The NEXT Apocalypse (Book 3): AFTER Life: Paradise Read online

  As the plane lurched into a dive, the straps of my seatbelt clamped down as if to choke my torso and squeeze out my guts. Turbulence heaved the aircraft and threw Bill Arsenault from his seat. He slammed into the ceiling first and then hit the deck with equal, resounding force.

  The Globemaster rocked and wobbled as the pilot fought for control of the aircraft. Debris of some kind peppered the fuselage and something metallic gave way. The plane dipped and fell again. Small holes appeared close to the rear of the plane. The air pressure changed. Wind whistled through the damaged fuselage and dust whipped through the compartment. The Globemaster abruptly began to climb again. All we could do was watch helplessly as the CSIS agent’s limp body slid along the floor to the rear of the plane.

  “Murphy just screwed us again!” Crenshaw yelled.

  He looked crazy to me. I yelled, “What?”

  “Anything that can go wrong, surely will! Murphy’s Law!”

  “What’s happening?”

  “They pulled the trigger!” Crenshaw screamed, near hysterical. “They pulled the trigger too soon! The men I said I’d come back for are burning to death or blown apart right now! And we’ve been dosed!”

  We rocked sideways again and my seatbelt pulled so tight I could barely breathe. I reached out, grabbed Shelly’s hand and squeezed. She squeezed mine in return.

  “I’m gonna have bruised ribs,” I said. “How about you? You okay?”

  “I, uh, I-I don’t need to p-pee anymore.”

  It seemed like a long time passed before we leveled off. As soon as I could, I unbuckled my seatbelt and, moving from strap to strap, made my way to Arsenault. His scalp was bloody. He might have survived the knock to the head if that was his only injury. However, his neck was a loose spring. He wasn’t breathing and I could detect no heartbeat.

  One of the security detail, a man with a bright red goatee, waved at me to get my attention. “You gonna start compressions— ”

  “It’s over for him. Maybe he’s lucky.”

  Crenshaw was crying and laughing at the same time. Something had broken in him, too. He pointed to the body at my feet and yelled to Daniel Harmon, “Are you going to finish that?”

  People have weird reactions to the unexpected and unspeakable, battlefield reactions. Soon, everywhere would become a battlefield. Stephen Hawking was right: Artificial Intelligence would spell our doom as a species. He saw our end coming but even that one in a billion genius could not have predicted what form it would take. The zombie apocalypse used to be a joke. The joke was on us.

  Our pilot sounded haunted when he came over the speaker. Confirming our worst fears, he announced, “From here … Toronto is … gone. Looks like all of it. All of it.”

  Chapter 4

  DANIEL

  No one said a word for a long time. We flew west. We thought about the city we loved and all we had lost. Even if they rebuilt it someday, as they did Hiroshima, it would never be the same. Toronto was supposed to be one of the safe and happy places. Now it would be synonymous with death and destruction. A chapter in a history book — if there would actually be history books in the future — wouldn’t do the city justice. Toronto. Toronto The Good, they used to call it. And, by and large, we were good.

  Losses to history are abstract. Losses remembered by people are always weirdly specific and personal. I’d miss the funky stores on Queen Street West. Since I was a kid old enough to ride the subway and streetcars by myself, I’d wander down to the Silver Snail on Saturday afternoons to check out comics. I wouldn’t call my stash of comic books a collection anymore, but I owned a decent library of graphic novels. Undoubtedly, it was all on fire. My mint copy of Watchmen was probably burning as the protective mylar sleeve melted around the ashes. I’d never gotten around to reading the latest book in the post-apocalyptic series, Y: The Last Man. I’d left it on my bedside table. On my last night as a human being, I’d opted to scroll through Instagram looking for bikini models instead of reading. And, of course, just about every friend, enemy or date I’d ever had incinerated.

  There’d be no more vanilla bean hot chocolates at the Second Cup on my cheat days. I’d miss The Horseshoe Tavern and the shawarma place on Spadina, just south of Queen. No more late night feasts in Chinatown with the boys, either. I liked taking dates to the top of the Plaza when things started to get serious. I loved the view of the city from the Plaza.

