by G. Benson
Things were starting to happen. It was clear. What did they do? Stay and wait and see? They’d been stuck with that option alone at the hospital, and that hadn’t gone well. But what did they do? Leave? Leave where? He had camping stuff in his ute. He always did, ready to disappear awhile. Maybe Taren had some extra stuff they could take. They could go bush and keep their heads down and see what happened? His ute radio would keep them updated.
Or did they stay? Buckle down here, where there was help available and people and information? Access to supermarkets, the government.
The government that had blown up a hospital filled with both dead and alive people, the government that had shot at them on sight?
His eyes were on Xin, who had her eyes half-closed and seemed to be dozing.
“I think we bail.” He spoke without meaning to, the words falling out of his mouth.
All of them looked at him. How did this keep happening? He didn’t make decisions that affected people. He did his own thing. He always had. Making decisions for himself, acting on them. Doing his own thing in the background.
With six pairs of eyes trained on him, waiting for him to say something, his heart started racing.
What if he made the wrong decisions and they followed? What if everything had gone wrong in that tunnel—it could have been full of the dead. The morgue could have been overrun and they all could have died. They could have been trapped at the end and blown up.
Their choices had been to stay and be blown up, or to take that risk—and he’d been happy to make that decision for himself. But the pressure when it was all of them?
That was a lot.
But it had worked out. Maybe it could this time.
“You think we leave?” Raj asked.
“I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” Scott said.
They all blinked at him.
“But you think we should just…go?” Raj asked. “Leave everyone we know behind?”
“I don’t think anyone should do anything they don’t want to. But I think I know what I’m going to do. I’ll go bush. Wait it out.”
“What about our families?” Xin asked, pushing herself up with one hand so she was sitting up properly.
Her eyes were glassy, and he remembered, then, that Taren had given her some more morphine. She’d said less this time, though. Only enough to take the edge off.
“I—” he hesitated. “I still want to get out of here, personally.”
“My mum and dad live north of the river. I could wait this out with them.” Xin was gnawing her lip though, unsure.
“We don’t even know if we can go very far. The military and the police are everywhere. We’re on lockdown, remember?” Joy’s brow was scrunched up, uncertain.
Taren leaned into her side. “If we’re on lockdown, we can’t leave to find family, or to bail.”
“Unless everything starts to go to shit,” Scott said. “Then we can leave.”
“We could reach our families then, too,” Xin said.
“It would be harder to go into the city than to bail out of it, if everything is going to shit,” Natalie said.
It was the first time she’d spoken up, and Scott realised something.
“Is any of your family here, Natalie?” he asked.
“Ay, an aunty lives in Aus, but over east. I came here alone.” She looked from one to the other of them. “I’m in for getting out of here and laying low.”
“But my parents,” Xin said weakly.
“Mine are over in Sydney,” Taren said. “But Lola is somewhere in the city.”
The idea of leaving people behind to save their own skins wasn’t going to sit well with any of them.
“I just wish we could contact them,” Taren muttered, pulling her phone out of her pocket again. She tapped at it dejectedly with her thumb.
“I can’t leave my little sister behind,” Ro said. They were on the couch between Xin and Raj, shoulders hunched in. “Her foster family is nice and all, but I can’t leave her in this.”
“I wish I knew where Lola was,” Taren said. She was still tapping uselessly at her phone, maybe scrolling through old messages like they’d provide some answers.
“My parents and grandparents all share a house in The Hills,” Raj said. “My grandfather’s in a wheelchair.”
A floodlight filled the road as a helicopter went overhead, throwing light through the large windows. Scott watched a military truck rumble past, packed with soldiers all piled high with weapons.
Another car drove past. Then another.
The TV, muted, played the same message on the screen. Over and over. No new information.
More cars drove past, headlights washing the road in weak light after the brightness of the floodlight, and Scott turned, letting the curtain fall shut behind him.
