Tankbread

by Paul Mannering

  After breakfast and a stretch we loaded up again. Donna went for the shotgun seat and Else growled until the doctor threw her hands up in the air and said, ‘What ever!’ before retreating to the back seat again. As I drove Else explored a first aid manual she’d found under the map in the glove box. She read it while tracing the various parts of her body shown in the anatomy diagrams with a finger.

  ‘Next stop, Port Germein,’ I said.

  ‘Lisa and the kittens!’ Else leaned forward grinning. ‘This time we should try and stay long enough to actually see Leo’s babies. They probably think we’re dead now.’

  ‘Sure, and we need to tell them about Harris,’ I said and Else sat back her smile evaporating.

  The home of Daisy-Mae, Lynne, Jen and little Lisa had changed a lot since we last visited. High walls and strong fences still surrounded the fortified town and they still had a major zombie problem. I stood on the roof of the Humvee, looking through a fine pair of military grade binoculars at the siege of Port Germein. The zombies outside the fences were thin on the ground, but smoke rose from various out-of-control fires inside the perimeter. From this distance I couldn’t hear gunfire or any sounds of life.

  ‘Where is that?’ Donna stood looking across the desert at the town.

  ‘Port Germein. We have friends there,’ I said.

  Donna didn’t say a word, she’d lost a lot of her friends recently. She just folded her arms, hugged herself, and stared.

  ‘Okay, what we are going to do is lock up tight, drive in slowly, see if there is anyone left alive in there, and then drive out again. We do not leave the vehicle. We do not stop. We go in we get out. Understand?’

  ‘But Lisa?’ Else said.

  ‘We do not stop,’ I repeated.

  ‘I don’t know why we’re even getting that close,’ Donna said.

  ‘Because I need to know what happened. I need to see it for myself,’ I said. ‘Now let’s go.’

  We crossed the railway line, the heavy train entrance gates still closed. We drove down the eastern perimeter until we found the breach. A light plane had crashed, coming down only a few meters from the fence and then sliding right through the barrier. I drove slowly up to the hole, the plane, a single engine thing of fibreglass and aluminium had burned down to ashes, only the twisted propeller and a bit of wing frame remained. The dead now walked the streets of Port Germein. The only corpses we saw that weren’t moving had been skeletonised, pulled down by the tide of evols washing over the defenders. The Humvee rolled quietly along the streets and like flypaper we gathered a sticky line of undead vermin behind us.

  I circled a few blocks, the theatre where I watched the Port Germein Players performing highlights from one of my favourite childhood movies was a smouldering ruin. We drove past Lynne’s house, the front door stood open and I hoped they made it out okay.

  The growing mob of evols pressing in around us couldn’t block the Humvee. I gunned the engine slightly and we bumped forward, crushing at least three of them under our fat tires.

  ‘Fuckers,’ I hissed. Then in a moment of savage fury I slammed on the brakes. The dead clustered around us, slapping and moaning. They scratched at the armoured glass and scrabbled to open the locked doors, desperate to crack open the hard shell and feast on the soft meat inside. I waited, my teeth bared, breathing in an angry hiss.

  ‘What are you doing?! You said we don’t stop!’ Donna twisted in the back seat, checking all the doors and windows around her, seeing nothing but vacant, feral hunger in the dozens of faces only a few feet away.

  Taking a deep breath I dropped the Humvee into reverse and dropped the clutch. The engine roared as the truck leapt backwards. Donna bouncing off the rear of the front seat, Else hanging on, her face pale. We ploughed through the dead. Necrotic flesh splattering up the windows as we crushed them. I drove backwards until the road was clear. Here I paused again. The remaining zombies muddled forward. I noticed one, a woman with fresh blood staining her face and clothes. She pushed at her dead brethren, driving them back, herding them out of harms way. She couldn’t have been dead long and she’d recently been feeding well. Her brain was still firing enough to know what the older, hungrier, feral dead could not see coming. I engaged the gears and floored the accelerator, at fifty k’s an hour we hit them again. Blood and visceral shit sprayed up as the Humvee bounced and rocked. The smart woman’s severed head, eyes closing at last, bounced off the windscreen.

