Desolation Boulevard (34 page)

Bonnie looked at the twisted face of the
obviously deranged kidnapper, and realised that she had nothing to
gain by lying. His state of mind was clearly unbalanced, and it was
plain to her, as she stared up at him from the cold concrete floor,
that the only way out of this predicament would involve violence
against him at some point. As Bonnie thought about Gabby, stranded
in Millfield, alone without her, she realised that she was more
than ready to deliver whatever was necessary to get out of this
mess, and get back on the road to her daughter. When she asked
herself whether she was capable of killing this man, the answer
came to her immediately and without doubt. Yes!

“
Answer me!” Brock
screamed. “Who is he?”

Sally looked at the older woman, waiting to
see what she would say. Bonnie spoke. “His name is Dylan. He’s
travelling with us. We’re trying to get to Millfield.”

“
Okay then. That’s better,”
said Brock, as some of the anger left his face. “Now we’re getting
somewhere. Next question. Why are you going there? What’s so
important in that shitty little town? You looking for somebody? If
you are, you’re wasting your time. They’re all zombies now. Or
dead.”

Sally squeezed Bonnie’s hand, hoping that
her friend would make no mention of Gabby to this monster.

“
I know that,” said Bonnie,
as she returned Sally’s squeeze. “But it’s my home town, I have to
get back there, no matter what. I had a husband there. I miss him,”
she lied.

“
How sweet,” he sneered.
“Well, you’re not going to find him, so don’t even bother. You have
a new man in your life now. Me. So hurry up and help me get your
friend there into the vault,” he said, motioning towards
Dylan.

“
No, please!” beseeched
Sally. “He’s not well, he needs looking after!”

“
That’s why you’re going to
be in there with him, sweetheart. Now hurry up before I change my
mind and introduce you to my pets!”

Sally and Bonnie took one of Dylan’s arms
each, and dragged him as carefully as they could into the vault.
Dylan was making quiet, groaning sounds that indicated that he
might be regaining consciousness, and Sally prayed there was no
permanent brain damage, as she sat on the floor of the vault and
cradled his head in her lap, stroking it gently. She looked up
viciously at Brock, who had grabbed Bonnie by the upper arm and was
leading her out of the vault. As the door slammed shut on Sally
once more, she reached over and grabbed one the flashlights and
flicked it on before complete darkness descended. Sally cried as
Dylan moaned softly in her arms.

Outside the vault, Brock dragged Bonnie
across the room and pushed her clumsily onto the single bed that
had once been Montana’s.

“
Make yourself
comfortable,” he said, as he picked up his shotgun and collapsed
onto his own bed across the room without taking his eyes from her.
“It’s going to be a long, hard night, if you know what I
mean.”

As Bonnie stared at Brock, she evaluated the
strengths of her opponent. Physically, he was much stronger than
she was. He looked as if he weighed twice as much as she did, and
was at least a head taller. Any attempt to overpower him, unarmed,
would be suicidal. He could snap her neck like a twig if he wanted
to. No, if she was going to get out of this predicament and save
her friends, she would need to use cunning and surprise, if she
could. She looked at him across the room as he munched his way
through a large packet of chips. No problem, she thought.

“
So, do you have a name?”
she asked, in a friendly, but confident voice. “I’m Bonnie, by the
way.”

“
I don’t give a shit,” he
mumbled, as crumbs flew from his mouth.

Nice, she thought to herself, as she watched
him continue to stuff his fat face, unaffected by her attempt to be
civilised. A more creative approach was going to be required to
break down his defences, she thought, if she wanted to escape and
get back to Gabby. Societal norms were out the window now, and the
fat fuck across the room knew that as well as she did. They were
living in a lawless world, and if survivors wanted to reinvent
themselves as hedonistic, sadistic psychopaths, then there was
nothing to stop them, other than their own conscience. Bonnie took
a deep breath, and tried a different approach.

“
Hey, what are you planning
to do with me?” she asked, more forcefully than her last
question.

He stopped eating and stared at her. “I
don’t know yet, but I’m going to enjoy it, that’s for sure.”

“
Are you really?” Bonnie
retorted, sounding much braver than she actually felt. “Why are you
sitting there eating chips then? Are you just scared of me, or is
it all women? Can’t get it up, maybe?”

