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

“You can’t do that.”

“It’s my apartment.”

He glanced at Lenny. “What if we don’t want to go?”

This time, Lauren raised her eyebrows, almost inviting him to try. In truth, Todd and Lenny could overpower them, but he knew she would always get him back, somehow. She wasn’t going to stand there and argue though. “You’ve got until dark to go out and get something.” Then she turned and walked away, waiting for him to shoot a smart remark, but it never came.

FOUR

Jacob drove down the Hume Highway with a mouth full of bitterness, choking the wheel as he relived the previous night in Campbelltown. The blazing eye fell slowly in the west, taking with it some of the heat that had suffocated them for much of the day. He wouldn’t be sorry to see it disappear. The car had no air conditioning, and the hot wind did little to cool them.

It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours and he was stuffing the memories deeper, trying to forget them, the way he had this entire business from the beginning. He thought back to life before the plague, when such heat would have driven him to finish another long day on the tools and seek the cool blue waters of their swimming pool. Jacob had run his own successful plumbing business, employing more than two dozen men on varying sized commercial sites around Sydney. He had built it from nothing, with a legendary work ethic, sacrificing earnings in the early years to form a reputation for value amongst a most competitive industry. It had come at a cost though. His first marriage had broken down, and he had lost a daughter in the process, although he had long since buried the burden and disappointment of that. Funny how things worked out though—without the plague, he might not have stumbled upon the chance to repair that disaster.

Jacob lowered the window a few more turns and closed his eyes to the heat. At least it would keep him awake. Rebecca had drifted off beside him. She had fought heavy lids for hours, staring off at the passing terrain. Their lack of conversation hadn’t helped, but even after several weeks, she would not engage him in anything more than the necessary discussion. Even then, her questions and responses were terse.

So he drove on, waiting for the battered blue wagon they had to shit itself and just come to a stop on the side of the road. After the beating at Tarcutta, it had limped along at half pace. He didn’t dare push it too hard, although it helped conserve fuel. They hadn’t been able to find any, and it felt like they were on their last legs. He’d pegged Seymour, a sizeable town north of Melbourne, as the place to reach. Had to be
something
there—fuel, food, maybe even a comfortable place to rest; even another vehicle. They were plentiful, but most didn’t have the keys, and nobody knew how to get them started without.

He kept glancing at Rebecca. Some of the others called her Bec, but she had not yet told him to call her that, as though he hadn’t yet earned that right. He supposed that was fair. He loved the name Rebecca. After all, he had given it to her.

Her eyes opened and she frowned. “What?”

Jacob suppressed a smile. She reminded him of her mother. “Nothing.”

It was true. He
was
just looking. Making up for lost time. All the years he’d spent away from his daughter had vanished in the sands of time. He could never get them back, and it filled him like a sickness. What he could do was make the most of every moment from here on, even if she still detested him. It was a miracle he had her back, sitting beside him now in a world gone to ruin as they drove towards an unfamiliar city and the wispy promise of help. She was all he had now, really. Monica, his second wife, had perished at Campbelltown. The memory ached his heart, and it took every bit of willpower to stop the image forming in his mind.

Jacob held his breath, willing the pain away, grinding his jaw until it ran up into the side of his head. He imagined taking the knowledge of his wife’s death and wrapping it up in a bundle, shoving it inside a box, and closing the lid. It worked, as it always did, and the thought drifted. During his brief Army days, they said he was the most competent at compartmentalization. Monica had sometimes called him cold-hearted. That made him chuckle. He thought of Arty, and his insistence that there were facilities and people in Melbourne who could help fight the virus. After Campbelltown, Jacob had to make a decision about where to go. North was out—they had witnessed the destruction firsthand, although some of the others from the group had gone that way. South was their only option, and although he suspected Melbourne was going to be in a similar state to Sydney, they would stick to the outskirts and find their destination. Beyond that, Melbourne was springboard to Tasmania, and he had heard from a man in Yass that people were gathering there to make the crossing. Bass Strait was a treacherous body of water though, and whoever made the trip would require a competent person to skipper the boat. Jacob held little hope of finding someone, but that didn’t deter him from the notion.   

