End Times V: Kingdom of Hell

by Shane Carrow

  Aaron hesitated. Yes.

  Well? Where?

  I should probably talk to the captain…

  Oh my God. You are fucking kidding me.

  It’s not my call, Aaron said testily. It’s not yours either, or Blake’s…

  Aaron, just tell me where the fucking…

  But he was gone.

  I sat there in the dark for a while, maybe as long as an hour, silently fuming. Jones was still whimpering in his sleep; Jess was shifting a lot on her couch, as though she wasn’t sleeping at all. Cavalli got up and quietly went upstairs, relieving Blake; he came back down soon after, moving in the dark as silently as a cat, lying down where Cavalli had been. I was sitting with my back propped against the wall, pretending to sleep.

  Aaron had no right to keep it from me. It was information that was inside my head, somewhere, anyway. How dare he? The only reason I couldn’t remember was because of what he’d done in the fucking first place, him and the goddamn spaceship, playing around with a process they didn’t really understand…

  Then he was back. I went and woke Tobias up, he said. He thinks you guys are our best shot at getting the codebook back. So you’re clear to go and fetch it.

  Why, thank you, master, I said.

  Matt, he said. If you get caught again…

  We can’t think about that. We need to just get it and go. Now is the time, all right? So stop fucking around and tell me where I hid it.

  As soon as he told me, I remembered – just like a lot of other things, as soon as somebody else mentioned it, it flooded back in. I could remember it properly now.

  Matt, Aaron said. I’m really, truly sorry about what me and the Endeavour did. I’m sorry what happened…

  Don’t be sorry, I said. If you hadn’t done it I would have snapped. And afterwards, later… I wanted to tell him but I couldn’t remember anymore. So it was for the best.

  It was horrible, Matt. I was trying to talk to you and you didn’t know who you were, you didn’t know where you were. You were so scared, and there wasn’t anything I could do…

  Aaron, I said. It’s fine. Stop talking about it. I need to sleep.

  All right. Good luck, Matt. Stay in touch. Let me know…

  Yeah. Yeah, I will. Goodnight.

  I cut the signal. Aaron seemed a little hesitant to stop talking. I could feel the guilt coming off him, through the mental waves.

  Well. He should feel guilty. Not for the mental trick, the memory escape. I can’t blame him for that. But for going off to ask Tobias, definitely. And for…

  For being down there. While I was up here.

  I tried to sleep for a while, stretched out on the lino, my backpack as a pillow. I felt exhausted mentally and physically, but sleep was uneasy. I kept starting awake, unsure where I was, thinking I was back in the cell before I heard the others breathing and remembering we’d broken out.

  In the morning, Blake addressed us all – everyone except Rahvi, who was up on watch. “Listen up,” he said. “This is a little unusual, but it’s an unusual situation. We’re all very lucky to be here, to be alive, and if we want that to continue we’re going to have to work together. And there’s things some of you need to know. We all have to be on the same page.

  “Now, Matt, Corporal Rahvi and Petty Officer Cavalli all know exactly what we’re doing here and what’s at stake. Airman Jones isn’t supposed to know, but I imagine Cavalli filled him in on a bit during their time together on the ground. Is that correct?”

  Jones and Cavalli glanced at each other, and Cavalli said, “Yes, sir. I felt it was necessary.”

  Blake nodded. “That’s fine. I doubt anybody’s going to chew you out over protocol if we make it back to Jagungal. Not as bad as who I’m about to leak it to, anyway.” He looked over at Jess and Zhou. Jess was sitting on the edge of the pool table, while Zhou was half-leaning against the back of a couch with his arms folded. “A lot of this is for you two,” Blake went on. “Before I answer any of your questions I need to know what you know. Or what you think you know. New England’s official line on the... presence... in Ballarat is that it’s a gateway to hell. Now, I realise that’s not universally accepted among the public, but the Bible-thumpers were running the asylum and nobody was going to argue. So what do you believe?”

  Zhou snorted a laugh. “How the hell are we supposed to know? I’ve heard everything from scientific base to gateway to hell to alien crash landing. It’s all bullshit. All made up by somebody, somewhere, trying to scare people. I don’t think there’s anything down there at all.”

