The Colony

by Lang, Christopher

  "Peter calm down”, you need to get yourself to the hospital.

  "I've called an Ambulance, they said they'll be a couple of hours but they'll come and get me".

  "A couple of hours?"

  "Yes Dad, there is a queue. I looked out the window before. It looks like those old pictures of the LA riots. There are buildings on fire and people shooting at each other and looting. This isn't San Francisco anymore. San Francisco is safe".

  "Fuck. I can feel it. I can feel it. My brain is hot, it's burning. Oh my. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What the fuck is happening?"

  John heard his son growling, then the phone went dead.

  He took a few minutes to compose himself and went to the lounge room where everyone was.

  “I might go into town and see if I can get some beer”, he announced.

  No one thought it strange when we went out to the garage to prepare his car. He put four meters of pool piping in the boot along with a role of electrical tape.

  Well out of sight from the farm, he stopped and opened the boot. He put the piping around the exhaust and ran the other end into the backseat of his car through the rear window. Once it was all set up, he started the car and waited until the Carbon Monoxide took his life. There was no way he would allow himself to be a risk to the people on his farm.

  Six hours later, Kevin and one of the men took the bus and went looking for him. They had no trouble finding the car.

  They wound down the windows, switched off the car and unhooked the plumbing. John looked at peace.

  After waiting until the poison was clear, they took his body and his car back to the farm. An hour later they buried him.

  - 47 -

  Valerie was worried. Earlier that Tuesday morning, her husband had called to say that he was diverting via Texas, but she hadn't heard from him since. Matthew and Ethan, Florence, and the cats and birds were already an hour later than she thought they should be.

  Rhodes, being in a country valley, had terrible phone reception. They had installed a satellite phone in the house years before, but Matthew and Ethan were depending on Ethan's mobile phone. There were many reception black spots outside of the cities. She was clinging to the hope that that was why she hadn't heard from them.

  Ethan and Matthew crossed the rail-line on the state border that was the very reason for McPherson's existence. There they saw the first crazies they'd seen up close since Marine Park three days earlier.

  A soldier fired into the air and ordered them to stop. As he approached, a small group of crazies came from behind the Railway Hotel and the firing began. The rest of the squad opened fire while the Sergeant approached Matthew, gun pointed in his face. “Where the fuck you going?”

  “Don't shoot! I have a house, fifteen minutes away towards Firestone, I’m just trying to get to my wife.”

  Matthew looked in the rear-view mirror and noticed that Ethan was on his phone in the other car.

  “Hey, put the phone down, shit for brains”, the soldier yelled. The loud firing was still going on but Ethan got the message and hung up on his Mother.

  Valerie was finally at the end of her tether. She had gotten four daughters, a son, two sons-in-law and four grandchildren to safety. It appeared that she had just heard her son and husband being shot by someone.

  She was trying to explain, being questioned by her daughters, trying to make sense when her husband and oldest son drove into the long gravel drive that led to the house.

  2 Death and Hell

  Revelation 6:8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

  Three days of thinking you'll never see each other again does wonders for one's libido. After love, Matthew and Valerie began to discuss the situation they were in. There were fifteen people staying in their farm house. Everyone had a bed; they often stayed up for weekends as a family, but living for an extended period might be tight.

  “Have you seen the property manager?”

  “I sent the boys down to the lower ten this morning to speak with him. His daughter or wife is sick or something, but he'll come up and see us tomorrow. There's been lots of rain so the cattle are up on the upper fifty and won't need to be moved for three or four weeks.”

  “Valerie, this situation is very scary, we saw soldiers shoot and kill people in McPherson. The cop in Brisbane told us that killing in self-defence is not illegal. I mean... he said as we drove off, he was very clear, 'I want to remind you that killing these people in self-defence is not illegal'. It was like he was telling us that it's okay to kill these crazies. Hell. That’s crap, “like” doesn’t come into it. He was definitely saying we could do if we needed to. Those first ones at Marine Park, fucking hell, they were like guard dogs. Remember in Thailand when we saw that Mongoose fighting a snake?”

  “It was India, not Thailand.”

  “Oh, yes... remember the snake? It was like these people, blood lust or something... I don't know. They're off their rockers but that doesn't mean you can kill them, does it? I mean if they try and kill you and you defend yourself maybe. I'm not sure I could have done that if I'd had to on the way up here.”

  “That's something you might have to change your mind about. What's going to happen? What if the Government doesn't get this sorted?”

  “The Government? Fucked if I know.”

  “You're upset baby, you don't normally swear. What are we going to do about Florence?”

  “’What about Florence?’ What about her?”, Matthew was bewildered by Valerie's change of tact.

  “What is she going to eat?”

