by Tony Thomas
‘What hotel are you booked into?’
Jeff fumbled in his bag and pulled out a travel wallet. He opened it and looked at his itinerary before saying, ‘The Travelodge Old Sydney, it’s at “The Rocks”, wherever that is.’
‘I don’t know it, but The Rocks is a nice spot. Lots of pubs and restaurants.’
‘Do you think they’ll be open?’
‘Not sure, mate, probably not while the quarantine and curfew are on, but once they lift them, it should be … what was that?’
‘What was what?’
‘I thought I heard a rifle firing.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No, I’m not. But I heard something,’ Pete said. ‘Geez, I hope they let us out of here soon.’
They both fell into silence. Pete was replaying the sound in his mind, now unsure if it was rifle fire or not. Jeff was wondering if his new friend was imagining things or even worse, had actually heard gunfire.
08:15 AEST: Woronora Dam
Brick had been fairly quiet until they crossed the Battery Causeway, a couple of kilometres from the accident. He hadn’t said much even at that point other than to say it was lucky there hadn’t been any rain so they could cross easily. By the time they had travelled the 7 kilometres to the Woronora Dam Road intersection, Rita had had enough.
‘Brick, let’s stop for a sec. We need to talk.’
Brick pulled to the side of the road. At least this was two lane sealed road so they felt fairly safe. ‘What do you want to talk about?’ Brick said.
‘C’mon Brick. Let’s have a leg stretch and a talk. Sharn and Max, you can stretch your legs if you like, but Dad and I need a quick chat. Stay in sight.’
Rita and Brick both got out of the car and walked to the front of it. Rita noticed that Bozo had pulled up as well, but hadn’t got out of his car. Sharn and Max both stayed in the car, although Max did open his door.
Rita said, ‘Brick, I know it’s bad, but you can’t stew over that accident. We need you to get us to safety.’
‘I just don’t get how both you and Bozo thought I should let someone burn. That’s fuckin’ wrong,’ Brick said. ‘It goes against everything you were trained for. What made you say that?’
Rita sighed. ‘Brick, I looked at that wreck and assumed they were all dead. The car was crushed against that tree. There was no way someone should have lived through that.’
‘Bullshit Rita. You didn’t even want me to check. What were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking those idiots almost ran us down when we were stopped earlier. They were driving way too fast for the conditions. I was thinking maybe they were infected with whatever this disease is and I didn’t want to risk catching it and giving it to our kids. Jesus Christ Brick! We’re running for our lives. Why the hell would we stop and risk everything for some arseholes who nearly ran us down?’
‘Because that’s what good people do’, Brick said with conviction.
Rita shook her head. ‘Brick, I think the rules have changed. You didn’t want to hang around at home and go to work did you?’
‘Well, no,’ Brick muttered.
‘I thought you were getting carried away. Running out to Robbie and Sue’s and escaping the quarantine. I was happy to go along because at the end of the day it didn’t do any harm. When Bozo told us about what happened at the road block, I realised that this might actually be life and death.’
Rita reached out for Brick and stroked his cheek. ‘I love you Brick. I love the kids. The only way we are going to survive this is to look out for ourselves first and foremost. I’m sorry I didn’t want to help those people but I think we have to just focus on getting somewhere safe.’
Brick closed his eyes for a few moments. He reached out to give Rita a hug. ‘Shit, Rita. Maybe I wasn’t taking it seriously either. You’re right, stopping and helping those people wasn’t all that smart. It still feels wrong, but I guess we should worry about that later. I’m never gonna forget those screams though.’
Rita hugged Brick back, taking comfort and giving it. She couldn’t think of anything to say so she said nothing.
After a couple of moments, Brick pulled away. ‘I think I need to talk to Bozo now, love.’
As Brick walked back towards Bozo’s car, Rita wiped her eyes. She pulled her phone from her pocket, she really wanted to talk to Gen. No signal. Typical, they weren’t that far from civilisation, but they were far enough away that they couldn’t make a call. Rita shivered at the thought that maybe making a call might get a lot harder as things progressed.
