THIRTY-NINE
Callan woke to a cloudless sky and the promise of more stifling heat. He knew Melbourne summers were incredibly hot—he’d visited several times during January to watch the Australian Open tennis tournament, burning under the incessant sun on the outer courts following the up and coming players around. Now such heat would bake the corpses, producing worse odors. Initially, the smell had clung to them like a shadow, but they had slowly accepted the suffocating stench.
He walked along the platform where he and Kristy had spoken during the night, checking to make sure the four-wheel drive was still there. Blue trotted after him. Bright morning sunlight forced his hand over his eyes, and he made a mental note to find a pair of sunglasses or he’d finish the day with a splitting headache from squinting into the sun. The street running alongside the railway station was empty. Numerous cars sat parked at the curb, but it might have been an early Sunday morning, people seeking that extra hour or two of sleep. So far, there were no zombies, and although that was a good thing, it worried him. As he reached the end of the platform, a metallic popping noise sounded in the distant sky.
A helicopter.
Callan shielded his eyes, feeling a streak of excitement. He wanted to run back and wake the others, but didn’t want to miss it. Where was it going? He found it eventually, in the distance, above the shadow of tall buildings poking high into the blue. Maybe it was the military, scouting for survivors.
He woke the others. Kristy looked peaceful, but he knew the news would energize her.
“We have to leave. I saw a helicopter flying over the city.”
“Who was it?” Kristy asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“I don’t know. It was too far. It’s hovering around the CBD.”
They packed their gear into the Toyota and reversed along the tracks until they hit the blacktop for the first time in twenty-four hours. Callan was concerned at leaving the railway line. Few zombies had bothered them, and all agreed the tracks were safer than the roads. Bec told of another line that ran all the way into the city. She had lived in Melbourne for several years and used the line regularly.
They took Bell Street running east, an eight-lane road separated by a median strip of grass and trees. It was mostly clear, but Callan took the four-wheel drive at a pace to allow for any surprises, weaving between minor crashes and one giant pile-up that consisted of more than a dozen vehicles. As they came down off a hill, the train tracks glinted in the sunlight, but a train had come off the line and lay on its side, covering most of the level crossing and any access to the tracks.
Callan slowed as they approached the scene, twisting the wheel left and right, passing over broken glass and pieces of the wooden boom gates.
Jacob leaned forward on the seat. “Try down there. That way.”
The way Jacob suggested meant going through a garden bed. Callan decided he had no choice. The vehicle jigged and bobbed as he rammed shrubs and plants and bashed across rocks. Finally, they hit the side of the tracks, spewing stones from beneath the spinning wheels, and found the faint dirt pathway through the weeds.
But the pathway ended as land on either side of the track narrowed. Callan was forced to take the four-wheel drive up the rocky bank onto the railway line, where it bumped along as he guided one wheel between the two rails and the other on the outside.
Things were going well until they came to a narrow point in the tracks where the derelict walls of old buildings drew close to them on both sides. Wire fences separated the structures, preventing vehicle access along the edges. It stayed like this for a time, narrowing further, before they saw boulders had been placed across their path ahead. Jacob recounted the issue that had almost cost their lives last time.
“We either move them, or go back,” Callan said.
Jacob opened the door. “Let’s go. Be quick.”
Callan took hold of his rifle and snapped the handle open. “Sit behind the wheel, can you?” Kristy shuffled across the seat. Blue Boy leapt into the front as if to chase Callan, but Kristy wrapped an arm around his neck, holding him back.
The men hurried over the stony fill to the obstacles. Neither man had said it, but rocks on the track meant only one thing—people wanted to stop whoever was traveling on it. This made Callan think that others might have been using the railway line.
He lugged the first boulder off to the side where it rolled into a ditch and stopped. Jacob stood nearby with the rifle in position, scanning their surrounds. Callan bent to pick up the second when the flat crack of a gun echoed between the warehouses. A bullet clanged off metal on the truck. Somebody in the car cried out. Jacob spun, pointing the Remington, searching for the attackers. He fired several shots towards a grey-walled building, and they heard the distant clang of metal striking metal.
