Apocalypse 3

by Matt J. Pike

  It’s still so tempting to head out east again and find out what’s going on. It’s not going to happen today... but I so wish it would. Truth is, I’ve got to be very careful about the next step I make outside our boundaries. I’ve got to balance everything that has changed with what we still need to know. As for getting spotted, or worse still, caught… it doesn’t bear thinking about.

  Actually, the more I write about it, the more I’m thinking about it. I’m pretty much an eleventh wheel on the trebuchet builds today. I might take Kelly on Phoenix up to check out the work they’ve done on the fallback positions between the city centre and South Tce. That’ll lead us up to the lookout closest to the Fullarton action. We won’t have line of sight – and it’d be in the weather’s hands if we could see that far anyway, but, I don’t know, something was drawing me to this conflict. Maybe getting as close as possible will satisfy something in me. Or maybe I might be able to see or find or learn something – anything – to add to the picture of what’s happening.

  *

  As we’ve been clearing the streets of ash over the months, we have been guided a great deal in the damage done to the city. Some streets seemed to be light on when it came to debris, while others were impassable because of it. So, while we’ve cleared the streets, it’s not like we’ve reclaimed the entire New Adelaide grid. Some areas were just too impacted. That has turned out to be a blessing when creating a fallback plan. If Norwood do attack from the south, they’ll end up on one of three streets heading north towards us in the CBD – Hutt, Pulteney or King William.

  All of those streets have areas of debris that can’t be accessed by vehicle yet – except Phoenix. We’ve developed workaround routes to get cars out to South Tce using side street detours. The team working on the fallback plan have now blocked a few of those off using ash. It’s pretty clever the way they’ve set it up. It means if Norwood follows the path of least resistance from an accessible road point of view, the will now end up hitting the centre point of the CBD at the Pulteney and Wakefield intersection. This will be a key fighting ground for us.

  They’ve also prepped a series of engagement points to halt any advance. Each spot has a couple of shooting positions above the street, with plenty of protection for whoever is shooting, plus escape routes on foot for when we fall back to the next point.

  It was somewhat eerie standing in some of those places, looking down over the street below with the distant sound of gunfire in the background. I was picturing the Norwood fleets passing below me, just as it had when I was at the pool hall on The Parade. It made everything seem very real. And I knew, whatever advantage these positions gave us – and they were big advantages – that fleet of vehicles is an intimidating sight.

  Important note – Norwood have a fleet, we have a mayhem.

  Anyway, Kelly, who was with me on the Norwood trip, was in the same space when I mentioned it to her. We just stood there, watching and imagining.

  While we were there, the gunfire stopped. It didn’t build into a crescendo like the last battle we heard, it just seemed to fade out to nothing. The silence was almost as eerie as us imagining the future battle. In fact, the silence was – in all probability – a signal that the countdown was now on to that conflict.

  We looked at each other and, again, we didn’t need words to know we were sharing the same thought. At that point we knew it was time to head to the wall to see what we could… or probably couldn’t… see.

  Just as we were pulling up near our South Tce/East Tce lookout we heard a gunshot. Now, working out patterns in the rate, pitch and sound can tell you a lot about what’s happening in a battle. A single gunshot is different. You could probably put a case together for a few different options, but there is one likelihood that stands out above all others, especially in the circumstances. Yet again, Kelly and I exchanged knowledgeable glances.

  “Shit,” she said.

  We both know someone was most likely executed in that moment.

  We got to the lookout and another shot sounded out. We paused for a moment, as if waiting for something else… which never came. A few minutes later there was another. Three shots – three probable executions.

  If Norwood had taken Fullarton, as seems likely, it’s not hard to assume those bullets were used on the leadership or the trouble makers… or, worse still, the remaining survivors.

  The mood in the lookout was hard to define. Uncertain, fearful, concerned, nervous, maybe? Possibly something else altogether. We sat in that dank lookout and scanned the endlessness of no-man’s land through our binoculars.

  We sat there for hours. It was deep into the afternoon when we actually saw something. We could hear the fleet on the move and soon saw headlights bouncing through the ash in the distance. Most seemed to take the route back to Norwood by turning east up Greenhill Rd, but one turned the other way and headed west. As the sound of the other vehicles faded we could isolate the noise from the vehicle that remained.

  There was no doubt – for Kelly or I, who had seen the fleet up close – that this was the ash sweeper. We followed the headlights as they plodded down Greenhill Rd and met with the end of the cleared road. There it moved back, around and slowly forward as it, presumably, cleared more of the road in front.

  We watched for an hour until it disappeared back to Norwood just before the last of the light faded away. It must’ve cleared 50-100m of road we guessed, but it was hard to be accurate at our distance.

  *

  The mood was definitely apprehensive at feast tonight – so much different than last night. The countdown is on now for sure – everyone knows it. You could feel it hang over every conversation, whether battle related or not. There’s something about an inevitable slow moving threat that – I don’t know – has a power other things don’t. It’s the unknown time but the known outcome, I guess. Like, it doesn’t matter what we do here, what we think about, how we act – anything – this conflict will happen. And every night we sit and plan for it is one less night away from it occurring. I’m not sure I’m explaining it in a way that does the fear justice. Whatever the case, with the Fullarton conflict seemingly over, we’re next, and that unknown period of time between nothing and battle just skipped forward in a big way.

