After Life | Book 2 | Life After Life

by Kelley, Daniel

  When Celia got outside, she saw that a small herd of zombies had surprised the others from around the building. Michelle and Simon had dispatched most of them with what appeared to be little difficulty, while Erik, still without his gun, stood behind them.

  “Everything okay?” Celia asked, hurrying around the Hummer and up to them. It wasn’t until she got right up to him that Celia realized she had run directly to Simon. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he put his free hand over her shoulders while his other still held his gun.

  “We’re fine,” Michelle said, a little breathless. She motioned down at a Z’s body, lying face first only a dozen or so feet from the group. She stepped out from beside the vehicle and up to where it lay. “That one came around the Hummer, almost got to us. Simon was the one who saw it. He saved me, I guess.”

  Simon half-nodded, then seemed to catch himself and stop. “There were more, but not that many. We got rid of them pretty quick.”

  Celia suddenly realized she was holding her breath. She exhaled and pulled off of Simon. “Glad you’re okay,” she said, putting her gun back in the holster.

  Michelle finished her cursory examination of the dead zombie, which amounted to little more than nudging it with her foot, and looked up again. Her eyes went wide, and all of a sudden she was sprinting toward the building.

  Celia didn’t know what had scared Michelle, but she and Simon hurried behind her. When they got around the vehicle, they realized it: There were zombies inside the building.

  Celia could only see a couple of them through the tinted glass, and she didn’t know where they had come from, but they were in there, and they were definitely moving across the expansive foyer toward the left, where the women’s restroom was. Where Stacy was.

  Michelle reached the door to the building first and entered. She dropped the first zombie with a double-tap and kept moving. She disappeared from Celia and Simon’s view for a moment as she entered the restroom, and then they heard more gunfire.

  Simon ran inside the building with Celia just behind him. He looked to the right, in case there were any more Z’s coming from that way, as Celia passed him to head to the restroom. As she got to the opening for the small hall to the restroom, she heard three more gunshots, then the sounds subsided.

  Celia made the two short turns into the restroom, with no idea of what situation she’d find inside. When she got there, she saw three zombies down on the floor right outside of Stacy’s stall, with Michelle standing over them. Stacy, it appeared, was still safe inside her stall. Simon entered behind her, and Celia started to ask how they had known to come to that restroom, then realized — it was her. Playing with the water faucets and the air dryer had been enough noise. The zombies, which were all male, had probably been inside the men’s room on the opposite end of the building, and had been fine staying there until the noises started across the way. It was Celia’s fault this had happened.

  “Are they gone?” Stacy asked after a minute. Her voice sounded small and scared, and Celia guessed she was crying.

  “They are,” Michelle said. “Are you okay?”

  Celia could hear the lock on the door slide open, and Stacy came out, pulling her sweatpants up and rolling them at the top. She collapsed into Michelle’s arms.

  “They were right at the stall door,” she said through tears. “I didn’t know how many of them there were, so I couldn’t open it to shoot them. I was just waiting there.”

  “It’s okay,” Michelle said. “We’re okay. You’re okay.”

  Stacy kept crying and Michelle continued to hug her. It was a strong reaction, Celia thought, to a threat that had passed, especially since Stacy had faced threats at least that serious several times over the last day-plus. But the girl seemed so shaken by what had happened that Celia didn’t think it was worth it to question it. So she stood there and watched. After a few seconds, she noticed that Simon had taken her hand in his. It had felt so natural that Celia hadn’t even noticed it at first.

  Stacy’s sobs continued, and Celia kept watching. Something looked off, though, and she couldn’t figure out what it was. She looked over her near-roommate closely, trying to figure out what had changed. Then it struck her. Stacy’s gun wasn’t in its holster, and it wasn’t in her hands. She must have removed it to sit on the toilet, Celia thought, so she took it upon herself to retrieve it.

