After Life | Book 2 | Life After Life

by Kelley, Daniel

  “I never really thought he would trust us,” Michelle said. She felt stupid having left him alone at the pump, but in retrospect, with the zombies in the building, she didn’t really have a choice. “We killed his wife.”

  “He said he understood!” Celia cried.

  Michelle nodded “And I’m sure he did. But even if he did, that doesn’t mean he wanted to hang out with us. We got him away from the Wal-Mart, and that was all he needed us for. Probably would have taken off whenever we gave him the chance. Which we did.”

  They stood there in silence for a few minutes. Stacy continued lightly crying, leaning against Michelle, while Celia and Simon looked around ineffectually.

  “So …,” Simon said at last, “what do we do?”

  Michelle hadn’t panicked when she had discovered the disappearance of the Humvee. Yes, it had been their ride, and it carried all the supplies they had scrounged from the Wal-Mart. But she had picked a service area rather than any roadside gas station for a reason, and that reason was the line of cars parked near the on-ramp to get back to the highway.

  Donnie had assured Michelle he was good at his job heading up the New England Regional Rest Area Readiness Committee. She didn’t expect to need a car, but she knew at the least that Donnie would have ensured the pumps were operational and with a fuel reserve. So when she knew they had to stop, Michelle determined she was going to trust Donnie one more time.

  And now, as it turned out, they did need a car, and there was a small line of them only fifty or so yards from where they stood. Michelle hated that they had lost their belongings, and that she had made the mistake of leaving Erik with the car, but there was no sense in dwelling on that now. She angled Stacy toward the cars and started moving. Simon and Celia fell in step.

  Michelle noticed the open space in the small line of cars where it looked like a car had been. She wondered if that meant someone else had passed through the area already in need of a vehicle.

  “How do you know those will work?” Celia asked.

  “Remember Donnie?” Michelle said. “You can thank him for this.”

  They moved to the cars and got in the one closest to the highway without incident. Michelle got behind the wheel this time after ushering Stacy into the passenger seat. The girl had taken to hugging her midsection tightly. Michelle didn’t know if that was because she was still cramping or just to hold whatever bit of her baby she could. Probably both.

  Once Celia and Simon were in the backseat, Michelle started the car. Before she put it in gear, Michelle had a thought and opened the glove compartment. Sure enough, Donnie’s note was there, waiting for whoever needed the vehicle. Michelle realized the basic premise of the note — that the only reason for anyone to be on the road in a zombie-filled world was to get to someone they loved — was now flawed. Michelle was already with her last loved one on earth, and she was traveling for an entirely different reason than the only one Donnie had envisioned.

  Still, Donnie’s insistence on including the note in every car was a nice, personal touch, in what had become an increasingly clinical world. Everyone had long ago become so concerned with mere survival that they didn’t care how that survival happened. It was natural, but as a people, everyone cared more about outlasting the threat than about having a life to return to when the threat was passed. Donnie’s note was a reminder of the humanity that often fell short in the … well, in the humanity of things.

  As Michelle pulled the car out of the space and back toward the highway, she looked over at Stacy and was reminded of the need for humanity. The girl was still hugging her midsection, but in a world far more people were exiting than entering, in a population where the youngest members were virtually extinct, Stacy’s situation was even more important. Michelle told herself that, if Stacy hadn’t yet lost the baby, she never would.

  Chapter Ten: Ammunition

  Celia was seething. It was one thing for Erik to not want to stay with them after his wife’s death. It was irksome, but Celia was staying with Erik after one of his group had killed Celia’s father, and that seemed like the same thing. So she understood, but she didn’t like it.

  Still, Erik had said he had no hard feelings. So even if he was leaving, it didn’t make sense for him to steal all their belongings. Now they had no food, no water, and no weapons or ammunition beyond what was already in their pockets.

  Add to that the fact that they were going from a strong, nearly impenetrable Humvee to a much more vulnerable sedan, and Celia grew increasingly angrier about their departed passenger. The Humvee wasn’t likely to be broken into by even the strongest zombie. A regular car? That was fragile.

