Thor's Hammer Read online

  Remedy Z: Thor’s Hammer

  By Dan Yaeger

  Copyright 2014

  Published by Champ Publishing, 2019

  Dedicated to my family; love you guys - D

  Prologue

  Things were a mess well before the Great Change of 2027. It had been a consumerist world, filled with greed, laziness and consumption. Populations had exploded with people who had few skills other than being reliant on big industry and being well-trained mass-market consumers. It was just how they wanted it: big business and the pharmaceutical industry centralised everything, managed everything and controlled everyone. The ultimate tool for this control was a virus that acted like a drug; known as Divine. It was added to everything, including abundant processed and fast foods, to give people a high and keep them consuming on industry’s terms. But Divine mutated and all hell broke loose in 2027.

  Divine was added to everything to give people a high and help them get through life; a worldwide addiction that kept money coming in and people under control. Divine took away the urge to hold a baby, get outside, see a sunset; it removed feelings that made people human and heightened the sense to be self-absorbed and consume. It was highly addictive and people who used it felt like shit when they didn’t get their fix. It drove them to consume all sorts of products to get that hit. From Divine-laced water through to chewing gum, food, skin creams and cigarette-like inhalers, Divine, with its sweet candy-apple smell had become irresistible. A binge on fast food or a pack of processed snack foods would deliver the hit and, long-term, morbid obesity. That worked too; no chance to get out and experience the things Big Industry and Big Pharma saw as getting in the way of consumption.

  Some people though they had Divine consumption under control, however, but they were wrong. In moderation or excess, it was inevitable that Divine would not be controlled. Consuming Divine felt dangerous to people in their easy consumerist lives and was as captivating as a moth finds a flame. Humans always find a way to destroy each other; Divine was too perfect at that. It mutated and adapted and could no longer be controlled.

  Eventually it self-weaponised and was airborne; the Divine virus spread like wildfire. It turned the masses into junkies, bringing them low and eventually evolving to take full control of human consciousness after it literally made people sick to death. Simply put, it turned everyday people in slobbering, seemingly mindless hosts for an insidious viral colony: zombies. Amongst the horror, only a few people survived. The immune became known as “Survivors” and were less than 10% of the population. But being immune was far from a guarantee of survival; teeth, claws and an insatiable hunger for flesh saw to the near-extinction of mankind.

  One survivor was Jesse Stadler; a man who had been gifted with immunity and the right upbringing to fight, survive and sustain in the most unnatural world that was left behind. In a remote alpine location, Jesse had sought refuge, alone. But he could not hide from the world outside, nor could he resist the pull to return to the world he had left behind. In particular, he longed to return to a place of both great reverence and trauma: Tantangara.

  But Tantangara wasn’t the only thing remembered. He remembered the world before, as a place of massing populations with urban centres sprawling outside the boundaries of unsustainable metropolises. But that all changed when the virus was no longer content to do the bidding of its former masters; it adapted, changed and made the world its own. The virus was the ultimate in human population control. In fact, it near-damned wiped everyone out and solved the overpopulation problem, food security, never-ending wars and terrorism and global warming in one fell swoop. The world’s “Great Change” was, for better, for worse, forever. But Jesse survived and remained unlike so many; he was immune, he was different.

  Emerging from the safety of his hiding place, Jesse Stadler had ventured out to face the world again. At first he wanted to go a short way, to get supplies in Tantangara, but this was really a reason to go back and face the demons of the past.

  In Tantangara, and atop Tanny Hill, Jesse had staged his greatest battle against the zombies just a year before. Making a ruckus, barbecuing a dead cow and playing rousing music, he drew the zombies out of Tantangara and up to Tanny Hill where they would be shot and put away for good. But the plan was flawed and he had quickly been overwhelmed in a bloody hand-to-hand fight that had almost killed him. Jesse should have died up there if not for the aid of seven boys who came out of nowhere to help him. With just one conversation between them, Jesse barely knew his saviours who he nicknamed “The Samurai”.

