Desolation Boulevard (2 page)

She lived with Bridget in a two-bedroom
apartment on the third floor of an old building in Newtown, just a
few kilometres from the centre of the city. The area had gone
through a period of gentrification over the last twenty years, but
Sally’s mum had bought into the area early, before prices had gone
through the roof, using a modest inheritance as a deposit. What
Sally loved about Newtown was the eclectic mix of people who called
it home. Recently it had become popular with students, artists, and
musicians, but there were still quite a few working class people
living in the area from its pre-trendy days. Newtown was a vibrant,
culturally diverse community. And today it was almost silent.

Sally was just about to get herself some
muesli when the realisation hit her like a slap in the face. It was
too quiet! On a Saturday morning the main street should have been
choked with traffic and people looking for a place to have their
coffee and read the papers. Sally walked to the front of the
apartment where the lounge room was, and went out onto the small
balcony to check the street. She stared in disbelief at the
emptiness! No traffic flowed past, and there wasn’t a single person
in sight. She waited a minute, thinking that she might just have
fluked an almost miraculous quiet moment, but the absolute and
total stillness convinced her that something was very wrong. Even
if there were no people or traffic in her street, she should still
be able to hear the ambient hum of the city around her. There was
nothing. Wait! Almost nothing. She could hear dogs barking - all
over. Even though Sally felt independent and mature most of the
time, right now she knew she needed her mother more than anything.
She ran straight to Bridget’s bedroom, desperate to wake her, not
caring if it was an invasion of privacy. She shoved the door open
and burst into the room. It was empty. Her mother had not come home
last night!

Shit! What to do? The news! Kate went to the
TV. Surely if there was a major problem in the city (she was
thinking of 9/11) the news channel would have coverage. She flicked
on the television to find nothing but static hissing at her. She
changed channels. They were all the same. All of a sudden Sally
felt more alone than she had felt in her whole life. She wanted to
know what was going on, she wanted her mother, and she
wanted…somebody to talk to. She dressed in jeans, sneakers and a
t-shirt and grabbed her bag from the bedroom floor. She went to the
front door of the apartment, opened it and stepped into the
stairwell.

She descended the stairs and stepped out of
the small lobby into the fresh air. Wait a minute, she thought.
Fresh air? She was just a few kilometres from one of the world’s
largest cities yet the air quality was spectacularly good. And it
wasn’t just because there were no cars crawling down her normally
busy street. Somehow she knew intuitively that there were no cars
moving anywhere in the city today. The combination of silence
(apart from the barking of dogs) and stillness scared Sally to her
bones. Suddenly she was overcome by a feeling of light-headedness
and realised if she didn’t sit down she might actually faint. She
took a couple of steps and slumped onto a nearby bench and let her
head drop to her knees. For a minute or more she didn’t move. Then,
gradually, she felt her senses return and she plucked up the
courage to take stock of her desperate situation. Without standing,
she lifted her head and surveyed the street.

Nobody had appeared while her head had been
down and not a single person entered her field of vision as she sat
forlornly on the bench. Where there would normally be throngs of
shoppers, or people heading to cafés for breakfast, there was no
one. She tried to think. She needed an explanation, so she began to
formulate an idea that might help her maintain some level of sanity
until this situation resolved itself (which, she rationalised, it
surely would). Perhaps during the night some major catastrophe had
befallen the city and she had somehow slept through it. And maybe
because her phone battery was flat and her mother wasn’t home she
had no way of finding out about it. On the surface this explanation
worked. For about one second! Then Sally’s intellect and common
sense kicked in and she found all of the flaws in that hypothesis.
Firstly, if there was a major disaster and everybody had been
evacuated or told to stay indoors surely there would be some kind
of news report or emergency broadcast to tell people what they
needed to do. Secondly, it was beyond belief that Sally could
possibly sleep through some kind of government action that would
remove everybody from the streets in one night. Thirdly, how on
earth would it even be possible to evacuate an entire city? Sally
couldn’t think straight. She needed to find somebody who knew what
was happening. She started to walk.

Chapter 3

The road to town only ever received light
traffic, but today it was absolutely deserted, so Matt pushed the
ute right up to the speed limit. He noticed with alarm that there
were no other cars on the road. As he approached a bend that went
past the Thompson’s farm, he slowed down and pulled onto the gravel
shoulder. He peered down their driveway and could see both of their
cars parked in front of the house, which meant that somebody was
home. Matt wondered if they had the same problems with their
electricity and phones as he did. It wouldn’t hurt to check with
them first before driving all the way into town. He turned into
their driveway.

As the car rolled to a stop near the house
Matt looked around. Nothing moved and the only sound he heard was a
bird chirping somewhere nearby. He called out. “Hello! Anybody
home?” but was met with only silence. He walked up onto the porch
and knocked on the front door, which elicited no response, so he
knocked again. “Hello?” he yelled, more loudly this time. Nobody
was going to answer the door, he realised, so headed around to the
back of the house. A large swimming pool dominated the yard close
to the house, and Matt could see that the French doors, which led
into the kitchen, were open. On a table beside the pool was a half
finished bottle of beer and a green cocktail of some sort, also
half finished. Matt figured they had been left behind last night
after the couple had gone to bed. He thought it seemed a little out
of character for Mrs Thompson not to have cleaned them up by now,
judging by the tidiness in the rest of the house. He went to the
French doors and tried again. “Hello? Hello?” But there was still
no answer, so he stepped into the kitchen.

Matt looked around and thought that it was
possible they just gone into town, or were visiting friends, but he
didn’t really think it very likely, given that their cars were in
the driveway and the back doors were left open. He didn’t like this
situation at all. He took the cell phone out of his pocket and
checked for service again. If he had reception, he needed to speak
to someone before he explored the house any further. The readout on
his phone was blunt and foreboding: “No Service”.

