After Everything Else (Book 1): Creeper Rise

by Brett D. Houser

  “Well, I can’t stop thinking about it. I need to know what happened, even if I never find out why. I need to find out all I can about the creepers. We have to get her to talk to us about what she’s seen.” Sonya saw him glance at the rearview mirror. She turned to look at Marilyn, who had lain over and curled up on the bench seat. The dog was sitting on the seat, looking back at her curiously. Her tail thumped the seat once. Sonya tentatively extended her hand. The dog licked it once, solemnly, turned to the window, and stared out into the darkness.

  Chapter 13 – Marilyn

  Marilyn woke to the warmth of sunlight on her face. When she opened her eyes, she thought that maybe everything had been a bad dream and she had fallen asleep on the way back from camping. Then she realized the back of the seat in front of her wasn’t the same color as the upholstery in her dad’s truck. She sat up.

  She tried to remember what had happened and how she had come to be in a strange vehicle in a location she didn’t recognize. She remembered coming home, and she remembered finding…Seth. Oh, she thought. She didn’t want to remember any more about that. Instead she thought about what had happened the night before. She remembered waking in a moving vehicle, pale faces in the greenish light of the dash, questions. Then she remembered Honey. She looked around in alarm. She didn’t see the dog anywhere. She opened the door and stepped out, holding to the frame from the dizziness of standing too quickly.

  Looking around she saw only a highway stretching in both directions. She noted that there were no cars, either stopped or moving. For as far as she could see, corn fields and soy beans stretched into the distance, broken here and there by small wood lots and the occasional collection of farm buildings. She was pretty sure she recognized the countryside: east of Poplar Bluff on 60, almost to Sikeston. The highway here crossed over a small stream, fairly clean for this part of the country. Looking down from the bridge, she could see a man, really more like a boy, standing with his back to the water, Honey sitting at his side. She watched Chase absently pet the animal with one hand while the other held the barrel of a rifle, the butt resting on the ground. In the water, surrounded by lather, was a girl. She stood knee deep, wearing only her underwear, soaping herself and her hair. Marilyn couldn’t tell how old she was. Her first guess was twelve, but after looking longer, she guessed maybe a little older.

  “Oh, hey, Marilyn. You’re awake.” The boy had caught sight of her up on the roadway. He smiled as the dog left his side and came bounding towards her. Marilyn dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Honey as the dog tried to lick her face. When she rose to her feet again, the boy and the girl were still looking at her. She wasn’t sure what to say. She felt a little as if she were intruding. Finally, the boy spoke.

  “If you want to wash up, I’m honor bound not to look. I’d stay in the car, but we kind of feel like I need to stand guard. The creepers are still mostly staying hidden during the day, but not always.”

  “The water’s not the cleanest, but it has to be better than nothing,” the girl said. She finished washing and crouched in the water to rinse off the soap. Marilyn considered. She wasn’t comfortable with the situation at all. She didn’t know these people. They seemed to have helped her, but she was afraid. Then she thought about it. Her last wash had been the last day she had camped, in a creek only a little cleaner than this one. She would wash. She told herself there were times to play it safe and times to take chances. This was one of the times to take a chance and trust other people.

  She walked down the embankment, the knee-high weeds brushing painfully at her legs. She looked down. Her legs were crisscrossed with scratches. When? she wondered. She reached the gravel bar where the boy stood, and Honey, who had followed her, went over to him. She walked behind the boy and stood at the water’s edge. The girl had emerged from the water and was dressing. “It’s okay,” the girl said to Marilyn. “He won’t look.”

  Marilyn hurriedly washed and put her dirty clothes back on. When she was fully dressed, the girl told Chase it was okay to turn around. Then they walked up to the car while he had his own creek bath. “Shouldn’t we keep watch for him?” Marilyn asked.

