The End: Surviving the Apocalypse

by Palmer, Richard

  “I’m so gonna write to Peter Singer,” Angela said. “I bet Christine gets kicked out of his world poverty pledge club for this.”

  “Somebody do something!” said Sheath, meaning somebody other than him.

  “Weapons!” Dave said.

  Q regarded her stump of stick, then looked at the two rifles slung around Dave’s torso. She reached for one.

  “Not loaded,” Dave said. “Knives and ammo over there.” He pointed to a clearing beyond Zinkabella.

  “You didn’t want the hippies to accidentally shoot themselves while practicing?” Q said.

  “Hey!” said Sheath. “I resent that.”

  Dave grunted. “If they get shot, it’ll be on purpose.”

  “And that!”

  “I thought you weren’t gonna shoot anything at all?” Q said to Sheath as she rummaged through her camouflage canvas bag. “I thought you said it was a violent and unnatural way to interact with the world?”

  Sheath looked sulky. “He should still respect my right to object by presenting me with a genuinely armed weapon.”

  “So you can be an activist and not use it?” Q asked.

  “Now you’re making a mockery of the whole thing.”

  “No, you’re doing fine on your own.” Zinkabella was still absorbed in the exploration of its own headspace, which was appropriate for a retreat. At least it wasn’t going anywhere for the moment.

  “Does anyone have a crowbar?” Dave said.

  Q slapped her forehead. She should have known! Always, always pack the crowbar.

  She pulled out her bottle of Ocean Flowers from the bag. “I have this!” She sprayed it at Dave. He spluttered.

  “I’m not sure how I feel about chemical weapons,” Sheath said. Q sprayed him and he shut up.

  “Poor Christine,” Angela said.

  “Right,” said Q. “Here’s the plan. We’re all gonna leg it up to Dave’s shack, load up, then pop back for a quick prac on how to deal with the undead.”

  “No,” said Rabbit. “I’m not leaving Kate. She’s in that cabin alone.”

  “We’ll only be gone a couple minutes,” said Q.

  Rabbit shook his head. “What if that thing attacks her and we’re not here?”

  If only … Q thought about trying persuasion, but Rabbit looked determined. She would have admired the loyalty if it were directed at a worthier subject. He did look good though, like one of those tough American B-Grade actors who wanders around the set wearing ripped jeans and—

  “Q?” Dave said.

  Q sighed. “Okay, Rabbit. Let’s go get your ex.” She considered the gruesome obstacle between them and Pious Kate’s cabin. “New plan. Me and Rabbit sneak around and get Kate from the cabin. Angela and Sheath stay here and distract the zombie if it starts to follow us. Dave, go get guns. Ooh, good alliteration, well done me.”

  Dave was already gone. Q squeezed Rabbit’s shoulder. “You up for this?”

  He nodded. He was pale, but he’d hold up. Q handed him a frying pan from the campfire and grabbed another stout stick for herself. They set off.

  “Can it hear us?” Rabbit said. They crept around behind the ghastly meal. “Or see us?”

  “Dunno.” Right now, Q had to concentrate on simple things, like finding her rival, checking that she hadn’t yet died, and saving her so she could her kill her skinny soon-to-be-undead butt later.

  She should have gone for the guns. It sounded simpler.

  They made it to the cabin. Q tapped on the door. “Kate?” she called. “Are you here? Are you feeling yourself?” Or have you turned into a psychopathic monster? More so than before.

  There was no answer. Q prodded open the door and peered inside. In the gloom, she could make out a form on Pious Kate’s bed. It wasn’t moving. It wasn’t even breathing.

  “Is she in there?” Rabbit asked.

  “Not sure. It’s pretty dark,” Q said. “Why don’t you stay here and keep watch?” Q took Rabbit’s fry pan.

  “What do you need that for?” he asked.

  “There’s a rat,” Q said. “I know, it has rights too. Don’t worry, I’ll only threaten it.”

