The After War

by Brandon Zenner

  Bang, bang, bang … bang … bang … bang, bang … bang

  Steven looked at Brian, who paused in the process of racking a forty-five-pound weight.

  “Is-is that … is that …?” Steven stuttered.

  They heard it again, the same knocking pattern as before.

  Bang, bang, bang … bang … bang … bang, bang … bang

  Steven put the cookbook on the counter and clicked off the burner. They ran to the entryway and looked up the ladder to the hatch door.

  “Was that it? Was that the code?”

  Brian nodded. “I reckon so.”

  He felt paralyzed, staring upward at the shiny, circular handle and bolt lock.

  “What should we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Brian and Steven had given Nancy and Benjamin Hendricks, as well as Stanley Jacobs, a code in case they changed their minds and decided to join them down in the bunker. The option was viable for a few days only, maybe a week tops.

  Brian craned his head upward. “We’ve been down here thirty days,” he said.

  “Thirty-three.”

  “What?”

  “Thirty-three days. We’ve been down here thirty-three days.”

  “Right, thirty-three. What should we do? Uncle Al told us not to—”

  “He told us,” Steven said, “to do the right thing by Nancy and Ben, and I reckon we damn well heed his words.”

  “Yeah, but what if it’s not them?”

  “Who else knows the knock?”

  “Someone could have found—”

  The banging repeated and the men recoiled from the hatch door. Right above the half-foot slab of metal was someone who knew about the bunker and was out there staring down at the octopus etching.

  “I’m opening it.” Steven started up the ladder.

  “Hold up, we got to put the suits on.”

  They grabbed two neon-yellow hazmat suits off the hooks in the entryway, stepped into the wide openings, and sealed up the zippers. They grabbed their rifles and secured the entry room for decontamination.

  Brian stepped onto the ladder while Steven stood at the bottom with his rifle aimed at the hatch door. It was cumbersome holding the rifle with the thick gloves, and Steven was worried that he couldn’t feel the trigger as he well as he should.

  When Brian reached the top, he tapped on the metal underbelly of the hatch door with his pistol, holding it like a hammer.

  Bang … bang … bang, bang … bang … bang, bang, bang

  There was a long silence.

  “You think they’re—” Steven began to say, when a reply came booming from the door.

  Bang, bang, bang, bang … bang … bang … bang, bang

  Brian looked down. “That’s it. That’s the reply.” His words sounded foggy to Steven, muffled. “You ready?”

  Steven swallowed and nodded.

  The clear plastic faceplate of his hazmat suit was wet with droplets of his sweat, and getting blurry.

  Brian turned the handle and slowly, leading with his pistol, he cracked the door open.

  “Who’s up there?” Steven shouted. “Brian, Brian … who is it?”

  Brian held the hatch door open on his shoulder.

  “Dear mother of God,” he said.

  Steven pressed against the tunnel wall, just able to catch a glimpse around Brian. It appeared to be a person lying collapsed on his side next to the hatch door, facing away. The body moved, turning to face Brian, and Brian recoiled.

  “S-Stanley, is that you?” Brian said.

  The face of Stanley Jacobs was swollen and black, with open sores seeping both clear and red fluid.

  “Stanley …”

  “Brian,” Steven said, fidgeting, trying to look past his cousin’s cumbersome suit. “What’s going on? Brian!”

  Stanley pushed himself up on his elbows and mumbled incomprehensible words through thick strings of red drool. With some effort, Steven could just make out Stanley attempting to get to his knees, Brian helping him, but then Stanley’s balance faltered and he tumbled face-first into Brian’s chest.

  “Shit!” Brian said, his feet slipping on the ladder rung with the weight of the hatch door pushing him down. Brian fell backward, crashing into Steven below, and both men collapsed on their backs. Stanley fell halfway inside the bunker before the hatch door crashed down on his thighs, catching him in mid-air so he dangled upside down. He made a sound like, “Aaahhhgghhh!”

  Stanley’s arms were swaying over his head like a macabre marionette puppet with blood trickling from his face and fingertips, falling like raindrops over Brian and Steven’s suits and face masks.

