End Times V: Kingdom of Hell

by Shane Carrow

  At first light I gave up the pretence of trying to sleep, and staggered to my feet to keep moving. I was reaching for my rifle when someone barked out:

  “Freeze! Hands in the air!”

  I froze all right. Like a deer in the headlights – only for a split second, ready to fight or fly. I scanned the trees looking for the speaker. A man standing in the bush not fifteen metres away, holding a bolt-action rifle pointed right at my chest.

  “Keep your hands in the air!” he yelled. “Where I can see them! Don’t move.”

  I raised my hands as high as I could – not much, given how exhausted I was.

  “Who are you?” I asked. It was the first time I’d spoken in days, and I was surprised by how hoarse my voice sounded, and how much my throat hurt. But I was angry. “Are you the one who’s been following me?”

  “What?”

  “Are you the one who killed my friends?” I yelled, and immediately regretted it. My throat felt like a razor blade was lodged inside it.

  He came a little closer, stepping carefully over fallen branches. “I’ve never killed anybody,” he said.

  I realised that he was telling the truth – or at least that he wasn’t who I’d thought he was. His rifle was a rusty piece of shit, and only a .22 by the looks of it. Whoever had been sniping us had something much better than that. He was in his forties or fifties, balding, wearing cargo pants and a ratty blue jumper.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m nobody.”

  “Looks to me like you’re a soldier from New England.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your face. What happened?”

  I reached a hand towards my face, and he started forward suddenly, finger tense on the trigger.

  “Whoa!” I said. “Whoa! Calm down!”

  “Keep your hands up,” he growled. “It’s not hard.”

  “Okay. Sorry. It’s just… I forget about my face. It wasn’t that long ago. Not a lot of mirrors out here.”

  “What happened?” he repeated.

  I closed my eyes for a moment. I hadn’t realised how weak I was – even standing up was difficult. “I was tortured. In New England. They cut my face up, they electrocuted me, they branded me. Cut some fingers off.”

  He glanced at my mummified left hand. “Why are you wearing a uniform?”

  “Took it off the guy I killed. When I escaped. When New England collapsed. You know it collapsed?”

  “Yeah, we’ve got a radio. But I wouldn’t say that. Collapsing, maybe. Not collapsed. Not yet. Why were you being tortured?”

  He was letting up slightly; less frightened, less suspicious. Not trusting me, but not distrusting me either. I could feel it coming off him.

  And for the first time – not the first time it happened, but the first time I actually realised it – I understood it wasn’t just basic human intuition, wasn’t just reading somebody’s body language. It was something to do with the gift Aaron and I have, with our telepathic heritage. I’d have to ask the Endeavour about that. If I ever made it home.

  “Because I’m in the Army,” I said – a simple enough mistruth. “The real Army, the real government, on Christmas Island. We were coming down from Brisbane with a cargo, in a plane, and they shot us down. Maybe you heard about that. I have to get back south. Back to the Snowy Mountains.”

  “Bullshit,” the guy said.

  “Believe me or don’t, I don’t care,” I said. “Can I go now?”

  He looked at me for a while, then said, “I guess. If you want. But if you’re really coming from New England, I’d like to talk to you for a bit. I can give you some food and a place to sleep. Just so long as you let me hold onto that rifle for now.” A pause. “Well?”

  I didn’t have much of a choice. In this state I wouldn’t make it more than a few kilometres before collapsing. “Okay,” I said.

  His told me his name was Mick. He slung both rifles onto his back and led me through the forest, tramping through undergrowth and fording creeks. We didn’t talk much – Mick insisted that we keep our ears peeled for the dead. “You get zombies out here?” I asked. The ones we’d encountered in New England had been fresh, from the fighting; I’d hoped that out here in the mountains, even ten months on, it was remote enough that it wasn’t too much of a worry.

  “Sometimes,” he said. “One every few days, maybe. But they’ll only sneak up on you if you’re not paying attention. So shut up.”

