Remedy Z: Solo (15 page)

The barrel on Hunter was fouled, hot and needed a break. I switched rifles to Old Man. With a “click clack”, I proceeded to empty 4 boxes of ammunition through Old Man, my trusty old rifle, in what became a very decisive part of the battle. The first box had been spat out with some class; roughly 8 of 10 shots had killed or maimed a group of zombies that appeared to have once been senior citizens. “I wonder who they were and what they were doing here?” I thought as they were ended. I lost my focus and thought for a moment. I refocused and glassed the area and noticed that a larger group had come from the holiday park and the campsites, north of the outdoor shop.

The next wave of zombies was a diverse bunch of people; around forty in number. I regarded them with minor concern, as the numbers, all about, seemed to magnify. The day was getting hotter and the sweat and rancid, black blood poured. As the numbers of shambling undead increased, I again realised I would have to work quickly; faster. The next group was moving faster than most I had seen, despite having a half a dozen stragglers that I would take out last. Through the scope, its crosshair’s indicating the point of impact; thirty five salivating horrors headed my way. I reset my position and stretched out my left arm a little as it had been baring much of my rifle’s weight. I was feeling a bit too hot, a blazing sun and blue sky will do that to you. With time being in short supply, I decided to keep shooting instead of shedding a layer of clothing. 

“Here we go,” I mumbled as I got into the prone position and cycled Old Man, ready to fire. With a little more pressure, a hot and fouled barrel and the older rifle, my shooting wasn’t as accurate at distance. Old Man wasn’t Hunter but I figured that, as the zombies closed in range, my hit rate would increase. That judgement was wise as the zombies rolled forward, within 100 meters of my position. I took a dozen of their number, then doing in the rest with another box of ammunition. 

The group fell apart as if some invisible child were playing with action figures, laying them out one-by-one. “Yes, like a child. A child?!” I couldn’t believe it. 

I looked upon a monstrosity that was once a boy. I looked at him through the precision glass of the scope, in disbelief. I was a little stunned and perturbed; it rocked me. I had not had to take out a child-zombie since New Bolaro. I placed the scope reticule over his jet-black, spikey hair and squeezed the trigger. What was once, was no more. I paused momentarily and looked at my awful work. “I am so sorry,” I thought. “I wish you had a chance like me, I wish it didn’t have to be like this mate.” I said aloud. I had to convince myself that zombies were no longer human, like I had always thought and always knew. Unfortunately, humans are visual creatures and with a conscience and a conscious. I would have nightmares about that moment and that terrifying battle for the following year or more. “Spikey” visited me in my sleep some nights. He wasn’t angry but I had to face him and talk to him in my dreams. The memory, the flashback to the battle continued; I was sweating as I searched the shop and relived that which I had buried for a year.

Back on the hill, back in the battle. “Shake it off, mate!” I slapped myself across the face a little like a prize-fighter about to touch gloves. I got back in the game. I scanned the scene again; focus was everything. The straw-coloured hills behind me, 180 degrees around were free and clear as nature intended. What was coming my way was indeed unnatural, nothing like nature intended there. The zombies marched on as the marionettes of the corporate evil and moral bankruptcy that had created them. I dropped another two with a violent shockwave that tumbled them to the ground. 

As I cycled the bolt to reload, the internal magazine of the Mauser clicked up, barring the bolt from closing. As a true military rifle, I couldn’t cycle the bolt forward without a round to feed into the action. Time was ticking and these beasts were upon me, around 50 meters. I used a stripper clip to hurriedly feed the rounds into the internal magazine, a sort of quick-load device and approach. “Nothing like pressure to make you work fast,” I thought. I noted a remaining 6 zombies and 5 rounds in the rifle. “This is going to get ugly; hand-to-hand combat.”

With a shiver at the thought, I returned from my memories and was back to the outdoors shop and my search there. With just that little shining light, I recalled that the battle for Tanny Hill had been far from over. It was a sobering metaphor that my battle, for survival and for humanity, was far from over. I was alone but not entirely in the dark; a little light.

