Pray to the Dead: Book Two in Angels Have Tread Trilogy

By Alyce Elmore

Twenty years ago The Desolation wiped out all males over the age of twenty and despite the best efforts of researchers no cure has been found. Women have recovered and adapted to this new world but what should they do about the 'male problem'? With the reintroduction of democratic elections looming, this is their most pressing issue. Should males be eliminated, exploited as cheap disposable workers or allowed to live short but useful lives? And what secret is so damning that the government will go to any lengths to cover it up?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jan 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669833666

Alyce Elmore

Just who do you think you are? Alyce Elmore got tired of being asked that question, deciding instead to write about it. Her short stories and novels search for answers by scavenging through time and place, exploring the real and the fantastic and along the way encountering the outrageous and the mundane. She has lived in major cities around the world, journeyed through jungles, hiked in the mountains and currently resides in an off grid shed in the middle of nowhere. To date, she has no answers, just lots of clues but she invites her readers to hitch a ride anyway because a search for the unknowable is in itself an enjoyable quest.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Alyce Elmore.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 01/10/2023

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Glossary Of Terms

Character List

The Histories

WEDNESDAY

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Thursday

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Friday

Chapter 41

About the Author

When All Hope Is Lost

Pray to the Dead

For Where There Are Harps

Angels Have Tread

For my family and friends

With a special thanks to Peter who provided the cover

photo and Dean for all the words of encouragement.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

CHARACTER LIST

Melbourne

Members of New Order Party

Daily News Feed

Gentech

Four Musketeers

Melbourne Residents

Survivors

Warragul

Colony Political Leaders

Residents

THE HISTORIES

September 2069

T he young girl touched the Old One’s forehead. There was no fever, but the coughing that persisted through the night had used up the last of the medication, and she was getting worried. Calling the hospital this morning hadn’t done much to alleviate her anxiety either. They said they weren’t sure when the next doctor would be able to get through, as the roads between Melbourne and Warragul were still impassable. But the good news was that additional crews from the city were expected to help with the storm clean-up, so it was only going to take days and not weeks. The best thing, the duty nurse advised, was to keep the patient warm and comfortable, adding that if a fever did develop, then the girl should call back, and they would consider sending an emergency rescue team.

Thanking her, the girl hung up and considered her own predicament. Last night, despite the storm, they had enjoyed a pleasant, relaxed dinner; but today the reality of her decision to stay and continue the interview was beginning to sink in.

If she had known what she was getting into, would she have agreed to do this interview in the first place?

What was supposed to be a simple, firsthand account of the Great Upheaval and the times leading up to it had taken an unexpected turn over the last two days, and it wasn’t only because of the back-to-back storms or the unexpected nursing requirements. It wasn’t even because the Old One she was assigned to interview turned out to be stubborn, irascible, and belligerent. No, the real problem was that the Old One’s version of events not only contradicted the approved texts, but was so controversial that there was no way the girl could submit them to the MelbU admissions council. The girl wondered if this was the real test devised by her advisor. If so, she was failing miserably. Looking at the box of memorabilia, she could feel her chances of getting into the master’s program slipping away; that and her chance to escape from Warragul to the big city. Maybe she should reconcile herself now to a life of poverty and ignominy?

Stoically, she began setting up her equipment. From behind the curtain, she could hear the sounds of the Old One’s laboured breathing, interrupted by short sharp sighs. It stopped and started like a bad recording. Then it occurred to her. Maybe she needed to treat the Old One’s historical account the same way – like a bad recording. She could edit them, removing the offensive bits, and there might be enough useful viva voce left to pull together a decent testimony. If the admission committee gave her a little leeway because of the storm, then she might have enough time to finish her assignment. That was if, and it was a big if, she could keep the Old One focused on the facts. Inspired, she realised that maybe, just maybe, she would be able to finish this assignment. She grabbed paper and pen and, sitting in front of the recorder, decided to get right to work.

The Old One’s account of the Desolation was salvageable, describing the disease as hitting in tsunami-like waves. The first ripples had spread out from its epicentre in Brazil to the rest of South America; then gaining momentum, it had raced northward, descending on Mexico, cascading into the United States, and finally inundating Canada. But once it had crossed the Atlantic, that’s when everyone agreed that it really picked up speed, quickly swamping Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last to get hit were the island nations of Oceania. They had locked their borders early, and the Old One said they had hidden, like a frightened child in the cupboard, holding their breath, but in the end it didn’t matter. The disease still washed ashore in the wake of the second wave, then crashed with catastrophic effects as the third wave made one final sweep around the world. As the final wave receded, the last known adult male was thought to be Kurt Voltz, a thirty-nine-year-old recluse who lived on a small island in the Whitsundays. But that, according to the Old One, was a lie.

