About A Single Girl's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

It’s the old story. Girl meets boy. Girl loses boy. Zombies attack.

Q, a trainee kindergarten teacher and martial arts expert, wants to woo the beautiful vegan, Rabbit, but doesn’t know how. Her luck turns during the zombie outbreak. She teaches Rabbit and his hippie friends how to make war, not love, and does her best to save him from the living dead.

But can she defeat evil ex-girlfriend, Pious Kate? And can love survive the end of the world?

For Dad

Contents

1. About A Single Girl's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

2. Chapter One

3. Chapter Two

4. Chapter Three

5. Chapter Four

6. Chapter Five

7. Chapter Six

8. Chapter Seven

9. Chapter Eight

10. Chapter Nine

11. Chapter Ten

12. Chapter Eleven

13. Chapter Twelve

14. Chapter Thirteen

15. Chapter Fourteen

16. Chapter Fifteen

17. Chapter Sixteen

18. Chapter Seventeen

19. Chapter Eighteen

20. Chapter Nineteen

21. Chapter Twenty

22. Chapter Twenty-one

23. Chapter Twenty-two

24. Chapter Twenty-three

25. Chapter Twenty-four

26. Chapter Twenty-five

27. Chapter Twenty-six

28. Chapter Twenty-seven

29. Chapter Twenty-eight

30. Chapter Twenty-nine

31. Chapter Thirty

32. Chapter Thirty-one

33. Chapter Thirty-two

34. Chapter Thirty-three

35. Chapter Thirty-four

36. Epilogue

37. Acknowledgments

38. About JT Clay

39. Copyright

Chapter One

Q stifled a yawn. Mrs Mason was discussing pastoral art theory again. Yellow suns and blue skies and green grass and bloody baa baa sheep.

“Aren’t you sick of this stuff?” she said to Hannah, who sat next to her. “We live in Sydney. What does this have to do with our lives?”

Hannah kept her attention on her own work. Q sighed and scrawled on the page in front of her, then stared at the back of Mrs Mason’s head as the woman turned to the blackboard again. Why oh why did the woman insist on that blue rinse to conceal the gray hairs? It was like growing a wart to cover a pimple. She studied the others in the classroom. They all looked tiny, reduced; as if she were living a miniaturized life. Discarded by the sea of destiny. Gasping at its shore.

She stole a look at Hannah’s work. “Nice,” she said.

Hannah grimaced at the interruption and pushed a neat blond plait behind her right ear. Her friend’s hair ended each day as it began – perfect. They were so different.

“Sometimes I think I’m wasting my life,” Q said. “I’m not stretching myself, you know? I’m not working with my equals. Sorry, forget I said that. I’m in a grump.”

“Like the heffalump?” Hannah said. “Pass the pink.”

“Exactly!” Q handed over the purple crayon. “I knew you’d understand. I have all these abilities that I’m never allowed to use. It’s like I have a secret identity.”

“No. If it were secret, you wouldn’t tell me about it all the time.”

“I feel I have all this unfulfilled potential.”

“I dunno,” Hannah said. “I’m six and I color in better than you do.” The girl put up her hand. “Mrs Mason, I’m finished. Can I have another one?”

Mrs Mason smiled at Hannah, and then frowned at Q. “Quentin!” she said.

Q sighed and stood. She removed the child-sized chair that clung to her adult-sized bottom and walked to the front of the Kindy Koalas to get Hannah another worksheet. She always felt too large at work. It wasn’t because her colleagues were three feet tall and her boss, Mrs Mason, looked like a withered voodoo doll. It wasn’t her surroundings at all. It was Q. Broad shoulders, muscled legs, brown static-shock hair – she was bursting from her skin. Too much energy with nothing to channel it into.

She returned to Hannah’s desk and handed the fresh sheet to her friend, then flipped her own scribbled page facedown. Mrs Mason would freak if she busted her stealing the kids’coloring sheets again. The Blue Ogre glanced at the Cock-A-Doodle-Clock and, such was the blight in her soul, didn’t crack a smile. “Quentin! Have you forgotten?”

“No, Mrs Mason. I’m going.”

Hannah pulled up one corner of Q’s drawing, peered at the blood-red sun and muddy plains and sighed. “Q never could stay between the lines,” she said.

*

He was late.

She stood outside in the cloud-choked light. All that she could see were bricks and buildings. There was no horizon. There was just more city. The Kindy Koalas were part of Saint Cedric’s – elementary to senior high in the bowels of Sydney.

Vengeance Betti said it was almost one forty-five. Mrs Mason, who had no appreciation for manga, was always telling Q that a cartoon watch with blades and bosoms was an inappropriate accessory for a teacher’s assistant. Q had managed to convince the principal that her watch had aesthetic integrity and would provide the kids with valuable cross-cultural influences, but she was pretty sure Vengeance Betti would meet Billie the Brontosaurus Bin some day soon.

One fifty-three. They were going to run into naptime.

She heard an ancient engine approach up the long driveway. A white VW labored toward her. It came to a halt and she scanned its bumper stickers. Mountain pygmy possums. Greenhouse gas. Whales.

Great. He was late and he was a hippy.

The special guest parked in front of reception and disembarked, long limbs unfolding from the small car. He pulled a battered guitar case from the back seat, stretched, and turned toward the school.

Q saw the most beautiful face she had ever seen. Thick lashes. A sad half-smile, like he was the only one who saw the joke and the punchline was the end of the world. Black bed hair.

He was forgiven.

The man stood there, an exotic prince in a dull country. She accepted a warm handshake but couldn’t bear those dog-brown eyes. She switched her gaze to the gray sky instead, which made no demands.

“I’m Rabbit,” he said.

Q blinked twice, fast, and recovered. “Like the disease?” She flashed him a winning smile.

“No, like the animal.”

“Oh.”

“My mother calls me Narayan, if you prefer.”

Quentin snorted. “I sure don’t want to be your mother!” She stared at the sky again, this time hoping for alien abduction.

“And you are?” Rabbit said.

No little green men today. She’d have grin it out. “I’m Q—winton.”

“Winston? Like the fat man?”

Q snorted again. “No! Quentin. I’m Quentin. People call me Q. And other things too, when they think I can’t hear.”

“Cool. Q?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have my hand back?”

*

Q was back inside with the evil monkeys. Sarah made kissy-kissy noises at her and Rabbit. Jimmy threw a paper airplane at her head, which she caught and crushed. Couldn’t they show some respect? This one time, couldn’t they make her look good?

“All right, you lot. This is Rabbit—Narayan.” There were a few giggles. Q scowled and then prompted them with raised eyebrows.

“Good afternoon, Rabid Narayan,” the children said.

“I’m so sorry,” Q said, face flushing.

Rabbit smiled that smile, just for her. “Kids are great, aren’t they?” he said. And the world was a good and happy place.

He turned his smile on the whole class. They settled in an instant. “I thought I’d start with a song,” he said. “Do you all love singing as much as I do?”

“Yeah!” said the girls.

“Mph,” said the boys.

“You probably know this one,” Rabbit said, “but I’ve updated the words and made them more contemporary. I’ll sing a line and you can join in with the ee-i-ee-i-oh. Do you want to practice?”

“Yeah!”

The kids threw themselves into the song. Q didn’t hear them. She was busy drinking in Rabbit’s ripped jeans and full lips. This man was a preschool rock god.

“I think you’ve got it,” Rabbit said. “Let’s kick it.”

Mrs Mason leaned over and whispered to Q, who jumped. She had forgotten that her boss was in the room. She had forgotten about everything, except him.

“This is going well,” Mrs Mason said. “I might step out for a cool glass of water.”

For a cigarette, more likely. Q settled back to enjoy Rabbit’s voice. It was deep and rich, a chocolate fondue voice. Q could listen to that all day. She wondered what he was doing here, in her class, in this school. What could a man like this have say to a bunch of undeserving kidlets that was important enough for him to give up an afternoon of love-making and basket-weaving, or whatever it was beautiful hippies did on a gray day? He was a mystery.

Hang on. What were “sow stalls”, and why were they in verse three with the pigs?

Q registered that the class’s high-pitched echo had dribbled away. She considered her charges. Josh’s eyes were red. Charmaine had both hands over her ears. Tanya was rocking backward and forward, arrhythmic. Why had the little monsters stopped singing?

She dragged her lust-stricken attention away from the voice and focused on the actual words.

“At birth their babies are all killed,

Ee-i-ee-i-oh.

Their horns are docked, with drugs they’re filled,

Ee-i-ee-i-oh.”

Oh.

Q solved the riddle of Rabbit in a hot rush of blood to the stomach and did what she had to do to save them all. She threw a chair at the fire alarm.

*

“And you say it went off by itself?”

Principal Macklin was inspecting the troops. Q had received a nod of approval for her unusually quiet and well-ordered class, but then the principal discovered the smashed cover on the fire alarm in her classroom. Suspicion was an ugly master.

“We were singing ‘New MacDonald’, sir. I made them all line up and march straight out to the assembly point, but there was some pushing. They may have knocked over a chair.”

The principal’s face remained set. Q could tell he wasn’t buying it. He knew someone was to blame and he intended to find out who it was. There was nothing else for it. She leaned in toward him. “One of the staff may have broken the smoking ban, sir,” she said. He marched back up the line. His nostrils twitched as he passed Mrs Mason.

A small hand reached up and found hers.

“Q?” said Hannah.

Hannah’s troubled face reminded her that, for all her wisdom, the girl was only six years old. “Yeah?” said Q.

“I keep thinking about those poor piggies.”

“I know.” Mr Macklin continued his examination. Q watched the empty place where she had last seen the white VW, but it was pointless. The miracle was gone.

“Q?”

“Yeah, Hannah?”

“I don’t want to dream about the piggies. I don’t want to sleep any more.”

“Me neither.”

Chapter Two

Q wheeled her bike into the garage and leaned against the cold bricks. She didn’t even have his number.

“That you, Quinny? How was work?”

She launched a side-kick at the punching bag hanging from the rafters. The garage shook.

A kelpie ran in to greet her, whined, ran outside, pounced on a stuffed toy and returned. Q sat down to wrestle with the dog and replayed the afternoon’s circus in her head. When would have been the right time to ask Rabbit for his number? While Sophie was screaming? After Apple wet herself? Kids. They always got in the way of the important bits of teaching, like picking up cute boys who didn’t know enough about her to be scared off.

“No training tonight, Quinny?” Her father stood in the driveway, wearing a stained tracksuit and smelling like peppermint. She must have busted him smoking on the veranda again. She was a one-woman intervention today. It was sad that he thought he could hide it with a pre-teen trick like mouthwash. Still, at least the smoking got him out of the house.

“It’s Friday, Dad. No training on Fridays.” Q swept the dog from her lap, stood to kiss her father’s cheek, then spluttered at the cigarette smoke filming his skin. Her father grinned. He understood this non-verbal routine of reprisal. It was a game they often played.

She picked up her bag and climbed the veranda steps.

“Friday already?” He trailed after her. “Don’t you train Fridays too?”

“Sometimes.”

“The boys’ll be disappointed if you don’t show.”

“Nah. They hate that I’m better than them. Big Tony only likes it when he’s on top.” And there she went again. Mouth disconnected from brain. If it were a disease, there’d be a cure.

Her father walked into the kitchen and poured himself a scotch. “You want a drink, sweetie?”

“Coke. Thanks.”

He paused, fridge open, stroking the old photo stuck to the white surface. “We used to go out to dinner every Friday. You remember? Your mum loved Chinese food. Just like you.”

It wasn’t a connection. Everyone loved Chinese food, even the Dalai Lama – and don’t think he hadn’t tried not to.

Q hated that photo of Linda. It was over a decade old and the edges had turned yellow and rough, as if nibbled away by creatures with little appetite. But the colors were still hyper-real and made Linda look like a Bollywood princess. Maybe her dad had had it touched up. Q didn’t recall her looking so rosy and bucolic. What she remembered was not wanting to kiss the cool dry skin, a premonition of the dead flesh that followed.

Q flipped open her phone and headed into the lounge. She didn’t hear the fridge door shut, which meant he must still be there, running a brown thumb over the picture.

“Hannah?” she said, lying back on the couch.

In lieu of answering, the girl yelled at her brother, Michael, who always wanted to do whatever Hannah did and was no doubt trying to grab the phone from her so he could talk, too. Q was looking forward to the day Hannah discovered boys, in case Michael did, too.

“You should use your landline,” Hannah said. “Mobile phones give you tumors.”

Q grunted. “I can’t believe I let him get away without even getting his number!”

“Who?”

“The most beautiful man on the planet,” Q said. “Rabbit.” She listened to Hannah yell at Michael again, then explained further: “That man who sang about the piggies.”

“Him! He was weird. He might like you.”

Q snorted. “I doubt it. Anyway, it’s too late for true love. If you meet your partner after high school, you’ll never know their history, and then how can you ever be sure they’re not a spy who’s only sleeping with you to maintain their cover?”

“Maybe you already have the tumors – Michael, you’ll get such a smack – if you like him, you should go find him.”

“I don’t know how,” Q said. “And there’s no point anyway.” He was a real boy, not one of her fight club offcasts. He’d want a real girl.

“Mum says I have to go finish my homework.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. See you Monday. Bye.”

Q rolled off the couch. She walked past the kitchen and saw her dad still standing in the same position. He’d have to move soon. His glass was empty. She walked down the hall to the study and booted up her computer.

“Don’t you kids have someplace to go on a Friday night?” her father said.

“Friday night is so over, Dad,” Q said. “It’s all about ten past two on a Tuesday these days.” She logged on and stepped out.

*

Qaranteen crept through the undergrowth. She moved with stealth and strength, like a jungle cat or waiter doing the five-plate carry. They couldn’t hear you, but if you made a wrong move, they always found you. It was like they had a sixth sense. Well, the only sense they had was sight, so it was more of a second sense, but an unnatural second sense. Demonic things.

She stopped dead. She had one in her crosshairs. She lined him up, took a deep breath and squeezed as she exhaled.

“Boom! Headshot.”

On screen, the Apocalypse Z zombie toppled. Q grinned and picked up her can of soft drink without taking her eyes from the screen. She tried to tip it down her throat, missed her mouth, poured it onto her chest instead and glanced at the wet, sticky stain spreading through her shirt.

On screen, a hole erupted in Qaranteen’s chest. Blood fountained out. Her avatar collapsed.

“What?” Q thumped the desk as her character pitched forward onto the ground. A text message scrolled across the bottom of the screen. “You’ve been Qaranteened!”

“Not witty, Slendrous D,” Q said. “It’s not even accurate. You didn’t lock me away, you killed me. Get a new line.”

She checked with her crew on their real-life status. Slendrous D gave the all-clear for Christchurch, New Zealand. Yuli Zuli reported a fine Moscow day full of gibberous fall colors, although that last bit may have been a translation error. Jeremiah BownZ said that his shift was quiet, that he’d refined his survival technique for distilling urine and that the Grab ’n’ Dashin Lincoln, Nebraska was experiencing a Class One zombie outbreak. Q had long since learned to ignore JBZ’s updates, suspecting his frequent reports of a demonic client base had more to do with his sales technique and tendency to practice the less palatable aspects of survivalism during working hours. Mumbai, Munich and Boulder hadn’t checked in. Damn amateurs. Sheffield’s wife had clearly made good on the threat to disconnect his account because he’d been absent for two weeks now. How was anyone meant to sustain a global anti-zombie survivalist movement in conditions like these?

She clicked out of Apocalypse Z and scrolled through some of her other sites to see what had been happening for the last – wow, for the last six hours. Midnight already. Time flies when you’re killing things.

India was having elections. Vanuatu had had another earthquake, poor bastards. The French farmers were on strike again. She followed a link to a New York paper and scanned an article.

“Weird,” she said, then reached for her little black book. She flicked to a new page, scribbled the date, the location and a few words, then surfed on.

Chapter Three

Q tingled. She could not wait to get to class. She hadn’t felt like this about a Monday morning since – well, since ever. But today was special. Today was the day she’d had the epiphany that would change her life.

The Blue Ogre had his telephone number.

She’d worry later about whether he liked her or not. Her first mission was to get that number. Q pedaled as hard as she could. Such was her rush, she almost broke into a sweat around the fifteenth kilometer.

*

“Your hair’s nice today, Mrs Mason,” Q said. “It’s hardly blue at all. And your scalp looks great under there, really healthy. That medicated shampoo’s working well.”

Mrs Mason glowered as if she found this very hard to believe, which was fair enough. She spun around and scratched a word on the blackboard: “Sap!”

Q took a step back, as if the woman had struck her. So, that was how they’d play today, was it? “And what else do trees have?” Mrs Mason asked the class. “Very good, Karen. Leaves!”

Q took the hint and slouched off to the back of the room. She squatted next to Hannah’s desk. This morning, she had tried everything on Mrs Mason. Flattery. Bribery. Asking outright for Rabbit’s number. She had failed.

“I don’t know what to do,” Q said to her friend. “I have to get Rabbit's  number. I made an oath that I would never again give up on my fate.”

“Rot!” Hannah said.

“How can you say that?” Q said.

Mrs Mason smiled and added “rot” to her list of things that could happen to trees.

Q shifted and continued. “I dunno if it’s our history of conflict or her innate resentment of the younger generation that will one day replace her, but Mrs Mason refuses to help me.”

“It might be because you ratted her out to the principal,” Hannah said.

“Maybe.”

Mrs Mason spun around. That wrinkly body sure could pivot quickly when in a rage. “Quentin! I hope you’re not distracting the class again.”

“No, Mrs Mason.”

“Didn’t I ask you to hand out the pipe cleaners?”

“Yes, Mrs Mason.”

Q shambled around the room, handing out craft supplies and trying to think her way around the problem. It was hopeless. How could she force Mrs Mason to give her Rabbit’s number? A simple death-by-three-hundred-paper-cuts combo might work, but it wouldn’t comply with Occupational Health and Safety policy. She pictured the Kindy Koalas’ reaction to the teacher’s assistant torturing information out of the Blue Ogre, and smiled. Violence was so much easier than this thinking business. And she was so good at it! Q sighed. A gift you couldn’t use was a curse.

That was good. She should write that down.

“Hannah,” she said. “Can I borrow a pencil and a bit of paper?”

Hannah frowned but handed the items over. “Don’t get me in trouble again,” she said.

Mrs Mason swiveled.

“Who is it who keeps talking back there? Quentin!”

Q smiled her goofy smile, guaranteed to put any assailant at their ease before she delivered the kill blow. She summoned up all eighteen years of training, formed a fist of kung fu power in her belly, focused her chi and mentally hurled it straight at the enemy. Mrs Mason returned Q’s eye contact, impassive.

Then she exploded into a fit of coughs. She doubled over and put her hand to her mouth.

Q grinned. She was good! “You should go and have a nice cool glass of water, Mrs Mason,” she said. Red-faced, the older woman stumbled out.

Q shook her head. “The wrath of Mrs Mason is truly wrathy,” she said.

“I dunno about that. I think she’s pissed at you, Quentin.” Hannah said.

“Hannah Banana!” Q said. “Since when did you use language like that?”

Hannah dropped her head. “Sorry. I mean, I think she’s pissed at you, Q.”

“That’s better.” Quentin contemplated. “You know, I might have to try something drastic.”

*

Q placed her right heel down eight inches in front of her left toe and rolled the rest of her foot onto the carpet, then took another step. The floor creaked. She froze.

She had to remember her training. She held her breath in her throat and listened, trying to discover if she had been detected. She heard no one. Hopefully, that meant no one heard her. She continued until she was standing right in front of it. Her destination. No, her destiny. Mrs Mason’s staffroom pigeonhole.

She hunted for the trap that she knew would be there. What was it this time? A strategically taped hair that, once displaced, would alert the old girl that someone had been rifling through her papers? A bomb?

She found it after a brief search: one piece of pink paper lay on top of another with the faintest of pencil marks drawn across both sheets. If anyone disturbed the pile, the line would be broken. Q relaxed and checked once again that she was alone. She should be, at four fifty-five on a Monday afternoon, but she couldn’t afford to get busted. She searched through the rest of the papers. She would know it when she found it.

“Victory!” Q said. She held the key to the lock of the door to the rest of her life. It didn’t look like a key. It looked like a purple Post-it note with clunky handwriting scrawled on it, but looks could be deceiving.

There it was, deliciously, unbelievably, miraculously there. A ten-digit number – the direct line to a preschool rock god.

Q committed the number to memory. On her way out, she stopped by the school counselor’s pigeonhole and retrieved a child’s drawing that had another purple Post-it note attached, and left.

*

She stood at the front of the hall, back straight, jaw set. The crowd was not promising. They were soft. They were undisciplined. Most of them wore pink. It was time to take this rabble and turn it into an army.

“All right, Lethal Littlies!” Q said. “Line up!”

Twenty girls stopped talking and arranged themselves into rows.

“Now partner up!” Q said. “We’re gonna practice taking each other from behind.” Keep going. If they understood that, it was their parents’ fault. “Hannah, come up front to demonstrate.”

She watched her friend stride to the front of the class, full of confidence. Q had been training Hannah for two years and was thrilled to see her spar at a third-grade level. The girl had true leadership potential, if only she’d step up and start taking the initiative, or at least watch more films in which other kids did.

As they bowed to each other, Q wondered why she enjoyed teaching kung fu in the evenings to the same demographic that made her want to eat her own liver during the day. Was it the informal structure? The ability to interact with the kids on an equal footing without the artificial hierarchy of school? The opportunity to thump the stuffing out of things?

A few parents dribbled in and stood at the rear of the hall. Q smiled at Ellen Flinders, whose daughter, Peach, had distinguished herself by mastering the Three-Prong-Fiend-Fend in two weeks. Ellen fiddled with her hair.

Q stood behind Hannah. “I’m going to grab Hannah’s shoulders, like this. Now she’ll get away like we practiced last week. Ready? Ow, you—! That was excellent. Everyone have a go.”

She wandered between gym mats, making an adjustment here, issuing a cautious word there. They picked it up so fast!

At seven o’clock, Q called the class to the front of the hall for their final bow and repetition of the self-defense mantra: “Talk! Run! Think! Fight!”

She dismissed them and began packing up, wanting to be home as fast as possible. She was so distracted, she almost missed the conversation between two of the fathers about the burger chain that had been closed down in Los Angeles after several unexplained deaths.

“Weird,” Q said, reaching into her back pocket. She had started the little black book soon after Linda’s death and had been logging odd world events ever since. Linda’s death was a shock. She wouldn’t be caught out again.

“Miss Lamprey?”

Ellen Flinders marched over to her. Q assumed her best combat parent stance, which was similar to the one she used on dogs with dominance issues.

“Miss Lamprey, I’m afraid Peach can’t continue.”

“That’s a shame. She’s good,” said Q. “Has she found something else?”

The woman’s eyes flickered. Ah. Peach hadn’t found something else. Her mother had. “Her friend at school is learning judo,” Ellen said. “It’s not as aggressive and they get these lovely uniforms.”

A paparazzi parent – she was in it for the pictures. “The gi is cute, Ellen, but it’s only good to train in if you make sure you always get attacked while wearing one. I’m going to ask you a question that will affect your relationship with Peach for the next twenty years. Do you want her to look good or be effective?”

“She’ll be happier elsewhere,” Ellen said.

Peach was showing her new friend Charlotte how to do a knee/elbow/head kick combo. Both girls were giggling.

“Whatever you say,” Q said. She had to go. There was something she needed to do.

Chapter Four

“Hi honey,” her father, Bruce, said as she walked into the lounge. He was sitting in his recliner, big toe protruding through his worn sheepskin slipper, his eyes gummy. He must have woken up as she unlocked the door.  “Class okay?”

The television was on too loud. Q reached for the remote and turned it down, then sank to the floor and cuddled the dog. Comfort was a warm kelpie.

“Class was fine,” Q said, hollow, thinking of the failed phone call she’d made after training. She should have known it would never work. She wanted it too much.

“You’re pale,” her dad said. He picked up the remote and flicked through stations. “You’re not coming down with something?”

“I’m fine,” Q lied. “One of the fathers gave me grief about Seema before training. Apparently she broke her uncle’s finger on the weekend when he was showing her a magic trick.”

“That’s no good.”

Q snorted. “My girls only use their powers for good,” Q said. “I told Seema’s dad he should ask to see the magic trick.”

Bruce grimaced. He had never been able to accept life’s unpleasant aspects. She wandered out to the kitchen and stood in front of the open fridge, morose. Jingle jelly single-os. Chilled marshmallow spread. Chocolate milk. She didn’t want any of them. She had called the number and it was not his number. Even sugar couldn’t save her now.

“I made you dinner,” her father called from the lounge. The television began screaming again. He must have found a show he liked. It sounded like the one about the six out-of-work models who have to learn carpentry and then build their own catwalk.

Q found the slice of pizza he’d left on a greasy cardboard square torn from the lid of the box. Three circles of limp pepperoni looked at her like the eyes of some sad animal left behind by evolution. “There must be more,” she said.

“There’s more in the fridge,” Bruce called out.

Q sighed. She couldn’t even do melodrama right.

*

School the next morning was as bad as she had feared. Not only did Q know she had lost her one true chance at happiness with the lust of her life, but she knew that Mrs Mason knew, too. The woman kept saying cruel things designed to make Q realize that she would be alone forever, like “Clean the board,” and “Have you finished marking the animal pictures yet?” and “Who’s on playground duty today?” Jab after jab after jab. Q didn’t know how much more she could take.

“What’s eating you?” Hannah said during fruit math.

“A German software programmer.” Q giggled, then sighed. She drew three oranges next to her kiwifruit. “It’s no good, Hannah Banana. I can’t even cheer myself up with my fabulous wit.”

“Must be serious,” said Hannah. “Did you call Rabid Narayan?”

“I did. It was the wrong number.” Q pulled out her mobile phone and selected the name she had so recently entered next to a love heart icon. She held the phone between them so that Hannah could share her grief.

The line connected and they heard a recording of Mrs Mason’s meat-grinder voice. “Hi. If you’re calling this number, you must be a dirty rotten thief. I trust you’ve found something interesting. I will catch you.”

“Found something interesting?”

Q jumped and swore beneath her breath. How did that woman keep creeping up on her?

“Sorry, Mrs Mason,” Q said. “I was showing Hannah my new ring tone.”

“Which is why mobile phones are banned in my classroom, Quentin, as you know.” The woman held out her hand in ridiculous demand.

“But that’s my phone!” Q said.

The hand remained.

“I’m not even a student! I’m a teacher! Almost.”

The hand remained.

Q succumbed and sulked.

“And the principal would like to speak to you, Quentin.”

*

Q sat on the kiddie chair outside Mr Macklin’s office with her knees in her armpits and her spirits around her feet. What had Mrs Mason dobbed her in for this time? Was she finally getting the sack? Could you get the sack when you weren’t being paid and if so, how did you explain it on your CV?

The principal opened his door and waved her in. Q sat in the chair in front of his desk, feeling even more awkward than she had on the kiddie stool outside. Perhaps her best bet was a preemptive confession, but which one to start with?

“Quentin. You’ve been doing your placement with us for a month now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It seems like longer.”

“For me too, sir.”

Mr Macklin flicked through the pile of papers on his desk. Q tried to read them upside down to discover which of her crimes he had documented. She hoped it was the squid ink gag. She could explain the squid ink gag.

“Natolia has some concerns about the Kindy Koalas,” he said.

Q’s belly filled with bile. Natolia was the school counselor. This could get worse before it got better. No. This would get worse, and then get worse again.

“Very bright woman, Natolia,” Mr Macklin said. “She’s got two degrees, you know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Everything she knows is in her head.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mr Macklin extracted a few pictures. Q recognized them and cursed herself for sloppy espionage. Mrs Mason kept putting these drawings in the counselor’s pigeonhole. Q thought she had intercepted them all, but she must have missed a few.

“This one in particular grieves me,” Mr Macklin said.

Q considered the picture. “The sun’s pretty. And the feathers are very detailed.”

“Yes,” said the principal. “But the chickens have blood spurting from the holes where their beaks used to be.”

Q glanced through his collection of farm animal drawings. There were pigs behind bars. Calves being shot in front of their mothers. Chickens on twenty-four-hour work detail. It was a bloody, furry, feathered holocaust. Rabbit’s song, “New MacDonald,” had certainly made an impact. She probably shouldn’t have done that research to help answer the kids’ questions. And perhaps the follow-up class she led yesterday when Mrs Mason stepped out had been a mistake. Had the time for an early confession and light sentence passed? Maybe she should skip straight to the inevitable career change of flipping burgers and, thanks to Rabbit, feeling sorry for them as she did.

“To be frank,” Mr Macklin said, “I’ve become concerned about Mrs Mason’s judgment.”

“Sir?”

“There’s these,” he said, dismissing the pictures with one hand. “And strictly in confidence, I think the woman has paranoid delusions. She keeps telling me people are stealing things from her pigeonhole.”

“Sir.”

“That’s why I’d like you to take the lead on the pandemic plan. It’s due to the department on the thirtieth and I can’t rely on your supervisor.”

Q’s brain jumped a rail. “A pandemic plan, sir? In September? Wouldn’t we usually do those before winter?”

“Excellent question, Quentin.” He shuffled the pictures of farmhouse mayhem. “I understand you teach self-defense to girls in the evenings?”

“Yes, sir,” Q said. Why hadn’t he answered her?

“You don’t teach boys?”

“No, sir. They’re not emotionally mature enough to handle their powers.”

Mr Macklin raised an eyebrow. “When does that happen?”

“Around twenty-five.”

“I see. I would have thought someone with your—talents—would have joined the army.”

“Yes, sir.” Now may not be the time to mention that she’d failed the psych test. Twice.

Mr Macklin was still talking. “Your unique background will come in handy on this project. Here’s the information.” He handed her a thick manila folder and regarded her carefully. “You’re a very odd kindergarten teacher, Quentin.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You better get back to class.”

*

The pitch of the dog’s cry grew higher with each thrash of the tail. When Q thought the kelpie would burst, she opened the front door and fended off the delirious creature.

Her father was in the recliner, asleep. He had not heard her come in, even with the whines and yips. The man had the instincts of a brick. She watched him snore, then went to the kitchen to make dinner.

“It was a good training session tonight,” she said, scratching the dog’s warm head. “But it’s always the same. Nothing is ever going to happen to me. I’ll never find love. I’ll never find my true purpose.”

She threw the pandemic plan papers onto the bench. She’d read them later. Standing in front of the fridge, crunching corn chips, she tried to work out what she felt like eating. It needed to be substantial, but healthy. Lasagna! That’d do it. Fiddly but worthwhile.

Q took out the frozen meal and scrutinized the instructions on the lid, then set the oven timer. If you let it go too long the top burned. It was her most difficult dish.

Her father walked into the kitchen. “What’s that?” he said, picking up the folder from the bench and flicking through it. “Looks important.”

Q grimaced at the cigarette burn on his shirt. “You said you’d quit,” she said.

“I will never quit taking an interest in my little girl’s life,” he said, giving her a bear hug. She coughed and pulled away.

“Dad! I’m not your little girl. I’m twenty-two and way taller than you.” She was also one hundred and thirty pounds lighter. Maybe she was his little girl. Linda had kept them all on a strict diet and training regime, but her father went to pieces when she died. He’d stacked on more weight and bad habits with each passing year. Surely it was time to start reassembling?

He sat at the kitchen table. “Did they give this to you?” he said, flicking through the manila folder.

“Mr Macklin wants my expert contribution.”

“Your mum would be so proud!”

“Sure. Linda’d be real proud of my leadership role in the Kindy Koalas.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call her that. She’s your mother.”

“It was her idea that I call her that.” Linda had always said you could be a good coach or a good mum, but not both, and it hadn’t been a difficult choice for her to make. It was funny how Q’s dad remembered certain bits and ignored the rest.

He handed her a yellow parcel. “This arrived for you today.”

“Thanks.” Q took it and turned it over in her hands. There were no labels indicating where it had come from and no return address. Who would be sending her things? All her friends were online and the only address they had for her was www.ninjaofnineb.com.

She went to her room and tore off the packaging while dinner was cooking. Inside was the book she’d ordered so long ago, she’d forgotten about it – the companion to her favorite online game: Apocalypse Z: How to Stay Alive When the Dead Rise. She was so excited about the book, she almost forgot to start her pandemic plan after eating, and then what would the Kindy Koalas do in the event of a zombie outbreak?

Chapter Five

“Chapter five challenged you to evacuate the house with all your essentials in under a minute. My first go was ninety-three seconds but I bet I can get it lower. And wait till I finish the chapter on psychological preparation! I’ll be ultra-sane and ready for anything.”

Q was telling Hannah all about Apocalypse Z during cooking class. They were making scones. Q was making an army of scone-dough monsters.

“Don’t you ever just watch TV?” Hannah said. She finished her last, perfect sphere of dough. Mrs Mason walked over, took the girl’s oven tray, glared at Q and moved on.

“I skipped through chapter four,” Q continued. “It’s not like I needed to read that one. I invented my first martial art when I was twelve. I still have a shed full of sharpened shovels.”

“You don’t believe in all that monster stuff, do you?” Hannah asked.

“Of course not,” Q said. “Because that would be pretty weird, and I’m sure not weird.” She finished the last tentacle and considered her mob of ghouls.

“What happened to Rabbit and never giving up on your fate?” Hannah said.

Q hadn’t forgotten. She had come to her senses, that was all. “He wouldn’t want someone like me,” Q said.

“I dunno,” said Hannah. “You’re pretty weird, and he’s pretty weird. You’re a perfect match.”

Q sighed. “Destinies are like noses, Hannah,” Q said. “People only get one. Besides, I betrayed mine a long time ago.”

“You might have ADHD like Michael,” Hannah said. “Mum doesn’t let him have sugar any more.”

Q grunted. She would have come back with a witty retort but couldn’t talk with the jam spoon wedged in her mouth.

Mrs Mason returned and jabbed a finger at the miniature vampire on Q’s tray. “Do you think that’s suitable for a kindergarten class?” she asked.

Q swallowed her mouthful of jam. “I considered that, Mrs Mason. That’s why I’ve given the vampire a row of lower teeth as well as fangs. If he bites anyone, he’ll leave a happy face in their jugular.”

The teacher grunted. “Mr Macklin said he’d asked you to help on the pandemic plan. I had hoped it meant you were finally taking this placement seriously.”

“Yes, Mrs Mason.” As the woman turned to go, Q picked up one of her dough creatures and waved it at her back. “Grr! Argh!”

The bell rang. The class packed up their things to go and Q began wiping down the tables in the wet area, knocking her bag from the back of a chair. The Apocalypse Z book slipped out and fell to the floor. Q retrieved it before Mrs Mason could confiscate it. She read the motto printed beneath the title.

Never give up.

It was what she always told the Lethal Littlies. What would they say if they saw her standing alone in the middle of a deserted kitchen classroom, passively watching her second chance at fate walk away? Probably they’d say something like, “You’ve got jam on your face,” but that wasn’t the point. If there was one thing Q hated, it was a quitter. And if there was a second thing she hated, it was a hypocrite.

She picked up her bag. “You’re right, Apocalypse Z,” Q said. “There’s something I need to do.”

*

“Whatcha you doing in there, Quinny? You’ve been locked up all night.”

Her father stood in the doorway of the study, a glass of scotch in one hand, the other pressed against the doorframe to steady himself.

“Studying,” Q said, scrolling through sites. He was too depressing to look at after nine pm. Apocalypse Z lay on the desk in front of her, open to “Chapter Six – Transport.” She had eleven web pages open and was scribbling notes in her little black book and on the pandemic plan. Her father squinted at the multitasking display.

“You’ll wreck your brain,” he said. “You should focus on one thing at a time.”

“Can’t. I have this extra work on—” she flicked a hand toward the manila folder—“and training every night, and other stuff.”

“Sounds complicated,” Bruce said. “Being a kindergarten teacher is more stressful than I expected.”

“Agreed.” She smiled. “Go on. Get it over with. ‘Back in your day…’”

“… we did one thing at a time and we did it properly. We had patience. We had stickability.”

“Stickability?” Q guffawed. “You retired at fifty-four! You had six thousand years to complete every mundane task, and check it out. World still not fixed, so your mob can’t have done their job right.”

He peered at chapter six of Apocalypse Z. “Avoid becoming meals on wheels – leave the car at home. What does that mean?”

Q shifted her pages over the chapter to stop him reading something that would upset him. “The book is wise, Dad. Don’t mock the book.”

“Okay.” Bruce leaned against the door again to conceal his sway, and yawned. “I’m worried about you, Quinny. You spend so much time in here. You’re young. You should be out meeting people.”

“What happened to your show?” Q said. “Wasn’t tonight meant to be the episode where Eternity and Indira face it off with nailguns?”

“It cut out halfway through,” he said. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

“The transmission broke?”

“Yup. Goodnight, little girl.”

Q allowed her father to kiss her cheek as she scribbled in her little black book. He went to bed.

She finished her entry, and then flicked to the chapter at the back of Apocalypse Z about the signs of a coming crisis. There was nothing about a transmission break in a reality TV show. Besides, the real alarm was not any one event, but a cluster. The show was probably cut because one of the models swore or had a wardrobe malfunction. She’d check in with her crew later. They’d have her back.

She was wasting time. Now her father was gone, she had her privacy. It was time for the real work. She popped open a new search window.

Did she want to do this? It was cyber stalking, one of the few taboos she’d never broken. Was she ready to give that up?

And what would she find? Did Q want to know more about the strange new world of veganism and vinyl? Mightn’t it be better to preserve her perfect image of Rabbit from that one beautiful classroom encounter? She might see his innermost thoughts on a Facebook wall and find out he was boring.

She was making excuses. She always made excuses. It was why she was stuck teaching kindergarten instead of doing a job that made her blood run hot. She read the tagline on Apocalypse Z’s cover again. Never give up.

“But I don’t even know where to start!”

She picked up the book and ran her hands over it. Could it help her achieve something that wasn’t Z-related?

What a stupid idea. Q threw the book on the floor. It landed, spine down, pages up, revealing Chapter Two – Start with what you know.

“Huh.” Q picked the book up again and closed it. She began typing.

Her first search term of “Rabbit” brought up a predictable mass of cute bunny images, instructions about how to deal with fluffy pets and some porn Q wished she hadn’t seen.

She tried linking “Rabbit” with “Sydney,” because he had to live somewhere in the city. All she learned was that the porn was locally made.

Then she tried two unfamiliar things. She paused and she thought. What had he said his first name was?

Q tried typing in “Nurrayan.” She found a punk band and an online store she didn’t need. And more porn. Maybe she’d spelled it wrong?

This was getting her nowhere. It was midnight and she still had a pandemic plan to write and no idea about where Rabbit was or how to find him. She clicked on one of her pandemic plan research tabs. The slogan for the survival website leaped out at her. Zombies – not just another eating disorder.

“Of course! Eating disorders!”

Invigorated, Q typed in “Sydney vegan” and came up with a dozen support groups, no doubt to help them overcome their strange meatless perversion. There were also restaurants, products, stores… this could take all night.

Maybe she should join a few of those groups. She might stumble across Rabbit in a members’ chat room. If she did, she’d have to talk to hippies. Was he worth that?

Absolutely.

Q clicked on an archived article titled SYDNEY VEGAN SAVES THE WORLD. She gasped when she saw the photo at the end, in which a beautiful man held his guitar like a lover. Lucky guitar. The photo had been taken a couple of years ago, but there was no mistaking its subject: Rabbit.

She read the article. The piece was from a series called “Everyday Heroes” and it told the story of Rabbit, a lawyer who took on cases for free. He defended animal rights activists and always got his clients acquitted, despite the overwhelming evidence they left at the scene. Hippies suck at crime.

She read on. His greatest dream was to be a folk singer who changed the world through the power of music. She clicked on a music sample. Dreadful, but she bet if he played live, half the audience would love it – the half with girl bits.

This man was a superhero in hemp. Probably not one that Marvel would back, but pretty heroic nevertheless. He wore his inner freak on the outside and everyone liked him anyway. It was almost as though he didn’t have to pretend at all.

She looked at the photo for a long time and her face grew hot, as if he were standing in the same room. She shook herself. She had work to do. Nothing could stop her now. She had a name.

Narayan “Rabbit” Shetty.

Preschool rock god.

Generally amazing guy.

Chapter Six

Q yawned her way through Crafty Creatures. When Hannah noticed her friend was too distracted to make any kind of mutant out of pipe cleaners, she put down her perfect pink kitten and asked what was wrong.

“I was up half the night in hippy chat rooms,” Q said. “And it doesn’t matter how long I hang out, no one will tell me anything about him. Not his marital status, not his address, not even his blood type. Damn secretive hippies.” She yawned. “I don’t think stalkers get enough credit for their work ethic.”

“Maybe his friends don’t give out that kind of information online,” Hannah said. “My mum says you have to be careful who you meet on the internet.”

“Didn’t your parents meet on the internet?”

“Uh-huh.” Hannah began making a blue bunny friend for her creation. She was a caring Frankenstein. “Did you try calling where he worked?”

“Seventeen times,” Q said. “I couldn’t get past the receptionist. She kept saying I had to have an appointment, and when I asked for one, she said he was fully booked. I said I got busted freeing goldfish at a pet shop and I needed help, and fast, because they were gasping. She told me he was busy and the firm has good security.” Q yawned again. “I reckon that woman has a crush on him. And then I was up till three on this stupid pandemic plan. I didn’t even get a chance to game.” Q rubbed her eyes. “But I finished it!” She pushed the wad of pages across the table. Hannah leafed through the text and web images. Her rosy cheeks blanched. She handed the papers back.

“Wasn’t it meant to be about the flu?” Hannah said. “Why are there all these people shooting other people in the head?”

“It’s a pandemic plan!” Q hefted the document, as if weight indicated merit. “To be used in case of outbreak. Mostly zombies I guess, but it’s probably okay for an alien supervirus too. I even cached the Appendix B supplies around school.” She regarded her wad of ex-craft supplies with less satisfaction.

Hannah put her kittens aside. “What did you make?” she said.

“Roadkill,” Q said.

“It’s not very good.” The girl began making a fish collage out of bits of newspaper. “My mum always helps with my homework. Maybe you should ask her to help you with the pandemic thing.”

Q scoffed. “Hannah Banana! Your mum is great, but I don’t think she can give me tips on strategy. Who was it who got a High Distinction for their second-year paper on Sun Tzu versus Buffy?”

Hannah glued on some gills. “You?” she said.

“No, but I should have. I am so misunderstood.”

“What’s Sun Zoo?”

“I think you learn about him in first grade.”

Hannah held up her picture and scrutinized it. Satisfied, she started on a bottle-top bluebottle. “What’s a High Distinction?”

“Sometimes I forget you’re only six.” Q stood, stretched and took a turn about the classroom. She unglued Sophie’s hands from Tristram’s head and made Ryan cry by complimenting his sea monster, when she should have known it was an elephant. When she had things in order, she returned to Hannah’s desk to help put the last touches on the girl’s underwater scene.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Mrs Mason’s back tomorrow,” she said to Hannah. “This teaching thing is one big distraction.” Her next yawn was interrupted by a shriek. Marie had broken Charmaine’s best pencil. Charmaine was holding an oversized pair of safety scissors to Marie’s masterpiece and threatening vengeance.

“Go teach,” Hannah said. “We’ll talk later.”

*

Qaranteen scanned the car park, fast but thorough. She was taking a risk; it was a risk she had to take. The enemy might see a flash from her binoculars but she couldn’t hunt if she couldn’t see.

The building was a fortress. Sheer, unscalable walls. A single set of doors with scanners and guards. Windows that started thirty feet off the ground. She wasn’t getting in here without a full set of break-in kit. She’d have to wait for her quarry to come out to her.

Civilians passed without a care in the world. Qaranteen envied them. She had to focus. She had a job to do, and she had to do it right. She directed her attention to the front of the building. Someone was leaving. She couldn’t see a face at this distance with the sun’s glare reflecting off the glass doors, but the figure was tall and slim and had a casual gait. Was it the target?

She pulled up her binoculars and focused on the face. Damn! No good. It wasn’t him. She did another scan of the car park and found something she had missed before. The blood stopped in her veins.

Another set of binoculars pointed at her.

Qaranteen swore.

The other hunter was an attractive young woman in a short black dress and heavy make-up. It was like looking into a circus mirror that threw back a distorted reflection.

“Stalker!” Qaranteen mouthed.

The other woman’s lips framed a word, too. “Freak.”

Why would that woman call her a freak? At least Qaranteen had chosen sensible camouflage pants and omitted the blush and mascara in favor of army green stripes beneath her eyes, which was far more appropriate for this type of work. Plus, if there was a pursuit, hiking boots beat stilettos every time. Qaranteen leaned back to plan her next move.

The car behind her had an alarm, which made her next move a rapid one. She fled.

*

Outside, it smelled like a springtime evening. Inside had the joss stick stench of citrus on speed.

The room was bare except for the twenty odd people in loose-fitting clothes. She counted. There were exactly twenty, and they were certainly odd.

“What is that smell?” Q asked, holding her sleeve across her nose.

“Essence of Inner Peace,” said a short, middle-aged woman with bright red hair and several nose rings. “It’s part of my feng shui.”

Q coughed. “I’m so sorry. My dad had that once, but he put a cream on it and it went away.” She held out her hand. “I’m Q. We spoke on the phone.”

“I’m Rainbow.” Rainbow shook Q’s hand. “Welcome to Friends Unite to Create a Karmic Transition to Restore Earth’s Ecosystems and Sustainability.”

Q processed this. “Do you realize your acronym is—”

“—we already paid the web designer, we're not changing it now,” Rainbow said, as if she fielded this question regularly. “And we’re always happy to meet the newly turned, Q.” Rainbow wafted back to the circle of seated people and made room for Q, who tried to settle on the floor. She scanned the faces around her and sagged. The one she sought wasn’t there. How soon could she leave?

The members of the group closed their eyes, which gave Q an excellent opportunity for an unguarded inspection. There was a higher concentration of bad teeth, vintage clothing and unwashed armpit than she was used to. If this was how Rabbit lived, how did he manage to look the way he did? And why did he smell like seduction, when these others smelled of B.O.?

“We are only here because of you!” Rainbow announced. Q startled. Surely this tribe of hippies met every Wednesday, regardless of whether she was here?

“Gaia, you are our first cry and our last breath!” Rainbow continued. “We are born of you! In death, we rejoin you!”

Q shifted in her half-lotus, which felt more like an off-balance orchid, and wished she could spend the night kicking things like a normal person.

“Teach us to love you!”

Everyone around the circle opened their eyes. Rainbow reached into her woven hemp bag and pulled out a potato. She stood and walked to the small altar in the center of the circle and placed the potato on top of it. “From you, now returned to you.”

There was a chorus around the circle of “Returned to you.” People extracted various fruits and vegetables from bags and pockets and followed Rainbow’s lead, placing them on the altar and reciting a few reverent words. Q tried her best to assume a bland expression. “Sorry, forgot mine,” she said when it was her turn.

“I have spares.” Rainbow handed Q a carrot and two radishes. Q made the inevitable arrangement on the altar. No one laughed. Her evening could not get any worse.

The primal screaming proved her wrong.

*

Loitering by the herbal tea after the session, Q chatted to a long-haired man who was around Rabbit’s age. The man was examining the inscription on her heart-shaped Best Friends Forever necklace.

“Do you come here every Thursday?” Q asked, then panicked. What if this hippy thought she was trying to pick him up? He looked sticky. He might be hard to put down again.

“I despise routine,” the man said. “But I come here whenever I feel the need to cleanse.” He said this without a trace of irony, still holding her necklace. “Is this real gold? They rape the earth to extract gold.”

“I don’t think so,” Q said. “It was nine ninety-five from Bling. At these cleanses, have you ever heard of a Rabbit— Narayan?”

“I have.” The man dropped her necklace. “That’s one of those diseases you get from eating meat, right?”

Chapter Seven

Qaranteen scanned the room. She should never have come. She knew better than to take on close-quarters combat. It was too dangerous, too unpredictable. Now both escape routes were cut off. She’d have to fight her way out. But there were so many of them! And they kept making that mindless noise that burrowed into the dark places of her soul and made her realize there was no hope left.

Focus!

Qaranteen tried to block out her fear. If she panicked, it was over. She lined up a target, took a breath and exhaled.

Hands grabbed her from behind. She shrieked.

“Q!”

“Hannah?”

“Why are you aiming a slingshot at Sophie?”

“She won’t stop talking! None of them will stop talking in those high-pitched voices of theirs! And there are so many of them!”

Hannah patted Q’s hand and took the ruler away from her. She dfisarmed the rubber band, told the class to get on with their drawings and led Q to the window.  Q slumped onto the brown carpet and pulled her knees up to her chin.

“This is what you’ve been preparing for,” Hannah said.

“I’m not ready!”

“Mrs Mason will be back next week,” Hannah said.

“What if she’s not? What if I’m stuck here forever with a bunch of insane five-year-olds? They might turn on me, Hannah. If they joined forces, I’m not sure I could take them all.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Snap out of it! Think of them as monsters from one of your games. You can do this.”

Q stood and straightened her shoulders. “You’re right. There’s twenty-six of them and one of me. They don’t stand a chance.”

“That’s better,” Hannah said.

Q started moving to the front of the class again, but was restrained by Hannah’s hand on her arm. “Give them over,” Hannah said.

Q grunted and emptied her pockets of paper clips, rubber bands and scrunched up balls of paper. “How can I teach the evil monkeys if I’m unarmed?”

“You’ll have to rely on the power of your mind, Q.”

“God help us all.”

*

She was back in the principal’s office. Mr Macklin was reading a roster and muttering. He scratched off one name and underlined another. He had not yet noticed the assistant teacher hovering in his doorway. Q considered calling on her sneaky powers of sneakery and making an escape, but he’d send for her again later if she did. Best get it over with, whatever it was. She cleared her throat.

“Ah. Quentin.”

“It wasn’t my fault, sir.”

Mr Macklin smiled. “Take a seat.” He waited for her to settle in the chair in front of his desk. There was a long pause as he studied the roster.

Q reddened. She knew what he was doing. He was pretending to be distracted to give her time to stew over her crimes, hoping she’d crack. Cunning devil! What had he found out? Was it the raptor mathematics?

“Thank you for stopping by in your lunch break.”

Biology of the undead?

“I wanted to tell you …”

Grammar for a clone world?

“… that you are doing an excellent job.”

“What?” Q studied the backs of his hands, wondering if she had slipped into another Qaranteen flashback and was about to be attacked by a legion of demons.

“I’m a strong believer in letting people find their own feet, Quentin,” Mr Macklin continued. “Now that you’re teaching solo, you’ve bloomed.”

“Like a fungus?” she said. “Fungus blooms.”

“At first I was worried about the Kindy Koalas. Andrew made a complaint about Nine B’s music lesson.” Mr Macklin chuckled. “He said it sounded like some kind of tribal war chant! The imagination that man has.”

“I can explain—”

“But then Natolia pointed out that you’re getting through to the kids and it’s all part of the new teaching methods,” Mr Macklin said.

“Which is what I was going to say.” Q fidgeted. The conversation had twisted beyond her control and the truth reared in her throat, threatening to escape. She choked it back down.

Mr Macklin waited for her to finish coughing. “You’re not getting sick, are you?” he said, with touching concern.

“No, sir,” she said.

“Good. Because if I lose any more staff, we’ll have to close the school. Mrs Mason’s still off. You’ll be taking her class for the next two weeks.”

“Oh, God.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, oh, good!” Q felt dread mixed with pride. Mr Macklin thought she was doing a good job! No one ever thought she was doing a good job, not unless it was assault related. “I brought you the pandemic plan,” she said, and handed over the wad of illustrated pages bound in brown paper. He took it.