  “Do you think we can catch up to him?” she asked Michelle as she got up to a good speed.

  “Catch up to who?” Michelle asked.

  This was annoying. Who else would Celia have been talking about? “Erik,” she said tersely.

  “I’m not even trying,” Michelle said. “Hell, he might have turned around to go the other way. Not much stock in driving on the correct lane these days.”

  “He has our stuff,” Celia said. “He stole our stuff.”

  “It’s his stuff now,” Michelle said.

  Simon reached his hand out to Celia and rested it on her leg. “Let him go,” he said softly. “We have a place to go. No sense sidetracking ourselves to get there. We’ll find new food and water when we need it.”

  Celia had felt herself calm down as soon as Simon touched her, and his words finished the job. She leaned back in her seat and put her hand on top of his. Instinctively, their fingers interlocked with one another’s.

  “Just drive,” Celia said, and even as she did she realized it was a pointless thing to say, as Michelle was already doing it and didn’t seem to have any inclination to change. After a second, Celia spoke again. “How far are we from Boston?”

  “Technically,” Michelle said, “I suppose we’re already there. At least the metro area. How far until we get into parts where I’ll start to worry? Soon.” She met Celia’s eyes in the rearview and half-smiled at her. “Don’t get too comfortable back there.”

  “What about me?” Stacy said. “What about … the blood?”

  “Nothing has changed,” Michelle said quickly. “Every pregnant woman has issues, worries, scares. You can be nervous if you want, if that’s what you feel. You can be nervous, but you cannot be defeated. You are still pregnant. Until we know otherwise from someone smarter about this than any of us, you are still pregnant. We are still going to Salvisa’s home, we are still going to save the world if that’s what you want to call it, and you are still pregnant. That baby is what we are doing all of this for.”

  Celia pulled her hand from Simon’s and reached up to Stacy, resting her hand on Stacy’s shoulder. She understood Stacy’s fear, even if she couldn’t empathize. The one thing that had calmed Stacy down each time she had nearly panicked since this all started was that a mother could be calm as long as her child was okay. It was how Brandon’s mother had calmed her down when she was panicking about her own mother’s fate, and it was how Stacy had calmed Brandon down when his mother had been killed. And now Stacy, working on being a mother in her own right, had no way of knowing her child was okay.

  Celia didn’t know what to say. She could tell Stacy the same things Michelle just had, but they felt like hollow comfort at best. She thought about reiterating to Stacy that she just needed to take care of herself, but Stacy seemed beyond that. She seemed to have fully taken to the idea of raising a child, to being a mother in her own right, and in that sense she needed to know her child was okay. Celia couldn’t offer that. So she kept her hand resting on Stacy’s shoulder, gently rubbing every few seconds. Stacy didn’t calm down, but her death grip on her own midsection noticeably loosened, and Celia felt like she was calming down, one way or another.

  They drove along for a few minutes, Celia’s hand still on Stacy’s shoulder. She noticed there had been no sign of any other vehicles on the road, and that
included their stolen Humvee.

  “Ma’am?” Simon said from the backseat after a few minutes’ silence. “Ma’am, my gun only has a few more bullets. And I don’t have any more on me.”

  Celia thought of her own supply of ammunition. She hadn’t even used her gun at the rest area, but she had at the guard booth at the bridge. She didn’t know if she was as low on bullets as Simon, but she knew any extra she had was in her backpack, figuring she’d never have to worry about being without it. Now that she was, Celia realized it had run directly counter to one of her father’s instructions: Keep your supplies as close to you as possible. She had thought the backpack was close enough, and just now, now that it was too late, realized she could have had everything much closer.

  Michelle hadn’t spoken for a few minutes after Simon’s statement. Celia could tell she was thinking over her options. Finally, she spoke. “I’m armed,” she said. “I have an extra clip in my pocket. Does anyone else?” When no one spoke, she went on. “That’s frustrating, but it’s hard to blame you. I do agree that we should be more well-armed if we’re going to travel through Boston. Does anyone have any suggestions?”

