Life After (Book 2): The Void

by Bryan Way

  I look up to see Heather’s face wrought with fear an instant before her nose caves in and chunks of her brain blast through the back of her skull. My mouth wrenches open as I dive for the snow, either anticipating or reacting to the report of a gunshot. My fingers rip into the back of my scalp as the blood rockets through my veins. Gritting my teeth, I thrash into the snow and roll over to see Nick finish pulling Alan through the bottom of the guardrail as he stuffs the smoking pistol in his pocket. I can’t get to my feet fast enough to rush him properly. “She was dead anyway…” Nick offers.

  I don’t know if he had a longer defense because I slug him before another word blithers out of that fat, smug face. I hit him again, swatting his flailing limbs away before I cook every ounce of my rage into another right cross just below his eye. Words cannot describe the wanton catharsis I get from punching this son of a bitch, and I want to keep hitting him until his skull snaps and his eyes go dead. Arms wrap around my torso and voices simmer around me as a crowd floods into the street. Jack’s voice spirits into my ear, but I can’t hear him over the toxic deluge of curses and epithets I started spewing the moment I first hit Nick.

  “…or I’ll kill ‘im!” Is the first thing dribbling out of my mouth that I retain. As two sets of arms carry me back to the bus, I catch Nick glaring at me, his bloody grimace resembling the injured Blazkowicz sprite from Wolfenstein 3D. “Get off me!” I manage, failing to rip myself free from Levi and Jack. “Get that sadistic sonovabitch in line before I tie him under the bus AND KEELHAUL HIM THE FUCK HOME!” I shout, noticing that several dozen Zombies on the hill are now on fire.

  “Jeff, shut up and get on.” Rich says from the driver’s seat. I snarl out a sigh, pushing Jack and Levi away to ascend the stairs and take the seat behind Rich. I watch through the window as Mel, Levi, Jack, and Nick load Alan on the backboard. When they bring him to the tail of the bus, Lada opens the door and they hoist him aboard, closing it behind him. I hear Mel ask if we should dose him with morphine and Ally countering that she’s heard morphine can actually exacerbate spinal injury, positing that, given the uncertainty, we should wait for Karen.

  Moments later, Rich opens the door for the three people who just helped load Alan. Nick gives me a cartoon scowl as he passes, looking away as I stare back into him. Dialogue launches over my head and I feel compelled to nod. Rich closes the door and turns off the radio to conserve battery power as we get underway. I look out my window to see Heather’s lifeless body draped backward over the guardrail, the frost collecting on her clothes as blood seeps into the accumulation on the hill behind her.

  I try to focus on Nick and the notion that another psycho is the last thing we need, but I can’t push Heather out of my mind. She seemed like a nice girl, dauntless and certainly concerned with Alan’s well-being. Sure, she may have turned eventually, but like anyone else, she deserved a chance to make her peace. Like Julia. My thoughts turn to Alan, and as I gaze at the seat next to me, I inexplicably imagine him enjoying a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as he smiles at me. This is enough to reduce me to tears.

  I replay his back slamming into the guardrail and imagine the best case scenario will see him crippled from the waist down. I conjure memories of him using his legs apathetically; walking to the Starbucks counter to pick up his drink, standing to join me in a toast, and pedaling his big wheel down the sidewalk of our neighborhood in sweatpants as a child. I contemplate how terrified he’ll be when he wakes up.

  Eventually Jack sidles up across from me, but I can’t bring myself to look at him. This is one of my best and oldest friends, but when I see him, all I can think about is Alan. I imagine it’s hard for Jack to hold back, but he does so as long as he can.

  “I told him to stop.”

  “…Alan?”

  “Yeah…” Jack continues, motioning to the front after a pause. “He said it too…”

  “Rich?”

  “Stupid…” His leg shakes as he looks at the floor, precipitating a wince as he stifles his tears. “Think he’ll be okay?”

