Diary of the Displaced Box Set

by Glynn James

  "I'd understand if you wanted to leave now," said Reg.

  "No. I said I'd go with you, and I want to know if these Sisters can help me with my memory. This place, down in the bottom of that building, was where I arrived here with DogThing at some point, but I can't find anything down there apart from a pattern on the ground that makes no sense to me. I'm not going to find out much about myself at this rate. I need someone who can help me remember, and maybe these Sisters of Rahl can help."

  "Then we better head back to the road, grab the trolley and get moving," said Reg.

  We hiked a long way along the road that day, which was clear, apart from a few abandoned vehicles along the side of the road that looked like they had been shunted out of the way by something big, moving fast enough to smash the sides in as it went by. Maybe twenty miles along the road and I caught my first glimpse of the mountains that Reg had spoken of. He also stopped as they appeared, far in the distance, through the dust of the desert.

  "It's strange to be so close after all these years," he said.

  I nodded.

  "We'll find her."

  Roughly five miles later and we saw the edge of a small, ruined town along the road. We made our way slowly and carefully towards it, always wary of what might be waiting for us there.

  It was a one street town, and most of the buildings were blackened ruins, as though the place had been burned to the ground a long time ago. One or two brick buildings still stood, and the one we chose had an upper floor that was mostly intact. No sooner had we set up camp than the rain came again and the bottom floor was the only place that we could find that was moderately sheltered. I don't know where the Maw went, but they seemed to have vanished in amongst the ruined buildings. I could only presume they found their own places to shelter from the rain.

  I did manage to set up a few water traps before attempting to get some sleep.

  Day 44

  The town was infested with zombies, and we hadn't spotted a single sign of it until the damn things came crawling up out of the ruins. Even the Maw hadn't noticed them. I don't know how. Adler thinks that maybe the dust and dirt from the desert had buried everything, that is, before the rain came down. He thought that the desert sands had hidden the scent from the Maw. As soon as the rain began to wash the streets and the buildings clean, the undead came clawing and crawling up from almost every hole and cellar in the town.

  "Wake up," was the shout. It was Reg, and I looked up to the top of the stairs, bleary eyed, to see him holding both of his shotguns. His pack was by his feet.

  "What's going on?" I asked, but then heard the noise. All around us the moans and growling cut through the din of the pouring rain. I stumbled up the stairs, lugging my pack with me, to look out of the broken window.

  A war was raging in the town around us. Through the deluge of rain I could see Maw darting around in the shadows. For one moment one of the plague bearers stumbled out into the street from a doorway of a building a hundred yards away, only to be pulled to the ground by two of the large black Maw.

  I dropped my pack and drew two of my guns, glancing down the stairs. If they came this way and there were a lot of them, we would have to hold this stairway and hope.

  But at that time we had no idea just how many of them there were. To the Maw, these things were almost no danger. They just weren't quick enough to fight back and I'd seen just half a dozen Maw take on hundreds in The Corridor.

  Ten minutes later and the streets were filled with plague bearers. Hundreds of them. Reg and I were huddled down on the top floor, watching the stairs when the first wave of the zombies burst into the building. We both knelt at the top of the stairs, shooting them down one by one as they crawled over the top of each other, trying to get through the door, and to us.

  "Reg, there are too many of them, we have to get out of here."

  "We can't," he shouted back. "The streets are full of them, we wouldn't get through."

  "Then what do we do? There are too many for the Maw to handle. They'll overwhelm us if we stay here."

  "We have too. Hold tight and let your furry friends clear up. There can't be endless numbers of them."

  There was a gap of maybe twenty seconds as some Maw attacked the area outside the front of the building and I realised that if we didn't do something fast, then we might die there. I looked around. Nothing but bricks and stone and...

  The stairway was made of wood.

  Creaky, rotten, brittle, dry wood, that was now even weaker after the rain.

  I put my guns away and quickly grabbed the biggest piece of masonry that I could lift and hauled it over to the stairs, hefting it up as high as I could and letting it drop.

  Crack. One of the steps collapsed as the block smashed through it.

  Then Reg must have realised what I was doing and slung his shotguns, running over to wall and picking up two large bricks. He knelt down by the edge of the stairs and started pounding as hard as he could on the support beam. It cracked and began to collapse further and further with each hit.

  I lifted up the next biggest lump of cemented bricks that I could find and hauled that over to the stairs, just as the doorway filled once more with groaning, crawling bodies. Two of the creatures broke away from the rest of the mass, and stumbled up the bottom of the stairs, falling over themselves to get to us. The first was faster and reached out towards me as I slammed the piece of masonry down on the top of the stairs as hard as I could.

  The whole stairway screeched and cracked as the wood gave way and crashed to the ground floor. I stumbled back as the zombie that had been in front clawed its way up onto the remaining floorboards and reached out for me, grabbing my ankle and making me fumble and drop the gun that I had just drawn.

  "Lie down," shouted Reg, from behind me.

  I threw my shoulders back and lay my head against the wooden floor just as I saw the shotgun barrel inches away.

