Invasion of the Dead (Book 3): Escape (16 page)

“It was a mess,” Gallagher said gently. “Having some familiarity with hand grenades, I agree with Callan.”

Slow comprehension dawned on Dylan as Evelyn turned south. If there was no chance Kristy was still alive, there was only one option for him. He had promised himself he’d look for Lauren and that nobody would stop him; he’d go alone, if that was what it took.
Now’s your chance.
The truth was he never thought it would actually happen. He had always thought at the very least, Kristy would be with him. 

Ahead, the main road sat waiting for them. When they reached the intersection, Dylan saw the tip truck parked on the roadside up ahead. Behind it, the blue four-wheel drive they had discovered on the farm just out of Yass twinkled in the sunlight. Was his decision made? Did he have anything left to debate? Evelyn took off and pulled in behind it, concealed from the entrance to the facility. If she was gone, what was keeping him alive?
Lauren.
He wanted to cry; he felt the build-up of tears from the depths of his soul, but like with his mother and father, he pushed them deeper, to a place where he hoped they might never return.

“I’m going to the city, then,” Dylan said. “To find my sister. To see if she’s still alive.” He waited for them to argue, prepared for a quarrel. In truth, he needed the four-wheel drive or the camper.

“I’ll take the four-wheel drive to find Blue Boy,” Callan said. “You take the camper, and everybody else.”

Evelyn fought back more tears. “You can’t go out there alone.”

Greg said, “I’ll go—”

“No.” Callan put up a hand. “I’m doing this on my own. He’s… my dog and I know it’s a risk. I’m not going to jeopardize anyone else.”

“Come on. Don’t be stupid.”

“Save it, Greg. You’ve done enough. Look after these people. Go with Dylan to find his sister.
Nobody
is coming with me.”

Callan stood and fed rounds into his pockets. He loaded the rifle, and from a bag near the sink took a handgun and several magazines. He went to the door and put a hand on it, then turned and looked at them all: from Gallagher, to Julie, to Greg, to Dylan, Jake and Sarah sitting on the bunk, and finally to Evelyn. “Take care of yourselves. I mean that.” Sarah leapt off the bunk and ran to him. She threw her arms around his waist and hugged him tight. He rested a hand on the girl’s shoulders. “I’ll be back,” he whispered. She wouldn’t let go. “Hey,” Callan said, squatting, lifting her chin with the tip of his finger. “You have to take care of them okay? You’re the only one with medical training now. Doctor Sarah. They all need you.”

“But I don’t know anything.”

“Yes you do. Kristy… Kristy wasn’t stupid. She picked you because you’re smart and capable. She knew you could handle it.” Sarah nodded. “Remember what you learned. Hopefully you won’t need it.” Sarah managed a half-smile. Callan kissed her on the forehead, and stood.  

In the driver’s seat, Evelyn sobbed. Julie’s face was tight, grim. Sarah stepped away and Callan opened the door.  

“Wait,” Greg said. Callan paused, halfway out the door. “Where will we meet you?”

“You’re going to find Dylan’s sister? What’s the address?”

“410 Queen Street. At the top, near the Queen Victoria Market.”

“And what if she’s not there?”

“Station Pier,” Gallagher said. “I’ll be trying to find a ship to take us across Bass Strait.”

Callan nodded, and then disappeared out the door.

TWENTY-FIVE

Kristy’s eyes came open with a start. She coughed, searching for her breath, and sat up, pain filling her head in dizzying waves. In her dream, she had died, drowning in a wave of blood and bodies, her friends and brother included. Now, realizing what it had been, relief washed over her, pacifying the ache in the rest of her body.

She was lying on a soft bed in a house. Faint light seeped in from around the corners of curtains. A small room with the door closed. She tried to swing her legs off the bed, but nausea drowned her and she fell back down onto the pillow and closed her eyes. What had happened? She lay there summoning the thoughts. The gunfight. Running. Hiding behind the red sedan. Seeing the man with the big gun, and then running some more towards the house with the brick fence… a big explosion. After that, it was blank. She must have been knocked unconscious.

She eventually made it back to sitting up, listening for voices, noises, any indication about where she might be or who had taken her there. The only thing she heard was the distant chatter of gunfire. That meant she was probably close to the facility. It also meant it probably wasn’t long since it had happened. Where were the others?

She swung her feet off the bed, her ripened socks touching carpet. She stood, swaying, and put a hand out for balance.
Keep moving. You’ll be all right.
Slow steps took her to the doorway, where she paused, pulling it open a crack. There was the chance a crazy person had captured her and that they wouldn’t let her leave, or that they might try to harm her. That sounded fairly implausible though, as her hands and legs weren’t bound, and the door wasn’t locked. Still, she should be cautious.

