by Pete Aldin
“We'd appreciate it,” Elliot replied. “You don't need anything from your store while we're here?”
“Anything worth taking—” He faced forward, started the engine. “—I already have.”
The man had a .303 rifle leaning against the passenger door arm rest. Elliot moved the M4 that stood between him and Lewis so it could move freely if needed. The safety was on, but he had a thumb near it. “And you're taking us where?”
The chemist pointed along the road to where it rose toward the bluffs. “The big house up there? Mi casa su casa.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lewis offered.
The man chuckled and slipped the shifter into Drive. “Name's Jock, not Sir.” He planted his foot, throwing Elliot into his seat back. The cargo space behind him was crammed with looted supplies, including three cages with chickens inside them. The birds squawked and scrabbled for purchase as the car shot up the road. In less than a minute, they were slowing at the high brick wall around the house on the bluff. “Get the gates, young fella?”
Lewis jumped from the car, stuck his hand through the bars of the gates and found the latch. While he dragged them aside and Jock eased the car between them, Elliot studied the weird curl in the back of the driver's hair, the gold watch on his wrist … and his neat up-market clothing.
I didn't know this apocalypse was formal.
Jock's front yard had once been sculpted, landscaped. Parts of it now were feral, rose and azalea beds going to weed like everything else in the world. However, a wide section of lawn had been turned over, the bare earth hinting at a vegetable garden. The rest of the property beyond the house was fenced off with a hotchpotch of iron sheeting, barbed wire and fence palings, and Elliot suspected more home produce there, vegetables, maybe more chickens. Maybe a pig.
Bacon and eggs.
His mouth should have watered at the thought. But he still wasn't hungry.
Birdy …
Jock parked in front of the doors while Lewis shut the gates. Elliot waved off his offer of help out of the car.
“Who's here with you?” he asked Jock.
Jock's expression turned sad. “No one. Till now. Big house for one bloke. I could use the company. And the help, after you heal. Sure you don't want me to go get you a crutch? I have several upstairs.”
“I'll manage.” Using his stick and keeping the M4 in his free hand, Elliot hobbled to one of two colonnades framing the entrance and waited for Jock to get his key in the lock. He listened, but heard no pig. No bacon then. But there was a very real threat Jock had friends inside. The house boasted double front doors, the wood dark, lacquered. Barbed wire had been laid around the ground floor windows. No glimpse of the inside was possible through the scrim curtains. Elliot hopped up the single step while behind him, Lewis struggled uncomplaining with their gear. They entered in single file, Jock first, then Elliot, then Lewis with a mild “wow” which further fueled Jock's smile. No ambush. No people waiting. An empty house, warm and stuffy. The right half of the downstairs was one open living area including the kitchen at the rear. Bookcases. Three coffee tables. A two-seater and a four-seater couch. Three recliner armchairs. Home theater system. A staircase ran straight up the center of the house from in front of the entry. Open doors on the ground level beyond the stairs revealed a separate bathroom and laundry. Right inside the entry to Elliot's right—before the staircase started—another set of closed double doors hinted at a home office or library. The upper storey was large enough that it might host three bedrooms and another bath. The high ceilings were inset with downlights, all dark despite the gloom outside. The floor was lit by floor-to-ceiling windows set in the front and lefthand wall. Elliot could see smaller windows set above the kitchen benches out back. The lower half of these—as well as a glass sliding door to the yard—had been boarded up against intruders and peeping toms.
Once they were in, their bags settled against the lounge suite, and Lewis's speargun on the long hardwood coffee table that the lounge suite surrounded, Jock shoved five bolts into their catches to secure the front door. He'd carried in his hunting rifle and set it in an umbrella rack alongside a couple of ax-handles.
Thunder grumbled in the distance and Jock said, “About bloody time it rained. Good for the gardens,” he added.
“Do you want your chickens?” Lewis asked. “I can go get them.”
Jock waved the offer away. “We'll settle in first, then go get em. Want to have a look-see at your mate's leg.” He ushered Elliot into a recliner and when his feet were up, took the bandage off. “Shame to take this off. You did a good job of this.”
