October

by Dave Rowlands

  Viking’s cursing was audible; I could hear him berating his sharpshooters for not waiting for his order to fire. A few more minutes went by, then I heard him give the order, and saw the closest dozen Dead heads explode under their well-coordinated fire. After a few seconds’ delay, the next dozen Dead fell dead. Another delay, another dozen down.

  “Fire at will!” Viking’s order was audible as Static radioed it in to those of us on ground level. I slipped my katana from its sheath and nodded to Criss-Cross. He returned my nod, sliding his blades from his arms with a click. Static’s voice came over the radio once again, telling us to keep our defences up and clear a path through the Dead. Apocalypse Girl favoured me with a quick kiss for luck before she opened fire herself.

  They came at The Elephant like a flood, moving impossibly swiftly, far more rapidly than I’d have thought their decomposing limbs could handle. Many simply fell dead, heads blown off by sniper fire, or the heavy machine guns that Viking had installed on his latest creation.

  Then the leading Dead were upon us. My blade flashed of its own accord, dancing through skulls and brains, covering those of us at the jeep in Dead gore. It seemed almost as if they had no interest in me whatsoever, little interest in feasting on the Living at all. One snapped at German Doctor in passing before one of Criss-Cross’s blades erupted through an eye socket. The orb fell neatly into her lap, staining her lab-coat as she let out a brief squawk of fright. As they surrounded us, I felt the terror mounting, forced it into the back of my mind. I let it pass over me, as the horde was passing over and around us.

  The Flame rose behind the Dead, driving them in our direction, past us, to the east. It occurred to me that it seemed beautiful, alive in its own way. I reached out to it, dropping my sword as I walked out through the swarming Dead.

  Then I knew nothing more.

  evening

  When I came back to myself it was all over. Criss-Cross stood behind me, German Doctor sat next to him, both covered in so much gore that they seemed almost unrecognisable. My throat was dry, tongue swollen from dehydration. The jeep was nowhere to be seen, nor was The Elephant; the charred corpses of Dead lay all around. Not one of them moved any more.

  German Doctor handed me a water bottle wordlessly; she looked too exhausted to speak, though she eyed me with wonder.

  This had happened at least once before, not that I remembered it precisely… Back in Adelaide, at the airport, I’d been taken over by Shadow. It had even spoken with Apocalypse Girl and the others that had been with me at the time.

  “Where is she?” I asked when my mouth was moist enough to form words. German Doctor burst into tears. Criss-Cross just shook his head.

  “She told me to get you to safety. This woman jumped on my back as I went out to you.” His tone of voice, though alien, was clearly unimpressed. “She was fortunate I did not attack her.”

  “And grateful.” German Doctor wiped her eyes, blew her nose on the sleeve of her lab-coat. “I figured, whatever was happening with you, you’d likely need medical attention.” She smiled sadly. “All you needed was time, and water, though, it would appear.”

  “We could not get back to the jeep when the large one gave the order to turn tail and flee.” If his tone of voice was unimpressed before, now it was downright hostile. “There were too many Dead in the way.”

  “I thought we were going to burn up!” German Doctor still sounded amazed that we hadn’t. “But whatever you were doing, it made The Flame part for us. It opened up and went around the three of us, then closed around behind us and kept going.”

  I didn’t particularly care how we’d survived. All that concerned me was finding Apocalypse Girl, now. I began walking to the east.

  Criss-Cross caught my arm, pointed to the south. “That was the way they went.”

  “We need to rest overnight.” German Doctor insisted. “I’ve seen what awaits unwary feet in this hellhole of a country, I don’t want to tread on anything in the dark. Or at all, if I can help it.”

  She had a point.

  October 8th Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  We had little to no supplies, and nowhere to scavenge for any, so we began trudging to the south as soon as it was light enough to see. I could still feel a faint fear from the east; wondering what that was about was wasting time, however… We needed to find her.

  After a few hours of travelling as fast as we were capable on foot, I asked Criss-Cross if he’d be willing to let us ride him. He nodded; I climbed up and extended a hand to German Doctor. She took it gratefully and settled in behind me. I asked if either of them knew what had happened to my blade.

