After Life | Book 1 | After Life Page 35

  At first, the cause of the sound wasn’t evident. Seconds later, though, Lowensen stood up from beside the right-side rear tire of the trailing Hummer and held his knife up to show them. “They deserve to have their tires slashed,” he said in response to the questioning looks. He started to move to the front tire before Andy stopped him.

  “While I don’t disagree with you, Mr. Lowensen,” he said, annoyed, his tone making it sound as though Lowensen was a slow third-grader, “might it be prudent to leave those vehicles intact? While I’ve grown rather fond of my own car, I have a feeling those might be more reliable, should it come to it. Maybe we need a car later. Long story short, we might need to have a few Humvees at our disposal, somewhere down the road.”

  The teacher nodded and resheathed the blade, looking embarrassed.

  “Now,” Andy said, turning back to the group. Before he could continue, though, Celia noticed, off in the distance, right at the edge of what she could see, the labored movements of two injured zombies. They were slow, one of them barely upright on what looked to be a badly injured ankle. Neither of them had noticed Celia and her group, but she knew it was only a matter of time until they were spotted, and one zombie spying them would lead others to their location in a matter of minutes.

  “Daddy,” she said, grabbing her father’s arm and pointing to the zombies off in the distance.

  Andy looked in the direction she indicated and swore. “Can we not have a goddamned minute to gather our thoughts?” he asked no one in particular. “Just a five-minute break. It’s all I ask.”

  With that, Andy made his way to the area between the Humvees and the building and put his back against it, flattening himself as much as he could. Celia and the others followed, with Simon supporting Brandon and Lowensen bringing up the rear, just behind Vince, whose hands were still bound in front of him.

  Andy motioned for the others to follow his lead, creeping along the wall. Celia was just behind her father, and she held her gun in front of her instinctively—an instinct she really wished she hadn’t had to develop.

  She—and everyone else, she could tell—kept one eye moving forward and one on the pair of zombies meandering along the perimeter of the Wal-Mart grounds. They still hadn’t noticed the group, but they still weren’t moving away, just walking along the edge, like the least-effective prison camp guards ever.

  Celia and Andy reached the main door. Andy waved for everyone to be quiet. Vince’s description was accurate, as the door was a giant slab, with a simple doorknob on the front. There was no lock, nothing but the knob to prevent entry. But a doorknob, Celia knew, was enough to stop any member of the undead.

  Celia watched her father slowly grab the knob. He turned it as softly as he could, nervous about the sound a giant door like that would make, and pulled it toward him.

  The door was heavy, Celia could tell. Though her dad was slight, he was a strong man, and he had to redouble his pulling efforts to convince the door what he wanted. But it was quiet. Other than a small whoosh as the door let air on either side pass through, it made no noise as it slowly inched open.

  Their group was on the wrong side of the opening, the door opening toward them, so what they might be able to see was visible only to Andy. He squinted into the apparent darkness, then signaled for the rest to follow him.

  Celia obliged, rounding the giant door. As she did, her father stepped inside, waving his gun in front of him. Celia followed.

  The corridor, too, was just as Vince described. Empty. It looked exactly like the underground catacombs of Morgan College, except for the fact that there were no doors in sight other than the one they had passed through. The hallway was vast, fifteen feet across easily, and abandoned.

  “We’re okay,” Andy said, his voice barely above a whisper. Celia was sure those in the back couldn’t hear him. “So far.” He motioned for the others to follow inside, and Stacy and Donnie hurried through.

  Suddenly, Celia heard a noise from the hallway perpendicular to them, running along the right edge of the building, only forty or fifty feet away. She looked up, just as a woman came jogging around the corner.

  She stopped in her tracks. She was in her early 40s, with camouflage pants and an olive drab tank top fit snugly over her well-kept form. Her wispy black hair was pulled tightly back into a ponytail, taking years off her age. Though she had been jogging in presumed safety, she carried her sidearm in her right hand, and she snapped out of her surprise in time to raise the gun and point it at the group entering what she clearly considered her own territory.