He looked into the side mirror for the tenth time just to make sure the battered four-wheel drive was still following. It was there, some distance behind, dusty red, cracked windscreen, two men peering at them through the glass. Four of them.
Four out of twenty-two.
They’d lost some of the finest people Jacob had ever known. Monica, Arty, Gary Edney, and of course, his good mate Samuel. The thought of the way he went out sent a shiver up Jacob’s neck. Sure, some of them had to have survived, but who knew where they had gone. John and Sandy; their children, Greg and Amelia. Stuart, the butcher. He could go on, but knew it did no good. It just happened that the two that made it weren’t what Jacob considered friends. They’d joined the group just south of Sydney. His policy was always to let anybody who contributed tag along, and he hadn’t turned folks away so far. But these men mostly kept to themselves, almost as if they were planning something. Samuel didn’t trust them. It didn’t seem fair.
Wasn’t
. He wished he could change it, but what would he have done differently? Probably not stopped so close to the road. The service center had been enticing with its large awning and the shop, but the sentries had failed and it had cost them in the end. They all knew the risks though. Knew what this new life was like. Each day they ran the gauntlet of death by just staying alive. Sometimes he wondered how they would ever make a life for themselves again.

“How much further?” Rebecca asked, shifting into a more comfortable position. She was tinier than Jacob had expected given his large frame, although her mother had been petite. Rebecca had her curly blonde hair and narrow features, too, along with those blue, seductive eyes. What had she gotten from him? He would find out.
You need to spend time with a person to discover such things.

“A while yet.”

“We got anything else to eat?”

“Crackers. Staple diet of the new world.”

She didn’t smile. “Where we going?”

“Seymour.”

“Never been there. You?”

“Long time ago. With your mother, actually.” That silenced her.

She slumped, peering out the front window in thought. “Tell me about her. What you remember.”

Despite all the time that had passed, he still remembered her vividly. Jennifer Jabowski was a beautiful woman—in Jacob’s eyes, anyway, and that’s all that mattered—attentive and obsequious. She was fearsome too, when unappreciated. Jacob had spent too much time trying to build his business and not enough being a husband. That pushed Jennifer to look elsewhere for the love and attention that a woman required. Jacob put up little resistance, and
that
still burned away at him. But it wasn’t Jennifer’s fault. None at all. Still, he didn’t feel like talking about it today.  

“Maybe another time, okay?”

She settled back into the ripped leather seat in silence. Jacob thought about the potential towns they had passed in favor of Seymour. Wagga, Albury, Wangaratta. But there were reasons why he had foregone them all. They were more than lucky at Tarcutta, just south of the Wagga Wagga turnoff. The others wanted to stop at Wagga, and Jacob had almost taken the exit, but in the final moments, his foot gunned the accelerator past the intersection. It had almost cost them their lives. A blockade greeted them just beyond. What sort of people tried to take advantage of others in a situation like this? Men had lined the road with vehicles in an attempt to stop traffic and hijack people for whatever items of value they carried. They  caught a gap in the corner of the blockade though; Rebecca had spied it. Jacob made for it and smashed through, metal screeching on metal, sparks flying. Following closely behind, the others penetrated a different section and drove with part of the front end missing. Remembering what the fellows from the other group said about Albury, Jacob kept driving. They added fuel at a service center and filled plastic bags from behind the counter with the last of the savory foods.

As Wangaratta approached, he had another bad feeling. Still, he left the Hume Highway and drove northwest along the Great Alpine Road towards the center of town. A long line of zombies trailed all the way back along the roadway and around a bend, beyond sight. They were a mix of fresh and old bodies, the withered skin and dark sunken eyes of the long undead, and the pale, unbroken flesh of the recently turned. Jacob presumed they were migrating out of the town looking for fresh food. 

“Please turn around,” Rebecca said. Jacob thought that was a sensible idea. He braked, checking the rearview mirror to ensure that the others were doing the same, and pulled to the side. The red four-wheel drive did the same further back.

