After Life | Book 2 | Life After Life

by Kelley, Daniel

  “What?” Kim asked from the back.

  “You said people knocked on his door,” Jack repeated. He pulled to a stop about twenty feet from the fence. “How’d they get to his door?”

  “I never said his door,” Kim said. “People went up to the video screen and tapped on it for attention. They knocked on the video camera.”

  Mickey could practically feel Jack’s eyes roll. “So they didn’t do much of anything,” Jack said.

  “They didn’t know what to do.”

  “I do,” Jack said. He hit the gas again and the truck accelerated forward. He wasn’t aiming at the gate, just a panel of chain link. Mickey grabbed the handle over the door to brace himself. The fence wouldn’t be likely to interrupt the truck too much, but he had no idea if his son would keep driving right into the steel-walled house. In the back, Kim and Lara let out surprised yells.

  Jack crashed through the fence. Other than a bit of bumping, the truck might as well have driven through a sheet of paper. Jack cut the wheel to the left, just missing the house, and drove alongside the wall until he was back on the driveway, perpendicular to it, just inside the gate. “Solved that problem,” he said. Jack looked almost pleased at having gotten through.

  “Was that really necessary?” Lara asked from the back. She was out of breath and her voice cracked a little as she spoke.

  “You have a better idea?” Jack said.

  “He’s actually right,” Mickey said. “I don’t expect Peter’s in a mood to open the gate for much of anybody. A chain link fence can be repaired in an afternoon. I’m okay with what my son did there.”

  “I’m not,” Lara said. “He destroyed the man’s property.”

  “Lucky for me,” Jack said as he opened his door, “I don’t have to give a shit about your opinion.” He climbed down from the truck and moved toward Salvisa’s door. Mickey hurried out of the truck to join him as well.

  “What now?” he asked Jack.

  His son shrugged. “We can knock. We can try to get him to open up.” He looked at the wall. “The truck might not enjoy these things, you’re right about that.”

  Jack looked behind them. In the darkness only illuminated by the moon and Salvisa’s one window facing that way, he could see the first few people start to nervously poke their heads in the now-open fence panel. They were still timid, but Mickey felt sure they’d be coming through more steadily as time went on. If there were any chance the door would be opened for just Mickey and Jack, it was now.

  Mickey knocked on Salvisa’s door three times. He didn’t hear any movement inside, but was sure he had knocked loud enough to be heard. He tried again, but still nothing.

  “Salvisa!” Jack yelled, his head turned toward a window to the left of the door. Light from the window hit Jack at an awkward angle, casting strange shadows across his face. “Let us in!”

  “We tried that, fellas” the first man said, coming up behind them. “We yelled for a while.” He was short, balding, dumpy. He either hadn’t been on Out There in 2010 or he’d been really lucky to survive. Mickey wouldn’t have pegged him as an athlete for anything more strenuous than a bar game of pool. He wore a light blue T-shirt that fit him just a little too tightly, like he’d gained just enough weight that he should overhaul his wardrobe but not so much that he had to. The shirt ended at a pair of jeans that looked tighter than were comfortable as well. The man also wore a pair of glasses on his face that were bent out at the hinges to get over his ears. All in all, he looked like he was about on the first step of an Incredible Hulk transformation, just before all the clothes ripped. His face, though, didn’t give off any sort of “when I’m angry” vibe. He wore as big a smile as Mickey had seen in quite some time.

  “You didn’t even get through the fence,” Jack said, raising his arm and pounding on Salvisa’s door again.

  The man looked at the gate, just beyond Mickey’s truck and no more than 15 feet. “That gate?” he asked with a light chuckle. “I’m from the Bronx, I can bellow. I can yell plenty loud from outside a chain link gate. If he’s in there, he heard me just fine, you can trust me on that.”

  “Whatever,” Jack said. “Salvisa! Come out!”

