Solo

by Dan Yaeger

  I stumbled into that awful building to gather myself and contemplate my fate or perhaps wait for the unnatural to take its course. “If only I had ammunition for the rifles I had in the car,” I lamented, I would have ended it then. But fate had other plans for me and it was just as well the ammunition was unavailable for a quick but violent end to my days. I was one of the truly immune and I would find that out over the following week. My self-imposed quarantine had resulted in being isolated, alone and yet, surrounded.

  Back to reality. I don’t know how much time had passed in that moment as I recalled New Bolaro but I had fought off the zombies and had been running on adrenaline for over an hour. I had held on, bracing that door for longer than I could have cared to remember. It felt like forever and my whole body ached from the sheer force of what I was up against. There were massive, synchronised waves of impact where the zombies found some momentum and rhythm together, as if the Divine virus was in harmony for a small moment. I was knocked off my feet and thought I would be overrun. As I rose up, my mind in slow motion, I was ready to face the wave of inhuman hate and hunger, to the bitter end.

  My luck changed. All of a sudden the rain of zombie bodies slowed and then stopped. “Is it over? Do I die another day” I wondered. “Did I somehow become unconscious and I would never awaken? Was I dead?” I questioned my own lucidity and existence, the relationship between being knocked down and the secession of noise. With an eerie silence and calm it had all stopped, leaving me unsure as to what had just happened. Bewildered, disoriented and feeling lucky to be alive, I crept to the living room window, lifting my binoculars to gaze upon the hilly scene and work out what had transpired.

  I had thought of the Vikings and Valhalla only last night when eating a stew fit for Thor or Odin and it was as though they waved a hand in my favour. That metaphor came to mind when I saw an amazing scene of salvation before me, the likes of which I would revere, remember and regale again. What I gazed upon was like the Australian bush equivalent to Brunhilda and her cohort of helmed maidens, Valkyries, providing deliverance to a beleaguered warrior. A huge mob of Kangaroos had been in flight and landed at their favourite grazing ground on these rolling hills of the Waystation. The remaining thirty or so zombies had seen this opportunity for a huge feed and pursued this vast potential feast for protein to sustain the withered bodies that were home and incubators to the virus. The greater good of the virus had turned their attention from one small mass of sustenance (me) to the greater body of flesh offered by the kangaroos. I had been saved by these beautiful, majestic creatures that had thoughtlessly and innocently drawn the zombies away from me. I felt tearful, with thanks, and watched on as the kangaroos spied the zombies and hopped, fed and hopped onward, leading them away from the Waystation. They wouldn’t be caught by these clumsy predators and I was lifted out of my fear and sense of oblivion. “I’m fucking alive!” a smile cracked at the situation and in thanks to the native creatures that had innocently saved me.

  Luring the zombies as they went, the kangaroos saved my life and the Waystation. The Waystation was an important mid-point in my travels from my home to Tantangara. Forget sacred cows, I would always think of them as sacred kangaroos. From then on I would only shoot them for food under duress and hold them in a sort of reverence. They were innocent creatures who had saved my life and I needed to offer something in return. It was something precious in a world where almost all innocence was lost. “I’ll never shoot kangaroos unless I’m starving, thank you!” I said solemnly. I had to better than the zombies.

  The clean-up and effort to secure the Waystation took another day. The maimed and dismembered ghouls snapped and writhed as I finished them off with stabbing motions through the eyes or the skull. I built a funeral pyre of those that I had killed or finished; a total of 29 I could add to the count. I guessed there roughly thirty zombies from that group that were lurking in the bush. “Great; I’ll walk into Tantangara by night,” I thought sarcastically. It was a decision that was driven by hunger and the need to keep up some momentum and was still upright. By the end of that clean-up, I was hungry, low on food and exhausted. But it was time to move or return home, a failure. “Never give up,” and I was onward.

  I walked along the final stretch of road between the Waystation and Tantangara. The route somewhat avoided the hallowed ground of Tanny Hill; a place of great sacrifice. It was a year on and I was only just now ready to face that hill again, in person. Recalling it, by choice or nightmare, was something that haunted me most days or nights for the following year. But I had put my mind on other things , slowly but surely and I was feeling it was time to face what had happened.

  My feelings moved from being quite weak with hunger to upbeat, with the high-hopes of finding sustenance in Tantangara. I was trying to ignore my nerves of having to cross hallowed ground and I tried to stay positive, not descend into the tragedy of one year before.

  “Before, it would have been so different,” I said looking down on the beautiful alpine scene. If you had walked that route ten years earlier, there would have been lights everywhere as the evening had turned to night. People’s homes, the town, camp-sites and even sometimes boats on the water offered little indicators or people and their need for illumination. “Beacons of life.”

  All was quiet and all was either dead or undead; devoid of human life but flourishing. It was amazing how little light people needed to carry on. And I did.

