Desolation Boulevard (27 page)

“
We must never let these
things own our world.”

Chapter 46

The next few days were almost pleasant for
Matt, Montana and Gabby. They saw no feeders and the sun shone
brightly while the girls developed an informal work schedule for
themselves each day, which included tending the vegetable patch,
doing the housework and attending school in the bookmobile for a
couple of hours. While they went about their routine, Matt worked
on the fence, which he hoped would be enough to keep the feeders
from attacking the house. He worked from dawn until dusk each day,
pausing only to have a drink and eat the snacks that Gabby brought
him “to keep his energy up”. At around twelve all three would stop
work and enjoy lunch together in the shade of the front porch with
a big jug of iced tea and sandwiches. It was on the second day when
Montana finally asked the question that they had all been pondering
for days.

“
Matt, why haven’t we seen
any feeders?”

He put his glass of tea down on the table
and picked up a sandwich. “That’s a good question, isn’t it? Maybe
they have enough to eat in town. Maybe they’re feeding on each
other.”

“
Do you really think that’s
the explanation?”

“
No, not really,” he
replied, with a mouth full of sandwich.

She looked at him and waited for more
information. When none was forthcoming, she pushed. “Well? Why
haven’t we seen any feeders? They’ve had plenty of time to get this
far haven’t they? They should be all over us by now, don’t you
think?”

Matt finished chewing his sandwich. Gabby
was watching him now; waiting for him to explain something that
they all knew defied the rules of logic. He took a breath and
answered, “I’ve been thinking about that a lot while I’ve been
putting up that fence and there is one possibility that I just
can’t get out of my head, even though it seems ridiculous.” He
paused and took another breath. “I’ll just say it okay? I think
they’re staying away from Gabby.”

He had been mentally preparing himself for
Montana to burst into laughter when she heard his radical theory,
but was instead surprised when she simply stated, “Yes, I think
you’re right.”

“
What? You think so to?
Why?”

“
I can’t really explain.
It’s just a really strong feeling I have. What about you? Why do
you think they’re avoiding her?”

“
Mainly because of the fact
that she survived in that house on her own for two days; also the
lack of other corpses around her street. They wanted nothing to do
with her, plus I think we would have seen feeders here at the farm
by now.”

“
Okay. What does that mean
for us then? Do we still need a fence or what?”

“
Yes, because we don’t know
if their fear of her is permanent. If circumstances change, we need
some form of defense.”

“
Okay”, she
said.

Gabby had been preoccupied with a book while
Matt and Montana had been discussing the strange absence of
feeders, but now she put it down and looked at them. “Why do you
call them feeders Matt?”

He looked at Montana and then at Gabby.
“Well honey, I call them that because I’ve seen them feeding. They
don’t eat like us, though, they’re much more angry. Feeding and
sleeping is the only thing they seem to do now. When they’re asleep
I call them “hiders.”

“
Oh”, she said. “I though
it might be something else.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I thought it was because
they feed on our unhappiness.”

She picked up her book and started to read
again as Montana and Matt exchanged worried glances.

After lunch Matt went back to his fencing
while Montana and Gabby cleared up the lunch mess. He could have
used Montana’s help with the huge task, but he knew that her leg
was still sore from the dog bite and he didn’t want Gabby left
alone and bored while they worked on such a major project. Luckily,
building and repairing fences was hardwired into the DNA of all
farmers so, even though it was occasionally awkward and strenuous
doing the work by himself, Matt understood exactly what was
required to create a barrier that would be strong and durable. Once
he had the fence finished, he would probably spend some time
electrifying it, but for the time being, the strong chain links of
the wire, and barbed wire at the top would be sufficient. As he
worked, he thought about what Gabby had said at lunch. Were the
feeders something more than just animals in human form? Did they
really feed on the misery of the survivors? Matt knew that it would
take much more time before these questions could be answered with
any authority or confidence.

-

On the third day of their return to “Two
Hills”, in the middle of the afternoon, while the girls were
planting seeds in the vegetable garden, Matt realised that he would
need more bags of premixed cement to fix the last couple of posts
into the ground so that they would have a chance to set hard
overnight. He told Montana to stay near the house while he was
gone, and took the big truck back into town to get the supplies he
needed. When he arrived at the depot he unlocked the gate and
parked the truck near the store where he loaded it up with the bags
of concrete that he needed, plus a couple of extras. Better to have
too many than not enough, he thought. He relocked the gate and was
ready to go home when he thought about a couple of things he wanted
to check on while he was in town. He climbed into the cab of the
truck and headed in the direction of the pub where he had found his
first nest over a week ago.

As he stood outside the Criterion Hotel, he
marvelled at the change his hometown had undergone since the event.
The place was already beginning to look dishevelled and dusty and a
few vigorous weeds were beginning to poke their little green heads
out in places where somebody would have normally plucked them from
the earth in the name of order and tidiness. Pieces of litter lay
here and there, and the corpses, which had been so bloody and soft
just a week ago, had been picked clean to the bones and were
drying out rapidly in the sunshine. Matt looked at them and
realised that soon he would feel compelled to collect them and bury
them in a mass grave – but not until his fence was built. He walked
to the pub.

As Matt reached the bottom of the cellar
stairs he knew immediately from the smell that his hunch had been
correct. The feeders weren’t using this nest any more. He cast his
flashlight around the empty space and then turned around and went
back up into the daylight where he cast his eyes over his town once
more. He sensed its’ emptiness, just as he had sensed that the
feeders were avoiding Gabby for reasons unknown. They had moved on,
and the town once more belonged to the humans if they wanted it. He
shook his head in bewilderment and climbed up into the cab of the
truck. He needed to check one more thing before heading back to the
farm.

