Thirty-Two
sadie
“Oh, God. Look at her,” I said as we passed a body lying facedown in the gutter, a torn t-shirt revealing horrific bruises, and tangled brown hair as long as Ava’s. One foot was bare, and the other encased in a dirty sneaker.
She hadn’t been bitten, otherwise we would have seen her staggering around like all the other infected. Someone had ended her life and left her lying on the road as if she meant nothing.
“Probably hit by a car,” Theo said, his tone sombre.
My heart thumped erratic beats. The way she took her last breath made no difference to me. She’d been left on the road to die alone. Just like Brynn.
I absorbed every detail until the body was behind us. “She looks like Ava.”
Theo reached across the console and took my hand, resting it palm upward on his thigh. “You’ll drive yourself crazy if you keep thinking about her,” he said, linking his fingers with mine.
“You don’t think about your family?”
He traced his thumb over the lines on my palm. “All the time.”
I pressed my lips together and raised my brows. “So… you’re a hypocrite, is what I’m hearing.”
With a laughing breath, he squeezed my hand. “The biggest.” His thumb never stopped moving over my palm, languid strokes that made my chest tighten in a completely different way.
I looked out the window again, forcing myself to breathe through the tension. There was a time and place to fall under Theo’s spell, and now was definitely not it.
The infected tripped aimlessly down the street, some following a leader and others going it alone. Based on what I’d seen so far, they appeared to gravitate toward one another and create bigger groups, despite having no ability to think.
A disfigured teenager reached for the car as we cruised past, hoping for a chance to get his teeth into us. The fear of being surrounded by them with no way out stayed in the back of my mind, a warning not to let my guard down.
Up ahead, the road curved, and my pulse quickened.
We’d made it to the highway on-ramp.
“Nearly there,” I said, sitting up straighter.
For a moment, I let myself believe we’d actually get a clear run to the farm. That maybe the space would give us a feeling of safety we could never find in the city.
But then Theo slowed partway up the ramp. “Tell me if you see anything that looks off,” he said.
A tremor rippled through me as I stared out the window. Even without seeing the source of the shift, I could feel it in the air, the heaviness, the sense that something wasn’t quite right.
The shattered glass on the road was our first sign, tiny pieces glittering in the sunlight.
As we approached the bend, traffic cones were lined up, directing vehicles into one of three lanes. Most had been knocked over, and some were crushed.
“The highway was blocked off,” Theo said absently. “Looks like they were sending people back the way they came.”
I kept quiet, unable to take my eyes off the road. Where was all the activity now?
When we rounded the corner and saw it, my eyes widened, and I gripped the armrest.
Dozens and dozens of cars were crammed in together at odd angles—small trucks and vans. A bus. Two police cars had parked at the head of the group, positioned in a wide vee to stop any traffic that broke through.
And behind them a tank—right in the middle of the city.
Theo and I shared a brief look as he inched toward the traffic jam.
A familiar odour leaked through the vents, but there were no infected weaving between the cars to account for the smell. Nothing moved at all apart from a flag flapping at a nearby car dealership.
So, what was causing—
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Bodies were sprawled across the ground, half hidden behind open car doors. So many bodies. The closer we crept, the more we could see. The road surface was covered in crimson splatters, some with drag marks at the edges as people tried to claw their way to safety.
Every car had been impacted in the confrontation, windscreens shattered, panels pockmarked with bullet holes. I’d never seen automatic weapons in person, but the sheer extent of the damage couldn’t have come from anything else.
I suddenly wished we’d taken the side streets instead of a more direct route out of the city. “This wasn’t the infected.”
“No,” Theo said quietly.
Not that long ago, the road would have been packed with commuters heading to work. Delivery drivers. Out-of-towners fighting their way across to other lanes after taking a wrong turn. Now there was a silence so eerie it made my breath quicken.
Theo hit the brake and draped his hands over the steering wheel, leaning forward as he scanned the street. “Looks like the army took down anyone who tried to break through the roadblock.”
Killing people who’d been taken by the virus was one thing, but this… this was barbaric. What else had happened since we’d lost access to the news?
I rested my hand on the butt of my axe, sweeping my thumb over the smooth woodgrain. “It doesn’t look like we can make it through. Maybe we should get out. Take a look around before we leave.”
