Dead Tropics (15 page)

No one said anything. Their emotions were probably as mixed as mine were. That family could have been any of us. The dead man had been trying to save his family just as I was still trying to do.

As we reached the turnoff to Redlynch and my sister's home, the staccato sound of nearby gunfire drew us to a stop.

"I think it's coming from the city." Emma suggested. "It has to be those soldiers we saw earlier."

I frowned as I concentrated on the noise. "It is a lot closer than the city. Maybe just over the rise there." I pointed ahead.

No sooner had I said it than we saw figures pouring over the rise like ants down an anthill. Hundreds of bodies flowing downhill towards us. We watched in stunned silence for at least a minute as the human wave just kept on coming.

"There must be at least a thousand!" Kaye murmured in awe.

"People or zombies?" Roy wondered.

"Any chance anyone remembered a pair of binoculars?" I asked halfheartedly, knowing no one did.

"No, but my camera has a pretty good zoom on it." Michele piped up. Reaching back to grab the proffered camera, I beamed at my brilliant daughter. She grinned before rolling her eyes.
Don't overdo it, mum.

As I zoomed in on the rise, we huddled around the little viewing screen. Frustratingly, it couldn't zoom in close enough to see details but what we saw was enough to confirm that the majority of the figures were zombies. Interspersed in the crowd, I could see the pockets of soldiers fighting for their lives. Standing back to back, groups of soldiers fired weapons at the mass of figures forming massive rings around them.

Shifting the camera, I spied a lone soldier swinging his weapon desperately in circles as he tried to keep the corpses at bay. Within seconds, he was engulfed by the crowd. Everywhere I turned the camera, I could see men fighting for their lives - and losing.

"My God..." Roy groaned. "If the army can't win, what hope do we have?"

"Stop it, Roy." I said sharply. "We've survived up to now, haven't we? Maybe we are better equipped to survive than they are."

"How do you figure that?" He sneered.

"We know what we are up against." I replied quietly. "Something, maybe, the army hasn't figured out yet."

3

The remainder of the trip home was spent in somber silence. The reminder that the zombies were nearly on our doorsteps, if they weren't here already, made it suddenly frighteningly real. The illusion of safety and peace I had felt in the midst of the rainforest was shattered. It was inevitable that the zombie horde would reach our doorstep; it was just a matter of when, not if.

As we pulled into the driveway, I spied a battered panel van parked at the top and two familiar figures standing beside it. "Mike!"

"Ken!" Emma exclaimed joyfully.

As Kaye drew her car up beside them, we clambered out and hugged the men with exclamations of delight. After everything we had been through together, they felt like part of the family and my heart swelled with happiness to see them. The two men grinned and accepted our attentions graciously. Roy clapped his hand around Mike's arm and then Ken's. I guess in man talk, he was practically blubbering.

Interrupting the reunion, I started to shoo everyone upstairs. Ken took off his glasses and started vigorously rubbing them. "You going to introduce them to Phoebe, Mike?"

Mike looked back at him impassively. "Reckon so."

Curious, I watched him walk around the back of the van. When he returned with a quivering, shorthaired brown chihuahua under his arm, my mouth dropped. "This is Phoebe. She was my parents' dog. I inherited her when they died." He looked around the group... "Don't be fooled. For a small dog, she's got a lot of verve."

I couldn't help myself. I cocked my brow teasingly. "Verve?"

"Gumption." He corrected himself.

"Gumption?" I raised my eyebrow higher.

Mike narrowed his eyes at me. "Something wrong with your vocabulary all of a sudden, Lori?"

"No, not at all. I'm sure she's a very plucky little dog. You must feel very secure in your home at night."

As the others laughed, I grinned and held my hands up in a gesture of peace. "Sorry. Cheap shot but you gotta admit you two make a funny pair."

"That's size-ist, Lori. I thought better of you." A hint of a smile tugged at his lips.

I ushered the group upstairs for some coffee and a pow-wow. Little Phoebe was promptly whisked out of Mike's arms by the children. I had no doubt she would be thoroughly spoilt. Even Lucas and Michele sat nearby with big grins on their faces, trying to tempt the dog over with pieces of cheese. Jessie giggled as the chihuahua placed her paws on her chest and licked her face enthusiastically.

I felt a twinge of guilt as I watched the thin little girl hugging the dog. I had barely exchanged two words with her since she'd woken up. Looking up, she caught me looking at her and grinned happily. I beamed back at her and promised myself that I would make some time to sit down with her - as soon as our complicated life permitted.

The toddlers were immediately vociferous in their hunger so Kaye and I plonked a packet of biscuits and some chips on the table. Yeah, sue me; I'm a bad mom. Turning back to the adults around the table, I waited for Mike and Ken to bring us up to speed. Sipping black coffee, Mike summed up the last few hours briefly. The trip to his home had been uneventful, bar a handful of zombies spotted on the road. He'd picked up Phoebe and they had moved on to Ken's house.

Eyes cast down, Ken quietly told of finding bloodstains on the kitchen floor but no sign of his parents. Emma reached out and grabbed his hand tightly. Looking from her to Ken, I realised sadly that they had both been orphaned today.

"Did you have any trouble getting here?" I asked, thinking of the traffic jam we had battled through. The two of them snorted at the same time.

"You could say that." Mike said wryly.

Ken picked up the story. "After we collected some equipment, we decided to take the old back road via Freshwater. We figured there'd be less traffic. Which there was."

Mike inclined his head in agreement. "There's a short cut through the cane fields my family used to take. Unfortunately, we found the Kuranda tourist train parked across it, abandoned."

Mike took a deep slug of the coffee Kaye placed before him. "We decided to travel along the train tracks on the edge of the cane field until we could get back on the road."

