Doomware

by Nathan Kuzack

  “Ummm, the Atlantic,” the boy said. “I like oceans: they’re the biggest ones and the best ones, aren’t they?”

  David smiled to himself. The boy had every atlas there had ever been in his head, and he knew his choice would mean the longest journey.

  “The Atlantic Ocean it is,” Tarot said, giving David a rueful look.

  They made slow progress on the M25, but once they left it there were frequent stretches of clear motorway where they were free to pick up speed. They went west. It was a cloudy day brightened by regular sunny intervals, and David wound his window down and let the wind ruffle his hair. There was a nervousness in the pit of his stomach, but its ill effects were all but cancelled out by an incredible feeling of freedom. He’d never made the best traveller, but it felt good to be on the move now, putting distance between himself and the scene of the past year’s heartache. Not that it was possible to escape the virus’s devastation. The evidence of calamity was everywhere. Fly-clouded bodies sitting in cars. Fields full of dead cattle. Washing line clothes scattered to the winds. Vehicles hanging precariously off the sides of motorway bridges.

  There were relatively few zombies on the motorway, and those there were tended to get out of their way. Some self-preservation instinct was at work, and only once did they come close to running one down, delivering the thing a glancing blow. Zombies often chased after them, and after a while the boy became so blasé he started pulling faces at them out the back window. They all laughed, but David couldn’t relax completely. He couldn’t help thinking how it would only take a mob to overturn them and that would be it. Game over. Zombie mob mentality was clearly based on the live human version; he’d seen it in action and it was terrifying.

  They made good progress until they came upon a scene of destruction. An articulated lorry had come to rest diagonally across the carriageway, accumulating an assortment of piled-up vehicles. At some point the whole lot had gone up in flames. The resultant wreckage blocked every lane of the motorway, including the hard shoulder, and there was no way to cross the central reservation to the eastbound carriage. Fortunately, they’d not long passed an exit, so Tarot did a U-turn and they left the motorway.

  The going on minor roads wasn’t as difficult as they’d feared. The virus had struck everywhere during the night, meaning there was more traffic on the motorways than the minor roads, as opposed to vice versa.

  They stopped in a random lay-by and ate lunch. The clouds had diminished the further west they’d driven, almost like a good omen if David had believed in such things. Now the sky was deep blue, hardly troubled by cloud at all. He asked Tarot if he wanted him to drive, but Tarot said he was okay.

  They drove on for hours through towns and villages David had never heard of. He recognised nothing. Occasionally the boy chirped up with some snippet of information from his brainware’s archives, but mostly they just went west, little caring about where they were or the route they took.

  On minor and rural roads it was more difficult to avoid hitting zombies. The first time it happened the boy burst out laughing at the sight of a semi-naked woman flailing over their bonnet.

  “It’s not funny,” Tarot said, silencing the boy.

  “It was nervous laughter,” David said in Shawn’s defence. “He was just defusing the situation.”

  “None of us’ll be laughing if I hit a survivor,” said Tarot grimly.

  David didn’t voice out loud how he thought that telling zombies from survivors was a relatively simple task, in daylight at least; he understood the pressure Tarot was under. “You want me to drive?” he asked.

  “No,” Tarot said.

  * * *

  It was late afternoon by the time they hit moorland the boy said was Dartmoor. They’d yet to catch a glimpse of sea. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the light was good, but David started getting anxious about where they were going to sleep. He didn’t relish the thought of sleeping in the packed Land Rover. He doubted he’d get a wink of sleep with only sheets of vintage glass separating him from zombie-ridden darkness.

  The moorland they were crossing was dotted with tors crowned by rocky peaks. The boy saw it first, from miles away: one of the tors was topped by a man-made structure. As they grew nearer they could see it was a small church. David and Tarot exchanged a look.

  They parked in an empty car park at the base of the church’s tor. The view from this level was dominated by a rock formation, enormous and formidable-looking, which formed part of the hill the church was perched on. The car park contained an inoperative information screen, above which was written in permanent lettering: Church of St. Michael de Rupe, Parish Church of Brentor.

  “You got anything on it?” Tarot asked the boy.

  “Church of Saint Michael de Rupe, meaning ‘of the rock’,” the boy said. “Originally constructed atop Brent Tor, Dartmoor, circa eleven hundred and thirty AD. Described by Tristram Risdon as ‘a church, full bleak and weather-beaten, all alone, as if it were forsaken’.”

  They made their way up the steep grassy slope of the tor, around the massive rock formation which fascinated David, transfixing him.

  “It says this was a volcano millions of years ago,” the boy said. “The rock’s called basalt.”

  The church was tiny, with a low-rising battlemented tower and a small graveyard. It was, indeed, “bleak and weather-beaten”. This high up it was cool and windy, but the view was breathtaking. Rolling countryside stretched away in every direction and, as it was such a clear day, they could see for miles.

  “What a strange place for a church,” Tarot said. “Where did the parishioners come from? There’s no town.”

  They looked at the ancient collection of tombstones.

  “The inscriptions are gone,” David noted. “Weathered away.”

