After Everything Else (Book 3): Creeper Revelation

by Brett D. Houser

  She made her way up the stairs, each metal step a challenge in maintaining silence. Honey’s toenails clicked on the metal, but Marilyn didn’t want to leave her alone. Marilyn didn’t want to be alone against the people ahead. She knew she and Honey had one advantage. They knew the others were there, and the other people probably thought they were alone. Marilyn didn’t plan to lose that advantage until she was ready. Her heart raced and she tried to control her breathing. Honey’s panting had stopped. Somehow the dog knew they were stalking. At the top of the stairs was another door, wide open onto a hallway. This hallway was even more bullet scarred than the one below. Brass cartridges littered the floor, although there didn’t appear to be any blood or bodies up here, just mindless shooting. A metal door at the end of the hall seemed to have taken most of the abuse. Shiny indentations covered the surface, telling the story of round after round hurled at the door and surrounding framework. Marilyn stepped close. The door was locked. Padlocks were in place, as was a metal crossbar. She wondered what lay beyond, what was dangerous enough to warrant that kind of security. And then the door shook and the metallic ringing came again, followed by the muttering. This time Marilyn could make it out. Cursing, low and guttural. Words Marilyn knew but had never used. She was both hopeful and terrified. Someone on the other side was alive, but who?

  She stepped to the door, careful not to kick any of the loose cartridges on the floor. As she grew closer, she heard hoarse breathing, then the sound of metal on metal again, loud in the narrow corridor. The voice doing the cursing was male, but a new voice joined in: a woman’s voice, calming, low, indistinct. Closer yet and she could make out whispered words.

  “It’s never going to work, Terry. There is no way we’re getting out of here. We need something heavier, and even then I don’t think we can break those welds. Not in a lifetime of hitting this thing.” The man’s voice.

  “Artie, what you want to do? You want to lay down and die with the rest of them back there? Because that’s what happens. If you’re not trying, you’re dying. And don’t call me Terry. It’s Theresa. You want me to hold and you hit?” The woman’s voice.

  Marilyn stepped even closer. These people were alive and healthy. They had to be immune, too. She wondered if Sonya and Chase were with them, and quickly decided they weren’t. If Sonya and Chase were in there, Chase would be up front, working on finding a way out with them.

  “Hello?” Marilyn said quietly.

  “Who was that?” Artie, the man, said. “Is someone else up?”

  “Artie, you’re a fool. That came from the other side of the door.” Tense whispers, much quieter than before. Marilyn couldn’t make out the words.

  “Artie, Theresa?” she called. “Are you guys immune?”

  “Yeah,” came Theresa’s voice. “So are you from the sound of it. What are you doing out there?”

  “Looking for my friends. Chase and Sonya,” Marilyn said. “Have you seen them?”

  “Yes, we have.” The voice was Artie’s. “Let us out and we’ll take you to them.”

  “Artie, don’t be lying.” Theresa again. “What’s your name?”

  “Marilyn. Have you seen them?”

  “We have seen them. They were taken just a little before all hell broke loose. We don’t know where they are, but we would be happy to help you look. We would appreciate you let us out, though.”

  “How many in there?” Marilyn asked. She knew she was going to let them out, but she still didn’t trust quite so easily. How did she know they wouldn’t just take her rifle and run off? How did she know anything about them?

  “Nineteen. I can’t speak for all of us helping you, but I will. Artie probably will, and a couple more. The rest’ll barely be able to help themselves, if they even do that.” There was silence as Marilyn thought. “How many of your out there? You going to let us out?”

  “Just me. And Honey, my dog. And yes, I’ll get your out of there. Just let me get these locks.” She studied them. They were surprisingly small, just padlocks probably meant for lockers. They didn’t have to be much, though. The cross-bar would have held the door against their efforts. She slammed the locks with the butt of the rifle. She got the first one on the first try. The second took two tries. She lifted the crossbar and opened the door, stepping back, holding the rifle. She had no idea what to expect, but when Artie and Theresa were revealed, she almost laughed, mostly from nervous tension but also at their appearance.

