by Jack Ziebell
“All of Sudan?”
“Everywhere – I came from Ethiopia, it was the same there, even the capital.”
“Well we should like try and get to somewhere, drive until we find someone, drive and get help,” said the cook.
“Look, you saw what it was like out there, we’re better off in here, where it’s safe.”
“Safe?” The cook looked at him with disbelief, his sunburned face contorted. “It’s not safe in here, do you know how many times I’ve almost died in here, what I’ve had to do in here? There’s fifty more of them locked in the canteen - I put them there when I was still, like, trying to help them. It’s not safe, we’ve got to get out of here, where’s the car.”
The cook suddenly bolted towards the main building, where he had left Sarah in the Niva. He ran after him, feeling coldly rational in contrast to the man’s panic. He felt as though decisions had become easier, black and white. There was no more grey, just him and Sarah and nothing else. He caught up with the cook as he reached the car.
The cook had opened the driver’s door, then stopped and turned to face Tim. “She’s one of them!” he screamed and fumbled for something tucked in the back of his belt. In his left hand the cook awkwardly held a handgun but before he could take aim Tim hit him in the forehead with the butt of his rifle. The cook fell to the ground, dropping the gun and clutching the wound.
“Why did you do that, why did you do that?” the cook said, rocking on the floor.
“That’s my wife,” said Tim, kicking the handgun away from the man. “If you do anything to harm her, or touch this car again, I will kill you. We are staying here.”
The cook, with blood streaming down his face looked up at him but said nothing, his bulging eyes filled with malice.
“Now please take us inside,” said Tim.
He thought for a moment. He didn’t want to leave Sarah but thought she would be safer in the car; in any case he needed both hands free to deal with the cook and anything else that might be inside. Keeping his gun pointed at the cook he took the keys out of the ignition and locked the car doors, engaging the child locks and hoping that would be enough to keep her inside while he was gone.
“Let’s go,” he said, motioning with the gun for the cook to get up. The cook, snivelling, got to his feet and walked to the main doors of the building. He took a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked them. “I’ll take those,” said Tim, taking the keys from him as he opened the door, “After you.”
The cook walked inside and Tim followed.
“Are there any left not in the canteen?” said Tim, as he scanned the dimly lit lobby. The thick humid air smelt putrid and a trail of blood led from the main doors, branching off down different corridors.
“Any not dead or in there are locked in offices,” said the cook, “I just like, locked the doors, you know, if I could, I didn’t look in every room; but they won’t last much longer.”
“Show me the canteen.” He didn’t want to see it but he had to make sure it was secure.
“Are you sure? It ain’t pretty,” said the cook.
“Just show me.”
The cook led him down a maze of dark corridors, the man’s nerves making him talk incessantly. “The first ones, they were like the hardest, but then it got easier, especially the ones I didn’t like, you know, even when they were normal. I’m just glad I trapped all the others, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, you know?”
Eventually they arrived at the double doors to the canteen. The cook had chained the handles together and piled an assortment of desks, chairs and computers against them in a makeshift barricade.
“Not bad right?” said the cook.
“It looks like it will hold,” said Tim, “Is there any other way out of there, a fire exit or anything?”
“No Sir, and the windows are like, really high off the ground; probably bomb proof. Those fucks can just die in there now for all I care.”
Tim could smell the filth inside the canteen and hear people moving on the other side of the doors.
“I like laid them out on the tables and was giving them water and everything, I swear I really was, but then they just started to get crazy,” said the cook.
“And there’s nobody else, nobody else normal like you?”
“No Sir.”
“How come you’re OK?”
“I don’t know, I was in the walk-in freezer getting the stuff ready for breakfast, and when I came out, it was, you know, like this.”
Tim didn’t know why but he didn’t like the cook; yes the man had been through a lot but his mental state made him dangerous, plus just the thought of what the cook had done made his skin crawl. He had killed at least one for sure on the way to Juba, but that was essential and he felt what the cook had done was somehow, more than necessary. But he wasn’t there, so what did he know? The cook for his flaws was the only person he’d met who was unaffected since the mine, he didn’t need him as an enemy and he didn’t want to have to lock him up. He should try to appease him.
“You did good,” said Tim.
“Really?” said the cook, his mood lifting, “I thought they would hang me for this for sure.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t think there are any hangmen left, just us and them in there,” Tim motioned to the canteen, “But I think they are learning, you’ve seen them, they’ve gone from sleeping to crawling to running. My wife, she said my name, so they still have some memories, perhaps just the deepest ones.”
The cook looked concerned again. “You mean they might have got better?”
Tim understood he meant his now smouldering colleagues. “I, I don’t think so. Besides, they would probably have killed you before they did anyway. You did what you had to. Also, sorry for hitting you back there, but I thought you were going to, accidentally shoot my wife; and I couldn’t just let you drive out of here, it would be a death sentence. No hard feelings?”
The thought of the cook pointing his gun at Sarah burned in his brain but he tried to ignore his anger and held out his hand. The cook looked at him suspiciously but then took his hand and shook it.
“My name is Tim, my wife is called Sarah.”
