by Mira Grant
“They’ll have to go in again later for the fresh one, but that can wait a bit,” said Jack, sounding perplexed.
I paused, assessing his tone and comparing it to the scene that was still fresh in my mind. Then I glanced to both the nearest sniper towers, finding them empty. That was the final piece I needed to complete a most unpleasant puzzle, one which left me with a question I didn’t want to ask, but needed to have answered:
“None of the guards fired that shot,” I said. “Who did?”
Jack and Olivia exchanged a look across me, and then shook their heads in semi-unison.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Jack.
3.
It was late, and we had all had a long day. After the crowd dispersed and the guards retook their places in the sniper towers, the four of us returned to our respective hotel rooms to try and get some sleep before the sun rose and brought a whole new host of problems with it. Jack was asleep virtually as soon as his head hit the pillow, filling our shared room with the deep, mellow sound of his snoring.
Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t bring myself to join him in dreamland. Hours upon hours of jet lag–induced napping were finally catching up with me, and I found myself wide awake when I most wanted to be unconscious. The hotel had a decent wireless signal, and so I occupied myself for the better part of an hour with the inevitable daily business of the site. When I found myself deleting spam from the public forums—something that was normally reserved for junior moderators, and was certainly outside my job description—I closed my laptop and pushed it firmly away. If I wasn’t going to get any sleep, I could find something better to do with myself.
Like look at the fence where the temporary corral had been constructed. That had to be an interesting piece of engineering, especially since the locals had been so calm about the whole process. Everyone I knew would have been far more upset about seeing their only protection from a mob of zombie kangaroos being breached. These people had treated it like a show, something to be enjoyed while it was happening and forgotten afterward. That mode of thought was alien to me. I needed to learn more.
Quietly, so as not to wake Jack, I retrieved my coat from the back of the door and shrugged it on before slipping out of the room and heading down the stairs to the empty lobby. There was a desk, but it was unmanned, and had been since our arrival; our keys had been waiting for us in an envelope beneath the blotter. I stepped outside, pausing to give my eyes a moment to adjust. There were streetlights, but they were brightest near the rabbit-proof fence, presumably to allow the locals to get some sleep.
The second kangaroo was gone, I noted, and the mob that had been attacking earlier had scattered, leaving the land on the other side of the fence deceptively calm and empty. I walked cautiously toward it, waiting for something to loom out of the tall grass and attack. Nothing moved.
I stopped when I was a few feet from the fence, studying the Plexiglas as I looked for the bloodstains that would mark the spot of the earlier attack. I couldn’t find them. Whoever had removed the dead kangaroo’s remains had taken the time to hose down the fence itself. I looked up at the nearest sniper tower and was somewhat relieved to see that it was currently manned by a pair of guards with rifles. I was less relieved to realize that one of them was watching me, and while he didn’t have his rifle trained on me, there was something about his posture that implied he could be aiming at me with very little effort on his part.
“You shouldn’t stare at the snipers,” said Juliet blandly. “They’re allowed to shoot humans with minimal paperwork, and some of them do.”
“That’s charming. Yes, I like this place better already.” I turned. Our pilot was standing behind me, still fully clothed, sunglasses firmly in place over her eyes. “How do they keep those towers manned? I saw two of them empty earlier.”
She shrugged. “They don’t, always. Only one tower in three is manned most hours, and they rotate which it is.”
I stared at her for a moment before pinching the bridge of my nose. “Of course. This is Australia. It would make too much sense for the towers to be manned all the time. Let’s move on. What are you doing out here?”
“I don’t sleep well when I’m this close to the fence,” said Juliet. “Never have, never will. I know it’s not dangerous—not the way all my training tells me it is—but that doesn’t change the part where I’m sitting next to the world’s largest zombie holding pen. It makes my flesh crawl.”
“Ah.” I glanced back to the fence, and the empty land beyond it, before returning my attention to Juliet. “You’re from Canada, right?”
“I am,” she said, with a nod. “My family’s from Newfoundland, and I was born in Toronto, since they had to evacuate with everyone else during the Rising. I never liked the city much, and I didn’t have the drive for the news or the social skills for the armed forces. So I went into aviation. Used to fly supply planes across Canada while I looked for something better.”
“Australia was your ‘something better’?”
For the first time since I’d met her, a small smile creased Juliet’s lips. “Still is,” she said. “This is the country I’ve been dreaming of since I was six years old. It’s a lot like the stories my grandfather used to tell about Newfoundland.”
What little I knew about Newfoundland described a frozen, rain-drenched stretch of land that had been abandoned during the Rising partially because the infrastructure to defend it simply wasn’t there anymore. I looked at Juliet dubiously.
She shook her head. “I know, the climates are nothing alike, but I was going on stories, not real experience. A land so wild that it could swallow you up in an instant, and a sea that was like a story no one ever finished telling. That’s what Granddad always said about Newfoundland. That no one could ever go there without saying, ‘Oh, how green this land, oh, how blue this sea; I must have lived a very good life to be allowed to come to such a paradise.’” The faint smile slipped from her lips as she continued, “I signed up for a dating service that was meant to connect Australians with foreigners interested in immigration the day after he died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He missed his home, and I like to think that he made it back there in some form after he died.” Juliet turned her attention to the fence. “One of our friends is back.”
