After Life | Book 1 | After Life Read online

  Before 2010, service areas had been small mini-exits, generally stocked with a gas station, a McDonald’s, and little else, so positioned because they let travelers get off roads without having to bother navigating.

  In the years since, though, many such stop-offs had been repurposed as worst-case-scenario emergency landing points in the event of a new generation of Out-Theres. The gas pumps were still supposedly functional, but the service areas were no longer for parents with kids needing a break from a long drive; they were for, quite simply, Donnie and Michelle—people on the run from the dead, who needed, if all else failed, a way to be on the move.

  Supposedly, Michelle knew, these service areas had been supplied with a handful of gassed-up cars, ready to be driven by any desperate traveler. And, on the far end of the service area, Michelle could see a line of about five cars that certainly appeared to her to be ready to run.

  “I had forgotten all about the service area emergency points,” Michelle said, smiling at the sight before her.

  “I hadn’t,” Donnie said, offering back a smile of his own. “Before I came to work for Mr. Lambert, I’d been in charge of the New England Regional Rest Area Readiness Committee. This was my project.”

  “That’s how you knew the fastest way to get over here?” Michelle asked with a gasp. “You knew exactly which backyard to cut through? That’s amazing.”

  Donnie’s smile grew with pride. “Michelle, I was very good at my job.”

  Michelle’s mind drifted back to the situation at their own base, which had been meant to be the safest of all places in the world. Somehow, though, those in charge of the place she’d spent most of her time had never accounted for the eventuality that zombies actually could have gotten in, as only that main exit had been secure. “Glad to know someone knew what they were doing,” she said, more to herself than to Donnie.

  “Right?” he said, answering regardless. “I tell you what’s been bothering me,” he went on. “How much has gone wrong. I mean, everything. We didn’t have a single safeguard in place if Z’s ever got into our building, short of, ‘Well, shoot the hell out of them.’ And you remember what Nick said? Apparently, they had told him that, if zombies did return, he was just supposed to stay on guard. Forever, the way he described it. What the hell was that? Was that just their way of saying they had someone on point while really just hoping they never had to worry about it? I mean, ‘stay on guard forever’ hardly seems like a thought-out plan.”

  Suddenly, Donnie laughed out loud. “You know what we didn’t have at work? Nowhere in that damn building? Beds. Cots, sleeping bags, pads, whatever. Not a damn thing. If we’d had to hole up there, we’d have been sleeping in desk chairs and on concrete floors. No one, in 20 years, said, ‘Hey, guys, what about a mattress?’ A single goddamned mattress. Maybe we’d have survived the outbreak, but every one of us would have needed a three-day massage at the end, just to work the kinks out of our necks.

  “We were all just a bunch of fuckups,” he said. “All of us. Nothing was ready. Nothing was prepared.”

  Donnie glanced over to Michelle as he finished. She had slowed down, and he saw fresh tears in her eyes. “Michelle?” he said, his tone growing concerned. “Michelle? What’s wrong?”

  “‘Nothing was prepared,’” Michelle repeated.

  “Right…?”

  “Donnie, nothing was prepared. Yeah, we’re heading to Hyannis to find Stacy. But you know what I hope to find there? All I want to find is a locked door leading to a basement classroom. Just the idea that Stacy is downstairs, is safe. Then I’ll work on finding my own safe place, and I’ll be able to see her again when this is all over.

  “I just want to know she’s safe. But you’re right, ‘Nothing was prepared.’ Nothing. I mean, if we weren’t really safe, weren’t really protected, what are the chances the school was? Sounds to me like everyone screwed everything up, and I’m scared that includes protecting the kids in school.”

  Donnie grabbed Michelle’s hand. He felt a rush through his arm as he did so—learning of Michelle’s sexual preference hadn’t really done anything to lessen Donnie’s feelings for her. “Michelle,” he said as he cupped her hand in both of his. “We don’t know what we’re going to find in Hyannis. And not everything was messed up.” He gestured toward his own project, to the cars a few hundred yards away. “We have cars. Odds are, Stacy’s playing Go Fish in the school’s basement with her roommate, eating some canned beans.”

