After the Bite

by Lovato, David

  “Scowling at Babies?” Eddie said. “That’s fucking stupid.”

  “Well, we agreed,” Sam said. The other four moaned in unison.

  “We can just change it,” Harry said.

  “Tell you what. We’ll all go home tonight, yeah? Anyone comes up with a better name by the time we practice tomorrow, we’ll use it. If no one has anything, we’ll forever be Scowling at Babies.”

  “Deal,” Eddie said. He grabbed his guitar, which was already in its case, and stood up. “I have to get home, though.”

  “Don’t forget to practice,” Sam said.

  “Why do I have to practice? I haven’t even left practice, yet.”

  “Practice anyway.”

  “We should all probably get going,” Wilder said. The others nodded.

  “Sam, can I talk to you for a sec?” Harry asked.

  “Sure.” The others left, but Sam stayed behind, and the two waited until they heard the front door close. “What is it, mate?”

  “It’s about Andrew,” Harry said. “He’s terrible. We have to get rid of him.”

  “He’s not that bad,” Sam said, his partly British accent seeping through.

  “He’s exactly that bad. He’s awful. I mean, we’re all awful, but he can’t even keep up. And he’s always un-tuned, or off key. Usually both. It’s throwing us all off. Even you.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, “but we’ve pretty much had every bassist in the county, and they’ve all quit. We need Andrew.”

  “For what?” Harry asked. Sam was startled by the sudden anger in his voice.

  “For our band.”

  “What band? Some stupid garage practice group with two songs and a lot of pissed-off neighbors? We need that?”

  “Harry, what are you saying?”

  “It’s over, Sam,” Harry said. “I know how much music means to you. It means a lot to all of us. But we’re no good. Before, we were at least no good together. With Andrew we’re four no good guys and a terrible bassist.”

  Sam sat for a while, not saying anything. Harry sighed.

  “Look, get rid of Andrew. We’ll look for a bassist, and if we find one that at least works, I’ll stick around. But if we can’t, I think it’s time for us to move on.”

  Sam said nothing, only stood up and headed for the door. He stopped before he left.

  “I’ll talk to Andrew tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” Harry said.

  “One day, we’ll make it,” Sam said. “We’ll tour in your van.” Harry smiled.

  “That thing’s a piece of crap.”

  “We’ll play in cities all over the country, right out the back of the van if we have to. It’ll be beautiful.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good night,” Sam said.

  “Night,” Harry said. Sam left the house.

  ****

  They met the next afternoon at the usual time. When Andrew showed up a half hour late, Harry’s eyes death-locked on Sam, who went over to him as Andrew started to set up his equipment. The two spoke quietly.

  “Are you going to talk to him?” Harry said.

  “Let’s just see how he does today, okay?” Sam said. Harry rolled his eyes.

  “It’s not like he’ll have suddenly gotten better overnight.”

  “Well, let’s just wait and see. I promise, if this goes badly, he’s out, and we’ll start looking for a replacement, yeah?”

  Harry sighed. “All right.”

  “You guys ready over there?” Wilder asked.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. He took his place at the mic, and practice began.

  As usual, they practiced the same two songs and minor pieces and fragments for several hours. They left the garage door open so that they wouldn’t die from the heat, and just about anyone who passed by cringed. Even the select few who pretended not to notice showed signs of distaste on their faces. Still they practiced until the sun was nearly gone. Finally, things began to quiet down, and Harry’s eyes locked on Sam once again. Sam’s shoulders dropped, he sighed, and then approached Andrew. The looks on Wilder’s and Eddie’s faces told him that they knew what was coming, and approved.

  “Andrew, there’s something we need to talk about,” Sam said.

  “What is it?”

  “Guys,” Wilder said, “looks like we have a fan.”

  Sam looked over Andrew’s shoulder into the driveway, where a woman was slowly walking across the cement toward the garage. She had no disapproving cringe or scowl. Her face was plain, except for her eyes, which gave off a sort of ‘nobody’s home’ look.

