“And what’s your name, mate?” Tess asked.
“Shane Morgan. I was a… I was in finance.”
“I’m Sophia Peresta, and I had a yoga studio,” the tall woman with the braided hair said. “Just opened. Took me five years to save up enough to qualify for the loan. Are all the kids being evacuated to Tassy? Because my daughter’s at the crèche at the university.”
“Not all, and I don’t think any more will be sent away from here,” Tess said. “From now on, the planes and ships are being used to evacuate people from the harbours in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and across the Pacific. We need to get the civilians out so we can send the soldiers in, secure the towns and cities there, like we’re doing here. Retake the farmland, the industrial buildings, the countries, the islands, the continents. I won’t say it’ll be quick, but the offensive has begun.”
“Why are there only two shotguns?” the last of the group asked. Not so much pushing fifty as holding it at bay, she had a bad scissor-cut to match her badly fitting dungarees, which certainly didn’t match the sapphire necklace and earrings.
“What’s your name?” Tess asked.
“Bianca Clague. I’m a pastry chef from Adelaide.”
Tess doubted it. The jewellery spoke of money, and the cut gems matched her cut-glass accent. Old money, but that was worth no more than her jewels, and she knew it, so was claiming a more useful prior profession.
“This morning,” Tess said, “two fleets of cruise ships, tankers, and freighters departed. Aboard each fleet were a million people. Some are conscripts like you. Some are soldiers. Some are refugees. One fleet left Perth, heading up to Malaysia where they’ll secure the peninsula. The other set sail from Brisbane. They’re making for Hawaii and then to the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. But first, they’re stopping in Samoa to refuel and to collect rifles and ammo the Americans have flown in. That’s why you’ve only got a couple of shotguns. As terrifying as the zombies seem, the dangers we face pale in comparison to elsewhere in the world. You blokes know how to use those?”
Clyde gave a precise nod. Shane looked a little uncertain.
“I can give it to someone else,” Tess said.
“No. No, I know what I’m doing,” Shane said, a tremor to his voice.
“Okay, we’ll call that rule four,” Tess said. “Guns are always pointed at the ground. We’ll climb over that wall, and split into two teams. Team A, that’s Zach, Bianca, and Shane, you’ll take the right. Team One, Elaina, Clyde, Sophia, you’re on the left. We’ll walk up to our section, eyes open, guns pointing down. When we get to our set of streets, we’ll go door-to-door. Any that are open or unlocked, give a yell, and I’ll go in. You’re watching my back, understand? Good. What’s rule four, Shane?”
“Guns at the— Oh, sorry.”
“Use the shovels to knock the zombies down,” Tess continued. “If there are more than two zombies, you retreat. Rule three, zombies can’t run. But humans can. So retreat carefully. Don’t flee. Remember to yell a warning to the rest of us. Two zombies or less, you knock them down. Shotguns, you move in and shoot them on the ground. Never shoot if they’re moving, upright, or inside. You leave them to me. Okay?”
“Welcome to the ever-evolving abnormal,” Bianca said.
“Everyone got their gear? Shane, mate, what’s in your bag?”
“Everything I own in the world,” he said.
“As long as you can carry it,” Tess said, eyeing the pack that was nearly half the man’s height. “Everyone got water, because I don’t know when you’ll get more.”
“Is that rule one?” Zach asked.
“Sort of. Rule one is check your boots,” Tess said.
“And rule two?” Elaina asked.
“Remember rule one.”
They were the last team to climb over the wall. Ahead of them, Major Kelly’s double-strength squad had already reached the next roundabout and were heading north up Burdekin Avenue.
“Why shovels?” Bianca asked as their squad walked north. “We don’t have shotguns because there aren’t enough. But why shovels?”
“Same reason as you’ve got those jackets,” Tess said. “It’s what was available in a warehouse here in the city.”
“Logistics wins wars,” Elaina murmured.
“Exactly,” Tess said, giving a wide berth to a charred car outside an equally burned house. “And we’ve got a logistical nightmare on our hands. General Yoon wants us to resupply her army. You’ve heard of General Yoon?”
