In the After (2 page)

When I woke several hours later, I couldn’t figure out why I was on the kitchen floor.
I opened my eyes and saw the mess I had made, instantly remembering everything. I
wanted to stay there, but the smell finally got to me. I sat up and rubbed my deadened
arms. Sobbing hysterically wouldn’t help my dad or my friends. It wouldn’t help me.
Something inside me shifted or maybe just broke. I had to take care of myself.

I stood carefully, my legs still shaky, and went to retrieve the cleaning supplies
from under the sink. When I was done cleaning the mess, I numbly grabbed a book from
the shelf and hid in my room, unable to face my own thoughts. I needed to escape,
if just for a short while, into a story from long ago.

My first night alone, I still assumed things would settle down. I stayed glued to
the TV, watching the news report the same thing over and over. People were dying,
and I was sick with grief, but I knew that we would overcome the invaders or whatever
they were. We were the strongest nation on earth.

The second day passed and the TV was out, but there were still people on the radio.
I was comforted by their voices, even though they spoke of mass chaos. People tried
to run away, but They were everywhere. People tried to hide, but They found them.

Then on the third day, the radio went silent. I stayed in my room and obsessively
read one book after another, to keep my mind on anything other than what was happening.
I’d always escaped into books, but now reading had become something more. It allowed
me to be somewhere else, to feel something else, not just the numbness that overtook
my body and made me wonder if I was still alive.

My father loved Shakespeare; he would read passages with me and discuss all the intricacies.
I reread
Romeo and Juliet
and cried my eyes out over their loss. Before I’d always argued with my father that
the star-crossed lovers were idiots who should have coordinated their plans better,
but this time they got to me. I completely broke down and crawled into my parents’
bed. Draping their covers over my body, I sobbed myself to sleep. I was like that
back then; my mood would swing between an almost hysterical sense of loss and having
no feelings at all.

On the fourth day, I made myself eat and then tidied the house, trying to do the normal
things that people do. I put out all the pictures I had of my friends and parents,
gluing a collage to my bedroom door. I ransacked every photo album, placing each picture
with great care, keeping my mind occupied. It was so much easier than facing reality.
Sometimes I found it hard to concentrate, what with the world ending and all. I wanted
so badly to leave the house, to see if anyone else was around, but I was scared of
Them.

I finally decided to go out on our rooftop deck, and watch Them chase people down
the street. They were faster than I’d thought possible, a blur of green, the color
of pea soup. Glowing yellow eyes sometimes caught the light and flashed gold. The
creatures pounced, not bothering to kill their prey before feeding. They ripped skin
and flesh from their victims, who screeched in agony. The cries always brought more
of Them, eager for their next meal. Those first few days were full of screams. It
was terrible, but the real terror came when there were no more shrieks, when the world
went quiet. I thought I was the only one left on the planet. There was only me and
Them.

The fourth night, I turned on all the lights in the house. My block was dark, except
for our home, my home. No one else had electricity, but I still did. I silently thanked
my father who wanted to live footprint-free by installing solar panels and insisting
we always put more into the grid than what we took out. We were as close to self-sustaining
as current technology allowed.

I didn’t know then that They were drawn to the lights, like moths to a flame. I didn’t
know that they couldn’t see very well. They were attracted to anything bright, especially
once they realized that where there was light in the darkness, there were humans,
which for Them meant food.

The electric fence saved me, and that was my mother’s doing. Even though we lived
in an excellent, safe neighborhood in Chicago, she needed to protect the work she
brought home. She had the fence installed behind our beautiful iron gate, the one
They ripped up and destroyed in just a few minutes. She needed to make our house a
“secure area.” My mother and father were so different I wondered sometimes how they
managed to stand each other at all. Still, they were so in love. Their public displays
of affection were always embarrassing and I used to make gagging noises to try and
get them to stop. Now I regret the way I acted toward them. I regret a lot of things
that happened Before.

After those first few days, I quickly learned to keep the noise to a minimum and the
lights off when it was dark outside. They hid at night, but were still attracted by
light and sound. Even small noises would bring Them to the fence, their green skin
sparking as They tried to tear through the electrified chain links.

I spied on Them through my dad’s nature binoculars, carefully watching, mesmerized
by their grotesqueness, their snarls and sharp teeth. They had two arms and two legs,
but that is where their similarities to humans ended. They were hairless; all the
same shade of yellow-green, like sunburned grass. Most were naked, though some wore
torn shirts or pants they must have scavenged from the dead. One sported a dirty Cubs
hat, at which I couldn’t help but laugh. My sense of humor was very different in the
After.

I spotted them at the fence sometimes. They heard me if I was too loud, or occasionally
They wandered over aimlessly. They didn’t seem to be very curious in general, not
concerned with anything but the pursuit of food. I tried to ignore Them when They
rattled the fence, braving the electric shocks in search of meals. I’d go and hide
in my room, but eventually I developed a sick fascination with Them. I decided to
study one up close, determined to know what they really looked like. One day I gathered
my courage, took a deep breath, and walked into the backyard. Humming softly, I waited.

Within a few seconds, one made it to the fence. It grabbed the metal with both hands
and was jolted back by a painful shock. Shaking its bald, dull-green head, it quickly
got up and tried again to attack, never taking its eyes off me. Again and again it
came after me; either it couldn’t learn from the earlier shocks or it just didn’t
care. It gnashed its teeth, pulling back its thin lips to reveal yellow fangs. It
had practically no nose, only two holes where a nose should be. Puke-green flesh hung
loosely from its body like baggy clothes. I could smell its burning flesh as its hands
became blackened from the electric current. As long as I was within sight, it would
pursue me single-mindedly.

I was frozen in place, terrified yet fascinated. I called out, “How have
you
destroyed
us
?” The sound of my voice only made the alien struggle harder against the wire of the
fence trying desperately to attack me.

