The Dire Earth: A Novella (The Dire Earth Cycle)

by Jason M. Hough

  “You’re a cop?” Skyler asked.

  The man turned to him, an eyebrow raised. Then he chuckled and shook his head. “Never mind what I am. What madness made you enter the city?”

  Skyler swung his leg over the seat and stood back as Skadz dismounted. “My parents live here. I thought they might be …”

  “Like you?”

  “I hoped maybe it was genetic. What about you? No symptoms?”

  “Zilch. I feel fine. Well, as good as I can with all this shit going on.”

  Skyler studied the man. “How’d you know I came from outside the city?”

  A chime sounded their arrival. Instead of answering, Skadz rolled the bike out and left it leaning beside the elevator door. He led Skyler down a long hall between cubicles and offices. There were no bodies here, Skyler noted, but things were in disarray. Blood stained the carpet in many places.

  At the end of a hall was a door propped open by a roll of toilet paper. A large biometric reader on the wall beside it had been smashed to pieces.

  “Holed up here since the madness started,” Skadz said, leading the way inside. “Figured it’d be good to get a proper picture of what’s going on.”

  The massive room contained row upon row of dual-screen monitors, laid out auditorium-style with desks in front of each. Again there were no bodies.

  On the far wall, which rose ten meters from the floor of the room, was a series of huge sensory-quality displays, already adjusting to provide depth based on Skyler’s position in the room.

  All of the screens displayed images from around the city. Security and traffic cameras, Skyler realized. “That was smart, coming here,” he said, genuinely impressed.

  “I’d about given up hope until I saw you walking along that canal. I don’t know the city that well so it was something of a bitch to track your path.”

  Skyler sat, leaned back. “You saved my life out there. Thanks.”

  The man shrugged. “Had to. You’re the first sane person I’ve seen, Skyler, and I’ve been watching the city all bloody night.”

  To that the pilot had no response. If true, and if the disease kept spreading at the rate Skyler had witnessed so far, then he may well be witnessing the world’s end. He told the man his story, from the encounter near Alexandria to the doctor who protected him from the initial wave of infection.

  “You’re a lucky bastard,” Skadz said, “and that doctor was wise. The first few hours …” He fell silent, shuddered. “Almost everyone just died. Hands clasped around their heads, screaming like you can’t imagine. A right fucking mess. The rest, the survivors, are like animals. They flee or fight. Alone or in packs. I watched from here while I could stomach it.”

  “One spoke to me.”

  “Yeah,” Skadz said. He nodded sadly. “Some can still string a few words together, though that particular skill seems to fade pretty fast. Care for a pint?”

  The question caught Skyler off guard. He mumbled agreement and studied the room’s monitors as the other man busied himself with a camping cooler stuffed below one of the desks. Every screen seemed to offer a window on death and chaos. Bodies were everywhere, so many the ground itself could barely be seen. The diseased moved among them. A pack perhaps fifty strong roamed the left side of one screen, picking their way through the dead. One pulled a half-eaten pastry from the hand of a woman, sniffing at it as if it had never seen such a thing before, then tentatively took a bite.

  Without warning all of the diseased froze, dropping slightly. They glanced off to the right in eerie unison, toward a light-rail station. Then they started to move back.

  An automated streetcar rolled into view, pushing aside bodies like a boat through water. The train powered through the corpses with relentless, mechanical drive.

  He couldn’t look at it, this ocean of death, any longer. He let his eyes drift to the background, to the beloved skyline of the city. A skyline ablaze. He imagined the disease sweeping through, catching millions unaware, and millions more who tried desperately to flee. They’d left food cooking, fireplaces lit. Knocked candles from restaurant tables as they fell. Lost control of cars, spilled down stairwells or from balconies. Airplanes must have fallen like rocks.

  Skadz walked over with two bottles of golden liquid, handed one to Skyler, then sat again. “What part of town are they in? Your parents.”

  “Off Herenstraat.”

  The man tapped some controls on one of the screens. A map appeared. “I don’t know the city well. Point it out?”

