by Frank Tayell
Barbed wire was going up around the airport. Checkpoints were being established at junctions. Hawkei Protected Mobility Vehicles drove through the empty streets, letting themselves be seen, but Pete didn’t think there was anyone left watching behind the drawn blinds and shut doors. It seemed like the town belonged to him and Corrie, and to the military, until they neared the train station.
It was a series of lines rather than a queue, and made up of hundreds. The soldiers had their eyes trained outwards, their hands off their weapons, giving the impression they were protecting the passengers rather than preventing a riot. Even so, it wasn’t just their presence that was keeping the would-be passengers calm. Fear was in the air. Reality had arrived with the flying padre’s plane. Hell on Earth, so far only glimpsed through images on the television, experienced through the inconvenience of shut stores, had reached the remote town.
“You’re here,” Qwong said, crossing the street to meet them.
“We came to help,” Corrie said.
“Good on ya, but there’s not much for me to do,” Qwong said. “But you can walk with me as I walk the line. Good day for travelling, Dee,” she added, speaking to a woman in the crowd with two small children clutched close. “Looks like the heat’s broken.”
The refugee gave a tight-lipped smile, but didn’t reply.
“Things are under control?” Pete asked.
“They are,” Qwong said. “But I knew they would be. I’ve a new theory. You’re a magnet for danger, Pete. As long as you weren’t here, I knew we’d be fine. I’m yanking your chain, mate. You all right after yesterday?”
“I’m still alive,” Pete said.
“That’s the spirit. Each day’s a new adventure,” Qwong said. She raised a hand, and then her voice, aiming it a middle-aged, pot-bellied man with five suitcases on a wooden handcart. “Packed the kitchen sink in there, Terry?”
“Nah, just the fridge,” the man replied.
“People are carrying a lot,” Corrie said, as they continued walking.
“There’s no restrictions on baggage,” Qwong said. “At least, no one told me there were. We’ve been given six trains, each with fourteen carriages. But my last headcount says we’ll only need four trains. Maybe five, considering the luggage. What happens to the bags at the other end, that’s a different question. One I hope has a happy answer, but time will tell.”
A plane buzzed overhead.
“That’s Liu, I think,” Corrie said. “Bobby’s gone up with her.”
“He has? Good for him,” Qwong said, again raising her voice. “G’day, Steff. Travelling light?”
The woman only had a single, small bag, slung over her shoulder. “Thought I’d do my shopping when I get there,” she said. “A bit of shopping, a few weeks on the beach, it’ll be a nice break.”
“Save me a spot,” Qwong said.
“She thinks this will be over in a few weeks?” Pete asked.
“Maybe it will be,” Qwong said. “Who can say? The road convoy finally left about half an hour ago. It took longer than I’d have liked to get everyone together, but it was straightforward enough. This is taking longer still, but if we rush it, we’ll get panic, and what would be the point of that? No, there aren’t as many people as I was expecting. Four thousand, three hundred and seventy. Just over three thousand left with the road-convoy. This was a town of seventeen thousand last month. Add in a few thousand refugees from the outback, and that leaves a lot who’ve stayed.”
“Or who’ve already left,” Pete said. “People like Liu’s neighbours?”
“And I won’t know how many until I can go door-to-door,” Qwong said.
“Has there been any news?” Corrie asked. “We picked up a few rumours from the soldiers, but I don’t know if I should believe them.”
“Rumour is about all I’ve heard, too,” Qwong said. “There’ve been a few more outbreaks in Perth. A few ships have been sunk. We had planes arriving from Madagascar. Other places, too, but a lot from there. I’m somewhat comforted by the sheer number of troops that came here last night. It suggests, at least in New South Wales, this is the biggest danger. And, in a small way, that’s helping. The fear of zombies is keeping people calm. That and the soldiers. Hang on, why’s she alone?”
