After the Lights Go Out

by Lili Wilkinson

  ‘So you just hid at Hansbach for four and a half months? You left us here alone?’

  ‘I was going to wait a full six months, but then the phone and radio came back online and I knew you’d need me back here to stop you running off to the cities.’

  ‘You had a phone and a radio?’

  ‘In a Faraday cage, buried near Hansbach.’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t believe you were there all along. That you didn’t try to contact us.’

  ‘You think I didn’t want to come back? You think I didn’t worry about you? I’ve only ever wanted what’s best for you. For our family.’

  ‘How can you say that, when you abandoned us here?’

  ‘Like how you abandoned your sisters?’ he says. ‘Like how you threw them and me under the bus when you told your boyfriend about the Paddock? Oh yes.’ He nods. ‘Grace told me. You’ve been compromised by the brat of the US agent. He’s probably one too. Pretending to care for you. All a ruse designed to make you give up your secrets. And you fell for it. Because you’re stupid. You don’t know the first thing about family. You don’t know about the sacrifices I’ve made.’

  I think about Clarita, working herself to exhaustion to look after a bunch of strangers. I think of Georgie, who stayed here to fix more cars when she could have taken Paddy and Natia to Silver Creek months ago.

  ‘Why is it,’ I say at last, ‘that if you do something just for yourself, it’s seen as selfish, but if you’re doing it for your family then suddenly it’s some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card? Throwing the rest of your community under the bus in order to benefit your family isn’t a morally defensible position, Rick. It doesn’t make you a good guy.’

  ‘When did you stop calling me Dad?’ he says, his voice suddenly quiet.

  ‘When I realised you didn’t deserve it.’ I take a breath. ‘I want to leave. I want to be a part of the world. I don’t want to hide away from the challenges ahead – I want to be part of the solution.’

  Rick Palmer’s face flashes with anger. ‘You can’t imagine what it will be like out there. The violent uprising.’

  ‘People are better than you think.’

  ‘People are poor. People are angry. For decades now they’ve had their jobs taken away, their futures. You can’t expect them not to rise up and take what’s rightfully theirs.’

  I shake my head in disbelief. ‘Since when did you ever care about the poor? You’ve never tried to solve any of society’s problems. You’ve been looking forward to this.’

  ‘None of it matters anyway. They’ll all be dead by the end of the year. That’s the plan. Orchestrate the rebellion. Watch the poor rise up and take to the streets. And then destroy them.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Chemicals. Nuclear strikes. Acid rain. Take your pick.’

  ‘You’re not well, Rick. You need help.’

  I see a vein in his neck start to throb. ‘Why can’t you be a good girl like your sisters?’

  ‘Because I’m not just a girl.’

  ‘Is that what this is about? You don’t want to be treated like a little girl? You think that because you survived this first stage, you get to play with the big kids? Fine. You’re not a little girl. You’re a woman now.’ He rolls his eyes like I’m some child having a tantrum.

  ‘I’m a person, Rick. A human being.’

  And that’s when I realise that I can’t stay. Not even for Grace.

  ‘You can’t keep us here forever,’ I tell him.

  ‘I don’t have to keep you in here forever,’ he replies. ‘Your boyfriend and his mother are leaving. Once they’ve gone, then we can talk about your future.’

  ‘I’m not leaving because of him,’ I say. ‘If I don’t go with him, I’ll go with someone else.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ He smiles smugly, but there’s a wince behind it. He puts his hand to the side of his face.

  First thing tomorrow I’m packing a bag and riding into Jubilee. I’m going to go with Mateo and Clarita. I’ll ask Grace to come with us. I’ll beg her. But if she says no, I’m going anyway.

  I’m done being a good girl.

  20

  I wake up the next morning and before I open my eyes I’m aware of a presence in the room. I look over, expecting to see Grace, but she isn’t there. Instead, my father is perched on the foot of her bed.

  I sit up, pulling the blanket around me.

  The right side of his face has puffed up to twice its usual size – his right eye is swollen shut. His skin is pale, slick with sweat.

  ‘You’re sick,’ I say.

