Dark Winds Over Wellington

by Tabatha Wood

  She drives to the Botanic Gardens. She does not know where else to go. She needs to think. The Gardens are one of her Happy Places, somewhere she can go and be alone for a while; where she can enjoy the view and relax. She does not feel relaxed right now. She feels nervous and nauseated. She parks her car and walks to the bench by the Observatory which looks out across the city towards the harbour, and sits down. The wind is rough and angry; it stings her eyes, flicks at her skin, and rummages through her pockets. It plucks at her with needle-sharp fingers and whispers in her ears.

  She can’t hear it properly at first. It rushes around the microphones of her hearing aids and she can hear nothing but a meaningless roar. She listens, suddenly aware that she can hear voices beneath the rumble. Voices that say the most terrible things. She spins round, convinced there must be someone with her, someone playing a horrible prank, but she is alone in the gardens. No-one nearby who could be speaking.

  She listens again. The voices are difficult to make out clearly, she hears only one word in every five or so, but even those few are quite enough. They are telling her to do despicable acts, to commit atrocities either to herself or others. The whispers leak into her head, they squirm around inside her. She puts her hands to her face, digs her fingernails hard into her cheeks and leaves red half-moon shapes on her skin. She wants to drive her fingers deep into her eyes, to pluck her eyeballs from their sockets. She wants to plunge sharp objects into her skull; stick knives into her brain and gouge the sounds out of her head. The wind moans louder, more insistently.

  She rips her hearing aids from her ears.

  She is plunged into silence. The wind envelopes her; teases her; slaps her hard around her face. But she can no longer hear the whispers. Those hideous, parasitic words.

  She pulls out her mobile phone, thinks about her housemate. She knows that they were supposed to be going out this evening with their boyfriend. The boyfriend she does not like one bit and thinks is no good for her friend. Despite the harsh words they traded with each other earlier, she still worries, she still cares. She types a message.

  I’m sorry about earlier. Are you okay? Something really weird is going on in the city.

  She sends it and waits for a reply. The message information says delivered but not read. She waits a little longer but there is no response. This is unusual, but she tries to quell the anxiety which gnaws away at her. Maybe they went to the cinema, or to a bar. Maybe they turned their mobile onto silent mode and haven’t heard it chime. Maybe. She left all her family behind her on the South Island; the friends she made at university have all drifted away. She doesn’t want to lose her housemate too.

  She starts walking back to her car, intending to head back home, but she stops when she sees a group of young men, dancing and hollering in the street near to where she has parked. They are half-naked and smeared with blood. They carry large sticks, knives and coils of rope with them. She cannot properly hear what they are shouting, but their wide eyes and ugly faces terrify her. She slips back behind a line of trees and dissolves into the shadows, hoping they have not seen her. She knows that if she puts her hearing aids back in she will be able to hear them better, will be able to hear if they move any closer to her, but then she might also hear those sickening whispers again.

  She risks another look; they are still too close for her to slip past unnoticed. They punch and wrestle each other to the ground, sometimes using their weapons to hurt one another. They stop fighting abruptly, and look down the road away from her. They must have heard or seen something she cannot. She sees them yell and raise their fists into the air. She looks past them and sees a woman, stumbling as she walks, her hands clamped to her ears. The men charge after her, and surround her. She cannot bear to watch any more.

  She dashes quickly to her car, keeping low and in the shadows as much as she can. The interior light flares as she opens the driver’s side door, and she scrambles to extinguish it before anyone can see. She locks the doors and sits low in the seat. If she drives away now she will have to go past those men. She is not sure if they will try to stop her. She thinks about the woman. All alone in the street. How the men surrounded her; angry and hungry and dangerous. She feels sick at the thought. She knows she must do something, anything, to help her.

