After Life (29 page)

Chapter 11: A Clear Conscience

Michelle couldn’t get her heart to slow down. Salvisa’s confession had thrown her for such a loop that she was breathing like she had just finished a five-mile run.

Donnie was right though, in stopping her from shooting him straight away. Either way, Michelle swore that the man would pay for his Anti-Tech stance. It had cost Madison her life. If it turned out to have cost Stacy hers too, Michelle swore he’d pay double.

As it was, they were drawing near Hyannis, near Morgan College. They were already to the point where Donnie was needing directions from her, directions Michelle was only about 75% sure of herself. His lack of certainty led to them making one wrong turn, and going about five miles in the wrong direction.

During their wrong turn, though, they passed what looked to Michelle like nothing so much as an old Wal-Mart building. Out in front of the building, she saw several Army-grade Humvees and other official-looking vehicles.

The Army vehicles were parked in a line, together and unified. Scattered around the rest of the parking lot, though, were other, less official vehicles, ones that had been parked in a hurry and haphazardly. Chillingly, Michelle was sure she could see bodies scattered around as well, lying flat on the ground. Something about the bodies told Michelle they were humans that had died, not zombies. Regardless, none of the bodies she saw looked to belong to anyone that might have been operating the Humvees, meaning, as best Michelle could figure, those people were alive somewhere.

Worst-case scenario, she figured, if Morgan College was overrun, unfit for long-term occupancy or — ideally — already locked down, they could head back to the Wal-Mart and try to get in there, as it appeared to be some sort of secure location.

They got back on the right path, though, and drove, passing through what Donnie recognized as downtown Hyannis. Though he didn’t know where they had built Morgan College, he recognized enough of the remnants of the pre-zombie city that he at least knew for certain where they were.

Michelle instructed Donnie to make a right turn. He did so, but slammed on the brakes immediately. The road before them, the one between them and Morgan College, was swarming with zombies, filled with creatures that turned immediately toward their headlights and began sprinting in their direction. In this group, Donnie couldn’t help but notice, were several student-aged zombies. He hoped Michelle hadn’t noticed the same.

Donnie, in a move he was growing rather used to, threw the car into reverse and spun around, heading in the other direction. As he did, he noticed Michelle beside him handing Salvisa’s weapon right back to him. This was a situation where she had deemed it necessary to arm the old man.

Despite Donnie’s quick driving, this group of zombies was closer than any previous encounter, and made it to the car before Donnie could really get going away from them. They started pounding on the windows, and Donnie knew that, with no concern for the safety of their hands, they’d get through in a matter of seconds.

Sure enough, as he hit the gas to go forward, Donnie heard the driver’s-side window behind him shatter as the lead two zombies pounded. Instinctively, his attention turned backward, though his foot had already committed to the gas pedal. The result of this combination was that Donnie got away from the zombies for a second, but ultimately drove their car head-on into a light pole that sat on the corner they had just rounded.

He had gotten enough acceleration to damage the car beyond repair. Which, Donnie figured, was almost a blessing — better to know right away the car wouldn’t go again than waste valuable seconds trying to start it.

As it was, all three of them tore out of the car as quickly as they could, Michelle throwing Salvisa’s pack on her back as she exited. They had put enough space between them and the zombies that they had the chance to get out unassaulted, but that was all. Immediately, all three turned and started firing, felling the lead pursuers with haste.

They leveled all the zombies that posed an imminent threat, then the three of them turned to run in the opposite direction. Donnie, without the burden Michelle carried or the age of Salvisa, led the way, but the other two kept up well enough that they avoided attack.

After a block, Donnie swung left, trying to let their retreat at least put them in the same general direction as their ultimate destination of Morgan College. The other two followed without question. When they had put some fifty yards between themselves and their pursuers, Salvisa called out. “Stop!” he called between labored breaths. “The bag. Let me get an explosive.”

Donnie acknowledged the wisdom here, and so he slowed to a stop, letting the two of them pass as he turned to face the attackers. A few feet farther up, Michelle and Salvisa stopped as well, and the old man rummaged through the bag for a grenade. When he had it in hand, he hollered to them to go again, and the three resumed their sprint.

Salvisa, his age catching up with him, fell behind again. Within another sixty or seventy feet, he had slowed. Donnie, though he didn’t have any love for the man, didn’t have it in him to leave him to die — not like that, anyway — and slowed down as well, turning again to the zombies that were relentless in their pursuit.

