“It only takes a moment to realise your life was no longer what it once was. It began as it always does, with a flood. The summer was endless and the cicadas chirped.” Book in hand, he scowled at the page. “I can’t get the plot to connect up.”
Knees curled up in the shadow beside him, she shrugged. “Who needs a plot. It reads alright.”
“What’s left of the rations?”
“They have to last, though. I doubt we’ll be able to find any more food tomorrow.”
“You can have them if you want. I’m not hungry anyway.”
“You mean you’re just busy and want me to shut up.”
“Do not.”
They both laughed. “Fine.” She reached over and opened the foil-covered box. Between mouthfuls, she asked, “what are you writing about anyway?”
“Oh,” he closed the book, “two people on a rooftop, out in the wilderness.”
She raised a hand to her mouth and coughed, “don’t make me choke.”
“Ahh,” he was laughing again, “Not us, but these really competent people. They can actually keep themselves fed.”
“Hilarious.”
He got up and walked to the edge of the rooftop to stare at his reflection: a shadow rippling amongst murky pinks and reds in the flooded storey below.
She called out from behind, “how’s writing going to fix any of this?”
“It’s not.” He raised the book, holding it like a stone ready to be skimmed. The water extended out between stumps of concrete, lit by neon stars under a canopy of smog. Then, arm going limp, he dropped the journal on the concrete and sat down next to it. Turning, he called, “you feel any better?”
“Much.” She saw him smile, walked over to sit alongside him, and picked up the book. “I thought you were going to throw it in?”
“Don’t.”
“I wouldn’t” She opened it, sighed. “The light’s too bad over here.”
“There’s not much in there anyway.”
She put it down again so she could move closer. “To be fair, you haven’t had much time to write.”
She’d just about leant over when metal shrieked behind them. The machine splashed up out of the stairwell. Legs clattered, its central line of fluorescent fronds waving as it charged like a steam engine. Half-cast shadows pitted its stained bronze surface. There was no face for the rotten metal teeth carved into the front of its centipede body.
“Fuck-”
She pushed him into the water.
His world exploded into a kaleidoscope of rose-petal fractals. Shards of lightning shimmered silver and gold, an abstract body of bloodshot crimson pulsed in his distant mind’s eye. She dived in beside him, her figure an electric blue. She grabbed him as he got his bearings, and they pulled each other along.
Shock fading, he tilted his head to the surface. The grey towers of the cityscape above exploded into the networked roots of a million hues.
They were nearing another building. This time, a corridor was level with the waterline. He reached and grabbed ahold as she sprung out to help him up.
He was a soaked, shaking wreck. “Thanks.”
“Was it any better this time? I didn’t see”
“Worse, definitely. It was brighter.” He took a breath, then came to. “It’s getting closer.”
“Shit. We had at least another couple of hours there, before…” she trailed off. The corridor faded into darkness, narrow with no walls or doors.
He stood and walked ahead. “We need to head up, get to the Mountains. We’ve been down here too long anyway.”
“We can’t. You said it yourself, it’s closer.” She was a silhouette, her back to the water. She turned her head away from him. “This is the last chance. We can’t wait, not like last time.”
“That’s why we should warn the others now, we can fight whatever comes together.”
“And risk drawing them into the stronghold. Risk the lives of everyone else.” Walking in from the edge, she came into focus, away from the blur of rain outside. “They won’t be ready.”
“It doesn’t mean they can’t fight.”
“We can hardly fight. All we did just then was run away. Our tanks only have enough air for one more run, the guns only have a few rounds. It’s now or never, the plan will still work. We can’t keep running from little fish.”
He nodded. “Ok then. We go now.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That easy, huh.”
“Yeah,” confidence had returned to his voice. “Let’s do this.”
“We’ll suit up at base camp,” smiling again, “no more late-night poetry expeditions.”
“I lost my book anyway.”
There was an improv zip-line tied to the building they were in, secured a few floors up and with a good gradient off into the lights. They each climbed onto a windowsill overlooking the submerged city, and in turn, flung themselves off. Flying above the water took away all sense of space. Any sense of above and below were lost, submerged in a liquid horizon. Views of any great distance dissipated, lost to a smog peppered with neon: clusters of lighthouses, stars without volume. They screamed into the night, laughed at electric faces, mocked the empty windows with wind stirring sheets of metal. They were the only people this for kilometres around.
