pundemic-thinks-he-can-write

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Ground Zero

Short Story, Horror

Despite the clear crisp Autumn afternoon, Albert saw a sky of black and red over the college in the valley below. Uniformed men to his left and right fidgeted and murmured uneasiness to one-another. Zachary nudged him with a water canteen.

"Huh?"

"I said what do you think the rain from a cloud like that looks like?"

"I don't think it's a cloud."

"'Course it's a cloud, what else makes the sky look like that? Must be full of, I don't know, fumes from their science experiments or something. Hey, Command wouldn't send us in there unless they know it's safe to breathe that stuff, right?"

He didn't reply, his attention back on the mass of roiling, blackened hellfire. As he watched new colours billowed out from the centre, bright electric blue and pink. The low voices around him rose to a clamour. Moments later, a much louder one brought a hush down on them.

"We're moving out! On your feet, now! Move, move, move!"

Men scrambled into motion, unsettlingly quiet. They were winning, their enemies beaten back over countless engagements and now cornered in these remote lands. Despite this, none of them had wanted to grant any reality to the idea of venturing down into that valley. It wasn't that they knew what they would find there. It was that, based on the stories from those few who had been there before and returned, no one had any idea.

~ * ~

Gunfire had dulled to a continual staccato thudding in Albert's ears. He sat numb against the trench wall, staring as Zachary gazed past him with an expression of perplexed alarm. Red trickled from an ugly gunshot wound torn through the upper right-hand side of the young man's head. His hair was matted and filthy.    

That's just how it is, some distant part of him mused. You start off and end up that way. It's the part in-between that's the bizarre exception. Why the hell would anyone spend any of that miraculous time doing what he was doing right now?

An explosion shook dirt loose around him, a shockwave blasting over his head and whipping his hair forward. The world came back into focus, in all its dirty, blood-smeared glory. Maybe he could find some worth in it. Maybe, in all this death, he could live. He peeked up over the lip of the trench, relishing the feeling of precipitous peril it gave him and blocking out everything else.  

There, not too far off now, was Wrentham College.

He didn't see many of his fellow combatants. Most of them were either lagging apprehensively behind or charging ahead, and most of the latter had probably ended up like Zachary already. Or worse.

Dirt burst in Albert's face sending him diving back into the trench. But he had seen the shooter, his eye drawn by the resounding crack of a rifle; brown uniform, purple armband. He drowned primal terror with a deep breath, gripped his own rifle, allowed himself to realise that just as that man could shoot, so could he.

Shoulder. Aim. Fire. He sent three rounds across the ravaged battleground, and one found its target. The figure went down.

Before throwing himself back into cover, Albert cast a wild glance behind. A friendly squad advanced, cautiously but steadily. Hope. Salvation. With renewed vigour he turned back to the College just in time to see a ghastly green light flare from the uppermost rooms of the tallest spire, its huge ornate windows unbelievably bright.

And the sound.

It was a tearing, shrieking cacophony, which triggered something far deeper in his woefully simple mind than the panic of combat had, something he couldn't possibly understand. The light in the tower grew brighter, too bright to look at. Albert turned away.

And behind him yawned a void. The very earth had fallen away to absolute nothingness - miles of unfathomable black space where hundreds of men had been moments before. As maddening as that was, what came next was worse.

Things began to rise from the void. Immense, malevolent, impossible things. But only for a moment. With a blink they were gone, leaving empty space growing vaster every second as the ground continued to crumble.  

Albert ran, heedless of the bullets ahead. They didn't scare him anymore. No room remained in his mind for such ordinary fear. He didn't look back again.

~ * ~      

He had been shot twice and thrown shrapnel-torn to the ground by a landmine, but somehow Albert now stood before the old structure, its walls red-brown like dried blood. Nearly a dozen enemy troops lay dead in his wake. Upon seeing them up close he had realised they weren't quite human. They once had been, perhaps, but now their faces and hands looked alien, grotesquely elongated, their tongues dangling like eels from unhinged jaws, their eyes bulging, clouded, and utterly insane.  

And yet Albert had never felt so free. Not as a child climbing the trees and seaside cliffs near his home. Not as a student flaunting exams in favor of music and parties. Not as a newlywed falling blissfully into the arms of his lover. Something had snapped in his mind, and suddenly the possibilities were endless and terrifying and wonderful.

His rifle was empty, magazines all spent, so he absently discarded it and drew his pistol. Flat against the building he crept around towards the main entrance. As he approached a pair of heavy wooden double doors, he saw that the void stopped just short of the grand black iron gates that marked the entrance to Wrentham College grounds. Two of the uniformed not-humans stood guard there. Albert was unnoticed. A barrage of pistol shots swiftly ended them.

The huge doors, barred and impenetrable, still stood between him and whatever waited inside. That was all he could think about now, and he tried not to do much thinking even about that. It didn't matter what he might do about it, what might happen to him, how many more people he might have to kill. All the mattered was that he chose to pit his will and body against this horrific, unknowable force, and that maybe that would be enough to make a difference.

He began to climb. The building's ostentatious pillars, awnings, and ledges proved helpful, and even injured and exhausted Albert made good progress. The less of whatever was inside he had to deal with, the better, so he aimed to get as close as possible to his goal before making an entrance. That goal, of course, was the topmost room from which had shone that unearthly green light. Craning his neck in an attempt to make out his path, he saw the swirling miasma in the sky above in its full glory.

The last stretch of the climb was a sheer tower sprouting up alone from the sweeping rooftops. Albert clung to the meager hand and foot-holds above a several-hundred foot drop. It would have been heart-stopping had he not been so focused, his mind not brimming with mad clarity. Finally he reached the turret chamber. His aching fingers gripped the ledge outside the window, and a too-wide smile spread across his face.

Dangling by one hand he drew his pistol and fired blindly at the window. Shattered glass rained down on him, slashing at his hands and face. He swore as his gun tumbled from his grip; it would be several long moments before it smashed against the ground below. Albert heaved his bloodied body up and into the chamber.    

Directly beneath a gaping hole ripped through the ceiling, a woman stood, arms stretched heavenward. Robed, hooded figures surrounded her, heads bowed, hands clasped. Low chanting reverberated. Albert couldn't see the figures' faces, but their hands were visible at the ends of their baggy, dark purple sleeves. Those hands were not the hands of normal men.

The woman, however, was startlingly human. Gold glasses perched on her hooked nose, and her long grey-streaked hair was bound in simple braids. A great tome lay open on a podium before her. The only things about her to suggest anything unnatural were her eyes. But they were more than enough. They glowed with that same bright green light from somewhere deep inside her, almost as if from far away. Those eyes were fixed on Albert.

"Your lives are unimportant. The ritual must not be interrupted," she said, calmly but with such intensity as Albert had never heard even from his strictest drill sergeants. As she stared at him, Albert saw a shadow move across her face. No, not a shadow. A shape. Something moving beneath her skin. Trying to get out.  

"Wait! No more fighting. We can talk. Explain this to me, I don't understand," he said, voice choked and edged with hysteria. But it was no use.

The nearest robed figure spun about and lunged for him. As they did so the other figures hunched and cringed momentarily, as though taking a painful weight upon their shoulders. But Albert didn't notice. His arms went up to catch his assailant's clawing hands, but the real danger came lashing out from beneath the creature's hood - a long, slender, mottled tongue. It slapped against his face and snaked its way inside one of his nostrils. Crying out, sputtering, recoiling in revulsion, Albert fell beneath the monstrosity.

Somehow he managed to draw his combat knife before his back and head slammed painfully against the ground. He slashed out frantically again and again, feeling the blade bite into rubbery flesh. He sliced off that grotesque tongue, opened up the creature's neck, and pushed the spasming body off him. He stood and groped at his face, hand slick with inhuman blood. The feeling as he yanked the dismembered tongue from his nose sent him into a fit of shuddering.  

Another two hooded figures broke away and advanced. Albert brandished his blade but lost ground fast, backing off until he was pressed against the wall.

The chanting died as the rest of the figures buckled one by one. They collapsed, began to writhe, green light spewing from inside their hoods, screeching horrendously. The two who had broken away abruptly clutched their heads and moaned. The woman in the centre dropped to one knee. She stared at Albert with the purest hatred he had ever known.  

Then she noticed something, as though hearing a faint sound that no one else could. A different kind of gleam appeared in those blazing green eyes. She smiled at Albert, teeth perfect and white.  

"It's done."  

Albert launched himself at her, channeling all the pain and fear and desperation of the last few hours into that single motion. He toppled the podium, shoved the woman hard, sent her sprawling back across the floor. At that moment a tremendous thunderclap, no, a thunderclap's nightmare, rent the air. In its ear-ringing wake Albert could faintly hear the woman screaming in denial.

He was awash in crackling purple light that descended on him through the hole in the roof, from the chromatic sky above. It flooded through him, infusing him, changing his form, pouring immeasurable energy into his very essence. That which defined him, body and mind, began to dissipate. This was death. Or at least something so close to it that there was no meaningful distinction.  

His last thoughts were of his new family waiting for him back home. Of how he didn't regret leaving them, didn't mind that he would never see them again. Of how, secretly, the conscription had been a relief, had freed him. Of how maybe, if what people said was true, death would free him as well. He smiled as the purple light filled his vision completely, overwhelmed all his senses, drowned out his mind. Then Albert was gone.

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Ballad of The Kathleen

Poem

Every year upon this day Think long ago and far away To a time of evil held at bay The time of The Kathleen

In the blackened plains of K’thor A land forsaken by the law The villains heard the villains saw Great warrior The Kathleen

She rode one morning from the east A furious and mighty beast They whispered both the great and least Here cometh The Kathleen

Her giant blade went high and low Dismemberment with every blow They saw that not a single foe Could stand before Kathleen

Before the dusk her work was done The knaves lay dead and she had won Now wine is drunk and songs are sung To honour The Kathleen

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

My Bubble™

Short Story

When I moved to Japan, I packed my Bubble. I made sure to. Everyone knows that when you go somewhere completely new you have to take your Bubble. I fished it out from the back of my closet where it had lain, crumpled and deflated, since my school trip to Europe. I hadn’t needed it since then; I like New Zealand. As I packed my Bubble into my luggage, I also packed New Zealand into my Bubble. The unsullied freshness of the air and the smell of the sea; the musical speech of birds from ubiquitous green; the personalities so varied but united by an ineffable shared ‘kiwi’ quality. I stuffed it all inside, where it accumulated into a dense miasma which would insulate me from my new environment.

The plane landed. Those of us with Bubbles had them scrunched around us so as to fit into the seats. Attempting to stand, I apologized to the woman next to me when my Bubble sprang loose and thwapped her on the side of the head. I had to repeat this red-cheeked process several times as I squeezed my way down the aisle, as did many other Bubble-wrapped new arrivals. We assembled at the baggage claim, pinballs lined up anticipating the inevitable ejection into chaos.

Everything is different in Japan. Societies and cultures exert a powerful influence, not just on what inhabits and emerges from them, but also everything brought into them. When you travel from one to another, you and your belongings undergo metamorphosis. The familiar “Air New Zealand” on the side of the plane became an incoherent self-important collection of blocky shapes, but, huddled as I was inside my Bubble, to me they looked the same as they always had. The transparent surface of my Bubble and the soup of New Zealand beneath it refracted the sights and altered them for my eyes. The returning locals, the families waiting for loved ones, and the airport staff all saw a different world than the one I saw through my Bubble. Familiar things, now different, were preserved how I was used to them, while the real world was made incoherent and baffling.

I was gormlessly obvious, rolling around in that unwieldy sphere. It warped my features to project a bizarre visage that resembled a lost and confused extra-terrestrial. Eventually I learned to take care with my actions, because my Bubble made certain catastrophe of anything requiring tact or subtlety. Even perfectly innocuous acts sometimes threatened humiliation. As I ate a sandwich walking down the street, my Bubble magnified the masticated dough churning in my mouth and amplified the sounds of my gobbling. In crowds my Bubble made me into an uncomfortable, impractical, inconsiderate obstruction. And the less said about toilets, the better. But I was always let off the hook. My Bubble provided a shroud for my transgressions, invulnerability to judgment. Bearing the awkward thing around caused me no end of trouble. But at the same time it excused that trouble. A good thing too, as otherwise I would have been a one man riot.

Meeting other immigrants and tourists was fascinating. Those from New Zealand had Bubbles like mine, and looking out from one into another brought everything into familiar focus. The more foreign foreigners had Bubbles of strange designs, the tones, shapes, and textures different from those of mine. This usually resulted in some strange mixture of Bubble-vision: each of us coloured by the strangeness we had brought with us, but also by the normality around us, and further still by the alchemy between all three.

I stayed in Japan far longer than I had intended. I meant to return to New Zealand, at least to visit, but serendipity kept me snared in a net of endless opportunities. I still met with Kiwis: family members visiting; friends travelling to see the sights of Asia; familiar strangers. I found comfort in the way they, swathed in plump and shiny new Bubbles, inadvertently made fools of themselves just as I had always done. But I also noticed how old and worn my Bubble had grown by comparison. It was thin and shrivelled, dull and droopy, most of the insulation from home having leaked out through imperceptible holes. While others still struggled with their bloated spheres which warped the world around them, mine had shrunk to a more manageable and inconspicuous size through which I could experience reality fairly accurately. The months kept passing and eventually, subtly, my Bubble disintegrated completely.

My sister is getting married back in New Zealand. I’m going to return home for the first time in over half a decade for the wedding. I found out yesterday. And it was only then that I realised: I need to buy a new Bubble. 

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Someone Else

Short Story, Horror

Also adapted here for /r/nosleep.

I enjoy having a whole house all to myself. Especially knowing there’s no one else anywhere nearby to bother me for the whole weekend. Other people might be bored, or lonely, or even scared all alone out here. But in my opinion, there’s nothing more relaxing than getting away from all the people in your life for a few days. No noisy traffic, no annoying conversation, and no light for miles to sully the starry night sky.  

Even better is having your aunt and uncle’s vacant, ultra-modern house all to yourself. It’s not a huge place; my aunt and uncle both spend most of their time working the vineyard on the enormous plot of land surrounding it, and with no kids they don’t need much living space. But they certainly didn’t spare any expense on comfort. The house has all sorts of the latest technology, stylish but functional furniture, and a supremely well-stocked pantry.  

There’s even a security camera system hooked up to the wireless network. Using a smartphone app, you can remotely check on any of five simple webcams set up around the house. I get it installed on my phone, just to play around with it. More of a novelty than a serious burglar-deterrent anyway, as evidenced by the fact that my aunt and uncle apparently can’t even be bothered to check the cameras when they go away for the weekend, preferring to have me over to stay and watch the place. Suits me just fine; it’s much nicer than my dorm room.

I spend my first day there exploring, like how when I stay at a hotel I go through all the drawers and cupboards in case there’s anything interesting inside. The last place I check is a closet in the back hallway. There’s a big clothing trunk, but it’s securely padlocked shut. Tucked behind it, though, an old shoebox that I very nearly didn’t spot. I peak inside and see it’s filled with newspaper clippings. I grab the box, shut the closet, scamper back down the hallway, and place my prize on the kitchen table for examination.

Apparently someone has a fascination with grisly events, because, as I quickly discover, every single newspaper article in the box describes some sort of violent human depravity. Shootings, crimes of passion, sure, but mainly stories of a more unsettling nature. A murderous necrophile; a surgeon with a twisted sense of justice; a zookeeper who fed a rather unorthodox diet to the big cats under their care.

I see several that follow two particular serial killers, “The Blackfield Brothers”. I read that they were local to this area (relatively speaking), twins who always worked together to commit their crimes. I pick out all the relevant articles I can find and try to arrange them in chronological order. One of the first I see is an account of the brothers’ end. Electric chair. As I find more articles, I learn more about them and their methods.

They liked to catch victims alone, make them understand the suffering in store for them. By most accounts, the brothers didn’t even enjoy the killing. No, they were in it for what comes before. Sure, their victims occasionally died by their hands, perhaps accidentally. But the majority, fourteen in all, were found alive. Those who remained that way probably wish they hadn’t, judging from the articles.

One of the brothers was short and stout, sickly and weak, but silver-tongued. The other was tall, strong, slow, and stupid. The first would talk to their victim, keep them distracted and in one place, long enough for his brother to sneak up close behind them and-

A loud crash-bang jerks my attention away. So engrossed was I that I literally leap to my feet and spin wildly around. But it’s nothing more than some washed dishes I set out to dry earlier. They just slipped in the pooling water and clattered around. No mystery, no harm done.

Within moments I forget the incident, along with the shoebox and its morbid contents. I leave it there and head to the lounge, to watch a movie on the gigantic 4K screen. The spell woven over me by the Blackfield brothers has been broken.

Later, I’m making the most of the beautiful rural starscape outside by sitting indoors browsing the internet aimlessly, as is usual for me. But at least I have the sound disabled, to better appreciate the silence of night-time isolation, free from the possibility of interruption by anyone. No engines revving, no drunks yelling and smashing bottles, not even a gust of wind to set the house creaking. I pause a hilarious cat video to answer a call of nature, heading from the bedroom, through the darkened lounge, to the teensy toilet-closet in the hallway, flipping on the light outside it before I enter.  

I’m finished quickly, eager to get back to my browsing. The sound of water gurgling down the miniature sink dies away, and I pause to one again take in the silence of this place. I sigh contentedly, listening to that wonderful absence. 

But when I reach out to open the door, a sound suddenly fills that absence. A sound that also fills me with inexplicable dread unlike any I have ever known. Someone whispering.

“Don’t open the door.”

I’m struck completely still. Did I really just hear that? A gravelly hiss of a whisper, words flowing in rapid, smooth succession. That voice carried authority, and unmistakeable menace.

I listen excruciatingly for several moments. Nothing but silence.

I begin to question myself. Sometimes imagined sounds and voices, normally overpowered by actual noise, can seem perturbingly real with nothing but silence to compare them to. Besides, there can’t possibly be anyone else in the house. I imagined the voice. I must have.  

But what if I’m wrong? I try my best to replay the voice in my mind. It sounded strange, louder than a whisper but somehow less substantial. Stranger still, it didn’t seem to come from any particular direction. But surely whoever it belongs to must be on the other side of the door. I turn to check. There isn’t even enough space in the little toilet-closet for two people to comfortably stand, let alone for one of them to hide from the other. I note, however, that the privacy window isn’t anywhere near big enough for me to escape through.

After a whole minute of tense listening, I have heard nothing. Frowning, I shake my head and resolve to just open the damn door, imaginary voice or no. But when I place my hand on the doorknob, I hear it again, louder, harsher, a whispered growl.  

“Don’t. Open. The door.  

I definitely heard that. Someone is talking to me, here, one place that I know with practical certainty there is no one else around. Probably because my mind is still overloaded with a futile attempt to process the situation, my response to the voice is just a barely articulate squeak.

“Why?”

“Because…if you open the door…I’ll rip out your eyes.”

The half-snarled half-choked words sound like nails poured into a wood-chipper. They also sound like a promise.

I can’t move. I can barely think. The thought that someone broke in unnoticed seems absurd. Hell, the thought of anyone at all even being out here in the first place is pretty ridiculous. But I can no longer deny that someone else is in the house with me.

That just leaves the question of what to do. I’m not big or tough, and I’ve never really been in a fight. Besides, I’m not sure I can summon the courage to even face the owner of that voice, let alone try to, what, punch them or something. Well, then what? Do I just quiver in this tiny room, hoping they’ll go away? I picture my aunt and uncle coming home on Monday, opening the door to find me sitting here, exhausted and starving, and thinking I’ve gone mental.

Then it dawns on me like the wondrous sun itself: My phone is in my pocket! I snatch it out frantically and swipe it awake. Of course, not a single damn bar. I remember now that phones on my crappy provider only sporadically get a signal this far out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a landline that works somehow, but it’s in the kitchen.

Past whoever is waiting for me at the door.  

