It was an accepted fact between George and me that I would be the first to die. I was an Irwin. I poked dead things with sticks for the ratings - oh, and for the feeling of adrenaline coursing through my veins as something way past its expiration date lunged to both infect and devour me, of course. I had a death wish. I was suicidal. Whatever. In the end it didn't matter because I was the one who survived (immune, no less) while my sister – the only person who ever listened to and loved me without judgment, despite my suicidal tendencies - got her blood and brains splattered all over her computer screen, keyboard, and pretty much everything else in our van thanks to that bastard Tate and the CDC. I had to pull the trigger before she amplified. Best bro in the world, right?
The funny thing is that she didn't die. She just moved into the back of my head where I'd never lose her. She'd be there forever – she promised me so - so long as I never became, you know, sane. And I don't want to, not if it means that I won't hear her voice or see her anymore. Call them hallucinations; call me crazy. I don't give a shit. I know what I am and I choose to be that way, thank you very much, so wipe that stupid look off of your face before I punch you in the mouth.
Anyway, that's not the point of this. George is there to stay, and everybody knows that, even if they still make the same expression you were making a few seconds ago before I threatened to rearrange your facial structure. I'm over it. The point of this is to show you that I might be crazy, but there is another brand of crazy in this God-forsaken world, and she goes by Ada Harris.
The day the email showed up in my already flooded inbox with all of the urgent bells and whistles attached, I wasn't in the best of moods. Aside from the world turning to shit, complete with Kellis-Amberlee infected black flies swarming around said shit, George had been unusually silent, which had me worried above all else that I might have been starting to gain my sanity back. Honestly, I knew deep down that it wasn't true, because that required some willingness on my part to do so, and like I already said, I was not willing. So, thankfully that wasn't the case. Turns out that all I - she - I - we - needed was the right trigger. George didn't talk unless she was teasing me or had something important to say, but Ada was the perfect candidate to get her to pipe up. The email was from Dr. Shannon Abbey, our landlord and resident mad scientist.
This is a South African Irwin, named Ada Harris .That's all I'm going to tell you for now, and you don't even need to know that much. Don't ask questions until after you've watched it. Whoever guesses what isn't right about this gets a cookie.
I didn't know anything about Ada Harris. Some people - the ones who are afraid of political correctness and the United States government - would hesitate to call the absence of Irwin videos and blogs from high-risk zones all over the world, "censorship". I, however, don't give a shit, and will call it like I see it. Because that's what it is. They (the CDC - surprised?) suggested a limit on the accessibility of material from foreign Irwins for our own good. Since Irwins in dangerous areas have a tendency to break the U.S. standard of security when it comes to entering hazard zones to poke dead things, allowing American Irwins to view their adventures might give them some not so great ideas about where to take their next trip. Whenever a video or post would appear, it would disappear just as quickly. I only know this because George wanted to do an article on it after the Ryman campaign, and I read over her shoulder when she did research, and listened when she talked about her findings. She liked to call it as she saw it, too.
Remember what I said about desert conditions and the infected? That zombies don't do so great in hot climates? Well, that's true for the American desert, anyway. Africa, with its massive population reaching nearly 1,040,000,000, gave Kellis-Amberlee no shortage of bodies to infect during the rising in 2014. Entire countries – roughly 55% of Africa's 53 – were completely lost to the dead and considered what would be the United State's level 1 hazard zones, regardless of the arid climate. A lot of those territories lost ended up with no hope for evacuation for the few survivors, and a bomb. The continent that made up 20% of the world's landmass had been all but decimated at the scraping hands and gnawing jaws of the dead. The fact that Ada was even alive was a miracle. For the foreign Irwins, they didn't have to enter danger zones – many lived in them. And leave it to Dr. Abbey to get her hands on an illegal video.
