by G. Benson
“Do you have eskies?” he asked.
“Two.” Lola held up two fingers. “We always take them to the beach.”
“Great. And we need clothing.”
So, Taren and Lola grabbed as much clothing as they could.
“I’ll give you a hand in your room, first,” Lola said, as they walked down the hallway.
“Not really a two-person job,” Taren said, grabbing a big gym bag from the top of her wardrobe. She smiled over her shoulder as she reached up. “But I don’t really want to be far away from you yet, either.”
Lola couldn’t even be a smartass back at her and act like that wasn’t what this was. Instead, she smiled, and started pulling out all the warm clothing from Taren’s drawers.
Taren and Lola would be the only ones of their little group with any family.
When they finished packing in Taren’s, they went into Lola’s room. Lola froze in the doorway, the sheet that covered Trish too white, red blooming over where her face and chest would be.
“Don’t look at her, Lola,” Taren murmured.
Just like that, they were kids again. Taren took her hand, pulled her over to the wardrobe and kept Lola focused on the task at hand.
Packing clothes didn’t take long, and Taren took the bags out to the cars while Lola went to the bathroom to get their hair products. Joy was already there, bag in hand, raiding everything she could. Standing in the doorway, Lola watched as Joy dropped in toothpaste and a packet of spare toothbrushes, soaps, and shampoos. There was an insulin pen and a glucose monitor on the bathroom sink.
The two of them eyed each other, and Lola wasn’t sure she wanted Joy along for the ride. Not after how Taren had been after Joy had blown her off.
“You okay?” Lola gestured to the medication on the sink.
“I’m fine.” She rustled in her pocket and pulled out a muesli bar. “I won’t get sick.”
The unspoken can’t was loud in the room. She said it like she believed it.
The woman was pale as hell.
“Doesn’t that insulin need to be in the fridge?”
Joy made a face. “Mostly. But it’s more about not being exposed to extreme temperatures. It should stay stable—it lasts a lot longer than they used to think. If we end up near a river, I can keep it in a bag in the water.”
“Good plan. Got enough?”
“Enough for a few months.”
“Good.”
Joy was covered in scrapes and bruises. Lola squinted.
“That a hickey on your neck?” Lola blurted out, and Joy’s hand flew up to her neck, red running up it and into her cheeks.
Lola had never been one for subtlety.
“No,” Joy clearly lied. “It’s a bruise. From all the…fighting today.”
With raised eyebrows, Lola grabbed what she needed, plus Joy’s bag of toiletries, and sidled out.
But then, after taking her hair stuff to the car and coming back in, Lola walked in on Joy and Taren attached by the lips in the pantry, and she rolled her eyes and went back to finding more pillows. Hopefully they would detach soon and keep collecting food, since supermarkets would apparently be unsafe. Natalie thought they’d be one of the first places to be packed.
“Maybe it’d be worth it, to get more supplies?” Lola had suggested.
Scott, helping Xin up in the lounge room, had exchanged a look with Natalie.
“Let’s just say, being somewhere crowded if someone turns isn’t where we’d want to be.” Natalie gave her a tight-lipped smile.
Xin, standing on her own, gave Lola a grim glance. “Taren and I were stuck in A&E. Believe me, we don’t want to be in crowds.”
With that look in her eye, Lola believed her.
Raj and Natalie carried bags of food to the cars together, Natalie using her one good arm, the other in its sling still. Lola straightened from the boot where she was squeezing in blankets and saw the way Raj’s eyes lingered.
This was certainly a close group.
Beyond them, at the ute, Ro was smothering their smile in the pile of blankets in their arms after seeing the same thing. They caught Lola’s eye and pulled the pile away, and they shared a roll of the eyes at the ridiculousness.
Choppers flew overhead, lights going. The streets were getting louder—sounds of engines, yelling, horns blaring.
A dog ran down the street, barking its head off, and Ro jumped backwards right into Lola.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Dogs scare me a bit.” They held up their bandaged arm. “It’s how I got this. But also…”
“What?”
“I hope they’re not being left behind.”
There was a pensiveness in their tone, and Lola didn’t know what to say.
What was going to become of them all? Of everything?
Ro dumped the blankets and went back inside, arms wrapped tight around themself, walking besides Raj as the two discussed what else they needed to get. With a start, Lola realised it was only her and Natalie left outside, Natalie staring up, eyes tracking one of the helicopters beating its way across the sky.
“I used to think seeing a helicopter was cool,” Lola murmured, watching another coming closer. “Now they’re filling me with dread.”
“I know what you mean,” Natalie said, eyes reflecting the light wreaking havoc in the sky as she gazed up. “I remember when I first arrived, and I was at the beach. I asked a mate why there was a helicopter. Know what he told me?”
Lola shook her head, and Natalie looked at her.
“He told me it was a shark spotter. I thought he was joking. But nope.” She chuckled derisively, eyes focusing back up on the sky. “What are these, then? Zombie spotters? Fecking Australia. Wouldn’t need a shark spotter in Ireland, let alone a zombie spotter.”
Lola stared up at the sky, tugging her hoody sleeves down so her hands disappeared in the end.
Eventually, they all piled into the two cars, Taren helping Xin to the ute with Scott. Taren hugged her tightly, then walked quickly to Lola’s car while Scott helped Xin with her seatbelt, the two of them all blushing and adorable.
Screaming started. Distant. Far away.
Taren held out the keys to Lola. “You driving?”
Lola shook her head. “Way too stressful. You take it.”
