by Owen Baillie
The static disappeared and Smitty’s voice became clear. “Listen,” he said, taking on a serious tone that Mac had never heard outside of a combat zone. “There is some serious shit going down, mate. I got hold of Bravo. He said it was going to get worse before it gets better. He said they’re not sure if it’s a terrorist attack or just a mutating super flu.”
“Fuck. Terrorists?” Mac had wondered about this. “Probably not a surprise.”
“It’s not just making people crook, it’s turning them rabid, and killing them. They’re actually dying from the flu.” Mac swallowed, noting for the first time the pain in his throat. He hoped it was just dry from all the drinking the night before, and not the start of something else. “Just be careful, brother. Get Jess to the hospital and bunker down there. That’s the best place to be, if there is one.
“Radio is off the air. There’s only one television station still operating, and it’s a recorded message on a loop. Still a news service on the Internet and the Sydney Morning Herald is posting the odd news article, but they’re talking about the bloody apocalypse. Reports from the mainland and the rest of the world are saying it’s out of control. America. England. Germany. Even the bloody Arabs and Russians are affected.” Mac tried to take it all in, but Jess was stirring again. She needed the hospital. “Neville from next door had it. That’s why he was so aggressive. It makes people ...” Smitty’s voice drifted.
“What, mate?”
“Hungry. For blood.”
Jess coughed again and almost rolled off the seat. “Look mate, I gotta go. Jess is coughing like a barking dog and she’s almost fallen onto the floor.”
“Did you hear me, Mac?”
Mac heard him. But acknowledging it was like an admission. Still, he had known. “Yeah, mate. I heard you.”
“You gonna hang around, mate?” The line broke up again but Mac knew the answer to that. Smitty would die before abandoning Dave-O. “Keep me posted. And look after yourself.”
“Roger that.”
Mac hung up and took off from the curb, hoping it wasn’t the last time he talked to his friend. He followed the curve of the street as it swung parallel to the main road then back on itself before straightening out again. Mac thought he could find his way back now the streets were clearer.
He swallowed the disappointment of Leigh Ann’s death and Dave-O’s sickness. He hoped his old mate would be all right, but if the virus was as bad as they were saying, circumstances were going to get worse before they got better. What did that mean for Jess? She was staring at him. Tears brimmed in her eyes.
“Jess?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was like broken glass.
“You heard?” She nodded. “I’m sorry. I know Leigh Ann was your friend, too.”
Jess wiped her eyes. “Mac!”
Mac slammed on the brakes. The car skidded and shuddered. They had come off a sharp corner, and ahead, two vehicles were at right angles to the street. Not again. It appeared they had collided head-on and had ended up sideways near the left gutter. There were no police cars, no bystanders watching on, just a spread of glass across the road and a lazy curl of smoke rising from both engines.
Mac guided his four-wheel drive around the accident, peering out Jess’s window, trying to ascertain the extent of the motorists’ injuries. The driver of the closest vehicle lay slumped over the wheel, but the second lay face down.
He pulled over just past the crash, addressing the guilt he felt from leaving the last woman to die. There were no infected around; he didn’t feel right leaving again without checking if anybody needed help.
“I won’t be a moment.”
He left the truck idling and went for the closest car. The driver had pulled back from the wheel. As Mac approached the open window, he saw the man still had his belt on.
“Hey mate, you okay?”
The man turned and Mac stiffened. His face was mostly pale, with blotchy red patches, his neck swollen, the skin a dark shadow, as though badly bruised. There was something missing in his eyes; he wasn’t seeing Mac, despite looking right at him. The man opened and closed his mouth the way a fish might when removed from water. It reminded Mac of Neville, Dave-O’s neighbor.
You can’t help him, Mac thought.
He jogged to the second vehicle, where the driver lay slumped against the front seat, unconscious. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead, but beyond that, there was no swelling or bruising around his throat or blotchy redness on his face. Mac reached in and felt for a pulse. A faint one in the neck told Mac he was still alive.
