Conclave

by Murray, Lee

  “Doze, no! Stop.” Miss Tera’s hand shoots out to grab his arm, sending him spinning into the shadows next to her. “It’s not safe.”

  “My sisters. They promised not to touch them.” She lets go of him as if the truth burns, and he realises what he has admitted to. “I made a deal.”

  “Oh, Doze. You can’t make deals with ConClave. They’ve been playing with you. It’s what they do.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like. When they make you choose.” He clenches his hands into fists.

  “I live here, too. I chose to. I chose to live alone so the only pain I feel is my own.” She takes his fists and smooths them flat. “I’ll help you find your sisters, but you have to understand, there’s no escape.”

  The school has evolved as the population grew. Temporary pre-fab classrooms connected by wooden walkways morphed into established two storied blocks with internal corridors and external staircases. Armed with a master key, Tera unlocks the doors of the nearest building.

  “If we lock them as we go, they might not suspect we’re here.” Keeping their heads down, and away from windows, they make their way towards the classroom at the end of the building, narrowly avoiding the uniformed police rattling doors and pushing on windows in search of unaccounted students and staff.

  Doze can’t see a thing. The classroom windows are hidden behind overgrown shrubs providing perfect camouflage.

  “Can you hear anything? See anything?” Doze whispers.

  “Yes.”

  Everyone’s going into the Hall,” Tera says, scrunching her face at his attempt to merge his own with the glass. His warm breath covers the window with wet fog.

  “So, no one’s going in Ambulances.”

  “Can’t see any Ambulances. Only buses.” There’s optimism in her voice.

  “I’ve got to get to my sisters. They’ll be so scared.” She slides down the wall to the floor, next to him. He says, “When they came for us, my dad made me promise to look after my sisters. I returned... He didn’t. They said if I helped them with their observational studies, be their eyes, I could keep my promise. I’d do anything to keep them safe.”

  Doze didn’t know how to explain how he watched. How he looked for faults; who was kind, who was cruel. Trying to mitigate his betrayal by pretending that they weren’t being hurt, that they’d probably return, that they’d be healthier. And when his lies didn’t work, the drugs did.

  Tera rolls to her knees. “Let’s go.”

  “Where? If we step out there, we’ll be rounded up like the rest.” He pulls his knees to his chest, wishing he could hit someone, break something.

  “To the Drama room. From there, we can get to the dressing rooms under the stage.” She crawls towards the exit.

  Never more thankful for the school’s untended garden beds and overgrown trees, Doze and Tera make a dash for the hall. As they sneak around to the far side and into the adjoining classroom, they catch glimpses of students streaming through the main doors of the hall.

  “Take off your shoes and toss your phone. We need to be quiet.” Tera pulls back on the curtain covering the back wall to reveal the ‘Back Stage’ door. “When they built the addition, they thought it would be better for the kids to come into the Drama room in an emergency, rather than to go outside. But I’ve never used it.” She opens the door to the emergency stair, ushering Doze to go first. Reluctant to turn on the lights, he uses his lighter to show the way.

  “Won’t they check down here?”

  “How would I know?” Tera says.

  “It’s weird, I thought I knew this school inside out.” Doze rattles the handle of a locked door.

  “We don’t need to go in there, that’s the kitchen. These are the dressing rooms, green room, and the entrance to the stage is there.” She points to a door that could be storing cleaning equipment, its paint worn thin from years of service.

  “We’re going onto the stage? I thought we could lift some floorboards or some shit like that.” He pushes the door open a crack. Layers of curtains bar his way to the stage but he can hear the scraping of seats beyond.

  “No, we need to climb into the heavens for a better perspective.” She acknowledges his door opening skills with a grin and walks past.

  “Never thought I would make it to heaven,” he says as he follows.

