Desolation Boulevard (33 page)

Brock checked that the gun was armed for
firing, and opened the door. As he stepped out onto the street, he
could see an instant change in the demeanour of the creature as it
noticed him. It’s expression changed from confusion to hatred in a
split second, as it glared at this human who had dared to show
himself. The feeder’s body became more erect and its muscles
tensed, despite it’s weakened state, and all of a sudden Brock had
a sick feeling in his stomach that he’d made a very bad choice, as
the creature stared him down. What a stupid move! This was madness,
he thought as he tentatively raised the stun gun and pointed it at
his target. For almost a minute, neither figure moved as the
faintest streaks began to colour the eastern sky, and then
suddenly, as if realising it needed to find a nest before daybreak,
the creature charged towards Brock, who let out a little cry as
fear gripped him like a vice. He took aim and fired the stun gun
just as the feeder reached him, and before he realised what had
happened, the creature was lying at his feet, twitching
spasmodically. Without wasting any time, he bound the feeder’s
hands and feet with the rope, and then hoisted the filthy thing
onto his back like a sack of potatoes. Brock may not have been fit,
but he was strong enough to throw the creature around like a rag
doll. He carried it down the street as fast as he was able, and
locked it in the kennel of the cage he had discovered behind the
used car yard. As he hurried back to the bank, a totally unexpected
opportunity arose to capture a second creature, when he saw a
female feeder slinking into a disused garden shed to hibernate for
the night. It too had been separated from the main pack and was
consequently stranded in Carswell. Instead of capturing this one
immediately, Brock simply waited until later in the day and stunned
it as it slept, then transferred it into the cage alongside the
male.

Dylan studied Brock as he sat watching the
cage. It seemed clear that he was going to wait until dark, then
observe his “pets” as they awoke to feed. Dylan was curious to see
how the creatures would react to being confined in a small
enclosure, but he knew that this was his chance to get to the
girls, and let them know he was aware of their predicament. Leaving
the tubby man to his macabre vigil, Dylan retreated from the car
yard and ran as fast as he could to the bank. With the onset of
nightfall, he was slightly concerned about encountering a stray
creature, but his intuition told him they were nesting at the
Delano Caves with thousands more of their kind.

When he reached the bank, he threw open the
front door and ran straight to the vault. He couldn’t hear any
sounds from inside, but he knew the girls wouldn’t have heard him
enter the building. He found a baseball bat lying on the floor, and
without hesitation began tapping out a rhythm on the huge steel
door.

“
Sally, Bonnie, can you
hear me? It’s Dylan!”

The sound of muffled voices and banging from
inside the vault told him that the girls could hear him, despite
the thickness of the door.

“
Is that you Dylan? Get us
out of here!”

They sounded like they were speaking from
inside a submarine, but he thought they were able to understand
most of what he was saying, so he continued. “I can’t open the
door. I have to wait until fatso gets back. Stay cool and don’t
panic. I’ll get you…”

Inside the vault, Bonnie and Sally stared at
each other as Dylan’s voice suddenly ceased, their faces bathed in
dark shadows like ghouls. They put their ears to cold door and
listened, but there was no sound from outside. As the seconds
ticked by, their hearts beat faster and the panic rose in them like
a tide. Then suddenly a loud clank made them jump as the heavy door
began to open. They rushed to the opening, ready to hug Dylan and
get away from the evil Brock before he came back from his errands.
As they pushed on the door, however, they didn’t fall into the arms
of their rescuer. Instead they were greeted by the man how had
jailed them, not more than an hour ago.

“
Going somewhere ladies?”
he asked, with a smirk. “I thought we had a date?”

Chapter 54

Matt was jolted out of a deep sleep by
Montana shaking him violently. She had turned the bedroom light on,
but he could see that it was still dark outside.

“
What’s wrong? Is it Gabby?
Is she sick?”

“
She’s gone! She’s gone!
He’s taken her!”

