The Other Side of Death

She showed up late one afternoon about an hour before sunset. It’s rare you see one by themselves these days. But there she was, all alone dressed in what was once her Sunday best, with a full face of makeup and sporting rings, wristwatch, earrings, bracelets, a heart-shaped locket, and staggering more like a Saturday night than Sunday. They all stagger, or stumble, or shuffle; whatever you call it, the dead have a peculiar way of walking.

“You seein’ this one?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, less than enthusiastic.

“These solo deals are pretty entertainin’.”

“Pets.” I replied, barely more than a whisper.

“What’s that?”

“Pets.” I repeated. “Fence guards call ‘em pets. Give ‘em nicknames and such.” I wiped my sweaty upper lip, doing little more than dampening my five day mustache a bit further.

“That’s kinda morbid, ain’t it? I mean they are people, right?”

I nodded my agreement to the lanky blonde girl next to me.

“Whatcha figure that one’s called?”

“Dunno.” I didn’t know her nickname, and I was fairly certain that I wouldn’t like whatever some calloused guard called her.

“Know what any of them are called?”

“Yeah, that big fella over there is ‘Paul Bunyan’ on account of his flannel shirt.”

Grace turned from me, looking away from the fence. “We best get to supper or we won’t get none.”

“Yeah.” I agreed, but my mind was still on the dead woman in her pink floral dress.

* * * * *

I’d been fourteen when my entire family died on a Sunday morning. The same thing happened all over the country, probably all over the world. One moment people were going about their routines, getting dressed, having breakfast, heading out the door, and in the blink of an eye they were bodies on the floor. Most wish they had stayed there, but they didn’t. I had managed to shove my way clear of my brothers and make it out the door to find staggering bodies roaming around other houses in my neighborhood, before finding a police officer who let me hide in his patrol car.

I always expected the collapse of society to be more dramatic, more intense, more cinematic than it wound up being. As it turns out, The Drop, as we came to know it, was much less rapid paced terror and much more vague confusion and economic and political turmoil. Governments shifted; alliances were broken, changed, and reformed, and the world economy became something I don’t even understand. Before long, we Drop orphans were sent to “Corrigenda Schools”, sealed behind fences, and treated as if we didn’t matter. I had resented being sent to the pound like a stray dog, until the wars started. One good thing about being mostly ignored is that you’re not a target when bombs start dropping. Most outside communication ceased the day after the bombs started; the only information we still got was the Chancellor’s daily propaganda broadcast, and that hadn’t contained much truth even in the early days. Everyone seemed to ignore us except the guards…and the dead. For whatever reason, the victims of The Drop were still shuffling around, wandering through society, blocking traffic, staggering through every landscape imaginable, and eventually, inevitably, showing up outside the fences of Corrigenda Schools everywhere, and mine was no exception. At first, they had mostly walked alone, but we rarely saw solos anymore; most had formed huge mobs, herds of dead faces roaming the earth.

* * * * *

“What’s on the menu?” I asked a mouse-haired teen, as he checked us strays off, on the list in front of him.

“Menu?!” he barked out a laugh. “Weren’t those the days?”

“Seems like just yesterday, doesn’t it?” my blonde companion chuckled, flipping her long hair over her shoulder.

“Yeah, yesterday half a year ago.” I chuckled darkly along with them. “It’s no wonder we all look like we ain’t eaten in six months.”

“Right?! Because we haven’t!” Mouse-hair continued chortling along with us. “What’s y’all’s numbers?”

“55362” said Blondie.

“55777” I added.

“Go on in.” he said, ticking boxes by our numbers.

As we joined the queue I looked at the press of scrawny bodies around me and began recollecting my history classes. I hadn’t been a great student, before The Drop; I hadn’t even been a good kid back then, always causing my family more trouble than all five of my siblings combined, but some things stuck. I remembered images of emaciated people in striped clothes several sizes too large wandering out of barbed wire gates, surrounded by men in uniforms, their liberators. I remembered that they had been stripped of their individuality, their identities, and reduced to numbers. I looked at my metal ident bracelet with my number stamped on it and wondered if anyone would be coming to liberate me.

“Hey, Gabe,” Blondie started, quietly.

“Shhh!” I looked nervously around. “You want to get us shot?” I caught a glimpse of one of the guards and his rifle on the catwalk overhead.

“They can’t hear us all the way down here.” she whispered.

“Maybe THEY can’t.” I whispered, glancing meaningfully around at the thousands of strays around us.

“Ok, paranoid. Hey, 55777?”

“Yeah, 55362?”

“Do you want to go back and sit by the fence after supper?”

“Can we go watch the sunset by the wall?” I asked remembering the locket-wearing dead woman.