“Excellent, Quentin. I’m sure it’s very comprehensive.”

“It is, sir. You’ll be astounded.”

Chapter Eight

Q was not drinking a chocolate milkshake.

She had ordered a chocolate milkshake. She'd had a disastrous Monday of solo teaching, she’d just been to another hippy meeting and she needed chocolate.

The waitress had explained that the café didn’t stock chocolate (because of the slave labor), milk (because of the cow torture) or sugar (maybe because it tasted good, Q had stopped listening by then). The waitress had instead assured Q that she would bring her something delicious that would blow her mind.

The waitress had lied.

Q drank her fresh, cool glass of gray. She didn’t know what was in it but it was more honest than the waitress. It tasted how it looked.

Trying to take her mind off her mouth, she studied the other patrons. They looked like the same sort of people she had met in yet another hippy meeting, this time for Animal Rights are Right – or ARAR for short, which no one besides Q had pronounced with a pirate accent. What was it that made these people so earnest? She hoped they didn’t put any of it in the food.

She blew bubbles into her glass and regretted not trying the Happy Sprout across the road, but she couldn’t deal with all that alfalfa in the front window. The display dishes looked like they had green Afros. How long would she have to cruise this freak circuit before she found Rabbit?

Her stomach rumbled. “Not a chance, belly,” she said. “I don’t want to find out what they do to a burger in here.” She made a critical misjudgment on the bubble blow and her hippyshake exploded.

Q was wiping down the table, her chin and her elbow when she noticed a beautiful man standing in the doorway. She wiped the rest of the stuff off her face, stood up, knocked over her chair, retrieved it and waved. “Rabbit!”

He smiled and walked across to her. “I know you. You’re the kindergarten teacher. Winston, wasn’t it?”

“Uh – yeah, but you can call me Q.” She gestured to the empty seat across from her. “Would you like to have dinner with me?” she said, then blushed.

He sat down. “Sure. I’m famished. What are you having?”

“I couldn’t eat a thing.”

“Oh.” Rabbit picked up a menu and scanned it, then waved to the waitress.

The woman, who was infuriatingly cute, beamed and hurried over. “Rabbit!” she said. “So good to see you! You haven’t been in for weeks.”

A leg sweep and head stomp would do it. If only the woman were a zombie.

Rabbit ordered bean nachos and a glass of carrot and ginger juice. She caught herself gazing at his face, wondered if she had been looking at him long enough for it to be awkward, realized that as soon as she had begun to wonder it was already awkward, and launched into conversation as cover.

“So!” she said. She stopped. Oh God. Her mother had been right. She had no follow-through. What went after “so”?

She caught her hands halfway through Amorous Monkey kata, which they always reverted to when their owner was nervous, and placed them squarely on the table. Rabbit was definitely beginning to look uncomfortable. He would bolt as soon as he’d finished his food and she would never see him again. She glanced at the menu and grinned in relief. A topic!

“Beans!” she said, too loud. Rabbit jumped. “You like beans?” she said.

He relaxed. “I love the bean family,” he said.

“Me too!” Q said. “There’s instant, and whole roast, and, um, instant.”

Rabbit’s brow creased. Q hoped it was how he usually looked and not a specific reaction to her. “How are the kids going?” he said.

Q gurgled. “Kids? I’m only twenty-two! I don’t have kids, not that I don’t want to someday, with the right person. I love kids. In my spare time I teach them how to beat each other up. But I don’t even have a boyfriend. I’m not gay though, I’m completely hetero, just unattached. That’s what my friends call me, Hetereounattached. When they’re not calling me Q.”

Rabbit grinned. “I meant the Kindy Koalas.”

“Oh. The little monsters—” she caught his expression and softened her tone—“are adorable, thanks so much for asking. We’ve been singing your song.”

“Really?”

“Quietly though, in case the school counselor drops by again.”

An overweight man in his early twenties entered the café and asked the waitress for directions. He looked as out of place as Q felt. Her nose twitched at the delicious scent coming from the brown paper bag in his hand.

Rabbit leaned toward her. “You smell it too? I know exactly what you’re thinking,” he said.

“Mmm.” Q couldn’t help inhaling. “A triple Dunkirk. Three beef patties with tomato relish and extra pickle and a side serve of six crispy meatballs with creamy farmhouse dressing,” she said. “Or something dreadful like that, I expect.”

The man left and Rabbit returned to normal volume. “Think what we must look like to a cow,” he said, shaking his head. “Shambling idiots with an insatiable craving for their flesh.”

Rabbit turned and greeted a stocky woman sitting near the door. She smiled back until she saw both Q and the waitress staring at her in icy fury. The woman stood and left, which was a shame, because Q was halfway through picturing the fight scene if she joined the waitress as one of the living dead. Great. Now the rest of her evening would be haunted by an unresolved action sequence.

The meal arrived, complete with a tomato carved into a heart. “It’s the thoughtful touches I love,” Rabbit said, indicating the tomato.

“Weird,” said Q, glancing at the plates on the surrounding tables. “No one else has hussy garnishes.”

He offered her the plate to share. Q stabbed the heart-shaped tomato with her knife and took slow, deliberate bites, smiling at the waitress.

“What brings you here?” Rabbit said.

Q beamed. “I’ve been at an animal rights meeting in the community center.”

“Arar?” He chuckled. “I always thought they sounded like pirates.”

“Me too!” Q said. “Are you here just for dinner?”

“No, I had a meeting too, a planning session. Second floor in the same place.”

“Wow. You were right above me and I didn’t even notice.” Q turned the color of her garnish. “What’s your group called?”

“You are What You Eat,” Rabbit said.

“Yawye? Yowie?”

“I came up with it myself,” he said.

“It’s a great name. Best name ever. I have never heard such a good name.”

Rabbit ate his nachos. Q ate her words.

“You should come along sometime,” Rabbit said. “We do all sorts of cool stuff. We even have weekend spiritual cleanses.”

“I cannot tell you how much I love to cleanse,” Q said with complete honesty. “When’s the next one?”

“We've got a retreat this weekend. You should come to the regular meeting tomorrow if you're interested.”

“I am extremely interested,” Q said, grinning. At last her luck was turning.

*

“You’re in a good mood, Quinny,” said her father that night, exchanging knowing looks with his dinner. “Any reason why?”

Q grinned and sculpted another instant mashed potato yeti with sultanas for eyes, then put fish fingers onto both plates. “What type of fish do these come from?” she said. “And why don’t they use the thumbs?”

“It’s good to see you so cheery,” he said.

They took their plates and settled onto the couch. Bruce switched on the television. “I was thinking of visiting Honeydew next weekend,” he said.

“Mmm.” The seven o’clock news was too depressing for her current mood. Q was about to switch stations when the anchor cut to footage outside a US hospital. The story was about a new disease, Texan Flu, which wasn’t responding to antibiotics. Eight people had been diagnosed so far. Q wondered why they weren’t filming inside the hospital and why they hadn’t interviewed any of the doctors. It wasn’t like journos to miss out on filming surly hotties in scrubs. She reached for her little black book.

“We could go next Saturday,” her father said. “We’ll leave early and buy hotcakes at that place you love.”

They hadn’t been to the cemetery for months. Q hated that gray headstone sprouting from the clipped green lawn. It looked like it was growing, like at any moment, it might spring bulbous new life. As a kid, she’d always dreaded their next visit. It was years before Q understood Linda wasn’t coming back. She was glad she had an excuse for not going next weekend, but she didn’t like the idea of her dad visiting on his own, accepting pity from strangers.

“Maybe the weekend after,” she said. “I can’t next Saturday. I got a date with destiny.”

Why was she was holding her little black book? Had she been about to write something? She dropped it onto the table, unwritten and unread.

*

It had finally happened. Q had been preparing for this for so long, but now it was here, she found she wasn’t ready. Deep down, she had never believed in it. But she could not deny the evidence before her. There they were, all twenty-six of them, scattered across the stained carpet, limbs askew, small bodies motionless. What would her crew say?

Q crept between them, not that she would disturb them if she made a noise. Not now. What sort of world was it that this could happen to the little children?

“Hannah,” she said. “How?”

“Well,” Hannah said, “I got everyone to lie down like Mrs Mason used to, and then I read them a story, and then they all went to sleep.”

“But they never go to sleep in my class,” Q said. “I’ve been trying to enforce naptime since Thursday, and this is the first time it’s worked.”

“Maybe,” said Hannah, “it’s because five minutes in, you always scream, ‘Take that, you evil fiend!’, and fire a cap gun.”

“I’m keeping them on their toes, Hannah Banana,” Q said. “What if one day they’re attacked when they’re sleeping? Thanks to me, they’ll be prepared.”

“Thanks to you, they’ll be in therapy with my brother. I hope Michael doesn't get a teacher like you. It might finish him off.”

Hannah went to the play mat at the back of the room and got out her two favorite dolls, Tweenie and Glitz Girl. Q joined her.

“I leave with the hippies for the retreat on Thursday afternoon from the station,” Q said. “I’m so excited, I forgot how to punch straight!”

“You have to teach Friday,” Hannah said, brushing Tweenie’s hair. “Mrs Mason’s still away.”

Q considered joining Hannah’s game, but decided on a solo round of Mad Scientist instead. She began assembling her horde. “It’s cool,” she said. “I’ll Bueller the day off.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. I heard an old person say it once. I think it means I find adventure and you get a sub.”

Hannah sniffed and ripped out the ribbon she’d tied in Glitz Girl’s hair.

“I have to go to this camp with Rabbit,” Q said. “It’s destiny, bumping into each other like that.”

“Isn’t it because you cyberstalked him, staked out his office and then went to those weird meetings looking for him?”

“Nope. Definitely destiny. I can smell it.”

Hannah wrinkled her nose. “That’s Sandy,” she said, indicating a small boy dozing near the back of the class. “He doesn’t always make it.”

Q ignored this remark in case it led to some of the less glamorous work of a kindergarten teacher. She concentrated on jamming the head of an alien space doll onto the body of a small plastic pig. Satisfied, she added the results to her mutant army.

“What are the other kids like?” Hannah asked.

“What other kids?”

“The kids you’re going on camp with.”

Q considered. She hadn’t thought about anyone else on the retreat. All her thoughts had been about Rabbit. She smiled as she played out her fantasy once more. They would sit by the fire in their cosy log cabin. He would gaze at her, firelight flickering across his face, and say something beautiful and sad, like, “I never thought it would be like this.” She would place a hand on his cheek and lean in and kiss him, letting her hands play across his—

“Are they nice?”

Q flushed. “What?”

“The other kids?” Hannah said again. “Are they nice? You’re spending a whole weekend with them. What if you don’t like them? What if they don’t like you? What if the food’s weird and they don’t let you have top bunk and everyone wants to watch a different channel?”

“They’ll be great,” Q said. “I meet them tonight.”

“Wow, Q. You’re really brave.”

Chapter Nine

Q walked the walk of a woman condemned to spending a whole evening with a bunch of hippies. It was a slow and ponderous walk that involved a great deal of chewing: she was stocking up on real food ahead of three days of enforced veganism. She discarded the evidence of her meal (fried chickeny goodness with a side of dairy-whip sparkle icee) and entered the community center.

There were about thirty people in the small room. Most of them were female. She tried to smile and remember names as Rabbit introduced her, but found her mind drifting, as it always did in new environments, to the location of the exits and which pieces of furniture would make the best weapons in an emergency. As usual, she found herself forming two separate plans, one for Nazi terrorists and the other for sewer monsters. She sat down next to a heavy woman in her forties with short blond hair and an easy smile who introduced herself as Angela.

A slender woman with long red hair, sharp features and a large wooden pendant hanging around her neck stood up at the front of the room and spoke in a clipped voice.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “I’m Kate, for anyone who doesn’t know me.” She paused, as if to indicate that in the unlikely event that there was someone in the audience who didn’t know her, the fault lay with them. “We have a full agenda, so I’ll get started straight away. Why are we here?”

A lifetime of sexual bliss?

“To stop the slaughter and save the world,” twenty-nine voices recited.

Oh God. Rabbit was in a cult!

“That’s right,” Kate said. She read over the sheet of paper in her hand. “William, have you got an update on the newsletter?”

William was a thin, bearded man in his forties. “I’m starting a new contest called— wait for it— ‘Name My Fungus!’” he said.

Kate didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “And how will that work?”

“People send in pictures of field mushrooms and have them identified as edible or not.”

“Right,” said Kate. “What’s the prize?”

“Non-paralysis!”

The meeting moved on. Kate’s tone turned to honey as she called on Rabbit for an update about the weekend retreat. Q drifted away on a mattress of his words.

After the meeting, she chatted to Angela as she waited for Rabbit to emerge from a circle of women. It turned out that, despite being vegan, the older woman was quite nice and barely strange at all.

“Life changed when I had kids,” Angela said. “I got scared about the world. You worry about the future they’re gonna have. I started getting nightmares about where it was all headed. Everything spiraling down into decay.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Q said. “Hordes of the demonic undead?”

“No, climate change, but that sounds bad too. You should chat to Michelle. She’s passionate about eco apocalypse and global warming.”

“Me too. I hate winter. Which one’s Michelle?”

Angela pointed to a woman with hair the color of flames at midnight.

“You mean the Scarlet Terror?”

“Huh?”

“I’m bad at remembering names,” Q said. “But I’m great at picking out what someone would call their avatar.”

“We’re very different, you and I,” said Angela. “Let’s join the line for food.”

Q grimaced. “I hate queues.”

“That’s ironic and self-loathing,” said Angela. “Are your parents British?” She chuckled.

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” Angela served them both a mug full of steaming stew from a vat at the back of the room. Q fiddled with the goo as her new friend told her about the difficulty of raising a family without relying on the industrial food chain. “You should try it,” Angela said.

Q startled. “I’m twenty-two! I don’t even have a boyfriend! Why does everyone want me to have kids already?”

Angela grinned. “The stew,” she said. “It tastes better than it looks.”

“It would have to.” Q ate a mouthful. “Not bad,” she said. She ate more. “What’s in it?”

“Everything good,” Angela said. “You are what you eat.”

“So zombies are the only real people.” Q giggled, then realized she was alone in the joke. She tried to pass it off lightly as some yogic vocalization she’d seen on TV once, and while she wasn’t sure she got away with it, this did at least make Angela laugh.

“You, Q, are a very strange kindergarten teacher.”

“So they keep telling me. What are the folk here like?”

Angela gave her a rundown on the other vegans, including Pious Kate, who had herded the meeting.

“Why do you call her that?” Q asked, pleased that her new friend gave out secret nicknames too.

“She’s always greener than thou. Thous. You’re a teacher, what’s the plural of ‘thou’?”

“I dunno, but I have a whole lesson plan based on collective nouns for a clone world.”

Angela ate more stew. “She and Rabbit used to date.”

“Oh.”

“But she dumped him because he didn’t aspire to be fabulous enough. I think she’s trying to get him back. Probably decided it’s easier to work with what she’s got than find someone as good as him.”

“Oh.” Q watched Rabbit break away from a mob of women and head toward the pot of stew. She bolted hers down, hoping to get a top-up and accidentally bump into Rabbit in the line. She made it to the table at the perfect time, but her scorched throat prevented her from speaking. Rabbit served himself and walked away.

“Besides,” Angela said, when Q had returned with more stew, stewing. “The real fun in kids is making them. You got a thing for Rabbit, huh?”

Q choked. “No! What? How can you tell?”

Angela grinned. “He’s a good-looking man. Pretty dense though. There’s no way he’s noticed.”

Q relaxed.

“You know why they call him Rabbit?” Angela asked.

“I’ve thought about that,” Q said. “It’s because he’s a hippy and he eats a lot of carrots.”

“Nope,” Angela said.

Q waited for the punchline.

“It's more of an aspirational nickname bestowed by a crowd of hopefuls. I don't think he gets it himself.”

“Oh?”

“Half the girls in here had an ethical epiphany after meeting him,” Angela said.

“Oh.”

“He’s a one-man recruitment machine.”

“Oh.”

“And he’s single.”

“Oh?”

Angela let Q enjoy the sight of Rabbit walking, then grabbed her hand and dragged her over to talk to him. Q was halfway through a witty tale about Hannah’s younger brother when, like a case of acid reflux, Pious Kate showed up.

The vinegar ginger placed a hand on Rabbit’s arm and smiled. “Qwinston, isn’t it?” Pious Kate said. “The kindergarten assistant.”

“That’s kindergarten teacher, thanks,” Q said. “Almost.”

“How sweet,” said Pious Kate. “I’m an animal rights lawyer. Rabbit and I work in the same firm.” She fingered the pendant around her neck. It was a carved snake biting its own tail. The detail was incredible. Q could see individual scales and two eyes made from red beads. “You like it?” Pious Kate said.

“It would look better if you wore it shorter,” Q said. About eight inches shorter should do it. It’d cut off her windpipe nicely. “Is it made of bone?”

Pious Kate inhaled sharply. “I wouldn’t wear a dead animal like a trophy,” she said. “It’s wood. Rabbit made it for me from a fallen branch so he didn’t have to hurt the tree.” She placed a hand on Rabbit’s shoulder. “You must be new to the vegetarian cause.”

Q blustered. “No, I’ve always stuck up for potatoes—”

Angela cut in. “Kate, can I talk to you about the follow-up actions for item seven?”

“Of course,” Pious Kate said. “All three of us should discuss them. Here.” Pious Kate handed Q a heavy hemp bag. “This is the beginner’s kit. It’s more advanced than Spot Goes to the Park but you might enjoy the pictures.” She led Rabbit and Angela away.

Q contemplated the bag in her hand. It was the same hand that had so recently been resting on Rabbit’s arm. Such an unfair exchange. She opened the bag and regarded a pile of books. “Oh goody,” she said. “Now there’s homework, too.”

*

While reading the next evening, Q did something so outlandish that she wouldn’t have believed it of herself a week earlier. She stopped chewing a pork crisp, spat it into her hand and then threw it out with the rest of the packet. “So that’s what verse three was about.”

*

Q was speed packing for the retreat but this time, the stopwatch was winning. She switched it off at an all-time worst: thirty-three minutes and fifty-two seconds. Packing for vegan seduction was way harder than packing to survive the undead.

She considered her progress. Jeans, fleece, T-shirt, undies, camo pants. Good. Serrated bush knife, Swiss army knife, multitool and machete. Fine, but maybe too heavy on the blades for a bunch of hippies. She discarded the Swiss army knife. CamelBak, head torch, cordage, mess kit, SAS survival tabs, protein bars, survival tin, crowbar. All essential items, but her bag was almost full and she hadn’t even started on the pretty things yet. Did Rabbit even like pretty things? Or was he into a natural look? Or, worse, did he like to think he was into a natural look but expect women to look good and smell fresh regardless of air temperature and chosen activity?

Q was outside her zone, that was the problem. Crawling through the jungle after demons at three a.m.? Easy. Surviving a week in the bush with nothing but her own brute will? Simple. Winning over the boy she loved from his evil ex? Doomed. She needed help.

What did Apocalypse Z say?

Q flicked through the contents and paused on Chapter Thirteen – Choose Your Weapons with Care. She considered her cutest pair of boy-leg pajamas, a rarely used make-up bag and a can of Ocean Flowers body spray that could double as a blinding weapon in a pinch. There was no way she’d fit everything in. She had some tough decisions to make.

Q sighed, removed the crowbar and packed the body spray in its place. It wasn’t like she’d need a crowbar.

*

She was having a difficult Thursday. She was exhausted and her throat was sore from all the coughing she’d faked whenever another teacher checked on her class. She hoped that she wouldn’t get sick pretending to be sick. This weekend was too important.

There was also an undercurrent in the class. Five kids were away, which should have left Q with the elusive prize Mrs Mason always dreamt about – the perfect class size. But this was no perfect class. Tania cried. Ben and Bry-Bry got into a fight. Greg ate a whole yellow crayon, which was bizarre, because he usually stuck to the green ones.

“It’s like they sense something coming,” Q said. “Their primitive instincts are picking up on signs we can’t detect.”

“You do know they’re kids, right?” Hannah said.

“What’s your point?”

Hannah drew jagged red lightning bolts onto her picture. “They’re probably annoyed because you’re skipping school tomorrow,” she said.

Q burst into another fit of fake coughing to drown out her young friend’s words. With her cough-roughened throat, it turned into a real fit of coughing. Almost breathless, she hissed at Hannah. “Who have you told?”

Hannah switched to markers and colored in the sky. “No one. What kind of friend do you think I am?” The sky grew black. It wasn’t her usual cheery scene at all.

“Lighten up, Hannah Banana,” Q said. “At least you’re only a Kindy Koala. If you were a real koala, you’d have to worry about death by cow.”

Hannah did not laugh. She played with her half of the Best Friends necklace hanging around her throat. “And you canceled Lethal Littlies this week,” she said.

“I’ve had stuff on,” Q said. “Important stuff.” Hannah remained impassive. “Next Monday I’ll let you put Tina in a headlock,” Q said.

Hannah gave a half-smile. “Really?”

“Sure.” Q pulled a package out of her bag. “And I got you a present.”

Hannah took it, delighted, then hesitated. “This doesn’t mean you get to skip out whenever you want,” she said.

“Open it.”

Hannah unwrapped the parcel with care, peeling off the sticky tape gently and carefully folding the paper as she went. Inside was a slim gray box.

“Wow!” said Hannah. “A new phone! Is it the Gwendolyn III from TV?” She opened the box and took out a large black phone. Her face fell.

Q grabbed it. “It’s a satellite hotphone!” she said. “It’s got this wind-up recharger, see, so you’ll never be out of batteries. It gets coverage anywhere in the world, even under water! It’s like having a walkie-talkie, but cooler.”

“What’s a walkie-talkie?”

Q pondered. “An old-fashioned way of making calls. Like using strings and cans.” She pulled a matching phone from her cargo pants pocket and held the twin models together. “They can only call each other. They’re best friends, just like us.”

Hannah took the phone and examined it. “I can’t call anyone else?” she said.

“Who else would you want to talk to?” Q had saved the best for last. “And I decorated them, see? Tiger ninjas. Yours are pink.”

Hannah ran her fingers over the stickers and grinned.

“So we’re okay?” Q said.

“Sure,” said Hannah, inspecting the phone’s features. “I guess I can call you tomorrow if I need you.”

“Exactly,” Q said. “Besides, I’ll only be gone for three days. What could go wrong?”

*

Don’t be weird, don’t be weird, don’t be weird.

Q’s father was giving her a lift to the station to meet the no-meat retreat. She was using her last few minutes of relative solitude to psych herself up. She had a window of opportunity in which to charm the pants off Rabbit before he got to know her and found out she was a paranoid, aggressive, kindergarten teacher’s assistant who could throw six men twice her size in a brawl.

Don’t be weird.

Granted, it was a small window of opportunity, more of a siege castle slit that would spew boiling oil the moment Q said something she was thinking, possibly about spewing boiling oil, but it was a window and it was open and she was going to make the most of it.

Don’t be weird.

“Here we are, Quinny,” said her dad, pulling into the car park. “I can’t see your friends, though.”

What if they weren’t coming? What if they’d googled her and found pictures of the spit roast at her twenty-first birthday?

“We might be early,” he said. “You said they were meeting at five?”

Calm down. They’re vegans. They don’t know about the internet.

Q got out of the car and waited beneath a tree. Her father retrieved her pack from the boot and put it on the path by her feet. She was shocked to hear him wheeze from this brief bout of exercise. They needed to have a talk.

“Is that them over there?” her father asked, pointing to a Kombi van pulling in to the other end of the car park. It was painted with rainbows and bunnies and clouds. Sprawling above the windows in large pink letters was the You are What You Eat logo.

Q shuddered. “Oh God. I have to ride in a hippy van.”

“Q! Good to see you!” Angela said. “What were you saying?”

Q startled. She hadn’t seen the woman approach from the train station behind her. “I said, oh good. I get to ride in a minivan,” Q said. “This is my dad.”

“Hello, Mr Q.” Angela shook hands with Q’s father and grabbed Q’s pack. “Wow, this thing’s pretty light. Plus, if you drop it in on a pile of leaves, it’ll disappear.”

“What?”

“Because it’s made of camouflage fabric,” Angela said.

Q considered Angela’s blue-wheeled suitcase and had sudden doubts about her own. “I got it at an army outlet store,” she said. “Is it weird?”

Angela grinned and walked over to the You are What You Eat bus. The Yowie Bus. Q smiled despite herself and followed.

Most seats were already taken. Q scanned the faces. She recognized three women by the avatar names she’d given them: the Scarlet Terror, Tinkabella and Princess Starla; all young and attractive in a weedy kind of way. No doubt more competition for Rabbit’s affections, although no contest at all in a straight-up brawl. There was also a man with glasses she’d nicknamed Sheath of Power, and Angela, who had already pulled out a paperback romance and was reading with her head resting on the window.

Rabbit sat in the driver’s seat. “There’s a spot up front,” he said to Q. She waved goodbye to her father and walked around the van to the man of her dreams.

“Quite a ride you got here,” she said.

“It seats nine,” said Rabbit, stroking the paneling of the door. It was the first time Q had ever envied steel. “I painted her myself.”

“Wow.” A whole five hours of driving time sitting next to Rabbit, inches away from bliss.

“We should get going,” Rabbit said. “The other van left half an hour ago.”

Q walked to the passenger side door and opened it. Pious Kate sat in the middle of the three-person front seat. “Oh,” said Kate. “You’re coming.”

“Seems unlikely,” Q said and hopped in beside her.

Chapter Ten

Q watched another four-wheel drive overtake, beeping as it sped past. They had been driving for over an hour. Was the traffic coming out of Sydney more frantic than usual? She turned on the radio for a news update, but found static.

“I didn’t bother fixing it,” said Rabbit. “It never says anything good.”

“No worries,” Q said, but her spider sense was tingling.  No, hang on, that was her belly whinging. She rubbed it. Could she cram down a Pack o’ Snack Stacks fast enough so that no one could critique its politics? No. She’d have to hold out.

Rabbit waved at a driver overtaking them and received a one-finger salute in reply. He chuckled.

“They’re all in such a rush,” he said. “It’d make you think there was something amazing up ahead, if there weren’t just as many rushing back the other way.”

“Except that there aren’t ,” Q said. “There’s hardly any incoming traffic. It’s a Thursday night and everyone’s driving away from the city. They can’t all be commuters. It’s not even a long weekend.”

“It’s terrible,” Pious Kate said. “All these huge cars, burning up fossil fuel and churning out poison, each carrying its precious cargo of one person.”

“That one’s got a whole family in it,” Q said. “Look – and dogs. And that one’s got stuff strapped to the roof.”

“Fascinating,” Pious Kate said. “You must learn conversational skills at teacher’s college.”

Q frowned. “It’s odd, that’s all I’m saying.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her little black book.

“They’d be in less of a hurry if they had to get there using their own power,” Pious Kate said, “instead of using petrol.”

“I ride a mountain bike to work,” Q said, scribbling notes in her book.

“Of course you do,” Pious Kate said. “Twice as much metal as a road bike with too much embedded energy, wasting more to push all that weight up the hills. If you really cared about the planet, you’d ride a bike you built yourself from spare parts.”

“Is that a diary?” Rabbit said. The interjection made Q wonder if he was sick of listening to Pious Kate, too.

“Yes,” Q said, snapping the book shut. “That’s what it is. A diary. It’s certainly not anything weird.”

“Cool,” said Rabbit. “So how long have you been teaching at Saint Cedric’s?”

“A couple of months,” she said. “I’m doing a placement for my Diploma of Education.”

“I’ve never understood the Catholic value set,” Pious Kate said. “That outdated patriarchal model cannot address today’s problems.”

“I think kindergarten teaching is a great vocation,” Rabbit said. Q glowed. “But how did you end up in it? You don’t seem the type.”

Q hesitated. Had she just received a compliment, or an insult? “It’s sort of a second career,” she said. “I did a degree in military history first.”

No one responded. What had she said? She blustered on.

“I didn’t drop out or anything. My lecturer said my grasp of weaponry was disturbingly good, probably from my early training. My mother put me on the fight circuit when I was six. We had to go to Thailand for the full-contact bouts. The food was good.”

Pious Kate cut her off. “Yowie thinks violence toward animals is wrong, Qwinston. That includes people.”

Q thought about her twelfth birthday. Her last competition fight and the first time she’d been blooded. The sensation of hot red liquid pouring from her nose. She’d told Linda she was done. Linda had hated Q for it, said she couldn’t quit the first time she lost, said she’d wasted all that training – that she’d wasted Linda’s life.

“I think violence is wrong too,” Q said, in a voice so soft even her ghosts couldn’t hear it. “I always did, once I found out it hurts.”

*

About two hours into the trip, they came to one of those small rural towns that made Q feel itchy and forlorn. This town was worse than usual: people were nailing boards over their windows.

“I love these friendly towns,” Rabbit said, without a trace of sarcasm.

Pious Kate had fallen asleep and was drooling on Q’s shoulder, no doubt suffering low blood sugar as a result of lack of food and an excess of sour thoughts. Q was trying to work out how to make a make a witty remark about dribbling ex-girlfriends without sounding ungracious, when Rabbit pulled over.

“Last stop for fuel,” he said.

“Let me get it,” Q said. She pulled out an overstuffed wallet and accidentally-on-purpose spilled its contents. Membership cards for various conservation groups and animal rights organizations flew across the dashboard. “How clumsy,” she said, gathering them up.

“Your cards all expire at the same time,” Pious Kate said. “Eleven months and two weeks from now. Recently signed on, have we? A little green about being green?” And then she was snoring again.

Wow. From sleep to scathing remark in six seconds. Pious Kate was like a skinny ninja of words.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rabbit said, waving away Q’s proffered fifty-dollar note. “I got it.” He unfolded his lanky frame, grabbed an empty jerry can from behind the seat and walked toward one of the three shops.

“Where’s the petrol station?” Q asked.

Angela leaned forward. “You should watch this.”

Rabbit ambled into the takeaway shop. It was empty but for the pallid, obese woman standing behind the counter, who glared at the stranger, taking in the worn shoes, the torn jeans and the shaggy hair. Q could almost see the words “bloody dole-bludger” form on her lips.

Then the woman saw Rabbit’s face. She dropped the hostile expression and replaced it with the smile of a schoolgirl in love. Her mouth began moving far too fast for normal conversation.

Q giggled. “That’s funny from a distance.”

“I told you,” said Angela.

“And when it’s someone who’s unattractive and, like, really, really old,” Q said.

“Watch it, Gen Y.”

Rabbit ambled back to the Yowie bus and filled the tank from the jerry can.

“What’s he doing?” Q said.

“Fueling up,” Angela said.

“How?”

“Converted biodiesel,” Angela said.

“What?”

“The bus runs on old chip oil,” Angela said.

Q gasped in horror. “No wonder I keep thinking about fried chicken! You vegans are evil.”

Rabbit got back into the driver’s seat. “These small town folk sure are chatty,” he said. “You would not believe the stories she was telling me.” He started the engine. “All right, kids. We’ve got a couple hours to go. Who wants to hear my latest song about mulesing?”

“I do!” Q said, hoping it would help her chances and kill her appetite.

*

The last ten miles were slower than running Zombocalypse III on a P166. The dirt road gave way to a fire trail full of potholes, which the Yowie bus navigated at a slow trundle. Despite the constant bumping, Pious Kate still slumbered on Q’s shoulder.

Rabbit stopped the bus. “We’re here,” he said.

“Are you sure?” said Angela.

“There’s no street lights,” said the Scarlet Terror.

“There’s no street,” said Angela.

All they could see in the beam of the headlights were half-a-dozen wooden huts scattered among the trees. Rabbit cut the engine and the headlights and left them blind.

They heard a chilling noise, like the moan of some soulless creature shunned by God and nature and doomed to roam the earth until the end of days.

Q flicked on a torch to find Tinkabella yawning in the back seat of the bus.

“Wow,” said Rabbit. “You got that torch out fast.”

“Yeah,” said Q. “Would you think it weird if I said I always keep my head torch and survival tin in my first-line bomb-burst gear?”

“Nope,” said Rabbit, “because I have no idea what that means. Let’s go.”

They piled out of the Yowie bus, shivering, grumbling and stepping on one another’s toes. “Hello?” Angela called. “Is anyone there?”

Darkness swallowed her words.

“I can’t see the other van,” Tinkabella said.

“We could call,” said Q. “Maybe they got lost.”

“They won’t have a phone,” said Rabbit. “We’re on retreat.”

“There’s a light up there,” Q said, pointing to a cabin half a mile up the slope. It was an eerie construction, dwarfing the pale trees around it. “There’s not much of a track though. We’ll have to bash it.”

Rabbit, Angela and Q were volunteered to check out the cabin while the others stayed by the bus, except for Pious Kate, who remained asleep inside it. They fought their way up the hill through the scrub. When they were a hundred feet away from the cabin, Q worked out why it looked so strange.

“It’s got an upstairs level,” she said. “Why would anyone build two stories out here?”

“To keep their distance from the bodies in the basement?” Angela said, puffing. “Anyone who chooses to live out here cannot be trusted.”

“What is this place?” Q said from her position in the lead.

“A piece of paradise,” Rabbit said. “Off the grid, out of range and in the bush.”

“Two days’ stumble from the nearest population center, next to a creek and bang in the middle of a mountain range,” Q said, piecing together the terrain they’d driven through.

“Amazing biodiversity,” Rabbit said. “They’re still discovering prehistoric plants in here.”

“Good hunting, poor access and a secure water source,” Q said.

“It’s perfect,” they said in unison.

“Guys?” Angela cut in. They had arrived at the cabin and they were not alone.

A man stood inside, silhouetted against the window. He was enormous, at least six-foot-four and almost as broad, with a huge belly. He held something long and thin. Q couldn’t see it clearly. The light went out and the man disappeared.

“What’s he holding?” Angela said. “A club? A gun?”

Q motioned the others to be quiet, switched off her head torch and tried to restore her night vision. She heard the soft steps of a large man walking quietly. She crept into an intercept position and dropped to the ground to wait.

“Or maybe it’s the shin bone from something he wooed, killed and ate?” Angela said.

A gas lamp sprang into life a foot from where Q crouched. The man loomed over her. She tensed.

“Hi!” said Rabbit. He held out his right hand for the man to shake. “You must be the caretaker. We just arrived. Have you seen our friends?”

“Or eaten them?” Angela said under her breath.

Rabbit continued. “You’re welcome to come join us for some supper and songs if you’d like.”

The man looked Rabbit down and down, which few people were tall enough to do, and summed up in one word his hatred of everything that was wrong with the world and the reason he had chosen to live outside of it: “Hippies!” He spat, turned and went inside. A blind was pulled down over the window.

“That’s cool,” Rabbit called out. “We’ll show ourselves around. Be sure to let us know if we’re too loud.” They walked back down the hill.

“That guy was bad news,” Angela said. “Did you see his face? There was something wrong with him.”

“I thought he looked sad,” said Rabbit. “Let’s go unpack and get some grub.”

“Please don’t mean that literally,” Q said.

“You’re not hungry?” Rabbit asked.

“Only if you feed your guests like you feed your bus.”

Chapter Eleven

One hut. Three beds. No way out.

“Arm wrestle for top bunk!” Q said. She threw her pack to the ground, hit the floor and assumed the position.

“It’s okay, Q. You can have it.” Angela put her bag on the bottom bunk. “Someone already took the single. Can I borrow your torch?”

Q gave her the head torch and Angela tied it to a beam on the roof. The swinging light made their shadows swell and writhe. Q searched for switches but found none. “No power, I guess,” Q said. “We’ll have to rough it.”

“Honey, this ain’t roughing it. Three kids at feeding hour during a blackout is roughing it.”

“Can you smell that?” Q said. “Like rotting licorice.”

Their roommate entered and conversation stopped. Pious Kate glared at Angela and Q, as if they’d be last on her list of preferred roommates. “I can’t believe I gave up my yoga retreat for this.”

“Cheer up,” said Angela. “No power, no water and no distractions. Think of it as a chance to learn how the other half live.”

Q leaned over to Angela and whispered. “The other half are the dead, right? Because I’m pretty sure they outnumber us. You should say ‘the other ninety-nine hundredths.’”

Angela whispered back. “No, Q. The other half are the world’s poor.”

“Oh.”

“They outnumber us too. It’s an expression.”

“What are you two muttering about?” Pious Kate said.

“Sounds like someone got bit by Pinky the paranoia flea,” Q sang. “That’s, uh, something the kids in Kindy Koalas say to each other.”

“How did you know I got bitten?” Pious Kate said. She rubbed her right hip. “It was some bloody kid out shopping with his mother.”

Since when did little boys bite? Okay, always, but since when did they bite strangers at the mall, instead of their sisters at home? Well, when the strangers were as obnoxious as Pious Kate, probably pretty often, but it was still weird. Q reached for her book.

“Do the kids really talk about Pinky the paranoia flea?” Angela said.

“Not as such,” Q said. “I’m hoping it will catch on.”

“Stop talking behind my back!” Pious Kate said.

“What, in front of your face?” Q said.

Pious Kate began to unpack. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “Take that awful bright light when you leave.”

*

The group clustered around the fire. Princess Starla and the Scarlet Terror were chatting and Sheath of Power had his legs crossed and his eyes closed in some kind of hippytrance. Rabbit watched the flames dance. Tinkabella stirred a large pot over the coals at the edge.

Q was pleased to see that they had built a decent fire. Who would have thought vegans had skills, other than pamphlet composition and guilt? She complimented Tinkabella on it.

“Whoa,” said Rabbit through the smoke. “Who said that?”

“Huh?” said Q.

Rabbit grinned. “Check it out,” he said. “It’s invisible army girl.”

“What?”

“It’s your outfit,” Angela said. “He’s making a joke.”

Q considered her green-and-khaki camouflage kit. “This is what you wear in the bush,” she said. “It’s normal, right?”

“You sure are,” said Angela. “Plus extra fashion points for matching your gloves to your beanie, your sweater, your pants and the landscape.”

Q sat down by the fire to the left of Rabbit and noticed that no one else was wearing camouflage anything. She had a moment of self-doubt. If she were the only one dressed in camo, did it make her stand out? Damn hippies and their reverse camouflage.

“Where’s your wood?” she asked Rabbit, then reddened.

“Over there.” Rabbit pointed to a large stack of firewood piled at the edge of the circle.

“Nice,” she said. “Who got all that?”

“It was already there.”

It hadn’t been when they arrived. Q picked up a stick and poked at the coals, then peered into the pot. “Oh goody. Beans.”

“And gluten-free bread!” said Tinkabella.

“Oh, God.”

“Every meal is a promotion for the vegan lifestyle,” said Sheath of Power.

“Glad I got top bunk.” Q pulled out her mobile phone to get her messages. She’d check the satellite hotphone later to make sure Hannah hadn’t called. She was pleased to see she still had one bar of range left. The shockproof, waterproof, UV-resistant solar-powered Apocalypse model had been worth the extra money, although she wasn’t sure about its slogan, For when you’re the last person left on earth. Who were you meant to call?

She had one missed call from Hannah—no doubt to guilt her about how awful tomorrow would be in Q’s absence—two from her dad, and one from Big Tony, which was weird. Big Tony only called late on a Saturday night when he was drunk, not on a Thursday before eight p.m. She also had three emails from Slendrous D, who rarely messaged, and none from Jeremiah BownZ, who couldn’t go a day without reporting something supernatural. She’d read them after she’d called the other van. Safety first.

“Anyone got a number for the others?” Q said.

There was a hiss of indrawn breath.

She stopped playing with her phone and looked up into eight eyes full of condemnation, and also four eyes full of smoke – Rabbit and Angela were less judgmental.

“’Sup?” Q asked.

“No phones,” said Sheath of Power. “Remember? Rabbit explained it on Wednesday night. Didn’t you listen?”

Q thought back to the meeting. She could remember Rabbit talking for some time about the retreat. She had paid very close attention, although not to his actual words. That may not be the right thing to say.

“The point of the retreat is to look inwards,” Sheath of Power said. “To withdraw.”

“Said the cross-eyed lingerie model to the priest!” said Q. Fortunately, everyone ignored this.

“Any communications with the city will destroy the vibe for us all,” the Scarlet Terror said.

“Come on, guys,” said Rabbit. “Q’s new. Cut her a break.”

“She’ll sap our positive energy.” Sheath held out his hand.

“But it’s my phone!” Q said.

The hand remained extended.

“Which of course you can have.” Q wondered which hut she’d have to steal the phone back from later. She sighed. Her evening was ruined. At least it couldn’t get worse.

Rabbit placed a hand on her shoulder, sending shivers of warmth down her arm. “Don’t worry about the other van,” he said. “They must have found another spot with good chi. We’ll catch up with them back in Sydney.”

But things were not going as Q had expected and she was a woman who liked to be prepared.

Pious Kate entered the circle.

She wore white pajamas and nothing else. Her face was so pale in the firelight that it shone, dazzling the eye and blacking out everything behind her, making her look as if she wore a dark halo.

“Kate, aren’t you cold?” Angela said.

“I’m fine,” Pious Kate said.

“Do you want some dinner?” Rabbit asked. “It’s Christine’s Mexibeans.”

Pious Kate sniffed the pot and then grimaced. “No, thanks. Not hungry.” Her belly rumbled over the crackling of the fire. She walked over to Rabbit and wedged herself in next to him, elbowing the Scarlet Terror out of the way and dropping an object into the dirt by her feet.

“So,” said Angela, trying to restart the conversation, “what’s on for tomorrow?”

“I’m leading pre-dawn meditation to welcome the spirit of the sun,” said Sheath of Power.

“I was planning some free-form verse prayer to Gaia,” said the Scarlet Terror.

“I’m reading Peter Singer’s latest book on ethics,” said Princess Starla.

“Gosh,” said Q. “How to choose? Do you think the others will be here by then?”

“Perhaps tomorrow you’ll do some reading of your own,” Pious Kate said to Q, her voice heavy with significance. There was a strange look in her eyes.

“Well, I think I will,” Q said, uncertain but alert for attack.

“I think you should,” Pious Kate said. “Because you need to finish reading this.” She threw a book into the center of the circle. It landed front cover up. Q’s stomach heaved.

Apocalypse Z.

For the first time, she wished the cover didn’t have such detailed diagrams of weaponry and beheadings. Then she resented the group for making her have such an unwholesome thought. Who were they to judge?

There was an awkward pause as seven hippies studied the cover.

“Where did you get that book?” said Angela.

“It was in Qwinston’s bag,” said Pious Kate, smirking. “I knew there was something off about her. This is what our new friend considers good reading on a retreat for peace.”

“What’s that person doing to that other person?” Tinkabella asked. There was another, longer pause as she studied the cover. “Oh.”

Q reflected. Things weren’t going well. On the upside, if the freaks thought she was a freak, would she become mainstream?

“I think we’re headed for an apocalypse too,” said the Scarlet Terror. “This is the seventh age, Kate. We’re in a cycle of decay and we’ll degenerate until the next period of universal renewal.”

“Do you have a guide book about it?” Pious Kate said.

“Yes,” said the Scarlet Terror. “The illustrations are different, but the concept’s the same.”

“I can’t believe you went through Q’s stuff.” Angela’s tone burned cold. Pious Kate’s face screwed up. This was clearly not how she thought her big move would play out.

“Not cool, Kate,” Rabbit said.

The pale woman scowled. Q grinned. Pious Kate had bombed out. That would teach her not to use weapons she couldn’t control. Q reached for her book.

Pious Kate’s mouth dropped open as if to say something, then she stood up and left. Her departure didn’t make Q feel better. Pious Kate had lost, but Q wasn’t sure she had won. Would Rabbit be interested in a quasi-military survival nutbag who’d been on the fight circuit? What they said was true. No one wins a war.

Tinkabella handed Q a dish of hot baked beans. “Here you go,” she said. “This will help.”

“No,” said Q. “What would help is three hours of Mummy Three: Evil In Plaid.”

“Sorry?”

“I said, Yummy beans, they’ll be totally rad.” Q took the bowl. Apocalypse Z had been mocked and she had been driven to idioms of the eighties. This was going to be a long three days.

*

Beepbeepbeep.

“Psst! Hannah! Is that you?”

“You’re calling me on the hotphone you gave me. Who else would it be?”

“Thank God.” Q had feared it would ring out. She was near the pit toilet with the phone pressed to her left ear. Her right ear was tuned in for the quick step of a hippy with an over-full bladder. She couldn’t afford to get busted and lose her last comms.

“Why are you calling so late?” Hannah said, a taint of whinge in her voice.

“People were boarding up their windows in the town on the way here. And the other van never showed up. And lots of people were leaving Sydney.”

“People always leave Sydney at the weekend.”

“It’s only Thursday.” Q covered the mouthpiece and scanned the trees. There was no one there. “Was there anything on the news?” she said.

“I don’t know. I watched Superspy Sarah. What time is it?”

“Vengeance Betti says eleven thirty.”

“Are the other kids being mean to you?” Hannah said.

“They keep talking about their life journeys. Did you know Rabbit has been vegan since birth? That means the only animal protein he’s ever ingested is breast milk. And they think I’m weird.”

Hannah yawned. “Is this an emergency?”

“They made me eat beans.”

“Good night, Q.”

“Good night.” Q hung up, thinking that it was a good night after all. Hannah had reassured her that all was normal. The Sydney folks were escaping the rat race, like they always did. The small town folks were acting paranoid, like they always did. Some glorious child in a shopping mall had given voice to the primal urge of the world and attacked Pious Kate. Everything was fine. Even the beans.

So why did it feel like it might be the last good night for a long, long time?

Chapter Twelve

Q woke at eight. Angela’s bed was empty and Pious Kate was still asleep, which was odd – Q had picked it for the other way around. Pious Kate struck her as one of those smug people who get up at dawn each day so they can tell everyone else that they did. She never understood that claim to moral superiority. Serial killers were early risers, too.

She lay in bed for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth of the worn blankets and making faces from the knots in the wooden planks of the walls. She’d had the nightmare about the pale woman, the first for years. Night terrors, that was all the dream was. The kind that is ridiculous by daylight.

She dressed in silence, trying not to wake her nemesis. She had one foot through her camouflage pants and one foot on the floor when she overbalanced and knocked into Pious Kate’s overnight bag, sending its contents clattering to the floor.

Q froze.

The wench snored on. Pious Kate was one solid sleeper.

Q gathered up the spilt stuff and shoved it back into the bag. Her hands brushed against four cylindrical objects taped to the inside of the canvas.

Hidden contraband! What was it? Dynamite? Drugs?

Q held the bag up to the window, pulled back a blanket from the glass and peered at the shapes in the sunlight. They were brown, shiny and soft. It took her a few seconds to identify them.

Jerky. Plastic-wrapped beef jerky. How would Yowie feel about their princess of purity now?

Actually, they’d be thrilled. Everyone loved to trip up the teacher. Q herself was stuck between a gloat, a scoff, unwilling admiration for the woman’s caching ability and general confusion about how to distill all this into a cohesive emotional response. Head buzzing, she left the cabin.

The beautiful man had picked a beautiful spot. The campsite was east of Mount Empress and the air smelled of eucalyptus and damp earth. The sun shed a gentle warmth that left the world full of the memories of winter, but when she stepped into the shade of the trees, she shivered.

Q zipped up her hoodie and wandered on. Most people were up. Sheath and Tinkabella waved, bright eyed. Damn morning people. She’d like to see how chirpy they’d be after an all-nighter on Bloody Mayhem: Beyond the Crypt.

With that comforting thought, Q set about waking herself up. She went for a short jog, did a few hundred yard sprints, then settled in to some katas using a young tree as a dummy. According to Vengeance Betti, she had been practicing for about twenty minutes when she heard a cough behind her. She turned around to find a shocked Angela.

“Why are you attacking that tree?” she said.

“I’m practicing.”

“To kill trees?”

“Nah. I mastered that long ago. Let’s get breakfast.”

On the way back to the campsite, they saw Rabbit, who was also doing his morning exercise. He had the grace of a Next Gen Ninja but his delivery was weak and his movements too slow to be effective. After a minute of quiet contemplation, enjoying the play of sunlight across his arms and bare chest, Q stepped over to give him some pointers. She returned to find Angela bent over in silent laughter.

“What’s wrong with you?” Q asked. “He’ll never punch through his first brick wall if he keeps at it that way.”

Angela took a few deep breaths. “He’s doing tai chi, my friend. That’s how it’s done. I thought you knew about martial arts?”

“Not tai chi,” said Q. “I never could see the point of the non-offensive stuff.”

“I’m pretty sure you could make anything offensive,” Angela said.

“Thanks!” They went to investigate the breakfast pot of despair.

“Can you really punch through brick walls?” Angela asked.

“Only small ones.”

*

Breakfast sat in her stomach like a curse.

They had called it porridge, but it was unlike any kind of porridge Q had eaten before. It didn’t come in single-serve packets, it was cooked without a microwave and it was neither sweet nor blue. It even had seeds in it. Q had pointed this out to the cook, Sheath of Power. She had been tactful enough to soften the criticism with an anecdote about her dad accidentally pouring their pet budgie’s food into a stew when she was a kid. Sheath informed Q that he didn’t believe in pet budgies, because it was wrong to subjugate animals to the will of man for entertainment, then went on to say that she should eat her seeds because they contained essential fatty acids. Q said that sounded like something you put in an engine, not a stomach, and that their purpose must be to toughen up the belly to the point where it could digest the porridge. Then she ate her seeds and sulked.

Q was not fitting in. She missed her Light ’n’ Fluffy Breakfast Rolos. Sure, you had to eat a whole box before you felt like you’d eaten anything at all, but that was part of the fun, because then you got more tokens. She still had the nagging feeling that something was wrong and she wanted to get on the web and find out what was happening, but couldn’t. Worse, there was no one to share her fears with. She had to worry alone.

Oh well. Two more days, and by then she’d have Rabbit in the bag. She swore and slapped at a March fly. Such a painful bite for something that looked so harmless.

The Scarlet Terror smiled at her. “I lied about being an outdoors type, too,” she said.

Q grinned. “I’m an outdoors type, all right,” she said. “I just like to experience the outdoors in my study via my computer.”

After breakfast, Rabbit walked halfway around the camp circle to sit down next to Q. She beamed. This was it! Her charm and ability to keep her tongue and brain separated for minutes at a time were beginning to work! This was their chance to bond.

“You’re bunking with Kate, right?” Rabbit said.

“Oh,” said Q. “I am.”

“Is she okay?”

No. She wasn’t okay. She had ginger hair and an acid mouth. “She’s great,” Q lied.

“But is she feeling okay?” he said. “I haven’t seen her this morning. She’s usually an early riser.” He frowned.

“I knew it!” Q said, then sighed. “I’ll go check on her. Don’t go away, okay?”

Q returned to the cabin. It was dark inside. Pious Kate must have been up, because all the blankets were pinned across the windows, but she had gone back to bed. “That smell,” Q said. “Aniseed and rot.”

“What?” said Pious Kate.

“Are you okay?” Q said in a louder voice, and then, to make sure Pious Kate didn’t interpret this as concern on her own behalf, added, “Rabbit wanted me to check on you.”

Pious Kate’s face turned brittle. “I know what you’re doing,” she said. “Try anything and I’ll kill you.”

Q took a breath and held it for a count of seven, then released. “What did you say?” she said.

Pious Kate sat up, stretched and smiled. “I’m getting up. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Q left, trying not to think weird thoughts.

Chapter Thirteen

“What’s on for the day?” Q said. She was sitting on one of the logs around the campsite and doodling in the dirt with a stick. The creek chattered to itself in the gully, no doubt as bored as she was. Q had just realized that she had sixty hours ahead with no prospect of virtually beating up or killing anything. The doodling helped hide the withdrawal shakes.

