Tankbread

by Paul Mannering

  ‘You can give me a hand with the re-fuelling,’ Sister Mary announced and trudged off through the ash towards a concrete shed. Soon enough she set me to working a hand pump, drawing fuel up from somewhere deep under ground where a precious few gallons remained untouched.

  ‘Sister,’ I called to her. ‘I gotta ask, how the hell do you keep doing this? Finding gas for your bird I mean.’

  The nun drew her shoulders back and stared coldly down her nose at me. ‘The wise and the faithful do not question the Lord’s providence.’

  ‘That another Keer-guard saying?’

  ‘Kierkegaard, and no. If you had faith, you might have a future.’ Sister Mary walked away, speaking to Else who was crouched in the dust drawing with a stick. I couldn’t tell what she said but Else stood up abruptly, casting her stick aside and looking chastised. I worked the pump handle until it sucked air and the pump shuddered and the flow became a trickle.

  ‘That’s it, she’s done.’ I walked out of the shed. The night sky glistened overhead like a spray of broken glass and the blackened ground just made the evening seem darker.

  Sister Mary sealed the fuel tanks on the helicopter and we stood next to it for a moment.

  ‘Good luck, may God be with you,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, see you around sister, and thanks,’ I stepped back, swinging the M16 onto my shoulder and making ready to head out and find shelter for the night.

  Else hesitated and then engulfed Sister Mary in a hug. ‘Thank you,’ she said, speaking earnestly in the older woman’s ear. ‘You’re belief system is fundamentally flawed in ways I can’t begin to describe. But I see that it gives you a sense of security and absolves you of the guilt you feel for the traumas of your past.’ Else relaxed and held the nun at arm’s length. ‘So God go with you too Sister, because that’s your paradigm.’

  Else smiled warmly until Sister Mary blinked and when the nun spoke her words came out in an angry hiss. ‘He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.’

  Else flinched like she’d been struck. Sister Mary’s words didn’t bother her, but the venom behind them and the look in her eyes were a harsh lesson.

  The girl dropped her hands and moved back. ‘I don’t…’ she shook her head.

  ‘Else, we need to go,’ I said. Else nodded and we walked together across the burnt plain, leaving Sister Mary to fire up her helicopter and vanish into the darkness for the last time.

  ‘Can we get another Humvee?’ Else asked as we walked.

  ‘Doubt it, maybe a pick-up, or a car, or a motorbike. Gonna have to walk tonight though.’

  Else nodded. ‘I think we should run,’ she said.

  ‘Run? In the dark why would you want to do that?’

  ‘Because there are at least a thousand dead people coming up behind us.’

  I twisted round; the shadows just got darker the harder I stared into them. ‘How can you tell?’ I said, walking faster.

  ‘I hear them.’

  ‘You mean like moaning and walking and stuff?’ Our walking broke into a trot and the grass whipped under our feet.

  ‘No.’ Else ran easily, her long legs reaching out in a ground-eating stride. ‘I mean I can hear them. Not what they are saying. What they are sensing and responding to.’

  ‘Assuming you are right and I’m not saying you are, but if you are, what the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Else managed a half-shrug as she ran. ‘You’ll think I’m crazy.’

  ‘Well if you are crazy I won’t tell anyone.’ We ran on into the night, reaching the Hume highway where we slowed down and started walking. ‘Are they still coming?’ I asked. I couldn’t see a damn thing in the dark.

  ‘Some came as far as the air-field. Then they got confused by the helicopter flying the other way. They don’t like noise, it distresses them. They hear everything. They see everything. Lights are too bright, the rasp of living breath is too loud.’

  ‘They have like super-hearing and vision?’

  ‘No,’ Else scowled, her lack of knowledge causing her deep annoyance. ‘We hear things, we see things. We smell, taste and feel. But we don’t see and hear and feel everything.’

  ‘Well no, of course not.’

  Else stopped walking, her face tense with concentration. ‘Imagine if you couldn’t filter it all out. The sounds and the smells and the sights of the world. If everything just came straight in. No way to ignore it.’

  I couldn’t imagine it and said as much.

