by Tony Thomas
‘Let’s go Dan,’ Gen whispered. Dan bent and picked up the rifle, Gen was already moving so he followed her back to the house. When they got the front door Gen went straight inside. Dan paused and looked around. His yard still looked secure. Nothing had climbed over the fence and his heavy gate was in place. No one had followed them from the fence. Dan could still see the truck on the street in front. He could no longer hear gunfire, although he could still hear some faint moans.
Dan walked inside, closed, and locked the security screen, and shut his front door.
08:00 SST (10:00 AEST): Singapore
Chris had gone to the bathroom to clean his teeth. It was a lifetime habit. No matter what happened he always cleaned his teeth before going to sleep—even on flights. Chris knew he would never go to sleep without performing this simple ritual. As he rinsed, he decided to have another attempt to call home. Chris wiped his mouth on the hand towel, picked up his phone, and went into the small second toilet. He shut the door and sat on the closed lid.
Chris called the number and waited. After a few rings, it went to the answering machine. He looked at his watch and did a quick calculation, it was after 10 a.m., Pete should have been well and truly home by now. After a moment’s reflection, he called again—this time to Pete’s mobile. After two or three rings, the familiar voice of his partner answered, ‘Chris, you’re okay!’
Chris was glad he was sitting down. He hadn’t realised how tense he was nor how relieved he would feel. ‘And you are too,’ Chris replied. ‘I was so worried about your flight not making it safely.’
‘The flight was okay. It’s just the quarantine that really screwed me up. I can’t go home yet so I’m stuck in a quarantine centre.’
‘What happened?’ Chris asked.
‘No, you first—where are you?’
‘Still in Singapore. All the flights have been cancelled. We’re all holed up in Lincoln’s room. The. . .’
‘Wait up—did you say the flights are cancelled? How will you get home?’
‘I don’t know. They closed the airport hours ago. We tried other airlines but we were too late. I don’t know how we’ll get home. We got a text saying there was a curfew and a lockdown. We figured we would be safer all together. We heard the PM’s announcement on the news—so you’re being held in quarantine?’
‘Yeah, at the Hordern Pav no less! Seems bizarre being in here with all the lights on in the middle of the day. The place is starting to fill up. By the way, my phone battery was flat, I’ve only had it charging for a couple of minutes and it could die any second.’
‘Okay, no problem. I’ll have to charge mine up again soon. So no incidents or anything? We heard there’d been some problems at the airport.’
‘No, not really. I thought I heard gunfire at the airport but they hustled us out pretty quickly. What about you?’
‘Gunfire at the airport? That sounds pretty ominous.’
‘I’m not sure anyone else heard it. I’m not even sure I did. So what’s happening with you?’
Chris paused, unsure how much to tell Pete. ‘It’s been a little interesting.’
‘What does that mean?’ Pete demanded.
‘Well, we’re pretty much trapped in the hotel. From the window, we saw a mob of crazy people overrun soldiers down by Boat Quay. We saw the same mob go hunting in buildings. Later there was a crazy porter who tried to get into the room and attack us. We’re locked down now, but we’re not sure how we’re going to get out of here or if any help is coming.’
‘Holy fuck!’ Pete blurted. ‘Listen, it might be best if you stayed put for a while, at least until things settle down.’
‘The downside of that is that we might not be able to get out, particularly if there’s crazies roaming the halls.’
‘It doesn’t sound too safe on the streets.’
‘That’s true as well. Look, I’m really glad to hear you’re safe. I’ll go put my phone on a charger now as well, just in case. I’ll try to call you back. . .’ Chris lowered his phone and looked at it—the call had dropped out.
10:00 AEST: Picton Road
The crash was inevitable. Weak from loss of blood and shock, not to mention infection, Bozo had dozed. While the Picton Road was fairly straight, it had enough bends that Bozo soon ran off the road. The heavy Range Rover crossed the wide verge and barely slowed down as it punched through a chain link fence. Rolling on through the light scrub, it eventually stopped when it hit a ghost gum. The jarring halt woke Bozo.