Qwong made a bee-line for a teenage girl wearing red shorts, a red t-shirt, and just as red a sunburn. She was alone, dragging a red, hard-shelled suitcase almost as big as she was, with a trumpet-case strapped to the top.
“Hiya,” Qwong said kindly. “You’re part of that orchestra, aren’t you? Where are your mates?”
“Gone,” the girl said. Her eyes fell on the word ‘police’ on Qwong’s jacket. “They went to the Kinchega National Park. To a campsite by the Menindee Bridge.”
“Why did they go there?” Qwong asked.
“They thought it would be safer than staying here,” the girl said. “Because of the museum. They think they’ll start a new life there, farming.”
“When was this?” Qwong asked.
“Yesterday,” the girl said. “I just want to go home. The trains will take me home, right?”
“Sure, eventually,” Qwong said. “Did everyone else in your orchestra go to the national park?”
“I think so.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure, but no one is left in town.”
“How did they get there? On foot?”
“Car, I think,” the girl said. “Are you going to get them?”
“I’ll check in on them, make sure they’re okay,” Qwong said. “Looks like the line’s moving. Make you sure you get on that train.”
“No worries,” the girl said. “I’m getting on and never looking back.”
“You didn’t ask her many questions,” Pete said as Qwong led them back towards the rear of the slow moving line.
“Because I already know the answers,” Qwong said. “We had to chase two lots out of Silverton over the last couple of days. That’s the town up the road. Plenty of museums in Silverton about mining, about the old way of living. Some people, the people who recognise this isn’t going to end soon, they’re looking for a piece of land. The smart ones, they’ve driven off to stay with relatives, friends, or near-strangers they barely know, but who’ve got a patch of land somewhere with a better climate. The not-so-smart ones, mostly the tourists, they see the word museum, they think they can waltz in and pick up where their ancestors left off a century ago.”
“There are museums in this national park?” Pete asked.
“A small one, with a focus on the early days of sheep-ranching. It’s on the Darling River, and there are a few early aboriginal settlements of archaeological interest. But I can guess what attracted them. There’s a string of freshwater lakes, filled by the river. Considering the weather we’ve been having while these kids have been on tour, fresh water is going to be near the top of their list when it comes to starting a community from scratch. What do you say? Do you two fancy a road trip?”
The inspector had parked her van outside a pub with broken doors and a broken window. The van had one that nearly matched. Tape covered a small hole, with more tape holding the spider-web fractures in place.
“Had a bit of trouble in town last night,” Qwong said. “More looting. It quietened down a bit when the beer ran out, and a lot more after the soldiers arrived.”
“Speaking of whom,” Corrie said, “should we get some?”
“Nah. There were fifty-three people in that orchestra, counting the conductor and a couple of… I’m going to call them chaperones. They’re a mixed group, about half from our universities, half from China, part of a cultural exchange scheme which had them performing to rural communities across Australia, with a return-leg in China planned for next summer. Guess that’s off. This was the group I put up in the chalets, but Morsten chased them off. I can see why that made them decide to take their chances alone, but it would take all the soldiers here to drag them back, and what for? To join the back of the queue? We’ve another train coming in a few d
ays, I’m told. I just want to make sure they’ve got enough fuel to get back to town, enough food to last them until they decide to return, and that it’s not turning all Lord of the Flies out there.” She opened the door and climbed in.
“And if they don’t come back in a few days?” Pete asked, clambering into the cab.
“Depends on what’s being planned for Broken Hill,” Qwong said. Corrie climbed in and closed the door. Qwong started the engine.
“I thought they’re turning the town into a supply hub,” Corrie said. “Isn’t that why the cargo flights landed?”
