Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 8): August

by Dave Rowlands

  So, I asked it something new. I asked about Fluffy and the schrandfelths. Shadow-Book seemed to know nothing of them. Then, abruptly, it said “Goodbye.” and left. I watched as it sort of seeped out of Book's torso and head, lifting up into the ceiling, where it proceeded to clump near the window and gather itself before shooting out into the darkness of the night sky. A moment later Book collapsed.

  Then, he raised his head weakly, speaking softly. “Fucking hell, I need a piss!” My man was back!

  August 28th Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  I have to say, though my body feels not just like it has been possessed by some strange Shadow and forced to stand in the one place for two days straight, my mind feels oddly relaxed. At least part of me got some rest, it seems. I have no actual recollection of anything that happened, but Apocalypse Girl and the others filled me in quickly enough. My leg, though stiff and still quite painful, was healing up nicely enough. Apparently, Shadow possession is good for keeping one still.

  The Master came into the security room, telling us that his end was done, they had scavenged enough fuel to keep the generators at The Fortress running for many more months. Plenty of time to work out details for perhaps taking and holding an oil refinery or two, he told me. This was a man truly in his element, a born leader. When I told him as much, he grinned with a hint of a blush. “You guys are more than welcome to settle down with us, you know,” He told us. I laughed. “Yeah, I know. Too close to The Queen. I get it, totally. Fuck, if she knew our kid was still alive, she'd likely go to war with me to try and get her back.” We shook hands and he left, bringing with him his small army of thugs.

  Now, all that was left to do for us was to find a suitable plane and fly the fuck out of this place. Which left one rather important question; could any of us fly? I asked it of everybody present. Apocalypse Girl raised her hand slightly. “I can drive anything, so I'll give it a go. I've been up in a glider a few times, and taken the wheel of my mother's light plane a lot. Also, I've had a go on some proper commercial airliner sims. Not that we're taking anything that big, at least I fucking hope not.” She seemed a bit put out when Deathwish mentioned her missing eye. “Fuck that, if you're so worried, you can co-pilot. I seriously doubt we're likely to run into much other air traffic, you know!”

  noon

  A few Dead still straggled, stumbling and shambling around on the tarmac outside. Planes stood proudly, as if the apocalypse had meant nothing to them, though not a one was easily accessible. Several police cars stood out, so we looted them, taking whatever we could. One shotgun and a couple of pistols, some ammunition for each. A forensics kit. Apocalypse Girl picked up a set of handcuffs from one very dead policeman, winking at me as she did so. Or maybe she was blinking. Hard to say. Scout and Machete, with Apprentice, wandered the place, making certain that nothing bitey came up to us for a nibble as we searched.

  Finally, after a couple of hours searching, all that remained were the hangars. Noting that the sun was already heading for the western horizon, and considering the size of the hangars, we decided on searching these tomorrow. We were safe enough in the security room for another night.

  evening

  “I've made a decision.” Deathwish announced. “I can't go with you guys, The Queen needs someone to tell her that it's safe to scavenge here, after all. And to tell her about the Sheriff.”

  “That psychotic bitch will just kill you though,” Apocalypse Girl told him, lifting her eye-patch for emphasis. Deathwish grimaced at the sight, then shrugged.

  “Nah, she likes me too much. I'll be fine. Besides, if she locks me up or anything, The Master'll hear about it soon enough. He owes me more than a few, he'll get me out of it.” Deathwish told her. “And if she has me executed, well, I hope it's as quick as your old mate was. In any case, you're gonna need a new co-pilot.”

  “True to your name, at least,” Apprentice observed. “What about you?” She asked Jester. He burst out laughing, trying very hard to treat the question seriously.

  “You've seen how she treats me. A dwarf, wearing a chicken suit, running around making jokes in the Adelaide Apocalypse? Come off it, no fucking way am I going back there.” Came the reply, and gales of laughter. “See? I don't need a funny suit or shitty jokes to make people laugh at all!”

