“Want me to go first?” It was a brave offer, but Greg had already volunteered for the mission, which was probably more than Dylan deserved. Dylan shook his head. The door came open with a creak. He swung it in and stepped through, daring them to be there. They were, and somebody accepted the dare.
Pain struck his head. Dylan fell forward, fighting for balance but lost and toppled over, hitting the carpet. A scream sounded. His name. Yelling. A boot struck him in the ribs, knocking all the breath from him. “Ugghhh.”
Gunfire. The thump of a body hitting the wall. He tried to swivel, sure it was Greg, sorry for all the bad thoughts he’d ever had about the man, wishing he had shown his gratitude every time Greg had saved his life. It wasn’t his fight; none of it was. Dylan rolled as another boot chased him, connecting with his lower back, pain shooting up his spine. He gritted his teeth and tried not to cry out. Where was his gun? He climbed to his knees. When had he dropped—
The blunt metal handle of another firearm struck his chin. Bright spots filled his vision as he toppled over. Falling. Thump. Pain drove up through his spine. Once, he would have given up. He’d have lain on the ground and thought it was all too difficult. Now though, he crawled forward on his knees, pushed up, and reached for the couch. Greg was on his feet, wrestling a victory from one man while another headed for him.
“Dylan!” Lauren was lying on the kitchen floor. She was alive. It was one of the best feelings he’d ever experienced.
“Okay?” She nodded. He gave her a thumb up, climbing to his feet, and ran at them.
The second man swung wild blows at Greg as he grappled with the first, striking him in the back of the skull. Screaming, Dylan grabbed him around the neck and yanked him away. They fell backwards onto the floor. He wasn’t much of a fighter; his fists never ended up where his mind wanted them to go. Instead, he tightened his forearm around the man’s throat and held tight so the man was unable to move. Above them, Greg had pried himself free, facing off against his enemy with fists. The other man was shorter, with long curly hair and a goatee. Faded tattoos covered his wiry biceps. He looked tougher than an old piece of iron, but still Dylan would have bet on Greg.
They would settle it using their dukes like the old days. The man struck out his left fist, surprising Dylan with his speed. It clipped Greg on the cheek as Greg’s meaty arm coiled.
Callan had once claimed that Greg would outbox every man in Albury. Dylan had never witnessed him in hand-to-hand combat, but Callan rarely overestimated people. It was the speed that surprised him; how could a big hand move that fast? It swung in an upward arc, striking the man flush on the cheek. The sound was like a snapping tree branch. The man’s legs folded and he went down, eyes rolling back in his head. Dylan’s prisoner, who had ceased moving, now squirmed like an eel, arms swinging wildly, and broke free, striking Dylan in the groin. Dylan let the man go. He spied his gun and rolled for it.
He took it in a firm, comfortable grip. Greg and the man faced off, the latter thrusting a knife at his friend. Dylan had an open shot. He wanted to kill these men badly for what they had put his sister through. He fired, striking the man in the shoulder. He fell to the floor with a cry, but he wasn’t dead. Rage swept over Dylan as he wondered distantly if it was the virus or the serum or perhaps it was his losses. He imagined them attacking Lauren, holding her down, and… the gun roared again, knocking the man’s head back. He fell back to the floor in a spray of blood. Dylan turned the gun on the other man and kept firing, lodging a shot in his chest, and another in the head.
The gun clicked; empty. Greg was yelling at him to stop. Dylan dropped it on the floor, chest heaving, hands shaking. He found Greg’s stiff, anxious expression. “We got ‘em,” Greg said. “We got ‘em.”
Lauren ran to him and launched into his arms. He hugged her tight, warm tears on his cheeks. Despite telling himself there was a chance she’d be alive, he had never believed it; never for a moment. It was too implausible in this new world. She was the last person on earth to whom he had a blood connection. As children, they had shared Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, lost their teeth, pulled each other’s hair, suffered the wrath of both their parents for defying one rule or another through their teenage years. She was special and he would risk it all again to keep her safe.
