Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 5): May (6 page)

noon
“They've moved.” The Kid told us all, suddenly. He uncoiled himself to almost his full height, the ceiling being too low down here for eight feet, and lumbered on over to the door, unsealing it and ducking out, saying; “Won't be long, gotta take care of a few things. Better shut this up properly behind me, though.” We did as he suggested.
Viking and Valkyrie were beginning to get fidgety by now. I knew that the blonde giant of a man disliked small spaces, not that he actually admitted to
claustrophobia, he just preferred being outside. I hadn't known it before this morning, however, but now we all did, because Valkyrie had just finished telling him that it was okay to be afraid. Viking wasn't afraid of small confined spaces, he just didn't like being in them. Honestly, though the walls were seeming to close in on me as well by now, there was clearly only a finite amount of time that we would be able to continue down here before being driven insane by our predicament. Were it not for Apocalypse Girl's calming presence I think I might have been already.

After a while, the familiar
CLANG!!!!!
of The Kid's knock sounded on the steel barrier separating us from the hallways of The Facility's Depths and Viking, swearing loudly, moved to the door to unseal and open it. Needless to say, since we knew it was sure to be The Kid, nobody bothered going with him as backup. A moment later the gigantic blonde man flew backwards, knocking into a cupboard and being thoroughly stunned in the process. I drew my blade, running out into the main room to see a trio of Giant Dead ducking under the door. I swore loudly enough for the others to get the picture, if they hadn't already, and ran into the fray, swinging my blade low, trying to cut the legs out from under one Giant Dead while dodging the swinging, grasping hands that flailed about just above my head. Gunfire erupted from behind me, driving one of the monstrous Dead back a little, at least momentarily. Long enough for Valkyrie's assault, armed with Viking's hammer, to occupy one of the enormous mutated creatures. That gave me an opportunity to at least close the door, if not seal it, before the fifty or so normal Dead that were on their way down the corridor arrived.

Backing off a little, I motioned for Apocalypse Girl to sneak around them while Valkyrie and I drew them away from the door so that she could seal it properly. One swung it's flailing limbs a little too near her for my liking but she was able to dodge out of the way, sealing the door before diving between a pair of Dead legs. I grabbed hold of one of her hands, pulling her out of harms way, sliding her along the floor behind the guards who kept on firing at the Giant Dead, concentrating on one in particular. Looking up at it I saw several bullet holes appear in its head, and eventually it fell down, properly dead once again. This left two more.
One of those two had Valkyrie backed into a corner by this point, the other was bearing down on me. My Dead swung its fists down from overhead, one connecting with my shoulder, knocking me to the ground. Fuck, but these things were strong! Dead, usually at least, were relatively weak, though in large enough numbers they could literally tear buildings to pieces. I had seen it often enough. These Giant Dead, however, had the strength to match their size. This time it was Apocalypse Girl's turn to drag me from danger. My hand couldn't grip the hilt of my blade and it fell from my grip.

The two guards, having run out of bullets finally, charged in, using their guns as clubs, belabouring the Giant Dead that had downed me about its head and neck.
Meanwhile Apocalypse Girl scrabbled for my sword. I heard a cry of pain from the other side of the room and looked up in time to see the other Giant Dead picking up Valkyrie with one hand, lifting her to its mouth and tearing a huge chunk from her shoulder. She lifted Viking's hammer up with her other hand, bringing it down upon the huge Dead one's head. The hammer's head was bloodied from the contact that had driven it deep into the Dead's misshapen skull, dropping it to its knees. Apocalypse Girl hacked the head from its shoulders, following that up with a kick to the torso which toppled the monster.
The pair of guards, however, had seemingly only succeeded in pissing off the remaining Giant Dead one. It knocked them aside with ease, following in their path. When one of them stood up, the massive mutant grabbed him by his throat, lifting him high. His partner smashed the butt of his rifle down, hard, on the creature's knee, shattering the joint. The Dead, leg now bending inward, dropped his current meal, blood gurgling from his throat as he died, and swatted the remaining guard in the face. It snapped the poor guy's neck.

