Doomsday's Child

by Pete Aldin

  They wouldn't be staying long, so he didn't bother cleaning the fry pan or plates. He found a plastic garbage bag, put the used utensils, plates, pan and eggshells in it. His hand hesitated over a pile of dusty lottery tickets before shoving them too into the bag. He took it out into a patch of scrub behind the garage and shoved it beneath the bracken. That would discourage overnight rodents and ants, and distract the goddam flies. It would also hide the fact they'd been here from any Death Druid snoopers who might search later.

  The low garden fence around the main house had a white paling gate. It was open, and this time he looked, he saw a shoe, a sneaker with toe pointing at sky. Venturing closer revealed a leg, bare, a woman's. It wasn't moving. He risked an even closer look. She was young, mid-twenties, only days dead. Maybe even one day. Crows and foxes hadn't got to her, though the ants had. She'd cut her wrists, laid on her back under the bright Australian sky—maybe to let the sun warm her even as her body cooled, maybe because she liked the color blue as he did. He thought of burying her and decided not to. He'd let the Ousefs lie where they he found them. He'd let a lot of bodies lie where he'd found them. Better to keep well away from the truly dead, avoid infection, disease. Better not to get involved.

  He went back in to find that the teenager—he almost thought, client—had curled up on one of the two camp beds, face to the wall. Only half the eggs had been eaten. Elliot ate the rest, then took the plates to the trash too.

  What the hell am I doing?

  He thought it as he squatted by his stashed garbage, wiping his hands on the grass. He was doing what was right, that's what he was doing. What had to be done. Elliot might be an asshole, sure, but even an asshole could have a conscience. Once the teenager was at his grandfolks, he'd be off Elliot's hands.

  Waving away flies, he checked on the car, brought all the weapons inside. He cleaned and oiled the firearms, did another inventory while loading bullets into the SIG magazines. M4: three mags, seventy-three rounds all told. Aimrite speargun: one spear loaded, two spares in rubber mounts on the side of the body. Shotgun: loaded, bandoleer holding eleven spare rounds. SIG, two loaded mags, thirty spare rounds.

  He braced the door with a chair and groaned in weariness as he spread himself across the spare cot. An hour ago he felt like he could sleep on his feet. Now that he wanted it, sleep eluded him. One ear whined with tinnitus. He hurt all over. He contented himself with relaxing, resting, listening to the whir of a moth at the skylight and replaying moments from the day while the evening curdled into night around him.

  In the other cot, Lewis snored.

  *

  In the small hours, he heard the growl of motorbikes, prowling. Distance was hard to tell in the night and he stood at the door, armed and ready. After some time, they faded. But even when he sat back down on his cot, even when he was sure they were gone, he could still hear them.

  II

  A Ghost in the Land of the Dead

  5

  They raced through farmland, sticking to back roads. Though it might add a few hours to the trip north, the strategy could help them get there alive.

  Staying alive was all Elliot had to live for.

  He didn't trust the main highways to be free of log jams of crashed traffic, of old police roadblocks, of crowds of the undead, of looters ambushing people. Of bikers. For weeks, Elliot had been happy to walk, avoiding anywhere he might find people. This was his first time driving an Australian vehicle, though he'd had experience with RHD vehicles at other times and places. At least he wasn't doing it in traffic; out here, he could and did drive down the center of the roadway.

  In the back, canned goods and other crap rattled in the plastic tubs, while the rifle and shottie clacked against the back of the driver's seat. Lewis was a lump of pain in the seat beside him, curled against the door and window, eyelids hooded, breathing shallow, skin pallid, hair sweat-pasted over his forehead. And everytime Elliot glanced at him, he felt that same little psychic niggle, a fish nibbling at the back of his mind. There was something familiar …

  The teenager had slept late, and Elliot had let him; it meant time for Elliot to use the home owner's shaving kit to scrape off days of irritating stubble, time for a little more scavenging. But it also meant they hadn't left until mid-afternoon.

