In the Afterwards

By Susan Distel

Fifty years after the world's cities went dark, seventeen-year-old Kris lives with her family and her dog Tracker on their farm near the remote Australian coastal town of Pollo Bay.

Kris trains to fight, the same as everyone else at home, but she doesn't see the point. She's competent enough, and as the daughter of the mil' leader she'd better be, but why bother? Their isolated location keeps them safe.

Life should be great…

But she's been dumped by her boyfriend…

Raider attacks are increasing…

And strange creatures are appearing in the wild places.

When danger threatens her community, and long buried family secrets come to light, Kris will have to decide how far she will go to protect those she loves.

She will need ingenuity and courage and the help of a really good dog to get through.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Distel
• Release date: Dec 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223746997

Susan Distel

Susan Distel lives in Melbourne Australia with her family, and assorted animals.  This is her first novel.  When she isn't writing she can be found practising post-apocalyptic craft skills or taking long walks with a big black dog.

Book preview

PART I

Chapter 1

Kris’s cheek burned where she’d grazed it in the fight yesterday and her back ached from the weight of her borrowed leather vest, reinforced with metal studs. Her mother wore this gear all day, every day. If mum could do it, so could she. Suck it up buttercup. She looked down at her hand axe, deliberately loosening fingers that threatened to cramp. Dried smears of blood were stuck in the ridge where the blade met the hilt.

The air in the alcove was heavy and still, smelling of dust, hot concrete and sweat. To be expected when two people and a dog were crammed into such a small space. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead and her linen undershirt to her skin, but at least they were hidden from the beams of late afternoon sunlight shining through the ruined roof. Beside her, Tracker lay on the ground, mouth open, tongue out, but still alert. His ears were folded back, his back legs tense and ready. He would run into the fight the instant she commanded it.

The creature lying in the sunshine on a pile of tumbled concrete wasn’t something that she had ever seen before. Maybe no-one ever had. Perhaps its ancestors had been feral cats or even domestic ones but the feline resemblance stopped at the shape of its broad triangular head. Its coat was brindled and shaggy — like the pelt of wolves she had seen in books — and it had large fangs protruding down from its top jaw, one on each side. Even as it lay in its sunbeam, eyes shut and tail lazily swaying, those fangs announced it as a top tier predator. A finger of dread traced down her back. It looked prehistoric — some sort of weird cross between a sabre-toothed cat and a dire wolf.

Kris didn’t want to fight this creature. She and Seb were in its territory and it had done nothing to them. Plus, they were too tired and it was too big. They needed a Plan B. Looking around for inspiration, she spotted a fist-sized piece of rubble near her feet. Slowly she folded her legs, reached out her hand and palmed it. Then, just as slowly, she got back to her feet. Seb looked at her, eyebrows raised. She mimed a throwing action. He put his palm out and she dropped the piece of concrete into it.

Seb lobbed the lump of concrete in a long shallow arc, to a point midway between them and the creature. They needed the cat to run away from their position. The projectile bounced and clattered as it landed and the dire cat jumped, ears flicking back in surprise. It sat up and scanned its surroundings. Kris held her breath, looking at the ground, willing herself to be invisible. C’mon. Run. After a few seconds, the creature lowered itself back to its sunbeam. It lay on its side, eyes now open and alert, but in no hurry to move.

Great, they’d made matters worse. The creature blocked the ramp which spiralled down to street level. She and Seb agreed that the structure had once been an ‘underground car park.’ Their morning explorations suggested that the damaged building above had been a sort of inn, a place where travellers could stay. It was nothing like the cosy brick inn at Pollo Bay, which had a handful of rooms for the travellers and traders who came through the town. This place had once held hundreds of visitors at once. The top levels had partially collapsed, but the lower levels had been intact enough for them to explore.

She rested her head against the wall, shutting her eyes for a brief moment, until her cousin nudged her shoulder. A second dire cat had appeared, jumping through the hole in the concrete roof and now lay next to the first cat, grooming it with a long black tongue. Seb tilted his head to the left, toward a doorway — barely visible as a rectangle of darkness further back in the gloom — and started to move towards it. The doorway would lead them back into the inn. It looked like Plan C was to retrace their steps, at least partly. No way was she going out the way they’d come in. Copying Seb, she sidled along the smooth concrete wall to stay in the deep shadows. Tracker looked up and at her gesture he pulled himself to his feet and padded to her side.

‘Where do we go now?’

They had retreated through the doorway into a narrow windowless corridor, far enough that the cats wouldn’t hear them. The chemlight Seb pulled from his pack painted the walls and floor a weird vibrant green.