Besides, I realise with sinking stomach, who could I call? Who could help me? By the time even the most responsive emergency services arrive all the way out here, the intruder will have had plenty of time to do whatever it is they’re here to do.

Looking vainly at my phone screen, I catch sight of the security camera app. Not really a solution, but maybe it will let me see just what the hell is going on out there. I tap through the five camera feeds, peering at my screen with growing anxiety and frustration. Most of the house is dark, which means most of the cameras have switched to their rather unsatisfactory night-vision mode. I can’t see any signs of forced entry, at any rate.

The lounge camera is the closest, and can see by the light I switched on in the hallway. But it can’t see far enough into the hallway for me to learn what, if anything, is happening just outside the door. My breathing quickens. I feel panic resume its gradual, vice-like squeeze upon my mind. I try the other cameras again, desperate to make out something, anything, even just to be sure I’m not going crazy.

Wait. I flip back to camera five. In the back hallway.

The closet is open.

In the night-vision I can see nothing more than a gaping black rectangle, but it’s clear that the closet is not shut. And I know I shut it. It was shut. And someone else opened it. I am petrified again, staring wide-eyed, slack-jawed at that little group of dark pixels on my phone screen.

I have to get out. There’s someone there and they aren’t just going to leave. They’re going to hurt me, I know it. That voice left no doubt in my mind. I’m going to run for the keys in the bedroom, then out the window from there to my car. I tap back to the lounge camera. The path looks clear.

I’m going to do it. I have to do it right now. I’m hesitating. Trapped, not by a lock, not even by that voice, but now only by the complete and utter silence left in its wake. Then, as that silence swells to bursting, and I’m gripping the doorknob, about to turn it, out of the corner of my eye I see something through the camera feed on my phone. There, in the light spilling from the hallway.  

Someone’s shadow.

Cast out into the lounge by an unseen figure. A silhouette of someone very tall and very thin. Impossibly so. Just a trick of the light, it must be. It must be. Right? No. The angle is all wrong, I’m almost certain. My breath has snagged, been left forgotten in my throat, as I watch the shadow stretch ever so slowly further and further into the room.

Ice water trickles down my back. An electric current runs to the tip of every hair on my body. They’re close. I can’t see them, but their shadow tells me they’re mere inches away from where I stand cowering. I stare at the closed door before me. And now I hear sounds on the other side.

Footsteps.

That same scratchy, malicious voice whispers to me one last time. And in this moment of sickening revelation, I suddenly realise where it is coming from. Where I never thought to search.

But I can’t bring myself to look up at the ceiling.

It doesn’t matter anyway. Because what that horrible voice said is:    

“You can open the door now.”

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

A True Story

Short Story

This really happened:

I was high late one night in my bedroom when a police officer knocked on my window.

“Hello?” My voice sounded calm even as my brain shrivelled in icy, precipitous panic.

“Where’s the front door?”

“Around that way.” I said, pointing, dazed.

I walked from my room through tingling numbness like TV static. I found myself at the door, regrettably. I had closed the distance in a merciless instant; thinking back, the intervening time had vanished. Flipping on the porch light, I could see someone dressed in blue, a blur through the ornamental glass pane. That door, the only one like it, which had always welcomed me home and protected me from everything in the world outside, now stood between me and polite calamity. I volunteered my hand to open it.

“We’ve had a complaint. Someone smelled pot being smoked around here.”

“Oh.” It’s strange how body and mind simply stop working upon the most critical occasions. Even though the words had come as no surprise, even though I’d had the chance to prepare or at least brace myself, no coherent thoughts came to me; only distilled emotions that paralysed me in a stupor of wide-eyed bewilderment there in my own doorway. The officer was smiling, but almost scowling at the same time. Our faces communicated what our words had not. ‘I’ve seen this all before’, his said. Mine just said ‘oh shit’.

Of course it’s impossible to know how my life would have gone without the events of that night; without the events of any night, of any moment. But the ripples that spread from that particular moment under my porch-light touched everything that happened afterwards, subtly pushing the events and rearranging them to such net effect that it eventually seemed as though my real life had begun then and there.

But that story isn’t true. Here’s what really happened:

I walked from my room through tingling numbness like TV static. The light from my room didn’t reach as far as my parents’ bed. I peeked in and looked at where they slept invisible in the dark, their heavy breaths of sleep the loudest thing in the house.

“Mum? Dad?” It was enough to wake them. Will my sleep be so shallow when I get to that age? “There’s a policeman at the door.”

I was the first to meet the officer at the door, convinced the whole thing was about me. Mum knew that it wasn’t. When she joined us there was something in her face, droopy from sleep but skin taut from an unusual expression just beneath it.

“Hello, how can I help?” said my mother, calm and polite. But I could see the face that others couldn’t. She was terrified.

The police officer told us he had bad news. He was sorry. My sister had been involved in a high-speed collision earlier that evening. She died.

I wasn’t close with my sister. She didn’t live with us. I’d had no idea that she was leaving on a trip with some friends that night. Mum had known. Mum always worried about us. For all the long years it had taken to grow us into adults, she had suffered from the silent, unrelenting press of anxiety every time I or my sister had gone out at night, or been late home, or participated in any one of life’s countless occasionally-deadly activities that most people survive. Such as, for instance, driving. This time, and only this time, her fears had entered the real world, and in doing so become somehow even more terrible.

I held her, helpless, as part of her drowned in helplessness of her own.

Except that didn’t happen either. This is the true story:

“Hello, how can I help?” said my mother, calm and polite. But I could see the face that others couldn’t. She was terrified.

“Did any of you hear anything about half an hour ago?”

Mum and I exchanged glances. Confused, we silently asked the same question of one another: ‘Isn’t this all about me?’

It wasn’t. It was nothing to do with either of us. A car had been set on fire on the street below our house. My parents had been asleep. I had been sequestered in my room with headphones on. None of us knew anything about it. That was that.

We talked about the incident in the following days; theories, bafflement, jokes. We didn’t talk about the stories my mother and I had thought we were in. Those stories weren’t true. But they really happened. They might even have been more real to us than the bizarre, inconsequential truth, quickly laughed off and forgotten.

We do this every day, casting ourselves as characters in stories that don’t fit with the truth. We become so committed to these stories that they, not the truth, occupy our minds, rule our hopes and fears, and in doing so alter our experiences. Every set of stories forms a unique perspective on the truth, a lens through which we perceive it that refracts it into a focus that each of us can comprehend. It’s hard to say that any story is truly ‘true’. But they are, all of them, real.

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Six Shooters and Sorcery, Chapter 3

“Well alright then ‘Rex the Absentminded’, how’d you come by that? Can’t have been on account of your lack of learnin’ or nothing, right?” Lorrenz couldn’t tell whether Anderson sounded so pleased because he thought he’d made a witty jab at Rex, or just because he’d been able to remember the wizard’s nickname a few moments after having been told it. Either way, the Absentminded one was still smiling and, unfortunately, talking. 

“Okay, so, teleportation magic’s my thing. Years back, when I was just learning, some bullshit happened. It was nuts, man, my first real teleport and I screwed it up! Moving from here to, like, over there, it’s actually a two-part process. You’ve gotta move the body, which is pretty easy, just a physical process. It’s bringing your consciousness along which takes the real complicated energy configurations and shit, you know?” They did not ‘know’, Lorrenz was certain; Luka’s long-coated figure ahead was pointedly abstaining from the conversation, and, looking back, he saw Anderson’s bushy eyebrows perplexed below the brim of his hat. The as-of-yet silent, wool-capped pair attempted awkward smiles of encouragement. But they definitely didn’t ‘know’.

Rex was undeterred, or perhaps just unaware. “So, I’m concentrating so hard on getting the incantations just right, making sure I’m shaping the mana-flow, don’t wanna fuck that up, that I just flat-out forget this crucial initiation syll for the simpler part.

“Long story short,” he got to the point, since his audience was growing glassy-eyed enough even for the obtuse Rex to notice. “I disappeared and reappeared all impressive and shit, flash of light, sharp crackle of energy, all the good stuff. But then I just fall down, flop straight on this floor with this dumbass look on my face because my centre of consciousness’s been displaced as fuck, right? Takes a few minutes to sort it all out. So yeah; ‘absentminded’, literally, get it?”

“And here I thought it was just ‘cause you’re dumber than a head-touched hillbilly.” said Luka. If she had intended the comment to go unheard, she had done a poor job. Rex glanced at Lorrenz, imploring him for…something. He wasn’t going to get it, whatever it was. Lorrenz sent him a glare which meant ‘ignore her and shut up’. That’s what the other three were doing. Well, actually, the hat-twins were rapidly whispering to one another, apparently wanting keep their conversation private though not caring if it was known they were having one.

“So do you all got pet names then? What do they call you, Seer, apart from stuck-up?” Luka broke her stride and properly re-joined the conversation, supplying it with a full helping her patented brand of charm. Lorrenz literally bristled, puffing himself up involuntarily underneath his blue and green belt-bound travel-robes and his voluminous head-and-face hair.

“The call me The Logician.” he blustered, too loudly. Luka and Rex snorted out amusement simultaneously. Lorrenz sent his colleague another glare, this one a warning. More of an empty threat really, as Rex surely knew. “Is there something humorous about that? Every wizard knows that my deductive and analytical prowess is unmatched.”

“Pshyeah, whatever you say Lorrenz the Brown.”

“The Brown?” Luka finally exchanged her scowl for another expression, though still not a friendly one. That twisted grin spoke nothing but a promise of further denigration.

“Slander!” Lorrenz hissed, thrusting his staff at Rex as though he was capable of doing some harm with it. His colleague didn’t seem concerned, and kept snickering. “No one calls me that ridiculous name.”

“To your face, bro.”

“Under any circumstances!”

Everyone looked away from the blustering seer and stayed quiet. Quietly laughing, at least. Lorrenz took a deep breath. He performed calming mental exercises. Then he enunciated a couple of extensive and complicated swear words before stomping on ahead of the party.

“Go and bloody teleport yourself somewhere else, far away from me preferably.” he grizzled in-passing.

No amount of translocation magic would help to dissipate his fears about the current situation, however, especially since any such magic was probably bound to be as defective as all spells cast within the forest so far had been. That was the crux of the issue really: magic wasn’t working right. Not dumbfounding in and of itself, of course; every mage worth his hat was familiar with anti-magic. Indubitably, there were many ways to nullify the effects of arcane energy using, somewhat paradoxically, magic, and learning about such methods was about as fundamental as wizardry could get. In fact Lorrenz found his predicament so chillingly alien precisely because as far as he could tell, despite being so well-versed on the subject of anti-magic runes, sigils, projections and enchantments, there were no such things in play here.

But the further Luka lead them through the increasingly obscene trees, the surer Lorrenz became. He could feel his exhaustively honed senses being dampened, the boiling reserve of his own power within him oppressed and constricted. He had seen the effects not just in spell failure, but in Rex’s pitiable staff-blast, in the non-functioning of his amulet’s pre-emptive contingency enchantments.

His frown redoubled as he pondered. He couldn’t stand it, this opaque mystery. He had to find out more. He had to run some tests. Magic was not a force to be employed lightly (well, not too lightly), but this was a matter of vital arcane inquiry, by Yldra! He glanced around as discretely as he could manage. Thankfully no one was watching, since his awkward, jerky neck-wrenching had been about as subtle as a skittish giraffe. Having confirmed there would be no potentially arcanaphobic audience, Lorrenz took a disciplined breath and reverently murmured the first syll of a spell.

He felt two things immediately. First was the familiar sensation of newly-summoned magical energy, invoked on to the material plane by his uttering that ancient, abstract word of primordial power. He could feel the fleet, fiery magic come to his call, and he cupped it in his hands. His sharp features and bright eyes were cast in orange light as he gazed at it. But, focused as he was, he detected something interacting with that energy. It was being drained away, absorbed into the darkness. In the same way that the very light of the sun was soaked up by the fell aura of the forest, so too were the more ineffable forces of the arcane. It was bizarre. More bizarre even than the jagged, twisted forms of the trees all around, than the intermittent hoots, clacks, screeches and scratches that came to them through the gloom from what seemed like a great distance.

Concealing so much and revealing only further mystery, could those trees themselves be the cause of Lorrenz’s magical impotence? But how? He could still feel the magic he had summoned, precarious as a wax-drowned candle flame. He cradled it with his mind and his hands, and he fed it with his own power. For all living beings possess energy within them. With the right knowledge and training, that energy can be released as purest magic. Lorrenz poured this magic into the tiny glow between his palms, the two energies flowing together, mingling, and becoming one. But still, barely a spark or a pulse.

“Uh, what was-” the male half of the knit-headed duo started to say somewhere behind.

“Stop!” Luka said, her hiss cutting him off sharply. “Seer, get back here. Rest of you hush.” Lorrenz turned to see Luka in a half-crouch, the brim of her hat tilted sideways as she listened intently. Everyone else unthinkingly followed suit, and soon they were all in various states of hunched, stiff suspense, stretching their senses into the sudden silence, silence that seemed undisturbed by the steady rush of the unseen stream.

There, a quick rustle of leaves, like the swish of a switch and with just as much violent potential behind it, judging from Luka’s tombstone-heavy expression.

“Can’t be. Those big-ass varmints stay away from folks.” she said, low tones husky in a near-whisper. “Something brought it on us. Stay quiet, maybe it…”

Her eyes grew expansive. Then she pointed her gun at Lorrenz.  

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Among the Deceased, Chapter 6

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5.   Chapter 6.

Alan has been shut inside for about ten minutes now. He cannot discern the anxious conversation out on the deck, but Bernard’s anguished moaning is audible enough. Unfortunately, that doesn’t provide him with much insight.

“Alan?”

He ignores his sister for the third time. His head is bustling with too many emotions as it is. He has no room for Elise. Shifting between windows trying to get a better view of the dusk-darkened scene, he notices a latch. With tiny movements he works it open and slides the window aside, just a crack, just enough to let in a few of the words.

“Alan!”

He shushes her harshly, his nervous anger hissing and spitting like water on a hot pan. But, turning back, he sees the adults are still absorbed with their gloomy conference. Mum sits hunched, completely drained, holding Alan’s ice axe across her lap and passing her hands absently over its surface.

“It’s a deep puncture. The blade is serrated, and Alan was not keeping it very clean. I’m afraid the risk of infection is severe.” Kiran is saying. His eyes remain focused on his work, even as Bernard begins to squirm. “Keep calm. A normal infection, I mean. You’re not going to lose your mind. It’s just their bites you have to worry about, not traces of their blood.” He has produced a selection of sterile swabs, ointments and bandages, each to be applied in-turn to the red mess on the back of Bernard’s leg. “I have some antibiotics which you can take. You should be fine. Eventually. But I doubt you will enjoy the next week or so very much.” The response to this is a mix of curses and pained grunting. A glowering Owen, sitting close by Mum, snorts unsympathetically.

“Bastard deserves it. Look at Leah’s face! What the hell did he do to you?”

“Hey, maybe I had this one coming,” Bernard explodes with sudden clarity, pointing at the still-wet splotches around his nose, “But that psycho-savant stabbed me with a goddamn pickaxe, probably crippled me! What kind of child does that?” His awkward position, lying belly-first alongside the light of the campfire, does not combine well with his enraged slavering.

“What kind of mature adult punches someone in the face and rapes her?” Claire says, her voice cold iron.

“What’d you say I did!?” Not even remotely sober, Bernard tries to do something. Possibly stand up. But his garbled roaring becomes a screech of pain and he immediately collapses.

“Please keep still. I need to finish cleaning this.”

Shrill lamentations, denials, and tears well up from Bernard. The hot fury of a few seconds ago has scorched his wick to its base, and now the big man is nothing but a puddle of melted wax. “I didn’t do anything. Ask her! Tell ‘em Leah, I didn’t…”

“He didn’t.” It’s the first Mum has spoken since Alan began listening. It doesn’t sound like her voice. Her head rises to face Bernard, and Alan is glad that he can’t see her eyes. “But you were going to try.”

“No! I wouldn’t, I swear. I was drunk. C’mon, you have to listen!”

“She doesn’t have to do shit, Bernard.” Owen is on his feet, hunched, fists clenched. But Mum grips his wrist, and he doesn’t resist as she gently pulls him back down.

“You used to have drinking problems, didn’t you? David told me. I was stupid; I should have left those bottles. I just thought…” Her sigh is bottomless, and when her voice returns all emotion has been wrung from it. Apparently she lacks the strength even to feel her anger. “It’s the end of the world Bernard, for christ’s sake. Four months and we haven’t seen a single living soul. Things are bad. And now we can’t even rely on each other?”

“Well why do you think I’m getting shitfaced? You think I’m ignoring all this? I can’t do that, even if the rest of you can! I can’t waltz along pretending some zombie-gas shit out of a bad movie didn’t kill everyone I know, pretending this is some kinda goddamn camping trip!” He has dredged up the remnants of his fury, but they don’t burn for long before petering out. “I’m so fucking lonely, Leah. I’m just some old guy to all these kids. I thought you’d understand, maybe you’d feel the same and we could...I mean, since David…” He wants Mum to interrupt him, wants her to throw away her control like he has done. But she is merciless, allows him to trail off into pitiable gibberish. Mum looks away from him, down at the ice axe she had given to her son all those weeks ago. Is she regretting that now for the first time? She doesn’t look up as she asks,

“How do the rest of you feel about Alan being armed? I can guess Bernard’s opinion, so he can keep it to himself.”

“It is a good question. This wound could easily have proven fatal if the location had been less fortunate.” Kiran says. “It is actually quite impressive; I would not have guessed the boy was strong enough.”

“At least we can count on him to kill all the zombies. He’s gotten good at it for a little guy.”

“Owen!” says Claire, very nearly outraged.

“What?”

“Killing zombies? Stabbing people? You act like it doesn’t freak you out! He’s just a little boy. If you’d seen what he was like when Elise got attacked…”

“He saved her life!”

“By mangling that guy’s head up so bad it looked like roadkill.”

“Zombie, Claire, not a guy.”

“Whatever, he looked enough like one. And Alan’s had to do worse. We all have. Don’t tell me that sort of shit doesn’t mess you up. Who knows what it does to someone like that boy, especially.”

Owen’s mouth pops open, but no words emerge. His fish-faced expression slips from argumentative to sulky, and he resumes glowering at Bernard.

“So...I think I’m with Bernard on this one, much as I hate to side with him.” Claire says. “I don’t want Alan to have to use that thing again. There’s no telling how bad he could get from all this shit; he’d feel horrible if he…hurt someone he didn’t mean to.”

“And what about when he needs it again?” Mum’s voice is edged with accusation. Alan still can’t see the look on her face, but its effect on Claire is profound. She seems to have been struck mute. But then she swallows, takes a deep, fortifying breath, and at last finds her confidence. It emerges as anger.

“He won’t need it again. We can at least give those kids that much, can’t we?” She holds fast her resolve, taking the full brunt of Mum’s silent stare without a flinch. Then Kiran clears his throat conspicuously.

“If this is some manner of vote…I do not wish to see the boy inflict further harm, but neither would I be comfortable having played a part in disarming him. I would prefer to leave the decision to those who know him better than I do.” Bernard mutters something, but everyone is still ignoring him. Kiran has finished his bandaging, and now he looks serenely at Mum. “I will add my vote to yours, whatever you decide.”

After another tense pause, Owen mumbles, “He should keep it.” He seems to reel under the force of everyone’s sudden attention. But he quickly springs back stronger than before. “Hell, I feel like that kid is more competent than I am sometimes.”

“Most of the time…” Claire says.

“You’re right, it’s messed up, I know. But so’s the world. We need all the help we can get.”

Claire scoffs. “What next, then, teach little ‘Lise how to use that shotgun? Show her the best way to bash skulls?”

“I dunno, yeah, maybe! What’s better, kids that grow up killers, or kids that don’t grow up at all?”    

Closing the window plunges Alan into momentarily soothing silence. Or near enough; at least he can’t hear the grown-ups anymore. But their words do not leave him be for long. They begin to echo around in his suddenly cavernous mind, reverberating, intensity redoubling, until Alan can hear nothing else.

