Life After: The Void

Current Cover

***Life After: The Void*** is the second novel in the ***Life After*** series, a collection of new adult horror fiction by American author Bryan Way. It was self-published by Way on October 4th, 2016. The novel follows ***Life After: The Arising*** and three related short stories: ***Life After: The Cemetery Plot***, ***Life After: The Basement,*** and ***Life After: The Phoenix***.

## Synopsis

*The beginning of the end has come and gone. Jeff Grey and his motley crew have survived the first days of the zombie apocalypse, and though they’ve prepared for a life after the arising, the collapse of society is tearing them apart.*

*While Jeff struggles to confront his demons, bitter infighting casts doubt on whether his companions can survive each other, let alone the dangers of an epidemic. Just when this internal strife threatens to turn toxic, they are seized by a devastating chain of events that drags them into the world they’d hoped to avoid; the undead may be a grave enemy, but nothing is more terrifying than the unknown. With time running low as his struggle to survive blurs the boundaries of good and evil, Jeff has no choice but to brave the void that lies ahead…*

## Plot Summary

Two months after the events of ***Life After: The Arising***, Jeff Grey and his leadership group of National Guardsman John Anderson and former indigent Rich McKnight have settled their band of survivors into a new life at the freshly fortified Thomas Massey High School.

Following improvements in food collection, internal security, amateur farming, and a video surveillance system, the group tensions have largely abated into a realm of amicable mutual respect. Colin Mursak has taken charge of rationing supplies while acclimating his younger sister Elena to their new life, greatly assisted by Karen DeMarco, who also sees to their supply of potable water and general health concerns in addition to her attempt to rehabilitate Robert Proctor from his erstwhile addiction. While Melody Landon has adapted to the living situation remarkably well, Jake Klimavicius has become testy and stand-offish. The recently rescued Helen Cleary seems to have bonded with Anderson while remaining passively at odds with Jeff, and their newest arrival, a psychology student discovered holding up in the otherwise abandoned Lima Mall named Althea Luangrath, appears to largely keep to herself. Jeff records the group's recent history in a journal, acknowledging both that his brother has been killed and that he's been dealing with his grief over the loss of Julia by sharing a bed with Melody.

Having spent several weeks cooped up in TMHS, Jeff proposes that he, Colin, and Anderson travel to their respective domiciles to collect their computers, personal effects, and scout the surrounding region. Helen lodges a strong objection with Anderson, but Jeff and Mursak win him over. Rich is considerably less pleased by their intentions, instigating an altercation with Jeff that quickly turns acrimonious and physical. Jeff and Anderson undertake a long awaited trek to the cemetery adjoining TMHS, where they definitively prove that the undead rose from the grave. Returning to the school, Jeff discovers that Karen, who has recently become involved with Rich, is nonplussed by the forthcoming journey. Melody, on the other hand, appears to be quietly supportive while simultaneously warming to some of Jeff's sophomoric philosophies. The plan to depart is solidified when Rich yields and makes their travel arrangements for the following day.

Jeff, Anderson, and Mursak wake up early and hit the road, negotiating various obstacles and musing that they may not be the lone residents of the greater Newtown Square area. They first travel to Anderson's apartment in Secane by way of a local consumer electronics store, where they discover a group of well-armed squatters and barely escape with their lives. While Anderson and Mursak search the apartment complex, Jeff dispatches a throng of the undead with typical violence and aggression, leaving his friends quietly unnerved. They next travel to Jeff's dormitory at Temple University Ambler, finding the campus abandoned until they encounter a large swatch of the zombified student body. Mursak's steadfast insistence upon gathering medical supplies from a nurse's station winds up putting Jeff and Anderson at risk, and though they escape unscathed, an ensuing argument reveals that Mursak blames Jeff for Julia's death. Jeff's aggressive threats to Mursak cloak the trip to his Havertown residence in silence, but not before yet another unsettling reminder that they are not the only survivors in the area.

