Downunder of the Dead - Part Two

There are just some situations in life that your life experience and imagination can't prepare you for. No amount of movies, books, or idle day-dreams can ever adequately equip you to cope with experiences like this. No matter how long you spent in front of the television playing Resident Evil 4 (with occasional breaks to download some porn and jerk off) or how many screenings of George A. Romero's 'Land of the Dead' you saw - when the shit hit the fan, chances are you were fucked.1

Blaze and about 7,770,000 other mobile phone owners in Australia weren't adequately prepared. The six year old boy who had been playing Siberian Strike on his older brother's mobile phone hadn't been anywhere near capable of handling the experience. Nor had the loveless librarian, the boring old lady, or the thousands of other people in Newcastle alone who were being dismembered, eaten alive, or otherwise messed up by a sudden rise in mob violence.2

For Dale, Mark, and Jason - there was no point of reference as they sat in the living room of Mark and Dale's shitty Merewether flat. At no other point in their life had their senses had to deal with the ripe smell of piss and shit and blood soaked carpet, nor had they encountered the coppery taste of somebody else's blood or the sheer visceral assault that was a headless corpse and a scared looking woman with her throat torn out. Sure, they might have seen every horror movie known to man, but at the end of the day - there's a vast difference between a pig's liver and some fake blood, and the reality of seeing a woman killed in front of you.3

Mark stared blankly out the window, his mind working a mile a minute as he tried to rationalise the events of the day. Surely it was a nightmare. Maybe a pandemic or some kind of reality television experience. He'd day-dreamed about zombies and the apocalypse before, but that didn't make its eventuality any easier to wrap his mind around. Despite his air of arrogant superiority, Dale couldn't help but let the gravity of the situation weigh down on him. Killing Blaze and hitting that kid hadn't been so bad, he'd made the conscious decision to act and he'd done it.4

But leaving that girl to die in the aisle without even trying to help? How many screaming children had he passed as he'd sped by The Junction primary school? The school's high, steel fences would keep the majority of the wandering insane out - but that didn't help the two hundred or so children as their teachers preyed on them like lions in a big game park. Dale had been forced to avert his eyes as he saw a pair of nine year old girls being chased by a fifty-something lady whose grey hair had red streaks. He somehow doubted she'd had that done at the local salon. It was easy to claim to be a misanthrope, but another thing entirely to see what he'd seen and not have some semblance of humanity push through.5

Jason had it easiest, perhaps. Oh, he'd just lost his girlfriend (and his unborn child, but that was a secret Janine hadn't yet shared with him) but that made his entire experience personal. While Mark and Dale struggled to put their current circumstances into a perspective that made it easier to deal with, Jason had the considerably more common task of just trying to cope with the loss of his girlfriend. On that particular day in history, Jason was far from alone. 6

It was the sound of wood on cement that shook them all out of their private contemplations. The sound of the house's back door being shoved open roughly.7

"You didn't lock the back door!?" Mark spat it out with a mixture of anger and incredulism. The whole world was ending, and Dale had failed to lock the back door. Typical.8

Dale was first to his feet, his hand wrapping itself around the blood-soaked cricket bat on instinct alone.9

"Get something" Dale hissed at Mark, ignoring his flatmate's accusation. Jason reacted first, picking up a discarded Yellowglen bottle and holding it by its neck. Mark had never been good at handling pressure situations, and proceeded to rush around the living room in an almost comical search for a weapon. But all he could find were empty Coke bottles and discarded papers and rolled up posters. He didn't much fancy his chances of fending off the impending apocalypse with a rolled up piece of paper - no matter how menacing Jet Li looked on its shiny surface.10

"My room" Dale struggled to remain calm as he heard heavy footfalls in the kitchen. Vague mumbling reached his ears as he heard the cupboard doors being yanked open one by one. What was it looking for?11

Mark sprinted down the hallway towards the front door, hoping to God that whatever they were didn't notice that the glass panel in the door was not only easily broken, but easily climbed through. Their fortress was no Minas Tirith. Dale's room was littered with pizza boxes and other shit, but a second cricket bat leant against the far wall. Mark crossed the room in two strides and swept it up, running back down the hallway fueled by crazy bravery and no idea what else to do.12