“Are you alright?” he asked, pulling away. She nodded. “Did… they—” She shook her head. He hugged her again.
Lauren finished dressing and they returned to the apartment where the others were relieved to find she was safe, especially Claire, who cried as they hugged and wouldn’t let her go.
The baby Claire was holding began to cry. Lauren took it, walked to Dylan, and offered it to him. “What? What do you want me to do with it?”
“Hold your nephew.”
Dylan was dumbstruck. He couldn’t think of anything to say. There was no humor in her expression, only a glassy-eyed appreciation that he was standing there. “Really? He’s yours?” She nodded. Dylan folded his left arm so the elbow was point out as he had learned holding his older cousin’s newborn. Lauren placed the baby’s head in the nook of his left arm and laid the tiny body upon the inside of his forearm. “He’s really yours?” Lauren nodded, tears spilling.
“Harvey, meet your Uncle Dylan.”
FORTY-SEVEN
With the numerous battles, Dylan had almost forgotten about the others in the campervan. He left Greg in the apartment to watch over Lauren and her group. The big man had argued for accompanying him, but Dylan wouldn’t have it. They still required protection in case anything else wandered up onto level eight. Besides, Dylan explained, he had dragged them all along on the crusade and thus felt obligated to get them all to safety. He took one of Greg’s spare magazines, which gave him about ten rounds, and headed down the hallway alone.
The plan was to reach the underground car park Lauren had told him about. She’d provided instructions about how to raise the door manually, but the real challenge was going to be finding the others and then steering the van back safely through the chaos.
Dylan followed the stairs all the way to the basement. The car park was sparse with vehicles. He supposed most had tried to flee the city with the rest of the population. He found the control box easily and tugged the panel with the switches in every position, but it wouldn’t move. He considered returning to the apartment for Greg—he was an electrician and knew about these sorts of things—even if there was no power—until finally he saw the chain hiding in the corner and pulled on that.
The door clattered as it rolled up. He decided to leave it open enough to crawl under so when the others came back he could slide through and raise it again. The risk was that one of the feeders might find their way in, but he saw no alternative.
On hands and knees, Dylan crawled out into a laneway, and ran to the edge of the apartment building to take in the scene. Two zombies advanced from twenty yards. He put them both down with headshots and jogged on, hugging the buildings for cover. As he moved through the rubble though, something else unsettled him. Where were all the zombies? On their approach to the apartment block, it had been chaotic. Now, it was almost lifeless.
With his lungs burning, he reached the top of Franklin Street, observing some of the handiwork he and Greg had left behind. He stood on the corner and scanned the horizon for the campervan. No sign of it. He jogged on, pushing his aching legs up the hill. Near the apex, he passed a laneway full of nauseating smells and cool dimness. He glanced down its length and saw a large waste bin overflowing with dead bodies near the mouth. Beyond the entrance, in the shadows set by the high brick walls, something moved.
A noise from the road ahead drew his attention. It was the rumbling sound of an engine. The campervan. He checked the laneway again as he moved away, and spied it, materializing out of the dark brickwork beyond the waste bin.
A three. Its eyes were dark, almost empty, chilling his skin in a sweeping wave. Behind it, the shadows moved, and another emerged. He had the pistol out in s
econds, firing at them from forty yards, but they were different than every other enemy he had faced. They had a cognizance that was scary, as though they anticipated his target before he had taken the shot. He pulled his aim left and right, missing shots he had earlier hit. With the final round, he struck the front feeder in the shoulder. It kept coming.
Dylan ran.
FORTY-EIGHT
Evelyn had run out of ideas. They had circled the north part of the city under the blaring heat until the fuel had almost run out. Gallagher had directed her into a clear space to refill the tank, wandering the length of the bus with a rifle poised to kill anything that came too close. That had bought them more time, but they couldn’t keep driving around forever. Everybody was getting uptight. The kids were complaining. She had yelled at Jake for the first time in weeks. Gallagher continued pacing in the same irritating pattern. He didn’t say much. She noticed he wasn’t feeling well. She wished he would come up with an idea.
