After the End Trilogy Box Set

by Mark Gillespie

  David stopped in the middle of the street. There was a strained expression on his face as he spun around, taking it all in.

  “I remember this,” he said. “When it happened. All the noise and confusion – the shouting and screams. The worst screams you could ever imagine Eda. It all happened right here.”

  “You lived in this city?” Eda asked.

  He looked at her with an embarrassed smile.

  “Think so,” he said. “I can’t remember to tell you the truth. All I remember is running with a gang of street kids in a place that looked just like this. A big city in New Jersey – how could I forget the name?”

  “I grew up in a city,” Eda said. “I don’t remember what it was called either.”

  David sighed. “They were right when they called it the wild years,” he said. “The things I saw Eda. I’ve never been so scared in all my life and yet I had to act tough if I didn’t want to be one of the victims. There was no way I could have kept that up for long. It would have worn me down sooner or later.”

  “You got out?” Eda said.

  “Yeah,” David said. “Thank God, one day someone found me. He took me and some of the other kids and got us the hell out of here. He saved our lives. Took us somewhere better.”

  He looked at Eda.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” Eda said.

  “Are you really going to do what Shay asked you to do?” he said. “Are you going to become an ambassador for the Complex, find men and lure them to their death in New York? I mean, it’s none of my business but why should you? You’re free of those women now – you can do whatever you want without having to satisfy Shay’s bloodlust.”

  Eda shook her head.

  “I don’t know,” she said. That was the truth. She hadn’t really stopped to give it much thought since leaving Manhattan. “I’m not going to go out of my way to look for anyone. But at the same time, if I ever meet some gaping asshole who deserves it then why not? It’s an ugly way to die, that’s for sure.”

  David nodded. He pointed to the backpack on Eda’s shoulder.

  “Want me to carry that for a while?”

  “Nah,” Eda said. “I’m good.”

  “How are our supplies?”

  “We’re not going to starve or die of thirst just yet,” Eda said. “But we’d better think about topping up soon or we just might.”

  David’s eyes fell on the road that led west. “We’re close to our destination.”

  “So tell me,” Eda said. “What exactly is this quiet place of yours? You’re not giving much away you know.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No.”

  David laughed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

  “There’s a massive stretch of wetland that way,” he said. “It’s like a big wooded swamp, that kind of thing.”

  Eda shrugged, which made David laugh again.

  “It’s about as far from New York City as you can imagine,” he said. “There’s a beautiful river that runs through it, trees, flowers, and things growing like that. Great Piece Meadows – that’s what it was called before the war. I call it my quiet place. It’s not like anything we’re walking through right now. Not like Paterson or New York. In the quiet place, everything looks just like it did before everything happened. You’d never even know there’d been a war. Nature takes care of you in there. There’s deer. Rainwater. It’s got everything you’d ever need to survive.”

  They traveled west out of Paterson and onto a long stretch of blacktop highway with surprisingly few vehicles on it. It wasn’t long before Eda saw a vast ocean of trees looming in the distance. This blurry, mirage-like vision was every bit as inviting as the bright blue river of Secaucus. This time however, Eda was going to take up the invitation.

  After walking for another twenty minutes straight, they came to a small, winding road that ran parallel to the highway. David led them along this road until gradually they began to enter the wetlands of Great Piece Meadows.

  But before the swamp took over completely, the travelers passed by the remains of a few shack-like houses. These tiny abodes were lined up neatly on both sides of the road, the last hint of old civilization to be found in the region. From there, the path into the swamp narrowed further and the trees got larger and closer. For Eda, it was like walking into a different world and so far at least, it felt welcoming in a way she’d never encountered before. New York, Paterson and all the concrete skylines in her mind began to recede slowly, figments of a dream fizzling out in the morning sunshine.

  Muddy puddles leaked out of the lush greenery and spilled onto the road. It was as if the swamp was trying to escape from itself, one tiny piece at a time.

  “Great Piece Meadows,” Eda said, stepping over one large trail of mud. “So this is it? This is your quiet place?”

  There was a smile on David’s face. His eyes drank in the environment, filling him up.

  “You can see the appeal right?” he said. He stopped and held up a hand. “Listen. What do you hear?”

  “Nothing,” Eda said.

  “Exactly. Best sound you’ll ever hear.”

  “Uhh, sure,” Eda said. “It’s different, I’ll give you that much. And right now, anything different is good.”

  David kept walking. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll like it here.”

  It was a while before either one of them spoke again.

  Eda peered into the swamp from the road. She couldn’t see anything in between all the trees and the long, overgrown grass. It looked like the Meadows didn’t want to be found.

  “You really lived in there?” she asked.

  “I sure did,” David said. “It’s not quite as empty as it looks from out here on the road. There are a lot of animals living in the Meadows. There’s life everywhere you look, even if you can’t see it at first. I have weapons stored away – bows, knives. I’ve got plenty of traps too. We can…”

  “Shit!”

