Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 9): September Page 9
“Come in, have a seat.” I was already doing so as she spoke. “Those Righteous freaks are coming. The Boss has been pretty clear about that. She wants us to lure them to AR-18, so that we have the advantage of height when they come for us.” I nodded, she continued. “I have heard that they’re stronger and faster than we are, considerably so.” I nodded again, confirming her fears. She swallowed, composing herself quickly. “I’ve sent out a group to attract their attention on her orders. It’s not exactly what I might have chosen, but she is in charge here. They’ve clearly got our scent, though, and they are definitely coming for us.” I felt a tingle of dread fly up and down my spine at the look on her face. I’d never seen The Colonel this afraid of anything, even when we first met and she watched her entire command overrun and eaten by The Dead.
After dinner I took Apocalypse Dog for a walk, both to clear his bowels and my own head. Standing atop Ayer’s Rock, I looked out in the direction our enemies would be approaching from. It would be a hard slog for them, through tough terrain. On the other hand, they were Ghouls now, stronger and more ferocious than any other foe I had encountered in this apocalyptic wasteland.
September 21st Year 1 A.Z.
morning
There were few areas that I was forbidden from entering, now that I was commanding The Boss’s elite squad, but one in particular held my interest. There was a constant stream of technicians flowing in and out of the place, not a single one of them able to speak a word about anything that might lie within. It was one of the truly ancient areas, ceiling three times as high as the more contemporary, very military, far newer areas. All I could see through the door as it opened was a strange bluish light, then the guards on duty apologetically told me that I’d have to move on.
The Boss was waiting for me at breakfast, dismissing her daughter as if sending her to her room to play with her dollies whilst the grown-ups talk about grown-up things. Apocalypse Girl went, but not far. She stood just outside of earshot, glaring at her mother as she spoke to me.
“As you know, your friend The Colonel has sent out a group to attract the attention of these fiends,” she began. “They’ve taken the bait. They should be here by tomorrow sometime. We have defensive emplacements all around the base, I plan on ordering as many men as can safely stand on top of this fucking rock with guns to take them from above.” She looked at me, her gaze almost seeing through me. “Is there anything else you’d like to add to this?”
I shook my head, saying only that these Ghouls were not to be underestimated. I asked her whether she knew if it was the entire group or if they’d left anyone back at home as well. The Boss simply shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. If it were me in command, I’d certainly not leave our home undefended, but then their plan might well be to relocate, maybe somewhere they might find more food.”
noon
Viking and Valkyrie wanted to spend some time with Apocalypse Girl and myself, inviting the two of us up to the cabin of The Elephant for a coffee and chat in the afternoon. No sooner had we sat down than Viking lost his shit. “So now we’ve got a shitload of Ghouls coming after us. The Dead aren’t enough it seems. These Righteous fuckers are something else. I mean, I knew we’d have to tangle with them again, I was just hoping that we’d be taking the fight to them. And that there weren’t so many of the fuckers.”
I sipped my coffee; it was almost perfect. An aromatic, black, piping hot, divine beverage that burned as much as it soothed on the way down. If only the coffee underground at AR-18 was anywhere near as good.
Viking ranted about the Righteous for a little while before turning his attention to the Terraformers. We’d be sent to deal with them before too long, he told us, and likely we’d be fucked when we go there, too. I laughed, cynically, then informed him that I’d rather deal with the Terraformers than something that used to be as human as we were. “Good point, mate.” He smiled, his vividly blue eyes sparkling. “Ah, fuck it. Doesn’t matter who comes at us, we’ve seen it through this far, haven’t we?”
evening
I spent most of my afternoon in the computer labs, watching the swarm of Ghouls approaching. They had vehicles, though not enough that they’d be using them to transport their troops. Instead, they seemed to have a few trucks, for travelling supplies or whatever they might need to keep with them. I imagined cattle trucks filled with Dead, broken limbs askew, some sticking out from the sides of the truck being snacked upon by ravenous Ghouls as they loped towards us.
Dinner time came and went, Apocalypse Girl forcing me to eat something. Honestly, I don’t think I even tasted it. I had other things on my mind. Absentmindedly I rubbed her belly, our child growing within. I couldn’t help but wonder if there weren’t some way out of here before the battle. I dreaded to think of Apocalypse Girl surrounded once more by Ghouls, what had occurred in Adelaide had been more than close enough for my tastes.
I did not want my woman, my child, in any more danger. Never again.
September 22nd Year 1 A.Z.
morning
It seemed as though The Righteous had slowed their pace. The lads in the computer lab estimated that they’d be arriving in perhaps less than a week, but definitely no earlier than four days at their current rate of speed. This gave us a little more time to prepare, at least.
I was grabbing breakfast with Apocalypse Girl when Giant found me. The overly tall woman told me that The Boss wanted our group in her office ASAP. Unfortunately for me, that meant I had to nibble on a couple of un-syruped pancakes on my way to her office, following in Giant’s impressively large foot-prints. Apocalypse Girl stayed behind, though she clearly wanted in on the briefing. I could feel her eye on me as I left.
