Tankbread 02 Immortal

by Paul Mannering

  They fell into line, gathering their few children and supplies while two volunteers dragged Hob’s travois through the mud. A sodden troop followed Joel, Else, and Rache down the trail through the trees.

  The rain drummed down on the ground and trees, making conversation difficult. They marched in silence.

  One of the fishermen started it, a low rhythmic chanting, a work song with words of the net and the sea. A song of pulling together and getting the work done. The other fishermen joined in, and the holders soon picked up the words. They sang softly, afraid of attracting the dead with too much noise as the song murmured among the group. To Else, it seemed to bring them together, to give them a common purpose they had lacked on the ship.

  “Sometimes I wonder if the rain will ever stop,” Else said to Joel as they walked.

  “Rain is what gives the earth life. Rain is life. If it ever stops, it won’t matter what them dead fellas do. Everything will die.”

  “Sometimes I think that would be better,” Else said. “If everything was wiped clean and the earth could start fresh.”

  “Back to the Dreamtime,” Joel said, nodding.

  “I’d like that,” Else sighed. The baby stirred in his dry cocoon under her raincoat.

  Joel waved them to a halt later in the day, then ducked down and crept forward. Else hesitated, wanting to stay close to him but not wanting to put her son in danger. She crouched leaning against a dripping tree trunk and scanned the trees ahead. Joel reappeared a few moments later. His way of silently moving unnerved Else, and she reminded herself to learn all she could from him.

  “Road ahead, old highway,” Joel reported as he sank into a crouch next to her.

  “Any dead?” Else asked.

  “No, it’s all clear. We need to cross it, get into the bush on the other side. Keep moving that way,” Joel indicated a direction that Else tagged as five degrees west of southwest.

  “You wait here,” Joel continued, “I’ll go get the others.”

  Else nodded and Joel vanished into the trees. She went back to watching the forest ahead. After a minute she rose to her feet and crept forward. Even here, in the cover of the dense bush, she felt exposed. Too many directions for death to come from. A low bank of exposed clay and sandy soil that squished underfoot in the rain marked the edge of the highway.

  Else looked both ways. The broad expanse of old asphalt disappeared into the mist in both directions, a black river dotted with tufts of green grass pushing up through the ever-widening cracks.

  The shifting rain made shadows, and it wasn’t until one of them moved against the rain that Else noticed the figure coming from the south. He was alone and moving with purpose. A wide-brimmed stockman’s hat kept his face in shadow. Else slid a blade from the scabbard on her back, noting that if the man approaching was an evol, he had been eating well. There was no shuffle in his step, no confusion of dulled senses in his manner.

  If he was a survivor, he might have friends and that could be just as dangerous. Else stayed hidden, watching the man as he came closer and then passed by. She wiped the water from her eyes and studied his face before pushing through the brush and stepping out on the road behind him.

  “You—” Else said and hesitated. The figure had gone. Joel emerged from the roadside scrub.

  “You okay?” he called softly. Else shivered. She dreamed of the Courier, but seeing a vision of him walking in the mist was an eerie sensation.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “We should keep moving.”

  The survivors emerged from the bush, gathering behind Joel and peering out into the open ground.

  “We go that way,” Joel pointed southwest again. Else nodded and waited while the group crossed the road.

  “Does it always rain in onland?” Rache asked.

  “No, this part of the country had a dry season and a wet season. This is the wet season.”

  “No shit?” Rache said with a wry smile.

  “The rest of the year it doesn’t rain at all.”

  “When it rained on the ship, we would just stay inside. Rain was a good thing; it refreshed the water tanks and washed the decks clean.”

  “It’s a good thing in onland too. It makes things grow,” Else said testily, still feeling unnerved by the apparition.

  “The only green things we saw on ship was seaweed. Seaweed and fish. Salvage fruit and coconuts when we could find them.”

  “We’ll take the road,” Else said. “It goes south and we can travel faster.”

