Life After (Book 2): The Void

by Bryan Way

  “Told you we had it under control.” I take a moment to catch my breath and survey the battlefield. At least one person didn’t fully dispatch their charge, as I see a Zombie or two crawling amid the corpses we left on our way across the front lawn. The snow blown bodies of the recently expired are distinct from the dusted ground, their only camouflage stemming from the blades of dying grass poking through the accumulation around them; the scene looks like a painting depicting the aftermath of a battle from the Revolutionary War. “Grey, don’t go too far.” Anderson calls out from the back.

  I take point again, walking calmly toward the corpses dragging their feet through the dusty snow, and though they appear to be breathing, no ice crystals escape their lips. The next assailant is no trouble, and I again hear the M-16s popping off behind me, although this time they are further spaced on either side. “Fish in a barrel.” Anderson shouts. I look back at the rest of the group to see most of them shaking with nervous laughter. “It’s alright, it’s under control.” I say gently, turning back to take down another with the katana, once again feeling a sharp stinging pain in my hip.

  “How does it look?” I shout back at Anderson.

  “Like we only need a few minutes.”

  “Then what?”

  “…drinks?”

  Laughter titters behind me. In the midst of another swing, I turn to see my compatriots attacking the undead with gusto, often taking on two at once. In front us, the undead are now tripping over their fallen ranks as they try to claw toward us, the thin blanket of snow now covered by piles of bleeding corpses folded over one another.

  “Anyone else keeping score?” Jack asks while hitting another.

  “Sorry Jack…” I reply with a smile. “I lost count at 200 about a month ago.”

  “Eff you, dude…”

  “Lost mine at 300.” Anderson calls from the rear.

  “Guys, could we please just concentrate?” Ally mutters.

  “You heard the lady. Count quietly.”

  This elicits another wave of chuckles as I catch Mel and Mursak in my peripheral vision, each displacing a round apiece into the skulls of two Zombies and watching the bodies crumple before they move on. “You see, Ally, this can be fun…” I call out. The melees continue to chew through the crowd while Anderson’s posse plows through the masses, boldly executing the undead one after another. “Let’s get one person with a rifle behind every person with a melee.” I call out. Mel quickly gets behind Lada, Anderson behind Rob, and Mursak behind Andy. It doesn’t take much longer until the undead are spread thinly enough that they can each be engaged individually.

  “More incoming…” Anderson calls from across the lawn. “On it.” I reply, taking large strides toward the sidewalk. A dozen shuffling corpses advance toward me when my steps reveal the painted lines in the middle of the street. I catch sight of the bus brake lights before they disappear into a foggy mist of flurries. I think I hear my name being called, but I’m too busy decapitating my first customer to bother with a reply.

  The bodies fill in to my right as I dispatch a cluster to my left; I’ve now made it to the opposite side of the street and begun strafing in the wake of the bus as I alternatively kick and slice the Zombies who get close. “Too easy, huh?” I take a step back toward a bush, using the jacket of my last victim to wipe off my katana before sheathing it. The undead have created a semi-circle, barring me from returning to school property. As I stay still, they stagger and grunt forward, closing the gaps between each other and me. I yank out the trench knife with my right hand and take the .45 in my left.

  “Okay…” I step into the first one and sock him in the jaw, bringing my hand back and burying the blade just behind his ear. Two Zombies attack me from either side, so I kick the man on my right in the stomach and spear the skull of the woman on my left, forcing her head to the ground as she apparently struggles against me. The next one quickly gets too close for comfort, so I plug him between the eyes and watch him crumple like a rag doll. A moment of silence allows me to catch my breath while I realize that my arms are getting tired.

  “You’re gettin’ good at that.” Anderson sputters behind me on the front yard.

  “Yeah, well… how do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

  “I-95.”

  I look back at him incredulously. “What?” He asks. Shaking my head, I walk to the left, watching the Zombies pivot and drag in pursuit. “We still have a ways to go, my friends…” I say as someone screams from the front lawn. I can’t see clearly enough to figure out who it is. One of my assailants falls forward, allowing me to see Anderson running back to the gate. More shouting follows as I eye up my next victim, my diagonal blow with the trench knife traveling through the base of her skull as I again glance toward the school.

