After Life (22 page)

Chapter 11: The Toll

The interstate’s onramp, the one that, in a normal world, Donnie might have used to enter the highway, came into view a bit down the road. Unfortunately for the living people in the car, it came into view just behind a mass of zombies, 25 maybe, that were sprinting toward them.

“Shit,” Donnie said. There was no heightened emotion to it, no exclamation. It was merely a word that he said, something to acknowledge their surroundings, regardless of how unsurprising they were. The word itself was little more than a sigh.

He slowed the car, unsure what to do next. “Do we plow through them?” he asked.

“There’s too many,” Michelle said, her voice low. “We damage this car like we did the other one, they’ll be on us in seconds.”

“So what do we do?” Donnie said. He glanced in the rearview and saw nothing, for the time being. “The ones from the toll will be here soon.”

“They will indeed,” came the voice from the backseat. Donnie jumped. He had forgotten about Salvisa sitting back there. He spun in his seat to see the old man digging through his backpack, the lone pack they had left after Donnie and Michelle had abandoned theirs in the service area.

“Turn the car around,” Salvisa said.

“Why?” Donnie said. “There’s no way to go that way, either.” As he questioned the order, though, Donnie swung the car around again. He didn’t drive, however, feeling as though he had himself well centered between the two groups of pursuers.

“We aren’t going that way,” Salvisa said. “We just need to put some distance in.”

Donnie started to ask what the old man meant by that, but before he got the question out, he saw him find whatever it was he was looking for in his pack. He removed his hand, and Donnie recognized in it the vaguely egg-like shape that represented only one thing — a hand grenade.

“Mr. Salvisa?” Donnie said with alarm. His suddenly spiked tone forced Michelle to turn and look as well. “Where did you get that?”

He looked at Donnie with some level of surprise. “Where did I get it?” he repeated. “Where did I get it? I got it from my pantry. Shelf below the peanut butter.”

“What are you doing with it
here
?”

“Did they leave?” Salvisa craned his neck around and looked behind him. He seemed genuinely curious. “No. They’re still there, boy. So I’d say what I’m doing with it ‘here’ is saving our asses. Make sure the car’s in drive.”

With that, Salvisa stepped out of the car and turned to face their pursuers. At the same time, Michelle, unable to contain herself, lowered her window and leaned as far out as she could to watch the old man.

Salvisa pulled the pin, cocked his arm and, with surprising athleticism and aim, launched the grenade several yards in front of the closest pursuing zombies, a group of ten or so that were all going about the same speed.

The grenade thrown, Salvisa dove back into the car. “Drive!” he said. Donnie slammed down on the pedal, lurching the car forward.

Michelle kept her eyes behind them, watching for the explosion. An attack like Salvisa’s would have been largely ineffective in traditional combat, she knew, as humans would see the grenade approaching and, in the small window provided them, either dodge the explosive or return the volley. For zombies, though, those concerns were non-existent — throw the grenade well, time it right, and they’d run right over top of it as it exploded without any consideration at all.

And, as Michelle watched, that was exactly what happened. Salvisa’s aim was true and, though it took a bit of a sideways hop, it erupted mere milliseconds after the first Z had crossed over it.

The explosion was surprisingly small, as far as Michelle was concerned. She had never seen the result of a hand grenade, never known any real violence beyond the occasional zombie shooting. There was no catastrophic boom, no giant mushroom cloud of fiery devastation. The road itself barely ended up with much more than an above-average-sized pothole.

What the explosion lacked in visual impressiveness, it more than made up for in precision — the entire group of lead pursuers, it seemed, were felled by the burst. It wasn’t a total devastation, of course, as a dozen or more continued their chase. But the group was cut in half, and Donnie spun the car around again and drove back toward them.

“Heads inside the car,” Salvisa said. “Windows up, duck low as you can. High beams on.”

Michelle followed his instructions, raising her window as quickly as it would go. Donnie crouched low enough that he could scarcely see over the dashboard.

