The Last Girl

by Michael Adams

  I clicked my fingers in front of my face.

  ‘Snap out of this, snap out of it.’

  But I didn’t.

  Snap.

  I turned the word in my head. It was the sound of something breaking in a split second—but it was also what people said when they thought or did something simultaneously.

  The Snap—that’s what had happened to us.

  It wouldn’t unhappen. You couldn’t unsnap anything. I had to accept that. Denial was dangerous. So many people had died—were dying right now—because they couldn’t or wouldn’t face this new reality. Not having my thoughts exposed had given me a better chance. But I could never forget that death was on our heels if we were to stay far enough ahead to stay alive.

  I cuddled Evan tight to me, my back against a tree trunk, and let my mind wander across our surroundings. We were lucky to have landed on this spot. The apartment complexes along the reserve’s eastern side still had electricity and the residents who’d fought to stay didn’t want to leave after witnessing the chaotic darkness elsewhere. But sooner or later their power would fail and batteries would die and then they’d only have each other and the walls to bounce off. That’s when fleeing into shadowy parklands might become attractive.

  Mosquitoes whined and dive-bombed. Wasn’t smoke supposed to ward off the little bastards? There was enough of it in the air. Waving them away was useless so I stretched my jumper around Evan and rubbed mud from my boots on our exposed skin. It helped a little.

  How long had it been since the Snap? The overload of bad shit and the prematurely dark sky had me all out of sync. Waking up, opening Christmas presents: that was someone else’s life, lived a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Even the phrase ‘long time ago in a galaxy far, far away’ seemed like it came from that ancient alien place. I wriggled around, got my phone from Evan’s pocket and clicked it on. It was just after one in the afternoon. It felt surreal that less than four hours had passed. Maybe time had stopped working. Maybe it didn’t matter now.

  Except it did. More than ever before in my leisurely little life. That’s because it was vital I kept track of how long Evan had been without fluids and food. I knew the time we could survive without life’s essentials was roughly measured in threes: three minutes without oxygen; three days without water; three weeks without food. Evan had the cereal and milk not too long ago. He’d be okay for a while. But I had to find a way to wake him up—or at least get water into him.

  I needed to keep scanning. Make sure we weren’t about to be discovered. As much as I hated to, I delved into the nearest mind I found—and from there drilled down into what was the biggest danger nearby.

  Gordy was eleven and balled up in a hollow log a few hundred metres away. He and his mum had been about to visit his dad in Silverwater Jail when other dressed-up families started yelling and tearing at each other. A klaxon screamed behind the razor wire and there were shouts and the pop pop pop of gunfire. Right then Gordy knew his whole life was lies. The man doing time for manslaughter wasn’t really his father— and it hadn’t really been manslaughter.

  Gordy sprinted across the car park, already like a dodgem-car arena, and through the riverside park, where families trying out new bikes and kites were all snarling up at each other. He vaulted up and over the Newington Nature Reserve fence like an Olympic athlete. Stumbled into the trees and hid inside the log and blasted Universe 25 through his earbuds.

  Now the cheap player’s battery had run out. Gordy couldn’t help being in the prison yard where his horrible fake father was bashing his poor cellmate even as he blasted threats at his cheating wife and the little bastard she’d foisted on him.

  I’ll-find-youse-both-when-I’m-outta-here-You’ll-both-be—

  He’d make her pay—then the kid. First he had to shut up his cellmate. Maybe that’d silence the thousands of other voices clamouring in his head. But as he raised his bloody fist to finish the job it was like the world fell away beneath his feet. He was gone—and Gordy blinked out with him.

  I gasped in the darkness, horrified by what would become of Gordy but glad he’d been saved from the prison maniac. Maybe the scores of minds toppling like dominoes was a good thing. It might at least stop some of the escaped convicts and crazed civilians from murdering each other in the suburbs surrounding the prison and along the shoreline farther down the river. I felt awful for wishing everyone would drop into oblivion before anyone stumbled onto our hiding spot.

  Someone came closer along the river path. An old bugger named Thomas who hated visiting the city and partaking in Christmas. At the insistence of his daughter he’d done both because she and her idiot husband wanted to show off their fancy new waterfront apartment. Thomas had been hiding in bed and grumbling at the prospect of jumping grandkids when his family and about a million of their tight-packed neighbours all seemed to start yelling.