The footage began with Ada framing herself in the shot from what had to be a camera set up on a tripod. She was filming this on her own. Not too big of a deal. Irwins can't always bring someone along to film their harrowing feats, tightrope walking on the edge of life and almost certain death. Best case scenario filming solo is that you survive the encounter to cut everything together into one hell of a highlight reel. Worse case, well, you've got a live feed going and a not-so-fantastic shot of getting munched on by whatever you probably shouldn't have been poking at. We weren't sure which scenario this would be when we hit play.
She had two smaller cameras attached to each of her shoulders like a soldier's epilates, and another mounted onto her outback-style leather hat, that she had laced tight under her chin. She was kneeling in an African shrub that I didn't know the name of, surrounded by branches and leaves on every side but up. The sweltering South African sun reflected on the beige-tinted lenses of her aviator sunglasses and I had to admit that they had a way of complimenting her sweaty, sand-colored skin and darker brunette hair, which were in two neat braids falling down her over her left and right collarbones. I was willing to bet she had brown eyes to match. When she tipped her hat up and leaned her head down, peering over the glasses to look into the camera with an eyebrow cocked and cheeky money grin on her face, I had my answer. They were brown. Not like George's, though. George's irises were a deep-dark brown, which you couldn't see anyway thanks to her retinal K-A, the reservoir condition that got her murdered. Now you can't see anything of her eyes, since she's dead and all. I mean, I still see her when I'm feeling especially mentally unstable. At those times I can see her eyes – all of her eyes – not the weird blue contacts that she wore to creep people out, or the black abyss of her damaged pupils, but her naturally brown eyes. That part of the hallucinations is a perk, I guess, even though it still kinda creeps me the hell out to see something other than what I've been used to for as long as I can remember. Ada's were lighter, though, coppery, like a new pre-rising penny before they were discontinued as a form of money and became the object of obsession for reclusive collectors and history buffs.
She didn't stand, but instead shifted out of the way and aimed the camera out of the brush. She wasn't in a shrub. She was in a tree. Hiding on higher ground – erm, branch. Good Irwin. It was only when we saw what she was aiming at that we all gasped and George finally spoke.
Holy shit, she echoed from the recesses of my crazed mind.
"She's bloody insane," Mahir said from behind me. He'd had enough and it was only 30 seconds into the video. He stood and raked his fingers through his black hair, shaking his head side-to-side. "I dare say she is the only person on this planet who could be crazier than you."
Not only does Africa have a ridiculously large population of humans, but it is also home to an insanely huge population of animals. Animals that weigh much, much more than the 40 pounds necessary for any mammal to amplify. We have bears. Big whoop. They have lions, primates, zebras, antelope – a lot of the animals that made a big mess of San Diego during the zoo fiasco before being bombed to high heaven. There, they have fences, but they don't have all of the high, electrified, reinforced ones that we take for granted when we see a zombie deer on the other side.
There was abso-fucking-lutely nothing separating Ada from the 12-foot tall, 12,000 pound, fully-amplified elephant trouncing around all dead-like, approximately 400 yards from the tree she was in. I'd seen pictures before, but it didn't compare to the footage. Its thick decomposed skin hung over its - in some places exposed – white ribs like a tattered, moldy, bloody sheet. Where it didn't hang, it clung to the animal's stomach. It was starved and wandering in the heat. I would have felt bad for it if I wasn't too busy wanting to be at Ada's side with my electrified baton. Not that it would have done much against the beast, but that's what George's trusty .40 is for. Of course, by the time I'd be in range to fire accurately, I'd probably be impaled on one of its enormous ivory tusks. To say that I was engrossed would be an understatement. To say that I was just as insane as Ada probably wouldn't have been too inaccurate.
"That's Lolo," Ada Irwin-whispered in a thick South African accent that sounded close to Mahir's UK accent, but I might be ignorant. "As you can imagine, the big girl took a while to get to this stage of amplification." Her accent was more cheerful and abrupt than Mahir's. Her consonants where hard, and her vowels were flat. Her r's rolled only once. Re-entering the frame, she lightly tapped on the stock of a scoped rifle. "Could sneak a little closer and take her with a clean klap in the head, but where's the fun in that?"
"She's not going t—" Becks started, but was cut off by a bullet piercing the sky.