Bad. Psycho. Freak. Messed-up. Killer.  Each remembered syllable is like a barb behind his eyes. They grow legs and scuttle down his spine, twisting through his insides, biting, lodging deep and irretrievable. He will always be able to feel them now. They have become part of him, along with everything else that has happened.

“Alan!” Elise’s voice yanks him back to the surface. His head breaks into fresh air, but his aching limbs struggle to keep him afloat. Alan finds that he has slid to the floor and slumped against the wall. An Elise-shaped shadow looms over him, little fists clenched at her sides. Alan just looks at her. Her face is flushed with confusion and worry, barely illuminated by the firelight peeking in from outside. Then he responds with an abrupt question.

“What did you see me do out there?”

“You hit Uncle Bernard.”

“Yeah.”

“Because he turned into a zombie?”

“No…” This answer seems to unsettle Elise more than had the prospect of her uncle becoming a mindless, biting, spore-distribution machine.

“You hit him with your axe but he wasn’t a zombie?” Her mouth shrinks steadily along with her voice, even as widening eyes threaten to consume every inch of the new newly vacated space. “Did you hurt him?”

“Yeah, pretty bad.”

“Oh.” Silence for a time. Then Alan has to ask,

“Elise? Are you scared of me? Hey, don’t laugh!” Her sudden, bubbly twittering seems absurd, but Alan instantly feels a little better even as embarrassment blooms on his cheeks.

“You’re not scary.” She manages between giggles. “You’re short and you’re a dumb-head and your shirt’s too big for you. But don’t hit me with your axe, okay?”

It’s not much later when everyone files solemnly back inside, Claire and Owen each sending a thin smile Alan’s way before heading back to bed. They’re probably trying to be reassuring. They aren’t very good at it. Mum remains at the doorway.

“Alan, can I talk to you outside?”

The campfire seems small and lonely without its former company. Alan stands with Mum on the deck, looking out beyond the reaches of the light where he can snatch glimpses of sinister movement. The dead are livelier at night. But they don’t usually approach; heat and light no longer hold any appeal for them.

Mum suddenly crouches and pulls Alan into an awkward sideways hug, hurriedly, almost desperately. He feels her brow against his cheek, her unsteady breath warm on his skin. He can smell her, a uniquely familiar scent, comforting, unaltered by the nightmare months since the world ended. Maybe it’s the only thing in the whole universe that hasn’t changed.

“I know you were just trying to help me.” Her voice is crackly, right by his ear. “Thank you.”

“Mum…I wanted to hurt him.” The words come out unanticipated, but then there’s no stopping them. “He was just like a zombie. I was going to try to kill him, ‘cause that’s what you have to do with zombies.”

Mum’s breathing judders to a near-stop, and Alan feels ice in his blood. Mum draws away so that she can look him in the eye.   

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I remembered he wasn’t one.”

She breathes out, and the roiling heaviness that had been there a moment before is gone. “Good.” Some kind of balance has attained a definite tilt. Mum picks up an object from the deck, blue, black and curved: Alan’s ice axe. “If you ever have to use this again, remember what happened tonight. Remember that there’s a difference between people and zombies, even if sometimes it doesn’t seem like it. And remember, if it’s a person, that you must not kill them.”

Alan doesn’t reach for the weapon. He looks at Mum, concerned, uncertain. He doesn’t know if he can agree.

“Alan! If it’s a person, you must not kill them.”

“But what if-”

“I know you don’t want to let anything bad happen to us, but you aren’t the only one. And you have to protect yourself as well: you’ll have to live with your actions. So be careful.” Her eyes, full of fear, implore him to accept. “If you find out that you can’t live with your actions, you won’t be able to take them back.”

***

It’s early. Alan can sense the still and the quiet before he even opens his eyes; everyone else is still sleeping. Not surprising. Alan had, after all, caused a lengthy disturbance last night. Mum won’t be pleased about the delay. Indulging a chronic, subconscious aversion to breaking silence, Alan slips from his sleeping bag like a ghost departing its body, leaving the world undisturbed in its wake, pale feet stepping soundlessly. Then he looks out the window.

Never before has Alan experienced such a precipitous, petrifying flood of dread. Something caught between a gasp and a choke squirms past his lips, and his body gets to work executing its absurdly childish countermeasures. That is, diving back into the sleeping bag clutching his makeshift pillow over his head.

Okay. Calm down and think. Hiding isn’t going to help, so he’s off to a bad start. How about something resembling an actual solution? Analyse the situation. He draws a wildly quavering breath and prepares himself for another look out the window. When he does look, motionless, gaping faces stare back, countless, like some kind of grotesque statuary. But these figures are far from harmless stone. Alan knows that, at the first hint of living flesh within reach, those jagged mouths will start gnashing and those deceptively withered arms will start grabbing and there will be far, far too many to fight off.

Oh, right. Solution. Now Elise is awake too, jostled by Plan A. She’s rubbing sleepy eyes. Only a matter of time before she brings herself up to speed on the situation.

“‘Lise, there are zombies outside,” Alan says, in much the same voice as he might have once used to tell her that The Simpsons was on. “Don’t worry, okay?” Her half-lidded eyes go to the window, pop fully open, and return to Alan with some difficulty.

“Okay.” She says eventually. Well, her voice has jumped up an octave and her breaths are coming fast and shallow, but at least she isn’t screaming. That went pretty well, all things considered.

“Holy shit!” says Claire, followed by:

“Zombies! Jesus, guys, wake up!” from Owen. Kiran has also stirred; he remains hunched in his corner, silently going pale. Bernard is too woozy to do anything but groan, at first, but soon begins muttering expletives. 

“They’ve surrounded the hut.” Claire says, having confirmed this with a brief survey. “No clear path out any of the windows, no way we can push through that crowd.”

“So we’re fucked, then?” Bernard says unhelpfully, though Alan is inclined to agree. At least, he thinks so. That word gets used around him a lot more often these days than it used to, but it seems to mean something different every time and he’s only just started feeling like he has it figured out. He’s pretty sure, regardless, that the current situation qualifies.

He takes another, longer look. There has to be hundreds of them, just standing there, packed shoulder to shoulder (those with enough flesh to constitute shoulders, at any rate). All of those sickly yellow eyes, unseeing, unblinking, twisted about randomly in their sockets to lend a maniacal bent to every face. But they aren’t the slavering, snarling faces of an angry mob, not like the ones Alan has seen in movies anyway. There is no shouting, no frantic gesticulating. No emotion whatsoever. These people have been reduced to mere mechanisms, with no more actual intent in them than in a regular corpse. Still, somehow they have detected the rare life preserved within this building, and experienced some compulsion to gather around it. And they can wait as long as they have to. Not like they have anything else going on.

Returning his attention to the interior of the hut-turned-deathtrap, Alan sees that no one has done anything. Doesn’t someone usually do something?

“Where’s Mum?”

Oh no. The rising panic in his sister’s voice tugs Alan right along with it, and suddenly he’s engaged in the same useless, frantic window-peering as Claire and Owen. Mum’s face is present amongst neither those of the living nor the dead.

“She was assigned last watch, after me.” Kiran says. “She was fine when I woke her up a couple of hours ago. She went outside…”

“Something must have happened. That would explain how those guys snuck up on us...” Claire says, nodding toward their many, many guests waiting patiently outside. But she falters as she recognises the alarming implications of her own words, particularly for a certain pair of siblings whose mother happens to be that person to whom ‘something must have happened’. She tries to exchange those words for some more comforting ones, but has some trouble, and it’s too late anyway. Alan is already imagining the worst, which somehow gets even worse moment by moment. He barely notices Elise silently clutching at him, wanting to ask to reassurance, too afraid that he will not be able to provide any. 

“We can’t see a bloody thing from in here,” Bernard rumbles, stepping into Mum’s shoes with a fair helping of reluctance; with theoretical difficulty, too, on account of his punctured leg. “Too many zombie heads blocking the windows. If one of you can get us a better view, maybe we’ll see a way out, ay?”

It’s something, at least, and Claire’s can-do attitude latches on to the tentative possibility. The rest of them are less-enthused, to say the least, but it’s better than sitting around watching zomb-o-vision until they starve.

“There’s a little skylight up there.” Claire says, pointing. She’s right about it being little; just a postage-stamp of sunlight beaming down from somewhere up in the rafters. The distance between it and the floor, however, is anything but little. It’s obviously inaccessible, given the meagre resources they have immediately available.

“We could probably blast it open, but that won’t help us get up to it.” Bernard says, gesturing to the shotgun which lies near at hand. He’d probably love an excuse to try that thing out.

What follows is a stressful sauté of discussion, spitting and popping, simmering louder and more frantic as the group’s options are steadily boiled away one after the other. Can they boost someone up? Nowhere near high enough. Stack some furniture? There are no bunks, only a couple of chairs and a coffee table. Climb to it using the rafters? Only if someone happened to be a professional acrobat, or maybe a gibbon. Alan and Elise can only huddle wide-eyed in their corner, while Kiran continues to do the same in his.

“How can there just be nothing useful in this whole place? Didn’t anyone ever use it?” Owen asks of no one in particular. Obligingly, no one answers. But Bernard does stop quietly ranting to himself. He appears to have been struck by a thought. Alan doesn’t hold out much hope that it’s a positive one, until the big man triumphantly explodes:

“This hut’s got a fucking warden’s room on it!”

In the ensuing minutes, Alan gathers that a “fucking warden’s room” is attached to some of the main huts along a track, where a kind of supervisor would lodge during tramping months. Wardens had to maintain the huts, among other things, so surely they would keep some useful supplies in there. At least that’s the prevailing theory. No one had thought to even check it out before now, surprisingly enough.

Reaching the extra room, and the escape-facilitating opportunities it might contain, would normally involve leaving the hut and making one’s way around to the external door. This is currently impossible, on account of the zombie congregation, so it is rapidly concluded that an additional doorway needs to be constructed; a hole straight through the wall. This plan is far easier devised than executed, even considering the various zombie-bashing implements the party has at their disposal. The wall is sturdy, thick, and multi-layered, and it takes more than one rotation of the group before they can even see the other side. It is lamented, more than once, that Mum isn’t here with her axe.

Eventually, Claire breathlessly calls out that she’s through, and Owen clambers into the now-adjoining room. Peering past the others, Alan can see him cautiously advancing, brandishing his hefty cleaver. Alan quickly figures out why: the dank, omnipresent smell of spores has grown stronger, wafting into the hut through the jagged hole, and the clutter of the warden’s quarters is tinged a hazy green. Alan is so used to the substance that it only tweaks his notice when in excessive quantities such as accumulates around a large colony. And there’s really only one thing that those colonies can grow on…

“I can’t see any bodies.” Owen says without turning, though his quavering voice suggests he takes little comfort in this fact. He does see what they’re looking for, however: a ladder, leaning folded against the far wall. His audience shares a silent sigh of relief. Owen pauses to run a hand past his brow, plastering scraggly, sweat-damp hair away from his eyes, and tucks the cleaver through his belt. Only once Owen has gripped the ladder and swivelled around to head back does Alan detect movement somewhere above. His gaze snaps to a shadowy alcove near the ceiling, a platform bed, just in time to see a ghastly hand emerge from the gloom.

“Up there!” he yells, simultaneous with the sudden dropping of what is certainly a body. The thud as it lands shoots fresh panic up every spine, and Owen freezes up; he’s seen what can happen if you try to walk over one of these things. Hands occupied with the ladder, he can only stare as the bundle of stained clothing spasmodically resolves itself into four hideously wasted limbs which creak and crack as they rise, almost like an upended spider in slow-motion. Owen comes alive again in perfect concert with the corpse. It charges at him in a flurry of thumping and shuffling, no intent behind those clouded eyes. Owen reacts with barely a second to spare. Thrusting the end of the ladder up and forward, he catches the thing’s head in-between the ladder’s metal feet and rams it into the wall above his escape-hole. Practically dangling, the zombie thrashes about. Frantic clanging and banging ensues. Owen grits his teeth and holds on for dear life, deprived of even a single moment to stop and think straight.

This has all taken but a scant few seconds. Now the group finally springs into action.

“Out of the bloody way!” yells Bernard, raising the shotgun to his shoulder and limping forward.

“Don’t!” Claire barges him aside, quicker to realise that they have little hope of blasting the thing without putting a few holes through Owen in the process. She substitutes her pipe, which rings like a muted bell against the zombie’s back. This achieves very little apart from some squelching and splattering.

“The head, idiot!” Bernard helpfully reminds her. Meanwhile, Owen has gotten tired of waiting. With a hysterical cry he slams his end of the ladder into the ground. Planting his foot on top holds the zombie long enough that Owen can lunge over and cleave straight into its skull. One more burst of clattering cacophony as ladder, zombie and Owen all collapse in a heap, and then everything is silent once again.

Though not quite, of course. There’s the understandably excited breathing and panting, for one thing, but that doesn’t drown out the far more ominous sounds coming from outside. The group has had enough experience with the walking dead to know that whatever drives them seems to sense things via smell and, more to the point, hearing. It is only now dawning on the group that they have just made a whole lot of noise. While previously the dead could smell them, which merely piqued their curiosity, the dead have now heard them. So rather than just standing vigil, they have begun to surge forward like the shore at a seaside grave-dump, bodies lapping against the walls and windows with slapping hands, thumping foreheads, jostled shoulders and elbows. The hut begins to quake.

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Among the Deceased, Chapter 5

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5.   Chapter 6.

"Six ones are six. Six twos are twelve. Six threes are eighteen; six fours are twenty-four; six fives..." Elise is chanting, apparently channelling some dark spirit of pure boredom. Mum sits beside her on the deck, a spiral-bound notebook serving as blackboard for their impromptu classroom. Alan has free time for now, but he has been promised similar educational treatment later on. He has a sneaking suspicion that this is partly because Mum is just sore about being outvoted by the group, for once. The second Owen had produced the plan to stay at the hut another night, everyone had offered their unanimous support. Except for Mum. Arguments such as, “It’s still too hot for walking”, and, “We deserve a bit of rest after yesterday” did little to persuade her, but in the end she had been forced to concede by the sheer number of dissenters. She had not done so quietly, however. If they’re going to lose a whole day of walking, Mum had lamented, she will make sure it doesn't go entirely to waste. That means lessons for Elise and Alan.

Most of the others are cooling off in the river. Alan sits in the shade of a lone cabbage tree, pencil scritch-scratching away at his drawing pad. He's seriously out of practice.

“Hey Alan. Making good use of your day off, I see.” It’s Owen, stopping on his way up the path, hair still damp. He peeks over to look at the pad. Alan grins uncertainly, holding it out for display.     

“It’s supposed to be the mountains over there. But it’s hard to get the trees right.”

“I think you need colours.” says Owen, sitting beside him against the bark. “Hey, I’ll keep an eye out for some next time we’re scavenging. Without green, your trees and clouds look kinda the same.”

Alan nods, casting his critical eye over the sketchy lines another time. At least Owen hadn’t lied and said it was good. Alan looks up to see his uncle gazing vacantly down the path, anxiety congealing on his brow.

“Are you worried about Claire?” Alan asks suddenly.

“Huh?” Owen is caught flat-footed by the question. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Me too…” Alan says. Owen is silent for a tiny bit too long. Then he chortles dismally.

“Well, thanks for the reassurance.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the one reassuring me?”

“Heh…Sorry, you’re right.” No such attempts follow. “But, I mean, down there at the river she was just floating, staring up. No yelling, no splashing. And she’s barely spoken since we got here. That’s not like her, right?”

Alan’s grim expression is answer enough. He is more aware than most of the change in his former babysitter. But is yesterday’s close-encounter really the cause? Maybe the whole situation is just getting to her. Not every survivor can bear the world that has been left for them, Alan knows. Near the beginning he saw more than a few people just give up, in some of the worst ways imaginable. And it had been far worse when they…came back.  

“Maybe she’s waiting for Leah to forgive her, or something.” Owen ponders. Alan shakes his head.

“Mum’s not like that. Claire knows Mum still trusts her. Maybe it’s that she can’t trust herself?”

Owen nods and goes quiet again, his brain tinkering away at some kind of solution-in-progress. Alan’s own idle mind begins to wander. Yesterday’s breeze seems to have left them, so the silence is chased away only by birdsong and Elise’s incessant times-tables recital. Alan gazes into the bush, where leaf, branch and sun-bathed canopy form shadowy striations of green and brown. Intricately fractal fern leaves and flax thrust from the treacherous shade, like the spears of an unseen army. Not quite unseen; every now and then, Alan spots figures shuffling between the trunks of rimu and tōtara. The spears may not be real, but the army certainly is. Always lurking, just out of sight, too mindless to realise their quarry is almost within reach.

“You know, I’ve got an idea!” Owen exclaims, a touch too confidently for Alan’s likings. The boy glances at his uncle with trepidation. “We just need to give her a chance to prove herself.”

“Who’s ‘her’, and who’s ‘we’, and is this going to be dangerous?” says Alan. Owen winces at his nephew’s deadly flat tone.

“Claire! You and me! And probably not!” He hesitates, reconsiders. “…Unless your mum finds out.”

Owen explains his plan, and before long Alan is waiting in position off the side of the path. Yesterday, an old tennis ball had turned up in the hut, and tossing it around has so far provided a fair bit of amusement. Now it has been precisely installed at a particular spot on the path, designed to intercept Claire on her way up from the river. Fortunately she shows up soon, walking despondently, dark arms folded loosely across her stomach.

Alan is unpleasantly tickled by another pang of anxiety, and his words stick in his throat the first time he tries to call them. None of this is particularly sensible, he knows. Something could easily go wrong if they’re even a little bit unlucky. To begin with, standing so close to the trees is just asking to get grabbed. And who knows how Claire will react? But eventually Alan remembers the reasons why he agreed to this in the first place: One, because it might actually help, and two, because if there’s any trouble at least he has Owen to take the blame for getting them into it. And, if Alan’s honest with himself, he knows there’s a third reason: boredom.  

“Hey, Claire!” he yells brightly, waving. She returns the wave, along with a diluted version of her usual toothy grin. “Could you throw me that ball?” She looks around and spots it.

“Sure.” But as she picks it up, she is suddenly struck motionless. A thought has snapped its fingers at her. “Why is the ball over here if you’re all the way over there?”

“I was playing catch.”

“With?”

Alan almost winces. ‘Playing catch’ had been pretty feeble. But is it salvageable? “Just myself, I guess.” Claire looks like she can’t decide whether to frown or laugh; she kind of does a little of both. Then something better comes to Alan. “…until now?”

That does the trick. Grin broadening, Claire gives the ball a powerful fling. It hurtles through the air at an impressively alarming rate, and Alan almost forgets to let it slip past his fingers. The ball skids across the grass to land, as planned, a metre or so away from the trees. Here goes.

“I’ll get it!” He calls, and hurries towards where the ball’s yellow surface peaks out from the grass. Claire is yelling a warning. Alan ignores it. He scoops the ball up and triumphantly holds it aloft. Now he can see Claire sprinting. Maybe she has already seen the figure lurching out of the trees behind him. A short guy in a filthy black hoodie, hood pulled lopsidedly over his face. Alan feigns a startled jerk as the hands clamp down on his shoulders. Now comes the part he’s most worried about: He belts out a terrified scream, hoping desperately that it sounds convincing. Regardless, Claire is already there, and she matches Alan’s cry with one of indignant rage. Her entire body launches through the air, converging all of its momentum into a single punch. It connects soundly with the side of Owen’s skull.

Alan can barely follow what’s happening. Claire grabs his shoulders much harder than Owen had and drags him back, stepping protectively in front of him. Her taut limbs are like steel cables, muscles coiled in readiness for a deadly struggle. Her eyes, the set of her brow and jaw, show no uncertainty; only furious determination.

But of course the attack never comes. Owen is still on the ground, groaning, rocking slightly from side to side while his hands squeeze the sides of his head in an apparent effort to keep his brain from leaking. Now Claire catches on.

