Desolation Boulevard

By Mark Gordon

When most of the world's population transform into super predators with a taste for flesh, the remaining survivors huddle together and try to start again by carving out an existence in the wasteland. With the night belonging to the feeders, however, it seems only a matter of time before humanity is driven to extinction.

As Matt and Sally wander through the empty landscape, they meet others who vow to fight and reclaim the world from the evil beasts who were once human. When a girl is discovered who may have powers to resist the creatures, the survivors know that they must protect her at all costs.

Desolation Boulevard is an action-packed thrill-ride in a bleak, disturbing future where humans are number two in the food chain.

You'll be wishing they were just zombies.

(While this book is fantastic, it is not to be confused with the movie "Desolation of Smaug")

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Gordon
• Release date: Jul 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476030708

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Silence

The sound of barking hammered away until Matt's eyes flickered open lethargically. On a Saturday morning? Really? That wasn't fair. He sat up and tried to convince himself that he was awake as Elvis continued to shatter the early morning silence with a non-stop loop of short, aggressive woofs. Matt wondered what could be upsetting the neighbour’s dog so early, then put it out of his mind, figuring it it was no concern of his. He begrudgingly climbed out of bed.

He dressed himself in jeans and a T-shirt from the floor, before heading to the bathroom to pee and wash his face. He stared at himself in the mirror as the morning sun leaked in, and noticed that pimple had sprouted on his chin. Otherwise, he looked okay. He wasn’t a supermodel, but he knew that a few of the girls at school thought he was cute, and that was enough for him. He headed out to the kitchen thinking that bacon and eggs would be a nice start to the day. There was no sign of his parents being out of bed yet, which meant that they had come home from their party much later than expected and would be hoping to sleep late. Elvis’s barking obviously wasn’t bothering them.

Matt flicked on the kitchen light, but there was no response. He toggled the switch up and down a few times, before giving up. Then he noticed the clock on the old stove. It had stopped at 3:11 in the morning, which meant that the power was out. He went to the front porch and checked the fuse box, but no fuses had blown, so he put on his shoes and headed out to the shed where the backup generator was kept. He topped up the fuel tank, and then hit the starter button, waiting a few seconds to make sure that it was running smoothly, before heading back into the house. The kitchen light was on now, he noticed, and the red second hand on the stove clock was whirring around the dial steadily. It was odd that the power should be off for such a long time, especially since they hadn’t been victims of a bad thunderstorm overnight. Maybe he could find some information about the blackout on the local news. He turned on the radio in the kitchen, and dialled through the bands, but realised he was wasting his time - there wasn’t a single station on the air. That was odd. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. No service? That wasn’t quite so unusual, though, out here in the country where coverage could be patchy. He went over to the phone that sat on the bench beside his dad’s pile of loose change and lifted the handset from the cradle. He paused, and then held it to his ear. Nothing. Not even a dial tone.

Matt considered waking his parents, but he knew they wouldn’t be happy about being disturbed, especially if dad was nursing one of his hangovers. He went back to his bedroom, reached under his bed, and dragged out his MacBook. As it powered up, he walked out onto the front veranda. Elvis had stopped barking now, and the only sounds he could hear were those of birds and the mechanical whirr of the windmill behind the house, as the morning breeze gave it life. Where were the cars?  There should be one or two heading into town, surely? He looked at the computer screen as it finished booting up. If this didn’t work he thought he might have to wake his parents to tell them about the power problem. Dad would probably want to know, hangover or not. He clicked the Firefox icon and waited. The Internet address is not available. Try again later. He clicked on a couple of his bookmarked websites just to be sure, but they wouldn’t load, so he gave up. No Internet either? Given that the phones were down, that made sense. He headed to his parents bedroom.

He knocked on the door and waited for a response. Silence. He rapped on the door once more, harder this time. Still nothing. He turned the handle and pushed the door open slightly, Dad? Mum?

Even before Matt stepped into their bedroom, he sensed that his parents weren’t there. It was too silent. The immaculately made-up bed confirmed his suspicion. They hadn’t come home last night. He sat down on the bed and tried to think. What was going on here? The power and phones had gone out. Yes, that was unusual, but not outside the realms of possibility. What about the radio stations? Perhaps their ability to transmit had been affected by the power cut? Okay, that made sense. What about his parents then? Where were they? Then he remembered! Mum had said that if they were going to be too late, they would sleep over at the party. Matt checked his phone for messages, but there was nothing after 11:28 - a text message from dad, grinning at the camera, with a bottle of beer in one hand. Okay then. That was the answer. Dad had too much to drink last night, and they decided to stay in town. He relaxed a little.

