Later that morning they showered in the white bathroom cubicles of a caravan park. Dettie had bought them thongs so that they wouldn’t have to walk on the tiled floor—which she insisted was probably swimming with disease. Sam let the stream of water hit his back and kept his entire neck dry as much as he could. While he waited for Katie to emerge he returned to his comic.
After seeing something real—whatever it was—the comic seemed a little silly now. All the characters’ faces were rubbery and distorted. The dialogue read like something from a daggy old black and white film. He didn’t find it thrilling anymore, and it certainly wasn’t scary. For some reason, as he scanned the pages, it just made him sad. The humans gawped and fled in the face of the undead horrors that stalked them, which was fun, but the zombies themselves…
Once, they had looked fearsome and furious. They had reminded him of himself, silent—but unleashed. It excited him to see that abandon running wild. Snarling and vicious. Unstoppable. Now they all seemed to be miserable. Eyes squinched and weepy. Mouths not snarling so much as slack. Hands stretched out, not to threaten, but to plead. Fingers gesturing desperately, shaping themselves to be understood. They growled simple words. ‘Braaaaains…’ ‘Hunger…’ And as he read them over again he realised it was Tracey’s voice he was hearing in his head. Her weird burping speech. Raspy and grunting. ‘Bah. Rai. Ns.’
Then he knew why it made him sad. It was him, peering up from the page. Discoloured skin. Neck slashed. Hands grasping. Grunting. Wordless and gesturing. When Dettie and Katie returned, Sam wiped the tears from his eyes and stashed the comic under the car seat.
They headed off to find a roadside diner for breakfast. Sam could hear an unusual rattle shuddering in the car’s engine whenever Dettie sped up. As they parked, though, the noise disappeared, and while Dettie stood by the diner doorway having a cigarette, Katie scuffed her thongs in the dirt and then lifted her feet, watching the grey sand pour from between her toes.
They ordered three hot meals, and when their food arrived, Dettie slid the trays across the table towards them. ‘Long way to go today,’ she said. The undersides of her fingernails, Sam noticed, were stained black.
He ate a bacon sandwich and had another two pieces of toast smothered in strawberry jam. Katie mashed up the eggs on her plate and drank half her orange juice. They were sitting in the corner of the restaurant beside the kitchen, their backs to the other tables.
Sam’s eyes were blurry from lack of sleep and the urge to cry. He kept rubbing them, peeling his lids apart when they felt sticky.
‘Are you right, Sammy? What’s wrong with your eyes?’ Dettie asked, peering over her coffee at him.
Sam shook his head and looked away behind her. On the wall was a framed road map of Australia. As he stifled a yawn he strained to read the names of each of the towns.
‘Well, don’t keep rubbing them, they’ll get red.’
They were now in a place called Gawler. Since Dettie had wandered off during the night, he’d made sure to look for the town’s welcome sign when they drove in. He’d even written it on one of the advertisement pages of his comic while Dettie was busy adjusting her side mirror. Chewing his toast, he repeated it to himself in his head, spelling it out.
Gawler.
Whenever the door to the kitchen opened they heard hissing water and the clatter of dishes being stacked. Sam was watching the shadows on Dettie’s cream blouse dim to yellow in the fluorescent lights. She was fidgety, twirling her lighter in her hands, and he noticed she seemed to be shooting nervous glances at the other customers.
A waitress with a pot of coffee and a tray full of saltshakers squeezed past their table. As she filled Dettie’s cup she smiled down at Katie and Sam. The waitress smelt of vanilla, and as she swept away Dettie arched her neck to watch her go. Her gaze followed the waitress all the way across the room to where she set down her trays by the payphones.
‘You kids almost done?’ Dettie asked. ‘Katie? Have you had enough?’
Katie had her chin on the table, tapping a fork on her plate.
Sam blinked the cloud from his eyes and concentrated back on the map, looking for Gawler.
The waitress had started wiping down a booth, sweeping loose pepper and used sugar packets into her palm. Dettie was still watching her, eyes narrowed. She lifted her coffee to her lips, sipped it too fast and burnt herself.
‘Blast!’
Katie sat up. The coffee had spilt over Dettie’s fingers, and she wiped it off hurriedly with serviettes. By the time the mess was soaked up and she’d turned back to watch the phones, the waitress had moved out of sight.
‘I’d better go wash off,’ she said, fanning her hands dry. The bandaid on her finger had stained brown. ‘You kids finish up and get ready to go. Katie, you’d better hurry. Your food will get cold.’ When she’d wandered away, clutching the strap of her handbag, Sam walked closer to the map and searched for Gawler along the lines of the roads. It was tucked away at the bottom of the country, inland, above Adelaide, beside a crack in the coastline. He hunted around until he found Perth, in capital letters, all the way over on the left of the map. Sydney was on the opposite side, and when he traced his finger along the roads from Sydney to Gawler he kept getting lost along the way. If he pressed his palm flat to the glass he could fit his hand five times in the space between Sydney and Gawler. The boy had fallen off the train in Mildura, which fell under his right index finger. The zombie must have appeared behind his third finger and pinkie. Between here and Perth they still had over seven hands to go, and the road looked straight and empty across the yellow-coloured section of the map.
Katie was folding serviettes into floppy shapes of swans and playing with them. She made soft cooing sounds and floated them about, dipping their beaks in her orange juice.
‘Sam, don’t leave fingerprints all over the place,’ Dettie said, pushing her chair back under the table.
Sam lifted his hands off the glass, and wandered back over.
‘Oh, aren’t those lovely, Katie,’ Dettie said. ‘How’d you learn to make those?’
Katie stood up and crushed the serviettes into balls. She turned, silently, and walked towards the door, leaving them mangled to soak up the remains of egg yolk smeared on her plate.