He checked all of the downstairs rooms
quickly, and found them empty, before walking to the base of the
stairs that led to the upper floor. For his own peace of mind, Matt
really felt that he needed to check the whole house before driving
into town to find his parents. Halfway up the stairs he paused and
listened. Was that movement in a room above? He stood still, head
cocked to one side. Somewhere a clock ticked, and he heard the same
bird chirping outside, but that was all - until he noticed another
soft thump upstairs, like a footstep on carpet. He listened again.
Silence.

“
Hello? Is anyone there?
It’s Matt Winton.”

There was still no response. He moved up the
stairs quietly and carefully. He had never been upstairs in the
Thompson’s house before but he knew from its size that there would
be at least three bedrooms up here. The first bedroom that he came
to was clearly a spare room. It was furnished lightly, and had
absolutely no personal touches like photographs or books. It was
set up with a double bed for visitors, and more importantly for
Matt, was empty.  The next room was Jane’s old room. She was
the Thompsons’ daughter, who had moved to Sydney to study law six
years ago, and now lived there with her young family. Her room had
been repainted and refurnished as a study, but there were still
signs of Jane’s youth in the bookcase, which was crammed with
Goosebumps, Babysitter’s Club and fantasy books. Mrs Thompson had
probably kept them for the grandchildren.

At the end of the hallway were two more
doors. One was closed. He was very aware of his racing heartbeat
and could feel the blood pumping in his temples. He heard the
thumping sound again. It sounded like it might be coming from
behind the closed door. He needed a weapon of some kind, but could
see nothing that might be useful. He crept back to Jane’s room and
looked around - only fluffy toys and books! He walked to the closet
and opened it - nothing but neat stacks of cardboard boxes. He
really didn’t want to open the door at the end of the hall without
some means of protection. Maybe there was something he could use
under the bed. A baseball bat would be nice; he thought to himself,
as he bent down and lifted the bedspread, before peering
underneath.

Chapter 4

As Sally walked the deserted streets, she
tried to evaluate what she was seeing. Now that she was a little
calmer, she noticed the way that the cars had been parked. They
were all over the place, but there hadn’t been any accidents. It
was as if the drivers had simply left their cars, and walked away.
In her shock of finding the city empty of people, Sally hadn’t
noticed it before. This again made her wonder if she had missed
some major large-scale event. Could drivers have been told to leave
their cars behind and go to a safe place? Sally shuddered. She was
at a loss. She had no one to turn to, and no idea what to do next.
She sat in the gutter, and put her head in her hands and sobbed
like a lost child.

She wasn’t sure how long she cried but she
knew that it was good to have it out of her system for the time
being. Now there was nothing left to do but to deal with the crazy
situation she found herself in. Her immediate plan was simple; find
someone who could help her. She had to be cautious, though. If the
city had suffered some sort of major catastrophe, she knew that she
was vulnerable on her own. But if she spent a little time just
roaming her own neighbourhood, maybe she might find something that
would explain all of this. Then, she reasoned, her anxiety would be
allayed and life could surely return to normal. It was too much to
consider that this nightmare scenario might be permanent. That was
not allowed! Her sanity required that a logical solution was found,
and found quickly. The most obvious place to start was the local
police station. It was only two blocks from where she was standing.
She started walking.

Passing by the empty shops
and cafes was an experience that would haunt Sally as long as she
lived. The places she ate with her mother as a child, the bookshops
she had browsed, the retro clothing stores where she bought items
for her bohemian look, all closed and empty. On top of that was the
bizarre silence. In Newtown the noise never really stopped. Now she
wondered if it would ever start again. She paused. What about the
silence, though? Could there be a clue there somewhere? She
listened now with a more analytical ear. What could she hear?
Nothing. No. That wasn’t true. There
were
sounds. In movies they
called it “ambient” noise. Sally learned that while making a short
film in art classes at high school years ago - background noise
that’s always there but you don’t notice. Now that was all
you
could
hear - ambient noise. Sally strained and listened. A slight
breeze blew through the streets. She heard that clearly. What else?
Now and then a piece of litter would blow past, scraping on the
concrete footpath. What else? The dogs! Not as insistent as before
but still an occasional bark in the background. She would have to
watch out for the dogs. If they weren’t being fed, they would
become savage pretty quickly. What else? Nothing. Sally was
frustrated. There must be something else to hear. There it was!
Birdsong! Somewhere nearby a bird was chirping. So there were no
people; but there were birds and dogs. Was that helpful to know?
Sally had no idea, but she figured it couldn’t hurt to notice these
things. It was clear too, as she walked along, that the power was
out almost everywhere. There was no way to know if it had gone off
completely, or some parts of the grid had just shut down
automatically because nobody was operating the power stations, but
it was clear that if things didn’t change, this would soon be a
city without electricity.

When Sally arrived at the Police Station,
she knew immediately that the trip had been a waste of time. The
doors, which were usually open twenty-four hours a day, were
closed. She was surprised by how let down she felt. In the back of
her mind she had been hoping that all would be revealed once she
found the authorities, but they seemed to have vanished along with
everybody else. Just to make sure though, she mounted the five or
six steps to the front of the building and pushed. The door swung
open. She peered into the gloom without entering.

Sally waited for her eyes to adjust to the
gloom before she stepped inside the dark building. Daylight threw
filtered light into the foyer and she could see the empty reception
desk. She walked up to it and peered over. “Hello”? It looked as if
everyone had just walked out of the place. Half filled coffee cups,
unfinished paperwork and even a mobile phone sat on the work area
of the desk. “Who leaves their phone lying around like that?” she
thought. No one that she knew! Now that she was inside Sally felt
that she needed to explore further.  Behind the desk a door
led to more offices. She went through.