Remedy Z: Solo (12 page)

I found my own little place and parked my rear on the well-trod carpet floor. As I watched onward, the community and kindness continued. An old lady handed her last muffin and hug in some comfort to a teenage girl, alone and scared. With just her P-plates and a taste for escaping the chaos that young, teenage girl had been ill-prepared for any of that which would face us all. None of us would be. The old lady and the girl didn’t know each other but it was like the last goodbye for humanity and innocence. True community and selflessness pervaded all, in that moment; their last.

We had all arrived there, shell-shocked from what had happed in our city. The Great Change was still so new and none of us really knew what to do. People came from the surrounding area, some from Canberra or as far as Sydney. We had all driven away, a few of us in that direction and we had accumulated in numbers at the roadhouse. We had come together by chance or luck, one might have said. But there was no luck on that night. 

The owners of the roadhouse had been welcoming, as selfless as the patrons, taking us all in without question and offering shelter and what little they had left. It was a last gesture in hospitality at the roadhouse; almost a last supper of sorts. Someone had the idea of barring the doors of that building to keep us safe from what was outside. None of us knew any better, it was all so new to us. It was what was inside that was to be the horror, but we had no idea.

We were living in the most uncertain of times and we had no idea about zombies, Divine or that people were ticking time bombs. In such strange circumstances, utter strangeness was inevitable. I saw, on that night, the true extent of the insidious nature of Divine. 

What happened was as if the virus itself had orchestrated a mass transformation of the unknowingly infected in the roadhouse. In sudden and dramatic wave of sickness, more than half the room seemed to throw-up, lose their minds, and tear their own hair out and other strangeness. It all happened so quickly.

Divine proved to me that it must have been airborne or able to communicate to achieve what it had on that fateful night. It may have been the simple coincidence of things that created the “perfect storm” but there was more going on that met the eye. I would never know all the reasons why New Bolaro would have been the tragedy it was, I simply lived it and lamented it upon its thought.

I remember being there, stunned, a little like at the bridge in Canberra and watching all hell break loose. I cowered behind the bar shaking and feeling the sheer terror of being locked into a room with over a dozen killing machines. But that instinct to fight kicked-in; that innate feeling when your back is up against a wall. I vaulted the bar and uttered those words like a spell of protection or ward against evil; “Fight hard, never give up and fight to the last moment.” And I did.  As the metamorphosis took place, people to zombie, my own metamorphosis had occurred. This baptism of fire forged a man who had an iron will to survive. The New Bolaro Tragedy, as I had aptly named it, had been one of the most awful and defining moments in my life. 

Picking up the barman’s “paddle”, I prepared but simply couldn’t be. I was frozen for a moment as the night became truly dark. The boy with the lollypop launched himself at an old man, a baby attacked its mother, men were fearful of twin girls who now gnashed their teeth and demanded flesh. Families imploded and strangers feasted on each other alike. Blood flowed, rained and sprayed about the room. The man who had given up his shirt came at me first. He had a hunger in his eyes and he reached out at me, the bar in his way. I brought that paddle down on his skull so hard that his spinal cord tore forward, down to his sternum; brain crushed. He was dead for the second time, truly dead. My next assailants were a teenager and an old woman and they received a similar welcome from me. As they fell under repeated beatings, my paddle broke. Without a weapon, another three zombies lurched toward me, peeling off from the morass of bodies, blood and melee throughout the room of that roadhouse. I hurled everything I could get my hands on, a loose brick for holding a door in place; nothing wasted. I used that brick to beat down a number of zombies. I used it until my hand bled and was so sore that, despite the adrenaline, I felt the pain and the brick crumbled into terracotta crumbs. Things seemed to be going well for me in the most unwell of experiences.

And then it happened. The single-biggest mind-fuck of my life: I felt teeth sink into my side. I had the zombie bite that was the hallmark of infection and, to most, infection meant death. I was ill-prepared at that moment, but fought on. My predator was a zombie that had once been a lovely woman, a mother of three. But the virus had been in control and it had changed her and her mission irrevocably. Divine wanted protein to sustain it and hosts to spread it; sharing and caring.

