The End: Surviving the Apocalypse

by Palmer, Richard

  Q took out the frozen meal and scrutinized the instructions on the lid, then set the oven timer. If you let it go too long the top burned. It was her most difficult dish.

  Her father walked into the kitchen. “What’s that?” he said, picking up the folder from the bench and flicking through it. “Looks important.”

  Q grimaced at the cigarette burn on his shirt. “You said you’d quit,” she said.

  “I will never quit taking an interest in my little girl’s life,” he said, giving her a bear hug. She coughed and pulled away.

  “Dad! I’m not your little girl. I’m twenty-two and way taller than you.” She was also one hundred and thirty pounds lighter. Maybe she was his little girl. Linda had kept them all on a strict diet and training regime, but her father went to pieces when she died. He’d stacked on more weight and bad habits with each passing year. Surely it was time to start reassembling?

  He sat at the kitchen table. “Did they give this to you?” he said, flicking through the manila folder.

  “Mr Macklin wants my expert contribution.”

  “Your mum would be so proud!”

  “Sure. Linda’d be real proud of my leadership role in the Kindy Koalas.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call her that. She’s your mother.”

  “It was her idea that I call her that.” Linda had always said you could be a good coach or a good mum, but not both, and it hadn’t been a difficult choice for her to make. It was funny how Q’s dad remembered certain bits and ignored the rest.

  He handed her a yellow parcel. “This arrived for you today.”

  “Thanks.” Q took it and turned it over in her hands. There were no labels indicating where it had come from and no return address. Who would be sending her things? All her friends were online and the only address they had for her was www.ninjaofnineb.com.

  She went to her room and tore off the packaging while dinner was cooking. Inside was the book she’d ordered so long ago, she’d forgotten about it – the companion to her favorite online game: Apocalypse Z: How to Stay Alive When the Dead Rise. She was so excited about the book, she almost forgot to start her pandemic plan after eating, and then what would the Kindy Koalas do in the event of a zombie outbreak?

  Chapter Five

  “Chapter five challenged you to evacuate the house with all your essentials in under a minute. My first go was ninety-three seconds but I bet I can get it lower. And wait till I finish the chapter on psychological preparation! I’ll be ultra-sane and ready for anything.”

  Q was telling Hannah all about Apocalypse Z during cooking class. They were making scones. Q was making an army of scone-dough monsters.

  “Don’t you ever just watch TV?” Hannah said. She finished her last, perfect sphere of dough. Mrs Mason walked over, took the girl’s oven tray, glared at Q and moved on.

  “I skipped through chapter four,” Q continued. “It’s not like I needed to read that one. I invented my first martial art when I was twelve. I still have a shed full of sharpened shovels.”

  “You don’t believe in all that monster stuff, do you?” Hannah asked.

  “Of course not,” Q said. “Because that would be pretty weird, and I’m sure not weird.” She finished the last tentacle and considered her mob of ghouls.

  “What happened to Rabbit and never giving up on your fate?” Hannah said.

  Q hadn’t forgotten. She had come to her senses, that was all. “He wouldn’t want someone like me,” Q said.

  “I dunno,” said Hannah. “You’re pretty weird, and he’s pretty weird. You’re a perfect match.”

  Q sighed. “Destinies are like noses, Hannah,” Q said. “People only get one. Besides, I betrayed mine a long time ago.”

  “You might have ADHD like Michael,” Hannah said. “Mum doesn’t let him have sugar any more.”

  Q grunted. She would have come back with a witty retort but couldn’t talk with the jam spoon wedged in her mouth.

  Mrs Mason returned and jabbed a finger at the miniature vampire on Q’s tray. “Do you think that’s suitable for a kindergarten class?” she asked.

  Q swallowed her mouthful of jam. “I considered that, Mrs Mason. That’s why I’ve given the vampire a row of lower teeth as well as fangs. If he bites anyone, he’ll leave a happy face in their jugular.”

  The teacher grunted. “Mr Macklin said he’d asked you to help on the pandemic plan. I had hoped it meant you were finally taking this placement seriously.”