  “You do you, my friend,” the man said. His smile hadn’t gone anywhere. “I don’t suppose it can hurt anything. But unless you have something else in mind on top of that, you might want to have a cup of tea waiting for when your throat starts to bother you.”

  Jack shot the man a hate-filled look, so Mickey stepped in before the man’s friendliness got him punched. He shook the man’s hand as Jack turned back to the door and continued to yell.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  “Time-wise, couldn’t tell ya,” he said. Everything he said came with a lilt at the end, the vocal tone of a teenage girl with the pitch of a 50-something New York man. “When this all started, we packed up the RV and headed this way. Showed up sometime yesterday morning, so I suppose pushing 18 hours now? My wife and I were one of the first handful of people here, maybe fourth or fifth group.” He stuck out his hand. “Name’s McVay.”

  Mickey returned the handshake. “Any information?”

  He looked around. “Not much, I suppose. Seems you’ve got a pretty good grasp of it. I will say that I’m not completely convinced Mr. Salvisa is here at all.”

  “Why’s that?” Mickey asked.

  “Well, we haven’t seen or heard from him, first of all. You’d think even if he wasn’t going to open the door, he would let us know that somehow, just to get us to go away. For another thing, the lights. No movement, no shadows. No lights have turned on or off. If he’s in there, he’s either not moving much or he’s somewhere we can’t see from these windows.”

  The man was infuriatingly happy. Jack had gotten fed up with him in a matter of minutes, but even Mickey was feeling his patience tested. “So what’s your plan?”

  McVay shook his head. “Can’t say as I have one. Really was just hoping someone would come along with some idea of something to do, but you fellas are the closest we have to that.”

  Kim walked up behind them. She had taken her time getting out of the truck, and then she had stood clear while Jack hollered. McVay squinted at her for a minute. “Wait, weren’t you here already?” he asked.

  She nodded. “When I saw them arrive, I followed them.”

  He chuckled again. “Well, how about that. Took some initiative.”

  Mickey swallowed, forcing down the man’s annoyance. “What brought you here?” he asked. “I’m here because my granddaughter died when this happened and we want answers. You don’t seem like you’ve felt much loss.”

  The man nodded. “I’ve suffered loss,” he said. “I’ve suffered. My wife’s grandson turned. Only 8 years old. Bit his own father. My daughter is at Hyannis, so she should be safe, thank god, but believe me friend, I’ve suffered. I just don’t see what can be helped by running around half-cocked all the time. You certainly didn’t do anything to me, to my family. If I find someone responsible for anything, you’ll see me be angry. Until then? I choose to smile. Smiling is so much more enjoyable.”

  Mickey still found the man annoying, but he granted the perspective. That said, McVay had waited the better part of a day for nothing in particular, and he was just smiling through it. It might have been a good outlook. It wasn’t a productive one.

  But, as Jack continued to knock and yell, and other curious folks started to filter through the broken fence, Mickey had to concede that “smiling through it” was all he could do as well. And smiling wasn’t something Mickey found himself very good at of late.

  Chapter Eight: Step One

  After the excitement that had been downtown Boston, and getting a little bit of food in them, the peace of the interstate outside of the city was refreshing. Massachusetts hadn’t had much in the way of dangers after Boston, and New Hampshire was so slow Celia wasn’t altogether sure when they had entered or exited the state until Erik had casually mentioned they w
ere coming up on Portland.

  The whole car had gotten on edge at that point. Portland wasn’t Boston on a city level, not by a long shot, but it was bigger than the glorified towns they had passed since, and Celia knew anything city like meant danger.

  It was tension for naught, though. There had certainly been Z’s in Portland, but the most Simon had to do to avoid them was veer into the opposite lane. Once, a zombie was close enough that it touched the car as they sped by, but otherwise Celia didn’t think they had been within thirty feet of any greater danger than a blown tire.

