Death After Life: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller

by Evans, John

  Nic’s sharp intake of breath told Lena that she’d hit back too hard. She immediately put an arm around her.

  “Nic, you know that’s not what I want,” she said. “Not in a million years. It would kill me to lose you, in fact. I’m serious. Unless… unless there was someone else in our family. Someone else to keep me on this planet.”

  “Jesus, you know what I do,” Nic said. “The odds of me enjoying my retirement benefits aren’t great.”

  “That’s why I had to! Because lately, I haven’t been so sure I’m afraid of dying or just want to get it over with.”

  “I know the feeling,” Nic said.

  “This is why we stay alive, rather than curl up and die…. Because things might be better for our children. Because they deserve the chance to find out.”

  “Hate to break it to you,” Nic said, too roughly, “But it hasn’t been looking great for ‘might be better’ in a long-ass time. Do you want to point out the encouraging trends that you’re gambling on?”

  “It’s not about…. Fine, let’s just put guns in our mouths right now.”

  Lena’s chilling seriousness stopped Nic in her tracks. Lena continued. “Come on! Why live through any more days like today? Days like yesterday? Days like tomorrow, and the day after that?!”

  As Nic touched Lena’s face, tears were welling in her eyes, which was shocking. Lena could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen Nic cry.

  “For you,” Nic said. “Any day with you is a good day. Whatever else…. I want to be here, like this….”

  Then she kissed her and Lena knew it would be all right. Nic would be there with her, till the end. Whenever that was. And that was enough.

  #

  Wes McIntyre was roused from deep sleep by the blaring of his phone. He set it to ring like nobody’s fucking business, so there was absolutely no chance he would do what came naturally and go back to sleep.

  “Ohmigod!” The woman beside him trilled, jumping out of bed as if discovering moray eels beneath the sheets.

  “Sorry, if it ain’t loud, I tend to disregard this annoying piece of shit,” Wes said to the girl, whose name he’d forgotten, and grabbed the phone.

  “McIntyre.”

  “Oh, thank God. Thank God. Wes. It’s Jim. Voskuil. Jim Voskuil, man.”

  “Right, sure, Jimbo. What’s up?” Wes said, rubbing his eyes. Why was Jim Voskuil from Yale calling him in the middle of the night? On infrequent Sunday evenings, they might talk about golf and old times with young women, but that was about it.

  Speaking of young women, his eyes drifted back to last night’s conquest. Wes didn’t use his status to nail women. He was a purist, a pickup artist, and went to great pains giving each a convincing, but unique, life story during his approach. He liked to keep a low profile, avoiding TV cameras and carefully managing the media, so his face wasn’t widely known.

  Voskuil babbled on, his voice so high and reedy it was barely recognizable. “You guys have been working on a cure, haven’t you? Around the fucking clock, right? Well… any luck? Between two old friends?”

  It didn’t take Wes long to put together what was going on here. He sighed, taking the phone into the bathroom and closing the door. “Damn Jim. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Wes! Please. Tell me the truth.”

  Something — and he would never be sure what — kept Wes from throwing out a glib, “Sorry, Jim. God knows we’ve tried…” and letting the guy cry himself off the phone. But he hesitated three seconds longer than he should have, and it told Voskuil everything he needed to know. “Wes. Buddy! Tell me you can help me…”

  Wes found lying difficult only with his male friends, which may have been why he had so few of them. But he wanted to discourage Voskuil, as if that were possible. “You’ll never make it down here, the roads are all shot to hell and I can’t send a plane for you.”

  “I have a million dollars,” Voskuil said. “For you. Cash.”

  “I was gonna help you anyway,” Wes said immediately, though he wasn’t sure of that. “But fine, that’ll be nice.”

  It did buy old Jimbo more consideration. You could do more with less these days, so the phrase “a million dollars” had regained a little of its old magic. Through it all, Wes had retained an ardent love of money. He knew how to turn it into more practical things.

