by Tony Thomas
As Theresa opened the curtain shielding the crew seat she saw William spasm violently. It looked like he was having a fit. She drew back a little, slightly put off by the spittle flying from his mouth as his head swung from side to side. Theresa was stunned, only moments before William had been almost comatose in shock. Now he was shaking and jerking in his seat.
Theresa bent to touch William on the shoulder, hoping to distract him. No sooner had she done this than William’s eyes snapped open. He glared at her with what she could only see as hate before lunging for her. Theresa pulled back in shock, dropping the curtain in front of William, and staggering back. She struggled to believe he could change so quickly, but knew that both he and Mrs Gould must now be infected with whatever had changed Mr McCormack.
Theresa rushed back to the galley and called the flight deck. The captain needed to know what was happening.
07:15 AEST: Sydney
As Dan reached his front door, it was flung wide. ‘What happened?’ Gen demanded, almost frantic in her worry.
Dan came inside, closed and locked the security door, then closed the front door. ‘There’s a platoon of soldiers come to take Mark for treatment.’
‘Was that a gunshot we heard?’
‘No, it was a Taser. Some crazy attacked them and they zapped him and tied him up. They’re taking him to a treatment facility. One of the soldiers told me that they caught three others on the way here. They’ve gone into Jo’s house to try to capture Mark. They said they would try not to hurt him.’
‘Jo will be pleased to hear that, I think she’s tipping over the edge a little.’
‘I hope it helps, but I can’t help thinking that if it’s this easy to manage here it wouldn’t have gone out of control in other places. This is really scary, Gen.’
‘I know—is that why you shut the gate?’
‘The soldier I talked to said I should. It seemed like good advice.’
Dan walked down the hall and into the lounge room, with Gen closed on his heels. Jo was sitting on the lounge, she was hugging her legs and looking both distressed and forlorn.
‘The army guys are here Jo. They’ve come to look after Mark.’
‘I think Mark has been possessed by a demon. This world is coming to an end. We are entering the end times.’ Jo was staring straight ahead. She spoke in a flat voice that made Dan feel decidedly uncomfortable.
‘End times?’ Dan asked, wondering where this had come from.
‘Yes. The end of the world has come and we are all going to be judged. Those who are not taken up will suffer eternal damnation.’ Jo turned and looked into Dan’s eyes with an intensity he had not seen in her before. ‘Have you and Gen been saved, Dan?’
‘Er, what?’ Dan asked, looking at Gen for help.
‘Jo thinks this is the End Times, Dan, as in the biblical ‘End Times’ from Revelations,’ Gen said in a soothing, calm voice. Gen had declared her atheism long before Dan had. Dan was actively anti-religious, while Gen was more comfortable just letting people think whatever they chose. The look Gen was giving Dan made it quite clear that this was not the right time to confront Jo on her beliefs.
‘Satan is sending his demon hordes. The time has come for you to repent,’ Jo was winding up to full rave. ‘You must pray with me, Dan, you and Gen must pray to be redeemed before the tribulations are fully upon us.’
‘Okay, I see. Uh. Gen, can you come check I have that camera right?’ Dan asked.
As they walked back down the hall, Dan turned to Gen and in a hushed voice asked, ‘What the fuck? Did you know she was a Christian nutbag?’
‘I’m not sure that she is. I think she’s been shocked into it.’
‘I don’t know, the way she was talking sounded like she was right into it. Either way I’m not sure that I can deal with that sort of crap and this crisis at the same time.’
‘Well we can’t kick her out. We just have to find a way to deal with it.’
‘I guess so, but once Mark has been collected, I reckon we should send her home. She’s creeping me out with all this end of the world crap.’
As they reached the end of the hall, Dan ran a cursory glance over the monitor. He could still see the truck past his front fence. Dan could only see the top part of the truck and could occasionally make out the top of the helmets of the soldiers standing a little way back from the truck. ‘I wonder if they’ve sorted Mark yet.’
‘The army guys are still here?’