What did he do? There would be no emergency services to attend and Mac couldn’t leave the man there. The obvious decision was take him to the hospital with them, but he had to be careful of a neck and spine injury.
Mac clicked the handle and pulled the door open. It came with a metallic clunk, damaged slightly by the accident. He spotted a towel on the other seat. He leant over and grabbed it, then made a long spiral shape and wrapped it around the man’s neck, careful to ensure it wasn’t too tight. What was the best way to get the man out of the car and into Mac’s own? The options were limited. Mac got his hands underneath the man’s armpits and began to drag him backwards out of the driver’s seat.
A noise sounded from the other car. Mac glanced over his shoulder and watched the door swing open. Mac turned back to his patient and tried to drag him backwards. One of the man’s large feet caught underneath the steering wheel. Mac tried again, but the foot wouldn’t come free. He swiveled, finding the sick driver had put his leg out onto the road.
Move. Faster. Mac lifted the man forward, hoping his foot would fall a different way, but it didn’t work. Mac swore with disgust as his arms began to strain. The man was no lightweight. He adjusted his grip, glancing over his shoulder at the other car. Both the sick man’s legs were out and he’d twisted himself sideways, sitting at right angles to the steering wheel. Mac went forward again, and this time, the man’s shoe fell the other way. When he drew back, the foot slid out from underneath the wheel and his legs flopped onto the road.
The sick man in the other car was on his feet, peering about as if seeing the world with fresh eyes. Mac dragged the unconscious man backwards along the road, his body floppy and unhelpful, straining under the weight and speed. He took short, sharp breaths and tried to stay low and out of sight. Reaching his truck, he carefully laid the man on the ground, and then opened the back door.
Mac heaved the man onto his feet using his own shoulder to balance him. From the other side of Mac’s truck, a noise sounded—coughing, or grunting—he couldn’t be sure. What he could be sure about, though, was that the sick man was on the move, confirmed by the soft scrape of his shoes on the road.
Wrapping his arms around the unconscious man’s torso, Mac lifted him into the back seat. His head flopped around and crashed onto the leather. Mac cursed. He leant in and pulled the man upright by the shoulders until he was sitting, and then applied the towel for support around his neck.
He slammed the door and raced around the front of the car. The driver from the other vehicle was there to greet him, tottering on his feet like a drunk well past his limit. The man’s eyes bulged, the corneas bright red. Dark grey circles sat under his eyes, and his neck was a bloated back tube. Spittle gathered at the corner of his mouth and fell in a long, suspended line. His hands were shaking.
“Don’t come any closer, mate,” Mac said, knowing his words would likely do no good. He recalled how crazy Neville had been at Dave-O’s place. The man’s vacant eyes looked past Mac, his teeth bared. He wants flesh and blood. “Step away, mate.”
Mac took a step towards the driver’s door and the man responded, as though shocked into life. He shambled forward with two groping hands. Mac knew he wouldn’t get the door open in time, so he spun away, and the man thudded into the side of the truck where Mac had been. He bounced off and lurched at Mac, but Mac danced clear, waited, then dropped down for a leg sweep, striking the man’s ankle
. His left leg went out from under him and he went sprawling, his blank face not even registering the hit as his head struck the concrete roadway with a thud.
Mac thought that would be it, but the man’s glazed eyes searched for his victim as he struggled onto his knees. There was a patch of blood on the back of his head and a spot on the road. Mac decided it was time to leave before he had to kill him with his bare hands.
He swung the door open and leapt up into the truck. The man climbed awkwardly to his feet, threatening to fall over. Mac closed the door then stuck the idling truck into gear and took off.
At the final moment, the infected man threw himself at the car, striking the back panel with a heavy thump. In the rearview mirror, Mac saw him bounce off and strike his head on the road again. Stay down, fucker. Blood ran down the man’s forehead, but that didn’t stop him climbing to his feet and staggering after Mac’s vehicle. What he saw in the mirror beyond the man was even more disturbing. Shambling its way from the other side of the road towards the man was a woman, her movement stiff and lumbering, followed by a second infected from another front garden.