  Rache nodded and made the announcement to the survivors. They murmured their agreement, and the travois dragged over the rain-swept asphalt.

  It was after dark when they came to the farmhouse. Set back from the road behind a stand of gum trees, the gates were locked but a truck had smashed through the fence, turning on its side and plowing up the ground. The truck was empty and rusting in the mud. Else walked with Rache at the head of the group, watching their surroundings carefully for any sign of movement.

  “Who lives here?” Rache asked.

  “No one now,” Else replied. “Once, people owned this land and farmed it.”

  Rache looked intrigued. “Maybe they had cows, or sheep?” she asked.

  “Papayas,” Else said.

  “Huh?” Rache frowned.

  “This was a papaya plantation.” Else nodded towards a sign, half eaten by mud, the paint faded to a ghostly shade.

  “Can you eat papaya?” Rache asked.

  “Yes,” Else said.

  They reconnoitered the house, finding nothing alive or dead. The paint had peeled, revealing boards that had weathered to the grey of dead bones.

  “It’s . . . creepy,” Rache said.

  “Bring everyone inside. It will be dry and we can make a fire.”

  The house fascinated the survivors. Some of them remembered living in places like this, and one woman sank into the dust-covered remains of a couch, weeping uncontrollably.

  Else checked the house one more time. There were no human remains inside. Rache and Eric followed her into the kitchen.

  “Don’t!” Else barked as Rache went to open a large, white chest freezer.

  “Never open those,” Else insisted. “You’ll regret it if you do.”

  “Freezer,” Eric said. “Jeez, can you imagine what kind of shit would be growin’ in there after this long?”

  “Dead things,” Else said.

  Else wiped a kitchen window until she could see out. Joel strolled past outside. She watched as he crouched on the veranda and lit a fire in an old pot. Else opened the back door. “Joel, you should come inside, it’s warm in here.”

  “Na thanks,” he said.

  “If you need anything, just ask, okay?”

  Joel waved and went back to feeding sticks into his pot fire.

  Eric got a fire started in the living room fireplace, and the survivors stripped down and dried their clothes. Years of living in close confines left them with no sense of modesty.

  “Where’s Hob?” Rache demanded.

  “Couldn’t get him in through the door,” one of the stretcher-bearers said with a shrug.

  “Well pick him up and carry him in. You leave him outside, he’ll get sick and die.”

  Two men shuffled out and a minute later came in, Hob slung between them, shivering violently.

  “Fuckin’ cunt,” he muttered. “Fuckin’ cunts, all o’ yer.”

  “Lay him down,” Rache ordered, “on that soft thing.” The men lay Hob out on the couch.

  Rache peeled the dressing from Hob’s wound. He hissed and dug his fingers into the couch cushions. “Ya fuckin’ bitch,” he snarled through clenched teeth.

  The wound had crusted and fluid exuding from the gash had soaked into the dressing. Rache sniffed it; the smell of honey and salt seemed a good sign that the wound wasn’t infected.

  “You lie still, let that get some air.”

  “I’ll give you some fuckin’ air,” Hob growled. “Stab ya in the fuckin’ throat.”<
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  Rache crouched down and put her mouth near Hob’s ear. “Listen to me, you fuckin’ prick. She could have killed you. Half of them here wanted you dead. She could have let you bleed out, but instead she had you fixed up and kept alive. So quit your fuckin’ bitchin’ and give some goddamn thanks.”

  Hob subsided into muttering and Rache walked off to the kitchen to ask Else and Joel about how to make a fresh dressing for his wound.

  Hob lay on the couch, his gaze sliding across the ceiling and away from the searing throb of his groin. He turned his head and his eyes fell on the girl. What was her fuckin’ name? Anna? She sat near the fire, a steaming blanket wrapped tightly around her, safe in her mother’s arms. The fuck did she have to look so fuckin’ miserable about?

  Anna twisted in her mother’s lap, her pale blue eyes meeting his through the tangled fringe of her long red hair. Hob blinked in surprise. The hate he saw in her stare chilled him to the core.

