There was a moment of terror when he thought they would get caught. The crunch and scrape of steel blared, the car bumping and shaking as he pushed the pedal to the floor. Lauren screamed, clutching Harvey to her chest. They slipped through the gap as the upper section of the rubbish pile collapsed, landing where they had been moments ago. The crash of metal and glass on the road was deafening. Dylan held tight, gunning the car forward. In the distance, he saw the brake lights of the other car and chased it.
FIFTY-FIVE
Callan stood outside the apartment building below the corner of Queen and Franklin Street. A gust of wind blew in, threatening to steal the note from his hand, but he held it tight, repeating the two key words. Station Pier. That had been the original plan. That’s where the others had gone. Just how long ago Callan couldn’t tell. They would have to be quick. He had no idea how to get there, but he had Harlan to direct them, and that would have to be good enough. Callan read Dylan’s scribbled note with the sound of a chopper and gunfire violating the peaceful blue sky.
Callan,
If you’re reading this note then you’ve made it. Keep going mate and tell me all about it over a beer. My shout. We’re all still alive and we’re going to Tasmania, just like my old man said. Gallagher has found a boat. He’s going to float us there. Station Pier. I hope you can find the way. Hurry, I’ll hold them up as long as I can.
Dylan.
His eyes swelled with tears. He wasn’t sure why. Yes he was. They were all alive. Greg, Evelyn, Jake, Dylan, even Gallagher. He hadn’t expected it; he had been preparing himself for the worst. This was relief. He supposed they were probably thinking the same thing.
Time was running out though. Perhaps it was the most difficult stage, too. The city was imploding. He sprinted back to the car and yanked the door open. The hinges squealed and creaked. “Station Pier. That’s where they’ve gone. Going to Tasmania.”
“What?” Kristy asked. “How?”
“Gallagher found a ship. I knew we went to that goddamn Army base for something.” Jacob gave a pained smile. Blue barked once and shifted himself on Kristy’s lap.
Harlan guided Callan again, pointing the way as he redirected them to avoid the chaos they had driven through along Queen Street. Kristy had her window down, the 9mm handgun ready if any ventured too close, and Blue stood as stiff as iron on Bec’s lap, ready to attack. Cars were their biggest problem, spilling onto the curb, through shop windows, some reduced to black carcasses. Callan wondered where the people had gone. Had they escaped to another part of the world, died of the virus, or been changed into something more gruesome? Some vehicles still had bodies, but most were empty. He guessed what had happened to those who had fled.
More type threes appeared as they drove parallel to Queen Street. Beyond the buildings, they heard continuous gunfire. The buildings, Callan thought. They were coming from inside the buildings. They gathered behind the Camry as they edged their way through the streets. It struck Callan then. This was what the man at Yass was talking about. There was so few type ones left because they’d been changed into threes.
Callan had planned to go right at the next intersection and link up with the lower end of Queen Street, but it was a jam fest, and they couldn’t get through. Half a dozen now windowless cars had met in the middle, spreading glass over the road. As he negotiated the gaps, Callan peered down the adjacent road.
“Oh Jesus, what is that?” Jacob asked. Callan stopped in the middle of the intersection.
Swarming up over the next hill through the traffic like a plague of mice were hundreds of type threes. It was the scariest thing Callan had ever seen.
“Drive,” Kristy said, not taking her eyes from the sight. “Drive, please.”
Callan did, scraping the sides of the vehicle as he forced his way through traffic. They passed the melee, screaming down the road between tall buildings on both sides of the street from which more type threes poured.
He would be astonished if they survived this. They had faced their share of danger, of nemesis, but a mass of pursuing type threes was more than anything they’d encountered before. If any luck remained, they would need every piece of it to make the pier.
The sound of a chopper floated to them. The same sound they’d heard the previous day, but this time it was much closer. A dark shape materialized from behind a skyscraper. It was a chopper—a green Army helicopter marked with the Australian Defence Force badge and flag. Instinctively, Callan flashed the headlights. “Yes!” Confirmation meant so many things. They still had an Army, maybe even a government somewhere, working to get the country back on its feet.