  Skyler did. His new friend—possibly his only friend in the world—traced a circle around the area, and the screen zoomed inward. Little camera icons popped up all around the neighborhood. Skyler pointed at one.

  While a connection was established, Skyler tried to picture his elderly parents sitting on their balcony or strolling in the garden square behind their simple apartment, oblivious to all this chaos and death. Then he tried to imagine them, immune, fleeing the city. Skyler’s gaze flicked to the horrors displayed on every other monitor in the room. He knew in his gut they would not have stood a chance.

  An instant later the camera view from a traffic signal on Herenstraat appeared on the screen. Skyler leaned across Skadz, panned, and zoomed along the quaint block of retirement flats until he found the building his parents lived in. The door stood open. Bodies lay on the steps leading to it and on the sidewalk below. He scanned each but none looked like his parents.

  After a few minutes of searching the street he found them. They were side by side in the end, in their car a hundred meters down the road, boxed in on all sides by others trying to flee. Skyler zoomed in, and the enlarged picture, though grainy, left no doubt. His father had pulled his mother’s face to his chest so she wouldn’t have to see. They’d died there, in a traffic jam.

  Skyler slumped into a chair and stared at the high-resolution image for a long time. He waited for the grief to come. Craved it. Needed it after everything else. It never came. There was only emptiness. Eventually he reached up and flicked off the display.

  “Sorry, man,” Skadz said. “Honestly.”

  “At least they didn’t turn into those … animals.”

  Skadz said nothing. The room became very quiet.

  “What’s your plan?” Skyler asked.

  The other man drained his bottle. “Survive,” he finally said. “Haven’t thought about it much beyond that. Why? Got a plan?”

  Deciding he could trust this man, and not keen on being alone, Skyler told him of the disease-control facility in Abu Dhabi. “I intend to fly there. I think this doctor was right—there might be something about us they can study.”

  “Us?”

  Skyler nodded. “Come with me. You seem resourceful. And, Christ, there might not be anyone else.”

  The other man stood abruptly. “There’s something else you need to see.”

  _

  He led Skyler to an office a few floors up. Inside he gestured to a wall display. On it, two news anchors sat across a table from Neil Platz, the famed business tycoon. All three looked at once tired and yet hyperalert. There was no sound.

  “What’s this?” Skyler asked. Then, “Shit, you didn’t record them as the infection set in, did you?”

  “Nah, man, this is live.”

  Skyler glanced from the screen to Skadz, then slowly back. “Live? So it hasn’t spread that far—”

  “It has. No need for sound to tell you what they’re talking about. They’re saying Darwin is safe. That bloody alien cord, the Elevator, is protecting the city.”

  “What? You’re joking.”

  “No, I am not.”

  “But that means …,” Skyler said, and stopped, the words too ridiculous to voice.

  “That means the disease and the space elevator are related,” Skadz said for him. “Fucking Builders, man. Mental, isn’t it?”

  Neither spoke for a long time. The image shifted from the interview with Platz to live scenes shot around the Australian city. The streets
were packed like Amsterdam’s, but not with the dead or infected. Skyler saw anxious crowds praying in front of a church, then a shaky shot of a running street battle. The camera cut to the now-famous sight of Nightcliff, where the Elevator connected to the ground. A line of riot police stood between the complex and a throng of citizens.

  “It’s no picnic there, either, mind you,” Skadz said, “but if Abu Dhabi doesn’t work out you’ll want to head there.”

  Skyler looked away from the screen and regarded the man standing beside him. They couldn’t be more different, yet they shared the immunity. “Come with me,” Skyler said. “It’s possible we can help.”

  Skadz cracked an unexpected grin. White teeth in stark contrast to his dark skin. “Beats hanging around here, I suppose. But if they want to poke us with needles, I’ll volunteer you for the job.”

  Part Two

  Promise of Violence

  Chapter One

  HOWARD SPRINGS, AUSTRALIA

  15.APR.2278

  The rusted shell of the ancient Land Cruiser rang like an enormous bell when the bullet tore through. Another finger-sized hole among the thousands already there, the result of a century or more of target practice.

