by Adam Smith
All of the cabinets are locked, I grab my crowbar and pry open the cabinets, they’re all still full of ammo, knives and other accessories. “Guys. What the fuck is that noise?” Says Sandy from the door. “We have no idea. Let’s just grab everything we want for now and we can head over and check it out.” I say. We take all the ammo, knives and rifles along with anything else that we can fit onto the Ute. “I’ll take this shit back to the pub. You guys stay here and I’ll be back in a minute.” Says Mark. He and Sandy head back to the pub to unload what we’ve got. Standing outside the shop we hear the shrieking again, I look at Fiona then at Lewis and say. What’s down the street there mate?” “Oh, there’s a school on the corner about 100m up there.” Says Lewis pointing down the street. We look down the street towards the shrieking. Mark and Sandy pull up and we jump into the tray. “Head down the street mate. Let’s find out what this noise is.” I say to Mark. He starts driving towards the school. As we pull up to the intersection we can see a small fully fenced in school on the left hand side of the road. The oval and playground area is running along the road to the left and the school offices and car park are on the same road we’re on but on the other side of the intersection. Mark pulls up and parks in one of the angled parking bays outside of the main office building. The schools fence is only 1.2m high, it runs the entire perimeter and attaches to the sides of the main building. I can see what appears to be a zombie caught in the play equipment in the playground. “Let’s jump the fence and clear the open spaces first.” I say. We get out of the Ute, grab our guns, ammo and hand held weapons. We make our way towards the zombie caught on the side of some play equipment in the undercover area close to a large doorway into a main building, as we get close we can see it’s a child zombie. It starts screeching and squealing at us. We get to within 5 metres of it. I walk up to put my rifle to its head and fire. “I didn’t sign up for this shit mate.” Says Fiona, Sandy agrees. “I know it’s fucked up but this whole world is fucked up now.” I say. “That’s definitely the shrieking we heard earlier.” Says Mark just as he looks at Lewis who’s looking through the doors, we see Lewis jump backwards and hear a thump on the glass, then, more shrieks and squealing. All of a sudden the window shatters and at least fifteen child zombies come through the door towards us. We start moving backwards but the small zombies are moving towards us much faster than their adult counterparts. “Run!” Yells Lewis. We all turn and start running for the fence, we clear it and spin around to see the small zombies not far behind us, coming toward us at the pace of a slow jog, they all begin shrieking and squealing as the get close to us. “Start fucking shooting!” I yell. We all start firing into the pack, some manage to make it to the fence and start trying to get over it, I sling my rifle over my shoulder, grab my crowbar and start smashing mini Z’s skulls in. One of the mini zombies manages to get a foot into the wire and gets on top of the fence behind me. “Smithy behind you!” Yells Mark. I spin around just as the zombie falls from the top of the fence towards me, I swing my crowbar and smash it’s face in, it lands on the ground and Mark quickly stomps on its head. “Seriously! What the fuck!” Says Sandy. “Dude the small ones make this shit so much more intense!” States Mark. “How come they can climb and run.” Says Fiona. I look at everyone in a little bit of shock and start laughing. “What are we going to call them?” I ask. Everyone looks at me, then Mark says. “Oh. I’ve got it! Zomblets!” He states looking at us. We all just look at him. “Zomblets?” I ask. “Well yeah. I mean a baby pig is a piglet and a baby tiger is a tiglet. So why not zomblet?” He asks. We all burst into laughter. “A baby tiger is not a tiglet.” Laughs Sandy. We all laugh for a good few minutes at Marks comment. When we hear some more shrieks, we look up and see 5 more