The Grave: A Zombie Novel (29 page)

Kelly muttered
thanks to Roach and kept the gun in her hand ready. She didn’t want to be caught unprepared again. She let Roach take the lead for now, but if the road did indeed take them to the city, she wasn’t going to have to follow him all the way. She had let him take them this far and in truth, it was probably further than they would have gotten had he not been around. She looked over at Suzy who was complying with everything. There was still a faint red mark on her cheek the size of Kelly’s hand and the guilt stung her. Kelly threw the guilt off her shoulder quickly. Suzy could deal with it. Right now, they had to keep moving.

“Suzy, Mark, stay behind me and Roach and watch your backs. No more surprises, please.” Kelly pulled her shirt out of her jeans and let the cool air sweep up her body. She wished she could wash the smell of death away, but for
now, knew it was going to linger over her, probably for a very long time.

She noticed t
he road was flanked on both sides by vast expanses of green; Taraire and Matai rubbed rough shoulders with Nikau trees above thick Kohekohe, whilst lower to the ground, she saw Spinnifex and the unmistakable orange flowers of the Turepo. There was a certain admiration for how nature was reclaiming this land. Whilst they walked, she thought she spotted a Poroporo shrub with just a hint of some budding yellow berries; something she thought had been wiped out many years ago. It was impressive how quickly the land was being taken back. The edges of the road were slowly being covered; the low-lying bushes and plants, weeds and grass trying to find cracks in the tarmac. Of course, once she got back to New York, she would do everything in her power to make sure the island was destroyed. She would bring a firestorm down on this island and kill everything on it. What good was it now? She had been wrong when she’d told Mark the Deathless had a right to exist; there was no purpose to them. They weren’t animals. They weren’t people like Suzy thought either. They were death. At least a shark or a snake only killed to feed. A shark had an impulse to live, mate and have young. What part did the dead play in the circle of life? None, except to end it.

An hour passed and the road began to creep uphill rising over undulating hills
and sweeping through fields of overgrown vegetation. The ocean had disappeared from sight altogether. They walked past a variety of vehicles: driverless trucks, smashed cars, pickups and delivery vans. All abandoned, all useless. Occasionally, Kelly would peer through a window or a door, but there was nothing inside. She didn’t need a map or a cigarette, so she kept walking. Only once did she reach inside a battered old station wagon and take a Blackberry off the passenger side seat. Any hope of getting a signal was dashed when she realised there was no power left. The battery was dead, just like the batteries in all the vehicles that cluttered the highway.

Roach had stayed up front
. He never spoke and he began to tire after an hour of walking in the sun. Kelly strode on ahead of him. She was determined not to falter and told him not to lag too far behind as she passed him. He acknowledged her with a brief nod.

S
uzy followed at a constant six feet behind Kelly. Nobody spoke to her, and she spoke to nobody. That was how she wanted it right now. She felt better not having to talk and was pleased they were leaving her alone. She had so much to consider, and so much to solve in her mind that, any attempt at conversation with her would have been pointless. She could barely put one foot in front of the other. She walked and she thought. She thought and she walked.

Mark purposefully hung back
as Roach slowed. He wanted to speak to him while he could. He had no idea what to say to either Kelly or Suzy now, so he used the opportunity to pick Roach’s mind. “You think they’ve gone? The Deathless?”

Roach shook his head. “They’re out there somewhere. Just far enough away from us for now
. Let’s not tempt fate. I’d rather talk about something else, if you don’t mind.”

“
Sure, sure...so...how did you survive? I mean, really, did you spend the whole time in that mall with...Min was it?”

“
Well, not at first. Min and I moved from house to house. After we got out of the city, we ransacked a garden centre and found plenty to defend ourselves with; shovels, pitchforks, crowbars...eventually though we lost them. They either got embedded in some poor sap’s skull or we dropped them when we had to run. The mall was sheer luck. We didn’t plan too far ahead. We were barely getting by day to day. Min wasn’t around for too long with me anyhow. After I lost her, I just decided the best thing to do was see it out. I set up home there, made it as secure as I could and stayed put. You can get by without much food when you have to. You get used to it. The only thing I truly missed was my family. Of course, I still do, but I expect they’ve moved on. My wife and son will have been fed the same lies as everyone else. I’m a murderer, a terrorist and an anarchist. I hope they were able to move on and Agnew left them alone. I hope...”

