“Interesting,” Qwong said. “And I think you and I need to have a long chat about this.”
“Not here, though,” Corrie said. “If he was after Pete, and if he wasn’t alone, we don’t want his friends coming here to endanger Liu and Bobby. I’m sorry, Liu. I didn’t realise.”
“We’ve all got a past,” Liu said.
“No, she’s right,” Pete said. “We should go.”
“Fine,” Qwong said. “I’ve got to speak to the people next door. You two go to the airfield. We’ll talk later.”
As empty-handed as they’d been when they arrived, Pete and Corrie left.
Chapter 19 - Missing Guests
The Sunrise Inn, Broken Hill
“Feels cooler,” Pete said as he and Corrie walked away from Liu Higson’s home. “Maybe it won’t be as hot as yesterday, and now I’m out of small talk. Was that cartel guy really after me?”
“I don’t know,” Corrie said.
“Or after the plane?”
“I don’t know that, either,” she said.
“Or connected to Kempton?”
“Again, I don’t know,” she said.
“But there’s more going on than you told the inspector. And there’s more going on than you’ve told me.”
“Yes, but I don’t think any of it matters,” she said. “I hope it doesn’t matter.”
“Because zombies change everything,” Pete said.
“I hope they do.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t want to say,” she said. “Not until I’ve thought all of this through. Inspector Qwong will have more questions, and the only way to answer them is truthfully, so, for now, the less you know, the better.”
“They really are leaving,” Pete said as they approached a family tying a stack of suitcases to a roof rack.
“The tipping point was reached yesterday,” Corrie said. “So many people have now left, it’s impossible to pretend the town will return to what it was. As the school teachers and store owners leave, it has to become clear, even to the most stubborn of ostriches, that things are never going to return to what they once were.”
“Left or died,” Pete said. “A teacher and the owner of a cafe died this morning.”
“And as news of that joins stories of the plane wreck and the rumours that are circulating and growing, then people start thinking they should get going because the going will never be as good as it is now.”
“They’re making the right choice,” Pete said. “Yesterday, I’d have said it was safer to stay put, but not after what happened at that house along the highway. The zombies are already here. This place is as dangerous as anywhere else.”
“I guess that’s why they’ve arranged those convoys,” Corrie said. “Mining, or farming, or fighting, that’s what we’ll all be doing soon enough and forever after. Maybe the smart thing to do is volunteer and so jump to the front of the line.”
“There’s one last option for us,” Pete said. “The pilots are going to Melbourne. We could go with them.”
“We’d still end up on a government farm,” Corrie said.
“Maybe, probably, but it might be safer. For you, I mean. You’ve admitted there’s stuff you won’t tell me, but the inspector won’t be brushed off so easily. If we end up on some farm with thousands of other tourists, we’ll blend in with the crowd. We can hide.”
“We could end up somewhere worse than a farm, and worse than here,” Corrie said.
Pete stopped. “How? How could it be worse?”
The door to the nearest house opened. A pair of young men stepped out. One held a cricket bat, the other a hammer. They seemed surprised to see people.
“G’day,” Corrie said. She took Pete’s arm and started him moving again.
“Thirty-one,” Pete said. “That’s the number of bodies I’ve seen this week. Three at the house on the Silver City Highway. Mr Thurlow and that gangster make five. Twenty-six at the compound, and that makes thirty-one. It’s not counting the bodies in the hearses that were heading into the crematorium. I didn’t tell you about them, did I?”
“There were more than twenty-six bodies in the plane,” she said.
“I can only remember the faces of twenty-six of them.”
“Well, don’t,” she said. “But you have a point. You got hit in the face because of our accents. Someone tried to kill you because they saw you get off that plane. Maybe it’s best we disappear into a crowd. I don’t know if the pilots will let us.”
“Let’s see what they have to say,” Pete said. “And what their plan is when they get to Melbourne. We can make up our minds after.”
