Redbeard told Pilot to try the engine, and the rotors slowly creaked into motion, shattering the remainder of the ice surrounding them. We finished up our breakfast, washing it down with bottled water, and climbed in, and Pilot raised us up into the sky.
noon
We were clearly flying above what had once been a reasonably densely populated area, one of Melbourne's outlying townships, perhaps. The city itself loomed large like a grey, foreboding scrapyard of concrete and metal, still a long way off, but there, in sight at last. Junior could not keep his eyes off of our goal, keeping his face to it while Pilot flew a roundabout course in order to show the rest of us the area.
We could see clearly the blockage on the road to the east, extending north and south a reasonable distance, snow piling up against it in drifts of grey. As Pilot had said, the road seemed clear behind it. Apocalypse Girl suggested that it looked as though someone had set it up deliberately. Pilot nodded, adding that had been his first thought as well, but he hadn't seen any movement anywhere nearby and had assumed everyone was fled, dead, or Dead.
The farm lay below us, a few Dead wandering around aimlessly. They hadn't registered the sound of the helicopter yet as food-related, or they would be waiting for us to descend. Pilot put us down twenty metres from the closest Dead, in a large open paddock. Junior slipped and fell on the icy grass as he jumped out of the chopper, but Redbeard picked him up and we splattered some Dead brains, securing the location, as Pilot flew off once more, heading back to The Think Tank.
The farm secure, at least the exterior, we decided that there was little point in moving any further today. We had plenty of supplies, enough for a good month at least, but between the weather and the Dead, we might be out here much longer. Apocalypse Girl suggested that we make certain the insides of the farm buildings were free of Dead, and maybe make some kind of inventory of possible supplies. She then told us that it might even be a good idea to make this farm a kind of satellite base of The Think Tank in time.
The main farmhouse was totally empty, no furniture resided there, no food to speak of. Water flowed from the taps in the kitchen and bathroom sinks still, amazingly enough, though it looked as grey and corrupt as the snow. The barn was likewise bare. The Dead we had killed outside were the only indication that this farm had ever had any Living here at all, and they looked as though they had just wandered in recently. Whoever the farmers had been, they had bailed long ago, perhaps even before the Dead began to walk.
evening
We spent the rest of the day barricading windows, making sure doors were secure, and in general battening down for any potential storm. Apocalypse Girl's idea was a good one, and she had relayed the thought back to The Think Tank via text, The Colonel replying shortly after saying that she and Firecracker had talked it over, and they were going to make some plans to send some supplies and personnel to the farm in the next few days. We would at the very least have a safe haven on our retreat from Melbourne.
We ate in relative silence, each wrapped in our own thoughts it seemed. I know I certainly was. I worried about getting to Melbourne, and about what we would discover there. I had been there before, a couple of times, though I would hardly claim familiarity with the city. The address that Copper had given Junior was, I was pretty certain, on the inner western edge of the outer suburbs, so there was likely to be trouble getting in there, at least, if not getting out safely as well. When we get closer to the city itself we should be able to find a roadmap easily enough, so finding Copper's family home should prove little difficulty. The real problem lay in the fact that, if any of his family is still among the Living, they would have moved on long before now, surely.
February 16th Year 1 A.Z.
morning
We ate early, as soon as we could see well enough to distinguish what lay before us, as we had agreed to make as much distance as we could possibly manage today. The snow on the ground was melting in the relative warmth that today had brought with it. The sun itself made a brief appearance through a slight crack in the cloud cover far to the east, illuminating the world in all its grey glory for a brief moment, but then it was back to the gloom.
We began to walk to the east, along the freeway, towards the blockage we had seen from the air yesterday. We could not see it yet, due to the contours of the roadway, and the visibility limiting factor of the perpetual gloom. The snow may have begun to melt slightly, but this simply turned it into a freezing grey sludge that clung to boots and jeans, threatening to trip and ensnare.
After a couple of hours travel time, we came to the barricade. Several cars upended, along with a bus and a pair of semi-trailers lay with barely a centimetre gap between them, lay across the road itself, at the point we came upon it, extending off in both directions creating rather an effective wall.
“Stop right there!” A voice came from above. I looked upwards to see a heavily swathed figure in grey pointing a crossbow at me, bolt knocked and ready to fire. Several other guards became evident, standing from their prone positions atop the bus and semis. They all had different varieties of weaponry, but from the simple slingshot through a pair of bows up to the crossbow pointed at my face, they were all silent killers. “You move and you're in trouble.”
I became aware of a rhythmic clacking sound, it seemed as though it had risen as the guard had spoken. I spun around trying to identify the source of the noise, the guard shouting calmly that if I don't hold fucking still fucking now I would be fucking fucked. My boot grazed something, and I looked down.
I had kicked a Dead head, severed neatly at the neck. Thankfully it rolled over, face first, though I could see it trying to gnaw at some flesh. I glanced around, seeing small mounds in the grey snow, gibbering away. The snow dropped off another about a meter away, revealing rotting flesh, clumps of hair sticking out this way and that, as another gibbering Dead head attempted to reach a meal.
