Dreaming Again

by Jack Dann

  Somewhere in the centre of his dead brain certain things remained hard-wired. He still knew that when things went wrong for a man, it was good to go north for a while.

  For a dead bloke, he was a survivor.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ Swanny said, his shaking hands still cradling the smoking sawn-off. His ears rang from the blast.

  ‘Bloody worthless you are,’ Trev said, snatching the gun out of his hands. ‘Now we are royally stuffed. Thanks a lot.’

  ‘It went off by itself,’ the boy said quietly. He stepped away from the body, looking down in horror. ‘We killed him.’

  ‘No, Swanny, you killed him. Coz you’re a stupid twat. Now get over here and help me!’

  They dragged the body into the office, bundling him up under the desk.

  ‘We could feed him to the pigs,’ Swanny suggested. ‘Leave no trace.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ Trev said. ‘Look at all that blood and shit, all over the floor. We need to open the safe and get out of here.’

  Checking through the blinds, the older man made sure no one was approaching the house. It was a big farm, and there was a chance no one had heard the gun go off. He gestured to Swanny for the satchel, which he threw across the room.

  ‘We could have beaten the combination out of him, but you had to blow his head off,’ Trev grunted, sticking the explosives to the outside of the safe. ‘Now every bastard is gonna hear this.’

  They set the fuse and ran. The explosion blew the thick metal door off its hinges, shattered the furniture, blew all the glass out of the windows. Swanny had packed the charge with his usual enthusiasm.

  Coughing, Trev waded through the wreckage of Buchanan’s office. He reached into the safe, beating out the flames. Half of the contents were on fire.

  ‘I can’t rely on you for anything!’ Trev shouted. He opened up his bag, stuffing it full of notes.

  ‘We’re rich, Trev,’ Swanny said with a daft grin. He’d never seen this much money.

  ‘Ah, it’s all useless,’ Trev said, holding up a half-charred note. It was King Christian’s face, not King William. Swanny looked confused.

  ‘It’s Danish money,’ Trev said with his last shred of patience. ‘No one around here will take these.’

  They took it anyway, shovelling everything into the duffel bag and running out the back door. At least Trev’s battered motorcycle was still there. Two farmhands were yelling and running towards the house, but stopped at the sight of Trevor Flannigan with a shotgun.

  ‘Get back,’ he ordered, sweeping the gun across the frightened pair.

  Swanny fell into the sidecar, huddling the bag of loot on his knees. Not taking his eyes off Buchanan’s men, Trev trod on the starter. Nothing.

  ‘Mongrel of a thing,’ he muttered, and pushed the starter again. This time the ancient machine gave a slight cough, but did not roar into life. The silent tableau was only interrupted by the whir of the starting pedal and Trev’s curses.

  Just when he’d given up hope the motorcycle roared into life, and Trev hammered the throttle, kicking up dust as he spun the machine around and shot for the gate. Swanny made sure to give the farmhands the finger, pulling a face through his motorcycle goggles.

  Trev raced through the farm district, stopping only when he caught sight of the barricade surrounding Port Augusta, a wall of old tyres and broken cars. They’d picked a good time to do over Buchanan, most of his hired help were at the football final in town. At least that part had gone well.

  ‘We can’t go in there,’ he said over the rough chatter of the engine. ‘People know we went to meet with Buchanan, the cops will put two and two together.’

  ‘Can’t we just spend some money?’ Swanny moaned. ‘We’re rich.’

  ‘It’s Danish money, idiot. We need to get far away, right now. Those farmhands will be riding into town.’

  The prospect of being hung made Swanny touch his throat gingerly, and he gulped. They had killed a man, accident or not. In the distance he could see a man on top of the barricade, gun at the ready. They’d been spotted.

  ‘I should have shot their horses,’ Trev said. ‘I’ll have to go around the town. Hopefully we’ll make it to Pimba.’

  ‘Yeah, we should head north,’ Swanny agreed, looking at the fortified town. ‘North is good.’

  Camels. A great herd of the feral beasts was coming this way. Australia turned them loose when the motor car came to conquer the interior, and they repaid this favour by breeding like mad and eating everything in sight.