  Michelle nodded. Even if Donnie was wrong, she knew that if she continued to fret over her ignorance of everything that wasn’t Donnie and her, she’d drive herself crazy. “You’re right,” she said. “Let’s get a car.”

  The two of them continued on their way to the cars in silence. Michelle took another drink from her water and stowed it back in her pack, happy her feet were soon to get another break.

  As they drew within the last hundred or so yards of the cars, their path curved around an outcropping of gas pumps. Doing so brought the interstate ahead into their view and them within view of the interstate. That would not have been so bad had the interstate ahead not been populated.

  Zombies.

  A collection of zombies, 30 or 40, were milling around at the point where the on-ramp from the service area met the interstate proper.

  Michelle broke into a run for the car at the same time the first few zombies did the same toward Donnie and her. Just behind, Donnie started sprinting as well. They were closer to the car than the zombies were, but the difference was close, and Michelle couldn’t be sure that there were no ex-sprinter zombies among those coming for her, so she ran as quickly as she could.

  Not three steps in, Donnie passed her, having shed his pack and therefore lightened his load. Donnie had fished his gun from his holster, and started to put distance between himself and Michelle.

  “Donnie!” Michelle cried between breaths. “Your pack!”

  “Leave it!” he hollered back. “Leave yours, too! We’ve got to get to the car!”

  Michelle realized the wisdom of Donnie’s words—if the backpack slowed her down too much, all she’d be is a well-stocked zombie—and shed her own pack. Almost immediately, she felt three things: faster, thirstier, and empty. The knowledge that their only food and drink supplies were now lying on the ground behind them was chilling, and the loss of her Bible was outright devastating, but Michelle couldn’t argue that she was now running faster than she had been.

  The lead zombie, it seemed, had been a runner. It was young and had no visible injury—from a distance, the only visible blood on it was what was streaked downward from its mouth, presumably from its most recent meal. And it was getting to the car. Or, more accurately, it was getting to them faster than they were getting to the car. Its arms were stretched before it as it ran, which had to slow it down somewhat, but regardless, the Z had pulled several yards ahead of its compatriots and was definitely moving too fast for Donnie and Michelle’s safety.

  In the next instant, Michelle saw the good news and the bad news. The good news was the fact that Donnie, still a few steps ahead of her, had his gun at the ready. The bad news was the fact that Donnie didn’t exactly have pinpoint accuracy. Instead of hitting the runner in the head or, at least, somewhere in the chest that would slow it down, Donnie’s first shot missed the zombie completely. On the plus side, it did down a slightly slower zombie just behind it, but the leader kept on, drawing ever nearer.

  Donnie’s next shot was slightly closer to its target, hitting the zombie in the right shoulder. While that shot would never even completely stop a truly determined human, let alone a zombie, it did cause the zombie to stagger backward briefly and, when it had recovered add started running again, it was slightly slower, owing to the now-limp right arm that dangled at its side throwing off its balance.

  The zombie’s left arm still reached out before it, lunging for them, but the right now hung lifeless, its only movement coming from the pendulum-like motions that occurred in response t
o its owner’s steps.

  The fresh injury didn’t slow the zombie down much but, as it turned out, it was enough. Enough to allow Donnie to stop briefly, steady his arm, and hit the zombie with a well-aimed shot to the head. The shot hit the sprinter in the dead-center of the forehead, causing its legs to fly forward while its head flew back, making the zombie flip until it was nearly horizontal to the ground, which is how it fell to the earth, working to trip the next-fastest zombie as it caught up.

  It wasn’t the biggest respite in the world—the other zombies were still sprinting, still gaining—but it was enough, as Donnie reached the driver’s side door and, seconds later, Michelle reached the passenger.

  Donnie threw his door open and leapt in. Michelle did the same on her side. The remaining zombies, slower than the sprinter, bore down on the car, but were still twenty or so yards away when Donnie slammed his door shut. He grabbed the key, just above the visor, exactly where the protocols said keys should be stored, and started the car.