  I shut up. Didn’t have much energy for talking anyway.

  After a while we came to a cliff wall where thick vegetation was running down the sides, vines and leaves and flowering plants. We followed it for a while, pushing along a rabbit trail, until eventually we came to a gap where the vines and creepers thinned out – a cave.

  Mick pulled a flashlight from his pocket, and motioned for me to follow him inside. It was a tight squeeze, but the cave widened out after a moment. It was still narrow, but the ceiling was high, and after a few moments we came to a steep cliff. There was a faint light glowing from above the lip. An able-bodied man (which I guess I no longer am, with this hand) could probably wedge himself between the walls and clamber up it, but instead Mick called out “Charlie! It’s me!”

  A pause, then a bearded face appeared at the edge. “Who the hell is that?” he said.

  “His name’s Matt. He’s all right, don’t worry.”

  Charlie looked suspicious, but threw a crude rope ladder down anyway. Mick climbed up first, and I followed. At the top of the ledge was another small and high-ceilinged cave, maybe a bit larger than the average living room. There were three camping bedrolls with some thick sleeping bags, and boxes of supplies scattered around the place – tinned food, a medical kit, camping utensils, a tiny gas stove, and a Tilley lamp providing the scene with a warm glow. I counted two more bolt-actions leaning against the wall, and several boxes of ammunition stacked neatly atop a carton of bottled water.

  There was also a young girl, whom I almost didn’t notice, sitting at the edge of the light in the corner of the cave. She was maybe five or six years old, staring at me with wide eyes.

  “Why’d you bring him here?” Charlie asked.

  “He needs food,” said Mick, pulling up the rope ladder behind us, “and some fresh bandages. And he can tell us what’s going on in New England.”

  They heated a tin of baked beans up on the stove for me, and I wolfed it down, almost crying with relief, while they asked me questions. I answered them more or less truthfully, repeating what I’d said to Mick – that I’d been in Brisbane with the Army, that we’d been flying south, that we’d been shot down and captured and tortured. And now I was free, and heading south.

  “They said on the radio that plane was carrying a nuke,” Charlie said.

  “It was,” I said. “The Navy dredged it up from an American aircraft carrier that sank back in January. They shot us down because they wanted it. Draeger wanted it.”

  “Jesus,” Charlie said. “Not a pleasant thought. Did they end up with it?”

  “Doesn’t really matter, does it?” Mick said. “It’s all going to shit up there now.”

  They didn’t ask me why we’d been transporting a nuke – seemed to take it as a given that it might be something the Army was interested in. Instead they asked me about what had been happening in New England; the fight over Tamworth, the outbreak in Armidale, the brewing civil war among Draeger’s lieutenants. I told them as much as I could, though it wasn’t much more than they’d picked up from the radio.

  “Your squad,” Mick said, since I’d told them I was travelling with others. “What happened to them?”

  “Dead,” I said. “We got to a town called Nundle and our sergeant got sniped. Then... whoever it was, they must have followed us, and they attacked us again when we were burying him. We had to ditch the car and run into the bush. We got separated. Some of the others are still alive, I hope. I do
n’t know.”

  “When was this?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “And you haven’t seen any of them since?”

  “No. Haven’t seen the sniper either. Hoping I’ve lost him.”

  They glanced at each other. “And now what?” Mick said. “You’re going to try to get back on foot? To… where was it?”

  “The Snowy Mountains,” I said. “Near Jindabyne. But not all the way on foot, no. I just need to get further away from New England and I can call in an extraction.”

  “For one soldier?” Charlie said. “How would you even radio them?”

  “I’ll find a way,” I said.

  Charlie just frowned. Mick was looking at me oddly.

  After I’d finished eating, Mick carefully unwound the filthy bandages on my wounded hand, disinfected it and replaced them with clean ones. The little girl remained in the corner, never taking her eyes off me. When Charlie heated up a tin of food for her, he had to spoon it straight into her mouth, like a baby. She never said a word.

