It was slow going. The empty spaces were the worst. When I could run my hand on a table or some stools it felt okay. Like I had some sense of forward trajectory. But in the spaces between these objects I felt dizzy and disorientated. Twice I stumbled forward too quickly and crunched my foot into the thick wooden leg of a chair. Other times I felt for sure that I had turned a one-eighty and returned to a table I had only just passed.
After a while my hand found a railing and I felt the floor taking a slight incline beneath me. I shuffled forward until it levelled again into a bank of pokey machines running in rows away from me. I followed the length of one of these rows, then found myself being turned at a right angle as another row of machines began. At the end of these there were more again.
It felt like Labyrinth without Bowie and the puppets.
I started to smell something ahead of me. It was sweet and citrusy. I slowed down and tried to figure out what it was. It was different to the fresher smell of the lobby. As I rounded out of the final row of pokeys, a wave of it hit me flush in the face.
Rotting food.
I was on a walkway with a buffet ahead of me somewhere. I covered my nose and veered right. The way was clear and had a railing so I moved quickly until the smell had drifted away behind me. It was hard to imagine that nobody left in Perth had been in here yet. My decision to enter the casino felt like a giant mistake.
The railing stopped and the walkway met a junction or something. I felt my way around, trying to work out the options. My hands met a bench or table. It was higher than the others. I moved closer and found some fridges. One of the doors was open.
Shit.
I was back at the bar.
I dropped the bag of water and slumped down to the floor. The place felt so oppressive. Not just the darkness, but the air or the energy or something. I felt lower than I had for ages and didn’t have the Finns around for company. They could be in the foyer right now wondering what the hell had happened to me. I closed my stinging eyes and, alone under a gaming room bar, sank into a dreamless sleep.
13
For three days I was stuck in that hellhole place, surviving on stale peanuts and warm OJ. Eating, sleeping, then clearing my head, shuffling around anxiously, and eating and sleeping some more. The casino was swiftly swallowing me into a dark and permanent void.
Clocks weren’t allowed in a gaming room, but I found a barman’s watch stashed away under the counter. It had a tiny blue light that showed me the hours that were passing. This reminded me that a world existed outside of the room. There was daylight out there, and, somewhere beneath this, Taylor and Lizzy. I gathered myself and strapped the watch tightly to my wrist. With the tiny blue light I searched the surrounding tables where, eventually, I found a cigarette lighter.
The flame was too dim to guide me so I lit a coaster on fire. It crackled away and I waved the extra light around excitedly for three or four seconds before it burnt my fingers and I dropped it on the floor. Fuelled by this I made a stack of coasters on the bar and splashed it with some one-hundred-proof whisky. The stack lit up with a whoosh and I stepped back and looked around.
Flickering light radiated out from the bar. I could see walkways, some gaming tables and what looked to be the edge of the poker area. Beyond this it was still dark. I took a pile of fresh coasters from the bar, along with the whisky, and set out to the edge of the light. When I could no longer see I made another fire on a blackjack table. More light spat out into the room. Gaming tables. Money wheels. Another bar. I pushed on with the fires. Moving to the edge of darkness before lining myself up with the smouldering lumps behind me and lighting another. I had six fires going but there was still no sign of a wall or door.
Then something smashed behind me.
I turned and saw flames spreading across the bar where I had started. There was another smash and a whoosh of light. The spirits were on fire. An evil, plasticy smell started to fill the room. It felt chemical and dangerous, but at least now there was some light. I had played a hand. Not a great one, but maybe the only one available. Now I had no choice but to find an exit.
I dashed forward and something flickered to my right. I stopped and stared at it hard. It flickered again. It was a fake gold sign reading Cashiers.
Fucking bingo.
I stumbled over to it. Thick smoke was filling the room and stinging my eyes. I found the sign, and the wall it was stuck to. I swung left and traced it along. My lungs burned from exhaustion and smoke. The wall continued, uninterrupted.
Abruptly the room was wet and screaming with sirens. The smoke alarms and sprinklers had triggered.
Immediately it got darker.
Shit. The fires were going out.
