Remedy Z: Solo (25 page)

The next round, for the next zombie, was not as accurate. Whether my nerves or a defective reload, the round hit the very side of the head. With a series of splashing and writhing movements, the zombie bled-out, its brain could not supply oxygen and the human mechanical functions of the long-dead person stopped. That corpse, as though on a journey to peace and rest, also slipped beneath the water. The Divine virus would be there, all around, looking for a host before it died. It wouldn’t find any. It would also have to go quietly.

As I thought of the concept of a virus and host, my mind wandered. In what felt like a long dream-like sequence, I thought for a second or two. My memory was cast back to a time when we still had television and everything, societally, was still together.  I was told by a television reporter that Divine could only last outside of the body for up to an hour. I just hoped human or animal would stay away long enough to suffer the consequences; the zombie plague.

I returned from that lucid moment and was back to my mechanical production line, the product; death. “Click-clack”, I said aloud. “Another round, another head-shot.” The shot resonated across the choppy water and into the stormy maelstrom in the sky.

Clean and clear, it was another dead zombie. The next two were close and were groaning and howling with hunger, coming at me with desperate eyes. Those eyes got you every time. There was something so human, yet so horrific in those eyes. I gazed into the eyes of what had once been a woman and I almost lost myself for too long. I snapped out of it and I estimated they were within 20 meters. Fortunately my little micro-sleeps and flashbacks were short; I had time. I must have been getting better.

While I acted, the mind kept thinking. The next zombie would have been a striking woman in her day. She had once been beautiful with strong features and natural bone structure that would have made her a photo-model. Her eyes had held me. I was to destroy what was left of what was once beauty. Another clear shot caused this zombie to scream and writhe, only to drop like a stone in the most dramatic of scenes. I know I wasn’t going to name them but “Drama Queen” was the exception in this group. What a ruckus and what an exit.  

The last one to be shot swam toward me at around 10 meters. I watched as this bearded swimmer came closer. As it got close, given its vulnerability in the water, I really got to look at this one in detail. He must have only been young before he turned, with reddish hair, freckles and big blue eyes. There was desperation in his face, a cry for help in the look he was giving me. “Is there something human left there?” I had a moment of doubt and then fired. The round cracked and resonated across the water. It was still, mouth open, silent, done. A hand went up, in some gesture of capitulation and betrayal. 

The others paddled onward, running on instinct and I suppressed all emotions as I mechanically, coolly, chopped down, killing them with a surgical precision. One by one they swam up and I despatched them without much trouble or emotion. The remaining six died with some screams, cries and a bit of a whimper but really no trouble. And with that final silencing of the Swim Team, I had a revelation: the zombies were pathetic victims, not to be feared anymore. They were vulnerable, just like me. Now that I had faced Tanny Hill and had my head straight, I had their mark and I would deal with all the emotions and feelings in a different way. What I was doing was putting the animated corpses of people to rest. I wasn’t killing people. That felt like a better perspective. The only trouble was that I didn’t understand the phenomenon of the thinking, speaking zombies I encountered at my home in the mountains. The importance of that squad would become all too clear, soon enough. But first, I had a storm to get through.

The weather continued to be dark and tumultuous as I undertook to clean-up what I could. I towed the bodies of those that floated back to the mainland and made a pile, well away from the waterline, so as not to pollute the wonderful lake. The mainland would also be a quick stop before I ventured back onto the rough water. I scavenged firewood from the shoreline, I wasn’t far from a school and the town-proper and all was quiet. It was quiet for that brief moment in time, anyway. I quickly built a fire near an old shed and used its leeward side to protect me from the weather. I had explored that shed in a former scavenging trip into Tantangara; not much good. It had been extensively raided and whatever was in there was long gone. I considered it an option for shelter if I had to make camp on the shore for the night. 

It was windy and pouring with rain. My senses were somewhat dazzled by the noise and touch of the raindrops. I could have sworn there was a droning sound in the distance. “Maybe my ears were still ringing from the Swim Team?” I thought to myself. The wind was pretty intense but an old willow acted as a wind-break and welcome buffer between me and the elements. I lit the first match and it blew out. I lit a second and the same occurred. “It’s like some omen!” I said, frustrated about the situation. I was right. That fire would mean great danger. I finally got the fire started in the rain and high-wind. It went up and the stench of rancid meat cooking, once again, was all around me. Even standing up-wind from this funeral pyre, the smell was almost unbearable. The rain eased a little and my ears pricked up at a sound, once again.

