End Times: The Wasteland

by Shane Carrow

  Without trying to catch him out, I could tell Geoff was looking at the number tattooed on my left hand. “Kalgoorlie’s a long way away, you know,” he said.

  “It’s not,” I snapped. “It’s really fucking not. Fuel up the car and we can be there in eight hours.”

  “Yeah, and these days eight hours is a long way.”

  “Eight hours of nothing. Eight hours of desert. What do they have to do, make one left turn? At Norseman?”

  “Matt,” Geoff said. “They’re not coming here.”

  “It doesn’t have to be them,” I said. “It could be anyone. You saw that fucking convoy the other day.”

  “Yeah,” Geoff said. “I did. Whatever comes, we’ll handle it. Together. All of us. But in the meantime... let people play their games, or whatever. Pass the time. Get through it.”

  And then he was off on his patrol again. He didn’t want to face the big question, which is: what are we doing? What’s the rest of the world doing? If we don’t have to worry about surviving day to day, then what’s our long-term plan? Where do we see ourselves in five years? Or five months, really?

  He doesn’t want to ask the hard questions. I guess I don’t either. I just want someone to give me a pleasant answer.

  April 11

  We had a town meeting today in the pub. Sergeant Varley says we have to do a supply run and he’s decided on Esperance as the safest course. “About a month ago, Jonas showed up in that semi-trailer and saved our bacon,” he said, nodding to a guy sitting at the back of the pub – mid-forties, beard, flannel shirt. Everyone applauded and Jonas looked uncomfortable. “That trailer had a month’s worth of food in it and that’s what got us this far. Well, it’s gonna be gone soon and we need to take the truck back out and refill it. Pretty simple maths, really. So we need volunteers for Esperance.”

  There was a bit of shouting and bustling, questions about why he’d picked Esperance over Ceduna, to the Nullarbor’s east. (Nobody questioned his authority to pick in the first place.) Varley explained that we had a number of people from Esperance, we had more news about WA than SA, and Esperance generally seemed to be the safer choice. Not that either could properly be called “safe.” Once again, he asked for volunteers.

  I put my hand up – a lot of people did. Arguments broke out, since some people weren’t too thrilled with their son or their girlfriend or whoever going on a dangerous mission. For that matter, I wasn’t thrilled with Ellie putting her hand up as well.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I said. “You’re pregnant.”

  “So?” she said. “Baby’s gotta eat.”

  “Yeah, but you can let someone else get the food!”

  “Why shouldn’t I go?”

  I didn’t have a response for that, because it seemed self-evident to me – so self-evident I couldn’t explain why. Fortunately her dad was on my side. “Matt’s right,” Geoff said. “Don’t be fucking ridiculous.” Ellie rolled her eyes.

  Varley calmed the meeting down by banging his empty thermos on the table. “Alright, alright!” he said. “Anyone who wants to go, put your names down. We don’t need everyone. We’re not going to take off and leave the joint undefended. Put your names down, and I’ll choose.”

  Nearly everyone at Eucla was at the meeting. Almost all of us put our names down. I doubt I’ll be chosen.

  It feels a bit weird, yeah, volunteering for it. It’s not a prize, not some kind of treat. A convoy to Eucla will go via Norseman, not very far from Kalgoorlie, where I have no desire to ever go again. But like I said to Geoff yesterday: Eucla’s not very far from Kalgoorlie anyway. And we need to get food. We need to go. I’d rather be out there with a gun, looking for supplies, than sitting in here waiting.

  Ellie was distant tonight – didn’t talk to me at dinner, went straight up to our room. I’m sitting down here in the pub, alone with a Tilley lamp. Either she’s mad at me because I sided with Geoff and said she shouldn’t go, or she’s mad at me because I put my own name down.

  So I’m going to be a dad – so what? Half the men here are dads too. That’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to go risk things for your family. You’re supposed to put yourself in harm’s way. And she didn’t seem to have any problem doing it herself.

  April 12

  Varley came and saw me and Aaron today, while we were eating breakfast, and told us we’re both on the supply team. So is Geoff, and Colin, and Simon, and Alan. “Aiming for a team of fifteen, I reckon,” Varley said. “Not too big, not too small. Take the semitrailer, plus a few four-wheel drives, get in and out as quietly as possible.”

