by Pete Aldin
He smelled them before he saw them. Five pusbags—no six!—shambling across his path from the right, twenty-five yards ahead. Farmhands, dressed in bloodied denim and flannelette, workboots too. His heart lurched. Lewis was down in the bracken, crawling away three-limbed, favoring his left arm, shottie abandoned. One butterfly plaster was flapping loose above his eyebrow. A zombie was also down, but the others would be on him in moments.
Elliot came to a stop, planted his feet, aimed the Aimrite and put a spear through the left ear of the one closest to him. Reloading was going to take too long so he ditched it and took out his hammer. He began dancing amongst the remaining ones, slashing and crashing. In seconds, they lay around him with crushed skulls, bleeding in black.
Despite the stench, the fresh air tasted good as he leaned one hand on a knee and wiped the hammer in the wet grass then dropped it there.
“Shit, pal,” he huffed. “I don't need this much exercise this early.”
He stepped over and held out a hand. After a moment, Lewis took it with his right and allowed Elliot to help him up, then he cradled his left arm with his good hand. There was blood soaking through a tear in the fabric.
Elliot took a step back. “You bit?”
Lewis's gaze traveled slowly to the tear. He shook his head. “Cut myself on a branch, running. They … they chased me from the road.”
Elliot hawked and spat bile from the back of his mouth, hitting one of the deaders in the eye. “Show me.”
He inspected Lewis's wound through the hole in the cloth without touching him. Elliot couldn't see teethmarks. Not too bad; the branch took a shallow chunk of flesh from just above the elbow.
“I'll tend it back at the house.” He stooped and picked up the hammer, then the speargun. Sticks cracking drew his head up. There was movement in the trees forty yards away. More sticks cracked.
“Let's go,” said Lewis.
Elliot wrenched the shaft from the first deader's brain pan. “Get your weapon.” If there were too many of them, they could easily out distance the dead on foot. If not, this would make good practice, good training.
Lewis looked about to argue, then moved to obey, left arm clamped to his chest. Just before he reached the shotgun, Elliot stopped him with a noise.
“On second thoughts,” he said and pulled his SIG. “Take this. Easier one handed. Just don't get blood on it.”
Lewis took it without fear this time. “Can we go now?”
“Flick the safety off there like I showed you. No, don't pull the slide back. I already did that. It's live, so go easy.”
“Can we go now?”
“Nope. Not yet. Looks like maybe three or four more coming. Not too hard to handle.”
“But … but the noise.”
Elliot raised his eyebrows then went across and collected the shotgun, held it up. “I think that bridge got crossed.” He came back over and took two shells from Lewis's bandoleer, reloaded it.
“We're going to fight them?”
Elliot pointed to two trees growing a couple of yards apart and started their way. The trunks were about as thick as he was. “You're going behind that tree. I'll be behind that one. They'll pass us by if we keep quiet, then you'll come out, close in to about twenty feet away—six meters.”
“But—”
He stopped and spoke without turning. “No buts, Lewis. We do this. You think you're old enough to head out on your own. Well, that's good. Good to be confident. But you gotta have the experience to make it work. So. Let's get you some experience.”
Lewis followed him to the trees where they took shelter, catching their breath. Elliot leaned the shotgun against the trunk, testing the speargun's load. The wet hiss of zombie-breath and the crackle of sticks and bracken grew closer.
“What do I do?” Lewis whispered.
Elliot mimed pointing the pistol and pulling the trigger one handed, then shrugged. “Pretty simple,” he whispered back.
At that range anyway.
“I don't want to.”
Elliot shrugged again. “You gotta learn this. Situations like this are normal now. And in situations like this, you're either moving or still, doing or not doing. It's binary, you understand me? On or off, living or dying, acting or being acted upon. There's simply no place for fear, just action.”
Sure, a voice whispered, fear came later, in the cold dark night when a man had time to think back, remember how close he'd come, and what he'd had to do to keep on living.