The girl put the disc labelled Day 1 into the recorder and pressed play. At the start of the recording, the Old One had wandered a bit, talking about how history had no easily defined beginning, so the girl moved the forward and back buttons until she found the spot where she thought the actual interview should begin. Taking a piece of paper, she jotted the time displayed on the recorder along with the notation ‘Start here’.

Pressing play, she heard the Old One’s voice tell how devastating it was for the women who survived. She fast-forwarded, until she found the section she was looking for:

At the beginning of the Desolation, researchers around the world searched for the cause of the disease. Was it environmental or viral? Or was it some new strain of bacteria released by the melting permafrost? Or perhaps it was leaked from some bio warfare lab? But every avenue they searched led to a dead end, so they finally decided they needed a plan B. You see, without knowing the cause, they couldn’t find a cure. And if they couldn’t cure the disease, then all they could hope to do was save as many of the essential individuals as possible: leading scientists, educators, industrialists, and of course politicians. They even tried to preserve their special military personnel, but what for? Everyone was dying already. Anyway, they created safety zones where they isolated the men they hoped to save. Scientists, for example, were sequestered in their research facilities while key military personnel were transferred to off-limits barracks. As for the rich and famous, well, they retreated to their own hideaways. There are probably still bunkers out there with the decaying remains of men who thought they could outsmart the disease. As more and more men succumbed, government scientists rounded up the remaining survivors and put them into quarantine camps so they could be looked after. That’s what everyone was told, but the real reason was so they could be isolated and studied.

The girl paused the recording and considered whether mentioning the survivor camps was likely to ruffle any feathers. They weren’t mentioned in the orthodox texts, but did acknowledging their existence upset the accepted history? The bit about studying the survivors would need to be removed, of course. She listened further.

While the government employed specially selected female scientists to study and sample the survivors, the disease progressed unabated. Independent research facilities, having lost over half their workforce and almost all their administrators, began to close. One by one they collapsed, like the men they were trying to save. As the last wave subsided, only a few increasingly isolated researchers remained, and most of them worked in the government’s now-secretive facilities.

In the short span of three years, every adult male in the world was dead. Or so the general population believed, because that’s what they were told. I assure you, Kurt was not the last man to die. The men who survived were sequestered away in those quarantine camps, and those safe havens became their prisons while the scientists in those government-controlled facilities became complicit in hiding the existence of the last surviving males.

Pressing pause, the girl decided to remove the entire section on the camps. It raised too many damning issues, so she scribbled in the new edit times, with the notation ‘Camps’.

She continued.

As for the surviving women, whose husbands and sons and brothers lay dead, they faced a harsh world that needed a lot of fixing but now had a lot fewer fixers. Those post-pandemic years you would know as the Transition. That’s the term Evelyn Perkins coined when she claimed that they had come to an end. During those dark years –

A series of deep wrenching coughs interrupted the monologue. This was followed by the sound of the Old One sucking water through a straw. The girl considered editing this out but then decided it could stay because it added a bit of drama and might also be useful in justifying the short recording. After a brief pause, the reedy voice began again.

Evelyn Perkins was the one that inspired everyone. She kept the government intact, organised work groups, and set priorities. The citizens of Melbourne rallied around her. The mere sight of Evelyn Perkins and her black walking stick, the one with the head of a lioness, inspired hope. Many referred to her as St Evelyn because without her saving grace, the Greater Melbourne Republic would have dissolved into chaos, like so many other areas. I remember her famous Stability to Rebuild speech in 2047. That’s the one they quote in all your history books. The one they claim marked the end of the Transition, but like I said, there are no clear beginnings and endings in history. That speech was intended to be Evelyn Perkins’s retirement speech, and officially, she did retire, handing the role of premier to Doris Anderson. Behind the scenes, however, Perkins still controlled the New Order Party; and they were, until 2050, the only party.

Pressing stop, the girl pressed back. The claim that Evelyn Perkins retained control of the NOP was unsubstantiated, so this bit would definitely have to go. Pressing play, she needed to figure out how much to remove.

