Surviving the Evacuation (Book 16): Outback Outbreak

by FTayell, Frank

  “I don’t know where Olivia would be,” Pete said. “And even if I did, how much help would I be to her? What do I know about survival?”

  “You’ve done all right so far,” Liu said.

  “Only by luck,” Pete said. “And I think mine has run out. Anyway, it’s academic. It’s going to be a very long time before there are any flights.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Liu said. She started the van again. “It’s going to be a very long time before there are any commercial flights. Years. Decades. Generations. Do you see that house on the corner? Bobby’s friend, Sally, lived there. Her mother worked at the hospital. They left just after Manhattan. Why would they ever come back? This town is dead. It’s over. We’ll all be leaving soon.”

  “Not if they’re bringing in reinforcements,” Pete said.

  “What are they reinforcing? The solar-power plant? The railway line? The airfield? That’s only useful as long as there’s fuel there, and there’s been no talk of it being resupplied. When that’s gone, the airfield will close. If they’re really sending people to mine coal, why leave a few hundred people to guard a solar-power plant?”

  “Because that’s better than trying to repair it a few years from now.”

  “Exactly,” Liu said. “I don’t know where spare parts for a solar-power station come from, but I doubt it’s Oz. Why bother trying when you can build a coal power station with the parts lying around a scrap yard?”

  “You need more than scrap.”

  “I’m not exaggerating by much. Look at a map, no not that map, but one of Australia. We’re equidistant between Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. They’re keeping us open as a stop-over for moving supplies from one city to the other in case of a crisis, a major outbreak. But we’re at the south-western tip of Australia. Ships and planes from the infected continents of America and Asia will first reach the northern coast. That’s where these soldiers, these resources, will be needed. Maybe not today, maybe not this week, but before autumn, everyone will have left.”

  “Ah, but that’s months away,” Pete said.

  “Southern hemisphere,” Liu reminded him. “Autumn’s next month. And what you saw yesterday in Menindee, that’ll only bring the day closer. How long does it take to train a soldier? How long will it take to turn all those millions of civilians into the army we need? Because until then, we’ve only got a few tens of thousands of troops. Why waste them here?”

  “Oh.”

  Ahead, the van stopped. Qwong got out alone. Again, she motioned they should stay in their van as she entered a restaurant with a narrow frontage and a bold sign proclaiming the best steak in the outback.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Pete said. “And we’ll all end up in a mine, or we stick with Inspector Qwong and become police or soldiers. I don’t think we’ll get much say in it, and after the last few days, I don’t think I’d mind. I guess you’ll end up flying.”

  “Plenty of pilots in the city,” Liu said. “Thanks to all the planes they let land. Plenty of pilots who aren’t as rusty as me.”

  Qwong came out, empty handed, but with a thoughtful look on her face. She climbed back in her van, and they continued driving once more.

  “What if there was a way for you to get back to America?” Liu asked. “Would you take it?”

  “I don’t know,” Pete said. “But there isn’t.”

  “There is,” Liu said. “That jet of Kempton’s has the range to reach British Columbia.”

  “In Canada? Oh.” And then he understood. She wasn’t talking about his return home, but her daughter. “I don’t think it does have the range,” he said. “We had to refuel in Hawaii.”

  “It does. Just. It’s custom built for long flights. It’ll be running empty when it arrives, but it could make the journey. Your sister found four airfields in British Columbia. We can refuel there, then return.”

  “British Columbia? But not Vancouver. That’s where your daughter is.”

  “Yes.”

  “Or where she was, and you don’t know if she’s still there.”

  “No, I don’t. But when we leave here, when we leave Broken Hill, I won’t have access to a plane, or to fuel. This is my one chance to get to Canada.”

  “Can you fly that plane?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “But I thought you hadn’t flown in years before yesterday,” he said. “And if that jet is custom built, you can’t have ever flown anything quite like it.”

