“I need answers,” he said, pacing. “I’m getting my damned answers.”
Mickey couldn’t ignore that. “What do you mean?”
“Salvisa,” Jack said angrily. “Salvisa is the expert, right? And he’s 45 minutes away? Why aren’t we there now? Why aren’t we asking him everything?”
The relationship between Mickey and Jack had never been an overly emotional one. They hunted together, chopped wood together. As far as Mickey could remember, they had only hugged once since Jack had reached adulthood, when Adie’s mother had left. He wasn’t much on comforting his son. All he had been able to think of after Adie’s death was shielding Jack from the body, keeping him from seeing her. Of course, he had failed.
Now, the thing his son needed most of all was some fatherly comfort, some reason to calm down. And Mickey didn’t know how to offer that thing. So he reached out, put his hand on his son’s shoulder. No pressure, no rubbing, just a hand there. Even that felt weird, felt somehow wrong.
Jack seemed to notice the oddity. He let Mickey’s hand remain there for only a few seconds before shrugging it off and walking to the window.
“You think they’ll come here?” he asked.
“The Z’s?” Mickey wondered. “Maybe eventually. But I don’t know. Gotta be way fewer of them this time than 2010. We can stay here.”
“That wasn’t the question,” Jack said. “I’m sure we can stay here forever. But do you think we can get to Salvisa’s?”
This threw Mickey. He and Jack had always agreed on their strategy should the zombies ever return: Stay. The house was safe, the upstairs safer. There was a fully stocked pantry that could feed the two of them — enough for three, with the plans being for Adie to stay there as well — for months at a time. That Jack wanted to leave threw Mickey for a loop.
So he didn’t answer his son. He walked to the window on the opposite wall and looked outside, surveying the Maine countryside. There were a couple of houses way off in the distance — he could recognize Sean Logan’s home a mile or two away, plus a few other homes of people who he might recognize but didn’t care to meet. Far away — beyond Sean’s house, barely visible in the distance — Mickey was fairly certain he could see a few human forms walking. From this distance, of course, there was no way to know with any certainty whether they were people or zombies by sight. But he found it hard to imagine there would be a small group of humans out for a nice walk. They had to be zombies.
Mickey scanned the horizon for any other signs of movement, but anything else that wasn’t stationary seemed to move only because of the wind. So he turned his attention back to the spot where he had seen what had to be zombies. They were gone — hidden from his view by trees or a building or something else — but Mickey imagined he could still see them. In his head, they had found a feast, and were crouched over a body, dining away. He couldn’t stop his mind from imagining their meal as young Adie, even though he knew she was safely buried only a few yards from Mickey’s own front door.
Suddenly, wondering if and when the zombies in the distance might re-emerge, Mickey remembered 2010. His own daughter, Jack’s little sister, Lily, had disappeared. Only 12 years old, she had been sent to the back of the farm to feed some of the cows and hell had descended upon them in the meantime.
Mickey, Jack, and Mickey’s other son Mark had gone out to hunt for Lily’s body more times than he could count over the course of 2010. Not only had they never found her body, alive or otherwise, but they never found anything that might have revealed Lily’s fate. No blood, no torn clothing, nothing.
Thinking about it, Mickey started to understand Jack’s fervor. The increased mystery about what had happened to Lily — even as the ultimate answer slowly became “one way or another, it doesn’t matter” — drove Mickey crazy. He had started venturing further and further from their home, in hopes of finding the girl.
It was on one of those outings, when Mickey had insisted he and Mark travel miles from their property, that they had been met by a big group of the undead, at least 50 strong. Mark had been bitten in their efforts to get away, and had died moments later. Mickey made it back to his property still without his daughter, and also without one of his sons.
So they never did find out what had happened to Lily. And with Mark gone, Jack had ordered his father to let it go. Mickey had continued to wonder, to obsess, but he had eventually agreed that what he was doing wasn’t healthy, and he had agreed to wait until everything had passed to go out again.