  I was still exhausted, having trouble keeping my eyes open. After a while they let me lie down on one of the bedrolls, and I fell asleep almost instantly.

  I slept through the rest of that day, and most of the night as well, apart from the usual interruptions by nightmares. There was a brief interlude in the evening, when I woke for a little while to the sound of the two of them speaking. They were arguing about me in low voices. Mick thought I was telling the truth, Charlie thought I was just a deserter from New England. From the look of them – and the way they spoke to each other – I realised they were brothers. Eventually I drifted back off to sleep.

  When I woke in the morning, Mick was gone. The little girl was asleep in one of the other bedrolls. Charlie was sitting next to her, looking at me. “You should go now,” he said bluntly.

  “Thanks for the food,” I said. “And the bandages.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. I pulled my boots on, grabbed my Steyr and climbed down the rope ladder.

  Outside the cave, I blinked in the bright morning sunlight. Mick was sitting on a log not far from the cave mouth, fiddling with the dials on a transistor radio. “I’ve got my marching orders,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Sit with me a second,” he said.

  I sat down beside him on the log, listening to the warbling and scratching as he shifted the dial, faint voices across the radio waves. “The Snowy Mountains,” Mick said. “You know they say all kinds of things about the government base in the Snowy Mountains, on the radio. If you listen long enough.”

  “I know.”

  “So how much of it is true?”

  “You should come with me,” I said. “Find out for yourself.”

  He made a clicking noise with his tongue.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “I’m ahead of the wave a bit. But there are going to be a lot of people coming out of New England if it goes to shit. Refugees. Just like January. A lot of people coming through here, a lot of people with guns. It’s going to be ugly.”

  It was selfish, sure – I would have liked them to come with me. Even carrying a five-year-old kid with them, it would have been better and safer than travelling on my own. But it was still true. They had a good set-up there, they were well-hidden, but there were going to be an awful lot of desperate people coming south over the next few weeks.

  “I’d like to,” he said. “But it’s not my decision.”

  I realised why. “Because Charlie’s the dad,” I said. “And you’re the uncle.”

  “Correct.”

  We listened to the radio warbling a little longer. “Well,” I said. “I’d better go. If you change your mind, you know where to come. Thank you again for your help.”

  “Wait,” Mick said. He took a map out of his back pocket and unfolded it. “Take a look at this. It’s our only map, so I can’t give it to you, but it shouldn’t be too hard to remember. Keep heading south, and you’ll come to Hunter Road. Follow that to the west, and it links back up with the New England Highway. Follow that all the way to Muswellbrook, and then just head south-west from there. If you keep heading south-east the country gets a lot rougher, and it’s nothing but national park. Nothing to scavenge, no food.” His finger traced over the trails and roads, and I stared at it for a while trying to memorise the markings and distances.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “No worries. Good luck, Matt.”

  “You too.”

  I turned and headed off back down the creek, past the cliff face, leaving him fiddling with his radio. I was never going to see any of them ever again. I genuinely do believe they’d be better off if they’d come with me. But that’s the problem with survival instinct – it doesn’t take into account the big picture. People find a safe little bolt-hole like that and they cling to it. No matter how unsustainable it is in the long run. No matter what threats might be looming on the horizon.

  October 14

  No road. I must have misjudged Mick’s map. The mountains and bushland seem to go on forever. Gum tree after gum tree after gum tree. I killed a rabbit and ate it raw. I would have cooked it, but I have nothing to light a fire with. Not a cloud in the sky. During the day the heat leaves sweat rolling freely down my face, but after sunset it’s so cold my teeth shiver. I thought I heard undead hunting screams, but it was just a bird of prey. Or my imagination.

  Last night I dreamed of cities awash with people.

