After the End

by Bonnie Dee

  Ari glanced to the left, not forgetting the stealth of the zombie that had attacked him. He wouldn't be surprised again. Just then an explosion sent a shock wave rolling through the air. Ari spun back in the opposite direction, searching for its source. It wasn't the sedan he'd set on fire but another vehicle close to the ice cream shop which was one of the rest stops for the group on their way to the boat.

  Ari grinned. He had no doubt either Lila or Deb, maybe both, had blown up the car. He peered around the edge of the building again to witness an orange fireball, black smoke and zombies clustering around the wreckage as if they were at a bonfire roasting weenies. The way would never be clearer than right now.

  He ran for the watercraft shop, legs and arms pumping, lungs burning, and when he reached it, since the way was still clear, he didn't stop. He wove his way between the haphazard cars in the parking lot. A naked zombie woman popped from behind a pickup truck right in front of him like a pornographic jack-in-the-box, her breasts bobbing and her arms missing. Ari didn't take the time to kill her, just knocked her aside with a push that bounced her off the side of the truck like a pinball.

  He reached the boardwalk and his feet pounded over wooden slats instead of asphalt. The scent of the water was almost stronger than the rotten meat on which the gulls feasted and the green trimmed Bayliner was in sight.

  Ari glanced inland, checking for pursuers, and his heart dropped. Lila and Deb were running for the docks, too. Deb was obviously injured and Lila had an arm around her. Zombies were on their heels.

  As Ari watched, Lila pushed Deb toward the boat and Deb lurched like a zombie herself as she staggered forward. Lila whirled to face their attackers. She took a bottle from her backpack, lit the fuse and tossed the bomb in the midst of the running zombies. Glass crashed and fumes ignited sending up a small fireball. A few zombies were engulfed in the flames, their hair or clothing catching on fire, but the rest kept coming toward Lila.

  Ari ran to help her. He dodged around cars until he was close then jumped up onto a hood, grabbed the rifle strapped to his back and fired into the group of zombies. At least some of the shots cleaved the spinal cord and a few zombies dropped, their bodies tripping up the others. It was enough to slow them down a little.

  But a couple of faster zombies were already on Lila. A man with a gaping chest wound seized her arm. She slung her backpack into his face and tried to jerk away, but he gripped her hard. He looked like he'd been healthy and fit when he was alive and whole. Another man wearing a charcoal gray suit and a string of entrails like a necktie took hold of Lila's other arm and lifted her hand to his mouth as if he would kiss it.

  Ari sighted down the rifle, aiming for the second one's head, but Lila was too close. This was no sniper's weapon; it was meant to cut a lethal swathe, and he was no sharpshooter. He jumped off the car hood and hurtled across the ground separating him from Lila. Bending low, he plowed into the suit-wearing zombie like a linebacker, driving his shoulder into the creature's gut and pushing him backward.

  The dead man seemed content to switch victims and grabbed for Ari instead of Lila. Past the thing's shoulder Ari could see many more coming. In a few seconds they'd be overrun. It was impossible for his blood to carry one more drop of adrenaline than was already scorching through his system. As if he was on industrial strength steroids, for a moment Ari was convinced he was invincible. Yelling like a madman, he pulled the knife sheathed in his belt and drove it into the cadaver's throat with all the force in his body. His arm pistoned, stabbing until the dead man slumped.

  Without pause, Ari tossed the corpse aside and went for the other. The body building, chest wound zombie had Lila pinned to the ground. She was beating on his back and squirming to get out from under him as he lunged for her throat.

  Ari didn't try to pull him off. Trying to break that powerful grip would be futile. Instead he sawed across the back of the thing's exposed neck with his knife, cutting through gristle and bone until the man flopped to a stop, draped over Lila like an obscene blanket. Ari hauled the body off her while Lila crab scuttled backward from underneath it.

  Ari held out his hand. She seized it. And they ran, barely ahead of the rest of the pack. The creatures were right behind them. That was the problem—they weren't so impossible to kill once you knew how, but there were always more and they were as persistent as cockroaches.

