Desolation Boulevard (12 page)

Chapter 23

Sally stood in the cool, dark bar, staring
at the back of the man who had snubbed her just seconds ago. Her
hand was gripped tightly on the baseball bat, and her heart was
beating so fast that she could actually feel a vein throbbing in
her right temple. The man in black took a swig from his beer bottle
and casually turned to face her. He smiled.

“
Hi, can I get you drink?”
he asked, holding out a hand in friendship. “I’m Dylan.”

Sally’s anger at being ignored dissolved
instantly, along with her resolve. She dropped the baseball bat to
the floor, stripped the bandanna from her face and ran forward,
throwing her arms around him, as she burst into tears.

Dylan didn’t return the hug but allowed
Sally to embrace him. She released her grip and stood back wiping
her eyes.

“
Oh God, I’m so sorry ...
it’s ... just ... been ... I ... haven’t ... seen any ... my mother
... I’m so … sorry.”

“
Hey, relax,” Dylan said
cheerfully. “It’s fine. Sit down.”

Sally sat on the stool beside him and stared
at the brightly coloured bottles of alcohol on the shelves behind
the bar as the sobs subsided. While she regained her composure,
Dylan climbed from his stool, walked around behind the bar, and
began making a drink from a variety of the bottles she’d just been
staring at.

“
I’m so embarrassed,” she
said, not looking at him. “I wanted to be strong. I have been
strong. It’s just that I was beginning to think I wouldn’t find
anybody. When you smiled I was just so … I don’t know … relieved.
You could have … you might have been … I need someone to help me.”
She paused, and waited for a response. When there was none, Sally
asked, “What’s happened to everybody?”

Dylan put a large orange cocktail on the
counter in front of Sally. “One thing at a time. Drink this. It’ll
help. It’s full of Vitamin C too. Good for you.”  He walked
out from behind the bar and resumed his spot on the barstool.
“What’s your name?”

“
Oh God! Sorry,” She held
out her hand. “I’m Sally. I’m just not with it. I’m so confused.
Why has this happened? Do you know?”

Dylan picked up her drink and handed it to
her. “You’re still upset. Have a drink, take a deep breath and then
we’ll talk. There’s stuff you need to know.”

Sally took a sip of the drink.

“
Hey, that’s really good.
Thanks. Are you a bartender or something?”

“
Not any more,” he replied,
with an expression that she couldn’t quite interpret. Was it pride,
or something else? He changed the subject.

“
Hey, what’s your story
anyway? What have you been doing since it all went to
shit?”

“
I’ve been holed up in a
little motel a couple of suburbs away. One of those creatures
almost got me the first night. I’ve been more careful since then. I
don’t go out at night. Obviously. Hey, have you seen anybody else?
I’ve been hearing lots of gunshots over the past couple of
days.”

Then, logic kicked in as Sally gazed at the
gun lying on the bar in front of him. She looked at him. It made
sense.

“
Hey, is that you doing all
the shooting?”

“
Yeah, mostly, I guess.
I’ve been pretty busy.”

Sally looked at him more closely. He was
younger and better looking than she originally thought. Under the
black t-shirt his body was muscular, and she noticed that the
tattoos on his arms were a complex collage of skulls, beautiful
women and intertwined flowers. The thing that was most obvious
about him, though, was how comfortable he seemed in this
frightening new world. Sally had mixed feelings about that. On the
one hand, the qualities of strength, confidence and toughness would
serve people well in surviving the horrors they now faced; but
Sally had always valued sensitivity, intellectualism and creativity
in men. She knew she was being unfair; she shouldn’t be judging
this man before she even had a chance to get to know him properly.
Even though she was apprehensive about the answer she might
receive, Sally plunged in.

“
So what have you actually
been shooting?”

Dylan looked at her incredulously, frowned,
and then burst into rolling waves of laughter.

“
Are you serious?” he
guffawed. “That’s hilarious.”

Eventually the laughter subsided.

“
What do you think I’ve
been shooting? I’ve been shooting those fucking zombies!
Motherfuckers!”

