The storm was about to break. The first thick, chubby raindrops were plummeting down through the humid air, splattering onto the concrete roof. Lightning struck the distant Telstra Tower; the mountains were already hazy, the rain coming in from the west. I lined my iron sights up with one of the ASIO men and squeezed the trigger and saw the bullet catch him at the edge of the scalp, saw him drop down behind the barricade.
Pure combat, pure adrenaline. And in my mind I could feel it as well, could feel the other brains around me, every one of them vibrating and humming and focused on the battle. I knew exactly how many were left without looking – ten of ours, eight of theirs. I could feel Tobias ahead of me, shrewd and calculating, moving forward with professional intent. I could feel Matt, excited and reckless, moving forward with bullish hubris. I did not see, but felt, as a soldier just a few metres behind me was drilled in the head with a bullet, his brain snuffed out in an instant. Nine of ours left, now. I moved forward, squeezed a few good rounds off towards the barricade, shot Ira Cole himself in the shoulder. Duck behind cover. Breathe. Reload. Breathe. Move, shoot. My eyes were fixed on the barricade up by the helipad, on Ira Cole and his last surviving colleagues, but I could feel every soul around me, in every direction, as though they were humming with electricity.
I both saw and felt as Matt was shot.
He was ahead of me, at the front of the pack, near the centre as we fanned out across the roof and closed the gap between us and the barricade. He was struck in the chest and the stomach at the same time. He fell behind a ridge of ducting, his rifle clattering to the ground, and straight away I felt in his mind the only reaction he had: sheer surprise. Not pain or anger or fear, but surprise. Like it could never have happened to him, not really. Like it wasn’t in the script.
I screamed, with both my mind and my voice. I didn’t manage to pull off the trick I had with Tobias at the War Memorial – I suppose because the damage had already been done. The battle raged on around us. The battle didn’t care. I sprinted forward, jumping over ducts, running between air-con units, and dropped down on my knees beside my injured brother.
“Ah,” he said, looking up at me. “Ah, fuck...” His teeth were flecked with blood and he was struggling to breathe.
“No, no, no,” I whispered. “No, no, you’re OK. You’re OK.” I could feel the pain of the bullets myself, that phantom reflective pain, so I knew exactly where they were even as I tore his shirt open. There were two neat holes oozing blood, one beside his nipple, the other above his belly button.
“Fuck,” he murmured again. “I’m sorry, man.”
“No,” I said again. “No, no, you’re OK. You’re OK. We’ll get you up to the Endeavour and you’ll be OK.” I looked up at the Black Hawk, hovering a little closer since its nemesis had been destroyed, but still keeping away. “Hey!” I screamed, waving my arms. “Hey, get down here!” But it couldn’t hear me, and wouldn’t have come anywhere near this mess of small arms fire even if it could.
I put my arms under Matt, lifting him up a little, shushing his cries of pain. I felt around his back and found it sticky with blood. The shot to his stomach had an exit wound. The shot to his chest did not.
I laid him back down on the ground, pulled my jacket off, pressed it against his stomach, against his chest. Kept pressure on the wounds even as I felt blood well up between my fingers, oozing thickly through the fabric. My hands and forearms covered in his blood. Bullshit first aid, amateur first aid. “Medic!” I screamed. “Don’t we have a fucking medic?” But nobody heard me. Tobias and the last few survivors of his group were up ahead, by the helipad, finishing off Cole and his people.
The thunderstorm was breaking properly now, heavy wet drops hesitantly plopping down on the concrete roof, more and more of them, until the tipping point was reached and a few moments later the rain was bucketing down. I pushed my wet hair out of my eyes, smearing Matt’s blood across my face. I was crying now. The full weight of what had happened was dawning on me. Matt’s blood was pooling out below us, mixing with the rainwater, soaking my knees and my shins and my boots. “You’re OK,” I sobbed. “It’s OK. It’s going to be OK. The chopper’s coming, the chopper’s coming soon, we’ll get you to Jagungal, it’s going to be OK...”
“I’m sorry, Aaron,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t leave me,” I whispered. “Please, Matt, please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me, please...”
His eyes blinked weakly as rain splashed down on his face. His brain was starved of blood and oxygen. In those moments, as he lay there in my arms, our minds washed together as one. I knew and saw everything. I saw my own wet, desperate, miserable face staring down at him. I saw the Black Hawk wheeling against the grey sky above us. I saw his memories and his mind. I saw faces from New England: Blake, Rahvi, Draeger. I saw what had happened to him and I felt how he had felt and I finally understood him, understood what had happened, understood why he was the way he was. I forgave him.
As his blood drained away and his heartbeat began to slow, as our minds meshed together, I saw what he saw with his eyes. He was drifting, dreamy, his memories mixed up with what was happening around us. As the Black Hawk roared down towards the helipad he saw not that, not here and now in Canberra, but instead he thought it was that day so long ago, back in January, back in Perth, back before everything, when we sat together on the roof of our house and watched a chopper fly overhead towards the swelling crisis in the city.
Then he died.
