The shotgun kept firing. The zombies kept coming, but she didn’t look at them. Andy cursed, flipped his gun around and thrashed a few heads with the butt before reloading. The knot finally loosened, and Mari tore the tape from her mouth. She was free. But to do what?
Her body froze. Her eyelids flickered involuntarily when she felt the cold hands of the undead on her. It wasn't the first time in her life, but it was no less frightening. It was death personified, appearing in a form that could look her in the eyes and show her how dispassionate and unceremonious it really was. She closed her eyes, and as her hands rose in front of her, she released herself from all thoughts of what to do.
Something happened, and it wasn’t what Mari expected. The sticky, grey hand that gripped her head began to peel off. Tacky fingers mashed her hands against her face, as another zombie staggered past her. The undead were heading for Andy, not her.
The zombies dropped to the ground as he continued to shoot. At first, Mari didn’t budge. She was too scared to attract attention and test her fate. But the third zombie pushed past her, and two more followed. Andy continued to mow them down along with the others that were closing in on him.
Could she be turning now? Mari tried to determine her state, but survival instinct bound her to the present. She remained huddled, observing from beneath the slow-moving shadows of the undead. Andy was so overwhelmed that he was unable to detect the aura of safety around her.
The firing stopped, and there was no more clicking of the reload. Mari heard Andy swear for the last time. No more ammunition. Swamped by zombies, he squeezed into a hatchback and slammed the door shut. A mob of pounding fists, knees, and torsos crashed into the panels. More bodies rushed in and filled any space around the car. Mari stood and moved toward the growing crowd.
Placing a hand on a stiff, clammy back, she pushed it and assessed the effect. The zombie leaned away from Mari’s hand, but it didn’t move out of her way. She dug her fingers in harder until she felt the skin split. Fluid oozed under her nails. The zombie lumbered sideways before continuing its mission to get to Andy.
Mari stepped forward and jammed her hand between the next two bodies in front of her. They pried apart only as she ground her knuckles deep into their flesh. Wedging herself through the zombies, she stretched her fingers to scrape the car door. Skin as cold as the car metal pressed against the length of her body.
The man inside had new eyes. They were small and distant with terror now. His mouth hung agape as the car alarm screamed hideously. No vaccine could save him from being ripped apart by a horde. Mari gazed into the bouncing hatchback in a peaceful state of intrigue. Her body rocked from the wicker of thinly covered bones behind her. The car had taken almost all it could endure from the outside, and now it was being pummelled from the inside. Andy banged at the window and screamed, trying to get her attention.
“Get them away from me! Get…” His lips disappeared behind the gag of fog that he breathed on the glass.
Mari tried to make out what he was saying. Did he want her to do something? She covered her face with her palm, but the rancid scent of zombie flesh rose from her fingers. There was probably something she could do, something she should do, something along the lines of luring the zombies away from this man and going quietly off to kill herself. But her anger still burned. It felt warm and real. Any selfless rationalising only left her with a dull, chilling sickness.
“Stop!” Mari yelled, drawing her fist back as far as she could within the writhing cocoon of undead. Her upward elbow pointed and flexed into loose flesh behind her, and she punched down hard through the window. Andy flew backwards in an explosion of glass. He frantically shook his head as Mari reached in and unlocked the door. The handle clicked open, right before his arm whipped out and slammed on the lock.
“No! Noooo! You…you monster!” He had the voice of a child.
Mari pressed her back against the undead to create some room and pulled the door ajar. Grey knuckles gripped it as soon as it moved and did the rest for her. The hinges loudly cracked. As the zombies climbed into the open hatchback, the wall of pressure behind her released just enough for her to inch her way outward. Her body bounced like a pinball between the undead rushing toward the car. She looked for another car to hide in to escape the horrible sounds that couldn’t be drowned by alarms.