  The dead man could smell them downwind, and crouched to the ground. He hadn’t eaten for days and was hungry. The only thing he’d found on the road were bones bleached white by the sun.

  Keeping perfectly still, he lay in the spiny grass and red dust. Years of dry heat had mummified him, yet he didn’t suffer from the rot or the smell that many of his companions had. With the right wind, hours of stillness could pay off in a kill.

  A feral camel wandered over the rise. Oblivious to the unnatural creature that lay in wait, the first the camel knew of disaster was when something reached up and sank sharp teeth into its leg.

  Squealing in terror, the beast bit back, wrenching the dead man loose. It hurled him away, the man tumbling down the sand-dunes with a mouthful of flesh. The camel spat and hissed, a terrible taste in its mouth from where its peg-teeth had broken the dead man’s skin.

  The herd broke into a gallop and scattered into many directions, and the bitten camel ran too. It started feeling wrong, had trouble keeping up. Frustrated, it spat and bit at the nearest camel.

  This felt good, felt right. Eyes rolling and mouth foaming, it bit another one, tore through the skin this time.

  Trev’s motorcycle started to splutter when Pimba was in sight. There was still plenty of fuel in the tank; something else was going wrong in the innards of the ancient machine. They were still several miles away when the engine gave a death-rattle and died. They rolled to a stop, engine ticking and boiling.

  ‘I’ve had this bloody thing since the Plague broke out,’ Trev said, ‘Took me from Brisbane to Melbourne, and when the bloody Danes came, I got from Melbourne to Adelaide in one night. I even hit a zombie once, and it only wobbled a bit.’

  They sat there, Trev tight-lipped and Swanny too frightened to say anything. The older man was furious, gripping the handlebars tightly. The engine stank of burnt oil, and a cloud of flies descended on the stricken pair.

  ‘This thing was worth ten of you,’ Trev said, pointing a finger at the terrified lad. ‘Treated me right when nothing else did. So what happens when I need it the most?’

  Swanny said nothing, clutched the duffel bag tighter. Trev got handy with his fists when he was angry.

  ‘I’ll tell you what happens. The goddamn engine dies at Pimba! The arsehole of the world!’

  He hopped off the bike and kicked the wheel hard, stubbing his toe. Launching into a string of curses Trev snatched the shotgun out of its holder, priming a shell and pointing it at the bike. Wailing with terror, Swanny fell out of the sidecar, dragging the heavy duffel-bag behind him.

  ‘Don’t shoot it Trev!’ he implored. ‘Tank’s full of fuel!’

  Glaring at the bike like a madman, Trev started to squeeze the trigger, a nervous tic causing half his face to twitch. Taking a deep breath, he pointed the weapon at the sky, when the dodgy trigger fired by itself.

  ‘We gotta get rid of that gun, Trev. Someone’s gonna get killed,’ Swanny said.

  Trev ignored him, grabbing his swag and the potato sack that housed Swanny’s worldly possessions. They both landed at the lad’s feet.

  ‘Carry those,’ Trev said, and started walking along the cracked bitumen of the old highway. Struggling under the weight of all the bags, Swanny rushed to keep up with his mentor.

  ‘What are we gonna do now Trev?’ he puffed. ‘Should we stay here for awhile?’

  ‘Nah. Too close to a murder scene,’ Trev said. ‘We gotta keep moving, keep heading north. We g
o west, we enter what’s left of civilisation. Cops, the army, jail. If we’re lucky.’

  ‘Why don’t we go east? We’ve got Danish money, why not go to New Denmark?’

  ‘Stuff that. If I wanted to hang out with a bunch of box-head krauts, wouldn’t have left in the first place would I?’ Trev said. ‘We go there, we end up in a work-camp with everyone else, working for King Christian the fucking invader.’

  Swanny hefted all of the bags, wanting to stop for a rest. The road shimmered with heat-haze, and the tiny town seemed to be getting further away from them. There was nothing but the endless plodding along the cracked surface, and he could feel the heat rising through his old boots. He wondered how long the duct-tape holding them together would last.

  When they reached the tiny township, it was mostly deserted. A few grubby children watched them go past, gawking at the pair that had walked out of the bush.