  “Hey, can we help you?” Eddie said. He turned to the others. “She’s probably just coming to complain.”

  “Yeah,” Harry said. Andrew turned back to Sam.

  “What were you saying?”

  “Andrew—” was all Sam was able to get out. The woman grabbed Andrew where he stood and sank her teeth into his neck. He made a gurgling sound as he pushed at the woman.

  The others quickly moved for their bandmate, unsure of what was going on.

  “Hey, what the fuck?” Eddie said. “Get off him!”

  Sam tried to pry the woman’s head from Andrew’s neck, but it only seemed to make things worse. Blood poured down Andrew’s front.

  “Call an ambulance!” Wilder said. Harry, who was all but trapped behind his drum set, went for the garage door. He opened it and saw his mother standing there.

  “Mom! We need help, this lady’s crazy!”

  Harry’s mother lunged at him, her eyes as vacant as those of the woman in the driveway. The two nearly fell down the stairs. Harry caught himself at the last minute, but his mother stumbled down the steps and into the drum kit, her face slamming against the crash cymbal.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” Harry said.

  As Harry went to help his mother up, the other three were still trying to remove the crazy woman from Andrew, who seemed to be losing consciousness. Unable to move her, Eddie let go of and headed up the stairs into Harry’s house to try the phone.

  Finally Wilder was able to pry the crazy woman from Andrew. Her head snapped back (taking a large chunk of Andrew’s skin with it) and she fell backward onto the pavement. Andrew fell, but Sam caught him and guided him more softly to the ground.

  “All the lines are busy!” Eddie said from the top of the stairs, with the phone to his ear. “I can’t even get through to 9-1-1!” He looked at Harry, who was helping his mother to her feet. She seemed incredibly dazed, then she noticed Harry and lunged again. “Guys, what the fuck is going on?”

  Sam looked at the woman on the ground. She lay on her back, empty eyes pointed at the sky, chewing on the shred of Andrew she had managed to take with her.

  Andrew’s eyes opened. Before Sam could congratulate him on coming awake, he wrapped his arms around Sam and tried to bite him. Sam managed to stop Andrew only centimeters away from teeth meeting skin.

  “Andrew, what the hell?” Sam said. “Cut it out!”

  “Mom, what’s wrong with you?” Harry said, tears in his eyes. She would lunge for him, miss by a lot, stand there for a moment, and then try again.

  “Harry… I don’t think that’s your mom anymore,” Eddie said.

  “What are you talking about?” Harry said. “Of course it’s my mom!” In his distraction, he hadn’t moved out of his mother’s path, and she pounced on top of him. The two fell over the drum kit, knocking over one of the toms as they crashed to the ground. Eddie leaped down the stairs to help.

  “Wilder, get him off of me!” Sam said. “He’s gone mad!”

  Wilder brought his steel-toed boot into Andrew’s head. He had no idea if it killed him or just knocked him out, but either way, Andrew hit the ground and didn’t get back up.

  Sam and Wilder looked toward the back of the garage in time to see Eddie raise a drum above his head and bring it down as hard as he could on top of Harry’s mother. The drum’s skin broke and the wood encased the woman’s head. She stopped attacking, stood up, and stumbled
around blindly before tripping over the drum set and falling down.

  “Guys, we have to get out of here,” Sam said. Eddie helped Harry up. Before any of them could even collect their thoughts, they were running out of the garage, across the front yard. As they piled into Harry’s van, they could hear screams and sirens. Sam climbed into the passenger seat, but Harry was right behind him, so he scooted into the driver’s seat while Harry handed him the keys.

  The front seats were the only ones with windows. Sam and Harry did their best to ignore the terrible scenery as the van sped down the street.

  ****

  The van rested by the side of a road lining the wooded at the outskirts of town. Its passengers had spent the last few hours attempting to reach loved ones by cell phone and listening to the radio for updates. Then the cell phones and radio stopped working, and everything was quiet. Every now and then a car passed, but otherwise the world may have been empty.

