A cold wind whipped clouds into the sky and threatened rain. With the city’s undead put down, it was time to leave. The civilian survivors needed to be getting back to their homes, cemeteries would need fixing. A lot of flowers had to be planted. They always planted flowers after a rising. A reminder of life, in all its beauty? Or just to try and cover the smell?
A thin, reedy melody rang through the park and echoed from gray empty buildings. The Hunter dug in his jacket and pulled out a small, silver phone, as clean as his sword and just as shiny. Its ringtone, slow and creepy in the midst of the dead, sent Chase’s skin crawling.
“Hunter.” The Hunter began to pick his way through the corpses and gestured to the boy to follow. “Another town? Where?”
The streets were sprinkled with abandoned cars, but not as many as other cities the Hunter had cleansed. People were getting warning now. They didn’t know who the Necromancer was, or even what he was trying to do, but they had been able to predict his movements for a week now and get the civilians out. It made things easier. Zombies on their own could be contained, but zombies with a city-load of fresh people to contaminate? Now that was a national disaster.
“He’s still heading west then.” The Hunter frowned. “No, I’ve never seen this kind of thing before. And I’ve been hunting Necromancers since I was a boy.” He glanced meaningfully at his apprentice. “They usually have a goal, concentrate on a particular spot. Seen them raise the dead for revenge, for love. One even tried to make an army out of the things. Damned disrespectful. But raising a city here, a country town there.” The Hunter shook his head. “This is strange, and I don’t like strange. Especially not from a Necromancer.”
Another pause.
“I know. We’ll hurry. Just keep your soldiers out of my hair.” He tapped fingers on the hilt of his sword. “Because they panicked last time, that’s why! Hard enough to dispatch a city of zombies without boys with guns running around screaming. Hunters have always dealt with the living dead. Let us do what we were put on this earth to do!” He snapped the phone together. “That is why you don’t let the army get involved.”
He sighed and glanced over his shoulder. “Time to hurry, boy. The bastard is trying to lose us in the desert.”
The Hunter broke into a run, threading his way around bodies and cars, and Chase struggled to follow.
I can’t seem to get far enough away. They follow me. People; with their houses and their animals and their damned, walking dead. Didn’t think I’d find any out here, where the dirt is a dark orange and the sparse, thicket-y type grass a little gray. But they’re here.
I glance over my shoulder, count three lizards, the hindquarters of a roo and two lonesome, struggling human arms. When I look forward again there’s a farmhouse. Sudden and close.
I stop, just for a moment, to stare at the falling wooden fence that wasn’t there a second ago. At the peeling weatherboard building, half its veranda sunk into dust, wire-mesh door hanging crooked from its hinges. I don’t stop long; I am aware of the shuffling behind me. Doesn’t look like anyone could live in something so rundown, but that’s not really what I’m worried about. Someone lived in this place once. Did they die here? Were they buried here? And what if they had a pet, some cattle-dog mutt buried beneath the looming gum. Undead dogs are quick on their rotting little paws, let me tell you.
The house is oddly familiar, in the way all rundown houses are. But in the end, the sun forces my decision. Out here, it always does. The dead things behind me stink. My water is almost gone, so too the packets of junk food I stole from a screaming petrol-station worker while zombies tried to clamber over her counter. At least the farmhouse offers shade. So I hurry.
The screen door opens with a groan that echoes down the dark hallway. Like the house is a zombie itself. It bangs when I shut it, resists when I try to do a rusted latch. In the end I resort to a piece of stiff wire to keep it closed. There are still gaps at the floor and again near the ceiling; the door doesn’t line up properly. But they’re too small for the roo, the crumbling stairs hopefully too difficult for the lizards and the bony, disconnected arms.
I wonder if there’s any water left in an old, dry place like this. Sunlight splinters in through the door, but the details of the house remain in shadow. I can’t see the color of the threadbare carpet, I can’t make out the photos in frames that hang on the wall. All I can see is an opening at the end, shifting with a curtain of beads that rattle in a warm breeze.
I brush the beads aside, ignoring cobwebs that stick to my hand and shoulder, and step into a kitchen. Dried eucalypt leaves darken the floor, piling up in corners and beneath cabinets. The windows are open, glass smashed and tattered curtains of yellowing lace fluttering.
A long, dark timber table dominates the room; it pushes out over cracked linoleum from a faded green wall. An old woman sits at one end, thin white hair pinned to her head, floral-patterned dress too wide for her skeletal frame. She looks up at me, and she smiles. Unfocused, watery eyes dance, her hands play with sticks and little white stones on the tabletop.
That’s when I realize I should never have stepped inside. It is her house, changed, yes, but hers all the same. Older, wider, spread somehow from a city two-bedroom to a farmhouse. But I know that table; I recognize those lacy drapes.
I try to take a step back. Something presses against my back. Large and solid, but damp. Cold fluids soak through my shirt.
I gag as rot washes over me, ripe, strangely sweet and thick. It runs down the back of my throat.
Hands grip my shoulders. They hold me upright and ooze against my skin.
“So, dearie.” The old woman’s voice still sounds like the rattling of bones. Only now, it’s a sound I know well. “Have you found what you were looking for?”
“Your Necromancer’s a woman. Did you know that?”
The Hunter tipped his hat back and scowled. The only admission of surprise he was likely to give. “Why do you say that?”
The young policeman shifted on his feet, uncomfortable beneath the Hunter’s scrutiny. “We have reports . . . ah, sir. From civilians fleeing the area, from the emergency service workers sent in to get them out. A woman, probably early thirties. Medium build, blond—”
“Yes, thank you.” The Hunter rolled a cigarette in his hand but didn’t take his eyes from the policeman. He lit it, lazily, and let it dangle from the corner of his mouth as he spoke. “It does not matter what she looks like. I need to know if she is the Necromancer or just some poor girl in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The policeman took off his deep blue cap and ran fingers through sweat-dampened hair. He used the hat to beat at perpetually buzzing flies and leaned back into the shade of the post office’s tin roof. The Hunter did not move, and beside him, Chase tried to follow his example. But whatever it was the Hunter possessed that made even the insects respect him, Chase didn’t have it. He resorted to waving them away.
Replacing his cap, the policeman nodded. “They were following. All of the witnesses were very clear. She had . . . zombies, ah, following her. People from the cemetery.” He gestured back along the dirt road and Chase glanced over his shoulder. There wasn’t much to this town and it had been almost empty when he and the Hunter drove in. Only a few bony cats and half a dozen lizards. The Hunter had dispatched them with ease. “Not only that. Roos and cattle too. Couple of sheep—”