Tankbread

by Paul Mannering

  ‘Hey, quiet down… I’m not going to hurt you!’ She kicked and thrashed, unable to stand, but completely terrified. I waved my hands for a moment then grabbed her by the ankle, and pulled her out of the corner before she knocked herself stupid.

  She went still, I thought she might have fainted, but she was just staring at me, her eyes the sharpest electric blue I had ever seen. Blood matted her short white-blonde hair, filth and zombie bits clung to her naked skin. She looked like she’d just been born, though her body was the mature figure of a young woman in her late teens or early twenties.

  There was nothing I could wrap her in, no blankets here, no clothes. I carried her to the door and then checking the way was clear I set her on her feet. She took her own weight, the top of her head coming up to my chin. Swaying slightly, my arm around her waist I smiled at her.

  ‘You got it, now one foot forward…’ I stepped back, drawing her after me. She swayed, her eyes going wide with alarm, she took a tottering step and then another.

  I walked backwards, giving the girl something to focus on and follow. I glanced over my shoulder constantly, looking for anything ready to take a bite out of us. By the time we reached the door labelled ‘Loading Dock’ she was walking on her own with all the grace and confidence of a double amputee.

  Moisture dripped down the walls of the old Sydney Harbour Bridge tunnel and the scent of brine rose strongly. By the light shining from the corridor I found a hurricane lantern hanging on a hook in the wall in the tunnel. I worked the pump a few times to prime it and then clicked the ignition. It flared into light. The girl stood unsteadily, leaning against the door and shivering, her eyes darting to each plunging shadow.

  Holding the lantern up I surveyed our surroundings. About a hundred feet to the right the tunnel had completely collapsed. Water trickled down amongst the rubble and gathered in stinking pools before draining away under the algae clad concrete.

  A truck stood in the tunnel, its rear end towards us. These trucks were common enough in the city. They delivered the fresh Tankbread. Canvas clad and armoured steel over military green, They worked their way around the various drop off points. Tankbread shuffling out of the back and into the waiting arms of the hungry dead.

  I couldn’t look the girl in the face, knowing what they were now, knowing what Haumann and his butchers did to make them. ‘You’re never going to be Tankbread girl, I can promise you that,’ I said, my voice echoing off the concrete walls.

  The truck keys were nowhere to be found. The steering lock would have taken a week to cut through with a hacksaw. I rummaged in the cab, finding a pair of coveralls, and a patched down jacket both in faded orange.

  ‘Here, get dressed.’ I offered the clothes to the girl, she just looked at them blankly and then leaning forward from the waist, her hand still gripping the doorframe, she sniffed them curiously.

  ‘Not for eating, for wearing,’ she pulled back as I waved the clothes again. ‘Here,’ I tossed the jacket aside and unzipped the coveralls. ‘Stand still, it’s okay,’ I lifted her leg and slipped it into one of the leg holes, then the other, and then we did the arms, her looking at me intently the entire time and holding on to the door frame for grim death until she was all tucked in and zipped up. The boiler suit was a snug fit, especially around her hips and chest. The weird thing was that even smeared in drying blood she looked hot, her womanly curves moulded so nicely and her nipples pressing through the heavy cotton.

  ‘We walk, that way.’ I pointed up the wide tunnel and hoisting the lantern I started off. After ten steps I looked back. She was still where I left her, swaying in the doorway, peering after me with a stricken look on her face.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ I went back and with some gentle coaxing and steady pulling on her hand I got her to start walking with me. We made slow progress, but she stuck close to me like a puppy and she didn’t make a sound. Anyone who has spent time sneaking around zombies will tell you that’s a great survival skill.

  Walking up the tunnel road we passed half built barricades, check points I guess, or early attempts at blocking the entrance. I killed the lantern when I saw lights flickering ahead and the girl pressed closer in the dark.

  Five of the house’s finest were shitting themselves at the entrance to the tunnel road. We hung back, listening to them assessing the situation outside. It seemed that somewhere past their station all hell was breaking loose. Some of them wanted to get out there and join the fight; others wanted to stay at their post. I listened to them argue while I reloaded everything. That took a while. I made keep down gestures at the girl and moved forward. She scampered after me on hands and feet, like a monkey.