"What's the plan?"13

"Hit the fuck out of it"14

A shadow fell across the doorway and adrenaline kicked in. Muscles tensed and sweat beaded on foreheads, carving sanguine trails through dried blood.15

"What the fuck are you guys doing?"16

For a split second they all leapt forward with weapons held high, their bodies preparing to do what their minds wouldn't have even dreamed of doing a day earlier. Then they recognised David and a flood of relief and gratitude lowered their arms before they could deliver a killing blow.17

David's eyes shone with something that they might have mistaken for happiness were it not for their current situation. None of them could imagine somebody getting enjoyment out of a day like to day. But then, none of them really knew Dave Britton, either.18

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The missed call message arrived just as Vanessa stepped out of the shower. "You have one missed call," it informed her, "Dial 121 to listen to your messages". Out in the bedroom, she could hear Harris laughing at something on television. For a moment she contemplated calling to see who it had been, but decided against it. If it had been work, she'd had felt obliged to go in and help out. But there'd been progress made with Harris today, and she wanted to strike while the proverbial iron was hot. She'd spend the afternoon with him, cementing the newfound assertion that he loved her.20

She wasn't a stupid girl, far from it, and she realised that Harris was nothing like a one woman man. But she also knew that he had the potential to be that inside him. Like every other stupid son of a bitch on the face of the planet, he'd been fed the same masculine bullshit since he was old enough to know where his dick was. He didn't fuck around because he didn't care about her. Hell, he didn't even do it because he wanted to. He did it because it was expected of him. But Vanessa loved him despite it, and she intended to spend the afternoon assuring him that he'd made the right decision by loving her back.21

"What're you watching" she purred as she entered the room. Harris looked up from the television, where The Office was on. He'd always had a thing for girls when they were wet, and not the way you're thinking. Just the way her hair shone and her skin seemed to glow. He was hard again already.22

"You" he said it with the cocky half grin that had melted the hearts and moistened the lips of countless girls before Vanessa. A robe fell to the floor, a hand cupped perfect breasts, and the two fell to the bed while the entire world fell to pieces outside their little coccoon of oblivion.23

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Christian was crying. He was tired and he was alone and he was scared. Mummy and Daddy had gone into town and left him with his older brother, Liam, who was screaming at his computer because everybody had suddenly logged off World of WarCraft and left him with nobody to quest with.25

"What the fuck!?" he bellowed as once again he was gang-raped by a horde of skeleton warriors, "Where the fuck is every-fucking-body?"26

Christian, of course, didn't understand much of this. He'd come to realise that 'fuck' seemed to be an angry word, but that was about it. It wasn't as word he heard Mummy and Daddy use, and so it wasn't one he used either.27

"I'm hungry" he yelled to Liam. Liam got up and slammed his bedroom door, leaving Christian alone with a television that had stopped transmitting images about forty minutes ago. Had he been a more insquisitive, he might have paid attention to the news bulletin that had briefly flashed up to interrupt the episode of "That's So Raven".28

But Christian was two and he was hungry and tired.29

But Christian was lucky too. High in the hills of Ben Lomond, where mobile phone reception was non-existent and the nearest town was half an hour's drive away. He might have been hungry (and an orphan, but that was something of which he'd not yet been made aware) - but he was just about the safest person in Australia. Six hours south, his oldest brother Mark, suddenly remembered he had a family and panicked.30

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Bryce Edkins was on cloud nine. After three weeks of dates and listening to Sarah bitch about the other girls in their class, he was finally going to hit third base. He'd been copping shit from his mates about his lack of experience for months now, and all of that was finally going to be a thing of the past.32

"I really like you" Sarah's words were pushed out on a wave of hot breath, their activities steaming up the windows of his old Toyota Crown.33

"I like you too" he lied. It wasn't that Sarah wasn't good looking - that was precisely the reason he picked her - but he wasn't old enough to start really liking girls just yet. He was still in that very naive stage in life in which sex is just another achievement to be sewn to the arm of an aspiring young man. It would go right in between drinking and smoking pot.34