small zombies running toward us. We fire from the fence taking out the small zombies. “We should call them squealers.” Says Fiona. “Oh! What about this. They wail, that’s the word for that noise they make. Why not wailers?” Suggests Sandy. We all look at each other and agree on the name. “Should we just carry on looking around town? Or you wanna go in the school?” Asks Fiona. “I’m not going in there.” Says Lewis. “Maybe we should just leave now.” Says Sandy. Mark and I look at each other with a smile. “No! You two, no. Get in the Ute.” Says Sandy. “Yeah c'mon guys let’s go.” Says Fiona. Her and Sandy get in the cab of the Ute, the three of us guys jump on the tray. We drive around town for a while then we head out of town, we turn into a driveway with a sign at the front saying “real working farm.” “This is the tourist farm.” Says Lewis. We pull up to the main building and head inside to check it out. “Why are we here?” Mark asks. “I want bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow.” Says Sandy. “Fair enough.” Says Mark, we walk around and notice there is no one in the building or on the farm. We go to the chicken coop and look around it. “Aww look how cute these chooks are.” Says Lewis. “We need a cage to take some back to the pub with us for eggs everyday.” Says Fiona. We look around and find some cages to take some chooks back with us. “We’ll need to build them a coop back at the pub.” I say. “We better go shopping at the hardware store then.” States Fiona. We load the chickens in their cages onto the Ute and get set to head off when we hear a wailer. We look out into the paddock and see two zombies and a wailer heading our way. I line up the wailer from about fifty metres way and fire. The shot hits it in the knee, it stumbles but keeps coming. I fire again hitting it between the eyes, it drops to the hot gravel floor in a heap. We see the two zombies stumbling toward a horse that’s in the paddock. As they move near it they spook it, the horse freaks out and kicks one of the zombies in the head, its head explodes as we all watch in amazement. Sandy shoulders her rifle and fires one shot, hitting the last zombie in the ear and blowing out the back of its head. “Horse for the kill of the day?” I ask laughing. We jump in the Ute and head back to the pub to get some lunch and make a chicken coup. We pull up to the pub and head inside to grab some beers and lunch. “Shh. Can you hear that?” I say. “What is that?” Asks Fiona. We quickly head outside into the car park and then onto the street where we can hear the sound of a motor. Looking south we can see a motorcycle in the distance coming towards us. “We’ll cover you.” Says Fiona as her Sandy and Lewis run and find cover in the car park. Mark and I stand in the street with our rifles across our bodies. The motorcycle gets closer and begins slowing down. The rider puts his left hand up as if to show us a sign of good faith. He then pulls into the car park, takes his helmet off and gets off his bike, he then puts his hands behind his head and says. “You right lads?” In a strong English accent. “Hey mate. How ya goin’?” I ask “Yeah I’m alright, how are you.” Says the tall skinny man with short dark curly, poodle like fluffy hair, glasses and a scruffy beard. “Yeah good mate.” I say, Mark and I look at each other a bit confused. “You got any fuel I can trade something for?” Asks the man. “Maybe, I’m Smithy, this is Mark.” I say and offer my hand to shake. He shakes my hand then Marks and says. “I’m William. You right then.” The others walk out to see what’s going on. “Holy shit, I didn’t even see you lot hiding. You could’ve just fucked me right up.” Says William with a smile. “This is Fiona, Sandy and Lewis mate.” I say. “Hello. I’m William.” Says William. “We’re just about to have some lunch and suck down some cold beers. Why don’t you come in and join us mate, tell us about yourself.” I say. “You’ve got cold beers in here?” Asks William. “Sure do mate, cold beer, hot food, safe beds. You name it, we got it.” Says Mark as we all walk inside. “What’s your story then William?” Asks Sandy, I grab some beers for everyone. “Well I came to Australia a few years ago to work and travel. But I got a job with a bunch of shit people and never really got to travel. So after the zombies rocked up, I thought I’d go traveling.” Says William. “How did you get out of the city though?” Asks Lewis. “Easy, I just waited around home until the army had finished their evacuation process. Then I got on my bike and headed off. All the checkpoints were empty leaving the city, so yeah it was easy.” Says
