She leapt up the steps and her teeth were bared in what might have been a shit eating grin as she dashed inside. I yanked the door shut and shot the bolts home, the dead thudding against the heavy panels on the other side.
‘We can get them from the roof!’ Else was jumping from foot to foot and panting like a dog.
‘Sister!’ I yelled over the chorus of hymns and the groans from outside.
‘I’m right here,’ she passed through the crowd. Her clothes drenched in filth and sweat, but her face remained as calm as a pond.
‘We can’t stay here. The place is fu-ahh… lost.’
‘Sisters, into the chapel. Seal the doors, and let God hear your prayers.’
The singing girls moved without question. Their faces shone brightly with a strange delight like they knew they were being rescued. I wished I could share that enthusiasm. I reached out and grabbed Else by the shoulder as she went to follow them.
‘Nuh-uh,’ I shook my head. ‘Remember, never get yourself trapped in a room with only one way out.’
Else looked pained, torn between wanting to be with her friends and doing what I told her. Sister Mary didn’t comment but murmured a few words to each nun that filed past. She stood with her head bowed until the chapel door closed and we heard the muffled thud of it being barred.
‘This way,’ Sister Mary turned and marched towards the kitchen. Else and I looked at each other, I shrugged and we followed.
‘Sister, we really need to break out some serious weapons, or get the fuck out of here.’
‘And that is precisely what we are going to do,’ Sister Mary turned at the kitchen door and looked at me with that peculiar intensity. ‘I have prayed for hours for guidance, asked the Lord for understanding, begged him to share with me what purpose he has for you and Else.’
‘Yeah? What did he say?’ I stood ready for her to say that God wanted us to be eaten by zombies. If it came to that, my shotgun would rewrite the Gospel according to Sister Mary right here in the kitchen doorway.
‘He wants you to live. You have a purpose, and I must aid you.’
‘Fucken A.’ I said.
Sister Mary opened the door and lead us through the empty kitchen and outside into the back paddock. The dead were still focused on the front door, trapped inside the courtyard, but it wouldn’t be long before there was no more room and the overflow would slide around the outer walls and find their way into the back paddock. We didn’t want to be out in the open when that happened.
We ran past the creaking water pump, down the rows of carefully tended plants and vaulted over the low mesh fence that kept the feral sheep out of the veges. Beyond that was a whispering line of gum trees and the sisters had cleared every scrap of deadfall from around them, burning it in the kitchen stoves, but they hadn’t cut any trees down.
Sister Mary lead us down a worn path, and there hidden on the other side of the trees, in the middle of a clearing of dry brown grass, under a weather canvas cover, stood a helicopter.
‘You have got to be fucking kidding me?’ I almost shouted aloud. Else grinned and clapped with no idea what all the excitement was about.
‘The Lords work requires us to travel over a great distance,’ Sister Mary said, striding towards the machine.
‘Yeah, but I figured your chopper would have been scrapped years ago.’
‘Not bloody likely,’ Sister Mary said and moved around the craft, unhooking the tarpaulin ropes and sliding them off. ‘This is an A-S Five-fifty Fennic helicopter. Originally designed for military used, but stripped of ordinance and modified with additional fuel tanks, I’ve got a service range of nine-hundred klicks.’ Sister Mary patted the white flank of the chopper like it was a favourite horse.
In her experienced hands it took us only a few minutes to be ready to fly. Sister Mary left me to strap Else into a seat in the back while she flicked switches and pushed buttons. I stowed Else’s bow under the seat and took a position next to her behind the pilot.
‘Where are the wheels?’ Else said peering out the windows, a frown creasing her dusty brow.
‘Ahh… Just close your eyes and trust Sister Mary ok?’ I had flown in a chopper once as a kid and I remembered it scared the shit out of me.
The heavy rotors began to whine and spin, rapidly increasing in speed until they vanished into a blurred disk and the grass around us lay flat.
