After Life | Book 1 | After Life Read online

  Michelle turned to see that Lowensen had been the one to fire the shot, his gun still level and pointing at the spot where O’Reilly’s head had been.

  “He was going for his gun,” the teacher said, his voice soft.

  “To kill himself,” Andy said, annoyed. “He wasn’t going to shoot at us. The man said he couldn’t see.”

  “Mr. Ehrens,” Lowensen said. He didn’t raise his voice, but Michelle heard some sternness creep into his tone. “I will admit to having screwed up more than once. But, whether you like it or not, I was and still consider myself to be a teacher. And one thing you learn in school is that the most dangerous creature is a wounded one. They’re unpredictable. So while I agree with you that our friend there was likely angling only to put himself out of his misery, I didn’t and don’t feel at all confident enough in that belief as to let him unfettered access to his weapon. Maybe he decides to take you with him? Maybe he decides to do that, can’t see, and shoots your daughter? No matter what he was planning, I feel more comfortable having done the job myself.”

  Michelle watched as an uneasy silence and staring passed between the two men. There was nothing for a few seconds, before Andy broke the silence by shaking his head and saying. “Fair enough. Z’s certainly heard that shot, though. They’ll be on us shortly.”

  On that point, the two men agreed. And so, with no way of knowing how long they had or exactly how many zombies they would be facing, the eight of them—Michelle, Andy, Lowensen, Celia, Stacy, Simon, Brandon, and Vince—turned their attention outward, with the protection of their small, barely fortified position their only concern.

  Chapter Ten: Daddy

  With the Camp Edwards population—save Vince and the bodies of Menendez, O’Reilly, and a handful of others—nothing more than a memory, Andy had an easy line of sight to the small entrance at the far opposite end of the Wal-Mart hideout. For now, it was abandoned, the only sign of life from that side being the occasional gunshot that crept through, but even those were few and far between.

  For a short minute, Andy felt relieved, wondering if maybe the Camp Edwards people and the Z’s had canceled each other out, with some Z’s felled and the ones that remained staggering off after the retreating Humvees.

  That thought was brief, though, as Andy saw a human form come into view in the exterior hallway, still a long way from him. It was obviously a zombie, and even more obviously, it disregarded the perimeter hallway in favor of the entryway into the space occupied by Andy and his group. It was a slow mover, one that had been wounded at some point, but its arrival had to mean others were coming.

  “They’re here,” Andy said. He crouched to the ground, hovering over O’Reilly’s body, and removed the dead man’s weapon from his grasp. He moved to Vince’s side and offered it to him. “Are you healthy enough for this?” he asked.

  Vince looked down at the weapon. His left arm was still clutching the wound on his right shoulder, but it relaxed and reached for the weapon. “I am, sir,” he said, his voice going almost reverential. “As luck’d have it, I’m left-handed.”

  “Good,” Andy responded. “Protect yourself. Protect everyone. And know that I’m only giving you this weapon because I feel I have to. Please don’t make me regret it.”

  Without waiting for a response, Andy turned his attention to their new visitor. It was shambling in now, though Andy wasn’t positive if it knew it was looking for them or if it had chosen its new direction at random. Whatever had impaired the zombie’s ambulatory system had gotten its face, too. It had at most one functional eye, and that one was covered by some dirt, some debris that meant that it probably couldn’t see at all.

  Regardless, it pressed forward, its arms outstretched, its jaw snapping at the air, seeking its next meal as much as Travis had been in the car the night before, just searching for something to eat.

  Andy, with Stacy and Michelle close on his heels, hurried across the open space, sprinting toward the arriving zombie. The rest hung back, guarding the other entrance in case zombies were coming from both sides.

  At the front of his group, Andy was the first one to draw within easy shooting range. As he raised his firearm, though, he had a change of heart and lowered it again, opting instead of the blade he still had tucked into his waistband.

  This zombie, by itself, was no real threat. With its vision, Andy could now tell, totally gone, it didn’t seem to have taken notice of them, and the arms and legs it was using were injured to the point that Andy could see bone in two places.