  Blake shifted his gaze to Jess. She shrugged. “My dad believed the government line,” she said. “I never really thought about it. Had other stuff to worry about, day to day. What are you saying? That you know what it really is?”

  Blake looked around at the rest of us. “Yes. We do. It’s just a question of whether you believe us or not.”

  “Well, go on,” Zhou said.

  Blake exhaled. “All right. Well, to keep it short: the alien crash landing is closest to the truth. There is a hostile extra-terrestrial force on the ground there. And it’s not the only site. There are others, around the world. We don’t fully understand it. But it was no crash landing. They came here intentionally. And we know it’s what caused the rise of the undead.”

  They stared back at him. “And how do you know this?” Zhou said.

  “Because the military was first on scene in January, when it came down,” Blake said. “Because we have survivor testimony and satellite photographs. And because it’s not the only extra-terrestrial presence in Australia. There are others around the world, from the same faction, the same race. But there’s also a different one entirely. One hostile to them, and friendly to us. And that one did crash. It came down in the Snowy Mountains, in a place called Jagungal.”

  “The mountain base,” Jess said. “The government base. There’s rumours about that, too.”

  Sergeant Blake nodded. “I know. I’ve heard all kinds of stuff myself. But that place is friendly, and safe, and that’s where we come from. Me and Rahvi and Matt, anyway. Cavalli’s from the HMAS Canberra; Jones was part of a skeleton RAAF crew in Brisbane. We were sent up there to retrieve a nuclear warhead from the USS Abraham Lincoln. Draeger got wind of that, and sent forces up to intercept us. We got the nuke. But we barely got out of Brisbane with our lives, and then our plane was shot down. That much you know.”

  “What do you want a nuke for?” Jess asked.

  “Ballarat,” Zhou said. “Right? That must be it.”

  Blake nodded. “The nuke came down with the plane in a controlled crash landing, and the survivors aboard managed to get it free and get south before the Republic could get its hands on it. But the launch codebook got blown right out of the plane when they fired on us. Matt went after it, parachuted out, along with some others. Which is why he’s been playing cat and mouse all month, trying to keep it out of Draeger’s hands and get it south. Without the codebook, the nuke is useless.

  “He hid the codebook before being caught. It’s not far from here. We’re going to retrieve it, and then we’re heading south. Any questions?”

  “Do you mean…” Jess said. “There are aliens? In the Snowy Mountains? You’ve met aliens?”

  “No,” I said. “Just the ship. It’s intelligent. I know it sounds crazy, but you can see it for yourself. It talks to you.” Privately, I was grateful to Blake for editing out some of my more personal details about exactly how we’d found that ship, and exactly what my relationship to it was.

  “In Ballarat, then? Aliens?”

  “Machines,” Blake said. “Intelligent machines, hostile to life. There’s been a war going on for a long time, or so they say. All this – the undead, everything that’s happened to us – that’s us getting caught up in it. We’re just lucky this other ship is here, to give us a bit of insight, to help us fight back.”

  “So you drop a bomb on Ballarat, and then what?” Zhou said. “Everyone’s still dead.�
��

  “Yes,” Blake said. “But it’s the ground stations – not just Ballarat, but around the world – that are keeping the dead reanimated. So if we can take them all out, the undead plague is over. And maybe we can start rebuilding.”

  They stared at him for a while, a mix of emotions on their face. It sounded crazy. It sounded easy to disbelieve. But they knew the plane had been carrying a nuke – New England radio had been harping on about it for long enough – and they knew Blake really was from the SAS. They knew there must be something down in Ballarat, too. So maybe it wasn’t so hard to accept.

  But the concept, after everything they’d been through, that we could put an end to it… where had I been when I’d learned that? How had I reacted? I don’t think it had been lumped out to me like that. It had been a gradual discovery, for all of us in Jagungal, up in the shell of the Endeavour.

  “So you’re going to save the world?” Jess said.

  “What’s left of it, anyway,” I said.

