Jessie nodded, her brown eyes fixed on me, but her grip remained tight on the air mattress.
Kaye and I grabbed the boat and waded into the middle of the creek, water gushing around our thighs. The babies watched us, uncertain as to whether to be scared or excited.
"Remember, only whispers." I murmured to them with a smile. "We don't want to wake the neighbours."
Or let anything else know we're coming.
I nodded at Kaye, and with a deep breath, lowered myself into the water and let the current take us. Immediately, we surged forward down the creek. In the moonlight, I could see Jessie hanging onto the air mattress with Phoebe's head poking out of her backpack, buttressed by Michele and Lucas. I felt so proud of the way the teens had stepped up. I knew Jessie was in safe hands. Glancing to my left, I saw Emma, Ken and Mike swimming nearby, at ease with the fast flowing current.
Mike edged closer to me. "At this rate, it should only take half an hour to reach the suburbs."
I nodded, focused on keeping the wayward boat in the middle of the creek. "There are some hairy spots on the creek, though. Rapids and submerged logs. We'll all have to keep a sharp eye out."
A little face appeared over the edge of the boat. "Hi mummy!"
Alex's loud whisper echoed across the silent creek.
I grinned back even as I cringed inside. "Hi Alex, soft voice, remember?"
Sotto voice. "I'm getting wet, mummy."
Mike grinned at him. "Not as wet as us." Alex giggled and his head disappeared again.
I rolled my eyes conspiratorially at Mike. We rode down the dark bubbling creek in silence for several minutes. I tensed as I saw the old bridge coming up. We would be floating right behind the homes on our street. Silence would be critical. In the quiet night, the slightest noise would be heard as clearly as a bell.
"No noise until I say so, kids." I whispered sternly. "Or there will be no tv or biscuits."
The silence that greeted me reassured me somewhat that they had received the message.
The bridge loomed closer. The water became shallower and bumpier as we hit the rapids. Glancing around, I saw that everyone was riding high in the water, like me. After being banged by rocks a few times as kids, you quickly learn the best way to navigate rapids. And then the wooden bridge was behind us and we were cascading through the rapids. Up and down the waves, pushing off big rocks with our feet, keeping the boat at the right angle, Kaye and I struggled silently to keep the small boat from spinning off or ripping itself open on sharp rocks.
Suddenly we were back into smoother waters. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Babies, are you okay?" I whispered, trying to keep the shakiness from my voice. A wide-eyed face popped over the fat edge of the boat.
"Yes, mummy." Alex whispered loudly, making me wince.
From the other side of the boat, Kaye muttered weakly, "Well, that was fun. Not."
I murmured a heartfelt sound of agreement.
2
As we entered the suburbs, I noted with sadness the many lit homes on both sides. Each one stood as a testament to a family lost last night. I knew that if there were people still alive, they would be huddling down in darkened homes, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, just as we had done.
So many homes also meant many zombies roaming the neighborhood. Thankfully, the darkness and bobbing water had lulled the babies to sleep. I examined the trees and banks for any sign of movement as I floated by, intensely aware of how exposed and vulnerable we were.
A dog barked in the distance. I realised it was a sound I hadn't heard since this crisis started. I wondered how it had survived this long and how much longer it would remain alive.
"Head in, folks." Mike murmured, starting to swim sideways out of the current, followed by the rest of the group. It took us a little longer to reach them with the unwieldy boat.
"Okay, stay here." Mike whispered. "Ken and I will find a vehicle."
I flared up, wondering why he didn't want me along. Hadn't I proven myself yet?
"We can't risk any noise." He continued, looking straight at me. "You have a much better chance of keeping your kids quiet than Ken or I have."
I scowled but couldn't argue the point. Michele was right - I really was a control freak, always needing to be in the thick of things.
The men disappeared through the grove of trees giving us cover. Phoebe quivered but I had to admire her obedience to Mike as she silently watched him walk away.
