by Adam Smith
We pull into the pub car park and head inside. “We’ve got lamb for dinner. We just need to prepare it.” I say walking into the kitchen and getting a large knife to prepare the lamb. “I’ll help out, never seen this done before.” Says Mark. “Do you want me to help you?” Asks Lewis. “Sure mate.” I say. “Well you, you don’t want to use that knife. Here let me show you.” Says Lewis. Mark and I look at each other as Lewis comes out of the kitchen with his chosen knife. “I’m a butcher.” Says Lewis. “Looks like we’re about to get an invaluable lesson then.” Says Mark. “Thanks mate, girls you want to come and help?” I ask. “You know what? I’m good. Says Fiona, Sandy laughs and agrees with here. “Don’t say we didn’t ask. I say. Grabbing some beers we head outside for Lewis to show us how to correctly prepare the lamb.
Sitting inside at one of the large round tables as we’re eating our delicious lamb, Sandy says to us. “I want to go to Perth tomorrow.” We all look at her. “Have you got a plan?” Asks Fiona. “Yeah, we just drive there have a look around, stay the night and see what happens after that.” Says Sandy. “Oh sweetheart. That’s the shittiest plan I’ve ever heard.” Says Fiona. “No it’s not! That’s what we’ve been doing this whole time.” Says Sandy. “It’ll be different in the city and suburbs. There’s going to be so many zombies and more people than out here. We need a proper plan to head in to Perth.” Says Fiona. “She’s right you know.” Says Mark. “I’m happy to head in and check it out. But like the others are saying, a proper plan is needed and it’s not going to be tomorrow.” I Say. “Well what’s the plan then?” Asks Sandy. “Yeah I’m interested in this.” Says Lewis. “Well first of all we can’t just rock up in the city in our slow 4x4 utes can we?” I say. “Why not?” Asks Lewis. “We might need to outrun someone.” Says Mark. “Who’s going to stay here and watch the pub?” Asks Fiona. “What roads are we going to take into the suburb where you’re want to go?” I ask. “Do we want to head into the city centre?” Asks Mark. “Will my cars still be okay?” I ask with a smile. “Okay okay. I got it. Let’s start planning.” Says Sandy. “Lewis is there a car dealership in town? Or in the next town?” I ask. But before he can answer I say “oh shit that’s right. Lewis do you know where the royal hotel is?” “Umm, what, what question do you want answered first? There is a small car dealership in town. As for the, the royal hotel, I think that’s in the next town down the road from here. Why?” Asks Lewis. “We found a note attached to an arrow in a zombie today saying help us we’re at the royal hotel or some shit. Could be real, could be a hoax to lure people there.” I say. “Well are you going to check it out?” Asks Lewis. “Nah. Well maybe when we get back from Perth.” I say with a smile and finish my beer. “We need to do something about the pile of dead Z’s outside you guys.” Says Sandy. “I’ve got a plan for that, I’ll deal with it tomorrow.” Says Mark. Bang bang bang. “What the fuck was that!” Says Fiona as we hear banging coming from the drive through section of the pub, we all get up and walk through to where the banging is coming from. We can see some zombies banging on the windows at the bottle shop section. “That’s odd.” I Say. Walking up to the windows where the zombies are I walk past them but they don’t move or try to get me. “Why aren’t they following you?” Asks Fiona as she walks over and stands in front of one, she stares at it. This is the first time she’s been able to look into the cold dead eyes of a zombie without fear of it. “Lewis. Can you see through these windows from outside?” I ask. “Umm, no, no you can’t they’re mirrored on the other side.” Says Lewis shakily. “Hmm do they see themselves and think there’s people in front of them?” Asks Mark, we all stand around looking at each other then back at the zombies a little confused about the situation. “Who’s coming with me for an evening zombie kill?” I ask. “Yeah I’m in Says Mark.” He walks over to me with his rifle and crowbar. We open the door and walk out into the drive through section, have a look around then quickly run back inside and lock the door. “So there’s a few more outside than we thought.” I Say to the others. “How many?” Asks