Apolgies for the long wait; I have been working on other things (mainly a kindle version of "Aliens v. Exotroopers"). This should be the second-to-last chapter. Incidently, I have made minor changes to chapters 2 and 8.

School is out!

By sunset, the immediate threat was past. Carlos executed a sweep of his property. The few kudlaks that remained standing were picked off in a leisurely way with the .22. The many more that crawled about were dispatched with hammer blows and close-range shotgun blasts. Now and then, one or a few new arrivals would come, mainly from the south. "Are we safe yet, Carlos?" Billy asked.

"I don't know," Carlos said, as he shot two of the latest arrivals from a rear window. "These needn't cause any trouble: They must be coming from the outlying ranches. They'd be arriving now just because they walked farther, and there can't be many of them. They won't swamp us like the ones from town did. If another attack like that comes, it will be when- if- they start coming down from one of the large towns north or west, like Barkly or Tennants' Creek. But there's no reason to think it will come to that. Jonny! Have any news?"

"Well, it looks like the infected sheep and cattle are dying- really dying, I mean, not getting back up."

"Whatever causes it must affect humans different from other species. Any signs of infestations further north?"

"Well- thats the oddest thing. There's no picture from Barkly. I think the satellite feed went down." He pointed to the screen. The site of Barkly was a black void.

"No, it isn't," Carlos said. Then he swore, loudly and foully. After calming a bit, he explained, "Barkly is under `ghost protocol'. It was designed to keep civilians from using real-time satellite imaging to spy on military and government installations. The protected area is either blacked out, or filled in with older footage. It can kick in for low-level military users, too. This is why the feed of station center was so slow: It was competing with a classified, high-priority feed from Barkly. Shift to Tenants' Creek, and see if you can get an emergency broadcast feed."

Within seconds, a voice came out of the computer: "-from Barkly chemical spill are spreading. Tennant Creek is to be evacuated. All residents with their own cars should drive to Barrow Creek, where an aid station has been set up to receive you and provide treatment for any chemical exposure. To minimize risk of exposure to airborne chemicals, keep doors and windows shut at all time. Do not pick up hitch hikers. Do not attempt to go north, as this will interfere with the timely deployment of relief workers. Those without automobiles should remain in their homes and await evacuation by the guard. Those who show signs of exposure to the chemicals should also remain behind, to receive more prompt treatment. Renner Springs residents are advised to remain... "

"Easy enough to read between the lines," Carlos said. "The kudlaks reached Barkly, may have taken it out, in which case there could be 1500 more of them. Now, they're headed for Tennant Creek, if they haven't arrived already. From there, the nearest town is Renner to the north, and Barrow is to the south. The army is going to come down from Darwin, likely as not from Queensland, too. They'll set up base in Renner- no, in Newcastle, to play it safe. Meanwhile, the people of Tennant Creek get herded the other way, toward Alice, but get stopped in Barrow, where they can be sorted out well away from a population center.

"But our chief concern is where we're going and how we get there. Barkly is, of course, out, and that puts us in a world o' hurt. My Bus could drive over anything short of a cliff. That could carry twelve kids, maybe 20 if we double up little ones. Esther's van could carry even more, but it's a total bust off the company road."

"We could drive to Hodgson's station and switch to one of his offroad trucks," Jonny said.

Carlos shook his head. "Too many ifs. What if the vehicles are gone, or wrecked, or just plain out of gas? What if there are still kudlaks about? What if the whole place is burnt to the ground? You may hope for the best, boy, but you must plan for the worst. So, that leaves us Colleen's four-wheel drive, and your truck. Let's see... Colleen's car has 5 seats, and we can strap more in the cargo area. Let's say nine, ten. Your truck could hold four in the cab. That leaves 6. They can go in the truck bed. Can't say I'm happy about it, but it's an acceptable option."

They loaded into three of the four vehicles accordingly. Esther drove Jonny's truck, while he rode shotgun in the Bus, running the tablet computer. Carlos' intentional overload had left the Bus's electrical systems unharmed, thanks to features designed to protect the vehicle from EMPs in its original military role, but the onboard navigation computer was virtually destroyed. The tablet would have to serve in its place. As they drove away, there was a distant but quite audible booming. Carlos looked and saw a bright light to the northwest, just over the curve of the horizon. "That could be Tennant Creek," he said to no one in particular.

