The Afflicted: A Zombie Novel (7 page)

The
re was an absence of life though, sorely missing from the city. He heard no birdsong or barking. No voices or music. Even the grass seemed to be browner, as if it too were dying. He saw a dead dog in the street, a retriever, its tongue hanging out, glassy-eyed, guts ripped out. Its hind legs had been chewed off. It seemed these abhorrent monsters, once human that they so frivolously called ‘zombies,’ were intent on destroying life. Perhaps not just human life, thought Evan, but life on earth. He subconsciously shook his head to get rid of the encroaching dark thoughts from entering his mind.

The more he looked
on, the sadder he felt. These un-human beings, he observed, were utterly devoid of life. Sure they were moving, but why? Were they aware of their own existence? Some of them stuttered along aimlessly, joining in the banging on the door even though they couldn’t possibly know why. Some of them moved quicker, not as injured as others, and so were able to roam the streets, swiping past their counterparts, apparently unaware of them. Their spiritless faces were as one: disjointed, soul-less, ambivalent. Except when they made eye contact...Evan remembered back to the airport and the eyes that had looked at him with such strange energy. It wasn’t like looking at another person. He couldn’t recall ever looking at someone else the way they looked at him with such anger, envy: a soul-sapping hatred.

Evan
felt despair. Despair for himself and his children who he feared in that moment, he might never see again. Despair for Joe who he had come to rely on, and George, so young to experience such death at close hand. Despair for Amane, such a captivating young woman whose future weighed on his shoulders now. Could he ask them to come with him? Was it fair on any of them?

He looked up
to the horizon, surveying his surroundings and the city. He was shocked by what he saw – polluting black smoke hung heavy over the city skyline. He could see the tops of skyscrapers poking through like beacons. There were menacing, fiery fire-clouds billowing through the city. Closer to home he noticed a few shops, but mostly just row after row of houses. On the street corner, a church was blazing away merrily. It was a new-build design, ordered by an architect rather than inspired by a creator. The shining cross on the spire sparkled strongly, lit up by the sun from above and the roaring flames from beneath. The glass windows had shattered and an inferno raged; tendrils of grey smoke escaping the churches interior furnace, rising up to the heavens.

Evan noticed the
fractured gravestones and furrowed graveyard. The consecrated earth was churned over as if ready for harvesting. Deathly pits surrounded the church from where bodies, once consigned to the ground, had emerged. For what purpose, wondered Evan. Zombies were staggering around the church, some alight, clothes smouldering, hair blazing and eyes crying droplets of fire. Yet they sensed no pain or anger at their situation. Evan watched, bemused, as one blindly fell into a freshly dug crater. With clearly broken legs, it still scrabbled to get out, clawing at the mud to no avail. How long would it burn, Evan speculated, before it burnt itself out? How much skin and bone did it still need to be able to walk around before it truly died? Sever the head, that’s what Joe had said. Maybe it was as simple as that. With no brain function, perhaps the zombies would fall, their shells useless.

Reluctant to stay any longer for fear of being noticed by the zombies below, Ev
an stealthily moved back away and into the centre of the roof. Ponderously, he levered himself back through the rooftop opening and dropped back onto the office roof, causing more dust to shake itself free and float through the musty air of the warehouse.

*
* * *

Time
passed unnoticed as Evan discovered backpacks, torches and matches. He managed to find some bandaging and a first aid kit, and tried to tend to the wounds on his face. In the end, he gave up and just dropped everything in the office on the desk. The pile grew, bit by bit. Amane had found more food. Just tins, some of it useless, but some of it more than adequate: tins of fruit, beans, even vegetables. There were cans of coke and lemonade, but no one had found any water. Evan saw a couple of bottles of vodka on the office desk and smiled wryly, imagining the look on Joe’s face when he’d found them. He turned to leave the office and bumped into Amane. She was carrying a plastic bag.

“Look,” she said with glee
, and opened the bag. Inside was an assortment of kitchen knives. She’d picked out the smaller ones, rejecting them for the more useful larger ones: boning knives, Santokus, carving and paring knives, cleavers. There was even one hefty axe.

“That one’s mine,” she said as Evan traced his fingers over it.

“Impressive. Slightly disturbing that you’re so happy about your new knife collection, but impressive,” he said looking at her.

“Come with me, there’s something else I want to show you.” She dropped the bag
in the office and took Evan by the arm, leading him to the furthest corner of the warehouse where it was damp and cold.

“Hockey sticks. Not bad,” said Evan surveying the pile
Amane had amassed.

“I know. Pretty solid too,” she said
, holding one aloft. Evan picked up a roll of masking tape.

“They’ll be even better when I’ve finished with them. Take one hockey stick, one butcher’s knife and hey
, presto.” He lunged with a hockey stick at the air.

”Zombie kebab
.”

Amane
laughed, her giggle echoing off the wall around the warehouse.

“You’re
a little crazy,” she said. Amane pulled a large box out from under a shelf, swept the dust off and sat down.

“Evan, I’m grateful you helped me, I really am. You didn’t have to. Back at the airport
, if you hadn’t come by when you did...Well, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”

Evan sat down beside her, resting the hockey stick between his legs.

“Well, I’m pleased you’re here. I’m sorry about your parents. What happened back there? Who was that woman who ran into us?”

“That was my mother.”
Amane’s voice became softer.

“Shit
, I’m sorry. Look you don’t have to...”  

“No, it’s ok
ay. I need to talk about it. The last twenty fours have been unlike anything I’ve ever known. It’s incredible. I came out here from Tokyo to study a few years ago. After I got my nursing degree last year, I stayed on to keep my studies going. I’m training to be a doctor. I love it here but I missed my parents. This was only the second time they’d visited me. Neither of them were very keen on flying. Understandable at their age I suppose.

