Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 1): January (4 page)

noon

We got The Kid back to the barn in minutes.  Apocalypse Girl rushed ahead to open the door for us, and call out for help.  Kindly Lady hobbled out, wondering what the ruckus was.  She blanched when she saw The Kid's leg, but she hurried us inside, into her own room that she shared with Fat Dealer.  “Put him on the bed.”  She ordered us, as Apocalypse Girl rushed off to gather the supplies we had picked up at the chemist.

Kindly Lady began prodding the wound, eliciting a scream of agony from The Kid, and Apocalypse Girl ran back in.  Kindly Lady ordered Junior and I out as she and Apocalypse Girl began cleaning the bite wound.  As the door closed, The Kid bleated one last time as Apocalypse Girl applied some iodine to the injury, then he lost consciousness.

mid-afternoon

Junior and I were practicing with our bows as Fat Dealer came barrelling down from the road in his Ute  As he pulled up, Archer went over to explain the situation with The Kid.  Apocalypse Girl came out to practice with us after they went inside, a grim expression on Fat Dealer's wide bearded face.  She told me that The Kid seemed ok for now.  The wound was clean and bandaged, and he had been fed a handful of antibiotics the moment he had awakened.  The clay-gatherers returned while we practiced, with their guards.  The Twin stopped a moment to speak with Apocalypse Girl and I.

“Those fucking idiots should know not to watch the girls collecting the clay now, and keep their eyes on the perimeter...”  She said.  “They are meant to be guards after all.”  She then picked up a spare bow and began firing arrows one after another directly into the bullseye.  There were ten grouped around the center of the target in a tight ring before she realised that everybody had stopped and was staring at her.  At that moment the arrow she had knocked, ready to loose, went flying off into the distance.  Then she focused once again, shutting out all distractions, and sent her remaining seven arrows directly into the middle of the target.  Their tips were touching.  The crowd watching burst into spontaneous applause, whooping and cheering.  Most of us were lucky to hit the target itself more than seven out of ten arrows, though Apocalypse Girl and I were improving swiftly.

evening

Around the dinner circle, Kindly Lady gave us the news of The Kid's condition.  He was stable, for now, a little feverish, and the infection was minimal, but he had an appetite, so one of his fellow guards brought food into him, and kept him company for the evening.  After a while he came out, looking relieved, spoke briefly with Fat Dealer, who handed him something, and then ducked back into The Kid's room.

Some other younger members of the commune decided to hang with The Kid while he was recovering, and after dinner the joint Fat Dealer rolled was shared only by Kindly Lady, Apocalypse Girl, Junior, Archer, The Twin and myself.  The musicians were practicing over in the corner, and we quietly talked among ourselves.  Apocalypse Girl asked Fat Dealer where it was he had gone.  He told us that he was trying to locate some of the local farmers, as nobody at the commune actually knew anything about animal husbandry, other than keeping chickens.  He managed to find someone who was on their way, would be there tomorrow, apparently.  Kindly Lady also told us, when Junior asked, about the two she had sent out scouting the day before.  We needed to know if there were any other survivors around, she told us, so that we could band together with them and become stronger as a result.  Seems a reasonable idea to me too, thinking about it that way.  After all, when the Dead are walking don't we Living need to stick together?

Everybody seemed fairly hopeful, thinking that maybe the worst was over, we might be able to even make a decent life for ourselves out here, provided we can acquire the right people.  We were relaxing, Apocalypse Girl and I considering retiring, debating whether we need worry about keeping a separate watch among the two of us now that we have gotten to know these people when The Kid staggered out of his room gasping for help before collapsing immobile on the floor.

Immediately Archer and Junior sprang into action.  I grabbed the closest weapon to hand, Valet's old crowbar, and followed them into the room.  Five youngsters had gone into The Kid's room, all but one still in death, vomit covering all of their chests.  The one was beginning to move, until Archer put a shaft through his head.  Junior and I proceeded to make sure the others stayed dead, my crowbar sticking messily into the skull of my second.

The Kid, it turned out, was still alive, and was recovering from whatever had happened.  He was saying that one of his friends had handed him a joint, telling him that since he was injured, he got to light it up.  Everybody had a decent toke as it was passed around, and as the last one in the circle was handing it back to The Kid, the first to take a toke started coughing far too hard, eventually vomiting, as the second began coughing, and as the third started coughing, the first was dead.  The second vomited, and then the other two began to cough and chunder as well.  The Kid decided that was a good time to get help, but he was having trouble breathing.  He made it out, and as we were crushing his friends' skulls he was being given mouth to mouth by Kindly Lady.  As he was telling us this, he looked gratefully in her direction, as did we all, just in time for us to see her collapse to the floor, convulsing.  She died horribly, clearly in great agony, and not a single one of us could do anything about it.

We were all too stunned to do anything about it, until Apocalypse Girl splattered her brains all over the floor with The Bommyknocker.