The closest zombie detected the vehicle and lurched at them. Jacob thrust the gear into reverse and drew back on the clutch, pressing the accelerator down simultaneously.

“Go,” Rebecca said, eyes locked on the feeders. Two of them had closed in, and would be at the car in seconds. “Go!”

Braking again, Jacob guided the stick into drive and swung the wheel tight to the right. A
clunk
on the rear sounded their arrival. Body twisted, Rebecca leaned on the back of the seat, watching. Jacob caught them in the rearview mirror.

He slammed the pedal down, but the engine gurgled, and the car didn’t respond. Terrified, he lifted his foot and repeated. This time the vehicle thrust forward, throwing them back. The two feeders fell forward where their support had been.

They scooted away and linked back onto the Hume Highway, vowing to keep to the main road for now.

On they drove as the afternoon sun drew towards the western horizon, their fuel diminishing, their stomachs calling for more than potato crisps and sweets. But Jacob dared not leave the main road again, despite protests from Phil and Tommy, the other two trailing in the vehicle behind. The choices were slim now—they needed to stop before Melbourne. That left Seymour, one of the bigger townships in the region, the last of decent size before hitting the outskirts of Melbourne. He wanted to ensure they had sufficient supplies and a belly full of food and drink. Who knew what they might face in the big city, even trying to remain on the outskirts. He decided then as they whirred along the blacktop, the tussock grass peering out from rock embankments at the base of gum trees, that they would stay the night in Seymour. He felt better having made the decision. They couldn’t all be overrun, could they?

After Wangaratta, they zipped through Benalla and Violet Town. Rebecca piped up as they passed a hotel on their left and a string of dark shops on the right, separated from the main road by a line of trees. Smoke drifted in lazy columns from most of the buildings. Rotting bodies lay on the pavement. Another town gone to ruin. There didn’t appear to be any zombies, but Jacob knew they were probably hiding nearby.

“Killing Heidi,” she said, almost matter of fact.

“Huh? Killing who?” He drew himself away from the macabre thoughts.

“Killing Heidi. This is where Killing Heidi came from.” Jacob’s expression said he had no idea what she was talking about. “The rock band. Well, they’ve broken up now, but they had some killer songs.
Killer
songs.”

“Oh.” She liked music.
Rock
music
.
She had to get that from him. Not her mother. It was he who insisted on having the radio playing in the car, or belting out at home whenever they were plodding about. In truth, he loved all forms of music, had gathered an appreciation of it over the years—from his father, no doubt, but it was rock ‘n’ roll, that mesh of instruments and seething vocals that made his pulse pound more than anything else. Surely when God was up for a great time, he had the legends playing in Heaven. There was something about a catchy riff, thumping drums, a bass guitar, and a screeching voice—male or female—that got him going. And if Rebecca enjoyed it as much, if she’d acquired a love of music through his genes, then he was grateful for that, if nothing else.  

“You like music?”

He cleared his throat. “No.” She raised her eyebrows in mock. “I goddamn
love it.
” Rebecca smiled—the first since Campbelltown—maybe the first for him in weeks, and that lit him up inside. 

They chatted about it as Jacob drove the last winding leg towards Seymour; her love of nineties rock—Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine. A little heavier than his favorite stuff, but he wasn’t too old that he couldn’t appreciate it. He asked if she knew of the Beatles—of course she did, but she hadn’t heard a great deal of their music. He promised to track down a CD somewhere along the way for her to listen.
The White Album
, he suggested, which was his favorite, and he found himself describing the mix of styles and influences. She listened with wide eyes and rapt enthusiasm for
his
enthusiasm, and he realized they had found a similar passion.

And then they were there, pulling off the Hume Freeway and onto the Goulburn Valley Freeway, heading south towards the Seymour Township. In the distance on their right rested the faint lines of the train tracks, cutting their way between a cluster of trees and a sea of golden pasture where animals had once roamed. The road swung around and they crossed two thin tributaries off the Goulburn River and turned into Emily Street. The backyards of houses smirked at them in silence. No cars or people in sight. That was more worrying. Were they all herded up somewhere waiting for visitors?