Invasion of the Dead (Book 3): Escape (26 page)

FORTY-EIGHT

Evelyn had run out of ideas. They had circled the north part of the city under the blaring heat until the fuel had almost run out. Gallagher had directed her into a clear space to refill the tank, wandering the length of the bus with a rifle poised to kill anything that came too close. That had bought them more time, but they couldn’t keep driving around forever. Everybody was getting uptight. The kids were complaining. She had yelled at Jake for the first time in weeks. Gallagher continued pacing in the same irritating pattern. He didn’t say much. She noticed he wasn’t feeling well. She wished he would come up with an idea.

The threads of loneliness filled her for the first time since meeting the group. She had given up Kristy for dead, and that was heartbreaking. They hadn’t known each other long, but she felt a sisterly connection with the woman. Callan had left the group. She’d probably never see him again, either. Evelyn didn’t know if it hurt more that he had left them all without consideration, or because she missed him. The remaining comfort of having Dylan and Greg around had disappeared too. There was still Jake, of course, and Julie, but the others had all been in the same age bracket.

Part of what irritated Evelyn was that they weren’t going anywhere. She had wanted to drive back towards the apartment building at the top of Franklin Street. Gallagher wouldn’t have it, claiming it was too dangerous to take such a cumbersome vehicle into a tight location. How were the others going to get out? The same way they had gotten in, Gallagher said.

Evelyn didn’t buy that though. She had been slowly working her way closer. They’d drive for a little while, and park in a clear space for a minute or two, then move on when the feeders approached. It was like playing cat and mouse. Every two or three turns she made, took them marginally closer to Franklin Street. She suspected Gallagher
suspected
, but he hadn’t yet said anything.

They stopped in the center of the road on Victoria Parade, as close as they had been to the apartment building since dropping Dylan and Greg off. They were still too far away though.  

Julie fell into the passenger seat and handed Evelyn a bottle of water. It was another thoughtful gesture, in a long list, from the older woman.

“How are you holding up, honey?” Evelyn looked grim. “Hang on. It won’t be long now.”

“I’ve been telling myself that for the last hour. What if it’s not? What if it doesn’t go the way we want it?”

Julie smiled. She put a hand on Evelyn’s arm. “We don’t, of course, but hope is all we have, if nothing else. Hope allows us to take another breath, another step forward.”

“What if we’ve got no hope?”

“There’s always hope. You might lose the things you love, the people you live for, but there’s always more to be found if you look hard enough.”  

How could she argue with a woman who had just lost her whole life? “What do you hope for?”

Julie considered. “I hope we don’t lose anybody else and I hope I survive long enough to enjoy the world again.”

“I think you will.”

“I think you’re right.” Evelyn reached out and squeezed her hand. Julie clasped hers over the top.

The enemy was on the movie again. Amongst the carcasses of a hundred vehicles, they stirred. A posse of type one feeders approached the van. They had about thirty seconds. “I’m going closer. I’m sick of this waiting. We said we’d get to the top of Queen Street. They might be expecting us.”

“It’s too risky,” Gallagher said. “You take this thing in there and we might not get it—or us—out.”

“That’s what we said about the Army base in Canberra. We should
never
have gone in there
,
but we did, and now you’re standing here because of it.” Gallagher didn’t blink. She had another response prepared, but in the end, he turned away. Evelyn took that as a non-objection. She pulled away from the curb, full of determination, grateful for another chance to help the people who had saved her and Jake.

It didn’t take long. She spied Dylan sprinting up the slope from Franklin Street as the campervan approached the bend. He was still a hundred yards away, but ran like the devil was chasing him. He bounded over a body, around an orange Datsun with the hood raised, and glanced over his shoulder. “Come on,” she whispered.

Gallagher stood between the seats. “Can you get closer?”

“Trying.” Was he slowing down?
Yes.
His arms had begun to falter and his shoulders sagged forward.

Gallagher disappeared from her shoulder. Evelyn took the van up onto the curb and then right into a pile of debris, thinking there was a gap. She found a small two-door car blocking the way and had to jam on the brakes, searching the mirrors for a way out.

“Just push through it,” Julie said. “There’s a big enough gap.”

Evelyn accelerated, striking the front of the vehicle with a shuddering crunch. Julie staggered forward, reaching for the seat. “Sorry!” But she got the tip through with an awful scrape of steel.
Don’t stop.
She nudged it further, grimacing at the sound, and then they were through, racing away from the wreck. 

