by Shane Carrow
It was a moment before I heard the ute pulling up outside, crunching across the gravel, the doors buckling open and boots on the the ground. “Come out of there!” one of them yelled. “It’s over, mate! Come out with your hands up!”
I didn’t say anything. I’d put the spare minute to good use. Or at least the best use I had. I was hunkered down in the hayloft, waiting.
The only sound now was the distant tattoo of the helicopter rotors.
The barn door was pushed open slowly. I looked down through a crack in the boards. The barrel of a rifle came through first, carefully, sweeping the room. The soldier holding it stepped in slowly – in his thirties, thick black beard, scruffy-looking uniform and civilian backpack. He was followed by the other two – younger, around my age, a few wisps of stubble, neither with complete uniforms; one was wearing a black leather jacket and the other a stockman’s coat. They weren’t wanting for guns, though. All three of them had Steyr Augs in hand and Brownings in holsters.
“Sarge,” one of the younger ones said nervously, as they advanced into the barn. I already had a lighter in one hand, a wad of newspaper in the other. “It smells like…”
“Petrol,” I said, standing up and dropping the newspaper from the loft. As soon as it left my hand I was running for the open window, bursting out into the air, the interior of the barn going up with a dry whumpf of heat and pressure behind me.
I hit the ground, rolled, the barn already a terrible radiant force of heat behind my back. I scrambled to my feet and ran for their ute, which they’d left a stone’s throw from the barn doors, both doors open, and as I dashed towards it I hoped like hell the keys were in there.
I hurled myself inside the ute – there were the keys, dangling from the ignition, and I stomped my foot on the clutch and twisted them. I looked past the passenger seat, out the open door, to see one of the soldiers stumbling out of the barn, wreathed in flames. He was dropping to the ground, rolling and flailing, and I could hear his tortured screaming over the sound of the ute’s engine and the roar of the helicopter. I felt sick. It did not look like a nice way to die. But even then, at the core of that, in my heart, I thought: Good. Yes. Good. I’m glad that I’m still alive, and you’re dead. I’m glad that I won.
I kicked the ute into gear, slammed the door shut, and took off back down the trail with a spray of gravel, leaving the barn burning in my wake.
It wasn’t over. The helicopter was still above and behind me, glimpses of it marring the blue sky in the rear-view mirror, and that sergeant and his two young men would have been only the first in the ground forces sent against me. I couldn’t outrun a chopper in a ute. I still had to get into the bush, get to cover. I spun a sharp corner onto another trail, heading west, towards the treeline, and saw with dismay that another plume of dust was coming down the farm trails towards me – and another, from another direction – and another…
Everything converging on me. I felt like a fleeing rabbit. I’d kicked the ute up into fifth gear, roaring at a hundred kays an hour down a tight gravel road, barbed wire and cow paddocks rushing past on either side of me. The low, bush-covered hills were looming up ahead of me, but there was a sick feeling in my stomach – how could I expect to survive, really, with these forces hot on my tail? I didn’t even have a gun. As I drove I searched the glovebox, ran my spare hand between the seats, craned my neck to check the back – nothing but a backpack full of MREs, a few emergency flares, some roadmaps in the console. I shoved them all into the backpack. I was going to have to abandon the ute.
I reached the treeline. The track kept on going here, merging into a firebreak. I had a sudden memory of Western Australia, when Aaron and I had fallen in with a military convoy, attacked by zombies south of Perth, trying to flee into a firebreak in a sedan and making it about twenty metres before getting bogged and cracking the rear axle. Well, this was different, this was a ute and this was a more gravelly firebreak and anyway I was higher on adrenaline than mere zombies ever could have made me. As I surged uphill, up the firebreak, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the vehicles in pursuit converging through the fields behind me – a civilian sedan, a Bushmaster, a four-wheel drive with mottled olive camouflage paint.
