly to help herself.”
    DeVontay realized Kokona might know more about Rachel than he did. After all, he didn’t have the advantage of a telepathic connection. He couldn’t help but feel the Zapheads had only half the story—Rachel’s human half would have remained hidden from them, beyond comprehension. “We need to learn to live together, or we all die.”
    “Not all of us,” Kokona said.
    Her words chilled him, and he realized his bones ached from midnight’s temperature drop. He shivered against the winter air.
    “I’m cold,” she said, as if picking up on his thoughts.
    DeVontay