I felt completely lost. Unaware of where I was, until he spoke again.
“I think we should get inside and see what we can find. I’m hoping they might have working communication and some food. And it’s proper shelter—we can’t stay in the truck unless we keep the engine running.” He jumped down from the cab, and a moment later he was opening my door.
“Here,” he said, holding out a hand to help me down. As soon as we began to move I felt weak and dizzy. I leaned on him and gulped air, trying not to be sick.
“So why are we here?” I asked.
He paused, shrugged. “Best place I could think of. Besides, there aren’t many places to go out this way.”
That was true; I remembered as much from the tour. The religious order that built the convent had made it deliberately inaccessible, much farther removed from civilization than it was nowadays. There was only one road leading up to the building, which ran in a loop all around it. Other than that it was just flat compacted sand that merged into low-lying bushland in the distance.
I had a vague memory of our car being parked on a nearby patch of dirt, and us trying to corral the kids into it. Jake running off and chasing a flock of cockatoos that had been pecking at the empty red earth; the way he laughed at their indignant shrieks as they took to the safety of the skies. I hadn’t thought I’d be here again. It was one of those out-of-the-way, empty places there was no need to visit more than once. A tick in a box. No reason to suspect I would ever be back.
I found I was trembling, and I wasn’t sure whether it was from the fear of the unknown or the intangibility of those memories. There was something horribly wrong. I didn’t want this to be all I had.
I needed to understand what had happened. “What makes you think it was a bomb?”
Again he took his time to reply. “I was in the army for a long time. Warfare is changing. There’s something about this—I think it might be some kind of EMP.”
“What’s that?”
“Electromagnetic pulse. Knocks out everything electrical—though supposedly without damage to human life.” He frowns. “Whatever. If I’m right, it’ll cause chaos.”
“That’s why our phones don’t work?”
“Yes—if I’m right.”
“My car didn’t work either—how come your truck does?”
“The newer ones rely far more on electronics.”
As we drew closer to the building we were overseen by the grotesques: carved stone devils with forked wings that stared down from each quarter, eyes forever open in horror. Last time I had been fascinated, taking photographs from every angle. Today I couldn’t bear to look at them. From high above they watched us, and I wondered if we were the only moving specks they could see in acres of deserted scrub.
Eventually we reached the building. There was no sign of anyone. I immediately noticed that the windows were still intact, but there was only darkness behind them. To the left of the main building I could make out the muted colors of the stained glass in the chapel.
While I sat on the uppermost step, my companion tried the door. When he found it locked, he peered through a small windowpane, then looked around, grabbed a weighty stone planter, and hurled it through the glass. The noise shattered the small peace I had found, and I began to shake again.
“Sorry,” he said as he picked me up. He carried me as easily as a child, and I was uncomfortably aware of how strong he was, and how much I was at his mercy. He took me down a wide dark hallway and I saw the open double doors of the chapel ahead. “Lie here,” he said, setting me down on a pew with a long cushion on top of it. “I’ll go and explore, try to find us some food.”
I closed my eyes as I leaned against the rough cushions, trying to will the strength back into my body. A bomb, he had said. I couldn’t fathom it: our country wasn’t at war. Then I remembered that war took different forms nowadays—declared faster than a snap of your fingers, in schools, at sporting events, in business districts and holiday resorts. The news had been so serious for a long time, more and more soldiers deployed overseas, but we had heard it all so regularly that it was just Muzak, a background hum I had learned to accommodate without any thought at all.
Perhaps there had been a bomb.
If that was the case, I consoled myself, we lived out in suburbia. We weren’t near any of the city’s landmarks, where surely such a thing would be detonated for maximum effect.
But I could barely stand up, and I had been an hour away from the city.
Where was everyone else? What was left?
I had a moment of terror as I flashed forward to another life. No trips to the park or the beach. No ice creams or bedtime stories.
I looked at the images above me, saints held suspended in the stained glass like insects in amber. And even though I didn’t believe in God, I found myself praying to them. Then I lay there for a long time, wondering what else I could do. Perhaps, if I was quiet and still enough, and closed my eyes long enough, perhaps it would all go away.
But after a while the cushions were just too hard and scratchy, and no matter how I twisted and wriggled I couldn’t find comfort. It seemed so long since I’d been left there that I began to imagine the man had gone, and I was on my own.
There was a statue at the front of the chapel, of Mary looking down at baby Jesus bouncing on her knee, blissfully unaware that centuries of peace and war were held in each of those chubby fists. I felt I had interrupted them, that at any moment Mary might look up and catch my eye with her stony ones, and I would feel her judgment of me for the way I had left my children that morning.
I held tight to the seat in front of me, and wondered how close I was to hallucinating.
I had to get out of there.
I pulled myself up and staggered along using the backs of the benches for support, finding that some of my strength had returned. I pushed open the chapel doors and saw it was much lighter in the long corridor that ran the whole length of the convent. I fought the urge to count the black and white tiles as I stepped on them, and could hear Graeme’s voice in my head, telling me it was like some kind of OCD. Laughing. Now I believed him, and it wasn’t funny.
