by Dan Yaeger
I would chronicle and journal a scientific explanation of zombies, what I knew, what I had seen and maybe, just maybe, this information would be shared with someone else who could benefit. I wasn’t going to give up on Charlemagne’s dream of the Great Library of Wonder. Internet or not, I would do my little part for leaving some knowledge for others. While the current distribution network for information was dead, I resigned myself to the fact that I would find ways of sharing the knowledge and trying to make contact with other survivors. This close encounter with the unknown, speaking zombies was almost as exciting as meeting an alien being. "Too bad we wanted to kill each other," I thought.
The whole situation over the past 12 hours was an excuse for the inevitable; I had to get out there again. It was almost like the zeal my dad described of 1995 when the Internet and e-mail arrived, or the horror the Great Change itself and I was part of it. I had a bath and thought about things as I poured buckets of warm water over my head. I had heated the water over my fire into the old-style but very modern bathtub. "Old meets new, Jesse. Old meets new," the thought was an interesting one.
As I supplied water to my tub I thought about the supply of something. “What was it that the zombies supplied to their controller, the person writing those chits? And what was it that the controller used to control the zombies? Were the zombies being controlled to go get supplies or eliminate competition?" I needed to know. After a good wash, I got into a stolen/perhaps purchased hotel robe. "Nah, it is stolen," I mused to myself. The tradition of stealing bathrobes had certainly not changed, zombie apocalypse or not. I lay in my bed, burning candle after candle, writing my journal. It needed a name: The Alpine View of the Zombie Apocalypse. It was quirky, almost academic and included a double meaning. I liked my own work and the candle went out. Outside the fire still raged. I would then try to sleep, but that didn’t go well.
Nightmares of the faces of the taken, zombie and human alike plagued my slumber. But that was when I had fallen into a sleep-state. For the most part, I lay awake, thinking of this new type of zombie; the Tom Wrights and Rebecca Falconers and what they were, who they were working with and what they were working toward. Organisation meant some purpose, order, enforcement, rules, structure – civilisation. It was an incongruous concept that zombies were working to the beat of some drum. Appealing to their addiction to flesh, yes, addiction, someone was controlling them or placating them. These thoughts milled around in my mind in fitted sleep. I reasoned and debated with myself until I succumbed to lassitude.
“Morning, glorious morning, again,” I said aloud, sitting upright and stretching. I was alive for another day and slept, uninterrupted until late. It wasn’t a very refreshing sleep with the churning sea of thoughts and concepts that was rocking my world. I went outside, putting on gum boots and a coat that was for life around the cabin. My cabin coat was in good condition, very warm and didn’t have the character of my military coats and smocks that were standard wear for hunting, fighting and scavenging. These more domestic clothes enabled me to create a clean world for myself when I wasn’t in the dirty business of being a modern-day survivor and hunter-gatherer. I walked over to the remnants of the bonfire; it had done its work. A pile of ash, whites, greys and a little charcoal and embers were left. To start with such a large mass of wood and bodies to get to this was always a little amazing. The ash made good fertiliser for my vegetable garden which I needed to tend. After an hour of shovelling ash and tending my garden, I walked to the small orchard and my olive grove. Ironically, the veggie garden, orchard and small olive grove were overgrown and unkempt when I had arrived. The eco-retreat where I lived had once had been a farm-stay and “harvest your own” venue. With people becoming lazier and lazier, this novelty had been let go some time in the 2020s. During the winter, I had pruned and tended the garden, taking learnings from a gardening book that someone had kept for show on a bookshelf in my cabin. That book had meant life. I was never much of a dedicated gardener before the Great Change but now it was one of those hobbies that kept me connected with the cycle of life and what was normalcy. It was also quite utilitarian as it described a means to live and live well.
A couple of apples and plums were my harvest for the day. It was early in the season so more would not come in great abundance until a few weeks later. The prospect of fresh fruit was making me drool like a zombie. I hadn’t eaten fresh fruit for a while. I bit into the apple; it was juicy fresh and sweet. “Heaven.” I thought.
