Kangaroo Sushi: 2012

Yes Zombies..
Max Brook's World War Z is being made into a movie this year.
Here is my own little bit of zombie fan fiction... enjoy

Brocke’s Last Day at Work

Brocke sat on the verandah as the heat of day sweltered into a humid dusk and a myriad of insects, bright beetles, moths and an aerial armada of mosquitoes, flies and assorted hangers on bumped and danced about the single globe illuminating him in a puddle of light. Defenses were set and the smell of oil, rubbing alcohol and the bush surrounding his home were rich in his nostrils. Words fresh in mind like yesterday played back in an almost embarrassingly prophetic way, ‘Well, I figure I’ll try anything once’. And he’d really meant that when he’d said it too.

‘Well, I figure that I’ll try anything once’. He’d said to a co-worker from his previous job after the school they’d been working for had gone belly up, left them unpaid for months and, now it was all over, in debt and penniless. ‘You know, they have another position there you’d be fine in… think of the money. You probably need it more than me given the kids ’. His former co-worker wasn’t interested… ‘Fuck that’, was the extent of his interest in the new job, ‘Mark my words Brocke, this is something you don’t even wanna think of trying.’

Looking down at the freshly cleaned carbine in his lap Brocke couldn’t help thinking about how true those words were. He worked the bolt and checked the ancient spring mechanism. ‘Fine gliding action’, he chambered a round and bought the weapon to bear, scanning the dimming twilight for movement.

What he’d come to refer to as The Fat Fuck, was still chained up and welded to a pole anchored in concrete at the end of his driveway… between bouts of incoherent raving , the Fuck was quietly sobbing.

Slow moaning howls faintly emanated from the forest beyond.

* * *

Work at the prison had started as well as could be expected. He came and taught, went through the security procedures and did his best to make a pantomime of teaching the medicated degenerates under his charge. Secreted away in area of bush twenty kilometers from his home on a former military base, the prison or ‘facility’ as it was referred to by the private company operating it, was state of the art. Sheer escape proof polymer walls, motion sensors, infrared, listening devices, acoustic sound devices and a myriad of high tech and not so high tech lethality aimed at keeping the inmates in.

Added to this were strict protocols, procedures and endless check lists. In short, it was escape proof in every sense of the word.

Then there was the visit.

Six months in and things were getting weird at the facility. The Inmates, who he’d quickly realized, where on way too much medication to ever learn, had started to disappear. Brocke, concentrating on his next pay check, and not really wanting to rock the boat simply nodded in agreement when they’d told him the missing inmates had either recovered and were being ‘socialized back into society’ or had ‘been re-assessed’ and moved on.

‘Sure’

He’d been at home cooking one of his trademark guaranteed- to-burn- your- ass-on- re-entry stews when the car, a white Lexus pulled up. The woman at the door, when Brocke had finally gotten around answering it, was not happy. ‘Don’t you ever answer your fucking phone!’ She’d demanded.

‘And a nice fucking day to you too’, Brocke replied to his supervisor Sue, ‘as a matter of fact I do but, seeing as we are fifty kilometers from the nearest exchange or phone tower and at the end of a sheltered valley it doesn’t fucking work ’.

She’d stared at him for a moment, looked back at the car and smiled. ‘Mmm, thought as much… you got beer or something stronger?’ she walked past Brocke and into his house, ’because you’re really going to need it’.

‘Let me get this straight, they’re shutting down the facility. Today.’

‘Aha.

‘And the company wants me sign away the last six months like it never happened on some alleged act of parliament I’m pretty sure isn’t legal’

‘Also correct’

‘And you’ll pay out the rest of my contract and I’ll never have to set foot in the place again’

‘Yes’

‘And all I have to do is head up there with you now and sign the papers’

‘Mph’

‘Then, what are we waiting for?’

Bradley fighting vehicles and ADF military personnel in full combat gear milling around outside the facility should have been a hint that something was seriously amiss but Brocke wasn’t really paying attention. Six months of wages and about the same again as a “bonus”, essentially hush money, added up to a hefty sum. As he passed through the security checks, now manned by MPs instead of the usual private security crowed, he didn’t even notice. ‘Maybe Thailand for a while and then a few months in Mexico… ‘, it was like all his Christmases had come at once.

