The End: Surviving the Apocalypse

by Palmer, Richard

  Dave gave her a quick salute, set up the dummy fifty paces away and returned. He stood in front of a pile of guns, rocks and garden equipment.

  “First, spot your target!” Q said, her voice croaky from all the hoarse whispering. This drill sergeant business was hard on the vocal cords.

  Dave dropped into an alert crouch, which was worth seeing on a man who topped two-hundred-eighty pounds. He must have good knees. He cupped his hand over his eyes, mock-searching for the enemy, then spotted the dummy. He froze.

  “Now that you have your target in sight, choose your weapon!” Q said. “If you are defending base, you should have a large selection of loaded guns. If you are on the move, you will use your primary.”

  Dave picked up a gun.

  “The shotgun!” said Q. “Heavy but forceful! Great stopping power but not accurate at distance. You may not want to run twenty miles with this baby slung across your back.”

  “We may not want to run twenty miles at all,” Sheath said.

  Dave aimed and fired. The paper face of Dummy Kate exploded. Q took a moment to enjoy this sight before continuing with her class.

  “Great shot, Dave. But remember!” Q said. “Head shots are no good! Aim for the spleen. I know this is difficult, but you’ll have to forget everything you’ve ever learned about zombies.”

  “Does she know this is everything we’ve ever learned about zombies?” Sheath said. Rabbit put a finger to his lips.

  Dave picked up another gun.

  “The bolt-action rifle!” Q said. This was way more fun than teaching math. She’d have to do this lesson again next time she was solo with the Kindy Koalas. “Your bolt-action is a lighter and more accurate choice!” she said. “You can carry this sucker without having to give up your secondary weapon and you’ll find ammo in any gun-nut’s siege lair.”

  Dave fired at the dummy. A stick limb flew off.

  “But remember people, accuracy is still hard at this range!” she said. “Dave’s been practicing for years and he still can’t make a spleen shot at this distance. But don’t worry! The hordes of the undead will come to you!”

  Dave shot three more times, then threw down the rifle in mock dismay.

  “And what happens if you run out of ammunition?” Q asked.

  “Scream?” said Angela.

  “Run away?” said Sheath.

  “Cry?” said the Scarlet Terror.

  “Hide behind you?” said Rabbit.

  Q continued. “Out of ammo? Not just a movie cliché, people. It will happen!”

  Dave sank to his knees and made a dramatic “Why, God, why?” gesture at the skies.

  “Think smart!” Q said. “Use what you have! Not confident with the crossbow? Out of throwing stars? Too tired to heft the sledge hammer? Never fear! Look how ordinary garden tools and rocks can be turned into the harbingers of death!”

  They watched as Dave demonstrated on the dummy, Q commentating each move and its anatomical effect. “We all know about zombies and crowbars,” Q said.

  “You assume too much,” Sheath said.

  “But have you thought about long-handled shears? Remember, stay as far away as you can! Never let the evil undead get close enough to grab you.”

  “I used to enjoy gardening,” Angela said.

  “Rocks!” Q said, hefting a heavy stone and brushing the dirt from its rough surface. “Nature’s great multitasker. It’s a missile, it’s a limb crusher, it’s a head basher, all in one neat package.”

  “I won’t ever see a hoe the same way,” Angela said to Rabbit, who did not reply. He was throwing up behind a tree. It was surprising he had anything left.

  When Dave had finished with the dummy and returned, Q took a moment to consider the battlefield. They had demonstrated most of the tools and weapons, both targeted zombie killers and backyard adaptations. “We’ll hold off on the flame thrower for now,” Q said, cradling Dave’s pride and joy. “It’s a bit tricky for beginners and risky in Australian conditions. You’re just as likely to melt out your own eyeballs and then have to listen to your friends burning alive in the bushfire you accidentally lit.”

  She chuckled at her joke. No one else did.

  “Did you say she taught kindergarten?” Sheath said to Angela.

  “I didn’t say she was good at it,” Angela said.

  “Right! Demonstration’s over! Yowie, this is your chance to find out if you have what it takes!”

