This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection)

by Craig DiLouie

  As I go to sleep tonight, I am full of the first hope that I have had. There is a place out there. I'm certain of it. It's a place that has light, and water, and grass. There was grass!

  Of course, in the back of my mind I remember the body on the shore, torn to pieces. It somehow didn't worry me. I was under constant threat wherever I was in this place.

  Day 16

  I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked to last night, but then I wasn't expecting to. I lay awake for a long time last night, wondering whether I should set off right then. Eventually tiredness took me into slumber, and yet another dream.

  This time I was sitting on the bank of the lake and the old tramp was sitting next to me, staring into the mirror-like surface of clear water.

  "I told you that you would be fine here, didn't I?" His voice was harsh and cracked. His gaze cast out over the lake to something that I couldn't see. "You will be fine here."

  "Where is here?" It was all that I could think of among the multitude of questions that I really wanted to ask.

  "I wish I knew, exactly. I have been here a long time, as long as I can remember. My life back in the old world seems to be a vague memory, and one that fades a little more each day. Home, is all I can say. This place is my home, was my home."

  "What happened to you? Was that you on the lakeside?"

  "Yes, again, I wish I knew."

  "But you are still here?"

  "Yes. It would seem that even in death, I am still trapped here, though that is a comforting thing. After so long here I would not choose to leave. It is a dangerous place. But if you can adapt, as you have done, it is also a wonderful place."

  "Dangerous? Like the zombies and the dogs?"

  "Yes, and far worse. The zombies, as you call them, are only dangerous if you approach them. They are tormented enough with their own inner pain that they do not wish to be reminded of how whole you still are. The dogs, the Maw, are no danger to you. If anything, they are a gift. Do not fear them."

  "But something killed you."

  "Yes. There are...other things here. Things best avoided."

  "What things?"

  I didn't get an answer. Instead, I felt myself drifting away from the scene. My body was no longer a barrier to hold me. My mind raced back to the bus where I lay sleeping. A million questions still unanswered.

  Before I awoke, I heard his voice one more time.

  "You must find your way here, James. Find your path to the lake. You must leave, soon. For after the rain will come the storm. Leave as soon as you can. I will be waiting for you."

  The first on my list of things to do was to head back to the old camp, to the car wreck, to siphon off as much of the petrol as I could in the couple of hours that I had spared myself. I figured that I might not have the opportunity to come back here, at least not without a long trip, and the petrol was something that I didn't want to run out of soon. Torches were all very well, but there was nothing like the light of the lanterns.

  The trip was surprisingly quick, with not a single sign of a zombie anywhere. It was disconcerting to be wandering the place, to find nothing. I was on edge the whole way, expecting to hear that stomach-turning groan in the darkness. No movement. Not even DogThing, whom I am starting to miss.

  Ten bottles of petrol filled later, and the tank was empty. I had made such a lot of ground in a short time that I wandered back via the book pile, and had a bit of a rummage through it. Most of it was damp from the rain, and mouldy from sitting outside. But I found a few readable books and magazines. A lot of it is ancient.

  Then back to the bus, to take as much as I could carry in the cart. Tools, lanterns, mushrooms, the hose, everything that I thought would be useful that would fit on it. By the time I had stacked everything up, the cart was quite heavy. I only hoped the wheels would hold out for the journey.

  With some reluctance, I finally set off, saying goodbye to the bus as it disappeared from view. With my temporary home left behind me, I turned the cart toward the mushroom patch, and the journey that awaited me. I had only gone a hundred yards when I saw movement in the gloom ahead.

  I prepared myself, mace in one hand and knife in the other, and I watched and waited. The shape moved slowly out into the light, becoming DogThing. He padded towards me, and then sat down about twenty feet away, glancing backwards in the direction that my journey would lead me.

  "So you are called a Maw then?" I don't know what I expected back from him, but he replied in his own manner. He shuffled, stood up, and gave me what was almost a nod. Then he made a quiet, whining noise, before sitting back on his haunches.