The plum was a little under-ripe but also had a fresh flavour that offered a vitamin-rich sensation on my taste-buds. All was good in the world at that moment. This would be my first harvest after the work I had put in to cultivate the mess I had found when I had arrived. After yesterday’s exertions, I needed some meat as well. I felt like fish today. I had a last piece of trout stored in the cellar where I kept fish and meat. After that small piece of trout, the cupboard would be bare, as they say.
It had been a cold, harsh winter with slim pickings in hunting, fishing and gathering. I had not prepared too well and had only worked out pickling, storing in jars, salting, smoking and preservation of food along the way. These old ways were ironically new to me. But what I was used to was hunting and it had yielded success and survival, yet again. The deer meant all the venison I needed for a time. But that meat needed some preparation. That last piece of prized, smoked trout did not and I enjoyed it in one fell swoop.
By former standards, the piece of smoked trout was not much of a meal; to me it was a feast. Gourmet as it was, it was perhaps 100 grams or less. Protein was at a premium in the world. I salivated at the thought of the fish and could use the conditioning of this type of meal every day. I ventured into the cellar to check on prepared and curing meat.
It was cool and dark down in the cellar and my torch, getting increasingly weaker, almost gave out as I retrieved a solid helping of trout. My meat cupboard was such a good find. Someone in Tantangara had an antique meat cupboard being used as a bookshelf. I had read a book only weeks before that had depicted one of these antique items that were used prior to refrigeration. It used clever evaporative techniques. I had been prospecting through a house when I had noticed it, to my great luck. This little cupboard come bookshelf was something whimsical, funky, retro or curious to someone and yet it had meant survival to me. "How my priorities have changed."
That little meat cupboard had been lovingly loaded into an old four-wheel drive I had acquired. With great confidence and high hopes, that four-wheeler almost got me home until it broke down. The vehicle would make a good emergency shelter, around two-thirds of the way home from Tantangara. The situation had left me a long way from home with a cupboard I would have to carry. I smiled at the memory and recalled the hard work to getting the cupboard home. That last stretch of road felt like forever and I had to strap the heavy piece of furniture to my back. Every hard step of the way, the straps rubbed and muscles burned. It was worth it as the cupboard had given my food more longevity and in turn, the same gift to me.
As my torch flickered and almost went out and my mouth stopped chewing, ending my smoked trout supply, I realised I needed more supplies.
I was running low on some simple things; soap, tissues, toilet paper, batteries, toothpaste, packaged and canned things, everything really. My diet had become very Palaeolithic and raw because of it. My stomach growled and I was hit with the realisation that I needed to go into Tantangara. I had been putting it off for some time as I had fared pretty badly in the last run into that town by the lake. While I had cleared my home of many of the roaming zombies, Tantangara was something else. Where there had been large populations of people, there were large populations of zombies- simple.
My torch went out, just to hammer things home, and it reinforced my resolve that my next trip was into Tantangara for supplies. The thought made me nervous and uncomfortable and I fumbled with the torch. I regained my composure and turned the batteries around in the dark; got it working weakly. "Whew," th
e relief of not being completely in the dark. I had been hiding away up at home for some time and had long before run out of toilet paper. I had found an alternative in great supply; used office paper. So many people had so much crap printed out on old office paper; it was readily available and readily used. All that printed crap was good for, well, crap. I had an oil change tray that had never been used for its intended purpose. I used it to soak sheets of used office paper in water. The paper would go soft and was OK on the face as a tissue or to wipe your rear end. It wasn’t ideal but it was clean and could be left to dry and then burned. I flushed the toilet without putting the paper in it. The paper went into a plastic bag. Much like when I holidayed in Greece many years ago. I would say it was “doing it Greek” but that would give people the wrong impression of me. Anyway, my paper situation worked for me. Toilet paper, tissues, baby wipes, paper towel were all luxuries, if you could find them. Even my office paper and associated plastic bags were running low. I needed to go “shopping” in Tantangara.
"Tomorrow," I told myself. "Tomorrow I go to Tantangara. Today, I will go fishing, prep some food and get my kit ready for the trip." The plan was in motion and I gave myself a little space to deal with the emotions of going back there.
