The After

“Remind me, Mason,” Aspen raised his voice in order to be heard over the music blasting throughout the car. “Why are we wasting gas on this?” Aspen couldn’t put a name to the song, but he recognized the iconic voice of an aging Johnny Cash. The car’s speakers were actually broken at the moment (though Mason had been promising to himself and his companions he would fix them when he got the chance.) Instead, the music was coming from a marred, battery-powered CD player resting on the center console. Aspen slapped the stop button.

“Because,” Mason replied, casually turning his head toward Aspen. It didn’t matter if you kept your eyes on the road anymore, not when there was barely anyone left to drive on them. “Venus hasn’t been running well lately.”

His voice expressed a certain melancholy. He patted the dash of “Venus,” his beloved 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Venus had been the main benefactor of his paychecks since he bought her when he was 17, but the fact was, she was getting old.

“I’m worried it means our gas is going bad. Or worse, it already has.”

He shifted his gaze back to the road. Aspen wasn’t around when Mason bought Venus, he wasn’t around to see the hundreds of hours of work that had been put into fixing her up. Aspen had always been more of a nature guy anyways, forestry and botany. He didn’t understand the bond between man and machine — or at least the bond between Mason and Venus. Mason took a breath, before continuing.

“Within the next year or so, gasoline's gonna expire, and there will be no way to get more considering…” He trailed off, gesturing with his left hand to the eerily deserted world around them. “Y’know.”

An air of silence fell over the car. Aspen could tell his friend was sad about the looming loss of his car, but he didn't really know how to comfort him. He had never been overly emotionally intelligent. People crying had always made him uncomfortable. (He suspected that had something to do with his father.) But he wasn't necessarily emotionally unintelligent, or at least he liked to think so. He wasn't any worse than Mason, who's unintelligence showed through his previous relationship with Kristina. God, Aspen hated thinking about Kristina. He didn't ever get to know her that well before everything fell apart. All he knew was that she died quickly, and Mason didn't take it well. If it weren't for Aspen acting as a lifeline, his friend might've … Aspen shook the thought out of his head. And there was no use in thinking about The Before now. He couldn't change the past. (Mason had suggested The Before a few months back. And although Aspen had thought it was silly, it was beginning to grow on him.)

After a good few minutes of dark silence, Mason spoke up. “But anyways.” The voice pulled Aspen out of his thoughts, and he looked over to Mason expectantly. “We're gonna pick up necessities first, and then…” He looked over to Aspen, a slight grin growing on his face — a stupid, gap-toothed grin.

“Then… what?” Aspen said with a distasteful look. He recognized the expression. An expression that only came onto Mason's face when he was about to say something Aspen wouldn't like.

The grin persisted, as Aspen grew more and more impatient. “What, Mase?” Mason hated the nickname. Said he was ‘above nicknames.’

“What's the date?” Mason asked a seemingly unrelated question, although he already knew the answer.

“Who knows the date anymore?” Aspen scoffed, turning his head to look out his passenger side window. Colorado was still beautiful in the spring. Out of winter life bloomed again with the revival of deciduous trees and native flowers. The idea of curated lawns had died with the human race, allowing wildlife to regain control, unregulated. It had only been — what had it been, two years? — and the pavement of the roads had already begun to be taken over by roots and creeping grasses. It was awful for the Jeep’s rims, sure, but there was beauty to be found in the chaos of the reclaimed wilderness. Aspen couldn't help but wonder if it was always meant to be like this. He wasn't a religious guy by any means — he pretty much gave up on the idea of religion by the time he was 9 — but looking out over the terrain, seeing the concrete crack and buckle and fall victim to the fiery whip of the wild, watching in real time as man-made creation was destroyed by the sheer force of nature. … It got him thinking, at the very least.

“I know today’s date.” Mason said, pulling the other out of his thoughts again. “It's April 17th. In 2 days it will be…”

Aw, man.

“God — Mason!” Aspen yelled suddenly, turning to face him. “I told you we weren't doing that this year!” He felt blood rush to his face in a mix of frustration and embarrassment. “I'm not celebrating.”

“Oh come on Aspen! You don't even know what I have planned.”

“I told you this, man. I don't do birthdays.”

Twenty-one. It would've been a very special age — if it weren't for the apocalypse.

“Come oooonn, Aspen!” Mason whined. “It won't be like last year.”

Aspen shuddered at the mention of last year's festivities.

Mason continued, undeterred. “Dude, just trust me on this! It's gonna be fun.”

“I don't do birthdays.”

“You're an idiot.”

“I know.” Aspen sighed.

A pause. “...You want your early gift?” That stupid, stupid grin returned. The gap-toothed bitch.

“No.” He did.

“Yer’ getting it anyway.” Mason chuckled, reaching down near his feet, rummaging for a moment. The motion jerked the steering wheel, swerving the car halfway into the next lane. “Fuck, Mason!” Aspen yelped.

Mason chuckled, seemingly unbothered by the motion of the car as he returned to his regular position and handed Aspen a small box, wrapped in the cloth of an old patterned t-shirt, something you’d expect to find in the closet of your grandmother. “I uh, couldn't find any wrapping paper.” His face flushed. Aspen hadn’t expected it to be wrapped at all. Gifts were usually hurled at his head if they were given by Mason.

“You can open it. It's probably better if you do now.”

Aspen hesitated at the abnormality of the gift, before opening it slowly by sliding the fabric off the box. It…

“No way.” Aspen gasped, looking at the CD case before him. “Mason— no way! Where'd you find this I've been looking all over—”

“So… you like it?”

