First Prize
Illidan
Mel King
9/3/2027
Steampacket Gardens
Geelong Waterfront
Sunset
It’s getting dark on the waterfront, a hazy red sunset painting a fiery sheen over the inky black of Corio Bay. The streets should be deserted at this hour – it’s not safe to be out after sundown, but a cluster of people stand resolute, forming a queue that stretches from outside the carousel to a ferry docked at the end of the jetty. They’re not planning to travel; no-one travels at night anymore. They’re waiting for supplies to be unloaded – food, candles, disinfectant, and if they’re lucky, kerosine.
We fear the sunless hours now, but it never gets completely dark. Fires rage to the east, casting a perpetual red glow on the horizon. Too distant to be an immediate threat, in some ways the fires are welcome, not least because the smoke covers the smell of death that is starting to overpower the city when the wind dies down and the grey air stands still. Silver linings, I guess. Crimson ones, even.
Our once beloved floating Christmas tree looms to our left, what remains of its reflective panels glowing the ominous red of a bushfire sky. By day, its dilapidated, graffiti-covered presence is a sobering monument to everything we have lost.
A little way up the hill, three soldiers stand in front of an armoured Land Rover, its spotlights preventing the gloom from swallowing us whole. We’d better hurry if we want to be out of here before they leave; not even the army are willing to stay by the water once night takes hold.
There are still at least twenty-five people queued ahead of me, anxious to fill their empty trolleys and suitcases before they return to their loved ones. I’m last in line, waiting for my best mate Dizzy to finish work.
The invaders, or Inksacks, as we call them, arrived 93 days ago. I keep track of the days by journaling. I wanted to be a journalist, and travel the world reporting on wars and disasters, but I dropped out of year twelve last year and got a job instead. Destiny is a funny thing though; in the end, war and disaster came right to my doorstep.
There’s been no contact with anyone outside Australia since the invasion. Dizzy thinks we were the only country invaded, and the rest of the world has us quarantined while they argue over whether or not they should nuke us. My mum says too much Youtube has made Dizzy paranoid, and having no internet is another silver lining.
By day, the Inksacks sink deep into the water and leave us alone. They hate light, even artificial light, and people say that’s why they knocked out all of our electronics with some kind of massive electromagnetic pulse right before they attacked.
The upside is that we can travel by boat during the day. The supply boxes we’re queueing for come from Melbourne, on a really old ferry that Dizzy’s gran fixed up after the attack. Dizzy’s gran is a bit of a legend, and that ferry has become a lifeline for a lot of people. Dizzy helps out on the ferry most days. I’d help too, if I didn’t already have a job.
I was in my final weeks of placement at a nursing home when the invasion happened, and I still turn up every day, because someone has to. Some of the residents don’t understand why their home has been locked down like a prison, or why the lights don’t work, or why their families have stopped visiting. I guess I’ll never get my Cert 3 in aged care now, but those oldies are good value. They have a real talent for laughing when things get tough.
‘Illidan. Hey! Earth to Illidan!’ Dizzy waves a hand in front of my face. ‘Are you seriously journaling right now? Put it away, Illy. It’s almost dark and everyone has gone! Let’s move!’
As if on cue, the soldiers switch off their spotlights and leave.
‘You better be ready to haul arse,’ Dizzy says. ‘I saved us heaps of good stuff. Let’s load up this trolley and get going. I’ll help you take it all home – if I can crash at your place.’ Dizzy crashes at my place a lot lately. I don’t mind. I live close by, which means less travelling in the dark, plus Dizzy’s dad has turned into a mean drunk since the invasion. ‘There’s a whole case of fancy craft beer,’ Dizzy goes on. ‘It says full-strength and gluten-free. And I found some tinned peaches. Your mum will be stoked!’ That puts a smile on my face. Mum will be furious that I am out after dark, but a gluten free beer and a bowl of peaches will cheer her right up. It’s hard finding things she can eat now, with everything so scarce.
‘There’s Crunchy Nut Cornflakes for you and me too.’
‘Shit-hot,’ I say. I haven’t had a Crunchy Nut Cornflake for ages.
As we leave, we notice an unattended trolley by the carousel, piled high with supplies. Dizzy spots the trolley’s owner, knee deep in the water, smiling vacantly at us. A black tentacle disappears into his mouth, leaving a trail of black slime down his chin. I shudder and look away. There’s no hope for him now.
The Inksacks can’t survive on land by themselves, but if you get close enough, a tentacle shoots out of the water and stuns you, and before you can blink, they wrap around your body, climbing you like a tree until they disappear inside your mouth, and turn you into a shuffling zombie with a ghastly smile.
The freshly infected wander the streets at night, trying to lure people into the water, but they’re slow and stupid when they’re new. When the sun rises, they walk into the water and disappear, which is really creepy to watch. They’re impossible to kill too – I’ve seen them get right back up after being shot, and if you try to hurt them, those tentacles shoot right out of their mouths to throttle you.
As they mature, the infected regain their coordination. They start to sound human again, and they get more cunning. Eventually, they follow the waterways inland until they reach the bigger cities.
