The Aftermath

by Gary Chesla

  “Me, feel guilty?” Dave said.

  “I love you anyhow, you dope,” Abbey laughed and kissed Dave. “Besides, you’re the one that is going to have to deal with her after all that sugar.”

  “I didn’t think about that,” Dave replied.

  “Have fun,” Abbey said, smiled and ran out the door.

  Abbey went out, started the car and began to drive into the city.

  She smiled to herself as she thought about Dave and Tabatha spending the day together, she was envious.

  Dave was a great dad and husband.

  She felt so lucky to have them both in her life.

  As Abbey drove into Salt Lake City, traffic came to a standstill.

  Sirens blared as ambulances, police cars and National Guard trucks passed the stalled traffic by driving on the sidewalks and through people’s yards.

  “Who is rioting around here,” Abbey thought again. “People have to be crazy to riot here. There isn’t anything to riot about. Everyone has jobs, there’s no crime and as far as I know, no one has been complaining about anything. The worst thing I’ve heard on the news is when those kids painted the statue in the park blue. Even then the reporter said what a nice color of blue the kids had used.”

  Abbey thought about parking the car and walking the rest of the way to the hospital, she only had three more blocks to go,

  But before she could decide what to do, there was a knock on her window.

  It startled Abbey for a second, then she noticed it was a police officer.

  The horrible wound on his face and the blood that covered his uniform made her cringe as she wound down her window.

  “What happened to you?” Abbey asked. “You better get to the hospital.”

  “You better turn around and go home,” the officer said.

  “But I work at the hospital,” Abbey said. “It’s only three more blocks.”

  The officer shook his head and his face displayed the obvious pain that he was feeling.

  “Ma’am. The hospital is gone, “he said. “You need to get out of here. We can’t hold them back much longer.”

  “You can’t hold who back much longer?” Abbey asked as she began to feel fear and uncertainty take over her emotions.

  “Just leave now!” the officer said and began to walk across the street in front of her car.

  Abbey stared at the man, he limped as he walked.

  Blood ran down his arms, his uniform red, soaked with fresh blood. The officers gun holster was empty and the man had a look of resignation on his face as he staggered away aimlessly.

  The sight of the officer and the blaring sirens blasting all around her, had Abbey scared.

  She didn’t know what to do, but when she saw what looked like a mob of rioters working their way through the cars a block in front of her, she began to look for a way to turn her car around and get out of there.

  When she saw the rioters pull a guy out of his car and swarm over his fallen body, even from a block away she could see the sight of blood spraying over the side of his car, Abbey turned the steering wheel hard to the right and hit the gas.

  If the police could drive on the sidewalks, so could she.

  Abbey gunned the engine and her car roared down the sidewalk.

  Fortunately, no one else had thought about also driving on the sidewalk.

  But as Abbey’s car broke into the clear, a quick glance in the rearview mirror showed that there were now other people that had just come to that decision.

  She saw others coming down the sidewalk behind her.

  The rioters that swarmed over and around the cars probably had a lot more to do with their decision than seeing Abbey do it.

  She could see that the block where she had been stalled in traffic, was now a sea of bodies.

  Abbey turned onto a side street when she noticed that the side streets weren’t as clogged with cars as the main road.

  She desperately dodged cars coming at her, driving up on the sidewalk, then back onto the streets when she could.

  Fortunately, she only lived two miles from the hospital.

  She should be back home in a few more minutes.

  She wanted to call Dave, but in the confusion of Dave distracting her when she was getting dressed, she had forgotten to take her phone.

  After another five minutes of frustration and frantic thoughts, she arrived at the end of her street.

  She stopped and jumped out of the car when she saw all the activity on the street.

  There were police cars, National Guard trucks and men in uniform running in every direction.

  The sound of gun fire and people screaming and running towards here, terrified Abbey and made her more determined to get back to her house.

  She stopped and tried to ask a couple soldiers what was going on, but they looked at her blankly, mumbled something about “They can’t be stopped,” then turned and ran away from the commotion on her street.

  Some just dropped their rifles, leaving their weapons behind as they ran.

  Even in the times Abbey had worked in the emergency room, she had never seen the look of fear and horror on any of the horribly mangled patients brought into the emergency room that she now saw on the bloody faces of the people running past her.

  A sinking feeling gripped Abbey as she began to desperately struggle to get through the mob of people running at her, so she could get to Dave and Tabatha.

  She was bruised and bloodied from all the people running into her as she ran.

  She desperately struggled to stay on her feet, knowing that if she fell, she would be trampled to death by the mob that would have no interest in stopping to help her.

  When she finally reached the street in front of her house, she stopped and dropped to her knees.

  She tried to scream, but was unable to make a sound.

  In front of her house, were three figures, savagely tearing a guy apart.