  Artie was nothing like his voice. His voice was deep, guttural. Artie himself was a thin man, several inches shorter than Marilyn with a bad case of bed head, a wispy beard, and wearing glasses. Theresa was a short black woman, as short as Sonya. They were dressed in comically large yellow sweatsuits and they both wore hopeful smiles. There was worry and concern, but some relief as well. “Thank you, Marilyn,” Theresa said. “If we hadn’t gotten out, things could have gotten bad.”

  Artie smiled, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “Real bad. Donner party bad. Soccer team plane crash bad. But thirst probably would have got us before I had to take a bite out of anyone.”

  As Marilyn watched, heads began poking out of doorways behind Artie and Theresa. She quickly counted ten heads. “There are nineteen of you? Why aren’t they all out here?”

  “We have a few who have just given up. Won’t get out of bed. Friends died, family died, and they decided life’s not worth living,” Theresa said. She turned around, waved everyone to her. Two stepped forward immediately, a girl who looked to be about the same age as Sonya and a man who was probably in his mid-twenties. The rest shuffled forward reluctantly. “Okay, everybody. Time to do your business or get off the pot. Marilyn here has let us out. She wants some help looking for Chase and Marilyn. I told her I would. Artie’s in. Rest of you can help if you want, or just go on ahead and leave. Like they used to say at the clubs, you don’t have to go home but you sure as hell can’t stay here. I don’t know where all them soldiers got to, but pretty soon I bet at least some of ‘em are going to be up and about and you don’t want to be here then.” She turned to look at Marilyn. “What’s it like outside? Subjects everywhere?”

  Marilyn shook her head. “Clear up top, at least for a little while. Soldiers kept the dead killed back, and there’s a fence.” She looked at the group. “I have an RV parked up there. My thought is to take it back up to where there’s a group of us up in Alabama. A safe camp. You’re welcome to come with me. But I’m not leaving until I find Chase and Sonya.”

  “We’ll help you find ‘em,” Theresa said. “Those of you want to help look, come on with us. Those that don’t, make your own way up top. Anyone wants to stay here and die, let ‘em. We don’t have any room to be carrying anybody. Someone doesn’t want to come, leave ‘em.” She stared at the group. The girl and the man who had caught Marilyn’s eye earlier stepped forward. They both said they would help look. With blond hair and similar builds, they looked enough alike to be brother and sister. Two more from the group came forward, a man and a woman. The man looked to be in his early thirties, and the woman in her forties, maybe, or possibly older. The rest stood back, looking everywhere except at Marilyn and Theresa.

  “Okay,” Theresa said. “Todd, Tina, Greg, Donna, you’ll come with us. Here.” She bent over, picked up what looked like legs that had been broken off a table or chair. They were battered and dented. Marilyn realized these were what they had been trying to get out with. “Carry these. The rest of you, get what you want to take with you. I know we ain’t got much. Take what you can. Meet us up top, I hope. If we’re not there in two hours, go on without us. If you want, go on without us anyway, but leave the RV.” She turned abruptly back to Marilyn. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Theresa set off with a purposeful stride down the hallway. When she reached the top of the stairs, she stopped. She gestured Marilyn to come near and whispered to her, “That seems to work best with that bunch. Tell ‘em what you want done and walk away. Give ‘em a chance to argue and discuss and the
y’ll talk themselves out of doing it. I think they were mostly good people before all this, but they’re sheep. Some of ‘em might make it, though.” She stopped and looked down the stairway. “You, uh, didn’t see anyone coming in?”

  Marilyn shook her head. “There’s some soldiers dead. Shot. I guess by other soldiers. Didn’t see anyone alive. Didn’t see any creepers, either. I don’t think there was time for them to die and get up. Honey’s real good about letting me know about Creepers.” At the sound of her name, the dog walked over to Marilyn and leaned against her leg.

