The line of the second group remained standing, silent and unmoving.
The first group was deliberately driving their prey into a lethal trap – and the second group was that trap, waiting to snap firmly shut.
Within a minute, a large wild boar burst from the undergrowth – and he was extraordinarily big! And hairy. And not very happy at all.
At a distance of about 10 metres from the line of the second group, the beast spotted the trap and skidded to a halt. He possessed very impressive tusks, maybe 20 cm or so in length. They looked pretty lethal to me and I was instantly glad that I had retreated behind the ‘front line’. (You may call this either cowardice or good sense – it’s your choice. I don’t give a rat’s what you think.)
The beast puffed and snorted as he scanned up and down what he could see of the line of zombies. He tried, at first, to walk stealthily around those figures that he could see – only to see more and more of them. He then paused in one spot and scraped repeatedly at the damp, leaf-strewn humus – like a bull preparing to charge a toreador. As he did so, several other wild pigs ran to his side and stood there, forming a bristling phalanx of muscle, tusks and terrified aggression.
Then the huge ‘leader’ (if such he was) pointed his snout to one particular part of the still silent, still unmoving, line of zombies. The other porkers turned and fixed their own gaze in that same direction.
“He’s giving orders,” I thought. (Pigs are supposedly very intelligent).
I followed the line of sight to where the snout seemed to be pointing, the place in the line where stood Graeme, Dan and Deb, the three zombies who were new to the hunt.
How did this leader sense this weakness in the trap that barred his way?
Don’t know – but, as one, this bunch of wild boars bolted for the perceived weakest point in the trap. The leader thundered into and over the Dan-zombie - and I could hear its considerable tusks ripping at Dan’s withering flesh as it burst through the line. (I didn’t see Dan get up after that.)
A second boar, slightly smaller, aimed itself at Graeme and upended him completely, tossing him into the air before it, too, evaded the trap.
The other pigs, more than dozen of them, which had stopped just short of the zombie-wall, then started for the gap just rent in it by the largest and most aggressive members of their band.
The hunt was then on the point of imminent and complete failure. The pigs would simply pour through the gap and evade the trap. The undead would not be feasting tonight – or so it seemed.
What hero, if any, would step up to save the day?
What hero indeed?
Why, my sweet baby sister, Deb-deb, of course!
Deb instinctively stepped sideways and directly into the path of the oncoming pigs, deftly plugging the breach left by Dan and Graeme. She unleashed her most blood-curdling banshee wail at the panicked and swiftly approaching animals.
Of course, this distinctive and ear-piercing cry had never been heard in these parts before – and thus stopped the remaining wild pigs (and not a few male zombies) dead in their tracks.
The momentary porcine hesitation caused by Deb allowed just enough time for David’s roar to ‘rally the troops’. As his command, more experienced hunters came to Deb’s side, completing the line once again. The trap could still be sprung.
The ‘uphill’ zombie group finally arrived in a headlong rush, roaring all the while – the remaining animals were then surrounded on all sides by an ever-tightening circle of hungry – and very excited - zombies.
A noisy, piggy massacre (roar, roar, roar - squeal, squeal, squeal) and a bloody feast ensued. Needless to say, Deb joined heartily in the festivities with the best of them and her face and hands were soon running with the scarlet of pig’s blood and entrails.
Enough description? Yes, I think so.
I felt a bit out of this particular party and so retreated even further – all the way back to the hotel ‘pool’, in fact - determining all the while not to allow admittance to my bloodthirsty siblings unless they first allowed me to hose the worst of their fleshy meals from their clothes and bodies. (Pete the ‘housewife’ wasn’t going to have their slovenliness soil his freshly cleaned living room!)
o0o
And so it went on (happily) for several months after that: hunts, ‘parties’ and hosings-down.
And, as long as he was the undisputed leader of the hunt, David seemed happy to accept his ever-babbling (but useful) sister as ‘Queen’ to his ‘King’ – and all the local zombie-folk seemed quite content with this arrangement. Indeed, far from showing any inclination to harm her, they readily accepted orders from her – and she turned out to be a woman of many, many orders!
She became a sort of bossy mother-hen to them – and they seemed to like being bossed around by her. (All children crave direction, don’t they?) It was not uncommon for me to awake in the morning, in the refurbished ‘pool’ area, to find a mob of undead ‘attendants’ milling about outside and peering in at the windows, apparently awaiting ‘Her Majesty’s’ pleasure – and blocking my view of the harbour in the process.
I suppose it filled in the time for them.
And, as for Deb, her linguistic (and mental?) progress continued. Her speech improved to the point where I would say she spoke like a child who was just starting primary school, a five-year-old perhaps: her sentences were now (usually) grammatically complete (subject-verb-object) and, occasionally, she came out with a sentence which contained a dependent clause.