“Why are we ducking?” Michelle asked, instinctively lowering to a whisper.

“Z’s are stupid,” Salvisa hissed back. “They chase the car because they smelled human, saw silhouettes, heard voices. They don’t know, cognitively, that car equals people. Duck down, blind ‘em with the lights, decent chance they’ll forget ‘people.’ Now that there’s some meat on the ground, something that might serve to distract them, give them a sure meal, they might stop considering the car, start in on the dead Z’s.”

Michelle was surprised. Maybe, she thought, Salvisa wasn’t quite as crazy as she had first thought. She felt one small bump that she guessed was Donnie being unable to avoid one of the fallen, then noticed the car start to seriously accelerate. Moments later, she felt safe to peek above the dashboard again.

All she could see now was the onramp from earlier, this time standing before them unblocked. She looked behind them, and confirmed what Salvisa had guessed — the zombies that were left seemed perfectly pleased to be crouching over their fallen comrades. Once again, Michelle had the thought that the old man in the backseat might be slightly more “with it” than she had at first believed.

“Thank you, Mr. Salvisa,” Donnie said. “That was brilliant.”

“I have my moments, son,” the old man replied. “I have my moments.”

Donnie sat in brief silence. He had heard an older man say “I have my moments” twice before, as far as he could remember, and both times had been courtesy of the priest who had saved his life in 2010.

The first was just after the man had sealed them inside the church, when one of Donnie’s fellow hiders had thanked the father for his quick thinking and solid aim. “I have my moments,” he had said, though it was offered without the slightest of grins.

The second time he had said it to Donnie had been six years later, as the man lay on his hospital bed, dying of some kind of cancer. He had looked at Donnie and, in a brief lucid moment, said to him the phrase Donnie had later turned into a card to be left in cars needed by scared, zombie-eluding travelers: “Remember, son,” he had said, looking at his wife and daughter near the bed. “We are who we surround ourselves with.”

“Father Burns,” Donnie had said, crying as he did, “that’s brilliant.”

This time, the old priest smiled. His eyes met Donnie’s, and with some of his last words, he said it again: “I have my moments.”

Both phrases had stuck with Donnie, and he appreciated Salvisa inadvertently calling them to mind. Though Donnie was never sure why Father Burns was carrying a weapon, what a holy man needed with a firearm, he had loved the man. While he had lost his faith in 2010 with the coming of the zombies, he had maintained the front of a religious man until Burns’ death, at the youngish age of 63, in 2016. After that, Donnie no longer saw any reason to pretend, and he had closed the door on God.

It had been difficult at first, and Donnie had been depressed for months afterward, but that feeling had faded — mostly — as time passed. But the memories of “I have my moments” and “We are who we surround ourselves with” had never gone anywhere.

Still driving, he climbed the onramp, navigating through the tollbooth there, and cranked a hard left onto the road.

“Do you know how to get there from here?” Michelle asked.

Donnie nodded. “I know to go east,” he said. “And there aren’t any more toll plazas on I-95 once we hit Rhode Island. We’ll be okay.”

“I hope so, son,” Salvisa said. “I’d just as soon get off the road before sunup.”

“Why’s that, sir?” Donnie said.

“I never travel by daylight, if I can avoid it. Daylight saps your power. Daylight is for plants. Daylight is the bane of our existence.” Salvisa coughed. “I’m a survivor, that’s what I am. And you don’t survive as long as I have without learning a few things. You recall vampires, yes? Dracula? Superstitious nonsense, of course. But the idea that being in the sun weakens you? That’s accurate. You want to live a long life? Be a night owl.”

With every new word from the old man in the back seat, Michelle felt her confidence waning again. It was sounding more and more ridiculous as he went on. He was a survivor; there was no denying that, but it seemed to her that the only real learnings Salvisa had retained were the ways to avoid and kill zombies. Everything he had gone through, as far as Michelle could tell, had only served to break down Salvisa’s sanity, make him crazy, cause him to spout the nonsense he was speaking now.

