Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 2): February (11 page)

Junior was not in good shape, his arm had been dislocated in the fall, it seemed, but The Son was in worse shape still.  His left arm was clearly broken, judging from the shards of bone poking through the skin.  His breathing was ragged, and blood flecked his lips as well as streaming from a gash in his forehead.  Bloody froth bubbled up from between his lips as he told us to leave him.  We left, but I gave him a parting gift of a bullet to the brain.

evening

We sped through the house of the home-partying Dead family, and across the road.  We had reached the correct street, but were several blocks away from the correct house.  Junior suggested that we try and hole up somewhere overnight, and find Coppers family home tomorrow.  We agreed, and worked our way several houses in the right direction before settling on one that could be defended fairly easily if need be.

It seemed as though we had given the Dead the slip, at least temporarily, as there was no further sign of them for the rest of the evening.  Apocalypse Girl and Redbeard helped settle Junior's arm as much as they could, but he really needed to get back to Doctor at The Think Tank.  Redbeard offered to help him get back to The Family at least, if not The Farm where he could be picked up by Pilot, but he refused. 
He
had been the one to promise Copper that we would look for his family.  It was his responsibility, as far as he saw it.  Redbeard just nodded quietly.  We ate and slept in shifts, and no more was said.

February 20th Year 1 A.Z.

morning

Apocalypse Girl got in touch with The Think Tank to inform them of Juniors situation, which this morning seemed a little better.  His arm was stiff, and sore enough that his grip was severely compromised, but the swelling that had been evident last night had reversed itself nicely.  Apocalypse Girl supported Junior between Redbeard and myself as we made our way down the road slowly and carefully in the morning gloom, munching jerky as we went.

We found a few Dead slowly ambling about on our path, Redbeard and I dispatching them with ease, and discovered several as yet unlooted cars.  We solved that little dilemma for them by looting them thoroughly, very thoroughly indeed!  Several cans of fruit lay in the boot of one car, another containing several boxes of winter clothing.  We devoured the fruit, savouring every last nibble, and were warmed by extra jackets, coats and gloves.

noon

About seven houses away from our destination lay a hastily thrown together barricade made primarily of overturned cars, and as we made our way across it, an arrow streaked out from nowhere to skitter across the ice at my feet.  A voice followed the arrow, demanding that we turn around, there was nothing here worth our time.  Junior, holding both arms as far up as he was able to manage, called out that we were looking for somebody that lived around here.

“Nobody lives around here now, fuck off!”  She said, dropping lightly down from the roof two houses down.  She held her bow tight in one hand, an arrow in the other, ready to knock in an instant.  She couldn't be any older than sixteen.  “My brother taught me how to look after myself, you know, he's a copper!  Until he shows up I'll put an arrow through the skull of any fucker that tries to get me, Living or Dead!”

Junior shouted out that we were there for
her
, and that her brother had asked us to make sure she was alright.  She replied that she was fine and that her brother would come and get her himself, so we must be full of shit while knocking and drawing an arrow that was not quite pointed in our direction.  Junior shouted out the address that Copper had given him, telling her that her brother had asked us to come and make sure she was safe as his dying wish.  Sister dropped to her knees, arrow flying off in no particular direction as she dropped her bow.

evening

We ate at Coppers family home, Sister turning into quite the graceful hostess, apologising for the lack of electricity while she boiled water to make tea for us all.  She also apologised for these being the last teabags she had been able to find.  Apologised too for the lack of sugar and milk, despite the fact that keeping milk in these times was, unless you had The Think Tanks resources, quite impossible.  We, in turn, shared our jerky with her, asking just exactly how she had managed to stay alive so long.

Turns out she had been quite safe in the beginning, the entire street had banded together to build the barricade once they realised that the news reports on the television were actually telling the truth about the Dead walking.  They had known about the bites causing a fever that kills people, then they get back up.  What they hadn't counted on was that
every
dead rose as Dead.  After a couple of weeks, however, Sister's parents had committed suicide by overdosing on some medication.  The two of them had torn apart three remaining households before Sister had put an arrow neatly through both of their heads.  Those that had been bitten voluntarily left the community, vowing to destroy as many Dead as they could before they themselves turned.

After that things went downhill fast.  The remaining survivors split into two factions, those who wanted to stay, and those who wanted to leave.  In the end, those wanting to leave ended up staying, due to Dead-bites, and those wishing to stay had fled, thinking their safety compromised.  Sister alone stayed behind, knowing that her brother would come for her in time if he could.  She had been by herself for a week at least, but there was plenty of food and other supplies left in the surrounding houses, so she had been able to keep herself fed and healthy.

She had even packed several emergency backpacks that she kept at strategic locations near the outskirts of the barricaded area, in case she had to leave in a hurry.  Many years of discussions of potential disasters with her brother had engrained in her superlative survival skills.  She was even able to, with a little bit of help from Redbeard, jam Juniors arm back into its socket properly, though she said that if we had access to a doctor, then he needed it.

In the distance we heard gunfire, and the whooping of Living as they hunted the Dead, calling out to any survivors to come on out, they were safe now.  Sister shook her head as a moment of relative silence followed by a barrage of bullets accompanied with the screams and wails of those shot.  She whispered to us that there seemed to be a few different groups of bandits that had made Melbourne their home, that she had seen firsthand what comes of trusting such groups.