Chapter 8: Bangers and Mash

Covered in sweat at the memories I had been reliving, I scavenged in the weakest of torchlight. The experience of foraging and finding without zombie interference was me reaping the material benefits of the Battle of Tanny Hill, for the first time. I dropped my torch as I fumbled with some old, empty food packaging. The torched bounced lightly and ended up under a display counter. I looked around in the dark and listened, still wary. There was sigh and a moment of realisation that there wasn’t a threat and I could retrieve the torch without attack. It was a rare experience outside of my alpine home. 

Then, as my hand swept, looking for the torch, I found something else; another and another. “Score!” I said aloud. I was staring down at some beautiful sweet chocolate bars and a small bottle of water. 

In that little torchlight I read the labels and found one of the bars was actually a protein bar. With that find alone, I knew that was a bit of a jackpot. These bars were much-needed calories and protein to keep me alive. “Hallelujah,” I said wearily, peeling back one of the wrappers to get into the sweet goodness within.

I did another quick reconnoitre of the outdoors shop, just to be sure, and concluded it was safe and secure for now. I slumped down on the floor, relaxing a little. I was exhausted and leaned my back against the counter cabinets. All was quiet and I set up a small cup of tea using my little camp stove. Its intense blue flame threw a strange, warm glow about the room.

With chocolate being washed down with tea, it was one of those blissful, simple moments of life where things just tasted better and was comforting and warm. I really relaxed, feeling better and spared a moment before I went on to remember the rest of my experience at Tanny Hill. After yet another sigh, my memories were back to the battle; a change in time.

The blue sky was intense and the sun raged as much as the battle between good and evil. I dropped down, impacted on the hard ground and tried to get comfortable in the most dangerous of situations. My mind recalled the memory my impact and all the sweat droplets launch from my face and neck. They fell all around me, as if in slow-motion, like a chalk outline made from drops of mud in the dirt. “The shape of a dead man,” I had thought, somehow jovially. 

I also remembered that last set of rounds I loaded into Old Man and cycling the first round into the chamber. “They’re nearby, Jesse,” I breathed hard and danced the scope around, finding a target. I realised just how close they were. The zombies appeared in my scope like giants, way too large for my liking. “They are so close now!” I remembered having to work hard to keep my cool and shoot straight. I eased on the trigger and felt the kick of the rifle into my shoulder. 

This got me back into a firing rhythm. The head of my target imploded and the former tradesman in his “Hi-Viz” vest would never do any handy-work again, malevolent or constructive. The next assailant was a groaning, fat, bald wretch, so corpulent that I immediately named it “Toad”. It’s funny how my mind had turned milliseconds into moments that would last forever. While I didn’t have time to think up the names, I needed to in order to stay sane and in control. Surrounded by a ghastly horde of those devils turns the toughest people into custard. There would be mess on that day, but no custard.

I fired and hit Toad in the neck; gurgled in fits, falling into a pool of its own rancid blood. The zombies were within 30 meters and my heart pounded. Adrenaline pulsed through me and my lungs breathed heavier. I cycled the bolt again, feeling the heat come off the rifle and onto the heat of the situation. The next zombie was already wounded and, without thinking, I put a round in its skull. There was a fountain of what looked like barbecue sauce as the filthy former-teenager with unusually long fingernails dropped to his knees and fell backward in an awkward pose. “Nails” was his name and nailed was what he was. What tried to step over the corpse of Nails was nothing short of astounding. I had not noticed earlier, now at close range, I saw a first. “A fucking headless zombie?!” I could not understand how it could function without a head or brain. I would understand that phenomenon after by some grizzly science later on. But I had a battle and some 12 months before that made sense. I had to get through that battle first.  

There was no time to think; “Headless” was coming forward and I wasted no time. I put a round through its middle, to kill it by cutting it in half like the other one I had put away earlier. The last two zombies in that pack were now within 20 meters of me. They were picking up pace and howling, calling to other zombies. This was something I had not seen so intelligently before or at so close a range. I dropped the zombie I dubbed “Ugly Librarian”.

(Sorry, it was the first name that came into my head and I didn’t have time to rethink it. I liked librarians and had previously killed Hot and Sweet Librarians; they would have deserved the titles in their day.)

I leapt to my feet, drawing my machete, just in time. Another zombie, once a teenager gave a corrupt groan, beating down with its fists as I pulled the machete from its scabbard. “Such long teeth?” I remembered. He was Dr Teeth. I broke from the flashback and smiled to myself. The revisiting of that place; Tantangara and Tanny Hill was therapy. Every moment I thought through the battle and the horrors it held was lifting a weight off my shoulders.

