Arrival

by Chris Morphew

  Jordan stared coldly at him, letting the question hang in the air for a minute. ‘No,’ she said, ‘deliberately blocking your ears to the truth is what makes you a coward.’

  Peter glared at her. ‘That is not fair. If either of you can show me one piece of concrete evidence –’ ‘Don’t give me that,’ spat Jordan. ‘This has nothing to do with evidence and you know it! You just don’t want any of it to be true, because then you might actually have to step up and do something about it!’

  Peter said nothing. He just stood there, shaking his head, too furious to even speak. I tried to step in, but Jordan wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise.

  ‘And that scares you doesn’t it, Weir?’ she ploughed on. ‘So instead of facing facts, you just invent your own little fantasy world where this is a joke and you can keep living your pathetic little –’ ‘Jordan…’ I said.

  ‘Sure, seven billion people might be about to get murdered, but what does that matter so long as Peter Weir can keep on deluding himself that everything’s –’ ‘Jordan,’ I repeated. ‘Stop.’

  She stopped.

  I closed my eyes. The painkillers had well and truly worn off by now. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about without trying to stop these two from ripping each other to pieces. Not that there wasn’t a bit of truth in what Jordan had said, but now was clearly not the time to be having that discussion.

  Both of them were staring at me when I opened my eyes again.

  ‘I want to go home,’ I said.

  ‘Luke,’ Jordan began.

  ‘I want to go home right now and crawl into my bed and forget that this ever happened. But then what?’

  Peter shot me a look like he was trying to figure out whose side I was on.

  ‘Jordan’s right,’ I continued. ‘If we go home now, we’re not coming back. No way am I going through all this again. So we need to decide whether we’re going to do this or not. And we need to do it without screaming so loud that everyone within a million kilometres can hear where we are.’

  ‘I don’t care what you do,’ said Jordan, pulling her backpack up over her shoulder and turning to walk away. ‘I’m going.’

  ‘No, Jordan,’ I said firmly.

  Jordan stopped in her tracks but didn’t turn around.

  ‘Either we all agree to this, or we turn back and go home,’ I said, with no idea how I would enforce that if either of them wanted to challenge me. ‘I’m not letting you go running off by yourself over some stupid argument.’

  ‘You’re not letting me?’

  Suddenly, she was back in my face again. I braced myself for whatever onslaught was coming next.

  But then she looked me right in the eye and her expression shifted.

  I don’t know whether it was because she’d used up all her energy getting stuck into Peter, or if she caught sight of the damage Crazy Bill had already done to me and decided I’d suffered enough. But something happened, because the anger suddenly evaporated from her face and when she spoke again, her voice was much calmer.

  ‘Okay,’ she breathed. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I’m scared and I’m tired and I don’t even want to think about what else might be out here. But if we decide to keep going, I’ll keep going.’

  Jordan smiled.

  ‘All right, let’s get moving then,’ said Peter, stepping between us.

  Jordan stared at him like he was up to something. ‘You’re the one who –’

  He sighed heavily. ‘We’re screwed either way, aren’t we? Even if we make it home without running into any more security, we’re still gonna get busted for breaking curfew. If I’m gonna die, I might as well do it making you happy.’

  We cut back across through the trees and eventually found our way to the main road again. We walked along by the side of the road, ready to duck for cover at the first sign of trouble, but I had a feeling there was less chance of anyone coming past now that we were away from the warehouse.

  The sky was changing colour and our shadows were getting longer, but there was still plenty of light. None of us talked very much for a while. I guess we were all still calming down after our little blow-up back in the bush. Jordan passed around the rest of the sandwiches from her bag as we walked, and I suddenly realised I was starving.

  It was much slower going without our bikes and, as the sun continued to drift downward, I was reminded of all the movies I’d seen where wandering backpackers got dragged off deserted roads by bloodthirsty psychopaths. I tried to tell myself that the only bloodthirsty psychopath I knew was locked up in town, but somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.

  A bit further down the road, we saw a set of tyre tracks veering off through the dirt to our right and disappearing into the bush – too small to have been made by one of the delivery trucks, but probably too big for a car. They looked recent, but in the end we decided not to check them out – they’d be impossible to follow through the bush and Crazy Bill’s map seemed pretty clear that whatever we were looking for was on the road. Or so we thought.

  ‘Look up there,’ I said after about half an hour of walking. ‘Trees.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Peter. ‘They’re a prominent feature out here.’

  ‘No, I mean up there in front of us.’ I jogged ahead of the others to see where the road was taking us next. ‘It must veer off in another direction.’

  But a minute later I got close enough to realise that this road wasn’t veering anywhere. ‘Uh, guys?’ I called, looking back.

  ‘What is it?’ said Jordan, coming up behind me.

  ‘Did you find –’ She and Peter reached the place where I was standing and stopped in their tracks.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Peter. ‘This is probably not a good sign.’

  Chapter 26

  SATURDAY, MAY 16

  89 DAYS

  About ten metres up ahead, the road came to an end.

  Not like a proper dead end, with a warning sign and a place to do a U-turn or whatever. It just faded away into the grass, like whoever was building it had suddenly gone ‘Forget this!’ and walked off the job.