They’d made good pace as the chopper flew above them. Callan kept glancing at the mirrors, searching for the threes that had been moving along the other road. They reached another junction, this one clearer, with squat buildings on all corners. The chopper circled overhead, dropping in altitude as they passed through.
“I think it’s going to land behind us,” Bec said. Callan drove around the back end of an abandoned fuel truck and stopped on the other side of the juncture to watch.
Were they going to land? It was too risky with the threes running loose. But it dropped, the noise and gust mounting as heavily armed men squatted in the doorways, poised to leap out.
The first trickle of the threes reached the intersection, hanging back at the edge of the traffic jam as though preparing a covert attack. Could the chopper pilot see them? Callan saw a terrible situation unfolding.
“We need to leave,” Kristy said.
“Wait.”
The chopper touched down as the blades cleared the ground of loose debris. One of the Army men waved at Callan and the group, then signaled with a palm for them to stay put. The others located the hidden threes between the abandoned vehicles and began firing, the chatter of their fully automatic weapons heard over the helicopter blades. Two zombies fell out from the hiding spots with chunks of their torso and head missing. But others took their places and then several ran at the helicopter.
“Take off!” Callan screamed.
“We need to go,” Kristy said.
He imagined the other threes racing up the slope. Did the Army people know about the horde? In moments, hundreds would be upon the chopper, and for the six or seven military personnel inside, no amount of weapons could stop them. Glancing around, the pilot sensed their predicament, signaling a take-off. The two men that had stepped out firing slid back onto the platform. On the other side, the first handful of threes reached the chopper and grabbed for the bottom rail. It tilted, and one of the men spilled out. Others arrived—five, then fifteen, twenty, leaping for the railing.
“Go!” Kristy screamed.
They had to leave. Callan took off, feeling helpless, watching the mirror as a swarm of threes reached the chopper and took hold of the rails. The men fired, cutting many apart, but fresh ones replaced the dead, angrier, and more intent on bringing it down. The chopper tilted sharply. Callan turned away. Moments later, the explosion shook the ground, shaking the coins in the ashtray.
They drove on.
FIFTY-SIX
Dylan remembered the way to Station Pier and they made good time, leaving the bulk of the threes behind. They turned right onto City Road, following it through South Melbourne and into Bay Street, Port Melbourne, before hitting Beach Street and following the road into Waterfront Place. That took them up to the parking lot at Station Pier, surrounded by a precinct of cafés and restaurants where Lauren had brought them once on a trip down from Albury. The food had been spectacular.
Dylan spotted the ship from the roadway. He cut left onto the parking lot and tried to drive right onto the docks, but a mess of cars barred their way. They would have to walk the last bit.
“Let’s keep moving. I’ve got a bad feeling there might be more of them on the way.” Dylan hurried to the trunk and handed packs to Alexander, Claire, and Kristy. He hoped the ship had plenty of food because they hadn’t brought much. The other car pulle
d up beside them—Greg, Evelyn, Jake, Sarah, and Julie. There should have been more. Out of all the people they had met, it should have been so many more.
“Thanks,” Greg said. “We owe you… another one.”
“It all evens out, believe me.”
Deeper in the city, the growl of a thousand voices sounded. God help anyone caught in that, Dylan thought. Maybe their friends were in it, racing to meet them. He had given up on Callan and Blue Boy, though, and partly grieved for Kristy, as he had for their parents. Maybe one day when it all settled down, he would purge the rest and deal with the death of his loved ones, as most of them would need to do.
The others slung as much gear as possible onto their shoulders, and trudged onward. The walk was only a few hundred yards and, as they drew closer to the building, Dylan saw a plank leading from the upper level onto the ship. Gallagher stood at the edge of the vessel, signaling for them to go through the doorway. Dylan felt an overwhelming sense of relief that Gallagher was still alive, and they had made it.
