Life After (Book 2): The Void

by Bryan Way

  “Good point…”

  After writing down what we’ve seen, Mursak and I head upstairs. The remnants of our last night here remain apparent; unmoved corpses, shattered glass, and muddy trudge marks on the otherwise clean floors create an echo of our circumstances, which are given a voice by the ominous whistling of cold air blowing through the fractured windows. Fortunately, the door that led to our discovery of Rob features a bullet hole that makes it stand out in a sea of monotonous wooden portals.

  Mursak and I walk inside to see a coffee machine, several Styrofoam cups, and granola bar wrappers. We both check the sinks, followed by the cabinets. “What’s this?” I turn to see Mursak holding up a large woven satchel. He dumps its contents on the floor, revealing a dozen pistol bullets, condoms, and a set of keys.

  “Where was that?” I ask.

  “Stuffed in a cabinet…”

  “Think it could be hers?”

  “You’d think the condoms would belong to an older girl, but the bullets… these look like police rounds to you?”

  “Could be.”

  “If it’s her bag, why weren’t the bullets in the gun?” Mursak asks. “There was only one casing in the room, correct?”

  “I didn’t look for it, but I didn’t see any other gunshots. Is there a cell phone?”

  Mursak opens a side pouch and pulls one out.

  “It doesn’t make sense, unless… what if Rob’s in her call history?” I ask.

  “He doesn’t have a cell phone, remember?”

  “Damn. Is there a diary or something in there?”

  “Just a school agenda.”

  I motion for Mursak to throw it over to me and he does. I see the name Heather Garro written in the front, which doesn’t ring a bell. I leaf through the pages to find the words I have a boyfriend! written in big pink letters on Sunday the tenth, the day after the outbreak. “Got something here.” I say, tossing the book back over to him. He nods in agreement as we both stand up to survey the room.

  “So?” I ask.

  “Okay,” Mursak starts. “So we have no idea how much food the two of them could’ve gone through in the amount of time they were in here… and there are twelve bullets that might be the right size for the gun she was holding, right? Where’s the gun?”

  “I left it…”

  Both Mursak and I pause. “Someone didn’t take it?” Mursak utters just before I turn to the hall, flee down the steps, and ungracefully traverse the dark corridor of the gym offices back to the body; her hands are limp on the floor and there is no gun to be found. I irrationally move her hand with my boot, wincing at the pain in my back as I imagine that I didn’t actually see a gun. After some reflection, I realize there had to be one.

  “We checked the goddamn clip…” I say.

  “You put it back in her hand?”

  “No, Anderson put it down next to her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive… I remember it…”

  “So, Glocks hold between fifteen and eighteen rounds, correct?” Mursak asks.

  “I think so?”

  “So we can assume she fired either three or six rounds.”

  “We can’t assume anything.” I start. “Who knows how many rounds were fired before she got the gun?”

  “Dammit… there wasn’t another clip in there?”

  “Just the bullets. Why?”

  “Well who do we think knows enough about guns to unload one, the suburban high school girl, or the conservative heroin addict?”

  “Jeez… well when’d he take them out?”

  “Huh…” Mursak nods thoughtfully before starting to write. “If he emptied the clip before she died, there was intent. If he emptied it after, he was in the room after she died, which means he lied. There’d be no reason for her to empty it.”

  “Man am I glad you’re here.” I say, writing his assertion down. “Okay, well… we both agree that it’s fair to say he’d be the more likely person to unload it…”

  “And the gun is missing.” Mursak states. “I didn’t take it, and you didn’t take it… did Anderson?”

  “No way, he was too freaked out. And we haven’t been back.”

  “So we have to ask everyone if they know where the gun is.”

  “What is this, Clue? That’s not very subtle. Besides, what’s the motive?”

  “Well…” Mursak starts. “New boyfriend after the crisis started, she was getting close to him… maybe she found out about his habit and tried to do what you did successfully.”

  “But killing your girlfriend?”