Fiona. “Maybe twenty up that way and another ten or so on this side.” I say pointing in different directions. “How are we going to deal with them then?” Asks Sandy. “Let’s, Let’s go out into the beer garden, it’s fenced off and the gate opens, ahh opens outwards.” Says Lewis firmly. We all look at him, then agree. “Good plan son!” Says Mark as he pats Lewis on the shoulder. Everyone grabs their weapons and we all meet back at the beer garden door. Mark opens it and we walk outside, keeping an eye on the gate that leads into the drive through section of the bottle shop we make our way to the fence and Fiona starts tapping it with her crowbar. The sound rings out as she taps the metal frame fence with gothic style spiked tops sitting inside a limestone footing and pillars. The zombies hear the noise and start coming over toward us. “There’s some more on this side.” Says Sandy, Mark and Sandy head to the far side and wait for the zombies to get close enough. Lewis and I stand on the benches that are bolted to the limestone wall part of the fence as Fiona keeps tapping the rail. The zombies get within striking distance and we start disposing of them. I smash my crowbar into one's skull, Lewis swings his machete downwards taking the left front side of a zombies face off, Fiona hooks her crowbar into the back of a zombie head and pulls it forward onto one of the gothic spikes I look over at it and stomp on its head pushing the spike through. We hear a gunshot ring out and we all spin around. “What the fuck!” Yells Fiona. “Wailers! 3 left.” Says Mark. He fires again, then Sandy fires. I turn around and start killing some more zombies that have reached the fence. “This isn’t working to well.”’I Say stepping down from the bench, I shoulder my .22 and start firing, pumping the action and firing again, Fiona looks at me and follows suit. “Argh!” We hear Sandy scream. We spin around as she stumbles backward, we see Mark swing his crowbar into the side of a wailers head, he drags it up over the fence and into the beer garden, he puts his rifle barrel in its eye and pulls the trigger. “That’s the last one on this side.” Says Lewis. We run to Marks side, Fiona helps Sandy up as the three of us end the remaining zombies. “What happened to you?” Asks Fiona. “The little fucker made it through the pack and I missed it. It banged into the fence and scared the shit out of me.” Says Sandy as she gets to her feet. We walk inside and lock the door behind us. “Beer? Anyone?” I ask, walking to the bar to pour a pint. “Yeah!” Says Fiona. “Yeah go on then cob.” Says Mark. Lewis and Sandy nod as they all walk back to our dinner table and sit down. We talk about what just happened for a while before Lewis heads to bed. “Game of darts?” Fiona asks me. “Sounds good.” I Say we get up, walk to the dart board and start playing. Mark walks over to the jukebox and turns it on. “Wonder if it works.” He says as he plays around with it. All of a sudden music starts playing from it. Fiona and I look over at him as he selects a slow love song. He walks over to Sandy and asks her to dance. “Aww. You two are so cute.” I Say with a smile. Fiona looks at me. “What?” I ask her. “You gonna’ ask me to dance?” She says. “Would you like to dance my dear?” I ask her. “Nah. I wanna’ flog you at darts mate.” Laughs Fiona. “You’re a fucking spaz.” I say as I walk to the bar and grab some more beers for us.
I wake up early in morning just as it’s getting light, I can hear someone walking around outside my room. I walk outside to a beautiful morning and see Mark walking around the truck looking in all the tool boxes. “Mate. What are you doing?” I ask. “Just looking for something. Don’t worry all good. You want to come and help me get a loader from that agricultural yard we saw on the way into town?” Replies Mark. “Yeah why not. Just give me a minute and I’ll be out. You can drive.” I Say. I walk back inside my room to grab my chosen weapons for the day, I tell Fiona what I’m doing and her response is. “Yeah cool, I’m trying to sleep, lock the door.” I walk back outside and jump in the Ute with Mark, he hands me a coffee as I get in. “Cheers mate.” I say, taking the coffee we head off up the road to the ag yard. “Why do you want a loader mate?” I ask.
