After The End

by Melissa Gibbo

  Everyone continuously scanned to check the distance of the decaying wanderers. As I clicked shut the gas cap, Daemon swooped down. In a blur of motion the vampire tore off the head of one Dead, causing a sound of snapped celery before returning to the sky.

  “Ewww.” I heard as he ascended again.

  The head lay on the pavement twenty feet from me; it was still blinking and gurgling as a thick black substance oozed from its ragged stump. I hadn’t realized it was so near. The process was repeated on three more cars and several more carcasses. A couple of fleshies got unnervingly close to our party. Gassing up left us so exposed; I felt I was on a stage naked in the spotlight.

  Sunny was almost bitten by what had once been a young girl. The creature dragged its half-missing leg, leaving a wake of pus, tissue, and stink. It had crawled beneath the truck and was only discovered when the tiny hand clasped her ankle.

  Sunny leapt sideways as the thing pulled itself out in the open and drew upright. It chomped its mouth open and closed; crooked baby teeth reflected the scant light. A pink plastic bracelet and several brightly colored bangles decorated the discolored child’s remains. Someone’s dried blood coated the creature, a stark contrast to the glittered fingernails that reached out for Chase’s wife.

  Someone added vomit into the aroma encircling us when she jabbed her spear through the zombie’s bleached eye. Immediate peril being neutralized, our group completed the task and mounted our metal steed to begin our search.

  Our drivers pulled into a subdivision; it was a pastel nightmare with a community pool. There weren’t many fleshies in view, but sometimes that was worse. I silently prayed that the Dead hadn’t learned to hide.

  We stopped at the first house that was unmarked from previous ventures. It was bright pink with teal shutters and the front yard had bone shards strewn about; they gleamed under our headlights.

  Daemon and I took the lead for the sweep of the house, all but the drivers trailing us closely. I drew my broadsword as he pulled the door off the hinges and tossed it onto the misshapen hedges. The azaleas seemed to be thriving.

  “You couldn’t try the door knob before going for the horror movie effect?” I asked.

  He shrugged and answered sheepishly,

  “Sorry, I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I got turned.”

  With a half-smile, the vampire disappeared into the suburban deathtrap. I crossed the threshold and checked the kitchen, pantry, and garage for hungry cadavers. Upon hearing the all clear, I stepped into the doorway to give a wave to the drivers. They acknowledged call and guarded the trucks and extra gas.

  “Alright, we all have the list so let’s load up whatever we can use. We need to move quickly, there are a lot of items we need and it’s a big neighborhood to search.” I instructed.

  Our team became a tornado, drawing everything into the center of the room. I carried a green reusable grocery bag stuffed with Ziploc bags, spices, pots, pans, Ramen noodles, and some cans of corn out to the trucks. Between the first six houses the party also found: toiletries, bedding, pillows, a new shovel, some tools, and a lot of tacky decorations (which we left behind). So far, every house on the block had been stocked with IKEA furniture, cheesy knick-knacks, and not much else. Sunny looked over our haul.

  “These must be vacation rentals. They’re way too empty and ugly to have been lived in.”

  Her observation echoed in my thoughts; there had to be a better way to do this. I approached the doorway. Carving a large X on the door with my belt knife, I put the choice to the group.

  “This place is done; how does switching neighborhoods sound?”

  Everyone leapt into the trucks and the decision was made. I sheathed the blade and walked to the Ford. Daemon plopped down next to me wiping his gore-drenched hands on someone’s sailboat towel.

  “This is messier than I thought. Anyone find hand sanitizer?”

  I responded with a goofy grin before settling in for the next potential hazard. We turned down the street away from the site of the accident from September 16th.

  I was driving home from work; the theme parks had been closed and evacuated without explanation. All of the cheery background audio shut off and an announcement sent us home to the nearest exits. Every radio channel spoke of the outbreak of Z-bug; I thought it was just a silly hoax.