I remember meeting Premier Anderson, you know. She was a moderate within the New Order Party, which should have made her popular, but those were highly polarised times even before her death, what with the Traditionalists thinking she was too progressive and the Progressives thinking she was too traditional. Personally, I think she was just an ordinary politician pretending that everything was fine when it wasn’t. But that’s not what got her killed. Her murder was ill-fated bad luck, plain and simple.

At this point there was a slight chuckle, and the girl wondered if she should cut it out. She made a quick note – ‘Edit?’ – while the playback continued.

It was such a small act really in the grand scheme of human history. After all the hordes of deaths that the living had survived, what was one more really? But, just as the murder of Abel poisoned Cain’s land with his brother’s blood, so the murder of Melbourne’s premier poisoned the Transition’s hard-won stability with the blood of innocents.

On the recording, there was the sound of tapping on an empty glass and a click as the young girl stopped the recording. She hadn’t wanted to waste her batteries while she went to refill the Old One’s water glass, but in hindsight, this was as good a place as any to make the next cut because this was the section where the Old One claimed that the premier was murdered by survivors escaping the prison on French Island. The incident as recounted was clearly fabricated because, as everyone knew, the premier had been murdered by lancers.

On the recording, the girl heard her own voice challenging the Old One, but the response was as swift as it was acrimonious. ‘Is that rumour still prevalent?’ Then, sarcastically, ‘I’ll bet you also believe that in 2049, when Premier Anderson announced that Melbourne was ready to hold its first elections in twenty years, that she intended them to be democratic.’

The girl’s voice replied, ‘Of course they were.’

But her counterargument was drowned out by an even more virulent response. ‘But how could you have democratic elections when a huge portion of your population was denied the right to vote? And it wasn’t only the vote they were denied.’

The girl marked this spot, labelling the edit with ‘Vote’.

The recording continued:

And so now we come to the last few days of 2049, when events converged, forcing individuals who had finally settled into their nice safe lives to make a choice that was nothing short of the future of humanity.

From behind the curtain that had been used to create a makeshift wall in the otherwise open cabin, the girl heard the Old One stir, so she stopped the playback and, leaving her notes, went to check. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she asked, ‘How are you feeling?’

The dry, cracked lips croaked, ‘Water.’

Quickly, she retrieved a glass from the kitchen, then helped the elder to sit up and drink.

‘What’s the time?’

‘Nearly ten.’

‘So late!’ Agitated, the Old One pulled at the covers. ‘Well, help me up, and we’ll get back to work.’

‘Food, then work,’ said the young one.

‘Nonsense. We –’ The Old One stopped mid-sentence and gasped for breath. Fearing the onset of another coughing attack, the girl grabbed the puffer from the bedside table, but the elder pushed it away.

‘Save that for later. Now help me up.’

‘How about you wait here and I’ll bring you breakfast?’ Gently she pressed the Old One back onto the pillows and straightened the blankets. Then, before there could be any further disagreement, she was gone.

Left alone, the Old One pondered last night’s dream which hadn’t yet faded and wondered if time really did heal all wounds; and if so, had enough time passed? Was it time for the ghosts of the past to face their judgement day?

A sunbeam crossed the foot of the bed, a sign that last night’s storm had passed and that the new day was going to be fair. It was reminiscent of another sunrise where hope and uncertainty sought to counterbalance each other.

WEDNESDAY

CHAPTER 1

Wednesday, 8 December 2049

5:00 a.m.

S teve ripped off his night goggles, and the starkly etched world of black and green blossomed into a pastel-hued dawn. On the horizon, pinks coalesced to form a harsh red line separating beryl sky from cerulean sea. Beneath him, the small fishing boat shifted, bucking and resistant, as it changed direction and headed for shore. Where it was taking him didn’t matter. For now, it was enough to know they were leaving behind the choppy swells of Bass Strait and entering calmer waters. This leg of the journey, like the night, was nearing its end, but even more, this dawn was set to banish his previous existence, and he felt reborn. He was Adam newly made, and this was his new world. From the shore, pale grasses atop washed-out sand dunes waved them in, and Steve stretched up his arms in reply. As the blanket fell from his shoulders, the morning air caressed his fingers; and he, in turn, welcomed their cold embrace. Breathing deep, he filled his lungs with the sweet smell of fresh kelp, the salty scent of fish, and the tart odour of privet.

Freedom. He was enthralled by the sight of it, immersed in the feel of it; he breathed it in and wrapped himself in it. Something that had lain dormant in him quickened and swelled, threatening to push its way through his hard dead exterior. For the first time in years, he discovered something growing inside himself. He discovered . . . hope.