‘You grab that trolley, I’ll take this lot,’ I whisper to Dizzy, who is staring in horror at the ground beside us. A pulsing black tentacle is snaking along the ground towards us. ‘Shit, Illy, these things are getting bigger!’
We grab our gear and high tail it onto Eastern Beach Road.
‘Two o’clock!’ Dizzy hisses, and I spot her, a skinny blonde woman in a white tracksuit, emerging from the gloom. She’s shuffling towards us with her head cocked, her grinning teeth stained with black, inky goo. She’s a fresh turn, probably only a day old. ‘Thirsty,’ she gurgles. ‘I’m Jasmine. I’m thirsty, please.’
The newly infected are always thirsty, and if you give them water, you can usually run away while they chug it down. Our bottled water is right down the bottom of Dizzy’s trolley, under a pile of stuff. How could we be so careless?
I hear a pop and a fizz. Dizzy hands one of the gluten-free beers to the shuffler, who skols it, still grinning, like she’s starring in the world’s weirdest beer commercial. ‘Dizzy, what the hell?’ I say, but then the woman bends over and starts to retch, black tentacles emerging from her mouth as the Inksack inside her pulls itself free and flops to the ground, wobbling and shaking like a moulded jelly in an earthquake.
‘Holy shit!’ Dizzy says, laughing incredulously as the Inksack pops, splashing black goo and foam all over Jasmine, who retches some more and then starts to cry. ‘Thank you so much,’ she sobs. ‘That was so awful.’
We wait with her for a few minutes while she composes herself. She tells us she was out jogging just before dusk, when she heard a cat crying down by the water. ‘I think it was the Inksack,’ she says. ‘I think it was making the cat noise to lure me. I think they’re evolving.’
I really hope she’s wrong, because if they’re getting that smart, we’re in big trouble. Jasmine’s home is close by and she takes off, running gracefully. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Not only is she still alive, but she seems to have recovered her wits and coordination instantly.
We zoom past the library, riding our rattling trolleys, and then under the Gordon Avenue bridge, we’re halted by a roadblock. Bicycles, bedframes and broken furniture have been dragged into the middle of the road.
‘This wasn’t here before,’ Dizzy says, panicking, as two shufflers step out of the dark, flanking us. That’s a bad sign; when they start teaming up, it means they’re evolving. ‘Come to the water mate.’ The tone is flat and lifeless.
It’s too late to run, so I pull two beers out of the case and crack them open, offering them to our assailants.
‘Help me mate, I’m thirsty. Come to the water.’
They take the beers, slamming them down fast, and like Jasmine, they instantly vomit up their unwanted passengers, which explode in a pile of foamy black goo. Both men recover quickly, just like Jasmine did.
‘We’ve stumbled onto something really big here,’ Dizzy says, as the two cured men gratefully help us clear the junk from the road.
‘Maybe save-the-world big.’
Now I know for a fact that this isn’t the first time a shuffler has been given beer. I’ve seen them drink all kinds of things, from Diet Coke to full-cream milk, and they’ve never been affected like this. There’s something special about this particular beer, and I think I know just the right person to talk to about it. It will have to wait for morning though. Right now, I just want to get home and lock the door behind me.
Mum is relieved when we get home, and when we regale the incredible news about the gluten free beer, she laughs her arse off.
‘The Inksacks probably died of disappointment,’ she says. ‘Have you tried gluten free beer?’
We eat canned peaches and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes by candlelight, and Mum and Dizzy play Yahtzee while I update my journal.
***
10/3/2027
Church St
North Geelong
Sunrise
We set off for my workplace at sunrise. We deliver breakfast trays to bleary-eyed residents at lightning speed, so we can sit and talk with Miss Anderson. She was a chemistry professor back in the day, and she’s the smartest person I know. If anyone will know why the Inksacks are deathly allergic to gluten-free beer, it’s her.
‘Oooh!’ she says, putting down her Cornflakes and examining the beer. ‘Gosh. Now that is interesting.’ She cracks it open and takes a swig.
‘This beer is made from sorghum, which has a lot of tannins in it. I bet that’s what’s killing those ballsacks!’
Dizzy gets the giggles, and I’m in danger of catching them too. Miss Anderson is a real character.
‘Sea creatures like to stay wet. And tannins are astringent, do you know what that means?’ She sounds excited. ‘It makes cells contract and expel moisture. That’s the only explanation for what’s happened. What a great discovery! You clever kids!’
After a little impromptu science lesson, Miss Anderson says she wants us to try giving the shufflers something else that contains tannins – regular old tea.
‘If you think those creatures hate gluten free beer,’ she says, ‘wait until they get a load of Earl Grey! Fortunately, we have plenty of the stuff. Every time one of us receives some as a gift, it goes into a big crate in the storeroom. We call it the Earl Graveyard. It’s a bit of a running joke.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Dizzy says.
‘Me either,’ I chime in.
Miss Anderson finishes her beer, and her Cornflakes, and then ushers us into the kitchen. ‘Never mind any of that,’ she says. ‘We’ve got work to do.’
