What Came After

by Nord, K. C.

I'd really wanted to spare the two old guys any more of a mess in their house than they already had; but at this point, it looked like we didn't have much of a choice in the matter. After my recent encounters with zombies, I was starting to get over some of my terror of them. Oh, they still creeped me out some but not nearly as much as before, unfortunately, that also made me a little careless. With a sigh, I turned my head and in that instant realized that I'd made a big mistake.

  The one thing that you never ever do is to turn your back on a zombie, no matter how weak or feeble that they seem. Because zombies are basically just an eating/ killing machine that is never sated. All of this flashed through my mind quicker than the speed of light when I turned my head and came face-to-face with a snarling blood-covered Lois.

  Luckily my body moves even faster as almost without thought I dropped to the floor and took her down with a leg sweep. Then before she had time to react I pulled my hand ax from my backpack and swung it at her neck. It's a little harder to chop off someone's head than you might think and it's doubtful that one swing will do it but the ax did pin her to the floor.

  You did have to give the old girl credit for trying I thought as she was still frantically trying to reach me even with her neck pinned to the floor. Her head was twisted sideways so that she could still see me and both of her hands were clawing at the rough boards of the porch. Somehow she'd managed to get her feet up underneath her and she was actually trying to walk with her head still stuck to the floor. All the while she was growling and snarling at me. It was without a doubt the strangest and most obscene thing that I'd ever seen in my life.

  "Move back, and I'll finish the job," Roy called.

  As he finished her off before walking into the house I walked over to the hand pump well in the front yard to clean up and check for any scratches or cuts. I don't believe that she even touched me but it's always a good idea to get any of the tainted blood and gore off as soon as possible. Seconds later I heard another shot from inside the house. Since Judy had been killed by a zombie Roy would have to take care of her as well.

  "The house is all clear," Roy announced as he walked out onto the porch. "I'm sorry about the mess Jeb, but we'll help burn the bodies and clean up."

  "That's ok, Roy, I'm just glad that you came by when you did." He scratched his head and looked around the yard, "say did either of you girls see where Clem went to?"

  Roy laughed, "as fast as he was moving he's probably clear in the next county by now."

  "Not quite, but he did climb that oak tree in the backyard pretty fast for an eighty-year-old," Norah replied.

  "I bet we could both outrun either of you girls," Jeb boasted to my amusement. "Back in the day Clem and I were both marathon runners."

  "That explains a lot of things," I said with a smile.

  "Maybe someone should go tell him that it's safe to come down now," Norah said.

  "Oughta just leave him up there. That's what he gets for being such a chicken," Jeb huffed and grumbled under his breath as he went around the house to retrieve his brother.

  "Well girls, I guess we need to get started with the cleanup," Roy remarked. "And the sooner the better, it's getting late and I don't want to get caught out after dark."

  "I'm ready for a nice long nap," I groaned and went into the kitchen to fetch a bucket of soapy water and a mop.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I slammed down the ham radio receiver and stalked out of the study and out into the rose garden. That was the first time that I could ever remember talking back to Grandma, and in spite of my anger, I kind of felt bad about it. But she just made me so mad by continually treating me like a child. I know that a 16-year-old was still considered a kid in her time, but times had changed. If I was old enough to hunt the occasional zombie, then I was certainly old enough to have a say in my own life.

  Frustrated, I plopped down on the bench when sensing my distress as only a dog can. Moose came over and laid his head on my knee and stared at me with his big soulful eyes. Smiling despite myself, I sighed and absent-mindedly patted him on the head. I usually liked to write in my journal when I was upset about something or having a bad day, but today I just wasn't in the mood.

  I'd thought for sure that Grandma and Mom would want me to come on up to Atlanta when I'd told them about Lucas being missing. So you could imagine my surprise when Grandma had said that things were still too volatile there and she wanted me to stay here with Celeste for the time being. But what that really meant was that she was still treating me like a child.

  That didn't go over so well since I don't appreciate being treated like a child, and in the heat of the moment, I might have said some things that I shouldn't have.

  It wasn't that I didn't like it here because I would have loved to stay in different circumstances. Norah was already like a sister to me, and I loved Celeste; Iris, on the other hand, wasn't my favorite person, and at times I got some strange vibes off her. But then again, you know the old saying about every garden having a snake.

  I sat there for a while watching Moose chew on a stick and trying to calm my thoughts when I started getting that tingling feeling on the back of my neck again. I casually knocked my journal off the bench onto the ground and quickly turned to take a look behind me as I bent over to pick it up. Back there in the trees, I thought that I saw something move, I squinted trying to get a better look, but it was just too far away to tell for sure.

  "All right, boy, let's go take a look," I said to Moose and picked up my shotgun.

  "Hey, where are you going?" Norah called from the back door.

  "I think that I saw something out there in the trees and was going to take a look," I replied

  "Ok, just wait a minute," she said and disappeared inside only to reappear a minute later with her gun.

  "Do you think that it was a person?" she asked as we approached the treeline.

  I shrugged," I'm not sure, but I got that same creepy feeling that I had on our first night here."

