Desolation Boulevard (42 page)

“
How do we know they’re
marauders?” whispered Matt.

Dylan and Montana simply looked at him and
simultaneously raised their eyebrows in disbelief. “See that corpse
strung up on the fence?” asked Dylan.

“
Oh. Okay. They’re
marauders,” Matt agreed sheepishly.

“
I want to take a closer
look,” said Dylan.

“
Why?” challenged Matt,
“Let’s just leave them alone. There could be hundreds of them in
there. Besides, we need to get to the caves. You know we have to
get back to the farm before it gets dark tonight.”

“
Yeah, I suppose you’re
right,” said Dylan, as they all turned to leave. “I just feel like
I have some unfinished business with them after I saw what
their kind were doing to decent people in the city.”

He thought back to the young, naked girl
he’d seen chained up by the group of marauders as he, Sally and
Bonnie were leaving the city and shuddered, “It’s not just the
feeders we need to worry about any more is it?”

Then suddenly, as if to prove his point, the
foliage of the trees above their heads exploded in a shower of
green, accompanied by the crack of a gunshot from the direction of
the school.

“
Run!” cried Matt, as they
hared down the hill, ducking tree branches and stumbling over the
uneven ground, before emerging back out onto the street. They
checked for danger as they entered the street, then put their heads
down and raced to their car as quickly as they could. Despite their
terror, there were no more shots fired at them, and when they
reached the garage that housed their car, they wasted no time in
jumping in and speeding out of town, giving the high school the
widest possible berth they could manage.

As Matt sped out of Carswell towards the
east, Dylan and Montana looked nervously through Landcruiser’s rear
window with their weapons loaded and ready to fire, but their fear
was unwarranted. Nobody was behind them.

“
What the fuck?” Matt
swore.

“
Why aren’t they chasing
us? Why did they stop shooting?” queried Montana, as the sound of
the car’s engine roared in her ears, and her heart beat at a
hundred miles an hour.

“
I don’t think they care
enough about us,” answered Dylan, “That was just a bit of target
practice for an early riser. If that bullet had hit one of us, I
bet they wouldn’t have even left the compound to check it out. We
would have just laid there until the feeders got us later
tonight.”

“
Shit!” said Matt. “I hope
the girls are okay back at the farm without us. We need to blow
this cave up and get back as soon as we can. Everything feels like
it’s escalating really fast, and I feel like we’re going completely
in the wrong direction. East feels bad. Do you sense that too, or
am I just being paranoid?”

“
No, you’re not being
paranoid. I feel it too,” confided Montana, leaning across the back
of the seat. “I think we’re heading into trouble. Every part of me
wants you to turn the car around and head home. I’ve never had such
a bad feeling about something in my whole life.”

She was crying now, but there was nothing
that Matt or Dylan could say to make her feel better, because they
were experiencing the same ominous doubts as her. Dylan turned
around in the passenger seat and placed his hand over
Montana’s.

“
I think we all feel the
same. I don’t know why, but west is best, isn’t it? Once we’ve
wiped out this nest of feeders, I say we go home and make plans for
the future; all of us together, and think about going somewhere
even safer than “Two Hills”. Matt, what do you say? Do you feel the
same?”

Matt kept his eye on the road ahead and
answered, “No, not really. I don’t care what happens, I’ll be
staying at the farm. It’s where I belong. If you guys want to leave
I won’t stop you, but I plan on dying at that place.”

-

On the front veranda of the farmhouse, Gabby
was playing with some of Matt’s old toys in the sunshine while
Bonnie and Sally dug weeds from the vegetable garden. It was almost
ten o’clock and the air was warming considerably as the sun rose
steadily in the sky. Sally had removed her sweater and a few beads
of sweat had formed on her brow from the exertion of digging.

“
This would be almost
pleasant if we didn’t have to worry about the others,” she said,
forcing a smile.

“
I know what you mean. I’m
really having second thoughts about them going. It all seemed so
abstract and theoretical the other night, but now they’ve actually
gone I’m worried sick.”

“
Do you think Gabby was
right about someone not coming home?”

“
You’re worried about
Dylan, aren’t you?”

“
Yes. And Matt,” Sally
replied quietly.

Bonnie put down her spade and looked at the
younger woman. “Sally, are you blushing? Oh my god, have you got
feelings for Matt?”

“
Oh I don’t know. I’m so
confused. Matt seems so sweet and caring, different to Dylan
somehow. I know Dylan’s been good to me, but there’s a bitterness
there, just under the surface, that scares me a little. I know it’s
not fair, but every now and then I find myself thinking about Matt
for no reason. I think I might be falling in love with
him.”

She looked into Bonnie’s eyes, “Am I an
awful person?”

Bonnie smiled, “No, of course not. Matt is a
gentle, handsome man, but strong too. I understand why you’re
attracted to him. But you have Montana to think about. You’ll have
to keep your feelings to yourself. We can’t afford to have any
tension in our little group, can we?”

“
No I guess not, and I do
like Dylan a lot, but really, I don’t think he loves me. I guess in
this world you can’t be too fussy though, right? I should be
happy.”

“
Honey, my advice for you
right now is to take everything one day at a time. Don’t get too
hung up relationships just yet. Survival is still our main
priority, and will be for a long time yet. If you ever need to
talk, though, I’m here for you babe, okay?”

“
Okay. Thanks Bonnie. I’m
so glad we came to Millfield with you.”

Bonnie took Sally in her arms and hugged her
tightly. “I’m glad you did too sweetheart. We’re family now, and
that might just be what gets us through all this.”

As Sally listened to Bonnie’s wise words,
however, all she could think about was Matt, and whether he would
return to “Two Hills” alive. She buried her face further into
Bonnie’s neck and cried.