They return and, having retrieved his cell phone, Jeff calls his parents in Bermuda before hooking up his treasured computer and printing several valued documents before wandering down to the courtyard in an effort to converse with Jake, finding him openly belligerent about Jeff making him feel useless and how Jeff has seemingly replaced Julia with Melody. After putting down a brief incursion on the front lawn, Jeff meets with Althea, who assumes their disaster scenario will be short-lived; Jeff has avoided sharing his conviction that this apocalypse has no end, only telling Anderson, Rich, Karen, and Mursak. Althea briefly psychoanalyzes Jeff, coming to the conclusion that his nascent feelings of unrest are manifestations of survivor's guilt over the deaths of his brother and Julia.

Only minutes later, Jeff discovers that Robert has struck Karen and storms into the medlab where he's been convalescing, insinuating an awareness that Robert killed the girl whose body they discovered in the Gauntlett Center. Shortly thereafter, Jeff joins Anderson, Helen, and Melody for an early dinner in the cafeteria, but an underlying tension quickly boils up to the surface, leading to a vicious war of words between all four of them, culminating with Melody repeatedly slapping Jeff. Before Jeff retires for the evening, he listens to the phone messages he received in the days following the arising, the last of which records his brother's final moments in gruesome detail, leaving Jeff with a mild case of psychogenic amnesia.

The next morning, Jeff and Anderson vaguely reconcile the previous day's argument before their conversation is interrupted by Melody announcing a news broadcast. The program describes the use of a nuclear weapon in continental Europe and goes on to detail ongoing rescue efforts by the military, militias, and paramilitary groups within the United States, leading to an argument over whether the group should advertise their presence for a rescue. Anderson and Rich quickly agree that they should, but Jeff's impassioned rebuttal leads to the group agreeing to a tribunal where Rich will argue to leave, Jeff will argue to stay, Anderson will serve as a mediator, and the rest of the group will cast their vote for either Jeff or Rich's initiative. Acknowledging that Anderson may be compromised by Helen's influence, Rich takes precautions to avoid Helen interfering with the potential tie-breaking vote. After Jeff's argument carries the day, Rich and Jeff solidify an agreement to make concessions on each other's behalf in order to lessen Helen's sway over Anderson, after which Rich regales Jeff with some more details of his previous domestic strife before the two get drunk and fall asleep.

The next day, Jeff is awoken by Mursak and alerted to the fact that a young woman and an infant child have been spotted walking down the street in front of the school. Jeff and Anderson debate over what they should do before deciding to invite Tracy Dantis and her 4-year-old son Jimmy to spend the night. Karen takes Jimmy and Jeff privately welcomes Tracy, but she pulls a gun on him and ultimately commits suicide in one of the bathrooms. A cursory examination of her body reveals that she'd been bitten by a zombie. After Tracey's corpse is dealt with, Karen visits Jeff in his room, laying into him over his attempts to pigeonhole the women of the group into maternal roles, an accusation he flatly rejects. After kicking her out, Jeff gets drunk again and falls asleep reminiscing about Julia.

Jeff wakes up to the continuing throes of his mental fog, briefly conversing with Althea before he wanders into an intervention, finding everyone in the group intent on extracting an admission that he's not dealing with his grief and that his violent tendencies and belligerence are only getting worse. Jeff refuses to accept their conclusions and lashes out, secluding himself in his room and finally dissolving into tears when he acknowledges that he's been repressing the death of his brother while saying nothing to his parents about his passing. Jeff calls his mother to apologize for his behavior without divulging anything and finally passes out once again.

On Christmas Eve, Jeff is awoken by the sound of helicopters overhead. Anderson quickly identifies them as two military Chinooks before both aircraft land behind the football field, apparently leading a scientific expedition to the cemetery. Once Anderson recognizes one of the scouts as an acquaintance from the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, he meets the soldier outside in secret, keeping the conversation private before conveying to Jeff and Melody that their group is to remain inside to avoid interfering with the soldiers. Jeff and Melody abortively reconcile before Jeff tries to sleep off an awful night's rest.

When he wakes again, Jeff acknowledges the futility of the earlier quest to retrieve his personal effects, which causes him to reflect on the impact his recent behavior is having on the group. As a result, he apologizes to Anderson, Helen, Rich, and Karen, the latter conversation leading to a brief analysis of a CDC report on the undead Anderson retrieved from his friend in the ANG. Jeff later stumbles upon Melody and Jake apparently having an intimate moment, and when he scares Melody away, Jake attempts to initiate an altercation that Jeff effectively neutralizes, leading to Jake's sobbing confession that he was in love with Julia and his acrimony with Jeff stems from an earlier moment of traumatizing insensitivity that Jeff failed to acknowledge. After suggesting that each member of the group pick a song they would want played at their funerals, thereafter known as "Jake's dirges", the two separate on good terms and the helicopters depart.