She left the room and entered a hallway. The smell of old food and something unfamiliar reached her. She crept ahead, towards sunlight, passing several closed doors on her right, until she reached another room. In the center sat a table, with four chairs. On it lay a woman wearing a hijab, the conservative dress of a Muslim female. Her eyes were closed and she had the same look Kristy had observed many times in the ER. The hairs on her neck stood. She couldn’t move.
You’re used to this,
she told herself. These were strange circumstances though.

She considered examining the body to decide how long the woman had been dead. Had she been sick? Was she infected? She decided to ignore it for now and work on finding out who had brought her there.

She walked across the small kitchen and passed through a door. She stopped inside the next room when she saw a man on his knees praying in the corner.

She knew who it was at once. It was the man who had taken Dylan and the others into the facility.
Ahmed.
He made a soft, crooning noise. There might have been a sob, too. Kristy stepped back out of the room, and waited.

It was a strange moment, being stuck between a person in prayer and a dead body. Kristy herself wasn’t religious, but she understood the value of religion to others, and respected their choice to decide and follow whatever faith they chose. Their mother had been Christian, and occasionally went to church, but had never imposed the religion on her or Callan. Their father had been a proud atheist.

She kept glancing over at the body, expecting it to come alive. The next time she looked back into the lounge, Ahmed had finished and was standing before her. There were tears on his cheeks. He was smiling, but there was a deep pain in the curl of his lips, and his sagging eyes were filled with heartbreak.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he said.

She tried to smile back, but his grief was infectious. She imagined the roles reversed, if it were Callan, or perhaps worse now, Dylan. “Is… that your wife?” He nodded. “I’m so sorry.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, smearing tears over his face. “How long?”

He shook his head, unable to say more. Kristy waited. He gathered himself, smearing more tears, before removing a handkerchief from his pocket to blow his nose. “She followed me out. Or must have been worried that I’d taken too long. She wouldn’t accept she was sick. I told her…” He clenched his jaw, shook his head. “I wish I had taught her how to ride my motorbike. At least then, she’d have been faster. After I found you, I had to carry you home. I saw her at a distance in another street, but didn’t dare call out. There were gunmen nearby, and she was hiding. I thought she’d be safe. I rushed home with you, and came back, but she’d been shot. I found her lying in the gutter. She was… dead already.”

Kristy tried to breathe. “Oh… God… no…” She fell back against the wall. The pressure in her chest was unprecedented. Suffocating. The air wouldn’t come. Had she heard right? Instinctively, she put a hand out and rested it on his shoulder. She tried to say something but her eyes filled with tears. She mumbled the words sorry, all the fairness in life ripped away in that moment.

Ahmed went into the kitchen. Kristy followed feeling faint again, fighting to gain control. Had it really happened like that? He had left his wife to die because of her? Guilt settled around her. Why did it always have to be so unfair?

In a soft voice, she asked, “What happened to me?”

“I was coming to find you guys. I worked my way around the back of the building to where I said I would meet you all, but the gunmen were everywhere. I took a different route and came out on the street after the explosion. I had to wait in the bushes until they were gone. I didn’t notice you lying less than six feet from me. You must have been near the car when it exploded. I found you in somebody’s front garden on the other side of a brick fence. I carried you home from there. I think if I had left you though, they would have found you, because by the time I reached the end of the street they were all over the place where you had been.”

“Thank you. I can’t begin to say how grateful I am to you for saving me, and how,” she glanced at his wife, “sorry I am for your loss.”

“I knew she was sick and so part of me… but I didn’t expect it so soon. I wasn’t prepared. The men who want to take control of the world are horrible and have no respect for life. This is what is left after the plague. My religion talks about a great event coming to mankind because we did not treat the world with respect.”

A noise sounded from outside the house. Ahmed hurried back into the lounge room and peeked out from behind a curtain. Kristy followed and did the same from another.

Men walked the streets, wielding machine guns. Several stood outside a house across the road. One kicked in the front door. Another man threw a rock through a window. What were they doing? Hunting down people, or zombies? Either way, it scared her. These men would not see reason.

“There,” Ahmed said. “Do you see that?” Kristy drew the curtain wider, searching the street. Besides the men, she saw nothing unusual. “Look again.” She did, and caught him further along than she had been looking. Her stomach dropped, twisting into knots. It was Blue Boy, with his nose pinned to the ground. One of the men had noticed him, and was walking in his direction.

TWENTY-SIX

Dylan fought guilt as he watched his friend jog away from the campervan. Any other time over the last week, he’d have gone with Callan. Things were different now, though. He thought of Kristy, and his stomach climbed into his throat. He swallowed it down and shoved the thought away. No.
No.
He wouldn’t deal with that yet. Couldn’t. But the guilt seeped in through the cracks. Guilt for the time he had spent away from her, for the way he had treated her over the last few days. It had been the virus, for sure. Part of him wondered whether going for Lauren was crazy, another move brought on by its effects, but it was the only way he knew how to deal with Kristy’s death. Find something else on which to concentrate. And he had promised himself that he would check her apartment, find out if she was still alive. That was his focus now.