  *

  Side note: I was just trying to think of a better way to encapsulate all that and got the expression ‘there’s nothing certain in this world, except death and taxes’ in my head. Taxes – so 2014. Hey, I never paid taxes… in my life – cool.

  Maybe now it’s nothing is certain in this world, except death and fighting with Norwood. Or just death. Actually, taxes are now starting to seem somewhat appealing when compared to the other certainties.

  *

  So, everything is in readiness to start hauling the trebuchets out to the wall tomorrow. We think – hang on…

  *

  Wow. That was Alyce. She knocked on my door – wanted to talk. She’s a mess. She just fell apart on me, letting it all out. Not just Duncan either, everything that had happened from rock night to losing her dad, then her mum and brother, winding up with Duncan, finding my note, deciding to leave TTP, finding the oval, falling under Duncan’s control – all of it!

  I just let her talk. And cry and talk. I really didn’t know what else to do, to be honest.

  So, it turns out her dad cut himself trying to grab some supplies from the shed. A small nick on the ankle that would’ve barely required stitches, if there was someone capable of doing them. But the wound didn’t heal. A few days later it was gaping and oozy, the skin around it dead. Eventually they made a call to cut his leg off at the knee… but it was already too late. Fever kicked in hard – he was in and out of consciousness before dying that night.

  I can only imagine the impact it had on her, Scott and Jodie.

  It was then they decided to head to TTP. They were let in – that was in the days before it got really nasty up there. Worst thing she ever did, she reckons. At the time they thought they were the luck
y ones, as so many others were left outside the gates. But inside, well, she never really said what happened inside, other than letting me know it was horrible. All the info I really got was the community in there was split in two – those in control and the rest. And whatever being the rest meant – she wasn’t saying and I sure wasn’t asking.

  Whatever happened in there was soon the end of her mum and brother. She was alone, scared and isolated… and along came Duncan. He wasn’t really in control or one of the others – he was part of their defence force. Anyway, seems like the message I sent over the top of their walls did get to her, and it was the start of her plan to get away.

  It wasn’t until the trail of my clues led them to my house that all the dots joined for Duncan. He started to change. Well, the more she talked about him, the more it sounds like she always had her doubts about him, but their connection was powerful in some way I didn’t understand.

  She said she’s not sure why he left. He didn’t talk about it. She did know the longer he spent with us at the oval, the more removed he became. She copped the brunt of it – he blamed her for whatever reason he was not fully assimilating into our world. They fought – he was controlling – but she felt like she owed him for getting her out of TTP.

  On the night he left, they’d had a big row. She got scared. When she woke up – he was gone. She knew he was heading back to TTP – the only place he would consider going.

  ***

  February 5, 2015

  It was just a get-shit-done day today. Everybody knew it. Everybody did it. Wall lookouts monitored, fallback positions constructed, uniforms finalised and, best of all, the first of the trebuchets put into position.

  That’s where I lent my services.

  The first was towed into place on Rundle St, behind the newly built second wall. Towing the machine was relatively straightforward, despite its size. Once in position, you started to get a feel for how communication would be key when any attack took place. There would be no line of sight with those operating the trebuchet – the ash walls obscuring any view of where the ammo would land. Teams are going to have to work together with those in the lookouts to make whatever shooting adjustments are required.

  Communications will be crucial when shit hits the fan.

  The second machine was positioned a couple of blocks south at the top of Pirie St. Again, this gave us a pretty wide coverage across any attack from the east.

  The third trebuchet headed for the South Tce/East Tce lookout, where we had eyes-on the Norwood ash sweeper. That trip was excruciatingly slow as we had to fight many tight turns from the centre of the city south, now that the fallback plan had blocked most of the streets off. We made it there before sunset – just.

  Word from the lookout was that the ash sweeper hadn’t been sighted all day. Not sure if that was a good sign or not… but it probably was.

  *

  Oh, I forgot to mention, while this is all going on, so are our plans for bugging out, should things go pear-shaped. The team working on it – the Js – John, Jenny and Joyce – have prepared and packed some supplies, which have been hidden in the tennis centre just west of the oval. If we get overwhelmed we are just going to cut our losses and run. The problem with that is we’re running west to the coast – the only spot that can sustain us long term. But what it can’t provide is shelter. The place is a wasteland. The Js have gathered camping supplies, drinking water, wood for fire fuel and enough other essentials to get us started, but when you add that on top of the food and clothes in the bags, well, it’s going to be too much to take. And with all of the equipment being so close to the oval, well, it’s pretty apparent if the worst did happen (and this was a plan for the worst case scenario), then it’s all too risky and too close to the oval.

  At first we considered taking Kelly and I off all other duties for a few days to ferry everything down to the coast. This wasn’t very practical either once we started to get into it, because if shit were to go down while we were out, well, two headcount short is a big deal for us.

