“He’s dead,” she said. “And alone.”
The walkie-talkie squawked again.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“Yeah,” Pete muttered. He glanced again at the assassin’s gun, which he’d just used to assassinate someone himself. But there would be time enough to dwell on it later. He hoped there would be time.
Chapter 20 - Escaping the Past
Indiana and Michigan
The hand-truck’s small wheels weren’t designed for long distances, or for travelling through unevenly paved alleyways, littered with mud, recent debris, and the partially decayed detritus dumped by the nearby businesses. Having to pause at each creaking crash in case it was one of the undead, and freezing whenever they heard a distant engine buzz then fade, they were unable to pick up any momentum. By the time they reached the haulage depot, Pete’s hand was blistered and his back was sore. Rufus yipped his approval as they dragged the generator inside, while Jenny closed the door behind them.
“You got here before us,” Olivia said.
“Of course we did,” Jenny said. “Did you have any trouble?”
“Yes,” Olivia said. “One zombie. One cop. We killed both, but you can hear them driving around. I think they’re looking for the cop we shot. He must have been on patrol, but we shot him just before he could radio in.”
“Good, then we have time,” Jenny said. “And we’re leaving just in time, too. Had to deal with two of the monsters myself.”
“The cops?” Pete asked.
“The other monsters,” Jenny said. “There are more of them around than before. Now, get yourselves inside, and that generator up and into the van.”
Corrie was dismantling the charging station, with Tyler and Dwayne holding it steady. Robyn and Wayde were emptying the back of the van.
“Wayde, find us two planks,” Jenny said. “Long enough to use as a ramp. Help him, Robyn. Good girl.”
“What are you doing, Corrie?” Pete asked.
“Vans like this don’t have a two-pin plug,” Corrie said. “Easier we bring the whole thing with us, and I’ll figure out how to connect it all when we’re a little less pressed for time. Just as soon as I dislodge this recalcitrant bolt.” She braced the wrench, stood, stepped back, and kicked. The wrench went flying, skittering across the hard concrete floor.
“Cool,” Tyler said.
“And that’s how you undo a bolt,” Corrie said. “Go see if you can find the wrench for me.”
Olivia smiled. “That’s the first thing he’s said since… since the cabin,” she whispered.
“Perfect,” Jenny said, as Tyler and Robyn returned. “Now you can give Pete a hand getting it aboard.”
Twenty minutes later, they were ready to go.
“So when do we leave?” Pete asked.
“Not just yet. A bit closer to dusk,” Jenny said. “In the dark, we’ll see their headlights, we’ll hear them, but they won’t hear us.”
All four stood by the doors, watching outside, listening to the buzz of the bikes. It was obvious the cops were searching the city. What Pete couldn’t tell was whether the bikers were searching for their missing comrade, or searching for the people who’d killed him.
“We’ll go due west,” Olivia said. “That’s the quickest way out of the city.”
“But then north,” Corrie said. “We have to. Not just to catch the plane, but if we can’t get the charging station or generator to work, we’ll need that cop car. Jenny, you said you’ve been to Point Betsie?”
“I have,” Jenny said.
“So you know the way?” Corrie asked.
“Yes,” Jenny said, “but I’ll be the one staying behind. I know what you’re suggesting, and I’ll have none of it. You and me, Ms Guinn, if it comes to that, we’ll walk.”
“If anyone’s staying behind, it’ll be us,” Olivia said.
“It will not, and I will not be argued with, young lady,” Jenny said with matronly sternness. “You two will take the children to the plane, and then you’ll come back, aboard that plane, and with enough gasoline to drive to Nora’s cabin where you’ll collect Ms Guinn and myself. Understood?”
“Yes, Jenny,” Olivia said, giving a shrug.
A buzz in the distance grew louder, nearer. Much nearer. But even as they raised their weapons, it began to fade. The silence stretched, and so did the tension, until it was thinner than their patience.
“They’ve gone,” Olivia said. “Whether they’re looking for us or not, they’re not looking around here. I say we leave.”