08:25 AEST: BA275
Theresa had retreated to the upper deck galley. The stress of a deck full of sick people was bothering her a lot more than she expected. After the announcement from the captain, the cabin crew had quickly moved through the aircraft identifying people with flu-like symptoms. At the same time, the six unaffected people from the upper deck were relocated. Fortunately, there had been space in the lower deck business class area for most of them, with one businessman volunteering to take a seat in the economy cabin.
Despite the protests of the nine sick passengers, they were quickly moved to the upstairs business class seats. They had left the seat next to Mrs Gould empty—there was no way they could put someone who may have been healthy next to her. Whenever she saw anyone, she flew into a rage and tried to attack them, which meant the seats across the aisle from her were also empty.
Any time Theresa walked through the cabin, Mrs Gould would scream blue murder. Theresa had decided to keep out of the way as much as possible. Poor William was hidden behind a curtain and seemed to have calmed down, but Theresa did not want to risk looking in on him.
Theresa was relieved that none of the passengers they had moved had shown any signs of changing, although all of them were coughing and sneezing and a few were moaning in their sleep. She was keeping her fingers crossed that it would stay that way for the next three hours.
The call buzzer rang. Theresa looked out and was relieved to see it was a passenger two rows behind Mrs Gould. As she walked past the crew seat, the pen in her hip pocket caught on the curtain screening the crew seat. Theresa felt the drag and quickly moved to flick the curtain free. As she unhooked herself, a roar came from behind the curtain and a hand lashed out and grabbed her by the wrist. With the curtain blocking her view and thrown off balance in shock, Theresa spun and tried to free herself. As she turned she lost her footing and stumbled sideways into the crew seat area.
Theresa’s hand was now firmly in William’s grip. As she fell, she could feel William pulling her arm towards him. He let go with his left hand and grappled at her head. This gave Theresa the opportunity to pull back. She managed to get her right foot firmly planted and regain her balance before an adrenaline surge allowed her to pull away.
Gasping for breath, Theresa hurried to the forward lavatories, past a newly screaming Mrs Gould and multiple frightened passengers. She closed and locked the door before filling the sink and rinsing her face. Theresa noticed a little blood on her wrist and hands, so washed them again, using soap before rinsing thoroughly. She tidied herself up, dried her hands and face, and straightened her hair and uniform. Theresa took a deep breath and composed herself. She unlocked the door and walked back to the passenger who had buzzed for service.
08:30 AEST: Woronora Dam
Brick felt seriously self-conscious walking up to Bozo’s car. It wasn’t often he had to apologise and he didn’t really like doing it, but at the same time he realised Bozo had probably saved his life, as well the lives of his family.
Bozo had stepped out of his car as Brick approached. ‘Everything okay, mate?’ Bozo asked.
‘Bozo, I owe you an apology,’ Brick stumbled. ‘You stopped me from doing something stupid and maybe getting badly hurt. I shouldn’t have said what I did.’
Bozo smiled. ‘Fuck that, Brick. You’ve said much worse to me for a lot less. I felt a right cunt stopping you from trying to save that kid, but it was hopeless, mate. W
e were too late.’
‘Yeah, I realise that now. But still, sorry for mouthing off.’
Bozo held out his hand, Brick flinched as he shook it. ‘No worries’, said Bozo.
They released and Bozo said, ‘So what’s next? Are we going through the Holsworthy Range?’
‘Not a fucking chance, mate. We’ll head down to the old highway and follow it as far as we can. I don’t reckon the road blocks will be so bad now. Most of the towns for the next couple of hours are bypassed by the highway in any case.’
‘Where are we actually headed?’
‘My cousin has a farm at Rocky Hall. I thought it seemed like a good place to go.’
‘Where the hell is Rocky Hall?’
‘It’s a little place between Pambula and Bombala. It’s miles from anywhere. I figure it’s gotta be safe.’
