The Colony Read online

  Copyright © 2017 Christopher Lang

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  To Fleur Valerie for all the inspiration.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgmentsi

  1The Beginning of the EndPage 1

  2Death and HellPage 55

  3Of Life and DeathPage 97

  4Preparation for WarPage 117

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Cover design is based on a photograph from Wikipedia Commons.

  (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Bushmasters_during_October_2010.JPG)

  English: Australian Army soldiers with Royal Australian Regiment, 2nd Battalion provide security at Dingo Area at Townsville Training Area, Australia, Oct. 13, 2010. U.S. Marines and Sailors attached to Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment deployed to Australia for Exercise Hamel, the Australian Infantry Battalion's dismounted combined arms training exercise.

  Date13 October 2010

  Sourcehttp://www.defenseimagery.mil/imagery.html#guid=0d06f1f180a6188c1be1bd8aa18f3ccc5c2e01ca

  AuthorU.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Jody Lee Smith

  1 The Beginning of the End

  This is the way the world ends

  Not with a bang but a whimper - T.S.Eliot

  Valerie Nicolls pushed her way through the swarm of people. It was thirty-three degrees Celsius and humid and her daughter had rushed ahead to the bathroom. The searing heat, the pulsing crowd had combined to make her sick. Valerie hoped she’d made it and hadn’t vomited all over some poor person.

  “Out the fucking way bitch.” ‘Oh, I hate this place’, she thought as the feral man push passed her.

  “Mum why is everyone crowded around here?”, asked Joss, her seventeen-year-old daughter.

  “Jet Ski show is about to start”, she had her fifteen-year-old by the hand. Sean was blond and blue and got lots of attention from the girls at school but his mother insisted on holding his hand in the crowd so he didn’t get lost. He towered over his mother but she didn’t seem to care.

  “Sean can you see Emily?”, she asked him.

  “Yes she’s coming out of the bathroom.”

  Valerie waved to her daughter and they met halfway, not far from the exit. She looked over at the entrance turnstiles and saw people still lined up to enter the amusement park.

  Why did she come here today of all days? But she couldn’t complain, it was her idea. Her husband Matthew was over at the roller coaster with their twenty-year-old son, also blond and blue and also popular with the cute young gals.

  Valerie pulled her phone out, she’d had enough and Emily was saying to Joss that she needed to vomit again.

  Ethan and his father Matthew were waiting to get on the roller coaster when his smartphone rang.

  “Honey, I want to go. The girls and Sean have had enough.” It was Valerie.

  “Okay, but we're on the next round and we've been waiting here for ages. There are forty million people in this dump!” The woman next to them heard the comment and frowned.

  “Yes of course, honey I know you hate the crowds, thanks for…. What the hell?”

  Valerie was looking at the people coming into the park and saw a man and woman embracing, it looked like they were kissing but when they broke away the man had blood all over his face, the woman collapsed and then stood up again with what looked like a huge wound on her neck, the woman next to her was screaming.

  “They have some sort of street performers livening up the crowd outside”, she continued. “Look have your turn and meet us, we’re going to the car to put the air conditioning on. It’s so hot here.”

  Matthew hung up the phone just as the roller coaster raced past stopping twenty meters past them, the passengers were getting out. It was a weird set up, but really clever. The carriage raced past just in front of them at 30 km/h as it came to a stop, building up the anticipation of the ride. Once the carriage reversed back to be in front of them Ethan got in first and leaned across and put his father’s phone and sunglasses in the tray and then stepped back into the carriage, the lad was impressed that they had the front row.

  As the seats were secured and the containers with their gear moved forward he could hear the “X-Files” theme song going off on his phone, Valerie was trying to call him again. Ten seconds later the roller coaster moved off.

  - 1 -

  Valerie gathered up her tribe and started moving to the exit when she saw the girl with the fake neck wound smashing her fist into the face of an elderly woman. The man who had bitten her was attacking the woman’s husband.

  “Move, let’s go!” She kept hold of her son’s hand and they pushed through the crowd to the exit, she opened the door, checked for people and pulled her children through. The screaming from the crowd had increased and she glanced back and saw the crowd inside was now being attacked. She quickly let the steel mesh door close. A man ran at the door and tried to open it. Another man reached from behind and put his fingers in the man’s face and started gouging at his eyes, blood poured down his face.

  “Come on mum”, Sean pulled Valerie by the hand as the man bit into the throat of his victim. Valerie looked at her son and saw that he was crying, Emily and Joss were looking at their mother with expressions of shock and fear. She looked back at the man, one eye was totally destroyed but the other was looking at Valerie with rage.

  “Let’s get to the car quickly!”, she yelled at them, and as they ran down the curved walkway to the carpark the image of lambs going to the slaughter down a chute gate leapt into her mind. The closed gate and the high walls either side formed a tunnel they had to follow. It veered to the right blocking the exit view.