Brock clambered up off his bed, leaving the
shotgun behind, as he stormed across the room. “You fucking slut!
You’re all the same!” he spat, before slapping her hard across the
face.

It was the chance Bonnie had been hoping
for. As her head rocked back from the impact of Brock’s blow, she
kicked with her right foot as hard as she could, collecting him
fully in the groin.

“
Ow! You bitch!” he roared,
as he fell to his knees, clutching his throbbing balls.

Without hesitation, Bonnie jumped up onto
the bed, quickly skirting around her disabled opponent, as she
raced for the nearest weapon - the baseball bat she’d seen lying on
the floor beside Dylan earlier. As she picked it up, she could see
that Brock had recovered from the surprise attack and was getting
to his feet, with murder in his eyes. He charged at her like a
wounded elephant as she swung the bat with all her strength. She
thought she heard a cracking sound as the bat connected with his
ribcage, and felt the jolt from the impact, travel right up to her
shoulders. Despite the strike from the weapon, however, Brock
lurched forward angrily and slammed his whole body into Bonnie’s,
sending them both sprawling towards the concrete floor. In the
split second before Bonnie hit the floor, however, she realised
that if this behemoth of a man fell on top of her, she could be
severely injured, or even killed, and Gabby would be orphaned.
Frantically, she twisted her body with all of her strength,
desperate to get out from under the falling hulk, and, as they both
hit the hard floor, she realised that her attacker was moaning in
pain beside her, and that she had been spared from being
crushed.

Bonnie leaped to her feet, and was surprised
to find that she still had a tight grasp on the baseball bat. She
looked down at the man who had kidnapped her - the man who would
keep her from her daughter – as he clutched his ribs in
pain, scared now by Bonnie’s fury and the attacking stance she
had adopted with the bat.

“
I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he
stammered as he sat up, grimacing in pain. “I wasn’t going to hurt
you. Honestly. I was going to let you all go. I was only joking.
I’m hurt too. I think you broke my ribs,” he moaned
pathetically.

Bonnie stared coldly at the pitiful specimen
on the floor, who was blubbering like a baby, and considered what
the consequences may have been for her daughter if this fiend had
gotten away with his failed attempt at their abduction. Then she
pondered the fate of future survivors, who might be unfortunate
enough to cross paths with this crazy, violent misfit. Finally, she
thought about Dylan, who was lying on the floor of the bank vault
with Sally, suffering from a head injury that may have killed him.
She thought of all these things in just a fraction of a second, and
then, as Brock made one final plea for forgiveness, she raised the
baseball bat above her head and swung it down as hard as she could
onto the top of his skull, spearing tiny fragments of bone into the
soft pink tissue of his brain. Brock was no longer a threat.

Bonnie threw the bat onto the floor and ran
to the vault, trying not to vomit. She didn’t think Brock had set
the combination, but she knew that if he had, her fit of anger was
likely to cost Sally and Dylan their lives. She grasped the big
metal wheel on the centre of the vault door, took a deep breath and
rotated it. The wheel turned freely and she could hear a solid
metallic scraping sound as the large metal bar slid from its
housing. After a few more turns, the wheel stopped with a loud
clunk, and Bonnie knew that she was almost there. If the fat
kidnapper had not set the combination lock, it should now just be a
simple matter of pulling the door open. She braced herself, said a
silent prayer, and hauled as hard as she could. For a moment Bonnie
panicked, as the door remained closed, but she had simply
underestimated the weight of the door, and when she tried again,
with more force, she found it swinging open slowly, as tears of
relief streamed down her face.

When Bonnie stepped into the vault, she was
surprised to see Dylan and Sally sitting together, with their backs
against the wall holding hands. She smiled and went to her friends,
embracing them as she sobbed onto Dylan’s shoulder.

“
What took you so long?” he
whispered weakly.

Not too far away, in the cage behind the
used car yard, two creatures, which were once human, stopped
feeding and stared into the darkness, towards the bank. The drying
blood on their faces glistened in the moonlight as they peered into
the distance. They sensed that something had changed. Somehow they
had detected the presence of a new danger out there in the night.
One of them made a sound that may have been a growl and they
returned to their feeding.

