After the End

Joel King

The sun is setting as he shuffles forward down the road, kicking up dirt and grime with his feet, lifting them just enough to make progress. His destination registers dimly in his head, flickering like a dying light bulb, threatening to burn out. Several times, he stops, backpedals a little, and restarts, the destination coming back alive just long enough for him to grab onto it and proceed.

His conception of time has eroded, but something in his mind tells him that he’s been like this for at least half a year, whatever that means. Really, it could have been years since the end, or maybe two weeks. The days blend together in his head, when he can remember them in the first place. Recent events shine far brighter; the past, beyond a certain point, is nothing but an abyss, a black hole in the center of his mind.

His mind flickers again, shifting to the woman who sent him out on this scouting mission. He’s reasonably sure she’s female, anyway, but her features have degraded so substantially that it’s hard for him to tell for sure. He’s not much of a looker either, but his face is at least intact. Rotting and stretched taut across his skull, but intact all the same. When he catches a glimpse of his reflection, in the windows of empty, decaying storefronts, or the side mirrors of abandoned cars, sometimes he can almost recognize what he used to be.

He makes his way down the exit ramp off the highway, the quiet shuffling of his feet the primary soundtrack for his travels, augmented only occasionally by the sound of a bird, or something in the grass below. It’s a process, and he can feel his muscles straining against the angle of the road, the shredded, atrophied tissue protesting his movements. If he could still feel the pull of emotion, he would be annoyed at how weak his body has become, how much his affliction hinders him. But he cannot, and so he simply continues down the exit ramp, turning off into a clearing that once stood as a thick forest, reduced to charred and chopped stumps at some point in the recent past.

He’s been running these scouting missions as long as he can remember, which doesn’t count for much. The woman in control of his settlement was more advanced in her resurgence from the infection than almost everyone else, and it gave her the ability to issue commands that the rest of them could understand. To organize them, form some echo of a community. These are concepts he is unable to grip in the moment, but he believes, somehow, that he may understand one day. For now, he shuffles out into the wilderness, to find more survivors.

The sun is just touching the horizon in front of him, and he stares at it for a moment or two. He set out later than usual because his calf muscle stopped responding and he had to crawl for a while instead of walking, which tore up some of the skin on his stomach. The skin is ragged and raw now, and it registers in his mind—just barely reaching over the threshold—that it will not heal. He has a lot of marks like that, bumps and scrapes that become permanent no matter the size or severity.

In the distance, he sees something new. He scouts on a daily basis, this same area every time, and his memory has recovered enough to retain dozens of previous scouts. Nothing has changed in this former forest in the entire time he’s been scouting it. Nothing until today, where he sees something like a tent, scraps of cloth propped up by scavenged sticks, blown out by the intense light of the setting sun.

For the first time, his mind clears. The days blended together because they were all the same; presented with new stimuli, dormant synapses awaken, and, for a moment, everything sharpens. He watches the tent, dropping to his knees to camouflage among the ruined stumps and tall, overgrown grass that took their place. His pallid skin and filthy clothes blend in acceptably with his surroundings, and he is almost invisible as he watches the tent.

A figure approaches the tent from behind, clutching something at their waist. He cannot get a good look at the figure, too far away with too little light, but he can tell that this one is not like him. They are a survivor. They move impossibly fast with full control of their motor functions. They look around often, their head on a swivel, on the lookout for his kind. The survivors always are.

The thought floats into his mind that this is why he’s been sent on these scouting missions. For once, he has finally stumbled on something that makes it all worthwhile, though he cannot quite grasp the reason behind his sudden spike of adrenaline. If he was as he was before, he would call it “excitement.” But he is not, so he remains hidden in the grass until darkness has fallen. It’s one of his most proficient skills, shutting down for hours at a time, oblivious to the monotony. He supposes it’s an instinct of some sort, that primal desire to convert a survivor to their cause. The instinct will drive him to do anything to make it happen.

Before, he knew that his instinct was raw, indiscriminate, unrefined, unintelligent. He can see it now in the others in the community, the ones who hadn’t turned as early as he had. They were still waking up, still consumed in the throes of the instinct, moaning and shuffling around without purpose, until a survivor had the misfortune of stumbling into the scene. Then, he would witness the process all over again, waking up more and more.