  No, this zombie could be easily and quietly dispatched with nothing more than Andy’s blade, just as Murphy had been in the parking lot. He signaled to Michelle and Stacy to stop, and he slowed to a walk so as to minimize the sound of his approach—while the zombie was no longer able to see, it kept cocking its ears in the direction of the humans’ footsteps, so Andy didn’t want to vocalize his attack.

  He crept forward, pulling to within five feet of the creature, his blade tight in his right hand. Andy glanced down and noticed that his knuckles had gone albino white, and he realized that the grip he had on his knife was giving away the terror he felt. He had tried to hide his ever-worsening nerves from the group, and in turn himself, throughout the ordeal, but the sight of his knuckles turning bright white, his fingernails cutting divots into his hand, showed Andy once and for all that his fear wasn’t going anywhere.

  Nonetheless, he had no choice now. He was committed to dispatching this zombie face-to-face. He consciously loosened his grip slightly, took another step forward and raised the knife.

  The debris on its face, which Andy could now clearly see was a lump of sod, complete with grass clippings, covered its right eye fully. Without the clump, it might have seen Andy, but regardless, Andy couldn’t help but want that clump gone. It was out of place on a human face. It needed to be brushed away, to be somewhere else. He flashed back to the teacher’s speech at the Morgan College orientation; it was jarring to see a human form with shit on its face. It needed to go.

  Just before Andy could plunge the blade into the zombie’s neck, severing its brainstem, a gunshot rang out from far behind him. The zombie was as surprised by the noise as Andy was, and it snapped its head a few degrees to the right and reached out its arm at whatever had interrupted the silence.

  It didn’t know where the sound came from or what had produced it, but in the act of reaching out, it managed to smack Andy in the stomach, and the zombie knew it had a meal within easy reach. It opened its jaw to its widest point and lunged forward. At the same time, Andy, who had tried to remain still in the wake of whatever that gunshot was behind him, lunged forward as well, his knife completing its trek of a few seconds before.

  Because of the fast movements, the stab hadn’t been perfect. It plunged into the zombie’s neck, the blade poking its way back out a few inches away from its entry, but didn’t sever any vital brain link. On a human, that wound would’ve done the trick on anyone, but zombies didn’t react to flesh wounds. It fell back in reaction to the stab, but rebounded quickly, lunging for Andy again.

  For a second, Andy had difficulty pulling the blade out from the zombie’s neck, so he abandoned it and leapt back, reaching for his gun. There was no need for silence anymore, with one gunshot already having been fired in the past few seconds, so he put a few feet between him and the zombie and fired twice at its head, ending its miserable existence once and for all.

  “Are you okay?” Stacy asked, breathless, as Andy retrieved his knife from the zombie’s throat.

  Andy turned to face her. He felt both his hands shaking, but quickly occupied them with the job of stowing his weapons so as to distract from his nerves, and just said. “I’m fine.” He knelt down to the now-motionless zombie and brushed the clump of earth from its face, then looked back across the interior, to where the gunshot had been fired a few seconds earlier. In the spot where he had just left, Andy saw that Lowensen had used his weapon again, this time on a zombie intruder that was trying
to enter through the other opening. Lowensen appeared to have felled it easily, and he, Simon, Celia and Brandon were looking down at its body, Simon holding up Brandon on one side and holding Celia’s hand on the other.

  “They’re really coming now,” Andy said to no one in particular. To Michelle, he said, “Stay here. Watch the doorway.”

  Michelle nodded, and Andy led Stacy to the center, where they could monitor both entrances and still have the chance to move if the need arose. The others noticed his move, and the kids at that end followed Andy to the center, leaving Lowensen to act as sentry.

  “Daddy?” Celia said when she had gotten close enough to speak. “Daddy, what do we do now?”

