After Life (13 page)

“Dad?” Celia said, her voice rising along with her panic. “Dad? What’s he—?” Her voice caught in her throat as the young man approached the two Z’s devouring his mother. He grabbed one by the shoulders and flung it off of his mother’s body, then forced the other one off with a well-placed kick. He stood above his mother for a brief moment.

Just as the Ehrens’ Camry left the parking lot, Celia saw Mrs. Porter’s body spring to life. It sat up, saw the young man standing over it, and reached out with both arms. A less aware viewer might have thought it was nothing more than a mother reaching out for her son’s embrace, but Celia cried out.

Just before they drove out of sight, Stacy and Barry turned in their seats to see the body of the mother pull her son close and take a huge bite out of his abdomen. The last thing they saw was the young man crying out and falling to the pavement.

Chapter 9: Cosmic Judge, Jury, & Executioner

“I want you to pray with me,” Michelle said.

It was the first thing either of them had said since leaving Nick. Donnie, in the passenger seat, had watched the security guard disappear behind them, not turning his head to the front until Michelle had made the turn and Nick was gone from sight.

From there, the two drove along for about ten minutes, neither looking at each other as Michelle navigated out of the city. So Donnie would have been caught off guard by anything Michelle might have said. The fact that she was asking him to join her in prayer was just icing on the disbelief cake.

“You what?” Donnie asked.

“I want you to pray with me,” Michelle repeated matter-of-factly. “Most of the people we know have died in the last couple hours. I have one person left in my life who’s not in this car. Unless I’m mistaken, you don’t even have that many. And I don’t even know if Stacy
is
alive. So, yes, I’d like you to pray with me. For Madison. For us. And for Stacy.”

Donnie sighed. “Michelle, I don’t…”

“You don’t what, Donnie? Believe in God? That’s fine. I do. And I’m going to pray. All I’d like is for you to hold my hand and think what I say.”

“But…”             

“Donnie,” Michelle said, her voice growing stern. “Please. I’m not asking you to change your belief system for me. Just do this.”

“Why?”

For a moment, Michelle didn’t speak. She checked her gas gauge — more than half full, a good sign — and surveyed the landscape of suburban Connecticut. She had always known Donnie’s religious beliefs, but had never really worried about them, figuring he was entitled to his own beliefs. Never really worried about them, that is, until now, now that it mattered.

Now that their lives hung in the balance, Michelle realized, she was worried about the fact that the only person she knew for sure she still had in her life was going to wind up in hell, provided he didn’t end up a zombie first. Now, now that it was too late to ease Donnie into anything, Michelle regretted not really discussing God with him before.

“Donnie,” she started at last, “you’ve always been nice to me. And Madison, Cal, Lambert… You’re as good to people as anyone I’ve ever known.”

“I’ve never seen any reason to antagonize,” Donnie said cautiously. He didn’t know where Michelle was going, but he felt like he was talking himself into a trap. “Especially not people I work with, see every day.”

“Granted,” Michelle said with a nod. “I get that. But you’re nice even to people you’ll never see again, even when there’s nothing in it for you.

“Even to Nick back there,” she went on. “He was being downright nasty to you.”

“Being nice is always preferable to being…you know, the opposite. I even used to use that as an argument for why a lot of atheists are better people than Christians — a lot of us do good just to do good, not because we think it’s going to set us up with a fancy penthouse in the sky somewhere down the road.”

“And, when we were talking to Nick, you said ‘what goes around comes around.’ You mentioned karma.”

“Michelle, I was there,” Donnie said, exasperated. “What’s your point?”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but if you believe in ‘do good things and good things happen,’ then don’t you also have to believe that there is
something
out there? If we’re just the lucky planet to have properties to develop life, then it shouldn’t matter whether you do good or bad things — what you do has no bearing on what happens.

“So,” she continued, picking up steam, “any kind of belief in karma sort of
has
to coincide with a belief in some kind of cosmic judge, jury and executioner, doesn’t it?”

Donnie sat in silence. He felt like Michelle was lawyering him, talking in circles, but he couldn’t really poke holes in what she was saying.

“
And
,” Michelle went on, emphasizing the word like she was winding up for the big knockout punch, “you have told me you hope for this, you hope for that. You hope for things all the time. Now, tell me: if you, like I said, have to believe in a cosmic judge, then, when you hope, aren’t you in some way directing that ‘hope’ to that judge? And if so, how is that different from prayer?”

Michelle made a right turn. Out his passenger-side window, Donnie saw, off in the distance, a mass of bodies crouching over something and found himself hoping stridently that who- or whatever was at the bottom of the pile had managed to die before the zombies had gotten to it. And suddenly, it felt slightly hollow to simply “hope” that, with no one or nothing as the recipient of that hope. Nonetheless, he thought, he was only hoping. Not praying. As he watched, he thought briefly, then turned to face Michelle.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Everything you said makes sense. But you’ve got to admit, God isn’t something you come to believe or not believe in with logic. My brain can decide that there must be a God, but that’s all moot if my heart can’t agree.”

