Jasper and the Dead

By RJ Astruc

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, a zombie outbreak threatens to wipe out Sydney. Zombie hunter Jasper Blue and Pape Sassoon, a ferryman’s secretary, are charged with getting the governor safely out to the ship anchored in Sydney Harbor. Despite a sparking mutual attraction, the two men hire a cadre of bodyguards and attempt the mission. But when the zombie horde threatens to overwhelm them, their fight for the governor becomes a battle for life, and love, and much more.

Part of the Under the Southern Cross anthology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
• Release date: Mar 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781623805487

Book preview

Author’s Note

IN THE interest of telling an interesting tale—and bringing together my favourite characters from Australian convict history—I’ve fudged several details of Sydney life, not least of which is that Governor Macquarie died several years before the story takes place. I hope readers will be happy to suspend their disbelief (and their historical complaints) and allow me a little license with history!

Jasper and the Dead

ON THE second day of August, 1826, a sloop bearing a blue flag sails into Sydney Harbour. The flag, which flies somewhat treasonously above the new union flag, marks it as an uninfected ship; the cannons on its gun deck mark it as a sloop-of-war. It is the first ship to enter the harbour since the governor sent a warning to Britain three years ago, and its name is the HMS Oberon.

The sloop drops anchor four hundred metres east of Goat Island, just beyond the route of the ferries, and waits.

When the commodore’s Elizabeth ferry cruises to Blue’s Point that evening, its passengers witness a message strung across the HMS Oberon’s starboard bow. The message is written in black paint across what seems to be sail-canvas and, although the styling is crude, the message is clear.

It reads: EMISSARY.

Pape

PAPE SASSOON, the commodore’s young secretary, is waiting at Blue’s Point when the Elizabeth arrives. The first man off the little rowboat is the sandy-haired ferryman, who practically squeals the news at Pape. An emissary from England, after three years! Three whole years! And suddenly the pair of them—two men who were strangers only a minute before—are dancing together amongst the filth and the fish-smell of the small dock.

England. Help is coming.

They hold hands and skip and laugh and hug and the ferryman starts crying, his tanned face crinkled with happiness. Home! cries the ferryman, and Pape cheers even though, as a child of free settlers, England has never truly been his home. Sydney is Pape’s birthplace, and he has known no other country but this wild, savage Terra Australis.

Home, cries the ferryman again. The quarantine is over. This is it, my friend—we will be rescued!

Rescued, Pape echoes, pulling on his jacket with fingers clumsy with excitement. I must tell the commodore.

He leaves the ferryman to continue his celebrations with his passengers and sets off towards his employer’s house. It’s a cold evening, and everything is beginning to lose its colour as the darkness descends. Ahead of him, the city lies along the waterside like a long brown cowl, the irregular shapes of its buildings casting strange shadows across the harbour.

Not so long ago, this whole area was known as Northampton Farm, an eighty acre property that Governor Macquarie gifted to the commodore for his work as a water bailiff. But since the quarantine began, the commodore has allowed people to build on his land. Northampton Farm, with its clear vantage of the ocean and accessible dock, is considered one of Sydney’s few safe places—easily defensible should the infected attack.

Beyond the hastily constructed homes of Sydney’s poor—mainly emancipated ex-convicts—are larger houses where the wealthy now live, having fled their farms and larger properties for the safety of the city. Behind their closed doors, Pape hears the sounds of people drawing bolts and dragging furniture to block their windows.

Few people are on the streets at this time, and those Pape sees are hurrying home; the governor’s curfew begins at nightfall. Now and then, Pape sees human shadows in alcoves and side roads, but they shy away from him, ducking back into the darkness. In Sydney, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

In normal circumstances, Pape would be fearful to walk back to the commodore’s home alone, but tonight the message of the Oberon is knocking about inside his head like a war drum. England will rescue them! Although Pape has never been to England, he’s heard stories of the country all his life. Tales of green fields and grey skies, of fantastic cities crammed next to waterways, of the dirt of the inner districts, of the cobbled roads. Sometimes he’s even dreamed himself there, walking through the tight alleys of London, rugged up against the dreariness of a rainy day.

We are saved, he whispers to himself.

He heads down a short cut, squeezing between two ramshackle homes that seem to be very slowly slipping towards each other for support. There is a molly house coming up on his left; from within he hears muffled sounds of merriment. Automatically he crosses to the other side of the road, feeling shameful without