After Life (18 page)

Chapter 4: Declaring Your Aliveness

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The sounds still hung on the air, a good five minutes after they had actually been there. Three shots, coming from somewhere no one could see.

What they meant, no one standing at the two cars could guess. They had sent four of their group. Did that mean three were now dead? Or wounded? And if so, which three? And why? Or, were they shooting zombies? Three of them? Was anyone bitten?

Celia didn’t know the answers to any of these questions. And she couldn’t tolerate guessing. So, while the Stones and the rest of their group peered down the street, wondering aloud whether someone should investigate, questioning the shots and waiting for more, Celia walked in the opposite direction, going until she was in a small field that was on the side of the road.

The field was an open area, with nowhere for zombies to be lurking for at least a hundred feet — exactly what Celia’s father had taught her to look for if all else failed. She stood in the center and knelt down to the ground, unable to stay upright.

She stayed there for several minutes, her eyes clenched shut. Another shot rang out in the distance, but Celia did her best to close that out, as well. She knew that keeping her eyes closed totally defeated the purpose of the open area, but she couldn’t bear to look at the world, knowing that her father might now be dead, dying, or a zombie.

Suddenly, Celia heard a noise behind her. She snapped out of her fears and jumped up, spinning to see what was coming behind her. Her new fears were unfounded, though, as the source of the noise was only Simon, slowly approaching.

“You okay?” the young man said, his eyes pointed down at Celia’s feet. His gun was stowed, and his hands were jammed deep into his pockets.

Celia nodded, but didn’t believe it herself, and knew she hadn’t convinced Simon.

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Simon said, his eyes not moving from the ground.

Celia nodded again. “Thanks,” she said.

“I saw him with his gun,” Simon continued. “Outside the classroom. He knows what he’s doing. If something happened, he’d have been the first one ready to shoot. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“Thanks,” Celia said again. “But I don’t think I’ll be sure until he gets back.”

This time, it was Simon’s turn to nod. He finally raised his eyes from the ground to Celia’s face and met her eyes for a split-second before looking away, a far cry from the way he had looked at her in the classroom, before the two of them had met.

He looked back to the people by the cars, back to his own father. Suddenly, he spoke again. “Sex is a way of declaring your aliveness,” he said, out of the blue.

Celia stepped back. “What?”             

Simon shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, again avoiding eye contact. “My mom had these old magazines, articles from 2010. I used to read them all the time. 20 years in a house with just my parents, I read everything I could find. I remember reading this one about sex and grief. There were these interviews with all sorts of people — old, young, men, women. But there was this quote pulled out, big type, across two pages. Talking about how, when you feel bad, worse than anything, sex can make you feel better. Psychologically, it’s like…you can feel good even when you feel at your worst. It was this old woman, saying, ‘Sex is a way of declaring your aliveness.’” He finished speaking and again looked up at Celia. This time, his eyes showed nervousness. He had obviously not planned to talk about sex with her, but it had happened nonetheless.

Celia laughed. She had her choice of two possible reactions, laughter or anger, and had chosen the cheerier. It was clear that Simon had no idea what to say when he wasn’t talking zombies and survival. After a few seconds, once it was clear that laughter was all Celia was going to offer, Simon offered a tiny nervous grin back at her.

“Thanks,” she said for the third time.

“Glad I could help,” he said. He took a step forward, bringing himself within a half-step or so of Celia. This time, she didn’t withdraw. Simon pulled his right hand from his pocket, and Celia found herself taking it in her left. It was warm, and sweaty, but she didn’t mind. She looked down at their hands together, then up at Simon. This time, he was looking straight back at her, just like he had been in the classroom a few hours earlier, and she was reminded of how much she liked that look. She hadn’t had much opportunity to interact with boys her age, so this was a first, and she didn’t hate it.

Looking into Simon’s eyes, Celia felt a level of safeness for the first time since they had come across the zombie in her dorm room back at Morgan College. She knew her father would give anything for her safety, and that was comforting, but it was nice to know that her father wasn’t the only place Celia had to look to for a guardian, for protection if she couldn’t do it for herself.

So, of course, in the one moment that Celia started feeling safe, secure, from somewhere in town, blocks away, another pair of gunshots rang out without warning.

The fear came to Celia anew. She dove her head forward, burying it in Simon’s chest. Their hands separated and he, now free from her grasp, placed his hands on her back nervously, tentatively. As he did, another shot rang out, seconds after the first two.

Seconds later, Celia realized they were not in immediate danger. She couldn’t say the same for her father, but could only hope and pray he would return in due time.

Celia pulled back from Simon, though his hands didn’t move from their spot on her back. She looked up at him to find that he was still looking down on her. His eyes were protective, she could tell, and they were kind too.

Celia didn’t know Simon well. But in that moment, she didn’t care. His eyes made her feel comfortable, safe, even in a world where she could die at any moment. She reached up to him, resting her left hand on his shoulder, placing her right on his cheek. Almost without thinking, Celia found herself pulling Simon’s head toward her own. Suddenly, their lips were meeting. At first, it was merely a peck, Celia experiencing her first kiss and assuming Simon was experiencing his as well. It progressed though, as the two of them awkwardly tried to maneuver their virgin lips against one another.

Finally, they pulled apart. Though Celia was reluctant to do so, she knew they had more pressing matters to deal with. But she realized, in that single moment with Simon, it had been good to declare her aliveness in her own way.

Chapter 5: Kinks Out of Our Necks

Michelle fished a bottle of water from her bag and took a drink. She was in decent shape, but the combination of keeping her head on a swivel and a loaded pack on her back was wearing her out quickly.

They had turned off their first road not a half-mile earlier, and were now walking through what had once been a subdivision, at Donnie’s insistence. At Michelle’s question, Donnie had explained that if they were going to get to the highway, for better or worse, they were going to go as fast as possible, and he had declared his way to be a shortcut. Michelle, not as familiar with this particular area, had finally yielded to his guidance, though she wasn’t in love with the idea.

Her uneasiness grew as Donnie cut through the driveway of a house that had clearly been uninhabited since 2010 and led into a gathering of trees in the back.

“Donnie?” Michelle said, forcing her way through a clutch of bushes. “Donnie, how can you know where the interstate is from here?”

“I just do,” Donnie said, his voice steady as he skipped over a shrub. “Trust me.”

Michelle had her doubts, but admitted she didn’t have any better routes in mind and so followed along.

And just as well, as minutes later Donnie led her through a final group of trees into an opening. Not three hundred yards away, Michelle saw a familiar, and very welcome, sight: an interstate service area.

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 to 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.