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

by Craig DiLouie

  He came back a few minutes later with a dour look.

  "There may be some things left, but most of it looks burnt beyond scavenging. I don't know if it is worth waiting for I'm afraid. Some of the tins of food might be usable, but most of the rest has been destroyed. Your mace is still there, and I think CutterJack's blades are under the burnt pack, but I couldn't move anything to get a better look."

  "I have to wait."

  "What? But the flames might take days to go away."

  "I don't have any choice. I have to wait at least a few hours. I don't have a weapon, other than a couple of poxy knives. They won't do me much good if I have to kill zombies, or if CutterJack turns up again. I left it all there."

  "We can make it to the shack in a day, if we don't stop, maybe."

  "Have you forgotten where we are? The zombie trail..."

  "Of course I hadn't forgotten, but the zombies are slow, you could outrun them, outwalk them even."

  "All the way to the shack? We don't even know exactly how far it is, and I'm already knackered."

  "Ok. We wait. Maybe you're right. Maybe it will be gone in a few hours."

  We both looked over at the swamp. If anything, the flames were getting higher.

  "Maybe."

  I checked my pouches. No food. I had one bottle of water, but other than that I had little more than I had started with over a month ago, just the things that I had put in the pouches that morning. I put my head in my hands and felt like crying. I think if Rudy hadn't been there I would have done.

  Instead, my mind started racing, trying to find a plan to hold on to, something to stop me going completely insane. I had to find more supplies, fast. I knew I could get pods from along the swamp's edge, if I could find a bit that wasn't burning. There were pools of water in among the rocks up near the shack, but that meant going back there, going back to where there might be more zombies.

  All of this and we were still no nearer to finding out where Adler had gone.

  I slept underneath an overhanging of rock that we found a few hundred yards back from the swamp. It was about as far as I could go before I was ready to collapse, which completely put an end to Rudy's idea of keeping moving until we made the shack. I was breathing heavily and kept coughing up black crap. I guess I hadn't realised how bad the fumes from the fire had been.

  I lay there for a while, huddled on the floor, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep without my blanket and my pillow. That pillow had stunk, but I would have given almost anything for it now. I couldn't get it out of my head, going over and over everything that had happened in those few seconds on the path. Everything lost because I took the pack off.

  It would seem that I was out for the count for probably double what I normally slept; at least that's what Rudy said. Not that he has a clock to keep time by. Maybe being a ghost for years and years forces you to learn other ways of dealing with things. He also said I was coughing most of the time, and he even tried to wake me because he was worried that I was going to conk out on him. I didn't wake up, no matter how many times he called me, and of course he couldn't nudge me.

  Day 32

  The last bottle of water only lasted until the morning. My throat was dry and sore and the water seemed to be the only thing that helped.

  We headed back to the swamp, slowly. I hadn't felt this bad since I had first woken up in the junkyard, though at least it wasn't my whole body that was aching, only my chest and my throat. I think my hearing is worse as well, and all I can smell is a harsh, burnt stench.

  The flames were still burning hours later when we got back to the edge of the swamp. A bit of luck though. The flames along the swamp trail had died down a little. Not completely, but enough that I might be able to make my way back along to where my pack was.

  I was about to go for it when a low growl a few feet away absolutely made my day.

  Right behind us, about twenty feet away, perched on a rock, watching, was a scruffy, furry canine with teeth that were far too big for its mouth and bright eyes the size of my fist.

  It cocked its head to one side and made a snorting noise that almost sounded like "Oops".

  DogThing.

  If I could have given DogThing a hug at that moment, I would have done, but I don't think he would have appreciated it. There were no visible signs of any wounds that he might have taken during the fight in the street, but I was certain he was missing a few bits of fur. Not that it appeared to have made any difference. He seemed his usual self.

  Rudy did his best to try to persuade me not to go into the fire, but what does he understand? He is already dead. He doesn't have any attachment to material things any more. He seems to have forgotten that he once depended on them. Well, apart from the compasses; he was fidgety until I showed him that I still had those tucked away on the chain, under my shirt. God forbid I lost them.

  I almost backed out anyway; even though the flames were nowhere near as bad as they had been the day before, it was still damn hot walking along the trail. Fires still burned on either side of the path as I made my way along it, and I had to dodge from side to side a few times to avoid them. Every step I took along the path left me increasingly paranoid about one of those damn geyser things exploding a few feet away from me, but nothing happened. I got to the remains of my kit without getting roasted.

  It was almost a write-off, almost. ZombieBane was charred but thankfully still useable. I rummaged through the smouldering remains of my supplies with one of my knives. Most of the food and anything flammable, which meant pretty much everything, had burned, including the pack itself, but two tins were still intact. There was some plastic sheeting still useable, and the screwdriver, the saw, the spanner. One of the petrol lamps was also salvageable. I used the bits of plastic sheeting as a bag and dumped everything in it. How typical; just after I've got myself sorted with kit, I lose nearly all of it.

  Underneath the blackened remains were CutterJack's two long blades. They were still pristine. Not even a speck of the ash clung to the blades. Of course, the cloth that I had wrapped them in was gone.