Michelle nodded. When she spoke, her tone was much calmer, barely above a whisper. “Based on your story, didn’t you
stop
believing in God because of logic?”

There was silence in the car for a long while that time. As they sat, Donnie considered Michelle’s words. He knew he couldn’t flip a switch and let God, or god, or “god” back into his life right then. On the other hand, he thought, he had come by his convictions honestly. He’d had good reason for deciding what he had decided. Either way, he knew, he was glad he hadn’t been the one on the bottom of that pile he had just witnessed.

Meanwhile, Michelle had her eyes on the road. She had said her piece; she had finally given her opinion. Now her task was to drive. They had been lucky so far, she knew; since Cal’s death they hadn’t actually come across a single mobile zombie, a single threat. That luck couldn’t last.

On the other hand, she thought, they had half a tank of gas, plenty of ammo, and two fully functional brains. And, if nothing else, the population of 2030 couldn’t have been 20% of the 2010 population; there were simply fewer bodies for them to avoid.

After several minutes — enough time for them to get into, through and past Norwalk — Michelle finally spoke again.

“Regardless, Donnie, I’m not asking you to go to Sunday Mass. I’m not even asking you to hold a cross. You ‘hope’ all the time. I would imagine that some of that hope has gone my way, has gone Stacy’s way — that you’re not hoping only for yourself. You’re a good person. You hope for good things for us. So I’m only asking you to do two things: One, hold my hand while you hope. And two, use the word ‘amen’ at the end.”

Donnie hesitated again, but finally nodded and held his left hand up, which Michelle took with her right.

“Dear God,” Michelle started, “Thank you for protecting us — in 2010, now, and at all other times. Please take care of Madison —” her voice caught briefly, but Michelle continued. “— and our other friends who are with you now. And please take care of Stacy until we can get to her. Let her know if you can that we are coming as quickly as possible. Amen.”

When Donnie closed his eyes, he had done so more out of respect for Michelle than anything else. He had silently echoed her words to himself as she spoke and, without really meaning to, mouthed the closing “amen.”

When he opened his eyes, he saw, not two hundred yards ahead, an impassable road blocked by a van, five unmoving corpses… and something like thirty zombies.

Chapter 10: Lone Wolves

After the excitement of the race to the cars, Andy couldn’t help but feel that the car ride was on the anticlimactic side. He had only had a car sparingly during 2010, and so had rarely had that tiny extra bit of security that comes from being able to travel several times as fast as any likely pursuer.

Nonetheless, as he drove, Andy fell back into his normal driving habits: knuckles tight on the steering wheel, eyes darting back and worth, always wary as he followed behind the Stones’ vehicle.

He spared the shortest of glances in his rearview, confirming that the other car in their little caravan was still in line, then turned his eyes back to the road before him. Seconds later, he did a double-take and looked in his rearview again, this time focusing his attention much closer — Stacy Crane, it seemed, had come apart just behind him.

She was silent, but the girl was sobbing in her seat as she looked out the window. Her arms were still crossed across her stomach, as though she were trying to prevent herself from vomiting, an action Andy remembered from the classroom. He could tell she was trying her hardest not to be noticed by her fellow passengers, and had been largely successful. Celia, too, was looking out the window, and Barry Lowensen could have been asleep as far as Andy could tell, though how that could be true in their current situation he couldn’t fathom. Neither of them had spared the slightest glance toward Stacy since they witnessed the young man’s death on campus, as far as Andy knew.

So it was with some hesitation that he observed Stacy’s tears. The girl was young, and he had seen her shed a few drops while they remained at Morgan College. At the same time, though, Stacy appeared to have been as well-prepared for the disastrous scenario as any of the students, with the possible exception of Simon Stone. She had held and fired her weapon confidently, and hadn’t seemed prone to the hysteria Andy had seen in his own daughter.

On the other hand, Andy knew, no one who hadn’t lived through it before could have
truly
been prepared to confront zombies. And she, more than anyone else in their little group, was alone, with no parents, friends or family around. She had known Celia for only a couple hours when the outbreak began.

Andy wanted to get the girl’s mind onto her loved ones — in a positive way, not a “could they be dead?” way — but he didn’t want to call her out for crying in the process.

“You got a family, Lowensen?” he asked at last, barely giving the teacher a glance as he did so.

The teacher’s head jerked up. He looked around for a moment, then caught Andy’s eye in the rearview. “Me?” he responded. “I…my father is still alive, as far as I know. And my brother. They live in Pennsylvania.”

“No wife? Kids?”             

