Desolation (Book 1): Aftermath

by Butler, Simon L.

  “What’s your plan going forward, Jack?” Hank asked, breaking me from my thoughts.

  I considered the question for a moment. “I really don’t know. I’ve been nomadic for a long time, but now I just don’t know.”

  “Ashe?” he said, implying the same question.

  She shrugged. “I want to eventually find somewhere nice to settle. I mean, I don’t mind the nomadic thing for now, but we can’t go on like this forever.”

  Hank nodded, understanding her point. “No, it can be a very difficult life. I’m sure of that.” They were right, of course. When it was just me, and I had only myself to feed and no real care for my own life, it worked just fine. But with Ashe seemingly not going anywhere and a desire growing inside me to have her stay meant reassessing my own plans. Or more accurately, it meant thinking about and making plans in the first place since I generally held only very lose goals in my life that simply got me from one day to the next. I turned the thought over in my mind over the hot coffee.

  Once finished, I turned to Ashe and said, “There is one thing I need to do before we settle anywhere! But after that, we can decide on somewhere.”

  “Why don’t you settle here?” Hank asked. “That farmhouse is in good shape, and we can help you both get it setup. Put up some fencing and grow some crops, this area is getting greener each year.”

  Ashe shrugged, then turned to me and said, “It’s not a bad idea, Jack.”

  “No, it’s not a bad idea at all, and if you want to stay here until I get back, I’ll understand,” I offered.

  “You’re welcome to stay with us until then,” Charlotte offered.

  Ashe didn’t give it a second thought and shook her head. “I appreciate the offer,” she replied to Charlotte calmly, then turned to me and said, “I’m with you until the end, wherever that takes us.”

  “Even after another eight hundred zombie-infested kilometres?” I said, trying to be as transparent as possible with what laid ahead if she came along.

  “Why only after that?” Ashe moved closer to me and asked, so Steve and Charlotte were out of earshot, though I’m sure they heard every word. “What is there after another eight hundred kilometres?”

  I looked down, trying to work out how best to explain the urge I had to see my childhood home one last time, to confirm there was nothing left of it. The idea of a settlement near there gave me hope, and I knew that if I did not see it for myself, the thought would burn away in the back of my mind for the rest of my life. Hope, after all, was a dangerous and fleeting emotion that led to rash decisions and poor planning. Undoubtedly this was one of those moments for me. Being with Ashe this last few weeks had brought out a strong desire to at least try and find what’s left of my family, if anything, even if it means finding nothing but ruins and bones. I hesitated, searching for the right words. “I suppose the best explanation is that I need closure. I need to see something for myself, and not just trust that time and zombies had finished the job all those years ago.”

  Her expression turned from confused to empathetic in an instant, offering a warm embrace to my explanation. “I know I have said it already, but I’m with you until the end Jack. You just need to talk to me!”

  I took in a deep breath and nodded once to her, placing an arm loosely around her.

  “I take it you have both come to a decision then?” Hank asked, offering an understanding nod to me before Ashe gave them both a hug.

  “I think so,” I answered. “One last journey, then we will probably be back.”

  Hank gave only a slight nod, His way of offering understanding without judgement. It seemed he disagreed with my decision, but he would not stop us. Charlotte just hugged Ashe and me, probably feeling the same as Hank, but she hurried inside to gather the freshly smoked meat into a bag and threw in a few additional supplies. When she returned, she handed the bag to Ashe and said warmly, “You two stay safe on the road and come back when you’re ready.”

  Ashe almost started to cry and the woman’s kindness, wiping away a few stray tears before throwing her arms around Charlotte. “Thank you!”