“To clear the pile of dead zombies.” Says Mark with a smile. “Good plan, solid, I like it.” I Say nodding. We pull into the yard, there’s a big shed in the left of the yard and a small office building made from portable mine site style dongas on the right. A few cars in the car park and a bunch of machinery that was on display down the side of the building. “What one do you want mate?” I ask Mark as he drives down the side of the shed looking at all the machines. “That one.” Says Mark, stopping the car and pointing at a small yellow front end loader. “Not too big not too small.” He says. We get out and have a look around, Mark climbs up into the cab to check for the keys. “Nothing in here mate. Might have to check the office.” Says Mark. He climbs back down and we start walking back up to the offices at the front of the shed. “We need to find some good cars. Like the utes we smashed up the other day.” I say to Mark. “Yeah. But where?” Says Mark. “Surely there’s got to be at least two in this town somewhere. They’re pretty common and popular.” I Say as we walk around the corner of the shed and up to the office building. Mark steps onto the small step in front of the door and grabs the handle, twists it and pulls the door open, he jumps back onto the ground and we wait to see if anyone comes out. “Don’t think there’s anyone in there mate.” Says Mark. I walk up the stair and look inside. The rooms empty of people, there’s a few desks along the back wall with a service counter right in front of me. I can see a door leading into the shed at the far left of the office. “All clear mate. Let’s check it out.” I say to Mark. We walk inside and start looking around. “Over here mate. This must’ve been the big dogs desk.” Says Mark as he grabs a bunch of keys from a cabinet underneath a desk at the far right end of the building. “Let’s go in the shed.” I say to Mark. “Might be something useful in here that we can use to modify the cars when we find them.” I say. “Modify?” Asks Mark looking at me oddly. “Yeah, extra fuel tank in the back, better engine protection. More power!” I Say with a smile. “Yeah okay mate. Come on buddy.” Says Mark with a smile as he walks past me, opens the door into the shed, walks down the step and into the shed. I follow him into the shed, we see more machines and equipment in front of us, workbenches, toolboxes and other assorted maintenance and mechanical items on the right side of the shed. We start walking around the shed looking at everything that’s inside, checking to see if there’s anything we can use, we make our way to the door at the back of the shed and head outside. We look around as we exit the shed to make sure it’s clear, we head back around to our ute and the loader that Mark wants, he climbs up and tries different keys until he gets the right one. “All good mate. I’ll follow you back.” Says Mark. I get in the ute and head out of the yard. We get back to the pub and I pull up near the beer garden to start dragging zombie bodies out into the clear for Mark to scoop up in the loader. Mark pulls up next to me with a bucket full of dead zombies. “Mate we need to find somewhere to dump these suckers.” Says Mark. “What about just out of town in the ditch by the road?” I ask. “Yeah that’ll work I’ll head out now. Keep your radio on.” Says Mark, he head off up the road to dump the dead. I continue dragging zombies out when Fiona walks over to me with a coffee and says. “You guys are so loud. It’s still early.” I look at her and say. “Couldn’t sleep. So we started clearing up this shit.” “Copy Smithy!” I hear over the radio in the ute. I walk over and grab the radio hand piece. “Yeah got you mate.” I Say. “I need a bit of help mate.” Mark Says. “What kind of help?” I Say. “Outa fuel, kinda help.” Says Mark. Fiona and I start laughing. “Yeah no worries mate, we’re coming up now.” I Say. I jump in the ute and ask Fiona. “You coming?” “Yeah why not.” Says Fiona and she gets in. We drive to the truck and grab some full diesel cans. “How did he run out of fuel so quick?” Laughs Fiona as we get back in the ute. “No idea. I thought he would have checked that when he got in.” I say laughing, we head up the road towards the loader, we can see the loader half off the side of the road. We pull up and get out. “Mark! Mate where are you?” I yell out as I grab some jerry cans off the ute. I