Tankbread 02 Immortal (35 page)

When the sun breached the horizon, the smoke was breaking up. A bucket brigade was dousing smoldering buildings next to the bonfires of lost houses. Another group, with cloth tied across their faces, were heaving withered corpses onto the flames.

Rache and Else sat on the steps of the building where the women had sheltered. From inside came the cries of babies being cuddled and comforted by mothers and wet nurses. Else’s son fussed and cried in her arms, the smoke in the air getting in his eyes and making them tear up. He had been fed and washed and was now wrapped in a clean blanket, but he remained unsettled.

“This place isn’t safe either,” Rache said and spat phlegm flecked with black into the dust.

“It’s no safer or more dangerous than any other place,” Else replied, moving the baby to her shoulder and rubbing his back.

“It’s not our place. It’s too far from the ocean. I need to be close to the sea. How can I be the captain of my own ship if we are in the middle of onland?” Rache frowned at the carnage and destruction.

“If I was going to have a place, I would do it differently,” she continued.

“I’d like to try setting up the zombie control barriers, like on the plans we found in the church,” Else said.

“Exactly, and have better food and resources and not be so far from the sea,” Rache replied.

The cleanup crews on the street scattered as horses came thundering down the road. They reined in, nearly a dozen riders in all, armed with rifles, faces marked with the painted crosses of the convent disciples.

“We’re looking for the woman called Else,” the lead rider said.

Else stayed where she was. “I’m Else, what do you want?” she said.

“You have to come with us, you’re under arrest.”

“What does that mean?” Rache asked, half-rising, with a machete gripped in her hand, to defend Else.

“It means I have to go with them.” Else stood up and gently handed her baby over to Rache. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.”

Stepping out into the street, she approached the lead rider. “Let’s go.”

A rider slid off his horse and approached her, open handcuffs cradled in his hands. “Touch me and I will kill you,” Else said in a friendly, conversational tone.

The rider hesitated and looked to his leader. “You’ll come quietly?” the lead rider asked.

“Yes,” Else nodded.

The lead rider urged his horse forward and extended an arm down to Else. She gripped it and he swung her up into the saddle behind him. The riders turned and galloped out of Mildura, heading up the dusty road past the dying lake towards the convent of Saint Peter’s Grace.

* * *

The fire set by Else and Joel had gutted the main building of the convent. Work crews were busy piling up rubbish, and others tended the injured that lay under a tarpaulin shade at one side of the courtyard.

The rider in front of Else helped her slide down before dismounting himself. With a firm grip on Else’s arm and the other riders standing behind them, she was led into the shade of the tarp.

“She’s here,” the rider said.

Most of the wounded were burned. Some rasped and wheezed with smoke inhalation; others had suffered fractures from falling debris. It took Else a moment to recognize Donna under her bandages; she reclined in a padded chair, one side of her face swathed in white cloth, her remaining eye glaring at Else with pure hatred.

“You fucking cunt,” Donna hissed, her burnt lips making it hard to form proper words. “You have destroyed my work. You have set the program back an incalculable number of years.”

“I did what I had to do,” Else replied.

“That’s what you think. Well I have news for you, freak. I’m going to rebuild, and I’m going to slice your skin off one sliver at a time. I’m going to dissect you and keep you alive so you can watch me do the same thing to your fucking offspring.” Donna slumped back in the chair, her energy spent.

Else tensed. “You come near my son and I will kill you. Then I’ll let you come back and I’ll keep you on a leash and let you endure eternity as a mindless evol.”

Donna laughed, a harsh sound that seemed to rip her burnt throat. “Take her away, lock her up. I’m going to enjoy hearing her scream,” she croaked.

Else lashed out as the riders grabbed her arms. She felt the satisfying crunch of bone as her fist connected with someone’s nose. More hands grabbed her and she snarled and kicked, grappling with her attackers and ignoring the blows that rained down on her.

Fighting for her life was all Else had ever known—against the dead, against a world that went from terrifying and confusing to senseless with each passing season. She struck out with her boots, hearing the screams of someone whose knee dislocated under her kick. More riders piled on, punching her belly, face, and head. They held her down and someone kicked her hard across the face. Blood gushed from her nose and the taste of hot copper almost choked her.

Struggling against the vicious melee, even as her body was pinned down, Else screamed as a blade passed through the tangle of arms and pressed into her side. The white-hot pain flared through her body.

“Stop!” a woman’s voice rang out. The riders hesitated and slowly withdrew into a circle around Else, who clutched her wounded side and made it to her knees before vomiting blood on the ground.

“What is the meaning of this?” Sister Mary strode through the ring of people. She stopped in front of Else, gently sinking down on one knee and pressing her hand against the spreading bloodstain on the woman’s shirt.

“Stay out of this, Sister,” Donna rasped from her seat.

“I asked, what is the meaning of this?” Sister Mary repeated.

“She burned the convent, she destroyed my research. She’s going to pay,” Donna rasped.

“Your abominable work was destroyed because it was God’s will that it be destroyed. You shall not raise a hand against his will.” Sister Mary helped Else to her feet. Her left eye was swelling shut, and blood dripped from cuts and abrasions on her face.

“His will?” Donna crawled out of the chair, standing and brushing aside the hands that tried to help her. “Your fucking ideas are insane. You would all die without me.”

“No, we would survive because God wills it,” Sister Mary said. “Your meddling with the Lord’s creation is what has brought his wrath down upon this place. There will be no more experiments. No more monstrosities in God’s house.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Donna snarled. Else could see months of friction and growing tension between the scientist and the devout leader of the convent reaching an explosive point.