He took a peek, saw three pusbags weaving their way through their dead comrades, snouts raised like that rat in the milking shed, tasting the air. It was as good a time as any. He caught Lewis's eye and nodded. The young man swallowed, then crept out from his hiding place in a crouch, aping movie versions of Navy SEALs. Elliot adjusted his grip on the Aimrite and followed to Lewis's right.
The teenager must have realized he couldn't shoot all hunched over like that, so he straightened and took aim. He was still a little too far away for Elliot's liking but he didn't interfere. Lewis's hand shook and when he fired first, the bullet went wide and high, scuffing bark from another tree, sending wattle pollen flying. Three heads swiveled his direction and the bodies wheeled around to follow. He took a couple of steps backwards but took aim again and fired, punched a hole into one of their heads. The zombie dropped and Lewis made a noise that might have been a laugh. He aimed again, but hit the next one in the chest. It stumbled but kept on.
Elliot could see the shaking begin again in Lewis's hand so he said, “Wait.”
Lewis dropped his arm and backpedaled as Elliot came forward. He put the fishing spear through the left knee of the one with the chest wound, took the SIG out of Lewis's hands and plugged the last one through the eye.
Without turning, he asked, “So where were you headed?”
A pause, then Lewis replied, “Home.”
“Why's that?”
Another pause. “I heard them. I heard them with my sister, with Alyssa, not far from the ute.”
Ute? Elliot thought. Oh, the pickup.
Lewis continued, “I couldn't see, 'cause they put a pillow case over my head. Or a bag or something. But I could hear her.”
Still facing the bodies, Elliot said, “And I turned up an hour or so later, Cochise. And I'm telling you, there's nothing back at that house you wanna see.” Not a direct lie, not this time.
A long and labored breath, then: “Okay.”
“Get the shottie,” Elliot said, putting the safety back on the SIG and holstering it.
“Huh?”
“The shotgun.”
“Oh.”
Lewis scrambled back there and returned with it, held it pointing up by the barrel, offered it. Elliot shook his head. “You took it with you today. You must want it.”
“Oh. All right.” He blushed, lifted his right shoulder up and down. “Kind of hurt when I used it before. I think I sprained my shoulder.”
“You didn't sprain it. Might be bruised. That's a mean weapon and you gotta learn how to respect it and use it properly. So let's teach you.” Elliot indicated the last zombie, dragging itself across the earth with one leg a ruin. “She's yours.”
Lewis winced but nodded.
“Your left hand okay?”
“I think so.”
“Good. You're going to fire left-handed to protect that injured shoulder.” He raised the empty speargun, pressed the back of it into his left shoulder, using it as a demo. “A lot of people watch movies, they think you gotta clamp a shotgun or rifle butt in hard against you. You're just gonna lean it against your shoulder like this, but grab up here forward with your supporting hand and keep tension on it, like you're pulling it off your shoulder. Okay?”
Lewis tried it. “So I'm kind of pulling one way and pulling the other at the same time?”
“Not pulling exactly, just keeping tension in the two directions. If your forward hand keeps that tension up like you're doing now, it'll cut a lot of the recoil, save you hurting your
shoulder. Okay, that looks fine. Now lower it toward her and squeeze the trigger.”
Nervous, Lewis swung the muzzle her way, hesitated.
“You've done this, Cochise. You're just doing it again.”
The deader reached for the teenager as if anticipating the end. When he fired, he took two of her fingers and the right side of her skull. He swore under his breath and lowered the weapon, transfixed by the mess he'd made.
“Hurt as much as last time?”
Lewis actually smiled, tearing his gaze away from the gore. “No.”
Elliot stepped in close, pulled his tanto. “Hold your weapon still for a sec.” He made three scratches in the stock and put the dagger away.
Lewis examined the marks with a frown. “What's this?”
“Tally. You made your first kills today.” He gave him a thumbs up. “Now, if it's okay with you, Cochise, let's get the hell back to the farm and our new wheels. Maybe you can learn to drive today too. I'm kind of tired.”