  No more people. I’d miss the people the most even though, at present, my body’s first instinct was to eat them. Everyone I knew had been erased as if they’d never existed. Would Toronto be a no-go zone for a generation? Would they start up a new Toronto farther north? How does one even start to bury that many people? Or would the bodies all be incinerated in the blast?

  Depending on the size of the explosion, how far out would the damage go? Were people still alive in North York? Did my sister get my email? Did she and my father make it out of the city? Had anything survived the blast? How many zombies survived?

  That’s the problem with easy solutions: Often, they aren’t solutions at all. I remembered a project in school where I had to research the explosion of the first atomic bomb used against Japan. I still remembered the haunting shadows of people burned into walls by thermal radiation. Most people think a nuclear blast is so fierce that it vaporizes populations instantly. If only that were true. People burn. They die from the trauma of the explosion’s impact. Then comes the killing radiation sickness. The irony of Hiroshima that stuck with me is that, in the first seconds of the nuclear age, the blast buried someone working in a library under a pile of books.

  I watched Crenshaw weep openly and wail loudly. I’d once seen him make shitty jokes about finding a dead baby in a garbage can. He’d bragged about his low heart rate contributing to his uncanny ability to snipe from long distances. Crenshaw had seemed to be one of those guys who complained about the pay but stayed on the job because what else could he do? He wanted action and acted eager to shoot people. Now, of all the people on the plane, the ETF sniper seemed the most upset, unable to rein in his emotions. I’d been wrong about Crenshaw’s tough guy image. All the time I’d known him, he’d been pretending to be someone he was not.

  Maybe that’s true for everyone. One thing I’ve learned from the apocalypse is that we don’t really know anyone until we see them under stress. Too bad I had to learn that lesson this way. Maybe I would have gained that knowledge had I gotten around to reading Y: The Last Man.

  After a long while, Crenshaw looked over at me. “What are you looking at, Danny?”

  I said nothing.

  “Why are you eyeballing me, Danny? You mad dogging me, man?”

  “Curious, is all.”

  “What? You’re the zombie who can talk, so talk.”

  “How long did you know Hamish Allen?”

  “What?”

  “Funny that you were his accomplice but you ended up shooting him, isn’t it?”

  A couple of the others heard me over the drone of the plane. Perking up, they leaned in to listen.

  Crenshaw stared at me, his mouth hanging open. “What did you say to me?”

  “You heard me. These guys heard, too. Hamish Allen told me you were the guy who was supposed to get him in the isolation truck and take him away safely. You messed up. You shot him. You unleashed the airborne brain parasites. You thought you were killing me but you ended up killing everybody, didn’t you? How many pieces of silver were you going to get for that job, Judas? Were you going to retire to Fiji or something?”

  “You bastard.” Fresh tears ran down his cheeks.

  “Don’t worry, Dale. Any evidence of your treason is burned up. No one will ever know for sure but you and me.” I glanced around. The faces of the men on his security team had turned to stone. “And these guys’ll know, of course.”

  “Allen did not tell you that.”

  “You’re right, Dale. Hamish didn’t put a name to his accomplice. I made it up but your reaction tells me I just made a direct
hit. I sunk your battleship, buddy.”

  Crenshaw stood. For a moment, I thought he might kill me. Instead, he stalked away to the far end of the plane and sat alone. People who aren’t guilty proclaim their innocence loudly, over and over. The guilty may begin by denying accusations but soon retreat into silence, contempt, resentment and shame. Dale Crenshaw got too quiet to be innocent. No hard evidence remained that could convict him, but I knew I was right.

