Z-Minus Box Set 2

by Perrin Briar

  “Everything go all right?” Jack said.

  “We’ll see in a few minutes,” Bill said.

  “Did you find anything?”

  As if in response, groans from hundreds of throats issued up from the ship. Jack’s face turned pale. Fritz and Ernest each grabbed a cart handle and pushed it along the beach back toward the bridge.

  “It’s funny,” Fritz said. “Despite the extra weight of the crates, the cart somehow feels lighter.”

  “Miraculous,” Ernest said.

  High up on the cruise liner, the silhouettes of dozens of figures pressed against the railing, arms outstretched and reaching for the departing flesh of the living.

  Chapter Five

  BILL AND the boys put fifty feet between themselves and the cruise liner. Figures emerged from the hole, turning their heads, looking around, and then ambled toward the Flowers.

  “We need to hold them here,” Bill said. “We have to stop them from entering the jungle, or we’ll never live in peace.”

  The Lurchers’ movements were hesitant and juddering, without a hint of grace. Many had broken or missing limbs, adding to their grungy gait, but moved surprisingly fast. Most of them wore summer holiday wear, the rest smart crimson uniforms, adding a comical edge to the scene. There was a long chain of them, perhaps fifteen in total, and more pouring out of the hole in the ship’s hull.

  “Remember your training,” Bill said. “Make calm, smooth motions. Nothing flashy. Stay relaxed. Never panic. Jack, stay behind me at all times, all right?”

  Jack nodded, his eyes wide, hands gripping the baton tight. The first Lurcher approached. It was a large man wearing a bright Bermuda shirt. Bill brought his machete down across his neck. He cut halfway through the flesh, the knife’s edge caught on the undead’s larynx. Another two hacks, and the head was severed. The body slumped to the ground. The thick congealed blood lay on top of the sand, and wasn’t absorbed by it.

  Fritz met a female Lurcher. She wore large sunglasses. He brought the baseball bat around. It connected with the woman’s temple, the bat buried in her skull. She looked at him with an element of confusion. Fritz pulled the bat free and hit her again. This time she went down.

  The third Lurcher, wearing a huge pair of baggy shorts, approached Ernest. Bill’s heart was in his throat. Only once the Lurcher was down, his head caved in, did Bill breathe again. The Lurchers were disembarking from the ship faster now, forming tight bunches of twos and threes.

  “When will they go off?” Fritz said. “Do you think there’s a problem with them?”

  “I don’t know,” Bill said. “They should go off any min-”

  KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!

  The two explosions happened in quick succession. The boat shuddered. A large hole was rent from the stern. The Lurchers pivoted on the spot to look back at the noise’s origin. Bill, Fritz and Ernest leapt forward and beat at the Lurchers. They fell to the sand. Overcoming their stupor, the remaining Lurchers turned and stumbled toward Bill and his sons.

  “Form up!” Bill said.

  They formed a line, and as the Lurchers approached, the Flowers pulled back their weapons. The Lurchers raised their arms toward Ernest and Fritz, but the Flowers fell on them. A large male Lurcher with exposed chest, and what looked like female breasts, fell to the ground at Fritz’s feet. The Lurcher opened his mouth to bite, but Ernest was there, and buried his golf club in its head. Fritz nodded his thanks.

  “Bloody ankle biters,” Fritz said.

  KA-BOOM!

  The cruise liner leaned over dangerously to one side. The Lurchers pressed up against the deck’s railing spilled over the side. Some landed on their heads, which exploded like watermelons. Others fell in the water, feet unable to find the bottom, and were swept up with the tide and taken out to sea. But most landed in the shallows, got to their feet and limped onto the beach.

  The cruise ship was on fire amidships, the flames licking the porthole windows. The stern dipped lower into the sea, lifting the bow up out of the water and into the air.

  “Where’s the last explosion?” Ernest said. “Shouldn’t there be one more?”

  “Something must have happened to it,” Bill said.

  “The ship’s not going to sink without it.”

  “Might not sink with it either. It’s a big boat.”

  “And the Lurchers will keep coming!”