An old freighter acted as hub for their zip-line web. It was marooned, wedged between buildings. Graffitied rabbits and flowers all scrawled large decorated the ship’s sides. On the deck, she said, “It’s late. We can suit up in the morning.”
He collapsed onto his back to lie in the drizzle. “Yeah. Wake me up.”
“Wake up.”
She stood over him, the haze a light blue behind her. The deck was covered in a few centimetres of water. She was already suited, black neoprene scarred and armoured like biker’s gear. One arm had a helmet tucked under it, bright red, waterproofed with rubber cement and painted up in white stripes. A rabbit was doodled over its face. She threw his suit at him with her free hand. And the tanks, for good measure.
He got up too fast, and splashed water everywhere in the process. “I’m awake. Ouch.”
“You wet the bed again.”
“Ha ha.” He sat in the water and pulled his suit on.
By the time he was suited up, she was already loading up the flechette guns and strapping on spears. “You ready?”
He grabbed one of the guns. “Sure.”
She smiled. “Good, I dropped the bait before I woke you up. We’ve got visitors.” She tapped the deck with her foot as he looked around confused.
A convulsion sent him sprawling. A violent rocking, scraping the ship against the buildings, the hull creaking with tension. “Fuck.” He ran to the front of the boat and looked into the water below. Sickly blood with a purple tinge bubbled up to the surface. He yelled back to her, “Shit. the brain’s here already. Must be fucking starving to risk this.”
She ran over to him. “Now.”
He slid his helmet on and fell over the edge.
She leant over, counted to five, and jumped in after, hardly making a splash. Dark shapes flickered into her limited field of view. She shot each one, and in turn, they spilled black oil. She was more agile than them. The ones she didn’t kill began to thrash. She darted to the side as one flicked out something sharp, almost taking her leg off.
He splashed into the red and swam straight down. Weights tied to his suit pulled on him like a million tiny hands. Spear held out in front, hands bare, he struck flesh. The spear’s point plunged into a wall of tofu. The pressure equalised, he swung himself down, dug his toes into it. Whatever worms were around him rose to investigate something closer to the surface. Down here, it was just him and the brain. Ripping off the machete from his belt, he plunged it in, cutting and ripping. He forced himself a passage, and squeezed in. The brain’s insides pulsed with a billion rainbow blood vessels. Meters in, it opened, revealing a semi-spherical cavity filled with clear fluid. The twitching outer layer lit up the interior. White cords, meters long, held a ball of humanoid bodies at the core, all quivering to a heartbeat. Legs stuck out; arms were limp at their sides. The heads were missing skulls: zombies, the brains all stitched together, glued with the same spider-silk material as the strings. He swam, as fast as he could, cutting the tendons that connected the inner to the outer. He could only cut so many before worms started wriggling in through the hole he had made.
Smacking his helmet, he got it to buzz. “They’re here. Please.” Another wash of static. He smacked it again, and started firing at the worms. Their blood clogged his vision. “Fuck.” The ones in front of him had their frills spread out, razor sharp and whipping around. Getting closer to the core, he opened fire on the bodies below. Dark arterial blood sprayed away to hang in the water. Then, he scampered out of the way as the system smelt blood and sent in more worms. He shot at them when they were close to the core. They convulsed, curling and writhing. Frills like metal ripped into the listless bodies, chipping bone and pulping meat. The core’s heartbeat sped up.
A wheezing sounded as his helmet breathed static.
“I’m here” She swam down to join him. “Christ. Bloodbath in here. You hurt?”
“I’m managing. We just need to get in here.” He crawled over to where the worms had ripped into the core and opened up the giant heart inside. “Here goes.” He and opened fire. She joined him, doing the same. The wounded heart spat blood filled with chunks of gristle.
Amnesia swept through them. Cities were turned on their heads and strung through with gossamer lights. Consciousness flowed through reality like cells through a vein. Broken wires of static shot across the world. Retinal remnants flaked off in tides of red distress: the awakening of a mind.
We were the zombies. We were fighting ourselves. It doesn’t make sense and it never will. The charred and twisted machines that tunnelled through the city. The pasty bodies of bloodless meat, the soft walking mannequins that hunted children. We were running from ourselves. There never was a stronghold. Just a twisted game in this labyrinth of chance.
“A story within a story, survivors on rooftops. A lost colony on a shrouded mountain, a flooded city. Courtyards singed with water; rings of electric fire, receding.” He scowled at the page. “There’s no plot.”
2018