  The teenager's continued non-responsiveness was a concern. Elliot had the thought that the Druids' set of maps might prove helpful in more ways than one. He cleared his throat, asked Lewis to grab them out of the glovebox and do some navigating for him. It wouldn't matter whether he was any good at it or not, since Elliot had already memorized what he'd needed. But the ploy might work in prising the boy out of his malaise.

  Activity: the best antidote for depression and the best inoculation against trauma.

  His Southend supervisor's words upon induction. Elliot wasn't sure how many mental health experts would agree with that cauliflower-eared moron, but without a psychiatrist handy to step Lewis through the recovery process, activity was all Elliot could think of.

  “C'mon, Cochise.” He took his foot off the gas. “There's a crossroads ahead and I need to know whether to keep going or turn right.”

  Lewis' only response was to curl tighter. Elliot could only hope the grandparents had the juice to get the young guy through it.

  A wallaby grazing the grass on the verge looked up at them, but held its ground as they passed. Elliot slowed further, considering the potential for fresh meat. But there'd be others and he was eager for Minchenbridge.

  Clumps of flowers—white, or yellow, some blue—punctuated the incessant greens of farmland and scrub. Birds jinked and wheeled in a flock against the soft blue sky to his right. This was still a pretty world for the most part, but it wouldn't be one that Lewis Ousef would enjoy living in, even if he recovered from his loss, Perhaps it would have been kinder for those outlaw bikers to do him in along with his parents. Then again, they weren't in it for the kindness.

  For a moment—and only a moment—Elliot considered telling Lewis that his sister was still alive, probably. But what kind of cheer would that be? Hey, kid, your sister's a biker's bitch, a slave.

  He opened his mouth to try asking about the map again, then gave it up and sped up through the crossroad, still pointed roughly north.

  To his left, a field——or paddock, as Australians called it——caught his eye where a dozen or more black and white cattle watched him pass. They appeared well-fed; the grass was plentiful and there were the remains of hay bales out in the middle of it. Behind their paddock, tin milking sheds or barns bounced the sunlight back at him. An orange tractor poked out from behind them, a quarter mile back from the road up the long dirt driveway, but no other vehicles were visible. He wondered if someone still lived in the single-story farmhouse near the sheds, someone protecting and feeding the cows, keeping marauders at bay. Keeping the undead at bay. If there was, he wished them luck, but he wouldn't be stopping in for a cup of tea and a hamburger. He reached between his legs into the mug full of blackberries he'd brought from the farm and shoved a couple in his mouth, wishing he hadn't gone and started thinking of burgers.

  Two miles on, they had to squeeze past a pile-up—two cars and a tourist bus. The bus was on its side, one car a mashup of metal, the other poking out of a roadside ditch. He saw bodies but none of them moved. There was an arm on the asphalt by the bus's rear wheel. Elliot thought of Radler and IEDs for the second time in as many days.

  Lewis pressed his head into the headrest, his hands in his hair, eyes glued to the scene, his normal dark skin dialed down a shade or two as the blood left it.

  Elliot couldn't think of anything to say to make that mess seem better. There'd been nothing to say in Syria. Nothing to say in Jordan or Iraq. Nothing to say in Hobart.

  Past the blockage, he could gun it again. A mile later, as they entered a clutch of bushland between properties where tall eucalypts competed with a line of power poles, a metallic whine started in the car's engine. Elliot frowned at the f
uel gauge which indicated a three quarter full tank, then relaxed the pressure on the accelerator. The whine stopped momentarily before becoming a growl. He smelled burning rubber and the vehicle shuddered. He took his foot off the gas a little more, cursing. Lewis recoiled from the torrent of invective and Elliot wondered if it reminded him of the bikers. Right at this point in time, Elliot didn't give a shit if it did. The car jerked and spasmed. He planted his foot hard to force fuel into the motor and it stopped completely. He cussed even harder as the pickup coasted to a stop, engine dead and ticking.