When Matt pulled up outside the Police
Station he received a shock even more severe than just finding out
that the feeders had left down. He sat in the truck and stared in
amazement at the sight that greeted him. The glass doors, on which
he had painted his name and address for other survivors to find,
were smashed, and the broken glass lay strewn all over the front
steps of the building. For a moment he couldn’t understand what he
was looking at, or what it meant. Was this a random act of the
feeders as they left town or something else? He looked up and down
the street but could see no other new damage. The doors seem to
have been targeted because of the sign he had painted on them.
Then, suddenly, as a chill raced down his spine, Matt realised what
it meant. Somebody knew where he lived, but hadn’t wanted anyone
else to know! As he raced to the truck he thought of how vulnerable
Montana and Gabby were back at the farm by themselves. First the
dog attack and now this! As he pushed the truck as hard as it would
go, he prayed that they were safe, and promised himself that he
would not leave them alone again until the fence was finished.

Chapter 47

Dylan had parked the Post Office van hard up
against the broken roller door, and they stood in front of the
warehouse with three Molotov cocktails sitting by their feet, ready
to roll into the feeders’ lair. A long piece of fuel-soaked bed
sheet snaked from the van’s petrol tank, waiting to be lit, as a
thousand or more zombies lay sleeping inside the old brick
building, just moments from a painful, merciless death.

They had discussed the logistics of carrying
out the gruesome task in the safest and most efficient way, and
eventually decided on a group effort to get the conflagration
started. Dylan would light the fuse to the van’s petrol tank, then
run back up the ramp, where they would each take one of the
petrol-filled Molotovs by the neck and fling it down the ramp,
under the van and into the warehouse, where it would shatter,
causing a small explosion. As soon as each of them had flung their
mini-bomb, they would retreat as fast as they could to the end of
the street, where the car was parked, so they could monitor the
success of their operation in relative safety.

As they stood in readiness, breathing
heavily with anxiety and dread, there was a realisation that if
this action went wrong their lives would be at risk. Sally and
Dylan had seen first-hand the violence of the zombies when
threatened directly, and could only hope that the car-park incident
in the city was not repeated here. Minutes earlier Dylan had done
one last sweep around the building and was confident that there
were no escape routes.

Bonnie looked at her younger companions,
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Sally replied first with a nervous laugh,
“Absolutely not.”

Dylan was more resolute, however, and he
began walking down the ramp towards the parked van. 

“
Let’s do this,” he
barked.

When he reached the bottom of the ramp he
turned and gave his final instructions to Sally and Bonnie, who
were waiting nervously for his signal as they held their makeshift
bombs by the necks at the top of the ramp.

“
As soon as I light the
fuse, be ready to light and throw your bottles. Don’t wait until
I’m at the top of the ramp, okay? Like we talked about remember; a
big underarm throw. Make sure you slide it under the
truck!”

They nodded seriously.

Dylan took a deep breath and reached into
the front pocket of his black jeans for the cigarette lighter he’d
obtained earlier for just this purpose. He glanced at the sheet
hanging from the fuel tank, and then nodded one last time at the
women, before flicking the lighter on. He held the naked flame at
arms length, and then paused for just a second, before touching it
to the fuse, where it whooshed into life. With the bed sheet
smoking, as flames raced along it towards the petrol tank, Dylan
turned and sprinted back up the ramp as fast as he could, where
Bonnie and Sally were now lighting their own fuses.

“
Go! Go!” Dylan screamed as
he reached the top.

As he crouched to light the fuse for his
Molotov, he saw Sally take three paces down the ramp before bowling
her device down the ramp toward the warehouse. They all looked on
as the bottle skittered down the concrete incline before slamming
into the rear tyre of the van where it lay, unbroken with the wick
still alight. Dylan was screaming at Bonnie, “Throw! Throw!” and
she did with a strength and accuracy that surprised them all. Her
bottle slid down the ramp with astonishing speed, past Sally’s
still-burning effort, between the wheels of the truck, and into the
belly of the warehouse. Dylan’s bomb followed Bonnie’s as if by
remote control and within a split second the sound of shattering
glass told them that at least one of the devices had fulfilled its’
destiny. Only a few seconds had passed since Dylan had lit the fuse
on the van, but it was as if time were standing still as they raced
up the concrete incline, away from the explosion that was as
inevitable as it would be devastating.

With the warehouse beginning to burn, and an
unexploded bomb in the shape of a Post Office van behind them, the
trio ran to the far end of the street, and safety. Just as they
reached the corner an almighty explosion pounded their eardrums as
the van exploded, and they scrabbled around the corner and threw
themselves onto the ground as shards of glass and pieces of
razor-sharp, metal fragments whistled past the edge of the
building.

“
Shit!” yelled Dylan,
grinning manically, “That was way too close! Is everyone
okay?”

Bonnie and Sally, who were slumped on the
ground sucking in big breaths, ignored his question and looked at
each other in disbelief as the roar of the fire resonated in their
ringing ears. Finally, Bonnie spoke as she stared angrily at Dylan.
“Did you know that would go up so quick?”

He looked at her warily, unsure exactly of
how much trouble he was in. “No. I thought we’d have a bit longer
than that.”

“
That’s a relief, because
we were about one second away from death you idiot! From now on no
more vigilante bullshit! Okay?”

Dylan looked at the girls, as they lay on
the footpath breathing hard, and realised that his personal
vendetta against the zombies had almost cost the lives of the only
people in the world he cared about. He went over and sat down
beside them as another small explosion was heard around the corner
and said, “Okay. I’m sorry. From now on we mind our own business,
and let the zombies sleep; until we find your daughter anyway.”