Desolation Boulevard (56 page)

“
I’m okay,” she said, as
Sally put her arm around her.

“
I don’t understand why
you’re so upset. Gabby looks so happy”.

Bonnie looked at Sally, “Yes, but I know
that it can’t last.”

-

It was mid afternoon, and Sally and Bonnie
were working together in the vegetable garden, while Gabby kicked a
football around with the other children. Bonnie was trying not to
be overly protective, but every few minutes or so she would stop
planting and glance up secretly to make sure that Gabby was
okay.

“
She’s fine,” laughed
Sally, as Bonnie snuck yet another peek at her daughter.

“
Oh God, I can’t help it.
You’ll understand one day when you’re a mother!”

“
No thank you. I wasn’t
keen on the idea before the event. Now there’s no way I’d ever
bring a baby into this world.”

“
Fair point,” said Bonnie,
as she poured a row of corn seeds into the furrow she’d just
created.

“
Would you have another
child?” asked Sally. “I mean, if you met the right man.”

“
My philosophy is to never
rule anything out,” she answered cryptically, as she raked damp
brown soil over her seeds and stamped it down with her foot. “It
makes life more interesting.”

Then, without warning, Gabby screamed from
across the yard. Bonnie stopped what she was doing and started to
run in a blind panic, but when she saw Gabby’s face, she realised
that it simply been a scream of joy. The little girl was racing
down the path as fast as her legs would take her. Then Bonnie
realised why, as Elvis galloped through the gate and jumped on the
little girl, who fell to the ground laughing as the dog licked her
face and wagged his tail furiously. Sally joined Bonnie in the
unexpected reunion, and they all hugged Elvis together, as people
watched curiously from outside the fence.

“
Where’s Kate?” Sally
asked, looking around in anticipation.

“
I don’t know,” Bonnie
answered, as Matt, Dylan and Montana came striding through the
crowd, towards them.

“
Oh my God!” Sally
exclaimed, racing down the path to her friends, before throwing her
arms around Dylan.

“
What happened?” she asked,
through tears of joy.

“
It’s a long story, and
we’ll tell you later,” he replied. “More to the point, though,
where the hell did these people come from?”

“
It’s a long story,” she
said, laughing. “We’ll tell you about it later!”

Bonnie had joined Matt and Montana just
inside the gate, as Gabby rolled around on the grass with
Elvis.

“
Well hello, you guys!” she
said, warmly hugging each of them in turn. “We were really worried
about you. Where have you been?”

“
Trouble with marauders in
Carswell. I’ll fill you in later,” he replied, as he turned and
pointed at the crowd, “What’s going on here? What’s happened to my
farm?”

“
Let’s go inside and get
you something to eat. I’ll tell you after you’ve had a chance to
clean up a bit. Is Kate with you?”

Matt and Montana looked at each other, and
Bonnie realised immediately that something was wrong.

“
No,” said Matt. “She was
attacked by a feeder. She didn’t make it. We buried her this
morning.”

-

Matt, Dylan and Montana ate as if it was to
be their last meal. While they had been showering and changing out
of their filthy clothes, Bonnie, Sally and Gabby loaded the table
with all kinds of food, realising that their friends would be
famished. Then they watched with amazement as bowl after bowl of
leftovers were demolished, along with sandwiches, cakes and fruit,
all washed down with juice or cups of tea.

“
When was the last time you
guys had something to eat?” asked Sally, sitting happily beside
Dylan, with her hand on his knee.

“
I’m not sure,” he mumbled
through a mouthful of meatballs. “But it seems like forever
ago.”