  “Holy shit!” Steven yelled. “Is that blood? That’s blood!” He began recoiling back, trying to get Brian off of his chest.

  Then the hatch door relented and Stanley Jacobs’s body slipped free. He crashed on top of them like a ragdoll.

  They cut away Stanley’s filthy clothing in the entryway, and sanitized him in the decontamination shower with a chemical sponge bath.

  Stanley’s eyes were rolling around under his eyelids.

  “Stanley,” Brian kept saying. “Stanley—answer me, man. You in there?”

  But Stanley was incoherent, his head bobbling about, his lips forming jumbled sounds.

  They carried his swollen and blistered body across the bunker all the way to the spare bedroom intended for Nancy and Ben Hendricks. They dropped him on the bed, his body trembling in violent spasms under the sheets, and left to set up an inflatable pool outside of the room, filling it with the same chemicals used in the decontamination shower.

  They stood outside the closed door.

  “We’re dead, man; we’re dead.” Steven’s voice shook. “We shouldn’t have opened the hatch door. We shouldn’t have opened it.”

  Brian seemed to be thinking the same thing, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “We’re fucked, man. We’re so fucked.”

  It was stifling hot inside the hazmat suit.

  “Uncle Al warned us about this—this disease,” Steven said. “Why the hell did we open the door?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A deep, guttural cough came from the room, and Steven flinched. They stared at the door. The coughing resumed, gurgling with fluid. The cough turned into heaving and panting, and the retching sound of vomit and liquid hitting the floor.

  “Oh, Christ … oh, Jesus Christ,” Steven said.

  Then they heard a voice. It was Stanley’s voice, only it did not sound like Stanley. “B-Brian? Brian? You out there? Stevie?”

  Steven shook his head. “I ain’t going in there.”

  Brian reached for the handle. “You sure as hell are. He’s our best friend.” He turned the knob and opened the door.

  The room looked like a slaughterhouse. The wall beside Stanley’s bed was plastered with a dark mixture of blood and disease, as was the mattress beneath him. He looked already dead, lying in a pool of his own gore. The sheets had been kicked off his body and Stanley was sprawled naked and wet with perspiration. The sores on his groin were horrific—putrid boils and blisters, swollen, black, and leaking fluid.

  “Stanley,” Brian choked out the words. “We’re here, Stanley. It’s Brian and Steven.”

  They took a step forward.

  “Stanley … can you hear me?”

  His eyes were open, looking at them, and his eyes were brittle red orbs.

  “What’s with the masks?” he muttered.

  Brian swallowed, but did not answer.

  “They won’t help you. This bunker won’t help you. Everyone … everyone’s dead.”

  “What-what do you mean?” Steven said.

  “They’re dead, man, all dead. People, they just—” He started coughing and Steven jumped back to the door, gripping the handle. “The people,” Stanley continued. “They died where they stood. Dropped like flies. There was nothing … nothing anyone could do. The scientists on TV, all the politicians and generals … they told us not
hing was happening. They told us, when people started getting sick, that nothing was happening. They lied to us … and now everyone’s dead. And so are they, all the scientists and doctors, the generals … they’re all dead. Oh Jesus, you got to help me … I had-had nowhere else to go … the hospital is filled, spilled to the streets. All dead …”

  Steven wanted to ask about Nancy and Ben, but he couldn’t form words.

  “What can we do, Stan?” Brian asked, almost pleading. “Tell us what to do, how can we help you? What do we give you?”

  Stanley’s eyes were fluttering beneath the lids. “Me and Emma, we’ll go … Momma ain’t far off … doctors and generals, all dead …”

  “Stan?”

  “It’s … tomorrow, Momma. Tomorrow …”

  Steven exchanged glances with Brian and they backed out of the room. They closed and locked the door, leaving Stanley to ramble in delusion upon the thin mattress.