After frying up and eating his bacon and eggs, Matt decided to keep himself busy until his parents returned home. On a farm, even a relatively small one like 'Two Hills', there was always work to be done. He got started, knowing that if he worked hard, the time would pass more quickly. He let the chickens out of their coop to forage around the house for worms, collected the eggs then filled their food and water troughs. Then he took the ride-on mower out of the small shed and cut the grass around the house, which was beginning to get a little overgrown. While the farm itself was a couple of hundred unkempt hectares mainly used for cattle grazing, mum liked to have a nicely cultivated garden around the house, and part of that meant that the grass needed to be cut regularly. This time of year, midway through autumn, the weather was getting cooler and after cutting the grass today, Matt knew that he wouldn’t need to do it again for a couple of weeks. After he had put the mower back in the shed, Matt surveyed his work. Mum would be pleased. The freshly mown grass gave the little weatherboard cottage a cosy look. The white paint, wraparound veranda and patches of colour from potted flowers were picturesque, and in the background were the two blue-tinged hills that gave the farm its name. His father and mother loved this house, and while he would never say it out loud to them, he did too.

Matt looked at his watch and was surprised to see that it was almost 11:30. He really expected them to be home by now, and he was genuinely beginning to worry. He had one more task that he wanted to finish before his parents arrived, however, and he decided that if they weren’t home by the time that chore was finished, he would go into town to look for them. He took the all-terrain quad-bike from the big shed so that he could ride up to the top paddock and open a gate so that the cattle would have access to fresh feed in an adjacent field. It was his favourite spot on the whole farm.

When he arrived at the top of the hill, the small herd of Angus cattle was waiting for him to open the gate. They knew that the sound of the bike coming up the hill meant fresh grass. He unlatched the hook on the old, steel gate and let them into their fresh paddock, and when they had made their way through he closed it and looked around. From this position he could look down and see the farmhouse and most of their land. It looked like a child’s model. He could see the dirt road that led from his house as far as the road to town, but that was where the view stopped. He knew, though, that if he rode five minutes further up the hill he would have an almost three hundred and sixty degree view of Millfield and its surrounds. He climbed onto the bike.

At the very top of the hill, the view was even more magnificent. He could see as far away as the town, and then some. It was a beautiful afternoon and the sky was a pure, flat blue with just a few small, white clouds drifting by on a light breeze. Mountain Pass Road ran like a grey ribbon past the farm towards town, and then on to the Great Dividing Range, which was nothing more than a smudged line on the horizon. It was this mountain range that separated the country towns in the west of the state from the suburbs and city sprawl of the east coast. It had proven a formidable barrier for the early explorers and even today was a symbolic border between city and country. Matt loved the way the town looked from here. He could see the layout of the streets and even the cars parked in the road like little tin toys. Today the only movement, though, was an almost straight plume of smoke rising from somewhere near the centre of Millfield. Something was off-kilter.  On a Saturday morning, the sunlight should have been glinting off cars as they trundled around town on their errands, but there was no movement. Another peculiar thing was that fire, which continued to send up a dark column of smoke into the sky. It wasn’t cold enough for anyone to have lit a fire for warmth today, and council had banned the lighting of open fires years ago. So why would one be burning in the centre of town? A fire that seemed to be generating more smoke every second. For the first time today Matt felt that something might really be wrong. He needed to find out for sure.

He jumped on his bike and headed back down the hill to the house, where he grabbed the keys to his dad’s truck. At sixteen he wasn’t a fully licensed driver yet, but on farms most kids drove from an early age because there were plenty of open spaces to learn safely. He climbed into the cab of the Ford, pulled the door closed and put the key in the ignition. Much later, when Matt looked back on things, he would realise that this was that moment his new life began.

He pulled onto the gravel road and headed towards town.

