Fear The Outback (Book 1): Fear The Outback

by Cheshire, Stephen W.

  Copyright © 2018 by Stephen William Cheshire

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, Stephen William Cheshire, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by UK copyright law. For permission requests, contact Stephen William Cheshire.

  stephencheshire@rocketmail.com

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  Many thanks for buying Book 1 in my “Fear The OUTBACK” spin-off series. Hope you enjoy.

  Chapter One

  Adelaide, Australia

  Chelsea Ackerman, 16, perched on the end of her bed looking towards the window. Scared to even stand up, the only thing she had heard for the last forty minutes was gunfire from the city centre in the distance. She had one thing on her mind (well, other than trying to stay alive): her one and only true love. Close to finishing school, Chelsea had put her dream of going to college on hold. She grasped to her mobile phone, her hands shaking with the fear of never seeing Justin again. She felt her palms start to sweat as she watched for her phone’s signal to reappear. It had been on and off all day since this crisis began. Begging and praying, Justin had left a few texts and phone calls on her voice mail. It was no good; the signal was out. She put the phone down onto the small wooden table next to her, keeping the phone on charge as long as she could. She perched onto the bed placing her head into her hands and feeling the sweat run onto her face. The gunshots could be heard through the window.

  She looked over at the piled-up glasses on the window sill. Red lipstick marks were starting to dry on the glass as the scorching heat beamed in through the window. Chelsea looked up at the window, afraid of what she was going to see when she looked out across Adelaide. She strolled up to the window, still looking at the small pile of glasses. The lipstick marks were slowly starting to fade away. She then turned her attention to the backyard. She looked at the cut grass. The patio was very clean, as it had been re-laid recently by her dad.

  She felt her neck click and she looked out into the distance. Her eyes were wide with disbelief. There, in front of her, was the city of Adelaide—the city she once called home. The city where she had met Justin. She squinted in the afternoon sunlight as she looked at the line of skyscrapers, which under two miles from her house, along the horizon. Small, white, puffy clouds passed in the blue sky overhead. She listened carefully as the gunshots continued to sound off through the small open window. Though the sound of gunshots was disturbing, the heat forced Chelsea to leave the window open to keep her room somewhat cool. Her eyes opened wider as she saw a huge puff of grey smoke blast up from the ground. It shielded the city skyline from her view for a second. Chelsea’s friends from school were right in front of her.

  “Chelsea!” she heard a voice yell, though it sounded like it was coming from inside.

  Chelsea turned away from the city skyline, quickly looking at her phone to make sure the charger was still firmly in the phone’s socket. She wanted to be sure that it would be fully charged once the power stations gave way. If her phone’s battery were to die, any chance of contacting Justin would be lost.

  “Chelsea!” the voice screamed. It was Chelsea’s mum, Olivia.

  Chelsea left her room and looked down the wooden stairs. Her mum was holding onto the end of the bannister, looking up at Chelsea from below.

  Chelsea hadn’t even made it to the top of the stairs when her mum asked, “Are you ready?”

  Chelsea looked down at her mum for a second before saying, “Just about.”

  “Well, come on,” Olivia demanded. “Your dad is going to be here any minute.”

  Chelsea turned around and stormed back into her bedroom. She looked at her small cabin bag. It still had the yellow tag around it from when it was given to her at the airport. The happy memories of last week’s family trip to the Gold Coast had been blacked out by the fear of death. Chelsea took one last look out of her bedroom window. She grabbed her bag, reluctantly ripping the phone from its charger. Chelsea looked at Jett, her brother who was older than her by one year, sitting on the settee. Chelsea’s three-year-old brother, Ethan, was next to Jett with a small baby bag next to him.

  Jett looked at their mum as she stood by the window peering across at the houses on the other side of the street. No cars had sped past in the last couple of minutes. The neighbours’ doors were wide open, as people were looting from the abandoned homes.