  One loud blast and the zombie went tumbling away into the mass that was gathering below us.

  I lay there for a moment, breathing heavily, then grabbed my guns and headed over to the window that Reg was now looking out of.

  "It's pitch black out there. I can't see a damn thing, but I can hear your Maw friends doing their thing out there."

  It was pointless lighting a torch. The rain would put it out in seconds.

  Then I saw Rudy below in the street and Adler close behind, they were running through the mass of zombies, flailing their arms around. I'd clean forgotten how deadly my ghost friends were to zombies.

  Rudy rushed through the ones that were trying to cram their way through the doorway and into our building. He didn't even reach out or touch any of them, just ran straight through them and into the downstairs floor. I was shocked to see the ones he ran through dropping to the ground and not moving.

  It would seem that Rudy and Adler only had to touch the things to kill them.

  Less than a minute later and the ground floor was silent. None of the bodies moved. Rudy and Adler had just run around, almost like they were performing some strange and manic dance, dropping the zombies with barely any effort.

  We tried to rest for a few hours, up on the second floor, with Rudy and Adler guarding the downstairs throughout most of the night. I don't think I managed to drop off for more than a few minutes at a time with the constant din outside made by the Maw and the zombies.

  When daylight came, the rain had finally subsided, and Reg and I climbed out of the window and down the wall to get outside, we saw just how many zombies there had been.

  Everywhere, all over the ground were bodies, some pilled two or three high in places. There were enough gaps for us to weave our way between them, but the sheer number was mind-numbing.

  Thousands.

  "Whole damn town must have gotten infected and been sat here waiting for someone to come by for all these years," said Reg, "though I reckon that there is a lot more here than would have lived in just this town."

  DogThing showed up
as we were slowly winding our way through the mess, heading out of the town once more.

  "But where were they hiding?"

  "They weren't," said Adler. "I saw it from down on the street as you were settling in up in the building. They were buried under years and years of desert sand and dust. When the rain came it loosened it all up and they started crawling out of the ground.

  "Crazy."

  "But it must have rained before? They must have been washed out before now?"

  "No," said Reg. "The rain only started a few days ago. I'd never seen anything like it in all the time I've been travelling these lands. Something strange happened just before I met all of you. Something changed and the rain came down. It's never rained like this before."

  "Do you think we did this?" asked Rudy. "Did we do something to make the rain come?"

  "Not anything that I can think of," said Adler.

  "The rain from The Corridor?" I asked.

  Adler looked thoughtful.

  "Do you think that maybe the rain is somehow linked to us? Maybe to the compass?" he asked.

  "I have no idea. But do we know anything about it?"

  Wait

  "DogThing. Did it always rain a lot where we went? I mean before we went to The Corridor."

  "No."

  "No. That's not it then."

  "Look, folks," said Reg. "I hate to break up your little chat, but I think we need to get the hell out of this town. We don't know if that is all of the creatures. There could be more that haven't washed up."

  No arguments there.

  We headed straight out of the town, weaving our way through the mass of torn bodies. My stomach churned a few times as I saw the Maw feasting on their kills. I know that the creatures aren't human anymore and that they are monsters, but they had been once. At least DogThing didn't eat them in front of me.

  It took us an hour to get out of the town, and several times one of us would fire a weapon into one of the piles of bodies where something still twitched.

  I was relieved to be out on the open road and the desert again and we soon left the town behind. It felt safe out there, even though we were out in the open. I could see for miles.

  Roughly thirty miles later and we found an outcrop of rock just off of the road that provided a good shelter in case the rain came down again.

  Day 45

  I saw something during the night that I will never, ever forget as long as I live.

  It must have been the middle of the night when I awoke to the strange sound above us. Reg was asleep and Rudy and Adler were sitting on top of the rocky outcrop, looking out over the desert and talking in their usual hushed tones. I should have been exhausted, but for some reason got up and walked around the back of the rock and climbed up to where my ghost friends were sitting. I was surprised to find DogThing also up there, just a few feet away, snoring contentedly.

  "Can't sleep?" ask Rudy.

  "No."

  "I should be..."

  That was all I managed to say before the thing in the sky appeared. All three of us just sat there, staring, as it swept across the sky.

  It was bigger than even some of the clouds, with wings that must have spread out for miles. If it hadn't been for the moon reflecting light down upon us, we probably would never have even seen its passing.

  I can't even begin to describe completely how vast and beautiful the creature was, but I imagined that if it had landed it could have flattened an entire town. Maybe it was perspective, maybe I was just imagining that it was so huge, but underneath it, the clouds drifted. Long jagged wings bore a body that was covered in scales and a tail that seemed to trail out behind it for miles and miles. Its head was much like that of a lizard's, except the eyes that glowed a piercing orange light that burned brighter than the stars.

  It gave a single, long and moaning sigh as it swept across the sky above us, pushing the vast clouds aside.

  It was only there for a few moments, travelling at an immense a speed across the sky. A few seconds after it disappeared from view the wind hit us like an instant tornado that nearly knocked me off of the rock. A wall of sand and dust from the desert swept past us and then continued on its way across the desert.