  It was still quite early when we left, and the distant sight of rolling storms on the coast to the left me quite jumpy and on high alert. It was going to be a big storm, and it was heading our way. My concern was not the storm itself; the house would easily protect us from the wind and rain. Rather it was the tendency for this kind of weather to instigate herd migration in zombies. The clouds were probably still a few hours away, but there were signs of rising dust in the distance that meant movement. As we neared the now-familiar dirt road, we broke into a run heading towards the house. The wind had picked up, and lightning flickered in rapid succession. The sound of thunder was constantly rolling from one into the next. To the west and seemingly fleeing the approaching storm, a large herd was on the move, their path took them on a collision course with the farmhouse, and it meant we would likely have no more than a few minutes to secure the house when we arrived. “Zombies?” Ashe said half question half statement.

  “Lots of them too,” I answered, we could head back to the McRae’s and warn them, but I figured it wasn’t the first time they had dealt with a herd, and the idea of being stuck outside in this did not appeal to me. “We need to hurry; this storm is going to be nasty!”

  Once we reached the front porch Ashe asked with urgency in her voice as she started gathering some of the condensation traps and moving them inside. “Is there enough time to fortify this place?”

  I thought about it for a moment, the windows were mostly quite narrow, and the fence surrounding the house would likely filter most of them around us if they did not have the motivation to hang around. I answered calmly, “Maybe, but I think stealth will be the best bet.” Then I added, “Help me get these windows covered over!”

  She followed me inside as we emptied bookshelves and furniture, dragging it out onto the front porch. Ashe rushed to the back of the house, returning a few minutes later with a slightly rusted old hammer and a glass jar full of assorted nails that had seen better days. We worked together getting the ground floor windows boarded up as best we could, finishing as the first of the zombies became visible in the distance. They had not seen us yet thankfully, and I hoped they would simply pass around us like a stone in a river.

  “Plan?” Ashe asked, concerned.

  “Upstairs! We can cut off the staircase if need be and get out of here from the roof.” My voice was urgent, and my body did not wait for Ashe’s response as I led the two of us back into the house. We moved the water and food upstairs into the corner bedroom, then moved a heavy cabinet in front of the stairs to act as a final barrier. We then headed into the bedroom, closing the door and sitting down on the bed. Waiting in complete silence as the storm approached, the wind grew stronger as the rain began to whip the side of the house. As the zombies fled the storm, a few of them took shelter around the porch, while most simply kept on running as the heavy rain and lightning grew into a monstrous storm over the next hour.

  We sat in silence, waiting for something to go wrong, sitting on the bed next to each other in a heightened state of anxiety. Waiting for the storm and our unwelcome company to pass. Sleep was not forthcoming as the wind and rain continued to rage outside. Lightning and thunder seemed to unsettle our guests as much as us as lightning struck nearby. The deafening crack of thunder making the zombies groan louder on the porch as if protesting the storm. It was too risky for candles, so reading was out of the question, so what started as several hours of being on high alert eventually turned to a search for distraction. In our case, it was a welcome one as we found ourselves kissing and touching each other to get our mind of the danger we were in. “Just letting you know that I am not sure if the blood has stopped completely,” Ashe whispered.

  I shook my head, not bothered by blood so much as the idea that zombies might smell her. It didn’t stop us from getting closer that night. We both needed the distraction, and it was about all we could do to pas
s the time. In the end, Ashe mounted my hips, which only further intensified the intimacy. It was the first time I had truly known a woman, and I hoped desperately that it would not be the last. I held her hips gently, kissing her as I bit down on her shoulder to muffle my orgasm while Ashe did the same. The first instance was quite awkward, and afterwards Ashe simply laid on top of me, as if holding me inside her body as her hands gently gripped my hair.

  She giggled, whispering, “That was quite different!”

  I instinctively checked her shoulder and kissed the spot where I had bitten her, noting the deep indentations. I looked at her concerned and whispered, “I’m sorry if I hurt you!”

  She glared at me, then wrapped her arms tightly around me, moving her hips as if trying to reassure me. Her movement gradually turned into another round of sex.

  Eventually, after several more hours, the rain let up, and the storm moved gradually moved on. The zombies began to disperse almost as soon as the rain stopped, they were in many ways, still quite human. Ashe and I were both far too tired to move by that time, so we simply waited for the night to pass and the zombies to distance themselves from the house.

