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

silhouetted against a back window, against which a distant fire cast a coruscating wash of orange and red.
    “I won’t hurt you.”
    “You have one of them .”
    DeVontay realized she meant the baby. Willow’s eyes glowed with an eerie light that mirrored the flames outside, and they were bright enough to radiate through the blanket. She squirmed in his grasp.
    “Where are the others?” DeVontay asked, holding his position.
    “Everywhere…nowhere…I don’t know.” The woman calmed down a little. “Scattered now. Or dead.”
    “So there are more of us around?” DeVontay hoped Willow would stay quiet so the woman wouldn’t panic. DeVontay’s eye adjusted to the dark and he could make out her middle-aged, lean face.
    And the pistol in her hand.
    “They forced most of us to go to the football stadium.” The woman let out a sob. “They had all these dead bodies piled up. Thousands and thousands of them. Like they were watching a game. And then the Zapheads started chanting ‘Wheeler, Wheeler, Wheeler.’ And this woman showed up, and then the shooting started.”
    Rachel. She was here, just like Willow said.
    “Easy,” DeVontay said. “There’s an Army unit up in the mountains, and they’ve attacked the town. You’re going to be free, but you have to stay off the streets until it’s over.”
    “The Army’s not going to save you,” Willow said. “For every one of us they kill, a hundred more step in. We’re confused right now, but soon we will organize and solve this problem.”
    The woman raised her pistol, arm wavering. “Make it shut up!”
    DeVontay held up one palm in a “Stop” gesture. “She’s called ‘Willow.’ She can help us. Do you know what happened to the Wheeler woman?”
    “I hope she’s dead. Because she’s one of them, too.”
    Gunshots peppered the landscape. A series of muffled explosions boomed across town. Outside, Zapheads moved toward the sounds as if they’d finally regained their communal mind.
    Willow’s right. The attack disrupted their unity, but they’re adapting and recovering. This might be the first time they’ve been hit this hard.
    Which meant he’d have to find Rachel fast and get out of there. This woman was too far gone to be helpful. He couldn’t waste the time to help her, either.
    It’s come to this. The Zapheads are more human than we are.
    “I have to go now,” DeVontay said. “You just stay put like I said and keep your head down.”
    “What happened to your eye? Did one of the Zapheads take it?”
    DeVontay didn’t understand her for a moment. He was so used to having only one eye that he didn’t consider it noteworthy, and his glass eye was of a quality that the casual observer wouldn’t know it was a prosthetic. But with the socket empty, he must look shocking.
    “I lost it as a child,” he said. “I’ve been with the Zapheads for two days now and they haven’t hurt me.”
    “We’re the New People,” Willow said. “We reject your insulting name for us.”
    “Jesus fucking Christ,” the woman wailed. “Shut the little freak up .”
    DeVontay took a step backward toward the door. He wasn’t totally sure the Zapheads wouldn’t erupt into a murderous frenzy, but the street seemed a safer bet than this woman’s company. “She’s just a baby.”
    “But the babies are the worst,” the woman said, face twisting, her eyes taking on a mad light. With her wild hair and leer, she might have been a witch out of some demonic fairy tale. But the gun was real. “The babies are the smart ones. Planning the takeover.”
    “We’re not taking over anything,” Willow said. “You’re giving it to us.”
    “Shh,” DeVontay said. In her straightforward innocence, Willow didn’t understand she was feeding the woman’s lunacy.
    “They’re our extinction event,” the woman said. “The comet got the dinosaurs, and the Zapheads are going to get us. Except nobody will be around to write the history.”
    “We’ll be around.”