  Eda jumped when Frankie Boy started barking. She knew that bark, fierce and frightened all mixed into one head-splitting noise. It was a warning. The dog’s body was as stiff as a board, the tail erect. He was facing the swamp head-on, barking at a blanket of trees and jungle grass.

  Eda crouched down beside him. Her heart sped up as she stared into the swamp.

  “What is it Frankie Boy?” she said. “There’s nothing there.”

  David stepped over beside them and Eda straightened back up. They stood side by side, frozen on the narrow path, staring into the swamp because they knew that Frankie Boy wasn’t barking at nothing. But they couldn’t see anything, just a dense blanket of foliage swaying back and forth to a gentle breeze.

  “C’mon boy,” Eda said. She patted Frankie on the back several times, hoping he’d snap out of it. “Let’s keep walking. We’ll go…”

  Eda was interrupted by a rustling noise in the distance. Like something big pushing through the trees.

  They heard the distinct sound of twigs snapping under feet.

  “David?” Eda said. “Is that a deer?”

  David shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  Eda looked harder, not allowing herself to blink.

  There was something there, directly up ahead. A man’s face had appeared in a small gap in between a couple of bloated tree trunks. He was looking at them through the gap, staring at the travelers with a calm, unblinking expression. The man was so perfectly still that Eda thought she might have been looking at a statue. And then he moved. It was like watching something step out of a dream and set foot in the material world – a two-dimensional image slowly coming to life in the three-dimensional realm.

  More twigs snapped.

  The man came through the Meadows, gliding towards them like a phantom.

  And he was smiling.

  2

  The man was dressed in a brown and green camouflage jacket and matching pants. His black boots, along with the rest of his clothes, were drenched in l
ayers of age-old mud. Eda’s first impression upon seeing the manner of his clothing was that he was a former military man. Looking past the clothes and more at the man however, she suspected that wasn’t true. It was pure instinct. Eda still retained memories of the street platoons from the wild years, just before they lost control of the streets to the mob. They were big, scary looking men and women. To a frightened little girl they were like giants and Eda used to spend hours watching them patrol the streets in their khaki-colored tight tops. She recalled their obscene biceps bulging underneath the sleeves as they clutched onto their semi-automatic weapons with grim determination.

  The most frightening thing of all about the soldiers was the blank, robotic look in their eyes. It was like a uniform stare that had been programmed into every single one of them. Whatever they’d absorbed in those dead eyes, it wasn’t pretty.

  The man in the swamp didn’t have that killer look about him. He was a bag of bones. Emaciated. It looked like a stiff breeze would knock him off his feet and keep him down for days.

  As he walked towards the road, Eda and David kept perfectly still.

  The man’s skull was bald, at least on top. In contrast, lank gray hair spilled down from the back and sides, flowing beyond his shoulders. His appearance was odd and incomplete – it looked like he’d been interrupted while shaving his head and that he’d never gotten around to finishing the job.

  “Hello friends,” he said.

  He was still walking forward, very slowly.

  “Don’t be alarmed. I mean you no harm.”

  He held up both hands like he was surrendering to the travelers. His voice was nasally and he possessed a distinct accent. The accent wasn’t unlike David’s but then it wasn’t quite the same thing either. Eda imagined that from now on she’d have to get used to hearing things like that – different accents, new words – if she was going to travel the country.

  David nudged her on the forearm.

  “Look,” he whispered. “Behind him.”

  There were five other people standing where the bald man had first appeared. They might as well have materialized out of thin air. There were three men and two women, all in either their forties or fifties. Eda noticed they were all dressed in the same camouflage clothes as the bald man. Likewise, their hands and faces were freckled with mud.

  They came forward, staying close behind their leader. Moving at a careful pace, they approached the edge of the narrow road where Eda, David and Frankie Boy were waiting. Eda felt uneasy at this slow motion welcoming committee. Watching these people slip through the cracks in the swamp, it was like witnessing the emergence of a long lost humanoid species that had been living apart from the rest of the world.

  Eda tilted her head back and inhaled. There was a pungent, not unpleasant odor in the air. It was the smell of dirt after heavy rain.

  “Welcome to our home,” the bald man said.

  He stepped onto the road and glanced briefly in both directions, as if checking to see if there was anyone else catching up.

  Eda took a closer look. The man’s skin was an unpleasant, withering gray. This combined with his skeletal frame and bug-like eyes, gave him the appearance of a freshly reanimated corpse. When he looked at Eda, it took everything in her power not to turn away.

  He pointed a finger at her, then at David and Frankie Boy.

  “Three souls,” the bald man said with a trying-too-hard smile. His canine teeth were crooked and long. “Is that all?”

  Eda nodded. “We’re travelers, just passing through.”

  The man raised a wild-looking eyebrow. “Passing through here? In the Meadows?”

  “Yeah,” Eda said. “Why not?”

  “What brought you down here?” he asked.

  Eda couldn’t think of an answer. David wasn’t in a rush to speak either.

  “Food?” the bald man said. “Did you come here because you wanted to hunt game on our land?”

  David glanced at Eda and then turned back to the man.

  “Your land?”

  “Yes,” the bald man said. “Our land.”