  Theresa gave her a strange look. “Creepers, huh? Silly sounding name for such a serious mess. Soldiers called ‘em Subjects. When they first started showing up, news people called ‘em infected corpses. Before I was picked up by the Collectors group I was with called ‘em risers. I guess creepers works just as well.” She looked down at Honey. “That dog sure is well-behaved. Did you train her?”

  Marilyn shook her head. “Honey’s just a good dog. Smart.”

  “Good,” Theresa said. “We can use all the smart we can get.” She started down the steps. Marilyn followed closely with Honey, Artie came next and the other four behind him. The sound of their movement bothered Marilyn. She had lost the element of surprise, but they did have numbers now. And if no one had come after the banging around on the door, there probably wasn’t anyone left to be worried about anyway.

  At the foot of the stairs, they stood in a group looking into the bunk room, all of them except Artie skittishly ignoring the corpses in the vestibule. He stood over them, looking down, a mixture of horror and anger on his face. “Tina, Todd, Greg, Donna, spread out in here. See if we can find better weapons.” As they scattered into the room, Theresa grabbed Marilyn’s arm. “Chase and Sonya were taken down to the exam rooms. At least, that’s my best guess. That’s down there.” She pointed at a door under the stairs. “You prepared for anything? Because there’s no guarantee they’re alive. Those soldiers flat freaked out. Screaming about infection, shooting the place up. At least one of them stood and fired down our hallway, shot after shot after shot. We hid back in the rooms. We thought we were going to be pulled out of our rooms and killed. They were mad at us for not being sick, for not getting infected. Blamed us in some way, I guess. Fever had ‘em, or they might have thought of unlocking the door. Then they just quit. Walked off.”

  “You think Chase and Sonya are dead?” Marilyn asked. Theresa nodded, studying Marilyn’s face. “They might be,” Marilyn said, her voice breaking, “but if there’s any way to be alive, Chase found it. He’s smart. And Sonya’s a survivor.”

  “Ain’t we all?” Theresa asked. “I hope they’re alive, too. I didn’t know ‘em long, but I liked them. Let’s go find out.”

  The search turned up two pistols and a rifle. Todd had gone into the showers and bathroom area at the back. He said there were five soldiers back there in the shower, all dead. He didn’t say how. Marilyn watched him completely reload one of the pistols from a box of ammo they had found in a locker and made a guess as to how the soldiers had died. She watched Theresa talking to the group. She wondered how she would react if they found Chase and Sonya dead down there, and then tried to push a vision of both of lying pale and unmoving in each other’s arms out of her mind. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.” She led the way down the stairs.

  Chapter 33 – Sonya

  Sonya had to fight to keep herself from going to her father and releasing him from his restraints. After so much time, after so much that had happened, after so much worrying, fear, and heartache to be this close to him and not throw her arms around him and feel his arms around her was almost as bad as not finding him at all. Almost. Over the past months she had imagined the reunion, but it had been nothing like this. As soon as the door closed behind Chase, the thing had opened her father’s eyes. “Let me up, baby. Let me up and we’ll get out of here.” Her father’s voice. Her father’s inflection. But those white eyes.

  “I don’t think so, Dad. I think we’re going to wait a while. Then I’ll let you up.” Sonya couldn’t keep her voice from shaking.

  Her father’s face changed. “You let me up now, you worthless little bitch. I’m your father and you’ll do as you are told!”

  And Sonya knew. This was not her father. Her father had never talked to her like this. He had been distant at times. Sometimes she had wanted him to get this angry, to show some emotion. He loved her, she knew, and he cared for her, but since her mother’s death there had been some emotional component missing, some fire. And since her mother’s death, he had never spoken to her in anger. Never threatened punishment, even when she felt like she needed it, even when she wanted it just to know that he cared enough to tell her no.

  “Dad, do you remember when I missed school that entire week in seventh grade? You were out on the road, just started driving.” The thing wearing her father’s face still glared at her, but she could see furrows developing in the forehead. Concern, confusion: a look she had put on his face many times. She was reaching him, despite the poisons in his bloodstream. “While you were gone, I invited Montana over. We skipped school together. She brought a pack of cigarettes and half of a bottle of peppermint schnapps she had found under the seat in her dad’s car.”