Dylan approached. In the side mirror, she saw Gallagher swing the door open. She slowed the van, bringing it closer to the curb, and Dylan leapt for it, almost overstepping the mark. He thumped into the side of the doorway, crunching the frame. Gallagher grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him inside, then slammed the door shut.

Evelyn drove on, swinging the camper through a pile of rubble in the center of the road. The zombies that had been chasing fell away.

“Go left, into Franklin,” Dylan said, panting.

“Is it safe?” Gallagher asked.

“There’s a car park underneath the apartment building.”

“Did you find your sister?” Evelyn asked.

Dylan smiled, and there was a palpable relief in his expression. “Yeah. We did. She’s… okay, now. Greg made it too.”

Evelyn negotiated a pathway down Franklin Street, through the intersection with Russell. As they crossed the tramlines, she glanced left and saw masses of them wandering along the street towards the juncture. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah,” Dylan said. “We gotta get inside, now.”

He directed her to a tiny laneway further up the slope on their left. She drove for it and spotted the roller door for the car park, slowing the big camper as they approached. She saw the problem immediately. “It’s not going to fit.”

“She’s right,” Gallagher said. “We’ll have to park outside.” He pointed at the wall of another building. “There.” Evelyn dragged the van to the side of the laneway and idled. It wasn’t ideal, but she couldn’t see an alternative.

Gallagher went to the entrance with a handgun. Evelyn shut off the engine. So it had come down to this, she thought with growing terror. She made sure the kids were up on the bunk, and took a rifle herself. A horde of slow, bumbling feeders with their rotting faces and long, stringy hair congregated at the entrance to the laneway.

“We’ll hold them off,” Gallagher said. “You load up on bags—the medicine and guns and as much food as you can carry.”

Gallagher and Dylan went out side-by-side with bags of guns and ammo in one hand, their 9mm handguns in the other. They fired, dropping feeders, shooting holes in the enemies’ chests, through their throats, and exploding their heads like watermelons. Evelyn followed, standing guard with the rifle booming as Julie guided the kids across the laneway, towards the door. In that moment, Evelyn felt profound gratitude towards the older woman for taking care of her son, knowing she would protect him with her life.

Zombies fell; a trail of bodies slumped over each other and blood splats covered the walls and road. It pooled in thick puddles beneath the corpses. The smell was horrendous and would be worse in a day or two, but there was no end to the count.

Julie guided the kids underneath the doorway, standing over them with a tight, determined expression. She swung her bags through and got down on one knee with a grimace. From there, she lay down and rolled through the gap as though she hadn’t moved in such a way for many years.

Gallagher ushered Evelyn towards the gap. She removed her pack and swung it underneath. She got down on all fours, glancing back at the van they had called home for… how long had it been? A week? She couldn’t recall. People had lived and died in that van; she’d gotten to know Callan and Kristy, saved lives, driven it across states, and spoken with Eric for the final time in it.

“Can’t be helped,” Gallagher said, reading her thoughts.

She rolled underneath and stood, clearing the way for the others. Julie and the children waited nearby. There was a long moment where neither Dylan nor Gallagher appeared, and Evelyn wondered if something had happened. She was poised to climb back underneath when Gallagher crawled through on his elbows. Dylan followed. He jumped up and hauled the chain, dropping the door as feet and hands clawed at the gap. The gate shuddered under the weight of the angry feeders. Evelyn wondered if it would hold.

FORTY-NINE

Dylan sat on the bed beside Lauren, watching his nephew. She unfolded a flat plastic sheet and placed it on the bed, then picked the baby up and laid him on it. “You wanna change him?”

“Nah. I’ll watch this one.”

She was overjoyed he could be there with them. Her frailty of the last few weeks had almost vanished now that her big brother had arrived. They had come all the way from Albury to find her, surviving more than imaginable. They had food and guns and
strength
. She knew Greg and his tough reputation from school in Albury. The others were brave and courageous too. She laid a hand on Dylan’s arm, just to make sure of him. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”

“
I
still can’t believe you’re a mother and I’m an uncle.”

She scoffed. “Not a world that you’d want a baby growing up in, though.”

Dylan gave Harvey his little finger and he clutched on with a tight grip.

“He’s strong.”

She had listened to the tale of her parents’ deaths, insisting Dylan left no detail out, although he probably had. Lauren hadn’t cried—in her mind, they had already died. She had prepared herself for that, weeks ago. Now, at least, she could put them to rest. Dylan stood and opened his arms. They hugged, long and gentle, a siblings’ embrace. They had been closer when they were young; he had always looked out for her, despite his more passive nature. 

“I’d like to get that prick Todd and wring his neck.”