  The man was on his back, his face bloody and lifeless, as the three figures tore his insides out and shoved them into their mouths.

  Abbey couldn’t see the faces of the three figures, they were so covered in wet, dripping bright red blood.

  But she could see the face of the man on the ground, or at least what was left of the man’s face.

  The man that was wearing the blue bathrobe that Abbey had bought him for Christmas last year.

  It was Dave.

  Abbey, now in a state of shock, tried to look away from the sight of what was happening to Dave’s body.

  It felt like her heart was being ripped from her body.

  Like life itself was being destroyed in front of her eyes.

  As she turned her head, raising her eyes to look up and away from the horror, she saw the front door to her house was hanging wide open.

  Inside the house were two more bloody figures, tearing apart a little body that was lying mangled in front of them on the floor.

  Abbey screamed, this time, a blood curdling scream echoed through her head.

  The last thing Abbey remembered was the sound of a familiar voice.

  It was the voice of the man that lived across the street in the brick house.

  The voice said, “Bring her with us, we have to get out of here now!”

  The present

  “Abbey, wake up,” the voice in her ears said.

  Abbey stirred.

  “Abbey,” the voice said again as a hand touched her shoulder and shook her gently.

  Abbey rolled over and looked up.

  “Abbey, are you alright?” Fran asked as she looked down at the tears flowing down Abbey’s face.

  Abbey wiped at her face and slowly sat up.

  “I guess I had a nightmare,” Abbey said.

  It was a nightmare she had many times at the beginning, but over the last month, she had been able to push it out of her mind.

  She had been able to tell herself that is was horrible, but it was over and there wasn’t anything she could do but go on and live.

&nb
sp; Abbey had pushed herself to live for Dave and Tabatha, because she was sure that is what Dave would want her to do.

  But in truth, she had lived in the hope of one day getting revenge on whoever had caused this to happen.

  Someone was going to pay for what they had done.

  She would get revenge if it cost her life, but no one was going to get away with what they did to her husband and her little girl.

  Over the last month, Abbey began to realize that getting revenge may not be possible since there didn’t appear to be anyone left alive to get revenge on.

  But Abbey wasn’t one to give up, as long as she was alive, she was going to find a way to make her life count for something.

  Then she found others like herself on the CB radio, alone, all their friends and family brutally murdered and taken from them.

  She had found others that she could help, but they too were slowly taken away from here.

  Then she found one that was a lot like her.

  She had let her guard down just a little.

  Then that one called her Abbey and brought all the terrifying memories flooding back to her.

  “What’s going on?” Abbey asked as she sat up and looked at the scared but sympathetic look on Fran’s face.

  It was a look of concern and caring that she hadn’t seen in a long time.

  “Abbey,” Fran said. “One of the suitcases is talking.”

  Fran’s statement shook Abbey out of whatever fogginess that was still clouding her mind.

  “It’s doing what?” Abbey asked.

  “It’s talking?” Abbey added looking skeptical.

  “Yeah, there is a voice coming out of the suitcase,” Fran said. “It woke up Snoop and he started barking at the suitcase. That woke me up and I heard it too.”

  “What is the suitcase saying?” Abbey asked, thinking that she wasn’t the only one having a bad dream.

  “Come listen,” Fran said.

  Abbey crawled out of bed and followed Fran to the front room where they had left the suitcases when they returned last night.

  Abbey was skeptical, but she followed Fran and sat down on the floor next to the suitcases and waited.

  “It’s not saying anything now,” Abbey said looking up at Fran.

  “I’m not crazy, it was talking,” Fran said.

  Abbey smiled.

  “Well, maybe we should open the suitcase and see who is in there,” Abbey said.

  “I’m not crazy,” Fran said again. “Well, I might be crazy, but the suitcase was talking. I don’t hear things.”

  Abbey reached over and undid the two latches on the suitcase.

  The lid popped open.

  Abbey looked in the suitcase and her eyes focused on the canned ham.

  On the canned ham was a walkie talkie and a note.

  “Was it John’s voice you heard?” Abbey asked as she reached for the wires that held the note and walkie talkie to the top of the can.

  “No, it wasn’t John, I know his voice,” Fran replied. “It was some guy’s voice that I never heard before.”

  Abbey undid the wires and picked up the walkie talkie and the piece of paper.

  “What does the paper say?” Fran asked as she watched Abbey read the note.

  “It’s the Navy,” Abbey replied.

  “What do they want?” Fran asked.

  “They want to talk to me,” Abbey replied.

  “About what?” Fran asked. “Are they mad because we took the food?”

  “No, at least they don’t say anything about being mad,” Abbey replied. “It says that they have been trying to locate survivors. They left the food for me so I would have something to eat. In return they would just like to talk to me.”

  “Are you going to talk to them?” Fran asked.

  “I don’t know,” Abbey replied. “I still don’t trust them. Maybe they are just trying to lure me out.”