The four of us moved away from the nearest Dead heads, gathering together in the midst of the minefield. A head rolled too near, and I kicked it away.
“Who the hell are you guys? Where did you come from?” Came an interrogatory voice from inside the bus. I replied that we had come a long fucking way and we were looking for the family of a friend of ours. The voice responded that whoever we were looking for is dead. Apocalypse Girl shouted back that they were probably right, but we owed it to our friend to try anyway.
The bus door swung open as soon as she had finished. We had to carefully pick our way through the minefield of Dead heads, and were greeted at gunpoint when we entered the bus. The young man greeting us however, had a huge grin on his face and apologised profusely for having to disarm us, assuring us that we would get our weapons back soon. As I handed him my sword, he took it with respect, asking where I had acquired it.
We moved through the bus, and out into a large open area. The woman who had spoken to us from within the bus smiled at us, saying that they had let us in for two reasons. Nobody had tried to silence Apocalypse Girl when she spoke, and we were honouring the wishes of a dead friend. That made us, in her words, “good people” and such people were always welcome. She clapped her hands, ordering the kettle put on, and food for the travellers. Apocalypse Girl tried to decline the feed, as we had plenty of supplies, but the woman would have none of it. They had plenty to spare to share, she told us, and made sure we ate everything we were given too. Nothing fancy, but the intent was clear. After we had eaten she told us that as far as she was concerned the rest of humanity, what was left of it, needed to stick together, needed to be a family more than ever before.
I told her of The Think Tank, saying that if she liked, when we returned from Melbourne, we could take her and her Family with us, and she thanked us, saying that she would bring it up with the others, but that they would probably choose to remain behind. I told her of the farm nearby, which she laughingly said had belonged to her family for generations. She and her three sons had found the bus stopped near a massive car wreck near her farm
, and begun building the barricade that day. About twenty kilometres further to the east they had built a similar barricade from similar materials.
The Dead mostly travelled along the roads, it seemed, so the barricades seemed logical as a means of keeping them out, and they had found shortly afterwards that they needed to protect themselves from the Living as well. Learning that destroying the brain was the only way of killing the Dead gave way to the idea of decapitating them and leaving their heads on the approaches to their encampment. This had saved their collective bacon on a number of occasions, though The Mother had lost two of her sons.
noon
We sat in The Mother's parlour, as she called it, in reality a three-walled shelter built from pieces of scrap wood, perhaps scavenged from her farm, and we had tea. There was no milk or sugar, but the tea itself was simply amazing. The Mother extended an offer to us to stay for as long as we liked.
I smiled in gratitude, saying that we would like nothing better than to stay for a good long while, but we must move on as soon as possible. We had already delayed our mission to Melbourne too many times. She nodded, telling us that she would send her son with us, in that case. Apocalypse Girl gasped, saying that she couldn't send out her one surviving son to help a bunch of strangers who can take care of themselves. “Silence, girl,” The Mother intoned, adding that she could do as she damn well pleased.
“The way I see it, we all died, all of humanity, as soon as the first Dead stood up.” The Mother began, “but any of us that are still around now are spitting in the eyes of the gods, defying extinction itself. You and your Think Tank probably have a much better chance of survival than we do here, I know that much, so the best way I can add to that defiance of fate is to send my Son with you. He's the smartest one here, he came up with the idea of leaving the heads out. Besides, he knows Melbourne.” She looked sad for a moment, then smiled again. “Besides, the best way for emerging nations of people to survive is to ally with one another, isn't it?” She laughed lightly, merrily.
evening
True to her word, The Mother asked her only surviving son to travel with us. He agreed instantly, and came to join us, returning all of our weapons. He was the young man who had greeted and disarmed us as we entered the bus, and seemed eager to travel. I hoped he wasn't simply eager for adventure, because that sort of thinking will get you killed these days. The Mother copied our map in case any of her people wished to move onwards to The Think Tank, and we moved on with her son.
The Son, though a bare few years younger than I, maybe two or three older than Apocalypse Girl, seemed genuinely enthusiastic about travelling with new people. He told us that among his Family there would by now be about fifty members, nearly double our current complement in The Think Tank, and that they had discovered early on some easy survival tricks. Most notably the silent weaponry idea, and of course, The Son's method of bandit control. Now, anybody among The Family who dies is decapitated, and their heads thrown into the road on either side of their camp. A grisly idea, to be sure, but once the bandits had got the picture they had stopped trying to attack them. The Son went on to tell us that the side we had entered from they had seen hide nor hair of anybody until us, the Dead heads were few in number compared to the far side of the eastern barricade.
Apocalypse Girl asked if that meant we would be likely to have to deal with bandits as well, and The Son nodded. She swore. The Son looked questioningly at me, and I told of our previous encounters with their ilk. Redbeard assured her that between the five of us any bandits we run into will be toast before too long, and she smiled.