"Tomorrow," I told myself again, trying to be OK with the prospect. "Tomorrow I go to Tantangara. Today, I will go fishing, prep some food and get my kit ready for the trip." The plan was in motion. I felt nervous; last trip had been at such a cost. "This time," I thought bitterly, "I will be prepared and won't make any grand entrances. This time, I will be like a fucking commando." I was resolute that no-one else would come to harm on that trip.
There was calm, a routine, before the storm. I was ready to get into the whole plan, trek, explore mission into Tantangara. I had to keep telling myself I was mentally ready to confront the place after what had happened the last time. I stopped thinking too much and got on with it. With what little torchlight I had left, I quickly negotiated the stairs and was ready for preparing future meals.
I lay some venison strips out on a drying rack I had made from rustic timbers. The meat was liberally salted, thinly sliced and would be great when chewed in the field or put into a soup or stew. It kept really well and was another ancestor connection that I liked; my food and techniques for preserving meat were theirs, despite the long passage of time. I was still connected to people.
I smoked some meat in the smokehouse (a converted shed) and cleaned up my home, inside and out.
Preparation was quick and decisive; damn good at it. I ensured my rifle was cleaned and ready and knives were sharped with a stone; alone on my porch in the beautiful Australian Alps with the rhythmic sound of a sharpening stone ringing away. The chimney puffed a little smoke and I was the only human soul for miles around. It was a perfect scene but so imperfect a set of circumstances had gotten me there. With my knives sharpened to a razor's edge, I was ready for my two favourite past-times; hunting and fishing. "Time for a fish Jess," I felt relaxed and calm.
I set off for the river. I loved fishing, at all times in my life. It had been one of those past-times where I had bonded with family and friends. The wonderful thing about anglers was the common-purpose that could knit relationships between male and female, the labourer and the thinker or the old and the young. It was the timeless pursuit that was meant to be a bonding experience. I remembered fishing in a canoe on a dam near Canberra when I was a boy. I had caught some redfin with my father and we came upon a cliff-face that was an amazing formation but was also reflected in the water to create an awe-inspiring sight. It was like the Hall of the Mountain King, its greatness doubled by a second image on a great mirror-like surface on the lake. The water and life had been that still for a moment. That experience and many like it were about life and people. “Being human,” I thought. I went to fish, to clear my mind and feel human again.
The river was cool, flowing nicely and provided the Zen relief I had sought. The sound of the water, the dappled sunlight through the trees, the gentle spring wind and my thoughts of simple things were magic for my troubled soul. I didn’t think much about recent events or what I would do next, I was enjoying the sport and therapy of fishing and the recreation of it all. On the serious side, I fished well and pulled out a rainbow and two big old brown trout from the water. They were great prizes and I felt a sense of elation and excitement to reel them in. First prize, however, really was the inner peace that the fishing brought me. My stomach was arguing the point with me; a few rumbles. With a clear head and the prospect of another full belly, I headed home at dusk; the end of a point in time. I had to get ready for my plan, mission and whatever the future held in new adventures.
I enjoyed gearing up and planning my missions. Getting my kit ready and being meticulous in my preparation was always my approach to my hunter-gatherer world. If I was headed out to a job interview or to my former desk job, I flew by the seat of my pants. On that day and in a new age, preparation mattered and I was a boy scout in my philosophy of being prepared. It’s funny how I was unfulfilled in the easy life back in Canberra. It was boring, predictable, stressful and a bullshit existence. The Great Change had been my excuse for a Sea Change. I wished, many times, that I had given up on the rat-race, rushed mornings, meetings that took your life away and dealing with incompetent people who talked more than took action. I wished I had enjoyed unadulterated nature, the wild and the wild life; it was different with the threat of zombies. It would have been liberating and truly free before the Great Change. While the world was a mess and I was happily away from it all, I was alone and I missed kin and friends. I loved my new job as a survivor and had attained the greatest sense of job satisfaction a man could have. With my new intent to get back into the remnants of civilisation, I had some objectives I wanted to achieve. First I would go to Tantangara for supplies and a vehicle. That plan had been in the works for a little while but I had a new drive, given my recent encounter, to investigate further: a subsequent target would be Cooleman. "Cooleman Duck," I recalled the patch on the Mechanic's overalls. Cooleman, further northeast of Tantangara, was calling; the key to the new type of zombie I had encountered and whatever was leading them. "The controlled and the controller," I nodded to myself, a reminder of my theory of what was going on.