‘Let me out! Let me out!’ Else started scrabbling at her seatbelt. I grabbed her hands and wrestled with her while Sister Mary pulled back on the stick, or pressed the pedals or did what ever it is that makes a tonne of plastic and steel forget that it’s not meant to float through the air, and up we went.
Else moaned in fear, turned her head to see the ground falling away and fainted with a soft sigh.
CHAPTER 10
Flying a helicopter seemed more complex than I thought. Sister Mary had one hand on a joystick, another on a handbrake like handle and her feet were working pedals like on a car. We roared low and angry over the convent courtyard, the dead stumbled and lurched below us. It didn’t look like they had managed to get inside.
‘What about the nuns?’ I shouted over the noise of the rotors and the sister just tapped the big earmuffs she had on and jerked a finger at the set hanging next to me.
I put them on and fiddled with a switch. ‘What about the nuns?’ I could hear my voice in my ears.
‘The Lord will shield them,’ Sister Mary replied, her voice sounding tinny through the headphones.
‘Will you go back?’ I gripped the seat as we banked left and the faded ground burnt orange and dust flashed beneath us.
‘Of course, it is where I belong.’
I couldn’t argue with that so we sat in silence for maybe an hour.
‘Where are we going?’ Else had been awake for a while, but seemed to prefer to keep her eyes tightly shut in case she saw how high up we were.
I repeated the question into the mic hanging in front of my mouth.
‘Crystal Brook is still over an hour away.’ Sister Mary seemed a lot less like a middle aged nun, and more the war veteran chopper pilot with each passing minute
‘Not long now!’ I shouted into Else’s ear.
‘What is this!?’ Else waved a hand and then quickly clapped it back on to the seat afraid she might fall out.
‘It’s a helicopter! We are flying! You know, like a bird!’ I waved my hands in a fair impersonation of a bird in flight. Else cracked one eye open and gave me a withering look.
‘Birds don’t make this noise!’
‘True, but they don’t fly this fast either! Don’t worry about it! Sister Mary is the best!’ I gave an overly confident thumbs up.
‘Are we going to heaven?’ A look of resolute calm had settled on Else’s face and she looked ready to cash in her chips.
‘Hell no!’ The nuns crash course in religion had some benefits, like teaching Else table manners, and how to make friends with other girls, even if they only looked her age. The more spiritual aspects were harder to explain, especially to someone with the brain of a two-year-old genius.
‘Not even close,’ I added letting Else sink into thoughtful silence.
Below us the ground went from burnt umber to grey, and back again. Flocks of wild sheep swept across the ground like grey clouds and the wind blew dust over everything. Else curled up against me and slept. I’d almost switched off myself when a change in the engine noise and a sudden tilting jerked me awake.
‘What the hell?’ I muttered into the mic.
‘Settle down, we are coming in to land,’ Sister Mary stirred the controls and the chopper sank like a feather. Dirt swirled and twisted around us, long curling trails of yellow smoke like ruffled feathers settling again only when we landed gently on the ground and the rotors wound down.
We stepped out, tottering on shaky legs, and looked around at a dry dust bowl that looked a lot like the dry dusty plain we had just left. This one had a long corrugated iron shed off to one side and
the stripped shells of some small aircraft baking in the sun.
‘Not heaven,’ Else said squinting into the glare.
‘Not even close,’ I muttered. We were exposed, and coming in as we did made noise, and that attracted attention. I could see no sign of life, or unlife.
‘What now?’ I asked Sister Mary who was lifting a panel on the chopper’s flank.
‘I refuel and go home.’
‘But we just got here,’ I looked around, here didn’t amount to much.
‘Yes, and from here you are in God’s hands.’ She set the panel open and using some kind of small wrench she made an adjustment. ‘Make yourself useful, go into the hanger and roll the fuel hose out here.’
I stared at the back of her head for a long moment and then shrugged and walked towards the shade of the hanger.