  The girl shook her head. “He’ll be okay. If a creeper shows up, Chase’ll have time to make the shore and grab the rifle before it gets to him. He’s quick.” At the Suburban, the girl opened the back and started pulling out snack foods and water bottles. “If you want something other than water, you’ll have to wait until we stop again. All those sweet sugary drinks suck when they’re warm, so we don’t grab them.”

  “Water’s fine, uh, thanks. Listen, I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.” Marilyn watched as the girl threw together a quick meal of Vienna sausages, Pringles, and granola bars.

  “I’m Sonya. I’m sorry. This is all we have to offer.” Marilyn looked at the sad meal.

  “Hang on just a second.” She had spotted some cattails growing down by the creek. She glanced over the edge of the road, and Chase was back on the mud bank, pulling on his shirt. She walked back down the embankment, and, kneeling at the water’s edge, started pulling out the hearts of the shoots, still tender this early in the summer. She gathered a double handful. When she climbed back up, Sonya and Chase were watching her. She rinsed the shoots with a bottle of water, and then divided them evenly, placing their share in Sonya’s and Chase’s hands. They looked at her questioningly. She took a bite of one of her shoots. “Tastes kind of like fresh asparagus,” she said. She watched as Sonya tried a tentative nibble.

  “Hey, that’s good!” Sonya exclaimed. Chase tried his and the look on his face said he felt the same way.

  Marilyn gestured at the food Sonya had laid out. “If that’s all you’ve been eating, I bet it does. Your bodies are probably screaming for something a little healthier.”

  Chase nodded. “Yeah, no kidding. But that’s about all we’ve been able to get because of the, well, you know. We can’t go in a lot of the houses, and bigger stores are out. Besides, most fresh stuff anywhere is rotten.”

  “It’s about time for a lot of gardens to have stuff. Lettuce. Maybe cabbage or spinach. Maybe real asparagus.” Marilyn finished her cattails and opened a can of Vienna sausages. She caught Sonya and Chase exchanging a look out of the corner of her eye, and then Sonya looked away and shrugged. Chase pulled a blanket from the back of the Suburban and spread it on the ground. He grabbed a can of sausages and a can of Pringles and sat, indicating that Sonya and Marilyn should sit, too. Once they had settled, he took several chips and handed the can to Marilyn.

  “Marilyn, how is it that you were back in the woods like that when I found you? I’m sure you’ve been through some stuff, but you said some things last night I kind of want to know about.” Marilyn looked at him, then dropped her eyes to her hand and began tracing a pattern on the blanket.

  “I…I don’t really know. I was camping, and I was ready to go home, and my dad didn’t come pick me up when he was supposed to.” She found herself having difficulty trying to say anything more. But she had decided to trust this boy, and the girl, too. She took a swallow of water and continued. “I had to walk for a while. I found Honey on the way home.” She explained about the woman in the house while Chase and Sonya listened and nodded. She talked about the Sick Ones on the highway, using their word, creepers. She assumed they had dealt with similar experiences. Maybe worse. “When I got home, no one was there. I went to a neighbor’s house…” She felt the tears coming and her throat closing. She took another sip, but it was a while before she could continue. “Their son was there. He told me that everyone had gone to church and…my family was dead.” She started crying hard. The sobs wouldn’t stop. Chase took her hand in both of his. Sonya stood suddenly and walked a little distance away. Marilyn realized she was making Sonya uncomfortable, and she pulled herself together. “The boy had been bitten. He got real sick, and then he died, too.” Chase was looking at her with compassion, but with that compassion she saw something else on his face. More than curio
sity, there was a desperation to know.

  “And then what, Marilyn? I know this is tough, but there is a lot going on and we need to tell each other everything so we can try to understand, and maybe survive.” Marilyn pulled her hand from his.

  “Why do we need to survive?” she found herself asking angrily. “Look around. There’s nothing but us. What’s the reason?”

  Chase reached for her hand again. “I think we have to find our own reasons. Sonya goes on because she needs to find her dad. At first, for me, I kept going because I wanted to see what happened next. And now I help Sonya with her need, and I want to know what happened. You just need to find something.”

