After Everything Else (Book 1): Creeper Rise

by Brett D. Houser

  He had only slept a short time. When he woke he talked about the guys on the football team, describing each of his linemen, his receivers, his running backs. He talked about his teachers. For a long time, he talked about what he had been planning to do when he graduated. He was going to join the military so he could get away from his parents and never have to rely on them again. His mostly one-sided conversation had been very random. She understood that as much as she had wanted to hear a voice, he had wanted to talk.

  She decided she had never known anyone like Chase. He was a strange mixture of self-doubt and self-confidence. He moved easily, and seemed physically gifted, he spoke well and had an interesting ways of saying things, but she also sensed some level of discomfort that he felt with himself. It was like he was playing a role and wasn’t always sure what the next move or line was supposed to be. He was so different from the people she had hung out with at school. Her few friends had been big seething vats of self-doubt with very little confidence and a lot of disdain for anything that scared them which was almost everything.

  They switched drivers late in the afternoon. He drove carefully, much more slowly than she did. After night fell, Chase said he would continue to drive until he was tired. Sonya stayed awake as long as she could, but then they reached a long stretch of highway with no cars. Chase drove slowly due to the possibility of cars, deer, and other things being in the road, but he was able to maintain a steady speed for a while and not have to swerve. Sonya was able to fall into a trance-like doze that didn’t seem like sleep, but in that state, she dreamed.

  In Sonya’s dream, she was flying. She wasn’t flying in a plane (something she had never done) or flying under her own power. She wasn’t even sure she had a body. She felt like she was just an observer, a moving eye, soaring across the landscape. She felt like maybe she was a spy satellite, or was seeing what a very good spy satellite would see if it could move over the face of the Earth at a couple of hundred feet.

  She moved through a night sky over a silver and black expanse. She sensed rather than saw a full moon in the sky above her. Everywhere she looked, the dead walked. She had never actually thought of them like that. In the cities, the streets were full of the dead, all moving around, white eyes wide in the moonlight, black mouths open in silent screams.

  In the countryside, the dead walked the roads, moving toward the cities, moving toward buildings and streets and places where the people had gathered and built towns. She sensed the dead, beyond just seeing them. She felt them, like holes in existence where logic had disappeared. But she also felt the living. Here and there, locked behind doors in isolated buildings, the living. Singles, huddled and praying, or frozen in despair, or full of fear and crying out. She sensed small groups, strangers to each other, forming for protection, forming for comfort against the dead, against the horror, against the pain of loss of loved ones, against the pain of everything. And it was this horror of the dead and this pain of the living that caused her to gasp herself awake, and sit shuddering, her knees pressed against her chest, her arms wrapped around her shins, her forehead pressed against her knees, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

  The Suburban was not moving. Chase leaned toward her, reaching out. He put one hand on the back of her head, rubbing and lightly squeezing her neck, placed the other on the hand nearest him. She felt his warm reassuring grip, but more than that she felt the tenderness of the hand on her neck, just like her father’s hand at her mother’s funeral when she had been wracked with grief and could hardly get her breath. Chase’s touch pulled her back into herself, back to the reality of the Suburban, back to the smallness of her life, her mission. That was all she could deal with now. She didn’t want more.

  “Sonya, what is it?” The sound of concern in Chase’s voice was real. Sonya wanted to respond by telling him everything, by letting everything out at once, but she didn’t know how.

  “Bad dream,” was all she said. She forced herself to relax, and without trying to seem obvious about pulling away, shook Chase’s hands off as she stretched and faked a yawn. “What time is it?”

  Chase turned the key until the dash display lit up. “Four-thirty. Still a few more hours. I stopped here because I hadn’t seen a creeper in a long while. We seem to be out in the middle of nowhere.” He turned the key back to the off position, and darkness filled the Suburban again.

  Sonya looked out the windows, but it was pitch black outside. “Why is it so dark?”

  “Trees. We’re in some part of the Mark Twain National Forest. We passed a sign a while back.” Chase offered Sonya a bottle of water. It was warm but welcome.

  Sonya tried to locate Chase’s eyes in the darkness. “Have you been sleeping?”

