by Matt Hart
“MIRO!” he yelled. “Wake up, mate!” He shook him, but Miro just moaned and pulled Daku’s shirt. Daku pulled free and stood up. Miro moaned and yowled, trying to stand while still holding the spear beneath him. He finally turned over and struggled to his knees. He reached out and stumbled after Miro, holding the spear out and pointing it at his friend.
“Miro!”
Daku lifted his spear to try to knock the other one out of Miro’s hand, but Daku stumbled on a rock just as Daku’s tip pointed at him. He lurched forward and the spear thrust through his friend’s stomach.
“Nooo!” Daku yelled, dropping the spear and tripping as he backed away. “Miro!” Daku stood there, his mind trying to catch up, as Miro finally dropped his own spear. He swatted at the spear sticking through him, then stood and looked at Daku. He moaned again and raised his arms. Daku shuffled backwards as Miro fell on him, snapping at his face. Daku tried to push him off or roll away, but the back of the spear was blocking him. He reached down for his machete and swiped blindly at Miro. He pushed him off and stood up, only to see his machete buried in the side of his friend’s head.
“No, Miro,” whispered Daku as he dropped to his knees. He knelt there for what seemed like hours, crying. Finally he stood and pulled out the machete, then tried to remove the spear, but it broke easily, damaged by Miro’s fall. He sighed and went back to his camp and picked up his blanket, then covered the body of his friend, baffled at why he would attack like that. He took Miro’s spear and started running to the closest town.
—————
As Daku neared the small village, he thought it was strange that there was no activity. Usually there were always some dogs around, old men sitting on porches, a truck rumbling through.
“Hello!” he called out. “Is there a doctor or medic around?” He waited, but there was no answer. Daku gripped his spear in both hands and looked up at the sky. He walked to the nearest building and knocked on the door.
Nothing.
He knocked again, but no one answered. Stepping off the porch, he looked around the town and spotted a small store and walked over to it. He set down his spear and walked inside the open door. “Hello, the store!” He stepped up to a pay phone next to the cash register and picked up the receiver. Daku tapped the hook switch a few times, but the phone was dead.
Where is everyone?
He walked to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. It was cool, but not cold. He opened the door again and stuck his head in. Power’s out?
He closed the refrigerator door and walked to the cash register, then took a dollar from his pack and put it on the counter. He opened the bottle and took a long drink as he leaned back, resting his elbows next to the register. He looked around and spotted a bathroom, walked over and opened the door. He cried out as a man growled and reached for him. The man appeared to be fine if a little white, but he clawed and stumbled from the bathroom, snapping at Daku.
“Hey! Cut it out, mate!” he yelled, backing away. The man continued reaching out as Daku backed away. Turning around, Daku ran for the door, picked up his spear and hurried to the middle of the dusty street. The man from the bathroom shambled out of the store a few moments later and moaned. Daku’s hair stood on end as he heard answering moans all around him. He held up his spear and turned in a circle to see more people moving up the street.
“Bloody hell,” he whispered. “Come a gutser running here.”
Chapter 8
Interlude : Boreling Empire : Plannel 6
Grodge the Merciful groaned as he rolled over and felt for the alarm buzzer. He slapped at the nightstand until it quit, then rolled back. He briefly thought about staying in bed before remembering that the show had started the day before. He stretched and sat up, scratched under his arms then grabbed a stim stick and popped it, taking a deep sniff. He put the stick in his mouth and sucked as energy flowed into him, then reached for his tablet and checked his inbox. There were eight messages from Corbig, the junior assistant who had the night shift after his. He deleted them. There were three from his cousin who usually just talked nonsense and then asked for a job. He deleted the first two and skimmed the transcript of the third, then deleted it. He could always spout an excuse about being busy with the new season of the show. There was one from Pactain the Virulent, the Senior Production Manager: his boss. Grodge wasn't on the clock yet though, so he ignored it for now.