And then he noticed the red smear on the floor.

‘What… the… fuck… happened here?’

‘You’re being paid to shut up, remember.’

‘You want me to shut up. Just take a look.’

It looked as if Jackson Pollack had decorated it using a bucket of gore as though someone use’d the corridor to slaughter an animal. Thick, sticky pools of blood on the floor, blood splatter on walls and ceiling and, along with that, bloody smeared hand prints everywhere.

And then it happened in the blink of an eye.

Just before the lights went out and the alarm klaxon started Brocke’s balls had turned to ice and tried desperately to climb up into his scrotum. In that split second, just before the darkness descended he’d been about to question Sue further when her head parted from her neck with an audible crack. A sickly sucking noise issued through the hole that was left as her still breathing lungs sucked in air.

In panicked darkness, Brocke ran blindly down the corridor and pounded wildly on the locked door at the end. It was faintly illuminated by a red ‘Security Checkpoint’ sign.

‘Open the fucking the door’

A crackling speaker beside the door came to life,’ I can’t do that. We have a situation here if you hadn’t noticed. Give me your company ID number and I’ll call central and maybe get clearance to open this door.

Brocke was about to tell the shiteating voice where he could stick his “maybe” but thought better of it when, even through klaxon of the alarm, he heard the unmistakable sound of bones cracking, flesh tearing and rabid mastication. Something at the other end of the corridor was eating Sue and was doing so with gusto.

As quietly and politely as he could Brocke gave his name and Id number

‘Sorry, didn’t quite catch that’

‘BROCKE FIVE SEVEN SIX NINE THREE YOU STUPID, DUMB FUCK!’, he screamed into the speaker.

Clumsy, thudding footsteps started down the corridor thudding towards him.

‘No need to be rude mate. .. hang on…you’re the guy in to sign the papers?’

It was definitely coming his way

‘Yep, that’s me’

Getting closer

‘Why didn’t you just say so? We’ve been expecting you.’

More thudding steps, closer now, haggard breathing, a low moan and a rotting, foul stench.

Manners be dammed!

‘Open the… fuckn… door now!’

It had almost upon been him when the door popped open and had slammed into the back of the door when Brocke heaved it shut behind him. He faintly heard it throwing itself at the heavy, probably bulletproof security door as he caught his breath and slumped to the floor. Finally safe, he looked around to get his bearings and realized he was in the admin centre, corporate section. Brightly lit, no alarm klaxons, just soothing ambient music piped through the luxuriously appointed space.

‘Hello?’, he managed

A middle aged corporate face, framed by a thousand dollar tie and adorned with designer spectacles poked out of an office door, ‘In here mate.’

Brocke left bloody footprints in the white shag pile as he approached the office.

‘I see you bought your bitch’, Brocke motioned at the expensively dressed administration lawyer while addressing his former boss who was snugly seated opposite behind a massive oak desk. ‘Mark fucking Smith and Richard, his corporate lawyer sidekick fuck’. These snake eyed corporate criminals had cheated him out of three months wages in his previous job and now looked quite at home and not at all out of place in the current situation. How or why they were here Brocke didn’t know, but he wasn’t surprised. What was clear was that through the wall monitor in the office, they’d been watching proceedings in the corridor outside and that the lawyer had made him wait while that… whatever it was, had almost had its way with him.

‘Bought this company for a song last week’, Mark said pushing a two inch thick pile of papers towards Brocke,’ Now, just sign these papers and we’ll have the money in your account by close of business today.’

‘Well fuckface and cuntface, maybe after I’ve read through this phone book in front of me and you tell me just what the hell is going on, maybe, just maybe, after that and when hell is frozen over, I might consider considering it’

The two suits exchanged a knowing glance and looked back to Brocke, ‘And what exactly is it you would like us to tell you?’

A deep, incredibly loud rumbling filled the air and shook the room violently. The three men were thrown down as the whole building made a sickening lurch and the floor suddenly changed pitch. Recovering himself Brocke saw Richard. He was spluttering blood from his mouth and loosing it through his throat as a jaggered glass shard belonging to a tacky corporate art object he’d been seated next to only moments before protruded through his neck. Pinned against the wall by the heavy oak table Richard was slashing his hands open trying to remove the imbedded object as the life bleed out of him.

