Lockdown Read online

  ‘Ouch,’ Nkata said.

  Stephanie stifled a giggle behind her hand. I looked back at her.

  ‘What?’ She said. ‘That was sort of funny.’

  I looked past her and saw the crumpled zombie still twitching on the ground after losing the challenge with a German SUV. We were a few metres from the jungle gym where the man was still sitting – the car had become encircled by zombies, thumping against the bodywork and slapping their bloodied hands against the window.

  Nkata gently pulled up next to the jungle gym, getting close so that no zombies could get between us and the metal bars. As he eased closer, we heard a clunk, and the driver’s side mirror crumpled against the side of the car.

  ‘Oops,’ Nkata said. ‘My dad is not going to be happy.’

  The windows darkened as the zombies crowded around the car, pushing, banging and clawing at the windows. Stephanie shifted to the middle of the back seat and sat silently watching them. I breathed deeply, pushed a button above me and the tinted glass window on the roof began sliding back. I got my face up to the gap without sticking my head out the sunroof. I could hear a chorus of groaning and moaning from outside.

  ‘Hey!’ I called. ‘Hey guy! Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes!’ I heard in return.

  ‘Get in! Jump onto the car and climb through the sunroof!’

  There was a tinny, hollow thump shortly followed by two bare legs sliding through the sunroof, scrambling for secure footing. The man groaned, and he wriggled through the slender space, stepping on the hand brake, then falling backwards, landing on the back seat next to Stephanie.

  ‘Ooof,’ he exhaled, as he landed on the leather seat.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked from between the seats.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he replied. ‘But you got to hand it to those guys, they are good! I’ve seen some good cosplay, but that makeup is superb. And they didn’t break character... not even once!’

  ‘That isn’t makeup, brah,’ Nkata said, looking in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘No, of course it is. It has to be a GEOIT-20 campaign. I’m in advertising, and this is really good. Really edgy – a real clutter breaker.’ The man’s expression was one of uncertainty like he was waiting for the punch line of a joke. He jumped suddenly, startled by a loud thump against the window next to him.

  ‘It’s not a joke, prank or any kind of campaign,’ Stephanie said to him with a serious face. ‘Those are zombies. They are dead. And they want you dead too.’

  The colour drained from the man’s face.

  ‘Did they bite you?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh my god...’ his voice was suddenly panicked and he furiously checked his arms and legs. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’m getting us out of here,’ said Nkata.

  The car revved and he accelerated forward, obviously wanting to get out in a hurry. Zombies slid from the windows and there was another crunch under the wheels as daylight flooded into the windows again. The car bounced violently over the grass, and Nkata headed for the road, landing on the tarmac with a sharp bump which made us all bounce in our seats.

  ‘Where do you live?’ Nkata asked the man.

  ‘That house,’ he pointed. ‘Number 42.’

  ‘Get inside and lock your doors,’ I said to him as we pulled into the driveway of the cream double-story house. He didn’t say anything and jumped from the car and ran to the front door.

  ‘Another grateful customer,’ Stephanie joked.

  We backed out of the driveway and stopped in the road, looking at the park. The zombies were still locked on us, walking, limping and shuffling in our direction.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Stephanie.

  ‘We knocked down two and must have broken some bones, so they are out of action,’ I said, pointing to the first zombie we rode over and the other one near the jungle gym.

  ‘That leaves ten, right?’

  Stephanie nodded in agreement, watching them get closer.

  ‘We have to lead them away,’ I insisted. ‘Think we can get them to follow us to the tennis courts?’

  Stephanie could again see what I was thinking.

  ‘You want to try and trap them in the court like the other two.’

  ‘It worked before,’ I replied. ‘And the longer we leave them out in the open, the more at-risk people are going to be.’

  ‘But there are much more of them, how are you going to be sure they’ll follow?’

  ‘We’ll give them what they want,’ I started. ‘I’m going to be the bait.’

  ENTRY 15

  ‘Turn us around,’ I said to Nkata and climbed over into the back seat.