“That was yesterday’s plan, but is it going to be tomorrow’s?” Qwong said. She pulled the van out into the road, driving slowly through the deserted streets. “And what exactly is a supply hub? Supplying who? From where? Why? And why do we need an operating theatre at the airfield? Why do the military have orders to protect the hospital and the solar-power plant? Sure, they’re obvious assets, worth protecting, but I guess I’m asking whether there’s a real plan or if some bloke down in Canberra took a look at a map and started talking without thinking because doing something is better than doing nothing, even if it’s only for the benefit of the other people in the room. To be a little more specific, I think that room was the cabinet. Anna Dodson’s been bumped up a few spots. She’s in the room, and in the chain of succession, which is suddenly a lot more important than it was last year.”
“To what position?” Corrie asked.
“Her official title was something like Minister for Wellbeing and Continuing Education, but it amounts to her being in charge of morale.”
“Do you know her well?” Pete asked.
“Anna? She’s a few years younger than me. We missed each other in school. Met her dad first, but that was after I joined the police.”
“You grew up here, didn’t you?” Pete asked.
“I did. My mum named me Countess. Countess Qwong. She didn’t speak much English back then. Read even less. She saw a photograph of a titled European, thought the woman looked glamorous, and so copied out the caption, but got the title rather than the name. I always tell myself that it could have been worse. I could have been called Picture Above. It’s why I go by Tess. It’s the usual refugee story. My mum came here with dreams and plans and ended up opening a restaurant, which made her a living until she sold it to Joey Thurlow, and bought herself a retirement.”
“Really? It was the cafe where he… he died?” Pete asked.
“No, this was years ago,” Qwong said. “I’d just joined the police. My mum realised I hadn’t been kidding when I said I didn’t want to take over the family business. Since it wasn’t what she’d ever wanted to do, either, she didn’t take it too hard. Joey wanted to turn it into a franchise. This was just after he’d got back from a trip to Dallas, his head full of plagiarised ideas. But it didn’t work without my mum in the kitchen. He switched it to a steakhouse, then sold that to the first mark he could find. Broke even on the deal, and the new owners went broke six months later. That’s the restaurant business for you.”
“But you came back here?” Pete asked.
“As a constable. I took the posting because I thought I knew the town, the outback. Couldn’t have been more wrong. That’s when I got to know Mick Dodson. I learned as much from him as I did anyone else, and I did well. I got promoted to the big city. And promoted again, until I ended up promoted back out here. That’s a longer story, but I think it’s time you told me one of yours. Do you really sell carpets?”
“I do,” Pete said. “Or I did. Lisa Kempton bought the place just before Christmas. I guess so she could send me here.”
“And she’s been trying to stop a cartel? A billionaire going against the mob, what, did she read too many superhero comics growing up?”
“I don’t know,” Corrie said. “Except that she was doing that when I left, and still doing it now, so she was either lying to me about wanting to stop them, or not doing a very good job.”
“So why didn’t she go to the cops?” Qwong asked.
“She thought the FBI had been infiltrated,” Corrie said. “I think she was right.”
“Huh,” Qwong said.
Pete waited for the next question, anxious at how the answer might be received, and just as curious to hear it. But he was disappointed.
“Guess we don’t have to worry about cartels anymore,” Qwong said. “Guess there’s a lot of things from last month we’ll never have to worry about. Never get to enjoy either.”
With that, she lapsed into silence.
Pete leaned back, trying to enjoy the journey. They’d left the town behind and were driving along a road that was little more than a track. It was paved and signed, and with telephone poles running alongside them, but the outback seemed to stretch to infinity on all sides, broken by the occasional mulga tree and more frequent patch of scrubby spinifex grass and encroaching cacti.
“Stop! Slow down!” Corrie said. “Over there, on our left. Beneath that grove of golden wattles. There’s an RV.”
Pete leaned forward. Beneath a quartet of acacia trees was a white-sided camper van with green highlights on the sidings. “An RV with green flashes,” he said.
“Like the camper you saw up at the fence?” Qwong asked as she slowed, then stopped the van.
“I thought Captain Hawker found the RV,” Pete said.