  Donning light firearms and motor-cross body armour, the Samurai put up quite a fight, loyal to the last like the samurai of old. They turned up, tearing in on bikes and quads, to help their fellow-man in the fiercest and most righteous of battles. The battle had been won for all humankind but it was at the cost of those brave young fellows. The loss of the Samurai was a guilt Jesse had to face and was something he would probably never truly shake. Nonetheless, he returned and faced his fears. He memorialised the boys with a flag and piles of stones and made peace with the event. After this closure, Jesse was strong again but things weren’t so simple; he had opened a Pandora’s Box.

  Before venturing out to Tantangara, to find those supplies and face his fears at Tanny Hill, Jesse encountered a strange new phenomenon at his alpine home: neo-zombies. These were people who were apparently infected with the Divine virus but were somehow preserved from its control. This new threat seemed to emanate from the town of Cooleman; a central hub for the region. Slowly but surely, these partially affected people seemed to succumb to Divine. But in the meantime, before turning, they somehow fought off the virulent and voracious Divine virus. Jesse had to understand this phenomenon. He had to know more.

  Jesse’s encounters with the neo-zombies resulted in bloody face-offs that included run-ins with some people who revealed there was an outpost of sorts from which they operated at Cooleman. Working for an enigmatic figure known as the Doc, Jesse would piece together a puzzle of what the world outside his haven would be like; tyranny. While the neo-zombie mission was unclear at first, their true intentions were eventually revealed after a hellish fight that, again, almost cost Jesse his life.

  With a resolve to find other survivors and travel to Cooleman to investigate the neo-zombie threat, Jesse pursued his objective to resupply in Tantangara. On that mission, he encountered a ghost-town that revealed one lone man; nicknamed “The Mouse”. Emerging from the shadows and holding Jesse at gunpoint, the situation would escalate. The Mouse was a nervous, scared individual who was from foreign shores, they could barely communicate. Indicating to a bullet-wound and uttering the name “Cooleman”, Jesse realised the young survivor had fallen foul of the dangerous inhabitants of that Cooleman outpost run by the Doc. With an accidental shot attracting attention of the very last few zombies in the area, a fight erupted where the Mouse was eaten alive and Jesse almost succumbed to the teeth and claws of the undead.

  In a strange, stunned haze from the melee, Jesse thought he was dead. In that dreamlike state, he saw a silhouetted figure come to his aid, fire off a shot and vanish. It was just enough for him to fight his way out and wonder; had he been saved?

  Limping off and getting on with scavenging for survival, Jesse continued to a location that offered the promise of much-needed weapons and ammunition. The target was the old farmhouse of a former poacher and infamous resident of the region; Samsonov. Injured and vulnerable, Jesse found unexplained shotgun buckshot wounds on his body. He concluded someone had saved him; but who? Before he could recover or think too much, the devil was at his heals again.

  One of the Doc’s nastiest henchmen had tracked Jesse down. She was a rough, former soldier named Maeve O’Grady who would collide with Jesse at Samsono
v’s farm. With her small squad of Ex-Cons, Maeve attacked swiftly and without warning. With some sharp-shooting, clever tactics and an indomitable will to survive, Jesse eliminated Maeve’s crew. But Maeve herself would not prove so simple. Knocking him down with her motorbike, Maeve almost had Jesse. But she let her guard down and a single hip-shot from an old rifle turned the tide. He had barely survived and defeated Maeve and her crew of ex-cons in the most bloody of actions. As Maeve O’Grady drifted off from her mortal wounds, she revealed their mission for the Doc; a cure to Divine. The Doc and his people believed Jesse, a lone, immune survivor, held the remedy to Divine. All was not as it had seemed and he was shocked to the core. He was the prey once more.

  Daring to go beyond the safe world he had encountered for himself, Jesse had succumbed to that curiosity, the human condition to seek, to know more. But this had consequences; he had kicked a hornet’s nest.

  After defeating Maeve at the farmhouse, Jesse had a few days to recover. He had warm showers and solar-generated electricity at Samsonov’s; comforts he would bring home with him.