  The boat was near now. They'd reached the docks and were pounding toward it. But if Julie and Derrick didn't have the motor running, they'd all be trapped on board.

  Ari had a death grip on Lila's hand, dragging her beside him, but he suddenly stopped and thrust her ahead of him. "You go. I'll hold 'em off."

  She hesitated.

  "Go!" he ordered, doing his best Sergeant Vogt impression. Without waiting to see that she obeyed, Ari spun around, took the rifle from his shoulder and peppered the approaching zombies with bullets. He sprayed back and forth as if watering a lawn with lethal chemicals. Bits of pink and red gore flew through the air like confetti.

  Then his clip emptied. The gun clicked and the hailstorm of bullets stopped.

  "Ari. Here!"

  He turned toward Lila's voice and caught the new clip she tossed to him. He jammed it into the gun and started firing again. Stupid, brave girl hadn't run, and thank God for him she hadn't.

  The revenants continued to surge toward them, only a dozen, but it was a dozen too many. Ari braced his legs and fired at their heads, scalping the faux-hawk off a once pretty girl in a once white sundress, ripping through the side of an old man's face, and hitting directly into a policeman's gaping mouth, dropping him.

  "Die! Just fucking die!" he bellowed as he swung the rifle back and forth.

  And then he heard the blessed sound of a motor puttering to life like a choir of angels singing. He backed down the dock, still shooting.

  A second later, Derrick was beside him, also firing. Together they held off the remaining zombies, only a half dozen now, but still stupidly, relentlessly coming.

  "Come on," Lila called. "We're casting off."

  Ari and Derrick ran for the boat. Ari skidded on a slick of goo and started to fall. His arms pinwheeled and he nearly dropped his rifle before he caught his balance and ran on. The boards shook beneath his weight. He leaped onto the deck of the Bayliner and turned to make sure Derrick was still with him.

  Derrick raced down the dock with several revenants right behind him. One tackled him and then they were all on him like a pack of hyenas. Ari jumped off the boat and ran back, firing into their midst, praying he wouldn't hit Derrick by accident.

  When he got too close to shoot, Ari hit at them with the stock of the gun, bashing zombies like whack-a-moles. He wished he still had his ax, but there'd been only so many weapons he could carry. Seeing Derrick's hand beneath the pile up of zombies, he grabbed hold of it and pulled him out from under them. He hauled the kid to his feet and ran with him. This time he didn't let go of Derrick's hand until they'd reached the boat. Julie was already guiding it away from the pier. They jumped over a yard of water before hitting the deck and collapsing in a heap.

  "Are you all right?" Lila dropped down beside them. "Were you bitten?"

  Derrick pulled his hand away from his neck so they could see the blood gushing. It looked really bad, like maybe the zombies had hit an artery.

  Lila exchanged a look with Ari. "Deb's been injured, too. Shrapnel. You take care of him, while I bandage her."

  Ari nodded. "Derrick, keep pressure on the wound. I'm going to find something to bandage it with."

  As he headed for the cabin, he looked at the wharf receding behind them. The undead milled around from dock to boats and back again, searching for a way to reach them. Some even jumped into the water and began to swim after them. They looked as forlorn as Ari had felt when the helicopter had risen from the rooftop leaving them behind. Wait. You forgot us, their brainless zombie eyes seemed to say.

  Ari ducked below deck to search for a first aid kit and towels.
There were dishcloths in the galley and everything else they needed stored in cupboards near the head. He returned topside and gave some of the alcohol swabs and gauze bandage to Lila. Then he returned to Derrick, who lay on the floor, slumped against one of the seats. His eyes were closed and his face was paper white. For a moment, Ari was certain he was dead. He knelt beside him and felt for his pulse and Derrick's eyes shot open. "I don't want to die. Don't let me become one of them."

  "I won't. But you're not dying. We'll fix this." Ari gently lifted the boy's hand from his neck and studied his mauled neck. The blood flow had slowed as it began to coagulate. That was a good sign. If it was an artery, it would have kept on gushing until he bled out.

