Everyone said Spurlake apples were the best in BC.
Thinking of this, she slept.
She woke suddenly aware that her chest hurt real bad and her eyes seemed swollen. Slowly she realized why she’d woken, the rain had abruptly stopped. She stirred.
She was snug under the straw but there was something outside the barn and she felt tense and afraid. She hadn’t thought to grab a weapon, a spade or something, and regretted that now. The sound came again and she was glad she had climbed up to the top of the straw bales.
She was afraid of rats mostly, in her mind she could see them swarming in the darkness below.
There was a snort then the unmistakable sound of an animal urinating. The pig had found her again.
‘Eew, Pig!’ she exclaimed. ‘Couldn’t you do that outside?’
The pig responded with another snort and walked to the bottom of the straw bales and plonked itself down.
‘Glad you made it,’ she said. Weirdly she felt a whole lot safer now the pig was with her. It was irrational, but strangely comforting.
She was about to settle down again when she heard another sound. What now? She tensed. Didn’t anyone get any sleep in the countryside? She saw another figure standing in the barn entrance.
‘Eew,’ a voice rasped. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘Ri! Ri! Is that you?’
‘Genie? I don’t believe it. Genie?’
‘Don’t move,’ Genie warned him. ‘There’s a pig in here and he’s huge. Don’t scare him.’
‘A pig?’
‘Keep to your left and there’s a short ladder at the end of the hay bales.’
Rian followed her instructions as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He could definitely smell wet pig, even if he couldn’t see it. ‘Hell, I can’t believe you’re in here.
I can’t believe you’re alive, Genie.’
‘Pig saved my life, I think.’ Genie moved to the end of the hay bales to greet him.
His head appeared and suddenly Genie was on him, arms around him hugging him. ‘You’re freezing, Ri. Freezing.’
‘You’re so warm. God, I’m just . . .’ He was stunned they had both ended up in the same place. Fate or magic.
Clearly they were meant to be. ‘I just followed this old track and . . .’
‘Hush, come here . . .’
He climbed up beside her and they fell back together on to the hay, holding each other tight. Rian was still wet but Genie planned to hug him dry. ‘Pull the straw over you and stay close. I’m never letting go of you again.’
He kissed her and she kissed him back, still stunned he had come back into her life. Below them the pig snorted, and they laughed.
‘There’s a pig in here,’ Rian stated. ‘There really is a pig in here.’
The rain began again and the thunder rolled overhead once more, closer than before, but both of them knew that they were safe and dry in here and snuggled up close under the straw, hands and arms and legs entwined.
Nothing was going to pry them apart. Moments later, exhausted, but utterly happy, they were both asleep.
8
Finding Denis
The building was bright. Glass walls and huge banks of computer servers, thousands of them, throwing off a massive amount of heat. This was a secret place, she knew that. The building literally hummed with all the power it consumed. She had no idea how she’d got here, but she knew she was trespassing. She was stood barefoot in a corridor unable to decide which way to go. Someone was coming and they meant her harm, but there was nowhere to hide. She saw movement, half turned and saw it again. Untamed ginger hair bobbing on the periphery of her vision.
‘Genie?’ a voice said, urgent, scared. ‘You shouldn’t be in here. Go, before they get you.’
She turned and there he was. Denis Malone, the boy who’d disappeared two years before. He looked just the same, which was impossible. She remembered him now, messing about in class and making stupid jokes. He was almost naked save for some scraggy underwear and green socks. There was a livid scar on his left shoulder that
looked a lot like the cross burned on to her own arm.
‘Denis. I can’t believe it’s you. You haven’t changed—’
‘Go, Genie. They’ll come for you and you’ll never leave.
No one who enters here ever leaves.’
‘Where are we? How did I get here?’
‘You don’t want to know. But they’re going crazy right now. The storm came, some people fried and it’s—’
An automatic door whooshed open somewhere. The atmosphere in the room altered as cool air flooded in. She looked for a place to hide. She had so much to discuss with Denis. What had happened to him? Where had he been? How did he end up here? Why wasn’t he wearing any clothes? Denis ran behind a huge computer bank but when Genie rushed there to join him he wasn’t there.