“No natural light, if you can avoid it. Causes cancer, blinds you, drains your soul. All these things are true. So I suggest we get to Hyannis, just as soon as this fine automobile will get us there. Longer we’re out in the daylight, the weaker we are. Death follows the day.”

Chapter 12: Running on Fumes

Roger stumbled toward them as Simon at last brought the car to a stop.

The group’s initial reaction had been fear that Roger was merely a stumbling zombie, an unthinking eating machine in the form of Simon’s father. But the minute it became clear that the car in the parking lot belonged to his son and company, Roger started waving his arms, leaving no question that he was still himself.

The second thing Andy noticed, after acknowledging Roger’s survival, was acknowledging that he had apparently survived alone. There was no sign of one-armed Carla, nothing indicating that Roger still had either his companion or his car.

Once the car was in park, all four doors swung open. Simon sprinted from the driver’s seat toward his father, but everyone else merely stepped slowly from the vehicle, like a group untangling after an intense round of Twister.

Celia tried to work the kinks out of her knees. At the same time, she surveyed the area, trying to keep her eye on any spots where a zombie might manage to be hidden, covered or otherwise unseen. It felt unnecessary, as the seven of them had presumably been scanning every open area for ten minutes now, but it was an old lesson of her father’s — any time Celia came out from cover, be it a car, building or otherwise, she had long ago been trained to search her entire surroundings. It had long ago failed to even be a conscious decision; her head started pivoting as soon as her feet hit the ground.

It was a good policy, she knew, for detecting any unknown assailants. It was a less productive policy however, for keeping one’s eye on a specific scene — in this case, Simon and Roger approaching one another.

Because her attention was diverted, Celia wasn’t keeping an eye on the Stones, and as a result only turned to see them after she heard the gunshot.

She spun around in time to see the after-effects of the shot — that is, the zombie that was bearing down on Roger falling to the ground, unmoving.

Celia didn’t know where the zombie had come from, whether it was one of the students or parents from earlier or just another zombie that happened to be in the area, or how it hadn’t been seen or dealt with before drawing within a few feet of the elder Stone.

What she could determine, on the other hand, was the shooter. Simon appeared to have stopped in his tracks some thirty feet shy of his father and taken down the zombie, which was approaching from Roger’s rear.

Roger had turned to see the zombie fall. Based on his reaction, Celia figured he hadn’t had any clue of the danger either, until his son had taken the shot.

“Back to the car!” Andy shouted. “Now!” The Stones immediately turned to run back — Roger giving his son a quick pat on the shoulder as he did — while the others looked to Andy with some confusion.

“Why so fast?” Lowensen asked, though he made his way to the car all the same.

“Zombies are pack animals, Lowensen,” Andy said. “If that one’s here, others are close. And that gunfire will only lead them this way. We have to
go
.”

As though on cue, as Andy spoke, a herd of zombies came into sight, sprinting in from the road the car had come in on, effectively blocking their exit. This group was no match for either group they had faced so far, which was the positive. On the other hand, they didn’t have nearly the firepower they did during the first battle at the school, and were without the easy exit they had in Barnstable.

The two teen boys climbed into the car, but none of their group followed suit. It was clear they weren’t going to drive straight out of this one. In the minimal light provided by the headlights, dome light and almost-full moon, Andy caught the attention of Simon, who was close to his vacated driver’s seat.

“Turn the car around,” Andy nodded to him. “
Now
. Light up those bastards.”

Simon nodded and jumped in the control seat. Andy was happy the boy was so obedient; the sooner they could get as much light as possible on their attackers, the better.