  Chapter 8 – (Homeward bound)

  Sleep was not forthcoming despite the physical exertion. When we came downstairs the next morning, the zombies had all cleared away from the front porch except for a few stragglers. “Wait here,” I whispered to Ashe as we got to the foot of the stairs. Moving quickly to the front door of the house with just my knife, I slid out silently. Sneaking up behind the nearest one that was on the grass, licking the spot where the blood had dripped from the kangaroo meat. Even after the rain, it seemed able to taste something. It was so distracted that it did not notice my approach as I swiftly thrust the knife up under the base of its skull, twisting just once before pulling the blade out. A second zombie growled and lurched towards me from the far side of the yard. It snarled angrily as it neared. Sidestepped the creature as it made its final lunge forward, before swiftly moving up behind it and burying the blade into its skull through its eye socket.

  My attention turned back to the house where two more zombies appeared to have made themselves comfortable around the farmhouse. They had been left behind by the herd and seemed happy to stay put here. I found one with its head leaning against the wall at the rear of the house, and another had kicked over one of the condensation traps and was still sitting on the porch where it had fallen over. Both were dispatched similarly, the one by the wall I simply gripped what was left of its hair, pulling its skull back onto the blade before approaching the zombie on the ground. It looked up at me, snarling as it attempted to clumsily climb to its feet. I didn’t hesitate, seizing the opportunity to swiftly close the distance between us before driving my knife through its left eye socket and into its brain.

  Once I announced we were clear Ashe came outside with her rifle nervously as she surveyed the area quickly. Her focus then turned to the fresh zombie corpses, getting her first up-close look at them. “Fuck, I really wonder how these things destroyed the world sometimes!”

  I shrugged. “If there was cooperation in the early days of the outbreak and Old-world society was better prepared, we probably could have stopped it,” I conceded, before returning my focus to the moment. “Let’s get packed up and ready to move, there will be more stragglers in this group, so we better get going.”

  Ashe hesitated for just a moment. “It’ll be a shame to leave this place!” She sighed before heading back into the house.

  It really was a shame to leave that house and the McRae family, we had it good here for sure. But I was not yet ready to stop, there was unfinished business for me to the south-east. Ashe thankfully seemed to understand my disposition and followed my lead though she was certainly unsettled by the idea of more travelling. We got everything packed up that we could carry, plenty of food and water and a few spare bottles of alcohol. If nothing else, we could use them in trade, though I certainly relished the idea of enjoying another glass some time. I exited the house first while Ashe pulled on her thick pants and backpack, joining me moments later with her rifle nestled in the crook of her shoulder. I cleaned off my knife in one of the remaining condensation-traps but did not collect any of the water. There was no way to know which were contaminated and which were not. Once clean, I dried and placed the knife back in its sheath.

  It was mid-morning when we left, and the humidity was climbing fast with the heat. Ashe handed me a piece of kangaroo meat to chew we walked, she seemed very quiet which I assumed had to do with us heading off into an area where a large zombie herd had just passed through. But she looked strong and alert, it’s like something had changed in her, like she was more confident and prepared. I suppose after the evening's events it should not have been a complete surprise. She carried an air of confidence and grace that had not been so forthcoming until the last few days. Her body had developed a slightly thicker tone, and even her hair seemed to have more colour.

  We followed the road south a few kilometres to an intersection of two long-overgrown dirt roads. The overgrown fields offering far less visibility then I would have liked. Ashe was the first to spot more than a dozen zombies moving to intersect us. The moment they saw us, they changed direction and charged across a long-overgrown vineyard, running awkwardly. They were deceptively quick and relentless, and their dexterity had improved slightly over the years, but the brain was still not capable of executing complex tasks requiring higher degrees of logic. Even navigating the parallel meshing and the overgrown vines proved far too difficult. A few meters in either direction and they could have gotten to us easily.