  When your night vision was trained and truly left to set in over a number of hours, you can see with remarkable detail. “How much power did we waste back then?” I asked myself, thinking of former times. I shook my head and scoffed, thinking about all the waste from before. I thought about the lights we left burning for no-one in particular, excess air conditioning, all of the gadgets we had and all their various charging needs and the idle power requirements of most devices: massive waste. Having said that, I knew I would need a little lighting for interior locations so I had cranked the winder on my little survival torch to charge its battery. The whirring noise was better up here than down in Tantangara where it’s sound could attract an unwanted guest. It was that paranoia and fastidiousness that had kept me alive, kept me on edge and was a timely reminder that I needed to relax a little after the monolithic effort to “clean house” almost a year before. I had accomplished so much, at such a cost, and was sure it must have had some benefit.

  It was a cloudy night with a half-moon but the cloud offered a gentle spread of the moonlight. The silhouettes of trees on the mountainsides, the warming temperatures, and the smell of the fresh air: I love the Alps any time of day, any time of the year, and any era in time. If only it were nature that I could immerse myself in without fear or caution. Anxiety is something I lived with every day. I had learned to supress it and use it to my advantage but I bore its burden most days. The stresses had changed me. I was alone then but not free, certainly not without guilt. As I walked around Tanny Hill, down towards Tantangara, I felt like a weight lifted off me. That day, despite my expectations of being uncomfortable crossing alongside Tanny Hill, I was generally at peace after all. While I still bore the scars, time had healed the wounds. “Thanks boys,” I said to myself and anyone of the fallen that would listen.

  It was a nice night and would have been a perfect evening if I hadn’t been so hungry on account of the time I had lost fighting off the zombie horde earlier in the day. “I should have been in Tantangara already. If I had avoided that bloody horde, I could be kicking back enjoying a veritable feast off of what I could have found already”, I thought. All of that was wishful thinking; even without the zombie horde. While paranoid, you also had to be an optimist, to keep positive in dark times. If you really thought about the risks, you would crack. I allowed negativity into my mind but it was always decoys, like time, weather or hunger, things I could change or deal with. I had to repel the demons that threatened to drag me into depression or post-traumatic stress disorder or whatever I was suffering. I was suffering a
nd I really didn’t know how to get myself better at the time. “Perhaps if I visit them?” I thought. “Face your demons, Jesso.” I commanded myself, taking a detour, and decided to climb to the top of that hill from the road. “Life is persistent, I am persistent”, I thought and smiled as I trudged up to western side of Tanny Hill.

  One foot in front of the other; meter by meter and minute by minute, I carried on. “I will get to Tantangara, find a quiet spot, make some food and sleep in a safe, secured location,” I told myself. Staying positive was hard when you were so hungry. “Just say hi to the Samurai,” I told myself. But fatigue, emotions and hunger slowed my pace a little. My lungs increased their frequency and sweat formed on my brow and back.

  I had never experienced hunger, true hunger that bordered on starvation until after the Great Change. It is like pain. You can think of little else and it is hard to quell once it has become overwhelming. I wasn’t at that overwhelming stage yet, but I was getting there. When you are running a calorie deficit most of the time, there isn’t in reserve to accommodate for set-backs like at the Waystation. I trudged on, coming over the rise of Tanny Hill, to the scene of something so profound and decisive for so many.

  I gazed toward seven piles of stone atop the hill and nodded in respect. I was not completely ready to face Tanny Hill, I would never have been but I faced it anyway. I cried a little, touching each pile with my hands, much like a father touches his son’s head, gently and with caring. I felt sadness but also some peace; not what I had expected. I had been so anxious about going there and yet, I felt like I was amongst old friends who were happy to see me; emotions were there but I was at peace. I guess that I had cried enough tears, given enough thoughts and been through enough nightmares about that place; nowhere near as bad as I had manifested in my mind. With a quick glance, I noted that my wrecked four-wheel-drive was still where I left it. It held artefacts, items for future memorials and I was happy they were there for later. “What had transpired here, on this hill, would not be forgotten,” I nodded at each of the piles and acknowledged them with some reverence. “I will remember and others will too,” some more tears were wiped away and the wind picked up.

  I would contemplate doing more to remember those lost in the battle, a little later. First, I needed to obtain the inalienable human rights of shelter, food and water. The Samurai wouldn’t have wanted me to starve to death after everything we had fought for in the Battle of Tanny Hill. “The Samurai,” I said; you will be introduced to them soon.

  I glassed the area. “Clear as a bell,” I concluded. The battle was both lost and won; I was there and no zombies swarmed like a year before. But the price had been too high. Tantangara would never likely harbour such a zombie horde again but my brothers in arms, the Samurai, were lost.

  Confidence returned to survivor paranoia again. “But was it enough?” I questioned. I needed to keep up my scanning and be damn sure we had succeeded in dealing the decisive blow against the zombies. There were always more, no matter how few. And a zombie, just one, could take so many lives. I had to live it, the freedom, experience the place without zombies. I would have to truly believe through experience; imprint it into my mind that Tantangara was clear of the horde that had once swarmed it. I marched forward, walking on with a breeze at my back and a sense of quiet confidence and hope.