  She sparks the ignition, drives towards the group. As she gets closer she flips the headlights on full beam and leans on the horn. All the men turn in unison to stare at her. The woman is lying curled up, knees to chest, on the floor. She revs the engine and aims the car at the nearest male. He stands in the middle of the road, sneering and defiant. He turns away, dismissive, as if he has assessed her and decided that she poses no threat to him. He lifts the stick he is holding and slams it down onto the woman’s back.

  She does not give herself any time to think things through, to fully consider the consequences. She stomps hard on the accelerator, blares the horn, and heads directly towards him. She truly believes that he will move, maybe at the last second. But he doesn’t, and she strikes him head-on. She does not hear the impact, but she feels it vibrate through the metal body of the car. He is thrown off his feet and tossed to the side in a crumpled heap. She has no idea how hurt he may be, how badly she may have damaged him. She is not a violent person, has never knowingly hurt another living thing before now. All her life she has caught spiders in a jar, and released them outside to freedom. She has never killed a single one.

  She freezes, horrified at what she’s done. The other men rush to the vehicle, start hitting it with their sticks and shouting. They pull at the door handles. They hammer on the glass. She is jolted out of her sudden paralysis.

  Move now, she thinks. Move or die!

  She pushes the pedal and pulls the steering wheel quickly, holding it at ninety degrees. She sends the car into a sidewise spin and knocks two of the men onto the tarmac. The woman has started to rise, is lifting herself slowly to her feet, still clutching her head. She manoeuvres the car as close to her as she can, reaches over and throws open the passenger door.

  “Get in!” she shouts at the woman, trying to keep her eyes on the mob at the same time.

  The woman is slow, too slow. She gets in the car but is grabbed by one of the men before she can close the door. She doesn’t think, simply drives forwards with the door still open. It snaps back, hits the man on the side of his head and he loses his grip on the woman. She keeps driving until she reaches the very end of the street where she can stop momentarily. The woman hunches over in the passenger seat, shaking and apparently crying. She can’t tell if she is hurt, traumatised or both. She has to get out of the car and shut the door herself.

  She drives away from the city towards the hills. They pass many people, some alone, some in groups. All of them are obviously either in some state of distress, or are the perpetrators of extreme violence towards the others. The wind howls and tugs at the car. Rubbish bins vomit their contents into the roads. Trees throw whole branches into their path.

  Eventually, she stops and parks up in a deserted car park, close to the edge of the Zealandia ecosanctuary. A bizarre thought enters her mind; she has never once visited the wildlife sanctuary in all the many years she has lived in the city. She wonders if the protective fence is doing its job. If it is keeping the many native species that live behind it safe. Or if the wind has possessed them too.

  She unbuckles her seatbelt and and tugs at the woman’s shoulder, trying to make her sit up.

  “Look at me!” she yells. “I can’t hear you, but I’m pretty sure you can hear me. Look at me, damn it!”

  The woman continues to rock back and forth, holding her hands over her ears. Her clothes are torn and stained with blood in places, but she does not appear to be badly hurt.

  “I don’t know what’s happened to you, but I need you to listen to me. Look at me!”

  She can see the woman’s lips moving, she is mumbling something; maybe chanting or praying under her breath. She leans forwards, cups the woman’s face in her h
ands, and their eyes meet. She looks terrified. Carefully and slowly she puts her hands over those of the woman’s, presses them firmly against the side of her head.

  “Trust me,” she says, making the movements of her mouth slow and clear.

  The woman stops mumbling, grows calmer and still. She holds the woman’s face, makes sure she can clearly see her mouth. She hopes the woman can lip-read at least a little bit, but regardless, she will have to keep shouting.

  “I’m deaf,” she begins. “I’ve taken out my hearing aids and I cannot hear you. Okay?”

  The woman simply stares at her, her eyes are wide and wet.

  “I’m not sure, but I think... I think there is something in the wind. I think if you can’t hear it, you are okay.”

  The woman still does not respond. She sighs deeply before continuing.

  “My hearing aids are in my pocket. If you put them in your ears but don’t turn them on, they should act like earplugs. They might block out the noise and make it quiet. Do you understand?”

