Desolation Boulevard (54 page)

“
They’ll be back. More will
come too. Your kind has no chance. If you had balls you’d shoot me
now! If you don’t, I’ll fucking kill you the first chance I
get!”

Dylan was already striding towards the
biker. He snatched the shotgun from Matt and jammed the end of the
barrel hard into the marauder’s mouth, before anybody in the room
realised what was happening.

“
No!” yelled Matt, as
Dylan’s finger tightened on the trigger of the weapon.

The marauder stared straight at Dylan, as if
daring him to pull the trigger, and for a second the captives
thought that Dylan was going to spray the wall of the computer room
with the brains of the biker, but Dylan pulled the stock of the
weapon out of the man’s bloodied mouth and turned back towards the
door.

“
Pussy!” screamed the
demented marauder, causing Matt to kick him in the ribs, in a fit
of anger, before joining Dylan at the locked door.

“
Let’s get out of here,” he
suggested. “I’ve had enough.”

Dylan was about to unlock the door and check
the corridor, when a rattling in the lock indicated that the door
was about to be opened from the outside.

“
Everybody behind me!” he
yelled, as he stepped back and aimed the shotgun at the centre of
the door.

“
Get down on the floor! If
I start shooting, be ready to run!”

Everyone quickly moved behind Dylan and
huddled as close together on the floor as they could. Dylan stared
down the barrel of the shotgun, ready to shoot, as the lock
disengaged and the door slowly swung open. He took a deep breath
and tightened his finger on the trigger of his weapon as the figure
appeared in the doorframe.

“
Montana!” he exclaimed,
allowing the gun to fall to his side, before stepping forward to
embrace her.

She burst into tears as she fell into
Dylan’s arms, and within seconds Matt was there too, reunited with
the girl he had once rescued, but now loved.

“
Now we’re even,” she
sobbed, as the other captives moved silently to the door and peered
out into the corridor.

“
It’s all right,” said
Montana, through the tears, as she gently pulled away from Matt’s
grip. “They’ve gone - all of them. I watched through a window. It’s
not a pretty sight out there either,” she added, as she stepped
into the corridor with Matt.

“
Oh my god!” cried one of
the women, as she surveyed the carnage before her.

The others could only stand and stare in
disbelief at the gruesome scenes before them. Most of the bodies
that were littering the floor were marauders, but there were also
feeder corpses scattered here and there, riddled with bullet holes
and leaking dark blood onto the vinyl floor.

“
Let me out of here!”
screamed the biker, as they started to leave the room.

Dylan walked back to the doorway and glared
at the man, who had managed to stand, despite his shackled
legs.

“
Hey, you said your friends
would be back, right?”

“
So?” the marauder
challenged.

“
Well, they can let you out
when they get here,” sneered Dylan, as he closed the door and
locked it with the key that was still jammed into the keyhole from
last night.

“
You prick!” screamed the
man from behind the door. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

“
Wow! Harsh!” exclaimed one
of the captives, as he stared at Dylan with something like
admiration.

“
Fuck him,” said Dylan, as
he turned from the door and joined the rest of the
group.

As Montana and Matt led the crew of
survivors through the corridors towards the main exit, the story of
last night’s horror became clear. After Montana had unlocked the
gates, the feeders had swarmed like locusts into the building,
looking for fresh bodies to gorge on. It was clear that the initial
stages of the battle were a mismatch, as marauders stumbled
unwittingly into the corridor only to encounter the creatures’
frenzied assaults. As they realised what was happening however,
some marauders had managed to either grab their weapons and fight
back, or find somewhere safe to hide for the night. The ones that
hid were probably the ones they heard leaving this morning. As the
battle continued, it was obvious that the feeders had begun to
dominate. The marauders either fled or were killed, and for the
rest of the night, the creatures had been able to feed at their
leisure. The evidence of their ruthless consumption was all around.
Formerly fearsome bandits, now lay on the floor, their stomach
cavities hollowed out by the ravenous packs of pale night dwellers,
their lives reduced to nothing more than becoming a link in the new
food chain.