  Marilyn pulled back, stood and walked off a short distance. She saw Chase start to stand to follow her, but Sonya pushed him back down. She leaned over and said something to him that Marilyn couldn’t hear. Then she walked over to Marilyn and stood in front of her. She didn’t say anything. Marilyn stood looking at Sonya’s Chucks, stubbornly refusing to look up and meet her eye. Marilyn was afraid of the disapproval or even the disgust she might see in Sonya’s eyes. She felt like a recalcitrant child, staring at this smaller girl’s shoes. Finally, she pulled herself together. When she looked at Sonya’s face, she saw nothing but compassion there.

  “When I was ten, my mother died of cancer,” Sonya said. She said it flatly, with little emotion. She reached for Marilyn’s hand and led her back to the blanket. She sat, pulling Marilyn down with her. Chase scooted to one side, making room for them and not interrupting. “Mom and Dad both picked me up from school one day in third grade. Dad’s eyes were red, but Mom just looked real serious. When we got home, we sat at the kitchen table. We had a nice house then, right on the edge of town. It was an old house, but Dad had worked hard to fix it up. He was a cabinet maker. He had his own shop out back that always smelled like fresh sawdust and new wood. Mom just told me what was going on, real matter-of-factly. Dad left the room twice, but I could hear him crying in the living room. Mom said she was going to try to beat it, and we should all believe she could beat it, because not believing wouldn’t do any good. But she also said the doctors told her she didn’t have a very good chance.” Sonya crossed her legs and pulled her knees to her chest and made slight rocking motions, but her expression didn’t change.

  “She didn’t beat it. She went through chemo, she lost all her hair, she lost weight, and she still didn’t beat it. She looked so sick, and she felt awful. She still tried, and she still smiled, and for two years she just kept getting worse. Finally, they told her the chemo wouldn’t help any more, and they stopped it. She started looking a little better. At least she wasn’t sick and tired all the time. But then it moved into her brain. She couldn’t remember stuff. Her arms started drawing up in weird positions. And then she became something that wasn’t my mom at all. We had people come over to help. And then we finally had hospice workers. And then my Mom died.” She pushed her feet out in front of her again and leaned back on her elbows. “I thought everything was over. My mom was gone. But bad things kept happening. The medical bills were so expensive my dad had to sell off the house and all his woodworking stuff. He had to close his business. I didn’t think there was anything worth living for then. But my dad pulled it together. He told me as long as there was life, there was hope. And he lived that way. He never gave up. He lived for me, and I lived for him.” Finally, Sonya broke a little. Marilyn could see the tears in her eyes, even though they didn’t fall.

  “I don’t know if I’ll find him alive or not. Everything tells me I won’t. But this is what I need to keep going. Because you have to keep going. I don’t know why. Right now I’m living in hope of finding my father. It’s why I wake up every morning and why I keep going, no matter how bad things suck. I’ve got my reason, and I guess Chase has his own. You lost a lot, I guess. You lost a mom and a dad…”

  “And brothers,” Marilyn said quietly.

  “…and brothers. And a whole way of life. I’ve been there. You’re going to be sad. It’s going to hurt a lot, and all the time for a while. But it hurts more when you just sit and do nothing. So do something. Come with us. I think we need you, somehow.”

  Marilyn looked at Sonya. She guessed she was only fifteen or sixteen, a year younger than Marilyn herself, but she had been through a lot. She seemed older. Marilyn looked into Sonya’s brown eyes and nodded. “Okay,” she heard herself say.

  Chapter 14 – Chase

  Chase drove into the darkness, the high beams illuminating obstacles and creepers in the road. Sonya and Marilyn slept behind him. Since he had taken the night shift, he had found himself doing more thinking and less talking. He knew he wasn’t getting enough sleep. He always tried to drive until the sun came up, but often wouldn’t make it. His eyes would begin to burn. He had to stay alert while driving. Creepers were a problem, but they were not the biggest problem. The biggest problem was usually bridges.