Finally I left it, snarling and slobbering, relieved and confident that the fence
would hold. I went back inside and watched from the window, my shaking hands wiping
the nervous sweat from my forehead with a kitchen towel. It would forget in a moment
why it was there, what it was that drew it to that place. It would wander off in search
of food again, live meat. I went to the basement, huddled in the corner, and read,
pretending it was still Before, when little green men were just a joke and couldn’t
eat you.

After twenty days I ran out of food. My father had a small rooftop garden, but none
of the vegetables were ready, and I couldn’t live on carrots and tomatoes for the
rest of my life anyhow. I went a whole day without eating before admitting to myself
what I needed to do.

I walked to my parents’ room, into their closet. I took down the box that my mother
thought I didn’t know about. I’d put it off, hoping I wouldn’t need to leave the safety
of the house, that all the carnage would stop and that I would be saved. My hunger
made me realize that I would have to face the world as it was; life-threateningly
full of Them. For that, I needed protection.

“Most households that keep a firearm end up hurting a family member or someone they
know.” I heard the echo of my father’s concerned voice as I took the gun from its
case.

“I would like to see those statistics,” my mother had replied. “What studies are you
citing, exactly?” she’d asked with a wink. He tried not to smile, but his eyes betrayed
him. He’d always pretended to be stern but would give in so easily. He put his hand
on the back of her neck and pulled her forward for a kiss. I remember being amazed.
Even when they were arguing, they still made out. They didn’t notice me in the doorway.
Even then I was good at being quiet.

They kept the gun, thanks to my mother’s stubbornness. My father surrendered, as long
as I learned how to use it properly and knew it wasn’t a plaything. I was ten. My
father came up with some lame excuse about wanting me to gain a better understanding
of the world, but I knew it was because he feared I would find the gun hidden in the
closet and think it was a toy.

I never thought about the gun, not after my lessons at the shooting range were finished.
That day, however, when I needed to leave the house for the first time since They
arrived, all I could think about was how grateful I was that my mother was super paranoid,
that her work demanded it.

I loaded the clip into the gun and smiled, putting the holster on, slipping my arms
through the straps. I packed my backpack with a flashlight, a knife, and my wallet,
unsure of what I would find outside. Looking back, it just goes to show how clueless
I was.

I waited until sunset, when there would be less of Them. It took me twenty minutes
to work up the nerve to open the front door. The lock clicked open, painfully loud.
I checked to make sure They weren’t waiting for me at the fence. We lived in a nice
neighborhood: big expensive houses with well-manicured lawns. Ours was the only one
with a fenced-in front yard. I unlocked the electric gate, checking for the hundredth
time that the key was safely tucked into my pocket for when I returned. To lock myself
out now would most certainly mean death. I felt sad remembering when I’d done it a
couple of times Before, when the penalty was only heading over to Sabrina’s house
to mooch junk food until one of my parents got home.

I took a deep breath and steadied my shaking hands, willing myself into calmness,
pushing my terror away as I stepped past the rubble of what used to be our outer gate.

I had decided I would start out simple; venture to the corner store a block away,
have a quick look around, grab some canned ravioli, and haul my butt back to my house.
I was careful to walk quietly.

“Slow and steady wins the race,” my father had always said.
He is such a dork
, I thought automatically. It made me want to cry. My father wasn’t anything anymore.
No one was anything.

I walked slowly, carefully placing each foot on the sidewalk to avoid making noise.
The night was windy, which made me jumpy. Any movement of a bush or tree and I froze.
After constant stalling, I had to force myself to calm down again. I didn’t want the
sound of me hyperventilating to bring Them.
The shadows are just shadows
, I told myself.
They are all sleeping now
, I reasoned. But I wasn’t very convincing.

As I walked, I noticed a few of the houses had broken windows or open doors. Cars
had been abandoned in the street, some with blood on the windshield. I tried not to
look at these things too closely, not to let them psych me out. I had survived an
alien invasion, I wasn’t going to starve to death because I couldn’t overcome my fear.

I made it to the store without spotting any of Them. Cautiously I pressed at the door,
expecting it to be locked, but it gave way with little trouble. The smell hit me first,
musty and rotten. I stood for a moment with the door open, breathing shallowly until
I became used to the stink. When I stepped inside, my shoes squeaked on the linoleum
floor, making me cringe. I slipped them off and left them by the door.

This is the market that Sabrina and I would sneak off to, to buy junk food when she
stayed at my house. There used to always be customers here, buying munchies or lottery
tickets, sipping on sodas in supersize cups. The outside world was empty now, but
being in that vacant store was somehow worse.

I made myself focus into the darkness and went straight to the canned food aisle,
frantically filling my backpack with corn, soup, tuna fish, anything I could get my
hands on. The cans clanged loudly when I hoisted the bag to my shoulders and I froze.
There was no way I could make such a racket and get home alive. Quickly I repacked
the bag, placing candy bars and bags of marshmallows between the cans.

But now not all the cans fit. I don’t know why I didn’t leave them on the floor, but
it didn’t seem right. Your mind does funny things when you spend so much time alone.
I stocked them back on the shelf, one by one. Anxiety was flooding my body, and my
hands were shaking with fear and hunger. I dropped a can on the shelf and it fell
into the other ones and onto the floor. My eyes followed it as it rolled toward the
front of the store. I stepped forward and instantly froze. There was one of Them at
the store entrance.

I took a step back as quietly as I could. The creature’s head pushed through the door,
its body jammed in the opening, unsure of where to go. Finally it made its way inside;
its head rocked clumsily from side to side, trying to see in the dark. They shuffled
around when there were no people in sight, wandered aimlessly. They weren’t fast until
They had reason to be, when They detected their prey.