“Bloody hell. I don’t know the fucking plan, all right? I only know we’re about to attack. He hasn’t told me anything else.” Even in the dimness they could see him looking across all their faces, imploring them to listen. “I have to trust him. I’m doing that. Now you have to trust me. Just be ready. Something will happen soon.” A whistle sounded from outside the tank. Sam looked back. “I have to go.”
“Can you at least take us to the bathroom?” Meg asked.
“I’m sorry. I can’t. We only have a few minutes. We’re about to make an attack. After that, hopefully you’ll be free.”
He turned and left the tank, giving them one last hopeful look as he closed the door and latched it shut. All of them went to the edge of the tank to get a look out through the pinholes.
“You see him? Juliet asked.
The others did. Sam walked over to the man waiting by the tree, who clapped him on the shoulder as though they were good friends. They hurried off.
Juliet turned away. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust him.”
“I do,” Meg said.
“Really?”
“What else have we got? We don’t follow him, and we probably die, or worse, get raped and left to die. We follow him, at least we have half a chance.”
“Jess?” Juliet trusted her judgement. She had said nothing in Sam’s presence.
“I’m not sure what to believe anymore. All we’ve seen from most of these people are lies. We should be prepared for something. We have the tool you stole. We need to use it.”
Juliet had never felt so unsure. While the old world had been bad enough, this new world was even more fraught with lies and deception. Sam had seemed like one of the good guys. He’d certainly taken a beating, partly because of them. But she didn’t know who to trust anymore.
“Let’s keep a look out, then.”
She took the wire cutters from her pocket and began to pace the holding tank. Whatever happened, they’d be ready when Sam gave them the signal.
27
January 11, 2014
8:51 pm
Hamilton, Tasmania
It had been a subdued, south-easterly drive from the BP service station just outside Derwent Bridge to Hamilton over the last ninety minutes. They had passed through the lakes section of central Tasmania; Bronte Lagoon, London Lakes, Brady’s Lake, and Lake Binney, where fly fishermen from all over the world came in an attempt to catch one of Tasmania’s famous wild trout. The road had been relatively clear, with only the occasional abandoned police roadblock or a traffic accident blocking the way, forcing them to leave the Lyell Highway, briefly, down a weathered dirt track in order to drive on.
It wasn’t long after darkness fell that Tammy suggested they get off the road for the night. Darren agreed, and having stayed in the area before, knew of a camping ground about a mile before they reached the town centre.
“It’s quiet. Not the most popular one in the town. Who knows what condition it’s going to be in now,” he said as he pulled the van off the main highway and onto a thinner strip of faded bitumen hugged on either side by long grass, shadows, and the odd white roadside post.
“We’ll take our chances,” Tammy said. “I’m not sure we’ll find anywhere that’s totally safe now.”
She rubbed her eyes. It had been a long day—the longest so far. They could shut down for a while and get some rest now. Her days had been long as a politician, often catching up on sleep as she flew from one destination to another. But this, being out on the road, was different. There was no certainty—not for Tammy or anyone else in the group. From one moment to the next, things could change. The stress was incomparable.
Darren edged the van off the sealed road and down the rocky trail to the campground. Outside the range of the headlight beams, blackness filled the spaces; what might lurk there terrified Tammy.
“Did you expect to see anybody?” she asked.
“I suspect there’s people, but they’ll be hiding.”
“Even down here?”
“It’s everywhere.”
Tammy began to wonder if the caravan park was still occupied by the living, given the lack of infected wandering about and the amount of trash accumulated neatly at the front of certain caravan sites. In other sections, the bags had been torn apart, the butter tubs, soft drink bottles, candy wrappers, and tissues spread over the grass and road as if wild animals had been foraging for a meal.
Darren selected two vans in the corner of the park beneath a series of willow trees, their branches and leaves looping low to the grass. Under normal circumstances, the park would have been a welcome retreat, Tammy thought.