  Another one closes in from the right, and I end him with a shot to the forehead. The next one gets too close, so I land a side-kick in his stomach, knocking him into two more as they all lose their footing and tumble to the ground. I shoot the one on top through the bottom of his chin, watching the two beneath him struggle to escape the weight of his limp corpse.

  “Molotovs!” Anderson shouts from about fifty yards. Suddenly, the group of bodies to my far left is engulfed in flames, an affliction they share easily due to the wick effect. I take out another who almost seems distracted by the fireworks. I hear something vague about ‘falling back’ over the hissing, molten undulations of undead flesh as I watch one corpse knock down another, setting her on fire in the process. “GREY!” Someone shouts. I look past the bodies in front of me to see Mel about to engage two at once. One approaching from my right gets too close, so I turn, draw, and take out his eye socket.

  “GREY, GET BACK HERE!” I roll my eyes and lift my arms before sheathing my trench knife and walking back across the street. Though there are several Zombies coming at me from the sides, I only have two directly in my path, so I take aim when I’m within five feet, plugging her in the philtrum before nailing the next between the eyes. I feel the fingers of a third scrape my right arm as I make it to the curb, so I take another step and ladle a side-kick into his ribs. Mel takes aim at the group behind me, backing up while our compatriots make sure their previous victims have gone down for good.

  “Well?” I ask. Mel walks past me, taking out two more while a trail of flames screams off the top of a wine bottle thrown to my left. It sails toward a cluster of bodies to the right of the densest part of the horde, but the cocktail does not detonate, merely thudding into the head of a Zombie before rolling to the ground. “I told you, dammit, you’ve gotta hit the street… it doesn’t break when it hits them!” Anderson shouts at Jake, who replies with “Well what if it just goes out in the snow!?” The snow isn’t deep enough to extinguish the wick outright, so the flame is easy to spot as the bottle spins around their shuffling feet.

  “Anderson, hit the bottle!” I shout back.

  “GREY, GET BACK HERE!”

  “Just shoot the bottle! It’ll still go up!”

  He lifts his M-16 and takes four steps toward the crowd before dropping to a knee and sighting. Three shots later, the bottle goes up and splashes flaming diesel fuel on the legs of our victims. They stumble over each other, pushing out a bulge in the throng. One of their heads jerks to the left with a puff of blood, a result of Anderson taking potshots from his kneeling position. I look back to see Mel and Lada by the statue a few feet to my right, Jake standing behind Anderson feebly holding a Molotov, and Mursak with Andy and Rob behind us by the auditorium garden rows, doing god knows what.

  “We’re spread out all over hell, what’s going on!?” I shout at them. “Reload!” Anderson says, getting up and running back toward Mursak. I pass Mel and Lada, jogging to where he was just standing as I take out my trench. I can’t understand where the confusion is coming from: there are fifty of them advancing at their normal rate of speed, and though we can’t tell how many are behind them, Rich is certainly dragging a fair share behind him.

 
To my left, Mel struggles to cycle her M-16, and then tries to fire. “I just reloaded it!” I hear her shout. “Get Anderson to look at it! Fall back!” After a moment, I deduce that we are using none of our three M-16s at this moment. Anderson finishes reloading his before jogging up to switch with Mel. When I turn back, the undead are a few feet closer, and all of them are making a bee line for group reloading. “Dammit, we’re losing the line!” I sprint off to the right, leading them away from the auditorium toward the stockade. “OVER HERE!”

  I hear Anderson shout something as Mursak starts forward with an M-16 and Andy on his tail. I lift my .45 and fire blind into the crowd at head level, catching a glancing blow of one corpse’s forehead; it guarantees that he’ll keep coming, but the shot brings his friends in my direction. “ANDERSON! GET ‘EM STRAIGHTENED OUT, I’LL BUY YOU SOME TIME!” I hope he heard me, and I hope I can keep these shuffling puppets busy long enough to get everyone calm, reloaded, and focused. I let them close in before taking two shots, definitively killing one and at least greatly impeding the other.