  I can tell I caught him flatfooted. I find the casing for the expended round and locate only one hole in the brick, appropriately placed dead center at the top of the blood streak. Mursak takes a moment to compose his thoughts, so I take over.

  “There’s probably some truth to his story about meeting her. After the first night, they’re together. So, it was either a day or two after that when it happens. So, he gets her in the locker room…”

  “How many Zombies were in the building when you got here?”

  “…I don’t remember.” I reply.

  We both look at each other for a few seconds, trying to come up with other ideas.

  “So, when Rob tried to shoot you, he went nuts all at once, right?” Mursak asks. “Like, when you caught him, he tried to shoot you immediately? What if it wasn’t premeditated?”

  “Yeah… yeah… but on the drug angle, who’s to say they weren’t using together? We can’t exactly check her arms for track marks.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I guess not… okay, so… he takes the bullets afterward… why?”

  “…make it look like a suicide?”

  “…how does that follow?”

  “I don’t know… don’t you think you’d hang on if you had more than one bullet left?”

  He’s right. I wouldn’t have contemplated suicide if I had more than one bullet on the roof two months ago.

  “Right… so, can we support this with anything more than conjecture?”

  “The bag upstairs with the bullets is a big clue. They were going out, which invalidates his argument of her just ‘disappearing’ one morning. She had a gun, and now it’s gone. And I have to ask, who commits suicide standing up?”

  The question throws me off for a second, almost to the point of interrupting my physical balance. The blood streak is against the wall, meaning she fell from a standing position. I instantly remember the footage of Budd Dwyer I’d seen online in the past, but I also remember when I had a gun between my teeth. I can’t imagine having the strength to stand while even thinking about it seriously.

  “Think we’ve done enough crime scene investigation for one day?” Mursak asks.

  “I guess… what’ve really got?”

  “We don’t know anything for sure… they had to be involved, someone took bullets out of the gun, and now it’s missing. Suppose someone else took it?”

  This gives me a rotten feeling in my stomach. Any encounter we’ve had with other people has been awful, and the thought that someone else was in here and took an empty pistol makes me feel vulnerable enough to glance behind me. Mursak repeats the gesture.

  “Maybe…” I start. “So how do we bring this up?”

  “Well, I’m fairly convinced that he did it, and I’m a neutral party, so how about I mention it to Karen?”

  “If we could convince her to explore the evidence…”

  “But then what do we do with him? Kick him out?”

  “I just want him to admit to it, we’ll start there.” I sigh. “I’ll feel a lot better if he does.”

  Mursak and I look at each other awkwardly again, then at the floor. We sit down, open our notebooks, and record our thoughts. As we do, it strikes me that a digression could be welcome.

  “So… Jake’s music project…” I start.

  “Huh?”

  “You didn’t hear about this? Jake suggested we each come up with a song�
� one we’d like played at our funerals… just, uh… something to make us comfortable with the idea of death.”

  “Interesting. What’s yours?” He asks.

  “I’m having the damndest time thinking of one. How about you?”

  He thinks about it for a moment.

  “Parallel Universe. Red Hot Chili Peppers.”

  “Oh… oh, cool…”

  “Rob pick his?” Mursak asks after a moment.

  “Not that I know of…”

  “He’ll need it.”

  To my surprise, Mursak resumes writing nonchalantly, the elasticity of his angular face relaxing into a somber rest. The moment he rests his pen, the room goes totally silent. “I want to go home.” Mursak says flatly and plainly. I think it over for a few seconds, and then nod. I close my eyes and imagine myself warm and tired in my bed, but it’s too cold to sustain the illusion. “Let’s just go back.” Our egress is uneventful, and I leave my chewed up toothpick at the scene.

  The first thing we notice at the Mass is that the bus has been outfitted with new tires. Once we pass the gate, we’re stopped by a barricade in the first floor hallway; cinder blocks have been assembled three feet high with about a foot and a half of space on either side to allow for both passage and cover, and the tops are exposed to reveal that the empty space in the cinders have been filled with mortar. I’m no ballistics expert, but I’d have to imagine this would hold up to most bullet calibers under light fire.

