1 - E1 - Aftershock

In American Outfit Life, my character CLO is forced to survive alone after an earthquake

destroys her city.

“Luckily creating this audio drama wasn't a solo mission.”

I'm grateful I had a wonderful team with me. If you enjoy the story, it would mean a lot to us if you share and leave a review. Please enjoy this fool on an interrupted episode after this short ad break. Check out pair of thieves underwear socks and linger at pairofthieves.com/aap for a special American afterlife podcast offer, new customers get 25% off, use promo code after life.

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Everybody talked about it since they first moved to Oregon.

The big one, the fucking big one, the earthquake that stretched the whole west coast, California up into Washington, total destruction. People had plans, had their family memorized them, the stuck five gallon buckets will supplies in their backyards, our school made evacuation routes, but you know what happens when shit actually goes down?

You don't think about plans, you don't think at all. You just scream and cry and try and survive. You're listening to American afterlife, a podcast series based on the best selling book by Pedro Hofmeister, episode one, after shock.

“No honey, put that back, we're not getting candy today, can you grab pickles?”

I did. But stuff like still, you got sweet. Steppy, I said just one treat today, put that back where you found it, but they say sandwich pickles. Red and butter, those are the sweet ones.

Steppy, come on, put those back. Ooh, let's sweet pickles on the sandwich, ask, leave them. I'm officially calling it the largest natural disaster in American history. We're mainly kept to give survivors and the South Hills of Eugene, Oregon, should head to Lowe with golf course for final evacuation.

If you're unable to travel or require medical attention, think of it as a matter of course.

“Who is supposed to put the bill for the recovery of her?”

Who do you think? I mean, that's a prayer, that's a prayer, that's a lie, that's a lie, that's a lie. It wasn't so bad right after. It feels weird to say that since, you know, I mean, of course, it was bad. It was fucking devastation.

It was just on any of the predictions. I mean, half of Eugene was underwater from the broken dams. The rest was in ruins, but after the helicopter came, after everyone evacuated, the

town felt like it was mine, they never felt like that before, wasn't so bad.

I mean, couldn't even smell the bodies yet. I hid while they searched for survivors. They was easy, they didn't look very hard. I heard on the emergency radio that the quake hit from northern California all the way through Washington City.

They were right in the middle of it, too much to handle, too many people to help.

And I didn't want to get found.

“I was lucky enough to be up on the hill when it happened.”

It took maybe half an hour for the water from the broken dams to roll in. The ice came soft on egg eight, where the girl used to give me all the free samples. Suddenly, it was just a roof. All that ice cream trapped underwater. Maybe the girl was, too.

Anyway, I spent my first couple of days going house to house.

Thinking, whatever I could find, the houses in my neighborhood are all like crooked. They're upper stories, or caves in, and some lower stories, too. Trace straight through the roofs. I had to be careful where I went, you know, because if an aftershock hit, the whole place might come down on top of me.

The Albert Sims was in pretty bad shape. That's the grocery store, Albert Sims, right off 30th. It was all folded in on itself, like the cake you fucked up in the oven, but I took my chances, and it paid off. It's weird, well when I used to be so careful with the store, you know, checking prices,

making lists, counting out coupons, sticking to the budget. Suddenly, I can just walk in and take anything I want it for free. All I had to do was try not to look down, at all of the bodies. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it wasn't as bad as you might think.

Not at first, when I was alone.

“I mean, when I guess I thought I was, I'm tired, can we stop now?”

Lucas, it's been a week, what do you have for me? You know, she's still traumatized, but I'm easing into it, sorry. How much time do you think you have here, Lucas? I have guys breathing down my neck. I think we're, you know, we're moving in the right direction.

I'm not sure if you've had enough time to go through my last report. But C.L.O. is a stop sleeping on the floor. Move to the cot. These are important guys. Guys who shouldn't even know my name, but they do know my name, and they're fucking unhappy with me.

“I, of course, with little patience, she's opening up.”

These are not patient men. These are men who want some answers, but I can't get them the answers, because apparently my overall demeanor is not conducive to whatever the fuck I need you, Lucas, and I need you to push. But, sir...

I have the bloody bodies of 10 guys inside a warehouse that was supposedly fully evacuated, and a teenage girl who can tell us what happened. Alright. Alright. Hello?

Hello? I'm coming?

It was the first time I had heard another person's voice since it happened.

I kind of freaked out. I, I know I said I like the time to myself, and I did. Something about hearing another voice, you know, maybe it sounds dumb. But, I thought for a second, it might be someone my age, or my mom, but it wasn't. It was just Mr. Francois, trapped under that shelf.

Oh! Hang on, I'm coming! Come on, open up! I'm coming in!

Hello? Are you in here? Oh. Come in. Oh, thank God.

I thought... I was alone. I thought, I was alone.

I, I thought I was all alone.

I need... I need... I need... Jesus' fuck.

“He was all squished, like smashed, flattened, hard-a-ham at least, pinned under this big, wooden”

but-a-case that fell on him. Alright. And his legs... right up to his stomach, it was... It was bad. So bad that I didn't even recognize him, but he recognized me.

See ya. It's... Thank you. It's yellow, but how... Oh.