William. “It’s a nice bike you’ve got out there mate. Why a bike though? I mean, if you come a gutsa’, you’re going to be in a world of hurt out there by yourself.” I say. “That’s alright mate, I’ll be ok.” Says William. “So after you left the city where did you go?” Asks Sandy. “I just headed into the wheatbelt to check that out, then I decided to go north and check out Karijini and the Kimberley region. I hear it’s nice this time of year and there’s no tourists.” Laughs William. I start laughing. “Fucking good point there mate.” I say still laughing. “But back to your question. You see more on a bike, I’ve always loved bikes, so when I had the opportunity to walk into the bike shop and just ride out on my new adventure tourer I just had to do it. The zombie sales assistant didn’t mind either.” Laughs William. “How much petrol do you need anyway mate?” Asks Mark as he walks to the pool table drinking his beer and racks it up. “A full tank would be nice. I can only offer information about the city though. I don’t have anything else really.” Says William. “That’s fine. Tell us everything we want to know about the city and you can have the petrol.” Says Sandy immediately, with Lewis quickly getting involved in the conversation. “Okay. What do you want to know?” Asks William. Mark and I listen in on the convo as we play pool. “Is the city completely overrun? Or is it a ghost town?” Asks Lewis. “It’s pretty full of zombies to be honest. The army tried to evacuate as many people as possible and eradicate the zombies, but they failed. So there’s a lot of people left stranded as well.” Replies William. “What about the outer suburbs?” Asks Sandy. “Same deal really. The army pretty much just bailed when they realised the magnitude of the situation.” Says William. “So let me get this straight. The city and surrounding areas are sort of like a free for all now? No power? No police? No army? Just the zombies and people trying to survive? Just like us? But on a massive scale?” I say from the pool table. “Too right bro.” Says William as he knocks back his beer. Sandy looks at Lewis and he says. “There’s still hope that they’re alive.” “William. Where were the army taking people?” I ask. “Don’t really know mate, they had speakers in their trucks saying they had a quarantine zone and a safe place, but I’m not sure where.” Replies William. “Thanks for the info mate. Are you staying here tonight or do you want to get a move on now?” I ask. I might stay here tonight if that’s okay? Those clean beds sound pretty good.” Says William. “You think that’s good mate. Wait til you have a hot shower.” Says Mark. “Oh wow, thanks for your hospitality guys.” Says William as he cracks open another beer. “Here boys. I’m playing the winner.” Says Fiona passing Mark and I a cold pint each. “Mate did you see many zombies when you were riding up this way?” I ask. “Nah not really. A few in the towns but very few in the open stretches. There’s a few about half an hour out of town stuck in an old creek that’s fenced off, I could see them from the bridge.” Says William. We carry on talking shit, playing pool and drinking until after dark. We all head off to bed for the night. In our room in bed and Fiona says. “I think we might be going to Perth soon thanks to Williams so called info today.” “Yep, I saw the look on Sandy’s face too.” I say in reply. “I’m not going to mention it or anything, hopefully she just waits a while. This pub is pretty sweet.” Says Fiona. “I miss our beach house.” I say, Fiona laughs and agrees with me.
