And then, out of nowhere, the ape-thing would swoop down on the centipede-thing and dig its claws in and the fight would start again.
It was horrible. Watching those spikes punch in and out of the…
I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson, but I have to interrupt you again. Apparently you could see all this in detail, and yet your ‘mountain’ is a good fifteen or twenty kilometres from the city centre. From that distance, those two particular UBOs would have seemed no bigger than your thumb.
Well, yeah, of course. I borrowed Lee’s camera. Sorry, probably should have said that. That’s how we became mates, you know? We’d pass the camera back and forth, talking rubbish the whole time, getting to know each other.
Not in a dodgy way, mind you – she was just good company.
This was a video camera, correct?
No, just a digital small enough to fit in your pocket. It was a pretty good one, though – it had a fifteen-times zoom, or some shit. I mean, I couldn’t count the pores on their skin, it wasn’t that good. But I could definitely make out what was going on.
Do you know what happened to this camera? My superiors and I would appreciate a chance to see these images.
Like I said, we’d been swapping it back and forth, taking turns. I think I gave it back to her for the last time, I don’t know, maybe an hour after the military showed up.
This was, what, approximately three o’clock in…
Hang on – it was actually a fair bit earlier than that. It was just after we broke up that fight, I think.
Fight?
Yeah, the first of many. This car full of young dickheads had run out of water, and they were bullying this hipster couple that had spread out a blanket next to them.
This couple, these idiots, they had their baby with them. I mean, give me a break – why would you do that to your kid? They’d come to watch those things, for fuck’s sake, to watch those things fighting in the city. Does that sound like something a baby should see?
They should have just gotten out of town.
What happened?
Well, one of the dickheads was arguing with the hipster dad, getting all fired up about the fact that the hipster wouldn’t share his water. This dickhead’s two mates stood next to him, arms crossed over their chests, trying to look tough. The lead dickhead suddenly tried to snatch a bottle of water off the hipster mum, and she kicked him in the balls.
I’m sorry – she kicked him in the groin?
That she did, and good on her – he went down like a sack of potatoes, and he deserved it. But, you know, everything went wrong after that – the dickheads started laying into the hipster dad and abusing the hipster mum, screaming at her and waking up the baby, which started crying, of course.
It was a mess.
Anyway, Lee and I hurried over and pulled the dickheads off the hipster dad. We took some punches, but we got them to fuck off in the end. And Lee, far out, she was tough. I think she did more damage than I did.
The hipster dad was okay, though he might have had a couple of broken ribs. We’ll never know.
Please, Mr. Johnson, that baby you spoke of is now an orphan.
She survived?
Yes, she did.
Thank God for that! I guess we did something right. Good on you, Lee… Poor girl… Shit, I’m sorry… Just…
Mr. Johnson?
…
Mr. Johnson?
…
Mr. Johnson, are you okay?
Ah, sorry, yeah… It’s just hard, you know.
I understand, but please, if we can.
Yeah, okay. So, where was I? Right, well, that fight was just the first. Some people are just so stupid, you know? Like those dickheads – all they needed to do was walk down the hill and get some water from the bloody drinking fountain by the toilets. I mean, come on, didn’t they think of that? Or were they just lazy?
People, I don’t know…
Anyway, like I was saying, that fight was only the first. I guess some people couldn’t handle waiting for the things to get back to it. You know, people get bored so easily nowadays. And sometimes it’s like they’re just looking for an excuse – any excuse – to argue with someone or start brawling. I saw people fight over how loud the music was, over how much shade was being hogged, over the way cigarette smoke was drifting, over the mess that was being made, and over water that they could get for free only a ten or fifteen minute walk away.
Fuck me, it was just ridiculous.
I mean, there we were, looking at the end of the world, looking at our city burn, and they were fighting over a fucking parking space!
Mr. Johnson, please try and calm down.
Don’t you dare, lady, don’t you fucking dare. You weren’t the one breaking up those fights.
You didn’t have to, Mr. Johnson. You chose to do so.
Give me a break. If you can help, you help. Especially when the world’s falling apart around you. And so that’s what Lee and I did. We broke up fights, took care of anyone who’d been hurt and ferried water back and forth, the buggy’s tray filled with whatever bottles we could scrounge. We didn’t break up every fight, of course. If it looked like an even match or that both parties were enjoying it, we just let them go at it.
Some people just need to fight. Better they inflict it on each other…
And we weren’t the only ones that helped, mind you – other people chipped in, people who still gave a shit. But there weren’t that many of them.
Not that it mattered in the end, anyway.
And why is that?
Jesus, lady, why do you reckon? The fucking military finally showed up, didn’t they? All those fighter planes and choppers, buzzing around the things. I mean, at first I was grateful. We all were, I guess. Not just because someone had finally started to do something, but also because the fight quickly became a lot more interesting, you know?
