Desolation Boulevard (7 page)

After an hour of driving the streets at
walking pace, Matt was about to give up and go home. His eyes were
starting to play tricks on him, and he was beginning to think that
the scream he had heard from the farm was nothing more than a feral
animal rutting. Then, as he shifted the car up through the gears to
leave Millfield, Matt thought he saw movement in the shadows at the
end of the street. He slowed the car down to walking speed once
more and drove cautiously in that direction. As he got closer, the
headlights revealed another dog loping along casually, pausing
every now and then to sniff something on the ground. As the mutt
reached the end of the street near a bus shelter, it turned and
trotted away from Matt’s car. What happened next was so unexpected
and illogical that Matt wondered if he were going mad. Something,
or somebody, leaped from behind the bus shelter, seized the dog and
dragged it away as it yelped it terror. Matt raced his car toward
the end of street, while Elvis whined frantically beside him. He
screeched to a stop beside the bus shelter, grabbed the shotgun,
and ran after the shadowy figure, but whatever had grabbed the dog
was nowhere to be seen. Matt and Elvis stood side by side,
silently, looking for some sign of the attacker. Matt couldn’t be
sure but suddenly the town seemed more alive than it had been
during the day. He wasn’t sure if it was just his hyper-alert
senses kicking in because of the adrenaline, but there seemed to be
sounds that couldn’t be explained away by fear. He went back to his
truck and felt around under the front seat until he found the
flashlight that lived there with the fast food wrappers. He said a
silent prayer and flicked it on, sending a bright circle of light
onto the ceiling of his car. “Come on boy. Let’s explore.”

With Elvis by his side, Matt headed in the
same direction as the dog-snatcher. He had only walked about twenty
paces down the street when he thought he heard sounds behind a
house somewhere on his right. He paused and shone his flashlight
down the side of a rundown cottage. He couldn’t see anything
unusual, but he was sure now that the sounds were coming from that
direction. The walked down the path that headed into the backyard,
stepping over a child’s tricycle and some toy soldiers before he
came to the end of the path. Elvis had neither left his side nor
made a sound. When he scratched the dog behind the ear Matt noticed
that the dog was shaking. He took a deep breath and peered around
the side of the house. Matt’s mind reeled as he felt his fragile
grip on reality stretch like a giant rubber band. He wanted to
black out forever and not have to deal with the vision he was
witnessing. In the back yard of the house, beside the trampoline, a
person, no, a thing that had once been a person was savaging the
dog he had seen earlier. The dog was clearly dead, and the
“person-thing”, was on all fours, ripping into the stomach of the
dog, face-first. The purpose of this attack was clearly more than
just a need to eat; there was a brutal and energetic savagery
involved that implied anger, desperation and violence that had
nothing to do with normal human behaviour. The “person-thing” held
the dog down with its’ hands, and was feeding noisily on the
entrails of the still-warm animal. There was a lot of blood, and
strings of tissue and saliva spooled from the “person-thing’s”
mouth as it greedily devoured the dog’s glistening insides.

If Matt had realised the immediate danger he
was in, he would have retreated to the car as quickly as possible.
Shock, however, affects different people in different ways, and
Matt’s response was to shut down as his mind attempted to seek a
place where it could function again. As he stared at the hellish
scene before him, other sensory inputs also ceased to function in
any useful manner. It was as if he had tunnel vision and time had
slowed down. Elvis, too, for reasons probably more related to
survival than fear, had become silent and still. So when another
“person-thing” entered the yard from the other side of the house,
Matt was totally taken by surprise. Without strategy or fear the
second creature (Matt couldn’t see them as people any more, even
though this one was wearing work boots, denim jeans and fluoro
safety vest) sprinted at the feeder and attacked him with as much
cruelty as the first creature had attacked the dog. Despite being
ambushed so suddenly, the first feeder responded ferociously, as it
defended itself with fists, feet and teeth. Matt could actually see
chunks of flesh being ripped from the face of the first creature.
Then, through the fog of his shock, Matt felt a vague pressure on
his leg and looked down to see Elvis frantically nuzzling him with
his snout. Suddenly Matt’s brain snapped back to reality and he
knew that he needed to get out of town right now, while these
beasts were preoccupied with each other. He tapped the dog on the
head, turned and ran as fast as he could to his truck and jumped
in, while Elvis scrambled frantically over him and into the
passenger seat. He revved the engine, dropped the clutch and sped
towards the safety of his farm. He didn’t stop to look back.

