Miles and Elliott had no trouble entering the Burtons’ home, with the previous occupants now long gone. Once inside they were able to quickly locate two sets of car keys. One set of keys was for Keith and Joan Burton’s Volvo station wagon. The other was for their son Seth’s Range Rover.
Seth Burton was the local hooligan who provided the elderly residents of Graves End with a disrespectful youth to complain about. He was notorious for wasting his days driving around Graves End in the fratmobile his parents had bought him, tormenting the neighbours by spewing hardcore rap music from its obscenely loud sound system. He had installed the speakers himself; speakers that were so ridiculously huge that they actually weighed down the rear of the vehicle slightly. Whenever Elliott came to visit his grandparents he could always hear Seth’s music somewhere in the distance, even if he was on the opposite side of the town.
When Erin said that they needed something to lure the zombies away, Seth’s Range Rover was the first thing that popped into Elliott’s mind. He and Miles then slipped out of the tavern, and were able to make it to the Burtons’ house a few streets away without too much trouble.
Erin locked the doors after they left and climbed over the bar. She switched on the jukebox, then set about making good on her pledge to get drunk and wait for this whole thing to play itself out.
Miles climbed behind the wheel of the Ranger Rover. He put the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life.
He reversed out of the driveway and drove slowly towards the set-up area. Elliott followed a short distance behind in the Volvo.
Their plan may have been simple, but it was the best chance they had of clearing the set-up area and reaching the source of the music. Miles would drive by in the Range Rover with SlamCore blasting from the speakers. The volume should easily overpower the other radios nearby, and he would lure the zombies away from the area. Elliott would wait until it was safe and then quickly swoop in and switch off the laptop.
The Range Rover reached the crossroads closest to the set-up point.
Miles turned the radio on, which he had tuned in to Fusion FM. A KoreKayeShyn song played as part of their week-long tribute to the late SlamCore pioneer. This one was called “Rape and Pillage”.
He cranked up the volume.
“Apocalyptic” didn’t even begin to describe this unholy racket. The booming bass-heavy cacophony blasting from the trunk surely registered somewhere on the Richter scale. Windows shook. Birds fell from the sky. The earth’s axis altered momentarily. Any living creatures within a half-mile radius lost control of their bowels.
Most importantly, it woke the dead.
Miles put the car into first gear and continued along at a cruisy pace. He drove fast enough to keep a comfortable distance from the zombies, but slow enough to cajole them along. His only concern now was that if the car broke down he’d find himself in a world of trouble, but everything seemed to be running smoothly in that department.
The zombies came in their hundreds. In every direction, down every street he passed, more and more emerged, like ants following a pheromone trail.
It wasn’t long before Miles was drenched in sweat. It took all the concentration and discipline he could muster to hold his nerve and steady his trembling hands. He reminded himself over and over how important it was to stick with the plan. Everything was working so far, and he couldn’t chicken out now.
His phone chimed with a message. It was from Elliott, and it said that in about one minute’s time he would make his move.
Miles took his eyes off the road for just a few seconds to read the text message. Even if he was paying attention he wouldn’t have been able to avoid the out of control silver Jeep hurtling through the intersection at high speed. But at least he would have seen it coming.
After Campbell left the liquor store the previous night he was certain something suspicious was going on. Miles was definitely hiding something from him, but he was too smart to give anything away.
“Too smart” were two words rarely used to describe Marcus. So Campbell sent him a friendly text message enquiring as to his general wellbeing. Marcus sent back a near-incomprehensible reply, but after reading and re-reading it several times he deduced that Marcus was at the Inferno nightclub, and Campbell was welcome to join him.
Campbell arrived and found Marcus dancing shirtless on a podium, high on life and three hits of MDMA. He managed to drag Marcus away to a spot where they could talk, and it didn’t take much prodding for Marcus to spill the beans on what Dead Rite had been up to for the past two days. He knew Marcus wanted a Z-Pro job, so all Campbell had to do was imply that he’d put in a good word for him with Jack Houston. Marcus then told him everything he wanted to know: how to get to Graves End, how many zombies were still out there, and their method of using SlamCore to draw the zombies from their houses. He even told him the frequency Felix was using to broadcast the music.
Marcus then told Campbell that he loved him for the sixth time in ten minutes and complimented him on his beautiful aura. The ecstasy was basically acting as a truth serum. Once Marcus had started talking, Campbell couldn’t get him to shut up.
Campbell called in sick for work the next morning and, along with his Z-Pro colleague Dwayne Marks, followed Dead Rite out to Graves End in his new silver Jeep. They set up on the opposite side of town to avoid detection, then sat back and marvelled at how easy it all was. They managed to squeeze eight zombies into the Jeep, and after half a day’s work they had made three trips to the processing centre and back, netting them $6,000 apiece.
And then, shortly after midday, it all went haywire.
Miles was dazed for a few seconds following the crash. When he came to, he saw that the silver Jeep had slammed into the front of the Range Rover. The airbags on both cars had deployed, and smoke spewed from their mangled engines.
He looked out the window. The driver of the Jeep had collapsed out of the car and was crawling along the road.
It was Campbell.
About twenty metres behind him, a twisted body lay motionless in the middle of the road. It took Miles a moment to recognise the body as that of Dwayne Marks, another of his former colleagues. Dwayne looked completely different from the last time he saw him; the long hair and Jesus beard was gone, and both arms were covered in tattoos. One of those tattooed arms was now lying in the gutter, five metres away from the rest of Dwayne’s body.
