Tankbread

by Paul Mannering

  ‘Where is Harris?’ a voice in the darkness with a thick Greek accent. Somewhere by the trees, well beyond the reach of the house lights.

  ‘He had a heart attack. He died peacefully and we were sorry to lose him. He was a nice guy.’

  ‘Did you bury him?’ This wasn’t the question I expected next. ‘No. No we didn’t bury him. We didn’t have time. A mob of evols came on us and we’d just gotten over putting Harris back down.’

  ‘There’s no evols out here. That’s a city problem. Where are you buggers from?’

  ‘Sydney,’ I said into the darkness.

  ‘Syd-?’ A scuffling sound came from the darkness. A man came into view, struggling to pull off his harness of weapons. Knives, an axe, a heavy pistol, hunting bow and a quiver of brightly fletched metal shafted arrows.

  ‘I gotta cousin lives in Sydney. Maybe you know her?’ Silhouetted by the sickly glow of light from the house he looked soft for someone living in a post-apocalyptic world, almost flabby.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Julie. Julie Giannopoulos,’ his face glowed with a wet sheen and he actually looked hopeful.

  ‘Don’t know any Julies, sorry. Knew a Sarah once.’

  He looked thoughtful, scratching his swarthy, unshaven face with a soft hand. ‘Nah I’m pretty sure her name was Julie.’ With a sudden smile he hurried to the gate and opened it. ‘Come on in, you must be hungry, thirsty or tired. Probably all three, eh?’

  ‘This is Else,’ I let her go first into the well kept yard with its dry, rock-bordered garden.

  ‘I am Leandro, you are welcome to my home,’ he opened his arms in greeting.

  ‘Thanks Leandro, how you all doing out here?’ We followed him up the short path to the front door. A large dog went berserk behind a heavy screen door at the sound of our footsteps.

  ‘Ulysses! Stamata!’ the dog went still and I could hear his claws clicking as he padded around.

  ‘In these times, a good guard dog is essential, no?’ Leandro said with an apologetic smile.

  ‘Must be hard to feed an animal that size these days.’ I replied. We were shown into a kitchen that shone with a polished neatness under the yellow glow of a chandelier of hurricane lanterns.

  ‘Please sit, my table is yours,’ Leandro closed and locked the screen door; the bars on it were as thick as the grill welded over Harris’ train.

  ‘Serious door you have there Leandro,’ I said, moving a chair to sit back from the table.

  ‘Yes, well there are some rough people out there. Many come here thinking they can simply take what they want,’ Leandro fed wood into an old coal range firebox and oven and slid a kettle of water onto the hotplate.

  ‘With the dog and that door you are well defended,’ Else piped up.

  ‘Perhaps… perhaps. But enough of the woes of the world. We eat now.’ He left us waiting in the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with a fresh hunk of white-pink meat on the bone.

  ‘I been hanging this in the cool room for a few days. Meat always tastes better when it has time to mature.’

  Sitting still for too long makes me nervous, strange places make me nervous and a fat man in a time of famine… I stood up and covered it by stretching.

  ‘What’s on the menu?’ I asked our host.

  ‘Ahh is something special, you will like I think yes?’ He had a sweat on. The heat from the day was still stifling inside and out and the oven didn’t make things any less tropical, yet Leandro been cool as a cucumber a few minutes ago. I watched him dress the meat, season it and then slip the prepared roast into the coal range oven and slammed the heavy door.

  ‘I just go and put this back, for next time,’ he beamed, nodding and hurried out of the room with the rest of the meat.

  ‘Hear that?’ said Else rising up like a dog on point.

  ‘It’s just the dog.’

  ‘No, there’s something else,’ she drew the sword and pointed with it deeper into the house. I listened, senses straining for the usual sounds of evols and got nothing.

  We opened the kitchen door. A dark hallway ran to the back of the place, ending in a secure backdoor. Shadows recoiled from the light at our backs, I took a lantern and holding it high, I followed Else into the passage.

  The girl reached back and put a hand on my face, shushing me before I could say anything. ‘There,’ she whispered, nodding towards a door on our right. I could hear it now too; a shuffling sound and a muffled groan.

  ‘Evols?’ I whispered.