We wake up to a knock on the door. “Who is it?” I ask. “Just me brah. William is about to head off.” Says Mark. “Yeah we’re coming mate.” I say. We get out of bed, get ready and head out into the hot mid morning sun and can see William refueling his bike. “Fuck me. What time is it?” I ask. “About 10.” Says Mark. “Right then. I’m off.” Says William as he walks over to us. “You got everything you need mate?” Asks Fiona. “Yeah all good guys. Thanks for everything.” Says William. “Thanks for all the info mate.” Says Sandy. Fiona and I look at each other. “Stay safe mate. We’ll have some more beers next time.” I say and shake Williams hand. “Yeah definitely mate.” Says William, he shakes everyone’s hand, gets on his bike and heads off up the road. Lewis walks off inside the pub, there’s clearly something on his mind. “Smithy. I want you to teach me how to shoot properly. With the big guns.” Says Sandy with authority. I look at her then at Mark then at Fiona. No one says anything. “Well?” Says Sandy. “Yeah. Okay.” I say in reply. “Good we’ll go to the bridge that William told us about.” Says Sandy. “Yeah righto, can I have something to eat first your majesty?” I ask sarcastically and start walking to the pub with Fiona to get something to eat. We have some food and come back outside. I walk to the truck where Mark and Sandy are talking and climb onto the tray. “Here mate, chuck these in your Ute.” I say to Mark passing him 4 rifles, a rangefinder spotters scope and a bag full of ammo. He puts them in his Ute, I grab an esky off the truck and pass it down to Fiona. “Better grab some ice and beers for that thanks doll.” I say to Fiona with a cheeky smile. “You’re a dick.” Says Fiona laughing as she walks off to fill up the esky. I get down from the truck and walk inside the pub to help her. “You’re coming with us?” I ask her. “Yeah I wouldn’t mind learning.” Says Fiona. “Do you want to come and learn to use the big guns that we found yesterday mate?” I ask Lewis. “Oh, ahh… no thank you mate. I’ll wait here.” Says Lewis, still in deep thought. “No worries mate we’ll be back soon.” I say. Fiona and I carry the full esky out to our Ute, load it on and head off down the road to find said bridge. “Follow us.” I say as I drive past Mark and Sandy onto the main road. “If we do make a run for the city soon, we’ll be able to get all that tattoo equipment mate.” I say to Fiona while we are driving. “Haha Yeah I almost forgot about that.” Says Fiona. “Did you find any lamb in that freezer?” I ask. “No!” Says Fiona. “We’ll get one of those young sheep on the way back, they’ll still be considered lambs.” I say pointing out the window at some sheep in a paddock. “God yes.” Says Fiona.
We pull up to the bridge and jump out of the utes looking around. We can see a few zombies in the dry creek bed a few hundred metres away from us. The creek is about five metres below us on the bridge, with some large gum trees lining the banks. Dry dead bare paddocks against the creek with about a two metre sheer drop into it and a fence a few metres up from the bank. “Ok so we’ve got two .308, a 30/06 and a 300wm with the last being the longest range choice. The .308 is the most common and we can find ammo for it the easiest.” I say. “What about the 30-06?” Asks Fiona as we stand at the tray of Marks Ute. “That’s just my favourite.” I laugh. I grab a black synthetic stock, silver barrel, bolt action .308 with a nice scope on it from the tray, I take the magazine out and show the others how to load it, I put 5 round in it then slot the magazine back into place. “Mark pass me that rangefinder scope please.” Mark hands it to and takes the rifle. “Right the closest one is about 483m from us. And the furthest one is 611m.” I say. “I can hit that mate.” Says Mark with a smile. I show everyone how to use the bolt action and say.” Ok mate lean on the railing, hold it tight to your shoulder, aim high from here and see what you can do.” I watch through the spotters scope, Mark fires, the shot echoes through the creek and under the bridge, dust flies from the bridge railing as the shot hurtles towards… nothing. He misses low and right. He reloads, re aims and fires again. This time he gets a hit, the furthest away zombies knee explodes and it falls into the dirt, as it struggles trying to get back up Mark fires again. Missing high. He fires again this time hitting the zombie in the head, its head explodes as the round slams into the top of its skull while it lays face down. “Who’s next?” I ask. “Me but I want to use the biggest one.” Says Sandy.” “Okay. That’s the ammo there. Load it the same as this one.” I say, Sandy starts loading the magazine of the all natural timber, black barrel bolt action 300wm, she comes over and leans on the rail next to me I see another zombie walking from behind Marks kill, Sandy lines it up and fires, striking the zombie dead centre of the base of its throat. Blood sprays from its back as it falls over backwards onto the dirt and isn’t moving, I zoom in with t