  Celia entered the stall and saw Stacy’s gun sitting on the toilet-paper dispenser. She picked it up and started to head back out, but something made her stop. She turned back to the stall. Some blood from the nearest zombie had flowed into the small area. That was to be expected. But then Celia noticed that there was more blood, and it was nowhere a zombie could have gotten to. It was in the toilet.

  She squinted down at it for a moment, then her eyes went wide as she realized what that could mean. Celia stepped back out of the stall and looked at Michelle and Stacy. The latter was finally pulling herself together, so Celia ventured to speak.

  “Um, Stacy…?” she said.

  Stacy looked at Celia, then nodded sadly. She sniffed a couple of times and looked up at Michelle. “I have a problem,” she said.

  Chapter Eight: Rovers

  The girl kept screaming. Mickey couldn’t blame her, but as he turned the truck off and jumped out to free her from her bindings and remove the zombie from her lap, he wished she would stop. The screams and sobs continued until long after she was free and safe and Mickey had moved on to freeing Jack from his own situation.

  At least three different times, the girl moved like she was going to run away from them, but she kept stopping. She ended up about twenty feet from the truck, standing, looking terrified, and sniffling every few seconds.

  “Give her a minute,” Mickey said as he finished untying Jack. Jack had yelled at her to hush twice already, and Mickey didn’t think his son’s harsh tone was likely to be productive.

  “She’s being too loud, dad,” Jack seethed. “They’ll hear her, and they’ll come.”

  Mickey looked around. He had stopped between a pair of fields, with reasonable sightlines for a couple hundred feet in every direction. Nothing was likely to sneak up on them. “Let her get it out,” he said. “The only other options are to knock her back out or leave her here, and I’m not doing either one of those.”

  Jack stared at the girl for a moment, but finally broke his gaze, looked down at the ground, and nodded. Mickey returned the nod. He moved to Nathan’s body and retrieved the guns, giving Jack’s back to him. Mickey believed what he had said when he had told his son he couldn’t see how any Z’s might surprise them where they were, but he still felt safer with his gun at his side.

  The girl let out another terrified cry when she saw the two men re-arm themselves, but she finally started to get herself under control when they both holstered their weapons and turned to her.

  “Wh… What happened?” she asked between sniffs.

  Mickey didn’t know where to begin. The fire? Sean’s death? Or just the rope, and the zombie in her lap? Finally, he opened his arms in a gesture he hoped signified ignorance. “I’m not sure what to tell you,” he said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  The girl squinted as though she were trying to remember. She stopped after a second to cry again, so Mickey tried a different, sterner approach.

  “Hey,” he said in an effort to get her attention back. “Hey. What’s your name?”

  She rubbed her eyes. “Lara.”

  “Lara,” Mickey said. “You’re safe with us. We’re two strong guys with no reason or desire to hurt you. You are safe. I know it doesn’t feel that way, honey. But you are.”

  She looked at Mickey for a moment, as though she were trying to see through some lie that might be there. Finally, she seemed to accept him at his words, and her posture changed to a more upright stance, less likely to bolt at any moment.

  “So what do you remember?” Jack said from just behind Mickey, and his tone was immediately the wrong one. I
t was harsher than Mickey’s, more aggressive. Lara immediately stiffened again, as though she were a cat about to bolt.

  “Don’t mind my son,” Mickey said softly. “He has the personality of sandpaper.” He smiled at her. “What can you tell me?”

  She looked between the two of them again, then shook her head. “I’m a Rover,” she said.

  Mickey nodded, though he heard Jack snort behind him. Rovers were a relatively new phenomenon, the last five years or so. The advent and popularity of the Out-Theres website had created a subculture of society who wanted to try to live Out There themselves, even absent a zombie world. They had given up all nonessential possessions, including their homes, and lived on the road. More often than not, Rovers ended up relying simply on the kindness of others, bouncing from house to house and provider to provider. It was no more a true recreation of the Out-Theres than late-20th-century southerners were true reenactors of the Civil War. From the outside, sure, it looked like you were doing the same things, but it was completely without any risk that made it real.