  ‘Smells like something different,’ Else turned the blade, holding it in a position ready to strike and kill. I felt a cold shudder of real fear rising up my spine. Cannibals. You hear stories, but I’d never met anyone who knew of a real one. Or at least, no one who had survived to talk about it. How to explain to Else that there are people who eat other people did not seem as important right now as say, survival.

  ‘We need to get out of here. Right-’ I froze as something heavy thudded against the door and we heard a muffled scream. ‘Don’t!’ Else ignored my protest and twisted the door handle. With a hard shove she forced the door open. A sinus burning stench of shit and mouldering furnishings washed through the gap. A figure lunged at us from the room. Else gave a squeal and fell backwards as something huge barged through the door and with a snuffling grunt, a wet pig’s snout rummaged into the crotch of my jeans.

  ‘Pigs..? Pigs… It’s okay Else, it’s just pigs.’ I turned around almost laughing. Else stood in the doorway opposite. I couldn’t see the guy holding her, but his hand was clamped over her mouth and a wide bladed skinning knife pricked at her throat.

  ‘Easy pal,’ I raised my hands. It wasn’t Leandro. This guy’s arms were milk pale, lean and corded. I could see a flash of blonde hair moving behind Else’s bulging eyes.

  ‘Who the fuck are you!?’ his voice was high and shrill like a girls.

  ‘Leandro invited us in. We came up on the train, with Harris.’

  ‘You’re infected!’ the guy screamed with hysterical tears in his voice.

  ‘No, we’re fine. No one’s sick.’

  The front door opened and Leandro came bustling into the kitchen carrying a wilted selection of vegetables. He saw us standing in the hallway and dropped the lot. ‘No Stefan! They are guests!’ Leandro hurried forward and the blonde man pushed Else away unharmed.

  ‘They are infected!’ Stefan screamed at Leandro who raised his hands in a placating gesture.

  ‘No my love, they are friends. Friends who bring news of the world beyond Port Germein. Come out of your room, eat with us. It is safe.’

  Stefan hesitated and then slammed the bedroom door in Leandro’s face. He stood there for a moment, his shoulders slumping in defeat. ‘Forgive him, these difficult times have taken their toll on his heart.’ I nodded, not sure what I could say.

  ‘Priscilla, my darling you have escaped. Back in your room. It is time for you to sleep and tomorrow you can play, shoo now.’ Leandro clapped his hands at the large sow who seemed intent on forcing her way into the crowded hall.

  ‘She loves to play, and we recently butchered one of her brothers. She misses him.’

  ‘Pork is on the menu?’ I almost laughed with relief.

  ‘Of course,’ Leandro beamed. ‘Priscilla and her friends, they are special to me, without them we would find life here very hard. Come, back to the kitchen, we will eat and drink and then you will stay the night.’

  Else looked at the pig with a wary curiosity until I motioned for her to go back to the kitchen. She shrugged and with Leandro behind us I never saw what he hit me with, but he did it right and everything went black.

  CHAPTER 23

  I woke up groaning. My head felt like a crushed eggshell with the yolk leaking out. I fumbled in the dark, my hands were free and I wasn’t tied up.

  ‘Else?’ I mumbled.

  ‘I’m here,’ she sounded like I felt.

  ‘You okay?’ I reached out and felt her leg, still intact but naked.<
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  ‘They took our clothes,’ I said, stating the obvious seemed to be a side-effect of being knocked unconscious.

  ‘Yes, and the dog is outside the room. I can hear it growling.’

  ‘Pigs,’ I said, that bad feeling coming back with a vengeance.

  ‘Like sheep, but with flat noses and they have no hair,’ Else said from the darkness.

  ‘Yes, but sheep only eat grass. Pigs eat anything. They’re going to feed us to the pigs. I don’t know if that makes them cannibals or not.’

  ‘It makes them fucking dead,’ Else growled.

  ‘Maybe.’ My eyes adjusted to the gloom and I could see we were in a bedroom, no furniture and the same heavy grills on the windows, with boards on the outside. We’d been out most of the night, the orange glow of dawn now turned the air in the room grey.