‘Yeah, I would have thought they’d be in and out in no time. I might go and have a look over the fence. If they’ve taken Mark, we should be able to send Jo home.’
‘I don’t know if we should send her home. I think she’s only just hanging on to any sort of control.’
‘What do you think we should do then, keep her here? We can’t look after someone who has gone crazy, not with everything else happening. I think we should send her back home as soon as the soldiers take Mark away.’
‘She still needs us, Dan. We can’t send her home to be by herself. She might hurt herself,’ Gen said. ‘She’s really only just latched on to this idea in the last few minutes. Once she calms down, I’m sure she’ll stop talking crazy.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘It would be good to know it was clear in Jo’s house though. Do you think they’d tell you if Mark’s gone?’
‘Sure they will, if they’re still here. If the truck’s gone, they’ll have taken him. The army guys aren’t going to hang around. If they are still here, I can just talk to them over the fence and find out what the hold-up is. The gate’s shut so no one can get in the yard.’
Gen looked into Dan’s eyes and said, ‘I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to keep going in and out, but I suppose it’s the only way we can find out.’
Dan checked the monitor. He could still see the roof of the truck parked out on the road. The fence blocked his view from seeing the soldiers that were supposed to be standing guard. ‘You know, I really thought they would have been quicker than this.’
‘It’s only been fifteen minutes or so. They would be pretty careful surely?’
‘I suppose so, but it still seems like a long time to take just to go in and grab a guy. I’ll just ask the soldiers what’s going on, okay?’
‘Okay, but be careful.’
Dan had another look at the monitor. The truck was still there. As he opened the door, he was shocked to hear a long series of bangs that had to be automatic rifle fire.
‘What the fuck?’ he said, craning to look over the fence.
Gen stood nervously behind him. They couldn’t see either soldier, but they saw flashes of light and smoke coming from the rear of the truck along with the sound of gunfire.
Over the top of the gate, they saw the heads of at least a dozen people running towards the truck. There was more gunfire and two or three people dropped out of sight, but the others kept moving. It seemed that more and more people were joining them, and moving towards the truck.
There was another short burst of gunfire followed by a terrified scream that pierced the roar from the attackers. The firing stopped. Dan and Gen strained to see what was happening but the action was hidden from view by the fence.
People kept coming into view and running down the road towards the truck. Dan turned to Gen, ‘Where the hell did they all come from?’ he asked.
Suddenly, there was another wave of gunfire. ‘That must be the other soldiers,’ Dan said. He opened the screen door and walked onto the front porch, craning his head to see what was happening.
‘Can you see anything, Dan?’ Gen asked.
‘Bugger all,’ Dan replied. ‘They’re below the fence line. I can’t see shit.’
The gunfire continued in short bursts. They heard a voice yell, ‘I shot that fucker! He got back up!’
There was another round of fire, although it sounded like there were less rifles. Within seconds, it was down to one gun. Moments later, the scream of the final soldier rang out.
Dan stood on t
he porch, aghast. He looked at Gen, ‘Babe, what do we do?’
‘Come inside Dan,’ Gen said, a look of resignation on her face.
07:15 AEST: Heathcote National Park
Brick’s right hand had started to throb. There was definitely something not right with it. Brick pulled over to the edge of the track and stopped.
‘What’s wrong, Dad?’ Max asked.
‘It’s okay, mate. Rita, can you have a look at my hand? I think I must have broken a knuckle or something, it’s bloody killing me.’
‘Sure, give me a look,’ Rita answered, relenting on her usual line of ‘I’m not on duty’.
Brick turned in his seat and held his hand out to Rita, palm up. Rita probed along each finger, checking the bones carefully. ‘It feels okay to me, nothing seems to be broken.’ She carefully turned his hand over and looked at the cuts on his knuckles. The veins in the back of Brick’s hand were all bulging out and looked unnaturally dark.
‘Where exactly does it hurt Brick?’
‘Pretty much my whole hand is throbbing. The knuckles feel okay, but it feels like a knife has been stabbed into the middle of my palm.’