“I wouldn’t let you waste your time.” She tickled Harvey’s chin. “We’re better off without him, aren’t we, bub? If I hadn’t fallen pregnant, we’d have broken up.” Lauren finished wrapping the nappy, then scooped up the baby, and dropped him on Dylan’s lap. He sat frozen, peering at his uncle, whom he had only just met. Harvey reached out a tiny hand, and cooed.

“He likes you.”

Dylan made soft noises. She wanted to ask more about Kristy. He’d touched on it; their relationship as it had developed, and his feelings, but again, she knew he had held back. Perhaps it was too raw. Perhaps he needed to talk about it.

“You wanna talk about Kristy?”

He continued making faces at the baby for a moment, and then his smile faded. “There’s nothing to talk about.” Lauren made a face. “I’ve dealt with it. Same as I dealt with Mom and Dad.”

“You sure?” He nodded. “Okay.” He looked tougher than when he’d last visited. What had he gone through to be there now? Had it hardened all the soft parts of him, the bits she loved, that made him different to the other guys she had known? He had always been kind and considerate and she worried it had been driven out of him. She supposed they had all changed though; must have, in order to have survived. “What about the virus? That really worries me.” He had explained how the serum came about—the scientist who had developed it, but later died trying to find more.

“As long as I keep taking the serum I should be okay.” But there was truth in his eyes that unsettled her. He didn’t quite believe that. Maybe it was because he knew that at some point the serum would run out. Surely, Dylan had thought that far ahead.

“And Admiral Gallagher? He doesn’t look so good.”

“Klaus said it works differently with each person. Like the flu.” He looked contemplative. “I don’t know why it’s not working for Gallagher, though. I wish we could do something for him.” His mind disappeared in thought for a moment. “Hard to believe you survived all of this.”

“When they evacuated the building, Claire and I chose to stay. Lots of people left though. That gave us access to food and water we otherwise wouldn’t have had. Probably kept us alive longer.”

“Well, I’m glad you did.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I need to speak to Gallagher.”

Lauren wrapped Harvey and laid him in the cot, then returned to the kitchen where the heat was stifling.
Julie and Claire had taken over, setting up what remained of their supplies into edible dishes. There were slices of potatoes and bowls of rice, both boiled on the gas cooker.

“I’ll have to leave soon,” Gallagher said, leaning against the kitchen bench with a bottle of cold water. “I need to find out what’s at Station Pier. Whether there’s anything that can take us across Bass Strait.”

“Why? Why do you have to go now?” Evelyn asked. “Couldn’t we wait it out here a couple of days? We’ve earned a rest. Maybe give the others a chance to catch up.”

“I don’t know how long this city will last. Something’s brewing here. You heard what the man in Yass said. The threes are changing the type ones. I need to know what’s at that dock.”

Lauren studied the man. There was a hard edge to him; thick muscles under his shirt that flexed when he moved. He was average height, but stocky, and the cropped salt and pepper hair added to the toughness. But his eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in black shadow. He coughed regularly, interrupting his croaky voice.

“You can’t go alone.”

“I’ll go,” Greg said. Gallagher nodded thanks.

Dylan screwed the lid back onto his bottled water. “How well do you know the city layout?”

Greg’s expression widened. “I don’t, but what does that matter?”

“Where are you going?”

“Station Pier.”

“Port Melbourne. Do you know even know where it is?”

“I can go,” Alexander said. “It’s about an hour from here by foot. That’s if you don’t run into any trouble.”

Lauren frowned. “You can’t go. Your hand’s still a mess. It’s not even stitched.”

“Sarah can take a look at that,” Dylan said. “She can stitch a wound now.”

Greg was silent. He had no idea where the pier stood. Lauren didn’t like where it was heading.

“I’ll go,” Dylan said. “I roughly know the way. I’ve driven down here a few times.” Greg looked annoyed. Dylan frowned. “What? You’ve done more than your share of work.” He turned to Gallagher. “You think we’ll find anything?”

“I think it’s our best chance to find a cruise ship or passenger ferry capable of crossing Bass Strait.”

Lauren wanted to ask if Gallagher would even make it there. By her count from walking around the city during her lunch breaks for three years, an hour meant about four miles. “What about a car?”

“We’ll assess as we proceed,” Gallagher said. “Sure would make it easier, but we don’t want to draw attention.” 

“What then? Even if there’s a ship you can drive, we still have to all get down there.”

“Can you check the campervan, Greg? I don’t think it’ll be any good now, and it’s too risky to make it back from the underground lot. We’ll have to find a couple of working cars down there,” Dylan said. Greg nodded.

“We leave after dark,” Gallagher said.