Chapter 2

The City

Sally rolled over and checked her phone. Damned battery! She really needed to replace it. She threw it onto the bed and headed to the kitchen. She passed her mother’s bedroom, and noticed the door was closed, which probably meant that a male 'friend' had slept over. Her mother, Bridget, was a good person, but didn’t really embrace parenthood like some. She had a good job in the city, but lived for partying in the bars of their local neighbourhood. Sally didn't felt neglected, but neither did she feel a strong parental bond. Bridget had always provided for her daughter financially and encouraged her to be respectful and honest, but always allowed her lots of freedom. Sally knew it was convenient for her mother, because then she had her own freedom too.

Some teenagers in Sally’s situation would have self-destructed by now and ended up as social misfits.  Sally hadn’t. She was popular at school and had a quirky sense of humour and a good nature. Boys found her attractive and she’d gone out with a few of them, but no serious relationships had developed. So while her mother was out partying, Sally used her time to read, draw or listen to music. Her mother often said that her bedroom resembled a second-hand bookshop and that was fine with Sally. She had read somewhere that every piece of information you learn is useful because it connects to something else that you already know, and helps your understanding of the world, no matter how trivial the information may appear to be at first. She liked that idea. She imagined her brain as a separate entity that constantly made connections between all of the things that she’d read.

So they lived together pretty comfortably in a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of an old building in Newtown, just a few kilometres from the centre of the city. The area had gone through a period of gentrification over the last twenty years, but Sally’s mum had bought into the area early, before prices had gone through the roof, using a modest inheritance as a deposit. What Sally loved about Newtown was the eclectic mix of people who called it home. Recently it had become popular with students, artists, and musicians, but there were still quite a few working class people living in the area from its pre-trendy days. Newtown was a vibrant, culturally diverse community. And today it was almost silent.

Sally was just about to get herself some muesli when the realisation hit her like a slap in the face. It was too quiet. On a Saturday morning the main street should have been choked with traffic and people looking for a place to have their morning coffee and read the papers. Sally walked to the front of the apartment, and went out onto their small balcony to check the street. She stared in disbelief at the emptiness. No traffic flowed past, and there wasn’t a single person in sight. She waited a minute, thinking that she might just have fluked a miraculous quiet moment, but the absolute stillness convinced her that something was very wrong. Even if there were no people or traffic in her street, she should still be able to hear the ambient hum of the city around her. There was nothing. Wait! Almost nothing. She could hear dogs barking. All over. Even though Sally felt independent and mature most of the time, right now she knew she needed her mother more than anything. She ran straight to Bridget’s bedroom, desperate to wake her, not caring if it was an invasion of privacy. She shoved the door open and burst into the room. It was empty. Her mother had not come home last night!

Shit! What to do? The news! Kate went to the TV. Surely if there was a major problem in the city the news channel would have coverage. She flicked on the television to find nothing but hissing static. She changed channels. They were all the same. Sally felt more alone than she thought was possible. She wanted to know what was going on, she wanted her mother, and she wanted somebody to talk to. She got dressed and grabbed her bag from the bedroom floor. She went to the front door of the apartment, opened it and stepped into the stairwell.

She stepped out of the building's lobby and into the fresh air. Wait a minute, she thought. Fresh air? She was just a few kilometres from one of the world’s largest cities yet the air quality was spectacularly good. And it wasn’t just because there were no cars crawling down her normally busy street. Somehow she knew intuitively that there were no cars moving anywhere in the city today. The combination of silence (apart from those dogs) and stillness scared Sally to her bones. Suddenly she was overcome by a feeling of light-headedness and realised if she didn’t sit down she might faint. She took a couple of steps and slumped onto a nearby bench and let her head drop to her knees. For a minute or more she didn’t move. Then, gradually, she felt her senses return and she plucked up the courage to take stock of her desperate situation. She lifted her head and surveyed the street.

Where there would normally be throngs of shoppers, or people heading to cafés for breakfast, there was no one. She tried to think. She needed an explanation, so she began to formulate an idea that might help her maintain some level of sanity until this situation resolved itself (which, she rationalised, it surely would). Perhaps during the night some major catastrophe had befallen the city and she had slept through it. And maybe because her phone battery was flat and her mother wasn’t home she had no way of finding out about it. On the surface this explanation worked. For about one second. Then Sally’s intellect and common sense kicked in and she found all of the flaws in that hypothesis. Firstly, if there was a major disaster and everybody had been evacuated or told to stay indoors there would surely be some kind of news report or emergency broadcast to tell people what they needed to do. Secondly, it was beyond belief that Sally could possibly sleep through some kind of government action that would remove everybody from the streets in one night. Thirdly, how on earth would it even be possible to evacuate an entire city? Sally couldn’t think straight. She needed to find somebody who knew what was happening. She started to walk.

