by JE Gurley
Alex sighed and lowered his rifle, a Ruger M77, and loaded another magazine of .338 caliber bullets. He preferred Triple Shock rounds for maximum penetration and damage. At close range, the .338 would decapitate a zombie’s head, the best way to put them down. At eighty meters, it still put them down for good, destroying whatever mental process reanimated dead flesh.
In the beginning, when the anger still burned in him hot and raw like an open wound, he had derived great satisfaction in killing zombies, as if it was his calling after the Demise, the day all hell broke loose. Now, he felt nothing. He hardly bothered killing them any more unless they got in his way. His anger was not gone entirely, merely festering under the skin of the realization that no matter how many of the creatures he killed, he could never bring back what he had lost.
He turned his John Deere cap back around to shade his eyes and sat with his legs dangling from the platform of a wooden water tank, just outside Coober Pedy, South Australia, his home for the last six years. Four weeks earlier, he had been one of the scores of miners eking out a meager living mining, and selling opals. Once, 97 percent of Australia’s opals came from Coober Pedy mines. Now, there wasn’t much call for them. There wasn’t much call for anything. Of the thirty-five hundred people who had called Coober Pedy home, he estimated 99 percent of them either were dead or had become zombies, since that fateful day when the Hades Plague, or the Demise as the newspapers called it, had swept through town riding on the back of a western sandstorm. Within hours, people were dying and returning to quasi-life, hungry for blood. Hardly a score survived now, most of them holed up in their homes, besieged by hordes of zombies. At first, it had seemed so unreal that no one had believed the initial reports. By the time the local authorities had acted, it was too late. Men, who were once healthy, had succumbed to the deadly virus, died and arose hours later as the walking dead, seeking the blood of the living.
Alex considered himself a survivor, making it through two tours of Afghanistan with the Operations Management and Liaisons Team of the First Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, when so many of his comrades had not. He had survived capture and days of brutal torture by insurgents and had survived the auto crash that had taken his wife Jiselle from him. Two years of near insanity and alcoholic binges that he prayed would end his suffering had failed to do so. By some quirk of fate, he had even survived the death in the dust that had killed Coober Pedy, along with most of Australia.
When the Demise struck, something inside of him snapped, but instead of sending him further down the deep spiral of slow death, it brought him upward, back to the land of the living. His well-honed survival instincts took over. Once again, he had an enemy he could see. As others around him died, he gathered up a few weeks’ supply of food and water, his Ruger M77, his army service pistol and ammo, loaded his 1985 Jeep CJ7 and headed out into the desert. Neither the Jeep’s radio, nor the portable short wave, picked up any broadcasts after the third day. His cell phone went dead soon after that, but by then, he had gleaned enough information to realize that there was nowhere to run. Adelaide to the south was off the air, as was Alice Springs to the northwest; east and west lay nothing but desert and emptiness. Sydney and Melbourne would have been the first hit. That left him attempting to survive where he was until help arrived, but from the initial reports, it looked as if the whole damn world had gone to shit.
Water had not been a problem, since Coward Springs flowed with artesian water from Australia’s Great Artesian Basin. After firing up the wood-fed steam donkey located at the campgrounds, he had even taken a hot shower. When he had grown weary of hiding out, he had ventured back into Coober Pedy, and begun his one-man campaign to rid the town of its zombies.
Now, he had come to the realization that help was not coming. If any authority still existed, it was dealing with Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and the other larger cities before it bothered with piss holes like Coober Pedy.
Alex wiped the sweat from his brow and climbed down the rickety wooden ladder from the bone-dry water tank. He stood for a moment staring into the cloudless sky. Winter had arrived much earlier and it had been much warmer and drier than usual. The thermometer that he carried in his Jeep had read 28 degrees Celsius before he had climbed atop the tower two hours earlier, unusually hot for August. Thirsty after his hot stakeout, he walked across the road to the Opal Roadhouse, once one of his favorite watering holes, mainly because the bouncers didn’t kick him in the ribs when they tossed him out drunk. Now, the front door yawned open. Dry, dead grass sprouted from the parking lot and the lighted sign had fallen from its pole. The black painted windows only intensified the building’s abandoned appearance. He shouldered his rifle and pulled out his Browning 9 mm pistol. Sparse shafts of light entered through cracks in the grimy, blacked out windows, partially piercing the interior gloom, but leaving corners of the room heavily shadowed. Just inside the door, he stopped and listened, allowing his eyes to acclimate to the dark. From the smell, he knew there were corpses lying about on the floor. He just hoped none of them was moving.
Ambling behind the bar, he intently scanned the row of dust covered liquor bottles lining the shelf with fond memories, and pulled down a bottle of Bundaberg Rum. Finding a can of cola in an empty cooler, he pulled the tab and let the hot drink spew over the floor. Then he wiped out a grimy glass, poured a splash of rum, added some cola, and lifted it to his lips.
“Wish I had some ice,” he said aloud, before he downed half the drink in one long gulp. The cola filled his throat and mouth with hot foam and the rum burned on the way down. Still, it was liquor. “Ah, that hit the spot.” He slammed the glass on the bar.