*
After Elliot bandaged up the gouge on Lewis's arm, applied a fresh plaster to his brow, and they'd finished up the cereal, and after they'd loaded up the old Torana with their belongings and supplies, Lewis got behind the wheel. Under Elliot's tutelage, he managed to get the car back to where they'd left the pickup without completely stripping the gearbox, but it was a painful trip.
With the young man watching their surrounds carefully this time, Elliot transfered the useful stuff from the pickup to the Torana's trunk and got behind the wheel. Lewis slid in beside him and placed the shotgun carefully on the back seat, then dug his sketchpad and pencils out of his pack. He was subdued, his eyes troubled, but he seemed a little more centered than he had been.
He glanced up at Elliot and nodded as if reading his mind. “I'm okay.”
“Very well then.” Elliot slammed his door and started the motor. “Minchenbridge trip, take two.”
They headed off again, making good time along a clear highway. At one point, Elliot slowed at a T-intersection where a sideroad branched off the main road between rows of cypress trees. A dead woman stood swaying there, standing just behind the white line. One of her eyes had been gouged out and a string of gore hung out on her cheek like a runner of snot. Her head followed them as they inched past. Lewis glanced up from his artwork, gave a shudder and returned to his drawing.
Elliot thought about leaning out and blowing the dead woman's head off, ending her brainless misery, but they'd wasted enough rounds today. As she took a faltering step toward them, he planted his foot, hurrying past.
III
Shitstorm
8
The train completely blocked the road ahead. A carnage of steel and wood filled much of the V where highway met railway between two hills. Elliot coasted to a halt a few hundred yards away. He cut the engine and eased the door open, used his hand as a sun-visor. From the looks of it, the damn locomotive had hit a semi and came off the rails.
“Shit. Hand me the map.” He studied it, converted metric to imperial. Available detours were sixteen miles in one direction and twenty three in the other. “Shit,” he repeated.
“We should check it out,” said Lewis.
Elliot hopped down onto the road and tossed the map on the back seat. “You want to check a crash site? What's there?”
“Maybe more food we can gather up. Weapons.”
“Well, it’s good you're thinking of those things, but there won't be weapons there. Might be dead people though.”
“If they died in the crash, then they're just normal dead. Not … what do you call em?”
“Deaders.”
“I like what Dad called them: ghuls.”
“Whatever we call 'em, I don't like this.”
“You don't want more supplies?”
Elliot ran his hand through his hair, chewed his lip, then nodded. The car was pretty full, but they could squeeze more in. And it might be wise to do so if the pickings were good.
“Grab your pack and the Aimrite.” He opened the back door and reached for his pack and the M4.
“My swag? I'm not taking my swag. It's heavy.”
“And if the car's gone when we get back?” Elliot asked, straightening and slinging his pack on. He surveyed the raised ground above and around them. Anyone might be up there.
“It won't be.”
“You know this how?”
Lewis groaned. “My swag's heavy.”
It wasn't. Not by a long way, comprised of a bedroll wrapped around a change of clothes and toothbrush. He shook his head and said, “Get it and get the Aimrite.”
When Lewis shoved the doors shut on his side, Elliot locked the car and then headed for the verge. The train track, like the road, had been cut through the hills to create a path of least resistance for both.
“Why are you going up there?” Lewis asked him. “Can't we just go along the road? It's, like, straight there?”
Ten feet up the siding, Elliot paused and jabbed the rifle at the accident, forcing patience. He pitched his voice low. “Could be people camping in it. Could be un-wild-life. Better to go up and over, take a look before we commit. Then we know what we're in for.”
“Looks fine to me,” said Lewis.
“Safety first.”