Now, at his level, when the instinct takes over, it makes full use of his increased capacity. It drives him to stay motionless until the middle of the night, when the survivor is most likely to succumb to exhaustion, for their watch to pause long enough for him to crawl to the tent. Long enough for him to convert them with minimal damage.

The instinct rings an alarm in his head, and he begins to crawl, trying as he does so to register a thought about what he was doing. The clarity he’d previously been blessed with has faded; it’s back to the fog, and it is so all-encompassing that he cannot remember how he felt when the fog lifted. Instead, what little unallocated brain-power is left over is dedicated to rolling the clock back, back beyond the curtain that separated what he used to be from what he is now. He goes back here sometimes, when he can spare the energy, when his ravaged mind allows him to. He sifts through the wreckage, to try and grab onto something, anything, that might remind him of what he was before. Tonight, however, there is nothing. The instinct is stronger than he can remember it ever being, and it is robbing him of his autonomy.

The grass crinkles beneath him as he lurches forward, crawling on hands and knees to stay below the line of the grass and tree stumps. The tent looms in the distance, quiet and unmoving. His hearing has deteriorated, but he can detect enough to know that the occupant is not moving, though he cannot tell if they are awake or asleep. If they’re awake, he faintly registers, this encounter could be his last. If they are asleep, it will be easy pickings.

He pulls open the flap of the tent, and the moonlight provides just enough illumination to reveal the survivor—a man, dark-skinned, with long, matted, tangled hair and a thick beard to match, dead asleep in a sitting position, propped up by his walking stick. It seems as though the man may have simply passed out from exhaustion. His body is emaciated and, if his visitor still had a functional sense of smell, he would likely be repulsed.

He reaches forward, intending to grab the survivor by the shoulders and bite down on his neck, but his arm spasms, knocking the survivor’s walking stick out from under him and waking him up. Now, what would have been a simple conversion has become a fight, as the survivor’s own instincts kick in and he backpedals, screaming, reaching wildly for a weapon behind him. The visitor tenses up, trying to regain control of his rogue muscles, but the survivor’s only weapon is a knife—ineffective against his kind, for the most part. They struggle, the knife parting flesh repeatedly, in his hand, his ragged, rotting abdomen. The survivor, sensing that he is fighting a losing battle, scrambles to turn on his lantern for better visibility, and when the tent is flooded with light, time stops for both of them.

The survivor freezes, staring into the face of his assailant, and he stares back, as prey is no longer prey.

“J-Jonas?” the survivor chokes out, shaking his head a little.

The fog recedes again, and Jonas is slack-jawed.

“C…” He struggles with the words, his vocal cords straining. “C…Craig.”

Craig is standing outside the tent, shifting in place, having scrambled his way out when Jonas spoke back to him. He looks as though he’s seen a ghost, and to him, he has.

Jonas watches, his eyes unblinking, unmoving. He’s sitting, slumped forward, looking somewhat like a doll that’s been tossed on a shelf after its owner is done with it. His mind is running faster than it has in…ever, as far as he can remember, which admittedly isn’t all that impressive.

The lantern has been left in the tent, and they are illuminated only by the full moon looming overhead, beaming its reflected light down onto the ravaged world below. The scene triggers something in Jonas’s mind, something lodged deep at the bottom of the sea, dredged up by seeing Craig for the first time.

They used to sit on the roof, staring up at the night sky, observing the stars and the moon as they twinkled. Their home was on the outskirts of town, in an area with little light pollution, away from the dense smog that consumed most civilization from day to night.

As soon as it comes up, it is gone, washed away in the never-ending tide of Jonas’s ravaged, shredded memory, and his attention returns to Craig.

“Is there anyone else?” Craig asks, his voice uneven, raspy, out of practice. “Are there—are there more of you here? Did you bring—”

“No,” Jonas chokes out, his own voice crackly and garbled, like a late-stage smoker. “No more.”

Craig covers his face. “Jesus Christ. Of all the fucking walkers, Jonas. Of all of them, it…it had to be you.”

Jonas can only sit in silence to that. He is still trying to piece things together. He knows who Craig is—the photo in his shirt pocket is a helpful visual aide in that regard. He reaches for it now, pulling out the ragged, dirty, torn photograph, unfolding it with shaky, grimy hands that have lost all dexterity.

The photo is of the two of them, on the Fourth of July, fireworks behind them. The flash is too harsh, washing out Craig’s complexion and rendering Jonas as little more than a ghost. But they are both smiling, wrapped in each other.