  When they got to the end of the exit, they ran to the car as fast as possible. Valerie noticed a rush of people going through the entrance hall as her youngest son arrived at the car, she didn’t even realise that he’d let go of her hand.

  “Doop doop”, the car unlocked and they jumbled inside and locked the doors. Two of the rioters had noticed them and were rushing from the entranceway towards the car. It didn't take long for them to cover the distance.

  In the meantime, Valerie started the Toyota Landcruiser and began to drive away. A man jumped on the car and began smashing at the windscreen. An action film fan, she knew what to do. Slamming on the brakes would get him off.

  Full of terror and adrenaline fuelled, she was actually shocked when the crazy man slid off the car. “Hollywood is bloody right!” she shouted.

  The man stood up and came at them again.

  “Mum, keep going, he's coming again!” shouted Joss.

  In her fear, Valerie ran straight into him, he bounced off the car and Valerie sped out of the car park.

  They drove a short distance along the road and stopped.

  “Emily, Emily! Call your father!” Valerie yelled.

  They saw a man run up from the beach and run at a family playing on the swings. He went at the boy and pulled him off the monkey bar and bit him on the arm. The father ran at the man and kicked him very hard in the balls and he collapsed dropping the boy, the man crawled forward and bit the man on the ankle, his sock seemed to give some protection as the father kicked the man again, this time in the face breaking his nose. Blood poured out but the man was scrambling to his feet. But the father had his son in his arms and had run to the other side of the play equipment. The woman wasn’t as fast, the man attacked her next, this time biting in the neck drawing a huge amount of blood, the father rushed to pick up his other child and ran towards the road with them shouting to another group of people, he handed his children to them. He was beginning to run back to his wife when she ran off towards the beach, following the man with the broken nose and bruised balls.

  “Mum, he’s not answer
ing the phone, he must be on the roller coaster.”

  Valerie looked across at the bottom of the roller coaster and saw hundreds of people rioting and fighting, she knew it was too late for her husband to get out. Years earlier she’d watched a documentary on the genocides in Rwanda and the Balkans and thought she was seeing something like that, only worse. ‘Are they sick or something? Rabies?’ she thought. Then her thoughts went to getting her remaining children to safety.

  She glanced back at the people in the park, the father didn’t know what to do, she now knew what she had to do. She put the car in drive and accelerated off.

  - 2 -

  Matthew and Ethan were enjoying the slow ascent as the ride slowly clicked its way up the slope before the two-minute descent, they looked across and saw their car driving out the driveway.

  “I wonder where they’re going”, Matthew commented to his son. He wasn’t concerned yet, he assumed they were heading to buy ice creams or something and would be back in a few minutes.

  Matthew realised he could see people running away from the area where the crowd was assembled for the jet ski show.

  The roller coaster tipped over the top of the hill and accelerated. Although the ride was noisy they could hear the crowd below them, the first attackers had reached the people lined up for the rider and the fighting was rapidly making its way toward the front of the line.

  The roller coaster came down almost vertically towards the crowd and although they were travelling very fast, the view from the front seat was horrific. Men and women were fighting and killing. The roller coaster turned just four metres above the crowd and went into the final loop it would have to undertake before coming to a stop.

  “Get ready Ethan. Remember that the ride has an automatic unlock. Be ready to push it up and get out as fast as you can. We're going into the canal, that might slow them.”

  The roller coaster came in for the final stop, still doing thirty kilometres per hour as it rushed past the crowd and stopped. Some of the crazies jumped over the guard rail and started attacking the people at the rear of the carriage. Ethan could hear screaming and shouting and ten seconds after they came to a stop, the ride locked in place and the seat harnesses unlocked.

  “Let's go, let's go! Forget the stuff, Ethan, straight into the water.”, Ethan’s father was dragging him off the ride, away from the exit. The people at the rear of the carriage were still being attacked and other crazies were now coming for them.

  Matthew ran away from the ride exit, “Over the fucking fence son, now.”

  Ethan jumped over the one meter high fence that separated the front of the ride from the grass leading to the canal. His father’s hands were on the fence and he was about to go over when the back of his shirt was caught by a crazy.

  “Keep going”, he shouted. He tried to jump over with the man still holding the shirt but couldn’t. His son stepped forward and smashed the crazy in the nose with his fist, Matthew jumped over the fence the second that he released the shirt and the two men ran towards the canal. The crazy had stumbled for just a second but it made all the difference, he dove over the fence landing face first in the grass and was up again straight away, Matthew had ten meters on him. Ethan dived into the canal with his father right behind him. The momentum took them four or five meters from the shore. After reaching the edge of the water the crazy turned around and went back towards the carnage at the roller coaster.

