Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 8): August

by Dave Rowlands

  Anno Zombus:

  Year 1;

  August

  by

  Dave Rowlands

  This one is for Jylissa,

  Just because she’s awesome!

  August 1st Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  After the most relaxing sleep I think I've ever had, finally feeling safe after all of these months dodging the Dead and the Living both, The Queen summoned Apocalypse Girl and I and the rest of the group that we had arrived with to share breakfast with her. Even Apocalypse Dog was welcomed with a bowl of crispy bacon and a place at Her Majesty's table. Much to my great entertainment, the damn dog simply knocked the bowl off of the table, onto the floor where he proceeded to inhale the bacon like some kind of canine vacuum cleaner before treating himself to a dessert of his own nutsack.

  While the rest of us ate, The Queen told us a little of how she had begun the process of rebuilding Adelaide. It turned out that, after making her way to the street a day after Apocalypse Girl and I had escaped with Valet, she saved the life of a stranger beset by the Dead. He had turned out to be an invaluable ally as the pair began finding any other survivors they could. Her Sheriff, as she referred to the man she had rescued, was a practical man and had suggested the initial idea of a log wall surrounding the city, once they cleared it of the Dead. The idea to clean the streets and provide secure housing for every survivor they found, however, had been purely The Queen's.

  They had encountered little trouble and vast numbers of survivors, mainly large groups of people that had taken the initial news reports with a grain of salt, yet had still prepared, all the while making jokes until they realised that the screaming and explosions that they could hear were not screams of excitement and joy, but of terror and agony and the explosions, not fireworks but gunfire. Then they had battened down all hatches and awaited help. Some of the larger groups had even gone out with the specific intention of doing battle with the Dead.

  Unfortunately the Winter struck before they were able to make any real progress with the log wall surrounding the city, but Her Majesty had issued orders that people were still to carefully spread out, explore and clear out nearby houses and make certain that every new location was safe, or else mark it with a splash of red paint to warn the Living to stay the fuck away. Many of the larger shopping centres, for instance, were coated rather liberally with such warnings, due to the large quantities of Dead that seemed to want to congregate inside such structures. Most of the housing, on the other hand, either had one or two survivors still nibbling away at their ever-dwindling supplies of food or else one or two Dead whose stashes had already run out and had starved.

  It had been The Sheriff's duty to organise groups to go in and eradicate the Dead from these locations. Unfortunately, one day in mid-February, the group that he led into one such location had not returned. The Queen had been devastated by the loss of her strong right arm, she told us, and she still had not replaced the man. Still, the process of expanding had continued until every house in the surrounding suburbs, extending for several kilometres in every direction, had been cleared of survivors, Dead and dead bodies. Then, about a week after a strange hybrid contraption had crashed along the train line from Melbourne, The Queen decreed that every vehicle not being used, not to mention all of the wrecks that she had ordered cleared from the roads, be torn apart to build a mighty Wall to keep the Dead out. The order to clear the roads outside of the walls was a new one. The Queen reasoned that since she had things under control here in Adelaide, that somebody somewhere else had also thrived amidst the Dead and so the best idea would be to render travel between these locations relatively safe and painless.

  noon

  Machete had a frown on her face, telling me that she distrusted our hostess without being able to express precisely why. Apocalypse Girl laughed, saying that maybe she had been a little bit flirty with me, but she didn't really mind. I hadn't even noticed, to be honest. Of course, when I said that my female companions looked at one another and every single one of them burst out in laughter. Even Tiny smiled slightly. I glanced at Apocalypse Dog, who just gave me one of those looks that said that he knew as much about human women as he knew about quantum mechanics. He then burped bacon in my face. Fucking dog.

  “I think we're going to be alright from now on, you know,” Apocalypse Girl began, sounding almost as if she believed herself. “This Queen seems to have her shit together. At least we're not seeing people ripping their own fucking teeth out for some shitty scraps of food here, like you said was happening in New Brisbane.”

  A knock sounded on the door to the hotel suite that The Queen had allocated to Apocalypse Girl and myself. The Twin shared a room across the hall with Scout and Machete, Tiny occupied a smaller room further down the hall that she shared with Apprentice. It felt fucking weird being back inside this particular hotel, weirder still seeing it completely clean, the merest hint of pink on the mostly white shag carpet the only real clue that people had been torn apart by hungry Dead teeth in this very room.

  I got up, answered the door. A young man in a suit stood there, spectacles adorning his nose, though he looked above them into my eyes as he spoke with polite authority. “Excuse me, sir, ladies. All new arrivals must present themselves to Duty Allocation for work assignment within seventy two hours. Would you like me to show you where it is?” I agreed that I would come along now and show the ladies where it is later, if that suited him. He almost smiled to himself. “Of course, sir. As you wish.”

  “I would like to accompany you,” Tiny said. Butler agreed and together, the three of us left the others alone. Apocalypse Girl's eyes never left my own until the door shut between us.