There was nowhere to hide at all. It was impossible Denis could have hidden here. Impossible. ‘Denis?’
She heard footsteps, turned and saw a reflection in the glass wall – a uniformed security guard creeping along the bank of computers. Her throat began to constrict, she felt sick with terror. She suddenly saw Denis was at the other end of the room, behind her now, trying to get the attention of the guard.
‘Run, Genie, run!’ Denis shouted as he ran the other way. The armed man spun around to follow him. Genie dashed for the double doors at the end of the room hoping
they led somewhere. She heard a gunshot behind her.
Glass shattered. She burst through the end doors and her feet found nothing. She began to fall, fall and fall into black nothingness. She screamed as young, scared faces stared at her from the blackness. She felt them reach out for her. Heard them call her name. Was this what death felt like, as it sucked the life out of you?
She bounced, landed hard, all the breath knocked out of her. Then sat up gulping for air. She was feverish. It took her a moment to realize it had been a incredibly vivid dream. She was still lying on the hay bales; Rian was asleep next to her, undisturbed. The rain was falling noisily on the tin roof once more. The pig was snorting quietly down below and the gusting wind was causing a loose metal sheet to flap loudly above.
She stared into the darkness, unnerved. The dream was too intense, too real. Denis Malone was there. Denis had been in her classes for sure. He’d gone missing, she remembered that. One of the first to go from Spurlake, there had been ‘Missing’ posters pinned up on store walls all over town. She lay back, exhausted and tried to will herself to sleep. The building she recognized was the strange glass tower she’d seen as she passed by in the floodwaters. She was sure of it. She saw it again as the lightning flashed in her mind, the men inside with their
bright flashlights, the cars stacked up by the flood.
Why was it there? She closed her eyes. Did she really see it? Dreams like that were always a warning, but against what? Why had she dreamt of Denis, of all people?
She’d never spoken to him, not once. And why wasn’t he wearing any clothes?
Rian turned in his sleep and Genie stroked his arms.
She was safe. Rian was here, he’d saved her. But now what? Where are we gonna end up? Where can we go? How hard is it for kids to survive out here? Who can we trust?
The last image she saw before sleep took her again was of Denis turning to run and save her. He looked hunted and scared. What on earth had happened to him? Was she meant to find out? Was that what the dream meant?
9
Marshall
The sun streamed in from an uncanny clear sky. The yard was steaming outside in the heat and it was hard to believe there had been a deluge around the old farm.
Marshall sat on a straw bale and contemplated the view before him. A pig, definitely not his pig – he had never owned a pig – was sound asleep where it had made a bed for itself. The pig was a handsome animal, somewhat muddy, but it had an elegant long snout and had been most likely well cared for back where it came from. There might
or might not be a branding mark on its backside, hard to tell under the mud. There were two teenagers asleep at the top of the stack and he could see by the state of their feet, all bloodied under the layers of mud, that they’d been through quite a lot.
Marshall felt for his pipe and remembered he’d left it in the kitchen. He’d long ago given up smoking, but was unable to surrender the pipe itself. He looked back into the yard and beyond where the power line stood at an angle. The power was probably down right
across the valley after the storm, the ground simply washed away from under the pylons in some places.
The valley itself was underwater. Some farms would probably never recover, but then again, the water would find a way out. It had before, back in ’77 when he was a kid. That’s when they’d built the wall alongside the river.
Built it to exactly one metre higher than the breach of ’77 and here they were all over again with a wall crumbled before the force of nature.
Which brought him back to the kids and the stray pig. Had they brought the pig with them? The chances of a pig ending up here were so remote it was going to be an interesting story when he heard it.
He hadn’t inspected the barn since he’d made the cider last fall. He generally took a tour of everything he owned after a storm. He had been lucky, no damage except to the barn roof. No problem to fix it. The boy would probably help him if he asked.