look around. “Where the fuck is he?” I Say. “He’s not in the cab.” Says Fiona. We walk around the back of the loader and up to the access ladder when all of a sudden out from behind the front tyre walks Mark growling and stumbling. “What the fuck!” Yells Fiona, she jumps backwards into me and I drop the jerry cans. “Haha! Got you good!” Laughs Mark. “You’re a fucking dick head you fucking fuck!” Yells Fiona and she slaps Mark. He’s still laughing when Fiona says. “You scared the shit out of me.” I start laughing, look at Mark and say. “You really are a special man mate.” We put some fuel in the loader and all head back to the pub. “We should probably see about getting the fuel from the servo sorted.” I Say to Mark and Fiona back at the pub. “Yeah let’s go check it out.” Says Mark. We start walking around the pub and to the servo behind it. We walk up to the doors and Mark jams the crowbar in the gap to open them. “Mate.” I say to him, reaching out, grabbing the door and simply pulling it open. “After you hero.” I say as he walks past me inside. As soon as we get inside we can hear zombies in the staff only area. We turn right and head for the counter then left to the staff only door. I go to open it but it’s locked. “You can use your tool on this one mate.” I Say to Mark with a smile. “Tool you say. What about foot.” Says Mark as he steps back and kicks the door like a Cop kicking in a drug dealers door. Much to my surprise the door actually flies open, I look at Mark in shock and say. “Wasn’t expecting that.” He smiles and kisses his arms. I shake my head and we walk through the door. “You go left, I’ll go right.” Says Mark. He turns right and heads around the back of the counter, I walk left toward the store room and staff kitchen area. A zombie comes out of the kitchen door and starts walking for me. I step back, but realise I’ve left my crowbar in the ute. “Mark, little help mate.” I say. Mark walks up behind me and laughs. “Forget something mate?” He asks laughing and passes me his small axe. I grab it off him and swing it into the zombies head, splitting it down the middle I push kick the zombie over. “Cheers mate.” I Say. We walk down the hall and into the kitchen, there’s a zombie with its arm stuck in the fridge door handle. Mark walks over to it and smashes its head in with his crowbar. We walk down to the store room and check it out. “Nothing to kill in here mate.” I say to Mark, we head back outside and we try to come up with a plan for getting the pumps on. “Why not just hook the generator up?” I ask. “We’d need to leave a big one here all the time to make the pumps usable.” Says Mark. “Like the one on the truck?” I ask. “Yeah pretty much.” Says Mark. “There’s one at the ag yard on a trailer inside.” I Say. “Yeah let’s go get it so I can hook this shit up.” Says Mark. We walk back around to the front of the pub where the others are standing at the tray of the ute drinking coffees in the morning sun. “What are you two up to now?” Asks Sandy. “Trying to get power to the servo so we can get fuel easily.” Says Mark. “But we need to go back to the ag yard to get another generator, so get out of the way please.” I say to everyone. “I’ll take you to the car yard when you get back if you’d like.” Says Lewis as Mark and I get in the ute. “Sounds good mate, be back in a minute.” I Say, we drive back up to the ag yard and pull up at the roller door. Mark gets out, goes inside and a few seconds later the roller door starts opening. I drive in and reverse up to the trailer mounted generator. “This should work.” Says Mark. We start hitching it up when we hear something knock onto the ground at the back of the shed. We stand up and look over to the back corner, we see two zombies walking up the side of the shed towards us. “They weren’t in here before.” I Say to Mark. “Nope. You deal with them I’ll hook this up.” Says Mark, I grab my rifle and line up the closest zombie, I squeeze the trigger but nothing happens, I shake my head, pump the action, line up again and fire. A small spray of blood, the sound of the round hitting the tin behind it and it falls to the ground. I reload, line up the second one and fire, hitting it in the neck, I reload and fire again this time hitting it in the forehead, it falls fac
