Yesterday and today the heat began building up, the sky turning yellow-orange. I think a storm is coming, a big one. Probably a lot of moisture coming off that collapsed ice shelf. We might have snow or who knows what come here. Zion had asked me what my plans were. I said, "I think the city's going to become unliveable. The waters will turn a lot of it into a salty swamp. The groundwater will get salted. The scum have taken over the city, they won't know how to grow food, nor would they want to. They'll just take it. Way I see it, best bet is to head for the hills, up in the forests build a home, grow a garden. It'll be hard. If I were on my own, I'd stay here and try to fight these gangs... but now I've a daughter, I can't do shit like that."

Zion expressed a wish to stay in their home. "Well," I said, "you've been very kind to us both. So if you want to leave the city, too, if you decide that's best, I'll be going on Sunday. I just need to rest up a bit more and gather some supplies." He said he'd think about it and talk to Flora. They talked, they agreeed they should at least be prepared to leave, and gather materials for it. They had some bikes and bike-trailers – push-bikes, I mean. I've always preferred being on foot, myself.

Last night I couldn't sleep, tossing and turning all night. I woke way before dawn, and my pacing woke Zarah. So we had an early breakfast and went over to the Galand's joint. The day was hot and humid, the light diffuse and yellow, the sky more white than blue. I told Zion, "I think there's a storm coming, it's today we get the gear, or not at all." He agreed and got his bike and trailer. We head off towards the middle of town, its main shopping strip, in search of a hardware store. The Galands had shovels and so on, but we needed hammers and saws and nails and more seeds. We were heading to a store, Brougham's. As we went up the road we heard chanting ahead. Bald-headed, orange-robed people. Hare Krishnas! Or that's what they looked like anyway. As we approached, we saw that all were in orange except one bloke in white. He approached us, old, skinny, a bit demented-looking, cross around his neck.

"Dear sinners! Have you repented?"

"Repented of what?" I said.

"Of your sins!"

"Sure. But that's between me and God."

"No! Repentance must be public! It is the time of the Apocalypse! And he shall come with woundes redde, to damne the quick and the deade..." His eyes rolled a little and he staggered.

He and the thirty other nutters behind him were making me nervous. I hefted my axe in hand, onto my shoulder. "I like my privacy," I said. Someone in the crowd gasped. "The axe!"

The old preacher squinted at me. "Who are you?"

"I'm Kyle. This is my daughter Zarah and my friend Zion. And you?"

"We are the Chosen of God."

"Trust me, it's no great thing to be the Chosen People. Ask Him to choose someone else."

"Kyle!" someone called out. "Kyle of the Axe!"

"Ah, we have heard of you," said the preacher, "you slew twelve men, and stood against one hundred and walked away."

"Don't listen to all the rumours you hear, mate," I said.

"Then how many have you slain?" he said, looking at me with one eye while the other kept rolling.

"That depends. Do you count women and children?"

"You have slain!" he cried, grabbing me by my shirtfront, "you must repent!"

"Let me go, or I will slay again," I said loudly, and he backed off, alarmed.

"You should join us!" he said, changing his tune.

"Why? I already have a God."

"But ours is the true God, and we have need of a man who can protect us."

I looked around at them. "There are thirty of you. Protect yourselves." They cried out in protest as I walked away. Soon they took up singing and chanting again as they danced on down the street. "Fucking Christians," I muttered to myself, "one little global apocalypse and they get all hysterical."

We approached Brougham's, which had its windows smashed, it'd obviously been looted. Zion lent his bicycle against a parking sign outside and approached. "With luck, they only nicked the obvious weapons and cash," I said. We checked the place out and it was clear of anyone else. "You two get what we need, I'll keep a watch out in front for mad Christians."

While I stood there I watched the religious nutters dancing off down the street. I heard a rumble from my left, from the south. A rumble of motorbikes, a lot of them. I ducked back inside the shop and behind a shelf, motioning Zarah and Zion to join me. The rumble got closer and twenty, maybe thirty bikers on half as many bikes rode past. A few were armed with shotguns and other longarms. They whooped and hollered as they rode along. As they went past I crept forward, and saw them riding at the religious nutters, who scattered in all directions. Some shots rang out, but I saw no-one fall. I assumed they were just firing in the air to scare them. I crept back inside. "Get what we came for as quickly as you can. We'll give them time to get well past, then go the other way back home."

They continued rummaging around, and I heard further shots, and screams. "Fuck," I muttered. "They may be nutters, but they don't... I hope..." I shook my head. With the whole world in flames, I couldn't do much. Suddenly I heard a rumbling come closer. The bikers were splitting up. I ran back into the shop and we all hunkered down behind a shelf again. I looked around, then handed Zarah a small shovel. "If anyone comes," I whispered, "swing this at him with a big yell, even if you don't hit him you might make him back off." I offered Zion my axe, but he just shook his head and looked afraid. Pacifists! Some bikes went past and back south, but most were still up the other way. One pulled aside and stopped to look at Zion's bike. He poked around inside, pulling out a box of nails we'd put there, and a blanket that was there for some reason. He squinted in at the shop, turned off his engine and kicked out the kickstand. He kicked over Zion's bike, it clattered to the pavement. From his motorbike he pulled a shotgun, which had been duct-taped to the other side.