The cook’s parched lips managed a half-smile. “Jed.”
“Right then Jed,” said Tim, doing his best to sound like an embassy official on an inspection, “What supplies do you have?”
The approach seemed to work.
“Man we have everything! We just had a major delivery come in before all this happened, that’s why I was up early, sorting through the freezer. A lot of it’s going bad now the power’s out; well the ice cream’s melted, that’s for sure.”
“How long do you think we can survive here?”
“Uhh, with that stuff, a long time.”
Chapter 25
The house was dark. Brian looked at his watch, it said five-thirty, not quite yet dawn but he knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep, even though the beds in the old farmhouse were comfortable and warm. He looked over at his travel companion; Marius was sleeping. Drawing back the curtain he could make out the rain splashing in the mud on the track outside. He was amazed they had made it this far, despite the long detour they’d taken around Salt Lake City. Marius had grown on him over the course of their journey and despite his total lack of empathy, amongst other idiosyncrasies, he was glad they were together. He knew he never would have thought of fixing the bike himself, nor would he have known how to if he had. He started to think that he should make more of an effort to hang out with Marius when things got back to normal, but then cut the thought short. Best not to think about normal anymore, it would only make things seem worse. He knew normal had now gone for good.
He felt hungry; when was the last time they ate a proper meal? Nothing hot since they left the relative safety of the country club, just canned food and snacks for the road. Maybe the farmhouse kitchen had a wood-burning stove, maybe even some chickens outback. It was dark when they arrived the previous night and they’d been so
tired that they had just rolled the bike into the downstairs hall, done a quick sweep of the house and then gratefully fallen into bed. The thought of warm food swept away the last prospects of returning to bed and sleep. He pulled on his trousers and shoes and made his way down the creaking wooden staircase.
When he got to the ground floor he checked the front door, it was still locked from the inside, as they had left it the night before. He walked down the hall and checked the back door; also locked. After the scare they’d had the day they were fixing the bike in the repair-shop he was cautious. As he turned into the dining room that led through to the large kitchen he froze. The house had been silent but he could hear movement in the kitchen. Rats maybe? He went back upstairs, trying not to make any sound, which only seemed to amplify every creak.
He shook his companion. “Marius. Marius wake up.”
But Marius shrugged him off. Had he really heard anything? He was scared but he didn’t want to wake Marius up for nothing; god knows Marius needed the rest - he’d insisted on doing all the driving; ‘German’s don’t ride bitch,’ he would say when Brian offered. Brian picked up one of the shotguns they had taken from the club and crept back downstairs. He started to make his way to the entrance of the dining room but stopped dead when he saw them.
Leading from the dining room doorway across the hall to the living room opposite was a track of wet footprints. They seemed to stop just short of the living room door, then went back the way they came, into dining room; they hadn’t been there the first time he had come down.
He should have gone back again and shaken Marius awake but by this point he was committed, both through fear and the false confidence the gun gave him. He slowly walked towards the dining room door, pointing the gun ahead of him. The footprints were large and made with fresh mud; whoever it was had come in from outside, somehow. He noticed the barrel of the gun was shaking as he quickly rounded the doorway, but the dining room was empty. The footsteps led back through an open archway into the kitchen; the room from where the intruder had clearly entered. He could hear the sound he heard before, like scratching and dripping. He was now full of terror but somehow made himself move forward, towards the kitchen. All he could see through the arched doorway in front of him was the end of the kitchen counter and the white tile floor leading up to it; beyond the archway, the tile floor and footsteps led left but the rest of the kitchen was still obscured by the dividing wall. Had there been another doorway at the back of the kitchen? He couldn’t remember from his brief sweep the night before. If it was a door to the outside he would have noticed. He should have been more careful. He knew a lot of these farmhouses had cellars that led down from the kitchen, where coal and cold foods used to be kept. In such parts of the world these cellars were also storm cellars, with doors opening to the outside for both stocking the larder and taking shelter. Maybe this house had a cellar; maybe the outside storm doors had been left open, or not padlocked or maybe someone had just been down there all along? These were the thoughts going through his mind as the kitchen came into full view.
It all happened quickly. His eyes tracked up the tile floor, noticing how the footprints spread out to become a mad whirl of water and dirt; caused by more than one person. Around the bin were three filthy creatures on their knees, grabbing and devouring whatever foul contents it contained. There was a large man with a tangled beard, an overweight woman and a third individual with long lank hair but Brian couldn’t tell if it was a woman or a teenage boy.
“Hello?” He immediately regretted saying it; a fool’s hope had obscured his judgement. The one with the long hair was the first to run at him. Before he pulled the trigger he just had time to make out the words Iron Maiden – Beast on the Road on his T-shirt before the blast from the shotgun tore it apart. The man with the beard was next, his encrusted arms stretched out in front of him, but Brian took him down. He looked at the woman, knowing the shotgun only held two shells and he’d just used both of them. The woman hissed at him and ran through an open doorway at the back of the room, suddenly disappearing with a frightened scream, followed by a crack and silence. Brian assumed she had fallen down the cellar steps but didn’t want to step over the carnage to see. The kitchen, with its white tiles, now looked like an abattoir; both of those he had shot were certainly dead. A sound behind him made him spin around, gripping the gun with white knuckles.