  “What could it hurt?” Fran asked. “They obviously know you’re here.”

  “But this is a walkie talkie, not a CB,” Abbey replied. “They have to be somewhere close by.”

  “But this could be a good thing,” Fran said. “It could mean we could live with people again and not have to struggle on our own anymore. It could mean not having to worry about finding something to eat anymore.”

  “It could also mean that we could end up dead,” Abbey added.

  “Are you tired of living like a scared mouse?” Fran asked. “I am. That’s why I just traveled over a hundred miles to be with you and John. For me and Snoop, it was a big gamble. I’m not exactly the adventurous type. I was scared to death to make this trip. I was scared of trying to kill snakes to eat. I was afraid of just about everything.

  I decided that I was going to die if I didn’t do something, so I came to join you.

  Why don’t you just talk to them for a few minutes. They may be close by, but they don’t know where we are. If you don’t like the sound of them, you can just turn off the walkie talkie. I think you should at least talk to them Abbey.

  If you’re right and they will give up after a few days and go away, we’ll never know what we might have missed.

  Like you said, there isn’t anybody left anywhere, we might never have another chance like this.”

  Abbey looked at Fran.

  “It’s just my opinion,” Fran said, “I know I’m not as smart as you. I admit that I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants.”

  Abbey smiled.

  “Kid, I think you’re smarter than you know,” Abbey said as she moved the walkie talkie to her mouth and pushed the button.

  “Who is this?” Abbey asked.

  There was silence for a moment, then a voice sounded over the walkie talkie.

  “This is Doctor Kennedy of the U.S. Navy,” the man replied. “To be honest, the Navy probably no longer exists. My men and I are probably all that is left of the Navy and in all probability, all that is left of our country.

  We have been trying to find other survivors like you and ourselves, to help and join together so we can all survive and live out our lives the best we can. I also want to thank you for talking to me. I know that you are probably suspicious of us.

  But we have been dropping off food to help you in the hopes we would have the opportunity to talk to you.”

  Abbey thought for a moment, then pressed the button on the little radio again.

  “Why would I want to join your group?” Abbey asked.

  “Our government did a lot of stupid things over the years,” Doc replied. “But there was one good thing they did do. They prepared a vault with all the food and things a group of people would need to survive for the rest of their lives. I’m sure it was intended for the president and congress to come here and survive, but when the virus began to infect people, it spread so fast that they never made it to this vault. My men and I found the vault by luck. We have been trying to find others like ourselves to share our good fortune in the hopes that mankind could find a way to survive this disaster.”

  “What if I don’t want to be saved?” Abbey asked.

  “If you are happy living as you are, we have no intention of forcing you to join us,” Doc replied. “I will see to it that food is dropped off for you each month and leave you in peace. Taking people captive against their will is not our intention. We have a lot to offer you. We have a secure shelter, enough food for a lifetime. We have books, we have seeds to plant and we have medical supplies. We are just like you, people looking for others to talk to, to share what is left of life.”

  “It sounds too good to be true,” Abbey replied.

  A few moments of silence passed.

  Finally, the doctor spoke again.

  “Do you think we are just trying to lure you out into the open?” Doc asked.

  “That thought had crossed my mind,” Abbey replied.

  “So you think it is possible that we don’t know where you are and are just trying to get you to show yourself?” Doc asked again.

&n
bsp; “That sounds about right,” Abbey said.

  “So if I said that I know you and your friend are staying in a little blue farmhouse, that the two of you came to the food drop last night and carried away two cases of food, that yesterday you made a trip out to Route 84 to meet with your friend and then you led her back to the farm house,

  if I said the other night you were attacked at the food drop by zombies but managed to escape, and if I said that you have long hair just like your friend, but you are in your mid-twenties but your friend is a little younger, you wouldn’t believe me?” Doc said.

  Fran looked wide eyed at Abbey, “They know all about us? How?”

  “How do you know all this?” Abbey asked.

  “We have the use of a satellite and have been watching you for the last few days,” Doc replied. “If it was our intention to take you captive, we know where you are and could have done so any time we wanted. But that is not our intention.”

  “Are there any women in your group?” Abbey asked.

  “No, there isn’t,” Doc replied.

  “OK, so now I see what you want,” Abbey said.

  “No, you don’t,” Doc replied. “We want you to join us because you are another living human. If at any time you would decide that was what you would want, to be honest, the others would be happy. Myself, I’m a little too old for that kind of thing. But I can also assure you that the men with me are gentlemen. You have nothing to fear from us.”

  “How many men are with you?” Abbey asked.

  “I prefer not to say over the open air,” Doc replied. “We haven’t seen anyone else out there, but in the event that there are still some unsavory people that may intercept our conversation, we have to be cautious to protect ourselves and what we have.”