  “We'll find mice around here, I'm sure. If worse comes to worst, we'll just let her go. Snakes live around here.”

  “We can't do that. Ethan's had Florence for five years and won't part with her.”

  “Well we don't need to worry just yet. We have about twenty frozen mice we brought up with us, that's a year's worth but we also need to be able to feed the cats. I think if we kill a kangaroo in the next few days that will keep them going for a long while. Between the windmills and solar we're virtually off grid. We don't need to worry about electricity.”

  “I'm not sure about that. Will it be enough for fifteen of us?”, asked Valerie.

  “Well I had it sized so that it would be, but it will fall back to the generator if necessary. We have lots of diesel and I know where I can get more.” Matthew seemed rather sure.

  “The next-door neighbours have about a hundred people with them. They arrived yesterday and have put people in the Cabins as well as on their own property. Tom said they want to have a meeting tomorrow at the Cabins green at two. There are some campers in the National Park and a pair of Honeymooners in one of the Cabins. They want us there as well as our property manager.”

  “Ok, I'll go down to see him in the morning.”

  “You've had ten minutes to recover, do you want to go again?”

  “Hell yes, I thought you'd never ask.”

  - 1 -

  Raymond’s trip along the railway was uneventful until he was near Chatswood Station. There he came across a train stopped on a bridge. It was carnage. Looking in through the doors, he could see PVs trying to get out to him. Dead people were sitting in their seats with ghoulish wounds on their faces and necks. At the front of the train, was a girl.

  He stopped to look at her, she was obviously not a PV and was wanting help to get out of the train. “How the hell had she gotten in the driver's seat?” She was banging on the glass, her mouth saying something that sure looked a hell of a lot like help.

  “That girl's got guts”, he said. He got off the bike, removed his Glock from his jacket and pointed it straight at her face. She ducked. He pulled the trigger and the laminated safety glass shattered into a million pieces.

  The girl was pushing the glass out of the way making the hole large
r. She stuck her head through, “Please help me.”

  He looked at her and at least decided not to try and shoot her again. He put the gun away and got back on his bike. “Wait, don't leave me! I'll do anything! Please wait.”

  She had the fire extinguisher now and was smashing a hole in the glass large enough to climb out. “Fuck it”, he said under his breath, and walked over to help her down. She slid out head first and he helped her flip over to land on her feet on the sleepers and rocks. The unevenness caused her to fall firmly on her bum.

  He helped her up, not really a girl he realised. A young woman, about the age of the popular ones at the brothel he ran before the plague. Some companionship might be fun.

  “Thanks Mister, thanks. I've been in there for hours. I was trying to get out but the fire extinguisher wouldn't break the glass.”

  “Why didn't you just open the door?”, asked Raymond.

  “The driver had the keys on him when they got him. Thank God the air con was on or I would have died in this bloody heat.”

  “Okay, I'm off then”, said Raymond.

  “Where are you going Mister?”

  “I'm going to meet some business partners. We're getting the fuck out of Sydney. We're going on a hunting trip.”

  “Please don't leave me here”, said the girl. “Take me with you.”

  “Do you realise that I broke the window with a Glock? What sort of person do you think owns a Glock in Australia?”

  “An exciting one”, she answered.

  He looked at her. He stared straight at her tits and she didn’t seem to mind.

  “Are you serious? I’m a dangerous man.”

  “Judging by what I’ve seen today, I need a dangerous man.”

  “Ok then, get on. We’ll see how it goes.”

  The girl got on the back of the bike behind Raymond and put her arms around his midriff.

  Raymond rode down the tracks. He had decided Chatswood would be far enough out of the city to get off the tracks. He was smiling, things were looking even better than when he shot the blond bunny rabbit.

  In a couple of hours, he would be in Kulnura for the meeting.

  - 2 -

  Laurence Chan was a baker and was at work very early each morning. On the fourth day of the plague was considering not going to work. On the previous day, the main shopping centre mall was closed and his bakery and the Petrol Station were the only places open. He sold seven loaves of bread. That was it. Normally he did that before six selling to the other shop owners for their private use.

  The alarm went off at 2:00am as usual but he wasn’t in a hurry. He trundled out to the lounge and flicked on the TV, ABC News24 was on. People were advised to stay home from work and to stay in their homes.

  Each evening they shut up the bakery, he baked from 2:30 to 5:30 each morning and then prepared the shop to open at 6:30am. He was normally home by midday but the girl who worked the counter hadn’t turned up so he’d worked the shop all day and frankly he was fucked. It was even more tiring when there are no customers.

  He went back to bed, and for the first time in seven months he was still asleep when the sun came up.

