The Zombie Proof Fence

by Tony Thomas

  He clicked the ‘Call’ button, Ian answered almost immediately. ‘Hi Dan, how’s the paranoia?’

  Dan’s immediate thought was to bite Ian’s head off. He took a breath and reconsidered. In the few hours since he had last talked to Ian, his world had changed completely.

  ‘Ian, you won’t believe the shit that’s happened since we spoke.’

  ‘I hear you, mate, we’ve got a lockdown now as well,’ Ian said. ‘Sounds like our government are basically doing the same as yours. No attacks here yet though. Not much talk of what’s happening anywhere else either, so what’s the news?’

  ‘Fuck, I don’t know where to start,’ Dan said. ‘My next door neighbour was infected, his wife came over here, and I thought she was trying to attack us. I called the emergency line, and then not half an hour ago, an army unit came to pick up the bloke next door and they were just mobbed by crazies. I think they’re all dead.’

  ‘Dan, have you had any sleep yet?’ Ian asked. ‘You’re sounding a bit hyper.’

  ‘I know it sounds nuts, but things have gone to hell really fast over here.’

  ‘So tell me again slowly, you said your neighbour was infected?’

  ‘Yeah, his wife came over this morning when her phone wasn’t working, she hadn’t heard anything. We told her what was happening, she went home to tell her husband.’

  ‘So he wasn’t sick then?’

  ‘No, sleeping in after a late flight. When she went home, I heard a scream. I went outside to see what was going on. . .’

  ‘Why the hell would you do that?’

  ‘I don’t know—it still didn’t seem real then,’ Dan replied, a little defensively. ‘I thought it might have been my neighbour. That’s when I saw the attack on the street.’

  ‘You saw an attack?’ Ian asked, surprised.

  ‘Didn’t I mention that?’ Dan asked. ‘Sorry, so much has happened so quickly. Anyway, after I saw the attack I came back inside and rang the emergency number and left a message about it. Just after that, I hear a knocking on the back door, the bloke next door had gone crazy, and his wife had jumped the fence to get away.’

  ‘Fucking hell—was she hurt?’

  ‘Not physically—but I think she’s gone nuts, spouting religious crap and saying it’s the apocalypse.’

  ‘Oh lovely, that must be going down well then.’ Ian and Dan had talked religion over many beers. Ian knew exactly how little sympathy Dan would have, and how Gen felt the same way. ‘So what was the story about the army unit?’

  ‘Australian Quarantine sent an army unit to pick up Mark from next door. They caught three crazies on the way here and had them trussed up in the back of the truck. They caught another one on the road outside. When they went next door to get Mark, they got attacked by a massive group of crazies. They were shooting at them with machine guns but the crazies kept coming and overran them.’

  ‘Bullshit—that never happened!’ Ian spurted.

  ‘No bullshit Ian. Not a word of a lie. I’m fucking terrified.’ Dan admitted. ‘I called the emergency line and they basically told me to lock myself in my house and hide. I think we’re fucked.’

  ‘But you’re safe in your house, aren’t you?’ Ian asked, trying to reassure Dan.

  ‘I guess so, I got the front gate closed and the security monitor aimed so I can see if anyone gets in. The house is all locked up. I’m glad we’ve got big fences.’ Dan shook his head, ‘What worries me is how that big mob got together. They have to be searching for people to infect, breaking into houses or something for the group to have gotten so big so fast.’

  ‘You’re right, that is a worry. After what Piotr said happened to his neighbour, it really does sound like they’re hunting.’ Ian paused. ‘Dan, sorry to do this, but I suddenly feel an urgent need to check all my doors and windows.’

  ‘No worries,’ Dan said. ‘Just make sure you keep out of sight while you’re locking up. From what Piotr said, they look for movement before they break in, they weren’t just going door to door.’

  ‘What about sound?’

  ‘Mate, I don’t know, all I know is that you want to avoid attracting any attention.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ Ian said. ‘Stay safe, mate, let’s ping each other soon.’

  ‘Sure Ian. You be careful. I don’t think the news reports are being completely honest with us.’

