Desolation Boulevard (13 page)

“
I guess so. Can you really
find my mummy?”

Matt kneeled down on the grass and grabbed
her gently by the shoulders, “Gabby honey, Elvis and I will help
you look for your mummy as hard as we can. Until we find her,
though, we can be like a little family, okay?”

She looked Matt in the eyes. “Sure. Can
Elvis do tricks?”

-

Twenty minutes later they were on the road
to Carswell. Gabby was in the passenger seat, so Elvis was
relegated to the back of the truck. Matt was worried that the dog
would freak out, but he seemed to be enjoying the wind blowing
through his coat, as he hung over the edge with his mouth open.
After the decision had been made to care for the girl they had gone
inside the house and Matt had packed her an overnight bag with
clean clothes, toiletries, snacks, a drink and a collection of her
favourite toys. He was astonished by her positive frame of mind and
wondered if she’d pushed some disturbing memories into her
subconscious. He wasn’t very experienced when it came to relating
with small children, but Gabby seemed to have a directness that he
liked. Her willingness to allow the teenager the take control of
the situation was also making their unusual relationship easier for
him to cope with. When he had checked the house to make sure that
her mother wasn’t around, he packed her things in the truck and
they left for Carswell.

As they coasted down the deserted country
road the unlikely couple chatted about ordinary things like
favourite foods, movies and her friends at school. It was hard for
Matt to pretend that Gabby would ever see her friends again, but he
could see no point in telling her that everyone she had ever loved
was lost to her forever. He didn’t know anything about grief
counselling, but it just felt right to protect her from as much of
the horror as he could right now. Knowing the truth would take away
the one hope she had of seeing her mother and there didn’t seem to
be any point in doing that just yet. When they ran out of things to
talk about they played eye-spy, and when Gabby said “m” for “moo
cows”, Matt wondered if the animals would be a suitable source of
sustenance for the feeders. Given the number of cattle farms in the
area, he guessed that the creatures would survive for quite a long
time if they developed a taste for raw beef.

Forty minutes into their journey Matt
noticed that his little passenger was getting drowsy so he stopped
the car, reclined the seat, and covered her with a jacket, before
suggesting that she have a little sleep. She smiled at Matt, closed
her eyes and was sleeping before the ute was even up to full speed
again. He was relieved when she nodded off because he didn’t want
her to bear witness to the gruesome sights they would encounter
once they entered the city limits of Carswell. He didn’t know what
he would do when she woke up, but he figured he would deal with
that issue when it arose. Matt looked down at the tiny figure
napping peacefully beside him and the weirdest thought popped
uncomfortably into his head. “She’s a miracle!” he thought. He
shook his head. Where had that come from? The kid had just got
lucky, that was all. Against all odds she’d somehow managed to
evade the feeders at night. Maybe she locked herself in her room
and the feeders had been unable to find her. But he just couldn’t
imagine how that was possible, until he remembered the lack of
corpses in her street. For some reason, unknown to him, the
creatures hadn’t been very active in that part of town, and Gabby
had survived simply as a statistical fluke. Maybe that was miracle
enough.

The girl continued to doze as Matt rolled
into the once picturesque town of Carswell. For one hundred and
fifty years it had been a prosperous agricultural town, established
as a hub for the local farming community, before falling on tougher
economic times over the last thirty years. Matt had thought the
town had been looking a little shabby and forlorn the last time he
had visited, but the change that had come over the place in the
last few days now made it look like a scene from a Sam Raimi horror
movie. If it was possible, the carnage here seemed to be even more
extensive and brutal than the butchery that had occurred in
Millfield. For a start, there were more corpses here; but Matt had
expected that. Carswell had a larger population, so it was only to
be expected that there would be more victims littering the streets.
What shocked him here, though, was the extra element of exuberance
that was evident in the way the killings had been performed.

