Dead Kelly (The Afterblight Chronicles)

by C. B. Harvey

  “Stay where you are,” growled McGuire, steadying the weapon on the man.

  “Oh, thank God,” said the bloke, turning to look at him, offering a sweat-drenched, pallid face. His lower body was caught up in a tangle of branches he must have brought with him as he fell. He’d clearly sustained a leg injury.

  McGuire appraised the situation. The fella was short and slight. He didn’t constitute any particular threat. The same could not be said for the plane, which screeched menacingly above, its weight beginning to strain the branches to breaking point. After all he’d been through, McGuire was hesitant to risk his own life on a half-arsed rescue attempt. Then again, there was a reasonable chance the bloke might possess some useful information. On balance, probably worth the risk.

  McGuire hurled himself toward the man, dropping to a half-kneeling squat as he reached him. He unleashed the Bowie knife from the sheath strapped to his shin, causing the bloke to flinch in horror, unsure as to McGuire’s motives. The man relaxed a little as McGuire began to saw through the branches entangling his lower body, grimacing as the gradual release of the branches afforded him abrupt but painful movement. McGuire continued to extract him, his face a mask of determination. Above them, the plane’s carcass shrieked like a trapped animal.

  The last branch severed, McGuire sheathed the knife, grabbed the man by the shoulders and began dragging him through the undergrowth. The stranger was too injured to move himself, shuddering in pain with every step.

  The plane gave an ear-splitting screech and shifted position; McGuire risked a glance upward, then redoubled his efforts. The plane was now hanging vertically, its crushed tail pointing downwards, swaying threateningly. McGuire heaved the man aside just as the Cessna crashed to the ground, its tail concertinaing, wings ripping free as its bulk flopped spectacularly to one side.

  McGuire deposited the man on a rock beside the river. He’d either been thrown from the plane or had managed to drop from it after it flipped over. His leg was lacerated to the extent that McGuire could see the bone. No wonder he’d provided such piss-poor assistance in his own rescue.

  “What happened?” demanded McGuire.

  “It was Greg, my brother. He said he could fly the fuckin’ thing. Get us away, see if it was any better in the north...” The man shook his head hopelessly. “We thought we’d be okay. Sure, he had some of the symptoms, but only mild. He said he could fuckin’ well fly it. For fuck’s sake. I didn’t know what to do. There was nowhere to land. This place—”

  “What symptoms?” McGuire interjected.

  The man stared at him in astonishment. “What? What do you mean?”

  “What symptoms?” reasserted McGuire. What little patience he possessed was waning rapidly.

  The bloke boggled at him. “How long have you been out here? Don’t you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “The fucking epidemic. My God, you don’t know...” He peered at McGuire, eyes narrowing. “How can you not fucking know? How fucking long have you been out here?”

  McGuire shrugged. “I’ve been out here... months.”

  “Months?” The bloke said the word like he could barely comprehend what it meant. Then suddenly he was garbling, the words cascading from him like he had to get rid of them, like they were fucking toxic. “We thought it was just a wind-up at first, y’know, like always. A load of Aussie tourists came back from Uttar fucking Pradesh or somewhere with some weird flu-like virus. Before you know it they’re all fucking dying, and anyone who’s come into contact with them is dying. This is Sydney, mate. Sydney. Then suddenly there are dozens more cases in Tassie and Brisbane and fucking Queensland. At the same time it’s all over Tokyo and Kinshasa and London and Reykjavik, everywhere. And then it hits Los Angeles and New York, and suddenly the fucking media’s going fucking nuts. People just fucking dying for no good reason. And it’s like people you know. The bloke down the gyros shop, the receptionist at work. Some girl you once dated. Your mum, your dad, your baby son...” His wide-eyed, breathless babble came to a meandering halt, then abruptly restarted. “Like really bad flu at first. Vomiting, diarrhoea, high temperature, all that shit. But then it becomes something else. I mean, like really quickly. Something fucking hideous.”