"Do you want me to...." she left it hanging, letting him finish the sentence with his libido fueled imagination. What kind of question was that, anyway?35

'No Sarah,' his mind said sarcastically, 'Why on earth would I want you to suck my dick?'36

"Yeah" this out loud, just in case she wasn't reading the not-so-subtle sign that was him unzipping his fly and fishing out his tackle.37

The first electrical feeling of another person touching something so personal is one that Bryce would never be able to describe to his friends. Of course, his friends wouldn't care about the gentle electricty or the foreigness of the experience. They would have one question: spit or swallow?38

"I've never..." Sarah began to explain, but Bryce really didn't care. Right now, he was horny enough to fuck a side of beef if it was presented to him.39

"Me either" he confirmed, more to calm her down than to share something personal. But it seemed to work on both levels, as she gifted him with a smile and went right back to work. It was, for the inexperienced Bryce, a perfect moment when she tentatively got to work. But moments are rarely perfect, and just as he'd become used to the sensation, her phone rang.40

"It's probably my Mum" she explained as she stopped what she was doing and reached for her phone. Bryce sighed in frustration, his eyes upturned to the roof as he tried to keep himself in the mood by imagining Mrs. Sadler naked.41

"Hello?" Sarah's conversation was the furthest thing from Bryce's mind as he imagined stripping off his sexy Maths teacher and proving he was a man to the entire class. It was a pity, too, because as Sarah dropped the phone to the floor and turned suddenly lifeless eyes to Bryce - he was about to get the answer to the question he'd never be asked. She licked her lips and ducked her head and it was done.42

Sarah swallowed.43

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"Jesus Christ," Dale exclaimed as David slumped down on the couch beside Janine's lifeless corpse, "What happened to you?"45

"Was on the train" he explained. That was all the explanation needed, really. Dale's own experiences at the supermarket had shown him just how fucked up confined spaces could be.46

"What do we do now?" Jason spoke up from the other side of the room, his eyes never leaving the haunted face of his dead girlfriend.47

"We stay put" Dale asserted, although the sound of the back door banging uselessly in the hot afternoon breeze didn't exactly attest to the house's position as a fortress.48

"No" David and Mark said it at once, although their reasons were entirely different. David had a thirst to get out and do some more damage, and that wouldn't be satiated hiding in their shitty flat. Mark, on the other hand, had just realised that he had a family.49

"Christ, I've got to call them" Mark made for his phone again, the second time in an hour he'd let fear and emotion almost lure him into the same trap that had already killed most of the people he knew and loved. Dale stopped him with a look of incredulity.50

"Call who?" Jeremy asked.51

"My family, my little brother"52

Though they were friends, after a fashion, Dale and David both struggled to give a shit about Mark's family. They'd never met them and, although they liked Mark, the safety of faceless strangers wasn't on top of their list of priorities. But Jeremy, who had just lost the only person he loved, felt an affinity for Mark. Maybe some part of him thought that helping Mark get in contact with his loved ones would somehow make things right between him and Janine. Christ, he could have done something, anything. But instead he'd just watched as Blaze had killed his girlfriend and he'd been powerless to act. Dale, a complete stranger, had done more to avenge her passing than he had.53

"Where do they live?"54

"Ben Lomond" Mark answered, aware that nobody who didn't live there had the slightest idea where that was.55

"Out in the sticks" Dale added his meager knowledge to the conversation, having asked Mark as much before.56

There was a silence for a moment, or as close to silence as the city could muster as it died unceremoniously. Then Dale spoke.57

"Wait a second...."58

"What?"59

"Whenever I tried calling you at home. I always got your message bank"60

It took Mark a moment to realise where Dale was going. So fucking what? His little brother could be dead and Dale was asking some trivial shit question like that? Mark was about to gift him with a few choice words when Dale spoke again.61

"Wasn't it because you had no reception?"62

When something obvious dawns on you, you generally feel like an idiot - but in this case, relief was a far more abundant emotion. Christian would be alright. Hell, if his parents hadn't gone into town, the whole family would still be in their house - probably unaware of the catastrophe that had hit Newcastle.63

