After Life

by Jaron Lee Knuth

“Oh god, yes.” Morgan gripped the can with both hands like she was receiving communion.

  Alex sat back down with his own soda and grabbed the remote for the TV. He punched the power button with his thumb and made the screen spark to life.

  The words “Zombie Attack!” were sprayed across the top of the screen while a montage of Internet movies played on loop. The videos were from all over the world, capturing eyewitness accounts of very dead people doing very living things.

  “Again, these corpses seem to be reacting through what some experts have dubbed ‘muscle memory.’” The voice-over sounded dull and bored. Obviously she had repeated this same script many times throughout the night. “The bodies are continuing to receive input from the brains, even though by all medical explanation, the brain should be dead.”

  Alex looked at Morgan, raising his eyebrows high into the air, pointing at the screen, and asking in a high-pitched voice, “What did I say?”

  “They’re just talking about theories. Who are these so-called experts? They aren’t telling us anything.” Morgan blew off what Alex thought was obvious fact. “Don’t fall for this, Alex.”

  “Last night they said the CDC was saying that-” Alex shook his head, feeling it was too early to argue. “Forget it, do you want some breakfast?”

  “God yes, I’m starving.”

  Alex started rummaging through his cupboard and opened his fridge, pulling out a carton of eggs. He started scrambling them with some pulled apart slices of cheese. He could hear moans through the wall. It sounded like there were more infected people in the hallway.

  “Can we turn on some music?” Morgan asked. “I need to try and drown out these noises.”

  “Yeah,” Alex yelled from the kitchen. “My laptop controls the stereo.”

  Morgan opened his laptop and double clicked on the music icon. She sorted through his music folder and double clicked on the Trip-Hop genre. Smooth bass lines and scratching turntables mixed through the apartment, calming the entire room.

  She double clicked on the Internet icon and opened the web browser. Alex’s homepage greeted her with the top news stories of the day.

  Looting rampant in major cities

  World-wide mass homicides linked to drugs, disease, and the devil. Official word: We don’t know the cause.

  Survivors say: Hospitals are the worst place to be.

  President to America: Stay in your home.

  Nationwide curfew now in effect.

  Alex looked outside and saw nearly forty infected people wandering in front of the building – more of them walked around the surrounding streets. Fires continued to rage in the distance and he wondered how quickly they would spread to his building. His mind wanted desperately to feel safe, but his paranoia was strong.

  Morgan heard a pounding on the wall. The pounding kept coming, changing patterns. She even heard the yelling of a man next door. She turned up the music and kept looking though the news stories.

  “It says,” Morgan yelled over the music into the kitchen, “that every report coming in describes the attacks as bites.”

  “If they aren’t zombies, why are they trying to eat people?” Alex yelled back. “Cannibalism? What virus causes that?”

  “It’s not just that. The reports say that as soon as the person dies, the people don’t try to bite them anymore.” Morgan was sickened at the thought. “It’s like they only want fresh meat.”

  Alex stepped into the room. “It makes sense Morgan. That’s why it’s spreading so fast. Those are all corpses. As soon as they kill, they move on. Another member of their army.”

  “Corpses.” Morgan stared at the news article, scrolling through the story, but not really reading anything on the screen. “I mean, I guess, theoretically it’s possible.” She shook her head, unable to accept the idea.

  Morgan clicked on Alex’s blog subscriptions and started scanning the headlines. Rolling her eyes when she saw he had updates from a nude celebrity site and scrolling past the collection of video game blogs, she finally found something more newsworthy.

  With a click, a British news site opened in front of her, displaying chilling words at the top of the screen.

  NATO To Troops: Shoot To kill

  British Prime Minister: We are exploring Nuclear options.

  London Quarantine Fails

  Alex walked into the living room from the kitchen, glancing into his bedroom. His eyes grew large and he screamed, “What the hell?”

  He immediately grabbed for the samurai sword that leaned against the wall. Morgan jumped up, following his gaze to the window in his room and screamed when she saw a man crawling in from the fire escape.

  The man was overweight and had caught his jacket crawling in the window. Alex unsheathed the sword and held it out in front of him, readying himself to stab the man.

  “No, don’t,” a voice yelled from out on the fire escape. Morgan looked through the window and saw a teenage girl looking past the man.

  From his awkward position the man grunted out the words, “Alex! It’s me! Mike. Mike Peterson!”

  “Mr. Peterson?” Alex looked shocked, but relaxed the point of his sword. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “We heard your music. We tried to pound on the wall to get your attention, but you couldn’t hear us over the music.” He struggled to get his jacket free. “So we crawled over from our fire escape. Luckily your window was open.”

  “Yeah.” Alex frowned. “Luckily.”

  “Come on, man. Help me out, I look like an asshole.”

  Alex set the sword down on the floor and walked over to the window. He lifted the jacket off the hook on the window and Mr. Peterson tumbled onto the floor. Alex helped his daughter, Emma, through the window while her father pulled himself to his feet.