  Butler chattered away at us as we walked, meaningless drivel for the most part that I just tuned out. However, when Tiny asked him why the chain-link fence rather than the log wall surrounding the city, I readjusted my perceptions, forcing my attention onto the young bespectacled Butler. “After the Winter had come it was clear from the trees in the parklands that a log wall would be flimsy and would likely not hold the Dead out.” I recalled other trees that I had seen, rotting from the inside. Perhaps chain-link is best.

  Before long we had reached the Duty Allocation station, discovering that much of the work available involved farming or keeping the general area clean. There was even a job specifically titled “Ball Polisher” which Butler explained was keeping the gargantuan silver balls in what remained of a large mall shiny, not whatever Tiny had been sniggering about when she found the posting. There were always openings in the Queen's personal guard, Butler explained to me, or perhaps with a Cleansing or Scavenger Squad or the Road Crew.

  “Remember, you have a couple of days to think things through. Regardless, whatever your decision, you can always come back for reassignment. We want you to contribute to your new home, certainly, but we would prefer you not be miserable whilst doing so.” Finally stopping for breath, Butler bade us farewell, making sure that we knew the way back to the hotel and the nearby Casino-turned-Palace. Her Majesty had extended an invitation to dine with her this evening.

  Tiny said in a low breath that she would look around, keeping eyes and ears open for any gossip and that we would meet up once again at dinner. Turning around I spied Apprentice speaking with a farmer that had come in from the fields. “Yeah, mostly we grow carrots, tomatoes, beans and peas, some corn... some of it grows easier than others, you know what I mean?” She nodded. “After all, who wants to eat whatever those monstrous, mutated things are out in the country? I've seen a few of them when I was working the Road Crew, but no way would I ever eat something like that.”

  I nodded at the pair as I passed them, co
ntinuing onwards, looking at the nearby buildings. Many had a huge red circle painted on them, some of which bore a vertical white stripe through them. Apprentice's newfound farmer friend saw me staring and thought to enlighten me. “The red circle is for danger. Usually Dead, of course. We haven't had any bandits here for a few months. Her Majesty put a stop to it, of course. The white stripe is left behind by a Cleansing Squad after they've put all the Dead down, or killed off all the bandits, whatever. It means it is safe for a Scavenger Squad to go inside and pick through for supplies.” Looking around it seemed that there were many more red circles without the white stripe than with it...

  evening

  “I hope you'll forgive me for being late,” The Queen said as she finally entered. We had been sitting at table, waiting for her for the better part of an hour. “I had a couple of things that … required my attention.” Smiling broadly she clapped her hands together and dinner was brought out. Roast pork and fresh vegetables made my eyes meet Apocalypse Girl's own. She mouthed the words stasis chamber and underground facility to me, indicating the meat. I couldn't help but agree with her assessment. “I'm sorry, is there some problem with the food?” The Queen asked her, putting her cutlery down in a decidedly threatening manned.

  “Not at all,” Apocalypse Girl smiled. It lit up her entire face, disarming The Queen. “I was remarking on how fresh the meat tasted. We haven't had anything like this in a while.” Still a little suspicious, though mollified, The Queen picked up her knife and fork, setting to her meat with relish. Something in how she devoured her dinner reminded me of the look of glee on Disciple's face as he chewed on part of me. The way she smiled with each mouthful, perhaps. It was a predator's smile.

  “Your Majesty,” I began. She turned to look at me. It was almost like her eyes were burning through my skull and into my brain, the intensity of her gaze. “I must ask you, how many Cleansing Squads have you got working for you?”

  “Not nearly enough, I'm afraid.” She looked sad. “My Sheriff was in charge of those details. After he died, I...” She shrugged. “I don't know, really. Clearly there must be a few, still, or else I would have surely been notified. Would you look into this further, as a personal favour?” I told her that I would, indeed. We then finished our meals in silence.

  August 2nd Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  Butler seemed to know everything that The Queen should have told me last night. There was precisely one Scavenger Squad left, a total of four individuals responsible for gathering supplies for a settlement of several thousand, spread out over about twenty square kilometres, walled off for protection from the outside world, Dead and Living alike. Unfortunately, those four individuals were hard at work cleaning out stores in the western suburbs that the last remaining Cleansing Squad had marked as safe. Until, that was, the last remaining Cleansing Squad found themselves with a bite victim among their ranks.

  The fool hadn't told anybody and before they knew it died on watch one night while they were camping out inside one of the larger shopping centres. Only one of the seven sent inside made it out alive, Butler told me, and he had been driven quite insane by the entire ordeal. A week or so later he just wandered out past the West Gate, the last person that saw him reported seeing him wandering along the highway as if drunk. He stumbled around a corner, then the gate guard heard several gunshots. That was the end of it. About three hours later he staggered back, Dead, to the West Gate to be shot by the same guard.

  The Queen was furious with Butler for not informing her that her Realm had been without even one Cleansing Squad for nearly a week. He meekly tried telling her that he had been attempting to talk a few people into signing up but everybody he had spoken with seemed to think it a suicidal undertaking. I couldn't agree with him more, for the majority of the people left Living in Adelaide it would indeed mean Death.

