Desolation Boulevard (44 page)

“
I hope they’re okay,” said
Sally, “I can’t stop thinking about them.”

“
I know what you mean. I
wish they never went.”

Bonnie dried a plate and passed it to Sally
to put into the cupboard.

“
Hey, Sally, you never talk
about your parents. Why is that?”

She paused briefly before answering, “I
didn’t know my father, and I wasn’t very close to mum, but I do
think about her sometimes. It’s easier not to, though, because all
I wonder about is where she was the day I woke up and found
everyone missing.”

“
What do you mean?” asked
Bonnie, putting her dishcloth down on the kitchen bench.

“
Well, mum wasn’t home when
I got up that morning, and I just thought she was sleeping off a
hangover or staying at a friend’s house, like she sometimes did,
but I’m not sure any more.”

“
What do you think now?”
asked Bonnie.

“
I think she was probably
under the bed in her room the whole time becoming a feeder. I
didn’t even open her bedroom door, you know. I was only thinking
about myself. I should have checked in her bedroom. I was
selfish.”

“
No, you’re wrong. You
didn’t know what was going on in the world, and if you had found
her, that would have only made the whole experience worse. You may
even have died trying to drag her from the building when the fire
started.”

“
Maybe. But I can’t get it
out of my head that I didn’t even try to look for her. What about
your parents? Do you miss them?”

Bonnie smiled and leaned against the bench,
“Sally, I miss everyone and every thing. My parents, my brother, my
best friend, heavy metal, fast food, the nightly news, Facebook,
all kinds of silly things; I even miss going to work. I was so
excited about maybe getting that job and moving to Sydney, but you
know what?”

Sally shook her head.

“
Despite losing all of
those things, I still feel incredibly lucky because I have Gabby. I
might be the only living parent in the world whose child survived
the event. I’m grateful for that each and every day, but I know
that you guys have lost everything, so I don’t like to talk about
it, because it doesn’t seem fair.”

“
I understand,” said Sally
as she put the last plate away. “Hey, let’s cook something special
for the returning heroes. Gabby can help.”

-

In the cave, as Dylan plunged forward into
the mass of sleeping creatures, the only thought that went through
his mind was that he had failed his friends. When he landed on top
of the feeders, they would wake in a frenzy and defend themselves
with a ferocity that would leave none of the group alive. He winced
and threw out his arms to break his fall, as he mentally prepared
to die.

Up on the ledge, Montana’s grip on Matt’s
arm tightened, as Dylan fell. Matt reached for the weapon in his
holster, but he knew that once Dylan collapsed on top of the
feeders, they would all effectively be dealt a death sentence. So
when Dylan hit the ground and none of the creatures awoke, Matt
didn’t understand what was happening.

Dylan threw out his arms and instinctively
flexed his muscles as he tried to find a way to avoid making
contact with the feeder beneath him. His palms hit the slick rock
floor either side of the creature’s body simultaneously, and his
left hand slipped slightly on impact. But his other hand hit the
ground square, and stuck, and he somehow managed to break his fall,
just centimetres from the feeder that lay beneath him, that was
still in hibernation. He had felt a crack in his right wrist, and
the foul breath of the beast was almost making him vomit, but he
managed to keep his body rigid, and avoided any contact with the
beast. To Matt and Montana up on the viewing platform, Dylan looked
as if he was frozen in time, in the act of making love to one of
the feeders, but when they realised that he had just saved not only
his own life, but also theirs, they hugged each other silently in
jubilation.

-

As they stood outside the entrance to the
cave, holding their faces up towards the sunshine, Dylan’s
remarkable escape seemed almost like a dream, but Matt was furious
nonetheless, “That cannot happen again!” he said glaring at Dylan.
“From now, we go into the caves, place the devices somewhere safe,
not too close to the feeders, and then get out! Got it?”

“
Yeah, sorry man. I just
thought it would give us more bang for our buck, that’s
all.”

“
Yeah well, it probably
will, but I don’t want to die because of your selfish heroics,
okay? So let’s just stick to the plan from now on!”