“We’ll need more fuel tomorrow,” Darren said. “About a third of a tank left. Won’t get us a quarter of the way to Port Arthur.”
They exited the minibus and then split into two groups in pursuit of separate caravans—one of four, including Charlie, the other with only Darren and Tammy. Tammy was surprised and a little shocked. She had intermittently watched the others talking in the mirror of the passenger seat sun visor while Darren drove. As they went their separate ways, Charlie gave Tammy a sympathetic look.
“I want to check out the surrounding area,” Darren said as he broke the lock on the caravan door with a screwdriver seconded from the minivan’s toolbox.
“Define ‘check out’?” Tammy said, using the small torch they had taken from the gas station to illuminate the gloom inside the van. It was clear.
“I just want to make sure there are no infected waiting in the bushes before we go to sleep. Make sure we don’t get any surprise attacks in the night.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.” He smiled. “No. You stay here for now.”
Tammy didn’t like the idea of Darren going out alone. They split the supplies between the two caravans, enough to feed them for the night and a for snack in the morning before they got back on the road again for Port Arthur. The other four seemed quiet, as though they just wanted to get the supplies and disappear, engaging only when it came to the division of food. Tammy was about to propose they all eat together in one of the vans, but they scuttled away before she had the chance.
The gas bottle in the van was still functioning, and she boiled water for packet noodles on the stove and covered them in salty chicken flavour seasoning.
“Don’t worry,” Darren said as they sat around the unstable pull-down table with the torch casting its beam towards the roof.
“I’ve lost them.”
“No you haven’t.”
But she knew people. They would follow for a time, and if your intentions did not suit theirs, they would move onto other options more suited to their own needs. Tammy wondered how much influence Shane’s objections had had over them. Perhaps it was her insistence to go south, when the consensus suggested north to Mole Creek was the more popular choice.
Tammy swallowed the last mouthful of noodles. “You still want to go outside and look around?”
Darren nodded. “You bet. For everyone’s sake. I can just imagine a mob of these things attacking one of the vans in the night and trapping us. We don’t know what’s lurking in the shadows. I won’t go far and won’t get too close if I do see anything.”
“Well, I don’t see the point of it. What are you going to do if you see a mob of them?”
Darren shrugged. “We can always leave.”
“It’s your call. Do you have a weapon?”
“Golf club. Did the trick earlier.”
They cleaned up, as little as there was to clean, but it gave Tammy a flash of normalcy. They might have been a couple travelling around the island, camped at one of the thousands of caravan parks, finishing up a nice meal before sitting outside by the campfire light, drinking wine, and reminiscing about their younger days. It was a nice thought, and she could glimpse herself with Darren, if she considered it. He was handsome, considerate, caring, and chivalrous without being sexist. Standing at the door, Darren cleared his thro
at.
Tammy could insist on going; he couldn’t stop her. But if she was honest, she’d had enough of the damn things today, and any chance to avoid them, she’d take. “Sure you have to go?”
“I won’t be long.”
“Be careful.”
In the edges of the torchlight, the look between them lingered several moments longer than she had expected. Then Darren’s smile grew wider before he turned and left.
Tammy sat down on one of the single beds and adjusted the square pillow so she could lie back and rest her head. She let out a long breath as she kicked off her shoes and laid her feet on the end of the narrow bed. It was so soft, her body relaxed as it sank into the old foam. How long since she slept? They had run into trouble most of last night, and there had only been four of them then. The night before she had been alone and had managed several hours in her vehicle in the car park of the council offices in Latrobe. Before that, she had fled from…
A shout woke her—a man’s—and it sounded like he needed help. Darren. Shaking free from the deep sleep, she stuffed her shoes on, then leapt off the bed, grabbed the torch off the table, and unlatched the door, crashing into the side and causing the entire van to shake as she misjudged the step due to her sleepiness. The screwdriver. She might need it. Back she went into the van and took it from the sink where Darren had left it.
