Zombies' End: Aftermath

by Feren, Todd C.

  Thick brown smoke billowed from under the hood as we drove away, and the rattling sound just got worse and worse.

  I pulled over a few blocks from home and stopped the car without turning it off. I didn’t want to take the chance that it wouldn’t start up again.

  I jumped out of the car and flung open the back door. I had to make sure everyone was okay.

  They weren’t.

  All three were bitten. Small bites.

  ”There was hardly any blood at all.”

  I pulled the med kit out of my glove compartment and treated each one of the wounds for my babies. I wrapped each cut and wiped away each tear.

  Little Sara had the worst injury.

  The tip of her index finger was missing completely.

  She stopped crying after I wrapped everything tight. I think I just made the finger numb so she couldn’t feel anything at all.

  I got back in the car and told the kids they were going to be alright now. They all stopped crying as we pulled into the garage.

  My mind was racing. I knew what was going to happen, but I didn’t know what I could do. What was I supposed to do?

  I kept the car running, and then I leaned back into the back seat and kissed each one of my children on the forehead. I told them they were safe now at home.

  “Mommy loves you.” I said.

  Sam, the oldest, was scared that I was leaving, and he held out a hand for me. I kissed my finger and held it against the window.

  “Stay here for a bit okay? Just take a little nap and when you wake up, Daddy will be home.”

  I saw his little eyes light up when I told him Daddy was coming home.

  It broke my heart.

  “I’ll be right back with Daddy. Watch after your little brother and sister while I go and get Daddy.” Then I went inside and locked the door behind me.

  I cried all night. What if they weren't going to turn? What if they were somehow immune to the flu?

  What did I do?

  I didn’t sleep at all that night. I just kept crying and thinking about my kids falling asleep forever in the back seat of my car.

  The car ran out of gas around six AM. I went out into the garage at seven to face what I did.

  When I opened the door to the garage, there was a cloud of smoke and fumes so thick it immediately burned my eyes and lungs.

  I couldn’t see anything through the thick brownish black fog that filled the garage. I pulled open the garage door to try and let some light in while letting the smoke and fumes out.

  As the smoke cleared, I could see the car sitting there as still as it could be. There was no movement, and not a single sound.

  I went to the back door and tried to peer in through the window. The windows were covered with a brown sludgy film, so I took my hand and wiped some of the film away.

  I still couldn’t see anything. The garage door was letting a good amount of the morning light in, but not enough. I grabbed the bottom of the garage door and pushed it up the last few inches, and as it finished opening all the way, the sunlight poured into the smashed rear window and illuminated the inside of the car.

  Three children—My three children, all reaching towards the window I was pressing up against. Their eyes had lost their color and shine, and they were pale, yet covered with the same brownish film as the window.

  I backed away from the car and I’m not sure if I screamed or not. I don’t remember much from that moment.

  I was hoping—I was hoping that if they died before they could turn— Maybe if they could die in their sleep this wouldn’t have happened.

  The air was still choking me.

  I couldn’t breathe, and my head was swimming. I walked out of the garage door into my driveway and saw more of them marching up the street.

  Hundreds of them— Those fucking things.

  A few turned and saw me then started heading towards me. I went back inside and closed the garage door. When it closed all the way, I could hear a rasping voice moaning from the inside of my car. It was Sam.

  He was still strapped in just like I left him.

  He was reaching for me. His hands small and covered with that brown shit—for a second, and maybe it was from the fumes, but for a second, I saw my little boy.

  Then he snarled at me and spun his head around at an impossible angle. I heard a loud snap in his throat, but it didn’t seem to bother him.

  He still reached for me. Parker, my three year old, kept trying to get up. Like he was unaware that the seat belt was keeping him in.

  And Sara—My baby—I couldn’t see her face.

  I didn’t even try.

  All I could see were her tiny hands reaching out of the car seat—with little wrapped hands with a missing index finger.

  Saying all this out loud is hard. I’ve lived with it for so long now, but I’ve never talked about this. It just constantly replays in my brain every night when I lay in bed trying to fall asleep. I keep seeing my babies in the back seat of that car.

  I went back inside and closed and locked every door from my garage to my bedroom, and I just slept— I don’t think I even dreamed.

  It was like time travel.

  I fell onto my bed and suddenly sixteen hours had passed by.

  When I woke up, I walked into the bathroom and brushed my teeth.

  It’s funny how a routine like brushing your teeth stays with you. Here I was living in a world where dead people were eating living people— I murdered my three children who now wanted to kill and eat me, only they couldn’t because their tiny little infected brains couldn’t figure out the complexity of a seat belt—And all I can think about is how I’m low on toothpaste.

  The whitening kind.

  Maybe it’s routines that get us through day to day.

  I used to sing the kids to sleep every night. That was a routine I kept alive every night even after this whole “flu” shit started.