  Thomas yanked out his hearing aid, thinking some wi-fi gizmo was causing interference. But it made no difference. How was he being deafened when he was already almost deaf? Unless . . . he was finally losing his marbles and these voices were inside his head. Thomas let himself out, still in his dressing gown and slippers, intending to walk around the block to make sense of things. When that didn’t work, he just kept going.

  Home was over one hundred kilometres away. Thomas knew he wouldn’t make it. But at least the universe saw fit to let him see his birthplace one last time. It was only a flash—pulsing minds working momentarily like a relay down the coast—but in that second Thomas was gazing on the blue water and tasting the salt air of his beloved bay.

  I had an idea as the old man shuffled away. Maybe I could find Mum using the same method. Sending my mind to the west, I hooked into a frightened primary school teacher and scoured her mind for any thoughts she was receiving from the Blue Mountains, trying to find Mum in the maelstrom. It didn’t work. I tried again. And again.

  My mind pinballed that way for hours. Like using a kaleidoscope to find a needle in a haystack. Bus smash. Train wreckage. Another crashed plane. Escape frenzy. Paracetamol overdose. Chainsaw attack. Falling blackness. Horrors piled up and I lost count of how many died or crashed with me as their witness. Still I didn’t stop. Six, sixty, six hundred or six thousand degrees of separation: someone had to be able to show me my mum.

  Suddenly minds lined up—freaked house husband in Seven Hills to hyperventilating florist in Penrith to suicidal butcher in the lower Blue Mountains suburb of Greenglen—and I was in Mum as she slurped wine and splashed ochre across a huge canvas.

  Can’t-sink-down-Try-calling-Danby-again-Gotta-hang-on.

  Then she was gone. I bit my knuckle so I didn’t cry out in frustration and jubilation. Hours for a second’s insight! But at least I’d found her! It had been worth it for the sense of her it gave me. She was taking a mental battering but she was physically okay. She was doing everything she could to distract herself and hold on for my arrival. I couldn’t let her down. But I couldn’t get us going again until I was sure we weren’t about to encounter an escaped prisoner along the river.

  Shuffling beams of light caught me through the branches. My mind jumped to a woman weeping as she pedalled her bike along the river path. She wasn’t looking for us or anyone. She was trying not to be found. I let myself breathe when her headlight skimmed away.

  As much as I wanted to find Mum’s mind again, I had to keep my focus on our immediate vicinity. No harm had been done by the bike woman getting so close. But I shuddered to think what would happen if I missed a murderer stumbling through the bush towards us.

  Hour after hour, I stayed alert and kept watch. No one came through the trees, but weighed-down souls staggered regularly along the river path. Their names and stories were different but what they shared was the deep fear that they couldn’t last much longer.

  My head dipped and then jolted. I risked checking my phone quickly. Its glare startled me. So did the time. It was one in the morning. I’d been hiding like a frightened f
orest creature for half a day. I was exhausted but I couldn’t risk falling asleep. I might slip back into the dark and empty place. I might wake up with some psycho killer looming over us.

  No sleep till Shadow Valley. That was the vow I made before I passed out.

  ELEVEN

  I woke up gasping and sweaty and terrified. A dream of a screaming world faded from my mind as ash drifted down through the trees like dirty snow. Weak brown light filtered from a rusty sky speckled with tiny bats. Down by the coppery river, a cormorant circled, wings outstretched, searching for the sun. I checked the phone. Six past six. Still no network.

  Evan was breathing steadily in my arms. I eased out from under him and stretched my legs painfully. A rabbit scampered behind a tuft of grass. Frogs started a croaking chorus. What I didn’t see or hear was any human activity. I held my breath, closed my eyes, opened my senses as wide as they’d go. No one. Not nearby. Not far away. Just the warm smoky wind rustling dry leaves and birds calling tentative greetings to the strange morning.

  I jumped up, joints popping and bones creaking, giddy with the rush of blood to my head but joyous at the thought that the telepathic fever had burned itself out while I slept. I looked down at Evan. Was he still catatonic? Or now just asleep?

