They gave the trolleys one last push before Ben climbed in alongside Jo and Wyatt jumped in with me.

Jo ignited the fire extinguisher to help cloud us from the zombies and I began slashing at any who got too close.

I could feel my heart pounding and my arms shaking as we sped down the street, hacking off zombie heads as we zoomed passed.

"We're nearly there!" Yelled Wyatt as he fought off one of the zombies, gutting it like a fish with a butcher knife.

I could see his yellow Chevy parked by the sidewalk on the next block, and I knew we would be there in a matter of seconds considering how fast we were flying down the street.

"How are we going to stop?" Yelled Jo as the fire extinguisher started to sputter.

Before anyone could answer, the trolleys hit the curb and toppled over, sending us all flying onto the hard concrete.

I winced as I skidded across the ground, grazing my arms on the footpath and coming to a stop against the brick wall of a building.

Opening my eyes, I could see a giant hoard of zombies running down the hill, literally falling over each other to get to us as we lay on the ground helplessly.

"They're coming!" I yelled as I picked myself up and held my hand out for Ben.

I helped him to his feet while Jo and Wyatt quickly snatched up a few of the knives strewn along the ground from the fall.

Feeling a sharp pain soaring down my arm, I started running fiercely towards the car, too afraid to look at what was causing it.

Wyatt made it to the car first, fumbling around in his pocket for the key and frantically sliding it into the door, throwing a knife, the hairspray and lighter into the backseat.

I jumped into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut behind me as Ben slid into the back.

"Where's Jo?" I heard Wyatt ask, fear in his voice.

Turning around, I saw Jo was still running towards the car, clutching her spear tightly, with at least six zombies right behind her.

"She's not gonna make it!" I said as I reached into the back seat, grabbed the hairspray and lighter, and jumped back out of the car.

"Eva! What are you doing?!" I heard Wyatt yell as I ran, but I didn't stop. I had to help Jo.

"Just start the car!" I yelled back.

One of the zombies jumped at Jo, falling short and clutching her ankle, causing her to fall to the ground.

Jo held her spear high and started stabbing it repeatedly until it let go of her ankle, while I ran up next to her and lit the lighter as I held it in front of the hairspray can. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had to do something fast.

Just as the other five zombies were about to close in, I pressed down on the hairspray can, sending a huge flame bursting into the air in front of me.

I felt my fingers starting to burn, but I sprayed the flames on the zombies as they came running towards us. I looked in horror as they continued running towards us, now as ferocious fireballs.

Jo stood behind me now, pulling on my singlet, urging me to run.

"Come on, Eva! We can make it!"

I turned and together we ran to the car as fast as we could, Wyatt putting his foot down on the pedal as soon as we jumped inside.

"Eva! You're hurt!" Wyatt said, glancing at me as he sped down the street towards the city centre.

Looking down at my right arm, I saw a huge gash just below my shoulder, blood pouring out of it.

"I must have landed on one of the knives when we tipped the trolleys." I replied, suddenly feeling the pain a whole lot more.

"Here, you gotta put pressure on it. Give me your scarf." Ordered Ben as he leaned forward from the back seat.

I unwrapped my scarf from around my neck and handed to him, and he proceeded to tie it tightly around my arm, stopping the bleeding but intensifying the pain.

"Good thing we've got a medic with us." Said Wyatt, relief washing over his face.

I looked in the rear view mirror to see the hoard as they chased after us, trying to ignore the pain in my arm.

Their rotting limbs and decimated consciousness made them slower than us, shuffling more than walking or running. But their animal instincts and ever-expanding numbers made it easy for them to corner their prey. That's how they were quickly overthrowing the entire population of Australia.

"Fire doesn't work. I lit those bastards on fire and it slowed them down a little, but it didn't stop them. Maybe if it was a huge explosion or something that engulfed them enough to melt their brains, but just lighting one or two on fire isn't enough. We need to remember that. I say we just stick to knives and weapons that we're sure will destroy their brains." I said, turning to everyone to make sure they understood.

"But when you threw hot oil on the one in the diner, it stopped it... for a second." Wyatt added, confused.

"I know. Maybe because he was so new? He'd only just turned. The ones chasing us looked more... decayed. And they were definitely more brutal." I said, trying to understand how the virus works.

Everyone nodded as we drove further into city, passing half-eaten corpses and straggling zombies on the way.

Melbourne had fast transformed into a war-zone, and I cringed at the thought of what awaited us at Melbourne Central.

Chapter Eleven.

