Thanks to the nuclear bomb that hit the southeastern suburbs, shattered glass from windows facing southeast covered much of the roads and sidewalks. It was like looking at streets made of quartz that glittered in the sunlight. Nature was busily reclaiming the deserted streets too. Trees and bushes grew wild, claiming every square meter of exposed soil. Wild grass sprouted from every crack in the asphalt and concrete, while creepers attacked the sides of buildings, climbing many stories high in some instances.
We reached Flinders Street and drove east, following tram tracks while dodging abandoned cars and trucks. We passed an old, green copper domed railway station on our right that had a faded yellow facade and large clock. The archway entrance beneath the clock gave the impression of an ugly, yawning mouth, the shattered windows akin to broken teeth. I shuddered at the sight of the station’s darkened interior, so ominous, so uninviting.
Then I jolted, thoroughly sickened by what I saw next. Several bodies, including two Skel, were nailed to the wall beneath the station’s upper windows, arms spread wide as though they had been crucified. They must have been there for some time, for they were in advanced stages of decay, if not skeletons.
I recalled Brandon telling me that there were things – people – in the city that made the Skel seem friendly. No one had ever seen them, but corpses like these were nailed outside the five entrances to the City Loop underground subway and rail system. The message was clear. Stay out of the subway or end up like them.
It was assumed that the City Loop denizens only came out at night. For our sake, I hoped so. Actually, there was one forager who may have seen them. Brandon told me of a rumour that Ethan Jones went into the subway once when curiosity got the better of him. What he saw no one knew, for he never spoke of the experience afterwards. I suppressed another shudder. What were we doing in the city anyway? Surely there were safer places to go?
Leaving the station behind, we passed Federation Square, a large, open-air square surrounded by buildings on three sides and paved with ochre-coloured sandstone blocks. The walls of some buildings in the square had the appearance of earth-coloured patchwork quilts. The steel struts of a large atrium looked strangely out of place with most of the glass panels missing.
I was most surprised when Con turned the truck off Flinders Street and into a claustrophobically narrow alleyway named Hosier Lane.
We drove slowly down the alleyway and my mouth dropped open in sheer amazement. The buildings on both sides of the lane were covered with the most stunningly beautiful, colourful street art. And what was just as amazing, it had clearly been restored, because it could not have survived a century of wind, rain and dirt and still look so vibrant, as though it had been painted yesterday.
There were words painted with a 3D effect, an elephant decked out with a golden crown and jewels, a skull, a wooden ship about to be grappled by a green and purple giant octopus, hideous monsters wrestling with oriental serpentine dragons, even lifelike busts of people painted on the windows behind inch-thick iron security grills.
Con parked the truck and we tumbled out into the street. I went over to the closest wall and ran my fingers over the street art. As I suspected, the images were free of dust and dirt. I glanced at my teammates, wondering who restored them, but immediately rejected the idea that it could be them.
“You calmed down a bit, buddy?” Jack asked.
I nodded.
“Con was about to throttle you yesterday, you know that?”
“Got that impression.”
“Be more careful, eh? You don’t want him offside.”
“I know.”
“Fair enough.”
“I wonder who restores all this street art?” I mused aloud.
“Duh - the Loopers. Scary thought, isn’t it. For a hundred years they’ve been crucifying anyone stupid enough to enter the subway, but at the same time, keep maintaining the street art.” Jack paused and looked at me quizzically. “Say, why are you asking me stuff you already know?”
I gave him a deadpan expression. “I wasn’t asking you, Doofus, I was talking to myself. Besides, we don’t know they’re the ones doing it, do we? No one’s ever seen them.”
Jack shrugged. “True enough. Still, the cans of enamel paint we leave outside the lab every now as peace offerings disappear pretty quick.”
“Hey, jerks! You coming or what?” Con bellowed.
We joined the other three, who were standing in front of a reinforced steel door leading into what used to be a bar or nightclub.
“Remember the password?” Con asked Matt.
Matt nodded and knocked a complex beat on the steel door.
The door swung open and a balding forager I’d seen once or twice stuck his head out. He was holding a double-barrelled shotgun, which was aimed at our heads.
“You’re not rostered on today.” He glared at us menacingly.
So this was the lab? Where they made the Elatyon drugs they smuggled back to Newhome. If I only had a bomb, I’d set it and blow it sky high.
“Come to grab some ordnance,” Con snapped back. “For the breakout.”
“Right. Carry on, then.”
The door swung open and we traipsed inside in single file. Stairs led both up and down, but to our right, double doors opened into a clean but currently unoccupied bar. It had a similar layout and atmosphere to the Foragers’ Club back home, so no points for working out who set the place up.
Going by the sounds floating down the stairs, the lab must be on the next floor up. I wondered who established it. It could not have been done without at least one person having the knowledge or experience of a pharmacist. The next question was why they stuck it all the way out here, right in the midst of Looper territory, but I guessed that in itself was the answer. From what I heard about the Custodians, they rarely ventured from Newhome, and when they did, they absolutely never came to the city. No doubt thanks to the horror stories propagated by the foragers. Stories which until now I listened to with a pinch of salt. Now, after seeing those bodies strung up outside the station, I realised they weren’t exaggerating at all.