I crested the hill. A branching track ran into the firebreak and I turned down that, skidding on the sand and gravel, the steering wheel spinning in my hands. Branches and bushes whipped past the windshield as I urged the ute on, through the bush, down an overgrown track, mounds of dirt thumping in the undercarriage and rattling every bone in my body. I glanced in the rear-view again but the track was twisting, winding, into thicker and greener bushland than my Western Australian mind was accustomed to.
I twisted off down another track, forced the ute on with sheer willpower, begging it not to burst a tyre or break an axle. More and more branches were snapping against the windows – I scraped against a trunk, shearing off the wing mirror – then it was too much, the undergrowth was catching the undercarriage, the ute could go no further.
I twisted the handle, kicked the door open, grabbed the backpack from the passenger seat. The engine was still going but I could hear the chopper overhead, through the foliage, unseen. I had twenty, maybe thirty seconds. I unscrewed the petrol cap, tossed it away, twisted the end off a flare, and as it sparked into hissing red light I shoved the other end into the petrol tank. For good measure I threw a second one into the dry, twisted mess of undergrowth beneath the engine.
Then I turned and ran. Stumbling, shoving, forcing my way through thick bush, the flares hissing and burning behind me. I could hear the helicopter throbbing overhead, hear the distant sounds of the pursuing engines. I ran as hard as I could, stumbling through bushes, trying to put as much distance between me and the ute as possible.
I heard it explode behind me, a satisfying crumping noise, the whoosh of further flames, the screeching of startled cockatoos taking flight into the orange sunset. I paused to look back, saw thick black smoke coming up through the trees, the flicker of yellow flames. I caught my breath for a second, then kept moving, pushing through scratchy branches, stumbling down a small, dry gully, moving blindly through the bush with the ever-present sound of the helicopter lurking above.
I heard a shout from somewhere off to my left, and paused, panting for breath, clutching the sap-sticky skin of a gum tree. The car was still burning mightily away behind me, but the soldiers had fanned out past it, looking for me. Maybe they were being cautious – maybe they didn’t know I was unarmed. The ones at the barn had looked like teenage conscripts. Maybe they were as shit scared as I was.
Yeah, right. I had one emergency flare left. I twisted the cap off, held it for a second – painfully aware that if there were any nearby, they’d spot it through the trees straight away – and pressed it into the dry, windblown dead leaves gathered in the crook of the gum tree’s roots.
A moment later the fire was going nicely. I heard a cry from somewhere off behind me, but I was already moving again, staying low, pushing through shrubs and bushes, my face becoming a patchwork of angry red scratches.
Everything I’d ever heard in this country, my whole life since I was a little kid, talked about how dangerous bushfires were. How easy to start them – a carelessly tossed cigarette butt, an angle grinder on a hot day. Well, it was the end of winter, but if anything would start a fire then it was chucking a couple of flares around and blowing up a ute. We were about to see just how true all those warnings had been.
Trouble was, as far as I could see, I was heading downwind. And I’d lit the fire behind me.
I wasn’t looking over my shoulder all that much – just obsessed with getting away, as quickly and quietly as I could. I could still hear the chopper, but it wasn’t directly overhead anymore. I could hear shouts, as well, and even a burst of gunfire, which puzzled me, unless they were jumping at shadows. When I did look behind me, there was a sense, far off behind me in the trees, of… heat. Flame. A spreading conflagration. The sun was going down and
casting the entire bush in red and orange light, which didn’t help. But it definitely looked like my fire was taking off.
I kept moving. The ground was going slightly uphill, but still forested. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if the bushland abruptly ended at another patchwork of fields and paddocks. It was even a miracle this was here at all.
A pair of kangaroos bounded past me suddenly, coming from behind, no more than a few metres away. I stopped for a moment, startled – I’d never known wild animals to come that close. I looked back, and suddenly realised the fire was encroaching faster than I’d thought – I could see the flames coming through the trees, burning up the eucalyptus oil, the smell of smoke on the wind…
I kept moving. I must have reached the top of whatever low hills we were in, because the ground was sloping down now, and I was sprinting through it as fast as I could, tearing through bushes. Another kangaroo bounded past me, and birds screeched overhead. Animals fleeing the fire.