‘Your palm looked okay, but the cuts on your knuckles look a bit infected. How about we grab the first aid kit and put some antiseptic on it? We’re a fair way from the highway now so we can take a bit of a break.’
‘Yeah, okay,’ Brick said. ‘Kids—time for a break, every tree is a lav-a-tree.’
‘Gross, Dad,’ Sharn said. Max laughed as he got out of the car and walked off into the trees.
‘Don’t go too far, Max,’ Rita called, as she got out of the car.
Brick had a quick look in the rear-view mirror—nothing as far back as he could see—which admittedly wasn’t too far. The pain as he opened the door was like an electric shock through his hand and now extended up his arm. He gulped down the pain before he stepped out of the car, and used his left hand to close the door. He walked back and opened the tailgate—again using his left hand. The first aid kit was in a pocket in the rear quarter panel. With all the gear in the back of the car, he struggled to get to it just using his left hand.
‘Rita, the kit is in the pocket on this side. I can’t use my hand to get it out, do you mind getting it?’
This worried Rita more than anything Brick had said. She had seen Brick take a hard hit cricket ball into the shin without flinching or showing any pain. It wasn’t his way to show any weakness at all, it had to be really painful for him to be asking for help.
Rita climbed over the trailer hitch and dug into the back of the car to find the first aid kit. As a nurse, she had stocked the kit pretty carefully and she knew exactly what was in it. First things first though, ‘Brick, you need to rinse it off first—you’ve got a bit of blood on it.’
‘Right-o.’ Brick walked to the back of the trailer, turned on the tap from the water tank, and rinsed his hand. Once the blood was rinsed off, he noticed how bruised it was. ‘That guy must have had an iron jaw,’ he muttered as he walked back around to Rita.
Rita had put a towel over the spare tyre on the trailer hitch and pulled a bottle of antiseptic, some gauze pads and a bandage from the first aid kit.
‘Give me a look, Brick,’ she said.
Brick rested his hand palm down on the towel. Rita put some antiseptic on a cotton swab and patted it onto the graze, causing Brick to draw his breath in sharply. ‘Don’t be a baby, Brick,’ Rita said.
‘Truly, I’m not being a sook. It’s really painful.’
‘Okay, okay. I’ll be gentle.’ Rita tentatively patted the antiseptic onto the graze on Brick’s knuckle. Brick flinched repeatedly and breathed deeply, trying not to react to the pain. ‘It already looks pretty bruised, Brick—you must have really hit that guy hard.’
‘I guess so. It didn’t really seem to slow him down too much though, did it?’
‘I suppose not. He got up pretty fast. You might want to take a couple of painkillers.’
‘Yeah, okay, it’s really starting to throb.’
Rita started packing up the first aid kit and handed some Ibuprofen tablets to Brick. ‘Thanks, love.’ Brick looked into the car and called. ‘Sharn, can you grab my water bottle for me?’
Sharn was still in her seat. Of the four of them, she seemed the most affected by what had happened. As Rita packed away the first aid kit, Brick realised Sharn hadn’t moved so he called again. ‘Sharnie! Are you awake in there? Can you bring me a water bottle?’
There was still no reply. Rita left Brick and walked to Sharn’s door and opened it. As she crouched to look in Sharn grabbed her, sobbing uncontrollably. Brick closed the tailgate, walked around from the rear of the car, saw them, and sighed. He reached into Rita’s door and grabbed his water bottle from the console. He popped the two painkillers and took a big gulp of water.
‘Sharnie, I’m sorry for yelling at you,’ he said, patting her shoulder.
‘It’s okay, Dad’, Sharn sobbed, ‘I’m just scared. Do we really have to go to Uncle Robbie’s?’
‘Sweetie, you saw those people. I just want us to be safe, and I think we’ll be safer down there’, Brick said.
Rita gave Sharn’s back a quick rub. ‘Come on baby, it’ll be okay, Aunty Sue is a lot of fun and we’ll get to go to the beach and bush walk. It’ll just be like having a holiday.’
Suddenly, Max ran up to the car, shouting ‘Car! There’s a car coming!’
