by Colin Dray
He was going to shake his head, but she’d already tipped the watering can. A lukewarm stream slapped over his face and gushed into his singlet. His lips weren’t closed and a trickle slipped around his vent, into his stoma.
He doubled over, hacking.
‘You all right, Sammy?’ Dettie said, as he coughed and sputtered.
He tried to indicate that he was choking, but she had moved on.
When he finally had his breath back, his neck still wheezing, his face flushed, Katie was already soaked too and was using the handkerchief to dry herself.
‘So all’s forgiven then?’ Dettie asked, replacing the can by the pumps.
Sam spat some gritty water onto the ground. The scent of plastic and petrol was faint on his skin. His chest ached. Over in the dirt lay the mango. A fluorescent heart, still wet, already troubled by the flies.
31
The sky was clear and spilling over with stars. Sam thought about all the times at home he had looked up at them, trying to block out the streetlights, seeing nothing but the occasional glitter, muffled through the grey. Here, the Southern Cross was perched above them, vivid among an expanse of crisp, cool blue, and in the darker spaces, miniscule specks clustered together like fine mounds of shimmering sand. Katie was lying in the front with her seat rolled back, and just as Sam was about to fall asleep too, Dettie began easing off the accelerator. The shell of a rusted car, abandoned on the highway, slipped by the window as Dettie turned into an emergency stopping bay and shut the engine off.
Dettie was toying with something in her lap, whispering to herself, but with the grumble of the motor finally quiet, Sam’s eyes were heavy. He heard a door pop open and the ceiling light came on, but then the door was quietly pressed shut and all was dark again. Dettie must have stepped out for a cigarette, he thought, and rolled over onto his back to check his watch.
The moon, circled with a faint glow, shone on him through the back window. The road was quiet. Sam’s head was swimming, a weightless, drifting fog pressing in. The chill outside. The soft light. The scent of antiseptic from the first-aid kit. He remembered, suddenly, the children’s ward. Lying in the hard bed, listening for the sound of footsteps down the corridor. And with that he was awake. In the grass beside the road crickets chattered like tiny heart monitors. Even Katie’s steady breathing reminded him of the girl lying behind the thick plastic curtain. He tried to recall his mother visiting after work, Katie with chocolate milk spilt on her shirt, the sun buttery on his arms as he sat by the windows in the patients’ lounge—but his mind was filled with the metal bed frame, the squeak of the nurse’s sneakers, and the girl. He felt he could almost picture the girl’s hollow eyes following him as she walked—or was wheeled—from the room. But of course, she hadn’t looked at him as they’d rolled her bed away. She’d barely seemed aware of anything in the room anymore.
Sam looked at his watch again. Dettie had been gone for almost an hour. He sat up and looked around. She wasn’t anywhere near the car and when he wound the window down a fraction there was no scent of smoke. The horizon stretched out in the distance, flat, dark and empty. An alien landscape under an unfamiliar sky, and he and his sleeping sister were all alone in it. For another quarter of an hour he waited, his eyes searching the gloom—the tangled tree line, the dull road—trying not to blink. Dettie’s keys still dangled in the ignition, but her handbag was gone.
Had she left them? Sam flopped against the door. Had she waited until they were asleep and deserted them on an empty road, miles from anywhere? Alone? He tried to remember the name of the last town they’d passed by. Rosington? Roseworthy? At the time he’d been distracted by the sheep truck in front of them. One of the sheep had its leg caught between the bars and was kicking, a helpless, frantic little spasm. They were in South Australia. He knew that. They’d gone through the border. He’d been awake then. He was starting to feel tight in the chest. There would be traffic in the morning, wouldn’t there? Someone to wave down? His eyes were aching.
Katie’s head rolled away from him as she slept. First his father had left, then his mother was gone, and now Dettie. Everyone peeling away. Recoiling from him. The hollow sensation that accompanied that thought seemed to reverberate in his mind, colouring everything. Even the girl at the hospital. Somehow, it was as though she’d abandoned him too, glaring at him as she left. Her yellowed lips sneering. Her brow creased in contempt. His fingernails were cutting into his palms. He squeezed harder.
