The Last Shot

by Michael Adams

  ‘Love your enemies,’ I say aloud. ‘No thanks.’

  The only feeling I can afford to have for Jack is the opposite of love. All you need is hate. Why didn’t the Beatles sing that one?

  I cackle.

  Lachie shifts and flares his feathers on the grass.

  The bird looks like he’s scared of me.

  Fair enough. Maybe I am a little scary. I need to focus my fury. Not let it eat me up. I have to put Jack down like you would a rabid dog. Enjoying it isn’t part of the deal.

  ‘Sorry.’ I offer a nubbin of my muesli bar to Lachie. ‘Sorry.’

  The bird takes the peace offering.

  We rest and revive.

  FIVE

  I can’t put off going into Greenglen any longer than I already have. I tug on my helmet, sling the super soaker over my shoulder and straddle the bike. Lachie flaps up onto my shoulder.

  My mouth’s dry. I’m clammy under my armour. I picture myself run to ground by dogs with blazing eyes and frothy jaws. Maybe my protective padding makes me a delicacy, like an oyster or a crab, the meat sweeter for its degree of difficulty.

  ‘Here goes nothing.’

  Lachie doesn’t answer, just bobs nervously, beak into the wind as we roll.

  I weave between cars, mount the footpath, dodge a couple of corpses, return to the road to avoid a truck ploughed into a front fence. I reach the shopping strip and stop to see what I’m up against. Alternate Realty’s window is a cracked mosaic of starter homes, mountain charmers, retirement villas. A glance inside the intact One Stop Toilet Shop reveals a gleaming array of S-bends, bidets and basins.

  ‘You’ll never need to go anywhere else,’ I say. ‘Get it?’

  Dad would’ve loved that one. Lachie looks at me. ‘Hi-ho!’

  ‘I’m taking that as a “ha ha”, okay?’

  ‘Hi-ho!’

  I give his head a rub. Chatting to him helps ease the fear I’m about to hear growling and the scrabbling of claws. I scan the shadows—between cars, in shattered shopfronts—but nothing stirs.

  Pedalling on, Michelangelo’s pizza joint has had its last supper—thanks to a four-wheel drive crashing into its dining area. Above the rubble the big mural of God and Adam reaching for the same slice is intact. Mum and I always laughed at its cheesy glory. But now it makes me think about the Sistine Chapel—and the Louvre, the Guggenheim, the Tate. I wonder if any of them are still standing. One of my big dreams had been to see them with my own eyes. That’s never going to happen now. I hope the masterpieces are safe. Surely security systems were designed to survive the worst disasters. But I wonder how long the artworks can last without care and climate control. Maybe survivors in Rome, Paris, New York, London and other great cities will preserve Western Civilisation’s greatest creative achievements. I reckon the Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, the Pyramids and Machu Picchu might have a better chance of enduring.

  I ride by a Ford Escape, Subaru Liberty, Toyota Hegira. Different manufacturers, similar silly names, each with someone trapped behind glass dappled with condensation. A few days ago I thought the moisture meant respiration. Now I think it’s caused by other bodily gases. Even through closed windows, and over the menthol of my bandana, their decay stains the air.

  Riding’s harder in the smashed bottleneck of Greenglen and I have to stop and wheel the bike between cars and over people. My breath hitches when I spot Machete Guy, festering amid dead dogs. I creep closer, peer at his face, as if I might somehow recognise him under the dried blood and torn flesh. I don’t. He’s just another corpse. I look around slowly. Nothing canine prowling. But I’m not letting my guard down just yet.

  Best I can tell, simply from skin colour and chest movement, about half these people are dead. Those still alive look in bad shape. I might not be able to save any of them. But I have to try. At least the dogs seem to have cleared out.

  Closing in on Greenglen’s car-smashed DrugRite, I lean my bike against a bus stop.

  ‘Let’s do this as quick as we can,’ I whisper to Lachie.

  If I get lucky with Lorazepam and IV stuff, I can spend a few hours trying to revive people and still be back in Clearview by nightfall.

