Tankbread 02 Immortal (28 page)

Else found woven bags under the counter. She stuffed the clothes in them and stepped out into the dark street.

Rache came jogging towards her. “What the fuck happened?”

“Evol,” Else replied. “It’s okay. I took care of it.”

“What did you find?” Rache regarded the bulging bags with interest.

“Clothes, for baby.”

“When are you gonna give that kid a name?” Rache teased.

Else shrugged. “Names are important. I need to give him the right one.”

“Lot of babies on the ship, they never got names,” Rache said.

“Everyone will have a name now,” Else said.

They continued their sweep of the town, the other salvagers joining them, all laden with a variety of salvage looted from shops and houses. Else went through their loads, tossing things aside. “CDs? Coins? Keys? Find any food? Fuel?”

The salvagers shook their heads. “Everything’s been swept clean.”

“There’s a sign up there, that’s one of those fuel places.” Rache pointed down the road. “Let’s check it out.”

Else nodded. The moon was bright enough to see on the street, but the darkness of the shop fronts and houses made her uneasy. They walked down the centerline of the main street. Somewhere in the darkness a dog howled. It was answered by others.

“Dogs,” Rache said with a shudder.

“If you come across a dog, attack,” Else replied. “Charge at them, make noise, show your teeth. Be a bigger predator than they are.”

“What if we come across a pack?” an engineer wearing a CD as a necklace asked.

“Shoot the biggest one and run like hell.”

They arrived at the gas station, fanning out and checking through the windows for trapped evols. Else waited till everyone reported back that it was clear.

Opening the door Else slipped inside, her eyes wide in the dim light. She inhaled through her nose, sorting through the myriad scents and confirming there were no dead here.

She found what Eric had shown her on previous searches of gas stations, a metal rod under the counter and an articulated stick with marks on it. Taking the two items outside, she used the rod to open the metal disc that covered the diesel fuel storage tank, then she unfolded the marker stick and lowered it into the tank. It came up wet to the hundred-liter mark.

“There’s fuel in this tank!” Else called across the forecourt.

The others came running. “Where is the pump?” Rache asked. The salvagers looked blank. “Go on, find it,” she ordered. They trotted off, returning a few minutes later with a hand-cranked pump. A long pipe hung from the base of the cylindrical pumping unit. The output pipe was a heavy plastic tube.

“You,” Rache pointed at one of the salvagers. “Run back to the trucks, get everyone to bring fuel tanks.” The man sprang into action, vanishing into the darkness as if a swarm of rats were on his heels.

“We should keep exploring,” Else said. “There could be other useful stuff around here.”

Leaving the pump they walked on to the far edge of the town.

“Listen,” Else said, raising a hand to stop the procession. They strained in the dark, ears tuned to the slightest change in the background noise.

“What is that?” Rache asked, her eyes wide at the strange sound.

“A piano. And people singing to the music,” Else said.

“It’s beautiful,” Rache sighed.

“It’s coming from that way,” Else said, turning from the main street and walking deeper into the town.

They tracked the music to a small wooden church. A fence had been built outside; six-foot-high posts and layers of chicken wire were topped by rolls of barbed wire and surrounded with sandbags. Heavy orange road barriers were arranged at angles, putting the church inside a diamond shape, the purpose of the configuration lost on Else.

She froze and gestured the people behind her to move into cover as evols came wandering into view around the perimeter fence. They were attracted by the noise from inside the building and as they shuffled along, the smooth plastic lines of the barriers gently turned them away from the fence.

Else watched, fascinated at the way the evols were being guided. They didn’t bunch up against the fence; instead they were being channeled, funneled into a corridor of barricades until they reached the end of the barriers, somewhere out there in the darkness.

“There’s got to be a way in,” Rache whispered in Else’s ear.

“A gate, between those two bigger posts,” Else replied, her eyes fixed on the evols moving away down the barrier. “Okay, let’s go.” Else led them over the plastic barriers and into the evol run. Then, after clambering over the other side, they approached the gate. It was securely latched but not padlocked.

Else scanned over the gate, looking for wires, explosives, or other alarms and booby traps. Satisfied it was safe, she unlocked the gate. “Look where you are stepping,” she warned, ushering the others through and closing the gate behind them.

On the inside of the fence the yard had been arranged with tables, chairs, and folded sun umbrellas. An unlit neon sign traced out the word OPEN.

Else tried the front door. The handle turned and it opened easily. “Hello?” she called into the church.

The piano stopped immediately. A few moments later the sound of singing cut off. Footsteps, too light for a man, Else realized, came walking towards the door. Light flared and they all blinked in the sudden pool of white, cast by halogen bulbs on stands. A set of double doors swung open and a figure with long white hair stepped into view. “Why hello!” she beamed at the group.

“Hi,” Else grinned back.

The woman was thin and elderly. Her skin appeared as soft and wrinkled as a crushed tissue. “Well come on in, I’ve been waiting for you.” The smiling woman stepped aside, holding the inner doors open. “Oh and be a dear and shut the door behind you,” she called. “It lets the moths in you understand,” she confided in Else.

Beyond the curtain a café decor had been set up in the church. Tables, chairs, and white linen with glassware and place settings awaited them on each table. A piano waited for the player to return. Only the pews were missing.

“Take a seat,” the woman gestured to the room. She went to a table at the end and poured jugs of colored liquid into carafes; she set these on a tray and returned to the table where the salvagers stood in confusion.

“I’m Else, this is Rache and . . .”

“Uhh, Anchor,” one of the scavengers said, looking surprised to be singled out.