  “Crazy bitch,” he muttered, turning his face back up to the ceiling. The emotion in the girl’s stare echoed with him, though, even when he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

  Chapter 6

  They slept the night in the house, eating the last of the meat that Joel hunted and the last of the cans from Else’s scavenged stores.

  No one was keen to move at dawn. Else vanished out the back of the house, Joel strolling along beside her. They returned some time later, carrying bulging sacks.

  “Papayas,” Else declared and started handing out the bright yellow fruit to the confused survivors.

  Eric let out a whoop and taking a blade he slashed one in half and sucked the juice that dripped from its core. The others quickly caught on, hacking the fruit into fist-sized chunks and stuffing themselves.

  Rache grinned with her mouth full, the sweet juice dripping down her chin, leaving sticky trails on her skin.

  Else cut papaya chunks into a bowl and went to where Hob lay, glaring at everyone.

  “You should eat,” she said.

  “Fuck off,” Hob snarled.

  Else shrugged and set the bowl on his chest. “Don’t wait for too long, we’re moving out soon.”

  “Did you find vehicles?” Eric asked, and then let loose a thunderous belch that made the babies cry and the children giggle.

  “No, just a tractor and it’s rusted up,” Else said.

  After breakfast the group packed everything up. Their wardrobes were expanded with clothes salvaged from sealed plastic bags found upstairs, and everyone carried at least three fresh papaya.

  Joel moved the empty bowl off Hob’s chest and felt his skin. “No fever, mate. That’s a good sign, aye?”

  Hob grunted, inhaling sharply as Joel inspected his wound. “How you pissing?” Joel asked.

  “How the fuck do you think?” Hob snarled.

  “It coming out okay?”

  “It burns like fuckin’ fire. Then it fuckin’ burns until the next time I gotta fuckin’ piss. Then it fuckin’ burns again. Stupid fuckin’ thing to fuckin’ ask.”

  “I found this,” Else said, peering over Joel’s shoulder. “It’s an antiseptic spray, iodine.”

  Joel gave a noncommittal grunt. “Honey’s good for preventing infection.”

  “Try this stuff too,” Else suggested. Joel took the can and popped the lid off. Giving it a shake, he pressed down on the aerosol button. Hob’s back arched off the couch. “Oh you fuckin’ cuuuuuunt!” he screamed.

  “If it burns, it’s doing its job,” Else said.

  She left Joel to dress the whimpering Hob’s wound. A weaker man would have died of shock and blood loss. Hob’s anger would keep him alive.

  They walked on down the road in better spirits. The children laughed and chased each other through the rapidly diminishing puddles. The adults had lost some of the haunted look that dominated their eyes.

  Around midday, by Else’s estimation of the position of the sun that had returned without mercy earlier in the morning, the Hob’s stretcher came apart. A crowd gathered around him and concluded that the travois was beyond repair.

  “Can you walk?” Else asked.

  “Can fuckin’ walk you into the ground, bitch,” Hob snarled and with some help, he made it upright. He swayed slightly, the little color he had draining from his face.

  “I’m going that way,” Else jerked a thumb over her shoulder and turned on her heel.

  The group gave Hob some room. He gritted his teeth and took a cautious step, then another. Anna stood behind him under her mother’s arm and watched him hobble down the road.

  No one cheered. The stretcher-bearers took on other loads, and the group moved on down the broken road.

  They saw the first evol later that day, a lone male, tangled in a broken wire fence. The wire had cut deep, slicing the flesh from his arms and legs down to the bone. The group slowed to a halt, staring at this strange sight from a safe distance. The fear they had of the dead was changing to curiosity now that they were not under their authority.

  “Should we kill it?” Rache asked.

  “We always kill the dead. It doesn’t matter who they were or where they are; we destroy every one we come across,” Else replied.

  Rache stepped forward under a chorus of advice and cries of caution from the group. She slid a blade from her back and with a nod at the audience she decapitated the snarling man.