  Bill looked along the beach to find Lurchers heading toward the jungle.

  “Hey!” Bill shouted at the Lurchers and waved his arms. “Hey!”

  He turned to his boys.

  “We can’t let them get to the jungle!” Bill said. “We’ll forever be hunting them down!”

  “Hey!” Fritz said toward the wayward Lurchers. “Hey! Hey! Over here! This way!”

  A Lurcher before him opened her mouth wide and growled. Fritz knocked the Lurcher’s extended arms aside, and then followed with a swift swing of his baseball bat at her head.

  “They’re not coming toward us!” Ernest said.

  “I’ll go get their attention,” Fritz said.

  “No,” Bill said. “We need you here. Both of you. Otherwise we’ll get overwhelmed.”

  “I’ll go,” Jack said.

  Bill turned to look at him. He looked so small.

  “No,” Bill said.

  “Who’s better than me at making noise?” Jack said.

  “He’s got a point there,” Ernest said, tripping a Lurcher over and bringing his golf club down on the back of its head.

  Bill was torn. The Lurchers were closing on the jungle.

  “We need him to do it, Dad,” Fritz said. “If he doesn’t, we might as well give up now.”

  “Okay,” Bill said. “Okay. But don’t get too close.”

  “I won’t,” Jack said.

  He took off at a run, Nip curled about his shoulders. A Lurcher took a swipe at him as he passed.

  “Stay away from my son!” Bill said, swinging the machete down and removing the Lurcher’s head.

  Bill’s heart was in his mouth as Jack approached the wayward Lurchers.

  “Hey!” Jack said. “Hey! Uglies!”

  The Lurchers turned to look at him. Jack paused and took a step back. Their faces were torn and shredded with blood seeping from cuts and gashes. They groaned at him with their death rattle. Something green grew across their faces.

  “Did becoming a Lurcher make you that ugly?” Jack said. “Or were you born that way?”

  Nip hopped down from Jack’s shoulders and hissed at the Lurchers. The Lurchers stumbled toward them. Jack backed away. The Lurchers ambled after him.

  “Come on, Nip,” Jack said.

  Nip climbed up Jack’s leg and perched on his shoulder. A few Lurchers at the back lost interest and began shuffling toward the jungle again. Jack rushed around the group, his back to the jungle.

  “Hey! Hey!” he said. “Follow the delicious human! Come on!”

  They turned to follow Jack, and step by step he led them back down the beach.

  “We’ve got company!” Jack said as he brought the Lurchers over to his father and brothers.

  “Fritz, Ernest, you take care of them,” Bill said. “I’ll hold back this lot.”

  Fritz and Ernest turned and struck at the Lurchers. Jack leapt forward and aimed a blow at their heads as often as he dared. The last Lurcher from Jack’s group fell, and Fritz and Ernest turned to their father, who was being set upon by Lurchers on every side. His movements were slow and weak. Fritz and Ernest rushed to his aid.

  KA-BOOM!

  The explosion tore the front of the ship clean off, like a champagne cork bursting from a bottle. The pointed end hung limp to one side by a thin strip of rusted metal. It dangled there a moment, and then snapped off, falling to the sea below, crushing the Lurchers struggling in the shallow sea.

  “Better late than never,” Ernest said.

  “All we have to do now is kill the Lurchers on the beach,” Bill said.

  “Easier said than
done,” Fritz said. “There’s an awful lot left.”

  “And more Lurchers are heading for the jungle!” Jack said. “I’ll go round them up!”

  “Yes,” Bill said. “And be careful. If we can all push through today, we can sit back and relax for the rest of our lives.”

  Bill turned. Jack hadn’t moved. He stood staring at the jungle. When Bill looked up to see what Jack was watching, the blood froze in his veins.

  “We have to cross the bridge,” Bill said, voice distant and cold.

  “What?” Fritz said. “Why? We can do this.”

  “No,” Bill said. “We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re already in the jungle.”

  Fritz and Ernest turned to see an army of Lurchers emerging from the dense jungle foliage.

  Chapter Six

  “WHERE DID they come from?” Fritz said.