  Sheath raised a hand. “Please don’t demonstrate on me,” he said, “but Dave’s destroyed the dummy, so how can we practice?”

  “I’m sure we can find another,” Q said. Pious Kate had wandered back to the camp. Where did she keep disappearing to on her own?

  Dave was already leaning a new dummy against a doomed eucalypt.

  “All right, people!” Q said. “Choose your weapon.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  It should have looked cheery. It didn’t. It looked like the end of the world.

  Rabbit stirred a large cooking pot, moving this way and that to stay out of the smoke. Pious Kate shimmered on the other side of the fire, as if the smoke were a part of her and she commanded it as she wished. Like the pale woman in Q’s nightmares.

  Angela, Sheath, the Scarlet Terror, Q and Dave sat on logs, closer to the heat than was comfortable. No one wanted to move away from the comfort of the flames, no matter how false their sense of protection might be.

  Rabbit served mugs of bean stew. For once, Q was so hungry she didn’t stop to criticize the food. After what she had seen today, she was almost grateful it was vegan. She thought about Zinkabella’s autopsy and the zombie pits and their training session. It had been a day of fractured limbs and exposed tendons, a day of bludgeoning dead flesh. Eating more would make her feel like a cannibal. Maybe veganism was infectious, like the Z-plague.

  “Did you tell them what we discovered this afternoon?” Q asked Angela after a subdued dinner.

  “Tell us what?” Rabbit said. “Please don’t try to break it to us gently.”

  “We know why the zombies are all the way out here, miles from the nearest town,” Q said. “There are hundreds heading this way, like a spider to the fire.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘a moth to the flame’?” Angela said.

  “No, like that spider right over there that’s walking over the coals. Maybe it’s one of your lot. Could be a spiritual thing.”

  “Q, what are you saying?” Rabbit said.

  “The zombies,” she said. “They’re after you.”

  “Oh please,” said Pious Kate.

  The woman had not spoken all night. She had refused her bean stew too, claiming she wasn’t hungry. Q had private theories on how she was sustaining herself.

  Pious Kate stood, cloaked in smoke, eyes blazing. “You are so full of it. You have no sense of reality. You think these creatures are after Rabbit like you are! You’re pathetic.”

  Q was done. She was done skulking around in the scrub, waiting for an attack that never came. She was done working so hard to save a bunch of ingrates. She was done with Pious Kate.

  “You got something to say?” Q got to her feet and squared up to the woman, but found it hard to meet her gaze. She felt pathetic, a child again, the primary school boxing champ too scared to sleep without a light on.

  The shimmer of the heat and the red glow of the flames hollowed out Pious Kate’s cheeks and made her skin buckle and crawl. The woman was a demon. Maybe she didn’t have zombie flu after all. Maybe she was finally letting out what she had kept hidden all her life.

  The others backed away. Were they scared of Q, too? She couldn’t imagine why. She wasn’t the monster, and her rifle was aimed at Pious Kate, not at them.

  “Ladies,” Sheath said, nervous.

  “None of those here,” Q said.

  “Are you going to stand by and watch her murder me?” Pious Kate said.

  That voice. That whinging, whining voice! It was the voice that told Q she wasn’t training hard
enough, that she didn’t want to win enough. It was the voice that told her she would never be enough.

  Rabbit took a step toward Q. Did he think he was safe? No one was safe.

  “Stay there,” she said. “Kate’s going to tell us what she thinks. We should all listen.”

  “Fine,” said Pious Kate. “I think you’re a freak. I think you and your creepy friend here have set up this whole display. I think you killed Christine and Melissa, and the others made a lucky escape and are tucked up safe in bed. I think you’re chasing after Rabbit like some moon-eyed lunatic and you’ve staged this so you can rescue him and kill off your rivals.”

  “That sounds crazy,” said Q. The woman shimmered, an evil mirage. Q lined her up and smiled. Pious Kate wasn’t scary. Nothing was scary when you had it in your sights.

  “Don’t,” Rabbit said.

  It had been a long day. She was tired. Pious Kate – diseased creature that she was – was accepted where Q was not. And Pious Kate was turning into a flesh-crazed killer and no one was prepared to do anything about it.

