Junior rushed to his feet, as I did, but Apocalypse Girl was ahead of us, charging into the fray holding high Valet's crowbar, which promptly sunk deep into the Dead girl's forehead. Archer pulled the bus over so that we could dispose of the carcass. And deal with Butcher.
dusk
Butcher stood a few paces from the door of the bus, staring out into the distance. Blood streamed out from his face, soaking into his clothes. “Fucking typical.” He grumbled. I clapped him on the shoulder sympathetically. “You'll all be fucked without me, you know that. But what the hell do I know? I'm dead already...all I ever knew was meat...now I am meat.” He shook his head at the irony. I asked him how he wanted it to go. He told me he would think on it for a while.
Archer was blaming himself, because he hadn't thought to look in the toilet for any stray Dead. Butcher, however, was blaming himself for not having the reflexes to have avoided being bitten. Any one of us at any time, however, while loading the bus could have checked things out, as well. Not a one of us did.
“I called it on myself you know,” He told me. “When I told you that you'd be fucked without me. You won't be, you'll do alright. I really just wish I hadn't shat myself though.”
“I really wish the first time I get to use this sword wasn't on a friend. Shit happens though, doesn't it?” Came my reply. We both smiled pitifully at the weak attempt at humour.
The rest of our dwindling group came out to say goodbye to Butcher. He wanted to wait until after sundown, so we could share a final meal together. This we did, though Butcher himself declined to take any food with us. I rolled up a joint for us to share. That was dwindling swiftly, also. We smoked, and we laughed, we cried. One and all we thanked Butcher for his contributions to our continued survival.
He took all the adulation we gave him with the good humour that only Butcher could muster at such a time. He clutched his head in pain, doubling over. I asked him if he was ready yet. He nodded through the cramps.
I drew out my katana and it sang in the evening air. Archer offered a hand to Butcher in order to help steady the man, but he refused, smiling at us all one last time. He then looked directly into my eyes and said; “I'm ready now.”
I swung my blade, almost not feeling any resistance as it sliced through our companion's skull and brains. He stood for a second longer, then gracefully fell, the top of his head neatly dropping off as he hit the bitumen. Archer then unceremoniously ransacked his body, in the event that he had been carrying anything we could use. His knives were already in the bus, all he had left on him was around seventy dollars in cash. We left that with him. Nobody uses money any more, after all, the world's ended, right?
January 20th Year 1 A.Z.
dawn
Sleeping in the comfort of the bus was a luxury almost forgotten by now. Despite our recent losses, the six of us remaining awoke relaxed and in good humour. Apocalypse Girl and The Twin helped Junior to clean out the tiny bathroom at the back of the bus, which mainly consisted of the two girls ordering him about, while he removed any remaining gobbets of flesh and cleaned up the blood. The door was easily lockable, and we had an escape route that took us onto the roof of the bus itself, and Archer was already thinking on various improvements he could install. We also had more than enough room for the six of us to spread out easily with our own little areas between several seats. Archer and Junior had their sections to the front of the bus, The Twin and Biker had the back, leaving the middle to be shared between Apocalypse Girl and myself.
We ate and walked around outside for a short while, stretching our legs while it was safe to do so, then we piled back into the Greyhound and took off. We all had to learn how to drive the bus, so that we were able to take turns. This morning it was Junior behind the wheel. The Twin was to follow him, and my turn was next. Biker already had some experience driving a bus, and was thus spared Archer's lessons, but her turn to drive came after mine had ended.
It was accepted practice to run over any Dead we saw on the road, unless we came across a group so large we were unable to make it through them. While it was my turn to drive, we had come across a group of about seven or eight Dead, just standing around. They glanced up at us an instant before the Greyhound ploughed into them, pulverising them. It was rather satisfying, that was certain.
afternoon
What a pile of shit we have landed in now. Biker was driving the bus, and we found another small town, tiny little place, not even sure it has a name. All they had in this town was a police station, a pub and a post office. There were only four actual houses in town, one of which had stood empty for at least a couple of years. So we stopped, and got out of the bus to have a look around. Moments later a little old lady comes tottering out of the pub, waving her arms madly at us. She insisted that we come inside the pub and eat something, or at least that we come in for a beer. That word is like magic in Australia, even after the apocalypse. If anything, it's power is greater now, even. So, into the pub we went, all six of us, leaving our weapons and supplies on the bus, which had been parked directly between police station and post office. The pub was the next building along. We crowded around the bar as the landlady poured our beers.