  October 15

  I arrived at Hunter Road this morning, a two-lane blacktop winding through the valleys of the northern tablelands. The bush had started giving way to pastoral land again as I reached the fringes of the national park, and I could glimpse the occasional shed or outbuilding. No farmhouses, no people, no signs of life. Some paddocks had huge white swathes of bones amid the overgrown grass – cattle or sheep left to die in the long summer while human society collapsed around them.

  I followed the road south-west, sticking to the trees at the edge so I could hide if need be, but no vehicles passed. After a couple of hours I came to a tiny township, a speckle of houses clustered around the road, with a sign reading “ELLERSTON.”

  I crept around the place, scoping it out from a few different angles, before deciding it was clear as it was going to get. I still avoided walking down the main street, and instead approached from the bush that fringed it on both sides, sticking to the shadows and eaves, treading carefully. There was no wind, and the whole place was eerily quiet. It reminded me of Nundle, which was only natural – every tiny country town looks the same around here – but it was still disturbing.

  I searched some of the houses. They were oddly lavish for a country town, and some had framed photos on the walls of people I vaguely recognised – maybe it was a rural retreat for some B-list Australian celebrity. Most of everything had been cleared out long ago, although in one house I did find an untouched medicine cabinet with some Panadeine and antibiotics, thank God. I’m worried about my hand, my finger stumps, the dull ache and itch. If I get an infection out here, I’m finished.

  I was out on the main road again, going to investigate the houses on the other side of town in the hope of finding some food, when I heard a vehicle approaching from the north-east.

  My adrenaline flared and I ducked down into a flowerbed overgrown with weeds and pig melons. I unshouldered my Steyr and, lying on my belly, squinted down the scope up the north-east road.

  It was a motorcycle, travelling slowly as it approached the town, maybe fifty kilometres an hour. The rider was dressed in black and had a rifle strapped to his back. When he was a few hundred metres away from the edge of town he pulled over to the edge of the road and crouched down behind his bike. Flipping the visor of his helmet up, he raised a pair of bulky binoculars to his eyes.

  I remained perfectly still. He was too far away and well-shielded by his bike for me to be certain of a shot. He peered through his binoculars for a few minutes before unshouldering his rifle and restin
g it on the seat of his bike.

  As he stared down the scope at the town, I realised two things that chilled my blood. The first was that his rifle was a military model sniper rifle – an unfolding bipod, thick stock, a scope as long as my forearm – which made me almost certain this was the sniper who’d attacked us at Nundle.

  The second was that he’d seen me. He was aiming directly at me.

  I rolled to the side just as the first bullet tore through the weeds and the grass, a pig melon exploding into a dozen chunky pieces. I had a second as he worked the bolt – and then another bullet, ripping through the greenery, but I was already scrambling to my feet, dragging my Steyr after me, bursting back inside the front door of the house.

  Window! my brain screamed. Quickly quickly quickly window! I raced up the stairs to the second floor, pushed into a bedroom smelling of mould, and peered out the window down the road.

  Bad idea. He’d already refocused, guessed where I was going to go, and the window shattered in my face. I stumbled backwards with glass stinging my forehead, blood running into my eyes. For a moment I thought I’d been hit, but it was just glass fragments. I stumbled back downstairs and out the back door of the house, mind racing, trying to figure out what the fuck I should do.

  I wasn’t running. No. Not with him here, not with the battle begun. This man had murdered at least three of my friends in cold blood. One of us was going to die here in Ellerston. I didn’t care if it was me, but I was going to do my fucking best to make sure it was him.

  I jumped a low fence into the neighbouring backyard, and again into the next one. A dog’s skeleton leashed to a verandah post, a swimming pool covered in a layer of mouldy green algae. This house was raised on a low array of stilts, like a Queenslander. I dropped to the ground and wriggled beneath it.

  It wasn’t ideal. The lawn at the front of the house was overgrown, so there were only a few gaps where I could make out the road, and peering all the way to a spot a hundred metres past the edge of town was out of the question. But I lay there, and listened, and waited.