  ‘What are you doing, brah?’ He asked, doing a U-turn in the road and mounting the pavement, squashing a bed of flowers in someone’s garden.

  ‘When I get into the boot, open it.’

  ‘What?!’ he yelled, confused.

  ‘Lucas, don’t be crazy,’ Stephanie said, grabbing my wrist.

  I pulled my phone out of pocket and handed it to her. ‘Send a message to Freddy. Tell him we’re getting all the zombies to the tennis courts at the clubhouse and he must send the security there to isolate the area. Then send my dad the same message.’

  She gripped my wrist tighter like she didn’t want to let go. I smiled and stroked her cheek with my other hand.

  ‘I’ll be fine, promise’ She let go and I crawled over into the boot on top of the bicycle.

  ‘Open it!’ I shouted and heard the boot pop.

  I pushed it and the door swung upwards. The zombies were about 20 metres away and seeing me in the boot immediately got their attention.

  ‘Sorry about your bike,’ I said, kicking it out.

  ‘Ah man,’ I heard Nkata complain as it clattered onto the tar.

  ‘Start driving slowly.’ I said and heard Stephanie repeat my instruction to Nkata.

  The car edged forward slowly, the zombies in pursuit, but we were moving too slowly. The zombies closed the gap quickly and I was suddenly an arm’s length away from an unshaven man in a bathrobe and nothing else underneath.

  ‘Faster!’ I cried and kicked at his reaching hand, knocking it away with my foot.

  ‘Huh?’ Nkata responded, to which Stephanie and I screamed together ‘FASTER!’

  The car accelerated with a jerk and I rolled backwards. The gap opened again. There was a constant back and forth of ‘faster’ then ‘slower’ until Nkata found the right speed to keep the walking zombie hoard three or four metres behind the car.

  It was just fast enough that they couldn’t reach me, but slow enough to keep them interested in the meal in the boot, like a gory carrot on a stick.

  ***

  The plan was working. We were some sort of modern pied piper, but instead of rats we were leading zombies.

  I sat watching them intently, wondering what tragic meeting with the undead turned each of these poor people into a zombie. Looking at them, there was the nude guy in the bathrobe (I didn’t want to know), a woman in paint flecked jeans (maybe an artist?), a young guy with mangled headphones hanging from his neck (a fellow gamer?) and a young woman in exercise gear with blonde hair that reminded me of Stephanie.

  They all had normal lives and stories to tell before this morning. And in the middle of it all – literally - was Walter. Walking with an uneven shuffle, in his stained pyjamas – his face was hardly recognisable anymore: dried up and covered in blood and that yellow gunk. As I looked at him I felt a gnawing in my gut.

  I glanced back at Nkata, focusing on the speedometer and the road ahead of him. Did he still believe we could save his brother? Or was he just in denial and when all of this is over, he will have to come to terms with the fact that Walter was really gone, and that he inadvertently started a mini-zombie apocalypse. His life will never be the same... and all I can do is be there for him. He may not know it now, but to me he’ll always be like my brother, even if he loses his.

  ‘Everything fine?’ Stephanie asked, resting her e
lbows on the backrest.

  ‘Being zombie bait isn’t so bad,’ I joked, momentarily taking my eyes off the zombies to look at her face. I stared into her eyes and it made my heart skip a beat. Corny, I know.

  ‘What?’ she asked, giving me a smirk.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied, ‘Just looking.’

  ‘Uh, guys!’ Nkata called from the front. ‘We’ve got a problem.’

  Stephanie and I turned and looked out the front windshield. Standing ahead in the road was a man with his hand out like a traffic officer commanding us to stop. He was wearing jeans that were pulled up too high and a tan t-shirt with a deer on the front that was tucked in way too snuggly.

  ‘If we stop, the zombies will catch up with us,’ Stephanie said, the look from moments ago replaced with panic.

  ‘I can go around him,’ said Nkata, shifting the car to the left. The man who was still a good few metres ahead also took a step to the left.

