The End: Surviving the Apocalypse

by Palmer, Richard

  Angela grinned and walked over to the You are What You Eat bus. The Yowie Bus. Q smiled despite herself and followed.

  Most seats were already taken. Q scanned the faces. She recognized three women by the avatar names she’d given them: the Scarlet Terror, Tinkabella and Princess Starla; all young and attractive in a weedy kind of way. No doubt more competition for Rabbit’s affections, although no contest at all in a straight-up brawl. There was also a man with glasses she’d nicknamed Sheath of Power, and Angela, who had already pulled out a paperback romance and was reading with her head resting on the window.

  Rabbit sat in the driver’s seat. “There’s a spot up front,” he said to Q. She waved goodbye to her father and walked around the van to the man of her dreams.

  “Quite a ride you got here,” she said.

  “It seats nine,” said Rabbit, stroking the paneling of the door. It was the first time Q had ever envied steel. “I painted her myself.”

  “Wow.” A whole five hours of driving time sitting next to Rabbit, inches away from bliss.

  “We should get going,” Rabbit said. “The other van left half an hour ago.”

  Q walked to the passenger side door and opened it. Pious Kate sat in the middle of the three-person front seat. “Oh,” said Kate. “You’re coming.”

  “Seems unlikely,” Q said and hopped in beside her.

  Chapter Ten

  Q watched another four-wheel drive overtake, beeping as it sped past. They had been driving for over an hour. Was the traffic coming out of Sydney more frantic than usual? She turned on the radio for a news update, but found static.

  “I didn’t bother fixing it,” said Rabbit. “It never says anything good.”

  “No worries,” Q said, but her spider sense was tingling. No, hang on, that was her belly whinging. She rubbed it. Could she cram down a Pack o’ Snack Stacks fast enough so that no one could critique its politics? No. She’d have to hold out.

  Rabbit waved at a driver overtaking them and received a one-finger salute in reply. He chuckled.

  “They’re all in such a rush,” he said. “It’d make you think there was something amazing up ahead, if there weren’t just as many rushing back the other way.”

  “Except that there aren’t ,” Q said. “There’s hardly any incoming traffic. It’s a Thursday night and everyone’s driving away from the city. They can’t all be commuters. It’s not even a long weekend.”

  “It’s terrible,” Pious Kate said. “All these huge cars, burning up fossil fuel and churning out poison, each carrying its precious cargo of one person.”

  “That one’s got a whole family in it,” Q said. “Look – and dogs. And that one’s got stuff strapped to the roof.”

  “Fascinating,” Pious Kate said. “You must learn conversational skills at teacher’s college.”

  Q frowned. “It’s odd, that’s all I’m saying.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her little black book.

  “They’d be in less of a hurry if they had to get there using their own power,” Pious Kate said, “instead of using petrol.”

  “I ride a mountain bike to work,” Q said, scribbling notes in her book.

  “Of course you do,” Pious Kate said. “Twice as much metal as a road bike with too much embedded energy, wasting more to push all that weight up the hills. If you really cared about the planet, you’d ride a bike you built yourself from spare parts.”

  “Is that a diary?” Rabbit said. The interjection made Q wonder if he was sick of listening to Pious Kate, too.

  “Yes,” Q said, snapping the book shut. “That’s what it is. A diary. It’s certainly not anything weird.”

  “Cool,” said Rabbit. “So how long have you been teaching at Saint Cedric’s?”

  “A couple of months,” she said. “I’m doing a placement for my Diploma of Education.”

  “I’ve never understood the Catholic value set,” Pious Kate said. “That outdated patriarchal model cannot address today’s problems.”

  “I think kindergarten teaching is a great vocation,” Rabbit said. Q glowed. “But how did you end up in it? You don’t seem the type.”

  Q hesitated. Had she just received a compliment, or an insult? “It’s sort of a second career,” she said. “I did a degree in military history first.”

  No one responded. What had she said? She blustered on.

  “I didn’t drop out or anything. My lecturer said my grasp of weaponry was disturbingly good, probably from my early training. My mother put me on the fight circuit when I was six. We had to go to Thailand for the full-contact bouts. The food was good.”

