by Steph Matuku
Griff backed off, his mouth screwed up in disgust. ‘Jesus Christ!’
‘I’ll get a bucket,’ Moses offered and disappeared out of the tent.
‘Are you happy now?’ Rocky snarled as Devin began to cry, wiping at her mouth.
Griff was muttering under his breath. It looked as if he was counting to a hundred. He untied his reeking boots, kicked them aside and stomped off to the back of the tent with Jesse.
Rocky reached up to the serviettes on the table and passed some to Devin. She pressed the soft wad against her mouth and whispered, ‘The guy who took me to the toilet, Moses, he can tell what you’re thinking.’
There were tears on her cheeks, but her eyes were dry. The damsel in distress was just an act. This was the Devin he knew. The survivor.
He gave her a quick, tight hug, his relief enormous. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I think he needs eye contact, though. I tested him when his back was turned, and there was nothing.’
Griff and Jesse glanced over, and she immediately retched, making a grotesque heaving sound. They turned away in distaste.
‘You spewed on purpose?’ Rocky whispered.
‘I was feeling yucky. All that food. I figured it was as good a time as any.’
She pressed the tissues to her mouth to smother a laugh.
Rocky risked a quick swooping kiss that only just grazed her lips, because, hey, she’d just spewed and … gross.
‘What are we going to do?’ he said, trusting she’d know, because she always did.
She gave him a slow, sultry smile and looked up at him from under her eyelashes. At once she pinched herself, winced, became steel once more.
‘Don’t look at him,’ she said flatly. ‘And lie.’
Moses returned wearing pink rubber gloves and carrying a bucket and cloths.
‘Well, go on then.’ He motioned the two teens away. ‘Don’t worry. I used to work in the clubs. I’m used to it.’
‘Thank you,’ Devin said in a little girl voice, and she allowed Rocky to lead her off while Moses got stuck in to energetically squirting detergent.
The ground heaved, gave a curious kind of shudder and was still. Everyone froze, waiting for another shake. A coms device on the table burst into static and then a voice came, fast and urgent. Jesse strode over and picked it up, listened.
‘There’s a problem up at the site.’
Griff kicked out at a chair, sending it skittering across the floor. ‘Goddamn it all to hell, goddamn it!’ He stabbed a finger at Jesse. ‘Get them over to the office and then head up. Moses, with me, now.’
‘What’s the office?’ Rocky asked boldly.
‘Somewhere safe,’ Griff said.
‘So you’re locking us up, now?’ said Rocky. ‘Why can’t you just send us home? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?’
‘We can’t have you wandering around,’ Jesse interjected smoothly. ‘You might get hurt.’
Rocky was about to retort when he felt Devin’s warm fingers press into his arm.
‘We’ll be coming to talk to you again soon,’ said Griff. ‘You might find you have more to say.’
Jesse jerked his head towards the tent flaps. They got up at once. For all Griff’s loud, angry bluster, they instinctively felt it was the cold and expressionless Jesse who was the more dangerous man.
They followed him across the near-empty compound to a small tent at the rear. Jesse thrust them through the canvas flaps and produced a little black gun from the belt at his waist.
‘Hold on,’ Rocky said. ‘What’re you doing?’
Jesse motioned with his gun towards a couple of folding chairs in the corner. Slowly, they sat. Jesse took out some plastic ties and swiftly bound their hands behind their backs, and their ankles to the chair legs.
‘Please,’ Devin said. ‘We just want to go home.’
‘Yeah, this isn’t exactly normal rescue procedure,’ said Rocky hotly.
‘I do apologise for the inconvenience,’ Jesse said. ‘But this is for your own safety. Once we’ve had you checked over by our medical team and they say you’re clear–’
‘There’s nothing wrong with us!’
‘The electromagnetic waves may cause you to lash out and hurt people.’
‘The only person I want to hurt is you,’ said Rocky flatly.
Jesse gave a thin smile. ‘I won’t be long. And then we can have a proper talk.’