Later, Jeff bumps into Melody in the hallway and invites her to be the first recipient of his Christmas gift: he has trained the school's observatory telescope on Uranus and relates some of its astronomical data as a vague contextualization of the group's problems as compared to the enormity of the universe. The resulting conversation sees Jeff admitting that he once cheated on Julia. After they part company, Jeff sits watch over the video surveillance system and falls asleep. He wakes up to find Anderson, Mursak, and several others drunkenly celebrating the departure of the soldiers when Helen announces a vehicle approaching from the street. Jeff, Anderson, and Jake scramble for reconnaissance, but when the men approaching in camouflage open fire at the building, Anderson insists that they take arms and defend themselves. The result is a brutal firefight in which several of the intruders are killed, Anderson is rendered unconscious, and both Melody and Helen are abducted. Jeff immediately conscripts Rich and Mursak for a rescue effort.

Tracking the path of their assailants back to the Delaware County Community College, the trio of Jeff, Rich, and Mursak do some amateur reconnaissance, finding that the marauders appear to be waiting for them by the parking lot entrance and that the girls appear to be alive. After clandestinely traversing the woods on the outskirts of campus, they spot several sentries and plot the particulars of the rescue operation. Rich suggests that their only logical recourse is to kill all of the marauders, an acknowledgement to which Jeff and Mursak reluctantly agree. Rich uses Anderson's silenced rifle to kill a few of them while Jeff murders two with his katana, both acts deeply disturbing him. Rich manages to snap Jeff out of the trauma long enough to retrieve Helen and Melody, the latter discovered naked before quickly developing an inimitable bloodlust as they fight their way out of the building. After they believe they've killed all of them, the quintet returns to TMHS. Melody, who is both withdrawn and traumatized, asks to spend the night with an equally damaged and paranoid Jeff, whose difficulty sleeping is only compounded by mild PTSD from the men he just killed.

The following day is Christmas, and the group celebrates with a large, elegant breakfast, during which Robert is introduced as having completed his rehabilitation, though Jeff is unreceptive to his apologies. The group exchanges gifts, and with his best friend still unconscious, Jeff opens Anderson's present to find a framed picture of his family, something that causes Jeff to break down into tears. The entire group embraces him as he cries.

Following the meal, the group takes stock of their supplies and Althea begins therapy sessions for those who participated in the raid to retrieve Melody and Helen. Jeff is uninterested in what he views as a façade, particularly since the breakdown of society means that he will face no repercussions other than guilt for committing murder. After a brief incursion with the undead on the front lawn, Jeff retires to the medbay to sit with Anderson, who remains unconscious. Mursak joins him to make it clear that he is unimpressed by Robert's convalescence and seeks to reveal that he can't be trusted by proving he murdered the girl they found at the Gauntlett Center, and Jeff agrees to propose a scouting mission that will conceal their investigation. Shortly thereafter, Jeff discovers Melody in his room, where she asks to stay with him for the foreseeable future and insists that he just call her Mel.

While dozing off, Jeff receives a call from Alan Taylor. After exchanging pleasantries, Alan announces that someone in their group has murdered someone else, and that their water supply seems to have been contaminated. Almost without thinking, Jeff suggests a rescue effort. At the next group meal, Althea becomes concerned by Mel's recent temperament while Jeff broaches both the possible rescue effort and the scouting mission with Rich. He agrees to both. The next day Mursak and Jeff head to the Gauntlett Center, ultimately coming to the conclusion that it is highly feasible Robert killed the girl whose corpse is decaying in the gymnasium showers. They return to TMHS, where Jeff rejoins Anderson just as he wakes up, hesitatingly filling him in on the details of the last few days. Later in the evening, the group watches a news broadcast where it is stated that wounds on the extremities, such as those suffered by Julia, may not be as fatal as initially thought. Jeff has another breakdown, recovering when he considers that there's nothing he can do in hindsight. A further concern is raised when it becomes unclear whether the government will begin using nuclear weapons on American cities. Jeff clarifies the consequences of that action by showing the group ***The Day After***, after which Jeff and Mel engage in a bitter philosophical debate.