DECEMBER
“Still here. Still alive.”
Aaron King
December 1
Matt is dead. Matthew Michael King, my twin brother, my only remaining family member. Matt.
Matt, who I shared a bunk bed with until I was ten years old. Matt, who stuck up for me in the playground when kids bullied me in primary school. Matt, who was always lighter and easier and more confident with people than I was. Matt, who played full forward for the school footy team while I was messing about with writing and stories. Matt, who effortlessly cycled through girlfriends while I could never seem to get girls to talk to me, which he found endlessly hilarious given that we were physically identical. Matt, who always knew who to buy weed from, who never had any trouble buying booze without an ID. Matt, who had no fucking clue what he was going to do after high school and didn’t seem to care.
Matt, who got us a car and then a motorcycle and got us through the south-west to the safety of Albany. Matt, who jumped in after me without a second thought when I tried to drown myself after shooting Dad. Matt, who left his girlfriend and his unborn child to come with me on my determined quest to the mountains. Matt, who went up north to New England and came back a different man.
I feel like I didn’t even know him by the end. I feel like he was a different person. Those totally different men – or one boy and one man – only a year apart and yet irreconcilably divergent. What happened to him? How did he change like that? Have I changed that much?
I suppose it doesn’t matter because both versions, all versions, all his multitudes, are all gone now. Dead.
I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.
December 2
I keep reliving the whole event over and over in my mind. I sit there and it can’t escape my fucking skull. When I finally fall asleep from exhaustion, I dream about it. I remember the look on his face as he stumbled down, the sheer shock and surprise. I remember the horrible shifting feeling in my guts right before the phantom pain kicked in. I remember the way his eyes just sort of glazed over, as though a power source had been cut.
I remember some of the soldiers dragging me off him screaming and crying. I remember the look on Tobias’ face, that horrible grim look, as he removed the bayonet from his rifle and knelt down and gently lifted Matt’s head up so he could reach underneath with it, insert it, twist it around the brain stem. I remember thinking that I should feel that phantom pain myself, in my own neck, but of course I didn’t. I never will aga
in.
I remember sitting there in the pouring rain for God knows how long, cradling my brother’s sanitised body, as the chopper landed and the nuke was loaded on. I remember Tobias trying to help me lift him up but I shoved him away, carrying him inside the chopper myself. He was so light. They say bodies lose some weight when they die, when the soul departs, but it wasn’t that. It was just that he was still so thin, so sickly thin, after that long hike back from hell.
Someone buckled me into the chopper seat. Tobias sat on one side of me, Matt’s buckled-up body on the other. His head drooping. I was holding his hand, which was already cold. The bulk of the boxed-up nuclear warhead right in front of us.
The chopper lifted and flew up through the rain, up into the clear blue sky above the cloud layer, and I remember thinking that I didn’t ever want that chopper flight to end, because when we got back to Jagungal we would have to bury him and then he really truly would be gone forever.
December 3
I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry. I tried. I tried so hard to keep him safe, to protect him. I let you down.
December 4
There’s a graveyard at Jagungal, one valley over, well away from all the mass graves where we dump re-killed zombies. Marked graves: crosses and sticks and little stones. People of the camp who have died, from disease or old age or mishaps. It was small before Cole’s attack, but a lot bigger now.
I didn’t want to bury him there. I took a shovel and carried him up to the ridge where we first came to this valley, where we crossed over and first saw the Endeavour lying in the snow. Summer has well and truly arrived now, even up in the mountains, and by the time I got him up there I was sweating.
Jonas and Simon came with me and helped me dig. I’d made a cross, out of two sticks, tied together with twine. I’m not a religious man and neither was Matt, but it still felt right. When you die you have a cross above your grave, believer or not. That’s just how it is. Nana and Grandad were fervently Catholic and I guess some of it filtered down through Dad’s indifference.
If everyone else in camp had got their way there would have been a much bigger funeral. It hadn’t struck as hard as it would have a month or two ago – everyone had been through a lot of grief after Cole and his people ripped a bloody hole through Jagungal, and Matt was far from the only one of us to have been killed in battle in Canberra. A lot of people lost a lot of friends. But still. He was a figure, here. A hero.
But I didn’t want that. I didn’t care what anyone else wanted. Most of them had barely known him; most of them arrived well after he’d left to go north.
I don’t know if Simon or Jonas were planning to say anything. I don’t know if I was either. But as we started shovelling dirt onto that poor, pale, disfigured face, I began to cry, and by the time the grave was full I dropped the shovel and sank down onto my knees sobbing uncontrollably. Jonas and Simon sat down next to me and I buried my face in Simon’s shoulder and we sat there a very long time up on the ridge looking out over the valley.
December 5
In one sense Matt’s death was like a dam wall breaking because all of a sudden everyone wanted to tell me about their own losses. We never, ever speak about family because everyone knows there is some hurt there, some horrible loss when the world fell apart, before we ever crossed paths with each other. But now everybody decided they wanted to talk to me about it.