  “Your partner picked it up after you dropped it.” German Doctor told me. “She knows how to use it effectively, believe me.”

  I felt a little better knowing that she had my katana, but still apprehensive about finding her. I urged my Klee-vics companion on faster.

  Before long we found their tracks and began following as fast as we could.

  German Doctor insisted that we stop after a while, for a water break. Food would’ve been a nice addition, but everything we had was in the jeep. Or The Elephant. Both of which could be hundreds of kilometres away by now. Viking would not stop his massive land-ship for something as silly as night, after all.

  We sat in the sand, we two humans, as Criss-Cross scouted around. He emitted a rolling, clicking sound every minute or so, each time from a different angle, so that we would know where he was as we rested. The Klee-vics claimed to not require anywhere near as much rest as we did and was happy to hunt for food.

  His hunting proved unsuccessful, and we clambered onto his back once again.

  noon

  We followed in the jeep’s tracks, next to those of The Elephant, for the next few hours. The terrain was not conducive to rapid travel, and with the extra weight of German Doctor as well as me, Criss-Cross was flagging. He tried to put a brave face on, but there was little doubt that he was tiring.

  I told him that he needed to rest. He shook his head, saying that we’d rest when we found Apocalypse Girl, not before. German Doctor told him not to be so damn stubborn, she knew the warrior’s mentality and was having none of it. She offered him water, which he declined. I’d not seen him eat or drink anything, it occurred to me, and asked him about it.

  “We have sustenance,” His alien mouth made the word sound strange. “But it is a different thing to your food.” He barked a laugh. “I can go without any for more than long enough. I will just need a little while to recover. As for your water; it contains nothing that will aid me. It won’t harm me, but neither will it sustain me.”

  The Klee-vics’ grasp of English was impressive, especially since my first encounter with his kind had involved a kind of translation device. German Doctor thought so, too, and wondered about it aloud.

  “Ah… as to that, we…” He seemed to be searching for the correct terminology. “We have kind of… There isn’t really a term for it in your tongue. Not quite a hive mind, or a collective consciousness. Not like that. But like that, if you follow me. For languages. And a few other things; coordinating logistics, military strategy, things like that. But we are all individuals, as well, except when we work as one.”

  evening

  We found a group of Dead that had run afoul of Viking’s Mech-techs, perhaps my squad mates as well. They had been efficiently put to death, as is the signature of my blonde giant’s friends. No sign that they’d altered their path at all. I found myself rummaging through the pockets of the dead Dead, searching for anything that might approximate food. Finding nothing, I swore, loudly.

  We needed to eat something. I had never before wished for anything as badly as Deathwish’s unending backpack of baked beans. Except possibly for Apocalypse Girl. If she were here…

  But she wasn’t, neither was Deathwish and his backpack. Neither was anything. Just a bunch of about thirty festering corpses.

  German Doctor insisted on performing an examination…
Not something that I’d normally agree to, but boredom mixed with concern for Apocalypse Girl and the others had set in, and I needed a distraction.

  “That’s odd…” She said after a while. “It’s all very odd. Most strange…” She sounded mostly as if talking to herself.

  I asked her what was up. She looked up into my eyes, concern showing in her own.

  “Your pulse is very weak. Your breathing as well, seems… not laboured, exactly, but…” She shrugged. “Have you taken anything? Drugs, I mean…”

  I told her that I hadn’t. Not for a long time. She examined my shoulder, where my former friend, The Disciple, had bitten me. Prodding it, she asked if it hurt at all. It didn’t, in fact I couldn’t feel anything from the wound at all, not even the contact of her finger. I glanced at the injury, and immediately wished that I had not.

  It oozed. Pus and dark blood seeped from the bite at her touch.