Bozo hadn’t been driving particularly fast before he fell asleep so the crash had caused only superficial damage. Bozo opened his door, released his seatbelt, and fell out of the Range Rover. He tried to stand, pulling himself up by the door, then collapsed as his heart succumbed to the infection. Bozo lay dead, on his back in the grass at the side of the road. His wife and daughter moaned gently from the back seat.
A few minutes passed. Bozo stirred. Silently he rose into a sitting position. Bozo looked around for a moment or two, oblivious to the moans of his wife and daughter. He slowly climbed to his feet. Moving with a jerky mechanical gait, he stumbled away from the car, walking further into the bush. When he came to a fire trail, the walking was easier, and he followed it.
10:05 AEST: Hordern Pavilion
As soon as Jeff had finished his call with Jim, he started trawling news sites for mention of zombies, or of people eating people. Some of the fringe sites had articles on it, but Jeff had an innate distrust of them built up over quite a long time. There was nothing on the sites he regularly visited like CNN.com or NYTimes.com or even the StarTribune.com. Maybe Jim was right, and the news outlets were lying.
He had a quick look at Twitter, searching for #zombie. There were a huge number of tweets. He was a little incredulous that most of them were ads for movies and giveaways. Still, mixed in with the ads, there were enough warnings to make him wonder if there was something to what Jim had told him. He tried Facebook and was instantly appalled by the number of posts from friends about the riots and panic that was sweeping through America.
Jeff looked around to see if he could spot Pete. The hall was slowly filling up with people and furniture. It seemed a continuous stream of people had been entering through the front doors, while people in yellow vests were bringing out stacks of chairs and tables. Some of the passengers had joined in and were helping to unload and set them up.
Jeff felt a pressing need to talk to someone about his son and what he had said. He needed to be convinced that Jim was wrong. That there were no zombies. Jeff stood and started walking towards the side of the hall where he had last seen Pete.
Despite the size of the hall it was becoming crowded. Jeff wondered how many flights landed in Sydney every day. If everybody from all those flights was going to be sent to the same place it would reach capacity pretty quickly. He finally spotted Pete sitting at a table against the wall beside an emergency exit. He had just taken his phone from his ear and was looking at it in disgust.
Jeff reached Pete as he was plugging his phone back into a charger. ‘Phone trouble?’ he asked, stating the blindingly obvious.
Pete smiled a greeting but looked troubled. ‘Flat battery still. I finally got to speak with Chris but the damned phone went flat after five minutes.’
‘Is she okay?’ Jeff asked, he could see the worry in Pete’s face.
‘Chris is my husband,’ Pete replied testily. ‘Well we’re not legally married here due to our dumb-fuck government, but we got married in New Zealand last year.’
Jeff was somewhat surprised. Pete had seemed such a man’s man. He smiled internally at how ironic that thought was and said, ‘I’m sorry, no offence. Is he okay?’
It was Pete’s turn to be surprised. He had expected Jeff to be homophobic. ‘Yeah, he’s stuck in Singapore. The last thing he said to me was that they had been hiding out in a hotel room after being attacked.’
‘They were attacked? My God! Were they hurt?’
‘No, I don’t t
hink so. At least he didn’t say anything about it. My phone went dead before we could finish talking. How about you? Have you talked to your son?’
‘Uh, yeah. That’s why I came looking for you. He’s safe, hidden in his mom’s basement. It was what he told me that’s really disturbing.’
Pete looked at the people around them. None seemed to be listening. ‘What did he say?’
‘He told me that the infection is everywhere. The people that get infected attack people but eventually slow down and die. Then they come back as zombies and try to eat people.’
‘Bullshit. I get the infected attacking people and dying—that’s kind of like rabies or something. Nothing dies and comes back to life.’
‘Hey, I agree with you. That’s just what he told me. I’ve tried looking at news sites and social media but I can’t find anything that convinces me one way or another. No matter how you look at it, it’s very scary.’
