The Stone Gate

by Mark Mann

  But I still don’t know what’s going on.

  Jack’s right though. We need to drink. I point to the stream at the southern end of the beach. “We can follow the creek until we come to fresh water,” I say.

  As we walk down the beach, I notice something else.

  “Look how clean the beach is. There’s no rubbish. No plastic. Nothing.”

  “Well, that’s nice,” Jack says.

  “Actually, it might not be such good news. All those bits of plastic you find on beaches, they can wash up from thousands of miles away. They say if you go to some tiny uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean you’ll still find bits of plastic on the beach.”

  “So what?”

  “So ... if there’s no plastic on this beach, that means there’s no plastic in the whole world. Whatever happened last night didn’t just happen in Baytown. It’s changed the whole world.”

  ***

  The stream at the end of the beach is called Rock Creek. Until yesterday it flowed out to the sea through the Bayview Caravan Park. Now it’s running through forest. We follow the creek until we come to a small waterhole surrounded by reeds. I taste the water. It’s murky, but no longer salty. We lie on our stomachs, cup our hands and drink.

  I see a shape glide by beneath the surface.

  “Jack, there are fish in here,” I say. “We should try to catch one.” We need to eat.

  The question is, how. I scan the banks of the stream.

  “That vine over there. We can use it to make a fishing line. I’ve seen Wolf Meares do it on Wild Survival. We can use a thorn as a hook.”

  Wild Survival. That’s my favourite television show. Its star, Eddie “Wolf” Meares, is an ex-army survival expert who parachutes into different types of wilderness and shows you how to survive, which usually involves drinking his own pee. (Fortunately we haven’t got to that stage yet.)

  I rip off a stretch of vine and run my hand along it to strip off the leaves. Next I find a thorny bush, break off the tip of one of its prickly branches and tie the end of the vine to it. The vine is young and green and bends easily without breaking, as long as I don’t pull it too hard.

  It’s not the strongest fishing line ever but, like Wolf Meares says, you’ve got to improvise.

  “Let’s see if that holds. Now we need bait.”

  We scrape around in the dirt looking for something to use as bait. Eventually I notice a rotting log and kick it open. Inside there are some fat white grubs.

  “Yuck!” Jack looks disgusted.

  “No, they’re perfect.”

  I take one of the wriggling grubs between my fingers and push it onto the thorn. Brown goo shoots out of its body where the thorn pierces it. I have another idea. I quickly grab a second grub and stuff it into my mouth. Some of the brown goo trickles down my chin as I try to swallow it. It’s disgusting. Wolf Meares would be proud of me.

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” Jack says.

  “You haven’t even eaten one yet.”

  “Just watching you makes me feel sick.”

  Mind you, for a moment I really do feel like throwing up. The grub leaves a revolting aftertaste.

  “They gave us one to eat on our school excursion to Wilderness Camp. Only me and Cassie had the guts to try one,” I say.

  “Guts—is that a joke? Does it taste as bad as it looks?”

  “Yeah. But at least we know they’re edible.” I hold out a grub.

  Jack pulls a face. “No way.”

  “Suit yourself. But remember it’s food. And food means energy. We’ve got to eat. The trick is not to think about it.”

  “Maybe later,” Jack says.

  I take the baited end of the vine and cast it into the creek.

  “What now?” Jack asks.

  “We wait.”

  We sit beside the creek and watch the vine drift gently in the water. Jack’s just sitting there doing nothing, so I hand the end of the vine to him while I make another fishing line. When it’s ready, I hold out the end with the thorn on it. “Here Jack, you do it. Put some bait on it.”

  Jack looks nervously at the wriggling grubs in the rotten log.

  “Come on, Jack. Don’t be such a wimp.”

  Jack still won’t touch the grubs.

  “For heaven’s sake Jack, I’ll do it,” I say. I find a fat grub and spear it with Jack’s thorn. Goo squirts out. I have to admit: it is disgusting.

  “You’ve got to do the next one, though,” I say.

  Jack casts his line into the pool and sits down beside me. “Thank you,” he says. “For not mentioning Wolf Meares, I mean.” We laugh. It’s the first time we’ve laughed since the flash.