  So, we had our last meal together, rich with the fart-inducing goodness that is baked beans. Deathwish offered us a bunch of cans to take with us, though we refused. We did, however, find a purveyor of fine beverages in the main airport terminal, one of many such shops, and looted it. Normally, at a going away party, I'd get pretty fucking hammered, but tonight... Eight months spent dodging the Dead was enough for me to know that I wanted to be in total control of my faculties. Tomorrow, we find a plane to outfit, fuel up and fly away from this wretched place.

  August 29th Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  Jester, Scout, Tiny and Machete, being the smallest and fastest of our remaining group, left shortly after sunrise to have a look at our options. Viking and Valkyrie had decided to check out the remaining shops, just in case they spotted anything might need. Apprentice was looking over my leg, clucking quietly to herself as she did so and telling me that it seems to be healing up nicely. Apocalypse Girl sat with me while I suffered scrutinisation, idly scratching our canine companion's ears while The Twin looked about the security room one last time before we bade our temporary home farewell forever.

  “You know, there's a mark here, on the wall,” The Twin said, contemplatively. True enough, next to the now empty first aid kit was a mark. Examining it more closely, she remarked; “It actually looks kinda like someone wrote something here. Could even be blood.”

  “Probably just Dead.” Apocalypse girl offered. “Maybe someone was bitten, found their way in here and gunked up the wall on their way out?”

  “I dunno,” The Twin mused. I stood, shifting most of my weight to my uninjured leg and hobbled over. Sure enough, it did indeed look like writing, gar ne re seemed to be all I could make out. I read it aloud. “What is that, Japanese?” The Twin asked, examining the markings more closely. I shook my head, saying that it looked like most of the message had disappeared in the months since it had been scrawled.

  noon

  “Well, we're officially fucked.” Jester remarked as the three returned, slamming the door behind him. “All of the hangars are swarming with Dead. Some have more, some less, but all of them are, um, occupied.”

  Apprentice was showing Scout the wall-scrawl, asking her what she thought it might mean. Scout, her brow furrowed, brought out the forensics kit we had found yesterday. After a bit of fossicking, she brought forth a spray bottle. “This shit might help,” She said, spraying a little on the wall. Sure enough, it worked, letters becoming visible in a luminescent blue glow. Hangar 4 plane ready to go. There was a brief moment of whooping in excitement, even Apocalypse Dog joining in with a happy bark.

  “Hangar 4. Shit. There are a lot of them in there, you know.” Jester warned. “I suppose it's worth it for a working, fueled up plane, but... Fuck it.”

  A few minutes later, we were at the hangar in question. A small, human sized door was set into one side, the larger hangar door seemed shut tight. I drew my sword, Machete opened the smaller door for me, and we entered. She followed behind me with Tiny beside her, then Viking and Valkyrie on either side of Apocalypse Girl. Jester, Scout, Apprentice and the dog came last.

  It was dark. Not pitch black, but certainly dark enough that I told everyone else to stay behind me. There was a catwalk leading from the door to the floor, a small number of shambling corpses barring the way. There were many more on the floor itself, milling around the our goal. The plane itself, a rather small affair, seemed to almost glow in the limited sunlight that peeked in through the doorway.

  I began slicing my way through the corpses on the catwalk, then called for everybody to come on in. The nearest few Dead had only just noticed that a potential feast had entered, turn
ing towards the stairs leading to the narrow walkway upon which we stood. The next moment, the main hangar door exploded inward, sending large sheets of metal flying everywhere. Several Dead were slain by shrapnel and I heard a sharp intake of breath behind me. Turning, I saw Machete, pinned to the wall by a piece of steel girder longer than she was tall. “At least I didn't get eaten,” she whispered, as her final breath left her too-young body. Apocalypse Girl took up her blade and sliced the top of her head off.

  “Surrender! You are surrounded.” The Queen had arrived in force, it seemed. “I have a tank and a hundred men with me. If you give up now you will be treated fairly. Just walk out with your hands above your heads.” Jester shook his head in despair. The Dead, all of them, had turned towards the sound of The Queen's amplified voice and immediately began shuffling slowly towards the exit.