As I walked I could hear my rescuer’s voice coming from a room farther down, and the only thing that stopped me from calling out was the repetition of numbers under my breath.
“Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one…”
At twenty-two I was next to the door. It wasn’t closed, and I leaned in closer to try to hear what was being said, sure that he would have heard my tread on the tiles. Another terrifying thought occurred to me: that my life was in this stranger’s hands.
I should have asked his name.
“…one other survivor,” I heard him say. There was a pause, as though he could be listening, and then he continued. “We’re at the Newman convent. One hundred and twenty kilometers from the city.” Another pause. “Just over two hours to drive…”
I watched him through the space between the door’s hinges, keeping as still as I possibly could. But his senses were keener than a cat’s. He turned, and I saw he had what looked like a walkie-talkie in his hand, except it had a wire connecting it to a large complex piece of black machinery with numerous dials and buttons.
There was no point in hiding, so I pushed open the door.
“What is that?” I asked him.
“High-frequency radio. I’m trying to broadcast, but no response so far.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure.” As I came closer he played with a few of the buttons, then handed me the mouthpiece.
I held it up to my lips, unsure.
“Say something.”
I tried a tentative “Hello?”, but there was nothing. I handed it back. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“It’s okay, I can’t find anyone anyway. We can keep trying—”
“What’s your name?” I interrupted.
“Alastair—call me Al. Yours?”
“Beatrice. Do you have family in t
he city?”
“I have a wife—but we’re separated. And you?”
“A husband. A boy and a girl. Only six and four.”
I couldn’t say any more. I needed to stay calm.
He made no move to comfort me. There was nowhere for me to sit down. I leaned against the wall and watched him try the radio again, repeating the same words I had heard earlier, with the same pauses. No reply, and yet I still felt as though he had been talking to someone that first time I heard him.
Eventually, he stood up. “I’ll try again later.” He caught my eye. “Are you hungry? I found the kitchen earlier.”
“Not really,” I replied. “But I know I should eat. Can we find somewhere else to go? Not the chapel.”
“Sure. I’ll come back and check the radio in a while.”
I followed him out of the room, and we peered through doorways until we found a spacious office with a couple of two-seater sofas against the walls. I moved to one and lay down again. Al went out and came back with a half-full package of cookies, some sodas, and chips. “There’s not too much here, but they have got a vending machine.”
“I think there’s a cafe in one of the outbuildings,” I murmured.
“Okay, we’ll find that if we need to. You must have been here before then?”
“Yes, once.” I pushed back the memories. Sat up to try to eat but nothing much appealed.
As I nibbled my way through a couple of cookies, Al asked, “May I help you?”
“What do you mean?”
He had been perched on a swivel chair, and used his legs to propel it across the room so he was behind me. I felt his fingers moving close to my head.
“What are you doing?”
“You have a lot of glass in your hair.”
I let him work methodically, removing small shards and putting them on the desk until there was a minuscule pile that glittered in the twilight.
“How long are we going to wait here?” I said to the air in front of me.
His fingers didn’t pause; I could feel him running them through sections of my hair. I knew he was checking that he’d gotten all those tiny daggers out, but it was oddly intimate. I could feel his breath on my neck, and I shivered.
I thought of Graeme. Wondered whether he was dead somewhere while I had this stranger’s hands in my hair. Was I betraying him with this moment? These fingertips? My existence?
That morning my husband had been wearing his old navy jumper with the burgundy stripe along the collar, and the jeans with the hole in the knee, because he was about to work in the garden. Yes, there he was, brought back to me. Not gone.
But as soon as I opened my eyes he vanished, and the longing was unbearable.
“I don’t think I can go back,” Al was saying, and I returned to the present, remembering my question. He talked slowly, as though carefully choosing each word. “I’ve seen so much already. Too much. You try to put up a wall, but it changes you. Warps you.” Another pause, as he added yet another red-stained sliver of glass to the small pile. “That’s why I left the army. I’ve struggled for a long time to integrate—to try to be “normal”—whatever that is. I’m sorry, but I lied earlier. I told you I drove around for an hour, but it was more like five minutes. I saw no people, but I did see a pair of legs. They were sticking out from behind a car, spread apart, so still that I had flashes of what I might find—flashbacks to things I’ve already seen. At that point I turned around, headed away, and found you.”
“I know a little bit about it,” I told him. “My dad’s a veteran.” It was the first time I’d thought of my dad in a while. I prayed he hadn’t gone to the city. But if that were the case—if he had returned home to smashed windows, a cellar of smithereens and my empty car—what would he have made of that? I should have left him a note, but in my shock it had never occurred to me.
Al hadn’t responded, so I tried again. “What did you do in the army?”
“I was in a special unit—lots of bomb disposal.” He made a strange noise, like a snort. Took a deep breath. “And I knew how to lay a bomb, too. We did plenty of that. We went all over the place—Middle East mainly. Most of us came back, but a few didn’t.”