  “Ugh, really? That’s the best you can do? No wonder you hate my class. Come on.” No one in uniform with guns is waiting for them at the base of the stairs but children’s worried whispers reach them from inside the hall. Doze wants to fling himself off the stage in search of his sisters, but a crack in the curtains reveal pairs of blue-banded caps guarding the front of the stage.

  “Psst. Here.” Tera leans through the railings at the top of a circular stair to the heavens. “Quickly,” she urges before inching along the lighting platform.

  Ascending rapidly, Doze steps over coiled rope and hibernating lights to join her in the middle of the platform. He looks down. Armed policemen at the main doors are acting like ushers for a big production. Checking ID cards like tickets, they point the students to different seating sections: seniors to the right, juniors to the middle, and to the left, the primary students. Teachers stand in random spaces along the walls, trying to comfort and calm their students while keeping themselves in check. Doze’s eyes dart from the front row to the back, systematically searching left to right for his sisters. In a second sweep, he catches Kym’s dead gaze. She’s sitting next to Chrissy, holding tightly to her hand while straining her neck to see 360. Searching for him.

  “There they are. On the end of that row.” He collapses forward onto the railing in relief. “So, what’s next?” Before Tera can answer, the last of the audience is seated and the hall goes silent. Below them, the chief constable strides across the stage, his footsteps echoing like bullets. Ignoring the microphone, he clears his voice to silence the already silent hall and speaks.

  “Thank you for taking your seats so quickly.” He smiles reassuring. “First of all, your parents are being informed of the situation and will meet you at the evacuation point.” The seniors erupt into shouts of “What situation?” and “What evacuation?” The smaller children wail in distress.

  “Calm down, clam down. QUIET.” As if the volume knob has been twirled to zero, the students follow his command. The littlies suck in their cries. A young officer rushes towards him, urgently holding out a piece of paper. “Good. Good. Thank you.” The officer makes a shallow bow and leaves the stage. “Right. I have confirmation that a severe weather event is building out at sea and this town is in direct line for where it will hit land. We will be evacuating everyone until it is safe to return. Once we have processed you here, you’ll be directed to one of the transport vehicles waiting for you outside. That is all.” Stomping off the stage, he ignores the pleas for more information, children worried about their parents, pets and toys.

  Doze pushes back on the railing. “I need to get them out now.”

  “What do you think is going on? Have we ever had weather serious enough to take a roof off or for the ocean to make it over the dune? There’s no hurricane on its way to wipe out the town. They’re volunteering everyone,” says Tera.

  “That’s not how it’s supposed to work. They can’t take everyone.” He turns towards the stairs. “I’m getting my sisters out of here. You can go or stay as you like.”

  “Leaving won’t make you any safer,” she says, following close behind. “They’re starting with the seniors. Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it soon.”

  “Do you remember me telling you how I always saw myself leaving?” She can hear the laughter in his voice.

  “Well, I seem to remember it involved a lot of police. So, you got that right,” she answers.

  “But what we need is a fire truck...”

  “Or two...?”

  Back under the stage, fire alarms are dotted every couple of metres or so along the wall of the corridor. Bright red boxes with a bright r
ed switch encased in glass etched with a cross. The words ‘Break in Case of Emergency’ glow brightly in the dimness.

  “Easy. We don’t even have to set something on fire.” He aims an elbow at his target ready to strike.

  “But a false alarm is easy to sort. Put a code in at the main box. We need some smoke to cause a little chaos,” she suggests.

  “How?”

  “A piece of dry ice, next to a fan.” He can imagine she was a troublemaker when she was in school. “You go down and be ready to grab your sisters when the panic hits. Meet me back in the Drama room.”

  In the hall, the officers have converged by the doors, this time checking the students out to the waiting busses.