Andy stepped forward, out in front of his people. He felt his confidence flooding back into him, and it was a refreshing feeling. Earlier, when Roger had appeared on the horizon, Andy had shrunk. He wanted to raise his gun — not to use it, but just as a precaution in case he
needed
to use it — but couldn’t force himself to do so. That Roger turned out to be human, not zombie, did little to appease Andy. He had been scared to use his gun, scared to take the proper steps to protect anyone, even his own daughter.

But now, in this situation, there was no question. Zombies were headed toward them, and Andy could put them down with no fear. He didn’t like that it took the ultimate killing situation to resurrect his confidence, but it was true nonetheless.

And so Andy stood at the head of a motley group, each preparing themselves in a different way. All Andy knew was that his weapon was leveled, waiting for the zombies to get in range, and in light, for him to feel safe using a bullet on one.

“To the left!” Andy heard someone say. He spared a glance in that direction, realizing the voice was Roger’s breathless shout — more breathless than Andy might have guessed, even considering what he had likely gone through to get there. Simon’s earlier gunshot had attracted more than just the group of zombies on the road — another small crew was approaching from the grassy area that lined that end of the parking lot. Simon shut Andy’s car off, a too-late action designed to keep the zombies from being able to head straight for them.

Andy surveyed the situation. With a dozen or so zombies coming in from the road, and about the same number charging from the field, they were well outnumbered. Adding to that the fact that their gunshots, like Simon’s moments earlier, would almost certainly attract any
other
zombies in the area, and that Andy, though he was the most well-armed of their group, was already concerned about bullet depletion, and it combined to make him pessimistic about their chances in a firefight. A glance behind him showing the teen boys, Travis and Brandon, virtually cowering beside the Ehrens’ car did nothing to counter his half-empty opinion.

The two fathers, Andy and Roger, locked eyes briefly, and Andy thought he could see that the black man had come to the same decision as he himself had.

“The classroom!” Andy called out. “To the classroom! Now!”

The girls and Simon obeyed quickly, all three breaking into a run toward the room they had run from a short time before. After a brief hesitation, Lowensen and the two boys did the same. Andy and Roger took the rear, neither taking his eyes off their pursuers.

The lead zombies were gaining on the group. The two well-built, manly creatures, no older than the kids, bore no marks of injury. Had they not been chasing the group with their arms straight out, in fact, the darkness might have convinced Andy that they were not fellow zombies, but were instead also being chased by the more obviously undead crew that followed in their wake.

Their arms though, gave them away, and Andy knew what he was seeing. A quick round of mental math told him that these two physical beings would catch him before he would reach the classroom. Andy knew he was going to have to resort to gunplay, but he hoped he could put it off as long as possible, not allowing the other zombies the chance to gain on him further when he stopped.

In that moment, though, young Brandon appeared to trip, going sprawling end-over-end several yards ahead. He cried out, grabbing at his ankle.

Travis ran ahead, either unaware or uncaring that Brandon had fallen. Lowensen, though, knelt down and lugged the boy to his feet. It was clear that Brandon couldn’t put much weight on his ankle, so the teacher acted as the boy’s crutch as they moved as quickly as they could for the door.

The newest slowdown told Andy that he could no longer put off his face-to-face encounter with the zombies, so he turned on his heels, raised his gun and aimed at the closer of the two leaders.

Before Andy could pull the trigger, a shot was fired from someone else’s gun, and the leader Andy had been eying fell, a fresh hole through his forehead. Someone from their group cried out in surprise, but it sounded to Andy like they all kept running.

Andy glanced to his left, where Roger, too, had stopped to fight. Before Andy could react, Roger re-aimed his weapon, taking down the other lead zombie with a second, completely clean shot.

The other zombie fell, just like the first. Feeling he could again justify running for cover, Andy turned back and sped up. “Thanks,” he said to his companion as he ran.

“Don’t mention it,” Roger said, his voice low and barely audible above the sounds of dozens of footsteps all around.

