cigarette.
The other soldier, who seemed to be doing most of the work of escorting their captive, said, “Sarge doesn’t care what you feel like.” But he stopped and let his comrade light the cigarette. The captive slumped, his head down as if resigned to whatever fate the soldiers had planned.
Campbell sized them up. The smoking soldier was in his mid-20s, lean, with a hawkish face and cruel eyes. A rifle was slung across his back. The soldier held the cigarette out to the prisoner, and then remembered the prisoner was blindfolded.
“Wanna smoke?” he sneered.
The captive twitched his head.
“Too bad.” The soldier took a deep puff of his cigarette, turning the tip bright orange, and then jabbed the cherry against the man’s forehead. The man dodged away, grimacing and hissing in pain, although the heat did little more than scorch his hair. The soldier’s laugh was like that of a horse with a busted larynx.
The other soldier, middle-aged and with a crewcut showing some gray, said, “Quit messing around. We need to get one of these back alive.”
One of these? Campbell wondered. Just how many people have they found, and what is happening to them?
“He’s just a Zaphead,” the scrawny soldier said. “He’s too dumb to feel pain.”
That didn’t make sense. The captive didn’t act like a Zaphead. And even if he were one of those whose behavior had been altered by the solar storm, why hadn’t the soldiers simply shot him?
“I’m going to make you feel some pain if you don’t stay in line,” Crewcut said. He sported a semiautomatic assault weapon that looked like it could turn butter into Swiss cheese.
The scrawny soldier delivered one half-hearted stroke of the cigarette, nearly singeing the captive’s cheek, before stepping away to relish his tobacco and stare into the west, where the sun had only just begun its descent into afternoon.
The captive opened his mouth for the first time and made thick, chuckling noises. Crewcut gave him a shove forward. “Don’t want to hear it.”
Campbell pressed back into the shadows as the two of them approached the highway. He considered his options. Crewcut appeared to be the most competent, so he should be the first one taken out. Then, while Campbell still had the element of surprise, he’d go for the smoker.
He looked at the pistol in his lap. Crewcut was a good forty yards away. Even if Campbell got lucky, he’d probably just wing his target and then have two soldiers gunning for him.
And even if he did pull off a miracle and fell them both, what then?
“Wait up,” the scrawny soldier shouted, tossing aside his cigarette and breaking into a sullen jog.
“I swear, Zimmerman, you’re as slow as my granny.”
“Your granny’s a Zaphead.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I banged your sister after she was dead. What ya think about that?”
The smoker howled in strained laughter. “So what? You got my sloppy seconds.”
“You’re a sicko,” Crewcut said. “I like that in a foxhole buddy.”
The smoker, having caught up to the other two, jabbed the blindfolded man in the back. The captive didn’t grunt, although Campbell could hear the air whooshing from his lungs.
Campbell couldn’t shoot now even if he wanted, because they were seventy yards away. But Campbell realized he didn’t want to hurt anyone. There had been enough suffering. He wasn’t sure he could even kill a Zaphead in self-defense.
And the Pete-voice inside his head said Yeah, and you got so damn much to defend, don’t you? A box of Rice-a-roni, the San Francisco treat. A blister pack of Bics. A roadside First Aid kit. Three cans of Starkist tuna. A pack of stale Cheez-it crackers. Half a roll of toilet paper. Oh, yeah, that shit’s worth FIGHTIN’ for.
Campbell resisted answering the Pete-voice. That would be crossing the line into craziness, and Campbell wasn’t crazy.
That’s what they all say, the Pete-voice said.
When Campbell was twelve, his dad had taken him to