  “So… what now?” Wilder said, finally breaking the silence. He didn’t want to appear insensitive; at 18 he was the oldest of the group, and the only one who didn’t live at home. His family was in another state, and he hadn’t been able to reach them. Eddie had been unable to contact anyone as well, and Harry’s mother had clearly fallen victim to whatever was going on. Wilder felt like Sam had it the worst, he had gotten hold of his mother only to hear screams and snarls over the phone before it disconnected, leaving imagination to run wild.

  “Can we stop by my place?” Eddie said. “See if anyone’s there?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. He started the van, and they rode in silence.

  Weaving through the streets was difficult. There were wrecks everywhere, as well as people and what used to be people rushing about. Finally the van turned onto Eddie’s street, and Eddie’s eyes widened with horror before they even pulled in front of the house, which was roaring in flames. A support beam collapsed and fell into the hot white flame like liquid.

  “Let me out,” Eddie said, trying the van’s door. The child locks prevented it from opening.

  “Eddie,” Wilder said, “I don’t want to sound rude, but you know there’s no chance anyone’s… in there, right?”

  “I have to check!” Eddie said. He tried the handle again, fiercely jiggled it back and forth, trying to get out.

  “Eddie, I can’t let you out, man,” Sam said. He stared straight ahead, not looking at the flaming house.

  “Let me out!” Eddie slammed his fist into the door of the van several times before burying his head in his arms, sobbing loudly. Sam noticed a few people starting to walk slowly toward the van. He looked at Eddie in the rearview, still sobbing, not looking up, accepting but not wanting to accept what was going on. Sam started the van and drove off, running over one of the creatures in his path to a quieter part of town.

  ****

  They spent the night in the van, by the side of the same road near the woods. It was all they could think to do. When morning came and they woke up and realized that the events of the previous day had not been a dream, they waited in the van, thinking about what to do.

  “We need food,” Harry said, the first time he’d spoken since the garage the day before.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “We’ll go to the gas station on the edge of town. See if we can find anything.

  The van began moving, and on the way, they said little.

  The streets were a bit more vacant, but the damage was clear. There were more bodies lying around, but the van kept moving and could stand up to the slowly moving creatures when it had to. Finally, they reached the gas station.

  The front doors had been smashed in, and a body lay halfway out of one of them, propped on the jagged glass, blood now dry all around it. Even from the van, they could see that the cash register had been emptied, but the shelves were still heartily stocked.

  “I’ll grab some food,” Sam said. “Can you guys fill up the van? We’re running low.”

  “Yeah,” Harry said, unbuckling himself. “I’ll do it. Try to hurry, okay?”

  “Yeah.” The two left the van, closing the doors behind them, and split up.

  The station was empty, which made things easy for Sam. He filled several bags with various foods, mostly junk, but a few pre-made sandwiches as well. He checked behind the counter and saw the body of one of the clerks, but also found a shotgun mounted below it. He took it as well as the lone box of ammunition and headed back to the van. Harry was filling it up, and one of the creatures was slowly making its way toward him.

  “Hurry up, Harry!” Sam said.

  “I’m only halfway!”

  Sam opened the side of the van and handed the food to Eddie, then closed the door, checked the shotgun to see if it was loaded, and aimed at the approaching thing.

  “Don’t come any closer!” Sam said. If the thing that used to be a woman had heard him, it showed no sign. Sam squeezed the trigger, and a loud shot rang out as the gun recoiled in his hands. A big bloody mess appeared on the woman’s midsection, and she dropped to the ground and moved no more.

  “Where’d you get that?” Harry asked.

  “It was behind the counter. I figured we could use it. There isn’t much ammo, though.”

  “Hopefully it’ll be enough to get us by. Wherever we end up staying, anyway.”

