by JE Gurley
“Tea is a noble beverage, worthy of a civilized race. You Yanks drink piss for beer, play football with pads and helmets, and call lorries, trucks, when everyone knows that ‘truck’ is a verb, not a noun.”
Marino nodded once. “I bow to your humility.” He looked out the cockpit windows as Anson yawned. “Can you sleep while the autopilot’s on? You look like you could use some.”
“I could, but I prefer not to.” He swept a hand over the rows of gauges. “Half of these mean nothing to me. I just listen to the sound of the engines and pray. I’ll sleep later.” He winked at Marino and pointed to the steering wheel. “Why? You want to take over for a while?”
“Me? No way. I can’t fly a kite. I’m a passenger and part-time steward, cook and bottle washer.”
Anson held out his empty cup. “More tea, steward?”
Marino pretended to be irate as he grabbed Anson’s cup and went for a refill. It was then that it dawned on him – what if Anson succumbed to the nanite plague while they were in the air. Even if Anson didn’t kill him, he would be as good as dead. He couldn’t land the C-130. The spacious cargo bay of the Hercules seemed to shrink around him. The air became thick and dark, seeking to enclose him, smother him. His chest pounded against his ribcage as he fought for air that wouldn’t come. Were the nanites changing him? Would he become one of the undead?
He reached out to steady himself and missed the wall. Stumbling, he landed awkwardly on the floor, bruising his knees, and cutting his palms on the cold worn metal. Gradually, his breath returned. He laid face down gasping for air. His mind slowly began to clear. He realized that he had probably been breathing nanites since Vostok, eight days earlier. Either the cold had rendered them inactive, or he and Anson were somehow immune. Gilford was wrong. After all, he had been exposed for almost a month and he hadn’t changed.
The real test would come once they reached Melbourne.
20
Sept. 2, Coober Pedy, Australia
“We can’t stay here,” Alex announced after returning from a scavenging trip.
“Why?” Nicole asked. She looked up at Alex, as she sat by the camp stove brewing tea, and could not miss the anger in his eyes.
“Most of the shops have already been looted and a man with a rifle took shots at me as I drove down the road. Luckily, they were terrible shots. It’s getting too dangerous.” He didn’t tell her the man was probably a friend of the two looters he had killed.
“Where do we go?”
Alex had given the idea considerable thought on the way back. “Adelaide.”
Nicole frowned. Alex liked the way her pert nose wrinkled when she frowned. “Adelaide? Won’t it be dangerous as well?”
“Gore said he saw a ship in the harbor there. It might still be there. Perhaps they’ve set up some kind of refugee center.”
At the mention of Gore, Nicole grabbed her knees with both hands and looked away. “I thought you didn’t trust Gore,” she said quietly.
“I don’t, but he might have been right about the ship. We can’t stay here. We have to chance it.”
She nodded, “All right, if you think it’s best.”
Her submissiveness angered him. “It’s not what I think, damn it. What do you think about the idea?” He hoped his caustic tone would jolt her out of the black mood she had been in the past few days. She had become withdrawn and uncommunicative, spending hours alone on the roof.
She glared at him. “I don’t care,” she shot back. “Just don’t leave me here alone. I might …”
She stopped speaking before completing her thought, but Alex suspected she was about to admit that she might try to kill herself if left alone. It was something he had considered. When she had been so late without explanation upon returning with the jeep, he had hoped that she hadn’t decided to end her life.
“Good,” he snapped. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning. I’ll get things packed.” He stomped off to the ground floor to leave her to sulk. Halfway down the stairs, she yelled to him.
“Alex! I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be such an ass.”
He smiled to himself. Maybe his harsh methods had produced the desired results. “No bother.”
