Desolation Boulevard (53 page)

It stood in the middle of the road, with its
nose in the air, and looked around for the source of this fresh
blood. Montana figured that The Doctor’s sacrificial entertainment
over the past couple of weeks had trained the creatures to keep
returning to this place for an easy meal, so she wasn’t totally
surprised by the sight of the beast, but it was terrifying
nonetheless Once the feeder locked onto her position it would
attack and, she would need to flee, but first she needed to unlock
the gates. She scrabbled the third last key into her stiff fingers
and tried to insert it into the barrel of the padlock. If this one
didn’t work, she would be out of time. Montana was so frustrated,
and she was almost in tears, but by some miracle the key finally
slid into the barrel and she breathed a frantic sigh of relief and
glanced up to check on the feeder. It had moved! It was now racing
towards her through the dark, with almost supernatural speed. She
was almost out of time! She held her breath as she frantically
attempted to turn the key in the lock.

Chapter 78

Gabby was tucked up in bed for the night,
and Sally and Bonnie stood on the front porch looking at the crowd
that had doubled in size since the morning. The smell of cooking
filled the cold night air and the hubbub of many conversations
drifted easily towards the house. After the conversation with the
woman earlier in the day Bonnie felt somewhat relieved that the
people outside the fence - Gabby’s followers - had turned out not
to be a threat, but she now had a growing sense of unease about the
confrontation that she felt was coming from elsewhere. Could this
band of everyday people who had congregated at the farm really be
any protection against a serious threat?

“
What are you thinking?”
Sally asked, interrupting Bonnie’s thoughts.

“
Huh? Oh, I was just
thinking that I feel trapped. I really feel like we should be
moving.”

“
West?”

“
Probably. Not back to the
city, that’s for sure.”

“
Don’t you feel better,
knowing that we have others for protection now?”

“
Do you?” Bonnie asked, as
she rubbed her hands together to keep warm.

“
Yes, a little,” answered
Sally. “But I’m not sure how those people would perform in a fight.
They look more like campers than soldiers.”

“
They do don’t they? You
know something? If it weren’t for Matt and the others, I would have
suggested we leave the farm days ago. The more time that passes,
the more I think I should get Gabby to Diamond Creek. Maybe it’s
because I can’t think of any reasonable alternative, but my
intuition is telling me to go there. With or without the
others.”

Sally looked at Bonnie, her disbelief
obvious, even in the pale moonlight.

“
Are you serious? We need
them! What about Dylan and me? I can’t just leave my boyfriend
behind!”

“
Relax, I just said my
intuition is telling me to do that. I didn’t say I was ready to act
on it. I think we can wait a little longer, but not forever - we
need to be realistic.”

“
What about those people
out there? They won’t just let us leave will they? They’ll want
Gabby to stay with them.”

“
I’ve been thinking about
that too, actually.”

“
And?”

“
I think we could take them
with us.”

“
What? Are you
crazy?”

“
Not at all,” Bonnie
replied, as she turned to Sally and took her by the
hand.

“
Listen, these people have
been brought here for a reason - to protect Gabby. We can’t ignore
that. If we run from them, they’ll just follow us, or another group
will spring up in their place. We might as well accept the
situation and deal with it. If the others aren’t back in the next
day or so, I say we rally Gabby’s followers and head west to
Diamond Creek. There’s safety in numbers after all. What do you
say?”

“
I don’t know Bonnie. How
can I leave knowing Dylan, Montana and Matt are out there
somewhere? It seems like we’d be deserting them, giving up! I don’t
know if I could live with that.”

Bonnie pulled Sally towards her and hugged
her. “I think we’re all finding that there are a lot of crazy
things we can live with now.”

-

“
Wake up!”

“
What is it?” asked Matt,
sitting up with a start.

“
We have to be ready. It
could be anytime now.”

As Matt sat up he could see that some of his
fellow prisoners had opened their eyes and were stirring from their
sleep. Others were already awake and standing around the room,
ready for action.

Earlier that day, after Matt and Dylan had
read the note, they decided to share the information with the five
other captors, realising that everybody needed to understand what
would be happening once Montana’s plan was put into action.

“
What time do you think it
is?” asked a young man, who had just woken up.

“
I don’t know,” Dylan
replied. “But I reckon we’re getting close to kick off.”

“
I can’t hear anything
yet,” commented Matt. “Maybe she couldn’t get out.”

“
Well if she didn’t, we
aren’t going anywhere either, so let’s just cross our fingers and
stay alert.”

-

Montana desperately turned the key in the
lock as the feeder raced towards her. If this didn’t work, she
would have to abandon the plan. But the key didn’t budge, and she
swore loudly as she saw the snarling face of the beast closing in.
Knowing that there would be no time to try another key, she twisted
it hard one more time, as a last resort, and almost fainted with
relief, as the shaft turned in the barrel, popping the padlock
open. She quickly removed it from the bulky metal chain and let it
drop to the ground as she slid back the large bolt that held the
gates together. She took one last glance into the darkness down the
road, and could see that other feeders were materialising now, in
significant numbers. There wasn’t much time! She left the gates
closed with the loose chain dangling limply around them, as she
turned and ran back towards the main building of the school. She
heard someone open a window upstairs and yell at her to stop, but
she kept running, her mind focused with absolute clarity on her
destination. As she sprinted towards the front doors of the school,
she heard a loud clank and a metallic rattle as the first feeder
hit the gates. She didn’t know if it was forceful enough to fling
them open or not, but she wasn’t about to turn around to look. She
knew that within a few short moments the creatures would reach the
gates en masse, and they would swarm into the school, looking for
fresh bodies to feed on. As Montana got to the front doors of the
school and shoved them open, she could hear marauders frantically
screaming from upstairs, “Feeders! Feeders!”