  ‘It would be the worst thing in the world. I think the genetically engineered virus that reanimates the dead tissue, it destroys those filters in the brain. The body functions but the mind is ripped open.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I read books. I asked Donna lot of questions, and when I was asleep in the hospital underground, I could hear the scientists talking. They know so much and they were making more evols. Trying to make them safe.’

  ‘Safe? How the fuck do they think they can make them safe?!’ I shouted, making Else wince and shy away.

  ‘The idea was soldiers! Soldiers who don’t die! They can get up again and keep killing!’

  ‘Well they sure got that right! They get right back up again and they keep right on killing!’

  Else started crying, great wracking sobs that shook her frame, tears welling in her eyes. ‘It’s not my fault!’ she screamed, loud enough to raise the galahs from the nearby trees.

  I watched her cry, thinking about the hundreds of miles we’d travelled together, the shit we’d been through, the times we’d fought and killed and kept fighting.

  ‘What are we supposed to do in Sydney? We go to the Opera House? What if they’re all gone?’ It felt weird to be asking Else questions for once.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We can still stop them,’ Else walked off, winding her way among the abandoned cars.

  CHAPTER 34

  From Goulbon to Sydney is a journey of nearly 200 kilometres. We found shelter that night in an abandoned farmhouse. The skeletal remains of a dog lay on the porch, the collar and chain still around it’s neck. We went in through the front door, the shriek of the rusted hinges making us both freeze and listen intently for a long minute.

  After barricading a bedroom door and stripping the dust filled bedding onto the floor, we slept until late the next afternoon. I woke up and rolled onto my back, listening to the rats and possums in the walls and roof - slowly becoming aware of an Else shaped emptiness on the bed next to me.

  With a sigh I rolled off the bed and stretched. We had no food or water and only limited ammunition. Gunshots would attract unwelcome attention and we were without vehicles or any easy means of escape.

  I wandered the upper level of the house and saw no sign of Else’s passing in the unbroken carpets of dust. Only the stairs to the ground floor showed our footprints so I headed down and into the kitchen.

  Else sat cross-legged on the floor surrounded by books. Two of them lay open in her lap and she held two more in place under her feet. I watched as she absently dipped her fingers into a large tin of dog food, scooped out the rich meat paste and ate it. Her eyes scanned a sheet before flicking to the next book while she turned the pages with wet fingers between mouthfuls.

  ‘What flavour you got there?’ I said announcing my presence.

  ‘Meat,’ she said. Picking up the can she deciphered the faded label. ‘Dog, I think.’

  ‘Care to share?’ I opened kitchen drawers and collected cutlery. Sitting down next to Else on the cool tiles of the floor I took the can she offered. ‘It’s not dog meat, it’s what people used to feed to their dogs,’ I explained.

  ‘Lucky dogs,’ Else grinned and picked up one of her books. ‘History, science, poetry, religion, politics, economics, engineering. How the fuck are we supposed to learn it all in one life time?’

  ‘Most people didn’t. Instead you focus on one thing. You learn a little bit about lots of things
and a lot about something specific. Some people learned all about science, like Donna. She might know about Shakespeare,’ I picked up the collected works of the Bard from the floor and hefted it for emphasis. ‘But she probably doesn’t know everything there is to know about what he wrote.’

  Else sucked her fingers clean, ‘How do you know what to learn and what to ignore?’

  ‘Some people decide what they want to do pretty young. Others never really work it out and just do whatever.’

  ‘I’m young, I can still decide, right?’

  ‘Sure,’ I finished the spoonful of meaty dog-chow and rested my head against the cupboard with a sigh.

  ‘Do you know how old you are?’ I asked.

  ‘Thirty-seven days,’ she said promptly. ‘How old are you?’

  I had to think about it. ‘I was nineteen the year of the panic. I think it’s been at least ten years since then.’

  ‘You could live to be eighty. Or older,’ Else said eyeing me critically.

  ‘Sure, I don’t smoke, I eat healthy, and I get regular exercise. I could live to be a hundred.’

