Angela shudders at the memory of the Biker, the Cop and the Surfer—as do I.
‘Later, when I heard people on the other side of the door, I thought I was about to be murdered. But then it was Jack and his guys. He told me I was safe. That they’d put a stop to the violence.’
That’s what he’s told them? My surprise shows.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘You’re right.’
Angela regards me for a moment as though she’s not sure whether we’re on the same page. ‘You and me, we’re lucky he found us. Now it’s up to us to do whatever we can to help the Sleepers awake.’
‘Sleepers’—it’s a nicer way of looking at them than my Goners.
What I don’t understand is how Angela doesn’t see the similarity between the killer goons she feared and the dozens of people eating her food all around us. Then again, I know Jack’s secret and even I can’t be sure who’s who.
I look around. No one else is in earshot. Jack’s not trying to eavesdrop on me. That must mean he trusts me.
‘Don’t you think,’ I say in a quiet voice, ‘that these, ah, Sleepers are a bit strange when they wake up?’
Angela’s mouth scrunches in disapproval and I wonder if I’ve put my foot in mine. Jack might not need Minions to watch me. Not if he has a devoted acolyte in Angela.
‘What I mean is . . . uh . . .’ She looks at me. I feel like I’m being insensitive. Minionist, maybe. ‘Uh, all I mean is they don’t say much.’
Angela sniffs, glances back at the barbecue. ‘My guys say as much as they need to.’
‘I didn’t mean to be—’
‘No, I know what you mean,’ she sighs, brow furrowed, eyes intense. ‘Jack says it’s post-traumatic stress disorder. You’ve got to remember they had it worse than us. Comatose like that for days. They just need time to come around, process everything that’s happened.’
Angela’s stormy expression clears and she offers me a sunny smile. ‘But you know what? It doesn’t worry me that they’re a bit quiet. Actions speak louder than words. And now’s the time for action. Once we’ve gotten organised, we’ll have all the time in the world to talk and cry and grieve. Speaking of action, I better get back to it. We can talk more later.’
I nod. She heads back to the barbecue. Watching her, central cog in a well-oiled machine, I think that maybe keeping busy like this reminds her of life before the Snap. No backchat in the kitchen. Customers who express their satisfaction with empty plates.
‘All yours, Angela,’ her helper Zoe says, returning to the bain-marie to serve new arrivals.
As I walk across the park to the supermarket, I’m sure I know her from somewhere.
Seconds later I’m looking at Zoe again, up on the wall above the cashier’s station. She’s Ms October, flanked by Guy R, Mr September, and Chris M, Mr November, in the Clearview supermarket’s Employee of the Month gallery.
I stare at Mr November. Close my eyes. Picture the dead face on Shadow Valley Road. Allow for dirt and bloat and it’s the same guy. He’s my proof of Jack’s guilt. I feel heavy and sad and scared of what I still have to do because of that fact.
But first things first: Chocopops.
The supermarket’s been restocked since I was last here. Shelves that used to contain pet and party supplies are now solid with tins and packets and concentrates. At the end of the aisles, through an open door, Minions carry in yet more cartons from trucks.
I find the breakfast section, worried for a second that Jack will have turfed junkfood cereals in favour of superfood kale flakes or something. But the Chocopops’ cartoon giraffe grins at me from a few boxes. I grab one and check the best-before date because it feels like years rather than days since the Snap. These Chocopops won’t expire until I’m eighteen. Chances are that’s an age I won’t reach. My legs go rubbery when I realise my use-by date is today if I try to kill Jack but fail.
As I carry the Chocopops to the front of the store, the doorway fills with a tall shadow.
‘Oh, sorry,’ he says, stepping aside. ‘Angela needs more baked beans.’
I let out a gasp when I see him up close.
Stubble, messier hair, hipster glasses that frame his face differently.
As my eyes dart from this handsome young dude to the photo above the counter, I crush the Chocopops box against my chest.
I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t believe it.
But it’s him: Mr November, aka Chris M, standing there as large as life.
ELEVEN
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
‘Fine,’ I blurt, pushing past him.