“The prime minister mentioned her,” Shane said, already out of breath. “On her radio broadcast three nights ago. She’s the American general, yes?”
“The Canadian general running the relief effort in most of North America,” Tess said. “But Canada isn’t the only front. Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, and Korea all need assistance, and that’s before we even begin talking about India. As for China and Russia, they’re not even talking to us. We’ve got to ramp up production of everything. By the coast, we’re building giant desalination plants, and the electricity generating stations to power them. A by-product of those water plants is salt, from which we’ll get chlorine another coastal factory can turn into bleach we can use to disinfect our clothes. Washing detergent comes next, but until we’ve got the bleach, we’re exhausting our wardrobes faster than a jackaroo at a weekend-long wedding.”
A gunshot echoed, out of sight, but loud.
“Barrels down, guys,” Tess said as both Clyde and Shane raised their shotguns. “A single gunshot is someone eliminating one of the infected. Two shots mean the same thing, just fired by someone with bad aim. More than two is when you pay attention.” She patted her holstered sidearm. “And when you see me draw my weapon, that’s when you get ready. Remember rule three?”
“Zombies can’t run,” Zach said.
“Right. Best foot forward, because we’ve a couple more streets before we get to our section.”
After twenty minutes, Tess was lost. Her badly photocopied map only had half the street names, and none of the side roads. She’d assumed she’d be able to ask other teams the way, but they seemed to be out ahead on their own.
“This is us,” she declared, reading the street sign. “Jackamos Street. Are any of you locals?”
“I am,” Bianca said. “But I’ve never been here.”
Tess pointed at the map, then along the street. “We’ll check the houses on this street and Eugene Vincent Street, which should be that road up the top of the hill.” A gunshot carried on the wind, but distant. Faint. “We shouldn’t have too much trouble,” Tess added. “We’re on a hill and there’s a fair number of streets between us and the Mulligans Flat Nature Reserve to the east. That’s where that shot came from, and the direction the undead will come. There are some patrols out there, hunting them, but that doesn’t mean we’ll let our guard down.”
“What’s that smell?” Bianca asked.
“Burst sewage pipe,” Clyde said. “Blocked first, then burst. Water’s evaporated. That smell comes from what remains.”
“An incentive to get the job finished,” Tess said. “Team A—”
“Team Stonefish,” Zach said. “We’re Team Stonefish.”
“You are? No worries. Stonefish, you’re on the right. Team One—
“Funnel-web,” Elaina said. “They’re way scarier than a stonefish.”
“Team Funnel-web, take the left,” Tess said. “Shotguns, you watch the rear, but keep those barrels down. Don’t go shooting anyone in the back. One person walks up to the front door. If the windows are smashed, if the door is broken, call me. We don’t care if the door is unlocked, just that it’s closed. And if it is closed, check the back. If the backdoor is shut, too, then you chalk the footpath outside with a tick. You’ve got chalk? Off you go.”
Tess stayed in the middle of the narrow, sloping road, watching the two teams nervously approach the obviously shut front doors. Both houses had the clean lines and unmarred brickwork of the recently bui
lt, and both in a cubist-interpretation where they’d clearly recycled the same architectural plans. Other houses on the street were brick one-storeys, or taller Scandi-barns. Some had new solar tiles, others had red terracotta, but she’d find similar mix-and-match components across the entire continent-country. Of far more immediate interest was the complete absence of cars along kerbs and in driveways. These houses had been recently lived in, and just as recently fled.
This was the heart of the problem. Before the nature of the outbreak was truly known, before she had arrived in Canberra, before the last prime minister’s suicide, and even before the fires, a warning had been given that outlying suburbs might have to be evacuated. Might. But the warning had been taken as doctrine. Residents had weighed their future as a choice between walking to the centre of the capital with what little they could carry, or driving away with everything they could cram into their car. Some had taken a few hours to cook all the food they couldn’t take with them. Some of those hasty cookouts had got out of control, only hastening the owners’, and their neighbours’, departure. With the suburbs emptying, and most of the fire-crews fighting bushfires, or having joined the rescue-or-destroy mission in the outback, homes had burned before the blazes were under control. Clearly, the people on this street had taken one look at the rising pillars of smoke and fled. No doubt many were now among the undead unwittingly returning to the place they’d once called home.