  Dan clicked the call closed. He leaned back, time to face the religious nut he thought, forgetting the message from Piotr.

  06:00 SST (08:00 AEST): Singapore

  ‘That mob down at Boat Quay is getting bigger,’ Mick said. He was standing by the window looking down at the river as dawn started to break.

  Chris was sitting in an armchair. He kept looking at the door. ‘Do you think he’s gone yet?’

  ‘I can’t hear him anymore, mate, maybe we should have another look,’ Mick said as he started to walk towards the door.

  ‘Not yet, Mick,’ Chris said. ‘Let’s leave it a bit longer, maybe they can smell us.’

  ‘Smell us? You’ve gotta be joking.’ Mick smiled. ‘It’s not that long since I had a shower.’

  Chris flipped to a new channel on the TV. They had the volume set to the lowest audible setting. Like every other channel, this one was showing footage of a vicious street battle, this time it was on a bridge. As the footage panned, they could see England’s Parliament House in the background. ‘Fuck, this is everywhere. London looks like Syria.’ He flipped the channel again.

  ‘Is that Hong Kong?’ Mick asked.

  ‘Looks like it to me,’ Chris said, flicking the channel. ‘That looks like Shanghai. How can it be everywhere so fast?’

  ‘Air travel, I guess,’ Mick answered. ‘I don’t know how it can keep spreading when people change so fast, surely they’d pick it up before the planes took off?’

  ‘When the Australian news was on before they said that it can take anywhere from six hours to a few minutes to change. That bloke we saw down on Boat Quay must have only been seconds. Maybe it’s changing.’

  ‘Is that good or bad?’ Mick asked. ‘Won’t it just burn itself out?’

  ‘I don’t know. If it turns people faster, isn’t that more dangerous? We don’t really know how it spreads beyond bites or something.’

  ‘I guess it depends on whether it’s all speeding up at the same time. If the time between infection and symptoms and full blown fuck-nut crazy isn’t consistent I don’t know how you’d stop it spreading.’

  ‘I don’t know why it would all change at the same speed, it’s not like everyone is the same with getting flu or whatever. I think this is going to keep spreading until it burns out,’ Chris said, hoping Mick would tell him he was wrong.

  ‘Fuck it, I’ve got to have a look and see if he’s still there,’ Mick said, walking towards the door.

  ‘Just be careful, okay,’ Chris said. ‘The last thing we need is to attract any more of the bastards.’

  Mick walked quietly down the short hall to the door. He bent and looked out the peephole. He stared through it for a few seconds before looking back at Chris with a smile. ‘He must have got bored.’ As he bent to look back through the peephole, he saw movement. ‘Bugger,’ he muttered.

  Mick walked back to Chris. ‘There’s still someone in the hallway, can’t tell if it’s the nutter or not. At least he’s not still banging on the door.’

  ‘What was he doing?’ Chris asked.

  ‘He just walked past, not a care in the world,’ Mick said. ‘I wonder if it was the same bloke?’ This hotel is pretty big. Maybe the nutbag was somewhere else and this was just a guy.’

  ‘In that case, he’s fucked. Maybe we should warn him?’ Chris said, sounding unsure of his suggestion.

  ‘I guess so. As long as he’s not infected,’ Mick replied. He walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. ‘I can’t see anyone now, do you think we should open it and have a look?’

  Chris said, ‘Mick, if we can stop that guy getting infected, we shou
ld do it. Open up and see if we can see him.’

  That was all the encouragement Mick needed. He unlatched the security chain. After another quick look through the peephole, he opened the door. As he stepped into the hall, he looked both ways but could see no one.

  ‘I’m just going to go up the hall a little bit and see if he’s in the lift lobby,’ Mick said.

  ‘Are you fucking crazy?’ Chris spluttered. ‘You know there’s some crazy bastard wandering the halls and you’re just going to stroll up to the lift well?’

  ‘You’re the one said we should try to save the guy.’

  ‘Yeah, but for fuck’s sake, Mick! That’s just plain stupid.’