It was that droning sound again. “Is it the noise of an engine?” 

The wind was so loud I wasn’t sure until it was almost too late. A dirty old white van could be seen coming down the road. Drawn to the light of funeral pyre, a beacon, it was like a moth to a flame. I moved to cover and was hidden just in time as the van screamed up and made a hand-brake turn. What happened next was disturbing and made me understand that which I had encountered at my home, just a few days earlier. From the cover of a fallen tree, it roots exposed, I spied what appeared to be 4 zombies. They opened doors and emerged from the filthy white van. I was in disbelief: “Zombies? Driving?” It was a lot to take in. Then it clicked, whatever those infected were, they were just like those I had slotted back up at my house. They lurched, not quite a true zombie lurch, over to the fire and toward my canoes. They were an odd group. Three wore prison uniforms and looked like a bunch of bar-flies at the bottom of the gene pool. “The Crims”. One of them was a little better. He had a walkie talkie and he spoke, just like Blackbeard had, to someone on the other end. He was actually a little fat but had a good physique and muscle mass of someone who worked hard and ate well. Given his size, upturned nose and cowboy boots I named him “Hoggy”. But there was no time for my humour.

“Organised zombies?! Holy shit, I knew it!” my theory of organisation and control was now evident and clear. It was like I was witnessing a flying saucer land with an alien ground-party emerging to demand me to take them to my leader. But it was their leader I was more interested in. Hoggy was just a name I had given but he was the proverbial Boss Hog of the group. While he was a squad leader of some sort, I could tell he wasn’t the real boss. Someone was organising and commanding those freaks. They were controlled menaces that I wanted no part of. I didn’t have much time as they were so close and they would eventually find me. I slowly and silently loaded old man with 5 reasonable rounds, knowing that I would have little chance to get all of those rounds off. As I was readying my knives and machetes for immediate action, they began to pick over my hoard. Two kept searching the area’s bushes and scrub along the waterline. I figured that I had a couple of minutes before I would be discovered and overwhelmed. Just as all my anxieties had felt quashed, a whole new world of questions and uncertainty was upon me. 

It was the ultimate reminder of Blackbeard, Skinny and the Mechanic. I attempted to remain cool and breathed deep and rhythmically. “We can sort this all out later mate, just stay cool,” I told myself. While the Boss and another searched, moving away from me, the other two were throwing precious items out of the canoe and making a mess of what I had meticulously prepared. It irritated me and pushed me past my fears and into action. I wanted to take them out first but paused a moment, sighing and taking a breath to think rationally. “Cut off the head,” I said to myself in a whisper as I cocked the bolt of my rifle, “and the limbs will die off.” I placed the scope’s reticule over the back of the Hoggy’s head. I paused, hesitated, a little scared of what was about to happen and then there was a muzzle-flash, smoke and a ringing in my ears as I saw the head explode.

“What the fuck!” one of the zombies shouted. They were in disarray and unsure from which direction the shot had come from.  I reloaded quickly and fired off another round hurriedly, this time striking one of the Crims in the chest and revealing myself. He was gone in an instant with a dum-dum bullet opening his back up like a popped sausage on a barbecue. I was clever, though. With the second shot, I had hit the one closest to me, separating the last two by at least 5 meters. I had space and time to deal with them, one at a time. I launched to my feet and swung the butt of my rifle in a downwards arc; the blow smashed the skull of the wretch dropped in his tracks. I followed up with two blood-thirsty blows, spraying dark red blood, but not black blood, all over the place. The last one smirked; fearless of the predator and killer that had eliminated his pack. “Emotions on a zombie?!” it was all very hard to understand.      