Chapter 66

At about the same time Sally was realising
she might be in love with Matt, he was a hundred and fifty
kilometres away, coasting into the car park that serviced the
Delano Cave system. He stopped the engine and opened his door.
Outside the car, the world was as silent as a graveyard. Dylan and
Montana climbed out of the car and they stood with Matt staring at
the huge chalet style guesthouse that loomed over them like a ghost
ship.

“
That’s pretty random,”
noted Montana drily.

“
This place was huge in the
1920s,” said Matt. “Rich city types used to come up here to be seen
at ritzy ballroom dances, apparently. It’s all been a bit downhill
since then, I guess.”

While the caves had been sacred to
Aboriginal people for thousands of years, early European explorers
had only discovered them around a hundred and fifty years ago. The
caves’ remote location in a deep, hidden valley had kept visitors
away for many decades, but once a road was forged through the
wilderness around a hundred years ago, the place became a mecca for
visitors from the city, eager to experience the grandeur of the
ancient system, and to be seen themselves, at a very fashionable
holiday spot. Delano Caves House maintained its’ reputation for a
couple of decades, but once airplane travel became more affordable,
long trips into the country became less popular and visitor numbers
dwindled until the caves became little more than a curious side
trip for elderly holiday makers heading west.

“
Well, what’s the plan
boys?” asked Montana.

“
Matt seems to know a bit
more about the caves than I do, which is absolutely nothing, so I
say we do whatever he suggests.”

“
Oh, thanks a lot,” said
Matt. “I thought this was your expedition”.

“
Okay look, don’t stress
okay? Just tell us anything you can about this place, then we’ll
decide what to do.”

Matt looked at Dylan and then Montana, who
were obviously waiting for him to provide some kind of inspiration.
He ignored them and looked around, hoping to see something that
would give him an inkling of where to begin this crazy quest. Then,
closer to the guesthouse he saw something that might actually
help.

“
Follow me,” he said,
walking away from his friends towards the once grand
building.

When Matt stopped, Dylan and Montana saw
immediately what had attracted his attention. A large hand-painted
sign was on display showing a map of all the caves that were within
walking distance. And just in case tourists required more
information, a little Perspex box with a flip-top lid, held a stack
of brochures, which would probably provide details about the caves’
histories, sizes and accessibility. After more than two months, the
brochures were looking worse for wear and it was clear that a
number of bugs had lived and died in that box, but Matt flipped the
lid and pulled out the wad of leaflets. They had congealed together
into one solid mass, but Matt split them in two with a crack and
found that the ones in the middle of the pile were preserved well
enough to be able to read. He gave one each to Dylan and Montana
and they unfolded them with reverence, understanding that the
knowledge found inside these flimsy relics of the past might just
be enough to give them a vital edge in their confrontation with the
feeder colony.

By combining the information found in the
brochure with the picture of the map on the board, they were able
to piece together a plan that they thought might be effective.
There were six different cave entrances within half a kilometre of
where they were standing, and the map showed that all of the caves
were connected to each other deep within the hillside. By locating
the bombs at strategic points, there was a reasonable chance they
would be able to bring down enough rubble to block the feeders’
exit points, thereby ensuring their demise even if they weren’t
killed in the initial blasts. This plan was appealing, too, because
it meant that they wouldn’t necessarily need to venture all the way
into the heart of the feeder colony. In effect, they would be
burying the feeders alive.

““
Let’s get the gear and
get started,” urged Dylan, “Daylight is precious.”

Twenty minutes later they were standing at
the entrance to the cave that was furthest from the guesthouse.
They had wired up the ten bombs and left nine of them in the car,
which was now parked nearby. They would collect the other devices
from the car only as they were needed. They had decided that it
made the most sense to set up single explosives in the five smaller
caverns, and then wire up multiple devices in the last, and largest
cave, where they assumed most of the feeders would be hibernating.
They would need to set the timers at staggered intervals, to allow
for the time it took to get from one cave to the next, but because
the devices were all rigged independently, there was no possible
way to make them detonate simultaneously. All they could do was
make calculations based on the rough distances they would be
travelling, and allow themselves plenty of time to leave the area
before the first blast started. So, as long as the bombs detonated
before it got dark, while the feeders were still in the caves, the
plan had every chance of working.

“
Okay everyone,” said
Dylan. “Are we ready?”

“
As ready as anyone can be
for something like this, I guess,” said Matt, trying not to sound
too terrified.

“
By the way,” Montana
quipped. “Is it just me or does anyone else think we look like
Ghostbusters?”

They looked at each other and laughed. They
all wore orange overalls, hard miners’ helmets, boots and a
backpack containing water, extra flashlights, glow sticks and some
snack bars. Around their waists, each had a belt with a holster
containing a handgun and a long loop of rope. Matt carried a second
backpack on his front, which contained enough explosives to kill
them all instantly, if things went wrong.

“
I ain’t afraid of no
ghost,” said Matt. “Let’s kick some feeder ass!”

-

The entrance to the cave was slightly larger
than a regular door and had obviously been carved out of the
limestone years ago to allow easy access to the wonders that were
to be found inside. A large metal gate had been added at some point
to keep non-paying intruders out, but recently the gate had been
ripped off its’ hinges and lay on the ground, where it was being
slowly overrun by weeds. Matt kicked the gate with his boot, “Do
you think the feeders did that?”

“
I’d say so,” answered
Dylan, “why would anybody want to break into the caves after the
event?”

“
Exactly. Here we go then.
Turn your lights on and follow me.”

There was a moment of trepidation when Matt
stepped over the threshold and into the cool of the cave, but he
knew that events had been set in motion that could not be undone.
Returning to the farm without attempting to fulfil their objective
would be a personal failure that none of them would be able to live
with, so he pushed forward into the depths of the cave, with
Montana and Dylan following closely behind.