The threads of loneliness filled her for the first time since meeting the group. She had given up Kristy for dead, and that was heartbreaking. They hadn’t known each other long, but she felt a sisterly connection with the woman. Callan had left the group. She’d probably never see him again, either. Evelyn didn’t know if it hurt more that he had left them all without consideration, or because she missed him. The remaining comfort of having Dylan and Greg around had disappeared too. There was still Jake, of course, and Julie, but the others had all been in the same age bracket.
Part of what irritated Evelyn was that they weren’t going anywhere. She had wanted to drive back towards the apartment building at the top of Franklin Street. Gallagher wouldn’t have it, claiming it was too dangerous to take such a cumbersome vehicle into a tight location. How were the others going to get out? The same way they had gotten in, Gallagher said.
Evelyn didn’t buy that though. She had been slowly working her way closer. They’d drive for a little while, and park in a clear space for a minute or two, then move on when the feeders approached. It was like playing cat and mouse. Every two or three turns she made, took them marginally closer to Franklin Street. She suspected Gallagher suspected, but he hadn’t yet said anything.
They stopped in the center of the road on Victoria Parade, as close as they had been to the apartment building since dropping Dylan and Greg off. They were still too far away though.
Julie fell into the passenger seat and handed Evelyn a bottle of water. It was another thoughtful gesture, in a long list, from the older woman.
“How are you holding up, honey?” Evelyn looked grim. “Hang on. It won’t be long now.”
“I’ve been telling myself that for the last hour. What if it’s not? What if it doesn’t go the way we want it?”
Julie smiled. She put a hand on Evelyn’s arm. “We don’t, of course, but hope is all we have, if nothing else. Hope allows us to take another breath, another step forward.”
“What if we’ve got no hope?”
“There’s always hope. You might lose the things you love, the people you live for, but there’s always more to be found if you look hard enough.”
How could she argue with a woman who had just lost her whole life? “What do you hope for?”
Julie considered. “I hope we don’t lose anybody else and I hope I survive long enough to enjoy the world again.”
“I think you will.”
“I think you’re right.” Evelyn reached out and squeezed her hand. Julie clasped hers over the top.
The enemy was on the movie again. Amongst the carcasses of a hundred vehicles, they stirred. A posse of type one feeders approached the van. They had about thirty seconds. “I’m going closer. I’m sick of this waiting. We said we’d get to the top of Queen Street. They might be expecting us.”
“It’s too risky,” Gallagher said. “You take this thing in there and we might not get it—or us—out.”
“That’s what we said about the Army base in Canberra. We should never have gone in there, but we did, and now you’re standing here because of it.” Gallagher didn’t blink. She had another response prepared, but in the end, he turned away. Evelyn took that as a non-objection. She pulled away from the curb, full of determination, grateful for another chance to help the people who had saved her and Jake.
It didn’t take long. She spied Dylan sprinting up the slope from Franklin Street as the campervan approached the bend. He was still a hundred yards away, but ran like the devil was chasing him. He bounded over a body, around an orange Datsun with the hood raised, and glanced over his shoulder. “Come on,” she whispered.
Gallagher stood between the seats. “Can you get closer?”
“Trying.” Was he slowing down? Yes. His arms had begun to falter and his shoulders sagged forward.
Gallagher disappeared from her shoulder. Evelyn took the van up onto the curb and then right into a pile of debris, thinking there was a gap. She found a small two-door car blocking the way and had to jam on the brakes, searching the mirrors for a way out.
“Just push through it,” Julie said. “There’s a big enough gap.”
Evelyn accelerated, striking the front of the vehicle with a shuddering crunch. Julie staggered forward, reaching for the seat. “Sorry!” But she got the tip through with an awful scrape of steel. Don’t stop. She nudged it further, grimacing at the sound, and then they were through, racing away from the wreck.