Maybe I’d fucked it. I’d wanted to make a diversion, get away from the soldiers, just like I had at the barn. Maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I could feel the heat of it, now, combining with my own adrenaline rush from the past half hour, my shirt stuck to my back with sweat. I’d never believed them, when they’d said a bushfire can outrun you, but here I was, learning my lesson…
The trees ahead suddenly thinned out. I stopped at the edge of the cliff, grabbing a tree trunk to slow my momentum. For a horrible moment I’d thought I was trapped – but it wasn’t a canyon or dry gully. It was a river. Five, maybe six metres below.
I turned to look behind me. The fire had become an inferno terrifyingly quickly, all the tree trunks behind me dark sticks against the orange glow, the sound and the smell of it overwhelming. I could already feel the heat on my face.
Not really a choice, then. I jumped.
I hit the water feet first, refreshingly cold, and immediately struck out for the surface, regretting not taking my boots off before I’d leapt. The sun had disappeared below the western treetops and the surface of the river was dark. Little embers and flecks of burning, windblown bark were hissing down into the water around me. The river was maybe ten metres wide, hopefully too much for the fire to jump – though even if it did I could just stay low, stay in the water in the middle. I started striking out for the opposite bank.
It was moving more swiftly than I’d thought, I suddenly realised, as the current bore me steadily downstream. Not rapids, exactly, but the glow of the fire moved away more quickly than I’d expected, and I started freestyling to try to reach the other side before I got swept into rocks or something.
It was then – in that inky gloom, water running into my eyes, struggling to stay afloat – that I saw myself being swept towards a small island in the middle of the river. And it was a moment later I realised it wasn’t an island at all, but a houseboat.
As the current swept me past it I struck out weakly, managed to grab a handhold or something – I couldn’t see anything, there was a paddlewheel, the water was churning up past my head. I tried to pull myself up and was shocked by how weak I was: burnt out on adrenaline, no proper sleep, nothing decent to eat for days. It was a short moment of surprise – that maybe this was it, I was actually going to die here, sinking beneath the water because I was too exhausted to stay afloat – when suddenly strong hands reached down from the deck and hauled me aboard.
I lay there on the boards like a fish, spluttering and choking up water. A reassuring hand on my back – “You’re all right, mate, you’ll be all right” – and then, for a moment, it was bliss to just lie there. Not running, not swimming, not terrified. I could just lie down and not move. Maybe this was a military boat, maybe I was fucked, maybe they’d caught me and it had all been for nothing. I was too exhausted and half-drowned to care.
“Thanks,” I choked out eventually. “Thank you.” I was soaking wet, and night was coming on fast. My teeth were chattering.
“Let’s get you belowdecks and get some food into you,” said the bloke who’d pulled me out. He was middle-aged, with a hefty beer gut and a thick black beard. There were others moving around us in the dark – not many. “Erica, good to go?” he called up to the bow. In the dusk, outlined against the distant glow of the fire, I saw a woman give a thumbs up. “Anchors up!” she called. “On our way.”
The man led me towards a low doorway. I had one last glance up towards the cliff I’d fallen from, already disappearing around a bend in the river, a vision of burning trees and upflung embers, the smoke blotting out the early evening stars. I couldn’t hear the chopper anymore. Maybe they couldn’t operate with smoke in the air like that.
“Come on, mate,” the man said. “I got some stuff you can wear – get you out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini, eh?”
He led me into a messy cabin, which seemed to be some sort of office – he had a desk, anyway, covered in stuff, which was also stacked high around the walls. It reminded me of the American captain’s bunker, crammed full of seemingly random shit: children’s toys, candles, crockery, clothing, tools, engine parts, paint tins…
“Here, this’ll probably fit you,” he said, passing me a pair of black jeans and a long-sleeved grey t-shirt. He gave me a towel, as well, and cranked up the dial on an electric bar heater. I stripped out of the wet clothes gratefully.
