Paradise Lost: Tales of the Dead Tropics (7 page)

"Mum!" From behind a pillar, Michele launched herself at me, sobbing. "Mum! It's got Hannah! Help her!"

I gathered Michele in my arms for a brief moment, absorbing the smell of her warm,
live
body.
Thank you, God.
Pushing her behind me, I approached the zombie cautiously. I didn't believe the girl was alive anymore, but she had been part of our lives for four years. I couldn't just abandon her. The zombie, a waiter, looked up with its unnervingly blank eyes, blood dripping down its chin.

Something about that impersonal look infuriated me without measure. I picked up a nearby iron-wrought chair and swung it at the monster like I was wielding a baseball bat. It connected with a most satisfying thud, knocking the monster sideways. I brought the chair down on his head again and again. His features became a meaty mash but still I knew he persisted, if not lived.

"Mum!" A squeal of dismay brought me around and I saw Hannah on her knees, face so torn she could not see anything before her. Quickly, I turned back to the zombie before me and, planting my knee in his chest, I ended his miserable existence with a stake through the eye. Swinging around, I grabbed what used to be Hannah around the throat.

"What are you doing?" My daughter's horrified whisper brought me up short. I didn't have time to explain all this to her, but I knew I had to try.

"She's already dead, Michele." I looked her firmly in the eye. "They all are. Take a look around you." Michele looked around and saw the two zombies at the other end of the restaurant as they began to shamble in our direction. The large gaping wounds all over their bodies combined with their complete lack of pain said more than an hour's explanation possibly could have.

"Oh my God." She whispered. While she stared at the approaching creatures, I silently finished off sweet Hannah with an ache in my heart that I feared would never go away. I had watched her grow up, seen her giggle and plot with my daughter, heard her dreams for the future. All ended with a piece of wood through her eye.

***

Keeping Michele safely behind me, I approached the two zombies slowly. Both were dripping in the blood of their victims. I needed to get us out of the shopping centre as quickly as possible, before the noise we were making attracted all the remaining zombies in the area. I did some quick calculations and then without further thought, launched myself at the nearest zombie, bowled it over, staked it, spun up on my feet, kicked the other zombie over as it started to turn, and dispatched it with a minimum of fuss. As I stood up and shook the blood off my stake, I saw my daughter standing in the corner with her mouth hanging open.

A bit discomforted, I muttered a hurried 'come on' and headed for the balcony. From the corner of my eye, I saw the wide-eyed glances Michele was sneaking at me. I could almost hear her thoughts.
My mum used to feel faint if she squashed a cockroach and now she's staking humans without blinking!
I guess I couldn't blame her. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined I'd be auditioning for the part of an Aussie Buffy, either. But, in truth, after the number of zombies I had faced this morning, it would take more than two or three shufflers to faze me now.

Jim stood calmly within a circle of dead zombies, wiping clean a metal picket he had acquisitioned from the nearby potted tree. I raised a questioning brow, to which he shrugged. "Didn't seem worth wasting my bullets on just a few zombies."

I couldn't help it; I threw my head back and laughed out loud.

3

In the few minutes that we had been preoccupied in the restaurant, the situation in the city centre had deteriorated markedly. In the street in front of us, people struggled desperately with implacable corpses. A zombie pulled a clueless driver out through his car window. Terrified mothers dragged their young children through traffic trying to evade the ever-increasing numbers of walking dead. Vehicles honked as they tried to make their way through the confusion.

And scattered amongst these scenes of desperate struggles were the heartbreaking images of battles that had been lost - a father shooing a toddler away as zombies tore at his body; a large middle-aged woman clawing her way along the pavement as a creature gnawed at her leg; a mother with a baby still clasped to her chest as blood pooled beneath her senseless body. The zombies crouched over their spoils like jackals at a lion's kill, squabbling over intestines and fleshy chunks. And then, to me, the most chilling image of all - the newly dead figures slowly standing up and moving off in search of new victims.

Jim whistled slowly. "This thing is moving quickly, Lori." He pointed to smoke spiraling into the air several blocks away. It seemed a good bet that it was related to this catastrophe.

"We'd better try to get ahead of it," I answered grimly. "or we might find ourselves trapped in town."

The ambulance, with its lack of obvious occupants, remained largely unbothered by the zombies. The three creatures that blocked our way proved no deterrent to Jim's picket and my stake and we were soon back in the vehicle. I slipped into the passenger seat after Michele, allowing Jim to take the wheel. Having got my oldest daughter back, I just wanted to reassure myself that she was really here. I grabbed her hand tightly.

"Oh, so kind of you to join us!"

I sighed. "Nice to be back, Roy." I glanced through the back window. "Is everyone okay in there? Jessie?"

Her thin face appeared. "I'm okay. It was a bit scary for a while, though. There was a lot of screaming and banging outside."

I felt a twinge of guilt. "Yeah, I know. But you kept quiet. That was the right thing to do." She smiled a little at that.

As Jim swung out onto the street, he made no attempt to avoid the zombies making their way towards us. There were few living people in the vicinity now, having fled or joined the walking dead. My heart ached as I recognized the dead father standing beside the blank-eyed chubby toddler he had tried so hard to save, watching us drive by.

As Jim made his way carefully down Sheridan Street, taking care to avoid abandoned cars and the occasional living human, we sat in silence, trying to make sense of the chaos. Michele didn't say much, still looking a bit stunned. I squeezed her hand tightly but left her alone to deal with her emotions. What could I say that could possibly make things better?

Slowly, we got ahead of the madness and allowed ourselves to relax a little. "So what do we do now?" I asked.

"Get the hell out of Dodge?!" came a quick response from the rear.

Emma's face appeared. "We pick up our family members and then do like Roy said - get the hell out of town."

I nodded in agreement. I had to think of my family and, although it went against every bone in my body to just run, keeping my kids safe was my top priority. Picking up the mobile, I began the hopeless task of trying to warn authorities and friends while the others planned the quickest route possible to our various homes. Our part of this nightmare was over.

This short story is extracted from the serialized web fiction novel "Dead Tropics". To read more of the story, please feel free to head over to
http://www.deadtropics.blogspot.com
!

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