She quite floored me when one morning she announced: “Deb go harbour with Davie ‘cause meet friends there.”
“Okay,” I replied weakly, as they left.
“Has ever a zombie spoken such a complex sentence?” I wondered. “And will Deb’s progress continue?”
It was about this time, during those peaceful, idyllic months at Rabaul, that Deb abruptly refused to respond to me if I called her ‘Deb-deb’. This was a replay of what had happened when she was a kid – something, as her much older brother, I recalled very well.
When she had been about five, she simply announced to the whole family (which was listlessly watching a repeat episode of ‘Gilligan’s Island’ at the time):
“I don’t want to be called ‘Deb-deb’ any more. That’s a baby’s name.”
Needless to say, this had merely incited David and me to keep calling her ‘Deb-deb’ at every opportunity. After all, as her elder brothers, we had certain, well-recognised, obligations to annoy our little sister!
Chapter 30
A Barrage from the Harbour
Ever dreamt you were under attack from a ship-to-shore battery?
No? Well, I have.
I was contentedly lying in ‘the pool’, being warmed by the morning sunlight which was streaming through the windows, when I dreamt there was a distant ‘foomph!’, immediately followed by a whistling noise and culminating in a loud crash.
Foomph! Whistle. Crash.
Several times over, in fact – and the occasional sound of falling masonry was also able to be heard in my dream.
As I recall, I was sitting atop a cliff, watching a warship loose off its artillery towards the shore. In my dream, I was unconcerned – the shells were not directed at me but at a nearby township.
Then, quite suddenly, I found myself deafened and covered in shards of shattered glass.
I was also spattered with blood, my own blood, and very much awake.
The dream had been abruptly terminated and reality had taken its place.
Actually, the reality was not all that different to the dream – except that I was under attack and not merely a disinterested bystander. Oh, and the other thing was that, in reality, there was a bunch of zombies running about in a panic and roaring loudly (though, being temporarily deafened, I couldn’t actually hear the roaring).
I staggered to the gaping hole where the double glass-door had once been and shook from myself most of the shattered glass which was clinging to, or sticking
into, me.
Though I was bleeding profusely, I seemed to have all of my limbs functioning.
I looked down the street and towards the harbour. Nearby, I could see crowds of disorientated undead milling about without obvious direction or purpose. In the near distance, fire and dust rose from several low-lying buildings where the shells had landed. In the far distance, in the middle of the harbour, were two medium-sized warships loosing off their artillery in the direction of the city centre.
They were bigger than mere patrol boats. (Patrol boats don’t have artillery, do they?)
I had seen larger naval vessels in Port Phillip Bay. These were not that big. So, what were they? Frigates? I don’t really know – classifying naval vessels is not my forte but these ones both seemed to have the capacity to launch missiles (which they weren’t using at the time).
Did that help? The term ‘guided missile destroyer’ rang a bell. Was that right?
In any event, I hadn’t ever expected to find myself under assault from an artillery barrage in Zombie-town (Rabaul). Sure, the city had seen plenty of action during the Second World War – far too much, actually. But it was a strategic harbour then, used by the Japanese Imperial Navy as a major centre of operation.
Now, it was just an abandoned city full of zombies – so, why bother? They were hardly likely to use the harbour as a stepping-stone for world conquest.
While I contemplated this puzzle, I decided to take my numbness and hurt back inside – and retreat swiftly underground, into the cellar. The cellar was pretty shallow and would not have protected me from a direct hit but I decided it would be better than being above ground, in the now-shattered pool area.
The shells continued to rain down, at regular intervals, upon the city – with some impacts close and others not so close. Within a half an hour or so, my hearing started to return – as did my courage. (Well, at least a bit).
I decided to poke my head back up through the cellar door and survey what I could: lots of broken glass and other wreckage, a spattering of my blood where I had been sleeping when the attack had started - but no sign of Deb or Dave.
Then, quite abruptly, the shelling ceased – and, curiously, even more courage returned to my heart.
I emerged back into the main street – still lots of frantic and disorientated zombies lumbering about in an aimless fashion and many more pillars of dust and smoke rising from the city. The whole place had been peppered with shells. There seemed to have been no particular concentration of the ships’ fire – though, if anything, the city centre seemed to be more affected. But that was where all the big (burnable) buildings were.
I looked into the harbour once again. I saw the two ships I had seen before. (Let’s just call them ‘guided missile destroyers’ even if that’s not right.) There was also a now third one which I had not previously noticed. (As less than an hour had passed since I had last looked at the harbour, it had probably been there previously but I had merely missed it.)