Chapter 3

An Empty House

The road to town only ever received light traffic, but today it was absolutely deserted, so Matt pushed the ute right up to the speed limit. As he approached a bend that went past the Thompson’s farm, he slowed down and pulled onto the gravel shoulder. He peered down their gravel driveway and saw both of their cars parked in front of the house, which meant that somebody was home. Matt wondered if they'd had the same problems with their electricity. It wouldn’t hurt to check first before driving all the way into town. He pulled the car into their driveway.

He rolled to a stop and looked around. Nothing moved and the only sound he heard was a bird chirping nearby. He called out. Hello! Anybody home? but was met only with silence. He walked up onto the porch and knocked on the front door. There was no response so he knocked again. Hello? he yelled, more loudly this time. Nobody answered. Matt went around to the back of the house.

A large swimming pool dominated the yard, and a pair of French doors, which led into the kitchen, were open. On a table beside the pool sat a half finished bottle of beer and a green cocktail of some sort, also half finished. Matt figured they had been left behind last night after the couple had gone to bed. It seemed a little out of character for Mrs Thompson not to have cleaned up by now, judging by the tidiness in the rest of the house. He went to the French doors and tried again. Hello? Is anyone home? But there was no answer. He stepped into the kitchen.

Matt thought it was possible they just gone into town, or were visiting friends, but he didn’t really think it likely, given that their cars were in the driveway and the back doors had been left open. He didn’t like this situation at all. He took the cell phone out of his pocket and checked for service again. He wanted to speak to someone before he explored the house any further. The readout on his phone was blunt and foreboding - 'No Service'.

He checked the downstairs rooms, and found them empty, before walking to the base of the stairs that led to the upper floor. For his own peace of mind, Matt needed to check the whole house before driving into town to find his parents. Halfway up the stairs he paused and listened. Was that movement in a room above? He stood still, head cocked to one side. Somewhere a clock ticked, and the bird chirped outside, but that was all. Until he heard another soft thump, like a footstep on carpet. He listened. Silence again.

Hello? Is anyone up there? It’s Matt Winton from next door.

There was no response. He moved up the stairs quietly and carefully. The first bedroom was clearly being utilised as a spare room. It was furnished lightly, and had absolutely no personal touches like photographs or books. It was set up with a double bed for visitors, and more importantly, was empty.  The next room was Jane’s old room. She was the Thompsons’ daughter, and had moved to Sydney six years ago to study law, where she still lived with her young family. Since then her room had been refurnished as a study, but there were still signs of Jane’s youth in the bookcase, which was crammed with Goosebumps, Babysitter’s Club and fantasy books. Mrs Thompson had probably kept them for the grandchildren.

At the end of the hallway were two more doors. One was closed. Matt was trying to control his racing heartbeat when he heard the thumping sound again. It sounded as if it was coming from behind the closed door. He needed a weapon of some kind, but could see nothing useful. He crept back to Jane’s room and looked around, but found only fluffy toys and books. He walked to the closet and opened it - nothing but neat stacks of cardboard boxes. He didn’t want to open the door at the end of the hall without some means of protection. Maybe there was something he could use under the bed. A baseball bat would be nice; he thought, as he bent down and lifted the bedspread, before peering underneath.

Chapter 4

The Police Station

Sally walked the deserted streets, and noticed the unusual way the cars had been parked. They were all over the place, but there hadn’t been any accidents. It was as if the drivers had simply parked in any available spot and walked away. Again, this made her wonder if she had missed some large-scale event. Could drivers have been told to leave their cars behind and go to a safe place? Sally shuddered. She was at a loss, had no one to turn to, and no idea what to do next. She was alone and she was terrified. She sat in the gutter, and put her head in her hands and wept like a lost child.

After a few minutes her sobs subsided and she felt a little better - as if she had flushed something from her system. She felt capable of action now, and no matter what was going on she knew that she needed to keep calm and look after herself. She needed to find someone to help her. She had to be cautious, though. If the city had suffered some sort of major catastrophe, she would be vulnerable on her own. She needed to find someone in authority. The local police station was only two blocks from where she was standing. She started walking.