  The Pontiac in front of me ran over a man on the side of the road and streaked away. I threw my car in park and ran to help. I dialed 911 as I ran to the motionless form. The victim was mangled, unconscious, and had several ribs exposed. As a small crowd gathered I checked for a pulse. Finding none, I ran to read the street sign for the 911 operator and the deceased man reached out to an onlooker.

  I dropped the cell phone and jumped back in my car while the Dead victim began devouring his rescuers. Seeing other fleshies approaching, I gunned it for my parents’ home.

  I was shaken from my reverie when Sunny plowed down two stumbling Dead. I felt an elbow in my ribs as Daemon pointed at an approaching zombie; it kept falling over its sagging Rocawear jeans and still bore several pieces of bling around its bony neck. We laughed at the sight as it penguin-walked towards us and tripped before pulling itself upright. The corpse repeated the cycle every four steps.

  “Someone gonna kill it or what?”

  I could feel the Mom Glare from the front cab without looking.

  “Yep. I got it.”

  I notched an arrow and fired. The tip went through the creature’s neck as the hip-hop wannabe stumbled again. “Dammit.” I took aim again, crouching in the truck bed and loosed the arrow. It found its target in a spray of gray matter and coagulated blood. The penguin was now extinct. I considered taking the gold necklaces as I sat back, but they had no value.

  “Nice one, but now what will I do for fun?”

  Daemon pinched my side playfully, his smile relaxed and reassuring. Our eyes locked and held for a minute, his smile changing from playful to intimate.

  Sunny cut short the moment.

  “This one looks good. Everyone out!”

  The scavenger hunt was back on. We cascaded out of the pickup and poured into the cream house in the cul-de-sac. After the sweep yielded one already destroyed body, we split up to search. I grabbed several pens and pads of paper off the desk and started opening drawers.

  “JACKPOT!” somebody yelled from the master bedroom.

  I ran to see the cause of the outburst and was instantly overjoyed. The walk-in closet was full of desired supplies. As we unpacked the wardrobe we found it contained: cases of water, MRE’s, two wind-up flashlights, a new beer bong, playing cards, a first aid kit, fishing equipment, two sleeping bags, a large cooler full of Jack Daniels and Bud Light, a box of condoms, puzzle books, canteens, and board games.

  Not only had we found a place someone actually lived in regularly, but also that person had kept hurricane supplies in stock. The motherload was carried into the backs of the trucks; we all had smiles super-glued on our faces.

  Sunny’s jaw dropped while she evaluated the procession of goodies.

  “Holy crap.”

  After forty minutes, the house was emptied of everything we needed and then some. We’d even pulled the battery out of a golf cart from the backyard in hopes of powering a couple of rigged lights at camp. I strode up to the door to mark it and froze as a familiar clicking sound echoed through the night. I turned slowly.

  A muscular man was standing behind Dane with a sawed-off shotgun pressed against the back of his head. The stranger was dressed in a black shirt and camo pants, a Yankees cap pulled down over his eyes. They stood ten feet from me and I hadn’t even seen the gunman.

  “Step away from the trucks right now!”

  We stepped back a little but I knew we couldn’t let him take the supplies and vehicles; we might not make it back to camp in one piece. The look on Dane’s pale face revealed panic.

  He started pleading with his captor.

  “Please, just let me go. You can take my bag, jus
t let me go. They might won’t give you the trucks, but you can take the stuff. Don’t shoot me, just take what I have, please.”

  Dane broke down sobbing as the interloper gripped him tighter, the veins visible both there and in the assailant’s thick neck. A gush of urine darkened Dane’s khakis and pooled around his feet. Every time he moved his feet, they squished.

  The brawny man growled his threat at us, spittle flying into Dane’s black hair.

  “I’ll blow his head off if you don’t toss those bags into this truck and back up. I’m taking this truck and that pretty girl with me or this scrawny bitch in front of me gets some real sloppy brain surgery.”

  I tried to negotiate with the cretin; Dane was aggravating, but he didn’t need to die.

  “Look, we can’t do that. We can give you a portion of what we gathered, but we need the trucks. Others are counting on us and we need to be able to get back to them.”