  “Yes, Mrs Mason.” As the woman turned to go, Q picked up one of her dough creatures and waved it at her back. “Grr! Argh!”

  The bell rang. The class packed up their things to go and Q began wiping down the tables in the wet area, knocking her bag from the back of a chair. The Apocalypse Z book slipped out and fell to the floor. Q retrieved it before Mrs Mason could confiscate it. She read the motto printed beneath the title.

  Never give up.

  It was what she always told the Lethal Littlies. What would they say if they saw her standing alone in the middle of a deserted kitchen classroom, passively watching her second chance at fate walk away? Probably they’d say something like, “You’ve got jam on your face,” but that wasn’t the point. If there was one thing Q hated, it was a quitter. And if there was a second thing she hated, it was a hypocrite.

  She picked up her bag. “You’re right, Apocalypse Z,” Q said. “There’s something I need to do.”

  *

  “Whatcha you doing in there, Quinny? You’ve been locked up all night.”

  Her father stood in the doorway of the study, a glass of scotch in one hand, the other pressed against the doorframe to steady himself.

  “Studying,” Q said, scrolling through sites. He was too depressing to look at after nine pm. Apocalypse Z lay on the desk in front of her, open to “Chapter Six – Transport.” She had eleven web pages open and was scribbling notes in her little black book and on the pandemic plan. Her father squinted at the multitasking display.

  “You’ll wreck your brain,” he said. “You should focus on one thing at a time.”

  “Can’t. I have this extra work on—” she flicked a hand toward the manila folder—“and training every night, and other stuff.”

  “Sounds complicated,” Bruce said. “Being a kindergarten teacher is more stressful than I expected.”

  “Agreed.” She smiled. “Go on. Get it over with. ‘Back in your day…’”

  “… we did one thing at a time and we did it properly. We had patience. We had stickability.”

  “Stickability?” Q guffawed. “You retired at fifty-four! You had six thousand years to complete every mundane task, and check it out. World still not fixed, so your mob can’t have done their job right.”

  He peered at chapter six of Apocalypse Z. “Avoid becoming meals on wheels – leave the car at home. What does that mean?”

  Q shifted her pages over the chapter to stop him reading something that would upset him. “The book is wise, Dad. Don’t mock the book.”

  “Okay.” Bruce leaned against the door again to conceal his sway, and yawned. “I’m worried about you, Quinny. You spend so much time in here. You’re young. You should be out meeting people.”

  “What happened to your show?” Q said. “Wasn’t tonight meant to be the episode where Eternity and Indira face it off with nailguns?”

  “It cut out halfway through,” he said. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

  “The transmission broke?”

  “Yup. Goodnight, little girl.”

  Q allowed her father to kiss her cheek as she scribbled in her little black book. He went to bed.

  She finished her entry, and then flicked to the chapter at the back of Apocalypse Z about the signs of a coming crisis. There was nothing about a transmission break in a reality TV show. Besides, the real alarm was not any one event, but a cluster. The show was probably cut because one of the models swore or had a wardrobe malfunction. She’d check in with her crew later. They’d have her back.
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br />   She was wasting time. Now her father was gone, she had her privacy. It was time for the real work. She popped open a new search window.

  Did she want to do this? It was cyber stalking, one of the few taboos she’d never broken. Was she ready to give that up?

  And what would she find? Did Q want to know more about the strange new world of veganism and vinyl? Mightn’t it be better to preserve her perfect image of Rabbit from that one beautiful classroom encounter? She might see his innermost thoughts on a Facebook wall and find out he was boring.

  She was making excuses. She always made excuses. It was why she was stuck teaching kindergarten instead of doing a job that made her blood run hot. She read the tagline on Apocalypse Z’s cover again. Never give up.

  “But I don’t even know where to start!”

  She picked up the book and ran her hands over it. Could it help her achieve something that wasn’t Z-related?

  What a stupid idea. Q threw the book on the floor. It landed, spine down, pages up, revealing Chapter Two – Start with what you know.

  “Huh.” Q picked the book up again and closed it. She began typing.