‘Sounds good to me, mate, but a lot of towns down south aren’t bypassed. There’s no bypass of Albion Park, the highway goes straight through it. You’ll never get through there. You bypass Kiama but Nowra’s pretty big and you go right through it. I reckon it might be blocked. Same at Milton, Ulladulla, and even Batemans Bay. I think we might be better off going inland.’
‘I was planning on going out towards Appin then cutting into back roads to work our way south. It’ll probably take a long time but it won’t be dark for another nine hours. We should be there by then if we can use the highway for some of the drive.’
‘Mate—I don’t have ten hours of fuel in my tank. I’m only about half full, maybe four hundred k’s. We’ll have to get fuel somewhere’, Bozo said.
‘Yeah, me too, although I think I’ve got less range than you. I think we should just fill up any time we see an open petrol station to start with. Then we can work out what we do after that.’
‘Sure, that makes sense. Getting back to the route, do you have a map we can work with?’
‘I’ve got a state road directory, but it doesn’t have all the smaller tracks on it, let’s go have a look. Why don’t Cindy and Jill get out and stretch their legs?’
Bozo glanced back at the car, ‘They’ll be right. I think they’ll just stay sitting in the car.’
Brick wondered briefly what was going on between Bozo and Cindy but figured it wasn’t his problem. As they walked back to his car, Rita walked over and smiled at Bozo before asking Brick, ‘Time to get going again?’
‘Bozo had a couple of suggestions on the best way to travel’, Brick said. ‘I figured we should have a look through the road directory and plan a little ahead.’
Rita nodded, ‘I’ll grab it. I can’t get a signal on the phone. Maybe we should listen to the radio and try to hear what’s going on before we head off.’
Bozo and Brick walked to the front of Brick’s car as Rita brought the road atlas out. Brick was pleased to see both Max and Sharn had finally got out of the car. Sharn was looking into the bush near the side of the car. Max had picked up a stick and was wandering back to the trailer.
Brick opened the road directory on the bonnet of his car and flicked through until he found the map covering the Heathcote area. ‘Aw, shit, I forgot that it doesn’t have the fire trails on it,’ he muttered.
‘What’s that, Brick?’ Bozo asked.
‘The directory doesn’t include fire trails. I think we might have to wing it a bit. I know a lot of the tracks, I’m pretty sure I can get us through to Jamberoo without hitting a highway.’
‘Where do we go from there?’
‘There’re other tracks that should take us down to Berry. Maybe we can get fuel there? It’s far enough from Sydney that it should be okay.’
‘Yeah, maybe. . .’
‘Dad! Dad! Come see this!’
Brick turned at the sound of Max’s voice. Max was standing by the left rear door of Bozo’s car, waving him to come.
‘What’s up, mate?’ Brick said and started walking towards him.
Bozo looked up from the map, saw Max by his car, and yelled, ‘Oi, come away from there!’
Brick glanced quickly at Bozo and then started moving towards Bozo’s car.
‘Leave it alone, Brick!’ Bozo shouted, shutting the road atlas and hurrying after him.
Bozo reached Brick just as he got to the front of his car, and grabbed him by the arm. ‘Leave it alone, mate!’ Bozo warned.
Brick shook him off, took two steps, and looked in the back window of Bozo’s car. He hesitated for a moment before turning to Bozo and saying, ‘What the fuck?’
Bozo said, ‘It’s none of your concern …’
‘Bullshit, Bozo,’ Brick interrupted. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
Rita joined Brick and looked in the rear window. ‘Oh my god!’ she gasped, and reached for the door.
Bozo rushed forward, blocking her. ‘Really, you don’t want to do that,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you should open the door.’
Brick grabbed Rita by the upper arm, pulling her back. He spoke slowly and with precision. ‘Bozo, can you please explain to us why your wife and daughter are tied up in the back of your car?’
06:30 SST (08:30 AEST): Singapore
‘What the fuck were you thinking?’ Lara demanded.
‘It seemed like a good idea,’ Chris began.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Lara interrupted. ‘Did you actually engage your brain or were you just working on testosterone?’
