Desolation Boulevard Read Free

and slumped onto a nearby bench and let her
head drop to her knees. For a minute or more she didn’t move. Then,
gradually, she felt her senses return and she plucked up the
courage to take stock of her desperate situation. Without standing,
she lifted her head and surveyed the street.
    Nobody had appeared while her head had been
down and not a single person entered her field of vision as she sat
forlornly on the bench. Where there would normally be throngs of
shoppers, or people heading to cafés for breakfast, there was no
one. She tried to think. She needed an explanation, so she began to
formulate an idea that might help her maintain some level of sanity
until this situation resolved itself (which, she rationalised, it
surely would). Perhaps during the night some major catastrophe had
befallen the city and she had somehow slept through it. And maybe
because her phone battery was flat and her mother wasn’t home she
had no way of finding out about it. On the surface this explanation
worked. For about one second! Then Sally’s intellect and common
sense kicked in and she found all of the flaws in that hypothesis.
Firstly, if there was a major disaster and everybody had been
evacuated or told to stay indoors surely there would be some kind
of news report or emergency broadcast to tell people what they
needed to do. Secondly, it was beyond belief that Sally could
possibly sleep through some kind of government action that would
remove everybody from the streets in one night. Thirdly, how on
earth would it even be possible to evacuate an entire city? Sally
couldn’t think straight. She needed to find somebody who knew what
was happening. She started to walk.

Chapter 3
     
    The road to town only ever received light
traffic, but today it was absolutely deserted, so Matt pushed the
ute right up to the speed limit. He noticed with alarm that there
were no other cars on the road. As he approached a bend that went
past the Thompson’s farm, he slowed down and pulled onto the gravel
shoulder. He peered down their driveway and could see both of their
cars parked in front of the house, which meant that somebody was
home. Matt wondered if they had the same problems with their
electricity and phones as he did. It wouldn’t hurt to check with
them first before driving all the way into town. He turned into
their driveway.
    As the car rolled to a stop near the house
Matt looked around. Nothing moved and the only sound he heard was a
bird chirping somewhere nearby. He called out. “Hello! Anybody
home?” but was met with only silence. He walked up onto the porch
and knocked on the front door, which elicited no response, so he
knocked again. “Hello?” he yelled, more loudly this time. Nobody
was going to answer the door, he realised, so headed around to the
back of the house. A large swimming pool dominated the yard close
to the house, and Matt could see that the French doors, which led
into the kitchen, were open. On a table beside the pool was a half
finished bottle of beer and a green cocktail of some sort, also
half finished. Matt figured they had been left behind last night
after the couple had gone to bed. He thought it seemed a little out
of character for Mrs Thompson not to have cleaned them up by now,
judging by the tidiness in the rest of the house. He went to the
French doors and tried again. “Hello? Hello?” But there was still
no answer, so he stepped into the kitchen.
    Matt looked around and thought that it was
possible they just gone into town, or were visiting friends, but he
didn’t really think it very likely, given that their cars were in
the driveway and the back doors were left open. He didn’t like this
situation at all. He took the cell phone out of his pocket and
checked for service again. If he had reception, he needed to speak
to someone before he explored the house any further. The readout on
his phone was blunt and foreboding: “No Service”.
    He checked all of the downstairs rooms
quickly, and