  I laughed maniacally. Skidding to a halt I looked back, judging my next pass.

  ‘People!’ Else shouted, pointing to the roof of a nearby building.

  I craned forward, activating the windscreen wipers to clear some of the caked shit and see where Else pointed. On top of the pub someone waved a towel. It wasn’t white, so I guessed it wasn’t the evols attempting to surrender. I drove forward. ‘Else, open the top hatch, give them a shout.’

  She did, standing up in the top gunner’s position, waving and yelling ‘Hello! We’re not dead!’

  ‘Come round the back!’ the towel waver yelled back. I drove around the corner, a corrugated iron gate swung open beside us and I drove in, ordering Else to come down and close the hatch.

  We waited while the gate closed and a young man with long red hair dropped down from the fire escape on the side of the building. I cautiously cracked open a window.

  ‘Nice work,’ the red head said.

  ‘Thanks, where’s Daisy-Mae?’ I asked.

  ‘You ran her over about two minutes ago. Come on up, I’ll buy you a beer.’ He stepped back and I took the M16 in hand and exited the Humvee. Else and Donna followed and we climbed up the fire escape to the first level. Our host pulled the ladder up after us, before leading the way to the roof top beer garden.

  CHAPTER 28

  ‘About a week ago, middle of the night, we hear this noise, like a fly with engine trouble. Too late we realise it’s a plane coming down, right on top of us!’ Martin paused to take a drink from his can of beer. ‘Then all hell broke loose! People are yelling fire! Fire! And zombies! People are running for the fences, others are running for shelter. The fire really messed things up. The evols smartened up and came over the fence on the other side of town. We were all watching the plane burn and arguing about how we were going to fill the hole in the fence when the fire went out. By the time we realised the entire zombie nation of Australia was climbing up our arses, it was too late.’

  I recognised Martin as one of the actors from movie night. Else watched entranced as he told his tale of the fall of Port Germein, with full sound effects, actions and constant switching between key characters.

  I stood on the edge of the roof, looking down at the carnage on the street below. We’d made a dent in the local evol population, but more kept coming. They paraded listlessly up and down the street, tripping over the fallen and wandering off out of sight.

  ‘There was a woman called Lynne and her partner, Jen. They had a little girl, Lisa. What happened to them?’ I asked.

  ‘I think Lynne’s alive. There’s some live locals upstairs at Nancy’s place. About a block that way,’ Martin waved at the street. ‘She might be with them.’

  ‘I’ll need to get down there,’ I said.

  ‘Knock yourself out mate, I’ll close the gate after you.’

  I regarded Martin for a moment. ‘If you can shoot you could come with us. We could use you.’

  ‘Nuh, got everything I need right here. They locked the beer up, locked it up and had an armed guard on it. Not any more. I’m going to drink myself to death and then worry about what happens next.’

  ‘You said we weren’t going to stop,’ Donna reminded me again.

  ‘I know what I said. C’mon Else, it’s time to go.’

  We loaded up and waved to Martin, who saluted us with a fresh can of beer and pulled the rope to unlatch the gate.

  I pulled out into the street. The beer had been warm, but there’s nothing like it when you’re really thirsty. I crawled the Humvee d
own the street, heading towards the sign marked ‘Nancy’s Café’.

  Else climbed up through the hatch and yelled, ‘Hello! We’re alive!’ A second floor window over the café veranda opened and a grey-head popped out. ‘Who the hell are you?’ the woman called down.

  ‘I’m Else! We came back, but not like zombies. We came back like live people!’ The head disappeared and a moment later a man with a rifle appeared at the window.

  ‘Whaddya want?’ he shouted.

  ‘We want to see Leo’s kittens!’ Else called back. I had to tug on her pant leg to get her to come down from the hatch.

  Taking her place, I explained who we were and that we were looking for Lynne and her family.

  ‘Yeah, she’s here. Can you come up on the veranda?’

  With helping hands pulling us up we climbed from the roof of the Humvee onto the veranda and then in through the second level window.