“Like it — Mason, I've been looking for this album for a year!” This was the happiest Aspen had looked in months, as he held the Pinkerton CD in his hands.

A laugh escaped Mason's mouth. “Really? You suck at searching then, cuz I found that within like, the first five stores I went to.”

“Seriously man, thank you.”

The sincerity caught Mason off guard. “Uh, yeah sure, whatever. It’s not a big deal.” He laughed nervously, avoiding eye contact. “You can put it in the player if you want. I already checked, it’s not a different disc or anything.”

Aspen did so without another word, the car falling still as they listened.

They were halfway into Pink Triangle when it happened.

Aspen could barely process what Mason yelled as the car swerved and his face slammed into the dash.



… He was only out for around 30 seconds. When he came to, he had been dragged out of the car and was lying on the pavement, and he had a bitch of a headache. Kneeling by his side was his friend, and… someone else. A girl, maybe a little younger than them. Her lip quivered like she was on the verge of a breakdown.

“Aspen? Aspen!” Mason’s voice became unmuffled. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his friend open his eyes. “Jeez man, you scared me. Are you okay?”

“Eughhfhgg… Mase?”

“Yeah dude, I’m here. Shit, I was worried. C’mon, let me help you up.” Mason reached for the other’s hands, but was stopped.

“I’ll, uh… Stay down for a second.”

Mason shrugged, standing up and turning to face the gravesite of Venus. Crunched against a tree, steam emanating slowly from her hood. He breathed, eyes wet as he blankly stared ahead. “My car.” His voice was barely audible.

“Sir, I’m so sorry—” The stranger began. She flinched as Mason turned around, his sadness instantly dissipating as his anger rose.

“You’re sorry? You ran out in front of a car on the highway— the only one out here for miles — how hard are we to miss!” He yelled, getting uncomfortably close as he pointed a finger to her chest.

“I- I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to-” She began to back up.

“You didn’t mean to?! Because of you, my car is totaled. How did you not hear the engine you fucking…” He trailed off as his eyes wandered to a poorly dressed wound on her upper arm. “...Moron.” He grabbed at her forearm, inspecting the wound. She struggled, yelling something that Mason didn’t deem interesting enough to care about. To her dismay, he began gingerly peeling back the bandage wraps to reveal a patch of rotting, necrotic skin, surrounding what appeared to be a bite mark. The stranger shrunk back, beginning to panic. Mason shifted away in disgust, letting go of her arm. “She’s bit.” A twinge of disgust bled through in Mason’s voice, as he stared at the infected wound. “Aspen, we gotta go.” Aspen turned around at Mason’s voice, just having managed to stand up, inspecting his black eye and bloodied nose in the window of the wreck of a car.

“Hey, hey, don’t leave me here-” She began, panic rising in her voice. “I- I barely even got bit, it doesn’t even hurt-” She laughed nervously. “I’m sure I’ll be fine! I just-”

“Lady,” Mason began, anger rising in his voice. “Your arm is rotting. I don’t wanna hear any of your ‘it’ll be fine’ stuff, because I've heard all this shit before. You’re gonna turn soon, and I don’t wanna be here when it happens.” He turned on his heel, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking over to Aspen. “Let’s go.”

“Mason, what about Venus?” Aspen looked back to his friend, wiping blood from his lip with his sleeve.

“She’s gone. There’s no use.” Mason sighed.

Aspen paused for a moment, nodding. “So… What do we do about her?” His voice lowered as he gestured to the girl behind them, who was pacing and talking to herself, rubbing at her wound aggressively.

Mason turned to look at her. A frown crept across his face. “Yo, you good?” He called over to her. No response. “Lady, are you good?” He stepped closer. Barely. Before he could ask again, he was being shoved to the ground with a monstrous strength by the thing that had replaced the body of the girl. He yelped as he was thrown violently to the concrete, the girl-turned-zombie’s nails digging into his shoulders. He felt her its hot breath on his neck as it snapped its teeth, trying desperately to rip at his flesh. His hands frantically locked onto its shoulders, using all his strength to try and push it away. “Shit!” he panted, grappling with the creature for his life. He’d fought zombies before, but he, for good reason, tried to stay as far away from them as possible. The scariest thing about them wasn’t the bloodlust, or the strength. They still looked human. They continued to look human until the corpse started rotting, which could take up to a week in the right conditions. They didn’t start looking like a stereotypical zombie right away. In his head he knew that she it wasn’t the girl he had almost hit with his car, knew that she it was already dead, but it… it just didn’t look dead. And fighting this… thing that looked so human… It was a form of torture all by itself.

He was ripped out of his thoughts as the monster was flung off of him with a CLANG! Eyes widened in shock as the weight of the creature was lifted off of him. He realized just how heavily he had been breathing. Aspen stood above him, holding what appeared to be the rusted remnants of a road sign. The creature lay still by his side, knocked out — he hoped.

Aspen and Mason stood in silence for a moment, breathing heavily, staring at the limp body on the concrete.

“...Thanks.”

“No problem."

The two gathered their things from the car— rations, essentials— whatever they could scavenge from the remnants and fit in their packs. Aspen slipped his CD into his pack silently. They prepared to make the rest of the journey on foot. Aspen tasked himself with making sure the creature wouldn’t reanimate. The sound was always the worst, but cleaning up a splash of brain matter wasn’t fun either. He washed his hands, trying to ignore the sick, guilty feeling rising in his stomach. When they continued on the road, the only evidence that they had been there in the first place was the wreckage of Venus and a grave.