There was an indecipherable mumble. Q walked over to Angela, who lay on a rug beneath a tree with a hat over her face. Q picked up the hat.

“Pretty much this,” Angela said. “This is the quietest day I’ve had for seven years. I am going to enjoy it.”

Q dropped the hat back over Angela’s face. “It’s not that quiet,” Q said. “The galahs are screaming.”

There was another mumble. Q picked up the hat again and heard the words “decibels”, “twins” and “no contest”.

“Aren’t you worried about the guys on the other bus? They never showed up.”

More muffled sounds. Something about “destiny” and “Gaia”.

Q decided to let it go and glanced at the other activities on offer. Sheath was meditating. Princess Starla was reading. The Scarlet Terror and Tinkabella were doing some pervert activity that looked like the type of twister Q had played at parties when she was seventeen and drunk, which Tinkabella claimed was yoga. Q doodled on.

After a while, Sheath of Power announced that he was going for a walk. Tinkabella, the Scarlet Terror and Princess Starla decided to join him. Tinkabella stopped to invite Q.

Nothing to do but talk for two hours? There was no way Q could maintain cover that long. She was bound to slip up and talk about beef or blood sports. “No, thanks,” Q said. “I don’t walk. Gout.”

She watched them leave and listened to Angela chuckle. Was this what people did when you unplugged them?

Q reached for her mobile phone, thinking she’d check the web and then play a quick round of Chaos. She searched all six pockets before remembering it wasn’t there. It had been confiscated.

Damn hippies. She had to steal it back, but who had it? What would Apocalypse Z say? When in doubt, cache supplies.

“I’m gonna go get firewood,” Q said to Angela.

“No need,” said Rabbit, emerging from his hut. “We got plenty.” He was right. The stack of firewood had replenished itself overnight.

“Weird,” Q said, and scribbled in her little black book.

“Nice design,” Rabbit said, pointing to the picture she had drawn in the ash. “Is it a symbol for life and death?”

“Yes,” said Q carefully. “It’s certainly not the blueprint for the doomsday device I’d build if I ever got the hang of physics. Do you want to go for a walk?”

“Sure. Did Angela mumble something about gout?”

“Who knows what that kooky chick said? I’m sure she doesn’t want to come. And it doesn’t look like anyone else does either, so we better head off. Just the two of us.”

“Cool,” said Rabbit. They turned to go. Someone called out behind them.

Pious Kate, wearing dark glasses and a scowl, hurried over to join them. “Wait up!” she said, breathless, then switched to a saccharine voice. “Rabbit, would you like to go for a walk?”

“Sure,” said Rabbit. “We’re gonna go check out the stream. You wanna come?”

Pious Kate beamed at Rabbit, then gave Q an antifreeze smile.

“Just the three of us,” said Q. “Oh goody.”

*

“Fresh air. Good company. What could be better?” said Rabbit. He used the pause in conversation to take in a lungful and recharge himself after Pious Kate’s latest story about Pious Kate, starring Pious Kate and featuring, in support, Pious Kate and Pious Kate.

Q walked a few paces behind the pair. She was focusing all her chi on the back of Pious Kate’s head but it refused to fall off. She had underestimated her rival. The woman was chi-proof, no doubt too used to people shooting angry thoughts at her to react.

“And it was only mens rea, but the judge admitted that the expert evidence showed a link between corn-fed cattle and the Western lifestyle diseases of—”

“Kate, that is such a good story, I think you should save it for the campfire tonight,” Rabbit said. He dropped back to walk beside Q. “You’ve been quiet. Tell us about yourself?”

“Yes, do,” gushed Pious Kate. “What is it you do when you’re not reading about how to kill things or molding young minds into corporate drones?”

“Oh,” said Q. “I dunno.” Two vegan animal rights lawyers. What a perfect couple they made.

As if overhearing her thoughts, Pious Kate looped her arm through Rabbit’s and flashed a smile. “You could tell us about your love life,” Pious Kate said. “I gather you live with an older man?”

Q was as dumbfounded as if a blue belt had landed a Flying Monkey on her during training. “What?”

“Yeah,” said Rabbit. “Who was that guy who dropped you off yesterday?”

Q laughed. “That wasn’t a man! That’s my father.” She paused and thought about this. “I guess technically he’s a man, cos otherwise he’d be a transsexual, or I’d be some kind of lab freak, which would be cool, I read a web comic about that…” She trailed off and pinched her leg through the canvas of her pocket.

“You still live with your dad?” said Pious Kate. “How cute.”

“Actually, he lives with me,” Q said. “He moved in after I finished uni. He got lonely on his own after my mother died.”

Boom! Headshot.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rabbit said. “I haven’t lost a parent yet.”

He looked so sad, Q wanted to make him feel better. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ve got another one, and it happened ages ago, and we weren’t that close. I would’ve been much more upset if it was the kelpie.”

“Oh.”

Q pinched her leg again. Pious Kate smirked and tugged on Rabbit’s arm. “We should stop here,” she said as they arrived in a dappled clearing. “It’s a lovely spot. You keep going, Q, you look like you could do with the exercise.”

“Well, I think I will,” Q said.

“Well I think you should,” Pious Kate said. She sat down on a log and patted the bark beside her. “Come on, Rabbit.”

“I’ll keep going for a bit,” Rabbit said.

Pious Kate turned the color of outraged beetroot. Q and Rabbit left her.

*

“What are you making?” Q asked.

“It’s an altar to the spirit of the river,” Rabbit said. They had reached the stream and were dangling their feet into the snow-melt water. Q was throwing in sticks. Rabbit was piling up a cairn of smooth stones.

“Really?” she said, embarrassed on his behalf.

“I’m messing with you. It’s a pile of rocks. But it’s funny that people stack rocks when confronted by natural beauty. It might be a ritualistic act that honors nature, buried deep within the collective subconscious.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We vegans frighten you, don’t we?”

“No! Not at all!” said Q. “Okay, yeah, but you and Angela are cool.”

“Thanks. That’s the least awkward thing you’ve said all morning.”

“Thanks.”

Rabbit sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

“It’s my new fragrant spray,” Q said, glad she had made the effort this morning. “It’s called Ocean Flowers.”

“Like algae?”

“Oh,” said Q. “I guess.”

“Cool. I like algae.”

They dangled and they sat. Q, not used to being in the wilderness without a map icon to click on, tried to orient herself. They were a long way west of Sydney, high up in mountain country. The air was cool and rich and full of earthy scent. The ground poured into gullies and choked on shrubs. There were no power lines, no roads, no straight lines from anything man made. They were in someone else’s land.

The quiet of the morning was interrupted by Q’s regular slap! whack! at mosquitoes and ants. After a while, Rabbit intercepted her hand.

Her face burned and her belly flipped. He was holding her hand!

“They’re part of the bush,” he said. He let go of her hand and turned back to the stream. “Let them be.”

Q sighed. It was nothing after all. “Things are biting me,” she said. “Anything less than extreme self-defense would be weird.”

Rabbit grinned and steered away an inch ant with a stick. “She’s all right,” he said. “You have to be— ow!” He sucked his finger and breathed through his nose. Q giggled.

A movement on the bank downstream caught Q’s eye. She couldn’t make sense of the image at first. Something large and brown lurked in the trees, hunched over the edge of the water. Was it drinking?

No. Not drinking. Another color poured from the creature into the stream. Red. The brown shape was the heart of an expanding pool of red.

Q tapped Rabbit on the shoulder, put a finger to her lips and pointed at the shape. He didn’t see it at first.

“What’s there?” he said. Q waited for the image to make sense, then decided she preferred the abstract version.

“It’s creepy old caretaker guy,” she said. “He’s washing something in the river. Something bloody.”

The man stood up and disappeared into the bush. Q waited until he had gone, then walked downstream to the spot where he had been. There were footprints and blood on the river stones, but the creek itself had washed clean. She didn’t like that man. He reminded her of Chapter Seventeen, The Survivor Type and how to avoid being eaten by one. She returned to Rabbit and scribbled in her little black book.

“Are you writing about our walk in your diary?” Rabbit asked.

“No— yes— sort of.” She put the notebook away.

“What do you write about? Your fears and doubts?” Rabbit asked.

“Sometimes. Like, have you ever noticed that the things that scare us the most aren’t just monsters, but monsters that can turn us into one of them?”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Rabbit said.

Q grinned. He understood! “Vampires and werewolves and zombies,” she said.

“Lawyers,” Rabbit said, shaking his head. “I’m surrounded by them every day. All I want to do is sing folk and make the world a better place and I’m terrified that one day, I’ll forget all that and start overbilling on my time sheet.” He looked so sad.

“Cheer up,” Q said. “I reckon that fear is more common than you think.”

“Kate does not agree,” Rabbit said. “She says I’m wasting my life. She thinks I’m a failure.”

“You? Nah. Anyway, how do you measure success? Your first job? Your first house? Your first stalker?”

“I don’t need to be the best at anything,” Rabbit said. “I just want to be a better person.”

“Me too,” Q said. “I just want to be a person.”

Rabbit’s fingers drifted to a piece of cord at his throat and he pulled out another wooden snake pendant, almost identical to Pious Kate’s, except that this one had glinting green eyes instead of red.

He’d made them matching necklaces.

“That’s pretty,” she said, kicking water and thinking corrosive thoughts.

Rabbit dropped the snake as if it had bitten him. Maybe he was thinking corrosive thoughts, too.

“Kate came up with the design,” he said, glum. “She gets upset if I don’t wear it.”

“What’s the deal with you two?” Q asked in a careful tone, in case she got an answer she didn’t like.

Rabbit watched the moss-covered rocks beneath the surface of the water. “We’ve been best friends since kindergarten,” he said.

“My best friend’s in kindergarten, too,” Q said.

“We were thrown together. The only two vegans at school.”

“Oh!” said Q, with sudden understanding and relief. “You were the little Cantonese kids!”

“What?” Rabbit’s face crinkled into that expression so familiar to Q because it was what people wore when they were trying to interpret her.

“The two kids who didn’t fit in. You smelled weird. You had weird food. Your parents were weird. Everyone picked on you.”

“Thanks for bringing it all back,” Rabbit said.

“But it’s okay now,” Q said. “No one cares any more. We’ve grown up.” Q thought of her online crew. They would never have found each other as children, but as adults they stood together against the darkness, with Jeremiah BownZ off to one side and downwind – acceptance had its limits.

Should she venture a hand onto his shoulder? Or just throw herself on top of him and pin him to the ground for a kiss? It was a flawless plan, unless he knew Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. She was about to make her move when he spoke up.

“We should head back,” he said. He put on his sneakers. “You need to soak the lentils.”

“Huh?”

“You’re rostered on to cook tonight.”

Q guffawed. Rabbit did not join her. “No, seriously?” Q said.

“Sure,” said Rabbit. “We take turns.”

What would these hippies expect? Would she have to do it alone? Would Angela help? “Me and my dad don’t do much fancy cooking at home.”

“Make a dish you’ve made before,” Rabbit said. “What do you usually eat?”

“Takeaways. Microwave dinners. Sometimes Dad makes dyslexia stew, where he accidentally replaces every ingredient in the recipe with the wrong one, then adds bacon. It was good once.”

“Ah.”

She could tell by his tone that she had lost face. What had she said? She dropped her head and concentrated on tying her shoelaces, which were much more difficult to fasten than they had been for the past eighteen years. “It’s not like I don’t know how to cook. Sometimes I grill up a couple of ginormous steaks, two huge piles of beef, and we smother them in barbecue sauce on the grill and cook them rare so they’re all gooey and bleeding inside…” She stopped talking. Rabbit was pale. He looked like he was about retch. She took a step back. “I mean—”

There was a brain-shattering scream from the direction of the camp, followed by four clear gunshots. After a pause there were several more shots in quick succession.

“Thank God,” said Q. She ran toward the sounds.

Chapter Fourteen

The walkers had returned.

Tinkabella, in tears, paced a small, tight circle. The Scarlet Terror made indiscriminate posies from pink flowers and strands of grass. Sheath of Power looked as if he had just eaten the porridge.

“Rabbit, see who’s hurt,” Q said. “Angela, go find my phone and check the cabins.”

Q jogged round the campsite but saw nothing to justify the churn in her gut. She had known something was wrong! Why hadn’t she done something?

When Q returned, Angela handed over what was left of her phone. It had been smashed into pieces. Someone had cut them off.

Rabbit had better news. No one was hurt. “But Melissa didn’t come back from the walk,” he said under his breath.

“Who?” Q said.

“You know – long brown hair, tie-dye shirt, about this tall?”

“Oh, you mean Princess Starla, champion of the people and warrior of the way?” Q walked back to the group.

Despite the sobbing, Tinkabella looked the most cogent of the returned walkers. “What happened?” Q asked her.

The woman was snuffling too hard to answer. “Pull yourself together!” Q said. “What would your avatar say?”

For all the wrong reasons, this was the right thing to say. Everyone gawped, forgetting their trauma in their confusion. “Melissa was attacked,” Tinkabella said.

“By what?”

Tinkabella shook her head. “It was big, like a person.”

“It made noises like a sick animal,” Sheath of Power said.

“It smelled like rot,” Tinkabella said.

“No it didn’t, it smelled like candy canes!”

“It had blood on its claws and teeth!”

“It couldn’t walk straight. It limped like a hunchback penguin.”

Sheath of Power brought the description to a close. “I think it was a roo with rabies.”

“That makes no sense,” Q said, writing in her little black book. “Firstly, we don’t have rabies here, and b, a roo doesn’t look anything like a person, and three, why would an animal attack Princess Starla? She didn’t go Irwin on it, did she?”

Rabbit interceded for the group. “Q, what did you say?”

“It wasn’t a roo with rabies,” Q said.

“You weren’t even there!” said Sheath of Power.

“I heard gun shots,” said Angela. “What was that?” No one knew.

“We better go see if Melissa’s okay,” Rabbit said.

“She’s not okay,” said Tinkabella, who had recovered enough to avoid volunteering. “We should get in the van and get out of here.”

“Not until we’ve checked on Melissa,” Rabbit said.

“I’ll come,” said Q.

“Me, too,” said Angela.

“Good on you!” Q said and jabbed her lightly on the arm.

Angela rubbed the spot. “If there’s a rabid roo, I want to be near the chick who can punch through brick walls.” They headed off, Q pausing to grab a long-handled cooking pot on the way.

*

They did not hurry and barely spoke. Angela asked once if they should walk quietly, so as not to attract attention, or loudly, to scare off whatever was out there. Q didn’t think it would make a difference. There had been gunfire. That meant either the attacker had been dealt with or was more than they could handle. But they still had the gunman to worry about.

The path went northwest and uphill. It was easy to follow. The walkers had used an animal track, which was now well- trampled and lined with scraps of cloth. They had not been careful on their flight back to camp. All they had wanted was to get away.

The group found the spot a mile away from camp. Princess Starla was still there, or at least most of her was. Tinkabella was right. The woman did not need their help. Not any more.

“Shiva,” said Rabbit, and vomited.

“I always said walking was bad for your health,” Angela said.

“You’re calm,” Q said.

“Twins,” Angela said. “Plus, it’s either that or join Rabbit in the vomiting, and in my house, only one adult is allowed to hurl at a time.”

Q regarded the body. It was the first corpse she’d seen since Linda’s. She hadn’t been at the hospital when the woman died so she hadn’t seen the body until the funeral. It had looked healthier than the live version in those last few weeks. Q kept expecting Linda to leap up during the service and yell at Q’s father for neglecting their training schedule. The burial itself felt like murder, the body was so lifelike. Q had decided death would never again take her by surprise.

This body did not look healthy. It looked like it had been eaten by something that wasn’t a member of the clean plate club. Q felt something hot and sour in the back of her throat and turned away. Ridiculous. It couldn’t hurt her. It was dead. What was wrong with her?

She turned back to the body and pixelated the scene in her head, like level six on Crypt Robbers. That was better. She trod a careful circle around Princess Star – around the body. She didn’t want to touch anything. Touching might make it real. The smell was a problem, too. She wasn’t used to smells like this. Meaty, raw and rotten, a mix of blood and shit and something she couldn’t identify.

Focus.

There were two clean bullet holes in the forehead. They may not have been what killed Princess Starla. Some ghoul had torn off most of the face and there were large chunks missing from the mid-section. There was less blood than Q had expected. There was also a long, flattened trail leading away from the body, as if something heavy had been dragged through the scrub. Like a second body.

There was no trace of gunman or ghoul. Maybe they were the same person, and there was a maniac on the loose. She had one lead candidate for that theory. Q considered following the flattened trail, but decided against it. She probably wouldn’t find anything that way. Worse – she might.

Rabbit was back, pale and sweaty. He nodded, opened his mouth to ask a question, then turned away to vomit again.

Angela kept her distance and breathed through her mouth. She was an unlikely ally in an emergency, pale, tubby and with absolutely no firearms training, but Angela sure kept her head in a crisis, and her breakfast. Her kids were lucky to have her.

Hannah! Q better get back to camp and call her hotline to check that her friend was okay. Just in case this problem wasn’t local. “We gotta get back,” she said.

“Shouldn’t we try first aid?” Rabbit said.

Q and Angela exchanged looks. Q tried to exchange looks with the body, but was hampered by its lack of eyes. “You haven’t done a lot of first aid training, have you?” she asked Rabbit.

He replied with a dry retch. They headed back.

*

It took them longer to return. Angela talked constantly to Rabbit about whether it was likely to rain, and how glad she was that there was no snow this late in the season, and how much her kids would love tearing up the bush. Rabbit’s face was the color of the gum leaves around them. The gray-green skin was the first thing Q had seen on him that didn’t look good. She’d thank Angela later.

They were almost back when they heard quick, light footsteps. They stopped. “Is that it?” Angela said.

Q shook her head. “Don’t think so. Too regular. Tinkabella said it limped.”

A figure stepped onto the track ahead of them. It was the large-bellied caretaker. He pulled his rifle up into the firing position and sighted along the barrel toward them.

Q leaped across Angela and Rabbit and knocked them to the ground. They landed in a tangle. She stared at the man from the dirt. He stood on the path, quite calm, as if he had resolved something. He lowered his weapon and turned to leave.

“Hey!” said Q, scampering to her feet. “Did you see it?”

The man paused. He glanced at the cooking pot clutched in her hand. He was quiet too long, as if preparing an answer rather than providing one. “I killed it,” he said at last.

“Lucky you had your gun with you,” Q said, thinking it a bit too coincidental. “When the attack happened.”

“I was out hunting.” The man turned to go.

“What was it?” Q said.

“Rabid roo,” he said. “Go home.”

“Wait!” Q called. “We need to—”

In the distance, an engine revved. In defiance of the ordinary spectrum, Rabbit turned a greener shade of gray. “That’s the Yowie bus,” he said. They ran.

*

It was gone.

Angela sank to the dirt, bereft. She traced a hand in a tire divot. “They left,” she said.

“They must have gone for help,” Rabbit said.

“They left us!” Angela’s voice rose.

Rabbit shook his head. Q leaned against a tree and pulled out a stashed candy bar from the pocket of her cargo pants. It was half-melted and, like a rebound romp on a summer’s night, full of warm, sticky reassurance. She tore off a piece and handed the rest around. Such was Rabbit’s level of shock, he ate it without even asking if it was fair trade.

“Those bastards!” Angela said. “I hope their intestines are ripped out and eaten by diseased marsupials!”

“Wow,” Q said. “That was weird and aggressive. Welcome aboard.” She pulled out her little black book and wrote a few lines, then flicked back through the pages while planning their next move. She wanted to check in with her crew and Hannah, but they would surely have warned her if there was an outbreak in Sydney. The hippies hadn’t gone for help, but she was sure they’d inadvertently send it anyway. She wondered if they’d stop in the first town they came to and start raving, or if they’d make it all the way back to Sydney. How long would it take before the police arrived? Could the hippies explain where this place was, or did they only know the menu plan?

Q’s brain caught up with what her eyes were reading.

An unexplained head shot during a military exercise. Visa refusals for North American tourists on health grounds. A series of homicides at a scout camp in the Snowies. High absenteeism at Saint Cedric’s. The unseasonal pandemic plan requested by the government.

A few months ago, events were listed weeks apart. Over the last few pages, there was an entry every day.

Cluster!

Apocalypse Z had warned her about this. Her little black book had prepared her for this. And she’d missed it! Maybe her crew was already in trouble, or already gone? She’d been so busy waiting for the main event she hadn’t recognized it when it came. How?

Too busy chasing Rabbit, that’s how. Idiot! “I gotta go talk to creepy old caretaker guy,” Q said.

“Don’t leave!” Angela said.

“What do we do?” Rabbit asked.

“Check the huts. Get everyone together who’s left.” They had plenty of clubbing weapons and kitchen knives, but no guns, and Q had brought their only large blades. It wasn’t promising. “When you’ve got everyone together, build a big fire. Make sure there’s plenty of wood. Get more if you need it but don’t go far and stay in pairs.”

“Why do we need a fire?” Rabbit asked.

“It’ll get chilly soon,” Q lied. Fire was good for morale and meals and it would give them something to do. She doubted it would keep the monsters at bay.

“You’re not going back out there?” Angela said.

“Be careful,” Rabbit said.

Chapter Fifteen

Q stalked, pressing down the outside of each foot before rolling onto the ball. She was quiet, but not silent. She hoped the background screech of birds would cover her.

She moved uphill toward the cabin, shivering in the chill shade. The sun had already slid past the peak of the mountain and breakfast seemed long ago.

Q slowed when she neared the cabin, then stopped behind a large trunk. There were sounds inside – the steady murmur of a single voice. Was the man talking to himself? Princess Starla had died horribly in the bush. This freak had been nearby. Every time Q saw him, he had a gun, and the last time she saw him, he’d pointed it at her. What if the only dangerous thing out here was the fat man?

She pictured the cabin’s configuration. There were two windows at the front and one door. Another window lay on the west wall and two on the east. She didn’t know about the rear. There might be another door. She would have to make sure he didn’t escape through an unseen exit and double around to surprise her. Q didn’t know if she was here to talk, raid supplies or fight, but she was ready for all three. She’d find out soon enough.

Left foot, right foot, left foot, pause. Drop below the line of the windows. Creep forward. Pause.

She was below the window at the front of the cabin now. The monologue continued but no longer sounded like a man talking to himself – it was a radio. That was good, because it meant he might not be insane, and she might get to listen to the news. It was also bad. If he wasn’t in there talking to himself, he might not be in there at all. He could be anywhere. Hiding in the trees. Lining her up in his sights right now.

The back of Q’s neck itched.

Ignoring it, she crept over to the door and tested the handle. It turned. She slid it open and slipped inside.

*

Q was so overwhelmed by the smell of stale cigarette smoke that at first she couldn’t pick out the details in the dark interior. When her eyes adjusted, she saw a table, a one-burner gas cooker on the floor, a mattress in one corner. A man sat on the only chair, a lit cigarette between two fingers. He wasn’t listening to his radio any more – all his attention was on Q.

It was the first time she had seen him unarmed. Good timing.

They regarded one another. Q registered more details in the room without breaking eye contact. There was almost nothing on the floor. The walls were covered with guns mounted in brackets, mostly bolt-action rifles, but also pistols and shotguns and three semi-automatics. She recognized a .22 target rifle and a .32 pump action, the kind she used sometimes on the range. His armory was better than the one they had at her club.

Ash fell from the man’s cigarette.

Q spoke. “What are you, some kind of American?” She gestured to the weapons on the walls.

The man laughed.

He’d need to take two steps to get to his nearest gun. Q could get to him faster than that. She relaxed a fraction, then saw something even more reassuring. On the table in front of him, beside the radio, was a book. Apocalypse Z.

Q sauntered over. “Thank God,” she said. “I thought you were some kind of weirdo.” She pointed to the radio. “Outbreak?” she said.

“Class Three,” he said.

“Q,” she said, extending her hand.

He shook it. “Dave.”

He stood and offered her the chair. She giggled at the chivalry, but stopped when she saw his expression. It didn’t look as if he entertained much. She thanked him and sat down.

They listened to the broadcast as the last of day’s light disappeared and the room filled with darkness. The reports said that people were bitten, then they stopped eating everything except raw meat. They slept a lot and were very thirsty, then didn’t drink or eat at all. Then they turned into flesh-eating monsters.

“How far has it spread?” Q said.

Dave grunted. “Dunno. Damn reporters. Useless.”

“Sydney?” Q asked.

He grunted in the affirmative.

“Canberra?” she said.

He grunted again. “The pollies turned. It’s bloody mayhem.”

“Who’d have thought Parliament was run by a bunch of brain-dead monsters?” Q guffawed, then stopped. A Class Three outbreak meant anyone in a built-up area was in trouble, and the situation would get worse. The people who tried to help—doctors, cops, leaders of any kind—would be the first to get bitten and turn. Every hour made friends into enemies. Her eyes prickled. Never mind her crew, they could look after themselves. But what were the chances for her dad? Could a tubby alcoholic who couldn’t waddle uphill escape the hordes? Would the kelpie do any better?

“Sorry about the hippy,” Dave said, misinterpreting her expression.

“Thanks,” said Q. “I thought you might have done it at first. But the bullet holes were clean. You shot her after she died.”

Dave nodded and recited a line as comforting as a nursery rhyme. “Two in the head …”

Q finished it for him. “… make sure it’s dead. You got the thing that attacked her?” she said.

“Yeah.” His face drew tight. “I shot it in the head. It wouldn’t fall. I kept shooting till it did.”

Q filed this disturbing news away for later reference. “Thanks for the firewood,” she said, steering him away from a memory that upset him. Apocalypse Z could only prepare you so much.

Dave shifted. “Might scare them off.”

Q swore and leaped to her feet. “I gotta get back. I left them at the campsite.”

“The hippies?” Dave asked.

“Yeah.”

“Alone?”

They ran.

Chapter Sixteen

The campsite was a sorry sight indeed. Rabbit had built a fire as instructed. That done, he had collapsed to the ground and ceased all mental activity. Three others had joined him around the circle—the Scarlet Terror, Sheath and Angela. Angela was the only one who looked like she was coping with the situation. She was asleep.

Don’t run. Frightens the troops.

Q slowed to a walk as she approached. Dave followed her lead, barely puffing from their sprint. He sure was fit for a fat man.

She scanned the surrounds. The fire blazed at the center of a circle of logs. Its light reached the nearest two cabins but showed nothing beyond. A seedpod cracked in the flames like a shot.

Dave grunted, as if to ask Q if this small mob was it.

“Looks like it,” Q said.

He grunted again, as if to say that hippies had no business in the bush during an outbreak when what he needed were trained anti-zombie survivalist troops.

“If you’re gonna be a pessimist,” Q said, “you should keep it to yourself and make your grunts less eloquent.”

“Uh?”

“Never mind.”

Rabbit’s empty gaze fell on Q. Relief broke over his face like a sunrise. “You’re okay!” He jumped up and gave her a hug. It was almost worth the end of the world.

Reluctant to end the physical contact, Q mumbled through the folds of his shirt. Tragically, he let go and stood back to listen. “What was that?”

“I said, ‘Rabbit, meet Dave. Dave, Rabbit’.”

Dave’s face hardened. “Rabbit?” he said, as if he didn’t think this was an appropriate name for a man.

“You should hear what she calls the rest of us,” Sheath of Power said.

Q nudged Angela awake and then introduced Dave to the hippies. “You’ll like Dave,” she said to Sheath, giving him a gentle tension-breaking elbow in the ribs. “He’s a persecuted minority.”

Sheath rubbed his ribcage. “Indigenous?” he said, looking Dave up, down and around.

“Smoker,” Q said.

Angela switched her attention from the hulking newcomer to Q, and yawned. “I had the strangest dream.”

No wonder she was so calm; the poor woman was in denial. “Sorry, Angela,” Q said. “That wasn’t a dream.”

Angela sat up. “You mean I sat a Latin test in the nude in front of my in-laws?”

“Oh,” Q said. “That was a dream. But the thing with Princess Starla—”

“—Melissa—” said Rabbit.

“—was real.”

“I remember,” said Angela.

“Where’s Kate?” Q said. “Did she go home in the van?”

Rabbit shook his head. “Tinkabella left alone.” He frowned. “She’s not a good driver.”

Typical Rabbit. The woman had stolen their transport and left them stranded in hostile territory, and he was worried about her. He was such a beautiful idiot.

“Kate’s in her room,” Rabbit said. “She said she needed to be alone to think about things.” He frowned again.

Q was worried too, but for different reasons. Pious Kate’s behavior was becoming increasingly bizarre. Normal people did not want to be alone at a time like this. Even hermits, like Dave, did not want to be alone at a time like this. And Kate had already confessed that she’d been bitten. Q reached for her little black book to log her concerns, then stopped. What was the point? The thing she’d been preparing for all those years had happened, and she’d missed the signs.

“What’s going on, Q?” Rabbit asked.

Could they handle the truth? Would she be able to control them if she was frank, or would they panic and get themselves killed? She decided to stall.

“Outbreak of roo rabies,” she said. “It is September.” She turned to Dave. “Are they buying it?” she said softly.

Dave grunted in the negative.

“Come on, Q,” said Angela. “Stop this silliness. I know you know more than you’re telling.”

It was a voice ripe with maternal authority and it bypassed Q’s conscious mind and connected straight to her hindbrain. She straightened her shoulders and almost spilled the lot, but managed to choke it back in time.

Angela waited until Q finished spluttering, then continued in the same tone. “Melissa’s been eaten, you’re all chummy with creepy old caretaker guy—”

Dave grunted.

“Seriously, man, you should hear what she calls the rest of us,” said Sheath of Power.

“—and you don’t find any of this surprising,” Angela continued. “It’s as if you were expecting it to happen.”

Q counted stars. Dave counted his feet.

“Well?” said Angela, as single-minded as Q wasn’t. “I’m waiting.”

“Mmmbees,” Dave said. He broke first, as he only had two feet to count.

“What was that?” Angela said. “Now stop playing silly buggers and speak up!”

Q made like the French and surrendered. “A zombie ate Princess Starla. Ooh, good name for a film, I should write that down.” Such was Q’s inexperience in discussing zombies with people who didn’t think about them hourly, the group’s reaction took her by surprise.

Sheath was furious. Rabbit’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way. He still looked sexy, though. Angela and the Scarlet Terror laughed. It was not nice laughter. It was to a giggle what a closed fist was to an open hand. “Come on, Q. Be sensible,” said Angela.

“Is this one of your games?” Rabbit asked, as if he didn’t find it funny but was prepared to forget the whole thing if Q came clean.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard, even from a right-wing close-minded industrialist capitalist ego-centric conformist like you,” said Sheath. He paused to collect more furious “ists”.

Q cut in. “Princess Starla—”

“—Melissa—” Rabbit said

“—is dead, suspected eaten,” Q continued. “Dave shot a creature that would have been human but for all the bits that kept falling off. Tinkabella got so spooked she stole the van and fled, even though she can’t drive. Back me up here, Dave. It’s not paranoia if you end up right.”

“Ridiculous!” said Sheath of Power.

“How do you explain it?” said Q.

“Easy,” said Sheath. “Mass hysteria and infection caused by a new human/animal virus fostered by the unnatural diet and confinement of modern farm animals and our merciless subjugation, slaughter and consumption of those animals. It’s an outbreak. Like swine flu, or mad cow disease.”

“Fine,” said Q. “We have a fatal outbreak of zombie flu. Symptoms are death, reanimation and an insatiable craving for human flesh. I hope you’ve all had your shots. I’m gonna go check on Kate.” Q stormed off.

Angela completely undermined her dramatic exit by joining her.

“I’m having an angry alone moment,” Q said. “We can’t be angry alone together.”

“I know,” the woman said. “But my sweater’s in my room and it’s cold and I’m too chicken to go by myself.”

“Fine,” said Q. “Then you have to explain to me why you were so mean when I was trying to explain.”

“You took us by surprise,” Angela said. “We’re not used to hearing monster stories presented as fact. Maybe it’s a regular homicidal lunatic trying to kill us? I’ve seen that movie. Several times.”

“Be that way,” Q said, substituting sulk for anger. “It’s not my fault that me and Dave are the only ones who psychologically prepared for this day.”

“Q, there’s ‘prepared’ and then there’s ‘crazy’.”

Q considered. “Is that like the difference between always carrying a sharp pencil, and regularly burning off your fingertips so that no one can forensically frame you for a crime you didn’t commit?”

“Wow,” Angela said. “The fact that you had that example handy was a double demonstration of the principle. But I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I thought that book of yours was a joke. A quirky joke, not a very funny joke, but a joke.”

“Apocalypse Z is like gonorrhea, Angela. There is nothing funny about it.”

They had reached the cabin. It was impossible to see inside; the windows were impassive black shapes. She nudged at the door and it creaked open.

“Q,” Angela said softly.

“Yah?”

“You don’t regularly burn off your fingerprints, do you?”

“Of course not.”

Angela sighed. “Good.”

“It hurts way more than you’d think.”

Q stepped inside. For the second time that day, she had to strain her eyes in the darkness to detect a possible enemy before that enemy could detect her. The possibility of attack in this enclosed space made her gut clench. She held her breath and searched.

Pious Kate wasn’t there.

Q relaxed and walked into the cabin. She flicked on her head torch and screeched.

Pious Kate stood behind the door, back pressed against the wall. Her eyes were wide, the whites too prominent. Her breath was fast.

“Kate?” Q said. “Are you okay?”

Pious Kate did not answer. Q took a step back and tensed, waiting for outstretched hands, a moan and a charge. None came.

The woman focused on Q. Her breathing slowed and she shook her head. “It’s you.” Pious Kate’s tone made the sub-text shrivel.

“Yup. Me!” said Q, artificially bright. “How ya feeling there, Kate? You’re not coming down with the… flu, or anything, are you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Pious Kate. “I never get sick. My system is too pure. I’ve been vegan since birth.”

Q chuckled, thinking of jerky, which was something she often did even before she met Pious Kate.

Angela decided the cabin was safe and sidled in. She rifled through her bag for a sweater, keeping a watch on the two women.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time up here on your own,” Q said.

“Yes,” said Pious Kate. “It’s a retreat. That’s what you do on a retreat.” She pushed past Q and walked out into the night.

“Do you want your coat?” Angela called after her.

“I don’t feel the cold,” Pious Kate said.

“No, you wouldn’t, not through the chill of your soul,” Q said.

Angela straightened up. She was wearing four different sweaters, one over the top of the other, and she swelled beneath them like an overfilled patchwork balloon. She also wore a hand-knitted pink woolen beanie with a bobble on it.

“What?” said Angela. “I need to stay warm. I’ve had a shock.”

“So have I, now. So have we all—” Q stopped. She’d forgotten about Hannah. Was she okay? What was happening in Sydney?

“What’s wrong?” Angela said.

“Nothing. I need some stuff. Go ahead without me.”

“Okay.” Angela hurried back to the campsite, leaving Q alone in the hut.

Q rifled under her pillow and pulled out the satellite hotphone. It was out of charge. She swore, clicked on the wind-up charger and cranked as fast as she could, then dialed, mouth dry. She ran her hand over the sleeping bag on her bed. Its cold folds felt like a shroud.

The phone rang out. Q swore.

She crouched on the hard floor and pressed her fingers into her belly, trying to stop it lurching. Maybe Hannah was busy and couldn’t reach it. She would be alert for the next call. Q had to give her a chance to stop whatever she was doing. She’d count thirty breaths, then try again.

She got to twenty-five and realized she’d been taking quick, flat breaths to make the count go faster. She made herself start over. When she got to thirty, she sat on the bed and dialed.

On the fifth ring, the phone connected.

“Hannah! Are you okay?” There was no reply, just yelling in the background. Q had a dreadful premonition of a small, dead girl with perfect pigtails, holding a phone and not knowing what to do with it. “Hannah! Can you hear me! Are you safe? Can you talk?”

“You should have been here, Q.” Hannah’s voice broke. The girl was having trouble breathing and talking, but she was still able to do both. She was still alive.

Q said a silent prayer and gave her friend a moment to catch her breath.

Then Hannah told her about the monsters. It had started with Mrs Mason, who had arrived at class that afternoon despite the fact that a substitute teacher had been called in to cover for Q. At first it had been funny. Mrs Mason had walked into the closed glass doors of the Kindy Koala classroom with a thump!, like a bird that lost its way. Then she walked through the glass doors, grabbed Charmaine and bit the girl’s pinkie off.

That was less funny.

Q listened to the sounds beyond Hannah as the girl spoke. There were voices in the background, which was good. Two of them sounded adult, which was great. There was also a steady, low sobbing.

“When did it happen?” Q said.

“Two forty-five. Most of the kids were asleep but they woke up fast.”

Q fist-pumped the air. She knew there had been a point to all that naptime training. “What happened next?”

“Charmaine ate Marie’s foot.”

“Those two never got along.” That meant Charmaine had turned in less than a minute. Q logged another piece of information to her tally.

“I ran into the corridor,” Hannah said. “There were kids everywhere. Some of them weren’t acting like kids.” Q understood. She always knew it would happen one day. The little monsters had become little monsters. “Did you try the fire exit?” Q said. It was a standard escape drill for the Lethal Littlies.

“It was blocked.”

“By what?”

“Mrs Dunkett, the counselor. She was—” The girl stopped talking. There was silence. No breathing, no muttering in the background, nothing.

“Hannah!”

The girl came back on the line. She must have covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Mrs Dunkett was—”

Hannah wasn’t able to say what Natolia was, but Q could guess. “Do you remember my finger food cooking class that she walked in on?”

Hannah giggled. “I told you it was meant to be food to eat with your fingers, not food that tasted like fingers. How did you know what fingers tasted like, anyway?”

“Practice,” said Q. “Where are you now?”

“In the sports hall,” Hannah said.

“Good. Heavy doors and no windows.” And no way out. “How many are you?”

Hannah listed the survivors. There were four adults and six kids, five of whom were from the Lethal Littlies, which was no surprise. They had been trained to deal with this exact situation. “Have you barricaded the doors?”

“With the ping-pong table and the gym mats. They’re rattling.”

That meant Hannah and her crew were surrounded and had no chance of making a run for it. “I left a copy of the pandemic plan taped under the ping-pong table,” Q said. “There’s a section on siege in the sports hall. Tell Mrs Carroll to go get it and read it to the group.”

Hannah issued instructions, as calm as if she were showing a newcomer how to do an over-the-shoulder throw. She and her group of survivors might be the last fresh meat in the school. How many Z were waiting outside? Would they stagger off to harvest the suburbs or would they stay, patient as death, waiting for their chance?

“The monsters called to us before,” Hannah said. “Some of the others said to open the door but me and Lisa said no.”

“Good,” said Q. “That’s right. Sometimes a zombie can say your name.”  It was a lie, but a helpful one. Anyone trapped in a mob of ghouls was already bitten. There was no point damning a group to save someone who was already dead, even if they didn’t yet know it and could still talk.

“One of the zombies sounded like Michael,” Hannah said, her voice on the edge of a chasm.

“It wasn’t Michael,” Q said. “They’re good at doing impersonations. He’s fine.”

“I know,” Hannah said. “It’s stopped now.”

Q opened her eyes very wide and tipped her head back to study the ceiling. Hannah had survived. That was what mattered.

There was a knock on the cabin door. “Q?” It was Rabbit’s voice.

Q thought fast. She doubted Rabbit had been the one to smash her other phone, but she didn’t know who had, and she couldn’t afford to lose this one. Even if he was safe, would he keep her secret?

No. Rabbit would share this with the others, because he shared everything.

“I’m getting changed,” Q called out. She spoke to Hannah, soft and urgent. “I gotta go, Hannah Banana. Good luck.”

“But—”

“Listen. Keep this phone. If anyone tries to take it from you, do a Kimbo Combo. Call me if anything bad happens.”

“Like Mrs Mason eating the class?”

“Anything bad you can’t handle.”

Rabbit knocked again. “You okay?”

“I don’t want a stupid phone!” Hannah’s voice cracked. “If you’re not here when the monsters come, what’s the point of you?”

Rabbit pushed the door open. Q slid the phone into the pocket of her cargo pants.

“Sorry to barge in,” Rabbit said. “I was worried. And we don’t know what to do. We need you.”

It was one pronoun away from bliss, but it would have to do for now.

Chapter Seventeen

The fire burned bright, flames cheery as balloons. Cold had come with the setting sun, and they huddled in the glow.

Dave smoked. Sheath coughed, muttering about cancer and stirring a large pot over the coals. Angela and the Scarlet Terror gazed at the fire, unfocused and silent. Pious Kate had joined the subdued group and she sat to one side on her own, sucking on a bottle of water like an outsized infant.

Scared troops are dangerous troops.

Q quickened her steps and gave a jovial greeting. She got a few murmured responses, and she and Rabbit joined the somber circle. She tried to strike up a cheerful conversation. “Who here wants a big helping of yummy lentil curry?”

Rabbit looked alarmed. “Is the situation that bad?” he said.

“No! Not at all. Everything’s fine,” Q lied. “We’re all together, Kate’s here, we’re here, everything’s fine.”

A burning stump snapped in the middle of the fire. The Scarlet Terror shrieked.

“How about some music?” Angela said from deep within her cocoon of clothing.

“A singalong! Great idea!” Q leaped up and grabbed Rabbit’s guitar, which lay outside the circle of firelight. “Maybe something different this time,” Q said as she handed the instrument to him. “Nothing to do with animal mutilation.”

“If you say so,” Rabbit said, as if this ruled out all of the good songs. “I could take requests.”

“I have one.” The Scarlet Terror, glassy-eyed, held up her hand very straight. It was the first thing she had said for hours. Q gave her an encouraging smile.

“It’s by R.E.M. I’m not sure what it’s called.”

“Hum a bit, I’ll pick it up,” Rabbit said.

The Scarlet Terror hummed.

Angela piped up. “Not that one,” she said.

“It’s fine, I know it,” Rabbit said. He hummed, strummed, then sang the chorus in his beautiful deep voice. He stopped when he came to the part about the world’s end. Chords straggled into the night like crash victims in shock.

Another burning branch cracked. The Scarlet Terror whimpered. Q flicked a bug off her knee and into the fire. She was remembering why she hated hiking so much. It was like nightclubbing – it sounded more fun that it was, and afterwards she always felt tired, chafed and lumpy. And that was before the threat of a zombie attack.

Maybe she could sneak off and call Hannah back. Would the others notice?

She slapped a mosquito.

“Relax,” said Rabbit, strumming, and continued singing to himself. At least the music was having a soothing effect him. Q tried to overhear the calming words, but gave up when he got to a line about “assault and battery hens”. Those words could only be soothing for Rabbit.

She slapped another mosquito, swore again and pulled a bottle of insect repellent from her pocket. She sprayed, noting with approval that the smell of DEET was nowhere near as strong as that of her Ocean Flowers spray, even though she’d applied the fragrance twelve hours ago. This perfume stuff sure gave value for money.

“You don’t need all that poison,” Rabbit said, still strumming. “A few deep, calming breaths is all you need.”

“I’ll calm down when things stop trying to eat me,” she said, and wished she hadn’t.

“Can anyone say Freudian?” Angela said.

Q said it several times under her breath, wondering what the challenge was. Hippies were strange.

“What’s the plan?” said Sheath. “Sit here and wait for the police and hope they show up before some maniac in the woods tries to kill us?”

“Or some maniac sitting right here,” Angela said. Dave scowled.

“The van’s gone,” Q said. “What options do we have?”

“We could walk back,” Rabbit said.

“If we follow the track, it’s sixty kilometers before we reach a town,” Q said. “Unless you want to bush bash it, and then it’s fifteen miles before we’re lost and starving.”

“He must have a car,” Angela said, pointing a stick at Dave. “To get supplies and things.”

Dave grunted, then said, “They deliver.”

Q thought that unlikely, but she didn’t want to push the point, partly because she didn’t want a fight with this man and partly because she was glad they were cut off. The hippies didn’t know it yet, but this was the best place to be during a Class Three outbreak. The middle of nowhere.

Dave took his short-wave radio from his pocket.

“That’s not a good idea,” Q said.

Dave switched it on. The Sydney station he and Q had been listening to earlier wasn’t broadcasting any more. Dave turned the dial, navigating the dips and swells of static. After a minute of white noise, he switched to AM.

“You’re listening to Dazza on Snowy Mountains Radio, live with the latest on the living dead! Here’s one for those who can still hear, Shandi with ‘Sugar Bomb-Bomb Baby,’” said a laid-back male voice.

“What did he say about the living dead?” Angela said.

“It’s a concert,” Sheath said. “Or a tribute band.”

Dave turned the volume mercifully low as Shandi wailed out her latest thesis on love for a modern girl in a modern world.

“Guess it’s not the end of the world after all,” said Q.

“Have you heard that song?” said Angela.

They listened to Shandi until Dazza returned. “Wasn’t that fantastic, kids?” he said. “And here’s a text from Sue in Tumut. ‘What did one dyslexic zombie moan to the other? Brian, Brian!’ Thanks Sue, we all need some light in these dark times.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Pious Kate. “There’s some stupid nationwide practical joke.” She was shushed.

“If you’ve just tuned in, we’re getting ku-ra-zee reports. Darwin says it’s Dawn of the Dead, Sydney’s swamped with rabid swine flu, Brisbane’s been declared a disaster zone, so no change there—”

“—did he say Sydney?” said Angela.

“—and those wacky Taswegians think there’s some kind of sinister plot by the logging companies because all their forestry protesters have been eaten!”

“You don’t believe this idiot, do you?” Pious Kate said. “Come on!”

“I dunno, Kate,” Rabbit said. “You didn’t see Melissa. It was pretty bad.” His eyes glazed over.

Dave settled the argument with the volume control. Dazza yelled. “I’m not sure what’s going on, kids, but if your ma’s acting aggro, watch out! And we’d love to hear your stories. Send in a text, day or night, to Snowy Mountains Radio, we’re broadcasting twenty-four-seven, live, we never shut down—”

The transmission broke. Static returned.

“What was wrong with that freak?” Pious Kate said. She kicked dirt at the radio.

“Everyone has their own reaction to shock,” Rabbit said. “I guess that’s how DJs deal.”

“What did he say about Sydney?” Angela said, her voice splintering. “What’s happening in Sydney?”

Dave kept the dial moving, hunting for another station, but found only the gravel roar of static. Q leaned over and switched it off. “Save the batteries,” she said. “We’ll hike uphill tomorrow and listen. There’ll be better reception.” Both Dave and Q understood that reception wasn’t the problem, but there was no need for everyone else to know.

“What about the airport?” Angela said. “John and the kids flew to Melbourne today. Will the airport be safe?”

Q considered the early signs she'd missed. Texan flu. Sudden transmission breaks in a US reality show. Email silence from Jeremiah BownZ in Nebraska. The outbreak probably started in America. It would have been spread around the globe by infected people travelling from the source. Any major international airport would be a disaster zone once the outbreak got going. There’d be Z coming off planes and attacking the crowd, and half of Sydney trying to flee by air, including more diseased. The roads would be impassable, blocked with cars. Footpaths would be clogged with the dead and the undead. If Angela’s family had even made it to the departure lounge, they would have stayed there forever. If they made it onto a plane, what were their chances of survival? She imagined being strapped into a seat while airhostesses offered a choice of chicken, beef or disembowelment.

“They’ll be fine,” she lied. “They probably got to Melbourne. Things would be better there.”

“I have to go,” Angela said.

“No one’s going,” Dave said.

“I have to help them!” She leaped to her feet.

“Angela,” Q said. “Which way’s home?”

Angela looked one way, then the other. She pointed at the muddy tracks left by the hippy van. “We’re so far away,” she said.

Rabbit took two steps over and hugged her. He was rewarded with wet, heaving sobs.

Pious Kate began crying too, but daintily. “Rabbit,” she sniffled. “What about Angela’s poor little children?”

To his credit, Rabbit stretched out an arm to the great big faker and hugged them both.

“Right,” Q said to Dave, taking advantage of the distraction. “Let’s get sorted. Shelter?”

“This’ll do,” he said, nodding his head around the campfire and cabins.

“Are we safe from attack here?” she said.

He grunted. “Nowhere’s safe.”

“Water?” she asked.

“Tank’s full. Creek’s clean.”

“Food?”

Dave fiddled with the rifle slung over his shoulder. “I got rations.”

Q nodded. Was he happy to share? She didn’t want to push it. “We brought stuff too,” she said, gesturing to Sheath’s cooking pot. “And I guess there’s roos and rabbits and trout?”

He grunted in the affirmative.

“Excellent,” Q said. “Plenty of weapons in your cabin, and we can make clubs, too.” She paused. There was a personal question she had to ask but wasn’t sure if she knew him well enough. She lowered her voice. “What’s your zombie plan?”

He hesitated, then delivered a speech longer than any she had heard from him before. “Clear the perimeter. Check the comms. Wait it out.”

Q nodded. “Sounds good. Can we stay?”

She held her breath. If he said no, what would happen? Would he drive them into the bush to be attacked or to starve to death? She couldn’t let that happen. She’d have to fight him for the right to stay, and a fight could only end one of two ways. Neither was good.

Dave gave her a Mona Lisa smile. Q took it as permission to remain, and grinned. “Lucky we got slow zombies,” she said. “Easy to outrun.”

Dave grunted, as if this were the only kind of proper zombie. “Dumb, too,” he said with enthusiasm.

“Yeah,” Q said. “I always knew they would be. As if zombies could move fast with no circulation! As if they could talk!”

She and Dave had a quiet chuckle together at the false predictions of the zombie community, then Q realized the snuffling and gasping noises had stopped. Angela was no longer weeping. She was scowling, as were the rest of the hippies.

“What’s up?” Q said.

“Melissa’s dead, Sydney’s under attack and you two chums are acting like this is the greatest thing that ever happened!” Pious Kate said. “Like all your plans have come together.”

“What else should we do?” Q said.

Pious Kate pouted. “You want us to sit here and wait like bait? Like meat?”

“You can leave,” Q said. “You’ll be safe. You don’t believe in zombies. You said they were for kids.”

This turned out to be the wrong thing to say. Angela began sobbing again about her children.

“I didn’t mean zombies were for kids, I meant that you and Kate said only kids believed in them…” Q said, then dropped it. Angela would have to cry herself out soon. No one could leak that much without running dry.

“I’m not an idiot,” Pious Kate said. “Something’s wrong. But I don’t have to believe your bedtime story and I won’t stand by while you and Doctor Death make plans. What if we’re attacked? Where will we go?”

Q cringed. “Uncool, Kate,” she said.

Dave jumped to his feet. “I’m getting guns.” He stormed off up the hill to his cabin.

“What just happened?” Rabbit asked.

Hippies! They didn’t know anything useful. “Kate asked Dave what his back-up zombie plan was,” Q said. “You never ask a stranger what their back-up zombie plan is.”

“Why?” said Pious Kate, unrepentant.

The others were equally nonplussed. Q wondered if that left them neutral, mathematically speaking, then tried to explain. “It’s like pulling Wushu in an Aikido class,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s like borrowing potassium permanganate from someone else’s survival tin without asking,” Q said.

“Huh?”

She paused, struggling to express the magnitude of Pious Kate’s social blunder.

“Is it like bringing non-free-range pork sausages to the Yowie vegan end-of-year sectarian holiday barbecue?” Rabbit said.

“Exactly,” Q said, relieved that someone got it. She was all out of examples of social blunders. It wasn’t like she was the expert. Well, maybe she could claim some expertise, but if she were able to articulate them she’d be less prone to committing them.

“How was I meant to know?” Pious Kate said. “I don’t understand all that geek stuff.”

