AfterLife (2 page)

Wes was awakened by the echo of a car alarm going off. It
was morning, but he had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. He slowly got
up off the bathroom floor. His body moved sluggishly and his joints were stiff.
What had happened? Where was Jez? He looked around the apartment but could see
no evidence she’d been there at all. Something about Jez was confusing him. He
could see the door was slightly ajar, but his vision was hazy and he couldn’t
focus. The images he saw seemed disconnected, as if he was looking through a
camera lens. He hated hangovers.

Wes walked to the window in his bedroom and looked out at
the busy street below. In spite of the blurry vision and hangover, he felt
good. Whatever he’d done last night to improve his spirits had worked. Yes,
today was a good day for a new start, and he suddenly felt optimistic about the
future.

That is, he would if he could see. Wes tried rubbing his
eyes to clear his vision, but discovered he couldn’t feel his hands touch his
face. He opened his eyes wider, thinking it would help him see better, then
looked at his hands. They seemed okay, so he tried rubbing his eyes again. He
still couldn’t feel anything. He tried pinching himself. No, he couldn’t feel
anything. Anywhere.

An hour later, he sat on a chair in the corner of the local
Urgent Care Center’s waiting area. He’d decided to go there rather than spend
more time and money at an emergency room where a nurse would tell him his
electrolytes were low and send him home. In disgust, Wes watched as the lady
across from him blew chunks of green snot into the dozens of Kleenexes she kept
pulling from her purse. From her appearance, she was probably there because her
new-age herbal medicines hadn’t worked. A man on the far side of the room
stared into oblivion and wheezed while he murmured phrases in some language
that sounded like German. Wes hoped he wouldn’t catch anything from the dozens
of sick people who entered and exited the waiting room.

The woman across from Wes noticed his expression when she
filled yet another Kleenex with the contents of her nose. “What are you looking
at?” she said, scowling at him. “You don’t look so hot yourself. The rest of us
should be worried about you. You look like death warmed over.”

“Yeaaeaa weeealll―”

Wes stopped himself. He didn’t know why he wasn’t able to
talk. Did the pills and booze have something to do with it? Wes tried to
remember if he’d spoken earlier and realized this was the first time he’d said
anything all day. The receptionist had been on the phone and had simply handed
him a clipboard stacked with papers to fill out.

He took in a breath of air and contracted his diaphragm,
making another series of grunts and noises similar to the ones a deflating tire
might make. He moved his tongue around, not realizing that because he had no
sense of touch his tongue was extended as far out of his mouth as it could
possibly go. The lady sitting opposite him stood up after watching the show for
about 30 seconds.

“You really aren’t okay, are ya? Well, I’m not one to be
rude, but I’m gonna move to another chair. Don’t take offense, now.”

Wes didn’t notice the woman get up and move. He concentrated
on trying to form words – without success. A nurse waved her hand in front of
his face.

“Wes Lohmann? You can come with me.”

He stood up and followed the large black woman through a
door and down a hallway. She patted her head a couple of times as they walked;
probably had an itchy scalp because of her weave. She led Wes to a large room
divided into sections by long curtains hanging from the ceiling. These served
as movable walls, effectively dividing the space into smaller rooms for the
examination of patients. Unlike the more common white ones found in most exam
rooms, these were pink. Wes hated pink, but noticed the color complimented his
nurse’s purple scrubs. She must have chosen her outfit for that purpose, Wes
thought. She’s perfectly coordinated with her surroundings. She had painted her
nails pink and placed pink shoelaces in her white tennis shoes.

The nurse directed Wes to sit on an empty exam table and
pulled the curtain along a track separating her and Wes from the rest of the
room. There were a handful of other patients in the room, and through the
closed curtain on his left, Wes could hear a doctor talking to the Kleenex lady
from the waiting room.

“So Mr. Lohmann, what’s the problem today,” the nurse asked,
looking through the forms Wes filled out when he arrived.

Wes attempted to talk but only managed a series of grunts.

“Um… okay. I think that says a lot right there,” the nurse
said, making a note on the papers. “You just don’t worry about talking anymore.
I’ll do enough of that for both of us.”