Dylan approached. In the side mirror, she saw Gallagher swing the door open. She slowed the van, bringing it closer to the curb, and Dylan leapt for it, almost overstepping the mark. He thumped into the side of the doorway, crunching the frame. Gallagher grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him inside, then slammed the door shut.
Evelyn drove on, swinging the camper through a pile of rubble in the center of the road. The zombies that had been chasing fell away.
“Go left, into Franklin,” Dylan said, panting.
“Is it safe?” Gallagher asked.
“There’s a car park underneath the apartment building.”
“Did you find your sister?” Evelyn asked.
Dylan smiled, and there was a palpable relief in his expression. “Yeah. We did. She’s… okay, now. Greg made it too.”
Evelyn negotiated a pathway down Franklin Street, through the intersection with Russell. As they crossed the tramlines, she glanced left and saw masses of them wandering along the street towards the juncture. “Did you see that?”
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “We gotta get inside, now.”
He directed her to a tiny laneway further up the slope on their left. She drove for it and spotted the roller door for the car park, slowing the big camper as they approached. She saw the problem immediately. “It’s not going to fit.”
“She’s right,” Gallagher said. “We’ll have to park outside.” He pointed at the wall of another building. “There.” Evelyn dragged the van to the side of the laneway and idled. It wasn’t ideal, but she couldn’t see an alternative.
Gallagher went to the entrance with a handgun. Evelyn shut off the engine. So it had come down to this, she thought with growing terror. She made sure the kids were up on the bunk, and took a rifle herself. A horde of slow, bumbling feeders with their rotting faces and long, stringy hair congregated at the entrance to the laneway.
“We’ll hold them off,” Gallagher said. “You load up on bags—the medicine and guns and as much food as you can carry.”
Gallagher and Dylan went out side-by-side with bags of guns and ammo in one hand, their 9mm handguns in the other. They fired, dropping feeders, shooting holes in the enemies’ chests, through their throats, and exploding their heads like watermelons. Evelyn followed, standing guard with the rifle booming as Julie guided the kids across the laneway, towards the door. In that moment, Evelyn felt profound gratitude towards the older woman for taking care of her son, knowing she would protect him with her life.
Zombies fell; a trail of bodies slumped over each other and blood splats covered the walls
and road. It pooled in thick puddles beneath the corpses. The smell was horrendous and would be worse in a day or two, but there was no end to the count.
Julie guided the kids underneath the doorway, standing over them with a tight, determined expression. She swung her bags through and got down on one knee with a grimace. From there, she lay down and rolled through the gap as though she hadn’t moved in such a way for many years.
Gallagher ushered Evelyn towards the gap. She removed her pack and swung it underneath. She got down on all fours, glancing back at the van they had called home for… how long had it been? A week? She couldn’t recall. People had lived and died in that van; she’d gotten to know Callan and Kristy, saved lives, driven it across states, and spoken with Eric for the final time in it.
“Can’t be helped,” Gallagher said, reading her thoughts.
She rolled underneath and stood, clearing the way for the others. Julie and the children waited nearby. There was a long moment where neither Dylan nor Gallagher appeared, and Evelyn wondered if something had happened. She was poised to climb back underneath when Gallagher crawled through on his elbows. Dylan followed. He jumped up and hauled the chain, dropping the door as feet and hands clawed at the gap. The gate shuddered under the weight of the angry feeders. Evelyn wondered if it would hold.
FORTY-NINE
Dylan sat on the bed beside Lauren, watching his nephew. She unfolded a flat plastic sheet and placed it on the bed, then picked the baby up and laid him on it. “You wanna change him?”
“Nah. I’ll watch this one.”
She was overjoyed he could be there with them. Her frailty of the last few weeks had almost vanished now that her big brother had arrived. They had come all the way from Albury to find her, surviving more than imaginable. They had food and guns and strength. She knew Greg and his tough reputation from school in Albury. The others were brave and courageous too. She laid a hand on Dylan’s arm, just to make sure of him. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”
Invasion of the Dead (Book 3): Escape Page 26