Aftermath (Invasion of the Dead) - Part I (8 page)

“M
e too.” 

“We gotta
look after the girls, make sure nothing happens to them, okay?”

Dylan wondered if he
specifically meant Kristy.  “Sure.”  He hesitated, then said, “You like her, don’t you?”

Greg shrugged.  “
Kind of.”

“Have you told her how you feel?” 

Greg shook his head.  “I know she likes you.  I’ve… accepted that.”

“I’m sorry man.”

“It’s cool.”

Dylan nodded and t
hey emerged at the front of the truck.  “We’re good,” he said to Callan.  Kristy was in the driver’s seat again.  Dylan wished he were sitting beside her.

“There are weapons in
with them,” Dylan said to Greg.  “Automatic machine guns and a load of ammo.”

“We need it.  We’re down to
our last few rounds.”

A ripping noise sounded and
Dylan jumped back from the lorry.  A fist and forearm stuck through the side of the cover, the soldier’s bloody fingers searching for a victim.

“We gotta move!”  Greg yelled.  He raised the shotgun and took aim.
  It was best suited for small, speedy game where the shot would disperse into pellets, but at five feet, it was a lethal ball.  He unloaded the gun with a noisy report.  The soldier shrieked, and fell back into the darkness.  “Take that, fucker.”  Greg pumped the next shell into the chamber.

C
allan stepped up onto the lorry and opened the driver’s door.  The lifeless body of another soldier fell to the bitumen with a dense thud.  A gaping wound in his neck glared at them with crimson fury.  Dylan felt his stomach rise.

“Jesus!”  Callan screamed.
  He slipped inside the cab and fiddled with the controls.  The truck began to roll backwards towards the embankment with painful tardiness and Callan leapt from the doorway. 

The
y converged on the Jeep, now streaked dirty by the rain, and Greg resumed his place as the front passenger.  Dylan opened the back door as Sherry shuffled to the far side, allowing Callan to get in first. 

Kristy
stepped out of the driver’s seat.

“No, you drive,” Callan said
, slipping inside.  “We don’t have time.”

“I can’t Cal.  I’m shak
ing.”

Behind them
, the soldier screamed as he rushed the side of the lorry, bursting through with a sharp rip.  He landed on the road head first with a sickening thump, and blood spread across the bitumen.

“It’s
escaped!”  Greg screamed, winding up his window.  “Hurry!”

Kristy was halfway around the front of the Jeep, leaving Callan no choice.  He pulled himself out, circled the hood where he passed Kristy, and
slipped into the front seat. 

The
soldier climbed onto one knee and shook his head, spraying blood from the split in his skull.  He sprung to his feet, then ran at them like an angry gorilla, grunting and slobbering, his red eyes focused on Kristy.  A second gunshot wound had blown a flap of his shoulder away, leaving a bloody crater.

Kristy
clawed her way to the rear passenger door, yanked it wide open, but froze when she spied the monster from the corner of her eye.

In the background, the truck
rolled down the embankment with a thunderous crash.

Kristy
screamed, and fell back against the doorway.  The soldier grabbed at her throat. 

She shrieked. 
“GET HIM OFF ME!”

Dylan
wrapped an arm around her waist but the monster’s grip prevented him from pulling her into the Jeep.  Panic swept over him.  He couldn’t get past.  If he pushed Kristy, she would fall further into its deadly grip. 

Greg
kicked the front passenger door open, knocking the soldier aside, and sprung from the car.  He stepped away and swivelled, drawing the shotgun into position.  “YOU WANT ANOTHER ONE?”

The soldier
groped, dragging Kristy inadvertently into the firing line.  Greg swung the gun around, taking it by the barrel, and struck the wooden butt down on the back of the army soldier’s head with a crack.

The soldier staggered.

Dylan swept Kristy aside with his right hand and kicked out with both legs, pushing the monster away.  It teetered backwards, shaking its head, and growling.

Greg
took aim, and fired.  The shotgun roared and the top half of the soldier’s head disintegrated in explosive ribbons of red.  His limp body collapsed in a pool of blood and brain. 

Screaming,
Kristy swiped at her face and neck.  Dylan leapt out of his seat.  He drew her to his chest and she fell against him, sobbing and shrieking. 

The acrid smell of gun smoke hung in the air.
Dylan leant away from her, his heart pounding.  “Did it get you?  Kristy?  Did it get you?”  Kristy shook her head, gasping, close to hyperventilation.  “It’s okay,” Dylan said, pulling her close again.  ‘It’s okay.”

Greg dropped the
shotgun, and bent over, fists on his knees.  His face was red, his messy blonde hair dishevelled.  “I couldn’t get a line of sight until Dylan kicked him away.” 

Callan put a hand on
Greg’s back and in a soft voice said, “Nice work, man.  Quick thinking.” 

Kristy’s breathing began to slow, and she pulled back. 
“I don’t think it got me.”  Smears of blood and tears covered her cheeks. 

“Are you sure
?”  Callan said, inspecting her.

“Ye
s.  I didn’t feel it scratch.” 

“
Take off your top.”

“What?”

“We need to be sure.”

Dylan and Greg turned away.
  Dylan felt his body stiffen.  He felt sick at the idea that Kristy might be infected. 
Could you kill her if she attacked you? 
He shut the thought out, rubbing his eyes.

“Let me just check your neck and shoulders,” Ca
llan said.  “Pass me the water bottle.”

Kristy gasped
as he tipped water over her upper body.  “Sherry, have a look, see if you can find anything.”

Dylan glanced at Greg,
his brow furrowed.  It was happening too quickly.  What if Kristy had been infected?  Would they lock her up?  Shoot her? 

