by Owen Baillie
“Don’t look back towards the fence, okay?” Ashleigh agreed. “Ty? You promise?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep playing your PSP. Does it have enough charge?” Tyler nodded. “We’ve got a car cable if you need to plug it in.”
Mac closed the door, picked up a spade, and stuck it in the soft earth. They dug hard for the first five minutes, going shovel for shovel under the heat. The burn in his muscles was in some ways cathartic.
Part of him had accepted the reality of his parents dying in this whole fucked-up situation. He knew the chances. Sometimes shit went against you for no rhyme or reason. His parents had lived a good life, served their community well, and raised decent, hardworking sons. If it had gone the way they wanted, hopefully they’d be in Heaven now, enjoying the fruits of their faith.
Mac didn’t believe in religion, but he respected others’ beliefs, including his parents’, who had gone to church most Sundays for the last twenty or so years. He hoped they were smiling down on him and understood the necessity of his actions.
Jessica would be terribly sad. She had gotten along fabulously with his mother from the moment they had met. That got Mac thinking about her situation. He hated leaving her, but knowing his father was sick, and getting a feel for what transpired when that happened, he couldn’t have left the kids any longer. He tried not to think about Jess for now. She was in a safe place, getting good care. He’d head back soon, and they’d all be together again.
Smitty had worked up a sweat. Mac halted his digging and turned back to find Tyler sitting at the window, watching them. Mac dropped the shovel and walked to the car, making a turning motion with his hand.
“Turn around,” he snapped when he reached the window. Tyler’s expression was full of sadness. He dropped his lip and turned the other way.
They continued digging, piling the earth beside the wide grave, sweat trickling down their foreheads. Both men discarded their shirts and soon their backs were glistening. Smitty found the garden hose and gulped water for almost thirty seconds. He passed it to Mac, who drank until his belly was full. Tyler was at the window again.
“TURN AROUND!” Mac shouted. Tyler slumped down.
Smitty said, “Maybe you should just let him help, Mac. Obviously means a lot to the kid.” Mac kept digging.
Fifteen minutes later, they were nearly finished. Smitty kept shoveling and Mac broke a couple of sticks off the trees for their crosses. When he turned back to Tyler again, he couldn’t spot the kid. Mac dropped the cross and went to the car. Ashleigh was sitting on the back seat playing with her dolls. Tyler wasn’t inside the vehicle. Mac snatched the door open. “Where’s your brother?”
Ashleigh came out of her dreamy state, eyes wide, surprise all over her face. “I don’t know. He was—” Mac slammed the door shut.
“Here,” Smitty said from the other side of the Commodore. Mac circled, ready to unleash a tirade on Tyler. His anger had reached boiling point. All he’d asked was that Tyler ignore the burial process until they had finished. “Go easy on him, hey Mac? He’s just a kid.”
Tyler was sitting on the ground playing with a couple of sticks. “What the fu—”
And then Mac saw it, lying in the grass beside his son. Two sticks shaped in a cross and wrapped loosely together with grass. Tyler balanced two more in an attempt to join them together. He had made his own crosses for his grandparents. Mac rubbed his stubbly face. He knew, all right. He just wanted to be a part of it.
Tyler wore the saddest expression Mac had ever seen on a kid. Guilt struck him. He considered what Tyler had been through. His son had been stuck in the house with his infected grandparents. In the end, they had tried to kill him and his sister.
Mac squatted beside his son. Tyler’s eyes were full of tears. He handed his father the second cross. Mac gave a sad smile. “Thanks, buddy. I should have let you help, shouldn’t I?” Tyler nodded. “It’s just … when I was about your age, I saw my grandfather get buried and it never left me. I couldn’t forget about it, and it made me sad and upset for a long time. I didn’t want you to go through the same thing.” He reached out and tousled Tyler’s hair. “Maybe you’re not exactly the same as me though. Come here.” Tyler stood and fell into Mac’s arms. He hugged his son tight, apologizing with his affection. “How bad was it in there?”
