The Tasmania Trilogy (Book 1): Breakdown Page 15

  “They sound really bloody scary.”

  “As far as I’m aware, they don’t exist.”

  Kumiko reached slowly around and retied her hair into a ponytail. She didn’t want it falling out if they were forced to run. “You know a lot.”

  “I’ve loved the end-of-the-world and zombie scenario ever since I was a kid. I’ve watched every movie and read every book I could get my hands on.” Dan gave a humorless chuckle. “And still it’s all just a guess based on what I’ve seen. In truth, I’ve got no fucking idea.”

  “Sounds like you’re the right person to have on my team though.”

  “Maybe it would have been better not to know. I’ve changed my mind now; I fucking wish it hadn’t happened.”

  “So how do we kill them?”

  He peered at her with a familiar curiosity. “Destroy their brain.”

  The things—she wasn’t ready to refer to them as zombies, yet—had drifted out of sight. It might be their best opportunity to try the engine or flee on foot if the vehicle wouldn’t work.

  “We should go,” Dan said.

  Kumiko hesitated. “I suppose so.”

  “We’ll be all right.” He gave her his best smile and leant forward, taking the key between his fingers.

  “Wait,” Kumiko said. She suddenly felt nervous. “What happens if the car won’t start?”

  “We run.”

  She checked her phone to make sure Google Maps was still displaying the getaway streets. “And if something happens to me, you don’t stop.”

  The edge of his mouth curved slightly. “Let’s do it.”

  Dan turned the key and the car gave a slow, lethargic whine as the engine tried to turn over. It sounded unhealthy, as though it couldn’t muster the energy to start. Dan held it, glanced at Kumiko with a grim look. She locked her fingers around the door handle, ready to swing it open and run.

  Then the engine kicked over, revving high, a glorious sound that filled her with relief.

  “Yes!” Dan said, pumping his fist. He pulled the lever for the windscreen wipers and the blades rotated, clearing their view.

  Ahead, the infected people were alerted to their activity. They moved towards the car, drawn to the sound like a pack of vultures to a dying animal.

  Dan switched on the headlights and painted the front yard of the closest house in a bright, yellow glow. He stuck the gear into drive and edged away from the curb as though it might not work if he pushed too hard too quickly. It creaked and rattled as he turned the wheel in the other direction, but it was drivable.

  One of the infected thumped on the trunk. Kumiko jumped. Dan’s eyes went to the mirror. She turned, and in the glow of the brake lights, saw a leering face up close to the glass. It made her stomach squirm. On the driver’s side, another grey face pressed itself against the window and opened its mouth, revealing a decaying row of teeth.

  “Drive!”

  Dan jammed his foot down and the wheels chirped. Metal scraped and screeched, throwing up a spark. Three more infected stumbled in front of them. Dan kept going, striking them with the front end. One fell aside, the second tumbled underneath the car, and the other rolled up onto the hood and fell off. There was a thump as the car climbed over the infected, and then the zombies were gone.

  They straightened up and drove through an intersection, engine whirring, the headlights washing over empty front yards and silent cars. Dan gunned the engine until they reached the end of the street, then slowed, taking them left, then right, and finally they were onto the main road leading to the hospital.

  “Oh, shit,” Kumiko said. “What the hell …”

  She stared at the scene, feeling all hope of finding her parents disappear. The infected filled the lawns and parking lot around the hospital, wandering along the pathway that led to the emergency room entrance doors. It was worse than she thought—a thousand times worse. There must have been five hundred of the things. Some stood like empty souls staring into the night, others walked in circles or straight lines, as if looking for something they had lost. Some were wrestling; others were crouched in a circle, feeding on fallen victims. In the distance, Kumiko saw them piled against the entrance doors. It had been nothing like this earlier.

  “I don’t understand. I was here earlier today.”

  “I can’t leave you here,” Dan said, making a U-turn.

  Her mother and father were inside that building. Kumiko wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Try the main hospital.”