  “I’m on my way,” Voskuil said. “I’ll take care of everything right, don’t fucking worry. You can be sure I’ll be on your doorstep soon and not as one of them, either.”

  “Great,” Wes said, though he meant, “Fuck.” He was well aware of the position Voskuil was putting him in. It was a security breach of the highest magnitude to disclose to a civilian that CDC might have found a cure. If this transgression was discovered, Wes would lose more than his job.

  “One more thing, Jim. Call it a ground rule. If any new cure rumors pop up, and I don’t care if they come from L.A. and you’re in Davenport, Iowa…. Deal’s off and you die. Got that?”

  “Got it,” Voskuil promised. “No one will know.”

  #

  In the wake of those few charged moments, Lena and Nic sat holding each other and listened to the music for awhile. Though the progressive trance built infectiously, and the endless patterns swirling on the wall seemed to quicken with new life, the club was clearing out.

  Lena watched a table of twenty-somethings for a moment. They were dour hipsters, two couples, the kind who came to clubs to watch people having fun and cluck self-important bitchy-cisms to each other.

  “Do you want to dance some more?” Lena asked Nic. Hipsters be damned.

  “No. We should probably call it a night, don’t you think?”

  Lena was about to disagree with her, call in a few chits, and get what she wanted. She was chasing the dragon, hoping to relive her happy memory.

  But the manager robbed Lena of her chance when he got on the mic in the D.J.’s booth, turning down the music.

  “The club is now closed. Sorry. Please come back again… And bring some friends with you next time, okay?”

  Click.

  No one seemed to care when the lights came up and the music faded entirely. The hipsters just picked up their coats and headed for the exits.

  Nic and Lena emerged onto the street, blinking against the sudden change in atmosphere from warm and sweaty to cold and drizzly. Nic straightened, breathing in a gulp of air, and seemed to sober up. A little.

  “I don’t remember where we parked.”

  “That’s okay, hon, I do. Come on.”

  Lena took Nic’s arm and they walked quickly down the street. Distant sirens pulsed in the night air. But that was nothing unusual.

  #

  Gavin Richards dragged himself across the floor, averting his eyes from the creatures feasting on his still spasming daughter in law. He was aware of the rapidly expanding pool of blood beneath her twitching body, but he didn’t think about it.

  Gavin’s focus was entirely locked on the C4 in the corner of the storeroom. If he could just reach it, detonate it, and go to the grave in a massive conflagration, he might find some peace in this brief and limited retribution taken against those who had taken everything from him.

  His shame and fury was intense. This was the outcome he’d lived the last three years to avoid. An army of disgusting, mindless, worthless pus-bags tearing his home down around his ears. Maybe they weren’t so mindless after all, with their relentless focus on taking human lives and depriving others of what they had, not so long ago.

  The feeders had swept through the sentries like a Mongol horde overwhelming a genteel, unprepared populace. They tore through the barricades and reinforced walls like Katrina laying waste to New Orleans. Lying here, bleeding out from several finger-torn furrows in his shoulders and thighs, Gavin was struck by the devestating facts of his defeat. He had failed to keep his family safe, failed to champion the cause of independence and biblical justice.

  But God had not forsaken him. Gavi
n didn’ t think that for a second. No, he knew that in some way he had failed God. There was something he missed, some decision he didn’t make or preparation he overlooked. This was not bad luck or an inescapable event like an earthquake or hurricane.

  Gavin hoped he would have the opportunity to ponder his failure in Heaven. Perhaps on balance he had earned that.

  The man in the mask stepped between him and the cache of plastic explosives. Gavin’s tormentor waited patiently, body language casual. The feeders seemed to pay him no mind. This impossibility nagged at Gavin, but wasn’t highest on his list of concerns right now.

  He released the Mac-10 clenched in his half-numb fingers. He knew he would never reach the C4, or be allowed to aim the machine pistol, but there was still the hold-out piece in his boot…

  “So, Mayor Richards,” the man said, chummy tone only slightly distorted by the layer of neoprene wrapped around his lantern jaw. “You had a good run, but I must regretfully inform you that the state of Kansas has decided to implement a recall.”