he spotters scope and see it moving its head around, but nothing else. “Shot! Must’ve destroyed his spine.” I say. Sandy lines up and fires again. This zombies right shoulder turns to mist as it spins around and hits the ground. Sandy fires again as the zombie sits up. “Right between the eyes!” I yell as the zombies head turns to mush. “My turn.” Says Fiona, there’s only 3 zombies left. Fiona grabs the last .308 which is identical to the one Mark has, she lines up and fires missing everything, and again she fires and misses. “Gimme a look.” I say grabbing the rifle. I draw a bead on the closest zombie and fire, missing way high. I make some adjustments to the scope and try again. This time the zombies eye plays host to the bullet. “Try now.” I say handing the rifle back to Fiona. She fires at the next closest zombie hitting the top of its head, its head snaps back so hard I thought it was going to come off. I shoulder my 30-06 and fire at the remaining zombie that’s facing away from us, the round tears through the zombies head in a flash of bloody brain matter and skull fragments. We carry on shooting at the corpses and fence posts for target practice for a few hours. We’re set to head off when we see something walking down the highway towards us. I look through the spotters scope and see 4 wailers leading 2 zombies. Wailers at 500m zombies at 630m I say. Sandy is the first to be ready she lays on the tray sitting her rifle on the tray side, I continue to watch through the spotters scope. She fires! The closest wailer does a half backflip missing the top of its head, Mark and Fiona both join in as I keep tabs. Someone fires and a wailer loses its left arm at the elbow, then another shot and the same wailers head splits in half, two more shots ring out in quick succession both hitting the same wailer, one in its chest the other in the mouth. I hear a click then hear Sandy say. “Fuck, I’m out.” She starts reloading as Fiona says. “I got the last wailer.” She fires and the wailer cops the full brunt of a .308 round to its forehead. I zoom in on the zombies and see an arrow lodged into the chest of one of them. “Looks like there’s something on the furthest zombie.” I say to the others. “What do you mean?” Asks Mark. “An arrow, but there’s paper or something wrapped around the shaft.” I say. Mark kills the other zombie with a perfect placed shot. “Don’t kill the last one.” I want to see what’s on her.” I say to the others. I jump in the Ute and start driving up the road with the others on the tray. I run over the wailers corpses and up to within twenty metres of the last zombie. I walk up to it put my foot on its chest and pull the arrow out. I use the same arrow to kill the zombie through its eye then walk back to the Ute where the others are standing at the bonnet. “What is it?” Asks Fiona. I untape the paper on the shaft and unroll it. “It’s a note, it says. Send help we’re trapped on the second floor of the royal hotel.” I say to the others. “Where the fuck is the royal hotel”? Asks Mark. “Next town maybe?” Asks Fiona. “No idea. Maybe Lewis knows.” I Say. We head back to our other Ute then start heading back to the pub. “Meet you guys back there.” I say over the two way. “Yeah no worries mate.” Replies Mark. Fiona and I pull over beside the paddock full of sheep. “Pick one and shoot it mate.” I say to Fiona. “Let’s just chill and enjoy the peace and quiet for a while first.” Replies Fiona. We get out of the cab and climb onto the tray, we crack open some cold beers sitting on the roof of the Ute looking over the quiet afternoon lands, sheep in the paddocks, birds in the trees, the wind blows through making the tall grass move. “It’s fucking beautiful out here.” Says Fiona. “It sure is nice.” I reply, some kangaroos hop through the paddock in front of us. “I guess this is just nature’s way of protecting itself, cleansing the earth of its most destructive inhabitants.” Says Fiona quietly. “Mother Nature is and has always been in charge.” I reply. We finish our beers then have some more. “If we go to Perth I want to know if my parents are okay or not, either way I want to know.” Says Fiona. “Yeah for sure. We’ll check it out.” I reply. We climb down and head into the paddock to choose a lamb for dinner. I grab a hold of a lamb and Fiona cuts its throat, we carry it back to our ute and throw it in the tray.