  Dan sped away from the emergency room entrance and turned left down the flank of the hospital site. A high, chain-link fence followed them parallel. Beyond, the infected wandered the hospital grounds like patients out for a stroll. There are so many.

  The lights at the main entrance were off, the gates shut. Dan circled back in case they had missed something, but the result was the same.

  “Drop me off, please.” Kumiko stared straight ahead out the window.

  Dan shot a look at her. “What?”

  “I’ll find my own way in. I can’t—”

  “I’m not leaving you here.”

  Kumiko tensed her jaw. “My fucking parents are in there.”

  Dan pulled the car over well away from the infected and let it idle. There was a shrill whine from one of the belts and a low rattling noise in the engine. “You get out of this car and you’re dead.”

  She threw up her hands. “What then? I can’t leave them here.”

  He stared out the window at a bunch of infected wandering inside the grounds. “Maybe you can.” If he said something stupid, she would lose her shit. “All the doors and windows are shut. I reckon the people inside the hospital have locked the place down. Maybe they’re safe. Maybe they can ride this thing out until help arrives.”

  “Help? What exactly do you mean by that?”

  Dan held his palms out. “The military, I guess.” He rubbed the side of his head, as if a headache was coming on. “For now, the best thing I can think to do is head back to my nan’s house and wait there until it passes.”

  Grumbling, Kumiko folded her arms and sat back. Did she have another choice? She could ask him to take her home, but without a car, she would never get back to the hospital. Besides, she didn’t really want to be alone.

  “Kumiko?”

  “I’ll go with you on one condition.” Dan raised his bushy eyebrows. “As soon as it’s safe, you bring me back here.”

  He stuck out his hand. “Deal.” They shook.

  They left the overrun hospital behind. The little car whined and groaned as Dan took them through the outskirts of Latrobe, across blank intersections, alongside dark, silent buildings. The headlights paved a mostly clear path ahead, though occasionally, one of the infected wandered onto the road. She almost wished Dan would drive them down; one less for the military to kill later on, but the car was already damaged enough.

  After a few minutes of silence, Kumiko asked, “Where does your nan live?”

  “Near the Latrobe primary school.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “Not yet. At least she wasn’t when I left home earlier today. But she needs certain medication that chemist keeps in stock for her.”

  They approached a large roundabout with an IGA supermarket on one corner and a BBC Hardware store on the other. Both were shadowy, soundless crypts. There were no vehicles parked in either lot, but on the BBC Hardware side, a car was moving slowly, lights bright and welcoming. It was the first car they’d seen since waking. Dan drove straight through, clipping the edge of the roundabout. Kumiko watched the car lights disappear in the side mirror.

  He took them along the straight, undulating Bass Highway until they made a sharp right turn onto Yan Yean Road. There were no gutters at the edge of the blacktop, but a ditch had been scraped out where water would fill rapidly in heavy rain and would often cover the road during spring and summer downpours. The first infected people began to appear soon after, just the odd one standing at the end of a dirt driveway or hiding
in the tangle of grass and bushes, but who knew what lay beyond the headlights. More infected appeared as they drove along the winding road. After a while, Kumiko tried to ignore them. Eventually, they hit a roundabout with a sign in the center that read, TURN RIGHT IN 500 YARDS AT SCHOOL. FOOD & SHELTER AVAILABLE.

  Reaching the school, they saw infected had surrounded the tall, chain-link perimeter fence in clusters. They followed it for almost a hundred meters until Dan pulled into the right turning lane at a set of lights on the next corner.

  “They’re all just standing there looking in,” Kumiko said as they turned through the intersection. Dan drove a short distance along the road and then took another right into a street that ran along the backside of the school property. “They’re everywhere.”

  “As long as they keep out of my way and let me reach my gran. She lives right across the road from the school. I went here when I was a kid.”

  The street was dark and uninviting as Dan paved the way with his headlights, the school fence on one side, wide front yards and sizeable houses on the other. The road curved slightly, and as the beams stretched out, the yellow glow revealed what they had both been dreading. Dan jammed on the brakes and the small car skidded to a halt. Kumiko sucked in a breath and fell forward, the belt snapping tight across her chest. They sat staring out the front window. Not again.