It was a quite different ship. There was no obvious armament save for what looked like a heavy machine-gun mounted at the front. It looked like some sort of transport vessel but whether it carried equipment or troops (or both) was not immediately obvious. (However, we were soon to find out.)
As the artillery barrage had stopped – at least temporarily – I decided that I had better patch my wounds (which turned out to be relatively minor) and then seek out my siblings.
o0o
As I was searching for my benighted brother and sister, I thought about the classic military reasons for unleashing an artillery barrage. It was a softening-up tactic, generally. If you rained fire down upon your enemy, it was likely to weaken their ability and/or resolve to fight you.
Were the zombies anyone’s enemy now? Were they still fighting anyone?
No, definitely not. So, once again, why bother?
I then recalled an artillery barrage was generally done by way of preliminary to a ground assault.
Ah! (Though it still made no sense, in the circumstances.)
The third ship in the harbour: it must be full of troops and their weapons – and we were about to be attacked.
I confess that I was more than a little hacked off when this realisation came to me. After all, I had gone to great lengths to keep myself and my beloved sister away from living folk. I really did not wish her to attack anyone else – and had naively hoped that, by taking her thousands of kilometres away from any populated centre, living folk would likewise feel they did not need to attack her.
Apparently, I was wrong.
I stumbled and clambered my way towards the harbour, with another fear in the back of my mind. I was the only warm-blooded person in this town and my safety was only secure because my brother was the undisputed local leader of the undead. I was untouchable while he was in charge.
Was I still untouchable if he ceased to be in charge? Would the present chaos provide some dead person with the opportunity for an unexpected lunch?
I tried to put this thought out of my mind as I weaved past mobs of bewildered zombies on my way to the harbour – but I couldn’t. It only takes one of the returned to start a feeding frenzy. I’d seen that on many occasions.
These thoughts only increased my anxiety about finding David and Deb - quickly.
I managed to get myself past burning buildings and piles of smoking rubble to reach the quayside.
Two lone figures stood there, side by side, staring at the ships that were intruding, uninvited ships that had rudely broken months of peace.
The lonely figures were, of course, my siblings. While everyone else panicked, they just stood and observed, apparently quite calm.
I imagined what it must have been like when Cook entered Botany Bay – or when any technologically superior culture forced itself upon a native society. Were their leaders always as calm as Deb and Dave?
I walked along the quayside and took my place beside them, three siblings, very different but united in purpose.
David acknowledged my arrival by directing his most thunderous roar at the invaders – he shook and so did the quayside beneath my feet.
I said nothing – David’s rage reflected my own feelings exactly.
Why had these people come to disturb us? And why come now, after so many years of peace?
(It occurred to me that maybe Deb’s and my arrival, with the unfortunate events on The Southern Princess, had stirred the pot in the outside world. Maybe. I suppose Blunt had reported his losses to his superiors – and, in doing so, maybe he had elaborated on the truth. But this was a major military action – and very expensive. Sailors were lost at sea every day without causing wars.)
Deb spoke first: “Bad men come.”
I agreed.
She turned her face to me, seeking out my eyes. David turned to me also.
“Can fight bad men?” Deb asked.
I paused and considered. The zombies, when aroused, were a fearsome force but the navy would have come well prepared. They would know exactly what means were required. This had been learned, through bitter experience, during the first wave of the zombie apocalypse. The military would come ashore with overwhelming force – and probably have massive air support just waiting in the wings for their call.
If we attempted a head-on confrontation, it would be a no-contest.
“No, Deb,” I replied. “We can’t fight the bad men.”
Deb huffed in indignation and stamped her foot – much as a small girl does when she cannot get her way.
“Davie!” she commanded her brother. “Need do hunt. Now!”
A pig hunt?! Was she serious? This was no time for fooling around.
David and I looked at Deb with the same question on our faces.
Deb returned my stare and answered: “Pete idiot. Get friends out town.”
David caught on before me – and immediately strode off in the direction of the smoking remains of the city square.
Bright girl, my sister.
(David’s not completely stupid either.)
Oh course, I thought, this need not be mere evacuation – a military campaign waged against thousands of guerrilla-zombies, organised and directed by my siblings in the dense, mountainous jungles of New Ireland (7,404 sq. km.), would be a very different proposition to simply slaughtering a panicked and disorganised mob of two-year-olds in the streets of Rabaul.
Chapter 31
The Pig Hunt that Wasn’t
The city square was indeed a smoking ruin. Several of the buildings surrounding it had taken direct hits and were still on fire. Inside the square itself were large lumps of the buildings which had spilled onto the ground. The entire facades of several buildings had simply peeled off and fallen. One large building had completely collapsed.
Mine (Book 2): Sister Mine, Zombie Page 16