Feral zombies, those who haven’t been fed a steady diet of Tankbread, are like those sharks that get a taste for humans. Once they go that way, they don’t seem to come around to a more civilised way of dining ever again. Their hunger becomes insatiable, and they kill without pause until someone puts them down.
Tottering away from Dingo’s mate, who sat up as we watched from a safe distance, they pushed open the door and went inside the pub. No one noticed, their attention taken by the entertainment going on indoors. Dingo’s mate got to his feet, his shirt was a torn blood stain and only the drooping flesh of his belly remained, hanging down over his belt in wet clumps.
‘He can still walk,’ I murmured to Else. ‘Because his spine is intact. That long bone down the back. You have to cut that to stop them walking.’ I ran my finger down her spine and Else shivered.
‘Tickles,’ she said.
The cheering inside changed to shouts of alarm and some screams. We listened to the crash of furniture, breaking glass, shouts of anger and then screams of pain. No gunshots though, always a relief to have confirmation that the other side is at a disadvantage.
We gave Dingo, his mate and the dead woman plenty of time to finish up. With Else tucked in behind me and the shotgun leading the way, I went in to the pub. The risen dead were multiplying. I started shooting and Else yanked the sword off my back and went nuts whacking zombies on the head with it.
‘Hit them with the sharp side! The sharp side!’ I yelled. She soon got the hang of it and decapitated several men in faded denim and a couple of women with torn throats and ravaged chests. In no time at all we were done.
We’d done our killing in a large room, the original bar. Someone had built a small grandstand of seats at one end where they would have watched league games on TV back when there was still rugby league and TV. Now the grandstand overlooked a big cage of welded scrap metal. Inside the cage a small group of women were huddled in one corner. Chained at the other end and straining at the bit was an evol. Holstering the shotgun I found the bolt on the door and opened the cage, ducking inside I punched the zombie in the face with the business end of my baseball bat until its skull caved in and it stopped twitching.
‘Evening ladies,’ I said. In response, they started shrieking and scrambling for the exit. Else slammed and bolted the cage-gate in their faces and then stabbed at them with the sword.
‘Else! Else! It’s alright! Just step back! They’re okay. Just a little freaked out.’
‘Motherfuckers!’ she hissed a warning at them.
‘Everyone just calm down and I’ll get you out of here.’ I reached through the cage and unlocked the door. Holding it open, I indicated they could exit.
No one seemed keen to leave the pub, the unknown terrors of the dark outside bothered them more than the ankle deep blood and gore inside.
‘This is a pub, there must be something to drink,’ I said and went behind the bar. I found some bottles without labels. Cracking one open I sniffed. It smelled like bad pussy, so I took a drink. It reminded me of what I remember beer tasting like.
I lined a half dozen open bottles on the bar and raised one in salute. ‘Grab a beer and you can tell me your story,’ I said.
The women looked at each other, without speaking. The ones crying were sobbing quietly but no one said a word.
‘Well just have a drink then,’ I indicated the bar.
‘We do not drink alcohol,’ one of them stepped forward. Her hair was cut short, and even with half her shirt torn off, showing the sharp lines between tanned skin and pure white skin, she stood resolute and dignified.
‘Neither do I. Usually don’t get the chance,’ I took a long pull on the bottle. It was home brew but it had a nice kick to it.
‘We never drink alcohol,’ the woman speaking had a determined expression on her face. They were all thin, some were just young teenagers, right up to a couple of grey-heads. Some had long hair and others went for the cropped look.
‘We’re from Sydney,’ I said indicating Else who skirted around the group and joined me behind the bar.
‘Sydney?’ The woman looked surprised. ‘We thought that all Sydney was gone.’
‘No, it’s not worth shit anymore. But the city is still there. Evols run things. The geeks give them Tankbread and they leave us alone. Mostly,’ I added after a moment.
‘Tankbread?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, Tankbread. Zombie food?’