February 21st Year 1 A.Z.

morning

We recycled our teabags from last night, and broke our fast with jerky and cheese.  Sister ran around outside, quickly gathering up any last minute supplies that she felt was needed, while the rest of us planned our next move.  Apocalypse Girl was saying that she didn't want to risk going through the Family's territory if we could avoid it, as no doubt The Mother would be devastated by the loss of her last surviving Son.  In reality, however, we had few options.  We needed to get to the farm so that Pilot could pick us up and get Junior to Doctor as quickly as we could manage.  He had knocked his arm in the night, stifling his screams of agony well, but his arm had swollen up once again.

Apocalypse Girl went outside to ask Sister if she knew of any nearby entrances to the storm water system, while Redbeard and I watched over Junior.  Redbeard told me that he thought going back through the Family was a really bad idea.  He had noticed on our way through initially that the storm drains extended further west than the entrance that the Family had dug, and suggested that we might be better served going
under
the Family rather than
through
them.

noon

When the girls returned, we left.  Sister, though she had grown up in this neighbourhood, knew nothing of what lay beneath our feet, so instead we backtracked about halfway to the place where The Son had died, then we dashed across one street then through a few empty back yards, save for one lonely Dead who was far more interested in the wall before it than in us.  I still put my sword through its head, just to be safe.  Just because the Dead ones are ignoring you now, doesn't mean things will stay that way.

We went through a few houses on our way out, finding little in the way of supplies, and ran out into the street to find ourselves completely surrounded by the Dead.  I held my arms out so as to prevent anybody from running out into the horde, and we backed slowly into the house we had vacated.  As I closed the door as quietly as I was able, we calmly and quickly moved further back into the house. 

Apocalypse Girl silently moved to one of the front rooms, peeking past a heavy curtain, then returned to us to whisper “There are way too fucking many of them.  We have to go back and around.”  and with that we slunk outside, into the back yard.  Going laterally, we went over more fences and through yards, this time being a little more careful when we exited onto the street.

The Dead were still out there, though far less densely packed in this area.  It looked like further back up the street they had been celebrating the New Year with a street party.  We decided to make a run for it, slicing and bludgeoning our way through the walking corpses that barred our way.

evening

The Dead had followed us down the street, and we had gone through one house, leaving them to think that was where we had holed up, while we silently made our way through the back yard in the deepening gloom, and over one last fence to find the very drain we had emerged from awaiting us.  Rather than risk going down there at night, however, we made use of a nearby house.

Creeping inside, we discovered a door inside the house, barricaded from the inside.  I pressed an ear up to it, to hear voices.  Unfamiliar ones, though they spoke of “That guy with the samurai sword” and “The bearded brute” as though they had been following, or maybe hunting us.  I motioned to the others to follow me silently, and we went to another room on the other side of the house.  By now it was too fucking dark to risk going out into the street, the Dead would be sure to get us.  We may be sharing a house with bandits, but they didn't know we were here.  We would just have to be quiet as the grave.

February 22nd Year 1 A.Z.

morning

The bandits were still sleeping on their side of the house, oblivious to our presence, as we set about leaving in as quiet a hurry as we could reasonably manage.  We were already across the road, dropping into the storm water drain when the bandit lookout shouted after us, then he called to his gang that we were getting away.  A gunshot followed Redbeard as he dropped into the drainage system behind us, and we ran into the gloom ahead of us.

As we ran deeper, more gunfire rang out behind us, followed by the scream of pain as a bandit was bitten by a Dead one.  This was immediately followed up with more gunfire, as the Dead biting the bandit, and the bandit himself, was shot down by his fellows.  One of them shouted into the drain that they were coming for us, and fired blindly into the drain once again.

noon(ish)

They followed us into the drain, hooting and shouting about what exactly they were going to do to us when they caught us.  Some of it was fairly inventive, but mostly it was the standard “I'm gonna fuck your donkey and eat your pet goat” type ranting where the threats themselves are largely irrelevant.  We were all, by this stage, far more irritated by these bandits than actually afraid of them, and eventually Redbeard shouted back at them that he's got a nice little present for them, and pulled out the pin, gently lobbing the grenade behind us in a graceful arc.

Bullets came flying at us in reply to Redbeard's statement, as the five of us dove for cover, and the grenade went off, deafening us all temporarily.  We ran on in the dark, as the storm water drain began to rumble in response to the explosion.  I knew we were getting close to our goal when I saw the nest of rats that I had noticed a few days earlier.

As our hearing returned to us, Redbeard reminded me of our discussion.  I told him that we owed it to The Mother to tell her how her son had died, at the very least.  He grunted in agreement, but went on to say that she might not take it all that well.

Sister, on realising that there had been no gunfire or threats since Redbeard had thrown his grenade, had run back a short way, shining a torch upon the devastation he had wrought.  Apparently the blast had caused the tunnel to cave in on itself, and all Sister was able to see of any bandits was an arm, twitching in Death, sticking out from the rubble.  The cave-in had been complete, however, and The Family needed to know about that, at the very least.  They were going to need another way into the city now.

night

It was already very dark by the time we exited the tunnel, into the light cast from burning barrels, the guns of The Family's guards pointing at us.  They recognised us as the group that had been through the other day, and asked after The Son, seeing him no longer with us.  I told them exactly what had happened, and they escorted us to the Eastern Parlour, where we could sleep while they sent a runner to The Mother to tell her what had occurred.  We would be escorted to her in the morning, we were told.  They didn't ask for our weaponry, instead leaving us all guarded.  The end result was that we felt much more like prisoners this time around.  Sleep was slow to arrive.