He set the tablet down and yawned as he stood, then groaned and kicked his doglard. “Wake up! Go outside and do your business, and chase off the noisy bridlings while you're at it!” He reached up and closed the sleep chamber and walked slowly to the hygiene chamber. He lifted his arms as the chamber cleaned him, dissolving the clothing he wore the day before. He walked out of the chamber to his printer.
“I'll take a sports outfit today, whatever's popular. And nothing purple this time!” The printer beeped acknowledgement and the day’s clothing popped out. Grodge held it up. It was a one-piece yellow and red jumpsuit. “What in the Ten Channels is this?” he asked the printer. He could recycle it and get something different, but it would cost him. One thing to wear per day: that was the normal allotment. He shrugged and pulled on the tight fitting suit. “I look like a fat bridling,” he muttered.
Grodge turned to the printer and kicked it. “At least give me a decent breakfast, something normal?” The printer beeped and a small bar clunked into the slot. “Good, a stim bar. I'll take that.” He unwrapped the bar and tossed away the wrapper, then walked into his office. Glancing at the monitors as he sat down, he saw the night’s total: some odd hundreds of millions dead. What was it, ten billion humans, something like that? He never was good with math, but ten billion was a lot of humans, so this was probably going to be a nice long season before the end of this planet. His central monitor buzzed and he looked up.
“Grodge! Why haven’t you…” the voice trailed off as the screen resolved to show Pactain the Virulent. “Grodge, what are you wearing?”
Grodge grumbled and muttered, cursing his printer.
“Just something festive for the day, sir!” he said.
“Oh, well, okay. Did you read the message I sent earlier?”
“I could care less about your message,” muttered Grodge.
“What was that?” asked Pactain, leaning into the monitor.
“I said I was impressed you sent the message so early, sir!”
“Yes, well, I have to fix your mistakes, don't I?” said Pactain, leaning back. Grodge felt a chill despite the warm morning. Had Pactain learned about the man in the bunker that he was protecting, making it look like Pactain was the one who gave the orders? Bunkers were always sought after and destroyed, just in case any technology survived that might either shorten the show, like those idiot producers from season two who let a nuclear war kill the planet, or threaten the exposure of the Borelings, like that one planet’s military who stumbled on the camerabot transmissions. Since then, bunkers with hidden technology were always the number one priority for the Entertainment Assurance ships after the show started.
And this planet had thousands of them, compared to the usual three or four on the other Apocalypse Show planets.
“Mistake, sir?” asked Grodge in a shaky voice.
“Yes, mistake you fool! You didn't set the bid high enough on the Newline Megammercial!” Grodge sighed in relief. He was talking about the block he'd setup on Team Zeke’s drone kills. They were slaughtering a bunch of small humans, some sort of younglings, when he was alerted. It looked like maybe they would break a record for drone kills, so he managed to get it on a main channel and setup a bid for the Megammercial. It would play across all four main screens and it couldn't be dismissed. Megammercials were one of the biggest moneymakers for the network.
“Not high enough?” he asked, his voice stronger. “So it worked?”
“Yes, yes, it worked, but not at the price you set. Fortunately, I did a last check before my sleep cycle and saw the problem. I double
d the bid.”
“He doubled the bid?” thought Grodge. “But,” began Grodge, “I, that was…” He stopped, dumbfounded. His block, his Megammercial.
“What?” demanded Pactain. “Oh, yes, I added a small bonus for you. It was in the message I sent!”
“Bonus,” thought Grodge. He wanted the promotion, not the money. He was tired of being known as Grodge the Merciful. He wanted to be Grodge the Destructor! Now Pactain would receive the credit!
“Pay attention Grodge! I said there's still a problem with the bio-creatures. Too many kills! Look at the bio-creature numbers!”
Grodge pulled up the number. “Almost a billion?” He struggled to remember the meetings where they discussed projected numbers. “Wasn’t it supposed to be a million something after the first day?”
“That’s right, we expected the bio-creatures to be slaughtered after they first appeared, but it looks like they’re increasing in numbers exponentially! Until an area is nothing but bio-creatures. We need more human on human violence, so fix it! Whatever you did yesterday isn't working. Get rid of those bio-creatures!”
