Desolation Boulevard (35 page)

Before Gabby was born,
Bonnie was happily married to a man named John. He worked in a
local bank (probably a bit like the one we’re in now) and was the
perfect husband. They were in love and excited about the pregnancy.
They’d always wanted a child, and loved their life together in
Millfield.  The pregnancy was boringly normal and Gabby was
born healthy. The problems started when they brought Gabby home
from the hospital, when John didn’t seem very interested in the new
baby, despite his previous excitement about the birth. Bonnie put
his attitude down to “first-time father” nerves and stress at work,
and assumed that he would become closer to Gabby in time. After a
few months, though, it was clear to Bonnie that something was
wrong. John seemed to be doing anything he could to avoid spending
time with his new daughter, and whenever Bonnie tried to talk to
him about it, he would storm out of the house and stay out all
night. Within six months, it had all become too difficult, and
after a particular vicious argument, John left and never
returned.

Dylan was snoring
beside us, and I was finding Bonnie’s story pretty interesting, but
I couldn’t really see what was so unique about it. It certainly
wasn’t any worse than my family situation, and I knew that stories
like this (about deadbeat dads) were common. When I mentioned this
to Bonnie, she just said, “Hang on. I haven’t got to the
interesting part yet.” Beside me, Dylan made a grunting sound in
his sleep and rolled over onto his side.

When Bonnie’s husband
moved out, he didn’t just leave his family, he left town
altogether. It was as if he couldn’t get far enough away from
Gabby. He quit his job and Bonnie heard nothing about him until two
years later when two police officers - detectives - knocked on her
door. They had found John’s body in a shack on a remote farm, a
thousand kilometres away, in Tasmania. He’d been living “off the
grid” since he left Millfield. There was no paper trail and he was
surviving by doing odd jobs for cash. The detectives told Bonnie he
looked like a hobo when they found him - skinny with a long beard,
and filthy clothes. They also told her that he’d killed himself -
thrown himself head first onto an upturned gardening fork. Bonnie
was getting upset as she was telling this part of the story and I
asked her if she wanted to stop, but she insisted on finishing “so
someone else would know about Gabby”. I have to be honest here;
Bonnie’s story was starting to give me the creeps. Dylan was still
asleep and there wasn’t a sound in the world, except for his
breathing. It was a very weird atmosphere.

Anyway, it seemed as if
there was a bit more to Bonnie’s ex-husband than anybody realised.
He was a bad man and always had been. When the police started
investigating his death, they found a lot of very disturbing facts
about him. He was a paedophile, even while he was married, but he
somehow managed to hide it from everybody. He was involved with a
little group of perverts who convinced each other that what they
were doing was normal. Business trips were just excuses to get
together and indulge their filthy tendencies, and there was also
violence involved and embezzlement of funds from the bank. The
detectives outlined the evidence for Bonnie, but I don’t need to
repeat the sordid details here, it’s too unpleasant for me to think
about. The point is that John was a very bad man.

When Bonnie got to this
part of the story I asked her why she was telling me. I was
confused. Why was it relevant to our situation now? What did it
have to do with Gabby? And I remember the next thing she said.
Exactly. She said, “That’s why John left. Gabby has a quality that
repels evil.”

I didn’t know what to
say to this, to be honest. I thought it was the craziest thing I’d
ever heard. I must have been staring at Bonnie with my mouth open
or something, because she actually laughed at me. She said, “Listen
Sally, you’re a smart kid. I know how ridiculous it sounds, but
it’s true. There were incidents over the years that convinced me. I
had this babysitter booked one time, so I could go to the movies
with a girlfriend. She literally wouldn’t set foot into my house. I
found out later she got caught being cruel to the children in her
care. Pinching them, burning them with cigarette lighters,
pretending they were accidents. She’s in a Juvenile Detention
Centre now. There have been other examples too. It doesn’t matter
if you believe me or not, because I know it’s
true”.

I asked, “Are you
saying that people with evil ... souls, or whatever, literally
cannot stand to be around Gabby?”