  “No.” I offer bluntly. “But we’ll deal with it. That’s what we do.”

  Jack has never cried in front of me, and he’s not about to start now. He picks himself up and lumbers toward the back of the bus just as quickly as he arrived, taking a seat alone and curling into a ball. “You knew the risks…” Rich says from the driver’s seat.

  “Fuck you.” I spit.

  “It’s not my fault…”

  “How’d Nick get your gun?”

  “That’s not what…”

  “Not. Another. Word.” My blunt, aggressive tone silences the rest of the bus. “I’m fed up with your resentful bullshit…”

  “Resentful ?! What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t give me that… all that shit about saving my friends… about your ex-wife and daughter… no one stopped you from finding them, but you didn’t. I take initiative, and suddenly you’ve got a problem. Know why? You never took a fucking chance in your life. And that’s on you. You can’t admit it. You can’t swallow your pride, so why don’t you fucking choke on it?”

  “Okay.”

  His reply is more dismissive than conciliatory, irritating me into a silence he seems to welcome. A long time passes before I hear anything intelligible on the bus, long enough that we pass the 80/476 interchange without incident or fanfare. Rich stays silent as he traverses the nuances of our return route, and I look back at Mel, who seems to be ingratiating herself on the new arrivals.

  I’m tired. Thinking about Alan, Heather, and the events at the bridge make me feel drunk and exhausted at the same time. Try as I might, I can’t focus, and that both confuses and pains me. I feel lonely and useless, like the sole toxic voice that poisons a conversation. I realize, after a while, that my subconscious is attempting to beat me into submission. Once I let it rain blows upon me, I end up quietly sobbing myself to sleep.

  “Jeff…” Mel is waking me. I have no idea how long I’ve been out, but I acclimate myself by looking out the window to identify some of the telltale signs of our approach to the Lehigh Tunnel. I pop up, take a deep breath, and exhale as I position myself next to Rich, who barely regards me. We overtake the underpass at which we stopped to converse following our first tunnel sojourn, giving me enough time to prepare the buses’ occupants for the return trip. Blankets are again affixed to the windows as the supplies for the return trip are advanced to the front.

  I silently collect the receipt from Rich as we approach the tunnel’s northern face, but I’m baffled by what lies ahead; when we exited earlier today, I recall the departure as uneventful, but now there are a cadre of jeeps parked on the median between the north and southbound lanes and several corpses lined up on the northbound shoulder. An unfamiliar man in forest camouflage steps into the road before we can reach the southbound tunnel.

  I leap up and doff my katana, leaving my rifle hidden behind my seat. Rich slows to a stop as I turn back to the cabin. “Alright, everyone… stay down, keep away from the windows, and have your weapons ready. Calmly… it’s not a race… don’t move around, don’t talk until we’re clear of the tunnel.” As the group follows my instructions, Mel makes her way to the front, keeping her head low. I look past her to see Alan supine on the backboard.

  “Didn’t we pay?” She asks.

  “I don’t think it’s the same people.”

  “…I hope you’re joking.”

  “No…” I sigh. “Stay down…”

  I put my hand on Rich’s headrest as the camouflaged man stands impatiently in the roadway. “Steady.” I mutter, patting Rich’s shoulder as he opens the door. When I walk down and plop out, a cold wind jolts up my back, and I wonder, not for the first time, if we’ll make it out of this. There’s a concrete wall buttressed by hills to our right, and though there’s enough space to use the emergency U-turn in the median, Rich would have to expose the entire right side of the bus in order to make a getaway.

  I limp forward, trying
to remain calm as I consider that our approach to the south side of the tunnel immediately put us on favorable terms; we arrived in a military Humvee with a mounted plow while our second vehicle remained far enough away to avoid fire. This time, we arrive at the north face with our pants around our ankles; we’re pulling up in a school bus less than five hundred feet from the entrance, past the point where the highway has been split by the median strip.

