After Life | Book 1 | After Life Read online

  “I’m sorry,” Andy said softly, though he didn’t move toward the boy. He knew there was no hope for him, that he was going to be dead or a zombie in minutes, but he no longer had it in him to shoot down someone who was not yet a zombie, doomed or not.

  Lowensen, though, stepped forward. He moved to the boy’s side and crouched down next to him. “There’s nothing left for you, son,” he said in his most fatherly voice. “Believe me, you’d rather we do it here than come back as a zombie. Wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t want to be a zombie,” Travis said. “But I really think I’m okay. I really think—” His voice cut off there as Travis doubled over in pain. He collapsed onto his side and moaned again.

  Lowensen patted the boy’s hip slowly. “I wish you were,” he said. “But a bite is a bite. There’s just no coming back from it. I’m sorry.”

  Travis shook his head again, but the effect of the denial was tempered by the blood coating his midsection and the moans he was emitting. Lowensen shook his head again and stood up. He looked to the rest of the group. “Step away,” he said solemnly.

  Andy met his gaze and nodded. He led the others a few feet away, to a spot where they couldn’t see Travis and Lowensen. Seconds later, with no more words passing between the two, a gunshot was fired, and Travis’ moans suddenly ceased.

  Where they were standing, Celia and Simon were facing the small outhouse-sized building that was the entrance to the school. Flames were licking the top of the stairs, and the walls were on fire as well. Celia’s tears fell in earnest, as she felt her dreams being replaced only by the dream of survival and the nightmare they found themselves in.

  As they stared at the building, Celia felt Simon’s hand close down even more tightly on her own. She looked at his face and saw tears streaming down his face as well, and knew that he’d had the same dream she had, and she returned the squeeze.

  She turned her attention back to the school building and watched the flames eating the doorway. Suddenly, the small shack over the stairwell buckled, and it collapsed in on itself, destroyed by the fire. Still no zombies were visible, either having been destroyed by the fire or trapped somewhere in the bowels of the building between the fire at one doorway and the car parked over the other exit.

  She and Simon turned back to the parking lot. Stacy, Brandon and Andy were still staring at the school, but Celia couldn’t bring herself to look at that sight any longer. Lowensen was walking back to the group, looking shaken by his experience with Travis. Off in the distance, though, just visible in the morning haze, Celia was sure she could see two figures making their way toward them.

  Simon saw the same thing, and both of them raised their guns in the direction of the figures. After a second, though, Celia lowered hers, as these two were not moving like zombies. They were walking purposefully, but not sprinting, and their hands were held by their side as they walked like normal people. There was one male and one female figure. The male wore an overloaded backpack on his back, and seemed to struggle with its weight, making him look even more human.

  As they drew closer, the two of them stopped, apparently noticing the flames that were still visible amid the wreckage of the doorway. From this point, Celia could see them more clearly, and was sure they were human. The woman, a blonde with shoulder-length hair, raised a hand to her mouth. The man, with slightly darker, shorter hair, seemed to notice her gesture and turned his attention to her.

  Their eyes, though, gave them away as human once and for all. Though they were still some forty or fifty yards away from Celia and her group, this pair clearly had human eyes, not the whited-out orbs of the zombies that she could still see in her mind.

  “Dad?” Celia said, drawing her father’s attention. “Dad, someone’s here.”

  Andy turned, his weapon at the ready, not understanding his daughter’s meaning. When he saw what she saw, he lowered it again. Brandon, his weight leaning heavily on Andy, had turned at the same time as the man, and finally Stacy broke her gaze away from the school and turned.

  Celia saw Stacy notice the two of them standing a ways off. The couple, their attention on the fire, didn’t yet seem to have noticed the group there looking at them, but the entire group now saw them. Stacy, though, reacted most strongly. Her mouth dropped, and she squinted and leaned forward, as though trying to be sure of what she was seeing. She blinked once before a smile forced its way onto her face, seemingly independent of her brain.