The photo is the first thing Jonas remembers seeing after waking up. Confused and disoriented, the photo asked more questions than it gave answers, but something stirred in him whenever he looked at it, and Craig’s face unlocks more of the puzzle.

Craig kneels down in front of him. “What do you remember?” he asks.

Jonas stares at him; he needs specifics. “I…” His hands are shaking; he looks away.

Craig covers his face. “For the love of God.”

He stands up and walks away, back over to the tent. Jonas notices that he walks with a limp, favoring his left leg. Up close, he does not look nearly as agile and quick as he did from a distance.

Easy to overpower with a surprise attack.

The voice comes out of nowhere, but it is like a cloister bell in Jonas’s head. He knows what it is, even if he has never heard it before.

The instinct does not want to wait any longer.

“What am I even fucking doing here?” Craig muses aloud, still turned to face the tent. Jonas lurches to his feet, his muscles screaming as he does so. His mind is screaming as well—wordless, primal. The instinct has had enough, and Jonas can do little to stop himself. He shuffles forward, footsteps muted in the tall grass.

Before he can lunge, however, his left Achilles gives out, and he topples to the ground in a heap. Craig jumps in surprise, whirling around, knife in hand, only to see the fallen Jonas, and drops his guard in response. He crouches down, and the eye contact quells the instinct, for now.

“Are you alright?” he asks, the concern in his voice not making it up to his eyes, still narrowed in suspicion, wary of why Jonas moved in the first place. If Jonas could still feel the sting of the implication in Craig’s eyes, he would be hurt. But he cannot, and so he gives a literal answer to the question.

“No.” He taps the back of his calf with a hand that has some skin peeling off the palm. “Legs…give out.”

“No shit.” Craig pushes Jonas to a sitting position with one hand, the other tightly gripping the hilt of his knife. He falls back to a sitting position himself, a few feet away. The moonlight reflects off his forehead, and his eyes seem bottomless in the darkness.

“I don’t know what to do here, Jonas,” Craig laments. “It’s been…eight months, I think, since I last saw you. Since the outbreak. Eight months of trekking across the country, seeing everything leveled, just ravaged. The world is fucked, Jonas. It’s all gone. But you probably already know that.”

In fact, the information is new to Jonas. He has not ventured out beyond the stretch of land between two highway exits since he woke up, confined to the community of those who were converted in the immediate area. Hearing Craig talk about the “outbreak” and the “world” is much like hearing someone talk about some sort of alternate universe; the words make sense individually, but are being put together in an order Jonas doesn’t recognize. The world Craig speaks of is gone, and Jonas, as he is now, has never been part of it.

Craig takes a moment to compose himself, and Jonas remains silent, just staring ahead, mouth slightly ajar.

“I came out all this way to find you.”

Jonas tilts his head, eyes still locked on Craig. Craig is crying, now, his head bowed, the words hitching in his throat.

“All this way. All the way across this God forsaken country, all because you were here. On a business trip, of all things. You never came back, and I’d spent all this time thinking you were either in hiding or dead, or…”

He gestures at Jonas.

“Or this. This…thing.”

The instinct has been quiet for a while. Jonas can feel it bubbling in his chest, idling while his brain processes the unexpected reunion. More memories are flitting about in his mind, but they are like gnats—constantly moving and impossible to catch in one’s hand. He cannot latch onto any of them, onto any of it, and so he is content to let them come and go as Craig talks.

“I almost…I almost feel like this is worse,” Craig says. “Seeing you like this. Just a…just a husk. Torn up and practically brain-dead. And I was going to blow you away, too, when you woke me up in the tent. I know what you were trying to do. To be honest, what I don’t know is why you haven’t already tried again.”

It is a fair question, one for which Jonas has no immediate answer. He did try, when he couldn’t hold back the instinct. But the instinct is content to remain in the background for now. Instead, he feels something else that he needs to say, and he takes a while to form it in his mind, pull the component parts together before speaking.

“I…” Jonas begins. It feels like pushing against a brick wall, but he can feel it budging, and all he needs is a little bit of give.

“I…am here. I am…still here. Craig.”

Craig looks at Jonas as if he has said the worst possible thing in that moment. Those deep brown eyes well up again, and he shakes his head.

“This is it, isn’t it?” he says. It’s not a question, more of a resignation. “Humanity isn’t coming back from this. I haven’t seen another human being in three fucking months. It’s just wild animals and—and your kind. God, there’s so many of you…everywhere. All over the country. And I’ve had to—”

He chokes up again.