“Hmm,” he said. “No one’s alive, and we don’t need their supplies.”
“I’m thinking more about the guns. They might still be here somewhere.” A movement in the side mirror snatched my attention—a station wagon with belongings strapped to the roof rack, slowing just like we had. “Theo…”
His gaze flicked to the rearview, his body instantly on alert. “Let’s get out of here.”
Without another word, he swung around in a wide U-turn and took off back down the ramp.
Part of me wanted to talk to the family in the wagon, swap stories and share some basic human interaction, but we couldn’t risk it.
At the very least, they might want to take what was ours.
At the worst, one of them could have been bitten.
A young boy gripped the ledge of the side window and pressed his face to the glass, his eyes meeting mine as we passed. If he’d had any wonder or excitement about the world at one point, it had drained from him now. My heart thumped, and I raised my hand, waving.
He didn’t get the chance to wave back. They were already in our rearview.
I faced the front again and pulled in a laboured breath. “That boy’s about to see everything we just did.”
Theo’s jaw hardened, and he glanced at the mirror. He had to be thinking about Ruby.
Everything we saw took us back to the people we loved, and the helpless feeling of knowing we could do nothing to protect them.
For the first time since we’d hit the road, I desperately wanted Tim and Varesh with us. We hadn’t even left Melbourne yet, and I was questioning our decision to throw ourselves into this mess.
This new world… it wasn’t meant to be tackled in small numbers. As I stared at the devastation through the side window, I released a slow breath.
Maybe it wasn’t meant to be tackled at all.
We travelled along the side streets on the outskirts of the city, the GPS course correcting whenever we were forced to deviate from the most direct route.
The woman’s voice helped break up the monotony as I scoured the footpaths and buildings, and I entertained myself by picturing her getting frustrated over our meandering.
We'd been driving for close to an hour and still hadn't passed through Melbourne's western suburbs.
Theo focused on the road, and neither of us spoke, the silence becoming less tense the closer we got to leaving the built-up areas.
Houses had thinned out and industrial buildings started popping up. We drove by storage units and a panel beater, a car wrecking yard and warehouses. The only signs of life were the occasional vehicle, but each time we passed one, Theo and I faced the front and minded our business.
He tapped the steering wheel with his thumb, alert but relaxed. “How are you feeling about meeting my family?” he asked. “Are you nervous?”
“I wasn’t until just now.”
Theo gave me a lightning fast smile. “You’ll get along with Mia. She’ll be full of questions when we turn up, but she’s easy to like.”
His wistful tone caused a pit in my stomach, and I took in his profile, imagining how it must feel knowing he was only a couple of hours away from reuniting with them. “I can’t wait to see her—and your dad and Ruby.”
We took a left down a back road running beside a trainline that hadn’t been used in years.
Overgrown weeds poked between the sleepers, and clusters of prickly pears filled the embankment on either side of the tracks.
On the opposite side of the road were fenced paddocks with long grass and a single, lonely shed in the middle.
The lingering scent of the dead had faded a while back, and I drew a lungful of cleaner air. It would be like this in the country, I thought. Less human activity. Fewer of the infected. Just the people we cared about and plenty of space.
Then I locked onto a sight up ahead that erased the tentative feeling of security. “What’s that?” I asked, squinting.
Theo lifted his foot off the accelerator and eased closer. “Looks like a crash.”
Out here? There was nothing around.
As we rolled up to the scene, the details became clearer.
A minivan had veered off the road, but there were no tyre marks to suggest the driver had tried to avoid the accident. The front bumper was crushed and half wrapped around a telegraph pole, the passenger door hanging open.
Unable to tear my eyes from the scene, I rolled down my window.
“Sadie.”
“I’m just trying to work out what’s going on.” Then I caught the faint thumping, a persistent beat like a door banging in the wind. “Can you hear that?” I asked, sitting forward.
“Yeah, I hear it.” Theo slowed to a stop, keeping his hands on the wheel. He checked the rearview mirror.
Another sound drifted from the van, soft and uneven, like a hiccup in the middle of a crying jag.
My heart thumped, and I tried to tell myself I’d imagined it. “Is that—”
“Sounds like it. Just… hold on a second.”
He eased the Ranger forward a little more, checking left and right.