  Sam stopped for a moment. He hadn’t even begun to think about what the four were going to do, or where they would go. By now their homes were little more than bad memories, and they had no safe haven, nothing but each other and the van. Sam said nothing about it, but this got the gears in his head moving, and he began to think about something he wasn’t sure would work or go over with the others well. He decided he would wait for the appropriate time to present it to them, but even now he felt joy, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  ****

  When the van came to rest near the woods again, Eddie said, “Well, what now?”

  “Guys,” Sam said, “I think it’s time for us to tour.” The others looked at each other, then back at him.

  “Are you insane?” Wilder said.

  “Think about it. There’s nothing left for us. It’s just the four of us and this van.”

  “This can’t last forever,” Eddie said. “Whatever’s going on, I mean.” Harry remained quiet and stared at the floor.

  “You saw what happened,” Sam said. “What people have become. Look around, Ed. Do you see any police? Any military? Does it look like things are getting better?”

  Eddie didn’t reply.

  “Yeah, there are no police, and no soldiers,” Wilder said. “So let’s go out, make a bunch of noise, draw those… things to us with loud music, and get eaten. Sounds like a great plan.”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Harry said. Even Sam was shocked.

  “You can’t be serious!” Eddie said.

  “Why did we start making music?” Harry asked. Eddie and Wilder exchanged glances. “Because we loved doing it. All of us, we’ve always said that music was our lives.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Every problem we’ve ever had, every heartbreak, through anger or happiness, music has been there for us. For a lot of people. What else do we have? What else does anyone have?”

  Sam began to smile.

  “People need music now more than ever,” Harry said. “And there isn’t going to be anyone willing to bring it to them. We may not be the best, but we might be the last. We should do it.”

  Wilder looked up, sighed, and closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “I’m in.”

  “Eddie?” Sam said.

  “Well,” Eddie said. “You guys never could pace yourselves out of a cardboard box without me.”

  Sam laughed. “Then it’s settled. We’re going on a tour.”

  “We need something first,” Harry said.

  ****

  The van rested outside of Harry’s house. The garage door was still wide open, but it was too dark to see into it. Besides a small trail of long-dried blood curving
down the driveway, the four couldn’t see anything.

  “You sure this is a good idea?” Wilder said.

  “We can’t tour without instruments,” Sam replied.

  “Yeah… but can’t we get them from somewhere else? I mean, Harry’s going to need some new drums anyway.”

  “This will probably be easier, actually. We know exactly where they are, exactly what we want. We can go shopping later.”

  “All right,” Eddie said. “Is everyone ready?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “Harry, you should probably stay here.”

  “Gladly,” Harry said. “I’ll wait in the driver’s seat so we can get out as quickly as possible.”

  “Good plan,” Sam said. Everyone shifted around, Sam took the shotgun, and the three gathered by the back door of the van.

  “Ready,” Wilder said, “…go!” The back door opened and the teens rushed out. Their eyes took a moment to adjust to the sun, and then they headed for the garage. Sam shot a nearby zombie, which fell to the ground, and then they were at the driveway. Harry started the car and backed up toward the garage.

  “Careful, we don’t know what’s in there!” Eddie said. Sam entered the garage first. His eyes took another moment to adjust to the darkness, and then he looked around.

  Harry’s mother was nowhere in sight, but Andrew stood in the middle of the room, staring at the wall.

  “Sorry, mate,” Sam said. He shot Andrew in the back, and Andrew fell to the ground.

  They took only a few minutes to load everything into the back of the van, with the drums taking the longest. They left the ones that had broken, and when everything was loaded up, they climbed into the van, closed the doors, and drove away.

  ****

  “Guys,” Sam said, “that was badass.”

  “Yeah, well, we still have a lot to figure out,” Wilder said. The van was cramped with instruments and equipment, the four barely fit into it.

  “Yeah,” Eddie said. “Where the hell do we play a show? And how do we get people to show up?”

  “And how do we keep those things from getting in?”