End Times Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Carrow, Shane

  “G’day,” was the first thing Tobias said.

  “I know what’s happened on Christmas Island, if that’s what you’re here about,” came Cole’s fainter reply, crackling over the radio.

  I hadn’t thought it would affect me, but it did. Made my skin itch. The motherfucker who led nearly fifty men against innocent people. I imagined Tobias standing less than a metre away from him, on the other side of the ASIO gates, and wondered how he resisted lunging forward through the bars to choke the bastard.

  Because he knew there were men on the roof with guns aimed at his head. I guess. But still.

  “And how do you feel about that?” Tobias asked.

  Cole didn’t answer him. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to stand down, let us come in, take the warhead and go back to Jagungal,” Tobias said.

  “After what happened?” Cole said. “Happy families again?”

  “I didn’t say you were coming back,” Tobias said. “I said we were going back. With the warhead. But if you lay down your arms and surrender the warhead, you have my personal promise that none of you will be hurt, and you can all stay in here in what looks to me like a pretty good stronghold.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Cole said. “Your personal promise isn’t worth shit. And I’ll be fucked if we’re handing a nuclear bomb back over to... to that. That thing up there.”

  “Look, Ira...”

  “You still think this was about following orders, don’t you?” Cole said. “I know your type. Military. Tools. Doing the job that ‘needs to be done.’ Well, in intelligence, we get taught to think. And believe you me, captain – it makes no difference if the Prime Minister is in handcuffs and that hillbilly fuckwit is calling the shots on Christmas Island now. There is no way in hell I am giving a nuclear warhead back to that alien thing and those teenage kids. I will die first. I will set the motherfucker off and wipe out this city. It’s not like anyone would miss it.”

  Tobias paused for a long time. “The world is in on this,” he eventually said. “You know that. We’ve got five ground stations greenlit. We’ve got French Navy ships heading up the Congo River ready to bomb the base there. We’ve got people in America, in China, in Brazil. This is bigger than you or me. Please, Ira. Think about it. Think about who you serve...”

  “Think about who you serve,” Cole said. “Ask yourself. Really. This thing, this alien, sitting up in that valley? Is that who you swore your oath to when you graduated Duntroon? That’s not natural. That’s not in our interests. You all come along and blindly believe – you just go along with it, with this thing, with these two aliens who say they’re human. For all we know they could be what’s making the dead come back!”

  “They’re not,” Tobias said. “I promise you, Ira, they’re not, they aren’t. We need that warhead back. I promise you there won’t be any reprisals, there...”

  “We’re not giving it back,” Cole said. “This conversation is over.”

  And that was when I realised – sitting in the passenger seat of a car five kilometres away – that they were going to kill him.

  And I screamed. And something happened. I saw Corporal Crawford buckle in the seat next to me, keeling over, clapping his hands against his ears. Saw Justin and the lieutenant outside doing the same. Lunged across, pushed Crawford’s twisted form out the door, scrambled into the driver’s seat and gunned the keys and revved the engine. The Land Cruiser lurched forward, now holding me and me alone, burst through the gates of the War Memorial. Before I knew it I was roaring across the highway median strip, swerving past a few abandoned cars, ploughing through another big green strip of the parkland that seems to comprise half of fucking Canberra.

  There was gunfire, now, around the ASIO headquarters. I yanked the wheel hard to the right and sent the car squealing across a big arc, churning up the overgrown grass, coming around the edge of the compound fence. And as I came around the edge I saw a figure there, sprinting.

  I almost fucking killed him. He was setting a pretty good pace. I veered off to the left, flinched as a bullet shattered the driver’s side window, glass spitting across half my face. I’d already kicked the Land Cruiser into reverse, spinning around in a police turn. I was trying to line it up so that I could chase after Tobias, but when he’d seen me coming he’d turned right around and was making a beeline for the car. I was just kicking it back into first gear – another bullet shattered the rear windscreen – when he wrenched open the back door, jumped in behind me and screamed “Drive!”