She nodded in silent
agreement and all of a sudden it hit me. “That’s why you think
she’s still alive!” I said, “You don’t think the zombies will go
near her because they’re evil!”

She smiled and said;
“Now you know, and I feel better that I’ve told
someone”.

I sat on the edge of
the single bed, listening to Dylan snore quietly beside me. There
wasn’t a sound from the world outside, and I realised suddenly that
if what Bonnie was saying was true, then Gabby is precious beyond
imagining. She is perhaps the key to a brighter future for all of
us.

Chapter
57

Bill looked over at Gabby as she began to
stir from her sleep in the passenger seat of Matt’s mother’s
Daihatsu. As the car buzzed along through the pre-dawn gloom
towards Carswell, he was still amazed at how easy it had been to
take the girl. After putting some crushed-up pills into everyone’s
hot chocolate after dinner, they were all sleeping like zombies.
Bill chuckled to himself over his little joke; despite the nausea
he’d been feeling since arriving at “Two Hills” the day before. He
wondered if he had picked up a disease from the dead bodies that
were everywhere now. It certainly would make sense, given the state
the world was in. He made a mental note to find a chemist at the
next town and begin a course of antibiotics, just in case. As Gabby
moaned and stretched beside him he looked at the little girl and
suddenly realised that he was going to throw up. He stopped the car
in the middle of the road and opened his door just before heaving
the contents of last night’s dinner onto the road. He wiped his
mouth with the back of hand and realised that he was also sweating
like a pig. Yes, he’d definitely caught something and that was bad,
because he had a task to fulfil. It was the most important thing in
the world to him right now, but the weird thing was, he had no
earthly idea why the duty had fallen to him. His irrational, but
compulsive impulse to kidnap the girl and deliver her to “them” was
his only priority. It drove him forward with a thrill and
anticipation that only the genuinely obsessed can ever experience.
Somehow, deep down, he knew there would be a reward beyond
imagination once his mission was complete, but now this illness was
putting everything in jeopardy.

As he climbed back into the car Gabby opened
her eyes and looked around in confusion. It took a few seconds
before she realised that she wasn’t in her bed with Montana. She
looked at Bill, who was mopping his sweaty brow with his sleeve.
“Where are we?” she asked, concerned now, and aware that things
weren’t as they should be. “Where are Matt and Montana? Where are
we going?”

Bill looked at her, and despite his wretched
state, smiled and tried to appear as friendly as possible. “It’s
okay, honey, don’t worry about them. We have a very important job
to do. I have to take you somewhere very special. You’ll have lots
of new friends once we get there.”

He grimaced and swallowed hard as he felt
the bile rising once more in his throat.

“
I don’t want new friends,”
she said firmly. “I like Matt and Montana. They’re my friends. And
they’re going to find my mummy.”

“
I know. We’ll see them
soon,” he lied. “And your mother.”

Gabby may have only been six-years-old, but
she knew without a doubt that Bill was lying to her. She also knew
that it was bad manners to contradict adults, so sat silently
beside him and accepted his explanation, despite the ball of fear
that was growing inside her.

As the dawn began to creep over the eastern
horizon, Gabby looked over at Bill and could tell that there was
something wrong with him because he kept sweating and had gone a
really funny colour. Also, every now and then he looked at Gabby in
a way that bothered her. It was not a nice look, but because she
was only six, she didn’t have the vocabulary to know the word she
needed to describe that gaze. Bill knew it, though, because he was
living it more and more with each passing second. The word was
“revulsion”. Bill was starting to realise that being near this girl
was making him sick - very sick. It was taking every molecule of
his will to resist pulling the car over and dumping her out onto
the roadside. The only thing that stopped him from doing so was his
blinding desire to complete the task that he had been called upon
to do. He thought back to when it had all started, just a couple of
days after the event.