  For a few minutes we just stood there, gazing at the ground. The words dead end rattled around in my brain. Because this was it. The end. This was where they gave up pretending. This was the place where the carefully constructed lie that Phoenix was just an ordinary town stopped getting told. No-one was supposed to make it this far.

  Eventually Peter blew out a lungful of air and said, ‘What now?’

  ‘I dunno,’ I said, scanning the bush around us for some sign of … anything. ‘I guess this is it, right? This is what Crazy Bill wanted us to see.’

  Jordan reached over and pulled Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland out of Peter’s pocket.

  ‘Maybe not,’ she said, flipping to the map and pointing. ‘That’s the place we’re heading for, right? We were assuming it was on the road, but look – there’s a gap between the end of that line and the X. What if the thing we’re meant to see is still out there somewhere?’

  ‘I think maybe you’re reading too much into it,’ said Peter. ‘I don’t reckon Crazy Bill was paying a whole lot of attention to detail when he drew this.’

  ‘Might as well keep going though, now that we’re here,’ I said, seeing Jordan’s nostrils flare and wanting to avoid another argument. ‘No point leaving without making sure.’

  But I was pretty sure Peter was right. As much as I wanted to think there could be something else out here, I couldn’t see what Jordan was hoping to find.

  Peter sighed and led the way past the end of the road. Jordan shoved the book into her bag and the two of us followed him into the bush.

  It was suddenly darker now that we were back under the cover of the trees, and I found myself stumbling in the undergrowth a lot more than before, struggling to figure out what was real and what was shadow before I stepped on it and it was too late.

  After twenty minutes, I
was just about ready to start heading back. We’d already lost all hope of beating curfew, and I wanted at least to be back on the road again before darkness surrounded us completely.

  Peter was looking fed up too, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes kept darting over to Jordan every few seconds, but he’d given up on his angry glares and was back to his usual habit of just looking at her for the sake of looking at her. I wondered whether some of what she’d said to him before had made an impact.

  I gave it another five minutes, just to satisfy Jordan that there was nothing else out here, and then reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘What is it?’ she said, turning around. ‘Did you find something?’

  I shook my head. ‘Jordan, listen. I think maybe we’ve already found everything there is to find.’

  ‘No,’ Jordan insisted. ‘This can’t be all. We didn’t come all the way out here just to –’ ‘Hey, what’s that?’ said Peter, stopping up ahead of us. He’d just sidestepped between two giant gum trees, and I had to follow him through before I could see what he was looking at.

  Up ahead, maybe fifty metres away, something huge and grey stretched out in front of us. It rose up as far as I could see through the trees and seemed to spread out to the left and right.

  Jordan put a finger to her lips, crouched low and began creeping forward. Peter and I followed along behind. My eyes darted through the shadows, scanning for any sign of movement.

  A little bush rat bounced across our path and I almost had a heart attack. But if security were out here, they were keeping quiet.

  We reached the expanse of grey and I pressed a hand against its surface. It was a wall. Solid concrete, towering up almost as high as the trees around it. Jordan flicked on the torch from her bag and started shining it around the wall, trying to figure out how big it was.

  ‘It’s another building, right?’ Peter frowned, staring up at it. ‘Another storage facility.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’ I stood back a bit to see if I could spot a way inside. But there was nothing.

  ‘Maybe it’s a hangar,’ said Peter. ‘What if this is where they’re storing all the helicopters and stuff that they moved away from the airport?’

  There was a rustling behind me and I spun around. ‘Where’s Jordan?’

  Peter glanced away from the wall and pointed off to his side. ‘She’s just –’

  But he was pointing into empty space.

  I stared around at the trees, shifting my weight from foot to foot, wanting to go looking for her but having no idea which direction to run in.

  ‘Jordan!’ Peter called, stumbling through the bush. ‘Jor– !’

  ‘Peter, stop!’ I hissed. ‘What if –’

  I heard the sound of footsteps approaching, crunching through the dead leaves. Seconds later, light flickered through the bushes and Jordan came bursting back out towards us. She raised an eyebrow at our panicked expressions.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she panted.

  Peter shot her an exasperated look. ‘Jordan – don’t do that!’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Don’t go running off into the bush without us!’ he said. ‘You could have been –’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said dismissively. ‘Just having a look further down.’

  ‘And?’ I said.

  ‘I can’t see any way in,’ she said with a shrug. ‘And I can’t find the end either. Whatever this thing is, it’s big.’ She leant back against the wall and stared up into the trees.

  ‘So is that it?’ said Peter hopefully. ‘Are we done here? I mean, if we can’t find a way around this thing…’ ‘Yeah,’ said Jordan, ‘I guess we’ll have to go over it.’

  ‘See anything yet?’ I called.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Jordan. ‘Nearly there, though.’

  It had taken her about fifteen minutes to find a tree she was happy with, but now Jordan had almost climbed up high enough to look over the top of the wall. Slung over her shoulder was the big coil of rope that had been taking up half the space in her backpack all afternoon. She’d been smart to bring that stuff with her after all.