  I stepped out, turning the lantern up bright and holding it high. ‘Hello there!’ I called out and stopped dead as the five of them turned their guns on me, the air crackling with the sounds of weapons being cocked. The girl crouched behind me, peering out past my knees to stare at them with wide-eyed surprise.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘I’m a courier. I seem to have got caught in your shit, and I’m just looking for a way out of here.’

  ‘You can’t go this way,’ one of them said. Jesus this kid was young. He would have been in nappies when the world went to hell. Now here he stood with a rifle and four arse-wipers jumping at every distant scream and gunshot.

  ‘You in charge?’ I asked.

  ‘Fuckin’ oath I am.’ Well, he sure talked big.

  ‘Then you need to show me the way through to the outside.’ I took a step towards them. His gun came up to his shoulder.

  ‘I said no. The door stays shut until the all clear sounds. If they get in here, it’s my fault.’

  ‘Kid-’

  ‘I am not a fucking kid!’

  The girl gripped my legs tighter and growled around my knees. I wished she would let go. Diving for cover was going to be impossible with her hanging on like that.

  ‘I am not part of this. I am not under you command. I need to get out there and get on with my own shit.’

  ‘What can you do? Go out there and die like everyone else?’

  ‘I don’t plan on dying but I sure as fuck ain’t going to stand around in here holding my dick while people are getting killed out there!’ It was a good speech. Complete bullshit of course. As soon as I was free of this cluster fuck I was getting the hell out of Sydney.

  ‘Moss, show the courier up to the door. As soon as he’s out, you close it up tight okay?’

  ‘Yessir,’ one of the little punks snapped off a salute and hurried to a gap in the barricade. ‘This way sir.’

  I set my shoulders, and feeling like a complete dick, I snapped a pretty good salute at the kid in charge. I could see his chest swell with pride as I strode past. Poor dumb bastard.

  The girl scampered behind, like a dog, I let her, she didn’t seem uncomfortable and her keeping her head down like that would mean less chance of it getting shot off. From the sounds coming from outside an awful lot of lead was being thrown around.

  The Opera House command had sealed off the bridge tunnel exit, and using rubble had built a ramp up to a couple of big roller doors overhead, like on a garage. These doors were shaking with repeated blows. Our kid escort stopped and stared upwards. My attention was taken by a motorbike parked up against the wall. Once probably someone’s pride and joy, but now I thought a fair damn trade for the wheels I had left out by the main gate to get in to this rat hole.

  ‘Open it up,’ I called. Kicking the bike into life, I readied my shotgun. The girl let out a wail and sprang onto the seat behind me. ‘Hang on!’ I revved the biked and its engine sang.

  The kid sidestepped towards a control box, never taking his eyes off the rattling metal overhead. With the push of a button the door started to roll back, showing the night sky and lots of meat fighting for their lives.

  Outside it was hell on earth. Evols, mobs of them, tore into screaming flesh. Soldiers fired and howled, some pointing empty guns at the dead and shriek
ing in panic. They shook their weapons as if expecting some miracle to give them more ammunition. Some of them fought on, armed with clubs, bits of steel, anything that could be used as a weapon. The stench of hot blood and black zombie guts was thick in the air. Rotting fingers reached and tore. A naked boy, his skin grey with dirt howled and latched on to a soldier’s hand. The soldier fired, emptied his clip, shattering the boy’s face into a red-black mush before staggering back and staring in horror at his maimed hand. Bodies fell in an irregular rhythm over the edge of the ramp and I burned a crescent of hot rubber spinning the bike around and lining up to ride out.

  I twisted the bike’s throttle, felt the girl’s body cinch in tight against my back and we blasted out of the underground tunnel like a duke of Hell risen victorious from the abyss. Bodies, dead and alive, scattered and were blasted aside. I started shooting with a sawn-off lever action carbine. Spinning the gun, ejecting hot shell casings and firing again.

  evols snarled, frenzied with blood lust, tearing meat from screaming bodies, gorging on intestines and the soft organs of the living. I focused on shooting those who got in my way. The ones that watched with dead eyes and reached with black clawed hands wanting to rip the girl and me off the bike.

