Came today to Lilydale. I'm not impressed. The streets were clean of dead and debris, but it was crowded, with many people wandering around aimlessly. As soon as we walked in, ten armed men approached us. One was a scruffy-looking bugger in a beanie, and obviously considered himself to be in charge. He had a baton, so did most of his mates.

"You!" he said, "Who are you, and what is your business in this town?"

"I'm Kyle. Who are you?"

"I'm asking the questions here! Who are these others, and what are you doing here?"

"Look, who are you, and why should we answer your questions?"

"We're the militia, and we're armed."

"Militia, eh? By whose authority?"

"What?"

"Are you deputised by the police, drafted into the Army, or what? Got any ID or badges?"

"Look, shut the fuck up, and tell me what you're all doing here." He gestured his buddies forwards, they looked pretty menacing. About this time I started thinking about my axe and pistol, but there were ten of them, and it's not like I could expect the pacifist hippies or my teenaged daughter to fight. And even if we did, someone was bound to be injured on the way, and what was I going to do, leave an injured kid of Zion bleeding on the ground while I ran off? Not likely. I sighed.

"This is my daughter Zarah, this is Flora, and Zion, and their children. We're passing through here on our way to someplace else to make a life for ourselves, away from the chaos of Melbourne."

"Right. You obviously don't have papers, then?"

"Um, ID? Sure," I fished out my wallet.

"No, no, Lilydale Authority papers."

"Er, no. New in town and all that. Just passing through."

"You'll have to come with us to get papers."

Fucking hell, civilisation collapses and the first things they bring back are guns and paperwork.

"Oh and hand over your weapons, too." I gave him my pistol, he shoved it in his belt with a grin.

"You know how to use that thing, mate?" I asked. I suspected he didn't. I wanted to make sure he never would, so I thought I'd offer to teach him. Once he'd proudly refused any learning from me, he might never get it. Then with luck when he pulled the trigger the safety catch would still be on, or he'd be looking down the barrel to see if it was working.

He looked uncertain. "Yeah, sure."

"I don't mean, point and shoot, any cockhead can do that. I mean, safety catch, reload, actions on misfire, all that. It's important to know, so if you are going to go around nicking people's guns, you at least won't shoot yourself or a friend by accident."

"I don't need to know all that."

"Well, over in Yankland, where they're all in love with their guns, each year they had three hundred people killed – by private citizens and cops – in self-defence, but eight hundred killed by accident, guy accidentally shoots himself or his kid or something. In other words, they were more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else. Why? No safety training. So if you're going to swipe that thing off me, at least let me show you how to use it. Just pop the magazine out if you're nervous."

"No, no, I know exactly what I'm doing!"

I sighed again. "Sure you do." He took a swing at me, and without my even stepping aside, missed. "Good one, Rocky," I said. He swung again, and missed again. I smiled. Excellent. Now he'd be certain to never learn how to use that pistol.

"Now give me that axe, too." I considered "giving it to him," but looked at the mob around us and thought better of it, handed it over shaft-first. "You'll get it back when you leave town," he said. "Sure," I muttered. He obviously hadn't noticed my combat knife – maybe the jumper covered it – or my pocket folding knife, or the knuckle-dusters in my pocket, or the set of keys which could act as knuckle-dusters, or my steel-capped boots, or my entrenching tool on my pack... not a very switched-on Digger.

They searched through our gear, and expressed delight at all our food. "Ah, you'll have to pay a tax on these and other goods," they said.

"Let me guess, one hundred percent tax?" Nice to see that along with guns and paperwork, they'd brought in ruinous taxation. How wonderful that they'd brought back all the worst parts of civilisation – guns, paperwork, taxes – I wondered if they'd brought back any of the good parts – organised production of food and goods, currency, medicine, and so on.

"Did you... scavenge this food?"

"No, you'll notice it's mostly in jars, unlabelled. Flora and Zion here, before the collapse, they used to produce all their own food. That's it, preserved." They nodded, and swiped the lot.

We went off to the town hall. It looked like it'd become general courthouse, meeting place, militia barracks, and they probably hanged people here, too. In we went, about fifty people sitting around looking miserable. Probably waiting for their rations. We were taken to a bloke sitting behind a desk with a heap of paperwork, a little Foreign Legion kepi on his head. Jarrod was his name. Rocky exchanged a few words with him, and Rocky and Jarrod took us up some stairs. Knocked on a frosted-glass door. A woman's giggle, a man's groan, hurried shuffling of clothes, chair, and zip, "hang on a minute." A minute passed. "Okay, come in."

