Desolation Boulevard (19 page)

Later in the afternoon,
while everyone was getting the dinner ready, the lady I had seen in
conflict with Jo yesterday (her name is Bonnie) came over to Jo
again and started arguing and pleading. I was too far away to hear
everything clearly, but it was obvious that she wanted to leave St
Jude’s and go home. The longer the argument went on the more
agitated she became, and more people came over to try to convince
her to stay. When I saw Dylan limp over to listen to the commotion
I went and stood with him and listened too. It seems that Bonnie
had come to the city for a couple of days for some job interviews
and been trapped here because of the event. The reason she was so
frantic to get home was because she had left her daughter behind
with a neighbour and was now desperate to get back to her country
town (I think she said Millford?) to see if the child had survived.
She was begging to be let go but everybody said it would be suicide
to leave the city to travel four hundred kilometres out into the
countryside with all the zombies and marauders about. The other big
reason for not going, though, was the cruel fact that her daughter
was almost certainly either already dead or a zombie herself.
Nobody knew of any circumstances where more than one person from a
family group had survived. As far as we could tell, everybody on
earth had become orphans overnight.

When Bonnie realised
that she wasn’t going to be allowed to leave, she screamed
hysterically into her hands and went to the back of the church and
threw herself on her bed and continued to sob. The small crowd that
had been involved in the argument gradually went back to their
dinner preparation and I went back to peeling my potatoes. So I was
surprised, when a few minutes later, I looked over and saw Dylan
sitting on the bed next to Bonnie chatting quietly with her. At
that moment I couldn’t help but think how caring he was, and
thought that it wouldn’t hurt to offer my support as well, so I
went over to be with them. The conversation was similar to the one
I’d just heard, but less argumentative. (I discovered that Dylan
had listening skills!) Bonnie was saying that nobody had a right to
try to stop her from getting back to her daughter, no matter how
dangerous it was or how unprepared she was to handle it by herself.
She said that it was inhuman to stop a mother trying to get back to
her only child and if she weren’t allowed to leave in the morning,
she would just walk past the guards, challenging them to shoot her.
Dylan explained to her very gently that she had no chance to reach
her daughter on her own, and that it would be almost impossible
even with a team. Then Bonnie looked at Dylan with desperation and
said, “There must be a way! It’s my little girl! My baby! I need to
know what’s happened to her, otherwise I may as well be dead
too!”

Dylan looked at her,
and then at me.

“We’ll take you,” he
said.

And for reasons I don’t
really understand I found myself standing there with tears in my
eyes nodding enthusiastically in agreement.

Chapter 34

Montana continued to scream from the truck
as the feeder sprinted down the dark road towards Matt. He’d
grabbed his useless shotgun by the barrel to use as a club, but he
knew that it probably wouldn’t be enough to protect him from the
creature’s savagery. He hoisted it like a baseball bat and hoped
that somehow he could get in a lucky blow and fell this creature
before it leapt on him. It was close enough now that Matt could see
the hate in its eyes and the red veins like roadmaps on its face.
He braced himself to strike and hoped that Montana and Gabby would
somehow find a way to survive without him. He’d die now thinking
he’d failed them. The feeder was only metres away and as he swung
the makeshift club with all his strength he heard a deafening
explosion nearby as the creature lunged at him. His strike at the
head of the creature missed wildly and he overbalanced and hit the
bitumen road, as the feeder came down on top of him, pinning him to
the ground. He grabbed it by the throat and held it as hard as he
could while the beast tried to take a bite from his face. He could
feel that he was no match for this crazed opponent and was
preparing for the worst when the feeder suddenly coughed up a wad
of bloody mucus onto Matt’s chest and was still. Matt pushed the
body away hysterically, and it came to rest on the road, unmoving
in the late afternoon gloom.

