by Wilde, J. M.
I looked over at Wyatt, sitting with one hand on the wheel and the other intertwined with my own. His light brown hair was messier than ever and fell loosely around his jawline. His broad shoulders were tense and stubble had started to form on his chin. He looked as tired as I felt. Neither of us had slept since the outbreak began.
His green eyes looked as deep in thought as I had been, but when he saw me looking at him, he flashed me a sideways glance and a smile formed across his face.
Finally we were together, but now I could lose him at any moment. The bittersweet taste of this new life kept me stuck on that winding roller coaster, but I was alive. And for that, I was immensely grateful.
Gazing out onto the outstretched road ahead of us, all I wanted to do was reach our destination. Our plan, and our only option if we wanted to survive, was to drive from our hometown of Melbourne all the way up to Cairns, where Wyatt’s brother lived a secluded life in the rainforest. According to Wyatt, his brother, Elliot, was quite the conspiracy theorist and had been preparing for the impending apocalypse for years. He would have everything we needed to survive.
I had wanted to ask Wyatt about Elliot since we left the diner, to find out more about him and where we were going, but I knew it was a sensitive subject for him. From what I had heard, they didn’t really get along. I hoped they would be able to move past their differences once we reached Cairns, especially if we were going to be spending a lot of time there—probably the rest of our lives.
“Hey, guys,” Jo said as she leaned into the driver’s cabin. “How’s it goin’ up here?” She swept her long red hair up and tied it into a top knot, leaving a few loose strands hanging around her face.
“Okay, I guess,” I replied, stifling a yawn. “How about you guys?” I gestured towards the cabin of the RV.
“We’re coping, sort of.” Her gaze fell to the floor, her bright blue eyes telling me she wasn’t coping as well as she would have me believe. Having been best friends for years, I could read her like an open book.
“How’s Ben?” I whispered, trying to make eye contact with her.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “He’s asleep, but I think he’s having nightmares. He keeps calling for his mum and dad.”
My heart broke for him. Ben had been silent for most of the drive, making us all worry about him. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he peered through the window of his childhood home to see the half-eaten body of his father and the sinister creature that had possessed his mother.
“After what he’s been through,” Wyatt said, “I’m surprised he can sleep at all.”
As though sensing our conversation, Ben appeared behind Jo, scratching the five o’clock shadow on his chin. “Morning,” he said. I smiled weakly at him, trying to cover up my worried thoughts. “Where are we?”
“Not sure exactly,” Wyatt said. “It’s been one long road in the middle of nowhere for a while. But I know this is the right highway, so we’re on the right track,” he paused, letting go of my hand and pushing through his hair. “Now that everyone is up, I think I should warn you about Elliot.”
I sat up straight in my seat as Jo and Ben edged closer, eager to hear what he had to say.
“He’s a little eccentric,” he started. “I mean, he’s my brother. I love him. But he’s gone a bit overboard the last few years.” He said, glancing sideways to watch our reactions.
No-one said anything, so Wyatt continued. “He’s a great guy, he’s not dangerous or anything. He just has some pretty strong theories about the government, and he can be pretty paranoid. I just thought I should let you know so you’re prepared. He freaks people out a lot with his ... opinions.”
He paused, and I decided to ask the questions that had been playing on my mind since we left Melbourne.
“Has he always been that way?” I asked, shifting in my seat to face Wyatt.
“Nah, not at all,” he said, shaking his head. “It started about five years ago. He was working as an attorney for the Government in Canberra. I’m not sure what he did, exactly. But he was privy to a lot of private information, and he started to get obsessed. One day he just snapped, quit his job and moved back home to Cairns. He wanted to be ‘off the grid’, so he spent all his savings on a house up in the mountains, just outside of the Daintree Rainforest. That’s where we’re going.”
“Do you think he’ll know what’s going on out here?” I asked, wondering how shut off from the world Elliot had been.