  Stacy, who was a couple feet inside the door, didn’t have her weapon ready, and gasped as the woman’s gun was pointed at her. Celia only a couple feet away, couldn’t react. The woman’s arm was moving toward level in slow motion, her eyes narrowing at the intruders as they locked onto her target. She squinted, and Celia could swear she saw the woman’s finger flex as three shots rang out.

  The next thing Celia knew, she had been knocked onto her left side, a stinging pain shooting through her elbow as she fell to the concrete. She looked up, to where the woman had been, only to see a body lying flat on the floor, blood splattered behind her.

  Celia climbed to her knees, confused. Just beside her, she heard Stacy say, “What… what happened?”

  Stacy was okay. She had fallen into Celia as the shots were fired, knocking them both to the ground. And Celia saw her father with his weapon in front of him, his eyes sad, showing that, while Celia had frozen, Andy had been up to the task.

  “Daddy!” Celia cried. He turned to her, but instead of pulling her into a hug, Andy’s gaze fell to the ground behind Celia, and his eyes grew more concerned.

  Celia turned and looked. There on the ground, just where Stacy had been standing a moment earlier, was Donnie. He was coughing and trying to push himself up, but the growing pool of blood around his midsection said that that would be a difficult task.

  “Donnie!” Michelle said as she pushed her way in the door.

  Michelle hadn’t seen what had happened, only hearing shots fired and diving backward. Now, though, she saw Donnie on the ground, and knew that he had taken at least one of those shots to the gut.

  “She… she was going to shoot Stacy,” Donnie said as Michelle knelt next to him. “She was going to shoot her. I had to save her.” He coughed twice, and Michelle saw blood splatter on the concrete as he did.

  She helped Donnie roll over as the others made their way inside. The blood was flowing quickly from his stomach, too quickly for Michelle to have any hope they’d be able to patch him up. He coughed again and looked at Michelle, his eyes glassy. “You’re an angel,” he said, a smile forcing its way onto his face despite all outside circumstances.

  Michelle returned the smile, but knew her eyes betrayed her true emotions. “Donnie …” she said, but she stopped when she realized she didn’t know what to say next.

  “You’re an angel,” he said again. “I’ll be okay. I can.…” Suddenly, Donnie’s eyes locked on Michelle’s and his smile grew, full and broad, as though they were back in Stamford and he had just come to see her in Madison’s office, a short diversion to get him away from Lambert’s yelling. He was leaning against her desk, his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth, about to tell her some ultimately meaningless secret. He smiled the smile of someone who had no worries, who was seeing everything they wanted to see. “I can see God, Michelle,” he said breathlessly. “He’s coming for me.”

  Michelle still couldn’t find any words to speak to Donnie, the man who had given up everything, had marched out to certain death to help Michelle get to a girl Donnie didn’t even know, had met that death saving her, so she just held his head and cried.

  “He’s coming,” Donnie said again. “He’s… He’s speaking to me, Michelle. He says it’s all going to be okay, that I’m going to be okay. He says it’s not your time. You’ll be there someday, but you’ve got time. Now’s for me.

  “But I’ll see you again,” Donn
ie went on, his voice barely a whisper. “I’ll see you again. In heaven, I’ll see you again.”

  And then Donnie went still, the only movement now coming from the tears Michelle rained down onto his face.

  Behind her, Lowensen shook his head. “Death’s one hell of an endorphin rush,” he said.

  Chapter Eight: Smart Decision

  In a normal world, a sane world, Andy would have given Michelle all the time she needed to mourn Donnie’s death. Then again, in a normal world, Donnie wouldn’t have died.

  As it was, Andy knew they had only seconds to get moving. The people further inside the building had to have heard the gunshots, and the zombies outside were certain to be heading in their direction, too, so Andy had to get Michelle going quickly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, laying his hand on Michelle’s shoulder. “He was a good man. But if we don’t move now, he’ll be a wrong man—your time will be now.”