The street outside the hotel was deserted. So was the lobby. Broken glass littered the floor, while the standing-lamp lay broken in half against the reception desk.
“Where’s the room?” Corrie whispered.
More glass crunched underfoot as Pete led her through the fire doors and to the stairwell, now littered with broken bottles and filled with a bathroom stench. They climbed into darkness, passing one broken light after another. At the top of the stairs, Corrie dropped her hands to her pockets, but she didn’t extract the gun.
Pete pushed the stairwell door open. In a room to the right, someone sobbed. Add that to the smell of fat burning on an open flame, and it seemed increasingly like hell. Someone was cooking, that was all, he told himself, but wasted no more time in hurrying down the corridor to the room which Rampton and Jackson had occupied. The door’s lock was broken.
Finally, Corrie drew gun and magazine, loaded the weapon, then gestured Pete should push the door open. He did, and Corrie stepped inside, weapon raised. Pete followed her in, and into a chaotic jumble of upturned furniture and discarded bedding.
“Empty,” Corrie said. She moved to the bathroom. “And empty. Close the door.”
Pete pushed closed the door to the corridor. “I should have thought of this,” he said. “That thug who came looking for me, he must have come here first.”
“From the look of it, they’d already left,” Corrie said.
The mattresses had been flipped from the beds, and those had been moved away from the wall. The drawers to the small cabinet-unit were open.
“Someone searched this place, yes?” Pete said. “What were they looking for?”
“I don’t know,” Corrie said. “They were looking for something, but let’s talk about it outside. I don’t feel safe in here.” She slid the loaded gun into her pocket, leaving her hand in there, too, until they were on the street.
“We can forget going to Melbourne now,” Pete said. “The pilots must have already left. And you know what, now I think about it, when I went there… was it only yesterday? Gosh. But the beds were made, their bags packed. They were ready to leave.”
“And they never wanted us to go with them,” Corrie said. “They told you they weren’t leaving until today to make sure.”
“Well, that sucks,” Pete said. “Now what? We’re running out of options.”
“Quicker than you think,” Corrie said, pointing down the street. “That’s the police van.”
Qwong brought the van to a halt next to them. Liu and Bobby were in the cab next to her.
“We came to ask the pilots questions,” Corrie said. “A lot of questions. But they’ve already gone. Someone searched the room after.”
“Which room?” Qwong asked, getting out.
“Twenty-four,” Pete said.
“Wait here,” the inspector said.
Pete smiled at Bobby, but was unsure how to ask the question. “You came with the inspector?”
“With everyone on our street leaving, I thought we’d be safer at the airfield,” Liu said. “Just for now,” she added. “Until things have settled down a little. I can help the ground crew, and Bobby can help Doctor Dodson.”
The boy made a show of pulling out a pair of headphones, putting them on, and turning the music up loud. Liu gave a resigned smile.
Inspector Qwong didn’t
spend long inside. “Are you two coming with us?” she asked.
“Yes,” Pete said quickly. “What do you think happened in there?”
“He was looking for the pilots, but looking for something else as well. Any ideas what it might be?”
“None,” Pete said.
Qwong nodded. “Get in,” she said.
Pete wasn’t sure she believed him.
Chapter 20 - Prayer on a Wing
The Airport, Broken Hill
Pete heaved the last crate from the pallet onto the stack just inside the hangar.
“And done,” he said to no one at all. He ran his hands through his hair, then wiped them on his trousers. He was covered in sweat, and smelled ripe, but it was a hard job well done.
“Not bad. Not bad at all.”
He walked over to the hangar entrance and picked up his water bottle. It was almost empty. He perched on a crate, idly wondering what was inside the boxes he’d just moved. The red cross gave a clue, but the possessive army markings dissuaded him from opening any.