  Her first search term of “Rabbit” brought up a predictable mass of cute bunny images, instructions about how to deal with fluffy pets and some porn Q wished she hadn’t seen.

  She tried linking “Rabbit” with “Sydney,” because he had to live somewhere in the city. All she learned was that the porn was locally made.

  Then she tried two unfamiliar things. She paused and she thought. What had he said his first name was?

  Q tried typing in “Nurrayan.” She found a punk band and an online store she didn’t need. And more porn. Maybe she’d spelled it wrong?

  This was getting her nowhere. It was midnight and she still had a pandemic plan to write and no idea about where Rabbit was or how to find him. She clicked on one of her pandemic plan research tabs. The slogan for the survival website leaped out at her. Zombies – not just another eating disorder.

  “Of course! Eating disorders!”

  Invigorated, Q typed in “Sydney vegan” and came up with a dozen support groups, no doubt to help them overcome their strange meatless perversion. There were also restaurants, products, stores… this could take all night.

  Maybe she should join a few of those groups. She might stumble across Rabbit in a members’ chat room. If she did, she’d have to talk to hippies. Was he worth that?

  Absolutely.

  Q clicked on an archived article titled SYDNEY VEGAN SAVES THE WORLD. She gasped when she saw the photo at the end, in which a beautiful man held his guitar like a lover. Lucky guitar. The photo had been taken a couple of years ago, but there was no mistaking its subject: Rabbit.

  She read the article. The piece was from a series called “Everyday Heroes” and it told the story of Rabbit, a lawyer who took on cases for free. He defended animal rights activists and always got his clients acquitted, despite the overwhelming evidence they left at the scene. Hippies suck at crime.

  She read on. His greatest dream was to be a folk singer who changed the world through the power of music. She clicked on a music sample. Dreadful, but she bet if he played live, half the audience would love it – the half with girl bits.

  This man was a superhero in hemp. Probably not one that Marvel would back, but pretty heroic nevertheless. He wore his inner freak on the outside and everyone liked him anyway. It was almost as though he didn’t have to pretend at all.

  She looked at the photo for a long time and her face grew hot, as if he were standing in the same room. She shook herself. She had work to do. Nothing could stop her now. She had a name.

  Narayan “Rabbit” Shetty.

  Preschool rock god.

  Generally amazing guy.

  Chapter Six

  Q yawned her way through Crafty Creatures. When Hannah noticed her friend was too distracted to make any kind of mutant out of pipe cleaners, she put down her perfect pink kitten and asked what was wrong.

  “I was up half the night in hippy chat rooms,” Q said. “And it doesn’t matter how long I hang out, no one will tell me anything about him. Not his marital status, not his address, not even his blood type. Damn secretive hippies.” She yawned. “I don’t think stalkers get enough credit for their work ethic.”

  “Maybe his friends don’t give out that kind of information online,” Hannah said. “My mum says you have to be careful who you meet on the internet.”

  “Didn’t your parents meet on the internet?”

  “Uh-huh.” Hannah began making a blue bunny friend for her creation. She was a caring Frankenstein. “Did you try calling where he worked?”

  “Seventeen times,” Q said. “I couldn’t get past the receptionist. She kept saying I had to have an appointment, and when I asked for one, she said he was fully booked. I said I got busted freeing goldfish at a pet shop and I needed help, and fast, because they were gasping. She told me he was busy and the firm has good security.” Q yawned again. “I reckon that woman has a crush on him. And then I was up till three on this stupid pandemic plan. I didn’t even get a chance to game.” Q rubbed her eyes. “But I finished it!” She pushed the wad of pages across the table. Hannah leafed through the text and web images. Her rosy cheeks blanched. She handed the papers back.

  “Wasn’t it meant to be about the flu?” Hannah said. “Why are there all these people shooting other people in the head?”

  “It’s a pandemic plan!” Q hefted the document, as if weight indicated merit. “To be used in case of outbreak. Mostly zombies I guess, but it’s probably okay for an alien supervirus too. I even cached the Appendix B supplies around school.” She regarded her wad of ex-craft supplies with less satisfaction.

  Hannah put her kittens aside. “What did you make?” she said.