Pushing the light ahead, she navigated the steps and ran back behind the van in the direction from which she thought the shout had come, not even bothering to shut the van door. Small shrubs blocked her way, but she ran through them, ignoring the spindly leaves scratching her face and neck. She resisted the urge to call out, worried it might alert other things in the vicinity. She worried her heartbeat might alert them, too, the way it was beating. She pried the flashlight through the darkness, bobbing it over long and short vans, canvas and aluminium annexes. The call came again, painful, desperate, but certainly closer. She ran across the sandy gravel road, between two more sites, and then her flashlight fell on them.
Two bodies lay on the ground. One had the pale, crusty look of an infected. Its legs twitched, its mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, as if trying to inhale air. It had a steel peg sicking out of its neck. The other form was Darren, and he wasn’t moving. A cry escaped Tammy’s mouth, and a sickly feeling dropped over her like a veil.
She went to the other side of Darren and fell onto her knees, keeping the light back from his eyes.
“No, no, no,” she stammered, recognising the wound on his neck. A mess of veins and flesh stared back from the deep bite, and he was losing blood at a rapid rate.
She reached out to try to plug the bleeding, then snatched her hand back. He’s infected. His chest rose and fell rapidly. His breathing was raspy. He didn’t move, but his eyes found hers. A tear fell in a line from the left one down the side of his face. Tammy was struck by sadness and terror. What could she do? But there was nothing to do. No medical help could treat such a wound; the thing next to him, with its bloody mouth and lips, had done its work.
Darren tried to speak, but the sound dissolved in a rasp. Tammy took his hand in hers. He closed his eyes and swallowed, the bulging wound pulsing more blood from his dying body. Her own tears began to fall. She hadn’t imagined things could get any worse.
The infected thing’s arms and legs twitched, as if it was trying to get up, despite the steel peg protruding from its neck. It wasn’t finished. Tammy would have to kill it.
Tammy tightened her right hand around the screwdriver then moved to the other side of the infected and squatted beside it. She did not look into its eyes or register the expression on its face. Instead, she looked over at Darren as he suffered in his final moments, taking the last breaths of his life.
She hovered the screwdriver over its face. Her hand shook. She moaned, summoning the strength to finish it. The squishy sound almost made Tammy puke as she drove the long body of her weapon as far as it would go, piercing the infected’s eye and sliding through into its brain. It twitched. Tammy released the screwdriver, scrambled to her feet, and dry-retched.
Darren had stopped moving. She knelt beside him again and placed his hands on his chest by holding his wrists, wiping the tears from her eyes with her forearm. She looked at his face. Even in death, it was kind.
After a few minutes, she stood, took the flashlight, and removed the screwdriver from the infected thing’s head. With fresh tears running down her cheeks, she stumbled away. Tammy barely recognised her surroundings and wasn’t sure she was headed in the right direction back to the van they had been using.
After turning the corner of one van, a shadow came at her from the right. She swung the screwdriver around—more so to defend herself than attack—and leapt backwards out of reach with a cry. The thing was slow, but Tammy found herself forced into a corner in front of a shrub and a wooden pergola attached to the next caravan.
Then, like a flash, a figure appeared from within the shadows, striking out at the infected. It took a hit to the neck and promptly dropped to the ground. Another infected appeared off the pathway. Without looking back, Tammy ran.
She broke through a cluster of bushes and hit the narrow road dividing the park. She paused, ascertaining her location, and realised she was about thirty yards from where she wanted to be. She sprinted along the gravel towards the van, puffing, then leapt through the open door. Once inside, she latched it shut—double-checked it twice—then fell onto the kitchen seating and began to weep.
It had all caught up with her. Her husband leaving. Her family and friends dying around her. The group abandoning her. Now Darren, her last supporter, dead. She lay in a curled-up position on the long seat, hugging her knees to her chest, willing the pain to go away.