  The best compromise we could come up with was to find a bug-out halfway house of sorts. Somewhere far enough from the oval that we wouldn’t get caught mid bug-out if we were raided… and somewhere isolated and protected enough that we could store what we needed there without fear of unlikely random swiping.

  Essentially, this place will be our gateway to the west. A gathering point for whoever survives whatever event we need to run away from. A place where we can regroup, collect the supplies we need in our new world and begin the long march to the coast.

  It’s quite a depressing thought really. Especially given what we’ve built here. But if we’re not talking about it now, it could be the death of us. Survival comes first.

  So, out of the end of all that, that’s my new mission tomorrow. I have to scout for this new location – this gateway to the west.

  *

  Alyce sat next to me at the feast tonight. Just up and marched straight over when she rocked up. I liked that. She dived right into our conversations as well. It was as if she had been doing this every night for the past few months.

  I imagine that took quite a bit of courage, and the rest of the crew were great. No one batted an eyelid at the change. No one asked her anything deep or personal. She was just included.

  I can see her changing. It’s like every day is another step out of whatever place she and Duncan had ended up in. But tonight’s step was a statement piece. It wasn’t a one-on-one chat with me, it was a move for everyone to see. I don’t mean her connection to me, I mean her fully integrating to the group. That means something in our world and is a big step.

  Should’ve happened when they first got here… but, whatever, I’m glad it’s happening now.

  After everyone started drifting back to their rooms, I walked her back to hers. We started talking about the past. The pre-rock shared memories we had. It was just silly bits of trouble we got up to when the parents weren’t watching at gatherings – nothing too ground-breaking – but, wow, it triggered something.

  It’s powerful stuff when two people dare to conjure thoughts from the world before the one we’re in. Nostalgia – but bigger – shared nostalgia – nostalgia squared, maybe. Even the stupidest little anecdote can create some overwhelming feelings you don’t have the wherewithal to handle in the post-rock world.

  Before I knew it, I was in the wave of emotion – right in the barrel. It was too big to grasp and too powerful to ignore. I looked down at one point to realise we were holding hands. Before I had a chance to make another conscious thought, we were kissing. When I finally opened my eyes to look at her and take the moment in, I realised she was crying. Then I realised my eyes were far from dry. I wiped away the moisture and looked at her again; she was laughing. I laughed right back.

  We were hopeless. Victims of nostalgia squared, way too much emotion to deal with and this sense of, how can I put it? Home.

  Home – that’s what that kiss was. I’m not really sure if that entirely makes sense written down as it does when I think about it, but it’s the only word I can find that fits – home.

  Anyway, we kissed by her door until Shane saw us in the distance and wolf-whistled. It was enough to snap the magic away – thanks Shane!

  I said my goodnight and floated home.

  ***

  February 6, 2015

  Once Ye-jun got a whiff there was a new adventure to be had today, the bandages magically disappeared from his side. He was waiting by Phoenix when Kelly and I arrived. You could tell he still wasn’t 100%, but he had a grin as wide as no-man’s land at the prospect of jumping on Phoenix, so who were we to stop him?

  It was pretty good to have the band back together, actually. I was smiling nearly as much as Ye-jun. I mean, it’s great heading out with Kelly, but there’s something about when the three of us get together – especially involving Phoenix and a mission – that’s hard to beat.

  Today’s mission was pretty low key compared to s
ome of the adventures we’d tackled over the months – find a bug-out location west of the oval – simple enough. So, while it may’ve lacked on the adventure side of things, I do like this kind of run. I reckon it’s the thinking on the fly, looking at the same things in a new way and smashing it all together with a bit of creativity to see what you can come up with. At the heart of all that is the core of what it takes to be a survivor.

  Ideally, we needed a place within easy reach of the oval but as far west as possible. A place where we could regroup, collect supplies, then head. John, Jenny and Joyce – had started to put together a pretty solid list of what we really would need to make it out west. That list was important for our search – it was a pretty good guide as to how much space we would need. Food and clothing supplies are one thing but having the space to house the building materials we would need to start again out west is something different altogether. That would require some serious space. And this potential location would also have to be secure, both from any random raids while it lay dormant and to protect us if we ever did need for as long as we were going to be there.

  That’s a pretty big ask when I think about it.

  The as-long-as-we’re-there part is really important. Beyond the task of ferrying the building material from the city to the coast, which could take days, we may well have injured. When you think about it all – the logistics of what we need – it’s actually quite scary. If shit hits the fan, we have one shot to get out. And our goal location – the coast – while super positive on food resource rich front, is utterly lacking everywhere else.

  The coast is so far under the tsunami line that everything that remains is pulverised. It’s not even just building supplies, it’s access to fuel for Phoenix, wood to burn fires, hell, it’s access to anything other than fish!

  That’s what we’re on the search for – a place that can house all that and keep us safe for however long we need it to if the worst happens. So, while it was great to have Ye-jun back out with us looking at New Adelaide in a new way again, there was a very sombre overtone to it. We were making plans for when things fell apart. While we busied ourselves in the details… you couldn’t help but having the why of the whole exercise in the back of your mind.