I rush into the park, sink down onto a bench.
My mind fills with the thousands of dead and dying faces I’ve seen in the past week. Head in hands, I remember reading how easily false memories could be created, how unreliable witnesses were when picking people out of a police line-up. When I first glimpsed Mr November’s photo it was for a few seconds after four days spent fighting for my life as the world died around me. Later I connected that face with the dead guy on Shadow Valley Road—right after I’d discovered my own mother’s lifeless body. I imagine being in court, under cross-examination, asked whether, traumatised and guilt-ridden, I might’ve made a mistake, wanted someone to blame, identified corpse as culprit.
‘Shit,’ I say, laughing. ‘Shit.’
Mr November killed my mum at Jack’s bidding: all my theories and plans flowed from that belief. That house of cards has just collapsed.
The scenes in Shadow Valley were exactly as they seemed. Mum died of dehydration and shock—just like millions or even billions of others. The man I called Mr November probably was another Special who’d hoped to find survivors in Shadow Valley and instead he found everyone dead, including my mum and the suicidal Bald Dude. Riding out of Shadow Valley, he didn’t die heroically trying to resist Jack sending him off a cliff. He just had a tragic bloody accident.
My eyes are hot and glassy as I rock back and forth on the bench. The Chocopops crackle as I squeeze the carton tighter to my body.
Jack had already demolished most of my theories. But it’s not like he was explaining things away. He was just telling me what happened. Now I’ve got nothing.
But this . . . this . . . is good news. Great news.
I let out a long breath, release my stranglehold on my little brother’s boxed breakfast, and finally let relief sweep through me. Relief that I was so wrong. Relief that I don’t have to hate Jack. Relief that I don’t have to kill him or die trying. Relief that I didn’t already make that terrible mistake.
Walking back to Griffin House, it’s like the weight of the end of the world lifts from my shoulders. I know it’s ridiculous to actually feel good about anything. My mother, my father, Stephanie and Jacinta are all still dead. My city and country and world are dying. But now it seems there’s hope. If Jack’s true to his word and Nathan’s alive then I can help them combine forces. Us all working together, Minions and Revivees, we might rescue the critical mass of people needed to rebuild and repopulate society. Maybe the three of us, combining what we know, can work out how to ease the Minions out from under Jack’s control and do it in a way that lessens the trauma.
As I reach the gate, I look up into the old gum tree. Lachie’s gone. I might have been misreading him the whole time. Maybe all his squawking was his way of telling me to wake up to myself, to stop jumping at shadows and to increase the peace.
‘Get what you were looking for?’ asks Damon over his book.
‘Sure did.’ I’m so glad Jack will never know what I suspected or what I’d planned. I skip up the steps and drum my fingers on the dented Chocopops box. ‘Evan’s favourite.’
Damon smiles. ‘Can you be ready to go to Penrith soon?’
‘I’ll just feed the kids?’
Damon—or Jack—nods.
I carry three breakfast bowls to the lounge room. At first I think Evan and Michelle are watching some fantasy show. Then I remem
ber they’re enrolled in Jack’s end-times higher-education program.
‘It’s three months since mankind vanished and urban backyards are becoming wild places,’ says the narrator sombrely. On the screen a fat frog is about to be lunch for a snake sliding into the green water of a backyard swimming pool. Spiderwebs lattice a children’s swingset and timelapse weeds gobble up a rusty tricycle. I pick the remote off the coffee table and click the info button. The lower part of the screen shows the title Earth Without People and tells me it’s a speculative look at what would happen to our cities and countries if everyone was to disappear overnight.
I sit with the kids and we crunch sugary cereal. It feels normal, domestic, like some continuation of the lounge room life lived before. But I swallow hard at scenes of unchecked urban flooding and clouds of mosquitoes and flocks of birds so dense they blot out the sky.
‘After heavy rains, with no one around to unblock street drains, whole suburbs become lakes,’ the narrator says in the calm tone of someone who knows what he’s describing will never happen. ‘Insect populations explode and this attracts huge numbers of birds who feast on this new source of protein. This overstocked larder will soon cause the birds to breed in record numbers.’