  The goon adjusted his brace on the weeping man and flared his nostrils; I took slow steps towards him.

  “You aren’t taking her with you, I’m not going to let that happen. Sunny won’t either, I’m sure. And there’s no way I’m telling her husband we let you kidnap her at gunpoint. We can work something else out. Just lower the gun and we can come to an understanding.”

  Tears rolled down Dane’s face as he wept, sucking snot back up his nose while he whimpered. Sunny’s face oozed fury and her spear tip was pointed at the Herculean intruder; she was a Valkyrie ready for war. The man sneered at me and blew a kiss at Sunny as the shot sounded.

  Everything slowed down for an instant, while Dane’s face was rent asunder by the shotgun round exiting through his tear-streaked face. His left eye landed on my shoe as the taste of pennies filled the air. The eye stared up at me and the body collapsed in a pile.

  “Now I get my way, or you’ll be…”

  Daemon materialized behind the murderer and cut his sentence short. The vampire grabbed the gun and tossed it aside, engulfing the outsider in a fatal bear hug. His eyes shone green and he sank his sharp teeth into the attacker’s throat, shaking and ripping the holes wider like a wild predator.

  No one moved; we were too stunned by the events we were witnessing. The slurping sound betrayed how deeply the fledging drank as he took the stranger’s life. Vibrant eyes looked through me as the vampire unceremoniously dropped the body. His face was covered in crimson and his dripping fangs remained bared. Scraping sounds were coming from behind us; the blast had drawn the fleshies right to our location.

  Daemon ran the back of his hand languorously across his stained mouth and chin, gathering the remaining blood, and licked it from his knuckles. A low growl of contentment escaped him. His eyes flickered red as his smile widened.

  In my peripheral vision, weapons were being drawn while I instinctively took a stutter-step back. Realizing the potential outcomes, I took a gamble and drew the tiny bottle I’d located from my pocket. As the hand sanitizer somersaulted through the darkness towards the vampire, I saw the first of the blundering Dead traipsing between the driveways.

  A blood-streaked hand caught the little plastic container; he looked down at the contents. The gentle breeze circulating did nothing to relieve the stillness trapped in the apex of truck lights. The departed edged closer, their movements slow and jerky, but steady nonetheless. Daemon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his fangs receding into his gums.

  “Thanks, Squirrel.”

  His usual upbeat tone and innocent smile returned as he cleaned the sanguine fluid from his hands and rubbed his chin clean on the inside of his shirt collar.

  Eyes went wide in confusion and blades were lowered insignificantly; only Sunny squinted with distrust. The young Undead looked around and blushed – although he may have simply been flush from the blood he’d consumed.

  “Sorry guys, just lost myself for a second there.” He stared at the weapons still aimed in his direction. “I’m going to work on this with Cal when we get back and I’ll keep it together for the rest of the raid.”

  Silent looks passed from person to person.

  “Um, shouldn’t we relocate someplace a little less unfriendly?”

  Daemon gestured at the growing swarm of cadavers in varying stages of decay. He was right, Dane’s killer may not have been alone and these zombies were already too many to make a stand. I wiped the splatter from Dane’s cranium goop off my cheek and barked out orders.

  “Someone grab the gear off those two bodies and let’s get to an elsewhere while we can. This place is too dangerous.”

  Randolph and Ellen’s Father lightened the corpses of all things useful and our troop receded into the truck beds. We set out in search of a haven for the coming day. Dawn would arrive in a few hours and we were already down one person on the first night. Ellen’s Father sat across from me, clenching the rabbit’s foot as Sunny drove over fleshies while making our retreat.

  At least there was no one back home to grieve Dane’s demise.

  We drove five miles in search of an adequate place to barricade ourselves for the daylight hours. Randolph spotted it first; it was a tan house with the blue windows boarded up and the garage door half open. Both trucks would easily fit inside.