  One stumbles out of the group, falling forward as I take a big step back to avoid her, putting the .45 to her forehead and pulling the trigger to receive the ultimate anticlimax; I’m out. Walking back calmly, I sheathe the trench knife, remove the spent magazine, and fish out a new one. I fumble to slip it in, but once it’s locked in place, I rack it and shoot the two closest to me, supporting the Colt with both hands. Seeing that I have a moment, I pull out the knife again and take the Colt southpaw. I hear the report of M-16s again firing single rounds and catch sight of Mel downing one while Lada cleans up.

  I glance off to my left and see the gap between the undead and the garden row closing off, so I take a few big steps back and prepare to duck through. As I prepare to traverse the horde, I realize they’re too tightly spaced for me to make a clean break. I knock one back with the knife and spike him, then shoot another, but the gap continues to close, leaving me trapped between the horde, the broad side of the school, and the stockade. “Guys, little help!” I back up further, watching another Molotov ignite in front of the auditorium.

  I know I can run back over the cars, but I can still do some damage before it gets that desperate. There’s an average of six feet between the bodies, placing them far enough apart for me to see the house on the opposite side of the street clearly. However, I’m running out of gas, and my arms are too tired for me to make serious inroads with the katana. I back up again and slam into something, turning quickly to see I’ve throttled into the lone tree in the midst of the grass, which is about five feet in diameter. I slink around it and come face to face with the bony visage of a legacy, jabbing him behind the ear hard enough to drop him. How did they get behind me?

  “GUYS! OVER HERE! NOW!” The undead are still far enough apart that I could conceivably bull rush and maneuver my way back to the group with some fleet footwork. The stockade just disappeared as an option, as I now have no idea what awaits in that jungle gym of smashed cars. My feet work faster than my brain, taking me between the two closest ones as the M-16 shots get closer. Seeing Mel about forty feet away is a comfort, but there are about twenty Zombies between us.

  I step right, then leap left, throwing the force of my landing into the closest one, who predictably falls into another and clears a space. I jump into that and dart to the right, punching another one down as I shoot the next closest and spike the prone body, stepping on her back to make it another few feet. A hand comes down on my shoulder and I kick him back, but then another lands on the opposite shoulder. I turn and shoot, missing, and then unload another round and take her out cold. I punch one, then another, then another. They’re getting too close. It’s getting harder to move my arms.

  “HEY!” I shout to someone with a gun nearby. I shoot another, and another, clearing a few feet in front of me. Almost there. Filling myself with the rage of Julia and Dave, I throw my shoulder into one and thrust him toward the next one, pushing into two more before hopping over them. I turn and shoot, then flip the other direction and punch one before spiking him when I feel a searing pinch wring my left hand, followed by the screech of a raw, pulsating rip. A gunshot rings out next to me as I turn to see a chunk of leather and flesh missing from my hand as a Zombie’s teeth peels the last strands of skin away.

  Something shakes my hip and my hand disappears, bringing my wrist up in a flash and sending a ribbon of blood careening through the air. Two forceful hands grab me and the crowd disappears as my feet uselessly kick at the ground. A woman screams at the top of her lungs as a wave of bullets burst into the air around me, and I continue to kick at the snowy pavement as I’m whisked toward the gate. “What the…” I manage. “HOLD ON, HOLD ON!” The door rips open, and my boots squeal against the waxy floors as moaning, the wind, and gunfire screams in the distance, allowing my heavy breaths to hang in the acoustic nightmare of the stairwell. “KAREN, GET DOWN HERE NOW! JEFF GOT TAGGED!” I shake my arms violently, looking down to confirm that my left hand is gone.

  “KAREN!” Anderson shouts.

  “Some-… someone’s gotta get my hand…”

  “DOUBLE-TIME IT NOW!”

  “Get my hand… go get my hand…”

  “PUT PRESSURE ON IT!”

  I don’t know how I ended up on the steps on the other side of the railing, but I find myself looking down at the tapestry of the tiled floor, fixating on the steel divisions and worn rubber guards at the edge of each step as I wrap my right hand around my left wrist, seeing bone sticking through the brick-red mass of tissue. Out of sheer curiosity, I take the pressure off and hold the stump out, watching the soupy blood slop out of the gap where my hand used to be.