“
Anyway, like I was saying earlier, they were trying to tell me how things were back home. The airport had the news channels on and there was a huge crowd gathered around watching the screens. One of the channels obviously had a helicopter and there were amazing pictures of Sydney burning. The harbour bridge was a like a stream of fire. All the cars were burning and the cables and steel were melting. It was hard to believe it was real. When they zoomed into the streets, you could see the people. There were thousands and thousands of them running for their lives. It was awful.

“
It was only a minute or two, when all of a sudden, people were shoving and jostling around us. I don’t know what started it. Then I heard gunfire. People panicked.
I
panicked. I grabbed mum and dads’ hands and we ran outside. It was pandemonium. The police were shooting at us; cars were running people over, crashing into each other. A man next to me got hit by a bullet and fell over. I swear it hit him square in the head and yet seconds later, he was up on his feet. He grabbed my dad and started biting him! His hands and arms, his face...I tried to hold on, but I couldn’t. Dad was old and weak; he had no fight left in him. He fell to the floor and the last I saw of him, this crazy man was biting him and others were piling on top of them.

I kept hold of mum and we ran back inside. There was no way we could get
to my car, what with the bullets flying and people running around attacking each other. Back in the building, it was just as chaotic. I thought maybe we could hide somewhere. The toilets were close by and just as we were running in, Miguel was going into his cleaning room. I just barged in past him and pushed mum inside. He wasn’t too pleased. I pleaded with him to let us stay. He was okay, you know, he helped us. He let us stay in there with him. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.” Amane wiped her eyes again before continuing.

“He locked the door and we waited for the commotion to die down. It didn’t. It went on for hours and when the shouts and cries faded away, we could still hear things moving around out there
, slithering and sliding over the floor, groaning and moaning. We just about had room to sit down but we dare not go outside. The room smelt like chemicals too, it wasn’t very nice. All night we waited. I tried calling the police on my mobile but the number was just permanently engaged. I tried a couple of friends but got no answer from them, and in the end, I gave up.

Mum seemed to fall asleep eventually
and I supposed Miguel and I did too. Curled up on the floor next to a bucket and mop though, I didn’t sleep much. I kept seeing dad in my dreams, being dragged off into the crowd.

Wh
en mum woke, she was hysterical. I tried calling for help again but the phone was dead, I couldn’t get any signal at all. My mother kept saying we had to find Kagami, my father.

She wouldn’t be quiet so we thought we may as well try our luck outside
, see if we could maybe make it to my car. Miguel helped me calm her down a little bit, so we left the closet. The airport seemed quiet. I thought everyone had gone. But we’d only gone from the closet a few feet before we heard them. My mother ran ahead and was pointing, shouting. ‘Kyonshi’ she kept saying. A second later, I heard her calling for my dad: ‘Kagami! Kagami!’

“
Before I could catch up with her it was too late. She’d found my father, or rather he’d found her, but he wasn’t the same. He looked terrible. There was no way he was alive, yet there he was walking around, staring at my mother. He grabbed her and...I wish he had killed her outright. He bit her all over. He tore her ear off first, and then he bit her hands and arms as she tried to protect herself. She tried to stop him but couldn’t. He wasn’t a weak old man anymore.

“
Miguel had a broom or something with him, I don’t remember what, and hit my father round the head with it. It was enough to stop him briefly and I grabbed my mother. There were hundreds of those things. They just appeared out of nowhere. My mother screamed and ran out the door into the fog. I think she was so scared she didn’t really know what she was doing. She was bleeding badly, and well, next minute, you appeared. It isn’t anyone’s fault what happened to her but her own. She was dying before she ran out in front of you.”

Evan stopped spinning the hockey stick around.

“I’m sorry, Amane.”

They sat in silence for a minute.

“So what’s your story? You...” Amane was cut short by the shouting.

“Are you fucking joking, Joe?”

Karyn was screaming at Joe, hands on her hips. Through gaps in the shelving, Evan saw her jabbing her finger into Joe’s shoulder.

“I think we’d better get over there,” he said.
Amane followed Evan down the row of dusty shelves to the argument.

“
Karyn, keep it down. We’re supposed to be hiding in here, not alerting the whole city to where we are,” said Evan, marching up to her.

“Is that right, Mr
Crow? I suppose this was your idea was it? Thought we’d have a nice little drive down to the ocean did we? Perhaps stop off for an ice cream on the way? You are out of your fucking mind.” She took a step up to Evan and stared at him.

“Joe works for me and he is taking me and George home.
You and that Asian cunt cowering behind you can...”

Evan
slapped her, hard. Karyn stumbled back, shocked, and put a hand to her stinging cheek.

“If you don’t watch your mouth
and your temper...say anything like that again and I’ll personally throw you outside into hell. Don’t think I haven’t forgotten what you did back there at Miguel’s either. Listen, you’re not the boss now. We are in this together and you need to start working with us, not against us.”

“Joe,” said
Karyn in a low voice, “I demand that you take me and George home now.”

“
Hell no.” Joe folded his arms. Karyn’s face was burning red.

“In
five years, you have never said no to me, Joe. What would Pete think? What about my Lucy? Are you going to abandon us now, just when we need you?”

“This has got nothing to
do with them,” he said, gruffly. “Listen up bitch, you need to start thinking straight, start thinking about what’s best for George. Despite what I think about you, he’s lost his dad, and his sister, and he needs his mum right now. You’ve seen what it’s like out there. We simply cannot get to the house, Mrs Craven. Our best bet is the ocean and to get to Tassie. We’ll get on a boat with Evan and Amane, and get the hell out of here.”

“Where is George?” said
Amane, glaring at Karyn.