The night passed slowly with the team resting in the van. I stayed vigilant at my post through the night, but thankfully had no unwelcome visitors. Soon, the sun shone over the stone blocks and it was once again time to move on. Looking around at the team, I couldn’t help but wish we could just stay in one place.

  Rachel soon awoke and I conducted a health check on her. Thankfully she was back up to 85%, so with some extra medication and first-aid she was pretty much back to normal, albeit with a slight limp. I checked on Artemis next, and he too was feeling better, back up to 50% health and now nursing his bitten tail as his only injury. I fished the street directory out of the glovebox and attempted to find where we were. I searched for ‘quarry’ in the index, to no avail. There was no street sign in sight, and although I knew we were close to the Pacific Highway, that would do little to clarify where exactly we were as it was so long. I guess we’ll just have to go east.

  I passed some muffins to the team; blueberry for the pups, chocolate-chip for me and Rachel. I offered one of the muffins to Artemis too, but he stuck his nose up at it.

  “Looks like that’s a no,” I said.

  “He’s a cat – they don’t eat muffins,” Rachel noted.

  “I just didn’t want him to feel left out,” I said as I took Artemis’ muffin and offered it to Cooper on the dashboard, who pecked at it enthusiastically.

  After breakfast we started the van back up and headed out of the quarry. We turned out onto the small industrial road and found ourselves once again on the highway, but this time heading north.

  “Aren’t we going east?” Rachel asked.

  “Yeah, but we don’t have much choice at the moment with what road to take, and the other way seemed wrong,” I answered.

  After about fifteen minutes of driving, we saw a turn veering east.

  “Finally! We’re on track!” I exclaimed.

  We drove on and it became more apparent we were heading into a town; wrecks on the winding road steadily increased and the concentration of undead was growing. The more we drove, the more it was becoming a mission of dodging rather than driving.

  Soon we found that the bends in the road subsided and we were no longer surrounded by trees but by large shops and buildings.

  “I don’t know if this is right,” Rachel said. “Aren’t we looking for farmland?”

  I nodded. “I guess it’s just further along?”

  We approached a large intersection that was so full of wrecks we could barely get through. As we drove around several abandoned cars, a truck and even a badly damaged ambulance, we started to garner the attention of the zombies from a nearby RSL club. They hobbled towards us, cigarettes and beer still in hand as if we had disturbed Bingo night.

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  After wiggling the van past the wrecks, we managed to escape with just some zombie scratches on the door.

  Just up the road on the left was a large plain that looked fairly flat and empty. Cooper started flapping and tapping on the passenger window, indicating that this indeed was the farmland he had found.

  “I guess that’s it.,” I said to Rachel.

  “That doesn’t look much like a farm,” she replied.

  “Maybe it’s one of those inner-city ones,” I said optimistically.

  I drove left as guided by Cooper and we were soon pulling slowly up to what seemed to be a racecourse. We slowed down to have a good look at the signs.

  “This is a dog track,” Rachel said, her usual enthusiasm dampened recently by her and Artemis’ ill-health.

  “I guess Cooper is just learning to find things,” I said, in defence of the poor bird’s efforts.

  “Well what do we do now?” she replied. “I don’t know that we can trust Cooper’s ideas.”

  “Well let’s just have a little look around then,” I said. I looked up the road and noticed there was a large truck-and-dog blocking most of the road. “Looks like we can’t get through there –we’ll have to turn around.”

  I looked in the rear-view mirror and realised I’d been quite distracted looking for our pigeon-perceived farmland; approaching us slowly but surely was a large group of zombies, probably about 70-odd.

  “So when I said turn around, I actually meant turn around really fast and repeatedly,” I exclaimed to the team. “Seatbelts on, everybody!”

  “You can’t just…” Rachel started to say, but I had already flicked the van into reverse and started clipping the edge of the crowd.

  “CLUNK! SQUISH! THUD!” Zombie after zombie toppled under the wheels of the van. I kept on with our donut rampage until the horde was managed. I then put the van back into drive and pulled forward. The van shuddered, the dashboard lighting up like a Christmas tree.

  “Whoops,” I said sheepishly.

  “I told you! What do you think happened to your ute? You can’t just smash dozens of zombies and expect no damage. It’s not a tank!” Rachel exclaimed, obviously annoyed by my zombie removal skills.

  “Look, I know it’s not ideal, but what was I going to do? You and Artemis are still not fully healed, and there were far too many for me to tackle with two dogs and a crowbar. I thought this was the best option to keep us all safe,” I replied.

  “I’m sorry, I forget you’ve never played this before,” Rachel said. “Let’s just take it a bit easier in the future so we don’t get stranded.”

  “Okay, I will,” I responded. “Let’s just drive into the racetrack carpark now that we’ve cleared this group, and see if we can fix the van or find a replacement.”

  I stepped on the accelerator and the van stuttered forward, lurching and bunny-hopping like a manual driven by a sixteen-year-old. We managed to make it into the carpark and to an empty space when smoke started streaming from the bonnet.

  “I think we’d best get out now!” I said urgently.

  Rachel got out of the car, carrying Artemis like a newborn in a sling she had fashioned out of the blanket. I called to the dogs to get out and also to Cooper who flew out, perching on Jagger’s back. I quickly ran to the back of the van and took out the four full jerry cans we had, moving them quickly away from the overheating vehicle. I headed back to grab out our bags when the previously smoking engine caught fire.

  “Oh no!” I exclaimed as the six of us backed away from the van, which was still partially filled with our bags of loot. “Looks like we need to find a new car.”

  “I think we’ve got bigger fish to fry!” Rachel said, motioning towards the stands of the racetrack. “Remember what I said about zombies and fire!”

  “They’re like rhinos,” I responded. “I don’t think I like rhinos.”

  Zombies appeared from all over the track – punters and trainers alike. They grunted and groaned as they approached the fire.

  I shooed the team behind a large dumpster to hide. “Maybe they won’t see us…”