“Pisty,” said the first engineer.

“Johno,” added the second.

“I’m Will.”

“Crab,” the last of the scavenger team said.

The old woman clasped her hands together. “What fine boys you have, Miss Else.”

“They’re not mine,” Else said.

“I have drinks for everyone, on the house of course.” She laid out the carafes and turned away, hesitating as if she had forgotten what to do next.

“What is your name?” Rache asked.

“Oh . . . I’m Mary Elizabeth Watson. My husband will be back soon.”

“Where is he?” Else asked, looking around the church.

“He . . . he’s at work of course. Always at work these days. So much do to you understand.”

“I’m sure there is,” Else said, slowly sinking into one of the seats at the nearest table.

The others followed Else’s lead, Crab pouring the orange drink from the carafe into the glasses. Else sniffed it and took a sip. The others waited until she had taken a larger swallow and then followed suit.

Mary vanished behind the alter and then the church filled with the sound of voices raised in song. A hymn came from all four corners of the church. Everyone jumped slightly.

“It’s a recording,” Else said.

“It sounds . . .beautiful,” Rache said, her face shining with awe.

“How is she powering the lights and the sound system?” Else asked, looking around.

“Solar, connected to batteries. I saw the panels on the roof,” Pisty explained.

Mary reappeared, and ignoring her guests she went to the piano and started to play the same music as the recording, her piano synched with it perfectly and added a strange harmony to the singing. The scavengers drank their cordial and watched her play.

When Mary stopped playing, Else turned to Rache. “Search the building, see what you can find.” She stood up and walked over to the piano. The old woman sat there, her eyes lost in a memory.

“Mary?” Else prompted. “Mary can you hear me?”

“Hmmm?” Mary’s eyes refocused and she smiled at Else. “Hello, dear. Is Clive back yet?”

“No, not yet. Who is Clive?”

“Clive, is my husband, your father of course.” Mary looked at Else as if she were playing some kind of game.

“Of course,” Else nodded. “Did Clive do all this?”

“No, silly, Clive never had much to do with the café. That was always me. I loved to cook and see the people come and have a cup of tea. My scones, they’re always a favorite.”

“I know,” Else said. “What did Clive do, for work I mean?”

“Oh it was something to do with bridges. He was always drawing pictures of bridges and going off to build them.”

“Clive was an engineer? A civil engineer?” Else asked.

“I suppose. I never really understood his work. He was very proud of what he did. I just love him all the same.”

Mary’s awareness faded and she returned to the keyboard, joining the choir without missing a beat.

Else left her to it and went to find Rache. The salvage crew was leafing through piles of papers in a back room: blueprints, sketches, and graph-paper drawings of detailed plans.

“What’s all this?” Else asked.

“It’s the plans for the protection of this place. Whoever did it, they’re gone now. Unless Mary went crazy after building the fence.” Rache showed the drawings to Else. They were diagrams, technical layouts showing the flow of evols around the barrier system and out into an open area. The church had become an island with the evols flowing like a river’s current around the barrier. The simplicity and the effectiveness of the system amazed Else. It reminded her of something and a moment later she said, “Temple Grandin. This is based on Dr. Temple Grandin’s work with livestock.”

“Huh?” Rache asked.

“Someone worked out how to manage the movement of evols. We build square fences, walls, and the dead come to them and push against them. They are stopped and then more come and they attract others. In the end the fence is overwhelmed. But this,” Else traced a finger over the curving lines of the plan. “This makes them keep moving, they think they are going forward, when really they are being turned away, turned around and stopped from gathering. It’s so simple . . . and so clever.”

“Cool,” Rache said.

Else rolled up the plan. She sorted through the other papers and selected some likely looking documents, which she added to her rolled-up bundle.

“Let’s go,” Else said.

“What about the old woman?” Rache asked.

“Leave her, she’s no use to us.”

Rache hesitated, and then followed Else and the others out into the church.

Mary was playing the piano again, keeping time with the choir as her fingers fluttered over the keys. Else walked past her without a glance, the salvage crew trailing after. Rache stopped at the front door of the church, looking back at the old woman, lost in her own world.

Else and her salvagers met up with the rest of the group at the gas station. They had brought the SUV up on the last of its fuel and were loading sloshing gas tanks into the back. Else called out to them, identifying herself from the darkness rather than risk startling someone and being shot. Her first priority was checking on her son; he stirred in his sleep and she watched him for a moment.

“We’re getting enough fuel to get us to Mildura,” Eric confirmed.

“Good,” Else said without looking away from the baby. When they had finished refueling, she stowed the barricade plans in the glove box of the SUV and looked forward to the drive.

Else never dreamed, even though everything she had read suggested that dreams were the brain’s way of processing memories. It puzzled her because she remembered everything, from the warm floating haze of her first consciousness in Doctor Haumann’s growth tanks to the time she spent with the Courier in their wild ride across the wasteland of the post-apocalyptic continent.

Everything was there in her mind, every detail, every word, heard, seen, or spoken. Mostly she ignored the memories, compartmentalizing them into a different part of her consciousness, like closing the door on a rowdy party so she could focus on what was happening now. When she slept she would walk the endless maze of rooms in her mind, reliving events, conversations, and things that, at the time, she didn’t understand. This review was not a dream; it felt like analysis of memories, and they were legion.

They spent the night in Mary’s café, Eric, Rache, and the others insisting that it seemed like a safe place to rest. Else agreed. The need she had to move south, to tread the ways she had come months earlier, gnawed at her and she could not determine why.