Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 3): March

by Dave Rowlands

  They moved up the road in several groups, clumped together for warmth and safety. The few Dead at the lower end of the road that approached were struck down by club-wielding bandits, or gunfire, none of them getting near enough to do any harm. The main bulk of The Family had finally reached the campsite at the bottom, and were already preparing a second wave of attackers for us.

  noon

  Topside, The Twin awaited us at the helipad. Apocalypse Girl and Firecracker had rejoined us by this stage, the latter sporting a freshly shorn scalp. The Colonel surveyed the oncoming enemies with her binoculars, suggesting that each sniper concentrate on a single group. Clumped together as they were, with such high-powered rifles as we had there should be little difficulty in making multiple killing shots.

  The Colonel then left us to Archer's expert supervision. He, The Twin, Sister, Apocalypse Girl and I attached silencers to our rifles, then spread out along the edge of the helipad, taking aim at the approaching bandits, trying to ignore the freezing cold of the grey snow falling on our freshly shaved heads.

  Through my scope I could see them, practically smelled their filthy rags. I could see the boils on the face of the bandit leading one group, aimed a little lower, pulled the trigger. He staggered as my bullet hit his chest, his fellows dragging him up again roughly. I sighted up another bandit, fired again at the chest, to once more have him stumble, yet continue onwards. Archer called out that they wore armour of some kind, better aim for the head.

  I lined up a third bandit, fired before I was ready, and saw his throat tear open. His mates, thinking he was alright, pulled him back upright, dragging him along. I blew the brains clean out of another invader, and the throatless corpse began to twitch as his companions dragged him along. Aiming at the head of another victim, he turned at the last instant, which saved his life at least temporarily, though the man behind him lost his lower jaw. My target had turned to see exactly why one of his mates was squealing like a little girl. Throatless Dead had started gnawing on his cheek, that was the reason. The group scattered, Throatless Dead and his victim both being clobbered into a headless pulpy mess by men they had no doubt been pissing up with just last night. Other Dead, many more of them than I could easily count, surrounded the survivors, many being slain in their attempt to get at their flesh, but as the sheer weight of numbers of Dead piled up over them, no amount of struggling would save them. We could hear their shrieks as they were torn to pieces.

  The other groups of huddled bandits fared little better, The Twin taking off the heads of most of her group long before any Dead got near, Sister and Apocalypse Girl managing to down three apiece of their targets before they were swamped. Archer, however, had decided to be a bastard. He was shooting limbs from his bandits, an arm here, a leg there. Leaving them alive, screaming, bleeding and in agony as a prime target for the Dead that unhurriedly rushed in their general direction.

  Another wave of huddled bandit groups approached us from The Mother's camp, and as I sighted up my first victim of the new wave, I noticed a scout, one of the newcomers that had been exiled to the surface, returning along the ledge. Thinking no more of it, I took the head from an approaching bandit, then another. More Dead had arrived by the time I lined up my third, rather than wasting the shot I just watched them all die horribly.

  “Trouble.” Archer stated flatly. As he spoke I heard assault rifle fire open up on the Dead at the barrier. This was in no way part of the plan. The Colonel ran up to the helipad shouting something about traitors, and that we needed to fight through them to get back inside The Think Tank. At that moment, one of the newcomers rounded the corned behind her, to be met with a round from The Colonel's .45 in the face.

  Slinging my sniper rifle over my back, I swapped it for my katana. I had slain so many Dead with this blade that it was getting ridiculous, but this was the first time I had drawn it with the intent of spilling Living blood. It gave the blade a whole new gravity, as though the mass of thousands of worlds concentrated on the sword itself to weigh it down. Telling The Twin and Apocalypse Girl to cover us, I took Sister by one hand, holding my sword in the other, and together we ran.