A faint squawk came from above and Mark looked up just in time to see an eagle swoop up from a field adjacent to them. The bird’s   wingspan looked
as if it easily reached six feet and in its grasp was a hare, struggling to free itself from the bird’s sharp talons. Mark whipped out his camera and took as many shots of the titanic struggle as he could.

Kelly saw it too. The hare was twice as big as it should have been. The eagle was powerful, but
it was losing the battle to carry the weight of the hapless creature up into the air. The eagle managed to get twenty feet up before it dropped the doomed hare. Kelly winced as she heard the whump of the body hitting the ground. The animals were growing larger too, as was the island’s flora. Whether it was because man had left, or because of the Aqua-Gene, she wasn’t sure. She also wasn’t sure she cared anymore. She turned and carried on down the road toward the city.

Roach watched Mark sling his camera around to his back. Once the hare had been dropped, the eagle
swooped down behind the bushes and they could see no more. What would have been a marvellous spectacle on another trip was now just a passing curiosity. Their focus was on other things - like survival. They resumed walking and Roach carried on talking.

“Where we’re going...you know i
n reality, there are no boxes of food. The complex is there and once a month the helicopter lands so four or five well-armed soldiers can get out. But they are not off-loading food and water. There are no scientists there. There are no living people on The Grave. No, the cargo is much more than just a few crates of supplies. I should know because I was once dumped here.

“
The military comes in under the guise of releasing prisoners. In reality, they are escorting people to their death. I saw them on our second day here. Min and I were barricaded in an apartment and we watched them. The chopper landed on the embassy rooftop and I counted six men before the helicopter left. The men were dressed in plain dark clothes. One had shackles around his ankles and his wrists were handcuffed. As the helicopter left, the six men waved at it, shouting for it to return. I heard them begging and pleading not to be left here, but the soldiers either didn’t hear them, or more likely, chose to ignore them. The chopper hovered in the air and then the six men were shot where they stood. The soldiers were just taking pot shots at them, like target practise. Two of the men scrambled down into the yard, but the Deathless were there waiting for them. I suppose I should be thankful that I was given a chance. The soldiers don’t care what happens. They know there’s no retribution for them.

“Look, Mark,
I have not exaggerated anything or been untruthful. I have to tell you the whole truth so you are ready. When we get to the city, you’ll see there’s no base, no experiments, no scientists; nothing. The embassy story is a trick. You understand, we can’t risk flagging the military down. Min tried that and they didn’t hesitate. Shoot first and ask questions later; that’s the way it is. We have to get to the embassy and ambush them.
Force
them to take us back. When you’re on that chopper, make sure you get your story out before you get back to the naval ship. If they get hold of you, they’ll just bury it. Don’t let them cover this up.”

Mark rested a hand on Roach’s shoulder and they stopped walking.
“Not to be morbid, but I want proof and if you don’t make it...at least I’ll have documented this. I need a picture of you here, with us. I’ll have cast iron proof then that you’re not living it up in South America, but stranded here. It might not be enough to convince everyone, but it should get questions asked and will put Agnew under pressure. The Grave will be re-examined and then the truth will come out. He’s finished. We owe it to everyone who has died here.”

Roach nodded and stood as Mark took a photo of him. In the background was a sign indicating Wellington City was ahead. Mark then stood next to Roach and held his camera at length, taking
a photo of both of them. When Mark was done, Roach held out his hand and Mark shook it.

“Thank you. Thank you for believing me.”

“Come on,” said Mark, “Let’s get a move on. We’ve a helicopter to catch.”

