This piece was written for the Min Min Weekly Prompt Challenge for March 3, ‘Long Ride Home’.

Jack came home after his second tour of Afghanistan to find his father, ruined by drought and abandoned by the Government, face down in the shed, with his shotgun by his side.

Jack was already damaged goods. He barely slept and interacted with as few people as possible. He’d thrown away the zombie pills. Life had become a biological condition, not a state of humanity. Then everything changed.

Returning from a night of kangaroo shooting, Jack slowed when he spotted a car and two police motorcycles stopped on the road ahead. One of the riders stepped off his motorcycle and unholstered his pistol.

Jack flicked on his spotlight to dazzle the rider and reached for his rifle. The rider turned towards Jack’s lights and fired a couple of rounds before advancing towards him. Jack swung his door open for cover and fired twice and the rider fell backwards to the ground. The second rider gunned his engine and sped away.

Jack approached the car carefully and saw three bodies with eyes that only the dead possess. Then a man Jack recognised emerged, blood streaming from a head wound, yelling ‘The Police .. they just stopped and then started shooting …I don’t understand…’

‘Yeah, well that makes two of us but we need to get you out of here.’

As Jack and his passenger drove into the night, Jack said ‘Get comfortable, Prime Minister. It’s a long ride home. And we need to chat.’