The van had been designed more for deliveries than moving house, even small homes like Pete’s. More familiar with which roads to avoid, Olivia drove while Corrie rode assault-rifle in the passenger seat. Pete, Jenny, Rufus, and the children were crammed in the back. There were no windows, but lining the van’s sides were brackets to which cargo could be secured. To those, they’d knotted blankets which gave them something to grab as the van swerved left and right with violent irregularity. With an unnaturally quiet engine, the bump and scrape of every collision was magnified tenfold.
“Just a trash can,” Jenny would say, her voice calm and almost soothing. “Just a side mirror, that’s all.”
But there were just so many collisions. One after another, with barely time to brace between impacts. Pete was certain the van wouldn’t stay on the road for long. Some collisions were soft, followed by a rocking bump, which had to mark an impact with one of the undead. But as gruesome as that was, as terrifying as their ignorance in the confined, windowless space, they were moving forward and at speed.
“Should have thought of a way to signal to them in the cab,” Pete said.
“And what would you want to tell them?” Jenny asked.
“That we’re still alive,” Dwayne said.
“And we’d like to stay that way, please,” Wayde added.
“Hush, you two,” Jenny said. “This is more comfortable than that roller coaster you made me suffer through last summer. Twice, I’ll add. If I could put up with that, you can put up with this.”
Robyn had gone as quiet as her brother, and he’d turned as pale as flour. Even Rufus whined unhappily as he sprawled, legs splayed, his nails screeching against the metal floor as they swerved left, then right, then left again.
“Why don’t you tell us a story, Pete?” Jenny said. “Tell us about Canada.”
“Sure. Yeah, why not,” Pete said. “But let me start at the beginning. And that’s Australia, and Corrie’s little cabin in the outback. It’s a place so hot that cheese would melt. And the spiders, they’re small but—”
A narrow beam of light speared through the van’s wall. His brain registered the sound of the metal tearing a second later as a second bullet ripped a hole in the vehicle’s side.
“They found us!” Dwayne yelled.
“Lie flat!” Jenny said.
Pete could hear it now, the sound of an engine. But it sounded normal. Like a car, not a dirt bike. A third bullet pierced the van’s walls, while another ricocheted off the thicker metal near the hinges.
The van began to pick up speed, accelerating fast, but it wouldn’t be fast enough, certainly not when they reached the open road beyond the city.
Pete picked up the rifle, and crawled on hands and knees to the door.
“What are you doing?” Jenny demanded.
“Shooting back,” Pete said. “It might slow them down.”
He reached up, pulled the latch, and the door flew open, slamming back against the van’s side. In turn, he slipped, nearly falling out of the door, but landed on one knee. Something cracked, and he hoped it wasn’t him, as he raised the rifle, firing a wild and un-aimed shot.
He dropped down, crawling forward, leaning against the edge of the open door, assessing his target. They were being chased by a police car with two people inside. Driver, and a passenger with a handgun, which was being wildly fired out the window. Pete fired, but it did no good. He didn’t know if the bullet had hit anythin
g, but the car kept on coming. Accelerating. The buildings on either side of them were low, spaced out. They were nearing the city limits, and so running out of side roads to swerve down. He flipped the switch, and fired on fully automatic.
Spider-web cracks danced across the cruiser’s windshield. Pete wasn’t sure if he’d hit either of their pursuers, but the car slowed. Stopped.
“That’s it!” he yelled. “We got ’em.”
“Nan?” Wayde asked, his voice tremulous.
Pete turned. Jenny was clutching her shoulder.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me,” she said, jerking her chin towards the still-open door. “Worry about them.”
Pete turned. A quad bike had pulled out onto the road, a dirt bike riding level, the rider barely holding on with one hand as he raised a machine pistol, spraying the electric van with half a magazine.
“Hell, no!” Pete barked, firing back.
The quad bike erupted in a blossom of fire, a volcanic explosion that threw the rider from the dirt bike, and Pete back against the van’s wall. Baffled, he stared at the flames spreading across the road.