  ***

  They brought him water and antibiotics, unsure of what else to do. They made chicken broth and tried to feed him spoonfuls, but he only coughed and sputtered it back out. Brian tried to talk to him, but it was hopeless. The only words that came out of Stanley’s mouth were from some distant corner of his brain. He vomited often and had explosive diarrhea that looked much the same as his vomit and smelled of decay. Brian and Steven did their best to clean up after him and even attempted to bandage his wounds. But it was pointless. The fluid never stopped seeping. At night they took turns keeping watch outside his door, more so to keep him contained than to look out for his well-being.

  Two days passed, and in the midst of a particularly loud, fluid-filled coughing fit, Stanley started laughing … and he did not stop. He was laughing so hard that he choked and spit up gobs of red drool. He was rigid on the bed with his back arched in a dramatic tetanus pose, his chest twitching to inhale air, and his throat screeching loud with each attempt. Then his body went slack, with just a slight twitching of his fingers.

  Steven looked at Brian, his hair soaked against his forehead with perspiration behind the clear plastic mask. “What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Stanley was not moving.

  “Stanley, hey Stan? You all right, man?” They inched toward him.

  “Stan—”

  Stanley’s body began convulsing in violent spasms. Steven fell backward and pulled himself up at the doorway, grabbing at the handle. Stanley’s body was thrashing, quaking, shuddering.

  “He’s having a seizure,” Brian said. “What do we do? Steve—what do we do?”

  Steven clutched the door handle as if he’d fly off the face of the earth if he let go. He did not speak a word, yet a whimpering sound issued unintentionally from his mouth.

  Stanley’s seizure stopped as abruptly as it had started.

  They stood motionless, staring at their friend.

  Brian crept forward. “Stan?”

  He gingerly strapped a blood pressure cuff around Stanley’s arm, checking for a pulse.

  “It’s barely there,” he said.

  Less than an hour went by, and Stanley Jacobs died.

  They did not try to revive him.

  For many minutes, they stood in the room and stared at his dead body. Then they left and closed the door, locking it behind them, and scrubbed their suits in the kiddie pool.

  “What the hell are we gonna do?” Steven asked. “We ain’t opening that hatch to get him out. We’re never opening the hatch door again.”

  “Don’t get yourself riled—we’re not opening it. Come on, help me with the supplies.”

  In the supply room, they took an industrial-size roll of plastic wrap and several gallons of decontamination chemicals. They wrapped Stanley Jacobs in his bloody sheets, and then used the plastic wrap to go around and around his body. The mattress, spoon, bowl, glass—everything that had touched him—was put in a plastic bag, tied shut, and wrapped in plastic wrap until airtight.

  After decontaminating themselves, and spraying everything with the chemicals from the shower, they carried Stanley Jacobs’s body to the storage room, past the rows of shelves, to the walk-in refrigerator in the rear. Inside the refrigerator on the far wall was a second door, which led to the walk-in freezer. They had previously cleared the freezer of the frozen meat, moving it to several smaller plug-in freezers, which Uncle Al had made sure they purchased for that very reason. They hefted Stanley Jacobs’s body onto a wire shelf in the freezer and stuffed the mattress next to him. Using small, handheld squirt bottles, they sprayed everything that they had touched with the chemicals.

  There was a drain in the center of Stanley’s room, as there was in every room, and cleaning was not difficult. They threw buckets of chemicals and soapy water on the walls, floor, and even the ceiling and scrubbed everything with bristle-brushes. They found plastic sheeting and duct tape in the supply room and sealed off the doorway. When they were done, they stepped out of their hazmat suits, put them, the kiddie-pool, and all the cleaning brushes into a landscaper-sized plastic bag, sprayed it, and put the bag in the freezer next to Stanley.

  They closed the freezer door and dragged a metal rack into the refrigerator to block the entrance.

  Steven avoided even looking in the direction of the walk-in refrigerator for the remainder of their stay.

  Late at night, when the bunker was dark and quiet, ominous thoughts would emerge and play havoc in his mind. Lying in bed, curled in a ball, Steven fought away images of Stanley’s frozen hand cracking the refrigerator door open … the hinges creaking ever so slightly. He swore at times that he heard movement coming from the supply room, and he almost woke Brian up on several occasions to tell him so.