  ‘God help me please!’ Pleading cries came from all sides. There was no time to stop, no time to save anyone.

  Cooking fires had scattered in showers of sparks. Those who lived on the edge of the compound had fled, hidden or died. A zombie on fire staggered towards us, blindly swinging. It stumbled into a rough shelter, which immediately erupted into flame; fresh screams of women and children hidden inside joined the cacophony of death’s chorus.

  I went the only way I knew, back towards the main gate, ready to navigate that narrow maze of stacked shipping containers. If Bert or Cool had gotten the gates down we were fucked.

  We slid sideways around the first corner. The gate was still up, bodies littered the way ahead, some blackened and smouldering, others still twitching, full body burns that hadn’t killed them yet. Going evol would be a blessing compared to that final agony. Gunning the bike we got around the next corner, down a straight and around the next corner. All around us the walls were scorched and smoking. The acrid stink of burning fuel and flesh yelling in my nostrils. The second gate had come down, but lay flat, twisted and buckled; the crushed dead lay still underneath it. Two zombies had only been amputated at the waist. They reached for us with desperate hands. The more fucked an evol gets the more they want to shit on someone else’s day. I shot one in the head and rode the other down, black gore spraying as the soft tissue burst under our wheels.

  We pulled up at the bus gate, the fire action finished here. A figure wearing a silver full body fire-resistant suit lay slumped against a wall with a sputtering flamethrower hissing in his lap. I rolled the bike close enough to see if he was still breathing.

  ‘I need you to move the bus!’ I put the kickstand down and nudged the fireman’s boot with my foot. A hand rose, wavered and then settled on his head covering. Pulling it aside I saw the final moments of Bert’s life flowing away.

  ‘Sorry cobber…I’m fucked. Need you to… need you to do me right. I don’t wanna come back as one of them.’

  ‘You can’t stay together long enough to shift the bus?’

  ‘No, I bloody can’t!’ he started coughing blood. ‘Bloody gate nearly crushed me, I’m dying. I can feel it.’

  ‘Sorry, Bert.’

  ‘So am I mate. Get the fuck out here. Just fucking run, get out of the city. Find some place, hide up there and forget about us.’

  I reloaded the carbine with the last remaining round and then pointed it at the centre of Bert’s forehead.

  ‘One more thing-’ he started but I cut him off by blowing his head apart.

  ‘Stay,’ I said to the girl and swung my leg over the bike. Cool had gone, I guessed he could now be counted among the dead littering the narrow way behind us.

  Watching for trouble, my shotgun raised and ready, I reached up to open the bus door. The door flew open and with a bubbling howl Cool threw himself at me, knocking me on my arse and sending my gun sliding across the concrete.

  Teeth snapped at my face, I threw a punch, felt it connect and blood stained hands tore at my throat. I threw my arm out to block Cool’s savage attack. Kicking and struggling we rolled around each trying to get enough advantage to tear the other’s throat out. ‘Motherfucker!’ I snarled at that stinking dead face. Cool was too fresh to be thinking, too fresh to be doing anything but trying to feed.

  His teeth crunched on my arm but the thick leather of the jacket sleeve held. I punched him in the head as he shook my arm like a dog with a bone. The little prick was strong. He lashed out, grabbing my fist and I yelled as he began to squeeze. A throaty snarl and a blur of orange, the girl blasted across my vision. Striking Cool head on she snapped his neck and left a few of his teeth in my jacket sleeve as she tore him off me. I scrambled for a gun, the barrel waved around, seeking a clean shot. The girl sprang back as Cool rolled up to his feet. I got to my knees and squeezed the trigger. The first shot shattered his cheek. Cool kept on coming, barely flinching. I fired again, this shot blasted through his nose and blew his brains into soup against the side of the bus.

  ‘Fuck me… fuck me…’ I stood up, the girl straightened, staring at Cool’s still corpse. ‘Lets get the fuck out of here, eh?’ I said panting in panic.

