The Colony

by Lang, Christopher

  “The cabin crew has gone through the brace position with you. Please take the brace position when the cabin supervisor advises you to do so.”

  “Folks, we are almost home, I will see you on the ground in a few minutes.”

  The captain lowered the wheels and extended the flaps to slow the plane down.

  “Cabin crew. Be seated for landing.”

  The plane came down closer to the runway, “Brace, brace, brace!”

  The plane flared and hit the tarmac hard, the reverse thrusters were on hard and immediate. All over the plane people screamed in fear at the forces put upon their bodies.

  And then it was over.

  “Good afternoon, and welcome to Corfe where the temperature outside is 32 degrees Celsius. The wind is from the south south-east.”

  A few of the passengers laughed at the pilot's attempt at humour. Most didn't, as they were still unsettled by the landing at the army base.

  “We will be waiting here for the buses and the exit stairs and exiting from the front exit only.”

  In the cabin, the Pilot and First Officer embraced.

  An hour later, the plane was empty and the passengers and crew were in a large shed on the army base. They were waiting for the customs control people to come up from Brisbane.

  Sharon called her mother.

  - 6 -

  Many of the passengers had called family during the stopover in Dubai, so that they could meet them in Corfe, dozens of people were waiting for their families.

  The Lieutenant had a big problem. The immigration department insisted that passengers could not leave until officials arrived for vetting. They were worried about terrorists or illegal immigrants or some shit like that. He had his doubts that immigration would come. He had people waiting for their families and a group of people who had been on a plane for twenty-four hours. The passengers wanted out of the large shed he'd put them in.

  The company clerk had a suggestion. The waiting families were asked for the names of the people they were waiting for. Those people were called forth and photos taken of families and passengers and ID. Four hours later only twenty-five people remained.

  Sharon Cairns was one of those people. Her parents were stuck on a farm two hundred and fifty kilometres away. Her parents and the Lieutenant agreed the safest option was for her to stay on base, and her parents at the farm.

  The outbreak was in full swing; the authorities would soon get things under control.

  But no one bothered to ask Sharon what she wanted to do.

  The passengers from the plane who left with their families headed back towards Brisbane, in Toowoomba most of them were caught up in PV attacks, very few made it back to their homes in Brisbane, none were alive a week later.

  - 7 -

  Bevan was exhausted. He'd been on duty on the blockade for three days and was wondering how much longer they expected the emergency services to keep this charade up. Rome was burning, it seemed to him that is was time to admit defeat. He wanted to go home to his wife and daughter and get the fuck out of the city while there was still time left.

  - 8 -

  The morning of the first Colony town meeting saw the Nicolls family filling in time.

  Matthew and Ethan went to see their property manager and spoke to him through the screen door.

  Matthew told him what he knew about the Plague and invited him to the upcoming meeting. After that, they wandered off to the upper fifty to check on the cattle. Two of the cows would soon be ready to calf.

  The rest of the morning was uneventful. The grandchildren were playing on the two trampolines supervised by their fathers. The ladies of the house rearranged the rooms so that the children bunked together and there were only two adults per room.

  Valerie was feeling a little guilty that she had her own ensuite room to share with her husband while everyone else had to share a single bathroom.

  After lunch, the family headed up to the Cabins green for the meeting.

  The Nicolls family greeted Alexander and Sue Weiss, the owners of the Cabins, and introduced themselves to the honeymooning couple and the National Park campers.

  At five past two, Tom Lewis arrived with the crowd staying at the Winery.

  ‘That's odd’, thought Valerie, ‘why were they all at the winery if some of them are staying at the Cabins?’

  Tom, Matthew, and Grady stood on the low boulder at the front of the green.

  Tom began, “Folks, thanks very much for meeting us here. We feel that there is a lot to talk about.”

  “This is an information sharing exercise and we also need to make some decisions. I asked Matthew this morning to talk about his trip from Marine Park on the Gold Coast. Then Grady will talk about some decisions we need to make.” 'So, Tom's taking the lead,' Valerie noted. She had more confidence in him than Grady Bock.

  Matthew spoke about the escape from Marine Park and shared what Valerie had told him about her trip. Most people had seen the footage of Valerie's escape from the car park on TV, and were surprised to know that she was here with them. Matthew went into detail about the paddle up the river and the incidents at Firestone and McPherson. This filled in a lot of gaps about what was happening in the outside world.

  “We have some things to decide”, began Grady, “but before we get to that, I think I'll lay out my thoughts about what the future holds. My business is about using data to make decisions. Matthew has given us data. The TV and radio news has given us some data too. They are telling people to stay off the streets and have given general advice, but they’re not really telling us what is going on. The Internet news and social media are useless, just gossip and rumours.”