Night had fallen long ago by the time we reached the eastern barricade, but the way was reasonably well lit, as The Family members chose to live primarily in huts in the road, either made from wood gathered from houses, or cars that they converted into living quarters. This made them more easily defended both from without and within. Everybody that lived there had a blunt object ready to hand, just in case, even with the standing decapitation order for the Dead. The Son explained that they only cut of heads when it was safe to do so. There had been a couple of unfortunate accidents early on.
We holed up, huddled together for warmth, in a structure not unlike The Mother's Parlour, covered with blankets. Apocalypse Girl reported in with her phone, receiving the news that two of the newcomers and two of Firecracker's miners were heading to The Farm the next day.
February 17th Year 1 A.Z.
morning
After a quick breakfast shortly after dawn, we looked over the top of the barricade. There were indeed many more Dead-head mines laying around than the way we had entered, and rather a lot of Dead milling about as well. They just wandered about the road, but it made for an especially dangerous area. Concentrate on weaving through the minefield too much and the walking Dead ones will get you, focus on the shambling Dead overly much, and you are certain to become one of them from having your toes nibbled on.
I asked The Son how we were meant to get through all of that, and he simply smiled, telling us to follow him. We headed south along the barrier for about twenty metres, until the ground dropped away from us. Nodding to a pair of guards watching the hole, he explained that they had dug this entrance to the storm water system in order to have a way of slipping in and out of Melbourne quickly and quietly. We would have to travel the entire day in almost pitch blackness, unless one of us carried a torch, he said.
It was a race to see which of the four of us would produce theirs first. Apocalypse Girl lost to Redbeard by half a second, Junior and myself tying for third. Redbeard handed his to The Son, so that he could use both of his pistols if necessary. I am pretty sure he only does that to show off, but what the fuck, even if he is, he still takes out a Dead with each round.
The Son assured us that there were no Dead down here, as we lowered ourselves down, and that since the rains it was all relatively clean. This proved to be more or less true, the storm water system stank of Dead, but there was nothing around, that was plain to see. We travelled forwards, into the dark depths.
noon(ish) maybe
Kinda hard to tell the time down here. Apocalypse Girl's phones battery life is far more important for communications rather than the relative time of day, anyway, so just going with our stomachs. We broke out a bit of jerky for lunch, though we chewed on it while walking. Saw a nest of rats down here, thinking about it they're the only living animals I had seen since the sheep. I asked The Son why it smelled so much like the Dead down here, he replied that he thinks it was because everybody started burning them straight away. The heavy rains we had experienced were the burned Dead coming back down to earth in a great deluge, and being a storm water system, had flushed through these tunnels.
I asked The Son how his Family had managed to keep itself fed for as long as it had, to which he replied that they had found a fully stocked supermarket near the far end of this tunnel, and had raided it thoroughly. There were several others not too far off but they hadn't had to resort to looting them yet. The nearby houses were more than enough for now.
evening
We emerged from the darkness, coming up out of a manhole to a street blanketed in fresh grey snow. The sun descended below the horizon behind its wool blanket of deep cloud cover, deepening the gloom. The Son bade us follow him, and led us into a nearby house, which we quickly and quietly scouted for Dead, and barricaded for the night. Apocalypse Girl sent a message back to The Think Tank informing them that we have reached Melbourne at last.
February 18th Year 1 A.Z.
morning
We ate our breakfast, The Son asking the address of the people we sought. Junior was more than happy to divulge all information he had on the subject, as he had been charged with the task. The Son informed us that we were, in fact, relatively close to the suburb in question. We would be travelling all of today, for sure, and maybe have to travel for much of tomorrow as well, unless we were lucky and there were no Dead between here and there. Even then, we would have to b
e careful in the extreme. Attracting a horde of Dead was the simplest thing in the world to do, it seemed, apart from attracting a mob of bandits. We needed neither of these complications, not right now.
There were Dead out in the street, so we relieved them of their need to eat human flesh, and then moved out, heading to the northeast. Junior and I kept our melee weapons handy at all times, while Apocalypse Girl and Redbeard had pistols in hand. The Son carried no weapon to speak of, but walked in the centre of the square formed by the rest of us.
Some cackling lunatic ran out into the street and fired once at us, or at least, vaguely in our direction, then kept on making the motion of firing his pistol, shouting out “BANG! BANG BANG! BANGBANGBANG!!!!!” over and over again, bleeding from what we all assumed to be a bite wound high on his shoulder. We walked slowly away from him, though he followed our progress, at least until he attracted the attention of a group of Dead that had been trying to get inside a house, the front door of which was smeared black with dried blood. The shouting of “BANG BANG!” continued right up until the words turned into garbled gibbering screams of agonising pain. We moved away from the carnage as quick as we could manage, hoping no Dead followed us.
Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 2): February Page 7