When Jeff awakens the following day, he visits with Althea, who finally explains that her graduate dissertation concerns the long-term drawbacks that internet social media will impose on social interaction, further confirming her belief that the present zombie scenario will be short-lived. Immediately thereafter, Jeff bumps into Mel, who reveals that she's moved past the previous day's argument. The next day, Jeff is inspired to review the video surveillance footage of the last week, enlisting the help of Anderson and Rich. They quickly discover that the group who attacked them days prior may not have intended to provoke a conflict, after which Anderson reveals Helen told him Mel indicated to their abductors that she wanted out of TMHS. Jeff then informs them of his trip to the Gauntlett Center, suggesting that Rob may well be a murderer. Rich entreats Jeff to talk to Mel while they mull over the situation with Rob, after which Jeff bumps into Jimmy in the hallway and tries to find a subtle way to explain the zombie apocalypse to someone in early childhood.

Jeff is awakened the next morning to help put down a small zombie incursion. He returns to his room to find Anderson, who reveals that Mursak has been hoarding supplies. Jeff suggests that this adolescent chicanery is beneath sharing with the group at large, but Anderson counters that Jeff is behaving as the group's de facto leader and should address the issue accordingly. Anderson goes to confront Mursak alone while Jeff takes a nap, and once Jeff wakes up, he has a revelation that his procrastination over recent affairs has gone too far. Jeff quickly seeks out Rich to insist upon revisiting DCCC and rescuing Alan and Jack O'Connor, finding Rich receptive toward his desire to make a plan. Returning to his room for the evening, Jeff asks Mel point-blank whether she wanted to throw in with their erstwhile assailants, but she insists that she was only doing what was necessary to survive and no more. Though they fall asleep together, Jeff remains unconvinced of her motives and suffers from a bout of hypnagogia.

Once properly awake, Jeff leads a group of Anderson, Mel, Karen, and Jake to DCCC for a reconnoiter. While the scouting and scavenging aspect of their trip is successful, Anderson irritates Jeff and Mel with his tactical analyses, but a significantly greater problem arises when it turns out that Karen is sick. After debating what to do, they decide to stay put so as not to force her into action, but they quickly find themselves in the midst of a zombie siege, forcing them to do what they can to protect her. After several close calls, the group rests in a supply closet, during which Jeff imagines himself talking to an unresponsive Julia.

When enough time has passed, Anderson wakes the group and prepares them to leave, planning to use several Molotov cocktails as distractions. While the plan works initially, the sprinklers douse the group in freezing water, hampering the speed and ease of their evacuation. Though they manage to escape without incident, they can't help but notice a gigantic complement of undead advancing on the alarm bells of DCCC. Once they return safely to TMHS, Rich reams Jeff for his failure to recognize Karen's illness and return her quickly, forcing Anderson to intercede before Jeff can assault Rich. With tempers cooled, everyone goes to bed, though Jeff is still troubled that Mel feels comfortable sharing a bed with him.

The next day, Jeff visits Karen, who expresses little hope for a successful convalescence from what she believes to be influenza. After assuring her that the group will do what they can, Rich again confronts Jeff about Karen's condition, but Jeff forces Rich to acknowledge that his fear of losing Karen is causing him to be unreasonable. Jeff then helps Anderson catalog their newly acquired weapons and ammunition before sitting down for lunch with Mel, where Jeff finally engages her on the grim reality that humanity is facing an apocalypse, but Mel admits that she already sensed this before asking Jeff to clarify what's going on between them. After clarifying very little, they go their separate ways and Jeff takes a nap, waking up well past dusk with the realization that it's New Year's Eve. He joins the group to watch a celebratory broadcast, where they witness a reunited Pink Floyd performing a pre-recorded song in England followed by the usual revelry in a secured Times Square in the apparently functional New York city citadel. The group counts down as the clock approaches midnight, and at the final moment, Mel favors Jeff with a passionate kiss.