  ‘Where’s a mechanic?’ Trev demanded, and a boy of perhaps ten pointed up the main street. They continued playing with a half-deflated football, and it was unlikely they’d ever seen a classroom.

  ‘Arsehole of the world,’ Trev muttered. They found an old service station with an open workshop, an old petrol-guzzler standing over the pit with its engine pulled to pieces. The bowsers were covered in cobwebs, and there was an old sign nailed against the shopfront. ‘NO PETROL’ it read, and he wasn’t surprised.

  ‘Oy!’ he called out, unable to see anyone. ‘Anyone here?’

  ‘Hang on,’ someone said, and a man clambered out of the pit, covered in grease and filth. He looked about a hundred. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Bike broke down just outside of town. I need you to fix it.’

  ‘I might have the parts,’ the man said, eyeing Trev’s shotgun. ‘Do you have money, or something you can trade for it?’

  ‘Here,’ Trev said, reaching for the duffel bag. He unzipped it, carefully pulling out one stack of bills. No sense showing this arsehole how rich we are, Trev thought. He hadn’t survived this long by being stupid.

  ‘This is Danish money,’ the mechanic said. ‘I won’t take this.’

  ‘Please, we need the bike fixed,’ whined Swanny. ‘We’ve got more money.’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Trev. ‘Will you fix it or not?’

  ‘Do you have any Aussie money?’ the man said. Trev shook his head.

  ‘I lost two sons,’ the mechanic said. ‘The first was in Adelaide, and the zombies got him. Second was in the Army Reserve, and some Dane put a bullet through his head during the Invasion. When two strangers roll into town with a big stack of kraut money, I get suspicious.’

  ‘Are you calling me a box-head?’ Trev yelled, priming the gun. ‘What are you trying to say?’ The mechanic looked at him calmly, wiping his hands with an oily rag.

  ‘Did I tell you about my other two sons?’ he said, and two stocky young men stepped out of the shadows of the workshop. One held a large revolver, the other had a Rottweiler slavering on the end of a chain, a cricket bat in his free hand.

  ‘The pair of you can just piss off,’ he said calmly, picking up a tyre-iron. ‘I don’t help traitors or Danes.’

  Trev was angry but not stupid. He would only drop one of them before the other two jumped him. He backed out of the workshop, gun levelled at the two sons. ‘Big mistake,’ he called out. ‘You’ll regret this.’

  The pair of them ran from the petrol station, and ran through the dusty sidestreets till they found an abandoned shack to hole up in. Trev didn’t know if there was a copper in Pimba, didn’t want to take any chances. After several minutes without the sound of pursuit, they peered through the broken windows, sweaty and covered in dust.

  ‘What are we gonna do now?’ Swanny said. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘I dunno, idiot, how about you go to the nearest shop and buy some lunch?’ Trev said. ‘Take as much money as you need.’

  Trev thought furiously, and Swanny tried to think. What passed for his look of concentration made him look constipated, and Trev only tolerated the boy because he made him feel smart. I’d abandon him in a second if it was him or me, he thought.

  ‘The police force still has a working fleet of cars, and they’re bound to search Pimba soon. We gotta leave now.’

  ‘Should we steal a horse?’ Swanny offered, to be rewarded with a slap across the back of his head.

  ‘The only car in this shithole town is in pieces, back in that tosser’s workshop. We either need to steal food and wait till the heat dies down, or somehow get the bike working again.’

  There was a long hooting sound that cut through the air, making the broken shards of glass shake in the frame. Trev leapt to his feet, a grin from ear to ear.

  ‘Train!’ he said. Snatching up his swag, he dragged Swanny to his feet. They sprinted across the small town until they hit a trainline, and the train barrelled past them, headed towards the local siding.

  ‘It’s the Ghan!’ Swanny said. ‘We can go right up to Darwin if we want to!’

  ‘Train doesn’t go to Darwin, it’s still a zombie town,’ Trev said, puffing and panting as they ran alongside the train. When it slowed down to stop, he hoisted himself into a baggage compartment. Grudgingly he offered Swanny a hand.

  ‘We’re getting off at Alice Springs. There’s sometimes work to be had there, and maybe we can change some of this money over somewhere.’