  “It’s just like riding a bike,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said sceptically, “but even if you get to Canada, you won’t be in Vancouver, and there’s no way of knowing whether your daughter is still there.”

  “No, but I’ll be closer to her than I am now,” she said. “Maybe I’m wrong about Broken Hill. Maybe the government will want to keep the airfield open, but if they take real command of this place, I’ll lose access to the fuel and the plane. Or they’ll abandon the town, and we’ll get sent to some farm, and I’ll never see my daughter again. This is my one chance. You could come with me. You and your sister.”

  “To Canada.”

  “From there, it would only be a drive back to Indiana,” she said.

  “A long drive,” he said.

  “And it’ll be a long time before you’ll get any closer.”

  “Are you serious?” Pete asked.

  “Yes. I’m going to leave in a day or two, I think. Come with me, if you want.”

  “I’ll have to think about it,” he said.

  She said nothing.

  “I mean, I’ll need a day or so to think it through,” he said. “Why are you asking me, though? It’s not my plane and I can’t help you fly it.”

  “There’s a number-pad on the cabin door,” Liu said. “It’s locked. I can’t break it without destroying the cabin’s integrity.”

  “Ah. I didn’t realise. And I don’t know the code.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “But your sister might? Or she might be able to hack it.”

  “I guess.”

  “You can ask her. See what she thinks.”

  Ahead, Qwong stopped. This time she motioned them to get out. She went into a small cafe, and came out again before everyone had finished gathering on the pavement.

  “It’s worse than I thought,” Qwong said. “I haven’t had the time to check on places over the last few days. I thought the looting had stopped, but it looks like the opposite. With all the soldiers about, people must have realised that as long as they only took what they could carry and conceal, no one was going to ask them any questions.”

  “There’s nothing left?” Corrie asked.

  “There’s some bacon in the freezer,” Qwong said. “A few packets, but not enough to make the trip worthwhile. Josie, can you stand on the road looking martial but not too menacing? Liu, you and I will knock on doors from here up to the pharmacy. Pete, Corrie, grab what you can from inside, and from that shop opposite.”

  “Wish I’d brought the shotgun,” Pete said as he stepped into the gloomy interior. The overhead lighting was off and little daylight made it through the tinted windows. A crinkling rustle came from the floor to his left. He jumped. “You hear that?”

  “Probably just a spider,” Corrie said.

  “It was too big.”

  “Maybe a croc, then,” Corrie said.

  “Stop it,” Pete said. “You know what I’m worried about.”

  “Yep, and so am I, but a zombie would make more sound than that.”

  “Right, yeah.” Even so, he moved cautiously around the tables towards the doors to the kitchen. “Still, wish I’d brought a gun. Oh. Oh, yeah.” He remembered the pistol in his pocket. He didn’t draw it, but kept his hand on the grip as he pushed the door open. The kitchen was as empty as the dining room.

  “Tess was right,” Corrie said. “This place really has been looted. I think they took some of the pans, too. Check the cupboar
ds.”

  “Not much here. We should check the stockroom. Corrie,” he added, turning to look at her. “Liu wants to take the plane, Kempton’s jet, and fly it to Vancouver. Well, not to the city, but to somewhere in British Columbia.”

  “To find her daughter?”

  “Yeah. She says the plane is locked. There’s a code.”

  “There is? That’s interesting.”

  “Is it? Anyway, she asked if I wanted to go with her, so I could go back to America.”

  “Do you want to?” Corrie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Pete said. “Theoretically, yes, I’d like to see Olivia again. Realistically, after all we’ve seen, how likely is it that I’d ever find her? Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I don’t know the code, but she asked me whether you could hack it.”

  “Maybe. I’d have to take a look. But maybe we know the code.”

  “We do?”

  “Check the back, let me think for a moment.”

  It didn’t take long to box up the few meagre items rejected by successive groups of looters. That the freezer contained the most told them that the looters had been looking for ready-to-eat food for their long journey by train, road-convoy, or alone.