Passing by the empty shops and cafes was an experience that would haunt Sally as long as she lived. The cafes she had eaten in, the bookshops she had browsed, and the clothing stores where she bought items for her bohemian look, were either closed or empty. Then the was the bizarre silence. In Newtown the noise never really stopped. Now she wondered if it would ever start again. She paused. What about the silence, though? Could there be a clue there somewhere? She listened with a more analytical ear. What could she hear? Nothing. No. That wasn’t true. There were sounds. In movies they called it ambient noise. Sally learned about that while making a short film in art classes at high school years ago. Ambient noise was background noise that’s always there but you don’t notice. Now, though, that was all she could hear. Sally strained and listened. A slight breeze blew through the streets. She heard that clearly. What else? Now and then a piece of litter blew past, scraping along the concrete footpath. What else? The dogs! Not as insistent as before but still an occasional bark in the background. What else? Nothing. Sally was frustrated. There must be something! There it was! Birdsong! Somewhere nearby a bird was chirping. So there were no people, but there were birds and dogs. Was that helpful to know? Sally had no idea, but she figured it couldn’t hurt to notice these things. It was clear too, as she walked along, that the power was out almost everywhere. There was no way to know if it had gone off completely, or some parts of the grid had just shut down automatically because nobody was operating the power stations, but it was clear that if things didn’t change, this would soon be a city without electricity.

Sally arrived at the police station, and knew immediately that the trip had been a waste of time. The doors, which were usually open twenty-four hours a day, were closed. She was surprised by how let down she felt. In the back of her mind she had been hoping that all would be revealed once she found the authorities, but they seemed to have vanished along with everybody else. Just to make sure though, she mounted the five or six steps to the front of the building and pushed on the doors. They swung open. She peered into the gloom.

After her eyes had adjusted she stepped inside the dark building. Daylight threw filtered light into the foyer and empty reception desk. She walked up to it and peered over. Hello? It seemed as if everyone had just walked out of the place. Half filled coffee cups, unfinished paperwork and even a mobile phone sat on the work area of the desk. 'Who leaves their phone lying around like that?' she thought. No one that she knew. Behind the desk a door led to more offices. She went through.

Hello?

No response.

Louder this time.

Hello? Is anyone there?

The silence inside the building was even more profound than the nothingness outside. What should she do? Her fear was creeping up on her now, like a tiger stalking a deer. She was struggling to maintain her self-control.  'This is what people feel like just before they go mad', she thought to herself. If she had someone else with her she knew she would be coping much better, but on her own the loneliness and fear were so crushing that she almost turned and went home. She knew in her heart that this would be the easiest option - go home, lock the door, climb into bed and wait. But she couldn’t. That was too submissive. She needed to exercise some semblance of control to stay sane, and by checking further inside the building, she figured she might get some of that control back.

Chapter 5

Bodies

Matt screamed and fell backwards as the animal jumped from beneath the bed. With his eyes closed tightly, he flailed his arms around to protect his face from a savage attack, as he hit the bedroom floor. The animal pounced on him as he tried to punch it away with his unprotected fists. He braced himself as he waited for the beast to sink its teeth into his bare throat. In his terrified state it took Matt a couple of seconds to realise that he was only in danger of receiving a severe smooching from a large frightened Labrador.

Shit!  Elvis boy! You nearly gave me a friggin’ heart attack.

Matt cuddled the hysterical dog and scratched him behind the ears until he started to calm down. Elvis, where is everyone boy? What’s going on?

The dog just wagged its tail as the pair looked at each other. Matt certainly felt a lot better about having a companion now, even if it was only the neighbour’s dog, but he still had to solve the problem of where everybody had gone. He knew that he needed to check that last bedroom before he left the house, if only to satisfy himself that he wasn’t scared. He stepped out into the hallway.

C’mon Elvis, let’s go, he coaxed.

But the dog remained behind him, staring towards the closed bedroom door. Matt grabbed Elvis by the collar and tried to pull him along gently, but even then dog wouldn’t budge. 'Looks like I am doing this on my own,' he thought, as he walked towards the last door. He looked back at Elvis, who was now peeking sheepishly around the doorway, and took a deep breath. He had always thought of himself as a reasonably brave person, but this day was doing its best to ruin that illusion. He had almost wet his pants when Elvis tried to kill him with affection, and now he was having second thoughts about opening this damned door. Maybe he didn’t need to. After all, this was not his house and he really had no right to be poking around in here when the owners weren’t home. But while it was within his power to turn around, walk out of the house, and go home to wait for his parents, Matt knew that it was never going to happen. Something was wrong, and he had to prove to himself that he was no coward, despite being scared stupid by an overfriendly Labrador three minutes earlier. He had made his decision. He turned the knob, pushed the door open and took one step into the Thompson’s bedroom. There was nobody in the room, and the only thing that seemed unusual to Matt was the unmade bed, because he’d heard his mum say that Mrs Thompson was tidiness freak. That bed should have been made by now. He went over to it and sat down to think.