  Suddenly, Stacy broke forward, moving in a sprint across the parking lot toward the couple. Andy called out for her to slow down, but she was clearly beyond hearing him. She navigated through the maze of cars, finally drawing the attention of the couple.

  Michelle’s gaze had been entirely focused on the burning of what she recognized from pictures as the entrance to the school’s classroom. It was burning to the ground. The school was destroyed. She had been hoping during her entire trip that she would get to Hyannis, find the school locked down, see for herself that Stacy was safe, then work on finding her own safe place. She knew, especially after having heard Salvisa’s explanation, that this was highly unlikely, but she didn’t have any other scenario in mind. Seeing the school building burn, though, meant that Stacy was either dead, a zombie or out somewhere and in danger.

  So it was with no small level of shock that Michelle heard footsteps racing toward her from between her and the school. She looked around until she located the owner of the footsteps, ready to use her gun again if need be, only to freeze in her tracks.

  Running toward her, in a dead sprint and with tears pouring down her face, was Stacy. Michelle had to look twice to be sure of it, but there was no question. She had found her. Michelle raced forward and the two embraced when they met in the middle.

  “Oh my God!” Stacy cried when they finally separated. “Oh my God, oh my God! How are you here?”

  Michelle, now crying as hard as Stacy was, shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, suddenly pulling Stacy back to her for another hug. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here, and you’re alive.”

  From behind, Donnie moved forward to the reunion. From further away and on the other side of the parking lot, Celia, Andy and the others did the same. Stacy and Michelle maintained their embrace for what felt like minutes before pulling apart again.

  Stacy sniffed several times and wiped snot and tears from her face. She laughed despite herself and looked up at Michelle.

  “Where’s my mom?” she asked between sniffs.

  Part 5: Be Prepared

  Chapter One: Smile

  2010

  If it weren’t for the flies and other parasites, there would have been no movement in the grocery store at all.

  But the produce and deli meat had long since spoiled, so the flies were out in force, joined by maggots and whatever other creatures came after rotting food.

  It was just as well that there were no humans in the store, as the smell of the rotting food would have been one hell of a disincentive. Though the store was big enough to have a pharmacy and a small DVD selection, the smell reached all the way from the produce on the right to the powerless coolers of beer on the left.

  A few aisles away, where the canned vegetables, pasta, and snack cakes dwelled, it truly was still, as the scavengers had much less to feast on in the nonperishables.

  Judging from the state of decomposition of the perishables, the grocery store had not seen much action in several weeks. The front doors, the ones with the circular “Automatic CAUTION Door” signs that would slide open at the slightest movement, were covered in enough dust that they could no longer be called transparent, in fact verging on the opaque. Through the dinge, all that could be seen outside the store was a line of cars, parked within a foot or two of the twelve doors and running parallel. The cars were literally bumper-to-bumper, with each car touching the one in front of it, and served to block access to the store to any who couldn’t climb the vehicles, crawl under them, or go through.

  Nothin
g beyond the cars could be seen through the store doors, and the cars were only visible because the red, teal, and black of the vehicles stood out amid the light blue, gray, and brown of the daytime.

  As the flies and maggots proceeded in their business, a sound suddenly pierced the silence from outside. The noise was followed by indiscriminate shouting from at least three voices before the initial noise was repeated three times.

  Gunshots.

  The sudden activity caused the flies to buzz away from the rotting pears, before the ensuing lull allowed them the opportunity to settle back to their fly duties.

  Their work was interrupted again only moments later, as people started clambering over the cars just outside the door. The first of them made it to the doors and pushed, shoved briefly. When the doors refused to yield, the person stepped back a couple of steps and shot three times into the glass, shattering it.