With the need to get more supplies and the desire for insight, I was not just a modern-day hunter-gatherer; I was a researcher, writer and investigator as well. That thought made me a little more excited about the trip, despite my nerves. Professionally, things couldn’t get much better or more exciting. I was good at what I did and I had energy and drive to see the world outside like I had not had for a long time. Stranger still, I felt more vigour than I had as a young man entering the workforce. It is amazing what a little spark, curiosity and a whole lot of pressure to survive can do. People are never happy when life is too easy.
Life was going to get a whole lot more complex and be far from easy. The euphoria I felt was much like a soldier being excited, volunteering for a war that would be over by Christmas. There would be way more to it than a simple trip into Tantangara. My plan would open new doors and new worlds of possibility. In fact, a new world was to open, a Pandora’s Box of sorts. But I wasn’t to know what was going to happen back then, and I did what I always did; finalise a plan and get into action. I had a plan of where I was, where I was going and some ideas if things went FUBAR on me. The march from my home in the mountains down to Lake Tantangara was about 20km through the bush. If you went via a trail, across cleared, open country, it was an extra 3 clicks. Whichever way I went, the last 5 clicks would be in open country on trails, out in the open or on a sealed road. "It depends," I pontificated to myself. Whatever fate would throw at me on the day would dictate the route. I was free to choose a way that suited best. My map and compass gave me the option of the slower but more protected and safer bush hiking.
Another consideration was people. While I wanted to encounter people again, boy did I ever, my experiences had
been mixed in the past. While I yearned for human contact, I had a sense some survivors were just as predatory as the zombies. "Think about that too, mate," I said to myself as I considered the map. I plotted an emergency route which I knew reasonably well. It is one thing to just know, it is another to plan. Planning didn’t take long and I was decisive in making the plan real and workable. I had a couple of FUBAR options. First was to take the bush route to Tantangara or home, if the roads had heat from zombies. There was an old farmhouse that I had cleared and secured around halfway between here and Tantangara I could hole up there for a while if needed. Second was to have an escape route to safety. If needed, I could get to the old holiday park by the lake, just near junction of the main road and the road that led into national park. There were many canoes and watercraft there that could be rowed out to Tiger Island. I could hold out there if things got too hot or it was too hard to get into Tantangara. Tiger Island had a great vantage point to observe from but I hadn’t provisioned it or set up a base there yet. I planned to get something to store a stash of provisions there, a tent and some fishing gear. I also had an apple core and would try to plant an apple tree on Tiger Island. It was pretty inhospitable but life was persistent. An apple tree may just make it and provide life to someone in the future. "Maybe me?"
The third option was Samsonov’s House. Samsonov was a local man who, by the account of every local farmer you talked to, had scoffed and scorned at. From some part of the former Soviet Union or the Russian Federation or perhaps just Russia, Samsonov was reputedly a former Russian soldier, assassin, bodyguard or something else that was dangerous. Rumour had it that Samsonov had some heat on him from a deal gone bad, a falling out or maybe he knew too much. That rumour extended to legend that he had fought his way out of Russia, and gone as far as he could to lay-low. Tantangara in Australia was a good a place as any and far enough from Russia that he could be free from whatever danger clipped at his heels. Local people including shooters, hunters and farmers knew him well, too well. Samsonov was maligned as a notorious poacher and would ignore fences, boundaries, rules or people’s instruction. He would hunt where he liked and people were a little scared of him. One such trip where Samsonov got himself into trouble saw a local jackeroo hospitalised with broken ribs, a broken jaw and concussion thanks to some Russian Sambo. But those sorts of small town stories were often embellished. On a ski trip up to Bimberi, before the Great Change, I had heard all about it from a local property manager who I bought a beer in the bar. This guy freely gave details about Samsonov, the whole story and the various embellishments, I am sure. He had also given a description of the house which was fairly unique and not far off the main drive through the town. I knew the house and would go there to see what I could find. A guy like Samsonov was bound to have some good kit or be someone that may have survived. He could be someone I could trade with at the very least. I hadn’t seen anyone in a long time and the prospect of meeting a dangerous old Russian warrior was actually a good thing.