  Elliot stamped the clutch into the floor, turned the key and got nothing for his effort but a dull clicking from somewhere under the hood. He slapped the wheel, tried starting it again with the same result. He craned his neck both ways, checked the side mirrors—no pusbags around. Not yet, at least. He shouldered the door open, went round back, flipped open the cardboard box of tools he'd taken from the Druids' V8 and grabbed a flathead screwdriver, returned to his door.

  “Lewis, I need you to…”

  Lewis stared straight ahead. He'd taken his hoody off when they'd set out and now had it bunched like a teddy bear against his blue Pokemon t-shirt. Elliot swore again. This was making things harder. He'd seen plenty of guys shutting down after a skirmish—one guy during. Shutting down wasn't going to help either of them survive. Another fifty or sixty miles and Lewis could turn catatonic all he wanted in the arms of his grandparents while Elliot moved on to browner pastures.

  Leaning in, Elliot shoved the screwdriver in a back pocket and snapped his fingers a couple of times by the kid's ear. “Hey! Lewis! I need you to get me the topmost map in the glove compartment.”

  “What,” the teenager murmured.

  “Get the map.” He snapped his fingers again then went around the front of the utility, wrestling with the hood release. It finally popped and he shoved the heavy iron sheet upwards until the brace clunked into place to hold it there. The passenger door squeaked open and a moment later the map landed in the engine cavity and flared open in the light breeze. Elliot caught it before it could fly away, shoved it under one armpit.

  “What the hell was that?” He grabbed Lewis's elbow before he could wander back to his seat. “Where you going? I need you on watch.”

  “What?” Lewis blinked at him, face like a mannequin.

  “Sentry duty. Stop the deaders sneaking up on us. On me in particular, since I'll be the one with my head buried in the engine.” The boy frowned blankly at him. Elliot hadn't actually needed the map, so he stomped back to the passenger door, stuffed it in the glove box and dug out the SIG. Returning, he showed it to Lewis. “You ever use one?”

  Lewis' flinch was answer enough. He buried his hands in his jeans pockets, shoulders bunched.

  Elliot fixed him with a hard look and rattled the SIG. “Well, you're using one now.”

  A stir of emotion on the boy's face for the first time, a flicker of something. “Mum and Dad say guns are wrong.”

  Bleeding heart bullshit. Just what we need.

  “You're telling me your Dad never used a piece? You survived eight weeks without firing so much as a BB gun?”

  Lewis gave a little shrug, turned away to study a yellow-wattle tree on the verge. When he spoke, his voice was dry and crisp like the rustling of the map in the cab. “Didn't need them. He kept us away from the gimps. He said brainpower was better than firepower.”

  With maybe five hours of daylight left, Elliot was in no mood to discuss the finer points of gun control. And he sure as shit didn't want to be stuck in this car all night waiting for the dead to come knocking. “Well, anyone with half a brain takes what they can get in this day and age. So you'll be taking this sidearm, getting over there where you can see down both sides of the truck and warn me if anything comes calling.”

  Lewis flushed, lips clamped together. For a horrible moment, Elliot was sure he'd cry. Then he reached for the pistol.

  Elliot pulled it back. “Weapons training first. This is the safety. It's on. You want to shoot, you flick it this way, then back to put it back on when you're done. Very important you don't carry it around with the safety off.” He held it at arm's length, aimed it at the bushland. “Maybe you played a computer game or two? Maybe you've seen some of this? Well, let's make sure. You grip it like this, line this rear site with the post here at the end of the barrel. Squeeze the trigger only when these two are lined up on the thing you want to die. Never ever point it at me. Or at your feet. Or at anything valuable you don't want messed up.” He racked the slide and handed it sideways to Lewis. “There's now a round in the chamber.”

  Lewis took it lightly as if it would explode and stumped down the road a dozen yards where he planted his feet with his back to Elliot and shoulders hunched. One hand disappeared in a hoodie pocket. The pistol hung limply at his side.