Wow. Hi. It was Mr. Francois. He's a French teacher.

“He was a teacher who always goofed around with everyone.”

Give his class French nicknames, and see ya, you know, sky, so he called me, see ya.

He always annoyed me, honestly.

He always joking around, but he wasn't joking anymore. What? What days? How long has it been? I don't know a few days. Oh, why are you here? I thought they took everyone out, I'm trying to shout.

I couldn't hear. I didn't want to go. Now with that, my mom. I... Are you thirsty? Do you need water?

Hang on. Thank you. Of course. You're gonna be okay. I'm here now.

I mean, I can just leave the guy there, stock. So I spent the afternoon next to him. Well, I was close to that kid with that smile. It's not like blood, but worse than blood, it's melt hot, I know that doesn't make sense.

“I think the shelf kind of kind of catches insights inside, so he didn't die.”

I gave him more water around sunset, that if there was cupboards trying to find him some food, I'd been inside a lot of people's houses already, scavenging, digging through their private lives, but something about knowing him made it feel different, I was intruding.

Finally found some crackers, but he didn't want to eat.

You don't want it? Okay. There are plenty if you want some later. You should really get to the store. You know, pretty staleman.

At one point, he gestured towards a picture on the ground near him, glass and the frame was all busted up, but the photo itself was fine. It was a girl, probably 10 years older than me, maybe 25, his kid or his grandkids, I don't know. He pointed out her, and at me, I got what he was trying to say.

I spent the rest of the day with him. When sunset, I found some blankets in a spare room and crawled up in the corner. He kept waking up in the night. It was kind of worse when he wasn't making any noise, but I have to check his pulse

Eventually, he'd wake up and be at it again.

I'm here, I'm here, go back to sleep.

“He kept talking in his sleep, just gibberish, but that didn't bother me.”

It was nice hearing, someone else's voice. It's okay, he woke up at one point, seemed like he was in a lot of pain. He just sort of looked at me, like, "You're trying to talk." So it told him everything about my life, about where I was when it happened, about my mom.

Anyway, he fell asleep after a while, so did I, but he woke me up. That around sunrise. What is it? Hey, whoa! Do you want my water?

No, no, no. What do you want? What can I do? Oh, it's... What is it?

The shelf? The ceiling? I don't understand. You just don't make?

No, if we take it off, it'll...

Oh. I can't. See ya. But I don't even know how to move it. I can't lift.

Okay, hang on. Let me find something. Like leverage. I'll be right back, I promise, okay? I'll be right back.

What choice did I have? He was in pain. He was dying. Not very fast.

“So I found some piece of metal in the garage.”

This should work.

I'm going to get that off of you.

That's what you want, right? Are you ready? I'm ready. I'm ready. Okay.

Here we go. Oh, shit. When the thing lifted off him, he just sort of spilled out of everywhere. He made this noise. Like he was choking.

Like he was drowning somehow. I almost slipped in, lost my hold and dropped it back on top of him. But I didn't. And then he stopped making noise. He wasn't hurting anymore.

Oh, my God. It was fun. I was fine, I just did what I needed to do. That's it. Can I go now?

Yeah. Of course, Silla. We can be done for today. Great. That must be hard for you to relive.

Thanks for sharing with me. Thanks for talking to me.

“But listen, will you tell me about where we found you?”

How are you wound up in that house in the woods? I don't want to talk about that. Right, I understand. But my boss is really, we're all really curious. If you knew those guys inside.

Did you see what happened to them? Do you know who killed them? Did you kill them, Silla? Silla? You've been listening to American after life.

An association with Aurora Productions and in partnership with gamut podcast network.

“Based on the best selling book by Pedro Hofmeister, presented by pair of thieves.”

Be sure to stick around after the credits for a post podcast interview with a member of the cast and crew.

Produced by Dave Chocchi Dennis, Mike McVay, and William Stewart.

Directed by William Stewart.

“Podcast adaptation, written by River Donahe, based on the best selling book series of American after life by Pedro Hofmeister.”

Published by Cricket Lane Books, featuring Scarlet Estevez as Silla. Joshua Messnick as Lucas and Ted Evans as Charles, additional voices by Phil Levitt. Darren Silva, MJ Block, Francesca Calvo, narration by Sean Andre, Sound Design by Jacob Urbanick.

“Studio Engineers, Darren Silva and Megan Vasquez, Production Manager and Marketing.”

Susan Axu Majarian, additional marketing, Robbie Gessel. If you enjoyed American after life, please consider leaving a review on Apple podcasts and following us on Spotify. Hi, I'm Scarlet Estevez and I'm so excited to be playing Silla in American after life.

When I first got the script, I felt very connected with Silla and I didn't really know why because our life situations are very different.

She grew up very different from me, but she had this kind of fire in her and getting to play her. I felt like we kind of shared it. I've done a lot of voiceover work and I've also done like TV and film, but yeah, it was definitely a completely different feeling podcasting it because it's like voiceover because I'm not really being recorded except for now. But I'm also sitting with another person in a room which makes my delivery and my readings so much different. I really got into this character and I feel like we really kind of bonded, so I hope she finds that she's looking for.