The acrid smell of gun smoke hung in the air. Dylan leant away from her, his heart pounding. “Did it get you? Kristy? Did it get you?” Kristy shook her head, gasping, close to hyperventilation. “It’s okay,” Dylan said, pulling her close again. ‘It’s okay.”
Greg dropped the shotgun, and bent over, fists on his knees. His face was red, his messy blonde hair dishevelled. “I couldn’t get a line of sight until Dylan kicked him away.”
Callan put a hand on Greg’s back and in a soft voice said, “Nice work, man. Quick thinking.”
Kristy’s breathing began to slow, and she pulled back. “I don’t think it got me.” Smears of blood and tears covered her cheeks.
“Are you sure?” Callan said, inspecting her.
“Yes. I didn’t feel it scratch.”
“Take off your top.”
“What?”
“We need to be sure.”
Dylan and Greg turned away. Dylan felt his body stiffen. He felt sick at the idea that Kristy might be infected. Could you kill her if she attacked you? He shut the thought out, rubbing his eyes.
“Let me just check your neck and shoulders,” Callan said. “Pass me the water bottle.”
Kristy gasped as he tipped water over her upper body. “Sherry, have a look, see if you can find anything.”
Dylan glanced at Greg, his brow furrowed. It was happening too quickly. What if Kristy had been infected? Would they lock her up? Shoot her?
“I thought I was going to die,” Kristy said.
Sherry scrutinised, wiping Kristy’s golden skin with a towel. “I can’t find anything.”
“Are you sure? Check properly,” Callan said.
Dylan said, “Come on, man. She’s clean.”
“I want her to be okay more than anyone,” Callan said. “But we have to be sure.”
Sherry tipped the remaining water from the plastic bottle onto Kristy, who shuddered. She probed her skin, looking for tiny red lines. “She’s good. I can’t find anything,” Sherry said.
Dylan let out a breath, not realising he had been holding it. He covered his face in his hands and promised himself he wouldn’t think about what might have been.
“Now we’re out of ammo,” Greg said, loading the shotgun back into the Jeep.
“Shit,” Callan said. “I almost forgot. The back of that truck is full of weapons.”
The three boys walked over to the embankment. The truck’s nose stuck out of the creek like a partly submerged log. Through the broken windshield, they saw a pile of bodies floating on the water line. The smell of death floated up to them and they each made faces of disgust.
“Fuck it,” Callan said. “It’ll all be wet now.”
“What is that?” Greg said, pointing at the truck. “One of them is still alive.”
An arm from one of the bodies moved, scratching at the wall as if trying to climb out.
“They were all dead when we looked in the back,” Dylan said.
Callan said, “Let’s move. He ain’t going anywhere but there’s nothing more for us here.”
4. The Outskirts of Town
The rain had stopped, leaving the road with a slick coating. Sooty skies made it appear later, although it was just after five o’clock. They all tried their phones again, but there was still no service, which could only mean that all the networks were down. An unpleasant smell wafted from behind the locked doors of the second truck, and nobody suggested opening them. Callan checked the cab and found a magazine of shells for a 9mm handgun that he took, but no weapon, and an inbuilt two-way radio he couldn’t pry loose. Fresh black skid marks fled the scene from the rear of the lorry.
Nobody spoke. Kristy lay against Dylan’s shoulder, her eyes closed. He had one arm around her, watching the paddocks roll by. Callan felt a spark of irritation but let it go. She deserved and needed comfort.
They had been lucky. Alternative scenarios made Callan uneasy and he had to think of other things to push them from his mind. Knowing what they were up against now, he knew they were in real shit. The armed forces, people paid to protect civilians from harm, were infected. Callan guessed the army had been set up to guard the roads into major country towns like Albury and Wodonga. But what would happen if the army couldn’t stop this thing?
It was no longer just a virus though. The infected appeared to turn into some kind of violent cannibals. He almost laughed at the idea. It was absurd, but he had seen it with his own eyes. They had beaten one, but what if there were five, or ten? A hundred? How would they possibly survive? As they edged closer to home, Callan wasn’t sure they were prepared for what they might find. He still hoped their families were safe, but even then, doubts had crept in.
