The sunburn on Sam’s arms and neck had just started to blister. Beneath his singlet he felt the weight of the sun pressing on his flesh. Flickers of shadow cooled his skin like sprinkles of water whenever a tree passed overhead. The fabric was itchy and clung to the aloe vera Dettie had rubbed over him. It made him sweat even more and he had to peel it away from his body whenever he moved. Katie stared out the window. The radio was off and she had stopped asking why. Dettie chewed on a straw, biting it flat and dragging it between her teeth. She had opened the air vents as far as they would go.
Sam had read his comic through so many times he almost knew each page by heart: when Pamela and Tim hide in the rest stop cabin; where Tim goes outside to restart the generator; the glint of the zombie’s eyes from out of the tree line. Sam wasn’t sure why it filled him with such a peculiar thrill. All that anger. All the violence. The zombies revolted him, but there was something exciting about them too. Something primal. Hunger and aggression. And no fear. No nervousness, no awkwardness. No jobs or school or family.
He knew what they reminded him of. Angry. Silent. Changed from what they were. As he sat there picturing their rotting flesh—his own skin stinging, bubbled and red—it made him feel sick, but that twisted nausea in his belly was somehow better than what he’d been feeling for months. Less hollow. Less unfamiliar and lost. The zombies, rotting and shredded as they were, had taken all that rage and loss and self-loathing and run with it. Used it to tear up whatever got in the way. It made them strong. Something to fear, not something afraid.
‘Did you see that flock of birds back there?’ Dettie called over the noise of the fan.
Sam’s eyes were heavy. She was looking at him, so he nodded, his neck feeling thin and rubbery.
‘Katie, did you see them? That big flock of cockatoos?’
Katie crossed her arms. She closed her eyes as warm air blew in her face.
Sam looked out at fields of dry grass passing by. Sheep ambled slowly towards a shrunken dam. His skin throbbed.
‘Did you know that most times, Sammy,’ Dettie called, ‘in a flock of cockatoos, they have galahs travelling with them too? Two of them.’
Way off in the distance he thought he could see birds, two grey figures in a patch of speckled white, but his vision was blurred and it could have been dust on the window.
‘I don’t know why they do,’ she said. ‘But they’re pretty easy to spot because they stick together. Have you kids spotted any?’
Katie still didn’t answer. Sam was tired and pressed back in his seat. He let the motion of the car shake his head.
‘I want my other clothes,’ Katie said.
Dettie took a breath. ‘Katie, we’ve talked about this. There wasn’t time—’
‘Sam got a new singlet.’
‘Sam needed a new one because his T-shirt was ruined.’
Katie tugged at the juice stain on her dress. ‘This one smells like petrol.’
‘Well, if you want new clothes maybe you should stop sulking and start behaving like a member of this family.’
Katie thumped her body against the door. ‘I want to go with Mum.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, girl.’ Dettie stepped on the accelerator and the car roared. ‘You don’t hear your brother complaining, do you?’
‘Yeah, but Sam…’
She stopped. The car faded back to a hum. Katie kept staring out the window with her arms crossed, but slowly she let go and laid her hands by her legs. Sam tasted a bead of sweat as it rolled down his lips. Angry. Silent. Outside, two birds, grey with a spot of pink on their bellies, bobbed in a hazy sea of white.