(It had briefly occurred to me that Captain Blunt might have attempted a double-cross and thwarted our departure – but the opportunity of being rid of us, and the unwanted zombies, must have simply been too great for anything like that, too attractive to let him haggle over mere money.)
But, returning to Deb, how on Earth did she do it? How did she get the other zombies to bend to her will?
I’ll tell you how: first, she berated and bullied Dan and Graeme into holding each other’s hands – just like nursery school kids do for their carers. Then she firmly took Dan’s hand into her own - and simply led the way.
Amazing. “Miss Deb” had clearly missed her vocation. Sheepishly, I trailed along in her wake and that of her small (but unusual) ‘class’.
I only took charge of proceedings when everyone was seated in the zodiac - properly and fully in accordance with ‘Miss Deb’s’ directions. (More matronly bullying employed). The zodiac’s outboard motor roared into life at the first pull of the starter cord. I then cast off the rope which had secured the craft to The Southern Princess and pointed the zodiac towards the distant quayside.
Who said it was too late to learn new skills? I could be a seaman yet!
And, might I say, that my three passengers behaved in an exemplary fashion on our short ship-to-shore voyage – they all sat quietly, not eating anyone and not even asking: “Are we there yet?”
I think Deb had quite got the measure of the Graeme and Dan-zombies. They seemed unlikely to step out of line while she was around.
o0o
The main quay at Rabaul, at this time, was unremarkable – except for its level of disrepair and what was standing on it. As we got closer, I could make out individual faces, individuals I had known from years before.
But, to be honest, whilst I was pleased to confirm that these zombies had not yet rotted away to dust, I was looking for another, another with whom I felt an ever-strengthening connection deep within my bowels.
This other was, of course, my identical twin brother, David. My visceral connection with him had never faded over the years – and in this way I knew that he still existed here, somewhere.
You might think, of course, that, since he was almost the only European amongst an otherwise Melanesian crowd, he would stand out. But do not forget that skin pigmentation is decidedly relative thing when you are comparing undead folk – and particularly if those folk are not recently undead.
As the zodiac drew within about 50m of the dockside, I spotted him – and my guts immediately knotted themselves tightly, even a little painfully, into a solid mass. (Do not ask me to explain why David’s and my empathetic bond manifests itself by the knotting of my innards – it just does and always has.)
David did not look at all bad. In fact, for a bloke who had died ten years previously, he looked in rude health. (Do zombies have ‘health’? Dunno. There must be a more appropriate term which I can’t think of.)
He stood stock still on the dock, not showing the slightest hint of emotion. The fact, however, that he’d brought a couple of hundred of his mates to the quay (to greet me?) told me that he welcomed my return.
Ever been confronted by a large mob of zombies and not felt in the slightest bit threatened? Well, no, I guess you haven’t. But the crowd that stood, unmoving, before us did not cause me a second’s concern. I knew most of them and most of them, it seemed, still recognised me.
Maybe they considered me the Prodigal Son? No, I think not. That would overstate the rudimentary mental capacities of these folk. When I had left them, maybe nine years previously, they all displayed the usual mental capacities of a zombie – which, in my estimation, equated to those of a particularly violent two-year-old.
Deb’s recent behaviour suggested to me that she might be just a little better than that but, then again, she was the only female zombie that I knew. So, I had no-one to compare her with. I had no reason to believe she would be better than any other female zombie.
All of the folk on the wharf were creatures of the first wave – so, all were male.
All of the zombies on the dock were male!
Shit!
With this belated realisation, it suddenly occurred to me that this might be a problem – one female zombie thrust into the midst of thousands of male ones, male zombies who had not seen a female, any sort of female, for at least 9 years.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
You might have thought that, in formulating my complex and daring ‘grand plan’, I might have considered this particular aspect of the matter – and considered it at a moment or two before I found myself (and Deb) a mere 50m from dockside, a mere 50m away from a crowd of a couple of hundred hungry (and lust-filled?) zombies.
Well, I didn’t! I just didn’t. Okay? Now move on.
You might also be wondering how it is that these zombies had survived the ravages of the years and had not indeed merely rotted away and disintegrated over time.
In hearing my answer to that second enquiry, you might consider that I am not, after all, a total moron (as you might from my response to your most recent enquiry).
Here’s the short, very short, version.
As the first wave of the zombie apocalypse was drawing to an end – and overwhelming military force was bringing the problem under control – I found myself hiding out in the Australian bush with my zombie twin, David. After some months of personal struggle, I had convinced David of the merits of hunting and eating wallabies rather than people. (He took to this alternative diet very begrudgingly – but I thought that continually finding him human flesh to feed upon was not really cricket.)