  Grady continued, “If there were bodies floating down the river, why isn't it on the news? Why isn't the blockade at Firestone on the news? If the things that happened at McPherson are happening all over the place, why aren't we hearing about it? I have no doubts about what Matthew has said, but it’s not getting on the news.”

  “I think the Government is trying to keep people calm, but I'm not entirely sure why.”

  “I think one of three things will occur.”

  “This may blow over in a few days and we'll start getting news and will be able to return home.”

  “Or”, he continued, “the rioting and so on will blow over and there will be lots of dead people and we'll have to fend for ourselves.”

  “Or, the last alternative is that there are many survivors, but society collapses. If the Government fails, and emergency services and the military are gone; what then?”

  Grady’s question was met with silence, so he continued.

  “I do not know which of these it will be. But, I think we need to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.” He laughed to himself, “That stupid cliché.”

  “How are 140 of us going to eat, drink, communicate and be secure?”, asked Grady.

  “We have enough food for a few months and water, but our most important short-term problem is security. We must protect ourselves from the crazies.”

  “Okay let's open up for discussion”, Grady said in conclusion.

  There was silence for a few seconds, but then Sue Weiss who owned the cabins spoke up first, “What do you mean security? Guns?”

  Tom responded, “I think we do need to have armed guards, but the first thing we need is a barrier. Valerie's property has the cattle grid on the road. The gap between the granite cliffs on either side of the road is only about forty meters. We need to put a barrier up.”

  “Hang on, Tom”, Matthew said. “We can't block the street. We saw problems at Firestone with the Police when they did that.”

  “No, we can do that”, Valerie said. “That road is on my land and it goes through my paddocks. But, we are required to allow access to the National Park, and to the Winery and Cabins of course. Once the road is past my land, I think it is on Winery land but I'm not sure.”

  “No, it’s public land”, said Sue. “The Winery and Cabins are much newer prope
rties than your farm and the land was carved up with a road allowance.”

  “Ah, right. I think then that we can legally put a barrier on the road as long as we can open it to let people through. It’s no different to having a gate, but how do we do the barriers?”, asked Valerie.

  “That's a good question”, responded Alexander Weiss, “and I think I might have the answer. We have digging equipment, and your farm manager has welding gear. We can build a Mott and Bailey. Or is it a ring ditch? I don't know what the proper name is. A trench with a fence on top of it.”

  “I know where we can get walls from”, announced Tom. Valerie noted that he looked cool as a cucumber. “Bill Norton has a dozen shipping containers down the back of his property. They'll stretch the whole way. We could make them the main part of the wall and dig a Mott in front of it and put the soil behind for reinforcement. We might have to deal with some underground granite, but we'll get by.”

  Tom directed his next comment to Emily Nicolls, “Emily, I’d like you to take the lead on designing something that will actually be safe and work. Have you done anything like this before?”

  There was a bit of confusion from Grady’s group as to why she was specifically being asked this. Emily Nicolls was a highly qualified Civil Engineer with the Department of Roads and Maritime Engineering and Tom was well aware of this. “Yes, the M12 freeway extension that I worked on had similar properties. We used concrete slabs not shipping containers but the principles were basically the same. What’s my budget?”, she asked with a smile.

  “Ok, that's great”, Grady said, “the second problem we have is food. Does anyone have any objections to pooling resources?”

  No-one did.

  “We need to split up the workload for the next two days. We need all the men and women that are able to, doing the grunt work on the security barrier. Everyone else needs to be working on inventorying the food and other assets that we have. The barrier needs to be the highest priority.”

  Tom turned to the Grey Nomads, the elderly tourists that had been camping in the national park, “I think it would be safest if you move your vans onto the Cabin Land for now. Over the next few days, you can work out whether you want to stay with us for a while, or move on.”

  Matthew added, “Can I also propose that we set up a temporary management committee made up of the property owners. So that's Alexander and Sue, Valerie and I, and Grady and Karen. The role of the committee is to deal with any little decisions that need to be made in our Colony. Just until the fence is up and inventory is done. Then we can talk about other arrangements after that.”

  Valerie may have been the only one who noticed her husband say “Colony.”

  “If anything big pops up, we'll call another meeting”, said Grady.

  Matthew spoke again. “Can I also propose that Tom oversees the barrier building, and Valerie the inventory taking? She's just really good at that sort of thing.”

  With that decided, people grouped around the tables and were allocated jobs.

  - 9 -

  The trip up the motorway was slow. There were lots of stopped cars, and random packs of PVs. The PV numbers were much lower than around the City Centre, but they still posed a risk. He needed to keep up enough speed to avoid PVs and go slow enough to avoid parked cars.