Matt jumped out of bed, grabbed his gun and
ran to the lounge room. When he saw the empty couch and missing
suitcase, he realised it was true, and that they had no time to
waste. He wanted to vomit, such was his fear, but he knew that he
and Montana were Gabby’s only chance. He looked desperately at her.
“Quick! Get dressed! We have to go!”

Matt dressed frantically and ran to the
kitchen to grab his car keys. He yelled at Montana, “Are you ready?
We have to go! Now!”

She hustled out of her bedroom, pulling on
her sneakers, “I’m ready! Let’s go!”

As they bolted out of the front door, Matt
could see immediately that his mother’s car was missing from its
usual spot under the carport. “Shit! He’s got mum’s car!”

He could also see that the big floodlights
had not switched themselves on, as they were meant to, “That fucker
disabled the lights. Probably right after we finished working on
them! God! How could I be so stupid? Come on! Get in!”

They climbed into the car and Matt was
relieved when the engine started first time. The headlights
illuminated the gravel road and, as he gunned the engine, he prayed
to any deity that would listen that somehow Gabby would be all
right. As they drove, they both stared into the darkness ahead,
trying to see any sign of headlights in the distance.

“
Why didn’t we wake up,
Matt? Why didn’t we hear him leave?” Montana asked.

“
I don’t know. Maybe he
drugged us or something? I was dead to the world. If you didn’t
wake me I’d still be asleep!”

“
Why didn’t he just kill us
while we slept?”

“
Who knows? Maybe he’s just
not the killing type. It doesn’t matter really does it? Let’s just
push on.”

When they reached the end of the gravel road
at the entrance to “Two Hills” Matt stopped the car, and looked
left and right down the road that would take them either east, to
Millfield and Carswell, or into the west and away from those
towns.

“
Which way do you think he
went? Do you think he’s taking her to that Diamond Creek place he
told you about?”

Matt shook his head. “No. I don’t think so.
I got the impression he didn’t like it much there. I think he’s
heading east. I don’t think he’s looking for relatives in the city,
like he said he was, but I think he was telling the truth about
which direction he was going.”

He put his foot down on the accelerator, and
peeled out onto the road towards Millfield with a squeal of his
tyres.

“
God, I hope you’re right!”
said Montana, giving him a look that radiated nothing but anxiety
and doubt.

Matt slowed down as they reached Millfield
and they peered around the dark streets searching for any sign that
Gabby had been through here.

“
She must be scared out of
her wits. Why do you think he took her? What does a man that age
want with a six-year-old girl? Oh my god! Matt, you don’t think he
wants to ... do you? Please, not that. She’s just a baby. If he
touches her I’ll fucking kill him!”

Matt looked at her, as tears started welling
up in her beautiful blue eyes. “No I don’t think he’s a pervert,
but who really knows any more? I’m starting to think you and Kate
were right about her. I think she has something about her that’s
special. God! I can’t believe I’m saying that, but the rules have
changed, haven’t they. The old thinking, the old way of doing
things is finished. We need to trust our intuitions more, or
something. I should have listened to you about that scumbag.”

He took his eyes off the road briefly and
looked at her. “I’m sorry Montana. I don’t give you enough credit.
If I listened to you in the first place Gabby would be safe now,
and that fucker Bill would have been long gone.”

She shook her head as she continued
searching the gloom for any sign of Gabby. “It doesn’t matter. I
don’t care. I just want to find her. I don’t think she’s here in
Millfield, though, do you?”

Matt put his foot down, and the car picked
up speed. “No I don’t. Why would he stop here? It’s too close. He’s
heading toward Carswell, isn’t he?”

“
Yes, I think so too. Let’s
get moving.”

Almost an hour later, as the sky was
beginning to lighten on the horizon, Matt said, “We’ll be going
past Kate’s turnoff soon. I wonder how Elvis and her are
going?”

