Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 9): September

by Dave Rowlands

  Static followed Soldier into the medical area, keeping him company while his injuries were attended to by professionals, leaving Stutter and Nutter with nothing to do, nobody to talk to. I told the pair of them to follow Apocalypse Girl and myself, then led them to the technician’s area. The two techs were in the laboratory that they shared with several others, though arguing quietly between themselves in a corner. The nearest desk was covered in pieces of paper bearing various diagrams and sketches, mathematical formulae and the like. One of the techs blushed furiously and began to attempt to straighten out his clutter as soon as he saw the four of us.

  The other began to quietly offer apologies, then introduced himself and his partner to Stutter and Nutter. “P-pp-pleased to mm-meet you guys,” Stutter managed, Nutter looking in every direction but at his two new acquaintances. Clutter and Mutter looked at the mildly loopy Mech-Tech strangely as he observed the room.

  “Pretty sure I’ve been here before, you know. Or dreamed it, maybe, who knows.” Absent-mindedly shaking the two hands offered to him, he sat at the desk as if it belonged to him, found a pencil and fresh sheet of paper and set to work. “This is going to take a while, guys. I don’t know if you’ll be able to get the parts for it, either.” Stutter watched, offering the occasional tip that Nutter automatically incorporated into his design. After a couple of minutes, Clutter opened a large cabinet on the wall, revealing a blackboard covered in chalk markings. Casting his eyes about for an eraser of some kind, he sighed and started wiped it all off with his sleeve. An instant later, Nutter tossed him the required eraser, having immediately found it among the mess on the desk. He then rummaged around for a piece of chalk, then began attacking the blackboard in earnest. Leaving the four geniuses alone, Apocalypse Girl and I finally found ourselves able to retire to our own quarters.

  evening

  Thankfully The Boss allowed us our solitude, at least until dinner time. She invited the two of us to dine with her and The Brigadier, as well as Viking and Valkyrie. It was worded politely, the invitation delivered with a smile, but I was certain that she would not have taken a refusal well. Knowing Apocalypse Mum, it was going to be all business. Not that the world allowed for anything else these days…

  Sure enough, The Boss wanted to know everything that had happened out there. She was more interested in details about Sydney, though we could tell her very little about it, but the knowledge that the Terraformers preferred to close in to melee range and fight with tainted blades she felt incredibly useful. She felt that meant a relatively small force armed with heavy firearms should be able to handle the task of removing them from our world.

  The swarms of naked Dead she felt was a problem, but she remained relatively tight-lipped about it, saying only that it was a situation that needed to be, and would be, dealt with soon. We ate our meal in relative silence after that, The Brigadier occasionally asking a question, mostly about the newcomers to the base. Viking was easily able to tell them all about any of his Mech-Techs, with the exception of Nutter. Nobody knew Nutter very well, except for Stutter.

  In time, the dinner was over and we retired to our respective rooms.

  September 16th Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  Breakfast was interrupted rather rudely by Apocalypse Mum, she was insisting that I and my group attend a briefing as soon as we were done eating. Apocalypse Girl began to protest, but her mother silenced her with a glance. It had to be important, if she wasn’t giving us a day at least to recover from the last trip out.

  German Doctor was there, along with my entire squad. She had the Dead heads in jars with her. The heads stared with lifeless eyes, and Apocalypse Mum began her briefing.

  “As you know, there have been multiple reports from our contacts in Coober’s Nest that suggest a large contingent of the Dead to their northwest. The good Doctor, here, has determined a couple of important factors about these Dead. Doctor?” The Boss turned to German Doctor.

  “Ja. In fact, after careful analysis of the DNA of the severed heads that you gave me, I have discovered that they are, in fact, perfectly identical. Even twins don’t have this level of similarity between them; there are always some differences, no matter how identical they may be.” A concerned frown creased her forehead. “No, these are clones. There is no other possibility.”

  Apocalypse Mum took over once again at this point. “Now, clearly we have to do something about this. I have sent out a recon chopper, the pilot has discovered the cloning facility easily enough. He just looked for the largest concentration of Dead in the Outback. It lies near a town called Mount Newman.”

  “Who’d put a fucking cloning factory in the middle of the Outback, though?” Viking wanted to know.

  “I’d say somebody that didn’t want it discovered easily. Who knows, maybe it’s the lair of some evil genius. You’ll find out when you get there, with any luck. In any event, I don’t really care who, why or whatever. Your mission is to shut the place down. If you can remove all of the Dead present, do it, if not, that’s okay too.” Apocalypse Mum sounded more serious than I’d heard her yet. “Just shut it down, blow it up, I don’t care. With hordes of cloned Dead coming at us, we’re completely fucked as a species. This needs to be dealt with ASAP. Your pilot is waiting up top. Good luck.”

  Apocalypse Girl accompanied us to the chopper, making me promise that I’d come back to her in one piece, yet again. This time, I knew she was worried.

  noon

  The flight was relatively uneventful, the pilot offering us his condolences for being chosen for this mission. Viking laughed it off, declaring loudly that we’d be fine. The pilot shook his head. “Look, mate, I don’t even know how many Dead I saw milling about that fucking place, more than I can count, that’s for sure. You’re in luck though, we’ve got a secure landing zone at least.”