  Else nodded, ‘I’d like that.’ She stood up and offered me a hand. ‘Come on old man, we have a long way to go.’

  We filled my pack with tins of dog food and canned fruit.

  Clouds had gathered, a heavy storm front pushing in from the south. The parched ground seemed almost expectant - we hadn’t seen real rain for months.

  ‘Is that rain?’ Else said shielding her eyes and staring.

  ‘Yup, may come to nothing though. It hasn’t rained for ages.’

  The sky grew dark and the smell of wet earth came on the rising breeze. Chilled by the southerly damp we walked on until the rain burst down on us. It fell roaring on the rusting steel shells of the empty cars and drumming on the long black-top of the highway.

  ‘Will it flood?’ Else yelled, staring around in the darkness.

  ‘Probably,’ I said, shivering in the deluge. We trudged on, splashing in puddles now and blind to anything that might be lurking or hunting us in the growing darkness.

  After an hour in the rain even Else stopped talking. She walked now, arms wrapped around herself, head down and trembling with bone-deep cold.

  ‘Ma-Marulan…’ Else said and waved at a sign. The town of Marulan, another of those small satellite towns that dotted the Australian countryside.

  ‘Shelter.’ I had to physically guide Else off the highway, across the rough ground to a side road and into an old petrol station. Feral evols don’t care if it’s night or day. They don’t seem to care about anything except eating. Else didn’t have a theory on why they ate the living. Maybe we just pissed them off somehow.

  We crossed the forecourt, where a car had driven into the bowsers, shearing one of them right off the concrete island. The car doors stood open and a suitcase hung half out of the car, the lid open and the clothing inside scattered like spilt guts. Years of weather had faded the fabric to grey-brown rags. I went around the car, watching for zombies in the store. Nothing moved inside and motioning Else to keep silent I opened the door. The stale air inside puffed out in a fetid gust like a dry fart. We waited a moment, listening hard, then went inside and let the door sigh shut behind us.

  Like most shops on highways near major urban centres this one had been stripped early on. People fought to the death over fuel, food and anything they considered to be emergency supplies. I remember seeing a guy being knifed to death over a twin pack of AA batteries. He bled out on the floor of a petrol station like this one, coming back a few minutes later and taking three others out before we hacked them down. I left the scene after we cleaned up and saw his wife and three children outside in their overloaded station wagon. Her face ashen with the realisation that daddy wasn’t going to get them to safety.

  Else’s teeth chattered and she grabbed my arm, her face twisting in panic. ‘Wh-wha-what’s wrong with me?’ She managed to blurt.

  ‘You’re cold, your body shakes to try and warm you up. We need to get you dry and warm. It’ll stop then.’

  She looked at me hard, seeing if I were bullshitting her in some way. I walked across the dark and empty aisles. Trash, windblown dirt and leaves, no fresh footprints or smears in the grime. I found the bathroom, it had one of those roller towels that hadn’t rotted away completely. I tore some long sections and showed Else how to rub herself down and then clean her sword to make sure it didn’t rust. Her shivering eased and we scrounged for any overlooked food. I found a chocolate bar, kicked under the counter. Tearing the wrapper open the chocolate had gone dry and faded but it smelled okay. I broke it up and offered a chunk to Else. She sniffed it like I had. ‘It looks like shit,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah but it tastes like heaven,’ I grinned through sticky brown teeth. She ate her share, took the rest of mine and crawled around on the floor peering under every shelf for more.

  The window in the small office out the back had bars over it. The glass lay in shards on the floor and thick mould grew up the walls. Mushrooms grew out of a mound of something dead in the corner. Sleeping in here wasn’t going to be an option.

  I opened the door to the workshop. The rain thundered on the roof out here and an SUV sat right over the pit. I walked around the perimeter of the room. Tools, rat-chewed paper and spray cans were scattered on benches and the floor. In the back corner I found a 44-gallon drum with a hand-pump attached. I unscrewed the cap and took a careful sniff of the contents. Petrol. More than enough to fill that SUV tank by the weight of the drum. Grinning to myself I checked another bench, finding a set of keys on the floor that looked like they might fit the truck parked right behind me. I opened the door and yelled. ‘Hey Else, come check this out.’ She got up from where she’d been poring over maps and I stepped aside. ‘Your carriage awaits.’