  He was holding Jack’s hand and pulling him along as they ran. Despite their difference in size, Jack wasn’t much slower than Fritz. Ernest, on the other hand, struggled to keep up.

  “The cruise liner,” Ernest said. “They must have come out before we got here, stumbled into the jungle and been wandering around in there ever since. Until the explosions drew them.”

  “Great,” Fritz said. “So we came here for nothing.”

  “No, not for nothing,” Bill said. “At least now we know what we’re up against.”

  “I think I’d prefer not to know,” Fritz grumbled.

  Fritz, Ernest and Jack ran across Family Bridge. Bill got halfway across and stopped.

  He took out the final grey tube from his bag, lit it, and placed it in the hollow of a bamboo cane. The white smoke issued out through the gap in the top like a chimney. The Lurchers groaned and staggered onto the bridge, four men thick and two dozen deep.

  “Dad!” Jack said. “Come on!”

  Bill turned and ran.

  “I wish we hadn’t made the bridge quite so strong now,” Ernest said. “We should have used paper.”

  The Lurchers staggered across the bridge. One Lurcher, intrigued by the smoke and hissing noise, reached into the gap in the bamboo and extracted the grey tube. He inspected it, and sniffed at it with his ruined nose. His head jolted back with disgust, lips curling at the smell. He brought his arm back to toss it.

  Jack saw him and ran toward the bridge, waving his arms.

  “No!” Jack shouted. “Don’t throw it!”

  The Lurcher with the grey tube turned to look at Jack.

  “Jack!” Bill said, stepping forward. “Get away from the bridge now! Get away from the-!”

  KA-BOOM!

  A thick wall of air rushed toward them, an explosion of red body parts and shards of yellow bamboo flew into the air. The shockwave knocked them all to the ground.

  Chapter Seven

  BILL STARTED awake. His vision was blurry. A cream coloured blob stood over him. A high-pitched tone rung in his ears. Someone said something, but the voice came in curt muffles, sounding like it came through a tuba. Bill turned his head to the side, and a square block of yellow began to take shape.

  Only the ends of Family Bridge on either side of the embankment still remained, jutting bamboo aflame. Curls of smoke hid the beach, and then rose up into the air and disappeared on a strong breeze like a magic trick.

  The Lurchers on the bridge were gone, and those on the other side, some with newly missing limbs, groaned with disappointment at having missed their meal. They crowded around one another, pushing forward, forcing a couple of the Lurchers into the raging river. They were swept downriver and out to sea.

  Then the Lurchers began wandering in different directions. Some headed back down the beach, others toward the seafront, others headed back to the cruise liner, but most walked along the riverside, following it up into the jungle.

  Bill looked back at the cruise liner, still jutting up in the air like a monument to the old world. Lurchers fell out of the wreckage like a running tap, stumbled through the shallow water onto the beach, and into the jungle in one continuous line. Bill’s hearing was the last thing to clear.

  “ad… Can you hear me?” Fritz said. “Dad?”

  Fritz clicked his fingers in front of his father’s face.

  “Yes,” Bill said. “I can hear you. Where’s Jack? Where is he?”

  Then Bill was aware Ernest had something cradled in his arms. When he looked closer he realised it was Jack.

  His face was covered with blood.

  Chapter Eight

  A THIN WISP of grey smoke wound upward into the sky. It was thin and faint compared to the thick black clouds to the west on the opposite side of the island. And something jutted up at the sky there, something big and massive, but largely obscured by the jambu trees. Liz reached for the winch to take her down to the ground, but held back. She looked down at Francis who stood beside her, holding her hand.

  “What was that noise, Momma?” Francis said.

  “It was an explosion,” Liz said.

  “Did Daddy cause it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there are some bad men out there.”

  “Like the bad men on the Adventurer?”

  Liz turned to look at Francis. He was small for his age and looked even smaller in Jack’s old clothes that swamped him in arm and leg.

  “I didn’t know you remembered that,” Liz said.

  “I remember,” he said. “Bad men on the boat coming for us. When we got shipwrecked.”

