by Frank Tayell
“On my phone, but that’s still on the plane,” he said.
“Ah. Well, I could try to find her. It might take some time, and I might not be able to.”
“I guess it’s better not to know.”
“Probably not.”
Chapter 8 - The Nightmare Begins
The Outback
21st February
Their childhood was a minefield littered with too much sadness and pain to be re-trodden, while Pete’s recent past was an uneventful catalogue of routine drudgery interspersed with brighter moments generally featuring Olivia. Remembering her only summoned worries over the unknown nightmare she faced, and so, as the scorching afternoon turned into a baking evening, conversation became more subdued. Corrie’s trips inside grew longer. The summary of the news she learned grew shorter, but all the grimmer for it. The outbreak had spread far beyond America’s borders, but so had the efforts to contain it. The race had begun, and only time would tell who would win.
Near sunset, Matilda returned. Pete filled her trough, but when the kangaroo sprang away into the darkening empty expanse, he retreated back inside, seeking the familiar comfort of the television. The stations were still broadcasting, but every channel now showed old sitcoms, with newsbreaks replacing commercials. Each break contained the same tired admission that the crisis was on-going, though with enough minor variations to prove they were broadcasting live.
The fan’s laboured whine nearly drowned out the television, but he’d seen the show so often, he knew most of the words. He stretched out on the sofa, watching the familiar scene, wondering whether the choice of a sitcom set in New York was a twisted joke or an oversight.
At the next break, he sat up. It was a new anchor and a new graphic. He switched off the fan, leaning forward as the blades slowed and silenced, but the anchor wasn’t reporting anything new. Planes and ships were being prevented from leaving, and arrivals were being quarantined. He’d known that. Rather, Corrie had. The sitcom resumed. Sweat was already beading on his forehead and back. He turned the fan back on. Yes, Corrie had said that planes weren’t being allowed to leave, but had that been widely known? Perhaps not, but did it matter? Probably not. He leaned back in the chair, and let the familiar sitcom send him to sleep.
A screaming roar shook him awake. He stumbled from the sofa, orientating himself by the TV’s dim glow. Corrie was already sprinting for the door. Pete grabbed his boots and ran after her, while the roaring and shaking continued.
“Planes,” Corrie said as they stared up into the cloudless night sky. Beneath the stars, red and white lights arced through the air. “Twelve,” she counted. “Fourteen. Eighteen. More. They’re flying in formation.”
“They’re military?” Pete asked.
“I don’t think so,” Corrie said. “They’re civilian. But they’re big planes. Four engines, that’s a 747. That’s another. That’s a Dreamliner, I think.”
“They’re flying north to south, right?” Pete asked. “What’s that town up in northern Australia? Cairns. Could they be from there?”
“There’s dozens of cities, airports, they could have come from—” she began, but then one set of lights detached itself from the others. “It’s coming down.”
“Must be engine trouble. It’s coming in to land,” Pete said.
A high-pitched whine rose above the roar of the passing jets as the stricken plane approached the ground.
“It’s going to crash,” Corrie said. “Pull up, pull up, pull up!”
“It’s going to hit us,” Pete whispered. “It’s going to—” But he’d gauged the distance wrong. The plane didn’t pull up, but ploughed into the dirt a kilometre to the south. The lights disappeared replaced by a flash of flame and a thundering explosion that rocked the wooden deck.
“Get your boots on!” Corrie snapped. “I’ll get the kit.”
“What kit?”
“Boots!” she said, and disappeared back inside.
Feeling nine years old again, he dragged on his boots. Above, the remaining planes continued south.
The lights inside the cabin came on, as did a bank of spotlights on the roof; two for each compass direction, piercing the night. A second later, Corrie sprinted out, a bag in each hand. Both were emblazoned with a red cross.
“Get the gate!” she called as she ran to her four-by-four.
Comprehension dawning all too slowly, Pete ran for the gate, dragging it back as Corrie gunned the engine and drove her truck towards him, slowing as she reached the gate. “Get in, leave it open,” she said.
