The final rolling hill almost killed us. Otherwise, the drive down the coast had been uneventful albeit a bit unorthodox. Getting out of the city had been like playing a video game where you can drive over anything and everything, and the road is just used as a vague starting point. Because of all the abandoned vehicles on the road, Rueben had to ease us over footpaths and roundabouts, down pedestrian malls, even through a small park at one stage, the space between the swings and the slide of the playground allowing just enough space to squeak the Kombi through.

Being inside the van was like a video game too – Tetris. Although the Kombi was spacious, it still needed to carry six people, six bikes, six bike trailers, a crap-ton of supplies, sooooo much vodka and one small dog. We'd stacked as much as possible on the roof and hooked the bikes on the back. The rest of the gear went inside and the people fitted in where they could. Bailey and Simon claimed the backseat, while Nev curled up with Mischa and Bella to read a Disney princess book together.

That left me in the front seat, guiding Rueben with the map printouts. I'd planned to lurk against the passenger door, but at the last moment, Bailey had shoved a bunch of food boxes in next to me, which meant I had to sit with my leg almost touching Rueben's on the bench seat.

"Sorry," Rueben called out in warning as the van crashed down off a curb. Everyone inside groaned or yelped; the van was clearly built in a time before effective suspension.

I stared intently out the windows. My anger had dissipated, but I wasn't feeling chatty.

Rueben asked, "Are you alright?"

"That's not a fair question," I responded. "Social rules dictate that I should say yes, but of course I'm not fine. I shouldn't be fine. None of us should be. What you're really asking me is am I alright with you."

"Are you?"

"Does it matter? I met you this morning. We don't have to be best friends. We just have to work together." Fine, maybe I was still feeling slightly truculent.

"Alright." Silence, except for Mischa's small voice reading aloud to Nev.

The van arrived at another intersection littered with empty vehicles. "Where is everybody?" I breathed, peering in every direction.

"Hiding inside, I'd guess."

"I thought they'd be rioting or fleeing dodge like us."

Rueben shook his head as he manoeuvred the Kombi over the pedestrian island and onto the other side of the road. "When people are scared, they flee, freeze or fight. Fighting might be happening closer in to the city, but fleeing is pretty hard with most cars not working. So most of them will have frozen, which means hiding and hoping they'll get rescued, or that all of this will somehow get fixed."

I stared around at the mostly empty streets, loathing the ghostly atmosphere. At one stage, we turned a corner and almost collided with a downed helicopter lying on its side, intact but clearly not going anywhere. A train blocked a level crossing, and we lost half an hour trying to find a way around, and another half an hour when Simon insisted on stopping at a bakery and trading a bottle of tequila for a massive crate of day-old baked goods.

Eventually the road opened up to wide lanes leading down the coast, and the Kombi rattled as Rueben accelerated. The sun was starting to set, casting mango light over the ocean that peeped between the hills on our left. Behind us, the backseat had fallen quiet, and when I looked back, I saw everyone had fallen asleep, except for Bailey who stared vacantly out to sea.

Dusk cloaked us as we cruised into Corrimal. I'd found the Airbnb on the map, the only house at the end of a long driveway. "It should be just ahead," I said, stretching my legs as best I could in the cramped space. "Up over the next rise."

Rueben squinted. The Kombi's engine worked, but the headlights didn't, and we struggled to peer into the dimness ahead. A downward slope spooled before us, ending in a sharp rise, the house at the top of the hill. "Great."

Just as I allowed myself to relax, to picture the night ahead filled with bread rolls and warm beds, the sky thickened again. "Oh no. Rueben, it's happening."

"What?"

"The nanobots." The low hum filled the warm sea air that drifted in the window, and a few seconds later, the Kombi engine guttered.

"We need to pull over," I said urgently. "You're going to lose the engine in a second."

"No." Rueben slammed his foot down and the Kombi lurched forward.

"What are you doing?"

My raised voice woke the others, and I heard Mischa say, "Daddy?"

"It's okay, honey." His hands gripped the wheel as he pushed the Kombi to its maximum velocity. "We need to get up the hill. We need the speed."

The van around us shuddered dangerously as we hurtled down the hill. "It's too dangerous!" I braced myself as best I could, crying out to him. "You need to stop!"

The engine stuttered again, then choked to nothingness. By now, we were hurtling along at a break-neck pace, and the dip at the bottom of the hill was racing towards us.

Crunch. The van hit the dip, and everything flew upward. Everyone screamed, even Simon, and Rueben's arms tensed, pulling desperately at the wheel to keep us on the road. The tyres shrieked and swerved. A box of dehydrated chicken soup packets hit me on the head before bursting open in my lap, and I fell sideways into Rueben's lap, my face pressed against his chest.

Furious, I wrenched backward. "You're an idiot," I screamed, all traced of my cool gone.

"Look, we made it," he said calmly.

Sure enough, infuriatingly enough, the van had enough momentum to cruise up the small hill and roll inside the gates of the property. We made it all the way to the front door of the beautiful beach house, where Rueben pulled on the hand break. "Good job, old friend," he said, patting steering wheel.