  She sensed Chase shaking his head. “No, I tried, but I couldn’t. My eyes were so tired I had to stop about thirty minutes ago, but since then my mind has just been racing. We’ve got to get to Florida, and we can’t do it on the interstates. We need to take the best back-roads we can. You know, this would have been easier if we had a computer or GPS, but I bet the internet is down, too. So we need a map. I can get us down close to Memphis, but after that, I’m not sure. We’ll stop at a gas station somewhere and see if we can find one.” He paused. “We need some sort of camping gear, too. We could use a propane stove. Even just a burner for boiling water. There’s a lot of stuff we need, or could use. I don’t want to go to a big store for that kind of stuff. I was thinking maybe an Army surplus place or something like that. Sometimes you see them along highways like this.” He paused again. “And, well, weapons.”

  Sonya was surprised. “Weapons?” She was glad for the darkness because she was sure her face was showing the shock she felt. “Have you seen how the creepers react to being run over by a car? Nothing. Nada. Oh, it might slow them down, but it doesn’t stop them. Exactly what kind of weapon are you talking about?”

  “Guns.” He sounded a little defensive. “You know, I’ve heard people talk about guns, and something called ‘knock-down power.’ It couldn’t hurt to have some way to slow them down if we were to be caught on foot. Just to give us enough time to get away. And, yeah, I’ve seen the ones I ran over. They stop moving when their heads are run over. A good head shot would probably stop them, too.”

  Sonya saw the logic in this, but she wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of shooting them. One part of her mind knew that they weren’t really people anymore, but if she had to purposefully shoot one, she thought it wouldn’t make a difference what her rational mind said. Emotionally, she knew she would have a hard time.

  “Well…okay. We keep an eye out for weapons. But a map is more important. And if we see a chance to get some stuff so we don’t have to try to live on beef jerky and Pringles, I’ll definitely be happy.” She yawned, this time for real. “Listen, I’m going to try to sleep some more. You should, too. Or just keep thinking. You seem to be doing okay at that too, mostly.”

  Chapter 9 – Marilyn

  Marilyn felt a surge of fear. She turned to run, hearing the unsteady footsteps behind her, fearing pale hands touching her. But as she crossed the threshold, Honey retreating before her in confusion, she heard a whisper behind her.

  “Mare, is that really you?”

  She froze, and slowly she turned. Although he was white as a sheet and appeared to have lost weight, Seth otherwise looked like the same boy she had babysat. His eyes were not white, and his mouth was not black.

  “Oh, Seth, honey….” She stepped toward him and he started to cry.

  “You’re not like them,” he said. “Oh Mare, I’m having a nightmare and I can’t wake up.” She climbed the steps to meet him, and he fell into her arms, sobbing. She stood there holding him until he calmed a little. When she pulled back from him, she saw his eyes were closed.

  “Seth?” She freed one arm and felt his cheek. He was feverish. He didn’t respond to her, so she picked him up holding his head on her shoulder.

  He weighed next to nothing. She carried him to his be
droom where he had built a tent using his bedspread, the foot of his bed, and the chair from his desk. She put him on the bed, pulled the bedspread loose from its moorings, and then covered the small body. She studied him. He was wearing a very dirty dress shirt and slacks. She had seen scrapes and scratches on his arms, and he had clumsily wrapped gauze and tape around one of his hands. She carefully unwrapped the tape and peeled back the gauze, which stuck slightly to what appeared to be a pretty deep wound. She couldn’t tell what had caused it. It was swollen and discolored. His breathing was ragged. She thought he might have an infection. She sat down beside his bed, reached out and held his uninjured hand. She would get up in a moment to see if there were any antibiotics in the house, or some sort of antibiotic cream. She thought the least she could do was clean the wound with peroxide and properly dress it. She also thought about seeing what there was downstairs to fix for him. So thinking, she rested her head on the edge of the bed and fell asleep.

  When Marilyn woke, Honey was lying beside her. The dog was staring at her. Marilyn raised her head and Honey sat up. Marilyn turned to look at Seth, and he was staring at Honey with wide eyes.