‘We already checked the emergency stairwell and it’s pitch black. That light’s going to run out any time now and the stairs are probably impassable... from the look we got. Even if I could wriggle through some of the gaps, there’s no way you’ll fit.’ She poked gently at his broad chest.

‘We could find a room with a window and climb down the side of the building. Tracker won’t like it, but he’ll cooperate.’ Seb looked at Tracker, who noticed the attention and thumped his tail on the floor. ‘Or we could just rest...see if they move on. You look as tired as I feel.’

Kris nodded.  ‘Maybe that’s our best bet... and I’m absolutely stuffed. I think I could sleep anywhere.’

‘What about spider hall? Want to crash there?’

Spider hall. It was an apt name. She gave an exaggerated shudder and shoved Seb’s shoulder. ‘Not spider hall you idiot.’ She thought for a moment. ‘What about that storage cupboard we passed just before? It’s not very big, but the door’s intact and it’s secure.’

Seb grunted. ‘It won’t be very comfortable, but yeah, I think it’ll do.’

They retraced their steps along the corridor until they reached a metal door. The word ‘Maintenance’ was still visible in flaking white paint on the steel surface. On their way past earlier they had checked inside, looking for sealed containers of chemicals, or tools that could be used or melted down for their metal content. A tightly wrapped can of solvent and an unopened tube of glue were now in Seb’s pack.

‘On three,’ said Seb. ‘One, two, three.’

Kris grabbed her side of the metal shelving unit by a corner and they half lifted, half dragged it toward the door, blocking the exit. The storage cupboard was small, but there was just enough room to sit down and stretch out their legs. They would have to sleep sitting up, but at this point Kris didn’t care — if she could take off her leather jerkin and her boots, she’d be happy. Settling herself on the cool concrete, she put her back against the wall. On the far side of Tracker, Seb had done the same.

She unlaced her heavy boots, sighing in relief when the weight was removed from her toes. Next off was the borrowed leather vest, which she placed on the ground beside the boots. Seb had been right, (not that she’d tell him) when he’d said, ‘By the end of the first hour you’ll be wishing you didn’t have it. It’s much less fun than you think.’ It was much less fun than she had imagined. The linen shirt she wore underneath was stuck to her skin and she made a face as she smelled her own sour sweat. When they got out of here, once it was safe, she’d enjoy a swim at the beach to clean up. For now, she’d just have to put up with it.

Working mostly by feel in the semi darkness of the failing chemlight, its green glow now sullen and sickly, Kris reached for her pack. Her fingers found new holes in the top flap of the stout canvas and she paused in shock, then grabbed the chemlight for a closer look. Her hand clenched around the light when she saw two neat puncture marks.

‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘Seb look at this. The fucker tried to bite me.’

Chapter 2

They had found the inn around lunchtime. Their entrance point had been a broken window facing onto the overgrown garden, then they had followed the signs for ‘reception’ as they walked through the deserted corridors. Shutters over the windows prevented Kris from getting a good view of the cavernous front lobby, but even in the gloom the sheer opulence of the space — a full two storeys tall with marble floors — took her breath away. Their chemlight did not pierce the deep shadows in the corners, even when Seb held it up as high as he could.

Tracker gave a warning growl and bark. Before she could react, Kris felt the weight of a creature land on her back. Legs, multi jointed and fuzzy, wrapped around her shoulders and her hips. Her heart galloped. Fuck! A spider! She hated spiders. Tracker barked frantically, jumping up and down as he tried to reach the creature. The shadows in the room spun crazily as Seb dropped the light. ‘Drop and roll,’ he shouted.

Without a thought, Kris dropped to her stomach and rolled, in the move they all practised as children. As she dropped, the creature jumped off. Tracker lunged, but the spider, insanely quick, leapt halfway across the room in one fluid jump. It spun to face them, raising its front legs. Kris leapt to her feet and commanded Tracker to ‘go round.’

Kris’s axe was in her hand. She didn’t remember pulling it from her belt. The thick studded leather bracers on her forearm should protect against a bite, but she didn’t plan to test the theory. She had no intention to become spider-food.

She took two steps forward and the spider reared up further, its front legs waving at her head height. Kris paused. The intimidation tactic was working. Sweat gathered in the small of her back and her heart was pumping hard. She muttered, ‘You’ve got this. It’s just like target practice. Right?’