Inside the temperature doubled, it seemed that the day’s heat got trapped inside and then the next day’s heat just cooked it harder. I spat on a corrugated iron panel and watched it sizzle.
A heavy coil of woven black hose hung neatly looped on a large wheel against the wall. I checked my surroundings carefully. The dead can get trapped in some stupid places, you just have to open the wrong door without checking it first and wham! you’re evol chow. The hanger showed signs of being stripped, scorch marks on the walls where people had camped, or barricaded themselves in. Anything that would burn was gone to ashes In piles of white cinders I saw cracked and dried bones.
‘Is it safe?’ Else’s voice echoed from the doorway, her silhouette haloed by the daylight.
‘It’s okay, come in and give me a hand with this hose.’
We pulled it out the door and it snaked along behind us all the way to the chopper where Sister Mary took the nozzle and connected it to a fuel valve.
‘Follow me,’ she ordered and we did. Back into the hanger, I helped her unearth a concrete tile about a foot across, using our fingers we levered it up and she reached into a dark hole and twisted a tap open. Straightening up, the nun held a metal pole. She lowered this into the hole and started levering it back and forth.
‘See this? Pump like this, as hard and fast as you can. All the way back and forth ok?’
I stepped up and took over, working the lever until my arms ached and the dust on the ground turned black with my sweat.
‘Sister Mary says you can stop now,’ Else trotted off as I sank to the floor gasping for breath.
Getting up took some concentrated effort on my part. Else dragged the hose nozzle back inside, and hung it up on the wall before winding the long black snake of it back on to the wheel.
The fuel left in the pipe gurgled back into whatever underground tank kept it locked away all this time.
‘Where are we?’ I pulled my shirt up and wiped my steaming face as Sister Mary came into the hanger.
‘Near Crystal Brook,’ she said.
‘Do we want to go there?’
‘Not much point, it’s just another dead town. I would suggest you don’t stick around here though. The risen may be drawn in this direction by the sound of the helicopter.’
‘Well where are we flying to next?’
‘I’m going back to the convent. You should head north and west. Woomera lies that way. If you make it, then the Lord truly guides your steps.
‘You can’t leave us here!’
‘Of course I can, my sisters have suffered enough. We have sacrificed much to give you aid. Now we must pray and continue to rebuild.’
‘But what about Else?’
‘She is an abomination!’ Sister Mary exploded and then caught herself. Taking a deep breath she continued. ‘I am sorry, but I can do no more for you.’
Else didn’t react; abomination was a word she did not know.
We stood in the hanger doorway, the afternoon sun blistering the paint from the iron walls and watched Sister Mary wind up and take off, never once looking at us.
Else tugged on my arm. ‘What is a... abomination…?’
‘You know what an angel is?’ I asked and she nodded. ‘Same thing.’
Else grinned and waved goodbye to the disappearing speck in the sky.
We had no food, no water and the shotgun was low on ammo. We had the Samurai sword and Else had her bow, but only four arrows. I’ve spent a lot of time close to completely fucked since the end of the world, but this was pushing it even for me.
I started walking, navigating by the sun, the flight of birds and the trails left by sheep. At least that’s what I told Else. Mostly I took a bearing by the direction Sister-fucking-Mary flew off in and then walked in the opposite direction.
Crystal Brook turned out to be an old farming town. A few wool-blind sheep crowded along shop fronts, panting in the evening heat. Else wanted to ride one, or pet it, or kill it and eat it. All good options, but not before we knew who else might be here.
It seemed to be clear of the dead. Evols like towns. For years afterwards some places had working lights and noise, even if the living had fled. Light and noise attracts zombies like giant flesh eating moths. In Crystal Brook there were no lights, not amusement park rides ghosting in the night and no traffic signals blinking over abandoned street corners.
We peered through dusted up windows and saw no signs of recent habitation. Like all small towns, plenty of places in Crystal Brook were boarded up long ago. You could always tell the early evacuees because they boarded their windows up on the outside. Those who stayed until it was too late boarded theirs up on the inside.