“Thanks,” Lewis said. He was wandering the floor looking at knickknacks all cleaned and dusted.
Jock made an appreciative sound. “You know first aid?”
“A bit,” Lewis replied and moved to a high book case set between two windows. He took a couple of volumes down and flipped through them while Jock felt Elliot's ankle.
“When'd you hurt this?”
Elliot opened his mouth to answer but Lewis beat him to it.
“Twenty minutes ago. He fell down a hill.”
“Not all the way down,” Elliot corrected.
Jock rocked back on his heels and considered. “Well. Not too many ultrasounds around these days to be certain, but I'd say it's a minor sprain. We'll get you some ice, alternate that with compression. You won't be dancing for a while, but give it some rest and you should be right in a day or two. Young fella, the freezer in the laundry room: down the left hand side are several icepacks. Fetch me one?”
Lewis replaced the books and trotted off in that direction.
Jock said, “Can't keep calling you blokes Young Fella and Bloke with a Sprained Ankle. You know my name. What're yours?”
“Lewis,” the teenager called through the open laundry door.
“And Elliot.”
“Welcome to my humble home, Lewis and Elliot.”
Lewis returned with the icepack and handed it to Jock.
“Did you shut the freezer lid?” said Jock.
Lewis nodded.
“Sorry. Fussy, I know, but we must conserve what little power's left.” The chemist arranged the icepack carefully on Elliot's ankle.
Elliot winced, leaned forward to adjust it himself while his eyes scanned the room. “You have power.”
“Solar. Knew it'd pay off, just not like this.”
“And you're here alone?”
Lewis, losing interest, returned to wandering.
Jock nodded and stood with a groan, hands on his knees. “Could do with young legs—and young backs too. To help me grow food, make this place more secure. Been converting my yards to veggie gardens, bringing in chickens. I built a coop. Even laid concrete for the first time in my life to keep the rats and foxes from burrowing under. My knees and my lumbar region have never felt so bloody sore.” His laugh was self-deprecating, light-hearted. “I remember someone saying once that the only people who'd survive the end of the world were the working classes. They're the ones who know how to do things like this. Well, so far, I'm not doing too badly for a middle-class, middle-aged man.”
Leafing through a book, Lewis murmured, “Birdy would have liked it here.”
Elliot's gut twisted. He ran a hand over his chin, scratched his nose.
Smile wilting, Jock looked between them. “Birdy?”
“Never mind,” Elliot said. “This is a good set up. Not sure I want to stay too long, though.” He met Jock's eyes. “No offence.”
“Got somewhere to be? There a party I wasn't invited to?” Jock grunted as he waved off his pisspoor joke. “Twenty-four hours and you might be okay to leave, though I'd suggest you take a car. I've got a couple more out back that I stole. Figured the eaters wouldn't want them.”
Eaters. That's what Birdy had called them too. Elliot's gut twisted again.
Thunder rumbled again in the distance. Jock hummed. “Could be a wet couple of days anyway, so you might want to stay as long as possible.
Think you will? Stay?”
“Depends…” Elliot started saying.
Lewis interrupted him. “Is this a basement or a cupboard?” He was standing at a door set into the side of the staircase, the books forgotten. There was a low set of free-standing shelves between it and the bathroom door, partly filled with paperbacks and partly with more knickknacks—golfing memorabilia, curios from asian lands, fancy candlesticks.
“Cellar.”
“Can I go down there?”
“Later.” Jock started towards the kitchen, beckoned him. “You, Lewis, can help me prep some dinner while your friend rests. There's nothing down there but a lot of empty wine bottles and a box of potatoes anyway.” He went around the island bench, bent to open cupboards and pull out broad pasta bowls. Past the benches and fridge, a boarded up glass sliding door led to the backyard, but Elliot could only see the grey sky through the glass at the top. “Elliot, you keep that foot elevated. Lewis, you'll find vegetables in a metal bin in the laundry by the freezer. They needed to be used soon, so you two are actually helping me out there. Water still runs here,” he explained to Elliot. “I've been making the most of that. So I'll get Lewis to rinse and chop enough vegetables for a vegan stew. Might keep the eggs I've got for breakfast, if that's ok. No meat, sorry. I have some packet rice we can boil up though.”