  They made it all the way to Bangor without incident, which meant they had to leave the interstate and travel on smaller roads. Next to Celia, Michelle had started to focus, and Celia could tell she was trying her best to remember the route to Salvisa’s that she had memorized. The good news for Michelle’s memory, as far as Celia could tell, was that there weren’t that many turns. They had curved around the exit off the interstate, Simon had driven past some zombies, and then they had gone another 10 miles or so on the next road.

  Now, they were making what felt to Celia like the last few turns. And she suddenly realized they weren’t alone. They had seen cars on the road with surprising regularity, but now, in the darkness, she realized there were headlights gaining on them from behind, and in short order she realized the lights off in the distance ahead of them that she had thought were just an optical illusion were actually taillights they were traveling behind.

  “Guess you don’t have to remember as much as you thought,” Celia said to Michelle, motioning to the lights off in the distance.

  Michelle scowled. “I don’t know who actually knows the way,” she said. “Salvisa’s address wasn’t exactly in the book. Some of these people might know where they are going, but some of them might just be heading to Bucksport and hoping.”

  “Why are they here at all?” Stacy asked from the front. “They can’t know what we know.”

  Erik shifted uncomfortably in the back. “Put yourselves in their shoes,” he said. “Lived through this all once with no idea what to do. Now it’s the second time? Your choices are to sit and hide out again, with no idea how or why, or to go somewhere that might have answers. I bet Stamford is overrun with people right now. I bet President Morgan’s home has a crowd. Salvisa’s too. People know the ‘what’ now. But they can’t stand not knowing the ‘why.’”

  “You seem like you’ve thought about this a lot,” Michelle said.

  “Well…” Erik started, then continued a moment later, “who hasn’t? I tried to talk the whole group back at the Wal-Mart out of just going somewhere to hide. I suggested Stamford but said Salvisa’s would work too. But they wouldn’t hear of it. You saw what they were like to anyone who didn’t go along, so I didn’t push it. But why not go where there’s a chance at answers?”

  “There was a story on Out Theres about something like that,” Simon said from the front seat. “Guy who was out after the end of everything just hiking around, seeing what he could salvage. Lived in D.C., so he went to all the monuments and everything while he was out. When he got to the White House, he just found bodies. Piles of dead people. And that was just the ones who hadn’t turned. I guess a load of people just went there in a search for something.”

  Next to Celia, Michelle nodded. “It was one of the things we were on the watch for in Stamford. Our facility could have locked tight and kept us fed for a long time. You know, if we had had any reason to stay. Maybe if they hadn’t gotten in, I don’t know.”

  “How many people are going to be here?” Stacy asked nervously. “Being around a lot of people hasn’t worked out well for us so far.”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” Celia said. “But we could also say that a lot of people might help us if Salvisa’s home is hard to get into or whatever.”

  “Maybe,” Michelle said. “But Stacy’s right. The more people who are there, the more who might not be working the same way as us for whatever reason. And based on how many cars I’ve been seeing all heading this way, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a lot of people.” After a second, she added, “Take a left at this intersection.”

  Simon obeyed, just as the car ahead of them had and, in short order, as the car behind them did as well. “So what are you thinking when we get there?” he asked

  “Well, I know some time in the last year Salvisa put up a fence around his home,” Michelle said. “I guess now we know why. That shouldn’t be too hard to get through if we are determined. After that … I expect the house itself is locked up, for the same reason Erik figures people are coming. He would figure people would show up, and he wouldn’t want anyone to get to the switch.”

  “So then we just hope we can break in?” Stacy said skeptically.

  Michelle shook her head. “Salvisa’s? I doubt we could do it even if we tried. The man was paranoid. That seems like a waste of time.”

  “So what then?” Stacy asked, sounding depressed.

  Michelle looked around the car. Celia could tell she was floundering. “I don’t know,” she said. “I know how to get us there.” She paused. “Take the next right. But once we’re there, it’s more a matter of figuring it out.”