Chapter 15

Sally opened the glass door and stepped into
the real estate office, making a little bell above the door tinkle.
From inside the office the street outside looked completely black,
and the only thing she could see was her own pale reflection
staring back. She barely recognised herself. The events of the day
seemed to have turned her into a different person - someone older
and harder - but maybe she would need to be those things to survive
this nightmare. As she sat down at the computer behind the desk she
made a silent wish that it not be password-protected. As the
machine booted up she surveyed her surroundings. It was a typical
small office - a reception desk (which she was sitting at), four
chairs for waiting clients, and a coffee table littered with
brochures and old, dog-eared magazines with names like “Motorcycle
Enthusiast” and “Investment Monthly”. There was also a door, which
led into the back, where there was probably an office or two. After
what seemed an eternity, the computer made the “welcome” sound and
Sally double-clicked on the Internet Explorer icon.

The page that popped up was something to do
with real estate. Sally wasn’t interested in that so she typed in
the Google web address and hit enter. The Google home screen sat
empty, waiting for her to make her query. She began to type. “Where
have all the people gone?” She hit enter and 1.23 seconds later she
found that she had 140,000 responses. That scared her, because knew
that an average Google search threw up millions of responses. She
guessed that most of the people that were capable of reporting on
the situation were among the missing. She looked carefully at the
first few links and clicked on one that seemed to be a reputable
news website. It took her to a New York journalist’s blog:

“My name is Lukas
Soulis. I work as a journalist in New York. Today I spent a couple
of hours locked in a tiny office on my own to meet a deadline on an
article I was writing. I turned my phone off and didn’t tell anyone
where I was. My boss is a hardass, and I really needed to meet my
deadline! When I came out, everyone had vanished, and gone into
some weird kind of hibernation.”

Sally stopped
reading.
“Hibernation”
? What the hell did
that mean? Had everyone fallen asleep? That seemed ridiculous, but
how would she really know? She had only seen the inside a handful
of buildings. Maybe everyone
was
asleep. She would need to
find out tomorrow, in the daylight. Being out at night in the
preternatural quiet was giving her the creeps, big time. She read
on:

“
I guess if you’re
reading this you might know that already. From my research, I think
this has happened everywhere - around the world I mean. There are
others here in the city who haven’t succumbed to the sickness (or
whatever it is) but not many of us. Nobody knows what to do. Some
want to stick together, others are just waiting at home for their
loved ones to wake up or come home.

Like some of the
others, I can’t find any of my friends or family. I have found some
people, though. In weird places - unconscious but definitely alive.
I searched the newspaper building this morning and something told
me to check the basement. I don’t know why … intuition? Whatever.
Everybody from the office was down there -sleeping it looked like.
Photographers, security guys, journalists - about 30 of them. That
was some fucked up scary shit! I got out of there. I went out into
the street and walked six blocks until I found somebody. It was
cop, funnily enough. Tough guy. He was sitting in the gutter crying
like a baby. I asked him what had happened. He just looked at me. I
spoke to two more people after that (after another hour of
walking). They knew no more than I did. They were looking for their
families. I told them what I found in the basement of my building.
They looked shocked, then starting running back home. They didn’t
even bother to thank me. I’m at home now writing this. I’m stopping
though. I just can’t. I know I should feel special. This is one big
news story right? A big exclusive for a little journalist like me!
I can’t see any newspapers in my future though. I have a really bad
feeling about this. It doesn’t feel like it might fix itself. I
don’t know why, just a gut feeling. This … situation will get worse
IMHO. This is my plan though: get some supplies in, then lock
myself inside for a couple of days. See what happens. However, I AM
NOT CONFIDENT!!! I won’t be writing any more- no audience right? If
anyone reads this (which in itself would be a fucking miracle) I
wish you good luck. I hope I am wrong about all of
this.”