  I drove. Kept my head down, drove mostly blind, ploughed through bushes and rose gardens and at one point glanced off the edge of an overturned van, smashing my head against the door. Bullets kept thudding into the panels. The one, brief glimpse I dared to take in the rear-view mirror only showed me the monolithic ASIO building. I couldn’t make out any figures on the roof, or at the edge of the walls. They were probably all inside the windows, firing at us anonymously.

  We cleared the parkland and returned to the highway, swerving in between rusted cars, the wind gushing in through the shattered windscreen. “Where the fuck is everyone?” Tobias wheezed, dragging himself up behind me in the backseat.

  “At the War Memorial,” I said. “Sort of... had to leave them there.”

  “What the fuck happened?” Tobias said.

  “I don’t know.”

  I honestly didn’t.

  When we arrived back at the War Memorial we found the undead already streaming in from my destruction of the gates. Justin, Bryant and Crawford were falling back up the stairs, taking careful shots at the zombies that scrambled up after them, heading for the main building. I slammed the horn on as we arrived and they ran back down to us, pushing the undead aside, piling into the car. Crawford practically dragged me out and reinstated himself in the driver’s seat.

  One hour later, when we were safely back in the underground fortress, we had a debrief. “So,” Tobias said, looking squarely at me. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shifting uncomfortably in my seat. “I mean... I don’t know.”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Tobias pressed me.

  “I guess,” I said.

  “It hurt,” Justin complained.

  What had happened, we’d pieced together, was that everybody had suddenly felt a splitting pain in their heads. Everybody near the ASIO headquarters and the War Memorial, that was. Everyone on the other side of the lake, back in our underground sanctuary, had felt only the slightest tingling and queasiness – except Matt, who hadn’t felt anything at all.

  Tobias had felt it, and had collapsed. The men inside the ASIO compound – the men with guns trained on him, both seen and unseen, however large that number was – had felt it too. Everybody had dropped and squirmed in pain for a bit. Tobias had, in the early stages of recovery, managed to escape the gates, running along the outer wall of the compound, sticking close to it to shield himself from sniper fire. It had been a close thing, and it was lucky that I’d arrived when I did.

  “Do you know what it reminded me of?” Tobias said. “When we first got to the Endeavour. When the barrier was still up, and I tried to force myself across it. Nausea and pain, mixed together. But just in your head.”

  “Well,” I said. “I guess it was me. I don’t know what else it could have been, right? We were sitting in the car, listening to you talk to him, and... I don’t know. I realised then they were going to kill you. No question.”

  Tobias gave a slight nod.

  “So, I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t mean to do it. It just happened. And when it did… well, I mean, if it hadn’t happened to Crawford I would have been telling him to drive. But it did, so, I kind of took over. I guess I knew it wouldn’t last and somebody needed to come get you while it did.”

  “OK,” Tobias said. “Do you think... you can control it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said unhappily. “Like I said, I didn’t even mean to do it.”

&nb
sp; “All right,” Tobias said. “Forget it for now. I’m glad it happened. Thank you. But for now, we need to consider Cole.”

  “We heard it already,” I said. “Prognosis negative.”

  Tobias nodded grimly. “I was hoping he’d be more willing to see eye-to-eye. But he wasn’t.”

  “So we’re back to square one?” Matt asked, with an irritating gleam of hope in his eye. “An assault?”

  “Maybe,” Tobias said. “Maybe not. We need to think about our options and call Christmas Island.”

  And that was all he said. I didn’t like the way he looked at me when he did.

  November 26

  Tobias called for me and Matt this morning, for a chat in the corner of the server room where he’s plotting the assault. There’s only about ten people in the room at any one time, catching up on sleep or cleaning their weapons – the rest are off scouting or up at the radio outpost at the Telstra Tower or on sentry topside keeping an eye on the ASIO building across the lake. When Matt and I arrived (separately; I’m still angry at him and we’re not sleeping in the same room) Tobias was looking over his assault map with Lieutenant Flanagan and Sergeant Berkovitz.