  Viking and Valkyrie helped Apocalypse Girl to her feet. Apprentice was in tears, unable to take her eyes away from Machete's lifeless body. Scout began to drag her towards the plane. I rushed down the steps myself, tearing my wound open slightly in the process, as Apocalypse Girl shouted to me that we needed some stairs to get up into the plane. Unable to see through the crowd of Dead shambling out, she lifted her eye-patch and closed her eye.

  “Over there!” She pointed, replacing the patch. Viking was suddenly at my side as we carved a path through the mostly oblivious Dead. Some noticed, turning to the closer meal, but the rest continued towards The Queen and her continued ranting. Reaching the stairs, I tugged as hard as I could. It wouldn't budge. Feeling like a complete idiot, I realised that the brakes were on. Resolving that, I pulled again, Viking covering me with his mighty hammer, sending the few remaining Dead inside the hangar to their very overdue eternal rest.

  The steps now in place, we scrambled up them. Apocalypse Girl fiddled with the door for a moment, then it swung open and we scurried inside. Another booming sound erupted from outside, more of the main hangar door exploding inwards. Viking kicked the stairs away once we were all aboard and closed the door. I followed Apocalypse Girl into the cockpit, asking her if we have enough room to get out. She shrugged, getting into position.

  “This is just like my mum's plane,” She told me. “At least I don't have to work out where the fuck everything is.” Fiddling with a couple of knobs and switches while I took my place next to her. I asked what I could do. “Sit tight, keep quiet and let me know if we're about to hit anything.”

  The rest of the hangar door exploded as Apocalypse Girl brought the plane's engines sputtering to life. “I hope this works, the fuel in these tanks is pretty old. Hold onto your potatoes everybody!” She called out. The plane moved forwards, slowly. Another blast from The Queen's tank took out part of the hangar itself, the ceiling began falling down around us as we exited. “Nice of Her Bitchy Majesty to open the hangar up for us, isn't it?”

  Faster than I had thought a plane able to move on land, Apocalypse Girl had us out onto the tarmac. The Queen and her small army were busily firing away at the horde of corpses that had swarmed out of seemingly nowhere. She herself was standing on top of the tank, jabbing a finger in the direction of our plane and animatedly giving the tank's gunner instructions. The tank fired, missing us by at least a few metres.

  “Nice try, fuckwits!” Apocalypse Girl called out, bringing us out of their view and onto a runway. Less than a minute later we were in the air. “Keep your tray tables in an upright position and your seatbelts fastened, the in-flight movie will start shortly!”

  evening

  We flew for what seemed almost forever. Since nobody had any idea where we might want to go, we just headed north-west. We all felt a sense of loss at Machete's death, none more so than Tiny. Viking and Valkyrie simply sat together in silence, holding one another. Apocalypse Dog was rather morose, simply sitting in his assigned seat, hanging his head on Apprentice's lap, who held onto Scout's hand as tightly as she could.

  Jester was standing between Apocalypse Girl and I, thanking us for getting him out of Adelaide. Apocalypse Girl calmly told him that he'd better get back in his seat, then as he did so, turned to tell everybody to put their belts on and make damn sure they're secure. Then, she turned to me. “We're running out of fuel, fast. I think one of that bitch's men put a bullet into our petrol tank. If we don't find somewhere to land soon, we're pretty screwed.”

  She took the plane downwards, closer to the ground. A short while later, she told everyone in the back to prepare for a harsh landing. “Someone had better hang onto the dog, too!” She shouted. Viking called out that he had him. Too soon, the ground rose to meet us and Apocalypse Girl brought down the landing gear. The terrain was too rough, however, and the moment the rear landing gear hit ground it snapped with a terrifyingly loud wrenching sound of metal on metal. The momentum of the aircraft kept us travelling forward, too fucking fast, and we slammed into a dry riverbed.