  Michelle nodded, lifting her head and wiping her eyes. “Okay,” she said between sniffs. She stood up from Donnie’s body without looking at it again. Some of Donnie’s blood had spilled onto Michelle’s leg, but she didn’t pay it any heed.

  “Is everyone inside?” Andy asked the group at large. After a quick body count confirmed that they were, he continued to Lowensen. “Shut the door.”

  He turned behind him and pulled the door to. When he let go, Andy noticed that it swung back open an inch or so. “All the way closed, Lowensen,” he said.

  The teacher pulled the door again, and again it swung open slightly. He scrunched his face at the door and tried again, with the same result. “It won’t close,” he said, annoyed and confused.

  “What the hell do you mean?” Andy asked, moving to the door to see why the teacher had failed this time. He pulled the door closed himself, but again it didn’t latch.

  Andy inspected the latch and swore again. Thanks to fate, the woman’s other bullet—the one that hadn’t killed Donnie—had managed to pierce the door catch and rip a hole through the exact spot where it should be, rendering the door impossible to close.

  “Goddamnit!” Andy said. He pushed the door and saw the two injured zombies wobbling their way toward the Wal-Mart, now within twenty-five yards or so of the doorway. Further away, at the edge of the grounds, several other zombies were coming into view, and most of them seemed far more ambulatory than the two close ones. It was a small total—maybe fifteen in total, maybe less—but disheartening to see.

  “Shit,” Andy said again. He addressed his small crew. “They’ll be inside soon. We can’t close the door, and we don’t have time to hang out here.”

  “How many are there?” Celia asked, her voice breathless.

  Andy looked to his daughter, sad that he was about to lie to her and put her through more turmoil than she needed. “A lot, sweetheart,” he said, trying to make his voice sound grim. “I saw at least forty, fifty out there.”

  “Let me,” Vince said, stepping forward, offering the response Andy had been hoping for with his lie. “If this place ain’t secure, my people ain’t gonna try too damn hard to protect it. They’ll help you folks kill them. Might not be keen on letting you come with us when we leave, but ain’t no sense in killing the livin’ when the dead’s about.”

  “What are you proposing?” Andy asked.

  “Follow me,” Vince said. He turned toward the spot where the woman had died and marched to that corner. “The interior doesn’t have doors, just openin’s, but it’s a tight hallway ya gotta pass through. Dollars to doughnuts, my people are just sittin’ by each opening, waiting to pick off you folks as you try to enter. I’ll tell ‘em what’s happened, an’ we’ll fight the Z’s together.”

  Andy nodded. It made sense, explaining why they hadn’t had company yet from the inside group, and Vince’s idea was what Andy was angling for with his lie about the number of zombies outside. If there were only a handful, the people inside might be content to sit back and let Andy and the group battle the zombies, then pick the survivors off at will. If they thought the zombies would win any battle, Andy thought, they would likely be more inclined to join the fight.

  “Okay,” he said, his voice still stern to Vince. “You will stand near the entrance, out of sight of your people, and you will call in to them. I will stand a few feet away, and my weapon will be pointed at your head. That means that the first thing you say that I don’t like will be the last thing you say. Just so you know the situation.”

  Vince swallowed deeply and nodded. Andy wasn’t comfortable making his threats, and hadn’t been comfortable killing either Murph or the woman in the hallway. Amanda’s face had flashed across his mind both times. But necessity had called for Andy to be more cold-blooded. He didn’t like that he had that switch to flip, but there it was. He wondered if he could ever flip it back.

  He cut the rope binding Vince’s arms, and the soldier continued around the corner, with Andy only steps behind him and the rest of the group following as quickly as they could.

  Around the corner, the hallway looked almost identical to the one they were turning from, except that it had no outside door, and only a hole pointing to the inside where a door would be. Vince moved right to the edge of the opening and stood with his back to the wall, following Andy’s instructions exactly. Andy followed his own rules, raising his gun to Vince’s head.

  At a nod from Andy, Vince spoke.

