After Life

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But that’s what it looks like. I mean, it makes sense.”

  Morgan couldn’t argue with him. None of them knew anything about virology, or biology. No one could argue with what they saw with their own eyes.

  “I’m just so tired. I wish I could sleep.”

  Morgan smiled at him, her head tilted to the side and her eyebrows curved slightly as if she were sad.

  “I was really proud of what you did.”

  “What?” Alex’s eyes drooped low.

  “I was really proud of you. Protecting Ethan like that. You saved his life.”

  “I don’t think I saved his life. I just couldn’t let… I mean, that was crazy right?”

  “It was.”

  “People were just ready to flip a switch. They were ready to just-”

  “They were trying to protect themselves. And the ones they loved.”

  “Well no, I get that. I mean, I wanted to protect you, too.”

  “I know. But you found a way to protect everyone. You figured out a way to do the right thing. Not just the easy thing.”

  Alex smiled at Morgan. Her voice calmed his mind. She had made him feel safe again. Just him and her, alone in the apartment.

  Her hand lifted off the bed and rested on his belly. He could feel the warmth of her palm through the sheets.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.

  “I can’t imagine dealing with any of this without you, Morgan.”

  “I thought regular life was hard without you.”

  He laughed weakly.

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  Alex began to open his mouth when he felt her hand start to slide down the sheet. His eyes locked with hers, a look of surprise running across his face. Her face remained gentle and sympathetic.

  Her hand stopped on top of his penis and she grabbed it in her hand, softly.

  “Morgan, what are you-” Alex’s body stiffened up and his arms moved to stop her.

  “Don’t,” Morgan said, her single finger touching his lips to quiet him. “Let me do this. Please.”

  His mind flushed with adrenaline and his body quivered. He was in a state of shock, trying to piece together what was happening. She laid down next him, her hand stroking him even though he remained soft.

  “When you locked yourself in that room, I was so proud of you.” Her voice was a whisper, warm breath tickling his ear. “But it made me realize what it would be like without you.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said, feeling himself become hard in her warm hand.

  “I know Alex. I’m doing this because I want to make you feel the way you make me feel.”

  “You do, Morgan. Every day.”

  Her hand kept moving and his body tingled with sensation.

  He wondered if she was doing this because she missed Christopher, and with that simple thought the act became tainted in his mind and his body rejected the normally good feeling.

  “We can’t do this,” he said, pushing her hand away. He moved his entire body away from her, his skin aching at the removal of her touch.

  “What?” Morgan looked surprised at the turn of events.

  “Morgan, I don’t know why you’re doing this, but you don’t know that Christopher is dead. He could still be alive.”

  Her face scrunched up in a look somewhere between confusion and disgust. “Why would you say that? Why would you say that right now?”

  “I just-”

  “This has nothing to do with Christopher,” she said. The spite in her voice stung his ears.

  “But I… I mean…”

  “No,” she said, dropping her head and waving her hand as she stood up from the bed. “I just wanted to be close to you. I haven’t felt close to you in years, and I wanted to remind you that you’re still alive. That you still have a life to live.” She looked away from him. “Maybe I needed to remind myself of that too.”

  “Morgan, I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to do something and regret it, or-”

  She walked toward the door to the bedroom and looked back one last time. “I wouldn’t have regretted it,” she said, before stepping into the hallway.

  Alex sank back into his pillow and looked at the ceiling. His penis was still stiff, lifting the sheet away from his hips. His mind rushed with a million things he should have said. He imagined a million different outcomes to the interaction. Only one expression stood out in his mind as something he should have said instead, repeating itself over and over as he replayed the event in his mind. One series of words would forever be etched onto his brain. There was only one phrase he wanted to turn back time and say.

  “I love you.”

  Day 23

  2:55 pm

  Alex sat on a stool near the window in the kitchen, turning the dial on the boom-box, passing over station after station of static. This had become his obsessive pastime.