  He glares at me, his expression full of loathing. ‘Tooth,’ he says at last. ‘Probably a tracking device.’

  I don’t say anything. Secret surveillance tooth implant is pretty crazy, even for Rick. Then I notice the empty bucket and black bag by his feet, and I realise why he’s so angry.

  ‘You want me to take it out.’

  He nods, and I can see that asking for help hurts almost as much as his infected tooth.

  I gaze at him for a moment, calmly thinking through my options.

  ‘No,’ I say at last. ‘Not unless you let me go.’

  Rage flares in his eyes, but he nods. ‘Okay.’

  ‘And Grace too, if she agrees.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I don’t help you.’

  Rick stands and stares at me, waiting for me to cave. But I don’t. His shoulders slump.

  ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘But only if she wants to. Let it be her choice.’

  I climb out of bed and hold out my hand for him to shake. I can tell how much he hates it. He wants to be in control. The boss of the situation. Not two equals shaking on a deal.

  Too bad.

  He reaches out to me. His hand is burning hot – he has a fever.

  I go into his room, and pile towels on his bed. He follows me, sullen as a toddler.

  I place the bucket on the floor, and open the black bag. I see gleaming silver instruments, a lighter, a glass bottle, a pair of disposable gloves and a roll of gauze. He must have stolen them from Hansbach, or the clinic in Jubilee.

  ‘No anaesthetic?’

  Rick grunts. ‘None left.’

  The bottle looks like it contains Simmone Bratton’s moonshine. I take it out and hand it to Rick, who unscrews it and takes a few grim swallows. He lies down on the bed. I pull everything out of the bag and lay it out on the bedside table. There are three dental instruments: a probe, an elevator and a pair of forceps.

  I pull on the plastic gloves and lean over Rick. He opens his mouth.

  Straight away, I can see which tooth it is. It’s black and shrivelled, like bits of it have been crumbling off. He must have been in agony for weeks.

  I pick up the dental probe, a thin metal instrument with a sharp hook at the end. My hands are shaking.

  I think about refusing. Walking back into town and asking Clarita to deal with it.

  But I know Clarita has no dentistry experience.

  I think of the pig’s head Rick brought home so I could practise. Rick and I watched YouTube videos of root canals, and learnt what all the instruments are called and what they do, before we extracted the pig’s teeth, one by one.

  A normal person would close their eyes now. Not Rick. He stares right up at me, and I can see fear and resentment. He hates being vulnerable like this. Up close, I can see the damage done to his skin from sun exposure. Rick doesn’t believe in sunscreen. His face is weathered, the skin blotchy and dark, with flaky pale areas and yellowing scabs. Grime is etched into the lines of his brow and around his eyes.

  I flick on the lighter and slide the probe up and down the flame to sterilise it.

  It might not be too bad. If the root of the tooth is already dead, then the only pain will be from the inflamed tissue around it. If the nerve ending is still alive though, it’ll be a different story.

  I grit my teeth, and slide the probe along the front of the infected molar, digging downwards into the gum pocke
t. Rick flinches, but doesn’t make a sound.

  As the probe slides deeper, I feel resistance where the tooth is rooted into the gum. I push the probe a little harder, then wiggle it back and forth to loosen the tooth. I try not to push too hard – I don’t want to damage his gum and risk further infection.

  I feel the tooth give a little, and withdraw the probe. Rick’s breath is coming in short pants, and his fists are clenched into white-knuckled balls. I reach in again and repeat the process for the back of the tooth – sliding in with the probe and loosening it.

  I’m so close to him, we’re breathing each other’s breath. The stench from his mouth is overpowering – rancid meat and decay.

  I put the probe aside, and sterilise the elevator – a chisel-like tool with a slightly curved blade and a bulbous handle. Then I carefully slide the curved side of the blade between the rotten tooth and the good tooth next to it, as far down as I can under the gum. I turn the handle of the elevator, pushing the tooth back and forth to loosen it. Rick grunts, his body as rigid as a board.