  As if in response, Michelle started firing, five times in quick succession. Andy spun to see what she was firing at, and saw in horror that, this time, it was not a lone, injured zombie trying to limp its way in to them. No, this time, they were being invaded by at least twenty Z’s, most looking perfectly healthy. They were turning left to get in, leading Andy to believe that they had once been chasing the Camp Edwards people before being redirected by the gunshots Andy and the teacher had fired.

  “Get back!” he called to Michelle, as her single weapon would never do the job against the mass of attackers she was facing.

  Michelle fired twice more, killing one zombie and slowing down another, before she followed Andy’s order and ran to join them in the middle.

  “Daddy?” Celia said again.

  Andy wanted to answer her. He did. But he was fast running out of advice for his daughter—he had been feeding her, and everyone else, high-functioning B.S. for better than 24 hours now, and his B.S. gauge had been red-lining for some time now.

  Over the course of a day and a half Andy had gone from being responsible only for himself and his daughter, living in a calm, normal world, to carrying the responsibility for an entire group and, as the problems got harder and harder to solve, he felt the pressure getting to him.

  He still had Celia to take care of. Roger had left Simon in Andy’s care. Stacy’s stepmother had traveled hundreds of miles to get to her, and while she was there by this time, Andy wasn’t about to let his responsibility to her go anywhere. And he had been the one to kill Brandon’s mother. If that wasn’t a reason to make someone’s survival a personal mission, Andy didn’t know what was. His guardian role had quadrupled, and he wasn’t sure he was equipped to deal with the new responsibility.

  Quite simply, Andy was out of answers.

  So instead of answering, Andy merely raised his gun toward the Z’s, the population of which he now estimated at closer to forty, and started firing. The others followed suit, firing into the group and bringing down zombie after zombie.

  In short order, the fastest, most agile of attackers were gone, either replaced by slow movers or wounded to the point that they became the slow movers. There were still fifteen to twenty coming, and likely more outside in the corridor, but it at least gave Andy a few seconds to think again. Still, though, no solution came to mind.

  With his attention completely directed toward the assault, Andy suddenly realized he had no idea how Lowensen was faring on the opposite end of the building. He turned to check on the man’s welfare. Instead of seeing the teacher standing guard on the far side, though, Andy saw that he had moved toward them and had Michelle’s pack in his hand.

  He was rummaging through the backpack, just as Michelle had been, and he finally pulled his hand out, having found the same prize Michelle had sought—another hand grenade. Barry Lowensen dropped the back at their feet as he drew near.

  “This ought to do it,” he said, his voice low and serious.

  “For a few of them, maybe,” Andy said. “But you’ll never kill enough of them off with a grenade toss.”

  “Who said I was going to toss it?” the teacher said.

  “Wh—” Andy stopped short. The momentary silence was enough for Lowensen to start moving, this time jogging forward, holding only his gun and the grenade.

  “Mr. Ehrens,” Lowensen called back over his shoulder from a few yards ahead, not stopping or turning back. “It’s my turn to protect everyone. I need to do this. I’m ready. You get everyone safe. I’ll get rid of the Z’s. Many as I can, anyway. I’m ready.”

  With that, Lowensen sped back to a sprint. He fired his gun at the first zombies he encountered, and Andy never once saw him fail to kill one. When his gun was emptied, Lowensen started using it as a zombie club, hammering away at a couple. This was a less effective tactic, though, and the zombies soon were atop him.

  Andy saw one grab Lowensen by his shoulder and bite down, and heard the man cry out in pain. He found his strength, though, and forced that zombie off of him. He continued to scream, but now it seemed to be more for attention than out of pain, and exited to the outside corridor.

  From there, Andy lost sight of Lowensen, as the teacher turned right and kept moving. In response to his cries, most of the zombies seemed to follow him out, chasing their wounded meal.

  For a full minute, nothing seemed to happen. Lowensen’s cries eventually faded, though whether that was a result of distance or death, Andy didn’t know. With no other ideas, he and the others stood in silence, waiting for something to happen. Still, no sound came from the outside.

  Until it did.

  Breaking the silence completely, there was suddenly the sound of an explosion from the corridor, a sure sign that Lowensen had pulled the pin on the grenade and let the zombies do their worst to him until the explosion came.