  August 30th Year 1 A.Z.

  morning

  I awoke to Apocalypse Dog's tongue probing my ear. Apocalypse Girl was next to me, still strapped into her pilot's chair, bleeding from an abrasion on her forehead. I reached out to touch her face. Still warm, thank God. Her eyelid fluttered open and she smiled. I undid my own safety harness, then helped her out of hers. Blood covered my pants, the wound on my leg having split open once again during our landing. I turned around to see Tiny beginning to move, but the rest of our group was nowhere to be seen. Nor was most of the rest of our plane.

  Valkyrie's voice came from nowhere, it seemed. “They're alright!” She and Viking appeared, climbing into the plane. “We're good, too. No casualties, at least, no more. We made camp last night, after the crash.” They helped Apocalypse Girl and I back to their camp, only a couple of hundred metres away. Still far further than my leg would have supported me.

  Apprentice almost ran to me, humming her song as she lay her hands on my leg. It hurt like hell, but the wound closed up with not too much trouble. She took the stitches out, telling me that they'd be more harm than good right now. I still needed to try to avoid using it too much, at least for the next couple of days. She then turned to Apocalypse Girl. Jester looked more than worse for the wear, a blue and purple mess of bruises and minor lacerations. Despite this, he still grinned more widely than I could have imagined upon seeing us alive.

  The Twin was keeping watch, from the roof of the back end of the plane, waving at us as we approached and were helped to the camp fire. “Does anyone have any idea where we are?” I asked, to a silent, resounding chorus of shrugs. Scout said that she thought we might be reasonably close to the border of Western Australia, but she could not really be sure of that. Not that it helped at all, being the single largest border between states in Australia.

  “Apparently, we've found the middle of nowhere. Fucking yay.” Apocalypse Girl said, dryly. “Has there been any sign of Dead activity?” She asked. The Twin called down that she had seen nothing at all since we 'landed' late last night. No Dead, no Living, no Ghouls, Dingoes, Dragons or Drop-Bears. Nor any roads or buildings, at least as far as she could see.

  noon

  Much of the morning was spent trying to find and gather up whatever equipment might have been lost in the crash, which Apocalypse Girl kept insisting was a relatively decent 'landing', all things considered. I've heard the saying, of course, that any landing you can walk away from is a good one, but if the plane is split in twain in the process, I reckon what you've got there is a 'crash'. We'd been arguing about it for over an hour and eventually were told to just agree to disagree by an irate Viking. I felt as sheepish about it as Apocalypse Girl looked.

  We found the guns easily enough, with the assistance of Apocalypse Dog's nose, and my sword. Machete's blade, too, though it was beaten and battered and broken by the process of its own 'landing' and was now about as dead as its owner. However, other than the weapons, we found nothing. None of our food seems to have survived the crash. Viking jokingly suggested that we eat the dog, who growled at him in reply. “I
think that's about how we all feel about being eaten. I take it back.” He apologised to Apocalypse Dog, who promptly licked his face. “So I'm forgiven then?” He received a bark as response.

  “So without food and water, we're basically fucked.” Apocalypse Girl, as usual, had the right of our situation. “I really don't want to do this.” She took out her phone. “But, when there's no other option...” She walked away a few paces, began punching a message into it. A few moments later it jangled with a response. “Thank fuck for that, then. We're not completely screwed. They even saw the plane go down, apparently. Anyway, we've got a lift somewhere relatively safe arriving probably tomorrow morning.”

  evening

  No amount of persuasion would get Apocalypse Girl to talk to me about who she sent that message to. We sat around the camp fire, telling stories for the most part, attempting to distract ourselves from our rumbling bellies. It failed to work quite miserably. Where's a Meat-Beast when you need one?

  Movement caught my eye, something under the sandy surface of the riverbank below us. At first I thought I was imagining things, until the head of an enormous snake burst through and struck at the nearest target: Tiny. She fell flat to the ground, rolling away and the Serpent struck only bare rock, stuck there for a moment by fangs longer than my forearm. Viking jumped up, grabbing the shotgun, blasting at the Serpent, each shot blasting away scales and leaving great gouges in the flesh of the creature. My katana practically flew into my hands and I ran towards it.