The quiet in the room as they all stared off, lost in thought over their decisions, was unsettling. Choices to make. What they should do. Where they should go.
Did they stick together?
The sound of a car peeling into the driveway interrupted his thoughts. Spinning on the spot, he grabbed at the curtain again.
“Light blue sedan. Almost crashed into my ute.”
Someone stood up behind him, and he looked to see Taren on her feet, eyes lit up.
“Lola.”
Taren
Holy shit, Lola got home
Athletic, Taren was not. She liked to be kind of active—she’d never been great at sitting still. Always dragging people out to go for a big hike or head to the beach, maybe try rock climbing at some point. Key word being “try”. But she was not athletic.
She sure moved out of that lounge room like she was, though, plate forgotten on the floor behind her. Was Lola okay? Taren may not have been looking out the window like Scott, but they’d all heard the tyres squeal as they’d turned too fast into the driveway, then the slam of the brakes.
Taren’s heart was in her throat, pounding away. She threw the door open and was hit with an entirely different scene than when she’d stepped out here not long ago for the meds.
Cars were going down the road one after the other, pulling out of their driveways along the streets. Most of the houses had movement inside, a liveliness absent when they’d driven home. Lola’s car was haphazardly parked in the driveway.
Falling out of the driver’s seat in a rush was Lola.
Taren raced over, feet pounding on the concrete of their driveway, her cousin straightening as she pushed up off the ground, eyes going wide at the sight of her. “Taren, oh my God.”
She slammed the door shut as Taren collided with her, wrapping her arms around her, clutching at her back and squeezing her eyes shut, face pressed into her neck.
“You’re bleeding,” she sobbed into Lola’s skin.
“It’s nothing, a cut over my eye, that’s all. Getting out of the café wasn’t easy.”
Taren pulled back, keeping her hands on Lola’s shoulders, squinting at the cut. Not bleeding freely anymore. Could use some tape. Not stitches. A lot of blood over her face, but facial wounds always bled a lot.
Lola’s eyes were red, an exhaustion in them that was in Taren’s, in everyone’s back in the house.
But she was alive. And here.
“What the hell happened?” Taren asked her.
“I was going to ask you the same question,” Lola said, pulling away and heading to the back of the car. “But right now, we don’t have much time. I need help.”
A groan came from the back seat as Lola opened one of the doors. Dread filled Taren’s stomach as Lola shuffled, hooked her hands under someone’s arms, their head lolling against her front, and started dragging them out the back of the car. Messy hair, falling out of its ponytail. Pale, pale face. A torso emerging, soaked in blood.
“Trish,” Taren breathed.
Unconscious, barista Trish.
Snapping back to the situation at hand, Taren ran around and grabbed Trish’s
feet before they could hit the pavement. Together, she and Lola started an awkward shuffle back to the front door, Lola walking backwards, heels kicking against the concrete. Behind her, the others were spilling out the front door, moving back to make room when they saw what was happening.
Joy moved up alongside them, walking with them, eyes sweeping over unconscious Trish. “What happened?”
“Who are you?” Lola wheezed under Trish’s weight.
“This is Joy,” Taren grunted. “There’s a bunch of us here from the hospital, I’ll tell you later. What happened?”
Managing to make it up the front stoop without tripping, Lola heaved a sigh. World-weary and tired. “What hasn’t bloody happened today?”
Joy huffed in agreement.
“But, to try and answer,” Lola grunted as she started to lead them down the corridor inside. She paused at the doorway to the lounge room, seeing Xin passed out on the couch, and kept going towards her own room. “I went to the café we go to a lot. I’d wanted to get some work done for uni, and the Wi-Fi there is good. And the coffee is good. I think I forgot to lock the door.” She winced at Taren like it was a minor faux pas and not something that had caused Taren to think Lola was dead. “Trish was on. Said she’d seen Taren that morning.”
Despite everything, Lola gave her a wink. Joy caught it and raised her eyebrows at her, Taren giving an awkward shrug—half-shrug, really, what with the weight she was dragging.
