Afterlife: Cody Treat, #1

By Steven E. Wedel

Cody Treat has gotten used to living among the ruins of modern civilization. But when one of the thousands of ghosts following him finds a way to communicate their need for help, he learns that the end of the world was just the beginning of a fight for survival.Orphaned and alone after an apocalyptic meteor event followed by a plague, Cody roams the ruins of Oklahoma City looking for food and shelter from the gangs hoarding supplies and torturing other survivors. Crowds of ghostly figures mutely follow him, until one day the spirit of a girl about his age is able to write a message in the snow directing Cody to find her living sister, a young girl who can hear the ghosts but not see them. This begins the quest to find the third person who can speak to the dead. Time is short, though, as there is something coming from the east, something looking to harvest the energy of the trapped spirits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MoonHowler Press
• Release date: Oct 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215117521

Steven E. Wedel

Steven E. Wedel lives with his dogs, Bear and Sweet Pea, and his cat, Cleo. A lifelong Oklahoman, he grew up in Enid and now lives in Midwest City, with numerous addresses in between. He is the author of over 35 books under his name and two pseudonyms, but still has to rely on his day job of teaching high school English to keep himself and his furry dependents eating in air-conditioned comfort. Steven has four grown children and three grandsons. Be sure to visit him online and sign up for his newsletter.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Getting used to the end of the world wasn't so hard. Seeing all the buildings in ruins has become common place. Being hungry is normal. Living in fear of the gangs, of wild dogs, and of breaking a leg or arm climbing through the rubble is an everyday thing now, too.

All the ghosts following me around? That still kind of creeps me out sometimes.

It’s easy enough to tell which ones are ghosts. They’re the ones not wearing coats and gloves. Or masks. Plus, when I focus hard on them, I can still see through them. When I’m just walking through the wreckage, though, and see them in my peripheral vision, they look pretty solid. It’s kind of weird.

They’re not just wandering around like lost souls, like you might think. No, they have a purpose. That purpose seems to be me, but I don’t know why. Sometimes I think they’re trying to send me messages through telepathy because they stare at me real intense like. Their mouths don’t move, so maybe they’re just trying to kill me with their dead eyes. Either way, it’s frustrating and sometimes creepy.

Every once in a while, there’ll be a ghost that gets a little crazy. It’ll charge up to me, waving its arms as if it’s screaming, but when it can’t hear me and realizes I can’t hear it, the spirit usually drifts back into the crowd.

It’s not all bad. The ghosts have been useful more than once. See, not everyone is dead. There are still some people around, sometimes big groups of people, and some have turned really bad. Whenever another living person is around, the ghosts scatter like a flock of birds. I don’t know why they’re afraid of other living people. As far as I know, no one else can even see the ghosts, but whatever.

I remember one time I was walking along by the old baseball stadium in the Bricktown section of what used to be Oklahoma City. I was wondering if there was anything left to scavenge in the movie theater across the street. There were a few dozen ghosts around me, following me, watching me, just generally being mildly annoying. Then, just before I crossed the street, they scattered like crazy. Just ... WHOOSH! and they were gone. I knew something was up, so I hid behind some dead bushes covered in trash by the stadium wall. A second later a couple of big dudes in leather jackets came out of the stadium carrying shotguns and talking about what they’d just done to a thief.

When they were out of sight, I slipped into the stadium where the local semi-pro baseball team used to play, back when there was summer and the days would get so hot you’d sweat. I miss sweating under a hot sun. Anyway, the thief was almost dead when I found him. They’d staked him to the ground where home plate should have been and had peeled off a lot of his skin and broken some bones. He asked me to kill him so the pain would stop, but I didn’t have to. He died before I could tell him I didn’t want to.

I’ve seen his ghost several times since then. At first the ghost looked just like the man did when he died, all red and wet where the skin was gone. But after a while it was like the ghost healed itself. And became younger. It’s weird how that works. Do the dead get to choose how they look? I wish I could ask them.

But back to those guys with the shotguns. They’re part of a gang that’s taken over the Devon Energy building, which is the tallest building in the whole state. Well, that’s not saying much now, I guess, but it was the tallest even before most of the others fell down. I think everyone who worked there wore suits and ties or dresses. Now they wear leather, mostly, and watch over the city, looking for survivors to torment, or watching for people trying to steal the supplies they have hoarded away. One crazy guy I talked to about a month ago claimed the gang has meat in a freezer in there. Meat! Man, I could go for a steak. I haven’t had anything but canned food, MREs, beef jerky and ... Do I admit it? Yeah, I guess. I ate a cat once. It wasn’t very good at all. Not worth the guilt I felt for killing it.