  He reached a furtive, trembling hand to his mouth, his fingers playing absently with a wobbling front tooth. “There’s so much blood. Bleeding from their mouth, nose, arse, even their fucking ears and eyes. Fucking horrible. Can’t have been more than a couple of weeks and suddenly it’s a fuckin’ full blown pandemic. Like, real End of Days stuff, mate. The army had these lorries with flamethrowers. For the bodies. Jesus.” The wobbling tooth came away in his hand, and he held the bloodied stump up, gazing at it in wonderment.

  “If you were O-neg, you were okay, but that’s so few people...” he lisped. “I mean... Mate, there’s so few people left. Some guy in Sydney told me it was nine-tenths of the world. Nine-tenths of the world, mate, just gone. That was what—three, four months ago.” The man’s voice trailed off and McGuire watched his bloodshot eyes dart to the side.

  A familiar click made McGuire smile. Whoever had snuck up on him was about four metres behind him. Evidently someone else had gotten out of the plane.

  “Put down your weapon or I’ll blow your fucking head off.” The voice faltered a little, but rapidly reasserted itself.

  “You’re the boss,” said McGuire, carefully lowering his assault rifle to the stony ground.

  “Hands up.”

  McGuire nodded minutely. “Whatever you say, mate.” He kept his head lowered so that his eyes were hidden beneath the shadow of his Akubra’s brim.

  “Kick the weapon over there.”

  McGuire duly complied.

  “You okay, Steve?”

  “My leg’s fucked,” said Steve, confused, struggling to see the other man. “For fuck’s sake, Greg. You passed out, mate. I didn’t know what to do.”

  McGuire very carefully turned to view his interlocutor. He was about thirty. Dishevelled, sweating, barely able to keep the gun steady, lurid scabs and pustules festooning his mouth and nose—but clearly just about compos mentis enough to sneak up on him.

  “You don’t look so well, man,” McGuire observed.

  “That’s rich coming from a dead man,” replied Greg flatly.

  McGuire let out a rasping chuckle. “I ain’t dead yet.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” said Greg, making an uncertain effort to emulate McGuire’s smile and in the process causing several of his pustules to crack open and weep. “’Cause I think I know who you are.”

  “Is that right?” breathed McGuire.

  “You’re that gang leader. The armed robber. The one the cops were after. He headed out this way.”

  “Strewth, sounds like an exciting bloke,” said McGuire.

  “I remember,” said Steve suddenly, eagerly. “The bullion job that went wrong. The bulldozer at the airport. I watched it on TV. That was fucked up, mate.” Steve gazed wonderingly at McGuire. “They reckoned the ringleader was somewhere in Namadgi. Or maybe Kosciuszko.”

  “Case of mistaken identity,” said McGuire archly. “I’m just out for a vacation.”

  Greg snorted derisively. “The thing is they gave you a nickname,” he continued. “‘Dead Kelly,’ they called you, the TV and the papers. ’Cause no-one thought you’d make it out alive. How long’s it been? Seven, eight months?”

  “Don’t believe everything you see or hear.”

  “The thing of it is, the police found a body. Not far from here, as it goes. The face was cut up, but they said the corpse matched your description. I mean, they really did think it was you. As far as the media were concerned that was it. You really were Dead Kelly.”

  “Is that right?” McGuire kept his head bowed, his eyes hidden by the brim of his hat, all the while watching the trembling gun. The fucker looked wired enough to blow McGuire’s head off if he was even slightly spooked.

  Greg was clearly warming to h
is subject. “You know, I wouldn’t put it past someone like yourself to pick on some poor unsuspecting tramp matching your description. All you’d need to do is slice him up a bit so he couldn’t be recognised. Make it look he’d been done for by dingoes or some shit like that.”

  McGuire sniffed, “Uh-huh. Pretty much extinct up here, but it’s a good idea.”

  “Of course, the cops were waiting on the DNA test. That would’ve cleared it up straight away, no worries.” Greg’s eyes played on McGuire’s scarred arms. “That’s why you made sure you left loads of your own blood at the scene. Anyway, turns out you got lucky. In fact, you’re about the only one that did.” He swallowed hard, his pronounced Adam’s apple suddenly pulsing, voice straining. “’Cause that’s exactly the point at which the whole fuckin’ world went totally and utterly to shit.”