  Norah frowned, "like you're being watched by a predator?"

  "Exactly!"

  We were just a few feet away from the thick treeline when Moose uttered a low growl with the hackles raised on the back of his neck. I stopped for a moment, scanning the area for danger, but nothing stirred.

  "That's odd," Norah remarked.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "Nothing is moving or making a sound; the birds are completely silent," she replied.

  Looking around me, I saw that she was right; every animal in our near vicinity was utterly silent. I noticed a squirrel in a nearby tree that was sitting there unmoving, almost petrified with fear. Moose, who was sitting at my feet, seemed uneasy but not to the same extent as the forest animals.

  "Hey, take a look at this," Norah called from a few feet away, and I went to take a look at what she was examining. It was a partial boot print left in the mud from last night's rain.

  "It looks like we can rule out an animal," I stated.

  "Let's get back to the house," Norah replied. "We need to bring this to Celeste's attention."

  Once inside, we found Iris in the kitchen, but there was no sign of Celeste.

  "There you girls are," she said, addressing us in her fake friendly way. "Celeste has a list of items she needs for you to pick today." She said and handed Norah a list of about ten items.

  "Where is Celeste?" Norah asked, taking a glance at the list.

  "She's in consultation with a patient and can't be disturbed, but she really needs the stuff on that list." Iris gave her an insincere look of sympathy, "Unfortunately since Celeste is laid up with a broken leg, you're the only one who can do it. I would like to help, but I have no idea what half of that stuff even is. Plus, someone should be here for Celeste."

  "Ugh," Norah groaned and handed me the list. "I guess we might as well get busy. Some of this is pretty hard to find, so it'll probably take us the rest of the day to get it all."

  "Since you probably won't be back until dinner
, I went ahead and packed a nice lunch for you girls," Iris said and handed me a bag of food.

  I quickly shushed Moose when he uttered a low rumbling warning when Iris got too close to me. He was definitely starting to get protective of me; I thought as he leaned against my leg.

  "Do you think that it's safe to eat?" Norah asked when she left the room.

  "You know her better than I do," I replied, and Norah rolled her eyes before pitching it in the trash.

  "Hey, I'm getting hungry!" I protested.

  "We'll make our own food," Norah stated and started making sandwiches from some thick slices of fresh homemade bread and ham.

  Shocked, I stared at her in silence for a minute, " do you actually think that she might cause you harm?"

  "Yes, if she could get by with it."

  "What did she do to you?" I breathed.

  "It's a long story, but I promise to tell you soon," the other girl replied.

  "YOU WEREN'T KIDDING when you said this would take all afternoon," I remarked several hours later as we trudged through the countryside, searching for some elusive plant that only grew in a specific area.

  "We're going to cheat for the last two items," Norah said as she carefully preserved the current specimen before putting it into her bag.

  "What do you mean," I asked as we walked back to the jeep.

  " Well, those last items, especially the nettle, are usually pretty hard to find, and it would no doubt take several more hours to find both of them, which would put us out here after dark. So we're going to do it the easy way and buy it from Granny Jones."

  Back at the jeep, I gave Moose a drink of water and stowed my backpack in the back with him before climbing into the front seat beside Norah. "So who is this Granny Jones? And why don't we just buy the whole list from her?"

  Norah laughed, "Granny Jones is a herbalist named Annie Jones, I've just always called her Granny since I was a little girl, and over the years, the name has stuck. She probably wouldn't have everything on the list, but she usually has the last two on hand. And since I got extras of everything, we should be able to make a trade."

  Annie Jones, who insisted that I also call her Granny, was every child's idea of the perfect grandma. She was a tiny little old lady of about five-feet tall if she was lucky, with bright blue eyes and a very sharp wit who lived in a small cabin a couple of miles down the road from the Red Rocket. Immediately she'd started fussing over us and had insisted that we stay awhile for some homemade oatmeal cookies with a cold glass of milk. Granny had also given Moose a cookie, and he was now completely in love with her.

  Norah nudged Moose, who was sleeping by Granny's feet, "I don't think that you'll ever find a better judge of character than a dog."

  "You might be right, " I replied, remembering his earlier reaction to Iris.

  "Or a more loyal friend, human friends will come and go, but a dog will be loyal until the day he dies," Granny stated and nodded at Beaugard, her bloodhound who was snoring in front of the fireplace.

  "So what brings you, girls, by today," Granny asked, changing the subject.

  "We need a few things for Celeste," Norah replied, showing her the list.

  "I have plenty of nettles, but I'm all out of butterbur. You can find a big patch of it over by the church north of Sweet Springs. Pastor John grows it for his allergies." She said while giving us directions and a handful of her delicious cookies to eat on the way.

  THE CHURCH, WHICH WAS about four miles north of Sweet Springs, was locked. So we tried the house that was next door, but it was also locked up.

  "Let's take a look behind the church," Norah suggested.

  Just behind the church was a scenic little flower garden with a few tables and chairs scattered around as if for a garden party. And beyond that was a regular garden with probably half a dozen people milling about.

  "It must be a community garden," I remarked.