Now for my own kids
. Watching them like a hawk, I raised a threatening finger every time they opened their mouths. They shut them again. Kaye employed similiar tactics with her toddlers. In this way, twenty minutes passed uneventfully, although my nerves were starting to feel considerably frayed by the time I heard a vehicle scream out of a driveway across the road.
"Get ready, everyone." I whispered, scrambling to my feet awkwardly with my babies. Michele reached over and pulled Alex out of my arms. We hurried to the edge of the tree line and saw the bright lights of a large vehicle heading our way. Behind them, corpses poured into the street. This was going to be close, I realised, as the street rapidly filled up. The four-wheel drive screeched to a halt in front of us.
Mike leaned out of the driver's window. "Hustle, people."
Piling in on top of each other, we were inside the vehicle and on the move in seconds. The road ahead was already thick with bodies. Mike plowed through them, accelerating to an unnerving speed.
"Um, Mike." I murmured, my face pressed up against his seat as the kids tried to untangle themselves and crawl in the back seats. I got a foot in my back and an elbow in my side. "Ouch! Getting us killed...oof...in a crash...uh...won't be a big improvement...hey!...on dying in a fiery nuclear explosion."
"If they gather in enough numbers, we won't be able to get through at all." He responded calmly as a body bounced off our bonnet. The wheels thudded over several more bodies before the car left the road and roared across the empty field behind the shopping centre, heading for the beach road.
The road stretched, empty and serene, before us. Even the kangaroos and curlews one could usually spot beside the road were nowhere to be seen.
"Wow, it's like a ghost town." Lucas muttered.
"Let's hope it stays that way." Mike responded drily. I knew what he meant. If we ran into a horde of walking dead like the one at the airport...I shuddered.
Fifteen minutes later, Mike paused the car at the entrance to Yorkey's Knob. A sleepy little suburb, it nestled around a crescent shaped bay upon which the marina had been built. The main street stood silent and dark before us, as did the whole area. The streetlights had not come on tonight.
"We're about to re-enter a populated zone, folks, which means lots of walking dead, so be alert." Mike spoke, a tense edge to his voice. The dark enveloped us on all sides as the car moved forward, except for the area illuminated by the headlights.
Within seconds, the first zombie appeared in the lights. A bedraggled woman in her thirties, she stared at us as we passed within inches of her. An old man bounced off the side of the car back into the darkness. A face gleaming in the dark on the side of the road; two children walking down the road, arms reaching for us; boys in board shorts banging on the door as we passed. The tension in the car rose as more and more zombies appeared before us.
Finally, we approached the turnoff for the marina.
"Hell." Mike muttered, braking sharply. Looking up, I saw a wall of darkness just beyond the outer reach of the headlights. It moved into the light, revealing blank faces and ragged limbs. I drew in a sharp breath as an endless number of heads appeared behind the front line. Ten, twenty deep, they just kept coming.
With a harsh squeal of wheels, Mike reversed up the street.
"Wow. There must be over three hundred!" Lucas piped up from the back.
"What are we going to do?" Michele asked anxiously. No one answered as we focused on the street around us.
"Mike!" I shouted. From behind us, a mob as big as the one before us, if not larger, spread across the street and gardens. We were trapped. The car screeched to a stop.
"Hold on, folks." Mike said calmly and swung a hard left into the car park of the nearby IGA supermarket. "We're going to have to hoof it from here."
We piled out of the car. The babies cried and whimpered as they clung to backs, sensing the tension in the air. I desperately wanted to comfort them but I needed to concentrate. Pack on back and stake in hand, I ran after Mike into the dimly lit supermarket.
He stood in the center of the shop, gun in hand, warily looking around. Blood stained the counters, fruit and vegetable lay scattered and squashed on the floor, and displays were knocked over.
As the others joined us, Mike looked at Ken and Lucas. "Go bar the doors, buy us some time." They nodded and hurried away as Mike turned to us. "Stay close and stay alert. We don't know what we'll find."