“Yeah, definitely,” Wyatt said. “He’s always watching the news. He had a satellite dish installed when he bought the house. He’ll know more than we do about all this.”
“Is it a nice house?” Jo asked.
Wyatt grinned. “Yeah. I haven’t been there since he bought it, but I heard he was doing a lot of renovations to it. It’s beautiful up there. And we’ll be safe.” He reached over and took my hand again, squeezing it tight.
“Sounds good to me,” Ben said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Anywhere away from those monsters is where I want to be.” He stretched his arms up over his head, and I heard his stomach rumble. “I’m starving, who wants dehydrated apple pie for breakfast?”
Jo smiled and nodded her head. “That actually doesn’t sound too bad.” She and Ben disappeared into the cabin and started raiding the cupboards.
My stomach rumbled then. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate, but I had one more question for Wyatt. “What happened between you and Elliot? To make you dislike him so much?”
Wyatt tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he thought about my question. “It’s not that I dislike him. Before he became so obsessed with crazy conspiracy theories, we were best mates. I guess I’m just angry at him for letting a few crazy ideas completely take over his life, to the point where he’s suspicious of everyone—even his own family. I just miss who he used to be.”
I could hear the hurt in his voice as he spoke. I traced my thumb over his hand, finally starting to understand why he never spoke much of his brother.
“Pie?” Jo asked, holding a packet of apple pie under my nose.
“Thanks.” I took it and bit into it, the sweet taste making my tastebuds sing. It failed to compare to my mother’s homemade apple pie, but for my starving stomach it was good enough. A twinge of sadness hit my heart when I thought of her, but I reminded myself that, in a weird way, it was good that my parents died when they did. As hard as it had been to live without them, I was glad they didn’t live long enough to see what Australia had become.
Wyatt reached his hand over to the CB radio, tuning it again. “Still nothing,” he sighed after another failed attempt. He had tried again and again throughout the night to pick up a signal, but to no avail. All we could hear was static. It made me wonder where all the other survivors were. Surely we couldn’t be the only ones.
“Don’t worry,” Jo said as she handed him some pie. “Australia is an island; if the infection started here, it won’t spread further than our shores. That means the rest of the world is safe, and they’ll send people to rescue us.” It sounded as though she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else, but I hoped she was right. The virus would be reaching the far ends of the country soon, making all of Australia an apocalyptic wasteland. After seeing two innocent, but infected, men gunned down in front of a hospital the day before, we knew there was no cure. But the world must know there are survivors, people who have made it through uninfected, who need help.
People like us.
I had to believe that they would come for us. Otherwise we were doomed to spend the rest of our lives fighting to survive, forever terrified of being torn to shreds and devoured by zombies—or worse, turning into one of those monsters ourselves.
I snapped myself out of my fearful thoughts and popped the last piece of pie into my mouth. I knew I had to stay positive if I was going to survive.
“Eva, look,” Wyatt said, squinting through the windshield. “Up ahead.”
Follow
ing his gaze, I saw a dirty white van pulled over to the side of the road in front of us. As we drove closer, I could see the word ‘HELP!’ had been scrawled onto the back of it in black paint. My eyes darted around the van and over the desert around it, but I saw no-one. It appeared to be abandoned, but there could still be someone hiding inside, awaiting rescue.
“Should we stop?” I asked, turning to Wyatt.
Jo and Ben were standing behind us now, watching the van carefully.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “It could be dangerous. But if someone needs help, I don’t want to just leave them for dead out here in the middle of nowhere.” He furrowed his brow as the RV started to slow down. “I’ll pull over, but we have to take it slow and quiet.”
I pulled my axe from out of my backpack and gestured to the others to do the same.
Clutching our weapons tight, we hardly breathed as we stopped behind the van.
Chapter Two
The door of the RV creaked open and I stepped out, not taking my eyes off of the suspicious van for a second.