Dylan explained to the others how he had been bitten at the defense facility. There were questions about why he hadn’t told them and he answered them honestly. Afterwards, he and Gallagher both took a fresh injection of serum.

Dylan fell into the passenger seat beside the driver. “Let’s go.” Evelyn’s cheeks glistened. She started the van and they lumbered off, turning in a circle and returning the way they had last come to avoid the facility perimeter. “You okay?”

She nodded, but there was little surety in it. “You?”

“No.”

The van drove back over the hill and down towards the train tracks. Dylan recalled the blockage of cars on Sydney Road. They would have to go a different way. Julie would know.

She was sitting at the table with a fleshy arm around Sarah. The younger girl had red, glassy eyes. The first two people she had met in the group were now gone. There was heartache and loss all around. Only a day ago, Julie had lost her husband, and she had battled through every minute since. It was a lesson for Dylan. He needed to be strong—for himself, as much as the others. He slid in beside the older woman.

“You said you know Melbourne well. What’s the best way to get to the Queen Victoria Market?”

“Sydney Road. It’s the most direct route. Takes us almost right to it.”

“It was jammed. I don’t think we can get through.”

“High Street runs all the way to Collingwood and into the east side of the city. But we’d have to cut back to the west if we went that way.”

“I guess we’ll try Sydney Road first.”

But the continuation of the road on which they had driven all the way from Sydney was congested; trucks with double trailers and a multitude of other vehicles closed off any pathway through the thoroughfare. As they paused at the intersection of Camp Road, Dylan saw zombies moving between the cars in a long, broken trail all the way to the horizon.

“They’re everywhere,” Evelyn said with sick distaste.

“We can’t go that way.”

The road east was straight, before turning in a long, sweeping bend. A freeway ran underneath in both directions, upon which sat hundreds of cars in an unprecedented traffic jam. Evelyn had the window down, and on the breeze came a smell as bad as anything they had encountered, even in Albury. More zombies, moving between vehicles, others with their upper bodies buried in windows, or feeding on rotting flesh they had dragged from the wreckage. Dylan was grateful they passed over the graveyard quickly.

“What do you think the city will be like?” Dylan asked Gallagher

“Klaus always said Melbourne—any capital city for that matter—would be overrun. It won’t be fun, that’s for sure.”

“What about the chances of finding a boat at Station Pier?”

Gallagher scratched the back of his neck. Dylan had noticed him doing it regularly and wondered if it was the virus. He’d been feeling an incessant itch on his skin for a couple of days. “I’ve commanded ships before. It’s unlikely we’ll find any of that size, but if we’re lucky, something smaller might be docked.”

Evelyn turned right onto High Street, which paralleled the train line. “This runs all the way to the city,” Julie said, leaning on the back of Evelyn’s seat. Dark circles shadowed her red eyes. She had handled Eric’s death well, and now seemed strengthened by their needs; as if she had made it her mission to care for them all, especially the kids. Purpose, Dylan realized. She had found a purpose.

Dylan tried to take strength from Julie, but the pain was too fresh. He tried to think of something else—Albury, the city, Lauren, even Tasmania, but he couldn’t escape the fact that he would never see Kristy again. He had spent his last night with her, beside her, in her presence. Perhaps that single night of making love was all he was ever supposed to have. It filled him with a deep sadness, different to losing his parents. As an adult, they’d had less contact. Dylan was preparing to move out of home at some point. But Kristy… Dylan had envisioned her as a growing part of him, someone with whom he should spend
his
future, for as many days as he had left. In a way, she was the one whom he had chosen—as she had chosen him—to spend their final weeks or months together. He let the thought drift. His head ached. The pounding wouldn’t let up.

High Street took them south in a relatively straight line, running through the outer Melbourne suburbs towards the inner city. They passed strips of shops, where looters had pulled items out through broken front windows, littering the streets with debris. Cars sat abandoned in the middle of the road, on the curb, and the odd one rammed through the front of a store. Should they stop and try to filch something of worth? Probably just cause them more trouble. Besides, Dylan was on the way to find Lauren, and he didn’t want to derail that.

He noticed Greg sitting in the back alone. The big guy was feeling it too. He had probably loved Kristy as much as Dylan had. It made him feel sick to think of it. They met eyes, and Dylan offered a knowing look of despair. After the incident at the Army facility, and then their discussion on the way down to Melbourne, he wasn’t sure things would ever be the same between them. Dylan had accused Greg of an unforgivable act, and even if Greg hadn’t done it, the mistrust would always be there. And as much as Dylan wanted to believe, he would always be cautious.