  “W-who are you…” Gavin said.

  A huge dead woman, almost 300 pounds but carrying it well on a six-foot frame, lurched toward Gavin with malicious intent in her marbled eyes. In a smooth, effortless motion, the killer whipped a big handgun into position and blew her head clean off.

  The hefty corpse crashed to the floor beside Gavin, cold skin touching his arm and giving him goosebumps.

  “I’m an independent contractor,” the man in the mask said in a conversational tone. “So out of respect for your duly elected position, I will give you a choice. How do you want to die?”

  Gavin tried to affect the posture of a defeated man, sitting on the floor with his head against his knees and his hands naturally falling toward his boots. Inches from the loaded pistol.

  Out of some prescience or previous intel, Gavin’s enemy acted before he could. The crack of a shot cost the mayor most of his fingers and left him clutching the bloody stubs in agony.

  “Can’t give you long to think about it,” the masked man said. “We have a saying in the Marines — get in and get out before they know you’re there. Be fast or be last.”

  “Why don’t they come after you?” Gavin asked, not so much buying time as genuinely befuddled by this man’s immunity to the murderous desires of the dead.

  “That’s a long story, one we don’t have time for right now,” he responded. “Let me simplify things. Want me to shoot you, cut you or let them eat you?”

  “Shoot me,” Gavin said. “You sick fuck. I’ll see you in Hell!”

  “And here I thought you’d punched your ticket to paradise a long time ago. Nice to see you realize what you really are. It’s good to have a moment of clarity at the end. A rare and beautiful thing, actually.”

  The gun boomed again and gut-shot, Gavin writhed on the floor.

  “I meant shoot me in the head, you fucking prick,” he roared, ravaged intestines screaming in white-hot agony.

  “No, that wasn’t an option. I asked if you wanted me to shoot you, you said yes, so I did. But you are going to rise and walk with your fellow vermin of the earth. Because you pissed off the wrong people and the nail that sticks out gets pounded. Adios, compadre.”

  On his way to the door, the hulking mercenary dispatched the other feeders in the room with quick, sure shots. Gavin heard the lock click behind him. While the blood oozing from his stomach was steady, it was not a merciful rush. He would be lying here for twenty, thirty minutes before he blacked out.

  Gavin had no doubt that the last twenty minutes of his life would be the longest.

  #

  When they got home, Lena started making a grilled cheese sandwich. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Nic pouring herself a shot of tequila.

  “Whoa! Babe. You have to work tomorrow, right?”

  “Tomorrow is tomorrow,” Nic said, smiling at her in that slightly wolfish way that always got Lena hot. It was her Alpha smile. “We’re celebrating.”

  She walked up to Lena and offered her the shot.

  “No thanks,” Lena said. “Are you trying to get in my pants?”

  “I’d like to,” Nic said, giving her a sly look. “But you’re too tired.”

  Lena took the shot and pounded it. Grinned. “I’m good. Where’s yours?”

  Nic smirked and grabbed the bottle. “Body shot?”

  “You can’t be serious,” Lena said. “Spring Break was a long time ago, babe.”

  “We’re not working right now,” Nic said, cajoling. “And I don’t need a lime. So lie down.”

  Lena shot a look at the couch. “Shouldn’t I take a shower first?”

  “Think your sweat bothers me? I’d rather taste that than the body oil you just bought. It’s like a mouthful of flowers.”

  “Ouch,” Lena said playfully, pretending to be wounded. The tequila was warming her stomach and lightening her head. “You know I was about to turn on the sandwich grill, have a little midnight snack—”

  “Lie down,” Nic commanded, maneuvering her to the couch with the bottle in her hand. Lena hopped out of Nic’s grasp and gave her a little shove back. Nic stumbled, ungracefully. That shot had taken its toll on her motor skills.

  “Come on, tough stuff,” Lena taunted. “That all you got?”

