After Life (37 page)

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.

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 11: 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.

They walked a short way out, to a spot directly between the group and the exit corridor, before Vince indicated to Andy to stop.

By this point, Michelle and the other students had noticed what was happening, and everyone’s attention was directed toward the two men.

“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” Michelle asked, her gun trained on Vince and Andy.

“Sweetcheeks, I’m gettin’ myself out of here,” Vince said. “Damned if I’m ‘bout to cast my lot with y’all in this shit. Take my chances on my own.”

“And what if we start shooting now?” Michelle asked.

“You could,” Vince said. “But I gotta say, I don’t see as how your fearless leader makes it out of that particular battle in one piece. An’ I reckon y’all care a bit more about his safety than I do.”

Celia watched the exchange closely. Her gun was raised, but she knew she wasn’t a sure enough shot to even consider risking her father’s life with a misfire. Instead, she chose to reason with Vince.

“That’s my dad!” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as shaky to Vince as it did to her.

“I do believe that’s my point, hon,” Vince said. “If you’re gonna take a hostage, make sure it’s one that people care about.” He used his wounded arm roughly, indicating to Andy that he needed to back out, and the two started moving.

“You cost me my people, my place. You got me this hole here in my arm. Killed Murph, Pastis, O’Reilly. Caused Menendez’s death. You motherfuckers have ruined my life. Damned if I’m going to kick back with y’all for any more time than I must.”

“I thought you were the one who didn’t want to shoot us,” Andy said, his voice steadier and calmer than Celia thought possible, given the circumstances. “I thought you ‘begged’ O’Reilly not to kill our people.”

Vince scoffed. “Say what you will about me, but I’m one hell of a liar,” he said. “Menendez was the one didn’t want to kill you all. Radioed to us to let you go, maybe y’all’d find your own sanctuary. And Murph wasn’t drivin’ the Humvee. That was me. I heard Menendez’s order, an’ I told O’Reilly to shoot you anyway. Like he said, we don’t take on dead weight. Better for y’all to know not to come after us.”

“You son of a bitch,” Andy said.

“Careful,” Vince responded. “Don’t seem wise to insult the man with a gun to your head.”

“So what’s your plan?” Michelle called from their position in the middle. “Once you get out of our range, what are you going to do with him?”

“Hard to say,” Vince said. “That’s a ‘for-me-to-know’ situation, I do believe. But I wouldn’t be planning a birthday party for anyone.”

Celia watched as they started backing down the corridor. Within ten feet, they would be out of sight of everyone else and, Celia was sure, her dad would be gone from her life forever.

Suddenly, she noticed her father’s right hand. It was creeping up his leg, up toward his waist. From behind, Vince surely couldn’t see Andy’s movements, but he lifted the bottom of his shirt, and Celia saw her father remove once again the blade he had tucked into his pants, the blade he had used earlier to kill Vince’s friend Murph.

She did her best not to call attention to his motions, but she knew her jaw fell open nonetheless. Regardless, Vince didn’t seem to notice the motions, and Andy soon had the knife all the way out, clutched in his hand in a way that would give him easy access to the man behind him.

Before he moved again, Andy’s eyes met Celia’s. She willed him to be safe, though she honestly wasn’t sure whether “safe” meant to attack Vince or let him escape. Finally, her father nodded to her and said, “It’ll be okay.”

“Daddy?”

“You’ll be all right,” Andy said, then swung his arm downward, toward Vince’s leg. The Army man noticed the action as it happened, but it was too late to dodge, and Andy’s blade fell deep into Vince’s thigh.

The man cried out, firing his weapon at the same time. Celia and Michelle sprinted forward, toward the two men.

With his stab, Andy had forced Vince to stagger backward and fall as the man clutched at his right leg, with the blade still deep in the muscle. He had dropped his gun to the ground after the shot, and now was focusing all his attention on the blade that stuck out of his thigh.

“Holy shit!” he cried, breathless. “Holy motherfucking shit! Bastard stabbed me. Forgot he had a blade. Holy fuck.”

Celia and Michelle drew close to the man then, and as he wailed, Celia found herself feeling no sympathy for him. He had threatened her father, killed some of their group, tried to leave them all helpless. He deserved the bullet wound in his right arm, the knife wound in his right leg. He deserved all that and much, much more.

“Serves you right,” Celia said. And with that, she raised her gun and, focused, fired a shot into Vince’s head. It was the first shot she had fired since the whole affair had begun. Celia had had every opportunity to shoot zombies, to use the weapon, but had never actually done so. This time, though, she fired with gusto. Causing Vince’s death was more important than ending some zombie’s existence. Even that wasn’t enough for him, she figured, but it was all she could do.

The man fell back against the floor, dead. Celia felt no surge of emotion, nothing indicating to her that she had done anything worth feeling guilty for. If anything, she felt like she did whenever she killed an invading bug back in their home.

That done, Celia and Michelle turned their attention to Andy, on the floor in front of them. Vince’s shot hadn’t been immediately fatal, but it had been brutal, entering and exiting Andy’s neck, back to front. He lay on the ground, gurgling as he clutched at his wound.

Celia knelt over her father, crying as she grabbed at his body, trying to will him back to health.

It was in vain, though. Celia held his head as Andy’s arms fell from the neck, losing their strength to try to stem the blood flow. His arms fell to his side, the blood escaping his body too fast for Celia to hope to contain it. His eyes met Celia’s, and he opened his mouth to speak, but only anguished gurgling came out, an inhuman grunt as he struggled for breath. Seconds later, he went still, his body lying, unseeing, below her as she cradled his head.

And that was how Andy Ehrens died.