  He scratched his face as he turned the dial, itching at the beard that had begun to grow. Some of the men had been using the shaving cream they found to maintain a groomed look, but Alex was losing the will to care.

  Ethan still did not show any signs of getting sick. Mr. Peterson pointed out every time Ethan raised his voice, or ate his can of peaches strangely, but the rest of the group had relaxed into the idea that the blood was not infectious. The problem with that answer was that it raised even more questions.

  Morgan sat on the floor with Emma, playing a board game with Omar, who was sitting upright. The three of them got along fairly well, and it was obvious Emma had become smitten with Omar.

  As Alex watched Emma flirt with the boy, he realized that just two weeks ago, he would have frowned upon their relationship. Emma wasn’t even fourteen years old and Omar was nearing his eighteenth birthday.

  Now, as he watched the two laughing, he was just glad they had each other. He had realized that taboos from life, before all the death, fell away into absurdity. Hope for a moment of happiness was all that mattered.

  The heat was rising every day, making the idea of leaving the windows closed an impossibility. The stink of the undead drifted through the apartment building, sticking to everything it lingered on. Most of the group wore handkerchiefs, or t-shirts over their nose and mouth. Some sprayed cologne on the outside as a scent filter.

  Alex continued to spin the dial.

  Every apartment on the third floor had been looted clean. Every useful item was placed in a single apartment they had converted to a storage area. They had taken stock of every food item and tool, every piece of clothing, chemical, pharmaceutical, and bottle of water.

  The group estimated they had enough food to last a little over a month, if they ate sparingly. The hard part would be drinking enough water. Including the soda and beer, they only had enough to last two more weeks if they each only drank one can a day. Frank had already begun planning a raid of the second floor.

  Alex continued searching the dial.

  Morgan stood up and walked over to where Alex was sitting, putting her arm around him and squeezing gently. They hadn’t talked about the incident between them since it happened. Alex still felt the need to keep his distance, and he let the coldness inside him fester. Morgan had begun to act more like nothing happened every day that passed.

  Moments and flashes of how he truly felt would reveal themselves to him, but he pushed the ideas away. Somehow anger and pain were easier. He could simply give into those emotions. No fighting required.

  Morgan smiled. “Where are you at?”

  “Hmm?” Alex murmured, coming out of his distant thoughts. “Oh, sorry.” His mind grasped at what he was just thinking about before his mind turned to her. “I was... I was thinking about everyone. Like Jacob and Liz. Or Mark. Or Kelly. Or my Mom.”

  Morgan placed her hand behind his head and pulled him close, setting her chin on top of his head as she held him.

  “Alex, I don’t know what to tell you. We can’t know if they’r
e alive, or dead, or-”

  Alex let her squeeze him tight one last time and then leaned away from her. “I keep imagining where they were. How each one would react.”

  “We’re never going to know all that.”

  “I know, I just-”

  “You have to hope they are safe, wherever they are,” Morgan said as she stared out the window, looking down at the corpses wandering in the streets. “Have you noticed them moving slower?”

  “It’s the heat I think,” Alex mumbled, drifting into the subject change. “The birds have been pecking away at them, too.”

  Morgan’s face looked blank. “I wish they would just rot away. Turn to dust.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. He had the same thought before, but something was bothering him. “What does it matter? If we’re all infected, aren't we just waiting to become one of them?”

  Morgan rolled her eyes. Her tone became short and defensive. “What are you trying to say? Are you saying we’re doomed? You’re just ready to give up hope?”

  “I’m saying I don’t know.” Alex looked out the window, watching the bodies mindlessly bump into each other and then begin walking in a different direction. “I’m just wondering if the dead will ever stop rising. What if they just keep coming until there isn’t anyone left to die?”