“I'll have mine without the rice,” Elliot said, surprising himself. “Don't trust packet foods.”
“Oh?” Jock thought a moment. “Maybe we'll all just stick with the stew. There'll be a fair bit anyway.”
“Thank you very much,” Elliot told Jock and forced a smile. This gent would be the type to appreciate manners. “Lewis and me, we've had a hard time of it. And your hospitality means the world to us.”
Jock beamed as Lewis returned with arms filled.
“Just glad to be of help to someone again,” Jock said, sliding a long carving knife from its wooden block. Elliot tensed, pulled the M4 in tighter beside his chair, finger on the trigger guard. But the older man only dragged potatoes onto a cutting board and started the blade on them. “And after dinner, you blokes can tell me a little about that hard time you've had.”
13
Distant thunder and lightning played across the western skies while the three of them ate in the light of battery-powered storm lanterns. But the storm didn't break properly until Jock and Lewis were rinsing the plates. Wind thrashed the eucalypts outside as rain drummed against the windows.
“That'll fill up the water tanks,” Jock said. “Tap water won't last forever.” He'd kept up an unending river of prattle during the dinner, cracking dad jokes, telling what Lewis found to be funny anecdotes about dumb customers in his pharmacy, and describing minute details of things he'd learned in concreting a chicken pen and planting vegetables in his yards. As irritating as he found the old fart, Jock's banter seemed good therapy for Lewis, whose energy was returning. And he hadn't mentioned Birdy again.
As Elliot readjusted his third icepack of the evening, an overhead flash of lighting and immediate thunder clap made him jump and Lewis gasp, “Wow!”
He was goddam grateful they hadn't stayed in the motorhome. He could feel the temperature drop even sealed inside this house. Plus, Jock's house was also free of cobwebs and spiders. In fact, it was meticulously clean. No dust. No grit on the carpets other than what he and Lewis had walked in. The middle-aged pharmacist certainly was—in his own words—fussy. Then again, now they'd been sitting around talking crap while chowing down, he'd started to show signs of relaxing. He'd even kicked off his leather brogues.
“What's this on your arm?” Jock was asking Lewis.
Lewis considered the scrape he'd gotten back at the farm. “It's not bad. Do you need to put disinfectant on it?”
“Only if you're a floor. Antispectic for humans, matey.” They shared a laugh. “I'll get some before you go to bed. Hasn't killed you so far.”
Give the old coot a chance, Elliot told his suspicious self. Jock could have left them to die. He could have turned his car around at the end of town and fled, hoping they'd bypass his home, returning later. Instead, he'd helped them, despite the threat they posed. As Lewis and Jock worked side-by-side, trading puns and decades-old riddles, Elliot mused that despite Homo sapiens' deserved reputation as a flawed species, there always had been and therefore still were good people around. Like Lewis, whose instinct was always to help people and even cows.
Like Birdy.
That twisting of the gut again. That deep, dark well opening up inside him and wanting him, urging him to slip into it, to fall down and forget about trying, forget about life.
He straightened in his chair and told the deep dark well to go to hell.
Jock shook water from his fingers as Lewis picked up the forks to dry them. The older man wiped his hands on his pants and took two candles down from high shelves above the stove, lit them. “Think it's time we stopped working and relaxed for the evening. You blokes must be bushed.”
“Totally,” said Lewis, laying the forks in their place in a top drawer. He tossed the towel on a bench and leaned there.
“Come on in here,” said Jock and moved into the living room. He set the candles on one of the coffee tables and went to a sideboard to turn off one of the four hurricane lanterns then opened a half-full scotch bottle.
Lewis took an arm chair, curling into it like a cat, eyes heavy but watching keenly.
Jock upturned two glasses and poured three fingers of the amber liquid in each. “Ice? Water?”