Chapter 12: Survival

There was silence in the Wal-Mart building then. The girl crouched over the dead man, her tears falling freely.

After a minute, the others moved toward her, encouraging her to get up.

“There’s nothing you can do for him anymore,” they said.

“He’s gone.”

“You need to take care of yourself now.”

“Make sure you are okay.”

They tried all manner of encouraging, sympathetic, emotional words, but the girl didn’t move until the young black man stepped behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. Of all of them, he was the only one who didn’t say anything, merely lightly massaging her from behind, letting the girl grieve.

His touch pulled her up slightly. Though her tears continued to fall, though her shoulders still sagged, though the man stayed motionless on the ground, the girl responded to the young black man’s touch, and she finally pulled her gaze away from the corpse below her. She looked behind her, locking eyes with the young man.

The other three — the middle-aged woman, the young woman and the injured boy — moved away then, pulling themselves from the scene. The young black man, the girl and the dead man stayed there, a painting of grief. Finally, the young man forced the girl to rise, to leave the dead man where he was, and held her against his chest.

She followed his nonverbal instructions perfectly, collapsing against the young man’s chest as she rose. Within seconds, the front of his shirt was soaked in sweat, tears and snot, but he seemed not to mind, holding her up and close to him as she cried.

The others congregated in the center of the building, claiming spots on the floor. The woman dug into the giant backpack near her on the floor and pulled out what looked like granola bars, passing them out to the other two. The younger woman monitored the grieving scene they had left, her arms held tight around her midsection as she watched. The injured male only watched his own ankle, as though he were willing the swelling there to recede, to allow him a full range of motion.

After a full minute or two, the young black man finally spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Your dad is the only reason we got as far as we did.”

The girl nodded, though she didn’t respond. She kept her head tucked into his chest, still crying.

The young man reached out with his right hand to her chin, raising it until the girl had no choice but to look him in the eye. “I mean it,” he said. “Your dad saved all of our lives. All he wanted was for us to be safe, to find somewhere we could hide.” He looked around at the enormous building, at the dead bodies on either side, at the people in the middle munching on their meager amount of food. “This isn’t going to hold us forever, but it’s good for now. For now, we can stay here. For now, your dad got us somewhere we can survive.”

Neither of them spoke for a minute, the young man continuing to hold the girl against his chest. Finally, he put his hands on her upper arms and spoke again. “Do you remember the school? After my dad… after he was gone? Your dad was talking to me. I knew my dad was gone by then. Where else would he have been? So your dad didn’t even mention my dad, didn’t tell me what happened to him.” The boy paused for a moment, then said to no one in particular, “I guess I’ll never know for sure.

“Anyway,” he went on, looking back to the girl. “You know what he said to me? He said that we couldn’t stay at the school, that we needed to get to somewhere safer. He said the most important thing we could ever find was a safe place, a place we could wait the zombies out. He said he’d never had one, and he didn’t care if he ever found one for himself. Said he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he just found the opportunity to sit still and wait. But he said he wanted to make sure you found a safe spot.

“All your dad cared about,” the boy said, gently pulling the girl closer to him, so that he was speaking only a few inches from her face, “was making sure you were okay, making sure you wouldn’t have to live Out There. Sure, the door might be broken. We might not be able to stay forever. But he wanted to get us to safety, however temporary. And Celia?” He drew even closer to her. “He did it. He was great.” With that, he leaned down and kissed the girl on the lips, a long, serious kiss that the girl readily, hungrily returned.

In the center, the girl monitoring that part of the room let her attention waver for a moment, watching an obviously unoccupied room for a moment or two.

When the two finally finished their kiss, the young black man locked eyes with the girl. “We need to get inside,” he said. “The further from the entrance the better.”

The girl, clearly unwilling to make a move on her own, settled for a nod, and let him guide her toward the others.

In short order, they were with the other three, five people living, whatever that meant, in a silent, abandoned building, keeping eyes on the entrances, sitting in silence.

“Michelle?” the young woman who had been monitoring the entrance said. “What do we do now?”

The middle-aged woman, Michelle, didn’t respond at first. She kept her gaze focused on the opposite entrance, her eyes brimming with tears, and shook her head.

“I don’t know, Stacy,” she said, her voice almost breaking. “I don’t know.”

“Can we stay here?”             

Michelle looked at the two paths into the giant room they occupied, at the bodies that were strewn about the floor, at the body of the dead man they were so recently grieving over. She passed a couple more granola bars to the two who had just joined them and shook her head.

“Not forever,” she said. “But for now. And when we have to go, we’ll be ready. We are ready.”

A few feet away, Celia and the young black man finally took a seat, nearly collapsing onto one another as they settled onto the hard concrete in the center. The injured boy finally looked up from his ankle and spoke. “He’s waiting for us,” he said to Celia. “In heaven, your dad’s waiting for us. So’s Mr. Lowensen.” He looked to Michelle. “And your friend. They’re all waiting for us.”

Michelle nodded. She didn’t meet his gaze, staring off into the distance, and her eyes indicated that his words were hollow comfort at best. All she said was, “I’d like to think so.” She didn’t elaborate.

“And my dad,” the young man said, to no one in particular.

“And my mom,” the other, injured one said.

“I hope so,” Michelle said again, her face giving away her lack of conviction. “I really do.”

With that, the five slipped into silence. They kept their eyes on the entrances and on each other, but none of them spoke again, sitting in mourning silence, each slowly eating their granola bars as they tried to get comfortable on the concrete floor. Their faces revealed they weren’t enjoying their food, weren’t relishing the bites, were merely engaging in yet another activity that guaranteed their survival, for however much longer they could guarantee it.

The chewing was sullen, methodical.