  It roared to life with no hiccups—a beneficial reaction, since the first zombie reached the front of the vehicle just as Donnie threw it into gear. He hit the gas, and the car lurched forward, knocking the first zombie—which had attempted to enter the car through the front windshield—aside as it did so.

  Donnie didn’t slow down, accelerating through the dead as he navigated his way out of the service area. This time around, it seemed, none of the zombies were hit squarely enough to dent any significant parts or destroy any precious belts. The car knocked aside several zombies before finding open passage on the highway.

  They drove in stunned silence for about half a minute, Donnie checking his rearview mirror at least as often as he eyed the road before him. At nearly the same moment that the last chasing zombie faded from view, Michelle tapped the button on her door that would lower her window.

  “What are you doing?” Donnie asked, not feeling nearly secure enough to start leaving human-sized entryways into the vehicle.

  By way of answering, Michelle leaned forward in the seat. Once the window was rolled all the way down, she threw her head out the window and retched loudly. Another glimpse into the rearview seconds later showed Donnie the initial pile and subsequent forward-leading trail that indicated the spot where Michelle had emptied the contents of her stomach onto the road. Wordlessly, she coughed once, leaned back into the car, and started to raise the window.

  Chapter Six: Nowhere To Hide

  None of them spoke for a moment as they watched. Then, when they had all agreed the dead man wasn’t going to move, all four reacted differently.

  Andy walked over to the man’s body, fishing the gun from his hand and rummaging through his pockets in search of any extra ammunition or other usable contents. Amanda turned on her heels and opened the door of the car nearest her, appearing to conduct a similar search there. Stacy, near to a building wall, took an unsteady step toward it, and ended up collapsing against it until she was in a fetal crouch, her head in her hands.

  And Lowensen nearly sprinted as he turned to head back the way they had come.

  “Where are you going, Lowensen?” Andy asked.

  He stopped and looked back at Andy. “Where am I going?” the teacher asked with a laugh in his voice. “Cars. That’s all I know. I’d say it’s pretty safe our friend there didn’t take all of them out while he was in there, and I’d just as soon leave instead of hanging around waiting for them to follow him out the door. I’m going to get in something that moves a little faster than my feet. Don’t know where the hell I’m going, but I’m going there fast, I know that much.”

  “Care to wait just a moment, while we…” Andy gave the teacher a sharp look, then over to Stacy, then back to the teacher, an exchange the girl never noticed. “finish up here? Very least, the zombies can’t very well surprise us right now.”

  The teacher picked up on the “catatonic girl” signals Andy was sending and nodded, though he didn’t return to the others, staying several feet away.

  Andy and Amanda finished their respective searches. Andy came away with a gun that had only two shots left in it, Amanda empty-handed—Dead Leg, it seemed, hadn’t lied about his preparedness on his second chance at honesty.

  With that finished, Andy circled Stacy—so as to leave himself facing the door to the safe house—and crouched at the girl’s side. She still had her head in her hands, still had her eyes closed, still didn’t seem cognizant of anything other than her own grief.

  “We’ll find somewhere,” he said, in his best “fatherly” voice. “There are other safe houses, other people who were prepared. I made it seven months in 2010; we can surely make it more than seven hours.” He tried to laugh, to affect a light-hearted emotion as best he could.

  Stacy didn’t respond for a moment, still sobbing into her own hands. Andy sat there, unsure how to continue to comfort her.

  Despite himself, Andy had been rather disappointed when he had a daughter—he had always hoped for a son, and that hope had only grown during 2010, when Faith was the only female he had any prolonged contact with. He felt sure that any relationship he had with a son would have resembled the relationship he saw between the male Stones—educational, informative, close, but not always overly emotional. Andy had never been the most emotive of men, and he had always felt ill-equipped to guide his daughter through the world, which, he thought, might have explained why he didn’t have Celia as prepared as she might have been for the new zombie outbreak.

  As a result, Andy didn’t know how to comfort or reassure Stacy, beyond what he had already said. So he merely crouched at her side, rubbing her shoulder and waiting for her to emerge from her grief, one eye on the girl and one eye on the door to the so-called safe place, watching for any Z’s to emerge.