What had to be the most disturbing sound we'd ever heard – will ever hear - came from the infected animal. Human zombies have distinctive moans that any Irwin or reasonably intelligent human who doesn't stay stowed away in their house, gripped by fear and paranoia, can identify from long-range. The sound Lolo made was not human. She threw her head back, skeletal trunk raised in a curved s-shape, and she howled. It was like gurgling thunder at first, and then rose to a shrill screech like a metal table being dragged across the floor.
Hey, Shaun? George said, almost amused.
"Yeah?" I muttered. I think Becks and Mahir were too busy watching to notice me talking to her. They still aren't quite used to it, although they have learned to roll with it.
"Check this out," Ada grinned and the tree began to tremble as the stampeding monster started toward her position. She stood, and we could all see the three foot-long machete in a sling on her back. She had an athletic build, was wearing combat boots, desert-camo cargo pants, a light green, wrinkled linen button-up with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. No Kevlar. No leather. Not a thread of body armour and she was going to take on a zombified elephant with a machete. Bad. Ass. Batshit crazy, don't get me wrong, but if she made it through that, I wanted to personally shake her hand and get her autograph. Maybe even hire her.
Mahir paled, but couldn't turn his eyes away. Becks gaped with horror streaked across her face, and a hand clamped over her mouth. I probably resembled myself years ago when I first became an Irwin, eyes all a-glow with stupid excitement. If I remember correctly, I was nearly bouncing in my chair.
The mounted camera in the tree went black just as the elephant rammed into the trunk, and that's when the music began. I recognized it as a pre-rising rock band, whose lead singer sounded like he gargled with cyanide and razorblades every morning. Whatever it was, by the time her shoulder cams flashed on, she was on the elephant's back, the chorus had kicked in, and my blood was running hot in my veins. Becks squeaked, seeing from Ada's point of view what it was like to ride a zombie elephant like a bucking bronco at a rodeo. Tears were in Mahir's eyes. He yelped every time the massive mammal bucked, attempting to rid herself of Ada long enough to devour her. Lolo whipped her trunk around wildly, but Ada unsheathed her machete, spun it like a baton over her head and lopped the trunk off with a single hack. It fell to the scorched dirt, kicking up dust as it hit. That really pissed the thing off. It rampaged forward into the tree, and propelled Ada into the air. Machete in one hand, she caught a branch a dozen feet or so above the ground with her free hand and dangled there with her back to the elephant. Damn, that was a big no-no. Never turn your back in the field. To anybody else Ada was screwed - goodbye, sayonara, thanks for playing the "Can You Fuck With the Amplified Version of the World's Largest Mammal?" game, but you lost, no consolation prize – probably not even a space on The Wall - but to me, there was something that made me believe she'd make it.
Becks jabbed a finger to the screen and I almost socked her. What does she think she's doing knocking around delicate expensive equipment? "Look," she whispered, her words wedged in her throat, leaving her voice knotted in angst.
Lolo charged and missed her. Ada's hat camera caught the sight of Lolo running clear underneath her without a trunk to whack her down with. Ada released her weakening grip on the branch when the chance presented itself, and the music cut. The feed resumed with Ada atop Lolo once again. Ada let out a warrior whoop, and drove the machete straight into the back of Lolo's head. She dropped lifeless to the ground in a plume of dirt, the virus no longer in control of her brain. Blood sprayed everywhere and Mahir just about fainted, falling slack onto the desk and putting his head down. Becks breathed a sigh of relief while Ada removed the blade from Lolo's skull and climbed off, giving Lolo a firm pat on the head before the camera cut away for a half a second. We were given a new angle from another mounted camera that she'd set up to get a compete view of the now permanently dead elephant, but that wasn't the only thing we got a view off. She had blood splattered across her shirt and there were droplets on her face.
Leave it to the dead girl in my head to get the cookie.
The blood, Shaun. That's red-hot, live K-A all over the damn place and she's not even worried about it, she said, astonishment in her tone. You're not alone.