The crazy guy who told me about the meat decided to try to get some of it. They hung him by his ankles from a light pole, threw rocks at him for a while, then left him to starve. It took him four days to starve to death. There was no way I could save him. They watched the whole time. His body is still hanging there. Birds are eating it.

His ghost is with me, though.

Why?

Why are all these ghosts following me around?

I don’t know. I can’t worry about it right now.

I’ve had my eye on a tiny convenience store for two days. It’s set back from the street with a long parking lot that slopes upward from the curb. There’s an awning where there were once gas pumps, but those were removed a long time ago, judging by the condition of the awning. The store is dark behind barred windows and door, not in a very good area of town. Well, you know, it wasn’t a good area before people died or left. The glass in the store windows and door isn’t broken, which means it’s either been ignored, or it’s protected. But I haven’t seen anybody moving around the place. There’s a hair salon on one side of the store and a run-down old house on the other. Nobody has moved in the area for as long as I’ve been hiding across the street in another house that is mostly collapsed, probably due to one of the earthquakes.

I decide to go for it. I shrug into my backpack and pull my semi-automatic pistol out of the holster on my hip. Guns were easy to get at first. This one was my dad’s. I just walked into the ruins of a little store not far from home and picked up the shotgun that’s with my bike. The street is clear and there’s no noise. The ghosts are just hanging out, chilling, not worried, so I crouch low and scurry across the street, up the parking lot to the door of the convenience store, then stop and look behind me.

The ghosts are watching me. I don’t see anybody else around.

Then, suddenly, the ghosts flee like birds startled from a field. Something grabs the shoulder of my coat and jerks hard. I have just a second to see a wrinkled, leathery face in the space between the door frame and the now-open door, then I’m on my back inside the store, looking up at a short man with a very long shotgun.

I been watching you, boy, he says. The way his lips roll into his mouth tells me he doesn’t have any teeth. Not that it matters right now, but it’s something I notice. Wondered how long you’d take to make yer move. Now I gotcha.

My eyes slide up the long, black barrel of the gun. It’s a 12 gauge. It would turn my chest into sausage at this range. It’d be a hell of a mess for him to clean up.

Is this your store? I ask.

Damn right it is, he answers, nodding. He’s mostly bald, with just some long, wispy white hairs around his ears. When he nods, they float around him. His eyes are bright and pale blue. His whole head reminds me suddenly of a grinning jack-o-lantern left on the front porch until early December. Put that gun down now, he tells me.

I let go of my pistol.

Push it away, he orders.

With my fingers, I flick the gun a few inches from my hand. The old man nods and sucks at his gums. It’s a disgusting sound.

Get up real slow, he says. I do as he tells me. The guy is at least sixty years older than me, but I’m a good four inches taller. Plus, he’s just old. If I can distract him, I can get the gun away from him. No problem.

I know what yer thinkin’, he says. Don’t try it. I’ll kill ya.

I nod. I just wanted some food, I tell him.

What’s that? he barks at me. Take that mask off yer face so I can hear ya.

I pull the white particle mask down and let it hang loose around my neck. I’m out of food. I look around the store and see that it’s still about half full of stuff. You have Mountain Dew, I say, and suddenly my mouth goes dry.

You bet I do, he says. Horse piss in a bottle’s what it is, though. Were you gonna kill me, boy?

N-no, I answer. I didn’t know you were in here. I thought the place was empty.

Tinted winders, he says, motioning at the glass with his head. ’Tween that and the damn dust in the air, no wonder you couldn’t see in from over there. I could see you, though. You bet I could.

What about ... It’s stupid, I know, but I decide to ask, anyway. Could you see the ghosts?

Ghosts? What ghosts? What you talkin’ ‘bout ghosts?

I see ghosts. They follow me.

Follow you? He squints his eyes at me and leans forward over the barrel of his gun, studying me. Are you crazy?

I don’t think so, I tell him.

Don’t know nuthin ‘bout no damn ghosts. You weren’t gonna kill me and take everything?

No. I swear it. Just what I could put in my backpack. I reach behind me and touch the empty pack.

Yeah. He sucks at his lips some more and seems to relax. Go on and get ya one of those nasty Mountain Dews. Put some in your pack. I’ll drink my own piss before I drink that stuff.