  Nic took her down with some kind of judo move that Lena barely glimpsed before her ass was planted on the cushions. She glared fiercely at Nic, but her breath was rapid with excitement.

  “You think I’m going to let you drink tequila off my body?” Lena whispered, in an unblinking staredown with her wife.

  “I know you are,” Nic said. “Just keep your thighs locked though or we’ll need a new couch.”

  She set down the bottle to unbutton, unzip and peel down Lena’s pants in a couple of quick, violent moves. Lena gasped and squirmed as if being violated. “You bitch… Let go of me. I could have you shot,” she mock hissed.

  “I’ll have a shot right now, and a midnight snack,” Nic giggled with a boozy glow in her eyes. She positioned the half-full bottle over Lena’s hips. “I’m goin’ for absorption,” she said, and poured tequila onto the white and lacy expanse of her wife’s underwear.

  Lena squealed as the tequila hit her, instantly soaking her panties and pooling in the cup her tightly closed legs formed. They had never done this before, but Nic had mentioned it while reading some online “listicle.” It was a Japanese thing.

  Nic thrust her face into the triangle between Lena’s thighs and groin to drink, sucking tequila from the saturated silk. Lena gasped, the shivery, tactile sensation of it making the fine hairs on her neck stand up straight.

  Once Nic had vacuumed up the tequila with her lips she whisked the panties off Lena in one quick motion.

  “I think there’s more to be had,” she whispered, and buried her face between Lena’s legs. Lena went rigid, moaning in pleasure.

  Sometimes it was easy to forget the world they lived in and just appreciate what they had.

  It was also easy to forget a half-made grilled cheese sandwich.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BAD DREAMS

  GIVEN THE GENERAL climate of instability, it was in vogue among the upper classes to keep a quantity of cash in an extremely secure location, but one that could be accessed on short notice. The theory being, with the bank failures and Wall Street crash, that no organization’s individual participants could be expected to accept liability. The legal system, while not having ground to a complete halt, was hopelessly backlogged. If a brokerage firm went under, the lost funds would be recovered at the end of a very long queue. Western civilization persisted, but government had become a bureaucratic nightmare of Orwellian proportions.

  In more than a few smoky back rooms, there were rumblings that it might be wiser to simply turn your money into weapons and men to use them.

  In the meantime, the emergency fund idea had circulated. The criminal element got wind of it along with the media and public at large. Robbery cr
imes skyrocketed and precipitated an arms race between security services and hard men looking for a nice score.

  James Voskuil hired a man named Wellington to safeguard his funds. Voskuil’s “emergency fund,” and that of many others, resided in Wellington’s fortress house. He had bodyguards on retainer and considered his operation a “neo-bank.” He was not alone in this emerging field. In urban areas, caches of survival gear, weapons and other valuables were hidden or protected by coteries of well-armed, semi-legal guardians.

  Wellington was not surprised by Voskuil’s call — on occasion, his clients showed up in a panic to claim their stakes.

  “Sure, come on by,” he said. Nor was it uncommon for Wellington to be awake at any hour, weekend or weeknight. He was a crystal meth addict and enjoyed some fairly perverse hobbies.

  Voskuil was admitted by a stone-faced door guard. The living room had been re-styled as a lobby and was decorated in restrained tones and simple lines. The ambience was one of calm and control. Here, the lights were always on.

  Voskuil waited, preoccupied by the bandaged wound he concealed within his coat-sleeve. He was fortunate that it was high enough up the arm to be hidden. People were extremely suspicious of any injury that could be a scratch or a bite. That was how feeders attacked, after all — with their fingers and their teeth. Strangely enough, there was true equality between the genders in the feeders’ lethality. Often, what females sacrificed in size and vestigial strength was compensated for with long fingernails.

  After five torturous minutes, Voskuil was greeted by a functionary who, but for his five o’clock shadow, could be the manager of a five-star hotel. He had an air of prissy authority.

  “I’m Mr. Wellington’s associate,” the man said, not offering a name. “This way.” He led Voskuil down another well-lit hallway to a vault door, which another guard opened.