The woman shook her head. ‘We are the sisters of St Peters Grace. I am Sister Mary.’
‘Hello, this is Else.’
‘Hello this is Else,’ echoed Else.
I took another drink. This stuff wasn’t so bad once you got into it. ‘What brought you to Mildura? This is Mildura isn’t it? The map said it was but the road’s are shit.’
‘Yes,’ Mary nodded. ‘This is Mildura. A place gone to the devil, become Sodom and Gomorrah. What once was paradise is now the abyss.’
‘I thought that was Sydney,’ I said and let a rolling belch crack the air.
‘In the months after the Rapture the townsfolk displayed Christian virtues. They took care of each other, aided those poor souls who had risen but could not ascend to Heaven and laid them to final rest. My sisters and I gave them spiritual counsel through the teachings of our Lord. Then as time passed and more fell to God’s wrath the survivors grew bitter and turned against us. We retreated to our compound. We welcomed all those who came to us, planted our crops, tended our sick and flew far and wide in search of those who lacked the joy of our Lord’s grace in their lives.’
‘Flew, eh? How did you do that? The Lord God give you angel wings?’ I grinned at her over my bottle.
Sister Mary gave me a pitying look. ‘The Lord helps those who help themselves. Before the apocalypse, our missionary work took us to many far-flung communities of whites and encampments of Aboriginals. We were the humble recipients of a donation of a helicopter.’
‘Did they also donate a pilot?’
‘As you were no doubt not born to this life of lawless murdering, I was also not born a nun, sir. I flew helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was there that God spoke to me and showed me the path my life must take.’
‘No shit?’ I said, genuinely impressed with her for the first time.
‘Now if you will excuse us, my sisters and I will seek shelter in the rooms above to pray and wait for morning when we will return to our home and rebuild.’
‘What happened to your compound?’
‘The savages of Mildura decided that we were holding out on them and thought to make sport of us. They came in the night, and broke through our defences, kidnapping us. They dragged us back here and…’ she went silent, her eyes shifted to the cage.
‘They put you in there for kicks?’
‘It was only one of their games. They also attacked the girls, forced them to do unspeakable acts and-’
‘Yeah okay you don’t need to spell it out,’ I finished my drink.
‘If you will excuse me, there are others held upstairs who may need medical attention.’
I waved them away. Sure I’d done some shitty things in my time, but only when threatened. This town must have been a lot like hell if you weren’t in charge.
‘Else, you may not understand right now. But I think we did a good thing here tonight. We saved some people who needed saving, and killed some motherfuckers who needed killing.’
‘Motherfuckers,’ Else repeated solemnly. She took her first swig of bitter brew, which she then spat all over the bar and kept spitting and shuddering till her mouth was dry.
The nuns gathered in a couple of the rooms upstairs. They prayed quietly which suited me fine. Else and I took an empty room down the hall, it stank but the mattress was comfortable after the hard dirt of the road. I slept until mid-morning and woke up to the sound of Else growling.
‘Easy girl,’ I sat up. Someone was knocking on the door. I armed myself and then opened it wide. Sister Mary looked startled at
my shirtless state and then cast her eyes to the floor.
‘We are leaving. You are welcome to join us on our journey, it is but a half-day’s walk to the north,’ she said to the stained rug.
‘Sure, ahh… give me a few minutes.’ I closed the door and found my shirt and boots. Dressed and armed I led Else through the upstairs rooms of the pub. Some rifles, shotguns, but no ammunition. A few good quality hunting bows though, and plenty of arrows, mostly recently made with flesh tearing arrow heads fashioned from old tin-cans. I took a bow and a bundle of arrows. Else needed to learn to kill from a safe distance.
The twenty surviving nuns had gathered outside. They were calm and kept their heads bowed, lips moving in silent prayer when we appeared.
‘Sister Mary, I suggest we load up one of these trucks and make better time back to your compound.’
‘These vehicles are not ours, it is a sin to steal. Even from those who have falsely imprisoned us,’ she said.