  Pious Kate cut her off. “Yowie thinks violence toward animals is wrong, Qwinston. That includes people.”

  Q thought about her twelfth birthday. Her last competition fight and the first time she’d been blooded. The sensation of hot red liquid pouring from her nose. She’d told Linda she was done. Linda had hated Q for it, said she couldn’t quit the first time she lost, said she’d wasted all that training – that she’d wasted Linda’s life.

  “I think violence is wrong too,” Q said, in a voice so soft even her ghosts couldn’t hear it. “I always did, once I found out it hurts.”

  *

  About two hours into the trip, they came to one of those small rural towns that made Q feel itchy and forlorn. This town was worse than usual: people were nailing boards over their windows.

  “I love these friendly towns,” Rabbit said, without a trace of sarcasm.

  Pious Kate had fallen asleep and was drooling on Q’s shoulder, no doubt suffering low blood sugar as a result of lack of food and an excess of sour thoughts. Q was trying to work out how to make a make a witty remark about dribbling ex-girlfriends without sounding ungracious, when Rabbit pulled over.

  “Last stop for fuel,” he said.

  “Let me get it,” Q said. She pulled out an overstuffed wallet and accidentally-on-purpose spilled its contents. Membership cards for various conservation groups and animal rights organizations flew across the dashboard. “How clumsy,” she said, gathering them up.

  “Your cards all expire at the same time,” Pious Kate said. “Eleven months and two weeks from now. Recently signed on, have we? A little green about being green?” And then she was snoring again.

  Wow. From sleep to scathing remark in six seconds. Pious Kate was like a skinny ninja of words.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rabbit said, waving away Q’s proffered fifty-dollar note. “I got it.” He unfolded his lanky frame, grabbed an empty jerry can from behind the seat and walked toward one of the three shops.

  “Where’s the petrol station?” Q asked.

  Angela leaned forward. “You should watch this.”

  Rabbit ambled into the takeaway shop. It was empty but for the pallid, obese woman standing behind the counter, who glared at the stranger, taking in the worn shoes, the torn jeans and the shaggy hair. Q could almost see the words “bloody dole-bludger” form on her lips.

  Then the woman saw Rabbit’s face. She dropped the hostile expression and replaced it with the smile of a schoolgirl in love. Her mouth began moving far too fast for normal conversation.

  Q giggled. “That’s funny from a distance.”

  “I told you,” said Angela.

  “And when it’s someone who’s unattractive and, like, really, really old,” Q said.

  “Watch it, Gen Y.”

  Rabbit ambled back to the Yowie bus and filled the tank from the jerry can.

  “What’s he doing?” Q said.

  “Fueling up,” Angela said.

  “How?”

  “Converted biodiesel,” Angela said.

  “What?”

  “The bus runs on old chip oil,” Angela said.

  Q gasped in horror. “No wonder I keep thinking about fried chicken! You vegans are evil.”

  Rabbit got back into the driver’s seat. “These small town folk sure are chatty,” he said. “You would not believe the stories she was telling me
.” He started the engine. “All right, kids. We’ve got a couple hours to go. Who wants to hear my latest song about mulesing?”

  “I do!” Q said, hoping it would help her chances and kill her appetite.

  *

  The last ten miles were slower than running Zombocalypse III on a P166. The dirt road gave way to a fire trail full of potholes, which the Yowie bus navigated at a slow trundle. Despite the constant bumping, Pious Kate still slumbered on Q’s shoulder.

  Rabbit stopped the bus. “We’re here,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” said Angela.

  “There’s no street lights,” said the Scarlet Terror.

  “There’s no street,” said Angela.

  All they could see in the beam of the headlights were half-a-dozen wooden huts scattered among the trees. Rabbit cut the engine and the headlights and left them blind.

  They heard a chilling noise, like the moan of some soulless creature shunned by God and nature and doomed to roam the earth until the end of days.

  Q flicked on a torch to find Tinkabella yawning in the back seat of the bus.