Andy again eyed the man with him. Roger, already surely in his late 50s or 60s, appeared to have aged a good ten years since they had stopped their cars in Barnstable. The man, like his car before him, was running on fumes, and Andy was very eager to get him inside, to a place he could rest.

Ahead, Simon reached the small, outhouse-sized building that served as the stairway entrance to the classroom they had escaped from earlier. He flung it open, revealing that the lights downstairs were still on. He let the two girls and Travis sprint in and down the stairs. With the others still several yards behind, Simon followed behind the girls. Lowensen and Brandon soon arrived at the doorway and entered too, as quickly as Brandon’s leg would allow.

Roger and Andy got to the door with the smallest of time to spare, pulling it closed behind them only seconds before the new fastest zombie reached them. Andy heard it collide with the door with a loud metallic clang, then heard as it tried to scrabble against the outside, doing whatever it could to try to break through.

“Think it’ll hold?” Andy asked as he and Roger panted at the top of the stairs.

“Surely,” the older man said, kneeling over. Sweat dripped from the man’s brow, splattering on the first cement stair, each droplet splashing into its own unique shape. For a moment, Andy couldn’t pull his attention away from the drips, transfixed as though he were in a hypnotist’s grip.

Below them, the group had disappeared into the classroom. Lowensen had spared the slightest peek behind him when the door had closed, confirming that Andy and Roger had made it, but none of the group appeared again.

The two men breathed deeply in the stairwell, each still holding his weapon in his hand. Inches from Roger’s waist, the small, worthless phone — the one that was supposed to connect to help in case what had happened did happen — waved back and forth like a pendulum, keeping the time as the seconds passed.

Outside the door, the zombies continued to try to break through the steel door, but it showed no sign of buckling. Inside, there was only panting and the already-fermenting smell of stagnant sweat.

“Listen,” Roger said once he had caught his breath, righting himself and breaking the spell. Andy shook his head and met the man’s gaze. “You’re an intelligent man. I have a need for an intelligent man.”

Andy’s gasping stopped. This kind of conversation, he knew, didn’t bode well.

“My son,” Roger continued, “is smart. Amazingly smart. Far smarter than me. His mother was smart, taught him everything. Things I can’t teach him.”

“Roger,” Andy said hesitantly, “you’ve taught your son a hell of a lot.”

Roger shook his head, almost angrily. “I’ve taught him how to use a gun. I’ve taught him to follow orders, to respect his elders and women, things a man ought to
do
. But I haven’t taught him what a man ought to
know
. I can’t teach him that. He was born out of zombies, born just a few months after 2010. Ever since then, I’ve been playing catch-up. I need someone who can make him play catch-up. Someone to teach my boy.”

“You don’t know how smart I am.”

“I do,” Roger countered. “I do. You’re wise. You have the eyes of a man with wisdom — not just of life, but of
things
. I don’t know
things
, I just know respect. And I’ll tell you this, Mr. Ehrens: you are a man who deserves respect.

“The reason I brought him to this school, the reason I was going to let him move away from me, was to help my son
learn
. He needs to be challenged, to know the things a man ought to know. I came here to find that for him. Thought it’d be the teachers, Mr. Lowensen. But it wasn’t.

“It was you, Mr. Ehrens. You were the person I came here to find. Sometimes the good Lord works in unpredictable ways, but he brought me to you, and that is what I was looking for.

“So I must ask you,” he said, breathing deeply and winding up for the big push, “to do what I never could. Teach my son. Make sure he learns, reaches his full potential. Because he has
so much
, and he never would have realized it with me.”

Andy keyed in on the man’s tense. “What do you mean, ‘never would have’?”

Roger met Andy’s eyes, and Andy thought he almost smiled. “There are a lot of zombies out there, Mr. Ehrens. A lot. Best bet is to hole up in here until they forget, they wander out to the interstate or somewhere else, find something to distract them. Any chance that happens quickly? Likely not.

“So you need one thing,” he continued. “You something — some
one
— who can kill zombies, draw them away.”