  “I don’t believe it,” Zhou said. “I’m sorry – the dead are one thing, but I don’t believe that any more than the gateway to hell.”

  “It’s hard to swallow, I know,” Blake said. “But if you’re going to be with us, you need to know the truth.”

  I flicked through the journal, found the photograph of us standing outside the Endeavour, walked over to Zhou and showed it to him. He studied it for a moment, then shook his head and handed it back. “That’s just a mound of snow. That could be anything.”

  “Why would we make this up?” Blake said. “Anyway, you’re coming with us whether you believe it or not, because we need a local guide.”

  Zhou frowned. “I’ve got a network to get back in touch with. I’ve got people who are relying on me. I need to know who survived…”

  “Mate,” Blake said. “Your network is gone. The Patriots are gone. I was working at the university during the crackdown. There were public executions every other day. You’re not going to find anyone. Your best chance to survive is to come south with us.”

  Zhou frowned, and didn’t say anything.

  “To the border, at least,” Blake said. “South of Tamworth. You can pick up information along the way. If you want to go then, you can go.” He’d collected his pack and his rifle. “Cavalli, Jones, with me. We need to go do some recon, see how much the ant’s nest is stirred up. You three stay put. Rahvi’s in charge until I get back, understood?”

  They gathered their things and headed upstairs. Zhou turned to look at Jess. “You can’t really believe this?”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “I just want to stay alive.”

  “Let me see that photo again,” Zhou said to me.

  “Look at it all you want,” I said. I hadn’t trusted him before, but I felt sorry for him now – this rebel suddenly without a cause, his underground faction mercilessly hunted down and executed. “The best proof you’re going to see is if you come back to Jagungal with us.”

  “You’re really not bullshitting, are you?” Jess said curiously.

  I closed my eyes. I remembered the Endeavour’s valley: the spindrift snow hissing down from the peaks, the twisted forests of snow gums, the big blue shape lying across the valley like a beached whale. That friendly, comforting presence, always there, always in your ear.

  “There’s really…” I said. “There’s really nothing like it, you know? The day we got there. The day we found it. To know that there really was a reason behind everything, it wasn’t just this horrible thing that happened. And that there was something we could do about it. That we could fight back. It’s never been the same since then.”

  She looked at me oddly, but didn’t say anything more. Zhou was still staring at the photo.

  It’s a hard thing to accept, to believe, without proof. I wish we had Tobias’ intel folder, the one with all the satellite photos of the machine base in Ballarat. That’d help them out. But I guess they’ll just have to take it on faith.

  October 2

  It rained again last night, quite heavily. Good. Makes things more difficult for search parties.

  Blake, Rahvi and Cavalli took advantage of the cover and went to scout out the area and search through a few other abandoned farmhouses in the vicinity. They returned around dawn, with enough food to see us out a few more days, some scant ammunition, and a respectable amount of medical supplies, which we’re all in need of. The thing I worry about most is my severed fingers. My left hand is still swathed in bandages wet with blood and pus. Sergeant Blake is worried it’s already infected, and prioritised me for antibiotics. I don’t like the thought of going south like this. It was one thing to sleep rough after I parachuted out of the Globemaster, when I was mostly uninjured. Traipsing through the bush in the state I’m in now is just asking for a life-threatening infection.

  But I guess we don’t have a choice.

  They found an old-school transistor radio, too. Blake tinkered with it for a few hours before getting it up and running. We don’t get great reception down here in the basement, but we managed to cling to the airwaves long enough to get this little snippet, fractured by static.

  “...reckless decisions which endanger the life of every man, woman and child in New England. All military personnel… high alert… any citizens displaying sympathy or solidarity with Major Stewart, Colonel Fitzgerald, Colonel Eddings or any other mutineers are to be immediately… outbreak in Armidale is being brought under control. Despite General Draeger’s death… New England… beacon of light in a cold, dead world. We will not perish. We will not...”

  The broadcast drifted away into static, and though Blake fiddled with the knob he couldn’t get the signal back. “What the hell?” I said. “How do they know Draeger’s dead?”