  We wait. Jack thinks he’s got a nibble, but when he tugs on the vine there’s nothing there. Then I get a bite, but when I pull in the vine the thorn breaks off. (It is a pretty flimsy fishing rod, after all.)

  I find another thorn and tie it onto the vine. Then Jack gets another nibble but the same thing happens. It’s frustrating, but encouraging too. I mean, at least we’re getting bites.

  Suddenly my vine goes taut. I tug—and this time it stays tight. Carefully, I pull it towards me until the hook rises out of the water.

  Dangling on the end of the line is a small silver fish. I throw it onto the bank. Its body flaps on the ground.

  “It worked! I don’t believe it, Kaya! You’re a genius!” Jack shouts, jumping up in triumph. He stops (maybe he thinks he’s overdone the praise for his sister) and looks at the fish. “But how do we cook it?” he asks.

  “We don’t. It’ll take too long to make a fire. I don’t even know if we can make a fire without matches. We’ll just eat it raw. Like sushi. I saw it on ...”

  “Let me guess, Wolf ...”

  I nod and laugh. I pick up the fish in both hands. Its body is still twitching. Poor fish. I’m just about to bite into its side when I realise it’s still covered in scales, so I find a stick and try to scrape them off. I’m sorry, I think to the fish, but we’ve got to eat. Finally I take a bite. The flesh is moist and tender.

  I hold it out for Jack.

  “Eat it while it’s fresh,” I say.

  Jack hesitates.

  “It’s that or the grubs,” I point out.

  Jack screws up his face and bites into the fish. “Hey, this actually tastes good,” he says. He takes another bite and picks a scale from his teeth.

  I catch Jack’s eye and we burst out laughing again.

  “This is crazy. A whole afternoon to catch one fish,” Jack says.

  “Teach a man to fish ...” I say.

  Jack looks blank.

  “It’s a saying. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach him to fish and he eats forever. The point is, now we know how to catch fish. So now we can eat. And there’s fresh water to drink here too.”

  By the time we get back to the beach the sun is setting and the sky is streaked with pink and orange. We fall asleep watching the blue sky fade to black and the stars appear.

  Just the two of us, all alone in the world.

  ***

  I wake to see the sun rising over the ocean. By the time Jack stirs, I’ve collected a pile of driftwood from the back of the beach.

  “We need to make fire. I’ve seen Wolf Meares do it by rubbing two sticks together.”

  “What would we do without Wolf Meares?” Jack mumbles sleepily. He pulls the hood of his jumper down over his face and curls up in the sand, waiting for the sun to chase off the early-morning chill.

  The trouble is I’ve never actually done this before; just seen it on television.

  On TV, Wolf Meares made it look so simple. He made a hole in a bit of wood and laid it on the ground. Then he put one end of a stick in the hole and rubbed it backwards and forwards between the palms of his hands. Its tip spun so fast that it got hot enough to set fire to a ball of dry grass. And hey presto—fire!

  But when I try it, every step is a challenge. Especially without tools. Like, without a knife,
how do I cut a hole in the bit of wood. And how do I get the upright stick to spin fast enough without giving my hands blisters?

  After a while I manage to scrape a sort of hole in the wood by using a stone. I put the end of a stick in it and twirl, but it keeps coming out of the hole and I can’t generate any heat. I stop. I don’t want to rub my hands raw.

  “Looks like we’ll be living off raw fish for a bit longer,” Jack says.

  “Don’t forget those tasty grubs,” I reply.

  We sit silently for a while, listening to the surf, trying not to think about how hungry we are.

  “What if we’re the only people left alive and we have to spend the rest of our lives alone like this?” I say.

  “Perhaps it’s all a dream?” Jack suggests.

  “We can’t both be having the same dream.”

  Jack thinks for a moment. “That’s true. But if it’s my dream, then you only exist in my imagination. And if it’s your dream, I only exist in your imagination. So one of us could be dreaming. We just can’t tell which one.”

  “Even if that makes sense, have you ever had a dream that lasted so long?”