  Chase thought asking why so many cars had stopped on bridges was probably the same as asking why the toast always landed jelly-side down. Not having an answer didn’t change his having to deal with the problem. Usually he could push through on one side or another. This method was taking its toll on the Suburban’s fenders, though. The so-recently-new vehicle looked like a runner-up in a crash derby. The interior had suffered as well from three people living, eating, and sleeping in it.

  Chase spotted another green sign in the distance that marked the highway’s crossing of a river, creek, or other body of water. He slowed. Three creepers were shuffling along the middle of the road, and Chase swerved around them. He didn’t see any vehicles on the upcoming bridge, so he sped up before the creepers could approach the Suburban. They weren’t fast. They weren’t smart, either. They would sometimes step in front of the vehicle, arms outstretched, and if there were no room to avoid them, he would hit them. Many of them were beginning to rot, and they left noxious smears on the Suburban. When the group in the Suburban stopped to eat they had to move away from the vehicle. Sitting too close could cause a loss of appetite.

  Chase thought about Sonya’s earlier conversation with Marilyn. She was right, in some ways. There had to be a reason to go on. She had her reason, and she wasn’t completely wrong about her being, to an extent, his reason as well. If there had been no one else, he might have had a little trouble focusing. But he had an even bigger reason. He had to know why. Just accepting the situation worked for Sonya. Marilyn was still making up her mind, but he judged she would probably accept the situation, too, if she managed to pull herself together enough to continue. He wasn’t happy with just accepting, though.

  He knew he would probably never be able to do anything about it, but he had to know. There had to be a reason, there had to be a cause, and there had to be…something. Judging by everything he had seen, so many had died. And so many of those who died were walking around, making whatever was left for the living even tougher. He couldn’t accept a supernatural cause. He didn’t believe in UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or ghosts. He did believe that there were laws in the natural world that all life had to adhere to, even if they hadn’t all been discovered yet. And what was happening didn’t seem to follow any of those laws.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. Sonya and Marilyn had put the rear seat down and pushed the supplies, as few as they were, to the back. They lay sleeping despite the frequent bumps and jostling as he left the roadway or cut through the median as necessary. Once in a while one or the other would rise up, look around, and lie back down. They probably weren’t getting enough good sleep, either. He knew that sooner or later they would have to find a place to hole up for a while, to stop moving, to get real rest and real food. Despite Sonya’s constant pushing to get to Florida they couldn’t afford stupid mistakes from carelessness that came from lack of rest or poor eating. And they needed more supplies.

  Chase stopped thinking about the why of the situation, and that was a relief. He hadn’t pushed Marilyn to tell him what had happened wit
h the boy who died. He would wait. But he would get that information from her. For now, though, he forced himself to think about supplies and equipment, and maybe a change of vehicles. And weapons. They couldn’t avoid the big towns forever. They would eventually have to deal with a larger number of creepers. He spent the next few hours considering what would be most effective, and more importantly, where to get it.

  Chapter 15 – Sonya

  Marilyn slept. Chase drove. Sonya lay in the back of the Suburban, doubting. Telling Marilyn and Chase about her mother had upset her. She tried not to let it show, but reliving those days before her mother died and right after had made her think about her father and how much she was missing him.

  She had always missed him when he was out on the road, but knowing he was out there trying to get together enough money to rebuild their lives had helped. Knowing how many days until he was home, knowing where he was and what he was doing, just knowing that she would definitely see him again had made her lonely life bearable. Now there was uncertainty, and when she let the uncertainty in, she wasn’t sure of anything. She couldn’t allow that.

  She knew she was very important to this group. They were all lost now to a greater or lesser extent, but she felt like Chase had been lost before all of this had happened, and Marilyn had gotten really lost when all of this had happened. Sonya knew she wouldn’t be lost until she had definitive proof her father was dead. But she knew he wasn’t. She knew. But sometimes, in the darkness, the doubt crept in, and Sonya felt just as lost as the other two, and if they were all lost, then nothing meant anything.