  None did, at least before Stacy found it in herself to react. She raised her head at last, and raised her hands as well to wipe tears from her eyes. As she did, she seemed to remember the weapon in her hands. She stared at the gun briefly before recoiling and dropping it to the sidewalk. Her hands finally free, she returned to wiping her face.

  “I’m not worried about us,” she said, emphasizing the “us” as she sniffed back some snot. She met Andy’s eyes for the briefest of moments. “I don’t really care how we end up. It’s my mom.”

  She looked back down at the sidewalk she sat on then, wiping her eyes once more. Andy, not sure how to respond, continued to rub her shoulder. He looked up to Amanda, who was standing a few feet away, in hopes that she would be more able to relate to the girl, more able to “mother” her.

  Amanda appeared to get the signal, joining them on the sidewalk.

  “You can’t worry about that, sweetie,” she said, crouching next to Stacy, opposite Andy, between the girl and the door. “I’m sure your mom’s fine.”

  Stacy laughed, a bitter, angry laugh that startled Andy. It made her sound much older than she was, and much more bitter.

  “Why?” Stacy asked, the bitter tone staying. “Why in hell would she be okay?”

  Amanda put her arm on Stacy’s shoulder and pulled her closer. At the same time, she gave Andy a look, one that had a clear “Give us a minute” meaning. Andy nodded, then rose from the sidewalk and joined Lowensen, still standing in the middle of the street and watching. He heard Amanda start speaking again at almost a whisper, much too quiet for Andy to overhear.

  “She’s scared?” the teacher said.

  “Obviously.”

  Lowensen nodded. “Should be. Her mother is dead.”

  Andy shot Lowensen a stern look. “You don’t know that,” he said angrily.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But who cares? If she’s alive, best bet is they’ll never see each other again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think I mean? Mr. Ehrens, you lived through this once. You ever see anyone you knew again when it was over? Reconnect with old friends?”

  “I did,” Andy said. “Matter of fact, Celia’s godfather was my
college roommate. Found him online in 2014.”

  The teacher nodded. “Took you, what, three, four years to find your daughter a godfather. Sounds to me like you didn’t reconnect with many people. And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you found your friend. But you were, let’s say, 24, 25 in 2010. That age, that year, you probably had 500-some Facebook friends, minimum. Call it 500. Let’s say 80% died at the start. Still leaves you with 100 friends who holed up or became Out-Theres. Another, what, fifty, sixty, died over the course of 2010—zombies got them, or they ran out of food, or they said fuck it and killed themselves. Still leaves you with 30 or 40 friends who, odds would say, survived. You listed one. Got any others?”

  Andy glared at Lowensen, but ultimately shook his head. “No,” he said. He didn’t add that he had actually had north of 1,000 Facebook friends, but it was true nonetheless.

  “And that’s even assuming they both survive this. Odds are good her mom’s dead, just as a result of lack of preparation. Government employee or not, I think we can agree from our experiences that preparation wasn’t exactly our strong suit. But let’s say she’s alive. Just for the sake of argument. There’s still the little worry of what happens to our darling Stacy there.”

  “We’ll protect her.”

  “We will? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll try, but most of our resources are going to have to be selfish, don’t you think? You’ve got to protect yourself, your daughter first. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re hanging out on a sidewalk with no plan in front of us. I’m not ready to die myself, but I’m ready to admit I expect it. There’s just nowhere to hide,” he said, his voice tinged with a bitter chuckle.

  Andy was fuming. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to punch Lowensen straight in the face, to beat him unconscious, if for no other reason than to let out Andy’s own frustrations. Truth be told, his free hand—the one that wasn’t holding his gun—was already clenched into a fist.

  It wasn’t that Lowensen was wrong. He wasn’t. Andy knew that the best guess was that Stacy’s mom was already dead or that she and/or her daughter would die before all was said and done. But his casual demeanor in discussing the impossibility of their reconnecting was infuriating.