  The woman looks momentarily confused before eventually nodding slowly. She knows this look, it is the delay as the brain decodes the information it has been given, filling in the gaps so as to make sense of the message.

  “I’m going to have to take my hand off your ear, okay? Try to ignore whatever it is the wind makes you hear.”

  She takes the box containing her hearing aids out of her pocket and opens the lid. Removes one of the devices and leans towards the woman, showing her the hearing aid as she does.

  “Ready?”

  The woman moves her hand. Instantly she screws up her face in either pain or distress. She pushes the plastic mould as deep as she can into the woman’s ear canal. It is awkward as it is designed to fit only her ears, not those of another, but eventually she manages to get it into place. She pulls the plastic tube up and around, and sits the aid behind the woman’s ear.

  “Okay?”

  The woman nods, explores the device with her fingers.

  “Don’t turn it on,” she warns quickly, shaking her head and moving the woman’s hand away. “Okay, let’s try the other one.”

  She repeats the process on the other side.

  The woman sits quietly, occasionally pulling at the moulds. They are clearly uncomfortable, not made for the shape of her ears. The wind pummels the car repeatedly, knocking on the doors and demanding to be let in.

  She taps the woman gently on her arm. Makes her look up at her face again.

  “Can you hear me at all? Can you read my lips?”

  The woman frowns. Replies.

  “A little bit.”

  “Do you know any sign language?” She makes the sign for NZSL with her hands. Two fists crossed over each other, turned and spread out to make a butterfly.

  The woman shakes her head. Says, “Alphabet.” She watches as the woman starts to spell the letters on her fingers. Index finger of her right hand to the thumb of her left, followed by both hands making joined circles. She shakes her head, motions for her to stop.

  “Too long,” she says. She takes her mobile from her pocket. Her housemate has still not replied, the message she sent is still showing as unread. She sighs again, opens up a text app and starts to type.

  My name is Eleanor. What’s yours?

  She hands the device to the woman. She reads and then adds her reply.

  Merida. Thank you for saving me Eleanor.

  She nods and types again.

  Are you hurt?

  The woman’s face grows dark. She can only guess what kind of trauma Merida has gone through, and it is clear she is not eager to share.

  I’ll be okay. What are we going to do?

  She shakes her head, unsure.

  I don’t know. I think we are safe here in the car for now.

  Her words express more confidence than she feels. The truth is she does not know if they are safe or not. She has no idea what is happening.

  The wind has swelled to gale force strength, it batters the car and shakes it as easily as a child’s play thing as they sit inside. She watches as the trees all around them bend like ballerinas, their leaves touching the ground. They are perhaps safe from the immediate effects of the wind, but the car could still be damaged by falling debris.

  She types again.

  If it is the wind, do you think we will be safer indoors? Did you still hear it in the car before we blocked your ears?

  Merida looks like she might burst into tears. The memory is clearly painful for her. She takes a moment before replying.

  I don’t know what I heard. But it was everywhere.

  She watches the woman carefully. She doesn’t want to ask, but she knows she must.

  Did you hear voices? Bad voices. Telling you to hurt yourself and others?

  Tears well up in the Merida’s eyes. She blinks them away before nodding sadly.

  She watches the woman’s lips as she speaks.

  “My babies...”

  She doesn’t dare ask any more. Doesn’t want to know, but the woman takes the phone from her and begins to type.

  I heard a noise in the garden. I went out to see what it was and to check on them. They were biting each other and covered in blood, and then I heard the voices….

  She leans over and takes the device from Merida’s hands. Shakes her head. Says, “It’s okay. I don’t need to know.”

  She selects all the text on the screen and deletes it. Replaces it with fresh words.

  The wind could be confined to the city, maybe we should try to get out? We could go north and over the mountains?

  Merida reads then nods her agreement.

  Do you have anyone we should try to find and take with us?

  This time she shakes her head and says, “Not now...”