I asked her what had been happening in the town lately, to which she replied with a shrug. Apparently nothing had happened here at all. This town was clear of Dead, completely. Biker asked her if she had heard anything about the Dead walking, and the old lady laughed, saying that was just a hoax. Apocalypse Girl assured her that it was not, and she laughed all the harder. We thought better of arguing with her, and simply drank our beers. One round was followed by another, and a third, and a fourth. We were discussing amongst ourselves exactly what our next move should be when the door to the street burst open, and a pair of police officers burst in, weapons drawn. We were ordered out to the street at gunpoint, and marched off to the station, where we were locked up in two separate cells, though across a hall from each other. Considering there were six of us, and we were drunk, they decided against interrogating us until morning. The landlady of the pub followed us into the station, and upon our initial, inept frisking, loudly demanded that we pay for our drinks. When she discovered that we also had no money to speak of, she shrieked in each of our faces, something unintelligible, and stormed off into the street.
Of all places to end up, in a prison cell in a fucking backwater was the last place I expected to find myself three weeks after the end of the world. After locking us up, the two coppers searched the bus, finding the belongings of several people clearly in our possession, our weapons, and our weed. These were all stashed in the room at the far end of the hallway in which our cells were located. Evidence locker, I assumed. I was at least allowed to keep my journal, but other than that we were stripped of everything but our clothes.
“What the fuck is this shit?” Archer demanded of nobody in particular, while he paced about our cell. “Fucking world ended and we get locked up like fucking animals. We need to find a way out of this place.”
Apocalypse Girl and I locked eyes across the hallway. This was the furthest we had been from each other's sides since the early days in the commune. It was clear that she felt as naked without me as I felt without her. We reasoned that eventually the Dead would come here, probably sooner rather than later. For all we knew a group had been following us, or had otherwise picked up our trail. Maybe a bunch of them would just wander into town one day and eat everybody.
I asked everybody if any of them knew how to pick a lock, to which all but Biker replied negatively. She just said there was no point, nobody had anything to pick a lock with. Not one of these, anyway.
Fuck this. I am going to try to get some sleep. Will write more when something happens.
January 21st Year 1 A.Z.
morning
Been some noises out in the street this morning. No idea what though. Neither cell has any windows, so nobody could get a look. Younger of the two coppers brought breakfast in this morning. Never had toast that tasted so
fucking nice. He looked at us strangely, then turned away without a word and left. After a while the old lady from the pub came by to yell at us some more. Turned out she was married to the older copper, but the young guy was not local. We discovered this after she had calmed down a little. She was also intensely lonely, that much was clear. She also ran the post office. When we asked her if there was anybody else in town she shook her head. I asked her what the commotion in the street had been, apparently some 'lunatic' had run through town claiming that the Dead were chasing him. She didn't suffer such nonsense, she told us, as we were trying to make her see that what that supposed lunatic had said was in fact true.
In time she was replaced by the older copper, her husband. He was less lonely, but far better company. He too offered us beer, though from cans rather than out of a tap, which we gratefully accepted. He asked us questions, even took some of us aside to interview separately. In one such interview he asked to read my journal of events that I had witnessed since everything began. I nodded and handed it over. His lips moved as he read, but despite that he was done reasonably quickly.
“Well...” He began. “I can't let you guys go just yet. I have to check up on a few things. Someone ran through town this morning shouting about the Dead walking, was thinking about driving out that way to see for myself.” He looked very much as if he didn't want to be dealing with this situation. “If the Dead are walking, then sure I'll let you all go. If not, however...” He let the threat hang in mid-air between us. Meanwhile we were left in the care of the younger man.
He asked us questions this time, about what had been happening. He had come from Melbourne, was posted in this shithole because he had accidentally shot someone. He refused to give any further details, but kept asking if we had heard anything from any of the larger cities. Apocalypse Girl replied that we had come from the direction of Adelaide, which had been overrun when we left, and that we had no idea of any other city. Archer surmised that it was probably the same in Melbourne, if not worse.
noon
Copper asked if anybody knew what was up with the weather. The Twin told him of our suspicions that the burned corpses of the Dead were responsible. The old lady came in with a tray upon which sat our lunch. Roast beef sandwiches with tomato and cheese. I hadn't realised just how much I had missed the taste of cheese. She also mentioned that her husband had still not come back yet. After she left, Copper told us that she would not have said anything unless she was very concerned.
As we finished our food we heard a loud bang from outside. Copper looked up hurriedly, told us he would be right back, and left. Another bang, then a third. I realised at that moment that these were gunshots we were hearing. The fourth, fifth and sixth shots rang out and Copper ducked back into the corridor, gun drawn. “Looks like you guys were right after all.” He told us as he unlocked first the girl's cell, then ours.
