“It’s Nicole,” Pete whispered. “That’s Olivia’s roommate.”
Corrie was already cutting the sheet from the other, taller, body.
“I… I don’t know him,” Pete said.
“Look for a note, something that says where Olivia went,” Corrie said, crossing to the bedrooms.
Pete didn’t move. Nicole. She’d been dead for days. Her face was sallow. Sunken. Gaunt. Bloodless. Lifeless. Nearly unrecognisable. But in his mind’s eye, he could still see her smile. Hear her laugh.
“It’s like a changing room floor on Black Friday,” Corrie said, coming back into the den. “Pete? Did you find a note?”
“A note?” he asked.
“Someone wrapped those two in sheets,” Corrie said. “Someone who cared. It had to be Olivia, so see if she left a note as to where she went.”
“There won’t be one,” he said, after a lacklustre search of the kitchen counter. “Of course there won’t. Mrs Mathers is in Florida, and she thinks I’m in Hawaii. Nicole’s… gone. Who’s she going to leave a note for?”
From outside, muffled by glass, came a gunshot. Then another.
“Time we left,” Corrie said. “Anything you want to take?”
“No. Wait, yes.” Pete picked took a photograph from the wall in which Olivia and Nicole stood over a five-pint milkshake, trying so hard not to laugh they couldn’t keep the straws in their mouths. He’d taken the photograph himself, at a county fair last fall. In the picture, though he hadn’t realised it until now, Olivia only had eyes for him. “Just this.”
“Where else can we look?” Corrie asked as Pete drove west, threading his truck around the twisted remains of a motorbike.
“Nowhere. Everywhere,” Pete said. “I wonder who that guy was. Must have been a friend of Nicole’s. But how’d they die? They were shot, but not in the head, so they weren’t infected.”
“Don’t dwell on it,” Corrie said. “All that matters is that someone shrouded them in those bed-sheets. It had to be Olivia.”
“Right. So she did that, then went to the cabin. And after that… she could have gone anywhere. Absolutely anywhere. We won’t find her. Let’s head back.”
“To the lighthouse? Are you sure?” Corrie asked. “I mean, are you sure you’re happy turning around now and heading back to the plane? I don’t know what’ll happen next, where we’ll end up, but I can’t imagine we’ll ever return here.”
“Yeah. It was dumb coming looking for her. But we had to come somewhere.” He slowed automatically at the sight of a stop sign, then accelerated through it. “Fire down there. Smoke. Something’s burning. Somewhere. No, I’m glad we came. But there wasn’t any chance of—”
“Whoa! Stop!” Corrie called.
Pete slammed on the brakes. Ahead, a fawn-coloured dog had darted out into the road, then sprung back to the kerb where it stood, tail wagging, watching them.
“Dogs would be like kangaroos, they can’t get infected, right?” Pete said uncertainly.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But we’ll keep our distance. No! There’s… it’s a boy.”
About fourteen, he darted out from an alley to grab the dog’s collar. The boy began hauling the dog back towards the alley, but the dog was less eager than the boy to return to cover.
“Wait here,” Corrie said. Leaving her rifle, she stepped outside. “Hi!” she called. “G’day. My name’s Corrie. Can we help?”
The boy looked at her, and then the truck, and hauled even harder on the dog’s collar, but the dog shook and shuddered, tearing himself free. The dog took a step towards the truck, head on one side, almost looking puzzled.
“That’s a nice dog,” Corrie said. “We’re heading up to Canada. If you want, you can come with us. And if you’ve got friends, family, we’ve got room in the back of the truck. It’ll be safer with us than staying here, I promise.”
Another figure stepped out of the alley, this one older. In her late twenties, a baseball hat covered her face, shielding her eyes, while a trailing long coat covered most of the rest of her.
“Where did you get that truck?” she asked in a summer-breeze voice that was, to Pete, as familiar as a dream.
He threw the door open. “Olivia!”
Olivia froze, mouth open, as Pete ran towards her.
“Hey!” the teenage boy called out, dragging a knife from the back of his belt.
The dog growled, leaping in front of Pete.
“Hey, no!” Pete said, staggering to a halt.
