Life Goes On by Tayell, Frank (large ebook reader txt) 📗

“Me?” he asked.

“You’re my driver, aren’t you?” Tess said. “We’ll take the injured with us, back to the airport.”

It took a few minutes to translate the words, and a few more to get the injured, and one incredibly pregnant woman, aboard. She was glassy-eyed, barely out of her teens, and utterly exhausted.

“It’s all right, ma’am,” Zach said, almost lifting her aboard. “A bus, a plane, and you’ll be in a hospital in Perth.”

Even as Tess asked herself how true that was, she spotted two children moving through the bullet-flecked palm trees. Boys wearing shorts, t-shirts, and a bandolier, each carrying an old rifle almost as big as they were tall.

“Hey, kids, over here!” she called. “Get aboard.”

They seemed to understand, in that one shook his head, and both continued through the trees towards the beach.

“Come, Tess,” Laila said. “Please.”

The notion of leaving the children behind grated against her years of service where the resources of an entire department, state, and sometimes country, would go into saving just one life. Now the scales had flipped, and the world was reduced to a handful of individuals, trying to save what remained of the entire world; they truly couldn’t help everyone.

As Zach drove them inland, the road was already filling with pedestrian survivors who’d remained hidden during the long night. Clearly, the arrival of the plane, as much as the dawn, had been the signal that it was time to flee.

“Slow down,” Laila said, jumping out of the bus’s open door. Zach eased off the gas, though he was travelling barely faster than the crowd.

The nurse approached an old woman walking between two teenage girls, and spoke with them briefly, before the old woman turned around and resumed walking. Laila jogged back to the bus, and jumped aboard.

“Did you offer them a ride?” Tess asked.

“Yes, but she lost interest when I said we were going to Inhambane,” Laila said.

“But that’s where the plane’s gone,” Zach said, pivoting around to look back at the walking trio.

“Hands on the wheel,” Tess said. “Eyes on the road.”

“Yeah, sure,” Zach said. “But why don’t they want to come to the city?”

“Because it is only one plane,” Laila said. “One plane yesterday. One plane this morning. The city is full of refugees. There will be no seats for them, and so they will leave now, before everyone else.”

“Did they say where they’re heading?” Tess asked.

“South,” Laila said. “If the South Africans came here, then South Africa is empty, that is their thinking.”

“It’s a long way to the border,” Tess said. “Did you tell them about the zombies on the bridge?”

“There are lost souls everywhere,” Laila said. “They are the new universal truth.”

Tess counted over two hundred refugees before the road branched and Zach drove them due west. With only a hundred now on the beach, and perhaps twice that many still hiding among the ruins, thousands must have fled during the night. Fled, died, or been infected. Not all the undead they’d killed had been wearing life jackets.

No one was fleeing from Inhambane. Nor did she see any undead on the road leading to the small city. Not until they reached the new walls. Three corpses lay splayed by the road. Two bore savage cuts on arms and chest, while their slowly decaying skin carried an increasingly familiar lifeless pallor. The third? Well, better to assume all three were zombies, though friendly fire was an unfortunate consequence of their new reality.

“Can we hurry, please,” Laila asked, now standing next to the pregnant young woman. “Please!”

“Hoy! Let us in!” Zach called. “We’re New Zealanders from the frigate!”

“I don’t know if—” Tess began, but the truck blocking the road began to reverse as it was towed clear. “Neat trick, Zach,” she said.

The road was empty as they drove to the airport, but the rooftops were more full than ever. So was the concourse close to the runway.

“Stop here, Zach,” Tess said. “Wait with the bus.”

Rows of children were lining up at the apron’s edge, under the watchful eyes of Elaina, Bianca, and the bandaged Saleema. Something about that rang alarm bells. So did the sight of the plane. Scores of soldiers were slowly disembarking.

“Saleema! There’s a woman about to give birth in the bus, can you help?”

The bandaged nurse frowned in partial comprehension, but jogged towards the bus.

Tess hurried over to the plane where Commander Tusitala was speaking with Mick Dodson, and two of the new arrivals, both wearing mottled-mud and bush-red camouflage.

“G’day, Tess,” Mick said. “Back on time, just as promised.”

“Mick, there’s a woman giving birth in that bus,” Tess said.

“No worries, I’ll get my bag,” Mick said, and dashed back to the plane.

“Commander,” Tess said, taking in the two newcomers. “The plane was supposed to pick up refugees, not bring more people.”

“You are Commissioner Qwong?” the woman with the tired eyes and worn smile said. “I am Ambassador Lebogang Gwala of South Africa.” She indicated her companion. “This is General Mafika Mbuli of the African Union.”

“Where are the Mozambique leaders?” the general asked.

“On the bus, bringing a new life into this world,” Tess said. “Are more planes coming? Are more soldiers?”

“We will not abandon Africa,” the ambassador said.

“I was explaining that this position is no longer tenable,” Commander Tusitala said.

Mick jumped off the plane, a red med-kit hanging over his shoulder, and sprinted to the bus.

“Zombies don’t swim,” Tess said. “They float. They were wearing life jackets when they were infected. They fall from the relief ships which never disembarked in Madagascar. The floating zombies drift ashore. Last night, we fought, dusk till dawn, to hold Tofo Beach. This morning, the shore is covered in bodies. The shallows are full of wreckage. The sand is stained black with infected blood. Nothing