At first I didn’t make the connection that I was as good as dead. It was only as I used a bar stool to crush the last skull that I realised I was covered in claw marks and the very deep bite that was now bleeding profusely. My blood had mixed with zombie blood in a dozen places. It was a sure bet as far as I could see it. 

How did I go dealing with all of that? I went to pieces. It would take a little while to reforge myself from that mess. Sitting there, in a veritable charnel house of blood, gore, body parts and corpses, I began to cry uncontrollably. What I had seen, what I had done and what I thought I would become. Hell on Earth. Against the bar, I rocked sobbing like a small child. I lost time, going into shock. I sat there for the most part of an hour, until bodily functions such as hunger and the need for a toilet stirred me into being a human again. I thought I was going to turn, convinced of it. My stomach churned and I went to the bathroom and had a blowout. It was nerves, bad food and sickness from a perceived date with death.

Despite the realisation of my own fate, I felt better, cleaned myself up, washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. “How much time did I have?” I thought as some mental clarity emerged, staring into my own eyes. “How do I stop myself from infecting others?” Was the next thought. I had seen what mass negligence about this matter had done. New Bolaro proved that you had to think about how and when you turned. 

I also thought, ultimately, “Should I kill myself now to keep others safe?” 

That was the final question before knowing what to do. If I had had something to do myself in, I would have. The fear of hurting innocents and losing control, only to descend into an inhuman, horrific state was a little overwhelming. 

Suddenly, I heard a baby’s cry break the silence; hope. I turned to a corner and heard a “Ssshhhh…” from someone. Life proved it was persistent yet again and I would always be thankful for that. I crept over to the door to the roadhouse’s back office and gently pushed it open. There, under the desk, was hope for humanity. A mother nursed her baby. With wide eyes of horror, she regarded me, stunned and in silence. The fear was beyond rational, controlled fear. She was in a moment of terror. I realised that I must have looked like a zombie; crazy, covered in blood and brutal. I tried to speak, stuttering as I came out of shock. “I…I am still a person…” I cleared my hoarse throat (I must have been screaming or bellowing in the melee).

The mother’s expression turned from terror to pity in a moment as she looked at a man who was damaged and posed no threat. “I’ve been bitten but I think there is time before I turn.” I continued, thinking as I spoke. There was a pregnant pause and the mother’s big brown eyes looked up at me in curiosity and apprehension.  “I’m sorry,” she said simply.

“I want to help you, get you on your way safely, so I don’t hurt you, your baby or anyone else.” I was clear again and made sense. She nodded, saying nothing, still transfixed on me as though she had seen a ghost.

I held out my hand, that bloody, battered hand and she took it, without fear. I gently pulled her to her feet and she simply nodded again. 

Her acknowledgement that I was alive triggered something in me and I had a purpose again; get her and her baby off safely.

I worked hard for the next half hour doing all I could to make things right for these two miracles that had endured and emerged from the horror. I decided to bundle mother and child into a new four-wheel-drive instead of the tiny old hatch-back they had arrived in. It would have a greater range and I could siphon fuel out of the other cars until that big tank was full. I retrieved the four-wheeler’s keys from some blood-soaked jeans; that zombie wouldn’t need them. As I did so, the creature moved, grabbing, tearing at my leg. Its mouth snapped open and gasped like a ghost of legend. Its eyes fixed on me and demanded my life, my blood and my existence. The young mother recoiled, drawing her baby away as I pummelled down on the cracked skull and exposed brain. The brain splattered everywhere; a mess but a fair exchange of those keys.

The four-wheel-drive was loaded with everything I could find that was packaged. Smashing a chip machine, soft-drink machine, raiding the fridge and other measures, I filled that car up with all the supplies we could find. We then took the baby seat out of her car, and secured it into her new car. As I helped her into the driver’s seat, she looked at me and smiled gently. Her hand touched my bloodied face and I smiled back. The tenderness of a mother was there and it was something I almost needed before I went into the next life. It calmed my nerves for a moment and I was grateful. 