Elliot hadn't shifted from his recliner since arrival. The ankle still pulsed with the pain, but the icepacks and elevation had already made some difference. The booze would make more. He sat a little straighter and said, “It's fine the way God made it.”
“Take this across to your mate,” Jock said, handing the glass to Lewis. “You two are mates, I gather, not relatives?”
Lewis snorted. “Do we look alike?”
“No. I guess not.”
Elliot took his glass, threw back a third of it. The sting on his tongue and throat was pleasant, welcome. Warmth seeped down the inside of his chest. His mouth filled with peaty aftertaste.
Jock bent down and retrieved a stubby glass bottle from a cupboard beneath the drink stand. “Heads up,” he called and tossed it underhand to Lewis, who lurched forward to catch it. “Ginger beer, I'm afraid. Only drink I have for someone your age and probably a bit flat. Hope you like it.”
The gravitas on Lewis's face said he'd certainly try to like it and he set about wringing off the twist top while Jock settled into another arm chair by a dark gas heater.
Elliot put the glass between his thighs and wriggled his toes. “You have a beautiful downstairs. What's upstairs?”
Jock sipped then swished his drink, admiring the color against a candle's glow. “Two bedrooms, a room I'm using for storage and a bathroom. Plus, a little reading area at the top of the stairs where I used to sit and watch the river. Still do sometimes. I'll show you how nice it is in the morning,” he told Lewis who had curled back onto the two-seater couch. “Do you read, son?”
Lewis made a thinking face. “I like books on fauna.” He took a sip of his ginger beer and almost hid his disappointment. He took another sip to cover it.
“A learner! That's excellent. I might have some like that in my study. I'll check later.”
“How about books on what the traditional people ate in Tasmania?” Elliot asked.
“Bush tucker? Yes, I do have a book on that. Very interesting. I'll dig that out too.”
“My mum grew some of that,” offered Lewis. “Bush tucker.”
I goddamed knew it, Elliot thought with a sigh, picturing what had seemed like untouched herb gardens at the health retreat.
“Why'd she grow that then?” Jock asked.
Lewis wriggled into a more comfortable position. “She grew a lot of stuff. She was a naturopath. We tried to eat as much unprocessed food as possible.”
“Lewis pi
cked up some of that knowledge from Mom apparently,” Elliot said. If Jock could see value in the teenager, see him as an ally, someone to pass his own knowledge onto, it might make moving on easier. Maybe there's safe haven for Lewis yet.
He sipped his whisky to burn away another twinge in his guts. Guilt. Shit. The whole purpose of this mission had been transporting the young man to a safe haven where others more qualified could take over caring for him. Nothing wrong with that. And if he'd found that place, then he'd found it. Mission done.
“You did?” Jock asked Lewis, but he didn't look all that interested. Probably thought natural or alternative medicine was all voodoo. Let him change his mind when manufactured pharmaceuticals were long past their shelf life.
Elliot steered the conversation back to the older man. “So, married? Kids?”
The older man's even brow flickered, but he said calmly enough, “Long time since I've been married. She became a legal secretary when she turned forty and left me for a 'career'. Moved to Adelaide. I moved here. Never had kids.” He raised his own glass to his lips.
“Big house for one man.” Lewis frowned warningly at him and Elliot added, “I don't mean to be rude. I'm a curious bastard is all. You tell me if I'm asking too many questions.”
“No. No. It's all right. We should get to know each other. I made a lot of money as a single man and figured this was a nice way to spend it. Space is the ultimate luxury. Also, I may not have family, but I do have friends.” He winced theatrically. “Or I used to. I have a question for you, Elliot. Your accent: were you working in Tasmania when all this happened?”
“For about six hours, I was, yeah.”
“Six hours? This started right as you got here? “ Jock winked at Lewis. “So it's your fault.”
Lewis didn't laugh.
Elliot ignored the dumb joke. He took a sip and leaned aside to place the glass on the coffee table between his seat and Lewis's. “I was a PMC. Private Military Contractor.”