An artillery shell whistled over the city. The explosion rumbled through the streets. Beneath it all, they heard the Viking playing patty cake.
IF YOU CAN SEE
THE MOUNTAIN…
There were nine of them inside the water tower; Mean, Charlie, Ross, Greenberg, Sally, Rachel, Sid, the unconscious old man, and the Maori, unable to tell them his name because his tongue had been ripped out by a zombie. Mean didn’t know them, having only recently moved back from England. The old man was a dairy farmer, brought in by Sid. Rachel and Charlie were teenagers; Ross a butcher, paunchy and asthmatic; Greenberg an accountant; Sally an American on vacation (visiting the locations where
Slowly, it infected their little corner of the world, first with dead animals, then with people. When the creature’s numbers increased enough to launch a full-scale assault, the town—population 10,000—collapsed within an hour. Home by home, street by street, they eradicated the living, further swelling their ranks. The nine survivors took refuge inside the old water tower in the center of town. The structure, which could be seen for miles, hadn’t been used for decades. When it was built, it leaned so badly that the construction workers dug underneath and jacked it up. Still, it leaned. But it was dry, empty, and secure. They sat inside, waiting in the darkness for an attack that never came. That was four days ago. Since then, they’d run out of food and had one bottle of water between them. They still had weapons and ammunition—
Mean’s .22 semi auto, and some .303s, and .308s. No automatic rifles or handguns; both were illegal in New Zealand.
It was starting to stink inside the tower. They’d been using the corner as a toilet.
This morning, the water tower had trembled. Slight at first, then more noticeable. Mean was on watch, and he woke the others. It wasn’t repeated, and they chalked it up to a minor earthquake or a truck rumbling by.
Then, the shaking started again, fiercer this time, a series of jolts that made the entire structure shudder around them.
“What do we do?” Sally’s voice was panicked.
“We get the hell out,” Mean said.
Charlie flicked his lighter. “The dead—they’ll be out there waiting.”
“So?” Mean made sure his weapon was loaded.
“We either face them, or die when this thing crashes down.”
“What about the old man?” Sid asked. “We can’t leave him.”
“Fine.” Mean hated the indifference in his own voice. “You’re responsible for him.”
The flame vanished. In the darkness, Charlie cursed, sucking his burned thumb.
“The Maori?” Ross wheezed. “What do we do with that poor bastard?”
Mean gritted his teeth. “Infection’s already set in. His mouth is dripping pus. He’s burning up, on his way to becoming one of them. I say we leave him.”
Greenberg flicked his lighter on in place of Charlie’s. His face was pale, his eyes two dark circles. “Where will we go?”
Mean realized they were all looking at him. Somehow, he’d become the leader.
“I don’t—”
“The sea,” Rachel interrupted. “We’ll go by boat.”
“Don’t be daft,” Greenberg grumbled. “Ohawe is nearly nine kilometers away.”
She shook her head. “Waihi.”
Mean knew the spot. Waihi was a small beach less than a kilometer away—a gap, eroded by a stream between the cliffs.
“Charlie and I have a rowboat,” she continued,
“hidden off the trail. At night, we used to…”
She turned red, embarrassed. Beside her, Charlie shifted uncomfortably.
“Let’s go, then.” Mean crouched over the trapdoor. “Stay in a group, move fast. Look for a car with the keys inside.”
Sid grabbed his shoulder. “I’m not leaving the old man.”
“Suit yourself. But we’re taking the guns.”
They started down the ladder. Sid gave one last glance back at their two incapacitated companions, and then followed.
“Changed my mind.” He shrugged.
“Hang on,” Ross grunted, and ducked back inside the tower.
The rest reached the bottom of the ladder. Hawera was deserted. Nothing moved, living or dead. It was eerily quiet. Mount Egmont (or Taranaki, as the Maori called it) loomed over the town. The dormant volcano’s shadow filled the streets with gloom. Mean thought of the local saying: if you can see the mountain it’s going to rain, if you can’t see it, it’s already raining.
“See anything?” Greenberg asked.
Mean shook his head. “Just the mountain.”
“Maybe they’ve all gone,” Sally whispered. Inside the leaning water tower, two gunshots rang out.
Charlie whispered, “Bloody hell.”
A cry went up, followed by another. The town came alive with the dead, alerted to their presence by the shots.
Ross climbed down the ladder, his rifle still smoking. “Put those two out of their misery. No sense leaving them up there to die and come back.”
“You idiot!” Mean resisted the urge to hit him. And then, with a roaring, unanimous shout, the zombies poured forth.
“Run!” Mean pushed Sally ahead of him and squeezed off a shot, dropping a corpse—the effect of taking an ounce of water from the ocean. Ross froze, staring at the onrushing masses.
“There’s so many.”
The others ran. When Mean looked back, the undead tide had engulfed the fat butcher.
He decided to save one bullet for himself. Sally was the first to fall beneath the hordes. She tripped and a zombie dog ripped off her face. She was still screaming when Mean ran by. Greenberg went next, felled by a bullet to the spine. Sid turned down an alley.
“This way,” Rachel called.
“No,” he insisted, “It’s this way.”
He darted down the alley. They heard him screaming a second later.
Mean, Charlie, and Rachel reached the steep goat track that wound down to the narrow beach. The zombies charged down the hill after them. Charlie pushed aside the brush and dragged the boat out.
“Hurry,” he cried. “It’s heavy.”
Grunting, Rachel helped him. Mean turned and opened fire, dropping a zombie with every other shot.They leaped into the boat and cast off. The zombies stood on the beach, waving their fists. Some walked into the water, sinking beneath the surface, pursuing them along the bottom, but eventually, the boat was carried too far from shore.
“They can’t reach us now,” Charlie shouted.
