Desolation Boulevard (25 page)

“
Yes, but I knew I’d be
okay when you came.”

“
But I was scared
too.”

“
Yes, I know, but you don’t
have to be yet.”

Matt looked at her, perplexed by the
comment. “What do you mean “yet”?”

“
Um, we shouldn’t be scared
now because it’s not really scary yet. It’s going to get really
scary later. There’ll be worse things that scare us.”

Matt looked at the girl, thinking about how
Kate and Montana had detected something special about her. “How do
know sweetheart?”

She looked at Matt and shrugged her
shoulders, “I don’t know how. I just do. Can we cook the hamburgers
now?”

Chapter 43

Extract From Sally’s Journal:

“Sliding under the
broken roller door into that dark warehouse was the hardest thing
I’ve ever done. If I had waited another second I don’t think I
could have gone in. Knowing Dylan was right behind me helped, but
not much. Sure, I guess the warehouse could have been empty, but in
my heart I knew it would be full of the sleeping
creatures.

After I felt around in
the dark on the concrete floor and found my gun and flashlight, I
stood up and tried to look around in the gloom, but all I could see
was blackness. Then almost immediately Dylan was standing beside me
and we waited together as our eyes adjusted to the dark. We didn’t
need our sight, though, to tell us that the warehouse had become a
motel for zombies – the smell was horrendous. It was a malodorous
cocktail of “human” waste, rotten food, body odour and dried blood.
Lucky for me I’d already puked earlier, and there was nothing left
in my stomach. I looked at Dylan, who was nothing more than a vague
shadow beside me and I could tell that he was waiting for me to
make a move – this was my mission, after all.

I tucked my pistol into
the waistband of my jeans and used my hand to cover the flashlight,
which I turned on. The weak light showed us that we were in a
recessed concrete loading dock with the warehouse floor in front of
us at eye level. We could see immediately that there were creatures
lying there in hibernation mode. Nothing moved and the only sound
we could hear was the beating of our own hearts. We couldn’t see
the whole warehouse from where we were standing so I knew we’d have
to go up onto the upper floor to see anything. I swung the
flashlight around the loading dock and saw a metal ladder attached
to the wall that led up to the main level. If we climbed it, we’d
be on the same level as the zombies. To be honest, if Dylan had
turned to me right then and said “Let’s go back”, I would have been
out of there like a shot, but he didn’t so I knew I had to go
through with my investigation. I motioned for Dylan to follow me
and headed over to the ladder.

I kept the flashlight
turned on and tucked it into my pocket so that I had two hands to
climb with. The metal rungs were cold and it took all of my
willpower to keep moving up those few steps to the main floor, but
I did it and was soon standing with the warehouse spread out before
me. The flashlight in my pocket was throwing only the smallest
amount of light but it enough to see that the floor was covered in
“sleeping” zombies. As Dylan reached the top of the ladder and
stood beside me, we looked at the mass of bodies all around us and
I thought of Bonnie standing outside in the sunshine waiting for
us. I turned and looked back at the small square of daylight
shining below the busted roller door and realised that I wanted to
be out there with her, not trapped in this shadowy world of the
half-dead. I took the flashlight from my pocket and aimed it ahead
into the main part of the warehouse. I don’t know how Dylan felt at
that moment, but I was chilled to the bone. As far as the light
allowed us to see, zombies lay side-by-side covering every inch of
the warehouse floor. Neither of us said a word as the enormity of
this new development sunk in. As I played the beam of the
flashlight back and forth across this putrid sea of once-human
flesh, I noticed that there was not a single movement among them.
It was like looking at corpses, and maybe that was appropriate,
because I could no longer think of these things as humans- they had
moved on to a new agenda that we couldn’t fathom yet. When Dylan
reached over and tugged my shirt I let out a little squeal and
almost dropped the flashlight in shock. He motioned silently with a
movement of his head that we should leave and that’s exactly what
we did. Quickly.