“Rufus, down!” Olivia said. “And put that away, Dwayne. It’s okay. This is Pete.”
“Your Pete?” Dwayne asked.
“My Pete,” Olivia said. “It is, isn’t it? It really is you?” She sidestepped the still suspicious Rufus and threw her arms around Pete, gave him the briefest kiss, then stepped back. “I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But I want to know, I do, just not here, not now. Was that you shooting earlier?”
“Some of it was us, but not all,” Corrie said.
“Olivia, this is Corrie. Corrie, Olivia,” Pete said.
“Your missing sister? Seriously? You live in Hawaii? I have so many questions, but we truly don’t have time.”
“Livy, I can hear them!” Dwayne said, his voice ringing with urgent fear.
“I’m ninety percent sure this is a hallucination,” Olivia said. “In case it isn’t, grab your guns and follow me, quick. Go, Dwayne. Back inside the store.”
Boy and dog bounded side-by-side down the narrow alley, stopping by an infinitesimally ajar fire-door. Dwayne pulled out a sharpened chisel and pried the door open. Rufus bounded inside first.
“Why are we hiding?” Corrie asked.
“Go. Inside. Trust me,” Olivia said, pushing her, then Pete into the store. She grinned. “Seriously, Pete— No, I can hear them coming. Go. Get in.”
She pulled the door closed after them.
They were in a small stockroom. Dark. Dry. The shelves full of coloured paper, pre-packaged glitter, and pre-cut card.
“Dwayne,” Olivia said. “Take Rufus. Go wait by the back. Keep watch, okay?”
“What’s going on?” Pete asked.
“Shh!” Olivia whispered, lowering her voice. “The short version is that a psycho cop is burning the city to the ground around our ears. We don’t have time for the long version.” She eased down the crowded corridor leading from the stockroom, through a small office, and paused at the broken door leading to the front of the store.
Pete followed, with Corrie behind him.
Beyond the grimy plate-glass windows, he saw his truck, but nothing else. He was about to ask why they were hiding, when he heard a buzzing whine, growing in volume as a dirt bike shot into view, skidding to a halt by the truck. A man in uniform threw himself off, unslinging a machine pistol. He ran to the truck, laid a hand on the engine, then checked inside before walking, slowly around the vehicle.
“Only one,” Olivia whispered, reaching into her coat and withdrawing a small pistol. “On three. Ready?”
Pete glanced at Corrie. She nodded, so he did the same. There was no need to ask ready for what, and no time to ask why. Nor was there even time to act. Even as Olivia took a crouching step forward, a second buzzing whine filled the store, a second bike came to a screeching halt outside. Again, the rider was a cop. Or partly dressed as a cop. She wore the coat, but over jeans and boots.
The two police officers conferred. Though Pete couldn’t hear what they were saying, it was clear they were discussing the truck with its still-warm engine.
Olivia frowned. Corrie raised two fingers, then three. Olivia shook her head, motioning they should head back through the store, but then grabbed Pete’s arm just as he was about to move. She shook her head, raised a finger to her lips, and shook her head again.
Two more vehicles approached. The first, a quad bike, the second, a police cruiser, out of which climbed two people. Again, all were dressed in some form of police uniform, but only the police car’s pass
enger wore a complete set, including tie and hat.
The smartly dressed officer spoke to the first-on-the-scene biker, then snapped his fingers. The car’s driver ran to the police car’s trunk, retrieved something, and ran back to the officer, holding it out.
Pete squinted, trying to identify the object, realising it was a bottle with a rag in the top just as the cop lit it, and hurled it through the open door of his truck. Flames exploded as the glass broke.
Olivia clamped her hand over Pete’s mouth, pushing down on his shoulder as he automatically stood.
“Go,” Olivia whispered.
From outside, came another soft crash and just as soft a whoosh as another firebomb ignited. As Pete got level with the stockroom, glass shattered behind them as a third was thrown through the store’s window.
He didn’t need Corrie’s hand at his back to know to run. Dwayne and Rufus already were, sprinting along the alley behind the store, across the road, and to another alley beyond.
