Aftermath

by Mark Lukens

  This was her first real look at her neighborhood. She didn’t see anyone around: no neighbors, no rippers, and no men dressed in camouflage marking the front doors of homes. The entire neighborhood seemed abandoned, like most of the people had either left their homes, fleeing for more rural areas, or they had become infected, or they were hiding inside their homes. She slowed down a little as she drove past the house across the street from hers, the home set back far from the street, the alcove hiding the front door in shadows. But she could see the mark better from the street, and now she could tell that the mark was two giant letters, one painted over the other: a capital D and a capital A. AD? DA? She couldn’t even guess what the letters might stand for, and she didn’t have the time to try to figure it out. Right now, she needed to get out of her neighborhood.

  She drove quickly down the street, and as she rounded the next bend, she saw a group of people coming from the side lawn of a two-story home nestled among oak trees. There were men and women in the group, and even one child. Their clothes looked torn and stained, their hair messy, their eyes wild. One of them made some kind of screaming noise, and he led the pack toward her car.

  Kate punched the gas, the car speeding up. She glanced at her rearview mirror, watching the rippers chase her car.

  She was going too fast around the turns.

  A teenage boy waving a stick ran out in front of her car from the other side of the street—she hadn’t even seen him coming because she’d been so focused on the larger group running from the other direction. She hit her brakes and turned the wheel, barely missing the kid, but getting around him without running into him. She had to drive all the way to the side of the road to avoid hitting him, her tires cutting through the edge of the lawn. She missed the mailbox by inches. As she sped away, the young man threw his stick at the back of her car. She heard it bounce off the trunk.

  Keeping her speed up to forty miles an hour, she followed the curves of the road that meandered through her neighborhood, lazy bends around multi-acre lots of old oaks, manicured lawns, and large homes nestled among the thick foliage. She only saw two more rippers, but neither one of them chased her. In fact, it looked like they were sticking close to the bushes and shrubs, almost like they were hiding, like they were wary of her.

  No, not of her. They were wary of the men in the pickup trucks, the men marking the front doors of houses with the D and the A, the men searching for something.

  Or maybe the rippers knew there was no rush to get her because the gate to the entrance of her neighborhood would be closed.

  Her heart jumped in panic. She had forgotten all about the metal gates at the entrance and exit to her sub-division. Would they be open or closed? The electricity was out, so the gates weren’t going to open automatically. But she knew they could be opened manually. But how was she going to get out of her car and figure out how to push the gates open? Would she have time for that?

  They had to be open. So many people had left the neighborhood; one of them had to have opened the gates so they could get out. Who would close them again?

  The men in the pickup truck? What if they were at the gates, guarding them, waiting for her?

  As she followed the last bend, still going too fast, her car tires screeching just a bit as she hugged the curve, the entrance came into view. There was no pickup truck parked there, no men with guns guarding it, no gauntlet of rippers to run through. And the gates were wide open.

  Her heart soared for just a moment. She was going to get out of her sub-division—she was going to escape. She didn’t slow down as she sped through the opening, her tires thumping over the metal track of the gate buried down into the asphalt.

  Slow down!

  She was going too fast and the road was coming up quickly. She slammed on the brakes, her tires screeching in the silence as she realized that she was speeding right toward the other side of the road that ended in a ditch, with a thick stand of woods just beyond that. She tried to turn the steering wheel as she hit the brakes, causing her car to slide out into the street. For a moment she was sure that her car was going to slide right into the metal guard rail in front of the ditch, either crashing right through it or flipping over it.

  But then her car came to a stop. She hadn’t closed her eyes (she didn’t think so, at least), but everything had been a blur and she couldn’t tell where she was going. Now that all motion had stopped, she realized that she was right in the middle of the street, the front of her car already pointed in the direction she wanted to go. Her foot was still jammed down on the brake pedal, her gloved hands still gripping the steering wheel. She was breathing heavily into her dust mask, and she felt like she was hyperventilating.

  The rippers would be coming. So would the DA men. Everyone within a mile radius had to have heard her car tires screeching on the pavement. She looked out her passenger window at the entrance to her neighborhood; no one was coming, and there were no cars coming from either direction on the road.

  But they would be coming soon.

  She pressed down on the gas, speeding up quickly. She had no real plans except heading west, but to head west she was going to have to go through the south end of the city, through the suburbs, and then she could catch Foster Road, which would lead into more rural areas, and eventually to other back roads that would lead to the mountains, and home.

  CHAPTER 12

  Kate realized that she had made a mistake coming into the city. She had planned on skirting the downtown areas, but she hadn’t dreamed there would be this many abandoned and wrecked vehicles clogging the roads, forcing her to take alternate roads, deviating from the route she’d marked on the map. And she hadn’t expected this many rippers. There were more and more rippers as she got closer to Foster Road, and these next few miles were going to be the worst.