  Before I have the chance to prepare myself, I stop a few feet shy of this unfamiliar, unremarkable man. His eyes are dark, almost black, and he appears to be of Mediterranean descent. “Howdy.” He says with a smile, his voice surprisingly docile. I open my mouth to start my reply as a gunshot rings out, making me instinctively flinch and duck. “Relax…” He says quickly. I search for the origin of the shot and find another man in camouflage drawing down on one of the many corpses laid out in a line on the opposite side of the snowy median, having just put a rifle bullet in its unresisting skull.

  “…now that we’re settled down… what can we do for ya?” The man continues.

  “Give me a second to swallow… I think my heart’s still in my throat…”

  “Hah! You’re good… we’re just makin’ sure…”

  “…of what?”

  “Down ‘em, then crown ‘em… they don’t come back. That’s what I always say.”

  Always? I nod as I consider that I’ve just made us look like easy pickings with my fearful reaction. We most certainly aren’t, but I’d rather not be tested, especially because I’m the only one with a guaranteed death sentence.

  “What’s with the limp?” He asks.

  “Oh, uh… you know… as bad as it is, it’s the simple shit like tripping that brings you down.”

  “I hear that. So…?”

  “…as you might’ve guessed, we’re looking to pass through.”

  “No shit.”

  “And, uh… we had a deal… with your predecessors.”

  He doesn’t respond. My arms twitch in a subtle shrug to signal my plight. He looks down for a moment, then takes a vestigial step and leans back as he sighs.

  “Lotta people wanna use the tunnel…” He replies, finally.

  “I can imagine.”

  “…run afoul’a this bunch.” He motions to the corpses. “Been goin’ on for… hell… a month? We, uh… weren’t keen on their business model.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “They’re toll collectors… and not too nice about it.” He runs a finger across his throat. “So, uh… we disagreed on that. What’s your take?”

  “I think… I’m the wrong person to ask.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “It’s a one-time thing for us…” I reply. “We came from the south, now we’re headed back.”

  “We, huh?”

  “Yeah… you can see my driver…” I motion back to Rich.

  “Yeah… who else?”

  “Some… friends.” I hesitate.

  “You want to tell me how many?”

  “…not… really.”

  He looks off to the side in contemplation. My nerves clench before I let my adrenaline get the best of me. “Look…” I say softly. “The less we know about each other the better. I’m not gonna ask what’s on the other side, how many you’ve got, what weapons you have, how many people you’ve killed… ‘cause I don’t care. There’s no point in sizing each other up. I had a long day, and from the look of it, so did you. Let’s not make it any longer.” I can’t tell what effect this has on him, so I assume the worst and start thinking of the fastest way to draw my Colt.

  “Well…” He opens, breaking his previous record for slow replies. “Tunnel’s for everyone… no one can lay claim to it… but we do accept donations. My, uh… predecessors… friends of yours?”

  “No…”

  “No?” He asks.

  “No.”

  “And your, uh, agreement… don’t suppose you have it writing?”

  His smile terrifies me. I look back at the bus, and then return my gaze to the man with the rifle, who has seemingly been intrigued enough by our conversation to turn toward us. I left my receipt poking out of an easily accessible pocket, making my effort to produce it distinctly nonthreatening. The unfamiliar man snatches it up and looks it over. “Bartleby, eh?” He then produces the recognizable receipt book from his jacket and matches my copy to his, mumbling the inventory to himself as his eyebrows lift.

  Once he’s had a moment, he turns his face into a walkie-talkie and walks away from me. I can’t make out much of what he’s saying, but I do hear the words ‘last ones’ being repeated several times. He shakes his head as he turns back.

  “They didn’t go easy on you.” He continues. “But you’re here… and they’re not… if that’s not karma, I don’t know what is.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “See that you do… I’ll see you get it all back…”

  “… you know what? Don’t bother.” I state.

  “Come again?”

  “You said you accept donations. It’s yours.”