“Sydney.” Was the first word out of her mouth as I entered. The rest of the squad was already waiting, Viking thoughtfully pouring me a cup of coffee and handing it to me with a grin.
“Sydney?” I wanted to know.
“Sydney.” She agreed. “It is time. These fucking abominations that name themselves Righteous are coming, that much is undeniable. In Sydney, we have another foe. I want your team to deal with them. Wipe them from the face of our world, if you can possibly do so. Be sure to bring plenty of beer with you. Our scientists are having a hard time analysing the brown goo properly, so we’re unable to offer any other ideas for cleaning out the shit, so we’re just going to have to go with what we know works.”
noon
Upon dismissal, we headed straight to the chopper hangar. Apocalypse Girl, Dog wagging his tail at her side, was already there, waiting for me. “When you’re back from this mission, I’m going to have words with my mother.” She told me after our lips parted. “She keeps on sending you out on these fucking suicide missions; eventually you’re not going to come back to me.” What she left unsaid was written in her eye. She was worried that I’d not return from this outing, to be honest, so was I.
The helicopter rose high into the sky, heading to the east. It would be nearly dark by the time we were dropped off, so I told the pilot to make sure we’re dropped somewhere suitable. I didn’t want any Terraformer scouts coming across us in the night, not out in the open.
The land below us, formerly a reddish brown wasteland, was now a greyish reddish brown, turning gradually into a greenish greyish reddish brown as vegetation began to appear beneath us. We were officially out of the fucking big desert that Australia has in the middle. Signs of civilisation appeared on the ground, some still civilised, some less so.
A reasonably large group of Dead were heading in the direction of one settlement. Not knowing if they were decent or not, figuring that at the least, they were still human, I ordered grenades dropped on the shambling group, just to soften them up for the defenders. Human before Dead, human before Ghoul. That was the only code that I lived by, with the extension Apocalypse Girl before everything else.
evening
Sure enough, the sun was fleeing beyond the western horizon as the chopper lowered us to the roof of a
service station a couple of dozen kilometres from the towering multifaceted, multi-coloured spires that rose high, unbelievably high, above the remains of the Opera House’s smouldering ruin, the Harbour Bridge’s shattered carcass spreading metallic ribs as though some unspeakable horror had burst from within.
The alien architecture was stunning. There was no other word for it. Beautiful and terrifying in equal measure, more the latter for what it meant to humanity’s dwindling existence. Towers, spires, bridges, walkways up hundreds of metres in the air, all made from what looked from a distance to be an incandescent chitinous substance, reminiscent of the carapaces of certain species of beetle.
We’d find out soon enough.
September 23rd Year 1 A.Z.
morning
The dawn rose above the towering spires of an alien city, rising above the ruins that were once Sydney, bathing the world in a warm-seeming glow that was more treacherous than the world it illuminated. A glow like that you’d expect to accompany a warm, sunny day at the beach with kids splashing around in the shallows, not a single thought in their heads for being eaten by their own reanimated loved ones. Instead, once showing its face above the horizon, the sun found its way behind fairly dense clouds, still peeking through every now and again, just to check to see that the world was still covered in a grey blanket of shadows.
I ordered Scar and Maori out on a reconnaissance mission almost before we’d eaten our meagre breakfast of jerky and cheese. I didn’t want to just charge in blindly, that would undoubtedly end in disaster. Not sure if I’ve made this clear or not yet, but I plan on being there for the birth of my child, so disasters are right out.
The scouts returned before too long, reporting that there was very little between us and the bizarre structures that the alien Terraformers had erected, no Dead to speak of whatsoever, no Terraformer sentries or patrols that they were able to detect. What worried me was that I felt a sense of Shadows-that-had-been. They/it/whatever the fucking Shadows were, not a trace remained here in what remained of Sydney.
noon
In time we came to the walls of the extraterrestrial compound. It looked, felt like it had been made of beetle shell, chitinous multi-coloured spirals bedazzling us momentarily. We found no door, no windows, no way of entering the blasted place, so at Giant’s urging, we began gouging a hole through the wall itself.
This proved a reasonably painful exercise, particularly because the moment that Giant began digging and poking at the wall a high-pitched alarm sound went out for the briefest of moments. An instant later a half dozen alien drones descended upon us from high, so fucking high, above us.
As they drew nearer I saw that they were quite a bit larger than anything that might have been used by humanity up til the apocalypse, several times as large easily. Needles began lancing out of the drones, seeking human flesh. Giant shrieked in pain as a shard as long as a chopstick burrowed its way through her hand, splintering as it passed through flesh and bone, pinning her hand to her rifle.
Gunfire erupted around me, Wall and Scar firing madly, bullets flying at the oncoming drones as the rest of us dove for what cover we could find. A whining sound from above, growing incredibly loud, signified a drone’s death. It slammed into the ground, hard, causing a shockwave that knocked me off of my feet. A moment later, another almost painfully loud whine followed by the impact of another dying drone.