  “This doesn’t hurt at all?” She enquired. I shook my head. “I need to clean this.” She tore a strip of relatively clean cloth from the bottom of her lab-coat, wadded it up and dampened it a little with our dwindling water, then dabbed at the wound. In moments it was clean, though it still seeped a little. Tearing off another strip, she wrapped it around my shoulder and tied it tight. “I would not say anything about this to anybody. But this looks like the bite of the Dead.”

  I told them both, then, what had happened at The Facility with The Major and his attempts to develop a vaccine for the Dead plague. It had worked, after a fashion. I’d been bitten months ago by someone that was not exactly Dead, but no longer had he been Living, either.

  The Klee-vics took it all in his stride, but German Doctor was visibly shaken. I told Criss-Cross that, should I start to eye her off as food, to ram one of his blades into my skull. He agreed without hesitation, knowing what was potentially at stake, but this did little to assuage her concern.

  I promised her that I don’t bite. She at least smiled slightly, then made sure to keep Criss-Cross between us as she lay down to try and sleep.

  October 9th Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  I couldn’t sleep. Not a wink. I looked at the form of German Doctor as she snored softly, wondering how she was able to turn her brain off after the discovery that she’d made about me last night. Was I Dead? Dying? I had no idea. It explained the fear of The Flame, though. Nobody else seemed to experience that, at all.

  She woke as the sun rose, and we moved onwards silently. She was okay about riding behind me on Criss-Cross’s back, though needed to be certain that the Klee-vics remembered his promise from last night. He assured us both that he was aware.

  After a little more than an hour’s travel time, we came across devastation.

  Something had happened to The Elephant; it had fallen into a gully, perhaps due to having to travel through the night. Corpses littered the area, many of them people I’d known, albeit briefly. Viking was nowhere to be seen, nor Static. I checked every body I could lay hands on, for vitals I thought at first. After a few moments I realised that I was actually checking for warmth rather than pulse. The connotations of that nearly made me retch.

  German Doctor stood by me, hand on my back in an attempt to comfort me, while Criss-Cross went into The Elephant in search of anything, survivors, Dead, food, weapons. The rapidity with which he zoomed about, the suddenness with which he halted in front of us to deliver loads of supplies, all seemed as alien as the extra joints in his six limbs. It was almost like a giant leathery ant running about. The last time he returned with nothing, just blood covering his forelimbs.

  It looked like some survivors had taken a few of the smaller vehicles, those that hadn’t been smashed beyond repair, and continued to the south. We were able to scavenge enough supplies to put together a working motorcycle. I thought that Viking would’ve been proud of the end result. I hoped he was still alive to be proud of it…

  noon

  Criss-Cross was silent about what he had found inside The Elephant’s shattered remains, all he would say is that we should be grateful that we have some supplies now. I knew that Apocalypse Girl hadn’t been inside, but that was all. He did, however, tell me that Viking had not been inside. He understood friendship, after all.

  Travelling by motorcycle was marginally easier, though German Doctor preferred to keep riding with Criss-Cross. I didn’t blame her. She offered to clean my wound again, when we stopped for lunch. I felt better having eaten a cooked Meat-Beast steak, at least. She informed me that my pulse was stronger, more regular, with food inside me. I concluded that I was not Dead. At least, not yet. Dying, maybe, but not Dead yet.

  However, I soon wished that I was.

  We came across the ruined jeep that Apocalypse Girl had commandeered shortly after midday. My sword lay half-buried in the dirt, next to her leather jacket and the bag of lighters that she’d begun collecting in the very early days of our journey. Bodies littered the area, and a station wagon, riddled with bullets, stood nearby, leaking various fluids.

  I checked the corpses, finding Maori first. Then Wall, and Scar. Scar was beginning to move until my katana put an end to it. The others were not coming back. Criss-Cross went from body to body, making certain that no more would rise, as I attended to the members of my squad. They’d been ambushed, it seemed, by whoever had owned the extra vehicle. They had paid dearly, however, it seemed that every member of the ambushing party was dead.

