After the Lights Go Out

by Lili Wilkinson

  The mattress bows inwards under Rick Palmer’s blows. I pick up the knife again, and we climb onto the bedframe, our backs up against the mattress.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ I hiss, the knife clenched in my fist so hard that my knuckles are white.

  ‘He’ll never let us go.’

  My arm is throbbing, and the room swims in front of me. The mattress bows even more.

  ‘I’m going to lead him away from the door,’ I tell her. ‘You get out, take the car and get help.’

  Grace shakes her head. ‘I can’t lose you too.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  I count down from three, and we push hard on the mattress, timed with Rick’s blows. It folds inwards and collapses into the hallway on top of him.

  Grace slips down the corridor towards the door. I turn the other way and head into his bedroom, crashing against furniture and flinging open the metal door of his wardrobe locker so he’ll hear me and follow. I clamber through the secret door and into the big storeroom.

  I duck behind one of the shelves and crouch down behind a large box labelled POTASSIUM IODIDE. I’m still holding the knife. The pain from my arm has spread up to my shoulder and into my ribs.

  There are footsteps on the metal floor nearby. Rick is in here with me. His breathing is ragged. He’s weak from the infection.

  I push the box out of the way and climb through the space it leaves to the next shelf. Rick’s footsteps follow me. I push another box, and another, until I’m wedged between the last metal shelf and a hard, cold wall.

  There’s nowhere left to run.

  I grip the knife.

  ‘Go on,’ says a voice, far too close for comfort. ‘Try it.’

  He’s pointing the Glock right at me, and the coldness in his eyes convinces me that he’ll use it. I drop the knife and raise my hands.

  At least Grace got out. That’s something.

  Rick gestures at me with the gun, and I stand up and back slowly towards the door. As I reach the narrow opening, I see a tiny blinking green light out of the corner of my eye. A keypad.

  Rick follows my gaze and bares his teeth.

  ‘I should do it,’ he says. ‘Lock us both in here. I reckon after five years we’d have sorted out our differences.’

  He takes a step towards the keypad. There’s a button labelled AUTOLOCK, under a flip-open plastic cover. My heart pounds in my ears. I wonder how long the countdown sequence is. Would it be enough time to get out?

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Don’t.’

  Rick flips open the plastic cover and raises his eyebrows, daring me to move.

  I dart forward, ducking under Rick’s outstretched arm, and press the button.

  Immediately a siren sounds, and the overhead lights dim. The display screen next to the keypad lights up with large red numbers. Rick stares at me in shock.

  10

  9

  8

  I run.

  7

  6

  Through the locker and through Rick’s room and down the corridor and into the living room.

  Grace has left the door open.

  5

  Rick’s footsteps pound behind me.

  4

  I clatter up the metal stairs, and I hear the footsteps stop. I turn and look back down.

  3

  Rick Palmer is standing in the doorway to the Paddock, on the inside.

  2

  He doesn’t move.

  1

  His eyes meet mine, and we stare at each other as the heavy steel door at the bottom of the stairs swings shut with a cold, final hiss.

  EPILOGUE

  The cemetery is on the very edge of town, where the soil is sandy and easy to dig. There are old weathered headstones dating back to the late eighteenth century, alongside a row of modern marble ones. At the very end is a row of newer graves, each marked with a simple wooden cross. One for Mr Kausler, one for little Emma Zubek, a freshly dug one for Keller Reid.

  And one for Blythe.

  Plants have grown over the earth that covers her, buffel grass and blue butterfly pea.

  Grace sinks to her knees in the orange dirt, reaching out to drape a gold necklace over the cross, a tiny unicorn charm dangling from it.

  She speaks softly. ‘I’ve spent my whole life being the other side of your coin. I’ve loved you and hated you and tried to be you, and now all of that’s gone, but you’re still here, because your face is my face, and your heart is my heart.’

  She brushes tears from her eyes and stands up. I hug her tight, and we walk over to the memorial. Peter and Violet have planted a garden of remembrance to honour the people we’ve lost. They planted a young woollybutt eucalypt, and surrounded it with local wildflowers – desert rose, northern bluebells and pink mulla mulla. A silver-crowned friarbird flits down out of the sky and lands on the branch of the woollybutt. It dips its peculiar lumpen beak into the heart of a bright orange blossom, then preens its feathers.

  I pause as we pass Keller’s grave, and pull Blythe’s copy of Anne of Green Gables from my bag and place it on the ground. The photo of Keller and his dad still marks the page he was up to.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him, and I mean it.

  Violet says we should take the Holden ute. It seems fitting. The mint-green paint is scratched, and one of the headlights is busted. There’s a massive dint on the chrome front bumper where David Bratton accidentally drove it into a tree.

  Mr Vassili would weep if he saw it.

  But Mr Vassili will never see it. Mr Vassili will never see anything again.

  We load up the tray with water, food and fuel. Grace rigs up a shade awning and a padded bench seat to sit on.

  Everyone is packing up – Barri, Jan, Simmone and David are heading to Garton to try to find their kids. Violet is heading to her family in Matadale. Peter and Laurine have plans to try and make it to Perth.

  We gather outside the hotel, shuffling and hugging and making promises to stay in contact that we all know we can’t keep.

  I hug Violet, and hold back tears as I feel her strong arms encircling me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whisper.

  ‘You’re a real good kid,’ she tells me. ‘You’ll do fine.’