  I’d barely seen Else naked since the day we met, and even then she’d been wrapped in a plastic sheet and fighting for her life against hungry zombies. She didn’t know to be self-conscious or modest and as I blinked the haze away from my eyes she regarded me with raised eyebrows.

  ‘Does that hurt?’

  ‘Huh? Oh,’ I cupped my hands over my crotch. ‘Uhh, no.’ I could feel a red heat climbing my cheeks.

  Else stood up, walked over and bent down. Pulling at my hands she said. ‘I want to see. What is it?’

  ‘It’s just me,’ I said pulling away.

  ‘It doesn’t look like that when you pee out of it. Is it broken?’

  ‘No, it’s not broken.’ For a smart girl Else was really dumb sometimes.

  She slid a hand down between her thighs and a sudden light went on in her eyes.

  ‘It goes in here!’ she grinned.

  ‘Who told you? How do you know that?’ I scanned the room and grabbed a blanket from the corner. I wrapped it round myself and thought hard about being eaten alive by pigs until my boner vanished.

  ‘The girls at the convent had a magazine. With pictures of men and women in it. Putting those things in here,’ she gestured between her legs again. ‘It’s naughty,’ she added with grave authority.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I tried the door handle, it wasn’t locked. How stupid were these people? I cracked the door open and peeked out. Leandro’s dog threw itself at my face snarling and slavering. The foul, hot stink of its breath blasted over me as the beast crashed against the door scratching and snapping. I leaned against the door and got it closed again. The sound of the dog pounding against the wood echoed in the room.

  I motioned for Else to move. ‘Get behind me.’ She got into position and I took a deep breath before throwing the door wide open.

  The dog leapt for my throat. I grabbed its front legs and jerked them apart, slamming us together like we were dancing a Tango. His jaws snapped, drool splashing on my face as the crack of his ribs splintering twisted his snarl into a howl of agony. Long shards of bone drove deep into the dog’s heart, killing him instantly. I dropped the twitching corpse and leaned against the doorframe panting in terror.

  Else peered around the door and then stared at the dead dog. ‘We should go now, before Leandro finds out you hurt his dog.’

  ‘Yeah, good idea.’ I led Else up the hallway, my head still pounding from the adrenalin and the bashing that Greek prick gave it the night before.

  The kitchen stood empty and the back door was locked. Our clothes had been neatly folded and left on a chair. Else’s sword and our other weapons were stacked beside them. We dressed and I thought about creeping into Stefan’s room and leaving Leandro a surprise for when he got home.

  ‘We have to find another way out,’ I whispered to Else. She nodded and we crept back down the hall. I tried the door handle to Stefan’s bedroom and it opened. The room stank with a dense, cloying reek and it took me a moment to realise it was the smell of air-freshener. I haven’t smelt anything like that in years. Else put a hand to her face and made muffled gagging noises.

  The heavy curtains nailed over the windows kept the room nearly dark. In the dim light shining in from the hallway I could see hundreds of car air-fresheners hanging from the ceiling. Cans of sanitising spray were stacked neatly against the walls. In one corner stood a dressing table with a large mirror, dead candles and cases of coloured make up. A collection of various dresses and costumes hung from a string across another corner of the room.

  Stefan liked to play dress-ups. A large bed, draped with clear plastic sheeting and silk ribbons stood in the centre of the room, an isolated island of happy quarantine forever safe from the horrors that existed outside. The two men lay curled around each other on the bed, sleeping soundly. Leandro’s dark and hairy belly rising and falling against Stefan’s slim and pale boyish frame.

  Leandro’s clothes were draped over a chair, along with his weapons. I searched the pockets, looking for the house keys and came up empty. Shaking my head at Else I moved around the room, searching for the damned keys. Else tore the sheeting back exposing Stefan to the open air. He woke up screaming, clawing his way up the bed-head and Leandro gave a snort like one of his pigs.

  ‘Open the fucking door to outside!’ Else threatened Stefan with the point of the katana. He wailed and pressed himself up against the wall, eyes closed and screaming red-faced in terror. Leandro rolled to his feet, I snatched up his pistol, cocked it at his head and he froze, half off the bed.

  ‘We are leaving,’ I said. ‘You can either open the door, or I can blow your head off and then feed you and your boyfriend to the pigs.’