My heart pounded in my chest and doubt started to fill my mind. I knew stopping to help people who needed it was the right thing to do, but the world had changed. I couldn’t live with myself if we just kept on driving, never knowing if we could have saved someone’s life. But now, doing the right thing could get us all killed.
As I walked closer, I could see a body lying on the dirt by the front wheel.
“Careful, guys,” I whispered to the others as I pointed to the corpse.
We huddled closer as we edged over to the back of the van.
I could barely breathe as I watched Ben take a step closer to the body. My knuckles were white from gripping the axe so tightly, but I had to be ready in case the body was not dead at all.
Ben held his crowbar out in front of him and gently nudged the motionless leg of the corpse. It didn’t move. Relief washed over me, but I still didn’t take my eyes off of it.
Wyatt and I stepped out from behind the van to get a better look at the body.
“He was fixing a flat tyre,” he said as he motioned to a deflated wheel semi-attached to the van.
Using his crowbar again, Ben rolled the corpse over so we could see his face.
I held hand over my mouth to stop myself from being sick. The man had been attacked by a zombie; his throat was ripped out and much of his flesh had been chewed down to the bone. Bile rose in my throat as I stared down at what was left of his face; his jaw had been broken off like a wishbone, and his eyeballs ripped from their sockets, leaving only dark, bloodied holes.
“What a horrible way to die,” I said, my voice just a whisper.
I had to look away to stop the nightmarish image from burning its way into my memory forever. The four of us started to scan our surroundings. We knew that whatever killed the man wouldn’t be far away.
Wyatt moved around the front of the van, holding his hunting knife at the ready.
“Guys, over here,” he said, and we followed him to see what he had found. “I think I found what did that to him. Some of it, at least.”
I gasped when I saw the remnants of a zombie, its rotting body parts strewn across the dirt. Spattered blood covered the front of the van. Someone, or something, had torn this zombie to shreds.
“Ew!” Jo moaned as she covered her mouth.
“Where’s the head?” Ben asked, dropping to the ground to look under the van.
I glanced around at the dismembered corpse pieces, but there was no head to be found.
“This is crazy,” Jo said as she stood close behind me, clutching onto my shirt. “We should just leave. We can’t help anyone here.” I opened my mouth to agree with her, but stopped when I heard whimpering from inside the van.
“There’s someone in there,” I whispered to the others as I quietly crept towards the side window. Peering through the glass, I could see the lone head lying sideways in the corner, its jaw opening and closing mechanically.
“Found the head,” I said to the others, and suddenly something big jumped at me from behind the window. I screamed as I fell backwards onto the dirt, my heart pounding in terror.
“Eva!” Jo yelled as she ran to help me up, with Wyatt and Ben right behind her.
“What happened?” Wyatt asked as he lifted me to my feet.
“Something’s in there,” I replied, brushing the dirt off of my jeans with shaking hands.
I looked back at the window, but whatever had jumped at me was gone. Together, the four of us stepped closer to the glass and peered in, weapons at the ready.
Nothing.
“I’ll open the door, you guys get ready,” Ben said as he grabbed hold of the handle, and we braced ourselves for whatever was about to attack.
In one swoop, Ben pulled on the handle and the door slid open. The creature leapt out in a huge black blur and headed straight for me. It hit me with such force that I flew backwards onto the dirt once more.
I closed my eyes and swung my axe in the air, ready to slash at whatever was weighing me down, when I felt the wet lick of a long tongue slide across my cheek.
Shocked, I opened my eyes to see the furry face of a dog.
“Huh?”
“It’s just a dog!” Jo smiled, clearly relieved.
I sat up as the dog ran over to greet the others. Even though my heart was still pounding hard in my chest, I couldn’t help but laugh as our new friend ran around us excitedly.
With its speckled grey and black fur, and a large spot of black over its right eye, I instantly recognised it as a Blue Heeler, an Australian Cattle Dog.