  Groups of rippers ran at her car, some of them throwing objects: rocks, sticks, chunks of concrete, pieces of metal. She had avoided most of them, keeping her speed up enough so that they couldn’t grab on to her car; some tried, but they fell off as she took a turn too quickly. She even ran over one of them, the sickening crunch of bone sounding from underneath her car.

  Had everyone turned into these monsters? It seemed like the entire city was nothing but rippers now. No, not everyone—she hadn’t turned into a ripper. And neither had the DA men searching her neighborhood. But maybe those men were smart enough to stay in the less populated areas. Now she saw huge mobs of rippers as she sped down the streets. The houses were crowded close together in this area, the city skyline off to her left in the distance. There were no police, no military, no sounds of gunshots or sirens, no helicopters or airplanes roaring by overhead. She saw a few military and police vehicles left on the sides of roads, some with their doors wide open. One tank-like thing was rammed into the front of a home, part of the house collapsed down onto it.

  Yes, this was a huge mistake, but she couldn’t turn back now—all she could do was keep driving forward as fast as she could.

  Another horde of rippers rushed out into the street, flooding from front and side yards of the homes, and from behind wrecked cars. She plowed into the edge of the group, just getting between them and a line of parked cars. She couldn’t avoid hitting a few of the rippers, knocking them out of the way. But she couldn’t keep doing this; her car was going to get stuck in this mob of people soon, bogged down. And then she would be trapped as thousands of rippers converged on her car, breaking the windows to drag her out.

  Her car limped along past the next horde of rippers, the motor making a loud ticking sound. She didn’t waste time glancing down at the instrument panel and gauges; she gripped the steering wheel, her eyes darting back and forth between the windshield and the rearview mirror, watching the crowd of rippers chasing her car, throwing things at it.

  The rippers behind her eventually slowed down, giving up the chase. She noticed that they hunted in relatively organized groups, like a pack of wolves. A piece of the video she’d seen on her laptop fl
ashed through her mind, the footage taken from the balcony where the small group of rippers revealed themselves in the splash of light from the streetlamp—hunting in a pack.

  There would be more rippers. She’d outrun the last group, but more would be coming.

  And there they were, around the next turn, rippers pouring into the street. Kate felt like she was being herded now, forced to drive down certain roads, getting farther and farther away from Foster Road. Maybe they were trying to box her in somewhere.

  Kate jammed her sneakered foot down onto the brake pedal, the car skidding to a stop, the tires screeching. She shifted into reverse as the horde of rippers came rushing at her, hundreds of them, screaming and yelling, waving sticks and knives, some of them throwing things.

  She’d seen a side road, and she shifted back into drive, turning onto the smaller road to get away from the rippers. But they were already cutting through the yards, crawling over wooden and chain-link fences like a river of humans, like a wave of flesh coming her way, a wave that would never stop.

  The line of houses whipped by in a blur as she drove. There were taller industrial buildings on the other side of the street. She was being herded toward downtown, and eventually she was going to get to an area where she couldn’t turn around, an area where she couldn’t run away.

  If her car could make it. Steam was pouring out of the front of it now, the ticking of the engine much louder. She looked down at the temperature gauge and saw that it had shot up into the red. The car was overheating—it wasn’t going to last much longer.

  She was far enough away from the last horde of rippers now, and she had no other choice but to get out and run. She skidded to a stop, driving her car right up onto a lawn in between the houses. She was out of her car in a flash.

  Maybe she could find a house that was unlocked.

  No, that would be a deathtrap. The rippers would be here in seconds, she could hear them coming. They knew where she was, and they would check each house as surely as the DA men in her neighborhood had marked the doors of the homes.

  Her only chance was across the street, in the bigger brick and block industrial buildings. Maybe she could find an unlocked door there somewhere, or an open window. It wouldn’t be a permanent solution, but it could be somewhere to hide for a little while, somewhere to catch her breath. She was breathing hard into her dust mask, her gloved hands clenched into fists as she ran.

  She was a fast runner, and today she was wearing her running shoes. She’d been jogging for years, and she let her instincts kick in as she bolted across the street. The rippers were still at least a block way, but then she saw three rippers running toward her from across the street. She hadn’t even seen them until now. All three of them were men, two younger and leaner men, one older and overweight man. The younger men were running right at her; they were going to cut her off before she could even get across the street to the building.

  It was over—the two men were too close, too fast. But she kept running toward the large six-story brick building, praying that she could get inside. When was the last time she had prayed? When she’d been a little girl?

  The young men ran toward her, their hair and eyes wild. One of the men had a beard that was stained a reddish-brown from feeding on flesh and blood. Their eyes were wide with rage, but there was also a savage delight in them, the thrill of the chase, the anticipation of catching her and feasting on her.

  Oh God . . .

  Two gunshots rang out, one right after the other, loud and powerful rifle shots that echoed back from the buildings. The rippers’ heads exploded from the gunshots, both of their suddenly lifeless bodies pitching forward from the momentum of their running, tumbling down onto the street.

  “Over here!” a man’s voice called out to Kate.

