by Leo Nix
The terrorist patrol had yet to notice Arthur and Charlene. As Charlene turned to look behind her she saw the patrol approaching the gas station firing at Tony and Phil over the top of the gas storage tank.
“Oh no, no, the gas tank is going to explode and we'll lose all that precious gas.” She almost cried with rage when she heard more automatic fire. Bullets now whined off the tree trunks and rained leaves over her and Arthur. They pressed on into the gloom even faster. Charlene cried out to Arthur again that the gas tank could blow up at any moment.
Arthur nodded and led her behind a house then cut through another. Their escape routes had been carefully planned by Heidi the day before, they knew the suburb by memory even in the dark, especially in the dark. They knew that only a speeding terrorist could ever catch them. But tonight it wasn't the terrorists that worried them.
The voices became louder and rifle fire ripped into the air, the two dwellers could hear bullets pinging off the metal tank. This was followed a few seconds later by a thunderous explosion as the gas tank detonated knocking the dwellers off their feet, instantly incinerating the terrorist patrol and the service station next to it. A giant fireball shot up into the night sky lighting the ground Charlene and Arthur were standing on like they were at a night football match.
Stacy and Abraham had chosen the worst possible place to hide and were vaporised along with the terrorists. The blast completely knocked the station over, flattened it to the ground as if hit by a giant mallet.
Tony didn't realise he was flying until he hit the wall of the house he was next to. It knocked the wind out of him and his ears were ringing. `Holy crap, the gas tanks gone up. Those bloody idiot terrorists! I hope they went up with it,' thought Tony as he picked himself up. From experience he knew that retribution wold soon be on its way, so he hurried as best he could back to Phil and Fatima's house.
Phil wasn't so lucky. He hadn't gone quite as far as the rest and was thrown off his feet and high into the air. When he came down he landed violently on his leg and felt it give out from under him. He lay on the ground confused and slightly concussed for some twenty seconds while he got his mind back into some semblance of order. On trying to stand he fell back down and that was when he realised his leg was either broken or badly sprained. His knee was on fire and he couldn't put any weight on it. In considerable pain he managed to crawl over to the nearest house and hid in the bushes.
`Blew themselves up didn't they, damn terrorists wouldn't have a brain in their damn heads. I'd better hurry up and hide, those sods'll be here soon and they'll scour the neighbourhood for a mile.' He crawled up to the next house and decided to hide inside. The first few shattered windows he tried were stuck firm, his anxiety began to build. Eventually he came across one that gave way. Crawling through he let out a loud cry as his knee banged on the floor.
Phil knew he was in trouble and recalled Heidi's story of what they did to her house when they chased Arthur. The terrorists had thrown a grenade into the hideout below her bedroom and then tried to burn the whole house down. She said that they had gone through every house for a hundred metres trashing everything firing wildly into every cupboard and possible hiding place. Yes, he thought to himself, this might be his last day. That started him worrying about leaving his beautiful wife and the sadness it would cause her.
Charlene and Arthur had fared better than Phil. They'd made it behind a house before the explosion shook them off their feet, it blew broken roof tiles and glass onto the ground around them. They remained unhurt but shaken and their ear drums throbbed.
Arthur looked at Charlene and checked to see if she was OK. Charlene couldn't hear a thing and told him so, but he was deafened by the blast too, so they both gave up trying to talk. Arthur pointed the way ahead and they staggered off knowing that at any moment more terrorists would be on patrol with trucks, grenades and spot lights. They had to find a safe house quickly.
Every creature for a radius of thirty kilometres heard the explosion. The terrorists based in that region responded quickly and had a dozen patrols heading towards the area within ten minutes. It was enough time for Arthur and Charlene to find a safe house, but it wasn't possible for Phil to relocate to any of them.
Charlene and Arthur were safely hidden in a very normal looking garage. All signs of entry were disguised and there was no sign of life. Heidi and Arthur had spent many busy nights creating a network of safe houses and building hideouts under the beds complete with trap doors and carpets. Several had their hideout in the garage under a car parked innocently inside. It was in of these that Charlene and Arthur now hid.
The survivors were worried for their own reasons. Tony was still on the move towards Fatima's house and worried about his wife and daughter. Would they think he'd been killed? He was certain they would have heard, and felt, the explosion - the whole of Adelaide must have.
His main fear was that Lucy might give up on life and do something silly. Her depression hadn't lifted and in fact it grew worse day by day, this might be enough to tip her over the edge. Tony shivered with that fearful thought and prayed to a God he wasn't sure was listening. Hoping to get back to Phil and Fatima's house before the patrols hit the streets, he pressed on faster.
Phil was in serious pain. His knee had swollen to twice its size. When he finally sat up he pulled out his torch and noticed the room was in a mess. He also noticed the rank smell of death.
On the walls were prints of rock stars and electric guitars, he recognised an expensive music system on the desk. Clothing and CD's lay all over the bed, the floor and computer desk. It clicked, this was a teenager's bedroom.