  ‘Is no problem, no problem.’ Leandro showed his hands. ‘I open up for you, is no problem.’ He moved slowly, hands spread wide. I stepped back, gesturing him out of the room.

  ‘Stefan! Shut the fuck up!’ I yelled and he went silent. I thought Else might have killed him, but he’d gone white with shock and slumped down against the silk pillows.

  ‘Else, let’s go.’ We followed Leandro out to the kitchen. He took a key out of an old sugar container and with trembling hands opened the door. An evol loomed, dark against the bright morning sunlight and ripped out the Greek’s throat, spraying hot blood up the wall and spinning him round. Leandro gurgled and clawed at us as he sank to the floor. Else snarled and swung, her blade split the first zombie’s head down to the neck.

  I fired Leandro’s pistol, bursting a dead woman’s head. I fired again, yelling. ‘We gotta shut the door!’

  Else stepped forward, hacking and slashing. Bodies fell in twitching lumps before us. I crashed against the door, using it as a shield against the mass of rotting meat pressing their way into the house.

  A corpse burst, spilling foul entrails around our feet. Black putrescent juices sprayed as I crushed the squirming dead in the door until it clicked shut. Fumbling with the key I locked it and backed away. Else growled at the shadows moving on the other side of the barred window.

  ‘Out the other side, let’s go,’ I lead the way down the hall and paused at the back door. Cracking open the curtain that hung across the wood and stained glass panel I saw more evols shuffling around in the vegetable garden dirt between us and the tree line fence.

  ‘Can’t go out that way.’ We both jumped when the pig-room door thudded. We were covered in gore and the stench of meat hung thick in the air. I guess the hogs were hungry and getting restless. ‘Okay this is what we are going to do.’ I said lowering my voice and pulling Else into a huddle.

  I explained the plan to Else twice. The first time she flatly refused to do what I asked. I told her if she didn’t, we were going to die here.

  Else took up her position in the kitchen next to the back door, her hand on the key she nodded at me up the hall and I took a deep breath.

  ‘Sook! Sook! Sook! I yelled, a half-remembered pig-feeding call from summers spent on my grand-parents farm as a kid. The pigs in the room must have spent summer vacations on a farm too because they immediately went nuts, squealing and charging against the door. I mentally counted to three and then pushed the door open. The pigs pushing the other way
made it hard, but they soon realised that the door opening meant food and backed up. I shoved the door open and leapt aside as four of the biggest pigs I’ve ever seen charged at me. I turned and ran, yelling at Else to wait.

  The pigs shrieked and fought their way through the door that was barely wide enough to fit one of them. They exploded into the kitchen and I leapt onto the table yelling. ‘Now!’

  Else twisted the key and opened the back door. The pigs went straight for the spilled guts. One of them ran under the table I was crouched on and lifted the entire thing on its back. The stampeding hogs bulldozed their way into the evols milling about on the back porch. The kitchen table ran aground on the doorframe and the pig shot out from underneath it, squealing in outrage.

  ‘Let’s go!’ I yelled. I leapt through the gap and Else jumped over the table behind me. We sprinted across the open veranda and into the yard. Behind us the pigs were feeding on the dead. Some of the zombies were struggling to fight back, but these pigs were frenzied with hunger and meat was back on the menu.

  The wind had picked up, a dry dust laden storm was brewing, sending grit and sand to scour our skin. We ran around the house and out on to the road where we turned west. Zombies were scattered around Leandro’s house and more were milling about the train. We heard a shrill screaming from inside that could have been Stefan, I never looked back. I pointed out a faded sign that said ‘PIMBA’ as we jogged past, then another that said ‘WOOMERA 8KM’ and an arrow pointing north on the road to our right. The burned out shell of a building, probably a truck stop, marked the land to our left. Corrugated iron banging in the wind like a dinner bell for the dead. I kept running, glancing back and being reassured that no shufflers were following. Else just loped along beside me, barely panting.

  We stopped when it got to hot to breathe. My chest ached, and sweat stung my eyes. I wiped my face on my shirt and gave Else a sick grin. ‘Touch and go there for a bit I reckon, eh!?’ I shouted over the wind.