The refrigerator case isn’t working, of course, but everything is cold. When the dust hangs thick in the atmosphere for months, things stay cold. Even in June. I twist the cap off a Dew and chug it hard. I haven’t had one of these in a long time. Behind me, the man cackles.

Have another, he says when I lower the empty bottle. Take all of that you can carry. Don’t touch my Orange Crush, though. I’ll turn you into Swiss cheese you touch my orange.

Thanks, I say as I reach for another soda.

Do you believe in Jesus, boy?

Oh, I wish he hadn’t asked me that. There is a right answer, of course, but it has nothing to do with what I really believe. The right answer is whatever the old man with the gun believes. I slowly pull the pop out and close the glass door of the case, twist it open and take a slow drink, as if thinking over his question.

I don’t know, I answer finally, turning to face him. The gun is still pointed in my direction, but not necessarily at me. Do you?

Hell no! He glares at me for a minute. If he’s up there somewhere, you think he’d a let this happen? You think he’d kill us all like this?

I shake my head. No, I guess not.

Damn right. Not the Jesus they told me about in Sunday school when I was a kid. He was supposed to be a nice guy.

Crisis seemingly averted, my eyes are on a box of Slim Jims. The old guy notices and waves at them with the barrel of his gun.

Go on. Take ‘em. I can’t eat ‘em. Don’t touch my peanut butter, though. I’ll fill yer ass full a lead you touch my peanut butter. I ain’t got no teeth, but I gotta have my protein. Can’t eat none a the meat I got in here. Tried softening it up with water. Tried boiling beef jerky. You know what boiled beef jerky tastes like?

I shake my head, my mouth full of spicy preserved meat.

Crap. That’s what it tastes like. Crap with pepper on it. Didn’t even make a decent broth.

Can I ... can I take all of these? I ask, motioning at the shelf of jerky and Slim Jims.

He eyes me again like I’m some kind of new species of insect. Greedy one, ain’t ya?

Well, if you can’t eat it, I suggest.

What you gonna give me for it? This is a store, after all.

Money?

Money? he almost screams, then cackles some more. What’d I do with money? Take it to the bank? He laughs some more. I saw those packs you got on your fancy bicycle. What you got in them you’d trade me?

They’re mostly empty, I lie. But, I have this. I plunge a hand into a pocket of my jeans. The movement was a little too quick for him. The old man swings his shotgun around so fast he almost knocks himself over. I hold up my hands, my fist closed around the object I pulled out. It’s not a gun, I tell him.

I open the hand and let the thing dangle from my fingers. It’s a silver crucifix, about two inches long, hanging from a black cord with several wooden beads.

What’s that? he asks.

I know you said you don’t believe in Jesus, but it’s silver, I tell him. Silver’s good no matter what shape it’s in, right?

What’d I do with it?

I don’t know, I admit. I found it in the street and had been keeping it as a good luck charm, I guess. I’m sure hoping for some luck now. There are other people out there. You could trade it to them for something you need.

I don’t need nuthin’, he says, but his eyes stay on the cross. You got nuthin’ else on that bike a yers?

The blankets I sleep in and a metal canteen. Plus a little pot for cooking.

Where you live?

Wherever, I answer. I was living down in Moore when this happened. Now, I wander around looking for food and hoping to stay alive another day.

How old are you?

Sixteen.

Sixteen, he repeats, and his voice softens a little. You get yer driver’s license yet?

No. I got my permit, but that’s all.

He snorts. Guess you don’t need no license to drive a car now. Why don’t you drive a car instead of riding around on that bike?

It’s too loud. A lot of the people left aren’t very friendly.

People do go crazy when the crap hits the fan, don’t they?

Yeah.

Umm-hmm. Saw it happen in Vietnam when I was there. You read about Vietnam in yer high school history books?

No. We hadn’t made it that far. We were reading about World War Two. The whole time we’re talking, I’m steadily eating Slim Jims, unsure if I’m going to get to take any food with me, or even if I’ll get to leave this store at all.

Nobody ever gets to ‘Nam in the history books. That’s why we still don’t get no respect.

Anybody who fought in a war should get respect, I say, hoping to get on his good side.

Don’t kiss my ass, boy, he warns. Gimme that cross. He takes it from me, looks it over quickly, then squeezes it tightly in his bony fist. Fill yer pack. None a that stuff I told ya not to take, though.

Right. No Orange Crush or peanut butter, I say. I really appreciate this.

One backpack full, then you get out. And don’t come back, he advises. I won’t be so nice next time. Fill ya fulla holes is what I’ll do.