  Incredibly, one of the zombies was still going. It was armless, legless, and burnt to a crisp, flapping around on the floor. Hissing and spitting at me, desperate to sink its teeth in. I jumped when it first made a noise; my nerves tingling. It was only about five feet away, and had laid perfectly still, smoking and stinking, the whole time I was sifting through my gear.

  It felt so good to cave the damn thing's head in. One satisfying crunch later and it stopped moving. Am I becoming heartless? Yes, I think so. I don't have any sympathy for these creatures, and deep inside I know I should. Am I putting them out of their misery? Are they even in misery? I don't know, but it feels better to keep telling myself that.

  My joy was short lived. That one smack on the zombie's head, and ZombieBane fell apart in my hands. I nearly took myself out in the process as a sharp piece of it sprang off and bounced off my leg.

  Lucky this time.

  I picked up the two blades that still lay on the floor and weighed them up. I didn't know if I was going to be able to use both of them at once, as CutterJack had. I guessed I would find out.

  I actually walked up out of the swamp with a smile on my face. It was daft. After the disaster of the previous day, there was I, grinning from ear to ear. I was still alive after taking on a gargant and a bunch of zombies, I had DogThing back, and I still had some remnants of my kit to keep me going, not much, but enough. I kept telling myself that I'd done this once already, crawled out of the darkness with nothing and still lived, so I could do it all over again.

  The first fight happened roughly an hour after that. We had set off immediately. Rudy tried to get me to rest up more. I was still coughing up crap, but I was determined to move on. It had only been an hour or so since I'd woken up, and although I was feeling knackered again already, I was not staying by the swamp, breathing in more fumes.

  DogThing sensed them first, four of them, and we saw them lo
ng before they were anywhere near us. They lumbered slowly out of the darkness, mist swirling around them like some cheap effect in a low-budget horror film. No messing about this time, I was ready for them, well sort of, if I managed to fight with CutterJack's blades.

  We took down two each, though DogThing did make the first kill, I'll happily give him that. Less than twenty seconds I would say, and they were in bits all over the ground. I was getting better at this.

  CutterJack's blades rock.

  I can't believe I just wrote that.

  Idiot.

  For most of the day we stayed a reasonable distance from the shore of the swamp. Is the edge of a swamp called a shore? I didn't want to stay too close. The fire was kicking up fumes that made me feel sick, so we used it as a distant guide to keep direction, only moving away when a gargant came into view. I was surprised to see some of them still moving slowly among the flames. I guess I hadn't wiped out a whole ecosystem after all.

  Should I be pleased by that?

  The good news was that after roughly half an hour of walking, the fire in the swamp dwindled, revealing a vast expanse of smelly gunk once more. We found a pool of clear water trapped in a small crevasse between some rocks. I was dubious at first about drinking it, but DogThing didn't hesitate. Strange, back home I would never have dreamed of sharing a drink from a pool of water with a creature as mucky as DogThing. I guess you get used to things.

  We met three other groups of zombies that day. Fortunately there were only three or four of them each time, all ambling along the same route. They moved slowly, so most of the time it was us catching up with them. It didn't matter that I'd fought these creatures a number of times now, I'd still nearly wet myself every time we closed in on them. I was getting better at fighting them though, and quite proud that I was actually able to fight with both blades, sort of. In truth I only swung one at a time. I was too scared I'd slice my own foot off.

  Day 33

  A second day travelling along the edge of the swamp.

  The area on the zombie-trail side of the swamp was similar to near the shack - barely a few hundred feet of rocks and dirt, and it gave way to tall cliffs that rose up into darkness, though the rocks weren't quite so large and warren-like.

  Pods grew in abundance along the edge of the swamp; much more so than near the shack. Rudy pointed out that there were few gargants along the trail to eat the pods. Maybe the gargants liked to avoid the zombies. It didn't matter. It meant I had a re-supply of food.

  My geography was completely thrown by now. All I could go on was that the swamp would eventually lead us back to the shack, which is where we decided we needed to head. There was at least some replacement equipment there, probably not much, but even some torches and something to make a decent bag out of would help. There was of course the cave in the rocks, and the door. I had to go there again, just in case I'd missed something the first time. That was the plan at least.

  I wish I still had my push cart.

  No zombie groups today. I wonder where they have gone.

  Day 34

  No more zombies again today. I managed to collect some more water and a few more pods.

  We reached the shack finally. I think we kept going for close to ten hours before eventually sighting the waterfall. It must have been that long. I was exhausted, hungry, and cold. My chest wasn't so bad today though, not so much coughing.

  I watched DogThing run off up towards the rocks at the edge of the plateau, before I closed and blocked up the front door.

  A minute later and I collapsed on the bed.

  There were no zombie bodies around the shack any more. I didn't notice that until I was drifting off to sleep.

  Day 35

  After I awoke, I spent a few hours going through my stuff and replacing what I could from the shack. There were plastic bottles, and wood to make torches from. I took a blanket from the bed and made a rough sack out of one of the sheets.

  DogThing came back and was tottering around the valley for most of the day. He followed us up to the cave in the rock face and sat there waiting as I climbed up the rope.