  I stood at the bottom of the tree, holding Jordan’s bag and shining the torch up at her so she could see where she was going.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked. ‘Can you see?’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’ She squinted as the beam flashed across her face.

  ‘We don’t all have to climb up there, right?’ I said to Peter as I flicked off the torch.

  ‘After everything that’s happened today, you’re worried about climbing a tree?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m worried about falling from a tree.’

  I peered up. Jordan crouched on a branch that was level with the top of the wall, and found the end of her rope. Leaning against the tree like she was giving it a hug, she passed the rope around between her hands and tied it off in a big loop around the trunk. She pulled at the rope, testing that it was secure, and then stood up again.

  Just watching her up that high was enough to turn my stomach.

  The branch Jordan was standing on ran all the way to the wall, its leaves splaying out across the concrete. She began slowly edging away from the trunk, eyes fixed on her feet. She held the rope with both hands, releasing it a bit at a time as she went along.

  As she stepped out further from the trunk, I noticed the branch beginning to wobble slightly under her feet.

  ‘Careful,’ I called up.

  ‘Yeah, good,’ muttered Peter. ‘Bet she hadn’t thought of that.’

  Jordan continued along the branch until she was right up against the concrete. She slung the rest of the rope back over her shoulder and reached one hand at a time up to the top of the wall. With a grunt, she hoisted herself over the edge and out of sight.

  I stood back, staring up into the air. ‘Jordan?’

  There was a long silence. Then Jordan’s head appeared over the top of the wall.

  ‘What do you see?’ Peter asked.

  ‘This thing is like two metres thick!’ she called. ‘There’s no way anything is –’

  She broke off, gazing out between the treetops.

  When she spoke again, her voice was hollow. ‘Guys, get up here.’

  I craned my neck, staring up through the mess of branches. ‘I don’t know if I can –’

  ‘No. Seriously. Get up here.’

  I looked at Peter.

  ‘C’mon,’ he grunted, pulling himself up onto one of the lower branches.

  I pulled Jordan’s backpack up over my shoulders.

  ‘All right,’ I sighed. ‘But if I break my legs, you’re carrying me home.’

  I navigated my way up the tree much more slowly than Jordan had done. My mind kept flashing back to the snapping branch back at the warehouse that had almost killed us all, and I tested each foothold three times before I put my full weight on it.

  Peter started out pretty confidently, scrambling up ahead of me like we were having a race. He peered down at me through the branches, grinning smugly, and I got the feeling he was trying to make up for all the arguing before by impressing Jordan with his tree-climbing ability.

  He slowed down as he hit the narrower branches though, and got to the top only a little way ahead of me. Grabbing hold of the rope, he started shuffling towards Jordan. I pulled myself up onto the branch just as Peter climbed off the other end.

  ‘No,’ he whispered, standing up. ‘How can that – there’s no way…’ His voice was low and shaky.

  I turned around to see what he was looking at, but I still wasn’t up high enough. ‘What is it?’ I called to him.

  No answer.

  Gritting my teeth, I clutched the rope and stepped out from the tree. There were no other strong branches within reach, nothing to hold onto for support except the rope. I edged my way along, much more slowly than the others. Something was shaking. I couldn’t tell if it was me or the branch. Balance has never been my strong point and by the time I got up on the top, my body was so floo
ded with adrenaline that I had to grab Jordan’s arm for support.

  What I saw next didn’t help.

  It was dark by now, but not dark enough to disguise what this wall was or just how far it stretched out on either side of us.

  The wall was big. Impossibly big. And it wasn’t the side of a building. It was a barrier. A blockade. It stretched around the bushland in a giant ring, kilometres across. There were no gaps, no breaks, no doors.

  Just one massive, unbroken circle of three-storey-tall, two-metre-thick concrete.

  And Phoenix was right in the middle.

  Chapter 27

  SATURDAY, MAY 16

  89 DAYS

  ‘This is … not possible,’ Peter muttered, sitting down on top of the wall.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said shakily. ‘Except we’re looking at it.’

  I peered over the far edge of the wall, hoping desperately for some sign of life – a road or a town or even a beaten-down old farmhouse. But there was nothing out there. Nothing but barren, rocky wasteland as far as I could see. Even the trees seemed to fade away on this side of the barrier.

  I felt sick.

  We’d known from the beginning that Phoenix was isolated. And getting in touch with the outside world had never seemed like an easy prospect.

  But this was different. We weren’t just isolated. We were trapped.

  Even if we got down there – even if we packed food and supplies and somehow got our bikes over the wall – chances were we’d starve to death before we hit civilisation. And there’d still be the small matter of the end of the world to deal with.

  I watched Jordan, standing with her hands on her hips, looking out at the sunset. She had a defeated expression on her face that I’d never seen before, and I suddenly realised how much my own confidence had been depending on hers.

  ‘What do you want to do now?’ I asked her.

  For a long time, she didn’t answer. She just stared out into the wasteland.

  ‘Jordan?’

  She balled up her fists and made a noise like an angry lion. ‘What was the point of sending us out here?’ she shouted. ‘I thought we came out here to find answers to all of this!’