“Show yourselves!” Jacob screamed. He walked up and down the line, poised to shoot.
Callan waited, then bent for the second boulder, digging his hands underneath the hard rock, lifting with his thigh muscles. He shuffled off the tracks and dropped it over the edge. It rolled into the first with a weighty clunk. He circled back and bent for the final rock, jamming his fingertips into the sharp stones beneath. Another shot broke the silence, striking the Toyota again. Grunting, Callan fumbled the rock towards the outer rail where it clipped the top and rolled off the track. He spun and saw Jacob stagger alongside the vehicle, clutching his right rib cage. Blue barked. Jacob fell to one knee.
“Jacob?” Bec said.
Callan ran to him, boots crunching over the bluestone rocks. Kristy swung the door open and leapt out of the driver’s seat, reaching Jacob as he slumped to the ground. The older man writhed, one bloody hand pressed to his ribs. He was taking short breaths through gritted teeth, trying not to cry out. On her knees, Kristy pulled his hand away. “Let me see.”
Callan scooped up Jacob’s gun and faced the attackers, pumping and firing, searching between the high walls of the buildings for movement. Return gunfire sounded.
He backtracked towards Kristy and yanked the door open. “In the car. Now. Bec, you’re driving.” He tossed the rifle into the front seat and bent, sliding his hands underneath Jacob’s shoulders as he had done with the big rocks. “Grab his feet.”
Somehow, they managed to lift him into the back seat, bumping his head on the door. Bullets whizzed and pinged around them. Callan expected at any moment to hear the hiss of a sprung tire. That would finish them. Jacob groaned. Blood smeared his t-shirt. Kristy slid in beside him, holding his head. Callan fired twice then leapt into the passenger seat as more bullets clunked into the chassis, the noise deafening in the small cabin.
“Reverse. Punch it.”
Crying, Bec jammed the gearstick into R and floored the accelerator. The force jerked them all forwards as the car sped in reverse, the tires popping and crunching over the rocks. Callan spied a rusty old car behind a pile of garbage. A gun popped up from behind it, barking its tune. It looked like a .22 rifle. If so, Jacob had a chance.
The front window of the four-wheel drive blew out, spraying Callan and Bec with glass shrapnel. She screamed but somehow held onto the wheel, maintaining her backward course until Callan noticed a thin gap between the warehouses and called for her to stop. He slammed the gearstick into drive for her, and she hit the pedal without a word. They took off, leaving the tracks and jiving their way across a gap of dusty earth filled with more rusty machinery. They hit the street with a crunch, distant gunfire chasing them, Bec swerving to avoid the carcass of a steel trailer.
It appeared their attackers weren’t done yet. A retro brown Ford sedan grumbled out from beneath a roller doorway in a nearby factory, tires chirping and blowing smoke. It straightened up, its big engine thundering, and narrowed the gap with a roar like a dinosaur.
Bec glanced up in the mirror. “They’re catching us.”
“No,” Callan said. “Stay focused on the road and just drive.” He unclipped his seatbelt, a red flag rising in his mind, and leaned out the window. He dropped two rounds into the Remington and tipped further through the opening, gathering his focus as he took aim. The wind blew into his eyes and the vehicle jumped all over the place. He fired, chewing a hole in the top left section of the hood just below the driver. The hillbilly screamed something at him and pulled closer. Callan pumped once and pulled the trigger again, striking the windshield. Glass exploded. The sedan cut right and came to a stop with a screech of tires, smoke floating from the back wheels.
Callan dropped back into the seat. “They’ve stopped. Keep going. Turn right here.”
Jacob’s eyes were slits, his breathing sharp, the pain written across his face in weary creases. Kristy kneeled over him, applying pressure to the upper right quadrant of his ribcage with a piece of fabric she had torn from the blouse under her Kevlar.
“How bad is it?” Callan asked.
“I don’t know. I need to know if it came out the other side—” She cut herself off there and glanced at Callan. He suspected she was going to say if the bullet was stuck inside, he was in deep shit.
