Free After: The Shock by Scott Nicholson

“Yeah, if it’s all clear
on the road, I’d just as soon head north.”
    “Okay,
you pack up and I…uh, have some personal business.” She didn’t want to ask him
to check the bathroom. She was embarrassed enough as it was.
    Funny,
it’s the end of the world and I still have something to be shy about.
    Rachel
felt his one eye tracking her across the room. He chuckled. “What, you going to
put on some make-up?”
    She
frowned at him, gave the doorknob a vigorous twist, and peeked inside. It was
dark, but at least no one jumped her.
    “Want
a light?” DeVontay said.
    “No,
I’ll just leave the door cracked a little.”
    “I
already used it, so don’t mind the smell. I saved the flush for you.”
    “Thanks
for sharing.” Inside, as her eyes adjusted, she poked with her foot to find the
porcelain bowl. As she peeled her jeans down, she listened to the brooding
hotel. The banging was several floors above, fixed in one place now, and she
was relieved the Zaphead had stopped making the rounds. Maybe the guy had found
his room.
    Then
she heard something below that sound, thin, reedy, and barely piercing the
unnatural silence. At first she thought DeVontay was whistling, but it was
coming from her left—the room to the other side of their suite.
    “Do
you hear that?” she whispered, startled by the echo in the tile-covered
bathroom.
    “You
say something?”
    “It’s
music.”
    “Can’t
be no music. The pulse blew out all electronics. Didn’t you hear the news?”
    She
didn’t point out the contradiction. Instead, she listened more carefully as she
wiped. The notes plinked with a metallic coldness, yet they varied in tone and
rhythm. After she fastened her jeans, she felt along the sink counter until she
found one of the plastic sanitary cups. She shucked the cellophane sheath and
placed the mouth of the cup against the wall, then placed her ear against the
cup’s bottom.
    She
didn’t turn when the door swung open behind her and DeVontay called. “What you
doing?”
    “Shhh.”
When Rachel was nine, before the divorce, her father had given her a little
music box with Walt Disney’s Barbie-fied version of Cinderella on top. By
twisting the little brass key, she could make Cinderella spin around and
around, never losing a slipper. The music box had issued the same sort of
brassy tonality she now heard.
    “Somebody’s
over there,” she said.
    “Ain’t
nobody over there. They would have heard us and said something.”
    “Maybe
they’re scared.”
    “And
maybe it’s a Zaphead.”
    Rachel
thought about banging on the wall and yelling, but if the person was scared, that wouldn’t help. “We need to open that door and check.”
    “The
hell we do,” DeVontay said, his good eye narrowing in annoyance. “We already
got a plan, and it don’t include saving the world.”
    “All
right, then,” she said, pushing past him, not bothering to flush the toilet.
“Give me the gun and you can wait here like a sissy.”
    “A
sissy? Nobody calls nobody a ‘sissy’ anymore.”
    “Well,
sorry I’m not up on my hood lingo, dude. Or homey. Or whatever gangsta thing
you want to be called. But I’m not going anywhere until I see who’s in that
room.”
    Rachel
was surprised by her own anger, but she understood it. She’d felt so helpless
watching everyone die from the pulse, or turn into Zapheads, or commit suicide,
and finally, she had a chance to be useful.
    DeVontay
exhaled a long sigh. “Okay, damnit. We get packed, check the room, and then
we’re outta here.”
    She
met his gaze and they stared at each other for a full ten seconds, neither
willing to flinch. “Deal.”
    As
he packed, he cussed under his breath. Rachel collected her backpack, checking
the vial of Nembutal the druggist had given her. No, she wouldn’t surrender,
not while someone else might need help.
    DeVontay
drew his gun before flipping back the security bolt and opening the door.
Rachel pressed close behind. Once in the hall, they