  Returning home with a truckload of supplies and a renewed spirit, he found his home was not as he had left it. Jesse found himself on his belly, in the dirt and vulnerable. But emerging from his home was not a merciless henchman or crew of killers, it was a lovely woman toting a shotgun; his saviour from Tantangara. Jennifer Jensen, this unknown but magnetic woman, had achieved what the Doc could not: to find the mythical lone survivor in the mountains.

  Unlike the Doc, she meant him no harm, rather wanting to find someone alone like herself, to be with, live with and make her partner in life amongst the chaos. While Jesse had found material supplies on his outing into Tantangara, Jen was the most unexpected and precious find of all.

  Over the coming days, Jesse fell for Jen and he felt contentment and paradise. But all that was about to change. The zombie threat was ever-present as was the desire to find out more about the neo-zombies and the infamous Doc’s base at Cooleman. The mystery of that place, coupled with the neo-zombie’s thirst for a cure would mean the two worlds would collide: the Rock would smash into the Hall of the Mountain King.

  Chapter 1 – The Rock and the Hard Place

  The Doc sat in his chair, contemplating his position, the status of his enclave and the plans he had schemed. He was belligerent in his resolve and determined to survive and thrive, despite recent setbacks. While an awful human being, he was a survivor with an admirable and indomitable self-importance and purpose. “I will not be denied!” he snarled.

  Doctor Kian Penfould, “the Doc”, had succeeded in buoying the spirits of those who were under his control with some clever PR. His enclave and fortress, the Rock, was bustling with activity and new-found hope, for the first time in a long while. People had bounced back since the loss of the squads and their respective squad leaders at the hands of the Survivor. Notably, one squad had been completely wiped out, never to return, followed by yet another that had been led by one of his toughest and nastiest, Maeve O’Grady. She had been a coarse, swearing, sick individual that he had somehow had a bond with. He missed her in his inner-most thoughts but would never acknowledge that he, a man of education and refinement would share so much with someone so low-class and damaged. The Doc sipped a tea and grimaced; a mouth ulcer causing him discomfort. He returned to smirking as he acknowledged his manipulations and getting things back under his control again since those recent losses.

  The first part of his public relations plan was easy, short-term gratification. The people in the Rock had been born into the hyper-consumer society before the Great Change. They wanted consumption, they would get it. He had kept some “honey holes”; food, clothing and jewellery locations to himself. The only others that had known where these caches were had been dead men, long gone. He had sent a squad to fetch much of this great bonanza and give them the consumer high they would need to be happy for a short time. But that wasn’t all he had; a multi-faceted plan. “Those who deliver will be forgiven,” he convinced himself. But it was not just his poor leadership and excesses he was asking him to forgive.

  Medium to long-term, the Doc had a higher-risk plan. To keep people subordinate, the Doc had created a double-edged sword for himself and he felt it would buy more time than he needed. He had mythologised a cure for his people and created an almost heroic role for himself in that future. It kept the masses with hope and, more importantly, under his control. A survivor was vital to that mythology; a person with the right antibodies to fight the Divine virus and survive, independent of treatment. In the background, he had worked with his henchman and squaddies to kill survivors, without making it obvious that was his design. A few of the smarter henchmen had worked it out and they took that secret to the grave with them. The Doc had few scruples and had little care for eliminating anyone that posed a threat to his control. But more recently, Sirocco and Price, his best men, had found a survivor that had proven elusive and deadly for his people. His best henchmen had spread the word and he had to do something to keep up appearances. He had sent those squads out to get the survivor and his gamble had cost them all their lives and his own reputation. “I’ll have you, you little rat,” the Doc muttered at the faceless survivor. He had pictured some teenager in jeans and a t-shirt but had realised he was dealing with an especially tough, deadly and calculating adversary. He had promised them all, including Sirocco and Price, that he would bring in the infamous survivor and deliver a cure. He hoped that day would never come.