It was his fault. Dettie had driven them for days. She was taking him and Katie all the way to their parents and they hadn’t even said thank you. And she’d wanted to start fresh. She’d snapped at them, sure, but she was tired, and stressed, and struggling to remember something good about their father. Desperate to connect with both of them amid all the rush of the move. And they’d resented her. Fought her. She must have known Sam was angry. That since the phone call in the park, he wouldn’t look at her. He’d offended her. Broken her heart. She’d waited until he was asleep and left. Just like everyone else.
Now they were alone.
Suddenly he heard rustling from outside—a crackle, as though something were shuffling softly over sticks and gravel. Sam whipped around to peer through the window, out at the silvery shimmer of the road. The nearest tree branch swayed slightly, but there was no breeze. Sam held his breath, listening for footsteps. Even the crickets were silent. And as he was staring into the darkness, straining to separate the shapes of the bushes from the roadside posts, a shadow moved.
He ducked, feeling his face flush. Something was outside, lurching towards them, hunched over. Gradually, the sounds of broken twigs and a quiet scraping of tin drew closer. He could hear it clearly—too clearly—as if he were standing outside himself, or as if the door were open. Or the window. Panicked, he looked. The window was open. He’d left it down a few centimetres when he checked for Dettie’s smoke.
An image of zombies flooded his head. No longer cartoons. No longer thrilling. He pictured hands, clawed and rotting, tearing through steel.
You killed him! You and your unholy horde…
Slowly, listening for any movement, Sam inched across his seat, stretching out his fingers into the darkness for the window handle. Just as he felt metal, something clattered on the tar outside. There was a scuffle, and something moaned.
Decayed heads, faces collapsing in on themselves, sniffed at the air, drawn to the scent of flesh.
Your eyes…I saw your eyes among the shadows of my dreams…
He found the handle and quickly wound it shut. The noise muffled and he was alone with Katie’s soft snoring. He wheezed, curling into a ball and squeezing his eyes shut. For a time he lay still, his forehead pressed into the upholstery, his vision a swirl of blue washes and orange sparkles behind his eyelids. There was blood and teeth and torn muscle in his mind. He waited for the sound of shattering glass.
Instead, when he had calmed slightly, he noticed a faint sound—a tapping. When he listened carefully he could make out a rusty squeaking, coming from behind him, vibrating through the frame of the car. He opened his eyes and, forcing himself, turned over to kneel on the seat. Staring up at the stars, he listened until the squeaks wore down to silence. His legs were locked together, but he took a deep breath and pulled himself up to peer through the back window. When his eyes focused, he hiccoughed.
There was something there.
Something was hunched at the back of the car. Scratching at the bumper. Its rounded shoulders, grey in the light of the moon, hiding its head from view. But it was pulling, clawing at the car. Trying to tear it open. Huffing.
What do you want with us? What foul misdeed will sate your bloodlust?
There was nothing left in Sam’s mind of the colourful comic-book zombies that had delighted him. All that remained was this twisted, grey bulk. This physical thing only a metre away from him through thin, transparent glass. He saw rotting triangular teeth in his mind. He saw blood. He saw himself and Katie, l
eft like that mangled kangaroo by the side of the road.
If Dettie was there she could have driven off. Her keys glistened beside the steering wheel. His thoughts raced. What if she hadn’t left them? What if she’d just gone for a cigarette? Stepped out into the dark to find the zombie waiting for her? No melodramatic dialogue. No pleading. No peaceful giving up. Just the stench of decay and an animal savagery from the shadows.
Sam heard a snap. The car jolted, and something came loose in the zombie’s hand. It grunted, and dropped a metal chunk of the car into the dirt.
He scrambled to check that all the doors were locked. Dettie’s wasn’t, so he snapped it down and buried himself under the blanket, trying to tuck himself onto the floor behind the front seat. The noises paused, as though the shadow outside was listening. The silence became too much and he squashed his face in his hands, praying for the sunrise.