  “Don't use it unless you have to. And don't fire near me. Just warn me and I'll get out the way.”

  Lewis did not respond, but jammed the SIG in his jeans and folded his arms.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, spare me,” Elliot muttered. “Probably shoot his pecker off.”

  He got busy inspecting the engine, laying the screwdriver on the battery for the moment. Apart from the tang of hot oil it smelled like burning wires in there. When he leaned right in and over, he could see a belt hanging off the engine block, connected but floppy, loose. God, he wished Uncle John had shown him this stuff when he was a kid. How could you be a trucker and raise a child without teaching them basic mechanics? He slapped at a fly, slapped again—stupid things never got the message. He leaned in again, ran the tips of his fingers along the belt: it was a little cracked in places and rough like skin calluses. What was it for, the alternator? He vaguely remembered something about that from motor pool guys talking shop at a bar once.

  What the hell did he do now? Where was he gonna get another and how was he gonna fit the damn thing? In concert with the buzzing in his head, the drone of flies got louder; it sounded like a bunch of them flying sorties, triangulating his position, zeroing in on him. He hated the little bastards all the more for their timing.

  Best he try to get the belt off, see if it had some writing on it to indicate what it was. He felt around for the screwdriver. Something clammy like damp vinyl fell on his fingers. Elliot jerked his hand free, looking up into the curdled-milk eyes of a corpse as it bit down on thin air, air where his fingers had been a half-second earlier. The deader's teeth clacked against the chassis. Flies droned around its head, others crawling in and of out the open wound on its neck.

  Behind him, Lewis cried something inarticulate while Elliot backpedaled. The pusbag rounded the car towards him, a big guy in a farmer's coverall, in good condition all things told apart from his eyes and neck. Maybe recently turned. Elliot had left his weapons in the pickup. And the screwdriver was now beside the highly mobile corpse. The thought crossed his mind to jog back to Lewis, take back the pistol and pop this dead bastard, but his blood was up. He stepped forward, swiveling on his left foot and driving his right into the corpse's leg above the knee. With a satisfying crack, the joint gave. His opponent toppled while Elliot danced aside. He skipped back to the engine, snatched up the screwdriver. The zombie's head came around to seek him out and met the screwdriver coming the other way. Elliot left it sticking from the dead man's temple, as the corpse collapsed onto the asphalt and meet its second death with tremors and a sigh of escaping breath. Elliot stomped its head and stomped again until the point of the screwdriver punched through the back of the skull. He kicked it in the ribs.

  Checking alongside the truck both sides to make sure nothing else nasty was coming, he shuffled backwards toward Lewis. “A little warning next time, huh?”

  “S-sorry.”

  The boy was mannequin-still, the gun pointed at the tar and shaking in his trembling hand. Elliot reached down and plucked it away, turned it muzzle-down and checked the safety. Still on.

  “You had my back, dammit. What the hel
l happened?”

  “N-nothing. I … I was watching the bush.”

  “You have to watch everywhere! You—”

  But Lewis was running. He hurdled the dead man, made it to the truck, wrenched the passenger door open and flung himself inside, slamming it after him.

  Elliot stomped back to the body and kicked it three times in the hip.

  “Sonofabitch!” He wasn't sure if he meant the Universe, the dead guy or the boy. Any of them would do.

  *

  After another ten minutes of tinkering, Elliot gave it up. The sun was just above the trees. He needed another of whatever these belts were. Maybe there was something back on that farm with the cows. Or another pickup or truck they could use. It was probably two miles back to the driveway, but they could leg it overland, come up on the house from the side. Maybe they should spend the night there and fix this tomorrow.

  He opened the tailgate, pulled the M4 strap over his shoulders and chest, did the same with the shottie. He shoved a couple of spare water bottles in his backpack. His hand hesitated over two tins of baked beans but he grabbed them too and slammed the gate. When he rounded the passenger side, Lewis had his head out the window, eyes wide with sudden alarm.