It was Marius, holding his own shotgun and naked from the waist down except for his socks. “Jesus Brian, are you OK?”
Brian was shaking from the adrenaline surging through him. “The cellar.” He motioned with the gun he was still pointing. “Over there, they came out of the cellar, one fell down there, there may be more.”
Marius cautiously stepped over the bodies, his socks soaking up the blood as he went. As soon as he reached the cellar door he slammed it shut and stood with his back pressed against it. “Brian help me - move the dresser.”
Brian slid the heavy oak dresser that stood next to the door to bar the entrance, while Marius gradually moved aside to make way. Together they spun the dresser sideways so it would not easily tip over should someone try to force the cellar door from the inside. With their backs to the oak panelling they looked again at the bodies on the floor.
“They must have followed the smell of the trash in here,” said Brian, sweating, “I’ve never killed anything before, not even a rat.”
He woke in mid-air; he was falling. Instinctively he threw his arms and legs out and caught himself on the bottom bunks before he hit the concrete floor. They were in the Mountain, the journey was over. He had had the same dream for the past two nights, the farmhouse kitchen, etched by the adrenaline so deeply in his consciousness. Although the dream was over he was still sweating. He stared at the strip light flickering above him and lifted his head, his friend coming into focus, sitting at a table at the other end of the room.
He realized what had just happened and was amazed he hadn’t broken his neck in his sleep when he had rolled out of his bunk. “Marius did you see that?”
“Spectacular,” said Marius, “You should join the circus. Oh wait there aren’t any more circuses. You should start one.”
Brian got up off the floor and looked around the sparse quarters. They must have slept for a day and a half.
Marius was eating a cooked breakfast that smelled amazing. “Yours is over there, it might be a bit cold.”
He ate the breakfast and felt life returning; sausages, pancakes and bacon with maple syrup. He looked at the empty plate. “Tabula rasa,” he said to himself.
Marius was absentmindedly pouring maple syrup from a stainless steel and glass jug over his plate, letting the liquid fall in a foot-long amber stream. “Yah, a blank slate. Latin Brian? I am impressed - you are starting to think more and more like me everyday. Except you are incorrect. This isn’t a blank slate Brian, there are those outside and those with whom we are presently entombed.”
Marius seemed mesmerised by the syrup, which was hitting and covering the back of an upturned spoon on the empty plate. He stopped and slammed the jug on the table. “That’s it Brian! The syrup you see!”
“What are you talking about?” All Brian could see was a large pool of wasted syrup on the plate but before he could say anything else Marius had sprung from the table and run-off down the corridor. He ran after him, curious to know what his companion had discovered to elicit such a reaction. He lost sight of him when Marius turned out of the living quarters area and went down one of the many granite tunnels connecting the caverns that housed each sector. He guessed he had gone to see the female Captain but had no idea why. After asking a few soldiers the way and getting quite lost, he eventually arrived at a dead end in the generator cavern. He finally found his way back and arrived at the desk where Marius was perched over Zakorski’s shoulder, staring at calculations the Captain was frantically typing into her computer.
He ran up, panting. “Marius what’s going on, what have you found?”
&nb
sp; Marius didn’t look up from the screen. “The swathe; we’ve been thinking it had some kind of physical element to it, right? Well if that’s true, and the swathe hit the earth like a wave, then think about it Brian: how does water flow around the column of a Bridge? There should be a spot on the Earth somewhere that was sheltered from swathe’s flow by the rest of the planet.”
Brian was unconvinced. “But even if that was true how could we find it? It could be in Antarctica for all we know.”
Zakorski looked up from the screen. “With these. I already have the times the different satellites and earth uplinks went down. We can use that data to calculate not only how fast the swathe was travelling but also from roughly which direction it hit us. Combining that information with what we know from the geosynchronous satellites we can work out the angle of rotation of the earth, relative to the impact.”
Brian felt a surge of excitement. “You mean, what you are thinking is that there really is somewhere on the planet that might be totally unaffected?”
“Exactly,” said Marius, “But it’s all estimates, we don’t know how big this place is or exactly where it is, or even if the flow of the surge was disrupted enough to make a difference. Hell the surge might not even have a flow at all, but it’s worth a shot.” Zakorski, do you have a globe?”
Zakorski took out a small desktop globe from a filing cabinet and Marius held it up, looking at the figures on the screen. “So which satellite went down first?”
Zakorski looked at the numbers. “The first geosynchronous satellites to go down were,” she scrolled down the screen, “Astra-5D at thirty meridian west was the first to go down, followed by Echostar-7 at twenty-five west and Americom-1 at thirty-six west. They spread out from there. The first ground-based post to go down was our long-range radar station on the southern tip of Greenland. That seems to match with the satellites.”
Marius spun the globe. “So if it hit first somewhere in the North-Atlantic, then the shadow would fall somewhere in the South Pacific between,” he looked closely at the globes small lettering, drawing a circle with his finger, “Between Fiji, New Zeland and Papua New Guinea.”