“Why? Thought you liked watching the fence guards.”

“Just want a change of scenery.”

“Ok.” she looked at me with a hint of concern but left me to my thoughts.

Supper was one of two daily opportunities to eat at our Corrigenda, and no one ever missed a meal, if they could really be called meals. There was only ever one item being served at a time, and it was rarely identifiable; today, it resembled watery oatmeal that had absolutely no odor, and even less taste. We gathered our meager portions and went to lean against the wall furthest from the catwalks, eating in silence for a few moments.

“That new solo bugged you somehow, huh?” Blondie asked.

“Yeah.” I grunted my affirmation.

“Why?”

I opened my mouth to answer but my words were drowned out by a sudden outburst of gunfire and blaring alarms. Both our heads jerked toward the doors to see the dead, almost a solid mass of deceased humanity, pushing their way into the large room. Here and there one of them would peel away from the group and grab hold of a stray and just kinda stare at them. The strays closest began screaming and trying to get away from the shuffling wall of bodies. That’s when the guards above began shooting, putting hundreds of bullets into the dead and us strays alike; strays fell, bleeding, dying, but the dead stayed on their feet. Where strays that were being grasped by the dead were shot, those grabbing onto them shifted, changed, began targeting the guards, and they were no longer simply gazing; they began ripping the guards apart, tearing off limbs, splitting stomachs, killing.

“What’ll we do?!” Screeched Blondie. Her eyes were wide with fear.

“I don’t know!” I shouted over the din, turning to pull her close and try to keep the fleeing strays from crushing her against the wall.

“I don’t wanna die!” she began to weep.

“We gotta get out of here!” I said turning her face toward mine, making her look me in the eyes.

“You think you can break a window if I boost you up?”

“I…I think so.” she said, regaining focus and nodding.

I nodded along, turned her to face the wall, bent, grabbed her foot, and lifted her up to the window. She hoisted herself up and began kicking the thick glass feverishly.

Then, I felt something. It was the oddest sensation I had ever experienced. A cold, cold hand grasped my shoulder, both firmly and gently, and began pulling me, turning me around. There gazing intently at me, reaching to grasp my other shoulder, pressing close to me was my mother, wearing her pink Sunday dress, with my grandmother’s heart-shaped locket falling onto her chest. I looked into her eyes, and something like electricity seemed to well up in my chest, radiating down into my arms, my legs; it carried with it a sudden, deep, inexplicable knowledge. I felt my eyes widen, realizing exactly what I had to do. As quickly as the moment began, it ended, and she turned to face the guard who was about to shoot the two of us, grasped him by the throat and choked him to death. In their struggle the locket was pulled loose and fell to the ground next to the guard’s rifle; I scooped them up and turned back toward the window.

“GRACE!” I screamed.

My blonde friend, Grace Walker, turned her eyes to me, and I knew she was already awakened, as I had just become. She smiled, reached down, and helped me into the window frame. I shot several bullets through the glass, kicked the pane free of the sill, and jumped to the ground. Grace landed beside me as other strays, those who had been grasped by the dead, began pouring out behind us. I grabbed her by the hand and led the way toward an obscured hole in the back corner in the fence and into the woods beyond. We all knew which way to go.

* * * * *

The caves stretched for miles; somehow, we knew that no one who meant us harm could find them, and they were stocked with more food and clean water than I had ever seen in one place, even before The Drop. We sat leaned against the smooth, curving sandstone wall, Grace snuggled peacefully against me, our breaths coming in unison.

“Who is she to you?” Grace’s voice quietly asked, her head still resting against my collarbone.

“She’s my mom.” I answered, a small sad smile forming on my lips.

“Remember Paul Bunyan?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s my grandad.”

“What’s his real name?”

“Milton.” she whispered, sounding close to tears.

“Grandpa Milt, huh?”

“Yeah.” she began to giggle. “He’d like bein’ called Paul Bunyan. Used to tell me I’d turn blue like Babe the ox, if I played too long in the snow.”

“When did he grab ya?”

“Two days before your mom showed up. Made me look him in the eyes like your mom did.”

“Through the fence?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you leave after that?”

“Couldn't leave without you. And I knew you needed to know first, needed to see someone.”

I reached into my pocket and leaned away from her. She sat up and faced me.

“What’s wrong?”

“Plenty. But that’ll change.” I brushed her hair away from her face with my hand and slipped the locket chain over her head.

“I can’t accept this!” she gasped.

“You better, because I sure ain’t wearing women’s jewelry.” I laughed.

Tears formed in her eyes as she clutched the heart in her hand. We kissed softly and relaxed back against the wall. For us, the war was mostly over. All that was left to do was wait for our liberation.