His gaze lingered on Devin as he said this, and she shrank back. Rocky yanked at the plastic ties in fury.
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ Jesse said. ‘They won’t break.’
‘Neither will we,’ Rocky said, with such empty defiance that Jesse laughed out loud.
‘Good one,’ he said and he left, zipping the tent flaps behind him.
77
The river had changed. It was sluggish, and there were ribbons of brown clay in it. It looked dirty. It looked sick. Eva wrinkled her nose. It even smelled funny.
‘Do you think the ship did it?’
‘More likely the people who want to bury it,’ Jahmin said.
They picked their way upriver, keeping in the shade of the bank.
‘I hope they keep their mouths shut,’ Eva said for the tenth time. ‘Devin won’t say boo to anyone, but I bet you a million bucks Rocky’ll want to play the hero.’
‘You’ve really got it in for him, haven’t you?’
‘Put it like this. When that spaceship takes off, I’m gonna try and push him onboard.’
The sound of hooves cut short their banter, and they ducked into the undergrowth. A riderless horse appeared. It stepped carefully over the scree and lowered its head to drink.
‘It’s wearing a helmet,’ whispered Eva.
‘Yeah, they all do.’ Jahmin wondered why he hadn’t noticed before. ‘Maybe the ship makes them hallucinate too? What do you reckon happened to the rider?’
‘Fell off hard, I hope.’
She stepped into the open, Jahmin grabbing at her elbow.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, shrugging him off. ‘I like horses. Besides, riding is going to be heaps faster than walking, don’t you think?’
Jahmin was horrified. ‘There is no way–’
But Eva was already advancing across the stones, clucking her tongue and proffering her hand.
The horse lifted its head, water dripping from its muzzle. Motionless, it regarded Eva, and then it nickered quietly and moved towards her. She patted its neck and it nuzzled her shoulder, drawing back with a snort as it smelt blood.
‘It’s okay,’ she crooned to the horse, and then she called to Jahmin. ‘Come on! It won’t hurt you!’
‘Nah, sweet as,’ said Jahmin, his recent brush with horse and searcher fresh in his mind. ‘I don’t think horses and zombies mix, to be honest.’
Eva slid her fingers under the fabric of the helmet and felt the sticky sweat trapped underneath. ‘Poor thing. I’ll take it off for a bit, give it some fresh air.’
‘There’s a reason why it’s on there,’ Jahmin hissed.
‘Don’t be a baby. She’s just a sweet girl, aren’t you? Aren’t you just a sweet lady?’
She located a line of black press studs and yanked them apart, quickly slipping the helmet off the horse’s head. It gave a startled snort and then shook its head and flicked its tail.
‘There, is that better?’ Eva said, reaching out to pat the horse’s neck.
It let out a long whinny that culminated in a wild shriek, then leapt back, shaking its head. Its eyes rolled back to show whites veined with red.
‘Eva!’ Jahmin cried out in warning.
The horse reared.
Eva scrambled backwards, and the hooves came down just where she’d been standing. The horse whinnied again and bucked.
Jahmin darted out, grabbed Eva and dragged her back. The horse snapped at the air, trying to bite something that wasn’t there. It twisted again, stumbled sideways into the rocky shallows, and fell with a colossal splash
. Thrashing, the horse rolled into deeper water, and its head sank beneath the surface.
‘Get up!’ Eva cried, straining forward as Jahmin held her back.
‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘You can’t save it.’
The horse’s head came up one last time, its nostrils flaring, and then it disappeared.
With an ominous rumbling, the ground pitched under their feet. Jahmin and Eva wobbled and clutched each other.
When the shaking subsided, Jahmin quickly retrieved the discarded helmet from the shore.
‘You didn’t know,’ he said.
Eva wiped tears from her cheeks. Jahmin led her back to the trees, instinctively feeling it would be a very bad idea to hang around the river after an earthquake. He pitched the helmet into some bushes.
‘I was stupid,’ Eva said. ‘But it makes you think, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah, that I’m glad cars were invented.’
‘All my nightmares are about earthquakes and the ship. There was an earthquake when Awhina died, and now this.’