A third slammed into the wall a few metres above us, blasting a hole through the chitin into the compound. A few more seconds of gunfire had the rest of the drones in pieces on the ground, scattered about a large radius.
“They’re gonna have to come and check this out soon. Let’s get going; up and inside with you all!” I told them. Giant, holding up her bloody hand, crystalline skewer removed as Viking bandaged it up. “Stop being such a baby, you’ll be fine… Worst comes to worst just pour some beer into it.”
The bluish crystal that Viking had removed didn’t have the brown shit coating it, but it couldn’t hurt. “Boss, let me guard the hole in the wall. At least I can try to keep an exit waiting for us.” She was clearly in pain. “Climbing up there would only fuck my hand up more,” Raising her assault rifle with her other hand, she continued. “As long as I have this, a couple of grenades and maybe a bit of luck, I should be able to keep the hole clear. Just stay in radio contact.”
evening
Viking, Scar, Wall, Maori and I clambered our way up into the hole in the chitinous wall surrounding the Terraformer compound, slipping inside as quietly as we could. The interior was even more odd. The same swirls and whorls of colour were whirling around the inside walls too, though more rapidly. As we stood and watched, tiny bugs, millions of the little fuckers, began swarming out from the wounded walls, excreting some shit that almost immediately hardened and became wall within moments.
Fortunately for us, though, the area that had suffered the most damage from the drone’s impact had sustained a bit of fire damage, rendering whatever glue the tiny insectoids might have been using inert. Tiny chunks of chitin fell to the floor where they began to harden into tiny little nubbins of shiny shit. I scraped a few off the floor before they became too entrenched; German Doctor would no doubt want to take a look.
I took out the radio, asked Giant if she was still alright, she replied that she was indeed fine, her hand hurt like hell, she hadn’t seen any sign of Terraformers outside of the compound, hadn’t heard any approaching drones or anything else so far. She assured us that she’d keep our exit clear for us, assuming we made it out alive.
We found an unused chamber, at least it appeared to be unused, the door opening at our approach, wetly separating from itself to allow our ingress. The room itself had the same chitinous walls, completely empty, and the opening closed behind us, forming a solid wall within seconds. I tried the radio in an attempt to contact first Giant, then Apocalypse Girl. No luck whatsoever, the channel was being jammed. It seemed as though we were trapped.
September 24th Year 1 A.Z.
morning
Just as I was about to give up hope, the wall slid down to reveal our captor; the same creature that I had first witnessed through the satellite view of the construction of this extra-terrestrial marvel of architecture. Its mouth slitted open vertically as it clicked and whizzed in its odd language. A few minutes of this and Scar raised his rifle to his shoulder, letting a few rounds off. It seemed like thin air between us and the alien, judging from the way the bullets bounced off it was anything but. Some kind of force field, perhaps. The thing began tik-tik-tikking loudly. I realised that it was laughing at us.
Remembering something that I read in a science fiction novel once, I drew my sword. Slowly, deliberately, I moved to the wall. Raising my blade, I slowly moved it in the direction of our captor, stopping a mere centimetre away from its leathery-looking hide. Its tik-tik-tikking laugh halted the instant my blade stopped moving. My idea had been spot on; the slow blade made it through the shield that protects against projectiles.
It reached up with its bizarrely extra-jointed arms and gently but firmly pushed my blade back inside the barrier, wagging a hook-taloned digit at me as it regarded me with its multi-faceted eyes that glowed amber. It reached into a satchel slung over its back and retrieved a pair of small objects, sliding one gently through the force field towards me. Warily, I picked it up. A small box with a shiny side and a rough side.
Raising its box up to its face, it began to chitter into it, then stopped after a second to gesture to me with its own box, then raising the thing to its face once again. I held my box in front of my mouth. “I’m not sure about this. Is this what you want?” I asked it. It kept on chittering into its box. “I don’t understand anything you’re saying. Maybe you…” I trailed off as I realised that my box had begun clicking in the Terraformer’s language.
“AHHH! Good!” It exulted. “Language match made. Tell me why you are here human.”
I looked at it. “Fuck that. This is our fucking planet, mate
. Tell me why you are here, Alien.”
“Brave. Stubborn. Foolish.” It regarded me carefully, eyes changing colour slightly, a little more red than orange now, the colour at the heart of the fire. “Anger your captor, not a good idea, yes?”
“I’ll tell you what’s not a fucking good idea,” I spat at the thing. “Invading Earth. Yeah, we’re in the middle of a fucking apocalypse, but we can still kick extraterrestrial arse if necessary.”
“Define: Arse, fucking.” It demanded.
“Fuck. You.” I told it. Scar and Maori stifled a chuckle, Viking guffawed loudly. Wall moved closer to the wall that the creature was interrogating us from. “Let me put it bluntly, and as politely as you’re ever going to get from any of us here. Go home, you fucking freak.”
“Not freak. Normal for species. Like you for human. Tik-clak-flak Translator. Take time to fully register language. Home no more.” Its eyes went from red to blue almost instantly. Dropping its head, it put away the Translator, waved an appendage at our cell. Immediately, the wall closed up.