  After I brushed my teeth, I showered and got dressed. For some reason, I even put on lipstick and nice shoes.

  I went into the garage and didn’t even look into the car.

  I could hear them in the back seat still...

  There was no need to look again. I went over to the lawn mower in the corner of the garage and right next to it was a five gallon gas can with about a gallon or so left in it.

  I emptied the gas can into the tank of the car, opened the car door and got inside.

  After two or three tries, the car finally turned over, and that brown smoke shot out from under the hood. The car shook as I revved the engine. I jumped out of the car and flung the garage door open and backed out.

  I drove as far as that one gallon could take me, and when I eventually ran out of gas, I was stopped right in front of Lake Dawn.

  The irony, right?

  I looked over the wheel and saw the package still floating in the lake. The package that everyone was going for when all Hell broke loose.

  Then I looked up into the rearview mirror and saw my Sam, reach for me with such force that I could see and hear his collarbone snap.

  It didn’t faze him. Not one bit.

  I looked into his eyes for a long time—then I put the car in neutral, got out and pushed. The ground got pretty muddy the closer I got to the edge of the lake.

  I started to regret wearing my nice shoes.

  I pushed the car out into the water. Luckily, there was a slight dip towards the water’s edge, otherwise I don’t think I could’ve pushed it through that muck alone.

  Once the water got into the front seat, it pulled the car the rest of the way in.

  I could see all three kids—No—Not my kids.

  I could see all three of those things moving around in …the back seat.

  But then there was Sam—Still looking at me.

  Reaching for me.

  He never took his eyes off of mine.

  I kept watching until the water took the car completely. I waited and watched until it was gone.

  Until they w
ere gone.

  Then I just walked back home.

  It’s weird. Yesterday there were hundreds of them walking around, and on the way home I only saw about two or three.

  I crossed the road when I saw them, it wasn’t a big deal. They don’t ever really stay in one place very long.

  They just keep walking— Walking and eating anything that gets in their way.

  The next few months were hard on everyone.

  The supply drops came less and less often. Which was fine, I didn’t need as much since it was just me now.

  Fewer mouths to feed.

  It got pretty quiet for a while. Routines are what kept me going.

  Then the whole evacuation of survivors happened—Nice of the government to lock us all up with the infected, make us fight for our lives, then months later when there was nothing left to fight, come take us away so they can say they got us out of there.

  Fucking thank you!

  Once we were all cleared to go back home and the cleanup started, I was feeling like a different person.

  We all had done things to survive, but I didn’t feel like I came out of a horrific situation a new person better for her struggles. No. It was the opposite.

  I was missing a part of myself. A part of all of us died during the outbreak.

  Every day I had to walk by that lake. Every single day. I would walk by it knowing what I had done, and I would relive that moment every single time.

  But I had to do it, right?

  One day, I was walking back from Home Depot with some supplies for the house.

  It was a beautiful day.

  As I walked by Lake Dawn, I saw a tow truck pulling my car out of the lake. I walked over to the car as it was coming out of the water, and it was covered with filth.

  As the water drained out through the broken windows and the cracks in the doors, I could see them.

  All three of them still struggling to get out of their restraints.

  I couldn’t help but imagine the months of them trapped underwater, moving and wriggling around next to each other.

  At this point they looked less human than ever. Their skin was bloated, discolored, and falling off the bone, but I looked at them and could remember vividly singing them to sleep every night. Sitting on the porch with Sam and feeling his tiny hand in mine. Hearing little Sara snore that cute little baby snore.

  The tow truck driver pulled out his gun.

  Seeing a gun wasn’t shocking anymore. Not since the outbreak. The tow guy yelled into his radio, “There’s three more here.” He pushed past me as I turned to walk away.

  I made it back to the road before I heard the three loud shots from his gun.

  I watched my children die twice... I couldn’t watch it again.

  Amanda Waymore

  Amanda Waymore looked like she was maybe sixteen or seventeen. She looked like the typical girl that you would see in a mall surrounded by friends, laughing at things grown-ups wouldn’t find humorous. She looked normal. But she too had that thousand yard stare that came from those who shared their horrors that day. Horrors that would play out in their minds forever.

  Hi everybody. I’m Amanda Waymore.

  When everything started to happen, you know, the really bad stuff, nobody knew what we were supposed to do.

  You could hear gunshots from a few blocks over.

  It was scary.

  My dad told us to stay inside, and we would wait for this to pass.

  He was right—He always was.

  He always knew what was best to do. We didn’t really have enough supplies to last us if this thing ended up lasting a while. But Dad knew we would make it through.

  He was always positive, and I think that made me feel a little safer.

  Inside the house it was me, my little brother Josh, my mom, and my dad.

  My grandma lived with us for about a year, but three months before the outbreak she went to live in a retirement community on the other side of town.

  It was one of those depressing old hotels that old people live in when their families need more room for a pool table.