“Then police showed up. No one was allowed to move. That creepy message started on the TV. No one’s phone worked. People got panicky.”
She paused her story as they tried to gently lift Trish onto the bed, shuffling her onto Lola’s covers.
Joy started pulling Trish’s shirt down around her collarbones, ripping at the top two buttons so she could get to the wound. There was so much blood.
“Some people tried to leave, and the officers actually ended up hitting some of them? Taren, I’ve never seen police be violent like that. I mean, I know it happens. But it was so immediate. We were all there for hours. Parents were panicked about missing school pick up. They were told the kids were quarantined in the schools, too. They told us it was all for this flu. People didn’t get why we couldn’t go home and wait it out there. Then there were gunshots down the road. The police disappeared and more shots started. Then there were jets, screaming overhead and this massive explosion. Then screaming. People were everywhere, panicking. There were more explosions. People left the café, crowding the streets. More screaming. I started to run for my car, Trish was following me.”
Joy was peering at the wound, then rummaging in one of the bags full of supplies Ro had dropped on the bed for her. She snapped on some gloves and grabbed some saline, squirting it onto the wound to try and get a better look. It was still seeping blood, mangled skin oozing.
“Then, she was screaming. On this street filled with cars driving all over the place and smoke and some guy was on her and she was screaming. I kicked him off and dragged her to the car and came here.” Lola stared at her. “He was just…on her. Why? Why was he doing that?”
Taren went cold.
“Taren,” Joy said.
She didn’t want to listen to Joy. To acknowledge what Lola had said. To look down and see what she knew she’d see.
“Taren!” Joy repeated, louder.
She looked down. The wound, now cleaner, was messy, still. A hole, ripped flesh. But surrounding it were obvious teeth marks. Multiple, where the dude mustn’t have been able to get a proper hold at first.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
Ro backed up, the sound of shuffling as the others around them pushed to see, then all backpedalled rapidly.
“No,” Natalie said. “No. Not again.”
“Get her out of here!”
Taren wasn’t even sure who said that.
“What?” Lola asked, eyes going from one person to the next before landing on Taren. “What’s going on?”
The question was directed at Taren, no one else, and Taren bit her lip, looking down at her cousin.
“She’s infected,” Taren said, finally.
Lola’s brow furrowed. “Infected with what? Like gangrene or something? It’s too fast for that to happen.”
Letting out a long, slow breath, Taren considered what to say. There wasn’t much except for the plain truth that she could say. All there was to do was come out and say it. That’s what she needed to do. “The whole city’s been on lockdown for the virus.”
“The flu? What makes you think she has the flu?” Lola’s hand moved to Trish’s forehead, checking to see if she was warm. Taren had to resist the urge to grab her hand and yank it away. “She is burning up.”
Joy and Taren side-eyed each other.
“She’s infected with the virus,” Taren continued. “It’s not the flu, though. It—ugh, I hate saying this. It makes people into zombies. Or the real version of some horror movie thing.”
Lola blinked up at her. Once. Twice. “Zombies?”
“Yeah.” Taren gave an apologetic flinch that she wasn’t messing with her.
“Like, I want to eat your brains—” she raised her arms up straight ahead of her and rocked “—walking undead, zombies?”
“I mean, they’re less shambling, more ever-so-slightly clumsy but creepily fast? But definitely the whole walking undead, back to life and angry, thing.”
“Ones that bite you, or eat you,” Raj threw in from behind them.
“It’s true,” Joy said.
Lola glanced down at Trish, at the rapid way she was breathing, the flushed cheeks, the clammy skin. Her gaze dropped to the bite mark on her chest, the still-oozing wound, the torn skin, the extra bite marks around the deeper injury.
“Holy shit,” Lola muttered. Her head snapped up fast, looking imploringly at Taren. “And you’re saying that’s what this virus is?”
