Life After: The Phoenix

Life After: The Phoenix is the third short story in the Life After series, a collection of new adult horror fiction by American author Bryan Way. It was self-published by Way on July 29th, 2014. The short is preceded by Life After: The Cemetery Plot and Life After: The Basement, while being directly connected to the novels Life After: The Arising and its sequel Life After: The Void.

Synopsis
Love isn't always enough, but at the opening gasp of the apocalypse, it may be all you have left.

''Adam Wilent and Shar Antosky have been split up for months, but neither of them can let go; while Shar suffers silently with a flaky new companion, Adam has turned his old flame into a burning obsession. Shar's invitation for Adam to visit her on a late shift brings tensions to a boil, but as the former lovers quarrel, the living dead swarm the area. Between fighting the undead and each other, Adam and Shar only have a few hours to figure out what sacrifices they have to make in order to survive.''

Set during the events of Life After: The Arising, and offering a unique insight into one of the novel's major characters, Life After: The Phoenix explores the myriad of emotions stirred when a breakup is complicated by the onset of a disaster and considers the pain and abuse we endure for the sake of love.

Plot Summary
Adam Wilent drives a lonesome stretch of road in the dead of night to reach a 24-hour supermarket at which his ex-girlfriend Shar Antosky works; despite the fact that she's already dating someone else, both she and Adam have been unable to let go. When Shar's break begins, she joins Adam in his car, where their genial chatter quickly devolves from Adam catching her up on the unrest in her native town of Broomall into a grudge match over the failure of their relationship.

Adam's disdain for their situation coalesces around Shar's recently acquired tattoo: a rudimentary Phoenix on her left forearm, its outstretched wings curling to create an empty circle above its head. Shar got inked after insisting that Adam choose a design for the empty space; having not waited for him, Adam insists that, at this point, his inclusion can only be an afterthought, and that Shar will only add his design if they reconcile. After Shar alludes to an incident where she may have been attempting to overdose on pills waiting for some vague affirmation from Adam, she tells Adam she's sorry about their situation, to which he replies "No you're not."

Shar checks her phone, alluding to the conclusion of her break, leaving Adam to terrorize the inside of his car out of frustration, ultimately injuring his wrist before he manages to calm down. After one last bitter text message exchange, Shar returns to work and Adam passes out in the car, only to be awakened by an EAS klaxon over his car radio. Confused and smarting from his injury, Adam notices a collection of shuffling bodies around his car; once they notice him inside, he struggles to escape so he can attack and fend one of them off, getting back behind the wheel and crashing as he drives toward the front entrance of the supermarket.

Shar barely hears the accident inside the store, but her concerned co-worker Dirk quickly insists that she call 911. The call is connected, but Shar barely understands their requests for information before Dirk is brutally slaughtered by a zombie that Adam summarily dispatches. With his car destroyed, Adam insists that Shar get her keys as they run through the supermarket trying to avoid the undead, finally running into a series of offices overlooking the parking lot. When they finally have a moment to collect themselves, Adam asserts his refusal to accept that the people he saw outside are zombies, much to Shar's dismay.

As they adjourn to a conference room, Shar muses that she wishes her friend Jeff were around to offer advice before rebuking Adam for their acrimonious texting, leading them into another furious argument where they take turns blaming each other for their failed relationship; Adam feels that Shar is incapable of telling him the truth, and that she will take any opportunity to avoid the realities of their situation, while Shar believes Adam is placing too much of the burden on her alongside a glut of unrealistic expectations. When Adam brings the conversation back to the Phoenix, insinuating that Shar's tattoo is proof she's unwilling to make even the most basic commitment, Shar grudgingly admits that Adam is right just as the police show up outside the supermarket.

Though the initial engagement appears to be a success, the bodies fired upon by the officers quickly stand and overtake them from behind. Shar and Adam rush downstairs in hopes of being rescued, but the situation only gets worse when one cop sprays the doorway with bullets, grazing Adam's leg as he forces Shar back up the steps. They return to the conference room, where their only recourse is to keep their backs pressed against the door as the zombies try to break it down, leading Adam to conclude that they are about to die. Shar sobbingly responds to one of Adam's earlier provocations, indicating that he'd rather be right about her faults than be happy before insinuating that she regrets lying to him with the intention of sparing him pain, ultimately accusing him of trying to "fix" her rather than attempting to understand her.

In spite of this assessment, Shar insists that Adam make his escape through the windows while she holds the door. He hesitates, but once she assures him of this decisive sacrifice, they kiss, and Adam follows her instructions, escaping across the roof just as the door caves in.

Conception, Writing & Publication
Like many writers, Way determined that he would channel the emotional anguish of one of his failed relationships into a writing project, seeking to pervert a particularly poignant fight into a romantic drama on the cusp of a zombie apocalypse.

While reproducing the generalities of this entanglement were not difficult, Way struggled mightily to enrich the emotional resonance of the relationship beyond the superficial; several melodramatic early drafts were exacerbated by an unrealistically maudlin backstory conveyed in Adam's repetitive, solipsistic caterwauling that turned Shar into a thin, specious projection of Way's angst. The earliest drafts were completed in September of 2008; though this was the third short story published, it was the second one written, originally appearing on Homepage of the Dead.

Despite his best efforts, Way was never fully satisfied by the scope and depth of a story marred by his early puerile proclivities. In spite of this, he valued the lessons gleaned from his shortcomings, feeling that The Phoenix had been executed to the best of his abilities. While he felt the short featured several enjoyably intense moments while providing depth and color to the expanse of the series, he took a particular joy in the ambiguities of both the relationship and thematic significance of the conclusion.

The publication of The Phoenix in July of 2014 saw the end of Way's 'first shorts' cycle, and while he had hoped that they'd bolster the profile of Life After: The Arising, they had no appreciable effect on the sales of the first novel.