The cargo planes had arrived ten minutes after he, Corrie, Liu, and Bobby had reached the airfield, thankfully truncating the inspector’s questioning. They were civilian planes, but with a military crew, and a medical cargo which had been hastily dumped on the edge of the runway before the planes departed as unceremoniously as they’d arrived. Pete’s hands had been too full to check a watch he didn’t have, but he didn’t think the planes had been on the ground for more than half an hour. It was a case of shoulders-to-the-wheel to move the crates until Pete had spotted the forklift at the back of the hangar.
He’d operated one back in his warehouse days, and so, finally, he had some expertise applicable to the crisis. Not long after that, Qwong had re-appeared, corralling everyone in uniform to help quell a riot at the train station. The trains hadn’t arrived, but people were already gathering to board them. Corrie had gone to help guard the road leading to the airfield. Doctor Dodson and Liu had flown a prop-plane over the town to make it clear that, if things weren’t normal, the airfield hadn’t been abandoned. That had left Pete and Bobby, and the forklift, with four planes’ worth of crates to shift.
It had been relaxing. For him, at least, doing something he understood, with a clear goal at the end of it. Bobby soon grew bored, and had taken the first opportunity to help a nurse set up an impromptu operating theatre inside the office. Pete hadn’t asked why they might need an operating theatre at the airfield, and did his best not to think about it as he moved one crate after another until the job was finally done.
“Yep, not a bad job at all,” he said to himself.
He drained the water bottle. His stomach growled. It was nearing sunset, but he was in no mood to sleep.
The heavy labour had given him time to process the events of the day. Mr Thurlow, the hitman, the undead girl, and the bodies inside the house on the Silver City Highway. It had been a nightmare of a day, enough to send him to therapy for the rest of his life, but it wasn’t bothering him. Well, the undead girl was, but that was more a memory of the happy but sick girl standing in the door of the RV at the cabin up by the fence. Her death seemed unfair. The rest of it, though, didn’t bother him. The hitman was dead, the pilots were gone. From here on, he had a clean slate. Him and Corrie, together again, with all sins truly forgotten now that the planet’s mortal fragility had been exposed. His only immediate problem was his empty water bottle and growling stomach, so he went in search of food and drink.
Inside the neighbouring hangar, he saw Liu, Bobby, and Doctor Dodson peering at the open engine cowling of a prop-plane.
“I’m done with those crates,” Pete said. “Are there any others?”
“Not until around two a.m.,” Doctor Dodson said. “That’s when the next flight is expected. It’s bringing ammunition.”
“Why?” Bobby asked.
“If I knew, I’d tell you,” Doctor Dodson said.
“Is Inspector Qwong still in town?” Pete asked.
“With the rest of the soldiers,” Liu said. “Keeping the peace until everyone leaves, but they can’t depart until the military escort arrives at midnight, give or take. Tess was spreading the word about the convoy to Adelaide and the trains going east. I think things will stay calm now.” She glanced at her son, casually dis-ordering the tools in the toolbox.
Pete could guess what she was thinking, that it would be calm only until the next crisis, but he was happy in the knowledge that was at least a day away.
“I’d say we’ll be all right,” Dodson said. “Now, mate, a fella like you, I bet you’re a bonzer cook?”
“If that means good, then no,” Pete said. “I’ve waited tables, but never worked in a kitchen. I live on cereal mostly, with the microwave for when I’m feeling fancy.”
“Cereal would be good,” Bobby said.
“Not for dinner,” Dodson said. “A time like this, we could really do with old Joey Thurlow. He was a demon with a barbecue.”
“Come on, Bobby,” Liu said. “It’s time you learned how to cook. Pete, can you take that crate of water over to the main gate? I promised your sister, but got distracted by the fuel pump.”
“Sure, no problem,” Pete said. He picked up the crate, and meandered over to the entrance where he found Corrie wearing a police-issue bulletproof vest and holding a military-grade assault rifle. With her was Private Josie Bramley, the soldier who’d been their watchful angel of mercy during the helicopter journey back from the fence.
“Hey, sis. You’ve enlisted?” Pete asked.