  The boy said, “That Tristram guy said the ‘churchyard doth hardly afford depth of earth to bury the dead; yet doubtless they rest there as securely as in the sumptuous Saint Peters, until the day of doom’.”

  The boy’s words caused them all to pause, lost in their own thoughts. It was impossible to avoid thinking that the “day of doom” had been the day of the virus, and that here the dead were, still resting, beyond it.

  The church door was unlocked. Inside were neat, compact rows of wooden pews and a chancel featuring a single stained glass window.

  “What do you think?” David asked Tarot.

  “It’s perfect,” Tarot replied. “We’ll stay here tonight.”

  David breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t see us getting many unwanted visitors.”

  “We’ll have to cover the windows. If a light shows it’ll be like a beacon.”

  They had to make a couple of trips back down to the car park in order to get everything they’d need for the night. In his enthusiasm the boy kept running ahead, and David had to keep reminding him not to go off on his own.

  By the time they’d brought everything to the church the sun was sinking into the western horizon. They ate a meal before covering the windows with blankets.

  * * *

  The church door opened and Tarot poked his head in. “You two’ve gotta see this,” he said.

  It was night-time and they were lounging on the pews, only a couple of torches switched on to keep the light level low.

  “It’s okay,” Tarot said when David gave him a quizzical look. “I’ll keep watch with the glasses.”

  They left the torches where they were, along with the cat curled up asleep on a pew cushion, and trooped outside, making sure the door was firmly shut behind them. David realised straight away what Tarot wanted them to see: the stars. He’d never seen a sky like it. There was no moon, and the brightness and abundance of the stars was startling. They formed a lambent dome above them like a cosmic light show, the band of the Milky Way clearly visible, completely unobscured by cloud.

  “Wow!” the boy said. “Look at them all.”

  “Incredible!” David said, craning his neck.

  �
�Why aren’t they always like this?” the boy asked.

  “Because city lights drown them out.”

  “I’ll be around,” Tarot said, and he disappeared into the night, weapon at the ready.

  David had his arms around the boy and could feel him shaking. “Are you frightened?” he asked him.

  “No, I’m just cold,” the boy said.

  “The darkness doesn’t bother you?”

  “I can see in the dark if I want to.”

  “Oh yes, I forget.”

  They went around the side of the church where there was a sheer drop beyond a rickety-looking railing. They were out of the wind here, and the drop made it impossible for any zombies to approach from that direction. David stood with his back against the church wall, his arms wrapped around the boy in front of him.

  “Look!” the boy exclaimed, pointing.

  David had seen it too: a shooting star. It was closely followed by another.

  “It must be a meteor shower,” David said. “Have you made a wish? You must make a wish whenever you see a shooting star.”

  “I can make two wishes then?”

  “Yes, but don’t tell me what they are.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you see the Milky Way?”

  The boy nodded. “I’m zooming in on it.”

  “That’s the centre of our galaxy. Those are densely packed stars.”

  “Like the sun.”

  “Yes, only much further away.”

  “I can see where the Eridani are.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think they’re okay up there?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so,” David said. He couldn’t bring himself to voice his own personal belief that the Eridani were now dead and gone, wiped out long before their transmissions ever got anywhere near Earth.

  “Will the stars shine for ever?” the boy asked.

  “Oh no. They’ll burn out one day. They’ll run out of fuel and die.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even the sun?”

  “Even the sun. Nothing’s for ever.”

  “Nothing? Nothing at all?”

  “Well, only one thing,” David said, running his fingers through the boy’s hair as he peered up at the heavens. “Once something dies, once it’s dead and gone – that’s for ever.”

  The words hung heavy in the night air. Everything died and it died for ever. It was the truth, the way of things. Such a bitter pill could have been sugar-coated for a kid to swallow, but not a kid like Shawn, who had witnessed so much horror.

  “I don’t want you to die,” the boy said.

  David was touched the boy had said this rather than “I don’t want to die”. He placed his hand on the boy’s thin chest, feeling his heartbeat, and spoke into his ear. “I have to one day, but not for ages. In the meantime I have a job to do, and it’s to protect you. If anyone tried to hurt you I’d have to kill them. That’s how important this job is. I won’t let anyone hurt you, little man. Ever.”

  * * *

  David slept in fits and starts, woken frequently by unfamiliar sounds caused by wind gusting against the church. In the early hours he crept outside. Under normal circumstances he would have hated being outside in such darkness, but the stars were calling to him. He went to the same spot he’d stood in with the boy and admired them. Their beauty was mesmerising. There was something reassuring about them he didn’t quite understand, and had certainly never appreciated before. Maybe it was their remoteness, or their timelessness, or their disconnection from the horrors that were transpiring on the face of a tiny, inconsequential planet called Earth. The whole world had gone to hell and the stars were still there in their familiar constellations, unchanged, indifferent.

  After a few minutes he heard the church door open. A few seconds later Tarot appeared, fuzzy but recognisable in the darkness.

  “What’s going on?” he asked softly.

  David smiled. “Nothing,” he whispered.

  Tarot stood beside him and looked up at the night sky. “This is some place, huh?”

  “Yes, it is. In fact, it’s enough to make you think we were meant to find it. Destined, almost.”