“What did I just hit?” Pete asked. “Whatever it is, we’ll get away now, Jenny.” He turned. Jenny was motionless, her eyes open, but unseeing. “Jenny?” Letting go of the rifle, he scrabbled over to her. He’d thought she’d only been shot in the shoulder, but there was a second bullet wound in her chest.
“The children are safe,” Olivia said, as she and Pete stood over Jenny’s body. After the van had stopped, they had carried Jenny to a small cluster of trees near the roadside. “The children are safe, Jenny. Thanks to you. And we’ll keep them safe. I promise. Thank you.”
They stepped back. Pete waited for Olivia to turn around before he did the same, following her back to the van.
“It must have been the rider of the dirt bike who shot her,” Pete said. “But he died in the explosion. I still don’t know what caused it.”
“The flamethrower,” Olivia said. “Vevermee had a flamethrower. Must have got it from a farm. I hope that’s where he found it.”
“A flamethrower?” Pete shook his head.
“I wish I could have buried her,” Olivia said. “But there’s no time.”
Corrie finished her inspection, then walked back around to the cab in which Wayde and Dwayne now sat.
“How’s the van?” Pete asked.
“It’ll be fine,” Corrie said. “I think we can make another fifteen miles before we have to charge the battery. You better drive, Olivia. The twins can ride up front, and I’ll ride in the back.”
Pete looked back towards South Bend, the city he’d called home. The city he’d left, and never imagined he’d see again. He almost wished he hadn’t. But he was leaving with Olivia. Unbelievably. As the result of one accident after another, they were together. Which raised the question of where they would go now.
Part 3
The War for Humanity
Canada
2nd March
Chapter 21 - A Canadian Quarantine
Lake Michigan
“Welcome back, Romeo. I knew you’d make it,” Andrea said, helping Pete up from the dinghy onto the bobbing seaplane.
“She did not,” Jerome said. “She was sure you were dead.”
“Hey, no fair. I’m nothing but romantic,” Andrea said. “And you found Juliet.”
“Her name’s Olivia,” Jerome said.
“Spoilsport,” Andrea said. “Let go of the dinghy, Pete. We’re crammed tighter than crabs in a bucket.”
Pete was the last aboard the plane. “You’ve added seats,” he said.
“Welcome to Air-Drea, delivering mail and people since the apocalypse began,” Andrea said, as Jerome secured the door. “Hi,” she said, loudly as she made her way back along the aisle to the cockpit. “Welcome aboard Air-Drea flight zero-zero-zero-six. Flight time to Thunder Bay is only a few hours, so we won’t be serving food. For entertainment, Constable MacDonald can serenade you with his favourite songs from his least favourite musicals. But if you ask him nicely, I’m sure he’ll stop.”
“We made it,” Pete said, taking the free seat next to Olivia, opposite Corrie and Rufus. “We actually made it. And we made it back to the plane in time.”
“And there is an actual plane,” Olivia said.
“You thought I was making it up?”
“I worried that my subconscious was making you up,” Olivia said. “But it’s real. You’re real. And we’re really getting out of here.”
Further conversation was paused as the engine’s whine grew to a roar, and the boat-plane lumbered through the waves. Rufus whimpered. Olivia closed her eyes, and Pete smiled.
The previous evening, they’d driven north until the van’s battery was nearly drained. Stopping at a farmhouse foreclosed on months before the outbreak, they’d spent a tense hour watching Corrie jury-rig the mains-powered charging station to the generator. An even tenser hour followed as they’d waited for the digital range-meter in the truck’s cab to reveal they’d reach the lighthouse. By the time it did, night had descended, and they were forced to spend a miserably cold night in the farmhouse. Despite having a generator and an inch of spare diesel, they were unable to turn on a light in case Vevermee, or his people, were hunting for them nearby. Instead, they sat together in the dark, mourning the death of Jenny and so many others.
But it had been an uneventful night. So, too, had been the morning’s drive north. There were zombies in the fields, and shadows in the woodland, but no danger on the road.
