After Days (The After Days Trilogy)

After

Days

Scott Medbury

Copyright © 20
14 Scott Medbury

All rights reserved
.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

All characters
and events depicted in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Original cover design by Tatlin.net

First edition May 2014

ISBN
:
1499354142

ISBN-13:
978-1499354140

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to
Ian Medbury, thank you for showing me the importance of family.  You’re sorely missed Dad.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A big thank you to the following people, without whom this project would have been a lot more difficult:

My wife Joanne, for keeping me grounded and motivated.

Janie, for her brilliant editing and structure.

Conrad Wesley Clough, for his research and creative input.

“Man is the cruelest animal.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

P
ART 1

A
LL
F
ALL
D
OWN

1

My name is Isaac Race.  I am 15 years old. My mother is dead. My father is dead. So is my sister, Rebecca. They were dead even before the infection. In fact everyone I ever loved or cared about is dead now. I can’t complain too much, the others have all lost everybody they ever loved too, all except Ben and Brooke, the twins. They have each other at least. 

I guess I need to start at the beginning, before it all happened…before
the shit hit the fan,
as my last foster father used to say all the time. Yeah I said ‘last foster father’. I had two after my parents died. That’s where I’ll begin my story, just before the infection killed all the grown-ups…well, nearly all of them.

My Mom, Dad and kid sister were killed in a house fire when I was 13. I wasn’t at home that night; I had been staying at my best friend Tommy’s. It was a Saturday night. The cops and the social workers all told me how lucky I was that I hadn’t been there that night. I didn’t feel lucky. For a long time I kind of wished I
had
been home. Maybe I could have saved them…or if not, at least I would have died too and not been left with the awful empty feeling that is only now starting to fade after two years.

If I had died too, we would have been in Heaven together. Well that’s what I thought back then, when it first happened. I know there isn’t a Heaven now. There can’t be a Heaven without a God. I know there isn’t a God, because
no
God would let the Chinese do what they did to us. What they did to America.

Anyway, I don’t think about dying anymore. You kind of stop thinking about death when it could happen to you at any time. Just look at Sarah. She was the first one that Luke and I had found. She was a good kid, and only just beginning to come out of the shell that she had retreated into after ‘Hell Week’. That’s what Luke called the first week after it had all happened, but to me, every week since had been ‘Hell Week’. Dogs got her. It was a pack that had been stalking us for a few miles, they were hungry and mean. I’ll never forget her screams. We shot three of them and the rest fled, but not before they had nearly torn her arm off …we couldn’t stop the bleeding.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to go back to the beginning, when
my
world changed…two years before everybody else’s did too.

Dad hadn’t arrived to pick me up as he had promised at 10am on the Sunday morning. I called home at 1030 to see where he was but all I got was the shrill beep, beep, beep of a busy signal. Mr. Benson asked me what my dad’s cell number was, but I didn’t know. Mr. Benson said he was sure that my Dad wouldn’t be too much longer, so Tommy and I went to his room and played his X-Box while we waited. When two hours passed with no word, the Benson’s gave me some lunch before Tommy and his dad drove me home just after 1230. 

I know it sounds weird, but I kind of knew that something wasn’t right. I had a funny feeling all that morning, a sense that something bad was going to happen. I didn’t know it then, but it had already happened. When Mr. Benson turned onto our street, I knew before I saw them that there would be fire trucks. I don’t know how, but I did. And sure enough there they were, impossibly red on that bright, sunny afternoon.

The place where my house had stood was a blackened pile of rubble; the remains of a rotten tooth in the perfect smile of big, neat houses that lined our street. Mr. Benson whispered “fuck”. Normally that would have cracked Tommy and me into hysterical laughter, but I think I was already in shock and even Tommy was stunned into silence for the first time since I had known him. 

Mr. Benson was saying something to me when we pulled up but I didn’t hear him, I was out of the door before he’d even stopped the car. I saw Mr. Johnson our neighbor talking to a police officer and he yelled my name frantically when he saw me. He said something quickly to the officer, pointing to me before rushing at me. I took a step back but he caught me and pulled me to him in a tight hug. “Thank God you’re okay Isaac!”