“I’ve had to kill so many, Jonas. I can’t—I can’t do it again.”

Jonas can only sit and listen as Craig breaks down, shaking his head and turning away. He cannot relate to how Craig feels—he cannot relate to anything. Something is stirring in him, however. He watches Craig hold his head in his hands, shoulders shaking, and rusty cogs squeal and screech in his mind, turning for the first time. The first time he can remember, anyway.

“Join me.”

The words escape his mouth without thought or consideration. It takes Jonas a moment to even realize that he’s spoken them, as Craig lifts his head to stare.

“W-What?” he says, disbelief written across his face. “What did you say?”

“J…Join me.” The words feel more natural this time, but Jonas still does not know where they are coming from. Nonetheless, he plows forward, putting everything he can muster into conveying his message clearly.

“There is…nothing left. For you. Like this. We are…rebuilding. Join me. Join…us.”

Craig’s eyes widen, and he’s shaking his head a little. He seems aghast at the suggestion, the callous writing-off of humanity. To Jonas, however, it is a matter of simple logic. The survivors are few and far between; the “humanity” that Craig speaks of is either severely endangered or functionally extinct. Jonas has seen how many of his kind there are, even just in his little community. He knows—he’s not sure how, but he knows—that Craig’s days as a survivor are numbered. It’s just a matter of time until someone else from the community finds him. Just a matter of time until Jonas loses the tug-of-war against his instinct again.

Craig stands up. Silhouetted in the moonlight, he seems massive, but the illusion is shattered as he begins to limp back to the tent. Jonas struggles to stand, but Craig holds out a hand to stop him.

“I…I need some space. I just…”

He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“This can’t be the answer. This can’t be…this can’t be the only way.”

He points at the tent. “Don’t come in here. Don’t…don’t let anyth— anyone else in, either. Understand me?”

Jonas nods. Craig stares at him for a moment longer, then disappears into the tent, shutting off the lantern as he does so, leaving Jonas in the sole company of the moon. The passage of time does not register in his mind; the moon is dimly reflected in his glassy, clouded eyes, fixated on the sky above. It is a cloudless night, and the stars are luminous and all-encompassing.

He can feel it, nipping at the edges of his mind. With Craig out of his presence, the instinct is bubbling back up. He pushes back against it, harder than before. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the photo again, barely able to see it in the darkness. But it is there, and he reaches behind the curtain again, the photo a map for the scattered, fragmented memories, like a recovery program on a corrupted hard drive.

Christmas. Halloween. Labor Day. The words mean nothing to him, but the feelings—the feelings are new and old at the same time. He does not remember them, but he can feel, in his chest, in his heart, that diseased, atrophied bundle of muscles in his chest, working in tandem with the virus to keep him in some analogue of living.

On the horizon, deep black is being replaced by blue and purple. Time is not something that Jonas has a great grasp on, but even he can tell that a new day is dawning. Craig has not moved or emerged from the tent, and his warning echoes in Jonas’s mind.

A sleeping target is the easiest to convert.

Jonas shakes his head. His body has settled in its sitting position, and any movement is difficult and jerky. He cannot disobey Craig’s order.

He finds, however, that he cannot disobey the instinct, either.

He crawls forward, parting open the tent. Craig is there, lying on his side, his chest rising and falling with each quiet breath. It is the most peaceful Jonas has seen him since they first re-encountered each other.

The instinct is positively screaming.

Do it.

Take him.

You are doing him a kindness.

Something else will get him if you do not.

He finds it astonishingly difficult to reason with the instinct when it’s as strong and as loud as it is in this moment. He’s hovering over Craig now, staring down at him as the sun begins to crest over the horizon outside.

It would be easy, the instinct whispers, seductive in the back of his mind. He won’t even realize until it’s too late. Just one bite to the neck, enough to break the skin.

Jonas lets out a ragged, rancid breath. Craig rolls over onto his back, towards Jonas’s arm, and he leans back to avoid contact. In the process, however, he sees Craig’s peaceful, sleeping face in full, and clarity washes over him like a wave, smashing the instinct back.

He blinks, his eyelids out of sync, and observes Craig for a little while, taking in his features, all softened in sleep. He leans forward, placing a hand on Craig’s chest, and Craig’s eyes flutter open.

