Brother Mine, Zombie.

by Trevorah, Peter

  So, what was I looking for there? Actually, I was initially looking for some clue as to where I might find some sophisticated ‘Ham Radio’ equipment on campus. Surely, I thought, if there was some club that used such equipment, the activities office would have a record of it.

  But, instantly I entered the office, I abandoned that search.

  One of the office staff had on his or her desk just what I needed: a high-quality transistor radio.

  In those days, all good ‘trannies’ had the capacity to receive short wave radio signals. My Dad had an early ‘National Panasonic’ that did just that. But the performance of such small receivers was always disappointing – and, as a result, people rarely bothered using this facility, preferring to stick with good ol’ AM band pop/chat trash.

  This didn’t bother me when my eyes fell upon the tranny in the Activities Office. I knew that I would only be able to receive two or three of the strongest short-wave signals – and then only in a spasmodic (fade-in/fade-out) fashion.

  This was enough. I just needed some news from the outside world – beyond the local media blackout. I was hoping for the “Voice of America” but soon, David and I heard the dulcet tones of an announcer saying:

  “This is the BBC World Service”.

  o0o

  This was exactly what I needed. What was happening ‘out there’? How far had the plague spread and what was the world doing about it?

  Curiously, the Zombie Apocalypse was not the leading news item.

  “That’s probably good news,” I thought. “Probably.”

  As it turned out, the discussion that Paul and I had recently had outside the crypt had been half-right. Not bad, considering the almost complete absence of data that we’d had to work with.

  The bit that we’d guessed correctly concerned how far the vanguard zombies had managed to spread the plague simply by walking out of ground zero in Melbourne. The current battle ‘front’ was indeed three separate fronts, one in each of the regional cities of Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. The vanguard had got to those cities within days of the initial outbreak, catching the populace completely unprepared – just as Melbourne and its suburbs had been.

  This vanguard was being continually reinforced, from Melbourne, by a steady supply of graduate or ‘new’ zombies (i.e. the guys who’d been bitten in the first few days by the original ones but had taken some time to ‘change’). So, each of those regional cities was now the site of, in effect, daily pitched battles between the zombies and a relatively ad hoc civilian-cum-military resistance.

  Given the inadequate nature of the initial response, the civil authorities had determined that it was better to impose a complete news blackout at local level rather than cause unnecessary panic among the civilians.

  Do you follow that logic? No, I didn’t either. In those first few days, it seems the military authorities took the view that, if they could do nothing effective to counter the zombies, it was preferable to maintain civil order in places where the zombies had not yet reached (and simply abandon the residents of Greater Melbourne to their fate – which neatly explained why we had seen no helicopters after day one).

  Well, maybe there was a misconceived certain logic in those first few days – when the authorities thought they might yet contain the plague to Melbourne and the area immediately surrounding that city. But this strategy, if that is a worthy description, gave the residents of the three outlying regional cities no warning, no chance to flee in an orderly manner – or to start preparing their defences as soon as possible.

  In short, in my view, it was a strategic fuck up.

  It reminded me a little of the Japanese bombing of Darwin and Townsville in WWII – of which the Australian general public was kept largely ignorant at the time. Likewise, the battle of the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea.

  (If we pretended it wasn’t happening - and no-one was panicking about it – wouldn’t that mean the militarily superior Japanese Imperial Forces would simply go away?)

  Perhaps those comparisons are not really apt. I’m no military historian. But I could see no value in keeping the public ignorant of our present problem until waves of homicidal zombies were actually on their doorsteps. They were not simply going to give up and go home. They had no home.

  So, you say, what was the part of the picture that Paul and I had not guessed at?

  Well, there was, as I’ve said, area of with a radius of about 200km around Melbourne which was completely controlled by the zombies and, so far, largely unchallenged.

  ‘Do the math’, as they say. That’s over 100,000 square km of existing infestation – with ‘new’ zombies being created all the time to spread the infection even further.

  But – and this is what I learned from the BBC News – the plague was behaving more like a bush fire than a mere epidemic. Ahead of the infection that physically travelled with the vanguard of the zombies, there were, in effect, ‘spot fires’.

  Men got bitten but escaped before they showed any symptoms, before they underwent ‘the change’ into zombies. By the time they became infectious – and started biting people – they were often hundreds of kilometres away from the place of infection, having fled in cars, trains, planes and boats.

  Some fresh outbreaks had been observed as far away as New Zealand and Samoa – and more worryingly, given the still isolated and rugged topography and, given the rudimentary infrastructure, in Papua New Guinea.

  It was these ‘spot fires’ that the authorities had been concentrating on in the first days after the initial outbreak. If they could locate the source of a fresh outbreak quickly – and he (or they) wasn’t usually trying to hide – they could stamp out that fresh outbreak completely. Picking off one or two zombies ahead of ‘the tide’ was a much more achievable goal than successfully confronting a vast and uncontrolled army of the things on a wide front.