Suddenly his face became still, and he
stared at a spot on the bar in front of him. “What am I shooting?”
he muttered to himself, “Shit! What a question.”

Sally blushed and took a sip of her drink.
She didn’t know what to say. Now she feared that she’d offended the
man who might be one of the few people left who could help her. She
held her breath, half-expecting him to get up and walk out of the
bar, leaving her to face any future challenges alone. He surprised
her, however, by stating matter-of-factly, “There are others, you
know.”

Her head snapped around and she looked him
in the eyes. “Are you kidding? Where?”

“
Well, all over really. Did
you think you were the only one?”

“
No, of course not. But I
just haven’t seen anybody until you. Well, except for that crazy
guy that was talking to himself, but that was days ago. Where is
everybody?”

Dylan considered his response.

“
Well, I think a lot of
people have been hiding out; they won’t even come out in the
daytime. They’re scared shitless, so they’ve barricaded themselves
in their homes. The zombies will get them eventually though. Who
can survive on their own forever?”

“
I don’t know. I was trying
to. But they’re not really zombies are they?”

It was a statement more than a question.

“
No, not like in the movies
anyway. I wish they were just zombies! They would be much easier to
deal with than these … freaks.”

Sally looked at Dylan and almost pleaded,
“Do you know what made everyone this way?”

“
No. Nobody knows, but
everybody at the church has a theory. That’s a more popular topic
for discussion now than the fucking weather.”

Sally jumped from her stool and stood
up.

“
What do you mean
“everybody at the church”?”

“
Oh sorry, I should have
said. There’s a group of people down at Saint Jude’s on Celebration
Boulevard. It’s only a few blocks away. They think they can start
again. They think they can build the world up again. Anyway, at
least it’s pretty safe down there at the moment. I sleep there at
night. They feed me. Most of the people are nice enough. Every day
a few more come out of hiding and join the group.”

“
Jesus! How many are
there?” Sally asked, trying to control her excitement.

“
As of this morning there
were fifty-two. But a few more people have probably turned up since
I left. That’s not the only place either. I’ve come across some
other groups. One was in a school – that was quite a big group -
bigger than ours anyway. Another group about the same size as
ours lives in a warehouse over on Houston Street. Anywhere with a
big fence or strong brick walls seems to work quite well. St Jude’s
has a very strong fence. Nothing’s gotten through yet.”

Sally took Dylan’s hand. “Take me
there.”

“
No problem,” he said.
“Let’s go.”

-

As they walked down the corpse-strewn,
tree-lined boulevard towards the church, Sally quizzed her new
companion, and found out that since the event Dylan had re-modelled
himself into a kind of fanatical “zombie” hunter. He stayed with
the little community at St Jude’s during the night, and went out at
first light searching for nests where the creatures slept, and then
shot them through the head one after the other. Sally didn’t say
anything to him about it, but as far as she was concerned he was
wasting his time. In a city of over three million creatures, what
impact could one man with a shotgun have? She understood that his
grisly preoccupation may simply be his way of trying to exercise
some degree of control over an impossible situation, but there
seemed to be something else driving him to spend his days
slaughtering the beasts. She wondered what that motivation might
be.

As they got closer to their destination
Sally stopped in her tracks. “Do you hear that?”

“
No. What is
it?”

“
It sounds like
music.”

“
No, you must be hearing
things. Let’s go. We’re almost there.”

Sally was sure that she could hear faint
music in the distance, and she was sure that Dylan could hear it
too. She also had a feeling that it was a tune she recognised. The
melody floated in and out of range, frustrating Sally’s attempt to
recognise it, as they walked down the street.

“
Are you sure you can’t
hear that?” she asked. “God, I know that song! What is
it?”

Sally wasn’t sure, but she thought Dylan
might just have had the slightest of smiles on his face.

“
You hear it too, don’t
you?” she pushed.

He took Sally by the hand. “Listen.”