“We’re going to help?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Shouldn’t we call for help?”
She hesitated, glancing back at the cabin. “Later. Those planes will have radios, they’ll have called ahead. Someone will come, but it’ll be too late for anyone except us to help.”
Pete jumped in, though he thought he and his sister would be too late, too. From the size of the orange glow to the south of the compound, no one could have survived the wreck.
Corrie drove straight towards the smoking flames, and soon he could make out individual burning pools of fuel, some already spreading to trees and shrubs.
“This is bad,” she said. “We had rain last week, but I don’t think it was enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“To stop a firestorm,” she said.
“I wish I hadn’t asked.”
The four-by-four bounced and clanged over rocks, spraying a fine shower of dirt over windshield and windows, reducing his view to a glowing patchwork of distant flames.
With no warning, Corrie slammed on the brakes. “Grab a bag,” she said, and threw open the door, letting in an acrid tang of burning fuel.
Pete snatched one of the kits, threw open the door, and stepped into hell. A smoking aluminium strut jutted vertically upwards a metre in front of the truck.
“We almost drove right into it,” he said, gagging on the noxious fumes.
“Can you see anyone?” she asked.
“No one. Nothing,” he said, peering into the smoke-filled haze.
“There’s a flashlight in the bag’s front pocket.”
He found the torch, turned it on, and sent the beam out into the darkness.
“I don’t know what to do now,” she said.
“Hello?” he called, shining his beam into the smoke-filled gloom. “It’s worth a try,” he added, but no reply came.
“People closer to the tail will be more likely to survive,” she said.
“You think so?”
“I suppose it depends whether the tail or nose hit first,” she said. “We’ll look for twenty minutes. And keep an eye on the flames. If the fire looks like it’s spreading, we need to leave.”
“Right. Got it,” he said. Twenty minutes would be long enough. More than long enough, because he couldn’t hear anyone calling for help. He couldn’t even hear anyone scream.
Avoiding the cloying fumes, they moved around the wreckage illuminated by flickering flames.
“Stop,” Pete said, holding his light steady.
“You found someone?”
“An arm,” he said. “I can’t see the rest of the body.” He shone the torch across the ground, then back to the charred flesh still covered in torn and singed cloth. “Did they train you for this?”
“Of course not,” she said.
“Talking helps,” he added. “Someone alive might hear. And it helps me, too.”
“Snake bites, sunstroke, broken limbs,” she said. “I patrol the fence, make sure it’s in a fit state of repair. That’s the job. Everything else, it’s part and parcel of living somewhere remote. Is that movement over there? This way.”
She led him at an oblique angle for fifty metres but found nothing more than a shredded jacket caught on the buckle of a twisted triple-seat.
“There’s a suitcase here,” Corrie said.
The lid had come open, revealing the items within.
“
They had a chance to pack,” Pete said. He bent down, checking the document pocket inside the case. “Money. About two thousand dollars, U.S.”
“They came from America. Or maybe that’s where they wanted to go. Hello?” she called. Again no reply came. “We’ll keep moving. Over there, towards where the fire is thickest. Ten more minutes.”
“We’re not going to find anyone, are we?” he said. “Alive, I mean.”
“I’m not giving up,” she said. “Not—” She stopped speaking, while her light stayed fixed on a headless corpse.
“Ten more minutes,” Pete said, looking away, trying not to gag. “Come on. Ten minutes, then we can say we did all we could.”
A creaking crash came from the main part of the wreck. An unseen spar collapsed inwards, sending up a shower of burning sparks.
“Hello?” Corrie called. “Hello!”
They walked more slowly, tracking their lights far, then close. Pete had no watch, and no way of keeping track of time, but he knew when he next suggested they go back, she’d agree, and so he said nothing. He’d watched enough late night reality TV to know someone always survived plane crashes. Although, as he picked his way through the charred clothing, flung from broken suitcases, it dawned on him that perhaps those shows only featured the crashes in which someone had survived. Where the programme could be framed as a story of survival rather than tragic disaster.