After driving home with someone bleeding out in the back of her car, Lola had no urge to get back in the driver’s seat for the day. Taren rubbed her arm, and they all piled in, Lola getting in the back. Reversing out of the driveway behind Scott, Taren’s hands were tense on the steering wheel. Joy was rigid next to her, and Ro, beside Lola in the back, bounced their leg, hand flapping against their thigh.
“I feel panicked without them all with us,” Taren murmured.
“They’re right in front of us,” Joy said. “But I know what you mean.”
They were heading south, hoping to find somewhere there would be fewer people, and therefore fewer zombies, and they could wait this mess out.
In the back, pressed against the door, Lola swallowed and didn’t know how the day could have become this.
Taren started to follow Scott down the road.
For a few minutes, it was much like what they’d already seen. People packing cars, a frantic look in their eyes. Some were sat in their front yards on lawn chairs, shaking their heads at them as they drove past like they were doing something shameful by leaving. Some laughed at them, empty beer cans scattered around the grass. One guy picked one up and threw it after their car, cackling.
“Conformists!”
Taren snorted, and Joy put her hand out the window, pulling the finger at them as they drove away.
But then things started to unravel even more.
There was a fire on one street. A smashed car they had to manoeuvre around. Sirens.
“He’s not taking the freeway,” Taren said, squinting as she followed Scott by turning right instead of left. Left would
have taken them up a ramp to the overpass.
Ro straightened. “I need to get out.”
Lola, Taren, and Joy twisted in their seats, staring at them. “What?” they all said in unison.
Ro was fumbling with their seatbelt. “I need to go. I can’t leave my sister. I can’t.”
Their eyes were wild, scrabbling at their seatbelt. Supplies were piled over both of them in the back to the point where finding the button was almost impossible.
“Taren! Road!” Lola yelled, and Taren twisted back around, swerving.
“Ro!” Taren’s voice was pleading. “You can’t get out. Everything is blocked up there.”
It was, too. Police controls and cars choked the overpass above, horns so loud it was all they could hear. Abruptly, as they drove alongside the overpass tailing Scott, the horns stopped.
Screaming started.
Every single one of them in the car held their breath.
There was the click as Ro’s seatbelt undid.
“Grab them, Lola!” Joy yelled.
Lola reached over and grabbed at their arm, pulling it back from the handle they were grasping for.
“Let me go! I thought it made s-sense, but I—I can’t leave her. I can’t just abandon her!” Ro’s voice was wild, pleading.
The screaming outside got louder. Crunching of metal on metal above as cars tried to move and couldn’t. In front of them, Scott sped up, and Taren matched his speed.
Joy turned back around, reaching behind her and grabbing at Ro’s knee. “Please, come on. We can’t stop. I understand. We all do. But there’s nothing you can do. Where is she?”
Ro was pulling back on Lola’s grip, stronger than they seemed. They could only shake their head, tears streaming down their cheeks.
“Where does she live?”
“North of the river!” They spat the words out.
Joy’s face crumpled, grip tightening on Ro’s knee. “You can’t get there. You know that. Listen.” Ro gave a sob and screwed their eyes up, shaking their head. “Listen!”
They all went silent and Ro stopped moving, the sounds of honking, of screaming, getting louder. Gunshots.
“We can’t let you go, Ro.” Taren was driving too fast. “I’m sorry.”
Ro threw their head back against the seat, tears tracking down their cheeks. Finally, they nodded sharply, arm going slack in Lola’s grip.
Out of nowhere, Taren threw a hand up over her mouth in the driver’s seat, Lola craning forward to look at her, Joy’s head whipping around to stare at her, hand tearing away from Ro. Taren’s eyes stayed trained ahead, tears welling up in them.
“What happened?” Joy’s voice was frantic, hand gripping Taren’s thigh, concern stitched into her face.
“Taren?” Lola asked.
She shook her head, putting her shaking hand back to the steering wheel. “Nothing,” she rasped.
Then a body hit the pavement in front of them, Taren swearing and swerving around it as with a sickening wrench in her gut, Lola twisted to peer out the back window.
A body, far back on the road. Taren must have seen it in the rear-view mirror and not wanted to tell them. Craning her neck, she saw people above, wavering on the edge of the overpass.
“Shit, they’re jumping!” Ro yelled.
They covered their own eyes. As did Lola.
Her head hit the headrest behind her as the car picked up speed.
“We don’t need the freeway to get south. Scott will get us out of Perth.”
They followed him in the clearer roads below, away from the freeway. Behind them, the city lights got left behind.
Lola imagined they left a swarm of zombies following, making their way down the freeway, a basic smorgasbord of food trapped in cars. Next to her, Ro let out a sob, hand clutched over their chest.
The city disappearing behind them, Lola tugged the sleeve of her hoody further down her wrist, the material pressing into the sore, jagged wound there.
Biography
G Benson is an Australian living with her wife and three cats in Spain. Since a young age, she’s put pen to paper, then hand to keyboard. Her foray into terrible angsty poetry as a teen will thankfully stay hidden and, again thankfully, is something she has moved on from. She spends her time travelling when she can, being passionate about queer topics, accidentally rescuing animals, and playing video games. Her other novels include All the Little Moments, Flinging It, Pieces, Who'd Have Thought, and The Thing About Tilly.
You can find her at www.g-benson.com.
Also by G Benson
All the Little Moments
All Wrapped Up
Flinging It
Pieces
Who’d Have Thought
The Thing About Tilly
Copyright
DEAD LEZ WALKING
Copyright © 2021 G BENSON
All rights reserved.
Published by G BENSON
No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.
Copy edited and proofread by Ellie Weekes
Cover by Sam Achilles (Picture Credits iStock: RyanJLane, chainatp, baona, vectorbomb, vectortatu, andriano_cz, stockdevil, nikename)