Michelle did so too, reluctantly. The zombies had gained little ground, and so the three of them had a moment to collect and ready themselves. Donnie and Michelle aimed their weapons. At the same time, Salvisa raised his explosive, preparing to throw it. He stepped in front of Donnie and Michelle, pulled the pin, and flung it toward the zombies, again showing remarkable accuracy. It landed mere steps ahead of the new leaders and, when it went off, destroyed no fewer than twelve of them.

Without the previous benefit of the car to accelerate their getaway, the three of them felt the blast this time, but it was faint. In their wake, only two zombies maintained the ability to run, and these two were easily felled by Donnie and Michelle’s guns.

For a few seconds, the three of them stood silently, only their heaving breaths on the air. Then, almost simultaneously, Donnie and Michelle stowed their weapons and turned to one another. They fell into an enormous hug, the kind that, Donnie thought, a husband and wife might share in such a circumstance, and held each other for a long moment. The three of them were surrounded by darkness, with the only lights coming from the moon and the tiny fires on the bodies of what had once been chasing them.

Over Michelle’s shoulder, Donnie looked up. Peeking over the nearest row of buildings, just visible, were three buildings, arrayed in a triangle. Donnie recognized the arrangement as the three towers of Morgan College. They were within a couple blocks of their destination.

Donnie smiled faintly to himself. Though it didn’t feel like it — considering the zombies they had encountered around Stamford, at the toll booth, in Hyannis; considering the events at the Sagamore Bridge; considering that they had already gone through three cars; considering their trying times with Peter Salvisa; considering the fact that they were even battling
zombies
in the first place — he had to admit that he and Michelle had been lucky to have gotten as far as they had so quickly. They had had no right to expect to get all the way to Hyannis in barely over 15 hours, to be within sight of Morgan College only having lost their packs and a few bullets. Yet here they were, so close to the school that Donnie could see it in the moonlight. And they were still together, and they were hugging to celebrate their renewed feeling of safety.

When Donnie and Michelle separated, though, Salvisa was facing them. And his gun was pointed in their direction.

“Kill me?” he said, malice dripping from his words. “Kill me? Really? And I’m just supposed to, what, wait until my usefulness has run out?”

“Mr. Salvisa, don’t …” Donnie started before the old man interrupted.

“No, boy, you don’t,” he said. “You’ve been calling the shots since we found one another. I’m done listening to some kid, some inexperienced little know-nothing who just happened to have a car. Kill me,” he scoffed. “Kill me. It’s bullshit, that’s what it is.

“Now,” he said, turning to Michelle, “I would like to have my pack back. I think that is a reasonable trade to make for your lives, which I have now saved at least twice.”

Michelle nodded, with hate in her eyes. She removed the pack from one shoulder, then the other, and reached it toward Salvisa. He negotiated putting it back onto his own back, all the while keeping his gun aimed at the two of them.

His pack secure, Salvisa sneered at them. “Still ought to kill you,” he said. “Would serve you right. But you’ll never survive out here anyway. Now I can get out of here with a clear conscience.”

Donnie almost laughed at this claim, and would have if not for the gun pointed at him. Salvisa, though, noticed his reaction and focused on Donnie alone. “You don’t think I should be okay with myself?” he asked. “You think, what, maybe I should feel bad? I don’t. I wish we hadn’t had to do what we did, but blame lies in the hands of the young people, the parents who let their kids listen to music players at restaurants, the ones who thought it was
funny
that people developed thumb injuries from texting too much.

“Find it funny all you want, son, but I’ve done nothing wrong. And before you judge me, know that you only let me live this long because I’m useful to you. The second you decided I wasn’t going to help you get any further, you or your little girlfriend here would have put a bullet in my head.”

Salvisa’s gaze drifted to Michelle’s face. Her look of hatred, the one she had started wearing in the car, had only intensified. For the first time, Salvisa blanched at her look, as it had gotten to a point that would intimidate even that crotchety old man. The fear in his face lasted only a few seconds though, before it was replaced by a new resolve.

“On second thought,” he said, smiling, “I’d just as soon
not
have to look over my shoulder at every opportunity, wondering when this lovely young lady is going to catch up with me and put a bullet in my back. Probably better for my life expectancy if I do just let you guys go now. No sense in prolonging the inevitable, after all.”

Salvisa stopped speaking then. Just as he straightened his arm to take his shot, the gun pointed at Michelle’s forehead, he was grabbed from behind. A legless zombie, pulling itself along by its arms, had reached Salvisa and seized the old man’s ankle, taking a bite through the man’s sock.