  I didn’t think it was right that grandma wasn’t here with us. Families need to be together in moments like this. I told my dad that we should go get her and bring her back home, but he said it was too dangerous.

  Too dangerous?

  She was his own mother. He said they had already evacuated her to someplace safer.

  At that moment, I KNEW my dad was wrong—no, not wrong—he was never wrong.

  He was lying.

  They didn’t evacuate the old people from town. Lying wasn’t something he did often, but when he did, it was because he was afraid.

  I waited until the next morning, and as soon as the sun came up, I took my dad’s car and left while everyone else was sleeping.

  I knew he’d be pissed. But the thought of grandma being in a strange place while this was going on was upsetting.

  I wanted the whole family to be together.

  As I drove up the road, I started feeling like I was in another country.

  Buildings were on fire and burning to the ground. There was garbage everywhere, and I saw an ambulance that had crashed into a tree. The driver was halfway out the front window, and he wasn’t moving.

  Maybe it was the early morning sun that made everything look different, but everything looked so different.

  When I got to Shady Oaks Retirement Center, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the only building on that street that still looked normal.

  It was like there was a force field around it. It looked just like when I saw it a few weeks before.

  I parked close and ran to the main entrance. The front door was locked, so I banged on it and started calling out for Grandma. I tried to look inside, but all the shades had been drawn, and I couldn’t see anything.

  I ran around the side of the building and saw the door to the employee entrance was open.

  Completely open.

  I told myself, maybe everyone left and just forgot and left the door open behind them. That didn’t really make sense, but neither did an open door in a zombie apocalypse.

  I walked inside and it was dark. Darker than it should have been.

  I tried the light switches, but the power was out. I mean, duh—the power was out everywhere.

  The only light was from the sun peeking in through the cracks around the shades. It was scary.

  I always thought that place was scary. Even before all of this. The thought of dying alone in a place like that scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want my grandma to die here either. All those old people that were just abandoned there by their families— nobody should end their lives in a place like that.

  There was nobody at the nurse’s station, and from the looks of the desk, it looked like all the staff left in a hurry.

  The lobby was completely empty and dark. It was really quiet too. Every step I made on that crappy linoleum floor let out the tiniest little squeak from the rubber of my tennis shoes, so I took smaller steps to try and stay as quiet as I could.

  I had to check on my grandma, maybe she was locked in her room. Maybe they all were.

  She might still be fine. She had to be fine.

  I was trying to stay positive.

  Maybe they all locked themselves in the back! Maybe they were in the cafeteria. They would be better off there because there would be plenty of food and water.

  As I walked down the main hallway, there were patches of darkness that the cracks of sunlight couldn’t reach.

  I did my best to only step where I could see, but the hallway was getting darker the further I ventured in.

  When I got to the halfway point, I was all out of window cracks, which made me completely out of light too.

  That’s when I heard it.

  A wet sound. Like a sneaker stuck in mud.

  There was also a faint popping sound.

  I needed light, so I flung open the nearest door to me, and sunlight passing throug
h cheap curtains cast a dim glow into the darkness of the hallway I was in.

  I saw something moving in the hallway out of the corner of my eye.

  I turned my head slowly and saw an old man in a nightgown crouched on the floor over another old man’s body. When he looked up, I could see the old man on the ground was dead.

  The other man— the one crouching—he was eating the dead man’s forearm.

  There was blood everywhere. The popping I heard was the ligaments in his elbow snapping as the infected man was tearing away bite after bite.

  As he stood up and looked at me, I could hear every vertebra in his spine cracking and popping.

  I froze—

  You hear people say that all the time.

  “I froze.”

  It sounds stupid, right?

  It’s fight or flight. It’s not fight, flight, or freeze.

  I didn’t know that freezing was a real reaction, but looking at that old infected man standing there— I couldn’t move.

  I just couldn’t.

  I could barely make out his features. It was dark, and his face was covered with blood. I couldn’t make out specific characteristics Like a nose, or eyes, it was just dark shapes that all blended together in the shadows.

  He was making that noise—You know the zombie sound—That whispering moan they all make. He took a step towards me, and that’s when my legs finally decided to start moving me away from the situation.

  He was slow. Slower even than the others that I saw on TV. As I ran away, I looked over my shoulder and saw that he kept reaching out for me.

  Then I made my way back into the lobby where there was more light. The old man stepped into the lobby with me, and his face passed through one of the cracks of light from the windows. That’s when I recognized the distorted bloody face of Mr. Lynn.

  He was my grandma’s next door neighbor at the home. He was always so sweet and nice. He was the guy who always had the terrible jokes, and he would offer me lemon drops like they were illegal.

  Now he didn’t even look like the same man. It was like the memory of Mr. Lynn was distorted and stuck on this monster’s face.

  He reached out for me again, and I swear I could hear every tendon in his arm crack like dry wood. He let out that moan again, and I could see his eyes.