As the feeding frenzy died down, and plates
were pushed away from bulging bellies, the questions started and
the conversation jumped around from one topic to another as the
incidents from the last few days were relived - stories of being
trapped in caves by feeders, captured by marauders, and the deadly
game that had been witnessed by Montana at the school. As Matt told
them about Kate’s death, they became quiet and tears were shed,
especially when Montana shared her guilt about the fact that they
had not been to visit her. Bonnie and Sally, too, had their stories
to tell and when they had finished trying to explain the presence
of the group outside the fence, the others had questions of their
own - “Would the threat be from marauders or feeders?” and “How
many more people will come?” and “Can they fight?” and “Can we
trust them?”

The biggest question, however, was the one
that nobody really wanted to raise. Its answer was unknown and full
of menace, so it remained unspoken as the other topics were
analysed in minute detail, until the threads of those conversations
became exhausted. Unsurprisingly, it was Bonnie who finally
breeched the topic, and once she did, it was as if a dam had burst,
the implications of the question, cascading forth, powerful and
frightening in equal measure.

“
Do you think we should
consider heading west?” she asked, and for a moment everyone was
silent.

All eyes turned to Matt. Everybody at the
table knew that Matt lived for “Two Hills”. It was where he was
born, and he had made it clear that he intended to stay. It was a
direct link to his parents, and by living and working on the farm,
he was honouring their memory.

“
You know I can’t leave,”
he said flatly. “Everything I need is here.”

“
What about the warnings?”
asked Bonnie. “Those people out there are expecting some kind of
major attack on Gabby. They’ve come here to protect
her.”

“
I don’t know,” he replied.
“These visions that people are having aren’t always accurate, are
they? Gabby said someone wasn’t coming back from our trip to the
caves, but we all survived, right?”

“
Kate didn’t come home with
us,” Montana reminded him, gently.

“
Oh come on!” Matt argued.
“Gabby said that one of
us
wouldn’t come home! She wasn’t talking about
Kate!”

“
She didn’t specify,”
Bonnie responded. “She just said that
someone
wasn’t coming home. I
think she turned out to be correct, don’t you?”

“
This is ridiculous!” Matt
exclaimed. “Nobody knows for sure that we’re going to be attacked,
and I’m quite happy to stay here in Millfield, where I have a home
and I feel safe. I don’t know why those people have turned up at my
farm, or how the word got around, but they don’t belong here and
tomorrow I’m going to tell them they’re trespassing and ask them to
leave. This is my farm, not theirs!”

Matt stormed out of the kitchen, slamming
the screen door behind him.

Bonnie spoke up. “Listen guys, I don’t care
what Matt says, but something’s going down soon, and we need to be
prepared. I don’t know what you all want to do, but if I have to,
I’ll take Gabby to Diamond Creek by myself.”

-

Matt was in the big shed, polishing a
motorbike, when Sally found him a little while later. He didn’t
acknowledge her presence when she entered; instead, he just
concentrated on repeating uniform, circular motions with the cloth,
over and over again, making sure that the chrome gleamed like new.
Sally walked over and sat on an upturned milk crate and watched
him. She knew that Matt was struggling with this new world order
more than anyone. Even Dylan seemed to be coping better, and he had
witnessed the horrific death of his own daughter at the hands of
her feeder mother.

“
Are you okay?” she
asked.

He continued to polish the bike’s engine
cover. “I’m fine,” he said. “Did Bonnie send you?”

“
No, Bonnie didn’t send me.
I was worried about you.”

“
Oh.”

He carefully hung the rag over the
handlebars and threw his leg over the bike, settling himself into
its worn leather seat. He gripped the throttle with one hand. “This
was dad’s bike,” he said wistfully, almost to himself. “I used to
go everywhere with him on the back of this.”

“
That must have been
nice.”

He looked up at Sally, considering her, as
if seeing her for the first time, “Yeah, it was nice.”

“
It must have been
difficult for you. You know ... when he came back.”

Matt lowered his head and nodded. “That’s
why I can’t leave. I just can’t! His body is still here, for god’s
sake! I can’t run away. I don’t want to.”