  Those nights were the darkest. Steven had to fight with his own mind to chase away the horrifying images both real and imagined. It was a battle that would continue to rage the duration of their stay underground. Some things can be unseen, but the death of Stanley Jacobs was not one of them.

  There was no funeral or eulogy given. Stanley Jacobs’s corpse was left frozen to the marrow of his bones, deep underground in the bunker, where he would remain forever in darkness.

  Chapter 18

  Two Years Prior: The Cabin

  The snow just kept falling.

  It was the last week of March, and the storms blanketing the area had kept Simon stuck in the cabin for three days straight. He sat at the table by the window, staring as if hypnotized by the blustering snowfall accumulating outside. It fell so heavy at times that Simon could not see the ridgeline of the forest in the near distance. Everything was white. Blindingly white.

  “You know what’s cool about snow?” he asked Winston, who lay curled near the stove. “It lets you see the wind.” Winston was fast asleep, but Simon continued. “I mean, you can feel the wind, and you can see tree branches swaying in it, but you can’t actually see the wind as something three-dimensional.” Winston still didn’t care.

  Simon glanced at the calendar on the wall as if it were incorrect. “How the hell is it still snowing like it’s January?”

  Simon stayed at the window as the snow piled high. Soon it covered the front porch, and later it reached the bottom of the windowsill. Simon made another cup of tea and added wood to the fire as the accumulation rose, inch by inch, slowly cutting off the natural light from the outside world. When the snow covered the windows entirely, a degree of fear rose in Simon’s chest, and he had to focus on his breath to calm his trepidation. There was, after all, enough food and supplies in the cabin to last weeks, if not months.

  The bedroom was full of split wood, more than enough to keep the main room of the cabin warm. That little cast-iron stove did a hell of a job. Once hot, it only needed a small flame to keep the heat pumping.

  As far as food went, he had a full shoulder roast, a flank, and some of the loin and rump roast left from the last deer he butchered. He also had two skinned and cleaned rabbits, still whole. The meat was secure in the refrigerator in the ground
, sealed away from insects, and kept frozen by snow packed along the trenches between the fridge and the earth.

  Besides the fresh meat, he had a sack of dried jerky, two sacks of flour, and several sacks of dried vegetables from last year’s harvest. Branches of wild sage, goldenrod, catnip, and all manner of herbs hung from the bedroom ceiling to dry, making the room smell deliciously pungent. Various containers and sacks stocked the shelves—all full with wild clover, chicory, dandelion, hazelnuts, maple syrup, hickory nuts, and cattails.

  Although Simon was wary about picking wild mushrooms, he knew several edible varieties … and a few poisonous ones to avoid. He collected some black morels, oyster mushrooms, lobster mushrooms, and apricot-jelly mushrooms. The black morels were Simon’s favorite, and he was planning to use them in a stew with one of the rabbits or the rump roast of the deer. Probably soon.

  Apart from these harvested supplies, there were still many boxes filled with processed survival foods, along with plenty of packaged water—although water would not be a problem with all of the fresh snow.

  What worried Simon was not running out of wood or food and water; it was the seclusion of being trapped in the cabin with nothing to do but stare at the walls and talk nonsense to Winston for days on end. If only that dog could talk back.

  What Simon feared most was losing his mind, but the fear of losing his mind was more dangerous than actually losing it. It was fear that had driven him mad the previous winter—the constant worry, the feeling that he was trapped in a box for all of eternity. Like he was in purgatory. Like the cabin was his tomb. Nonsense feelings.

  Despite Simon’s anxiety, he tried to make the best of his situation. He knew there were monks who hid away in small caves, happy to meditate alone for days on end. So Simon stared at the walls for hours and days, breathing in and out. Focusing. Calming his mind and body. Sometimes the meditation sessions went well. Other times his mind was jumbled and he could not sit still, and he would end up pacing around the cabin in anguish like a lunatic.

  That last winter had taught him much about dealing with seclusion, and he felt better prepared now because of it. He was alive, in good health, and if that winter didn’t kill him, this one certainly wouldn’t.