Desolation Boulevard

by Mark Gordon

  Chapter 81

  A Bad Feeling

  The road out of Carswell was deserted, and there was no sign of marauders or travellers on the road west. Nobody spoke about the carnage that had occurred at the high school, but it was at the forefront of Matt and Dylan’s thoughts, as the car began its descent down the mountain. Matt knew that Dylan was right. Whether The Doctor was alive or not was almost irrelevant. Evil would find a way, and while ever there was anarchy, it had every opportunity to thrive. People with malice in their hearts would find each other, and unscrupulous leaders would organise them to fight for their perverted beliefs. It would be the responsibility of good men and women all over the world, thought Matt, to resist. He realised now that individual freedom was an impossible ideal in this new world. After the horrors and cruelty he had witnessed, he knew that his life would never be his own again. Personal ambition needed to be sacrificed for the good of the many. The implications of such thoughts, however, were almost suffocating. He tried to think of more pleasant things, such as home and friends. Montana stirred from her nap in the back seat.

  “We’ll be back by lunchtime,” Matt said.

  “I just had the worst dream,” she said, stretching and yawning. “It was really vivid.”

  “Yeah? What was it about?”

  “Umm, how far are we from Kate’s house?”

  “Really?” queried Matt. “You dreamt about Kate?”

  “More like a nightmare than a dream, actually. I’m worried about her now.”

  “Kate?” asked Dylan. “Is that the woman who rescued you guys when her zombie ex-husband attacked you near here?”

  “Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear in my lifetime,” Matt said drily. “But yes. She’s the one. Her turnoff is only twenty minutes away.”

  “Can we stop?” asked Montana.

  “Why?” challenged Dylan. “Because you had a bad dream?”

  “It was more like a call for help than a dream. It was so real! Matt? Please?”

  “Look Dylan, we have plenty of daylight left, and I’d like to make sure Kate’s okay. It’ll only add an hour to our trip at the most.”

  “Hey man, you’re the boss. Besides, she sounds like a pretty wild woman and I wouldn’t mind meeting her. We can spare an hour.”

  There it was again, thought Matt - that compulsion to do the right thing, even when your heart was telling you to do something else. He pushed his foot harder on the accelerator as the car wound down the mountain. Home would have to wait.

  -

  At first Matt missed the turnoff to Kate’s house because everything had become so overgrown, but after stopping the car and reversing a couple of hundred metres, they found the hidden tracks that marked the old fire trail. He pulled the car off the main road and began the slow climb, through the rainforest, to the top of the hill. Without regular maintenance, the path had deteriorated considerably since they had spent the night at Kate’s house a few months ago, and a couple of times Dylan needed to get out and move fallen logs from the track, but at least it was still drivable.

  “She hasn’t left the house in a while, by the look of this road,” Dylan said, as he climbed back into the car, after moving a branch from the road.

  “No. I hope that’s by choice,” said Matt, as Montana leaned over the back of the seat so that she could see the way ahead more clearly.

  “We should have come to visit before this,” she said. “We promised her.”

  “Yes, we should have, but it’s too late for regrets now. We’ve been so busy with other things, and leaving the farm at any time is dangerous. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

  “I can’t wait to see Elvis. I miss him.”

  “Yeah, he’s a good dog.”

  After twenty minutes Montana yelled, “Look! There’s her house!”

  Matt stopped the car as close as he could, and they climbed out eagerly.

  “Wait a second,” he said. “Why isn’t she out here to meet us? She would have heard the car coming up the road, wouldn’t she?”

  “Definitely,” confirmed Dylan, leaning back into the car and pulling out a pistol from the glove compartment.

  “Something’s wrong,” said Montana nervously, as they started walking cautiously towards the house.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs, and were taking things slowly, when a loud woof from inside the house saw them abandon all instincts for self-preservation and bolt up the wooden stairs and in through the front door, which was standing open. Matt was the first inside, but it was difficult to see anything because all of the blinds were drawn.

  “Elvis?” he called.

  A deep “woof” was the response from further inside the house, and Matt headed straight for the sound of the dog’s distressed bark. He raced down the short hallway to Kate’s bedroom, and despite its gloomy interior, he thought he could just make out the shadowy figure of the dog sitting by the bed staring at a figure that was lying on top of the quilt, unmoving in the gloom. Montana and Dylan arrived at the doorway as Matt was moving across to the bed. He knelt down beside Elvis, who was whining now, and could see Kate lying on her back, fully clothed and breathing irregularly.

  “Kate!” he whispered, as Dylan pulled the blinds open to let some light into the room.