A tingling ran down his legs to the soles of his feet, but he stayed hidden. The comic-book zombie’s mouthful of flesh; the kangaroo’s rubbery eye; the girl’s bony hands, draping from her hospital bed; the boy in Dettie’s arms, twisting in pain, rivulets of blood down his face—everything swam in Sam’s mind all at once, all bound together somehow by the empty feeling in his chest, and the pale grey shape outside, pressing on the car, trying to chew through. Slowly, the clicking and scratching moved around to the front, near the engine, closer to Katie. He gasped, waiting for the sound of breaking glass and shrieking.
Eventually, though, it was quiet. A silence even more ominous when he realised again that he couldn’t call out to it, even if he’d wanted to. When he finally dared to glance outside, the road was empty. The creature, whatever it was, was gone. The car was still intact, he was alive, and Katie hadn’t woken. And as he lay down, staring up at the stars, Sam felt desperately tired. He had seen something. Grey, and bent, and groaning. He’d heard it. He’d felt the car move. Wondering what time it was, he tilted his watch face towards the light. It was after two in the morning. As he lowered his wrist, he saw outside the window a shrunken grey face staring in.
Sam opened his mouth to cry out, but couldn’t make a sound.
The face smiled and a knuckle rapped lightly on the window. He stopped kicking and looked again. It was Dettie, her small features colourless in the dark, and she was pointing at the lock.
She was back. She was fine.
Sam jumped to open the door for her and she slid back inside, fussing with her handbag.
‘That was silly of me,’ she whispered. ‘I went and locked myself out. Of all the stupid things.’
Sam leaned over and locked the door behind her.
‘Thank you, sweetie.’ Dettie was puffing, and as she turned to check on Katie, Sam could make out the whites of her eyes, bulging through the shadows. She smelt of sweat and nicotine.
Sam pointed out the window and mouthed the word zombie.
Dettie rolled her seat back, and squinted. ‘I can’t believe you’re still awake, Sammy.’ She petted his arm. ‘You must be exhausted.’
He shook his head and gestured at her with his fingers bent like claws.
‘Sammy, I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re trying to say,’ she said. ‘It’s too dark.’
She lay down and pulled a cardigan over herself, closing her eyes. ‘And you need to get some sleep.’
Sam stayed perched at the edge of his seat, shivering, until both Katie and Dettie were snoring softly in front of him. He wasn’t tired, and each rustle of the trees outside shook him alert again. Eventually, he rolled up his blanket and laid his head on top, watching out of half-closed eyes and listening in case Dettie’s door creaked open again.
32
Later that morning they showered in the white bathroom cubicles of a caravan park. Dettie had bought them thongs so that they wouldn’t have to walk on the tiled floor—which she insisted was probably swimming with disease. Sam let the stream of water hit his back and kept his entire neck dry as much as he could. While he waited for Katie to emerge he returned to his comic.
After seeing something real—whatever it was—the comic seemed a little silly now. All the characters’ faces were rubbery and distorted. The dialogue read like something from a daggy old black and white film. He didn’t find it thrilling anymore, and it certainly wasn’t scary. For some reason, as he scanned the pages, it just made him sad. The humans gawped and fled in the face of the undead horrors that stalked them, which was fun, but the zombies themselves…
Once, they had looked fearsome and furious. They had reminded him of himself, silent—but unleashed. It excited him to see that abandon running wild. Snarling and vicious. Unstoppable. Now they all seemed to be miserable. Eyes squinched and weepy. Mouths not snarling so much as slack. Hands stretched out, not to threaten, but to plead. Fingers gesturing desperately, shaping themselves to be understood. They growled simple words. ‘Braaaaains…’ ‘Hunger…’ And as he read them over again he realised it was Tracey’s voice he was hearing in his head. Her weird burping speech. Raspy and grunting. ‘Bah. Rai. Ns.’
Then he knew why it made him sad. It was him, peering up from the page. Discoloured skin. Neck slashed. Hands grasping. Grunting. Wordless and gesturing. When Dettie and Katie returned, Sam wiped the tears from his eyes and stashed the comic under the car seat.
