Desolation Boulevard (8 page)

As he drove along the road towards Millfield
Matt considered the events that had unfolded since yesterday
morning. He couldn’t reconcile the idea that he was the only person
untouched by the “feeder virus”. There must be others somewhere,
and for his sanity, he would need to find them. However, he wasn’t
willing to risk his own safety just yet in a search for survivors.
Until he had a better understanding of how this event had affected
people, he was going to stay at the farm, and ensure that he had
enough resources like food and electricity so that he could
continue to look for his parents. First, though, he needed to find
out what was happening with these creatures in town, providing he
could get close enough without risking his life. He locked Elvis in
the laundry for the dog’s own safety, but also because he didn’t
want any distractions if he had to make a quick retreat from a
crazed feeder. He made sure his shotgun was fully loaded, and as an
extra precaution had his sharpest bush knife in a holster on his
belt, and in both pockets of his cargo pants he carried spare
shells, just in case. He was only taking the gun along for
self-defense, though - he had no interest in hunting zombies. All
he wanted to do was to gather information to help him understand
the situation he was in. The last thing he desired was to have to
blast away at one of his friends or relatives with a shotgun.
Observe and get out. That was the plan. He climbed into the ute and
pulled away from the farm.

As he got closer to town Matt slowed down to
give himself a better chance of spotting anybody who might have
come out of their coma and be wandering around. He also needed to
watch for violent feeders like the ones he saw last night. As he
peered through the windscreen something on the side of the road
caught his eye. On any other day Matt would have been certain that
it was road kill, maybe a roo or a fox. Today, though, he knew
there was another very disturbing likelihood. As he rolled closer
to the reddish lump on the side of the road Matt knew he was
looking at human remains. He stopped the car suddenly, threw open
the door, and vomited the entire contents of his stomach onto the
gravel shoulder. After the events of last night this discovery
shouldn’t have been a complete surprise, but the unglamorous
reality of the vision before him was a severe shock nonetheless.
Once his retching had subsided and he had rinsed his mouth from a
warm bottle of water he found on the floor of the truck, Matt
forced himself to get out and study the corpse, or what was left of
it. He could see that most of the soft tissue had been torn from
the skeleton, the ribs were picked almost clean, and most of the
face had been chewed off. The only remaining flesh was hanging from
the bony frame in stringy flaps or white gristly lumps. Here and
there remnants of the victim’s clothes were scattered around as if
they had been chewed through to get at the flesh. Matt looked
around anxiously, realising that if these creatures were capable of
this kind of savagery towards each other, they would think nothing
of treating him as mid-morning snack. The road, though, was
deserted in all directions. Shaking, pale, and weak in the legs,
Matt climbed into his truck, rolled up the windows and locked the
doors. For the fourth time in three days he headed back into
town.

Like most teenagers, Matt Winton had seen
his share of gory horror movies, but nothing prepared him for the
raw, brutal realism of the change that had come over his town in
the last forty-eight hours. As he drove through the empty streets
he counted each body he found. He stopped at eighty-three. There
were more, though. He just lost count. Maybe didn’t want to count.
Couldn’t bear to know the true figure. (Later that night, when he
was back at the farm, he would estimate the total number to be
around one hundred and forty). The corpses were in varying stages
of dismemberment. Some, like the first one he found, had been
chewed down to gristle and bone while others had only been
half-eaten. Maybe they were getting full, Matt thought, which made
him shiver, as he watched the crows and flies feasting on the
already decomposing flesh. Within days he knew these scavengers
would play their part in the cycle of life and reduce all of the
corpses to little more than skeletons.