Banished was last night’s race to the pier. It faded along with his escape from the island. Both dissipated, as bad dreams do, on waking. That reality belonged to the old Steve. The Steve who, four days earlier, had made the break from the prison on French Island. That emancipation, which should have felt like this morning’s celebration, was marred by the presence of that older woman and her young lover. Steve grimaced remembering the look on Matt’s face as he strangled the woman. She had been one of the others, but her real crime that night had been nothing more than blocking him and Matt from their means of escape: the old dinghy.

Now he wanted to banish that memory too. Whether that murder had been retribution or execution, it had been that other Steve who witnessed it. The woman, however, remained dead; and as for the teenaged boy they’d left wailing on the beach, Steve consoled himself with the fact that there was nothing he could have done to save him. The old Steve said they shouldn’t have left him behind, but the new Steve replied with what choice did they have? Even he and Matt had been forced to split up as their pursuers closed in. Yes, the boy was better off on the beach because as Steve learned, Matt hadn’t made it to safety, so what chance did that boy have?

In the light of this new day, Steve chose to banish the guilt he felt, knowing that against all the odds, he was the one who had made it to freedom. How ironic that of all the men imprisoned on the island, the true ‘survivors’, he would succeed, while his cell mate and friend, Matt, failed. Matt, who was fitter and stronger and knew how to survive, had died in the attempt; but somehow Steve had made it to shore. Somehow the ‘lost boys’ had found him, and somehow he had met the woman they called Wendy.

She was the one that banished his ignorance by telling him that he too was a survivor. He had been so sheltered on the island that he didn’t know that by the time boys turned twenty, they were expected to die. Everything he thought he knew was wrong, and yet here he was, bound for sanctuary at someplace called the Colony in Warragul, and he had no idea what the future held for him. All he knew was that his new guardians believed he held the key to finding a cure.

Across from him, the blond slept. She was definitely not part of the crew, but she had been on board when Tinkerbell dragged him half running, half limping across Hastings Pier and pushed him into the boat. Their departure, surreptitious and precarious, had not been conducive to introductions. Even once they were at sea, the girl had spent most of the night hanging over the side of the vessel. Steve figured it was more seasickness than anxiety, but again, he could have been wrong. Her head now rested on the shoulder of the woman crew member next to her. As he stared, he thought there was something strange about the way her hair parted, but perhaps it was a trick of the light. As her head slipped from her neighbour’s shoulder, she jerked awake. Yawning noisily, she reached up to scratch the back of her head, and Steve stared in horror as her hair slid back and forth. Seeing his reaction, she looked at him and broke into a mischievous smile as she grabbed a handful and, whipping it off, flung it at him. Steve jumped before he realised what it was, then shaking his head, he picked up the wig and joined in the laughter. The young man, who had posed so effectively as a girl, had a mop of sandy-coloured hair and an infectious grin that soon had everyone on board quietly chuckling.

The mood of the travellers lightened as daylight intensified and their proximity to land increased. It was a small crew of women that manned the vessel, two deckhands and the captain, but it was obvious from the row of seats on either side that this boat could accommodate at least ten people, so it seemed odd that there were only two passengers. As they approached the inlet, the woman next to Steve got up and walked to one of the empty seats. Lifting the lid, she pulled out bottles of orange juice, which she handed out to everyone. The young man eagerly took his and cracked open the lid. Then looking at Steve, he held it up in a salute. Embarrassed to be caught staring, Steve concentrated on opening his own bottle, but when he looked back up, he saw that his traveling companion was still grinning, so he returned the smile and the salute. He watched the winsome teen guzzle his drink and move to drop the empty overboard when the girl next to him seized his arm. Gently, she took the empty, and Steve realised she did this because they could not allow any trace of their existence to be left behind. Her action had been swift and brusque, but her smile was genuine as she lifted her seat and stowed the empty in a bucket. Drinking his own juice more slowly, he wondered who these people were. They were quiet, rarely speaking, and moving only when necessary. Even their clothing, identical dark-brown coveralls, gave them a homogeneous and inconspicuous look. Their actions, gentle and purposeful, reminded him of the little brown birds that pecked in the dirt back at the prison. No one ever noticed them, despite their constant presence. Perhaps that’s what it took to be a smuggler.