She plunged into the foyer and ran down the
corridor towards her salvation. Scores of creatures would be
flowing through the gates now, and the marauders were emerging from
their rooms to protect their domain. Montana realised the feeders
had already reached the main building when she heard the glass
doors shattering, as the creatures streamed through them. She ran
down the corridor as they closed the distance to her. They were
only seconds behind her now, but Montana had almost reached her
destination. She hysterically pushed open the door to the storeroom
that had been her prison only yesterday, and slammed it closed,
before engaging the lock, as the feeders thudded heavily against
it, just behind her.

-

The seven captives stood motionless,
listening, as they heard the sounds of bedlam breaking loose
outside.

“
My god! She did it!” said
one of the female prisoners. “She really fucking did
it!”

“
Don’t get too excited just
yet!” Dylan reminded them, moving to the door. “If the next part
doesn’t work, we might be locked in here forever!”

As the screams and gunshots rang out through
the corridors outside, Matt, Dylan and the survivors waited as they
had planned, for their best chance at escaping this nightmare. Most
of the group huddled together and held hands, but Matt and Dylan
stood just inside the door, waiting for the signal that would give
them their opportunity to strike. Montana’s note had told them that
they could expect pandemonium to erupt in the middle of the night,
because she was going to try to let the feeders into the school,
knowing it would be the only way to overpower the marauders. She
also informed the boys that they were locked in one of the only
truly secure rooms in the school, and that it could be seen as a
refuge for marauders once the carnage began. Matt and Dylan stared
at the inside of the metal door, almost willing someone to try to
enter from outside, but all they could hear was breaking glass,
gunshots and screaming.

“
This isn’t going to work,
is it?” wailed one of the captives, as Dylan yelled at her to shut
up. Then, just when it seemed like the plan was going to fail, a
clattering sound at the door indicated that someone was trying to
get into the room. Matt and Dylan took up their positions on either
side of the door, as the other captives formed a group of five, not
too far behind them.

As soon as the marauder plunged into the
room, Matt and Dylan leapt onto him and started pummelling his head
with their fists, while the other prisoners rushed to the door and
pushed it shut before sliding the latch, locking the door from
inside. The marauder tried to fight back, but he had no chance once
they all joined in the assault. Finally, the marauder became still,
and the prisoners stood back, panting from the exertion and rush of
adrenaline that had kicked in. For a moment, nobody was sure if the
man on the floor was dead or not, but a prod from Dylan’s boot drew
a low moan from the victim, indicating that he would probably live.
One of the men who had joined in to help subdue the marauder looked
over to Dylan, “What now?”

“
We wait. As soon as it
gets light outside, we find Montana, then get to the nearest
vehicles we can find and get the fuck out of here.”

“
What about the marauders?”
the man asked.

“
We’ll have to wait until
morning to find out. With any luck, the feeders will kill them all.
It sounds like a bloodbath out there.”

They all paused and listened as the screams
continued, punctuated now and then by the occasional blast of a
weapon.

“
Do less gunshots mean
there are less feeders to shoot, or less marauders to do the
shooting?” asked one of the women.

“
Good question,” Dylan
replied, as another bloodcurdling scream ripped through the
night.

-

Montana sat shivering in the corner of the
dark storeroom, as she listened to the sounds of the battle waging
outside. She would have no idea if her plan was a success until the
sun rose in a few hours, but at least she had given herself a slim
chance of survival. She hoped that the boys could somehow manage to
get through the night, and that she would find them in the morning,
but until then, all she could do was wait. She also thought about
The Doctor and whether his cronies would have gone to his aide as
soon as the alarm went up. Probably not, she thought. These
mindless psychopaths would be thinking only of themselves once
everything went to shit, and The Doctor would be left to fend for
himself. He would stand no chance, surely. Montana curled up on the
floor and tried to keep warm as another gunshot went off somewhere
in the distance.

Chapter 79

Dylan put his ear against the cold steel of
the door. “I can’t hear a thing.”

“
You people have a death
warrant now!” threatened the captured marauder, who was sitting on
the floor, bound at the ankles by his studded belt.

“
Shut up! Nobody said you
could speak!” ordered Matt, brandishing the marauder’s liberated
shotgun.

“
You’ll all fuckin’ die!
And the girl!” he countered, defiantly, before falling silent once
more, realising there was nothing more to say.

Over the past few hours, the sounds of
mayhem had diminished gradually until nothing could be heard
outside in the corridors. It was clear that a massacre had taken
place in the school last night after Montana had opened the gates,
but until they witnessed the scene for themselves, there was no way
for the seven survivors to tell which group would be hardest hit.
The feeders had the element of surprise and almost supernatural
strength on their side, but the marauders had a huge stockpile of
weapons, which had been hammering away throughout the night as the
battle raged. This must have been what it was like for citizens of
London during World War 2, thought Matt, when they had to spend the
night in air raid shelters, as Nazi bombs pounded the city streets
above.

“
Wait!” Dylan exclaimed,
“Can you hear that?”

Everyone nodded their heads as the engines
of motorcycles and cars could be heard starting up somewhere
outside.

“
That means some survived,”
offered Matt, with an expression of concern clearly visible on his
tired face.

“
Yes, but they’re leaving.
That means we can get out of here soon. I’m going to check it
out.”

Matt glared at the marauder on the floor.
“It looks like your friends are deserting you, doesn’t it?”