(no subject)
LAN OF THE DEAD
Day 1
David sat on the balcony of the fort drinking coke. The lopsided leather couch had powder-coated him in chipboard, and he flicked at it between sips. It was summer, just after Christmas, and thus was a stinking hot day.
He ran an inventory of where everyone was; - Shannon had gone out to do something or other with Eleanor, who had migraines at the moment, so he wouldn’t be back for a bit. Rob was on his pc just inside the door, but would probably be outside for some more cancer in the near future. Matt had gone to the shop to buy some juice, cranberry and something-or-other, to make up his dietary intake of whatever. Mick was in the kitchen doing something and Christian had only just woken up. He too was behind his keyboard, doing whatever it is that Christians do. Chi’s ute was still outside but he had disappeared an hour or so ago.
Plodding footsteps coming up the stairs announced Matt’s arrival back at the fort.
“Hey.” He said.
“Hey, man,” replied David.
He looked at matt, taking in the bottles of juice and his sweaty appearance. He noticed something else.
“Matt, where your shoes gone?”
“Oh, I lost them.”
“What? why?”
“I couldn’t run in them, my feet were hurting ”
“Oh mmkay. Why were you running, pray tell?”
“Zombies,” he answered, putting his bag of juice down and opening the flyscreen door.
“Mmmkay…”
“Mm,” he replied. “Shannon’s out right? We should probably ring him.”
David thought about this new idea. There were zombies in Richmond. Presumably not just in Richmond. Shannon would like to know. He rang Shannon’s number and watched a man run down the road screaming, a zombie woman and two kids chasing after him.
“Sup, Dave?” said Shannon as he answered the phone.
“Oh not much, man,” Dave answered, watching as each child grabbed a leg and the woman leapt onto the man’s back. “You got any zombies rampaging in your area?”
“Ah, Not really, mate. Why’s that?”
“There’s some in Richmond, here, listen to this…” said Dave, holding the phone up in the direction of the screaming man as one child ate his... oh dear.
“Sounds serious, bro.”
“Yeah it’s pretty bad. Can you buy some stuff on the way back that’ll help us hole up here for a bit?”
“No worries man, I’ll borrow the money off Eleanor and be there in about half an hour.”
“Cya”
“Bye”
David hung up and went inside.
“Hey guys…”
“What Dave?” asked Christian. Rob had his earphones on, and couldn’t hear over the noise. Mik poked his head around the corner from the kitchen. He kinda looked like a bald, white giraffe with human features. Wait, no he didn’t, he was just tall. David tried to retrace his train of thought and failed. A rather good idea popped into his head though, and he figured since he had their attention…
“I just had a cool idea, lets watch some old zombie movies.”
“Oh yeah, just a minute, I’m cooking steak.” Said Mik, ducking back into the kitchen.
Christian grumbled a bit, “yeah whatever. Just let me finish this.” And returned to his screen for a moment.
Rob kept listening to his noise. David sat on the couch, slugging away at his new, cold coke, smiling quietly to himself.
By the time Shannon arrived the movie was in its first fifteen minutes, Matt sitting alone on the smaller sofa while Mik, David and Christian shared the other. A zombie on the screen chewed through a man’s hand with slurpy crunchy KFC noises.
“Hey guys” said Shan, clomping toward the hall with a few armfuls of stuff.
“Sup shan?”
“No-much bro, givvus a hand with my case somebody.”
Dave and Christian grudgingly left the couch and tottered out onto the balcony, then slouched down the stairs to shannon’s car. ‘Le’ Shitroen’ it was dubbed, a munted piece of French shit with dodgy LHM suspension and brakes that leaked and cost Shannon a new bottle of fluid every week or so. They hauled case and bag from the boot, closing it with a thump that shook the parcel-shelf and its woggy duvv-duvv speakers.
At that moment the Australia post guy on his little motorbike went tooling past the gate, nervous perspiration trailing off him in a cloud. A long moment passed.
“How does he drop off the mail going that speed you reckon?” asked David.
“Precision throwing?” replied Christian, already making for the stairs again with case in hands.
David nodded and followed, just in time to miss seeing a class of blood-smeared, glassy-eyed primary schoolers chasing after the postman. One of them was eating crayons.