I like to write in a variety of voices. This is a story I had a lot of fun creating.
On The Run - a short story
It’s cray, bro. The zombies invaded the big smoke yesterday. Since then, I’ve been on the run. I never did no running or sports at school, and I eat heaps of burgers, so I’m slow as. Now I have to be hardout cunning.
For weeks they’d been confined to the west coast of the South Island. No one cared much about that. There’s not much there, eh. Like, no one’s going to bust a gut over a few coasters. Some dudes on TV even reckoned it was an improvement. LOL. It could be another tourist attraction, an undead safari park.
The army blocked the mountain passes so the zombies couldn’t cross the alps to the main centres. Then some vigilante groups went on weekend hunting trips because, YOLO, and they thought shooting zombies would be sick. Sometimes they didn’t come back.
They must have got to Picton somehow. The zombies, I mean. And then some of them must have sneaked onto the Interislander. The ferry ploughed straight smack into the waterfront with a horrendous rending of metal, wood and asphalt until it came to a stop blocking Featherston Street. Hardcore. The whole place was munted.
I was in Macca’s, bunking school and having a feed. I left to gawk at what was going on. A shamble of them came out of the ferry. Some grotty and rotting and all agro, like in the flicks. Some like normal dudes, but with torn clothes and fresh bloody marks on their arms or faces where they’d been infected on the boat.
They snapped everyone who got too close, like those bros who went to see if they could help survivors. What were they thinking? The dudes on the ferry were zombies already. Not human anymore. That’s legit, bro.
FML. It was a total mare.
I gapped it. They pursued me. They pursued everyone.
I crashed in the botanical gardens for the night. Now it was morning. I wanted to take a squizz at what had gone down, suss out what to do next. I reckoned that if I stayed in the shadows, I could get down the hill to Lambton Quay, the dead centre of town—or should that be the undead centre?
My arm hurt from when I’d fallen yesterday, and I hadn’t had no kai since that half a burger, so I was hungry as.
Heaps of shops had been ransacked. Mean as zombies wandered alone or in small packs we call a shamble. The army had built roadblocks to stop them moving up the Hutt Valley in search of fresh meat. Soldiers circled the Beehive, though I reckon they should have just left the doors open. Dunno if anyone would notice if the zombies got in there. Or care.
I avoided all of them. I’d sussed out the army shoot to kill anything that moves in case it’s a zombie. I dunno if that was true, but I didn’t want to take no chances, eh.
I pondered what to do. I thought about my parents and little sister in the Hutt Valley. I would’ve been there too, if I hadn’t been bunking yesterday. I couldn’t call them, bro. The cell phone network had been dodgy for hours, and then my stinking battery died. I didn’t know if they were alive, dead or zombiefied. And they wouldn’t know about me, either.
I wanted to get home. I had to get to my whanau before the zombie shamble did. The zombies could walk there, eh, if they could get past the army roadblocks.
The road would be too dangerous. The trains weren’t running. That only left the sea. I sussed out a plan. All good.
I made my way watchfully to the grounded Interislander ferry. It stood shadowy and quiet in the early morning light, abandoned. Sweet as. I climbed onto it at its lowest point, near the bow, and struggled along the rail against the gradient of the tilted ship.
Some of the ship’s lifeboats were gone. Maybe some quick-thinking bros escaped the doomed ferry on its way across Cook Strait. I tried to release one of the remaining ones, but I couldn’t loosen the ropes. It was way too hard, especially with my crook arm.
I soon gave up on that. I looked around and saw a lifebuoy. Shot. I unhooked it and biffed it over the side onto the road below. Then I climbed down the way I had come, picked up the lifebuoy and slowly made my way to the waterfront, always on the lookout for movement, for danger.
All was quiet there. No army, no zombies. Maybe they’d taken the fight somewhere else. Maybe the army had forced them down Lambton Quay, or driven them inside the Beehive. Yeah. That’d be sweet.
I waded into the cold water. When I could no longer touch the bottom, I used the lifebuoy for buoyancy and kicked towards the Petone foreshore like a boss.
It was hard yakka. It took me until late morning to cross the harbour. I emerged from the sea bedraggled, cold, wet and hungry. I kept to the back streets. There wasn’t no one anywhere. Maybe a state of emergency was in force or something. Choice. My family would be at home. I was keen to find them.
Knackered, I stumbled home. I grinned when I saw the familiar little white fence, my dad’s flash wheels in the driveway, my little sister’s trike. My keys, remarkably, were still in my pocket, and I unlocked the door.
Yeah nah, bro, I was stoked to be home.
I surprised them all in the living room. They gasped when they saw me. Maybe it was because of the seaweed in my hair, or the way my arm hung by my side at an unnatural angle. But I reckon it was because half my face had come off when the zombies caught me yesterday.