I’m cramming jerky and crackers and cans of chili and beans, along with Mountain Dew and bottles of water into my pack as he tells me that. I understand, I say when he pauses. I glance up and catch him looking at the crucifix in his open hand. His eyes look a little moist. I look away and dump a display box of granola bars into the pack. In a few minutes, it’s so full I can barely zip it closed. Standing up, I heave it behind me and slip my arms through the straps. I really can’t thank you enough, I tell him.

I’ll die in here, he says, his voice soft and kind of distant. I did three tours in ‘Nam, buried my daughter when she died of breast cancer and my wife when she got lung cancer. I lived through Y2K and saw the real end of the world, but I’ll die in this little store where I was robbed thirty-seven times. Nobody’ll find my body until somebody like you tries to bust in to steal food.

I don’t know what to say. I’m not even sure he’s talking to me.

Why don’t you leave? I ask. There has to be someplace that isn’t so bad. I’ve thought about leaving, myself. At least get out of the city.

I’m an old man, boy. When I was a soldier, yeah, I’d a gone. Gone right outta here and been just fine. Coulda took care of my wife and daughter, too. Not now. He shakes his head. Not now. I’m a wore-out old man. The cold would kill me. Damn near kills me now. No heat in here. Just blankets.

I’m trying to think of something else to say, something to comfort him, but he doesn’t want it.

Get out of here, he tells me. Pick up your gun and get out. Remember, don’t you come back.

I’ll remember. I pick up my gun and put it in the holster. Then, on a whim, I hold out my hand to him. He looks at it, surprised, then he takes it in a firm grip. Good luck to you, I say.

He nods once. And to you, boy. Go on now.

I pull the particle mask over my face again, look out the windows, then slip out of the store.

The ghosts gather around me as I pull my bike out of its hiding place in the ruined house across the street and they drift along with me as I ride away from the store, moving north, further from the looming tower downtown.

Chapter 2

There are empty houses everywhere, but I usually avoid them. First, you can never really tell if they’re empty until you get inside, or get near a door and somebody starts shooting at you. It’s happened. But more importantly, you can’t always hear what’s coming toward you when you’re inside. The dust in the air plays tricks with sound, anyway, but add to that a closed-up house and you run the risk of being surrounded.

The gang that took over the city’s biggest skyscraper isn’t the only one around. It’s the biggest and seems to be the most organized, but sometimes the smaller ones are worse. I guess they feel like they have to create more fear. Or maybe they’re just more afraid. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is to avoid them.

That’s why I’m camping outside. I have a little fire built on the concrete floor of a culvert in a city park. The fire isn’t big and doesn’t make much smoke. The smoke would be hard to see, anyway, because of the dust, and I have the light blocked with my backpack and supplies on one end and a pile of rocks and trash on the other. I’ll be able to hear anything approaching, but still have shelter.

I’m chewing a piece of beef jerky and watching an open can of beans on the edge of my fire, waiting for the first bubbles to show the beans are getting hot. It’s quiet at night. It’s quiet during the day, too, but since I move around in the day it doesn’t seem so bad. At night, though, it’s colder and creepier and I can’t help thinking about things that used to be. My dad –

Somebody is watching me.

Slowly, I raise my eyes and look toward the end of the tunnel where my backpack is. There’s a girl there, about my age, with bright blonde hair and deep brown eyes. She’s dead, though. Another ghost. She’s squatted down, wearing a long-sleeved pink T-shirt, white shorts and flip-flops. She’s pretty. Pretty enough that I know she never would have paid so much attention to me a year ago.

I watch her watching me. She stays there for several minutes, then stands up and walks away.

It is so creepy.

So. Freaking. Creepy.

But they can’t hurt me. Well, I don’t think they can. They’ve never tried to. They just look at me. They come, they look, they wander away, but are always around. I know if I poke my head out of the edge of the tunnel there’ll be twenty to thirty ghosts out there. Maybe more. And most will be looking at the culvert where I plan to sleep.

I can’t let myself think about it.

At least my mom and sister aren’t there anymore.

I haven’t seen them since I left the bunker at home. My dad was kind of what they called a right-wing fanatic. And a cop. He put a bunker under our back yard when the last Democrat president was elected because he said he was sure the son of a bitch will wreck the economy and this country will turn into a war zone. He was partly right, I guess. The country is a war zone now. Dad was killed on a traffic stop one winter night when a car slid on the ice and crushed him against another car he’d pulled over for speeding.