“Yes sir,” said Grodge in a monotone, the usual saccharine voice he used when talking to Pactain gone. “Right away.”
Pactain disconnected and Grodge sat at his console, and looked at his inbox. He opened the message from Pactain and skipped down to the bonus. It was paltry. He could maybe buy an extra set of clothes every day for a week. He couldn't even buy a live Mellow Marcsh with it. He'd always wanted to taste a live one—the Frightened Frozen bits of them were delicious—how much better would a fresh one taste? He could even have a chat with it beforehand; try to see how much he could increase the delicious terror juices.
Grodge slammed his fist down and looked around for his doglard to kick, but it had skittered out of reach when he'd hit the desk. Then he smiled and leaned over his keyboard. He opened the message from Pactain and altered the text, making it look like the supervisor had overridden Grodge’s protestations about protecting the hidden bunker. Then Grodge replied that he would carry out the false orders, but the reply was never actually sent. Finally, he tapped a few keys that caused one of the camerabots watching the human in the bunker to hold station and begin sending live, full sensory data to only his workstation, mimicking some of the capabilities of the most expensive and powerful drones.
When he finished, he sat back and opened a stim stick and a Sticky Sweet Drink Chew and took a bite, smiling as he chewed the liquid down. That drone’s power source wouldn't last a day before the Optishield failed. When it did, the man in the bunker would certainly see it.
That might be enough to send Pactain the Doglard to the gridlenrock quarries. Grodge laughed out loud. “Pactain the Doglard,” he said.
“Hilarious!”
Chapter 9
Jen : Salisburg, Massachusetts
Mark and I headed down the river, away from the convenience store and crazy Richard. The sun was coming up and taking away the morning chill. I moved closer to Mark.
“So, what's for breakfast?” Mark turned to me with a surprised look.
“Sorry Jen, I forgot.”
We stopped and Mark unzipped a pocket in his waist pack. He handed me a bright green bar. “Millennium bar,” he said. “Breakfast of champions.” I looked at the bar and tore at the wrapper, but it wasn't tearing. Mark also had a bar—his was bright red. He took out a small knife and cut his wrapper, then cut mine. The bar looked like compressed granola and didn't smell “green” at all, you know, lemony-lime. I nibbled a corner and grimaced at the strong flavor, then took a bite.
“Blech,” I said around a mouthful. “Tastes like granola dipped in Diet Mountain Dew!” We began walking again.
“Sorry. They're not the best, but they have some nutrition—protein, sugars, carbs. A little fat and they'd be perfect.”
“Perfect, with fat?”
“Yeah. The basic foods are sugars, carbs, proteins and fats,” explained Mark. “We learned this at the survival camp. You need all four to get the best nutrition. That's one reason I like Think-Thin bars better, but I don't have any left. There might be some in this backpack, I don't know.”
“That's alright,” I said, “This is okay.” I took another bite. Mark ate about half of his, then held it out.
“Let's switch—you can have the rest of this one, I'll eat half of yours.” We traded and I took a bit of the red one. It had a strong cherry flavor, and was marginally better than the green one.
“Thanks,” I said around a mouthful. “Tastes a little better.” We finished the bars, and Mark held out his steel water bottle.
“Drink up—you must drink water after eating protein, otherwise you'll dehydrate.” Yet another hint I didn't know about survival. I drank most of the bottle and gave it back to Mark, who finished it. We detoured closer to the small stream and Mark refilled the bottle, then added a pill from a bottle in his pack.
“Is that chlorine?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said, “Disinfects the water in about half an hour.” Mark smiled, and I smiled back. At least I knew a little something about surviving after all.
We walked for a half hour through the woods. It wasn't so bad when we were in the middle, but it got real thick at the edges. “We're nearing a clearing,” said Mark. “I don't really know what's around here—houses, roads, whatever. Which way is north?”
I pulled up the orange compass-whistle and turned in a slow circle. “That way,” I said, pointing in the general direction we'd been going.
“Let's go slow and quiet, see if there's anything or anyone around.”