“
Hey I said I was sorry,
let’s not get all fired up, we still have a lot of work to
do.”

“
Okay then,” said Matt, who
was already storming off to the car to get the next device
ready.

Setting up the bombs in the next four caves
was easy compared to the first attempt. After Dylan’s close
encounter, they were satisfied to plant the bombs close to the
feeders without actually getting amongst them, and they were out of
the second to last cave with around three hours of daylight to
spare, most of which would be needed to get home before the sun
set. Each time they planted a bomb in one of the caves, they
subtracted the time they had spent in the subsequent caves from the
original three hours that had been set on the first timer. This
would mean that all of the bombs would explode at roughly the same
time, giving the feeders little warning of what was to come. As
they stood before the entrance to the sixth and final cave, the
group felt excited at the prospect of getting the job finished and
returning to the safety of “Two Hills”, but there was anxiety, too,
because they knew from the maps that this was the largest of the
caves, and probably housed more feeders than the other caves
combined.

“
Okay,” said Matt, taking a
deep breath, “This is it - the last one. Let’s keep it simple,
okay? We’ve already spent half of our three hours so far planting
the bombs, so that means we need to set this timer to trigger in
ninety minutes. That gives us about an hour to plant the device, so
we’ll have a good thirty minutes to get away from this place before
all hell breaks loose. We should be home in time for dinner. Any
questions?”

Dylan and Montana shook their heads.

“
Okay guys, let’s finish
the job.”

The last cave was the most spectacular and
geologically significant of all the caves in the Delano system. It
had more stalagmites and stalactites, larger caverns, longer
tunnels, and even an underground river and waterfall. In the old
days, before the world changed, if you came to the caves as a
tourist and only toured one cavern, this would be the one. Matt,
Dylan and Montana peered anxiously forward as they walked through
the first narrow tunnel into the cave’s damp, murky depths. Because
this cave was larger, they decided to drop glow sticks every twenty
metres or so, in case they needed to make a quick exit, and as Matt
looked behind him at the green, phosphorescent globes of light
receding into the distance, he thought that they only seemed to
accentuate the distance to the outside world.

“
Where are they?” asked
Montana, “We didn’t need to go this deep in the other
caves”.

“
This one is much bigger,”
replied Matt. “Let’s give it a bit longer, but if we don’t find the
nest soon, I say we leave our bomb wherever it will do the most
damage, and then get out of here, while we still have
time.”

“
Sounds good to me,” said
Dylan, as Montana nodded in agreement.

A few minutes later, about half way along a
narrow tunnel that was almost fifty metres long, Dylan stopped and
cocked his head. “Listen.”

They all paused, straining to identify the
humming sound that was coming from up ahead, “What is that?” asked
Montana.

“
We’ll know soon,” said
Dylan, “Let’s push on”.

As they moved forward through the cramped,
limestone shaft, the sound increased until it became almost
deafening.

“
Nearly there”, said Dylan,
changing direction, as the passage veered suddenly to the
right.

As they negotiated the narrow bend, with
their heads ducked down to avoid the ceiling, the source of the
sound become obvious, as they stepped into a massive cavern, where
a spectacular waterfall tumbled from a large fissure in the rock
face almost one hundred metres above them.

“
Wow!” said Montana,
“That’s seriously impressive. But where are the
feeders?”

“
I can’t see any in here,”
commented Dylan.

“
Shit! What’s going on?
This should be the perfect place for them, shouldn’t it?” asked
Matt.

“
I would have thought so.
How much time have we wasted in here now?” asked Dylan.

Matt looked at his watch, “Almost half an
hour already. If we go any deeper, we won’t be leaving ourselves
much time to get out before our bombs go off.”

“
That’s if everything goes
according to plan,” observed Montana.

“
Okay, listen,” said Matt,
“We have to make a call on this, one way or the other. Let’s vote.
Spend five more minutes going further into this cave, or get out
now. What do we say?”

“
I say five more minutes,”
answered Dylan, “We’ll never be here again.”