The huge hole in the Jeep’s windscreen suggested that while the Jeep may have come to a sudden halt, Dwayne kept on going.
Campbell stumbled over to the Range Rover and pounded on the window. “Miles!” he screamed. “Help me!”
Miles saw Campbell in horrifying close-up. Half his face was hanging off, like a grotesque Halloween mask coming apart at the seams. Two fingers were missing on his right hand, and his whole right arm was showing signs of rapid decay.
Campbell yanked at the door handle and tried to pull it open, but the crash had buckled the front door. He couldn’t get it to budge, and Miles wasn’t about to offer any assistance.
Campbell looked up and saw an army of zombies coming in his direction. He gave up on the door and limped away as fast as he could.
Miles tried climbing out of the car to make a run for it as well, but realised he was too late. Zombies were swarming in from every direction.
The next thing he knew he was surrounded by walking corpses, hungry for flesh and brains. A huge crack bisected the windscreen, and it wouldn’t take much force to smash the whole thing open.
It was a matter of seconds before the two cars were swallowed up by the horde.
Elliott knew he had to act immediately. He threw the Volvo into gear and planted his foot on the accelerator. The tyres screeched, and the car sped straight for the set-up area. Miles was now in a world of trouble, and so it was on to Plan B. The fact that they hadn’t discussed a backup plan might prove to be something of an obstacle. Elliott would have to do a bit of improvising.
He didn’t have a clear run at the
laptop, so he just ploughed on straight ahead.
The Volvo clipped one zombie, and then another, toppling them both over like bowling pins. He hit a third one front-on, sending it flying over the top of the car. The Volvo’s airbags deployed, and Elliott’s vision was obscured. All he could do now was plant his foot to the floor and hope for the best.
He heard and felt a jarring crash when the Volvo rammed into the table. The legs collapsed, and the car drove over top of it. But the music didn’t stop.
Elliott rolled the window down and stuck his head out. The laptop had been knocked to the ground, but it was still working.
Seconds later, the vehicle was besieged by zombies.
Elliott backed up a couple of metres, then lurched forward again, hoping to crush the laptop under the car’s wheels. But he couldn’t get close enough. A cement traffic barrier lay between him and the laptop, and this prevented him from getting any closer.
He spotted a steering lock in the back seat. This would have to be his final option, a Hail Mary. If this didn’t work there wasn’t much hope left.
He grabbed the steering lock and opened the sun roof. He pulled himself out onto the roof and stood on top of the Volvo.
He was now surrounded by at least twenty zombies. A few clambered up onto the bonnet and tried to grasp at him. He waited until they came within striking distance, then smashed the steering lock into the side of their head. They were duly sent flying back to the ground.
For a brief moment he saw that he had a clear path to the laptop. He quickly leapt off the bonnet and ran over towards the flattened table.
Using all the strength he still had within him, Elliott raised the steering lock above his head and brought it down upon Felix’s laptop.
The thing wasn’t easy to break. Some laptops stopped working after suffering only the slightest of knocks. Felix’s was clearly much sturdier than that. It took a number of solid hits before Elliott had fully destroyed it, and the music finally came to a stop.
If Felix had opted for a cheaper brand, the music would have stopped the first time Elliott smashed the steering lock into it. But it took eleven solid hits before it was finally broken.
It was during the eighth attempt that Elliott lost a chunk of flesh from his right shoulder.
Miles was trapped. He tried restarting the engine, but to no avail. The car spluttered and groaned, but simply refused to turn over.
The Range Rover was swamped by zombies. He couldn’t tell how many. Dozens, maybe hundreds. All he could see was reanimated corpses outside the car trying to get in, shaking it and clawing at the windows. The crack on the windscreen was growing bigger and bigger by the minute.
Then the windscreen gave way. A fist-sized hole opened up, and a decaying arm reached through. Miles scuttled into the back seat. The hole opened up further. The zombie attached to the decaying arm tried crawling through and became stuck halfway. Miles fought him off with several hard kicks to the face, but this did nothing to discourage him.
Another zombie pounded on a side window, and the glass cobwebbed. It was looking more and more fragile by the second.
Then came the thumping noise from above. Zombies were on the roof. From an aerial view, the Range Rover looked like a fresh piece of meat tossed onto an ant’s nest.
And while Miles never gave up fighting, deep down he accepted that this may be the end. He was trapped inside a car with an untold number of vicious zombies trying to get at him, and with no clear avenue of escape. It was safe to say the odds were not in his favour.
And then the music stopped. So did the zombies.
Somehow, Elliott had done it. He had reached the laptop.
A few seconds passed before Miles remembered to breathe.
He was still surrounded by scores of zombies, but their aggression and menace had vanished in an instant. They were like battery-operated toys that had just had the switches on their backs flicked off. They were now in power down mode.
But he wasn’t in the clear yet. He still had to find a way to get out of the car. The zombies were in their comedown state, but they weren’t going to stay that way forever. It was only a temporary reprieve. He didn’t have much time.
He moved very slowly and deliberately, careful not to awaken them from their dazed stupor with any sudden movements.
And then a gunshot tore through the silence, and a zombie’s head exploded like a piece of rotten fruit.
Chapter 26