“Bad,” Tyler said, his lower lip trembling. He pulled away and Mac wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Grandma almost got me. I tried to tell her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen. Her eyes were funny and she kept hissing.” Mac wanted to tell him to stop, but if Tyler had faced it, Mac should too. “Then Grandpa came in and pushed her aside. He tried to bite me. I thought he was going to kill me, Dad.”
“It’s all right, mate, it’s all right. It’s over now. You’re safe.”
“I loved them. Why did they have to die? Why couldn’t we have taken them to the hospital and made them better?”
Why not? “Because that’s not how it works, champ. This virus thing, it can’t be fixed. Once you’re sick or bitten, it makes you like that and nothing can stop it.”
“Mom’s sick.”
“I know. But hopefully she doesn’t have the same thing.” Deep down, Mac held a fear that it was the same thing, that Jessica would end up the same as his parents—that back at Mersey Community Hospital, in the back rooms of the emergency ward, they were euthanizing her, too.
“We got another one at the front fence, Mac.”
Mac stood and followed Smitty’s gaze. A chubby man in business dress stood with his hands wrapped around the wire. He kept lifting it but hadn’t worked out how to put his leg through the gap.
“You want me to take him out?” Smitty asked.
“Not yet, mate. If he gets any closer we will.” He took Tyler by the hand. “Let’s finish the grave then gather up some supplies.”
Mac helped Ashleigh out of the car, and the kids poked Tyler’s crosses into the mound of dirt. As they circled the single grave, Mac had an idea.
“Kids, we have to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa. Tyler, you say something nice about Grandma. Ashleigh, you do the same for Gramps, okay?” They both nodded. There was a long silence as each thought up something. Tyler looked up at Mac, and Mac nodded.
Tyler said, “I know you loved us, Grandma, even though you got mad in the end. I’m real sorry if I did something wrong to make you like that.” Mac put a hand on Tyler’s head. “I loved coming to stay with you and Pa. We had lots of fun and you always looked after us.” He paused. “Thanks for being the best Grandma in the world.”
Mac squatted and hugged his son. “It wasn’t your fault, Ty. Don’t ever think that.” After a moment, he turned to Ashleigh. “Okay, sweetheart.”
“Bye, Grandpa. And Grandma. Grandpa, I loved getting horsy rides from you. And bedtime stories. And the candy you used to sneak us after dinner when Grandma wasn’t looking. And thanks for killing that snake that nearly bit me last year. I’ll miss you.”
She peered up at Mac when she was done. “Beautiful, Ashleigh. Grandpa and Grandma would be very proud of you both.” Mac picked her up in his arms and hugged her, swallowing down the lump in his throat.
Mac held Ashleigh’s hand as they went back into the house. From the pantry, they loaded all the non-perishables into boxes. Who knew how long before the supermarkets would open again? Truth was, he didn’t really know how anything would pan out in the coming days and weeks. The plan was to get Jessica and then return home. After that, who knew?
“It’s inside the perimeter, Mac,” Smitty called out from the front porch.
“Take care of it, will you? We’re just about done here.”
A shot sounded.
Mac took the heavy box and the kids shared carrying a lighter one out to the car. From the garage, he found his father’s old battery charger and took the orange and white chainsaw that had cut its share of timber over the years. He spotted the old tent he and his brothers used to use down along the Hobart River and
took it, perhaps more for nostalgia than any practical need. Then he climbed into the driver’s seat. Smitty sat at the window with his M4 leaning out.
“Hands over your ears and close your eyes, kids,” Mac said as he took off.
Smitty leaned further out as they rolled past the side of the house and onto the driveway. A handful of infected approached, having breached the fence. Smitty took aim, but in the end, he didn’t fire. Mac raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t say I don’t learn.”
Mac gave a faint smile and took them towards Mersey Community Hospital.
27
Juliet watched Bill crawling along the road towards them, dragging his right leg. She knew what she had to do; it was just a matter of doing it.
“Drive,” Meg said. “They’ll be here in a minute.”
“What about Bill, or whatever his name is?” Jessica said. “We can’t just leave him there.”
“He’s gone. We’re too far away and it’s almost got him. We have to save ourselves.”