“Shit!” Salvisa cried out, his attention diverted. He whirled around and shot downward, ending that zombie’s dreadful existence.

In the second Salvisa was looking away, Michelle and Donnie both managed to get their own weapons back out, gaining the upper hand. It didn’t matter, though, as Salvisa dropped his gun as soon as he was sure the crawling zombie was done crawling.

“Goddamn thing didn’t die in the blast,” he said, his voice suddenly full of grief. “Just started crawling.”

Salvisa knelt down, pulling up his pant leg and pushing down his sock. Even from several feet away and in the darkness, Donnie saw the blood that was flowing from the wound and knew that their lives had been saved again, this time
by
one of the zombies.

The old man slowly, with his shoulders sagging, pulled the backpack back off his shoulders and let it fall to the ground. He followed it down, hitting his knees.

“I’m dead,” Salvisa said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m dead.”

Michelle, without waiting for Salvisa to say anything else, leveled her gun at the back of his head. “And not a moment too soon,” she said, pulling the trigger. Salvisa pitched forward, dead.

Donnie moved up and grabbed Salvisa’s discarded pack from the ground. He scanned the area to make sure there were no other partial zombies coming toward them, but it seemed clear. Instead, Donnie grabbed Michelle’s hand and turned her attention toward the trio of buildings he had seen, toward Morgan College. Behind the college, the sun was just starting to rise, and the sky was flecked with orange and yellow bits.

“He was right,” Michelle said, also noting the dawn. “Death followed the day.”

Chapter 12: Tears

Amanda’s face flashed in Andy’s head. Roger was bearing down on him, and he knew he should shoot, but Amanda’s face was burned into his mind.

Logically, this was a different situation, and Andy knew it. But the message wouldn’t get to his hand, wouldn’t get to his trigger finger. He was sure that this was no longer Roger, and he was sure he could safely eliminate this zombie without error, but he could clearly remember being certain that Amanda was a goner as well, being sure that she was just as doomed as Roger.

And so Andy stood there, a gun in one hand, liquor bottle in the other, as his former companion charged toward him, one arm reaching out, teeth gnashing, blood soaking every inch of its clothing, and watched. Try as he might, his brain couldn’t convince his arm to aim, couldn’t convince his hand to fire.

He stood there, frozen, until Roger’s body was within ten feet or so of him. The other zombies were still untangling themselves from one another, so for a brief moment, the older man was the only threat, and still Andy could do nothing to stop him.

His savior came in the form of a gunshot from a few feet to Andy’s left. The shot rang out, and the zombie that had been Roger pitched to the side as a fountain of blood gushed out from a wound on the very top of its head.

Andy snapped to attention then, the spell of the face broken by Lowensen’s saving shot. He raised his gun from its place at his side and looked back at Roger’s body. Lowensen’s shot, while well-timed and helpful, hadn’t been a kill shot, grazing the zombie’s head. Even as Andy looked, the zombie was starting to pull itself up from the floor, made more difficult by its lack of a usable right arm.

Andy, thankful for the second the zombie’s injury gave him to focus, trained his gun at Roger’s head. As it struggled to get up, its attention was still trained on Andy, and it dove for him, falling flat again, as its teeth bit at nothing. Its lunge put it only a foot from Andy’s legs. He had to act or be ready to join Roger in wherever his soul was now.

His arm finally responsive to his brain’s instructions, Andy trained his weapon on the zombie’s face, which was still facing his own. Just as it pulled itself up on its left arm for another attempt, Andy fired, hitting the zombie right between the eyes.

A hole opened up on Roger’s face, and the zombie fell again. This time, it remained motionless.

Andy continued to stare at the man’s body for a moment, before new gunshots from Lowensen’s gun again snapped him out of his daze. He whirled back and saw that the tangled zombies in the doorway had finally worked out their kinks and were entering the room en masse. The teacher had hit a couple, but they were entering faster than any one man with a handgun could fight back.

Andy knew their plan needed to get going soon. He cocked his arm and launched the bottle of bourbon at the head of the lead zombie. His aim was true, and the bottle exploded in the zombie’s face, sending glass, alcohol and blood in all directions. The zombie fell backward, colliding with a couple of its attack-mates. Andy knelt down and grabbed their last bottle from by his feet before joining Lowensen near the exit door. As he moved, he toppled what desks were still standing.

“Thanks,” he said. He owed his life to the teacher, which was jarring to admit after all the hatred he had been holding for the man for the past day. “You ready?”