  I hauled the cart into movement again. It was heavy to get started, but once you had momentum it moved quite easily over the dirt ground.

  As I got closer to DogThing, he stood up and skirted round me, keeping his distance for a moment before he began to trot alongside me.

  "You're coming with me then?"

  A snort was my answer.

  It seemed he was.

  He was still an odd thing to have around, but remembering the old tramp's words, and the times that DogThing had already helped me, saved my life even, gave me a boost of confidence that I had been missing since he disappeared a few days ago. Any companion was good in this place, especially one with the killing ability of a demon mutt.

  We set off across the junkyard, heading slowly past the massive piles of refuse that I wished I had had time to sort through a bit more. I was convinced that there was endless useful stuff in there.

  Eventually the mushroom patch was in sight, and it felt a little strange to be pushing the cart through it, towards my water reservoirs, with the thought that I might not be coming back this way again, at least not for a while.

  The first sign that the dream was living up to its promises was the pools of water that had gathered in my pothole reservoirs. All of them were full, and it took me a while to fill all the bottles that I had stored in the sack, making the cart even heavier to push. By the time I had filled them up, collected the plastic sheets, and begun my journey again, I was starting to feel the tiredness come over me. The later part of the day had gone by much quicker, and although I had no way to judge the time, it certainly felt like I had been awake for a full day.

  I pushed on further, and into the mushrooms, struggling with the extra weight of water that I was now carrying. I hadn't travelled more than a few hundred yards or so when I spotted the first marker. It was the same wooden pole that I remembered the tramp following, and had the same bright cloth tied neatly at the top.

  As I sit here writing this journal and eating some of what I had already cooked yesterday, shaded from the rain by a massive mushroom (one that is ten feet tall, like I had seen in the dream), and an hour on from finding the first marker, and ten more markers passed, I am hopeful for the future.

  DogThing is sitting barely ten feet away from me, also eating, though his is raw and bitten straight from the mushroom. His presence is a constant reminder of how strange this place is, but also how not everything is against me.

  I think of the lake, and the shack up on the rocks, and I know there is somewhere to go at last. It's a place not far from here, and though it is no longer inhabited by the living, it is a place that could be lived in, for now. It's a place where an old tramp who I once met on a bus, when I was a child, once lived.

  One that talks to me in my dreams.

  Day 17

  "So who was he then?"

  "He was a professor, taught art literature I think, but he was quite mad when I met him down here. He was a nice fellow, harmless enough, but he used to gibber on in some strange language, and he talked to himself a lot."

  "And he just disappeared?"

  "Yes...well...no, not literally. One day he was talking about needing to go and get food. I said that we had enough mushrooms and pods to last us for months, but he didn't want pods or mushrooms."

  "Pods?"

  "They grow by the lake. You will see when you get here.
They taste like potatoes, but with a sharper taste maybe, and are much bigger. They are slow-growing though."

  "I see. Anyway. About Professor Adler?"

  "Yes...oh...yes. Well he packed up some provisions, got on his bicycle and headed out across the swamps. He used to travel round a lot before, but this was different, somehow more final. I begged him not to go, but he didn't listen. He never came back."

  "Swamp?"

  "It's a few miles past the valley. There are some ruins, as well. A city, once, I think. It's a dangerous place. I'll tell you all about it when you get here."

  "What's your name anyway?"

  "Rudy."

  It was strange waking up outside again. The rain hadn't stopped. It still floated down in a barely perceptible sheet, the kind of rain that soaks everything, while giving you the impression that it's just a light shower. I was glad of the huge mushroom that I was sitting under. The ground near the base was almost dry. A few feet away, and the ground was sludge.

  DogThing had found himself a similar nook to hide away in, tucking himself under a smaller mushroom about twenty feet away. He was so well camouflaged in this strange field that I almost didn't spot him.