“Yeah. We were quarantined in the hospital—they said it was contained in the original lab and the hospital—clearly, they were wrong. So, they locked us all in, and the police and military wouldn’t let anyone out, and then they blew it up, but luckily—”
“I’m sorry, they blew up the hospital? They? As in the government? That was the explosion?”
Taren had forgotten that was probably a big deal if you weren’t overwhelmed from trying to escape it before said explosion. “Uh, yeah. Boom.” She mimed an explosion with her hands.
“They let you out though? Before blowing it up? They didn’t want you to be—to be quarantined, or anything?” Lola was confused and bordering on overwhelmed herself.
“Um—” Taren said.
“Well—” Joy added.
“Ah—” Scott said from behind.
“We managed to escape, but no.” Taren huffed a laugh. “They were going to blow it up even with us in it. And they knew we were there.”
Lola gaped at her. Then stood up and started throwing her arms around Taren’s neck.
Which was right when Trish’s hand shot out, wrapped around Lola’s wrist before it could get around Taren, and pulled. Mouth opening, teeth bared, eyes a horrifying chilled colour. Lola yelped in shock, and all hell broke loose.
Lola tried to yank her hand free as she was pulled into Trish, Taren’s hand grabbing her other wrist, trying to pull her back towards her. Joy’s fist slammed down on Trish’s arm, trying to break the hold Trish had on Lola.
“How the fuck did she turn so fast?” Natalie yelled from behind them.
Trish, or what was once Trish, was frantic, legs kicking on the bed and arms scrabbling up Lola’s side, one arm wrapping around her waist to tug her down.
Taren could hear her teeth gnashing, even over the sounds of too many people panicking. It was sickening. Her cousin was going to get bitten. They were all going to die in some kind of zombie apocalypse and it would all be over in some horrifying, blood-filled manner.
Joy was pushing at Trish’s shoulders while tr
ying to stay away from her mouth. Lola was yelling—screaming, really. Everyone was yelling behind them and Taren could only cling to her cousin’s hand, wrap her fingers around her wrist, and try to yank her forward.
Then a bright, rainbow umbrella came between them, jabbing forward hard into Trish’s face. It poked into her cheek, and the gnashing kept going. Joy yelled, “You fucking missed!” and it jabbed again, whoever-was-doing-it’s arm brushing Taren’s. This time, the long metal piece at the end pierced through the eye. Trish looked up, then slumped backwards on the bed, Taren’s pride umbrella standing straight up from her eye.
Lola jerked forward into Taren’s arms, wrapping her own around Taren’s shoulders and giving a desperate sob into Taren’s neck. Breathing hard, Taren caught Joy’s eye, both of them scanning the other for any injury.
“Are you hurt?” Taren asked into Lola’s shoulder, and Lola shook her head.
“Good thinking with the umbrella, Natalie. And one-handed,” Joy said.
“You know,” Natalie said from right behind Taren. “Gotta use what’s available.”
Right as she said that, the umbrella popped open, the force of it bouncing up and off Trish’s face before it settled, upside down and still open, covering her face and most of her torso.
“We need to get out of here,” Taren said. She hugged Lola closer.
Joy reached forward and ran a hand down her arm, fingers brushing the back of Taren’s hand as she walked past. “We really do.”
Epilogue
Lola
0001 the next day
Everything was going to shit by the time they left. They would take Lola’s car and Scott’s ute. They piled in everything they could from their house. Pretty much all their food. Blankets. Pillows. They had a tent, too, and some sleeping bags from a few camping trips with friends. A little camping stove and a few gas canisters.
This all felt surreal, but after what Lola had seen with Trish, leaving seemed the best option. The others murmured about family and Lola’s heart clenched, worried about their family back in Sydney.
Maybe they’d be safe there.
Scott, the one who kept hovering over Xin, had seemed relieved they had some camping gear—apparently, he had a swag and a small two-person tent in his ute, plus some basic camping supplies, and nothing more. The tent especially got a smile from him.
