Tales of Sin and Madness (2 page)

That had been almost two months ago, and since then he hadn’t come across any more militaristic-style towns. He had come across a few zombies, wandering aimlessly near the South Australian/Northern Territory border; either lost travellers dead from exposure or local townspeople who hadn’t left for better food prospects. They had been mumbling about needing new souls to survive and had been weak from lack of nourishment – even zombies could get famished, he had learned. They hadn’t posed any threat, so he had just kept on walking.

That had been his last zombie encounter, aside from the cars last week. He didn’t know if they had been zombies or humans, but nobody had come, so he guessed it didn’t matter. Either one could be as dangerous.

Simon knew from his six-month pilgrimage that if he didn’t stop to replenish his liquids and give his feet and legs a rest, he would become delirious from fatigue and dehydration. There were times when he was sure he was going to die, lying on the hard, sun-cracked earth, his adversary blaring down on him, feeling as if he was being baked in a giant oven; he barely had the strength to get the water from his backpack. He even considered using what lay at the bottom of his bag to ease his suffering.

What had got him through those times was his promise to Tully. Knowing that if he died, her fate would lie with the evils of the New World, and he couldn’t let that happen.

“Not long to go,” he breathed as he set down the sack and then his backpack. He grabbed one of the water bottles and downed a small dose, dribbling some of it over the lumpy sack.

He was putting the bottle away when movement caught his attention. He turned and spotted a dingo coming towards him. The animal walked with deliberate steps and it wasn’t until it got closer that Simon saw the trail of intestines being dragged through the ochre-filled soil behind it.

Simon knew how vicious animal zombies could be – like humans, animals seemed to grow in ferocity when they came back from the dead. A once meek tabby would become a raging feline; a harmless pigeon would come back as a squawking feathery missile; snakes came back even more lethal, even though, fortunately, he had only encountered a few. And a dingo, an already dangerous animal, would become more vicious and blood-thirsty. Simon had fought a number of them during his sixth month trek, including a large male he had encountered while exploring Finke Gorge.

But the one that was limping towards him was no threat. Aside from being severely wounded, it looked old and in dire need of food.

Simon stood his ground and waited. The sack was behind him, as was the backpack. The dingo bared its teeth as it approached. Always the hunter.

Simon felt sorry for the creature. It was only doing what came instinctively.

That’s why, when the dingo ventured within touching distance, eyes cloudy but alert, Simon grabbed the animal around the back of its neck and snapped it before the creature got a chance to attack. Then, while it writhed on the ground, feebly trying to get up, Simon picked up a weighty rock and bashed in its head. He stopped once the dingo’s brain coated the red earth around its flattened head.

“Sorry, mate,” Simon said, letting the rock drop to the ground. “No hard feelings.”

His eyes drifted from the dingo to the desolate plane – a seemingly never-ending expanse of red and orange, dotted with purple and the green of spinifex, all blanketed by a rich blue sky, and realised, perhaps for the first time, how utterly quiet it was. He really was in the middle of nowhere, lost in a vast desert of unrelenting heat and dust, a lifetime away from the horrors of the real world, a world that was in the grips of an apocalyptic nightmare. A world that was dying.

The late afternoon sun called him back with its penetrating rays and he knew he had to get going, had to get to Coober Pedy before night descended over the land.

He gathered his things together then started off. He estimated another half-an-hour until he reached his final destination.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “Almost there.”

He thought back to when he first started out. How he had dreaded the journey, even though he knew he had to make it. The desire to see Australia’s outback was never strong in him; he didn’t care if he died never having seen it. Tully, on the other hand, had always longed to visit the outback. A real cowgirl at heart, an adventurer who loved the outdoors and getting dirty. That spark, however, died when she was diagnosed with leukemia. After that, she no longer dreamt of white-water rafting, or skydiving or traversing Central Australia in a four-wheel drive. Pretty soon her main source of exercise was hurrying to the bathroom to throw up – a result of the chemotherapy. It was the most painful thing in the world to watch her fade away. It wasn’t just the hair-loss, or the way her cheekbones began to jut out, or her increasingly gaunt frame. It was her loss of spirit that was the most difficult to bear. Of knowing that she would never get to see the outback, particularly Coober Pedy with its underground homes, churches and hotels, which, for some reason, held a particular fascination for her.

“Get me out of here,” she had whispered to him the morning he killed his first zombie with the scissors. “Please, don’t let me die in here, surrounded by all this. I don’t want to end up like them.”

He always had a hard time listening to her talk about her death. He knew it would be inevitable, the chemo just wasn’t working, but he hadn’t prepared himself for her end.

“Take me away, far away, somewhere beautiful.” Her body had been pumped with so much morphine she couldn’t even open her eyes.

A few hours later, Tully deeply asleep, the zombie on the floor with the pair of scissors jutting from his eye, Simon decided to honour Tully’s wishes and take her away.

It didn’t take him long to get everything ready. He dressed his wife in jeans and an old T-shirt, filled his backpack with bottles of water and junk food that he looted from the abandoned cafeteria (it was all that was left), and found an empty sack in the storage room. It was the only way he could foresee carrying Tully half-way across the country, since he didn’t want to drive. Driving meant using roads and highways, and that meant lots of zombies. No, Tully had wanted him to take her away from it all, and that’s exactly what he was going to do. No cities, no roads, no civilization, no zombies.

Before they left, he injected her with more morphine, then bundled her into the sack, along with a years worth of the drug he took from the hospital pharmacy. He hoped Tully would be out of it for the entire journey and miss seeing all the blood-shed and insanity.