  Else turned and started walking while Rache brandished her weapon and grinned at the exultant praise of her people. With her back to the fence, Rache didn’t see the second evol rise up out of the grass. This one was a young girl, bound to this spot by some lingering sense of security with the man who may have been her father.

  Else heard the screams and ran back to the group. Rache was on her back, wrestling with the dead girl on top of her, the evol’s shrill screams drowning out the cries of horror from the startled survivors. In three running strides Else arrived, her blade swinging down, hacking the girl’s head off and dragging her body away. Rache rolled to her feet, teeth bared and eyes wide. “Fuckin’ bitch,” she spat and stepped forward, kicking her booted foot into the corpse. The toe of her boot punctured the necrotic skin and filled the air with rotten stink.

  Else shoved Rache back hard enough to send her sprawling on her butt. “You think this is a game?” Else demanded, standing over Rache. “There is no room for complacency. This is about survival. For you, for them, for all of us.”

  Rache rolled to her feet, still amped on adrenaline and ready to fight. She subsided when she saw the look in Else’s eyes; something in the deep blue of those irises terrified her.

  “All of you, keep moving,” Else ordered. The group picked up and marched on. Hob was already a quarter mile ahead, walking with a grim determination and a singular focus on the horizon.

  Else marched after him, Joel falling into step beside her and scanning the trees on each side. “We’re pretty exposed out here. Them dead fellas, they follow the roads.”

  “We move faster on the road,” Else replied.

  “Just don’t camp here, aye?”

  “There’s farms all round an abandoned town, I remember from when I came up this way. Innisfail, it’s a big town; shouldn’t be too much further.” Else glanced back; the survivors were hurrying along. Small children had been scooped up and rode on the shoulders of adults.

  “Dunno how long they can keep up this pace,” Joel warned.

  “Well they’d better get used to it. The strong survive out here, the rest will die.”

  “Y’know my people, we’ve been here for maybe sixty thousand years. They don’t come much tougher and I’m sayin’ you should slow down.”

  The baby started crying at that point, ending the conversation and slowing Else’s pace to a steady walk.

  With a cloth from her bag, dampened in a puddle, Else cleaned the baby and then fed him while she walked. The survivors kept their distance, huddled together and watching her warily.

  After an hour’s walking in the sun, the steam ris
ing from the ground made the air thick with humidity.

  “We need to get some more water,” Rache reported. “The fruit’s all been eaten and the kids are hungry.”

  Else looked over her shoulder at the dusty, weary people. Why were they her responsibility? She should have stayed in her house with her baby and let them survive on their own. Except for the dogs. If not the dogs, then the crocodiles, or the evols, or a snake. So many ways to die out here in the bush. Safety came with community and with community came responsibility, no matter how much it rankled.

  “Tell them we keep going until we find a house, then we can stay there for the night. It will be shelter from the rain, and the farms around here have lots of food growing.”

  “I should hunt,” Joel said.

  “How will you find us again?” Else asked.

  Joel chuckled and shook his head. “You leave a trail like a herd of water buffalo. I’ll find youse.”

  Else watched him lope off into the trees. Joel had a point. His people had survived for untold generations on this land. Hunting and moving around, never making the kinds of technological breakthroughs that other people did, but living in harmony with the environment.

  “Where’s he going?” Rache asked, jogging up to take position next to Else.

  “Hunting,” Else replied.

  “I thought we were looking for his people,” Rache said.

  “Yeah, I guess they don’t follow the roads.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “He will find—” Else stopped as in the distance Hob staggered and then collapsed on the road.

  “Shit,” she muttered. Hurrying forward, the two women reached him first. The rest of the survivors came running to see if he was alive.

  “He’s still breathing,” Else reported. Blood and fluid stained the rough blanket skirt that Hob wore. They lifted the fabric away and saw the dressing underneath was soaked with blood.

  “Let him die,” one of the survivors muttered.

  “He deserves it,” a woman said.

  The others muttered their own opinions. Else scanned the group until she saw Anna.