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close to eight am. He walked over to a couple of upturned boxes and sat down, beckoning Evan to follow him. As he pulled his shoes back on, Joe began.
    “Twenty-four hours ago, I was doing my job like everyone else. The world was shitty, as usual, and then it got a whole lot shittier. I work for Mr Craven, which means, unfortunately, I work for her too.” Joe pointed to the jet and sighed.
    “I’m supposed to be the driver , but in reality I’m the dogsbody. I do a bit of babysitting, pick up the groceries, the dry-cleaning. I even have to clean the bloody pool. I like my driving though. I used to be a driver in a different sense, if you know what I mean.” He winked at Evan.
    “Anyway, I was worki ng on the car yesterday and Mrs Craven runs into the garage, shouting her head off about some riots going on and that I have to go get the kids from school. Makes it sound like a big emergency. I thought she was exaggerating, of course, acting like she’s the boss. She likes to think she is, but I know who and what pays my wages and it ain’t her pretty face.
    “So on the way to the school , I listened to the radio. It was all a bit muddled but it was true, there were riots everywhere. Not just here, but they were saying it was some worldwide event, as if somehow they were connected. Europe, America, China; even our cousins over the ditch were having some trouble in Auckland. The news didn’t say why though, just that there was lots of fighting going on and the army was being called in. I thought shit; it must be bad if they’re calling the green berets in!
    “ Anyway, I picked up the kids and it seemed everyone else had the same idea. Nearly everyone else had cleared out; I was last getting to the school. I didn’t want to scare the kids so I turned the radio off and told them they just had to go home and speak to their mother. The kids didn’t say a word, just ran inside when they got home. I guess they probably heard something at school about it, you know what kids are like. They were probably on their mobiles in class and knew about it before bloody CNN. So anyway, they flew off and I stayed in the car and turned the radio back on. This is when it gets fucking freaky.
    “ The radio was saying that Melbourne was now in lock-down: that we all had to stay inside, lock the doors, you know? They said that if anyone in the family was injured we had to lock them outside .”
    Joe emphasised the last word. Evan said nothing. He wanted to hear as much as possible. If he was going outside, he needed to know the full picture and he didn’t like where this story was going.
    “The radio said that the dead were coming back to life, that if anyone you knew had died, that you had to either lock them outside or kill them by...by severing the head. Severing the head? Can you believe this shit? I swear I’ve done some things in my past I’m not proud of, and I’ve seen some weird stuff, but this? This was insane. I tried a few different stations but it was the same on every one. They were talking about zombies, running around the streets, our streets!”
    Joe paused and shook his head as though he still couldn’t believe it.
    “I haven’t got any family myself, so I called Dan, a mate of mine, he lives in Sydney. Now you’ve got to remember, this bloke can handle himself. Built like a brick shithouse he is. Never started a fight, but never lost one neither. Never . We used to call him Dangerous Dan. Yet when I called him, he sounded like a little boy again, like when we used to hang out at school. He lives up in the hills and you can see Sydney, beautiful from his place. He made a lot of money back in the day and built himself a sweet pad. He told me he was looking out of his window and Sydney was burning. He said the whole city was on fire. He said the police, army, or someone, had just been down his street, shouting and waving guns around. Reckoned they’d shot his flat-mate, Sammy, for no reason except Sammy was