After battling his way through the city, stopping off at a supermarket to stock up on canned goods (mostly baked beans, vegetables and meat), he set off on his journey, stopping only to sleep, to stock up on provisions when he came upon a deserted town and to keep Tully both hydrated and doped up on painkillers, letting her out of the sack often, but only when he was certain there was nobody around. His only prayers had been for the cancer to stay away long enough so that Tully could be alive when they reached their destination.

And so, six months after setting off, a lifetime’s worth of death behind him, Simon Fletcher arrived at Coober Pedy.

It was late in the afternoon – the setting sun was to his right, yet it was still blisteringly hot, and a mild dust storm had sprung up. The storm whipped at Simon’s face, stinging his cheeks and forehead like millions of tiny nails.

“A fine welcome they’ve given us,” he called back.

He stood atop a small cliff overlooking the town and was struck with how empty the place looked. There were sprinklings of shabby buildings, most with corrugated iron roofing, and lots of cars and trucks just sitting collecting dust, some of them parked right in the middle of the street. Simon guessed that the locals had either left this god-forsaken place a long while ago, or they were all lying dead in some underground dugout.

Or maybe they’re hiding, waiting to mount an attack?

No, there was no sign of life or death here.

Gazing down at the town, Simon couldn’t understand why Tully had wanted to visit this place. It was ugly, Simon could think of no other word for it – there was hardly any foliage, aside from some gum trees and mulga bushes dotted about the arid land, and the hills of dirt and rock and the myriad of mining craters that littered the surrounding area reminded Simon of the Mars landscape, only less inviting. The only indication of the underground dugouts was the ventilation shafts that poked up through the soil.

He spotted a petrol station below, empty save for a Ute parked beside a bowser, the hose still plugged into its petrol tank, and wondered what had taken place here. Had the zombies attacked suddenly, or had news of the genocide scared them all away?

Simon glanced at the Stuart Highway and thought of all the thousands of people that the stretch of bitumen led to. What was happening out there? What was the world’s fate? Who was winning?

He found, not surprisingly, the fate of humanity didn’t really matter to him. Here he was, at what seemed like the end of the world, and all that mattered to him was Tully. The entire journey, six months of scorching heat, dry winds and aching muscles, was all for her.

It was time to make things right and give Tully the greatest gift he could give her.

It was time to fulfill his promise.

He trudged down the incline, his svelte body long since past the barrier of exhaustion, and made his way through the town, spying into shop windows and the occasional above-ground home to see if there were any signs of life, other than the irritating dust storm that assailed his face and hands.

He wandered past forgotten mining equipment, past touristy opal shops that still displayed their ‘open’ signs, until he finally came upon one of the underground churches Tully had so often talked about. It was funny, her being so interested in such a place, considering she was an atheist, yet that’s where he took her.

An annex provided shade around the front area, and a cross adorned the clay above. He gripped the doorknob, turned it, and was relieved when the door opened. He stepped inside.

With the door closed, the smallish room was remarkably cool. A few lamps had been left on; they lit the room in an orange glow. He didn’t expect to find anyone inside, and sure enough, the place was empty. With its white clay walls, rows of wooden pews and figure of Christ nailed to the cross looming behind an unassuming pulpit, the church was simple in style, yet there was an air of beauty and solace that Simon hadn’t felt for a long time. “I have to admit,” he said. “It is quite amazing.”

He set the sack down on the solid earthen floor, then his backpack, which he opened and grabbed a bottle of water from, and finished it all off. There was no use conserving it now. He still had another full bottle left, for when Tully woke from her slumber.

When the bottle was empty, he went over to the sack and pulled the strings, opening the sack up and exposing his sleeping wife.

“Hey there. Guess what. We’re here.”

She didn’t answer him of course. She was still doped up on morphine, but he had purposely withheld her dosage for the last few days, so hopefully she would come out of her catalepsy soon.

Simon bent down and lifted her into his arms. She was light – barely 30 kilograms – and she was deathly pale, but she still looked beautiful as she slept. He carried her over to one of the pews and laid her down. He brought over the last bottle of water and sitting down next to her began dabbing the warm liquid onto her lips. “Soon, it’ll all be over baby. Don’t you worry.”

It was some time later when Tully began to wake. Simon was asleep, dreaming of people shuffling towards him without heads, arms extended, reaching out for him, when Tully’s soft groans brought him back to the world of the living.

“Tully,” he said, his throat raw with grainy dust.

She looked up at him with cloudy eyes. She had a hard time focusing.

He gently lifted her head. Thin tufts of hair were starting to grow back, although it wasn’t a sign of improving health. He placed her head on his lap. “Hey babe. Welcome back.”

She opened and closed her eyes, her vision trying to regain its full capability after so long dormant. “I…I…”

Simon bent down and kissed her forehead. “Don’t try and talk. You’ve been asleep for a long time.”

“Water,” she said, coughing weakly.

The water bottle he had been using now lay spilled at his feet, but there was enough left, so he picked it up and gave some to Tully. “Not too much,” he said and took the bottle away.

“I don’t…feel too good.”

Simon nodded. “It’s just the sickness.” Why bother telling her the truth? Six months in a sack without solid food, that’s not something she needed to know. That was his personal journey. All that mattered was the moment. All Tully needed to know was where she was and that she was safe.

“We’re in Coober Pedy,” he said, lightly stroking her head. “You’re finally here.”

“I am?” she said, trying her hardest to smile. But it seemed she didn’t have enough energy left for that.

“Sure. Look around.”

He lifted her to a sitting position, keeping strong hold of her. Moistening his hand with the water, he rubbed her eyes. “Is that better?”

He heard her expel air. “I don’t believe it,” she said breathlessly. “I am here.”

“Yep. That’s right.”