Matt looked at the girl to make sure she was
still asleep before scrutinising the grim picture before him. He
couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but if he had to make a guess he
would say that the feeders in this town had derived enjoyment from
their grisly handiwork. While all of the corpses showed evidence of
cannibalism, just as the Millfield victims had, there were some
extra touches here that disturbed Matt greatly. As he cruised
through the streets he could see bodies that had been flung into
trees and onto shop awnings. On one corner, a grossly overweight,
naked man had been impaled on a stop sign, and on another street he
saw a line of eleven severed heads staring sightlessly at him from
behind the display window of a butcher shop. Then, as he got closer
to the centre of town, he discovered a pile of charred corpses as
high as his car, that were now fused together like a gruesome
public sculpture.

Suddenly Matt needed to be out of this town.
There was a crushing sense of evil in this place that he couldn’t
deal with. It wasn’t just the wanton destruction and death that
disturbed him - there was something in the atmosphere that was like
a black, oily sludge that coated his mind and slowed it down until
it couldn’t function. He wanted to be back at the farm now more
than he had wanted anything in his life. He felt that if he stayed
here he would die. It was that simple. He turned the car around to
begin the journey home as Gabby made a little groaning noise in her
sleep. Her jacket-blanket had slipped down during the drive so he
reached over to pull it back over her tiny form, but when he looked
back up at the road he had to slam on the brakes to avoid a
collision. Two figures were standing in the middle of the street
pointing shotguns at his face. Gabby began to stir.

Chapter 25

Extract From Sally’s Journal:

“It’s late and almost
everyone’s asleep now. I’m so lucky I found Dylan so that he could
bring me here. Everybody’s been really nice to me. When I walked
through the front gates a woman called Jo came over and gave me a
big hug. It felt so good. She’s kind of in charge along with a man
called Mr Ash. He makes everyone call him Mr Ash too! He used to be
a high school teacher, but he seems nice anyway (ha ha). She
introduced me to a few other people my own age and took me to one
end of the church, where there were beds set up for the girls - the
boys and men have to sleep at the other end. There are no couples
here (yet). Everybody has lost their entire families. It’s such a
sad, quiet place, but Jo and Mr Ash are trying to keep everyone’s
spirits up as much as they can.

The church is bigger
than it looks from the outside. There’s a room where Jo has set up
a little play area with books and toys for the younger kids.
There’s also a big kitchen at the back where they’ve collected
loads of canned food and other things we need like clothes and
medical stuff. I can see why they chose this building to “hole up”
in. It’s got a really tall metal fence around it that has spikes at
the top. A plaque in the church says it was built in 1870 and its
walls are blocks of really thick sandstone. A couple of the men
have rigged up electricity from a generator so that we can have
lights at night. They also have these huge portable lights with
their own generators that shine onto the church fence at night.
That seems to be keeping the creatures away (at the moment
anyway).

After Jo showed me
around she gave me some clean clothes to wear and I went to the
bathroom and made myself a bit more presentable. Then she took me
to the kitchen and made me some lunch while we talked. She used to
be a lawyer before the event and was really rich and into the whole
power-dressing, ladder-climbing thing. I can see how she would be
good at that; she’s a really tough, intelligent woman. Earlier when
I came out of the bathroom I saw her on the other side of the
church arguing with this other woman who was crying and really
upset. By the time they finished, though, the woman gave Jo a hug
and went off to her bed where she collapsed and continued to cry by
herself. I might talk to her tomorrow. Maybe she needs a
friend.

As soon as Dylan
introduced me to Jo he left the church and went straight back out
to hunt “zombies” as he calls them. I wouldn’t say that he enjoys
it but he certainly seems to be driven to wipe them out (even
though we all know that it’s an impossible task). He said that I
could go with him tomorrow if I wanted to. I think I will.
Confession time. There is something about him that I find really
intriguing. He’s hot (and he knows it) but it’s not the only thing
he’s about. I think there’s a secret there that he won’t share with
anyone. Secret or not, I wouldn’t be upset if something happened
between us. So I guess I’ll go zombie hunting
tomorrow.