  It’s risky. I might still get attacked by a dog—or by one of my Revivees. But what scares me most is that as soon as I wake someone Jack will be able to see and hear everything I do and say. I have to decide what I tell the people I revive. I can’t warn them against Jack without giving up my chance to kill him and signing mine and Evan’s death warrants. But if I lie to them about Jack being awesome then I’ll risk their lives because they’ll probably want to follow me back to Clearview.

  A loud crash from inside the DrugRite makes me forget my Catch–22. The dogs have made the busted pharmacy their den! They’ve caught my scent over the stink! I’m scrambling back to the bike, pulling the super soaker off my shoulder, when I realise I’m not being chased by growls but by laughter.

  SIX

  ‘Oh, shit,’ a woman says. ‘John, you scared me half to death!’

  ‘Sorry, love,’ John replies. ‘Blasted backpack strap caught on the bleedin’ sunglass rack. You right to go?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I’m just getting some jelly beans.’

  There’s no way I can get to the bike in time, let alone get away without being seen. I duck across the road as quietly as I can, Lachie flapping ahead of me, and dive behind a garden bed on another refuge island, the bird landing beside me in the grass.

  Peering through the flowers I see flashlights weave towards the pharmacy’s entrance. I can’t read the minds of whoever’s wielding them. Not that that’s a surprise. If they were Revivees I would’ve picked up their thoughts way before this. So they’re Specials like me—or Minions controlled by Jack.

  Heart racing I watch as the man called John ducks out of the wrecked frontage and works his way along the car that did the damage. He’s thin on top, thick in the middle: fat face, grey goatee, dust mask pushed up on his shiny head. Dude wears a backpack and holds a rifle with both hands.

  John glances up and down the traumatised highway.

  ‘All clear,’ he says with a backward glance.

  The hunched woman who emerges is in a floral dress, arms clutched to her chest, face hidden under long dreadlocks. At first I think she’s an elderly diabetic jealously guarding a sack of sweets. But when she straightens up, she’s a foot taller than John and half his age. She blinks around at the glare, cradling a chubby baby in an orange onesie. I can’t tell whether the kid’s a he or a she, asleep or catatonic.

  ‘Can’t we do it here?’ she says. ‘There’s got to be an empty house.’

  ‘Not yet, Lana,’ John says. ‘We’re still too close. Wake the wee one up now and I reckon we’ll bring them up the road in a matter of minutes.’

  Lana sags a little—exasperated, tired, impatient—but nods. They look around. I duck down in the itchy grass.

  If my theory about Situs inversus being the reason people like me and Nathan were immune to the Snap’s deadliest effects, then the only way to know if these guys are for real is to get a stethoscope from the DrugRite and listen for their heartbeats. It’s not like that’s gonna happen. I wish there was an easier way to confirm who they really are. Just down the highway are those big golden arches. Big yellow Ms for Minion on their foreheads: that’d work fine for me.

  ‘We need more distance,’ John says. ‘It’ll be easier when the road clears and we can use a car. Give him something to drink before we get going?’

  I peer up through flowers as Lana reaches into a shoulder bag and produces a baby bottle.

  ‘Don’t!’ I want to scream, fearing she’ll drown the child if he’s catatonic. But when Lana rubs the rubber nipple across the kid’s lips he starts to chug. Now I remember Evan as a tiny baby draining bottles when he appeared to be asleep. The suckle response, Stephanie called it.

  ‘Look!’ Lana says, staring along the strip of shops. ‘That wasn’t there before.’

&nb
sp; John follows her eyes to my bike at the bus stop.

  Shit.

  John steps into the street with his rifle. I plant my face in the grass. Lachie screeches and launches himself for the sky. The bird’s no cockatoo. He’s a goddamned chicken. Roosting up there on a streetlight. I hope his plan is to distract them.

  ‘Whoever you are, come out!’ John booms. ‘Hands up. Slowly.’

  My blood chills at the memory of the Biker saying something very similar—and then shooting me when I refused. This time I might not survive. Me dead is of no use to Evan and Nathan. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Don’t shoot.’

  I take a deep breath, scrape myself onto all fours and then raise my face and hands over the greenery.

  ‘Step out of the garden, down onto the road,’ John says, gun right on me. ‘No fast movements, lass.’

  I do what he says.

  ‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘Lose the helmet.’

  I drop it to the bitumen.

  ‘Now drop the—what is that?—a water pistol?’

  I sling it to the ground.

  ‘What’ve you got in it?’

  ‘Bleach,’ I say.

  He takes a step towards me.

  ‘John,’ Lana says. ‘She’s just a girl.’

  ‘She could be one of his.’

  ‘Dressed like that?’

  John’s eyes take in my outfit. His eyebrows arch and his mouth can’t help curling into a smile.

  ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘Did I miss the memo about this party being fancy dress?’

  We exchange names and establish a fragile peace. They’re sitting on their kerb and I’m cross-legged on the road. There’s a patch of glass-speckled bitumen between us. John has the gun across his lap. Lana rocks her zonked baby. I tug off my remaining leg pad when they reassure me the only dogs they’ve seen are dead back the way they came. They have no reason to lie. If they wanted me dead, I’d be pushing up daisies on the refuge island. I don’t know who they are but even so it’s a relief to be able to have a conversation that extends beyond ‘Hi-ho’. Not that Lachie shares my enthusiasm. He’s stayed up on the streetlight.

  ‘So what’s your story, lass?’ John asks.

  ‘I just rode up from my mum’s place down in Shadow Valley,’ I say.

  ‘That’s where you live?’ Lana looks stricken, like she thinks I’ve only just emerged into this world, like she should apologise for all of the death and devastation.

  I shake my head. ‘No, I went to find her a couple of days ago. She . . . didn’t make it.’

  Raaaaaaaarkkkkk, adds Lachie from up above.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Lana.

  ‘Everyone’s lost everyone,’ John says gruffly. ‘But you have my condolences. Your dad?’

  I shake my head. ‘Dead.’

  ‘God rest him,’ he says.

  Lana wipes her eyes. I’m not sure whether her tears are for me or for her or for the world. But then I’m not even sure they are her tears.

  ‘Where did you come from before that?’ John asks.

  Skrawk-skrawk-skrawk. Lachie drops a sloppy load of bird paint into the no-man’s-land between us.

  ‘Beautopia Point.’

  John takes a second to register where that is.

  ‘Well, why on earth are you heading back east? You know what it’s like down there.’

  I nod.

  ‘Worse than that, there’s a chap down the road who’s up to no good.’

  My eyes give me away.

  ‘Clearview—that’s where you’re headed?’ John adjusts his rifle. ‘You best tell me why that is.’

  I don’t flinch. ‘My brother’s there and I belong with him.’

  Lana gasps. ‘That guy, waking people up, he’s your—’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘My brother’s a six-year-old boy. He went down—like your baby there—and that guy—Jack—raised him up.’

  ‘The devil’s business.’ John spits the words.

  ‘John, you don’t know that,’ Lana says.

  He glances at her, stares at me. ‘Twenty years a priest and I don’t know mockery of our Lord when I see it? Only Christ himself has power over life and death. That man? He’s on the side of the demons.’

  Jesus, what John is saying, the ugliness of it at least, is how I feel about Jack. Half of me wants to agree—but half of me recoils.

  Lana looks at me with a soft, apologetic smile. ‘Danby, it’s just that we slept in a house up above the Old Western Road last night. This morning we saw him raising people up on the roadside.’ She hugs her baby tighter to her. ‘But they looked . . . empty . . . like those horrible men who killed those people in—’

  A light goes on in Lana’s eyes. ‘Oh my God,’ she says. ‘You’re her. That girl! Parramatta?’

  I nod.

  ‘I knew you from somewhere. You woke up that girl, Cassie.’

  Her mentioning the name makes me regret the first person Nathan and I revived. The crazy girl whose mind telegraphed my presence to Jack. I can’t help wishing we’d left her, left all of them, just made our way to Shadow Valley and found another way to revive Evan. Jack would never have known about us, Mum would still be alive, and—

  No. It’s pointless to think that way.

  ‘John, she’s the one I told you about,’ Lana says.

  ‘If you say so,’ he grumbles, but nods at me with begrudging respect.

  ‘What about you?’ I ask him.