Viking had regained consciousness by this stage, charging in to rescue a bleeding Valkyrie who was in no real danger, at least not right now. She waved him off, staggering out of range of the rabid flailing of the crippled Giant Dead's arms, her wound leaving a trail of dark, wet blood on the wall as she fell against it and slid down next to Sister, who immediately began treating her injury. The blonde giant took up his hammer once more, swinging with an overhead chop that connected brutally with the Giant Dead head, crushing it to a pulp. Rushing over to Valkyrie he slowed for an instant to shatter the severed head of the decapitated Dead to pieces.

evening
Valkyrie's wound was severe, but not lethal. She had lost a
lot
of blood, was currently unconscious, had been bandaged up though and was likely to survive. She was drenched in sweat, but so were we all. It was getting fucking hot down here. The radio squawked at one point, it was finally The Colonel. She had arrived, had slaughtered all of the Dead at the main entrance and was having a little trouble getting inside. She had initially been able to reach The Major, who had promised to open the door for her, but hours later he had still not shown. The Colonel, needless to say, was wondering exactly what the fuck was going on down here. We told her everything that we could, which was not bloody much, then she told us that the door had opened for her, mysteriously.

We told her about The Kid, describing him in detail, making certain that her people knew he was a friendly, even if he didn't exactly look it. We made it clear that he wouldn't be trying to eat anyone, for one thing, and would likely be swearing at anyone shooting at him. She acknowledged this, then mentioned that he was standing right in front of her now, offering to escort her to our position.
They arrived about an hour later, the familiar
CLANG!!!!!
being followed up with a very cautious Viking opening it up. The Kid swore upon seeing the carnage before him. The Colonel strode in like she owned the place, saluting us proudly with a slight smile on her face. A fresh scar ran from her left eyebrow along the temple, looking like it had been inflicted by a knife, maybe a claw.

“
Nice scar, Colonel, where'd you get it?” Apocalypse Girl asked her.

The Colonel sighed slightly. I got the feeling that it was a question that she was fairly familiar with. “It was a Drop Bear.” Viking burst out laughing until she fixed him with her eye. Apparently it really had been a Drop Bear. “Looked like some kind of mutated koala, in any case. Fucking thing tore a couple of my men to shreds before it gave me that scar. Whatever is happening to the world is a hell of a lot more serious than the Dead coming back to life, isn't it?”
We told her of the meat-beasts that we had encountered. “Yeah, we came across a few of those things, too. We weren't game to try eating it, though. Apparently that tentacle thing we saw on the way to Canberra might be something similar, we encountered some people living near the coast being able to chop off tentacles and cook them up as calamari. Evidently the tentacles regenerate in less than two days. The group we ran into called the things Cthulhus.” She started out of the room. Seeing that nobody was following her just yet, she said; “You guys coming? The Facility's been cleared out of Dead, completely.” Viking carefully picked Valkyrie up in his arms and we followed her out, and up.

May 12thYear 1 A.Z.

morning
After a good night's sleep, a hot shower and some decent food The Colonel told us that she needed to continue moving. She had a reasonably sized force now, constantly increasing with the occasional volunteer joining up, having heard about her desire to rid Australia, at the very least, if not the entire world, of the Dead. It was a goal that many could get behind. She offered, at least, to leave a squad behind to help clean out The Facility, but we refused. According to The Smart Couple, the volcano inside of which this particular installation had been built was stirring. We would have to leave, and soon.