I climbed to my feet as Wyatt carefully stepped into the van to get a closer look at the dismembered head.
“Ugh,” he said, scrunching his nose up at the sight of it. “It looks like the dog tore up the zombie. It’s a woman. Or, at least, it was a woman.”
The dog jumped into the van with Wyatt and whimpered as it nudged the woman’s head with its nose, but she just growled and bit the air in response.
I climbed into the passenger seat to look for any weapons we could use. I noticed a photograph sitting on the dashboard. Picking it up to get a closer look, I saw a man, a woman and a little Blue Heeler puppy all sitting on a picnic blanket in a park. I turned the photograph over and the handwriting on the back read: Our one year wedding anniversary. 2011.
I didn’t recognise the man in the photo, but I could only assume he was the one lying eaten on the dirt outside.
“I think this was a family,” I said. “A husband, wife, and the dog. She must have turned and killed her own husband. Then the dog killed her.” I held the photo up for the others to see.
Wyatt took the photo from my hand to get a closer look, then switched his gaze to the head next to his feet.
He sighed. “Yep, this is the woman in the photo.”
Sadness washed over me as I looked at the poor dog whimpering in the corner, mourning its owners.
“Wait,” Ben said as he leaned against the door of the van. “So the dog is a zombie killer?”
“Nothing else could have ripped her to shreds like that,” Wyatt said.
“She must have tried to attack the dog after she ate her husband,” I paused, feeling nauseous after using the words ‘ate her husband.’ “Or maybe the dog attacked her while she was killing her husband. Either way, it’s not pretty.”
“Please, guys,” Jo said as she held her arms around her stomach. “Can we just leave? I don’t want to be here anymore.” She wasn’t handling all the blood and gore as well as the rest of us, and I couldn’t blame her. I was surprised I wasn’t keeling over, too.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said. “But we should bring the dog with us.”
“Is it safe?” Jo asked. “Will he attack us?”
Ben swung an arm around her. “Only if we’re zombies.” That made Jo hold her stomach even tighter.
“He didn’t attack me,” I said as I stepped out of the van. “We can’t leave him here to ro
t. Besides, if he really is a zombie killer, he could help us.”
Wyatt nodded. “He’s a Blue Heeler; they’re smart, strong and very protective. He’d be good to have with us, especially while we’re on the road.”
“I’ve always wanted a dog,” Ben added. “I’m cool to bring him along. I’ll drive from here.” He patted his hand on his leg to call the dog over.
Tongue out and tail wagging, our new four-legged friend jumped out of the van and started following us to the RV, but not before stopping to look back at the bloodied corpse on the ground.
“Come on, fella,” I called as I crouched down to his level, trying to encourage him to come with us. He looked at me, then back at the van, and whimpered for a moment. I started to worry that he wouldn’t want to leave his family, but after a minute of watching the van, he started to make his way over to me.
He followed us into the RV, and Jo put a bowl of water on the floor while Wyatt and Ben buckled themselves into the driver’s cabin.
Jo and I sat at the table as the engine started and our journey across the country continued. The dog jumped onto the seat next to me once he had emptied his water bowl and I started to pet him.
“What should we call him?” Wyatt asked from the front.
“I don’t know,” I answered as I checked under his fur for a tag. “No collar, no name tag.”
We all thought for a moment, and it felt good to be talking about something other than zombies.
“It needs to be something really cool,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him for a hug. “He is a zombie killer, after all.”
“How about Shaun,” Wyatt said. “As in Shaun of the Dead.”
“Nah,” Ben said, shaking his head from the driver’s seat. “Alice. Like in Resident Evil. Or Cherry, from Planet Terror.” An idea struck him, and he smacked his palm on the steering wheel in delight. “Tallahassee! From Zombieland! He was awesome.”
I smiled, amazed at how happy one conversation was making me. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t about death, the virus or zombies, so it was nice.
Just then, the perfect name popped into my head.