The music was a little louder now, as it was
pushed towards them on the breeze, which had changed direction
again, and then all of a sudden, and without warning, the memories
came flooding back as the song’s melody and lyrics became crystal
clear in the desolate city.

“
Oh my god! Oh my god!” she
exclaimed, as she stood in Celebration Boulevard, surrounded by
dismembered corpses and flies, “It’s “Big Red Car! It’s the
Wiggles! It’s the fucking Wiggles! Why?”

Dylan gripped her hand tighter and gave her
an odd smile.

“
We play it during the day
to encourage the little kids to come out of hiding.”

She looked up into his eyes with renewed
respect. “Wow. That’s amazing. Has it worked?”

His smile faded. “Not since the first day.
Come on. Let’s go meet everyone.”

Chapter 24

Matt tried to call Elvis back, as the dog
ran towards the little girl on the swing. He was concerned that it
would leap on her out of sheer joy, and injure her, but he needn’t
have worried. As Elvis reached her, he stopped suddenly and sat,
looking at the girl as if waiting for something. Matt climbed out
of the car and watched as she stopped swinging, and then went over
to the statue-like dog and hugged him around the neck.

“
Hello boy. What’s your
name? I’m Gabby. Aren’t you a beautiful boy?”

“
His name’s Elvis. He likes
you, doesn’t he?” Matt said, smiling at the tiny figure before
him.

She was wearing pink jeans and a yellow
SpongeBob t-shirt. Her hair was long, sandy blonde and in need of a
good brushing. Matt was totally confused as to how this girl had
survived in the town since the rise of the feeders. Surely somebody
must be looking after her.

“
Where are your mummy and
daddy honey?” he asked in his friendliest voice.

She looked at Matt. “Mummy’s gone. Mrs Orton
is looking after me ‘til mummy comes home. My daddy is dead. I’m
not allowed to talk about him. Mummy says he’s evil.”

“
Where did mummy go
sweetheart?” Matt asked, hoping beyond hope that the girl would say
something like she was in the house baking cookies. Instead, she
said, “Sydney. She wants a new job. She says we might have to move.
There’s a McDonald’s in Sydney.”

Matt smiled. “There are lots of McDonalds in
Sydney sweetheart. What about Mrs Orton? Where does she live?”

The girl turned and pointed to the house
next door. “She lives next to us but she’s always asleep now.”

As far as Matt was concerned this whole
conversation was getting weirder by the minute. This girl had been
left in the care of her neighbour, probably while her mother went
to Sydney for a job interview. The babysitter, Mrs Orton was, in
all likelihood, a feeder, yet this defenseless girl was alive and
didn’t even seem traumatised.  Matt looked around the street
and noticed that, unlike the rest of the town, there were no
mutilated corpses visible anywhere. He studied the little girl more
closely. “Who’s looking after you honey? Where are they?”

She looked at Matt and smiled. “Silly!
Nobody can look after me! They’re all asleep. I have to look after
myself. I’m six. I can make cornflakes you know, but the milk
tastes funny now. I don’t want it any more. Can you get me some new
milk?”

“
Of course I can. As soon
as we see Mrs Orton.” Matt needed to see inside the babysitter’s
house. “Gabby honey, can you show me where Mrs Orton’s
sleeping?”

“
Just go in. She’s under
the bed. I think everyone likes under the bed now.”

Matt knew he didn’t need to go inside and
see Mrs Orton. He’s seen enough feeders now to know that she had
become one. He still couldn’t understand how this girl had been
spared from their violence, however.

“
Gabby, what happens at
night time? Where do you go?”

The girl looked at Matt like he was stupid.
“I go to bed silly. I’m not allowed to stay up late. There’s no TV
anyway. Do you know my mummy? Is she coming home soon?”

Matt knew that he couldn’t leave the girl
alone for one minute longer so, using his most authoritative voice,
he said, “Sweetie, lots of people have gotten sick and that’s why
they’re asleep. It’s dangerous for a little girl like you to be
alone without grown-ups. I want you to come with Elvis and me until
we find mummy, okay?”