When we wriggled back
out from under the roller door, Bonnie’s relief was palpable and
she hugged us like we were long lost friends, even though we’d only
been in there for about three minutes. The sunshine and fresh air
felt like very good drugs and despite the horror we’d just
witnessed I felt pretty happy with myself that my hunch was
correct. Dylan hugged me real close and told me that I’d done well.
He said he would never have thought to work out where the zombies
would be resting and that it must be because I had a more
analytical brain. I just said I was smarter than him and left it at
that. When we described what we’d seen to Bonnie she didn’t sound
surprised at all. “I don’t think that’s their final destination,
though,” she said calmly. “I think they’re on the
move.”

When Dylan asked her to
explain what she meant, Bonnie said that she thought they might be
gathering together in larger groups for strength through numbers.
She said that the ones in city would find it easy to form
collectives and hide from the daylight in large buildings, but the
zombies that weren’t in the cities would need to join with other
smaller groups to find the same kind of strength. She had a theory
that the creatures from Mount Edward had some kind of animal
instinct to go to a particular place and become part of a larger
collective. Somewhere they could settle and get organised. When I
asked, “Organised for what?” she just shrugged her shoulders. She
said they were just resting before continuing their journey once
the sun began to set.

Dylan didn’t sound
completely convinced, but he said it didn’t matter anyway. Whether
they had reached their final destination or not they weren’t going
to get any further. When I asked why, he said very matter-of-factly
that we were going to kill them where they lay. I thought he was
joking at first, but the determined look on his face convinced me
otherwise.

I didn’t understand his
logic. I said that any attempt to massacre these creatures, no
matter how appropriate it might be, would only put us in danger.
We’d estimated that there were around a thousand creatures in that
warehouse so there was no way we could shoot them all and if we
only succeeded in annoying them by killing a few, the rest would
overrun us easily, and I didn’t feel like becoming a light snack
for a zombie.

Dylan had no intention
of shooting them, however. He said all we had to do was block the
exit and set fire to the warehouse and, with their escape route
blocked, there would be no way out and they would die a painful
death, an idea he seemed to get some satisfaction from. I saw a
side of Dylan right then that scared me a little. I guess I’m
falling in love with him but occasionally I see something in him
that seems hidden and secretive. I’m not suggesting he has a dark
side but his intense hatred of these creatures bothers me a
little.

“Can’t we just leave
them and keep going to Millfield?” I asked.

“No!” he said. “These
things have to be destroyed. This is a great opportunity. They’re
totally at our mercy. We can’t just drive off and leave them here.
Whether we like it not, we’re in a war with these things. They
might have us survivors outnumbered but we’re smarter than them. If
you want to live in a world that belongs to humans, you have to
make a stand now. I’m going to kill them anyway, but I’d rather we
stood together.” Or something like that.

Dylan waited for our
answer with an expression on his face that bordered on the
sociopathic, but Bonnie and I knew he was right. His motivation may
have been more fanatical than ours, but there was no mistaking his
logic that these things were a very real threat to humanity, as we
understood it. The idea that the world could ever belong to these
zombies, and relegate thousands of years of human culture to
oblivion made my skin crawl.

“Come on Sally,” he
said. “Let’s burn those fuckers.”

Bonnie nodded at me and
said, “I think we have to try.”

I guess my silence was
seen as approval because Dylan smiled and said, “Okay here’s the
plan

Chapter
44

The day after the dogs attacked the girls
was a busy one for Matt. Even though there had been no sign of the
feeders during the night, it was still his main priority to make
the farm as secure as possible. He had to assume that eventually
the creatures would roam further afield in search of fresh blood,
and that the farm would be under threat. He also needed to be
prepared for human survivors who might see the farm as a valuable
resource and try to take it from them. Not everyone in the
post-apocalyptic world would be playing by the rules. The evil
Brock was a perfect example of that type of person. Matt pondered
these thoughts as he considered the consequences of leaving Montana
and Gabby at the farm while he went into town to gather supplies.
He had tried to convince the girls to come with him, but Montana
insisted on staying behind at the farm so that Gabby could start
her school program and settle into her new home.  After some
discussion, Matt could see her point and agreed that the feeders
would probably not be a threat during daylight hours. He made
Montana agree to stay near the house, though, and carry the shotgun
if she went outside. Matt promised he would find her another weapon
while he was in town, and return as soon as possible with the first
of the supplies he needed.