Jonas tenses, but Craig simply stares at him, a look in his eyes that Jonas finds it difficult to parse. Reading subtle cues is a skill that is still far beyond his capacity. He opens his mouth to speak, but Craig beats him to it.

“Just do it,” he says. His voice is flat and even-toned, not smiling or frowning. “Get it over with.”

The instinct has returned, and it is like a hurricane in his head. He knows that this is for the best. He knows it is the only way to save Craig, for them to be reunited. The memories flying around in his head make him feel something, make him feel everything, and there is nothing he wants more than to hold onto those feelings as long as he can. If Craig is converted, “as long as he can” becomes forever.

He leans down, his leg and ab muscles struggling to hold him up. He’s going for the neck, their faces coming closer and closer together.

Just one bite. Enough to break the skin.

They are just inches apart now. Craig recoils a little from the rotten smell of Jonas’s breath, but does not move otherwise. He’s accepted fate, accepted that this is the only answer.

If Jonas could feel, he would shift his trajectory from Craig’s neck to his mouth. He would show that there is something on the other side, that humanity does not have to end, that it can adapt and evolve.

And now, he can feel, and Jonas’s chin lifts, and their lips touch.

Craig’s eyes widen, but still he does not move, does not struggle. The kiss is short, unrefined, and, truth be told, unpleasant—Craig’s lips are hopelessly cracked and chapped, and Jonas’s are limp and pallid. But when Jonas pulls away, back cracking as he straightens to a kneeling position, he feels more alive than he ever has.

Craig shifts up to a sitting position, pushing himself back against the tent. They stare into each other’s’ eyes for a while, trying to process what to do next. The sun and horizon have separated, and daylight beams through the open seams of the tent.

The instinct is silent. Jonas has won this round. He knows it will be back, but for now, he does not care. Its work is done. He is in the driver’s seat now.

“I’m here.”

The words are spoken effortlessly this time, but Jonas can feel the weight of them as he says them. No struggling, no stumbling, no pauses.

Craig brings his hand to his lips, brushes his fingers against them. His face has relaxed, as if a burden has been lifted. They sit there for a while, as the sunlight washes over them. In the light, Craig looks far less haggard, more like the picture in Jonas’s pocket.

Finally, Craig shimmies forward. He reaches out and touches Jonas’s upper arm, gently squeezing, grimacing at the too-soft, spongy flesh. With the other hand, he taps his neck.

Jonas stares at the area he touched, and looks back into Craig’s eyes, staring into the deep brown abyss. He is asking for permission, and Craig nods.

Jonas leans forward, his lips curling back, and Craig closes his eyes as teeth meet flesh.

They return together that evening, Craig supporting Jonas as they make their way up the highway, back to their new home. The others have not quite been waiting, but the leader has made a note of Jonas’s extended absence, and is excited that he has brought back a new convert. She sees the mark, sees Craig’s paling skin, and knows that it is just a matter of time. None of the others approach them; they can all tell that he has been converted.

“This is it, huh?” Craig asks. He is putting on a brave face, but Jonas can tell that the virus has taken hold, and is sapping him of his energy. He stumbles and drops to one knee, gasping for air. Jonas pats his chest to reassure him, and Craig chuckles.

“This sucks, you know,” he cracks, falling back on humor, but the process is almost complete. Jonas props Craig up against the wall of an abandoned storefront, dropping down next to him. Craig reaches for his hand and takes it, staring ahead at the sunset in front of them. His breathing is ragged, coming in short, uneven breaths. His eyes have clouded over. Jonas knows the signs, knows the steps; it will not be long now.

There are a few others watching them, mostly the oldest in the community, the ones who, like him, woke up the earliest. They are aware enough to take some sort of pleasure in watching a conversion, though they cannot grasp what it is that draws them to it.

Craig turns his head, just enough to catch Jonas with the corner of his eye. He opens his mouth, but no words come out. He tries again, and again, but his mind is failing. Soon, the virus will have taken full control, and Craig will not speak again for weeks.

Just before he goes under, however, he finally manages it. Just six words, a post-it note for Jonas to hold onto while Craig is out, to tide him over until he returns.

“See you on the other side.”

The breathing stops, and Craig is gone. His eyelids droop, and he lets out a low moan, toppling over. He is utterly mindless now, and he will be for a while, until he can wake up again. But Jonas is not concerned. He is patient, and he will wait for Craig to wake up.

They always do.