  “Kym... Kym... Chrissy... Kym...” Hidden in the wings, he doesn’t dare show himself. No one would ignore a pox-marked, dreadlock-wearing delinquent lurking off-stage. “Come on, girls. Look this way.” It takes all the strength he has to stop himself from leaping across the stage and dragging them away. “Don’t be sheep. Look for me.” This time his pleading reaches Kym, who reacts in a way that makes him proud. After locking eyes with her brother, she leans down and whispers into her sister’s ear. Then, without looking in his direction, the two of them simply stand and cross to the other side of the room. As they reach the steps that lead onto the stage, they’re caught, but not by a police officer. One of the senior girls kneels in front of them as if to comfort and protect them.

  Leave them alone. When she glances up, he motions for her to let his sisters come to him, pointing to the smoke pouring across the stage and onto the floor. The alarms begin to blare. The girl hesitates, holding his sisters hostage. Ignoring the risk, he jumps off the stage, grabs Chrissy under one arm and Kym under the other, and races back behind the curtain. It’s only when he bursts through the door to the Drama room, after sprinting through the under stage warren, that he realises the girl has followed him.

  “What are you doing? Go back.” He shoves his sisters behind him.

  “I can’t. I won’t.” The girl’s hands shake at her sides.

  “Oh, Ana, where’s Paulo?” Tera closes the door to the stair, locking it behind her, and repositions the concealing curtain.

  “Ana? Paulo?” Doze asks.

  “Yes, Ana and Paulo. They were in your class... my class. The only two students who did any work. God, why did I ever think teaching served a purpose? How can you not know them? We live in a town of what—five thousand people—you’d know everyone if you bothered to think about anyone other than yourself.” He stops her as she fills her lungs to continue her rant.

  “Calm down, Miss. I know who they are. I just didn’t realise they were related.” He looks back at the girl, trying to imagine a genetic connection to the more familiar masculine face.

  “Paulo was sick today, so he didn’t come to school. I don’t want to leave without him or my parents. They won’t understand.” Her explanation is half pleading, half defiance. Doze is surprised by her clarity. He had never paid her any attention before, dealing only with Paulo when they’d met out of school, who never spoke more words than he needed to.

  “I know a lot, and I still don’t understand.”

  “Yes. We all know and understand nothing,” Tera says.

  “Doze, I’m thirsty.” Tugging on his sleeve, Chrissy crosses her legs back and forth.

  “Do you want a drink or do you want to go to the toilet?” he asks, running his hand through her curls.

  “I want a drink and I want to go to the toilet,” she concedes with a giggle.

  “Okay, but you need to be very quiet. We don’t want those police to find us.” As if agreeing, the alarm cuts out. “Great. They’ll be back in business now. Ana, you’ll have to come with us.”

  “What about my family?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. We need to get away from here first. I need to think of my sisters.” Retrieving his phone from the toe of his shoe where he’d left it, Doze shoves it into his pocket, then puts his shoes back on.

  Ignoring him, Ana looks down at the two girls, “I’m coming with.”

  Outside the Drama room, Doze half drags, half carries his sisters away from the school and back to his familiar hunting grounds, the gully.

  “Okay, Chrissy,” Doze says at last. His sister rushes to find a suitable tree. When she returns, Doze can tell she’s going to need a change of clothes. “I’m going to take my sisters home.”

  “And then what? You won’t be safe there.” Tera looks back towards the school.

  “We’ll pack some food and leave,” Doze answers.

  “Leave? You think you can get pass the Fence?” Through the trees in the gully, they can see the top-most part of the Fence. It surrounds the whole town. Too high to climb over, too deep to dig under and, with only one Gate, no one passes the Fence unless they’re in an Ambulance.

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  The trip back to the house is broken with frequent stops to avoid the police door-to-door search. Holding their rifles across their chests, the officers use weapons like cattle prods to propel the residents on board a never ending line of busses. Some go calmly, carrying their possessions in small suitcases, others are dragged from their homes, half dressed, and half wild.

  “Why are they doing this?” Chrissy asks, fearfully holding onto the back of Doze’s pants.

  “Because they can,” Kym answers.