Wes forced a smile. He really would have liked this woman
under different circumstances. The nurse placed a thermometer in his ear,
waited for the beep, looked at it, and tried it again. After the device beeped
again, the nurse looked at it, shook her head, and placed it down on a small table
next to the exam chair where he was seated. She pulled an oral thermometer out
of a drawer, gave it a couple of swipes with an alcohol wipe, put it in his
mouth, then wheeled over a small blood pressure machine.

“Let’s see here, let me just get this cuff around your arm
to get your blood pressure. Wes, huh? That’s an interesting name. I don’t think
I’ve known a Wes since high school.” She took the thermometer out of Wes’s
mouth, looked at it, shook it, and put it back in. “Yes, I think he was on the
football team. I was in choir though. Our paths never really crossed. He was in
my English class one year. Dumb as dumb can be, but that boy sure filled out a
shirt nice. Mmmm hmmm.”

The blood pressure machine beeped. The nurse looked at the
results and pressed some buttons to start the reading cycle over again. She
pulled the thermometer out of his mouth, looked at it, then pushed through the
curtains on the side opposite from where the Kleenex lady sat, and returned
with a different thermometer. She placed a cover on it and stuck it in his ear.
It beeped.

“Still that low?” she mumbled to herself. “I’ll go get
another and we’ll try again.”

A moment later the nurse returned and shoved a new
thermometer into Wes’s ear. While doing that she looked at the results on the
blood pressure reader.

“What is wrong with all our equipment? I tell you what,
technology is never worth the cost. If I go by what this reader says, I would
have to put you down as dead. Could you imagine?” the nurse asked, chuckling to
herself. “I’ve seen some crazy things in this world, but I’m pretty sure that
would put me in a fit.”

She pulled the new thermometer out of Wes’s ear and looked
at it. She looked at Wes and then back at the thermometer a second time. After
a pause, she reached up and placed her hand on Wes’s forehead.

“You wait right here, sugar,” she said as she walked out.

Wes watched the nurse push through the pink curtains. He
listened as she interrupted the doctor, who had moved to a patient hidden
behind more pink curtains on the far side of the room. After some
indecipherable whispers, the doctor pushed agitatedly through the curtains with
the nurse following closely behind. He was short and his messy blond comb-over
matched the bush of chest hair that was visible over the top of the V-neck in
his scrubs. After performing the same tests the nurse had already administered,
the doctor pulled his stethoscope into his ears and placed the chest piece
above Wes’s heart.

“Am I right or do you still think I don’t know how to do my
job?”

“No, no, you’re right. I’ve never seen this before. I can’t
even begin to imagine what it means. I’ve got to make some phone calls.” The
doctor exited, leaving the nurse behind to attempt to explain his findings.

“Well Wes, honey, it appears you’re dead. Now, you just wait
here and we’ll see if there’s anything we can give you for that.”

Chuckling at her own joke, the nurse carefully closed the
pink curtain behind her. Feeling a little disoriented at her words, Wes pulled
the blood pressure cuff off his arm. This was ridiculous. What did she mean he
was dead? How could he be dead? He was moving and conscious, wasn’t he? He
began counting off his symptoms. Okay, he couldn’t feel anything, he couldn’t
speak, and his vision was fuzzy. Apparently he didn’t have a pulse or a
temperature. There was no blood pressure or heartbeat. Still, he couldn’t be a
walking dead person. Zombies didn’t exist. On the other hand, what if they did
and he was one? His examination and the reactions of both the nurse and the
doctor were beginning to convince him of the possibility. Well, one thing was
certain: he had to get out of here. Wes peeked through the pink curtains and
located an exit sign over a door on a wall around the corner. It was an
emergency exit marked with a big, red warning sign: EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY.  No
problem there, he thought. Wasn’t being dead an emergency? He ran for the exit
and pushed his way outside, ignoring the warning bell that sounded behind him
when he opened the doors. He moved quickly to put some distance between him and
the clinic.