No, I don’t know.
Well, some of the planes and choppers started buzzing the ape-thing and it tried attacking them in return, held back by a whole lot of machine-gun fire. Other planes and choppers swarmed around the centipede-thing, unleashing their rockets and missiles. Not much seemed to happen, for all their firepower. Yeah, alright, so the flying-thing started heading north and the centipede-thing started crawling after it – crawling quickly, mind you – with the military in pursuit.
But neither of the things seemed hurt. It was more like they were annoyed, and were just trying to put some distance between themselves and the choppers and planes. It was like when we sit on an ant’s nest or get stung by a mozzie.
We either move away or we squash the bug, don’t we? And we don’t really care either way.
What was happening on top of ‘your’ mountain while all this was going on?
Well, like I said, I was glad that the military had shown up. Mostly because the fights had pretty-much stopped.
It really was an awesome sight, in the old-fashioned sense.
People couldn’t look away. I couldn’t look away. Not a chance, not with the things crawling and flying and the choppers and planes buzzing and the convoys of tanks rolling down suburban streets and all those soldiers who seemed to come out of nowhere. Everything was shrouded in smoke and ash and dust, and all that was left of the city were collapsed buildings, cracked roads, churned earth and fire.
Like I said, it was an awesome sight – awesome and horrible at the same time.
Of course, a lot of people panicked. I mean, some of them were watching their own homes get flattened. I heard some people say they were going home to get a few things, to save a family heirloom or some sentimental ornament or the dog, despite the blocked roads leading down from the mountain and the sheer stupidity of even trying. And then they would promptly start their cars and tear off across the grass and disappear down the hill.
I tell you, the first ones to leave were the lucky ones – it was the fifth or sixth car that finally skidded out and hit a tree. Another car had been sitting on its arse, of co
urse, and so it rear-ended the car now wrapped around the tree then burst into flames, just like at the movies. A couple more accidents followed, and soon most of the grassland was nothing but a whole lot of flaming wreckage.
After that, no one else tried to get home.
Anyway, at the same time as all this was happening, people were on foot making for the mountain. All those poor bastards from the northern suburbs – they weren’t just running away from the things, they were trapped as well. Like I said earlier, the military had mined all these roads running east-to-west, as well as electrifying all the power lines running the same way. I guess they were hoping to stop the things pushing any further, to box them in and concentrate their fire.
All it did was send more people our way.
You could feel the fear and the panic in the air. You could almost touch them. I think it was around about then that everyone realised what they’d gotten themselves into. But you know how it goes – for some, that just makes everything worse.
How so?
Well, some idiot realised that there were all these roads on the other side of the mountain. They wound through a mini-suburb, you see, that began just east of the peak. All these mansions and fancy townhouses, each one taller than the one in front of it, all of them trying to get a good view of the rising sun. They were all modern horrors. You know the type – boxy and chunky, made of plastic and steel, not a bit of wood to be seen. And they were all jumbled together, the narrow hilly streets twisting and turning, full of blind corners and 180 degree turns.
It was like a maze.
I mean, it really was like a maze – people got lost there all the time, no bullshit. And don’t even mention the accidents. We’re talking overshot corners, cars in front yards, cars through bedroom walls and lounge-room windows, all kinds of crazy stuff. It was awful, just about the world’s worst place to drive.
So you can imagine what happens when some panicked idiot takes it on.
This is what caused the fire, you say? And yet you obviously didn’t see what happened.
We didn’t need to. All those yahoos and idiots started getting in their cars and tearing away, heading for the winding roads through the townhouses and mansions. Of course one of them was going to crash.
A couple of minutes after the first idiot put his foot down and shot off, Lee and I heard the explosion. And then this massive fucking fireball rose up above the houses. It was so big that I could feel the heat on my face.
I was squinting at it and Lee was doing the same. Before either of us could say anything, there was another explosion. I don’t know, the fire from the first one probably blew up a parked car or something.
It doesn’t matter, because before too long the houses themselves were burning.
But you didn’t see the actual explosion itself, correct?
Well, no, of course not. I wasn’t stupid enough to try and find a way through that maze – I hated driving it on the best of days. But what else could have happened?
Don’t tell me that the military were trying to box the things from the east. Okay, so a wall of flame would make a nice barrier, fair enough. But they wouldn’t do that…
…
Bullshit.
…
No way, that’s ridiculous.
…
Lady, you’d better give me an answer.
Look, Mr. Johnson, we don’t actually know what happened. That’s why I’m here and that’s what I’m trying to find out. It’s also one of the reasons why you’re here.