The unmistakable noise cut through just before Mari plugged her ears with her fingers. The noise of an engine! Mari looked at the hatchback, but it was stationary. And there was no way Andy was still alive. A zombie in the crowd stopped and peered into the distance. Three more looked in the same direction.
Mari bolted and weaved through the maze of cars. Two hours’ drive to the camp, she reminded herself. She bee-lined her way to the running vehicle to confirm what she saw. The warm double headlights lit up her body and glared in her retinas. She stepped out of the light to get a better look.
The armoured truck.
Her hand slapped the panels as she ran around to the passenger door. When the door flew open for her, she quickly climbed in.
“Gordon!”
“Mari…?”
Gordon’s pale skin sagged under his slate eyes unlike before. The fine, sandy grey hairs on his balding scalp were glued together in veins of dried sweat. Looking stunned by her escape from the incredible mass of zombies, he simply stared back at her. Each was in an own version of disbelief until Mari tore her gaze away.
There was the familiar sight of the group's lucky charm, a tiny plastic jumbo jet, hanging from the rear view mirror. Polaroids of lost crewmembers were still taped to the dashboard. Thankfully, there were no new photos added in her absence.
“Gordon! Back up, back up!” The swarm of undead had detached from the obliterated car. The fringe of it headed their way, dragging the bulk in its wake.
“We'll have to turn around, Mari. There’s no way through!”
“Yes, there is. Down there!” She waved to the long driveway of a building near the corner of Ballarat Road. “Just do it, Gordon. Go!”
He floored the truck down the driveway. In seconds, they reached the back fence and drove airborne through the smashed-out hole. The truck landed in the yard of the house behind. They continued up the widest gap between houses, driving over a flattened side gate on the ground. The heavy truck bounded out the front driveway, the wheels screeching down on the road. Mari looked right, but the highway was still blocked with cars.
“That one!” she said, pointing at the house just in front of them.
Gordon swerved and accelerated down the drive. The huge tires erased the garden beds as the truck hurtled out into the next street.
“The highway's clear. Go!” Mari yelled over the sound of a bicycle dragging under the back wheel. Gordon shook the steering up and down, and the bike flung into the gutter. They turned onto the highway and accelerated, manoeuvring around the sparsely scattered vehicles. Within minutes, they were heading down the Western Freeway to Ararat.
Chapter 4
“You’re injured,” Gordon said.
Mari’s attention switched to her wound, but he was looking at her right fist. The knuckles were cut and bloodied from smashing the car window.
“It’s nothing bad.” She flexed her fingers to show him as she tucked her left arm close to her body.
“Rachel and Liam – where are they?” He flinched.
Mari shook her head. “I was hoping you picked them up. I lost them when we separated from the truck, and I didn’t make it to the rendezvous point. I got held up.”
“That was over a week ago. You've done well to survive on your own.”
Mari nodded. “Gordon, the others? Where’s Cam?”
He looked down and returned his focus to the road ahead. “No one but me, Mari, for two days. After finding some fuel, I circled the suburb. I checked the ring of surrounding areas. Then I continued looking around the roads that I thought people might use to get to the freeway. That’s how I found you.” His face appealed for
a reaction, but she was expressionless.
Underneath her calm demeanour, Mari was bewildered. No one left but Gordon. Cam, Nina, Marcus, Peter, and Simone. All of them were gone, just like that. Who knew if Rachel and Liam were alive? She could barely move the muscles in her face.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, Mari. It...” Gordon took a few breaths and started again. “We lost Simone and Marcus first. It was quick and violent. We were spending too long looking for fuel in the area, making a lot of noise and attracting a crowd. We still hadn’t found you, Liam, or Rachel. And the rest of us kept fighting over whether we should risk more lives by searching or drive on.”
Gordon averted his eyes from Mari’s intense stare.
“We drove on. Then, we had the worst two days after that. Nothing epic. Just an ordinary day of zombies. First, Peter was killed, then Cam and Nina disappeared completely.” Gordon rubbed his hands hard on the steering wheel. “We all just fell apart. It was contagious.”
