After Life | Book 1 | After Life Read online

  Andy stared down the teacher, hoping he’d at least crack a smile, something to show that he wasn’t going to be quite so nihilistic about the whole thing. For several seconds, they held a staring contest, with the teacher’s returned stare seeming blank.

  The showdown was broken up, not by either man blinking, speaking or looking away, but by a scream from Stacy on the sidewalk.

  Andy whirled back toward the sidewalk, confronted by a terrifying sight. Amanda, still leaning over Stacy in a maternal crouch, had been joined there by a zombie, presumably having emerged from the supposed safe house. The zombie was the reanimated corpse of an old woman, in her 70s at least, and looked to be struggling just to remain upright. It had bent down over the woman, and had its mouth on her shoulder.

  Amanda jerked herself forward, wrenching her body away from the zombie’s bite. In doing so, she cleared enough room that Andy felt comfortable taking his shot, and he fired two bullets at the old zombie’s head. The first clipped the zombie’s neck, making it turn uncontrollably. The second, though, had true aim. It entered the zombie’s head through the left eye socket, causing the eyeball to explode in a small spray of blood. A second, larger spray hit the wall of the building behind. The zombie collapsed to the sidewalk and was still.

  Stacy and Amanda scrambled away, struggling to come apart from one another as they climbed to their feet. Stacy was up first, and ran to Andy and Lowensen.

  Andy waited until Stacy had gotten away from their companion. As soon as she was clear, he leveled his gun again, this time at Amanda’s head.

  “I’m…!” Amanda said, but she couldn’t get any more out, as Andy fired again. This shot was as true as his previous one, and Amanda’s head rocked back as she died.

  The three of them stared at the three dead bodies—Amanda, the ancient zombie and Dead Leg—for a few seconds. Finally, Stacy turned to Andy accusatorily.

  “She was fine!” she screamed. “Why the hell did you shoot her?”

  Andy looked back at the girl. “Someone who’s been bitten is never fine,” he said. “She was going to be a zombie. There’s no cure. I saved her from that.”

  “She was fine!” the girl screamed again. “She wasn’t bitten!”

  “What are you talking about?” Andy said. She had obviously been bitten, he thought, but the girl’s certain tone gave him a certain sense of dread nonetheless. “The zombie bit down on her shoulder.”

  Stacy shook her head violently for five full seconds. “It didn’t bite,” she said. “No teeth. No teeth. She was fine. She was fine!”

  Andy felt his insides drop. The zombie had been very old; it certainly was possible it had lost its teeth. He knew Cathy, their next-door neighbor from home, had lost all her teeth. She had dentures, but never wore them unless she was actively eating, under the thinking that it would be a lot harder, as a zombie, to infect the living without teeth.

  Still, though, Amanda had been bitten. Hadn’t she?

  As Stacy sobbed into the teacher’s shoulder, Andy moved to examine Amanda. Her head wound was obvious; Andy’s bullet had entered just above the right eye, ricocheting off the skull somewhere in there and exiting near the left ear. It had been a kill shot, no question. Human or zombie, Amanda was dead, and wasn’t getting up again.

  But, as Andy’s search moved downward, his insides sank further. There was no blood on Amanda’s exposed skin, and nothing seeping through her clothes. He moved aside her shirt and bra strap and saw completely smooth, unbitten skin, exactly where the zombie’s mouth had been. There was some redness from the attempted bite, but there had been no penetration. No infection. He moved his examination a few feet to the right, where the still zombie lay, and he saw what he feared—a mouth full of toothless gums.

  He had killed an uninfected human.

  It was something Andy had never knowingly done before. He had killed many, dozens of zombies and already-infected people, in 2010 and earlier on this day. But he had never killed someone who had any kind of future; who wasn’t already doomed.

  He had been comparing himself to the Gilligan’s Island castaways, to a maverick who just needed to be out among the zombies, shooting everything in sight. He had had every answer. And yet he had been the one to needlessly kill this woman, this mother.