  Samantha lowered the rifle, satisfied. She slipped the butt under her arm and rested the barrel across the crook of her elbow. With her free hand she plucked a bit of orange foam from her ear and looked at her student. “See? It’s pretty easy.”

  The teen removed an earplug as well, copying her counselor. “Doesn’t it hurt your shoulder? You know, when it kicks?”

  With a shrug Sam stepped behind the girl and, using slow, deliberate movements, helped her get the hunting rifle into a proper hold. With the sound of the gunshot receding into the bush, birds restarted their chatter in the trees around them, as if providing commentary on Sam’s aim and the shot to come. Beneath that conversation droned the constant hum of insects and other, nastier things. Sam knew that as long as they were shooting, the crocs would stay away, but that didn’t stop her from flinching at every movement in the shadows among the low zamia palms. Under the press of the noon sun, the waist-high trees glowed like jade-green torches below the much higher ironwood canopy.

  A whip-crack Sam felt more than heard radiated through the forest, silencing the birds again. A few took flight. Ferns rustled as something small fled through the undergrowth.

  “Wasn’t quite ready,” Sam said, using a pinky to dig at her ringing ear.

  The kid, Marni, fifteen and already a dropout, lowered the barrel. “Did I hit it?”

  “I didn’t see. I wasn’t ready.” Sam knew she’d missed, though. The Land Cruiser hadn’t rung.

  “Sorry.” Marni spoke too loudly, ears plugged.

  Sam stuffed her own plug back in and sighed. “Try again.”

  The girl fired. Her shot sailed high, making a thin noise as it passed through foliage. “Fuck,” Marni said.

  “Language.”

  “Sorry.”

  “And you don’t always have to apologize.”

  “Sorry! I mean … shit. Sorry.” Her shoulders heaved as frustration built like a gathering storm.

  Sam rested a hand on the girl’s back. “Just … relax, okay? It’s your first try. Take a deep breath this time. Fire at the end of your exhale.” Snipers did that, she’d read somewhere. Sam never bothered, but then, she’d never shot at something this big and missed.

  Marni fired again. Missed again. She slumped her head forward, blond hair falling across her face. Sam, who had seen this posture before, swallowed. It was the reason they were out here, in the middle of the reserve, shooting things. Bonding. Trying desperately to find something the troubled child was good at. A skill she could wear like a badge. Apparently guns weren’t going to fill that void. Probably for the best, really.

  Moreover, Sam had been tasked by the camp leaders to teach Marni how to avoid the kind of funk she’d just descended into. Sam knew the feeling well; she’d lived it at the same age, attended the same camp. Anger had been her problem. Violence. Three neighborhood boys ended up in the hospital for trying to get a peek up the only skirt she’d ever worn.

  “I’m worthless,” Marni said with a tight voice.

  Sam took the gun then. Gently, but she took it. She pulled the magazine and stuffed it in her pocket, then emptied the chamber and slung the weapon over one shoulder. Marni just stood there, head down, facing the carcass of the old truck.

  Just like me at that age, Sam thought. Same attitude. Same blond hair and sky-blue eyes. A hint of freckles across the cheeks. They could be sisters, except for the difference in height. Marni was a few centimeters shorter than most of the girls at the camp. Sam towered over all of them—even the ranger, Kirk, who would be considered tall except when standing next to Samantha. She had him by half a head.

  “Just …” Sam paused, considering her words. “We just need to figure out what you’re good at.”

  “And then what?”

  Sam shrugged. “Depends on what it is. If it’d been shooting—”

  “I don’t own a gun.”

  “If shooting was your thing,” Sam said, willing patience, “you’d join a team. Aim for the Olympics, or the police.”

  Marni folded her arms. “I want to live in orbit.”