Of all the bodies Matt saw that day, he only
recognised two. Mr Croft, a retired English teacher from Millfield
High, and Mrs Watson, a nice old lady who had been friends with
Matt’s grandparents before they had passed away. Like a few of the
other bodies, their destruction was less comprehensive, less
ruthless. Their faces were almost untouched by the frenzy of the
feeders, while only the softest parts of their torsos had been
eaten. Humans weren’t the only casualties of the previous night’s
violence, however, and there were also a small number of dogs and
cats that had been too slow to escape a gruesome end. The saddest
part of the whole experience, though, was the skeletons of the
children. Tiny, frail piles, dotting the streets here and there
like Gothic birdcages. Matt cried and cried.

If the feeders had been creatures of the
day, Matt would surely have died that morning. The combination of
sorrow, shock and despair would have made him an easy target for
the rampant beasts. He had no fight in him. He was broken. The
well-adjusted sixteen-year-old boy with a loving family, had no
weapon in his emotional arsenal to cope with the sights he had
witnessed, so if a feeder had attacked him, he would surely have
joined the community of the dead. But he saw none.

Before Matt went home he knew he needed to
check a theory that had been festering in the recesses of his
subconscious. Deep inside he knew that if he didn’t follow his
hunch today, he might never have the courage to do so in the
future, and if his theory turned out to be correct it might help
his quest for survival (although at the moment, he didn’t really
care about survival one way or the other). There was one place he
needed see again – the cellar of the pub.

Matt’s theory was simple. If these creatures
were not roaming around town today then they must be hiding again.
He didn’t have any idea why they would need to do that, but that
was really beside the point right now. He needed to know what they
did, not why they were doing it. He pulled his truck to a stop in
front of the pub, and grabbed his shotgun and flashlight. He
flicked off the weapon’s safety and stepped out of the car, before
looking around. The only things moving were clouds floating across
a perfect blue sky, and trees whispering in the light breeze. Matt
opened the door cautiously and walked into the pub, with his
shotgun held in front of him and his finger on the trigger. Except
for the increased number of flies buzzing around the uneaten meals,
the scene in the front bar hadn’t changed since he was there the
day before. There were no humans, feeder or otherwise, in sight. He
headed for the cellar stairs.

Matt knew that he was in mortal danger if
his theory about the feeders was wrong, and he would probably not
leave the cellar alive. If his theory was correct, however, his
chances of survival might be improved significantly. It was a risk
worth taking, and he had nothing to lose. He went to the cellar
door and peered down into the darkness. There was only silence.
With his flashlight in one hand and shotgun in the other, he headed
quietly and slowly down the stairs. He paused at the bottom and
listened, but could hear nothing. He crept to the spot by the beer
kegs where he had seen the unconscious bodies the day before and
shone his flashlight into the gloomy recess. His theory was
correct! The feeders had returned to their nesting spot.

He counted the hibernating bodies and
noticed that the number was less than it had been. Matt couldn’t
know for sure, but he was felt there were at least three or four
missing. He wondered if they had been killed by other feeders in
last night’s bedlam or had simply found a different hiding place.
As he shone the flashlight over the group, Matt noticed that they
were much dirtier than they been yesterday, and their faces were
covered with dried, crusty blood. He could see, too, that some of
these feeders had sustained injuries, which were still seeping
blood onto the tile floor beneath them. He’d seen enough. He had
the information he was seeking and it was time to go home to
grieve. He trudged to the car and drove home with thoughts of a
bleak and desperate future in his head.

Chapter 17

Extract from Sally’s journal:

“I’m alive. I’m not
sure if that’s a good thing but it’s a start. The two days since I
was attacked have been the worst of my life so I’ve decided to
write things down to help me stay sane (do insane people know
they’re insane? I might be already!) I think somebody needs to
record these events so it might as well be me. After all, I’ve
suddenly become one of the best writers in the world (ha ha).
Anyway, after I locked myself in the bathroom last night I think I
might have passed out for a while. By the time I recovered, the
person who tried to attack me (the second one, from Room 13) had
stopped banging on my door. I felt awful. My head was pounding and
I wanted to throw up, but I didn’t. I lay there without moving for
about ten minutes, and listened carefully before I dared to leave
the bathroom. There were no sounds from inside my hotel room, but I
could hear some pretty scary stuff going on in the street –
occasional muffled screams and less often the sound of breaking
glass.