“You are forgiven, for that is God’s mercy,” Sister Mary declared. “You should use your God-given talents to help shape and guide us to a successful future. You shall not do the devil’s work with your foul experiments!”

Donna screamed in rage and ripped the bandages off her face. Her right eye had burned away, along with a good chunk of her scalp that now oozed yellow plasma.

“You think your God did this to me!?” the scientist screamed. “This cunt, right here! She did this!”

“Else is God’s child; his rod and his staff. She has achieved so much in her short life. All of it with the Lord’s blessing and you shall not harm her.” Sister Mary’s voice remained level, but her tone was stone cold.

“You can’t take her away from me!” Donna screamed as Sister Mary supported Else and helped her limp towards the gate. “I’m going to use her to save the fucking world!”

Else stopped and twisted in Sister Mary’s arms. “No,” she said through a split lip and bloody teeth. “You’re never going to see me again. You will have to find some other way to make your soldiers. I’m going to leave and find a place to live and raise my son. We may have to fight and maybe we’ll suffer. But we sure as hell won’t let anyone like you use us as a fucking science experiment. Never again.”

Else started hobbling away again. The crowd parted and let Sister Mary help her through. Outside the walls two women came forward and helped Else climb into the back of a horse-drawn wagon.

“Take her back to Mildura, see she is given medical aid, and no one harms her,” Sister Mary instructed the women who climbed up and took the reins.

Else squeezed Sister Mary’s hand. “Sister, I’m sorry I said your beliefs were stupid. I don’t believe like you do, but I can see how your faith makes you strong.”

“God watches over all his children,” Sister Mary said, a smile crinkling the corners of her mouth, “even the ones who deny his existence.”

Else sank back on the wagon floor, her skin already starting to burn and itch as her cells repaired the damage.

Water trickled into Else’s mouth, waking her with a start, her hand snapping out to grab at the half-seen shape nearby.

“Whoa!” Eric said, tumbling off his chair. “You must’ve been fuckin’ hard on alarm clocks.”

Else blinked. Rache was rising from a mattress on the floor and stretching sleepily. Hob was crouched near the door, and he gently reached out and shook a blanket-draped Anna, who lay sleeping next to him, the cord of his leash gripped in her hand.

Cassie came forward, Lowanna and Else’s baby filling her arms and sleeping soundly in spite of the sudden noise.

“How long did I sleep for?” Else asked, her hand scratching at the dressing under her shirt where the skin itched.

“All day and all night,” Rache said. “We were worried about you, thought you might have gone into an unconscious or something.”

“You mean a coma. But I told you she was just sleeping,” Hob muttered, his gaze set on the floor.

“You did good,” Anna said, without any tone of praise or warmth in her voice.

“Baby,” Else said, sitting up and extending her arms. Cassie transferred him and moved Lowanna to a more comfortable position.

“He’s getting so big,” Cassie said. “Going to be a strong man, that one.”

Else nodded, reacquainting herself with every curve and pore of the baby’s face.

“People are leaving,” Eric said. “They reckon it’s not safe here. Dead are turning up, following the stink of the others or something, some reckon.”

“We are leaving too,” Else said, looking up and meeting the gaze of everyone except Hob in turn.

“We’re going west? Towards the ocean?” Rache said hopefully.

“No, back the way we came, north and east. Up the coast, in Queensland, we can build ourselves a community there in the bush. Plenty of trees for building, lots of food for hunting, and it’s close to the ocean, so people can fish and Rache can find a boat to be the captain of.”

“I dunno about these buggers, but I’ve followed you this far and it ain’t killed me yet,” Eric said. “Reckon I can follow you a bit further.”

The others nodded in agreement. “Right you lot, we’ve got some organizing to do,” Rache said. “Get the word out we’re going to a safer place. Any who want to come with us can do it. Get vehicles, weapons, horses, anything you can to help ship supplies and kids.”

“I’ll go and tell our people you are okay,” Cassie said. “They will come with us, and I reckon most of them living here might want to start somewhere new too.”

Else sat in the shaded gloom of the shelter, her baby sleeping in her arms, only looking up when a shadow fell over her.

“Hey missus,” Joel said, one foot resting against his knees in a figure 4 stance. “I hear you lot are going on a walkabout?”

“Hey Joel. Yeah, we’re going back to Queensland. It’s a long way, but everyone agrees that we might have a better chance up there.”

Joel nodded. “Reckon I could show you lot a faster way, avoid them roads and shit and get there a bit quicker, aye?”

“And Billy and Sally and your people?” Else asked. “They will come too?”

“Sure, they’re keen to keep moving. We’ll see you safe back to your house in the bush.”

In the end, less than half the Mildura residents chose to join the convoy, swelling their numbers to nearly five hundred. They crossed the river, with an armed party fighting the few remaining evols and clearing a path along the dusty highway for them to take their first steps on the long journey towards a place that finally they could call home.

* * *

The sun rose in a fire of orange and red that turned the sea to gold and painted the sky in broad strokes of color, from the dark purple of a bruise to the healthy pink of a laughing baby’s cheeks as the sun rose through an oncoming front of heavy rain cloud.

Else sat in the sand and cradled her son as he nursed at her breast. Behind her the people were preparing for the last leg of the journey to a new place they would call home. She thought she might not see the ocean again for a while. Although, she thought, maybe, just maybe, she could live long enough to see the lands across the oceans. Those painted places of the maps and atlases she had studied.

Did the dead rule over the living in the Americas, Europe, Africa, or Asia? Else watched the waves and hissing against the golden sand of the beach and decided there would be plenty of time to find out. For now, she had work to do.