So Mickey got it. Mickey had never known what had happened to his daughter, like Jack did. But if he had found her body in similar circumstances, he figured there was nothing that could have stopped him from at least seeking answers that might have existed. Strategy, no strategy, plans; they wouldn’t have mattered to Mickey, just like they didn’t matter now to Jack.
Finally, he turned away from the window to face Jack. His son was already stuffing some rolled-up clothes into a small duffel bag, apparently either not caring what his father had to say on the subject or figuring Mickey would come to the conclusion he just had. He stopped and pulled the little towel he always kept in his pocket out to wipe his face, then turned to his father.
“I don’t know if we can make it,” Mickey said. “But we’ll try.” Jack nodded, as though that were the only logical thing Mickey could have said.
Mickey nodded to himself. He had just committed to heading off into a zombie-filled world without even the promise of any information even if they got where they were going. But he knew his son didn’t feel he had any choice. And if Mickey’s son didn’t have any choice, then Mickey didn’t have any choice.
And so there they were, only a few minutes later, leaving their house in Mickey’s old four-door pickup. Mickey spared one last glance at the house he had built by hand. Even though he was doing what he had come to decide was right, and was helping his son in the only way he knew how, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt at leaving a supposed stronghold, a supposed safe place.
But, turning to face forward, Mickey’s eyes passed over his son’s face. Jack’s resolve was steeled, his posture straight. Mickey noticed Jack’s eyes were wide, unblinking, and he could see the whites all the way around. And it refreshed his own resolve. What they were doing might be a mistake — might be suicide — but forcing Jack to stay inside and wonder for however long this latest period of zombies lasted would be the same thing. Mickey had thought he’d go crazy in 2010. He couldn’t force Jack to do the same thing.
And so Mickey hit the accelerator. He didn’t plan to drive as fast as he could all the way to Salvisa’s, but he eyed the curve in the road just down from their driveway and drove toward it with purpose. He needed his house to leave his rearview mirror as soon as possible.
Chapter Five: Worse Problems
Against all odds with the smell of death still heavy in the air, everyone in the Wal-Mart had slept for a few hours. When Celia had finally awoken, Simon was still fast asleep. They had fallen asleep with only their hands touching, but when she woke up, they were sleeping body-to-body, and she realized she liked waking up that way.
Cathy, the aged next-door neighbor of Celia and her father back home, had come from the free love generation. Much to Andy Ehrens’ chagrin, she had loved to spin stories to Celia, especially once the college plans were known, about the boys and girls she’d meet, about the — her father would interrupt and force Cathy to just use the word “experiences,” but Cathy would wink and nudge Celia every time — she’d have. In her head, Celia imagined that would have been a slow process. She’d hang out, get to know her fellow students at first, maybe start seeing a guy down the road. She was curious about kissing, curious about sex, curious about all of it, but she had no intentions of diving right in to anything.
Yet she’d been in Massachusetts for all of 24 hours, and in that time she had gained a pregnant roommate, kissed a guy several times, and now she was waking up next to him. External circumstances aside, Celia
felt sure Cathy would approve.
She lay there for a few minutes, content to let Simon sleep with his arm wrapped around her waist. It felt like they were safe, like they had separated themselves from the world they were in. From her vantage point, Celia couldn’t see much of the carnage that had occurred earlier there. If she strained her eyes, she could just see the walkway where Barry Lowensen had lured the zombies out, and she could see some of the death there. On the other hand, it wasn’t at all hard for her to not strain her eyes that way and look at the opposite, largely unaffected wall, and continue to pretend, for just a few more seconds, that this, that Simon, was her reality, and not a temporary respite.
Finally, knowing she couldn’t actually linger there forever, Celia willed herself to get up. She moved Simon’s arm and stood up, purposefully not letting herself look in the direction of her father’s body. She turned toward where the others were sleeping. Brandon was seated back against the wall, with his head in his hands. It took Celia a moment to realize he wasn’t sleeping in a seated position, but finally she understood — Brandon was crying.
