AN: Interestingly enough, these are some of the longest chapters I've ever written, and certainly some of the most detailed. I'm really enjoying this first person thing!
Phrases/words:
Weta - large insect that looks like a bulbous and large grasshopper, only with really spiny back legs. Has a wide dispersal around New Zealand. Will be found in suburban gardens.
The Tron - Hamilton.
Rotovegas - Rotorua.
Welliboot - Wellington.
Disclaimer:
I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!
We rested for as long as we could before the desperate need to get away, far away began crawling up our spines and settling into our bones. The hounds were up and restless, shuffling to and fro with their elongated snouts brushing the ground, hoovering up the scents of the area. The horses had all regained their wind.
Blessedly, we had somehow managed to lose nothing in our escape. The saddlebags were still securely on Bailando and Kinder. We couldn't afford to lose anything we'd packed, especially not now that … well … now that it was all real. We were actually riding to the Coromandel. I snorted as I checked saddle blankets and tightened girths.
"Hmm?" Daisy lifted her head at my snort.
"We're actually doing this shit," I replied, waving a hand.
"What, fleeing an evil troll zombie apocalypse?" she asked, tightening the girth on Dom.
"Yes, that." I popped over to double check Dom's girth and give her a hand mounting before handing her Kinder's lead.
"I don't even know what it was," Jo said. "It was..." she shuddered and turned to us, eyes hunted. "I don't know, but we're definitely not looking at a zombie apocalypse."
"Zombies never sounded like that in the movies," Daisy quipped.
"Pretty sure they didn't look like that, either," Jo retorted, gathering up Katja's reins to mount. I clearly didn't think this through. Jo was just over 6 foot and made of legs. Katja was the shortest of my horses, being a wee barrel-bodied Icelandic. The advantage, however, was that Jo could quite comfortably mount from the ground. Which she did so. Although this time round I took my time to make sure everyone's stirrups were the proper length (Jo's needed to be let out by a few notches) for long-distance gaited riding, since we weren't fleeing a roaring troll-beast.
I mounted Perignon, clutching Bailando's lead as I did so. Settled into my saddle, got my legs sorted into the stirrups and looked around.
Shit. "Did anyone bring a compass?" Daisy looked at Jo looked at me and back to Daisy.
"Nope," they replied.
"Shit. So, um, which way does the sun rise and set?" I really should have paid more attention to this kind of thing. Oh, sure, ask me anything about computers or horse feet or what documents you need to file for bankruptcy or what the filing fee is for an interim application and I can tell you. Ask me which way East or West is? Yeah, I just point in random directions and wish my brain retained such a simple fucking fact.
Jo levelled a look at me. "Rises in the east and sets in the west," she said, eyebrow cocked as she looked down at her watch – an old wind-up that had no reliance on electricity so it actually kept time. "And as it's still morning, we want to be riding into the sun. Basically the same way we're pointing."
"Well that's a relief, I wouldn't want to have to double back on that shit." I breathed a sigh of relief. Daisy shook her head and laughed. "Hey, directionally impaired, we knew this going in," I hissed at her. She just laughed harder and nudged Dom forward. Kinder blinked as her lead rope pulled taught and shuffled after the large burnt-brown backside.
"Yeah, this is just so outside the realms of reality I'm trying to figure out if we're all high on acid or something. Shit, even being kidnapped and put in magic fucking dream-machines is more likely in my mind than that thing back there," Jo said, gripping Katja's reins tight and giving her an awkward heel-bump.
"Tuck your butt down a bit more, Jo." Jo was the least experienced rider here, which was why I'd put her on Katja. Despite having the fieriest personality, she was also the most solid under saddle. Perignon had her flights of fancy where she thought she was a wild sparkly thing, while Dom could be totally un-fased by a plastic bag swooping on him, but would take fright to a weta crawling down a tree trunk. I totally sympathised with taking fright to a weta crawling down a tree trunk, I fucking hated those things with a passion that bordered on insanity, but still.
We didn't know how fortunate we were at the time, but due to the speed at which our horses moved, we managed to out-pace the troll-thing and its orc-ish entourage. They'd been shambling towards us as we rested, our scent high in their nostrils. Our horses quickly settled into their ground-devouring gait, the hounds loping alongside and around us.
We stopped at the thirty minute mark to give them, and ourselves, a rest. My legs were already starting to cramp, and given the way Jo stumbled to the ground on dismount, so were hers. Daisy nearly fell on her ass when she hopped off, leaving Dom startled and snuffling her hair.
"I'm too old for this shit," Daisy groused as she flopped into the grass, Dom and Kinder cropping the grass at her toes. Pavel, my glorious creamy borzoi, flopped down with his head in her lap. The other three sprawled in a loose semi-circle around us. Being couch-hounds prepared them not one whit for this escapade.