“Not even close. I’m just a warm body who knows how to use a rifle.”
It wasn’t really an explanation, but was an explanation really needed? After that morning, he knew full well why armed guards were required. The world had changed, and was still changing, but it was the rate of flux that was giving him a weird sense of vertigo, claustrophobia, and nausea.
“Good to see you’re still alive,” Bramley said. “From what your sister said, it was a close-run thing.”
“More than once,” Pete said. “And I haven’t run since high school, so… um…”
“He hasn’t come up with a metaphor since school, either,” Corrie said.
“I’m not sure I did even then,” Pete said. “Is there any news?”
“Nope,” Corrie said.
“No gunshots, no smoke, no shouting,” Bramley said. “That’s good news.”
“You’ve done this before?” Pete asked.
“This is my first real posting,” Bramley said. “Didn’t expect it to be with the SASR.”
“Who?” Pete asked.
“The Special Air Service Regiment,” Bramley said. “That’s who Captain Hawker’s unit are. We were told to fall in, and shouted onto helicopters, and I ended up here, with them. Not a bad place to be, though, all things considered. It’ll be easier still after everyone’s been shipped out.”
“But not everyone will leave tomorrow,” Corrie said. “Departure is voluntary.”
“Tomorrow might be voluntary,” Bramley said. “The next convoy will be compulsory.”
“You think?” Pete asked.
“The trains are coming in empty,” Bramley said. “The stores are closed, and no new stock is coming in. That last cargo flight, that was medicine. The next one is ammunition. Where’s the food to keep civilians fed? What’s the purpose in them staying here? No, the town’s being wound down. It’ll be the same everywhere. Be glad you signed up when you did. You got ahead of the herd. You’ll be corporals by Easter, and I’ll be a general by Christmas. Always fancied being an officer.”
Pete nodded. His earlier fears had been confirmed.
Bobby brought them a dinner of steak and rice, then had to make a second trip for cutlery. Conversation drifted on between Corrie and the soldier, alternating between stories of archaeologists up by the dingo fence, and life in basic training. Pete found a perch in the back of one of the Landcruisers parked askew across the road, enjoying the peace and c
alm, until it was shattered by an engine.
A truck sped towards them from the town. Bramley dropped her bowl, and raised her rifle. Corrie ran to the soldier’s side, raising her rifle a little more tentatively. Pete joined them as the approaching truck screeched to a halt twenty metres away. The doors flew open, and two people sprang out. They were followed, more cumbersomely, by Stevie Morsten, the man from the chalets.
“The airfield’s closed to civilians,” Bramley said.
“We want to buy a plane,” Stevie said. “We have money.”
“If you’re not an official flight, you’ll be shot down,” Bramley said.
Whatever Stevie’s original plan had been, it was forgotten when he saw Corrie and Pete. “What are you two doing here?” he demanded.
“Guarding the airfield,” Corrie said. “What about you? What are you doing?”
“Americans? Guarding our airfield? Nah,” Stevie said.
“D’you know them, Steve-o?” the car’s passenger asked. He was a smaller man, wiry, thinner, though of a similar age to Stevie.
“It’s them as got me arrested,” Stevie said.
“You want to leave town, yes?” Bramley said, trying to take back control of the situation. “There’s a road convoy leaving tomorrow for Adelaide, or a train heading east. Both leave around dawn. You don’t need a ticket, and you can save your money for when you get to the coast.”
“We heard the story they’re selling in town,” Stevie said. “And we’re not buying it. We’re buying ourselves a flight out of here. We saw the planes come in, we saw them leaving, and we’re going to be on the next one.”
“You can say that all you like, mate,” Bramley said, “but no one is selling tickets.”
“Leave it, Steve-o,” the other man said. “We saw what we needed.”
“Yeah,” Stevie said. “Yeah, maybe we did.”
They got back in the car, and left in a spray of dust.
Surviving the Evacuation (Book 16): Outback Outbreak Page 17