e down on the concrete slab. “Good to go mate. Let’s get out of here.” Says Mark. We get in the ute and head back to the servo, we pull up and get out. “You got this mate?” I ask. “Yeah brah all good.” Says Mark. I start laughing walking back to the pub. “Don’t get bitten, and finish cleaning up the Z’s would ya.” I say laughing as I continue walking. I get back to the pub, walk inside and say. “Let’s go check out this car yard Lewis.” “Oh okay. Let’s go.” Replies Lewis. “Where’s Mark?” Asks Sandy. “At the servo trying to power it up.” I Say. “I’m coming with you my little teddy bear McMuffin.” Says Fiona. “What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” I say shaking my head trying not laugh. “Aww don’t be shy cuddle bunny.” Says Fiona as she bursts into laughter walking over to me at the doorway. We all walk outside grabbing our weapons. “You drive Lewis. We’ll ride in the tray.” I Say to Lewis. Fiona and I climb onto the tray of our mining ute, Lewis gets in the driver's seat, I tap the roof and say. “Let’s go son.” We head into to town on the same road as the school but turn right at the intersection, we travel a few hundred metres up and the road curves left a bit, we stop out the front of a small used car dealership and get out. “Let’s see if they’ve got anything good.” I Say to the others, we walk up the driveway leading to the office then we start looking through the yard trying to find any suitable cars, for the most part it’s old four wheel drives, Farmers cars and mining vehicles. “Smithy! Come here I think this one is, is good.” I hear Lewis yell from the other side of the yard. Fiona and I walk over to him and see him standing next to a virtually brand new green SS ute. I look over it, manual, soft tonneau cover, tow ball. “This is perfect.” I Say. “Where are the keys?” Asks Fiona. “Probably in the office.” I say, we walk over to the small office building and look inside. “Looks empty.” Says Lewis. I try to open the glass sliding door but it’s locked, I grab my crowbar, smash the glass, then walk inside, we start looking for the keys everywhere. “Here, in this safe maybe.” Says Fiona as she points at a safe in the corner of the office. “How are you going to get, get in it”? Asks Lewis. “Like this.” Says Fiona, she starts smashing it with her axe, eventually she gets the door to open, she looks inside and grabs out a handful of keys. “One of these three sets will open it.” Says Fiona, she walks outside to try the keys, I walk over to the safe, look inside it, I see a large amount of cash, so I grab it and put in my backpack. I hear the sound of a V8 engine rumbling outside, I head out to see Fiona standing next to the ute with a big smile. “C’mon mate let's go.” Says Fiona, I walk over to the ute and get in the passenger side. We drive out of the driveway onto the street and pull up next to Lewis in the other ute. “Mate have you seen any other cars like this in town anywhere?” I ask. “The mechanics up the other end of town have one that looks the same.” Says Lewis. “We’ll follow you mate.” I say to Lewis, he starts driving around to the mechanics workshop. We pull up out the front of a big shed and park in the driveway, there’s a small door on the left of the shed with a large roller door on the right. We get out of the cars and walk to the door, Fiona tries to open in but it’s locked, I wedge my crowbar in the side and try to force it open but it won’t budge. “She’s locked up good and proper.” I Say to the others. “Maybe through the, the window, over here.” Says Lewis from where he’s standing at the corner of the shed pointing at a window. We walk around and have a look in the window, we see bars on the inside, and that the door has deadbolts holding it closed. “Might need to rip it off.” I Say to the others, Lewis grabs the ute he’s driving and reverses up to the door. “This isn’t going to work, there’s nowhere to secure a chain or anything.” Says Fiona. “I’ve got a plan.” I Say, leaning down to the tow ball I take the pin out and extend the length of it past the back of the tray, Fiona and I stand to the side. “Slam it backwards mate.” I Say to Lewis, he revs it up in reverse and smashes into the door. “Again again.” I Say. Lewis rams the door a few more times until it’s loose enough to get a chain around, we secure the chain and move out of the way. “Floor it mate!” Yells Fiona. Lewis takes off and rips the door straight off the hinges. “Well that worked