Lowensen almost giggled, then caught himself. “No, no, no. I haven’t had a girlfriend since 2010, in fact. Didn’t see fit to committing to someone who I might lose or have to shoot somewhere down the road if…you know, this.” He punctuated his sentence with a vague wave to the surroundings.

Andy shook his head. Barry Lowensen was not the first person he had heard espouse the single lifestyle in the past twenty years. In fact, there had been a whole section of the Out-There site dedicated to the “Lone Wolves,” as it were.

And the lifestyle itself didn’t make any more sense to him. It was one thing to, like he and Celia, withdraw from socialization — a wide social circle, he had long ago decided, was risky. But it was another altogether to withdraw from
everybody
. If everyone did that, what did it matter whether zombies came back or not? If every member of the population looked out only for themselves, eventually only corpses would remain, no matter the cause.

It was with some amusement that Andy realized that he was echoing the same argument his daughter made to him in favor of college less than a day earlier.

And it was the thought of college that sent Andy back into his incredulity regarding Lowensen’s choices. The man didn’t want to commit to someone, didn’t want to have anyone relying on him, but chose to be the director of a college full of relatively ignorant young adults? Andy felt his bile toward Lowensen rise all over again.

He quelled it, though, and tried to nonchalantly turn the conversation toward Stacy. “What about you, hon?” he asked. “What about your family?”

When Andy looked into the rearview this time, Stacy was looking back at him. Her rounded cheeks were still stained with tears, but there were no fresh ones falling anymore, and she had a knowing look on her face that told Andy that, not only had his nonchalance not worked, but she seemed to have known his angle from the beginning.

“My mom works in Stamford,” she said.

Andy nodded. He remembered her having mentioned that when they were at the emergency phones earlier. “And your father?” he said before thinking better of it.

Stacy shook her head. “Never knew him.”

This wasn’t uncommon for children Stacy’s age, Andy knew. In fact, Celia hadn’t even known her mother. Stacy’s mother might have been pregnant during 2010 and her father lost in the outbreak. And if not, Andy knew of countless “relationships” that had started in the aftermath of 2010 that lasted just long enough to leave one partner pregnant and both of them single. People were so happy simply to be alive that they convinced themselves of all sorts of “loves” that didn’t really exist. It had been unwise, he knew, to ask Stacy about a second parent. Two-parent households were even more of a rarity in 2030 than they had been early in 2010.

“Well, that’s good about your mom,” he said, trying to sound as light-hearted as he could manage. “If she’s in Stamford, working in government, she’s got to be as safe as just about anybody. Can’t imagine a safer place.”

Stacy nodded, but didn’t seem convinced. After a moment, Lowensen spoke again. “We were supposed to be safe, too,” he mumbled, just loud enough that everyone in the car heard him.

Andy’s eyes jerked back over to the teacher and he glared anew. Lowensen met his eyes for a moment, then looked to the floorboards. Stacy, meanwhile, turned her attention back to the scenery out the window.

“Honey,” Andy said, trying to repeat his soothing tone, “the people in charge of the government buildings surely knew what they were doing. They had protocols in place, guards, provisions, intelligent people, time to prepare. They weren’t controlled by a single ill-equipped leader.” He glared at Lowensen again. “Your mom couldn’t have asked for a better place to hole up this time around.”

Stacy nodded. “That’s what I’ve been praying,” she said.

“Good,” Andy said. “Prayer’s a good choice now. I’ve been doing the same. So has my daughter, I’m sure.” Andy glanced toward Celia, who shifted noncommittally.

By this time in the drive, the caravan had split off from their Wal-Mart-bound brethren and was on a small road heading west. Andy vaguely recalled seeing Camp Edwards on his way in on Highway 6, but they were now, out of an interest in safety, following some back roads he didn’t know at all well. He hoped Roger knew the way, because otherwise they were going to have to venture out to a more populated thoroughfare, and that notion worried Andy.

He followed the Stones’ vehicle around a bend in the road that was bordered on the right by a cranberry bog and on the left by the ocean. Just as they reached the straightaway, Andy noticed that Roger had hit his brakes, hard, and turned his gaze farther ahead of their vehicle, fearing the worst.

Andy saw no humans or ex-humans ahead. Instead, in the oncoming lane, he saw another caravan driving toward them. Whereas Andy’s group was three cars, twelve people, and essentially zero supplies, the train heading in the opposite direction had to have been a dozen vehicles long, and each one was the same greenish-brown hue of military-grade Humvees.

By this time, Roger had pulled his vehicle to a complete stop, and Andy and the car behind followed suit. Roger flipped the hazard lights on his car, presumably to signal to the convoy to stop for him, and Andy released his seat belt and opened his door to try to wave them down.