“Wait, Owen? That’s Owen!?” her incredulous face swivels from Alan to his Uncle, and back again. “Holy shit, you were both in on this! What the hell were you thinking!?” She launches a kick at Owen’s prone form, which only adds to his writhing. Still, Alan catches a glimpse of his expression and all he can see is a near-maniacal grin. When Owen actually manages a response, it’s a breathless string of convulsive chortling.

“You think this is funny? What if you had gotten grabbed in the trees, or Alan goddamn it? What if I had a weapon and smashed your head in by mistake, huh?”

“That’s what I said…” Alan can’t help but add. Bad idea. Claire rounds on him.

“You’re smart; you know he’s a moron, but you still went along with him! When your Mum finds out…” Alan seems to shrink at the mere thought.

“Hey, hey, don’t tell sis’!” Owen wheezes, still struggling with the last of his laughter. “I made him do it.”

“Well duh! Alan would never come up with something so-”

“Hilarious?” That earns him some more kicking, but it just seems to add fuel to his mirth. The pained guffawing revives itself. “You were like, ‘RAAAAWRRGHH!’, like a mama grizzly bear!”

“Shut the hell up you asshole!” But Owen’s terminal jocularity is apparently contagious, or maybe it’s just excitement-induced endorphins. Regardless, soon Claire can barely breathe from laughter. Alan just watches, a bemused grin slowly forming; this whole thing has gone far better than could reasonably be expected.

Right on schedule, Mum appears from around the bend. Elise waddles along close behind.

“Who’s yelling? What happened?”

“Are you done with ‘Lise, Mum? I’m getting sick of watching these two, they’re a handful.” Alan calls back. That prompts a stream of mock-indignant protesting.

“What on earth are you all doing?” Mum cuts through.

“Playing catch!” Alan and Owen answer in unison, setting them both giggling once more.

“Not fair, I wanna play!” Elise runs forward, any detectable oddness about the situation slipping right past her. Mum isn’t so sure. But Alan knows what to do about that. He tosses the ball to Mum, who has caught it before she has a chance to think. And then they have her.

“Over here!”

“No, me!” Now Mum is grinning too. This probably isn’t what she had in mind, in her plans for making the most of the day. But the rest of the afternoon doesn’t feel wasted to Alan.            

***

“They must be getting their energy from somewhere. What is their food source?” Kiran continues his impromptu lecture, experiencing an uncommon bout of talkativeness. Maybe the near-empty whiskey bottle has something to do with it. “We never see them eating. They bite you, certainly, but this behaviour seems only to serve the purpose of administering the toxin. Once they have killed their prey, they lose interest.”

“They must eat a bit, at least! Why would they bother biting in the first place if they didn’t?” Claire interrupts, perched on the deck’s broad wooden handrail. She, unlike the pale-faced Owen, doesn’t seem to find the topic objectionable. Kiran looks pleased to have been offered a tangent opportunity. He swivels around on the deck, knees bent in front, to face Claire.

“As we know, the fungal infection doesn’t seem to fully take hold until a subject is dead. It then turns the host body into a mobile spore distribution facility. But they can also bite and kill anything they find that is not infected, thus increasing the number of available corpses.”

“Jesus, you sound so clinical about all this.” Mum mutters from over by the campfire. If Kiran hears the comment, he ignores it.

“Since they require bodies, eating them would be counter-productive. So they don’t. How, then, do they sustain the metabolism that keeps them moving and biting?”

“Sunlight, like flowers!” Elise blurts out eagerly, having been looking for a way into this strange conversation. “That’s why they have those petal things!” But Kiran ignores this as well, launching into a complex dissertation about the biological processes that might be involved. Alan frowns at him, giving his sister a consolatory squeeze around her shoulders.

“No ‘Lise, sunlight gets used by leaves, not flower petals. And the zombies are more like mushrooms than flowers.”

“Oh…”

“Furthermore,” Kiran’s theatrical build-up is progressing slowly but inexorably towards some kind of climax. “Infected bodies must remain relatively intact in order for mobility to be possible, and this means decomposition must not proceed as normal. We have seen this. Those bodies at the petrol station had probably been around in this heat for over a month; any normal corpse would be little more than soup at that point.” An odd gulping noise escapes from Owen, who is apparently having some sort of disagreement with his recently consumed dinner.

“Mate, you just said something about needing to be dead before you can get infected. Now you’re telling me the damn things aren’t rotting. So which is it?” Bernard scoffs; drunkenness doesn’t seem to help his grumpy disposition much.

“Both. Though brain activity has ceased and tissue degeneration begun, the fungus is able to somehow rejuvenate certain parts of the body that are useful to it, including some primitive areas of the brain associated with movement. These useful body-parts must be kept from decomposing. I can only guess how the fungus accomplishes this; probably an anti-bacterial secretion, coupled with some method of keeping the tissue supplied with energy.”

“But what’s any of that got to do with food?” Claire interjects.

“If you would allow me to finish,” Kiran snaps, “The point is that the bodies are still showing some signs of degeneration. If it is not the usual bacteria causing this, perhaps the fungus itself is digesting the body in order to produce the required energy. The process could be efficient enough that the body is still preserved for far longer than is usual. But, eventually, the body will start running out of biomass to be digested. We can assume that the zombie will become incapable of movement at that point, rendering it harmless.” When people do not appear to sufficiently share Kiran’s exuberance at this, he continues even more emphatically. “You see? It will take time, perhaps a lot of time, but eventually this will all be over. Time is the one thing we have in abundance; we should be able to just wait out the apocalypse!” 

“That sounds like a lot of guessing and not a lot of sense-making.” is Mum’s assessment, after everyone has sat in vaguely baffled silence for a few moments. “You don’t know any of that. And at best that still leaves us scraping by like we have been, for who knows how long yet. The zombies are a fact of life, and it’s dangerous and stupid to pretend they aren’t.” Kiran definitely doesn’t appreciate the implication that he’s stupid.

“That is not what I meant at all! I’m thinking of the future, Leah. I am pointing out that there is a future, for your children, for all of us, if we can just survive for long enough.”

“Good, we agree then. We do whatever we have to do to survive. If you keep on helping us like you have been, you can expect our help in return.” Kiran huffs out a sigh, frustrated. But whatever he had actually meant, it must not be worth the explanation.

Not much later, Alan is called over to the campfire and gets his own helping of Mum’s makeshift educational efforts. After a bit of quizzing to see what he knows, Mum begins to expound upon the basics of cell biology. Her explanations are supplemented only by hasty scribblings in the notebook, but that’s more than enough. She frequently has Alan repeat back concepts just covered, for assurance that he understands. And he does, for the most part. This stuff is much too advanced to be standard school curriculum for a ten-year-old, but then again that describes most topics Alan is interested in. And Mum is good at explaining. Dad used to say, that’s the sign someone really, truly understands something: they can explain it to anyone.

If there’s one thing Mum understands, it’s science. She used to be an engineer, Alan knows. Not used to as in ‘before everyone died’, used to as in before she met Dad. After that she started being a teacher, like Dad. Not a teacher like Miss Appleton who teaches kids. One who teaches grown-ups, at a really big school called a university, with classrooms bigger than Alan’s school’s entire assembly-hall. But that’s all ‘used to’ as well, the other kind. Mum’s lessons are probably the closest thing to a school left in the whole world.

“Why would you want to teach him that kinda science stuff, the world being the way it is now? If you’re teaching him, it should be practical stuff. You know? Making things, fixing things. Surviving!” This had been Bernard’s opinion, before he had thankfully gotten up and left them to it.

As Mum had laboriously reminded Bernard, both Elise and Alan had been thoroughly instructed on that sort of thing months ago, at the army camp back home, and she makes sure to keep them up to snuff with regular refresher courses. Today’s lessons are different. In the wake of the apocalypse, passing along the accumulated knowledge of the human race has become far less of a priority. But doing so has only become more important, whether or not anyone has the time to anymore.

“Things are different now. That doesn’t mean my children have to grow up ignorant. There are a lot of things worth knowing, even if they can’t help you stay warm or well-fed.

Eventually, Mum announces bedtime. Owen and Claire carry an already dozing Elise into the hut, and Kiran clambers to his feet unsteadily. Bernard, who had been engaged in a slurred argument with him, remains seated, the second bottle of whiskey already half-empty in his hand.

“I’ve got first watch.” Mum tells Alan, stowing away pencil and notebook. “Get Elise tucked in; I’ll be there in a little while.” Alan nods and files in after the others.

A little while later, Alan is frustratingly roused from almost-sleep by a little finger prodding his face. Elise, sideways, peers at him droopily.

“Toilet.” she says, still half-asleep. Even in that state she knows that Mum has very clear rules against going out to the toilet at night unescorted. Without a word, Alan hauls himself up and grabs the two items that never leave his bedside: his L.E.D. mini torch and the blood-stained ice axe. Two white beams spring blindingly into existence from the kids’ torches, jittering unsteadily around over the heads of sleeping figures. Elise and Alan gingerly pick their way over to the door, and plunge from the thick mugginess of the hut into a motionless pool of crisp night air.

The long-drop is a rounded brown booth thrusting from a grassy mound a few paces to the side of the hut. The kids are silent shades passing behind Mum and Bernard at the campfire, who are too busy talking to take notice. Mum’s usually more careful than that, Alan privately scolds her. He follows his little sister over to the outhouse and swings the door open, shining his light in. He feels like Special Forces clearing a terrorist hideout, even though he had been nearly certain he would find nothing within. The door shuts with a hollow plastic thunk, and Alan turns his back to keep an eye out.

Instead it is a sound that catches his attention. Mum is laughing. He has to listen for a moment to be sure. He doesn’t think he’s heard Mum laugh once since the world ended, months ago. Before he has even thought about it, Alan has killed his torch and crept in closer. Just close enough to hear Mum’s low voice, and Bernard’s gruff wheezy one.

“I can’t, you know, I can’t believe my little brother just waltzes on over here and has an incredible find like you straight away. I’ve been slogging away in this tiny country my whole life and I’ve got nothing to show for it. Where were you that whole time?” Mum snorts, trying to supress squeaky giggling. She’s holding something loosely in her hand: the whiskey bottle, three-quarters empty. Bernard takes it from her, and takes a swig; he isn’t laughing. Mum composes herself somewhat.

“You know, Bernard, the world doesn’t have some kind of grudge against you, specifically. Everyone has problems. They’re equal parts ourselves and our circumstances. Don’t give yourself the idea that David stole away something that should have been yours, ohh the tragedy of fate.”

“What did that dorky boy ever have over me, huh? He never did anything but talk and read and write, he didn’t have the first idea about real life. And that’s why he’s not around an-”

“Shut up. Just don’t, that’s your brother, my husband you’re talking about, and he isn’t gone yet.”

“He never wanted to be my family. Hell, I’m closer with you and the kids than I ever was with him, and I barely even know you lot.” The bottle is empty now. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to. Know you better, I mean.”

“Bernard.” He’s shifting closer to her, voice dropping as the distance closes. Alan has to creep closer as well, to follow the words.

“And the kids too. You can’t raise them by yourself, not in this damn world. That boy of yours, I’m the closest he’s got left to a father.”

“Bernard!” All trace of red-cheeked joviality has vanished. Bernard doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.

“You just have to stop pretending. I can tell you want to; all that false hoping is killing you. But I’m here for you Leah. You don’t have to pretend for me. I’ll always be here, right here.” His clumsy mitt reaches out to cup Mum’s chin, but it doesn’t get that far.  

“Don’t try it you goddamn drunk.” She slaps his hand away, hard, like her voice. He only hesitates long enough to take a sharp breath, his features twisting in a way Alan has never seen before. He reaches out again, faster this time, with both arms. One wraps around to trap Mum’s arms against her sides, the other clamps on the back of her head and starts dragging it forward. Mum decides to go with it.

Her forehead slams into Bernard’s bestial face and he recoils, yelping, like a mongrel with a singed snout. Mum begins to stand, but she isn’t expecting Bernard’s sudden ferocity. He lunges again, fist closed this time, and Alan can practically feel the dull crack as the punch connects. This jolts him out of his horrified fascination. His rational mind takes over long enough to wonder why he’s just standing there, doing nothing.

Without him noticing, Alan’s mind clicks into a different mode, one piloted by emotion and instinct. The input through his eyes is not consciously processed, is instead converted directly into action. Breath quickens, hands firmly grip his weapon, legs propel him the remaining distance to the campfire. Hellish illumination cavorts across the scene, casting Mum’s stunned face in flickering red shadow. Her demonic assailant has propelled itself forward, pinning her underneath its bulk while clumsy claws rake at her. A forked tongue snakes towards her face, the thing’s eyes erupting with black smoke and molten steel. Alan’s hand is steady. He’s done this before; it’s no different from yesterday. Something had tried to kill Elise, so Alan had killed it. Simple.

He sounds no war-cry. Bernard never has a clue. Alan’s wild, double-handed swing lodges the ice axe deep into flesh, and his uncle screams. Shocked, ragged and hysterical with frightened fury, the sound hits Alan with almost physical force, a torrent of unfelt agony. And then he realises what he has done.       

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

by jimsonnweed:

A dry, bitter sun came down on dirt the colour of a bar fight – whiskey, blood, snapped wooden furniture – but the light was already starting to fade and it was a sure bet that within a fistful of hours anybody crossing the Bridge of Sighs would be walking into a sunset. Betting on when the sun would be up again was a whole lot less sure.

Personally Lukens had three hundred dollars and a bottle of jack riding on it being more than seventy two hours before they laid eyes on the more relevant of the planet’s two suns again, and she intended to collect. So long as these fops didn’t take too long doing whatever they were doing across the canyon or managed to get her killed.

The guide had seen wizards before, so these specimens weren’t in a position to destroy any romantic notions she had of the institution of wizardry, but they were possibly even less impressive than the ones that had interacted with her at the courthouse. The skinny one was covered in road dust and looked like he’d win a grumpiness showdown with a rabid wolverine, and the bigger one had a lot in common with Bo Jackson’s special needs cousin. Not exactly her idea of backup.

Luka’s boots met the thick planks of the bridge loud and the spurs on her boots jingled. A couple of moments later, the click of impractical citygoing footwear followed.

“Surely solar cycles are necessarily regular,” the grumpy one was going to have to find an off-switch for the condescending or she was going to go looking for it herself using the business end of her bowie. Maybe it was his off-worlder accent that made him so hard to listen to; his voice wasn’t so bad all by itself except that it came attached to that poncy accent and pale-rider-he-who-rode-with-him-was-called-death face.

“I know how days work if that’s what you’re implying, Seer,” she replied, ducking under a tangle of thick cording that hung between the angular uprights of the bridge. The Rio Umbra hissed below and as they approached the long shadows and deep gloaming of the forest the boom of the rivers sayanora-ing the cliff and plunging into the Hellmaw got increasingly urgent.

They passed into the forest’s shallowest edge and like bad luck the sun dropped out of the range of being useful within two hours, leaving them in the dark. The only reason anybody’d agreed to let anybody over the Hellmaw this close to sundown was that there was at least one moon due, but it hadn’t risen yet and for an hour or so it was going to be darker than assholes out here. Even the glow from the wizards’ arcane weaponry wasn’t enough to light the way, let alone show up any targets off the side of what was nominally a path.

“Have a sit,” Lukens said. “We ain’t going nowhere until moonrise.”

They hadn’t moved far, but the terrain was unforgiving and was only going to get worse: there was a measure of admiration due for the city-born wizards, especially the one with the angry face. Lorrenz collapsed gratefully onto a fallen treetrunk and Rex crouched beside him. They both grounded their staves, leaving their hands free. The white glow from Lorrenz’s staff made him look even more dead than usual, and Rex’s face was streaked red and green.

Lukens rested her hand on her holster, scanning the surrounding bush. It was far from her first posse into the forest, but the time between sunset and moonrise wasn’t her special favourite any more than it was anybody with sense’s favourite.

Rex reached into the satchel over his shoulder and withdrew an intricate case from which he removed and even more intricate pipe. “Sharpen our awareness of the vastness of magic?” He asked.

“Good a time as any,” Lorrenz agreed.

Lukens wasn’t sure what she expected – some kind of arcane tobacco? An alchemical mix of herbs to heighten the senses? Not the acrid smell that hit the air once Rex snapped his fingers (three times, looking a little surprised that a flame appeared at his fingertips only after that many attempts) and lit the device.

She reserved comment. A faint halo of silver was starting to appear on the horizon and she used the faint light to check the cylinder of her revolver, although she was one hundred percent sure every round was accounted for.

“It’s gonna be so buzzy to experience this place like this, oi,” Rex said, passing the pipe over to Lorrenz.

“The experience will certainly be deepened,” Lorrenz replied.

“Ya’ll get too enlightened I’m not gonna bother saving you,” Lukens said, snapping the cylinder back into her peacemaker and returning it to its holster.

“You don’t sound like you’re super happy to be here with us, bro,” Rex said after a while. The sparkles he’d rode in on had finally all fizzled out but his eyes were still shiny.

“Nope,” Lukens replied.

“Then why’d you come?” He passed the long pipe to the Seer.

“Cause everybody else was busy or scared and I ain’t gonna say no to money,” Lukens replied. “You done with that foul smellin’ shit yet? It’s gettin’ light out.”

“Settle down,” the Seer replied.

“You enjoy courting death or you just stupid?” Lukens started, then froze, hand going to her holster. “Down.”

The two wizards reacted surprisingly well to the command, dropping to one knee and a crouch respectively, staves pointed outward threateningly, but Lukens’ focus was on the sound of something huge or clumsy crashing through the undergrowth. She drew her colt, one hand still behind her to motion her charges stay put. The eerie glow tipping Lorrenz’s staff had become clearer as daylight ran out and the forest deepened rapidly, and now it had doubled in brightness again. The green and red crystals of Rex’s instrument were also flaring, although they seemed to be guttering, like a flame fighting a draft.

Lukens narrowed her eyes. That wasn’t coordinated enough for gloamwalkers and they were too shallowly under the canopy for a fellbeast. This was people approaching. Rustlers? Not unheard of, using the Hellmaw’s legend to deter lawpeople.

“This is Deputy Marshal Lukens and I’m gonna shoot anybody that comes out not reaching for the sky,” Luka said, frontier drawl heavy, drawing her coat back from her belt slowly with her free hand to show the badge pinned to it. A silver star gleamed in the weak moonlight.

“Marshal?” Three voices at once went. Two of them almost lost their stupid pointy hats to selectively aimed .44 rounds.

“Don’t shoot!”

A portly gentleman in a stovepipe hat emerged from the undergrowth, followed by a young man and women with matching knitted hats. All three of them hit the ground as thunder cracked nearby and something like fucked up muzzleflare went off behind Lukens, who went down onto one knee ready to shoot somebody. A ball of green light cut with red jags flew off into the forest, rapidly fizzling into nothing.

“Damnit Luka I said don’t shoot,” the fat man grouched.

“Weren’t me.”

“C’mon, don’t look at me like that, you had me all psyched up for monsters! I expected monsters? How was I supposed to know it was gonna be regular people?” Rex’s mouth moved faster than a spooked herd. His staff was still pulsing and crackling.

“I think you should stop talking,” Lorrenz suggested.

“If you please,” Lukens added. Their agreeing on something seemed to spook them both.

Lukens rounded on the newcomers. “The hell you doin’ out here, Anderson?”

“Ava said you was heading past Tombstone and if we was quick we could tag along.”

Lukens groaned, finally lowering her peacemaker. “Ava already put me on babysitting detail once today. Suppose ya’ll ain’t gonna make it any worse.”

She turned to confirm something with the two wizards, but they were huddled over Rex’s staff, tweaking the angles of crystals and saying a whole bunch of shit that wasn’t American.

“There’s no reason for you to have missed that shot,” Lorrenz was saying.