Matt stood up, and stared incredulously at
the fallen feeder. He looked over at Montana who was still in the
truck with Gabby and Elvis, and then back at the motionless figure
that was lying face up on the road, surrounded by a rapidly
expanding pool of blood. As Matt tried to comprehend what had just
happened, a twig snapped loudly behind him and he swung around to
face the next assault, but was shocked and relieved to see that the
figure emerging from the shadows on the side of the road was a
grey-haired woman wielding a rifle. Matt stared, dumbfounded, as
she raised the gun above her head and yelled triumphantly, “I got
him! At last I got him! Ha! Stupid crazy bastard! I showed
him!”

Finally, she looked over at Matt and lowered
her gun.

“
Hi! I’m Kate,” she said
holding out her hand. “He almost got you didn’t he? Why didn’t you
shoot him?”

“
Umm, I, umm, my gun jammed
or something. What the hell are you doing out here?”

“
It’s a long story. Wow, I
really killed him didn’t I?” she stated as she looked over at the
truck. “I think your friends can come out now. It’s safe, he was
the only one.” She put her gun down gently on the road and yelled
out to the girls in the car, who by now had their faces pressed up
against the window, “You can come out now! I got him!”

As Montana and Gabby climbed warily from the
ute and headed over, Matt asked the bizarre apparition before him,
“Where did you learn to shoot like that? I think you just saved my
life.”

She laughed. “I certainly did just save your
life. You got that right. The shooting? I’ve been popping bunnies
for longer than you’ve been alive; I’ve never shot a person before,
though. That’s different. I have a funny feeling that it won’t be
my last, though. What do you reckon? Look at me, I’m shaking.”

She looked over at the truck in the ditch.
“Looks like you’ve had a bit of an accident.”

Montana and Gabby had joined them now and
were staring down at the dead body of the feeder.

“
Let’s move away from this
thing and talk,” the woman said, heading towards the fallen tree
trunk, where she sat down and took some deep breaths. “Why don’t
you go over and turn on your headlights?” she instructed Matt.
“I’ll get to know these beautiful girls? And what is this gorgeous
puppy’s name?”

“
Elvis,” Matt said, as he
headed off to the ute obediently. By the time he returned the three
ladies (and Elvis) were like old friends and Matt had to wait for
them to stop talking before he could speak. He held out his hand,
“I’m Matt.”

“
Hi Matt. Kate,” she said
offering her hand. “Did I already tell you that? Doesn’t matter.
You’re a very lucky young man aren’t you?”

“
Yes. Thanks for saving my
life, by the way. I really appreciate that, but why on earth are
you out here?”

“
Okay. I’d love to tell
you, but it’s getting cold and dark out here. Why don’t we go to my
place and I can fill you in while I cook dinner. I have a little
house up the road and my car’s not far away. What do you
say?”

Before Matt could answer, Gabby and Montana
blurted out simultaneously, “Yes please!” and the decision was
made.

After they’d collected their bags from
Matt’s truck and switched off the headlights, Kate walked with them
about one hundred and fifty metres back up the road until they came
to a bush track that would have been almost invisible as they drove
past it earlier. “I didn’t even see that road”, Matt remarked as
they climbed into Kate’s jeep with Elvis perched between the girls
in the back seat.

“
It’s not much more than a
fire trail really. It’s only used by me and fire trucks in summer”,
Kate explained, as she started up the engine and drove slowly up
into the hills. The combination of the car’s noisy engine and the
bumpiness of the road made conversation almost impossible, but it
was obvious that the three passengers were happy to be in the care
of this eccentric, but practical woman.

After fifteen minutes of labouring up the
gravelly trail, the car pulled into a clearing and Kate’s home
stood before them. They stood and stared. To say that it was
unusual was an understatement. It seemed as if it had been built as
an experiment in recycling and non-conformity. It was like a
multi-level timber tree house, but without the tree. “It’s
beautiful,” said Gabby.

“
It’s … different,” said
Matt.

“
It’s safe,” said Kate.
“Let’s go inside.”

