Apocalypse [Book 3]

by Matt J. Pike

  And with that, I was introduced to Brian, Lana and Ye-jun. It was a weird little introduction – we obviously both had plenty to gain from this new association but, at the same time, they had a leadership structure, we had a… well, two people making decisions. It was friendly, but there were still poker faces on, as so much had to go right for everything to merge properly.

  Brian – the leader – suggested sending Ye-Jun with me to check out what I was talking about was real. I agreed. We were soon on our way back to Phoenix and back to the oval.

  Ye-Jun was 33, seemed like a pretty cluey guy too. It was not difficult to impress someone who has been starving and with little hope, but Phoenix blew him away. His eyes lit up when he saw her and he was beaming on the ride back to town. Gone was the zombie-like watched deadness, this was a person with dreams and he was full of hope. Seeing his amazement at the hovercraft made me smile too, as did that hope. I knew, at that moment, this risky plan of mine could work.

  His jaw nearly dropped when I drove right into the oval and after he’d met Shane and we showed him just a fraction of the food supplies he was reduced to stunned silence. I’d be lying if I didn’t get a little proud of all I’d achieved since rock night. Here it all was, on display, to someone who’d barely survived with the aid of a group of people around him. Shane and I hadn’t survived, we’d thrived.

  We gave him a tour of some of the things we’d set up and talked over the threat, what we’re planning to do about it and how they can help. He was keen. Very, very keen. Shane and I exchanged a few glances; we didn’t need to say anything to each other to know this (at face value) seemed a pretty good fit. Besides, the thought of divvying up the work amongst more people and, who knows, even getting some decent sleep, made this a massive win for us too.

  After a couple of hours I hovered Ye-jun back to TTP, with plans for them to relocate in the morning.

  Shane and I shared a drink or three in the commentary box after sunset that night. We were both on a massive high…. A cautious one, but a seriously good one. It was almost like the one element of this ridiculous plan we failed to see the benefit of was meeting new people. By the time Ye-jun had left he was revering our efforts. We were survivor legends! And that felt good.

  So, we’ve basically put a third of a food supply on the table to share with the watched and the plan is to keep draining all known food locations when the extra numbers arrived. The other food has been hidden for now, in case things go south, from either a raid from Norwood or some play from the watched.

  We’ve drawn up a list of duties that need to be performed daily, and if we get all 18 people from the watched that leaves a lot of spare hours in the day, which we can dedicate to strengthening our defences – building more walls and posting extra people on watch. We’ve also assigned some corporate boxes in the Riverbank stand to sleeping quarters for our new guests, which gives us, and the hidden food stocks, a bit of distance while trust builds between the groups.

  I remember feeling a mix of emotions that night. I was definitely nervous and more than a little overwhelmed at the speed and enormity of change that was happening. I was also wary – trust is so huge in this world and that takes a long time to prove, or earn. I mean, I’m still getting there with Shane and we’ve been going at this for some time now as a 50-50 partnership – that’s a lot of time, observation and action to prove trust worthiness. And this new situation we were heading into, that’s a whole different ball game, so many people extends the trust degree of difficulty exponentially.

  On the other side of the emotion coin was some serious excitement about the potential. I cannot overstate how important people are and I knew, if the change in Ye-jun was anything to go by (turning from a zombie watched into a human with hope again), that there would be so many positive people dynamics ahead. Even more than that, this place we’re building, we can dream big now. It was as if Shane and I had hopped into a leaking boat and spent all our time bailing out water just to stay afloat, and now we have the manpower to fix the leak and sail anywhere we want. Just that thought alone, creating a home and a sustainable community, was enough to fill me with positive energy for the future.

  *

  The next morning we took turns on lookout and prepping for the arrival of the watched. It was an enjoyable lookout that morning, knowing soon my hours in that grandstand would be greatly reduced.