That was when he began to sob. I felt his big gut moving up and down against me as his tears wet my cheek. We stood that way for a long time; I didn’t know what to say or how to escape his hug. He just kept crying and whispering how sorry he was about my family. Finally, I heard a man’s voice over his shoulder.

“Mr. Johnson…please, I’ll talk to the boy.”

I stumbled a little as the big man let me go. The police officer put a steadying hand on my shoulder and guided me to the fence that our place shared with Mr. Johnson’s. That day is still a blur but I remember looking back at the smoking mess that was my home, before the officer gently turned me away and faced me back towards the street. I saw Tommy standing there with his dad’s arm around his shoulder and for the first time, it hit me that I would never feel my dad’s arm around me again. I started to weep as the officer bent over me.

“I’m so sorry son. I want you to know that your mom and dad and sister wouldn’t have felt a thing. It looks like the fire started in the kitchen and they would have been sound asleep. The smoke going through the house meant that they didn’t wake up or feel pain.” He paused, as if unsure how to go on. “Now I need to know if you have family that we can notify and get you looked after. Grandparents or aunts and uncles? Anyone close by?”

I tried to man up, ashamed of my tears and the sobs escaping my throat. Funny what things seem important to a 13 year old when their world has just collapsed. I shook my head.

“There’s no one,” I sniveled. “All of my grandparents are dead, and I don’t have uncles or aunties.” 

“It’s okay son, we’ll have someone take care of you. Here, come and sit in the patrol car for a minute.” The cop patted my shoulder and began walking to his cruiser, indicating I should follow. I paused, for a second I thought I could see my Dad in the crowd of people that watched from across the street. It was only a second before I realized it wasn’t him, just someone of the same height and build. That would happen a lot over the next few months. I would think I saw him or Mom or Rebecca at random times, only for the reality of my loss to hit me again and again.

When I didn’t follow immediately, the cop turned and reached for my hand. I absently shook him off and he shrugged, not unkindly, and led the way to his vehicle. I trailed him numbly and climbed into the front passenger seat when he opened the door. I looked around, my boy’s curiosity at being in a police car surfaced through the well of grief for a just a moment. I managed to stop crying and wiped my eyes as I listened to the cop make a call back to base. I could tell it was about me, but didn’t really absorb what was being said. After he signed off I saw Tommy’s dad come up to the driver’s door. He leaned over and whispered a few words in the officer’s ear before passing him a card. When he was done, he walked around the car to me with a serious look on his face, before placing a hand on my shoulder. 

“Isaac, Tommy and I have to go. I have given the officer my details, they can call us anytime and so can you. Take it easy son, I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but everything will be…better in a few weeks.” He looked around. “Tommy, come say goodbye to Isaac.”

Tommy looked reluctant as he shuffled forward and offered me his hand. That summed up the weirdness of the whole day. We never shook hands; it was always high-fives and laying skin. Still seated, I took his hand awkwardly and shook it the way my grandfather had shown me before he died, “always shake hands with a strong grip, let ‘em know you’re in charge.”

“Seeya,” Tommy mumbled with his eyes down and stepped away. His dad looked at me one last time, pity in his eyes, before he put his arm around Tommy’s shoulders and led him away. I started to cry again, the familiar faces of my friend and his dad were now gone and only strangers, who all seemed to look at me with the same expression of pity, were left to deal with me, the world’s newest orphan. I never saw Tommy again.

I won’t bore you with what happened that afternoon and for the next few weeks, except to tell you that a social worker got there about an hour after the cop had made his call. Margaret (I don’t remember her last name) was about my Mom’s age, but with the horned rimmed glasses and frumpy clothes she wore, she looked much older. She was kind and somehow made me feel better as she drove me to the halfway house. She told me I would stay there until I was placed in a suitable foster home. I am not going to write about my family’s funeral, which happened a week and a half later. It’s enough to say that it was the worst day of my life...my old life anyway.

I was at the halfway house for three weeks before Margaret visited to tell me that a suitable home had been found. I went to live with a couple called the Pratchetts in a town about thirty miles away. Mr. and Mrs. Pratchett asked me to call them Randy and Jenny, but in a quiet moment Jenny said that I could call her Mom if I wanted to. I know now that she was only trying to be kind, but I found the suggestion insulting and insensitive, because even though my Mom was dead, she was still my Mom. But I didn’t even get angry. I ignored it. At that time, nothing seemed to matter. 