‘Peter reckoned there was an earthquake when the bus crashed.’
Eva’s face lit up. ‘Exactly.’
78
The Engineer’s platform lit up.
79
There wasn’t much in the office. A small folding table, a narrow camp bed and a mosquito net dangling from a canvas loop in the ceiling. The single plastic window was sealed shut and, with the entrance flaps closed, the tent was stuffy and hot.
The two teens pulled fruitlessly against the ties, and then Rocky managed to rock his chair around so Devin could see his hands.
‘The only thing that’ll break those is a knife,’ she said.
Rocky yanked his hands again and felt a searing pain. His heart was racing and the heat was oppressive. He had to get out.
‘When that mind-reading dude comes in, we’re toast. Along with Eva and Jahmin. They’re never going to let us go, we’ll never go home again. Never.’
He was going to die. He pictured Jahmin’s pale face, and it hit him hard just how much Jahmin had lost when he’d lost his life.
I should have been cooler with it, he thought. What would it have cost him to support his friend? Nothing. And for that matter, what would it have cost him to occasionally let Eva win a stupid argument? Everything they’d ever fought about was so trivial, such a waste of time. Wanting to win and expecting to be right all the time had become such a bad habit.
He yanked his hands again, welcoming the pain in his wrists, knowing he deserved it.
‘Don’t,’ said Devin. ‘You’re bleeding.’
Rocky kept tugging and straining. Warm blood trickled down his hand and plopped onto the ground.
‘There’ll be another way. We just need to figure it out.’
With a groan, Rocky gave up and flexed his fingers. His fingertips throbbed. Unlike the pain in his wrists, the throbbing didn’t hurt. It was just … interesting.
‘Do you think they’ve found the sinkhole yet?’
Her tone was casual, and he could tell she was trying to lighten his mood, to keep him calm and focused. For her sake, he made an effort to concentrate on what she was saying.
‘I don’t know. Prob’ly. We weren’t that far away when they found us.’
‘They’ll find Awhina’s body. They’ll think we did it.’
‘I hope so,’ said Rocky. Cold was flooding his veins. It felt weird. It felt good. ‘Might make them think twice about hurting us.’
He sucked in the hot, stale air, and felt it turn icy as it hit his lungs. He exhaled with a sigh, and his breath became a gentle morning mist over a placid, green lake. A small waka with pāua eyes was nearing the shore, twin paddles dipping in unison, leaving a gentle wake of ripples behind …
His eyes snapped open. Where had that come from?
‘Are you okay?’ Devin asked anxiously.
‘I saw something.’
‘Was it mind reading?’
‘No.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ she muttered, and then, ‘Oh, wow.’
‘What?’
‘The bleeding’s stopped. Your skin – it’s sticking back together.’
His hands were tingling, as though he’d dipped them into a fresh mountain spring.
‘Most of us got stuck with hallucinations and headaches, but you got … boosted. You, Jahmin, Moses. You’re different.’
‘What do you hallucinate?’ he asked. She’d never mentioned it before.
‘Just crazy stuff. Nothing really.’ She cleared her throat.
Rocky yanked at the ties again. The plastic bit into his skin. It didn’t hurt, but the blood started dripping again, making his wrists slick. If he could just tuck a thumb in and twist–
‘Don’t,’ Devin warned, her eyes fixed on his hands. ‘You might cut an artery or something.’
Rocky didn’t answer. Tugging hard, he felt his skin split on one hand. It caught on the plastic tie and peeled back like an orange.
‘Don’t!’ Devin cried, but Rocky couldn’t stop tugging, and he finally managed to slide it out. He looked at it and gagged. The skin was swinging at his fingertips like an empty rubber glove, and there was blood everywhere.
Devin’s eyes were squeezed shut, tears leaking from her lids, her breath whooshing noisily in and out.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’ He yanked at the flapping skin and threw it on the ground. It landed with a splat.