He tried to stand but the pain knocked him down and he rocked onto his back clutching his knee. Phil tried again and managed to stand on his one good leg long enough to see the body lying twisted on the bed. The old historian shuddered, its face was contorted in a mask of confusion and pain.
`Shoot, a damn zombie, just what I wanted. I am so done with this world.' Phil whispered to himself but continued to process exactly what he needed to do to stay alive. It was simple, he needed to stay alive for his Fatima. He couldn't imagine leaving her alone in this damned world.
Phil sat down on the edge of the bed careful not to let the body roll towards him. He'd seen enough bodies these past months and they no longer shocked him. It was fixed in his mind that the terrorists would raid every house in the vicinity of the explosion and fire indiscriminately into every possible hiding place.
`But they might not bother with this room, not with a stinking body right here on the bed.' Phil thought to himself. It was a long shot but it was about the best he could do given his situation. It hit him that he could be here for a few days so he went looking for something to wrap himself in. He had to be prepared for the long wait until he was out of danger. Three days was what the dwellers usually considered long enough for the terrorists to leave an area.
Phil found a doona in the teenager's cupboard and he carefully extracted it, placing it under the timber-framed bed. He slowly and painfully wrapped himself and his knee and was soon fast asleep.
After sleeping past dawn Arthur wasn't going to stay hidden inside a dirty hole for any longer than he needed. He wriggled and squirmed in the tiny space until Charlene eventually told him to go and climb on the roof and keep a lookout – or something. She threatened him with blue murder if he was seen and said she would tell Heidi if he was.
He smiled down at her as he slid out from under the car and climbed the garage rafters. By peering through the cracks in the timber he could see directly up the driveway and could watch the street for patrols. It wasn't perfect but it was safe. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, `this is going to be a long wait,' he thought.
The sounds of roaring trucks and crashing gears, explosions and the frequent bursts of automatic fire came to their ears for the next three days. Each dweller was thinking the same thought: `if they find me will I betray my friends?'
It was a slow few day
s. For the dwellers in their safe house with Fatima, and those in their hideouts, they all lived in fear once again.
Chapter 10 - Charlene - Phil's Lovers
Eventually Phil decided he could no longer stand the smell of the dead body lying directly above him, so transferred his sleeping gear to the main bedroom. It was painful and took longer than he wanted, but he managed to drag himself under the bed in the main bedroom. He wrapped himself in the doona and, in a light fever, he fell asleep, exhausted from the effort.
He was still asleep when the patrol came down the street. They went from door to door firing and throwing grenades into each house. It took them most of the day to reach the house Phil was hiding in, but by that time they'd run out of grenades.
The old man was shivering both from fear and the summer heat, he was also running a fever. His leg was swollen and inflamed. The pain of his injury had run him down and he was physically and emotionally exhausted. Phil was hungry and dehydrated it was almost a full day since the gas tank explosion and he had no food or water with him.
The truck driver had her feet on the dash board as she listened to the rap music blaring in her cabin. Her feet were tapping and she seemed to be having a good time. Captain McCarthy had ordered his platoon to enter each house and destroy everything that might harbour the `house rats' as the terrorists called them. He was smoking a joint and passed it to his driver. They were both tapping their feet to the music.
The captain didn't care what his troops actually did, no one seemed to these days. They had their orders and did what they were told. If they jumped to it they were safe enough. Missing prayers, failing to turn up to training or when a task was left undone, always led to some form of punishment. It didn't happen often because this army group had been training together for years and knew what to do to stay out of trouble. Executions happened frequently in the other three army groups.
Captain McCarthy finished his joint, tossed the butt out of his window and flicked his drivers ear lobe. The captain nodded at his waist, undid his belt and lay back in his seat. Might as well enjoy this lovely sunny day while he could, he thought.
Holly and Allan had the same idea. They found what they were looking for: a house with closed blinds and a clean bed. The two leaped at each other as they bounced on the bed quickly ridding each other of their uniforms. There were no rules on sex in their army group, as long as you didn't fall pregnant you stayed. If you fell pregnant then you aborted or died in the attempt. It was a simple rule and it worked reasonably well.
Holly cried out as Allan entered her and clawed at his back in a rising ecstasy. It had been days since they'd had sex and were now driven by the raw passion of adolescence.
Phil was woken by the girl's groans and awkwardly shifted his body as the pair bounced above him. In his half crazed mind, sick with fear, pain and fever, his imagination went wild. In his mind's eye he saw a crazed terrorist raping an innocent young girl, and he struggled to unravel the doona wrapped around his body to go to her aid. His mind was racing, he wasn't awake and he wasn't asleep and he wasn't successful.
The girl screamed and her moans came faster and louder. A male voice soon joined hers and the noises climaxed, only to drift into soft moans and grunts, finally ending in laughter.
Phil stopped wrestling with his covering. Even in his fevered state he recognised those sounds from somewhere in his past.
`Yes, it certainly is a girl but it doesn't sound like she's in trouble.' Puzzlement turned into understanding until eventually he began to chuckle softly to himself. `Oh my,' he thought, `I'm going to have fun telling Fati about this when I get back home. Oh my, oh my.' He continued to chuckle as he fell back to sleep with a smile on his wrinkled old face.