  While people waited for a cure, the Doc had control and was king of his castle. The Doc had played along with the game, revealing he was right and that a survivor would bring the cure, and everyone had renewed hope. It was just in time as cracks were appearing in the Rock.

  No matter what spin the Doc had put on things, the squad losses had been felt in both the reduction in people and supplies coming in and the inherent lack of protection. And they were still no-closer to the cure. People’s trust in the Doc was tenuous at best and these recent failures in his leadership and administration had made him see that the very fabric of that place could have torn at any time. He had taken action to avert disunity and he was still in command. But he couldn’t help himself. He had planned some excitement, spread the word of new incoming supplies, food, trinkets and treasures with a hidden catch. He smiled at the thought as his fat dry lips sucked on a pipe. Acrid smoke poured from his nostrils as a sort of filthy wake the trailed his largely selfish, sick and controlling thoughts.

  He recalled all of the uneasy eyes that had looked at the ever-fewer squad members that protected the most vulnerable and brought them food. The squads were made up of some of the roughest and least civilised folk in the New South Wales High Country. Before the collapse of humanity known as the Great Change, these sort of people would have been considered on the fringes. They were an improbable mix of losers by former standards. A mix of all sorts including criminals, drifters, shonky tradesmen, failed or corrupt soldiers or police, security guards, con-artists, backpackers, bouncers, drug dealers, addicts, carnival folk, gypsies and travellers. They were survivors in their own way. They were the sort of ruthless opportunists that had found that place and survived. In the new world, they had found their niche in working for the Doc and the innocent, normal folk amongst those that had made it there had come to respect, if not like and rely on them. The world and its culture had changed dramatically. The Doc’s eyes squinted as he thought of all of the unsavoury people in his squads; “Hardly the honour-guard I deserve,” he thought to himself, sipping and wincing once again.

  Despite what a pre-change person would have thought of them, these “squaddies” as they were known, went out into the outside world and its horrors: scavenging, fighting and patrolling around the Rock. But one remaining squad was different and, under its team leader, had an infamous reputation. Despite that squad’s history, the Doc decided to let them off their proverbial leash and do his bidding once more, in return for the privileges an
d indulgences they sought with the women in “the Pen”.

  “They wanted supplies and nice things? I’ll show them that there is a price for that! A reprieve for Squad X will put the wind up them.” The Doc’s moon-face contorted with enjoyment.

  Squad X was headed to trade with the mothers, women and innocents in the Pen; the supposedly safe place where the women of the Rock were kept. There, they lived and produced human milk; rich with stem cells needed to keep the zombie-virus, Divine, at bay. Only 100ml was needed per person, per day, but any shortfall could mean an outbreak, death and, ultimately, both. The women knew this, that was their ace. The Doc also knew this and was working harder than usual to keep the women of the Pen happy. He had announced a market day with extra chits, coupons if you like, that he metered out with entitlements. The women were given extra and rumours of a squad returning with a big haul of items had lifted spirits to highs not seen since the deadly exchanges between their people and the Survivor. Anyone astute would have known that Squad X was the only team at full-strength and with the time and space to pull something like that off. But the Doc was very good at creating subordinates. “Oh they’re excited are they?!” The Doc slapped his own thigh and looked over at his woman looking to someone to enjoy his sick sense of humour. She was sleeping, free in her dreams after having had a revolting evening catering to the Doc’s needs.

  Their excitement was soon to turn to fear as they saw who was coming in; infamous criminal and sex-offender Xavier Karnovic. The Doc laughed at the thought and enjoyed more tea and his pipe.

  “It is rock and roll time at the Rock!” Xavier yelled with glee as he led some of the men from the Squads and burst into the Pen. These men were the ones that had been given special privileges by the Doc and they were there to cash them in and spend some time with the women. On these sorts of market days, all sorts of services were on offer from haircuts to boot polishing to clothing repairs to sex and massages. It was an awful situation but people find ways of living and coping, adapting to their surrounds. The key was that people still had some self-determination and that was one of the only things keeping people, just barely, under control.