Aftermath (Invasion of the Dead) - Part I (9 page)

Debra Davidson looked at the burglar for a long moment.  “Get out of my house.”  He laughed, and disappeared into the laundry.

The memory still made Callan angry, but he couldn’t help feel immense love for his mother at protecting them the way she had.  A weaker person might have let the man take Kristy or him, and who knew how that might have turned out. 
She set a wonderful example and made him want to be a better person.  He would die protecting her.

“The plan is still to go home, make sure mom and dad are safe.  Then we can check everyone else’s property.”

“
Are you still backing that horse?”  Dylan said.  “It’s a silly idea.  My house is closest and it has everything we need.”

“We’re not going to your house
.  I still think it’s just as safe to go to mine.”

“
But it’s not.  It’s crazy.  We have guns.  My dad will be across this thing.  He might be able to tell use more-”

“Than my dad? 
Why?  Things have changed, Dylan.  For all we know there’s nobody left in Albury.” 

“Please, Cal,” Kristy
said.

Dylan said,
“We’ll be safe at my house.  It’s up on the hill, and we have electrified fences.”

“
No electricity.”

“
We have a good store of guns and ammunition.”

“We all do.”

“We’ve got no ammo left though.  What you propose is that we put ourselves at greater risk by going to your house.  What if more of those infected soldiers bail us up?  We can’t hack them all to death.”

“It’s not longer.” 
Callan couldn’t argue with second part though.  All they had left with which to fight were the axe, a tomahawk and a chainsaw.  None of those provided him with any confidence.  They were all weapons that required close fighting, and he wanted to avoid getting close to one of
them
.  A firearm allowed them to strike from a distance.  They needed shells
and
more guns. 

How could he tell Dylan tha
t his mother was more important, that after the burglary, he had promised he would always protect her and never let harm come her way, the same as she had done for him and Kristy?  “I don’t care.  I’m not changing my mind.”

Sherry
said, “We all want to go home Callan.  But maybe going all the way to your parents’ house isn’t the best idea.”   

“I
can’t and I won’t.  Don’t you get it?  I don’t think it’s safer going to Dylan’s house, and I need to know mom’s okay.  Once I do that, we can go wherever you guys want.” 

The first abandoned cars appeared on the side of
lower Table Top Road. 
Leaving town
, he thought
. 
Callan peered ahead into the first, a navy blue Ford, and saw the dark shapes of several bodies.  He sped up and watched the road ahead.  The stub of fear rose higher in his chest.  He closed his window as a rotten smell drifted in on the wind. 

They
turned right at the Riverina Highway, and crept past Munga Bareena Island and Reserve.  The grey sheet of sky sucked out the last of the day’s glow and the Jeep’s headlight sensor thrust rays of yellow ahead onto the rough bitumen.  He took them right at the next street, and then slowed the vehicle to a crawl as they approached the first in another line of cars.

“Jesus,” he
whispered.

S
hattered glass lay across the blacktop like confetti after a parade.  Both the roadside and rear windows had gaping holes, and hanging out the driver’s window with broken glass cutting into its torso was a headless body.

Callan
rolled alongside it and saw blood pooled on the road.

“Don’t stop,” Sherry said.
  “We’ve had enough delays.”

Callan
braked, wondering what had happened to the owner’s head, then accelerated, the tyres crunching and popping on the glass.  Most of the cars had been pushed off the road, and he wondered if the Army or somebody else had come through to clear them. 

They
drove several miles, crossing the Hume Highway past a dozen more forsaken vehicles, a bus with shadowy windows, and a dark mall.  A sooty plume of smoke soared like a leaning skyscraper into the blackening sky.  The odd vehicle sat in the car park and they could see a hint of orange light through the towering windows at the entrance to the mall.

“I’d hate to think what wa
s inside,” Callan said. 

“It’s
so quiet,” Sherry said.  “Where has everybody gone?”

Dylan said,
“Hopefully at home, tucked up in bed.” 

“Or dead,” Callan said.
  “And walking around as zombies.”

They
made a right turn, then another into a dirt road, and saw a long street that eventually curved around to the left, flanked by lifeless streetlights.  They moved slowly as gravel popped underneath the tyres, watching the headlamps and the murky depths beyond.  There were no cars parked at the curb, although a few sat in driveways.  

Boiling shadows beckoned from
the houses.  Such a street should have been blazing in light, but there were no porch lamps greeting visitors, no cracks of light from between lounge room curtains or the blue, green and red flash of television screens.  The world was as black as the lake had been a hundred an eighty miles away, minus the starry night. 

“What’s that?”  Greg said, sitting forward.

“What?”

“There. 
A light.  I saw a light.”

Following Greg’s finger, Callan squinted into the darkness on the left side of the street.
  “Shit man, you’ve got good eyes.”

“I see it,” Kristy said.  “Up there.”

Callan peered low through the windscreen, straining to see ahead, when he felt the vehicle slow and the trailer pull to one side.  “
Fuck.”
  He knew instantly what had happened.

He stopped the car and
jerked the stick into park, then ripped the handbrake on.  “We could have a problem.”  He shut the lights off, then climbed out, slamming the door with a thud, and turned in a circle, surveying the road in all directions.  The smell hit him as if opening a rubbish bin, and he knew that there were more than four or five dead people in the town.

Greg arrived at his side
, his face twisted in similar disgust.  “That smell is fucked up.  What’s happened?”

“Flat tyre
, I think.”

Callan
removed the thick handled torch from the back of the Jeep, then hurried to each wheel on the trailer and kicked, feeling for air pressure.  His boot rebounded off the first three with a jarring thud.