  Nothing had changed up there. Not that I had expected it to. I searched around, glancing often at the rocks along one wall. Unlike the rest of the rock fall, which seemed as though it had come from the hole in the ceiling, maybe some kind of cave-in, the rocks there looked like they had been piled up carefully. I hadn't noticed it on our first visit.

  Rudy sat watching the rock pile the whole time we were up there.

  I found a long piece of stick covered with mud lying on the ground near the refrigerator. It was thin and it looked like someone had whittled the end away into a small hook shape.

  "No more clues here then," said Rudy.

  "No. Only this stick, which Adler may have used to get the compass."

  "And that pile of rocks."

  "Yes, the rocks."

  "We're not going to disturb the grave are we?"

  "No."

  "Why come here then?"

  "I just needed to know that what Adler wrote was true, I guess."

  "I see. So where now?"

  "Well, Adler found the last compass here. So I presume he had to have been carrying it. He would have had to come back to the shack to look for the one he gave you. Of course we know he never found that one."

  "So he must have either gone on to get the ones in the junkyard, or gone somewhere else."

  "Somewhere we missed."

  "Ok, well we have to go for what we do know, and hope we find out where he went."

  "Well, there is always The Warrens," said Rudy.

  "The Warrens?"

  "They run along the side of the plateau. You remember I said that the zombies don't go over the plateau? Instead they go round. Well, that is where they go. The professor and I went that way once, following the footprint trail in the dirt that the zombies left behind. It led us all the way through and out, not too far from the mushroom fields. There are a lot of different paths in the rocks and Adler did keep going back that way. I only went with him the once, and we stuck to the footprints. That doesn't mean he always did."

  We headed back to the shack.

  All quiet. No zombies today. I walked down to the swamp to see if there was any sign of the fire.

  Nothing.

  Even the gargants are not around.

  Day 36

  We set off back towards the junkyard soon after I awoke, but rather than heading back over the plateau I took Rudy's suggestion and we made our way across the river, following the foot of the slope. I would rather have gone back across the plateau, but I couldn't ignore the possibility that The Warrens might be hiding something.

  Rudy was cheerful today, and talkative.

  "If you stand on the plateau and look down into The Warrens it's a sheer drop, too high to clearly see any of the paths that run through the rocks. It's the way that the zombies go when they are on their way to the junkyard, but they seem to stick to one particular path, and there are hundreds of different ways."

  "So we can avoid the zombies by using another path?"

  "Hmm, I'm not sure we should. It would be quite easy for us to get lost down there, but saying that, I'm still curious as to what Adler was searching for down there, and he went there a lot."

  We travelled past the spot where Rudy had died, and were both a bit disturbed to find that it had been messed with. Some of the ground had been churned up and bones had moved, and I don't mean the bit that I had disturbed to get the compass.

  "Maybe I should bury you?"

  "What?" He looked shocked at that. I have to admit that it was a strange comment to make, considering he was standing right next to me, well, his ghost was.

  "Your...remains. You're kind of just...maybe I should bury you?"

  I pointed at the bones that were scattered along the riverbank, overgrown with the bright, glowing grass.

  "No. It's ok."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes. I don't want you to.
It would be like admitting I'm dead, and I'm still here. I don't believe I'm dead yet."

  That was that. Decided.

  Over the river bank the ground sloped downwards past the rocks and then flattened out into a rough, open plain littered with small stones and debris. The grass gradually thinned out and was replaced by hard, cracked ground that was covered in a kind of salty sand. It reminded me of some pictures I'd once seen in National Geographic, of the Gobi desert.

  DogThing was waiting for us where the rocks ended and plains began. I like to think that somehow he knew where we were heading.

  We stayed along the edge of the plain, near to where the plateau rose up, higher and higher in a sheer wall of marble until I could no longer see the top.

  Across the barren ground, in long trailing lines, were sets of footprints. Rudy said that not even the storm and the rain managed to touch anything here, so the footprints were still there from the times that he and Adler had travelled through The Warrens, all those years ago. It was eerie seeing a small, thin bicycle track, cutting into the ground. I was excited about it at first, thinking that maybe it was a clue of some sort, but Rudy pointed out that Adler had always taken the bike with him, so the tyre tracks could well have been quite old.

  Littered across the ground here and there were bones and junk. I didn't examine any of it long enough to figure out what kind of creature the bones belonged to, but they looked like they had been there for a long time.

  We got to The Warrens a lot quicker than I expected. I would say about an hour across the plain, so only a few miles. They came into view through the mist and were so eerie that I almost stopped and turned back. I don't know how they were formed, but they didn't look natural. Sheer walls, maybe forty feet high, lined a dozen entrances. The rock arched at the top, almost like it had been cut from the stone by a machine. The paths were all roughly twenty feet across, and the same thin, salty sand lay on the ground. The mist, that covered everywhere, made the entrances even more foreboding.

  I saw where the zombie trail continued into The Warrens before we even reached it. It wasn't hard to spot. A path that was maybe ten feet across, that looked like it had been worn away over many years, by thousands of pairs of feet, stretched across the plain and entered the tunnel nearest to us. There were no zombies in sight, but I didn't like how deeply cut into the ground the trail was.