When disaster struck, I was the only one home. Mom called my cell phone and told me to get in the bunker. She was bringing Melanie home from cheer practice and would be there in ten minutes. That’s what she said. What she promised. They never made it there alive.

I don’t know how they died.

That’s a lie.

I do.

I do know how they died.

But I can’t think of that.

I just can’t think about that.

They showed up in the bunker later, after the earthquakes stopped. Most of the earthquakes. They still happen.

It’s so hard to think about Mom and Melanie.

I looked up one day there in the bunker and they were just there. They were ... No. I won’t say it. Their wounds were still obvious. Mom tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear her. I can never hear them. She tried to hug me, and it wasn’t a nice experience. They’re so cold.

I guess I should mention that I’ve always been able to see ghosts. I think that’s true. I didn’t know it until I was nine years old. We were at my Uncle Jim’s funeral and he was standing there beside his open coffin, watching people walk by and look in at him. When Mom walked by, holding me by the hand, I pulled away, put my hands on the lip of the open box and looked up at Uncle Jim and asked how he could be there and inside the coffin. He smiled at me. Mom thought I was making a joke and Dad was really mad at me. I spent the entire car ride home trying to make them believe I’d seen Uncle Jim. I don’t know if they ever believed me, but I decided that it must have been Uncle Jim’s ghost I saw.

There were a few others I saw before all this happened. Sometimes they’d be wearing clothes that were really, really out of style. I remember one little boy in plaid bellbottom pants, and a woman in a long dress and a white bonnet, and an Indian who was almost naked except for a loincloth. If I just saw them in my peripheral vision I wouldn’t know they were ghosts, but when I stopped and really looked at them I could see that they were transparent, like a picture shown on glass. They’re transparent, so you’d think I couldn’t even see them, but they all have a light. They sort of glow. It fills up their shape and gives them color, I guess. It’s hard to explain, but I guess it’s still like that picture shown on glass, like if someone held a windowpane between a movie projector and the screen. You’d see the image on the windowpane, but you could still see through it, too.

Melanie watched me all the time in the bunker. I couldn’t get away from her cold, angry eyes. I didn’t know why she was mad at me. She couldn’t tell me. Mom’s ghost cried a lot. I couldn’t hear that, either, but I saw her sobbing and holding her head and wiping her eyes, even though ghosts don’t make tears. Melanie was always there, always accusing me of something. Even when I’d use the little bathroom area, she’d be there, glaring at me. Sometimes Mom tried to make her stop, but it never worked.

I stuck it out for about a week. Then I told Mom I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had to go out and see what was happening. She stood there, looking at me with a sad expression on her face, showing no sign she understood what I said to her. When I went to the door, though, she got in front of me and tried to shoo me away like I was a puppy trying to get out of the house. I finally had to reach around her to open the door.

I wished I hadn’t.

Their bodies were right there, right outside the door.

I can’t describe it. I won’t describe it. They’d been shot. That much was obvious. I suppose it was our own neighbors, and my guess would be that the neighbors were fighting to get into the bunker. It’s only a guess. I never heard any of it. But there was so much chaos, so much noise when it all began, I wouldn’t have known a person banging on the door from debris hitting it. Or the sound of gunshots from the sound of houses exploding when gas pipes broke.

I buried them the best I could in a corner of the back yard. There were no neighbors left then. Most of the houses in our neighborhood were gone, burned to the foundations. It was when I was burying Mom and Melanie that I first noticed the other ghosts watching me. They were nervous and confused then and kept their distance, but they were there, all around, hiding behind burned trees, behind sheds and piles of rubble, staring at me while I dug and carried the bodies to the holes and covered them with dirt.

Dirt.

The air had been full of it already. Dad had gas masks in the bunker and that’s what I wore at first, but those are just too big and awkward, and I don’t think there are any poisonous gases in the air. Just dirt.

Back in the bunker, I knew why Melanie looked at me like she did. She blamed me for locking them out. She blamed me for her death.

And I blame myself, too.

That’s why I couldn’t stay. I loaded as much stuff as I could into a backpack and left the ghosts of my mom and sister there in the bunker my dead father had put in to protect us all. It had only saved me.

The beans stick in my throat, hung up on the lump of sorrow I can’t swallow. I force the beans down, though. Food can’t be wasted. I finish them and toss the empty can into the pile of debris at the far end of the culvert, then unroll my blankets and add a few more sticks to the fire. I prop my back against the backpack and go to sleep.

I have a weird dream. I’ve had a lot