After we had spent a year or so in the Australian bush, it became clear the zombie menace had receded completely from the cities and zombie-hunting had ceased to be a matter of human survival – it had become a sport!
So, after those tranquil months of hunting wallabies together in the dense forests of Gippsland, David and I found that we were suddenly the hunted - and not the hunters - anymore. And those, ‘Sporting Shooters’ who were now hunting us (and others) were becoming particularly dogged in their pursuit of the ever-dwindling zombie population.
Time to make a small confession: before David and I eventually escaped, I had passively indulged David in one or two, shall we say, ‘dietary relapses’. That is to say, he ‘fell off the wagon’ of his new ‘wallaby-only’ diet – but only once or twice. Apparently, according to David, sporting shooters are very tasty! (But not very forgiving.)
So, we needed to leave our bushland home rather quickly - but that’s an entirely new story, one with which I will not burden you.
New Guinea had been on my mind as an alternative abode for some time: rugged, inaccessible and less developed technologically. I also knew (from BBC broadcasts) that, when the zombie plague had first broken out, most of the world had been content to leave the newly independent PNG state to its fate.
Australia, it seemed, had more ‘pull’ internationally - and thus got much more assistance than its former UN Trust Territory. (I think they called it ‘Real Politik’ at the time.)
So, my first ‘Grand Plan’, the one that I formulated at that time, was to head for Port Moresby, the capital of PNG. In the event, however, David and I ended up in Rabaul on the large island of New Ireland.
I had made a minor, a very minor, miscalculation in our travel plans and marginally missed our intended destination. (What’s a thousand kms or so between friends, after all?)
In any case, it had been a happy accident. The entire island was, by that time, devoid of any surviving humans. All humans had either fled or been eaten by the time David and I arrived.
With some considerable difficulty, David persuaded the (by then) very hungry locals that I was not to be a prime delicacy on their updated menu. (But it was very much ‘a near thing’ in that regard, I can tell you.)
That said, the local zombies were in a bad way since they had not eaten for months. Even the undead must eat sometime if they are not to rot away c
ompletely.
(Do not ask me to explain what passes for ‘metabolism’ amongst zombies. It’s well beyond my ken but there must be some analogue of metabolism amongst them – otherwise why bother eating at all?)
So, enter David and me – with our revolutionary ‘wallaby-only’ diet: “perfect for zombies of all ages!”
Needless to say, there were no wallabies to be found on New Ireland - but there pigs, heaps of them. With no local folk to husband or consume them, the pigs had returned to nature and bred up big-time. When we arrived, mobs of fat, juicy porkers were happily trotting around the streets of Rabaul, completely untroubled by the undead who milled about aimlessly in those same streets.
David soon ended that particular porcine honeymoon.
Eventually, even the minds of two-year-olds will cotton on – and follow the good example given by another.
And thus David became a local Messiah – of sorts. Once the local undead realised that the fat porkers that gathered daily around them in such numbers were not a half-bad substitute for ‘long-pig’ (i.e. humans), they were a much happier bunch (though there was no overt jubilation to be observed in the streets of Rabaul.)
From that time, the undead had been able to sustain themselves without much effort – and now made themselves perfectly at home on this capacious, lush island.
But, now back to the ‘happy reunion’, on the quayside at Rabaul.
Chapter 27
Family Reunion
My first concern was, of course, whether Deb would be mistreated by the zombie crowd which was gathered on the docks.
There was no sign of aggression but I told Deb to stay in the zodiac with the others while I disembarked. She made no argument. Did she actually understand my caution? I’m sure she didn’t.
After I had climbed the rusty iron bars which had been driven into the wharf – and which passed for a ladder – I stood face to face with my brother, David, for the first time in about nine years.
Were there wild whoops and yells? Were there heart-felt embraces? No, that is not the zombie way. David extended his arm and placed the back of his unclenched hand lightly on my belly.
Instantly, a mixture of pleasure and pain flooded through me. At the same time, almost imperceptibly, David winced. Was he feeling something of what I was feeling: the pleasure of reunion, the pain of remembered loss?
Maybe.
David removed his hand from my belly – and the hundreds of zombies gathered around us groaned as one. They seemed to be expressing approval of my return – at least, that’s the way I took it. It was almost as if they had burst into a chorus of welcome. Maybe, I thought, it was the remnant of some half-remembered tribal ritual that they had once put on for honoured visitors.
I was, in any event, happy to think of it that way.
Then several of them came forward to me and did just as David had done, placing the back of their unclenched hands on my belly. No pain this time – merely a welcome, a gesture of greeting, a gesture that I readily returned. (I mean, it’s a lot better than being eaten, isn’t it?!)