  “You got a dog, Mare.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah, Seth, I guess I do.” She reached out and scratched Honey behind the ear. “Her name is Honey. She adopted me. Do you want to pet her?”

  Seth reached out a tentative hand and Honey licked it, and then backed up a little, looking puzzled. She began to whine. Seth looked disappointed. “Your dog doesn’t like me, Mare.”

  “Oh, Seth. She’s probably just hungry. How about you? Are you hungry.”

  Seth thought about it. “No, not really. But I am thirsty. I want some Kool-Aid.”

  Marilyn went downstairs, and Honey followed. When she passed the front door, she noticed it was getting darker, so she closed the front door and locked it. She found a pitcher in a cabinet and a packet of cherry Kool-Aid in the pantry. She mixed in two cups of sugar. She tasted it, and decided she didn’t want any of the warm, sickly-sweet liquid. Marilyn drank a glass of water and filled a bowl, placing it on the floor for Honey. She decided she would take the entire pitcher upstairs and grabbed a glass for Seth. When she started up the stairs, Honey stayed at the bottom. “Come on, Honey.” Honey wagged her tail, but instead of following, she lay down against the door and curled up, nose to tail. Marilyn shrugged and continued up the stairs.

  In Seth’s room, she poured the glass half full of Kool-Aid and handed it to him. He drank greedily. She poured him a second glass, and went in search of medical supplies. She located the gauze and tape on the floor next to an open closet in the master bath. On a shelf midway up, she found peroxide and a tube of Neosporin. Feeling strangely invasive, she searched the medicine cabinet over the sink and found a bottle of Keflex. She knew that was an antibiotic, but it was an adult dose. She broke a tablet in half, and carried it back to Seth’s bedroom. He swallowed the Keflex with a swallow of Kool-Aid and a pained expression. She sat down next to him on the bed. He lay back as she tended to his hand.

  “Seth, where is everybody?” She asked the question gently. She was afraid he might go into hysterics again.

  “They all went to church.” He said this in a strangely hushed voice, and when she looked up at him, his face was even paler and his eyes, although sunken with dark black circles under them, seemed to take up half of his face.

  “Oh. Didn’t they take you with them?” She looked back down at his hand where she was applying tape carefully, trying not to press on the wound.

  “I went with them. I didn’t want to. Oh, Mare, I really didn’t want to.”

  She could tell he was on the edge of tears and his voice was full of fear, but she needed to know. She reached for his undamaged hand, and he gripped back, hard, almost painfully. “Why not, Seth? You like church.”

  “Well, first we were going to go to Daddy’s hunting cabin, the one way out in the woods. Mama and Daddy kept talking about how crazy things were. Then the power went out. Daddy started loading up his truck, and Mommy started loading up the car and packing the coolers and stuff.” He sniffled. Talking about the details seemed to calm him down. “Then Mama said she had a headache and needed to lay down. I went in and laid down with her, even though I was okay. Daddy kept packing, but then pretty soon he came in, too. His eyes were kind of funny looking, like he just woke up. He told Mama that we needed to go to church. She said okay. I went to go put on my good clothes, because we were going to church, but they didn’t. That was weird, Mare. Mama had on her sweats and a t-shirt.” His forehead was wrinkled in concentration. “They almost left me, Mare. I hurried and put on my clothes, and just got in the car before Daddy started it up and took off. I had to put on my shoes in the car.” He coughed a little, and she thought that maybe he was sicker than she thought. It could be more than just an infection.

  “Then what happened, Seth?”

  “Everybody was there, Mare. I mean everybody. Even the ones you only see on Easter. And everybody was all so quiet. Mama and Daddy just went and sat down in the pew. And everybody else did, too. Mare, I kept waiting for somebody to get up and start preaching or talking or something, but everybody just sat there. Even the kids.” Seth was suddenly almost in tears. “Mare, I got up and went over to talk to Ryan. Mama and Daddy didn’t say I couldn’t, and didn’t say anything when I got up, and when I got over to Ryan, he wouldn’t even look at me when I was talking to him.” And then Seth was crying.

  “Mare, I think almost everybody was sick or something. I could smell it. They all smelled like old hay in a barn. And some of them started going to sleep. Mama and Daddy went to sleep. And some of them fell in the floor and started pitching fits.”