Like everyone else in the world that hadn’t
changed into a zombie, the first few days for Bill after the event
had been a nightmare. His town had been turned into “sleepers” and
on the second night he had witnessed the rampage of the creatures,
as they came out to feed, from the safety of the local high
school’s roof. He somehow managed to survive the initial chaos, and
over the next couple of days developed a simple routine that kept
him away from the zombies and relatively safe. On the third night,
though, the dreams began; so vivid that he could remember every
single detail after he woke up. The dreams were very simple in
theme - Bill saw himself offering a girl to a group of the
creatures - a very large group of creatures - in a large, dark,
damp space. Then, after the girl was handed over, they swarmed over
her and she disappeared into their midst. The most compelling part
of the dream, though, was the exhilaration that he felt once the
girl was given over. It was a joy that was indescribable to him. If
there was a heaven, it would feel this way, he thought. Over the
next few days the dreams became more vivid and more regular and
then, bizarrely, they started to intrude on his waking hours. In
the middle of everyday tasks such as walking or gathering supplies,
he would find himself being transported to the large dark space
where he would repeat the ritual of handing the girl over. Each
time the climax was exactly the same, as the feeling of ecstasy
surged through his entire being. Then, after the vision had played
itself out, he would return to reality, often minutes later,
wondering what had happened, and feeling extremely depressed.
Eventually, the visions became so all-consuming that Bill didn’t
think he would be able to continue living, and actually considered
ending his own life to escape the torture. But, as he teetered on
the brink of insanity and self-destruction, an extraordinary thing
happened - he woke from one of his visions knowing that the girl
from his dreams was real, and also where to find her. He couldn’t
comprehend how such a thing was possible, but in that moment an
enormous weight was lifted from his soul, and he realised that it
would be possible for his vision to become a reality and for him to
actually experience a joy that would be limitless and beyond words.
He had headed straight to “Two Hills” with absolutely no doubt nor
hesitation. Now, though, as he stood on the side of the road once
more retching onto the bitumen, he knew that his dream was at
risk.

He climbed slowly back into the car and
stared at Gabby. The sun had risen now and they were only about
twenty minutes from Carswell. Bill knew that once he passed through
the town it was then only a relatively short distance to reach his
final goal. He didn’t know the name of his destination, but just as
he knew where the girl would be, he knew instinctively in which
direction to travel. In some ways he felt as if an invisible string
was tugging him along. He could no more resist its force than could
a drowning man resist the hand of his rescuer. The girl didn’t say
a word as he started the car and pushed on with his mission, but as
he glanced at her in the passenger seat, he knew instinctively that
she was the cause of his pain and inner turmoil.

“
What are you?” he asked,
swallowing noticeably.

Gabby looked at him and considered her
response, before stating, “You don’t look good. Mum makes me lie
down when I feel sick.”

“
You got that right. I feel
like shit, and I think I know why. You’re a fucking demon, aren’t
you? Sent to destroy me and steal my happiness.”

Gabby, shocked by this grown-up’s bad
language, looked back to the road and didn’t respond. She really
had no idea what he was talking about, and besides, her mother had
taught her to ignore people when they were disrespectful. Ignoring
her silence, Bill tried again, more frantically this time.

“
I said, what are you?
Answer me!”

Gabby maintained her silence but she knew
she was well out her depth with this strange man beside her.
Finally, tears began to roll from her eyes as she realised that she
a very long way from Matt and Montana and that nobody was going to
come to her rescue. As Bill coughed violently next to her, doubling
up in pain as he steered onto the gravel verge for just a second,
she wondered if she really was making him sick. She didn’t think it
sounded right, but perhaps it was true. There were lots of strange
things happening in the world now, and maybe it was possible for a
little girl like her to make a man sick. She’d never felt so alone
and confused in her short life, not even after all the people went
away and she was home alone for two days. So, in a childish attempt
to make all the bad things go away, Gabby closed her eyes and tried
to shut everything out. Almost immediately, however, she was jerked
back to reality when Bill slammed on the car’s brakes and pulled
over to the side of the road.