Computer images propel us decades and centuries into the future. Skyscrapers become dens for resurgent big cat populations who hunt in city streets long since reclaimed by thick jungle. Coastal towns are razed by wind, water and salt. Ancient architectural wonders crumble as seedlings take root in cracks and grow into plants mighty enough to cause catastrophic fissures.
Evan and Michelle soak it up. I wonder if they’re each processing different elements, like parallel computers or something. Though I can’t understand how Jack does it, I get what he’s trying to do here. He wants to have an idea of how the landscape’s going to change. But a defiant part of me protests that it won’t come to any of that. We may be down but we’re not out. Just because our population’s back where it was at the dawn of time doesn’t mean we have to start from scratch. We’ll get back to where we were—or some place even better—long before our cities are overgrown and overrun.
A vehicle brakes outside. Damon knocks on the window.
‘Time to go,’ he says.
‘Be there in a minute,’ I reply.
Upstairs, I brush my teeth and use the toilet.
Back in the lounge room, I sling the pannier over my shoulder and look at Evan. ‘You’re coming with me, okay?’
My little brother regards me for a moment. ‘Coming.’
‘Michelle?’
She blinks at me, shakes her head. ‘I want to see the rest of this.’
It seems weird to leave a little kid alone until I remind myself that she’s not just a little kid and she’s far from alone in this hive town. A chill prances up my arm.
On screen, fifteen thousand years from now, remnant New York subsides into the Atlantic.
Damon leads Evan and me out the gate to a big four-wheel drive. Marv stands by the back hatch. I’m giddily happy to see him. To be in the presence of a person who I’m sure is one hundred per cent himself.
‘Marv!’
‘Danby,’ he says. ‘Glad you’re okay. Sorry about your mum.’
I nod and wait for him to say more. A few days ago Marv was a talkative ball of muscle. Now his tummy sticks out, his shoulders slump and he has dark circles under his eyes. Even his dreadlocks look greyer. Maybe he’s succumbing to posttraumatic stress. Maybe I’m misremembering him. Maybe I’m suffering from post-traumatic stress and that’s what’s making me misremember him.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
Marv nods tightly and then looks away. ‘I’ll ride in the cargo area. You, Evan and—’
‘Damon,’ says Damon.
‘Right,’ Marv sighs. ‘You three hop in the back.’
I duck in after Damon and Evan. A pale Eurasian young guy with plastered hair and a bearded dude my dad’s age look at me from the front seat. I’ve never seen them before. But it’s the driver I recognise. Nick. The Minion with the gnarly snake tattoo on his neck. He was the guy who drove us from Parramatta to Clearview.
‘Ready to rock ’n’ roll?’ he says—or Jack says for him.
I nod and offer my hand.
‘I’m Danby,’ I say. ‘We were never properly introduced.’
Getting to know the Minions might help when they’re no longer under Jack’s control—however that comes about.
‘Nick,’ he says, pumping my hand. ‘Good to meet you. These are two of the people Jack was telling you about.’
More Specials. The bearded bloke adjusts his glasses and offers me his meaty paw. ‘Max.’
We shake.
His offsider holds his fist up. I smile because it reminds me of Jacinta and I give him a bump. ‘I’m Alex,’ he says. ‘Your biggest fan.’
I frown and his smile flashes a gold tooth. ‘I recall you from such productions as Cassie’s Wake Up Call.’
‘Oh,’ I say, embarrassed, like I’m some reality television goofball who’ll never live down her few minutes of fame. ‘Right.’
Nick turns back to the steering wheel. ‘Everyone buckled up?’
As he drives us out of Clearview, Nick unhooks a mike from a radio near the rear-view mirror.
‘Jack, do you copy?’
There’s a squelch of static then Jack’s voice. ‘Go ahead, Nick.’
‘We’re on the road now. See ya in fifteen.’
‘Copy that.’
Nick guns the engine.