  “How’s it coming along?” Matt asked.

  “Not great,” Tobias said. “When I spoke to Cole yesterday I gave him a satellite phone with a direct link to the Governor-General. I told Cole to call him and talk it over with him. He didn’t, the Governor-General says he’s tried calling Cole a few times himself, but he’s not interested. He’s dug in.”

  “We’ve wasted enough time,” Matt said. “We should just move in and take them out.”

  Tobias looked at him, then back at me. “What you did yesterday, Aaron,” he said. “That... mental blast, or whatever you want to call it. Do you think you could do it again?”

  I shook my head. “I told you. I don’t even know how I did it yesterday. I just... I saw what was going to happen and it happened by itself. I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “Can you try to do it again?”

  “Not a good idea,” I said. “Not when I can’t discriminate, when we’ve got guys up on the surface. It’s not going to affect zombies, so what happens when they’re writhing around on the ground up there?”

  Tobias nodded. “All right. But tonight, when they’re all back here, when everyone’s safe – I want you to give it a shot. Both of you.”

  “It won’t work,” I said. “It was some kind of adrenaline outburst. I couldn’t...”

  “I know, I know,” Tobias said. “But I need you to try.” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “At this stage we’re planning to assault the compound. If we can get out of doing it, we will. But it’s looking like the only option left.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so keen to avoid hurting them,” Matt said.

  Tobias gave him an irritable look. “The place is a fortress. Any attack will involve a lot of casualties on our side. Then there’s the zombie factor. We go in there guns blazing, people chucking grenades, gigantic firefight? Every zombie in Canberra will head for that building. It would have to be done fast and carefully and with a solid extraction plan. No room for error.”

  “So what are we actually planning to do, then?” I asked.

  “Well,” Tobias said, “I’ve been talking to Christmas Island and nobody had a fucking clue these tunnels were here. They’re not military. Maybe the intelligence agencies and some of the politicians knew – the PM must have known – but they’re not exactly happy to be talking to us at the moment. But from what we can gather from the maps, there’s definitely a tunnel or two leading into the ASIO building.

  “Problem is, if we know that, Cole and his people definitely know that. But they obviously weren’t using them, or they would have found the kids down here. I sent some scouts down and they ended up pretty much right beneath the building and there are locked doors there. Maybe there’s a barricade on the other side, maybe not. I doubt they bothered. It doesn’t look like they thought anybody was down here – they just locked the doors and that was that.”

  “But that’s a direct route in there, right?” Matt asked. “Right under their feet. Come up beneath them.” His face had an excited glow.

  “Yes,” Tobias said. “But we don’t know how heavily guarded it will be on the other side. It needs careful planning and consideration and, also, some explosives to blow the doors open. Jagungal’s sent a scouting party down to Cooma to see if they can procure some. I want choppers, too. A diversionary attack. Wagga’s sent their Tigers up to the forward post near Yass; they can scramble and be in the city in about twenty minutes when it comes to it.”

  “So how far off are we?” I asked.

  Tobias shrugged. “A few days. I don’t know. With any luck either Cole will change his mind, or you two can pull a little alien trick out of your hat.”

  “We can try,” I said. “But don’t count on it.”

  “One way or another,” Matt said, “we’ll get the nuke back in a few days, right?”

  “Or die trying,” Tobias said.

  November 27

  I came out into the server room to find a messenger from the radio outpost at the Telstra Tower talking to Tobias. “Aaron,” he said. “Is your brother awake yet?”

  “Fucked if I know,” I said. “I don’t even know where he is.”

  Tobias yelled at a private to go wake Matt up, then stuck his thumb at the messenger. “We got a message from the forward post near Yass. A bunch of survivors have shown up there, coming from up north, and one of them says she knows Matt.”

  “No way,” I breathed. “That girl that was with him? In New England?”

  Tobias nodded. “Could be. What was her name?”

  “Jess, I think. But she wasn’t with anyone else. Last Matt saw of her, I think she was...”

