Part Two - Returning Home
(Author's note; I did do some research into Australia and I realize that I have not picked the best route to their destination. But I'm sticking with it, so…*puts on sunglasses* YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- I mean, wrong meme. I'm sticking with it so *puts on sunglasses* deal with it. Also, look it up, all the places exist, and im watching google maps as I am writing this next set of chapters)
Patrick had been deep in thoughts ever since they left their base behind. Mostly about his parents, but also about what kind of future he really had. The road was empty and the sun was going to set in an hour or a bit more. The "convoy" (perhaps the smallest convoy in excistance) had setteled into a familiar pattern. 2 hours of driving, followed by a 10 minute stop to stretch and survey their surroundings. They had started out in one of Australia's most desolate regions, about the last place where someone would build a wooden city and have a bunch of mercenaries fight in it. Patrick slowly shook his head. "Of course you build a city in the middle of nowhere so that no one can hear the sounds of battle. Moron!" He said to himself.
They passed a sign that said "13 miles to Alice springs" Immediately he thought of where they had started, about 20 miles west of Tennant Creek. With his pathfinding skill and and the basic shape of motorways in Australia he could easily come up with the best route. He would have saved them another day of driving if only Barkly highway, or as it was going to be called "Route 66", had been completed. Since the road's construction would have forced them to take a ton of time traversing the basic inland roads of Australia. So the only realistic option was taking a detour and driving onto highway led them all the way to southern Australia until it would allow them to take a left onto highway 32 at Port Augusta . From there it would be one more day of traveling until he would finally be home.
(AN: Look it up. I dare ya. :P)
So far they had not passed by a large city like the one that lay ahead. The road ahead seemed to be clogged with cars, and Patrick hit the car horn. He hit the brakes , making sure that Dell had herd him.
"What is it?" Ludvig stepped out of the van.
"I don't know, Patrick was the one that stopped us."
'Look, mates." Patrick stepped out of the car, pointing ahead. Three gazes followed his finger, until they saw the large set of cars that swamped the road ahead.
"You allways were the one with the best eyesight. I hadn't spotted them yet."
Patrick reached for his sniper gun, and climbed on the back of his van. "It's an enormous car crash. Most cars are facing our way, which means that they were all fleeing from something. The place is swamped with zombies. Not exactly where we should head next, but it's the quickest route." Patrick laid down the map and pointed at where they were right now. "This is where we are. This is where we're headed. There's basically no way around Alice Springs, outside of just going completely off into the wild. Which means that we are going to find our way through this mess.
"Hey, Patrick, look over there!' Dell pointed to a basic paved road that ran parallel to the highway. Patrick used his sniper rifle to gaze ahead, following the path.
"That path does lead to the outskirts of Alice Springs. We could pass a lot of the chaos, and perhaps get some fuel as well."
"I do not think we should go." Ludvig added. "Is night soon. It is not a good idea to fight when we can not see."
"Agreed. Ve are too far away from zem to be a danger, ja?" Günther looked at Patrick for any kind of information.
"I think so." Günther let out a sigh of relief releasing the grip on his revolver. "But it can never hurt to drive one more mile away from them. I'd rather take extra precaution then too little."
"We set up camp, one mile back." Dell climbed in the truck, pointing at Günther to take the wheel.
Günther and Patrick had cut down a lot of branches from a nearby tree and stacked them inside a circle of stones. One quick burst of one of Pyro's flame throwers set the entire stack on fire, and keep them warm for the rest of the evening. Meanwhile Günther and Ludvig were preparing a kind of soup made from Patrick's soup supply, spiced up with a few chumps of meat they had stolen from an abandoned home near the highway. It was still soup, but now it tasted less like water with a mushroom flavor added to it. They poured their creation into a large soup kettle they could hang over the fire.
"You know that society is ending when you eat soup every day." Dell laughed harder at Patrick's joke then he should have.
After dinner Dell had grabbed his guitar and began singing old western songs. Patrick listened with only one ear and one eye, the other half staying aware of his surroundings. He did not want to be surprised tonight. The fact that Ludvig and Dell were missing didn't struck them until Patrick's van suddenly started rhythmically moving up and down.
"Well I'll be.." Dell acidentaly dropped his guitar (and his yaw along with it) on the ground. "So the Spah was tellin' the truth about 'em."
"You didn't know?" Patrick seemed more annoyed then surprised.
"No…but…it just ain't right. A man, doing it with a man…" Dell looked at Patrick for confirmation of his views.
"I agree. It's wrong." Dell smiled and nodded slowly. "Doing it on the battlefield. Outside of battle, they could do it like like rabbits for all I care." The smile on Dell's face disappeared.
"As long as they don't try to do it to me it's all fine."
"We were not made to be doing it with each other. It's just completely wrong. " Dell felt extremely uncomfortable by the continuing bouncing of the van.
"What might be wrong to you might be right to them. Who's to say who is wrong and who is right?" Patrick leaned back, much less eager to continue this conversation.
"I have standards, and.."
"Dell, You are a professional, so act like one. You've been dealing with a bunch of nutballs for so long and this one little detail is what makes you cringe. You've been hanging around with the Pyro who is all over the map in the crazy department, so really, them doing it doesn't make much of a difference. You have worked with IT for years and it never seemed to be disturbed by the thing that runs around with a glove on its head killing people! You know what, Dell, you know what? From what we know right now, the whole world is going down the crapper. Society is ending, and thus nobody gives a FUCK ABOUT YOUR STANDARDS!" Patrick forced himself to calm down.
I'm going to bed." Patrick rose to his feet and climbed into the small sleeping space in the back of Dell's truck, leaving the Texan to be alone with his thoughts.
