“What’s wrong with him?” Tess asked, in a whisper.
“Might be septic shock, might be something a lot worse. His heart’s fluttering and weak. And there’s still a chance it’s the other thing.”
“How long does he have?”
“It’s the wrong question, Tess, and you know it. Sunset’s not far off. Finding the runway after dark will be difficult. There’s not enough fuel to stay up in the air while they find a way to reel me in.”
“How much fuel is there?”
“Enough to reach a proper airport and proper hospital if we empty those crates from the back,” he said. “And if the convicts stay here. And maybe you keep one of the parents. Maybe one of the kids.”
“That’s worse than I feared,” Tess said. “The bus has lost its front tyres. It’s not driving anywhere. There might be a few vehicles up at the mining compound, but the miners probably drove off in anything with enough range.”
“I can be back here at dawn,” Mick said. “Not before. And you know what rule three is?”
“Zombies can’t run.”
“The other rule three,” Mick said. “Don’t go walkabout in the middle of the night. I’ll leave you the emergency packs. Not much water there, but enough if you sit tight, and stay inside. I promise to be back at dawn.”
Chapter 8 - Old Mine, New Tricks
Humeburn, Queensland
“No, Clarke, you go,” Molly said, pushing her husband onto the plane. “A son should be with his father if… if it comes to that.”
And that should have been the most difficult part, but Tess had overlooked Stevie Morsten’s reaction to being stranded in the zombie-rich outback.
“You’re leaving us out here?” Stevie asked, looking to the other convicts for support.
“No, Stevie, I’m staying here, too,” Tess said.
“Hear that, Kyle?” Stevie said, ostentatiously addressing the wiry man with the tattoos. “Maybe we should take a walk.”
“Go ahead,” Tess said. “Go for a walk, and keep on going, and in a week, you’ll be back at the natural gas refinery, but I’m sure they’ve removed the noose.”
“It’s a trick,” Stevie said, too slow to catch her meaning. “You’ll shoot me in the back.”
A dozen sharp retorts flashed across her mind, but professionalism kept them from her tongue. “It’s not long until dark,” she said. “And Dr Dodson will be back before dawn. There’re some cabins behind the fence down there at the mine. That’s where I’ll wait for the plane. If you want to trek out of here on your own, go ahead.”
With a last brief, but grim, word with Mick, she ushered the convicts off the tarmac. Molly and Shannon waved away the plane as it rolled along the road, picking up speed before darting upwards and skywards.
As the sound of its engines faded, Tess picked up one of the two bags of emergency supplies. Molly carried the other. Both packed by Mick, they contained the bare essentials to keep pilot and copper alive for two days if the plane crashed in the outback. Among eight, the water would be long gone by dawn.
“I’m not kidding,” Tess said loudly. “Anyone who wants to walk out of here can. Mick will be back at first light. Their bus broke a couple of hours ago, and since we set down, only three more zombies have appeared. I’m not saying more won’t appear during the night, but it won’t be as many as in Canberra. It’s about an hour until sunset, and another hour until proper dark. I’m going to wait in one of the mine buildings. Come with me or don’t.”
As she headed down the sloping road, Molly and Shannon at her side, she didn’t need to look behind to know they were all following.
“You said they’re convicts,” Molly whispered. “How much danger are we in?”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Tess said. “The big bloke, he’s a yobbo I’ve locked up more times than I can remember. The older woman, that’s Teegan Toppley.”
“No, really?” Molly asked, half turning to steal a glance at the infamous crook.
“Who’s that, Mum?” Shannon asked.
“She’s a jewel thief,” Molly said. “It was all over the news in December. They got her for cheating on her taxes, right?”
“Something like that,” Tess said. “I don’t know the other three but I freed them from illegal incarceration by a deranged court-clerk impersonating a judge. Technically, they’re witnesses rather than criminals. I don’t think they’ll be trouble.”
“What kind of jewels did she steal?” Shannon asked.
“It’s not nearly as glamorous as it sounds,” Tess said. “Molly, did you have any supplies on your bus? Water, particularly.”
“Not much. We left most of it behind this morning.”