He hated to leave the jeep, but knew it could never carry enough petrol and supplies to reach Adelaide. They would have to use Gore’s van. Alex filled the van’s tank and six extra jerry cans with petrol. They had eaten most of the fresh vegetables and fruits salvaged from the train wreck, other than the two dozen or so jars they had managed to preserve before the used pressure cooker he had scavenged from a deserted home exploded. They still had cases of tinned meats and vegetables and boxes of extra ammunition. He loaded these carefully to evenly distribute the weight and secured them with tie down straps. He tossed in an extra battery for the ham radio, leaving room for their clothing, bedding and camping gear.
Checking his map, he saw that Adelaide was 835 kilometers from Coober Pedy and figured it would take them at least three days to reach the city, more if they had to go off road to avoid towns along the route. The A87 was the only major highway, but the area was dotted with small dirt tracks and farm roads they could use as alternative routes. They would pass through Woomera. He hoped the ADF facility there might still be intact. It was far enough off the beaten path in the restricted Woomera Defence Village that they might have come through the Demise relatively unscathed. If so, it would save them a trip to Adelaide.
He heard Nicole’s footsteps coming toward him. When he turned, she held out a glass of clear liquid. She had one in her other hand.
“Here,” she said, handing him it to him.
“What is it?” he asked, taking a tentative sip; then smiling as he recognized the taste of vodka. “Where did you find this?”
She grimaced. “Behind some boxes of food. Gore must have stashed it there.”
He watched for any trace of bitterness crossing her face, but other than the brief grimace, she remained calm.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such unpleasant company,” she began.
“I understand,” he replied.
“No don’t,” she warned. “Don’t coddle me. He hurt me and it’s going to stay with me a long time, but I have to live with it. I won’t let him . . .” She paused. “I won’t let him ruin me. I survived the Demise and my father’s death. I’ll survive this.”
He nodded. “I know you will. Look, I’m not much good at expressing myself since, not since my wife died. I’ve been rough on you because I didn’t want the responsibility of another human being’s welfare. I was wrong. I’m glad I didn’t run you down with my jeep that night.”
“Or shoot me,” she said with a smile.
“Or shoot you,” he agreed.
Nicole looked into the rear of the van, now practically bulging with supplies. “Are you going to try to carry everything?”
Alex shrugged, “Not everything, but we’ll need most of this stuff.”
When she turned back to face him, Nicole was no longer smiling. “Oh, Alex,” she sighed. “What if we don’t find anyone?”
“We’ll find people. Not everyone died. We survived.”
She shook her head. He had missed her point. “No, I mean authority – army, police, anything like that.”
His face was grim when he replied. “That’s why we’re going.”
“But you don’t think we’ll find anything like a civil authority, do you?”
Had she read his mind? “We have to hope, Nicole. Otherwise, we might as well just give up and march out into the street and join the rest of what’s left of the human race.”
“Human,” she said softly. “We are still human aren’t we? That means we have a responsibility to rebuild civilization, make it what it once was.”
“It will never be what it once was and maybe that’s a good thing.” He waved his hand toward the silent, dark town. “Let the dead and the undead keep the cities. We need to start over some place where we don’t have to cower inside fences or sleep with one eye open.
We need a fresh start.”
As he spoke, he discovered that he believed his own words. His intention had been to placate Nicole, offer her some small bit of hope. Now, he realized the idea had been slowly forming in the back of his mind for some time. He was tired of living behind fences and scavenging for food. There were places where they could gather people, grow crops, raise animals, and try again. His words tumbled out in a rush.
“No matter what we find, we pick up survivors who are willing to work, locate a spot where we will be safe and rebuild, small at first, but as word spreads we’ll grow. We’ll need farmers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, doctors, nurses . . . We’ll need people to keep out the scavengers who would prey on us.”
“Families.”
“What?” he asked.
Nicole spoke louder. “I said we’ll have families.”
Alex noticed that her eyes now had more life in them. Her face had softened. “Sure. Lots of children. We’ll need teachers, too.”
“Sounds like a dream,” she said.
“It is. It will be our dream.”
“If we survive the nightmare first.” She turned away from him and stared at the van, her shoulders slumped. “Sometimes, I think I’ll wake up and everything will be back to normal.”