  - 3 -

  When Laurence awoke he smelt bacon cooking, he slipped on his t-shirt and went to the bathroom for a slash, he washed his hands and brushed his teeth. In the Kitchen Bi-Li was humming as she took the poached eggs out of the water and set them on the toast.

  She loved cooking for her husband, loved fussing over him. She knew that some women frowned on this sort of behaviour but she did it anyhow.

  She was a liberated woman, an orthopaedic surgeon she earned three times what he did but he still insisted in working his bakery. Why he didn’t just do the business side and employ a baker was beyond her.

  ‘At least he has the weekends off, not like the old days when he supported her through her studies’, she thought as he came into the kitchen behind her.

  On the two days each week that he didn’t have to get up early he was still up by 4:00am, he insisted that it made getting up on Monday easier.

  “Hi honey”, he came up behind her and gently squeezed her.

  “Sit down, your breakfast is ready.”

  He walked into the dining room and heard shouting from across the street. He looked out and saw his neighbour Philip Winton, running across the road with someone in pursuit. Laurence ran to the front door and picked up the cricket bat from the umbrella stand. His son kept leaving it there in spite of reminders not too but Laurence was glad it was there this time.

  He opened the door and Philip ran towards him, he tried to jump over Laurence’s Mock-Orange hedge. He made it over but not cleanly, his feet got caught and he fell hard on the lawn. Laurence could hear screaming coming from Philip’s home but he couldn’t focus on that. The crazy jumped the shrub, making a mockery of Philip’s effort and landed lithely on the ground, he bent down to Philip, intent to attack. To the crazy Laurence didn’t exist, Laurence swung the cricket bat hard and smashed him in the back of the head, he pulled the swing at the last instant and that almost saved the crazy’s life.

  Philip was making his way to his feet with Laurence’s help when the crazy started to move, Bi-Li stepped around Laurence and smashed his skull in with the iron frying pan she’d been using.

  Laurence looked at his wife with shock.

  “Philip, is Julie alright?”, she asked the man, he’d had the wind knocked out of him with the fall. “She’s screaming.”

  “Hey? Wha what?”

  “Was Julie attacked?”

  “Nnn No, she was inside, I was just trying to get the newspaper. It wasn’t there. I was trying to find it when he came at me. She told me not to bother going out to get it.”

  Bi-Li thought the newspaper wasn’t even worth burning but she kept her opinion to herself.

  “You had breakfast?”, she asked.

  “Come inside and have some breakfast. Laurence go and get Julie and Charles. Keep that bat handy.”

  Laurence couldn't’ believe how calm she was, he walked over and collected Julie and Charles and the four of them sat down with Laurence and Bi-Li’s boys and had bacon and eggs. Out in the front garden the crazy’s blood dripped out of his skull and into Laurence’s perfectly manicured lawn. Bi-Li had smashed his skull without a second thought, Laurence looked at his wife and she winked at him, she was always such a flirt.

  - 4 -

  “Laurence put on your gardening gloves, don’t you dare get any of his blood on your hands. I don’t know how infectious it is”, said Bi-Li. The cricket bat and frying pan still lay on the lawn, she’d insisted that he leave the bat outside next to the frying pan.

  Her mother, now deceased had bought that frying pan for them and she was just casting it off like it was nothing. The two men dragged the body through the side gate.

  “Get the bat and the pan, they’re going in too”, she ordered.

  The two men had spent the last two hours digging a grave. ‘That was something I didn’t expect to be doing today’, thought Laurence.

  They dragged the man out into the back yard and pushed his body into the hole, Bi-Li had the bat and the frying pan and tossed them in the hole on top of the body. The two men looked at her.

  “Toss in the gloves too”, she ordered.

  She picked up the spade and stuck it in the pile of soil, she swung it back over the hole and threw the dirt onto the man, sprinkling the cricket bat and her frying pan.

  “Here honey, I’ll do it. Why don’t you go inside?” She handed the spade to her husband.

  “Yes, it’s lunch time”, she said as she walked to the back door. The two men looked at each other and looked in the hole, the man was face up and looked a mess. “Lunch?”, said Laurence.

  After a big breakfast which he’d barely managed to keep down while handling the dead man, Laurence was unsure if he could eat lunch.

  - 5 -

  The Boeing 747 came in slow and low. The runway at the army base was technically not
long enough but it was the last option available. Hartnell RAAF base had been overrun by Plague Victims.

  “Corfe Alpha Charlie Foxtrot this is QF1198 heavy, we are coming into runway 2A. Over.”

  “QF1198 acknowledged. Please be aware that we have emergency vehicles on standby.”

  “Okay, Morton. Make the call.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen this is your First Officer. We are about to land in Corfe. The landing will hit hard. We will hit the reverse thrusters and brakes to stop the plane in the shortest possible distance.”