  ‘Evan?’ I said. ‘Wake up, sweet pea.’

  He didn’t stir. I shook his shoulder gently. Nothing.

  I’d have to wait for someone to wander past. If I could tune into his or her mind, they’d tell me what was going on. If I couldn’t, it’d mean the mind-sharing thing was over.

  I sat back down. For once I had nothing to distract me from my actual physical world and its sharpness and solidity surprised me. Trees armoured with gnarled black bark. Tiny sapphire-flecked wrens flitted so weightlessly they barely stirred the branches.

  My heart lurched as something crunched towards me. Maybe an escaped murderer, infinitely more dangerous now if I couldn’t read his mind. Then a black bird followed its yellow beak out of the scrub. When my heart restarted, I plucked a dandelion and puffed on it to count the seed paratroopersfloating away. I got to thirty. Then I did another.

  As I sat and sat, it sank in that it wasn’t only minds or voices that I couldn’t hear. The mechanical background music of civilisation had been silenced. Motors, brakes, sirens, choppers: surely there had to be some of that if the recovery process had started. Or was the devastation so great that survivors couldn’t get themselves organised? Surely someone would be along the path or river soon.

  Next thing I knew I was wet and warm. Evan had pissed his pants and it’d soaked into me too. I checked my phone. After two! I couldn’t believe that I’d drifted off for hours. At the same time I felt like I could sleep for days.

  I still couldn’t find anyone anywhere.

  My insides went cold. I didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t help myself. Maybe it wasn’t that I couldn’t read minds. Maybe there were no minds left to read.

  ‘Bullshit!’ I shouted, jumping up, daring someone to hear, hoping someone would. ‘Bullshit!’

  The only response I got was pigeons flapping from a nearby tree. No one yelled back, ‘Hey, over here!’ or ‘Who are you?’ or ‘Come out with your hands up!’

  This was stupid. I had to find out what the hell was going on and where the hell everyone was. There might be an emergency assembly point just out of earshot and I was missing vital instructions on how to revive loved ones and where to go for food rations and crisis accommodations.

  To find out anything, I’d have to leave Evan for a while. I thought he’d be safe in the foliage. But what if he woke up and wandered off? I might never find him. I puzzled over it for a second. Then, Lord forgive me, I used the sleeves of my jumper to tie him to the tree trunk. I’d give myself thirty minutes to get back.

  The river path was empty in both directions. I paused to drink at the fountain and then walked east along the river. It wasn’t long before the track took me inland and through a pine forest. When the path opened out again it led up a low hill.

  This was Woo-la-ra. Aboriginal for ‘the lookout place’. The sign made it clear it wasn’t a sacred site but rather a man-made mound built around a toxic waste dump and planted with native grasses. Whatever was buried under me couldn’t be much worse than air that was as grainy as an old film and rough in my throat as I trudged up the hill.

  On the path’s final rise I stopped.

  ‘Oh, Christ.’

  A heavily tattooed young guy wearing only red Speedos was sprawled on the dirt track. He was face up, pasty arms thrust out, feet crossed at the ankles. A crow had perched on his chest.

  ‘Hey! Get off him!’

  The bird screeched into the sooty sky. Despite the crow’s predations, the dude looked peaceful. His eyes were closed and his long hair framed a thin, bearded face. Next to Bogan Jesus was a little graveyard of stubbed-out cigarettes and a drained bottle of Jack Daniels.

  ‘Hello?’ I said.

  But I knew he was past resurrection. The guy wasn’t a Goner. He was gone. What I’d taken as gnarly tattoos were streaks of post-mortem marbling coloured in by early decomposition. There was a livid purple tideline where his body rested on the ground. Now I heard the buzz of flies and saw the empty pill bottle clenched tight in one fist. A warm gust brought a whiff of him strong enough to cut through the smoke. I retched and stumbled into the tall grass and didn’t inhale again until I was up the hill and upwind.

  Woo-la-ra’s peak was manicured, arranged with park benches and silver plaques pointing to distant landmarks. But what should have been a panorama of Sydney offered only glimpses of a landscape being set in amber.