"What. The. Actual. Fu-" I began, before I heard Nev speak to Mischa.

"Come on, sweetie, let's go find your bedroom, okay?"

I waited until they exited the van, then spun back to face Rueben again. "What the hell, Rueben? You could have killed all of us! What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that it was the safest, smartest thing for all of us to get the van inside the gates, rather than leave it with all of our gear at the bottom of the hill, defenceless." He gestured around, his eyes dark and fierce. "I was thinking that everything in this vehicle is going to keep us alive until we reach Tassie. We are probably the richest people in the country right now because of this stuff. I took an informed risk, because I know my driving ability and the capacity of this van." His lips pressed into a hard line. "I was thinking about my daughter."

We were both breathing hard, neither of us backing down. There was a wonderful, terrible moment where I considered mashing my face to his in a ferocious kiss, just like all the romantic movies I'd never watch again. Then Bailey spoke up. "Hey, you two? Simon and I are stuck back here – there's a bunch of bedrolls that have fallen between us and freedom. Give us a hand?"

Maturity won out, and both Rueben and I silently slid out of the van and moved around to the back to dig out Simon and Bailey.

Night had fallen properly by then, so everything was a game of touchy-feely in the darkness. We blundered around, taking only what we needed into the house; the bread, some clothes, bottles of vodka. Rueben locked the gate, and for tonight at least, we were safe from the world.

Inside the house, which I'd barely glimpsed in the fading light, we were greeted by dozens of burning candles in the lounge and on the balcony that overlooked the dark ocean. Nev and Mischa danced around, each with a long dinner candle, lighting more wicks in the kitchen. Nev smiled, happy in her simple way. "We found a whole box of candles in the big bedroom! I'm not sure why there were so many in there, but at least we can see tonight."

"Really?" said Bailey in a loaded tone. "You really don't know why there would be a box full of red candles in the master bedroom of a weekend rental beach house...?"

In the flickering light, Nev's cheeks darkened. "There's a child present," she whispered, pushing Bailey out of the way with her shoulder. "Come on, let's sort out food."

I was starving, but I reached for the vodka. I'd get drunk quicker on an empty stomach.

I poured the liquid into a tumbler, filling more than half of the glass. As I took a deep swig, I noted Simon's silent stare. Annoyed, I said, "Yes?"

"That's a big glass."

There was something galling about being judged by an alcoholic. I poured another slosh in. "If ever a night in the history of nights called for heavy drinking, it's tonight."

The bread was divided up, and everyone gathered around the large dining table. I gnawed on a feta and olive knob and pored over the maps, attempting some semblance of authority even as my words became slightly slurred due to the vodka-lining on my stomach. "So, according to Google, it was about 47 hours of riding time from Mascot to Port Melbourne. Now we're here, we've probably trimmed about two hours of ride time."

"But that's based on riding 12 miles an hour," said Bailey, shoving another sheaf of paper at me. "I Googled this. That's about 20 kilometres an hour, which is an average speed for an MAMIL, but not for-"

"What's a MAMIL?" said Mischa from her spot against Rueben's side, her large eyes even wider in the candle light.

"A middle-aged man in Lycra," growled Simon, tearing at a pizza bread. "Old dudes pretending they're professional cyclists."

"So if we ride all day, every day, and account for the fact that not all of us are riding at an adult level," I said savagely in Mischa's direction, vodka making me bitchy, "we're looking at, what, at least ten days of riding before we get to Port Melbourne?"

Ten days. It was hard to fathom. Not that I saw my stupid brother's farm as nirvana, but ten days of not knowing where we'd sleep, of exercise without end, of crapping by the side of the road... It sounded like a personal hell. Especially in comparison to right now, when the booze was plentiful and the prospect of a comfy bed lay at the end of the night.

A thought gripped me. "Hold up. What if... Shit. I forgot. Wait, what was I saying?" I laughed, and gestured wildly, striking a bottle and sending it flying.

Simon caught the bottle and placed it calmly back on the table. Undaunted, I continued. "So, I gotta say," I paused to burp, "I never thought this would be my Tuesday night, you know? Like if someone had told me at the start of today that I'd be on the road with such a weird crew, oh my god, I would have never believed it. Like, we even have a kid with us, for god's sake. We're practically the cast of a horror movie. Hey, I wonder who'd be the first one of us to die?"

On a roll, I poured another double, took a deep slurp and said, "Like, the dog would probably make it – animals always survive in horror movies. But everyone else is fair game. The kill order used to be pretty set – people of colour and sexually promiscuous women die first, the white virgin normally survives, and so do kids for some reason, even though in real life, having a kid around would slow you down, make everything harder and definitely get everyone killed."

An uncomfortable silence stole over the room, the kind of quiet that made you wonder if you'd just missed a punchline. "What?"

"Karla, maybe you should go to bed," said Bailey in a flat tone.