  Morgan said nothing, not sure of what she was scared of more, the corpses outside, or the darkness that was creeping inside. She could see something changing in Alex’s eyes. An emptiness that was ready to shatter him. She needed him to feel something. She wanted him to give in. She wanted him to make love to her, and she wanted him to not feel guilty about it. Somehow, that would make it okay for her to feel guilt-free.

  His thumb started turning the dial again.

  The dial passed 89.3, and a small disturbance in the static crackled in the speakers. The room, which was just filled with the murmur and laughter of the game players, fell silent immediately.

  Alex crept his finger backwards, turning the dial at the slowest pace he could. The static shuddered, fading out into a wobble of bass tones. The tones began to form words as he pushed his thumb against the dial, trying to push it only a millimeter more.

  “Bravo-One, are you inbound on target? Over.”

  “Andrews, are you seriously going to talk like that?”

  “This is Alpha-Base. Are you inbound on the target? Over.”

  “We’re like, fifteen minutes away from the drop zone. Maybe less.”

  “Roger that. Fifteen minutes. Over.”

  The radio fell silent and Alex looked down at the group on the floor. All of them stared at him with their eyebrows lifted.

  “Alex?” Morgan asked, but he held his finger to his lips, leaning his ear closer to the speakers of the boom-box as he turned up the volume.

  “Was that… it sounded like the army,” Omar said, lifting himself into a more upright position.

  “Shh!” Alex demanded, holding his hand out flat to silence the room.

  The radio spoke again. “Bravo-One? This is Alpha Base, do you copy? Over.”

  “Yeah, what do you want Andrews? We’re just pulling up now. I’ll let you know.”

  “Bravo-One, do you have visual confirmation on the target? Over.”

  “It’s sort of hard not too. Those fucking things are everywhere.”

  “Is the Humvee holding up? Over.”

  “Yeah. Those things can’t touch us, let alone keep up with us. They're moving slow as shit now.”

  “Bravo-One, can you place the bomb in the center of the crowd. Repeat, can you declare target on center of the enemy crowd. Over.”

  “Screw you, Andrews. It ain’t gonna matter where we plant this thing.”

  Alex looked up at the group again, this time he held fear in his eyes. “They’re going to bomb… they’re going to bomb the zombies!”

  “Where?” Morgan and Emma asked at the same time.

  “I don’t know!” Alex said. Then perking his head toward the apartment door, he yelled, “Frank! Get in here!”

  Frank came running into the room, surprised to see no visible emergency.

  “The radio.” Alex tried to explain, “We can hear the Army on the radio. They’re going to blow up the zombies!”

  “What?” Frank asked, a look of concern cracking his face.

  Alex shrugged his shoulders as the voice came back on the radio.

  “Okay Andrews, we got it set up, send us the detonation codes.”

  “Roger that, Bravo-One. Stand by for detonation code. Over.”

  Alex looked at Frank, confused.

  “Detonation code?” Frank looked horrified. “They only need codes to… oh shit.”

  “What is it?” Morgan yelled, seeing the look of fear strike across Frank’s face.

  “We need to get downstairs,” Frank said without thinking. “Oh shit. We need to get… fuck where do we go?”

  “What is going on?” Alex asked, standing up from his seat.

  “They are going to be setting off a very big bomb. Somewhere close enough for us to hear their radio chatter,” Frank's eyes looked deadly serious. “A very, very big bomb.”

  Alex’s face went white. The military was still active, at least in some degree. But, instead of giving him hope, they had just become more dangerous than the corpses.

  “Bravo-One, the code is as follows…”

  “We need to move!” Frank yelled.

  “Grab the guns,” Alex yelled back. “We can… we can fight our way down the stairs. We can close the doors as we go! The stairwell!”

  “Help me carry Omar!” Morgan yelled at Emma as they both knocked the board game from his lap.

  Ethan came running into the hallway as Frank tossed him a pistol. Ethan held up his hands at the last second, awkwardly catching the gun.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, pointing the barrel of the pistol at the floor.

  “We need to clear the stairs! Fast!” Frank yelled, lugging the shotgun toward the stairwell door.