  “Jeff… Jeff!” Mel pokes her head over the lockers to see me holding out my wrist as my eyes fill with tears. This is real. A moan turns into a wail, which then crescendos into a bellowing scream. I used that hand. Wrote. Played keyboard. Made finger paintings for my mom. And now it’s gone. “GO AWAY!” I scream at Mel, who dissolves at my tears. I hear the doors blast open at the top of the steps, followed by footsteps careening down as I wrap my fingers around the shorn flesh where my left hand once began.

  “Jeff, keep pressure on it…” Karen mutters. I don’t know what I say back, but I manage to catch up a few seconds later: “OH GOD… OH GOD… MY FUCKING HAND! OH GOD…!” Something pokes into my thigh and I lose consciousness.

  I wake up in mid-struggle, warm but uncomfortable. My speech comes out muffled, likely because my mouth is covered. I try to force the gag out with my tongue, but I can’t move it, and I can’t move either hand. The left stump is on fire. When I look down at it, I can see steam rising as a bright red metal object is pressed against it by Karen, and the smell of burnt pork and steaming copper fills the air. I promptly gag and pass out again.

  This time I wake up in the freezing dark, supine with my back against something soft and warm that lacks the underlying support of a boxspring. I have a blanket draped over me and I can’t move. “Hello?” I struggle to move each limb, but they’ve been bound. As I shake my arms, I can feel tension, like rope stretching, tied to something solid and fixed to my wrists with grey tape or some other uncomfortably sticky binding. I walk my legs up toward my left arm and wipe my socked feet against it, but I can’t reach or get any leverage. I try to stretch my legs up toward my head, but once I realize there’s nothing I can do, I lay them back down.

  I pump and make fists with both of my hands, and then remember thinking that my left hand was missing. It feels numb, as though the circulation has been cut off, but I can definitely feel my fingers flexing. I struggle against my bindings again. “What the fuck is going on?” I whisper. How did I get here? Where is this? How long have I been here? Both of my arms are killing me and my shoulders feel like someone coiled the muscles in flaming ropes.

  An hour passes. My head is spinning, and I don’t feel normal. My body tremors and I feel like I’ve woken up nauseous after blacking out drunk. My left hand h
urts. I can’t move. I snap and jerk my legs around again to no avail. I can’t stop thinking about the undead, and my thoughts only change when I turn my head in certain directions. I hate facing their eyes on the ceiling, but it’s the most comfortable position. The right isn’t as bad, they’re walking toward the bus. The left sees them in the rain, trying to get into the basement. I can’t shake these impressions, and they are inexorably tied to the direction of my head. “What’s happening?! Get this out of my head!” I murmur.

  I just need to stand up. I need to get my bearings, go to the bathroom and get water to reset before I start over. But I have to stand up first! God, this is annoying. My back hurts, my arms are killing me, I’m cold, my head is throbbing, my stomach aches, and I’m dizzy. I just want to curl up in bed until I’m warm enough to fall asleep, but god dammit, I can’t do that either! I jerk my legs around and slam my back repeatedly into the floor as I try to pull myself free. I jerk both of my arms toward me to pull the ties out, but I can’t.

  Okay, I just need to clear my head and I can fall asleep again. So, Jules, I focus on Jules. The way she breathed when she slept. The way her skin felt. The smell of her dirty hair. God damn corpses shuffling, turn left. Rain. Cold. Fear. She’s safe upstairs, but we’re in danger. Matt. I told him… I wish I told him. What? He should’ve stayed? Too distracting, turn right. Ceiling is too painful, turn right. Bus. Inert. You never wanted to spend enough time to establish connections on it. Perfect. Sleep on the bus. Sleep with Julia.

  My arm hurts. I may have slept seconds or hours. It’s not working. “HEY! WHAT THE FUCK!?” I wrench my arms again, doing so for a full minute until I’m too exhausted to move. Directional head turning has abandoned predisposition. I left, front, and right. What did the directions mean and why? Was it important, or just torturous? All three, torturous, and important?