  The glass and dust now gone, the image of a man, nearing his fifties, was clear through the doorway. He lowered his gun and ran through, followed in short order by seven others. Of the eight people now in the grocery store, seven carried guns. The eighth, a scared-looking teenage boy who had resorted to crawling under the nearest SUV instead of climbing over it, stood as close to the older man as he could.

  All eight, upon entering the store, scowled and wrinkled their noses, reacting to the smell of the produce, but only the teenager stopped. He turned back to the door once everyone had entered and stuck his head back outside, vomiting twice before returning to the group, now circling around the older man in the store’s foyer. His nose, along with everyone else’s, remained wrinkled, scowling at the smell, but only the boy vomited.

  “Did everyone make it?” the lead man asked once no more people seemed to be trying to get into the grocery store.

  “Looks like it, dad,” said a man in his early twenties. He was in excellent shape, with muscles forcing their way through the tight-fitting dirty green shirt he wore. He had a gun in his hand, another tucked into his waistband, and a knife in a sheath in his rear pocket. “We’re all here.”

  The dad nodded, then turned to look at their new surroundings. After a moment, he broke into a wide smile, which was repeated in short order by everyone in their group except for the young, unarmed teen, who kept wearing his nervous, out-of-sorts look like it was his default setting.

  “We struck gold, guys,” the dad said, raising his arms wide at the building they were now in. “This is just about perfect.”

  “Dad?” the teenager said, his voice unsteady. “If those cars are all lined up out there, where are the drivers? Wouldn’t they have tried to protect this place?”

  The dad laughed. “I’m sure they tried, son. But my guess is they got foolish. Did you see the dead Z’s out in the parking lot? They had bullets in them. My guess, whoever lined those cars up decided to start up some target practice, got a little too ambitious, wandered too far from the store, got bit. We’ve seen things like that.

  “Can’t say I’m sorry it happened to them, though,” he went on. “Awful nice of whoever that was to block the doors for us, leave us this to hole up in.” He grabbed a Butterfinger off the shelf closest to the front, opened it and bit into the snack. “Can’t say the candy isn’t stale, but it sure as hell tastes better than another old can of beans.”

  The rest of the group—two men in their fifties, two men in their thirties and a 20-something butch woman whose gender was only given away by the fact that she headed straight to the tampons—fanned out, grabbing whatever they wanted as they scouted the store. The woman had grabbed a small basket as she went. The father and two sons, though, stayed near the front, near the registers. Each of them ate a candy bar, scowling at the staleness of the chocolate.

  The father and older son, nearly finished with their candy bars, broke into wide smiles and laughed at their new safety. The teenager maintained his worried look, eating his Three Musketeers slowly as he looked around at the room, his eyes wide.

  Outside, a few groans sounded. A handful of undead stood on the other side of the cars, as though trying to find a way through, and moaned at the people standing inside.

  The father laughed again and moved to the doorway. There were six zombies standing there, groaning in his direction, their progress impeded by the cars, their arms reaching in his direction nonetheless. Inside, the gender-ambiguous woman returned from her tampon excursion, and carrying in her basket the box of tampons, a box of condoms, a jar of peanut butter and a long-skunked 40 of Smirnoff Ice. She stopped near the register, licking the paper seal on the newly opened peanut butter jar. “What’s going on?” she said, her voice as deep as any of the men’s.

  “They’re trying to get in,” the older son said with a laugh at the expense of the zombies. “Dumb shits can’t figure out how to get over or under a goddamn car.”

  “Can’t figure it out yet,” she said matter-of-factly. “Let them hang around out there long enough, they’ll find a way in, and their friends will follow.”

  “Yeah,” the older son said. “Still fun to laugh at.”

  Outside, the father seemed to agree. “What’s the matter, you dead son of a bitch?” he called out to the zombies. “Can’t find your way in? Can’t get a bite to eat?” He tossed the last of his Butterfinger in his mouth, smiled, and laughed at them. “I’m awful sorry to hear that. ‘Cause there’s just a ton of tasty stuff in here. I mean, hell, there’s me, Betty, Stan, Mark, Darryl, Clark, my two boys here. Seems you’d have a feast waiting on you, if only your sorry asses could figure out how to get around a damn car.”