  She crept inside and moved over to the head of Pious Kate’s bed. The woman lay motionless. She must have died in her sleep and was yet to reanimate. Perfect. It must have been a peaceful way to go, although the peace of death was less appealing when followed by an afterlife of bloody mayhem. Q lifted her fry pan high in the air. She could stash the body under the bed and tell Rabbit that Pious Kate had left already. Maybe everyone would assume she’d wandered off and been eaten. Q would remain an unknown, blameless savior, if she could prevent anyone else from coming into the cabin. She’d tell Dave and he could help.

  Q studied the woman’s face one last time. Pious Kate was sweet in death, her eyes closed and her expression calm. No trace of the sharpness that had been there in life. She braced her arms and prepared to swing.

  The dead eyes opened.

  All softness fled. Pious Kate sat up and screeched.

  Rabbit ran inside and gaped at Q, who brought the frying pan down onto Pious Kate’s pillow and beat it several times. “Saved you!” Q lied. “There were cockroaches.”

  “I thought it was a rat?” Rabbit said.

  “Rats eat the roaches. They go together, like cheerleaders and serial killers.”

  There was a pause while Pious Kate navigated this Qism, then the woman pointed a finger. “She’s trying to kill me! First the shooting, now this!”

  Q was spared further lies by a zombie attack.

  Zinkabella stood in the doorway, head propped up on its neck, dried blood crusted over mouth and hands. It stumbled forward, but its shoulder bounced off the doorway and sent it rebounding outside.

  “Is that Christine?” said Pious Kate. “You said she left! What’s she been eating? She’s meant to be following a raw foods diet.”

  “She is,” said Q. “Let’s go.” Q ripped the blanket down from one of the windows and heaved it open. Pious Kate shied back from the sunlight. Q shoved her forward.

  “No time for a migraine, Katie-G,” Rabbit said and boosted her through.

  Zinkabella tottered forward again and this time made it through the doorway. Q threw the frypan and knocked the zombie back. Its mouth dropped open and its head slid on its stalk. Its hands reached up to try to put the head back in place. How was Zinkabella’s brain still able drive that sack of meat?

  “Hurry!” said Q. Rabbit slung his leg over the window sill, leaped through and turned to help Q.

  It was too late. The zombie had already grasped Q’s arm. Q did a quick double front-kick, dislodging Zinkabella’s grip. Never go close quarters on a zombie. She had to get out.

  She searched for a weapon. There was a broom in the corner. Perfect. The zombie had already regained its footing. It was like a kid’s blow-up punching bag, bouncing back each time it was knocked down, although the model Q owned as a child hadn’t looked like this.

  Q picked up the broom, took aim and thrust it at the creature. The handle went straight through Zinkabella’s eye and connected with the back of its skull. Q uttered a prayer of thanks that she had taken the time to master Z-Fu when she was fourteen instead of watching television and thinking about boys like all the other teens, which was ironic, because now that she finally had the chance to apply her skills, she had nearly died because she kept getting distracted by a boy—

  “Q!” said Rabbit.

  Focus.

  Q stared at the zombie, knowing that she had delivered the kill blow, straight through the eye socket and into the brain. A bullet might not be enough to destroy it, but surely this would. She waited for Zinkabella to surrender the last shreds of unholy life and topple over.

  Zinkabella spilled sideways, overbalancing with the broom still lodged in its head, then righted itself. Its remaining eye fixed on Q. Head hanging from the neck like a sick slinky, it moved toward her.

  She swore and backed up to the window, hoping
that one final kick might buy her enough time to escape. She couldn’t use her fists; she couldn’t afford to get that close. She might be grabbed and bitten or scrape her knuckles on its teeth. It didn’t matter if the zombie killed her on the spot. One bite would do her in, eventually. Q braced for attack.

  With a soft thump, the zombie stopped. Zinkabella’s legs were still moving but they were walking on the spot. The gray, bloodied hands pawed air, desperate to get fresh meat but unable to reach it.

  The end of the broom had lodged up against the wall. Zinkabella couldn’t move forward without removing it.

  Damn! Z-Fu was good! What a privilege to be able to field test it at last.

  Q giggled. “That’s what I call cleaning up,” she said. “Zinkabella would have been fine if she kept a closer eye on the housework! She sure did a—”

  “Q!” Rabbit said.

  “Gotcha.” Q slithered out the window and into his arms.