She had a moment to be grateful that at least she knew basic fighting skills. She trained, of course, everyone in her community had to, but she’d never really understood her mother’s obsession with defence. Their location was remote, protected inland by the virtually impassable Otway ranges, and the ocean to the south was known as the Shipwreck Coast. Few large ships hazarded the journey. Their life was peaceful, for the most part. Their community was one of the biggest and raiders targeted only the smaller, more isolated farms, too far from the protection of the mil’. Nonetheless, the rules at home were ironclad. Everyone got trained. Some, like Seb, trained even more and joined the mil’, under her mum’s command. Now, Kris wished she’d trained harder, done more than the minimum her mother demanded.

Her axe handle was sticky with sweat and she adjusted her grip, before raising the weapon to shoulder level and taking a deep steadying breath. Tracker had moved behind the spider, ready for an attack. She drew her arm back and threw. Her axe hurtled through the air, the blade burying itself deep in the creature’s exposed abdomen. The spider jerked, legs flailing, then it jerked again as Tracker leapt on it from behind. He bit the back of its neck, half severing the head from the abdomen and the creature crumpled to the ground.

‘Kris!’ The shout was strangled, urgent. Kris whirled. Seb lay on his back with a spider rearing over him. Two spider corpses already lay on the ground near him, their blood splattering the marble floor.

Kris screamed — an incoherent cry — and charged. There was nothing else to do. There wasn’t enough time to get her axe out from under the spider she and Tracker had killed.

She lowered her head and used the full force of her torso as a battering ram. The impact jolted through her, robbing her of breath. She fell to the ground, pulling the spider down with her, half pinning it with her body. Tracker, not to be left out, jumped into the fight and his strong jaws latched onto one of the creature’s legs.

Underneath her the spider twisted, trying to get to its feet. Fuzzy legs brushed her face and touched her hair. Kill it. She had to kill it. Its two rows of black eyes bulged from its forehead. Urk. She head-butted it. It still moved. She head-butted it again, desperate, as her breath heaved in her chest and the muscles in her arms screamed in complaint. There was a horrible squelching sound as Tracker tore off one of the spider’s legs, then moved onto another one. He growled steadily as he shook it in his jaws. Seb, back on his feet, an axe in each hand, moved in on the other side and cut through a third limb.

Kris gave one final head-butt to the back of the spider’s head and it shuddered and went limp. She rolled off the creature’s abdomen and onto the floor, her whole body shaking with exhaustion and the aftermath of the fight. Tracker padded over to her. His massive head loomed over hers as he bent down to lick her face but Kris put a hand up to block him. ‘I’m okay, big dude, but you’re not giving me any kisses. Not until I’ve washed your face.’ He looked like a creature from a nightmare, his muzzle smeared with strange blue blood and chunks of spider pieces. Her hand sought a clean place to pat and settled on an ear.

***

Kris forced herself to move on past the memory, to uncurl her fingers and keep hunting for food in her bag. The spiders were dead. They couldn’t hurt anyone now.

‘Oh look,’ she said, feigning humour she didn't feel. ‘Dried meat and fruit. For the second day in a row. What a treat!’

Seb snorted and Tracker wagged his tail. She offered him some of her meat, which he took gently from her fingers. Next she held out a piece of dried apple but he sniffed it, then looked away.

‘Not a fruit fan huh?’ She popped the last of it into her mouth. ‘What about some water instead?’ He pricked up his ears and she held out her cupped hand for him to drink from. When he finished, he padded away and settled with a sigh in front of the shelves barricading the door. Bending her knees, she rested her backpack on them as a pillow, leant her head on the canvas and fell into a deep sleep.

Kris woke when Tracker licked her face and whined softly. She reached up, hunting for a patch of fur and patting it to let him know she was awake. Her neck was sore and her bladder full. Tracker had been telling her that he needed to go outside too. She felt rested, although she had no way to tell how long she had slept. With luck, night had fallen while they were asleep, and the dire cats had gone hunting.

She roused her cousin with a gentle shake and re-dressed by the flickering light of a single candle. It was harder to move the shelf in the semi-darkness than she had expected, and she almost tripped over Tracker as she walked backwards, setting the shelves back in place. Seb poked his head out of the doorway first, checking that the path was clear, before they turned right along the corridor to the carpark exit. At the doorway leading out, Kris checked Tracker’s body language. His ears were forward, showing that he was alert but the hair along the ridge of his spine lay flat.

Seeing her ‘thumbs up’, Seb extinguished the candle and stepped through the doorway. She followed, close on his heels. Through the hole in the roof she could see the blaze of stars high in the indigo sky. From Gran’s stories, Kris knew that Before-Times cities created so much light they drowned out the stars at night. Kris had tried to imagine it but failed.