Downstairs was a basement stacked with plastic containers and bottles of chemicals, as well as steel cabinets filled with guns and knives of all shapes and sizes, even C4 explosives. Seemed the foragers had been busy, collecting them and bringing them here. I thought it was dangerous to keep explosives beneath a drugs laboratory, but figured they knew what they were doing.
My companions grabbed a couple of bags and went through the handguns and boxes of ammunition. Feeling conspicuous standing still beside them, I let rip with echolocation to watch exactly how they checked the guns to make sure they still worked, and then did the same.
An hour later, we carted the bags upstairs, laden with two dozen handguns and ammo, and blocks of C4 explosives and detonators. They hid a couple of guns and the explosives in the secret compartment in the door of the truck. The rest would go to the secret cache we were building just outside of town. The explosives would be used to create the distraction on the night we escaped.
“Next stop, blankets and backpacks,” Con said once we were back in the truck.
“Have you decided upon the day?” I asked.
“Friday next week,” Con replied. “That gives us plenty of time to get everything ready.”
That news should have excited me, but all I felt was conflicting emotions. Relief to get my family away from this place, and overwhelming guilt for helping four murderers escape justice. Why did life have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t things just be black and white?
“How many foragers have come onboard now?” Jack asked.
“Twenty-four,” Matt said. “And about seventy relatives, mostly immediate family members. They won’t all turn up on the night, though.”
Chapter Thirty
A slightly thinner Ryan came back to work on Wednesday, saying he’d been struck down by a bout of gastro. Poor guy.
We had made good use of the two days he was
absent. The cache hidden in the basement of an old grocery store in Ascot Vale was now stocked with a hundred blankets, boots and shoes of all sizes, several first aid kits, hats, backpacks filled with bottled water, and of course, guns. We didn’t spend the whole of each day doing this, of course. We still had to do our jobs and the truck needed to be filled with recyclables.
Now that Ryan was with us, we went back to foraging as usual, heading for a high-rise apartment block out past Essendon in search of plastics. The areas closest to Newhome had been stripped pretty bare by foragers over the decades, forcing us to go further and further out.
After a long and gruelling Friday, I was standing in the back of the truck, receiving folding plastic chairs from Jack as he passed them up to me. Ryan was still in the building, ripping plastic plumbing out of bathroom vanity units. Con and Matt were engaged in a deep-and-meaningful near the front of the truck, and my ears picked up when I heard Con quietly mention Ryan’s name. I plonked the next chair down quietly and focused on what they were saying.
“...those porn DVDs in Ryan’s backpack?” Con asked Matt.
“Yep. Stuffed ‘em at the bottom of his bag, under the spare t-shirt.”
“Sure he won’t find them?”
“Not unless he tips the contents of his bag out, and he’s never done that,” Matt replied. “But Con, isn’t this a waste of time? What are the odds the Custodians will run one of their spot checks today?”
“They will. I made sure of it.” Con sounded mighty pleased with himself.
“How?”
“A couple of hundred bucks in the right hands.”
“You bribed a Custodian?” Matt sounded shocked.
“More like a clerk – the one who draws up the Custodian duty rosters,” Con replied.
“But if Ryan really is an informer, won’t they let him off?” Matt asked.
“If the Custodians catch Ryan with contraband, they’ll have to arrest him. Of course, once they get him back to the station they’ll let him go with a slap on the wrist. But it will still serve our purposes, because he’ll get the sack.”
“Right, got it. You’re one devious git, Con, you know that?”
“I do what needs to be done,” Con answered.
I stopped listening at that point, but my mind was elsewhere. Still adhering to their presumption that Ryan was a Custodian informer, they set him up. And Con was wrong, the Custodians would not let him go with a slap on the wrist. He would lose his job, get a stint in prison, and face a hefty fine. The dishonour could also destroy any prospects of him marrying well.
I had already seen what a short stay in a prison factory could do to an innocent man, and I could not bear the thought of Ryan turning out like my father did. Scarred, broken, a shadow of who he used to be.
I had to save him, though how, I had no idea.
I was just about out of my wits by the time we drove into the yard at the Recycling Works an hour later. Seeing a squad of Custodians searching the truck and gear of a foraging team that returned before us sent me to the verge of panic.
I had tried to get to Ryan’s bag after we finished loading the truck, but with Con loitering beside it, I had to abandon the attempt. When it came time to leave, Ryan had grabbed the bag and stuffed it between his feet in the front seat. As I was in the back, that was that.
“Great, it’s ‘harass the foragers’ day’ today, is it? Stupid gits, haven’t they got anything better to do?” Con said as he parked the truck beside the Custodian’s G-Wagon. I loved how he acted all innocent. Scumbag.
“Apparently not,” Matt replied.
I finally hatched a desperate plan that could save Ryan’s bacon, so I held my stomach and groaned.
“Brandon?” Ryan asked, concerned.
“Gut ache. I better not have caught this from you.”
Overhearing us, Matt and Jack clambered out of the vehicle as quickly as they could, eyeing me nervously. When I followed them and lined up beside Ryan, they stood on his other side.