  For the first time since the zombies had reappeared, Andy dropped his gun, falling to his knees and burying his face in both of his hands. He didn’t cry, but he clenched his eyes and rocked back and forth as this realization spread over him. He had killed a human merely out of fear, out of an incorrect surety that he was doing the right thing.

  As he sat, Andy’s mind brought him back to the girl in the dormitory at Morgan College, the one he had shot that had drawn his daughter’s complaint. Thinking back now, he couldn’t remember for certain whether she had actually had a bite or whether he had merely assumed the wound. She had been bitten, hadn’t she? Certainly she had to have been. But Andy was no longer positive.

  He didn’t know how to react. He was terrified of opening his eyes, knowing that he would be confronted again with Amanda’s pointlessly lifeless body when he did, so he continued to rock, continued to mourn his stupid, pointless mistake.

  Shoot first, ask questions later. That was what he had believed. What he had taught. And yet, that was the worst advice possible. Question some things. Killing the living? Is that really what he had done?

  Some time later, Andy didn’t know how long and didn’t care, he heard a car door open and close behind him. Several seconds later, he felt a hand fall on his shoulder.

  “Mr. Ehrens,” Lowensen’s voice said. “Mr. Ehrens, we have to go. We don’t know how many more of them are in there, are coming now. We need to go before they come out. You need to get to your daughter.”

  Andy nodded. The teacher was right; while Andy no longer felt he deserved to keep going, Celia needed him. He clapped his hands against his face once and pushed back, opening his eyes as he did.

  Andy’s greatest fear in that moment—being confronted with Amanda’s body—went unrealized, as Lowensen had draped some sort of blanket over her body before coming to Andy. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Andy loved the teacher.

  Without sparing another look at Amanda or the others on the sidewalk, Andy rose and turned away from the building.

  “Let’s go,” he said as decisively as he could. “We need to get back. Tell everyone there’s no safe place here.”

  Chapter Seven: We Are Who We Surround Ourselves With

  Donnie’s foot hadn’t left the accelerator in what felt like hours. When he looked down, he realized he was driving north of 120 miles per hour, and he finally let his foot relax and the car slow down.

  In the twenty-some minutes since they had left the service center, Donnie had seen a handful of zombies on the interstate. Some were alone, but most had at least one or two companions. No group, though, had even come close to preventing passage east, something Donnie was enormously thankful for.

  “I hate driving on the interstate,” he said, the first thing either of them had said since Michelle’s vomiting episode. “I don’t trust it. I’m sure we’re going to come around a curve and there’ll just be a hundred of them waiting for us.”

  Michelle, who still looked pale and shaken, didn’t respond, so Donnie continued driving, letting the car decelerate to about 90 mph before trying to maintain his speed. Considering the distance they had already traveled, he estimated there to be about another 45 minutes to an hour of travel before I-95 crossed over into Rhode Island, and from there it was only a few short hops to Cape Cod and Hyannis. A faded green sign indicating that Providence was 74 miles away reinforced this estimate.

  Suddenly, a memory struck Donnie, and he leaned over and opened the glove compartment. He pulled out a small folded pamphlet that had been placed on top of the owner’s manual and handed it to Michelle.

  “What’s this?” Donnie’s companion said, her voice hoarse.

  “Just a note. Something I added to the
package. Read it.” Donnie knew the message by heart, but it hadn’t been publicized in any way. He wasn’t sure anyone other than he and a handful of others even knew it existed.

  Michelle frowned down at it, but sat up, held it closer to her face and read:

  “If you’re reading this,” she started, “that means a few things. First, it means the Z’s have returned. The thought is difficult to comprehend, but it must be true. So I wish you luck. Second, it means you have, for one reason or another, been unable to find a safe haven, and have had to resort to this car. So I wish you more luck. And third, it means you have been in the car long enough, and feel secure enough, to take the time to check the glove compartment. So it seems you’ve had luck. At least some. For what it’s worth.”