It had been almost four hours since they had left the lake under cloudless blue skies and a steady, enjoyable heat. The gas station had been on the Tooma road, and from there they had kept a steady speed along the curves of the Murray River road, crossing the Murray River at Wymah Ferry road, and taking Bowna Wymah road all the way to the Hume Highway. Callan didn’t want to enter Albury from the north, but instead the east after taking Table Top road, where he could use back streets to access his parent’s house on the western side of town.
He felt a sick desperation to see them. His father was often travelling, and he might even be away now. He needed to make sure his mother was safe. He didn’t think he would ever love another person the way he loved her. She had been a constant source of strength and inspiration, protecting them, raising them whilst his father had worked long hours in the truck. He recalled the night a burglar had broken into their house whilst his father was away. Callan must have been eight years old.
Kristy and Callan had been allowed to stay up late watching Star Wars on television. Their mother had armed them with ice cream cones, a bowl of popcorn and soft drink, and then gone upstairs to finish chores. The man had broken the lock on the laundry door and entered the family room where the kids sat watching TV.
“Who are you?” Callan had said, thinking at first that it might have been his father. But the intruder had a balaclava pulled over his face and a shotgun pointed at them. Kristy had screamed. Callan had clamped a hand over her mouth.
The man growled at them. “Shut the fuck up or you mother dies.”
Callan hadn’t moved, afraid he might wet his pants, but he also felt a deep stirring of anger. What had they done to the man? Why had he chosen their house to burgle? Callan didn’t know that their father had collected a six month payment for a shipment he had just transported up and down the east coast. The cash had been sitting in a drawer upstairs. Somebody knew.
Their mother had appeared at the base of the stairs leading from the lounge room moments after Kristy’s scream.
“Don’t hurt my children,” she said, stepping in front of them.
“Gimme the fuckin’ money, woman, or I’ll do more than hurt them.”
She tipped her head up towards the second floor and said, “In the main bedroom. Bottom drawer on the left side of the bed.”
“I’m takin’ one of the kids with me,” he said, putting a hand out towards Callan and Kristy.
“No.”
He raised the gun as if to strike her, but she did not flinch.
“If you lay a finger on either of my kids, you’ll be sorry. I promise you that.”
The gunman hesitated. He snarled at her, lowered the weapon, and walked past, disappearing up the stairs. His heavy footsteps thudded through the floor as he explored the second level.
“What do we do, mom?” Callan had said. He had an arm around Kristy, who had begun to cry.
“Nothing. We wait. Don’t cry darling. It will be over soon.”
The man returned with a beefy plastic bag. “Don’t even think about callin’ the cops. Or I’ll come back another time and take one of the kids.”
Debra Davidson looked at the burglar for a long moment. “Get out of my house.” He laughed, and disappeared into the laundry.
The memory still made Call
an angry, but he couldn’t help feel immense love for his mother at protecting them the way she had. A weaker person might have let the man take Kristy or him, and who knew how that might have turned out. She set a wonderful example and made him want to be a better person. He would die protecting her.
“The plan is still to go home, make sure mom and dad are safe. Then we can check everyone else’s property.”
“Are you still backing that horse?” Dylan said. “It’s a silly idea. My house is closest and it has everything we need.”
“We’re not going to your house. I still think it’s just as safe to go to mine.”
“But it’s not. It’s crazy. We have guns. My dad will be across this thing. He might be able to tell use more-”
“Than my dad? Why? Things have changed, Dylan. For all we know there’s nobody left in Albury.”
“Please, Cal,” Kristy said.
Dylan said, “We’ll be safe at my house. It’s up on the hill, and we have electrified fences.”
“No electricity.”
“We have a good store of guns and ammunition.”
“We all do.”
“We’ve got no ammo left though. What you propose is that we put ourselves at greater risk by going to your house. What if more of those infected soldiers bail us up? We can’t hack them all to death.”