  The closest zombie moaned again at the man. Calmly, he raised his gun and shot the zombie in the head, felling it once and for all. The man laughed at the zombie’s demise. His older son echoed his laughter. The woman laughed, too, though hers was less animated. Their smiles were clear, though. The other son maintained his worried look, glancing at the others as though seeking confirmation that it was okay to be happy.

  Outside, the zombie shot by the father wasn’t the only one to collapse. No more than a second or two after the first one, the others that were blocked by the cars also fell, though no further shots rang out. They merely collapsed, as though they were on a pay-as-you-go phone and their minutes had expired.

  The father stopped laughing. So did the others. They appeared concerned, the father eying his gun suspiciously as though its one bullet had managed to ricochet off the first zombie and hit each of the others in succession.

  No one, zombie or human, moved for several minutes, as the living members of the party kept their eyes on the dead around them. They remained still, though.

  Finally, the older son stepped forward. “Dad?” he said, his tone one of unease. “Dad, what does that…?”

  The father knelt down, eying the zombies through the opening under the line of cars, and said, “Doesn’t mean a damn thing,” he said. “Damn things tried to fool us once. Went to sleep or what-the-fuck ever once. Just trying to get us to let our guard down.” He closed one eye and squinted at the bodies lying on the other side of the vehicles. The father pointed his gun and let off a shot. He re-aimed and fired another. “Not about to let them surprise me again.” In short order, he shot the other bodies, one by one, rendering them dead one way or the other.

  The other men, attracted by the noise of the gunshots, gathered back near the front. When the father was done shooting the zombies, he stepped back into the store.

  “Well, Bobby,” one of the men said as he ripped into a box of Twinkies, “you reckon we’ll be safe here for a time?”

  The dad, Bobby, looked back out the door for a moment, then nodded. “Seems that way,” he said. “Even if they wake back up again, bastards seemed stumped by the cars. Sure, they’ll find their way in eventually, like Betty said, but long as we keep a guard, I’d wager we’re safe in here long as the food holds out.” He looked to the canned foods aisle and laughed. “And I’d wager we’ll have Easy Mac long as we care to eat it.”

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sp; The rest of the group, with the lone holdout, let out a laugh at this sentiment.

  The man with the Twinkies grabbed the first from the box and took a bite, then scowled at the pastry. “Whoever said these things didn’t go stale didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.” He threw it down and dropped the box to the floor.

  Over the next several minutes, the group inside moved to spots of relative comfort. Betty tucked herself into the space behind an express-lane register. The two older men tucked themselves in behind the customer-service desk. The younger men opted for spots on the floor near the pharmaceuticals. Bobby and his sons, on guard duty, stayed near the storefront, monitoring the lack of goings-on outside the grocery.

  After a few minutes, Bobby looked to his boys, who were seated against the wall, leaning against one another.

  “You boys can sleep,” he said, standing by the broken doorway, one eye still turned outside. “I’ll be on guard. Wake you up when I need you.”

  The older son, his head already resting against his brother’s shoulder, nodded faintly and closed his eyes. Within seconds, he was asleep.

  The younger son kept his eyes open and wide. His worried look hadn’t gone anywhere and, it seemed, he didn’t expect to sleep any time soon.

  Bobby met his eyes and smiled. “Son, trust me,” he said. “Get some sleep.”

  His son didn’t heed this, and didn’t return the smile. He just kept his eyes open.

  Three Days Later

  Betty sat, propped against the doorframe, her turn to be on guard. The men had kept their general hiding places—Bobby joining his sons not far from the door—and, other than the remnants of several food wrappers and cans surrounding them, and Betty’s box of condoms now sitting empty on the express-lane conveyor belt, very little had changed since their entrance to the store.