Chapter 56

Extract From Sally’s Journal:

“I’m absolutely
exhausted right now, but I’m forcing myself to write this stuff
down because I think that if I leave it too long, I’ll forget some
of the details, or remember it differently, or not at all. It’s
almost ten o’clock; Dylan and Bonnie are sleeping but I can’t, so
I’ll write. Today was a crazy day. Another crazy day, I should say.
Dylan could have been killed, and an irrational, oversized
psychopath tried to take Bonnie and I captive.

We stopped for fuel in
a little town called Carswell, and that’s when everything went
wrong. Dylan went to investigate something he’d found out the back
of a used car yard (more about that later), and while we were
waiting for him to come back, a big fat nerd with a gun snuck up on
us, and forced us to go back to his “lair”, which turned out to be
an old bank. (I know! We were stupid! I’m so cranky with us, for
getting caught like that!) Anyway, this guy was a fruitcake! He
kept going on about his “ex-girlfriend” and asking us if we knew
some farm boy from Millfield. I don’t know how he knew them, or
what they had done to him, but somehow they’d really pissed him
off! If I ever meet them, I’ll congratulate them.

Anyway, when Dylan came
back into the car yard and saw that we were missing he freaked!
Luckily, though, he caught a glimpse of us going into the bank and
waited for his chance. He got it when fatso went to do some
“chores”. Dylan followed him back to the car yard, and this is
where it gets really, really weird! We found out later that this
freak had somehow managed to capture some zombies and he was
keeping them like pets. (We don’t know why he did it, or what his
plans for them were, but tomorrow, when the sun comes up Dylan
insists that we have a closer look at them, before heading to
Millfield). So while the freak was out, looking after his pets,
Dylan raced back to the bank to try and get us out of the vault,
but fatty came back and hit Dylan with a baseball bat and knocked
him out.

He then made us get out
of the vault and when I saw Dylan lying there unconscious, my heart
almost broke. I didn’t think I could feel that way about anybody. I
fell apart. I didn’t know how badly he was hurt, so I imagined the
worst.  I honestly couldn’t function. Then he locked Dylan and
me in the vault without Bonnie, and I honestly thought it would end
up being our tomb. Without medical treatment I thought that my
saviour might die, and then I would have to kill myself too. That
sounds melodramatic, but I really felt that low. I’ve never felt so
alone or scared! I hugged his unconscious body and I cried. I could
see no way out of our situation. Then, without warning, he started
to regain consciousness. He was groggy and had a headache, but
seemed like he might be okay. He smiled and my mood changed
immediately. I wasn’t alone any more. I wanted to get out and kill
the fat fuck that had done this to my man. In the end I didn’t need
to, though. Bonnie had taken care of that for me.

When the vault door
swung open I expected to see our kidnapper standing there with his
gun, but instead it was Bonnie. The amazing, beautiful, strong
Bonnie! Somehow she’d overpowered him and clubbed him to death with
the baseball bat! We all hugged like crazy in that vault for about
five minutes, then we got out of there. Fatso’s body was lying on
the floor, just outside the vault, with blood pooling on the
concrete floor from a savage indentation in the top of his skull.
It wasn’t pretty, but you know what? It wasn’t even close to being
the worst thing I’d seen since this all started.

After we got Dylan some
painkillers and made him lay down on one of the beds, we dragged
the dead body (very slowly and with a few rest stops) into the
vault and locked the door, so it did become a tomb for somebody,
after all. Then I climbed onto the bed with Dylan while Bonnie lay
on the other single bed, with a big sigh. For about ten minutes
nobody spoke. We were shattered, to be quite honest, and pretty
grateful that we could just lie there, doing nothing. It wasn’t
long before Dylan was asleep and Bonnie and I started to chat. I
asked her about Gabby. I was really curious to find out if she
really believed that her daughter was alive, or if she was just
being optimistic, living in hope. Her answer wasn’t what I expected
at all. I don’t know if she’d told Dylan any of it, but she really
opened up and told me a lot of things she hadn’t mentioned before.
She said that somebody needed to know, in case something happened
to her – she didn’t want the information to be lost. So she told
me.