Team Funnel-web moved to the next house. Seeing that, Zach called for his team to hurry.
“It’s not a race, mate,” Tess called. Zach waved acknowledgment, but didn’t stop hurrying on to the next building while Shane, awkwardly due to the heavy weight of his pack, bent to mark the footpath.
Zach would learn. Hopefully, he wouldn’t learn the hard way. She turned around, looking down the slope, beyond the handful of streets and to the distant trees of… She took out her map to find the name. Mulligans Flat and the Goorooyaroo Nature Reserve. And beyond those, the gloriously sharp mountain peaks. Canberra was an alien city to her, a name from the news, barely more relevant to her daily life than Seoul, Washington, or Pyongyang.
“Commish!” Bianca called.
Tess turned to see Bianca waving to her a good deal further up the street. She’d stopped outside a single-storey peach-brick with a stormy-grey ceramic tiled roof. To the right of the door was a closed garage, while to the left were a trio of wall-height windows that must originally have been designed for an office, then repurposed for a home. The windows were curtained, but the front door was broken open.
“Step back,” Tess said as she advanced, drawing her sidearm. “Do you see the splinters on the doorframe? Those marks were made by a crowbar.”
“Was it looters?” Shane asked.
“Defo,” Tess said. “Long term, it doesn’t matter. Once this street is secured, these houses will be re-allocated among the refugees.”
“Oh,” Shane said, adjusting his pack. “I thought that might happen.”
Zach, meanwhile, had crossed to the trio of wall-height windows and was trying to peer in. “You hear that?” he asked.
“Yeah, there’s something in there,” Bianca said.
“Broken door means we go in and check,” Tess said. “Shane, go back to the footpath, keep your eyes on the side of the house. Shotgun pointing down, remember? Zach, you go with him, and keep your eyes on the road. Bianca, you stay here, by the door. Come in if I call, otherwise, stay outside.”
“Yeah, no worries,” she said.
Gun raised, Tess stepped inside, quickly sweeping through the living room and kitchen. The photos mostly showed a young baby. Sometimes with parents, sometimes with grandparents. The floor was littered with soft toys, but she doubted the mess had been created by looters. The thieves probably were responsible for dropping the trio of canvas tote bags in the corridor leading to the bedrooms. An odd mix of crockery and utensils had spilled out of one, while small glass jars of baby food had fallen from the other.
Tess stepped over those, through the open child-gate, and into the hallway, moving with determined certainty towards the source of the noise.
The zombie was in the master bedroom. Male. About thirty. He’d been tied to the bed, swaddled in a sheet, around which long chains had been wrapped under the frame. The snapping sound came from his teeth gnashing up and down. The rattle was from the chains moving and shaking. The sound of cloth ripping was dulled by the blood and fluid seeping through the pale sheets.
Tess took aim, and fired. One shot. But it was followed by a second, this one from outside. Tess dashed out of the room, down the corridor, over the scattered toys, registering the broken glass in the front window as she sprinted to the front door. Outside, Zach was crouched, while Bianca gripped the barrel of Shane’s shotgun, keeping it pointed downward.
“Trouble?” Tess asked.
“Not really,” Bianca said.
“Sorry,” Shane said. “I… it just went off.”
“No worries,” Tess said. She waved the all-clear to the other team. “Give the shotgun to Bianca, and take the shovel.” She turned around, breathed out, and went back inside, completing her sweep before returning outside. “Only one zombie. Zach, you’ve got the chalk?”
“No worries,” he said, and scrawled a large Z on the footpath. “They’ll come and collect the body?”
“Yep,” Tess said. “And disinfect the house.”
“You mean someone has to live there?” Zach asked.
“Defo,” Tess said. “Could be refugees passing through, or recruits being trained, or workers for the new factories. There are millions of refugees at sea, and millions more desperate to catch a boat or plane. Next house. Eyes open.”