Mac refocused on the road. They were getting further away from the main drag and the hospital. Teeth chattering, Jess pulled the blanket around her neck. The damn fever just wouldn’t die.
The dirty, swirling clouds were almost above them now, and the first drop of rain struck the top of the window. The street curved in a fish tail, front lawns of tidy weatherboard houses starting to turn yellow from the heat. As he passed a pale, flaking building with a wide veranda, Mac did a double take. Standing at the top of the stairs was a woman in a long white dress. Her stare was vacant, and even from the road he recognized the black swelling around her neck.
They crossed another intersection with blank traffic lights when Jess lapsed into another coughing fit. She sat up, hacking and spitting. Her neck was clear; no swelling or dark patches yet—that was something—but she sounded phlegmy and congested. At one point, he thought Jess was going to vomit, her face red and strained. The worry took over Mac’s driving and he turned sharply down one street then right into another, peering over the treetops and the houses in the distance for signs of the hospital, unsure where he was really going.
He pulled the wheel right again into a long street and turned the wipers on for the first time, clearing the windscreen of rain. Ahead, the street passed through several intersections, and at the end, he spied a sign that said: MERSEY COMMUNITY HOPSITAL. He spotted a collection of buildings in the distance and thought that might be it.
“You fucking beauty.” He put a hand on Jess’s leg. “Hold on, hun, we’re almost there.”
Mac pressed the accelerator and took the four-wheel drive through the first crossroad. While there hadn’t been many cars on the road, it was at the second intersection where he collided with a small green sedan coming from the other street.
The noise was deafening. Mac clung to the wheel as the truck spun. It stopped abruptly when it crunched the curb with bone-shuddering force.
Jess’s eyes were wide and terrified. “You okay?” Mac asked. She nodded.
He turned back and found the unconscious man in a crumpled heap by the door.
The green car lay alongside the curb, facing the opposite direction, its flank crunched inward as though a giant had kicked it. Mac spotted a minor crease along the front of his truck, but when he turned the key, the engine grumbled. Jess launched into another coughing episode. Mac reached over and put a hand on her shoulder as she strained and shuddered. He considered getting out and checking the other vehicle, but they couldn’t afford another delay. Jess needed treatment and the other man was still unconscious.
Mac edged the truck forward and drove up onto the gutter. The engine whined, and then it rolled over the hump and sped away. At the next juncture, Mac dropped a gear, but only slowed enough to make sure there were no cars. He turned the steering wheel hard to the right and the wheels screeched. The car straightened up and he drove all the way to the main road, right before the intersection outside the Mersey Community Hospital.
Relief overcame him when he saw the red brick building of the emergency department. The four-wheel drive bounced as he slammed up the short driveway and into the parking lot right outside the entrance. Mac had expected people to be crawling over the place, but there was only a small congregation waiting at the wide glass entrance doors. As he shot past, a few turned in his direction and he knew the moment he saw their blank stares and bloodshot eyes they were infected and the hospital doors were shut. These things were waiting to be let in.
Mac took the four-wheel drive into the corner of the small lot as the rain began to fall in heavier drops. They can wait a little longer, he thought. Come hell or high water, Mac was getting inside that hospital with Jess and the other man.
11
Kumiko and Blue Jeans ran through the broken entrance of the pharmacy and out onto the street as glass popped underfoot. Purplish clouds had swarmed in overhead, darkening the day and blotting out the bright sunlight. It was still hotter than Kumiko had expected though.
The street was now filled with people running in all directions. Something was happening on the road; people were screaming, shouting, and pushing onto the sidewalk to get away from it. Blue Jeans led her along sidewalk under the shadow of the storefronts. Kumiko peered through the crowd, but he was pulling her too fast.
“Hold on,” she snapped, snatching her hand away.
“We gotta keep moving. It ain’t safe.”