  I wonder what Rick Palmer will find when the fallout lock eventually opens to release him from the Paddock. Will Violet have returned to Jubilee? Or will it be a ghost town, sinking slowly under a thick layer of red dust, all evidence of our hard work worn away by the desert winds?

  Maybe he’ll believe his own fantasy – believe that we all perished in some kind of horrendous disaster. That he is the last survivor, alone in all the world.

  I can’t see the point of living like that.

  When I told Grace what had happened, I expected her to cry.

  She just shrugged. ‘It was his choice,’ she said simply.

  And it was. He could have followed me up the stairs. There was time.

  But he stayed. He chose paranoia and loneliness over us.

  I guess family doesn’t always come first after all.

  I take first shift behind the wheel. Mateo sits in the passenger seat beside me, like he did when we drove out to Hansbach. Clarita, Grace and Panda are in the back. I still don’t have a licence, but somehow I think I’ll get away with it.

  ‘Are you sure you want to drive?’ Mateo asks, frowning at my arm.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say, rotating my shoulder. ‘All better.’

  I have no idea what we’ll encounter out there. Reports on the radio have sounded positive, but who really knows? I don’t know if we’ll find Mateo’s mum, or mine. I have Mum’s letter in my pocket, like a folded-up page of hope. There’s a return address on the back. Melbourne is a long way away. We’re going to have to find fuel, and food, and water.

  I’m not worried, though. I’m a prepper. I can wring water from a stone, and find food in the driest desert. I can make rope from fifty different plants, and tie it into fifty different knots. I can build shelt
er and set bones and navigate by the stars.

  I am strong, and I’m not afraid of what lies ahead.

  There are other people out there too, and if I’ve learnt anything from the last four months, it’s that given the opportunity, most people are kind.

  Mateo reaches over and squeezes my hand.

  ‘Thanks for waiting for us,’ I say.

  ‘No worries, mate,’ he says in a truly terrible imitation of an Australian accent.

  ‘You know, once we get further south and east, you might finally get to see a koala,’ I tell him.

  ‘But can I cuddle it?’

  ‘I don’t know if you’d want to. Most of them have chlamydia.’

  Mateo shakes his head. ‘Unacceptable.’

  I laugh and squeeze his hand back, then let go so I can change into a higher gear. Whatever is out there, we’ll deal with it together.

  The Holden roars, and we fang it out of Jubilee and into our future.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book takes a lot of creative licence with the scientific concept of an electromagnetic pulse. While our energy grid is definitely vulnerable to damage from solar storms, it’s unlikely ground-level electronic devices and vehicles would be affected. There is some evidence to suggest that ground-level electronics could be damaged by an EMP caused by a nuclear explosion, but the kind of devastation described in this book would be near-impossible to orchestrate and achieve.

  There is a lot of paranoia out there (I’m looking at you, preppers) about EMP and other SHTF scenarios. While I find this mentality fascinating, I also believe that attitudes of fear and paranoia engender an us-versus-them ideology that doesn’t make for good communities or good democracy. There are many out there who believe that the end is nigh and it’s every man* for himself. I prefer to use my time working to ensure that the apocalypse doesn’t happen at all, and I believe the best way to do this is to encourage clear-eyed curiosity, critical thinking, compassion and empathy.

  There are many people whose patience, generosity and kindness have helped me think about the world differently, and whose contributions to this book cannot go unacknowledged.

  Massive thanks to Lisa Fuller, for her wisdom and counsel and to anthropologist/deadset legend David Colón-Cabrera, for his expertise in all things Puerto Rican, as well as for his thoughtful comments on the manuscript regarding the representation of marginalised voices.

  Thanks as always to the wonderful Jodie Webster and Hilary Reynolds, as well as everyone else at Allen & Unwin who made this book happen. And thanks to my agent, Katelyn Detweiler, for helping it find a home on foreign shores.

  More thanks go to Peter Locke at the Victorian AIDS Council, Allayne and Daryl Webster for explaining how the electrical grid works, CS Pacat for excellent lunchtime chats and unexpected geology expertise, and the writer’s retreat crew (Amie, Jay, Cat, Kat, Ellie, Eliza, Dave, Nic, Will, Skye, Ebony, Peta, Liz) for being human Google when there was no internet (with extra-special bonus thanks to Amie Kaufman, whose beautiful brain helped me figure out the climax to the novel when I realised I’d forgotten to write one).

  I could never write books without the love and support of my wonderful family – Michael, Banjo, Mum and Dad.

  The following websites were invaluable in my research:

  Writing with Color: writingwithcolor.tumblr.com

  ScriptMedic: scriptmedicblog.com

  And thanks to all the preppers on the internet who blog/post/pin their theories, plans and strategies in such meticulous detail – I really, really hope you’re wrong about the future.

  __________________

  *And woman. But let’s be honest, it’s usually man.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lili Wilkinson is the award-winning author of eleven YA novels including The Boundless Sublime, Green Valentine, Pink and the picture book That Christmas Feeling. She was first published at age twelve in Voiceworks magazine. After studying Creative Arts at Melbourne University and teaching English in Japan, Lili established insideadog.com.au (a books website for teen readers), the Inky Awards and the Inkys Creative Reading Prize at the Centre for Youth Literature, State Library of Victoria. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and lives in Melbourne with her husband, son, dog and three chickens.

  liliwilkinson.com.au