  CHAPTER 13

  Kate hadn’t even come to a complete stop yet, still running toward the building. And then she saw the man with a rifle in a doorway, farther down to her right. The building looked old, constructed of bricks, the windows blacked out—it looked like the building had been abandoned years ago.

  The man fired his rifle again.

  For one second Kate thought the man was firing at her, but then she looked behind her and saw the older ripper falling to the street, a mist of blood in the air from where the back of his head had just exploded. He fell down hard, his knees and head thudding down onto the pavement.

  The horde was still coming. They were a block away, but she could hear their screams and shouts. She could imagine a sea of men, women, and children pouring into the street from the yards between the houses at any moment.

  “In here!” the man yelled at her. His voice wasn’t too loud, a harsh whisper, but she’d heard him well enough.

  Kate was across the street in seconds, darting past two abandoned cars, one T-boned into the other. Blood was all over the inside of one of the vehicles—it looked like flesh had been shoved into a blender and then poured inside the car.

  A moment later Kate was inside the building, darting right past the man in the doorway. The man entered and closed the door, plunging them into darkness. Kate heard heavy metal slamming into place, like a bar being secured over the door.

  A sudden light. The man lit a flashlight, but he kept a hand cupped over the front of it. He was close to her. She could smell faint odors coming from him: body odor, leather, bad breath, oil, old food.

  “Follow me,” the man whispered to her.

  Kate obeyed his orders, following the weak sphere of light in front of the man. The light looked like a ghost orb. Every so often the light grew a little brighter as the man lifted his hand away from the front of the flashlight, turning it into a beam of light again instead of the faint reddish glow.

  They walked past some dusty machinery hulking in the dark. She smelled the old oil and metal in the air. Even though there were large pieces of machinery, she had the feeling that this building was mostly empty, judging from the echo of their hurried footsteps on the concrete.

  The man opened a metal door at the far end of the vast room, the hinges creaking a little. She followed him up a set of wide concrete steps. He took his hand away from the flashlight once they were in the stairwell and she could easily see the stairs, the man silhouetted in front of her from the light with his rifle slung over one shoulder. He had picked up a duffel bag somewhere along the way.

  They walked up flight after flight of steps, turning at landings where metal doors led back into the building. But they kept going up. Kate didn’t say anything, and the man didn’t either. Obviously he had a definite destination in mind. Their footsteps sounded so loud, echoing in the wide stairwell even though Kate was trying to be as quiet as she could. Her breathing was still a little heavy, the muffled sound trapped inside of her dust mask.

  At the next landing, which was larger than any of the others, the man walked toward a metal door, focusing his flashlight beam on a thick chain and padlock on the handle of the door. He unlocked the lock and the chain dangled down from the door, making a loud, clattering sound. He never looked back at her or said anything as he pulled the chain and lock out of the doorhandle and opened the door.

  A blinding light assaulted Kate’s eyes for a second, the man silhouetted in the light of the doorway, the outline of his shadowy figure blurry. In that instant the man reminded her of the dream she’d had, the blind woman in the glow of light telling her to head west.

  As her eyes quickly grew used to the light, she realized it was sunlight that had dazed her for a second after her trip through the darkness of the stairwell. The man stepped out into the sunlight, taking the chain and padlock with him. He held the door open for her.

  “It’s safe,” he said.

  “The roof?” she asked.

  “Just keep low. There’s a place that’s safe up here. Nobody can get up here.”

  She stepped through the doorway and turned, watching the man as he closed the door and locked it with the chain and padlock. She got a better look at
him now and realized that he was older than she’d thought he was, but of course she’d been running for her life, so she hadn’t gotten that good of a look at him at first. He was tall, well over six foot, and lean with muscles hardened and strengthened by a lifetime of manual labor. Her dad had always told her that work muscles were stronger than gym muscles. The man was dressed in a beige button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the tail of the shirt tucked into his army-green dungarees. He wore a pair of broken-in work boots, a belt with all kinds of pouches hanging from it, and a pistol holstered on his hip. He had a bandana tied over his head, holding his gray hair out of the way. His face was long and his cheeks sunken in, his ears a little too large for his face. But he had kind eyes, the color carnation-blue.

  She trusted him immediately. Maybe he reminded her a little of her father, who was probably a little younger than this man. But there was a look in his eyes that made her feel safe, a look of compassion, but also a look of competence and confidence.

  They hurried to the other end of the roof where there were large air-conditioners and other mechanical units stacked up next to each other. But there was also a small wooden lean-to building against one of the units.

  “Home for me,” the man said, gesturing at the lean-to with a smile.

  “You built that?”

  He nodded. “It keeps the rain and sun off my head. Gets me out of the wind.”

  The lean-to was really a big box with an open doorway. It looked almost like some kid’s treehouse had fallen totally undamaged out of a tree. The roof of the structure was a mishmash of metals, and there was more corrugated siding on parts of the outer walls. Blankets covered the floor on the inside, and a blue duffel bag sat in the corner along with a stack of canned food and a few gallons of water in plastic jugs.