  “Holy shit, right?” Mr. Peterson’s face was red with exhaustion and embarrassment as he straightened out his jacket and shirt. “I mean… people are freakin’ eating each other out there. This is some crazy shit, am I right?” He slapped Alex in the chest with the back of his hand.

  Alex looked down at where he had been slapped and walked over to pick up his sword. He turned around and stood right next to Morgan. In his most droll voice Alex replied, “Yes Mr. Peterson, this is some crazy shit.”

  “We-he-hell, Alex my boy, I ain’t never seen this pretty lady come round before.” The overweight man stepped closer to Morgan, looking her up and down while he licked his lips under his mustache and wiped his sweaty forehead. “Not bad, little man. Not bad at all.”

  “Did you need something, Mr. Peterson?” Alex was completely grossed out by the man and wanted him out of his house as fast as possible.

  “Well, we really just wanted to make sure you were alive, Alex. See if ya needed anything.”

  Before Alex could say no, Morgan asked, “Do you have coffee?”

  Mr. Peterson smiled a big grin, “Now that depends on what you have for me.”

  Alex stepped forward. “So you’re not here to help, you just want something.”

  Mr. Peterson frowned, feigning his shock. “Alex! No, no. We’re neighbors right? I’m just glad to see you're alive! We need to help each other out.”

  “We have eggs. And the Internet.” Morgan was mentally betting Mr. Peterson used dial-up, which was useless when the phone lines were tied up.

  “The eggs sound good. But what the hell would I need the Internets for? You got any beer?”

  Morgan had underestimated how much of a luddite Alex’s neighbor actually was.

  “No,” Alex answered. “We don’t have any beer.”

  Mr. Peterson scratched his chin, thinking. “Give me a dozen eggs and I’ll give you two pots of coffee.”

  “I only have six left,” Alex said.

  Mr. Peterson smiled at Morgan. “Unless you have something else to offer, that’ll only get you one pot.”

  “If you just crawled over here to try to sell us things, you can head back home, Peterson.” Alex lifted his sword.

>   Mr. Peterson looked down at the sword and chuckled. “Nice sword, Alex. Looks like some piece of Jap shit.”

  He walked back toward the window. His daughter started to climb out and silently mouthed the words “I’m sorry” to them.

  “If you change your mind, we’re right next door. Shit is rough out there, Alex. We need to stick together. Help each other out. You need to provide for your woman, and I have plenty of food to provide her with.” He winked at Morgan.

  “Thanks for the offer, Mr. Peterson,” Alex mumbled as he slammed the window closed behind the large man and dropped the blinds shut. He motioned toward the dresser. “Can you help me push that in front of the window until I can find some wood to nail over it?”

  “Absolutely.” Morgan shivered, a look of disgust on her face.

  Day 8

  5:22 pm

  On the fifth day of the infection, the news stopped. All that was shown for the next three days on every station was the logo of the Emergency Broadcast System. It listed the official web pages to go to for more information at the bottom of the screen. With the news channels not receiving any updates they had resorted to repeating facts, speculating with anyone in the studio that had some wild idea, and replaying the same videos, showing the same people being attacked over and over.

  Alex did not find himself missing it.

  Morgan scrolled through Alex’s DVD collection on his hard drive for what felt like the millionth time. Still, she found herself excited to watch the next movie with him.

  After deconstructing every masterpiece of film-making with Christopher, it felt nice to watch something mindlessly action packed with Alex and laugh at the horrible acting. She found herself anything but bored and she hadn’t left the couch in three days.

  They had never spent this much time together. Never given endless amounts of free time to talk about any silly subject that popped into their head. The conversations tended to center around the devastation they could witness from the window and heated debates about what was “really going on.”

  The discussion about whether to stay put or try to make it to a FEMA camp lasted all of six seconds. Morgan could only assume Christopher’s plane had taken off already and that he wouldn’t still be in the area. Alex had watched the groupings of infected grow from the few wandering around on the street to the mob of them that covered every inch of open space outside the building. He was sure they didn’t have a chance outside. Between the infected and the source of the gunfire that popped in the distance, the outside world had become a death trap.

  The infected filled the streets and alleyways, bumping into each other as they moved in aimless directions, a seething mass of flesh eating corpses, moaning in hunger. The hallway outside the apartment was filled with them too. Alex and Morgan watched movies loud and cranked the music. Alex had even downloaded ambient noises to play while they slept. He tried anything to keep the sound of the walking dead out of their dreams.

  Without the news on TV, the Internet became a constant source of information and speculation. The major news sites were updated so frequently that information changed as soon as you read it. They nearly wore out the F5 key refreshing the pages.

  One site claimed the FEMA camps had fallen and that the President was dead. They talked of underground movements that had formed in Montana and Canada, but were hopeless in their headlines for America.

  Another reported the exact opposite. According to them, the Military had things under control and were regaining major cities in an effort to reestablish order. They spoke to many officials who claimed the President was feeling very healthy and would unveil his strategic plan soon.

  Reports of the military’s presence were updated constantly, with Internet posters tracking any movement near them. Alex and Morgan could hear the rattle of machine-gun fire and the occasional concussion of an explosion miles away. Jets flew over constantly, but the fighting was always in the distance.

