The End: Surviving the Apocalypse (25 page)

She’d save the cordage for the way down.

Q placed her hands on the cool, crumbling rock at the base of the cliff. Standing this close, she could see sky above but no end to the cliff face. She hadn’t felt like this since Linda died.

Harden up
.

Q reached her right arm above her and found a hold. She wedged her left foot into a crack and heaved. The muscles on her arms raised their hackles. The fat had melted away during their siege, leaving a crystalline core.

She climbed as fast as she could. Reaching the top meant speed. Pausing to ponder her next move while supporting her body weight would exhaust her, and that would finish her off.

Either that – or a hasty mistake – would.

No. She’d climb fast. Better an end so quick she didn’t see it coming than the long trembling fatigue before the fall.

About halfway up, Q hit the wall.

It was a horizontal overhang that meant she couldn’t use her legs. She’d have to hang from one hand and reach out on faith with the other. She braced against the cliff, wiped sweat from her hands onto her pants one at a time, and caught her breath. Her arms had that dull ache that precedes the shakes.

Dave was dead. Rabbit might as well be. Her dad was either gone or turned, because what chance did an overweight drunk have? Hannah was a hundred miles away and had become something so disturbing, Q almost wished she hadn’t made it. The world was over. The few left were in denial, trying to postpone the apocalypse with mail-order survival kits.

Standing flush against the rock like a skink, Q had a flash of her mother’s face at the end. Dark eyes, chest caved in. Pain, so much pain, but also fear.

It hadn’t been fear of the disease or of what had happened to her body, or even fear of more pain to come. Linda accepted all of those things in the last weeks. It had been fear that it would stop.

That was death. Linda hadn’t wanted it.

Neither did Q. She reached out and found a grip with her right hand. Her feet left rock.

She clung, arms trembling, fingers burning. She had to release her left hand and hang on with only her right hand to move forward. She didn’t know what she’d find. If there was no hold, she was finished. She’d be a pile of wet stuff far below.

Q let go and reached over the edge. Her fingers found loose dirt on the upper side of the overhang. She tried to dig into it but her hand slid back. She was going to fall.

She found the edge through torn skin. It was firm. A rock, protruding like a fist. She wrapped her fingers around it, braced and muscled up.

Q lay on a ledge, her legs draped over the void, her body on solid ground. She rolled over onto her butt. She could see the top.

Easy as.

*

She stopped dead. Someone else had stopped deader.

Q was halfway between the cliff and the tunnel. Dave’s track was nothing more than a roo trail but it made the journey twice as fast and she was buoyed by her victory over the cliff.

Now that victory drained away. There was a corpse beside the trail. It wasn’t moving, which meant it didn’t get there on its own. If it had, it should be moving still. Zombies don’t die unless they are killed, and who was there left to kill a zombie?

She kept her distance, no longer trusting the dead body to be harmless. The bush was too dense to see anyone hiding in it. Boot prints and broken sticks and torn-off bits of tree indicated that others had used this path. Dave and Angela may have left the signs yesterday, but Angela had said they’d met no ghouls on their way. How did this one get here?

Was there a zombie slayer around? A crazy sole survivor who’d lived through things they shouldn’t have? Anyone alone four weeks into the outbreak had a gun and good aim. The back of her neck itched.

Q hummed a tune from a musical. It was a smart thing to do, because she couldn’t remember how the chorus went, and in any case, she hated musicals more than Pious Kate’s lectures on charitable giving. By the end, she was annoyed rather than afraid, which was a far more useful emotion.

Plus, if someone was watching her, they would know she wasn’t death warmed up, even if she looked it. Monsters don’t hum. Not in tune, anyway.

The body hadn’t moved for a full five minutes. Should she go straight past? It could be a trap. Lure in the loner, then bang! Barbecue goodness.

Q fought paranoia. If someone wanted to shoot her, they’d do it regardless of her next move. She might as well find out what happened to this corpse.

She walked to the body and crouched beside it. It sat on the ground, legs straight out in front, back stiff as if conscious of posture. It had been a zombie. Its gray belly bulged out between missing shirt buttons, exuding aniseed and rotten meat. It stank far worse than any she’d encountered, like yesterday’s roadkill on a summer day. The skin was intact but the body shrunken, as if it had rotted from the inside out. Four fingers on the right hand were missing. The wounds were old and dry and had never been infected. They must be what had turned it in the first place, but they were not the cause of this second death.