“I thought I was going to die,” Kristy said.

Sherry scrutinised, wiping Kristy’s golden skin with a towel.  “I can’t find anything.”

“Are you sure?  Check properly,” Callan said.

Dylan said, “Come on, man.  She’s clean.”

“I want her
to be okay more than anyone,” Callan said.  “But we have to be sure.”

Sherry tipped
the remaining water from the plastic bottle onto Kristy, who shuddered.  She probed her skin, looking for tiny red lines.  “She’s good.  I can’t find anything,” Sherry said.

Dylan
let out a breath, not realising he had been holding it.  He covered his face in his hands and promised himself he wouldn’t think about what might have been.  

“Now we’re out of ammo,
” Greg said, loading the shotgun back into the Jeep.   

“
Shit,” Callan said.  “I almost forgot.  The back of that truck is full of weapons.”

The three boys walked over to the embankment.  The truck’s nose stuck out of the creek like a partly submerged log.  Through the broken windshield, they saw a pile of bodies floating on the water line.  The smell of death floated up to them and they each made faces of disgust.

“Fuck it
,” Callan said.  “It’ll all be wet now.”

“What is that?”  Greg said, pointing at the truck.  “One of them is still alive.”

An arm from one of the bodies moved, scratching at the wall as if trying to climb out. 

“They were all dead when we looked in the back,” Dylan said.

Callan said, “Let’s move.  He ain’t going anywhere but there’s nothing more for us here.”

4.
        
The Outskirts of Town

The rain had stopped,
leaving the road with a slick coating.  Sooty skies made it appear later, although it was just after five o’clock.  They all tried their phones again, but there was still no service, which could only mean that all the networks were down.  An unpleasant smell wafted from behind the locked doors of the second truck, and nobody suggested opening them.  Callan checked the cab and found a magazine of shells for a 9mm handgun that he took, but no weapon, and an inbuilt two-way radio he couldn’t pry loose.  Fresh black skid marks fled the scene from the rear of the lorry. 

Nobody spoke
.  Kristy lay against Dylan’s shoulder, her eyes closed.  He had one arm around her, watching the paddocks roll by.  Callan felt a spark of irritation but let it go.  She deserved and needed comfort.

They had been lucky.  Alternative scenarios
made Callan uneasy and he had to think of other things to push them from his mind.  Knowing what they were up against now, he knew they were in real shit.  The armed forces, people paid to protect civilians from harm, were infected.  Callan guessed the army had been set up to guard the roads into major country towns like Albury and Wodonga.  But what would happen if the army couldn’t stop this thing?

I
t was no longer just a virus though.  The infected appeared to turn into some kind of violent cannibals.  He almost laughed at the idea.  It was absurd, but he had seen it with his own eyes.  They had beaten one, but what if there were five, or ten?  A hundred?  How would they possibly survive?  As they edged closer to home, Callan wasn’t sure they were prepared for what they might find.  He still hoped their families were safe, but even then, doubts had crept in.        

It had been almost four hours since they
had left the lake under cloudless blue skies and a steady, enjoyable heat.  The gas station had been on the Tooma road, and from there they had kept a steady speed along the curves of the Murray River road, crossing the Murray River at Wymah Ferry road, and taking Bowna Wymah road all the way to the Hume Highway.  Callan didn’t want to enter Albury from the north, but instead the east after taking Table Top road, where he could use back streets to access his parent’s house on the western side of town.

H
e felt a sick desperation to see them.  His father was often travelling, and he might even be away now.  He needed to make sure his mother was safe.  He didn’t think he would ever love another person the way he loved her.  She had been a constant source of strength and inspiration, protecting them, raising them whilst his father had worked long hours in the truck.  He recalled the night a burglar had broken into their house whilst his father was away.  Callan must have been eight years old. 

Kristy and Callan had
been allowed to stay up late watching Star Wars on television.  Their mother had armed them with ice cream cones, a bowl of popcorn and soft drink, and then gone upstairs to finish chores.  The man had broken the lock on the laundry door and entered the family room where the kids sat watching TV.

“Who are you?” 
Callan had said, thinking at first that it might have been his father.  But the intruder had a balaclava pulled over his face and a shotgun pointed at them.  Kristy had screamed.  Callan had clamped a hand over her mouth. 

The man growled at them.  “Shut the fuck up or you mother dies.”

Callan hadn’t moved, afraid he might wet his pants, but he also felt a deep stirring of anger.  What had they done to the man?  Why had he chosen their house to burgle?  Callan didn’t know that their father had collected a six month payment for a shipment he had just transported up and down the east coast.  The cash had been sitting in a drawer upstairs. 
Somebody knew
.

Their mother had appeared at the base of the stairs leading from the lounge room moments after Kristy’s scream.

“Don’t hurt my children,” she said, stepping in front of them.

“Gimme the fuckin’ money, woman, or I’ll do more than hurt them.”

She tipped her head up towards the second floor and said, “In the main bedroom.  Bottom drawer on the left side of the bed.”

“I’m takin’ one of the kids with me,” he said, putting a hand out towards Callan and Kristy.

“No.”

He raised the gun as if to strike her, but she did not flinch.

“If you lay a finger on either of my kids, you’ll be sorry.  I promise you that.”

The gunman hesitated.  He
snarled at her, lowered the weapon, and walked past, disappearing up the stairs.  His heavy footsteps thudded through the floor as he explored the second level.

“What do we do, mom?”  Callan had said.
  He had an arm around Kristy, who had begun to cry.

“Nothing.  We wait.
  Don’t cry darling.  It will be over soon.”

The man returned with a beefy plastic bag.  “Don’t even think about callin’ the cops.  Or I’ll come back another time and take one of the kids.”