  Erik shook his head. “If Salvisa was who everybody says he was, then we’ve made a bad decision,” he said. “His house isn’t going to be easy to get into. We’ll wear ourselves out just trying. We’d have been better off just staying in Stamford. We might be better off now just going somewhere else.”

  “No,” Celia said. “Even if our chances are low, we owe it to … everybody to try. We’re the only ones who know what we know.”

  “Maybe,” Erik said. “But if you can’t get in, then what’s the point?”

  “We weren’t expecting this to be easy,” Celia said. “But you have to try. If we just sit and hope our food outlasts the zombies while people are dying everywhere, what good are we? My dad always said that if you aren’t helping people live, you’re helping them die.”

  “By that logic you can never avoid doing anything,” Erik said with a dismissive tone. “Sometimes you have to look at the odds.”

  “What odds?” Celia said. “Maybe there were bad odds of us getting through Boston, but we’ve done that now. What’s the biggest risk we have left? If his property is overrun, we can leave. There’s nothing keeping us there if we can’t do it. But there’s no reason not to try.”

  Erik shook his head. “I guess I’m just a passenger,” he said.

  In the front seat, Simon spoke. “So we just scout when we get there?” he asked. “If there are as many people there as it looks like, I feel like they would have found a way in by now. And there are still Z’s —” he pointed off the side of the road to the right, where a group of three were uselessly chasing the car in front of them, “— either the people there haven’t gotten in or they haven’t done anything about it.”

  “Maybe they just didn’t know what to do when they got in,” Michelle said. “Or maybe they aren’t trying as hard as they should. I don’t know, but Celia’s right, we still have to try. We’ve come this far already. When we get there, we just have to try to figure out some way…”

  Michelle lapsed into silence, and the others followed suit. Celia looked out the car window and saw what she thought were lights just a bit off in the distance. The lights were steady, not on some driving car. She knew she might be imagining it, but in her head that was Salvisa’s property. And if it was, they were close.

  Michelle appeared to notice the lights as well. She leaned forward again, letting out a small pained noise as she had to adjust her leg to do so, and said, “Right at the next road. His house should be about a half-mile up on the left.”

  The mood in the car clearly tensed up. Celia could see Simon’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. Stacy sat up in her seat and hugged her midsection. Michelle rubbed her leg with a new intensity. Only Erik didn’t seem to have an outward reaction to the realization that they had neared their destination.<
br />
  The car just in front of them slowed up at the intersection as a car crossing in front of them passed, then turned to follow. Simon fell in behind, and the car behind them did the same. As they made the turn, Celia saw the lights more clearly off in the distance and confirmed she had seen the lights at Salvisa’s house. Even from the distance, even in the darkness, she could tell the place was crowded.

  But that didn’t matter. They had gotten to Salvisa’s. That was step one. Step two was another matter.

  Chapter Nine: Survivor

  Michelle and her sister and mother hadn’t had many traditions when she was a kid, but one that they did their best to subscribe to was a family viewing of Survivor. No matter what else they had going on, they always tried to get together and watch it live. They weren’t 100% at it, but they came close.

  It was hardly the biggest regret Michelle had about 2010, but one of them was that the outbreak had happened with only two episodes remaining in that season of the show, with only a few contestants left. News had come out later that the contestants and crew who were busy filming the next season of the show had actually been isolated from the outbreak for the entirety. They hadn’t even known what had happened. They knew there was bad news back home, but they didn’t know the specifics and had just been stranded in Nicaragua, cut off even from the communities there. Jeff Probst had even written a book about the events after it was all over, but it, like almost everything else, had flopped after 2010.

  Survivor was on Michelle’s mind as they pulled into Salvisa’s driveway for a specific reason. Every celebrity or otherwise wealthy person who went on the show invariably had an on-camera interview where they explained that they didn’t want the other contestants to know who they were, because they wouldn’t vote for them, or because they didn’t want to just be known as Celebrity X, or for any number of reasons. Those declarations never lasted long, because they would either be recognized or give up the ghost, but they said it every time.