Early the following morning, John was abruptly drawn from a deep slumber by the sound of heavy boots plodding into the RV coupled with the jostling one would expect from a floor on wheels. He lifted his head to see Edvin standing before him, looking surprised and a little embarrassed.
John brushed his hand over his face as he stiffly sat up in the bed, "Hey," he said, his voice scratchy from sleep.
"Uh, hey," Edvin paused uncomfortably, "Sorry, we were just worried when you didn't come to open the door"
This was when Harley woke from her sleep and curiously raised her head, seeing Edvin. She was quick to sit up next to John, pulling the covers around herself protectively and swiping the mess of tangled hair away from her face and out of her eyes.
"Sorry, Edvin," John apologized, glancing over to an embarrassed looking Harley.
Edvin scratched his head, "It's fine. . We've got food, so whenever you're ready, come eat," he said just before turning toward the door and exiting the RV.
Without word, Harley climbed quickly out of the bed and began picking up articles of clothing from the floor, putting them on as she went.
John watched her quietly as she pulled on her shorts and began to button them up.
"You alright?" He asked finally, sensing a tension he'd not been expecting.
Avoiding his gaze, Harley gave a weak smile and quickly pulled on her tank top, "Just hungry," she lied, before turning her back to John to find her shoes.
He found himself looking to the area of the bed beside him where Harley had slept, remembering the night they shared and feeling confused about her current behaviour. Did she regret what happened?
There wasn't much he could say just then as Harley speedily slipped into her shoes, picked Rebel up from the floor and practically ran out of the camper, seemingly unable to get out of there fast enough.
By the time John was dressed and made his way out of the RV, Harley was on the concrete floor sitting cross-legged with an elbow resting on her thigh and her head propped up with her hand looking utterly withdrawn as she watched Rebel devour some soggy kibble.
"Glad you guys made it back," John said as he approached Edvin and Taylor who stood near the truck, eating the stale cereal bars they'd found on their hunt.
"Almost walked right into a horde of Howlers when we tried to leave the shop. Had to bunker down for the night 'til they moved on," Edvin explained as he chewed his flavorless breakfast.
John nodded passively at Edvin's words as he glanced over in Harley's direction, still struggling to understand why he'd been given the cold shoulder.
"Here, eat," Taylor insisted as he held out a wrapped cereal bar, drawing John's attention back to the present.
"Thanks," he said, accepting the questionable food.
Harley was terrified, although she did her best to hide it. She and John had crossed a line, a line for which there was no going back. How things would play out between them moving forward was a giant, looming question mark. She felt unsafe. Her heart was out in the open like an exposed nerve with which even the slightest draft could inflame. Harley didn't trust herself not to fuck everything up with the endless bombardment of baggage she dragged with her wherever she went.
Perhaps she was only looking for an excuse to prove what had happened between her and John had been a horrible mistake. Pull out the splinter before it festers . .
Harley's thoughts were seized when from the corner of her eye she saw John walking toward her. She stiffened up and brushed her hair behind her ears, feeling acutely uncomfortable.
John crouched down to Harley's level with a cereal bar for her in his hand, "You said you were hungry"
Harley tore her gaze away from Rebel just long enough to accept the food. She could feel John's eyes on her but couldn't bring herself to look at the man she'd just spent the night with.
John was about to speak but was distracted when from above, he heard the cacophonous sound of fast moving, heavy water drops ting noisily against the tin roof. The sound increased in volume and echoed through the vast, empty space of the warehouse, and everyone inside flinched when a rumbling crack of thunder boomed angrily above their heads.
"Thunderstorm, great. Just what we need," Edvin grumbled, clearly fed up with running into problems around every corner.
●
Despite the increasingly aggressive weather outside, the group decided that they needed to keep moving. No one could predict how long the storm might last and they weren't willing to delay their journey any longer than necessary.
After loading up what little food and gear they had left, the small group of survivors rolled out of the warehouse in the large truck, deciding it was wiser they stick together in just one vehicle.