  Nor me, she thinks, or at least, it’s not likely. She can only assume her housemate has been caught up in this madness too. Prays to a God she is not sure that she fully believes in right now that maybe they escaped somehow. Are not being hurt, or hurting others.

  She puts the phone in the space for holding coffee cups underneath the dashboard and clicks her seatbelt back into place. Merida does the same. As she turns the key and starts the car she notices that the petrol gauge is showing that the car is low on fuel. Certainly not enough to get them out and over the Remutaka Range.

  She draws Merida’s attention and points to the dashboard. She mouths “petrol,” and Merida nods. She knows there is a BP station about two kilometres away in Karori. It’s not on the way to the highway, but she knows she can use the self-service app she has installed on her phone to fill up. They can avoid any contact with other people as much as possible. It could be dangerous. She hopes the detour is worth the risk.

  They drive without speaking. There is little point in trying to communicate when neither of them can hear each other, and they are both lost in their own thoughts. She feels the anxiety and tension in the air between them, tries to drive as calmly as she can although she feels sick and shaky.

  The streets are deserted. Cars are abandoned at the roadsides; their doors left open, their occupants missing. She sees bodies on the pavements and berms. She sees small groups roving together, blood-soaked and equipped with makeshift weapons. She does not stick to the speed limit, slams her foot on the accelerator and gets out of the area as quickly as she can.

  At the petrol station she brings up the app she needs. She cannot see anyone — on the forecourt or otherwise. The wind is truly vicious now, rubbish and debris hurtle around the forecourt as if made airborne by invisible hands. Blustery weather in Wellington is not unusual, but wind this extreme is not normal at all. All the strange occurrences aside, the force and the destruction of the storm is on a scale that she has never before experienced.

  Both women get out of the car. Merida stands by the bonnet, watching the street, her hands clamped tightly over her ears. She goes around to the back of the car and opens the petrol cap. She can barely stand upright against the onslaught of the ga
le. Even without her hearing aids she can hear a low hum as the wind blows around her face. She thinks she can hear an occasional whispered word, or maybe something that sounds like a rasping voice, but she forces herself to ignore it, focusing only on the task in hand. She knows that sometimes her brain makes her hear things that aren’t really there. Plucks sounds out of the silence and rearranges random noises to sound like speech. She tells herself this is just one of those moments.

  She places the nozzle in the tank and lets the pump do the rest of the work. She is watchful and wary, the dusk now given way to darkness, the road illuminated only by the street-lamps and the forecourt lights. She feels vulnerable, aware that she is standing underneath what is essentially a giant spotlight. Anyone can see her from the road or beyond. She wills the machine to hurry up. She doesn’t know how much time they have before they will need to get out. Eventually the nozzle twitches and the numbers on the display stop rising; fifty dollars worth of petrol pumped.

  She sees a movement in the distance, of what, she is unsure. Merida has seen it too and she scrambles to get back into the car. She removes the hose, replaces the cap, and runs around the car to the driver’s side door. Merida is shaking in agitation, her gaze fixed upon whatever it is coming down the road. She glances up, lets out an involuntary gasp.

  A massive crowd of people, of maybe eighty or more, are moving down the road towards them, running almost as fast as the wind. Their mouths are wide open, she can see that they are screaming or yelling. A few are unarmed, but most carry weapons — sticks, poles, knives or ropes — just like the others she has seen. Some are dirty, most are bloodstained. Their hair is wild and matted, twisted and shaped by the force of the storm. They are heading directly for them.

  She puts the car in gear but doesn’t move. She needs to think for a moment. They are coming from the direction she needs to go. If she drives away from them she will get forced deep into the hills. That way she can only go onwards towards Makara, a village on the coast, and she will have to do a long loop using the back roads into Johnsonville and to the highway. It will take them anything up to an hour, and they will most likely become trapped. If she goes through them, she can be on the State Highway in ten minutes. They can escape from all the violence. That of the people and the storm.