They picked up the pace and caught up with Suzy and Kelly. The road
just seemed to go on and on. The elements had crumbled the tarmac and frequent deep cracks appeared, splitting up the road markings. Weeds grew in the cracks and between slits in the walls of nearby buildings. A black cumbersome rat squeezed out from underneath a red and yellow courier van. Its body was matted with jet black hair and its pink tail left a greasy trail of slime as the rat waddled across the street. Its entire left side had rotted away, exposing its small ribcage. It moved slowly, inelegantly, dragging its bloated body on weak legs over the asphalt toward Kelly. It had heard them coming and ventured out from its resting place. The rat was dead, but its teeth still sharp and its jaw raised and ready to bite them.

Kelly swung her hatchet down on the rat’s head and the iron blade crushed its tiny brain on the tarmac
. Fragile bones and blood squirted out over the road and Kelly swung again, making sure the rat was dead. She carried on walking, leaving the kill on the road behind her. Suzy, Mark and Roach skipped around the mess, leaving the rat’s decomposing, fetid carcass to fester in the heat. Nobody said a word about it.

Kelly was forced to walk along the side of the road, closer to the vegetation to avoid a multiple car crash.
Between two tall Nikau palms stood a large leafy tree with tiny clutches of yellow seedpods hanging off the low branches, looking like the swollen fingers of a baby. Kelly shuddered as she walked beneath them, trying to shut out the image. Every time a pod brushed against her hair, she would imagine a dead child above trying to grab at her, its pudgy fingers wispily sweeping through her greasy hair. The part of her brain that knew it was a member of the Kowhai family had switched off. Now every bush, every tree and every blade of grass was an enemy. She could not trust anything she saw. A pool of water, a fallen apple, a bird, a rat, everything and anything might be contaminated with the Aqua-Gene. It had tricked them all. Claire had succumbed, and with it, death had taken Tricia and Will.

Kelly
looked over at Suzy. She was morose. Her eyes were vacant, looking around but seeing nothing. Kelly daren’t say anything or touch her for fear of setting her off. It was better to let her grieve in peace for a while. She had stopped crying, but she looked pathetic. Her eyes were bloodshot and her smooth cheeks carried the tracks of her tears, staining her smooth skin with the raw emotion of death. Her arms swung loosely as if controlled by the breeze. She almost looked like one of the Deathless.

What could Kelly say? She knew what Suzy was feeling. Will had been one of them. She had thought he would be around forever. Everyone at the museum loved him. She remembered how he had bumbled his way through the job interview.
Yet, she had taken a chance on him and boy had he impressed her. The more Kelly thought about it, the more she wondered if she did know how Suzy felt. Suzy and Will were close; closer than anyone else on this trip was. Kelly had lost a colleague, and yes, a friend. However, Suzy had lost something more than that. Other than her parents, Kelly had never gotten close to anyone else and had never really experienced the death of a loved one or a lover. She glanced over at Mark, but he was lost in his own thoughts. Kelly really didn’t know what to say anyway. She couldn’t put herself in Suzy’s shoes and decided it was best to let Suzy deal with it in her own way. If she wanted to talk, she would.

Their feet walked in rhythm
like a military procession. Kelly and Suzy, Mark and Roach, all striding down the highway toward the city, side by side as if in a funeral procession. The air was hot, musky, and smelt of the sea. Kelly noticed the hillside to their left was steep and covered in gorse, and to the right just more decayed houses. She knew over the hill lay the open expanse of the ocean. She wished they could just sail away, as Mark had suggested, but she knew it was impossible. If Roach was being honest, then Min had tried and she had paid the price. The land and the ocean were separated by a thick chain-link fence that muzzled the sun and kept a harsh, mesh screen between the island’s inhabitants and freedom.

They passed a slip road and
Kelly felt the ground become soft and spongy. Her sneakers were soaking in water and she skipped off the grass back onto the road. There was a large overflowing pond, covered in scum and flies. Whether it was a natural pond or merely the result of a blocked drain she couldn’t tell, but a creek ran away to the east, the water sluggish and dirty. Skeletal arms, femurs and scraps of undeterminable organic matter broke the surface of the pond. Human arms and legs poked above the surface, breaking through the algae and flotsam. Kelly gasped as she saw movement. A hand reached up from the long grass nearby.