  Q was prepared.

  “Q!” Rabbit said, urgent.

  She glanced up. Her belly twisted. Angela was pointing a shotgun at her.

  “You don’t even know how to use that,” Q said, still aiming at Pious Kate.

  “You taught me.” Angela took the safety off. “Great stopping power at close range. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “You can’t shoot me. You couldn’t shoot that dummy.”

  “I learned.”

  Q considered. Would Angela fire? How much did she want to find out?

  She didn’t want to die. She lowered her weapon.

  Rabbit moved in and took it, then grinned. “There! It’s been a long day and everyone’s stressed out, but we’re all friends again. Right? Shake hands and make up?”

  Pious Kate walked around the fire and stood in front of Q. She spoke directly into Q’s ear so no one else would hear. “I had him when you were still wearing braces,” she said. “And I’ll have him again. Doesn’t he look good enough to eat?”

  Q head butted her. Pious Kate collapsed.

  Rabbit bent over her, muttering and stroking her face. He looked distraught and beautiful and very, very far away.

  Idiot. What had she done?

  Q stormed off. Angela followed.

  “Why did you threaten me?” Q said. “You know what’s happening. You know what that woman is turning into.” She tipped her head back. The stars were bright and dead in a sky without color.

  “Kill her and lose them all,” Angela said. “Is that what you want?”

  “I can’t have what I want.”

  “Oh grow up!” said Angela.

  Q’s mouth dropped. “What?”

  “Stop acting like a kid. We’re at war!”

  That was when the screaming began.

  *

  Q ran into hell.

  At first glance, she couldn’t tell man from monster. There were shapes and there was fire. There were things grabbing other things.

  One of Dave’s crowbars was by her feet. She picked it up and bashed in the throat of a black-haired teen. Damn emos.

  Something grappled her from behind. She jabbed the pointed iron end of the crowbar into its torso. It toppled.

  Q scanned the scene, ignoring the rifle slung across her back. It was too dangerous in a melee like this. She’d be as likely to shoot Rabbit as save him.

  Rabbit!

  “Hippies!” Q said. “To me!” She kicked in the knees of a fat-bellied old woman and felt a satisfying crunch, then stomped her foot through the soft parts of its torso. Blood spurted across her boots. It stopped moving.

  “Rabbit!” Q said, throwing an elbow into a head and kicking its owner backward. It was a stupid thing to do, if she hit a zombie in the mouth she might be cut and infected, but there was no time to think.

  “Rabbit!”

  He ran through the chaos and stood behind her, breathing hard. He was okay. It was a miracle he hadn’t been bitten.

  Q did a quick front-kick and sent a fresh young corpse into the flames. The thing’s clothes ignited and it rolled in the fire, hair flaming. She smelled barbecued meat and watched it stagger into the darkness, a burning torch.

  Rabbit leaned against her, back-to-back. She reached down and picked up the iron skillet, then passed it to him, her eyes still on the campsite. He took it. She heard a loud thump and grinned, then stopped.

  She found Sheath. Someone else had found him first.

  He lay on the ground, fingers wrapped around a stick. For a moment all Q could see was the blood dripping from his palms. He must have gripped his club so hard it pierced his skin. She processed the rest of the scene.

  Two female ghouls lay across him. One bit chunks from his shoulder. Clean white bone showed through, pretty as art. The other tore into his belly, its face red to the eyeballs, dipping in and out like a dog with a bowl of its favorite food. There was a young boy too, on hands and knees, clawing and gnawing at Sheath’s thigh. The boy had such small teeth he couldn’t rip through to the sweet flesh below. Poor child.

  Q became aware of a sound, a strangled sob, and realized it came from her. She pulled her pistol from its halter on her belt and shot the two women several times. It didn’t matter if she hit Sheath by mistake, not now. She caught the boy with a swinging kick that sent him flying into the bush. His body made the lightest of thumps when it landed.

  There was another noise, a gurgle. One side of Sheath’s throat was still intact. It pulsed. His eyes caught hers.