Meg was right; they were too far away to reach Bill on foot. The infected would get there first and Bill would be dead. She thought about the way he had put his life on the line at the hospital. She stuck the gearstick into reverse, turned to the rear window, and drove the car backwards.
“What are you doing?” Meg screamed, grabbing hold of the front seat.
“I’m not leaving him there.”
She slammed on the brakes about ten yards from where Bill lay. A skinny woman with grey skin and chunks of hair missing was almost on him, a second and third infected not far behind.
Juliet shoved her door open and leapt out, grateful Jessica followed, despite her condition. She realized they didn’t have anything but their hands and feet with which to fight it.
“Check the trunk for a tire iron,” she called out to Jessica.
The grey-haired infected woman reached Bill. She leant down and took hold of his foot between bony fingers. Bill twisted around and kicked out with his good leg, striking the woman in the stomach. She staggered back and tripped, falling onto her bottom. More infected arrived and replaced her.
Jessica pulled up the carpet in the trunk. She removed the tire jack and handed it to Juliet, who ran towards Bill, now fighting off a pair of hands around his neck. Juliet cocked the bar in both hands like a baseball bat and whacked the infected across the face. The bar reverberated up her arm. The thing rocked back, but did not fall. She slugged it again and this time it collapsed with a spray of blood over the road. Bill made a feeble attempt to stand, but the second infected crawled over him, its mouth seeking the thick flesh of his upper arm.
Whacking it would no longer work; it was too close to Bill’s head. Flipping the bar, Juliet drove the sharper end into the back of the infected woman’s skull. A jet of blood spurted out onto the thing’s back. Juliet felt her stomach flip. The woman went limp and fell onto Bill. He shoved her away.
She helped Bill to his feet, which was more difficult than killing the infected woman because he outweighed her by a hundred and twenty pounds. As they hobbled towards the car, Jessica started fighting off another that had drifted in. Juliet didn’t know which way to go.
And then Meg was there at her side, Meg who had told her to keep going, taking Bill’s arm around her neck so Juliet could help Jessica. Juliet swiveled around and found two of the infected attacking Jessica, and to her credit, she was countering their attack, jabbing her fists and kicking with both feet.
Screaming, Juliet ran at the first one and swung the iron bar, connecting with the front of its face. The thing’s arms flailed out and it fell backwards in one motion, striking the back of its head on the road. The other turned for her, but Jessica gave it a hard shove and it stumbled away. Juliet went after it, two hands around the base of the iron bar. She swung but missed. The thing came again, and this time, Juliet struck it in the face with a wet, cracking sound. It toppled back onto the road, and she thought it was finished. With half its face smashed in, it tried to crawl towards them. Juliet considered finishing it off, but their path to the car was now free. She got an arm under Jessica’s and helped her stand. Then they were stumbling towards the car, where Meg and Bill were already safely inside.
Juliet pulled the door open, and Jessica tumbled in. Then Juliet ran around to the other side and swung the driver’s door open. Another throng of infected were making a long line towards them from the hospital lot. Thirty seconds more and they wouldn’t be able to fight their way out of it. Juliet climbed in the Mercedes and pulled the door shut. The moment she turned the key, the fuel gauge moved and she noticed it was low. Had the car alerted her to it? Maybe. But amongst the chaos, they had probably not heard. She shoved the gearstick into drive and accelerated away, taking it down a stretch of roadway, between a line of shady oak trees along the curb and a school with a tall black fence.
“We need fuel,” Juliet said. “Otherwise we won’t get far.”
“What about a parked car?” Meg asked.
Bill said, “We might be able to, but by the time we find a piece of tube and something to open the fuel cap, it might be easier to just fill up.”
The first fuel store was full of infected, crawling over the pumps and inside the small office. She didn’t even stop at the next one, the blackened stumps of the old bowsers telling them it didn’t have what they wanted.