  “Why us?” Aaron said.

  “Why not?”

  I glanced at Aaron. “I mean - I’m not complaining, but I just thought... well, we’re eighteen.”

  Varley cut me off. “So you’re an adult. Congratulations. Blokes your age were fighting in Afghanistan. Anyway, age doesn’t mean shit. You’re from Perth, right?”

  “Yeah,” Aaron said.

  “So I know your story,” Varley said. “Down to Albany, then Norseman, then in Kalgoorlie. Then you got out, escaped, came here. That’s more than luck. You can handle yourselves. Just keep your head down and do what you’re told, all right?”

  “So why not Ellie?” I asked. “Because she’s pregnant?”

  “Because she’s a girl,” Varley said, as though it was obvious, and stood up and left.

  “Stick up his arse,” Aaron said, going back to his breakfast.

  “Huh,” I said. “Because she’s a girl. He actually said that.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t think it,’ Aaron said. “Never mind the pregnancy - don’t tell me you don’t think it. Would you just let her waltz off back into all that shit?”

  “Geoff wouldn’t.”

  “I didn’t ask about Geoff.”

  “Well... no,” I admitted. “I wouldn’t want that. But at least I wouldn’t say it.”

  “You’re fucking lucky you’ve got Geoff to hide behind,” Aaron smirked. “She’s gonna be pissed.”

  “Why are we treating this like a trip to Disneyland?” I said. “We’re going to Esperance to poke around for fucking tins of beans. We might all end up dead.” Or back in Kalgoorlie, I thought.

  “We’re not going to end up back in Kalgoorlie,” Aaron said – which was strange, since I was sure I hadn’t said that out loud. “As for why you think it’s such a fucking reward, I dunno, talk to yourself about that. I only signed up because I didn’t want to look like a wuss.”

  “Fair enough.” I prodded at my porridge for a bit. A week ago I would have killed someone for that bowl, but once the hunger’s gone, shitty food is shitty food. “Weird what he said about us being eighteen. I never thought about it like that before.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I dunno. We’re eighteen. We’re adults. That used to mean we didn’t need fake IDs anymore. I didn’t think about the other stuff. Like... now you’re old enough to join the army. Or go to an adult jail. Or whatever. We’re adults.”

  Aaron shrugged. “I guess.”

  I couldn’t put my finger on why that was gnawing me – it’s not like we have an army anymore, or jails, or like anyone is ever going to ask me for ID again. It was only later, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, that I really figured it out.

  The army is the right analogy, because that’s what we’re going to be: infantry. Varley picked us because we’re not valuable. We don’t know how to maintain the desal plant or fly a plane or dress a wound or do anything that a lot of the other adults here know how to do. It’s just like being conscripted back in the world wars. We have no skills except being young, fit, and knowing how to use a gun.

  There’s a word for that. Disposable.

  April 13

  We left just after dawn today. I hadn’t slept much. Too keyed up. Too anxious.

  The centrepiece of the convoy is Jonas Barclay’s Mack truck and his big semitrailer, with WOOLWORTHS: THE FRESH FOOD PEOPLE paint
ed along the side of it, a banner from a bygone era. He had nearly a full load of non-perishables with him when he arrived in Eucla, which is how everyone here got through the last few months, and why he was welcomed with open arms despite being a stranger. Now it’s almost gone. That’s how quickly seventy-eight people go through that much food.

  Other than the truck, we had three four-wheel drives – all of them Toyota Land Cruisers, including the WA Police one with its big whipping radio antenna – and two utes, including the Nissan Patrol me and Aaron drove here from Angus’ camp. Varley thinks it’s unlikely we’ll find more than can fill the semitrailer, but extra storage space can’t hurt.

  So there’s Jonas and Sergeant Varley, of course. There’s me and Aaron. Geoff’s coming. Alan’s coming, although I could tell his age raised a few eyebrows. And Simon Faith, the sheep farmer from Esperance. Two of the German backpackers, Axel and Felix. The other five were men and women I knew by face but not by name. Aaron and I found ourselves riding along in the police car with Sergeant Varley.