  Ahead maybe thirty yards, a gathering of infected covered the road, stretching off into the darkness of people’s driveways and front lawns. Pale faces and puffy red eyes stared blindly into the headlights. Their clothes were dirty—Kumiko could guess what the stains were—some were torn, the odd one clean and untouched. They wandered in small circles, bumping into one another, no logic to their movement. It was as if they were waiting for something, or someone. Kumiko lost count at fifty and stopped when she spotted an old lady start to eat into the flesh of a man’s upper arm.

  “Which one is your gran’s house?”

  Dan pointed to a property further along, beyond the initial rows of infected. “Fuck.” Dan slammed his fist down on the steering wheel. “How the fuck am I supposed to get inside?” His stricken face glanced at Kumiko, then back at the house. “What if she needs help?” Dan sat breathing hard, staring ahead. “I have to get in there.”

  “Have you tried calling her?”

  He made a pained face. “The landlines are down. She’s got a mobile phone but the thing is never charged.”

  “Is there another way around?”

  “No, the backyard turns into steep bushland.”

  There was a clunk at the rear of the car. The vehicle began to shake.

  “What the fuck was that?” Dan asked, looking up into the mirror.

  Kumiko spun in her seat. A shadow flashed past the back window. Someone was out there. It moved alongside the car and stopped at the rear. A clicking noise sounded, as though someone was trying to open the back door.

  “Hold on,” Dan said in a shaky voice.

  Kumiko was thrown back as the small car leapt away, tires chirping.

  “There!” Dan screamed. “In the mirror.”

  “What?” Kumiko said, turning to get a view out the back window. “What is it?” Dan kept glancing at the side mirror, his face taut with terror. As she turned back to the windscreen, one of the infected walked in front of the car. “Look out!”

  Dan hit the brakes and yanked the steering wheel to the left. The car shuddered as it skidded sideways. They hit the gutter with a crash that reverberated through the vehicle. It came to a sudden, jarring halt. Above them, a single streetlamp cast light over the infected as they swarmed.

  “Get out!” Dan shouted. “Get out and run.”

  He shoved the door open, swung his legs out, and leapt from the car. Kumiko snatched off her seatbelt and pushed her door out. One of the infected was already there, slobbering and grunting for her flesh. “Fuck off,” she screamed as she kicked it backwards, creating space for herself to get out. The thing tumbled backwards.

  Dan was on the opposite side of the car, fending off another attacker. Ahead, more of the infected were aroused by the action and had started their awkward shuffle towards the car. Kumiko peered around for an escape path. The blackness beyond the headlights and streetlamp was uninviting. She considered running back the way they had come, but then Dan broke free and called her onward.

  She stumbled forward, fearful of leaving the safety of the vehicle. She danced round several attackers easily and hurried after Dan, who had a few yards on her. From far behind came a spine-chilling scream. Kumiko turned as she ran, fear washing over her in waves.

  “Run,” Dan shouted, as he broke into a sprint. “RUN!”

  Kumiko followed as arms reached out, groping for her tanned flesh, so she shrugged them off and slapped their hands away. More came at her, but they were not particularly fast or agile, and she dodged them the way she had playing the game scarecrow as a kid at school. A gap opened up, and she noticed a faint light coming from deep inside the school property. “Dan!” she called. “There’s a light on in the school.”

  Reaching a clear space, she crossed the road to the chain fence, avoiding an infected man and a small child—the first she had seen—and ran along the uneven footpath, peering into the dark grounds. Dan, who had stopped on the other side, now took off across the street towards her.

  A growling noise sounded from behind them. Kumiko’s skin turned cold. Something was wrong. She turned back and saw a crowd of infected coming their way moving aside, as if to make a path. Run. She turned back as her foot caught an uneven slab of concrete footpath, and she tripped. In that moment, she thought for certain she would fall. A hand gripped her shoulder, steadying her even more. It was Dan, and he took her arm and pulled her along.

  “There’s something out there, something the others are scared of,” Kumiko managed.