I scratched my jaw. ‘Well how about I commit the sin of stealing, and you pray for my soul and then I invite you and your sisters to ride on my new truck?’
Sister Mary stared at me thin lipped for a long moment. ‘I am sure that the Lord has placed you in my path to test me.’
‘Amen,’ I said and went and got the nearest pick up started.
CHAPTER 8
We made good time going cross-country. The only things moving were feral sheep and a few cows. We stopped while a herd of kangaroos flowed across the grassland before heading for the horizon in a pulsing tide. Only drought and starvation kept the livestock in check now.
‘Any men up your way?’ I asked Sister Mary over the roar of the rattling engine.
‘Father Toby died last year. I freed his soul from its mortal cage personally.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Not for very long. We are a religious order of charity, but we must rely on our own resources and God’s mercy to survive. Those men who do come to us are in need of spiritual guidance or medical care. Once their wounds are healed and their souls are redeemed they leave again.’
‘Willingly?’ I grinned.
‘Not always,’ she said without trace of a smile.
The nun’s compound stood on the edge of a lake she called Gol Gol. Whitewashed stone buildings rising out of a flat plain of red-gold dust. The fence around the area stood ten feet high in square mesh with barbed wire over the top. We drove over a wire gate that lay buckled from an earlier impact and up a long driveway between planted fields wilting in the heat. A white brick wall, at least twelve feet high, protected the inner compound. The gate in this wall had been pulled down and cast aside. We stopped in a courtyard covered with packed limestone gravel and everyone got out.
‘I should take a look around, make sure there’s no danger,’ I said readying my guns.
‘This is a house of God. We are under his protection,’ Sister Mary declared and swept past me leading a file of girls into the main building.
The sister’s compound would have been expensive to build. In front of me stood a long single level building of white bricks with a large tiled dome rising out of the centre of its roof. To the left and right of the parking area were more single level buildings, also built with white painted bricks.
‘C’mon Else,’ we toured the outer buildings, finding a large washhouse with tubs and hand-cranked wringers. The other half of this building was a dry store filled with grain and seeds. The shelves were home to less than a dozen cans of tinned food. Under the shelves we found bins of fresh and dried vegetables. In a meat locker, strips of salt dried flesh hung in abundance. The cured skins of kangaroo, sheep and cow were stacked in orderly piles.
On the opposite side of the courtyard the third building had cots and beds in it. An overpowering stench of rotting meat filled the room like a fog. A cloud of flies lifted listlessly from a swollen green corpse that squirmed with maggots and dripped rotting juices through the thin mattress to add to a spreading black stain on the concrete floor.
Else gave a disgusted snort and backed out of the hospital room. I stayed long enough to confirm that there was only one corpse and came out, leaving the door open to clear the air. The other half of the hospital building was a barn with racks of leather straps and harnesses for horses. They also had three hay bales and an old, empty bottle on a shelf. I carried the bales out and stacked them up against the wall. Teaching Else to shoot a bow and arrow was going to take a while so it made sense to get her working on the basics. I took some leather strapping from the horse kit and wrapped it around her wrist and the heel of her hand. After I took a few shots to demonstrate Else was jumping for her turn. By her third attempt the arrow was leaving the bow the right way. I slung the bag of arrows over her shoulder and told her to aim for the bottle on top of the bales.
In the main building the nuns were busy sweeping up and restoring order to their house. Girls squeezed buckets of water from a hand pump and set to scrubbing floors and walls.
Paintings that had been slashed and torn in the attack were commiserated over and then added to the kindling pile. I found Sister Mary supervising a cleaning crew scraping dried shit from the altar cross in their small chapel.
‘Ahh Sister…?’
‘Yes what is it?’ She never took her eyes off the cross cleaning maidens.
‘Your patient, in the hospital. He died.’
‘Mister Tomlinson. We will pray for him. Has his soul been released?’
‘Released? Yeah… he was perma-fu-‘ Sister Mary whirled and fixed me with a deadly gaze.