Theirs was a dangerous business, and obviously they were serious about it, but he also saw in them a playfulness that he was unaccustomed to. Aside from his mother, the only females he really knew were the women from the Big House, and they fell into one of two categories: the ones who used him and the ones who imprisoned and monitored him. But these women, along with the mysterious Wendy and Tinkerbell, were a different breed, and he wanted to trust them, but something held him back. As with the other women he had encountered, he needed to know their motives; and at this point, they weren’t clear.

Finishing his own drink, Steve held out the empty to the woman sitting on the waste bin; and once she had disposed of it, she turned her attention to the front mooring lines.

The boat entered a narrow inlet where mangrove forests lined one side and sandy beaches, the other. Low dunes rose in hillocks shifting with the wind only to be beaten back by scrub tenaciously clinging to the land they had conquered.

Further along Steve saw a jetty protruding from the bank. As the pilot steered towards it, a girl emerged from the tall grasses, flanked by a couple of young men who towered over her. Her hair, cropped short, was bright red; and as the boat drew closer, the piercings on her ears caught the sunlight, shooting out sparks. In contrast to the women on the boat, this girl was no unprepossessing little brown bird. She was a bright-feathered rosella, and Steve knew inherently that she was the one in charge.

As they pulled alongside the jetty, the woman across from Steve tossed her bowline to the stockier of the two males. He caught it, but instead of tying them up to the jetty, he held the rope tight and moved with the boat as the pilot killed the engine. The woman at the back did the same, while the pilot broke the silence by saying, ‘Ride’s over, boys. Time to go.’

That voice, so similar to Wendy’s, was at once commanding and yet reassuring. It reminded him of a time long ago. A memory that had gotten misplaced but now emerged in his periphery. Who were these women? A crew member offered him her hand. Unsure, he hesitated, then clasped it. As he stood, a sharp pain shot up his injured leg, and he paused. The woman gave him a concerned look as he tried putting weight back on it and, wincing, confirmed that it would carry him. He allowed her to guide him to the other side, where she released her hand from his and nudged him forward. Stepping onto the seat, he saw the red-haired girl extend her hand; and as he took it, he recalled the sensation of being passed from one woman to the next. This recollection unnerved him, and he stopped in mid-stride. The pause caused the red-haired girl to give him an inquiring look, but he gritted his teeth and finished stepping forward. Involuntarily, he pushed her hand aside as he clambered onto the jetty and then wondered why he had done that. Behind him, he heard the clumsy steps of a second person and turned to see his new companion fall into the arms of the girl as the boat bobbed and slid behind him. The young men holding the bowlines chuckled as they threw the ropes back at the crew. Wasting no time, the pilot turned on the engine and called, ‘Good luck,’ as the band on the jetty shoved the boat away with their feet.

‘Time to move,’ said the girl. ‘You can call me Cherry Royale or Cherry for short, but either way, it’s my job to get you to your new home. This here is Jack Russell,’ she said, pointing to the smaller and wirier of her two companions, ‘and this other mutt is Bulldog.’

The young men had resumed their positions on either side of the girl and seemed to be measuring up the two newcomers, so taking the lead, Steve introduced himself then, looking at the sandy-haired kid, said, ‘And this is –’

‘Benny,’ replied the teen.

The girl eyed them critically. ‘You,’ she said, looking at Steve. ‘From now on, we call you Shepherd as in German shepherd.’ Then walking over to Benny and giving him a quick once-over, she stated, ‘You, we call Blue.’

‘As in blue eyes.’

‘As in blue heeler,’ snapped the girl, but at the same time, Steve noticed a flush of pink in her cheeks. Turning abruptly, she commanded, ‘Now we need to get out of the open. There are patrols everywhere,’ and with that she headed towards the scrub at the end of the jetty. Jack and Bulldog fell in behind, while Benny shrugged his shoulders and held out his arm saying, ‘After you, Shepherd.’

Steve mused over the exchange between Benny and the girl as she led them up and over several dunes that ran parallel to a creek that rippled in lazy burbles towards the estuary. Eventually, they came to the spot where a number of other small creeks had also diverged from the main stream. There, two aluminium canoes with camouflaged exteriors sat upside down on the bank.

‘Either of you know how to paddle?’ asked the girl.

‘I do,’ said Steve.

‘Good, you take the lead with Bulldog.’ Then pointing to Benny, she said, ‘You straddle the middle between me and Jack.’

With a minimum of effort, the two lightweight canoes were in the water and heading upstream. Even though they were moving