The next day Patrick led them onto the the paved road. It swung back and forth but in general it followed the highway. While they did pull the attention of a few zombies they were too fast and too far away to attract them. It wasn't long before they were driving past the outskirts and suburbs of Alice Springs. They passed a some kind of hole on the left when Günther nodded to Dell to stop.
Dell estimated the distance to the nearest house to be 200-300 metres, but saw no creatures walking about so he handed the walkie-talkie to Günher.
"Ask him if we can stop here, first."
"Patrick, are you zere."
"Yea, what is it?"
"I see zhis road ahead , it takes us away from Alies Springs. Should ve take it?"
"You sure of that, doc?" Patrick carefull drove past them, taking the lead.
"Looks good enough, let's try it!" He took a left onto thin asphalt road. To their luck they saw no stranded vehicles blocking their way. After a short 5 minutes of driving they noticed that the asphalt road turned into a loop.
"Doc, it's spinning, it's going nowhere. "
"Verdammt!" Günther stepped out of the truck. "I zought zat zat vould take us away from zis place!"
"It did, it just leads nowhere" Patrick tried to find the best route to continue until he noticed the path in the sand. It was blocked by a small wooden barrier that read "NO ENTRY- SERVICE ROAD ONLY" Patrick climbed onto his van, and surveyed the road ahead.
"I do think that we can take that road, it would bypass some of the suburbs but eventually we'll run into one.
The road was small, and barely suited for the large van that drove over it. It led through a very thin forest, and followed a dried out riverbed on the left, and in the end they were forced to use the riverbed as their own personal highway. Now they passed from the wilderness back into the suburbs. They crossed one road, but the sudden appearance of several zombies made them hightail past them, returning to driving over the riverbed. Günther climbed onto the platform in the back of the truck, turning the "sentry" around to fend off the few zombies that were chasing them.
Patrick was dodging trees left and right, ignoring the sound of the firing sentry. Suddenly he could make the structure ahead of them. A metal barrier that separated them from the road that crossed the riverbed. He immediately hit the brakes, while wildly hitting his car horn. Dell quickly followed suit, and reached for his walkie-talkie.
"What the hell are you doing!"
"There's a freaking barrier ahead, we can't continue, we need to turn around and find another way.
"Doc is fending off the few zombies behind us but we will surely have pulled some attention now. LEFT!" Günther and Patrick looked to the left and saw a stream of zombies heading for them.
"GO RIGHT!" Patrick reversed his car and suddenly spun around. He noticed an opening in the line of trees on the right end of the riverbed. They had stumbeled upon a park, quickly taking a right turn onto the parking lot. Günther was busy taking out as mutch of the chasing creatures as he could. It seemed like for every creature he killed he two more seemed to join the chase. It wasn't long before they were being attacked by creatures on every direction. They were slowling down because of all the zombies they had to run over. Ludvig had climbed on top of the van and was wildly firing away at the horde.
The convoy was now passing through the city centre of Alice Springs. Patrick and Dell franticly communicated back and forth on what to do next. Patrick had driven through Alice Springs before, but never while trying to avoid a horde of the undead. With the sparse recollection of this town he managed to steer them away from the city centre, onto an empty road that connected the centre to a nearby suburb that was still being constructed. The horde was relentless, and there was no time slow down.
"Where are you leadin' us to, Patrick?"
"I DON'T BLOODY KNOW! ANYWHERE BUT HERE!" Patrick yanked at the steering weel to make a sharp right turn.
"We're going back to the city again, you know that right."
"You see that long stretch of elevated land on your left? The only way through that is through the highway. We've evaded it for so long, now we just need to make it through!" Dell wanted to check up on Günther but the pressure was too much. He could do that later. He forced himself to focus on his driving, and followed Patrick into a sharp left turn. They passed by a luxury hotel or something with an attatched golf course on their right.
"After the casino take another right, followed by another left. We're going back onto the highway!"
The closer they came to the highway the more cars were littering the road. Patrick and Dell continued to perform more and more dodging manouvers just to keep going. Patrick leaned out of the window "LUD! GET DOWN FROM THERE! IT'S GONNA BE A WILD RID."
"IT IS WILD NOW?" Ludvig climbed down and closed the opening above him.
The highway had so many vehicles blocking it that Patrick decided to open fire. His eyes darted towards the trigger mechanism for the rocket launchers. 8 rockets were launched at and impacted the mess of cars ahead of them. There was no thought of turning around in Patrick's mind. He expected to simply smash through onto the highway.
The sheer amount of cars ahead of them proved far stronger then what Patrick had anticipated for. They quickly slowed the van down to a dead stop in under 2 seconds. The G-forces were too strong and Patrick had his head smashed against his steering weel. There was some confused shouting, followed by nothing but darkness.
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Author's note: as it is right now my dad's condition is going downhill fast. He has not been able to digest anything for a week and if it doesn't improve soon he won't make it. I'm giving you guys a heads up that I might suddenly stop updating this story. If I do, you know what happened. I'm hoping that he recovers, but if he doesn't… I might need a while to get myself back on track. I hope I'll be able to post the next chapter soon, and perhaps it will take quite some time, but I promise you that I will be back. I hope. If not….I would like to thank all those that read, reviewed and followed this story. Thank you. Whatever happens, you have given my confidence in my writing skills, and I'd like to thank you for that. I didn't believe I could write since my last fic on a different site got burned into the ground but now I know. Thank you, in every language I speak.
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One more thing. I didn't spell check this chapter because I wanted to finish it off quickly and go back to my dad, sorry for all the mistakes
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"You can only see the brighter side of life if you manage to live through the darkest of days."
- DenHollander