  Our drivers stopped in front. Daemon and I leapt to the ground, preparing to check the potential sanctuary. I looked back and found everyone else hanging back; they stared at the young vamp with unease. Fear crossed his face as he gazed at our companions. Watching this wordless conversation, I decided to act like the leader they seemed to think I was.

  “Daemon and I will clear the house for enemies: living or otherwise. When we’re finished, I’ll come out and we will all secure the building for the day. From here out we’re also going to buddy-up so everyone has someone to cover their backs.”

  The pack started pairing off with whomever they trusted.

  “I call dibs on the guy who’s been watching all of our asses; you know, the one who killed the douchebag with a shotgun who murdered a member of our community. That asshole that tried to rob us and carry off Sunny for God-knows-what. You guys consider all that while Daemon and I are inside.”

  I turned on my heel, drew my sword, and stormed up to the door. The vampire followed. The home was empty of anything but furnishings. We turned back to the door outside and I took a deep breath. I steeled myself to face the probable backlash of my earlier rant. With my hand on the doorknob, I felt fingertips softly run up my forearm and grasp my hand.

  “Thanks for what you did back there. You’re the only person they would’ve listened to. I owe you major and I’ll make it up to you.”

  Tendrils of warmth and red climbed my face. I returned Daemon’s smile and proceeded outside. We rejoined the others and lifted the garage door the rest of the way open, guiding the trucks into their daytime storage. The sole Undead carried a few bags into the living room before excusing himself to patrol the area. We worked without sound, making pallets of bedding and unpacking some of the food. All minds were churning over the night’s events.

  An hour before dawn, Daemon knocked on the front door; after checking the peephole, Randolph let him in. The fledgling shoved his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat.

  “There aren’t any fleshies roaming about nearby and I found a place to crash that’s close, so if it’s alright I’m going to bail now. It’s pretty obvious that I’m making most of you uncomfortable. I’ll come back after sunset.

  Sorry again for not being able to keep my cool earlier; and for not preventing that dickhead from shooting Dane. I was dealing with some zombies and wasn’t aware of the danger over there. I’ll be more vigilant and composed from now on. Night all.”

  He stepped back out the doorway and disappeared into the predawn fog.

  We all knew his reason for sleeping elsewhere; the guy was afraid of what we might do to him. Daemon was immortal, fast, strong, and petrified of us. I understood his concern; while the sun was up, he’d be helpless and there was no trust betwe
en him and the group. I drifted off in a Despicable Me sleeping bag wondering what it would take for us to all feel safe again. Somewhere outside I heard what sounded like a bobcat defending its territory.

  It was almost noon when I was roused for my turn as guard. I looked around the dim room. Ellen’s Father was adding toys and children’s books into his backpack; his face was drawn and he seemed despondent. It occurred to me I should learn his name soon, as I walked into the kitchen to join Sunny for some gator jerky and oranges. She and the other driver had just finished their turn on duty.

  After we quietly fortified the residence in case of multitudes of dead or gun-wielding maniacs, we’d agreed to return to camp the next evening. Our scavenging had already yielded everything on the list – including condoms — as well as a shotgun and shells, various books, booze, and toys.

  The firearm was in the cab of the F-150 until we got back to the camp. Once we got home, it would be locked in the case with the others we’d acquired throughout the chaos (we only kept them as a final response for when all else fails). I thought about the return trip, my thoughts only disturbed by the snoring from the next room and the occasional moans from the exterior of the structure. The day was long and uneventful, but far from peaceful. I wondered how Daemon was resting.

  The Sun had set twenty minutes prior when three little knocks tapped on the door; the team had already gathered in the truck beds, ready to leave. I saw it was our late arrival and proceeded out the door. Daemon had changed into a pair of Levis and a blood donation tee the Red Cross was handing out last Halloween. As we strolled around the house to open the garage door and rejoin our party, he noticed me checking out his new attire.

  “Yeah, met some icky people on the way over and had to do a little clothing shopping. My other outfit got kind of gore-splattered, but we won’t have many Dead in our way for at least a block. Besides, I couldn’t resist this shirt.”