It was awesome to have found my family.
They were tasty as.
It’s cray, bro. The zombies invaded the big smoke yesterday. Since then, I’ve been on the run. I never did no running or sports at school, and I eat heaps of burgers, so I’m slow as. Now I have to be hardout cunning.
For weeks they’d been confined to the west coast of the South Island. No one cared much about that. There’s not much there, eh. Like, no one’s going to bust a gut over a few coasters. Some dudes on TV even reckoned it was an improvement. LOL. It could be another tourist attraction, an undead safari park.
The army blocked the mountain passes so the zombies couldn’t cross the alps to the main centres. Then some vigilante groups went on weekend hunting trips because, YOLO, and they thought shooting zombies would be sick. Sometimes they didn’t come back.
They must have got to Picton somehow. The zombies, I mean. And then some of them must have sneaked onto the Interislander. The ferry ploughed straight smack into the waterfront with a horrendous rending of metal, wood and asphalt until it came to a stop blocking Featherston Street. Hardcore. The whole place was munted.
I was in Macca’s, bunking school and having a feed. I left to gawk at what was going on. A shamble of them came out of the ferry. Some grotty and rotting and all agro, like in the flicks. Some like normal dudes, but with torn clothes and fresh bloody marks on their arms or faces where they’d been infected on the boat.
They snapped everyone who got too close, like those bros who went to see if they could help survivors. What were they thinking? The dudes on the ferry were zombies already. Not human anymore. That’s legit, bro.
FML. It was a total mare.
I gapped it. They pursued me. They pursued everyone.
I crashed in the botanical gardens for the night. Now it was morning. I wanted to take a squizz at what had gone down, suss out what to do next. I reckoned that if I stayed in the shadows, I could get down the hill to Lambton Quay, the dead centre of town—or should that be the undead centre?
My arm hurt from when I’d fallen yesterday, and I hadn’t had no kai since that half a burger, so I was hungry as.
Heaps of shops had been ransacked. Mean as zombies wandered alone or in small packs we call a shamble. The army had built roadblocks to stop them moving up the Hutt Valley in search of fresh meat. Soldiers circled the Beehive, though I reckon they should have just left the doors open. Dunno if anyone would notice if the zombies got in there. Or care.
I avoided all of them. I’d sussed out the army shoot to kill anything that moves in case it’s a zombie. I dunno if that was true, but I didn’t want to take no chances, eh.
I pondered what to do. I thought about my parents and little sister in the Hutt Valley. I would’ve been there too, if I hadn’t been bunking yesterday. I couldn’t call them, bro. The cell phone network had been dodgy for hours, and then my stinking battery died. I didn’t know if they were alive, dead or zombiefied. And they wouldn’t know about me, either.
I wanted to get home. I had to get to my whanau before the zombie shamble did. The zombies could walk there, eh, if they could get past the army roadblocks.
The road would be too dangerous. The trains weren’t running. That only left the sea. I sussed out a plan. All good.
I made my way watchfully to the grounded Interislander ferry. It stood shadowy and quiet in the early morning light, abandoned. Sweet as. I climbed onto it at its lowest point, near the bow, and struggled along the rail against the gradient of the tilted ship.
Some of the ship’s lifeboats were gone. Maybe some quick-thinking bros escaped the doomed ferry on its way across Cook Strait. I tried to release one of the remaining ones, but I couldn’t loosen the ropes. It was way too hard, especially with my crook arm.
I soon gave up on that. I looked around and saw a lifebuoy. Shot. I unhooked it and biffed it over the side onto the road below. Then I climbed down the way I had come, picked up the lifebuoy and slowly made my way to the waterfront, always on the lookout for movement, for danger.
All was quiet there. No army, no zombies. Maybe they’d taken the fight somewhere else. Maybe the army had forced them down Lambton Quay, or driven them inside the Beehive. Yeah. That’d be sweet.
I waded into the cold water. When I could no longer touch the bottom, I used the lifebuoy for buoyancy and kicked towards the Petone foreshore like a boss.
It was hard yakka. It took me until late morning to cross the harbour. I emerged from the sea bedraggled, cold, wet and hungry. I kept to the back streets. There wasn’t no one anywhere. Maybe a state of emergency was in force or something. Choice. My family would be at home. I was keen to find them.
Knackered, I stumbled home. I grinned when I saw the familiar little white fence, my dad’s flash wheels in the driveway, my little sister’s trike. My keys, remarkably, were still in my pocket, and I unlocked the door.
Yeah nah, bro, I was stoked to be home.
I surprised them all in the living room. They gasped when they saw me. Maybe it was because of the seaweed in my hair, or the way my arm hung by my side at an unnatural angle. But I reckon it was because half my face had come off when the zombies caught me yesterday.
It was awesome to have found my family.
They were tasty as.