  Mick cocked his head, ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘I think it was a chime from the lift.’ Mick turned towards the lift and started to walk.

  Chris stepped into the hall. As he did, he looked down the hall away from Mick. The bloodied porter had come around the bend about 30 metres away. He was walking, but as he saw Chris and Mick, he roared and broke into a run. Chris turned to grab Mick but he was too far away. He yelled, ‘Get back in here, he’s fucking coming!’ as he lunged back into the doorway.

  Mick turned at Chris’s yell and saw the porter running towards him. He ran the three steps to the doorway slamming into Chris on the way through and knocking him flying. As Mick swung and slammed the door, the porter reached through.

  The door slammed onto the porter’s forearm, crushing it against the jam. Mick leaned against the door, trying to stop the frenzied porter from forcing his way in.

  Chris had regained his feet and his senses. ‘I think you’ve got his arm trapped Mick.’

  The porter continued to drive into the door. It was taking everything Mick had just to keep him out. One of the bones in the porter’s forearm broke with an audible snap as he tried to force his way in. Mick said, ‘I’m not letting him off even a little bit—can you push his arm out?’

  ‘I’m not fucking touching him—who knows how you catch this shit? I’ll grab a towel and use that to push, hold on.’ Chris started to rush to the bathroom

  ‘Fuckin’ hurry, okay? I don’t know how long I can hold him.’

  At that moment, Lincoln came out of the bedroom. He rounded the corner and managed to say ‘What the hell are—’, before he realised that Mick was desperately struggling to hold the door closed against the arm of a roaring man. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he exploded. He ran forward and pushed hard against the door.

  ‘Back in a tick,’ Chris said. He ducked back through the lounge into the bathroom and grabbed a towel from the rail. He rushed back to the room door.

  ‘Hurry up, Chris,’ Mick said. ‘I think there’s another one there.’

  As Chris looked through the door, he could see a flurry of limbs trying to get past the porter, whose arm was still stuck with his broken forearm. ‘There’s definitely more than one out there, but he’s blocking them.’

  A broken bone had started to stick through the skin of the porter’s arm, blood was flowing profusely down the door frame. It didn’t slow the porter though, he kept pushing against the door. Chris shook out the towel and flipped it over his hands. He gripped the porter by the elbow and wrist and started pushing his arm back through the door.

  ‘Alright, guys, when I say, I want you to ease off just a bit so I can get his arm through the door. As soon as I do, push as hard as you can to slam it shut—okay?’

  ‘Yep, sure,’ Lincoln growled.

  ‘Just fuckin’ do it,’ Mick added.

  Chris braced himself against the wall, tightened his grip on the still struggling arm, and yelled ‘Now!’

  The door opened a slight fraction and Chris pushed as hard as he could. The porter wobbled back a half step twisting his arm free of the door. Chris yelled, ‘Shut it!’

  Mick and Lincoln pushed hard against the door and to their relief the latch closed. Chris hooked on the safety chain and they all slumped against the door. They could hear muted screams and growling as the crazies continued to try to burst through the door. As they looked up, they saw Lara at the end of the hall, watching them.

  Lara shook her head in disbelief. ‘Unbelievable,’ she muttered, as she stormed back to the lounge area.

  08:00 AEST: BA275

  ‘Attention, passengers and crew. This is Captain Martin speaking.’ James paused, he was struggling with the best way to explain what he was about to do.

  ‘As you know, we had a brief stop in Iceland to debark a passenger who was behaving violently. It appears that this passenger was the victim of an illness.’ James hesitated, he was very uncomfortable about delivering the rest of his message. ‘Since our departure from Iceland another passenger and one of the crew have also shown symptoms of this disease.’

  James could see from the cabin monitor that the passengers were looking very confused and concerned. ‘I have been in contact with British Airways headquarters. I am led to believe that this illness is being reported throughout the world. In fact, at this time, there are many nations which have declared quarantines and curfews.’ Unsurprisingly, this news was greeted with gasps and some clearly distressed people.