  The girl was good. She knew when to lean and when to hold tight. Raymond was wearing his leathers, but not his helmet. He loved riding without a helmet, but the nanny state of New South Wales didn't allow that.

  Every chance he got, he went to Hawaii, where the free American people could ride without a helmet. They only make kids wear a helmet, the way it should be, he hated the nanny state.

  He turned right on the Pacific Highway, and noticed the right side of the Highway was clear. He switched to the other side of the road and opened the throttle up. A bit.

  - 10 -

  Alexander Weiss and Matthew went to the lower ten while a team prepared the truck for picking up the shipping containers.

  Tom had tasked them with getting some blocks of wood from the property manager's wood pile. The shipping containers needed chocking to keep them flat when they placed them on the wall. They also needed the welding equipment.

  “Why do you have your axe with you?”, Matthew asked as they drove down the track in his Ute.

  “I want to split the wood before we take it. It's easier than doing it up on the wall site.”

  “But he has an axe with the wood pile.”

  “Look, he's a nice guy, and a hell of a cattleman, but he knows fuck all about timber. His axe is blunt, and a blunt axe is a dangerous axe.”

  Matthew just looked at him and conceded the point.

  They pulled in front of the house. Alexander walked out of sight to the woodpile on the side of the house while Matthew went to see the caretaker. He opened the screened security door and knocked on the open door of the cottage.

  The caretaker ran down the hallway towards the front door screaming, his face and mouth covered in blood.

  Matthew froze. When the caretaker was almost upon him, he became aware of more yelling, coming from behind, “Get out of the way!”

  Matthew jumped out of the doorway. The caretaker was running too fast and swerving hard. He plunged over the veranda’s handrail and into the garden.

  Alexander stepped forward and put the back of the axe into the caretaker’s chest.

  The caretaker rolled over onto his hands and feet and stared crawling towards Alexander. Alexander smacked him again, this time with the blade of the axe, he fell to the ground dead.

  “Fuck Alexander, I think you’ve killed him”, said Matthew. Matthew bent down and saw the horrible wound on the side of his head.

  “Sharp axes are dangerous too”, he said, looking at Matthew. Alexander was shaking badly.

  “Oh my God! I spoke to him this morning. What the hell happened? I wondered why he wasn't at the meeting.”

  Alexander signalled for him to follow. He walked off back around the house towards the woodpile. The body of the caretaker’s wife was at the back door of the house.

  “When I saw her, I came back to you.”

  Matthew went closer and saw that her throat was torn apart, a trail of blood led from the rear door.

  “Where’s the daughter?”, asked Matthew.

  “Inside?”, wondered Alexander. “Or maybe wandering around the property somewhere? Fuck I hope she’s inside and not wandering around somewhere.”

  “Grab that axe. It’s blunt, but it’ll work”, Alexander instructed.

  He then walked up onto the veranda and Matthew followed. “That way”, he mouthed.

  Matthew walked to the edge of the veranda, where he could see down the blind side of the house. He looked around the corner and shook his head.

  “Nothing”, he mouthed to Alexander. Alexander signalled for him to come back and they entered the house.

  There was a lot of blood. They followed the trail into the kitchen, where it stopped at the kitchen table. Three of the six chairs were knocked over and there were bloody footprints leading to a door. Tom opened the door, which led to the laundry and the daughter.

  She wasn't dead, but she was obviously a crazy. Her parents had bound her hands and feet with cable ties and placed her in a chair in the laundry. She had defecated and pissed on the chair and she had a small bite on her neck. Her mouth was covered in dry blood.

  Matthew looked at the footprints and realised that they led away from the laundry, not into the laundry.

  The daughter was struggling to get off the chair and growling, but seemed to have lost the ability to speak.

  “What the hell has happened here?”, asked Alexander.

  Matthew looked at the daughter, for some reason he found himself speaking very quietly. “She’s bitten her father, that’s his pool of blood here. He must have turned on the wife and tore her throat out.”

  Matthew looked back toward the kitchen. “I think she’s been so badly bitten that it killed he
r. I have no idea why she would have gone out the backdoor. Maybe she was trying to get away from him.”

  “Who bit the daughter?”

  “Maybe she’s been to McPherson? It has to be that; she’s got a bite look.”

  “So she bit her father? He killed his own wife?”, questioned Alexander.

  Matthew nodded, looking at Alexander sadly. Matthew swung his axe and put it in the back of her head instantly killing the girl.

  “Alexander, let’s go get the digger to bury them and let the others know what happened.”

  - 11 -