After the Bite (2 page)

“Nope. They’re stuck in traffic. They shouldn’t be long.”

“Is the guest room set up?”

“Yeah, you can put your stuff in there, if you want. It looks just like you left it.”

“Ugh. Don
’t remind me.”

“Something wrong, Hen?”

“If I wanted to be reminded of my old room all the time, I wouldn’t have left it,” Henry said. Jack was confused.

“Sorry, Henry. I just wanted you to feel at home.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry. I’ll only be here a few days anyway.”

Jack didn
’t feel comforted at all, but he knew his brother well enough to know that he was trying to make him feel better, despite how the words had actually come out.

Jack helped Henry unpack, and then the two sat down in the living room to talk. They chatted for a while, just catching up.

“So how are things in Pennsylvania?” Jack asked.

“A nightmare,” Henry
said. “But, it’s home.”

“Yeah
,” Jack said. He couldn’t imagine calling anywhere else his home. “Want to watch a movie?”

“One of your zombie flicks? No thanks
.”

“Come on, Hen. You can
’t just write off a whole genre like that.”

“Sure I can,” Henry said. “They
’re preposterous. They’re not real.”

“A lot of movies aren
’t real.”

“I have better things to do, Jack
.”

“Like what?”

“Work.”

“Work
?” Jack laughed. “You came here to take a break from work.”

“Yes, well unlike some people, I have a lot of it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Hen?”

“You know what it means, Jack.”

“I
do
work!” Jack said.

“What, at the gas station? You don
’t make enough to move out.”

“I don
’t need to move out.”

“So you
’ll what? Live in the basement forever? Play your video games and fantasize about this zombie nonsense until you’re old?”

“I
’ll move out eventually,” Jack said. “I just need to find what’s right for me.”

“Sometimes we don
’t ever get what we think is right for us,” Henry said.

“Like you would know!
You got out of here the first chance you got!”

“Because I couldn
’t stand it!” Henry said, and stood up. “Every minute of every day, it’s ‘Let’s watch Night of the Dead this,’ or ‘Let’s play zombies and survivors that!’”

“Night of the
Living
Dead—”

“Or it
’s planning stupid dress-up games with your internet friends, or making plans for some event that can’t possibly happen, or doing anything but actually
having a life
!”

It was silent for a moment, and Henry sat back down.

“I have a life,” Jack said. “I just didn’t force myself to like it, like you did.”

Henry sighed.
“Jack, I’m sorry. It’s the flight… You know I didn’t mean—”

Jack stood up.

“When did you become everything we hated, Hen?”

Jack left the room. Henry couldn
’t see his eyes. He heard footsteps go down the hall, and then the door to the basement opened. Henry turned around and called down the hallway.

“You know I didn
’t mean it, Jackie!”

The door slammed shut, and the footsteps faded away.

“You know I didn’t mean it,” Henry said to himself.

****

It was the ringing phone that put the two brothers in the same room again. The call was from their mother. Henry answered it in the kitchen, and Jack entered the room soon after.

“Hey, Mom,” Henry said.

“Henry, do you have the television on?”

“No, why?”

“Turn it on, sweetie.” Henry looked into Jack’s eyes, telling him there was something wrong, then made his way to the living room, and Jack followed. Henry turned on the television.

“
—how to explain what’s happening, other than people all over the country, perhaps the world, are turning insane and violent in mass numbers, attacking each other, reportedly with nails, teeth, and sometimes even eating other people. It is heavily advised that everyone stay at home and lock the doors, and don’t answer them for anyone. If anyone around you becomes unresponsive, violent, or sickly, it is advised that you lock them in another room and don’t go near them. Again, this is not a test, we are facing a countrywide catastrophe…”

“Hen, what
’s going on?” Jack asked.

“Mom, are you and Dad all right?”

“We’re fine, honey. But we’re stuck in traffic, it’s only gotten worse. There are people on the sidewalks, and in the streets… So many people, some are running, so much blood…”

“Mom, don
’t get out of the car!”

“Don
’t worry. We aren’t going anywhere. A few of them are trying to get in, though. We can hardly move at all, there are wrecks everywhere!”

“Hen, put it on speakerphone!”

Henry put the phone on speakerphone, and the sounds from the other end of the line filled the room. There were horns honking, screams, and occasional bouts of broken glass.

Jack flipped the television to the local news, and the chopper was aiming the camera at the downtown streets.

“Hen, look!” Jack said.

The streets were
grimmer than their mother had been able to describe. There were bodies strewn about, and wrecks everywhere. A line of vehicles stretched to either edge of the television set, most of them not moving at all.

“Again, we want to warn our viewers that the following images are extremely disheartening,” a male anchor was saying, “but
also extremely important. We aren’t quite sure what’s going on, but there seems to be some kind of event sweeping the nation. We’ll keep you posted from our news chopper anchor. Dave, what do you have for us?”

Another voice broke in, this one distorted somewhat, as though it was coming through a telephone.