Montana looked around the huge empty space
before them, and then back towards the tunnel that would lead them
outside to daylight and safety.

“
Shit! This is ridiculous!”
she spat. “Alright, five more minutes, but not a second longer, I’m
starting to get a very bad feeling about all of this.”

Chapter 69

Bonnie stood at the front window and gazed
through the curtains at the couple she’d argued with just an hour
earlier. Now a third man, who was pointing at the house, then
gesturing back in the direction of Millfield, had joined them. She
obviously couldn’t make out what was being said, but there was
something about their expressions and the way they were waving
their arms about that seemed openly hostile and threatening. Bonnie
wished that Matt and the others would hurry up and come home,
because she was starting to feel like she was living in a goldfish
bowl. It had been a slight inconvenience when strangers began
arriving at the farm to see Gabby for themselves, but this new
development was much more disturbing in nature. The electrified
fence that Matt had constructed was providing them with a basic
level of security, but Bonnie knew that a determined and desperate
group of people would be able to break down their defenses by
simply driving a car through. She looked at her watch and prayed
that the others would be back soon.

-

“
That’s it!” barked
Montana,  “Our five minutes are well and truly up! Let’s get
out of here!”

They were standing at the furthest point
from where they entered the cavern and they had still hadn’t seen
any evidence of feeders. They could see two narrow passages that
went further into the hillside, but they all agreed that there was
no time to explore any further.

“
Okay,” said Matt, “ Let’s
get out of here. I can’t even see any point in planting the last
bomb. We’ll dismantle it when we get outside”.

Without waiting for confirmation, they
started to retrace their steps to the small tunnel, where a glow
stick, wedged into a crevice, signalled their entry point into the
cavern. But as they passed the waterfall that cascaded noisily from
a stream deep in the mountainside high above them, Matt had a
niggling feeling that there was something in this cave that they
had missed. He peered around, trying to spot some significant
detail amongst the darkness that might help them to strike a
crucial blow against the feeders, but the was nothing. Damn! What
was it? Then, as he felt the ghost of an idea beginning to manifest
itself somewhere deep in his subconscious, a thunderous boom
reverberated through the caves, shaking the foundations of their
world.

They all screamed and instinctively grabbed
for each other desperately, as they tumbled onto the hard ground,
as pieces of rock rained down from the ceiling above and onto them.
They covered their heads and closed their eyes, as they lay huddled
together like frightened animals until the vibrations subsided, and
eventually stopped.

“
Fuck! What the hell just
happened?” asked Dylan. “Did one of our bombs just go
off?”

Matt didn’t answer and Montana was crying,
which made Dylan think they were probably both in shock, but he
stood up, and dragged them from the floor one at a time until they
stood beside him, their ears still ringing from the explosion.

“
Okay, that was fucking
close, but we’re fine I think. Is anyone hurt?”

Matt and Montana stared blankly at Dylan and
shook their heads, still unable to speak. They didn’t look injured,
but he knew that even if they were, they couldn’t afford to stay
where they were. The blast would have awakened the feeders and they
would probably be looking to defend themselves from this new
threat. He grabbed his friends roughly by the arms and barked
instructions.

“
You need to listen to me!
We need to get out of here! Now! Follow me! Don’t look back, and
don’t stop!”

With that, Dylan started running towards the
exit of the cave, turning around now and then to check on the
progress of Matt and Montana. They were struggling, he thought, but
he knew that their spirit for survival was strong, and they were
managing to keep up with him, despite the loose rocks that littered
the ground beneath their feet. When they reached the end of the
cavern Dylan located the glow stick that signalled their exit point
(now lying on the ground), and they plunged headlong into the
tighter space like rabbits into a burrow. As they half-ran,
half-crouched, through the dark, rubble-strewn passageway, Dylan
half-expected that they would find their escape route blocked by
fallen rocks, but as they negotiated a slight bend in the tunnel,
the rectangle of blinding light up ahead became a beacon for them,
and they ran even faster towards it, realising that they had been
only just been spared from being buried alive. They lurched into
the daylight and shielded their eyes from the sun.