“I know, man. Like, I’m glad I didn’t hit anybody, but I’m getting real scared going in there with my magic all rustled.” Rex reached for his magic again, expecting to grasp it as easy as it usually came, but it felt sluggish and resistant. “You casting okay? Maybe it was something in the—”

“Hey, peckerwood,” Lukens put one foot to Rex’s back and pushed and he almost went from crouched to munching dirt, only his grip on his planted staff saving him the humiliation. “You wanna talk about what just happened?”

“It’s none of your concern, Marshal.” Lorrenz replied before Rex could open his mouth.

“Not real fond of how you say my title, Seer,” Lukens replied.

Anderson coughed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lukens straightened up and adjusted her hat.

“Let’s make use of this light.” Lorrenz said, rising to his feet. Rex straightened up beside him.

Lukens made a noise they could only assume was yea and set off again.

It took Rex five minutes to get words together to ask, “You’re a Marshal?”

“Grew up shooting rustlers, thought I might as well get paid to do it. And look, I get this shiny star,” she briefly drew back her jacket again.

“Forgive me,” Lorrenz said and Lukens suspected he’d never really asked forgiveness in his life, “But you don’t seem the type and guiding researchers doesn’t seem like a federal concern.”

“I know, they’re deputizin’ any dumb fuck that can shoot, these days.” Lukens replied. “Your little thesis project’s curious to somebody’s case at the Old Horn courthouse, so ya’ll are my problem. Anderson, keep up!”

Their new companions sped up to heel the two wizards, looking nervous and still making enough sound to compete with a herd of cattle. The forest was rapidly closing in over their heads so that the attempt at path they were following was one man wide at best. Visibility was way down except for shafts of moonlight. This side of Hellmaw, the red dirt and ruddy buttes of the desert gave up so rapidly to stygian forest it was supposed to look like an unnatural straight line from space, canyon itself not withstanding.

Place that dark and abrubt had bled legends before anybody had even gone in, but settlers had figured out pretty rapidly that it was no place to go without guns and certainly not at night, not with the kind of monsters living there. What really got folks spooked was when periods of it not being night started to get less and less frequent – not just over the forest, but over the entire planet. Union didn’t care much for a dusty frontier planet, so nobody really came to investigate – which suited the settlers fine, ‘cause they didn’t much care for Union folks either.

The posse rounded a bend and came up alongside a stream that ran dark and low about a meter down a steep bank. On the dry side of the Maw, rivers ran sweet – on this side, they ran bitter.

“Don’t fall in,” Lukens advised.

“Wasn’t planning on it.” Lorrenz replied. 

Sixshooters and Sorcery, Chapter 2 [Guest Author]

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Sixshooters and Sorcery, Chapter 1

Lorrenz vod Worgenskyrr scowled at the sun. Sweating, he pulled the brim of his pointy grey hat lower over his scowl. He’d been walking for five minutes since that misanthropic wagon-driver dropped him off, and already the entire liquid content of his body was haemorrhaging out of his armpits. And he didn’t see any thrice-damned bridge in this thrice-damned wasteland. The cracked brown earth rose in front of him endlessly, or so it seemed. But suddenly it rose no more.

A magnificently vast canyon split the globe before him. He could see no edge to the east or the west, and its depths seemed endless. On the far side sprawled an equally endless forest. The trees were little more than bushes close to the canyon, but those in the distance stretched their trunks and branches up ever further into the sky until the clouds and mist swallowed them. The shadow they cast was immense. Lorrenz saw the bridge; a gigantic wooden structure with a mass of supporting poles and ropes sprouting from either end, though dwarfed by the gap it spanned. Not too far from where the bridge clung to the far ledge, a torrential river gushed out into the empty air. That stream and others like it, springing at irregular intervals from the forest, dispersed into mist as they descended deep down into the earth.

Distracted by the stunning view, in a rare occurrence Lorrenz forgot to be irritated about anything. He wandered down the slope in quiet awe; he had read about Hellmaw Canyon in dozens of books, but he had somehow never thought to imagine it being beautiful. His reverie was soon ruined; as he approached the bridge, he heard the sound of magic. It rose from a faint electric humming at the edge of hearing to an ear-piercing squeal, all in an instant. The very air seemed to snap with an almighty crack and a flash of blue light.

And suddenly there stood another wizard. Where Lorrenz was bony and grown frail before his time, Rex Kiin’jor stood tall and solid, though still not particularly imposing. His dark, sun-baked flesh showed underneath green robes, which were sleeveless and bound loosely around the waist with a cloth sash. Messy black braids cascaded from his head and chin and the sides of his moustache. A pair of muddy boots hung over one shoulder, leaving his leathery feet comfortably bare. His green hat was just as pointy as Lorrenz’s, but considerably longer and floppier, its tip hanging to mid-way down his back. Rex straightened up from a peculiar bow-legged pose and exhaled. Blue particles fizzed and popped excitedly around him.  He planted his staff, which was bent and gnarled and tipped with a red and green crystal formation, and then he smiled a sparkling, toothy greeting.

“Lorrenz bro’, you made it! Good to see you!”

Lorrenz returned the greeting, but not the smile. “Yes, hello. I was wondering why I didn’t see you back at Cripple’s Gulch; I forgot you made spatio-temporal transmutation your thesis for this year.” At this, Rex’s smile revealed yet further teeth.

“Aw man, you wouldn’t believe some of the shit I’ve been studying man! You think your mind couldn’t get any more blown, and then the next page, it’s like, there’s a whole different mind altogether, and then that gets blown!”

“Rex, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But that’s okay.” 

 “Well, the best part is I don’t have to deal with long ass journeys anymore. I just have to blow a bit of coin on ether-essence. Bro, I was seriously just reading in my room with a pipe, like five minutes ago!”

“Whereas I just had to endure several hours stuck on a wagon getting splinters up my arse, while the sun tried to vaporise my eyeballs. So can we please get on with this?”     

“Nah bro’! Wasn’t there a guide we’re s’posed to wait for? Some guy, Luke or some shit?”

Lorrenz sighed. Rex was right, of course they needed a guide; they had no idea what they were doing. Without someone to babysit them they’d touch the wrong plant, or get bitten by the wrong spider, or fall into a damn hole in the ground, or something. All they could do was hope he showed up on time.

“Matter of fact, the name’s Mary-Beth Lukens.”

The pair turned their bearded heads skyward. There, sitting perched on a pole jutting from the supports, was a stocky woman with spiralling chestnut hair and a stiff black leather ranch hat. A coil of rope hung from one hip, a holster from the other. And in that holster sat one of those contraptions that the far western continents are famous for: a gun. No magic required whatsoever, and it could still launch chunks of metal at lethal velocities.

The woman’s voice was low with self-assured authority, and sounded almost bored. “Folks call me Luka. I’m here so’s you don’t get yer fine selves horribly killed in yonder forest.”

“You the guide?” The question was a fine display of Rex’s tendency to eschew rational thought processes whenever possible.

“Think that's pretty damn near what I just said there boy. You slow or somethin’?”

“Ey? But youse a girl, aren’t you?”

Lorrenz could tell that this wasn’t the most promising line of conversation. But before he could object, Luka had already dropped from the pole and begun striding towards them.

“Y’know, stop right there. My pa was the first man to talk that way ‘bout me.” She said thoughtfully, slowing her pace as she closed upon the taller wizard. “I mean, talkin’ bullshit ‘bout us lady-folk and all. He weren’t the last neither.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. But you know what?”

“What?”

“First time he did it was also the last time.” In a flurry of motion too fast for the eye to follow, Rex found one arm wrenched behind his back, the other pinned against his chest, and a broad-bladed hunting knife pushing into his jugular. “‘cause I told him I didn’t care none whether his pecker played a part in my creation, I’d still chop it right off if he talked like that again.” A deadly steadiness permeated her hand and her voice. Rex was also perfectly still, struck speechless, his wide eyes crossing as they both tried to fix themselves on the foot of steel positioned uncomfortably below them. Marvellous, thought Lorrenz. This relationship would be a laugh a minute if this thoroughly sociable beginning was any indicator.

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Lukens.” Lorrenz tried, though even his considerable efforts to sound sincere came out as mildly sarcastic, at best. “I am Seer Lorrenz, and this is my associate Sage Rex. We represent the Eminent Arcane University of Eldemere, and we have a contract for your services.”

“Believe I mentioned, folks call me Luka. Y’all can do the same.” She reminded him flatly. In a single swift movement she had unhanded Rex, stowed her knife, and begun a brisk march towards the bridge. “I know who you city boys are, and I don’t care none ‘bout no contract. Far as I’m concerned, all that matters is I got a job to do ‘fore I can get you two out of my hair.”

“That will do nicely.” Lorrenz drawled too sweetly, setting off after her. Rex did the same, though was apparently still collecting the scattered pieces of his courage required for coherent speech. “What were you doing up there, might I ask?” From Luka’s sighing it seemed that he ‘might’ ask, but that doing so wasn’t overly appreciated.   

“Keepin’ a look out.”

“For us?”

“’mong other things.”

“And once we arrived?”

“I lingered some, to get a look at what you’re made of.”

“And what did you see?”

They reached the edge of the canyon, where the bridge stretched nearly endlessly before them. Luka stopped and turned her narrow gaze upon Lorrenz.

“So far? That you two ain’t gonna last one day on the other side of this bridge. Now get a move on; we need to make the most of this daylight.”

“It’s barely mid-day yet.”

“’Round these parts, that don’t mean it won’t be gettin’ dark soon.”                    

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Among the Deceased, Chapter 4

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4.   Chapter 5.  Chapter 6.

The sky is grey as the concrete of the schoolyard. Alan is one of the first out to lunch, as usual, mainly because he doesn’t hang around inside to meet up with friends. So, by the time the multitude of various chattering groups emerges, Alan is already perched in one of his usual spots: the top of a brick wall that runs around a garden area. Until two weeks ago he had always shared the spot with his friend Isaac, an arrangement made possible only by a shared disinclination to speak much. But Isaac is somewhere far away now, and so naturally has been unable to join Alan for lunch.

Still, it’s a good location. From up here, beneath a tree almost as old as the school itself, Alan enjoys two benefits. One, he gets a view over the rooftops of the school buildings, so he can keep an eye out for any notable goings-on. Two, he is positioned at least three metres up from the thoroughfare below; anyone who wants to get to him has to go around and find the steps. All who glance up can see him, of course, but practically none of them take notice. He’s just another everyday playground fixture, a sight so familiar that the brain ceases to consciously register him. Having eaten his sandwiches, neatly wrapped, Alan begins another time-honoured lunchtime tradition: reading.

Books are probably why Alan has never minded not having many friends. Or perhaps it’s just that he never really wanted friends in the first place. Books are a fine substitute. He couldn’t guess how many he’s read during his six or so years of literacy. More than anyone, Mum always says. It’s probably an exaggeration. This book is a fairly interesting one about life in rock-pools, but he’s seen most of this stuff before. He wishes he had one of the more complicated ones from home, or a good story. But that morning he had just finished the one about wizards and elementals and planeshifting, and he forgot to bring along a new one. So he had to make do with the school library, which he knows is to be avoided if at all possible. Sometimes it is not, so Alan has to sift through the shelves full of fart-humour compilations, pony-club series, stupidly simple biographies, and wide but thin non-fiction hardbacks full of illustrations but very little content. Occasionally he can find something passable in the bafflingly designated “young adults” section, but today Alan has been left disappointed.

“Hey Al, did you do the maths homework?” Someone is calling from below. Alan recognises the voice. It’s Ricky, one of the cooler kids in his class.

“Yup.” says Alan. He doesn’t bother looking up from the diagram of a sea anemone.     

“Let’s see it?”

Any helpful impulses Alan might have experienced at this point were pre-emptively quashed when Ricky called him “Al’ ”.

“Why?”

“Just give it, man, don’t be a dick!”

“You’re mean to me Ricky. Do it yourself, you can’t have mine.” Alan still hasn’t looked at him. This page explains how there are different zones of rock-pool plants, according to how far they are from the sea.

“Whatever!” Ricky snarls. It doesn’t sound like he’s going to leave it at that, though. He storms off. Alan breathes an annoyed sigh, slipping the book back into his pack. Time to relocate. He executes another scan of the playground. No one over by the old swing set, so that has potential. Or else perhaps he could sneak back into one of the classrooms.

But then a flash of yellow skirt catches his eye. It’s Elise, running fast across the lower playground, and it looks like there are a few kids chasing her. Alan frowns. His sister doesn’t get picked on too much, but he should probably check this out.

“You got my lighter, kid?”

Alan looks down at a boy he doesn’t know. He can’t be more than about three years Alan’s senior, even if he’s one of the oldest at the school, but he’s huge. And he sounds angry.

“What?” Alan replies, struggling for even that one word.

“Ricky says you’re the one who took my lighter! He saw you. Give it back, unless you want a smash!”      

 “I didn’t.”

“Come down and show me your bag.” Alan doubts that a search is all that will happen if he complies.

“Ricky’s lying, I didn’t take it!” But the hulk has already run out of patience. He clenches his fists and stomps out of view. Alan knows exactly where he’s going, and doesn’t want to be there when he arrives. To that end, he hooks an arm through his backpack and drops from the wall. Hopefully he can put this whole thing off until some other lunchtime. Alan traverses the steps and paths, noisy with chattering kids, but he could be invisible for all the notice they spare him. Being ignored is a lot better than being chased down for a lighter he doesn't have, he supposes.

He reaches the lower playground, intended mainly for the youngest students. It's a strip of safety padding with colourful pipes and platforms sprouting from it to form monkey bars, flying foxes, slides, fireman-poles, climbing walls, and other bizarrely-shaped constructions which no one fully understands. A concrete area extends out in front of it. Through the scattering of ball-bouncers and hop-scotchers runs Elise, clutching a small cardboard box to her chest. She runs over to the playground and scampers inside a bright green plastic tunnel, disappearing from view. But she didn’t hide quickly enough; three red-faced boys in pursuit have spied her, and they quickly block off either end. Alan moves in closer. He can hear their shrill voices squealing commands at his sister, one in particular which seems to belong to the instigator. The others are probably brainless sheep who are just pleased to have found a shepherd.

“C’mon Alice, lemme see it!”

“It’s Elise!” She yells for what sounds like the thousandth time. Her voice echoes out from her failure of a hiding spot. “You saw her at show-and-tell! Go away!”

“Alice, don’t hog it!”

“Let us see, Alice!”  

“Yeah Alice!”

The three tiny hooligans apparently think they’re hilarious. Chief Dickhead lunges into the tunnel, and it reverberates with the sounds of struggle. Moments later he emerges with his prize, the little box, and holds it up triumphantly as he darts away. A tremendous screech erupts from the tunnel, along with the red-and-yellow meteor of fury that Elise has become. She charges, but the boy has already opened the box and pulled out its contents. A stripy little lizard dangles from his fingers, though only for a moment. The skink detaches from its tail, drops, and has vanished in the blink of an eye.    

Elise cries out again, grabbing the boy’s arms, sending box and disembodied tail flying. He pushes her and she lands heavily on the concrete, tears streaming from furious, puffy eyes. At this point the boy seems to realise that he is now indisputably engaged in bullying, and has to stop to consider that for a moment. Alan uses this time to punch him in the face.

The blow could have been a lot harder, but it still sends the blond-haired brat stumbling. When he stops clutching at his face, red smears can be seen on his hand and around his nose. Alan can tell that, pretty soon, Elise won’t be the only one crying. The faithful flock of two do nothing but gape for a moment. Then they glare at Alan, but still follow their friend pretty snappily when he runs off bawling.

“Leave my sister alone!” Alan warns them, which seems the appropriate thing to do somehow. He doesn’t feel at all bad about having hit someone smaller than him. His hand may be aching now, but he has hopefully stopped any further harassment. Elise is far less satisfied with the situation. Sniffling, she scoops up her box and the skink-tail (still wiggling), and clambers back into the false security of the plastic tunnel. Alan peers after her. She’s curled up against the side, cradling what remains of her treasure, her face screwed up in a sulky frown.

“Um…sorry about your lizard…” Alan doesn’t really understand; it wasn’t as though Mum would have let her keep it anyway.

“Go away!”   

“I’ll help you catch another one when we get home?” She turns to scowl at him.

“You didn’t have to hit Andy!” What? She’s upset about that? Alan remains silent, his confusion evident. “He’s my friend! Now he’ll probably never talk to me again!”

“But…he was being mean to you. He pushed you! Why would you want a friend like that?”

“He’s not always mean. Just because you don’t have any friends it doesn’t mean I can’t!” She might have been trying to hurt him with this, but it just puzzles him further.

“I’m sorry.” He says, though his lack of understanding severely detracts from the apology. “They were picking on you. I wanted to help you.”

“You don’t really care. You don’t care about anyone but yourself! You only did it ‘cause Mum keeps telling you to look after me, and you don’t wanna get in trouble.” Fresh tears blur her eyes, and her words. This time Alan is hurt. That’s not true at all! Is it?

“Hey, kid!” A strong grip yanks him back by his collar and spins him around, and an enormous snarl fills Alan’s vision. Apparently the hulk is still looking for his lighter. “Here’s what you get for running!”  What Alan gets is a brick to the face, or at least that’s what the gigantic fist feels like. But his pain is postponed. For the moment, he just splashes into the cool, black waters of unconsciousness.

***

Alan soon finds himself in the nurse’s office and, subsequently, the principal’s office. He gets very little sympathy for his own battering, considering that he had just assaulted a third-year student. That fact also does little to convince anyone that he didn’t steal the damn lighter. Alan and the hulk (apparently named Bartholomew) are both kept late after school, picking up rubbish. Andy’s skink-liberation posse escapes punishment, and so does that scheming rodent, Ricky.

Alan usually walks home with Elise, but she’s long gone by the time he emerges from the rectangular grey fortress of school buildings. Dad is waiting in his car, parked right outside. Alan is unable to meet Dad’s bright, inescapable gaze, but sees that his mouth is a firm line behind a dark, bushy beard.

“Hi.” says Alan, buckling up.

“Hello Alan. I want to talk when we get home.” It’s a serene greeting, but carries certainty and purpose. So they save their words, not speaking for the rest of the drive. It’s not a long way through the winding suburban streets which pursue the top of an indistinct hill. Big blobs of rain begin to slap into the windscreen, and Dad flips the wipers on. By the time they get home, the gnashing southerly wind has really kicked up, scattering the smells of salt and seaweed. A little pine forest, thrashing discontentedly up on the hill, forms the backdrop.

Mum and Dad’s jobs have begotten a spacious, elegantly functional house, composed of dark wood and big flat planes of angled glass. It has a boxy but vaguely triangular shape; Elise and Alan’s rooms constitute a third storey of sorts, a squat turret poking up from one corner of the roof. Like most of the house, these rooms are positioned to enjoy a vast view of the sea, dashing itself into white ribbons against the rocks far below.

Silence still unbroken, father and son take the narrow path through a garden thick with green, blue, yellow and purple, the many scents undetectable in the air of the brewing storm. Inside, Dad flips a few switches, swiftly banishing the dimness that had crept in with the evening. The seaward side of the living room is a curved wall of windows, through which the roiling grey expanse of water and storm clouds can be viewed in comfort.

“I’m having a milo, want one?” Dad calls over his shoulder, flicking on some more lights in the partly separate kitchen area. He tosses his keys absently onto the messy countertop. Alan can tell what’s expected of him.

 “Yes please.” He quietly shuffles over and hoists himself onto a stool. Dad sticks three mugs of milk in the microwave and sets it off with a beeping fusillade of button presses. It whirrs busily in the background as Dad turns his attention to Alan.

“So, what happened at school today?”

“I was just reading, then Ricky told this guy I stole his lighter, so he came to beat me up, but I ran away, and then I saw Elise, and this other guy Andy pushed her, so I punched him, and then the big guy from before found me and punched me, and then I got in trouble.” Alan finishes with a gasp. He feels flattened, squeezed empty of words, and all he can do now is to stare back at Dad. The small man has a heavy presence, even just looking at you. That’s all he’s doing now, with a trace of amusement just barely tweaking his lip.