Juliet drove on through intersections, guiding the car around other broken-down vehicles and shattered pieces of a thousand panes of glass. The infected wandered along the sidewalk and road in small, scattered numbers. Twice, she had to drive up onto the curb to avoid a cluster of them. At the fourth service station, there was no sign of any infected. She pulled in, bouncing the front of the car as she took the entry ramp too fast. Meg grunted, mumbling something under her breath. But as Juliet stopped beside a pump and swung the door open, something moved behind the ice chest near the office. A lone, lumbering infected man, easily the biggest one she had seen at over six-and-a-half feet tall, hurried for them.
Juliet slammed the door shut as it hit the edge of the car with a clank, shaking it as though in a strong wind. She turned the key and thought for a moment it wasn’t going to start again, that the fuel had somehow evaporated in the moment between turning off the engine and turning it back on. But it kicked over and purred into life and suddenly, she loved the Mercedes even more. She took off, the man falling onto his face as he stumbled after them.
They drove in silence for a time, Juliet peering underneath her hands at the fuel gauge often. She kept the AC off to conserve fuel, the rolled-down windows allowing hot air into the car. They passed several more fuel opportunities, but there was always something a little wrong with them—too many infected about, too much damage to the bowsers, cars blocking the area around the pumps. The one she finally settled on was a Shell, with six bowsers and plenty of open space under the awning, and from what they saw as they idled beside the pumps, there were no infected in the vicinity.
Juliet parked the Mercedes and they all swept the area from inside before she got out. She found it difficult to believe it was empty. She supposed this area of the city might not yet have been affected as much as the others.
“Want me to do it?” Bill asked.
“No, but thanks,” Juliet said with a grateful smile.
The cover for the fuel tank was opened from inside the car. She reached out and pressed the small button on the dashboard. In her side mirror, she watched the cover pop out. With a click, she depressed the handle and pulled the door open softly.
Juliet removed the petrol cap, lifted the bowser from the pump, stuck it into the hole, and pressed the trigger, all the while glancing around like a paranoid bank robber. She waited for the fuel to kick in, noting that it usually took a couple of seconds to flow. After waiting long enough with nothing happening, she knocked on the car’s window. “It’s not working.”
Jessica turned down the window. “You might have to turn the pumps on.”
“Yeah,” Bill said in a gravelly voice. “She’s right. Doubt they’d be out of fuel yet. You have to go into the store behind the counter and find the switch.”
Shit. Her plan to fill up and get out of there as quickly as possible was unraveling. “All right.”
Bill rolled the window all the way down. “Pump number five.”
She placed the trigger back into its holder, then strolled across the concrete floor to the office, circling as she went. The sliding automatic doors opened, indicating this section of town still had power. On the far wall was a glass case filled with donuts, cakes, and rolls that had the first spots of white mold. The store was full of supplies, a million things she thought about taking but passed by. A carton of milk placed on the counter had turned sour and smelt like animal urine. She bypassed this and went around the back, half expecting to find the store attendant dead and rancid like the walking things, but it was empty.
A flat, rectangle device sat on a bench in the corner, partially concealed by the desk. It had six numbered buttons and undoubtedly controlled the flow of fuel to the pumps.
The sound of a horn blew from outside. Juliet peered over the counter and out the window. She saw them immediately; beyond the parked car, a number of infected were making their way towards the fuel station. But it wasn’t just the five or six straggling across the road. The group beyond was more than she could count. She had a big fucking problem. They were so close she wouldn’t have enough time to get back out and fill the car with fuel before taking off.
She pressed the button for pump number five, then went back around the counter and stood at the door. If she ran out now, there’d be too many to fight. Filling the car with fuel was not an option. She would die. The others needed to get out of the Mercedes immediately. In seconds, it would be covered with infected, and they’d be stuck inside, forever surrounded by them. If they were going to be stuck, the store would be a better place. Juliet had to alert them.
She began waving, calling them towards her. Jessica spotted Juliet and suddenly the car doors were opening. Meg spilled out and started running across the concrete towards the store. Then Bill tumbled out and Jessica followed him. She pressed the door closed and helped Bill across the concrete. It looked almost comical, such a small woman helping a burly man, but Bill couldn’t put weight on his injured leg.