“My name’s Harrison, by the way,” the man said. “Yours?”
I hesitated. “Michael,” I said – Dad’s name, and the middle name Aaron and I share.
“Where are you from, Michael?”
I’d already thought of that. “Bundaberg,” I said. I know that’s somewhere to the north of Brisbane – I didn’t want to say I was from anywhere around there. Aaron had already said they were pumping the airwaves full of shit about the loyalist plane from Brisbane that had been shot down.
“You’re a long way from home,” Harrison said, sitting down by his desk.
“It’s not home,” I said, unlacing my boots and peeling the tongues back, drying them in front of the heater. “I’m from WA. On holiday when this started. Back in January.”
“Even longer, then. What brings you down here?”
I shrugged. “I was with some other people. For a while. They thought New England would be safer. That was what we heard.”
“What happened to them?”
“Same thing happens to everyone,” I said.
Harrison leaned back in his chair. He was looking at me – appraising me, I could tell – and I didn’t meet his eye. I fussed with my boots, kept turning them, trying to dry them, avoiding his gaze.
“And the fire?”
“Dunno,” I said. “I was about to make camp for the night. Just came up on me and I ran for it. Fucking lucky the river was there. Lucky to run into you, too. Thank you – don’t know if I said that. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. I glanced over at him. He was leaning in his chair slightly, an unreadable look on his face.
“You were still camping out, then?” he said. “Travelling on your own? You’re a long way into New England now. You didn’t want to go to Inglewood? Glen Innes? You’re almost at Armidale.”
“I, um…” I said. “Wasn’t really up to me. The others… I don’t know. They had some arguments about it. Moot point now. I saw the farms and stuff. But… what was I meant to do? Walk up and knock on the door?”
“I would have.”
“Well,” I said. “No disrespect. But that tells me you haven’t been outside New England. It really must be safe here. If you feel like you can go knock on a stranger’s door.” I looked over at him. “If I’m honest with you. When you pulled me out of the river? My first instinct was to shove you off me and jump right back in, and get the fuck away. You don’t know what it’s like up in Queensland. What it means to run into a stranger.”
“All right,” Harrison said softly. “Okay.”
There was a knock at the door, and without waitin
g for an answer a woman came in. She was in her early twenties, hair shaved short, a nasty scar running down the side of her face. A slick, military-looking shotgun was slung over her back, but she had a mug of tea in one hand and a warmed-up Tupperware container of leftovers in the other. I could smell the food, and my stomach leapt in delight.
“Thank you, Erica,” Harrison said, as she deposited it on the desk in front of me. She gave a grunt again, and left, and Harrison motioned at me to eat and drink.
“Your, uh…?”
“Daughter,” Harrison said, as I tucked in. “There’s the three of them, and me. Lost their mum years ago – cancer. Shit of a thing. But I’ve still got them, I know I’m lucky that I still have them. Lots of people lost a lot this year.”
“What’s the situation, here?” I said, between mouthfuls of warmed-up fried rice, every little pea or piece of carrot like a flavour explosion. It had only been a week since I’d eaten a hot meal aboard the Canberra, but it felt like a century. “I’ve seen the farms – there’s no walls, nothing like that – haven’t seen a single zombie at all.”
“It’s mostly safe,” Harrison said. “Don’t get me wrong – you still shouldn’t be sleeping out in the bush. There’s probably still some wandering out there. But the towns are walled, and the general’s had search-and-destroy teams combing the countryside for the last few months, and they say it’s mostly clear now. They were concentrated in pretty obvious areas in the first place, anyway. Around the refugee camps, around the big settlements. There’s a lot of them, but they’re stupid. I remember back at the start, there were people talking about how this was the end of the world, the extinction of the human race – well, this proves them wrong. It’ll never be like it was, but we’re not going to die out.”
If only you knew the half of it, I thought. “You been here since the start?”