Well, I decided it meant that there were no less than seven – maybe not everyone thought that their boots needed airing.
There was a privet hedge on both sides of the garden - and a small, wrought iron gate on the street corner. A concrete pathway then led to the front door. Curiously, the front gate had been secured with a chain. This did not seem to make any sense because the gate itself was low enough simply to jump over and therefore was not designed to keep intruders out. Maybe it was meant to keep pet dogs in – I don’t really know. So, why mention it at all?
Well, it obviously had presented an obstacle to someone who had come to deliver a parcel to the residence. Instead of taking it to the door of the house, the parcel had simply been dropped over the gate and left for the residents to find later.
Serendipity! Regardless of its contents, I decided that this parcel was mine – and I immediately took possession of it. Having done so, I left the somnolent guard to his snoring and discreetly returned to the vault to examine my prize.
o0o
I was pleased to note that David had apparently missed me. He met me at the door of the vault and displayed what I interpreted as unusual attention towards me. However, given that he had been largely ignoring me for some days, this was not saying a great deal.
“Hey, Dave,” I whispered exultantly and held the present high. “Santa’s been! He’s brought you a prezzo. You must have been a good little zombie boy!”
He emitted an amused sort of grunt - leastwise, that’s how it seemed to me. Maybe his rudimentary brain still computed ‘Santa’ and ‘prezzo’. These concepts are, after all, deeply ingrained into all Western children.
I placed the parcel on the floor. It was wrapped in several layers stiff brown tar-paper and tied up with numerous turns of thick twine. (Ah! They just don’t wrap ‘em like that anymore, do they?)
There was an envelope pushed roughly under the twine but not otherwise secured to the parcel. Was it meant to go with it or was it separate? I decided to put it aside in favour of watching what David would do with ‘santa’s prezzo’.
David fell upon the parcel eagerly – exactly like a small child would do – but, also exactly, like a child, he was unable to figure out how to open it (other than to make inconsequential and random tears in the paper).
He raised his dead eyes to me, as if pleading for help.
“Want a hand, Davie?” I asked.
He stood back from the parcel but did not take his eyes off it. I stooped and loosened the binding but did not actually open the item. That task I left to David.
Once again, he fell on it eagerly and ripped it open. He pulled out the contents, examined it – and then, just as quickly, discarded it in apparent disgust.
I, on the other hand, was not disgusted at all. On the contrary, I was delighted by what I saw: three complete army uniforms, all washed and pressed.
Hmm. And I knew where I could easily get some boots to match as well, didn’t I?
An embryonic plan was forming in my head. But what of the letter?
CHAPTER 14
‘IT MIGHT JUST WORK, DAVE. YOU NEVER KNOW.’
Oho! The letter did indeed make interesting reading. It was a letter ordering the squad to re-deploy, now that the zombie threat had been ‘neutralised’ in the area of Melbourne Port.
And to where was the squad commander, a Sergeant, ordered to redeploy his men? Allow me to quote:
“You are ordered to make all necessary arrangements to disassemble and vacate your current encampment at Melbourne Cemetery by 08.00 hours, Tuesday next, and proceed by train to the temporary barracks now established on the South West outskirts of the City of Swan Hill. Your squad’s redeployment is required to assist in quelling an outbreak of infection that has recently broken out in that locale. Upon arrival, you are to make yourself known to the Camp Commandant (name suppressed) and all necessary transport arrangements will be put in place…”
Clear enough. A useful document, if I wished to go, unimpeded, to Swan Hill.
Did I? A boy could worse, I thought. What did I know about Swan Hill? It was at the end of the Northerly train line out of Melbourne and on the banks of the ‘Mighty Murray River’. It had paddle-steamers and giant Murray cod . And?
Nope, that’s all I knew about Swan Hill.
I decided David and I should go there as soon as possible.
I outlined my plan to David. The only aspect of the plan that he understood, I think, was that I wanted him to get inside the otherwise unoccupied but extra-fancy coffin that had been conveniently left in the vault - and to stay very quiet for a long time.
David seemed dubious, very dubious.
No matter, I would sleep on the details of my plan and elaborate on them to David in the morning – whether he wanted to listen to them or not.
o0o
By nightfall, I was no further advanced in convincing David of the wisdom of my plans. In short, he couldn’t understand them beyond the most basic outline. Well, I suppose that was as much as I could ask of any dead person
David’s lack of understanding would not prevent me from putting the plan into effect. I should have been a little more cautious, I guess, but, without a plan of some sort, David’s ‘death expectancy’ was likely to be very short indeed. (All his fellow zombies – at least the ones on campus – seemed, as I have said, to have been ‘neutralised’.)
