Desolation Boulevard (23 page)

“
Well how do you explain it
then?” Bonnie asked, throwing her hands up in the air.

“
I think they’re
migrating,” he stated matter-of-factly.

The women looked at him with disbelief.
Bonnie spoke first. “Migrating where? Surely they have nowhere in
particular they need to be. They’re like animals for God’s
sake!”

“
Exactly,” replied Dylan,
“And we all know that many animals migrate for all kinds of
reasons”.

“
Yes, mostly related to the
weather,” Sally countered.

“
Not necessarily. Some
animals migrate for food and some migrate to breed.”

“
Wait a damned minute!”
Sally objected, “You’re not suggesting these things have gone
somewhere to get romantic and try to make baby zombies are
you?”

“
No, not at all. I don’t
have a clue what their reason for migrating is. I just think it
feels like it’s the right explanation. Call it an educated
guess.”

“
Look,” said Bonnie,
“There’s no point trying to guess what these things are doing until
we have more to go on. Let’s wait until tomorrow and search the
town quickly. If we can’t find any, we’ll assume they’ve moved on
for reasons unknown. Fair enough?”

Dylan and Sally nodded in agreement.

“
Okay.”

“
Sounds
reasonable.”

“
Now, I need to go to bed
because it’s been a big, scary day, and tomorrow I’m hoping to find
Gabrielle. I want to start our search as soon as the sun’s up.
Goodnight.”

After Bonnie had gone to her room and closed
the door, Dylan and Sally sat on the couch, huddled together in
front of the gas heater.

“
I’m so glad I found you,”
she said.

“
Me too,” he replied. “Turn
off the light.”

Chapter 40

By the time Matt, Gabby and Montana reached
the farm, it was still only early in the afternoon, so they had
time to settle in and make preparations for whatever tonight would
bring. After they had carried their bags in from the car, Matt took
the girls to his parent’s old room and gave them time to unpack
their things and clean up. After he had done a quick tour of the
area around the house to make sure there had been no intruders,
they all went outside into the sunshine and the girls watched as
Matt replaced the dying flowers on his father’s grave with fresh
ones. He was touched when Gabby ran over to the garden and pulled a
daisy from one of his mother’s shrubs and returned, before placing
it beside Matt’s posy on the rocky mound. He hugged her fiercely
and then held her soft little hand as they all walked back to the
house to have some lunch and discuss their plans for the
afternoon.

As they sat on the veranda eating the
sandwiches that Matt had made with bread from the freezer, he
explained the advantages of staying at Two Hills. Not only were
they pretty isolated from the feeders in town, they could also live
self-sufficiently almost indefinitely. The generator in the shed
and the solar panels on the roof would provide them with
electricity, and there would be plenty of fresh food from the
vegetable garden and his mother’s chickens, which could be
supplemented by canned and dried food. If they needed more protein,
Matt could slaughter a cow, but he didn’t think that would be
necessary for a long time. When he told the girls that they would
need to pitch in and help with chores around the farm, they nodded
dutifully, understanding how important it would be to work as a
team from now on. He also told Gabby that she would need to spend
some time each day doing schoolwork, which Montana volunteered to
be responsible for. Matt told them that the next time he went to
Millfield he would go to his old junior school and get some books
for her to work from. He told her that it was still important for
people to be able to read and write so they could tell future
children how beautiful and amazing the world had been before the
feeders had appeared.

Matt felt he needed to be honest with both
girls so told them he didn’t know what to expect when the sun went
down later in the day. He looked at Gabby and said as gently as
possible, “I don’t think we’ll see feeders tonight, but Montana and
I will need to take turns staying awake just in case. If you wake
up and Montana’s not in bed next to you, don’t panic okay?”

“
Okay Matt. Will you stay
with me when Montana’s not there?” she asked hopefully.

“
Do you want me to sleep on
the floor in your room?”

“
Yes please,” she
answered.

“
Okay then, but just for
tonight. I need my own bed otherwise I get grumpy,” he said,
pulling his funniest “grumpy” face, and making Gabby
giggle.

Matt told Montana that he would need to go
to town tomorrow and try to find some very heavy-duty equipment to
fortify the farm. If the feeders left them alone, the next few
weeks would be spent making serious modifications to keep them safe
at night. The most urgent requirement would be fencing materials,
because the farm boundaries were designed to keep cattle in, not to
keep feeders out. For that task Matt would need to find a large
truck to transport the items he needed – long metal posts,
concreting supplies and rolls of fencing wire and barbed wire. He
also hoped to find a couple of portable arc lights with built-in
generators to throw light on the fences at night once they were
erected. He didn’t know if the feeders would be discouraged by the
light or not, but it would certainly provide better visibility if
they were forced to defend themselves with firepower. The changes
to the farm would not be attractive, but Matt knew if they wanted
to stay here, it was essential to build and maintain a small
fortress.

When he had finished outlining the plans, he
invited Montana and Gabby to familiarise themselves with the house
and the immediate surroundings. He told them where to find the
chicken coop (“follow the squawks”) and the vegetable garden but
Montana looked totally confused when Matt asked her to pick any
ripe vegetables and collect the eggs.

“
How will I know if they’re
ready?” she asked.

Gabby chimed in. “It’s alright I know what
to do. We used to have a vegetable garden and chickens in our
backyard. I’ll teach you.”

Montana’s face was blushing as she replied,
“Thanks honey.”

“
You’ll be fine,” Matt
said. “It’s a very instinctive thing. If it looks, smells and feels
ready, then it’s ready. Especially look out for tomatoes, lettuce
and zucchini. They can over-ripen really easily. Anything else can
wait until tomorrow.”