“It’s not longer.” Callan couldn’t argue with second part though. All they had left with which to fight were the axe, a tomahawk and a chainsaw. None of those provided him with any confidence. They were all weapons that required close fighting, and he wanted to avoid getting close to one of them. A firearm allowed them to strike from a distance. They needed shells and more guns.
How could he tell Dylan that his mother was more important, that after the burglary, he had promised he would always protect her and never let harm come her way, the same as she had done for him and Kristy? “I don’t care. I’m not changing my mind.”
Sherry said, “We all want to go home Callan. But maybe going all the way to your parents’ house isn’t the best idea.”
“I can’t and I won’t. Don’t you get it? I don’t think it’s safer going to Dylan’s house, and I need to know mom’s okay. Once I do that, we can go wherever you guys want.”
The first abandoned cars appeared on the side of lower Table Top Road. Leaving town, he thought. Callan peered ahead into the first, a navy blue Ford, and saw the dark shapes of several bodies. He sped up and watched the road ahead. The stub of fear rose higher in his chest. He closed his window as a rotten smell drifted in on the wind.
They turned right at the Riverina Highway, and crept past Munga Bareena Island and Reserve. The grey sheet of sky sucked out the last of the day’s glow and the Jeep’s headlight sensor thrust rays of yellow ahead onto the rough bitumen. He took them right at the next street, and then slowed the vehicle to a crawl as they approached the first in another line of cars.
“Jesus,” he whispered.
Shattered glass lay across the blacktop like confetti after a parade. Both the roadside and rear windows had gaping holes, and hanging out the driver’s window with broken glass cutting into its torso was a headless body.
Callan rolled alongside it and saw blood pooled on the road.
“Don’t stop,” Sherry said. “We’ve had enough delays.”
Callan braked, wondering what had happened to the owner’s head, then accelerated, the tyres crunching and popping on the glass. Most of the cars had been pushed off the road, and he wondered if the Army or somebody else had come through to clear them.
They drove several miles, crossing the Hume Highway past a dozen more forsaken vehicles, a bus with shadowy windows, and a dark mall. A sooty plume of smoke soared like a leaning skyscraper into the blackening sky. The odd vehicle sat in the car park and they could see a hint of orange light through the towering windows at the entrance to the mall.
“I’d hate to think what was inside,” Callan said.
“It’s so quiet,” Sherry said. “Where has everybody gone?”
Dylan said, “Hopefully at home, tucked up in bed.”
“Or dead,” Callan said. “And walking around as zombies.”
They made a right turn, then another into a dirt road, and saw a long street that eventually curved around to the left, flanked by lifeless streetlights. They moved slowly as gravel popped underneath the tyres, watching the headlamps and the murky depths beyond. There were no cars parked at the curb, although a few sat in driveways.
Boiling shadows beckoned from the houses. Such a street should have been blazing in light, but there were no porch lamps greeting visitors, no cracks of light from between lounge room curtains or the blue, green and red flash of television screens. The world was as black as the lake had been a hundred an eighty miles away, minus the starry night.
“What’s that?” Greg said, sitting forward.
“What?”
“There. A light. I saw a light.”
Following Greg’s finger, Callan squinted into the darkness on the left side of the street. “Shit man, you’ve got good eyes.”
“I see it,” Kristy said. “Up there.”
Callan peered low through the windscreen, straining to see ahead, when he felt the vehicle slow and the trailer pull to one side. “Fuck.” He knew instantly what had happened.
He stopped the car and jerked the stick into park, then ripped the handbrake on. “We could have a problem.” He shut the lights off, then climbed out, slamming the door with a thud, and turned in a circle, surveying the road in all directions. The smell hit him as if opening a rubbish bin, and he knew that there were more than four or five dead people in the town.
Greg arrived at his side, his face twisted in similar disgust. “That smell is fucked up. What’s happened?”
“Flat tyre, I think.”