Lowensen nodded, already brandishing his barbecue-style lighter in front of him. Andy pulled out his own. They flicked their still-lit cigarettes into the desk pile, then used the lighters to ignite the articles of liquor-soaked clothing and curtain nearest them. The fire started more quickly and easily than Andy could have imagined, and the room lit up.

The first few zombies were already rounding the main part of the pile and trying to push their way through the debris. Andy, now fully out of his Roger-inspired trance, fired at them, taking down three.

The two of them turned then, leaving the classroom sanctum behind for the last time, and sprinted down the hallway toward the kids and their exit.

Celia, down at the other end of the hallway, had heard the gunshots — at least eight were fired over the span of twenty seconds, and she knew that, one way or another, they would be leaving Morgan College once and for all within a matter of minutes.

While Brandon, Travis, Stacy, and Celia stood against the wall, as though they were in a police lineup, Simon stood a few feet out, his gun clenched in his hand, his head jutting out in front of him, peering through the now-open doorway, as though those extra couple inches would enable him to see and hear what was happening better.

As they waited to see who would emerge — Celia’s father and Lowensen or the zombies — Celia stepped forward too, joining Simon at his perch. She sidled up next to him and put her hand on his arm.

“It’ll be okay,” she said, hoping she sounded surer than she felt. “We’ll get out of here.”

At Celia’s first touch, Simon’s tension had relaxed a little. Celia wasn’t at all sure of what she was saying, but she thought Simon was seconds away from bursting, and wanted to do whatever she could to relax him. Her father had always told her that being
too
on edge was just as dangerous as being too relaxed — either one would throw you off. It was best, in a tense situation, to be yourself, as you are yourself when preparing. Always best to recreate as much of the preparation as possible, Andy had always said.

Celia pulled her hand away from Simon and thought she saw him tense up again almost immediately, as though her touch was the only thing that kept him calm, and so she returned her hand to his arm, holding it there this time.

The five teens stood there, waiting, wondering how long it would take the two men to reach them. The question was answered about twenty seconds later, as Andy first, then Lowensen, rounded the corner, coming into view through the “FACULTY ONLY” doorway. Lowensen had his gun in his right hand, while her father had his gun in one hand and a bottle of liquor in the other.

“Go!” Andy screamed. “Open the hatch!”

Celia turned behind them and saw that Travis was already climbing the ladder. Simon turned to help with the exit, and Celia started to join him. One last look back at the two men charging their direction revealed that, some thirty yards behind Andy and Lowensen, some zombies had made it through the flames and were charging after them.

Travis got the hatch open, and he moved aside to let Stacy exit first. Once she was out, Travis and Simon helped Brandon, with his injured ankle, climb the ladder to freedom. From her spot still in the hallway, Celia heard gunshots fire from above, presumably from Stacy’s gun as she felled whatever zombies hadn’t come charging into the school already.

Simon and Travis quickly followed Brandon outside, and Celia started to go as well. She stopped briefly to look back at her dad, who had stopped near her and was struggling to remove his button-down shirt.

“Dad?” she said. “What are you doing?”

Lowensen leapt onto the ladder as she stood there with her father. Andy put the bottle down on the ground and finished removing his shirt, then picked the bottle back up and uncapped it. “Go!” he yelled at his daughter.

Celia nodded, realizing that this was not the time to question her father. She too climbed the ladder and exited the hatchway, into the morning air.

Down below, Andy stuffed his shirt as far down into the bottle of bourbon as he could, then upended the bottle, soaking his shirt with the liquid. That done — and with the zombies gaining on him quickly — he pulled out the lighter again and lit the shirt. It went up just as quickly as the fire in the classroom had, and Andy flung the flaming bottle at the zombies, repeating his accuracy from before.

The bottle slammed into the first zombie’s face, exploding on impact and lighting the body, and its two closest followers, immediately. Andy had hit the zombie just as it passed through the doorway, meaning the three burning corpses would be at least a temporary obstacle for any behind them as they negotiated through the doorway.

With one last look at the inside of the school building, Andy at last grabbed onto the ladder and climbed out, joining his daughter and everyone else.

Outside, he saw that there were still a handful of zombies in the general area, but Simon and Stacy were busy disposing of them. Lowensen, meanwhile, was already in the parking lot, only fifteen or so feet away. Lowensen had climbed into the driver’s seat of the nearest car and started it — whether it was his car or just an abandoned one that still held its keys, Andy didn’t know. The teacher drove the car over to them, stopping it with a tire directly atop the tiny, almost invisible opening to the school they had just exited. He killed the engine and emerged from the car.