  It was quiet in the car for another minute, before Stacy spoke up.

  “Safe Place,” she said.

  Celia didn’t love the suggestion. They had found one Safe Place already. It hadn’t been remotely safe, with zombies already inside, no supplies, and a situation that ultimately led to the death of Brandon’s mother. As she considered her feelings on the suggestion, though, she realized Michelle was nodding.

  “I don’t know exactly where they are in Boston,” Michelle said, “but a city this size, there should be several. I imagine we can find one.”

  “How do you know there will be any supplies in one, even if we find it?” Celia asked. “We found one yesterday, in Barnstable, and it was empty.”

  Michelle nodded again. “The Safe Place initiative is relatively new. And it hadn’t spread to the smaller towns as quickly as we might have liked. But the bigger cities tended to be much better taken care of. Boston, there were probably some they hadn’t gotten to yet, but I know they had finished work on some at least. We just have to hope we can find the right one. Because I don’t know where else we can find any supplies without taking on too much risk. And while we might drive straight through Boston without needing any ammunition, I don’t want that to be our plan. We need more bullets than we have.”

  Without any argument against it, Celia found herself nodding in the backseat, and when neither Stacy nor Simon offered any dissent, Michelle nodded and took the next road off of the highway. It looked like a fairly commercial exit, with the remnants of old fast-food restaurants and cheap hotels, but as Michelle took the right turn off of the exit ramp, Celia saw a more town-like appearance just down the road.

  “Eyes peeled,” Michelle said. “The yellow diamond. Could be anywhere, and we’re already flying blind enough; I don’t want to miss one if we have a choice.”

  “My dad wanted to search for them on foot yesterday,” Celia said. “He was always scared of moving too fast in a car.”

  “In a smaller town, I think I’d agree with him,” Michelle said. “Then again, in a small town, I’m not at all sure a Safe Place would be worth the risk, like we talked about. Anyway, this area is — was — populated enough that I’m not getting out of this car until I know where I’m going. Definitely not getting out of the car to hunt for something I might be miles from.”

  Celia accepted the argument and looked out her window. Simon and Stacy were taking the right side of the road, and with Michelle driving, Celia felt the left side was almost entirely her responsibility.

  They drove in silence for a few minutes, a silence that was only broken by Michelle occasionally asking if anyone had seen anything. Celia knew that no one would see something and not speak up, but she figured Michelle felt the need to say something regardless, so she let it go.

  They had made a slight left turn onto a road that headed toward what looked like a set of office buildings.

  “This is the kind of area where the Stamford offices were,” Michelle said. “And we were a designated Safe Place. This might be a good road for it.”

  They once again lapsed into silence as they drove. Celia saw a small group of zombies near what looked like it had once been a medical office take off in a sprint after their car, but, even with Michelle driving slower than normal, they were going much too fast for the zombies to catch up.

  Still, a group of the undead brought chills. Celia had gotten used to seeing them near the school, near the Wal-Mart, on the road. This was an area that was supposed to be early 2000s commercial space. Even if Celia had never lived in the area, and hadn’t traveled to such areas much, she had an idea of how they were supposed to look, with regular people walking and driving from business to business. The zombies, even in a world that had zombies, were out of place. The lead one, the fastest one, looked normal enough, save for his eyes and his reaching hands. Celia guessed that had been a teenage boy who had turned at the onset, not bitten. But there were slower ones behind him, ones that looked various degrees of no-longer-human. The second-place runner had a broken arm and a bloody midsection, where it looked like a bite had been taken out of its side. There was one that had half its face gone. There was another whose clothes had been mostly ripped off in whatever struggle had led to its death. It had been a woman, and the remnants of a pantsuit were shredded across its lower body. The entire left side of its upper body, though, were devoid of clothing and chewed nearly beyond recognition. A male zombie had lost even more clothing, and very little skin remained. There was one that had lost the use of its legs and crawled after the car. Celia lost sight of it quickly.