The road was relatively clear. Side streets led off the central trunk, filled with parked cars and the occasional smash. There were zombies, but fewer than the outer suburbs, as though they had left for more gruesome pastures. One of them spied the campervan approaching in the distance and shuffled from the pavement out onto the road. Evelyn didn’t slow. She ran it down like a weed under the mower. The body thumped into the front of the vehicle and splattered over the road.

They followed the train line on their left for a time before leaving it and picking up the tramline as they passed through Reservoir and into Northcote, where dark houses and storefronts grinned at them, promising deadly delights. More vehicles and a growing number of zombies wandered along the lines. A burnt-out tram carriage sat like a dead relic. In the distance, tall city buildings sketched themselves against the changing color of the sky.

It had been bright and hot an hour ago. Dylan knew from Lauren’s accounts that Melbourne’s weather was prone to rapid change, and now as a breeze pulled clouds across the sky, the first signs of such appeared. Summer storms were common, but of late, there had been more, as though a portentous meaning existed.

“I don’t like this,” Julie said, as more zombies appeared along the road. “Their numbers are growing.”

She was right, but as Klaus had said earlier, cities were full of people, many of whom had become zombies. It was going to get worse. Dylan thought of Klaus again, the man who had essentially saved his life—Gallagher’s too—and felt a pang of sadness for another lost amongst the many. Who would be next? Callan? Evelyn? Gallagher? Himself. He’d come so close many times. Now his life hung on the thread of medicine. Was that any way to live? He saw Sarah though, and supposed she was no different with her insulin, relying on it daily for survival. Maybe one day, if the world ever returned to normality, the virus from which Dylan suffered would also be considered a chronic illness. 

Evelyn drove on in silence, hands clenched around the wheel, her face grim, eyes focused on the ever-changing road. She had become a skillful driver, maneuvering between obstacles, even avoiding wandering feeders when they unknowingly staggered in their way. Twice she broke away from the road and drove directly down the tramline until an abandoned carriage blocked her way.

They reached the end of St. Georges Road, where Julie pointed off to the left. “That way. It meets up with High Street and then runs into the top of the city.”

Evelyn guided the camper around a long bend. On the right, bushes concealed what the sign referred to as the MERRI CREEK. Dylan saw pale fleshy figures moving in the scrub.

They reached a set of traffic lights at the intersection of High Street. Evelyn steered right and drove into a crowd of zombies congregated in the middle of the road. She slammed on the brakes, and Dylan found himself flying forward towards the dashboard. He struck his forehead on the panel and crumpled to the floor.

Evelyn stood from the seat, looking frantic. “Sorry.”

He climbed into the passenger’s chair, feeling wetness above his left eyebrow. He touched the place and found a spot of blood. Behind him, others had toppled over, including Julie. Dylan and Gallagher both reached out to help her up, and sat her on another seat.

“That’s why they invented seat belts,” Julie said, rubbing her elbow.

“More of them,” Greg said.

Evelyn put the gearstick into reverse. “Hold on,” Dylan said. “Where are we gonna go?”

Gallagher adjusted his rifle. “Is there another way around?”

“There is,” Julie said, “but it’ll take time. Maybe another hour or two, depending on the traffic.” She made a silly face. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“It’s worth a thought,” Gallagher said.

“No,” Dylan said. “We might not even make it all the way around. It might be worse. We’ve been lucky getting here.” Nobody spoke. “Besides, we’ve been through worse. Remember the throng of them on the hill on the way to the army base?”

The campervan stood idling as the first drops of rain fell onto the windshield. The group watched the zombies milling around a crash scene. They were groping at the doors, trying to pry one of them open. Dylan suspected there were bodies inside. The rain fell harder, beating against the windscreen as a gust of wind blew it sideways. Soon the zombies’ clothes stuck to their fleshy bodies, strands of hair matted against bony skulls. Dylan scanned the group for type threes. He remembered them in Holbrook, with Callan, watching them tear through the type ones, converting them into their own kind.

“I don’t like it,” Evelyn said. “There’s too many. We should—”

Dylan shook his head. “Anywhere we go, we’re going to face this sort of thing. We could drive two hours east and it will be no different. We got through at the defense facility. We can do this.”

“He’s right,” Greg said. “We’re just avoiding the inevitable if we try and go another way. And it might be worse.”

Dylan wondered if he was being selfish. Lauren might only be a handful of miles away and he didn’t want to waste any more time trying to reach her. Was he willing to risk the others to find out if his sister was alive? Yes. He was. She might be all he had left. “I know we can get through this. We just have to be strong. If we divert at every sign of feeders, we’ll be diverting for the rest of our lives. We need to take a chance. It’s the quickest way. Julie, what do you think?”

After a long moment, Julie sighed. “I suppose so.”

Evelyn swivelled around to the front, crunched the gearstick into drive, and took off.

“Fast,” Dylan said. “Go as fast as you can.”