In the distance, a gunshot went off; people ducked instinctively, but a moment, later, were moving again.
Kumiko spotted her car and pushed through the crowd towards it. Most of the cars parked along the curb had people standing on them. They’d climbed up onto them to get away from whatever was in the street, and hers was no exception. Three people were standing on it, including a tall man who had scampered onto the roof.
“Don’t even bother,” Blue Jeans said, tugging on her arm. “We have to get out of here.”
Kumiko reluctantly turned away. She tried to follow Blue Jeans into the crowd, but people smothered her tiny frame. Shouts of terror and desperation filled the air. The thick body of a man knocked her sideways and Kumiko fell. She tried to stand, but people were pushing to get through and she battled to regain her balance. The chaos increased. She heard a woman’s high-pitched voice full of terror say it was an attack and that they were biting people. The force of the moving crowd knocked her down again. A man’s voice shouted above the general chorus; it might have been Blue Jeans. Then a strong hand grabbed her shoulder, pinching the skin, and she was on her feet, gasping for breath as he dragged her free of the main body.
Searching her pocket for the asthma inhaler, Kumiko found it, stuck the tip into her mouth, then inhaled deeply. Blue Jeans was beside her, his big body protecting her from the rush.
“There,” he said, pointing through the crowd. Kumiko followed his guidance and spotted people on the road being attacked, two or three men swarming around them. “Come on.” He pulled her backwards and away from the sidewalk. He made a path and Kumiko stumbled after him. At the first chance, he turned off the main strip and down a side street. They walked quickly, trying to get to a safer distance, passing people still interested in the situation. As they moved away from the main street, there were even fewer people.
“Where are we going?”
“My car’s parked at the top of this road.” Blue Jeans was puffing, and there was fear in his voice. “Thought I’d lost you.”
Kumiko realized he was still holding her hand. She gently unclasped it and he started to jog. She took more inhaler and breathing became easier. She caught up to Blue Jeans. “Thanks,” she said, not looking at him.
“You’re welcome.”
“What do you think’s going on down there?”
“Same thing as the men in the pharmacy.”
“But what is it?”
Blue Jeans slowed to a walk, hi
s cheeks flushed, sweat beads on his forehead. As he caught his breath, he started to chuckle, and she was surprised to find it transformed his face into one of handsomeness. “It’s a zombie apocalypse.” When Kumiko raised her eyebrows, he tried again. “The Walking Dead … the television show …”
“You’ve been watching too much television.”
Blue Jeans nodded in fake agreement. “Okay. Sure. You’re just like the rest of them.”
“You’re serious?”
“I wish I wasn’t. Just remember you heard it from me first.”
Kumiko pulled out her phone. “Social media is the quickest way to find out what’s going on.” She opened her Facebook application. The small circle began to spin in the center of the screen.
Blue Jeans grunted. “Social media won’t exist for much longer.”
“How far is your car?”
“Just ahead. At the top of the hill.”
“You couldn’t park closer?”
“How’d that work out for you?” He started jogging again. Kumiko felt a stab of shame at leaving her car behind. It had been a gift from her parents. No point thinking about that now; she’d worry about it later.
The Facebook newsfeed finally appeared, and the first post was from one of her friends who described attacks in Melbourne, where people had been bitten and mauled by others displaying violent and hostile behavior. It suggested the influenza outbreak was to blame. She took off after Blue Jeans and recounted the article.
“It is the flu,” he said, slowing down. “But it’s not the normal flu. It’s something more, and I can promise you that these people who end up dying won’t really be dead.”
Kumiko scoffed. “That’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Maybe. Some would agree.” He started walking again, adjusting his peaked cap, blue eyes blazing. “I might just be a pizza delivery guy, but I’ve been preparing for this moment since I was a kid. I’ve seen every television show and movie on zombies and I can tell you now, this is how it begins—with a sickness. Then a lot of people die. Most stay dead. But some,” his lips pressed into a thin line. “Some come back as zombies.”