Single file, we walked slowly towards the back storage rooms, leaving Ken and Lucas to finish blockading the doors. Emma cast an uneasy glance at Ken's departing back. With a toddler on her back, she couldn't stay with him but she was clearly reluctant to be separated from him. She had really come to depend on him, I realised with surprise.
Emma needn't have worried as they rejoined us, hurriedly, a few minutes later.
"We've got zombies banging on the glass doors." Ken said tersely. "The doors won't hold long."
Mike nodded in acknowledgement.
A dragging, wet sound alerted us to company as we passed the deli. A dark haired young woman with striking blue eyes dragged her torso towards us. Her legs were shredded, gnawed stumps. A long bloody trail marked her slow progress along the floor. I wanted to end her miserable existence but every moment could mean the difference between life and death for our group, so I hardened my heart and walked by.
From the cereal aisle on our right, came moans. Lumbering towards us were three young and very dead employees. Mike stepped forward and shot them methodically through the head as they approached. Wordlessly, he moved forward again. From behind us, came the sound of crashing glass. "Looks like we just ran out of time." Ken whispered grimly behind me.
Knowing the horde was just behind us, our pace quickened as we hurried through the dim shop. I caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of my eye just as a figure launched itself across the aisle onto my daughter.
Michele fell backwards, my son's frightened face peering over her shoulder. My heart froze in my chest. She screamed as she instinctively forced the corpse's head away. Teeth gnashing in frustration, the woman flung her head from side to side in an attempt to sink her teeth into flesh.
My momentary paralysis broken, I ran over and pulled the dead woman's hair violently back. Her eyes looked dully back at me as she bared her teeth. Without hesitation, I plunged my stake through her eyes and flung her body to the side. The others ran back and circled in concern around us.
"Are you okay?" I asked frantically, as Michele regained her feet. "Did you get bitten, scratched?"
"No, I'm okay." She answered shakily as Alex scrambled out from behind Michele and threw himself at me. I picked him up and held him tightly. Moans, a symphony of moans, erupted behind us as the creatures responded to the ruckus. Wordlessly, we all ran.
Through the swinging doors, we ran into the huge, dark storeroom. Rows of shelves and boxes lined the room. Someone banged against a shelf as they hurried towards us. With a jerk of his head, Mike indicated the docking bay. As we slid the door up, the swinging doors to the storeroom banged open. God, they were so close now. My heart banged frantically against my chest as I held my little boy close. Looking around, I checked on Sarah who clung to Emma, an arm wrapped tightly around her neck. Jessie was sticking close to Michele and Lucas, her eyes wide with fear.
The alley was dark and deserted. We raced away with the moans of the creatures behind us ringing in our ears. A dark mass emerged from the end of the alley.
Oh hell, no!
Another mob of dead people merging on us.
"Over the fence." Mike said tersely, indicating the the property opposite us. I glanced around us as the boys gave the girls and children a boost over the fence. Corpses were closing in on both sides of the alley. Their dragging footsteps and dull moans filled me with helpless revulsion.
"Your turn, Lori." Mike murmured. I placed my foot in his hand and leaning awkwardly against the fence, handed a clingy Alex over it to Michele before pulling myself over.
We crept quickly along the side of the house to the street. A glance showed it to be free of zombies. For the moment.
"The golf course is only a few blocks away." Ken whispered to the group. "We can cross it to reach the marina."
A zombie staggered onto the street. "Here they come again." Emma whispered despairingly. It seemed we were the only game in town tonight.
And so began the endurance race of a lifetime. Quietly we slipped down the darkened streets and weaved our way through the houses in the the direction of the golf club. Again and again, we had to change direction or jump a fence as the horde - or hordes- blocked our journey. We couldn't stop to draw breath or regroup. We took turns carrying the children in an attempt to maintain a fast pace. Exhausted mentally and physically, we pushed on in a zigzag manner, drawing slowly but inexorably towards our destination.