He looked at himself in the mirrored wardrobe opposite the bed, and keep moving and head into town to try to find out what was going on. The Thompson’s house had been a bust. Matt was about to stand up and leave the room, when he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. Elvis had crept quietly up to the bedroom door and was now prostrate on the floor, head down on the carpet staring at the bed. Matt walked to the dog, who was now emitting a high-pitched whining sound as it continued to stare at the bed.

What is it boy? What’s the matter? Is there a cat under there?

Matt knew there was no cat under the bed, as much as that would have been his preferred choice. He crouched down, from the safety of the doorway, with one side of his face flat on the carpet. The bedspread reached almost to the floor, and in the small gap underneath he could see only darkness. Damn! He was going to have to look under another bed.

Matt edged into the room as Elvis’s whining became more frantic. Many thoughts were going through his mind as he attempted to work up the courage to lift the bedspread and peer beneath it, all of them unpleasant, but he needed to get it over with, and get out of that house as quickly as he could. He inched toward the bed, grabbed a handful of the cover and yanked it off the bed as he leapt backwards toward the doorway, but nothing jumped out at him, despite his heart thumping like it was going to burst. At the door Elvis continued to whine, and Matt knew that he still needed to look under the bed. From his position alongside the dog in the doorway he crouched down on all fours and peered into the gloomy space once more.

For a second Matt thought his eyes were deceiving him. The vision before him made no sense.

Mr Thompson was lying on his back under the bed. Dead.

Without taking time to think, Matt moved to the motionless form and began to shake him and call his name. When there was no response, he grabbed the man by the arm and, with considerable effort, dragged him out into the open, while Elvis whined frantically in the background. Matt’s head was spinning from shock. Then, as he bent over Mr Thompson’s seemingly lifeless form to try to feel a heartbeat, he noticed, to his horror, another body under the bed. It was Mrs Thompson. He lay down on his stomach, grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out, until she was lying alongside her husband.

Now Matt was not only totally confused, but also extremely panicky. He needed to act. Luckily, his farming background had given him an excellent understanding of first aid practices, and he decided to use them now. He ripped open Mr Thompson’s shirt and put his ear to the big man’s chest, and was relieved to find that there was a very faint, but slightly irregular heartbeat. Clearly he was alive. He checked Mrs Thompson and found that she was in a similar condition to that of her husband. Deciding that he needed some kind of medical assistance, he ran downstairs to the phone to call for help. Matt picked up the phone in the kitchen and put it to his ear. It was dead. He ran his hands through his hair as he tried to work out what to do. He realised that he had very few options. He knew there was nothing he could do for the Thompsons other than monitor them, but he also needed to go into town to try to find out where his parents were. Was it right to leave the couple alone upstairs while he went for help? As he thought this through, he knew that it was really his only option, given the crazy circumstances he found himself in. He would feel bad leaving them behind, but he knew he had no choice. He needed to find help. Matt ran to the car and noticed that Elvis was right behind him. As he opened the door and climbed into the cab of the ute, the dog jumped up and over his lap into the passenger seat. He closed the door, patted the dog on the head and headed into town.

Chapter 6

Millfield

Matt's head was a complete mess. He couldn’t rationalise the experience of finding the Thompsons’ comatose bodies under the bed.  His mind ran through one scenario after another, but they made no sense. He considered, and then ruled out suicide, illness, assault, robbery, and even mental health issues, but none of those explanations held enough water for him to really believe in them. He had a nauseating feeling in his stomach that this was something radically new and, worst of all, somehow connected to his missing parents. If Matt had found Mr and Mrs Thompson lying on their lounge room floor, instead of under their bed, he may have assumed something like a failed suicide pact, but the fact that they were hidden (hiding themselves?) under the bed, made Matt’s skin crawl.