Randy and Jenny were in their early thirties and didn’t have any kids of their own. At first they seemed okay. They had a nice big house and put me in a huge bedroom with its own flat screen TV and the latest PlayStation and a PC. Jenny had shown me the room with a flourish, but with my loss still raw I wasn’t able to do more than say thanks in a flat tone.

I know I was still grieving for my family at that stage, but from the start, there was something I didn’t like about Randy. He seemed too good and wholesome to be true, almost as if he was playing a part in a family movie
. Still, it was hard to put my finger on exactly what it was about him that was bugging me.

One night, about a week after I had moved in, he confirmed the bad vibe I was getting from him and got drunk. I could tell instantly something was not right when I sat down at the table that night. He stumbled in from the living room. Jenny was unusually quiet and barely looked up from her plate as we began eating. No one had said a word when Randy placed his fork carefully on the plate and without warning, reached across the table and slapped Jenny right across the face as I was eating my mashed potato.

She started crying and screaming at him. I was shocked by the suddenness… the quick violence of it. I sat there with my mouth open and full of half chewed mash as he stood and slapped her again, harder this time across the other cheek with the back of his hand. She stopped screaming then and held her face in her hands, sobbing quietly. I was stunned. I had never seen anything like that happen between two adults and when he noticed me staring at him, he yelled at me too, flecks of spit flying off his lips.

“What are you looking at, you little shit?”

He glared at me, but I wasn’t scared. I think something was (and still is) broken inside me. I stared right back at him, not dropping my gaze from his crazed, bloodshot eyes. I guess it freaked him out. Randy eventually dropped his gaze and called me a bad name under his breath before kicking his chair over and stalking to the kitchen counter. Bullies are the same, no matter how old they are – stare them down and they back right off…most times anyway. He snatched up his keys and stormed through the door. I heard the front door slam a few seconds later, then the faint sound of the car starting. I put my hand on Jenny’s arm.

“It’s okay, he’s gone. Are you all right?”

She pulled her hands away and my heart went out to her. Livid pink marks stood out on her pale cheeks and her eyes were filled with pain. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just physical pain. She smiled bravely and grasped my hand.

“Look at you, you’re twice the man he is and you’re only thirteen. I’m so sorry you had to see that.”

“It’s okay…”

We ate the rest of our dinner in silence.

It was back to the halfway house for me the next day. I felt worried for Mrs. Pratchett…Jenny I mean, but she assured me she would be okay as Margaret my social worker took me away.

Margaret was apologetic. “I’m sorry Isaac, sometimes, even with all the background checks and interviews we do, the bad ones slip through the cracks.”

Nine days later, she took me to meet the Fosters. I didn’t have much of a sense of humor at that point or I might have found that funny. Fostered by the Fosters. Unlike the Pratchetts, I liked them
both
straight away. They were older than Randy and Jenny and had been fostering kids for a long time. Their last foster son had just turned nineteen and had left for college a month before. They had an empty house and were ready to take on a new kid that needed a break. Me.

I have to admit that as time went
by my numbness turned to anger, anger at the world for taking my parents away. It shames me now, but some of that anger was taken out on the Fosters. I’d act out and get into trouble at home and at school. To their credit, they always accepted the place that I was in and worked hard to make sure that I knew that they’d be there for me. Even if I wasn’t ready to accept them yet. Slowly I started to come around, and by the end we were getting along really well, so much so that I was almost beginning to think that I had a found a new place to belong.

Alan Foster was a retired postal worker, and despite any rumors or jokes that you may have heard about postal workers and their anger issues, let me tell you that Alan was one of the most mild and patient men that I have ever met. He was silver haired and softly spoken, and what I remember best about him was his quiet strength. Eleanor had been a stay at home mom for a number of children going through the system and she had served that role admirably. Sometimes I still wonder if it hurt her, how few of us ever actually called her by that title…Mom. I know I never did, not when she could hear me at least.