Jo lowered herself carefully to the ground, one hand clenched around Katja's lead rope. Katja, who was already vigorously grazing. I plonked myself down nearby.
"So," Jo began. "We hit firth of Thames, then do we go up the west coast and pop over further up where it's less populated, or do we keep going east and risk the east coast?"
"Well it seems to be hitting the populated centres first," I added. "I remember some guys in Marokopa camp were still lurking around well after the Tron and Taupo went quiet, so it's doing the zombie thing of spreading to the populations before heading for the less populated areas. Even Rotovegas was still up when we went dark, so maybe it's travelling the path of greatest populations?"
"Then it'll go to Rotorua before Thames, but it'd be even-steven as to whether it'd do Whangamata first, 'cause that'll be where lots of people will go to, I bet," Daisy continued. "Then Pauanui and, at most, Whitianga, but that shit's all smallfry compared to Welliboot, even Hastings."
"But it's on its way up anyway, and there were signs it was also spreading south."
"I say we go via Thames and avoid the east coast," Jo said.
"It'd also be quicker to cross the peninsular further up where it's narrow." Daisy tipped her head back on her shoulders and stared up at the sky.
"Well we'll hit the firth today for sure, it won't be more than a few hours ride, then we'll just keep the shore on our left and keep going until our butts fall off." I sighed. A rough guide was twenty five kilometres a day. Which wasn't particularly helpful as I was spectacularly shit at distances, and none of us had thought to pack a fucking map. It's the end of the world and we're relying on memory to stop ourselves from getting lost.
A friend of mine, fortunately in the South Island now, once told me she had little cutout pieces of map in her brain, and she had to fit them together as best she could to get to where she wanted to go. I had a retarded monkey with a ballpoint pen playing join the dots all over my internal maps. It really didn't work so well.
"Alright," I groaned, hauling myself up from the ground. "Let's get our backsides back into those torture devices." The dogs stirred and blinked at me, long faces and woefilled eyes gazing onwards. But they got to their feet as we checked hooves and girths and (stiffly) remounted.
"I could go for an ass massage already," Daisy grizzled as we set off. I absolutely agreed with her sentiment.
"Tomorrow's going to be shithouse," I said. And it was. It really, really was.
We continued on our thirty-on fifteen-off for the remainder of the day, stopping for an hour at lunch, after which we really didn't want to get back up into the saddles. But we did. We caught sight and scent of the ocean before mid-afternoon and changed tacks slightly, angling ourselves more south so that we would approach the East Coast Road, and anyone travelling by it, at an angle. We hit a stream and followed it, sticking close to the bush overhang for as much cover as it would allow us, until we sighted the road ahead.
We doubled back and had our break, tucked around the bend of the river and bush and (we hoped) hidden from sight. Well, since no one rushed us while we were watering ourselves and our animals and resting our sore buttocks, we'd either managed to avoid notice or there was just no one around. I pulled out some knives. Handed one to Daisy and one to Jo, kept two for myself. We didn't unstrap the rifles or Daisy's bow – the last thing we wanted was to start another stampede. Still, Daisy pulled out her binoculars and scoped out the road, peering between trees to get a good look.
She could only see north of the bridge. But that was clear. Deserted. Not even a dead car. We mounted and set off quickly, trying to stay under cover as much as we could.
The horses grew jittery with our nerves as we reached the road, ears twizzling in every which direction. The hounds were silent, ears pricked for any noise. The only noise was the jangle of tack and the thump of hooves. In only a few steps we would be naked, bared for the world to see on the road. I clucked the horses on, and they stepped onto the tarmac. Stopped when we pointed them over the bridge. Snorted.
But Katja was nothing if not fiesty, and she took the first step forward, and then we were gaiting comfortably across the bridge, down off the road down the other side and back up against the bush. The relief was as palpable as my bladder, which was suddenly and rather alarmingly full. I ground my teeth and braced my hips and thanked every deity I could think of that I'd bought smooth moving horses instead of trotters as every jolt brought me that much closer to wetting myself from anxiety.
When at last we'd put enough distance between ourselves and the road, we all slid off and I dashed into the bushes to relieve myself.
"Oh, god, my turn," Jo whimpered as I climbed back up the slope and took over the leads. She scrabbled down and, after a few moments, walked back towards me looking much less pinched in the face.
"Should have gone before that. Always pee before a job interview, and that's a shitload scarier than a damn job interview," I murmured. Daisy slid off as well, and Jo and I squatted down to rest our legs. The horses were drenched with sweat but, thankfully, still up for the job of continuing our trip when Daisy returned. We continued past paddocks still filled with cows, the ocean always to our left, until we cast long shadows with the dipping sun.