  Shane had set up the supplies well. We had hidden them in a place you could only access by going past both our sleeping quarters in the Bradman Pavilion. Given we’d planned most of the watched’s duties and living arrangements around the Riverbank stand, I felt pretty comfortable we’d be right… as much as you can anyway. As for the food stocks we would share, we reckoned with 20 mouths to feed, we had at least three months’ worth there, with possibly six months’ worth in secret backup. And now we’d be able to go on daily food runs, with so much of the city’s secrets still up for grabs.

  No sign of the Norwood folk today either.

  We’d prepped ourselves for an arrival sometime just after lunch, but it wasn’t until very late afternoon when we saw them limping down King William Rd from North Adelaide. Not surprising, I guess. It was probably a 14km trek through a lot of unbroken ash, plus a group is only as fast as its slowest member, and they were carrying some pretty unhealthy people. All of which made me appreciate what a little oasis in the carnage we were creating.

  I was so nervous. All of those feelings I had the night before supercharged at that moment, like sunlight through a magnifying glass. This was it now. No going back.

  Shane and I went to meet them out the front of the Victor Richardson Gates. Brian and Lana led the group, while Ye-jun was walking with some of the stragglers at the back. I introduced Shane to Brian and Lana, then we both introduced ourselves to the others as they arrived. It was a bit of a blur of names really. I ended up just thinking of all of them by the ailments (they all seemed to have them) – the guy with the serious limp, the woman with the hacking cough, the younger woman with the burn marks on her face. They were all frighteningly skinny but, like Ye-jun when he arrived, eyes full of wonder.

  Ye-jun must’ve been talking up the place to them too, as there was a real buzz of positivity in the air. After about 10 minutes we had our 18 new community members standing at the gate, then we marched through as one to their new home. I can’t put into words the level of pride I felt for what we had done here, when seeing it viewed through the eyes of other people for the first time. It felt good.

  We took them to the Riverside stand to dump whatever bags they were carrying (some only had the clothes on their backs), then went on a quick tour – the lookout, the ducks, their quarters and we ended on the showable food supplies. We had a feast of stuff ready to go for them, so Shane and I started preparations, while the former watched went to fight over accommodation options in the Riverbank stand and freshen up from the walk.

  Shane never really said anything directly while we prepped the food, but I could tell he was pretty impressed with my idea of recruiting these guys and my call on whether they were trustworthy enough. Maybe he was reserving judgement until a little further down the track, but I took his mood as a tick of approval based on first appearances.

  *

  We ate and ate… and drank. The sort of gorging that would’ve seen our food stocks evaporate in a fraction of the time if it were sustained. But this night wasn’t about counting provisions, it was a celebration, an introduction, a union and a new beginning all rolled into one.

  We heard the story of the watched. How they had started out as hundreds and had slowly had their numbers whittled away. How, like many post-rock stories it seems it started out with a very community together feel. How that community existed both in and around the Tea Tree Plaza shopping centre. Then, the realisation set in that there were no utilities, no help coming, that there would be no army support, no emergency food drops from elsewhere – they were in it on their own, with what they had and no more.r />
  With guns being rare in Adelaide, those with them became very powerful. From that power came some drastic survival decisions. Brian reckoned it was the start of the third week when the wall started going up, and it was completed within days. It wasn’t announced, it was just built. Everyone though it was to keep more people from coming in, but a few days later, everyone was grouped up and those in power at the TTP simply marched hundreds outside the wall at gun point, saying they needed to process arrivals individually.

  They built the wall, they decided who’d stay, and they decided to kick everyone else out. So, you either had a gun, an ally with a gun, a special skill, or you were fending for yourself. And that was that.

  Those on the outside outnumbered those in the compound several fold. They were resource and gun poor. Brian teamed up with a number of others to try to keep the outsiders together. They established digs at the hospital and swept the entire region for food and anything they could use for weaponry. It was the numbers game that guided their strategy – they only managed to stockpile a few weeks’ worth of food, but found plenty of things to use as weapons. The maths led to only one plan – fight back.