Bec had steered them back onto a course parallel with the railway line, but they were now on the opposite side from which they had originally come. Callan thought that was lucky—the roadway and train tracks were filling with zombies, and the carnage on the road would have prevented their progress. Still, they had their share of busted up vehicles. Bec sped along—almost too fast for Callan’s liking—sitting forward in the seat to ensure her full weight reached the pedals of the big vehicle. She lacked the finesse of Kristy, jerking on the wheel to go left or right, braking hard and accelerating unevenly. It was like being on the Mad Mouse ride at a carnival.
She’d taken them up onto the curb to get around a three-way smash hogging the roadway when the engine began to falter.
Oh, fuck,
Callan thought, glancing towards the fuel gauge. He recalled telling Kristy that they needed fuel, but when had that been, yesterday?
The engine gasped and spluttered. Bec read the instrument panel. “Oh shit. We’re out of fuel.”
FORTY
The men passed by the apartment building several times throughout the day, via car and on foot, but they never stopped again until almost three-thirty. Lauren had expected it since they had started checking surrounding buildings in the morning. She had drawn the curtains closed for most of the day.
She tried to keep busy, cleaning out rubbish that Todd and Lenny had left behind, going through the baby’s clothes again, tossing stuff he’d already outgrown. They moved garbage to the apartment two doors down. They had several fans running off the generator to keep the air circulating—it wasn’t the usual air-conditioning, but it beat the suffocating heat in the other apartment.
It was a poor life, if this was to be it, Lauren thought. For the remaining people—Steve and his wife, and the others, there was nothing to do but sit and rest and talk and wait. For what, she didn’t know. Help to come? Lauren doubted it would ever happen. It had been almost a month since the outbreak and weeks since the last television broadcast. Where was the government? She held no hope for their fortunes to improve anytime soon.
Changing Harvey, she had spent time alone letting him clasp her pinkie finger. He had a strong grip for a baby. She had nothing to compare against really, but it made her feel better. She wondered what would become of him. Would they survive in the long term, the world returning to the way it had been, or would he grow up in a place where lasting another day was an achievement? The thought of her son not making adulthood upset her. Lauren resolved to fight harder to ensure it happened.
Excitement rippled through them at the sound of a helicopter earlier. Steve considered going out into the street to flag it down. Alexander wanted to climb to the rooftop. Lauren argued that they would never notice either of them no matter where they stood, and that if it was the Army or the police, they should sit tight until help arrived. On a clock radio in the bedroom, Steve tried to locate a transmission, but all he found was static.
And then the men returned. Some argued they should flee—Steve and his wife and the others. Lauren told them she wasn’t going anywhere, but they were welcome to leave if they wanted.
The group assembled on the grassy roundabout at the intersection of Queen and Franklin Streets. Lauren leaned against the window, Steve on the other side, peering out through a gap at the edge of the curtains. A stocky man with a shaved head stood in the center, talking to the group with exaggerated hand signals. He kept pointing to the building, and, occasionally, the other men would look in their direction.
A deep terror crept over Lauren. She somehow knew the men were going to come to her building and search the apartments. It was the only residence in the area, snuggled amongst a bevy of offices and showrooms. The men had wandered up and down the street for most of the day, removing doors and cutting quiet holes in the windows of most stores.
“They’re systematically checking each building,” Steve said, after staring out the window for fifteen minutes.
Then they broke up. At first, Lauren thought they were going the other way—one of the men started north, but he was only retrieving something that had fallen in the grass. Three headed down Queen Street, while the other three walked towards the front of her building on the corner. They disappeared from sight.
“What do you think? Will they try to get in here?”
Steve furrowed his brow in thought. “Yeah. Probably.” He peered back out the window, but the men had disappeared. “Is the view better from any of the other apartments?”
Lauren hurried away. “Come with me,” she said to Alexander. He followed, and they squeezed out the door and entered the adjoining apartment. The men still weren’t visible from their window, so they tried the following two residences, both without luck. “They’ll have to break down the door downstairs,” Lauren said, almost as an afterthought. “I locked it. If they bust it down though, the zombies will eventually find their way in, too.”