  “Are you taunting me?” Tarot asked, his tone good-naturedly accusing.

  “Come on! A church, the first night we’re away? You think fate brought us here, don’t you?”

  “No comment.”

  “Or God?”

  “No comment.”

  David laughed quietly. A shooting star carved a silent arc across the sky.

  “I’ve never seen so many shooting stars before,” David said.

  “How often did you get to look before?”

  “True.”

  “We don’t see what we never look for.”

  A distant owl hooted. David wrapped his arms around himself, shivering slightly, and sighed.

  “Why did this happen, Tarot?” he said. “Why did the whole world go to hell? I keep thinking if only the human race had never allowed cyber’ systems that controlled absolutely everything. If only we could go back in time and change that one thing, then none of this would’ve happened.”

  Tarot contemplated this for a moment. Then he seized David’s upper arm. “Don’t you think it’s possible they lost something when they lost the ability to feel this?” He squeezed his biceps until it hurt. “That they anaesthetised themselves into it? That they lost some essential part of what made them human when they gave themselves over to machines? Something vital. Something no computerised system could ever make up for.”

  Tarot hadn’t relinquished his grip on David’s arm; it was going numb with pain. He touched the back of Tarot’s hand, and the pincer-like grip relaxed at once. David stared at him in the darkness, unsettled. Tarot had never talked in terms of “them” and “us” before, nor had he ever implied a belief that cybernetics had brought it on themselves, that they had deserved it. He’d thought along those lines in the past and it had always left him feeling ashamed of himself. Then there was the note of something disconcerting in Tarot’s voice. Something uncharacteristic. Something dangerous, even.

  “I don’t know,” David said uncertainly. “Is that what you think?”

  Tarot let go of his arm. “I don’t know either,” he said. His voice had returned to normal.

  “What would you do if you met the creator of the virus? If it was just one person, and they were standing right in front of you?”

  Tarot thought for a while. “I can’t answer that question.”

  “You’d want justice to be done though?”

  “Of course, but I don’t think justice is even possible in the circumstances. How would you atone for the murder of billions?”

  “I hate them, whoever they are.”

  “I try not to hate anything,” Tarot said with a sigh. “People have a way of becoming what they hate.”

  CHAPTER 37

  D + 452

  In the morning they carted everything back down the hill. David felt an affection for the church and wanted to stay – so he could look at the stars again if nothing else – but he knew they had to move on. They couldn’t risk running out of food and water in such an isolated location. Tarot refuelled the car and they continued west, David at the wheel. The roads were mostly clear of stationary traffic, but the winding nature of them prevented travelling at high speeds. As soon as they hit a dual carriageway David was able to gun the engine and they made good progress.

  After driving through a little white town, they crested a hill and suddenly the ocean was before them, deep-blue and glinting in the sunlight. The boy was beside himself with excitement. David wound his window down and took in the sensations of the seaside. The dull roar of the waves. The call of seagulls. The taste of salt in the air. All of these called to mind childhood memories and his spirits soared.

  The coastal town they entered was sandwiched between tree-covered hills on one side and the Atlantic on the other. It was home to an eclectic
collection of dwellings, a combination of big and small, old and new, from ramshackle old chalets to palatial new estates. It was quaint and picturesque in its own way (if you ignored all the signs of apocalypse). The seafront area was lined with modern apartment blocks and static caravan parks. There was a small green, several shops and an amusement arcade. They hardly saw any zombies at all, lifting David’s spirits even higher. It seemed too good to be true. They had the place to themselves – a summer seaside ghost town.

  They stopped in a car park beside the amusement arcade. To the right a pebble ridge stretched away into the distance, and to the left a slipway led down to a sandy beach. When he saw the beach David’s heart sank. It had been too good to be true. The beach was crawling with zombies. Zombies fighting. Zombies feeding on bodies. Zombies fucking. Zombies wandering about aimlessly. It was like a great panoply of zombie action.

  “What the hell?” David said.

  “They like the beach,” Tarot said with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “They’re not going in the water,” the boy observed.

  David peered at the distant ocean. The boy was right: he couldn’t see any zombies actually in the surf.

  “If they don’t go into the water,” David said, “and if the tide comes right in–”

  “Which it does,” Tarot interrupted him; “hence the pebble ridge.”

  “Then they’ll be forced–”

  “Into the town.”

  “Great.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, watching the Everards and the Varleys and the honeytrappers.

  “What do you think?” David asked Tarot.

  “It’ll be the same everywhere,” Tarot said. “I think we should try one of those apartment complexes. If they were holiday homes most of ‘em should’ve been empty.”

  “Good idea.”

  David threw the Land Rover into gear and hit the accelerator. He was keen to put the disappointment of the beach behind them as quickly as possible.

  The first apartment building they came to – a large sign proclaimed as being Shanti Court: 2, 3 & 4 bedroom luxury apartments – had an unusual, futuristic design with curved motifs reminiscent of ocean waves. It was four storeys tall at its highest point and had balconies front and back. There was an entrance to an underground car park, but the barrier preventing access to it was huge, metal and firmly shut.