  Both Alex and Morgan had sent out emails to everyone they knew, but had yet to get a reply. Morgan checked more often than Alex, sure that Christopher had brought his laptop with him.

  Even without a response, she refused to give up hope.

  On one random instance, Alex had somehow received a phone call. It was an automated message from Wal-Mart, letting him know he was late for his shift. Morgan had to restrain him from throwing the phone out the window.

  They spent time talking about their friends, which ones would have been at work, and which ones were at home. They both found themselves unable to comprehend how many people from their lives were most likely gone. They comforted each other with meaningless words of reassurance. It did not take them long to realize they were denying the truth. Their minds were unable to cope with the reality outside.

  After talking about death for so long they both reached for simpler subjects they could discuss and maybe laugh at together.

  They reached for any distraction.

  That particular morning, the weather had changed to a more seasonable temperature. It actually started to look like May outside. The green trees and lush grass were a sharp contrast to the death and destruction around them. It was like nature was ignoring the apocalypse.

  With the warmer weather, Alex needed to open the windows. As he started lifting the glass, the sounds of the city flooded into the apartment. He physically cringed at the low murmur of moans and the erratic sounds of violence that filled the air. The noise was only broken occasionally by a painful scream. But the screams came less often. Anyone who had survived that long, was most likely somewhere safe. Somewhere that could withstand the onslaught.

  “I want to watch this,” Morgan said, and clicked on a movie icon. The logo for “Venezuela Vacation” came onto the screen, accompanied by the theme music.

  “Yeah okay, it’s a funny movie,” Alex said, sitting down on the couch next to her.

  “This sucks.” Morgan sighed. “You’ve seen all these movies.”

  Alex felt incredibly sad as a thought dawned on him. Movies would no longer be the same. With the number of infected, it was likely that his favorite actors had been infected and killed. His favorite directors, too. Film could be a finite resource.

  “Do you think Britney Spears is infected?” Morgan asked, lighting one of the cigarette butts in the ashtray, obviously having a similar thought as Alex.

  Alex guiltily laughed. “What? I don’t know. She lives in like, a gated house. With security. She probably has a good chance.”

  “When this is over we should start a website with, like, an updated list of the celebrities that were infected.”

  Alex shook his head. “That is seriously gruesome.”

  Morgan acted dramatically apologetic and appalled at her own behavior, waving her hands in the air. “Oh my god, I’m sooo sorry! The world is infected with reanimated corpses who devour the flesh of the living, and my joke about dead celebrities went too far, huh?”

  Alex was laughing so hard he had to hold his stomach.

  “I’m sorry Alex, did my attempt to lighten the mood offend your delicate sensibilities?”

  “Okay, okay. I get it.” Alex laughed, holding his hand up in surrender.

  A sound dinged from his laptop, letting Alex know he had new mail. His laughter cut short, his eyes locked with Morgan’s and they both jumped forward to look at the laptop. His hand clicked the mail icon and it displayed the new message.

  To: Warriorpoet@hackmail.com

  From: Venisonman@worldmail.com

  Subject: Re: Anyone still alive?

  Alex! My neighbor let me use his computer. He has satellite. I can’t get my dial-up to work. Can you fix it? I was glad to hear from you. I’m still alive. Not a lot of people out here and I have a lot of guns. The people still breathing are more trouble than the ones who are dead. Ha ha. If you can make it here it is safer than the city. Keep in touch.

  Dad.

  Alex re-read the message, hoping he had read it right. He checked the time stamp to mak
e sure it had been sent today. His eyes began to well up with tears.

  Morgan leaned over and hugged him. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “My dad. I should have known he would survive.” Alex laughed through his tears. His father was an outdoorsman, living in a small town in Wisconsin. The old man had three cabinets full of guns and Alex knew his house would be well protected. His father would have no problem killing to defend his home. He felt a twinge of embarrassment when he remembered arguing with his father over gun laws.

  Alex looked over at his sword. He knew when the time came that he would hesitate. It had nothing to do with the laws the government had laid down. In his mind there was no denying that these people were already dead.

  “But they're still people,” he thought, “or at least look like them.”

  “No. They're just bodies,” he told himself. “Corpses.”

  Morgan set her hand on Alex’s shoulder, seeing his eyes wander off into his own thoughts. She leaned in and asked, “Do you want to go to him?”

  Alex was shook out of his trance and looked at Morgan. “In Wisconsin? Like, travel to Wisconsin? No.” He almost laughed at the idea. “Absolutely not.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, he’s your Dad.”

  “I’m sure,” Alex said. “My dad would rather me be alive than be in Wisconsin.” It made him feel safer, knowing someone he knew had survived. He was able to fall back into the defensive idea that all the horrible things he saw happening on the news were happening to other people. He paused, smirking. “Besides, I’m having too much fun with you.”

  As soon as the last word fell from his lips, the power blinked out in the apartment. The lights turned dark, the TV screen changed to black, and the music silenced.

  “Alex?” Morgan said randomly, unsure of what she was asking.