“Did you say you punched Andy, your sister’s friend? He must be at least a head smaller than you, not much of a danger. Why did you feel the need to punch him?”

“He got some other kids and they were bullying her. They made her cry.” Alan responds analytically, as though formulating some equation from which “violence” can be inferred as the optimal course. Dad isn’t convinced.

“If Elise had bullied Andy and made him cry, would you have punched her?” Alan is baffled for a moment, but then shakes his head vigorously. “So you don’t think bullies who make people cry ought to be punched, unconditionally?” He’s not certain he knows what that word means, but he shakes his head again anyway. Dad’s smile creeps a little further out of hiding. “I’d agree with that. In fact, Alan, I don’t want you to ever hurt anyone unless there is a good reason.”

“How do I know if there’s a good reason?”

“That’s an excellent question. People have been arguing about it for years. Well, you might start with this: If hurting someone will stop someone else from being hurt, there might be a good reason to do it.” Alan starts nodding, until Dad stills him with a glance. “But you must always think about how much hurting is involved, and what it will accomplish. If you hurt someone just because you feel like hurting them, there’s probably not a good reason to do it.”

“But there was a reason! I was trying to keep them from doing it again!”

“There are ways to do that without punching anyone. Most of them probably would have worked better as well. You didn’t even tell Andy why you punched him, did you?”

“No.”

“And Elise didn’t feel any better afterward, did she?”

“No…”

The microwave produces several obnoxious beeps and then falls silent. Dad retrieves the mugs and gets to work with a jar of chocolatey-brown powder and a spoon.

“What about you, how does the eye feel?”

“Huh?” Alan turns to catch sight of himself in the reflective metal above the stovetop. In the warped image he can see the skin around his right eye has begun to darken and swell. “Doesn’t hurt too much unless I touch it.”

“Good. That guy definitely didn’t have a good reason to punch you, right?” Alan nods again, angry thoughts of Ricky barging to the front of his mind. “So, what’s this I heard about you stealing something? Someone’s dad’s collectible zippo lighter, got snuck into school?”

“I didn’t!” This extra jolt is enough to shake Alan’s grip on his frustrated rage. It takes the chance to come gushing out. “No one has any proof, but they still think I did it. It’s so unfair!” He pounds the counter with a clenched fist. The stone surface is unsympathetic, so the action produces little more than a dull thud and an aching hand.

“Hey! Look at me, listen! I believe you. Don’t worry about it.” Alan huffs out a few deep breaths. “So, you understand how I feel about you hurting people, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Good. But just to make sure you remember, I’m not getting you that new Seigfried Ollivard book until next week.” Alan’s face falls along with his spirit.

“Dad!”

“And no video games for three days,” Dad pauses, seems to remember something. “Starting from tomorrow. For now, I think someone might need to see her big brother.” He pushes two mugs across the countertop, an enticing aroma wafting from the frothy contents.

Alan carefully ascends the stairs, a mug in each hand. He lingers while passing the open door of Mum’s office room, and the sound of intent keyboard-tapping ceases. Mum swivels around to smile at him.

“Hello darling. Bad day at school?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry pumpkin. You can tell me about it later on.”

“ ‘kay.” He shuffles along quickly, knowing that Mum will be in work-mode until after dinner. Besides, he’s had quite enough of the whole ‘talking’ thing.

Another carefully handled staircase leads him to a tiny landing with two doors, each decorated with starkly dissimilar varieties of drawings, stickers, posters, artsy constructions and novelty road-signs. He negotiates the left-hand door with some difficulty and much mug-juggling. The gloom of the storm has infiltrated Alan’s room. He stands there in the dimness a moment, oddly soothed by the muffled wind flinging spatters of rain against his windows. There is a big sliding door that connects this room with its neighbour, and warm illumination seeps through underneath. His own room feeling suddenly chilly by comparison, Alan deposits a mug on his desk, flicks the light-switch, and delivers three sharp raps upon the door.

“Yah?”

Alan rolls it open. Elise is crouched by her expansive doll-house, and looks up at Alan with uncertainty. She has been trying to stay angry about before, Alan guesses, but she’s never been good at that sort of thing. He could apologize again. He could talk about it, explain himself further. He could tell her how he got in trouble with the principal and with Dad, and relay some of his newfound understanding. But he doesn’t want to.

“Hey, wanna play Mario Kart?”     

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

would you say the sci-fi short story you wrote was influenced by your study of philosophy? discussion???

Totally and one-hundred percent. Mainly personal identity issues I guess? But also other stuff. I didn't really philosophically address them, I was just more like "Think about THAT stuff, woooaahh".

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Worth It

Short Story, Sci-Fi 

Richard tried not to think about the fact that he was, quite possibly, about to die for science.

His orange jumpsuit felt uncomfortable. He fidgeted incessantly, wiping sweaty palms that never seemed to get any drier. He just wanted to get on with it, but of course he had to stand off to the side while a dozen colleagues bustled around the machine. Readouts had to be noted, cables checked and re-checked, disassembly actuators cleaned and coated in conductive gel. Richard had already received this sort of treatment himself; a team of physicians who poked and prodded and peered at him, scribbling and checking off boxes on their endless supply of clipboards. The whole procedure probably took half an hour at most, but for Richard it was as though he had already died and gone to purgatory.

Finally the atmosphere in the room seemed to change. A subtle dampening of volume and activity, indicating to Richard that everything was almost in readiness. A white-coated woman approached, face impassive but eyes sparkling with excitement behind her glasses; Danielle, Richard’s friend since they were undergraduates.

“Doctor Madoff, it’s time.”

Body flooded with electric excitement, Richard began his slow, clanking steps across the steel floor of the lab. He tried to ignore the small cluster of observers as he approached the input chamber. Smooth metal sides enclosed a space slightly smaller than might be found inside a porta-loo. Richard could see the twelve nodes running opposite one-another within, and the many-pronged antennae protruding from the top. He paused in front of the contraption, took a deep breath to collect himself, and glanced at Danielle for the “all-clear”. Then he entered.

“Initiating deconstruction sequence.  Tele co-ordinates calculated. Priming re-synthesis projectors.” Danielle’s voice added to the chaotic drone of procedures being vocalised. Richard, standing motionless inside the chamber, ignored the words. He tried to focus on nothing, to clear his mind. The chamber crackled to life around him. The hum of power swelled, reaching higher and higher pitches. The nodes began to spark. Then suddenly he could see nothing but white light. He expected to feel…something. Pain or itching or burning. After all, the particles that made up his body should have been getting separated into their individual atoms and flung across the room to another chamber where they would be reconstructed.

Instead, when the light faded, Richard found himself standing in exactly the same spot as before. All the faces outside were stunned and silent.

“I’m fine. What went wrong?” Richard said, ducking out of the chamber. At least he tried to say it, but broke off at a bizarre interruption.

“It worked! We did it, the first human teleportation! Congratulations everyone!”

Richard looked across to the output chamber. There he saw a man, beaming around at his gaping colleagues.

Richard tried to think clearly, but his mind seemed to be both a whirlwind and a slab of lead. How was this possible? He had designed a teleportation device, not this. Finally, conscious thought processes overcame the shock.

“Excuse me, what is your name?”

For the first time, the lanky man in the jumpsuit took notice of him. Richard watched the man experience the same emotional overload that he himself had gone through only a few seconds prior. No one else spoke or even moved. And then Richard heard his own voice, from lips that did not belong to him.

“My name…is Richard Madoff. What’s your name?”

~*~

They sat in an observation room, staring at one another. Several times they tried to speak, but kept uttering the same syllable at the same instant and breaking off. Richard was terrified, but also fascinated. Seeing something at once both so familiar and so foreign unsettled him profoundly. Yet Richard’s inner empiricist implored him to take advantage of the situation. Pay attention! Observe! Learn!

Every miniscule detail on the other man’s face matched with one on his own, including a patch of rough, pale flesh below the right eye.

“You remember getting that scar, I take it?”

“Back in high school,” the man’s hand unconsciously felt for it, just as Richard’s had done who knew how many times. “Messing around in chemistry class, on the last day. Mr. Cardosky thought it would be fun to make black powder. We thought it would be more fun if there were Bunsen burners involved.”

Richard almost chuckled at the memory. Almost, but didn’t, because it was his memory, and here he was talking to someone else with the very same one.

“We’re both wondering,” Richard said.

“Which one of us is the original?”

“Let’s assume that each of our sub-atomic structures was identical, at the exact moment the experiment ended.”

“It only makes sense. In that case, there may be literally no way to distinguish between us.”

“Exactly. Science has yet to identify a non-physical container for the essential ‘self’. So if our physical properties are basically identical…”

“…we have no means by which to identify one of us, but not the other, with the original Richard Madoff.”

They fell into silence once again. Talking scarcely seemed necessary; Richard knew his double’s thoughts were running parallel to his own.

The steel door swung open, and Danielle entered. Anxiety showed plainly on her face, normally devoid of emotion, and the way she looked at Richard sent his insides into a tailspin.

“Richard, come with me please.”

Earlier, Richard and his double had unanimously decided to draw an “I” and an “O” on the backs of their left hands, for “input chamber” and “output chamber” respectively. After all, the whole point of experimentation was writing down your results. Before complying, Richard pointed to the “I” on his hand and shot Danielle a questioning glance.1

“Yes, you. Now please.”

She led him into her office, and they sat opposite one another at her precisely organized desk. Danielle seemed to have relaxed, but only a little.  

“We examined the equipment. It was tampered with, last night, by someone who knew what they were doing.”

“Are you serious?” Richard was incredulous. His teleportation device wasn’t some half-baked basement operation. Years of research had gone into the preparations, and the people working on it were some of the best in the world. There was no way sabotage could have gone undetected.

“All our security measures were circumvented. They altered the test parameters and then set it up so no one would notice. I wouldn’t have guessed it could be done, but it was.”

“Who was the last person in there?”

“According to the biometric records? It was you.” She said it with all the weight such a statement deserved. It left Richard reeling. “Apparently you accessed the door at 12:57 am.”

“That’s impossible. We walked out to the car park together. You saw me drive off just after six!”

“I know.” She didn’t seem to doubt him. “And no one entered the building after that, we’re sure of it. Or sure as we can be, I suppose, considering how little sense any of this makes.”

Richard was standing now, pacing. Apart from being angry, he was confused out of his mind. This was incomprehensible!

“So what did the tampering do?” he asked, eventually.

“After the device scans the subject, it is usually set to break down the subject’s matter, transport it, and re-assemble it. Instead, it used the scan to construct a duplicate of the subject out of raw particles.” Was that even possible? Richard buried head in hands.  “Scanner data confirms that the subject’s particles remained in the input chamber. That means you’re the original Richard Madoff.”

“That’s why I’m here instead of him.” Richard’s uneasiness suddenly swelled. “But that’s not right. I talked to him. That man is me, by any measure. Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?”

“That’s not the point.” she said, simmering with suppressed intensity. “Think about it, Richard. Only one of you can get your life; your family, your friends, your responsibilities. You can’t share them, it won’t work. Somehow we have to decide. This is as fair a way as I can imagine. You’re the original. He’s the copy.” Richard didn’t respond. He was trying to think. But Danielle wouldn’t give him the chance. “We’re going to keep him confined, see what we can learn from him. This is an extraordinary scientific opportunity, Richard. We need to do our jobs.”

“We’re going to experiment on him?” He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“He’ll understand. In his place, wouldn’t you?”

That was the strange part: Richard could easily imagine himself in the double’s place, probably more so than anyone else could have. And Danielle was right. He did understand.

~*~

Richard didn’t really remember going to his room in the living quarters. His heart was leaden. He slid open the door and found that he was already in bed, asleep. Wait, what? He stopped breathing, just stared at the bed’s occupant. He had the odd and unique experience of watching himself sleep. The man was definitely him. His double, rather, surely. Of course it was. Richard approached. The uneasiness that had been following since the experiment, lurking just out of sight, suddenly caught up. He wanted to run from the building and never return.

Then Richard caught sight of the double’s left hand, the letter “I” drawn there in black marker. Exactly like the one on his own hand.

He didn’t have time to be surprised. Movement from behind. A prick in his neck. The stinging faded immediately, along with all other sensation. A chilling absence soaked through his limbs, and suddenly his legs were useless. He didn’t flop to the ground; something must have caught him, though he couldn’t feel what. His limp body was transported across the room and deposited in a chair, his head propped upright with a pillow.

Then someone stepped into view. He was very old; hunched over, deeply wrinkled, breathing raspy breaths. Tufts of hair clung to the sides of his shiny scalp. Some strange kind of black suit hugged his starkly thin frame. And, though the features had drooped with the passage of years, the man’s face was undoubtedly Richard’s own. Time and disuse had ravaged the voice that emerged from it, now an unfamiliar wheeze.

“This is an unnecessary risk. But I wanted to speak with you one last time, here at the beginning.” His smile revealed an unnaturally perfect set of teeth. Dentures? “Besides, things must happen this way. The outcome is certain, so there’s no real risk.”

“Who…are…you?” Richard slurred, just barely retaining control over his tongue. The man’s sagging face took on a condescending look.

“You must have some idea, surely. We know one another very well. I am you. Or, more accurately, I’m that fellow on the bed over there.”

“How?”

By way of response, the old man turned to a desk upon which sat a strange-looking briefcase; round corners, huge catches, constructed from some incredibly light metallic material judging by the way it looked and opened. He produced a simple A4 envelope, and this he opened as well. He came closer to give Richard a view of the contents, a stack of laminated documents. The man flicked through them, and Richard glimpsed a morass of text, numbers, symbols, and diagrams.

“I’ll explain. That Richard remembers sitting in the observation room with you, right after the experiment. Danielle called you away, and then security came for him. He was strapped to a bed and sedated. His last conscious thought was of how he would probably never be free again.” The old man sealed the envelope and gazed at it with quiet awe. “When he wakes, he will find this. It’s strange to think that I’m the one who puts it here.” With that, he hobbled over to his younger self and slipped the envelope under the pillow. Then he spoke without looking back at Richard, his eyes fixed instead upon the sleeping figure (who surely made an excellent substitute).

“They’re a set of instructions, a step-by-step guide to his own creation. It will tell him not only how to make the necessary alterations to the teleporter experiment, but also how to be in the right place…at the right time.”

“Time-travel? It doesn’t exist.”

“Not yet. He’s going to invent it. It will take him a lifetime of toil, but I have given him what he needs.”

Richard wasn’t incredulous; he had come to terms with the existence of his own clone today, twice, so he was willing to consider pretty much anything at that point. A thousand questions, white-hot curiosity, seared his mind. But he doubted he would get proper answers. The old man had something to say, and Richard knew he wasn’t about to get side-tracked.

“Imagine waking up under those circumstances. What was I to do? Suddenly I had my life back. Everyone thought I was the ‘original’ Richard.” Saying this seemed to remind him of something. He returned to his open briefcase and withdrew a small bottle of liquid and a cloth. “You were in my place, never able to even try proving me a fraud. It would have been futile anyway.” He dampened the cloth and dabbed the back of Richard’s left hand. The black ink there vanished. “And I just let it happen, thankful for the gift I had inexplicably received. One thing that kept me silent was the certainty that you had been going to do the same to me.” He took a marker from the desk and drew an ‘O’ in place of the ‘I’ he had just removed.

“You don’t know that!” Richard choked.  That drawing of that simple symbol brought home the reality of Richard’s situation. Now he was the one who would probably never be free again.        

“I suppose not.” The old man said, thoughtfully. “Though knowing you the way I do, I think it’s pretty likely. Regardless, we’ll never be sure, because now he’s the one in charge.” Richard followed his gaze over to the sleeping figure.

“What’s he going to do to me?”

“It would not comfort you to hear it. Better you never know.” Well that, at least, wasn’t comforting.

“You don’t have the slightest idea how any of this happened, do you?” Richard said. It was almost too much for his drugged mind to wrap itself around. The tampering with the experiment, the placing of the all-important envelope, the swapping of Richard with his double; none of it would have been possible without the intervention of the old man. And yet that old man owed his own existence to that very chain of events. He smiled as he replied, eyes alive with absurdly childlike wonder.

“No idea whatsoever.”

“How will you get home?”

“Oh, there’s no going back.” The smile grew wistful. “But I didn’t leave much of a home behind. And there’s no future for me here either. I’m very old. Without the technology I have grown accustomed to, I will live for maybe a day or two. I always knew this trip would be among my final acts.” Judging from his appearance, Richard could believe it. But he wasn’t sure he understood.

“Then why? You could have left it. You could have forgotten about me, and the time-jump, and lived life however you wanted. But you gave up everything to follow the instructions in an envelope.” Richard found himself relaxing, which made speech easier. Maybe it was the drug. Or maybe he was just accepting his fate.

“Of course I did!” The old man was almost breathless with elation. “An entirely self-initiated series of events, looping through time, results in the creation of my consciousness. It doesn’t make a single bit of sense. And yet it is.  I am. Isn’t that something worth my life’s effort? Something worth preserving, no matter the cost?”

Richard no longer had the strength to laugh. Still, he couldn’t help but try. Because, now that he thought about it, he had to agree with the old man. And it was suddenly all just so funny.

“Besides, as I said, things must happen this way. There’s no such thing as a second time around when it comes to the course of history. I couldn’t really have refused those instructions, because I didn’t. My existence is proof enough of that.”  

The man sleeping on the bed began to stir. Little more than a slight shifting around and change in breathing pattern, but the old man took note.

“Well, we’re just about out of time. Still have to get you to your new quarters. And then a nice lie down for me, I think.” He said it so casually, a doddering senior recounting his plans for the rest of the afternoon. It made the appearance of another syringe all the more sinister. “Goodbye, Doctor. Take solace in the fact that you had a hand in some truly unprecedented science, though few will ever know it.”

Richard’s response was snared in his throat as the needle plunged into him. His last sight, his last thought, was of the sleeping figure; identical to him in every way but for the mark on his hand. Richard was incapable or resentment, or envy, or self-pity. He had said it himself. That man was him, by any measure. Why should he be the one to live out the life of Richard Madoff instead of his double? What right did anyone have to assign that life to him, and what right did he have to demand it? And then he realised the old man was right. Suddenly it was obvious what would become of him, what the double was going to do: Precisely what he himself would have done. Somehow that knowledge made him feel a little better. Then he felt no more. 

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Newsflash!

Just a quick post to keep this blog alive in my absence. I am working on THINGS. Expect to see, in the relatively near future, the following THINGS:

Two new chapters of Alan Among the Deceased, revisions of the previous chapters, and an entirely separate short sci-fi story.

That is all, carry on!

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Among the Deceased, Chapter 3

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4.  Chapter 5.  Chapter 6.

As it turns out, everyone is fine except for Elise, who only has a sprained wrist. This still doesn’t make Alan feel fantastic, considering that she’s the only one he was actually supposed to be responsible for. Upon returning, Mum had hardly known who to be angry with first. Seeing Alan holding his blood-drenched ice-axe, crouched over his equally-soiled sister still gripped by the rigid hands of a corpse, Mum had only just barely managed to maintain the resolute calm she’s so respected for. But that calm had only made her wrath all the more terrifying when she had looked into Alan’s eyes and demanded an explanation.

Both Claire and Elise had endured the unpleasantness of removing the dead hands still clutching them. This process had involved Bernard and Owen brutally yanking back each digit, producing a series of sickening cracks. Kiran had given an assessment of Elise’s wrist and determined that nothing needed splinting or bandaging, but warned her not to move the arm too much. By the time all this had been accomplished, Mum had gotten a clearer idea of events. Her ire had been drawn away from Alan and more onto the girls.

“Elise, haven’t I already explained it to you enough? You must always stay with your brother! You got into trouble because you were too far away for Alan to help you! And what if he had needed your help?”

“But you also told me to keep away from the zombies. You told me! Never let them get close enough to bite you. Run away!” Her head had been bowed and her uninjured hand nervously clutched the hem of her dress. But her voice had been strong, defiant.

