by Dirk Patton
“Didn’t wanna be one?”
She shook her head emphatically.
“How come?”
“Dunno,” she said, shrugging. “Just seemed silly. That’s all.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “But wasn’t it better than living on the streets? Or in that tunnel? Seems like they gave you a pretty good education. You talk better than me.”
“Didn’t like all the rules, and being punished for not believing the same things they did,” she said. “And I don’t like being told what to do.”
“Better get used to it,” I said, then remembered that world no longer existed. “Never mind.”
The conversation dried up and she went back to staring out the window. We encountered a few more infected, but still in numbers that were surprisingly low and we were making good time. The Range Rover had been full of fuel when we’d left the car park, so we hadn’t had to take risks and waste time finding a filling station.
Now, the top quarter of the tank was gone, but we were also deep into Sydney’s western suburbs. Unfortunately, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before we moved beyond the reach of civilization. The problem was that I had no idea what was ahead and didn’t have a map to plot a path through or around it.
“Where are we going?” Mavis asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“Friend of mine has a big place in South Australia. Middle of the desert. We’ll be safe there.”
“How far is it?”
“Long way,” I said. “Probably take us a couple of days to make the drive.”
“Is he like you?” she asked, looking up at me.
“American? No, he’s Aussie. He was born here.”
“I mean… never mind.”
Giving her a quick glance, I didn’t press. I had a pretty good idea what she wanted to ask, but figured she’d get around to it in her own time.
“Are there people like me there?” she asked.
“Like you? You mean twelve-year-old girls?”
She looked at me and rolled her eyes.
“Abos.”
“I’ve got no idea,” I said. “Not in his house, if that’s what you mean, but I don’t know about the area. Why? You want to be with other Aborigines?”
She turned back to the window without answering. Again, I didn’t press.
“Can I stay with you?” she asked several minutes later without turning away from the window.
Her question caught me by surprise, as most things that came out of her mouth seemed to do. I looked at her, catching a glimpse of her face reflected in the window. Maybe I imagined it, but I saw something in her eyes in that brief instant. A longing to belong. To feel a part of something.
“Well,” I said slowly. “I don’t know nothin’ about twelve-year-old girls, but I think I’d like it if you were to stay with me.”
She turned and looked at me and I couldn’t tell for sure, but her eyes looked damp.
“What about Rachel? What if she doesn’t want me when we find her?”
Thoughts of Rachel sent an icy spear of fear through my chest. Even though I knew Lucas was looking for her… Compartmentalizing concerns that I could do nothing about at the moment, I shook my head.
“Mavis, Rachel’s about the best person you’re ever gonna meet in this world. You’ve got nothin’ to worry about.”
She thought about that for a couple of minutes, staring through the windshield.
“Is she old, too?” she asked, earning another sharp look.
Before I could respond, she started giggling and looked away.
“Keep up the ‘old’ cracks and I won’t let you play with Dog,” I said.
“Who is Dog?”
“Behave yourself and maybe I’ll tell you,” I said, grinning.
“Okay. I’m sooooo sooooorrrrryyyyy I said you were old.”
“That doesn’t sound very sincere,” I said, raising my arm to deflect a playful slap.
“Tell me who Dog is!”
“Dog is my dog,” I laughed. “He’s a big, furry German Shepherd. Know what that is?”
“Is he friendly?”
I heard something in her voice when she asked.
“Are you afraid of dogs? Something bad happen?”
“Once. Not too long after I left the orphanage. There was this stray that attacked me.”
She spoke in a far-off voice and I could tell she was reliving the moment, not just remembering it.
“What happened?”
After a moment of silence, she rolled up her left sleeve, exposing a severely scarred forearm. She reached deep into a pocket and pulled out a knife. Pressing the button, a long blade sprang into place.
“I made him let me go,” she said, matter of factly, then closed the knife and put it away.
I was momentarily taken aback, then a grin spread across my face.
“What?” she asked, unsure if I was making fun of her or not.
“I think you’re going to fit right in,” I said. “And you’re gonna love Dog and he’s gonna love you.”
After a moment, she smiled at me. Despite our circumstances, I was feeling pretty good. There was something about Mavis that I couldn’t put my finger on, but I liked having her around.
Turning back to the front, I had an instant to see and process the object lying across the road. Jerking the wheel to avoid it, my foot hadn’t reached the brake pedal when the Range Rover hit a spike strip and all four tires were shredded. The sharp change in direction I’d begun by trying to avoid the obstacle sent the SUV into a skid. An instant later, the now exposed wheels dug into the pavement and we flipped, continuing to roll. My head hit something, hard, then blackness descended.
31
I came awake with a jolt, briefly disoriented. It took a second for my bruised brain to recall what had happened, then another to recognize I couldn’t see out of my one good eye. Reaching up, I felt wetness and frantically wiped at the blood obscuring my vision when fear welled up inside that I was now completely blind.
But as the blood cleared, I could see light. Not clearly, it was through a red haze, but at least the eye was working. And I realized I was upside down, the seatbelt holding me in place.