Brandon hadn’t had the chance to bond with anyone in their group — not like Celia and Simon had — and didn’t have the preexisting bond Michelle and Stacy had. Whenever Celia felt herself getting overwhelmed by the situation or her father’s death, Simon had been right there. She had tried to do the same for him whenever she sensed Roger’s absence was wearing on him. Michelle and Stacy had each other to commiserate with about Stacy’s mom’s death.
But this boy, Brandon, had no one. Celia wasn’t sure she had even actually spoken with him during the entire ordeal. And here he was, sitting all alone, pushed up against the room where the closest thing he’d ever again have to a mother was. And Michelle was just older than the others, it wasn’t like there was any bond there.
On top of that, Celia noticed as she moved quietly toward him, Brandon was still injured. His ankle that he had twisted during the run toward the school the day before was still noticeably swollen. He’d be at less than peak speed for some time yet.
“Hey,” Celia said as she got closer to Brandon, to alert him of her arrival.
He jumped, then took great pains to wipe his eyes. “Hey,” he said, then did his best to stifle a sniff.
Celia pretended not to notice and sat down next to him. “How do you feel?”
Brandon looked at her, and Celia pointed to his ankle. He looked to where she was pointing, and as if on cue, starting rubbing it. “Still sore,” he said.
“Looks like it.”
“I’ve had worse problems,” he said, and Celia didn’t much care whether that statement was accurate or not. She searched for something else to say to Brandon, something else to say to try to bond with him, but she didn’t have much in the way of life experience to draw from for the conversation. After a brief silence, she went with the only real topic on anyone’s mind.
“You think we’ll be able to do this?” she said.
He finished rubbing his ankle and turned to face her. “Who cares?” he said, with a colder tone than he had had when discussing his ankle.
“What?”
“Listen,” Brandon said, and his voice was emotionless. “I’m in on this. I’ll do everything I can to get us there, to turn it off. Cut my ankle off and hop, if I gotta. But if we fail, what then? We die. No one ever knows what we did, even if they live through it. If we succeed, we save like 20 people, and we never know who they are. I’m going with you all because I have nothing else to do, not because I think we’re going to be some grand conquering heroes.”
Celia stared at Brandon for a moment, hoping he’d smile, laugh, do something to show he was kidding. But he shut his mouth and turned his head to the floor. And before Celia could say anything, Stacy came plodding out of the room where she and Michelle were holed up, rubbing her eyes.
“Hey,” Stacy said with some sleep in her voice.
Celia seized on the opportunity. She still felt bad that Brandon didn’t have anyone, but she felt less inclined to sit and talk to him, if the last minute was what conversations with him were like. So she stood up and walked back to the center of the room with Stacy.
“How’s your stepmom?” Celia asked.
“You can just say mom,” Stacy said. “Or Michelle. I always hated putting ‘step’ on it. Made it feel like she wasn’t a real part of things. But she’s still asleep. I think it took her a while to fall asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her.” The two of them stopped several yards shy of Simon, and Stacy looked at his sleeping form for a moment. “You two are close.”
Celia felt herself blush. “He’s been really good through …”
“Hey,” Stacy said, putting on the best smile she could, “you don’t have to explain yourself to me. If you all like each other, that’s enough.” She patted her own stomach. “People have hung out for worse reasons.”
Celia smiled at that, and was glad Stacy was willing to be lighthearted. They needed to at least pretend things weren’t disastrous. They all had enough to mourn. Letting themselves wallow too much could lead to a shutting down. She wanted to continue to feel as determined as she had before she’d made the mistake of talking to Brandon.
“We need to see what sort of stuff there is here that we can take with us,” Stacy said. “I don’t know what’s in that pack Michelle has, but it’s got to be getting empty by now.”