  “Pete?” Corrie said. “Do you remember up at the fence, after the outbreak, I tried calling Kempton, but there was only a recorded message that the master code had been changed? I wonder if that’s the code for the plane.”

  “Why would they have changed the code?” Pete asked.

  “Good question, but it’s the wrong one,” Corrie said. “The only question that matters is whether you want to go with Liu. There’s nothing else here, we’ll try that grocery store opposite.”

  They took their meagre haul to the van, then continued across the road to the small shop. Again, it had been looted, though not as thoroughly. Packets and tins had been knocked from the shelves, and now lined the floor.

  “It’s crazy, isn’t it?” Pete said. “Flying halfway around the world in the vague hope she might find her daughter.”

  “You dropped everything at the first chance to come see me,” Corrie said.

  “That’s different, I didn’t really have a choice.”

  “You did. But yes, it is different. Clemmie is Liu’s daughter.”

  “Fine, but it’s still crazy,” he said.

  “Back when we were staying at Liu’s house, she asked me to find the security feeds for airfields near Vancouver,” Corrie said. “This has to be why.”

  “She was planning it then?”

  “Planning to take the plane. I guess so,” Corrie said.

  “There are airfields, then? With clear runways, I mean.”

  “There were,” Corrie said. “Who knows what they’re like now?”

  “She thinks the jet has the range,” Pete said. “She said it was modified for distance.”

  “Probably. Kempton refitted a cruise ship, so why not a plane?”

  “So it’s not crazy?” He picked up a basket, and began collecting the packets from the floor.

  “I don’t know,” Corrie said. “The first question is whether we can get into the plane. If the master code works, then she’s got to refuel, taxi onto the runway, and take off. I guess she thinks no one would stop her. I don’t know who’s running things at the airfield, but I bet she’ll get Doctor Dodson on her side, and he can tell the soldiers that the orders are coming from his daughter.”

  “Would they believe that?”

  “I would hope not, but with everything so chaotic, they might. Did you hear that some soldiers disappeared last night? Took a Hawkei, two mortars, and a heavy machine gun with them. Josie told me. And she said that the air force was shooting down planes. That’s planes coming to Australia, not leaving, and I don’t know if it’s true, but that is problem number three. I guess actually flying north is easy enough. And finding North America should be possible, but finding a specific airfield in British Columbia would be next to impossible without any kind of beacon or satellite navigation. That’s problem four. Five is landing. But if she can take off, I guess she can land. But maybe not at an airfield. Who knows what condition they’re in?”

  “Could you go online and check?” he asked.

  “Probably not, not now. Maybe. Worst case, she has to land on a road or crash in a field. Either way, and even if she finds a runway that’s not full of crashed planes, there’s no way of knowing if there’s any fuel to return.”

  “So returning is problem six.”

  “Add in a seventh because we don’t know if Canada or America are shooting down planes. Not to mention anywhere else we fly over. Where would we fly over? There, that’s problem eight. If there’s any engine trouble, we’ll crash in the sea. Nine is finding her daughter, but that’s her problem not ours. That just leaves ten, getting to Indiana, finding Olivia, and then getting back to the plane before Liu leaves. I take it that’s what you mean by going back to America, it’s to find her.”

  “I guess. I don’t know. I mean, yes, I’d like to find her, but I don’t know where she is. Liu said this would be her only chance to get a plane and fly north. She’s probably right, which means it’ll be my only chance to go find Olivia. It’s not that I want to be some knight riding in to save her. It’s something else Liu said. This really will be the last flight for a long time. Things are changing. I might end up on a farm or down a mine or stuck here for the next fifty years, never travelling more than a few dozen miles. It’s dumb risking my life on the thin chance a girl likes me, but it’s not that. It’s that my life was finally turning around. I felt I had something. Not the job, not the promotion, that was a lie. But I finally had more happy days than sad ones. I had hope more often than despair. The way I see it, Olivia is the last surviving piece of that. Assuming she is alive. Assuming she wants to leave. Assuming America is worse than here.”