We spend the morning brewing tea in big saucepans. While we work, we brainstorm how we’ll distribute it. There are empty water bottles in the recycling bins, but not enough. We want to administer it to as many infected as possible.
Mr Harding appears in the kitchen. He’s been caring for the gardens since the gardener stopped turning up, and he’s proudly wielding three huge herbicide sprayers, the kind you wear like a back-pack. He looks very pleased with himself. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear,’ he says, beaming.
‘We can’t use them if they’ve had herbicide in them, Jim. We want to save people, not poison them,’ Miss Anderson says.
‘I’m not an idiot, Pat,’ he says. ‘These are all brand new. They haven’t been used.’ She makes him wash them anyway, along with all of the empty plastic bottles and the breakfast dishes.
‘I’m not your bloody butler, Pat’ I hear him mutter under his breath, as he goes to work with a bottlebrush.
When it’s time to set out, Miss Anderson and Mr Harding insist they are coming with us. It’s clear that they’re not taking no for an answer. Mr Harding puts on a backpack full of tea and pretends to load the spraying wand like it’s a rifle.
‘I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum,’ he says.
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but we all giggle.
***
10/3/2027
Geelong waterfront
Sunset
We reach the waterfront just before dusk, armed with forty plastic bottles of cold tea, and three of Mr Harding’s backpacks to refill them with. We’re in high spirits, glad to be doing something, instead of hiding in the dark.
The first shuffler makes his way towards us as we approach Cunningham Pier. He grins stupidly; he’s a fresh turn, and just a kid, maybe thirteen or fourteen. ‘Thirsty,’ he says. ‘Help!’
Before I can open a bottle and hand it to him, Mr Harding blasts him in the face with tea. He gapes in shock, and Mr Harding blasts another stream into his open mouth.
‘Seriously, Jim?’ Miss Anderson says. ‘He would have drunk it willingly.’
‘We don’t have time for niceties,’ he replies. ‘We’ve got people to save!’
The boy bends over and retches up the biggest Inksack yet, and as it pulses on the ground, Mr Harding squirts it again. It explodes, spraying us all with black goo.
‘You’re a menace,’ Miss Anderson says, wiping her face with a hanky. Mr Harding laughs. He’s like a kid with a new toy.
Now that we know the tea is effective, we get to work, wandering up and down the waterfront, curing the infected.
Finally, an armoured vehicle pulls up and a soldier asks us what we’re doing. We explain, and he orders us to go home immediately.
We take the scenic route, curing as many people as we can along the way, while Mr Harding and Dizzy mutter to each other about their right to walk on the street any damn time they like.
***
11/3/2027
Boscastle Village
North Geelong
Midday
We spend the morning catching up on chores at the nursing home, and then convene on Mr Harding’s balcony to eat lunch and plan our next move. Mr Harding hands out cups of tea, telling us to ‘inoculate ourselves’. Miss Anderson rolls her eyes and tells him that it doesn’t work that way.
Mr Harding and Dizzy think we need to stay away from the city, so the soldiers don’t bother us. Miss Anderson and I think the unpatrolled areas are too dangerous. Our debate is interrupted by a convoy of Barwon Water tankers, rumbling up the road.
‘I bet they’re full of tea!’ Miss Anderson says, clapping. ‘Eureka! They listened to us!’
***
10/6/2027
North Geelong
9:30pm
The army has taken over what we began, swapping armoured vehicles for water trucks, and guns for hoses. It took about two months for them to eradicate the Inksack threat, and rescue tens of thousands of people.
The electricity has been coming on in fits and starts, as people recover and return to work, and businesses have started to re-open. I still work at the nursing home, but there are more staff now, and Miss Anderson has asked me to help write up her research on how to solve the next crisis – the environmental impact of thousands of litres of tea in our waterways. I love working with her; I’m learning heaps, but it doesn’t leave time for journaling.
Mr Harding bought a truckload of those big spray bottles (well, he says he bought them), and he fills them with tea, and distributes them to households in our area. He says you can’t rely on the army for everything, and people still need to be able to protect themselves. You’d expect the crate of Earl Grey in the storeroom to be empty by now, but it’s still half full. Mr Harding says it’s cursed, like one of those magical packets of Tim Tams that never runs out.
Still no word from the outside world, but there have been small planes in the sky the last few days, and I saw a big ship leaving the bay yesterday, so who knows what will happen next. Mr Harding thinks Australia is on a good wicket, isolated from the rest of the world, and we shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves. Miss Anderson thinks that’s foolish, and that we need to collaborate with international scientists as soon as possible.
I’m not sure who’s right, but I can tell you that for all of their bickering, they sure do spend a lot of time together now. Dizzy insists that they’ve got the hots for each other, and on that score, I think Dizzy may be right on the money.
Mel King writes science fiction, horror and comedy. She is this year’s winner of the Speculate Prize for Emerging Writers, and received second place in Geelong Writers Prize 2024. Mel’s writing has been published in Backstory Journal, the Village Views and Geelong Cereal.
Return to the Geelong Writers Prize 2025 page
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