  ‘What are we gonna do in Alice Springs? I’m not good at nothing.’ Swanny said. The depression that swept the country after the Plague had killed many homeless kids, and if it wasn’t for Trev he would have starved by now.

  ‘Use your imagination mate! We could join some shooters. I hear they’re that desperate for meat up there that they’ll eat camel.’

  Shifting the gun belt that held up his fat gut, Chief Inspector Wallis knelt down, careful not to get the bloody mess on his trousers. He didn’t get out in the field much these days, and it showed.

  ‘Not zombies for once,’ he said, picking up the shotgun shell.

  ‘Stupid bastards choose to live outside the wall, you see what happens,’ the young constable started. Wallis glared at him like he was a dog-turd hiding in a box of doughnuts and he wisely shut up.

  ‘Buchanan was my brother-in-law,’ he said. ‘My old lady is beside herself, you little shit! Do me a favour and interrogate the farmhands, or the pigs or something. I don’t care what, just get out.’

  For what it was worth, the fingerprint guy had been all over the place. He’d found nothing, but since the computers had stopped, the police had bugger-all to work with. They had to rely on old methods and equipment, but contingency plans meant nothing when all the records were gone.

  ‘Why did they shoot you, mate?’ Wallis wondered. There was a square of paper soaking up blood, and he peeled it off the floor with a pair of tweezers.

  ‘Danish money?’ he mumbled to himself. ‘What the hell was he into?’

  ‘Boss, one of the town shooters just got on the radio,’ the young copper said, timidly poking his head around the doorway. ‘Says they saw a motorbike circling the town this morning, two fellas. Weird that they didn’t come in and fuel up.’

  ‘Where’d they go?’ Wallis said, shifting his bulk as he got to his feet. There were only a handful of working cars in the district, and no bikes.

  ‘North, towards Pimba,’ he said, ducking out of the way as the Chief Inspector barrelled through the door. Wallis moved quick for a fat man, and he was angry. Hardly anything got him out from behind the desk these days.

  ‘I pity those blokes when he catches them,’ the constable said to the fingerprint guy. ‘They’ll be praying for zombies.’

  Thousands of feral camels died within hours of the first bite. This news should have made most Outback farmers happy, but people still remembered the Plague. Varied reports went over the patchy ham-radio network, speaking of aggressive camel packs attacking livestock and people. And eating them.

  ‘Zombie camels?’ one ham operator in Alice Springs sn
orted. His ranger friend was noted for telling tall tales. A hundred miles away his friend was dead, dragged from his shattered four-wheel drive by a camel missing half its face. The entire pack devoured his broken body, jostling with each other for a feed.

  With blood-spattered jowls and marble white eyes, a vast stinking horde of dromedaries made for Alice Springs, drawn by the bright lights on the horizon and the distant smell of fresh meat. Their great honking howls echoed throughout the night.

  ‘I saw them officer,’ the mechanic said. ‘They came in here perhaps three days ago, toting a big bag full of kraut money and a shotgun. The lads and I chased them away, but we lost them after that.’

  ‘Great,’ Wallis said, looking around the filthy workshop. The only car in town lay in pieces before him. ‘You have a pair of killers gone to ground somewhere in your town. Why didn’t you get on the radio? You idiots have put everyone in danger.’

  ‘When’s the last time we saw the law in this town? No one cared about this place, not even before the Plague. We look after ourselves here.’

  ‘Doing a good job,’ Wallis said, turning his bulk on the man as he returned to his squad car, which bristled with antennas and rust. He would poke through every abandoned shack and lean-to in this dust-bowl till he found Stephen’s killers. The Chief Inspector was armed to the teeth and vengeful; it was not likely they would be brought to trial, or even buried. Law had changed around here.

  After a fruitless morning of poking through a town that was post-apocalyptic before the Plague, Wallis saw the trainline shimmering on the horizon. He visited the sidings on the edge of town, and tore the yellowed timetable from the nail that held it up.

  ‘Least the trains still run proper,’ he pondered, wondering if he had enough fuel to take him to Alice Springs.

  ‘We don’t need shooters,’ the foreman told Trev. ‘Stupid to shoot them out in the bush, unless you plan on cooking and eating your camel on the spot. Smart way’s to round them up, bring ‘em into town and to the slaughterhouse.’