  “It is. Or it was, last time I checked. And you’re assuming you can find her. It would take three days to drive from Vancouver to South Bend. Let’s say the same back. If we want to return to Australia, and despite everything over the last couple of days, because of Menindee and what happened up at the fence, I’d rather not live any closer to Manhattan than this, then we need to tell Liu how long to wait for us. That means you need to know where we’re going to look.”

  “You’d come with me?”

  “Of course. So where do we look?”

  “There’s one place,” Pete said. “Mrs Mathers had a cabin about fifty miles outside of South Bend. She was our boss before she sold the carpet store to Kempton. Olivia helped her clear out some of her husband’s things from the cabin after he died. It’s pretty remote. We even joked that’s where we’d go if there was ever an apocalypse.”

  “Okay, good. And do you know the address?”

  “Um… no, but it’s on my phone! And that’s in the plane. I think it is. I had it on me when we left Indiana. So if we can get into the plane, I can get the phone and get the address.”

  “That’s a start,” Corrie said. “But we’ll need more than that to make this a trip that’s only almost certain death.”

  “It’s not much of a haul, is it?” Qwong said, looking at the handful of bags and baskets they’d brought from the store.

  “I found a box of cereal for Bobby,” Pete said. “It’s low sugar, though.”

  “That would do him good,” Liu said. “If it’s okay to just take what we want?”

  “I think a single box won’t crash our fragile economy,” Qwong said. “But if people have been looting, helping themselves, we’ll do better searching the houses. For that, we’ll need more people. The soldiers, I suppose, and that means speaking to Captain Hawker. But he was on his way down to Menindee this morning. I don’t want to give up with such a small haul, and I don’t want to waste any more time. We’ll try the golf club. It should be well-stocked, and it’s too far from town for people to have carried much away by hand. If we find nothing there, we’ll know we won’t find it anywhere.”


  “There’s a golf club, here in the outback?” Pete asked.

  “Sure,” Qwong said. “Do you play?”

  “I was a local star,” Pete said. “Every time, I could get the ball through the windmill without ever knocking the sails.”

  “That’s it, ahead,” Liu said. It was the first thing she’d said to him since he’d got back in the van, though not the first words she’d spoken. As they’d driven through the new army checkpoint on Buck Street, she’d wound down the window to shout a greeting to a bottle-blond couple in matching fire-fighter’s overalls, who stood guard with the military sentries. Those two civilians were the only locals they’d seen during the short drive.

  Ahead, Qwong slowed, coming to a halt in a front of a pair of black-steel gates that marked the drive leading up to the country club.

  Qwong stopped ten metres from them. Private Bramley disembarked first. She walked to the gate, then returned to the van. A moment later, bolt-cutters in hand, she returned to the sealed entrance.

  “That’s a good sign, isn’t it?” Pete said. “Someone padlocked the gates. Although I guess it depends on whether it was the owners before they left, or squatters when they arrived.”

  “The wall doesn’t go all the way around,” Liu said.

  “It doesn’t? Oh. Then I guess a lock doesn’t mean anything.”

  Bramley pushed the gates open, then waved them forward, then climbed aboard Qwong’s van.

  “There are more trees,” Pete said. “Though it isn’t as green as I imagined.”

  “The irrigation system’s been shut off,” Liu said. “There should be a water feature over there on our left, a small waterfall cascading down that rockery. Squatters would have turned the water back on, so I’m betting it was management who put that chain on the gate.”

  “Hope so,” Pete said. “There! There’s movement! It’s… I don’t know what it is.”

  “Emu,” Liu said.

  “Really?” The long-necked, long-legged bird disappeared beneath a dip in the rolling golf course. “I’ve never seen one before. They keep them on the course?”