  McGuire offered a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, right. The epidemic.”

  Greg sneered. “Why would anyone give a flying fuck about you if most of the world has dropped dead overnight?”

  McGuire let the smile hang, his hands held up, palms outward. “Look, mate, I don’t know anything about any of this. And my arms are starting to hurt.”

  Greg looked incredulous, gesturing with his own weapon toward McGuire’s discarded ACR. “Yeah, of course. That’s why you just happen to have an assault weapon about your person.” With what looked like a mammoth effort, he suddenly steadied the shotgun, his voice low and insistent. “Listen up, fucker. This is when your luck finally runs out. I’m gonna do what the police couldn’t. I’m gonna put an end to you, you murderin’ bastard.”

  McGuire licked his parched lips, nodding his head with slow deliberation. “Killing me means killing your brother. You’re almost dead on your feet and there’s no way he’d make it out of Kosciuszko alive. I’m Stevie Boy’s only hope.”

  Greg managed an unconvincing laugh, ending in a gurgling cough. “The thing of it is,” he spluttered, using his free hand to wipe a trace of scarlet-stained phlegm from his chin, “you’re a mass murderer and an armed robber. I don’t trust you, you fucker. I think we’d all stand a much better chance if I blew your head clean off your shoulders, to be perfectly fuckin’ frank with you.”

  “The thing of it is,” mocked McGuire. “The thing of it is.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Okay, you win.” McGuire stretched his arms with a low, heavy sigh. “Do it, then. We can all go to Hell together.”

  Greg chanced a fleeting look to his brother. Steve shook his head. “You can’t, Greg, please. The guy’s right. I’ll never get out of here on my own. You’re not gonna make it, you’re too crook. I’m sorry, mate, but that’s the truth of it.”

  Greg, breathing heavily, let the shotgun droop and bowed his head.

  “Don’t be down, old son,” said McGuire with cod sympathy. “Just look on it as fate.” He was advancing towards his discarded assault rifle, bending to retrieve it.

  “Not so fast,” came Greg’s rasp. The shotgun was trained on McGuire again, and McGuire froze. “We’re not that stupid.”

  “No,” said McGuire quietly, from his stooped position. “Of course you’re not.” He raised his head now, so that Greg could see his face properly beneath the brim of the Akubra. McGuire could tell from the dawning look of terror that the other man had seen into his eyes, into the yawning space where his soul should probably have resided. For a moment he seemed to understand who McGuire really was. Then in one smooth movement McGuire pulled the Bowie knife from its sheath and sent it sailing through the air. It sank with a pleasing crack into the middle of Greg’s face and the man fell forwards in surprise, triggering the shotgun as he fell. McGuire leaped to the side just in time, the shell roaring past his head and thumping into a eucalyptus in an eruption of splintered wood and smoke.

  With McGuire reeling, Steve launched himself forward, intent on the knife. He heaved the blade from his brother’s face, spinning around and advancing on McGuire, his face a snarl. McGuire raised his hands, grinning, then lunged for him. Steve lashed out with the knife in desperation. McGuire staggered back, wincing, and looked down at his hand to see a deep laceration running in a curve across the palm. McGuire lifted his injured hand up in fascination and flexed his fingers experimentally. No tendon damage.

  Steve was hobbling, struggling to stay upright, dripping Bowie knife in his hand, the exposed injury on his leg oozing blood with each agonised movement.

  McGuire smirked. “That was cool. I’m impressed, Steve. I thought your brother was the one with the balls and that you were the family pussy. Looks like I got it wrong.”

  “Keep away from me,” spat Steve.

  McGuire shrugged his huge shoulders. “Yeah, well, I’m guessing you acted on instinct, ’cause it seems to me you ain’t got much of a plan beyond this point.” He slowly advanced. “What with that massive fuckin’ gash in your leg.”

  “I said keep away,” said Steve, lunging again with the knife. It cut the air ahead of McGuire and McGuire came to a halt. He’d got where he needed to be, and with a flourish swept up his assault rifle from the rocky ground.