  Chapter 5

  CHLOE

  I pounded on the cockpit door. Neither the pilot nor the co-pilot would open it so we could speak face to face. “This plane has been dosed with radiation,” I yelled. “We’ve been lit up with rads. I’m not looking forward to it anymore than you are, but we need to shower, get scrubbed down as soon as we land, the sooner, the better! Medical evaluations, fresh clothes, blood tests, potassium iodide, at least. I’m not even sure what else — ”

  I hadn’t noticed the intercom in the bulkhead by the door. When someone finally answered me using the device, I felt foolish. “We have clearance to land at CFB Suffield but we are not particularly welcome, ma’am.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we are not to leave the tarmac. The infected on the other Globemaster will be taken on a separate helo. When you deplane, no one is to hesitate. Run to the waiting helicopter immediately. It’ll be close to the plane, okay? If you or anyone else deviates from the shortest distance between our aircraft and the next transport, you will be shot. You all will be taken to your next destination immediately. There isn’t room to travel with the captured dead heads.”

  “That’s not going to help us — “

  “Listen carefully. My orders are that you and your escort will go on the first helo. Only four of you can go. The passenger list is you, Officer Priyat, Mr. Arsenault and the infected man. Do you understand?”

  “Arsenault’s dead.”

  “Stand by.”

  After a couple of minutes, the pilot came back on the intercom. “Mr. Crenshaw will accompany you to guard the prisoner.”

  “But about the radiation — ”

  “I’ve talked to the tower and the officer in charge, ma’am. Getting you to your next destination is the only priority. The rest of your group will follow you on the other helicopter. That is all.”

  I pushed the button on the intercom and pleaded to be patched through to someone at Suffield.

  “Do you understand the orders, Dr. Robinson?”

  “Yes, but — ”

  “Then we’re done.” The crew did not reply when I pushed the call button on the intercom and I soon felt like a useless pest. I returned to my seat beside Shelly and waited to land. It was a long flight. I tried to sleep but all I could think about was the damage that had been done to us from the blast. How long before radiation sickness took us all out?

  It was dark when we arrived at the airbase. All I saw of Suffield was a line of yellow hazmat suits outlined by bright lights in the distance. The moment we came to a halt, the ramp at the back of the plane lowered and a rush of surprisingly cold air hit us. It was refreshing at first but I soon began to shiver. I hurried out into the early morning darkness. Shelly stuck beside me, carrying the precious box of samples.

  As promised, a helicopter awaited, already powered up. The machine’s rotors did not chop the air with the clatter I expected of helicopters. Instead, its put out a steady high hum, as if it was one sharpened hunk of metal made not to fly but to slice through the air.

  The Globemaster’s engines did not power down much so we were buffeted by a hot wash of wind as we ran to the helicopter. The other cargo plane landed behind us. Under the threat of being shot, I didn’t stop to see how many patients they’d captured for me. I didn’t relish the idea of experimenting on people, zombie or not. My focus had always been on the microscopic side of the biological spectrum. Mostly, my experiments with nanotech had been confined to the theoretical with some forays into working with lab rats. I usually delegated the animal work as much as I could. Pink-eyed rats freaked me out.

  As Shelly urged me to board the helicopter, the infected ETF officer passed within a few feet of me. Daniel Harmon’s hands were cuffed behind his back. Crenshaw made him wear a muzzle and a chain leash around his throat, too. As the man turned to look at me, I only caught a glimpse of his eyes. He’d tried to kill me once. He looked placid now.

  I was reminded of a story my mother told to explain her fear of dogs. One of her earliest memories was getting bitten when she was four. “The little bastard wagged his tail and looked friendly. Then the dog bit me hard on the chin.” She’d tipped her head back to show two small scars where the animal’s fangs had sunk into her flesh. “A little farther down and he might have ripped my throat out. I would have bled to death in minutes if the angle had been just a little different.”

  “What kind of dog was it?”

  “A Chihuahua.”

  I laughed. “Mom! You would have been the first person in the world to be killed by a Chihuahua!”

  “Just because something hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it won’t. Nothing happens for a long time and then it does and everyone is surprised. I can be shocked but I’ll never be surprised again. That’s what that little bug-eyed devil dog taught me. Give everything time and anything can happen, Chloe. Change always comes.”

  I’d laughed then but I had to concede that my mother had a point. My research had been stolen and perverted to evil ends. People had turned into cannibals. Toronto was a pile of radioactive ash and rubble. I should have listened to Mom. Reality is much more fragile than I ever thought.