Callan removed the thick handled torch from the back of the Jeep, then hurried to each wheel on the trailer and kicked, feeling for air pressure. His boot rebounded off the first three with a jarring thud.
When the fourth softened, he squatted, cupped his palm around the top of the torch, and switched it on. As he had feared, the steel rim touched the ground on a bed of flattened rubber and the trailer slanted towards him. “Shit.” He saw glass fragments stuck in the tread, and a jagged piece embedded deep into a rut.
Greg said, “We gotta change it, unless you wanna leave all the stuff behind.”
“No.” The fuel and extra food might be critical at some point and Callan would fight for it. They needed to be ready for a quick getaway if they were under threat. “Let’s think about this. What are out options?”
Greg considered the question. “Unhook the boat. Have Kristy sitting behind the wheel with the car running.”
“That’s good. Very good. But still risky.” He peered over the boat. “Where did you see that light?”
Greg pointed into the darkness about twenty-five yards away. “There.”
Callan focused. After a moment, he saw a faint shade of yellow from the back of a white weatherboard house. “Okay, let’s try that. We ask if the girls can wait inside while we change the tyre. They might even be able to tell us more about this mess.”
“That’s if they even open the door.”
Squatting in the drivers doorway, Callan explained the plan to the others and made Kristy sit behind the steering wheel with the engine idling. Dylan took the axe in ready.
The rain had passed and a warm breeze touched Callan’s cheek. What were they doing? The madness of it all threatened to derail his plan, but he pushed it away, focusing on what needed to be done. He hoped there would be time later to reflect on all that had happened, and what lay ahead. That worried him the most.
Greg led them through untended grass towards the house without the torch until they reached the front yard, and then Callan activated the beam. Tall weeds grew in clumps around several dead and dying shrubs. Wooden edging outlined what once may have been a beautiful garden, now overgrown with gree
n wildflowers. They followed a series of cracked, unstable paving stones onto a wooden porch where loose boards creaked and twisted under their weight. A heavy wire security door greeted them.
“Let’s be quick. I don’t want to leave them too long.”
Greg wrapped on the door with the side of his fist. “Come on people. We know you’re in there.”
They waited, listening for movement.
“Please. We have a couple of females and mean no harm. The trailer has a flat tyre. Can the girls stay with you while we change it? It’ll only take five minutes.”
“Fuck off,” a muted voice said. “There’s nothin’ here for you ‘cept lead poisoning.”
“Please,” Greg said. “Just give us a minute.”
“Get your ass off my porch right now.”
“You won’t help us?”
“No.”
“You don’t care if a couple of women die right outside your house?
“No.”
“You don’t have to open the door.”
“Piss off. I’ve had your kind before and it ended badly, for them.”
“Look mate,” Callan said. “We’ve been camping up at Lake Eucumbene for the last month. When we left, this… virus was barely making news. Earlier today, we stopped at a gas station out bush and saw a newspaper but it was three weeks old. Then…” he trailed off, considering how to describe it. “We’ve gone through a lot of shit to get here and if you’re locked up inside, you’ve seen it too.”
Behind them, bats glided through the air chirping.
“We just want my sister and girlfriend to be safe while we change the flat on the boat trailer. My name is Callan Davidson. My sister Kristy is with us. My dad is Keith Davidson. He works at the abattoir. My friend’s name here is Greg Harding. We have Sherry Vandenberg and Dylan Cameron, Bob Cameron’s son.”
Pause. “Bob Cameron’s kid. Where’s Bob? Is he okay?”
“We don’t know, but we’re trying to find him. Please, just tell us what the fuck is going on.”
The lock clicked, and the chain slid back. The door opened and a tiny light from a cell phone illuminated a dishevelled face and sagging red eyes. Thick black stubble flecked with grey covered his cheeks and neck. He groomed his moustache with thumb and forefinger, eyeing them with suspicion. “I have a Remington 308 bolt action here that’ll turn you into mince if you give me any trouble. And I ain’t opening the door, girls or not. I’ve got my own females to protect.”
Aftermath (Invasion of the Dead) - Part I Page 6