When the fourth softened, h
e squatted, cupped his palm around the top of the torch, and switched it on.  As he had feared, the steel rim touched the ground on a bed of flattened rubber and the trailer slanted towards him.  “Shit.”  He saw glass fragments stuck in the tread, and a jagged piece embedded deep into a rut.

Greg said, “We got
ta change it, unless you wanna leave all the stuff behind.”

“No.”  The fuel and extra food might be critical at some point and Callan would fight for it. 
They needed to be ready for a quick getaway if they were under threat.  “Let’s think about this.  What are out options?”

Greg considered the question.  “Unhook the boat.  Have Kristy sitting behind the wheel with the car running.”

“That’s good.  Very good.  But still risky.”  He peered over the boat.  “Where did you see that light?”

Greg pointed
into the darkness about twenty-five yards away.  “There.”

Callan focused.  After a moment, he saw a faint shade of yellow from the back of
a white weatherboard house.  “Okay, let’s try that.  We ask if the girls can wait inside while we change the tyre.  They might even be able to tell us more about this mess.”

“That’s if they even open the door.”

Squatting in the drivers doorway, Callan explained the plan to the others and made Kristy sit behind the steering wheel with the engine idling.  Dylan took the axe in ready.

The rain had passed and a warm breeze touched Callan’s cheek.  What were they doing?  The madness of it all threatened to derail his plan, but he pushed it away, fo
cusing on what needed to be done.  He hoped there would be time later to reflect on all that had happened, and what lay ahead. 
That
worried him the most.      

Greg led the
m through untended grass towards the house without the torch until they reached the front yard, and then Callan activated the beam.  Tall weeds grew in clumps around several dead and dying shrubs.  Wooden edging outlined what once may have been a beautiful garden, now overgrown with green wildflowers.  They followed a series of cracked, unstable paving stones onto a wooden porch where loose boards creaked and twisted under their weight.  A heavy wire security door greeted them.

“Let’s be quick
.  I don’t want to leave them too long.”   

Greg wrapped on the door with the side of his fist. 
“Come on people.  We know you’re in there.”

They waited, listening for movement
.

“Please.  We
have a couple of females and mean no harm.  The trailer has a flat tyre.  Can the girls stay with you while we change it?  It’ll only take five minutes.”

“Fuck off,” a muted voice said.  “There’s nothin’ here for you ‘cept lead poisoning.”

“Please,” Greg said.  “Just give us a minute.”

“G
et your ass off my porch right now.”

“You won’t help us?”

“No.”

“
You don’t care if a couple of women die right outside your house?

“No.”

“You don’t have to open the door.”

“Piss off
.  I’ve had your kind before and it ended badly, for them.”

“Look mate,” Callan said.  “We’ve been camping
up at Lake Eucumbene for the last month.  When we left, this… virus was barely making news.  Earlier today, we stopped at a gas station out bush and saw a newspaper but it was three weeks old.  Then…” he trailed off, considering how to describe it.  “We’ve gone through a lot of shit to get here and if you’re locked up inside, you’ve seen it too.”

Behind them, bats glided through the air chirping.

“We just want my sister and girlfriend to be safe while we change the flat on the boat trailer.  My name is Callan Davidson.  My sister Kristy is with us.  My dad is Keith Davidson.  He works at the abattoir.  My friend’s name here is Greg Harding.  We have Sherry Vandenberg and Dylan Cameron, Bob Cameron’s son.”

Pause. 
“Bob Cameron’s kid.  Where’s Bob?  Is he okay?”

“We don’t know
, but we’re trying to find him.  Please, just tell us what the fuck is going on.”

The lock clicked
, and the chain slid back.  The door opened and a tiny light from a cell phone illuminated a dishevelled face and sagging red eyes.  Thick black stubble flecked with grey covered his cheeks and neck.  He groomed his moustache with thumb and forefinger, eyeing them with suspicion.  “I have a Remington 308 bolt action here that’ll turn you into mince if you give me any trouble.  And I ain’t opening the door, girls or not.  I’ve got my own females to protect.”

“No trouble,” Callan said, holding his palms up.

“You shouldn’t have that torch on,” the man said in a deep, raspy voice as though he’d smoked too many cigarettes.  “They’ll see it.  They’re attracted to light.”

Greg
switched it off and said, “Who?”

“
Don’t be dense. 
The fucking zombies.  The dead, or
undead
.  Whatever you wanna call ‘em.”

Callan felt his skin chill
.  “They were infected with the virus, weren’t they?  It turns into that.”

The man licked his lips.  “
Some of them just die.  It’s bad.  They’re everywhere.  You’re crazy standing out there after dark.”

Callan swallowed, but his dry throat caught and he had to cough to clear it.  “Is there… anyone
alive?  Hiding?  Like you?”

The man shrugged.  “Maybe.  Most of ‘em are dead though.  Dead or
turned into zombies.”

“
All of them?”  Greg blurted out.  “Not everyone can be dead?”

The man wiped his nose again
.  “Son, on the last news report ten days ago, they estimated seventy five percent of the country had the virus.  Nearly everything had shut down.  Banks, supermarkets, hospitals.  People were dyin’ like the plague.  Hell, it is the plague!  Once you’ve got that virus you’re either dead… or you come back.”  He hung his head, and then looked up at them.  “If you survive until tomorrow, be prepared for what’s happened to this town.  It ain’t a sight you’ve ever dreamed of seeing.”

A long,
high-pitched scream sounded from a street or two away.