Matt led the survivors, as they stepped over
body parts, blood and gore, to the smashed front doors of the
school, which he held open for the others as they exited the school
for the last time. They stood around in the empty car park,
shivering from the cold, despite the weak sunlight, and looked at
each other, waiting for someone to speak. Eventually Matt broke the
ice, “What are your plans now?” he asked.

The five survivors looked at him, as if lost
for an answer.

“
I don’t know,” replied
one, perhaps not quite as traumatised as the rest of them. “Where
do you go when you have no family or home? Or friends?”

They stood in silence, not knowing how this
question could be answered.

“
Really,” he repeated. “I
don’t know. Where will we go?”

Matt looked over to Dylan, who was shrugging
his shoulders, as he walked away to inspect some of the vehicles
that had been left behind.

“
Well,” said Matt, “I guess
if I were you guys, I would take a couple of these vehicles, arm
yourselves, and head west. That’s what you were doing before,
right?”

“
I guess so,” replied the
man, who seemed to have become the default leader of this new
group. “We weren’t travelling together, though.”

“
But now I think you should
be. You’ll need each other. Gather your friends and go find a
couple of cars and get some weapons. Who knows? We might see you
again some day?”

“
Okay. Thanks,” he said, as
he turned to his four new partners. “Okay guys! You heard Matt.
Let’s get organised.”

After he had led his weary group off to
forage for equipment, Matt turned to Montana. “Wow! That was some
plan you came up with last night! You’re not just a pretty
face.”

“
Hah! I never was just a
pretty face. You just hadn’t noticed before.”

“
Wanna bet?” he said,
taking her in his arms and kissing her.

After a few seconds they detached and
Montana stepped away. “Oh man! You smell so bad! We need to get you
home and into a shower!”

“
That sounds excellent,” he
replied, smiling. “You can give me a good scrubbing.”

“
Ooh, I’ve never heard it
called that before,” she whispered cheekily, as she took his hand
and headed over to their car.

-

It was almost half an hour before they were
on the road, heading back to Millfield. After they had waved
goodbye to the others, Dylan found a fully fuelled SUV, while Matt
and Montana collected a few stray weapons that were lying around
beside the bodies of dead marauders. Matt drove while Dylan rode
shotgun, watching for bandits, as Montana lay on the back seat,
covered by a blanket and pleased to be warm at last.

“
I’ll be glad to get home,”
said Matt, not taking his eyes from the road. “That was insane.
What do you think happened to Scarface?”

“
I’m not sure. Maybe the
feeders got him. Those bodies were pretty badly
mutilated.”

“
Yeah, maybe. But why do I
feel like he’s still out there somewhere?”

“
Maybe because evil has a
way of enduring. Whether he’s alive or not, his influence will
continue to be spread through his followers. If he is dead, someone
will sprout up and take his place, and people will follow them.
Humans are dumb like that.”

“
Wow Dylan, I didn’t
realise you were such a philosopher.”

“
I wasn’t before all this
shit. Let’s drop it anyway, I just want to get back to the
farm.”

“
Yeah me too. I miss it. I
hope they’ve been okay without us.”

Matt put his foot down on the accelerator as
they exited the streets of Carswell and headed onto the open
road.

“
Hey Dylan, how many
feeders do you think turned up at the school last
night?”

“
Gee man, I don’t know.
Hundreds probably. Why?”

“
Well, I was wondering
about the bombs we put in the caves. Do you think they made a
difference?”

“
How do you
mean?”

“
Did it do any good? Will
it have any impact? There seemed to be plenty of feeders left over
to attack the marauders last night.”

Dylan gave Matt a surprised look. “I don’t
think those zombies last night were from the caves. It’s too far.
They must have been camped out near town somewhere.”

“
So what was the point of
blowing up the caves then?”

“
Shit man! I don’t know! It
just felt like we should, you know! What do you want me to
say?”

Montana moaned in her sleep from the back
seat, as Matt went silent. Dylan’s reaction had surprised him. He
thought that the expedition to the caves was a strategic plot to
win the battle against the feeders, but Dylan was making it sound
like yet another personal revenge mission.