  Nonetheless, the practice had persisted, even grown, despite many people slamming their doors in the faces of the glorified beggars who came knocking. It did, however, explain how Lara came to be in Sean’s house. Whereas Mickey had lived his life largely alone by choice, Sean had always been a lonely man, and he never turned away a Rover.

  “So you were staying with Sean when everything happened?” Mickey asked. “How long had you been there?”

  She shook her head. “Only a day,” she said. “I never stay anywhere more than a day or two if I can help it. But then this all happened, and he said I should stay. I wanted to leave. I wanted to be Out There, like all those people, but I just … I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave.”

  Mickey nodded. “You did the right thing,” he said. “There’s no sense in being Out There unless you have to be Out There.”

  She nodded. “I guess I understood that once I had to.”

  “Why was Sean’s place on fire?” Jack asked impatiently.

  Lara bristled at Mickey’s son again. “I’m not totally sure,” she said. “I had been asleep, and when I woke up he was running around like crazy. The place was already on fire. I could barely see, and I was coughing so hard. He said something about a candle. I guess one got knocked over? I really don’t know. But as soon as I got up, I was coughing so much. I couldn’t breathe. I guess I passed out.”

  Mickey considered this. Sean letting a Rover stay with him, then clumsily somehow starting a fire. Reasonable enough for the man. He nodded to Lara. “Okay,” he said.

  “But how did I get here?” she asked, like she suddenly remembered where she was. “Why was I tied up? How did that … thing get there?”

  Mickey looked over his shoulder at the truck. For a moment, he had forgotten about Nathan. But the big man’s body was still hanging half out of the truck, where Mickey had left him when he went to untie Jack.

  “We went to check on Sean,” Mickey said, “and found the place on fire. It must have been right after you passed out. We got Sean out, and he told us you were in there. I went in and found you. We got you out and left.”

  “… And Sean?” Lara said, sounding like she already knew the answer.

  “He died,” Mickey said. Lara blanched at the words but nodded. “We took you with us.”

  Lara nodded. She was still a solid 15 feet from Mickey and Jack. “And the rope?”

  Mickey gestured back to Nathan’s body. “Came across him a couple miles back. With zombies. Rescued him, then he pulled a gun on us, demanded we take him to his cabin. Insisted I tie you and my son up and drive.

  “Only, I don’t know, maybe he was bitten?” Mickey said. “I’m not sure. But suddenly, I’m driving along and he turns. If I hadn’t had my baton, that could have gone much worse.”

  “No way he was bit,” Jack said.

  “What do you mean?” Mickey asked, turning to his son.

  “There was a good 15 minutes between when the zombies were near him and when he turned,” Jack said. “Bites are quicker than that. I’ve seen it. If he was bit, he’d have been incapacitated before he ever got in the truck.”

  Mickey nodded. What Jack said made sense. On the other hand, that had definitely been a zombie. So something had to have …

  His shoulder.

  Mickey realized it at the same time it looked like Jack did. He moved over to Nathan’s body and the tear in his shirt at the shoulder where the man had been shot. He ripped the shirt more and investigated the wound. The space right around the wound was bright white for about an inch in every direction, then a deep red outside of that. Mickey wasn’t positive what he was looking for, but the wound looked unusual enough that he felt he had confirmation.

  “What’s going on?” Lara asked.

  “When we got to him,” Mickey started, “the zombies were close. We shot at one of them, and missed. Hit him in the shoulder. Then they were on top of him, and we finished them off. Some of the zombie’s blood, or spit, or something, must have gotten into his wound. It’s not as quick as a bite, but just as effective.”

  Lara nodded, then shook her head. “So … you saved me?” she asked. “Twice?”

  Mickey considered this. “I suppose.”

  “Well,” she said, taking a step forward. “Thanks? I appreciate it.”

  Jack laughed. “I’d say it’s the least we could do, but that’s not even close to true.”