“Well, Marty, as you can see, traffic has come to a halt, people are basically sitting ducks in their cars… oh God, I don’t even know what to do. They’re not safe there, but they aren’t any safer outside their cars. This is… this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Oh my God.”

“Look, there
’s Mom and Dad!” Jack said, pointing at a little blue car on the screen. It was in the middle lane, safe from the crazy passersby, but wasn’t going anywhere.

“Mom, we can see you on the TV.”

“Your father and I want you to know that we love you both very much. If anything happens out here—-”

“Mom, don
’t talk like that,” Henry said. He was starting to tear up, and that made Jack follow suit.

“
… If anything happens, you boys take care of each other, do you understand?”

“Of course, Mom
.”

T
he chopper anchor came back on in a hurry. “Marty! Oh God, there’s a plane coming in low! I think it’s going to hit! Christ Almighty!”

The camera panned up, and a blur of motion went by.

“Mom, Dad, we love you!” Jack shouted at the phone.

“We love you too,
swee—”

The phone went dead at the same moment the anchorman on TV screamed, and the picture showed little but a fiery mess of crumpled metal. The camera cut back to Marty in the studio,
muting Dave’s cries.

Henry let the phone fall to the ground. The two brothers found themselves
in each other’s embrace, where they always had when they didn’t know what else to do.

****

Jack sat on the ground, a hammer before him, between his legs. The window above him was neatly boarded up, along with the other windows and the doors. He rested his head on his hands, staring off into nothing, thinking.

It had been several hours since the event had come into their lives
. Within the first two hours the television had stopped broadcasting, and phones and radios stopped working, as though something was jamming them. The two brothers had finished boarding up the house and gotten used to ignoring the screams and moans and explosions coming from the outside world. Morning would come soon, yet neither could sleep.

“So,” Henry said from the chair where he sat, across the floor from Jack. “What do we do now?”

“How the hell should I know?” Jack said.

“Well
… you’ve been waiting for this, right? You have to know something about it.”

Jack looked up for the first time in several hours.

“Waiting for it? What is that supposed to mean?”

“I
’m not trying to be offensive,” Henry said. “I know how absurd this all is, but you have to admit, whatever’s going on… it’s pretty similar to your zombie fiction.”

“That doesn
’t mean anything. Those are just movies and games. They aren’t real. Whatever’s going on out there, that’s real. I wasn’t
waiting
for this. I didn’t want this.”

“Yeah
.” Henry sighed. “Yeah, well, we need a plan.”

“And you think I have one?”

“Isn’t that what you and your friends were up to?”

“I don
’t think anyone could’ve prepared for this,” Jack said. He stood up. “I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

“I
’ll stay, you know,” Henry said as Jack began to walk away. Jack stopped. “At least until this all clears up. And for a while after.”

“Thanks,” Jack said, and then he headed for his room.

One sleepless night was followed by another, and another after that. Jack and Henry didn’t talk much, but when they did, it was just like old times. They spoke only of casual things, rarely mentioning their parents or the world outside or their lives before the event.

One morning, as Jack came up the stairs out of the basement, he found a note on the kitchen table.

Jack
ie,

I needed some air. Don
’t worry, I went somewhere nobody can find me. I’ll be safe. See you soon. Don’t come look for me.

-Henry

Jack froze with terror. He hadn
’t even comprehended venturing outside unless it was necessary, let alone finding himself without his brother. He wondered where Henry could’ve gone, and then a feeling came over him. Jack peeked between boards out a window to make sure the back yard was empty. It was, and he headed out. His feeling turned out to be correct. He found his brother by the river.

“Hen! What are you doing out here?”

Henry looked up at Jack from the bank of the river.

“I told you not to come look for me,” he said.

“I was afraid something would happen to you.”

“So you came out to find me unarmed? You could have at least grabbed Dad
’s old revolver from his closet.”

“Dad kept a gun?” Jack
said. Henry looked up at him, confused for a moment, and then laughed. Jack sat down on the ground next to him.

“I envy you, you know,” Henry said. It took Jack by surprise. Why should Henry envy
him? Henry had a job, and a lot of money. He had gone out into the world and gotten everything he wanted.

“Why?”

“Because you’re still innocent. The world never got to you.”

“Why
’d you let it get to you?”

“I said it was your fault, didn
’t I?” Henry said. He tossed a rock into the calmly flowing water before him. “Well, it wasn’t. I was jealous, I guess. I saw the way the world was for you. You could’ve had a good job, you could’ve moved out on your own, but you chose not to. You decided to wait for something better.”

“You could
’ve done the same,” Jack said.

“I didn
’t think I deserved it,” Henry said. Jack looked at him.

“So you
’d settle for something you didn’t want?”

“I thought I could have both
. I thought I’d go down this path and find a better one along the way. That it was better than being a burden.”

“Which is all I am?”

“No. But
both
of us would have been.”

“So you left,” Jack said, fighting back the tears that
tried to well up in his eyes, “so that I wouldn’t have to.”

“It doesn
’t matter, now. We’re both here. That’s what matters.”

A little while passed. There was the occasional crack of a twig somewhere nearby, but no one came to bother them.