This radio routine isn’t for my benefit. I know Nick and Damon are Minions. So this is Jack putting on a show for Marv and Alex and Max.
I turn to the cargo area. ‘How’re Jane and Lottie?’
Marv looks up from calloused hands.
‘They’re good,’ he says, nodding in agreement with himself. ‘They’re really good. We’re really lucky Jack showed up when he did. I don’t know if you’ve seen how many of my friends he saved in Clearview?’
I give him a smile. He smiles back.
‘Yeah, I mean it’s really amazing,’ he says. ‘This town at least is on the way back. What he’s done in Clearview is really—’
‘You’ve played a big part in that,’ Nick says. ‘Getting the power on.’
‘Just doing my bit really,’ Marv says, eyes out the window. ‘The road up ahead is cleared already. Really huge job. Just massive. Essential for supply lines. We’re really getting on with things.’
Marv glances at me. ‘Without Jack, none of it’d be possible.’
‘You’re right,’ I say.
Marv averts his eyes.
Something’s wrong. Marv’s smile didn’t seem real. My toes curl in my boots. Maybe Jack’s expanded his power and taken control of Marv. Maybe his plan isn’t to let Evan go but to put me under his spell.
I shiver but realise I’m being paranoid again.
Then it hits me: how many times Marv said the word ‘really’. I think I know what’s going on. While Angela believed every good word she said about Jack, Marv spoke like a hostage reciting the virtues of his captor. He must’ve figured out that Jack’s controlling people and he’s watching what he says. It also makes sense that Marv thinks I’m one of the Minions. I need to set him straight. But privately. Not freak out Alex and Max.
We cross a stretch of cleared highway and then turn onto a side street. Footpaths, nature strips, front yards and even a picnic area and soccer field have been turned into parking areas.
‘They’re all vehicles we moved,’ says Alex.
‘Are there still people in them?’ I ask.
‘Some,’ says Damon. ‘We’ll try to bury them once we’ve got everything else under control.’
Alex flicks the little forest of pine tree air-fresheners dangling from the rear-vision mirror.
‘These don’t help much,’ he says. ‘Not once the smell gets in you and your clothes. I’m going through three T-shirts and pairs of jeans a day.’
I
know what he means. Now it makes sense why Jack left so much clothing for me.
‘Yeah, man, the smell,’ says Alex, warming to his theme. ‘It’s—’
‘You don’t have to remind us,’ Max says. ‘We know.’
Alex gives a little snort. ‘If only I’d stayed hidden,’ he says, smiling back at me. ‘Come out when everything was cleaned up. I coulda coped with another week of beer and comics.’
Max shakes his head like he’s fed up with his companion.
‘This road we’re taking,’ Alex says. ‘Guess how many cars we cleared?’
I shrug but want to be friendly. ‘One hundred?’
‘Nearly twice that.’
Max glances at me with a tired sigh. ‘You’d think he moved them all himself instead of doing the bulk of the whining.’
Alex flips Max a middle finger. ‘I prefer to call it constructive criticism.’
Nick slows as our vehicle enters what a tourist sign informs us is Old Western Road. Bush and sandstone cliffs rise on our right and a deep rainforest gorge drops off to our left. The road narrows to a single lane.
‘This made it hard,’ Max says. ‘At the entry points to the road, we could tow or top up empty petrol tanks and jump-start dead batteries and drive cars back the way they’d come. But once we got a little way in, whenever cars were really jammed or crashed, we had to pull ’em apart so we could get ’em off the road. Either way, wherever there was a body, we had to deal with it.’
‘The people,’ I say. ‘Could anyone be saved?’
The car’s silent except for the air conditioner. And Evan tapping his tablet screen as he plays Snots ’N’ Bots.
‘There weren’t many alive,’ Damon says finally. ‘No one who could make it.’
I don’t want to ask where those Goners have gone.
We pass stacked piles of car parts—panels, cylinders, seats, axles, tyres—and Alex lets out a snort.
‘That was the time sucker,’ he says. ‘I was all like, “Let’s just push ’em off the cliffs.” But nooooo.’
The Last Shot Page 10