Transfixed by this bloody spectacle, it took Brocke a moment to register the sound of gunfire outside. Crawling across the tilted floor and towards the door the sight that greeted him was breathtaking. The ceiling was mostly gone and bright sunlight reflected off broken glass and the smashed debris of what was, moments before, the corporate section. A squad of ADF soldiers, spread out in formation, was pouring everything they had in a stream of liquid fire into the corridor he’d recently just escaped from.

Without thinking Brocke crawled past the firing troops and made his way to the open fire exit behind them. With great relief he saw that, whatever had torn the roof off the building and had made it pitch at such a sharp angle had left the fire stairs intact. His relief was suddenly cut short by a gun muzzle pressed tightly against his temple as he stepped out on to the stainless steel landing.

‘Don’t even blink’

Brocke was frozen. A gloved hand reached for the lanyard around his neck and examined his staff pass.

‘Weapons down. This guy’s clear’, shouted the American accented voice belonging to the glove, ’let him through and take him to the CO.’

As he reached the bottom of the stairs Brocke noticed that the small force of ADF troops had now been joined by US marines. Where they’d suddenly arrived from was totally beyond him, a group of M1 Abraham tanks, four Apache attack helicopters and two VTAL Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors were surrounded by a lot of marines now occupying a large part of what was, when he had arrived, a very vacant area of tarmac surrounding the facility.

The Commanding Officer, who reminded Brocke a lot of the bad guy from Avatar, was waiting close to the building when a young female marine escorted Brocke to him. He took Brocke’s staff pass in a meaty paw and held it against a camo jacketed ipad. ‘Put your palm on this please sir.’

It was not a request.

After a pause to look at the Apple device, the Commanding officer turned to Brocke.

‘You signed the release form and non-disclosure agreement?’

Brocke lied without hesitation, ’Yep, it’s with the lawyer now’.

The sound of gun fire from the building, far from dying down, was now intensifying rapidly.

The Officer regarded Brocke with a withering expression, ‘In that case, get the fuck out of my face, forget this place ever existed and make your way to the car park… We are now done, understood?’ Brocke nodded his agreement, ‘Now take some off the books advice and get as far from here as fast as you can’

Brocke made his way to the fenced off parking area where he’d parked his car slightly earlier that day. His car was there… well, what was left of it. A huge piece of steel reinforced concrete had crushed his trusty red station wagon completely. After seeing his supervisor’s head ripped off, being hunted down by some “thing” and being nearly blown up in the corporate section the sight of his precious and much loved car crushed like a bug was a little too much.

‘Fucking’

‘Cunted’

‘Fucking’

‘Fuck!’

But, as the saying goes, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and that came in the form of Mark Smith desperately shoving boxes into the back of his shining Black Jeep Cherokee.

Brocke descended upon him with murder in his heart.

Aside from hordes of what looked remarkably like the living dead streaming out of the now half destroyed facility being mowed down by military gunfire, the drive back to the farm had been almost peasant. That, and the nice blunt shard of metal Brocke had pulled off what was left of his car that he’d used very satisfyingly to whack Mark’s fuckwit scull had made the drive home all the better.

* * *

In the misty morning Brocke woke refreshed and well. After dressing and checking the satellite receiver the marines had thoughtfully left in Mark’s car he did a survey of the mined perimeter surrounding the farm. The mines, along with night vision, various weapons and an assortment of other helpful equipment, were also a kind legacy of the booty he’d hauled from Mark’s Jeep.

Breakfast was coffee, toast with jam and fresh eggs laid by his chickens.

It was time to check on the Fat Fuck.

Being thoughtful, Brocke had welded the handcuffed corporate criminal a good six feet off the ground.

Looking at him Brocke could see that they’d eaten the legs fist and, somehow, managed to reach that bloated, enormous gut of his and drag out the lower bowel and intestines. Mark would have had to have been alive at that point and probably was too when he turned.

Looking at the yellowing flesh, the glazed eyes and jaw chomping madly at the air Brocke raised the carbine and blew the zombie’s bloated skull into bloody shards.

FIN

F22 Raptor VTOL

Bradly Fighting Vehicle

Apache attack helicopter...
Screw the zombies... thing looks like a giant wasp...
Anyway, insectoid robots will get us first in the coming Robopocalypse