  *

  They were back on open ground. Zinkabella was still in the cabin, shot, beaten and afflicted with broom-eye, but functioning. Pious Kate was ahead of them, slouched in the dirt. Q and Rabbit trotted toward camp.

  She was grateful they didn’t have to sprint any more. The adrenaline had drained away and left her heavy-limbed and hollow. The midday air was pungent. A lizard scrabbled through the leaves, oblivious to the human and inhuman drama around it. Q could almost believe none of it had happened.

  They were six hundred feet from the others when Q noticed tears on Rabbit’s cheeks. “Are you hurt?” she said.

  He brushed them away. “I’ve known Christine since we were five.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Q. “It’s my fault.”

  “You didn’t cause this.”

  “She attacked during my class. I should have been paying attention. I started daydreaming and it ended the way it always does. It was just like Slush Friday all over again, but without the cops, which is a shame because cops would be handy right about now.”

  “Q?”

  “Yuh?”

  “Pay attention!”

  Another zombie stumbled toward them. It was male, but its age was impossible to tell, somewhere between twenty and sixty. Its dull skin and torn, muddy clothes had blended in with the trees.

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere!” Q said. “Where do they keep coming from?”

  “Run?” asked Rabbit.

  “Run.”

  They outpaced the clumsy thing, a few quick strides taking them level with Pious Kate, still sprawled on the ground. “Get up!” Q said.

  The woman shook her head. “I hurt my ankle.”

  “Does it hurt as much as hosting your very own barbecue?” Q asked.

  Pious Kate’s brow crinkled. “I host barbecues all the time.”

  “The kind of barbecue that isn’t BYO sausages,” Q said.

  “None of my barbecues are BYO sausages.”

  “The kind where you are the main course – never mind, it was less snappy than I’d hoped. Get up.”

  “Come on,” Rabbit said, pulling Pious Kate to her feet and slinging her left arm across his shoulders.

  “I always knew his ex would come between us,” Q muttered as she took Pious Kate’s weight on the right side.

  The zombie was thirty feet away. The three of them stumbled toward camp, the creature staggering in pursuit. It was a wonderful low-speed chase and Q regretted that no one was there to film it. Dave, laden with rifles, ran toward them. He crouched and took aim. Q glanced over her shoulder to see him fire. He made a clean shot straight between the zombie’s eyes.

  “Boom! Headshot,” Q said.

  This time, neither Dave nor Q were surprised when the zombie teetered backward with the force of the bullet, then righted itself and continued.

  Dave shot twice more, head shots both. Their impact made the creature pause, but that was all. He may as well have thrown rocks.

  Q, Rabbit and Pious Kate reached the others. Q swiveled around to watch Dave shoot their undead follower. Bits of gray flesh and red gristle flew across the dirt. The zombie fell into the dust, twitching as it was hit. By the time Dave ran out of bullets, it had lost one arm and half its head missing. It opened its fleshless mouth to show teeth.

  “That’s not good,” Q said.

  It dragged itself to its feet.

  “Bad. Very bad.”

  The thing resumed a painful shuffle and tripped over three toes that clung to the right foot by a thin bridge of flesh. The toes tore off, the thing fell, then dragged itself upright once more.

  Dave rejoined them, puffing. “Didn’t work,” he said.

  “You don’t say?” said Angela.

  “It doesn’t look happy,” Sheath said, regarding the three-limbed faceless monster approaching them. “I think you upset it.”

  “It’s not upset, it’s dead,” Q said over Rabbit’s resumed retching. “It can’t emote. Its glands don’t work.”

  “Look,” Dave said.

  Zinkabella had managed to remove the broom from its head and escape the cabin. It now approached at a determined if clumsy pace. Two unkillable zombies, coming right for them.

  “Run?” Angela said.

  “That is a world-class idea,” said Q. She and Rabbit hooked elbows beneath Pious Kate’s armpits and they fled at a slightly faster-than-zombie stagger.

  *

  “Oh God,” said Sheath. He paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “How long have we been going?”

  “Three minutes,” said Q, adjusting her grip on Pious Kate. The woman was heavier than she looked, no doubt weighed down by astringent thoughts.

  “Are they still following?” Sheath asked.