We found a spot, tucked over a rise in the paddock and hidden from the road, separated from the ocean by mangroves. It wasn't ideal, but it would do, and we were all too exhausted to complain. Jo and Daisy set up the tent while I sorted our tack and hobbled the horses. They'd all been introduced to hobbles to desensitise them to pressure on the legs in case they got caught up in something. Now it was all that stopped them from disappearing off into the middle distance and us losing our best form of transport.
"I'll take first watch," Jo said, stretching her legs out in front of her and flexing forward to stretch out her back. Daisy groaned and twisted her back. My knees had long since seized up and now I was waddling, butt cheeks complaining loudly at every step.
"We'll eat dinner first, then see what time it is, but say we're up and packing up at butt-fuck-six-o'clock?" I suggested, hauling over the saddle bag with food in it. "If I take first watch I can make sure the dogs get something to eat." I'd need to walk them around a bit to find some rabbits, but once they hopped out at dusk, the wolfhounds would make short work of running them down.
Daisy put her head in her hands. "I don't want to wake up at six," she said. "This is balls."
"No, this is shit," Jo clarified. "It's also quite possibly the end of the world, or at least the end of something, so we should probably try to get an early start." Jo was a great voice of reason.
"Okay, bed time at six, I'll take the four hour watch, then Daisy I'll wake you up for the second one and wake Jo up for the last watch at two. Jo, we'll do the pack up if you need a quick nap after that and then we'll head again." We all sighed and stared at the saddlebag I'd pulled over, willing it to open and present us with a feast more scrumptious than dried figs and jerky.
But we chewed away quietly, each too sore and tired to bother with conversation. Or too lost in our own thoughts. Jo was totally glazed, Daisy's eyelids already drooping. Mine were, too, but a brisk walk around the perimeter would just have to do to keep me awake. The girls stumbled down to the mangroves to brush their teeth and have a final night-time pee, then slumped into the tent. It took no time at all before they were fast asleep, snuggled up in in their sleeping bags.
I stood up and stretched. Zoloto and Vinnie, my two black hounds, were out cold. They didn't even twitch when I moved about the camp. Pavel and Xena, my beautiful young brindle girl, were more awake and their eyes tracked me, blearily, but tracked me. I sat and watched the light play in the mangroves and the sky wash to orange as the sun trickled its way down the sky. Vinnie came to rest his head in my lap and Xena huddled up against my back. It wasn't exactly warm now that it was turning to dusk. It may not quite be frosty tonight, but we would be glad for the extra warmth the hounds offered.
The horses nickered to themselves quietly, nosing their way through the plentiful grass. Perignon sniffed a nearby mangrove before deciding it wasn't worth pursuing and went back to her grazing. I could feel the melancholy creeping in on the darkness and shook myself off, standing to take the hounds for their evening walk slash optimistic hunt. I couldn't feed them, but bunnies were plentiful, and shit they were quick enough for it.
We crept over the mound and into the field of cows. They were dozing or milling around one portion of the pasture, leaving us free to cavort about the other. Pavel went whipping towards them, tail spinning in his excitement, but a quick whistle halted him mid-stride and brought him back, bounding his excitement and head turned over his shoulder to watch the bovines.
It took no time at all before they'd disturbed a rabbit and off they all went, streaks of fur and legs and pin-point turns. Vinnie, despite being the oldest (or perhaps because of it) was the one to catch it. He brought it back to me with all the airs of a lord granting a boom on one of his subjects, but when I offered it back to him, he fell on it with relish. I ushered the other three off to follow suit.
Pavel and Xena had never been blooded. In fact, I'd discouraged all chasing. Especially at first, as everything that moved was fun chasey times! Not quite appropriate behaviour in city dogs. But they were well and truly getting into the swing of things, Pavel's white tail was a flag in the long grass as he bounced and explored.
It didn't take long for everyone to catch, and then devour, a bunny each. The sun had dipped below the horizon and we all trudged back to camp, full and tired. I was so exhausted I had to keep shuffling my body to stop myself from dropping off. Especially once the zois had settled down around me. The sound of the water lapping through the mangroves was far too soothing.
Every muscle creaked and groaned as I got up to wake Daisy for the second watch. As she stumbled out, rubbing her eyes and grizzling, I waddled down to brush my teeth. Oral hygiene. Especially with the end of the world (and, presumably, the end of modern dentistry), avoiding cavities was vitally important. We would have more important shit to expend antibiotics on than tooth infections.
I stripped my outerwear in the front portion of the tent, folding everything neatly in the corner and stepped into a pair of squeaky clean and new merino thermal pants and singlet. I checked Pavel and Xena over for muck before letting them into the tent as well, closed up and crawled in to the second partition where our sleeping bags were laid out. Jo was sleeping like the dead and didn't twitch as I climbed into my own sleeping bag and was flopped on by two large dogs. Despite the discomfort, I had never fallen asleep so quickly.
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