  Olivia looked to the right and caught something out the corner of her eye. She saw a female figure running in the middle of the road—a lady, aged around fifty. Olivia locked her eyes onto the woman whose grey blouse was bloodstained and who had a bite mark on her left leg with dried blood around the wound.

  Chelsea slowly walked down the wooden stairs, holding to the cabin bag as Jett slowly walked over to the window that their mum was still staring out of.

  “What is it?” Chelsea asked them.

  “Shhh,” Her mum snapped before Chelsea had finished speaking.

  Chelsea frowned as Jett continued holding onto his phone. Similar to Chelsea, Jett was eager to hear from his own first love, Laura. Laura was a music student with a great interest in rock and roll, just like Jett. Jett had his own electronic guitar in his bedroom.

  Jett and Olivia peered through the window nets trying not to shuffle them or to make any sudden movements. Chelsea set her bag down on the wooden floor. It made a slight thud.

  “Shhh!” Her mum snapped again.

  Chelsea was too scared to say anything back. She looked at her mum and brother as they continued to look out the window.

  “What is it?” She asked again. She walked up behind her mum and looked through the netted curtains. She could see into the middle of the street. The front door to the other houses had been left open as people had run away in fear. Chelsea looked at the female figure, which was now just standing there in the middle of the street, snarling, at nothing. She was dazed while she looked around.

  “Isn’t that Mrs Thomas?” Chelsea asked.

  Olivia flinched, as she had indeed recognised the figure as their neighbour from only three houses up the street. Chelsea looked at Mrs Thomas, who was still just looking around the street.

  Jett squinted his eyes. He recognised her, too. Jett slowly walked towards the window. He edged forward, accidentally knocking a red vase off the window sill. He tried to catch it, but it was too late. Chelsea and Olivia watched in horror as the red vase tumbled towards the ground. Chelsea didn’t even have time to close her eyes to the crash that was about to shatter the silence in the house. The vase shattered against the wooden flooring. Old water from the pot flew into the air as tiny bits of china blasted across the floor.

  Jett looked at Chelsea in fear, and then they both looked out the window into the middle of the street. Mrs Thomas swung her head in their direction. Jett and Chelsea looked at her gleaming yellow eyes and at the blood dotted about her face. Her teeth, which used to be gleaming and white were now stained with blood and had bits of skin dangling from them. Mrs Thomas looked at their house. Chelsea didn’t say a word. She couldn’t breathe for a couple of seconds. She knew that Mrs Thomas had heard the vase drop. She snarled and sprinted towards the house. Chelsea’s and Olivia’s screaming only made the situation worse.

  Mrs Thomas approached the house and slammed her body into the window. Chelsea screamed in fear as Mrs. Thomas’s bloody handprints stained the window. Mrs Thomas co
ntinued slamming into the window with pure and utter rage. The window started to crack. Jett watched the crack lines slowly travel across the window.

  Chelsea looked back towards the backyard of the house. If they tried to leave through the back gate, they would be cornered. There was nowhere to run. The cracks in the window started to intensify. Mrs Thomas’s once gentle personality was now gone, hidden behind the monster in front of them. The glass window started to give way. Chelsea could only step back and scream. Jett stepped back as well. He looked into the dining room and his eyes met one of the wooden chairs. He turned around ran into the dining room and retrieved it, returning to the front room.

  “Get back!” he ordered

  Chelsea and her mum stepped back behind him. Ethan was crying in his mum’s arms. The whole family looked at Mrs Thomas as she continued to hurl her body into the window. She was almost in the house now.

  Chelsea’s attention was suddenly pulled away from the window. A car had crashed into the side of the house. Chelsea and her mum frowned as they heard a door shut with a thud. They looked to see Greg, the father and husband of the family. He looked through the broken window. The top button of his shirt was undone; he had no tie, no briefcase, nothing.

  “Well,” he yelled “Come on. We need to get out of here!”