  “They know he was abducted,” Blake replied, without looking up from the radio. “My guess would be that whoever’s in charge now has either assumed the worst, or just said we killed him on the spot.”

  “‘The outbreak in Armidale is being brought under control’,” Rahvi quoted. “That’s not good. If it was actually under control they’d just say so.”

  “Was that us?” Jones asked nervously. “Did we cause that?”

  I thought of all those dead soldiers scattered around campus. Blake’s C4 had mostly blown their heads off, but not all of them. Then there were the deaths at the carpark. But surely New England could handle something like that? Unless there were other things going on. Unless the decapitation of their leadership had thrown things into disarray.

  “What was that about the other officers?” Cavalli asked.

  “Colonel Fitzgerald is in charge of Tamworth,” Jess said. “Eddings is the governor of Moree. I don’t know who Stewart is.”

  “He runs the show in Inglewood, over the Queensland border,” Zhou said.

  “So, what?” Cavalli said. “All his lieutenants are carving up the pie?”

  “Yes,” Blake said. “Right now it’ll just be declarations of secession, or arguments that they’re best suited to take over the entire Republic. But Draeger was the one keeping it all together, right from the start. Best case scenario, it breaks down into a bunch of little fortress towns. Worst case scenario, they mobilise their troops and it’s an all-out war.” He looked right at me. “With a lot of innocent people caught in the crossfire.”

  “You want to talk about innocent people?” I said coldly. “I’m not the one who broke a bunch of people out of jail only to send them off in a fucking helicopter to their deaths!”

  “You don’t know that they’re dead,” Blake said sharply.

  “And you don’t know a civil war will start just because Draeger’s gone,” I said. “And you know what? If one does, it’ll be your fault. You’re the one who took him out of the equation and dragged him off into the bush. If I hadn’t killed him he’d still be handcuffed to the fucking pinball machine, there’d still be a fucking power vacuum, and all his majors and colonels and whatever the fuck would still be seizing the day. So don�
��t sit there and fucking pin this on me!”

  The radio was crackling static. Blake switched it off, and the basement plunged into complete silence. Everybody was looking at me. Blake’s face had that familiar expression of cold fury.

  He raised a finger, pointing at the stairwell. “Go on watch,” he said. “Now.”

  I stood up, grabbed the journal and some food, and went. Here I am now, staring out the window. It’s raining again, not too heavily, and I can see a clear patch of sky coming in from over the eastern mountains. Storm clearing.

  I didn’t come up here because he told me to. I came up here because I wanted to leave that environment down there, that tension, all those stares.

  Everybody knows I’m right.

  October 3

  Jones woke up screaming last night, thrashing around in his bedding and lashing out at Rahvi and Cavalli when they tried to calm him. A torture nightmare. Back there again, in the cell.

  I’ve had a few of those myself. Not enough to make me scream, but I’ve woken up gasping for air a few times. Feeling the pain on my chest and face. Remembering Draeger’s face, his little pleased-with-himself smirk. My fingers still hurt like fuck. Rahvi changed the bandages on them today, splashed some disinfectant on the stumps, but we don’t have any painkillers. And I can feel them moving sometimes – the fingers that aren’t there. Itching, or wriggling about, bending back and forth. It makes it hard to get to sleep. Rahvi says it’s called phantom pain. It happens to a lot of amputees. It stays with you your whole life.

  It’s raining again.

  October 4

  Four days now we’ve been cooped up in this farmhouse. Four days of waiting. Impossible. I want to get out of here, want to get out of New England and never come back. Bulletins and chatter come in over the radio; talk of rebellion in the outer strongholds, of officers jockeying for power in the wake of Draeger’s death. They try to cover it up, try to say everything’s under control, but you have to read between the lines. The fact that they mention it at all means it must be pretty bad. I hope it is. I hope the soldiers pour out into the streets and gun each other down. I hope people get caught in the crossfire. I hope the dead all rise up again and hunt down the living, and I hope that by the end of the year there’s not a single person left alive in this wretched hellish shit of a “republic.” New England can burn to the ground for all I care.