  Michelle gave a small chuckle at that line, and her chuckle made Donnie smile as well. “In my experience, the people who make a point to seriously travel—interstate, which means going quickly somewhere—in the world of the Z’s do it for one reason and one reason alone: love. If you choose interstate travel in the Z world, that means you have a specific destination in mind. Otherwise, you would stick to towns, anywhere you might find a temporary home. And if there’s somewhere you are trying to get to, odds are there is someone or something you love in that place.”

  Michelle stopped reading. She raised her head and looked out the windshield. The sun was almost gone behind them, so everything she saw was shrouded in a hazy twilight, but Michelle still imagined that she saw some small sign of light off in the distance, directly in front of them. She was sure it was just her imagination, as there was nothing that should have been producing such illumination in that moment. And so she assumed that she was imagining a light shining over her destination: Stacy. Donnie was right; traveling meant love. And Michelle felt a new surge of determination to find her stepdaughter, something that she had felt leaving along with the vomit a bit earlier.

  She sat up even straighter and kept reading: “If this is true, and I assume it must be, get to your love. You have to. Survival is paramount, of course, but what is survival without the people worth surviving for?

  “So, do whatever you can to protect yourself. But also, do whatever you can to protect those you love. This might run counter to government advice that says look out for number one, but it’s true. We are who we surround ourselves with. And I’d like to think those I love would make sure they got to me. So make sure you get to them.”

  Michelle flipped to the back page of the pamphlet, but it was blank. That was the end. There was no survival advice, no clever tips for combating zombies. After a second, she realized that was intentional. For twenty years, everyone from President Morgan to old Betty Bluehair had been offering advice about what to do, how to survive, if the zombies did return. Nothing Donnie could have included in a small, four-page pamphlet in a glove compartment could have added to someone’s knowledge, especially considering the fact that Donnie hadn’t exactly had to do a hell of a lot to survive in 2010.

  “Donnie,” Michelle said, “this is… this is perfect. Did you write it?”

  Donnie nodded, his eyes on the road. “Every word,” he said.

  “What made you do that?”

  Donnie’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, and he made a point to keep his eyes forward. “In 2010,” he said, “I was alone. I holed up with a handful of people from the church, sure, but I was just some kid who had gotten home from a mission trip. No parents, no friends there with me.”

  Donnie coughed, choking back some emotion. “I stayed in that church for three full months. I tried to leave once, about three days in, desperate to find my family, my mom. But Father Burns said no, said he wouldn’t let anyone out unless he had to. He was right, of course, but I never saw my parents again. Never saw anyone I had known before 2010 again. I don’t know if they died at the beginning, or if I might have found them if I had left when I tried to, but I always regretted not knowing. He was right; leaving would have been suicide. But if I had been out in it already, surviving? There’s not a force on heaven or earth that could have stopped me from searching for the people I loved, if there was any way possible.”

  Michelle again looked out the front windshield, and again imagined the light over where Stacy would be. “Is that why you’re helping me?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Stacy is the person you love. You are the person I love. If it’s at all possible, we’re all going to be together. Even if it’s just for a few minutes. You have to find her. You have to.”

  Michelle felt a fresh batch of tears welling up inside her, and she looked again at Donnie’s pamphlet. She read the words, stopping again at, “We are who we surround ourselves with,” and closed her eyes. For the first time, the thought occurred to Michelle that she couldn’t have picked a better person to make this journey with. She had spent the whole time wishing Madison was there, and of course she still did. But she had also hoped Nick, Cal, even Lambert—someone with more battle experience—had been her traveling companion. But in that moment, she realized that Donnie had one thing going for him that none of the others would have. Conviction. Donnie would not give up hope until Michelle and Stacy were reunited. That much was clear. And that conviction made up for a hell of a lot of inexperience.

  Just as Michelle had that thought, her eyes still closed, Donnie apparently had a different one, as she heard him utter a surprised “What the hell?” and slow the car down.