  This was to be the first foray into the outskirts of the town for a year. I had avoided the holiday park the year before; I had to get out of there after what had happened. Next to it was an outdoors shop that I had never explored but held the promise of useful things. “My first stop tonight,” I said to myself, trying to find the light side of a dark night and a dark past. I kept trudging on a track, down toward the lake.

  I was headed for the outdoors shop. Entering that building was something of a test, much like walking across Tanny Hill a short time before. If the outdoors shop was clear, there was the hope for the rest of Tantangara; that we had made a difference. I was facing the terror of a place that had once been swarming with zombies that had almost killed me, numerous times and I was looking for reassurance that it was relatively safe. It had been a battleground that now promised hope and supplies, more than paid for in blood. “Here, goes,” I uttered, with a deep breath and more than a little courage. By boots kept walking out into the open, feeling a little vulnerable but confident.

  On many occasions after the Great Change, I had felt like a rat scurrying out from a hole, hoping that I could feed without a rat trap going off or an eagle to swoop down and take me. As I entered Tantangara’s outskirts, I was feeling good and more like the eagle than the rat.

  While mostly looted, I held hopes the old outdoor shop or the holiday park may have a stash of food or useful items somewhere. “Think positive,” I reminded myself, while thinking of a potential zombie horde around my location. I shook my head and convinced myself that I was being over-anxious about things, especially since my costly victory of yester-year. But living like a mouse, having to survive against the odds will do that to a man. A little paranoia was a trait that had kept me alive.

  I arrived at a good vantage point above the tree-tops in front of me. My German binoculars were used to scan the area from on-high; clear and safe, not a zombie in sight. There was no movement anywhere around my target objective. Things were looking up as I was looking down.

  “And so it damn well should be”, I huffed, “I had wasted so many of the fuckers last time I was here”. That moment’s thought and I was back onto my mission. All was dark and quiet at the outdoor shop; my first target for reconnaissance. I walked, and then stalked like a deer-hunter, as I came closer and closer to the outdoor shop. All was quiet and deserted; dead but no undead.

  Chapter 7: Great Expectations, No Expectations

  The front door to the outdoors shop was smashed and I carefully opened it, avoiding broken glass as I entered. If there was a zombie nearby, the crackle and crush of glass underfoot could be a liability or prove fatal. It was the little things that mattered in survival. I took out my little hand-crank torch and pressed its switch. It was beautifully weak, good enough for interiors while not strong enough to catch the cold, brutal eyes of a zombie. I was a kilometre or so from the centre of town and my work leading up to today provided a high likelihood that I would be left alone. I hoped the struggle, on Tanny Hill almost a year ago, had proved to be of some value. I felt it but didn’t know it. My experience in Tantangara would prove things had changed markedly.

  The weak LED torch faithfully but modestly produced a beam that was more than enough to illuminate the room. Most of the good fishing gear was looted. Outdoors clothing, hats, lures and accessories had once hung on metal racks; all long gone. There were a few items still scattered on the floor which I would pick through meticulously. I had been past that shop but never stopped to explore it during the day. It was a pretty exposed location and I wasn’t in the habit of being in the open where I could be overrun. Prior to Tanny Hill, being overrun would have been a sure thing. I was right near Tantangara which could be or at least once was considered a zombie stronghold. I figured I would most likely fight my way in and out of Tantangara, but not on a scale as before. The Battle of Tanny Hill had made a difference and had all but destroyed the zombies of Tantangara. It was a terrible battle that left me emotional in thinking about it. Flashback; I was there again.

  I was taken back to a cool and crisp morning, the day before the battle at Svetlana’s Farm. Svetlana’s Farm may have been a fight for my life but it was nothing like the Battle of Tanny Hill. My old teacher’s proverb of disaster plus time equals humour would never apply to this one. This was a solemn memory where I fought, others fought, and we irreversibly and valiantly cleared Tantangara of death by dealing it. Let me reflect on this battle and share something that had affected me and the region, like so many things over the last few years, permanently.

  Zombies had been everywhere around Tantangara, like most population centres. People were zombies or were thei
r food, it was quite simple really. I had done a number of missions into Tantangara where I snatched and grabbed what I needed, getting out of there by the skin of my teeth. But all that changed on one terrible mission into Tantangara, a year before the time of this memoir.

  I remember arriving at Tanny Hill and scanning the valley with my binoculars. The scene was grim and did not bode well for survival. I was starved, desperate and despairing; the horde of dead, animated corpses was terrifying. I saw a scene of zombies crawling across the landscape like ants swarming a nest and I had no hope of getting into the town. There were too many and I was unsure of what to do next. I was struggling to live off the land, alone, and Tantangara was a much needed source of what people had left behind. With great fear and trepidation, I cut across open pasture to a closer vantage point; as if the view would somehow get better from there. It didn’t.

  Dead, mutilated cow remains were both an omen and caught my attention as I walked on. The bones had long turned to a bleached colour and the grass was brown and dead. It made the land look like a graveyard or wasteland. It would live up to that image.

  I waited and checked and surveyed the scene for many hours, going from one vantage point to another, hoping that the scene would change or I would find some easy route or revelation that would improve my plight. Again, it didn’t: zombies everywhere, little or no chance of getting anything without another close call or death.