“This is the new normal,” he said. “Get used to it.”
His words had the desired effect. She raised her head, squared her shoulders, and turned to him. “How can I help?”
He smiled at her, “Get your clothes packed.”
“They are,” she answered. “I packed them while you were down here. Yours too. They’re at the top of the stairs.”
Alex checked his watch. “We’ve still got three hours of daylight. You game for leaving today?”
She hung her head and answered softly, “There’s no longer anything to keep me here.”
“Good. We can camp alongside the highway, or, if the roads are clear, drive all night. The more distance between us and Coober Pedy the better.”
Nicole stared at him. “It was our home.”
Alex tossed the tire repair kit he held into the van with more force than necessary. “Time to move on.”
* * * *
By dawn, they had managed less than half the distance to Woomera. Twice, they had to stop to move wrecked autos from the road, a time-consuming, laborious process as both vehicles had flat tires. Nicole stood zombie watch with the rifle, while he used the van’s winch to drag the cars out of the lane. At one point, a rolled lorry blocking a bridge forced them to backtrack, a detour of thirty kilometers. The sun rose with the promise of another sultry day. Alex glanced over at Nicole, asleep to his left, her head bobbing with each jolt and bump. She leaned forward, held in place by her seat belt.
“Sign says there’s a petrol stop up ahead,” he said. “If it’s free of zombies, we can stop and have a bite of breakfast. Maybe there’s some petrol left.”
She rubbed her eyes, looked about, and yawned. “I’m okay,” she said.
Alex turned to hide his smile. “I’m not. I’m hungry and I need to relieve myself.”
“Oh, okay. Me too, I guess.”
The station sat alone in the desert, a tiny oasis from the monotony of the highway. It had once offered respite, petrol, and cold refreshments to weary travelers. A tow truck parked beside the station still had the front end of a late model minivan dangling from the crane. A second vehicle had impaled the rear end of the minivan and driven it into the side of the building. The resulting fire had left the station in ruins and crisp, decomposing bodies strewn across the gravel. Crows sat in the branches of a lone eucalyptus at the edge of the gravel lot. Beneath it sat a wooden picnic table.
“I don’t like this place,” Nicole said. She eyed the bodies and the crows with misgivings.
Alex shared her dislike of the area, but his bladder won the argument. “Just long enough to stretch my legs and take a piss.”
Nicole cracked her door. “I’ll use this side of the van.”
At the sound of the car door opening, the crows stirred and began a chorus of raucous cawing. Alex reached behind the seat and pulled out the shotgun. He held it under one arm as he unzipped his pants. He sighed with relief as the urine began to flow. He aimed his stream of urine away from the van, keeping one eye on the blackened ruins of the building and the immobile corpses.
“Alex.”
Nicole’s voice was barely more than a whisper, but the tension in it was unmistakable. He couldn’t stop peeing, but he began edging slowly toward the rear of the van. A scrabbling noise on metal drew his attention upwards to the roof of the van. Two crows, larger than he had ever seen, cocked their heads sideways and stared at him with one black-in-black eye. When he glanced at the eucalyptus tree, he saw a dozen more birds had joined the murder gathered there. They looked hungry.
“Alex.”
He glanced around the passenger side of the van, but didn’t see Nicole. He did not take his eyes from the crows, but heard her scrambling in the gravel beneath the van.
“Get back inside the van. Move slowly.”
She crawled from beneath the rear of the van and reached up to open the door. The two crows above her stirred uneasily. He knew if the crows attacked, he would never make it to the driver’s side.
“Wait,” he cautioned. “When you open the door, jump inside. I’m coming in on your side.”
To her credit, he noted, Nicole did not panic. She moved quietly as she stood slowly and opened the door.
“Now!” Alex shouted.