  Before too much time had passed, the reddish-grey landscape began to swarm with the Dead. Lots of Dead. The further we went, the thicker the horde became. A second chopper flew past us on its way back to AR-18, another squad on their way back from another mission, most likely.

  Soon enough, I spotted a break in the milling swarm. As we closed I began to wonder how they’d managed to get the Dead to move aside so that our chopper could land. As the pilot swung around to land, I saw the truth; a familiar looking caravan sat in the centre of the clear zone. “She already knew,” Viking whispered in my ear. He was right; Apocalypse Mum had to have known already, otherwise she’d not have been able to get Caravan Loony and his home here in time. Viking and I shared a knowing glance. Neither of us would underestimate The Boss again. It was surprising, some of what she wasn’t telling us.

  The chopper landed without incident just a few metres away from the caravan. I jumped out first, walking up to the caravan and knocking loudly. The door opened slightly and Caravan Loony poked his head into the crack. “Oh! It’s you again… come in!” He opened the door fully, allowing only Viking and myself inside. “I’ve just put the kettle on, you guys want some tea?”

  Viking accepted his offer gratefully, as did I, though I’d have preferred coffee, tea is an acceptable substitute. “I felt like I was flying in bed the other night, it was weird.” The inhabitant of the caravan seemed to have no idea that he had even been displaced.

  The Dead swarmed much closer to the caravan this time, though Caravan Loony still seemed largely unaware of their existence. We sat and leisurely drank our tea, our squad waiting impatiently outside as we discussed utterly insignificant shit with Caravan Loony, like the weather and sports. He truly had no idea that the world had ended.

  When we said goodbye to Caravan Loony and exited we discovered that the chopper had already left, leaving Giant, Scar, Maori and Wall stranded, surrounded by Dead that were utterly uninterested in anything other than staring at the caravan. Why they had this fascination with it I had no idea, nor whether it was the caravan or the Loony inside it. It seemed, however, that the more Dead pressed about, the closer to the carava
n they were able to get. This meant that we had limited time in which to accomplish our objectives.

  On the far side of the caravan was a tunnel leading into a bare cliff face. Dead hung back inside this tunnel, staring at the caravan as with the others. Casually, or at least as casually as I could manage, I strolled as far into the tunnel as I dared, trying to get some sense of the surroundings. The stench was pretty damn nasty, with this many Dead crammed into one space.

  Turning to my squad, I found that they’d followed me into the tunnel anyway. I told them that I had met Caravan Loony once before, that the Dead would stay back from us for the time being, and that this would be the perfect opportunity for us to just mow down a shitload of them. Raising our rifles to our shoulders, we all switched to single fire and lined up facing the Dead.

  Heads exploded almost before we began firing. The naked Dead fell to the floor as our bullets passed through several heads apiece, each one being precisely the same height. The Cloned Dead that still stood took a single step forward and we fired in unison once again. Another mess of Dead fell dead, spilling relatively fresh brains out onto the floor. Again, the hundreds of surviving naked cloned carcasses shuffled forwards a single step, again we mowed down a couple of dozen.

  “Fuck this,” Giant pulled a grenade from her belt, pulled the pin and flung it as far into the tunnel as she was able. A moment later, the explosion sent the parts of several naked Dead flying. I told her to stick to the rifle for now. “Okay, Chief.” She looked almost contrite. We aimed and fired again, they moved forwards slightly again. The going was slow this way, but with each row mown down we saw some progress.

  A couple of corpses that seemed shaken from their fascination in the caravan crawled towards us, their legs having been blown to pieces by Giant’s grenade. I waited a moment, drew my katana and advanced the two steps necessary to intercept them and skewer their heads on my blade.

  “This is taking forever,” Wall complained. While I couldn’t agree more, I figured slow and certain would be a better way of doing things. Explosives weren’t much good, really, not without more bang than we had available. At least with our guns we were able to make some inroads.

  evening

  Eventually our routine of wipe out a bunch, let them take a step forward led us to a door that we were able to close and barricade temporarily. We’d need to go through it in the morning, but for tonight we had to rest. Maori and Wall had been detailed to drag out the naked corpses and dispose of them in our landing zone. I knew this meant burning them all, I still feel that’s not the right way to go, but we didn’t really have much other choice.

  The removal of the corpses did little to clear the air. It still stank heavily of death and decay. Not that there was anywhere in the world now that didn’t. Given that this tunnel was fairly well lit and that the door we discovered led to what looked like an office of some kind, it looked like we had found the cloning facility we were looking for. How we were supposed to destroy it I had no idea, but if we could just disrupt the power that should be sufficient to prevent any more Dead clones from coming out, at least.

  Because we could, Viking and I went back to the caravan and knocked once again. The door opened a crack, the face once more appearing and again opening the door wide upon seeing the two of us. I asked Caravan Loony if he minded the pair of us spending the night, as he had a couple of spare bunks that he wasn’t using.

