by JE Gurley
Slowly, the zombies wandered out of the lot around the factory. Nicole insisted on venturing out on foot on the third day to return with the jeep. She was gone several hours. Her long absence worried Alex, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the jeep chugging across the parking lot. She offered him no explanation for her tardiness and he did not press her. At Alex’s request, she brought the battery inside, and each day he listened for one hour for any signs of life on the airwaves; however, they remained as silent as ever.
His record was dismal. So far, he had encountered four live humans and had killed three of them and almost caused the death of the fourth. He would not blame Nicole if she packed up and left, but to his amazement, she showed no signs of departure. At the end of the first week, some of her old vivaciousness returned and they spent long hours talking trivial things. As they sat around the fire after dinner one night, the subject of places they had been and things they had seen came up.
“I haven’t been anywhere,” she admitted, “Unless you count Adelaide, once when I was young. I was born here and figured I would die here. I never expected something like this to happen. I wanted to see the world, but my father . . . my father would never have been able to handle the loneliness after my mother died. We scraped by, but never had much but our home.” She smiled. “It wasn’t all bad, though. Coober Pedy isn’t so bad, uh, wasn’t so bad.”
“I haven’t been much of anywhere but Afghanistan and Melbourne. Didn’t care much for big cities though. I thought I might get rich digging for opals.” He pulled his lucky opal from his pocket. “I found this the day the plague hit.”
“That’s worth a few dollars,” she said. “A day late, as they say.”
He returned it to his pocket. “And a dollar short. It’s not worth much now.”
“Why do you keep it?”
“Oh, it reminds me not to get too attached to things.”
“Like me?”
Alex looked at her. She was not smiling, but he could not read the expression on her face. If she had been younger, he would have said she looked like a lost little girl.
“I mucked things up for you quite miserably, didn’t I?”
“You saved my life, twice.”
“Well, we’re even on one, I guess,” he joked.
“That means I still owe you one,” she replied, staring at him.
He returned her stare and felt his emotions stir from the uneasy sleep in which he had placed them. He hoped his face didn't betray his longing for her. After her ordeal, he could not bring himself to broach the subject of sex.
“Tell me about your wife.”
He jerked his eyes away, the moment broken.
“Not much to say, really. I brought her here, I went to Afghanistan, and when I got back, we were both two different people. She died in an auto crash. I was driving. Not a scratch on me. I rather went downhill from there, drinking when I wasn’t digging, and drinking most of the time I was digging. I locked myself away from others. It’s ironic that it took the deaths of millions to bring me round.”
“You miss her don’t you?”
“We weren’t happy,” he replied, skirting her question.
“But you still miss her.”
“Yes,” he snapped. “I still love her, but that doesn’t mean much. I killed her. Loving her after the fact doesn’t make up for it. Sometimes her ghost haunts me, like now when I look at you.”
She moved closer to him. “You didn’t kill her. People die. My father died.” Her voice rose. “The whole damned bloody world died,” she sobbed. She laid her head on Alex’s shoulder. “You need to remember that you’re human. It’s all we’ve got left.”
“Do you know where I found my opal? Not in the damn mine that I had been digging in for two years. I found it on her grave. I went there when the world went belly up, and it was lying right there on top in the sun, mocking me for a fool.” He grunted. “Some luck. I ought to throw the damn thing away.”
“But you won’t,” she said between sobs.
He reached out and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “No, I can’t.”
There was no talk of sex. He knew now as not the time to broach that subject. They remained that way, silent, until she fell asleep in his arms.
19
Sept. 4, ‘Resurrection City’ Oates Land, Antarctica–
Anson was livid, his face the color of an Arizona sunset. Marino had never seen the Australian so badly shaken. His voice cracked as he spoke. “That bastard Gilford came out here and ripped out the wiring. I didn’t realize it until I tried to start the engines. We’re not going anywhere.”
“Can’t you fix it?” Marino asked. Over the past few months, he had come to accept that the big Aussie could do almost anything. Seeing his friend so crushed frightened him. However, the thought of being stuck in Antarctica frightened him even more.
Anson shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m no electrician.” The words sounded as if it were wrenched from his throat. “There should be a wiring manual somewhere around here if I can read it, but it could take days.” He clutched his head with both hands and groaned. “I’d have to test each circuit or I could blow all the fuses. We don’t have many spares.”
Marino tried not to mirror Anson’s panic. “What can I do?”
“If you’ve got a pipeline to God, you could slip in a prayer or two. We’ll need them. I’ll have to work in gloves or my fingers will freeze. That’ll make it even harder, but I’ll give it a whirl. I’ll be flat out like a lizard drinking.”
Marino sometimes wondered if Anson’s relapse into stine was for his benefit. After all, Anson had been born in Melbourne, not some Outback billabong. If he understood him right, Anson was willing to try to make the repairs quickly. “They may have spare fuses here somewhere. I’ll look for them.”
“Wrong kind. The electrical equipment fuses in the lab won’t fit.”
“What about the vehicle shed? Planes flew in and out of here. They would need spare parts.”