I was about to say that Bailey wasn't the boss of me, that it was the other way around, when I remembered that technically I wasn't anyone's boss anymore because the world had ended and I didn't have a company and everything that I'd worked for had vanished in a nanobot fart cloud. Tears filled my eyes.

Through the hot liquid, I notice that Mischa pressing her teary face to Rueben's chest, and envy pulsed through me. I want someone to hug. I thought of Dean, waiting for me at my brother's farm, imagined falling into his arms and weeping, and his hands smoothing my hair as held me and said, "I've got you baby girl."

But for now, I'd have to weep alone. With as much grace as my vodka-soaked synapses could manage, I stood and slurred, "Good night, everyone, sleep tight. Don't let the post-apocalyptic zombies bite."

I staggered into the first bedroom along the hall, fell face forward onto the bed and passed out, exhaustion, inebriation and trauma deciding I'd had enough consciousness for now, thank you.

Nausea woke me a while later. As if I'd just learned how to walk, I lurched from wall to wall, then into the corridor.

I slid along the wall, trying to find the bathroom in the near-darkness. The only light spilled into the corridor from the lounge, where two voices murmured softly.

"I just hope she sleeps through the night." Rueben, I drunkenly identified.

Bailey replied, their neutral tone soothing. "I hope so too."

Aw, they care about me. I grinned goofily in the darkness.

Bailey kept talking. "Listen, about Karla... I know that was shitty, what she said earlier. But there's a reason. She's been through a lot."

I opened my mouth to protest, but instead of anger, vomit rushed forth. I pushed through the bathroom door, hurled myself towards the toilet, and emptied semi-digested bread and vodka in an endless stream out of my body. Absently, I wondered if this accidental purge would kickstart my weight loss.

The acrid scent flooded my nostrils as I finished. I dabbed at my eyes with toilet paper and blew my nose. The toilet flushed, thank god, but didn't refill.

My room seemed as far away as Tasmania, so I pulled a fluffy towel down from the rail and rolled myself inside it. I crashed out again with my face pressed to the cool soothing tiles, desperately trying to avoid thinking about the last time I'd slept on a bathroom floor.

The next time I woke up, I instinctively reached for my phone. What time is it? Oh. Wait. My phone couldn't tell me, and the answer didn't really matter anyway. I crawled to the door, then gently managed to get my feet under me and stepped into the corridor. I'm still a bit drunk, I realised drunkenly.

The smooth plane of the wall felt nice under my fingers as I slid my way back towards the bedroom, before the sound of a door being softly closed behind me caused me to spin, topple, and slam into the wall on the other side of the corridor.

"Hey, are you okay?" Warm hands gripped me, and I dragged my heavy eyes up to meet Rueben's concerned gaze.

"Just coming back from the bathroom," I said breathlessly. The world had been spinning, but with Rueben's arms securing me upright, the universe seemed steadier.

Our faces were close enough that I could feel his breath on my cheeks, and the vodka made me brave. We should shag! it decided absurdly. Let's do it! Viva la coitus! I wanted hands on my body, and I was still drunk enough that I could close my eyes and forget my ugly body. Rueben was never going to be a serious love interest, so who cared if he thought I was fat? Most guys, I'd learned, were pretty happy to screw anyway even if they didn't find you sexy, as long as you had working girl bits.

I closed the gap between our mouths a little more and said, "You found me out here. It seems like a sign, right?" My fingers lowered to the waistband of his jeans, and I pulled provocatively on his beltloops. "Wanna make sure I get back to bed? Maybe get me undressed and see what happens?"

As if I was electrified, Rueben's arms straightened, pushing me away from his body. "What? Karla, me finding you isn't a sign – I'm up because Mischa has been waking up all night with nightmares because of what you said about her getting us killed. Plus you're drunk, and in no condition to consent to getting a library card, let alone sex."

"Geeze," I laughed shakily, "settle down, you could have just said, 'I'm not attracted to you, fat girl.' I don't need a lecture."

"Karla, that's not-"

"I'm going to bed." I needed an acerbic remark to leave him with, but my internal script writers were clearly not producing their best content at this hour. "Maybe I'll get myself naked, see what happens."

And leaving him with the haze of my vomit-breath, I stomped off to my room and slammed the door. For the record, I did not take advantage of myself in that condition. Instead I crushed my face into the pillow and silently screamed, then stared at the dark ocean and waited for the first day of the new world to begin.

Oh, drunken choices. They never end well. Confession time - if you wish, leave me a drunken choice you regret below in the comments. My most recent poor choice made under the influence of alcohol was to go drink-for-drink with my friend, who is much taller than me and handles her drinks much better than me. I spent two full days recovering and apologizing to my liver, but at the time it seemed like a really good decision.

We are now up to 14,000 words. Just a few more and I'll be over the dreaded 20k hump - thanks to those of you who have left me encouraging messages, it honestly helps. Please vote if you're enjoying the tale - it's always hard to get people to start a new story of mine, so every click helps :) xx Kate