  ‘I was on an end-of-year retreat in Saratoga Gully,’ John says. ‘I was out of range from directly seeing the worst of it—the plane, the city, what happened in Parramatta. But Lana’s filled me in. If I remember rightly, this Cassie was burned to death by people who look just like those . . . those . . . abominations we saw being raised up this morning. That’s why we’re waiting to revive this wee one. So your friend there doesn’t hunt us down like bloody Herod.’

  Lana rustles in her pocket, holds up a sheet of paper. It’s a handwritten version of the Lorazepam instructions that Nathan and I printed so that Revivees could revive as many other Goners as possible.

  ‘I copied it down—a girl named Tregan memorised it best,’ she says.

  I nod. Nathan’s former friend and classmate at med school had been mentally instructing other people in the use of Lorazepam along with her fiancé, Gary—at least until Jack’s goons started killing people and threatening death to anyone who used the drug.

  ‘I watched her mix the stuff up,’ Lana is saying, ‘do the injections and set up IVs. Well, at least for a few hours before she got—’

  ‘Too scared,’ I finish for her.

  She nods. ‘But I think I can do it.’ She looks at her baby, gazes up the highway. ‘For him and for other people too.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ I ask.

  ‘Not for you to know,’ John snaps. ‘Just far away.’

  ‘Where were you when it happened?’ I ask Lana.

  John shakes his head. ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘I live—lived—in Glenorie Park with my . . . with my parents,’ she says. ‘They were helping me take care of Marko while I finished uni and—’

  Lana looks away, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  ‘I don’t see the point of rehashing this,’ says John.

  ‘When it happened,’ Lana snuffles, determined to share, ‘I just hid in my room. Mum and Dad, they were crazy, but it was like they ignored me because they couldn’t hear me, you know?’

  I tell her I do.

  ‘Then they crashed out or whatever and that sucked me and Marko down too. I’m not sure how much later it was that I woke up but then I was too scared to leave the house until I saw you and that Indian guy—’

  ‘Nathan,’ I say. ‘His name is Nathan.’

  Lana nods. ‘Right, him. Anyway, I saw you wake up that girl Cassie. She just appeared in my head. Then there were a bunch more people and then I was going to find a pharmacy but then those men started killing everyone. I got so scared I just ran with Marko. We just
kept going.’

  Lana gulps down the guilt of leaving her parents behind. ‘I just kept walking west.’

  ‘Did you see anyone like us?’ I ask.

  Lana shakes her head sadly. ‘No, I thought I was the only one.’ She brightens and smiles. ‘That’s why I nearly died of fright when I met John!’

  ‘Met?’ He chuckles despite himself. ‘That’s what you call it! You scared the living you-know-what out of me!’

  Lana defers to him, like a daughter to a father.

  ‘When I got my head around what had happened,’ John says, ‘I gave thanks to God that my mind wasn’t being laid bare in all its sinfulness. I prayed on it and God told me he’d spared me to help other survivors. So I put signs out on the road offering food and shelter and spiritual guidance. For three days and three nights no one came. And when Lana did, God forgive me, I was dozing on the front steps. I woke up and there she was standing over me with that hair like Medusa.’

  ‘I was just looking for something to eat,’ Lana says with a smile. ‘And a safe place to sleep.’

  ‘Which she got,’ John says. ‘And when she told me what she’d seen, I knew that Satan had been unleashed on the land and the Lord would want us to make our exodus.’

  John looks at me. ‘You can’t go back there. You pray for your brother’s soul but you come with us.’

  I’m about to burst. Tell them everything. That Jack tricked me, that he killed my mother, that my plan is to finish the bastard because I think it’ll free Evan and everyone else. I want to tell them that they’re right to run—unless they want to help me smite him or whatever you do with devils.

  When I open my mouth to speak the air is filled with an ungodly ‘Schwaaaaaaak!’ from above.

  We share a laugh but I wish Lachie would shut up and come down from the streetlight and be his normal chattering and clingy self. That he’s left me feels wrong.

  Then suddenly everything about this is wrong.

  I remember the labrador in Parramatta. Friendly to me but so savage to Minions that it had to be killed. I picture the little terrier running away from his yard in Clearview and all the other dogs barking their heads off. Machete Guy and the canines that killed him fester in a heap not even a block away.