  Sheath was alive. He couldn’t cry out because he had no lips and less than half a throat, but he was alive.

  Q shot him in the head and then jabbed her crowbar down through his spleen, hard. Her face was wet and she wiped it – was she crying or bleeding? “Dave!” she said.

  She found Dave with ease. He towered, a head taller than the three zombies clinging to him, slashing his bush knife through the air. It sliced off a hand as she watched, then jabbed into a zombie’s left side and cut upwards through the body until the thing fell.

  There were too many for him. Q shot the one furthest from Dave and risked another shot as a fourth grappled at his jumper from behind. He twisted free of the grip and dug his bush knife into dead flesh.

  Cold fingers ploughed the muscle of Q’s right arm. She whipped around and broke the hold, did a leg-sweep and then jabbed the straight end of the crowbar into the side of her attacker’s belly. It went straight through and wedged into the hard earth below. She twisted the crowbar and pulled it out.

  Dave ran over to Rabbit and Q and they stood in a circle, backs together, scanning the campsite. Last stand at the end of the world.

  Q breathed. There were no more zombies.

  She looked between the trees in the direction taken by the flaming zombie, wondering if it would start a bushfire. Flaming zombie. Great name for a cocktail. She should write that down.

  There was no smoke coming from the bush; it must have burned itself out. Lucky.

  It was just Q, Rabbit and Dave now. Sheath was dead. Pious Kate, Angela and the Scarlet Terror were missing, probably dead. She counted twelve ex-zombies in the campsite, none of them moving. Not bad for their first team effort. Q called Angela’s name into the night, then wished she hadn’t. The velvet bush swallowed it whole.

  Of course there was no reply. If Angela were alive, she’d be here. So would the others.

  Think about it later.

  In the light of the dying campfire, Q could see five paces into the bush. After that, it was black.

  She flicked on the beam of her head torch. The weak splotch of light barely showed. Nature laughs at the LED.

  “Dave, we gotta go,” Q said. “More will come.”

  A large pot of water beside the fire waited for their evening brew-up. Q tipped it over the coals, then stomped them out. Having avoided one bushfire, she didn’t want to start another. They couldn’t count on two miracles in
one night. “We gotta go, Dave,” she said.

  “We can’t leave without Kate,” Rabbit said. “I don’t know where she went.”

  “I’ll come back for her later,” Q lied.

  It was enough. Rabbit was so drained, he was happy to believe anything that would save him from thinking.

  “Dave,” Q said. “We gotta go. Where can we go?”

  Dave hesitated, then switched on a large torch and hefted his bush knife. “Follow me,” he said.

  *

  They stumbled along, Dave in the lead, then Rabbit, then Q, followed by all their childhood terrors of things of that go bump in the night, made worse because now they knew what those things looked like.

  Q had thought she was prepared. She thought she was ready. She was wrong. She couldn’t switch off the image of a man with no throat, trying to scream.

  Too tired for stealth, they made noise as they went. It didn’t matter. They had made such a racket at the camp that anything within two clicks that hadn’t already sniffed out Rabbit would know where they were. Z would head straight for them, and what could Q do when they arrived? She was too tired to even lift her crowbar.

  “Where are we going?” she said.

  Dave grunted. Q almost didn’t care. It was good enough that they were moving. It felt like progress, and progress felt like safety.

  She froze.

  “What is it?” Rabbit said. He was shaking. His beautiful bronze skin had turned jaundice yellow in the beam of her torch. Maybe he’d been bitten. Maybe he was turning.

  Think about it later.

  “Nothing,” Q said. “Thought I heard something.”

  They stumbled on. They must be on a path, because even in their exhausted state they were moving too fast for bush-bashing. They were gaining height, too. Beyond that, Q had no clue where they were headed. She hoped there was a chopper at the end.

  There was no chopper. There might never be a chopper again.

  Think about it later.

  She stopped again. She’d heard something. It was bigger than a bush rat, smaller than a nightmare.

  Dave heard it too. He swung his torch around and for a moment, eyes glowed. Was it a possum? A demon? When he moved the torch back to the same spot, there was nothing there.