  I examine my palms for signs of blisters. None of it makes sense.

  “I say we go back up to the High Plateau. This all began when we went through the Stone Gate. If we go back through the Stone Gate again, maybe everything will go back to normal.”

  “Okay,” Jack says. “Meanwhile, what does Wolf Meares say about having a ... you know, a ...?”

  “Just bury it in the sand. I think. Use some leaves to wipe your bum. Not spiky ones. And please go somewhere I can’t see you.”

  Before heading up to the High Plateau, we go back to the waterhole to fish. It takes half the morning before I catch one. I force down some of those grubs too. Jack still can’t bring himself to eat one.

  I notice a few purple berries on a low vine on the ground. They’re native sarsaparilla, one of the few wild berries I know are safe to eat. You can tell it’s the right plant because the leaves have three veins instead of one. They taught us that at Wilderness Camp. I eat one. It’s tasteless. (After the grubs, that’s not a bad thing.) We eat the rest of the berries, then start to walk through the forest towards the escarpment. After a while we pick up what seems like a faint trail and start to climb the slope towards the cliffs.

  “I reckon this is Hillview Street,” I say. “You know, where Hillview Street should be.”

  I must have been right, because after walking for a while we come to the foot of the Stony Stairway. We climb it to the top of the cliffs. Again, there seems to be a faint trail leading into the High Plateau. A startled wallaby crashes off into the undergrowth as we pass. Soon we find ourselves back at the Stone Gate.

  But when we step through the arch, nothing happens. No flash. No roar. Nothing. And when we return to the top of the cliffs, there are still no buildings on the plain below. I feel like crying. I want this nightmare to end.

  Pull yourself together, I tell myself. Stay practical. Just focus on the next step. That’s what Wolf Meares says.

  I look at the sky.

  “Those are storm clouds,” I say. “We have to find shelter. And fast. The Castle will do.”

  The Castle. That’s where we were going in the first place, with Jayden and Debbie James, to watch the full moon. It’s a big pile of boulders that looks a bit like a ruined castle. There’s a cave there where we can stay dry.

  We’re just in time, because as soon as we reach the Castle the heavens open. Fat raindrops pound the earth in front of us.

  “I guess we’re here for the night,” Jack says.

  The rocky overhang protects us from the rain. We lie next to each other and use our body heat and jumpers to keep warm.

  ***

  The boy leans over me. He is tall and skinny with thick curly hair. His body is naked and black as coal. He is looking down at me, his white eyes wide with wonder. In one hand he holds a long thin stick. A spear.

  The boy is saying something in a language I can’t understand.

  “Binjin.”

  ***

  I wake with a start. But there’s no one. Only Jack, still sleeping, his body curled up for warmth. Last night’s storm has passed and the stars are fading into the early dawn sky. The birds are noisy this morning. There are screeching cockatoos and laughing kookaburras and other birds I don’t recognise.

  Lying on a leaf are the sarsaparilla berries we collected last night. We saved a few for breakfast, because it’s depressing to wake up with nothing to eat. But the pile looks larger than I remember. Did we really pick so many last night? I guess we must have.

  We eat the berries and slurp water from a puddle. We suck some flowers from a nearby banksia tree.

  “There’s nothing like a big breakfast,” I joke.

  “And that was nothing like a big breakfast,” Jack jokes back. I’ve noticed Jack has already lost weight. I must have too, because I can feel the bones in my ribs. We can carry on like this for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but sooner or later we’ve got to eat more. We’re slowly starving.

  The crazy thing is, I know we’re surrounded by food. There are kangaroos and wallabies and possums and so on, if only we knew how to catch them and could make a fire to cook them. There’s bracken fern everywhere, but I’m pretty sure you’ve got to cook that. I remember reading that Aboriginal people ate the sap of acacia trees. And seaweed. You can definitely eat that raw. The only problem is, I think some types of seaweed and acacia sap might be poisonous and we can’t risk eating the wrong ones. I mean, there doesn’t seem to be too many doctors around here if we do get sick.

  “What I’d give for a fried egg right now,” Jack says.

  “Eggs! That’s it.”