They hurried in through a set of glass doors, past a reception area and counter, tables and chairs, beyond where people ate lunch and watched the docking ships. A set of stairs beckoned and they climbed, Greg leading the way, Dylan standing at the bottom as the others passed him.
The next level contained a series of desks and queues for incoming and outgoing passengers. The group walked through the rope barriers in silence, eager to reach the ship and be done with the mainland before the mainland was done with them. Outside, a platform led to the gangway, and on the other side, standing on the ship, was Gallagher.
The admiral looked beaten and bloody. He fought some off-screen battle and might not even last much longer. His eyes and nostrils were inflamed, scleras bloodshot, the lids and surrounding tissue, red. His nose was tender underneath, and as if to confirm it, he wiped it on the sleeve of his shirt. But he was still standing; Dylan had not been expecting that. The serum wasn’t working and he might not be alive next week, but he had made a commitment to get them to Tasmania.
“We have to leave,” Gallagher croaked.
“We can’t yet,” Dylan said. “We need to give the others more time.”
Gallagher drew a pair of binoculars up to his eyes. “No time. If those bastards get here from the city and latch onto this ship, we’re finished. I’ve already had to kill half a dozen of the crew. They’d locked themselves on the boat.”
“Please. Give them five minutes?” There was a long, terrifying moment where Dylan thought he was going to ignore the question.
“The engines are primed. We’re ready to move. I can’t sit here for too long, it’s wasting fuel. Five. That’s it. Any more and we’ll die too.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
They reached the pier as the afternoon sun peaked, blazing down on the sea with blinding intensity. The heat cooked a million corpses and drove the sweat from the skin of those still alive as though they wept. There was no air conditioning, only the hot, fetid wind of a scorching summer blowing through the windows, permeating their hair and skin with a smell they might never wash free. Still, as they pulled into the Station Pier car park, Callan found before them a sight that was both amazing and horrific.
After leaving the site of the fallen chopper, Callan had demanded Harlan tell him another route. He was afraid the threes would chase them. Harlan had argued the direct course down Queen Street would be the fastest, but Callan had insisted. His gut instinct had served him effectively more than once, and he wasn’t going to abandon it now. Reluctantly, Harlan revealed a number of alternates.
They fought on through the incessant traffic jam for more than a third of the way, along cluttered pavements outside battered shopfronts, across tram tracks, and even through a glass tram stop at one point. They smashed the headlights and indicator lights, cracked the windscreen driving too close to an overturned four-wheel drive with a pipe sticking out of the engine, and had lost both side mirrors before the third turn. Type ones stumbled into their path, slapped the windows when the Camry missed a gap or slowed for a sharp bend, and, in one case, dived off the top of a bus in front of them. But it was the threes who scared Callan shitless. They had the devil in their black eyes, the invisible fires of hell beyond the darkness. They watched from the windows of buildings, from the shadows of doorways, and in the bright sunlight, they moved with the super speed. He couldn’t stop thinking about what the man in the supermarket at Yass had said: they talk with their minds. There were fewer of them on the alternate journey, but Callan knew that until they were sailing across Bass Strait on that damn boat, they weren’t safe. And now, as their journey from Albury reached the final stage, they were coming. The question was whether they could outrun them.
That question had now been answered with a shattering response. The big boat was moving away from the pier. Callan strained his eyes to make sure. They wouldn’t. Even from the distance though, he knew it was.
It didn’t matter. He wasn’t giving up. They would make it to the edge of the dock even if the ship had left without them, but they must hurry. Harlan was struck with the virus, but he could run. Jacob would have to risk it. If not, it wouldn’t matter, he’d be dead soon. Callan drove forward, smashing through a blockage of cars, halting them with a loud scrape of metal.
He twisted around and peered through the back window. Shadows along the esplanade shifted and undulated, like a crowd at a rock show jumping to the beat.
“Out!” he screamed. The Camry would go no further; too many cars blocking the way. “We have to run for the pier. Grab what you can.”