  I scale the wall as a test and unintentionally welcome muscle spasms in my lower back. Mursak excuses himself to find Elena, and I walk up to medlab to check on Anderson. I open the door and sense an improvement in his condition. Before today, he looked closer to being a corpse, but now he seems as though he’s in a restless sleep, the tension having returned to his limbs. I take a seat beside him and notice a twitch beneath his eyelids. “Anderson.” I say quietly. His eyes drift open, painfully swimming in the black bags that surround them.

  “Oh god, Anderson?”

  “What… the f… uhhhhck…” He grumbles.

  “Jesus Christ… are you alright? How do you feel?”

  “Like I got shot six times.”

  “Well… I don’t want to bruise your ego, but you were only hit three.”

  His smirk at this is lazy, but warm. “Water.” I leap up and fill a beaker in the sink, easing the edge toward his mouth. “Just a little bit… we gotta have Karen look at you…” He nods as he sucks it dry.

  “What happened?” He wheezes.

  “Sak says you got hit and went down.”

  “Am I leaking?”

  I chuckle, trying to cover my nose as casually as possible.

  “You always find some colorful way to reduce something serious to basic mechanics.”

  “You always sound like a fuckin’ English teacher.”

  “No, you’re not ‘leaking’. Been out for two days.”

  “Anyone down?”

  “All intact. Probably better you get the details a little at a time.”

  “Did I ruin Christmas?”

  “Wouldn’t say that… our… friends… almost did.”

  “How many’d we score?”

  “…all of ‘em.”

  “Thank fucking god…” Anderson sighs as he rolls his head back, then turns over and studies my face. “What happened?”

  “Let’s just say… I’m better at hunting than I used to be.”

  “Oh, this sounds good… let ‘er rip.”

  “We… had to… chase down the ones that got away… at DC cubed…”

  “Not that guy in the pajamas…” Anderson starts.

  “Nah, he was dead when we got there. Rich figured… the only way to end the whole episode… was to take care of them.”

  Anderson considers this for a minute, and then arches his eyebrows and nods in approval. “Okay!” His phrasing and tone cut through me, anesthetizing the guilt I expected to follow this particular admission. Another minute passes as he looks me over.

  “You gonna tell me what happened?” He asks, finally.

  “…you should probably rest…”

  “What have I been doing the last two days?”

  “…well…”

  I proceed with a sanitized version of the events, being careful to avoid any mention of the girls; since neither Mel nor Helen has told us what happened, it’s hard to be specific, and knowing Anderson, a mere mention of Helen being taken would send him into an unhealthy rage. In order to explain the events following Anderson’s unconsciousness safely, I move Rich’s assertion that we had to kill our assailants significantly earlier in the tale. Using that as a basis, I only have a few facts to fudge.

  As I relate the saga, Anderson keeps telling me what we did wrong. By the third ‘correction’, I find myself choking down audible sighs in favor of a polite grin, sticking with a rejoinder of ‘that’s why you should have been there’ to mask my irritation. I nearly lose face when he refers to our plan of dressing Mursak up like one of them as ‘bullshit’. Nevertheless, the lecture goes better than I could have anticipated, and once we’ve finished, he asks me to send for Helen.

  I head for the security office and end up surprised to find Ally instead of Helen seated in front of the monitors. I march down the hall and past my room to find that Helen is my new neighbor. A few soft knocks on the door and she emerges, hurriedly dressing as she wipes the sleep out of her eyes when I tell her to check on Anderson. Shortly after she leaves, Ally’s hollow voice rings out over the PA. “AlCon 2. We have a few coming in off the street. Repeat, Alert Condition 2.”