“
I hope they’re okay. I
really liked her. She’s one tough lady.”

“
I’ll say. So are you, by
the way. In a good way.”

“
Thanks,” she said, putting
her hand on Matt’s thigh. “But I don’t feel very tough right now, I
feel like I could shatter into a million tiny pieces. I’m a wreck.
Matt, if anything happens to Gabby I don’t think I could
cope.”

“
I know exactly how you
feel.”

Five minutes later they reached the spot on
the road where Matt had been attacked by the feeder that had once
been Kate’s ex-husband. Neither of them mentioned the incident as
they sped past because they had other things on their minds. Matt
shifted into the lower gears and they began the slow climb up the
mountain range towards Carswell.

“
Matt, what will we do if
we find them? What will you do to that man?”

“
I honestly don’t know.
Right now, the way I feel, I would put a bullet in his head. But
when the time comes, who knows?”

“
Matt?” Montana paused,
unsure if she even wanted to ask the next question. “What if we
don’t find them?”

He looked straight ahead, intent on the way
forward. There was no answer.

-

As Matt and Montana sped through the dawn,
on the road that they hoped would lead them to Gabby, they were
completely unaware that just twenty kilometres to the south, in the
ancient depths of the Delano Caves, thousands of feeders were
preparing to hibernate for the day. They had converged on this spot
from miles around, drawn by an instinct that they didn’t
understand, for a purpose that was yet to be fulfilled. If the
creatures had any kind of self-awareness they might have understood
that the same pattern of feeder migration and congregation would be
happening in similar places all over the world, but that concept
was beyond them. The impulses that drove them were of no more
concern to them than their impulse to breathe. They just did what
they did, like animals would.

That wasn’t all, though. Since the event
there had been other changes in the feeders’ appearance and habits
that would have been obvious to any scientist who could have found
a way to observe and study them. The most noticeable difference was
their skin, on which pale blotches had started to appear, making it
look as if parts of their bodies had been bleached. The
discolouration usually started near the neck and under the armpits,
and then began to spread slowly to all other areas. Its progress
was slow, but given the rate of coverage, it would be only a matter
of weeks before the feeders’ entire bodies were completely white.
The other element of this symptom, our hypothetical scientist would
have noted, was the toughening up of the affected regions. As the
colour leeched from their bodies, the creatures’ skin was becoming
thicker and more leathery. It was barely noticeable to the naked
eye in the early stages, but eventually this change would give the
feeders a very distinctive and frightening appearance.

At the same time there were also changes
occurring that would have been too slight, for even a scientist to
identify, and that was why the feeders were going to be such
formidable adversaries for whoever decided to take a stand against
them, because they were actually evolving. Their physical structure
was changing and they were getting stronger with each slight
mutation. They were becoming something new.

And once our imaginary scientist got his
head around that concept, he would have been very, very scared
indeed.

Chapter 55

Sally rushed straight out of the bank vault
and into the flabby chest of Brock, who pushed her savagely to the
ground, where she found herself laying alongside the unconscious
body of Dylan, who was sporting a large, ugly lump on his
forehead.

“
You bastard!” she
screamed. “What have you done to him?”

“
Shut the fuck up!” barked
Brock, as he grabbed Bonnie by the arm and dragged her from the
dark vault and into the harshly lit room. She shielded her eyes
from the glare, but said nothing as she was forced down onto the
floor beside Sally and the still comatose Dylan.

“
Who the fuck is this?”
Brock demanded, anger etched into every pore of his skin, as he
pointed at Dylan.

“
Never seen him before,”
answered Bonnie, prompting her captor to step forward and slap her
hard across the top of her head.

“
Oh really? It looks as if
your little girlfriend there knows him, so stop lying or I’ll have
to give you a lesson on how to tell the truth.”

He picked up the baseball bat that was lying
beside Dylan and tried again. “Now. Think carefully bitch. Who is
this prick who just broke into my place?”