After a while I got
brave enough to leave the bathroom and that’s when I realised my
front door had not been broken in. This place turned out to be a
good choice! I went out to the balcony to survey the street and
what was below me was like some crazy scene by that Bosch guy who
did those paintings of Hell. People were chasing each other and
when a faster or stronger one caught a weak one, they would rip out
their throat with their teeth then a whole gang of other ones would
join in until the victim was just a pile of bones and gore. (FYI, I
just read that back and it sounds like I was sitting out on that
balcony watching a movie, scarfing down popcorn and having a great
old time, but actually I was alternating between crying, covering
my eyes and pissing my pants). Once I got the gist of what was
going on down there, I didn’t need to see any more. I came back
inside, lit a candle and tried to think. And this is what I thought
– “You need a drink”! So (like a chip off the old block, hey mum?)
I raided the minibar, drank everything I could find and passed out
(again).

When I woke up the sun
was streaming in through the balcony doors and everything was
quiet. And guess what? I had a hangover. A Coke from the evil
minibar seemed to help and I shuffled out to the balcony to see
what I could see. First thing I noticed was that there were no
savages roaming the streets like last night. The second thing was
the bodies. If there was a bomb invented which would only blow up
people and not buildings, this is what it would do. One floor below
me on the street were scores of people that looked as if they’d
been eaten by werewolves. Some were just skeletons. Some people
were just bits of people. Crows were picking at fleshy scraps and a
stray dog had his whole head inside someone’s torso and I could
hear the wet slurping sounds it made as it gorged on the corpse. I
ran to the bathroom and puked my guts up. Bloody
hangover!

I didn’t know what to
do next. I paced that little hotel room for a couple of hours and
went out to the balcony occasionally to see if there were any
“werewolves” about. There weren’t. Then I slept. Then I paced for
another hour! I heard and saw nothing from outside. I wondered what
had happened to the freak from Room 13. I was so absorbed with the
mayhem last night I totally forgot that it was probably inside my
building the whole time! Maybe he or she (it?) sat outside my door
all night like a cat waiting for a mouse. I’m so glad I didn’t
think of that last night, by the way.

By about one o’clock in
the afternoon (I think! I had no way of telling the time – my phone
was dead and only old people wore watches, right?) I had decided
that the sickness that had put almost everyone to sleep, and then
woken them up as crazed killers, had also made them nocturnal -
like vampires. And that is why they weren’t on the street today. I
felt that I could probably leave the hotel and try to find help if
I wanted to. My analytical self knew that I wouldn’t encounter any
of the creatures during the daylight, but my emotional self
wouldn’t let me leave that room. So I stayed. I laid on the double
bed and tried to concentrate on the “Old Man and the Sea”. I racked
up eighty bucks on my bill (which I won’t be paying by the way, the
service here is terrible) by eating all the snacks from the
minibar. And I cried (a lot). I have to admit, though, I was pretty
curious about what would happen tonight when the sun went down.
Would I see a repeat of last night’s chaos, and, more importantly,
would I learn anything that might help me?

I thought about a lot
of scary stuff too that afternoon. I am pretty realistic so I kind
of knew I would never see my mother again. The fact that I could
think about that so rationally made me think I was probably still
in shock. The weight of being alone in the world with no family
will hit me later I guess. My mother was a good person, but I was
always second to her needs. My God, she used to tell me that! She
looked after number one. She loved me I’m sure but … I don’t know …
maybe she didn’t need me. Hey, if I’m brutally honest with myself,
maybe I didn’t really need her either. I like being alone. That’s
probably just as well now, cause it seems like there might only be
about ten people left on the planet and I can’t see myself buddying
up with those freaks from last night!