Who were they? How long had they been gone? He wondered if they were like the others.
Rian woke first. He saw the man sat on the straw bale looking up at them. He looked at Genie still asleep, curled up tight to him, her fingers tucked into his shirt.
He shook her a little and her eyes fluttered.
‘Genie,’ he whispered, immediately aware his voice
sounded strange. ‘Wake up.’
Genie sat up. Instantly awake, trying to reorient herself. She was in a barn. She wasn’t in her bedroom.
She was with Rian. It wasn’t a dream.
Rian sort of acknowledged the man watching them.
Tried to clear his throat.
‘Sorry. We needed shelter.’ He was surprised by the sound of his voice sounding and feeling scratchy.
There was a lump growing in his throat too. Not a good sign.
Marshall pointed at the pig with his pipe. ‘That yours?’
Rian and Genie looked down over the bales and there was the magnificent pig sprawled out as happy as could be, snoring.
Genie smiled. She looked at the man. ‘Pig saved my life.’
Marshall nodded. ‘Pig’s a smart animal. I asked if it was yours?’
Genie shook her head. ‘Got washed down the river with everything else, I guess.’ She coughed. Her throat was tight and sore. ‘We clung on together and he followed me here. It’s huge. I can’t believe it. Long walk too – for a pig.’
Marshall could judge a lot by what people said, or didn’t say. The surprise in the girl’s face was genuine.
And it was she who had saved the pig and that was more than most would do.
‘It’s a Tamworth sow. She’s a grower, good sixty kilograms I’d say. Nice ruddy colour too. Someone would be proud to own such a pig.’
Genie looked down at the pig a moment and saw its feet shake. She felt quite attached to the beast.
‘Where you from?’ Marshall asked.
‘Spurlake.’ Rian had planned to lie but it just slipped out automatically.
Marshall nodded. Closest town.
‘The Paramount Steakhouse on Peak is my favourite.’
Genie glanced at Rian, puzzled. She didn’t know it.
‘Hate to tell you, Mister, but they must of torn it down years ago. We never heard of it,’ Rian confessed. Didn’t want to upset the guy an’ all.
Marshall stood up and smiled. ‘I know that. Just testing. Breakfast?’ He looked at the pig a moment. ‘I’ll leave out the bacon.’
Genie smiled. ‘I should hope so. It’s quite sensitive.’
She tried to straighten her hair. She was a mess. ‘We got anything for the pig?’
‘Some apples, some cereal. They’ll pretty much eat anything,’ Marshall mused. He moved over to the side and pulled out a small bucket and filled it from a tap on
the wall. ‘I got a paddock I used to use for my horses.
It can live there for now until we find its owner.’ He brought the water over and left it a few feet away from the pig. ‘Got to give them plenty of water. Pigs are like humans, they like to drink.’
Rian climbed down first and waited for Genie to join him. The pig opened an eye but didn’t seem too bothered by the activity.
Genie slid down the ladder and landed on her feet too hard. She looked at the gash on her arm and realized it was sore. ‘Ouch.’
‘You’re pretty cut up,’ Marshall commented. He saw the bruises now that the light was on her face. ‘What happened to your face, girl?’ He narrowed his eyes at Rian as if reappraising him. ‘Want to tell me how she got so cut and bruised, boy?’
‘Not me, sir. That’s why we’re here, sir. On account of the bruises and . . .’
Genie walked up to the man. Let him see up close what kind of shape she was in. ‘My mother.’ She said nothing else.
Marshall nodded and turned. ‘Close the lower half of the door as you leave so the pig can’t get out. I’ll send you back with some food for it in a while.’
Rian and Genie snatched a look at each other. No
choice but to trust him. Genie looked at the pig pretending to sleep. It was wary now, but she had a feeling it had no need to be. She hoped the man was OK. You could never really tell about people. Not right away. She caught her reflection in an old mottled mirror propped up on the wall and suddenly she remembered her nightmare. She literally stopped in her tracks and froze.