The wind was blowing. Wes could see it fluttering the leaves
in the trees and moving the litter on the streets. He wanted to feel it on his
face, but the sensation wasn’t there. Passing strangers gave him funny looks as
he wandered aimlessly through crowded intersections, and he thought it might be
best to find a place off the street. He didn’t want to go home. If he was dead,
then it was the place of his death; nobody wants to revisit the place where
they died. He found a quiet spot in an empty alley and sat down to think as he
pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Maybe Jez would call. The thought
troubled him for some reason, hadn’t she promised to come over last night? What
would he do if she did call? He couldn’t seem to talk.

Suddenly, he remembered what was bothering him. He was
almost positive that Jez had come the night before. He had a vague but definite
memory of her slapping his face, but if it had happened, where had she gone?
Why had she gone? She had to have seen the alcohol and pill bottle. Had she
left him to die? The thought sickened him, and he pushed it away.

“What are you doing back there?”

Wes looked up to see two policemen approaching. The alley
had grown dark. There was only a small amount of light coming from some windows
in the surrounding buildings and a street lamp. The two officers stopped about
10 feet from where he was seated.

“What are you doing here in the alley,” one of the policemen
repeated.

Wes stood up. He wanted to answer the officer’s question,
but knew he couldn’t. He just wanted them to leave so he could sit in peace.
However, that didn’t appear to be an option.

“Why don’t you want to tell us what you’re doing back here,”
the other officer asked. “You don’t look very good. You on something?”

The policemen started moving closer to Wes, and he decided
his best option was to make a run for it. As he maneuvered to run around them,
one of the officers grabbed him, but Wes was no lightweight, and he struggled
to get away. The policeman was no lightweight either, and he hung on as Wes
thrashed about. When he noticed the other officer pulling out a pair of
handcuffs, he turned and sank his teeth into the arm of the officer holding
him. The officer yelled and pushed Wes down, knocking his cell phone out of his
hand and onto the ground, where it broke apart. Wes rolled onto his stomach and
pushed up, hoping to quickly get away. Then he heard a large thud come down on
his shoulder. One of the officers had hit him. There was no pain, only
restraint.

Wes moved to get up again. The officer who was the recipient
of Wes’s bite pushed him down on the ground and held him in place while the
other officer twisted Wes’s arms behind him and roughly snapped the handcuffs
in place. Wes still felt no pain. He didn’t need to catch his breath. He
couldn’t even sense the pressure from the weight of the man on top of him. That
was good, he thought, as he continued to push up off the pavement and shook the
policeman off his body. He felt as if he had superhuman strength. The other
policeman grabbed for him but only managed to grab the handcuff chain.

Wes fought to escape. By now both policemen were holding him
back by the handcuff chain. Abruptly, Wes lurched forward, almost falling to
the ground. The policemen had let go of the chain. He turned around to see why
and at the same time noticed his arms weren’t cuffed behind his back anymore.
The two policemen were both staring at something on the ground. It was a hand.

Wes looked at the hand for a moment before realizing it was
his. He looked at the mutilated stump at the end of his left arm and then at
his right hand with the handcuffs still fastened around the wrist. He wanted to
pick the hand up but didn’t know what he’d do with it. He willed it to jump up
and rejoin his arm, but it just lay there amid some trash in the alley and
didn’t move. The policemen didn’t move. Wes turned and ran down the alley.

Now that it was dark it was easier to avoid the looks of
disgust and fear on the faces of passing pedestrians. He should have paid more
attention in his philosophy classes. As he considered the missing hand he
thought about how the “mind-body” problem had become a true dilemma: His mind
was functioning better than ever, but his body was decaying fast. Yep, he was
dead alright.

Not sure where to go or what to do, Wes thought again of
Jez. He wanted to confront her and find out what had really happened, but what
purpose would that serve? She couldn’t bring him back to life. Wes laughed to
himself. He was dead. That was definitely the problem that needed his full
attention, not Jez. With nowhere else to go, he returned to his apartment.

That night Wes found he couldn’t sleep. He sat in the dark
thinking about his death and his existence as a zombie. It was much easier to
be reasonable when thought processes and emotions weren’t influenced by
complicated chemicals in the brain. He hated that he’d had to die to be
rational again. He’d lost everything so quickly, and now he was forced to stick
around so his stupidity could slap him in the face. What should he do now? Why
hadn’t he “moved into the light” and out of his body? Was he supposed to do
something before he could move on? How do you kill your body when it’s already
dead?