  Michelle opened her eyes and looked over to Donnie, who was squinting at something ahead and to the left. Following his gaze, Michelle saw an ancient-looking man, definitely not a zombie, waving his hands at their car as he hobbled as quickly as his old body would move in their direction. He was shrouded in the growing dusk, but the man’s movements were clearly human, clearly non-zombie.

  Donnie kept braking, pulling the car to a stop about twenty yards from the approaching man. Michelle kept her eyes on him. As best she could tell, the old man showed no outward signs of injury. He was 85 if he was a day, but moved like a younger man. The top of his head was bare, but there was still a smattering of hair on the sides and back, with a little more coming out from his enormous ears. His facial features were crunched together, making the rest of his head look that much larger by comparison. He wore cargo pants and a flannel, snap-button shirt with a shoulder holster acting as a near vest, and bore a heavy pack on his back. In each of his hands he carried a shiny pistol. In the close vicinity—as far as the darkness allowed Michelle to see—the man was the only human, or former human, in sight.

  “What the hell?” Donnie said again as the man drew closer to the car. Donnie put the car in park and opened the driver’s door. Michelle noticed he clutched his weapon in his hand as he stepped out of the vehicle.

  “Right there,” he said, leveling his gun at the man, who stopped some fifteen feet from the car. “That’s close enough.”

  The man stopped and lowered his hands, stowing his guns before holding his hands before him in a peacemaking gesture. The car’s headlights fell upon him, making him squint as he tried to focus on Donnie before him.

  “Don’t fret, son,” the man said. “Don’t fret.”

  “I won’t ‘fret,’” Donnie said. “I’m fine. Just cool it there for a minute.”

  Michelle couldn’t bear sitting on the sideline while this confrontation went on, so she opened her own door and stepped out of the vehicle, though she left her gun stowed safely in her holster.

  “You’re handling yourself well, my boy,” the old man said, his face breaking almost into a smile. “Very well.”

  This clearly caught Donnie by surprise, and he withdrew his gun an inch or two. He caught himself, though, and straightened his arms again. Michelle couldn’t tell if the man could see Donnie’s hesitation beyond the headlight beams. “That’s all well and good,” Donnie said. “But what can I do for you? Why did you flag us down?”

  The man turned and looked to the sides and behind him. The look he gave Donnie at the conclus
ion of his scan was an amused one. “Why did I flag you down?” he said. “Why did I flag you down? Who else do you suppose I’d hitch a ride from, son? Who else?” The old man let out a chuckle.

  “And why should we give you a ride?” Donnie said.

  The old man shrugged. “Why not? You wouldn’t be carrying me, you know. It’s a car. I won’t exactly slow you down. And I suppose I might be able to offer you some semblance of advice, sometime.” He whistled. “Yessir, some semblance of advice.”

  Donnie’s look didn’t waver. “You can offer us advice?” he said. “What sort of advice could you offer? Who are you, old man?”

  The man’s small smile broke into a full grin, and he started to strip down, standard operating procedure for a meeting between strangers in a zombie world. “Oh,” he said, “I expect you’ll find I have all sorts of words of wisdom I can offer to a pair of travelers stuck ‘out there’ in the world of zombies. Yes sir, you might find I’m something of an expert in the department of being ‘out there.’

  “Son, you can lower that weapon any time you want. I’m a person you want to have with you, trust me on that. I am a person you want to have with you. We’ll make for excellent traveling companions.

  “You want to know who I am?” he asked, smiling even more broadly and dropping his underwear so that he was standing there naked in the headlights. There wasn’t a mark on the man that hadn’t come through nearly a century of normal life. “My name’s Peter Salvisa. You might have heard of me.”

  Chapter Eight: Whatever Version Of Salvation

  “She was fine! She wasn’t bitten!”

  Stacy’s words were still echoing in Andy’s ears as he lagged behind the girl and the teacher. The two would hurry ahead, trying to get back to the cars. A few seconds later, one or both would realize that Andy was lagging behind, and they would slow down. Inevitably, though, their nervous energy would cause them to speed up again, and the whole cycle would repeat.