  “Okay,” David said. “ Well then, I’ve spent some time out here before, on and off. I suppose we came back to rest and to hunt a little.”

  “And yet no bow that I see,” the bald man said. He was pointing back and forth between Eda and David. Eda wondered if the pointing would ever end. Every time he did it, she felt like she was being stabbed by a pocketknife.

  David shook his head. “No,” he said. “But I have other tools hidden in the…”

  “And the dog of course,” the bald man said. Now he was pointing at Frankie Boy again although he kept his distance. “Yes, yes. I’d say that creature right there is your best chance of catching a meal in this swamp of ours. The animals are plenty, but they’re sly and they know how to survive. But I dare say that dog would make a fine hunter.”

  “A fine hunter,” Eda said. “Sure.”

  The bald man clapped his hands together in one resounding strike.

  “But there’s no need for you to hunt,” he said. “Or the dog. You can eat with us and that’s not something we’re offering to just anyone these days. But I trust people of your generation. I trust them far more than I would strangers of my own. You were children when it happened. You know nothing of the corruption that led up to our demise.”

  He smiled.

  “What I’m saying is, that I’m willing to help you if you are of course willing to trust us.”

  It was David who spoke.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “But how long have you been living here? I’ve never seen anyone else in the Meadows before. I always thought it was deserted.”

  “Most of us have been in here since the wild years,” the bald man said. His large, swollen balloon eyes expanded as he looked intently at the younger man.

  “I always thought I was alone in here,” David said.

  “Or perhaps just left alone,” the bald man said. “Hmmm? It’s a big place the Great Piece Meadows and there’s room enough in here for those who are peaceful and non-threatening to our particular way of life. But there are so few visitors these days that we don’t really encounter alternative viewpoints. And we’re quite happy with that.”

  Eda glanced back down the long stretch of road. The highway wasn’t too far away, not if they turned around and started walking now. The quiet place wasn’t as quiet as David had thought it was. Bad luck. Maybe they were better off sticking to the roads and trying to find somewhere else to lay low for a while.

  “Come with us,” the bald man said. His small flock of companions stood a few feet behind him, lined up in a neat row. They were all smiling. All silent.

  “Stay a few hours or spend the night if you wish,” the man said. “Eat and rest. You’re more than welcome. The end of civilization doesn’t mean we have to forget good manners. Right?”

  David looked at Eda.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  There was no point in pretending.

  “I don’t think so,” Eda said. She blurted the words out and was well aware of how blunt it sounded. After an awkward pause, she looked at the strange man and the others. The camouflage posse. They were so uniformly polite and attentive in response to her bluntness. She struggled to find the right words – to articulate how uncomfortable she felt in a way that wouldn’t cause offence.

  “Thank you for the offer though,” she said. “But maybe we should just keep walking. Take advantage of the weather while it’s dry. What do you think David?”

  David hesitated. “Sure,” he said. He glanced back and forth between the strangers and Eda. “If that’s what you want. Although…”

  “What?” Eda said. This time it was her tone, not the words that were blunt.

  David pointed to the backpack hanging off Eda’s shoulder.

  “Supplies are low,” he said. “We only took a few days worth of food and water out of New York with us, didn’t we? Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to…wha
t I mean is, maybe these good people wouldn’t mind helping us out in terms of refilling our supplies. We can always hit the road later today or tomorrow, you know?”

  Eda nodded. It was a mechanical gesture.

  “Yeah.”

  With a nod of the head, the bald man gestured into the woods behind them.

  “We have plenty of food,” he said. “You’re more than welcome to share a meal with us. And we can certainly spare some supplies for your onward journey, be that later today or in the morning or whenever you wish to depart.”

  He looked at Eda.

  “You have nothing to fear from us young lady,” he said. “We’re merely survivors of a great disaster, just like you and your friend. We are a shy community here. Very shy. We’re a peaceful people and I suppose you might call us religious of sorts – we stay deep in the woods, we worship our god and avoid the lingering madness of cities and towns. Everything we need is here. Right here.”

  The other strangers came further forward. Now they stood alongside the bald man, forming a camouflage line. In the process, a small channel opened up in between them that led into the swampy background.

  It was an open door. It was the invitation.

  “My name is David,” David said. He stepped forward and then turned back to Eda. “And this is Eda. We’ve come from New York. And we gratefully accept your offer of hospitality.”

  The bald man lowered his head in greeting.

  “My name is Frank Church,” he said in a quiet voice. “But for as long as I remember people have called me Baldilocks.”

  “Baldilocks?” Eda said. “Are you kidding?”

  The man chuckled and pointed to the top of his perfectly round, gleaming skull.

  “It’s not hard to guess why is it?” he said. “Bald head, long hair at the back and sides – of course. Very clever, yes? Of course, it was designed as an insult. It was done to mock me. But for some strange reason my friends, I kept the name. Now I wear it like a badge of honor. Why? It reminds me that nothing lasts forever – that what we fear is but a fleeting shadow. All the jokers are dead. Yet I’m still alive.”