  The man with the rifle introduced himself as Colin. The grey headed woman closed the window once we were all inside. ‘Keep watch, Colin. Some of those buggers might get crafty and try to climb up the same way,’ she said. ‘I’m Nancy by the way.’

  The stairs down to the ground floor of Nancy’s café were blocked off and another armed guard stood on the landing.

  ‘Is Lynne here?’ I asked. I didn’t see any faces I recognised among the few survivors.

  ‘Lynne is in here,’ Nancy said and took me through to a small sitting room. Lynne sat under a window, her knees drawn up to her chin, her hands curled into tights fists against her chest and a cold look of complete emptiness on her face.

  ‘Lynne, some friends here to see you,’ Nancy said gently and patted me on the arm. ‘She could use the company, poor dear has had quite a shock.’

  I swallowed hard; no sign of Jen, no sign of little Lisa. I crouched down in front of the woman. ‘Hey Lynne. It’s me.’ She didn’t respond, I reached out and touched her knee. Lynne’s head jerked slightly and she finally made eye contact. ‘Hey you,’ I said. No response. ‘Lynne, where’s Lisa?’ Lynne blinked, and slowly unclenched one fist, her fingers uncurling as she raised her hand into the light. Resting in the palm of her hand was a single, spent rifle bullet casing.

  CHAPTER 29

  It took some time to convince Else that Leo, her kittens, and Lisa were not in residence. After that, she lost interest in Nancy’s. They were surviving here, mostly on a mix of Nancy’s cheerful can-do-attitude and a wilful ignorance of the trouble they were in.

  We attended an impromptu meeting in the living room. I explained where we had come from and where we were going, but left out the details of why. No one begged to join us - our destination was just as dangerous as their current situation.

  There was no exchange of supplies, just good wishes and some half-hearted goodbyes between strangers. Colin, the man watching the window, stepped aside.

  ‘They like your ride,’ he said. I looked - evols were crawling up over the Humvee cab, slapping their hands against the locked hatch and generally leaving greasy marks on the paintwork.

  I climbed out on to the veranda roof and Colin followed. ‘How much ammo do you have?’ I said.

  ‘Enough,’ he replied and worked the bolt action on his .303. ‘I’ll take the thousand on the left, you take the thousand on the right,’ he added. Yeah it was an old joke, but I half laughed. It seemed like there might be a thousand evols below us, all trying to reach up and claim the prize.

  We started killing. The M16 on single shot at close range was devastating. Colin and his heavy rifle on my right blew smoke and fire and we brought death from above to a number of them. I counted close to twenty fallen bodies around the Humvee when we stopped. More came from both ends of the street, the sound of gunfire drawing them in. Else came out through the window, gripping her sword.

  ‘Thanks man,’ I said to Colin and jumped from the veranda down to the roof of the Humvee. Unlocking the hatch, I called Else and Donna down. Else slipped inside like Alice going down the rabbit hole. Donna hesitated on the veranda roof as the next wave of dead arrived. I had to use my boot to push Else back down inside the truck.

  Colin reloaded and fired into their midst, making each shot count, steady as a heartbeat. I emptied my second clip, kicking the last zombie hard enough in the face to rip his lower jaw off his stinking face.

  ‘Donna! Get down here or stay and rot!’ I bellowed at the sky and she thudded down on the roof beside me.

  ‘We don’t stop!’ she yelled and jumped down to me. Evols reached and clawed at her clothes as she went headfirst through the hatch.

  I clubbed a few dead-heads and got ready to get inside. Someone dropped from the veranda to land beside me. Lynne, armed with an axe. She swung it round. I threw myself flat and she buried it in the neck of an evol rising up behind me.

  ‘What are you doing!?’ I yelled. Stupid questions take precedence when you are in shock.

  She ignored me and jumped down to the hood of the Humvee. From there she dropped to the ground. The dead swarmed forward and Lynne stood ready, the axe hanging from her hands. The first one reached out to claw at her face and she brought the axe up, knocked the zombie back and chopped the axe head deep into its shoulder.