  “Oh my god!” exclaimed Montana, noticing Kate’s bloodstained jeans and quilt.

  She's alive,” Matt said.

  “I’ll get a bandage,” said Dylan, rushing out of the bedroom.

  “She’s trying to talk!” cried Montana, as she crouched down beside Matt, and began to stroke Kate’s forehead.

  Kate’s voice was little more than a faint murmur. Matt and Montana leaned forward as close as they were able.

  “What is it?” asked Matt gently, as Dylan came back into the room with a first aid kit.

  Kate opened her eyes and tried to smile. “You never visit,” she whispered, through the weakest of smiles.

  Dylan had taken a pair of scissors out of the first aid kit, and began cutting off the blood soaked jeans, as Matt and Montana tried to comfort the woman who was dying before their eyes. Matt smiled sadly. “Kate, what happened?”

  She closed her eyes for a few seconds, and Matt thought she had passed out, but she opened them again and whispered, “Feeder. Late last night ... a straggler ... Elvis scared ... away.” Her eyes closed again.

  Matt turned to Dylan. “How’s her leg?”

  Dylan looked at Matt and shook his head. The flesh on the upper part of Kate’s thigh was beyond repair - shredded to pieces by sharp teeth. As they watched, blood pooled quickly in the deeper wounds as it flowed from a damaged artery. The mattress was completely soaked, and there was no way that Kate would survive without a blood transfusion, even if they could stop the bleeding. Dylan wrapped a new bandage around her thigh as firmly as he could, but it was clear that Kate’s life was ebbing away as each drop of blood leaked from her frail body. Montana was sobbing as Kate opened her eyes again.

  “How’s...Gabby?” she murmured.

  “Oh, Gabby’s good, Kate,” replied Matt, holding her frail hand. “She’s getting more beautiful every day.”

  Kate smiled. “Special girl ... but ...they ... want her.”

  Her eyes closed again. Then, when Matt thought that the woman might have actually passed away, her eyes sprung open, fearful and urgent, “You must take her west! Hurry!”

  “Why?” asked Matt.

  But this time her eyes had closed forever.

  Matt leaned over and listened to her last words, delivered as a final, fragile breath.

  -

  An hour and a half later, Matt, Dylan and Montana were standing beside Kate’s grave with Elvis, as the winter sun shone down, warming their faces. Montana’s eyes were red from crying and everybody was slick with sweat from the digging, but they wanted to honour this brave, intelligent woman before heading home. The only sound was the whispering of the leaves in the treetops and the forlorn call of a crow as it pas
sed overhead. They bowed their heads as Matt began to speak.

  “Kate saved my life,” he said, as Montana sniffled beside him. “She ... um ... she ... was a good person.”

  He paused, frustrated because he was unable to find the right words - the words that would do her life some kind of justice.

  “She had a rich life.”

  Matt stopped and shook his head, angry with himself because of his inability to communicate his strong feelings for Kate.

  “She deserved to have more people here to say goodbye,” he stated finally, brushing away tears with a mud-spattered hand. “She deserved better. That’s all.”

  “I loved you Kate,” said Montana.

  They turned and headed to the car.

  -

  They were about five kilometres from Millfield, and Montana was driving. Matt stared dejectedly at the road ahead, while Dylan and Elvis got to know each other in the back seat. The excitement of escaping the marauders at Carswell and returning home had been soured by Kate’s death, but they knew that Bonnie, Gabby and Sally would be hugely relieved to see them alive. At least they would have time to recuperate from their emotional scars in the peace and quiet of the farm, with only their closest friends to support them. Matt tried to find some solace in that idea as Montana broke his train of thought.

  “Hey Matt, what do you think Kate meant when she said to take Gabby west?”

  “Who knows? She probably wasn’t thinking too clearly.”

  “Oh. I thought she seemed pretty lucid, actually.”

  “Oh, really? Do you think it makes sense to leave the farm and head west?”

  “I don’t know. It just seemed like a warning. Maybe we should consider it.”

  “Maybe, but I really don’t want to leave the farm unless we have to. There are no feeders, it’s peaceful, and we have plenty of resources. It’s my home.”

  “Mm. Okay, then.”

  Montana slowed down, as she approached a burned out bus that was blocking half of the road.

  “That wasn’t there when we went to the caves.”

  “No it wasn’t,” agreed Matt, looking a little concerned.

  “Hey, can I ask you one more thing?”

  “Sure,” said Matt, as he and Dylan swung around to watch the blackened shell of the vehicle receding into the distance.

  “What did Kate say to you? You know, before she died.”

  Matt smiled.

  “She said life was worth it.”