The End: Surviving the Apocalypse by Palmer Richard

Author:Palmer, Richard [Palmer, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2014-04-25T07:00:00+00:00

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.

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