  “Where are you guys going?” she asked. For a second, Lara looked the tiniest bit excited. “Are you guys Rovers too? Are we going on the road?”

  “Well, yes and no,” Mickey said. “We are going on the road, but I don’t consider us Rovers at all. We have a home. Our original plan was to stay there. But we changed our mind.” He didn’t feel the need to explain why they had changed their mind, to explain about Adie. “We’re heading to Bucksport. We’re going to talk to Peter Salvisa. To get some answers.”

  Lara’s eyes went wide. “You’re going to … to meet Peter Salvisa?” she said in awe.

  “Honey, I’ve met the man a million times,” Mickey said. “I’m going to talk to him.”

  “Can … Can I come?”

  “Only alternative is to leave you here by yourself,” he said, waving to the open area around them. “So yes, you are welcome to go with us.” Lara smiled. “But,” Mickey added, “that’s the last time you smile about it. I don’t care for Rovers, and I don’t care for anyone who wants to be Out There. If we survive this — if — it won’t be some wonderful thing. It will be an awful experience, and you won’t look back on it fondly.”

  Lara nodded. “Why are you going to see him?” she asked.

  Mickey moved back to his truck, and Lara followed after. He opened the rear door for her, then climbed in himself. “Just some questions,” he said. “Questions that he’ll have the answers to. At least, he will if anyone will.”

  “He’d better,” Jack said angrily.

  Mickey ignored his son and started the truck. They hadn’t gone far off course with Nathan, so they would be back on track toward Bucksport in only a couple of turns. From there, Mickey hoped, all he’d have to do would be to drive.

  Chapter Nine: Humanity

  As soon as Celia noticed the problem in the bathroom stall, Stacy had begun pouring her heart out. She had apparently been having cramps, worse than she had ever had, off and on since the day before. Her insistence on the current bathroom stop had had less to do with her bladder and more with her desire to find out what was going on.

  Michelle had never even had sex with a man, let alone had a pregnancy to worry about. She had been so young during Kellee’s pregnancy that she hadn’t really learned as much as she probably should have. When they had discovered Stacy’s pregnancy, she had tried to learn what to expect, gotten literature on the subject. But this was still early, and Michelle didn’t know what Stacy might be going through.

  She looked around the room. Celia was obviously clueless, and she
figured Simon would have even less to offer in the way of help. Erik, though. He said he was a doctor. He had told them he and his wife had been trying to have a baby. He knew more than any of the others there and could advise them about what was happening with Stacy.

  “Is … is that a miscarriage?” Celia asked, obviously scared to broach the subject.

  Stacy nodded, trying to hold back more tears.

  “I don’t think we know that,” Michelle said softly. “Bleeding happens. The body does a lot of strange things when it’s growing a person.”

  Stacy’s head raised briefly when Michelle said that, like anything other than a miscarriage hadn’t occurred to her. Michelle figured it probably hadn’t. And while she wasn’t in the business of giving false hope, what she did remember from her sister’s pregnancy 20 years earlier was that there were a lot of things about being pregnant that were unpleasant. Blood in the toilet was one of the least of those.

  “So how do we find out?” Celia asked.

  “Time, most likely,” Michelle said, knowing they weren’t likely to be able to find an OB/GYN currently taking appointments. “But we can talk to Erik. He said he’s a doctor.”

  Stacy nodded, though her momentary optimism on the subject appeared to have faded in a hurry. Michelle wrapped the girl in her arms, and the four of them went back out of the restroom, out of the service area building. Michelle hoped Erik had finished filling the tank once the threat had passed, and they could go.

  Erik was one step ahead of her, though, because when they got outside to where they had shot the earlier zombies, and to where the Hummer had been filling up, they found only the discarded bodies. The vehicle, and the man with it, were gone.

  They all looked around for a moment, as though Erik had just moved the Hummer to a more convenient location. But the man was gone.

  “He left?” Simon asked dully.