Then I called to Deb to send Graeme and Dan up the ladder. They arrived in a short time. No special greetings for them. They just melted into the mob. It appeared they were just ‘ordinary’ zombies like everyone else, nothing special at all.
Finally, it was Deb’s turn – and I was still a little nervous about the greeting she might get.
I need not have worried.
Did you ever see the Queen stepping from the Royal Yacht ‘Britannia’? Well, that was Deb, stepping from the zodiac – all self-assurance and dignity.
She stepped lightly from the inflatable, climbed the necessary two or three metal rungs on the wharf ladder and then regally held her hand towards me: I was to help her up, it seemed.
I did so – and very soon she stood facing the crowd of zombies which was ogling her as one. She strode confidently forward and the gobsmacked crowd simply parted before her. There was no hint of her passage being impeded. A curt, slightly reproving, backward glance was thrown in my direction. Instinctively, I knew I was to follow.
This was quite an act.
I followed without thinking but David stood his ground.
David made a half-roar – more in irritation than actual anger – and Deb stopped abruptly but did not turn around to face her brother.
I stopped as well – but I turned to observe what David’s next move would be.
“Davie talk?” said Deb, her back still turned to her brother.
Sudden and complete silence – no groans, moans or grunts to be heard.
At that moment, my eyes were fixed on David’s face. His dead eyes widened visibly and his jaw went completely slack. I then turned my gaze to the throng which flanked the still-turned Deb: wide-eyes, slack jaws all about.
I guess this is what passed for zombie astonishment. These dim-witted undead were cluey enough to realise that zombies never spoke – at least until now.
And Deb? Well, I concluded at that moment – quite correctly – that she was safe from attack. She was very special. No-one was going to touch her.
In due course, the silence was broken by a quizzical grunt from David. At this, Deb finally turned to face him – but did not advance. If her brother wished to greet her, he would have to make the first move.
For a long moment – while all others, including me, watched on – there was a face-off. David had been, in effect, the messiah, the Saviour-King of the Zombies hereabouts. All had deferred to him, in their own way, for the last nine years. Somehow, I think Deb had figured this out even before she had left the zodiac – and there was no way in the world that she was going to bow down to a mere brother, it seemed. (Certainly not one who had abandoned her ten years ago.)
Eventually, David moved cautiously towards his sister and, as he had done with me, placed the back of his hand on her flat belly – and left it there while the two stared at each other for another long moment.
“David brother good,” said Deb at length.
David removed his hand – and that, apparently, was the end of the long-awaited family reunion! (Oh, well.)
Then Deb turned away once again and strode off.
As I caught up with my striding, undead sister, she turned aside to me and said: “Deb want house.”
‘Yes, Bwana. My feet are like wings.’
Chapter 28
Life at the Ascot
Just before the first wave of the zombie apocalypse had hit, in the early 1970’s, the best accommodation in town was to be found at the Ascot Hotel – or so I was led to believe.
I can’t actually verify this because, by the time David and I had arrived, the service in that establishment had declined somewhat. The total absence of any living house-guests – or staff - had perhaps influenced that decline.
There were, however, quite a few very nice zombie-types firmly ensconced there. In fact, for the better class of zombie, it was the only place to be seen. (Small joke – male zombies, like most blokes, don’t care a fig about the household appointments.)
In any event, the building was still largely intact and water-tight when we had first arrived – and so that’s where we chose to spend most of our time. The water was still running but the electricity supply had long since ceased. Fortunately, the hotel had a back-up generator and a large supply of diesel in the basement.
So, with a minimal clean-up to ‘The Honeymoon Suite’, David and I had made ourselves very comfortable for those months of our joint stay at the Ascot. While I had been there, for about 10 months or so, we had had some refrigeration and lighting. There was, however, no way that David could have kept this going after my departure – nor would he have seen any benefit in doing so.
So, what would the situation be at the Ascot now? I soon found out.
Imagine, if you will, what would happen to a hotel-full of carpets and soft furnishings if you decided to leave them in a steam-bath for 10 years – and, just for good measure, then invited several
truck-loads of creepy-crawlies, birds and assorted forest dwellers to share them with you.
You have just imagined what the Ascot was like.
Advanced decay was everywhere. The colours of curtains and carpets could no longer be seen under a thick mat of shaggy mould. And the carpet looked more like the floor of the forest than of a hotel. Here and there, however, forest birds scratched a living from the creatures that lived within that carpet. (The tropical birds were decorative but not really what you wanted to occupy any prospective home.)
The paintwork and wallpaper were no better. They had long past having mere splotches of mould on them – as had been the case when I had last been there. The splotches had joined up into a uniform grey, furry coating. You could literally run your fingers through it – it you were that way inclined (which I wasn’t.)
Mine (Book 2): Sister Mine, Zombie Page 14