Nicole leaped inside. Before Alex could move, the tree came alive as the murder of crows erupted into a frenzied flight. He aimed the shotgun in the general direction of the two crows atop the van and fired. One disintegrated under the load of buckshot. The other directly flew at him. He threw up his left arm to ward it off and felt sharp claws and beak dig into exposed flesh. He dropped the shotgun, grabbed the bird by the head, and spun it to wring its neck, like a farmer and a chicken. He flung it aside and stooped to retrieve the shotgun. Nicole leaned out the rear door and fired several times into the mass of birds with her pistol. Her shots went wild but the noise distracted them long enough for Alex to push her aside and fall into the van over her. Nicole pulled the door shut, just as the mass of birds slammed into the window and door, like ebony hailstones. A spider web of cracks spread across the glass.
Alex crawled to the front of the van and into the driver’s seat. He fumbled with the keys and cursed when the van failed to start the first time. More birds gathered on the windscreen. The van’s engine burst into life. He floored the accelerator, fishtailing across the gravel lot. He ignored the loud thud and crunch of metal as the rear of the van careened off the front end suspended from the tow truck crane.
They reached the pavement and raced down the road trailing a black feathered shadow. One crow pushed its head through a small hole in the passenger window. Nicole repeatedly brought the butt of the pistol down on its head until only bloody pulp remained. It fell away and landed on the pavement. The other crows halted their frenzied attack.
Nicole turned to him, her face frozen in a pale mask of terror. She dropped the pistol into her lap. She looked down at the gore-splattered gun staining her jeans, only then becoming aware of her blood-soaked shirt and her trembling, bloody hands and groaned.
“It’s okay,” Alex said, trying to comfort her. “They’re gone.”
“I hate crows.” She wiped her hands on her pants and covered her face as she sobbed. After a few minutes, she looked over at him and said, “I’ve always hated crows. They frighten me. They look so evil.”
“I think you frightened a few of them.”
She stared at him a moment, then burst laughing. “My God! I was so scared I couldn’t even hit one with the pistol.”
“You gave me time to reach the van.”
She noticed his bloody arm and inhaled sharply. “We’ll have to take care of that wound before it gets infected.”
The
wounds throbbed, but he wanted to put as much distance between them and the crows as possible. “Later.”
She still looked unconvinced. “Why did they attack us?”
“They were hungry. I guess they’ve gotten used to free meals with so many dead bodies lying about.”
“Are they . . . are they infected?”
Alex tried to keep his voice as steady as possible as he answered, “No. I’m sure they’re not.” He hoped he was right. Otherwise, his only other option was a quick bullet to the head, a prospect he did not relish. “If they were infected, their movements would have been more erratic, like the zombies.”
Nicole appeared satisfied with his answer, but he noticed she kept glancing back in the side mirror.
Twenty kilometers farther down the road, he pulled over onto the shoulder. His arm throbbed unmercifully, but at least the bleeding had stopped. He wasn’t certain what the signs of advancing zombiehood were, but he still felt like Alex Nelson, had all his memories, even the ones he wished he could forget. He got out and stretched. They were kilometers from anything. They would be able to see anyone or anything approaching for a great distance.
“Bloody bird took a good chunk of flesh,” he said as Nicole came up beside him. She held the first aid kit in one hand and a canteen in the other. He winced as she grabbed his arm to examine the wound.
“I need to clean it first.”
Before he could protest, she poured water over his arm. Pain flashed down its length and exploded in his brain like a gunshot. His head reeled as he staggered back against the side of the van. Before he could recover, she wiped the wound with a wet rag, sending surges of pain echoing through his body.
“Christ Almighty!” he yelled. “You trying to kill me?”
“Shut up and swallow these,” she said, shoving two pills in his mouth. She handed him the canteen. He took a sip of water and swallowed.
“I hope those were for the pain,” he moaned.
“Those were antibiotics.” She splashed peroxide over his arm. He was better prepared this time and did not flail his arm as the peroxide bubbled and boiled in the wound. He bit down on his lip to keep from yelling. Next, Nicole applied an antibiotic ointment and wrapped the arm with gauze. “There,” she announced as she inspected her handiwork. “That will do.”