As they headed up the stairs to the front
door, little lights came on automatically at ground level to show
the way, and when Kate opened the front door and stepped inside,
lamps turned on as if by magic in a large, cosy lounge-room that
was furnished with comfortable sofas, bookshelves and a range of
musical instruments including a piano, three guitars, a saxophone
and, believe it or not, a harp. Kate went over and lit the open
fire (which Elvis immediately curled up in front of), while
instructing her three visitors to put their things down and make
themselves at home. Then she showed them to the bathroom and
insisted they take the time to get cleaned up. After Matt had
washed and changed his gore-soaked shirt, Montana took Gabby into
the bathroom and helped her shower and change into clean
clothes.

When Matt came out of the bathroom, Kate
took him to the kitchen and they started dinner preparations. As
they stood side-by-side chopping homegrown onions and tomatoes for
a pasta sauce, Matt raised the issue of Kate’s heroics from just an
hour earlier. “If you weren’t there, I think that feeder would have
killed me. I wouldn’t be here now,” he said. “But I have to ask,
what on earth were you doing out there? It couldn’t just be luck,
could it? Were you hunting that thing?”

She looked at Matt, smiled and patted his
upper arm. “Of course I was sweetie. I’ve been trying to kill it
for days. It’s been coming out after dark every night for almost a
week. At first it just watched the house from the trees, maybe to
ambush me, I’m not sure. But for the last couple of nights it’s
been trying to find a way in. I couldn’t sleep. It was annoying the
crap out of me. So this afternoon when the sun started to set I
decided to ambush it! Turn the tables! I waited outside with my gun
until it showed up in its usual spot in the trees and I tried to
shoot it, but I missed and it ran back into the forest. I guess I
was pissed off, so I decided get in my car and go after it into the
bush. I couldn’t find the damn thing anywhere, but then I heard
your car come off the road and went to investigate, and well, you
know what happened after that.”

“
Where did it come from?”
asked Matt. “Why was it here? Do you know?”

“
Yes I do,” she said,
giving Matt a cheeky wink. “It was my ex-husband. That’ll teach the
prick to cheat on me. Keep your eye on the sauce, sunshine. I’ll go
and see how the girls are getting on.”

Chapter 35

When Sally woke up, Dylan was already in the
kitchen, talking to Bonnie over a cup of coffee. It was still dark
outside and the weather had become cooler overnight as rain
drizzled down outside the church’s stained glass windows. Sally
walked over and sat beside Dylan, who had obviously been discussing
plans for their trip to Millfield. Bonnie seemed much more relaxed
now that she had a goal to pursue, and Sally sensed that there was
a special friendship that had already formed between Dylan and the
woman. As she watched them talk she wondered what mutual interests
they could have had to help them bond so quickly. On the surface,
they were very different people - Dylan was a young, energetic,
no-nonsense male while Bonnie was a thirty-something-year-old
mother whose only priority right now was to get to her daughter. As
they discussed preparations for the trip, however, Sally sensed
that they shared a secret. She tried to put the idea out of her
head, but despite the fact that she thought she was probably
imagining it, the feeling niggled away in her mind.

She turned her attention back to their
conversation, and was surprised to hear that they were planning on
leaving today. Dylan couldn’t see any point delaying the trip and
Bonnie was desperate to get moving as soon as possible. After some
discussion, it was decided that Sally and Bonnie would spend the
morning gathering basic supplies and equipment while Dylan’s task
would be to locate a suitable vehicle. While they understood that
many of the city’s roads were blocked, Dylan thought that driving
would still be much faster than walking, even if they had to take
indirect routes or swap cars if the congestion made streets
impossible to navigate. After Dylan had secured transport he would
look for more suitable weapons than the lone shotgun he had been
using. Now that the zombies were capable of coming out of their
hibernation to attack, a more brutal approach to their eradication
would be needed. He would try to source a semi-automatic weapon for
himself, and versatile, compact guns for Sally and Bonnie. Bonnie
didn’t like the idea at first, but Dylan convinced her that it
would be foolish not be as prepared as possible. Once they had
agreed on a list of required items, Dylan gave both women a quick
hug and headed back into the city to the sporting goods store where
he had “liberated” his shotgun earlier in the week.