‘Did he say how far it’s spread? From what you told me earlier it’s pretty much everywhere.’
‘He had stopped watching the news. Can you believe it? He was playing Xbox and smoking pot with his friends.’ Jeff felt better just talking to someone about the conversation with Jim.
‘Kids eh? I guess it’s one way of coping. Still, not a great survival strategy.’
‘That’s what I told him. Look, I probably need to get my phone on a charger as well. I promised Jim I’d call him back soon. Might as well plug in while I can.’ He pulled his charger from his bag and looked at the power point on the wall. ‘I don’t suppose you have a power adaptor by any chance?’ he said, feeling more than a little foolish and frustrated.
Pete smiled and said, ‘Must be your lucky day. I bought a universal one on the flight to the US. I’ll just go grab it out of my bag. Keep an eye on my phone okay?’ Pete stood and walked quickly towards the luggage area before Jeff could respond.
Jeff looked at his phone and its dwindling charge before deciding to text Jim.
Have you looked at news yet?
Just tried FOX CBS ABC. All on the same bullshit—no news
CNN?
Looking now. India is gone. Pakistan nuked them
Jeff immediately called Jim. His phone beeped a low battery warning just as he got through. ‘Are you kidding me? Pakistan nuked India?’
Jim sounded confused, ‘I think that’s what they were saying. It’s pretty hard to understand, no, wait, there’s a banner thingy saying that “Pakistan has used nuclear weapons at some border crossings with India”. I guess they’re just trying to stop refugees and crazies from overrunning them.’
‘Using Nukes? Is there any mention of a reaction from India?’
‘Not yet, but remember I told you their government had bugged out. Maybe they don’t see a point in shooting back.’
‘I really hope so. Between the two of them they could make a real mess of the world.’
‘I think it’s too late to worry about that, Dad. The world looks pretty screwed already.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I’m just watching the banner scrolling across the bottom of the screen. The news guy is just babbling. All the big cities are disaster areas, although the news is saying that Australia and New Zealand have hardly been touched. Guess you’re in the right place at the right time.’
‘Any mention of zombies?’
‘Not yet. Geez Dad, the banner just said that Minneapolis is out of control.’
‘Jim, you’re a fair way out of the cities. Just stay calm and hidden. I’m sure it will settle down soon.’
‘How can you say that Dad? You’re on the other side of the world.’
Jeff’s phone beeped another warning for low battery. ‘Jim, you’re right. I don’t know. But you have to hope for the best. My phone is just about to shut down. I’m at a place I can charge it, so as soon as I can I’ll call you back. Okay?’
‘Okay Dad, don’t worry. We’re not going anywhere. We’ve got plenty of food and drinks and we’re actually having a pretty good time—but watching the news brought the mood down.’
‘Yeah, I know. But check every so often, okay?’
‘Okay. See ya Dad.’ The call dropped out.
08:10 SST (10:10 AEST): Singapore
Mick had started stewing about being trapped the minute Chris had gone to the bathroom. He was certain that there was no rescue on the way. ‘Fuck it,’ he said, quietly.
Mick walked over to the window and looked up at how the curtain was hung. He could see there was a housing holding the blind, but the curtain was on a single rail. Mick was quite surprised to find that it was timber—that was both good and bad. He reached up to remove the rod then slid the curtain off. The rod was about 3 metres long with a 5-centimetre diameter. Mick thought for a moment about trying to break the end and turn it into a spear, he grinned at himself for going primal, before putting down the curtain rail and having a second look around the room.
Almost immediately he focussed in on the chairs. The lounge chairs were useless. He had no tools to take them apart and they were covered in upholstery. Even if he did manage to snap the arms or legs off, they were very short and would be useless as a club or stabbing implement. There was a stool under the vanity mirror in the bathroom that had legs about 18 inches long. They might be more useful.