“Pete, there!” Corrie said, and began running.
Pete couldn’t see what she’d seen, but followed. No. There. Movement. An arm? Waving. Signalling.
“Hello!” he called. “Hello!”
No reply came.
The survivor was in the middle of the three seats. To the left was a man in jeans and t-shirt, to the right was a woman in a charred cream suit. Both were smoke-stained, soot-blackened, and slumped forward, limp. But as he played the torch from one to the other, he saw the damp wounds around their necks. The survivor looked little better. His charred right hand jutted from a singed sleeve. The fingers curled open and closed. His left hand lay on his lap, twisted and twitching, oozing from where a white needle of bone jutted through the barbecued flesh. No words emerged from his mouth as his teeth snapped against one another.
“It’s okay,” Pete said. “We’re here to help.” He stepped forward, but Corrie grabbed his arm.
“Wait. Don’t,” she said. “Don’t get any closer.”
“Why not?” Realisation ran down his spine, an ice-cold needle. “It’s a… a zombie?”
The man bucked against the seat belt, shaking the two corpses on either side. His hand clawed out. His teeth snapped down. Pete backed up a step.
“It has to be why the plane crashed,” Corrie said. She spun around, sending her light across the wreckage. “Someone on board was infected. Everyone else was strapped in, with nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. They all got infected.”
“Maybe not all of them,” Pete said, stepping back. “Maybe someone is still alive. Someone, out here.”
“Maybe,” Corrie said. “We need to call this in. We really do.”
Pete didn’t argue, but backed away from the trapped zombie until his foot hit something hard, rigid. He spun around.
“Careful. Don’t run,” Corrie said, her words clipped, her tone trembling as if she was seeking comfort in reciting words she’d been told long ago. “That’s rule three. Don’t run at night. A twisted ankle can be a death sentence out here. Anything can be. Everything can be.”
Pete glanced behind, but he could no longer see the zombie trapped in the seat. “We saw more than one plane,” he said.
“Yes.”
“They could all be carrying the infected.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe we should walk a bit quicker.”
“Yes.”
A flat thud resounded behind them. Pete spun around, but only the shadows moved, flickering out of time with the flames. “Where’s the truck?”
“Ahead,” she said.
“Where?”
“No, look, there, there’s someone moving.” She waved a hand. The staggering figure raised one in return. “She’s alive!”
They turned thirty degrees, moving more quickly towards the limping survivor. The figure slipped, falling to hands and knees, then uttered a loud and plaintive scream.
“Hold on!” Pete called, but slipped himself. He landed on his knee, and as he straightened, his light caught the figure’s face. “No,” he whispered. “No, Corrie, no! It’s one of them!”
It was. And the zombie hadn’t slipped, but had deliberately fallen onto another passenger trapped in their seat. That trapped figure had been alive, and it was she who’d screamed before being finally silenced when the walking corpse had ripped out her throat.
The zombie’s blood-drenched teeth glistened as it tilted its face into the light. A gobbet of flesh fell onto the bloody ruin of the recently alive corpse as it snapped its mouth open, pushed down on its twitching victim, and staggered to its feet. Clawing, snarling, it took a lurching step towards them.
“Run!” Corrie said. She grabbed Pete’s arm and hauled him back and sideways. Lights bouncing before them, they bounded through the wreckage, around the burning fuel, across the charred scrub, avoiding a burning tree, and all the time, Pete looked for the lights of their truck.
“Do you know where we’re going?” he yelled.
“Keep running.”
So he did, and saved his energy for that.
“There,” Corrie said, pointing twenty degrees to their left. “The truck.”
Pete turned his head, almost fell, righted himself, and saw the lights, over a hundred metres away. It was an exhausting sprint, leaving him breathless when he reached the vehicle.