  I decided that it was pointless waiting until the rain eased. It hadn't done since it first started drizzling. I spent a few minutes gathering my things, and pushed off out into the wet, trying to spot the next marker.

  It was a slow trek through the rest of the mushrooms and up onto the rock plateau. I didn't remember the slope out of the mushroom field being quite so steep in the dream, and it took me about an hour to haul my cart up the few hundred feet of rock.

  When I finally got up there, it was the weirdest sight. Talk about flat. The plateau could have been carved by a machine from the bare rock. There was almost a polished sheen, glimmering in the lantern light, stretching out for the few hundred yards of visibility.

  DogThing seemed reluctant to follow me out onto the flat at first. He perched on a small outcropping of rock at the top of the slope, and watched me, eventually leaving the safety of his camouflage to catch me up. I'm glad he did. Seeing him sitting there, watching me go, gave me an eerie lack of confidence in my choice. If he wasn't willing to walk there, what was I doing?

  The markers were less frequent across the rock, and each time they were sticking out of a plastic bag filled with small stones, and bits of junk. The hard surface of the ground looked like marble, but less smooth. Of course, I'd only ever seen marble on the floor of banks and museums, where it was highly polished. This must have been marble in its raw state. I could have been walking over a natural resource worth a fortune. One thing I did notice was the long streaks of reddish gold. I thought that they looked like metal of some kind, but I could have been wrong. What the hell did I know about rocks?

  DogThing stayed a lot closer to me than usual, snuffling along the ground a few feet behind me, and hugging the shadows that the lantern cast. He seemed ok, but a little uncomfortable.

  I reckon it took roughly eight hours to reach the crevasse, and I was about four hours into the journey when the rain stopped. No warning. No light rain, or gradual lapse. It just switched off, like someone had turned the tap off. Twenty minutes later and I was walking on dry ground. I had no idea where the water had all gone.

  The crevasse appeared in the gloom, stretching across the path that the markers had led me along. I had a horrible gut feeling as I approached that it was going to be impassable. It appeared to be about thirty feet wide, and dark. When I finally had the chance to look down into it, I sighed with relief. It was only deep as a man's height. Of course, there was no easy way to cross it, and no gradual slope, just a sheer drop.

  Well it's another hour or so later as I sit writing this. I've got a little campfire going down in the crevasse, only a small one to cook up some mushrooms. It took me most of that time to haul my stuff out of the cart, and down into the bottom. Then I had to lug the cart down as well.

  At first, I left the cart and walked a little way along the edge, hoping that it would end soon, so that I might be able to navigate round it, but there wasn't any sign of an easier crossing, so I gave up. I could have spent hours walking along it to find nothing.

  My stomach is still feeling crap after two weeks or so of drinking only cheap fizzy pop. I'm hoping that drinking water will make a difference, clean my system out a bit. Having solid food seems to be helping a lot.

  Now that the rain has stopped I'm wishing that I'd laid out more plastic water traps on the way. At least I still have quite a good supply of water bottles.

  Day 18

  "How far is it?"

  "Not far, maybe a day or so from the crack in the plateau. You're making good time."

  "Ok."

  "The rains have stopped haven't they?"

  "Yes."

  "The Maw is still with you?"

  "DogThing?"

  "You named him?" (Laughter) "Yes. Him."

  "Yes he is still with me."

  "Good. Pay attention to his senses. The gargants don't usually move up onto the plateau, so you should be ok."

  "Gargants? What the hell are they?"

  "Huge things. Vicious. They come from the swamps after the rain. If the ground starts shaking then you run in the opposite direction and hide, fast. But don't worry. You'll be ok on the plateau."

  "No zombies?"

  "No, no zombies. They seem to frequent the junkyards and the ruins, cutting a path straight through the swamp to make their way to the great wall that you found up there. Though they take the long way round the plateau for some reason. I've never seen one up near the waterfall."