Celia nodded, thankful for Stacy’s thought; Celia had forgotten this building’s purpose. It was a Safe Place. Before the first outbreak in 2010, apparently, a “Safe Place” was a place meant to be somewhere a lost or abandoned child could go and get help. Celia had just learned a day earlier the whole idea had been repurposed since then. Safe Places were marked by yellow signs so kids could easily identify them, and the signs stayed, but the purpose changed. Now, in 2030, they were meant to identify places people could go in a zombie world. They weren’t publicized, but Stacy, with her mom's working for the government, had known about them. Not every Safe Place was stocked with goods for those on the run — Celia’s dad had come across one the day before that was just an empty space — but this one appeared to be much more prepared, and that meant it might have at least some possessions for them.
So the two of them got to work. They searched a couple of the abandoned rooms in the Wal-Mart building and came up with a couple of packs and some food and water. No guns or ammunition, but Celia figured the designers had expected anyone who had managed to find their way to the building had ammunition already. Celia still had her gun almost full, minus the one shot she had used on Vince, and an extra magazine in her pocket, just as her father had taught her. She knew Simon was similarly ready, and she knew Michelle had extra ammunition in her pack, so that was the least of the worries anyway.
Celia picked up a crowbar she found in a side room, just as an extra piece to have. The extra packs were the best find the girls thought. Distributing the contents of Michelle’s pack and the new prizes they had found to be carried by three of them instead of just one would be smart. One pack would be heavy. One pack would consolidate all their belongings, running the risk of losing their supplies if the one person with the pack got separated. Spreading the important belongings out seemed like the better call.
In the last room they searched, Celia found what she thought was a real prize — a pair of walkie talkies. She hoped to never have to use them, because she hoped to never be separated from the group, but they were a hell of an insurance policy.
When they had finished scouring the Wal-Mart for supplies, Celia and Stacy returned to the center of the building. Simon had woken up, and Michelle was just emerging from her side room.
The girls showed the others what they had managed to stir up, and Michelle approved of the haul. Almost wordlessly, as though they all knew their next step would be putting them in great danger, the five of them prepared to leave. The three women — Michelle, Stacy, and Celia — strapped packs on their backs, while Simon supported Brandon
’s weight. After a moment of mental girding, though, a thought seemed to occur to Michelle.
“You’ve blocked the front door from opening?” Michelle said to Simon. “Completely?”
Simon nodded. “I think so.”
“Did they leave any of their vehicles near the back door?”
Simon blanched. He clearly hadn’t thought about leaving them any means of escape. “No, I don’t think so.”
Michelle nodded. “That means we’ll have to circle the building. Not the end of the world. You already did it once.”
They headed out, into the walkway, toward where Barry Lowensen had blown himself up along with the last of the zombies. It looked exactly like what Celia had thought it would — body parts and blood everywhere. Celia gave a cursory glance, but couldn’t identify anything as having been a part of the Morgan College teacher, and didn’t want to linger too long to try.
When they got to the door with Michelle leading the way, the woman held up her hand to stop the others. She turned to them, and Celia suddenly found herself having flashbacks to the stairwell at Morgan College.
They were getting ready to head to the cars and in their minds, they were going to drive to Camp Edwards, where everything would be okay. Celia’s and Simon’s fathers had stopped to address the group one last time, just like Michelle was doing now. Her father had made a point then to acknowledge the apparent bravery of Celia and Stacy.
Celia had accepted the compliment with a nod, because her father hadn’t given her a chance to respond, and she didn’t know what she’d have said anyway. But she knew then, and knew even more now, that it wasn’t bravery she had been exhibiting so much as arrogance. They had waded through a small portion of the zombie-related mess to get into that classroom, and from that, Celia figured she knew what she needed to know, that she would be fine out among the undead. So when she had stepped up, ready to go outside, she was doing so because she hadn’t thought she was doing any big, grand thing.
After Life | Book 2 | Life After Life Page 3