“I had a few bottles in my bag,” Shannon said.
“We’ll grab it now,” Tess said. “Any guns aboard?”
“No. Alicia had a couple of shotguns in her car. That’s the one that caught fire.”
That was both good and bad. Tess had her rifle and handgun, but had left Mick’s rifle on the plane. While the extra firepower would be useful, the only person who certainly knew how to use a gun was Toppley. Out of all of them, she certainly was a criminal, and not just a tax cheat and jewel thief.
Tess stopped near the bus. Toppley wasn’t far behind. The young woman with the taped-together spectacles followed the old crook as close as a shadow. PZ209 was a few metres behind her, his attention split between the outback and the mine ahead. And far, far behind him slouched Stevie Morsten and PZ194, the tattooed man whom Stevie had called Kyle.
“We’re grabbing some water from the coach,” Tess called, aiming her words at Toppley. “Keep watch.” She climbed aboard. “Clear,” she said a quick minute later. “Grab what you can, Molly. Anything that’ll help us get through the night.” She stepped down so Molly and Shannon could enter.
“Shame about the tyres,” Toppley said, walking over to Tess. “How certain is your pilot to return?”
“I’ve known him since I was a kid,” Tess said. “And worked with him since I first became a cop. He’s a mate, as is his daughter.”
“The cabinet minister?” Toppley said. “So a rescue would be guaranteed under the old regime. In these rather strange times, nothing is certain. Not even taxes.”
Without another word, Toppley walked towards the helicopter. The woman with the glasses had stopped, head bowed, near the edge of the road and far from the pile of corpses. As Toppley hurried on, she began to follow, though hesitantly, clearly unsure whether being the notorious crook’s shadow was safer than lingering close to the police officer.
PZ209 had left the road and now stood like a lighthouse, turning his gaze across the scrub-filled desert, though his gaze, too, lingered on Toppley as she strolled towards the obvious means of escape.
“It’s only a few litres of water, and not much else,” Molly said, pausing in the doorway, waiting for her daughter.
“And some flashlights and some books,” Shannon said. “Which we’ll want because it’ll be a long night.”
Stevie had seen Toppley angling towards the helicopter. Kyle in tow, both men had picked up their pace, overtaking PZ209, marching towards the helicopter in what was nearly a run.
“Can you fly it?” Stevie called out, overly eager.
“Bullet holes are contra-indicative of mechanical operability,” Toppley said, finishing her tour of the machine, and heading back towards the road.
“What’s that mean?” Stevie asked.
“It’s been shot to scrap,” Toppley said. “Blood on the hardtop, Commissioner. Blood on the seat. Bullets in the engine mount. A mix of 9mm and 7.62, judging by the holes.”
“7.62?” Tess asked. “You mean from an AK-47?”
“I do,” Toppley said.
“How d’you know all that?” Stevie asked.
“Everyone should have a hobby, Mr Morsten,” Toppley said. “That machine won’t fly anywhere.”
“Any bullet cases on the helipad?” Tess asked.
�
��None,” Toppley said. “Though my efforts at seeking clues no doubt fall far below your own standards. The chopper arrived here damaged. I would imagine it took fire during, or shortly after, take-off. In which case, it is unlikely to have flown from very far away.”
Tess mulled that over as they walked the last few hundred metres to the gate, reaching the conclusion that it probably didn’t matter, and certainly couldn’t help.
The gate leading into the mining compound was very new, made of double-strength steel, a three-dimensional lattice frame, and steel posts embedded in asphalt as fresh as the runway-road. The renovations hadn’t extended to the fence on either side. Decades-old, made of rusting wire, where each of the heat-warped support posts leaned in a different direction. A strong wind would push it down, while a gentle pull was all it took to tug the gate open.
“Wait here,” Tess said. “I’ll be five minutes. If there’s trouble, head for the bus.” That last was addressed to Molly.
“Trouble?” Stevie said, reigniting his faux-grievance. “You mean you didn’t check this place first? I think I could sue you for that.”
Tess didn’t reply, but stepped inside the compound.