  ‘Cool. I have maps,’ she announced.

  ‘Great, grab them and get in.’

  Else shook her head. ‘I have them, in here,’ she tapped her temple. I didn’t argue; thinking about how this girl’s mind worked was pointless.

  The key’s fitted and I pulled the fuel drum on its trolley close enough to pump the tank full. I opened up the hood and checked the wiring. The battery terminals were crusted with green corrosion but the engine was in remarkable condition for an abandoned vehicle. I hunted around the workbench and found a wire-brush and cleaned the crap off the battery. I checked the oil and water, both were fine. Climbing into the cab I took a deep breath and turned the key. The engine turned over, it didn’t start, but it did turn over. I pumped the gas pedal and tried again, the engine coughed, whined and then caught. Leaving it idling I slid out and trotted back to the garage door. Pulling on a chain pulley I started winding the door up. It had been so long since we had seen evols that I got sloppy. As the garage door rolled up, I looked back to give Else a thumbs up. The rain still poured down outside, and I yanked again on the chain, the door slid up past my head and I came face to face with an evol. With a snarl his bottom jaw clicked wide. His black tongue lolled out and I leapt back with a yell. Dead hands snatched at my shirt and I dragged the dead man with me.

  ‘Fuck!’ I screamed in shock. Grey teeth lunged for my neck. I punched him in the throat. His head cracked back as he thrashed and growled.

  Struggling to keep my footing on the concrete floor I shoved back. The evol’s teeth snapped an inch from my arm and I got a clear foot of space between us. Snatching up a wrench I swung it and smashed the dead bastard’s nose right off his face. He didn’t stop. Instead he gurgled and lunged at me. I took the wrench in both hands and smashed it down on his head. The evol staggered, his legs spasmed and jerked, sending him crashing to the floor.

  Breathing hard I saw more of them coming across the forecourt. In ones and twos they stumbled in out of the rain. A woman staggered into view, a small naked toddler waddling after her, it’s tiny arms held up making a plaintive mewling sound that she ignored.

  I threw open the car door and leapt in behind the whe
el. ‘I could have used some help there you know?’ I said to Else as I dropped the SUV into reverse and ran it straight back. We hit the end of the crashed car and sent it spinning into the woman with the toddler. The woman went flying and the kid splattered under our wheels.

  We ran a half dozen zombies down getting onto the highway. This truck had not been there since The Panic, and I hoped who ever parked it up was now too dead to care we had taken it. The wheels spun in the wet as I slammed it into drive and we fish-tailed, wiping out two more of the hungry dead before swerving through the lines of empty cars and getting underway.

  CHAPTER 35

  I took us off the road when I had to, keeping our nose pointed east and skirting around the regular traffic jams. Evols patrolled along the road, climbing over cars and reaching out to us as we drove past. I tried not to think about what would happen if we ran out of gas, or broke down, or stopped to ask for directions.

  We drove on until the rain stopped and I pulled up in the middle of the road. The Hume highway ran to four lanes here, and with no evols in sight we made ourselves look like any other abandoned vehicle. Else settled in the back seat, I hunkered down behind the wheel and tried to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the face of the zombie from the garage an inch from my own. Those blackened teeth bared and lunging for my face. I sat there in the dark watching through the darkened glass as silhouettes of the moving dead passed aimlessly among the cars ahead. A world without the walking dead seemed like a dream, but maybe a dream worth giving everything for. To dismiss any possibility for an end to this horror would be to give up on life itself. The survivors didn’t fight and hide and keep fighting for nothing. We were the ones who did whatever it took to get through each day. Knowing that Else sleeping behind me might have an answer, the secret to some kind of cure, that gave me hope. It was precious little, but it was enough.

  My eyes were closing when I saw something larger than a man moving through the cars. I blinked, staring hard into the dark; it could be a cow, or a roo. Something washed down from the thin pine forest around us.