  At that Sam had to suppress a snide reply. Every kid on the planet wanted to get off, and not in the colloquial sense. They wanted to live above, thanks to the constant barrage of info-sensories that Platz Industries released into the airwaves. Wanted to ride the vaunted Darwin Elevator up to gleaming space stations, perhaps see the alien craft firsthand. Such jobs were afforded to a very select few, and none of them were troubled fifteen-year-olds. “They have security guards up there,” Sam offered, vaguely remembering that. “They carry guns, I’ll bet.”

  The girl dropped to her knees and curled up. She wrapped her hands around her head and weaved her fingers together, rocking back and forth slightly.

  “Look,” Sam said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “So you’re not good at shooting. So what? There’s a million other things—”

  Marni let out a soft cry. More of a moan, really.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  Sam’s slate chirped from the car, a short distance behind them. She’d left it on the front seat and had ignored similar chirps all morning. It could be only one person: Ranger Kirk. He was the only one allowed to have a comm able to link to the outside nets. Sometimes he’d share news, big important stuff like rugby scores, but otherwise he kept quiet about the wider world. Camp policy. It seemed like a burden lately, too, Sam thought. The man had become withdrawn, even jittery, in recent days. Maybe there’d been a terrorist plot against the Elevator or something. Whatever. He’d refused to talk about it, and Sam didn’t much care.

  Kirk should know not to interrupt a one-on-one like this. Sam sighed. Now seemed the perfect time to give Marni a little room. Saying nothing, she left the girl where she was and walked to the rugged, mud-splattered vehicle. Behind her Marni moaned again. Sam rolled her eyes and stuffed the rifle behind the driver’s seat before picking up her slate.

  It vibrated in her hand as she read the screen. Ranger Kirk, who else. Sam answered, pressing the device to her ear for privacy. “In the middle of a tender moment here—”

  “Sam! Jesus! Get back … fuck. Get back! Get—OH HELL!”

  Sounds popped and gargled through the slate, automatically switching to the external speaker when she yanked it away from her ear. The noise temporarily drowned out the queer, hollow moan that Marni was still making.

  “Kirk!” Sam tried to shout above the scuffle coming through from his end. One of the kids must be having an episode, Sam thought, and if she wasn’t careful Marni might start one of her own any second now. “We’re on our way back. Try to—”

  A roar came through the device. A sound so loud and savage that Sam jumped, dropping the little slab into the dirt between her feet.

  She knelt. The fuck was that noise? A dog or
something? It couldn’t have been one of the kids. No human being could make a sound like that. “Time to go, Marn!”

  The slate had landed facedown, activating the passive screen that covered the back. She’d set the thing up to display a large clock and some other bits of info that might be worth knowing when her alarm went off each morning. The clock read 12:04 P.M. The information below read: 22 MISSED CALLS. 16 NEW MESSAGES.

  “What the hell?”

  Sam didn’t get sixteen messages in a week. Kirk must have really lost his marbles. Then she noticed the little globe in the lower right corner. The outside feed had been restored. Baffled, she plucked the thin slab between two fingers and brushed the mud from it. Then she walked to Marni and hauled the moping girl by her arm to the passenger’s seat. The kid never stopped holding her head, and she let out a fearful yelp as Sam thrust her into the vehicle.

  Sam barely looked at the girl as they bounced down the dirt trail toward the campsite. Showers of brown water went up from both sides of the vehicle as Sam took the deep puddles without slowing. Marni cowered in her seat as if they might die at any second, a stark contrast to the eager delight she’d shown on the drive out at similar speeds.

  “Maybe driving is your thing,” Sam said. “Tomorrow you take the wheel, huh?”

  No reply. Ahead Sam could see the lodge between the trees.

  “Look, we’ll find it. Something you’re good at, or you love to do. And we’ll figure out a plan for you. Okay? Everyone has a niche. You just have to find it and grab on. All right?”

  Marni had her legs drawn up, knees touching her chin, arms still clamped around each side of her head.

  “Jesus,” Sam said, reaching toward the shaking girl with her left hand.

  She froze. Marni’s neck bore an angry, mottled rash. “Are you sick or something? I’ll slow—”