Q took a few deep, calming breaths. Save the rage. Use it later.

“Right,” she said. “Listen up. Here’s a crash course. We are not geeks, we are survivors. Rule One: two in the head, make sure it’s dead. Rule Two: if you’re bit, that’s it. Rule Three: never fight if you can run.”

“Wow,” Rabbit said. “How did you learn all that stuff?

“The only way you can,” Q said. “Years of exhaustive research and mental preparation. Endless online workshopping about strategy. Constant physical training to the point of exhaustion and beyond. Plus I’ve got over a thousand hours on Z-Day.”

“And it’s written right here,” said Sheath, flicking through Q’s copy of Apocalypse Z. “Page one lists the ten key rules for survival.”

“A book can’t illustrate these things,” Q said.

“It has pictures.”

“It’s a good start for you beginners,” Q said. “Study it.”

Dave returned calm, no doubt soothed by the weapons now strapped around his body. He handed a pistol to Q. She shook her head and pointed to one of the bolt-action rifles, and he surrendered it. He glanced around the circle to see if anyone else wanted a gun. Q shook her head on their behalf, then checked over her new toy with enthusiasm.

“Kate?” Rabbit said, raising his eyebrows at Pious Kate.

“What?” Pious Kate said.

“Do you have something to say to Dave?” Rabbit said.

“No.” Pious Kate stuck out her bottom lip.

“Go on,” Rabbit said.

Pious Kate glowered. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Sorry for what?” Rabbit said.

“Sorry for asking about your stupid back-up zombie plan.”

“’Sright,” Dave said.

“Excellent!” said Rabbit. “Lentils for everybody!”

Dave’s face twisted into a grimace. Q smiled. At last, she had someone who understood.

*

After dinner, Q and Dave sent everyone to bring their stuff out to the campfire. The hippies disappeared into the darkness, clinging to each other. No one wanted to be alone. They returned with their packs and emptied the contents into a pile near the fire.

Q’s heart sank when she regarded the pile. Books, magazines, lightweight tops that would be useless against both the cold and the clawing attack of an undead assailant, fluffy pillows and a Tibetan prayer bowl. No rations, hardly any decent clothes and not a single weapon in the lot. It was an ode to the uselessness of modern life.

Dave prodded the stack and grunted.

“There’s my stuff,” Q said. “I got snacks, SAS rations, a first aid kit, thermals, knives and this.” She pulled out her survival tin from the left pocket of her cargo pants, leaving her satellite hotphone hidden in her right pocket, heavy as guilt.

Dave took it, grunted, handed it back and unbuckled his belt. Angela took several steps away from him. He unslung it and threw it to Q.

“Wow!” said Q. “You got the Bear Survival Belt III! Is that the one with the collapsible hacksaw?” She leaned over to admire the supplies sewn along the inside of his belt. When she was done, Dave looped it back through his pants, fastened it and wandered around the campsite. He paused as he brushed past Pious Kate.

“What are you doing?” the woman said.

Dave lit a cigarette.

“That man sniffed my hair!” Pious Kate said. “He—smelled me.”

Rabbit made a quiet joke and there were nervous laughs, but Q noticed that Rabbit managed to insert himself in between Pious Kate and Dave while prodding the fire. Dave noticed, too. He walked away to smoke on his own.

Poor Dave, an outcast in his own place. Still, he was probably used to it. He was a smoker.

“Q, can I talk to you?” Angela said. She led Q into the chill air beyond the fire’s touch.

“What’s up?” Q said.

Angela jerked her head in Dave’s direction. “I don’t trust him.”

“Dave’s all right,” Q said. “He’s just like me, but fatter and hairier and less personable.”

Angela examined her fingernails. “Have you ever described yourself to yourself?”

“What do you mean?” It sounded fun. Q tried it out. Martial arts expert. Good with guns. Failed the army psych test. Unresolved issues with dead mother. “My God,” Q said. “I sound like a psycho.”

“I’m not sleeping in the same cabin as him,” Angela said.

Q thought about those small rooms, each with one exit and no lights. If something came in, no one would be able to get out. “No,” she said. “We’ll sleep out tonight. It won’t get too cold if we keep the fire going.” She walked back to the circle of warmth. “Right,” she said. “Who wants first watch?”

Chapter Eighteen

Q woke. Something was wrong.

Many things were wrong, including the fact that she was out bush and wasn’t being paid for it, she was six hours’ drive from the nearest wifi café, she wasn’t making any progress with Rabbit, she had the serious no-sugar shakes and yesterday a zombie had attacked a vegan hippy, which was another set of wrong all on its own, but there was something more immediate that had stirred her from sleep.

She glanced at the backlit dial of Vengeance Betti’s face. It was five thirty a.m., maybe half an hour before dawn and the coldest part of the day. She shivered.

She lay on a mat of lumpy clothes that was meant to cushion and insulate her from the heat-sapping dirt, but was doing both things badly. Her back ached and she couldn’t feel her toes. She wriggled, trying to push blood around her body. Where was her dad now? Was he cold, too? If so, did he feel it, or was he beyond feeling normal human things like cold and sore and scared?

The fire was out.

It was dark and it was cold and the fire was out. Who was on watch?

Q sat up and listened. The birds had not yet begun their dawn torment. The wind had died down. The world was still and silent as the grave. Bad example. During a zombie outbreak, the grave was anything but still and silent. Q rephrased. The world was still and silent as a quiet place where nothing moved.

Q got up, took a few deep lungfuls of cold air, bounced on the spot and stretched. Angela, Rabbit, Sheath and the Scarlet Terror were asleep in their bags. Dave and Pious Kate had abandoned their sleeping bags and the circle. Dave would never leave watch. It must be Pious Kate’s turn. Q had always known they couldn’t trust her.

She grabbed her rifle and checked the cabins, in case the woman had abandoned her post for illicit jerky – not as exciting as it sounded – then circled the campsite, searching for tracks. The ground was torn up with so many footprints that it was hard to make a story from them, but there was a fresh-looking set heading off in a direction Q couldn’t remember anyone taking the day before. She woke Rabbit, whispered to him that he was on watch, grabbed her bush knife and followed the footprints.

Nothing sharpened the senses like tracking in the dark when your prey might turn out to be your predator – except for several energy drinks at three in the morning when your Z-Day campaign has reached its final battle. Q hefted the knife in her hands and strained her eyes, trying to work out which of the indistinct shapes around her were trees and which were something more sinister. She paused. There was a crunching sound, soft but distinct.

Was it footsteps? If so, one set or several? Could several zombies move that quietly?

She knew something else that could move quietly. She’d seen him in action.

“Dave?” she said. There was no answer, but the crunching sound stopped and was replaced with something else. Deep breathing.

Zombies don’t breathe.

It must be Dave. Why was he skulking around out here on his own?

Or was it Pious Kate? What reason did she have to lurk?

Q crept over the leaf mold and saw a figure kneeling. It held something in its paws – no, its hands. She sheathed her bush knife and readied her rifle, then flicked on her head torch.

Two red eyes glowed.

Pious Kate was trapped in her beam, wide-eyed and bloody-mouthed, clasping something small and furry and very, very dead.

Q fired.

*

“What a pretty sunrise,” said Angela as Q approached, and yawned. She looked far more relaxed than she had the night before. That woman had a fantastic reset. “Are you okay?”

Q gave her a weak smile. “Where is everyone?”

“Dave and Rabbit are getting water for breakfast. Michelle and Will are meditating. I haven’t seen Kate. I had the weirdest dream.”

“Let me guess,” said Q. “You heard gun shots?”

“Nope. The spirit of ‘Greensleeves’ possessing an evil ice-cream truck.”

“You are one solid sleeper,” Q said. “Listen, I’ve got something to say and it’s not pleasant—”

She looked up as she spotted Dave and Rabbit returning to the clearing. “I heard gunshots,” Dave said.

“No, that was Greensleeves,” Angela said. “Hang on …”

They regarded the rifle in Q’s hand.

“Trouble?” Dave asked.

“I’m not sure how to say this,” Q said, “so I’ll make it simple. We’ve all grown used to Kate. Like a toe grows used to a toe infection which, in turn, grows used to the toe, or grows on the toe, but sometimes the foot needs to choose between the disease and the cure and when an antibiotic foot powder shows up, it’s time to say goodbye—”

Angela cut in. “Q, be simpler.”

“I’m antibiotic foot powder,” Q said.

This met with blank stares, the kind that punctuated Q’s conversations like commas.

“Even simpler,” Angela said.

“Kate’s not okay,” Q said.

“You didn’t!” said Rabbit. He gaped at her gun. “You couldn’t! Did you?”

“Kate is not what you thought she was,” Q said. “She’s not human.”

This met with incredulous stares; the kind that punctuated Q's conversations less often, like semi-colons.

“What do you think I am, then?”

It was Pious Kate. She had walked into the clearing from the direction of the river. She looked clean and wan as tofu. Was Q alone in noticing the woman’s eyes flick to her own hand, as if checking for spots of blood?

“What am I, Qwinston?” Pious Kate said. “Besides target practice for you?” She pointed a finger at Q. “She shot me!”

This declaration was undermined by the absence of bullet wounds and gore.

“She shot at me!” Pious Kate corrected. “She tried to kill me!” She collapsed into Rabbit’s arms. He managed to catch her, thanks to the quick instincts honed by years of running away from disgruntled parents who didn’t think their darlings were ready to find out where their food came from.

“Come on!” Q said. “I didn’t try to kill her. When I try and kill her, she’ll be dead.” This didn’t have the reassuring effect Q had hoped. “Listen,” Q said. “I shot a zombie that was right behind Kate. You can check! I saved her! But the important thing is what Kate was doing when I found her. And the zombie went right past her and came for me, like it didn’t even notice her. Like she smelled wrong.”

Q tapered off. It was dark and she had been pretty freaked out. Had she imagined it? “You got something on your mouth,” she said to Pious Kate.

Pious Kate scrabbled at her face, as if something disgusting might linger there.

Nope. She hadn’t imagined it. She had busted Pious Kate, vegan extraordinaire, eating carrion and shunned by the undead. “Dave, Angela, can you come give me a hand?”

*

“Wow,” said Angela. “Déjà vu.”

“I don’t know about that French stuff,” Q said, “but I’ve seen this before.”

For the second time in two days, they regarded the dead, mangled form of Princess Starla, champion of the people, warrior of the way and now smelly corpse. Except that this time, the body was closer to camp.

“I killed it yesterday,” Dave said.

“Two in the head won’t make sure it’s dead,” said Q. “Apocalypse Z rules don’t work here, Dave. We gotta find our own.”

She felt a wave of dizziness as she contemplated the chaos of a world in which there were zombies that did not follow the rules. It brought her one step closer to the rest of humanity, who were contemplating the chaos of a world in which there were zombies at all, but she failed to appreciate this moment of near-normality.

“Poor Melissa,” Angela said. “Her first retreat and she’s already been killed twice. She always said going vegan would be the death of her.”

Dave stepped forward and prodded the body with his foot. It moved. He shrieked, leaped back and pulled his rifle into the firing position.

The dead body rolled back to its original spot. It wasn’t self-animating any more. It was a flesh log.

Princess Starla’s change had taken about a day, where Hannah’s school friend, Charmaine, took a minute. Were the change rates related to age, or body weight, or reading level?

Angela was wrong about this scene. It wasn’t déjà vu. There were differences between this body and the one they’d seen yesterday. The toes of the shoes were coated in dirt, as if the creature had dragged its feet along rather than picking them up to walk. The face wore a different twisted expression, as if a necromaniac had used it for play-dough practice.

Dave traced his fingers over one of many holes in the smooth white skin of a tree. “You shot wide,” he said.

Q colored. She hadn’t shot wide, she’d shot uncontrollably, nothing like the single, accurate shots she’d practiced at the range. She recalled Pious Kate’s eyes glowing in the beam of her head torch and the headless possum the woman held. She remembered her moment of clarity, when she had lined up Pious Kate in her sights and squeezed the trigger.

Before she had time to fire, something else had reared up and pushed past Pious Kate, throwing her aside. The thing had been Princess Starla, transformed into a demon.

Q had shifted her aim and fired. She hit it in the head, twice. It kept staggering forward. Had she been thinking, she would have realized that head shots wouldn’t work – Dave had already shot it in the head. She had fired again without effect. Then she had panicked and shot four more times, hitting the ground, the trees, anything. On her last shot, the zombie had toppled backward and remained in the dirt.

Q related all this to Angela and Dave.

“The head shots didn’t work?” Dave asked.

“No, but,” Q pressed on to the point that bothered her even more, “Princess Starla didn’t even try to bite Pious Kate. Wasn’t interested in her. As if Pious Kate wasn’t human.” Q paused to let them process this information, then delivered the killing blow. “It’s obvious what’s going on. I suspected it before.”

Dave grunted in agreement.

Q turned to explain to Angela. “Pious Kate is an evil, blood-powered, animal-mutilating, vegan-posing terrorist sleeper robot.”

Dave and Angela looked surprised.

“Or a zombie,” Dave said.

“Oh,” said Q. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Pious Kate is a zombie?” Angela said. “That seems unlikely.”

“Less likely than the fact that zombies exist in the first place?” Q said.

“Good point,” Angela said. “What are the symptoms?”

“Victims sleep a lot, stop eating and become secretive, irrational and aggressive,” Q said. “No wonder we missed it. And then they start eating raw meat, like dead possum.”

“Who’s gonna tell her?” Angela asked.

Q resisted the urge to jump up and down and yell, “Pick me, pick me!” She adjusted her face into a dark reflection of Angela’s.

“You know her best,” Dave said to Angela.

“How do you think she’ll take the news?” Angela said.

“Irrationally and aggressively,” Q said.

“Ah.”

“And then she’ll have a nap.”

“What do we do with her?” Angela asked.

Q had a flash of understanding. “You mean, now that the head shots don’t work?”

“What? No! You can’t shoot Pious Kate,” Angela said. “I dislike her as much as you do – more, I’ve known her longer – but you can’t shoot her! There must be some way of treating her. Will has a first aid kit.” Angela headed back to camp to search for anti-zombie first aid, tailed by Dave and Q.

“Rule Two,” Dave said.

“I know,” Q said. “We’re in trouble.”

*

“Hannah! Why didn’t you answer?” Q had crept away to make the phone call, and her friend hadn’t answered until the eighth ring. Was the girl doing it to punish her?

“I was asleep,” Hannah said. “Why are you whispering?”

“I’m hiding from the hippies. Are you safe?”

“I’m in the attic,” Hannah said. “It smells like wee.”

“Excellent!” Q checked over her shoulder to make sure she was alone. “Did you find my stashed supplies?”

“There was food and bottled water and stuff. And a gun. Q, you hid a gun in a primary school.”

“Thank me later.” She had picked the 638 revolver for its tag line, So easy, even a child could use it. It was perfect. She’d chosen to leave just one, to avoid the chance of a survivalist shoot out. While this made it unlikely that scared captives would kill each other, it did allow one person to take over. She wanted to make sure that person was Hannah.

“Has anyone else seen the gun?” Q said.

“No,” said Hannah. “I cached it, like you always say.”

“Good. You have to keep it. Don’t let anyone know you have it until you have to use it. Do you remember how?”

“You showed me and Katz Bratz like a thousand times,” Hannah said. “When you get back, can we play dolls like normal people?”

“How many of you are there?” Q said. She resisted saying, “How many of you are there left?”

Hannah’s breath caught. Something had happened.

“Hannah?”

“Tim was bleeding,” Hannah said. “I told him to climb down the rope and wait in the gym until he felt better, like your plan said. Mr Macklin said no, then gave a speech about teamwork and how disaster brings out the best and the worst and how we have to be our best.”

Q considered. “Good speech. What happened?”

“Tim ate him. Now they’re both in the gym.”

“Remember to clean the gun after every shot, Hannah,” Q said. “If you keep it clean, it’ll work every time. How many are you now?”

“Mrs Matthews, Mrs Barrett, Mrs Caroll, Mr Wright, me, Sophie, Lisa, Ricky and Anne,” Hannah said.

Q’s mental calculator kicked in. They’d last a month on what she’d left, provided they collected more water. “Set up one of the bins under the skylight,” she said. “If it rains, drink that first.”

“Do you believe in God?” Hannah said.

Q wasn’t ready for this sudden shift. “I dunno.”

“Remember Mr GLEEM?”

Mr “God Loves Everyone, Especially Me” was a smug Seventh Day Adventist who lived across the road from the school. He and his wife did good deeds and handed out pamphlets to those unsuspecting enough to walk past their house. “What about him?” Q said.

“We can see his attic from ours. We’ve been holding up notes in the windows. He says God healed his wife. She got bitten and she’s getting better.”

Q scoffed. “Then she didn’t get bitten, she scratched herself. You don’t get better from this, Hannah.”

“When are you coming back?”

“You’re doing good. Follow the plan. I’ll come get you soon.”

Hannah hung up without saying goodbye. Q listened to the song of a magpie in the distance and wondered where its friends had gone.

Chapter Nineteen

Rabbit, Sheath and the Scarlet Terror sat around the campsite, eating breakfast. Dave was smoking downwind and almost out of sight, no doubt chased there by tales of lung cancer and chi blockage. Rabbit was telling Sheath a story about genetically modified plants. Q grinned. Another shared interest! She should tell Rabbit that she, too, worried that one day, evil mutant Venus fly traps would take over the world. Maybe they both had the same T-Day plan?

“Everyone’s chirpy today,” Q said. “A good night’s sleep does wonders. And also not being disemboweled by hordes of the undead. Where’s Kate?”

“She went back to the cabin,” said Rabbit. “She said she needed some alone time after what you – after what happened.”

“That’s rather secretive of her,” Q said.

“I heard that!” yelled Pious Kate from the nearest cabin.

“Aggressive,” Q mouthed to Dave and Angela. She continued. “So this morning I think we should all do some training.” Q turned to Dave for support.

His mouth dropped open, revealing nicotine-stained teeth and bewilderment. “Train the hippies?” he said.

“Anti-zombie training exercises!” Q said with artificial confidence. “Standard in this situation. Gather round, kids.”

There were grumbles, but the hippies wandered toward Q. She had a problem: how was she to convince them that their queen was about to go carnivore? She’d tried the direct method on Angela and it hadn’t work, so now she had to come at this sideways, instead of her usual head-on approach, which would probably backslide before grinding to a dead standstill.

Q shook her head to clear an unaccountable wave of dizziness, then threw Apocalypse Z into the middle of the circle.

“Everyone read that. Memorize the rules.” She was using her best trainee-teacher voice. It couldn’t fail. “Rabbit, you start us off. Read out one of the rules to the group. Pick a rule, any rule, completely at random. Rule Two, for instance?”

Rabbit picked up the book and turned to the correct page. “Rule Two, If You’re Bit, That’s It.”

Q listened to his caramel voice fondling the words and drifted away to her happy place, all alone with Rabbit in a log cabin, the raging fire and their equally raging passions…

“Q?” Angela said. “You’re drooling.”

She snapped back to attention, wiped her mouth and addressed her troops. “Right. What do you think Rule Two means if one us is turning into a zombie? Like Kate?”

“Hypothetically, you mean?” said Rabbit.

“Of course. A hypothetical Kate is turning into an enraged meat-craving maniac who wants to tear us all to shreds. What should we do about that?”

The Scarlet Terror raised a tentative hand to answer. Q was so taken aback by this unprecedented reaction to a class she was teaching, she nearly dribbled again.

“We keep her isolated so she’s not a danger to herself,” said the Scarlet Terror, “and wait until she gets better?”

There were several nods of approval.

“That’s a very good answer,” said Q, “but not quite what I’m looking for. Anyone else?”

“It’s obvious,” said Sheath.

At last! One of the hippies understood Rule Two. Q nodded, prompting the explanation.

“We are all opposed to the incarceration of any creature,” Sheath continued. “Battery hens, domestic pets, lab animals and, of course, hypothetical Zombie Kate. It’s outrageous to suggest confining her for our benefit. If we can’t coexist in her habitat, we should pack up and leave, allowing her to express her natural behaviors in her natural environment, which in this case are unnatural behaviors, unhindered by human intervention.”

Q began counting beneath her breath to see who would be the first to slap down this absurd approach to anti-Z warfare. She also counted to keep in practice. You had to stay on your intellectual toes if you wanted to be on the fast track to teaching the Grade One Galahs.

“Except that these unnatural behaviors require human intervention,” the Scarlet Terror parried.

“Exactly,” said Q. “Now you’re getting it.”

“We’re the prey,” the Scarlet Terror said. “We can’t remove ourselves and allow Zombie Kate to continue with her existence, because she is our parasite and our absence will destroy the balance that sustains her.”

“You’ve missed the point,” said Sheath. “Rule Two is a metaphor for the order of nature and the unnatural disturbances we have caused to it. It’s not about zombies. We are the zombies. We consume the resources of this planet, including other living beings, to the point where the planet can no longer support us and our behavior becomes grotesque and self-destructive.”

A debate began about the ecosystem and how it might accommodate zombies, both real and symbolic.

“Hippies!” Dave said, and spat.

Q tried again. “Rabbit, perhaps you can read out Rule Two line by line?”

“Sure,” said Rabbit. “Once bitten and infected with the zombie virus, there is no cure.”

“Much like the infectious state of ignorance and wilful denial in modern society,” said Sheath.

“There is no point amputating the affected area,” Rabbit read.

“A metaphor for seeking a quick fix by ‘cutting off’ or suppressing those areas of human nature that are most vile and most persistent,” Sheath said.

“The only available course is the quick dispatch of the infected by gun shot to the head.”

Q was fascinated to see how Sheath would turn this blunt statement into something other than itself. She wasn’t disappointed.

“Which refers to the non-literal form of ‘death’ that occurs in all hero’s journeys, the death of the former self,” Sheath said. “In Western culture this is represented by head-mind, hence the ‘gun shot to the head,’ but in other cultures it is represented by belly-soul, prompting the rebirth of self into a new, enlightened and cruelty-free existence.” Sheath grinned, triumphant.

Dave spat again.

“Okay,” Q said. “This is all great progress, but can anyone give us an even better interpretation of the text? Anyone at all? Dave, for instance?”

Dave, who had been picking his teeth, turned bright red at the attention. Clearly he had not been a front-row pupil all those year ago. He mumbled something, grunted, then resumed picking his teeth.

“Can we have that again?” Q said. “This time without your hand in your mouth?”

“Fire till undead and unmoving,” Dave said. “Repeat.”

There were gasps of horror. Q relaxed at this return to normal classroom responses.

“I couldn’t do that!” said Angela.

“I will never harm a living creature,” said Sheath. “It would be an act of desecration against nature.”

The Scarlet Terror smiled, as if she could do that and had practiced it many times in her head. Q recognized a sister in secret vengeance and wondered what crimes hypothetical Zombie Kate had committed against her.

“Would you rather be eaten alive from the feet up?” Q asked. “That’s natural. Happens to animals all the time.”

Dave spat.

Q continued. “It’s not like Zombie Kate would suffer,” said Q. “She can’t feel pain, and technically, she’s not alive. Even peaceniks kill the undead, right? Ooh, that’d be great on a T-shirt, I should write that down. Has anyone got a pen?”

“It’s so violent!” Angela said.

“No, you hold one end of the pen like this and press the other onto the page – oh, right. Guns. You’ll get used to ’em.”

“We should practice,” said Rabbit. “You need to teach us.” He set his jaw, struggling with his conscience but prepared to do what needed to be done. Q was so intent on gazing into those soulful, puppy-dog eyes that she did not notice the noises coming from behind her.

“Q?” said Dave.

A figure shuffled toward them from the direction of the long-drop dunny. It struggled with the slope. Every few steps it lurched, paused and righted itself.

“Look!” said Sheath. “They’ve arranged for Kate to play along. Pathetic.”

“I’m surprised Kate’s buying into this,” said Sheath.

“That’s not Kate,” said Angela. “It looks like Christine.”

“Christine left with the van,” said Sheath.

Q didn’t hear them. She was thinking that Rabbit should do shampoo commercials.

“Quentin and Dave have set up a ‘real life’ ethical dilemma to galvanize us into demonstrating how eagerly we’ll abandon our principles to save our sorry skins,” Sheath said.  “Well I, for one, am not going to fall for it. You’re with me, aren’t you Angela? Michelle?”

“Q!” Dave said.

“Michelle!” Sheath said. “Come back!”

“What?” said Q, irritated at the interruption in her most romantic staring contest ever, and she’d had several in her time, though this was her first consensual one—

“Michelle’s attacking a zombie with a stick!” said Angela.

“That’s not in the course notes!” Q registered the high-pitched ululation of an enraged flower child. The Scarlet Terror ran at the stumbling figure as fast as her long skirt would allow, leaping rocks and bushes and waving a snapped-off branch above her head. The figure she was running toward was Tinkabella, but transformed into a gray-skinned parody of herself. The right arm hung as if broken, the skin still intact. There was a chunk bitten out of the throat. The eyes were unfocused.

Rabbit had been right to worry. Tinkabella didn’t get far in the van. Q could picture it. The woman had crashed, maybe into a tree or – no, into a zombie standing on the road in front of her. With a broken arm from the crash, Tinkabella hadn’t been able to undo her seatbelt, and she had lain there, crying and struggling, watching the zombie she had run over pick itself up off the road and walk toward her.

Poor zombie Tinkabella.

Q’s background calculator kicked in, thus proving the value of her “Applied Maths for the Apocalypse” class. Tinkabella had left yesterday at around three p.m. and couldn’t have gone far. Maybe the accident happened ten miles away? She’d already turned and made it back to camp. That meant a transition of between five and fifteen hours from injured human to living dead.

Zinkabella’s head tilted toward the Scarlet Terror. The zombie redirected its shuffling course.

“No!” said Q. She sprinted after them. The living hippy didn’t stand a chance against the dead one. Q had to get there first.

She didn’t.

The Scarlet Terror hit Zinkabella over the head as hard as she could with her branch. There was an impressive thump. The zombie swayed back at the force of the blow, then rocked forward and reached out. It caught hold of the hippy’s long hair and pulled the woman’s face close.

Q arrived and kicked. The zombie grabbed at Q’s foot like a clumsy toddler, and missed. Q kicked again, connecting square on the chest, and Zinkabella fell backward, a handful of red hair in its fingers. The monster thrashed in the dirt.

“Go,” Q said to the Scarlet Terror. The hippy obeyed.

Q picked up a stick and gripped it with both hands. The bark was smooth and warm. Sun caressed her shoulders. It was a beautiful morning for a fight.

Zinkabella rolled onto its belly and crawled upright, unable to use the broken arm as anything more than an unreliable prop. Any pain the zombie felt, it ignored. The creature got to its feet.

She whacked the zombie on its jaw. The thing swayed, but kept its footing. Q clubbed the right side of the head, three times, then bashed the left. Her weapon pounded away the skin and muscle of Zinkabella’s face, but there was no blood. The zombie looked like a Halloween nightmare, but the damage only made it easier to fight. More like a bad special effect than a person.

On the last blow, Q’s stick snapped in half. Zinkabella’s neck also snapped. Q fist-pumped, waiting for the zombie to fall.

The head lolled, connected by skin and spinal cord, but the creature stayed upright.

“Oh Shiva.” Rabbit vomited.

Zinkabella’s eyes swiveled around to fix on Q. It lurched forward.

“Q, get back here!” Angela said.

Q hesitated, transfixed by the sight of the vegan killing machine, then ran back. She leaped over a fallen log and leaned against it, breathing hard. The rest of the group followed.

“Is that Christine?” Angela said.

“What do we do?” Sheath said.

Rabbit opened his mouth to make peace, but managed only bile.

“Don’t panic,” Q said. “Remember, we’ve got one thing that zombie doesn’t have.”

“Principles?” Angela said.

Q tapped her head. “Brains.”

They peered over the log at Zinkabella. Its head still hung slack from the neck. Viscous liquid dripped through the head wounds. The zombie reached up and pulled at the gray matter, scooping it into its mouth.

“Okay, she has brains too,” Q said. “Go back to principles.”

“I’m so gonna write to Peter Singer,” Angela said. “I bet Christine gets kicked out of his world poverty pledge club for this.”

“Somebody do something!” said Sheath, meaning somebody other than him.

“Weapons!” Dave said.

Q regarded her stump of stick, then looked at the two rifles slung around Dave’s torso. She reached for one.

“Not loaded,” Dave said. “Knives and ammo over there.” He pointed to a clearing beyond Zinkabella.

“You didn’t want the hippies to accidentally shoot themselves while practicing?” Q said.

“Hey!” said Sheath. “I resent that.”

Dave grunted. “If they get shot, it’ll be on purpose.”

“And that!”

“I thought you weren’t gonna shoot anything at all?” Q said to Sheath as she rummaged through her camouflage canvas bag. “I thought you said it was a violent and unnatural way to interact with the world?”

Sheath looked sulky. “He should still respect my right to object by presenting me with a genuinely armed weapon.”

“So you can be an activist and not use it?” Q asked.

“Now you’re making a mockery of the whole thing.”

“No, you’re doing fine on your own.” Zinkabella was still absorbed in the exploration of its own headspace, which was appropriate for a retreat. At least it wasn’t going anywhere for the moment.

“Does anyone have a crowbar?” Dave said.

Q slapped her forehead. She should have known! Always, always pack the crowbar.

She pulled out her bottle of Ocean Flowers from the bag. “I have this!” She sprayed it at Dave. He spluttered.

“I’m not sure how I feel about chemical weapons,” Sheath said. Q sprayed him and he shut up.

“Poor Christine,” Angela said.

“Right,” said Q. “Here’s the plan. We’re all gonna leg it up to Dave’s shack, load up, then pop back for a quick prac on how to deal with the undead.”

“No,” said Rabbit. “I’m not leaving Kate. She’s in that cabin alone.”

“We’ll only be gone a couple minutes,” said Q.

Rabbit shook his head. “What if that thing attacks her and we’re not here?”

If only … Q thought about trying persuasion, but Rabbit looked determined.  She would have admired the loyalty if it were directed at a worthier subject. He did look good though, like one of those tough American B-Grade actors who wanders around the set wearing ripped jeans and—

“Q?” Dave said.

Q sighed. “Okay, Rabbit. Let’s go get your ex.” She considered the gruesome obstacle between them and Pious Kate’s cabin. “New plan. Me and Rabbit sneak around and get Kate from the cabin. Angela and Sheath stay here and distract the zombie if it starts to follow us. Dave, go get guns. Ooh, good alliteration, well done me.”

Dave was already gone. Q squeezed Rabbit’s shoulder. “You up for this?”

He nodded. He was pale, but he’d hold up. Q handed him a frying pan from the campfire and grabbed another stout stick for herself. They set off.

“Can it hear us?” Rabbit said. They crept around behind the ghastly meal. “Or see us?”

“Dunno.” Right now, Q had to concentrate on simple things, like finding her rival, checking that she hadn’t yet died, and saving her so she could her kill her skinny soon-to-be-undead butt later.

She should have gone for the guns. It sounded simpler.

They made it to the cabin. Q tapped on the door. “Kate?” she called. “Are you here? Are you feeling yourself?” Or have you turned into a psychopathic monster? More so than before.

There was no answer. Q prodded open the door and peered inside. In the gloom, she could make out a form on Pious Kate’s bed. It wasn’t moving. It wasn’t even breathing.

“Is she in there?” Rabbit asked.

“Not sure. It’s pretty dark,” Q said. “Why don’t you stay here and keep watch?” Q took Rabbit’s fry pan.

“What do you need that for?” he asked.

“There’s a rat,” Q said. “I know, it has rights too. Don’t worry, I’ll only threaten it.”

She crept inside and moved over to the head of Pious Kate’s bed. The woman lay motionless. She must have died in her sleep and was yet to reanimate. Perfect. It must have been a peaceful way to go, although the peace of death was less appealing when followed by an afterlife of bloody mayhem. Q lifted her fry pan high in the air. She could stash the body under the bed and tell Rabbit that Pious Kate had left already. Maybe everyone would assume she’d wandered off and been eaten. Q would remain an unknown, blameless savior, if she could prevent anyone else from coming into the cabin. She’d tell Dave and he could help.

Q studied the woman’s face one last time. Pious Kate was sweet in death, her eyes closed and her expression calm. No trace of the sharpness that had been there in life. She braced her arms and prepared to swing.

The dead eyes opened.

All softness fled. Pious Kate sat up and screeched.

Rabbit ran inside and gaped at Q, who brought the frying pan down onto Pious Kate’s pillow and beat it several times. “Saved you!” Q lied. “There were cockroaches.”

“I thought it was a rat?” Rabbit said.

“Rats eat the roaches. They go together, like cheerleaders and serial killers.”

There was a pause while Pious Kate navigated this Qism, then the woman pointed a finger. “She’s trying to kill me! First the shooting, now this!”

Q was spared further lies by a zombie attack.

Zinkabella stood in the doorway, head propped up on its neck, dried blood crusted over mouth and hands. It stumbled forward, but its shoulder bounced off the doorway and sent it rebounding outside.

“Is that Christine?” said Pious Kate. “You said she left! What’s she been eating? She’s meant to be following a raw foods diet.”

“She is,” said Q. “Let’s go.” Q ripped the blanket down from one of the windows and heaved it open. Pious Kate shied back from the sunlight. Q shoved her forward.

“No time for a migraine, Katie-G,” Rabbit said and boosted her through.

Zinkabella tottered forward again and this time made it through the doorway. Q threw the frypan and knocked the zombie back. Its mouth dropped open and its head slid on its stalk. Its hands reached up to try to put the head back in place. How was Zinkabella’s brain still able drive that sack of meat?

“Hurry!” said Q. Rabbit slung his leg over the window sill, leaped through and turned to help Q.

It was too late. The zombie had already grasped Q’s arm. Q did a quick double front-kick, dislodging Zinkabella’s grip. Never go close quarters on a zombie. She had to get out.

She searched for a weapon. There was a broom in the corner. Perfect. The zombie had already regained its footing. It was like a kid’s blow-up punching bag, bouncing back each time it was knocked down, although the model Q owned as a child hadn’t looked like this.

Q picked up the broom, took aim and thrust it at the creature. The handle went straight through Zinkabella’s eye and connected with the back of its skull. Q uttered a prayer of thanks that she had taken the time to master Z-Fu when she was fourteen instead of watching television and thinking about boys like all the other teens, which was ironic, because now that she finally had the chance to apply her skills, she had nearly died because she kept getting distracted by a boy—

“Q!” said Rabbit.

Focus.

Q stared at the zombie, knowing that she had delivered the kill blow, straight through the eye socket and into the brain. A bullet might not be enough to destroy it, but surely this would. She waited for Zinkabella to surrender the last shreds of unholy life and topple over.

Zinkabella spilled sideways, overbalancing with the broom still lodged in its head, then righted itself. Its remaining eye fixed on Q. Head hanging from the neck like a sick slinky, it moved toward her.

She swore and backed up to the window, hoping that one final kick might buy her enough time to escape. She couldn’t use her fists; she couldn’t afford to get that close. She might be grabbed and bitten or scrape her knuckles on its teeth. It didn’t matter if the zombie killed her on the spot. One bite would do her in, eventually. Q braced for attack.

With a soft thump, the zombie stopped. Zinkabella’s legs were still moving but they were walking on the spot. The gray, bloodied hands pawed air, desperate to get fresh meat but unable to reach it.

The end of the broom had lodged up against the wall. Zinkabella couldn’t move forward without removing it.

Damn! Z-Fu was good! What a privilege to be able to field test it at last.

Q giggled. “That’s what I call cleaning up,” she said. “Zinkabella would have been fine if she kept a closer eye on the housework! She sure did a—”

“Q!” Rabbit said.

“Gotcha.” Q slithered out the window and into his arms.

*

They were back on open ground. Zinkabella was still in the cabin, shot, beaten and afflicted with broom-eye, but functioning. Pious Kate was ahead of them, slouched in the dirt. Q and Rabbit trotted toward camp.

She was grateful they didn’t have to sprint any more. The adrenaline had drained away and left her heavy-limbed and hollow. The midday air was pungent. A lizard scrabbled through the leaves, oblivious to the human and inhuman drama around it. Q could almost believe none of it had happened.

They were six hundred feet from the others when Q noticed tears on Rabbit’s cheeks. “Are you hurt?” she said.

He brushed them away. “I’ve known Christine since we were five.”

“I’m sorry,” said Q. “It’s my fault.”

“You didn’t cause this.”

“She attacked during my class. I should have been paying attention. I started daydreaming and it ended the way it always does. It was just like Slush Friday all over again, but without the cops, which is a shame because cops would be handy right about now.”

“Q?”

“Yuh?”

“Pay attention!”

Another zombie stumbled toward them. It was male, but its age was impossible to tell, somewhere between twenty and sixty. Its dull skin and torn, muddy clothes had blended in with the trees.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere!” Q said. “Where do they keep coming from?”

“Run?” asked Rabbit.

“Run.”

They outpaced the clumsy thing, a few quick strides taking them level with Pious Kate, still sprawled on the ground. “Get up!” Q said.

The woman shook her head. “I hurt my ankle.”

“Does it hurt as much as hosting your very own barbecue?” Q asked.

Pious Kate’s brow crinkled. “I host barbecues all the time.”

“The kind of barbecue that isn’t BYO sausages,” Q said.

“None of my barbecues are BYO sausages.”

“The kind where you are the main course – never mind, it was less snappy than I’d hoped. Get up.”

“Come on,” Rabbit said, pulling Pious Kate to her feet and slinging her left arm across his shoulders.

“I always knew his ex would come between us,” Q muttered as she took Pious Kate’s weight on the right side.

The zombie was thirty feet away. The three of them stumbled toward camp, the creature staggering in pursuit. It was a wonderful low-speed chase and Q regretted that no one was there to film it. Dave, laden with rifles, ran toward them. He crouched and took aim. Q glanced over her shoulder to see him fire. He made a clean shot straight between the zombie’s eyes.

“Boom! Headshot,” Q said.

This time, neither Dave nor Q were surprised when the zombie teetered backward with the force of the bullet, then righted itself and continued.

Dave shot twice more, head shots both. Their impact made the creature pause, but that was all. He may as well have thrown rocks.

Q, Rabbit and Pious Kate reached the others. Q swiveled around to watch Dave shoot their undead follower. Bits of gray flesh and red gristle flew across the dirt. The zombie fell into the dust, twitching as it was hit. By the time Dave ran out of bullets, it had lost one arm and half its head missing. It opened its fleshless mouth to show teeth.

“That’s not good,” Q said.

It dragged itself to its feet.

“Bad. Very bad.”

The thing resumed a painful shuffle and tripped over three toes that clung to the right foot by a thin bridge of flesh. The toes tore off, the thing fell, then dragged itself upright once more.

Dave rejoined them, puffing. “Didn’t work,” he said.

“You don’t say?” said Angela.

“It doesn’t look happy,” Sheath said, regarding the three-limbed faceless monster approaching them. “I think you upset it.”

“It’s not upset, it’s dead,” Q said over Rabbit’s resumed retching. “It can’t emote. Its glands don’t work.”

“Look,” Dave said.

Zinkabella had managed to remove the broom from its head and escape the cabin. It now approached at a determined if clumsy pace. Two unkillable zombies, coming right for them.

“Run?” Angela said.

“That is a world-class idea,” said Q. She and Rabbit hooked elbows beneath Pious Kate’s armpits and they fled at a slightly faster-than-zombie stagger.

*

“Oh God,” said Sheath. He paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “How long have we been going?”

“Three minutes,” said Q, adjusting her grip on Pious Kate. The woman was heavier than she looked, no doubt weighed down by astringent thoughts.

“Are they still following?” Sheath asked.

“Are the single-minded flesh-devouring demons still behind us despite the fact that we’re running away at a pace that wouldn’t outstrip a Kindy Koala with ill-fitting crocs?” Q said.

“I don’t know what that means,” Sheath said.

“They’re still following.”

“Damn!”

Q glanced over her shoulder at Zinkabella and the other one, shambling along with no sign of tiring. They weren’t fast but they were constant – they would never stop. Q didn’t know where their energy came from. Even Apocalypse Z didn’t speculate about that. It couldn’t be natural. If they could move after death, if head shots didn’t kill, they would never stop.

She considered her troops. Only Dave looked like he was coping with the exercise. Sheath clearly went for a jog about as often as plankton did. Angela and the Scarlet Terror both looked scarlet and terrible. The burden of Pious Kate was beginning to affect Rabbit at last. If only he could follow through. Pious Kate had managed to fall asleep again, making her almost a dead weight, but not enough of a dead weight for Rabbit to agree to abandon her.

They weren’t escaping the zombies any time soon.

“Bugger this,” Q said. She unslung Pious Kate’s arm from her shoulder and let the woman collapse to the ground, then gestured at Dave. “Gun me.”

Dave handed her a pump-action shot gun and grunted, as if to say it wouldn’t work.

“You already tried shooting them,” Sheath said. “They’ll catch up if we stop.”

“We didn’t try hard enough,” Q said. “You lot pay attention. You’re about to learn, Q-style.”

“Is that some kind of handicraft?” Angela asked. “Like crochet?”

“No! Just watch.”

Dave and Q walked toward the zombies. “You get the chick,” Q said. “I’ll go brainless.”

“What’s the plan?” he asked.

“Anatomy lesson,” Q said. “I call the right eye-socket.” She fired and hit her target. The zombie pivoted, then righted itself. “Nope. Your turn.”

“Left foot.” Dave shot. A good chunk of Zinkabella’s foot imploded. It paused, teetered, then limped ahead on the stump.

“Left shoulder blade,” said Q, and fired. “No good, but this would make a tops mobile phone game. Your turn.”

“Right lung.”

“Gross, but no banana,” Q said. “Um – the banana.”

Dave grunted.

“Work with a bunch of five-year-olds long enough and you too will learn a hundred and three nicknames for the willy,” Q said. She watched as her zombie stumbled on. “No good. I guess he wasn’t that attached to it.”

“The heart,” Dave said. He shot.

“Hah! You missed.”

“Nope.”

Dave was right. He hadn’t missed. Zinkabella lay on the ground, absolutely still. It was no longer trying to get up. He’d killed it.

They were killable!

“Huh.” Q shot her zombie, aiming for the heart. She thought she aimed too low, but the bullet did its job. The thing fell and stayed fallen.

Maybe they weren’t doomed after all.

Q and Dave walked over to their ex-zombies. Q prodded one with a disparaging foot. “Lame! No self-respecting zombie has a vulnerable heart. That’s vampires. They’re mixing genre.”

Dave grunted.

Angela joined them. “Are they dead? Really dead?” she asked.

“They’re dead,” Dave said.

“Straight through the heart,” Q said.

“That’s not the heart,” said Angela.

“Of course it is,” Q said. “They’re down, aren’t they?” She pointed at the bodies, which lay on ground like perfectly ordinary mutilated corpses.

“That, my friends, is the spleen,” said Angela. “Don’t look at me like that, I know my anatomy. I used to be a marine biologist. And that is a spleen. Possibly a swim bladder. But probably a spleen. Q, what are you muttering?”

“Sorry. I was trying it out. ‘Boom! Spleen shot.’ See? Doesn’t work. So that can’t be the spleen.”

Dave pulled a large bush knife from the sheath strapped to his leg.

“It’s cool, whatever you say,” said Angela, hands raised and stepping backward. “That’s the heart.”

Dave handed her the knife by the handle. “Autopsy,” he said.

“Awesome!” said Q. “A zortopsy! Apocalypse Z never did one of those. I’m gonna write this up.”

“Q, do you know that putting a Z in front of an ordinary word doesn’t magically transform it into a zombie word?” said Angela.

“Clearly you’ve never attended one of my English lessons,” said Q. “Let’s do this.”

Chapter Twenty

Q asked Rabbit and Sheath to stand guard on the basis that the former didn’t have the stomach for dissection and the latter didn’t have the brains for it. The Scarlet Terror returned to her quiet, non-communicative state. Pious Kate opted to stay with Rabbit, claiming that Q was still trying to kill her and she wouldn’t hang around when people were playing with knives. For once, Q didn’t mind letting her rival outdo her for Rabbit time. She was way more excited about the chance to examine the undead in the flesh.

Zinkabella lay where it had fallen, head lolling like a doll that had displeased its owner. Q shivered despite the noon warmth and kicked a tuft of wiry grass, uprooting it.

Angela tied a handkerchief over her nose and mouth and lifted the knife. She put it down again.

“What’s wrong?” Q said. “You won’t hurt it.”

“I know her,” Angela said. “I knew her.”

Q put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Pretend it isn’t real.”

“It’s not.” Angela took a deep breath, realized what she was breathing in, spluttered, then leaned over the corpse.

“Wait!” said Q.

“What? What’s wrong? Is she still alive? Is she contagious?”

“No, but when they do this on TV, they talk into those recorder thingies.”

Angela scowled. “Do you have one of those?”

“No,” said Q.

“I have this knife, though. So don’t yell again.”

Angela leaned back over the body and made a long incision down the torso. She began slicing skin from flesh. Dave and Q watched, fascinated.

“This is way grosser than any of my games,” Q said with enthusiasm.

“Blood Vengeance Six?” Dave said.

“I’ve got it on order—”

“Children! Pay attention.” Angela pointed with the tip of the knife. “Observe the lungs.”

Dave grunted. “Smoker?”

“No, that’s what lungs always look like,” said Angela. “Those public health ads are misleading. Cut any organ in half and it looks disgusting.”

“The human body was not meant to be seen from the inside out,” Q said, with the wisdom of experience.

Angela turned back to the job. “Observe the heart. Note the complete absence of any wounds.”

“Except for that great knife gash you’ve just made,” Q said.

“But no bullet holes,” Angela said. “Proving that you did not shoot Christine through the heart.”

“I said you missed,” Q said.

“You too,” Dave said.

“Children! Observe the spleen.” Angela was pointing to a brown, spongy organ on the left side of the body that was about eight inches long. “Observe the clean bullethole through the spleen. This is what killed our zombie.”

Q poked the spleen with a stick. It wobbled. “It’s big,” she said.

“It’s engorged,” said Angela. “This zombie was diseased.”

“Interesting,” said Q. “What’s a healthy spleen do?”

“It cleans out the blood, removes abnormal cells, makes antibodies. It’s a filter.”

“So the question is,” said Q, “what’s this one been filtering?”

There was a moist gasp from the direction of the rest of the group. Dave and Q, alert once more, ran.

Not Rabbit, Q pleaded. Don’t let it be Rabbit.

They reached the others. Dave turned away, unable to watch. The scene was too awful.

Sheath and Pious Kate were snuffling on Rabbit’s shoulder. The Scarlet Terror wept silently. It was group therapy, with mucus.

“What’s wrong?” Q asked, wanting to help but not knowing how. “Are they hurt?” She ran through their first-aid supplies, wondering what they’d need. Bandage? Antibiotics? Homemade amputation kit?

“What’s wrong?” said Pious Kate in a mocking voice. “You’re an idiot, that’s what’s wrong! Two of our friends are dead and soon we might be too.”

Q deflated. She had lost another point. Here she was fighting zombies to save them, and she was barely human herself. Who would save her?

*

“Hannah, good news! Have you been crying?”

“No,” Hannah said. It was a lie. Q could hear it in the girl’s voice.

She had returned to the scene of the autopsy under the pretense of private study to make the call. It was the safest place – the others would not come here, they didn’t want to see the body.

“They broke into the hall,” Hannah said. “I shot one in the head. It didn’t die.”

Poor Hannah. She didn’t believe everything Q said, but she believed her about monsters. Q had always told her to go for the head shot. She watched the midday sun slip past Mount Empress as the girl recovered her breath. She wished they had longer before darkness poured back. Night fell fast in the mountains.

“Then Mr Barrett tried to take the gun,” Hannah said. “I said no. Then Mrs Mathews left.”

Mrs Matthews was the librarian. Nice woman, but Q found she couldn’t picture her face any more. Were the dead gone so fast? “What happened?” she said.

“She wanted us all to go,” said Hannah. “She said we were trapped and we couldn’t kill them and we had to get out. I said no, we should stay like the plan said.”

Q could imagine the scene: the six-year-old arguing with clarity and the scared adults who wouldn’t listen to a dumb kid. “Hannah, you gotta convince them or force them. You’re the girl with the plan.” And the gun.

“They got her.” Hannah was snuffling. She hardly ever cried, not even when Tommy split her lip in training. “I watched,” Hannah said. “Someone had to.”

At least there’d be one more set of rations. “It’s gonna be okay, Hannah. We worked out how to kill them. You shoot them in the spleen.”

The snuffling stopped. “Is that next to the janitor’s cupboard?”

“What? No. Tell Mrs Wright about it. She’ll explain.”

“Mrs Wright isn’t feeling so good.”

“Tell her fast. Listen, Hannah, you can’t follow along with what the grown-ups are telling you. Stand up and take charge! Stick to the plan.”

“Why should I do what you say?”

“Cos I’m no grown-up. I’ll call again soon.”

*

It was a slow and somber walk back to camp. Q regarded the charred remains of last night’s campfire, black as their hopes. Why was everything so bleak? It was the same place it had been two days ago. Had the bush changed, or had she? The sky was pale, birds shrieked, leaves rustled. All peaceful enough, if you didn’t think too hard about what made the leaves rustle.

So much had happened since their arrival! What had she been thinking about in those innocent days before the outbreak? Zombies, Pious Kate turning into a monster, end-of-the-world strategies and how to win over Rabbit. Maybe things weren’t so different.

“You’re quiet,” said Angela. “What are you thinking about?”

“My therapist advised me against answering that question in new social situations,” Q said. “Come on. We gotta get our stuff together.”

Dave scratched his balls, then waved to Q. She walked over to him. “Gotta talk,” he said.

“Anything you say to her, you can say to the rest of us,” Pious Kate called out.

Dave grunted. “Your friend’s a zombie.” He twitched his head toward Pious Kate.

“That’s outrageous,” said Pious Kate.

“I agree,” said Q. “We’re not friends.” She turned back to Dave. “How do we know for certain?”

“Shoot suspects in the head,” Dave said. “If they survive, they’re zombies.”

“I can’t believe you’re listening to that freak!” Pious Kate said. She stormed off to her cabin.

“Tempting,” said Angela, glaring at the retreating Pious Kate. “But we could try something a bit less Salem. How about checking for wounds? That’s what your book said, wasn’t it? If you get bitten, you turn into one of them? So if no one’s bitten, we’re all safe.”

“Yeah,” said Q. “And we think they’re following that rule, because Princess Starla turned after she was half-eaten and Zinkabella had a chunk bitten out of her throat.”

There were mumbles of agreement.

“Everyone checks, and everyone gets checked,” said Angela. “Anyone who has wounds gets watched and anyone clean is okay. All nice and fair and no one has to get shot in the head.”

“Great idea!” said Q. She moved toward Rabbit to begin the inspections.

Angela put a hand on her shoulder. “Boys over there. Girls here,” she said. “I don’t even know how you can think about sex right now.”

Q grinned. “Envy me.”

*

The three women stood behind a large rock, shivering in the shade. Q studied the sky. They had three hours of light left, maybe less. They should get water and firewood before dark. No one would want to roam the bush on their own when they couldn’t see. It was hard to hurry, though. The lethargy of camping combined with the lethargy of helplessness. What was there to do, except wait?

Angela checked the Scarlet Terror, found no wounds, and gave the frightened girl a hug. The Scarlet Terror dressed and went to gather firewood.

“Did you like my class earlier?” Q asked, inspecting the older woman’s arms. “I did manage to demonstrate Rule Two, so it was one of my more successful lessons.” She held her own arms out for Angela to view.

“Carnage is a success? Gee, Q, I’ve never seen such defined biceps on a woman.”