It was 36 kilometers from Carlos's house to Hodgson ranch and the end of the company road. The travelers turned onto a dirt maintenance road after less than 20. Besides kudlaks that seemed to appear every kilometer or two, the company road was strewn with wrecked vehicles and livestock were almost all dead, and unpleasant enough: In more than one place, the little convoy had to drive over piles of dead sheep like so many speed bumps, and amid the gruesome squishing and cracking sounds the occasional strangled bleats announced a sheep that had not been quite dead. But there were plenty of animals still alive, though obviously infected by whatever had created the undead. The most numerous were dingos and crows, which could be seen feeding on carcasses. At the approach of the vehicles, the dingos rose and came at them with a slow but oddly steady and rhythmic loping, while the crows ran and hopped like the archaeopteryces might have done before learning to fly. But there were others: kookaburras, eagles, sheep dogs, barnyard cats, and kangaroos of all sizes. They finally abandoned the road when they saw a column of amoke and flame rising from Hodgson's station. Carlos went into a U-turn and went back to a maintenance road turn-off half a kilometer behind.

"We're going south and west until we hit the Sandover track. It was never that good, and it's been under-maintained lately, but it's a straight shot to Hart's Range, and then just good open road to Alice."

"Why not take the turn-off to Barrow?"

"Because," Carlos said darkly, "that is where they want us to go."

"Wait a minute," Billy said. "The army exists to help us, and you were one of them. Aren't they, like, your old buddies?"

"My old mates are dead," Carlos said. "And they weren't the ones who were giving the orders. As far as brass, past and present... I won't say they would wish any harm, as a rule. But their job is protecting the `greater good', and that can mean a world of hurt for the fewer. I've seen what they are willing to do: Quarantine stations. People herded behind barbed wire like cattle. Bodies thrown in trenches, covered with a little sand and then more bodies. Guards who are prisoners as much as the inmates, and even more scared. And worse, lots worse. There's nothing I wouldn't take my chances on over being in a place like that again."

He fell sullenly silent. They drove and drove. They reached the track within an hour, but even there, their speed rarely went over 50 kph. The road had begun as a graded gravel path, and only gotten worse over time. Time and traffic had thinned the gravel, until what remained was a hard-packed, crack-riddled crust. Its most worn stretches consisted of high points of exposed rocks and lows of pot holes aspiring to become valleys. Weeds were few and far between, but the few that were tough and determined enough to grow at all were a menace to anything but the Bus's mine-resistant tires. There were few dead sheep, but other animals were very much in evidence. Several frightening encounters occurred. A crazed emu paced the truck at 40 kph, until Carlos turned around and shot it. A pack of infected dingos ran head-on at the Bus, smashing one after another against the thick front. Fiercest of all was a huge red kangaroo feeding on a smaller gray kangaroo's carcass beside the road. It remained on all fours for three loping strides as it moved into the path of the oncoming Bus, then reared to its full 2 m height, screamed and made a flying kick at windshield height. Carlos swerved in time for a glancing impact to the door instead; as it was, the plastic of the door crumpled and spiderwebbed, and the vehicle rocked to one side. Carlos lost control, and before he could regain it, the Bus careened off the road and into a drainage ditch.

Carlos went into reverse gear. The wheels only spun in vain. "We're going to have to push it out," Carlos said. "Jonny, Billy- get out and help me!" As he stepped out and shut the door behind him, he glimpsed a striped, dog-like form at the edge of the headlights. His eyes widened in recognition. As he looked upon the eldritch form he saw in his mind's eye a vision of the desert grown green again, of fields and forests where kangaroos and wombats roamed and thylacines hunted anew, and of bands of blackfellows who hunted by the old ways again, while the occasional haggard white fellow pleaded in vain to be admitted to one of their tribes. At this last part of the vision, his eyes abruptly narrowed. "You had your time, and we had ours," he said. "Can't you leave today for them?"

On each side of the creature, a kudlak stepped into the light. He unshouldered the carbine and fired it with the stock folded. One kudlak fell with a face full of shot. A .22 whizzed by the other's head as it lunged forward. Carlos had just enough time to drop the carbine and take out his hammer. The kudlak fell with the point embedded in its skull. Its opponent disarmed, the thylacine bounded forward. As it made a final leap for Carlos's throat, he pulled the old boomerang from his belt and swung it straight down into the undead skull with a force that splintered wood and bone alike.

The thylacine fell to the ground at Carlos' feet. It no longer moved, nor did it look like a fresh carcass. Instead, it looked like a mummy, and not a well-preserved one, but a contorted carcass with cracked and translucent skin over yellowed bone and fibrous flesh. The pieces of the boomerang were also changed. It had split where the heavier upper part met the handle-like lower end, obliterating the sigil in the process. What had been darkwood was now bleached nearly white, and what had been a smooth, almost polished surface was now splintered and cracked with age as much as the blow that had broken it. As a wind rose from the south, the thylacine's hide began to crumble like ancient parchment, and what had been the surface of the boomerang blew away as fine dust.