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

like the teenagers they were. Mostly about shark movies, from what she could hear. But since she was chatting with Leo, she could hardly complain. “So you were lecturing, but Flo was with you?”

“She’s happy working anywhere, but I hoped we might have a few days R&R. Guess which guy thought it was a smart move to book tickets to every activity in advance? Lost three months’ salary. Still, could have been worse.”

“You mean there could have been another major Ebola outbreak?”

“That, sure, and the government was able to get our hotel and airline tickets refunded.”

Every interrogatory fibre of her detective soul wanted to say: are you sure you two aren’t a couple? But Tess let it go. For now. “How’s the radiation reading?”

“Stable,” he said, “which is the answer we want.”

The road led towards what, once, had been an affluent shopping precinct, built on either side of the road. A road which, now, was blocked to traffic by a charred aircraft engine.

As big as a truck, the engine must have belonged to a mega-jet. The impact had scattered the parts across the road. A rain of burning shrapnel had set the roadside palm trees ablaze. Four cars, which had been mid-commute, had been blown to scrap, their passengers turned to pulp on which flies still buzzed.

“There’s a shopping mall ahead,” Hawker said. “Stores on the ground floor, covered parking above. Entrance is up that ramp ahead. That upper-floor walkway crossing the road must give access to more stores behind the car park, and on the other side of the road.”

“Stores have stockrooms,” Tess said. “We should confirm they’ve been looted.”

“Agreed,” Hawker said. “But we’ll check a selection, then head towards that smoke.”

“Hey, I can see Table Mountain again,” Sullivan said.

“Uluru’s better,” Zach said.

But between them and the plateau-peak, the air was hazy from thin, grey-black plumes.

“Could that be the convoy?” Tess asked.

“You know what they say,” Hawker said. “Seeing is believing.” He held up a hand. “Gunfire! Single shots.”

“North,” Oakes said. “Single-shot rifle. One klick out.”

“Mackay, call it in,” Hawker said. “Everyone keep moving, but be ready to retreat.”

Detouring around the plane wreckage, passing an optician’s with a broken window, a clothing store with charred mannequins, a pet-supply shop where Tess crunched across the glass to look through the window. “Partially looted. Worth checking on the way back.”

“What for?” Zach asked.

“Antibiotics work as well on people as pets,” Clyde said. “Small-arms. Single shots. From the north. It’s over a kilometre away, but the rate of fire is increasing.”

A rasping hiss came from the far side of a wrecked car, abandoned outside the pet shop. A row of three airplane seats had fallen from the sky, leaving a V-shaped crater in the car’s engine before tumbling to the roadway. Three passengers had been buckled in their seats at the time the missile had blown the plane out of the sky. The first had been obliterated on impact with the ground. The second corpse was missing from the chest upward. The third had a thigh bone wedged through her stomach. This didn’t stop her shattered arm from undulating as she limply reached towards them.

“She can’t be alive,” Zach whispered.

Clyde fired. “No.”

Tess brushed the flies away from her face. “Move on. Just to the end of the block, and the end of these stores.”

Two small figures jumped through a broken glass window to their left, sprinting across the street.

“Guns down!” Hawker barked. “Hold fire!”

The children, a boy of about thirteen, a girl a year older, stumbled to a halt. Both carried matching hatchets in their hands, and other tools at their belts, all with black-rubber handles, all surely recently looted. On their backs were matching red backpacks, both sagging and empty.

“African Union?” the girl asked.

“Yes,” Tess said. “We came by ship.”

“The Australian ship?” the boy asked.

“New Zealand,” Sullivan said.

“Yes,” Tess said quickly, hoping to cut through any further confusion. “We sailed from Mozambique on a warship, here to meet the African Union soldiers. Are you with them?”

“Now, yes,” the boy said with a broad smile.

“Monsters!” the girl hissed. “They’re following.”

Even as she spoke, a clatter came from inside the shop.

“And now they are not!” the boy said with triumph.

“Nicko, Clyde! Clear that store. Mackay, up front!” Hawker said. “Sullivan, watch our six.”

“Wait here,” Tess said, both to the children and to Toppley, Zach and Leo, and followed Clyde to the store, a jeweller’s. Three zombies were tangled in a back-and-forth net of thin chains rigged behind the counter, and in front of a doorway to the stockroom.

“Fishing hooks!” the boy said with pride, having followed them over. “I added fishing hooks! We can crawl underneath, but they do not learn.”

The zombies were shredding skin and fingers as they reached and pushed at the hooked chains. Gore dripped to the floor as, inch by peeling inch, they ripped their way through the obstacle.

“Finish them,” Tess said.

Clyde fired. Tess turned back to the boy. “Is the African Union convoy that came from Mozambique here, in the city?”

“Yes. But they are hungry,” the girl said. “We were getting them food. We can take you to them.”

“Can you tell us where they are?” Hawker asked.

“At the airport,” the boy said.

“Near where the airport was,” the girl said. “Too many planes exploded.”

“The international airport?” Hawker asked.

“You came here to collect food, yes?” Tess asked, forestalling anyone else’s questions with a raised hand. “Where from?”

The girl pointed across the road to a toyshop with a window partially barricaded on the inside. “From there. We hid it there weeks ago.”

“Clyde, check the toy-store. Bruce, radio the ship,” Tess said. “Everyone, keep your eyes open for zombies.” She turned to the children. “My name is Tess Qwong. I’m a police