Suddenly Sally was cold and was shivering.
She looked at a few more websites and only found variations on the
same theme. Almost everybody in the world had found a reasonably
secluded place and gone into some kind a bizarre hibernation. The
few that were left behind were alone, scared, and had absolutely no
idea how to proceed or what they should be doing. There were no
authorities, there was no infrastructure and there was no
government. For the time being she was on her own. If she was
scared before, now she was absolutely terrified. The thought of a
couple of million people lying in nooks and crannies around the
city was terrifying. She felt helpless and was on the verge of
tears.

Then the lights went out.

“
Shit”! She got to her feet
and headed for the exit. She was about to open the door, when a
noise from the back of the office stopped her in her tracks. As she
turned towards the source of the sound, a shadowy figure lunged
from the dark doorway and came charging in her direction. Without
thinking, and in one fluent motion, she plunged through the front
door, slamming it shut behind her. As she sprinted across the
street she heard an almighty crash as the figure slammed into the
closed door. Again and again the person smashed into the door, but
it couldn’t break through. Sally kept running until she reached her
hotel’s doorway. She shoved the door open and threw herself inside.
The foyer was pitch black. Why hadn’t she thought to take a
flashlight with her? Stupid! She locked the door behind her and
began to scurry up the stairs towards her room. As she mounted the
stairs she fished the key out of her front pocket so she wouldn’t
waste time getting into the safety of her room. She fumbled the key
into the lock and was turning it when she heard the door from Room
13 at the end of the hall burst open. She risked a glance behind
her as she threw herself into her room, but only sensed, rather
than saw, a malevolent shadow racing down the hallway towards her.
She slammed the door closed and locked it urgently, as the figure
slammed into it from the outside. Sally screamed and screamed as
the door rattled in its’ frame. “Fuck off! Leave me alone you
freak!” She ran to the bathroom and locked herself in, before
climbing into the bath and curling up in the foetal position with
her fingers in her ears. She began to shake uncontrollably as she
went into shock.

Chapter 16

It was another cool, clear morning when
Elvis woke Matt by climbing on him and licking his face. He let the
dog out, and peed from the edge of the porch, as he scratched his
head and peered towards Millfield. It took him hours to get to
sleep last night after his encounter with the “feeders” (as he now
thought of them), but that may have been because he was sleeping
with the lights on. When he did finally get to sleep, it was filled
with dreams that were populated by vicious creatures devouring each
other and, in one particularly sad and horrific nightmare, his
mother begged him to take out the garbage, where the garbage was
his father’s dead body. The bleakness of that vision still clung to
him like burial garment.

After Matt had eaten breakfast and put on
some clothes, he sat on the bench to think, while Elvis roamed in
the front garden. There would be some very difficult decisions to
be made over the next few days, but before then he needed to find
out more about the once-human creatures that appeared to have taken
over his town. He didn’t know if there were more feeders than the
two he saw fighting, and he didn’t know what their motivation was,
but he had to assume that everybody who had gone into hibernation
had woken up as an ultra-violent, killing machine, with very few
human characteristics remaining. That was logical, surely? The fact
that he had only seen two of them the previous night might only
mean that they were just beginning to arise from their suspended
state. By midnight the whole town could have been crawling with the
things! He wondered how far the creatures would move from their
“nests”. Was he safe at the farm? What about their behaviour? Would
they develop behaviours like animals, or would they just rage like
zombies until they were all wiped out by hunger, violence or
sickness?  Matt knew that he would need to leave the farm
today to try to answer some of these questions. His original plan
had been to drive to Carswell, but the more he thought about it,
the more he realised that it was probably a waste of time. His main
priority had to be to make sure that he was safe from the
“feeders”, and for that to happen he needed to see them again so
that he could fortify the farm based on what he had learned. He
needed to go back into town.