A block away, in the kitchen of a mid-row diner, they stopped and concealed themselves behind the metal counter.
“I want to make sure they don’t follow us again,” Corrie said. “I don’t think they saw us. You didn’t hear any shooting, did you?”
“No. I don’t think so,” Pete said.
“No,” Corrie said. “Who are they?”
“I’ll give you the highlight reel,” Olivia said. “Did you see the cop in the shirt and tie?”
“The passenger in the car?”
“His name’s Vevermee,” Olivia said. “Or I think it is. And he’s a state trooper from Michigan. There’s another cop, Herrera, who wasn’t there, and he might be dead, but he’s an officer from South Bend. I think they’re the only two real cops in the group. The rest dress as police, but they’re just a gang really. Vevermee is burning the city down. I think he is, or was, trying to burn out the infected.”
“How many more of them are there?” Corrie asked.
“At least fifty,” Olivia said. “They’re up at the airport, and they’re close to the ruins of Notre Dame.”
“The ruins? The university was destroyed?” Pete asked.
“Burned down. By him,” Olivia said. “That’s why we’re trying to get out of here.”
“Yeah, the slow way,” Dwayne said.
“Precisely,” Olivia said. “The slow way. The safe way.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you came back, Pete. But why?”
“Um… for you, I guess,” Pete said. “Sort of.”
Olivia laughed. “Seriously? That has to be the most crazy-romantic thing ever, coming all the way from Hawaii after the end of the world.”
“Actually, we’ve come a lot further than that,” Corrie said. “From Australia. But there’s a boat-plane landing on Lake Michigan tomorrow to take us back to safety. We’ve got room for six more passengers.”
“Counting Rufus, there’s seven of us,” Olivia said.
“We’ll make it work,” Corrie said.
“You came from Australia on a boat-plane?” Dwayne asked.
“No, on a jet plane to British Columbia,” Pete said. “Lisa Kempton’s jet, actually. In British Columbia we met some Canadian police, and they flew us to Lake Michigan. Partly so the jet would airlift some sick children back to Australia, and partly because we’re supposed to be finding out what America’s like now.”
“Canadian police?” Dwayne asked. “You mean it’s still normal up there?”
“I wouldn’t say normal,” Corrie said. “It’s bad, but not as bad as here. They’re evacuating Vancouver City, co-ordinating in the Pacific, and putting people to work on the farms in Australia.”
“That’s a relief,” Olivia said. “It really is. When I tell you what happened here, you’ll understand.”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to do that now, right?” Dwayne asked. “Can’t we leave?”
“Not yet,” Olivia said. “We can’t let him follow. You know, I think he burned down the hospital.” She crouched, rose up, and peered at the road, before ducking down. “There’s a zombie out there. Not heading towards us. We should stay here a few more minutes. You were driving your truck, so you went to Nora’s cabin, right?”
“And to your apartment,” Pete said. “We saw the bodies. I saw Nicole.”
“Oh. Her death was an accident,” Olivia said. “The man with her, the other body, that was Dante. He worked with her at the grocery store. They came home, the day of the outbreak, with this guy, Mack. Dante was already shot. And Mack shot Nicole. I ran for help, straight to the hospital. I sort of ended up working there, until it burned down. I think Vevermee did that. I didn’t have my keys, so I went to your place. I had to break into your apartment for the keys to the truck, and, after, I drove up to the cabin.”
“There were two bodies,” Pete said. “A man in the bushes, and a woman in the cabin. It had burned down.”
“Naomi and Conrad,” Olivia said, sighing. “They had two kids. Tyler and Robyn. I brought the children here. Found Dwayne and Wayde and their nan. And since then, we’ve been trying to leave, but we’ve barely been able to stay hidden from those damn cops. Do you remember when the news carried stories about the long-delayed trial of some far-away and long-ago war criminal? They’d describe atrocities too grim even for Hollywood, and you’d look at the guy’s photo and think there was nothing special about him. If you bumped into him on the street, you wouldn’t give him a second glance. Vevermee is like that. I first saw him running a barricade north of the city. Stopping cars and…” She stopped, stood, and checked outside. “I’ll tell you the rest later. It’s raining. They won’t be able to follow us. Dwayne, do you remember the way?”