  ‘Even if we do go around him, these zombies will tear him to pieces,’ I said. There was only one solution – I reached and grabbed the handle on the inside of the boot and pulled it closed.

  ‘What are you doing, Lucas?’ Stephanie asked as I climbed back over the seats.

  ‘I’m not sure yet. Keep going,’ I instructed Nkata.

  I opened the door and jumped out. I heard Stephanie screaming my name. We had been going slowly, but the muscles in my legs screamed as I landed, wobbling as I tried to get my balance. I fell forward using my hands to keep moving, pushing myself up and breaking into a sprint. I passed the car at speed - the man must have been thirty metres ahead. I ran, waving my hands and shouting at him to get into his house. He stood in place, watching me approach. As I got closer, I could hear him speaking.

  ‘... is absurd. Have you no respect for the laws of this country...’

  ‘You’ve got to RUN!’ I shouted, feeling my lungs burn. I struggled to stop, my sneakers skidding on the road, and the man catching me with both hands around the shoulders. ‘Alright, stop right there, young man...’ he started in a tone that reminded me of my father when I was in trouble.

  ‘Sir, this is not a joke or a stunt. Those are sick people infected with a virus. They will attack you and infect you.’ I tried to move him sideways, but he was a big man, over a head taller than me.

  He gripped me tightly with his big hands and kept me in place.

  ‘I’m calling the police,’ he said and started moving me towards his house.

  ‘No, listen to me,’ I struggled and dug my feet in trying to stop. The man stopped and sighed, then let me go. I fell backwards onto the road and looked up at him.

  ‘Sir, I am telling the truth.’

  He shook his head in agitation and looked up at the approaching car with ten zombies in pursuit. Then he stepped over me and walked towards the car. I called after him, hearing Nkata hoot the horn. The man simply shook his head again and walked past the car, raising his arms like he was breaking up a party.

  ‘You all need to go home!’ he called out in a loud, booming voice. ‘Enough is enough!’

  The zombies were obviously not listening, but were instead attracted by his voice. They moved towards him, but he stood his ground like he was proving a point. I didn’t know at what point he must have realised his mistake, but it happened so fast. They grabbed at him and it was almost like they... absorbed him.

  I could hear him scream and saw his arms swing furiously - at one stage, the zombie in running gear was thrown back, but the frenzy was horrific. The sounds of flesh tearing. Nkata stopped the car next to me – I got up and opened the door, not wanting to look anymore.

  Stephanie sat with her face in her hands. Nkata was silent. For the first time I think we all realised how truly dangerous these zombies were if they worked in a horde. This was only ten, imagine if there were twenty? Fifty? A hundred... We had to stop this and quickly.

  I looked around and saw a few people looking out their windows – I silently wished for them to stay inside... because if anyone else came outside they would suffer the same fate and there would be nothing we could do to save them.

  ‘Open the boot,’ I said to Nkata and started crawling through the car again. ‘When they are done, we carry on.’

  I pushed open the boot and watched the zombies continue to feast. I didn’t want to, but I had to – once they were done I was going to have to be dessert. What they left behind didn’t look like a man – a bloody heap of flesh and jeans. I swallowed hard and took deep breaths to fight the urge to vomit.

  ‘You want some more!’ I called, my voice shaking.

  Their freshly bloodied faces looked up at me one by one, and some bared their teeth. I slapped my arms and legs, inviting them over to have a bite. They moved forward together and we started our journey again as if nothing had happened.

  ***

  As we got nearer to the club house, we ran through the plan. Nkata was going to drive into the parking area, past the front entrance. I would jump out and hide in the bushes at the front as they went past. Then I would run around the clubhouse and open the gate to one of the other tennis courts and once again, using myself as bait, lure them in. Once inside, Nkata would close the gate and I’d climb over just like before – easy.

  ‘Ready to be the bait for a while?’ I said to Stephanie.

  She nodded, and we switched places, her sliding over into the boot while I climbed onto the back seat.

  ‘Speed up a bit,’ I said to Nkata, tapping him on the shoulder.