Anson shook his head. “No. The planes would have carried their own spares, like we do, but we just don’t have enough. Maybe if I knew what the hell I was doing . . .” He sighed and shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’ll try. See if you can find some kerosene for the portable heater.” A smile broke across his face. “At least I can have my tea.”
Gilford had tried to kill them and might yet succeed from his grave. Marino couldn’t understand his actions. He knew the scientist had gone off the deep end, but why maroon them here? What purpose did it serve?
By the time Marino set up the heater, Anson was hard at work. He could hear Anson mumbling to himself beneath the control panel. A wiring diagram lay open at his side. Marino took a closer look at it and was lost trying to figure out the tiny squiggles and abbreviations covering its surface. They looked like isometric pressure bars on a weather map. He hoped Anson had better luck reading it than he had.
The Hercules was loaded and he could offer little assistance to Anson. Marino returned to the dining room where Gilford and Basky’s bodies still lay where they had left them. He decided to move them into another room, so they could keep the kitchen burners going for heat. He had seen many bodies lately, but he still felt squeamish while dragging the two into a back room closet by their heels and shutting the door. As he moved Gilford, an object fell out of his pocket. Marino bent to examine it and saw that it was a flash drive. He almost kicked it under one of the benches, but decided to pocket it. If Gilford thought it important enough to carry on him, it might prove important to someone.
With the storm over and the winds reduced to a light breeze, the silence of the base was disconcerting. He cooked a hot meal and took a plate to Anson, who shook his head in refusal, as he continued working. Marino ate, but paid little attention to the food. His actions were automatic, fueling calories to his body’s furnace against the cold. He pulled out his I-pod and selected Surfing with the Alien by Joe Satriani. As he sat with his eyes
closed, listening to the sweet melody and tight guitar work, and trying to figure out some deal he could make with God in exchange for letting them leave, he began to notice the sound of water dripping.
Crossing the room to the window, he saw water running down the glass. The icicles sprouting from the underside of the eaves were melting. A warm front was coming through. His first thought was that Anson’s work would be easier. Then, with a start, he realized the significance of warming weather – zombies thawing.
He rushed to the door and flung it open to warn Anson. A man wearing a bloody uniform, his face crushed, stood at the door blocking his way. Marino slammed the door shut and leaned his weight against it until he could secure the lock. The zombie pounded the door with its fists, moaning. The door would withstand the efforts of a single zombie, but the sound would draw others. Marino looked for his AK-47 and realized with a sinking feeling that he had left it in the Herc. Then he remembered Gilford’s pistol. He had placed it on Gilford’s chest when he had dragged the bodies into the closet. He opened the closet door, reached down, and snatched the pistol. As he stood, Basky’s eyes popped opened. He stared at Marino, snarled, and reached up with a blackened hand. Marino’s heart climbed up his throat as he cocked the pistol and fired a round into Basky’s head. Basky fell back, now twice dead.
Marino knew he had to warn Anson before a zombie climbed the ladder into the Herc and caught him lying down. Steeling himself, he opened the front door, shoved his foot into the zombie’s stomach, and fired as he pushed the zombie backwards. The bullet tore off the side of the dead soldier’s head. It fell into the snow on its back and lay still, finally at peace. Marino looked up and saw several more zombies lumbering his way, drawn by the shot. Three stood between him and the C-130. He checked the clip in the pistol. He had two only rounds left.
As he made a dash for the plane, he fired and dropped one zombie. He aimed for the next one, and stopped in his tracks in confusion, when its head exploded into a shower of clotted blood and bone chips. Anson stood in the door of the Herc with his rifle. He took out the other zombie with his next shot.
“Come on!” he shouted at Marino, who suddenly realized he had stopped running.
He raced up the ladder and fell inside the C-130. Behind him, Anson’s rifle barked once more as he stopped another zombie’s approach. Anson looked down at Marino.
“Glad you could make it,” he said, grinning.
“I hope you’ve got good news.”
“I’m making progress,” Anson replied. “Looks like we’ve got company.”
Marino looked out the door. A dozen or more zombies clustered around the plane, moaning. Anson closed the door.
“I’m down to our last fuse, but I’ve got the engine circuits rewired. Not much I can do about the de-icers or heaters, but we might not need them with this weather.”
Anson frowned and Marino braced himself for bad news.
“It’s a little worse than I thought. Gilford was insane but crafty. He destroyed the altimeter and GPS system as well.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll be flying by line of sight and landing by guesswork; tricky, especially at night. We could come a cropper.”
“Crash? We can land in the daylight.”
“That’s another problem. In order to arrive in daylight, we’ll have to wait another six hours to take off.” He jerked his thumb toward the door. “I don’t think our friends will wait.”
“Right. We sure as hell can’t stay here.”
“No, if one of these bastards manages to puncture a tire, we’re royally screwed. We need to take off now, just as soon as I get the panel put back together.”
“First beer’s on you then,” Marino said and then laughed. His laughter died away quickly as reality filtered back in. “What are our chances?” he asked, his second time for the question.