The broken pillars and rubble threw strange shadows in the faint moonlight. In unspoken agreement, she and Seb stopped to assess their surroundings. Kris couldn’t see the dire cats, but their mottled colouring would make them almost impossible to spot. She checked Tracker again, relying on him to smell the beasts even if he couldn’t see them. He wagged his tail as he looked up at her.

‘We’re all good,’ she whispered.

Seb nodded and led the way further in. With an apology to the long dead inhabitants of Lorne, Kris gave Tracker permission to take a pee against the base of one of the concrete pillars. She’d just have to hold on until they got to some bushes.

Their path out was blocked by fallen lumps of masonry that lay like a giant’s discarded toys. Kris waited until Seb scaled the concrete mountain and called ‘clear’ before she started to climb. She grazed both knees and an elbow as she clambered to the top of the pile, then down the other side. Tracker stayed close to her side, jumping easily from one level to the next.

‘Show off,’ she muttered.

She had almost reached the unbroken section of ramp when Tracker growled. She froze midstep. Her eyes searched the darkness and her right hand went automatically to her axe, the blade shining in the moonlight. Moments passed and nothing pounced on them from the darkness. Tracker relaxed and so did Kris. She let out the breath she had been holding and scrambled the rest of the way down the rubble.

Their path got easier after that, and the ramp led smoothly down to street level. Kris hunched her shoulders as they descended, still half expecting a dire cat to leap out at her. It all seemed too easy. When they reached the street and Kris stepped out into the night she felt a rush of relief. She straightened, rolling her shoulders one at a time to relieve the ache in her muscles.

In the darkness before dawn the old road was visible only as a straight line down to the shore. Street poles festooned with couch grass marched alongside it. The old bitumen surface had cracked where plant life had grown and gained a toehold and it was mostly covered by grasses and bracken. Abandoned homes stared sightlessly toward the street. The rusted shells of a car and a ute sagged in the driveway of a dilapidated house across the road. Perhaps they were too far gone to be of any use, but they had at least found most of the things on her dad’s list.

***

On the first morning as they explored the town, she had read the faded signs on the buildings and shop fronts. Many had offered accommodation or served food. There were also grocery stores and a petrol station near the hardware store. The petrol would be unusable, but her dad would be excited by the gas cylinders out the front of the building. The business also had a workshop, and perhaps there were cars still sitting behind the firmly shut roller door.

Discovering the pharmacy had been the most exciting part of that first whole day. Wedged in between two other shops on the main street it was like a dusty cave, filled with treasure. Besides the medicines, tucked away in the back of the store — shelves and shelves of them — they’d found tall stacks of sunhats and sunglasses. Useful supplies such as bandages and wound care products sat near products for indigestion and ‘soap free’ wash. Whatever that was.

A whole section on one wall had been devoted solely to products to help women change their appearance. Kris had been distracted by a large sign showing a beautiful woman with improbably smooth skin, bright blue eyes and pouty red lips. They had filled their bags with the medicines on Anh’s list: ibuprofen, panadol, antihistamines, although he didn’t know for sure which ones would still work. One of Anh’s most precious possessions, along with his encyclopaedia of anatomy, was a handwrittten book passed down to him from his predecessor, who had received it from a real doctor, alive in the town of Apollo Bay at the Collapse. Among other things, the book said that some medicines would last for many years. Who knew if fifty years was too long?

The rest of the day had been uneventful. After the pharmacy they had worked their way up the hill, mapping the sprawl of houses behind the shops and restaurants, making notations on their hand-drawn copy of her dad’s original map. They had spent the night in a cottage on the very outskirts of town, backing onto the bush and overlooking the ocean. Most of the buildings had been inaccessible without stronger tools to jimmy doors, or by breaking precious window glass, but they had found this cottage with its door ajar. They’d almost missed the open door as the shrubs in the front garden had grown till they mostly obscured the entrance, and it was only by chance that Kris had glanced back and seen it. Seb had entered first, axes at the ready, but the building was unoccupied except for mice nesting in a shredded corner of the mattress on the bed.

The home had enough space for a family although all the signs suggested there had only been one occupant, and it had the feel that the owner had just stepped outside. The first room inside the front door was a bedroom, where a pair of men’s pyjamas lay neatly folded on the bedspread, and a well-thumbed book rested on the bedside table. Clothes were still hanging in the wardrobe. Kris took a pair of denim jeans and a thick woollen coat, rolling them up and tying them onto the top of her backpack. From down the hall, Seb called that he’d found a drum kit and a piano in the next room.

