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

rifle. The shape tumbled into the wilted grass, and Tess stepped away from the plane. “Mick, how long would you need to take off?”

“Less time than it’ll take for you lot to climb aboard,” he said.

“Fine. Wait here with Zach and Elaina. I’ll take Clyde, Teegan, and Bianca, and be back in twenty.”

“Not on your life,” Mick said. “Not on my life. Rule-one from every horror movie ever made: the pilot dies first. Besides, since I can’t leave without you, there’s no point me kicking my heels here.”

Tess knew him too well to argue. “Clyde, take point. Bianca, you’re with Clyde. I’ve got the rear.”

“Stick to the road. Watch the long grass,” Clyde said. “Listen for noise. A lot of noise. Zoms aren’t going to sneak up on us.”

“Not the best spot,” Mick said, falling into step next to Tess. “No, it’s not where I’d build an apocalyptic retreat. It’s too close to Ipswich.”

“About thirty kilometres, isn’t it?” Tess asked, scanning the grassland.

“Thereabouts. Couldn’t tell you how far to the coast because I’m not sure where that is now. Picked up a bit of radio chatter before we turned west. Very officious.”

“From the refugee camps?” Tess asked.

“I was told to keep the airspace clear,” Mick said.

“You should have told them who you were.”

“I did. They were unmoved, which shows things are getting back to normal. It sounded organised. Or getting that way. Local government, local governance, that’s the answer, not top down from Canberra.”

“Oh, so you agree with O.O.?” Tess said. “That’s what he wants, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you dare tell him I approve,” Mick said.

“No power lines near the road,” Tess said, “but there is a transmission line over there, leading to the compound. Wonder if they’ve got a back-up generator, too.”

“A sheep station in Western Australia,” Mick said. “Somewhere in the north. The sheep would be a walking pantry.”

“What are you talking about?” Tess asked.

“Where I’d pick if I’d known this was all going to happen.”

“Nah, you’d have stayed in Broken Hill.”

“Could be, but I wouldn’t have come to a place like this.”

A short strip of tarmac led from the road to the compound, widening as it drew near the white-clad walls. The hangar-garage doors were three metres tall, and thirty long, painted white rather than clad in the odd panelling coating the walls. To the right was a pedestrian door, and outside it, and the garage, was an open graveyard.

Clyde whistled, raising his rifle, but aiming the barrel low, into the high grass. “Crawler,” he said, and fired. “Hold. Clear.”

“They’re all dead, but are they undead?” Tess said, picking a path through the bodies, noting the discarded bullet casings. A body-armoured corpse didn’t have a head wound. He didn’t have any legs, either. They’d been torn off, leaving ragged lumps of flesh behind and one booted foot a metre away. A second guard lay two metres closer to the wall, but he’d been shot in the face. Even before his corpse began to bloat in the late summer heat, he’d been bursting out of his body-armour.

“MP5 submachine gun,” Clyde said, pointing his barrel at the corpse’s still-strapped weapon. “Not a common weapon in the ADF except with Special Forces, and that bloke’s one burger short of a coronary.”

“No one looted the gun,” Toppley said, gingerly pulling a magazine from the corpse’s vest-pouch. “Or the ammunition. This magazine is fully loaded.”

The bodies lay thickest next to the pedestrian door, with a third body-armoured corpse lying in the doorway itself, and atop a foundry of spent brass.

“It was a rear-guard action,” Clyde said. “They were overrun as they fell back.”

“Those garage doors are wide enough for a small plane,” Mick said. “Tall enough, too. But I swear that road’s wrong for a runway.”

“This wasn’t clad white when I came here,” Bianca said, her voice shaking as she looked up, away from the litter of bodies. Zach was equally pale, while Elaina was turning green.

“What did it look like before?” Tess asked, stepping closer to the door.

“Grey stone, I think,” Bianca said. “It wasn’t white.”

“This is plastic,” Tess said, eyeing the hole in the facade made by a stray round. “About a centimetre thick. Weird thing to stick on your home. No lights inside. Flashlights on.”

“I don’t have one,” Elaina said.

“It’s attached to your rifle,” Clyde said.

Tess slung her shotgun, drew her sidearm, slotted in her own tactical light, and switched it on. “Me and Clyde first. Everyone else, wait for the word.”

“The word better not be run,” Mick said.

The door led into a windowless waiting room with three other doors, four leather armchairs, a broken glass table, and a body atop the fractured shards. The cleaver in her skull definitely wasn’t military issue, while the tactical gear and body-armour spoke of another private mercenary. On the wall opposite the entrance, near the door leading into the compound’s gardens, was a control box which had been broken open, revealing wires and switches inside.

“Try that door,” Tess said, turning to the door to the right.

“Locked,” Clyde said.

“This one’s not,” Tess said. “In here’s a security station. CCTV monitors. Coffee pot. A couple of other doors. Probably staff quarters. Yep,” she added, opening a door. “Bunk room. Four bunks. Curtains pulled back. Beds made. The other door is… it’s a bathroom.”

“This door’s unlocked,” Clyde said, having crossed to the final door, nearest to the hangar-garage. “Oh, this is very definitely a garage. Was there a weapons locker in the office?”

“Nope,” Tess said. “Everyone inside!” she called. “Teegan, look for some tape in that office-room. The locks are electric and the power is out. I don’t want us trapped in here.”

“Here,” Clyde said, pulling a roll from a pouch. “Far more versatile than zip-ties.”

“What kind of charity work did you