  The car accelerated into the parking lot. As we neared the entrance, I opened the door and leapt out, my feet hitting the tar and doing a two-step bound before diving for the grass and rolling behind the bushes. It wasn’t elegant but effective. Despite the danger of the situation, I couldn’t help but think of The Mothership complaining about the grass stains on the knees of my jeans.

  I lay behind the bushes, hoping we had temporarily put enough distance between the zombies and us so that none of them saw me dive - otherwise, I’d be a sitting duck. Looking through the underside of the bushes, I heard the shuffling of undead feet and moans getting closer. I held my breath watching their pale, ashy ankles go by, willing them to all continue.

  They all went past as planned and I quietly exhaled, feeling the cold sweat on my brow. I slowly rose and watched them follow the car, with Stephanie in the boot, looking less than comfortable at being the focus of their attention. Once I was sure that none of them could hear me, I ran around the clubhouse, following the same route as when we were here in the morning.

  I had three or four minutes max before they would reach the tennis courts, so I had to move fast for the plan to work. I rounded the corner and my sneakers gripped the tiles on the patio as I sprinted down towards the bar where we left Siya’s friend tied up. I leapt back onto the grass and as I was about to round the corner towards the tennis courts when I ran straight into something. I felt the air being knocked out of my lungs by the unexpected impact and I fell backward like a tree that had just been cut.

  I lay on my back, momentarily seeing stars and trying to catch my breath when I heard a familiar sound. Looking up, I saw a face I recognised leaning over me – Siya! What was she doing here? Her mouth was wide open making a low throaty, growling sound, and she had that yellowy putrid stuff caked around her face, like it had all been vomited up. She was a zombie now, still in the same dress. I immediately saw the bite marks all over her forearms. Did she come back to try help her friend? Was it the guilt of being the only one to survive the attack last night? She reached down towards me and I rolled sideways, trying to get a footing to stand up.

  I’d left my axe in the car and cursed myself for not bringing it.

  ‘It was supposed to be easy,’ I said to myself. ‘Just run around the club house. Why bring the axe?’

  The zombie Siya moved quicker than I expected and by the time I had managed to get to my feet it was nearly on top of me, grabbing at my chest. Using my momentum, I pushed off the g
round with both legs and launched myself into a sort of backwards dive towards the patio. I could feel the zombie's hands graze against my shirt.

  I landed on my back, feeling the air forced out of my lungs a second time by the hard tiles. The zombie Siya was still advancing... I had to move! Fighting the pain in my lungs, I scooted along the tiles on my back towards the club house sliding door, finally getting to my feet. I stood with my hands on my knees; gasping and watching it get closer. I waited until it was almost at arm’s length, and as the zombie reached for me I ducked under its outstretched arms and popped up behind it.

  Using all my strength, I pushed it from the back, sending the zombie Siya into the glass sliding door with a loud clatter. The whole door vibrated and the zombie bounced off, landing in a heap. It snarled and thrashed on the ground, slowly getting up. Was this my chance to run? But leaving this zombie here could put someone else in danger. I frantically looked around for something to protect myself. The patio was empty, not even any chairs stacked up to use. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see zombie Siya getting awkwardly to her feet.

  I took a step back, still scanning the patio and the immediate area on the grass. I spotted a tap near the far flowerbeds that was used for watering the lawn and flowers. Supporting the tap was an iron stake, cable-tied to the pipe. I dashed in its direction, grabbing at the stake that was hammered into the ground. The stake was ridged and I could feel the edges dig into the skin of my palms.

  I pulled, but the stake was lodged deep in the ground, forcing me to desperately yank back and forth, trying to loosen it. The iron ridges were tearing into my hand, but I ignored the pain pushing and pulling, my shoulder muscles starting to burn. The zombie Siya was now on the grass and only a few metres from me. I felt the stake loosen slightly and with a final pull, it came loose, slipping from the cable ties. I staggered back as it gave way, my lungs on fire. I held the metre long stake up towards her with two hands like I was about to enter a swordfight. Keeping some distance between us I circled back towards the patio, leading the zombie.