  "This is going to sting." He swabbed the bite with the alcohol drenched cloth and Derrick flinched and hissed.

  "How do you know I'm not dying?" Derrick sounded panicked. "Maybe just their bite kills. We don't really know anything about how it works."

  Ari gripped his hand. "Mrs. Scheider was old and worn out. You're young and strong. I'm sure you'll be okay." He wasn't certain at all, but projected all the confidence he could muster. Derrick needed a strong dose of assurance even more than the aspirin Ari gave him to take down the swelling of the tender flesh around the bite.

  Ari placed a patch of gauze over the wound and fixed it in place with adhesive tape then he checked the rest of Derrick's neck, chest and back for more bites. His shirt was ripped and there were red scratch marks down his back, and not the fun kind a guy got from his lover. Ari swabbed them with alcohol, too.

  "Let's go below. Find some clean clothes and you can lie down and rest." Ari grasped Derrick's arm and pulled him to his feet then supported him as the boat pitched beneath them. The wind was churning up choppy waves in the harbor and the gray clouds on the horizon looked ominous.

  Please God, haven't we been through enough? Just let the damn weather hold off for a while. Give us a few minutes to catch our breath.

  In the time they'd spent together Lila had talked about her belief in karma and how the seemingly random bad or good shit that was flung at a person wasn't God's cosmic punking, but merely what a soul had earned or needed to learn from. She'd said believing that helped put things in perspective when she had a really shitty day where everything went wrong. Well, he could use some of that belief now, because he hated to think God was simply a cruel son of a bitch who enjoyed torturing people. A collective lesson for humanity to learn from was certainly preferable to a collective ass kicking for no apparent reason.

  As Julie expertly guided the boat into open water, she asked Lila for an update on Deb's condition. Lila reported the gash in Deb's back wasn't as bad as it appeared. She'd pulled out the metal and staunched the wound, and was bandaging it as Ari took Derrick below.

  In the cabin, Ari settled Derrick on a bunk, covering his shivering body with a blanket and checking the bandage on his neck. There was a spot of red on the gauze so the wound was still bleeding but not nearly as badly as it might have. Ari got up to leave, but Derrick grabbed his hand, stopping him.

  "Wait. Don't go. I don't want to die alone."

  "Cut it out. I told you, you're not dying." Ari figured his usual impatient tone would do a lot more to convince Derrick than sudden out of character kindness. "Try to get some sleep. You need it. And look, here's Deb to keep you company."

  Deb came down the steps into the cabin, leaning heavily against one wall for support. Her shirt was off and her arm and shoulder were wrapped like a mummy. Her dark face was ashen, even her lips pale. She must have bled buckets, which might have been part of what drew the zombies to her and Lila.

  "How you doing?" Ari asked.

  She sank down on the other bunk. "I feel like a vampire on a lucky day." At Ari's blank look she added, "Nearly staked through the heart." Then she managed a smile. "But we made it. We really made it."

  For the first time, Ari let the glow of victory swell inside him. "Yes, we did."

  He spread a blanket over Deb and smoothed her braids back from her face. "You did good."

  Ari bumped fists with her, but then Deb grabbed his hand and pulled him down to give him a one-armed hug. "You, too. You got us here."

  Ari straightened and found Lila had followed Deb downstairs to put away the first aid kit. She and Ari bumped into each other as they moved around the small cabin. Ari found a cache of water bottles in a cupboard. Lila sat beside Derrick, bending over to talk softly to him.

  After offering each of the injured patients some water, Ari went up on deck to check on their progress with Julie.

  "Take over the wheel," she demanded before he even opened his mouth. "I want to see Deb."

  "I've never driven a boat in my life."

  "But you've driven cars. It's practically the same thing. Point and steer and don't run into anything." She abandoned him before he could protest.

  Julie disappeared below deck and a moment later, Lila emerged. Bloody, bedraggled and with her greasy hair lank around her face, she was absolutely beautiful. If Ari didn't have a hard grip on the boat's steering wheel and his attention riveted on the water before them, he would have gone to her and pulled her into his arms.