“And what have you done since?”
“Deliveries in the truck. I like being on the road, keeping moving, not having to talk to anyone. Do you work?”
“I’m an accountant. Well, I was before the kids. Haven’t gone back to it yet.”
“Offices make me feel claustrophobic,” he said. Before I could say more, he moved his chair away. “I think you’re done.”
“Thank you.”
I lay down again, only intending to close my eyes for a moment, but when I opened them again the room was darkening and Al had gone.
I sat up, going straight into panic mode, unsure what to do. But before I made a decision, he came back into the room, making me jump since I hadn’t heard his footsteps.
There were conflicting emotions running over his face. “I made contact,” he said. “There has been a bomb, and I’m right about chaos. Most people are walking wounded, but they’re asking everyone to head to the sports stadium for a head count. It’s also a base for reconnecting people.”
Walking wounded? Those two words and my world opened up again with possibilities. Immediately reenergized, I jumped up. “I have to go.”
“I thought you might say that. That’s where your family will be. If…” He stopped, as though considering something. “…if you think you can drive, you can borrow my truck.”
“Really? Thank you!” Instinctively I moved to hug him, then saw the strange look on his face and stopped short.
He turned away, walked toward the window. “It’s getting dark. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay until morning?”
I thought of spending more hours waiting there, knowing nothing. It would be unbearable. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather go now. I’ll bring the truck back in the morning, when I’ve found Graeme and the kids.” I paused. “But what if it takes longer than that? Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got communications up now; I’ll let someone know to pick me up. Come on.”
It was strange setting off on a journey without even taking a bag. Al collected up some more of the cookies and snacks. “Let’s put these in with you.” We went through the dim corridors, out into silent twilight. No birdsong out there tonight—not even the chirrup of crickets to counteract the loneliness.
At the truck he handed me the keys. “Here you go. There should be enough fuel, but be careful. The lights will be out in the city. Keep moving, or you’ll probably attract unwanted attention. Are you sure you want to go now?”
“Yes. Are you certain you don’t want to come with me?”
“Not in the dark. Probably not even in the light.”
I climbed up into the cab, and before he shut the door he grabbed my arm. His grip was hard enough to make me startle. I had to fight the urge to pull away, but when I found his eyes he was smiling.
“Thank you,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I relaxed. “I should be thanking you.”
He smiled. “I mean for the company.”
He waited while I started the engine and turned on the lights. Then he gave me a short wave, more of a salute really, and stepped back into the darkness.
And now I really was alone.
I stared at the beams of light. Something was wrong, and it took me a moment to realize it: why hadn’t the lights blown like the windows? I wanted to ask Al, but I had no idea where he was now, and most of the convent was in shadow. I shuddered. The truck felt like the only safety in a landscape of unknown dangers. There was no way I was getting out again. Who cared why the lights worked? I was just thankful they did.
I began to drive, the beat of my heart loud in my ears. I was expecting something to jump out into the headlights at any moment. I had never liked country driving at night, not wanting to kill any hapless nocturnal creatures. But
there was nothing except the road for a long, long time, until the first houses appeared. And then I entered the surreal dark of a city without power. Sidewalks to either side of me, and parked cars, and just enough light from my headlights. I kept going, until there were a few people in groups with candles and torches, white faces turning toward me as I passed, captured in a series of spectral tableaus. And the shadows, endless shadows, some more obviously human than others, running and jumping and twisting in my constantly moving lights. And once or twice even, a softly felt bump. But I kept on going.
On the final approach to the stadium I hit congestion. Pedestrians milled everywhere, the density of the crowd increasing every few meters until I was forced to a crawl. Hands banged on the window, faces pressed against the glass trying to see who was inside. Unless they were directly ahead of me, most people were just dim shapes, but I remembered what Al had said. “Keep on going.” A baby would have crawled faster than I moved, but I never took my foot completely off the gas, and occasionally someone slapped the car in anger or shouted out as I went by. I was beginning to think it would never end, when I reached a proper roadblock, with at least a dozen uniformed policemen in a line. Some of them held neon lights and were trying to guide people into different queues. Behind them was the stadium, a dark shadow looming over us all, only just visible thanks to a sliver of moonlight in front of a few black clouds. I stopped and rolled down the window.
“Where are you heading, ma’am?”
“I think my family might be in there, looking for me,” I blurted. I was tapping nervously on the steering wheel, impatient, my eyes flickering across faces as they passed, searching for those I knew.
“Okay then,” he said. “You can leave the vehicle here. We might have to commandeer it, I’m afraid. There are only a few older ones still working.”
“That’s fine.” I jumped down from the cab. “Where do I go?”
“Start there.” He pointed to an enormous crowd. “There’s someone taking names and details. They’ll be able to tell you if your family has checked in.”
I walked away, and at first I didn’t register the shouts behind me. First one, and then more and more.
From the Indie Side Page 13