  I wanted to kick myself even harder than Apocalypse Girl did when I heard myself telling Her Majesty at breakfast that I would put together a Cleansing Squad of my own. Apprentice and Tiny volunteered immediately, Machete piping up to join in. Even Apocalypse Dog barked enthusiasm for the project. Eventually, Apocalypse Girl relented, readjusting the deathly glare that had accompanied her kick to smouldering fury. The Twin, on the other hand, said that she had had her fill of hunting the Dead. She would prefer to work on one of the farms. Scout, on the other hand, informed us all that she planned to leave in a couple of days, heading up north once more to Coober's Nest.

  noon

  I had Butler leave a message for the Scavenger Squad, telling them to check in with me when they return from their duties. He told me that they would likely be another day or two. They had a vehicle, the largest truck at the moving company that Butler had worked as an accountant.

  Being a family business, he found himself having to survive in the main office with his three cousins until help arrived in the form of The Queen and her Sheriff. By this stage, one of the cousins had momentarily gone nuts and stabbed another with a pair of scissors, who bled out on their grandfather's massive desk and died. When he suddenly sat up, the one that had stabbed him ran to embrace him, crying his repentance the entire time. “He was still babbling 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry' over and over again as I pulled him off his brother while our other cousin bashed the Dead one's head in with my great-grandfather's bust.” Butler told me in a matter-of-fact voice. “Needless to say, she had a rather large chunk taken out of her and The Sheriff shot them both as soon as he saw them.”

  I had Butler procure me a detailed map of the city, with each building marked as either safe and clear or unexplored. There were more unexplored buildings by far, many more. However, since many of these would have been office blocks it was unlikely that there were many Dead shambling around within their dark heights. All of the streets had been cleared long ago, along with the galleries and arcades that dotted the city. A lot of what remained were residences with a few warehouses and a couple of small shopping centres thrown in.

  evening

  It was dinner time long before I was finished poring over suburban maps like some kind of fucking general. Were it not for the coffee that Apocalypse Girl kept pouring down my throat I would likely have passed out, comatose from exhaustion hours before. She stayed by my side every moment, though she was spending a great deal of those moments berating me on choosing to help someone else that we barely knew when we were meant to be looking for somewhere safe to have the baby. I could tell from the expression on her face that she knew I was doing this to make Adelaide that safe place. She would likely not be in any condition to travel for much longer. Fuck me, it seemed at times as if I could see her belly growing as I watched. I wanted nothing more than to spend more time just watching her...

  The Queen was impatient for progress already, asking if we had scouted or cleansed anywhere yet. I told her that I wanted to make sure it was done methodically, properly, and that I was not yet prepared to risk my life or the lives of my Squad without conferring with the Scavenger Squad, with whom I expect to meet in the next couple of days. She flashed a sweet smile at me, saying that she expected great things of me. A shudder ran involuntarily up my spine, chilling me to the bone as she looked away.

  August 3rd Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  With Apocalypse Girl at my side I was able to work out a decent plan to clear out the Dead from one of the larger shopping malls in the city itself. The Queen's face brightened when I divulged our ideas over breakfast, as it meant opportunities for more supplies but more importantly it opened up the possibility of entertainment! That was the one thing lacking in Adelaide, other than a couple of pubs here and there serving whatever noxious liquids they found remaining in their cellars there was absolutely no entertainment to speak of. Not for the regular people, at least. The Queen, naturally, had her own Jester, a little fellow that had probably managed to survive the Dead by simply being beneath their notice. That was Her Majesty's reasoning, at least.

  Jester performed for us ov
er breakfast, debasing himself by leaping about while telling jokes about the Dead and humorous anecdotes of the early days of The Queen's reign. She was cackling wildly at his antics and, when he fell over and bloodied his nose, almost wet herself. Rather than allow him to tend to his injured proboscis she insisted that he continue his tale, blood pissing from his broken honker. When he finally finished the blood had stopped flowing, but that was hardly surprising as it seemed more covered the unfortunate dwarf than was left inside him. The Queen thanked him for his performance and dismissed him, completely ignoring the white-hot agony and pain directed her way in his glare as he left.

  The Queen was suggesting, once we finally liberated our target, that we set up a massive screen for the people in the square in the centre of town and screen movies every night. That should keep the people happy, she thought. Butler agreed with her, nodding at every word she said. Occasionally he would glance in my direction. It took me a little while to notice but he did that with Her Majesty's less intelligent ideas. A little while after that and I realised that he was in fact rolling his eyes ever so slightly with each glance.

  noon

  I had been allowed the use of the Security office of the Palace, though the monitors were useless now it had quite a nice desk and The Queen figured that I would need a good one. Her Sheriff had used this office, she told me, once they had cleared out the former Casino. As she left me, she reiterated that, should I need anything at all I only had to call out. Butler would provide my every whim, apparently. Also, if I needed a laugh I had her permission to call upon Jester. I told her that I would be fine as long as I had Apocalypse Girl with me. The Queen smiled at that, beaming first at Apocalypse Girl, then myself before flouncing out the door. It was a smile that never reached her eyes.