On New Year's Day, the group indulges in another extravagant breakfast as they recount their resolutions. What would appear to be a minor siege from the undead turns serious when a few surviving runners attack, but the group maintains their composure and dispatches them without issue. Once the corpses are deposited in the pool, Rich reveals that Karen has relented, suggesting some antiviral medications to combat her sickness, but Anderson casts serious doubts on their ability to find them. Once the group is gathered, Anderson details a complex and infeasible plan to locate looters and trade supplies for the necessary drugs before Mursak reveals that he successfully acquired the medication at the Temple University Ambler health center. The group celebrates by getting drunk and goofing off, after which Jeff once again finds Mel in his bed, but this time the two finally manage to embrace the compassionate uncertainty of their bond before falling asleep.

The proceeding day begins with Rich trying to coax some sort of plan regarding their forthcoming attempt to rescue Jeff's acquaintances from State College, with Rob suggesting that they call the effort Operation Prometheus. They commence planning the voyage before engaging in some outdoor play with Elena and Jimmy, where Jeff is keen to analyze the children's predilections. After another peaceful evening, Mel causes Jeff some distress by seeking his opinion on the nature of love and briefly probing him about Julia while carefully insinuating that their discussion has nothing to do with the two of them. Once up an about, Jeff runs into Anderson and Rich, who tell an exasperated Jeff they've decided that any aberrant behavior from Rob going forward will result in his immediate execution. Jeff and Rich spend the rest of the day planning for Operation Prometheus with Anderson, who is to remain behind; they amass supplies, plan routes, and accord a generous supply of automatic weapons and ammunition to the voyage north.

A phone call announcing that Alan's group is ready to proceed with Operation Prometheus wakes Jeff the following day, after which he convenes a meeting with the rest of the group to go over the particulars. It is ultimately decided that Jeff, Rich, Mel, and Althea will make the trip up, leaving Anderson, Karen, Mursak, Rob, Elena, and Jimmy behind, with Jake assigned as a scout if they don't return within a specified time window. The group makes their final preparations, agreeing that the participants should take sleeping pills and leave at dawn.

At daybreak, Operation Prometheus officially gets underway; Jeff takes the lead with Mel in the Humvee while Rich follows behind with Althea on the bus. The drive provides Jeff and Mel an unprecedented opportunity to converse openly, with Mel finally elaborating on her family life, particularly how the sudden death of her father drastically changed her relationship with both her mother and her friends. After Jeff notices a massive plume of smoke on the horizon, Mel finally acknowledges her abduction by the marauders from DCCC; without being specific, she asserts that she did her best to control the situation and protect the virginal Helen. Despite finally making headway in their efforts to connect on a personal level, the mood is scotched by a stark warning spray-painted on northbound side of an overpass. Deeply disturbed by the implications of the message, Jeff insists that he advance in the Humvee alone and that Mel join the others in the school bus behind him.

Jeff's suspicions prove prescient when they arrive at the Lehigh Tunnel, which is apparently controlled by a small-scale but highly organized gang. After a fraught negotiation with the snowsuit-clad leader results in their safe passage, the group successfully reaches the halfway point of their journey, opening an opportunity for Rich to cast aspersions on Jeff's insistence upon this particular rescue effort after months of avoiding the outside world. They remain at the halfway point as long as they can before continuing on I-80 toward State College, hoping that they've merely outpaced the other half of the rescue. Jeff seriously considers turning back before hearing some radio chatter that he quickly identifies as his friends.

After negotiating a long bridge, Jeff finally reconnects with Alan and Jack and formally meets their party; Nick Wilborn, the pale and heavyset loner who previously murdered another member of their group, Heather Chapman, who is pretty and outgoing with a subtle attraction to Alan, Lada Dragomirov, a sturdy Russian expatriate, Andy Kremens, a vaguely distrustful and soft-featured nerd, Levi Hazen, a fit and stone-faced black introvert, and Nancy Candler-Hollowell, a traumatized old-money outcast. Once everyone has been introduced, they begin loading their gear on the bus and preparing for the return journey.