Driving the truck was John, who insisted he take the wheel as neither Taylor nor Edvin had slept during their night at the gas station. Harley sat in the back beside Taylor and behind John, who she caught glancing through his center rear view mirror at her, as if he were looking for an answer in the curves of her expressions, or lack thereof as was the case.
As the group emerged from the warehouse they were greeted by an obtrusive and assailing downpour that pounded against the outer shell of the vehicle and made it difficult to distinguish the landscape through their wet, distorted windows.
John turned the windshield wipers up to full speed, but his sight was still restricted.
The clouds above the city hung impossibly low, dark and heavy with the promise of at least a full day's storm. Harley had always loved thunderstorms. She was soothed by the sound of rain, cracking thunder and the smell of damp earth. Of the group, she was the only one who could appreciate the beauty hidden in such tempestuous weather.
As John rounded a corner on Edvin's request, the truck and its occupants emerged onto a street which sat adjacent to a small park. It was just then that the group witnessed something they had never seen before.
Incredibly, there was a large group of screamers in the long, unkempt grass, some shuffling around on their hands and knees, and others dragging along on their stomachs, rooting through the grass in a frenzy.
"What are they doing?" Taylor asked as he looked curiously out the window.
Edvin leaned forward to get a better view, "Worms. . They're eating the worms," he said incredulously as he watched the sickly creatures feast upon thick, juicy earthworms, who had wriggled their way out of the ground to escape the wet, saturated soil.
It seemed that even when everything else that made a human, human had been stripped away, the inherent opportunist in man would always remain.
"They aren't interested in us at all," Taylor observed as the truck moved slowly up the wet street.
John replied, "I don't think they can hear us with all this rain"
The group of four watched the pitiful beasts devour their squirmy meals as the truck moved forward until eventually, the park was no longer in sight.
Guided by Edvin, John drove through the abandoned streets of North Sydney for close to an hour before Edvin uttered the words John had been waiting to hear since his entire mission had begun.
"There it is, the CDC," Edvin pointed out the windshield toward a large, brick building that was surrounded by a tall, chain link fence.
It had been a harrowing journey from Perth to Sydney. People had been lost and lives had been irrevocably altered on the mission to get to where they were going. All of it, the fear, the pain, the joy had led to precisely that moment.
Just up ahead in the distance stood the grey, brick building that John, and everyone else had fought so desperately just to see.
He drove the truck onto a cracked, concrete driveway and pulled up to a tall, chain link gate. In unison, everyone exited the vehicle and walked over to a bulky, square intercom system that stood alone next to the fence. Despite being assaulted by rain and quickly becoming soaked, the group stood still and quiet as they gazed at the com box. All of them understood the significance of the moment.
Harley and John briefly locked eyes, seeing the same duplicitous emotions in one another. They were nervous about what lie ahead, but also excited and deeply afraid.
As the rain continued to beat down on the foursome, John reached out and pressed the call button that would alert anyone inside to the group's presence.
They waited nervously, watching and listening for any sign of life.
A couple of painfully slow moments went by, but the group received no reply.
Harley stepped forward, pressing on the button again, but again, the call remained unanswered.
No one was willing to say out loud what everyone was thinking. The CDC couldn't be abandoned, not after everything they'd been through.
Utterly drenched, the group stood silently staring through the gate at the building before them, seeing no movement and no hint to what might dwell within its walls. They were momentarily frozen, unsure of what to do next.
Harley suddenly broke free of the group and began walking alongside the fence, searching for another way in.
She padded through the long grass as the rain poured down on her tiny frame, making her shiver. Then she saw it, "Here!" Harley shouted, prompting the men to catch up to her.
Once there, Harley pointed to a gaping hole in the fence, which looked as if it had been clipped open with wire cutters. She wasted no time climbing through it and into the grounds of the facility. She was immediately followed by John, Edvin and Taylor.
A monstrous crack of thunder rumbled so loudly that the group could feel the reverberation in their feet as they walked. It wasn't long before they noticed several decomposing corpses scattered about in the long grass, but they ignored what they saw and kept moving forward.
The group cautiously approached the side of the building in order to catch a glimpse inside through one of the many dirty windows. Peering through, the foursome were stricken by what they saw.