  She turned to face me, her lips spread in a wide, savage grin and she howled in adulation at her first kill.

  CHAPTER 5

  We live in the cities with the dead. It’s safer there, places to hide, food scraps to be scavenged and a living of sorts to be made. Some do it for the community, some for the opportunity to make a better life for themselves. Others are just too pig-headed to give up what is theirs to the dead. Australian’s aren’t known for admitting defeat, even against overwhelming odds.

  We had stopped fighting this time though. The enemy were legion and more came at our barricades every day. The smart dead started showing up, talking to the survivors. Promising us protection of a sort. I guess we were desperate enough to take any kind of salvation. The Tankbread weren’t human. They seemed less alive than the evols. I felt the girl clinging to my back as we rode that motorbike through the dark city streets and my skin crawled at what that meant.

  Dawn finally crept over the ruined city. My instinct when the haze of morning set the city line glowing red and gold was to find a place to hide. The girl at my back was still, warm and close. Maybe she was asleep, the events of last night would have been enough to exhaust anyone. Just how old was she I wondered. Sure she’d the body of a grown woman, but if Haumann was to be believed, she’d lived barely a month.

  I parked the bike on the street and the girl slithered off after me, her overalls darkening with a sudden stain in the crotch. She looked down touching the wet cloth without understanding.

  ‘Christ,’ I felt a flush of embarrassment. This, I told myself, is why I travel alone. I pulled her inside, the evols around were starting to pay attention and standing in the street wasn’t going to do us any favours.

  Barricading doors is pretty straight forward. Evols tend to forget you unless you are making noise, standing where they can see you, or you are bleeding. I jammed a broken chair against the door and waited there until the two zombies motivated enough to follow pushed on it a few times and then went away.

  Meanwhile my blonde companion had managed to get her cover-alls zipper down, and was squirming out of the tight outfit. Naked, she picked up the suit, sniffed it and with a grunt of disgust, tossed it aside.

  ‘Yeah you think that is bad, wait till you shit.’ I muttered and scooping up the clothes I headed through the house doing all the standard checks. It was still dark, a little morning light crept through the gaps in the boarded up windows. No evols had managed to get inside and get stuck. It’s a shit when they do. They get in to a building and like fish in a trap they can never find t
heir way out again. At least the ones not getting a regular feed of Tankbread couldn’t. So you come stomping into a place, lock yourself in good and tight for the day, find a nice dry corner to sleep and the next thing you know an evol is trying to eat your head. Happened to a mate of mine. I found his headless corpse rotting in a bathtub two weeks later. I guess my buddy’s head was just the brain tonic the zombie needed to work out how to open the front door.

  I found a copy of the White Pages, with some paper left in it. Using the toilet is just for forms sake, at least this one was clean and of course dry. The girl watched with interest as I took a crap and then wrinkled her nose violently when I tried to get her to sit and think for a while.

  ‘Ya gotta learn how to do it like meat,’ I said. Fuck she’d a brain like a baby. I could not shake this nagging feeling that when things got really dangerous, I might end up dead because I couldn’t drop her and run.

  I held her down, she grunted and kicked up a fuss the whole time. She didn’t do anything. I wondered if she was genetically engineered without an arse-hole.

  We settled in an upstairs bedroom. I secured the door and pulled a selection of clothes out of the wardrobe. Beating the dust out of them I held them up against her. She made a hooting giggling sound when I pulled a shirt down over her head and ended up picking her up and dropping her on a filthy, stained mattress to get her legs in some pants.

  She wasn’t going to win any fashion awards, but she was going to be warm. There were even shoes in the wardrobe. That surprised me, because clothes you can pick up anywhere, but a decent pair of shoes are as hard to find as a vegan evol.

  When I woke up it was late afternoon, the room was warm and quiet, the girl had gotten naked again, she sat cross legged on the mattress with her back to me, head tucked down in furious concentration.

  I squirmed around to see what she was so absorbed in. She’d discovered the difference between boys and girls and with intense focus was exploring the patch of fur between her legs and the features beyond.