Rocky opened the door and walked in. He said, "Boss, some new arrivals you might be interested in. We took an axe, compass, a map, bicycles, and a lot of food off them."

He stopped there, so I piped up, "And Rocky grabbed a pistol off me, too." I may be outgunned, but I can still undermine minions in front of their master! Rocky looked unhappy, and took a swing at me, missing again.

"Why do you bother, mate?" I said.

"Shut him up," said the boss, and Rocky swung again, missing again. I wasn't even getting good exercise dodging, his swings kept missing. Firearms safety wasn't the only thing he was useless at. If this is the standard of the Lilydale minions, I thought, we won't be stuck around here for long.

Rocky went out and a couple of guards came in, all armed with firearms. Okay, I thought, maybe we'll stay a bit longer after all. Zarah huddled close and Zion looked nervous, Flora calm as always. "I'm Boss Crimson. You can call me Boss. So, you are travelling through Lilydale? What for?" I took a look at him. He was a fat bastard, belly straining through the buttons of his shirt. Wearing a creamy white suit and a stetson. Basically Boss Hogg. I looked around for Daisy Duke, alas, nowhere to be seen. She'd probably gone through the door behind him.

"Like I told the other guys, we're heading up the Yarra Valley to the reservoir, try to settle down and make a life for ourselves away from the chaos of Melbourne."

"Ah, you've come from Melbourne?"

"Yes."

"Good, your information may be useful."

Having little choice, I told him all about the place, the bikers, and so on. Kept it general, didn't talk about facing them down with axes and that sort of thing.

"So, does anybody appear to be in charge there?"

"Not as far as I can see. Looked to me like in a couple of weeks, they'll all either starve and murder each-other in a cannibal orgy, or one of them will take charge and organise them all into some kind of raider force. I don't think they'll settle down and start farming. Of course there are good blokes like Roland cleaning the place up, but the gangs are bound to get him eventually." "Interesting. Well, Jarrod will show you to your apartments for this evening. You should know that the curfew begins whenever night falls, or the rains begin, whichever comes first; and it ends whenever the sun rises, or the rains stop, whichever comes last. I may want to speak to you later, stay around."

We were escorted to a room with three bunks, old army bunks. The kids broke out some cards and started playing. I still had my pack with rations, so we ate some of those.

"Zion, it's still a couple of hours before curfew, shall we head out and take a look? I want to see if they've brought back any of the good parts of civilisation, they certainly seem to have brought back all the bad parts."

Out we went, past a couple of guards who didn't stop us, just reminded us of the curfew, and Zion and I had an interesting discussion on forms of government. He opined that whatever Boss Crimson was like, at least this was not anarchy. I found this surprising coming from a guy who until recently was living in a home and growing all his own food – the ideal anarchist. I expressed the opinion that order is only better than anarchy if it offers less death, misery, and general hassle, and that so far Boss Crimson's order was looking pretty dreadful. The discussion went on like this as we explored. We found no sign of anything good, no markets or clinics. Your basic fascist republic, but with untrained bullyboys and thugs instead of trained ones. "I hate this fucking town," I said.

Zarah appeared behind us, she'd been following us quietly all the way. "Oh! Hi hon," I said, squeezing her to me. "Abba, look what I... found." She produced a set of handcuffs and some keys, both for the handcuffs, and for an apartment and car.

"Interesting, where did you find these?"

"On Rocky. He misplaced them, and I picked them up."

"Careless of him," I said, looked left and right to make sure no militia were watching, and tossed them into a rubbish bin.

Zarah gasped, "Why did you throw them away? They could have been useful!"

"Dangerous. Did you notice how the militia were throwing punches at me for no reason? They're not behaving like police, but thugs. If they throw punches for whim, what will they do if they catch us with stolen property? Flogging? Beating? Hanging? I don't want to find out." When we returned to our room I saw Jarrod lying down on a bunk chatting happily to Flora, who was loking relaxed and smiley and telling him all about our trip, and saying something about my lopping off the head of a bikie. Oh, great.

Jarrod stood and smiled, Zion looked unhappy at the sight of another man chatting intimately with his wife, and Jarrod said, "Ah, Kyle, it's been interesting to hear of your exploits. Most remarkable." "Tales grow in the telling, mate, don't believe everything you hear." "Oh, but Flora seems quite reasonable, a reliable source." "She wouldn't lie, but she might misunderstand, and might not be the best reporter of things she's not seen."

"Still, most interesting. I think I'll arrange for Boss Crimson to talk to you tomorrow after breakfast. I'll send an escort. Good evening. Lady Flora," he bowed slightly, she smiled, he shuffled past us out the door.