Inside of what appeared to be a sizeable laboratory, there meandered a large group of screamers. It was easy to distinguish that some of the infected inside the room had, at one time, been scientists as they wore the tattered and bloody remains of what used to be lab coats. Some of the sickly creatures hobbled slowly on boney legs, while others sat slumped against the walls and tables that shaped the room.
Harley, John, Edvin and Taylor slowly backed away from the window before any of the screamers had an opportunity to see them watching from outside. The rain continued to shower down upon the despondent group as Edvin spoke solemnly, "There's no one here"
They felt as if they were suddenly lost out in space with no cord to keep them tethered to something tangible. There was nothing around to reach out for, nothing to stop them from drifting aimlessly into a dark, vast emptiness. They suddenly felt so small and vulnerable in the world. They were lost, adrift at sea with no sun or stars to point them in the right direction.
"We should go," Taylor suggested as he brought his forearm up to wipe the rain drops from his brow before they could fall into his eyes.
Soaked and defeated, everyone began walking back toward the fence, their hearts heavy and heads hung low.
John was indescribably crushed. Up until that point he believed with every fiber of his being that the universe had guided him to Harley, that he was meant to help her get to the CDC, and that once he had, everything else would simply fall into place. That was his mission. That was his fate. How could he have been so, horribly wrong?
As the men trudged through the shaggy grass, Harley legged behind, looking back at the building and hoping it would suddenly transform into what everyone wanted it to be; into what John wanted it to be. She wished he'd been right just then, because seeing that look of hopelessness written across his features was more than Harley could bare. She felt to blame for giving John a sense of hope and then squashing it. What would he do now without his hope? What was he without it?
Harley felt rocks in the pit of her stomach as she scanned her surroundings once more, and it was at precisely that moment that something caught her eye.
She veered off course, heading toward the opposite side of the building to where a few cars still sat in a ghostly car park. On the pavement she saw what appeared to be black spray paint, but she couldn't decipher it as there were two soggy corpses lying lifelessly on top of the etching. As she bent down and grabbed one of the corpses by the ankle to move it, she heard John yell from across the field, "Harley!?"
His voice was muffled by the constant thrumming of rain as it beat down on the landscape. She looked up and shouted back, "I see something!"
Suddenly there sounded the vicious crash of glass shattering and everyone looked to see a horde of screamers tumbling out of one of the windows. The feral creatures had heard life outside their cages and broke free.
"Harley, run!" All the guys yelled as they reached into their pockets and pulled out their guns.
Harley saw the screamers coming for her, but she had to see what was under those bodies. She wrenched the first corpse away from the paint as quickly as she could, then ran to the other and grunted as she rolled it over into its back. Harley stepped back to read the message just before the sound of gunfire broke her from her concentration.
"Harley! Move your ass!" Edvin roared.
She looked up to see the pack of screamers sprinting toward her, their jaws unhinged as they squealed like rabid hyenas. Another shot blasted, echoing from all around as Harley turned heel and dashed over to where the guys stood with their guns aimed.
As quickly as she caught up, the four of them ran desperately to the hole in the fence where they had entered and climbed back through. They rushed back to the truck, climbing in and slamming their doors just as the horde of infected reached the fence and began to claw their way past one another, each trying to get through the gap first.
Edvin started the truck, put the shifter to reverse and stomped on the gas pedal, causing the vehicle to lurch backwards until there was enough room to turn around. The screamers dashed toward the truck as it moved, but once Edvin could turn around, he pressed the gas pedal to the floor and the hefty truck easily mowed down the hideous infected in its way.
The foursome were drenched, frozen and winded as the vehicle sped away from the CDC and all its despair.
John looked over to Harley, who sat next to him in the back seat, "What did you see back there?" He asked, still out of breath.
"Writing, but it didn't make any sense," she replied as she brushed soaked strands of hair away from her forehead.
Edvin glanced back at Harley, "What did it say?"
"Cockatoo Is?. . I don't know what that's supposed to mean," Harley replied, shaking her head.
It was quiet amongst the four travellers for a few moments before Edvin's excited voice broke the silence, "Island! Cockatoo Island!"