They’d taken a different route back, avoiding the roads on which Pete and Corrie had been shot at, stopping only once to discuss whether to travel to any of the hamlets and houses where they’d seen people on their journey south. They’d decided no. The plane would already be packed, and they didn’t want to risk being shot at again.
At the lighthouse, they’d been both disappointed and relieved to find no refugees waiting for the seaplane. Nor had anyone been there in the last few days. If people hiding nearby had seen them arrive, no one had ventured out to investigate.
There was nothing but relief when the yellow and red water bomber had appeared overhead. Getting aboard, in the overloaded dinghy, had renewed the tension, but it was seeping away now the plane was airborne.
Pete had done it. He’d actually, somehow, done it. He’d made it to South Bend and out again. For the woman he… yeah, it had to be love.
She was looking at him and smiling. He really did like her smile.
“We actually made it,” Pete whispered.
Olivia took his hand. “Nice job, Romeo,” she whispered back.
He grinned, until his eyes fell on Dwayne and Wayde, both downcast and quiet, emotionally exhausted like Tyler and Robyn. The children had been through so much in such a short space of time. But they were safe. They were alive, and they would have the opportunity to grieve and, one day, recover.
Jerome appeared in the cockpit, and beckoned them both up to the front.
“Answer me this,” Andrea said, after he and Olivia had donned the mic-and-headphones sets. “How can Romeo and Juliet be the greatest love story ever told if they die at the end, eh? That’s been bugging me since we dropped you off.”
“It really has,” Jerome said. “She’s talked about little else.”
“I guess it says something about the romance stories Shakespeare read,” Olivia said. “And a lot more about his idea of a good date.”
“That’s what I said,” Andrea said. “She’s a keeper, Pete.”
“Glad you approve. This is flight zero-zero-zero-six?” Pete asked. “You’ve been busy the last few days.”
“From here to Thunder Bay was flight three,” Andrea said, explaining her arbitrary numbering system. “From there to Nanaimo via Pine Dock was four. Back to Thunder Bay was five, making this number six.”
“You went back to B.C.?” Pete asked. “How is it?”
“It could be a lot worse,” Andrea said.
“The quality of the nightlife has gone seriously downhill, but there are people there.”
“They’re retaking Vancouver City,” Jerome said. “Refugees are being organised into soldiers and construction crew. The people who aren’t fighting are building defences. Street by street, block by block, they’re clearing the city, bringing back order, control. The news of a Pacific Alliance is spreading, and calm’s going with it.”
“Cool,” Pete said. “Have more Australians arrived?”
“Nope,” Andrea said. “And your jet wasn’t due back until a couple of hours after we left. The idea of an alliance is bringing calm. But the refugees are bringing zombies. It’s going to get messy, but then it’ll get better.”
“Is there any news about Alberta?” Olivia asked. “Specifically a place called Medicine Cap?”
“Do you mean Medicine Hat?” Jerome said. “There’s no news. Nothing specific that I’ve heard.”
“We could pass over it on our way to Vancouver,” Andrea said. “If you know how to parachute, I’ll drop you off.”
“Tyler and Robyn have an aunt there,” Olivia said. “That’s where they were trying to reach.”
“They’re Canadian?” Jerome asked.
“I guess they are now,” Olivia said.
“And the other two?” Jerome asked.
“Step-siblings,” Olivia said quickly. “Which makes them Canadian, too, right?”
“Borders and nationalities don’t matter anymore,” Jerome said. “We’ll help them whatever, but they’d be safer coming with us to Vancouver.”
“Safer than staying in Thunder Bay,” Andrea said. “That place has gone super-military. I heard they’d conscripted the geese into the air force.”
“Unless you want to take them with you to Australia,” Jerome said, ignoring the pilot. “I assume that’s where you’re going now?”
“I… I guess so,” Pete said. “We haven’t… I mean, we haven’t really talked about it. But we should report back in.”
Surviving The Evacuation | Life Goes On (Book 2): No More News Page 16