  "Are they really zombies? Those things?"

  "No. Not really."

  DogThing was even more on edge for most of the day. I pressed on for as many hours as I could, leaving little time to write this by the time I set up camp again. Honestly, it's all just flat rock, so not much to report anyway.

  Endless, flat rock.

  Day 19

  "It was nervous?"

  "Yes. He stuck close to me, by the cart, for a few hours, and he kept watching the darkness and stooping low. He wasn't a happy dog."

  "No ground tremors?"

  "No."

  "Good. Keep going. You'll reach the valley soon."

  "I'll be glad to get there."

  (Laughter)

  "I bet. Be careful when you get here though. On rare occasions, a gargant wanders up from the lakes and drinks from the waterfall pool."

  "Lakes?"

  (Laughter again)

  "Yes. Lakes."

  He was right about arriving soon. Later that day, after hours of pushing the cart, the edge of the plateau dropped off out of sight. DogThing reacted before I even saw the terrain change. He bolted towards the darkness and almost disappeared before the flat rock gave way to a grassy slope.

  I had seen the points of blue light for a while in the distance, but until we got closer I couldn't make out what they were. I'd suspected correctly, though. It was the crystal stalactites from my dreams, and as I approached the edge of the valley, my eyes adjusted to the new light. The vastness of it all was overwhelming. The valley spread for what seemed like miles. The sound of the waterfall cascading down the rocks was quiet and muffled. Sound doesn't seem to travel as well as light does in this place. It's also odd how the light seems to deaden off at a distance. Only the blue light of the crystals travels far. The darkness is almost like a fog.

  I found Rudy's body down by the water's edge. It was exactly where it had been in the dream, but it wasn't the same. Where before there had been skin and bits of body and blood all over the place, now there were only dry, old bones, most of which had become submerged in the mud.

  He hadn't died recently.

  The old shack was there, up on the rocks, not far from the waterfall. It was quite a trek up the path, which I think must have been worn away by water rather than been cut. The rock was too smooth.

  Rudy was waiting at the entrance to
the building, near where the door was flung open and hanging half off its hinges. A strange, warm wind was gusting across the rock as I hauled the cart up the slope.

  After everything I had seen in this dark world, even with the zombies (apparently not zombies), and DogThing, and the mushrooms, seeing a floating, glowing ghost of a dead man was still quite disturbing. I was wary as I approached, but he was smiling and beckoning me forward.

  "You made it. Good. Come on, quickly. Get inside before the gargant smells you." He pointed behind me, beyond the waterfall.

  I turned round, looking down the valley, and saw the creature he spoke of. The gargant was close by, and the name was quite apt. I'm not sure what it was that I was expecting to see, but I know that a giant slug thing wasn't it. From my best judgement, given the distance, it was easily the size of the bus, maybe larger. It shuffled on a multitude of tiny legs that lined the bottom of its body, and hundreds of tentacles writhing across the ground in front of it, as it scoured the river bed and the grass near the lake's edge for, well, whatever it was looking for.

  "Mad."

  "Yes. Exactly. Nasty things. Fortunately they can't get all the way up here. The rocks don't give them enough purchase to climb, but they can get part of the way up, and have wrecked the lower end of the valley before, killing all the pods that grow there. Come inside. Let's not give it any reason to come any further upstream."

  I left the cart on the flat, rocky area in front of the shack and went in, following my ghostly friend. I noticed that DogThing had disappeared again, and Rudy must have sensed my thoughts.

  "Don't worry, it will be back. The Maw seem to love gargant spawn, and they are far too quick for the gargants to catch."

  My stomach churned.

  "Gargant spawn?"

  "Eggs. They leave piles of them in the mud, easy for Maw to dig up. Best not to think about it."

  The shack looked long abandoned, but the rough stone fireplace, the only part of the building not made of wood, was stocked up and ready to be lit.