  Ashe raised her rifle, her confidence shining through. They were still around fifty meters away, and since there was nowhere to hold up for a few hours and take cover, we had to shoot and move. “Take a knee, we are going to need to take them out quick,” I said calmly as I aimed. “As soon as they’re all down, we run!” I sighted the nearest zombie with my rifle and fired, careful not to waste ammunition. Ashe proved to be a pretty good shot, and she was becoming a real asset to both of our survival, it still amazed me that her family had sold her into slavery given her utility. It made little sense in this world to waste such strength and intelligence, and yet the settlements and tribes that dotted the central and northern regions did so all the time with young women. Regardless of the problems I had with rape and slavery, she was a survival asset, and worth far more than most slaves I had come across who simply filled the bare minimum of work that they were required to do. But Ashe was no slave, neither in terms of her psychology nor her demeanour. Had she gone to almost any other slave owner, they likely would have sold her on or simply killed her. My first instinct was that it would be such a waste to any group. But the second thought was far more sentimental and worrying, the idea of someone hurting Ashe filled me with a sense of rage and of duty to protect the girl.

  The firefight was more like a slaughter with the zombies mostly being taken out while caught up on the wire mesh. Once the shooting stopped, I turned to Ashe and said in a serious tone, “More will come, they would have heard the shooting a long way off. It might even bring the whole herd this way, so let’s move!”

  We ran south through overgrown fields and farmland for another ten kilometres before easing off on the pace. We moved slowly east until we were moving south along the foot of the mountains continuing forward. Rest was not forthcoming that night given the level of threat all around us, and there was a little shelter on offer and still quite a lot of zombies roaming the plains. They kept us on edge, so we just kept moving into the night as well. By the next morning, we had walked around two hundred kilometres, reaching the southernmost point of the mountain range before turning east, sticking to the low-lying areas for better visibility. The mountains had very limited coverage and might have offered an incentive for zombies to follow. Their natural behaviour was to follow the path of least resistance and stick to the lowlands, but with no cover on the mountains, it was likely we wou
ld be spotted and chased. It meant heading much further south than we had planned, and much closer to the ruins of Adelaide then I felt comfortable with.

  We had so far managed to avoid any further confrontation with zombies. While I certainly could have kept going throughout the following day. Ashe was beginning to really struggle to keep up the pace. Once again humidity was dehydrating her quickly. We needed to take shelter from the heat for a few hours and get a little rest, so we crossed another decaying highway headed east to west, passing under an old pile line before finding a small farmhouse just a few hundred meters beyond that point. It was midmorning when we approached the ruins of the old single-story brick home, which was showing signs of severe weathering. It wasn’t overly hospitable in appearance, but we had to stop. Ashe and I cleared around a veranda that circled the house, finding the roof half collapsed on the far side of the structure, and upon making entry to the house, we discovered that the interior roofing had given out in all but one room. This place was a death trap on the inside, so we stayed outside under the veranda, which offered shade and a little protection from the heat.

  Ashe rested on the front porch with a bottle of water and some smoked meat while I scavenged through the house carefully, finding very little of use. Once finished, I returned to her side to keep watch and let her get a little rest out of the heat for a few hours before we swapped, and I got a little sleep. It was turning into a very hot day and very humid as well indicating that there might be more storms on the way. This house was unlikely to be very safe in that case, so we were back on the road by late afternoon following the highway east along the southern tip of the mountains. It was a beautiful area; the land was green, and the forests were slowly encroaching on the surrounding fields and plains, slowly but surely reclaiming the land. The scars humanity had left on the area were still quite visible even after so many years, but nature was winning out over time as it always did. We neared the outskirts of another large ruined town and zombies once again became a threat, we stopped and hid behind a rusty old car wreck as a group of a dozen zombies passed us by heading back west along the highway. Once clear, we continued following the ruined pipeline as it diverted south-east.