  “Yeah, with some sizzling rashers of bacon and hot buttery toast and ...”

  “No, seriously, you can eat eggs raw. I’ve seen it on Wolf Meares.” I’m excited now. “And there’s no shortage of birds, so there must be eggs. We’ve just got to find them.” I think for a moment. “Most of the birds up here make their nests in trees, but down on the plain there are all the water birds, like ducks. I remember finding a nest last spring, in the reeds by Rock Creek. The mother duck must have been off feeding. There were about ten eggs. We should look down there.”

  So we walk back down to the plain again. We head east through the bush, using the morning sun as a rough guide, until we reach Rock Creek. I can tell roughly where we are because the stream widens into a small lake or billabong, lined with reeds. I’m guessing it’s Rock Creek Lagoon. We wade out into the water up to our knees and slosh around among the reeds. There are plenty of birds around—ducks, pelicans, magpies and waterbirds like herons and cormorants, with their long thin legs for walking in the mudflats, and long thin beaks for fishing. But there’s no sign of any nests.

  “This is getting boring,” Jack says after a while.

  As he speaks, a duck half-runs and half-swims out of the reeds. The duck is all brown, which means she’s a female. She’s quacking and flapping her wings, but it looks like one of her wings is injured.

  Suddenly I remember something from a Wolf Meares episode. A mother duck sitting on eggs will pretend to be injured and run away from the nest to distract predators. To find the nest, look where the duck has just come from.

  I wade over to where we first saw the duck and, sure enough, after poking around for a while, I find a little bed of down with about ten white eggs nestled in the middle.

  I feel guilty, stealing the eggs with the mother duck just over there, but we’re hungry and we have to eat. We take an egg each and crack the shells, taking care not to spill anything. I throw my head back and gulp down the contents of the egg. It tastes pretty good. Jack hesitates then does the same. A dribble of yolk trickles down his cheek. Then we take a second one each. And a third. Jack wants to finish them all off, but I feel sorry for the poor mother duck and say we should leave the others for her. There are loads of ducks around so
there must be plenty of other nests.

  So now we’ve got fish and sarsaparilla berries and duck eggs and banksia flower nectar. And those disgusting gooey grubs.

  I lick the last trace of yolk from my lips. “You know what I’m thinking?” I say. “Oysters. We should look for oysters. On the rocks at the end of the beach. We can knock them open with a stone.”

  ***

  How many days is it now? I’ve lost count. Jack thinks six, maybe seven. It’s hard to keep track of time.

  On the other hand, it’s getting easier to find our way around. We’re learning to recognise landmarks, such as waterholes and streams and even big trees. We notice we can move faster if we follow the corridors of grass that seem to slice through the forest.

  We’re getting into a routine—fishing at the creek, looking for berries and banksia flowers, hunting for duck eggs, collecting oysters from the rocks. Some of the oyster shells are already split open. I wonder if birds can break them open with their beaks. We’ve started fishing from the beach too. We spend most of each day looking for food, but we’re still not eating enough. It can take us a whole afternoon to catch a fish or find a nest full of eggs. We’re slowly getting better at everything. But we need to, because we’re also slowly starving.

  We’re tired, hungry, dirty and covered in mosquito bites. Sometimes we get on each other’s nerves. In the middle of the day, to save energy and avoid getting sunburnt, we find a shady tree and rest underneath it.

  We’ve set up camp in a small cave near the beach. It’s just big enough to keep us dry when it rains. We’ve piled some branches in front of the cave to keep the wind out. It kind of works.

  I’m experimenting with twisting the reeds by the waterhole into string. And I’m still trying to make fire. I can get the tip of the stick warm, but I still can’t get a spark.

  We don’t talk much about what’s happened to us. There’s nothing to say—no new information. Our best guess is we’ve gone back in time, even though that sounds insane. Often we don’t talk at all for hours. When we do talk, it’s mainly about practical things, like where to look for eggs. Jack’s taking more of an interest now. At first he just left it all to me. I think he was hoping there’d be another flash and things would go back to normal. But now it’s like he realises we could be stuck here for ...