"Unfortunately," Ken continued. "that's when we discovered where all the train passengers had gone."

Emma gasped, her hand going to her mouth. "They were in the sugar cane?"

Ken nodded. "They just started pouring out of the sugar cane!"

"What did you do?" I had to admit the story had me as sucked in as Emma. At least I knew this one had a happy ending, as they were both sitting in front of me.

Ken looked at Mike who sat with one arm slung over the back of the chair, calm as a cucumber. He shrugged. "It's amazing how quickly a chainsaw can separate a head from a body."

"Eww." Kaye made a face across the table to me.

Ken grinned. "Mike leaned out of the window and cleared a path like he was trimming a hedge! Didn't get rid of all of them but it gave us enough wiggle room to get the old van across the field to the dirt track. After that, it was clear sailing."

Mike pushed his chair back. "Reminds me, we need to get our stuff in." He glanced outside. "Have to shore up the place before it gets dark, too."

Roy grimaced, as he stood and stretched. "Yeah well, I need to take a ten minute cat nap before we get started on that stuff. My head's bloody killing me."

Emma rolled her eyes at me but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. We had all been through a lot today. "I'll get you some paracetamol."

He looked a little surprised. "Thanks."

As Roy lay down on the sofa with a groan, I hurried downstairs, knowing that the toddlers were in safe hands with the teens. As long as they weren't busy making goo-goo eyes at each other, I thought with a smile. Beside the van was a growing pile of stuff. I spotted the chainsaw, rope, a couple of bags of tinned food, a rifle and extra ammunition, and something that looked like a radio.

"It's a CB radio." Mike clarified for me. "If communication remains down, it may be the only way for us to communicate with the outside world."

"You think of everything, don't you, Mike?" I smiled at him.

He shrugged dismissively. "They teach you well in the forces."

"Hah!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were in the army! You've got that look about you."

He blinked in the face of my enthusiasm. Embarrassed, I dialed it down a bit. "You know, the clean shaven head and how good you are at fighting, and everything..."

My voice dwindled away. Man, I sounded like an infatuated schoolgirl, I thought, mortified.

Mike rubbed his head self-consciously and grinned. "Saves time and effort, I find."

As he hiked some bags to his shoulder and walked by, he threw over his shoulder, "You held your own just fine today, Lori."

A warm glow filled me at his compliment. Oh, good God, I thought with an inner laugh, I am just like a teenager with a bad case of hero worship!

I unloaded the four-wheel drive again. I placed anything that could be used as a weapon, like the axe, next to the sliding doors upstairs where we could reach them quickly. After transferring our stores upstairs, we set to work shoring up the house's defenses. Finding wood wasn't a problem as the shed was full of bits and pieces. Mike and Ken put together a tough six-foot high barrier at the bottom of the stairs to deter any zombies.

As Emma and I reinforced the back windows against the off chance that a zombie successfully battled through the steep slope and tangled growth to reach them, Kaye left to prepare dinner and organise baths for the kids. I grinned as I heard her muttering something about getting the short end of the stick as she went upstairs.

All the hammering and noise soon brought out our neighbours. The retired couple on the right, Mr. and Mrs. Branson, stood in their back yard peering at the goings-on over here. As they had no family in the country, Kaye and I had taken them under our wings. We watched out for them as much as we could, offering to do the shopping for them and inviting them to family dos.

Across the road, I saw Jodie and her teenage daughters, Jasmine and Skye standing on their verandah. Jasmine was the only girl of a similiar age to Michele in the street so they tended to gravitate together whenever we were visiting Kaye. Skye, younger and quieter, could usually be seen reading a book. As a bookworm myself, I had a soft spot for her. Further down the road, I could see a man and his son watching us. I didn't know much about that family, though, apart from the fact that they had a teenaged son who annoyed everyone with riding his quad bike on Saturday mornings.

I glanced wryly at Emma. "If they can stand around and watch us work, I'm guessing no one here has met a zombie today."

Sighing, I put down my hammer.

"Emma, can you finish up here? I am going to talk to them."

"Sure. What are you going to tell them?"

"Same version of the truth I've been telling all day. You know that unless they've seen the zombies for themselves, they won't believe the truth." I shrugged. "Would we?"

She made a face. "Not for a moment. I still can't believe it!"

I made my way across the boulders to the Bransons.

"Hello, Lori, dear." The silver haired woman smiled. "You lot seem very busy today."

"You have no idea." I wiped my hands clean. "I'm not sure how much you're aware of what's happened today..."

The short and wizened Mr. Branson grunted in disgust. "Bunch of loons, from the sound of it. Drugs, I bet."

"Um, probably. The thing is, they may be heading this way so it is important that you lock up your place tonight and stay low. You know, keep the lights off and the curtains closed, that sort of thing."

He grunted in acknowledgement again.

"You need to lower your cyclone shutters, too."

Mrs. Branson beamed. "Of course, dear. If you think it is necessary."

I nodded, smiling.
One less thing to worry about.
"I do."

As I climbed back down the wall, I saw the neighbour across the street, Jodie, heading up our driveway with her girls.

"Hello, Jodie." I called out. "Hey, girls."

The two teenage girls waved back at me.

"Hi Lori." Jasmine smiled. "Can I go up to see Michele?"

"Sure."

Skye smiled shyly, a book tucked under her arm. "I found a really good new book you might like, Lori."

Last year, I had introduced her to the wonderful world of fantasy. I smiled at her. "You'll have to show me later, ok?"

She nodded and headed up the stairs after her sister.

"Lori." Jodie waited for here daughters to disappear, looking a little worried. "You guys look like you're preparing for a cyclone. Isn't that a little excessive for a bunch of rioters."