“Truthfully?” Anson replied. He reached out and lightly caressed the Hercules’ metal bulkhead. “I got her up and back down once. I can do it again. The storms died, so freezing fuel lines shouldn’t be a problem. I’d say we can make it to the mainland all right.” He face clouded, “I can’t say what we’ll find when we get there, however.”
“We’ll make it? You sure?”
Anson smiled. “Fair dinkum, mate. Let’s get started.”
Marino grabbed the AK-47 and opened the door. “I’ll take out a few obstacles.”
Only a handful of zombies had approached the plane, but more would come when Anson cranked the engines. Marino took careful aim and took the undead out of their misery, one by one. He then followed Anson into the flight cabin and once again took the co-pilot’s seat as Anson cranked the four turboprop engines. The thundering roar of all four engines revving smoothly brought a grin to Anson’s face. The fuel lines were fine. He scanned the rows of dials and banks of gauges and nodded to himself.
“Runway’s a bit patchy,” he said, “so hold on.”
Marino tightened his seat harness and muttered a quick, silent prayer as Anson pushed the throttles forward. The big Hercules shuddered violently as the landing gear broke free of their icy bonds. It rolled forward, slowly at first, but picked up speed as it ate up the distance between the hangar and the spiny band of rocks marking its terminal boundary. Behind them, the zombies drawn by the sound of the engines, staggered after them. Marino clenched his jaw tightly against the bone-jarring jolts as the Hercules plowed through waist-high drifts of blown snow and ice. Finally, with one last convulsion, the bulky C-130 became airborne. Marino released his breath and muttered another silent prayer.
The sky remained overcast, but visibility was good. Anson banked seaward and pointed the nose north. As they passed over the base one last time, Marino looked down. The zombies clustered in the middle of the runway, mystified as to where their quarry had disappeared. Marino’s apprehension dissipated when the last of the icebound coastline fell away behind them and open water surrounded them. There was no repeat of the frightening tremors or sudden dips of their previous attempt. Once in the air, the great lumbering beast of a plane transformed into a svelte soaring bird, delivering them from their frozen prison.
“We should spot the coast of Tasmania in about ten hours,” Anson told him, “Adelaide in eleven.”
Marino noticed that Anson’s mood had lightened once the Hercules was in the air. He dutifully watched the instrument panels, but Marino caught him staring off into the distance as if eager to see home. Like him, Anson probably wondered what they would find in Adelaide. He had never been to Adelaide, the capital of Southern Australia. Of course, he had spent a week in Melbourne, on his whirlwind tour of the Down Under Continent before continuing to Casey – Flinders Street Station, the Shrine of Remembrance, and Melbourne Cricket Ground, where he had watched a match, whose rules he could not quite comprehend. It was a beautiful city, rated one of the top three livable cities in the world, a bustling city of four million Melburnians, or had been. He doubted they still held matches at Cricket Ground or crowds still gathered at Federation Square or lovers strolled hand in hand along the banks of the Yarra River in the moonlight. No lights burned late in offices in the busy Melbourne City Centre, business heart of Australia. He doubted Adelaide would prove any different. He glanced at Anson, wondering if they would find his sister and brother alive. The odds seemed slim.
Marino counted in his head the number of days since those first terrifying words from Casey over the radio. He was surprised it had been only nine days since his personal world had ended. It seemed more like a lifetime. He tried not to dwell on the fate of Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, or Sedona. Earlier, he had felt certain that isolated groups of people in the deserts and countryside had survived; a chance to rebuild once the zombies had died of starvation. Now, he held little hope. An airborne virus could ride the winds, the Angel of Death sowing destruction as in the biblical tenth plague of Moses, except no amount of blood over the lintel could offer protection from one of Mankind’s creations, and
not just the firstborn were dying. What Gilford had revealed with his dying breath bothered Marino. Was it just Gilford’s last kick in the teeth or were they really infected. Was there escape of Antarctica pointless? Would they just die in Australia like everyone else?
Marino glanced at the useless GPS, as they flew over the restless waters of the Southern Ocean, and silently cursed Gilford for that parting gift as well. No islands, no ships, not even birds marked their passage northward. For all he knew, they could be standing still in midair. Once, out of boredom more than hunger, he went into the cargo bay and cooked a simple one-pot meal of tinned chicken, early peas and new potatoes. He made a pot of tea for Anson and coffee for himself. He had to use both sparingly for fear of decimating their meager supply. Returning forward, he offered Anson a bowl of the soup and a cup of tea. Anson placed the plane on autopilot and took the tea first. After draining half of it, he smiled.
“Ah, good stuff. I needed that.” He eyed Marino’s cup. “I smell coffee. Tea not good enough for you?”
Marino handed Anson the soup and a spoon. Anson set the tea beside his seat and began eating.
“Tea’s good enough for you Aussies and Brits, but real Americans need their coffee,” Marino replied. He sat down and dug into his food. He decided that in spite of coming from a tin, the flavor wasn’t too bad. Some fresh herbs would help. Since he did not consider himself a good cook, it was probably his best effort. Anson did not complain as he wolfed down his food. Between spoonfuls, he responded to Marino’s taunt.