  “Running off through a pine plantation up north of Sydney,” Matt finished for me. He’d limped into the server room straight out of bed, it looked, carrying his boots in one hand. He took a seat and started lacing them up while looking at the radio messenger urgently. “She was about my age? Red hair? Broken arm?”

  “I didn’t see her,” the messenger said. “This is just what the guys up at Yass said.”

  Matt looked at Tobias. “I want to go there.”

  “It’s an hour away, Matt.”

  “I don’t care. I have to see her.”

  Tobias shook his head. “No. We’ll send them to Jagungal and you can see her in a few days.”

  “She might know where Rahvi is,” Matt said. “If he’s still alive.”

  Clever. Tobias ran his tongue across his teeth and then turned to the radio messenger. “Have the reinforcements from Jagungal been sent to the forward post yet?” The private shook his head. Tobias sighed. “Shit. I was thinking maybe we could have them brought down here.” He leaned back in his chair for a moment, stared at Matt, then said, “All right. But you’re taking Jonas and Simon and Lieutenant Flanagan with you. And Aaron.”

  “Fine,” Matt said, and went to go get his rifle.

  “Me?” I asked.

  Tobias shrugged. “You can reign him in a bit. It’s just an hour up the highway. Out in the middle of nowhere. You can be back here by noon. We’ve still got overflights from Wagga checking the whole city out. ASIO building’s quiet. It’s safe. Safe enough, anyway. Just let him talk to her, then they can be on their way up to Jagungal. Make sure he comes back here instead of going with her.”

  I snorted. “I don’t think anyone could keep him away from here. But don’t you want him back at Jagungal?”

  “No,” Tobias said. “I want you both here, tonight, practising whatever it was you did yesterday.”

  “Hmm,” I said.

  Half an hour later we were driving north through the city in the bullet-ridden Land Cruiser, which, despite not having a single remaining intact pane of glass, still functioned just fine. Flanagan was driving, with Jonas in the passenger seat, and me, Matt and Simon in the back. None of us sp
oke. Matt was staring out the window, tapping his fingers against the butt of his rifle.

  The surface scout parties over the last few days had mapped most of the arterial roads that were clear, and we managed to get around the ring road blockages without too much trouble. The clearest way was to go straight east, out past the airport at Fyshwick, onto the Majura Road which would take you north and let you link back up with the Barton Highway. Before long we were clear of Canberra itself, out of the burnt-out suburbs and crashed helicopters and corpse-strewn streets, back into the relatively unchanged overgrown landscape of the farms and fields.

  The forward post was at a place called Jeir Creek, a little farm and winery that had been long abandoned, chosen by Tobias mostly because it was close (but not too close) to the city. It was an hour-long drive, figuring in the avoidance of blockages in the city, but a chopper could probably cover that distance in ten minutes. There were three scratched and battered Eurocopter Tigers sitting in an open field, along with a Black Hawk, all four of them from RAAF Base Wagga. The idea was to keep them out here as a forward post so they could quickly get into the city if needed, but wouldn’t be spotted by the ASIO team, so we’d have that particular ace up our sleeve. The boys at the Telstra Tower had radioed ahead about our visit, and the sentries at the main gate waved us through. A few minutes down a dusty homestead road and we were in the heart of the farm.

  The homestead itself was a rotting wreck, but the winery buildings were in better shape, and that was where the RAAF team from Wagga had set up. The CO was Squadron Leader Demetriades, one of the few women I’d encountered in the ADF, with a few pilots and about fifteen guards. She greeted us and took us into what had once been an attached restaurant, where the shabby group of survivors they’d found were sitting around one of the tables.

  One of them was a redheaded girl – Jess, I assumed. For all I’d heard about her animosity towards Matt she seemed pretty relieved to see him. Jonas, Simon and I hung back, while Lieutenant Flanagan spoke to Demetriades. “They came in on foot last night,” she said. “Saw our lights, I think. The girl wanted to know if we were from Jagungal and when I said we were – sort of – she started talking about Matt.”