“Thanks,” said Q. “Push ups and pull ups. You get a good burn with monkey grip.” Q turned and let Angela check her shoulders and back. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the class was a ten out of ten, but I got my point across and there were no new casualties. I’m improving.”

“You are a very strange kindergarten teacher,” Angela said. “We’re done here. It’s all mosquito bites and scratches.” They got dressed. “Go get Pious Kate.”

“You go get Pious Kate,” Q said.

“No, you go get Pious Kate.”

“What did you call me?”

It was Pious Kate. Her skin had a gray tint and there were huge dark marks beneath her eyes. And the smell! It had morphed from old licorice to ancient vegetation.

“Nicest Kate?” Q said. “We called you Nicest Kate. It’s a nickname we have to distinguish you from all the other Kates we know, who aren’t as nice.” She nodded at Angela. “Go on. Tell her.”

Angela glared at Q. “Thanks. Kate, we all agreed to check each other for wounds.”

“Wounds?” said Pious Kate.

“We need to see that bite mark on your hip you told us about,” said Angela.

“Yeah,” said Q. “Chill out, strip off and bend over.” She leaned over to Angela and whispered. “Was that weird?”

“Yup, that was weird. Kate,” Angela began, “we have to see if it’s a bite from a zombie in case you’ve been infected with the spleen virus – why does it sound silly now I have to explain it to someone else?”

“Cynics make fools of us all,” said Q.

Pious Kate was impassive. “I am not taking my clothes off in front of this freak and no one is coming near me. I didn’t agree to anything.”

“We made a group decision,” Q said. “It applies to the whole group. Even you.”

“Bite me,” said Pious Kate. She walked over to join the Scarlet Terror by the fire.

“Shoot her in the head?” Q asked.

“Shoot her in the—no!” said Angela. “I don’t know. But no.”

They returned to the campsite. To Q’s disappointment (in Rabbit’s case) and relief (in the case of Dave and Sheath), the boys had also finished their inspections and were fully dressed.

“You guys all clear?” Q asked, her throat tight. What if Rabbit wasn’t? What if something had happened to him during the day and he’d been infected? She’d have to shoot him. Worse, he’d let her. He’d be supportive and sweet about it.

“Clear,” Dave said. “You?”

“Clear,” Q said.

“Except that Kate wouldn’t let us check,” Angela said.

Pious Kate scowled. “Of course I won’t! The whole thing’s ridiculous! I’m not one of those things. Michelle and Christine were both bitten yesterday, and they turned into monsters. I was bitten ages ago and I’m still okay. It’s not the same.”

“She’s got a point,” Rabbit said. “Poor Kate’s been off-color for days now.”

“Some might say her whole life,” Angela said.

“She has flu,” Rabbit said. “We should look after her.”

Pious Kate smiled at him. “I do feel faint,” she said. “Come sit with me?”

Rabbit sat beside and took her hand. “You’re cold, Katie-G. Here.” He took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders, then got a cup of water for her.

“What causes it?” Angela said. “Dead people walking around?”

“The traditional explanation is that hell’s full,” Q said.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Sheath.

“I know,” said Q. “I’m sure they made it big enough for all of us.”

“Things like this don’t just happen. There’s a cause. A bacteria or a virus, or something environmental. Maybe solar radiation or nuclear fallout.”

“Why does it matter?” Q said. “We can’t do anything to stop it. We have to focus on what we can do.”

“We need to understand what we’re up against,” said Angela. “Otherwise how can we beat it?”

Q glanced at Dave, who was looking as incredulous as she felt. They couldn’t beat a zombie outbreak. The best they could expect was to survive it.

“Whatever it is, I don’t have it,” Pious Kate said, snuggling against Rabbit. He draped a protective arm across her shoulders as the others continued a discussion about whether childhood immunization was involved.

Q kicked her boot in the dirt. Why was Rabbit falling for Pious Kate’s helpless act? And why wouldn’t the rest of the group concentrate on the problems at hand? Hadn’t they seen any decent movies?

Dave grunted. He had seen the same movies Q had and was already up to the next plot point.

“That zombie we cut up,” he said. “Was she in your group?”

“Yeah. She was the one who stole the hippy van,” Q said.

“How many others are there?”

Q thought. It was only Tinkabella in the hippy van, but the group in the other van had come out this way, too. Who knew what had happened to them? “There could be another eight. Why?”

Dave grunted. “They’ll come,” he said. “We’re meat.”

He was right. If the other van had been attacked nearby, they’d head straight for the camp. There was no one else around to target.

“What are you talking about?” said the Scarlet Terror, worry reflected on her face.

“Let me break it to them gently,” Q said to Dave. She turned to face the group. “You all understand the web of life, and how some of us are blood-sucking spiders and others are paralyzed flies awaiting death?”

This met with blank stares and horror. It was business as usual.

“No analogies,” Angela said. “Just tell us what you’re talking about.”

“The other hippy van’s tinned meat,” Q said. “They got eaten, probably on Thursday night and probably near here.”

“Is this a joke?” Sheath asked.

“The bush is crawling with vegan zombies!” Q said. “I can’t think of a more serious situation.”

Very quietly, the Scarlet Terror giggled.

“None of them made it out?” Rabbit said.

“I’m sorry,” Q said. “And we’re a long way from any other human prey out here, so they’re all gonna head straight for us.”

“Damn hippy zombies,” said Dave.

“How can you say that?” Rabbit was fierce, his eyes narrow, his mouth hard. It was like being snarled at by an actual bunny. “They were my friends, and now they’re – what? Lunch?”

Q, who could handle any weapon forged since the sixties and also a few of the cooler medieval ones, had no idea how to handle this.

Angela stepped forward and put a hand on Rabbit’s shoulder. “It’s hard for us all,” she said. “We all deal with it differently. Q and Dave are especially different. But everyone has loved ones in danger now. We have to hope they’re okay.”

The rage poured out of him as fast as it had poured in. Rabbit’s face became a mask of regret. “Andy was on that bus,” he said. “I convinced his mum to let him come. He’s fourteen.”

“He might be okay,” Angela said. “My kids are okay.” She spoke in a stronger tone. “I’d know if they weren’t. You have to hope, Rabbit. That’s all we have.”

That was how Angela kept it together, Q realized. She’d fooled herself into thinking her family were safe. Clever girl.

“The worst thing is not knowing,” Rabbit said.

At last, a topic Q could excel in. “No, the worst thing would be seeing him zombified and rotting away,” she said. “You’d be trying to reminisce about all the good times, hoping there was still was a spark of humanity left, and just as you thought you were getting through he’d lunge and—” She broke off as she saw the faces around her. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought we were freestyling. I’ve been in a lot of zombie chat rooms.”

Angela led Rabbit away to a quiet spot at the edge of the firelight. Q listened to them talk about strength and survival and wished she could say something like that. She kicked the ground. What was the point of a chick who could punch through brick walls if she couldn’t even act like a normal person?

Then again, normal thoughts were dangerous. Look at Rabbit. Q would be useless if she stopped to consider what was happening to her father, out of shape and slow, and her dog, with no one left to protect them.

That wasn’t helping. She switched to a comforting recap of her last high-score on The Living Dead: In Space! and was humming the theme tune when she noticed Dave trying to get her attention. He jerked his head toward the trees and wandered away. She followed.

Dave struck a light and took a deep pull of his cigarette. “We could find out,” he said.

“Find out what?”

“What happened to the hippies.”

Q grabbed a rifle and followed him into the afternoon hush of the bush.

Chapter Twenty-one

Q found she was unable to move the way Dave did; his was a practiced step that barely disturbed the dry bark underfoot. They headed south, skirting along the side of the range along a narrow, overgrown track. Q was grateful there was a track at all – the scrub was so dense she couldn’t see more than six feet ahead. She understood all those tales of lost bushwalkers who’d died a few hundred feet from the search party. If you didn’t collide with someone out here, you’d never find them.

She ignored the grab and tear of blackberry thorns and bracken, trying to shake the feeling that she had done all this before. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. Had her nightmares beaten her to it? Had she been practicing this time and place in her darkest hours of sleep, before the outbreak?

She stopped. There was a shape up ahead, concealed. It was large, gray and silent. It couldn’t be a zombie – they didn’t stalk their prey. Did they?

Q did not want to risk another wrong assumption. These damn anarchist zombies were breaking too many rules.

Dave was ahead and out of sight, too far away for Q to draw his attention without drawing the notice of that other watchful thing. She pulled up her rifle, braced it against her shoulder and sighted along the barrel.

The bush exploded.

There were at least six of them. They must have tracked her and charged when she aimed. Smart, fast zombies. Dumb, dead Q.

She managed to fire one shot before she was knocked to the ground. She rolled into a ball and waited for the hands and teeth.

The creatures moved away with loud, regular thumps. Q lifted her head to see Dave pounding back toward her, his stealth lost in speed. He reached her side and watched the backs of her attackers disappear into the scrub, then belly-laughed until his eyes watered.

Q unrolled and flipped upright. With dignity, she pulled clumps of dirt from her clothes and witty retorts from her repertoire.

“I nearly died!” she said. She made a note to herself to augment her repertoire of retorts with actual wit.

“Roos!” Dave said, breathless. “And you missed.”

“I was barrel blind,” Q said.

“They were fierce,” Dave said, chuckling. “They went right for you!”

And Q realized why the afternoon felt so familiar.

Creeping through the undergrowth. Watching and waiting for attack. The stalwart shooting buddy who always had her back. For a moment, she was angry and happy and her hands ached from too much macro. She was Qaranteen again in a simpler time, when monsters were easy to kill.

Dave wiped his eyes and led the way to the reason for their journey. He pointed to a pit, roughly twelve feet on each side. No, it wasn’t a pit. “Pit” implied an empty space. This was a container. What it contained were zombies.

There were seven. Four were women, three of whom Q recognized from the Yowie meeting. Two were men she had never seen. The last was a body.

It had no face, no age, no gender. It was a piece of meat, rotting as it stood. It was what death did to life.

Is that what Linda was like after burial? Q should never have allowed it. She should have made her father burn the woman. Clean flame and nothing left. But she had been a kid, twelve years old and too scared about the rest of her life to worry about someone else’s. She hadn’t known about the undead then.

Q prodded the pit with the barrel of her rifle. She got no reaction from its occupants. They continued their mindless shuffle, bumping into the walls and each other. Seven corpses milling about, as if waiting for a concert to begin. Seven plague-carriers.

“Can they see us?” Q asked. “Or hear us?”

Dave grunted and shifted his grip on his rifle. Something scuttled through the undergrowth. The pit was large and deep and weeds had reclaimed its sides. It had been here for months – long before the outbreak in Sydney.

Q’s guts compressed, and suddenly she was in another familiar scene, one she’d watched in a hundred movies. The city folk go bush and find out what the hicks are hiding.

Why bring Q out here alone? Were these his pets? Was it feeding time?

If these pits were old, how old were the zombies? Had he sourced them before the outbreak? She thought of her crew. Any of them would love to get their hands on a real zombie. Some might kill for it. Was the outbreak caused by a few survivalists who managed to find – or make – their own undead? Had their prep work got too authentic?

She’d wondered why Dave had been so nice to people he didn’t like. The firewood. Sharing food. The willingness to let them stay on in a crisis. Were the hippies part of some training exercise, or a game? Fresh meat for his field test?

Q kept her stance loose and open, barrel pointed at the dirt, but she tightened her grip. She thought she could move faster than Dave, but she would only have one chance. At least there was no need to muck about with spleen shots.

“What is this, Dave?” Q said, careful and light. “You training them up for a circus act?”

“Chapter Eight,” Dave said.

Chapter Eight? She recited the name of each chapter of Apocalypse Z in order, then groaned. “Chapter Eight,” she said. “How to build a zombie trap. You dug pits long before the outbreak, just in case.”

“First time I caught anything,” he said.

“You bastard!” Q said.

“What?”

“We went bushwalking! You could have warned us not to fall into the zombie pits.”

Dave grunted.

They studied their captives. The zombies made no noise except for the soft thud of feet on hard-packed earth. Their clothes were torn and so was their skin, but they didn’t seem to mind; these were just layers. The creatures’ eyes were wide and their expressions fixed, like photographs imposed over living flesh. Except that these were not living. Their smell, beyond the stench of decay, was closer to wet earth on a cool day. It was not unpleasant and it made perfect sense. Rot implies life, albeit life departed. These were a step beyond.

Q lined one up and shot it. The bullet passed through an arm, nearly severing the limb at the elbow. It hung, connected to the body by a tendon and skin. Its owner showed no pain. The limb was a piece of furniture, like cutting off the arm of a chair. Was this the afterlife?

“Three of these are hippies from the other van,” Q said.

“Five to go,” Dave said.

“More,” Q said. “The rest of these weren’t in the van at all. They walked from somewhere. That means more will, too.” Q considered. “What’s the nearest town?”

He grunted. “Hampton. Sixty clicks away.”

Dave had picked this spot for its isolation and difficult terrain. How had the zombies found them? They must have walked. How had they targeted this particular spot? How had they even crossed this terrain? She watched a spider crawl over the spines of a bush, moving freely from one tree to the next. Easy for a spider. Almost impassable for a person, with such narrow spaces between trunks. It was like being buried alive.

She hurled a rock at one of her former rivals for Rabbit’s affection. It lodged in the creature’s left eye, halfway in, and she wished she hadn’t thrown it.

“Where are they coming from?” she said. “Was there a plane crash? An evacuation? Why are they so close to our camp?”

Dave spat. “It’s getting dark,” he said.

Neither budged. The creatures’ movements were hypnotic. Bodies collided with the walls and each other. It was a creepy fish tank, a Halloween screensaver.

Dave picked up a stick and threw it at the head of one of the males. It bounced off with a thunk. The zombie shuffled on. “Stupid things,” he said.

“I dunno,” Q said, scuffing dirt over the gray flesh below. “You gotta admire them. They have purpose. At least they know what they want.”

As if hearing her words, all seven stopped moving and turned to face north. One of them, the sexless slab of flesh, opened its mouth. Its three remaining teeth looked more piteous and more threatening than an empty maw ever could.

The thing moaned. It was such a desolate sound. The last trumpet, played badly. It was the first time Q had heard one make a noise, other than the collision of its own body with an object in an unheeded world. What had it sensed?

“Hi,” said Angela. She waved and walked closer to Dave and Q, then froze as she saw the zombie pit. Its occupants gawped at her, mouths open. They weren’t on standby any more. Someone had thrown the switch.

“What is that?” Angela said.

“Zombie pit,” Q said. “Pit o’ zombies.”

“Why?” Angela took three quick steps back. “Can they get out?”

“Nope.”

“It’s horrible,” Angela said. “You should put them down.”

She was right. Q lifted her rifle. Before she could fire, Dave put his hand on the barrel and pushed it away.

“What?” Q said, annoyed. He didn’t feel sorry for them, did he?

“Watch,” Dave said.

Q watched. “Well, flay me to death with a wet shoelace,” she said. She walked over to Angela and stood behind her, then put her hands on the other woman’s waist. She moved Angela to the left, then to the right, like a puppet.

Angela shook her off. “What are you doing?”

“Playing shadow.”

Angela stepped one way, then the other. The creatures followed her movements.

“Oh God!” She tucked her hair behind one ear. Thirteen eyes followed the hand. She backed away from the pit, beyond their line of sight. The zombies followed her unseen movements, watching the space into which she reappeared a few feet to the right.

“They smell her?” Dave asked.

“Dunno. But our undead friends have a yen for sweet vegan flesh,” Q said. “That’s why they’re showing up here. We’re worth the walk.”

Angela looked like an oversized child in her floppy hat and jumper, sunburnt and tired and helpless. Q was suddenly afraid for her. The woman had been walking through the bush on her own with no idea that a careless step might drop her into a hole full of open mouths and cold bellies.

“How did you find us?” Q asked.

“I followed the path,” Angela said. “You took so long, I got worried. And Pious Kate started fake fainting again. I couldn’t handle it.”

“Good,” Q said. “Not about the fainting part. The other bit. Always stay on the path. Better still,” she added, “hike like you would in Cambodia, and don’t.”

They studied the pit. The movements were perfectly coordinated with Angela’s every reaction. They responded to her gestures and her voice. Synchronized swimming for the undead.

“More pits to check,” Dave said. “Cover your ears.” He dispatched the zombies, spleen shots every one. At least something was in their favor.

Chapter Twenty-two

Q and Dave discussed strategy as they cleaned and loaded guns. The others got water from the river and more wood for the fire. It was a perfect camp setting, except that every time Q heard bark crackle, she leaped to her feet and aimed. But it was peaceful besides that.

“It’s gonna turn bad if we stay,” Q said. She had been thinking about this since the zombie pits. Their plan of waiting it out had been a good one, until they realized they were waiting it out with a bunch of zombie magnets who couldn’t fight and didn’t even argue well. Damn hippies. “Z will sniff out the vegans,” Q said. “We might not last the night.”

“We could run,” Dave said.

“A cross-country hike in the dark?” Q said. “We’ll make such a racket they’ll find us even faster, and we won’t know where they are until they’ve grabbed us. They’ve got wicked good hearing. Take Zombie Kate.”

“I heard that!”

“See?” Q paused to admire the old rifle she was loading. “You keep her nice,” she said. “You can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his guns.”

“Thanks,” Dave said. “That’s Bruce.”

“You gave your gun a boy’s name?” Q asked. Dave sighted along the rifle he had cleaned, then swung it in Q’s direction. “It’s fine, it’s not weird or anything,” Q said. “Anyway, I’m in no position to call anyone else weird.”

Dave grunted and put down his weapon. “Two might make it,” he said, so low that Q wasn’t sure she had heard him.

She ran a rag through the barrel. “What are you saying, Dave?”

“I got a bike. Full tank.”

This must be his Plan B. She had to tread carefully. She was honored that he would include her in it, but she couldn’t abandon her troops. She couldn’t abandon Rabbit. How could she explain? There was a menacing edge to Dave. She had no desire to upset a heavily armed man in an isolated patch of the bush.

“You’re free to go, Dave,” she said, her words as low as his had been. “Especially now we know they’re especially interested in hippies. You’ll be safer far away and I won’t think less of you. But I can’t come.”

Rabbit returned with two buckets of water and began arranging firewood to make tea. The late afternoon sun caressed his dark hair.

Dave followed Q’s gaze. “You’re in love.”

Q colored. “You know. The old story. Girl meets boy. Girl loses boy. Girl finds boy again. Zombies attack.”

Dave nodded with such deep understanding that she wondered again what had driven him all the way out here to live alone in the wild.

“I gotta stay,” Q said. “I gotta teach these hippies how to make war, not love.”

Dave cocked Bruce. “Let’s do this.”

*

Q paced up and down in front of her troops. They were an unlikely bunch. Too soft, too slow and too plain pacifist. The only one with useful levels of aggression was Pious Kate, and to Q’s relief, she had refused to join in. Her Lethal Littlies had started with more raw potential than this bunch.

Q thought about Hannah. She hoped her best friend was still okay. If Hannah stuck to the plan, she would be.

She shook herself. Time to focus. She was needed here.

“All right, you lot!” Q bellowed. Startled, the hippies jumped. A cockatoo took off from a nearby tree, wailing.

Angela raised a hand. “Doesn't noise attract them?” she said. “Shouldn’t we practice quietly?”

Q considered the odd notion of silent violence. It sounded much less fun than the regular kind, but Angela had a point. “We are at war!” Q said in a menacing drill-sergeant whisper. “This is war and we are at it! War is what we are at. Um.”

Q marched back along the line and paused in front of Angela. The straw hat and knitted rainbow jumper threw her off track for a moment, but she recovered. “What do you think this is?” Q hissed at her friend, poking her in the belly.

Angela’s nose crinkled. “Your finger?” she said. “A breach of personal space?”

“No!” said Q. She walked up the back of the line, treading softly, and leaned in close to Sheath. “This is war!” she whispered. He flinched and rubbed his ear. Damn, she was good! “What is this?”

There were mumblings of “war” from Angela and Rabbit, who were receptive to this new learning experience, if embarrassed at how Q was going about it. There were also several other mutterings that, much like the rumbling of someone else’s bowel during a staff meeting, Q chose to ignore. This was their first lesson and she had to focus on basic skills. She’d deal with the troublemakers in their second lesson, if they lived that long.

Sheath raised his hand. “Does anyone remember what happened the last time Quentin tried to teach us something? It was this only this morning. Don’t you guys remember?”

Rabbit and Angela hushed him. They did remember what happened, and now they really wanted to learn how to use a gun.

Sheath continued. “It ended in bloodshed, people. Violence breeds violence.”

Q paused in front of the line. She regarded Sheath’s T-shirt, which said, “Do it for the cow.” She wanted to ask what “it” was, but couldn’t afford the distraction and was sure she wouldn’t like the answer. She regarded his patched hemp trousers. She regarded his shoes.

“What are those on your feet, soldier?” she said. “Will they carry you through fifty miles of mud and sludge? Will they keep you free from trench foot? Will they help you kick in the face of the enemy?”

“They’re cruelty-free bamboo sandals made in a fair trade workshop,” Sheath said. “They will keep me free from the willing participation in the capitalist machinations of the rape and exploitation of the planet and its inhabitants.”

“Dummy!” Q clicked her fingers.

“There’s no need to get abusive,” Sheath said. “This isn’t some military montage.”

Dave emerged from the dappled shade, holding a makeshift dummy. He had black paint smeared beneath his eyes and in patches across his face. His clothes were khaki. He held a knife between his teeth.

Dave handed Q a bundle of sticks and branches bound with cordage. There was a paper target wedged about halfway down on the left, to indicate the spleen, and a round paper face stuck to the top, to make the experience more realistic.

“What’s that?” asked the Scarlet Terror.

Angela put her head on one side and squinted. “And why does it look like Kate?”

“This is your training dummy!” Q said, ignoring Angela’s comment. She had been drawing Pious Kate but she didn’t realize it was so obvious. She didn’t realize it was possible to be obvious with a scrap of paper, a ballpoint pen and no artistic talent. “This dummy is all that stands between you and certain death!” Q beamed.

Four worried faces looked back at her. Dummy Kate just glowered. Q regretted drawing the face at all. That inky stare was undermining her authority.

“You are going to learn how to kill zombies!” Q said.

“Be reasonable,” said Sheath of Power.

“We’re way past reason. We’re in my world now. Dave?”

Dave gave her a quick salute, set up the dummy fifty paces away and returned. He stood in front of a pile of guns, rocks and garden equipment.

“First, spot your target!” Q said, her voice croaky from all the hoarse whispering. This drill sergeant business was hard on the vocal cords.

Dave dropped into an alert crouch, which was worth seeing on a man who topped two-hundred-eighty pounds. He must have good knees. He cupped his hand over his eyes, mock-searching for the enemy, then spotted the dummy. He froze.

“Now that you have your target in sight, choose your weapon!” Q said. “If you are defending base, you should have a large selection of loaded guns. If you are on the move, you will use your primary.”

Dave picked up a gun.

“The shotgun!” said Q. “Heavy but forceful! Great stopping power but not accurate at distance. You may not want to run twenty miles with this baby slung across your back.”

“We may not want to run twenty miles at all,” Sheath said.

Dave aimed and fired. The paper face of Dummy Kate exploded. Q took a moment to enjoy this sight before continuing with her class.

“Great shot, Dave. But remember!” Q said. “Head shots are no good! Aim for the spleen. I know this is difficult, but you’ll have to forget everything you’ve ever learned about zombies.”

“Does she know this is everything we’ve ever learned about zombies?” Sheath said. Rabbit put a finger to his lips.

Dave picked up another gun.

“The bolt-action rifle!” Q said. This was way more fun than teaching math. She’d have to do this lesson again next time she was solo with the Kindy Koalas. “Your bolt-action is a lighter and more accurate choice!” she said. “You can carry this sucker without having to give up your secondary weapon and you’ll find ammo in any gun-nut’s siege lair.”

Dave fired at the dummy. A stick limb flew off.

“But remember people, accuracy is still hard at this range!” she said. “Dave’s been practicing for years and he still can’t make a spleen shot at this distance. But don’t worry! The hordes of the undead will come to you!”

Dave shot three more times, then threw down the rifle in mock dismay.

“And what happens if you run out of ammunition?” Q asked.

“Scream?” said Angela.

“Run away?” said Sheath.

“Cry?” said the Scarlet Terror.

“Hide behind you?” said Rabbit.

Q continued. “Out of ammo? Not just a movie cliché, people. It will happen!”

Dave sank to his knees and made a dramatic “Why, God, why?” gesture at the skies.

“Think smart!” Q said. “Use what you have! Not confident with the crossbow? Out of throwing stars? Too tired to heft the sledge hammer? Never fear! Look how ordinary garden tools and rocks can be turned into the harbingers of death!”

They watched as Dave demonstrated on the dummy, Q commentating each move and its anatomical effect. “We all know about zombies and crowbars,” Q said.

“You assume too much,” Sheath said.

“But have you thought about long-handled shears? Remember, stay as far away as you can! Never let the evil undead get close enough to grab you.”

“I used to enjoy gardening,” Angela said.

“Rocks!” Q said, hefting a heavy stone and brushing the dirt from its rough surface. “Nature’s great multitasker. It’s a missile, it’s a limb crusher, it’s a head basher, all in one neat package.”

“I won’t ever see a hoe the same way,” Angela said to Rabbit, who did not reply. He was throwing up behind a tree. It was surprising he had anything left.

When Dave had finished with the dummy and returned, Q took a moment to consider the battlefield. They had demonstrated most of the tools and weapons, both targeted zombie killers and backyard adaptations. “We’ll hold off on the flame thrower for now,” Q said, cradling Dave’s pride and joy. “It’s a bit tricky for beginners and risky in Australian conditions. You’re just as likely to melt out your own eyeballs and then have to listen to your friends burning alive in the bushfire you accidentally lit.”

She chuckled at her joke. No one else did.

“Did you say she taught kindergarten?” Sheath said to Angela.

“I didn’t say she was good at it,” Angela said.

“Right! Demonstration’s over! Yowie, this is your chance to find out if you have what it takes!”

Sheath raised a hand. “Please don’t demonstrate on me,” he said, “but Dave’s destroyed the dummy, so how can we practice?”

“I’m sure we can find another,” Q said. Pious Kate had wandered back to the camp. Where did she keep disappearing to on her own?

Dave was already leaning a new dummy against a doomed eucalypt.

“All right, people!” Q said. “Choose your weapon.”

Chapter Twenty-three

It should have looked cheery. It didn’t. It looked like the end of the world.

Rabbit stirred a large cooking pot, moving this way and that to stay out of the smoke. Pious Kate shimmered on the other side of the fire, as if the smoke were a part of her and she commanded it as she wished. Like the pale woman in Q’s nightmares.

Angela, Sheath, the Scarlet Terror, Q and Dave sat on logs, closer to the heat than was comfortable. No one wanted to move away from the comfort of the flames, no matter how false their sense of protection might be.

Rabbit served mugs of bean stew. For once, Q was so hungry she didn’t stop to criticize the food. After what she had seen today, she was almost grateful it was vegan. She thought about Zinkabella’s autopsy and the zombie pits and their training session. It had been a day of fractured limbs and exposed tendons, a day of bludgeoning dead flesh. Eating more would make her feel like a cannibal. Maybe veganism was infectious, like the Z-plague.

“Did you tell them what we discovered this afternoon?” Q asked Angela after a subdued dinner.

“Tell us what?” Rabbit said. “Please don’t try to break it to us gently.”

“We know why the zombies are all the way out here, miles from the nearest town,” Q said. “There are hundreds heading this way, like a spider to the fire.”

“Don’t you mean ‘a moth to the flame’?” Angela said.

“No, like that spider right over there that’s walking over the coals. Maybe it’s one of your lot. Could be a spiritual thing.”

“Q, what are you saying?” Rabbit said.

“The zombies,” she said. “They’re after you.”

“Oh please,” said Pious Kate.

The woman had not spoken all night. She had refused her bean stew too, claiming she wasn’t hungry. Q had private theories on how she was sustaining herself.

Pious Kate stood, cloaked in smoke, eyes blazing. “You are so full of it. You have no sense of reality. You think these creatures are after Rabbit like you are! You’re pathetic.”

Q was done. She was done skulking around in the scrub, waiting for an attack that never came. She was done working so hard to save a bunch of ingrates. She was done with Pious Kate.

“You got something to say?” Q got to her feet and squared up to the woman, but found it hard to meet her gaze. She felt pathetic, a child again, the primary school boxing champ too scared to sleep without a light on.

The shimmer of the heat and the red glow of the flames hollowed out Pious Kate’s cheeks and made her skin buckle and crawl. The woman was a demon. Maybe she didn’t have zombie flu after all. Maybe she was finally letting out what she had kept hidden all her life.

The others backed away. Were they scared of Q, too? She couldn’t imagine why. She wasn’t the monster, and her rifle was aimed at Pious Kate, not at them.

“Ladies,” Sheath said, nervous.

“None of those here,” Q said.

“Are you going to stand by and watch her murder me?” Pious Kate said.

That voice. That whinging, whining voice! It was the voice that told Q she wasn’t training hard enough, that she didn’t want to win enough. It was the voice that told her she would never be enough.

Rabbit took a step toward Q. Did he think he was safe? No one was safe.

“Stay there,” she said. “Kate’s going to tell us what she thinks. We should all listen.”

“Fine,” said Pious Kate. “I think you’re a freak. I think you and your creepy friend here have set up this whole display. I think you killed Christine and Melissa, and the others made a lucky escape and are tucked up safe in bed. I think you’re chasing after Rabbit like some moon-eyed lunatic and you’ve staged this so you can rescue him and kill off your rivals.”

“That sounds crazy,” said Q. The woman shimmered, an evil mirage. Q lined her up and smiled. Pious Kate wasn’t scary. Nothing was scary when you had it in your sights.

“Don’t,” Rabbit said.

It had been a long day. She was tired. Pious Kate – diseased creature that she was – was accepted where Q was not. And Pious Kate was turning into a flesh-crazed killer and no one was prepared to do anything about it.

Q was prepared.

“Q!” Rabbit said, urgent.

She glanced up. Her belly twisted. Angela was pointing a shotgun at her.

“You don’t even know how to use that,” Q said, still aiming at Pious Kate.

“You taught me.” Angela took the safety off. “Great stopping power at close range. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“You can’t shoot me. You couldn’t shoot that dummy.”

“I learned.”

Q considered. Would Angela fire? How much did she want to find out?

She didn’t want to die. She lowered her weapon.

Rabbit moved in and took it, then grinned. “There! It’s been a long day and everyone’s stressed out, but we’re all friends again. Right? Shake hands and make up?”

Pious Kate walked around the fire and stood in front of Q. She spoke directly into Q’s ear so no one else would hear. “I had him when you were still wearing braces,” she said. “And I’ll have him again. Doesn’t he look good enough to eat?”

Q head butted her. Pious Kate collapsed.

Rabbit bent over her, muttering and stroking her face. He looked distraught and beautiful and very, very far away.

Idiot. What had she done?

Q stormed off. Angela followed.

“Why did you threaten me?” Q said. “You know what’s happening. You know what that woman is turning into.” She tipped her head back. The stars were bright and dead in a sky without color.

“Kill her and lose them all,” Angela said. “Is that what you want?”

“I can’t have what I want.”

“Oh grow up!” said Angela.

Q’s mouth dropped. “What?”

“Stop acting like a kid. We’re at war!”

That was when the screaming began.

*

Q ran into hell.

At first glance, she couldn’t tell man from monster. There were shapes and there was fire. There were things grabbing other things.

One of Dave’s crowbars was by her feet. She picked it up and bashed in the throat of a black-haired teen. Damn emos.

Something grappled her from behind. She jabbed the pointed iron end of the crowbar into its torso. It toppled.

Q scanned the scene, ignoring the rifle slung across her back. It was too dangerous in a melee like this. She’d be as likely to shoot Rabbit as save him.

Rabbit!

“Hippies!” Q said. “To me!” She kicked in the knees of a fat-bellied old woman and felt a satisfying crunch, then stomped her foot through the soft parts of its torso. Blood spurted across her boots. It stopped moving.

“Rabbit!” Q said, throwing an elbow into a head and kicking its owner backward. It was a stupid thing to do, if she hit a zombie in the mouth she might be cut and infected, but there was no time to think.

“Rabbit!”

He ran through the chaos and stood behind her, breathing hard. He was okay. It was a miracle he hadn’t been bitten.

Q did a quick front-kick and sent a fresh young corpse into the flames. The thing’s clothes ignited and it rolled in the fire, hair flaming. She smelled barbecued meat and watched it stagger into the darkness, a burning torch.

Rabbit leaned against her, back-to-back. She reached down and picked up the iron skillet, then passed it to him, her eyes still on the campsite. He took it. She heard a loud thump and grinned, then stopped.

She found Sheath. Someone else had found him first.

He lay on the ground, fingers wrapped around a stick. For a moment all Q could see was the blood dripping from his palms. He must have gripped his club so hard it pierced his skin. She processed the rest of the scene.

Two female ghouls lay across him. One bit chunks from his shoulder. Clean white bone showed through, pretty as art. The other tore into his belly, its face red to the eyeballs, dipping in and out like a dog with a bowl of its favorite food. There was a young boy too, on hands and knees, clawing and gnawing at Sheath’s thigh. The boy had such small teeth he couldn’t rip through to the sweet flesh below. Poor child.

Q became aware of a sound, a strangled sob, and realized it came from her. She pulled her pistol from its halter on her belt and shot the two women several times. It didn’t matter if she hit Sheath by mistake, not now. She caught the boy with a swinging kick that sent him flying into the bush. His body made the lightest of thumps when it landed.

There was another noise, a gurgle. One side of Sheath’s throat was still intact. It pulsed. His eyes caught hers.

Sheath was alive. He couldn’t cry out because he had no lips and less than half a throat, but he was alive.

Q shot him in the head and then jabbed her crowbar down through his spleen, hard. Her face was wet and she wiped it – was she crying or bleeding? “Dave!” she said.

She found Dave with ease. He towered, a head taller than the three zombies clinging to him, slashing his bush knife through the air. It sliced off a hand as she watched, then jabbed into a zombie’s left side and cut upwards through the body until the thing fell.

There were too many for him. Q shot the one furthest from Dave and risked another shot as a fourth grappled at his jumper from behind. He twisted free of the grip and dug his bush knife into dead flesh.

Cold fingers ploughed the muscle of Q’s right arm. She whipped around and broke the hold, did a leg-sweep and then jabbed the straight end of the crowbar into the side of her attacker’s belly. It went straight through and wedged into the hard earth below. She twisted the crowbar and pulled it out.

Dave ran over to Rabbit and Q and they stood in a circle, backs together, scanning the campsite. Last stand at the end of the world.

Q breathed. There were no more zombies.

She looked between the trees in the direction taken by the flaming zombie, wondering if it would start a bushfire. Flaming zombie. Great name for a cocktail. She should write that down.

There was no smoke coming from the bush; it must have burned itself out. Lucky.

It was just Q, Rabbit and Dave now. Sheath was dead. Pious Kate, Angela and the Scarlet Terror were missing, probably dead. She counted twelve ex-zombies in the campsite, none of them moving. Not bad for their first team effort. Q called Angela’s name into the night, then wished she hadn’t. The velvet bush swallowed it whole.

Of course there was no reply. If Angela were alive, she’d be here. So would the others.

Think about it later.

In the light of the dying campfire, Q could see five paces into the bush. After that, it was black.

She flicked on the beam of her head torch. The weak splotch of light barely showed. Nature laughs at the LED.

“Dave, we gotta go,” Q said. “More will come.”

A large pot of water beside the fire waited for their evening brew-up. Q tipped it over the coals, then stomped them out. Having avoided one bushfire, she didn’t want to start another. They couldn’t count on two miracles in one night. “We gotta go, Dave,” she said.

“We can’t leave without Kate,” Rabbit said. “I don’t know where she went.”

“I’ll come back for her later,” Q lied.

It was enough. Rabbit was so drained, he was happy to believe anything that would save him from thinking.

“Dave,” Q said. “We gotta go. Where can we go?”

Dave hesitated, then switched on a large torch and hefted his bush knife. “Follow me,” he said.

*

They stumbled along, Dave in the lead, then Rabbit, then Q, followed by all their childhood terrors of things of that go bump in the night, made worse because now they knew what those things looked like.

Q had thought she was prepared. She thought she was ready. She was wrong. She couldn’t switch off the image of a man with no throat, trying to scream.

Too tired for stealth, they made noise as they went. It didn’t matter. They had made such a racket at the camp that anything within two clicks that hadn’t already sniffed out Rabbit would know where they were. Z would head straight for them, and what could Q do when they arrived? She was too tired to even lift her crowbar.

“Where are we going?” she said.

Dave grunted. Q almost didn’t care. It was good enough that they were moving. It felt like progress, and progress felt like safety.

She froze.

“What is it?” Rabbit said. He was shaking. His beautiful bronze skin had turned jaundice yellow in the beam of her torch. Maybe he’d been bitten. Maybe he was turning.

Think about it later.

“Nothing,” Q said. “Thought I heard something.”

They stumbled on. They must be on a path, because even in their exhausted state they were moving too fast for bush-bashing. They were gaining height, too. Beyond that, Q had no clue where they were headed. She hoped there was a chopper at the end.

There was no chopper. There might never be a chopper again.

Think about it later.

She stopped again. She’d heard something. It was bigger than a bush rat, smaller than a nightmare.

Dave heard it too. He swung his torch around and for a moment, eyes glowed. Was it a possum? A demon? When he moved the torch back to the same spot, there was nothing there.

“You hear it?” Dave said, voice thick as congealed blood.

“Over there!” Q said. She spun around to face the sound and pulled out her pistol, the only weapon she had strength for. Thank God for guns. They made the weak deadly. No wonder people liked them.

Angela slouched into the light, wide-eyed, holding a dripping shovel in front of her. “Where did they come from?” she said.

Dave grunted and kept walking.

Q hugged her. Angela clung. Dave’s light disappeared into the bush, and her belly shriveled. They couldn’t lose him. What would she do then?

“Move!” she said, and pulled away. Angela whimpered as if she’d been slapped. Q grabbed her, turned her around and gave her a shove. The woman almost overbalanced, then her feet caught up with her body and she staggered forward.

They walked.

Every sound, every indistinct figure in the beam of Dave’s torch made her heart leap. Her throat clogged with air she couldn’t breathe. Her hands shook with energy she couldn’t afford to waste. They walked.

They passed things they couldn’t see. Large, watchful things. Maybe the trees, given eyes by fear. Maybe something else.

They walked.

And then there was a huge mass that didn’t belong in the bush. It loomed above them, all straight edges and impossible bulk in the twisting elegance of the trees. It was a building.

Q tried to understand. Where were they? Why was there a huge building in the middle of nowhere? How come she hadn’t seen it in daylight?

The scene suddenly resolved. It was Dave’s cabin, that was all. Everything looked too big in the dark and it was all too much for her exhausted brain. Had they traveled such a short distance? She felt like they’d walked forever.

Dave unlatched the door and pushed it open. He looked along the beam of his torch and grunted. “All clear,” he said, and stepped from the dark of the night into the black interior.

Strength hit Q’s limbs.

“No,” she said. She backed away. “We can’t go in there. We’ll be trapped. They’ll get in and we won’t be able to run!”

Dave disappeared. The door thumped shut behind him.

His torch was gone. Q was blind. She shut her eyes to stop the panic. “It’s a trap!” she said, voice rising. “Don’t go in!”

Q opened her eyes. Angela pushed open the door, stepped through and left her forever. She grabbed Rabbit’s arm. “No!” she said.

He put a warm hand over hers. “What else is there?” he said, and disappeared.

Q was alone.

She had strength again. She could run. But where? What else was there?

She stepped inside.

*

It was even darker inside, without the starlight. Q followed the sound of clumsy steps on wood until she saw the circle of Dave’s light.

She must be punch-drunk. The light, floating ten feet in the air, was still rising. It made no sense. She giggled. It was a bunyip light. She followed it, leaving the earth behind. A kung fu buddy from the army used to talk about bunyip lights. He said he saw them out on exercise, when he was hungry and tired and scared. Army boys. Always trying to scare the chick. It never worked.

It worked now.

Where was Dave taking them? Would it hurt?

She’d been bitten. That’s what must have happened. This was the way out. It was a relief. There was no pain and she didn’t have to worry any more. She took a final step forward. Darkness fled.

Dave was pulling out tins of food and bedrolls by the light of a gas lantern. Rabbit and Angela slumped on the wooden floor like unloved dolls.

“Pull up the stairs,” Dave said.

Why not? They had fought monsters and walked into the sky and now Q would pull up the stairs. She turned around.

She had just climbed a ladder, twenty feet high. There were ropes attached to the sides of it and they burrowed through neat holes in the floor.

She understood where they were. It was the attic of Dave’s cabin. She wasn’t dead. Not even close.

Q hauled on the ropes until the ladder lifted from the ground, then she looped the ropes around a metal bar fixed to the floor for that purpose. Dave shook out blankets and handed Rabbit a pack of hard biscuits. Rabbit took them, handed them around, then studied a knothole in the floor.

Dave tested the ropes and Q’s rough anchor. He seemed satisfied. He swung shut the trapdoor. Q wished there was another name for it.

“There’s blood,” Dave said, jerking his head at Q.

Q wiped a hand over her forehead. Her fingers came away sticky.

She handed him her pistol, barrel first. “If I wake up dead, shoot me,” she said, lying down on one of the blankets. “Fuck, I don’t care. Shoot me anyway.” She fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-four

It was a warm and orange world.

Q was alone and happy. Her body was heavy and still. Feathers brushed her face.

She tried to move but found she was too stiff. She had lain in this nest too long. It was a world with hard edges.

She felt the wooden floorboards through the blanket. Sun poured through the window like syrup. Eyes closed, she turned her face toward it, and sneezed. Someone else’s hair stuck up her nose.

A murmur to her right. She opened her eyes. Rabbit was asleep, one arm thrown across her belly. She arched her back and wriggled. There was the warmth. Where were the edges?

The night churned back like a bad kebab. Q gagged and sat up. There had been zombies. They were gone. She took a human stocktake.

Angela and Rabbit were in the attic with her. Rabbit lay asleep in the sun on the floorboards. Angela stood by the one window.

Dave had been here, she remembered following him. Where was he now?

Sheath? Dead.

Pious Kate and the Scarlet Terror? Missing, presumed undead.

She sized up her surroundings. She was in a large, high-ceilinged attic that smelled of dust. The only exit was the trapdoor and it was shut. Several steel boxes were stacked against the north wall. Weapons lay in the east corner, guns and bludgeons and bush knives and one beautiful katana. Q’s bag rested on a pile of blankets on the floor. She couldn’t see any other bags. There was a curtained-off area at the west end of the room.

No Dave. No zombies.

Crash.

She felt like she’d just played six hours straight of Night of the Undead Killer Clowns, then realized that she had, minus the red noses. She took a long drink from a canteen on the floor and stretched.

“Morning,” she said to Angela.

“Morning.” Angela did not leave the window.

Q walked to the end of the room and pulled back the curtain. Dave had made a washroom. There was a bucket of water, soap and towels. She caught sight of her muddy, bloody face in a small mirror hanging over the bucket. What if she’d been bitten? She’d have to tell the others. Would she have to shoot herself, or could she ask them to do it? Dave would do it. Dave was hard.

Maybe she’d do a Captain Oates instead, walk out into the drift of zombies, never to be seen again. The ghouls might let her through. She might already smell like one of them. She could feel what it was like to turn.

Q recalled a woman straddling Sheath, eating his throat. No. She’d take the gun. She’d do it herself.

Gorge rose in her throat. Q splashed water on her face and scrubbed. Dirt, blood; all washed off into the bucket. It wasn’t part of her after all. She was clean. Uninfected.

She emerged from the curtained space. Dust drifted in the sunbeams. She picked up the katana and ran through some katas. Sunlight on the blade. Air in her lungs. Better.

Angela watched her moves, then turned back to the window. Q put the sword back where she had found it. “I feel almost human again,” she said. “Like everything’s gonna be okay.”

“Mmm.”

“Bird watching?” Q asked.

“No.”

Q walked to the window and peered out.

A multitude of eyes peered back.

She retreated into the room and reached for the sword.

“They don’t do anything,” Angela said. “They just stand there. They know we’re here.”

Of course they knew. They were queuing up for the buffet of sweet vegan flesh. They could wait forever. “Why don’t you come away from there?” Q said, placing a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“They stay still if I’m watching. If I look away, they might try the doors and windows.”

Q’s heart shattered. They would get in! They’d invade and rip them all apart and that night of fighting would be pointless. She had to get Dave!

Q swapped her sword for a rifle and scanned the crowd and the walls of the shack. She needed to find the spot where the first zombie would break through so she could prepare.

She exhaled and lowered her weapon. The walls had grown a metal husk in the night. They were safe. The bottom ten feet of the cabin were covered in thick steel grate, casual as paint. At the peak of the grating, the metal curled out and over. It would be impossible to climb.

“We’ll be okay,” Q said. “Those are Last Man blinds. Steel here when the world ends,” she quoted. “Four Horsemen rated them field tested to withstand the combined force of up to three thousand zombies, though I always thought that field-testing claim was a bit suspect.”

“Mmm?” said Angela.

“Creepy old caretaker guy and I get the same subscription,” Q said.

Dave grunted.

Q swore. “You walk too quiet for a fat guy! We need to put a bell on you.”

He grunted again.

“Sorry.” Q helped him haul up the ladder. “Where ya been?” she asked.

“Checking we’re secure,” Dave said.

“And?”

“We’re secure.”

Rabbit yawned and stretched. Q enjoyed the sight of his long limbs unfolding. He gave Dave a goofy grin. “Is there a loo?”

Dave jerked his head at the ladder. “Long-drop’s downstairs at the back,” he said. “Use the sawdust.”

Q giggled. “I never knew anyone with an en suite long-drop.”

“Wanna go outside?” Dave asked. Q lost the grin and helped Rabbit lower the ladder.

“So this is it?” Angela said from her post at the window. “We wait here until someone comes to rescue us and hope they arrive before those things work out how to get in?”

“No one’s coming,” said Dave.

Q shifted to a more cheerful topic. “Maybe we should check the news. Did you bring the radio?”

She congratulated herself as Angela spun away from the window, interested now in something other than the ghouls at the gate. Q had taken the time to study the chapter on morale, “Crazy friends and how to deal with them.” Phase one was distraction. She hoped they wouldn’t get to phase three.

Dave held out a handful of plastic shards and cogs and batteries.

“The radio,” he said.

Q’s brow furrowed. “Did you trip and break it last night?”

“No.”

Someone had smashed Dave’s radio, then carefully replaced it with the rest of his stuff. Q knew how this went. It was all set out in Chapter Eighteen: one of them went insane and sabotaged the survival prospects of the rest. Dave was the obvious suspect, so it couldn’t be him, plus he was battle ready. Pious Kate seemed a sure bet, but had she had time to do all that last night before the attack?

She hoped it was Pious Kate, or Sheath of Power, or the Scarlet Terror. If so, the problem was over.

“Who’s for breakfast?” Q said.

Dave slipped a hand to the gun at his belt. Angela took three steps back, and looked ready to vault through the window. Q reconsidered her phrasing.

“I’m clean, see? No bites.” She pointed to her pink, wound-free face. “I mean, who wants breakfast? I could eat a horse.” She had another flashback from the night before and shuddered. “If it were made of tofu and didn’t bleed.”

“Eat what?” Dave said, with a half-smile, half-grimace. It made him look like an evil Jack-o-lantern seeking redemption.

“Breakfast’s on me,” Q said. Maybe he didn’t want to share food? How long would hers last? An early display of generosity might help. She went to her bag and rifled through it.

“Is my stuff here too?” Angela asked.

“No,” Dave said.

Q understood. He’d brought her stuff earlier but no one else’s, because this was Plan C. Dave and Q in the attic. No one else. He’d always planned to bring her along because she was useful, and the others had been an unintentional rescue.

“Good thinking, Dave,” Q said, saving him from the embarrassment. “Figured I’d have the best supplies if we all had to retreat, huh?” There was no need for the others to know he had planned to abandon them. The attic was small enough already.

“My Tibetan prayer bowl wouldn’t help us much,” Angela said. “But I’d kill for a clean pair of yoga pants.” She watched Q pulling out a first aid kit, protein bars, foil-packed meals and a large tub of white tablets with a picture of a green-bereted soldier on one side and text screaming, Made for the British Special Forces!

“You brought all that along for a weekend retreat?” Angela said.

“Look who’s laughing now, Little Miss I Never Thought the World Would End on a Sunday.” Q tore the foil off a protein bar and started eating.

“Is there meat in those?” Angela said, hesitant.

“Dunno. It’s got whey, phaseolamin, xanthin … I can’t pronounce the rest.”

“When did food become a foreign language?” Angela asked. She was sounding more like herself.

“Says the woman who brought non-dairy cheese. Where does that stuff come from? Lactose-intolerant cows?” She threw Angela and Dave a bar each. They ate in silence. Q finished and tore open a second.

Dave grunted. Q gave him a reassuring grin. “It’s cool, Dave. We got plenty.”

“For how long?” he said.

Q, mouth full of the wrong end of the alphabet, stopped chewing. Dave had planned to see it out until the end, but alone. How long would his supplies last split four ways?

She swallowed but felt most of the bar lodge halfway down her throat. “What have you got, Dave?” she said. It was an effort to say “you”, and not “we”, but this was his place. His stuff.

“Enough water,” Dave said. He pointed to a tap that protruded, incongruous, from the eastern wall. Q stuck her head out of the attic, ignoring the ghouls below that quickened in excitement. She followed the pipe back to a small water tank attached to the top of the wall and fed by the gutters.

“Two-thousand-gallon tank?” she said.

“One thousand. Half full.”

“Great!” said Q. “That’ll be plenty.” It would be, if it rained. “And food?”

Dave pointed to a large steel box. “Three month’s rations for one man,” he said. Q knew he’d figured that, by then, the zombies would be dead, or he would be.

Angela’s voice was brittle. “There’s four of us.”

Dave kicked another steel box. “Meds, space blankets, thermals, tools.” He kicked a third. “Ammo. A thousand rounds for .22s. Five hundred for the shottie.”

“How long will the food last?” Angela said.

“I brought stuff too,” Q said. “And we might be able to shoot a bird or a rabbit.” It was a stupid idea. Even if they hit one, there would be no way of retrieving it from the crowd of ghouls, but the fiction calmed Angela. “What else you got, Dave?” Q said.

Dave smirked. He kicked the last locked box. Bottles clanked. “Bourbon,” he said.

Judging from the size of the box, it must have held at least fifty bottles. “No way,” Q said. “We don’t drink in here. There’s not enough water.” Plus one drunken brawl and they’d all wake up dead. There were too many guns and nowhere to run. “We gotta be disciplined,” she said. “We’ll be okay so long as we stay tight.”

Dave grunted and began gathering handfuls of Q’s food. He carried it over to one of the boxes.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“It’s safer in here,” he said. He pulled on a string around his neck and a key emerged from under his shirt. He used it to unlock the box and started packing Q’s food inside. “Could be rats.”

“I haven’t seen any rats,” Angela said.

“Rats would be bad.” Q helped Dave load the food in. It was his place.

“It’s funny, with the birds,” Q said when they had finished.

“Why?” Angela said.

“Z doesn’t attack them. They’re not scared of Z.”

“No,” said Rabbit, climbing the ladder. He pulled it up behind him and tied it off, then joined the women at the window. “You are what you eat. Those things don’t want to be birds.”

*

“Reaching, grasping, rotting,” said Rabbit.