  Chelsea took another look at her phone. The signal had come back for a few seconds but went again. No texts or social media updates had come through for a short while. She picked up her bag, still grasping her phone with her other hand. She looked down the street. The roads were dead. A lot of people had already left the neighbourhood. The sun beamed down onto Chelsea’s head. Epically loud gunshots were heard in the distance as Chelsea threw her bag into the back of the silver vehicle.

  “What took you so long?” Olivia demanded. “You could have died!”

  Greg looked at Olivia. “The city is a nightmare,” Greg replied. “It took me nearly an hour to leave the city centre.”

  “What is it like?” She asked.

  Greg once again locked his eyes onto Olivia as the rest of the family loaded into the car.

  “Horrible,” he replied. “Police are everywhere; I saw someone eaten by a group of these…these…these…things!”

  Chelsea sat in the back of the car trembling as she listened to the gunfire in the background. She eventually stopped trembling and looked out of the window as Jett did the same.

  “What?” Greg asked.

  Greg turned around. So did Olivia. There she was, standing next to Greg, just looking at him with gleaming yellow eyes and a bloodstained blouse and teeth.

  “Mrs Thomas?” he said

  Mrs Thomas lunged at him. She slammed her teeth into his neck, penetrating his veins. Olivia screamed as the blood from his beck ran down his light blue shirt. He fell to the ground, blood staining the green grass which had been cut only yesterday. The dark red blood sank into the bone-dry ground as Greg struggled to breathe.

  “Go… Go!” He struggled to say.

  Olivia frittered as she got into the front of the car. The keys were still in the ignition. She started up the car. She put the car into the reverse and swung out onto the road. She looked at Mrs Thomas. Mrs Thomas had gotten up from biting Greg and was now looking at the car. She ran after it.

  “Dad!” Chelsea screamed. Chelsea watched as Greg got up off the ground. “Wait, mum! He is still alive!” she yelled.

  Her mum ignored her as Mrs Thomas—and now Greg, too—started running after the car.

  “MUM, HE IS STILL ALIVE!” Chelsea screamed again.

  Chelsea looked back at her father. As she wiped the tears away from her eyes, she saw that her dad’s eyes were glowing yellow.

  “NO, HE’S NOT!” Olivia yelled back

  Chelsea froze, looking at her mum as she continued driving through the hectic city.

  “I’m sorry!” Olivia cried.

  Jett looked ahead as they pulled away from the estate. He looked to see one of the city buses. It was speeding along. Some of the zombies were grasping it. He could only picture the fear in people’s eyes as they tried to flee the city.

  “Where are we going?” Chelsea demanded.

  Her mum just stared out the front of the car trying to keep her attention focused on the road ahead. People were running in all directions from the infected people.

  Chelsea looked down at her phone to see that the signal bars had started to return. She thought that perhaps the deaths were helping to free up the jammed signals. “Oh, thank God,” she mumbled.

  Jett looked over at Chelsea. He looked down at her phone, seeing that the signal was weak. Her phone beeped a few times. The internet was back up as well. Notifications from Facebook and Twitter were coming through. She clicked ‘search’ on Facebook, trying to keep the phone steady as her mum, who was trying to keep her emotions strong for her family, weaved in and out of the crashed cars. Chelsea looked at Katie Jones’s (one of Chelsea’s friends) profiles. She looked at the updated profile status ‘What the fuck is going on? I just saw someone get bitten in the street.’ There were only a couple of likes on the post. It was like no one cared or like everyone was dead. Chelsea clicked on Justin’s profile. She watched as the profile slowly started to load.

  “Come on,” she begged. The page loaded. She looked at the picture of Justin. In it, he was wearing his leather jacket; his hair was down to his ears. Her heart melted. ‘Is he still alive?’ she asked herself. She looked down to see her phone start to ring. Huge bold letters reading ‘JUSTIN’ came up. Her heart melted even more.

  Chelsea answered the phone quickly. “Justin!” She yelped. “Where are you?” Chelsea started to cry. “Please tell me you’re alive.” There was a short pause.

