Read Online After: Red Scare (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 5) by Scott Nicholson - Free Book Online Page A

butt-down beside her. “They want to heal us. Turn us into them, make us new, and get rid of our chaotic, murderous thoughts.”
    “These little shitters said that? They can talk ?”
    “Maybe that has something to do with all the bodies in the football stadium,” Brock said. “Sort of like science projects, the way we had to cut open frogs in biology class.”
    “Well, they did something to my granddaughter when she was hurt,” Franklin said. “An infected wound from a dog bite. They fixed her, but they changed her in the process. That’s why I’m here. To find her.”
    “She turned Zap?” Sierra said.
    Hearing it that bluntly was like an icy spear driven into Franklin’s temple. His fear made him angry. “No, she’s not one of them. She’s something in between. She thought she could serve as an ambassador of some kind. But I’m thinking the other way now. She can help us . Figure them out, and figure out how to beat them.”
    “We’ve seen them heal each other,” Brock said, more effusive now, as if he trusted Franklin a little more. “If one of them is injured, the other Zapheads lay their hands on them. And the wounds vanish in minutes.”
    “Sound like faith healers in the charismatic churches,” Franklin said. “They’re passing on some form of chi or vital energy, like ancient Chinese shit gone nanotech. But patching up a paper cut is a little different than bringing somebody back from the dead.”
    “The escapee told us the babies were better at healing than the adults. In some ways, the adults are like the extension of the tribe, worker bees serving the queen and the hive. You’ve observed how they can act as one without any evident form of communication?”
    “Sure. The worker bee thing works for me,” Franklin said. “Like they all have one mind but not all of them have access to the same thoughts.”
    Franklin didn’t like where this was headed. He’d come to accept a rampaging horde of mutants whose purpose was to wipe the human race off the planet. Hell, he’d even accept a divine hand dispensing punishment for the world’s sins. God only knew humans had committed enough of them.
    But a massive army of missionaries determined to save mankind from itself—well, that was Franklin’s worst nightmare.
    “Assimilation or extinction,” Brock said. “That’s their future for us. We’re so inferior that any service or labor we supply won’t outweigh the resource drain.”
    “A planet this big, population trimmed to a tenth of a percent of its former size, and still no room for everybody?” Franklin said.
    “We’ve been working this out for weeks, while you’ve been up there on your mountain playing Zen Buddhist monk,” Sierra said. “What’s the sound of one hand clapping when it’s bitch-slapping you in the face?”
    Franklin bristled at the stereotype he’d become, although he harbored a yin-yangish bit of pride that his legend had spread among the survivors. No doubt some saw him as a kind of mystical messiah whose prophecies had come to fruition.
    If he gave more of a damn, he could use that charade to his advantage. But he was well aware that anyone who became a messiah was eventually plagued by followers, and every last Christ ended up getting nailed to a fucking piece of wood by the very folks he tried to save.
    Franklin was at peace with the idea that sometimes a cockroach needed smashing.
    “So what’s your plan to outsmart them?” Franklin asked.
    “Those vehicles there? We’ve created our own little piece of performance art,” Brock said. His face was barely visible in the fading light of day, but Franklin didn’t like the sinister smirk on the guy’s face. He was enjoying After way too much.
    “Our bait,” Sierra said.
    The wind shifted, and Franklin smelled it, scarcely evident over the smoke: rot, corruption, and death.
    “We did some collecting of our own,” Brock said. “While Sgt. Shipley was busy killing them, we gathered them and brought