In the ‘wee small hours’ of the night, I crept out once more – trying hard this time not to upset the nearby fruit bats. My initial mission was simple: check the ignitions of the army vehicles for keys and collect two pairs of boots from the verandah of the gate-keeper’s house.
I will not trouble you with the details of this initial foray. Suffice it to say that all of the army vehicles were open and had keys in their ignitions (after all, who was going to steal them?) - and the boots were duly collected without mishap.
Oh, and the guard at the cemetery gate – a different member of the squad this time – was slumped in his chair and again snoring!
“Hmm. That went well,” I thought.
I returned in triumph to the vault with the footwear.
David seemed unimpressed by my feat – but was, once again, a little edgy.
I stripped off my recently washed – but still filthy – rags to dress myself in the Sergeant’s uniform that I had stolen from the gate-keeper’s house. As was the custom in those days, my name tag was sewn into the shirt, above the left chest pocket.
Henceforth, I was ‘Sergeant S. Smith’ – which was, as I’m sure you will agree, conveniently easy to remember.
I slipped the boots onto my bare feet – still no socks to be had but, unless I sat down, this was not noticeable.
The boots were, naturally, of standard army issue: thick black cowhide covering the ankles, tough, ropey bootlaces and multiple layers of hobnailed leather on the sole. (Perfect for dancing at the Trocadero!)
When I had completed dressing in the Sergeant’s uniform – and duly straightened all the sharply pressed seams - I turned to David and exhibited myself:
“Ta-dah! What do you think, Mate? Do I exude an air of authority?”
I’m not sure what, if anything, he thought of my new appearance. He remained stone-faced at the sight of me – though he did look me up and down.
“No matter,” I said. “Now it’s your turn.”
I bade him come forward to me but he merely retreated, grunting his disapproval.
(Not a good start for my grand plan.)
I thus needed to gently cajole David for over an hour, a precious hour, before he relented and let me start removing his also recently washed – but even more stained and filthy – clothes.
In this, he behaved like a small child who didn’t want to have a bath – but, in his case, I was unable simply to bribe him with a rubber ducky or toy boats to play with.
Eventually, he relented and allowed me to strip and re-clothe him. He became “Lance-Corporal Kimson” but, as he didn’t have a s
peaking part in our next little drama, I did not need to bring this to his attention.
After so much effort and time wasted, we stood together: a trim, fresh-faced sergeant and a grey-faced lance corporal – both sans socks.
“Time to help me with the coffin now, Dave,” I said.
He had not previously understood this part of my plan, I’m sure, but, with a bit of play-acting and hand-gestures, he came to realize that I wanted him to take one end of the ornate coffin and lift it with me.
After opening the steel vault door wide, I returned and started to lift ‘my end’ of the box – and David, haltingly, copied what I was doing at his own end.
Shit! This thing was bloody heavy. I thought, then and there, to abandon the plan as I was not at all sure I could sustain the weight for long enough to get it to one of the vehicles (about 75 – 100 metres from the vault).
Before we even got through the door of the vault, I was quivering from a load that was at the very limit of my physical capability. (I was a pretty skinny kid at the time.) The coffin, with its heavy timber construction and ornate metal handles weighed, maybe, twice as much as a standard coffin. The problem was that we had only one coffin to choose from and, frankly, we were lucky to have that.
David held his end of the thing aloft and was showing no signs of strain. (I thought zombies were supposed to be weak – but, no.)
“Okay, Mate,” I groaned. “Put it down – gently.”
He did so without fuss and I stood panting and sweating as I considered our options. Maybe, I thought, we could salvage a ‘used’ coffin from one of the niches on the vault – one that was of a standard weight.
I approached one of the niches and, with steel rod that was to hand, levered open the plate that sealed it from the outside. It was the one which, by the date on the plaque had most recently been sealed – about three months previously. Immediately, I was assailed by the stench of human decay. Upon examination using my “Pope” light, I saw that a bodily liquor was already seeping from the base of the coffin.
Would that have affected the structural integrity of the wooden container? Maybe not. However, given David’s reluctance to fall into line with my plan, I decided he was unlikely to agree to get inside a box that had already been occupied for some time – even if we were able to eject the previous occupant.
The other coffins in the vault were unlikely to be in any better shape. So, it was either the extravagantly ornate, but empty, box – or stay put and think of another plan.
I turned to David: “He who hesitates is lost, my friend. Let’s pick up the box again and see what we can do.”
This time, bereft of other ideas, I gritted my teeth and lifted the ornate coffin in a ‘clean and jerk’ motion. I posed ‘my end’ on my shoulder and David, with no obvious effort, did likewise.
We exited the vault as quietly as possible and I wondered how long I could hold my breath - which was the only way I could maintain sufficient strength for the lift. As I walked along a narrow path, towards the parked army vehicles, I recalled that David and I were distantly related to a Husband and Wife team of World Champion Power Lifters. I knew for certain that I had not had the relevant gene passed down to me – but David, my identical twin, was showing no pain. (How did that work?)
