Tankbread by Paul Mannering

Author:Paul Mannering [Mannering, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Zombies
ISBN: 9781470168520
Amazon: 1470168529
Goodreads: 13143326
Publisher: CreateSpace
Published: 2011-11-26T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

The hiss and shudder of the train braking woke me up. I pulled my clothes and boots on, Lizzy stirred sleepily on the sheepskins. I peered out through the gaps in the wood, seeing only dry scrub and red sand. We were still in Australia then.

I pulled the door open, letting the hot smoke of the engine swirled in. I looked down past the long black chassis and saw we were rolling into a town. A battered sign said ‘Welcome to Stirling North.’ The place seemed quiet.

Harris brought the train to a halt. I waited until he hopped down and started back towards us.

‘Get up, Harris is coming,’ I said and jumped out, sliding the door shut behind me.

‘Regular pit stop,’ Harris said with a casual glance around.

‘No zombies here?’

‘There’s no one here. The few survivors buggered off to Port Augusta back in the panic. The rumour was that there were UN ships coming and Port Augusta had boats to get you to Adelaide. The roads were choked, so for many folks it was the only option.’

‘And the boats?’

‘Never came as far as I know.’

‘There were a lot of rumours, seemed everyone thought that someone had a cure, or an escape. They were dark times.’

‘Dark?’ Harris snorted. ‘They were complete shit. The government lost control. People were in complete panic and everywhere you looked dead people were trying to kill you.’

‘You should have been in Sydney. What are we doing here?’

‘Top up the boiler, and gather some supplies. People left pretty fast, and the Skipper doesn’t let people out of Port Augusta without good reason. They reckon the dead plague is carried by the living.

‘So they don’t let anyone into the town?’

‘Nope. I offload about half a click out of town and run a flag up to let them know that supplies are there. They leave their barter goods for me and that’s how we do business.’

‘More fish?’

‘Sometimes. Mostly it’s machine parts, hardware, lumber, fuel, that sort of thing.’

‘Where do they get it all from?’

‘They’re a port. I guess they trade it with other ports.’

The idea of a working port, particularly one with some kind of working economy immediately had me intrigued. ‘How can we get in there?’ I asked.

‘Like I said, you don’t. Anyone gets within range their snipers shoot you in the head. There’s a white line about four hundred metres out from the town wall. White from the bones of the walkers and the wanderers who got to close.’

The door beside us slid back and Lizzy jumped down. ‘Stirling?’ She asked.

‘Yeah, how was the ride?’ Harris spoke casually, blandly, and I nearly choked.

‘Not bad, I slept for most of it. How’s Gordy?’ Lizzy said casually.

‘Excited. You might want to talk to him about not touching things in the cab. He’ll listen to you.’

‘Sure,’ Lizzy gave me a slow smouldering look as she brushed past.

Harris and I unloaded two wheelbarrows from the freight car and walked back along the train to where Else stood on the roof of the train cab.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.