Lewis dragged himself up the hill, short of breath. In the bushland atop the ridge, Elliot waited for him by a patch of young ferns and brambles. He was struck afresh by the strangeness of the bush. A tree close by had white bark peeling like the rotting skin of a deader. Its dense foliage carried raised bumps like glands or blisters, again putting him in mind of the dead. At least it didn't smell that way; in fact the competing scents of its flowers, the dry leaf litter and eucalyptus hung heavy enough in the still air to make him drowsy, wooing him towards sleep. He was weary… so goddam weary. There'd been weeks of running and hiding and stalking and avoiding and hiking, with little food and even less sleep.
He shook it off as Lewis came to a panting halt nearby. “The other thing we're doing up here is hiding this gear.” He'd located a relatively snag-free pocket within the brambles and slid his pack there, realized then that Lewis hadn't bothered bringing his. He swore and shoved the spear gun and M4 in there. “Anyone comes across the car, at least they won't get our weapons. Plus, we'll go in light so we can carry more stuff back if we need to. Just the Remington and the SIG.” He kept the shotgun and bandoleer, Lewis the 9-mil.
They slipped through the bush toward the cut-through until they were regarding the wreck from above. To their left, it was more obvious up close that the train's engine had hit the semi dead in the middle, forcing it along the tracks westwards. The engine and first two goods cars had come off the rail, tipping. The last ten cars were still upright. Most carried what looked like rocks or ore in open trays. Four were enclosed carriages and two had their doors open already; he'd take one, Lewis the other. There was no sign of life, no noise apart from birds fussing and insects buzzing.
He slapped at a fly. “God, I hate trains.”
Lewis stared at him. “What? Why?”
Elliot shook it off, slapped at the fly again and started down the siding. “Let's just get this over with.”
*
They went into their separate train cars. Elliot was instantly disappointed. Open on both sides, it contained crates of untreated wool—it might have been useful as insulation for clothing, but they were better off to simply loot the finished product. Groceries, dry goods, weapons beyond the occasional piece of iron: nada. He peered out the door on the other side, sighing. Now he was here, it'd be worth climbing the northern siding to get a look at the way ahead, see if there were clues to what kind of journey awaited them once they found a way around the blockage. He slung the shottie and climbed down the short ladder with his back to the siding, found his footing on the shale of thick stones around the tracks. And whirled at the sound of a cocked rifle.
Three women stood along the top of the siding, spaced at ten foot intervals, two brunet
tes, one blond, all in their late thirties. They were thin to the point of malnutrition, their clothing and skin smudged with dirt. The blond was tall, long limbed, wearing jogger gear with a wet-weather poncho tied around her waist; she bore the rifle and had it aimed steadily at Elliot's chest. The brunettes were short—about Lewis's height—and so alike they could have been sisters, both in t-shirts and cargo shorts, their knees scabbed and freshly bruised. One had a handcuff dangling from her left wrist, her cheeks peppered with cuts and the yellow stains of old bruising. More bruising ringed her throat. The other brunette had bruising around her left eye and along the bone of her right forearm and the bicep above it; her hair was piled up beneath a sunhat. She had a carving knife, gripped so tight her knuckles were white. The police revolver in her hatless sister's hands shook, the handcuff rattling against the grip.
The blond said, “This is our train.”
He had his balance now, but there was no point going for the Remington. He'd only get one at best. He kept his hands lifted a little from his sides. But he couldn't help asking, “Your name on it?”
Ignoring the question, Sunhat said, “Where's your friend?”
“Don't have any.” That much was true. He hadn't had a friend since Tommy. And a goddammed train was the perfect way to remind him of that fact.
He did have a Lewis, though. And if Lewis had any brains at all, he'd be climbing out the other side of the train right now and running.
“Wait, don't kill him!” The squeaky voice came out of the next carriage.
“Shit,” Elliot sighed. No brains.
Lewis showed his hands from the door, empty, sans SIG. He clambered down the ladder and approached slowly, his footing unsteady on the stones beside the track.
“Stop there, kid,” said the blond when he'd travelled a dozen feet. “First thing you both do is put your guns at the bottom of the hill here.”