“The boat’s gone!” Bec cried.
“NOW!”
They tumbled out of Harlan’s tiny vehicle, Callan guiding Kristy and Bec to the front, helping Harlan and Jacob from the back. The older man went easier, shuffling his feet decked in brown loafers, but Jacob was another matter. He leaned across the seat and tried to swing his legs around, but they caught in the foot well. His tanned face strained, turning it a bronzy red. Finally, he got free and stumbled from the car.
Blue Boy ran towards the horde, barking and growling. “Blue! This way!” Callan screamed.
He wanted to scream a lot more. Bec was right; the boat was gone. They’d run out of time. What had they thought—that Callan and the others had died? That they’d given up? Of course, you fool. They didn’t know Kristy was alive; didn’t know that they had found more people. What if he ran for the dock and tried to signal them to stop? He wouldn’t make it, and neither would the others.
He jogged ahead a short way, Kristy and Bec trying to keep up. He wanted them to move faster, but the heat and the pressure were too much. They ran through the far end of the car park, over lawns that would never again be mowed, and through an untamed garden beneath a row of three drab palm trees. Callan crossed a narrow road and then a short bridge over a causeway. Technically, he was on the pier, but the others weren’t. He turned back, fighting the urge to scream for them to move faster. Blue Boy jogged past. Kristy reached him, panting, her beetroot face begging forgiveness. Sorry, I’ve got nothing left. Harlan was next, a way behind, suddenly looking sicker than Callan recalled in the Camry. Callan wanted to tell him it would be all right. He wanted to say they had the medicine and it would not make the disease any worse, but he couldn’t, because the medicine was floating away with their friends and their hopes and dreams for a safer life. He had failed. And Callan knew that what was coming for them was a death beyond comprehension. Jacob was still a long way back. Bec ran at his side. He had given it everything, but the bullet wound and blood loss had zapped him of life.
Beyond Jacob was a sight worse than his nightmares. The zombie horde raced along the shoreline road towards them en masse. They ran in a pack like an army of ants he had once uncovered beneath a sheet of corrugated tin up in the dirt at the back of the property. Now, it was the same thing, only these monsters were once people that had become enraged with strength and psychosis and the insatiable need to eat human flesh
.
Jacob and Bec staggered past him. Blue Boy rounded them up, like the cattle dog he was, filling Callan with an affection he couldn’t put into words. Callan ran after them. “Come on. Not far.” Bec smiled through tears. She knew what was going to happen. Jacob wore a perpetual mask of pain. “We might have to go for a swim.”
Kristy stood where the boat had earlier been moored, ropes thicker than Callan’s thighs hanging over the edge. She had discarded her supplies and begun loading a rifle. The others stopped at her side, dropped their bags, and peered out at the ship, now more than four hundred yards away. They were done. It was official: he had finally failed.
Jacob groaned and fell to the ground. Bec fell to her knees at his side. “Please don’t die. Please.” His skin was grey and washed out. One arm fell off his stomach and onto the pier. Bec sobbed, pinching her eyes shut. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “You’ve still got to get that CD for me… the Beatles. The White Album. You owe me. You promised.” Jacob lifted his arm and Bec took it, holding his palm to her chest. “Dad?” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Dad?” Callan had never heard her call him that. Jacob came awake. “You can call me Bec, okay? I want you to call me that from now on.”
He smiled. “Okay.” His voice was dry and cracked. “I’d like that… very much.” He pulled Bec to the left side of his chest where she lay, sobbing.
Callan pulled the handgun from his waistband and dropped the empty cartridge onto the concrete with a clunk. He slotted another into the pistol with a click and counted how many more in the pack. Ten. He spied a second handgun; removed it, and loaded that, heart racing, full of a primal urge to defend his people. He would take these motherfuckers head on and they would feel his wrath for all his friends that had died, and those who would soon join them.
Invasion of the Dead (Book 3): Escape Page 30