“Hmm?” I scanned the land behind the chain link, looking in vain for something that wasn’t a clump of grass or scrubby tree. I was starting to think that Juliet had simply been trying to change the subject when what I had taken for a small hill took a single cautious hop forward. “Well, would you look at that.”
“Immature red kangaroo,” said Juliet. “Probably too small to have amplified yet, although it’s hard to tell at this sort of distance.”
“Are they afraid of people before they amplify?”
“I’m not the one to ask,” she said. “I avoid them as much as I can, and they return the favor when I see them outside the fence. The noninfected tend to be skittish, and the infected…well, you can see why I’d try to keep out of their way.”
“Yes,” I agreed, and watched as the kangaroo made its way to the fence, where it bent forward and started digging in the grass with its forepaws. “They’re herbivores, aren’t they?”
“They are. I’ve done feeding runs past the fence a few times—fly out, dump a payload of fodder, fly back. It’s safe as houses, but it still makes me nervous, so I only do it when I really need the money.”
“Or when you’re trying to convince yourself that you don’t need any more excitement in your life,” said Olivia. Somehow I wasn’t surprised to hear her voice. She walked over and stood beside me. She was wearing a long blue nightgown with purple lace around the neckline, and no shoes. It was warm enough that she wasn’t even shivering as she directed a grin across me to Juliet. “He misses you, you know. I bet you crazy kids could patch things up, especially since you’ve still got his name on your license and ID. He’s the sort of bloke who tak
es that as a statement of undying love.”
“Because I want to go through that whole stupid circus again? No, thank you.” Juliet scowled at Olivia. “I have my plane, I have my work, and he has my blessing to go off and do whatever dumb-arse thing he wants to.”
I couldn’t help myself: I burst out laughing. Both women slowly turned to face me, Olivia openly staring, Juliet’s lips narrowing into a hard line that probably meant she was trying to kill me with her eyes. That didn’t stop the laughter. If anything, it made me laugh harder, bending almost double and clutching my stomach as I tried to make it stop.
“What’s so funny?” asked Juliet.
“It’s just…oh, God.” I managed to get myself back under control and straightened, removing my glasses with one hand and wiping my eyes with the other. As I scrubbed the lenses against my shirt, I said, “You reminded me so much of some friends of mine just now that I felt like I was falling backward through time, that’s all. Shaun and Georgia used to have arguments just like that about whether or not Georgia belonged in the field. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Apology accepted,” said Juliet, in a stiff tone that implied the exact opposite. She turned to Olivia. “He’s your tourist. You keep an eye on him. I’m going back to bed.” She spun on her heel and stalked away, heading back toward our hotel.
“Well, that went splendidly,” I said, any urge to keep laughing dying. “Do you think she’ll push me out of the plane while it’s in flight, or will she land somewhere and abandon me to the native wildlife? I suppose either option would be fatal, so it’s mostly a question of how merciful she wants to be.”
“Aw, don’t mind Julie,” said Olivia. “She’s just having a rough patch. She and Jack will sort things out before we’re done here, you’ll see.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How can you be so sure?”
“She’s not the only pilot who does this run is how,” she said. “If Juliet didn’t want to see her ex, she wouldn’t have taken the charter.”
“Ah.” I looked back toward the fence. Our friend the kangaroo was still there, scrubbing about in the dirt. “How did they get the second kangaroo out?”
“Not a clue. Weren’t we going to visit the biological containment facility tomorrow? They’ll be able to answer any questions you ha—”
She was cut off midsyllable by the sound of a gunshot ringing out of nowhere. I flinched, looking to the sniper tower, and froze as I realized that they looked as confused and dismayed as I felt. They hadn’t been responsible for firing that shot. I turned toward the other visible tower and saw the same confusion reflected in the body language of the distant guards. I didn’t need to see their faces to know that they were not the shooters.
“Mahir, look,” said Olivia, sounding horrified.
I turned, already half suspecting what I was about to see. The young kangaroo was no longer grubbing for roots among the grass near the fence. Instead, it was puddled in a heap of limp muscle and grayish fur, eyes still open and staring at nothing. There was a wound in the side of its neck, blood soaking through the fur and grass. The poor thing wouldn’t be reviving from the Kellis-Amberlee virus. Not even a disease that raises the dead can get reanimate a body that hasn’t got any blood in it.
The snipers hadn’t been responsible for shooting the second kangaroo earlier, either. Someone was killing the kangaroos inside the fence, and although I was coming to understand Australia more with every moment that passed, I had no earthly idea why.
4.
The snipers eventually dispatched a guard to check me and Olivia for weapons—we were both armed, of course, but neither of us had fired a gun within the past twenty-four hours, something which a simple residue swab quickly confirmed—before sending us back to our hotel with strict instructions to stay indoors until the sun came up.