‘What?’ Rian asked. ‘Genie? What’s wrong?’ He could see that she had turned ghostly white.
She had remembered something else that spooked her now.
‘Denis Malone. He’s dead. I remember now. They found him in Feather Creek last May. Buried him. Half the school went to the funeral.’
‘You OK?’ Rian asked. He sort of remembered something about the kid. Been missing for so long. Made the local paper when his body turned up.
‘He was in my dream last night, but he wasn’t dead.’
‘Well, it was a dream.’ Rian told her. ‘You don’t want to be dreaming of dead people.’
‘I didn’t dream of dead people,’ Genie protested. ‘He was as alive as you or me and just the same. I mean, he was still thirteen or whatever. Hadn’t aged a bit. He told me to run. It was weird, Ri. He was naked, well almost. Had this big red scar on his shoulder, like
he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning. It was a huge place filled with hundreds of computers. So hot, I woke up choking.’
Rian took her arm and squeezed. ‘You were feverish after being in the water, Gen. That’s all. Remember, I said you were hot when I arrived. Dreams are weird; you always remember stuff you just don’t want to. Naked?
Sure it wasn’t one of those dreams?’
Genie frowned, attempted a weak smile. ‘I promise you I have never once thought about Denis Malone, with or without clothes. It wasn’t one of those dreams. It was a warning of some kind. I’m sure.’ Nevertheless, Rian was probably right. Just because a dream was vivid, it didn’t mean it was significant or anything.
She pointed towards Marshall, patiently waiting for them outside the barn. She took a deep breath and smiled at Rian. ‘We’re lucky to be alive, Ri. We really are.’
Then they were outside in the sunlight, blinking, astonished the bad weather could have vanished so completely. Marshall was still observing them closely.
‘Where were you two headed?’ he asked casually.
Rian squeezed Genie’s hand to indicate he was going to answer this. ‘We were staying on a friend’s houseboat.
By Coho Creek. I’ve been doing maintenance.’ His voice was all over the p
lace and sounded weird.
‘Premier MacLean’s old tub? Didn’t know it was still habitable.’
‘Huge tree hit it,’ Genie said. ‘Ripped the roof clean off.
Scariest moment of my life.’
Marshall digested this information. ‘So you were . . .’
‘Hiding from my mother,’ Genie jumped in. ‘I’d like to stay hidden if you didn’t mind, sir. If you were thinking of making a call.’
Marshall liked her courage. These kids were very close, he could see that.
‘Phone and power are out. I’m not calling anyone.
None of my business. I just like to make sure no one is doing anything against his or her will. I’m old-fashioned, but I’m not a man to stand in the way of young love. Been in love myself once or twice. Believe it or not.’
Rian smiled. Genie was still wary however. She wasn’t used to trusting adults. He’d seemed pretty calm about them being in his barn. Some people might have just reached for their shotgun and run them off their land.
She noted that he had a limp. They followed him down the track towards his house, both hoping he could be trusted.
10
Spurlake
Spurlake was a disaster zone. Trees uprooted, blocking roads or crushing roofs, streets and houses flooded, cars up-ended, trucks overturned, some parked on top of houses. Six neighbourhood streets and the homes were completely flooded, all the way to the eaves, with families with river-front properties camping out on the roofs, scared to leave in case of looters. Everywhere people were yelling for a lost dog or cat. Spurlake wasn’t a big town, but the sudden water and hurricane strength wind had devastated much of it, torn down the mall, ripped the roofs of two school buildings and the Veterans’ Hall.
People everywhere were stunned by the damage.
Mrs Tulane surveyed the debris from her driveway.
She’d been lucky, the street was flooded but her home was on a small slope and the water had stopped short of her door. Mr Yates came wading through the water, back from a mission to find out what had happened. He had arrived by kayak this morning, the roads being impassable in places. He was pleased with himself for being so
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