Mari’s entire body began to tremble. Her eyes darted around the inside of the truck, unable to settle on one thing. She gnawed her lip while rocking herself back and forth. “Why didn’t you put their photos up, Gordon?”
His eyes welled with tears. He blinked them away as he faced the window and mumbled something into the air.
“What?” Mari asked.
“I just want to get to this camp.” For several minutes, he watched the road ahead, speechless. “At least you’re here, Mari. I feel safer with two of us.”
Andy's tortured face appeared. She pushed away the memory, only to think again of the lost friends. Looking out her side window, she allowed the high grass to mesmerise her. Pasture and leaves covered everywhere that wasn't concrete. Long lines of weedy flowers waved at her from the gutters of rooftops, forming the green, writhing fabric that almost cheerfully softened everything derelict and destroyed. Mari smiled, but the sadness overtook her.
“Wake up! Mari, wake up!”
Gordon’s voice echoed through the black mud of her mind, but it was isolated. Something was missing. The truck engine is off. She startled into full consciousness.
“We must keep going. Gordon, drive!”
But Gordon’s hands weren’t on the wheel as they always were. They were holding her left arm. His face contorted at the sight of contaminated blood pooling and staining the seat. With the scissors from the med kit, he hacked along the parka sleeve. He groaned when he saw the tube of brilliant red.
Her bandage was completely blood-soaked inside the cling-film, which was now leaking. It revealed the silhouette of her deformed limb and did little to hide the severity of her wound. Gordon held the scissors up to his face to cover his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Please Gordon, keep driving!” Mari was slurring now. “There’s no use wasting time on the side of the road for either of us.”
Gordon huffed and glanced around the abandoned fields and farmhouses edging the darkness. He let go of Mari’s arm and started up the truck. Mari was slumped in her seat, unable to hold her head up.
“This is a bite, Mari. You’re infected.” Gordon looked grievously disappointed. “How long has it been?”
“We have to keep driving to the camp. They have a vaccine!”
“What?”
“A vaccine. It’s true, Gordon. If we don't get there soon, I won’t survive much longer!”
“Are you kidding? Look at the state you’re in! It’s too dangerous. You have to get out of the truck! How long, Mari?” His hand reached out and tugged at her clothes around her stomach.
Mari slammed her bloodied fist downward, causing him to snap his hand back to himself.
“Damn you, Gordon! Don’t do this to me. We can make it work! You can tie me down. And if I get worse, you can kill me. Strap me to the hood and shoot me from the window if you have to. I don’t care!” Mari calmed her tone. “Get off your high horse, and you won’t fuck it up.”
Gordon seethed, but his foot weighed heavier on the accelerator. “If you are in or anywhere on this vehicle, you’ll slaughter me. It could happen any moment now. I’m sorry, Mari. You, of all people, should know better. You have to be practical and comply. You’re no longer able to judge anything.” With some authority, he added, “This isn’t your call.”
Lips trembling, she began to rap her knuckles against her thigh. “Gordon, listen. I will prepare you to kill me. We'll make it swift and easy. But don’t take away my one chance of being human again! Think of all the people I‘ve risked my life to save!”
His fingers rubbed his temples. “Mari, just shut up and let me think.”
Mari sat closemouthed with her eyes gleaning his for any information. In the painful silence of the truck, her cheeks lifted several times as tears pushed to be released.
Gordon had always been the one to dodge killing infected humans. In fact, she had done it for him when it was his turn. On the second time, he passed her the axe without so much as a hint of acknowledgement that this was hard for her too. Didn't he realise she shared the same fear, hurt, and confusion but did it for the survival of everyone else?