“Of course. Just try to keep up this time.”
Chapter 18 - U-Call, We Carry
South Bend
The barbershop wasn’t where Pete had been expecting, and the woman standing in the shadows wasn’t who.
“I know you,” Pete said, looking at the old woman holding the shotgun.
“But I don’t know you,” she said, her hand uncomfortably close to the trigger.
“Yes you do, Jenny,” Olivia said. “This is Pete.”
“Pete? The Pete? Your Pete?” the old woman asked. “Well, now, isn’t that a turn-up for the books?”
“Very old books,” Olivia said. “The kind with myths and knights and dragons. He came all the way from Australia to get me.”
“Rode in on a white charger, did he?” Jenny asked.
“A truck,” Olivia said. “But the cops torched it.”
“Of course they did. Devils, the lot of them, wanting to turn our home into hell. Wayde, Dwayne, keep watch at the front. But stay away from that window, you hear? Robyn, Tyler, you help. Listen as much as look, remember? Now, young man, tell me how you came to be here, and what you were doing in Australia because Livy thought you’d gone to Hawaii.”
Briefly, Pete and Corrie ran through the explanation, after which Olivia ran through the briefer introductions.
Wayde and Dwayne, twins, were two of Jenny’s grandsons. Fourteen years old, they were identical in looks and clothing, and armament. Both carried wickedly long hunting knives in their hands. Their mother had gone to Oregon for a job interview, leaving Jenny to watch the boys in their house a few blocks further west and south. The other two children, Robyn and Tyler, were the children of the couple who’d died at the cabin.
“It’s a crying shame you lost your truck,” Jenny said. “It’ll be a long hike to Michigan.”
“Why did you pick this place to hide?” Pete asked.
“Where would a deranged cop not bother looking for people?” Jenny asked. “We were aiming for the mortuary on Napier Street, but this barbershop is as far as we reached.”
Olivia glanced over at the children, but they were paying more attention to Rufus than to the street outside, and none at all to the adults. “After Robyn and Tyler’s mom and dad died, I drove their RV back to South Bend. I didn’t know about Veverme
e, you see. Not really. The RV was well supplied, and I figured I could get some diesel from… well, somewhere. I was heading back to what was familiar, I guess. Anyway, we got to Nora’s place. It was somewhere I knew. But I saw lights on in Jenny’s. There hadn’t been any when I went through there the first time.”
“I’d gone to get my pills,” Jenny said. “Nearly blew Livy’s head off before I realised who she was. Thought she was another damn looter. There were a lot of those.”
“We joined forces, and nearly joined a convoy. That was before the university was burned down. That’s… no. No, I’ll tell you about it some other time. After that, we went to the carpet store. But Vevermee followed us there.”
“But why did you want to go there?” Pete asked.
“For the tools and the building materials,” Olivia said. “We thought we could make a fortress. Somewhere to hide from the undead. There was no food, of course, but there’s a lot been left behind by all the people who fled.”
“He found us. The demon cop,” Jenny said, nearly spitting the words. “Saw the lights, you see. The contractors had left a generator, so we were able to keep the lights on at night. But he found us, and he burned the place down. We tried going east, but he’s barricaded the bridges. We’re heading south now, keeping to the cover of houses and stores, moving at dawn and dusk, trying to get far enough away we can drive. They look for lights and listen for engines.”
“We left some diesel at the carpet store,” Olivia said. “That’s where Dwayne and I were heading when we heard your truck. I thought we might as well bring it with us. Rufus must have recognised the truck, though I don’t know why he likes it so much. I met him near Nora’s, just after the outbreak, but he didn’t come with me up to the cabin. When we got back to South Bend, in the RV, he was sitting there, as if he was waiting for me.”
“He’s an odd one,” Jenny said. “Acts as if he’s the owner and we’re his pets. Now, you said a plane will be waiting up at Point Betsie tomorrow? If we can sprint to northern Michigan, we can take a shortcut to Oregon. That’s where my daughter is.” She gave another nod towards the twins.
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