  She came to him instead, slipped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his back. "So Derrick's finally right. You are the captain."

  "For now." He leaned back slightly, the better to feel her body pressed against him. He'd almost lost her today, and was just beginning to understand what an enormous loss that would be.

  They didn't speak. There would be plenty of time later for sharing war stories about what had happened while they were apart. Right now it was a relief to be silent and finally at peace. The river flowed beneath them. The city drifted by on either side of them, barely betraying the horror show it had become. But smoke billowed from up ahead signaling a fire blazing out of control with no FDNY to put it out. In a few minutes, they passed the burning neighborhood, only a couple of buildings for now, but soon, perhaps, blocks of the city.

  Lila let go of him and moved to the railing to stare at the cityscape as they floated past. When she turned back to Ari, her eyes glistened. "Nothing is ever going to be the same. I've known that, but we've been so busy simply surviving, I could avoid really realizing it until now."

  Ari released the wheel and reached out a hand to her. "Come here."

  She walked into his arms and he held her close, resting his chin on her head as she pressed her face against his chest.

  "Go ahead and cry now if you want. You've earned it." He kissed her hair and breathed in her scent, earthy and real.

  Her body trembled a little in his arms, but when she lifted her face to look up at him, her cheeks were dry. She shook her head. "No tears. I'm not ready for that yet. But I appreciate the cuddle." She held him hard, her fingers clutching his shirt in back, and lifted her face for a kiss.

  He was happy to give it, inclining his head to cover her lips with his. Neither of their mouths was minty fresh, but he'd never tasted anything more delicious than that kiss. He sank into it as if falling into bed after a hard day of running an obstacle course. Lila slid a hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer as she rose up on her toes and leaned into him.

  For a few moments, they were fused together, only their clothes and skin keeping them from melting into one being. At last, Lila pulled away to draw breath. She settled back on her heels and turned in the circle of his arms to face forward.

  Together they looked past the prow of the boat to the gray water stretching before them. "What happens when we leave the harbor? We have to think about where to dock on the mainland. I wonder where would be safe."

  "Guess we'll have to get close to shore and take a look." He glanced at the gas gauge that indicated the tank was half full and thought about what would happen if they reached a point where they had to put in to shore whether it was safe or not. Then he took another look at the far horizon. The storm clouds that had threatened seemed to be breaking up and t
he sun shone through, streams of pale yellow that looked like heavenly light. Hopeful—that was what the sky looked like now.

  Ari squinted as he saw something flashing on the open water in front of them. The light strobed with mechanical regularity.

  "Take the wheel," he ordered Lila, and went to get the backpack which he'd managed to keep with him through everything. He pulled out his binoculars and focused on the horizon. The boat coming toward them had a coast guard flag flying.

  "Shit!" he dropped the glasses on the cord around his neck and they bumped against his chest. Running to the dashboard, he searched for some way to signal back. "It's a coast guard boat," he informed Lila. "Do you see a button for a signal light?"

  "Get Julie," she said, and he ran to obey, hollering for her before he reached the cabin.

  "What is it?" Julie emerged from below, wide-eyed and worried.

  "A coast guard boat. We need to signal it."

  Julie went to a storage bin near the cabin and rummaged through it before producing a flare. She unscrewed the lid and held the flare by the handle over the railing. She pulled the tag and by the time orange smoke was billowing into the air, Deb and Derrick had come on deck, too. The acrid smell of smoke filled Ari's nose and he breathed it in like it was the sweetest bouquet as it beckoned the coast guard boat closer. All of the survivors clustered together, staring at the emerging shape of the other vessel.

  "They've spotted us. They're coming for us," Derrick said, and then a hoarse sob wrenched from his chest. He broke down, his body shaking as he covered his face with his hands. Deb grabbed and held him with her uninjured arm, murmuring the soothing things people said to comfort other people. "It will be all right. Everything's okay. We're safe now." The words didn't change the truth, but there was nothing else to say.