Distracted by this thought, I managed to maintain the lift until we reached the khaki Holden utility. This was the vehicle I had chosen to take and, as it happened, it was the closest.
I halted and nodded desperately in the direction of the vehicle: “Put it down – gently!” I breathed.
David rested his end of the box on the open tail-gate of the ute – and did so gently, as requested. This, however, meant that I needed to slide the box forward to the cab wall, whilst still holding the weight of the coffin on my by-now-bruised shoulder.
Shaking all over from the exertion, I managed to do this – not so gently. I had no strength at all in reserve and marveled at the fact that the two of us had managed to carry the massive thing this far.
I stopped and, trying to control my quivering, listened. No snoring was audible. It was still night and the guard’s snoring had been clearly audible from this distance on the night before.
“Anyone there?” Came a stern-sounding voice.
Bugger – I had been heard by the guard. (What ever happened to the imprecation ‘friend or foe’ that I had been taught in my time as a toy soldier?)
Or, maybe, he had merely been awakened by the noise without really hearing it. (Or so I hoped). I motioned to David to remain still. I heard the guard noisily lifting his rifle – the sound of the thick, woven strap casually slapping the butt was quite distinctive for me. The sound of heavy boots, equally familiar, started approaching us.
Fight or flight? Neither – stay put!
“Anyone there?” the voice repeated, with perceptible uncertainty.
Uncertainty? Yes, that’s what we wanted. I decided we should stay put and, soon, the footsteps retreated without the guard having seen us.
I knew the plan had gone too far for us to abandon without raising suspicion – and, probably, a detailed search of the cemetery which, as far as I knew, had not previously been done. (After all, who hides in a cemetery?)
David and I stood, frozen to the spot for about twenty minutes before we heard the resumption of the guard’s snoring: Time to move.
o0o
The main driveway to the cemetery was, unfortunately, relatively flat. So, for silent running, it needed both of us to push the khaki-cloured ute, me from the driver’s wheel and David from the rear. (It took some little time to indicate to him what it was that I required but I needed his strength. So I persisted until he understood.)
It was, like all the vehicles, already pointed towards the entrance gate. I presumed this was so that the soldiers, like firemen, could spring into action at a moment’s notice. In any event, this meant that no backing and turning was required. We just needed to push forwards and gain speed. As we neared the gate, David jumped into the passenger seat at my hand-signaled command - and I slid into the driver’s seat, leaving the door ajar.
We were travelling at around 15 kph and I could see the guard, still slumped in his chair as we cruised past. The ignition was on I was ready to slip the clutch to start the ute whenever necessary. We bumped over the apron of the driveway, turned right and were fifty metres down College Crescent before I needed to do so.
As the engine coughed into life, I glanced in my rear view mirror – the guard had not moved. He was still slumped at his post.
We had needed this stroke of luck because, according to my figuring, we were now behind schedule - and we still had a train to catch.
CHAPTER 15
NORTH MELBOURNE STATION
At that time, North Melbourne train station was a fairly small, in fact, very typical suburban train station. It had not undergone the upgrade to a multi-platform complex that we now see and was then dominated by shabby, wooden structures which harked from the 19th century – all painted in a curious dappled green effect. (Who ever thought of such a colour scheme from Melbourne’s train stations? Maybe it was a wartime thing – camouflage?)
In any event, I chose a suburban station over the central station at Spencer Street (now grandiosely named ‘Southern Cross Station’). The reasons were obvious: easier access, less officialdom, smaller crowds. I wanted to slip onto the northbound train with a minimum of fuss.
But, before we entered the station car-park, I still needed to get David into the coffin and screw the lid firmly down. I parked the ute in a cobbled back lane, not far from the station. Once again, there was much coaxing required – and still further time lost.
If we had missed the train, we would have had to wait at the station for another three hours and been likely to be exposed as impersonators during all of that that time. Furthermore, the later trains would have been more crowded and the baggage car potentially full already. So, I needed to be more than usually, shall we say, ‘firm’ with David
over the issue of his getting into the coffin.
At one point, his resistance reached the point where he roared in my face in a threatening manner. This would have awoken many of the ‘locals’ except that, it seemed, many of the locals had already fallen victim to the zombie apocalypse, being so close to the epicentre of the plague. North Melbourne was almost a ghost town.
Eventually, however, David complied with my wishes and climbed into the coffin, still lying in the back of the ute. As I replaced the lid, I could he grunts of unhappiness emanating from within.
“Shut up, ya stupid zombie!” I hissed. Noises of any kind coming from inside a coffin were likely to attract unwelcome interest.
Brother Mine, Zombie. Page 10