  “Wow,” said Rabbit. “You got that torch out fast.”

  “Yeah,” said Q. “Would you think it weird if I said I always keep my head torch and survival tin in my first-line bomb-burst gear?”

  “Nope,” said Rabbit, “because I have no idea what that means. Let’s go.”

  They piled out of the Yowie bus, shivering, grumbling and stepping on one another’s toes. “Hello?” Angela called. “Is anyone there?”

  Darkness swallowed her words.

  “I can’t see the other van,” Tinkabella said.

  “We could call,” said Q. “Maybe they got lost.”

  “They won’t have a phone,” said Rabbit. “We’re on retreat.”

  “There’s a light up there,” Q said, pointing to a cabin half a mile up the slope. It was an eerie construction, dwarfing the pale trees around it. “There’s not much of a track though. We’ll have to bash it.”

  Rabbit, Angela and Q were volunteered to check out the cabin while the others stayed by the bus, except for Pious Kate, who remained asleep inside it. They fought their way up the hill through the scrub. When they were a hundred feet away from the cabin, Q worked out why it looked so strange.

  “It’s got an upstairs level,” she said. “Why would anyone build two stories out here?”

  “To keep their distance from the bodies in the basement?” Angela said, puffing. “Anyone who chooses to live out here cannot be trusted.”

  “What is this place?” Q said from her position in the lead.

  “A piece of paradise,” Rabbit said. “Off the grid, out of range and in the bush.”

  “Two days’ stumble from the nearest population center, next to a creek and bang in the middle of a mountain range,” Q said, piecing together the terrain they’d driven through.

  “Amazing biodiversity,” Rabbit said. “They’re still discovering prehistoric plants in here.”

  “Good hunting, poor access and a secure water source,” Q said.

  “It’s perfect,” they said in unison.

  “Guys?” Angela cut in. They had arrived at the cabin and they were not alone.

  A man stood inside, silhouetted against the window. He was enormous, at least six-foot-four and almost as broad, with a huge belly. He held something long and thin. Q couldn’t see it clearly. The light went out and the man disappeared.

  “What’s he holding?” Angela said. “A club? A gun?”

  Q motioned the others to be quiet, switched off her head torch and tried to restore her night vision. She heard the soft steps of a large man walking quietly. She crept into an intercept position and dropped to the ground to wait.

  “Or maybe it’s the shin bone from something he wooed, killed and ate?” Angela said.

  A gas lamp sprang into life a foot from where Q crouched. The man loomed over her. She tensed.

  “Hi!” said Rabbit. He held out his right hand for the man to shake. “You must be the caretaker. We just arrived. Have you seen our friends?”

  “Or eaten them?” Angela said under her breath.

  Rabbit continued. “You’re welcome to come join us for some supper and songs if you’d like.”

  The man looked Rabbit down and down, which few people were tall enough to do, and summed up in one word his hatred of everything that was wrong with the world and the reason he had chosen to live outside of it: “Hippies!” He spat, turned and went inside. A blind was pulled down over the window.

  “That’s cool,” Rabbit called out. “We’ll show ourselves around. Be sure to let us know if we’re too loud.” They walked back down the hill.

  “That guy was bad news,” Angela said. “Did you see his face? There was something wrong with him.”

  “I thought he looked sad,” said Rabbit. “Let’s go unpack and get some grub.”

  “Please don’t mean that literally,” Q said.

  “You’re not hungry?” Rabbit asked.

  “Only if you feed your guests like you feed your bus.”

  Chapter Eleven

  One hut. Three beds. No way out.

  “Arm wrestle for top bunk!” Q said. She threw her pack to the ground, hit the floor and assumed the position.

  “It’s okay, Q. You can have it.” Angela put her bag on the bottom bunk. “Someone already took the single. Can I borrow your torch?”

  Q gave her the head torch and Angela tied it to a beam on the roof. The swinging light made their shadows swell and writhe. Q searched for switches but found none. “No power, I guess,” Q said. “We’ll have to rough it.”

