Iain McKinnon - Remains of the Dead

“It doesn’t seem that God is listening. Cannon killed himself and that’s supposed to be a sin, but he isn’t walking around out there.” Cahz sighed. “That mass suicide at Masada doesn’t seem as crazy now.”

“No,” Ryan said. “No, it doesn’t.”

The two men sat staring into the fire, trapped by their own thoughts.

Abruptly Cahz broke the silence. “Give it over here.”

“What?” Ryan replied, puzzled.

“The milk. You’re dribbling it. Pass it over here and I’ll feed Rebecca. It’ll give you a chance to get your wet clothes off.”

Cahz scooped up Rebecca from Ryan’s arms. Ryan handed over the open tin of milk and a spoon he’d liberated.

“Should we heat this up first?” Cahz asked, looking at the milk.

“I haven’t a clue,” Ryan admitted, struggling out of his wet shirt. He stopped, the shirtsleeves still covering his arms, his torso bare. “Elspeth did all that,” he said, looking into the fire of burning school books.

Cahz poured a spoonful for the child. “I don’t know about any of that shit about sterilizing bottles. It’s not going to harm her giving it to her cold?”

Ryan shrugged. “I guess not. She’s been taking it cold and she ate the cracker all right. We’d better get rescued soon, if only because we’re shit parents.”

At that he pulled off the wet shirt and hung it on the clothesline.

“You want a can of soup heated up?” Ryan asked as he peeled his jeans off.

“Sure,” Cahz said. “Pierce a couple of holes in the lid and stick it on the fire.”

A dribble of milk ran down Rebecca’s chin. Cahz gently wiped it away with a dish cloth.

“She seems to be taking this,” Cahz said, pouring another spoon.

“Good.” Ryan nodded. “So how do we signal this chopper?”

“Three possible answers to that,” Cahz explained. “I’ve got a radio. It’s only short range, but if the chopper passes close enough I should be able to raise them. If the radio doesn’t work, I’ve got a flare.”

“And the third option?”

Cahz smiled. “Star jumps.”

“We’ll want to put some clothes back on for that one, mate,” Ryan joked. “I wouldn’t land if there were two blokes in the nude waving their tackle at me!”

The two men laughed at the absurd image.

“God, I’m sore,” Ryan groaned as he shifted to a more comfortable position.

“Guess you didn’t get out much,” Cahz said.

“Only in winter, when the dumb fucks froze,” Ryan answered. “We’d forage maybe a few miles at most. Never got as far out as here.”

Cahz nodded.

“Ah, man, even my tits are sore,” Ryan said, rubbing his chest. “It’s wearing that rucksack with Rebecca. It’s been chaffing me nasty.” He stretched out his shoulders one after the other. “What’s the rest of the world like? I mean, away from all this?”

“Mostly like this,” Cahz said. “There are a few military bases that have survived infection. Mainly shitty little rocks like the Diego Garcia, the Aleutians-those sort of ass-of-nowhere places with an airstrip on it. There’s even a floating shanty town off Hawaii. The biggest infection-free zone is Antarctica. Got twenty thousand people living down there on the ice at McMurdo.”

“Is that it?” Ryan asked despondently.

“There’s a big plan to take back New Zealand. They’ve got a base on Stewart Island to support the Draw and Destroy campaign.”

Ryan extruded the wet socks from his feet. “New Zealand,” he whispered as he slung the soggy tubes out to dry.

“They fly in these huge concrete prefab defenses.” Cahz fed a spoonful to Rebecca like an aircraft. “They build a central compound and a segregated kill zone.”

“So they’re just sitting and sniping at them?”

“Oh no, the kill zone is all measured out. They sit in their compounds playing loud rock music and launching flares. When the kill zone is full, they napalm the lot.” Cahz nodded at the smoke coming off the fire. “That must really stink.”

“We used to burn them at the fence when they got too many,” Ryan said. “The stench would stick in the back of your sinuses for days.”

“But the whole point of these kill zones is they’ve been specially sized so they can count how many W.D.s are incinerated,” Cahz went on. “The concept is, if they can barbeque a million then they’ve got most of them.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Ryan said.

“They want to take the island with the infrastructure intact. The plan is to secure the South Island and start rebuilding our industrial capacity, but there’s no easy fix. The insertion teams who set up the compounds have a high mortality rate. You get sent to the South Island if you’ve pissed off someone high up. And anyway, those towns and cities have been rotting away just like this one. Don’t know exactly how much they’re planning on salvaging.”

“Still, there’s a future,” Ryan said, looking down at Rebecca.

Cahz smiled and nodded.

Ryan woke with a start. Cahz had knocked over his gun; the hard metal object landed clattering on the classroom floor.

“This is India Tango One, are you receiving me?”

Still naked, Cahz ran over to the classroom window. Ryan sprang to his feet, throwing off the blanket he’d found in the first aid room.

“The chopper?” he asked, his voice quick and excited.

“Come in, over,” Cahz called into the receiver.

He pulled the makeshift blackout curtain from the window and looked out. He turned the handle and pushed the window open ajar.

“I can’t see any navigation lights,” Cahz said, running back to his kit, “but it’s still raining out there.”

He undid one of the flaps on his body armour and pulled out a red flashlight-shaped object. With nary a stitch on, Cahz ran out of the classroom.

Ryan rushed up to the window. Outside, it was pitch black, the flickering light of the fire turning the window into a mirror.

With his ears cocked to the crack Cahz had opened, he listened as he stared back at his reflected face. The rain was drumming down outside and the moan of the dead wafted in the moist air.

With the crackle of the fire behind him, Ryan concentrated on the sounds outside.

And then, just like this morning, the sound of an engine drifted across the sky.

“Hell!” Ryan turned and ran to catch up with Cahz. He was out of the classroom when he remembered Rebecca asleep next to the fire. He paused for a moment debating whether or not he should wake her and take her with him or leave her there.

“I’ll be back in minute,” he assured the sleeping child.

With a quick about turn he was charging out of the school after Cahz. As he gingerly navigated past the broken glass at the door, Cahz launched the flare. The rocket streaked up into the black sky, a tail of flame trailing behind.

“Will it light in this rain?” Ryan called out above the noise of the moaning. He stood in the rain stark naked except for the first aid blanket tied round his neck like a cape. He craned his neck up, watching as the flare burst into a ball of brilliant orange light. The underside of the rain clouds turned orange from the brilliance of the glow. The fizzling signal wafted to and fro as it slowly parachuted down.

“They’ve got to see that, Cahz,” Ryan said, transfixed by the light.

“Back inside,” Cahz said softly.

Ryan was still watching the flare drift down. “What?”

“Get inside now!” Cahz grabbed Ryan’s arm and pulled.

“Why?” Ryan demanded, being pulled off balance. His gaze dropped and he saw why Cahz was so agitated.

The playground was illuminated in the shimmering orange glow. But beyond the playground, pressed up against the school fence, were hundreds of zombies. Every square inch had an undead face staring back at him.