It had been two years since Jiselle’s death and just a few months since he could take just one drink, though he still succumbed to occasional binges when his depression grew too intense to cope with. He had not bothered with AA. His problems were his own, and he didn’t need anyone’s help to solve them. The end of the world had taken care of that. He removed a cloth bag from his backpack, grabbed the bottle of rum and one of Kentucky Bourbon, a six-pack of cola, and a six-pack of Tooheys New beer. He didn’t want to risk becoming an alcoholic again, but a drink at the end of the day seemed civilized enough. Maybe he could maintain at least one local Aussie tradition. He picked up his half-empty glass and held it out in front of him.
“Letsgetpist,” he toasted and finished his drink.
He spun around and tensed as he heard glass crunching across the room. At first, when the woman stepped from the shadows, Alex thought she was alive. Her face was clean and unblemished, but then he saw the gaping wound in her abdomen and knew better. She was one of the new ones, probably turned less than two days before. She must have been hiding until her food ran out and then ventured out only to fall prey to a zombie. Her blank expression quickly changed to a mask of rage and fury as she lunged across the bar at him. He dropped his glass, and before it smashed on the floor, he had his Webly out of the holster and aimed at her forehead. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger. Half her skull blew away and her body flew backwards. She twisted in midair like a macabre parody of an ice skater and she struck the jukebox, ending up sprawling over it, one hand resting on the selection buttons.
“Sorry, darlin’,” he said to the corpse. “You can pick the tune, but I don’t dance.”
Alex picked up his bag of loot, tossed in a couple of bags of chips from a stand at the end of the bar, and walked back out into the daylight. He looked down the road. No cars were moving. The sun would be setting soon and the night would bring a full moon. That was when most of them came out, zombies shuffling along; necks craned upward, dead eyes staring at the moon. He didn’t know what their fascination was with the full moon, or almost any light, but if it took their attention from him, he didn’t mind.
Earlier, he had walked a distance of only a kilometer from his hideout to save precious petrol. Near a burned out fast food restaurant, he saw a couple of zombies, but they didn’t see or smell him. By many hour
s of careful observation, he had learned that zombies had a keen sense of smell and hearing. Knowing the enemy was the first step in defeating them. He knew he could never kill all the zombies in town, but with luck and perseverance, he could thin out the population on his side of it.
Alex’s new home was the second story of an abandoned shirt factory. There were only two entrances, and he had blocked one of these, a sliding garage door, with steel beams and wire welded into place. The second, a smaller metal door, he had welded a support for a metal bar to secure it from the inside. He entered his lofty abode through a second-story window via a weighted rope and pulley chair lift, he carefully constructed from canvas, steel cable and using an old auto engine as a counter weight. In case of an emergency, he had run a zip line from the third story roof to an outlying building one hundred and fifty meters away.
Home was a small room with a cot, a metal folding table and chair, and a footlocker larder for his food. When he needed light, he burned candles and when he ventured out at night he used an electric torch. He cooked on the open fire or a small portable camp stove. Though crude and simple, his home was comfortable and secured both from zombies and from other live predators. Alex had not seen them, but he had come across the aftermath of a group of three men who had no qualms about killing the living for supplies, marauders. An elderly couple down the road had been tortured, before a shot to each of their heads had ended their lives. Alex hoped he ran across the animals who had perpetrated such a despicable act. He would take great pleasure in eliminating them from the gene pool.
After a meal of tinned meat and peaches, he turned on the shortwave, his usual pastime, for half an hour using a battery for power. While sipping a warm rum and cola, he scanned up and down the channels with failing optimism. Dead silence. Disgusted, he shut off the radio, lit a cigarette, and then stood staring out the window into the gathering darkness. He could just make out the outlines of the graveyard that had once been Coober Pedy. Dead buildings rose like cold marble mausoleums, corpse automobiles, tombstone billboards – Each bore mute testimony to the frailty of humankind and civilization.
Once, he had grubbed in the earth for shiny pebbles to ensure a retirement income for him and Jiselle, fossicking the locals called it. Jiselle was gone, but he had continued to dig because it required no thought to rip chunks of dirt from the ground, just as life had torn chunks of his soul from him. He pulled a thumb-sized opal from his pocket and stared at it. It was just a bit of hydrated silica, but the jet-black stone flecked with gold and crimson specks would have brought top dollar from any jeweler, and kept him and Jiselle in food and rum for months. Granted it wasn’t the Queen Elizabeth opal, but when he had first spotted it, he had thought it was his lucky day. His world ended that day. Alex chuckled to himself and slipped the stone back in his pocket. He didn’t know why he kept it. Good luck charm? Not unless you considered being one of the last people alive in a world gone to shit as being lucky.
He polished off the rum and cola and grabbed a beer, wishing he had electricity and a refrigerator to keep his beer cold. He had almost nipped a generator from a local hardware, but figured the noise would be too risky, and attract too many zombies. He took a swallow of his warm beer and winced as it foamed up and ran down the side of the can. He considered returning to the store and taking the generator anyway.