The trip back is immediately complicated by a buildup of the undead at the far end of the bridge; Rich's constant warnings don't dissuade Jeff from impetuously plowing through the parade of zombies until he plunges the Humvee into a ravine between the highway lanes. Jeff and Mel escape with minor injuries, struggling to rejoin the rest of the group as Alan aggressively attacks the oncoming horde from the windows of the bus. Alan's hostility gets the better of him and he's pulled from the window, sailing over the guardrail and dropping forty feet into the ravine. When Jeff finds Alan unconscious and severely injured, Heather rushes down from the bus to help as the undead descend upon them, and the resulting skirmish results in Heather getting bitten. Jeff, Mel, and Heather manage to drag Alan up to the highway unimpeded, stopping only a few feet from safety when Nick takes it upon himself to execute Heather. Jeff flies into a blind rage and punches Nick into submission before his friends pull him away and usher him onto the bus, loading Alan on a backboard to escape the horde.

After Jack tries and fails to talk through his grief over Alan, Rich sternly indicates that this outcome was one of the risks of their journey, setting Jeff off once again; this time, Jeff mercilessly tears Rich down, insisting that he's never been brave enough to take responsibility for anything in his life, particularly the loss of his family, and Rich instantly backs off. Depressed and drained, Jeff takes a nap. He's awoken again at the Lehigh Tunnel, where it seems a new gang has taken control. Another tense deliberation ensues, but Jeff manages to ensure their safe passage, catching sight of the snowsuit-wearing leader of the previous group being executed as they emerge from the other side of the tunnel. Althea promptly engages with Jeff, analyzing his reaction to their recent circumstances and concluding that Jeff isn't grieving, he's vengeful. Jeff dismisses her, and moments later, they realize that Alan has died from his injuries.

The rest of the journey is uneventful until they get close to TMHS and start receiving interrupted and distressed radio signals from Anderson. Jeff does the best he can to prepare Jack's group for the worst before they arrive at their destination, finding a massive throng of undead sieging the school. As they exit the bus, Rich drives off into the heart of the horde. The initial offensive goes quite well, resulting in a linkup with Anderson to explain the strategy going forward. The unified group continues to make progress against hundreds of attacking zombies until a series of compounding setbacks results in a faltering defensive line, compelling Jeff toward a bold series of maneuvers that drags him further and further from the rest of the group. The ensuing combat gets close and tense as Jeff tries to fight his way back, and he nearly manages to get clear before his hand gets bitten. Someone yanks the katana from Jeff's belt and hacks off the affected appendage just before he's dragged inside, barely coming to grips with the traumatic amputation as he's rendered unconscious and the wound is cauterized.

Jeff awakens in a dark, silent room, bound with ropes and unable wrest himself from a supine position on the floor. While at first confused and irritated, the sensory deprivation of his environment results in a pronounced Ganzfeld effect that deepens and amplifies Jeff's earlier hypnagogic hallucinations, leading to an all-encompassing delusion in which he intuits his grief as a tangible abyss where losing his sense of self is interchangeable with the onset of symptoms which will render him a zombie. While thusly disturbed, someone enters the room with the apparent intention of killing him, but they are dispatched by an unseen force before Jeff is injected with morphine. The illusions begin to disappear as Jeff remains barely conscious.

After two days, Jeff, now far more lucid, is awakened by Anderson and Karen, who confirm the removal of his left hand and assure him that the worst is over. However, the siege on the front lawn continues and Rich has yet to return or make contact. After discovering that Nick was the would-be assassin Anderson dispatched, Jeff sluggishly traverses TMHS, ultimately running into Rob, who admits to severing Jeff's hand before he delves into an analysis of the group's activities. Rob insists that the individual sins of each person fail to taint their contrasting virtues, insinuating that his fixation on classic mythology can provide a useful historical and spiritual context for how they deal with the apocalypse.

When Rob and Jeff part ways, Jeff ultimately passes out in the hallway, only to be revived by Mel, who helps him into a classroom on the second floor where he can observe the group's efforts against the horde. Once there, Jeff describes why he once enjoyed writing zombie fiction and how an apocalypse constitutes the antithesis of winning the lottery; money ceases to matter while one's skills and will to survive become the ultimate currency with zombies becoming a force that distills morality by contrast. Mel leaves when the situation outside seems to go from bad to worse, leaving Jeff to consider that they may not survive for very long, but maintaining what they have will make the fight worthwhile.