“There won’t be enough beds for everyone,” Bianca said.
“But there will be enough roofs,” Tess said.
“And steak for brekkie,” Zach said. “That’s what the major said, we’ll get steak every day.”
Tess shook her head, and glanced over to the other team, already moving from the front door towards the rear garden. Clyde seemed to have taken charge, and seemed to know what to do. The man was probably ex-military. Retired when he’d become a dad, but hadn’t come forward when the call-up was issued, not until his son had been sent to relative safety.
“Sorry, Zach,” she said. “The steak is a one-off. There’s a station to the north. Big place, big herd, but it needs too much water to keep running. We told them to send the herd here for slaughter and canning, but not until after we’d built the canning factories. They sent the cows too early. Since we’ve no food to keep the herd alive, and no factories to make the cans, let alone process the meat, we’re slaughtering them instead. We’ll freeze as much as possible, but the rest is being cooked. And when it’s gone, it’ll be gone for a decade. We’ll keep enough breeding stock to reintroduce them, one day, but it’s a veggie diet until then.”
“No more snags or burgers? Are you serious?” Zach asked, wistfully forlorn.
“Sorry, mate,” Tess said.
A shout came from ahead. The other team had reached the junction, and had already begun searching the houses to the right. Elaina stood on the kerb, while Clyde and Sophia stood much closer to the front door.
“Finish checking these houses,” Tess said, and went to check on the other team.
“The door’s open, Commish,” Elaina said. “We’d have gone in, but we didn’t want to spoil your fun.”
“House keys are in the lock,” Clyde said, pointing to the dangling boomerang-shaped fob.
“And no car in the drive,” Tess said. “The owners, before leaving, left the keys so a looter wouldn’t break the door down.”
Inside, it was quickly apparent the homeowners had accurately foreseen the future. Looters had emptied the kitchen and bathroom cupboards, and removed most of the tools from the rack in the garage. But, perhaps because they’d not had to exert themselves forcing an entry, they’d refrained from excessively wanton destruction.
&nb
sp; “No zombies,” Tess said, returning outside. “Lock the door. Mark the footpath with a tick. And— Oh, strewth, they’re going the wrong way.”
Team Stonefish had reached the junction, and were now heading north up Ben Blakeney Street, and toward a brown-brick one-storey half covered in scaffolding. The tall and tidy fence ringing the property had been partially removed to allow access to the garden while it was being landscaped. From the scaffolding running up and across the roof, solar panels were being installed.
“Stonefish!” she called. “Shane, Zach, Bianca!”
All three slowed and turned. Before Tess could call out again, a figure lurched out through the gap in the fence. Grey trousers stained with blood, faux-leather jacket ripped to shreds, face contorted by savage burns and twisted with infected, undead rage.
“Move!” Tess called, raising her gun, but she didn’t have a clear shot. She ran forward as the team turned towards danger. Zach stepped back, while Bianca half-raised the shotgun, but Shane charged forward, swinging the shovel up over his head.
“No, Shane! Get back!” Bianca called.
But the man was trying to make up for his earlier mistake. He swung the tool in a vicious, curving downward hack that completely misjudged the distance. The edge of the shovel smashed through the zombie’s arm, ripping flesh from bone. Momentum spun Shane ninety degrees while the heavy weight of his still-slung pack carried him forward another half metre, and straight into the monster. Its left arm was a dripping stump, but the right was a clawing hand which curled around the bag’s shoulder strap, tugging Shane forward and down. As its teeth bit into the man’s shoulder, a simultaneous yell came from both Shane and Zach. A scream from Shane, fury from Zach as the young man charged, swinging his shovel low at the zombie’s legs.
Even from ten metres away, Tess heard bone snap. The zombie fell, and so did Shane. Shane’s heels and elbows dug into the grass, as he tried to get clear. The zombie thrashed more violently, pivoting and rolling onto its broken leg, and far enough from Shane and Zach that Tess dared risk the shot. She fired. One shot, straight into its forehead. The zombie collapsed.
Life Goes On | Book 3 | While The Lights Are On [Surviving The Evacuation] Page 3