Quietly and slowly I pulled out my Glock, flicked off the safety, pulled back the slide and checked there was a round up the spout. The biker approached the doorway, shotgun in his hands, eyes squinting against the darkness inside. I took up aim on his centre of mass, midway between neck and groin. If his eyes met mine, I'd put three rounds into him. I wasn't likely to miss at three metres, but even if I did, the noise should scare him and make him back off.

He stood there, peering in, his eyes going over our heads, around and up to the ceiling. There was the sound of a motorbike from the left, he looked up and away, someone came past, yelled something at him. He looked back in the shop, stood there a moment, then turned and walked over to his bike, kicked down the kickstand, revved up the engine and drove away.

I let out the breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding, lowered my Glock and put the safety back on. I turned to Zarah, whose knuckles were white on the shovel, the whites of her eyes showing all around as she stared forwards. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Zarah, it's okay now. Relax." She looked up at me quickly, and dropped the shovel, which fell to the floor with a clang.

"Okay, let's grab what we need and get out of here," I said. We did so.

Walking along the road, we started seeing signs of... not a fight, but blood. There were spent shotgun shells on the ground, and in front of one house, leaning up against the wall, a bloodied body – shot, a dead religious. "We better check for survivors," I said, "if we see any more bikies, you two run off back home, I'll try to lead them elsewhere." They nodded, Zion apparently keen on the idea of going home.

We walked along. "Yoohoo, Children of God, Chosen, whatever you call yourselves, it's safe to come out now!" Eventually one bloke came out, creeping through a house window.

"What's your name, mate?"

"John. The others...?"

"I dunno. Let's look for them. What do you call yourselves? Catholic? Or what?"

"The Children of the Apocalypse."

"Oh, great. Okay."

With that name, we continued walking along, calling out. We found another dead man, shot to death. John wept over his friend Michael. We checked on him, but he was more than dead, blood everywhere. We continued searching, and came across a house – a slaughterhouse. I smelt death, the stench of blood and puke and shit, and peered in the front door. In the first room, I saw blood and flies. I couldn't see if anyone was alive in there. I looked back. I didn't want my daughter to see this. "There are dead and wounded in there. You guys stay out here, I'll check inside."

I went in, and bile rose in my throat at the smell, the smell of death, the iron of blood, the stench of shit and piss. I went through the rooms of the house, not only had people been shot, but limbs cut off, too, some obviously while the person still lived.

If I'd known this was happening, I would have shot that fucker back in the shop.

I searched among them, and two were still alive barely. I dragged them out, they couldn't be treated there among the blood, gore, shit, limbs and dead. One was dead by the time he got out there, but a second survived. We sorted out a stretcher from a robe and a couple of sticks, and carried him down the street. We found no more survivors, and came to a church.

The doors were shut. I pounded on the door with the shaft of my axe. "Children of the Apocalypse! This is Kyle of the Axe! Let us in, we have one of your people, wounded, he needs care!"

A small peek-shutter slid back, a suspicious eye at it. I pointed back at the wounded guy, and the shocked and miserable John. The shutter closed, we heard the sliding of bolts, and a small door opened in the large one, a figure beckoning us in. I poked my head in – more of the religious nutters. In we went.

At the end of the church behind the altar stood their leader, preaching. The crowd was arguing and discussing, they seemed to be arguing about whether to fight or be martyrs. I muttered something about pacifists being doomed. John stopped me. "Why didn't you help us?"

I looked at him. "Mate, there were twenty or more armed men on bikes. What the fuck was I supposed to do?"

"Fight! You fought twenty the other day, why not today?"

I sighed. "Sometimes a bloke gets lucky, mate. Ever played poker? Sometimes when you bluff, they throw in their cards. Another time, they might call your bluff. Thank God, they didn't this time. That's not a play I'd like to try again if I can help it. Anyway, why didn't you lot fight?"

He looked shocked. "But fighting is wrong! We are peaceful."

"Peaceful enough not to fight, but not peaceful enough to stop you asking someone else to fight for you? That's not peaceful, mate, that's just being a coward." He looked a bit disconcerted, I don't know whether it was sad, angry, ashamed, or what.

Around us the debate went on. I moved around the side of the church. Jesus gazed down at me from his cross, looking muscular and content, as those graven images often do. "What are you lookin' at?" I said to him, but he didn't reply. I came up to Mary, who was looking stone-faced and virginal. "Maybe you were never fucked," I said to her, "but these buggers will be." She wasn't too talkative, either. Meanwhile the preacher went on, he seemed to be weighing on the side of pacifism. "It is the Apocalypse, we are all dead, and the Lord shall judge us in these Last Days." And so on. But most of them weren't listening to him, arguing amongst themselves.

They may be nutters, but still they deserve to live. Maybe I could inspire them, I thought. I strode up to beside the preacher, and hefted my axe. "Ho!" I shouted, "Look here!" Most looked over, and with a roar I swung down the axe into the altar, splitting it through the middle. I ripped out the axe, and kicked the broken altar down off the dais, splinters flying off down the stairs. Now I had their attention, and the preacher had leapt back to one side, his eyes wide. "This is your choice: you can be the axe, or be the altar. You can destroy, or be destroyed. Life, or death. Your choice." I was going to go on, but they fell back to loud dissension. I think the swing voters had just chosen sides.

I shook my head, and walked down through the crowd, who ignored me, but got out of my way. I rejoined Zarah and Zion, and said, "let's go home."