  We flew around the corner into a mob of seven exiles, all armed, though only two with guns. The wall of treason stopped us dead in our tracks, and I almost threw Sister behind me so that I could grip my blade firmly with both hands. The two with guns raised them, aiming directly for my face, while the other five strode towards me confidently. The leader of this little group, cricket bat over his shoulder, held out a hand for my weapon, smilingly telling me that if we go along quietly it'll go easier on us all.

  I sliced his hand off at the wrist and he fell, screaming, dropping his cricket bat to cradle his stump as it pissed out blood all over the snow. At that instant the heads of the two gun-carriers exploded into a shower of something unpleasant. The four remaining charged me, and with a back-handed slash I nearly decapitated all of them. It took a few seconds to extract my sword from the head of the fourth man, who had been slightly shorter than his three buddies. In that time Apocalypse Girl, Archer and The Twin joined the rest of us, The Colonel grabbing the one-handed man and propelling him forward, rushed us into the main building, and down the elevator, as gunfire raged above.

  evening

  Strapped into a chair in medical, the one-handed man had, after Doctor cauterised his stump, explained to The Colonel and Firecracker that he and his fellows that had been exiled to the surface wanted back in, and figured the easiest way of doing that was helping The Family get inside. He went further to say that part of the arrangement was that he personally was to be given my sword, as well as everything else that belonged to me. This included, according to both this stumpy prick and The Mother both, Apocalypse Girl. She looked as disgusted as I felt, hearing this, and The Colonel hardly needed urge me to grant him the gift of my sword. After I took his head from his shoulders, Firecracker put it on display in the entrance hallway, hanging at approximately head-height from the doorway, mutely gnashing its teeth in a vain attempt to chew on someone, anyone.

  Later, in the main computer lab, we watched as The Family and their bandit and exiled allies cleared the roadway of Dead, making way for The Mother and her cronies to come on up and invade properly. Firecracker had insisted that we begin moving any supplies needed for an emergency evacuation to the older complex, near to the tunnel leading to the outside world.

  The Colonel suggested that, should we need to evacuate, we should also head for Melbourne, thus giving us somewhere relatively Dead-free, at least temporarily, to raid for supplies and maybe another safe place to hide. She also brought up the possibility of detonating the neutron warhead. The heat from the explosion alone would incinerate The Family completely, and if timed correctly, would almost certainly do for the carpet of Death that followed them. Nobody liked that idea, least of all The Colonel, but it seemed a realistic solution to the problems that faced us. It was unlikely that The Mother would relent, and though leaving this sanctuary was a painful thought, it was preferable to the deaths that we would all experience at the hands of The Family.

  We also decided that The Children would go into the older complex, along with some of the other personnel of The Think Tank. Those of us with the most combat experience would stay up top, making sure that The Family either backs the fuck off, or else buying time for the others to get away before nuking the entire place.

  March 8 Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  Waking to the sounds of gunfire is never pleasant, but knowing that gunfire is in defence of your home, and that you need to be up and about defending it yourself makes it that much more important, and that much less pleasant. Apocalypse Girl and I ran out, having slept fully clothed, taking cover as we entered the main hall. Someone writhed in the dark at the entrance, that was where the gunfire had originated.

  Redbeard's voice boomed out from behind us, demanding to know who was there. The response was an incomprehensible babble of whinge, all that we could d
ecipher was that whoever it was, they had been bitten by our guard-ghoul-gargoyle Dead-head. Nobody from The Think Tank would have made the mistake of wandering down this particular dark corridor, knowing that the Dead head was there, and the enemy army above, so that meant either an exile or a Family member. The Colonel appeared almost out of nowhere beside me, asking what information I had. I told her, and she shined the light from a torch down the hallway. Junior arrived shortly afterwards.

  The head of the one handed man still swung by his long, matted hair, fresh blood dripping from its mouth. A slight twitch of movement from the corner and she shone the light there, revealing a blood-soaked man in shabby clothes, one that recognised as one of The Mother's guards. Simply mouthing 'help' over and over, as The Colonel, staying low so as to avoid being bitten herself, scuttled over to the elevator doors.