‘This is a chapel of the Lord our God, you shall not use the language of the gutter in here.’
‘Sorry Sister, I mean he was really dead when I found him.’
‘Very well.’ Sister Mary took me by the arm and walked me out of the chapel. ‘The girl who travels with you. What is the nature of your relationship?’
‘Our relationship? We don’t really have a relationship. She just follows me around.’
‘Is she developmentally challenged?’ Sister Mary asked, the concern and sympathy thick in her voice.
‘What? No, she’s just learning is all.’
‘We have a place for her here. It is not appropriate for a girl of tender years to be out there in the world.’
‘Sister, you have no idea,’ I tried not to laugh, and ended up grinning instead.
‘Young man, wipe that smirk off your face.’
I did. ‘Sister, you don’t understand. Else is with me because I’m all she’s got. She may look like a young woman with around eighteen years on the clock, but she’s only a few weeks old.’
Now Sister Mary looked at me as if I might be the retarded one.
‘What nonsense,’ she barked.
‘Sister, I would not sh- I mean lie to you. Else is Tankbread.’
‘What in Gods name does that mean?’
‘Tankbread… well...’ I looked into Sister Mary’s hard grey eyes and started talking. It felt good to get it off my chest, the whole story came out. I missed bits out, messed some of it up, but she didn’t interrupt much and by the time we were done she was looking thoughtful.
‘Come and eat with us, I will pray for guidance.’
I’ve never turned down an offer of a meal and went in search of Else to tell her to come eat. Out in the courtyard a row of broken glass pieces lay neatly arranged across the top of the bales. Else was nowhere to be seen.
‘Else?!’ I called looking around. An arrow whizzed over my head and the left-most shard of glass exploded into fragments. I ducked as another arrow zipped past and the next small piece of glass shattered.
‘Motherfucker!’ Else yelled and waved from the chapel roof, a distance from her target of maybe sixty feet.
‘Nice!’ I yelled. ‘Now come on down before you injure yourself! It’s time to eat!’
For dinner we sat at a long table on wooden benches and were served a thick meaty stew that smelled great. It took a lot of quiet effort for me to
keep Else’s fingers off her plate until the nuns had finished giving thanks for everything. I nudged Else and showed her how I was using a fork. She stared at me, her cheeks bulging with meat and then she cast a slow look around the rest of the table. The women were all eating with the only table manners I’d seen in years.
Else chewed a little more, swallowed some of it and then opened her mouth, letting the half-chewed mass drop out on her plate. She shrank back from her plate, her head bowed and a bright red flush rising on her face. Then with a sudden movement, she clambered away from the table.
‘Where’re you going?’ I asked. Else punched me in the head hard enough to knock me into the neighbouring nun and ran from the dining hall.
‘What the fu-?’ I caught Sister Mary’s gaze boring into me. ‘Excuse me Sister,’ I mumbled and wiping my mouth with my sleeve I got out from the table and went to look for Else.
I found her out in the courtyard, on her knees punching the shit out of the hay bales and crying fit to bust.
‘Hey, Else, what’s going on?’
She turned on me snarling and knocking me on my arse, slapping and scratching at my face while blubbering uncontrollably.
‘Hey! Hey! Calm down!’ I grabbed her wrists and flipped her onto her back with my weight pressing her down. She struggled and hissed and then shuddered, going limp and dissolving into tears.
‘You…arse-arsehole… I’m a stu-stupid motherfucker.’
I couldn’t make out much more for a while, just a lot of anger directed at me and herself. I held her down until the rage passed. She finally quietened and I sat leaning against the wall with her in my lap, curled up against my chest, my arms wrapped around her shoulders.
‘Now use your words, you tell me what’s wrong.’
Else sniffed and shivered. ‘I’m stupid. You never told me I was stupid.’
‘You aren’t stupid. You learn things like no one I’ve ever known.’
Tankbread Page 9