  I pick up the forceps. They look like a particularly wicked set of pliers. I sterilise them with the lighter flame and squeeze them in my hand, taking comfort in their solidity. Rick’s eyes are rolling in his head – he’s trying not to pass out from the pain. I wiggle the forceps down around the tooth and push down as hard as I can so the pincers dig into the root under the gum. I reach in with my other hand and grip his gum, feeling the swollen heat of it through my disposable glove.

  Then I push down on Rick’s gum, and pull up with the forceps.

  Rick lets out a roar. He instinctively grabs my wrists to tear my hands away, then forces his arms down and pounds the mattress instead.

  I can feel his jaw expanding under my fingers as I pull. I keep the pressure steady – if I squeeze the forceps too hard I could shatter the tooth. I tip the forceps back and forth and twist them, until I feel something give, and hear a cracking noise as the ligament which holds the tooth in place finally snaps.

  I hear a noise behind me and know that Grace is standing in the doorway, watching.

  I give one last heave and the tooth slithers out with a wet, slurping sound as air is sucked into the newly formed cavity. I rock back on my heels, holding up the tooth to make sure it’s intact.

  Rick turns his head away from me and leans over the edge of the bed, spitting a mouthful of blood into the bucket on the floor.

  I grab the gauze and Rick opens his mouth again. There’s a dark, gaping hole oozing blood where his tooth was, and it grosses me out more than anything that’s come before. I reach in again and squeeze the socket back into place, feeling my stomach heave as more blood gushes out of the hole. I poke a pad of gauze in between the remaining teeth on either side of the hole, and pull my hand away.

  ‘Bite down,’ I tell Rick.

  I step away from the bed and back away against the wall, closing my eyes. I hear Rick’s breathing grow steady, and wonder if he’s passed out.

  I’ve fulfilled my part of our bargain. I look over at Grace, but I can’t read her expression. How can I convince her to come with me?

  Rick pulls himself up into a sitting position with a groan. He puts tender fingers to his jaw. When he speaks, the mouthful of gauze makes his words fuzzy and indistinct.

  ‘My girls,’ he says.

  I look at him, my gaze cool. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I need to grab a few things before I go.’

  Rick winces. ‘You’re still leaving?’

  ‘You promised.’

  Rick mutters something that I can’t make out through the gauze. Then he says, ‘You haven’t thought it through. Where will you go? What will you do?’

  ‘Anywhere. Anything.’

  He coughs out a wet-sounding laugh. ‘You’re delusional. There’s nothing you can do. Nowhere you can go. You have no money. All you have is me and Grace. Family. Family is the most important thing. You can never give up on your family.’

  I look at Grace, at the crease between her brows.

  She looks back at me and her mouth narrows into a thin line. ‘Pru’s right. We have to leave.’

  Rick flinches backwards as if Grace has physically struck him. Grace, who always supported him, who was always on his side, who never answered back or questioned his authority.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers. ‘But I can’t stay here anymore. It isn’t good for us. For you or for me.’

  Rick lets out an animal growl of rage.

  I take a deep breath. ‘Come with us.’

  Rick stiffens into silence.

  ‘I think the world needs people like us right now,’ I tell him. ‘Resourceful people. Survivors. We can make a difference.’

  Rick’s swollen face contorts into a sneer. ‘You think you’re going to ride off into the sunset into some heroic happy ending? There’s nothing out there but death and disaster.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘Maybe not. But we’re going to find out.’

  Rick lets Grace help him to his feet. He sways a little, taking a few steps towards the door. Then he pauses, putting out a hand to steady himself. He closes his eyes for a moment. When he looks up at us, his expression is full of sorrow.

  ‘I’m so sorry, girls.’

  Grace starts to cry. He embraces her, and I see tears running down his cheeks. I’ve never seen him cry before.

  ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without you,’ he says.

  ‘So come with us,’ Grace pleads.

  Rick ignores this. ‘Let me help you,’ he says instead. ‘I have things. Supplies. In the Paddock.’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m never going back there.’

  He steps forward eagerly, his hands stretched out, placating. ‘There’s another room,’ he says. ‘A secret store. I never showed you. There are other things there. I have a petrol additive that will make your fuel last longer. Water purification tablets. Enough MREs for a year.’