Q couldn’t see any other damage except for small puncture wounds, no doubt from stumbling through the bush into trees and rocks. There were no large cuts on the creature’s head or torso. No bullet holes. No knife gashes. She picked up a stick and pushed the block of flesh until it sagged forward. A fresh wave of stench engulfed her and she stepped back, choking for air, then checked its back and the underside of its legs.

There was nothing. The thing had just died.

Q threw away her stick. Had this lump of flesh grown as tired as she was and stopped of its own accord? Weird. What would
Apocalypse Z
say?

Why was she even thinking that? She’d abandoned the book when she’d decided to swap the rules for living in a zombie world with those for keeping Rabbit around as a taxidermist’s ode to her dead boyfriend. Maybe she’d chosen wrong, but she’d chosen. Now she had to think for herself.

Q was back at the tunnel, wishing for another mountain to climb.

The metal grate sealed the opening like a clenched jaw. Moist sounds poured out. She tried not to think about damp feet shuffling.

It had taken all day to get here and now it was dark. She ate one of her SAS tabs and wondered what would happen if she went back to Angela without going inside. She could camp at the cliff and watch the sunrise. She could tell Angela she hadn’t found the charger. She could forget the sound of Hannah’s voice.

No. Hannah had to talk to her. Q wouldn’t let down her friend again.

She dragged open the metal grate. It growled across the rock. She didn’t feel brave, but she had to go in, because the alternative would destroy her. Maybe that’s all courage was: all other options removed; nowhere to go but forward.

Q stepped inside.

*

It was like she had never left.

The world was full of water. It made her clumsy and weighed her down. Every step displaced more and sent it sloshing against the walls. Q couldn’t tell if the sounds were hers, or if they belonged to something else. She switched on the torch she'd brought from Dave’s camp, and swore. She should have brought spare batteries as well. Its weak beam illuminated a few feet before fading, and showed nothing at all through the murky water below.

She crept along, testing each step before committing to it. She didn’t want to fall into one of those endless wells – she had no reason to pull herself out any more. No point to any of it, except Hannah. What if Hannah was dead already?

“Nicest Kate?” Q called into the darkness. “Have you got my phone charger?”

Q’s words sang back. What had she expected? A sophisticated taunt? Zombie Kate was brainless, like the rest of them. Q could at least be grateful for that. The things had conquered death and civilization, but at least they couldn’t think. People still had a chance. A tiny flame of a chance, flickering and nearly gone, but there.

She paused and waited for the water to subside, wanting the
slap-slap
on the concrete walls to fade so she could see with her ears as well as her eyes. She waited a full minute, counting time, but the sounds refused to die.

Were those footsteps?

She shone the beam around, but saw only slimy walls and her own cold breath in the air. Perhaps she had disturbed the water. Perhaps she was alone after all.

Q pulled out her bush knife. She wouldn’t use a gun in here. The noise would blow her eardrums and besides, if she hit Kate, she needed to be close enough to grab her. Otherwise, the ghoul might sink beneath the water, taking the charger with her.

All Q had to do was wait, look and listen.

Footsteps. No. One footstep, then a noise like a stick scraping concrete.

Step.
Scrape
. Step.
Scrape
.

She swung her torch wildly, searching for the source. Maybe it was too far from the dim light to see. The sound was up front somewhere, too slow to be an animal unless wounded, in which case it would be crying. Anything alive would be crying now.

What if zombies ate animals in here? With no people left and not enough brains to get out of the tunnel, what if they ate whatever was unfortunate enough to stumble inside? What if they’d started on that one?

Step.
Scrape
. Step.
Scrape
. What if it was some poor fluffy creature, half-eaten and trying to get away?

Q re-thought that thought. This was Australia. The koalas bit, the roos drowned dogs, the possums stole and no one had lived to tell the tale of a wombat attack. Everything had teeth, especially the poor fluffy creatures. No ghoul would be able to catch one, let alone keep one. That wasn’t an animal.

Step.
Scrape
.

Ahead, a dim silhouette formed, vaguely human. She bet if she saw it clearly, it would remain only vaguely human. She held still, trying not to displace water. The thing was slow but it was heading straight for her. Could it see in the dark? Was it using senses she didn’t have?