  There had been, apparently, hundreds of plague ‘spot fires’ controlled in this way but many more were still occurring – according to the BBC, at least.

  I couldn’t argue with that part of the strategy – but, of necessity, it meant that we, in Melbourne, would remain on our own for some time to come. Or did it?

  The BBC newscast, somewhat cryptically, concluded by saying that overseas forces were on the way to reinforce the Australian troops (we’d guessed that much) and that, in preparation for their arrival, the Port of Melbourne would need to be retaken in order to receive and process troop and supply ships. (And, incidentally, to stop the infected from exiting overseas.)

  The Port of Melbourne? That was only a mile or so from the university. Perhaps we’d be seeing action sooner than we thought.

  CHAPTER 11

  WHAT DID ‘THE REG’ SAY, AGAIN?

  Picture, if you will, a seminar room full of eager boy soldiers – all about 15 or 16 years old – very earnest, very self-important and very proud of ‘the uniform’ they wore.

  I had once been one of those boy soldiers (or ‘toy soldiers’, as some would have it). As a year 10 student, I had been in such a seminar room at Puckapunyal Army Base – wide-eyed and anxious to learn the lessons of war. I was an Army Cadet, like most of the boys of my generation.

  (Hard to believe now – i.e. that most of our schoolboys would routinely be trained in the art of war – but nevertheless true.)

  Did we learn a lot about the true nature of war? No, not a lot, it must be confessed.

  But suddenly the meagre knowledge that I had acquired in that particular seminar needed urgently to be summoned from the deepest recesses of my memory.

  The topic: Jungle Warfare.

  What did that ‘Reg’ (i.e. regular army officer) say again?

  I remember him well. He was very impressive – to me, at least. Tall and athletic, his crisp, tailored uniform was adorned with shiny brass buttons. (I could never get mine to shine like that – ‘Brasso’ simply didn’t do the trick. It later turned out that the regulars no longer needed to polish their buttons at all – they’d been an
odized.)

  He said he’d served two tours of ‘Nam. (He was probably in his late twenties, I suppose.) He spoke with the confidence that commanding ‘fighting men’ gave to one – or so I supposed.

  But why on Earth was such an experienced soldier assigned to the menial task of lecturing school kids? I can safely assume it had nothing to do with the quality and military potential of the spotty-faced members of the audience.

  Now that I thought about it, maybe such ‘soft’ duties had been assigned to him because of the horrors he had been through in his two tours of duty in ‘Nam. Maybe, beneath that confident and impressive exterior, the man was actually quite fragile.

  Can’t say now. Couldn’t say then. But it was certainly odd.

  In my mind’s eye, I could still see the blackboard in that seminar. It was covered in circles and arrows but only one written phrase appeared on it: ‘Form a Perimeter’.

  What did that mean – and did it only apply in a jungle warfare situation?

  After scouring my brain for a while, I decided it could only mean one of two things:

  1. when entering familiar territory, surround it and attack; or

  2, when already in such a place, spread out and form a defensive circle around where you found yourself.

  I remember he’d spoken of his platoon being repeatedly dropped by Chinook (helicopter) behind enemy lines, in territory controlled by the VC (Viet Cong) or ‘Charlie’, as he preferred to call them.

  Would it make sense for a small group of men to land (fairly obtrusively) at one point, immediately fan out widely and try to encircle an unseen enemy – an enemy which was, of course, entirely familiar with its own home territory?

  Nope, I decided. That would be plain dumb.

  The fragile circle that you formed in this way could be attacked both by the enemy inside it and by those still on the outside. So, strike out option 1 and tick option 2.

  ‘Form a Perimeter’ had obviously meant ‘Form a Defensive Perimeter’ – i.e. around your ‘point of insertion’ into the battle zone.

  This conclusion, in my mind, represented progress.

  Apart from this half-forgotten lecture in jungle warfare, my only knowledge of military tactics came from reading (in Latin) about Rome’s wars with Carthage. Naturally, I still thought of Hannibal as a ‘gun’ General but, given that I did not have ready access to any battle elephants, I thought the valuable lessons I had learned from this reading were likely to be of limited use in dealing with the zombie apocalypse – or, for that matter, with any counter-offensive that might then be under way.

  After playing in my mind with the remembered fragments of the lecture from ‘The Reg’, I turned to David – who had just been listening to the radio with me. (Mildly interested – comprehension? I guess next to zero.)

  “Okay, David, we can forget Hannibal,” I commenced (David had studied Latin as well). “Let’s think about our time together in the cadets. If the Army was going to form a defensive perimeter around the docklands area, how would they go about it? How far from the docks would they place the perimeter? As far as Central Melbourne? As far as here, at the university?”