Valkyrie's shoulder, upon cleaning the wound, seemed nasty enough, but there was no infection present. So far this vaccine was working well enough, maybe it would be enough to mean that humanity would indeed be able to continue its meagre existence on this fucked-up planet. The Kid disappeared for a little while, only to return a short while later, bearing Archer's shark tooth amulet, saying that he had known the old man's daughter reasonably well before she left the commune. If she were still alive, somewhere, he wanted to give it back to her. There was no way of knowing for certain how much time we had before the volcano erupted, according to Smart Guy, only that it was definitely going to do so soon. The pair of scientists decided that they would be better off travelling with The Colonel and her army, especially since they could now render said army immune to the Dead Plague. They gave us the radio, however, as it was a far more certain method of communication than Apocalypse Girl's phone, both with them and our friends in Melbourne.
Speaking of Melbourne, the news from there was grim. The Followers had been disbanded once The Disciple's friends from up north had arrived, but The Disciple himself had disappeared. His friends, however, have been hard at work clearing up the devastation that had once been Melbourne and were now demanding that The School become part of their Empire. What had once been a mishmash of various criminal organisations up in Queensland had now joined forces, come south and taken over the whole place. So far The Principal had been successful in keeping them out of The School, but Soldier had encountered many of them, most of whom had told him that they were now responsible for protecting the people of Melbourne and his services were no longer necessary. Lately, however, the veiled threats had grown more obvious, to the point of Soldier and his men being ordered out of the furniture shop he had been using as headquarters at gunpoint. Fortunately for them a group of Schoolfolk and Mech-Techs had come along to defuse the situation before it got too nasty and eventually The Principal had relented on his 'no military' policy enough for them to have a bit of added security.

noon
The six of us that decided not to go along with The Colonel, that being Apocalypse Girl, Sister, Viking, Valkyrie, The Kid and I, were given a map by The Smart Couple showing the possible locations of other underground facilities similar to this one and The Think Tank. The nearest was way up north, near Alice Springs. Viking spent most of the morning insulating a truck that he had picked out for us a couple of days ago, all the while Valkyrie stood at his shoulder commenting on what he was doing wrong. When he, irate, turned to her demanding that if she knew better than he, why didn't she do it, the pair just started laughing together. She was still a little feverish from her ordeal, though we suspected it was more due to shock and blood loss than any infection. The truck would be ready by tomorrow morning, Viking swore.

The great question, however, was 'what next?' and it was a bitch of a question to find an answer to. The Kid wanted to find Archer's daughter, somehow he felt she was still alive. I had learned to trust such feelings by now personally, but all I wanted was to find somewhere safe and warm to settle down with Apocalypse Girl. Sister wanted to come with us still, no matter where we went. The Nordic couple, on the other hand, had seemingly had more than their fair share of travelling and wanted nothing more than to return to Melbourne. I could hardly blame them, really. Viking told us that he'd finish up with the truck for us before they left in the mini-bus.

evening
We loaded the truck up with enough food to sustain us for a long journey north, deciding that the most likely safe place was another of these underground complexes. The Kid was going to join us for at least part of the journey, he said, though he felt he would need to leave us before we get anywhere near the Alice Complex. Having no actual directions to the place itself was going to be a little painful, but at least we knew the vague area, so it shouldn't be too tough.

We made certain to raid the armoury, taking a sniper rifle, assault rifle and a bow, not to mention a whole shitload of ammunition for all of them each. At the very least we would be well prepared for our journey.

May 13thYear 1 A.Z.

morning
Viking and Valkyrie have left us, heading back to Melbourne and their friends. True to his word, however, the promised truck was insulated against the Cold and ready to go. The blonde giant had also filled several spare containers with petrol, also making certain we had more than enough spare wheels as well as the means to change them. Viking had been more than a little concerned when we had found out about the vast Criminal Empire that had taken over Melbourne and wanted nothing more than to make sure his people were safe.

The Cold, funnily enough, didn't seem any where near as bad as it had before. In fact, the perpetual coating of grey snow that had dusted even The Facility's motor pool was absent this morning, though there was a lot of fog. There was an odd odour, too, something similar to a rotten egg, or maybe a particularly nasty fart. The four of us had just finished loading our backpacks into the truck, The Kid had already hopped up into the back and I was doing the gentlemanly thing, assisting Apocalypse Girl up into the cabin, when I noticed that the soles of her boots were slightly molten, leaving small rubbery strings on the asphalt below.
I didn't say anything at the time, just ran around to the other side of the truck, hopping up and pulling Sister up after me. I told Apocalypse Girl calmly that we should leave
now
and she gunned the motor, pulling us out onto the road. I looked behind us, seeing a haze of heat emanating from the motor pool, looked at Apocalypse Girl. She saw something in my eyes and we began moving faster, down the slope of the mountainside.