As he exited his car, he heard the lead Humvee blare its horn, though he couldn’t decipher the meaning of the honk — it could have been anything from “I see you” to “I will run you over” — but he continued to wave as the vehicles approached.

As best he could tell, though, the honk must have meant “We aren’t stopping for anybody,” because the lead Humvee blew past their pitiful caravan without so much as a wave from the driver. The subsequent Guard vehicles continued past just as quickly, as Andy continued to wave in astonishment.

But it was the last vehicle that really surprised him. It was the only one that slowed down, and Andy’s heart briefly leapt as the rear driver’s side window was rolled down. The car pulled to a stop alongside the SUV that was transporting the four trailing members of their little party. Andy started to approach the vehicle to thank them, ask them their plan, try to follow along, when he saw a man’s head appear in the window.

He was probably in his early 50s, round-faced, with a graying almost-beard that needed shaving. He had a scar on his left cheek that leapt his eye and continued up his forehead, and his dark eyes stared out at the SUV with an appraising look. He wore a helmet that barely managed to encompass his massive skull.

As Andy approached, he saw the large man’s weight shift, and suddenly an automatic weapon appeared in the window next to his face. Andy stopped cold and watched as several rounds were fired off. The first few hit the left-side tires of the SUV, disabling it, but then the man aimed the weapon higher and fired a few cursory shots into the doors and windows of the SUV.

“Get down!” Andy yelled as he turned and dove back into his own vehicle. Celia, Stacy and Lowensen all ducked as low as they could, and he heard the squeal of tires that indicated the Stones had peeled out to get away. Seconds later, Andy heard the Humvee kick into gear, and he spared a glance out his own window to ensure the coast was clear.

The last of the Guard vehicles was disappearing around that curve, and the 50-something man had rolled up his window. They were gone.

Andy reopened his car door and ran to the SUV behind them. The condition of the tires certainly meant the end of that vehicle’s usefulness, but Andy was more concerned about the car’s inhabitants. He wrenched the driver’s door open to survey the damage.

In the passenger seat, he saw the wife of the couple. She had taken a bullet to the shoulder and was sobbing. But more horribly, her husband was in the driver’s side seat with his head resting against the steering wheel. The blood streaming out of the hole in the side of the man’s head told Andy that the best thing he could say about the man at this point was that he wasn’t likely to ever reanimate.

Lowensen came up behind Andy and opened the back door. There, the two men saw a situation similar to the front seat: On the driver’s side, the young woman who was the couple’s daughter had taken a bullet to the chest and another to the head, and sat with her head against the headrest, never to move again. On the opposite side, the young man with the family sat, apparently unharmed.

“They… they… they shot us!” the woman in the front seat cried out as she clutched her shoulder.

Andy hurried to the opposite side of the car and opened the woman’s door, applying pressure to her shoulder as he did. “They did,” he confirmed, helping her from the vehicle. He wasn’t sure what they had to do, but he figured the best idea was to remove her from the sight of her deceased family as quickly as possible. In the distance, he saw as Roger negotiated the tight U-turn on the road ahead and returned to them. Meanwhile, Lowensen helped the nearly catatonic young man from the back of the vehicle, being sure to close all the doors behind them as he did.

“Why?!” she wailed.

“That doesn’t matter,” Andy said, herding the woman toward his own vehicle.

All of a sudden, she seemed to remember the family she had in the SUV and started to pull away from Andy. “Meredith?” she cried. “Philip? Meredith?!”

Andy refused to relinquish his grip on the woman, even as she turned and tried to lunge back to her family’s vehicle. She was not a small woman, short but heavy, and holding her in one place took most of Andy’s strength. She repeated her husband’s and daughter’s names several times before Andy finally managed to corral her, to navigate her away from the horrors in her car.

“They’re gone,” he said. “They’re gone. I’m sorry. They’re gone.”

By this time, the Stones’ vehicle had returned to their small group. Roger, Simon and the athletic-looking woman all exited the vehicle, while the woman’s son stayed secure in his seat in the back.

“Are they…?” Roger asked as he approached, but trailed off in response to Andy’s head shake.

“Bastards,” Lowensen said as he helped the young man take the teacher’s seat in the Ehrens’ Camry. “Goddamn cowards.”

“What do you mean?” the young man asked, the first words Andy heard him say.

“They didn’t think we were infected,” Lowensen said. “How could they? We were driving. We were waving. We were flashing lights. No, they knew what they were doing. They were killing the living. Fewer people out and about, fewer people available to become zombies or be food for zombies, less time the zombies can persist. They wanted to save themselves, and
only
themselves.”

Andy nodded along with the teacher. It seemed to him like that was exactly what had happened — the Guardsmen had decided that they were going to find safety, and if they had any say in it, they would be the only ones. Andy figured the rest of the group was lucky they had only targeted the rear vehicle.