“Inside! Inside!” Corrie yelled, throwing open a door. Pete grabbed the rear door, diving inside as Corrie jumped into the driver’s seat. Pete pulled the door closed, and he saw the shadowy figures illuminated by the growing fires. Dozens of them. Marching, walking, staggering, tripping, crawling towards the truck.
Corrie started the engine, stuck it into reverse. “Are they running?”
“I can’t see,” he said, dragging himself up from the footwell to a position behind the passenger-side seat. “No, they’re not running, but they’re following. Wait, you mean they can run?”
“I hope not.” She spun the wheel and drove the truck forward, taking it in a wide arc until, finally, it faced the compound. “They can’t run. In none of the footage I saw did they run. We’re okay. We’re safe.”
“How far to your cabin?” he asked.
“Forget that. We’re going to Tibooburra, and then we’ll keep going. Are they still following?”
He peered through the rear windscreen, but couldn’t see anything except a few metres of dust. The car abruptly swerved to the left, hurling Pete across the back seat.
“Damned rule five!” Corrie said. “Tyres are gone. Must have hit something. You okay?”
“Fine,” he said, though when he touched his forehead, his fingers came away wet.
“Out,” she said. “Back to the cabin. Get Doctor Dodson’s car. You’re bleeding,” she added as he stepped into the light from the car’s now cracked headlamp.
“I’m fine,” he repeated. “Cabin, car, and get the hell out of here, right?”
“Right.”
They trudged through the dust at a quick walk. “Rule three,” she said. “Don’t run at night.” She shone her light backward. “Damn. We left the bags in the truck.”
“I’m not going back,” he said.
A shadow cut across the vehicle’s headlight. “Me neither. They’ve reached the truck,” she said.
“So soon?” he asked, glancing around. He could make out the shadows, and they were moving, following, and then he realised. “It’s different ones, isn’t it?”
“There’s a whole plane of them,” Corrie said.
“I think I can manage a jog,” he said.
“No. Twist an ankle, we die,
” she said. “We have to stay ahead of them, that’s all.”
“I can manage a bit faster, though.”
Even so, it was another five, fear-filled minutes before they reached the compound.
“Wait here,” Corrie said, and ran inside. Pete leaned against the open gate. He was exhausted. Sore. Battered. Too shocked to be scared. Another five minutes, and they’d be in the car, ten miles down the track. An hour later, they’d be in Tibooburra, but why stop there? They could keep going, driving as fast as they could until the fuel ran out.
The spotlights on the cabin’s roof stretched two hundred metres into the outback, and there, at the furthest extreme, he saw the shadows move.
“Hurry!” he yelled, grabbing the gate, uncertain whether to close it or not. The shadows drew closer.
“Corrie!” he yelled.
Still she didn’t come. He counted a dozen figures now, heading up the track to the compound, no more than a hundred metres away. Eighty metres. Seventy. He grabbed the gate, and was about to close it when Corrie ran outside, sprinting for Doctor Dodson’s car.
Fifty metres.
The car’s engine whined. Spluttered. Died.
Forty metres. The shadows drew nearer, coalescing into the shapes of people. Marionettes in charred clothing. Scalps burned of flesh and hair. Arms were missing hands, and in one case, a torso was missing its arm. They moved awkwardly, jerkily, but inexorably. Thirty metres. Twenty.
He turned around as the car’s engine roared into life. Corrie drove it up to the gate. He reached for the door, and looked out at the ground beyond the open gate. The nearest zombie was ten metres away, with over a dozen others close behind. Too close. Far too many, and far too close.
He ran to the gate, shoving it closed.
“Pete!”
“No,” he said, just as the first zombie launched itself forward. It staggered and tripped, falling face-first on the ground, but its outstretched hand caught against the gate’s chain-link.
“No,” Corrie echoed as she got out of the car. “We were too slow. Damn rule three.”
Chapter 9 - A Compound Doesn’t Make a Castle