  ‘Else! The other gun! Get it!’ A moment later the second M16 popped up through the hatch. I dropped the empty one down the hole and flicked the safety off. Lynne spun like a dervish. The axe crashed down, severing limbs, cutting chunks from heads and disembowelling evols on all sides. She never said a word, never howled a battle cry and never screamed. The grieving woman just killed. I fired, trying to keep her safe, picking off the ones coming up behind her as she worked her way forward. The zombies didn’t come fast enough so she strode out to meet them, swinging the axe and decapitating a naked woman. Colin covered my back from the café, picking off any who got close enough to come up the back of the Humvee.

  Soon Lynne stood on a slick mound of torn and crushed bodies. Like some ancient goddess of war she stood on the killing pile and surveyed the slaughter around her.

  Port Germein’s zombie population had been decimated and the surviving meat might have a chance after all. With someone like Lynne on our side, the future looked bright.

  The cold anger flowed out of her shoulders and I watched as she sagged, sinking to her knees amidst the bloodshed. A small child, her lips chewed off, exposing ragged teeth, stumbled out of the shadows of a building. This girl was older than Lisa, maybe seven, born after the end of the world, and still one of its casualties.

  Lynne saw the child and sank to her knees, the girl tottered forward, one leg trailing, the flesh eaten off her calf. She reached out to Lynne. I raised the M16 and sighted down the barrel. The girl got close, Lynne blocked my view. I lowered the rifle and yelled a warning, but the woman took the dead child in her arms and held her as the little girl bit deep into her throat. Lynne’s blood gushed, dousing the kid in a red torrent. The zombie girl gulped it down and Lynne slowly toppled over, pulling the evol into a tight embrace with her as she fell.

  By the time I got myself inside, the truck was covered with the dead again. I closed the hatch, crushing fingers. The press of bodies trying to get inside blocked our view on all sides. The interior went dark and hot as I started the engine. We slowly rolled backwards. Bodies crushed and burst under our wheels, guts and visceral mucous spurting in all directions.

  I reversed to the end of the block, then spun the wheel and pointed us towards the road out of town. We ran evols down, and scraped a few off by driving close to buildings and cars. Only when we had passed through the ruptured fence did I let Else climb up and hack the left-overs off with her sword from the gunners position in the hatch.

  CHAPTER 30

  The drive through the countryside of South Australia took us through the hills and forestlands of the Murray Town Road. I drove carefully, the myriad twists and turns of the two-lane highway hid fallen trees, crashed vehicles, and once an evol who splattered through the Humvee’s bull bars.
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  When we first passed this way we rode in Harris’ train following the line along the flatter land to the south. Else climbed up and stared in wonder at the trees. Donna turned out to know a gum from a pine tree, so when Else started asking what the trees were called, Donna started giving answers, common and Latin names for everything Else could see.

  I didn’t feel like talking, that look in Lynne’s eyes as she went out to avenge her loss still gnawed at me. After an hour Donna squeezed up beside Else in the gun hatch and they were soon chatting away like old girl-friends.

  After the hills and the scrubby forest came rolling hills of dry grassland. The road hazards here were the wandering stock, sheep so laden with wool they could barely move. Cattle roamed too, grazing along the road, and moving in giant herds. If you could find a way to transport them back safely to populated areas, you’d make a killing in the fresh meat market.

  Turning right onto B82, the Main North Road, I eased us into a herd of milling cows. Most of them moved out of the way, but a few big steers, with horns and balls that had never been clipped or truly tested, pawed the ground. I resisted the urge to lean on the horn or fire a shot. Stampeding cattle would run right over the top of us, and that could cause real problems. We eased through, the stink of fresh cow shit adding to the other aromas of the great outdoors.

  Night fell as we reached the town of Wirrabara. A sign at the border proudly proclaimed, 127 Days Without Infection, a bloody hand print smeared across the ‘7.’

  In the centre of town we passed the usual collection of boarded up shops and houses, bones scattered across the streets, and the occasional zombie. The dead were so starved they barely registered our passing, shuffling in a daze or just standing lost and forever alone in the baking summer heat.

  We camped in Wirrabara for the night, stopping in an open park of long dead grass and concrete hard earth. We planned to sleep in the Humvee with the windows cracked for air.