“
What about the rest of us?
What about Montana?”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
We all love you Matt, but
if things get really dangerous around here, don’t you think we’ll
need to get away? To be honest, I think Bonnie’s almost ready to
leave now. Aren’t we more important than the farm? The people who
love you? We’re alive, after all.”

Matt looked at Sally, as if he were weighing
up something in his mind. “I guess. I mean, of course you are, but
I just thought we could stay here forever. I didn’t think I’d ever
have to choose between the farm and my friends.”

“
Well maybe...”

Then, as Sally was about to speak, all hell
broke loose outside the gates.

“
Feeders! Feeders!” came
the cries, as people screamed and the sound of gunshots could be
heard, rupturing the peace of the early evening. Matt ran to the
house to grab his shotgun, as Sally raced out of the shed behind
him, trying to keep up.

Chapter 83

Matt reached the kitchen as Dylan and
Montana emerged from the bedroom with their weapons in their hands.
Bonnie was standing by the table gripping a pistol, while the other
hand was clamped protectively around Gabby, who had her head buried
in her mother’s torso.

“
Are you ready?” asked
Dylan, as the sounds of gunfire and screaming continued outside the
window.

“
Let’s go!” screamed Matt,
as he grabbed his weapon and yelled back to Sally. “Stay here with
Bonnie and protect Gabby. Arm yourself and lock the doors! We’ll be
back!”

Matt, Dylan and Montana raced through the
front door and down the path to the fence. The followers had
established a rudimentary line of defense and the night was
suddenly alive with the cacophony of gunfire as the feeders
emerged, like crazed white ghosts, out of the darkness, but it was
obvious that they had been taken completely by surprise. For each
feeder that was put down by a bullet, another would materialise out
of the darkness and advance just as ferociously. Matt found a spot
in the line and joined the fray. To his right was a young woman
he’d never seen before, releasing short bursts of fire from some
kind of automatic weapon. Her face was set like stone as she aimed
and fired with alarming efficiency. Encouraged by her success, Matt
stood by her side, aimed his weapon, and pulled the trigger,
sending one feeder to its death. Almost immediately, another took
its place and again Matt fired, putting the creature down. Dylan
and Montana had by now also taken up positions nearby, and were
letting loose round after round of shells, but still the creatures
attacked, despite suffering numerous casualties.

“
Too many!” screamed Matt,
over the din, as his weapon ran out of ammunition.

“
Keep shooting! They’re all
coming from the same direction!” roared Dylan, as a feeder’s head
exploded from the impact of his bullet, just metres away, before
collapsing to the ground dead.

As Matt reloaded, he took a split second to
analyse the situation, while Montana let loose a spray of
sub-machine gun bullets at two nearby feeders. Dylan was right! The
feeders were attacking in one column from the direction of the road
- they had no strategy and were not attacking from the flanks at
all, but still their sheer numbers were proving too much for the
makeshift army. Even if the ammunition held out and the tactics of
the creatures didn’t change, Matt didn’t think it would be possible
to outlast the beasts and survive this battle. With his weapon
reloaded, he looked down the road at the oncoming horde and drew a
bead on the nearest feeder. He pulled the trigger, and a large red
bloom appeared on the creature’s chest, as it cartwheeled into the
gravel. Another feeder appeared in its place, Matt aimed, and it
too was dispatched in a bloody heap.

“
This is hopeless!” he
screamed, sensing the futility of their fight.

“
We have no choice, do we?”
cried Dylan, “Just keep shooting!”

Suddenly, there was another shooter at
Matt’s side, picking off feeders with a pistol. “Matt! You need to
get her out of her while you can!” came the female voice, close to
his ear.

Matt glanced around. It was Jean, the woman
Bonnie had pointed out to him earlier as the unofficial
spokesperson for the group.

“
Did you hear me!” she
repeated. “For god’s sake, get Gabby out of here!”

“
What are you talking
about?” he roared over the unceasing gunfire. “Where would we
go?”

“
Anywhere! Away! We may not
hang on here! There are too many!”