  They put together a plan and a few days later attacked the wall with everything they had. They breeched the wall by the hospital at dawn, killed the guards and lost several of their own. By the time they’d managed to get a decent force over the wall, the alarm had been raised and the TTPers were waiting.

  Brian was a teary wreck recounting what happened next, but, in short, it was a massacre. They had taken baseballs bats to a gun fight. The entrance to the shopping centre was wide, open and long. The TTPers were firing from the safety of cover on the other side. The outsiders were cut down in their dozens. Within minutes, they called a retreat.

  They spent the next few weeks tending to the wounded and eating through a large portion of their remaining supplies. Many left, choosing to go it alone or as part of a large group that headed north. Of the rest, some wanted revenge, others wanted reconciliation. No amount of negotiation could bring the groups together. The revengers left for another building, taking their portion of rations with them. They started a campaign of fighting that lasted for weeks. They fought from the shadows, taking out guards at night, with the occasional day time attack (which is what I must’ve passed when I was heading to Canberra).

  Then the game shifted completely. The TTPers got on the front foot with a massive night raid of their own on the revenge crew. It was a slaughter apparently. The next day the wounded returned, defeated, to the hospital. Brian said the head count on that day was 128. He and a couple of the other leaders sought a meeting with the TTP leadership, seeking a truce. A meeting was arranged and they agreed to stop all attacks, while the TTP would dole out some food and promised to reconsider processing the surviving outsiders for citizenship (as they apparently called it) of TTP. One person per day would be considered.

  Not a great outcome really, but what other choice did they have? They agreed, figuring not only would each person who got in benefit, but those remaining on the outside would have less mouths to feed, keeping their limited food stock longer. And both sides would win if they weren’t killing each other.

  They set up a lottery system to bid for processing order and the next day the first candidate went… and returned. Same with the next three. After two weeks only three people had been successful and tensions were rising again between the groups. The food supply was getting desperate and, in the time the three had been processed, more had arrived.

  Brian and the other leaders at the time approached the TTPers again, seeking a meeting. They were denied. With the situation so dire, it didn’t take long for the voices of aggression to have a win over Brian’s more diplomatic approach. The outcome was a predictable massacre again. They killed a few of the TTPers on the perimeter, but it was a pointless end to so many.

  Brian and the others tended to the wounded. Then, after another meeting, the applications restarted, with only a fraction being successful again. In the meantime they spread their food search, just trying to hold their heads above water, but they were fighting a losing battle. That’s when they became the watched – standing in sight of the guards every day in silent protest. Their starving frames a reminder to anyone in the TTP who cared to watch, that their decisions were costing lives.

  In the end, disease and death became regular occurrences for the watched, while surprise food finds became rarer and rarer. They were too weak to move on and hope had all but gone… until I showed up.

  It was a hard story to listen too. It’s amazing how small decisions have huge implications on survival and that, sometimes, safety doesn’t come in numbers. I wondered if I’d have done anything different in that situation – I think I would’ve, but you never know until you’re there.

  I wondered about Alyce, Scott and Jodie, whether they had experienced any part of that and whether they had lived to tell the tale. I knew I’d ask Brian about them at some point, but not tonight. There was too much pain already, I figured.

  As for Brian, and the others, hearing their story gave me greater trust than ever that they were exactly the sort of people who would work well here. They have every reason to appreciate what this place is and represents.

  After that, Shane and I shared our tales of survival. I almost felt guilty telling it. The looks in their eyes, wishing they’d been as lucky as me to find out early, or as smart as me to go it alone – to keep thinking differently about every problem that presented itself and stay ahead of the changes to the weather, environment, society and anything else I could think of. But, at the same time, telling my story at that moment, I knew I had earned my stripes as a survivor. So had Shane.

  After we’d got all of the show and tell out of the way, the evening turned into more of the celebration we were intending. With a big feed and some drinks behind them, the personalities started to come out. They weren’t the watched any more, they were people.