Chris and Mick both started to splutter an answer when Lincoln butted in ‘I agree with Lara. What the fuck were you thinking? Did we lock ourselves into this room for nothing? What the hell?’
‘Look, Mick saw someone walking down the hall. We couldn’t let him walk into the crazies so we decided to tell him what was happening,’ Chris said.
‘Who did you see?’ Lincoln asked.
‘When I looked through the spy-hole. I saw a guy walk past. Not rushing or anything, he was just strolling down the hall. I figured he mustn’t have known what was going on.’
‘So did you tell him?’ Lara asked.
‘When I opened the door, I couldn’t see him, so I walked towards the lift well. That’s when that infected porter came running.’
‘What infected porter?’ Lara asked.
‘Uh, just after you crashed, we thought we saw someone in the hall.’ Chris explained. ‘When Mick stuck his head out to have a look, he saw a hotel porter. We think he was infected. He tried to get in for a while but ended up going away.’
‘You mean you knew there were infected people in the hall and you still went out there?’ Lara asked, aghast. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Like Mick said, he saw a guy, just walking in the hall looking like he had no idea what was going on. We couldn’t let him get attacked,’ Chris replied defensively.
‘Well he’s fucked now,’ Lincoln said. ‘That’s if he wasn’t infected already. Why would someone be walking around at this time of day anyway?’
Chris said, ‘If you think about it, then it’s no surprise at all. If you’d crashed at ten or eleven last night and slept until this morning, you wouldn’t necessarily know anything had happened. He might have just been going down for breakfast.’
‘What about the text message?’ Lara asked.
Chris said, ‘Maybe he doesn’t look at his phone in the morning.’
Lara shook her head, beginning to get a little annoyed. ‘Look, either way, it isn’t our problem. We have to protect ourselves first and foremost. It’s not safe to go out in the halls if there is a crazy person out there.’
‘You’re right,’ Lincoln said. ‘No matter what happens outside that door, I don’t think we should open it unless we all agree to it.’
‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Mick said. ‘We just didn’t want to see someone else get hurt.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I get that,’ Lincoln replied, ‘but since that guy kept trying to get in, even with a busted arm, I really think we need to keep ourselves locked away until this calms down.’
‘So what if it doesn’t calm down Linc?’ Chris asked. ‘You saw w
hat happened down on the street before. We have to start thinking about what we’re going to do to get out of this.’
‘Jesus Christ Chris, no need to panic,’ Lara said. ‘We’re safe here.’
‘I don’t think I’m panicking, Lara. I’m just pointing out that we saw: police, fire brigade, and soldiers getting overrun. Who do you think is going to rescue us?’
‘Chris has a point,’ Mick said. ‘No one’s going to be rescuing us. We should make plans to get away.’
‘Ah, the testosterone brigade is at it again.’ Lara sarcastically interjected.
‘Oh fuck off Lara,’ Chris replied in a surprisingly calm voice. ‘If you’re not worried, you should be. You saw an armoured vehicle get overrun. That guy had a bone sticking out of his arm and he kept trying to force his way in, and there were other people in the hallway attacking our door. We saw police and army get mobbed and go crazy. We’re fucked if we’re stay here. We’ve got no chance.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ Lincoln asked. Before anyone could reply he couldn’t help but add, ‘Let’s not forget that we haven’t got any weapons and the hall is full of psychotic killers.’
‘I don’t have any answers yet,’ Chris said, managing to stay calm. ‘I’m just saying, we need to at least start to think about how we can get out of here and to a place of safety. I don’t have any confidence that we’re going to get rescued any time soon. Anybody that gets attacked is gonna end up attacking other people. That could escalate pretty fast until there are more attackers than normal people.’
‘I don’t want to be trapped in here while the hall fills up with nutters,’ Mick interjected. ‘While there’s only a couple we’ve got a fighting chance of getting out of here. If every person on this floor goes out into the hall and gets turned into one of those things, we’ll never make it out.’
‘Fuck, I hadn’t thought of that,’ Lincoln said. ‘What if we called all the other rooms and warned them?’