  Other than her jacket and lighter bag, and my sword of course, there was no sign of Apocalypse Girl. No sign at all.

  evening

  I don’t really know what happened after we left the site of the ruined jeep. German Doctor rode on Criss-Cross’s back as I again took the motorcycle. Not having any tracks to follow, the Klee-vics kept all his senses alert for any sign as we headed south, but by sundown he had still found nothing. I didn’t want to admit the possibility that she… Hell I still don’t.

  I’m not going to think about it. We’ve decided to head west again in the morning. Perth might hold some hope, or else it might not. There is still the radio network to consider. The three of us have no radio, but the frequency is ingrained in my mind. I had German Doctor memorise it as well, just in case something permanent happened to me.

  Food tasted like ash, but I choked it down anyway. If Meat-Beast flesh keeps my heart beating more strongly, then I’ll take that. I’ve learned one thing this year; take whatever victories you can, no matter how small.

  Journal of A.G.

  Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. I watched him go into the horde, dropping his sword. So, I picked it up. Hacking Dead heads apart while watching him losing it was the hardest thing I’ve had to do this apocalypse. But they didn’t even think about touching him. They’ve tried to eat me, Maori, Wall, Scar, Giant, German Doctor, all of them. But not my man, not Book.

  The battle was intense, more than anything I’m used to. Criss-Cross grabbed my arm at one point, I told him to let me the fuck go and look after Book. He looked confused for half a second, then bounded into action. Both blade-arms outstretched, he flew into the horde as a whirlwind, slicing them to pieces. Book just strolled through the Dead, staring at The Flame as if nothing else in the world mattered.

  The Dead had managed to get past us, most of them at least. If they’d not been fleeing The Flame’s advance, they’d have had more than just an attempted nibble. Still, when Giant pulled me back, shouting at me that Viking’s given the order to retreat, I hesitated hardly at all. Static’s voice came over the radio, telling us to head south. The Flame extended far to the north, but the southern edge had died off, it seemed. There were fewer Dead that way, too.

  So we fled. I didn’t even notice German Doctor get out of the jeep before we ran, so I don’t know when she did, but she’s not with us now. Static kept us updated as to where to go, and when. I tried to keep the jeep behind and under The Elephant as best I could, as the soldiers of Book’s squad kept watch for the Dead.

  Viking wanted
to keep going through the night, so we did. He had floodlights showing the way forward, at least, so we’d not be stumbling our way through the darkness.

  The next day was more running south. Viking came down to talk with me, at least, but he had nothing to say. Just that Book was gone and he’d look after me. Just what I fucking need. A big blonde bonehead taking over from my Book.

  We were able to move at a more sedate pace at least. Not that it really helped. It just gave me more time to think. I needed to not think.

  That night Viking’s enthusiasm murdered The Elephant. I told him we should stay put. I did. I wasn’t the only one, either. Valkyrie wanted to stay put overnight and take stock of our losses, maybe try and go back for Book and the alien. German Doctor was useful, too, if a bit stuck up. Fuck it, stuck up or not, at least she’s Living. And not my mother.

  But Viking ran straight into a ravine. The massive forelimbs looked to have smashed to bits as they fell down the gully, broken bodies of Mech-techs lying where they had fallen out of their bunks. Some had been asleep, but they were all dead now. At least for those at the bottom it had been quick.

  We stayed long enough to make sure that the survivors got into vehicles and reclaimed some supplies. There was a lot that had to just be abandoned, even with everyone loading themselves with as much as they could carry, all the vehicles that remained fully loaded, there was more left behind than Viking could bear. It didn’t help that he’d lost more than half his crew in the accident.

  South again in the morning, until those fuckers rammed into the jeep and forced it into a bloody boulder. Scar, Wall and Maori leapt from the jeep and started shooting almost before it stopped bouncing around. I only stayed put to make sure that I was ok, and the baby, then Giant pulled me out of the shit again.

  She shushed me, and we made our way out of the area as soon as the gunfire stopped. She told me that the rest of the squad hadn’t made it, but neither had the ambushers. Apocalypse Dog found us without too much trouble. I was pissed that I’d lost the sword, though. Book was going to kill me for that. If he was even alive…