She didn’t think zombies would matter if the men found them. From what Alexander had described, they were ruthless and immoral. They were after him, mostly, and he was with them now. Did that put her and the others at risk? Harvey? A chill crept up her neck.
Where were the men? Had they entered the building yet? They needed to know; needed to get closer. Alexander reluctantly accepted her proposition to investigate.
Rather than returning to her apartment, they continued on towards the lift foyer, listening for loud noises from below. Alexander opened the stairwell door and let Lauren in first. She slipped in and closed it softly after he passed. They crept down the stairs, checking as far below as their line of sight would allow.
Alexander thought he heard something on level two. Lauren stood by the door listening, but the stairwell, and the levels below, remained silent. They pushed on, cautious, alert, poised to flee if they detected any sign of danger. The cautious voice in Lauren’s head told her to return to the apartment, but she had to know if the men had entered the building. Otherwise, it would be a game of waiting. Hopefully they would reach the entrance and find the door locked, her concern unfounded.
Level one was silent. They climbed down the last flight of stairs in slow motion, as though with each step they expected to see the men approaching. Lauren’s heart raced, not dissimilar to entering the shop the previous night. She caught sight of Alexander and didn’t feel as inadequate, knowing he wasn’t comfortable either. She realized they had no weapons—it had been an impromptu decision to investigate—not that weapons would help against men wielding machine guns, but if a zombie attacked, a knife would be useful.
Lauren reached the ground floor first, tuning her ears to the rush of wind and echoes in the concrete hallways. She heard a far off noise, but couldn’t place it. As they rounded the stairs and walked on towards the foyer, a spear of terror struck her; the door had been smashed in. The glass panel lay shattered over the floor.
Alexander’s expression was stiff with fear. She had faced a number of zombies trying to break the door, but the double-glazing had always held. The men had succeeded though. They might be anywhere now. Returning to the apartment would be risky. Suddenly Lauren felt a deep compulsion to hold her son, as though she wouldn’t get the chance to do it again.
Don’t think like that.
“Any ideas?” she whispered.
“I was hoping you had one.”
They had to climb. But once she and Alexander were in the stairwell, there was no real way out. She spied a fire extinguisher hanging off the wall. It wasn’t the best weapon, but in a tight spot, it might help. Lauren tried to lift it from its place, but a thick cable secured it.
“What’s the point of having it stuck to the wall like that if there’s an emergency?”
“I think that’s an aftermarket alteration,” Alexander said. “I know one or two that have been stolen from apartment blocks like this.” He scanned the foyer and hurried to the broken planes of glass on the floor. “This must be one of those older windows that don’t shatter.” He picked up a length about ten inches as though it were a snake and might bite him.
Using the sharp edge, he sawed at the cord and it began to tear, but the glass was difficult to handle. He applied more force, working it at different angles, until the cord gave way. The extinguisher fell and, as he reached out to grab it, the glass sliced his hand. He gave a sharp intake of breath.
“Did it cut you?” Kristy asked, juggling the equipment.
Alexander held his wrist. Dark blood splashed onto the concrete floor from a deep cut on the lower part of his index finger, above the webbing of the thumb. “Damn it.”
“We need to wrap it.”
“Tear a piece off my shirt,” Alexander said. Lauren lowered the extinguisher and detached a jagged strip of black fabric from his Will. I. Am. t-shirt. She wrapped the length around his hand, covering the bloody gash.
“Keep the pressure on it until we get back to the apartment.” His face was pale. “You good?”
“I’m not a fan of blood.”
“Keep it tight. It will help stop the bleeding. I know that much from my first aid training. We’ll be back soon.” He nodded. She noticed the gold band on his wedding ring finger. “Were you married?”
He snatched his hand back. “It’s nothing.”
Lauren considered pursuing it, but he moved away and made his desire to end the conversation obvious. She lifted the fire equipment and led the way back up the stairs, hurrying past the platforms of each level in anticipation of meeting the men as they changed floors. As they approached level eight, Lauren thought about the open doorway in the foyer, and realized it was only a matter of time before zombies found the place, too.