I was back there again, in the memory, seeking the therapy and relief that reliving it was starting to bring. I recalled being knocked backward after naming Dr Teeth, but held my footing. With my machete in my right hand, I was setting up for a strike. First, I shoved him back with my left hand and pulled back in time to avoid a set of rancid chompers from digging into my hand. The blade was swung forward in an arc, head-height. There was an awful “cracking” sound of bone as Dr Teeth lost his skull from the nose upward. “Yeah!” I yelled in defiance. I had been so absorbed that I did not notice the music; it still cranked a tune that I was unfamiliar with at the time. It was a musical score from popular films that, prophetically, referred to defending the Earth. 

The battle was far from over but the first group of assailants was done. I had fought off, perhaps cheated, death with that wave of zombies laid low. My binoculars revealed that still they came, from all across the 180 degree of Tantangara and its surrounds. The zombies wanted their free barbecue and the disingenuous chef (me) that had teased them with the smell.            

I got out of the pile of dead and prepared for the next onslaught. I assessed my gear and ammo situation and there was a lesson for me: “Bring more than two rifles next time, genius.” I concluded, shaking my head for a moment before bringing my binoculars up for another scan. What I wouldn’t know was just how close it was to there not being a next time. Hunter had cooled a little, but still too hot to hold and Old Man was damn hot. A drip of sweat off my brow almost sizzled and evaporated before my eyes, proving my suspicions. I stood up and surveyed the scene in all directions, resetting myself for the next onslaught. It was being observant, cool and in command and control that separated me from feeling the claws and breath of zombies on my back.

The binoculars revealed that a horde of zombies was amassing on the periphery of Tantangara’s centre, southwest of my location. It would take a while for them to wander in from there, “Acknowledged.” As they came, I would monitor them from that great distance to keep in control and be ready to deal with them when they arrived.

In the meantime, a score of zombies, I estimated the last of them from the cabins and vicinity of the outdoor shop, were headed my way. Unexpectedly, I noticed a group of a dozen zombies coming in from the north. I now needed to watch three fronts; not good. While they weren’t all upon me at once, I recalled thinking “This was going to get interesting.”

Hunter’s hammer-forged barrel was no longer too hot to touch and I reloaded the magazine of this masterpiece of arms; .308 rounds ready to deal some justice. I lay down in the prone position, calmed my breathing and focused through the scope. With the rousing British Grenadier March playing on, I readied myself to put a Cold Zero onto a cold walker. One zombie was a caricature of a typical Australian Bogan. “Bogan”. He had tracksuit pants on, a dirty white singlet, mullet haircut, black shoes and white socks. “He’s still got his fucking baseball cap on?!” I laughed out loud. He was a rancid green-tinged colour and his teeth were a mess like a meth addict. No mercy. His head was taken clean off. His mates were less precisely dealt with but, given the most part of another 2 boxes of ammunition, the score of zombies was dropped. Quite a body count was piling up. They had gotten within 150 meters this time. Turning my attention to the north again, the dozen zombies were at ~200 meters and closing. They were a fast (well faster than most zombies moved) group. There was a platinum-blonde hose-beast in the lead of this group. It had leathery orange-brown skin, that was well rotten, and a sported what looked like a pair of fake boobs. I was trying to keep focused and composed and I found myself laughing with nerves at this strange beast. Funnier still was the “Hollywood smile”. This was another caricature, this time of a the fake-tan “Glamazon” who never understood that having the skin colour of an orange was less appealing than a natural bird with pale skin that was well looked after. I am sure she thought she looked good, even with the amount of sun she had gotten.

Glamazon was hit in the neck and the head came off and rolled. The body kept walking, much to my surprise, for another 5 – 10 meters, only to drop forward, still and lifeless like it should have been. Glamazon’s group was dealt with and I had now gone through five and a half boxes of ammo. Yet still they came. Another small group emerged from the cabins and caravans and lurched toward my position. At the time, I recall fearing I would run out of ammunition and my game would be up. My accuracy was beginning to lag too; the rifle had too many rounds through it. Perhaps my heart-rate and the growing sense that I had bitten off more than I could chew was at play. My gut instinct was correct; I was in for the fight of my life.