He made to leave out the main door, but I grabbed his arm. Asking about our weapons, he pointed out the right key before rushing out to assist his partner and boss. More shots rang out as we hurried to the evidence room. I unlocked the door, and The Twin immediately grabbed her bow, and a handful of arrows, then bolted for the front of the building to lend her aid. Archer and Junior followed her example, while Biker, Apocalypse Girl and I lingered a while. We snatched up all of our supplies and weapons, as well as the two heavy machine guns and ammo crate that lay on a far shelf, covered in a decade of dust. Apocalypse Girl and Biker took the guns and ammunition to the door as Junior ran back into the hallway.
“Too many of them, we're falling back. Cop says there's a stairway up to the roof past the evidence room, sent me to grab the keys and open it up for us.” That was good thinking, as the emergency exit of the bus could just as easily be used as an emergency entrance. I heard a shriek of agony, clearly the landlady of the pub, that ended with a gunshot. Junior opened up the door, sure enough stairs leading up lay behind it. The girls took the new found guns and ammo to the roof first, and I ran to get the others while Junior held the door for us.
As I opened the door, drawing my sword, I walked into a massacre. The landlady's corpse lay in the grip of an equally dead Dead. She had a hole neatly in the middle of her forehead, and the older cop was firing wildly through tears of rage. Running out of bullets he simply threw his revolver at the approaching Dead, then looked about for something he could use as a weapon. Eventually he settled on a chair, then when that broke on his first victim, a chair leg. The leg proved more effective, and I waded through a sea of Dead, slicing heads apart with my blade to stand at the policeman's back. We moved towards the back of the station, under covering fire from Archer, Copper and The Twin, and the five of us regrouped in the hallway out the back. The older cop was breathing heavily, face flushed.
“Go.” He ordered us. “I'll buy you some time.” He hefted his chair leg. The Dead were pounding on the door. Individually weak, sure, but this many was easily the rotting equivalent of an ocean, and would wear down mountains given enough time and inclination. They definitely had the inclination, and, already Dead, had all the time in the world. The door was already shaking more with each surge. It would not hold long.
We ran past Junior, who closed and locked the door as we ascended the stairs, nearly falling over each other in our haste. Copper spotted that the girls had found the weapons, and smiled. He mentioned that those had been confiscated from a compound a few kilometres north-east of here, some cult or other that had committed mass suicide several years before. This had happened before his time, but his partner liked to tell stories about the good old days.
Looking over the edge of the roof, we saw a massive group of Dead. More than I had seen yet in any one place, easily several hundred of them. Apocalypse Girl pointed one out to me, then another. They were wearing the same prison uniform that the bandits who had attacked the commune had been. Junior let out a low whistle. There were an awful lot of Dead prisoners down there. A yell of pain from below ceased our procrastination, and we leaped from the roof of the police station to that of the Greyhound barely half a metre below it. Junior landed badly, injuring his knee and nearly falling off into the crowd. He caught himself on my ankle just as his legs went over the edge. As I was still kneeling it only barely impeded my balance, and he and I together pulled him to safety.
We pried open the roof-top emergency hatch and lowered ourselves down one at a time. Apocalypse Girl and I decided, upon surveying the scene, that it would be impossible for the bus to start moving with this horde surrounding us, so we figured someone should be up top clearing the path of the Dead with these shiny (dusty) new (old) machine guns. The ammo crate had easily several thousand rounds contained within. Archer looked at the weapons closely and laughed. It turned out he had smuggled these very guns out when he had left the army following the Vietnam war. Looking them over, he judged them fit for service, and showed Copper how they were used.
Up they went, and we heard scratching, dragging, clunking sounds as they set up the guns. Moments later the pair opened up on the Dead directly ahead of the Greyhound. Junior shouted with glee and started the engine. A moment later the rooftop gunners had cleared a swath of Dead in front more than the width of the bus, and three times its length and we began to move. A bumpy ride to begin with, as we had to roll over the corpses of a couple of hundred Dead, but once we got rolling we ploughed into the wall of Dead ahead, plunging through into the freedom beyond.
night
We judged it safer to drive into the night, at least partway, as that horde of Dead had clearly been following us since we had left the commune. Their tenacity had to be admired, but this level of persistence was also wearing. We stopped only to eat, and even still, not once did we leave the bus.
Copper asked if we could drive to Melbourne, as he had family there he wanted to check up on. Apocalypse Girl told him gently but firmly that they were likely to be dead now, but he would not accept it, and insisted. Eventually we agreed, though it meant we would have to get
back onto a main highway. Junior spent much of the afternoon plotting our course to Canberra via Melbourne on the map while Copper and Archer stripped and cleaned all of our firearms.
“So those Dead that were wandering around us in the rain the other day, do you think they were following us too?” Apocalypse Girl asked me. I answered that I didn't, and that I thought there was a good chance they had joined up with the group from the commune.
“It seems like once they think they've found someone to eat, they just keep on coming...” The Twin interjected. Her voice lowered. “Do you think those two back there will stop them for long?”
Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 1): January Page 8