  ‘BA have instructed me to change our flight plan and return to Heathrow. That is why we just executed the turn many of you would have noticed. We have been advised that Las Vegas ATC is not responding and we cannot land there. We will arrive in London in less than four hours.’ James waited a few moments for the news to be absorbed by the passengers. ‘The UK is also experiencing these problems, but at this time, Heathrow is still a safe zone and we will be able to land. We have contingency landing options for other airports in the UK.’

  ‘In order to reduce the risk of disease spreading within the aircraft, the upper deck has been designated a quarantine zone. The passengers currently in the upper deck will be moved to available seating in the lower deck of the aircraft. Any passenger found to be showing symptoms of the sickness will be relocated to the upper deck. Additionally, we will require all passengers to remain seated with seat belts on. If you need to use the bathroom, you must press the call button and you will be escorted by cabin crew.’

  James again waited for the message to be absorbed by the passengers. ‘Again, we are approximately four hours from London to Heathrow. We know that some of these changes will reduce your comfort; however, BA has a greater duty to your safety, so please assist us by complying with these measures.’

  8:05 AEST: Sydney Airport

  Pete and Jeff stood back a little from the belt and waited for their bags to appear. As usual, there were quite a few people who crowded the belt and made it harder to see and collect luggage, while the more experienced travellers tended to stand further back to get an easy view of their bags as they came out. People continued to file into the baggage claim area—it looked like most of the belts were in use.

  After a few minutes, Jeff spotted his bag—the orange tape on the handle made it easy to spot amidst the torrent of black luggage. He pushed through the phalanx of people close to the belt to collect it. As he turned, he looked around and realised the area was getting extremely congested, he assumed it was probably because no one was allowed to leave.

  Jeff struggled back to Pete and said, ‘It’s getting really crowded in here. If they don’t let people out soon you won’t be able to move.’

  Pete looked around briefly, ‘You’re probably right. It’s a hell of a lot more crowded than normal.’

  ‘No kidding, there’s barely room to move between here and the belt.’

  Before Pete could answer, he spotted his bag. Like Jeff, he had to struggle to get through the crowd to retrieve his bag before it was carried past. Pete barely managed to snag the top handle and drag it from the belt. He then had to force his way through the press of people crowding the edge of the belt to get back to Jeff.

  He was a little breathless as he put his bag down and said, ‘You know, I think this is going to be a problem. You can barely mo
ve in here—that’s not real safe.’

  ‘Is it worth making our way to the customs lane? Maybe we can get a bit of breathing space over there.’

  ‘Right-o. Follow me.’

  Most people seemed to be standing around waiting for either bags or announcements, but there was a thin current of people moving towards the customs lanes. They had just passed the end of the belts and were slowly moving to join the express lane queue when they heard shouting coming from behind them. Both men stopped and turned.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ Pete asked.

  ‘Not a thing,’ said Jeff. ‘The crowd in here is too thick.’

  ‘I think it’s coming from behind immigration.’

  A voice came over the PA,

  ‘Attention passengers in the baggage collection area. Please remain calm. It appears we have struck a problem in our screening area. The rear entry to the baggage claim area is now being sealed for your security.’

  ‘I don’t like the sounds of that,’ Pete said.

  ‘I hear you man. That is really not making me feel good.’

  The PA came to life once more.

  ‘Attention passengers, I know that sealing the baggage claim area is somewhat disconcerting. This is a standard security measure and has been done for your safety. Please stay calm. We expect to be moving you on to the quarantine area within a few minutes.’

  The crowded baggage hall erupted in conversation. Jeff said, ‘I’m not liking the sound of this. They must have some infected people on the other side of the barrier if they’re sealing it.’

  ‘Maybe, or maybe some other bloke’s lost his shit like that guy on our plane. This whole thing is enough to send anyone over the edge.’

  ‘I guess so, I’d just like to get out of here and get on our way.’

  Pete looked thoughtful for a moment then said, ‘I’m a bit worried about what this “quarantine area” is going to be like. Hopefully, it’s a short stay until they send us on our way.’

  ‘Once we’re cleared, I would have thought it would be better to get you home and me to my hotel.’