  “Can y’all hear me?” he called in.

  There was mostly silence for a moment, though Andy thought he could hear a slight murmuring from inside. Finally, a deep, vaguely Hispanic voice called back. “Vince? That you?”

  “Menendez?” Vince called back. “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Y’all remember them cars we passed on the way here? Shot up that car? Survivors showed up. Killed Murph, grabbed me. Now we’re all here.”

  “What were the shots we heard?” Menendez asked. “Where’s Pastis?”

  “Dead,” Vince replied. “Killed one of theirs, they killed her.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Menendez said. “I assume you people can hear me! Know that this isn’t a winning game you’re playing. We’ll kill the lot of you. Don’t want Vince to die in the process, but you are not getting in here! This is our space!”

  “No, it ain’t, Menendez!” Vince said. “This ain’t no one’s space!”

  “The hell does that mean?”

  “Means Pastis did more’n kill one of their people. Means Pastis managed to shoot the goddamn latch off the goddamn door. Means this place ain’t no safer’n anywhere else we been, an’ them damn Z’s are gonna be here to visit us any second now. There’s nigh on fifty out there already.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Menendez said again.

  “Now, listen!” Andy called in. “Menendez, is it? I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. For now. We don’t need to be killing one another when there’s a bigger threat to deal with just outside the door. I believe we’ve proven we can handle ourselves in this world, living this long, besting your people. And there’s only seven of us, now. We won’t exactly be eating you out of house and home. Let us join you in there and we can fight the Z’s together, and find a final destination together. I don’t believe I’m asking much here, especially not when your friend Vincent’s life hangs in the balance of your answer.”

  When no answer came for a moment, Vince spoke again. “Menendez, damnit, there ain’t many of ‘em, an’ they’re gon’ kill me. Just agree to the goddamn deal!”

  “Fine!” Menendez said at last. “I can’t promise we’ll take you with us when it’s time to leave, but we won’t kill you, so long as there’s Z’s out there to worry about that can get in here.”

  Andy froze. He wanted to believe Menendez, but didn’t feel at all comfortable simply walking in view of his men and their guns. For a moment, no one in the exterior corridor moved, the group waiting to see what Andy would do, and Andy waiting to see if some idea came to him.
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  Ultimately, though, Andy didn’t have to decide, as a pair of hands stuck out from the hole in the wall, followed shortly afterward by a man, walking forward submissively. He was in his early fifties, with jet-black hair that spread just long enough to pass over his ears. There were a few crow’s feet stretching from his eyes, but other than that, the man showed few signs of aging. He was well-built, thin without looking sickly, and the muscles in his arms stretched the fabric of his shirt as he held them aloft and walked toward the group.

  Andy had his gun raised toward the man, still not positive he could be trusted, before he spoke. “My name,” he said, “is Carlos Menendez. Staff Sergeant Carlos Menendez. I am the commanding officer here, and I am prepared to lay down arms. Against you folks. For now.” His hands still raised, Menendez stepped toward Andy, looking to reach an agreement on his almost-truce.

  Andy lowered his gun slightly. “And what happens when you’ve decided the Z’s are no longer an immediate threat?”

  Menendez shook his head. “If we can’t stay here, we can’t stay here,” he said, then narrowed his eyes, causing his wrinkles to stretch further across his temples. “I don’t expect that we’ll be taking you with us wherever we go. I can promise you that I will not personally shoot you or your people. And I will instruct my men of the same. I cannot promise that Murphy’s wife, Pastis’ husband, or any of the others who feel you have wronged them, will not act of their own accord, but then again I suppose no one can ever make that promise.”

  “Your people,” Andy said, “killed mine as well. On the road, you shot three of my group. Two of them died right away. The other was injured, both physically and mentally, and she died within hours. So, while I sympathize with those who have lost people, know that I have lost people as well, and I am willing, for the time being, to consider us even in the grand book of deposits and withdrawals. Our balance is zero as of this moment. Tell them that for me, will you?”