  Guns were handed out. Aaron and I were both given bolt-action rifles. Sergeant Varley himself has an M4; that’s the big black assault rifle the American military uses. I’d been puzzled by what that was doing out here, but Varley explained to me - the day I came and asked to see the supply stocktake - that remote police stations often have heavy weaponry, because if anything ever went down out here it would take hours for an armed response team to be flown in from Kalgoorlie or Esperance. By that time you might be looking at another Port Arthur. Therefore Eucla, with jurisdiction over the entire Nullarbor west of the state border, has three shiny M4s under lock and key in the police station.

  Varley brought just one on this expedition. I didn’t ask whether that was because he felt it wise to keep some back for the defence of Eucla, or because he didn’t want to share.

  Anyway. The rest of us just have an assortment of bolt-actions, handguns and shotguns. Alan has his semi-auto. Geoff has the Steyr Aug he brought from Albany, as does a bloke called Anthony, a farmer from the Wheatbelt – God knows where his came from. Gun politics in Eucla are complicated. For all his talk about this not being China, or the USSR, or whatever his Communist bugbear of the day is, I can tell Varley would rather seize everything and redistribute it according to expertise. But he hasn’t, because it would cause too much strife. Everybody’s gone through different ordeals to get here and some of us happened to luck our way into heavy weaponry and would be loath to give it up. Geoff and Anthony, at least, grew up with guns and know what they’re doing – but a lot of people didn’t, which I guess is why Varley didn’t pick them to come, even though there are more than a few people back there with Steyr Augs.

  As the convoy pulled out onto the western highway, I had to admit I was feeling excited. Only two weeks in Eucla and I’d been getting cabin fever. Ellie said I was like a caged tiger. Now we were doing something. Just a supply run, sure, but it was something. It was a step towards the future. The last time I’d been on this road I’d been a muddy, bloodied refugee, fleeing in terror from the monsters in Kalgoorlie. Now I was clean and well-fed and well-rested and had a gun in my hands and a convoy full of friends, V8 engines roaring down the Eyre Highway, thousands of rounds of ammo locked and ready to rock. This must have been what it felt like to drive out of the Green Zone in Baghdad.

  “Don’t look so fucking excited,” Aaron muttered. I glanced over at him. He was decidedly not excited – clammy-skinned, nervous, tapping his fingers against the butt of his rifle.

  “Relax,’ I said. “This is different. Not like last time. This time we’re the bad motherfuckers.” I pulled the bolt and loaded a round into the rifle, a satisfying snick-snick noise illustrating my point.

  Sergeant Varley looked at me in the rear-view mirror. “Did you just chamber a round?” he demanded. “Matt? Did you just chamber a round inside my car? Take that out. Take that the fuck out, right now! This isn’t a game!”

  I frowned, but did as he said. “I’m just saying...”

  “It’s not a game, Matt,” Aaron said. “Shut the fuck up.”

  I rolled my eyes and looked out the window. OK. It’s not a game. I know that. We could all get killed.

  But we can all get killed any time, for any reason. Something about riding in a convoy with a bunch of friends and guns makes me feel a lot better about that. Excuse for me for feeling optimistic.

  Christ. I really am up and down, aren’t I? The other day I was just about ready to throw myself off the cliffs into the ocean. I dunno. Maybe everyone feels like that.

  All through the day we burned west along the highway, back past Mundrabilla, Madura, Caiguna, all the little shitty petrol stations of the Nullarbor. No sign of the jerks who’d robbed us at Cocklebiddy – I guess they saw the size of the convoy coming and decided discretion was the better part of valour.

  We passed through Norseman a few hours after noon, yet again, the third time I’ve visited that flyspeck town I’d never even heard of before all this. Varley had sent two cars ahead to scout it out and make sure it was clear of zombies or hostiles – we didn’t want to risk the semi getting ambushed as we passed through the streets. Nothing. It was dead and silent. More people must have passed through since we were last there, surely – people have passed through Eucla in that time, and you can’t get to or from Eucla without going through Norseman. But it didn’t look like anybody had stuck around.