“
No problem,” Montana
replied. “Let’s go Gabby. This might actually be fun.”

“
Oh, and watch out for
snakes,” Matt said, winking at Gabby, who had to put her hand over
her mouth to stifle a giggle.

As Matt walked away from a dumbfounded
Montana, he yelled out, “I’m going to check on the cattle. I’ll see
you in a little while.”

After he grabbed his shotgun from the house,
Matt went to the big shed where the all-terrain vehicle was kept.
As he threw a bale of hay into the back of the vehicle, he thought
about how his feelings for Montana had changed since he first saw
her. Was he becoming attracted to her simply because she was the
only girl he knew, or was there something else? Was he just
imagining a connection between them, or was it genuine? He didn’t
know, but he did know that he had developed an enormous amount of
respect for her since their first meeting. Some girls that age
would be freaked out by the situation they were in, but Montana had
adapted to each fresh shock with flexibility and even grace – and
she had a sense of humour. Maybe it had been a little mean to scare
her with the “snake” comment, he thought, but she really needed to
be aware of the dangers that existed everywhere in the world now.
With no doctors or hospitals, it would be a cruel trick of fate if
you survived the feeders only to be killed by a spider bite, an
infection, or a bad fall. Thinking about these things made him
realise that he would need to stock up on medical supplies tomorrow
if he had time. It was going to be a very busy day, he thought, as
he swung his shotgun around onto his back and headed up the hill to
feed the cattle.

-

As Matt stopped the vehicle and turned off
the ignition, the cows came trotting over to the gate. He threw the
bale of hay over the fence and watched with concern as they started
feeding enthusiastically. He wondered if he would ever need to
protect his small herd from the feeders. Their food supply in town
(whatever they were eating now) wouldn’t last forever, and so he
would need to be vigilant and eventually think about protection for
his cattle. Perhaps flocks of animals would need shepherds from now
on, he thought sadly. He knew that if it became a necessity; it
would be a duty he could never fulfil. Maybe the cattle would just
need to get lucky to survive.

Matt was sitting on a log pondering these
issues, when he heard the sudden and unmistakable sounds of
screaming down at the farm. He didn’t think it sounded like screams
of people who had just seen a snake either. It sounded exactly like
the desperate shrieking of people whose lives were under immediate
threat. He ran to the quad-bike, jumped on and raced down the trail
towards the farm as fast as he could, while the shouts continued
from the valley below.

Chapter 41

The night passed uneventfully for the
travellers in Mount Edward and there were no more creature
sightings, despite Dylan checking at the window every couple of
hours. After a quick breakfast, eaten as the dawn broke, they
loaded their gear into the back of the fire-damaged car and took to
the streets to see if they could find evidence of sleepers. They
were all armed with loaded weapons and prepared for trouble, but
after an hour or so of fruitless searching they were convinced that
the town was deserted, even though they found quite a few spaces
inside buildings where the evidence of their habitation was obvious
– excrement, food scraps (mostly meat) and piles of newspapers or
rags that had used as primitive bedding. The smell was horrific,
and despite their faces being covered by bandannas soaked in
after-shave, there was plenty of gagging amongst the group.
Finally, in a dingy, putrid backroom behind a hamburger shop,
Sally’s stomach conceded defeat when she discovered a rat’s nest
that had been established in the stomach of one of the zombies’
victims. She hurried outside just in time to expel her breakfast,
steaming onto the footpath outside. When Dylan and Bonnie joined
her in the weak early morning sunlight they all agreed that it was
time to move on.

“
There’s nothing more to
see here,” Dylan stated. “I reckon that one we saw last night was
the last of them. I don’t know why it was left behind, but I
guarantee it was on its way to try to catch up with the rest of
them.”

“
Where are they going?”
asked Sally.

“
I don’t know, but the
straggler last night was heading west. So I’d say that’s where
they’ve all gone.”

Bonnie said what they were all thinking,
“The same direction as us.”

“
Yep. Let’s get out of
here.”

They were back in the car and heading out of
town when Dylan spoke to Bonnie, who was sitting beside him in the
front seat. “How far is it to Millfield from here?”

“
Only about three hours
under normal circumstances,” she replied. “Why?”

“
Well, I don’t think
there’s any guarantee we can make it there today.”

“
Why?” she asked, obviously
surprised and upset.

“
Because we don’t know
what’s ahead. I looked at the map last night - this is the only
route west, and it snakes down the side of the range through a
valley that’s really narrow in parts. If the road’s blocked,
there’s no alternative route. We’ll have to come all the way back
up here and go a much longer way around. I just don’t want you to
get your hopes up. We still might be days away, depending on what
we find ahead of us.”

“
Oh,” she said, as she
turned to stare at the trees sliding past the window.

“
The other thing we need to
consider is where to stay tonight if we don’t make it to Millfield.
Once we start heading down the range, the towns will be further
apart. Finding somewhere safe to stay for the night might be harder
than it has been up until now. If we get trapped outdoors after
dark … well.”

“
Let’s hope we make it
then,” said Sally from the back seat, suddenly feeling more
vulnerable than she had since this ordeal began.

As they headed west through the countryside
at the top of the ranges, Sally had plenty of time to think as she
watched the bush zip past. If the creatures were migrating in the
same direction as they were, how far could they travel in one
night? She crunched the numbers in her head and estimated that a
normal walking speed for a person might be around five kilometres
an hour. In other words, if the creatures could walk five
kilometres in one hour, they could cover around thirty kilometres
in six hours. She didn’t know if the zombies were capable of that
kind of physical endurance, but she wanted to test her theory as
soon as the opportunity arose.

“
Dylan, how far to the next
town?”

“
About ten kilometres.
Why?”

“
How far have we travelled
this morning?”