  She opened the elevator, shoving the dying man inside after rummaging around in his pockets, pulling something from one of them, and scuttling back, Dead-head chattering away over her head as she passed beneath. The elevator doors closed, the lift rising as The Colonel opened up the folded up graph paper that had been in the guards pocket. Reading the contents of the paper, she chuckled grimly, ironically, before crumpling it up and tossing it back down the hall. Apocalypse Girl asked what it said, to which The Colonel replied “A peace offering. We hand them you four and the girl you guys rescued, and they guarantee nobody else dies apart from you five. Doesn't really matter much anyway, since the messenger is probably trying to eat someone up there by now. Besides, I don't negotiate with their type.”

  Redbeard suggested to Junior that he should join the others in the older complex, leave the fighting to the rest of us, and tell the others to get ready. The rest of The Think Tank had woken by now and were investigating the sounds of shooting. Junior, at first looking as though he was going to argue, then changed his mind, patted me on the shoulder with his stump before leaving. Firecracker went with him, saying that someone needed to organise the retreat.

  noon

  On the main computer screen, we could clearly see The Family were moving in upstairs. There were easily over fifty people up there just making themselves at home. We could clearly see campfires being built, and pyres for the Dead, and the dead. Checking on the Dead-carpet's progress, we saw that they were indeed drawing nearer as well. Three days, perhaps four, was the estimate given by The Smart Couple. Smart Guy, looking incredibly chuffed with his accomplishment, showed us a portable radio that he had knocked together from parts scavenged out of several devices that served no useful purpose in this new world of ours. Though it only had a limited transmission range, the receiver that he had built into it was powerful enough to pick up transmissions from Jupiter, he said.

  “Jupiter, hey?” The Colonel asked, impressed. “Nice distance, but what about something a little closer to home? It might be a little bit more practical.” Smart Guy smiled, and tuned in to the frequency that we had agreed to use with The Facility. We were able to listen in with a damn sight more clarity with Smart Guy's Radio than with the equipment designed for it. However, we needed to be within fifty kilometres of The Facility's radio receiver in order to make ourselves heard with it. He handed it to Apocalypse Girl, The Colonel saying that she was now our official communications officer.

  “That's great, really, but only as long as there's someone out there to communicate with!” She said, putting the radio away in the inside pocket of her jacket. Smart Girl pointed out that earlier, while testing it, they had picked up transmissions in a foreign language, German, she thought.

  When it was our turn to keep watch over the hallway, Apocalypse Girl and I heard the elevator coming down. When it opened, hearing nothing, we shone a light down the hall to discover the Dead that had been bitten by our little surprise, and another that he had clearly nibbled on after reaching the surface. Shutting the torch off, I kept watch while Apocalypse Girl grabbed a couple of beds from medical to use as a makeshift Dead barrier. We set this up halfway up the hallway, more or less where we had first spotted the intruder this morning. The Colonel, coming across us as we toiled, applauded us for our thinking, and set up a secondary trap after it, this one using explosives.

  Her reasoning was that the Dead probably wouldn't be able to work out how to climb over Apocalypse Girl's barrier, whereas a couple of trip-wires set to detonate some mines would do for anybody with the physical and mental capacity to work it out. The explosions will also give us a little advance warning, and some extra time while we set up another defensive position further back.

  evening

  Typical, just as I sat down to enjoy dinner with Apocalypse Girl, the mines that The Colonel had placed went off, sending a shower of plaster from the ceiling down on our meal. Blowing the dust from the food, we ate it while walking to the defensive barrier that The Colonel had erected between us and the entry elevator. Archer and Redbeard stood guard, The Twin and The Colonel sitting behind them also munching on a quick meal.

  Another explosion rocked the complex, though this time we covered our food in time. The Colonel insisted that no matter what, we get a decent meal into us tonight, because it could be the last time we eat properly for a while.