We moved slowly up to the clearing. We were slow, but we sure weren't quiet. Or at least I wasn't quiet. As we crept from the forest edge, we heard the crack of gunfire, and Mark dropped to the ground.
“Mark!” I screamed and dropped next to him.
Another gunshot rang out.
Chapter 10
Mark : Salisburg, Massachusetts
I dropped to the ground when I heard the gunshot, and Jen screamed and knelt beside me. I turned and pulled her down. “It's okay!” I said in a quiet voice. “Shhh, I'm okay!” She was shaking and crying.
“Mark! I thought you were shot!”
“Shhh, no. I just hit the dirt, I'm not shot. Calm down, it's okay.” Another gunshot. It sounded like a small rifle, but I didn't hear any bullets zinging around us. We lay there for a minute. Several more shots sounded and then nothing for almost a minute. “Wait here,” I told Jen, then crawled out of the brush for a better view.
It was an open, flat field. On the left, about fifty yards away, was a wide berm with target holders. One of them had a target taped up. On the right was a raised platform, with a building behind it. I crawled backwards and turned, then made my way back to Jen.
“It's a riflery range,” I told her. “We're about in the middle of it. Most likely it's a regular hunter or sportsman out there, though why he'd be shooting targets in a powerless, zombie-infested world is beyond me.” I thought about what we should do. Try to make contact? An ally? Steer clear?
“We could try to make contact, or we could steer clear,” said Jen. I grinned wryly.
“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “A sportsman, out practicing, I say we try to talk to him.”
“Or her.”
“Or her.” I stood and we walked back into the forest a bit, then turned and headed toward the upper part of the gun range. We came to a dirt road and headed left, walking slowly and trying to look in every direction at once. We could see the building, but no people. The closer I got to the building, the more nervous I became.
“I want to ask for help,” I told Jen, “I really do. Like a better gun,” I added, pointing to the Chiappa she held. “But it's too risky, and we’re only a few hours away.”
“Whatever you think, Mark,” said Jen. She took my hand. “Let's go home.”
—————
Art watched through his scope as the two turned and headed into
the brush. He'd just finished sighting it and was about to ride down range and pick up the target when he spotted the birds flying away from the edge of the forest. He looked through the scope and saw the movement, so he reloaded the rifle and headed to the clubhouse. He donned a ghillie suit and climbed up the stairs to the roof. The suit was one of several he'd made over the years—this one an “urban” model. It was gray and black, with shreds of cloth that broke up his outline. If he lay very still on the roof, it was almost impossible to tell that there was a person up there.
He searched through the scope, and it took him a few minutes to find the movement in the forest again, but once he had it, the two were easy to follow. They got to the road and turned toward him. They were only about a hundred yards away, and his scope showed them clearly. A tall young man, or boy, and a young woman. The boy had a backpack and waist pack, and was wearing woodman’s clothing. The young woman wasn't dressed for bushwhacking, though. That's for certain. She was carrying some sort of small rifle, very odd looking. He could see that it had two barrels, but it sure wasn't an under-over 12 gauge. Much too small.
If there was one thing Art knew about, it was guns, but this one stumped him. He hoped they were friendly so that he could take a look. He slowly lowered his rifle and just watched the two coming toward him on the road. It was very unlikely they'd see him on the roof, but they might catch sight of the rifle he was using. It was a big sniper rifle, a Barrett .50 caliber, with a noise suppressor. Some people called them “silencers”, but they never truly silenced a gun. The Barrett .50 was a very loud gun, and the suppressor knocked off about 75% of the noise. It had been for sale in the gun shop downstairs, but he didn't figure money was worth much right now.
The two people stopped on the road and talked quietly. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but it wasn't hard to guess, since they turned and walked away from the building and into the woods. He debated with himself for at least ten minutes as he took off the suit and finished packing up the guns and ammo he'd brought. He could carry it all back to his house on the golf cart from the range. He was a little surprised that it still ran after the EMP. It was an old 1960’s era Westinghouse, so it made some sense because it had no computer chips to burn out. It wouldn't be of much use when the batteries ran dead, although he could scavenge a few extras from other cars.