  “You know what I think, Steve?” pondered McGuire as he hefted the weapon. “I think the world needs me.”

  “Please—”

  He steadied the gun on the other man. “Sadly, mate, I don’t think the same can be said for you.”

  THE MAN IN the top hat laughed. “You look beat, mate.”

  McGuire managed a laconic smile, head tilted behind his Akubra again.

  “You look dead beat.”

  McGuire stopped and stared. The top hat was battered, dusty, its upper portion squashed out of shape, offset by a majestic red and black parrot feather stuffed into the band around the middle. He looked to be an Old Fella, a member of the Wurundjeri people, a descendant of Bebejan. He was also the first living person McGuire had seen since his encounter with the Cessna brothers. Not another living soul, aside from curious wildlife.

  “What did you say?” McGuire’s voice was low, rasping.

  “You need a drink, my friend,” said the Old Fella, beckoning him over to his position atop a sandstone wall. He handed McGuire a flask and McGuire drank greedily until the water ran down the corners of his mouth. He began to cough and splutter.

  “Steady, mate,” urged the Old Fella, retrieving the flask back from him. “Where’ve you come from?”

  “Kosciuszko,” responded McGuire, wiping his face. “Other places, too.”

  “No kiddin’,” nodded the Old Fella. “How long you been out there?”

  “A long time,” said McGuire, lowering his assault rifle, loosening the backpack and slipping it gratefully from his shoulders. He propped himself against the wall. “Been walking for five days.”

  “Yeah, it looks like it.” The Old Fella wrinkled his nose. “Smells like it, too.”

  “I hear some stuff’s happened while I’ve been out there. Armageddon or some shit like that.”

  The Old Fella sighed. “Take it from me. Armageddons come and go, mate. The world’s still turning, just with less of us on it.”

  McGuire looked around himself. This was Mansfield, at the base of the Australian Alps, maybe two hundred kilometres from Melbourne. Once it had been a farming and logging town, but that was a long time since, before it became a tourist destination. Hiking, skiing, hot air ballooning, that sort of shit. If what the brothers had said was true and the world really was fucked, then Mansfield would have to become something else again. Or maybe it would just return to what it was, long before the farming and the logging and the tourism. His lips curved into a grin. What goes around...

  “You wanna steer clear of me, fella,” said McGuire at length. “I’m a bad man. I’ve done bad things.”

  The Old Fella eyed the filthy, makeshift bandage wrapped around his hand, caked in dry blood, and the assault weapon propped against the wall. “No shit, Sherlock.”

  McGuire half-smirked in response. “Funny guy.”

  “I know who you are. You’re fa
mous, mate. You’re him.” The Old Fella made a mime of a rifle shooting. “Boom. They named you.”

  “Yeah, well. I heard they’d named me.” He was too tired to pretend anything else. “Wonder which fucker thought of it.”

  The Old Fella stared at him quizzically. “Does it matter? One of those TV guys. Thing of it is, it sorta stuck. And if everyone thinks it’s your name, then it’s your name. Now and forever, like it or not.”

  “Is that right?” McGuire pursued his lips reflectively. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to talk to dead people?”

  The Old Fella threw back his head and laughed. “You’d be surprised what you can learn from dead people, mate.”

  McGuire studied the man’s lined face, his intense, ever so slightly mocking eyes. He clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “But then, you’ve got a plan, ain’tcha?”

  McGuire frowned, “How’d you figure that?”

  The Old Fella shrugged. “You went into the Bush for a reason and you came out of it for a reason. So you gotta have a plan. Stands to reason.”

  “Yeah, well. It’s been fun talking.” McGuire stood upright, pulling his tatty canvas backpack up and over his shoulders and hoisting the assault rifle. “I like you, Old Fella. If I hadn’t, well, this conversation wouldn’t have been nearly so long.” He began to plod away.

  As McGuire made his way down the desolate suburban street he heard the Old Fella calling after him, laughter in his voice. “Remember, mate. They named you. That’s who you are now, who you always will be.”

  “Sure thing, mate,” McGuire called back, eyes fixed dead ahead.