Oh No! Zombies!, Page 2

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  Walking back from the Indian restaurant in New Farm, a car horn honked, making me jump, almost bumping into Michael as I side-stepped unthinkingly. A pair of zombies were standing in the middle of the street, staring blankly into space. The car honked again, inching forward as if to hint at the driver’s intentions. Finally, the pair picked a direction and lurched disorientedly to the curb, mounting it uncertainly and stumbling onto the pavement. The car passed on, the driver gesticulating silently inside his vehicle, and my friends exchanged looks.

  “There’s a difference between getting in character and being an idiot,” Nat commented, and we all nodded our agreement.

  We passed an entire table of zombie brides having a pub meal. A zombie leaning over a balcony railing above called out to us cheerfully, waving, as we joked and shouted: “oh no! zombies!” Ric’s Bar had hung a banner facing the mall that read “zombies welcome”. The McDonalds’ was overflowing with zombies, eager to sate cravings less brain-related.

  Along Brunswick Street various members of the group peeled off, heading home in different directions, only three of us made it as far as the taxi rank on Wickham Street. Parting ways, I hugged Noel and Heather goodbye and headed into the train station alone, dashing down the stairs just as the train pulled in. It was a half hour wait for the next one, I would have been grumpy if I’d missed it. It had happened before.

  A zombie, passed out in the corner of the carriage, slumped down in their seat, was the only other passenger in the lead carriage. I didn’t bother looking too closely, glancing past them before heading in the other direction to find a backwards-facing seat. They had overdone the fake blood; it was seeping from the “exposed skull wound” adhered to their scalp, spilling down the seat cushion, and I felt bad for whoever was going to have to clean that up later. Hopefully, it would be the kind that washed out, not the chocolate syrup version that looked - so I’d read - very realistic, but stained in the way that only chocolate can.

  The zombie didn’t stir the whole journey home. One of the rail staff would wake them up once we got to Ferny Grove, they always walked through the carriages at the end of the line for pretty much that exact purpose. Fortunately, this wasn’t the last service of the night, so the zombie would be able to ride back out to their stop when the train headed back into the city.

  It was humid walking home, more humid than anything I’d felt before, and I’d been living in the tropics all of my life. The weather had been clear and sunny when I left home, I hadn’t noticed the clouds rolling in during the evening, but there was no way of missing the light show that had begun in the sky. The lightning was far away, the low grumble of thunder not even registering through my padded DJ headphones, even though I played my music quietly. Entire sections of the sky were lighting up, and the occasional fat drop of rain struck my head or arm.

  I noticed three bodies collapsed untidily on the opposite footpath, blood pooling underneath them like a shadow the lightning couldn’t chase away. I offered them no more than a sceptical frown, glad they weren’t on my side of the road, imagining they would probably grab at me if I had to walk past them, snatching at my ankles, trying to give me a fright. I just wanted to get home before the rain broke, the humidity was making me irritable, and I was in no mood to deal with them.

  I couldn’t fathom what they thought they were doing. Halloween was still a week away; and if they were raising awareness for the Brain Foundation, or performing some kind of installation art, most of their target audience were safely inside ahead of work or school in the morning, hardly aware of the impending storm, lights on in windows, curtains drawn.

  The clouds began to spit earnestly, desperately trying to release their load; the large and wide-spaced drops that wet the ground like rain felt heavy and oppressive. I walked faster, pushing though the stifling blanket of humidity that had coagulated the air, wrapped around me and sticking to my skin.

  The sky was a miserable, muted black; even the lightning was washed out to a murky silver-grey that did little to lift the shadows. The clouds were almost invisible, untouched by the light from the CBD that normally tinged them a murky, dirty orange-red.

  The heavens opened, the rain finally let loose. Brisbane’s gutters were filling with blood, foaming pink around the common debris and storm drains. In the streets the zombies were stirring. The sky was utterly dark, and all the nights’ rain would never wash away the terror.

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  About the Author

  A. M. Harding is an aspiring author from Brisbane, Australia. She loves games, movies, and books; and writes short stories in between working on her first novel.

  https://www.twitter.com/Angell_writing