The rest of the
afternoon I just wandered around meeting people and helping to get
dinner ready. They’re all scared like me and don’t know what to do
next. Most want to stay in the city. A group has actually been
going out during the day with a truck and a backo? (whatever that
is), cleaning up the corpses in the streets around the church. It’s
to stop disease and hopefully keep the rats away. They say that if
we’re going to be here for a while then we may as well start making
the local area as liveable as possible. They’re burying the dead in
the bottom of a building site somewhere. There are also teams of
people who go out looking for supplies, survivors and other
suitable places for people to live. Before dark everybody who’d
been out came back to the church and gathered around a big long
table for dinner (they took out the first five rows of pews). It
was nice to have a proper meal again for a change and despite the
nightmare we are living in, I felt like I had a family for a little
while. When Dylan sat next to me Jo looked over and winked. Is it
that obvious? I thought I was playing it cool! Dylan, of course,
was oblivious. He was too busy telling everyone about the
“zombies”. He said that he had a little problem with one of them
today. He was in a supermarket freezer “cleaning up a nest” (as he
calls it) when one of them attacked him. He said there were three
of them, and after he shot the second one the last one woke up and
came at him. He said the creature never really got near him but we
don’t know if he was just playing it down a bit so we wouldn’t
worry. He touched me on the leg and said we’d have to be careful
tomorrow.

Well it’s late, and the
big lights are on outside and there are people watching the fence,
so it’s time for me to go to sleep. I wonder what tomorrow will
bring.

Oh, I almost forgot. A
really sad thing happened this afternoon. At around three in the
afternoon Mr Ash turned off “The Wiggles” music. I knew immediately
what that meant. Everybody stopped what they were doing and
listened, even the little kids. When the music didn’t start again
some of the woman started crying. I guess they were the ones who
had children of their own until a few days ago.

I hate this
world.

Chapter
26

The larger of two bandits was yelling at
Matt to get out of the car. The sudden jolt of the brakes had woken
Gabby up, and she was looking up at Matt from the passenger seat
with fear in her eyes. Matt had to make sure the next instructions
he gave the girl were very simple and very specific. If he got this
wrong she might die. He held his hand up to the bandits in the
street in a “wait” gesture and said to Gabby, “Sweetie do exactly
as I say right now. Climb on the floor and cover yourself with the
jacket. Don’t move until I come back, even if it takes a long time.
Do it now! Don’t worry honey, I’ll be back for you.”

“
Okay Matt”, she said,
slinking obediently to the floor and hiding under his
jacket.

As he climbed out of the car he whispered to
her, “I’m locking the doors so you’ll be safe.”

Outside the taller figure with the shotgun
was yelling again. “Get over here now before I blow your fucking
head off!”

Matt closed the car door and held both arms
up above his head. “It’s okay. I’m cool. I don’t want any
trouble”.

The big one seemed to be the spokesperson.
“Shut the fuck up. I’ll decide if you’re cool or not. What are you
doing in my town?”

His town? What a tool! “Sorry man, I was
just passing through. I didn’t know it was your town. I’ll just get
in my car and keep going okay? That’s not a problem.”

“
No you fucking will not!
You will stand there until I give you an instruction.”

Matt quickly evaluated his foes. The wannabe
tough guy, who was doing all of the talking, was average height but
very overweight. He was wearing camouflage trousers and a black
t-shirt with a picture of Darth Vader on the front. His shoulder
length curly hair looked like it needed a wash, and Matt realised,
without humour, that he had been captured by a nerd with issues.
The other person was a girl. It was hard to be sure, but Matt
thought she looked about the same age as him. She had peroxide
blonde hair poking out from under a baseball cap, big gold
sunglasses, heavy make-up and a pierced upper lip. She was wearing
black tights under a skimpy pair of ripped denim shorts and a pink
top with the word “Bitch” embroidered in sequins on the front. Most
boys would have found her hot. Matt thought she looked
ridiculous.