"No reception?" Jeremy clearly got it, but David's face didn't show any of the relief that his friends' did.64

"We could go up there and be fine. Away from all of this shit," Dale was getting more worked up by the idea as he went along, "Doesn't your Dad have an orchard and vegetable patch and shit?"65

They did, and Mark began to see where Dale was going. Not only would they be safe should the phones decide to send out another sirensong, but they'd also be able to survive without having to venture into a neighbouring town for food. It was a perfect plan.66

"One problem," David piped up, "How the fuck are we going to get five hours north with the whole world gone to shit?"67

Reality is a dirty whore. They had cars, of course, but the road would almost certainly be choked with crashed cars and wandering mobs. They'd need petrol, and the chances of them finding a cheerful attendant willing to provide it seemed slim. Then there was the simple matter of getting out of Newcastle alive. A city of 500,000 could produce a shitload of mindless, flesh eating zombies. That's not the kind of press you can just honk the horn to get through.68

"It's worth a try, though" Dale liked his idea, and given the alternative option of dying in the shitty flat, he'd rather have chanced his arm.69

"Alright then," David sighed as if their decision greatly inconvenienced him, "Grab whatever you need and let's get going".70

As Dale and Mark scurried off to grab whatever they felt essential for the journey at hand, David lifted the blood-soaked cricket bat and tested its swing. Yeah, it'd do the job. It would do fine until he could get his hands on something a little more effective. If they were heading out of town, they'd have to pass at least a dozen supermarkets. Maybe he'd chance it and go in for a baseball bat or a knife. Something that would really let him do some damage.71

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The buzzing of Harris' phone woke him from his mid-afternoon nap, and he disentangled himself from Vanessa's legs to reach over to the sideboard and pick up his mobile. 73

You have one new message74

He hit ok and his inbox opened, revealing the message was from his flatmate, Mark.75

"Don't know if you're alive or not, but we're heading up to the mountains. where r u? we'll come get you"76

What the fuck was Mark doing? Alive or not? Why the fuck wouldn't he be alive? It's not like he hadn't been home this morning. And why were they heading up to the mountains? Some kind of bored, drunken road-trip, maybe.77

"What do you mean?"78

He SMSed back. Vanessa stirred in her sleep behind him and he smiled. He really did like her, despite the macho part of him that refused to be tied down. Sure, she had her annoying qualities, but not matter how much she frustrated him he seemed to like her more. She nagged him constantly and she was always wanting him to do 'couple stuff' but despite that, he wanted her all the more. For a perennial bachelor, it was a strange new feeling.79

"Fuck, glad you're ok. haven't you been outside? the shit has hit the fan"80

It struck Harris that maybe Mark was just playing some stupid game with him. Mark was, for lack of a better expression, a nerd. He was a good guy and great to drink with, but he was still a nerd. Was Harris being dragged into some kind of gay roleplay game? What the hell could be going on outside?81

For the first time that afternoon, Harris went to the window and threw open the curtains. For a moment nothing seemed out of the ordinary. People walked around in the mall below, cars glittered in the hot sun... but then the abnormality of the scene struck him. A streak of deep brown red ran across the path - the exclamation point of blood dotted by a legless torso. And the couple in the park at the end of the street weren't making out - they were fighting.82

"What the fuck...." he didn't think he'd spoken aloud, but Vanessa woke up beside him.83

"What's going on? What's wrong?"84

And while Harris had been too dumbfounded to scream at the scene unfolding beneath him, Vanessa certainly wasn't. A dozen people were at the gate to the apartment block and they weren't waiting to be buzzed up. Even as Harris rolled off the bed and rushed to the door to lock it, the gates screamed as they were ripped from their hinges. A wave of something that had been humanity just a few hours ago spilled into the foyer below and began to search for food.85

"Come get us"86

Harris' frantic SMS didn't have directions or an explanation, but Mark and Dale both knew they needed to do something and do it fast. Grabbing a phonebook and their gathered possessions, the four men sprinted out to the front driveway and into the car. Living in a sleepy beachside suburb had its perks, it seems.