  Instinctively, Marilyn corrected him, “Don’t say that, Seth. That’s not nice.”

  “Well, I don’t know how else to say it!” He was angry suddenly. Marilyn pushed his hair back to from his forehead and made shushing noises.

  “Say ‘having seizures.’ Go on, Seth. What happened next?”

  “Well, not everybody was sick. Mrs. Perkins wasn’t sick. She was sitting with her friend Mrs. Banner. Mrs. Banner went to sleep, and Mrs. Perkins got up and asked who wasn’t sick. I told her I wasn’t, and there were a couple of other people. The grown-ups that weren’t sick started trying to help everybody else. I went and got Mama and Daddy some water and some wet paper towels and tried to wake them up, but they just kept sleeping. They wouldn’t wake up, Mare.” He yawned suddenly, a great big yawn. Marilyn thought she should let him sleep, but she wanted to hear more, to try to figure out more.

  “Were my mom and dad there, Seth?”

  Seth nodded. “Your mama and daddy were there. Your mama was sick, but your daddy wasn’t. He was one of them trying to help people, but he kept coming back to your mama.”

  “Then what happened?” Seth yawned again. He started to doze, but she shook him awake.

  “Then everybody started dying.” Marilyn was shocked by how emotionlessly Seth said it. “The sleeping ones just all stopped breathing. Mrs. Perkins and your dad and them started crying and praying and stuff, and getting water and trying to call ambulances. But everybody kept dying. Mama and Daddy died, Mare. Is there any more Kool-Aid?”

  Marilyn poured him another glass, and while she poured, her hand shook, rattling the glass against the pitcher. “Everybody died? Mama died, Seth?”

  “Yeah. And Mrs. Perkins and your dad took me down to the nursery so I couldn’t see. And Mrs. Perkins stayed with me. She cried a lot, but she kept asking me if I was okay.”

  “Then what happened? Where was Daddy?” Seth’s eyes were closed. Marilyn couldn’t help herself. She shook him until he looked up at her. “What happened to Daddy, Seth?”

  “I didn’t see, Mare. Me and Mrs. Perkins stayed downstairs in the nursery a long time, and then there were some screams upstairs. We stayed downstairs, and then the screaming stopped. Mrs. Perkins closed the door and locked it. I had to pee, Mare, and she made m
e pee in the sink the little kids use to wash their hands. And then Mrs. Perkins would open the door and listen, and she didn’t hear anything. And she would talk to herself for a little bit, and then she’d open the door again and listen some more. Then she told me to stay down there, and she went upstairs, and then she screamed. And I stayed in the nursery a long time again. I stayed there all night. And when I couldn’t stay there any more, I went upstairs. And they were up there. Mama, and Daddy, and Mrs. Banner, and everybody.” Seth was still talking, but he had gone from near tears earlier to just telling the story in a monotone, with no inflection. Marilyn sat looking at him in horror. He was talking, but his eyes were closed. “But it wasn’t them, it was them, and they were walking around. And Mrs. Perkins was there, but she wasn’t walking around. She was just laying on the floor, and there was blood all over her. Your daddy, too. Just laying on the floor. I ran out of there, Marilyn. I’m fast. I ran right past them. But before I got out the door, Mare, a lady, one of them, was laying on the floor behind a pew where I couldn’t see her and she grabbed me and I fell, and then before I could get up, she bit my hand, Mare. Then she let me go. Why do you think she did that?” His last question trailed off. He looked sincerely puzzled, and then his face cleared. “And I walked all the way home. And I’m glad you’re here, Mare. You can take me back to church. We really should go back to the church so we can see everybody.” Then he was sleeping. Marilyn was glad. She didn’t want to hear any more.

  She rose from the bed, being careful not to disturb him, and walked out of the room. She walked down the stairs where Honey greeted her at the bottom, but Marilyn walked right past her and went to the couch in the living room. She sat quietly, staring at the blank face of the television. After a bit, she grabbed a decorator pillow from one end of the couch. She put it to her face so that it covered it, and she screamed.