  Without urging, Mursak and Jake meet me in the keep and we prepare ourselves for combat. I make sure to bring my newly acquired trench knife for testing, and on the way to the gate, I find Anderson hunched over in the hallway with Helen supporting him. “Don’t even think about it.” Mursak says as he passes, beating me to the punch. Anderson tries to wave us off, but he’s too weak to convince any of us to stop. We reach the bottom of the steps to find Rich and Ally waiting for us.

  “Alcon 2, right? Beta’s not even on standby.” I ask.

  “Just wanna see the bench test.” Rich offers, pointing at my trench knife.

  “You’re gonna have to get awfully close…” Ally starts, tightening her grip around her emergency hammer.

  “That’s the point… can’t use a ranged weapon that close… these things’ll save your life when they get a hold of you.”

  The three of us climb over the stairway railing and run to the door; I go first, cautiously making my way out past the end of the bus to see if any have gotten close. Seeing that it’s clear, I wave for the others to come out and survey the ten corpses at varying distances approaching our castle. Mursak and Jake go to work on the outsides, Sak with his metal pipe and Jake with his crowbar. I walk into the middle, setting my sights on a particularly decrepit man. As I wait for him to get close, I check my watch: 7:38. “Ugh, so late…”

  As I set my sights on him, I take in the important details; his limbs are loose and rubbery, suggesting that he used to be a runner who has outlived his effectiveness, and the skin of his fingers has been eroded by a banquet or failed attempt at breaching a building. As such, he also has no fingernails. To make this theory official, it would also appear that his teeth have been sanded off at the gum line.

  I let his hands slide up my arms, putting my left wrist under his jaw as his fingertips tickle at my shoulder blades. I pull the trench knife out of my belt as his loose, decaying gums snap toward my neck. He can’t exert enough force to push me back, so I take a moment to line up my shot in the middle of his forehead. I bring the knife down in one quick thrust and lean the handle back, able to see that the blade struck his forehead, traveled through the roof of his mouth, and continued into the base of his skull.

  Keeping my wrist taut, I yank the blade out and give him a push. The tension leaves his body as he crumples to the ground. Apparently, the report we got was right; a lethal blow to the cerebellu
m is the best way to end a Zombie quickly and quietly. Impressed by the knife’s effectiveness, I take a running start at the next one, trip him easily, and place another diagonal blow from his forehead to the base of his neck. After I wrench the blade free, he goes limp.

  As Sak finishes off the last one on the left, I look off to the right to see Jake examining his bent and probably ruined crowbar. “That it?” I ask. Mursak nods, wiping the sweat off his brow as Jake drops the crowbar with an irksome clatter. “Don’t leave that.” I mutter, summoning an aggravated glance from my young compatriot. “Please… we’ll just use it for dragging corpses.” Jake nods complacently, picks up his retired weapon, and lodges the hook underneath the sternum of one supine body. The cleanup effort is unsurprisingly quick and monotonous.

  Once we’ve finished moving corpses, the headache from earlier sets in, as does another wave of pain from my lower back. Karen stops me from taking ibuprofen, suggesting naproxen instead. I acquiesce to her medical acumen and take two, securing myself some stale crackers and vitamin-laced water to avoid nausea. After hurriedly securing snack food, the entire group convenes in room 218 and turns on the TV at 7:58.

  We wait. The TV set belches static at us until 8:00, at which point the air goes out of the room. We sit in silence, ignoring Jimmy and Elena as they play some meaningless game on a blanket in the corner. 8:01. The only sound other than people eating comes from the hissing television. It’s not soon enough for any of us give up hope, and though I imagine there are a variety of thoughts regarding the absence of a transmission, I find myself wondering if Rob put one over on us by suggesting there would be a broadcast.

  But for what purpose? My former roommate at college once told me about his passive aggressive sister who would volunteer to make them breakfast, and then burn his toast but not her own. On another occasion, he asked her to fill the tank on the car they shared upon return from an out-of-state concert only to find it half full the next day. Her biggest problem, in his estimation, was taping notes to his bedroom door about separating laundry or cleaning hair out of the drain.