  “Chelsea,” Justin yelled.

  Chelsea listened to the gunshots in the background. The signal was very weak. “Justin, where are you?” she asked.

  “Chelsea,” Justin said, “I’m trying to get home. My mum and dad’s cruise isn’t back yet. I hope they are okay.”

  Chelsea looked at her mum; then she looked at the road signs. They were not that far from Justin’s house. The signal started to crackle.

  “Chelsea,” she heard Justin say, “I…love…love—” The signal started to die.

  “Justin, listen,” Chelsea yelled into the phone. “We’re going to come and get you.”

  Olivia at Chelsea through the mirror of the car. “What!?” she screamed. “No, we are not!”

  The line went dead. “JUSTIN!” Chelsea screamed at the top of her voice.

  Jett squinted down at his phone. He couldn’t even get an internet signal to appear. Olivia continued to drive away from Adelaide on the back streets. The sun beamed in through the front of the window.

  “Mum,” Chelsea said, “we have to go and get Justin.”

  “What?” Olivia gasped. “No, it’s too dangerous.”

  “Mum, please!” Chelsea pleaded.

  “No,” Olivia said again “It’s too dangerous. Look.” Chelsea looked at Olivia. “Look what happened to your father only a few minutes ago,” Olivia said as she continued to drive towards the city limits into the outback.

  “Mum, listen,” Chelsea said. “Justin was in the army cadets for a while. He knows outback survival. He could keep us alive.” Chelsea looked at her mum as she considered this. “Please,” she added.

  Olivia continued looking forward at the road. “Shit,” she uttered. She turned to the left, onto a road that led back towards the city centre.

  “Thank you!” Chelsea praised.

  “Tell him to stay at his house until we arrive.”

  “Okay,” Chelsea replied. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Chelsea looked down at her phone. The signal was weak, but she thought she might be able to text him. She tapped away on her phone and sent the text to Justin. She watched her phone struggle to send the message.

  “Did it send?” Olivia asked.

  Chelsea continued looking down at her phone.

 
; “Did it send!?” Olivia yelled.

  Chelsea still just looked down at her phone. The message had failed to be sent. She looked up at her mum. “Yes,” she lied. “Yes, it sent.”

  They sped along the road. Chelsea looked ahead, trying again to send the message to Justin. She looked ahead to see a roadblock that had been set up by the Australian army and a few Adelaide police officers.

  “Shit,” Olivia said.

  “What is it?” Chelsea asked.

  “Roadblock,” Olivia replied. “Dead ahead.”

  Chelsea looked at the trees on both sides of the street. Olivia slowed down as she pulled up to the roadblock. She looked further down the street and saw the city of Adelaide in the distance. She could see the burning skyscrapers as they plumed up dense smoke in the distance. People were dying there in front of their very eyes. She pulled up to the roadblock. She opened the window a third of the way.

  “Hello, ma’am,” The soldier said.

  “Why can’t we go back into the city?” Olivia asked.

  “It’s too dangerous,” The soldier replied. “Mayor’s orders.”

  Olivia looked at Chelsea through the mirror again.

  “My…” she began to say to the soldier. “My mother is in the city.”

  “I’m sorry, miss,” the soldier said again. “We are only letting people out of the city.

  Chelsea tried not to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” the soldier sympathised. “Do you want my opinion?” Olivia looked at the solider as he spoke; he was young—maybe in his mid-twenties but certainly nowhere near thirty. “Drive as far as you can from the city until help arrives.”

  Before Olivia could respond, she heard a snarl. She looked to see a horde of zombies running from the trees towards the group of soldiers and police officers. They were seemingly locked onto them.

  “Shit!” the soldier gasped. “CONTACT!”

  The zombies were attacking from both sides of the street.

  “Shit!” Olivia gasped in fear.

  The soldiers and police opened fire. They didn’t seem to be slowing the zombies down, though. Jett looked at the zombies in horror as they ran out of the bushes into the street.