After a time, she got up and turned on the torchlight. She took an open bottle of water and drank the entire half that remained. Then she took an old tube of dishwashing liquid from underneath the sink and scrubbed her hands and arms, using water from the caravan’s storage tank. While doing this, she thought about going next door and telling the others what happened to Darren. Would they care? Why hadn’t they come out and investigated the shouting? Maybe they hadn’t heard. In the end, Tammy decided to wait until the morning, when she’d recovered some of her emotions and had time to process what had happened.
She peered through each set of curtains around the perimeter of the van to check for anything lurking outside. Nothing that Tammy could see moved in the darkness. In one of the high cupboards, she found an old battery-powered oscillating fan and set it up on the bench near the bed. It took some of the edge off the heat, and she was able to crawl closer to sleep. But she couldn’t get the images of Darren and what had occurred out of her mind. She must have tossed on the bed a hundred times, searching for the right spot. Sleep took so long to come, she was considering just waking the others and asking if they wanted to take off for Port Arthur. But her sleep cycle finally kicked in. Her eyes grew heavy, her breathing deeper, and then she was asleep, the images and memory of horror gone for a time.
28
January 11, 2014
9:58 pm
Near Deloraine, Tasmania
Mac led them back to the junction of Mole Creek Road, where he turned right and headed east. They passed through Chudleigh, where more wandering souls searched for the lifeblood of human flesh. Mac refused to think about Jess or Smitty or where they might head next. He just wanted to find safety for the kids, and then he could think more clearly. They must have been going out of their minds without their mother, jumping from one place to another, their father disappearing for periods of time, and the people they were travelling with dying.
After Chudleigh, they drove a little way then turned right onto Montana Road, a few miles before they reached Deloraine. Shelli had told Mac about a place she and Ken had stayed some years before. It had a number of cabins nestled in the bush, and Mac agreed it might be clear of infected. As they drove down the narrow road with blackberries on eith
er side, they saw in the edges of the headlights, fields of yellow grass rolling away into thick scrub. They crossed a narrow bridge with a thin trickle of dark water etching its way through more blackberries. The paddocks disappeared, and skinny trees filled the road on both sides. Finally, they came to a small break in the scrub where a narrow driveway beckoned, along with a sign that read Deep River Luxury Accommodation.
Mac took them down the dirt track with caution, scanning for the dead. His gut feeling told him that this area was less likely to have as many infected roaming about because of the lower population density. He’d heard through someone—he couldn’t recall—that many people had fled to the more remote parts of the state where populations were smaller and the chances of finding the infected were less. The dead needed humans, infected or not, to nourish their sickness. If there was nobody about, he suspected they would simply go looking elsewhere.
The place consisted of several cabins spread out from a central larger building with a reception area. Armed with the loaded shotgun, Mac ordered the others to stay in the car as he scouted the outside of the building, looking for targets. Smitty’s face kept appearing in his mind, and he had to work to push it away until he could find some time to spend with it alone. There were no infected, so he tried the reception area but found it locked. Both the staff and patrons were in hiding or gone. Mac broke the window of the reception area and entered the modest room, where he found a small wooden board with hooks on it and the keys to four cabins. He took keys one and two, assuming they would be close together, and left.
The first cabin had a queen-sized bed, which Mac took, and a second adjoining room with two sets of bunk beds. Tyler and Ashleigh took one, while the cricketing girl they had found, whose name was Chloe, took the other. Ashleigh insisted the teenager sleep in the same room as her, and the girl was kind enough to oblige. But Mac made sure he had a view to the bunk beds. After the day they’d had, he wasn’t letting the kids be more than five yards away. David and Meryl, along with Shelli, took the second cabin. Using the gas stove, Mac cooked a feast with the supplies he’d taken from his own home, along with a small selection of food found in the pantry. He suspected the lodge owners had been expecting guests at some point and had made sure the place was moderately stocked. After a feed of fried eggs, mushrooms, tinned spaghetti, and pancakes, the kids and Chloe went to bed, along with David and Meryl. That left Mac and Shelli to share a couple of warm beers around a shiny amber-coloured wooden table. A single small candle burned between them.
Invasion of the Dead (Book 5): Resolve Page 18