"I feel so ridiculous right now." Wyatt said as he leaned out the window, reaching for the ticket that slid out of the machine as we waited to enter the Melbourne Central underground parking garage.

We had seen more zombies than we expected dotting the streets on our drive from the diner into the city, and I kept a careful watch through the windows while Wyatt waited for the boom gate to rise.

Slowly, he edged the car down the winding slope and into the parking lot.

I felt relieved to see it was practically empty except for a few cars here and there.

Pulling up as close to the elevator as possible, Wyatt parked the car and we climbed out, our eyes searching the vacant floor for any signs of movement.

I pulled my satchel over my shoulder and held my knife close.

After our last encounter in the street and losing some weapons in the trolley crash, we each only had one knife left.

Waiting for the elevator, I felt grateful that the city still had power, although for how long I didn't know, so we had to be quick.

The doors slid open and we stepped inside the elevator, Ben anxiously pressing the 'door close' button repeatedly. We sighed in relief as the doors closed, but gasped in shock when we saw our own reflections in the mirrored doors.

"Woah!" Exclaimed Wyatt as he touched his face.

"Cool!" Said Ben, scrunching up his face and groaning like a zombie.

I smiled proudly at my works of art.

"Ewwww," Jo said as she moved closer to the door, looking intently at her zombie-fied face and neck. "I look so gross! Good work, Eva."

She turned to give me the thumbs up as the doors opened onto the first floor, revealing a zombie standing right in front of her.

Before any of us could warn her, Jo faced forward to step out of the lift, screaming when she saw the white eyes of the creature staring her in the face.

Instinctively, she punched the zombie right in the head, sending it stumbling backwards and right over the balcony, falling down to the floor below.

"Wow! Go Jo!" Laughed Ben, and she gave him a high five even though her hand trembled uncontrollably.

Slowly, the four of us stepped out of the elevator, looking around for any more unwanted surprises.

"Time to be zombies." I whispered as I started stumbling around, trying to walk like all the zombies I had seen that day. The others followed my example.

"Which way?" I asked, looking at Ben.

"I dunno." He replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"What?!?" Whispered Jo, exasperated.

"I don't know, I think it's on this floor somewhere." He continued, looking around at the stores.

"We need a map," said Wyatt, spotting one further ahead and making his way towards it, still trying to walk like a zombie. "I'm feeling ridiculous again." He smirked.

Once we reached the map of the mall, we realised we needed to go down one level and walk to the other side of the centre.

"We'll never make it!" Jo groaned, dropping her face into her hands hopelessly.

"Yes we will," I said sternly. "We've made it this far. We can do it. Let's go."

I just hope it's open, I thought as I looked around the shopping centre.

It was clear that some of the stores were open, but not all.

Probably opened by people just like us, who showed up to work not knowing about the outbreak.

I tried not to think about what happened to those poor people.

We began our slow shuffle down the escalators and across the shopping centre.

We had made it more than half way when we saw two zombies up ahead, crouched over something, tearing through it like lions on a zebra.

"What do we do?" Jo whimpered, fear in her voice.

"Just keep going," Wyatt whispered back. "Blend in. If they come too close, hack they're damn heads off."

I started to shake as we edged closer, my heart pounding furiously and my breath shallow in my lungs.

"Don't look." Whispered Wyatt as he glanced at me sideways, but it was too late.

I had already seen the fear riddled face of the woman that the zombies were devouring.

She was young, around the same age as me, and wearing an apron.

She must have worked around here somewhere.

Tears welled in my eyes and all I wanted to do was pull my knife out from my jeans pocket and start wailing on the zombies, but I knew it would be pointless; the woman was already dead.

As we quietly made our way passed the beasts, trying our best to seem as undead as possible, one of the zombies turned from their meal to look at us.

I swallowed the rising bile back down my throat as it locked eyes with mine while ripping into the woman's intestines, sending blood and guts spattering all over itself.

"Ok," whispered Wyatt once we had passed the zombies. "We're nearly there. I can see it."

I had never felt so excited to see a Bob's Camping store in my life, but it quickly turned to dread when I saw that it was closed, the roller door pulled down to the floor.

"Looks like Bob didn't show up for work today." Wyatt said as we reached the store.

"We came all this way for nothing!" Grunted Ben as he kicked the roller door.

I turned around to see a few more zombies had started to emerge, feeling sick at the thought of walking all the way through them to get back to the car.

"What do we do now?" I asked, trying to pull the door up, but it wouldn't budge.

I knew we wouldn't make it back to the car.

For the first time since this nightmare started, I felt helpless.