  I open my mouth to say no, but Grace grabs my arm. ‘Give him this one thing,’ she murmurs. ‘Let him help us.’

  I don’t trust him, but I need Grace.

  The Paddock feels like a tomb, cold and stale-smelling.

  Panda scrambles down the steps behind us, and Rick reaches out and pulls the heavy metal door shut. It clangs and I shiver.

  The Paddock looks like it’s been ransacked – it has. The furniture is still here, but the shelves are mostly empty – every useful item was boxed up and relocated to the Heart or the clinic. The lights are on, though – Rick must have reconnected the solar panels.

  Rick leads us to his bedroom and opens the metal locker that serves as his wardrobe. There’s a false panel at the back. He slides it open and climbs through, revealing a hidden storeroom that I never knew existed.

  Grace gasps.

  There are more supplies in here. A lot more. Enough to last for years. Metal shelves stretch before me – more than a dozen, each one stacked high with boxes and tins and bottles, everything sealed and labelled.

  There are things I’ve never seen before – hazmat suits and Geiger counters and what looks like an all-terrain vehicle, disassembled in parts and stacked neatly on the shelves.

  By the entranceway, there’s a blinking green light and a keypad, with cables leading out of it and up into the ceiling.

  ‘What’s that?’ I ask, pointing.

  Rick follows my gaze. ‘It’s an automatic fallout lock,’ he replies. ‘When activated, it begins a countdown sequence that ends with the door to the Paddock being sealed. To protect against any nuclear radiation.’

  ‘What powers it?’

  ‘Geothermal.’

  I feel a prickle of uneasiness. ‘How do you unseal it?’

  Rick’s eyes glitter. ‘Humans have feelings. They can’t be trusted to make rational decisions under pressure. The lock ensures that the Paddock will be sealed until any risk of radiation poisoning has passed.’

  I stare at him. ‘How long?’

  ‘Five years. That’s how long it took be
fore people could start returning to Fukushima.’

  I don’t break eye contact with him. ‘Grace,’ I say, ‘I think we’d better go.’

  Rick Palmer smiles a grotesque smile, his swollen face twisting.

  I grab Grace’s hand and drag her through the narrow door, through the metal locker and back into Rick’s room. We pound down the corridor and skid into the living room.

  The door is only a few metres away. I can hear Rick’s footsteps behind us.

  ‘Panda,’ gasps Grace, pulling me back.

  Panda’s tail is between her legs, and she darts away from Grace’s outstretched hand, whining.

  Rick comes thundering into the room.

  I leap towards the door, but he’s faster. He grabs my arm and twists it behind my back. There’s a sickening crunch in my shoulder, and for a moment I can’t breathe, can’t do anything but focus on the pain.

  ‘You will stay here until you learn to behave,’ Rick hisses in my ear, and his breath smells like rot and moonshine. ‘You and your sister.’

  Grace wrenches at Rick, trying to make him let me go. He bats her aside, and Panda snarls at him. Rick kicks her, hard, and Panda flies across the room, hitting the wall with a heavy thunk.

  Grace screams.

  I can’t move my arm. My rotator cuff muscles spasm, and the pain in my shoulder is almost unbearable. It’s dislocated. But I have to get away. Rick pushes me from him, and I use that momentum to propel myself away from the door and back into the corridor. Grace hesitates, not knowing whether to follow me or to go to Panda, then scurries after me.

  I duck into the small gym and haul on Rick’s exercise bike with my good hand, dragging it into the corridor to slow him down. Then Grace and I skid around a corner through the galley and I yank open the cutlery drawer and pull out a knife.

  ‘Come on,’ I pant to Grace, and we dash into my bedroom. Together we heave the mattress off my bed and lean it up against the door, then push my bedframe after it.

  I drop the knife and press my back up against the wall, gripping the wrist of the dislocated arm with my good hand. I pull straight and forward, letting out a ragged yell as I extend the spasming muscles even further. Black spots appear in front of my eyes, and my knees buckle, but I don’t let go. Then, my humerus pops back into its socket with an audible snap. The pain recedes enough to clear my vision, and I can concentrate again.