  None of the zombies was particularly different from any Celia had seen in the last couple of days. For some reason, though, these stuck with her. They were out of place, somehow. Maybe she had imagined that their mission to Maine was already underway enough that she was imagining a zombie-free world, or maybe it was as simple as the fact that an office park was meant for people. Either way, Celia did her best to close that group of zombies out of her mind and get back to looking for the Safe Place.

  Seconds later, Simon’s arm shot across Celia’s body. “There!” he said, pointing to a small strip of offices. Near the back, tucked away from everything, was a small yellow diamond-shaped sign. Celia wasn’t sure if she would have noticed it had it not been for the zombies, so she was thankful Simon had turned his attention to the left side of the car.

  Michelle hit the brakes and looked where Simon was pointing. She squinted and leaned, before finally saying, “I don’t see anything.”

  “He’s right,” Celia said, already unbuckling her seatbelt. “There’s a sign.”

  Michelle shrugged. “I’ll have to take your word for it,” she said. She reversed the car a few feet and swung it left, into the small entrance to the office block.

  “There’s a group of Z’s,” Celia said when the car was stopped. “We passed it just a little bit back. It’ll be catching up with us soon.” She opened her door as the others did the same.

  Michelle nodded. “I saw them. Just means we’ll have to be quick about it. Guns out.”

  The other three did as they were told, and Michelle led the way to the door where the Safe Place sign was hung. It was a dingy sign, with a layer of dust on it that prevented the yellow from standing out. That made it all the more impressive that Simon had spotted it.

  Michelle went up to the door adjacent to the sign and knocked twice. There was some scuffling inside that Celia couldn’t identify as either human or zombie. But when the scuffling stopped after a moment, Celia remembered the zombie they had found in their dorm room the day before, the one that had dived out the window when it realized there was a source of food outside its walls. As soon as that knock had come, any zombie inside the building would have moved heaven and earth to get to where the knock had come from. So silence inside the door m
eant either a zombie that was too injured to move much, or human, and a human seemed more likely.

  Still, no one answered the knock, so Michelle gave it a moment and knocked again. There was no movement at the second knock, so Michelle shrugged and tried the door. The knob turned freely, but as she pulled on the door to open it, the door only moved an inch before it jerked out of her hand and slammed back closed.

  “What was that?” Celia asked. “Did someone pull it?”

  Michelle’s hand was still floating in space, still cupped as though it still held the knob. “I … don’t think so,” she said. “More like it retracted. I think there’s a band or something attached to it. I pulled it far enough that the band snapped back.”

  Celia considered this. It was smart. From what she had heard, these doors didn’t have full locks, but rig the system right, and the door would be basically unopenable from the outside without destroying it altogether. But it meant that whoever was inside, whoever had moved when Michelle had first knocked, wasn’t exactly open to visitors. That wasn’t a system someone would use to keep zombies out. That was for people.

  “Knock again,” Celia said. “And tell them who you are.”

  Michelle looked at her for a moment, then shrugged and knocked. “Hello?” she said, nervously at first. “Hello? If you’re in there, my name is Michelle Rivers. There’s four of us out here, from Morgan College in Hyannis. We’re not looking to stay in there with you. We were just hoping to get some ammunition. Our packs were stolen. We have nothing.”

  Nothing happened for a moment. Michelle gave it a bit, then knocked again. “Please? Please, I worked in Stamford, I know all your protocols. I worked for Madison Crane and Zachary Lambert. Are you familiar with them? If you knew to come here, maybe you knew the higher-ups. Please?”

  Another brief silence. Just as Celia thought it was time for them to give up and look for another Safe Place, though, she heard something inside. It was faint, but Celia thought she knew what it was, and when she noticed the doorknob jiggling slightly, she was sure of it. Someone inside was removing the band from the door. They were going to let them in.