“
Hey man, look, I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean to get angry,” said Dylan. “I’m just struggling with
this whole business, and I miss my daughter so much. Hey, maybe the
caves were some kind of breeding grounds. We saw quite a few
pregnant females. Maybe our plan was more effective than we
think.”

“
But we can’t just keep
hunting them surely? There are too many aren’t there?”

Dylan stared at the white line on the road
as it unfurled beneath them. “Too many to fight like that
probably,” he agreed.

“
How should we fight them
then?” asked Matt.

Dylan looked at Matt.

“
We’ll need an army,” he
stated emphatically, before returning his gaze to the western
horizon.

Chapter 80

Extract From Sally’s Journal:

“It’s mid morning and
they’re still not back. I’m trying to function normally for Gabby’s
sake, but quite honestly, I’m a wreck. The crowd continues to build
outside the fence and the road to the farm is starting to resemble
a car park. I don’t know how much longer we can stay here to be
honest, but I do feel a little safer with all those people out
there. If marauders do attack us, they should at least be slowed
down by that mob out there. I know Bonnie wants to head west as
soon as possible, because she thinks that we will be safer in a
larger community, but I feel like crying every time I think about
leaving the others behind. Deep inside, I think Bonnie believes
that Matt, Dylan and Montana might be dead, but I just can’t bring
myself to consider that. They will be back! They will! If Bonnie
decides to move Gabby to Diamond Creek, though, what would I do?
Should I wait here alone for the others to return, or go with
Bonnie and Gabby, abandoning my friends? What a question to have to
answer! Bonnie’s calling me. I’ll be back.

-

Wow. That was amazing!
The reason Bonnie called me was because she decided to take Gabby
down to meet the people in the crowd. Since this morning, Gabby has
been asking to go down and play with some of the kids down there,
and Bonnie finally relented - she feels that it’s likely Gabby will
end up meeting these people at some point anyway, so she thought
she might as well get it over with (or “stop delaying the
inevitable”, as she put it). We walked down to the gates together,
and the whole crowd (kids included) just stopped and stared at
Gabby. I got serious goose bumps, and not from the cold either.
There was a really freaky silence as we walked towards that crowd,
and when we got to the gate, everyone moved a little closer to the
fence, but there was no pushing or shoving. People just waited
patiently and stared as Bonnie unlocked the gate. Then, when we
went through the gate, a sad little girl (she couldn’t have been
any older than about three) came up to Gabby and asked, “Are you my
sister?” Gabby turned around and looked at Bonnie who just shrugged
her shoulders. So Gabby went to the little girl and gave her a big
hug. It was extraordinary. People were crying. God, I was crying! I
don’t even know why! It was like they just witnessed a miracle or
something. I can’t explain it. Then, when Gabby finished hugging
the girl, she just went off into the crowd and started hugging
everyone! If Bonnie didn’t wade in after her and stop her, she
would have hugged every single person in that damned crowd! No one
complained if they didn’t get a hug, though. They just seemed
ecstatic to be so close to our little angel.

Then Jean came over
(the lady she spoke to yesterday) and thanked Bonnie for bringing
Gabby down. She said that Gabby’s presence had made everyone’s
journey worthwhile, and that it would strengthen their resolve when
the time came. She also told Bonnie that when the confrontation
comes we should stay up at the house and protect Gabby, whatever
the cost. I have to admit that just writing this down is scaring
me, and I feel an enormous sense of dread hanging over us. Jean
promised that Gabby’s followers would never submit to the “dark
forces” and would do anything necessary to protect Gabby! These
people are willing to die for us! Actually die! I don’t understand
any of this. I was quite satisfied just living a simple life on the
farm, but it seems as if we’re going to have to face another
horrendous challenge before too long. The people at the fence see
themselves as a strong band of soldiers, but what happens if they
fail, and the marauders (or feeders or whatever?) get through the
fence? It would be over for us. I can’t fight. We can’t protect
Gabby on our own! I want the boys and Montana home - that’s
all.