“Death in motion,” said Dave, grave, as if trying to understand a concept that was beyond him.

“Attack of the Killer Slug People!” Angela said.

Q gaped. “You are not taking this seriously,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Angela.

“Everyone knows there’s no such movie,” Q said.

“There might be,” said Angela.

“Besides, Slug People aren’t killers. They only ever maim.” She pulled the two black socks from her hands and threw them at Angela’s head. “Your turn,” she said. Angela caught them.

“What was yours?” Rabbit asked.

“Creature from the Black Lagoon,” Q said

“What was the second sock for?”

“That was the lagoon. Couldn’t you tell from my acting?” Q yawned. It was late afternoon. The sun had long since moved overhead and the attic was cool and dim. She imagined an older world, the four of them sitting in a small room, keeping peasant time, sleeping with the sunset and playing out the hours with morbid parlor games. She walked to the window as Angela socked up and began the next charade.

It was all a charade. Sitting in the gloom, pretending the world still turned for the living.

“Why does everyone keep acting out horror movies with Dave’s socks?” Angela asked.

“It’s not Dave,” said Rabbit.

Dave grunted.

“It’s his socks,” Rabbit said. “They have bad chi.”

“I use a powder for it …” Dave said.

There were more zombies this afternoon than there had been that morning. Did they have a way of communicating with each other? Were they calling out to one another telepathically? Or were they simply sniffing out the vegans like fresh-baked bread? She reached for her little black book and scribbled a few notes, questions unanswered, a rough estimate of how many there were. It was at least a hundred and twenty, she guessed. They should have been easy to count, because they weren’t moving. They stood there, eyes fixed on the window, like kids at a candy store. But each time Q began, her gaze melted away from the task. She saw a noseless face, or a hand with three fingers bitten off, or one that reminded her of the guy who worked at the DVD shop down the road. The worst were the ones that didn’t look like zombies at all. Men, women, children, in the middle of an army of monsters, clean and neat and with such longing on their faces.

They weren’t kids at a candy store. They were starving wolves. It was pathetic. She almost wanted to climb down the ladder and step outside to make them happy, until she saw what was caught between their teeth.

It was day four of the outbreak. Sydney had already fallen. She knew this from her secret conversations with Hannah when she snuck off to the long-drop downstairs. There was no organized force rescuing people and distributing food and restoring order. There was no reclamation. There would be plenty of pockets of survivors on the top floors of apartments or hiding in basements, but Z had won. Q asked Hannah questions about the outside world in a roundabout way so that Hannah would not understand what Q understood, but the girl was too smart for her. Hannah got it. No one was coming to save her. The grown-ups had lost. The monsters had won.

It wasn’t all bad news. At least Hannah still had the gun.

Q jumped. Rabbit stood beside her at the window. She hadn’t heard his footsteps. She was slipping.

“Keeping watch?” he asked.

“The game lost me,” Q said.

“I’m not sure we’ve all seen the same films,” Rabbit said. “If it wasn’t for Angela, no one would have guessed my abattoir documentary, Flesh: The Naked Truth.”

“Dave and I would have got the title in the end, but I think we saw a different version of that film. There were no animals. Well, there were a few, but they weren’t suffering.”

The zombies directed all their attention to Rabbit. They gazed at him like he was the Messiah of meat. She almost felt jealous.

“Someone’s got a crush on you,” Q said. “Over a hundred someones.”

“What?”

Typical, Q thought. He didn’t even realize it. What was the point in making hearts race if you didn’t notice? Except in this case, the hearts weren’t racing. Maybe they rotted at a faster rate when Rabbit was around.

Q followed his line of sight and realized he wasn’t watching zombies at all. He was smiling at the trees.

“You’re beautiful,” Q said. Mouth open, brain shut.

“Hmm?”

“I said, they’re dutiful. They’ll stand there forever, waiting. Like death.”

Rabbit shook his head. “They’re not death. They’re decay. They’re decay, and we’re growth. We’re all in the same game, Q. Different sides is all.”

“I like my side better.”

“Me, too,” said Rabbit. He put a hand on her shoulder.

*

Q cranked the phone charger, humming to cover the sound. It was the best she could do. She dialed and got an answer on the third ring.

“Hannah? Can you hear me?”

“Why are you whispering? Are you hiding from the hippies again?”

“I don’t have long.” She crouched on the bottom floor of Dave’s cabin. She was next to the long-drop, her back to the wall. She could face the ladder this way and see if anyone came downstairs. Unfortunately, she could also smell why they came downstairs. They were running out of sawdust, and she wasn't sure Dave's biodigester was built for a four-person load.

“How are you?” Q said, listening to the sound of footsteps outside the cabin. More zombies arriving. There were always more zombies arriving. She waited so long for an answer, she thought the line had dropped out.

“Mrs Carroll left,” Hannah said. “She took Lisa.”

The back of Q’s neck began to burn. “Where did they go?”

“Down the ladder. Lisa was pulling out her mum’s hair, trying to get away.”

Q pictured it. Lisa Carroll went to St Cedric’s and her mother taught there. Q liked them both. Mara Carroll was a slight woman. It must have been physically hard to drag her daughter down the ladder; she must have been determined. Why hadn’t the other adults come to the girl’s rescue?

Because they were all going to die. They would starve, or they would be eaten, or they would give up and join the other side. It was a mark of respect to let Mara Carroll choose the method by which she and her daughter would die.

“We lost people too,” Q said. “You have to keep trying.”

“You didn’t lose them, Q,” Hannah said. “They died. Everyone dies. My parents are dead. Michael’s dead.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You’ll be dead soon.”

“Stick to the plan, Hannah. You have to help the others.” Q spotted the silver lining. Two more dead meant more rations for Hannah. She wished she didn’t think like that. She didn’t say it, in case the girl thought like that, too. “How’s Mr GLEEM’s wife?”

“She’s fine,” Hannah said. “He fell out of the window.”

“Unlucky.” Q could picture the window in Mr GLEEM’s second-story bedroom. It had a balcony on it. He would have needed a run-up first.

Why did people do this? When they had to run or fight, they were fine, but as soon as the struggle was over, when all they had to do was wait, their survival instinct went sour. It turned on itself. Look at her father. So strong when Linda was sick, but as soon as she’d gone, he swelled up with food and booze and started killing himself, five meals a day.

“We’ll be okay,” she said to Hannah. Hannah hung up.

Q redialed, then stopped. There were dusty sneakers on the top step of the ladder. She stashed the phone in her pocket.

It was Rabbit, with ruffled hair and wearing a loose, long-sleeved green shirt. He scratched the inside of his left elbow. “Talking to yourself again? We’ve only been in here a day. Didn’t think we’d go crazy so soon.” He grinned a lunatic grin. On him, madness looked good.

Chapter Twenty-five

Q woke from her usual nightmare, stomach rumbling. It was dark and the air did not smell like morning air. Why was she awake?

She lay on the blankets, breathing hard and listening for whatever it was that had stirred her. A possum screamed like a torture victim, but that wasn’t it. The wind scraped a branch against the cabin, but that wasn’t it, either.

Rabbit slept to her right and Angela to her left. It seemed natural for the three of them to sleep in a pile on the floor, like puppies. Is that why puppies did it? Were they scared of the dark?

Q caught her breath. There it was again. Someone was out there, calling her name.

The silent army outside couldn’t talk. Could they?

She thought about the monsters from old black-and-white films. Creatures that stole human voices and used them to lure out their victims. Is that what these zombies were?

No. Talking zombies meant thinking zombies, and that couldn’t be right. They couldn’t be learning. They already had all the advantages. It wouldn’t be fair.

If the zombies couldn’t talk, there must be something else out there. Q’s gut shriveled. What could survive that mob of ghouls? The answer was obvious.  Something worse than the ghouls themselves. Something so horrifying that a rotting corpse was frightened of it.

Q knew what was out there. It had been in her dreams again. The pale woman had stepped out of her head and into the world. She was calling Q out into the darkness. Maybe all this decay had brought her to life. Maybe she had animated like the zombies. The same force inhabiting them all.

Q should wake the others.

No. If she told them about the pale woman, they’d think she was crazy. And how would normal people react to a heavily armed lunatic locked in an attic with them? She couldn’t wake the others. Not until she was sure.

She lay there, still as rock. The possums finished committing their routine acts of sex and violence and were quiet. The night sounds expanded. Angela’s soft snores became the roar of a crowd at a concert. Rabbit’s sleep twitches fell like blows in the darkness. She heard blood in her ears and breath in her throat. But there was no voice. It had been a dream.

No, there it was again! Out in the darkness, calling her name.

Horror shuffled over to make room for annoyance. Now that she was alert, Q realized what was wrong, besides the presence of a disembodied voice in a sea of flesh-hungry monsters.

It was saying her name and it was saying it wrong.

She sat up as quietly as she could. Someone else did, too. Q turned, expecting to see a pale figure in the black space. She could feel Rabbit and Angela beside her. They hadn’t moved.

“You hear that?” Dave said.

“I hear,” Q said, exhaling. The creature outside called again.

“What is it?” Dave asked.

Q was glad she could not see his face, because when he had been surrounded by zombies and fighting for his life, he had sounded calm, and now he sounded terrified. She did not want to know what terror looked like on a two-hundred-eighty-pound weapons freak who had seen it all and caused much of it.

“I don’t know what it is,” Q said. “But it’s out there, alone in the darkness with hundreds of zombies that are leaving it alone. It knows who I am and where I am and it’s calling my name. And it’s damn well saying it wrong.”

The voice called again. Rabbit sat upright. “Kate,” he said. “That’s Kate! Kate! Kate!”

Rabbit leaped up and leaned so far out the window, Q thought he would fall. She grabbed his belt and braced a foot against the wall. “Calm down,” she said.

“She’s out there all alone! She hasn’t got food or water!”

“She’s probably got something stashed,” Q said, thinking of jerky. “Relax. If she’s lasted this long, she’s not in danger.”

Dave swung his torch around in a wide arc, searching for Pious Kate. It didn’t help. The night was full of bright eyes and human shapes.

“Is she one of them?” Dave asked. “Can they talk?”

“Where are you?” Rabbit said. “I’m coming, Katie-G!” He turned and headed for the trapdoor.

Like an orchestrated attack from Z-Dayz III, Q grabbed Rabbit and put him in an arm lock while Dave leaped across and sat on the trapdoor, anchoring it with his bodyweight. Rabbit struggled.

“Let me go! I’m not asking anyone else to do it, but I have to go get her.”

“No,” said Dave. “You’ll kill us.”

“He’s right,” Q said. “If you open the gate, they’ll all come in. It won’t be a noble sacrifice, it’ll be mass murder.”

Rabbit sagged. Q relaxed her hold but remained watchful.

“We can’t leave her to die,” Rabbit said.

“Let’s find out what she is,” Q said, then corrected herself. “I mean where. Let’s find out where she is.” She and Dave exchanged glances.

“Guys? I found her.” Angela was at the window, holding Dave’s torch. Instead of pointing the beam at the ocean of dead bodies, she was pointing it high into the air. Q had a vision of Pious Kate, floating outside the window like the woman in her nightmares, lunar-skinned and black-eyed, beckoning. Were all her dreams coming to life? If so, why couldn’t there be a few of the ones involving Rabbit and whipped soy cream?

“I see her!” said Rabbit.

Q joined them at the window. She spotted Pious Kate, faint in the torch light. Just as she had feared, the woman was suspended fifty feet in the air, but it wasn’t supernatural. She’d climbed a tree.

*

Pious Kate did not seem to comprehend their helpful shouts. Was she having trouble hearing them, or understanding them?

“Let me handle this,” said Q. She tried a quick message in Morse code, moving her hand across the beam of Dave’s torch. The ginger-framed face stayed empty as the woman’s soul. Next, Q tried the standard army signals for use in silent combat, shining the torch onto her hand so Pious Kate could see it. Again, there was no response. In desperation, Q ran through all the guerrilla signs she knew, then tried a few scuba dive signs.

“Sorry, guys,” said Q. “She’s not getting it. She’s too far gone.”

“Either that, or she’s confused by your suggestion to swim a slow descent away from the approaching shark,” Angela said.

“You know dive sign?” said Q.

“Marine biologist, remember?”

Rabbit interrupted. “What about Kate?”

Q put a conciliatory hand on Rabbit’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “She can’t communicate. She’s post-verbal but pre-cannibal.”

“What?” said Rabbit.

“Your psycho ex is a zombie,” Q said. “It’s something we all try to prepare ourselves for, but we’re never ready when it happens.”

“What are you talking about?” Rabbit was as perplexed as a nine-fingered snail.

“You’re in denial,” Q said.

“I am not!”

“See?”

“I know you’re trying to help,” Rabbit said, “but just because Kate doesn’t understand Morse code and that other stuff doesn’t mean she’s a zombie. It means she doesn’t understand you, which is something we can all empathize with at times.”

“Please!” Q snorted. “Everyone who isn’t psychotic and necrotic understands the basic signs. How else did you play cops and robbers when you were kids?”

Rabbit’s brow wrinkled. “By running around, pointing a finger like a gun and saying, ‘bang bang’?” he said.

“Which only works until the rival gang cuts out your tongue and posts it to your father, at which point you need to go non-verbal,” Q said.

“I hate to interrupt,” said Angela, “and I really do mean that, because I’m interested to see where this goes, but Zombie Kate is waving at us.”

They looked. She was.

“It’s the involuntary muscle spasms following death,” Q said.

“Now she’s waving with both hands,” said Rabbit.

“Extra spasms are normal in these circumstances given the trauma of the change,” Q said.

“Now she’s performing an elaborate mime about running through the scrub, clambering up a tree, looking for water, not finding any, and contemplating the meaning of existence as she dies alone in the wilderness,” said Rabbit.

“You got all that from a few gestures?” said Angela.

“We’re close.”

“Right,” Q said. “Maybe Kate is still alive, but there’s nothing we can do for her now, except grieve.” Q bowed her head and closed her eyes. She opened them a few moments later. “Anyone up for some pre-dawn breakfast?”

Rabbit squared his jaw. “We have to help her.”

Dave appeared at the window, holding a large crossbow. He aimed it at Pious Kate.

“No!” said Rabbit.

“He’s right,” said Q. “You’ll never make a spleen shot at this distance.”

Dave fired. Rabbit screamed.

The arrow flew out, trailing a length of rope. It passed through the limbs of Kate’s tree. The arrow must have been weighted, because it raveled around the branch several times as the rope pulled taut.

“You missed!” said Angela, relieved.

“No,” said Q. “He’s not trying to kill her.”

“If she can climb across,” Dave said, “she’s human enough.”

“For now,” Q added.

“She’s too weak,” Rabbit said. “She’ll never be able to do it.”

“She does have a serious case of weedy arm and chicken neck,” Q said. “Oh, well. Too late to start a weights program now. Breakfast, anyone?”

“She’s my oldest friend,” Rabbit said.

“Sorry,” Q said. “She’s smug about food, I’m smug about ripped triceps. Who’s laughing now?”

Angela thumped Q on the back of the head and muttered.

“What was that?” Q said.

“I said, do your genes know they’re trapped in there for life?”

The lines of Rabbit’s face hardened. “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll go get her.”

“No!” said Q.

“Don’t throw good meat after bad,” Dave said.

Even Q, who knew he was quoting direct from Chapter Nine, cringed at the choice of words. “He means we shouldn’t throw lives away,” she said, then wished she hadn’t. Angela’s lips were pressed together, as if the woman had made an unpleasant discovery. As if she thought Q and Dave were on one side, and Angela and Rabbit were on the other, and there was an impassable barrier in between.

Q realized she and Dave were standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the other pair. She took a step away from the fat man. “I was explaining what Dave said. I don’t agree with it!” She did, but now wasn’t the time for honesty.

Dave grabbed her shoulder and dragged her into a corner. “Best case – one more mouth to feed,” he said. “Worst case – she don’t eat dry rations no more.”

“Why’d you shoot the rope across for her?” Q said.

Dave grunted and Q understood. He knew there was no risk that Pious Kate could climb across, whether she was too uncoordinated from being undead, or too weak from hiding from the undead. He threw her a rope to keep the peace. The others could fret and worry and debate the ethics of it while Pious Kate starved or fell. It was easier than an argument.

Dave was smarter than he looked. What else had he planned?

“Rabbit, no!”

Q turned at the sound of Angela’s voice to see Rabbit on the windowsill, gripping the rope in his long fingers. He had no idea what he was doing. He was going to kill himself.

Q took two strides to reach the window, dragging him back inside. He shook her off.

“You can’t risk it,” she said. “We might be humanity’s last hope.”

“That’s my friend out there,” Rabbit said. “If I don’t try to save her, humanity has no hope.”

Q had been winded more times than she could count, but she had never before been winded by words. She watched Rabbit prepare himself for the climb. “Wait,” Q said in a conciliatory tone. “Before you go …”

Rabbit turned for one last look.

She punched him. He slumped to the floor.

Angela yelped and crouched beside him. “Are you crazy?” she said.

Q didn’t reply. She gathered knives and guns. This didn’t reassure anyone.

“You didn’t have to hit him!” Angela said.

“The man’s stubborn.” Q strapped weapons across her back and to her thighs, then hunted through her bag for a pair of climbing gloves.

“What are you doing?” Dave asked, one hand on the barrel of his pistol.

“Gotta go save a zombie,” Q said.

*

Q stretched along the top of the rope, her head near the attic and her legs wrapped around the line. She’d prefer to go head first, but when your target might greet you with a smile or a bite, feet first was first class.

She’d knocked out Rabbit. He might not talk to her for the rest of her life.

Cheer up. The rest of your life might not be that long.

She had to get moving, before Rabbit woke up and challenged her. While she wasn’t certain courtship could recover from a KO, she was sure it wouldn’t recover from two. She’d looped her belt buckle around the rope in place of a safety harness. It was a quick option, but it might not hold. She’d have to do this without slipping or tiring, and the only way to climb without tiring was to do it fast.

She scooted across, stretching forward with her feet, clenching the rope between them, then sliding her chest and arms down. Below were the zombies, silent and watchful, their heads tipped back, their mouths open. Perfect. She was an hors d’oeuvre for the undead. At least she wasn’t scared of the drop. Her head for heights was like Mother Theresa: extremely good.

Something touched her foot.

Q yelped. All her teen horror fantasies flashed through her mind. Leaping zombies. Psychic levitating zombies. Peppy zombie cheerleader pyramids building stacks of undead flesh higher and higher until they reached their suspended prey.

It had been a strange adolescence.

She squinted at her feet, but her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted and she couldn’t see what was there. Whatever it was, it hissed.

Q relaxed. “If you’re a possum, you should know that I need a new pair of socks.”

The thing climbed onto her feet, then her ankles. Four paws clung. Q swore and kicked. The creature paused, decided she wasn’t a threat, and continued walking along her calves and thighs. Q bounced, hoping to shake it loose, but stopped when she heard an ominous creak. How secure was that rope? Better learn to share with the locals.

The animal leaped across Q’s back and clawed its way across the back of her neck. She tossed her head, but that made it dig its claws into her skin. It crawled through her hair and in front of her to stand between her face and her hands. It was a gray possum. Cute, furry, insolent little vermin.

“I’m warning you,” Q said. “One step further and you are an ex-marsupial.”

The possum reached out a tiny paw and placed it on Q’s pinkie, wrapped tight around the rope.

“That’s it!” Q said. She summoned up all her years of repressed and expressed violence and churned it around in the back of her throat, then let go in a guttural hiss.

Apparently she said something vile. The possum hissed back and bit her finger.

Q swore, helpless. The animal continued picking its way over her hands and paused, tail high and proud like a cat’s, bottom aimed at her face.

“You better not be thinking of doing what I think you’re thinking of doing,” she said, then closed her mouth, just in case.

It considered its options, then trotted toward the house, as if to say that anyone who needed a safety system to cross a rope wasn’t worth the effort.

Q breathed out. “If I turn into an undead possum,” she said, “I swear by Linda’s grave I will hunt you down, skin you, eat you, turn you into fur gloves, kill someone while they’re wearing you and then eat you again.”

“Q!” Angela called. “You okay?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She heard Angela coo something that sounded like, “Ooh, look at da furry fing, did the nasty big Q scare oo?” Then she heard a dull crack and a shriek.

Good work. Dave had caught dinner. She took a few breaths to settle her temper and then continued her climb. She stopped when she was a few feet away from the bark of Pious Kate’s tree. She couldn’t see much except the ghost-white glow of the trunk, upside down because of her angle. She wished she’d brought a head torch.

“Kate!” Q said. “Are you there? Speak!” Why wasn’t the woman answering? Was it because she couldn’t? If she had turned in the last few minutes, wouldn’t she have fallen out of the tree? Or would the dead flesh curl into a rigor mortis clasp?

There was a rustle behind her. It could be Pious Kate, ready to launch an attack. It could be more sarcastic possums. Q tensed. Whatever the challenge, she was ready.

She released the rope from her right hand and reached down to the sheath strapped to her thigh, pulling out the bush knife. Careful to keep it away from the rope that supported her, Q put it between her teeth, snarling her lips away from the blade. Everything would be fine. She was good at this. Two swift kicks with her boot followed by a neat beheading. It might not kill Zombie Kate, but the creature couldn’t bite if it didn’t have a head.

She rolled herself off the top of the rope to dangle beneath it, then shuffled the last foot, hand to hand, legs swinging free. The rope dipped, but held. She swung her legs up over the branch and paused, her body taut between the tree and the rope, her belly stretched out like a banquet.

A pair of shimmering eyes appeared inches from Q’s face in the sheen of the pre-dawn light. Q gurgled and reached for her machete with her right hand, holding the rope with her left. It was time to end this.

“Q!” Rabbit called from the attic. He had recovered, which was good, and he was on Team Q again, which was great. “Is Kate okay?” he asked.

Nope. Still Team Psycho Ex. Oh well.

Pious Kate was ashen, black-eyed and filthy. She gazed at Rabbit, and Q recognized the expression, because she had felt it often enough on her own face. It wasn’t hunger. Well, it was, but not that kind. The woman wanted Rabbit in a non-carnivore way. She hadn’t turned.

“She’s fine,” Q said. “I’m bringing her in.” Q considered Pious Kate’s scrawny arms and her trousers, hanging loose on bony thighs. Even if she hadn't been through an ordeal, her rival would find a simple rope climb challenging. Q unwound the cordage she kept looped through her belt buckles and tied a makeshift Swiss seat harness around Pious Kate’s thighs and waist.

“Stop squirming!” Q said. “I’m trying to rescue you.”

“You're cutting off my circulation,” Pious Kate said. “If this is rescue, I’d hate to see attack.”

Q finished the knots around Pious Kate’s irritatingly tiny waist. No wonder the woman was narrow-minded and full of bile – her liver was all squished up and her outlook compressed.

She’d used all her cordage and hadn’t thought to bring anything else with her. How would she attach Pious Kate to the rope?

Q looked at her belt and sighed. She’d have to sacrifice it to her rival. She’d rather sacrifice her rival direct, but Rabbit might not approve. She gave the rope a good tug to check it was secure, and threaded the belt through Pious Kate’s harness. “You ready?”

“I don’t want to fall,” Pious Kate said. “I don’t want to become one of them.”

Did Pious Kate know she was ill? She had lost her bluster, as if she’d forgotten she’d been cast as Q’s arch-nemesis and had decided to become a human being instead. Like Linda toward the end, when their roles reversed and Q became the one to push Linda to be better than her best, to push out more tomorrows. “You’re not done yet,” Q said. “You wouldn’t have called me if you were. Why did you call me? Why not Rabbit?”

Below, zombies clamored around the tree. The first light of day glinted from teeth and bone. “You’re weird,” Pious Kate said, “but you always know what to do.”

“That’s me,” Q said. “Weird but competent. Guys love that.” She boosted Pious Kate on top of the rope and buckled the belt around it. The woman squealed and clung.

“Keep your body on top of the rope and your legs and arms wrapped around it,” Q said. “Hold on with your hands, knees and feet, and keep moving.”

Pious Kate was doing all right for a skinny half-ghoul who’d been stuck up a tree for a day without food or water. She kept her eyes closed and her arms and legs moving. She was clumsy, but she wasn’t freezing up, and the harness would keep her safe.

Damn. Q turned her mind to the short, unharnessed climb ahead of her. Why hadn’t she brought a second set of cordage?

Because I was in a hurry, and I didn’t expect to find a survivor.

It didn’t matter. Q could do this in her sleep. It was a short, simple climb. She’d done far harder a hundred times before without incident. You only needed a harness if you made a mistake. Q would be perfect.

The trembling rope between her fingers yanked her attention back. Pious Kate had the muscle shakes. She’d stopped.

“Go!” Q said, so loud that her voice bounced off the mountain range. “Keep moving!”

The woman only shuddered. Damn skinny, acid-mouthed, ginger-haired, psycho ex.

Then Pious Kate moved. She fell.

She rolled off the top of the rope and hung beneath it, her legs dangling loose, gripping only with weak hands that couldn’t support her weight. The harness held, but it would not hold forever, and Q didn’t trust this rope with their combined weight. Pious Kate was on her own. “Move!” Q said. “Swing your legs up and over that rope and move!”

“Kate!” Rabbit leaned out the window as far as he could, but his outstretched arms were still a good fifteen feet from Pious Kate. No help there. Pious Kate began to weep silently, as if she didn’t have the strength to sob.

“Kate, keep going!” Rabbit said.

“See?” Q said to no one but herself. “Push ups and pull ups, people. They’re not just for vanity.”

Pious Kate’s fingers dropped from the rope. She hung from the makeshift harness like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Rabbit reached further. The guy might leap out at any second and try to stand on air. Q swore.

She clambered out onto the rope, hoping it would hold. There was a constant shudder in the rope between her fingers. Was Pious Kate sobbing or shaking? Was the rope fraying?

No good being delicate now. It was all about speed.

She sprinted, hand over hand, like she did when she climbed the monkeys bars with Hannah. She heard a sound far worse than that of Rabbit’s cries or Pious Kate’s whimpers. It was the sound of metal twisting, and fabric breaking stitches. The belt connecting the harness to the rope was giving way.

“Kate!”

Would Rabbit ever call for Q like that?

Q reached Pious Kate and swung her legs under the woman. She looped her calves over the rope and clenched it between her feet, bracing for the weight.

Pious Kate dropped. Q became her harness.

She swore. The climbing gloves helped but the skin on her fingertips tore away and her shoulders burned. While the other woman was light, a dead weight is a dead weight no matter how you carry it.

She grunted and eased her way along the rope, keeping it twisted around her legs. Her pants rode up past her knees. Rope ripped her flesh. Her hands filled with fire.

She wriggled along, no longer sparing the strength to look ahead and gauge the rest of the distance. She concentrated on one hand, then the other, then feet, her core tense to bear the weight. A warm drip fell onto her face. She shook it from her eyes, confused. Blood from her shredded fingers.

Her legs felt strong but she had cramps in her feet and she could feel the shakes coming on. She couldn’t afford them. They’d both go down.

Then her feet were touching a solid surface. The weight pushing down on her eased and was gone. Pious Kate had been pulled inside. Hands reached for Q.

Chapter Twenty-six

Q was back in the attic, leaning against a wall. Pious Kate slumped on the floor. Someone gave Q chocolate. She bit into it and her mouth flooded with heat. Arms wrapped around her and her body flooded with heat too.

Rabbit pulled back. “I thought we were gonna lose you both,” he said. “You’re amazing.”

Q glowed.

“You’re stupid,” Dave said.

She deflated.

“You swung out and caught Kate and then carried her all the way back!” Rabbit said. “You were her safety net, ready to catch her if she fell.”

“If you write a song about us, I’ll vomit,” Q said.

“And that would be a great line for the chorus,” Rabbit said. “Way better than what I had in mind.”

Q gaped. “Are you teasing me?” she said.

Rabbit grinned. “I am.”

She grinned back. He must like her again, even though she’d KO’d him. All it took was a feat of strength, courage and agility that saved his ex-girlfriend from an ugly death. It was way easier than an apology. Q was glad the world was finally playing to her strengths.

“Why did you hit me?” Rabbit asked, hesitant, as if feeling petty for bringing it up.

“Cos you were determined to save Kate, but ill-equipped to do so,” Q said.

“You could have volunteered to go yourself,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you have insisted on going alone, all hero-like, squared jaw and steady gaze over the horizon?” Q said.

“We’re very different, you and I.”

“Yup,” Q said. “We’re like a romantic comedy meets zombie action. Think of the possibilities.”

“I was thinking more yin and yang,” Rabbit said. “But yours is cool too.”

Pious Kate claimed she was disturbed after her night alone in the dark and that was why she was not eating. Q had her own views, but she had to agree that Pious Kate was in bad shape. The woman had deteriorated in the day since they’d last seen her; she was no longer the harbinger of doom – she was the message.

Q and Dave had a private conversation downstairs on the pretext of checking security. It morphed into an argument, but a quiet one, so the others wouldn’t hear.

“Get rid of her,” Dave said.

“No.” Q pictured trying to explain to Rabbit that she had to shoot his ex-girlfriend, half an hour after saving her life. She wasn’t sure how this whole courtship game was played, but she was fairly certain murder didn’t feature in the second act. “You were happy for her to come back,” she said

He grunted. “If she could climb on her own.”

“Coward’s way out, Dave.”

“Get rid of her,” he said again.

“What would I tell them?”

Dave picked his teeth with a jagged thumbnail. “An accident?”

“What, accidentally shoot Pious Kate through the spleen in front of four witnesses in an attic? Even I’m not that good.”

Dave shook his head. He wasn’t listening. He didn’t care. “Rule Two,” he said.

“I know,” Q said. It was a ridiculous argument. Pious Kate had admitted to being bitten but she refused to let anyone examine her to see if the wound was necrotic or normal. The woman was gray-skinned and ate nothing. She drank copious amounts of water and slept. She was turning. It was just taking a long time.

If Q had had any doubts, seeing Pious Kate with that dead possum three days ago confirmed it. The woman was a zombie-in-waiting. She was trouble.

“She’s not eating anything,” Q said.  “She won’t be a drain on supplies.”

How could she explain it to Dave in a way that would make him agree? Had he ever been in love? Didn’t he understand that Rabbit might be the last gorgeous, available man on the planet who wasn’t intimidated or repulsed by her? Even before the outbreak, there had only been a handful.

Pious Kate was his best friend and proof that beautiful people have terrible taste. Q couldn’t kill her and she couldn’t let someone else. She’d lose him forever.

There was another tiny thought at work, small and fierce and so unlike Q’s other thoughts that she barely recognized it as her own.

What if Apocalypse Z was wrong? What if Pious Kate got better?

Princess Starla had taken a day. Tinkabella took hours. Maybe there were different strains of the virus, or it was mutating. Maybe death wasn’t inevitable.

“The head shots don’t work,” Q said, unsure how to articulate such a subversive idea. “Pious Kate’s been sick for ages but nothing’s happened. Maybe Apocalypse Z is wrong, Dave. Maybe she was bitten but she won’t turn.”

Dave spat onto the dirt floor. “If you won’t, I will.” He unslung his rifle and walked to the foot of the ladder.

“Wait,” Q said. She had to think fast. “We can study her.”

Dave grunted.

“This is a chance we can’t pass up,” Q said. “Pious Kate got bit first but she’s the last to turn. Don’t you want to know why? Don’t we need to know why?”

Dave’s foot was on the bottom rung of the ladder. Q hissed at him, torn between a shout and a whisper that would not be overheard: “You take the day shift, I’ll take the night shift. We have to keep watch anyway. What’s it matter if we have one more thing to check?”

He rumbled in the back of his throat. Was Q winning an argument with words? Who would have thought she had it in her?

“She’s scrawny,” Q said. “We can take her down whenever we need to.” Her gut clenched. What if he refused?

Q had already decided she couldn’t stand back and watch him shoot the woman treasured by the man she loved. She’d have to fight Dave. She knew she’d win, but what then? What could you do with a beaten adversary in a world the size of an attic? She couldn’t keep him restrained, not safely, for days or weeks or months. Not while she slept. If they fought, the outcome would be final. He must know it, too.

She put a hand on Dave’s arm as he stood on the ladder, one foot hovering above the next step, a moment not yet made. Two lives rested on this decision, not one. His face showed the curves and creases of years but nothing of his mind. He never showed what was inside.

“She does anything weird or aggressive, I’ll shoot her,” Dave said.

“Excellent,” Q said. “I’ve won her an hour at least.”

*

As the light faded that evening, Pious Kate rose from her corner like a puppet jerked by invisible hands. She stumbled toward Q, Dave, Rabbit and Angela, who had instinctively stayed together and in the corner farthest from the sick woman.

“Katie-G?” Rabbit said, stepping forward. “You okay?”

Dave, who always kept his rifle on him, aimed it at Pious Kate. The others did not notice. Q envied them.

She willed Pious Kate to say something normal, or to show the monster inside – nothing in between. They needed clarity in this cramped space they called safety.

“I need to change,” Pious Kate said. She took another step toward the group.

“Change?” Q said. “Like New Year’s resolution change? Or more fundamental, like a whole body/mind/soul change into something different that mightn’t be the kind of thing we want to share an attic with?”

The woman put her hand over her mouth and shuddered, as if about to throw up a live snake. The window was at her back. The evening wind blew her scent toward them. Aniseed. Earth. Decaying leaves. Something sour and unidentifiable. It was a little like death and a little like childhood and it nearly brought Q to tears.

“I need to change,” Pious Kate said again. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled her gray skin into one of its usual expressions of rigid distaste. “This top stinks.”

Rabbit’s face shone. “You can borrow my sweater, Katie-G,” he said.

Great. Now she got to wear boyfriend clothes. Q watched the wind in the trees and wished she were one of them.

*

“The hundred and three nicknames,” Q said. “Wriggly wiggly, Mr Saunders, silly sausage, the Worm …”

*

“You freaks, you fucking freaks, fucking eat each other and get away from my fucking attic!”

“You okay, Dave?” Angela said.

Dave was at the window, puffing. The ghouls stared back. It was a contest he wouldn’t win. For a moment, Dave scared Q more than Pious Kate did.

“We’re all on edge,” Q said. “Stuck up here with everything the same, day after day after day.”

“It’s only been three days,” said Angela.

“That’s what I said.” She got Dave’s favorite gun off the wall and handed it to him. “Maybe you need some recreational violence?” Q said. “I can’t relax without two hours of virtual slaughter each day.”

“Violence never pays,” Rabbit said from his corner. He had spent most of the day meditating with Pious Kate and studying Apocalypse Z, especially Chapter Seven, The Turn. Q had the unpleasant feeling that he was trying to heal her in some hippy way. Worse, it might work.

“That’s crime,” Angela said. “Crime never pays.”

“No, crime pays well, unless it’s stupid crime,” Q said. “But stupid work doesn’t pay much either, so if those are your only options, why not give crime a go?”

“That would make a great bumper sticker,” Rabbit said.

Q leaned her elbows on the wooden windowsill. The crowd below were still and quiet and vigilant. They never changed, except to increase in number each day. They would never die, never rot. They were perfect.

She jumped as Dave fired out the window. “Boom!” he said. “Spleen shot.”

Q grabbed a gun and joined him. Why shouldn’t they take out a few? “Let’s play gingers,” she said. “I call the blue wifebeater. Damn!”

Dave lined up his rifle. “Skinny at two o’clock,” he said.

Q put a hand on the barrel and pushed it down. “Isn’t that the Scarlet Terror?”

Angela and Rabbit came to the window. “Oh my God!” said Angela. “It’s Michelle! She made it!”

Angela waved. The Scarlet Terror did not wave back.

The hippy stood on the edge of the crowd of ghouls. She looked good, for a dead woman. She had all her parts and no visible wounds. Her clothes were intact and her skin had the palest of gray sheens. But she was even thinner than she had been. Bones nuzzled at her skin.

“Zombies don’t lose weight,” Q said. “I wonder how long she was infected before she turned?”

She regretted saying it. Angela blanched and moved away from the window, no doubt thinking of her children roaming the streets, tainted and untouched, waiting for one of two ends.

Dave grunted and shot. The Scarlet Terror folded up like a reverse jack-in-the-box. “Slow turn,” he said.

“Why doesn’t Chapter Seven talk about that?” Q said. She was onto something important, she knew it. Why the different rates? Maybe it depended on where you got bitten, or how much infection came through the wound. “It’s like mnemonic plague.”

“When a bunch of people infect one another with clever rhymes to help them remember things?” Angela said. “You mean bubonic plague.”

Q waved this away. “Everyone blamed the rats.”

Angela returned with a rifle. “Black flanny,” she said, lining up an old male redhead in the middle of the crowd.

“But it wasn’t the rats,” Q continued. “It was the fleas.”

“First to twenty spleens, wins,” Angela said. She fired.

Q abandoned her musings and joined it. Harmony was important when the world was an attic shared with four other people.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“I hate you,” Q said. “I really hate you.”

“You asked.” Angela rolled onto her belly. She’d finished describing her favorite pre-vegan meal to Q in bite-size detail. Q’s belly felt hollow as an Easter egg, which was no help at all, because that got her going on chocolate. Dave had run out of chocolate in the first week. He’d been catering for boys. Damn Dave.

They weren’t starving. Not yet. They had rations left after nearly three weeks in the attic because Pious Kate, loose-skinned and mumbling, ate nothing, and Rabbit had lost his appetite in sympathy. They looked like a couple of junkies. On Rabbit, heroin chic was sexy.

Q wasn’t starving but she was sick of the food. Literally sick of it. The dry bars and protein tabs made her feel nauseated. Nauseated, and still hungry. Her brain was split between Rabbit fantasies and food fantasies. The best moments were when they combined.

“What do you think about most?” Angela said.

Q blushed. “Food. Not anyone or anything else.” She settled back to enjoy some dinner porn. “A juicy steak,” she said. “A French stick, warm from the oven, with lots of garlic butter. A massive soft-serve sundae with hot fudge sauce.” She sighed. “I wish we had something fresh to eat.”

“We’re lucky we’ve got anything,” said Rabbit, scratching the inside of his left elbow. As usual, he sat in the corner with Pious Kate. They had spent all morning meditating. Q envied their strange power of doing nothing. She also resented the evil fiend of skinny undeath who stole all Rabbit’s time. She stole his clothes too, wearing each of his sweaters in turn as if to mark them with her scent. The two now smelled alike.

She shouldn’t have saved that woman. Q had switched from fearing Pious Kate would turn, to fearing she wouldn’t.

Rabbit had wheedled some antibiotics from Dave and was feeding one to Pious Kate now, like she was a child. He was always fetching her water, or trying to coax her to eat. Stupid Rabbit and his stupid solicitude.

“You don’t complain much,” Angela said to Dave. “You don’t get hungry?”

He grunted and patted his reducing belly. “I cached,” he said.

Of course! That explained Dave’s tubby fitness. She should have guessed he’d followed Chapter Ten, Strong, Fast and Fat! Diet and training tips for surviving the apocalypse on your own body fat. There was a full eating plan and everything. Q had always wondered why it had never joined the ranks of the other best-selling diet books.

“I’m not sure how many more nutty protein bars I can stomach,” Q said.

“You’ll eat anything if you’re hungry enough,” Dave said. He glanced at Rabbit in a way Q did not like. Was he contemplating crisis rules so soon? Was this Dave’s Plan D?

Is that why he’d let them stay?

*

“… the spaghetti leg, Mr Pinkie, Thomas and friends…”

*

“Whatcha doing?” Q said. Pious Kate was passed out in a corner, pale and sticky with sweat, so Rabbit had taken a break from playing nurse.

“Writing a new song,” he said. He was holding one of Dave’s shotguns as if it were a guitar and strumming his fingers across the barrel, plucking invisible strings and muttering. He had grown too thin but his stubble was gorgeous. It had reached “designer” and stopped short of “back-woods beard.” Even the stress lines around his eyes gave him a worldly look. Those parts of his skin still unstained by Pious Kate smelled sweet, while Q and the others smelled like unwashed feet. The longer Rabbit was confined, the more he looked like a rock star. She watched his hands and enjoyed unsuitable thoughts.

“That’s not loaded, is it?” she asked.

“Only with inspiration.” He strummed his faux guitar and sang his new folk song. It was about being trapped and waiting for the end.

“Kinda morbid,” Q said.

“No,” he said. “Listen to the chorus. It’s only the end for us people. It’s a new beginning for everything else. The plants will grow. The insects and animals will breed. Think how beautiful our cities will be in a year.”

Q didn’t agree. Cities without people weren’t cities, they were empty shells. “If your audience is finished, who are you writing the song for?” she said.

“Me.”

*

“And then there’s fruit,” Q said. “Banana, big banana, big banana ding dong, pineapple don’t ask why, and rambutan, cos one kid went to Bali and ate one and thought it smelled gross. Huh. That’s only a hundred and two.” Q checked her tally. “I must have missed one. I’ll start over.”

“No!” said the others.

“Gee,” said Q. “Try and provide some entertainment and see what happens.” She wandered over to the window to watch their ever-increasing fan base. “Simon says, stare at me,” she called out.

They did. It was working!

“Burst into flames and die!” Q said.

They didn’t.

“You forgot ‘Simon Says,’” said Rabbit, joining her. He leaned his elbows on the sill. “How long will they wait?”

“As long as we do,” Q said, staring at his gorgeously gaunt profile. He had cut his hair close to his skull. They all had, to minimize their risk of a zombie tangle if they had to fight again. Even crew-cut, Rabbit looked good.

“They won’t be here forever,” he said, dismissing his own end to think about theirs. “They’ll rot away in a year, or a decade. Or maybe a piece will fall off every time they run into a tree and they’ll stop when nothing’s left. They don’t grow. They don’t repair. They can’t keep going forever.”

“Tell that to thousands of Twilight fans,” Q said. “I don’t know how this works. It wasn’t covered in the book.”

“Do you think of people back home?” Rabbit said.

Hannah. The kelpie. Her father. The Kindy Koalas, or whatever was left of them. “No,” she lied. “It’s best to stick to the facts.” They stared into a blue sky and tried not to make pictures from the clouds.

*

“Hannah! I’m glad you’re there. I thought you might be—out.”

Hannah laughed. “Out where? Down the shops?”

The girl’s voice was hard. It sounded like a matriarch’s, trapped in the high-pitched vocal cords of a child. Genie in a bottle: uncork it and see what comes out. Q shivered. “I’m glad you answered. How are your supplies going?”

She wriggled. She had once again crept downstairs on the premise of using the long-drop dunny. It was dawn and she was cold and it was impossible to be comfortable, but Q thought this had more to do with her cramping, confined body than her immediate environment. She hadn’t moved enough over the last few weeks. There were springs behind her knees and knots in her back. Her chi was ready to pop.

“Mr Barrett stole food,” Hannah said.

“Why?” They should still have supplies after three and a half weeks in the attic. They’d be hungry, but not starving. They should not yet have come to that.

“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “I didn’t ask.”

Q’s legs filled with ice. “What did you do?”

“Mr Barrett went for a walk.”

Q pictured Hannah and Sophie, pigtailed and pointing a gun. Was he crying or stony-faced? Did he beg? Or was he smug, because he got to die with a full belly?

Hannah continued. “It was either that, or he had to make it up to us. How could he make it up to us, Q? He already ate what he stole. What else did he have that we could eat?” Hannah giggled, as if she and Sophie had discussed this topic before.

Cannibalism. First it’s a taboo, then it’s a joke, then it’s an entree. “How many are you?”

“Me, Ricky, Anne and Sophie,” Hannah said.

Q sucked in her breath. Just the kids. Who would look after them? “What about Mrs Wright?”

“She had to leave,” Hannah said. “She was sick. She wasn’t safe.”

Q remembered. The woman had been ill the last few times they had spoken. Symptoms were nausea, diarrhea and insomnia, and she hadn’t been bitten. She had probably been suffering from anxiety or stomach flu. Or terror from being trapped in an attic with Lord of the Flies.

Mrs Wright had worked in the canteen. She was a bossy woman. She wouldn’t like taking orders from a bunch of kids. And she ate more than they did. How much of that had played into the decision to banish her? Maybe giving Hannah the gun was a mistake.

Q paced the cabin. “I’ll come get you, Hannah Banana. Just hang on.”

“Come get who?”

Q shoved the phone into her pocket and spun around. Rabbit stood on the ladder, scratching the inside of his left elbow. For a moment, Q thought he had borrowed Dave’s jeans because they hung in such loose folds. Even his tan skin had grown dull from lack of sun. With his short hair, he was beginning to look like a cancer patient. How had he lost so much weight?

“Q,” Rabbit said. He held out his right hand, palm up, offering her a protein bar. Rabbit with food. Did it get any better?

She took a step back. She couldn’t take it. It was his ration and he needed it more than she did.

He threw the bar to her. She couldn’t help but catch it. “I need to tell you something,” he said.

Q panicked. What did he want to tell her in that serious tone?

“I’m sorry,” he said. He took another step forward.

Q’s heart cracked. She knew what it was. He was in love with Pious Kate. It was the end of the world. Skanky half-dead evil ginger.

He started speaking and she held up a hand. “No,” she said. “It’s none of my business and I don’t want to hear it.”

He took three more steps and was beside her. “I like you,” he said. “I really like you.”

What? For a moment, she was so happy, she forgot about food.

“You’re strange and funny,” Rabbit said. “And you always know what to do.”

No one ever got past “strange” before. Q stopped him with a kiss in case it went downhill from there.

After some time, Rabbit pulled away. He grinned, and then he stopped. “I came down to tell you something else,” he said. “I have to ask you a question.”

“Who’s Hannah?”

That wasn’t Rabbit’s voice.

Q spun around to see Pious Kate, surfacing from the dark corner like a forgotten sin.

*

Q leaned her head on her knees. She had been exiled from the attic until they decided what to do with her. The decision wouldn’t be good. People lost their mercy in close confines when the real world had ended. Look at Hannah.

At least they’d sent her downstairs, not outside. For now.

She listened to angry voices above her head. It was like hiding in the cupboard during one of her parents’ arguments, all those years ago. Same cold words, same sick feeling. Fighting about her. She was always the common element.

“I could have called John. I could have spoken to my children!” That was Angela, soft, maternal Angela, who she had mistakenly turned to for forgiveness. Q didn’t realize she could get the flipside, the angry lioness. Angela was hard to read.

“That’s not how the hotphone works,” Rabbit said. “Q explained. It’s point to point, from Q to her friend Hannah. You can’t call anyone else.”

“She lied about having it.” That was Pious Kate. Why couldn’t she pass out in a corner where she belonged? “Qwinston might have lied about how it works, too.”

“No,” said Dave. “I checked.” He wasn’t sticking up for her. He was giving facts. He’d verified that it was a point-to-point phone and had then called Hannah. The girl hadn’t answered. Q filed that away to worry about later.

“She didn’t lie.” That was Rabbit. She closed her eyes and thought about their kiss. Her stomach flipped, probably from lack of food. “She just didn’t tell us,” he said. “Everyone’s got secrets.”

Like Pious Kate, who wasn’t a real vegan. Like Q, who wasn’t a real anything. Q shut off that line of thinking and went back to the kiss. She’d finished one and begun the next before anyone spoke.

“Half rations,” Dave said. “And she stays downstairs.”

She heard metal on metal – the key in the chest? Then the sound of two objects being dropped, and metal on metal again. Dave had locked her phone and charger in the chest. He’d locked her away, too. No Rabbit. No Hannah. Nobody.

She rolled over and did push-ups, then sank to the dirt floor. She was on half rations. She couldn’t afford to waste the energy.

*

It sounded like a party. Q was not invited.

She regarded her bloody knuckles and the faint smear on the wooden beam. The pain surprised her. Linda had made her train with blocks from the age of ten, when the skin broke fast but the pain came slow.

More laughter upstairs. She wished she’d heard the joke.

Q had been locked downstairs for three days. She saw people only when they needed to use the long-drop. Angela escorted Rabbit, to make sure he didn’t fraternize.

Three days. Surely it was punishment enough for one mistake? She’d asked if she could come back upstairs that afternoon. Angela had been the first to answer. No.

At night, Rabbit whispered through the floorboards. She lay on the cold dirt below, unable to whisper back loud enough for him to hear without the others overhearing. He had no way of knowing whether she listened but he kept talking anyway. The man knew how to keep a secret. She should have told him about the phone.

Last night, he’d sung her a song that he’d written specially for her. It was dreadful. Q was in love.

She stood up and stretched high. She wanted to press her fingers against the roof and feel the vibrations of his movements. She couldn’t reach.

Upstairs, they drank and shared stories. It sounded like it would be a late night, which meant no verbal rendezvous with Rabbit. She sighed.

She could smell bourbon, either from their breath or dribbled on the floor, she couldn’t tell which. They must have abandoned discipline for a while. Look what happened when she wasn’t around to keep them in line.

Maybe they’d get tipsy and let her upstairs?

Maybe they’d get drunk and shoot her.

They were playing a game Q had taught them: the worst thing about the end of the world. It was funny when she’d made it up.

She heard glugging and coughing, then Rabbit’s voice. “The food,” he said. “The only vegan thing in here is those SAS tabs Q brought, and I only say they’re vegan because I don’t recognize any ingredient as animal in origin. I don’t recognize any ingredient at all. It’s lab food.” Was that why he ate so little? Was he still holding fast to principles? Beautiful idiot.

“It’s the dirt.” That was Angela’s voice. “No shower. No clean clothes. My fingernails are grubby and I’ve cut all my hair off. I feel like a bald doll that’s been rolled in the mud.”

“Keeping long hair in an outbreak is like taking your Uzi into the classroom for show and tell,” Q said. “Don’t do it, no matter how pretty you think it looks.” No one heard her.

There was the gentle gloop-gloop of a bottle emptying into a mouth, then someone spoke. “What’s wrong with you people?”

It took a moment for Q to identify the voice, because she heard it so infrequently. It was Pious Kate. Q pictured her, the light from the lantern hollowing out her eyes and casting inhuman shadows across her face.

“We’re stuck in an attic surrounded by zombies,” Pious Kate said. “None of you are doing anything to get us rescued or escape or find out what’s happened to the rest of the world. You’re sitting around talking crap. What’s the worst thing about the end of the world? I’ll tell you. Being stuck in here with you lot!”

“Katie-G, you’re out of line,” Rabbit said. “I’m trying to save you. I’m trying to save us all.” He sounded angry, and he hardly ever pulled Pious Kate into line. It worried Q. Were things so bad up there?

“I’d love to escape.” That was Angela. Her voice had knives in it. Q wondered if her hands did, too. Maybe being stuck down here wasn’t so bad.

“It’s okay, Angela. We’ll get out.” Reassuring Rabbit. Why did he sound like a liar?

Q heard metal scrape metal. Was Dave pulling a gun on them? Had it taken so little bourbon?

“Can’t find out about the outside world,” Dave said. “Someone busted our comms.” Q had thought about this often. Anyone could have broken Q’s phone, but Dave’s radio had been smashed sometime between the time they’d used it on the last Friday at their camp and their arrival in the attic. It could have been Sheath or the Scarlet Terror or any of the remaining group, but when would they have had time? And who was capable of stealing something from Dave’s bag, destroying it, and replacing it? And who would want to cut them off?

“All we have is this phone,” Dave said, “and the kid ain’t talking.”

She wanted him to dial again but she was frightened, too. What if Hannah didn’t answer? How long could Q pretend the girl was in a sulk rather than that something awful had happened? Something she hadn’t been there to stop?

She returned her attention to the conversation upstairs, because the one in her head made her crazy. “What are you implying?” Pious Kate said.