They headed off to find a roadside diner for breakfast. Sam could hear an unusual rattle shuddering in the car’s engine whenever Dettie sped up. As they parked, though, the noise disappeared, and while Dettie stood by the diner doorway having a cigarette, Katie scuffed her thongs in the dirt and then lifted her feet, watching the grey sand pour from between her toes.
They ordered three hot meals, and when their food arrived, Dettie slid the trays across the table towards them. ‘Long way to go today,’ she said. The undersides of her fingernails, Sam noticed, were stained black.
He ate a bacon sandwich and had another two pieces of toast smothered in strawberry jam. Katie mashed up the eggs on her plate and drank half her orange juice. They were sitting in the corner of the restaurant beside the kitchen, their backs to the other tables.
Sam’s eyes were blurry from lack of sleep and the urge to cry. He kept rubbing them, peeling his lids apart when they felt sticky.
‘Are you right, Sammy? What’s wrong with your eyes?’ Dettie asked, peering over her coffee at him.
Sam shook his head and looked away behind her. On the wall was a framed road map of Australia. As he stifled a yawn he strained to read the names of each of the towns.
‘Well, don’t keep rubbing them, they’ll get red.’
They were now in a place called Gawler. Since Dettie had wandered off during the night, he’d made sure to look for the town’s welcome sign when they drove in. He’d even written it on one of the advertisement pages of his comic while Dettie was busy adjusting her side mirror. Chewing his toast, he repeated it to himself in his head, spelling it out.
Gawler.
Whenever the door to the kitchen opened they heard hissing water and the clatter of dishes being stacked. Sam was watching the shadows on Dettie’s cream blouse dim to yellow in the fluorescent lights. She was fidgety, twirling her lighter in her hands, and he noticed she seemed to be shooting nervous glances at the other customers.
A waitress with a pot of coffee and a tray full of saltshakers squeezed past their table. As she filled Dettie’s cup she smiled down at Katie and Sam. The waitress smelt of vanilla, and as she swept away Dettie arched her neck to watch her go. Her gaze followed the waitress all the way across the room to where she set down her trays by the payphones.
‘You kids almost done?’ Dettie asked. ‘Katie? Have you had enough?’
Katie had her chin on the table, tapping a fork on her plate.
Sam blinked the cloud from his eyes and concentrated back on the map, looking for Gawler.
The waitress had started wiping down a booth, sweeping loose pepper and used sugar packets into her palm. Dettie was still watching her, eyes narr
owed. She lifted her coffee to her lips, sipped it too fast and burnt herself.
‘Blast!’
Katie sat up. The coffee had spilt over Dettie’s fingers, and she wiped it off hurriedly with serviettes. By the time the mess was soaked up and she’d turned back to watch the phones, the waitress had moved out of sight.
‘I’d better go wash off,’ she said, fanning her hands dry. The bandaid on her finger had stained brown. ‘You kids finish up and get ready to go. Katie, you’d better hurry. Your food will get cold.’ When she’d wandered away, clutching the strap of her handbag, Sam walked closer to the map and searched for Gawler along the lines of the roads. It was tucked away at the bottom of the country, inland, above Adelaide, beside a crack in the coastline. He hunted around until he found Perth, in capital letters, all the way over on the left of the map. Sydney was on the opposite side, and when he traced his finger along the roads from Sydney to Gawler he kept getting lost along the way. If he pressed his palm flat to the glass he could fit his hand five times in the space between Sydney and Gawler. The boy had fallen off the train in Mildura, which fell under his right index finger. The zombie must have appeared behind his third finger and pinkie. Between here and Perth they still had over seven hands to go, and the road looked straight and empty across the yellow-coloured section of the map.
Katie was folding serviettes into floppy shapes of swans and playing with them. She made soft cooing sounds and floated them about, dipping their beaks in her orange juice.
‘Sam, don’t leave fingerprints all over the place,’ Dettie said, pushing her chair back under the table.
Sam lifted his hands off the glass, and wandered back over.
‘Oh, aren’t those lovely, Katie,’ Dettie said. ‘How’d you learn to make those?’
Katie stood up and crushed the serviettes into balls. She turned, silently, and walked towards the door, leaving them mangled to soak up the remains of egg yolk smeared on her plate.