  Not only was he willing to put us up for the night, he also cooked for us. I don’t know where he found it all, but roast pork with all the trimmings is never unwelcome in my stomach, so I also don’t care. Besides, it’s hardly the strangest thing I’ve seen this apocalypse.

  September 17th Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  The rest of the squad was waiting around a fire that they’d built in the entrance to the tunnel, heating up their breakfast. Caravan Loony had cooked bacon and eggs for Viking and I, with toast and coffee. He had apologised for not being able to find ingredients for pancakes, in fact.

  Wall reported that the Dead hadn’t budged an inch overnight, and that those inside the facility that we could still see hadn’t moved either. Checking our weapons, finding that we still had a reasonable amount of ammunition for the job, we opened the door once more.

  The first Dead seemed almost surprised to see me, then slumped dead once my sword entered its head violently. The rest that occupied this room suddenly snapped, instantly turning hostile. I had Scar hold the door open while Viking hammered down any that escaped my blade.

  When the flood of Dead finally slackened off, Giant and Scar dragged the corpses off to burn while the rest of us secured the entrance to the facility. The office that we first entered opened up into a larger garage area, with another swarm of Dead standing, staring in the direction of the caravan outside.

  Once clear, we investigated the garage as thoroughly as we could. The lone truck occupying one of the vehicle bays was ancient, rusty beyond belief. It looked as if it would simply disintegrate if it were touched, yet Viking leaped up into it, finding the keys in the ignition. With a single crank, the engine roared to life, Viking roaring almost as loud in triumph.

  “Give me a day and I’ll turn this into something we can use to get out of here if we need to.” Viking glanced about, seeing everything he needed within easy reach. “Fuck it, give me a couple of hours. We might not be able to get back out the other way. If something happens to that dude out there, we’re fucked.”

  That was something that I was trying desperately to avoid thinking about. Bad enough that there were all these naked, cloned corpses anyway, it’d be disastrous if they were to start thinking of us as food in groups larger than about twenty or so.

  I told Viking to do whatever he thought necessary, ordered Scar and Maori to watch him. I took Wall and Giant with me, deeper into the facility. There were two exits from the garage, other than back into the rear office; a door clearly meant for vehicles, supposedly leading to the surface, and another in the far wall. That second door was the one that we chose, assuming it to lead further into the complex.

  noon

  The number of Dead that we encountered simply going room to room, or trying to make our way down a corridor was astounding. The smaller individual rooms full of them we simply attacked, turning them hostile, and lured the bastards out one or two at a time, making certain that they were all dead before moving on. The corridors and hallways, however, we’d line up our head shots carefully and take our time. Shoot, shuffle, repeat process from a safe distance so that they don’t get any ideas about eating us in their rotting brains, just bullets.

  Soon enough, we came to an enormous chamber, hundreds of metres long, hundreds wide, and hundreds high as well. There was an underlying hum that was barely perceptible in the place that we overlooked from a catwalk halfway up one wall. Below us milled thousands, maybe millions of naked Dead. Above them, the machinery worked. From our vantage point we could see infant clones being taken out of infant-sized cylinders and replaced in much larger ones, to float in the middle, breathing in whatever fluid they were dunked into. The larger cylinders were then moved onto whatever spare shelving was available.

  A low whistle from behind me let me know that Viking was behind me. “I think I see the problem.” He pointed off to the other side of the chamber. “Where they come out, something’s wrong there. I think whoever left this fucking machine running didn’t bother to make sure the fresh clones come out safely.”

  Following the line from Viking’s finger I saw what he was talking about; a fresh clone slipped out of its cylinder, falling too far and breaking both of his legs an instant before he was taken by the nearest Dead. His screams were cut off abruptly. A few minutes later, another fresh clone joined him, this time landing atop a large group of Dead that broke his fall. This clone’s short existence was one of intense horror and pain as the group of corpses began to gnaw upon his flesh.

  We were perfectly safe up here on the catwalk, but the problem
was going to be turning the damn machine off. I could see the console down on the floor, occasionally visible behind the swarms of Dead that milled around downstairs.

  “This’d be easier if we could just nuke the fucking place.” I grumbled.

  “Yeah, true enough. Problem is, though, anywhere we’ve nuked, the Terraformers hole up. Beijing, Sydney, New York; The Boss has had all sorts of reports from all over the world about it.” It was the most I’d heard come out of Scar’s horrifically mangled face in the two weeks that I’d known him. It also looked to me like he’d let something slip that he perhaps shouldn't have.

  “Come on, level with me. She already knew about this place, didn’t she?” Scar looked uncomfortable, but he nodded. “Shit. So, what, were we sent here as a punishment detail or does she seriously expect us to put a stop to this?”

  “She wants us to shut this place down, Chief.” Giant told me in no uncertain tones. “She didn’t know where it was, just that it might exist and the general area. When we reported the news from your mates in Coober’s Nest, that’s when she would have sent out recon patrols. Sure, she found it before we got back, but only because she has more information than anyone else on the planet.”