“He’s not implying anything,” Q said to the roof. “He’s outright accusing you of sabotaging the comms, cos you’re getting sick and you don’t want us to find out what that means. As if we don’t already know.” She grinned. She and Dave were on the same side again. It was better than being a team of one.

There was a scraping noise. Was Pious Kate pulling a weapon from the wall? Had she decided things were that desperate?

“What was that noise?” said Angela.

“Fine,” said Pious Kate. “I broke the freak’s mobile. Her stupid ring tone kept waking me up.”

Q swore. “Smashing another woman’s phone is like taking a second Uzi into the classroom after the first one was confiscated,” she said to the ceiling. “Don’t do it, no matter how necessary you think it is.”

“But I don’t know anything about the radio,” Pious Kate continued.

There was another scraping noise. Q jumped. “What’s going on up there?” she said. She leaped as high as she could and banged on the trapdoor.

“Guys!” Angela said. “Someone’s trying to get in!”

“You morons, that’s me,” said Q.

There was a gunshot.

The trapdoor opened and Rabbit’s pale face appeared. He dropped the ladder to the floor. “Get up here.”

Dave stood at the window, rifle in hand. Something was looking in. Dave fired again, then spoke. “We’re breached.”

*

Dave fired and blew away a zombie hand reaching into the attic. Another took its place.

There was no time for a tearful reunion. Q grabbed a rifle and her first-line gear and took the spot next to Dave. “Angela, Rabbit, get the ammo,” she said. “You guys load, like we practiced.”

The gas lantern flickered inside the room. There was no light outside, only a new moon that did nothing to cut the darkness. She couldn’t see anything except the outline of heads. Had the zombies waited to strike at night? Did they know their advantage?

She fired, reloaded, fired again. Gradually, her eyes adjusted and she saw what had happened. It was their stupid game of gingers.

They’d killed hundreds during their weeks in the attic. Hundreds more had bulldozed forward to take their places. Their mindless press stacked the bodies into a ramp of redheaded corpses, and tonight the zombies climbed. They were no longer safe.

She always knew gingers would be her downfall.

The Last Man blinds were rated to withstand three thousand undead, but only living undead. It was no protection against dead bodies piled high. Q made a mental note to write a scathing letter to the editor of You Versus the World, realized he was probably a zombie and couldn’t read any more, if he ever had been able to, and shot a noseless corpse.

“Boom!” she said. “Spleen shot.”

“Don’t play,” Angela said. “That’s how this happened.”

Q and Dave dispatched a dozen of the things, but as each one toppled, another scrambled over the fallen body to take its place. It was a game they could not win. Worse, each kill built the ramp higher, and would eventually let their enemies break in.

“What’s happening?” Angela said, as she handed another loaded rifle to Q. “How many are there? We need light!”

Rabbit switched on Dave’s high-beam torch.

It reflected back from hundreds of eyes, many of which were a few feet away and all of which were coming closer.

Rabbit switched off the torch.

Dave grappled with a lever Q couldn’t see and pulled a grate down over the window. Dead fingers clutched bars. She and Dave dragged the crates over to the window and began stacking them. Angela and Rabbit joined their efforts. Soon there was a flimsy barrier in front of the grate. Beyond it was a chilling noise: the sound of hundreds of fingers, scrabbling.

“Will that help?” Angela asked. “If they can’t see us, will they go away?”

“Sure,” said Q. “And if we close our eyes, we’re invisible. Dave, what’s the plan?”

For the first time since she had known him, Dave looked lost. This was more frightening than the sound of zombies trying to break into the meat safe. Dave always knew what to do. He must have planned for this.

“Dave!” Q said. “We need your back-up plan! Your back-up back-up back-up back-up plan. Unless that takes us back to the original plan, in which case, we need a new plan. Dave!”

He shook himself and began moving. He grabbed his kit and strapped on bush knives, guns and ammunition. As he packed, he spoke to Q about a place. His words were low and urgent. He gave directions and coordinates, though she had no way to follow them.

Q got supplies from one of the steel chests he had left open, including her phone. “Take what you can fit in your pockets,” she said to the others.

The boxes at the window rattled in a way that suggested dozens of stumpy fingers pushing with inhuman strength. Q leaned back to steady the crates.

Pious Kate stepped forward from her dark corner of the room. “This is what you get for wasting your time on games when you should have been working toward a goal,” she said.

“You’re a great help,” Q said. “Like a soluble kettle.”

“Kate, shut up,” Rabbit said. The woman looked as if she’d been slapped. He turned to Q. “What do we do?”

What did Apocalypse Z say? “When under siege, don’t stew like canned meat. If you’re breached, get out in the open.”

“We’re leaving,” Q said.

But how? They’d blocked up the window, and even if they hadn’t, it was a thirty-foot drop into a mob of Z deeper than a first-year philosophy student. They could flee downstairs and try the doors and windows, but that would be no better. The cabin was surrounded. They couldn’t dodge or fight their way through that many. Their safe haven had become a trap. She had always known it would.

“Q!” said Rabbit.

She left her post at the crates. They wouldn’t help much anyway – if Z could bend steel, Z could move boxes. She passed a rifle each to Angela and Rabbit and paused in front of Pious Kate, gun in hand but unwilling to offer it. Did Q want that woman to be armed with anything more than the sword of sarcasm, the armor of arrogance and the grenade of, ah, general unpleasantness?

Pious Kate solved Q’s problem for her. “I don’t believe in the tools of violence,” she said scornfully. “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”

“Fine by me,” said Q. “I’ll keep it by my bed when I’m eighty. Fellas, we gotta go.”

“How?” said Rabbit.

Q raised her eyebrows at Dave.

Dave grunted.

Q appealed to Rabbit.

Angela threw her hands into the air. “Somebody?”

“C’mon, Dave,” Q said. “I know you’ve thought this through. You’ve got a place to go, you must have a way to get there. No use holding out now.”

“You’ve burned through my Plans A through H,” Dave said. “You hippies have any ideas?”

“Sure,” said Rabbit. “You got a bike?”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Angela hugged Q. “I never thought it would end like this,” she said, tears pouring down her face.

“Me neither,” Q said. “I was sure the head shots would work.”

“I’m sorry we sent you to the basement.”

They broke apart at the sound of an engine revving below. Q pushed Angela toward the ladder. “You gotta go. He’ll leave without you and you can’t come with us. You might not make the distance. This way you'll see your kids again.”

Angela wiped her face, waved to Q, Rabbit and Pious Kate and climbed downstairs.

“All right, you hippies,” Q said. “Time to show me what you’re made of.” She paused. “Scratch that. Time to keep what you’re made of hidden from view. I do not want to see it. Under no circumstances should you reveal those gooey inner bits—”

“Q?” Rabbit was on the roof already, stretching down a hand through the skylight they had blasted. Q clambered up the pile of crates and packs to join him. Pious Kate stood beside him, scanning the area. Was what she saw different from what everyone else saw? Could she see in the dark? Could the zombies?

“They haven’t noticed us yet,” Rabbit said. “They’re still trying to break into the attic.”

“Won’t take long.” Q picked up Dave’s crossbow and loaded it.

“Wow,” said Rabbit. “You know how to use that?”

“Sure,” said Q. “It’s the default weapon in End of the World, End of the World II: Beyond Redemption and End of World III: This Time We Really Mean It.”

The sound of a twanging spring was followed by a soft metallic clunk.

“Q?”

“Yeah?”

“You killed a rock.”

“The trigger point’s less ticklish in End of the World.” She reloaded. The crossbow wasn’t a weapon. There was no point to any weapon with this many ghouls. It was an escape route.

She took a breath and fired.

The weighted arrow sailed through the air and reached a tree five hundred feet away. It slipped between the fork of two limbs. The line it was attached to unraveled, then snapped taut. The weight swung around the branch several times. Beautiful.

She grabbed the line and tugged. It felt firm. She stood back and jerked her head at Pious Kate. “You’re up.”

Pious Kate took a belt in one hand and sat on the edge of the roof. “I hate heights,” she said.

“It’s falls you should worry about,” Q said. “Get gone.”

Pious Kate strung the belt over the line, took a firm grip and pushed herself off the edge of the roof. The line held and she zipped across to the tree.

“I never thought that would work,” Q said.

“You told Kate it was safe,” said Rabbit.

“I also made her go first.” She peered into the darkness. She thought she could see a figure on the ground below, moving with the fluid grace of a non-zombie. Pious Kate must have managed to climb down the tree already.

“Your turn,” she said to Rabbit.

“I can’t hear the bike any more,” he said. “You think they’re okay?”

“They’re fine. Go.”

He shuffled to the edge of the roof to peer down. “Wish me luck,” he said.

“Don’t break a leg,” Q said. “Seriously. I’ll be way slower if I have to carry you.”

He slipped off the roof and zip-lined across. She heard a soft thunk and a very un-Rabbitesque curse. He’d made it. She hoped he’d get down okay without drawing Z attention.

Q had been out here long enough that her eyes could pierce the night. She considered the edge of the zombie mass. They puddled around the cabin, climbed up the pile of bodies and spilled into the attic. They must have pulled out the bars or pushed through the walls. She thought of the fight inside if they had stayed, but only briefly. It would have been a brief fight.

Where were Dave and Angela?

She was frightened not just for their safety, but for that of her own team. What chance did they have without backup?

Enough fretting. Time to jump off a building.

She grabbed her strap, tightened her kit and adjusted the bush knife, rifle and shotgun that she had slung about herself. As she always said to the Kindy Koalas before gym class, no danglies, because danglies got you maimed. It was another of those catchphrases that had landed her in Natolia’s office for no good reason.

There was a hand on her shoulder.

“Dave…?” She pivoted. If it was Dave, he’d really let himself go.

The hand was attached to a skinny, sinewy arm and a half-eaten shoulder. Its torso was an untidy mass of meat and offal where the skin should have been. It was modeling the inside-out look. She hoped it wouldn’t catch on.

Q glanced at the face and saw that it was smiling. It took her a moment to realize why. No lips.

She shook herself. Z was on the roof.

She kicked hard, meaning to throw the thing backward. Instead, her foot wedged in the cavity where its belly once was. She shook it back and forth, hopping on her other leg. Her balance held. Lucky she’d practiced tai chi with Rabbit in the attic, back when she’d been allowed in the attic. Maybe tai chi had applications after all.

The zombie reached its hands toward her face, but fell short. Her leg was longer than its arms. Stalemate. It was too stupid to think of grabbing her leg and capturing her that way. In its defense, Q could see it was operating on half a brain, and was in danger of losing even that. Pieces of gray matter spilled to the tiles through the hole in its head. She couldn’t help imagining the last few minutes of life for this zombie, back when it was human. It must have been a gang binge.

She cut that line of thought. If she got distracted, she’d find out firsthand what it was like. One zombie was on the roof. More would follow.

Q launched herself as high in the air as she could and brought her left foot up to kick the ghoul free, hoping she didn’t get a second leg wedged. It would be too embarrassing to suffer death by zombie-bog.

The move worked. The creature flew backward and her right foot was free. She landed on her butt, leaped up and watched the zombie knock over three more that were emerging from the skylight behind it.

“Zominoes!” Q said, before she realized there was no one there to appreciate her wit. She moved over to the zip line, prepared herself and leaped.

As she glided down, Q heard loud thumps behind her. She twisted her head around. From the corner of her eye, she saw a steady stream of zombies walking off the roof after her and falling to the ground. Those that still had functioning legs after they hit got up and returned to the corpse ladder to climb up to the attic and fall again. She grinned.

Q braced with her feet to avoid hitting the tree too hard, and then climbed into the fork. She had picked a good spot. There were several branches a meter or so apart all the way to the ground. Clambering down was so easy, even a half-dead psycho hippy could do it. Pious Kate and Rabbit were waiting for her.

“That was the coolest thing!” Q said. “It’s like a waterfall of zombie lemmings back there! Someone needs to make a documentary of that. And an iPhone app.”

“Q!” Rabbit said.

“’Sup?”

“Look!”

Q examined his outstretched finger. “Harden up, Rabbit, it’s a bit of rope burn. Hardly cause for panic.”

“No! There!”

She turned around. There were zombies. Hundreds of zombies, all heading straight for them with the ravenous determination of the undead, except for one that had had its foot bitten off and was walking around in a circle, albeit a ravenous and determined circle.

The zip line trick had been a good one. It landed them a few hundred feet away from the cabin. Now they needed another trick.

Where were Dave and Angela? Had they bolted? Or had he booted Angela from the back of the bike and escaped alone?

Why wouldn’t he? What reason did he have to risk his life for theirs? Q had been the only bond, and he’d sent her away for betraying his confidence. Q wouldn’t see either of them again.

“We’ll outrun them,” Q said. “Be careful. They’re not fast, but they’re faster than you if you get your leg wedged down a wombat hole. Plus, irate wombat, and no one wants that.”

They jogged downhill, then stopped. Zombies flowed up toward them like a spill from a toxic river.

They turned and jogged back the way they had come. More zombies came stumbling and rolling toward them.

Q whimpered. They were the center of a contracting circle and it was the same everywhere, all the same. They had been clenched between walls for weeks as the creatures shambled closer. Was this how it would end? After winning Rabbit away from his evil ex? After being kicked out and taken back in? Her fear burnt away and left ash in her mouth.

How many times had this scene played out over the past month? Trapped people, trying to remember what nature expected of them, running hot and strong until they felt the teeth.

Would it hurt?

Rabbit reached out and took Q’s hand. His fingers were warm, his grip strong. She shook him off. “No,” she said.

He reached for her again. The things were close, but he was closer.

“No,” Q said again, louder. One of the ghouls, a pock-skinned girl of fifteen, stared at Q’s mouth. Did she understand this word that she’d learnt as a child, or was it just noise?

She grabbed Rabbit and turned him to face the tree. “Climb,” she said.

“What?” he said, as if she’d told him to eat butter.

“Climb!”

Pious Kate, perhaps keener to survive because she was so much closer to death, pulled herself up. Rabbit followed.

Fingers pulled at Q’s shirt. She kicked back like she was mob fighting, and leaped into the boughs of the tree. She climbed until she was ten feet from the ground, then swung around to sit in the fork, her feet hanging above the dead heads.

“Now what?” Pious Kate asked. “We sit here until we die?”

“There are other options,” Q said with the generosity of a pauper sharing the plague. “You can fall.”

“Great plan,” said Pious Kate. “No wonder the army didn’t want you.”

They’d shared their hopes and dreams and failures in the attic. The only thing that meant to Pious Kate was ammunition to use later.

“We should have left you on the roof,” Q said.

“You can’t leave me behind,” Pious Kate said with granite confidence. “I have something you want.”

“Yeah, a tongue. Stay there and I’ll pull it out.”

“You act so tough,” Pious Kate said.

“You should know all about faking it,” Q said. “With your secret stash of beef jerky.”

“Liar! I can’t believe you’d say that!”

Q wished she could un-say it. Pious Kate and Rabbit had been VFFs for more than two decades, and all that time the woman had been cheating on their principles. It would shake him to his core. She didn’t want him to die hurt. She didn’t want him to die at all.

She stole a glance to see how he’d taken the news. It was worse than she thought. Rabbit was hysterical. He was giggling so hard he nearly fell out of his tree.

“What a relief!” Rabbit said, when he had breath to speak.

“What?” Pious Kate said.

“It’s okay, Katie-G. I’ve known for years. It doesn’t mean you’re not trying.”

Q stretched out toward him, but their branches were on opposite sides of the trunk. She couldn’t reach.

What now?

The creatures milled below.

What else was there to do? The ghouls danced their devil’s maypole. Bloodless fingers reached for the soles of her sneakers. She thought about the darkness.

*

An engine.

Curses, dirty as guts and sweet as a harp.

The thud of wood beating meat.

Dave and Angela had returned on the bike.

“Dave!” Q called. “Dave!”

He swerved past the dead. Angela made them deader. She sat behind him, holding a cricket bat and shrieking and striking like she was possessed, like she thought these corpses had killed her babies.

Q pulled her leg up onto the branch and away from the zombie fingers. Rescue was here. She clung to her safety with fierce terror.

Dave rode away from the tree, then turned to face the zombies, gunning his engine, his headlights thrown back by demon reflections. A few creatures broke away from their vigil at the tree to stagger toward him. More followed.

He swerved around and rode a slow, wide lap of the tree. “C’mon,” he said. “Come get it!”

The gang of ghouls converged on the bike. Angela screamed, her face unrecognizable like that of a bawling child. She slammed her bat over and over, all attack with no thought for the fingers tearing at her clothes.

It was not enough. There were too many. Dave and Angela had lured dozens away, but there were still at least fifty stumbling around the tree. More and more arrived.

Dave rode another wide circuit, slow enough for the things to almost catch him. Angela bashed and cracked and cackled. Then she and Dave fell.

Q cried out. She didn’t want to see Dave and Angela disappear into a heaving mass of teeth but she couldn’t look away, either.

The bike was still moving. Were the ghouls so eager to get to their prey that they pushed it along before them?

No! Dave and Angela hadn’t fallen. Dave leaned down close to the ground, and Angela clung to him. The bike approached their tree, slower than before but still outpacing the zombies. Q’s nostrils flared.

She smelled smoke. Smoke in the bush meant disaster.

She wanted to cry out, to dowse it before it was out of control, but she was too slow. Flames shot from the ground behind Angela and Dave, and now Angela really was a demon, borne along by fire. It roared behind them, quicker and more agile than the dead.

Dave waved to Q and gunned the engine. They took off.

“Is he crazy?” said Pious Kate.

The fire sprinted uphill toward them, swallowing grass and scrub, spilling up like a waterfall in reverse. The zombies poured away from it, repelled by the flames. Because what do the walking dead fear most? The only thing that will stop them where death has failed – cremation.

Sweat poured from Q’s face. She closed her eyes and shielded them with her hands. They felt like they were dribbling from their sockets. She’d have to stumble around like Z, leading Rabbit by the hand.

Smoke. She couldn’t breathe. She coughed, and that was worse, because after each hack she gasped in more. Her lungs filled with dust. She was drowning on land.

The fire ran uphill and away.

“Down!” Q said.

They clambered to the ground and stood there swaying, like they were the dead, the ones who couldn’t walk, only stumble, couldn’t talk, only yearn.

“We gotta go.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Every shadow hid a shape. Every bush held thorns.

They tried to hurry, but speed was difficult across the rough ground. The fire was long gone and Q could barely see through the layered darkness. She had no idea where they were or where they should go. She had no idea what their end might be. Her only idea was to keep moving.

She cursed, colliding with branches that might be hands, and thick roots that grasped at her feet. There were no clear spaces, only hard things that hurt. She was as clumsy as Z. The attic and lack of food and the fear had made her just like her enemies, with one key difference: not life or breath, but drive. Her enemies knew what they wanted and where to get it. But she was stumbling in the dark.

Rabbit and Pious Kate followed without complaint. Q hated them for it. Is this what her games had been about? Leading others into danger, so distracted by her own fear that she didn’t see what was ahead?

She missed Dave. She’d rather follow the devil than make her own way.

What would Apocalypse Z say? Start with what you know.

Q remembered something. Dave had told her where they were going. He had said it quietly, as if he didn’t want the others to find their way unless Q led them there. There had been zombies at the window and shots and whimpers, but the directions must have entered her brain somehow, because they emerged now.

But what good were directions? She had no idea where they were and no means of following a course.

Then she remembered a second thing. Q knew how to navigate. Well, Qaranteen did.

Qaranteen had spent hundreds of hours playing survival games based on SAS training exercises. She’d played games that revived dead explorers and games of map reading, star gazing and pace counting. All of it was a prelude to tonight.

Q began to jog. The others quickened their pace behind her.

She knew where they were, the same way she always knew in which direction the ocean lay. She’d been tracking the orientation of the range and the way they had come without realizing it. She felt the distance in the rhythm of her body. She knew how long they’d been on this path.

Q found she had already been following Dave’s route and only had to adjust their course in minor ways. It was like discovering the foreign movie she’d been watching was actually in heavily accented English and she’d understood all along.

She began reciting the Apocalypse Z chapter on terrain types and cross-country flight in the dark. It was one of her favorites. It felt like sweat and the roar of spent adrenaline. It wasn’t powerful like Z-Fu, but it was real, and it rose in her mind like a pale figure in the night.

Q unsheathed her bush knife and slashed a zombie stepping out to greet her. It fell. They continued.

She walked with certainty, Qaranteen and Apocalypse Z guiding her feet. She thought about how far away they could be seen and heard and smelled by the monsters and how close a zombie needed to be to grab her or bite her. She made two moving circles in her head. The inside circle was the distance Z could reach and the outside circle was the distance she could make an accurate shot in the dark. She concentrated on keeping both circles clear of ghouls and keeping herself at the center.

Was this how the grown-ups did it? Were they followers after all, treading along behind a book or a childhood lesson or someone else’s steps, even the ones at the front? It wasn’t so hard. She wished someone had told her.

Rabbit paused, leaning on a tree and breathing hard. Four weeks in the attic had made him slow. “Where are we going?” he said.

“There’s a place,” Q said. “It’s safe.”

It was enough. They moved.

Q began to sense the zombies before she saw them. She wasn’t finding them by sound; her crew made more noise than the ghouls did. She wasn’t using smell either. Out here, everything smelled of earth and sweet rot with the stink of fire cutting through to remind them of what they had released. But she knew a moment before a ghoul entered her circle, and she shot it or slashed it. She always hit the sweet spot.

She remembered a game she played with Hannah. If there was one thing you could do in the whole world better than anyone else, what would it be? Hannah usually settled on riding a horse, because she was a six-year-old girl and that was the greatest power she could imagine. Q changed hers every time they played, sometimes mid-sentence. She wanted to fly, or run faster than light. She wanted to strike with such force that the air in front of her fist gave her opponent a concussion. She’d never thought to choose “shoot spleens in the dark.” Who would?

Q discovered it was a marvelous power. She wondered if Hannah still thought about ponies.

They had covered around three miles and they were slowing. Where Q’s legs burned with coiled energy, Pious Kate’s and Rabbit’s dragged. Each step they took covered less ground than the last.

Q told them they’d reach the place by sunrise. It might be true. It couldn’t be more than ten miles in total, and they wouldn’t stop to rest in zombieland. It made them walk faster for a while. Sunrise on the valley and no more monsters in the dark. What else could anyone want?

Chapter Thirty

It was around five o’clock, an hour before sunrise. Q was cold. Rabbit shivered.

She dragged him along like a heavy suit of clothes. Pious Kate trailed behind them, half seen. They had walked all night.

In the last two miles, Q had seen fewer than a dozen of the dead. She was grateful. Her iron legs still worked, but her reactions had ebbed with the hours. It didn’t matter. They’d arrived.

Dave had told her about the tunnel. When they were trapped in the attic with ghouls at the door, he had told her. She thought she’d heard wrong or that he was being poetic, desperate to give her a route to another world, but he had given her directions and she had followed them. And here they were.

They stood at its mouth, listening to the night sounds give way to the day. It had a concrete throat. The roof was twice as tall as Q. She couldn’t see far inside; the dim pre-dawn light gave way a few steps in. She didn’t know where it led. She didn’t know what was in there.

She didn’t know how this could be better than the attic.

Q called Dave’s name into the tunnel. Her voice bounced back. She didn’t call again.

Rabbit put his hands on her shoulders, but she couldn’t tell whether it was to comfort her or support himself. “Do we have to go through there?” he said.

“Yeah,” said Q.

“C’mon, Katie-G. Nearly there.” He stepped inside.

*

Q and Rabbit held hands because they couldn’t see.

She thought she’d been here before. Maybe Qaranteen had. She didn’t want to come back ever again.

The base of the tunnel was uneven. Sometimes she trod on concrete, sometimes she slipped in rubble. Sometimes the ground sank away completely and she fell into a hole and had to scramble out before the cold made her lie down and give up.

It was flooded, too. In the first few steps, her boots got wet. After a while, she was wading knee deep. Twice the water reached her belly, so cold it made her breath catch in her throat.

What if the ground dropped away completely? Would they have to swim to the other side?

She thought of the things that lived without air and reached for whatever they could. She didn’t think she could swim through water she couldn’t see. There might be anything down there.

She tried listening for the ghouls, because it was too dark to spot an enemy. It was a fool’s game – all she heard was herself. It was impossible to move silently through the water. Her feet splashed and the curved rock walls magnified the wet sounds. Her ears filled with them. There was no room for anything else.

Q couldn’t keep them safe in here. She couldn’t keep their circles clear. Couldn’t even see them. She didn’t think she should shoot, either. She wouldn’t know what to shoot at until it was too late, and what if a bullet ricocheted off a wall and hit them or the noise burst their eardrums? She imagined being deaf as well as blind, with nothing left to rely on but touch and nothing to touch but the slimy walls and the cool undead. It was only Rabbit’s gentle urging that got her moving again.

The tunnel had no end. At the beginning, Q could turn around and monitor their progress by the smudge of light at the entrance, but that grew fainter and fainter and was eventually gone. They could have been walking on the spot but for the fact that the ground kept shifting beneath them, tripping them, dunking them, swallowing them. Had the tunnel curved around to obscure the entrance, or was it too long to see to the other side?

Maybe they couldn’t see the other end because it was dark there, too. Maybe they were walking to the center of the earth, where the dead lived.

She reached for Rabbit’s hand in a panic. They stumbled on.

Q was colder than she had ever been before. Rabbit’s hand shook. She could hear his teeth rattle over the echoes of moving water; she hoped it was his teeth she could hear.

She jerked her left leg forward, shrieked and ran a few steps.

“What’s wrong?” Rabbit caught up, then checked behind for Pious Kate, who followed, leaden.

Q rubbed her calf. She had felt something brush against it in the icy water. She started to tell him, then stopped. There was no need to share her monsters. Talking about them wouldn’t make them go away.

*

There was a ghost in the tunnel.

It was in front of her, dancing and making signs in the air. Q froze. She caught her breath and it was gone.

“You okay?” Rabbit asked.

Q couldn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe. They couldn’t turn around and go back. It was too far and too cold and there was nothing behind them except ghouls and hunger and the endless night. But she couldn’t go forward, either. There was a ghost there. She’d seen it.

“Qwinston?” Pious Kate called. The walls tossed around the name until it died. Q couldn’t answer. She couldn’t make a sound.

This was stupid. She was stupid. The ghost was in her head. Rabbit couldn’t see it. Ignore it and it would go away. She exhaled, hard.

The ghost returned.

Q whimpered. Spirits in the daytime. Was she dying?

“Quentin.” Pious Kate called her name and for once, she said it right. The woman staggered forward through the water.

Rabbit released Q’s hand and spun around. “Katie-G?” He went to help her.

“I need to tell you something,” Pious Kate said, her voice thick. Her footsteps were irregular but light, as if her feet weren’t touching the ground.

Q was paralyzed. There were spirits all around, shimmering in the air where before there had been a darkness she now missed.

“I’m sorry,” Pious Kate said. There was a gurgle and a wet noise.

Q turned. Rabbit and Pious Kate stood next to each other, very close. They were kissing.

Rage broke through terror.

There was just enough light to see clouds of breath misting the cold air. That’s what the ghosts were – her breath. They must be near daylight and the other side of the tunnel. There were no ghosts. There was only Q.

She watched Rabbit and Pious Kate kiss. There was that damp noise again. It was Rabbit, gurgling like wet moss.

No. They weren’t kissing. Pious Kate was biting his face off. She’d finally turned. Q took two steps forward and kicked.

Pious Kate flew back into the black tunnel, snarling. Q heard a splash, then nothing. Where had the monster gone?

Rabbit moaned. Q hushed him and reached for her bush knife. Something splashed, clumsy and unseen.

Pious Kate stumbled into the dull light, mouth open, eyes empty. Q stabbed. Her knife slid into the dull body. The creature didn’t react. It was as if Q had cut a piece of clothing rather than flesh.

She drew out her knife and dodged the reaching arms. She kicked sideways and felt a knee crack. It dropped. Q stomped twice, hard, feeling ribs snap, then leaped back.

Rabbit lay on the ground on his side, his face under water. She grabbed his armpit and hauled him upright, then pulled his arm across her shoulders.

“Walk!” she said.

He groaned and twitched. The weight on her back lessened.

“Walk!” she said again.

His left foot moved. He reached up to touch his face and his legs buckled.

Q dragged him forward. Their steps made an ocean. She couldn’t tell if there was anything behind them except echoes. Rabbit collapsed into the water twice and she feared she might not get him standing again. She screamed and dug her fingers into his skin, using pain where reason failed.

She saw the other end of the tunnel.

She tried to run into the circle of light but managed only a ragged three-legged stumble with the dying man. The circle refused to swell. It was a trick! The tunnel was endless, it was teasing her with tomorrow’s promise, but it would never let her go. She swore at it. The tunnel swore back in her voice.

Her fingers bit into Rabbit’s ribcage and he gasped.

Q threw her feet down, mindless of the shifting ground, the holes and hills and invisible landscape below. She was terrified that the exit was too small. It was the size of her fist. They’d never fit through.

Rabbit fell.

One moment he was there, the next he was a weight pulling her underwater. They’d run into a chasm. Her head went below and her boots and sodden clothing wrenched her down. She kicked. Her hand slipped so that she held only Rabbit’s jumper, as though he’d shed his skin and left for somewhere else. Her nose and mouth were full of water. She choked and kicked harder. Her head broke the surface. She gasped twice. She had lost Rabbit. She submerged again.

Q felt around in the darkness, eyes squeezed shut. Her chest ached. She popped up, drank air, and ducked below again. How long had he been under? A minute? Two? Were his lungs empty already? Had he taken a breath before he fell?

Her fingers touched a cold, motionless arm.

Q grabbed it with both hands and kicked as hard as she could. She broke free of the freezing water and was almost sucked back by his weight. Her limbs were fire. She twisted the fingers of her left hand into his jumper and struck out for concrete with her right. She pressed down into it and managed to haul her torso into a puddle of grime. She swung up her right leg and rolled, pulling him out of the water with her.

Q couldn’t move with the mass on top of her, then the sharp rocks beneath began to hurt more than the idea of moving. She wriggled out from under Rabbit and sucked air like a shipwreck survivor, then reached out to his face.

She felt hot breath. He was alive.

Q rolled onto her knees. “Get up,” she said. He obeyed. They panted, listening to splashes in the darkness behind them. “Come on. Move!”

They ran until the mouth of the tunnel widened and spat them out the other side.

Chapter Thirty-one

Q shivered. The brightness of the day made her eyes water.

She turned her back on the sun. A heavy metal gate had been pushed back from the mouth of the tunnel; Dave must have left it open for them. She leaned her body against it until it slammed into the concrete. On the ground lay a chain with links as big as her fists. She wrapped it several times around one bar of the gate and the squat concrete post beside it.

There. Whatever was inside would stay inside.

Rabbit slumped on the ground, holding his right cheek as if he could catch what was pouring away. Blood seeped through his fingers. She had to fix it. She didn’t think about what Apocalypse Z would say, because there was no chapter on how to treat a zombie bite. There were only two words.

You can’t.

She took out her survival tin. Inside were a needle, a compass, a blade, a flint and a foil package. She pulled out the foil pack and ripped it open with her teeth. “Give me your hand,” she said.

He offered it to her, bloody as a confession. Q pushed it aside and wiped his cheek with iodine, shoving the sodden brown swab deep into the wound until he cried out. The cut was shallow. The skin was gone, but all the muscles were still intact. It was the kind of wound you got from walking through the bush, the kind that she was covered in. It was nothing serious.

She removed the blade from the survival kit and scraped a layer of flesh from his face. Rabbit ground his teeth and stared at the sky. He twitched beneath her fingers but did not stop her.

How long since he had been bitten? Five minutes? Was that enough time for the infection to take hold?

She dropped the blade and grabbed a handful of dried grass and sticks. She piled them onto her bandana and sent a spark into it from her flint, then cupped her hand around it, breathing on it. A flame leaped. She let it burn for a few seconds, then picked up the scalding pile in the bandana and held it against his face. He grunted and writhed.

Maybe eight minutes. It didn’t matter. This would work.

She bent down to the pool at the mouth of the tunnel. She scooped up water and splashed it over the shallow red hole in his face.

Ten minutes at the most. No more than that.

“It’s a zombie,” Rabbit said.

“Yup,” Q said. She reapplied the iodine pad. “Kate’s a zombie. I never would have guessed it. Hold this.”

He pressed the pad hard into the gash. The blood had stopped pushing through his fingers – that was good, right? No more blood? It was a flesh wound, flushed and healing. It was a shame it wasn’t a finger or toe. She couldn’t cut off his head.

She squatted in front of the puddle and scrubbed her hands, trying to remove every speck of his blood from her skin, but her palms were so covered in small oozing cuts it was impossible to tell what was hers and what was his. She tried anyway. It wasn’t that she was worried about infection, because he wasn’t infected. It was basic hygiene, that was all.

“A zombie,” he said again.

There were a few red daubs on her arm. Was it her blood, Rabbit’s or Zombie Kate’s? She splashed and scrubbed. Her hands stung in the cold water. Her skin felt stretched over pins.

“Two zombies,” Rabbit said.

Q swore and sprang to her feet. Two ghouls approached. She should have heard them dragging their feet through the leaves. Idiot!

She unslung her rifle and shot four times, but the gun only fired thrice. She was out of ammunition. It didn’t matter. She’d made two more corpses in the dirt.

Q searched her pockets for spare ammunition that she knew wasn’t there, then swore and threw down the gun. She stepped over the dead things and scanned the trees around her.

Eight set out for a cozy weekend retreat. Would she be the last one left? What then?

She turned back to Rabbit. “We gotta go.”

He clutched his face. “Aren’t we here?”

“Come on.”

Rabbit hesitated. “We should say something,” he said, waving at the bodies on the ground and the tunnel that entombed his dead ex.

Q began walking. He’d follow. What else could he do?

*

Dave sure could pick a good place. They’d been moving downhill for two hours and hadn’t come across a single ghoul. The country was too hard for them. Q and Rabbit had to wriggle between tree trunks and the lower scrub was so dense they couldn’t see their boots. The slope was severe. She tested each blind step before committing her weight to it, always seeking a sapling or a rock to lock her foot against, because otherwise the ground slid out beneath her. She kept jarring her knees and ankles but hadn’t yet injured herself.

Rabbit emptied his pockets as they went, offering her muesli bars and a pocket first aid kit and a knife. She slapped his hands away and laughed, calling him a slacker, telling him to carry his own stuff, but he insisted.

She held a thorned branch to steady herself and swore as it sliced open her palm. Her hands were bleeding and raw but she couldn’t afford to spare them, she needed everything to stay upright. She wondered what tourists liked about hiking. Maybe it made their office jobs more fun when they returned.

There were no more office jobs. There was only this.

Dave had said it was a couple of miles to the river from the tunnel, which sounded like a twenty-minute stroll, if you didn’t know what the distance contained. She wished they were still under attack. She had too much weary brain space and only one thing to think about. She tried thinking about ghouls instead.

Why did she call them ghouls? They were dead bodies messing with live ones, not the other way around. They were ghosts with flesh and teeth. They were revenge.

She tried to break the journey into intervals but couldn’t see far enough to mark them out. She had a premonition of her country with all the people stripped from it. No more roads or trails, just dry, angry walls of plants with scared animals battling through them.

At least it wasn’t a hot day. Even sheltered from the sun by thick scrub, the work made her sweat. She tried to remember feeling cold – she had been cold only a few hours ago – but she couldn’t.

Q counted steps. Each time she got to a hundred, she rewarded herself with a memory. Hannah, before the outbreak. A whole Friday night with a new game. Her dad, slim and sober when Linda was alive. She rolled her ankle and swore.

Her pulse spiked and her blood ran hot, adrenaline filled. It barely stirred her. She was too tired. She stopped and pointed her toe up and down. It wasn’t bad. She could keep going. Her body understood the need to take care but it was beyond her thinking mind. There may not be zombies around, but a broken ankle or snakebite meant death just as surely. There were no rescue choppers out here. There were no more rescue choppers anywhere, ever again. She licked her lips and wished for water. She should have drunk at the tunnel.

No. She wouldn’t drink that. She’d die first.

Could be an option.

Rabbit followed her without complaint or conversation. He was pale but otherwise fine. He was suffering fatigue, that was all. He’d be okay when they got there.

Twice, he sat down and asked for her bush knife. She didn’t give it to him.

Q yelped and swore again. She’d been bitten! She shook her right hand. Her fingers stung and she whimpered as she tried to find her attacker. Was it a spider? What sort? The only two she could recognize were the redback and the funnelweb, and out here, with no treatment, both would be deadly.

Rabbit pushed through the scrub, pulled her back two paces and brushed off her arms. “Ants,” he said.

She’d been standing right on top of their nest and they’d swarmed up the tree and onto her hand, then across her body in a coordinated offensive. Their teeth were pincers. Little bastards.

Rabbit’s arm was covered in ants from brushing her off, but they didn’t bite him; they poured off in a steady stream to the ground and marched away.

“There are advantages,” Rabbit said, watching the cascade.

Q ran her fingers over a tree, thicker than those around it. Its white skin sloughed off in great strips, showing shy pink bark beneath. This whole place was diseased.

It was an hour before they stopped again. White cloud and blue sky flashed between the leaves above. It must be hot up there, where the sun lived. Q was glad it was cooler below. One less thing to fight.

“What’s up?” Rabbit asked. “You need to eat?”

She shook her head. She wouldn’t eat, not without water, not when her belly felt like it was full of live bait. “The river,” she said. Water roared in the distance.

“It must be a good spot,” Rabbit said. “With all this effort.”

“You thirsty?”

He shook his head. Q recited the names of her favorite guns under her breath.

*

They had reached their goal. “River” was too grand a word – it was a rocky stream at the bottom of a sheer-sided gully, making more noise than it should.

There was a twenty-foot drop onto slippery rock. The concave edge looked like a broken leg, like a painful, drawn-out death. They were as far away from safety as ever. She tipped her head back to the deepening blue of the sky.

“It’s good to have the sun back,” Rabbit said.

Q took a deep breath, pinched her thigh and spoke. “What do you think?”

“That consumerism is dead. That we’ve entered the age of the insects. That the A-Team movie was way better than I expected – they flew a tank!”

Q giggled. “What do we do?”

Rabbit peered over the edge. “Pretty steep,” he said. “We could go back. Try to find another way down?”

They had walked for hours to get here and it had been like walking on another planet; gravity turned up too high; air too thin; distance meaningless. Q was not going back.

“Dave thought it was okay,” she said. “He wouldn’t have sent us here if he didn’t think we could get through.”

Rabbit nodded. “But maybe we came the wrong way. Or maybe it’s a while since Dave’s been here. That—” he waved a hand at the bush behind them, as if it was someone else’s nightmare—“is regrowth. That’s why it’s so dense in the bottom layer. It might have been an easy scramble a few years ago, straight after a bushfire, but it’s not anymore.”

“Wait here.” Q walked upstream along the edge of the cliff for a few minutes before she ran into a rock. It was four times taller than she was, emerging from the ground like a monolith. No breaks, no handholds. She couldn’t climb it. It extended back into the scrub. She tried walking around it uphill, but this was even harder than the journey downhill had been.

She walked back to Rabbit and tried the same downstream. She found another rock formation. She felt trapped in a fake landscape, a game where the programmer hadn’t bothered finishing the world so left barriers at its outskirts instead.

Rabbit put a hand on her shoulder when she returned. “The rock formations,” he said. “They must be all along the river.”

“Damn nature.”

“They’ve been here forever.” He smiled. Q didn’t. She had no room for eternity. The immediate was too full.

They would have to climb down the cliff to the stream. She had at least ten feet of cordage looped through her belt buckles. They could use their bootlaces, too, which were too thin to be able to grip but might work if she knotted them along their length or tied in sturdy sticks to make handholds. At least she could cut out some of the drop. They might not break when they fell.

“I need to tell you something,” Rabbit said, putting a hand on her arm and pulling her close.

Q’s belly turned to stone. That phrase led to joy and terror, and she was spent. She stepped back. “We have to find the others.”

“It’s not Kate’s fault. Some things are – the things she said to you and to Dave.  But I’m not her fault.”

Q’s mouth dropped open. Not her fault? Pious Kate had tried to steal Rabbit, and had bitten him when she failed so that Q couldn’t have him either. Was he still defending her, even now? She was Pious Kate. That was blameworthy enough.

Rabbit pushed up his left sleeve and twisted his palm outward. The inside of his arm was smooth and light gray, much paler than the rest of his skin. He had a wound. An old wound. There was a chunk removed from the inside of his elbow, a rough circle the size of a thumb and index finger joined. It was clean and dead.

She reached out to touch it but stopped before she connected. “When?”

“Back at the campsite,” he said. “That night they found us. A month ago.”

A month! He’d been bitten for a month and hadn’t said anything! He wasn’t even sick.

Except that wasn’t true. Q realized that the signs had all been there but she hadn’t noticed them in the attic. Hadn’t wanted to notice them.

He didn’t eat.

He drank a lot of water, and today, he drank none.

He had no energy and slept and meditated all the time. But what good was energy in a world twenty-feet squared, and who would notice its absence?

All that time meditating and looking after Pious Kate. She thought he was trying to help his evil ex, but he’d been protecting Q, making sure the monsters within stayed buried. And he was trying to heal himself. It was wonderful and awful and she didn’t know why he was telling her.

“Why?” Q’s voice was the wind in the trees.

He rolled down his sleeve. “I thought I could beat it,” he said. “Rule Two is stupid. It’s giving up. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave you.”

Rabbit, who’d fight to change the world, would fight to change himself as well. He thought he could win. Pious Kate, so obviously infected but not transformed, gave him four weeks of hope. And then she’d turned and taken all hope with her.

“No,” Q said. She moved toward him, so close she could feel his body heat, except that he was cool, too cool for a hot day. She didn’t care. She leaned in to kiss him and he moved away. “No!”

He took a step back, then bent to lower himself over the cliff.

“Don’t,” she said with a voice full of sand. She didn’t want to be heard. He might reply with a careless grin, as if it didn’t matter whether he lived or died. Rabbit’s legs and torso dangled over the edge and she could see he was searching for a foothold. What if he slipped?

What if he didn’t?

He grunted. “I can’t reach the bottom,” he said.

“Come back,” she said. “Please come back.”

He let go and slid. Q yelped and peered after him like a frightened dog. Rabbit lay on his back in the water, giggling.

“You idiot!” Q ripped out a handful of grass and dirt and hurled it at him. “You complete moron!”

He rolled over, held his head under the water, rinsed his face and stood. He took a firm footing and held his arms over his head. “I’ll be your Z-bridge,” he said, grinning.

She ignored the comment but accepted the offer.

*

They didn’t know which way to go so they went downstream – it was easier to scramble with the water than against it. Q had thought nothing could be more difficult and painful and exhausting than bashing down that slope through the scrub, but now she found she missed it. Initially, she’d tried to jump from one large rock to the next, but they were covered in algae and she kept slipping and landing on her butt or stumbling forward and bashing a knee. So she waded straight through the water instead. Her feet were numb. She barely had strength to lift her soaking boots. With each step, it was harder to keep her footing. She fell and staggered and fell and swore. She could no longer distinguish sore muscles from bruised skin. Everything felt the same. Everything hurt.

What if Dave and Angela were upstream? Q didn’t know what she would do if they had chosen the wrong direction. The sides of the gully were too steep to climb and there was nowhere to camp in the river. They’d walk until it was dark and then, soaked to the skin, they’d freeze to death overnight. It sounded peaceful.

*

Q spotted Dave’s camp first. She thought she saw smoke but wasn’t sure if it was the real world or a fantasy, the world she wanted. Then the left side of the gully flattened out into a clearing that contained three of the most beautiful things Q had ever seen.

Angela, Dave and a campfire.

She called out. Angela’s face cracked into a grin. She waded out into the stream and hugged her.

“How’d you get here so fast?” Q asked, her mouth full of the other woman’s hair. “You take the easy route?”

Angela stepped back. “It wasn’t easy! The path was steep and I kept slipping in the river. I didn’t think we’d make it.”

“You had a path? Sheer luxury.”

Angela pulled back and went to embrace Rabbit, then stopped, her hands limp.

Dave had paused a few steps away. His hand rested on the gun slung around his torso in a way that Q might have thought casual if she wasn’t paying attention.

“You didn’t find the track?” Dave said, his eyes fixed on Rabbit.

“We’re here,” Q said. She waded out of the water and turned to offer a hand to Rabbit, but the beautiful man remained where he was, a portrait of a smile on his lips. “Come on,” Q said.

“Where’s Kate?” Dave asked.

Angela slunk backward as he spoke. She slipped and fell, spat water, rolled onto her hands and knees and scrambled out of the stream. She spun to face them, the whites of her eyes stark, a child who didn’t want to turn her back on the thing that scared her.

“Kate’s dead,” Dave said, answering his own question. Q wondered how many more answers he’d worked out. They were wrong. She had to show him they were wrong.

Her legs were about to give way. That campfire looked like home. What did she have to say to get past this guardian? “Tough trip,” she said, and showed her teeth.

“That’s no scratch.” Dave gestured toward Rabbit’s wounded cheek with his gun but without menace, as if it were a convenient pointer and he’d use a stick instead if he had one to hand. He left his gun pointing at Rabbit.

Q adjusted her stance. She no longer felt collapsible. Fear was a fast cure.

Water pushed around Rabbit’s legs, as if he were nothing more than a rock or log. Rabbit always stuck up for everyone else, why wouldn’t he stick up for himself? And why was the group turning on him? He was tired and hungry and he looked it, that was all.

She took her eyes off Dave for a moment to confirm this. She saw what Dave and Angela saw.

There was a man standing in the creek. He was not beautiful. He was gray. He was silent. He didn’t watch the faces of those who spoke, as if he’d lost track of what conversation was and how it worked. There was a hole in his face, an open wound that would not heal. It was a hole in the world. Q’s heart poured out through it.

“Leave him alone.” Q squared up to the man with the gun. She thought about pulling out her bush knife but decided against it. She wouldn’t use it. Too slow and too messy. Anyway, she didn’t need it. This was a game. Dave was showing her that this was his place and he was in charge. She’d play along and show him he was wrong.

Angela ran back to the campsite. For a woman with three kids, she sure sucked at conflict.

Dave raised the barrel of his gun into a firing position. Rabbit faced him, arms relaxed, inviting it.

Why didn't Rabbit run? Even animals react when a gun aims at them.

“There was an accident,” Q said, trying to draw Dave’s attention. It worked. The gun remained pointed at Rabbit, a cold metal threat, but its owner watched Q.

Dave was four steps away. Four steps, if she didn’t slip. The rocks were covered in slime. She had to keep talking.

“Kate turned,” Q said. “In the tunnel. She bit Rabbit.”

The skin behind Dave’s beard moved. Was he smiling? Grimacing? “I’m sorry,” he said. He returned his focus to Rabbit.

“No!” Q took two steps forward. It was a risk, it could have startled Dave into a shot, but it got his attention instead. “You don’t understand,” Q said. “I took care of it. I abraded the wound and I scorched it and I disinfected it and I washed it. Rabbit’s fine. He’ll get better.”

Dave’s face hardened. “Apocalypse Z says—”

“Fuck Apocalypse Z.” Q couldn’t hear her own words over the sounds of water and the heartbeat in her ears, but Dave heard okay. His eyes widened. It was as if she’d spat on his mother’s grave.

“I’m not ready,” she said. For a moment, she thought he’d turn the gun on her. That would be better.

There was a shot.

The noise was obscene over the slippery water song. She couldn’t believe Dave had done it, then noticed that his eyes were even wider than before. He was shocked too. It hadn’t been him.

Angela stood there, face pink and dripping with mucus and tears, holding a rifle. Angela shot Rabbit.

He was still on his feet, swaying like a freshly hit punch bag. There was a small tear in his shirt on his left shoulder, stained brown.

Close, but no spleen. Angela had missed, like Q knew she would.

Q was the first to recover. She took the final two steps toward Dave and sent him flying with a quick front-kick. Perfect. He was winded. He wouldn’t be able to move for a minute. She yanked away his gun and turned it on Angela.

“You don’t want to shoot me,” Q said, strolling toward the sobbing woman. “We’re friends.”

Angela shook but she held the rifle steady. She couldn’t hit a spleen but she might be able to hit Q, who made a much bigger target.

“You don’t want to shoot me either!” Angela said.

“Maybe,” said Q. “But one of us here failed the army psych test. Twice.”

Angela sagged. Q strode over and took her weapon. Now all she had to do was talk Dave and Angela around to letting Rabbit live. Great, persuasion; that always worked out for her. Maybe she’d hang on to the guns.

“It’ll be okay,” Q said to Angela, not meeting her friend’s eyes. She slung the second gun around her neck and over her shoulder. Rambo chic. She did a quick check of her remaining ammunition and found plenty, not thinking too hard about what “plenty” might be used for. “He’s gonna get better,” Q said. “I’ll look after you all until he does.”

Angela screamed.

“No need to be like that,” Q said. “I can nurture.”

Angela was staring past Q. She twisted around. Rabbit was eating Dave.

Her feet prickled from the cold. An afternoon breeze shivered over her wet skin. Clouds slunk across the sky. Would it rain later?

Rabbit’s mouth was buried in Dave’s belly. Dave, half raised on his elbows, watched the avant-garde film of his body. Q strode over and hit Rabbit with the butt of her gun. The force threw him onto his side, then he rolled back into place. The moist sound of mouth on meat made her gut lurch.

She struck Rabbit again, twice. She forced him off the body and into the river, then struck again. Rabbit’s nose twitched, red and dripping. She shoved a stout stick in his mouth. He bit it, fingers curled as if in spasm.

Q planted one boot on the gagged mouth and ripped cordage from around her waist. Rabbit writhed. He had forgotten his other weapons of hands and knees and legs and elbows. He was all tooth now.

She grabbed his wrists and bound them together. The thin cord tore his skin but there was little blood. She took her foot from his face and sprang away, dragging him upright by the cord. He followed her out of the stream at an awkward angle, head forward, trying to get his mouth nearer to her but too dumb to take the wood from between his lips. She tied his hands to the base of a tree, then wound more cord around his ankles and tied those to another, stringing him out on the ground, unable to move. There was a bullet hole in the back of his shoulder – it must have gone straight through. At least it wouldn’t linger and cause infection.

Q wrapped her belt around his head to hold the gag in place. It hadn’t been much of a struggle. Maybe a starving man made a weak zombie. Maybe Rabbit didn’t have much fight left in him. The lifelong vegan twitched, face down in the dirt. He must be the only person on the planet whose first taste of meat had been people. If he ever did get better, he’d be really bummed about it.

Q laughed, belly aching, tears streaming. Reason fled.

*

“Death by hippy,” Dave said. He winced.

“Does it hurt?” Q asked. She knelt by his head, close to Dave but far away from what Rabbit had done to him. She didn’t want to look.

"I'm tired, that's all." He’d insisted that Q drag him from the stream, even though it made him wail like a baby. A fly settled on his ear. He didn’t wave it off. Q flicked at it but it returned.

The color ebbed from Dave’s face. He looked like a crushed box. “I always wondered why you set up in the bush on your own,” Q said, for something to say. “Angela said you were trying to find something you’d lost.”

“I didn’t lose anything,” Dave said. “He left me.”

That explained a lot. Poor Dave. He was victim of the old story, too. Boy meets boy. Boy loses boy. Boy gets bit.

The fly crawled around the inside edge of Dave’s ear. It might step right into his skull. Q felt hot acid in her mouth. She waved the fly away again, but it returned.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, thinking of guns with boys’ names. She worried about that fly. Couldn’t he feel it in there? Why didn’t he swat it?

“Is it bad?” Dave said.