  Below, I could just make out the shapes of many of the Maw, all of them sitting looking up at the sky in the direction that the creature had passed.

  "What manner of gods live in this place?" asked Adler, though I think it was more of a statement than a question. Rudy didn't say a word and I couldn't think of anything either.

  As I settled back down to sleep again under the outcrop I wondered how many other strange surprises lay ahead of me.

  When Reg woke me up, the sun was high in the sky already and the heat was blistering even though we were sheltered by the rock.

  "I left you to sleep on account of how little we got in the town," he said.

  I nodded and rubbed the dust from my eyes.

  "You missed quite a sight last night," I said.

  He looked up from the small campfire he was prodding with a stick.

  "Oh?"

  "Something huge flew over in the middle of the night. I've no idea what it was. I looked like some kind of massive lizard with wings. I mean, it was as big as a town.

  He sat back and smiled at me.

  "They are quite a sight, aren't they?" he said.

  "You've seen them before?"

  "Oh, I've seen them many, many times." He said with quiet laugh.

  "What was it?"

  "Legends in this world call them the Wind Gods. I've heard all manner of different tales about them from all over the place. They've been here as long as people can remember. Myth would have it that they are the ones that create the weather and the winds. No one has ever been able to make contact with them and they go about their lives just drifting across the sky, never even noticing those on the ground."

  "It was an amazing sight."

  "There are many amazing sights in this world," said Reg. "you want some soup?"

  We saw our first glimpse of trees in the distance today, about midday. Just as Reg had said, they seem to spread across the foot of the mountains. He estimates that we are maybe two days from there now since we seem to be covering ground quite quickly. I hope we find another town soon, preferably one not so ruined, and not quite so occupied. We're running low on supplies now that there are two of us to feed, even if it does mean that the trolley is lighter and easier to pull along the road.

  We camped out in the open again, this time in a small rock crevice.

  Day 46

  A quiet night for once.

  We rose early, ate a rushed breakfast and then headed off soon after. There was no point wasting too much time.

  The land was now changing with every mile. Flat, dry barrens were giving way to rockier ground that had a very slight uphill slope. The road was fortunately still running almost directly straight, so even though it was slightly harder work to walk along, we were still making good time. By the time the sun began to set, we were passing the odd copse of trees and there was grass in small patches. I'd noticed during our journey that there was little wildlife about, but now I could hear the odd chirp of birds in the trees, and glimpsed the occasional mouse or hare running for cover between the bushes.

  We were just about to set up camp in a small copse of trees when Rudy spotted it.

  A light in the distance, further up the road and only just hidden amongst some trees.

  "It's probably only another half mile or so," said Reg. "Should we risk it?"

  "Friendly do you think?"

  "No idea. We better take it carefully," answered Reg.

  "It may be worth the risk if they aren't hostile," suggested Adler. "Maybe Rudy and I could go on ahead and take a look around?"

  Rudy nodded his agreement.

  "Okay, do that, but don't go approaching anyone. We don't want to scare the life out of them. You are ghosts after all."

  Rudy and Adler sped up, quickly leaving a gap betwee
n us as Reg and I slowed down.

  A few minutes later they disappeared from view behind the trees that surrounded what appeared to be some kind of road-side station.

  As I slowly approached, I could see that the building had recently been in use. Tracks in the dirt on the side of the road showed the passing signs of a vehicle, or more than one. There were footprints in the sandy ground that led up to the wooden porch at the front of the building, and more leading away.

  It was a mostly single floor building, apart from one small area at the back that was brick built and two stories high. The whole place was boarded up, and the windows were covered with corrugated steel sheeting and in some places wooden planks. The front of the building had a low barricade, about waist height, that was built from broken pallets, metal panels from cars and some kind of metal railing or fence.

  The place had been reinforced to be as defendable as possible.

  Strangely the front door was wide open.

  Rudy appeared through the door, just as I was slowly edging around, my guns aimed, to get a better look. Reg went round the back of the building, both shotguns ready.

  "No one home," he said, "but it does look like someone lives here, or has done recently. There is even a cooking fire that looks like it's recently been put out."

  "Why would they leave the front door open?" I asked.

  "Maybe they didn't mean to?" said Rudy.

  "Did you look upstairs?"

  "Adler has just gone up there," answered Rudy, "but there is no one on the ground floor, we checked all the rooms and the shop front, even the garage."

  Reg stepped out from the side of the building, having been full circle. He glanced at DogThing for a moment, who was standing in the road and sniffing the air.

  "Fresh wood chopped up out the back. There's someone living here."

  "But they aren't here right now."

  Then I heard the noise. It was faint and distant, but definitely heading our way. The sound of a vehicle approaching down the road.

  "Get to cover," I snapped, ducking behind the barricade and aiming both guns in the direction of the noise. Reg joined me, Rudy stepped back into the building, peering around the doorway, and DogThing ran over the road and hid in the bushes opposite. I couldn't see any of the other Maw, but I could sense that they were there. How hundreds of them could disappear so easily was baffling.