-

Matt thought that the best place to start
would be the works depot of the Millfield County Council. It
consisted of a large fenced yard filled with the sheds, vehicles
and heavy machinery required to maintain local infrastructure such
as roads, parks and public buildings. When he arrived at the yard,
the front gate was locked, which meant that there were probably no
feeders inside. The event, which had created this nightmare, had
occurred sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning last
week, which meant that the depot would have been closed at the
time. Therefore he was safe to wander and take whatever he needed
without being concerned that he would stumble upon a nest of angry
feeders. After he used his bolt cutters from the toolbox to cut the
padlocked chain on the gate, he headed to the main building where
he hoped to find the keys for the equipment he required. He really
had no idea what their system would be, but he figured that this
would be the best place start his search. When he found the main
door, he kicked it in after a few attempts and stepped into a room
with a long counter, that guarded row upon row of shelves full of
hardware and tools. This was obviously the main store. Without
waiting, Matt headed straight behind the counter and searched for
the keys for the heavy machines. In a smaller dusty office behind
the rows of shelves he found what he was looking for – a wall full
of carefully tagged keys, which belonged to all of the machines in
the yard.

As he read through the tags, Matt realised
that almost everything he required to help fortify the farm would
be available in this depot. There were keys for fuel trucks, water
tankers, generators, portable arc lights, cranes, diggers,
tractors, tip trucks, cement trucks, heavy rollers and even a
couple of boats. Matt stood scratching his head as he looked at the
bewildering collection of keys and wondered which one he should use
first. After careful consideration he made his choice and took the
key from the hook before reading the plastic tag again. Yes, that
was the one. When he went back outside to the yard it didn’t take
him long to find the vehicle he was looking for; it was one of the
largest vehicles on the lot, after all.

-

Montana was familiarising herself with the
vegetable garden when she heard the rumble of a large vehicle
coming up the road. “Gabby come quick! Matt’s back.”

Gabby came flying from inside the house,
slamming the screen door against the house as she excitedly pushed
it open. She joined Montana in the front yard and stood beside her
as they waited for the vehicle to appear from behind the grove of
pines that lined the front boundary of the farm. They looked at
each other eagerly as the crunch of downshifting gears signalled
the arrival of the exhaust-belching beast from behind the
trees.

“
Oh my god!” exclaimed
Montana, as Gabby jumped up and down on the spot beside her,
squealing with excitement. “Look what he’s brought!”

“
It’s the bookmobile!” she
screamed. “He got us the bookmobile!”

As Matt applied the brakes with an explosive
hiss, just short of the front fence, Gabby sprinted to the mobile
library and reached the cab just as Matt was climbing down. He
stood in front of his prize and spread out his arms. “I brought you
a classroom!” he said, grinning like it was the best gift ever.

“
I love it!” shrieked
Gabby, as she hugged the teenage boy around the waist.

-

For the rest of the morning Montana ferried
Matt back to town in his mother’s car so that he could return with
equipment from the council depot. By the early afternoon he had
delivered three portable arc lights, a fuel tanker and a truck
filled with materials to begin the fencing project. When Montana
dropped him back at the council yard for the last time to pick up
his ute, he told her that he it would be a little while before he
came home, because there were a few more tasks he needed to
complete in town. The first one was to lock the depot with a new
chain and padlock. In this new world, where there would be no more
manufacturing of industrial machinery, he needed to look after the
things that could provide him with security and comfort. He knew he
was being a little over-cautious, but it certainly wouldn’t do any
harm. When he was satisfied that the yard was as secure as it could
be, he drove into town and parked in the main street.