How can you lot not know what happened? I mean, you’re the Army, for fuck’s sake. You’re the government. You’re the ones who are supposed to be in charge, and to keep us safe. And yet you might have bombed my mountain, but you’re not sure.
Come on, pull the other one.
Mr. Johnson, you can’t imagine the confusion and the panic back at our headquarters. If anything, it’s worse now than it was yesterday. There’s no rulebook for fighting two UBOs at the same time, and don’t forget that we were also fighting out west at the same time.
So what? It’s not like we haven’t fought them before.
Mr. Johnson, we’re at war. And war is messy.
Lady, all I’m hearing is blah-blah-blah. You weren’t there. You weren’t the one pulling bodies from the burning buildings, you weren’t the one watching people get trampled or run over or crushed by falling debris.
No, Mr. Johnson, I wasn’t there. But I was in Sydney that first time, fighting out in the streets, my best friends dying beside me. And I was up north, in the tropics, watching my family die from the comfort of a helicopter.
…
You don’t know me, Mr. Johnson. Don’t presume to push me.
You were in Sydney?
I was. Back when our army was in much better shape.
See, there you go again with the excuses. Lady, I couldn’t care less about your problems – you’re supposed to be professionals, you’re supposed to know what you’re doing.
Well, you should give a shit, Mr. Johnson, if you’ll pardon my language. You have no idea what it’s like being in the army right now. The economy’s crippled thanks to all the rebuilding and rehousing, and so we’re getting by on the smell of fumes. On top of that, we’re losing troops faster than we can recruit them but the government’s too frightened to reinstate the draft, and those few we do sign up are thrown into the field with barely enough training.
Which brings me to the other reason why you’re here today.
You what?
Recruitment, Mr. Johnson, recruitment. We want you to sign up. From everything you’ve told me, and from the other witness statements gathered, you’re clearheaded under pressure. Some of the people you helped even called you remarkable.
Us. They called ‘us’ remarkable – Lee and I, we did it together. We helped each other help everyone else.
I understand, Mr. Johnson. Believe me, I do.
And you’re still asking to me to sign up? I mean, fucking hell, the building that collapsed on her might have been your fault, and yet there you go, asking me to pitch in.
You’ve got some balls, lady, I’ll give you that.
Mr. Johnson, we’re desperate. I don’t know if I’ve made that clear enough.
Pull the other one, things can’t be that bad…
They are, trust me. Mr. Johnson, we’ve got the unemployed flying gunships in order to receive their benefits. That’s how bad things are.
We need people like you. People that can think ahead, people that can think strategically, people that actually care about collateral damage. Some of the kids we’ve got, they don’t even know what collateral damage is.
You’re kidding, right? You’ve got bloody dole-bludgers flying attack helicopters?
That’s right. Most of the veterans are either dead or acting as instructors, and none of the enlisted men and women want to volunteer for the job. We’re making do, Mr. Johnson. That’s all we’re capable of.
Fuck-me-drunk.
Will you help?
…
Mr. Johnson, will you help?
…
Mr. Johnson?
Jesus, lady, give it a rest. Of course I’ll help. How could I say no?
Out in the Bush
The bush might as well be a foreign country. Things happen more slowly out there, the quiet and lonesome spaces making it impossible to rush. Once the cities and suburbs have been left behind, the vast distances between everything force people to just sit back and enjoy the view. The desert interior, the wild outback, the scrubby bush, the steaming rainforests, they all have one thing in common: a beautiful emptiness.
Strange things can happen in this emptiness. When the nearest neighbour is more than half-a-kilometre away, there’s little to stop someone from getting naked and playing the drums in their front-yard at two o’clock in the morning. They want to grow some dope or raise some poppies or build a still? No problem – the local cop won’t ever come by on his rounds. He doesn’t h
ave rounds, for starters, and he’s usually too busy dealing with barflies, hoons and bored teenagers. And if someone wants to build a turret on their house or turn a shipping container into a second storey, they can just go right ahead – the time and effort required to hassle pigheaded bush-folk is beyond any inspector or officer, as long as they keep their heads down and don’t do anything stupid in front of them. As some country folk say: if you don’t look for trouble, trouble won’t come looking for you.
Out in that emptiness, it’s easy to be ignored or be forgotten. It’s easy to disappear or hide away. These are just some of the reasons that Lee Hamilton loved living there.
She lived in a shack on top of a hill. At dusk, she would watch the sun set over the national park to the west; at dawn, she would watch the sun rise over the abandoned farm to the east. Every day, she would take the time to park herself in an old chair under the front verandah and lose herself in the sound of frogs croaking and birds calling, or the buzz-burr of cicadas and the splash-drip-splosh of rain.
We Call It Monster Page 9