“Only if you know you have a safe place to run to! And out here you must always assume there is danger. The safest place for you to be, for both of you, is with Alan.” Mum had stood and left Elise to think while she rounded on Claire. “And that goes for you too! You shouldn’t have left them!”

The woman who had always been full of smiles and self-confidence was suddenly lost and distraught. She had apologized over and over, apparently trying to convince herself rather than Mum.

“I don’t know, I heard the fight and lost it for a moment. I was going to try and help, y’know? Then I thought of the kids, and realised I couldn’t. I didn’t see the…the body in the grass. I went to turn back but that hand had already grabbed me and…” Mum had relented, though not offered any words of comfort. Alan had caught a glimpse of her eyes and seen smouldering embers in them.

“Everyone, learn from this!” she had announced. “Everything is only going to get more overgrown, and that means we have to watch where we step.”

As Claire guessed, there had been a scuffle inside the petrol station. Thankfully Mum’s axe had made short work of both undead assailants, after Owen had so skilfully flushed them out by nearly tripping over one. The group hadn’t gotten much further, though, before Elise’s screaming had sent them running back outside.

This means that the petrol station remains a potentially fruitful scavenging opportunity. Mum wants to leave Alan, Elise and Claire behind again, but vehement protest from all three, especially Elise, gets her to begrudgingly concede.

“After all,” Owen inputs “we already cleared the place. Probably more dangerous to leave the kids behind, considering what just h-” A glance from his furious sister silences him, and he raises hands and eyebrows in an ‘I’m done!’ gesture.

Everyone walks to the building in silence. Mum enters first, followed by Owen and Claire. Alan peers through the doorway and wrinkles his nose at the smell: a combination of rotting flesh and the bitter aroma associated with all infected cadavers. He can see one of them sprawled on the floor amongst dust and rubbish. It’s a ripe one; the fungus has had enough time to sprout its little fronds from between fingers and toes, from armpits and belly-button. The head, lying separated from the neck next to a spattering of gore, sports tendrils far longer than on the one which had attacked Elise. The grey flesh is so wasted that almost every ridge of its skeleton is visible. Tiny green lines are webbed beneath it like veins. Sticking out from behind the counter is a pair of bare feet, which Alan doesn’t feel compelled to investigate further.

He glances back out the doorway to see that Bernard has picked up the plastic bag Mum found earlier. He is staring in at its contents, his grin and wide eyes dominating his face with glee. After a moment he notices Alan watching. He reaches into the bag and produces a thick bottle full of what Alan realises is some kind of liquor. Bernard waggles it in the air.

“It’s good stuff!” he informs him, as though the boy will share his elation. “Maybe your mum’ll let you try some, eh?” Alan hears Kiran snort derisively from somewhere off to the side.

“Does it taste any better than wine?” Alan asks, remembering the couple of occasions that Dad had allowed him to try a sip of the strange, bitter liquid that all the adults seemed obsessed with. Now it’s Bernard’s turn to bark out a laugh.

“Not to you, probably. But that’s not really the point!”

“How come?” Elise pipes up. Her customary smile and effervescent energy are missing, but her curiosity apparently hasn’t been affected. Bernard frowns, not sure how to talk to the little girl at the best of times.

“It’s…grown-ups like to drink it because-“

“It gets you drunk.” Alan interjects, foreseeing a tedious and unhelpful explanation.

“Ohhh.” Elise understands, rolling her eyes a little.

“C’mon, let’s go see inside.”

They leave Bernard muttering to the bottle, Kiran still silently scanning the area. The group inside have already found some useful items, are stuffing cans and boxes into backpacks. Mum emerges from a back room with a long, black object, holding it at arms-length as if afraid of it.

“This was in a locked cabinet.” Her voice is low. “Don’t you need a license for these?”

“Whoever owned this place probably got one for hunting or something.” Owen guesses. “But having a gun around might be smart if you’re running a business all the way out here.”

“I suppose we should take it. I’ll see if there are bullets somewhere.” she sounds reluctant but resolute as she heads back into the other room, leaving the gun on the counter. Owen looks around and spies the siblings, smiles and waves them over to him. Elise is staring warily at the decapitated zombie, probably remembering the cold iron grip of dead hands. But her attention is thankfully drawn away from the morbid sight to Owen’s cheerful voice.

“Hey kiddos. Yeah, your Mum took care of that one. She’s great to have around y’know, really keeps her head!” Elise doesn’t get it, and Alan just looks at him. Owen’s face-splitting grin diminishes; he’s probably thinking the joke has gone vastly underappreciated.

Undeterred, he continues. “So, still up for that chocolate bar we were talking about earlier?” Their uncle brandishes a black foil-wapped bar, holding it out to display its impressive length. “There’s quite a few of them, and they’re only a little expired and, uh, melted.” he explains excitedly. Elise’s smile blooms back onto her face as she exclaims her approval, and even Alan shows a grin at the prospect of chocolate. It’s been a while. “Here. Your Mum’d probably kill me for ignoring the rationing, but you two take this one.”

“Thanks Owen!” Genuinely grateful, Alan gets to work breaking it in half evenly inside the packaging. Elise will probably notice and make a fuss if he’s even a little bit off-centre…

“So, uh, is Claire okay?” Owen asks suddenly, much more quietly. “I mean she’s usually so…spunky, y’know? Did she get hurt out there?” His gaze floats unconsciously to the far side of the room where Claire’s dark form is silently packing cans. Then he realises he’s looking, turns back to Alan with an eyebrow raised. Alan can’t find his words. This is complicated, and he’s not sure he knows the right answer. But Elise is looking at him as well, like she also wants to know.

“She’s okay.” he tries, unconvincingly. “I mean, she didn’t get hurt. But…she’s been our babysitter nearly since Elise was born. She’s supposed to look after us. And she couldn’t.” Elise would have died.

“Oh…” Owen suddenly realises that, apocalypse or no, this is probably too heavy a topic to be discussing with a nine-year-old.

“Hey, what about the workshop over here?” Bernard calls from outside, poking a hole in the expanding awkwardness. It deflates rapidly as everyone heads outside to see what he’s talking about. Alan leaves the chocolate bar wrapped and stuffs it into his pack, ignoring Elise’s protests.

Bernard is standing in front of the two big garage doors. The group forms up around him in a semi-circle, warily eyeing the rusty metal that conceals the interior of the building. No one wants to approach, as though afraid that the doors themselves will leap forward and bite.

“No way a zombie got in through here.” is Bernard’s assessment. “They don’t have the brains to lift up one of these doors.” Still, no one moves.

“But…why are they closed?” Elise asks, after a moment. No one really pays her any heed except for Mum.

“What do you mean, sweetie?”

“There were cars at the petrol things. So the shop was open, right?” she only seems a little uncertain, far less so than the rest of the group. Alan thinks he understands her disjointed thoughts.

“You mean when everyone died?” he asks. Several of them shift uncomfortably at this and shoot him warning looks; this isn’t a topic to be talked about so casually. But Elise just nods.

“So if the shop was open, they would’ve been fixing cars and stuff. The doors would’ve been open!” she seems pleased with herself, upon deciding this. Not everyone is so impressed.

“Not necessarily,” says Kiran from the rear. “The service station could plausibly have been open while the workshop was closed.”

“More to the point, what difference does it make? They’re closed now.” This is Bernard, apparently having forgotten what his reasoning had been in the first place. Elise is confused, trying to process all the talking. Alan takes over.

“If the doors were open when everyone died, someone had to close them later. They’d only bother doing that if they wanted to keep something out or keep something in.” Realisation begins to show on several faces, mainly Mum’s and Kiran’s. Alan continues working through the logic. “So either there was someone hiding in there and they’re…still there…or there’s something in there which someone didn’t want getting out.”

“Or the doors were closed in the first place.” Kiran reminds everyone in an exasperated tone. “Or maybe someone is storing supplies there.”

“Or someone just shut the damn doors for no reason. What does it matter? Let’s just open them and find out!” Bernard is annoyed, getting impatient. Alan just shrugs, deciding it’s time to shut up and let them get to it. Eventually someone does. Mum approaches the near door and nods to Bernard, who gets the idea and takes up position at the other. They count down from three. The doors make a tremendous rattling and screeching as they slide up. The group has about a split second in which to see a couple of cars suspended, mid-repair, and some tools strewn about the oily floor.

Then, silently, a dozen heads swivel towards them. Sickly yellow eyes glint. Mouths gape open, dripping with deadly toxin.

The doors slam back down.

“Time to go.” says Mum.

***

Claire trudges along in gloomy silence, separate from the others and mostly unresponsive. Alan gets a weak smile and a nod when he asks if her ankle is okay, but that’s about the extent of it.

The sun has barely begun its slow descent towards the horizon when Mum announces that they will be stopping soon. Elise and Alan glance at each other in confusion; daylight hours are usually reserved for their all-important walking. But apparently Mum and Bernard, with the help of the map, located a tramping hut, only a short hike off the main road, when they were planning the route this morning. They were going to give it a miss because it was rather close but, considering the events of the day, Mum thinks it’s worth stopping a little early. No one raises the slightest objection.

They find the entrance to the trail without much trouble; a sign still marks it with cheerful yellow text and a few simple symbols depicting a hut, a tent, a couple of people walking with packs on, and the adjacent-man-and-woman figures that universally mean “toilet”. Alan used to see this kind of sign a lot while on trips with the family, but now it just makes him feel weird. The people who put it there, and the people who last made use of it, are probably dead.

Mum isn’t at all happy about the narrow path ahead of them, with thick foliage to either side hiding who-knows-what. Thankfully, though, after a few minutes the path opens up on to a boardwalk through grassy tundra. Mountains garbed in green are visible in the distance, a breeze from their snow-touched peaks wafting down the slopes to cool the group’s march. But everyone is concentrating less on the view and more on staying on the platform, and out of the tall grasses.

They walk. The last of the afternoon passes, hot and sticky, slowly trickling like golden syrup.

It isn’t too long before Alan is sitting against a rocky river-bank, stripped and doing his best to wash the congealed red goop from his skin and hair. Elise, having already done so, splashes around in the gentle current, though her sprained wrist is held tenderly to her side. Behind them Mum and Owen drape wet clothing over some convenient branches, while further up the path the rest of the adults are preparing dinner in front of what is possibly the best night shelter they’ve had in weeks. The place is great. A broad and solid structure, there will be enough space for everyone to spread out comfortably tonight. The hut is in the centre of a sizable clearing, which leaves it feeling sheltered without being too close to the perilous concealment of the trees and ferns that surround it. There’s even a toilet, of sorts. And close proximity to running water is a luxury none of them had dared hope for.

Alan listens to the river, the long cries of evening birds, the soft hiss of the breeze rustling through branches. He smells the odour of cooking within the fresh scents of the bush. Something like a sense of peace touches his mind, and the feeling rapidly sinks through his flesh, spreading through his muscles and washing the tension downstream.

But it can’t last. Worries begin to bubble up again almost immediately as the reality of Alan’s life returns to his thoughts. The familiar sensation of anxiety presses down on his mind once more, like plastic slowly vacuum-packed around it. He could have died today. Elise could have died, or even Mum. Any of them could die, and everything would just have to keep going.

“You guys want dinner?” Claire’s voice sounds from just up the path. “Got some baked beans and canned beef almost ready.” Owen makes a quietly repulsed noise at the mention of baked beans.

“Sounds good, be up in a minute.” Mum replies. “Almost done with the clothes, and the kids are just finishing their bath.” Alan feels blood rush to his cheeks as he imagines that comment drawing their eyes to him, turns slightly to confirm his suspicions.

“Can you not all stand there? It’s bad enough with just Mum…” he calls back, whinging.

“After what happened today, you’re crazy if you think I’m letting either of you out of my sight just because you’re embarrassed about me seeing your bottom for the millionth time.” She taunts, half-serious. The others titter. Alan ignores them all and goes back to scrubbing.

Later, dinner having been dutifully consumed, everyone is arranged on the deck evaluating the day’s loot. Elise and Alan share the chocolate bar, melted and oozing with caramel, while the adults pull various items from their packs and display them. Apart from a fresh supply of tinned food and bags of grains, they have also pillaged a first-aid box for some much-needed medical supplies. Kiran takes charge of these. There is a little camping stove along with some other food-preparation paraphernalia, which Bernard thinks will be too troublesome to carry. He has no such qualms about the two bottles of old Irish whiskey; he’s already cracked one of them open, which is probably why he actually seems cheerful for once.

Eventually they reach the gun. Mum unfastens it from her pack and removes the rag she had wrapped around it, laying it out for all to see. Alan knows a bit about this sort of thing from books, games, and T.V. He, like many boys, has a vague fascination with guns, but not much idea of how they work or what he would ever want to do with one. This variety is a shotgun, he’s pretty sure. It’s clean and in good condition, made mostly of black metal with a wooden bit at the non-firing end that you put against your shoulder. He knows the part that you grip below the barrel can be pumped back and forward, making a *cha-chik* noise, and that you have to do this in-between every shot.

“Hey, where’d that come from?” Bernard’s exclamation is a little slurred.

“Don’t mix guns and booze, man.” Owen says, using the distraction to grab the bottle. After a moment’s consideration the younger man takes a swig, with considerably more wincing and shuddering than Bernard.

“Found it at the petrol station,” Mum explains. She is holding a small, colourful cylinder up for examination, and has a little cardboard box full of them on her lap. “I didn’t think it was that easy to own these things, especially kept so insecurely.”

“Pretty much anyone can keep a hunting rifle or shotgun. You just need to sit a test, like for a driver’s license.” Apparently Bernard is an enthusiast of guns as well as of whiskey. “It’s pistols we won’t be seeing much of. If you want one of them you need a proper safe to lock it in, and you gotta join a gun club or something.”

“That is good.” Kiran says, a carpet of medical supplies spread around him. “If we meet anyone who has a gun, we will want to be able to see it straight away.”

“Woah, you think we’re gonna meet someone who’ll want to shoot us?” Owen sounds as if he genuinely hasn’t considered this possibility.

“Why not? Apart from that gun, we have supplies, clothing. And some of our group members are…vulnerable,” Alan doesn’t miss the involuntary flicks of Kiran’s eyes, first to Claire, then to Elise and himself. Alan gets the impression that Kiran was going to say something other than “vulnerable” but had thought better of it. What does he mean? Claire catches his glance too, and a scowl creeps on to her face. She looks like she’s about to protest somehow, but hesitates. She misses her chance; Owen has piped up again to express his doubts.

“Oh come on. Last year, walking down the street, how many people would you pass and think ‘Yup, there’s someone who’d kill me for a few tins of baked beans’?”

“You can never be certain. Society keeps those people from showing their true nature. But, when society collapses, they are capable of anything. We cannot trust anybody, you realise?” Kiran speaks in a near monotone, not meeting anyone’s eyes. No one wants to respond to this.

Soon after the sun has completely vanished behind the distant hills, Elise and Alan lie awake in their sleeping bags, side by side in a corner. Mum’s is spread out a few metres away, ready for when she returns from first watch. The heavy breathing of sleep already fills the hut’s single, cavernous room.

“Alan?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re walking to get to where Dad was, right?”

“Mm.”

“But, how do we know he’s still there?”

“We don’t. But if he’s gone, we might find something to tell us where he went.” Elise is quiet for a moment. Then her hushed voice enquires:

“How do we know he’s not dead?”

“We don’t.” Alan answers again, with no hesitation. “Do you think he is?”

“Well…most people died on the first day, remember?” She’s trying to keep her voice normal-sounding, but Alan can hear it wavering with restrained emotion. “We’re all just lucky. The wind didn’t make us go crazy. But Dad…”

Alan remembers very well. His classroom. The odd smell on the breeze through the windows. The other kids, the teacher. He was the only one who had made it out of that room alive.

“Maybe Dad was lucky too. Maybe he didn’t die either.” Alan is trying to sound normal as well. It’s a good thing he’s better at it than Elise, who is appeased for longer this time. Still, not for very long.

“But he might be dead, right?”

There’s no reassuring answer to this question, no honest one. Alan pretends to be asleep. He feels her prodding him in the ribs through the sleeping bags, recoils from the unpleasant tickling.

“Alan!”

“Nnngghh, what?” He turns to look at her. Her wide eyes peek out at him, glistening in the near pitch-blackness.

“If you hadn’t killed that zombie today, if it had bitten me, I’d be dead. Right?” No avoiding it.

“Yes. But you can’t worry about that.” he adds quickly. “Don’t worry about people dying before it happens. It might not happen. Just worry about staying safe. Right now you’re safe, so don’t worry.”

“Okay.” Her voice is tiny. She rolls over to face away from him. Soon, Alan hears her sniffling. This becomes whimpering, which becomes quiet sobbing. It’s all Alan can do not to join her in her tears. Instead he wriggles his arms free of the sleeping bag and shuffles closer to his sister. He wraps her in a hug, tucking her head back against his chest, and feels her trembling diminish. Eventually she is quiet again, if not asleep.

She can’t just not worry, Alan knows. But there’s nothing he can do about it.

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Among the Deceased, Chapter 2

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4.  Chapter 5.  Chapter 6.

The sun is merciless once it gets going. Summer is truly in earnest now, and the days are going to get hotter before they get cooler. Brilliant rays drench the green landscape with gold, birds and insects fill the fragrant air with chirruping, and the overall impression is one of an idyllic December morning. But it sure is hot, and there’s no shelter to be found along the soon-to-be-overgrown motorway. Not the most comfortable weather for walking. And, in Alan’s opinion, this sort of day just serves to mock the group’s dismal situation with its inappropriate cheerfulness. Mum had rationed out sunscreen for the kids and planted bucket hats on both of their heads. Now they walk sharing breakfast in the form of a tin of peaches. They don’t always eat on the go, but they had camped out in the open and already stayed for longer than is strictly safe. Besides, it’s a good idea to get as much walking done as possible before the sun gets too swelteringly high. Everyone discards their empty tins on the roadside. Mum always used to forbid Alan and Elise from littering, said it was inconsiderate and irresponsible. But these days…well, it’s not as though anyone comes around to empty the bins anymore, and the prospect of carrying their rubbish with them seems a laughable waste of effort. Nature has already gotten an unfair advantage over civilisation, Alan decides, what with the majority of humans being dead and the rest being unable to safely operate anything with a motor. He doubts that any of their environmentally un-friendly activities will hinder the reclamation of towns and cities by plant-life.

An hour or so passes, mostly in silence; small talk is pretty much a dead art, a fact Alan is often thankful for. Then:

“There’s a service station up ahead.” Owen informs them from the front. “Think we should stop and have a look?”

“Let’s see when we get closer.” Mum responds, reluctant to assume anything. So far on their journey they have avoided most buildings. They stocked up pretty well after their escape from the failure of an army camp back home, so their supplies have only just started running low enough that snooping around indoors seems worth the risk. After all, indoors is where those things go, during the day. Kiran once said he thinks it’s an instinctual mechanism for staying out of the heat, that they prefer the cool and the shade. But it’s been days since the group has seen any town big enough to be called such, and this is just a lone petrol station in the middle of nowhere. The more isolated a place is, the less likely it is to be…inhabited.

“I could definitely go for something decent to drink.” Bernard muses with longing.

“Even just a chocolate bar would be worth it, I reckon.” Owen agrees. This prospect seems to grab Elise’s attention, and she shoots a hopeful glance Mum’s way. But Mum ignores it, intent on withholding any promises.

It isn’t long before they’re standing about a hundred metres from the place, eyeing it carefully. There are two battered four-wheel-drives parked near a couple of disused petrol pumps installed out front, one of which is missing the nozzle and hose entirely. A section of roofing extends over the pumps from the storefront, though the large windows are covered with a cobweb of cracks making it difficult to see inside. Two big, rusty roller doors conceal the interior of the workshop next door. All in all not the safest place to be entering, but it could be a lot worse.