Now he sat there high and mighty, driving the truck of their dead friends, living off the food that would have been gone by now if they had survived. She assumed his self-righteousness was because deep down he didn’t want to kill her, either. He probably wanted her to disappear into the darkness and to be rid of his own guilt. Gordon had always thought he was more worthy than her that he was above the actions of the rest of the group. Did he really think he could survive with his conscience clear and his soul unscathed?
“Even when I was human, you considered me a killer. No better than the undead.” The words escaped her lips without any intention forming in her mind.
Gordon’s red cheeks heated and glowed. Mari realised she was hunched over and glaring at him. She turned away, but she couldn’t straighten her back.
He crunched down a gear. “You know what will happen! I’ll leave it until it’s too late because I’ll be trying to get you to the camp alive. You will be stronger and even more aggressive. Then I won’t stand a chance on my own!”
“More aggressive? Gordon, I’m just pleading for my life here!”
“No!” He slammed on the brake, and the truck screeched to a halt.
Mari hit the dashboard repeatedly. “Start the truck!”
Gordon removed his hands from the wheel and peered into her eyes. “You’re asking me to endanger my life, trusting that you have some mythical chance of saving yours.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose hard and sighed. “What if this vaccine doesn’t work on the infected? How did you even find out there is one? From whom?”
“A man.” Mari looked away.
“Great. That's it?”
“Trust me, Gordon. There is a vaccine. When have I ever lied to you?”
Gordon turned wilfully to face her again. “How many hours has it been?”
Mari rolled her head in frustration, but she knew he had a right to know. “Eighteen, maybe nineteen hours.”
“Holy crap!”
“But Gordon, look into my eyes. I’m fine. You know I am. Some people take longer to turn!”
He shook his head. “It’s all irrelevant. The vaccine. Everything. You can’t come with me. You’re too far-gone. You just don’t get it anymore, Mari. I’m the survivor. This is completely unfair of you to even ask. What did we always say about dealing with the infected?”
“A survivor’s safety has priority.” Her tone was listless.
“Exactly. And who enforced that rule with an iron fist?”
Mari scowled, but her eyes betrayed her as she skimmed across the photos on the dashboard. The eyes of the deceased crew stared back. She allowed tears to form and block her vision.
“I never asked for this.”
“No one asks to get bitten.” Gordon appeared impassive, staring into the distance of the empty highway.
Mari persisted. “That’s not what I mean.
I didn’t ask to be part of any of this!”
Her face hovered over the sad mess of blood, cling film, and white parka fluff on her lap.
“Well, I drove this truck for months,” Gordon muttered. “I got good at it and helped people out of trouble.”
“But we couldn’t all drive a truck.”
“I saved plenty of lives too, Mari. I did my bit. One day I'll be on a plane to somewhere safe. I'm going to sit in this camp until that day comes.”
Mari eyed the lucky charm, the jumbo jet, swinging from the mirror. “Gordon, you know there's nowhere else to go. This is what you'll find everywhere.”
Gordon was speaking as if he’d already made it to camp sunshine and was putting everything behind him. People like her or Andy from the station couldn’t do this. Maybe it was meant to turn out this way. Maybe Gordon was the ultimate survivor, being able to survive because he could pretend there was no need to think of it as that. He could deny his way through the horror until he was in a position to imagine the world back to the way it was.
Gordon huffed for a few seconds. “Right. I’m letting you out here. Fifty metres down the road, I'll drop a pistol with one bullet out the window. You can barely stand, but you'll make it that far. That way, it’s your choice whether to take your own life or turn. I’m sorry it ended this way, Mari.”
It? Mari fumed. As far as she was concerned, as long as Gordon helped her get to the camp, she had a chance of curing her infection. That made her human, and leaving her behind was murder. The words echoed in her mind. The strength returned, elevating her above this ridiculous debate over the value of her life. After all that she had sacrificed for others, the thought of being dumped like a dog on the side of a road filled her with an indignant rage. She had made it this far, and she wasn’t going to let this murderer stand in her way.
Turning Page 4