  “Honey, this ain’t roughing it. Three kids at feeding hour during a blackout is roughing it.”

  “Can you smell that?” Q said. “Like rotting licorice.”

  Their roommate entered and conversation stopped. Pious Kate glared at Angela and Q, as if they’d be last on her list of preferred roommates. “I can’t believe I gave up my yoga retreat for this.”

  “Cheer up,” said Angela. “No power, no water and no distractions. Think of it as a chance to learn how the other half live.”

  Q leaned over to Angela and whispered. “The other half are the dead, right? Because I’m pretty sure they outnumber us. You should say ‘the other ninety-nine hundredths.’”

  Angela whispered back. “No, Q. The other half are the world’s poor.”

  “Oh.”

  “They outnumber us too. It’s an expression.”

  “What are you two muttering about?” Pious Kate said.

  “Sounds like someone got bit by Pinky the paranoia flea,” Q sang. “That’s, uh, something the kids in Kindy Koalas say to each other.”

  “How did you know I got bitten?” Pious Kate said. She rubbed her right hip. “It was some bloody kid out shopping with his mother.”

  Since when did little boys bite? Okay, always, but since when did they bite strangers at the mall, instead of their sisters at home? Well, when the strangers were as obnoxious as Pious Kate, probably pretty often, but it was still weird. Q reached for her book.

  “Do the kids really talk about Pinky the paranoia flea?” Angela said.

  “Not as such,” Q said. “I’m hoping it will catch on.”

  “Stop talking behind my back!” Pious Kate said.

  “What, in front of your face?” Q said.

  Pious Kate began to unpack. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “Take that awful bright light when you leave.”

  *

  The group clustered around the fire. Princess Starla and the Scarlet Terror were chatting and Sheath of Power had his legs crossed and his eyes closed in some kind of hippytrance. Rabbit watched the flames dance. Tinkabella stirred a large pot over the coals at the edge.

  Q was pleased to see that they had built a decent fire. Who would have thought vegans had skills, other than pamphlet composition and guilt? She complimented Tinkabella on it.

  “Whoa,” said Rabbit through the smoke
. “Who said that?”

  “Huh?” said Q.

  Rabbit grinned. “Check it out,” he said. “It’s invisible army girl.”

  “What?”

  “It’s your outfit,” Angela said. “He’s making a joke.”

  Q considered her green-and-khaki camouflage kit. “This is what you wear in the bush,” she said. “It’s normal, right?”

  “You sure are,” said Angela. “Plus extra fashion points for matching your gloves to your beanie, your sweater, your pants and the landscape.”

  Q sat down by the fire to the left of Rabbit and noticed that no one else was wearing camouflage anything. She had a moment of self-doubt. If she were the only one dressed in camo, did it make her stand out? Damn hippies and their reverse camouflage.

  “Where’s your wood?” she asked Rabbit, then reddened.

  “Over there.” Rabbit pointed to a large stack of firewood piled at the edge of the circle.

  “Nice,” she said. “Who got all that?”

  “It was already there.”

  It hadn’t been when they arrived. Q picked up a stick and poked at the coals, then peered into the pot. “Oh goody. Beans.”

  “And gluten-free bread!” said Tinkabella.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Every meal is a promotion for the vegan lifestyle,” said Sheath of Power.

  “Glad I got top bunk.” Q pulled out her mobile phone to get her messages. She’d check the satellite hotphone later to make sure Hannah hadn’t called. She was pleased to see she still had one bar of range left. The shockproof, waterproof, UV-resistant solar-powered Apocalypse model had been worth the extra money, although she wasn’t sure about its slogan, For when you’re the last person left on earth. Who were you meant to call?

  She had one missed call from Hannah—no doubt to guilt her about how awful tomorrow would be in Q’s absence—two from her dad, and one from Big Tony, which was weird. Big Tony only called late on a Saturday night when he was drunk, not on a Thursday before eight p.m. She also had three emails from Slendrous D, who rarely messaged, and none from Jeremiah BownZ, who couldn’t go a day without reporting something supernatural. She’d read them after she’d called the other van. Safety first.