Q grunted. She wouldn’t check his wound to give him a report. She wouldn’t look at it ever again. “Angela’s getting some stuff to put on it,” she said.

Dave grunted. “I won’t be one.”

“No. We’ll fix you.”

“Help me.” His breath was shallow, his words slim and juicy. “It hurts.”

Q stood and took a step back. She’d have to look at that inside-out stomach if she was going to aim straight, and she had to aim straight. Two shots, one in the head and one in the spleen. She owed him that.

She caressed the gun. It was clean and cool.

Dave grunted. Then he snarled.

Q stumbled backward. She’d expected it, but not so fast. She’d wanted to spare him the change. She pulled the gun up to her shoulder and fired, aiming wrong but unable to overcome years of training. She hit him with an almost-perfect head shot, just above the right eyebrow.

Dave’s skull slammed into the dirt, and he was gone. Face slack and empty. Throat no longer flickering with air too heavy to breathe. Dave was dead.

Q snorted. The head shot finally worked! Perhaps this was Dave’s last gift, to live like a real man, and then die like a proper zombie.

The body twitched. Hands reached out for support. Zombie Dave was back. She was as quick as thought, unsheathing her bush knife and pushing it into his body, sliding it out, then pushing it in again. Accuracy was impossible, it was too messy down there. She sliced a third time and then glanced at Dave’s face. His eyes were open but no longer looking at anything Q could see.

“I got bandages, iodine and water,” Angela said, puffing. She dropped them to the ground. “How is he?”

Q took a few steps away from the body and bent double, mouth open, stomach pulsing. Nothing came. She was already empty.

Angela prodded Dave with her foot. She whimpered.

“It’s my fault,” Q said.

“You were fighting,” Angela said. “Bad things happen in a fight.”

“It was my fault before that,” Q said. “I brought Rabbit here.”

“You did.”

The older woman walked upstream to wash her hands, turning them over and over in the moving water.

Chapter Thirty-two

The pale woman beckoned.

Q lay on a sheet of ice. She was so cold she couldn’t move. The pale woman hung in the air before her, glowing in the night like a witch moon. She was in the mouth of the tunnel, calling, but Q would die before she went back to that place.

It was okay. She didn’t have to move. Something was eating her legs. She soothed herself with the rhythmic vibrations of the chewing.

Q choked on a sleep-paralyzed shriek and reached down to feel her knees. They were still there. She’d been dreaming.

She lay next to Angela under the shanty built by Dave while he’d waited for Q and Rabbit to show up and kill him. It was sturdy, made from thick bark laid over an A-frame of branches. He’d even constructed a mattress of bark and leaves. Good old Dave. Always looking after others, in spite of himself.

Angela slept like she was drugged. Q rolled out of the shelter hoping not to disturb her; she didn’t want to upset the woman any more than she had already. Angela and Rabbit might be the last two people on the planet. One of them hated her and the other wasn’t a person any more.

She shivered. At least the outbreak hadn’t happened in winter. They might all have died of something old-fashioned and pointless, like pneumonia. She stretched and listened to the coming day. The gurgling stream. Magpies calling to one another, so much sweeter than anything else with wings. The crackle of small paws in leaf mulch. There was another noise too, a humming sound that she couldn’t identify. It didn’t belong to the bush. Maybe it was Angela, snoring.

There was daylight enough for Q to see the shape of Rabbit’s body, strung out and twitching like a dozing dog. He was silent. Did ghouls sleep? Was he having zombie dreams?

The hum taunted her.

“Shit!”

Q leaped back into the shelter, careless of Angela’s sleep and the structure itself. She rummaged through the small, sad lump of their possessions and found the hotphone. It was set to vibrate and someone was calling her.

Q pressed the receive button. “Hannah?”

“You didn’t answer!” Hannah’s voice broke into a six-year-old’s sob of relief and fury.

“Hannah banana, I’m so glad you’re okay!” Q said, her smile as wide as her face. “I stuffed up, Hannah, I wish you were here—”

“Q, listen,” Hannah cut in, her voice returning to the brisk tone that could rule the world with color-coded timetables. “I have to tell you something, it’s important—”

The voice stopped.

Q shook the phone and held it to her ear.

Nothing.

“What’s important?” Q walked outside to get a better signal and paced tight circles. “What is it? Tell me!”

What if the girl was alone in the attic and, without a voice to hold onto, she’d “fall” like Mr GLEEM?

What if she’d been bitten and wanted to whisper her dying words, but Q wasn’t there to hear them?

Q dragged the phone from her ear and studied its blank face. Hannah hadn’t cut out because of the poor signal in this valley or because something had happened to her. The battery had run down. Q’s comms were as dead as Dave.

“Who are you talking to?” It was Angela, half awake and already angry.

“The phone cut out,” Q said. “I gotta find the charger. Help me.”

Angela sat up. Q could almost smell the hope on her. If Hannah was still alive after all this time, other kids might be, too.

They searched through the few things that remained of their old life. They turned out pockets and rummaged under the leaf mattress, disregarding spiders and scorpions and things that went sting in the night. There was no charger.

“Do you remember where you had it last?” Angela said. A mother of three, she was an expert at this game.

Q thought back to the night of their escape from the attic. Only a day and a half ago, it seemed like a foreign country. Rabbit and Dave had been alive. Pious Kate had been whatever she had been, before she became the creature Q understood but could not defeat. Their flight had not been the strategic retreat Q had planned. She couldn’t remember getting out of the attic at all, let alone what supplies each person took. What if someone else had the charger?

“I have to search the bodies,” Q said, her voice like glass. Angela did not offer to help.

She searched Dave first. She had left him where he died. Where she had killed him. She wanted to bury him, but she had nothing to dig with, and the ground was too hard to scrape at with torn nails and tears. They had gone back to prehistoric days, a time before there were rituals for the dead. When bodies were just meat.

His eyes were closed. Angela must have done that. There was a yellow sprig of wattle on his chest, too.

Q spat acid, then squatted down and emptied his pockets. She found useful things. String. A multitool. A survival tin that fitted in the palm of her hand. Two muesli bars and four SAS tabs. She should have done this earlier.

He didn’t have the charger.

Q walked over to the second corpse, the one that was still moving. Rabbit didn’t seem to be suffering. He was active, making small, silent movements against his ropes, jerking like a fly stuck in a web. He’d be easier to search if she ended it. Life might be easier if she ended him.

She pulled out her bush knife. He was face down, so aiming left meant true left, not her right. She wouldn’t even need to look in his eyes. It would be easy. Like carving a Sunday roast.

She tested the edge of her knife with her thumb, careful not to split the skin. Who knew what plague lingered on the blade? She wondered how many times she could kill with it before it would grow dull.

No. She wasn’t ready. Not yet.

She put the knife away and crouched down to search him the way he was, live, or undead, or whatever. She reached around, trying not to disturb him. Her fingers pressed into the pockets of his jeans, a quick teen grope. His body was cold. The fabric felt like an empty bed on a winter’s day.

Rabbit didn’t have the charger or anything else. He’d given it all to her to spare her from having to search his body after the inevitable happened.

She ran her left hand along his spine. It felt like dirt packed hard, not flesh at all. She let her fingers trace the back of his neck, then rolled them around to rest on his throat. There was no dull knock of a distant heart. She began tapping out a rhythm herself, as if calling through the walls to an unseen prison mate.

“We have to do it,” Angela said.

Q jumped up. Angela held a rifle, slack in her hands.

“He doesn’t have the charger,” Q said. She walked over to the stream to wash her hands, willing Angela to follow and move away from Rabbit.

The water was fabulous. Q realized she had been sweating. She splashed herself. It was early and the day would be bright and clear and cool, but she was sweating.

Angela squatted nearby and cupped her hands to drink. “Why’d you bring him back?”

“Kate took so long,” Q said. “I thought we had more time.”

Angela accepted this but refused absolution. “Dave took less than ten minutes. Maybe it’s changing. The virus, or whatever it is.”

Why shouldn’t it change? They had.

Q drank. The water that slipped down the back of her throat might be her only breakfast. It was odd how she woke less hungry than she used to, even though she was eating so little. Her belly had contracted. She wished her brain would, too. She didn’t need those empty places that filled up when she was quiet.

“Maybe the difference was in them, not the virus,” Q said, thinking about Pious Kate and Rabbit, together at last. Was Kate still animate? If they left Rabbit tied up here, would she track him down and try to make a better zombie of him?

“I thought you said we shouldn’t talk about it?” Angela said. “That we’re meant to concentrate on the things we control.” Angela picked up a rock and threw it at the water. She didn’t drop it or skim it. She smashed it as hard as she could. “You must have dropped the charger.”

Q remembered something Pious Kate had said when they were hiding up the tree the day before the world ended. You can’t leave me behind. I have something you want.

“I know where it is,” Q said. “Pious Kate took it so I wouldn’t abandon her.” She dandled her fingers in the cold water and watched them turn white as they lost sensation in the flow. “I have to go back.”

*

There were three muesli bars and eleven SAS tabs each, plus one extra tab. Guilt made Q give it to Angela.

That was the end of their supplies. There was nothing more after that.

Q gave hunger, real hunger, a sidelong glance. She’d been worried about being eaten. She hadn’t believed they might starve. What a stupid way to die.

No, they wouldn’t starve. She’d shoot a roo, or catch fish. There were trout in the stream; she’d seen their quick, dark movements. She’d hunt as soon as she returned.

There were two rifles with twenty rounds each, two survival kits and two multitools. Two of everything – so neat. As if it was always meant to end like this, with Q and Angela splitting up and no one else left.

Q added these things to the two piles, then regarded the box of matches and the flint. Could Angela use a flint? Even if she could, it would be easier for her to keep matches dry than for Q, who had a two-hour upstream scramble ahead. She gave Angela the matches.

“Don’t,” Angela said.

“You want the flint?” Q asked. She picked it up and offered to swap.

“Don’t go.”

“I thought you hated me,” Q said, stashing her supplies in her pockets.

“I broke your radio.”

“What?”

Angela watched the sky. She wasn’t smiling. It wasn’t a joke. Q didn’t ask why. It might have been to avoid hearing bad news about her family. It might have been something less tangible.

Q regarded the woman clinically. She searched for a trace of crazy around the eyes, but found none. Angela had lost something too valuable to bear, but she hid it well.

Q dragged Dave’s body into the bush. His body wouldn’t attract scavengers to the camp – animals knew not to eat the undead. Still, she didn’t want to leave Angela alone with it. It was the best she could do. She made a last check before abandoning him and found spare cordage wrapped through his belt loops. Raiding the body was easier second time around. Dave had gone. This was leftovers.

“There’s no one else left,” Angela said, trailing behind. She rubbed her sleeve across her face, wiping the expression off with it. Dumb accusation returned.

“There’s Rabbit,” Q said.

Angela reached for her gun without thought. Q put her hand on it.

“Wait till I get back,” she said. “He’ll do no harm.” She might have seen Angela nod, or she might just have wished it. It was the best she would get.

*

She had been walking upstream for over an hour and hadn’t yet covered a third of the distance. She had fallen twice, once badly enough to spike her system with adrenaline and leave her gasping. There was a fresh cut on her shin. The chill water tickled it.

Q ate a muesli bar, waiting for the sugar to pick her up in its warm embrace, but it didn’t work. She was beyond sugar now. God help her. Was she weary because her body was tired, or because she didn’t want to go where she had to go?

She tried false hope. Maybe she’d taken the phone charger with her but dropped it at the mouth of the tunnel. She might not have to go inside. She could retrieve it from the ground and be back with Angela by nightfall.

But Q knew she hadn’t dropped the charger. She hadn’t taken it in the first place: it had been taken from her.

The rocks were slick and tendrils of slime trailed in the current. She watched her feet until her eyes hurt, trying to find a rough surface on the protruding stones, searching for some place she would stick. Concentrating on her footing was better than contemplating the unscaleable walls of the canyon to either side, and what lay ahead.

*

Bone weary. Q always thought that was an expression for old people, but it she felt it now. Tired to the core. Nothing left.

Before the outbreak, she always had too much energy, could never sit still, couldn’t function without siphoning off all that excess through exercise. Now she had returned to nature. Not enough to eat. Not enough power to move. Every endeavor checked for energy out versus energy in and whether it was worth the effort. A permanent state of calculating caution.

Q took a break. It wasn’t as restful as she intended. When her body was still, her mind grew active. What it saw were impossibilities.

The cliff. The tunnel. Finding the phone charger. Saving Hannah. Killing Rabbit.

She stood and stamped her numb feet. The break was a bad idea, making her cold and clumsy as well as tired. She swung her arms around her body. The canyon walls loomed, stealing the sunlight.

She’d be fine. Dave and Angela got down, so that meant she could get back up. Right?

When she reached her destination, she could have cried. It was a thirty-foot inverted climb – the only place to ascend and be certain of finding Dave’s track. If she went any other way, she’d get lost in the bush.

It was definitely the right place. For a start, there were two saplings bent out of shape at the top, as if they had taken the weight of a person clambering over the edge. There were several large rocks lying in the stream, cracked and showing their clean insides as if kicked there by scrabbling feet. There were deep boot prints in the dirt at the base of the cliff.

What clinched it, of course, were the words, “This is the spot,” drawn in a large, circular hand with a piece of burnt wood and an arrow pointing upward.

Good old dead Dave. Always planning ahead.

If it were a climbing wall, Q wouldn’t hesitate. She counted five handholds and two cracks she could wedge a toe or fist into. The problem was that she had no harness. If she fell, she was on her own. If she broke a leg, she’d starve to death. Unless she had the guts to shoot herself first.

She considered her ten feet of cordage. She could try making a harness and tying herself off as she climbed so she wouldn’t fall too far, but it wouldn't reach the whole way up and she’d still have to do most of the climb unharnessed. What was the point of a little bit of safety? It only made you careless.

She’d save the cordage for the way down.

Q placed her hands on the cool, crumbling rock at the base of the cliff. Standing this close, she could see sky above but no end to the cliff face. She hadn’t felt like this since Linda died.

Harden up.

Q reached her right arm above her and found a hold. She wedged her left foot into a crack and heaved. The muscles on her arms raised their hackles. The fat had melted away during their siege, leaving a crystalline core.

She climbed as fast as she could. Reaching the top meant speed. Pausing to ponder her next move while supporting her body weight would exhaust her, and that would finish her off.

Either that – or a hasty mistake – would.

No. She’d climb fast. Better an end so quick she didn’t see it coming than the long trembling fatigue before the fall.

About halfway up, Q hit the wall.

It was a horizontal overhang that meant she couldn’t use her legs. She’d have to hang from one hand and reach out on faith with the other. She braced against the cliff, wiped sweat from her hands onto her pants one at a time, and caught her breath. Her arms had that dull ache that precedes the shakes.

Dave was dead. Rabbit might as well be. Her dad was either gone or turned, because what chance did an overweight drunk have? Hannah was a hundred miles away and had become something so disturbing, Q almost wished she hadn’t made it. The world was over. The few left were in denial, trying to postpone the apocalypse with mail-order survival kits.

Standing flush against the rock like a skink, Q had a flash of her mother’s face at the end. Dark eyes, chest caved in. Pain, so much pain, but also fear.

It hadn’t been fear of the disease or of what had happened to her body, or even fear of more pain to come. Linda accepted all of those things in the last weeks. It had been fear that it would stop.

That was death. Linda hadn’t wanted it.

Neither did Q. She reached out and found a grip with her right hand. Her feet left rock.

She clung, arms trembling, fingers burning. She had to release her left hand and hang on with only her right hand to move forward. She didn’t know what she’d find. If there was no hold, she was finished. She’d be a pile of wet stuff far below.

Q let go and reached over the edge. Her fingers found loose dirt on the upper side of the overhang. She tried to dig into it but her hand slid back. She was going to fall.

She found the edge through torn skin. It was firm. A rock, protruding like a fist. She wrapped her fingers around it, braced and muscled up.

Q lay on a ledge, her legs draped over the void, her body on solid ground. She rolled over onto her butt. She could see the top.

Easy as.

*

She stopped dead. Someone else had stopped deader.

Q was halfway between the cliff and the tunnel. Dave’s track was nothing more than a roo trail but it made the journey twice as fast and she was buoyed by her victory over the cliff.

Now that victory drained away. There was a corpse beside the trail. It wasn’t moving, which meant it didn’t get there on its own. If it had, it should be moving still. Zombies don’t die unless they are killed, and who was there left to kill a zombie?

She kept her distance, no longer trusting the dead body to be harmless. The bush was too dense to see anyone hiding in it. Boot prints and broken sticks and torn-off bits of tree indicated that others had used this path. Dave and Angela may have left the signs yesterday, but Angela had said they’d met no ghouls on their way. How did this one get here?

Was there a zombie slayer around? A crazy sole survivor who’d lived through things they shouldn’t have? Anyone alone four weeks into the outbreak had a gun and good aim. The back of her neck itched.

Q hummed a tune from a musical. It was a smart thing to do, because she couldn’t remember how the chorus went, and in any case, she hated musicals more than Pious Kate’s lectures on charitable giving. By the end, she was annoyed rather than afraid, which was a far more useful emotion.

Plus, if someone was watching her, they would know she wasn’t death warmed up, even if she looked it. Monsters don’t hum. Not in tune, anyway.

The body hadn’t moved for a full five minutes. Should she go straight past? It could be a trap. Lure in the loner, then bang! Barbecue goodness.

Q fought paranoia. If someone wanted to shoot her, they’d do it regardless of her next move. She might as well find out what happened to this corpse.

She walked to the body and crouched beside it. It sat on the ground, legs straight out in front, back stiff as if conscious of posture. It had been a zombie. Its gray belly bulged out between missing shirt buttons, exuding aniseed and rotten meat. It stank far worse than any she’d encountered, like yesterday’s roadkill on a summer day. The skin was intact but the body shrunken, as if it had rotted from the inside out. Four fingers on the right hand were missing. The wounds were old and dry and had never been infected. They must be what had turned it in the first place, but they were not the cause of this second death.

Q couldn’t see any other damage except for small puncture wounds, no doubt from stumbling through the bush into trees and rocks. There were no large cuts on the creature’s head or torso. No bullet holes. No knife gashes. She picked up a stick and pushed the block of flesh until it sagged forward. A fresh wave of stench engulfed her and she stepped back, choking for air, then checked its back and the underside of its legs.

There was nothing. The thing had just died.

Q threw away her stick. Had this lump of flesh grown as tired as she was and stopped of its own accord? Weird. What would Apocalypse Z say?

Why was she even thinking that? She’d abandoned the book when she’d decided to swap the rules for living in a zombie world with those for keeping Rabbit around as a taxidermist’s ode to her dead boyfriend. Maybe she’d chosen wrong, but she’d chosen. Now she had to think for herself.

Chapter Thirty-three

Q was back at the tunnel, wishing for another mountain to climb.

The metal grate sealed the opening like a clenched jaw. Moist sounds poured out. She tried not to think about damp feet shuffling.

It had taken all day to get here and now it was dark. She ate one of her SAS tabs and wondered what would happen if she went back to Angela without going inside. She could camp at the cliff and watch the sunrise. She could tell Angela she hadn’t found the charger. She could forget the sound of Hannah’s voice.

No. Hannah had to talk to her. Q wouldn’t let down her friend again.

She dragged open the metal grate. It growled across the rock. She didn’t feel brave, but she had to go in, because the alternative would destroy her. Maybe that’s all courage was: all other options removed; nowhere to go but forward.

Q stepped inside.

*

It was like she had never left.

The world was full of water. It made her clumsy and weighed her down. Every step displaced more and sent it sloshing against the walls. Q couldn’t tell if the sounds were hers, or if they belonged to something else. She switched on the torch she'd brought from Dave’s camp, and swore. She should have brought spare batteries as well. Its weak beam illuminated a few feet before fading, and showed nothing at all through the murky water below.

She crept along, testing each step before committing to it. She didn’t want to fall into one of those endless wells – she had no reason to pull herself out any more. No point to any of it, except Hannah. What if Hannah was dead already?

“Nicest Kate?” Q called into the darkness. “Have you got my phone charger?”

Q’s words sang back. What had she expected? A sophisticated taunt? Zombie Kate was brainless, like the rest of them. Q could at least be grateful for that. The things had conquered death and civilization, but at least they couldn’t think. People still had a chance. A tiny flame of a chance, flickering and nearly gone, but there.

She paused and waited for the water to subside, wanting the slap-slap on the concrete walls to fade so she could see with her ears as well as her eyes. She waited a full minute, counting time, but the sounds refused to die.

Were those footsteps?

She shone the beam around, but saw only slimy walls and her own cold breath in the air. Perhaps she had disturbed the water. Perhaps she was alone after all.

Q pulled out her bush knife. She wouldn’t use a gun in here. The noise would blow her eardrums and besides, if she hit Kate, she needed to be close enough to grab her. Otherwise, the ghoul might sink beneath the water, taking the charger with her.

All Q had to do was wait, look and listen.

Footsteps. No. One footstep, then a noise like a stick scraping concrete.

Step. Scrape. Step. Scrape.

She swung her torch wildly, searching for the source. Maybe it was too far from the dim light to see. The sound was up front somewhere, too slow to be an animal unless wounded, in which case it would be crying. Anything alive would be crying now.

What if zombies ate animals in here? With no people left and not enough brains to get out of the tunnel, what if they ate whatever was unfortunate enough to stumble inside? What if they’d started on that one?

Step. Scrape. Step. Scrape. What if it was some poor fluffy creature, half-eaten and trying to get away?

Q re-thought that thought. This was Australia. The koalas bit, the roos drowned dogs, the possums stole and no one had lived to tell the tale of a wombat attack. Everything had teeth, especially the poor fluffy creatures. No ghoul would be able to catch one, let alone keep one. That wasn’t an animal.

Step. Scrape.

Ahead, a dim silhouette formed, vaguely human. She bet if she saw it clearly, it would remain only vaguely human. She held still, trying not to displace water. The thing was slow but it was heading straight for her. Could it see in the dark? Was it using senses she didn’t have?

Her fingers tightened on the knife’s handle. Her muscles coiled. Now she had a focus for her fear, she found she was no longer afraid.

Step. Scrape.

The thing was about ten feet away on the right, almost springing distance. Was it Pious Kate? She held the torch steady and raised her knife.

Bony fingers grabbed her ankle from behind and pulled. She fell, screaming, knowing she was finished. Not one but two zombies, and they had her down. It didn’t matter if she got out of here. Her survival would be temporary. She was on the ground and vulnerable and one bite was all it took to kill. No exceptions. Look at Rabbit.

Q landed on her knees and hands, hard. It hurt so much she lost the air from her lungs, but she managed to kick backward and felt her boot crunch through something soft.

She hadn’t been bitten! She rolled away from the thing in the darkness, grateful that she hadn’t stabbed herself in the confusion.

Where was the torch? Where was the knife?

Q groped and splashed, abandoning all attempts at stealth in her desperation to find the tool and the weapon, expecting bony fingers to wrap around her legs and sharp teeth to find her flesh. What was she doing trapped with monsters she couldn’t see?

Her fingers brushed something that wasn’t concrete. She felt for it again, but it was gone. Had it moved?

If it moved, it wasn’t her kit, but something else. Something she didn’t want to find.

She scrabbled around, half hoping to find nothing, but her fingers lodged against a round, smooth surface. The handle of a knife. She gripped it.

No. Not her knife. Bone.

Q held the stripped leg bone of a zombie.

That scraping sound was this bone as the thing walked. She retched, revolted, but held on and yanked. A body thudded into the water.

She abandoned her search. She’d fight in the dark with feet and fists – they were all she had left. She hoped they were enough.

Q strode over to the felled ghoul and stomped. Her boot sank through flesh and ground into concrete. She stomped again and again, until the thing below her was only moving in response to her stomping, no animation left of its own. She paused, panting.

She shut her eyes to think. Water noises everywhere and the sounds were increasing. She had no light, no direction, nothing against which to orient herself, and she couldn’t tell which way she’d come in, or even where the walls were. The tunnel was a storm and she was lost in it.

She dropped to a crouch and prodded the prone form in front of her. Her fingers sank into yielding mush. She tried not to think about uncooked sausage as she moved her hands along the body. If this was the right one, if she had just killed Zombie Kate, she could grab the charger and get out of here. If she could find the way. Too many ifs. Q longed for the simplicity of a game she knew she could win if only she played long enough.

Her hands reached the ghoul’s throat. There was no snake talisman around its neck. This wasn’t Zombie Kate, unless the beast had lost what the woman treasured. It was a useless kill. She was no closer to escape.

She got to her feet. There was at least one more zombie in here. Was it crawling toward her, unheard in the watery echoes? Was it Zombie Kate or another faceless victim?

Q spun and kicked at nothing, took a step to the left, kicked again. She felt surrounded. She sensed something in front of her and punched but connected only with air, overextending her joints. She rubbed her throbbing elbow. How was she meant to fight like this? How could she even find an enemy, let alone beat one?

Apocalypse Z would not help her. It was all about survival, which meant running away. The only words of advice it gave about doing something stupid like this to help a friend were brief. Don’t, it said. Heroes never breed. Q couldn’t live like that any more. It hadn’t worked for Dave and it wouldn’t spare any of them. Rabbit was right: she might as well go out trying.

Water everywhere and nothing to see. Her camouflage pants were soaked and her fingers ached with the cold. She might freeze before she found Zombie Kate.

She thought back to the hard days of training in her childhood. Linda’s techniques had become more bizarre as the woman sickened. Maybe Linda had been trying to ignite something in Q that had died in herself. They did the usual things, push ups and pull ups and running and skipping, kicking bags and punching focus mitts. Even sparring, with Linda striking Q as hard as she could, trying to provoke rage from the ten-year-old. Despite all this, Q’s skills went downhill. She couldn’t strike back. That woman might shatter into pieces on the gym floor and who would clean it up, with her red-eyed father locked in the study?

Then Linda decided to teach her about the senseless dark.

It started two months before Linda went into care, a week before Q’s last competition fight. The woman was barely there but she wanted Q to win so badly. They had kept up their regular evening session in the garage gym, even though Linda couldn’t stand for ten minutes at a stretch, even though she smelled bad and sounded like she had forgotten how to talk. Her dad insisted Q cooperate. It didn’t matter what Q wanted or how much her guts twisted every time she thought about training. Linda was the important one.

One night, the lights went off. Q had thought it was a power failure. She lay on the cool mats, hidden and safe. Then the monster attacked.

The shape had leaped out and struck with palms and feet and claws, rearing back and scuttling away to a dark corner before Q could respond. The first time it happened, Q was scared. After that, she was angry.

Even after Q realized it was Linda, she couldn’t shake the sense of fighting monsters in the dark. It became their new routine. She dreaded it all day at school. She tried all afternoon to make excuses, to fake injuries, to make herself sick. She managed to throw up once. She still had to train, though.

It occurred to Q now, in this dark place full of real monsters, that Linda had been unable to fight things she couldn’t see. Maybe that’s why she’d wanted her daughter to learn.

Q tried to recreate the peace and terror of those night attacks. She let out her breath and allowed her shoulders and arms to relax. She felt gravel through the soles of her shoes. Her legs were strong beneath her. She inhaled and caught air in her throat so that her chest no longer rose or fell. Her body made no sound or movement except those essential for life.

Behind her was a sound not made by water.

She waited. She could almost sense the air it displaced and the diminishing distance between them. She couldn’t pick its exact location. How could she hit something if she didn’t know where it was?

There was a clang to her left. Metal on concrete. Something had stepped on her knife.

Q spun and poured her energy into a front-kick. She connected with the body and sent it flying, then dropped to a crouch. She felt around on the ground for the blade and found it with her fingertips, slicing them open. She didn’t care. She had the knife. She’d found the ghoul.

She listened for the zombie’s movements but the noises slid away, covered by the tunnel’s splashes. Q pictured the scene. The creature would try to get to its feet so it could attack. They lost everything human, but they still knew how to attack. They knew up from down. They knew that bellies were empty and needed to be filled.

She might have heard steps. She might have just imagined them. She couldn’t pinpoint direction through the echoes. Q lunged, stabbed, missed.

Where had it gone? What was it waiting for? Zombies don’t lurk – they were bags of meat.

She heard a sound to her right. For a moment, she wondered if someone was in the tunnel with her. Q could think of only one other person who was alive and in the area. “Angela?”

Had Angela followed her? Was she capable of that climb up the cliff and the uphill march, both of which pushed Q to her limits? Crazy people did astonishing things and that woman was crazy. She’d smashed Dave’s radio. What else would she do?

“I know you’re angry,” Q said. “I can help.”

There was another sound, not the snarl of a zombie, but something else. If it was Angela, why wouldn’t she talk? The sound came from Q’s left. “I understand how you feel,” Q said. “I’ve lost people too. Rabbit’s dead.”

There was a flood of sound, like an explosion under water. Q’s pulse leaped. A body slammed into her.

The force threw her back into one of those dark submerged pits she had been avoiding. She and her attacker went under.

The shock drove the air from her lungs. Her head was below the water and her attacker dragged her deeper. Bubbles escaped Q’s mouth. She thrashed like a hooked fish, trying to shake loose the arms pinning her hands to her sides. Her legs were useless, the thing holding her was too close for a kick and there was nothing firm to push against. The embrace tightened.

Q’s head bulged with pointless images, blood stretching the inside of her skull. The kelpie as a puppy so small she fit in one hand. Someone else’s blood on her knuckles after a bout. Nearly wetting herself on her first day of teaching because she didn’t know where the bathrooms were and didn’t want to ask the Blue Ogre.

Q twitched less, a battery nearly spent. Her feet flapped but her torso was still. She tasted iron and smelled lavender. Her skin was ice. She longed for an end.

She felt something pressed against her chest, warmer than the water around them, warmer than the body holding her. It was made of wood. A pendant.

This wasn’t Angela. It was Zombie Kate. Q had found her. She couldn’t remember why it was important but knew it had something to do with saving someone.

She pulled back her head and cracked the front part of her skull against the zombie’s. It was a feeble effort, her force dissipated by the water, but the constricting embrace loosened. Q wriggled until her head was above water. She drank a miracle of air and found another – she still held the knife.

Water boiled as Zombie Kate searched for what she’d lost. All Q wanted was to drag herself clear, leaving behind the nightmare of teeth and nails and cold dark places, but she couldn’t leave. She had to finish.

Treading water, Q reached down, hoping her fingers would not sink into an open mouth. Her hand brushed against hair. She twined her fingers through it and hauled.

Kate surfaced and gasped, perhaps remembering the taste of air from when she was alive. She didn’t need it now, did she? Q tipped the creature’s head back, stretching the throat like an offering, and raised her knife. No use cutting the throat. She aimed lower, deep into the woman’s torso.

She scraped bone, the hip instead of the soft flesh of spleen and guts. Q withdrew and tried again, higher. Her knife sank and she drew it up through the body. Kate sighed. Q kept her grip on the hair, holding the woman close and treading water, waiting for her to move again, to snarl, to bite, to claw but there was nothing more. Kate was dead.

Q threw the knife onto the gravel and then hauled herself out of the pit. Her left hand, still twined through Kate’s hair, was the only thing keeping the corpse afloat. She wanted to let go, let the body drift down to the dark places and never come back.

Instead, she grabbed Kate’s shoulders and heaved and grunted until they were both on firm ground. Then she searched the body, pawing at folds of sodden fabric and torn flesh until her fingers closed over the charger.

No. This wasn’t right either. Q couldn’t steal the charger and leave the body. What if Kate wasn’t dead? What if she was just knocked out? What if she came back in Q’s dreams, for the rest of her life?

This would end.

Q grabbed a limp arm and dragged the body out.

*

She grunted as she pulled the corpse onto the pile of branches. She was hot and hollow with the effort of gathering enough fuel.

She stood back, breathing hard. Would the corpse burn? Or would Zombie Kate stay whole, exhaling fumes, until the pile of fuel was spent and all that remained was its dead heart?

This was a body. It would burn. Most things did, with enough heat, Q knew. She’d been an experimental child.

She struck the flint into kindling and breathed on a spark, then stood back and smiled as dry logs devoured themselves. Q enjoyed fire.

Flames ate the things she’d stolen from the bush, leaves and seedpods and sticks and bark. She took a step back. Some fuel dissolved quietly into vapor, but some fought, igniting in shots and starts. The body lay at the center of the orange flame, a blue halo around it. Gas leaked from the skin.

The fire expanded. Q took two more steps back.

The body sizzled, its liquids pouring into the flames like the welcome barbecue at hell’s gate. Would it explode? Is that what happened when you lit a zombie? The skin was brown and wrinkled now, like poorly treated leather, and the corpse hunched over. Its head dropped between its hands, as if in prayer. Its knees pulled up beneath its body. It was shrinking, becoming more like a shaved monkey than something that was once human. Q took another step back.

Sweat poured from Q as juice poured from the corpse. Wood crackled in the flames. Blood pounded in her ears. The pressure in her head shifted as if she were diving deep under water. The greedy fire pulled the air from her lungs.

The body was almost black now with most of its flesh gone. It looked mummified. Slivers of ash floated up, lighter than air. Q watched them dip and fade. Kate was changing states, transforming from a solid to a gas in the least time possible, as if she couldn’t wait.

The fire threatened to swallow itself and leave Q in the dark. She picked up the sticks she hadn’t used and threw them in, not caring about her singed eyebrows and scorched skin. She wanted the flames to last. When she ran out of wood, she threw in handfuls of dried leaves from the ground and when she ran out of those, she tore soft green leaves from the trees and hurled them at the flames.

Despite the cauldron heat, the green leaves wouldn’t burn. Currents of air picked them up and took them away. They drifted and danced on the heat, immune to it. All fuel was not the same. That fire wanted only the dead.

Q thought about what Sheath had said, weeks ago. That there was no such thing as zombies, that this outbreak was like mad cow disease, a karmic virus people caught from their diet of tortured meat.

She thought about the swollen spleen Angela had removed, engorged as if overloaded or infected.

She thought about Mrs GLEEM, who’d been bitten but got better. A Seventh Day Adventist. They didn’t eat meat, did they?

Near-vegan Kate and all-vegan Rabbit had taken weeks to turn into zombies. Rabbit fought so long for a cure, but gave up when Kate turned and took away his hope. Carnivore Dave and Charmaine, the girl in Hannah’s class, were gone in minutes. Tinkabella and the Scarlet Terror took hours. Princess Starla took a day. It wasn’t about body weight or absorption. Dave was heaviest of them all and he had gone quickest. It didn’t matter where you were infected, because those bitten on the foot or finger went as fast as those bitten in belly or throat.

She thought about the undead corpse she found on the way back to the tunnel. It wasn’t injured, it had just stopped. Rotted away as if it had never been anything more than a carcass in the dust.

She thought about Zombie Dave and his double death. She’d killed him with a head shot, but he’d come back for seconds. And Princess Starla died twice too, once from wounds, but the second time from a spleen shot.

What kind of zombie died twice?

Q smelled burnt hair. She was surprised Kate’s corpse had any left to give and felt a moment of irritation. That woman was distracting her even now, when she was on the verge of working it out.

That was it. Pious Kate was the key. Almost vegan, she took a long time to turn, but she ate beef jerky when no one watched. It meant she would not recover.

This was an outbreak of mad cow zombie flu. It infected everyone bitten, but was worse for the meat-eaters, and it worked in stages. Its victims became living zombies, sick people who could be killed. When they died, they came back as the undead, and only a spleen shot would do, until decay took them. Even the undead were not eternal.

That meant some zombies weren’t dead yet. They were just very, very sick, like Rabbit. And some of them might get better.

Q shrieked. She’d set herself on fire! She slapped at the flames in her hair and leaped back from the scorching heat, then curled up in laughter.

Rabbit would be okay. All he needed was time.

She settled into the dirt at a safe distance to watch the fire lose its light and learned something else. Zombies don’t explode. They melt away like stale grief.

Chapter Thirty-four

Q woke cold and full of joy.

Her back hurt from the damp ground she’d slept on. She stretched and wriggled, then crawled out of the bark shanty she’d built to honor Dave. She did star jumps and push-ups to force blood into her limbs and found she had pre-Z energy. It pulsed through her. She ran.

Running downhill was stupid and pointless – she might sprain an ankle or tread on a brown snake. But the sun rose each day and that was pointless, too. She ran.

Yesterday, trees snatched at her with bone-colored limbs. Today they were the guardians of her route, welcoming her, granting safe passage. The sun warmed dark places. She ran.

Q reached the cliff, glowing and breathless. She unslung her cordage. No fumbling, fear-soaked climb for her. This time she’d fly.

She whooped down the length of her rope and dropped the last few feet, landing like a cat, foot sure and smug. Angela needed to know what Q had found out, because Angela’s kids were vegan from birth. If they were bitten, they might get better. Q couldn’t wait to tell her and to charge up the phone she’d left at camp to tell Hannah. The world wasn’t over. The pandemic would end naturally, like all pandemics. It would burn itself out, leaving rotten corpses by the track and survivors everywhere else.

Moving in the same direction as the water was so much easier than walking against it had been yesterday. She went too fast to get cold, letting her momentum carry her even as her footing slid beneath her. She wasn’t worried about preserving herself. If anything happened, she’d heal. That’s what people did.

Q was back at camp a few hours after sunrise. She cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed. There was no reply.

She leaped out of the water. She could see the bark shanty and the unlit campfire, but no Angela. Clouds smothered the sky.

Where had Angela gone? Why didn’t she answer?

Q’s swollen heart shriveled. Had Angela been attacked? Or had she left without knowing it wasn’t the end of the world after all? She checked the clearing, searching for a note or a sign of what happened. She yelled again, making herself louder than the stream and the swell of wind in the trees, louder than the white noise of living things. She must be too far away, or dead. Otherwise she’d respond.

Q walked toward the spot where she had left Rabbit. She wasn’t sure what she’d find but her stomach twisted at the options. Her feet dragged. Angela didn’t know that Rabbit was human and would get better. Perhaps, deciding Q would never return, she’d taken out her rage and cut him to pieces. Or, thinking of her children and the hopelessness of her situation, the slightly crazy woman had dropped the qualifier and flipped completely, letting Rabbit bite her. She could be grunting sweet nothings in his ear. Maybe she’d gone old school and shot him, then shot herself.

How many bodies would Q find? She should never have left Angela alone.

When Q reached the site, it was less horrific than she’d feared, but more sinister. There were no bite-sized Rabbit slices, no bloodless Rabbit full of holes. There was no Rabbit.

Q called again, yelling for them both. Her words crept away through the undergrowth.

She scanned the dirt for signs. The best scenario was that Rabbit broke free but did no harm, and Angela was searching for him. Would Q be able to track them down before they damaged themselves or one other? If Angela were bitten, would she get better? Was she vegan enough?

Q’s heart fell. There had been no escape. Shreds of cordage lay in the scuffed earth. Their ends were eventhey had been cut.

Angela set Rabbit free. Why would she do that?

So that she could hunt him down. Rabbit was a zombie now and they had killed her babies. It was no relief to know that her babies were zombies too; it made it worse.

Alone and devastated, Angela must have turned to blood sports for solace. Q would have empathized but for her choice of target.

“Damn hippies,” she said. “No natural outlet for aggression and what happens? They crack in the first month of a perfectly straightforward zombie apocalypse.”

There was a gunshot. Q ran toward it.

*

She found Rabbit first and could have kissed him, but didn’t, because she didn’t want her face eaten off. She hid behind a rough-barked tree instead.

He moved in that jointless shuffle that made Q think of arthritis and too much beer. His skin was gray and lifeless. It had been for weeks. How could she have been so mistaken? Everyone looks like death warmed up when they have the flu and this was very bad flu. How many people across the country had failed to find a pulse in their loved ones and killed them, not realizing that a heart can whisper as well as beat? Even experts get it wrong.

The virus slowed down the system and the spleen worked overtime to filter out the foreign stuff. Those exposed to toxic meat sickened fastest and died, their spleen overloaded, but those who had never been in contact got better. In the meantime, the metabolism dropped, the skin went cold, the movements slowed, and everybody tried to kill the patient.

Angela could probably explain it all in medical terms, if Q could only find her. Where was she?

The cannibal cravings were strange. Maybe Rabbit got that one right. You are what you eat, and the sick just wanted to feel human again. The ultimate comfort food.

Another shot fired from the northwest. Q pulled her eyes off Rabbit and scanned the dappled bush. There were too many dim shapes to find one that stood out, and Angela was probably lying down, motionless, like Q had shown her. Deadly and impossible to spot.

Angela was about to kill Q’s boyfriend. She’d shoot him with a song in her heart, not even realizing he could be killed, thinking that he was already dead.

Q stepped into the open. “Angela!” she said. “I’ve worked it out. Sheath was right. It's Mad Cow Zombie Flu. Rabbit’s alive, he’s just sick. Infected.”

There was another shot. Q flinched away from splintered wood. A hole appeared in a trunk a few feet away. Who was Angela shooting at?

“Stop!” Q said to the hostile bush. “You can’t shoot him! It’d be murder! It’d be wrong.”

“Like killing and eating people is wrong?”

Q twisted. The voice had come from her left but she couldn’t pinpoint it. Angela couldn’t be far, she was a terrible shot at long range. But how could Q fight her? Angela had a gun. Q had none. She’d left it at camp. Idiot! She had a knife, but the other woman was too far away to strike and knew enough to keep her distance. Q was helpless. The only thing she could do was talk.

She’d have to explain the situation so clearly that even Angela, enraged and desperate, accepted it. And Q couldn’t rely on the old classroom fallbacks of logic, clarity and the announcement that she knew all three pressure points responsible for bowel control – Angela was too far away for that to work. She was beyond bowel control.

Q had nothing in her favor but the truth. She’d have to call on all her powers of assistant teaching to save Rabbit. God help them both.

How would Hannah explain it to the Kindy Koalas?

“It was sick people doing awful things,” Q said. “I looked awful last time I had gastro and I did things I’d rather no one knew about. That’s all it is. Some die and become real zombies. Some get better. Rabbit’s recovering.”

If the older woman moved, she’d spot her. Q didn’t know if she could reach her fast enough but she could try, so she searched as she talked. “Sheath was right,” Q said. “It’s a virus. We don’t have to kill any more.”

The thud of a bullet in wood, ripping through a tree behind Rabbit. Angela had fired three shots, maybe more. The .22 had five. There was a chance Q could get to her while Angela reloaded, but only if she knew where the woman was.

“I found a dead one in the bush,” Q said. “It rotted away. Don’t you see? That’s why we haven’t seen any zombies down here. They’ve all died already, or recovered. There are no more to hunt us. Your kids might be better too. Don’t you want to see your kids?”

Angela stepped out into the open and, like Q’s favorite therapy inkblot, morphed from a tree into a nutjob holding a gun. Q smiled at her to show that all would be forgotten and they could be friends.

The other woman did not smile back. “I lost everyone,” Angela said. “Why shouldn’t you?” She took aim at Rabbit.

Finally, the man did something helpful. It wasn’t dignified, but it was human.

“Angela, stop! Use your eyes!” Q said.

Angela paused, finger on the trigger.

Q pointed. “Have you ever seen an evil undead corpse scratching its butt?”

Angela lowered the gun. Then she laughed so hard, she completely forgot to kill Q’s boyfriend.

Q walked across and took the weapon from her hands, then put a reassuring hand on Angela’s shoulder. “Now stop being a crazy person and come help me tie up my boyfriend before he eats someone else.”

*

Beepbeepbeep.

“Hannah! I’m sorry I took so long, I had to climb a mountain and go through a tunnel and fight a zombie and stop a rampaging mother—”

“Quiet!” Hannah’s voice was cold. “You lied to me, Q,” the girl said.

What had happened? Was Hannah the last one left? If so, what had she done to the others and was she too far gone to save? “I tried, I did what I could,” Q said.

“Hippies aren’t evil,” Hannah said in a small voice. “They’re the only ones getting better.”

Q put her hand across the mouthpiece so Hannah would not hear her nervous giggle. The girl was deadly serious, as well as plain deadly. “You’re right,” she said to her friend. “I’ll never lie to you again.”

“Liar. See you soon.”

Epilogue

Q drank in the familiar classroom aroma. Chalk dust. Last week’s forgotten apple, gone to slush in a schoolbag (that was Sandy). The tinge of almost-but-not-quite-made-it urine (Sandy again). It was a different classroom from the one Q had trained in but it beat eucalyptus and fear.

The chairs and desks were gone, smashed up and used for weapons or barricades. Many of the windows were boarded up. The carpet had a Rorschach design that scrubbing would never remove. On her good days, Q pretended the stains were spilled coffee.

Crayon pictures covered the walls. Most featured headless monsters or Mommy dearest, arms outstretched and teeth bared. In the old days, pictures like these would have been bundled into the school counselor’s pigeonhole with urgent Post-it notes affixed, but now they were proudly posted by the blackboard.

There wouldn’t be much point putting these in Natolia’s pigeonhole. Natolia had had both degrees removed. With an axe.

It was a different class, too. There were fifteen children instead of thirty. Mrs Mason would have been thrilled that she finally had a manageable class size, but for the method used. Besides, Mrs Mason could no longer thrill. The Blue Ogre was no more.

The class was broader than in pre-Z days. Q taught ages four to ten, and the group drew from more suburbs than it once had. There weren’t that many children left. They couldn’t come from too far away, though; the new students had to get to class by foot or by bike. It was surprising how far a five-year-old could walk these days without complaining.

Kids didn’t complain much any more. They were a different species from the one Q remembered. Perhaps it was all the beans.

The change in classroom snack was also stark. No more cartoon-themed chip packets, no more food coloring, no more foil wrappers. Nothing chicken-flavored or beef-style. People ate apples and oranges and home-baked bread.

Gone, too, were the fat kids. Z had cured the obesity epidemic in a few short days. Any child who couldn’t run fast had lost twenty pounds instantly, usually in the form of a leg. It was a nutritionist’s dream, if that nutritionist were a psychopath willing to sacrifice two-thirds of the population to improve the average body mass index.

Q shared her observations with Hannah during recess.

“Steve says it’s like what happened after the blockade in Cuba, when America cut trade relations,” Hannah said. Steve was Hannah’s new dad. Hannah liked him a lot. He told her interesting things and had a great armory.

“I wish I’d studied history,” Q said.

Hannah prompted her with an encouraging smile.

“Commie zombies under siege,” Q said. “That must have been cool.”

“That’s not what the Cuban blockade was,” Hannah said.

“I’m kidding!” Q said. Hannah smiled, pleased to have made her point. Q continued. “I doubt they were still commies after they turned.”

Hannah tried another tack. “Steve says the zombies brought a class revolution,” she said. “The countries and people that ate industrial meat were the rich ones. The poor ate beans and rice and got better.”

Q sighed. “The damn hippies inherited the earth. Who would have thought it?” She checked the wind-up clock in the classroom and called the kids back inside for their next lesson. They entered in orderly fashion and settled on the floor without prompting. The outbreak had fixed all former discipline problems. Q only had to begin counting and everyone fell silent. She never said what would happen if she reached “three.” She didn’t have to. Their imaginations had flesh.

They sat in family groups, although the families themselves had changed. Some bright spark had decided to billet orphans with bereaved parents, creating new sets of siblings overnight. The system had its problems. There was rejection, but only ever from the parents. Angela had marched her two weeping billets back one morning, claiming she didn’t have time to look after them and her work was more important. She had signed up to the virology team shortly after they got back to Sydney, but Q didn’t think work was the problem.

It didn’t matter. There were enough parents to go around.

The kids were more resilient than the adults. Even the orphans did okay after their first couple of months. Children were used to living in a world split between fantasy and nightmare and it was easier for them to accept the monsters and move on. Especially once they were taught how to make an accurate spleen shot.

Q and Rabbit and Angela finally made it back to Sydney after three weeks trekking through the bush and a day of hitchhiking. Q had never been so pleased to see a ute full of dirt-stained travelers as she was when they heard the first engine.  But she’d soon found she was an orphan, too. She’d expected it. She never discovered what happened to her father, but she hoped it was quick. She put out a hand to pat the kelpie and was rewarded with furious tail thumps. The dog’s life had improved immeasurably. Pets were welcome in the classroom now, and after only a few months, Q’s kelpie was already reading at a border collie level.

Q had tried to register herself as an orphan but was put in the “foster parent” column by mistake. She narrowly avoided the allocation of three toxic boys before removing herself. Maybe it hadn’t been a mistake. Maybe the world was telling her it was time to grow up.

She shook herself. Speaking of growing up, she was meant to be in charge here. She glanced to her left.

Rabbit in ripped jeans. Lean and lanky, he had regained his olive glow. The old bullet wound in his left shoulder hurt when it rained and his face was scarred, but his smile was as it had always been. The road back had been hardest on him and he had not complained. Half starved, drained from near-fatal flu, he had crossed rivers and climbed mountains.

He turned toward her and mouthed words she didn’t catch. That was fine. She’d make him repeat them that night. Being adult had compensations.

“All right, you lot,” Q said. She glanced at her lesson plan. “We’re doing music for the next hour. Pay attention or you’ll be on blanks at the firing range this afternoon.”

She handed over to Rabbit and returned to her thoughts. Hannah had told her the outbreak was the biggest global population drop since the Spanish Flu, but with way more deaths from head shots. Q’s mountaintop theory had been largely correct. Once infected, the virus lodged in the spleen and took control of the nervous system to cause zombie-like symptoms in the living. If a patient died, they became the walking dead. Viral control of the nervous system continued post-mortem until the body rotted away.

But the epidemic wasn't as devastating as the conditions that went with it. More people died from gunshots and exposure and starvation than from infection. Apparently, this was normal. In war, the enemy was rarely the biggest killer. There had also been murders, looting and abuse of all kinds. Prosecutions were considered, but what was the point? They couldn’t spare the people.

Q considered her next few days of teaching. It was easier now she had a full lesson plan for the term. She’d been asked to turn in this incriminating document and had done so with misgivings. Pre-Z, such requests always lead to quiet, serious discussions in Mr Macklin’s office with a witness present, but this time, her plan had been studied and then copied for general distribution.

She thought about that first meeting with Ms Scorbet. The new principal had suggested that live ammunition should wait until the kids were seven. Q had argued that she didn’t want to leave the little ones helpless. Ms Scorbet had told Q they had all the help they could handle, and then said something that filled Q with pride.

The survival rate for the Kindy Koalas and Lethal Littlies was eight times higher than that of the general population.

Q returned to the present, because the present was a gift.

Ooh. That was good. She should write that down.

She borrowed a piece of paper and a pencil from Hannah and wandered to the back of the classroom. She leaned against a wall, ready to enjoy one of her favorite activities. Rabbit watching.

Q had always loved nature.

“Okay, kids,” Rabbit said, strumming. “It’s a dangerous world out there, so listen up.”

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my partner Rob, for his support and understanding. Thanks also to Inga Simpson and Nike Bourke (Sulway) of Olvar Wood, who picked the early manuscript for a Fellowship Award and then helped make a proper book out of it. I'm grateful to my agent, Alex Adsett, for her endless enthusiasm, and my editor, Kylie Mason, for her keen sense of pop culture, continuity and zombie logistics. And to my early readers who were so positive, particularly Seema, Imogen, Nik, Ian and Andrew.

About JT Clay

JT Clay worked in counter-terrorism and law before switching to waste management, which generated much more dinner party debate. People care about rubbish. She now works as a technical writer and looks after her mixed-species family. A Single Girl's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse won a 2010 Olvar Wood Fellowship Award and is her first published novel. She lives in Canberra, which she claims is not as dull as people say, but she is notorious for making things up.

First published by Momentum in 2013

This edition published in 2013 by Momentum

Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

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Copyright © JT Clay 2013

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A Single Girl's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

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Cover design by XOU Creative

Edited by Kylie Mason

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