Further exploration disclosed a living room with two couches, a wooden table with two matching hard wooden chairs, and a large dark rectangle on the wall. A television. The idea that a box could provide sound and pictures was hard to believe. There was an indoor laundry and a bathroom with a shower and a toilet that had once flushed.

More signs of the home’s previous occupant had been in the kitchen. By the sink she saw an upturned mug with the words in bold red print I LIVE FOR COFFEE! on the side and a plate leaning against it, as if the owner had just finished washing the dishes after a meal.

Late afternoon light shone golden around the edges of the shutters covering the windows as Kris prowled the kitchen, fascinated. No water flowed from the kitchen taps when she tried the handles and she sneezed as she ran her finger through the layer of dust on the counter. The cupboards were crammed with equipment. Some items she recognised: pots and pans, bowls, plates and glasses — she admired the smooth clear glass — but some left her baffled. Contraptions of plastic and metal that ran on electricity, tools that the occupant had once considered useful or necessary.

While investigating a drawer, her eye was caught by a small leather pouch and she pulled out the item it held. ‘What’s this?’ She waved it at Seb. It fit into the palm of her hand and was surprisingly heavy for its size.

Her cousin turned to her from where he’d been examining the overfull bookcase. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is a fantastic folding knife.’ He showed her how a small blade had been built to fold inside the hard outer casing. ‘Keep it.’

Before the sun went down Kris and Seb shared a cold meal of dried rabbit, hard bread and lukewarm water from their canteens, sitting on the back verandah. Tracker drank from a pond so choked by overgrown vines covered in small white flowers that Kris had almost stepped into it, before he slipped out through a hole in the back fence to hunt for his meal. While they waited for Tracker to return, and the light bled from the sky, Seb read a book while Kris picked some of the flowers that bloomed in the garden.

The evening air was full of their heavy perfume and Kris took deep breaths of the sweet fragrance. Gran would have been able to tell her what the different blooms were called. Their gardens at home were full of plants Kris knew: vegetables, herbs and fruit trees, but they didn’t have the luxury of growing plants for their flowers, not unless the flowers had a useful purpose, like lavender and camomile. She’d learned a few names when helping Gran with the footstool she’d embroidered, threading the needle when Gran couldn’t do it, but many were a mystery.

Before Gran had died, Kris would save any flowers she’d found on scavenging expeditions and bring them back for identification. In her mind Kris could picture how Gran would hold up a flower in her bent and swollen fingers, then shut her eyes as she sorted through her memories. ‘I miss you grandma,’ she whispered into the night.

She’d been ready to sleep as soon as the sun set. Neither of them had been inclined to use the bed. ‘Too creepy,’ she’d told Seb, when he offered her the bedroom. He laughed.

The couches in the living room still held their weight when tested. The fabric was some sort of smooth synthetic material, in a deep burgundy. Kris’s couch made a soft but comfortable bed, with room for Tracker at her feet after he returned.

In the morning, after they left the cottage, she spotted a human skeleton a few houses further down the street, the bleached bones almost reclaimed by nature. How had they died so close to home: alone and in the street? She had said a few words over the bones, even though the soul was long gone.

***

Kris stood still and listened to the night sounds. Now that they were out of the ruined structure, she could once again hear the soft ‘boom, boom’ of the sea at the bottom of the hill. She focused her attention closer to hand. Above, a possum scrambled along a tree branch. Further away she heard the grunt of a koala. The sounds of normal small animal life soothed her senses. Motioning her cousin to wait, she dashed behind a stand of tall grasses.

‘Back to the beach?’ she asked her cousin when she returned. Two days earlier they’d been dropped just offshore by Lina, the yacht captain who had agreed to bring them here, before wading through crystal clear water, past darting silver fish. When they reached the shore, Tracker had snoozed on the sand, his breath sending puffs of yellow grains dancing in the air as Kris waited beside Seb, alert for threats as the breeze dried her linen shirt and pants and left patterns of salt on her legs. Seb watched the main street through her dad’s old binoculars.

When he had announced, ‘Nothing’s moving. I reckon we’re right to go in,’ Kris turned and waved to the boat captain. They had watched in silence as the little yacht turned and tacked away.

She could just see Seb’s nod in the starlit darkness.

‘We’ve got as much as we can carry, and Lina will be back this afternoon... we can’t afford to miss her. I’m not sure