We dropped our bags on the concrete in front of us, and I went through the motions of moaning in pain while crouching down, holding my stomach.
Their search of the other foraging team complete, Sergeant King and his goons headed ominously towards us. I was out of time.
Doubling over, I put my hands over my mouth like I’d seen others do when they were about to vomit, but surreptitiously stuck a finger down the back of my throat at the same time. My stomach heaved and I threw up all over Ryan’s bag.
“Oh, man! Couldn’t you have aimed that somewhere else?” Ryan jumped back, fuming.
“Ew, gross,” Matt said as he, Jack and Con stumbled quickly away.
The sergeant and his companion kept their distance from me and grimaced.
“That had better not be contagious,” King snarled.
“Just spent two days in bed with it,” Ryan said.
The sergeant swore. “Then get your behind out of here, Thomas! And wash that blasted bag before you go!”
With one hand clutching my stomach, I grabbed the befouled backpack and shuffled towards the large doors leading into the warehouse.
“Go with him, Private. Check the contents of the bag when it’s clean,” King said to one of his men.
“Me?” the Custodian asked, face ashen.
“Go!”
The private came after me, but left as big a gap between us as he possibly could. No one wanted to catch viral gastroenteritis.
Passing into the warehouse, I shambled past piles of neatly stacked piles of wood until I reached a steel drinking trough. Keeping my back to the Custodian, I turned the tap beside the trough and washed away the vomit. At the same time, I quickly unzipped the bag and stuffed my hand inside. Finding two DVD cases at the bottom, I drew them out and quickly shoved them into the narrow gap between the trough and the wall. Not much of a hiding place, but it would have to do. I would come back later and throw them somewhere no one could find them.
The bag clean, I turned around and tipped its contents on the ground.
“Yeah, yeah, that’ll do. Now get to sickbay,” the Custodian said, refusing to come any closer.
Leaving the bag and its contents on the ground, I made my way slowly to the grossly ill-equipped sickbay below the boss’ office.
The room was small – just wide enough for a fold-up cot, six-foot tall medicine cabinet, chair, sink, and toilet at the far end of the room. I washed my hands and face, and lay on the bed, feigning illness.
Now that the whole affair was over, my pulse started to come back to earth. I exhaled a large sigh of relief – my plan worked – Ryan was safe! On the other hand, I was sure Con saw right through my little act, so I wasn’t looking forward to our next meeting.
Turned out I didn’t have to wait long.
Ten minutes later Con stormed into the sickbay like a bull at a gate, with Matt and a very concerned Jack trailing behind.
“What did you think you were doing, you stupid punk!” He grabbed me by the collar and in one smooth action, hauled me off the cot and slammed me into the metal medicine cabinet. Glass bottles rattled and tinkled inside.
I met his fury with my own. “Thought you could pull off a stunt like that without me noticing, did you?”
“You idiot! This was our best chance to get that jerk out of the picture so he couldn’t stumble onto our preparations for the breakout.” He stuck forehead right against the brim of my cap. I could make out every pore on his greasy skin. “Not to mention how much effort it took to set it up. You got any idea how much it cost me personally to get the Custodians here today?”
Sick of being bullied by this murderous doofus, I grabbed his collar and shoved him back. “I told you time and again that he’s not an informer, but you won’t listen, will you?”
“Look here, you arrogant little prat–”
“No, you listen. You pull a stunt like that again, or harm a single hair on his head, I’ll turn us all in. You hear me?”
Con’s gr
ip on my collar slackened and he fell back, shocked beyond measure. Even Matt and Jack cried out in dismay. For I’d just threatened the four of us with execution.
“What the blazes has gotten into you?” Con said as he shoved me into the medicine cabinet again. “You off your rocker?”
“Don’t you get it, guys?” I took in all three of them as I answered. “We blew it big time with Dan. Ain’t no way I’m letting us do that again.”
Con glanced at the others and drew back a fist. “I’m gonna smash some sense into him.”
Jack rushed forward, alarmed. Matt just watched.
“You sleeping well these days, Con?” I asked. The fist stopped inches from my face.
“What?”
“’Cause I’m not. If I even manage to get to sleep, I’m plagued by horrific nightmares haunted by Dan. By his shock at my betrayal, his broken body, and now his mother asking how I could have done such a dastardly thing.”
“We made a mistake!” he barked.
“Yes, we did! And I’m trying to stop us making another one! For Dan’s sake, and for ours.”
“Brandon’s got a point.” Jack nodded his head, casting a pleading look at Con.
“Matt?” I said.
“Don’t rake me into this.”
“How’s your conscience at the moment? You sleeping okay?”
He turned away, unable to meet my gaze.
“I thought so.” I turned back to Con. “You gotta stop thinking that everything I do is a challenge to your authority.”
“Think you’re smart, don’t you?” he snarled. “Well you’re not. You’re just a stupid kid who’s grown too big for his own boots. From here on, you’d better watch your step or I’ll smash you to a pulp with the slightest provocation.” With that he stormed from the room. Matt rushed after him, but Jack remained.
Impersonator (Forager Impersonator - A Post Apocalyptic Trilogy Book 1) Page 20