The cigarette tasted bitter, but he knew it wasn’t the tobacco; it was his outlook on life that had grown bitter. Too bad, he thought. Just as I was getting over Jiselle. He tossed the cigarette out the window and watched the glow disappear into the night. He finished his drink, thought about it for a second, and immediately dismissed the idea. He would have plenty of time to drink himself to death later, if things did not improve. After all, he knew how readily enough. Furtive movement in the distance caught his eye. Zombies! He heard more groans from the dark, the only sound the zombies made, except for the occasional howl. He knew he would not get any sleep. Better to go back out and kill a few of the creatures.
5
Aug. 27, 2013 Vostok Base, Antarctica
Val Marino roused from a restless sleep when the Sno-Cat began to decelerate. He lifted his Stetson from his eyes and looked out.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Are we there?” He knew immediately that couldn’t be right. That would mean he would have been asleep for fourteen hours.
Anson looked over at him. He was now wearing a red corduroy cap with earflaps, making him look like a Minnesota farmer. Marino resisted the impulse to laugh. “No. I did some thinking while you were asleep and headed for Vostok. Maybe they know something about Casey there. It’s just over the next rise.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Back on the last rise, I could see the base. There were no lights.”
Marino’s sinking feeling came back. “None?”
Anson shook his head. “It might not mean anything, but I decided to wake you up before we headed in.”
“You’re making me nervous, Elliot.”
“I can’t raise anyone on the radio. Maybe I’m just jumpy, but I have a bad feeling.”
Marino sat up straighter. “Maybe someone’s declared war.”
“No. Everyone down here knows we have to cooperate to survive. Do you think the Russian’s would attack Casey with Kharkovchankas and Kalashnikovs?”
Marino mentally chuckled at the thought of the large Russian tracked vehicles disgorged with scientists and technicians wielding automatic weapons, but he checked that both rifles were loaded and handed Anson his. Suddenly, his mouth felt dry and his hands moist.
“Come on,” Anson said. “Let’s head in slowly and see what happens.”
Except for the lack of lights, the Russian base appeared normal. Two gigantic Kharkovchanka snow tractors and several snowmobiles formed a neat line alongside the maintenance shack and large straps secured a helicopter against high winds. The doors to the base were shut against the weather.
“It looks quiet enough,” Marino said.
“No fire damage,” Anson noted. He pulled up to the entrance and killed the engine. “Let’s check it out.”
The windsock above the weather shack snapping in the breeze was the only noise. The ominous silence gave Marino the chills over and above the ones caused by the freezing temperatures. Anson turned the knob on the door, but it would not budge.
“Locked?” Marino asked. No one locked doors in Antarctica.
Anson shook his head, “No. Frozen, I think.” He leaned against the door, shoved, and turned the knob. The door sagged under Anson’s considerable weight before popping open. He entered first, while Marino held his rifle at ready.
The room was large and dark. Papers on a desk shuffled in the breeze from the open door. Heavy parkas and mink hats hung from hooks beside the door. The door beyond was closed.
“Hello!” Anson called out. His voice echoed ominously. No one answered his greeting. In fact, all of the little noises Marino had come to associate with an Antarctic base were missing. Silence prevailed. Anson shined his electric torch around the room. The beam illuminated a body lying by the wall. Marino sucked in his breath at the sight.
“Something’s happened,” Anson said.
Marino held his light on the corpse, while Anson approached it slowly. When he rolled the body over, it was obvious the man had not died from the cold that pervaded the base’s interior. Half the Russian’s face was missing and his abdomen was open and empty of any internal organs. The small puckered wound of a pistol shot blemished the center of his forehead.
“Oh my God,” Marino gasped. “Who would do that?”
“I don’t know. It almost looks . . .”
“What?”
Anson shook his head, saying, “Nothing. I must be wrong.”
They passed through the interior door and walked down the corridor to the kitchen and communal dining room. More bodies littered the floor of the dining room. Most were as gruesome as the one in the entryway. One corpse was missing its head. Cri
mson stains marred tables, walls, and chairs. Frozen pools of blood dotted the wooden floor. They searched the base in silence, finding dozens of frozen corpses, none of which had died from hypothermia. A thick layer of frost covered the walls. Water pipes had frozen and burst, forming sheets of cascading ice and crystal stalactites sprouted from the ceiling. The inside temperature had dropped to that outside the base, minus 45 degrees Celsius. They entered the generating room and found the diesel generator was a shambles. Someone had ripped fuel lines from the wall and broken gauges. A metal pry bar jutted from the control panel.
“Let’s get out of here,” Anson suggested.
By the grim look on Anson’s face, Marino knew his companion was thinking the same thing he was… had this happened to the men at Casey as well. As they retraced their steps to the entrance, Marino spotted a Russian AK-47 lying on the floor beneath one of the bodies. The Arizona cowboy in him thought holding a weapon in his hands might make him feel safer, although he had never fired a rifle. He gingerly rolled the frozen corpse over and grabbed the rifle.