  Dan glanced over his shoulder. “I know. We gotta move.”

  “I saw a light on in the school. Back that way.”

  Dan peered through the fence, into the darkness. “We ain’t going back that way.”

  And then Kumiko heard something ahead on their right. The tall chain-link fence had looked impenetrable so far, but in the faint light of the street lamp, an opening appeared.

  “There!” Kumiko pointed. “Run for the gate!”

  The thing behind them shrieked. Kumiko wanted to scream. As they raced for the open gate, she saw something move—a person—and hoped it wasn’t one of the infected waiting for them.

  17

  Jim stood at the window of the staff room, looking out over the decking area onto the car park and the entrance gate beyond. The rain continued in a fine drizzle as the infected stumbled into view at the bottom of the stairs. He was beginning to think it had turned around and gone the other way. Its face was pasty, covered in bloody scabs, and a section of its jaw was missing, exposing dark, rancid flesh beneath. Its blonde hair was dirty, matted, and covered in gore. A mouth-shaped wound on its neck told Jim it had been bitten. He wondered if all the sick were bitten, or whether it had been a bout of influenza gone wrong, as the media was reporting. Its arms and legs moved in an uncoordinated, disjointed manner as it placed an awkward foot up onto the first step. Jim held his breath, hoping it couldn’t manage the task. It wavered there for a moment, a bony hand on its bent knee, as if to push off. Then it took a wobbly step. There you go, Jim thought, expecting it to tumble backwards onto the asphalt path. But it had strength, pushing up onto the second step, and then the third, threatening with every moment to lose its balance and topple over.

  Reaching the top level, it hobbled across the decking like something out of a horror movie. It kept going right up to the doors and whacked its head against the glass. Jim leapt back. It came forward again, pressing its face against the window, nostrils flaring. Jim retreated into the shadows. The lesions on its face rubbed on the glass, leaving bloody smears. He almost couldn’t look. Then it turned away from the window and gazed out into the car park. After a
minute or so, it shambled away.

  Jim returned to the window and watched it topple down the stairs, unable to complete the more complex task. It took several minutes to climb onto its feet again, but when it finally did, it staggered away around the side of the building and out of sight. Jim stood there for a moment, scanning the rest of the grounds for signs of others. He wasn’t afraid to admit they sacred him. He had the shotgun, and unless his life was under threat, it was still going to be difficult to shoot one of them dead. Despite their horrendous appearance and lust for human flesh, he still saw them as people, albeit extremely sick ones.

  Jim crossed the staffroom and followed the hallway past several offices to a set of doors leading into the courtyard area. He stood waiting for the thing to appear. On the other side of the courtyard were the kindergarten buildings, and beyond them, stairs that led up to the back corner of the property—and the fence he suspected contained the open gate he needed to close. First, he wanted to know if the infected man was headed in that direction.

  After a few moments, the infected lumbered into view and across the courtyard. It stopped outside the library doors and peered in through the glass. He knew he should go out there and face it, but he couldn’t force himself to do that yet. Jim turned away, hating himself for lacking the courage. The gate wouldn’t wait forever.

  He went to the stores room and unpacked more boxes and sorted them by category. In one corner, he had canned liquids, which included pineapple juice, vegetable juice, condensed milk, and coconut milk. In the other, he had powdered milk, eggs, and whey, along with a heap of protein bars. He pulled the flaps back on a box and started stacking tins of tuna, salmon, and sardines until they were in tall, neat piles, dozens of each kind. There were more boxes with coffee, tea, olive oil, whole wheat flour, different cereals, and even potato flour. When he had the stacks in both corners merging in the middle, Jim decided he’d done enough. The remaining ten boxes would wait until later.

  He returned to the courtyard windows, hoping the thing had moved on, but it was still standing at the library door. Darker clouds had drifted in, swallowing the light, making it seem later in the evening. Soon it would be completely dark, and a better time for Jim to venture out—the thing wouldn’t notice him then. But Jim knew he was putting off the inevitable, and every moment of delay potentially made his problem worse.