  It must’ve been nearly midnight when the last of them had stumbled to their quarters for some sleep. That’s a pretty late night for me these days. But, before I could crash, Shane bailed me up for a nightcap. We toasted to the future and sat and watched the lights from the accommodation in the Riverside stand. We didn’t say much but it was a truly satisfying feeling. We had created this.

  *

  The next day we took everyone through the tasks we did on a daily basis – lookout, tending to the ducks, food preparation, maintaining the generators, which toilets to use, charging the two-way radios, etc. Shane had set up a second lookout in the Eastern stand to watch for movement from North Adelaide. Shane, myself, Brian and the two lookouts would take the main two-ways, as would anyone leaving the oval for food runs, wall building or whatever (so they could maintain comms with the tower and avoid any friendly fire incident).

  Once the first lookout watch was up and running, Shane and I sat down with Brian, Lana and Ye-jun and talked through our future plans. We told them about the Norwood hubbers’ recent activity and the need to build more defensive structures both around the oval and, later on, at strategic areas throughout the city. We prioritised the search for a front end loader as well as the need to press on with as many food runs as possible. The other priority was weapons training, which Shane would run. We have also created a log book, for any out of oval movements, so the guards know when to expect significant activity outside the oval.

  For the most part, I think the three newbies were doing their best just to get up to speed with the new space and everything that was happening. Perhaps it was almost beyond them to think beyond that into projecting forward to solve future problems. That was all OK for now, because Shane and I were pretty sure on what we knew we needed anyway.

  There were a few good ideas. Lana suggested all parties leaving the oval wear a headband to signify they are part of the group. Ideally red as it stood out so much from the grey and brown ash landscape. It was a simple, yet very clever, idea. She hadn’t reall
y spoken as much as Brian or Ye-jun at that point, so it was good to have her straight on the case with ideas. Ye-jun, being as obsessed with Phoenix as he was, was insistent on joining me on the next food run (and every run after that by the sounds of it). He also said he knew the markets like the back of his hand and he’s pretty sure he’ll be a big help there. I was OK with this as he seems like a pretty cluey guy… but he does talk a lot though… like, a lot. To his credit though, he did come up with the idea of grabbing all the pet food from Woolies so we didn’t have to waste our food on the duck? Brian was keen to help with locating a loader, not only for building defensive walls, but he was pretty convinced if we cleared the land around the oval, we could generate crops – if not this year, he was sure on the next.

  That afternoon we were off on our separate missions, wearing our red bandanas – fortunately, most of the sporting teams that use the oval have red as one of their colours, so there was plenty of paraphernalia in the shops to source material from. Brian, Shane and four others set off on foot for the new hospital site, in search of some heavy machinery, one of the crew, Jimmy, was a mechanic pre-rock, so things are looking good if we can actually find something. I headed out with Ye-jun and Kelly (she was in her late 20s) to do a recon of all the food spots and sniff around for any activity from the Norwood hubbers.

  So, the afternoon delivered both good and bad news. Shane’s team found a front end loader. It took them the best part of the afternoon to do it, but do it they did. The thing was on its side and all but completely buried in crap after being rag-dolled along the train lines during the tsunami. They reckoned they could dig it out and get it upright the next day. Game changer if true.

  My team had to wait until the last light was close before heading out – we didn’t want to risk an unnecessary run-in with Norwood. And while there were no signs of life when we were out, there were footprints everywhere. They had been a very busy bunch over the last few days. There were multiple tracks down King William Rd too, a real worry since we’ve only actually seen them there once since the shooting. There was plenty of activity along North Terrace too, right down to the Morphett St bridge. None of these tracks were about getting food – they were all neon signs that the recon they were doing on us was far more substantial they Shane or I had any idea about. That was a worry. I took Phoenix along as many tracks as possible, trying to work out as many patterns as we could. Maybe it would help us get some insight into what they’re up to.