  “Yes,” Liz said, pushing the memory from her mind. “Bad men like that. We have to stop them from getting on the island or we will have to leave.”

  “Leave? But I like it here.”

  “I do too.”

  The foliage on the edge of the clearing shook and admitted Bill, Ernest and Fritz. Bill carried something in his arms. Liz put a hand to her chest and felt a lump form in her throat.

  “Bill?” she said, calling down. “Is that Jack? What’s happened?”

  “Get the winch down, quick!” Bill said.

  Liz’s hands were a blur as she threaded the coarse rope through her hands and lowered the winch. Bill strapped himself into the harness and gripped Jack around the armpits.

  “Pull me up!” he said.

  Liz pushed a container full of water over the edge. As it fell, Bill rose fast, gripping Jack tight in his arms. He came to a stop.

  “Take Jack,” he said.

  Liz took hold of Jack and laid him on the floor. Jack had a stream of dried blood that ran from his right ear and down to the bottom of his neck. Bill knelt beside Jack on the floor.

  “Get my things,” Bill said, unbuttoning his shirt.

  “What things?” Liz said.

  “God damn it, Liz! Now’s not the time to be dense. My medical things. Hurry.”

  Bill took a pair of scissors from the table and cut Jack’s T-shirt open. Liz returned with Bill’s medical kit. She dumped it on the floor and opened the top. Bill reached in and took out a stethoscope.

  “Mummy, what’s going on?” Francis said. “Is Jack going to be all right?”

  Liz took Francis in her arms.

  “Yes, dear,” she said, “Jack’s going to be fine. He’s just sleeping. Do Mummy a favour and go down to your brothers.”

  “Okay.”

  Francis tottered off to the winch and pedalled himself down.

  “What happened?” Liz said to Bill. “I heard explosions.”

  “We blew up the boat, and then Lurchers came spilling out of it. We got to the bridge and they followed us. We were about to blow it up too, but Jack saw one of the Lurchers pick up the tube and was about to hurl it. So, he stepped up and stopped him.”

  Liz covered her mouth. Her eyes shimmered with tears.

  “Is he going to be okay?” she said.

  Bill pressed the stethoscope to Jack’s chest.

  “His heart’s fine,” he said. “He’s breathing normall
y.”

  Bill inserted the otoscope into Jack’s bleeding ear. He angled it to peer inside.

  “Why’s there blood coming out of his ear?” Liz said.

  “It’s his eardrum,” Bill said. “It was perforated by the explosion.”

  “Will he ever be able to hear again?” Liz said, voice shaking.

  “I don’t know. There’s a lot of damage. There’s nothing I can do without full surgery equipment. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “I suppose Nip will have to be his ears for a little while.”

  Bill’s face scrunched up. He sat back and put his hand over his eyes.

  “I thought we’d lost him, Liz,” he said. “I thought he was gone.”

  “Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh,” Liz said, taking Bill in her arms. “He’s all right. He’s going to be okay. If the worse comes to the worst he’ll have to rely on his left ear more, that’s all.”

  Bill cleared his throat and breathed in a ragged breath.

  “He was a little hero today,” he said. “We wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for him.”

  There was a reflective pause. Liz brushed a tear out of the corner of her eye.

  “We should let the boys know he’s going to be all right,” she said. “They must be worried sick.”

  “Yes,” Bill said, but he didn’t move.

  “I’ll wash him,” Liz said. “You go tell the boys. And prepare his bed. He’ll need to rest.”

  Bill wiped his eyes and sniffed through his blocked up nose.

  “All right,” he said. “And after we put him to bed we’ve got to discuss what we’re going to do.”

  Liz frowned.

  “With Jack?” she said.

  “No,” Bill said. “About the Lurcher invasion.”

  Chapter Nine

  “THERE ARE only two ways the Lurchers can cross to our part of the island,” Bill said.

  On a map, Bill pointed to a narrow strip of land in the north labelled Flamingo Marsh. The island was a crescent shape, with a large river running from the north through to the south, dividing the land into two parts. The east coast, where the Flowers lived, was three times larger than the west.