  "Let's see if one of them can tell us where to find the Pastor," Norah said and stopped by a woman wearing a pink dress who was down on her knees in the dirt by some tomato plants.

  Absent-mindedly I walked up beside her when it registered. Community garden or not, why would someone be wearing their best clothing to work out in the dirt? Nice clothing, which was hard to come by in this day and age, was usually saved for special occasions like church and weddings.

  That's when I noticed her long blonde hair was matted down on the right side of her head with blood. Acting almost without thought, I pulled my handgun from its holster, firing automatically when her head swiveled around and moving unbelievably fast, she launched herself with a snarl straight at me.

  At the sound of the gunshot, every person in the garden turned around to look at us, and I realized that they were all undead.

  "Get back to Jeep," I shouted to Norah, gripping Moose's leash tightly and pulling him behind me. There were too many for us to fight, and as fast as they were moving, they would be on us before we had a chance to take out more than one or two of them. All of this passed with lightning speed through my mind as we turned to run.

  As I ran around the church's corner, Norah, who was just ahead of me, suddenly turned to grab a board off the ground, swinging it straight at my head.

  I yelled and ducked as the board passed by my head with a swoosh as it connected with the head of a z that I hadn't realized was right behind me.

  "What the hell, Norah," I yelled.

  "You're welcome," she said with a grin and calmly shot the zombie in the head as I glared at her.

  Norah looked past me, and her eyes widened, "watch out." She shouted.

  I turned to see another zombie right behind me. It was so close there was no time for me to get away from it. I stumbled backward when Moose shot between the two of us, hitting the zombie with such force that it crashed into the side of the church, and Norah quickly dispatched it with one shot before it had the chance to regain its feet.

  "We have to get out of here," I shouted and jumped to my feet as attracted by the noise, at least a dozen zombies started coming out of the barn and trees across the road from the church.

  "We're cut off from the Jeep," Norah yelled as we fell back against the side of the church and looked around frantically for somewhere, anywhere to take cover.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I know that many of us, especially the very young, are unprepared when the end comes. But I never thought that it would end like this for me. Growing up in the world in which I live, you would think that I would know more than anyone that nothing is forever. But for some reason, I had always felt that bad things happened to other people, and nothing would ever touch me. Logically I knew better, but obviously, I was good at fooling myself.

  I was just in the middle of coming to terms with my imminent demise when a door opened behind me, and we fell inside, sprawling across the cracked linoleum floor of the church kitchen.

  "Oh my goodness, are you girls, ok?" A pretty young woman just a few years older than me with light brown hair exclaimed as she slammed shut and locked the door behind us. She bent over to help us up off the floor, wincing slightly at the sound of zombie bodies crashing into the door.

  "We're a lot better now that you let us inside," I remarked, hoping that the door was strong enough to withstand the onslaught.

  "I'm so sorry I didn't notice you sooner, but I fell asleep after being up all night and most of the day," she confessed.

  "What happened out there?" Norah asked, taking a seat at the table and motioning for us to sit down as well.

  "It was horrible," the young woman replied, looking more and more distraught. "This is our first congregation, and I think that we lost over half of them in one day."

  "Just take a deep breath," I advised, fearing that she was going to go off the deep end any minute. "My name is Kaley Black, and this is Norah LeBlanc. We were looking for Pastor John before the zombies attacked us."

  She took a deep breath and busied herself pouring us glasses of sweet tea, "I'm Mollie
Benoit, my husband Adam is the new pastor. He just took over for Pastor John who retired last month. And now we've lost our congrega -" the rest of her sentence ended in a flood of tears.

  Norah and I stared at each other in silence for a moment; neither one of us knew what to say or do, but Moose, who seemed a little better than either one of us at things like this, came over and laid his head on Mollie's knee with a soft chuff. Mollie actually smiled at that and patted him on his head.

  "Why don't you tell us how it happened?" I suggested.

  Mollie sniffed a couple of times and tried to collect herself, "We decided to have a picnic after church yesterday as a way to get to know everyone, and at first, everything was going great. Some of the people were down in the church basement playing games, and the rest were out back just visiting and playing some yard games."

  Norah nodded her head, encouragingly, "so what happened next."

  "Well," Mollie said and sniffed again. "It was just about time to start serving the food when I noticed that nobody was coming up from the basement. So I walked around the side of the church to the basement door. And that's when I saw that someone, probably some of the kids, had locked them inside." She paused and visibly steeled herself before continuing her story, "I could hear them inside banging on the door, so I unlocked it. They flung the door open so hard that it knocked me back against the wall, and they started pouring out the door like demon spawn and attacking everyone in sight. It was like something out of a nightmare, some of us took refuge in the church, and a few managed to run away."

  She paused, lost in her thoughts, and I glanced at Norah, wondering if she'd caught that part about them being locked in the basement and saw from the alarmed look on her face that she had.

  "It's not your fault," I said with a reassuring smile at Mollie. "Unfortunately, this is the world that we live in now, and these things happen."

  "But why?" Mollie cried. "They were good people, our friends, and neighbors. They would be horrified at what they've become! Why would God let something like this happen to them!"