  This time we heard the hoots of invading bandits for just a couple of seconds before they blew themselves to smithereens on another sneakily placed mine. The Colonel smiled in satisfaction as they died.

  Another group of raiders followed them a short while later, this time being far more cautious than their brethren. However, we were able to hear them coming, and The Colonel pulled the pin from a grenade, holding onto it for just a couple of seconds before throwing it neatly amongst a group of four of them, part exile, part bandits. The resultant explosion threw parts of exile and parts of bandits all over the place.

  We ran, after that, all the way to the far end of The Think Tank, stopping only to smash the screens in the computer labs. Once we reached the elevator to the older complex, we had only a short while to wait while it ascended before we descended, once again, into The Depths.

  March 9 Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  Reasoning that The Family would be busily celebrating their acquisition of The Think Tanks supplies of food and water, we were able to sleep soundly on the way down, at least as soundly as you can sleep in an elevator! Upon reaching bottom, however, we ran around to the nearest free office to bed down for the rest of the night. The Twin ran off to see if the elevator had been tampered with in any way while the rest of us nibbled on some cheese and bread that The Colonel had stashed in her backpack.

  We gathered on the lower level, at the entrance to the long stairs down to the tunnel out. Firecracker had already sent Auntie and Gift-Shop Girl ahead with The Children, as well as a few of the newcomers. Junior was with them as well, she thought. The Smart Couple, along with Doctor and Nurse, were to head downstairs, waiting about halfway down for the rest of us. They had just left when The Colonel asked me to hand her the id card that opened up the missile silo.

  Searching my pockets, I found nothing other than my weapons and some spare ammunition. I then put my backpack on the ground in order to go through it, but The Colonel told me to stop. She then ordered us all downstairs immediately. When I asked her why, she told me that Junior had stolen the badge from me, and we had better get the fuck clear of this place by the time he pushes that button.

  noon

  Eventually we reached the bottom of the massive stairwell, though I at least felt as though we nearly died getting there. As we passed the group of medical and technical geniuses, we told them to follow us, The Colonel explaining the situation on the fly. Everybody understood the need for haste, and by the time we finally reached the bottom we were all out of breath.

  Gift-Shop Girl, Auntie and The Children were hurrying back towards the stairs, shouting when they reached us “Dead in the tunnel!” The Colonel made them slow down, take a breath and speak one at a time. Gift-Shop Girl told us that the noise of putting up the gat
eway must have attracted the attention of some of the Dead that had been passing nearby.

  “No choice, we've got to go through them!” The Colonel shouted, leading the charge down the hallway at a comfortably paced jog. The rest of us followed suit, pulling out our pistols. After an hour or so of trotting, we could hear the sounds of combat from ahead. Another twenty minutes and we saw Foreman and a couple of the other newcomers trying to hold back a wave of Dead that had wandered inside the tunnel.

  Speeding up to a sprint, firing into the wall of Dead, The Colonel shouted at them to get their heads the fuck down. Several Dead skulls burst apart by the time she had to reload, by which time the rest of us had caught up and had begun taking shots at the Dead. One of the newcomers screamed, and tore away from a Dead one, leaving a good chunk of his arm in its slavering jaws. His companion handed him a large wrench before he and Foreman fell back to our position to regroup. To his credit, the bitten man felled a good dozen Dead at least before they overwhelmed him.

  Unfortunately, the number of Dead that had found their way into the tunnel appeared endless, the few the newcomer had slain in his dying moments hardly causing them to slow down. Our bullets, despite every round fired finding its way into the head of a Dead, slowed them only a little. We fell back, slowly, until we had a decent distance between us and the Dead. The Colonel and Firecracker between them decided that the only real option was to punch our way through. Redbeard mentioned that a few grenades will slow them down and separate them enough for a few of us to make it through, but we had no way of knowing just how many lay in the tunnel behind those we had just encountered. The Colonel issued assault rifles to those of us capable of using them, and we emptied several clips into their ranks, killing many outright, but also shredding the bodies of those left standing.