Before Brick could react, the car was almost on them, travelling way too fast for the dirt road. It fishtailed a little as the driver swerved on seeing Brick stopped on the narrow track, raising even more of a cloud of dust. The driver regained control and continued at high speed on the dirt track.
Brick looked after them, shook his head, and said, ‘Bloody idiot! He’s just an accident waiting to happen.’
Rita said, ‘I think we best get going again.’ She gave Sharn a quick hug before letting her go and walking to the rear of the car to pack up the first aid kit, which was now sporting a light patina of dust.
Before anyone could respond, a second car approached, travelling at a far more reasonable speed. It was a huge dusty Range Rover with a heavy bull bar compete with winch and enough floodlights to melt tar. The driver saw Brick’s car and trailer and slowed to a halt behind them.
Max nervously eyed his parents.
‘Hop in the car, mate,’ Brick said. ‘Climb in over Sharn, both of you lock your doors.’
Brick hurried to the back of the trailer, expecting another fight. As he got there, the driver of the Range Rover was just starting to open his door, ‘Brick, is that you?’ he called, as he climbed down out of his car.
‘Bozo?’ Brick asked, confused. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘Same as you I guess—getting the hell out while we still can.’ Bozo closed his door and walked towards Brick. ‘Someone left the gate unlocked on the fire trail.’
‘Yeah, that was me,’ Brick acknowledged as he reached out to shake Bozo’s hand. When Bozo took his hand, Brick gave a howl of pain and pulled it away, shaking it.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Bozo asked.
‘I think I broke my hand punching out one of those crazies,’ Brick said. ‘Didn’t feel bad when it happened, but since I’ve been driving, it’s bruised up and feels really tender.’
‘Poor dear,’ Bozo replied sarcastically. ‘Anyway—you want to get moving. That car rushed through the gate before I could get it shut. Don’t know how many cars are gonna come through it now.’
‘Oh, bugger. You got a plan?’
‘Not really. I figured I’d just go south. Really we just wanted to get the hell away from the city, that car ahead will clear the way for us I suppose.’
‘If they don’t wipe themselves out first—they weren’t exactly taking it easy.’
‘Can’t say I blame ’em after that crazy bastard tried to run the road block.’
‘Say what?’
‘Some nutter decided he couldn’t take
sitting in a traffic jam, crossed to the wrong side of the road, and charged towards the road block. We heard what sounded like gunfire and then a huge crash. We were close to the fire trail turn-off when it happened so I did a u-ee and tried the gate. I was pretty relieved the gate was unlocked, I can tell ya! We drove through and stopped, but before I could get back and shut the gate again that car came through as well. After I shut the gate I tried to lock it, but I couldn’t get the padlock to close. By the time I got back in my car, all hell was breaking loose.’
Rita came around the back of the car looking at Brick, ‘Is everything okay, hon?’
‘Oh sorry, Rita, this is Bob Somerland—he works a different shift from me but we run into each other a bit,’ Brick said.
‘Hi, Bob, are you on your own?’ Rita asked, giving Brick a quizzical look. ‘I think we need to get going, Brick.’
‘Hi Rita, nice to meet you. Call me Bozo, everyone else does,’ Bozo said. ‘My wife Cindy is in the back trying to keep our daughter Jill calm. I was just telling Brick that we need to get going, things are going crazy back there.’
‘What do you mean crazy?’
‘After the bloke tried to run the road block, a lot of people panicked and tried to turn around and head back up the highway. At the same time people further back who had seen him go past decided to jump the queue and go the wrong way down the highway. By the time I’d shut the gate and got back to the car, I’d heard a bunch of crashes. It’s just going to be chaos back there.’ Bozo paused, looking back along the track. ‘I think we need to make a move while we still can.’
‘I think there might be some safety in numbers, Bozo. How about we travel together, at least for a while?’ Brick asked looking first at Bozo, then at Rita. When both nodded, Brick continued, ‘We plan to stay off the highway as much as we can. If we take the fire trails we can work our way. . .’