  Before we lifted off from CFB Suffield, our cargo plane took off down the runway. I strained to hear our new pilot communicate with the tower. He sounded anxious. “Suffield Tower, this is Cyclone A113. What’s that Globemaster doing? He’s taking off with the wind, over!”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant but it didn’t sound good. I pulled on my headphones in time to hear Tower ask the plane’s pilot to respond. We watched as the big cargo plane seemed to lumber toward the end of the runway where huge orange bars of light flashed a warning.

  “He’s not going to make it, Tower,” our pilot said.

  He was wrong. The Globemaster did manage to pull up into the sky at the last moment. I let out a long breath as the plane went into a steep climb.

  “He’s in a hurry,” Shelly said. “What does he know that we don’t? Another missile on the way?”

  I looked to the faces of the cops. Shelly Priyat and Dale Crenshaw looked pale, exhausted and fearful. I probably looked the same way. I could only see his eyes, but the ETF guy wearing the muzzle looked interested and calm. I thought again of the little dog that had terrified my mother, so friendly and relaxed right up until the moment he bit her and changed her worldview.

  “Tower to Cyclone A113, stand by.”

  Minutes passed and we waited with no explanation for the delay. The pilot switched channels on the intercom but we could hear no radio chatter.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Crenshaw said. “What is the hold up?”

  “It is like it always is, sir,” our pilot replied. “Hurry up and wait.”

  After a long silence, Shelly shrugged. “I waited to take off for a trip to the Dominican last year. We sat on the runway for forty minutes and all I could think was how many minutes the delay was eating into my vacation. Aviation is the same all over. Everybody take a breath.”

  The Globemaster’s engines roared overhead, but only for a few seconds. A gigantic fireball bathed us in orange light as the cargo plane nosedived at full speed into the airfield beside us. Whether he wanted it or not, Bill Arsenault was cremated. Another explosion soon followed and a hail of shrieking metal blossomed out from the wreckage. Multiple fires found purchase in the surrounding grasses. Jet fuel spilled and stunk, burning hot and bright. High winds fanned the fires as if Nature Itself was saying, “Go on, get it over with. Burn everything.”

  As anothe
r explosion pierced the night, we ducked involuntarily, as if that would have helped if a chunk of shrapnel from the plane’s wreckage had torn into our helicopter.

  All of us ducked except for the prisoner. The ETF agent gazed at the burning plane, calm as a pond on a still day. Fleetingly, I wondered if the prisoner was in agreement with Nature. He was an apex predator now. Maybe he was more intimate with the mortal arc of the way of things. He’d seen death and caused death. Maybe that’s why he seemed so at home in its presence.

  No alarms sounded. No sirens wailed in the distance. Fire trucks did not race to the rescue. The Globemaster was utterly obliterated. No one stationed at CFB Suffield seemed interested in extinguishing the speeding, spreading inferno.

  Crenshaw’s voice climbed to a higher, near hysterical register. “Jesus! Do you think they were ordered to commit suicide? A cover-up or — ”

  Harmon let out a bitter chuckle. “We’re a little bit beyond cover-ups now, don’t you think? Good thing you didn’t go for detective. I’m guessing the crew was from Toronto,” Harmon said. “When loved ones die, everybody’s curious about where ghosts go. Maybe they went to follow them and find out.”

  Shelly’s voice shook. “You believe in ghosts?”

  Harmon shrugged. “If you believe a little too much in a better life after death, you might commit suicide, too.”

  “And if you lose all hope, you might end up making the same choice.” I was jolted by the crew’s suicide but I wasn’t exactly surprised. It felt like the whole world had given up. Worse, it almost made sense to stop trying so damn hard. I had always spoken of my work with AFTER in the future tense: what it could do, what it might do, how it would help. The new reality hit ahead of schedule. Nanotech was a tidal wave and it was washing away everything we once treasured. “We’re caught between a shock and a dark place.”

  “Are you afraid of the dark?” the zombie asked.

  “I think that’s where we live from now on,” I replied. “No choice.”