Desolation Boulevard (39 page)

Then Violet told us
about the other dream she’d been having. The one where she feels
she is in terrible danger, and is saved only by the presence of a
little girl - our little girl. Gabby! Apparently Violet sensed her
presence more strongly as she got closer to Millfield. Then she
just started walking and ended up here at the farm. She looked at
us and said, “I knew she was real. Can I please see her? Then I’ll
leave you alone. It would mean so much to me.”

We weren’t sure what to
do, but our decision was made for us when Gabby and Bonnie came out
of the classroom and headed towards us. We all stood up and I could
tell that the boys were on high alert in case something went wrong
(like it had with Bill). It didn’t though. Gabby walked up to
Violet and said hello politely, at which time Violet started to
cry. “It’s her,” she said. “It really is.”

Gabby looked and Bonnie
and said, “Mummy, why is she crying?” but Bonnie just shook her
head and took Gabby’s hand and took her inside the house to have a
bath.

Violet didn’t ask to
stay the night, and nobody offered, but Dylan did drive her back
into town, and made sure she had somewhere secure to sleep for the
night. The old woman was confident that she would be able to get a
ride with travellers tomorrow morning so that she could continue
her journey west and find the place from her dreams. Dylan said
that before he left town to come home, Violet grabbed him be the
arm and told him that there would be others stopping by the farm to
see Gabby, adding, “She’s special you see.” Dylan said he felt a
chill as he wished the old woman good luck for her
journey.

During dinner nobody
talked much about the traveller’s dreams because I think it scared
us so much. We seem to be in the eye of a hurricane that we don’t
understand. It is becoming clearer with each passing day that the
little girl is going to be a key figure in our new world, but none
of us can comprehend how. I have a feeling that Gabby is the only
one of us who is sleeping soundly tonight.

Chapter
62

For the six survivors, life at “Two Hills”
became almost mundane in the months since they had banded together
on the road between Millfield and Carswell. They had been forced
together by extreme circumstances, but despite that, they found
solace in each other’s company and developed a bond that was more
like that of a family than a group of friends. As the days grew
shorter and the nights grew colder they developed a daily routine
that gave them a sense of normalcy and purpose - a reason to get up
each morning and carry on. Each member of the group took it upon
himself or herself to be responsible for chores around the farm,
and in time their lives developed a rhythm and purpose that helped
ease the pain of their individual losses.

Not surprisingly, the glue that bound them
together, more than anything else, was Gabby. She adored farm life
and thrived intellectually and emotionally, buoyed by the love she
received from her new family. In turn, her optimism and spirit
inspired them when they were down and forced everyone to be strong
when it would have been so easy to quit on the world, and descend
into some dark hole and slowly fade away. Matt, in particular, had
found the going tough since the event, and had been through a
second bout of depression that lasted almost a week, but with
Gabby’s welfare to consider and his friends supporting him, he
found a way through the darkness and soon his positive outlook
resurfaced. On the whole, though, the mood at the farm was upbeat,
which was extraordinary given the sickening events they had all
been through, and relationships either strengthened and turned
passionate, or became comfortable and pleasant. After two nights in
separate bedrooms, Dylan and Sally negotiated swaps with the others
and began sleeping in the same room, which had the knock-on effect
of hastening the embryonic association between Matt and Montana.
Matt had suggested that Montana should share his bed in the name of
convenience and safety, but they both knew that he had been
attracted to her since they first met, and it was clear that
Montana felt the same way about him. Their first night together was
an experience that Matt would never forget, and with the warmth of
her naked body beside him in the darkness, he felt that it might
just be possible to live a life that was somehow fulfilling,
despite the loss of his parents and the ever-present horror of the
feeders.

Unlike the stability of life inside the
fence at “Two Hills”, however, the world outside the farm was
becoming more erratic and dangerous with each passing week. The
number of travellers heading west had grown slightly each day, and
whenever Matt and Dylan went into Millfield to find supplies, they
often encountered small groups of survivors, who were refuelling
their vehicles or loading up on canned food, before resuming their
journey west. Occasionally someone would ask about “the girl” and
Matt would shrug his shoulders and deny any knowledge of Gabby
before suggesting that it might be in their best interest to keep
moving while it was safe, which was usually enough encouragement
for the visitors to leave. But at least once a week, a more
determined type of pilgrim would arrive directly at the farm and
ask to see “the girl”, saying they were duty-bound to complete a
personal pilgrimage based on a vision they’d had. The gate at “Two
Hills” remained closed to them, however, and they usually resumed
their passage to the west without much fuss once they realised that
there would be no further negotiations.

In the beginning, each time a traveller was
encountered in Millfield, Matt would make a point of asking them
why they were heading west, and each time their answers were
similar - they’d had a dream in which they would find safety
somewhere “to the west” and they felt compelled to make a
pilgrimage in that direction. When Matt asked how they would know
when they’d arrived at their destination, they would just shrug
their shoulders and say something like, “We don’t know. We’ll just
know when we get there.” After one of these typical conversations
Matt turned to Dylan and asked, “Why aren’t we having the dreams?”
Without hesitation, Dylan responded, “We don’t need to find
sanctuary. We have Gabby.”

The one thing that the travellers confirmed
beyond argument, though, was that the feeders were becoming more
active. Whatever the reason for the earlier mass migration of the
beasts, it was obvious that they were beginning to venture further
afield once more, and were clearly just as violent and hungry for
flesh as they had always been. Matt, Dylan and Montana had made a
few raids into town to wipe out nests of feeders, but the creatures
were getting better at hiding, and after some wasted days when they
had found no nests, they eventually gave up on the task. Stories of
people attacked on the road after dark, however, were not unusual,
and one man told Matt and Dylan about a group of six travellers who
were set upon by a large group of feeders in Carswell while they
slept, and were consequently devoured. The most disturbing aspect
of that story was that the victims had stopped in the town well and
truly before dark, and had thought themselves safe on the second
floor of a locked building. A lone traveller who stumbled upon the
grisly scene discovered that the feeders had found a way into the
building through a locked window on the third floor, which meant
that they were becoming not only more agile, but also more adept at
getting past basic security measures. After hearing about that
incident, Matt and Dylan made a decision to strengthen the fence at
the farm even further upon their return.