“Thanks, for everything. What is your name, er-for next time?” she asked awkwardly. I responded, not quite understanding the question. “Jesse.” I said. “Bye, Jesse. Thanks and, I’m sorry it has to be, y’know?” She said with a warm smile that turned to a sad look of pity. With one last moment to look upon a human being and a human baby, no less, they were ready to go, even if I wasn’t. 

I waved and watched her drive onward, down the Monaro Highway. Whether mother and baby drove on to oblivion or salvation, I may never know. But I knew I had done the right thing at the time. It occurred to me what the lady had meant. She intended to honour me, my name, by naming her next baby “Jesse”; that’s what she meant about a next time. I had smiled, despite that predicament. I was honoured and my life, somehow, felt enduring if there was hope for another Jesse that may hear this story one day. “Go well, survive and make a Jesse.” I smiled and cried at the same time. There was still good in the world and any little amount, even in my last moments, was worth it.

I was still waving there stupidly in the pitch black, as if she could see anyway. I turned back to the roadhouse to await my fate in the mess I had made. That act of kindness buoyed me and I accepted what I thought was my impending doom. It was the tiniest insights into the emotional rollercoaster of a person with a terminal illness or one about to be executed. Despite your instincts to hold onto life and preserve your very being, you selflessly think of others and accept death, the ultimate adversity. It somehow makes sense; I had stumbled on the heart of the human condition and perhaps that of the zombie as well. Preservation of one’s self and continuing the species was an obvious parallel to Divine; survive and spread, even at the cost of the individual. 

I stumbled into that awful building to gather myself and contemplate my fate or perhaps wait for the unnatural to take its course. “If only I had ammunition for the rifles I had in the car,” I lamented, I would have ended it then. But fate had other plans for me and it was just as well the ammunition was unavailable for a quick but violent end to my days. I was one of the truly immune and I would find that out over the following week. My self-imposed quarantine had resulted in being isolated, alone and yet, surrounded.  

Back to reality. I don’t know how much time had passed in that moment as I recalled New Bolaro but I had fought off the zombies and had been running on adrenaline for over an hour. I had held on, bracing that door for longer than I could have cared to remember. It felt like forever and my whole body ached from the sheer force of what I was up against. There were massive, synchronised waves of impact where the zombies found some momentum and rhythm together, as if the Divine virus was in harmony for a small moment. I was knocked off my feet and thought I would be overrun. As I rose up, my mind in slow motion, I was ready to face the wave of inhuman hate and hunger, to the bitter end. 

My luck changed. All of a sudden the rain of zombie bodies slowed and then stopped. “Is it over? Do I die another day” I wondered. “Did I somehow become unconscious and I would never awaken? Was I dead?” I questioned my own lucidity and existence, the relationship between being knocked down and the secession of noise. With an eerie silence and calm it had all stopped, leaving me unsure as to what had just happened. Bewildered, disoriented and feeling lucky to be alive, I crept to the living room window, lifting my binoculars to gaze upon the hilly scene and work out what had transpired. 

I had thought of the Vikings and Valhalla only last night when eating a stew fit for Thor or Odin and it was as though they waved a hand in my favour. That metaphor came to mind when I saw an amazing scene of salvation before me, the likes of which I would revere, remember and regale again. What I gazed upon was like the Australian bush equivalent to Brunhilda and her cohort of helmed maidens, Valkyries, providing deliverance to a beleaguered warrior. A huge mob of Kangaroos had been in flight and landed at their favourite grazing ground on these rolling hills of the Waystation. The remaining thirty or so zombies had seen this opportunity for a huge feed and pursued this vast potential feast  for protein to sustain the withered bodies that were home and incubators to the virus. The greater good of the virus had turned their attention from one small mass of sustenance (me) to the greater body of flesh offered by the kangaroos. I had been saved by these beautiful, majestic creatures that had thoughtlessly and innocently drawn the zombies away from me. I felt tearful, with thanks, and watched on as the kangaroos spied the zombies and hopped, fed and hopped onward, leading them away from the Waystation.  They wouldn’t be caught by these clumsy predators and I was lifted out of my fear and sense of oblivion. “I’m fucking alive!” a smile cracked at the situation and in thanks to the native creatures that had innocently saved me.