Jonas had a daughter, nineteen years old, studying medicine at university in Perth. He hadn’t seen her much in ten years because his ex-wife had won all custody rights. He was resigned to the fact she was probably dead, but he would never be able to know for sure.
Simon had a wife. They’d been married only a year. When things started to fall apart they’d dismissed the contract workers from their farm near Esperance and brought in his parents and her mother from town and stockpiled food and water. Two months in her mother had a heart attack and died and came back and killed both his parents and his wife before Simon could shoot her. Despite the sudden and horrific violence of that terrible day, Simon at least knows – he doesn’t have to wonder, like Jonas does.
Captain Tobias had a wife and two daughters – thirteen and eight. They lived in Lane Cove on Sydney’s North Shore. When the crisis first began and he was sent to Canberra to assist with evacuations to Darwin, then on to Christmas Island, it was not immediately clear that his family would be in any danger; that things were going to get that bad. By the time he knew, it was too late to go back, and in any case I got the impression that he would have chosen duty over family any day – not without anguish, but certainly without consideration. Like Jonas, Tobias has to live with not knowing.
The worst was Jess. Jess knew full well that I knew how her family had died. She came to me with the apparent intention of cleansing Matt’s reputation; of posthumously forgiving him.
“It wasn’t his fault,” she said. “They drugged him. Took him prisoner. It wasn’t his fault.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this,” I said.
Her eyes were rimmed red. She had been upset by Matt’s death, far more than I expected given their history. “I just... I know what it feels like,” she said. “To lose family. Especially after coming so far...”
“Please,” I said. “Just... please, just go away.”
She looked at me for a while, and then she left.
Why do they tell me these things? What do they think they’re accomplishing? Sharing their pain isn’t going to lessen mine. And they know that, because they’ve been here, they’ve felt the grief so powerfully overwhelming, so horrible, so real, that you can’t think about anything else. It sits in your stomach and your chest and your throat like a monster bursting out of you. Why do they do it? Why?
Why did he have to die?
December 6
I had a dream last night. I was walking across a field of purple flowers. The sun was high in the sky. It was a beautiful day. A line of puffy white clouds were billowing out of the horizon. Then somebody shot me in the kneecap and everything turned to blood and dirt and pain and grit.
I woke up breathing heavily, lashing out, trying to get out of my sleeping bag. For a moment I heard something faint, a voice calling my name as though from across a great distance.
aaron. aaron. aaron…
Aaron? the Endeavour asked. Are you all right?
It was just the ship. Of course.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled. “Just had a bad dream.”
I tried to go back to sleep, but it wouldn’t come. I tossed and turned for hours before dawn.
After sunrise I got dressed, pulled my boots and jacket on, walked outside into the crisp air. The sun was just rising over the eastern peaks, and a cold wind was being funnelled down the valley. The snow is all gone but the mountains can still be cold in summer, especially in the early morning. The wind was worse than usual, the tents flapping and the horses whinnying. Only a few people were up and about; those who weren’t rostered on any duty today were probably staying inside. I looked up at the ridge where Matt’s grave was, where there was a small cluster of people. Nothing special. One or two people are there nearly all the time, paying their respects, or even just taking a look at it. Most of them had never even met him.
I came to Tobias’ cabin and knocked on the door. He was sitting at his desk reading reports and seemed a little surprised to see me. “Aaron,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shit,” I said. We hadn’t spoken since he’d come to me the day after it happened, told me about his own family, while I’d been stewing in my own grief inside the Endeavour. “How’s everything coming along?”
“Fairly well,” he said. “I mean, we’re set here in Australia. We’re just waiting on the Congo and Amazon contingents. They’re setting up their forward posts, clearing their areas. We’ve got a few bases established near Ballarat now, as close as we feel safe going. Airfields, to the north and west.”
“But the nuke’s still
here,” I said.
He nodded. “For now. We’ll shift it to Wagga when we feel confident those forward posts are safe, then down there during the final prep.” He rubbed his tongue across his teeth. “I don’t know. One of those things followed us in the Sea King all the way from Melbourne before it shot us down. They’re not blind, they know what’s going on in the area. They’ve attacked survivor settlements in Victoria from time to time, from what we know. But it seems to be more out of curiosity than anything else. And we need those bases.”
“The PAL codes?” I asked.
Tobias tapped his breast pocket with his pen. He looked worried. “Look, Aaron...” he said. “You don’t need to think about this. You and Matt both have done more than enough...”
“Don’t tell me to sit it out now,” I said.
“That’s not what I meant. You’ve got other things on your mind...”
“I know,” I said, walking around the room, picking things up and putting them down again. I couldn’t sit still. “That’s the problem. I’m not... I mean, I’ve been through this with Dad. I know it never goes away. It gets easier, but it never goes away. You know that too.”
He nodded.
“I need something to do,” I went on. “I can’t just be sitting around in the Endeavour all day. I can’t.”
Tobias – the man who had left his wife and daughters in Sydney to follow his duty – understood that as well as I’d hoped he would. “You can do whatever you want,” he said. “Go back on patrol. Work detail. We still need firewood. We...” He hesitated.
End Times Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 170