“We did it!” Celia cried out, half in shock.

“Not yet we didn’t,” Andy said grimly. “We still have to find ourselves somewhere to
be
. But you all did well.” He locked eyes with Lowensen and nodded, as the teacher nodded back. “Very well.”

“Come on!” Travis cried out, already running across the parking lot. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

Andy trotted after Travis, stopping to help Brandon as they moved to the cars. The area, it seemed, was clear. Off in the distance, he saw flames flowing out of the doorway to the classroom, but they seemed to be confined to that area, and no zombies were in sight. Despite his warning to Celia, it seemed she was right. They had done it.

The others started to follow Travis. Celia and Simon led the way, followed by Stacy, then Andy and Brandon, with Lowensen bringing up the rear. None of them stowed their guns away, but no one was exactly at the ready either.

Travis, moving faster than the rest of them, passed an abandoned car that wasn’t quite in its space and turned to look behind him as he walked. He kept moving forward but hollered back. “Hurry up!” he called. “Come on!”

Just as Travis turned back forward, though, he tripped over something none of the rest of them could see from their vantage point, and he fell to the ground.

Celia and Simon ran forward to see what had happened. Before they could get there, though, Travis screamed out in pain, a scream that came too late to be mere pain from the fall. And the scream continued as Celia and Simon moved forward.

They kept going, approaching a car Celia felt sure she recognized. Sure enough, when they get close enough to see next to the vehicle, she saw why Travis was screaming. The car was sitting on top of a zombie, pinning it to the ground by its lower body. It couldn’t have moved toward the school with the rest of its ilk, but it presently was having no problem at all biting down on Travis’ stomach as he lay there wailing, either too surprised or too pained to get away.

As soon as Celia saw the scene, she jumped back. Only her hand, clenched tightly in Simon’s kept her from running in the opposite direction. Simon, though, reacted more helpfully, raising his gun and quickly firing off a shot, killing the zombie where it sat.

Seconds later, the rest of their group got to where they were and saw the same thing they had seen.

Travis, still crying in pain from his spot on the ground, scrambled away from the corpse. He leaned against the car’s rear tire and sobbed into his own lap as he held his arms tight around his stomach, fighting a losing battle trying to keep his blood inside him.

After a few seconds, he looked up at the group, tears soaking his face. “Please,” he said. “Please, I feel okay. Please, please don’t shoot me. I’m okay. It’s okay. I’m not going to be infected. Please. Really, I feel okay.”

Andy felt tears in his own eyes as well. Travis, like Stacy, had been alone in all this, without any parent to help him get through. He had been in the car with Philip and Meredith when they were killed, had escaped certain death in the classroom, and had been more than helpful in getting the injured Brandon around, only to be felled by the careless decision to move too quickly around the cars. It could have been any of them, Andy knew, as they were all being too casual about this stage of their escape.

“I’m sorry,” Andy said softly, though he didn’t move toward the boy. He knew there was no hope for him, that he was going to be dead or a zombie in minutes, but he no longer had it in him to shoot down someone who was not yet a zombie, doomed or not.

Lowensen, though, stepped forward. He moved to the boy’s side and crouched down next to him. “There’s nothing left for you, son,” he said in his most fatherly voice. “Believe me, you’d rather we do it here than come back as a zombie. Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t want to be a zombie,” Travis said. “But I really think I’m okay. I really think…” His voice cut off there as Travis doubled over in pain. He collapsed onto his side and moaned again.

Lowensen patted the boy’s hip slowly. “I wish you were,” he said. “But a bite is a bite. There’s just no coming back from it. I’m sorry,”

Travis shook his head again, but the effect of the denial was tempered by the blood coating his midsection and the moans he was emitting. Lowensen shook his head again and stood up. He looked to the rest of the group. “Step away,” he said solemnly.

Andy met his gaze and nodded. He led the others a few feet away, to a spot where they couldn’t see Travis and Lowensen. Seconds later, with no more words passing between the two, a gunshot was fired, and Travis’ moans suddenly ceased.

Where they were standing, Celia and Simon were facing the small outhouse-sized building that was the entrance to the school. Flames were licking the top of the stairs, and the walls were on fire as well. Celia’s tears fell in earnest, as she felt her dreams being replaced only by the dream of survival and the nightmare they found themselves in.