I lead Else down streets lined with wilting trees and crumbling fences. The occasional sheep startled her, but we kept to the middle of the road and out of the shadows. I picked a house at random, it stood back from the road, a decent fence and mature trees shielding it. Else squirmed at having to stand still for so long, she dropped her pants and squatted to piss at one point. Other than that we didn’t twitch until I was satisfied that nothing was moving in there.
Breaking in proved unnecessary, the front door wasn’t locked. I stood in the kitchen, breathing the hot, stale air. No smell of rotting meat and no sounds. I moved around the room, opening cupboards and not believing how untouched everything was. In Sydney most places were stripped-out wrecks, here it could be that the owners were simply away for the weekend.
Else wandered off while I stacked cans of food on the bench next to a can opener.
‘Uuuuuuuugh!’ Else’s choked scream sent me dashing through into the next room, the sudden stink of rotting meat struck me like a hammer in the face. I bounded through the door before I remembered that I didn’t have a weapon in my hand.
The girl had puked thin bile all down the edge of a chest freezer, grey with dust and smudged with her fingerprints. Now she was on her knees heaving her guts out.
‘Ah shit. Did you open that?’ I pointed.
‘Unnghh…’ Else groaned and dry retched again.
‘Don’t open those, just… don’t.’ I helped her up and lead her back to the kitchen. Cracking open a can of fruit juice I had to hold her chin and pour it in, she kept turning her head away and whining.
Two cans of juice washed the puke taste away and she even managed half a can of pears for dessert.
After I locked the place up we slept in the master bedroom until well after dawn.
CHAPTER 11
Without Else I could have stayed in Crystal Brook, happily taking up sheep farming and probably sheep shagging too. But each new day brought her closer to her best-before date. Woomera might be a pipe-dream but getting her there and finding some answers was my only priority. We scoured other houses, found some well gnawed skeletons and a few dried up mummies, all of which fascinated Else. We found the biggest collection of the peaceful dead in a small church. Half the town seemed to have gathered here, a few hundred judging by the neat rows of skulls. I figured they got together and as a group they’d somehow punched their tickets. Leaving a volunteer to cut their heads off before they got back up again. I found the short-straw holder sitting in a s
mall room at the back of the church. The blasted remains of his skull still resting on the muzzle of the shotgun.
For the rest of the day we gathered supplies, pored over a map I found and searched for fuel. Cars and trucks lined the streets, neatly parked in driveways and garages, but the faded signs on the petrol stations we found all declared NO GAS!
At one end of town we found the old sports field. The white H’s of the rugby posts at either end would never see a try scored under them again. Would the idea of the game be lost within a few generations?
So many things were extinct now. Weekend football games, fast-food restaurants, supermarkets, radio, TV, movies and, the internet. The entire world now stood as empty as that rugby field.
Else wandered over to a pit at the edge of the sports ground. The ditch digger they used to make it was still parked at one end.
The good people of Crystal Brook had taken the government’s infection control instructions seriously. Destroy the brain of infected persons and burn the remains. There must have been a hundred charred corpses twisted around each other and barely covered with dirt. Melted plastic fuel containers poked through the crust in places.
The sheer sides of the pit had been gouged smooth by the digger. The ash blackened dirt showed marks where fingers had clawed in a desperate struggle to climb out of the pit. I’d seen this kind of thing before. Infected people trying to escape the fire while the survivors smashed them down. I wondered how many of these people had turned, or were in fact infected when they were burned to death.
‘Real dead?’ Else whispered looking into the hole.
‘Real dead,’ I replied and lead her away.
Heading west we found the railway line on the edge of town. Crystal Brook had a small station and the faded map showed the tracks headed towards Port Pirie north-west of town. Else and I both carried heavy packs, loaded with bottles of water, canned food and books. We’d argued over those books. At least I’d argued, she’d just put them back in her bag when my back was turned even though she could barely read.
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