“What the fuck are you?” I said, staring him in the face. We circled each other for a moment. A face, an awful face, stared back at me. It was without a nose and ears, long rotten and had somehow not turned fully. He was decomposing in some way but he was being kept alive and lucid. “I am you!” He said with surprising clarity, it scared me and took me off guard. He pulled a knife and waved it at me with a few feeble moves reminiscent of a bad Hong Kong Kung Fu movie from the 1980s and 1990s. My Grandfather had loved those movies: all he did was laugh throughout despite them being serious films. I enjoyed his company, the humour and memories, rather than the films. But now, I wasn’t staring at a family member on a Sunday afternoon, I was fighting for my life against an enigmatic foe. Again, I needed to focus in the heat of battle. “You’re nothing like me buddy.” The response was strong, bellowed. I wasn’t much interested in wasting any more time on this wretch and my gut said to kill him dead as soon as I could. Despite my gut instinct, the curiosity of man demanded I delay and learn more about what I was facing. “Who do you work for?” I bellowed at him as he lunged at me with intent, this time it was for real. I side-stepped the weak blow and stared at him as I shouldered my rifle with its strap. My movement changed how we were faced off and I had him at range and circling again. As we circled, I drew Pig Iron Bob, my machete and my bowie knife, Orion. 

“I said- who do you work for?” getting angry at that wretch for not giving me some hints of what was going on. This time he charged forward and came to grapple with me and I had no choice but to mess him up. I hacked down on his neck with Pig Iron Bob as his body crashed into me and I twisted to get leverage with my left arm. I brought Orion, my trusty German Bowie Knife, into his middle. There was a writhing and a jerking like a fish on a hook. What was so much different to fishing or hunting (including zombie hunting) is that, in some way, I had just killed a sort of a person in melee. I lowered him to the ground and he looked at me in disbelief. “We didn’t think you existed,” red blood poured from his mouth. “Red blood?” I looked at the blood and then into his eyes; there was some sort of soul in there. 

“And I you.” I replied, not wasting words. I only had a little time before he was gone. “What’s your name?” I got back to basics to break the ice. “Terry, but” There was a wince and the eyes closed for a moment. He was back on and continued “They call me Tez.” He smiled through pain, blood and death. This was almost déjà vu; a fallen fighter, speaking with me to his last breath. But he was so much different to young Dane; no hero in the gnarled, criminal face.

“So Tez, what are you doing here?” I asked gently, marvelling at a talking zombie who bled red, real blood-red. “Looking for you.” He tried to laugh but croaked and coughed and gasped. “We seen your fires wiv the chopper.” That damn helicopter had been a curse that kept giving. First the zombie horde on me, next they were hunting me down. They must have seen the smoke from my house and at the Waystation. I was compromised. “Please now-who do you work for?” I shook him. With his last breath, he said “the Doc”. I realised the chits of paper and the stamps all led to one man; the Doc. He was the controller, the puppeteer. I was facing off against him and his minions, whatever they were.

It was over; his life and my life as I knew it. My mission, my job if you like, was unchanged but I was about to face a new enemy that was after me. This new enemy was worse than the zombies themselves. This “Doc” had obviously created some way of keeping the virus at bay and was using the infected to some end. They knew I was here and they were looking for me. I figured I didn’t have much time. 

First I went to the van to make sure there wasn’t someone lying in wait for me inside. “Clear.” The van had a charged battery, almost a full tank of petrol and a sump full of oil. I sighed with satisfaction as I located a port to recharge my personal device. I left it there and searched the bodies, finding knives, cricket bats and the characteristic chits of paper. The weapons went into the canoe. The chits revealed my adversaries were “Terry Warne”, “Jeff Dalziel”, “Michael Kinsella” (Hoggy) and “John Neville”. All were dead and just memories in time. After all that struggle was said and done, I wondered if anyone was left to remember these people, things, whatever they were. “Probably not,” I concluded. Those that give their lives for a losing side were often forgotten. I was resolute that whatever unnatural, warped mission they all worked to, these neo-zombies and “the Doc” would be eliminated. They were my enemy. 

Normally, I felt the sense of loss of the living. This was different. I didn’t like these guys and would burn their bodies into oblivion, just like zombies, accordingly. We were soldiers on opposing sides and I felt no loss, sadness or remorse. There was some sort of acknowledgement and recognition of their lives but it was business, war business.