Her fingers tightened on the knife’s handle. Her muscles coiled. Now she had a focus for her fear, she found she was no longer afraid.

Step.
Scrape
.

The thing was about ten feet away on the right, almost springing distance. Was it Pious Kate? She held the torch steady and raised her knife.

Bony fingers grabbed her ankle from behind and pulled. She fell, screaming, knowing she was finished. Not one but two zombies, and they had her down. It didn’t matter if she got out of here. Her survival would be temporary. She was on the ground and vulnerable and one bite was all it took to kill. No exceptions. Look at Rabbit.

Q landed on her knees and hands, hard. It hurt so much she lost the air from her lungs, but she managed to kick backward and felt her boot crunch through something soft.

She hadn’t been bitten! She rolled away from the thing in the darkness, grateful that she hadn’t stabbed herself in the confusion.

Where was the torch? Where was the knife?

Q groped and splashed, abandoning all attempts at stealth in her desperation to find the tool and the weapon, expecting bony fingers to wrap around her legs and sharp teeth to find her flesh. What was she doing trapped with monsters she couldn’t see?

Her fingers brushed something that wasn’t concrete. She felt for it again, but it was gone. Had it moved?

If it moved, it wasn’t her kit, but something else. Something she didn’t want to find.

She scrabbled around, half hoping to find nothing, but her fingers lodged against a round, smooth surface. The handle of a knife. She gripped it.

No. Not her knife. Bone.

Q held the stripped leg bone of a zombie.

That scraping sound was this bone as the thing walked. She retched, revolted, but held on and yanked. A body thudded into the water.

She abandoned her search. She’d fight in the dark with feet and fists – they were all she had left. She hoped they were enough.

Q strode over to the felled ghoul and stomped. Her boot sank through flesh and ground into concrete. She stomped again and again, until the thing below her was only moving in response to her stomping, no animation left of its own. She paused, panting.

She shut her eyes to think. Water noises everywhere and the sounds were increasing. She had no light, no direction, nothing against which to orient herself, and she couldn’t tell which way she’d come in, or even where the walls were. The tunnel was a storm and she was lost in it.

She dropped to a crouch and prodded the prone form in front of her. Her fingers sank into yielding mush. She tried not to think about uncooked sausage as she moved her hands along the body. If this was the right one, if she had just killed Zombie Kate, she could grab the charger and get out of here. If she could find the way.
Too many ifs
. Q longed for the simplicity of a game she knew she could win if only she played long enough.

Her hands reached the ghoul’s throat. There was no snake talisman around its neck. This wasn’t Zombie Kate, unless the beast had lost what the woman treasured. It was a useless kill. She was no closer to escape.

She got to her feet. There was at least one more zombie in here. Was it crawling toward her, unheard in the watery echoes? Was it Zombie Kate or another faceless victim?

Q spun and kicked at nothing, took a step to the left, kicked again. She felt surrounded. She sensed something in front of her and punched but connected only with air, overextending her joints. She rubbed her throbbing elbow. How was she meant to fight like this? How could she even find an enemy, let alone beat one?

Apocalypse Z
would not help her. It was all about survival, which meant running away. The only words of advice it gave about doing something stupid like this to help a friend were brief.
Don’t
, it said.
Heroes never breed
. Q couldn’t live like that any more. It hadn’t worked for Dave and it wouldn’t spare any of them. Rabbit was right: she might as well go out trying.

Water everywhere and nothing to see. Her camouflage pants were soaked and her fingers ached with the cold. She might freeze before she found Zombie Kate.

She thought back to the hard days of training in her childhood. Linda’s techniques had become more bizarre as the woman sickened. Maybe Linda had been trying to ignite something in Q that had died in herself. They did the usual things, push ups and pull ups and running and skipping, kicking bags and punching focus mitts. Even sparring, with Linda striking Q as hard as she could, trying to provoke rage from the ten-year-old. Despite all this, Q’s skills went downhill. She couldn’t strike back. That woman might shatter into pieces on the gym floor and who would clean it up, with her red-eyed father locked in the study?

Then Linda decided to teach her about the senseless dark.

It started two months before Linda went into care, a week before Q’s last competition fight. The woman was barely there but she wanted Q to win so badly. They had kept up their regular evening session in the garage gym, even though Linda couldn’t stand for ten minutes at a stretch, even though she smelled bad and sounded like she had forgotten how to talk. Her dad insisted Q cooperate. It didn’t matter what Q wanted or how much her guts twisted every time she thought about training. Linda was the important one.