“They were looking for it, but they didn’t find it,” Qwong said. “No wonder, since they were looking north of the town, and we’re now to the southeast. It might be a different RV, but we’ve got to check it out. Pete, there’s a toolbox behind you. I put a few shotguns in there.”
Pete turned around. The toolbox was newly installed, latched, but not locked. He handed Qwong a shotgun, then handed another to Corrie with a box of shells. There was a third shotgun in the box, but he took the tyre iron lying next to it instead.
“You don’t want a shotgun?” Qwong asked.
“Not until I’ve spent a few hours on a range,” Pete said.
They climbed out. Corrie took the left, Qwong the right, and Pete stayed a few steps behind as they walked slowly towards the battered RV. It took Pete five paces before he realised the flaw in his logic. The reason he didn’t want a shotgun was a fear that, after all he’d seen, he’d jump at shadows and accidentally shoot his sister. It was a real concern, but the danger from the undead was more real still, and now he had nothing to defend himself with but a metre-long length of steel with a chisel point at one end.
“Body,” Qwong said. “Two o’clock. A dead body, unmoving,” she added. “Be careful, though.”
They slowly approached.
“A woman,” Qwong said. “Shot in the head at point-blank range.”
“I think it’s the mother,” Corrie said. “It’s the necklace, do you see? The two dolphins chasing each other. The mother was wearing it. The RV might be a coincidence, but that surely isn’t.”
“We found her and the RV,” Pete said. “That’s something.”
“Not really,” Qwong said. “Who shot her? Why didn’t they report it?”
Before Pete could ask why that mattered, there was a clatter from inside the RV. The sound came again, continuing, turning into a banging scrape coming from just behind the door.
“The father?” Corrie asked.
“Undead, you mean?” Pete said.
The door shook.
“Pete, open the door,” Qwong said. “Then step back, move away, towards the rear of the vehicle. Corrie, you stay back, keep your eyes on our surroundings. Remember that someone infected them. That means we’ve at least one more zombie unaccounted for. I’ll finish this.”
Pete went to the door. Tyre-iron half-raised, he reached out, grabbed the handle, and pulled the door open as the undead father threw himself into it again. The zombie staggered forward, tumbling face-first down the steps, landing in the patchwork of withered grass. The zombie rolled, throwing up dust as Qwong moved forward, shotgun raised to her shoulder, her eye look
ing down the length of the barrel as she moved her weapon with the target, matching the writhing, thrashing father’s movement. She fired. The slug slammed into the zombie’s neck. The creature stopped thrashing, but kept twitching as Qwong loaded another round and fired again.
The sudden stillness seemed to stretch to infinity.
“Watch the sides,” Qwong said before marching up the steps, sweeping the shotgun left, then right, then stepping inside. “Nothing. Just an utter mess. Nothing and no one here.” She came back outside.
“Do we bag the bodies?” Pete asked.
“We can do it on the way back,” Qwong said. She paused by the dead mother. “Someone shot her, but they didn’t kill the father inside the RV.” She bent down. “Casings. Nine millimetre, a handgun. Corrie, what’s your opinion, were they the kind of people who’d carry a gun?”
“I doubt it, assuming they were who they said they were.”
“So who shot them, and why didn’t they report it?” Qwong asked. “And how did they get infected? Hopefully, for whatever reason, this family owned the gun. They killed the zombie that infected them, leaving the body somewhere else. They got this far before the father turned. The other two got out, but had been bitten. The mother turned. The girl shot her, took the gun with her and drove, following a compass north until she saw the kite flying in the sky.” She peered at the dirt, then walked slowly back towards the van. She stopped. “Trouble is, I can’t see any tracks for the dirt bike.”
“You’re worried about the gun?” Pete asked.
“I’m worried about zombies,” Qwong said. “From now on, we’ll have to be careful.”
“We weren’t being careful before?” Corrie asked.
Chapter 22 - Ghost Town