  For a moment, the thing on the table was her father. The concern eclipsed the earlier look of anger, and his eyes seemed to clear a little. Or maybe it was her imagination. Then her father’s body shook all over, muscles twitching and popping, and the thing was back, glaring at her. “You let me up right now. You and that boy will let me up and I’ll make sure you act like a young lady is supposed to.”

  “That was Monday,” Sonya continued. “I didn’t even try to inhale on the first few cigarettes. I pretended I was, but it made me cough. Montana did, though. She told me she started smoking when she was ten. Then she saw I was faking and made fun of me. So I started inhaling. It hurt at first, and I coughed a lot. Montana mixed up some of the schnapps and some Sprite in a glass, and I drank that to help me not cough.”

  The thing on the table lay back, features smoothing out. Sonya kept talking, hoping Chase would come back soon. She felt a little hope. Her father was in there. She would bring him back. “It was just a little bottle of schnapps, but there was enough for both of us to have two glasses of Sprite and schnapps, and my head started swimming. Everything was really funny for a while, and we kept smoking cigarettes. Then I got real tired. I sat down on the kitchen floor, and then I laid down.” Sonya closed her eyes, remembering.

  “Montana kept telling me to get up, pulling at my arms and stuff. Then I got real dizzy and threw up all over the floor. I had Cheerios for breakfast, and that’s all that came up, mixed with the schnapps and Sprite. Montana got real grossed out, called me a baby, and left me laying there. I don’t know where she went. I fell asleep, and I woke up in my own vomit.” Sonya laughed, but she felt the tears at the corners of her eyes. “My mouth tasted terrible, the smell was terrible. Rotten milk and peppermint. It was on my clothes, on the floor, in my hair. I started crying, Daddy. I knew you’d be so disappointed in me. You left me alone, told me I had to be a big girl and take care of myself. You told me I had to make good decisions.” She started to laugh again, but it turned into a sob. “Montana wasn’t a good decision, was she? I didn’t go back to school all that week. I know they called you, and I told you I had the flu, but it wasn’t. I didn’t feel sick the next day. I cleaned up my mess, and I cleaned up myself. But when I went back to school the next week, Montana had told everyone what happened. Nobody really made fun of me to my face. They just wouldn’t sit next to me at lunch or talk to me between classes. No one wanted to be my partner when the teachers would say to pair up. I decided then maybe I didn’t need friends.”

  In the hallway, Sonya could hear Chase dragging something heavy and metal across the rough floor. She thought she should get up and go see, go help. “You know what, Daddy?” She looked at the still form on the table. “I was wrong.
I did need friends, but I just didn’t know it. I’ve got good friends now. I’ve got Chase. I’ve got Marilyn. They have helped me so much. There’s more, too. There’s people back at the camp. I think they’re good people too, and some of them will be real good friends to have.” She stood up. “But I still need you, too, Daddy. I need you to beat this thing. Please, Daddy. I’m not ready to lose you, too.” Her father didn’t move. She watched his chest slowly move up and down with each breath. She was afraid to look at his face, afraid of seeing those white eyes glaring back at her, watching her cry. When she finally looked, the eyes were still closed. But traces of tears ran down his cheeks.

  Chapter 34 – Chase

  Sonya seemed content to stay in the room, but Chase’s nerves were bare wires, sparking and snapping. He paced the hall incessantly after trying briefly to sit with Sonya. He couldn’t sit, and she didn’t seem to necessarily want him sitting with her. She talked to her father, telling him stories, reminding him of things they had done together. Occasionally she would look at Chase with an embarrassed grin when she talked about herself when she was small. Sometimes she tried to get her father to drink water. Sometimes he did. Chase could tell the effects of the toxins from the spores were decreasing. His skin color was returning to normal, and his pupils had returned, black spots against the white. Chase felt hope and relief. The time would come when they would have to go, and if they didn’t have to carry him, worry about him, things would go much better.