One night, the lights went off. Q had thought it was a power failure. She lay on the cool mats, hidden and safe. Then the monster attacked.

The shape had leaped out and struck with palms and feet and claws, rearing back and scuttling away to a dark corner before Q could respond. The first time it happened, Q was scared. After that, she was angry.

Even after Q realized it was Linda, she couldn’t shake the sense of fighting monsters in the dark. It became their new routine. She dreaded it all day at school. She tried all afternoon to make excuses, to fake injuries, to make herself sick. She managed to throw up once. She still had to train, though.

It occurred to Q now, in this dark place full of real monsters, that Linda had been unable to fight things she couldn’t see. Maybe that’s why she’d wanted her daughter to learn.

Q tried to recreate the peace and terror of those night attacks. She let out her breath and allowed her shoulders and arms to relax. She felt gravel through the soles of her shoes. Her legs were strong beneath her. She inhaled and caught air in her throat so that her chest no longer rose or fell. Her body made no sound or movement except those essential for life.

Behind her was a sound not made by water.

She waited. She could almost sense the air it displaced and the diminishing distance between them. She couldn’t pick its exact location. How could she hit something if she didn’t know where it was?

There was a clang to her left. Metal on concrete. Something had stepped on her knife.

Q spun and poured her energy into a front-kick. She connected with the body and sent it flying, then dropped to a crouch. She felt around on the ground for the blade and found it with her fingertips, slicing them open. She didn’t care. She had the knife. She’d found the ghoul.

She listened for the zombie’s movements but the noises slid away, covered by the tunnel’s splashes. Q pictured the scene. The creature would try to get to its feet so it could attack. They lost everything human, but they still knew how to attack. They knew up from down. They knew that bellies were empty and needed to be filled.

She might have heard steps. She might have just imagined them. She couldn’t pinpoint direction through the echoes. Q lunged, stabbed, missed.

Where had it gone? What was it waiting for? Zombies don’t lurk – they were bags of meat.

She heard a sound to her right. For a moment, she wondered if someone was in the tunnel with her. Q could think of only one other person who was alive and in the area. “Angela?”

Had Angela followed her? Was she capable of that climb up the cliff and the uphill march, both of which pushed Q to her limits? Crazy people did astonishing things and that woman was crazy. She’d smashed Dave’s radio. What else would she do?

“I know you’re angry,” Q said. “I can help.”

There was another sound, not the snarl of a zombie, but something else. If it was Angela, why wouldn’t she talk? The sound came from Q’s left. “I understand how you feel,” Q said. “I’ve lost people too. Rabbit’s dead.”

There was a flood of sound, like an explosion under water. Q’s pulse leaped. A body slammed into her.

The force threw her back into one of those dark submerged pits she had been avoiding. She and her attacker went under.

The shock drove the air from her lungs. Her head was below the water and her attacker dragged her deeper. Bubbles escaped Q’s mouth. She thrashed like a hooked fish, trying to shake loose the arms pinning her hands to her sides. Her legs were useless, the thing holding her was too close for a kick and there was nothing firm to push against. The embrace tightened.

Q’s head bulged with pointless images, blood stretching the inside of her skull. The kelpie as a puppy so small she fit in one hand. Someone else’s blood on her knuckles after a bout. Nearly wetting herself on her first day of teaching because she didn’t know where the bathrooms were and didn’t want to ask the Blue Ogre.

Q twitched less, a battery nearly spent. Her feet flapped but her torso was still. She tasted iron and smelled lavender. Her skin was ice. She longed for an end.

She felt something pressed against her chest, warmer than the water around them, warmer than the body holding her. It was made of wood. A pendant.

This wasn’t Angela. It was Zombie Kate. Q had found her. She couldn’t remember why it was important but knew it had something to do with saving someone.

She pulled back her head and cracked the front part of her skull against the zombie’s. It was a feeble effort, her force dissipated by the water, but the constricting embrace loosened. Q wriggled until her head was above water. She drank a miracle of air and found another – she still held the knife.

Water boiled as Zombie Kate searched for what she’d lost. All Q wanted was to drag herself clear, leaving behind the nightmare of teeth and nails and cold dark places, but she couldn’t leave. She had to finish.