  3

  Built close to the shoreline, the town ripples out in increasing half circles towards rising hills that curve to embrace the community from one side of the harbour to the next. Halfway along, the Fence cuts into their deceptive slopes, leaving anyone who approaches exposed to those watching from above or below. Doze’s home is far from the Gate along the final ring, the last road that rounds itself on the farthest part of the town before the land is overtaken by parks and pastures. The best house on the worst street.

  The patrols lessen as the group edges its way closer, past hastily abandoned houses and cars. TVs and music filter through windows and doors left banging in the breeze. Doze realises that Brett’s phone call probably saved him from capture.

  At home, Doze gets the girls to pack a change of clothing, a water bottle and as much food as they can carry.

  “Good thing Jill did a shop yesterday,” he says as he helps them rifle through the cupboards for supplies.

  “Are we going to get her?” Only Chrissy’s concerned that their mother hadn’t been in her usual place, splayed out across the couch.

  “No. It’s not safe.” It’s hard to be honest. It breaks him how much she still longs for a mother’s love. “You guys stay here and eat your snack, I’m going to talk to Miss Tera and Ana, okay?”

  Leaving his sisters in the kitchen, he goes into the living room. Tera and Ana are talking in hushed tones, Tera shaking her head to Ana’s imploring gestures. “Thank you for helping me get to my sisters, Miss Tera. I’ve got it covered now.” He finds himself hoping they won’t leave.

  “Where do you think you can go, Doze? Beyond the Fence? They’ll catch you if you run.” Tera’s looking more substantial since Friday, but she sounds just as fatalistic.

  “They’ll catch us if we stay here.” Doze scans the room looking for anything that he can use, for anything he will miss. But other than his sisters, there’s nothing of value.

  “I need to find my brother,” says Ana. Dressed in a long skirt and pretty blouse, she looks like she should be attending church, not running and hiding.

  “The way I see it, we’ve got two chances. The first is we create a diversion and slip out of the Gate in the confusion.” It’s not a great plan but it’s all he’s got.

  “And the second?” Tera asks. She walks to the front window and twitches the curtain. As if captured in a photo, nothing outside moves, no breeze to send the trees swaying, no signs of people or pets.

  “We wait until they’ve emptied the town. When they think they’ve got everyone there’ll be no reason to stay, no reason to gua
rd the Gate.” Doze has been thinking about escape ever since he realised they were trapped, and he isn’t about to let the opportunity go without trying. He’s tired of being afraid.

  “We’re chipped, Doze. They know everything about us. Our weight, height, age, maybe even our mood, but especially where we are.” Tera walks back to the couch, forcing Doze to look at her as if to convince him with her expression where her words might fail.

  “If that’s true, then why aren’t they here, waiting for us?” He wants her to be wrong.

  “Oh, they’ll be back once they’ve checked their inventory list.” She wants to be wrong too.

  “Then we’ll keep hiding until they give up.” Doze looks at Ana for support but she sits emotionless, like blind justice listening for the better truth before weighing her decision.

  “They’ll come,” Tera says; her voice pained with conviction. “They won’t give up if they can still find you.”

  “Miss Tera, I know you’re trying to be helpful, but this decision is mine to make for me and my sisters. You do what’s best for you.” Doze stands. “I’m going to do what’s best for us.”

  “If you help me find my brother, I’ll come with you. I can help you with your sisters.” Ana sends an apologetic glance towards Tera, and begins to nervously unplait and replait the end of her long braid.

  “Sorry, Ana, but I can’t risk my sisters’ lives. If they have Paulo, it’s too late.” Doze is about to call for his sisters to hurry when Ana abandons her hair and puts a hand on his arm to halt him.

  “I didn’t tell you the truth. He’s not home sick.” Ana avoids his questioning eyes as if shamed by her previous lie.

  “Then where is he?” Paulo always seemed a bit dim; the idea of misjudging him takes Doze by surprise.

  He waits for her answer, watching her weigh the possible consequences of what she’s about to say. “I think he’s digging a tunnel,” she replies.