What she’d guessed from the air was confirmed up close. Half the buildings were as old as the fence, while the other half were as new as the gate and runway-road. To her left sprawled a tumbledown, L-shaped, high-set cabin. Wood-log foundations held the floor a half metre above the ground, while recent scaffolding held up most of the walls. Three metres of scaffolding and six fresh-sawn planks covered an age-warped wooden veranda, while wooden boards covered the window behind. But from how other windows weren’t covered, this wasn’t a post-outbreak reinforcement, but simply an outback repair.
Behind the cabin were another two partially collapsed shacks and the ruins of a dozen more, built at least fifty years ago and abandoned soon after. To her right were parked five excavators, five dumper trucks, a small crane and winch, and a bulldozer. All carried the logo of Harris Global, the sprawling multinational with scandals in Mongolia, accidents in South Africa, corruption charges in South America, and mining interests in a dozen more countries besides. But of far more interest than the monstrous yellow beasts, and the company which owned them, were the pair of grey utility trucks sheltering in their shadow. She’d not noticed those from the air. They appeared roadworthy, though the keys were missing. She guessed those would be inside one of the twenty-or-so new trailer-cabins arrayed behind the excavators. Each was the size of a shipping container, though made of wood and plastic.
On each hut, a long wooden pole jutted five metres into the sky, taller than a digger’s front-loading bucket could accidentally catch. On those were strung wires, presumably bringing power to the huts from a generator. Since the wire arced over her head, it carried electricity to the decrepit L-shaped cabin, too.
While the ground was unpaved dirt, the heavy wheel ruts suggested she’d find the main excavation further north, lost to sight among the sloping ground. From the air, she’d thought she’d seen a few more huts and shacks to the north. She couldn’t recall more than that, and nothing about the vague memory was particularly inviting. No matter. What was key was that no one had come to greet her. No one living or undead.
The sleeping hinges of the L-shaped cabin squeaked awake as she put her shoulder to the large, lock-less door. It opened an inch and stalled. Something heavy lay behind the door. Another shove, and she had the door open wide enough to see the arm, unmoving. Another push shoved the corpse far enough that she could ease inside. Rifle raised, she swept the room before giving the corpse a second, then third, look to triple-check it was dead.
“G’day!” she called, moving the rifle in a one-handed arc while extracting her flashlight. No reply came and the light found nothing in the shadows. She turned her attention to the corpse. But it was an obvious suicide-by-shotgun. A belt-tourniquet was wrapped around the dead woman’s forearm above a stained bandage encircling her wrist. In her mid-forties, she wore boots, jeans, and a plaid shirt, but all of a designer, bought-in-the-city style, over which was a corporate windbreaker. A passenger from the helicopter? Or had she been here a lot longer? It was too soon to draw a conclusion.
Tess slung the assault rifle, and drew her handgun. With flashlight in one hand, wrists crossed, bracing her gun hand in a more familiar pose, she quickly searched the room. Scattered with easy chairs and salvaged tables repaired with scaffolding brackets, a TV squatted in one corner of the room, a dartboard in the other. A bar dominated the third, made of planking as old as the cabin, but with a half-empty whisky bottle and a trio of glasses on the countertop. Three glasses. So far, one corpse. But there were more bodies by the bus. She reframed her interpretation: only three glasses.
In the room’s last corner, battered bookshelves stood sentry on either side of an equally battered door, repaired with plyboard from where one too many heavy boots had kicked it closed. The books, as well used as the door, looked just as old.
Beyond lay a corridor with doors either side, all of which were being used as storage. In some were old tools, in others broken furniture. Eight rooms in total, at the end of which was another door, leading outside.
Tess returned to the corpse and checked the shotgun. It was empty, as were the corpse’s pockets. The woman had been down to one shell. Or she’d been left with one by the others who’d fled. One thing was certain, it would be safer waiting inside the cabin than outside.
She reached down, crossed the woman’s ankles, and pulled the body through the door and onto the veranda. By the gate, she saw Molly turn Shannon away. Tess went back inside, grabbed the blanket from the couch, laid it over the body, and walked back to the gate.