  He stares me down in a manner eerily similar to his predecessor, then smiles and nods, extending his hand to shake. I shudder as I look at it.

  “Don’t shake hands?” He asks, still smiling.

  “Haven’t gotten in the habit.”

  “Fair enough…” He replies after a moment. “Step aboard your chariot, and I’ll just say happy trails.”

  “Thanks… best of luck.”

  “Luck is for the unprepared… we’ll need all we can get.”

  He chuckles as he slaps my shoulder, turning and waving us forward. Is that expression more common than I thought? I walk back and Rich opens the door the moment I get in range, giving me a look I interpret as disbelief. Using the emergency turn on the median, we take the bus into the northbound lanes, avoiding the road less traveled. I feel far less nervous as we continue through, possibly because I’ve done this part before. The other side is the last truly great hurdle we face before the stretch drive.

  I can see nothing in our way as we approach the light at the other end, but I step up to the engine cover and sit down before we pass the exit. I look off to the right as we come through, catching what looks like an execution. I run back to the first seat on the right and peel the blanket off to see someone pointing a gun at the head of the man in the white snowsuit with the garlands of red hair. He’s on his knees, facing away from the gunman with his hands perched on his neck when the pistol cracks, sending blood racing after the trail of the bullet as his body goes limp.

  I shut the flap. Every foot we gain on the tunnel feels like a godsend. I finally turn to the back to see Mel, lying prone a few feet from Alan as she watches the tunnel through a pair of binoculars perched against the emergency exit window. After we’ve cleared a turn, she cheers. Egged on by her enthusiasm, the rest of the bus erupts in celebration. I sigh, feeling as though I’ve breathed out ten pounds of stress as I drop my head into the clustered fake leather of the seat back in front of me. I’m too exhausted to think through the insanity of this sordid ordeal, and I just want this day to be finished. I put a toothpick in my mouth and chew it ragged in less than a minute.

  I hear someone walking up the aisle and turn to see Ally approaching. Rich glances over his shoulder as she sits behind him. Ally’s gaze is fixed on the windshield with her knees aimed at me while she continuously scratches her dry scalp. Not attempting to mask my irritation, I stare hard at her until she looks back.

  “You alright?”

  “…I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.” I reply.

  “…I’m asking what you’re thinking. And I think you want to tell me.”

  Damn she’s good.

  “Our chances of surviving the tunnel. Both times…” I reply.

  “We’re here, aren’t we? Isn’t that all that matters?”

  “Maybe. I get those guys… but I still can’t figure how we got through the first time.”
<
br />   “What… do you mean?”

  “The guy I just talked to hated the first group… call it a ‘hostile takeover’… but what stopped the first group from taking us out?”

  “What stopped them? Why do you assume they would?” Ally asks.

  “…why wouldn’t they? They need supplies, it’s not like there’s a mall out here…”

  “Wait a second… the first group traded with us… gave you a receipt, for God’s sake… and you understand the second one?”

  “Yeah…” I say incredulously. “They’re easy to understand…”

  “Is that what we’re really talking about?”

  This question legitimately stuns me. What is she talking about? Ally takes a deep breath before continuing.

  “They hated the people we saw earlier today… murdered them… and you understand it?”

  “…I don’t know what you’re asking me?”

  “Jeff… I don’t know you very well… but I can say with certainty that you’re stuck in a textbook Kübler-Ross roller coaster …”

  “…I have trouble remembering… were people frequently this cryptic before there were Zombies? Because I feel like it only became a problem the last few months.”

  “This guy at the tunnel… you watched him get executed… and it doesn’t matter to you… why?”

  “He probably deserved it.” I reply.

  She bites her lip, exhaling hard through her nose. Before she can continue, I glance at the window next to Rich to see the flames of the Health Campus.

  “You went cold when you found out about your brother… denial. You tried to feel every moment of Julia’s loss… depression. You started taking it out on the undead… and us. Anger. Ever break your hand punching a wall?”