  “Roadkill,” Q said.

  “It’s not very good.” The girl began making a fish collage out of bits of newspaper. “My mum always helps with my homework. Maybe you should ask her to help you with the pandemic thing.”

  Q scoffed. “Hannah Banana! Your mum is great, but I don’t think she can give me tips on strategy. Who was it who got a High Distinction for their second-year paper on Sun Tzu versus Buffy?”

  Hannah glued on some gills. “You?” she said.

  “No, but I should have. I am so misunderstood.”

  “What’s Sun Zoo?”

  “I think you learn about him in first grade.”

  Hannah held up her picture and scrutinized it. Satisfied, she started on a bottle-top bluebottle. “What’s a High Distinction?”

  “Sometimes I forget you’re only six.” Q stood, stretched and took a turn about the classroom. She unglued Sophie’s hands from Tristram’s head and made Ryan cry by complimenting his sea monster, when she should have known it was an elephant. When she had things in order, she returned to Hannah’s desk to help put the last touches on the girl’s underwater scene.

  “I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Mrs Mason’s back tomorrow,” she said to Hannah. “This teaching thing is one big distraction.” Her next yawn was interrupted by a shriek. Marie had broken Charmaine’s best pencil. Charmaine was holding an oversized pair of safety scissors to Marie’s masterpiece and threatening vengeance.

  “Go teach,” Hannah said. “We’ll talk later.”

  *

  Qaranteen scanned the car park, fast but thorough. She was taking a risk; it was a risk she had to take. The enemy might see a flash from her binoculars but she couldn’t hunt if she couldn’t see.

  The building was a fortress. Sheer, unscalable walls. A single set of doors with scanners and guards. Windows that started thirty feet off the ground. She wasn’t getting in here without a full set of break-in kit. She’d have to wait for her quarry to come out to her.

  Civilians passed without a care in the world. Qaranteen envied them. She had to focus. She had a job to do, and she had to do it right. She directed her attention to the front of the building. Someone was leaving.
She couldn’t see a face at this distance with the sun’s glare reflecting off the glass doors, but the figure was tall and slim and had a casual gait. Was it the target?

  She pulled up her binoculars and focused on the face. Damn! No good. It wasn’t him. She did another scan of the car park and found something she had missed before. The blood stopped in her veins.

  Another set of binoculars pointed at her.

  Qaranteen swore.

  The other hunter was an attractive young woman in a short black dress and heavy make-up. It was like looking into a circus mirror that threw back a distorted reflection.

  “Stalker!” Qaranteen mouthed.

  The other woman’s lips framed a word, too. “Freak.”

  Why would that woman call her a freak? At least Qaranteen had chosen sensible camouflage pants and omitted the blush and mascara in favor of army green stripes beneath her eyes, which was far more appropriate for this type of work. Plus, if there was a pursuit, hiking boots beat stilettos every time. Qaranteen leaned back to plan her next move.

  The car behind her had an alarm, which made her next move a rapid one. She fled.

  *

  Outside, it smelled like a springtime evening. Inside had the joss stick stench of citrus on speed.

  The room was bare except for the twenty odd people in loose-fitting clothes. She counted. There were exactly twenty, and they were certainly odd.

  “What is that smell?” Q asked, holding her sleeve across her nose.

  “Essence of Inner Peace,” said a short, middle-aged woman with bright red hair and several nose rings. “It’s part of my feng shui.”

  Q coughed. “I’m so sorry. My dad had that once, but he put a cream on it and it went away.” She held out her hand. “I’m Q. We spoke on the phone.”

  “I’m Rainbow.” Rainbow shook Q’s hand. “Welcome to Friends Unite to Create a Karmic Transition to Restore Earth’s Ecosystems and Sustainability.”

  Q processed this. “Do you realize your acronym is—”

  “—we already paid the web designer, we're not changing it now,” Rainbow said, as if she fielded this question regularly. “And we’re always happy to meet the newly turned, Q.” Rainbow wafted back to the circle of seated people and made room for Q, who tried to settle on the floor. She scanned the faces around her and sagged. The one she sought wasn’t there. How soon could she leave?