There was a time when I would have stormed back to my room, prepared to write a scathing editorial about mismanagement of natural resources and poor security. Time has been kind to my temper, and has given me the ability to see when patience is the best possible answer to a bad situation. I went to my bed, crawled beneath the covers, and forced myself to be still. Given enough time, stillness would deepen into sleep, no matter how awake I was.
I don’t know how long it took for that miraculous transition to occur, but my dreams were filled with kangaroos hurling themselves endlessly at a fence, and it was impossible to know in the dream whether the kangaroos were sick and trying to break down the fence to reach their prey, or whether they were fleeing from some greater danger. It was almost a relief when the sunlight struck my face and brought me, gasping and only half rested, back into the waking world.
Jack was standing over me, the curtain still grasped in the hand he had used to wrench it open. “Up you get, Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “You must not have many hobbies, given how much time you spend passed out.”
“I have a small child,” I said, sitting up and yawning. “Sleep is a precious thing and should not be spurned when it’s available to you. What time is it?”
“A little past eight,” he said. “I’ve been up for an hour. Had my jog, had my shower, and the girls are getting breakfast on the table for us at the café down the block.”
I frowned, reaching for my glasses. “You lost me somewhere in the middle of that sentence. Did they take over the kitchen of the café?”
“No, they’re just putting in orders for all four of us. Juliet and I are going back to the airfield so I can help her with maintenance and refueling, and Olivia said that the two of you are going to visit the biological containment facility, which sounds like it should be nicely nonhazardous.” Jack beamed beatifically. “I couldn’t leave if there was a chance that you were going to do something exciting in my absence.”
“Of course not,” I said dryly. “Where’s the shower?”
“Down the hall.”
“Lovely. And where’s the café?”
“Down the block. If you turn left when you step out the door, you can’t possibly miss it.”
“Even lovelier. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Good on you. I’d be fast if I were you—there’s a good chance I’ll eat your potatoes if you’re not there before I get bored.” Jack winked before he turned and left the room.
“Irwins,” I muttered, and moved to dig around in my suitcase. It’s bad to make general statements about groups of people—there are always exceptions, and those exceptions are likely to be offended if they hear you generalizing about them—but every Irwin I’d ever met had been gifted with a tendency toward overacting even when the cameras were off, just in case someone was spying on them while they were going about their daily lives. Shaun Mason was the same way. So was Becks. It made sense, especially given their place in the blogging world, but it could get tiring.
The shower was unoccupied, which was a blessing, and the hot water was plentiful, which made up for the hotel soap, which seemed determined to remove the top three layers of my skin before I was finished bathing. To my surprise, there was no bleach cycle—just water. Feeling clean but slightly contaminated, I pulled my clothes on and made my way down the stairs to the still-empty lobby. There was no sign that anyone had been through there since our arrival. I paused to frown at the desk. It was starting to feel like we were being put up in a false hotel, rather than a real one; there should have been an irritated clerk, at the very least, someone to glower at us when we came and went at odd hours, and to demand clean blood tests before allowing us to have any extra towels.
“Now who’s trying to turn Australia into a theme park?” I muttered, chuckling to myself as I stepped out of the hotel and got my first view of the nameless little town in the daylight.
It wasn’t much more impressive than it had been at night—darkness doesn’t change details like size very much, not when it’s beaten back by streetlights and crowds—but the overall maintenance of the place was much more apparent. The buildings were painted in neutral c
olors not because the paint had faded from something brighter, but because neutrals had been chosen from the beginning. The individually fenced yards were still somewhat jarring, and yet they were offset by more visibly secure front doors, and by what looked like self-latching hinge mechanisms on the gates. One press of a button and those houses could lock down as tight as anything else in the world.
The sidewalks were mostly deserted, although a few people wandered by as I studied my surroundings. They were split roughly down the middle between civilians and guards. Only the guards openly carried rifles, although some of the civilians had small handguns or pistols. In the event of an uprising, the civilian population would inevitably lose.
With this cheering thought in mind, I turned, following Jack’s directions halfway down the block, at which point the smell of freshly baked croissants made directions unnecessary. I followed my nose the rest of the way to a small café that would not have looked out of place in London. The door was standing open, and the voices of my traveling companions carried out into the street: Olivia, laughing, voice half garbled by a mouthful of something; Jack, louder and more boisterous, trying to prove something, if his tone was anything to go by; and Juliet, quiet, audible only because her words somehow fell into the space between his. I couldn’t understand a thing they were saying, and I didn’t need to. The sound of them was quite enough.
I paused at the door, smiling a small, private smile. It wasn’t meant to be shared, because it would have required too much explanation. I hadn’t traveled with a team since the last time I went to North America—the last time I saw Shaun Mason in the flesh. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it.
“Did you save me anything?” I asked, finally stepping inside.
“He lives!” Jack thrust his hands into the air, grinning ear to ear. “There’s pancakes and toast and oatmeal and fried egg and fried tomato and fried mushroom and croissant with cheese. Sit down and stuff your face.”