“Mavis!”
I looked around, trying to spot her. Couldn’t remember if she’d had her seatbelt on or not. But there was still too much blood interfering with my sight. Fumbling, my fingers found the buckle and I braced a hand against the roof of the SUV before pressing the button. I still came down hard, but was able to control my fall. Somewhat.
Free of restraint, I tried to find Mavis, squirming into the back when she wasn’t on the passenger side, but the door was standing open. Had she gotten out? Was she wandering around, thinking I was dead because of all the blood on my face?
I tried to open my door, but it was wedged shut. Crawling across to the open one, I paused when I realized the rifle was no longer slung around my body. Mavis? Looking down, I slapped a hand against an empty holster. The pistol was gone, too. All that was left was a very long, wicked Russian knife that could double as a bayonet.
Cursing, I squeezed past the seat and crawled out of the Range Rover, standing and looking around at a rather rough appearing neighborhood. There were a couple of strip malls within sight, both in serious disrepair. A few houses far to my right that didn’t seem any better.
It was still raining and the last of the blood was rinsed out of my eye. Several places on my head and face stung from the water, but I ignored them. They were probably still bleeding heavily, but it didn’t matter. What did was finding Mavis before the infected.
Then it dawned on me what had happened. I’d run over a spike strip like the police use to stop a fleeing suspect. That wasn’t infected. That was survivors. Drawing the Russian blade, I gripped it tightly and turned another slow circle. No movement. No sign of life.
Anger churning in my gut, I strode to the long strip of sharp, steel spikes that still lay in the road. Standing over it, I turned a full circle again, tr
ying to figure out where the fuckers might have come from. I was almost certain that whoever had set up the ambush had also taken Mavis. That explained my missing weapons. They’d either thought I was dead, or weren’t worried about me if I was disarmed. But what the hell would they want with her?
A chill passed over me, worry for Mavis causing my breath to catch in my throat. Tamping down the concern, I focused on the anger. It would serve me better once I found them and explained the error they’d made in fucking with me.
My head snapped around when I heard a faint sound. The wind and rain muted everything and I couldn’t tell what it was. It could have been an animal or a distant infected female. Or it could have been a twelve-year-old little girl.
Unsure of the precise direction of the sound, I moved slowly to the left, toward one of the strip malls. Nothing was moving and whatever I’d heard didn’t repeat, but I kept going, scanning the front of the small businesses. A liquor store, pawn shop, laundromat and cramped convenience store that advertised check cashing and pre-paid cellphones.
Pausing behind a battered and rusting sedan parked at the curb, I listened hard as I carefully examined the front of each business. All the doors and windows were intact, but I couldn’t see into the depths. Without power, it was dark inside and the glass perfectly reflected the overcast sky.
I was starting to move, intending to head for the alley I suspected ran behind the long building when the liquor store’s plate glass window bowed slightly then returned to normal. If not for the mirror image of the storm clouds, I probably wouldn’t have seen it, but it was very noticeable. And I knew what had caused it.
An exterior door in the business had either opened or closed. Or both. That change in the interior air pressure caused the large sheet of glass to flex very slightly in response. Nothing truly significant, but enough to give away the fact that someone had either just gone in or come out. With no other leads on Mavis’s whereabouts, it was worth checking.
Staying low and using parked cars to shield me from sight in case anyone looked out the store’s front window, I moved fast to the far end of the strip mall. Cutting across the parking lot, I ran along the side wall, slowing to a stop at the back corner. Easing my head out, I checked the narrow alley. A couple of older and well used sedans parked haphazardly, commercial dumpsters, broken shipping pallets and lots of trash. That was it.
Slipping around the corner, I moved with the knife tightly gripped in my right hand, listening intently. Approaching the back of the liquor store, I stopped before reaching its door, which had been forced open. Was that what I’d heard? Now the door stood ajar, moving slightly from the wind.
A cracked concrete pad extended a few feet from the wall, a battered awning overhead keeping it sheltered from the rain. Clearly visible on the dry surface were several sets of wet footprints. Going in.
They were too jumbled and tracked on top of each other for me to count, and I couldn’t spot the smaller set of tracks that Mavis would have left. But this was just a little too coincidental, finding this in the immediate area of where spike strips had been used to waylay passerby.
Moving closer, I stepped onto the pad, immediately hearing several people talking. All males. It took a couple of minutes but I was able to identify five unique voices. That didn’t mean there were only five men inside the store. There could be ten more that weren’t talking. Not everyone feels the need to constantly run their mouth.
Now, the question was whether to go in, or wait for them to come out. Assuming these were the guys I was looking for, they had at least the two weapons that had been taken from me. No telling what else they might have. Thinking about that, I made the decision to go in. All I had was a knife and I’d rather face them in close quarters than out in the open where the rifle would be a much greater threat.
Taking a breath, I poked my head around the edge for a quick look inside then quickly pulled back. A storeroom. Cases of liquor stacked on the floor, lining the walls. A swinging door opened into the public part of the store and in my brief glimpse, I didn’t see anyone in the back area.