“Trouble, Commissioner?” Toppley asked as Tess approached.
“One corpse, one shotgun, one shell,” Tess said tersely. “Looks like she was infected. Killed herself. No sign of anyone else here. Hopefully the zombie who infected her was one of those I shot by the bus, but we’ll assume the worst and that more are lurking in the outback. We’ll be safer on the other side of the gate.”
Stevie knocked into PZ209 as he sauntered inside. The grey-haired man’s eyes narrowed, though his glare was entirely aimed at Stevie. In turn, Tess’s childhood tormentor peered around in what, for him, was an attempt at nonchalance, but his fists, clenching in thought, betrayed his intent.
“This is a mine?” Shannon asked, looking in every direction except that in which the body lay.
“An old mine,” Tess said. “Abandoned fifty years ago and recently re-opened before the outbreak. I reckon whatever they originally found here, decades ago, was too expensive, too difficult, to extract. With modern technology and techniques, they decided to have another go.”
“It’s quite an expensive stretch of road for simple exploration,” Toppley said.
“Do you think it’s a jewel mine?” Shannon asked.
“Shush,” her mother said.
“Perhaps,” Toppley said. “This is the right geography, but jewels are nothing more than coloured stones. Their true value is in the story associated with them.”
Shannon’s hand went to the sapphire hair clip which matched her mother’s ring.
“Jewels or gold,” Tess said. “Maybe silver, though this doesn’t look like the right equipment. Maybe there are other machines further down that slope. But we’re expanding the operation of all the useful mines. Coal and iron are our immediate priority. Oil, too. Zinc and lithium will come in phase-two. Ramp up production now, create a stockpile to supply the global relief effort. Since this place was abandoned rather than expanded, it can’t have been producing anything we immediately need.”
Stevie picked up the shotgun from where Tess had leaned it next to the veranda. He checked the chamber, then sauntered back towards them.
“Got to protect the sheilas, right, Princess?” he said. “You should give me some shells for this.”
Saying nothing, Tess stepped forward, grabbed Stevie’s wrist
, turning it, and his arm, upward, spinning him off balance, before a quick sweep of her leg against his ankle knocked him down to the dirt. She stepped back. “The plane comes back tomorrow, Stevie, and Mick’s flying it. You know Mick, and he knows you. And he won’t hesitate to leave you behind if I, or Molly, or Shannon, aren’t alive and well. Do you understand?” She turned away even as Stevie picked himself up. “We’ve an hour before dark. Everyone go into the cabin. Rest for a bit, because there’ll be work soon. There are some mugs in the kitchen, so share out the water. One cup each. I’ll check the rest of the site.”
The new cabins were clearly labelled with laminated metal plates. The smaller units were one-person dwellings. The first she came to was locked, but the key was in the door and Matt Sanderford was on the nameplate. The interior had been divided in two. One half contained an unmade bed, a wall lamp, a closet. The other half had a chair, a TV affixed to the wall, and a small desk with a laptop. The power was out, but the laptop’s battery hadn’t run down, though it required a password to log in. She shut the lid.
No bathroom, no plumbing, and only a small air-conditioning unit. It wasn’t bad, and better than standard, but it was still just a place to sleep and video-chat home. The closet was nearly empty, at least of clean clothes. From the pile of dirty linen, laundry had not been a priority immediately prior to the departure, or death, of the mining crew.
They would have heard about the outbreak, over the radio or satellite-internet. Soon after that some would have left. She turned back to the desk, checking the drawers, then the bunk. No photographs, no phone, nor any other obvious personal items. Matt Sanderford had time to pack before he’d fled.
The toilet block was adjacent to the showers, two separate units, both with three stalls. The water tank was empty. Behind the wash-block, a cabin, the maximum length a standard flatbed could carry, had been split in two. The door led into an office with desk, maps, a filing cabinet, a computer, radio, and a pegboard with vehicle-keys. According to the prominently displayed work order and licences, they were exploring a coal deposit for fifty square kilometres from the site of the Humeburn Valley Mine.
Life Goes On | Book 3 | While The Lights Are On [Surviving The Evacuation] Page 9