The rushing feeling was all consuming now as new skin grew, encasing his arteries, nerves and tendons. The scar he’d got trying to open a can of condensed milk with a butcher’s knife when he was ten and always hungry had vanished, but his fingerprints were still there, whorled and creased the same as always.
He flexed his wrist as if twirling an invisible poi. ‘Amazing.’
Devin opened an eye. ‘So much blood,’ she whispered. ‘And what’s …?’ Her mouth twisted in disgust as she saw the empty casing of the hand that had once held hers, ‘Oh, gross.’
‘I know, but look! I’m free!’ He waved his hands at her.
‘Okay, so now what?’
Rocky opened his mouth and then shut it again. There was nothing in the tent that he could use to cut the other ties. His legs were still tied to the chair legs. He could flip his chair over and try to crawl like a turtle across the room, but that was about it. He let out a bark of laughter. He couldn’t help it. He bellowed.
He only stopped laughing when the tent flaps opened and Griff and Moses walked in.
80
Eva peered through the foliage. The area was unrecognisable. To her left, a makeshift bridge now spanned the river over which skittish horses were carrying equipment and boxes. The ship jutted out of the cliff on the other side, sunlight catching the fan-shaped patterns embossed on the hull. She could feel a relentless beat that had nothing to do with her pulse, working its way through her body.
She turned to Jahmin, who was lying next to her, but it wasn’t Jahmin, it was Mandy, and she was smiling. Eva lifted her hand and traced the curve of Mandy’s smooth cheek.
Mandy slapped her. ‘Get a grip!’
‘Sorry!’ she said, aggrieved. ‘I couldn’t help it. The helmets don’t work all the time.’
‘Look up there.’ Jahmin pointed at the cliff face. Two men, roped together, were inspecting what looked like deep holes drilled into the clay. ‘They’re going to bring the whole cliff down on it.’
‘Come on,’ said Eva, wriggling back through the bushes. ‘There’s no time.’
81
Griff’s boots made a nasty sucking sound as he trod through the sticky blood. Devin doubted he noticed. His eyes were glazed, and his fingers were worrying at his temples.
Moses saw the blood immediately, and concern and consternation crossed his face as he scanned the teens for injury.
Maybe he’ll think I got my period. The random thought popped into Devin’s head, and she couldn’t help smirking.
‘You thin
k this is funny?’ Griff’s face was contorted, and he was convulsively balling and flexing his hands. ‘How many of you were there?’
‘Just us, I told you!’ Devin said.
‘Well?’ Griff turned on Moses. ‘Destiny gave you a gift. So go on. Read her mind! Now! I know you can do it!’
Moses stiffened, eyes widening. ‘Can you do it too?’
‘Just get on with it!’
Moses frowned and knelt before Devin, as if asking for benediction. His touch was gentle as he wiped her tears away with calloused thumbs. He stared into her eyes, and she saw herself reflected in his. She focused on scrambling her thoughts, flitting from Rocky, to Awhina, to her dad, to anything and everything. Moses took a deep breath, and then she could feel him inside her head, turning over memories, seeing secret things, hurtful things. And then he withdrew, and she spat at him because she couldn’t think of anything else bad enough to express how violated she felt.
The silence was absolute. Devin glared at Moses, defiance straightening her spine. If this was the end, she wasn’t going to die the same way she’d lived, full of fear. No way. Fear could go kiss its cowardly butt.
Moses wiped his face with his sleeve and turned to Griff. ‘She’s telling the truth,’ he said. ‘There was no one else.’
‘Are you sure?’ Griff grabbed Moses by the shoulder, shaking him. ‘Are you positive?’
Moses yanked his arm free from Griff and scowled. ‘Yes.’
He didn’t glance at Devin, and somehow she knew that he knew about Jahmin and Eva. But why wasn’t he saying anything? Maybe he felt sorry for her. She bit her lip, not sure whether to feel offended or relieved.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Griff fumed. ‘We’re still going to have to keep everyone out there looking for the little shit until we find him.’
Jesse poked his thin face through the flaps. ‘Final checks are in. Ready to blow in ten minutes.’