January 8th Year 1 A.Z.

dawn

We buried our dead as early as we could manage.  The Kid had volunteered himself for quarantine, as clearly he must be infected, since he inadvertently caused the death of six of his fellows.  He looked almost completely healthy to me, however, but I was there last night, I saw what had happened, dealt with the consequences of it.  The mood surrounding the entire compound was depressing.  Junior and I still had a patrol that morning, but due to the funeral we got that started a little later than usual.  As we left, The Twin followed, snatching up a bow and handful of arrows, asking if she could join our patrol.  Wordlessly we agreed, and the three of us began our rounds.  Apocalypse Girl was busily organising a work party to collect some more clay, while she and Fat Dealer fashioned them into bricks.  The two guards that survived yesterday's complete fuckup were far more alert this morning, and as we approached the riverside we saw that things were finally proceeding properly.

One of the girls that was there yesterday walked past us, smiling encouragingly at The Twin, as she pushed a wheelbarrow full of clay over to where Fat Dealer and Apocalypse Girl toiled.  She looked up from her work to see me, and waved.  I waved back, and she went back to it.  We continued our patrol.

As we arrived back at the barn, Archer was leading another pair of reasonably good bowmen out on a backup patrol, in the reverse direction to ours.  Seemed like a good idea.

noon

After a quick lunch, archery practice.  The Twin spent most of her time trying to put into words exactly how she manages to focus on her targets, but it was lost on the two of us.  Junior was still much better off with his club, but I was improving fairly quickly.  All twenty of my arrows found the target at least, one or two might have been considered decent shots, had The Twin not been watching.

“We need more than just round targets.”  She was saying at one point.  “Maybe someone can find a few shop mannequins or something like that.  Something vaguely human shaped, at least, so we can all practice head shots.”  She was right about that one.  My two decent shots were both far enough apart that a head could easily fit between them.  Or two.  “Even human shaped wooden mock-up targets.”

“Good job those things are slow, though,”  Junior said in response.  “Means someone who sucks as badly as I do still has half a chance if one gets close enough...”

“Unless they're quiet about it, then you're fucked.”  Archer interjected, scaring the shit out of all three of us, as he had stalked up silently behind us as we trained.  “Anyway, you're right about the targets.  I was already thinking about some mock-ups, maybe even rig something up that moves.  Gotta give you a challenge, don't we?”  He winked at The Twin, and left in the direction of his shed, greying ponytail swinging in his wake.

evening

Back inside the barn, just as the sun began to set, Apocalypse Girl was telling us that they had already made a few hundred bricks and we could begin construction on the new wall in the morning, provided we could keep up the same rate of collection we could be done in just a few days.  Fat Dealer was almost silent during her report, but said that we needed any spare wood from the fence that is replaced for the animals.  As it was they had been tied up on the far side of the cemetery from the river, but already the bull had broken free twice and two cows had fled.

Junior checked on The Kid, and reported that he was looking and feeling fine, at least physically.  Emotionally he was a totally wreck.  Hardly surprising, all things considered.  His leg was not exactly healing as it should, but neither was the infection spreading.  Even so it seemed that somehow he could infect others with his saliva.  This was disturbing, but other than that he seemed perfectly normal.  Fat Dealer told me that he had seen enough death recently, and though he had loved Kindly Lady, he knew it wasn't The Kid's fault she had died.  So, it was decided that he would be released, and even put back on guard duty.  He looked grateful that he was not going to be punished for their deaths, and swore that he would do his best to protect everyone in his care from now on.  Fat Dealer nodded, then handed him a massive machete that he had picked up on his latest scouting effort.  I was suddenly struck with the parallel images of Fat Dealer and The Kid, overlaid with a mental image of King Arthur knighting young Sir Percivale.  This vow The Kid would keep.

That image made me think of another very important aspect of medieval knights.  I pulled Archer aside and hurriedly muttered one word to him.  He stopped, staring off into the distance, and nodded, obviously coming up with a plan already.  We needed some kind of armour.

January 9th Year 1 A.Z.

dawn

Another dawn patrol with Junior and The Twin found us walking the perimeter while a strange car came up the path to the road.  Junior suggested that it was one of the farmers that Fat Dealer had gone to find the other day, which seemed fairly likely.  In any case we were distracted by Apocalypse Girl who came running from the direction of the river, shouting that we needed everyone NOW!

Rushing off to the river, we saw that the pair of scouts that Kindly Lady and Fat Dealer had sent out the other day had returned, bringing company with them.  Not exactly the sort you would invite to dinner though, more the sort that would insist on eating the host if you did.  The two guards from the other day, and The Kid were already firing arrows into the thick of the host, most turning the leading row of Dead into pincushions, putting two or three down, but doing no real damage.

I shouted out that they needed to pick their targets, and the massive horde of Dead turned slightly towards the noise.  An arrow flew past my head, to drive deep into the skull of a Dead shambling in my direction.  I ordered The Twin to hold back and keep firing, while Junior and I together with the other guards kept distracting them with sounds.  As they were nearing the clay pits, it seemed a good idea to utilise the terrain to our advantage.  By the time Archer's patrol arrived and Apocalypse Girl had returned with reinforcements from the barn we had a third of the horde down, with the rest quite well stuck in the mud.