better than I thought.” Says Fiona with a surprised look. We walk inside, there’s a desk in front of us under the window, a couch on the left side wall and a door leading into the shed, we head out into the workshop area it’s quite dark, we open the roller door to let some light in. “There it is!” I say excitedly, walking over to a near new black ss ute. I open the door and see the keys in the ignition, I start it and can tell straight away it’s been worked. “G G Guys. Problem.” Stutters Lewis, pointing down the road. Fiona and I run out into the street and see a pack of 15 maybe 20 zombies coming for us. “Yeah boy! Zombie killing time!” I Say we shoulder our rifles and start firing into the pack. Blood sprays and chunks of flesh fly into the air. With only 5 left I say to the others. “Save the ammo.” Fiona and I look at each other with a smile and walk towards the pack with our crowbars and small axes. I then throw my axe at the zombies this time it does what I’ve been wanting and lodges in the head of a zombie dropping it to the ground. “Oh shit! That was awesome!” I yell at Fiona. “Yeah okay that was a pretty sweet zombie kill.” Says Fiona, we wait for the remaining zombies to get to us, I swing my crowbar and strike the closest zombie in the side of the head, it falls over in front of Fiona. She lifts her foot and stomps it’s skull into the bitumen then in one swift motion she slams the pointed end of her crowbar upwards through the underside of a zombies mouth and out the top of its head, she then pulls it out and spins around smashing the side of the next zombies skull in, blood flies into the air and a chunk of brain matter lands on my boot. I’m in awe of the great kill. Fiona looks at me with a smile as I turn to kill the last zombie, Lewis beats me to it and lodges his machete into the zombies head. “Wailers!” Yells Lewis in a panic, pointing down the street he tries to reload his rifle. “Shit.” Says Fiona. As the pack of wailers gets closer to us we can hear a car coming, we see Mark come hammering through the intersection in the 4x4 ute just as the wailers get to it. He slams into the group, one wailer flies over the roof and lands head first on the tray, bouncing out and landing in the street, two more get crushed under the wheels, Mark locks the brakes and slides to a stop with the passenger side facing the last 3 wailers, we hear shotgun shots ring out of the ute as Sandy opens fire from the passenger seat, we see blood sprays, bits of bitumen and wailer flying into the air as Sandy unleashes a hail of buck shot. Mark gets out of the car leans on the bonnet and joins in the hail of fire. He then gets in the ute and drives up to us, he pulls up leaning out the window and says. “You’re welcome.” He smiles, stops and gets out. “Find anything good yet?” Asks Mark standing next to his ute reloading. “Yeah we did actually.” I say. “Well the servo is all powered up now.” Says Sandy. “Nice work with the wailers by the way.” Says Fiona. “No big deal, we heard gunshots and figured you losers needed us.” Laughs Mark. “Dude you should’ve seen my zombie kill! I finally got the axe throw to land.” I Say. “It was pretty cool.” Says Lewis. “Should we go back and finish cleaning the dead zombies from outside the pub?” Asks Mark. “Yeah. Good idea.” Says Sandy. We all drive back to the pub and start cleaning the remaining zombies. We head inside for some well earned beers. Standing around playing pool and darts. “We should start getting these utes ready if we want to head to Perth soon.” I Say. “What are you thinking?” Asks Mark. “Well we can tune them up at the mechanics. Make them faster. Weld some sort of exoskeleton type thing to protect the engine incase we need to plough through anything.” I Say. “So you want to make fast virtually indestructible zombie killing machines?” Laughs Mark. “Yeah well something like that.” I laugh in response. “Let’s go then.” Says Fiona. “Right now?” Asks Sandy. “Yeah. Why not?” Asks Fiona. “I’m in.” Say Mark and I. “You coming Lewis?” Asks Fiona. “Yeah. Ok. It would be helpful to learn.” Says Lewis. “Fine. Let’s go.” Says Sandy. We all head back to the mechanics shop to start working on the utes. Over the ne
xt few days we work on the utes without seeing any zombies or people. Late one night the girls and Lewis head back to the pub while Mark and I finish the work.