Charlene ate some of the stored dried fruits and nuts then handed the packet across to Arthur. He had pronounced the danger almost over after the house was searched and automatic fire peppered the windows and walls. Some hit the garage and one went through the car above them but did no damage to the occupants hiding below.
Each safe house had food and water for three days. A torch, spare batteries, blankets and pillows. They were big enough to fit two, just. Arthur decided that they should head back that night.
He wasn't worried so much for Heidi's sake but more so for Charlene. What if she were to break down or they have to outrun a patrol? He saw how she withdrew into herself, just like she did when something triggered her trauma. Post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD she called it. `It must have been bad.' He thought to himself. She would rock and whimper, disappearing into some dark place in her mind. He once tried to comfort her but it set her off screaming, he was too afraid to try again.
“How are you feeling, Chas, are you cold or in pain?” He handed her the spare blanket to wrap around her shoulders but she pushed it away.
“I'm OK, I just keep having these horrible thoughts. Hearing the gunfire reminds me of when I met Heidi.” She looked at him. “Arthur, I hate it here. We need to get away or do something, I think I'll go mad if I don't.” She hung her head and placed her right hand over her face. Arthur noticed how her left hand couldn't even reach her face and it saddened him.
He gently touched her good shoulder. “Don't worry, Chas, Heidi has plans. When the weather clears up we're going to move north into the Flinders. Remember how we talked about it before. We should start planning with the others the next time we see them. I know Heidi will have some good ideas about how we can do it.”
Arthur hesitated then climbed out of the hideout and up into the rafters of the garage to keep a lookout. He smoked nervously while he thought about all he had seen and the pain of his own losses. All of a sudden he began to cry. He wept quietly so he wouldn't disturb Charlene.
That evening they were ready to leave. Arthur had found a bicycle next door and serviced it with the tools in the garage, like he'd seen Phil do with their other bikes. He'd already reconnoitred their route back to Fatima's house.
On his final trip back he quickly touched base with his lover, gave her a brief of Charlene's condition, a hug and then he was gone. He raced back on his bicycle to the hideout to lead Charlene safely home.
There was a cold wind that night so he wrapped her in a blanket, held her good hand and walked her slowly back to their new home. They stopped every few minutes to listen for anyone following and to let Charlene to rest a little. Charlene had lost so much strength that even walking exhausted her. Arthur was also very aware that he definitely did not want to lead any terrorist back home to Heidi again. She would certainly murder him if he did it a second time.
Only once did Charlene stumble, when she kicked a tree root in the dark. Arthur was by her side in a flash and caught her before she fell. He was like a mother hen fussing over her so much so that she pushed him away. Like any gallant knight in shining armour he ignored her. He continued to hold her good arm as they walked slowly in the darkness.
As they approached their home Arthur stopped in the shadows and let out a soft whistle. It went up then down in pitch. A torch flashed briefly. He sighed with relief, Charlene began to cry. As they walked into the front yard they were met by a sobbing Heidi and Fatima. Fatima tried to hush the three friends as she guided them in through the back door. The fire was lit and the heat was suffocating but Charlene didn't notice. She fell into the lounge chair and was fast asleep in moments.
Tony's route had been more straight forward than the others and he took full advantage of it. He arrived home before everyone else, worried about Annie but more so about Lucy. She was his heart and soul and he tried everything in his power to keep her safe and happy. It didn't work, nothing in this miserable world did any more, he thought.
Tony recalled the time when they were young lovers and how much they enjoyed being with each other. Since the apocalypse they hadn't had a moment's intimacy. All fire had gone from their relationship. He missed the part of her that made him feel so alive and so special.
He didn't know what he could do to make up
for all the misery the world had dished out to her. Trying sometimes just made him feel empty and useless. It was too hard to be happy even for Annie sometimes, but he never blamed anyone but the terrorists. He had dreams of killing terrorists, of running between houses, firing his rifle and watching them fall. The dreams were so real he would wake up and look at his hands for the assault rifle he was firing, but they were just impotent dreams.
Late the following morning after Charlene and Arthur arrived home the dwellers were sitting around talking. No one had heard or seen Stacy or Abraham since the explosion and Tony said that he had checked out their house the previous two nights, but there was no one there. Arthur said he would go with him next time.
“I need the exercise after sitting in that miserable hole for three days. It's not good for a young fella to be idle.” He smiled at his little joke, he didn't notice that no one else smiled.
Heidi told the new arrivals that Phil was missing. Tony explained how they had both run from the station and dropped their gas bottles in the bushes, then headed off in different directions. He went left and Phil went right. Arthur mentioned he hadn't seen Phil either, none of them, Stacy, Abraham or Phil, since he gave the warning. They were all worried, the loss of their own kind was painful, and hit them all hard.
It was almost four days since the gas bottle incident and everyone was restless as they sat silently in the back garden. By this time not even Fatima moved to do anything, not even to clean up after breakfast. Deciding she needed to find their fellow dweller, Heidi collected some street maps and began working on a search grid of where Phil might possibly be.