Slipping through the opening, I gently pulled the door closed. Only a small amount of light leaked through from the front. Not nearly enough to see to fight. Unless one had an advantage, which I did. Somehow, the Russian night vision goggles had stayed on my head during the brutal car crash.
Reaching up, I pulled them into place, suddenly able to see perfectly. Moving to the hinged side of the swinging door, I put my back to the wall and waited, listening. Hoping to hear Mavis’s voice.
The men were talking loudly, calling to each other as they found their preferred alcohol. They were excited. Careless. Apparently unconcerned about what had happened to their city and unaware that all the noise they were making would likely draw in any infected in the area.
This went on for a couple of minutes, then I tensed when one of them called to the others that he was taking the first load to their car. I only had to wait a few seconds before he bumped through the door, arms loaded with two cases of beer. He moved slowly in the darkness, the door behind him swinging closed. He didn’t notice me.
I gave him a few steps, waiting to see if anyone followed, but no one else appeared. When he was nearly to the exit, I rushed forward, silent on the balls of my feet. Coming from behind, I reached around, placing my left hand flat on his forehead and pulling his head back to expose his throat. At the same time, the blade came up to rest against his flesh. He drew a sharp breath of fright, but froze when he felt the cold steel on his jugular.
“Make a sound or try anything, you’re dead,” I mumbled in his ear. “Understand?”
He was frozen in fear, but finally managed a whispered, “Yes.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“What girl?” he asked after a long pause.
“Don’t fuck with me,” I growled, pressing the blade hard enough to draw a trickle of blood. “I’m here for her. Don’t want anything else. Now, where is she.”
He was sweating now. I could feel it popping out on his forehead beneath my hand and smell the stench of fear rolling off him.
“Mate, God as my witness, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. There ain’t no girl with us!”
I hesitated. I’m not one to easily buy what someone’s trying to sell, but there was something about this guy that rang true.
“How many guns you guys got?” I asked, changing my approach.
“Guns? In Australia? Nobody’s got any, mate. Not in the city, at least.”
“Okay,” I said after a moment’s thought. “We’re going out front. If the girl’s there, I’ll kill you for lying to me. If someone has a gun, I’ll kill you. Got me?”
“Mate, we just came here for some booze.”
“Put the boxes down,” I said, slowly turning him without releasing my hold or moving the knife.
I kept the knife in place as he squatted with all the caution in the world and gently placed the beer cases on the floor. Pulling him back up, I guided him toward the front.
“Stop,” I said when we reached the swinging door.
He obeyed instantly and I took my hand away from his head long enough to raise the NVGs. When they were clear of my face, I grabbed the back of his collar, made sure the knife was tight on his throat and moved him through the door.
32
We pushed through into the cramped store and I brought him to a stop. I could immediately see three men, loading liquor and beer into shopping carts. They were laughing and talking, eager for the bounty they had found. Where was the fourth guy? I’d heard five distinct voices and had my knife across the throat of one of them.
I didn’t have to wait long before he walked into view carrying an armload of wine bottles. Carefully depositing them into one of the other’s cart, he turned to go back for more. When he spotted his friend, he froze, then called out to his buddies. They turned, going stock still when they saw me.
“Everyone stay where they are,” I said in a
loud voice.
“What the fuck, mate?” the wine guy said.
“Where’s the girl?” I asked.
“What girl?”
He’d answered fast, but I’d caught a brief hesitation. Was it out of fear, or was it because it took him a second to decide on a lie.
“Lie to me and your mate here gets a new smile,” I said. “Then I’ll kill each of you until I find her.”
“We ain’t lying, mate,” one of the others said. “It’s just us. We ain’t got no girl with us!”
“Then, where is she?”
I pushed on the back of my prisoner’s neck and we moved a few feet farther before I stopped him. The men exchanged worried glances then wine man spoke again.
“Look, mate. We don’t have your woman. Ain’t seen her. Don’t know nothin’ about her. But if you hurt Angus, we’re gonna kill you, knife or no knife.”
I watched his face as he spoke, quickly looking around at the others.
“Not a woman,” I said, still unsure but not quite ready to unleash mayhem on them. “A little girl. Twelve years old. We were in a car crash and when I came to, she was gone.”
As I said it, a momentary thrill of fear ran through me. What if an infected had taken her? But as soon as I had the thought, I realized I was wrong. If an infected had come along, it wouldn’t have left me alive and sure wouldn’t have taken my weapons.
“We’re telling you the truth!” my prisoner said.
Damn it, I was beginning to believe them. Sighing, I removed the blade from his throat and pushed him a few steps away, prepared in case he decided to try and deliver some retribution. Wouldn’t blame him if he did, but that didn’t mean I was going to let him have a free shot.
He stood looking at me, rubbing his throat and inspecting the blood on his hand from where the knife had cut into his skin. I didn’t feel bad. I’ve had shaving nicks on my head worse than what I did to him.
“Who else is around here that could have taken her?” I asked. “Someone that would use spike strips to stop a vehicle.”