-

Late one afternoon, after the day’s work
around the farm had been completed, Matt and Dylan were sitting on
the front veranda as a light drizzle started to fall. The smoke
from the fireplace inside was giving the cool evening air a
pleasant earthy smell and they each had a home-brewed beer, from
which they sipped contentedly. Dylan broke the silence with a loud
belch. “That beer’s good.”

“
Very good,” replied
Matt.

“
Dinner smells good,
too.”

“
Yep. Don’t forget it’s our
turn to cook tomorrow.”

They looked at each other and replied
simultaneously, “Barbecue!”

As their laughter rang out and was gradually
lost into the falling rain, they settled back into a comfortable
silence. After a minute or so Dylan spoke, “Hey Matt, do you think
we’re doing the right thing?”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
Do you think it’s right to
stay here at the farm? To just look after ourselves?”

Matt put his empty beer bottle on the floor
and looked at Dylan. “I don’t think I understand the question. What
do you mean?”

Dylan shook his head, almost unsure of how
to respond. “I don’t know man. We’re pretty comfortable now, and we
don’t seem to be in any danger from the feeders, but is that fair?
Should we be heading west like everyone else? Should we be
contributing more? Helping to rebuild society or something?”

“
We are contributing! We’re
caring for Gabby and the girls aren’t we? And, besides, this is my
home. I belong here. I don’t know how to answer you. I’m as happy
as I could be, given what’s happened. What else do you think we
could be doing?”

Dylan chugged the last dregs of his beer and
placed the empty bottle on the timber floor, only to see it topple
over and rolled off the edge of the porch. He looked at Matt and
said, “You could come with me.”

“
What? Go where with you?
Out west? That would be crazy! We have no idea what we’d find out
there!”

“
Hey man, settle. It’s
okay. I don’t want to go west.”

“
Where then? Back to the
city?”

“
Not exactly.”

Matt stared at his friend, the frustration
plainly etched on his face as he waited for an answer. The rain was
heavier now and in the silence between Matt’s question and Dylan’s
answer, a thousand raindrops pattered ominously on the tin roof of
the farmhouse. Finally he looked at Matt with an expression that
was something between a smile and challenge, “I want to go zombie
hunting again; and I want you to come with me.”

Chapter 63

“
Are you out of your
mind?”

It was an hour later and they were all
sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner when Dylan shared
his plan with the others. It was Bonnie who had suggested that he
might be insane. “Why on earth would you want to do go hunting for
feeders? We’re perfectly safe here for the time being, we have food
and water and enough fuel to power the generator for years. Why
would you risk your life on such a pointless pursuit? And what
about Sally? Are you just going to wander off into the sunset and
leave her behind to worry about you?”

Dylan looked at Sally, who was staring at
her plate of half finished vegetables as a tear rolled down her
cheek. “Look Sally, I’m sorry. I should have told you. I know that,
but I had to make this decision on my own. This is my personal
issue to deal with. I want to make a difference. I want to wipe out
as many of these zombies, or feeders, or whatever you want to call
them, as I can. I hate them, and I just can’t sit around on this
farm while they’re getting more aggressive and more cunning. I need
to try. I know it doesn’t make sense, but what does make sense any
more?”

It was silent now, apart from the sound of
Sally’s sniffling and the rain drumming on the roof as the storm
outside intensified. Montana looked at Matt, who was giving nothing
away, and then at Bonnie, who was shaking her head in disbelief.
Finally she directed her attention at Dylan who looked as if he was
getting ready to get up and leave the table.

“
Well?” she challenged.
“What’s your plan? You can’t just roam around the world on your
own, killing zombies. That won’t make much of a difference, will
it?”

“
I won’t be on my own,” he
stated, dropping his second bombshell for the evening. “Matt’s
coming with me.”

“
What?” Bonnie and Montana
shouted in unison, scarcely able to believe their ears.

“
You’re joking, I hope!”
continued Montana, as she turned towards her boyfriend. “Matt? You
wouldn’t leave us would you? Tell me he’s just
bullshitting.”

Matt took a deep breath and tried to compose
himself before answering. He looked at his new family, comfortable
in his parents’ home, and wondered what he had gotten himself into.
He thought that agreeing to help Dylan might help him to achieve
some sort of closure, where his parents were concerned, but now he
was having second thoughts. The looks of concern on everyone’s
face, including Gabby, who was quiet and letting the adults deal
with their own affairs, made him think that he was being foolish.
Despite his misgivings, though, he tried to explain his decision.
“Listen, it’s not what you think, okay? We’re not going off into
the wilderness forever to hunt the feeders like cowboys. We’ve
given it some thought and we both think that we might be able to
have an impact on the feeder population. We think we have to try
anyway, for all kinds of reasons.”

“
Okay, I’ll bite,” said
Bonnie, sceptically, before taking a sip of wine. “What’s your
great plan?”

Before Matt had a chance to answer, though,
Sally interjected sharply. “I can’t listen to any more of this
nonsense. Come on Gabby, let’s go to bed. I’ll read you a
story.”

When they had left the kitchen, Montana got
the conversation started again. “Well, let’s hear it boys. What are
you thinking? I’m really curious. Is it a suicide mission?”