  I squinted at the city in the distance, sailing in and out of the sallow haze, Sydney Tower like the tallest mast on a ghost ship. A fireball bloomed near The Rocks, creating a shadow flash of the shattered Harbour Bridge in the gloom. Then an oily squall drew a billowing black curtain across the skyline. From here to that dark horizon, blaze after blaze poured more toxic ink into the atmosphere.

  My clearest view was of the apartment edifices just beneath Woo-la-ra. People hunched motionless on balconies with dead phones and tablets. More bodies dotted the gardens and walkways fringing the complexes. Action figures strewn by some careless kid. Streets and paths and lawns were clotted with cars. Drivers slow-cooking in the heat and humidity.

  My eyes followed the main road into Olympic Park. There were hundreds of people. Not one moved. Even from here I could see some were dead. But most looked like they were in stand-by mode as eddies of smoke swirled around them. The ones who were still upright spooked me most. I kept thinking they were faking, that they’d suddenly spring back to life.

  Weren’t the living dead supposed to shamble around? Rip us apart for food? Symbolise all that was wrong with humanity? I didn’t know what to make of this. Should I fear these figures or be fearful for them?

  Goners. I chided myself for thinking it again. They weren’t doomed. Like Evan wasn’t. Surely they’d all wake up when they got hungry or thirsty enough, wouldn’t they?

  To the north yachts and cruisers drifted on the river, while on the far shore nothing stirred in a McMansion development. To the west there stood a sky-high brown wall where the Blue Mountains should have defined the horizon. I didn’t know whether that smokescreen had been created by fires in the outer suburbs or blazes in the distant bush. Maybe it had all burned overnight and Mum and Shadow Valley were already cinder.

  No! I couldn’t think that way any more than I could let myself think about the sick feeling swelling in my guts.

  ‘No way, uh-uh, statistically that can’t be, there’re others, has to be, I—’

  I was muttering. Exactly what the last girl on earth would do when she went stark raving mad. I could not think like that. I would find other sentient people. I would find help for Evan. I would get to Mum and she would be fine. If I didn’t believe those things I might as well grab some dirt next to Bogan Jesus.

  Parramatta’s mod
est skyline offered hope. On the other side of the nature reserve and parklands, past a shiny silver refinery and industrial estates, the city’s glass-and-steel towers stood intact. Nothing there seemed touched by fire. That might not last. All the more reason to get Evan and get going.

  I untied my little brother and carried him back to the kayak. Maybe I should paddle out to the speedboat floating east. Get it started and we would get to Parramatta faster. I quashed the idea. Told myself it was stealing. But I really was too freaked out by the prospect of climbing aboard only to find a zoned-out or blue-tinged body.

  With Evan in the cockpit, I pushed the kayak into the shallows. I was about to climb in behind him when I spotted the monster. A crocodile—coming downriver. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d seen the chaos at the zoo but could an escaped croc have swum this far up the harbour already? I tried to haul the kayak back to shore with mud sucking at my every step. The croc’s black torpedo body was almost on me when I realised my mistake. I never thought I’d be relieved to see a dead body. But that’s what it was: a half-submerged biker in black leathers and helmet. The man floated past me face down within arm’s reach. Then another corpse bobbed by. She was also mercifully face down. Blonde hair billowing, arms and legs splayed, tracksuit puffy with air pockets: the girl looked like she was skydiving.

  I fought to regain my breath. Steadied myself and the kayak. Yanked my feet out of the mud and took us onto the river. As I paddled slowly west, more bodies floated past. But I was less disturbed by the watery dead than by the living left on the land. Men in prison jumpsuits, guards in uniform, mums and dads in casual clothes, boys and girls in bright new outfits—they were like litter around the cafe, playground and grassy hills. When I cried, nothing came. I’d run out of tears.

  I took in the traffic glut on the Silverwater Bridge with weary resignation. People had remained cocooned by their air conditioning and stereos until nothing worked anymore, nothing made sense, nothing was all they could embrace. Those who had got out didn’t get far. Faces pressed against the pedestrian fence, like primates passed out against their cages, bars held in their clenched fists. Their eyes were closed but I still felt accusatory stares, imagined them hating me for surviving when they’d succumbed. In fact, I would’ve welcomed hatred, anger, anything. But not a mind flickered. Not on the bridge. Not in the shadows of its abutments. Not in the surrounding suburbs.