## Conception, Writing & Publication

After completing the first draft of ***Life After: The Arising*** in July of 2004, Way considered several factors that would prevent him from seeking publication, the primary being a feeling that he had yet to become a good enough writer, but he was also concerned that what he'd written might not be comprehensive or long enough to publish and that the story exceeded the length of one book. Finally, after months of picking over his first draft and dreaming up ideas for a sequel, he set to work on a second book in January of 2005, making alterations to the first for a more streamlined narrative as the work progressed.

The combined effort expended on both books increased his previous writing time by a factor of six as Way continued to alternately plow forward and procrastinate, frequently shifting his focus to other writing projects. His worst stretch of writer's block on *Life After* lasted an entire year, but he finally finished the first draft of the sequel on September 24th, 2008, quickly completing a second draft of ***The Arising*** in November of 2008 and a second draft of the sequel in January of 2009. In December of 2009, Way read ***Earth Abides*** by George R. Stewart and finally recognized the shape and scope of the story he wanted to tell. This revelation greatly effected the editing of both books going forward.

On August 4th 2011, Way definitively decided that his next drafts would be crafted with publication in mind, a conviction borne from his stymied creative efforts and a desire to manifest something tangible after years without seeing any project through to completion. Months of research, proofreading, editing, and typesetting culminated in a wide release of ***Life After: The Arising*** on August 23rd 2013 via CreateSpace.

When the publicity opportunities for ***The Arising*** began to wane, Way returned to the sequel on December 19th under the assumption his most recent draft was of sufficient quality to ensure a quick and painless editing process, but he quickly discovered that he would need to rework everything beyond the basic premise and theme. As a result, massive portions of the book had to be thoroughly edited, huge swatches were deleted, and entire new sequences were written from scratch. Way settled on the title by February 27th 2014; though one other contender would arise later in the writing process, ***Life After: The Void*** remained the favorite.

In the following months, Way poured all of his energy into ***The Void***, only pausing to fine-tune the first three short stories in the series. After releasing ***Life After: The Phoenix***, ***Life After: The Cemetery Plot***, and ***Life After: The Basement*** on Amazon in July of 2014, he returned to ***The Void***, and though the next draft wasn't finished until March 7th, 2015, the following one was finalized on April 9th. Way turned over the completed manuscript to his original co-conspirator John Henderson for a beta-read on April 17th. Henderson finished within 36 hours, finding it to be a huge improvement over ***The Arising***.

By May of 2015, Way resumed querying agents with the first book. Faced with mounting rejections, Way came to realize that the protracted 18 month editing process had eroded his ability to be objective about ***The Void***, leaving him unable to conclude whether what he had written was 'good' or 'bad', merely that it was 'done'. After finalizing the preliminary cover art, Way revealed the title as ***Life After: The Void*** on August 4th and continued a series of rolling edits until he finalized the first test copy on August 29th. Following the proof, a 100 copy limited edition was released on October 23rd. Way felt this limited paperback run amounted to a polished manuscript that would allow the few fans of ***The Arising*** early access to a sequel while giving them a chance to provide feedback that could alter the final version. On October 27th, Way wrote the opening pages of a third novel.

Throughout the end of the year and the beginning of the next, Way shifted his focus to a fourth short story that would be released as a part of a compilation, gave a guest lecture at Villanova University in April, and prepared an improved version of ***The Void*** throughout May, taking the advice of a friend to re-work the cover art of the limited edition instead of starting from scratch. After improving both the manuscript and the cover, Way printed a test copy for the wide-release of ***The Void***, but in June, one of his colleagues alerted him to Kindle Scout and Way quickly reconsidered undertaking another entirely self-published roll-out.

On June 30th, 2016, ***Life After: The Void*** debuted on Kindle Scout, beginning a month-long evaluation phase during which Way saturated multiple social media platforms with advertisements and worked tirelessly to keep the campaign's popularity spiked. Voting closed on July 29th and deliberation on behalf of the Kindle Scout team lasted until August 12th, at which point Way received his rejection letter. Crestfallen but still determined to self-publish, Way resumed editing ***The Void*** in preparation for another self-published wide-release, taking time to flesh out the backstories behind many of his characters to ease future work in the series. ***Life After: The Void*** ultimately debuted on Amazon October 4th, 2016 with weaker sales and considerably less attention than its predecessor.