  Andy let his attention move to his group now. Every one of them was crying openly, and he suddenly realized that he was, too. He sniffled twice, wiped his nose and finally spoke. “It’s not over,” he heard himself say, though he had no idea where the words were coming from. “There’s almost no chance he got them all. Be on the lookout for any more of them.”

  It was solid advice, he knew. The idea that a single grenade could kill some fifteen zombies was preposterous. But even as he gave the warning, Andy somehow knew it wasn’t necessary. Somehow, he knew that Barry Lowensen had killed every last zombie inside the Wal-Mart building, and, for the time being at least, they had no more undead to fear. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew it all the same. At the same time, Andy couldn’t shake the worry that he was forgetting some crucial detail, something he needed to take care of before they could be truly safe.

  Within a minute or two, the others seemed to come to the same conclusion—that the zombies were gone—and they appeared to relax. As they did, all of them—Simon, Brandon, Stacy, Celia, Michelle—turned their attention to Andy, still looking for words of wisdom, advice on what to do next.

  Andy nodded. Finally, he felt like he had an answer. “You guys watch the entrances,” he said, trying his damnedest not to smile—though he had ideas at last, he knew there was no reason to smile. “I’m going to check the inside. You never know if one of them got in. And anyway,” he went on, finally letting himself smile, a grin he hoped worked as a reassuring look for his people, “maybe we can grab a snack or something from in here.”

  The reassuring look worked, as Celia, Stacy and Brandon all forced a grin back at Andy. He nodded to his people and stepped away, moving to the rooms on the far side, where he and his group had entered.

  Andy held his gun in his hand, but the weapon wasn’t exactly cocked and ready—while he knew that more care was better, he couldn’t envision a scenario in which a zombie had managed to get by everyone, open the door to a room and close it behind itself. Basically, despite that nagging “you’re forgetting something” feeling, Andy thought that they were, for the moment, safe.

  And that safe emotion vanished as Andy opened the first door he came to. The room was dark, and he couldn’t make out anything in the darkness, but he heard a voice.

  “My gun’s pointin’ at yer head right now, an’ I’d advise you not to make too many noises. Might just scare me into shootin’.”

  Vince.

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nbsp; Sometime between Andy moving toward the first zombie and Lowensen shooting the second, Vince had sneaked away from Lowensen and the kids, and holed up in this room. It was smart, Andy knew, to let everyone else battle the zombies for as long as necessary, but it also reeked of cowardice.

  “Vincent,” Andy said, his voice cold, but his hands shaking. “Most of us survived. You kill me, they’ll shoot you. In a second.”

  “Ya know,” Vince said, moving into the light. His right shoulder was still bleeding, but it had slowed to a trickle. The man was sweating and pale, but he didn’t seem to be mortally wounded. “I reckon I believe you ‘bout that. So maybe I’ll just have ta take me a hostage to get out of here.”

  Vince reached down and pulled the gun from Andy’s hand with his bad arm, wincing as he did. He dropped it to the floor, then motioned for Andy to turn around.

  Andy followed the order and turned toward his people. While most of them were eying the corridors, Celia, it seemed, had her eyes on her father, though there was no way for her to tell from that distance what was going on. Andy knew that, to Celia, it had to have looked like he merely checked the room and turned to exit.

  “Walk,” Vince said. Suddenly, Andy felt the cold feeling of gun metal being pressed against the back of his head, and he stepped forward almost on instinct.

  As they got into the light of the main room, Andy’s eyes, even from that distance, met Celia’s, and he saw his daughter step forward.

  “Daddy?”

  Chapter Eleven: Happening

  Celia watched as Andy came out of the small side room, the Army guy Vince pointing his weapon at her father’s head.

  It felt fake, as though she had fallen asleep in the past couple minutes and was now dreaming that her father had stumbled upon a new threat. But there was no dream, no fakeness to the fact that Vince, the man she had forgotten entirely, the man they had all forgotten, was now pointing a gun at her father’s head.