  “Fucking hell, all those people tried to get their stuff and now they're dead”, shouted Ethan.

  - 3 -

  The canal at Marine Park was designed to bring fresh ocean water from the Estuary into the Dolphin enclosure. The two men started swimming towards the Estuary.

  When Ethan and Matthew got to the end of the canal, they found it blocked by a huge security net. The netting was bolted into underwater concrete and attached to posts over six meters high. The top of the fence appeared protected by electronic surveillance.

  “At least there's no razor wire at the top”, said Matthew.

  Matthew removed his waterlogged shoes and socks, tied the laces together and strung them across his shoulders. He placed his fingers and toes in the net and started to climb with his son following behind.

  Climbing out of the deep water onto a net was difficult, but once out of the water Ethan passed his father and waited for him at the top of the net.

  Matthew tried to ignore the cries and screaming that he heard coming from the park, thankful that he had seen the rest of his family leave the park.

  They sat at the top of the fence for a moment and looked across the theme park. People were either fighting or running.

  Looking the other way towards the Estuary, things looked very different. Boats carried on coming or going from where ever they were coming from or going to and people swam.

  Closer to the theme park, people were standing on their boats and appeared to be trying to work out what the commotion was about.

  Before dropping down into the water Matthew said to his son, “Let's get to that yacht over there, a man is on the deck.

  - 4 -

  Juan Barb had been on the Gold Coast for fourteen days after sailing his yacht from his home in New Caledonia. He had finished refueling and was ready to sail to Sydney. Fourteen days on the Gold Coast was more than enough, thank you very much. They were off to Sydney next and from there, he intended to sail to New Zealand.

  The shouting and screaming from Marine Park had bought him up on deck from the lunch he was enjoying with his wife. He was trying to see what was happening. Something had stopped the roller coaster. Michelle and Juan had enjoyed riding on it a few days earlier and he was wondering if there had been an accident.

  Juan saw an athletic looking young man climb over the netting on the canal inlet and sit on top. A middle-aged man joined him not long afterward and pointed to Juan. Abruptly, the second man jumped into the water, followed by the young man.

  Juan noticed that they were swimming towards him. “I wonder if there are terrorists in Marine Park.” Juan rushed below deck to get his spear gun. He kept his rifles locked up and hidden while in Australian waters.

  “Honey, stay here. Someone is coming to the boat”, he told his wife.

  By the time he was back on deck, Matthew and Ethan were just a few meters away.

  “Stay where you are! What the hell do you want?”

  “Do you have a phone? I need to call my wife. There's a riot in Marine Park, they're killing each other!”

  “Bullshit”, said Juan. It was one of his favourite English words.

  “Listen to the noise coming from the Theme Park”, argued Matthew. “And when we were on the top, I could see that it was happening at the public park on the other side of the water. Look for yourself.”

  Juan turned and looked across the water at the park and saw a man attacking a picnicking family. A little boy was being carried by his screaming mother towards the highway.

  “Come on board. If you do anything I don't like, I will spear you.”

  “Roger that. Thanks”

  - 5 -

  Ethan followed his father onto the yacht and they sat on the bench.

  “I'll tell you what I know”, his father began.

  Matthew gave an outline of what he'd seen. He finished with, “I think the rioters have some sort of, I don't know, shit like rabies. It's like a movie or something. It's, it's crazy.”

  When Juan didn’t respond. Matthew repeated his earlier question. “Do you have a telephone? I need to ring my wife.”

  Juan looked at Matthew, looked across at the picnickers in the park and decided.

  “Wait here.”

  Juan went downstairs and got the satellite phone and spoke briefly to Michelle. Coming upstairs, he gave the phone to Matthew, it had been twenty minutes since he exited the ride in a panic.

  - 6 -

  After seeing the carnage at the park, Valerie had driven off. She was seeing rioting in the parks and on the footpaths. Some crazy pe
ople had run out in front of the tram and been run down just as they went past. Somehow, she’d managed to get to Smith St and was about to enter the freeway.

  Her daughter had opened the ABC news web site and was live streaming, there was carnage everywhere. Then it moved to footage from the Marine Park.

  “Turn it off”, she ordered her daughter, “We don’t want to see that.” She was frightened that she might see the death of her husband and son on there.

  The Bluetooth phone in the car started ringing, a number she didn’t recognise.

  - 7 -

  “Valerie, Valerie it's Matthew. Yes, he's here with me. Come on honey, try not to cry, I can’t understand you, yes, we’re okay, no, no one bit us. Yes, I’m sure, no one touched us. We're on a boat, a yacht in the Estuary. Where are you? Listen, how bad is it? Are you safe? Right, Okay. Listen, this is what I want you to do...”