He slowed down as he approached the outskirts of town, where he could see that his worst fears were being realised. There was not a single person on the streets and there was no traffic. He shivered despite the warmth of the afternoon. He parked in the centre of town and climbed out as his eyes scanned the street. Nobody. The shops and pubs, which would usually be busy at lunchtime on a Saturday, were deserted. In a small town like Millfield, the pub was the social hub of the town, and even in an emergency like a flood or a bushfire people still came to find out the latest news. The Criterion Hotel was an imposing, two-storey timber building with wide shady awnings over the footpath, and a veranda upstairs. When Matt was younger, he had spent quite a few afternoons in the beer garden out the back, while his parents drank with friends. Now the pub looked silent and menacing. He instructed Elvis to stay in the car as he headed into the front bar.

The similarities to the Thompsons’ house were remarkable - there was absolutely no sign of human activity, other than the detritus of the previous evening’s partying. Half-empty glasses and bottles littered the bar, which suggested to Matt that something bizarre had happened not long before the pub closed (3 am on a Saturday). What really terrified Matt now, though, was the likelihood that his parents might be laying somewhere in town, in the same vulnerable state as the Thompsons. He didn’t want to wait to find out. He guessed that if the pub’s customers from the previous night had developed some weird disorder that was forcing them to hide away before falling unconscious, the most obvious place would be down in the keg cellar. Thinking about what he might find down there, Matt decided to check the other areas of the pub first. As he wandered through the dank and musty interior of the hotel, he tried to remain upbeat, despite his fear. He reasoned that even if everyone in town has been struck down by whatever had caused the Thompsons to go into a state of unconsciousness, it was quite likely temporary, and in time everyone would recover. The alternatives were just too disturbing to consider.

He found no surprise on the ground floor. The bistro was empty (meals half eaten on tables), the lounge bar was empty, and the office, where he found a heavy-duty flashlight, was also empty. On the first floor there were six rooms available for accommodation. Every door was unlocked and the rooms empty. He considered the possibility that the tenants might be unconscious under the beds, like his neighbours, but after checking under a couple and finding them unoccupied, Matt decided to head back downstairs.

He descended the stairs into the beer cellar, the flashlight illuminated each step, and when he reached the bottom he swung the beam back and forth around the pitch-black space. The light bounced off stacks of aluminium beer kegs and shelves that were loaded with crates full of supplies for the bar and restaurant. For a moment he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he needed to check the recess at the back of the cellar, behind the kegs. As he moved slowly towards the space, his heart began to beat faster and his breathing became shallow. He paused and listened. Matt wasn’t sure if he was imagining things or not but he felt that there was an almost imperceptible sound back there somewhere, something felt rather than heard. Or maybe it was his frightened mind inventing something that wasn’t there. Matt knew that he just needed to take a couple of steps forward, and peer behind the kegs to find out, but he struggled to find the strength to move forward. He stood in the silence and listened to the creaking of the old building as the afternoon air began to cool. Something about the thought of the shadows lengthening outside and the onset of night made Matt’s mind up for him, and he felt himself moving toward the darkest recess of the cellar, his legs working almost independently from his brain. He shone his flashlight into the gloom, and there, on the concrete floor, huddled together like corpses in a morgue, laid the bodies of the pub’s customers. Matt stared, unable to move. He tried to count them, but had to start over a couple of times because his brain didn’t want to work rationally. There were at least fourteen bodies, but he wasn’t sure because they were packed in so tightly, and some of the smaller ones (children, he realised with horror) were actually on top of the others. As Matt played the beam of light across faces he recognised most of them - John Smith, the butcher;

Reviews for Desolation Boulevard

[elwood_mom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

From the blurb, I thought another end of the world, killer zombie, blood and gore fest. That wasn't quite what this is. While it is an end of the world tale, the monsters are different. It's more World War Z meets The Stand rather than Dawn of the Dead.The characters were great - they all acted believably, and there weren't any "filler" characters (you know, someone tossed in just to pad the story a bit). Dialog was clear and easy to follow, even for a non-Aussie like me. I could feel Dylan's frustration when he couldn't rescue someone from marauders, as well Matt's when he realized he had no more bullets and a charging feeder.Loved Kate and Elvis.Cliffhangers? Done deftly so that you want to keep reading. Hooks capture your interest from the first page.Wonderful start to a promising series. I don't want to give any spoilers, so you'll have to read and enjoy with everyone else.