  “Are the single-minded flesh-devouring demons still behind us despite the fact that we’re running away at a pace that wouldn’t outstrip a Kindy Koala with ill-fitting crocs?” Q said.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Sheath said.

  “They’re still following.”

  “Damn!”

  Q glanced over her shoulder at Zinkabella and the other one, shambling along with no sign of tiring. They weren’t fast but they were constant – they would never stop. Q didn’t know where their energy came from. Even Apocalypse Z didn’t speculate about that. It couldn’t be natural. If they could move after death, if head shots didn’t kill, they would never stop.

  She considered her troops. Only Dave looked like he was coping with the exercise. Sheath clearly went for a jog about as often as plankton did. Angela and the Scarlet Terror both looked scarlet and terrible. The burden of Pious Kate was beginning to affect Rabbit at last. If only he could follow through. Pious Kate had managed to fall asleep again, making her almost a dead weight, but not enough of a dead weight for Rabbit to agree to abandon her.

  They weren’t escaping the zombies any time soon.

  “Bugger this,” Q said. She unslung Pious Kate’s arm from her shoulder and let the woman collapse to the ground, then gestured at Dave. “Gun me.”

  Dave handed her a pump-action shot gun and grunted, as if to say it wouldn’t work.

  “You already tried shooting them,” Sheath said. “They’ll catch up if we stop.”

  “We didn’t try hard enough,” Q said. “You lot pay attention. You’re about to learn, Q-style.”

  “Is that some kind of handicraft?” Angela asked. “Like crochet?”

  “No! Just watch.”

  Dave and Q walked toward the zombies. “You get the chick,” Q said. “I’ll go brainless.”

  “What’s the plan?” he asked.

  “Anatomy lesson,” Q said. “I call the right eye-socket.” She fired and hit her target. The zombie pivoted, then righted itself. “Nope. Your turn.”

  “Left foot.” Dave shot. A good chunk of Zinkabella’s foot imploded. It paused, teetered, then limped ahead on the stump.

  “Left shoulder blade,” said Q, and fired. “No good, but this would make a tops mobile phone game. Your turn.”

  “Right
lung.”

  “Gross, but no banana,” Q said. “Um – the banana.”

  Dave grunted.

  “Work with a bunch of five-year-olds long enough and you too will learn a hundred and three nicknames for the willy,” Q said. She watched as her zombie stumbled on. “No good. I guess he wasn’t that attached to it.”

  “The heart,” Dave said. He shot.

  “Hah! You missed.”

  “Nope.”

  Dave was right. He hadn’t missed. Zinkabella lay on the ground, absolutely still. It was no longer trying to get up. He’d killed it.

  They were killable!

  “Huh.” Q shot her zombie, aiming for the heart. She thought she aimed too low, but the bullet did its job. The thing fell and stayed fallen.

  Maybe they weren’t doomed after all.

  Q and Dave walked over to their ex-zombies. Q prodded one with a disparaging foot. “Lame! No self-respecting zombie has a vulnerable heart. That’s vampires. They’re mixing genre.”

  Dave grunted.

  Angela joined them. “Are they dead? Really dead?” she asked.

  “They’re dead,” Dave said.

  “Straight through the heart,” Q said.

  “That’s not the heart,” said Angela.

  “Of course it is,” Q said. “They’re down, aren’t they?” She pointed at the bodies, which lay on ground like perfectly ordinary mutilated corpses.

  “That, my friends, is the spleen,” said Angela. “Don’t look at me like that, I know my anatomy. I used to be a marine biologist. And that is a spleen. Possibly a swim bladder. But probably a spleen. Q, what are you muttering?”

  “Sorry. I was trying it out. ‘Boom! Spleen shot.’ See? Doesn’t work. So that can’t be the spleen.”

  Dave pulled a large bush knife from the sheath strapped to his leg.

  “It’s cool, whatever you say,” said Angela, hands raised and stepping backward. “That’s the heart.”

  Dave handed her the knife by the handle. “Autopsy,” he said.

  “Awesome!” said Q. “A zortopsy! Apocalypse Z never did one of those. I’m gonna write this up.”

  “Q, do you know that putting a Z in front of an ordinary word doesn’t magically transform it into a zombie word?” said Angela.