“Okay, I say we have a look.” Mum decides, “We should bring as big a group as possible; Bernard, Owen, Kiran and me. Claire, you can stay here with the kids.”

Alan feels put out, automatically excluded from the interesting task. But he knows going himself is out of the question; Elise has to stay, of course, and it’s his job to watch her. So he channels his annoyance down a different avenue of protest, just for the sake of it.

“How come Claire has to stay? She’s helpful, she knows more about this stuff than Bernard!” His uncle scowls briefly, but doesn’t comment.

“Hey, chill out,” Claire bends to look at him with a wry grin. “I also know more about keeping an eye on you two. Your mum knows what she’s doing.” Alan rolls his eyes, but concedes with a nod. Claire affectionately ruffles up his mess of brown hair and claps his ridiculous hat back down on it. Redness flows unbidden to his cheeks.

“Well, now that we’ve sorted that out, shall we go?” Mum suggests, having armed herself with her hefty fire-axe. Bernard and Owen have similarly prepared, are equipped with a pipe-wrench and a kitchen cleaver respectively.

“Are we certain that this is a good idea?” enunciates Kiran in his clipped voice. “I think everyone remembers what happened to Jack and John not too long ago...” This sends black thoughts bubbling like tar to the surface of every mind, casts grim expressions on more than a few faces. Yes, they remember Jack and John all too well. But Mum breaks the silence after only a brief pause.

“No disrespect intended, but those two were idiots.” she says, her contempt plain to hear. Such an assessment might be harsh, but Alan can tell that everyone agrees. He does too. “We’ve been surviving out here for much longer now, and we’re prepared this time. We’ll be fine if we’re careful.”

“Have to start scavenging sometime, might as well be now.” Bernard puts in. There’s no further complaint from Kiran, who reluctantly produces a claw hammer from his pack. It’s big but practically brand new, and the scrawny young man grips it uncertainly; Alan doubts he has ever hit anything in his life.

Almost as an afterthought, Mum pulls Elise and Alan into a hug. Alan can feel one of her hands gripping the axe against his back.  

“You two be sensible. We’ll be back in a few minutes.” She smiles at them as they mumble their assent. Then she stands and shares a silent glance with Claire before turning away.

The party has now split. The larger group starts off at a cautious pace across the knee-high grass, leaving Alan, Elise and Claire huddled closely at the roadside. Alan sees Owen and Bernard watching to either side, Mum scanning ahead with determination. All four hold their makeshift weapons at the ready. As their footsteps fade, the sounds of the countryside swell to deafening proportions to fill the absence.

Alan watches as they reach the pumps and carefully approach each parked vehicle. Mum shatters a car window with the butt of her axe, reaches inside and flips the lock, then swings the door open. Alan feels his eyes almost physically fixed to the scene, even though he knows he should be checking around every minute or so. Mum rummages inside the car, withdraws a white plastic bag, and says something to the others. It’s not audible, but the triumphant “Whoop!” from Bernard definitely is. As are the reprimanding shushes in response from Mum and Kiran. Mum places the bag on the ground where it can be quickly snatched up while escaping, if need be.

Alan watches as the group turns its attention to the building itself. He can just make out Mum approaching the windows and examining something. She moves to the sliding glass door and jerks it to the side. One by one they file in, with Kiran last in line and lingering at the doorway. It is now impossible for Alan to know what’s happening to Mum and the others; they aren’t visible in the dark interior through the cracked glass.

Alan watches. A long time seems to pass without anything happening. The mood grows tense, until its thickness seems to buzz in his ears and press down upon his chest. He is conscious of Elise moving closer beside him, of Claire barely breathing in an effort to catch every sound.

Then there is a scream. It’s not long, more a startled yelp than anything else, but the urgency is obvious. Claire inhales sharply and lurches forward, running a few steps from the road before her rational mind kicks in properly and brings her to a halt. There are other sounds now, grunts of exertion along with some loud thudding and clanging. The sounds of a struggle taking place. All three of them stare as though entranced, though they can’t see a thing beyond the fact that Kiran has finally disappeared from the doorway. Now it’s quiet again. Another long time seems to pass, the three of them suspended motionless in anticipation, but nothing else happens. Claire turns to look at the siblings, emotions battling for expression despite her obvious attempts to remain calm.

“Okay, we should go and check on them.” she states uncertainly, starting back. “But we have to be really caref-”

She breaks off, horror washing everything else from her face. Alan feels uncertain dread soaking slowly through his body, setting his limbs trembling. He hears panic in Elise’s breathing close beside him. Claire jerks forward a couple of times but gets no closer.

“I can’t move!” she exclaims breathlessly, her eyes wide and frantic. “My foot’s trapped, I can’t move my foot!” That’s when Alan sees it: a mottled grey hand reaching up from the grass, fastened around Claire’s ankle with a vice-like grip.

“It’s one of them!” he blurts, pointing. “Behind you, on the ground!”

Elise squeals and dashes away, into the grass on the other side of the road. A pang of anxiety passes through Alan’s mind, but he has to act quickly – no distractions. Claire is fumbling around on the side of her pack, trying to free the section of pipe which is strapped there and doing a poor job of it. Alan has his ice-axe in hand first, is just about to rush over and help. But then Claire looks up and her eyes snap to something over Alan’s shoulder.

“Elise!” is all she needs to yell.

He spins back around to see his sister watching wide-eyed from a fair distance away. Another rough-looking vehicle can be seen behind her, its bonnet crumpled against a sturdy tree, one of its doors twisted open in a manner which it is clearly not designed for. The missing pump-hose is trailing from it, caught by its nozzle in the opening to the petrol tank. Elise is a metre or so away from the car, facing away.

So she doesn’t see the zombie emerging from it.

It doesn’t act like a human, but it just barely looks like one. Its thin limbs are sluggish but twitch sporadically, causing it to jerk forward irregularly instead of anything like a normal stride. Fingers appearing unnaturally long due to the wasting flesh around them, its hands reach out with those same disturbing twitches, curling, uncurling and rotating around at the ends of stick-like wrists. Its head is the worst though. Its yellow eyes are rolled backwards, unblinking, unseeing, the straggly remnants of its hair hanging limply. Its jaw is unhinged, dangling open unnaturally wide, exposing a set of cracked and jagged teeth with a shrivelled tongue lolling out from between them. That gaping maw dominates its entire face, dripping with some oily liquid that Alan knows is not saliva. And, splitting the top of its scalp like a weed pushing through concrete, a pale, green, rubbery-looking growth sprouts upwards a few centimetres. It consists of a couple of thin, snaking protrusions surrounded by a bulbous mass which reminds Alan grotesquely of cauliflower, as well as some flat, irregular, petal-like fronds. It’s a fascinating shape, and one which immediately induces some primal, instinctual revulsion.

But Alan has no time to pay heed to such impulses. He drops his pack and sprints, calling out a warning. Elise comprehends and turns just in time to see the thing lunging. She never would have noticed otherwise; they barely make any sound at all. But Elise does, a shrill cry of hysterical terror. Her tiny hands go up defensively as she tries to back away, but it’s too late for that. The arms shoot forward, hands clamp around her wrists, and her scream redoubles with pain and fright. Alan has never run so fast, but even as he closes the distance he gradually begins to feel the crushing weight of the fact that he isn’t going to get there in time. He’s so close, close enough to smell the stench of decay, but some faculty of his mind has calculated in an instant that he’s not close enough.

Then he realises something else. Some kind of black tube is lying along the grass, leaving a track where it presses down. It’s the petrol hose, and it runs from the crashed car in a short loop. Alan can see the end of it just within his reach. He dives for it, grabbing and hauling on it with all his might, and the rubber tube goes taut. The zombie’s left foot jumps suddenly into the air, caught by the hose. It topples stiffly, unfortunately taking Elise with it, and they both go tumbling to the grass.

Alan is on them in an instant. The zombie tries to draw Elise closer to its deadly jaws, but jerks to stillness as the ice-axe bites deeply into its head with a solid *thunk*. Apparently his first blow was a lucky one, damaging the infected brain somewhere related to motor control, but he isn’t about to stop there. His weapon strikes again and again, unnaturally thick blood oozing and splattering. It isn’t anger that drives him, or bloodlust, or even panic really. It is the simple certainty that this thing has to die right now, and he isn’t about to take any chances in that regard.

He stops when he’s too exhausted to extract his ice-axe from the mangled mound of flesh and hair and teeth. His breath comes in ragged gulps and gasps, his whole body shakes, and a thin layer of red-brown gore coats most of his arms and face. Somehow he finds the will to look at Elise. Relief floods through him at seeing her alive and conscious, if not in the best of shape. Her face is still scrunched up, tears of fright and pain flowing freely, but she isn’t convulsing or going crazy. Alan realises he is crying too, pale tracks of clean skin left in the grime on his cheeks, though he can’t tell whether it’s because of fear or relief or simply adrenaline.

“You’re okay, right? It didn’t bite you, right?” he babbles the questions, his voice sharply edged.

“It…it…it didn’t bite me…” she stammers, in-between sobs. “B-but my arm really hurts, and its hands w-w-won’t let go!” the pitch of her voice jumps up as she fully realises this, staring at the motionless appendages still trapping her.

“Don’t worry!” Alan grips her shoulder gently. “Don’t worry, we’ll get Mum and she’ll get rid of it and make your arm better. I promise!”

“Okay…” she sniffs miserably. “Alan, are you okay? Is Claire okay?” Only at this reminder does Alan think to look back across the road. Claire is crouched, the end of her weapon freshly splotched with blood, trying to pry the now truly dead fingers from around her ankle.

“She’s fine. I’m fine.” He turns back to look his sister in the eyes. She breathes out, calming a little more. Alan isn’t sure what to do. He should get help, but how can he just leave her here? How badly hurt is she? What if another zombie comes along before she gets free? What if one of the adults got hurt at the petrol station, or worse? And what if Claire got bitten or something, and there’s no one left to get help from?

“Alan?” Elise’s voice is quiet but stable.

“Yeah, what?”

“You really look like you need a bath.”      

[pundemic-thinks-he-can-write]

Among the Deceased, Chapter 1

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4.  Chapter 5.  Chapter 6.

Despite his earlier confidence, Alan quickly discovers that staying awake at night is not easy. Sure, maybe if all you’ve been doing all day is watching TV, or sitting in an office, or playing with toy ponies, you could stay up for a couple hours no problem. But no one has done any of those things for almost four months now. Instead, Alan, his mum, his little sister, his two uncles, his babysitter, and some weird guy with glasses spend every day walking non-stop, and every night taking turns staying awake. Awake and bored.

That’s the main problem, he decides. It’s boring. He can’t draw or read; he’ll get so caught up with either one that he won’t pay any attention to what he’s supposed to be doing. Besides, a light would use up precious batteries. So he just sits there on the picnic table, struggling to stay alert as his eyelids droop lower and lower. Nothing makes Alan sleepy faster than having nothing interesting to do or to think about, and he’s too tired to have any interesting thoughts right now. His teachers used to think he was dumb because he dozed off in class. But he’s not dumb! It’s just that they forced him to pay attention to them and their droning. Did teachers audition, he wonders, to make sure their voices sounded the right way to put people to sleep? He could have asked his homeroom teacher, Miss Appleton, but she probably would have thought he was making fun of her or something and not given a proper answer.

Besides, she’s been dead for ages now.

That thought snaps him back to attention, but only for a few moments. His thoughts soon begin to tiptoe away from him once again. It’s a pretty nice night; no wind to break the silence, no clouds to block the starry ceiling made all the more brilliant by the total lack of street lights. The clearing they have set up their sleeping bags in was once a proper campsite, with space for dozens of tents and camper vans. So there’s a big stretch of open space between Alan’s post and the surrounding bush. This perimeter, Alan knows, is very important for a safe camp.

Presently, he is reminded why. The moon is only half-full, but the clearing is illuminated enough that Alan notices when a figure comes into view. At this distance he can make out no more than a shadowy silhouette, limping from the bush at a snail’s pace. Just one. Alan isn’t scared, but he does try to be even more silent and his eyes track the shambling form closely. A silent eternity passes. Then it is gone, vanished back into the treeline. Stillness falls around him like a blanket, and Alan wonders how many more shadows might be lurking in there. Hundreds, probably, like always. But he’s sensible enough not to worry. Those things will have to get a lot closer before he really needs to pay attention or wake anybody up. There’s nothing to look at anymore. His focus wanes.

How long has it been? It feels like at least half an hour; he’s sure he could’ve watched a couple of cartoons in that time. There were a few cartoons he used to love, but it’s been so long since he’s seen one that he can’t even remember what the characters looked like. He tries to draw some of his favourites every now and then, but Mum kept some of his drawings from before everything happened and they don’t look like the ones he did last week. Not that he ever really got it right to begin with. Dad used to tell him his pictures were great, but they didn’t really match the characters on TV. Dad always lied like that when Alan showed him something he’d made. It was annoying. How was Alan supposed to get any better? He misses Dad, though. He hopes they find him soon, and then they can all take a long break from walking.

It’s a comforting thought, and Alan shifts around to a more comfortable spot in his sleeping bag. The fuzzy, blissful sensations of half-sleep almost send him back into unconsciousness, but then the wakeful part of his mind registers something odd. His eyes snap open, a mixture of dread and surprise sending an electric jolt through his chest. Early morning sunlight greets him, along with the sights and sounds of the group packing up. Alan pushes himself upright, mind reeling with anxiety and embarrassment, to see Elise staring at him with big eyes and a gap-toothed grin.

“You fell asleep on watch!” His sister’s voice is sing-song with ridicule. “Mum knew you were gonna. She sat up watching you and you went to sleep straight away.”

“Did not…” Alan mumbles, getting to his feet and ignoring the way it sends his head briefly spinning. He knows it’s a bad idea to do anything but ignore Elise as well, in these sorts of situations, but this is usually a lot more difficult to do.

“We could ‘a got eaten!” she presses, though her smirk suggests very little actual concern. “Your face is all red!” Alan pointedly avoids her gaze. He pulls on his shorts and shoes, and starts rolling up his sleeping bag. It’s bright pink, just like his sister’s, but all possible jokes about it at his expense have long since grown stale.

“You should be packing up.” he states flatly. This morning ritual has become just as automatic for Alan as getting ready for school used to be. He has never particularly enjoyed either routine, but at least he doesn’t have to leave for school after this one. He doesn’t carry much, especially considering it’s pretty much everything he owns: a water bottle, some dried rations, spare clothes, a comically padded coat, a parka, a whistle, a modest multi-tool, a toothbrush, a tiny L.E.D. torch, and a battered pad of drawing paper with a couple of pencils. Most of it still sits snugly in his tramping pack, and he stuffs in the rolled-up sleeping bag on top of it all. Last of all he carefully, almost reverently, secures a small climber’s ice-axe to the side within easy reach. Then he leaves his sister, who seems slightly disappointed that she couldn’t provoke a more entertaining reaction, and goes to find Mum.

She’s talking to Bernard, Dad’s brother, a pot-bellied man with half a head of greying hair. They have a grubby road map spread out on the table where Alan utterly failed to keep watch last night, and are wearily discussing the route while doing a lot of pointing and gesturing. Bernard stands a head taller than Mum, and should strike a more imposing figure, but there’s some sort of strength lacking in the way he speaks, the way he carries himself, which Mum possesses. Her low, clear voice carries easily across the field. His is thin, somehow, and wavers uncertainly, setting his wiry moustache aquiver. Alan hesitates, hoping for some kind of gap in their talking before he interjects. But as he draws closer, Mum catches sight of him and looks up with a smile. This kind of smile is now very familiar to Alan. Worn-out, drawn thin, with only the barest hint of warmth accompanying it in the eyes. It’s as though the will to smile is still there, somewhere, but the happiness to fuel it has run dry.

“G’morning darling. You and ‘Lise nearly ready to go?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Why didn’t you wake me up last night?”

Mum was fairly used to her son’s direct manner even back when things were normal, and has only grown more accustomed to it in the intervening months. Bernard raises a bushy eyebrow in slight puzzlement, but Mum doesn’t miss a beat.

“Oh Alan,” a mix of sadness and something like pride seep into the smile, “I know you wanted to help. But it’s okay; there are plenty of adults to keep watch, and you’re only ten. You’re too little to start helping with the night watch, you need more sleep than we do.”

“That’s how it used to be, but you said we all need to work harder now that we’re on the road. Just because I’m a kid doesn’t make it fair if I don’t do as much work, you know? You should’ve woken me up; I wouldn’t have dozed off again.” His voice is level, but he knows Mum can tell he’s upset.

Mum allows herself a short sigh, concentrating a great deal of stress into it. She wants to talk about this lightly and make him feel better, Alan knows, but she has a million other thoughts on her mind and she just can’t.

“But you don’t know that, honey. I only let you try it because I was keeping an eye on you. You were awake for about twenty minutes before I came and took over. If I hadn’t, we might have all been asleep and a group of those…” she trails off with another sigh, and Alan looks at her silently, his resolve slipping away. “Look, you’re a big help Alan, really. You take care of your sister, you carry things, you come up with some brilliant ideas, and you’re a great lookout when you’re not falling asleep. But you can’t keep a night watch yet, and we don’t need you to. Try not to worry about it, okay?”

Alan can’t think of anything to say to that. No, it’s not okay. He can’t just not worry. But what’s Mum supposed to do about it? So he nods, and Mum’s eyes get a little sadder. Bernard’s thin, gravelly voice pipes up.

“Hey little man, it’s nothing to be upset about. When you’re older you’ll miss all the sleep you’re getting these days.” That definitely doesn’t make Alan feel any better, and he gives his uncle only the briefest of glances before turning back.

“I’ll get Elise.” he mumbles, eyes down. They will have to start walking again soon.

But he’s still furious with himself, with Mum. She had put him to bed, just like she used to do when he fell asleep on the couch watching a movie. It had been nice, back then; waking up in the morning with no memory of going to bed. It was another way to know there was someone looking after him. But now it just reminds him of how he can’t even look after himself, let alone Elise or any of the others.

He returns to find said little sister struggling to fit her bunched-up sleeping bag into her pack. She doesn’t always have this problem, but she is notorious for losing focus on what she’s doing and messing it up. Alan reflects that the grim realities of her new life do not yet seem to have hindered Elise’s daydreaming. She can still get lost in her thoughts, which are often apparently fairly pleasant.

“You didn’t roll it up tight enough,” he states matter-of-factly, standing over her hunched form. Her red pigtails bob up and down as she vainly tries to squish the sleeping bag into a tighter bundle. “Here, lemme do it.”

“Thaank you Alan.” she warbles, brimming over with mock sweetness. Alan sighs as he spreads out the bag and starts all over again. He knows Elise could do it if she really tried, but apparently she’s feeling lazy this morning. She, at least, doesn’t much care about self-sufficiency as long as there’s someone around to do her work for her. Alan is done within a minute.

“Was Mum angry at you?” Elise wants to know.

“No.” He would almost have felt better if she had been. “C’mon, we’re leaving.”

Alan looks over to where the others are clustered, chatting quietly. The three of them complete the group: Claire is the bright and boisterous young woman who used to babysit Alan and Elise. Owen is Mum’s youngest brother, his tenacious goofiness making him practically the opposite of a certain other of Alan’s uncles. And Kiran is the quietly serious individual who Alan didn’t know before the world ended. All around the same age with similar interests (i.e. moaning to each other about how much they miss the internet), they normally get along famously. This is fortunate, since there aren’t exactly many choices when it comes to friends nowadays.

Claire sees Alan looking, sends him a wave and a half-smile. He smiles back and hoists his pack up to indicate that he’s ready. Everyone’s attention subtly shifts to the pair at the picnic table. Bernard is waiting cross-armed and looking vaguely irritated, as usual, and Mum is zipping the map up in the front of her pack. Then she turns to survey the group and sees that all is in order. A gust of wind sweeps through the grass, whisking away the last of the night’s stillness.

“Okay!” Mum’s voice rings out, “Let’s get moving.”