  Naturally, he didn’t answer me. I was just using him as a sounding board. His eyes, however, did seem to look at me quizzically – if dead eyes could ever do that.

  We still sat in the Activities Office, each of us on one side of the desk upon which sat the transistor radio, currently our portal to the outside world. We sat for a while staring at one another – my mind racing, his mind…? Well, I don’t know what was going on in there. Maybe more than I realized.

  This moment of quiet reflection was abruptly interrupted: ‘Gween’, the zombies’ pet cat, had apparently wandered by and decided to join the party. (She obviously had the run of the building and feared none of its current residents.) She had leapt nimbly onto the desk, rubbed against my unprotected arm, bit it sharply and then sauntered over to David as if nothing had happened.

  The wretch!

  David, of course, gently took the furry beast into his arms and clumsily started petting it. In return, the mainly black animal miaowed its appreciation at him, in a decidedly cutesy fashion, and started to purr loudly. After looking adoringly into my brother’s dead eyes for a time, Gween turned her face to me and hissed with apparent conviction.

  Lovely. What was it with this cat? What gifts did she have which could charm a bunch of murderous zombies into her obsequious servitude?

  Please don’t think that I am one of those folk that simply hates all cats. Far from it, I actually like most cats – but not this one.

  After a half hour or so of watching David fawn mutely over this animal, the animal itself decided it was time to move on. It worked its way free of David’s grip, jumped to the floor and, with a lithe and sensuous stretch, left the room.

  David followed without casting me a further glance and, naturally, I was obliged to collect the radio and follow him - for my own continued safety.

  I did, however, have this nagging feeling that I was being lead into some dreadful (and very fatal) trap of the cat’s invention – but that was pure paranoia at work, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?

  CHAPTER 11

  THE TIDE TURNS.

  The basement of Union House had not improved. It still stank of the rotting human remains which were scattered about here and there. It was still populated by dozens of zombies in various states of activity. It was still seemingly ruled by that wretched tortoiseshell cat.

  And David still seemed to think of it as home.

  As we entered this hellish pit, I felt David’s warm and contented glow in the pit of my own stomach. The fellow-feeling that David and I had shared throughout our lives was now a source of considerable revulsion to me.

  As I felt David’s pleasure, I thought of that trite saying “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” and found myself singing “He ain’t zombie, he’s my brother.”

  Hysterical.

  The cat turned and glared at me – the zombies didn’t notice my off-key singing. So, why should it bother that stupid cat?

  Did it matter? No. Figuring out a bad-tempered feline was not going to solve the zombie apocalypse. (Was it?)

  I knew that David would not be moved from this home-away-from-home. So, despite the nausea-inducing sights and smells, I had no choice but to make the best of it (or horrifically perish like poor, sweet Meryl).

  I found a corner which was relatively free of both zombies and human detritus and settled down. Once again, I kept a watchful eye on the cat – but attack did not seem imminent. I do believe I even nodded off for a brief time without coming to harm.

  David seemed happy amongst his own. He and his kind just seemed to ‘hang out’ together. There were the usual grunts and groans, the occasional squabble over the fresher pieces of ‘food’ (there seemed to have be a minor re-supply of meat in our absence) but, mostly, they just milled about or simply sat together.

  It was like the worst party you could possibly imagine - but they seemed happy enough with it.

  Darkness came and the cat’s continued to glow in the dark. It was relatively quiet, the zombies largely torpid. Then came midnight (the witching hour?).

  A number of new arrivals came into the basement, young guys I’d not seen before. They were agitated, seemed to have been running. Then came some others – and, among them, older males, definitely non-students. The, too, were agitated. Where had they come from?

  I roused David – a bit more gently than had been my custom (no kicks this time round). I took his hand and pulled on it, suggesting we needed to go upstairs to see what was going on.

  This was one of my better moves – as it turned out.

  David sensed the agitation of the new arrivals – or so it seemed – and came willingly with me.

  Upstairs there were more new arrivals, many more - with still more pouring through the doors of Union House. The large foyer area was rapidly filling and soon it would be hard to get through the press i
n order to get outside. So, I made this a priority and my brother and I forced our way through, exiting via the Northern door. The sight that greeted us was astonishing – even for these times. There was a sea of zombies, thousands of them, filling North Court and extending beyond the Beaurepaire Centre (the pool and gymnasium).

  If fear and panic could be discerned in dead eyes, I could discern it there. David himself became panicky but I stuck with him and decided to lead him, by the hand, further away from the Union Building – to see what was driving this crowd of zombies in our direction. Looking across the throng for the first time in the dim light, I could see they were of all ages and sizes (but, of course, there were no females at all). There were even a few children.

  I guessed they were mainly second and third-generation zombies, those that had been infected by the first wave which, as you may recall, was composed entirely of young men. Spawned away for the centre of the outbreak, something was driving them back to it.