  I wonder what happened to that big convoy we saw a few days ago.

  We drove another hour or so south of the town, back down along the highway where me, Aaron, Geoff and Ellie had been ambushed by those scruffy bastards who’d set up obstructions all over the road. Scruffy bastards who, I now realise, had escaped captivity in Kalgoorlie.

  The undead that had been choking the hamlet of Grass Patch were all dead, their corpses scattering the streets; clearly a better-armed force than us had been through there in the past month. A few kilometres south of the town we found a turn-off to some distant homestead or something, at the edge of a nature reserve, a few thousands acres of scraggly bushland in amongst the fields of dead wheat crop. We drove off the road for a few kays, far enough from the main highway that nobody in the night would be able to see the semitrailer. Then we set up camp. It was only midafternoon, but that was always the plan: sleep rough overnight north of Esperance, get an early start hunting for supplies in the morning. Depending on how well it goes, we may even be able to get out of here before noon and sleep in our own beds back in Eucla tomorrow night.

  As night fell we set up sentries, started a campfire, ate a dinner of corn and peas out of cans. Varley and a few of the others are discussing the game plan tomorrow: probably sending the four-wheel drives in to scout the town out, then radioing for Jonas and the semi once we’ve found supplies and secured the area. First port of call is a Toll warehouse on the western edge of town; if that’s been cleared out we’ll have to go a bit deeper, into the town itself. It’s not just food we’re after. Varley wants petrol, spare parts, medicine, maybe ammunition if we can find it.

  Most of the refugees in Eucla came from the Wheatbelt. There are plenty of people who know the town’s layout, but me, Geoff and Aaron are some of the only ones who’ve passed through it after the rise of the undead. We have some basic maps of the town, and Varley made us draw and mark what we remembered. Geoff was the only one who had much to put down. Me and Aaron had been a bit too shellshocked at the time to take things in.

  We’re not really sure what to expect. When we were here six weeks ago it had been virtually clear of undead, but there’d been quite a few surviving humans still lurking about. That may have completely changed, since we would have been at the forefront of the refugees escaping Albany. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s how quickly things can change.

  I’m on the first shift of sentry duty, which is good – it means you get to turn in early instead of being woken up in the middle of the night. It’s pretty cold but there’s no sign o
f any clouds, which is also good, since we’re in swags and sleeping bags out in the open.

  I’d forgotten how bright the stars are out here. Even the few electric lights in Eucla are enough to drown them out. Out here, though, it’s like IMAX. Milky Way, wall to wall. Kinda nice. Never used to see that sort of thing.

  April 14

  An hour after dawn we cruised into Esperance on the highway and immediately cut towards the western edge of town, skirting past half-constructed housing developments, empty railway yards, derelict factories. We were all keyed up but nothing was moving except scraps of rubbish in the wind. A steady line of chatter came over the radio in the police car, as the others all reported that there was nothing to report.

  There were bodies, though, scattered around the place. They didn’t really look like bodies. More like lumps of dark, stained rags. Now and then you’d see a rotting arm outstretched, the sheen of bone, the flesh picked clean by carrion feeders. Nothing moving.

  The Toll warehouse was on the western edge of town with a bunch of other bleak industrial lots, verging up against arid bushland. Jonas said it served as a supply depot for the supermarkets in town. This was what we were betting the farm on. It was this or a long, dangerous, nerve-wracking hunt through the backrooms of every IGA and Woolies and Coles in Esperance.

  We took the three four-wheel drives in, with me, Aaron, Varley, Geoff, Simon, Alan and Anthony. The others had stayed back with Jonas, to be called in once the scene was clear. We’d only skirted the edge of town, but it seemed pretty quiet and we were all optimistic... until we got to the warehouse and found the roller doors at the front padlocked shut, and a skull and crossbones message spraypainted across the sheet metal above a simple message:

  WARNING! DEAD INSIDE

  The seven of us stood there, unsure of ourselves, glancing at each other. It was a windy day, and the gum trees along the fence were thrashing around, thick grey clouds scudding across the sky. An empty Coke can skittered across the gravel before Geoff crunched it under his boot.