  Mr. Peterson stumbled out from his apartment, obviously waking up from a nap and looking confused, “Why are we doing that?”

  “Don’t ask questions, Dad!” Emma screamed. “Just follow us!”

  Frank reached the stairwell door and waited until Alex and Ethan stood behind him, each holding a pistol. Alex still held the boom-box in his other hand.

  Frank gripped the door handle and turned toward the group to say, “We need to move fast. We need to secure all the doors before those bodies can flood the stairwell and outnumber us. I’ll fire until the shotgun is dry, then you two cover me with the pistols while I reload. Got it?”

  Ethan and Alex gave him single, determined nod and lifted their guns into a ready position. Frank turned the knob on the door and pulled it open, thrusting the flashlight on the barrel of his shotgun into the darkened doorway.

  A scream let out from a few steps down, and a man began running up, his arms outstretched when he saw the group of fresh meat. Frank fired off a single round, blowing the decaying flesh of the man’s head and left shoulder into tiny pieces. The corpse fell, tumbling down the stairs, only to be leapt over by a young woman running up the stairs.

  Frank stepped through the doorway, meeting the woman halfway on the staircase. He waited until she was dangerously close before he pulled the trigger, nearly disintegrating her upper torso. Frank pointed the barrel down the staircase, spotting three more corpses running from a floor below. The group could hear the moans of many more below them. Frank unleashed rounds from the shotgun, slamming the pump-action back and forth between shots. Corpses dropped, but more continued running up the steps.

  Just as they reached the door to the second floor, Frank let loose his last two rounds into the doorway before slamming shut the metal door that had been propped open by a janitor’s broom.

  “I’m dry!” he yelled, dropping to one knee to start loading more shells into the shotgun.

  Ethan and Alex looked at each other before pointing the
ir flashlights down the stairs and saw the horde of people clamoring up the steps toward them.

  Alex squeezed his trigger wildly, landing rounds in the first two zombies climbing the stairs. The corpses stumbled for a second when the rounds hit them in the chest. Ethan landed two headshots and that zombie dropped to its knees. The corpses behind the first row shoved the unmoving corpse out of the way and rose past, joining the lead zombie in the climb. Alex raised the barrel a tiny bit and squeezed the trigger again, sending a bullet into the lead corpse’s head.

  Again the zombies behind just trampled over, like a wave of corpses rolling toward the beach. Alex and Ethan kept squeezing, barely able to hold the flood of bodies at a standstill.

  Frank finally finished loading his shotgun and yelled, “Ready!” before standing up and unleashing a blast into the faces of the flood. Heads exploded, destroying two or three brains at a time.

  Frank, with a look of grimacing persistence, led the group’s slow advance. Cutting down the wall of corpses with blast after blast from his shotgun, Frank soon found himself covered in the gore of the splattering flesh. Bodies fell to the sides as the group pushed past, climbing over the corpses that had begun to pile up on the ground.

  Again Frank took a knee, loading the last of his shotgun shells. Again, Ethan and Alex barely kept the flood of bodies at bay. Frank stood up again, this time taking slow aim, trying to maximize the blast of every shell. Just as they pushed toward the first floor doorway that led to the back parking lot, Frank’s shotgun ran dry.

  They stopped at a standstill, only a few feet away from the last metal doorway that they needed to close. Frank slung the shotgun over his shoulder and took a step back, letting Ethan and Alex step forward.

  They tried to advance the few feet more they needed, but found themselves only able to drop one corpse at a time. They were barely able to match the speed of the mass of bodies pouring in from the parking lot.

  Morgan shifted Omar’s weight toward Emma and yelled, “Take him!”

  For a moment, Emma thought fear had gotten the best of Morgan and that she was running away, but Morgan only ran a few steps up the stairwell. She stopped and leaned down toward a corpse dressed as a policeman. She dug into his belt and pulled out a revolver.