The desk might be the answer. It was a fancy design and had effectively eight legs, two per corner. Each pair of legs fitted through a heavy brass bracket. If he could get one of the legs out and leave the bracket in place it would make an amazing club. The other leg could be snapped into a point so they could have a stabbing weapon as well as a club.
Mick set to work. He moved the lamp onto a sideboard, along with the hotel folio, a pot plant, and the other incidental bits and pieces on the desk. He turned the table upside down and grunted at how heavy it was. The legs were screwed in to brackets at the base. Mick went to the mini-bar and grabbed the ‘Waiter’s Friend’ type corkscrew and bottle opener. Using the folding knife from the Waiter’s Friend he worked on the screws freeing up the first leg. Immediately he hit his first complication. There was a cross-brace support that ran between pairs of legs on each side of the table. When the desk was upright, it was close to the floor and curved inwards to provide a footrest. He couldn’t detach it from the bracket at the base of the leg.
Undeterred, Mick set about unscrewing the second pair of legs joined by the cross-brace. The cross-brace was joined to an identical brace on the other side. Fortunately, he could unscrew this connection leaving him with a curved wooden cross-brace connected at each end to brass fittings holding a pair of legs each. Once he had it removed, he placed one pair of legs on the ground and stood on the lower one, with the cross-brace vertical. The curve of the cross-brace made this very awkward, although the second pair of legs were about waist height.
Mick tried to push a leg down to snap it out of the bracket. The angle of the cross-beam screwed up his leverage and he lost his balance. Of course that was the moment when Chris walked into the room.
‘Jesus Christ—I’m gone five minutes and you decided to trash the place?’ Chris demanded with a laugh.
‘I figured if we were ever going to get out of here we’d need weapons,’ Mick replied a little defensively. ‘The desk legs and the curtain rods were the only things I could come up with.’
‘What are you talking about Mick?’
‘Chris, like we agreed, we’re trapped here. There’s fuck all food and the water could run out anytime. We need to find a way to get out of here. There’s crazies in the hallway and downstairs, so the only way we’re going to get out of here is to fight our way out.’
‘Fair enough, but I’m not sure how much use a long stick will be,’ Chris said as he picked up the curtain rod.
‘Yeah, I know. I think these legs might be more useful if we can use them as clubs. I’m not sure I could stab someone, but I’m happy to knock them out.’
‘Maybe, but don’t we just need to keep th
em at a distance until we get out? There was no one on the street when we looked before. Maybe if we can get to the lift and get a bit lower down we can get out.’
‘I’ve told you what I think of that. Also—what if the power fails while we’re in there. We’d be fucked with no one to come get us out.’
‘I suppose so’, Chris replied pensively, then brightened, ‘Hey, I spoke to Pete.’
‘How is the little missus?’
Chris ignored Mick’s jibe. His faux homophobia was a long standing joke. Pete and Mick got on like a house on fire. ‘Well he’s stuck in quarantine at the Hordern Pavilion but hasn’t seen anything worth worrying about so far. He said he thought he heard gunfire in the airport but we didn’t really talk about it. His phone ran out of battery while we were talking—he’s recharging now. It might be a good idea if we all do that while we still can.’
‘Yeah, good call,’ Mick said. He stopped trying to break the legs from the desk apart and walked over to look through his bag for his charger.
Chris stood looking out the window as he pulled his charger from his bag. He focussed in on the small balcony before he opened the door latches and walked outside. With a feeling of trepidation mixed with triumph, he said to Mick, ‘How about we go down the outside of the building?’
10:15 AEST: Sydney
‘Corp, we’ve got company!’ Johnno yelled, as he crouched down on Joanne’s porch. A few moments ago, he had seen a group of infected moving along the street. Somehow they had sensed him and turned, almost as one, towards the house. They were moving slowly. Not like the infected he had seen earlier. These ones had a lumbering gate but they were definitely moving in his direction.
Corporal Lang stepped out of the front door. ‘No choice Johnno, blow them away,’ he ordered.
‘What are you talking about?’ Joanne screeched. ‘They’re people, you can’t just shoot them.’