A wall jutted out in front of me. I smacked into it and almost knocked myself out completely. I dragged myself up and followed it. My head was swampy and vague from the fumes and noise.
I couldn’t see anymore. All the fires were out but for the bar that hissed away angrily in the distance. I kicked into chairs and signs and other things that I couldn’t see. Still my hands found nothing but the smooth of a never-ending wall.
Then ahead of me I saw a light. Not a tiny reflection this time, but a big wash of light coming from a doorway. Somebody was holding a lantern and propping the door open. I ran for it like a drunken kid who had started a whole bunch of stuff he shouldn’t have. The light rose up in front of me. I felt a tingle on my neck and suddenly worried who it was in the doorway. I squinted hard and looked up.
In a wash of warm light and smoke, straight out of some crappy eighties music video, stood a woman wrapped in a plush casino robe, holding, of all things, a cigarette, and a look of mild annoyance. It was an expression I had seen before. On a shopping centre cleaning lady. On Rachel.
14
Of course Rachel was living at Burswood. She was a battling single mother, paroled for who knows what, cleaning toilets in the largest shopping centre in the city while bickering over her kids with her slobby council-worker ex. That is, until fate sheltered her from the weirdest apocalypse on record and left her footloose in a world without rules, only Artists. Taking up residence in the swankiest room in the state of WA was a great big fuck you to the world. Life had kicked Rachel around from day one. If this felt like she was getting her own back, then good luck to her.
I had followed her upstairs through a careful pathway of stairs and halls, sucking in the stale but smoke-free air, still unsure if she recognised me from Carousel. It grew lighter as we moved upward. My eyes cowered away from windows full of sunlight and sweeping river views. Ornate pots with evergreen plastic plants rested in corners and beside elevators. Door tags hung on handles, their owners asking not to be disturbed and getting their wish a thousandfold. By the time we reached the penthouse level the smoke alarms had stopped. It was serene and spacious and hard to tell that anything had happened.
There were four doors spread out across a wide marble hall. Each of them was propped open with a pot plant. Rachel headed inside the closest one. I hesitated, then trailed after her. She fished a Diet Coke out of a fridge and turned to look me over.
‘You trying to burn this place down with the rest of the city?’ she snapped.
‘No. Sorry,’ I replied. My voice was weak and croaky. ‘I got stuck in there.’
I coughed. Rachel handed me a Diet Coke of my own. I wasn’t normally a fan but skulled it down thirstily. It was icy cold.
‘Does this place have power?’ I asked.
‘A bit,’ she replied, defensively. ‘There’s gennies downstairs. Can’t have Taylor Swift stuck up here in a blackout.’
I looked past her. The room was giant. A wall of glass peered westward past the river to a smoke-shrouded city. Daylight filtered in across ottomans and lazyboys, funnelling into bedrooms and spa-filled ensuites.
‘Do you live here?’ I asked.
‘Across the hall,’ nodded Rachel. ‘Where are your friends? The skater kid and those twins?’ she added.
&
nbsp; ‘Have you seen Taylor and Lizzy?’ I asked, rapidly.
Rachel shook her head, uninterested.
‘We lost each other in the fire. Were supposed to meet downstairs but I got stuck in that fucking gaming room,’ I said. ‘You definitely haven’t seen anyone else outside or anything?’
‘I don’t go downstairs,’ she replied. ‘Unless there’s a fire.’
She glared at me, still a little pissed that I had put her new home at risk. She looked the same, from what I could remember. Thin, with a wiry, kind of boyish figure. Overtanned like she had taken one too many trips to Bali. A round, symmetrical face that was pretty in a burnt-out British pop star sort of way. Her hair was a disaster though. Half grown out of a bad self-dye job. Hacked up at the back where she couldn’t see. A telltale sign of the local apocalyptic survivor.
‘Is there anyone else here?’ I asked.
‘Doubt it,’ she replied. ‘Were some hippy kids on level five for a while. They took off to get food and didn’t come back.’
Rachel finished her drink and put the can in the sink.
‘Anyway, I’m going back to bed,’ she said. ‘Show you how the place works later.’
She pushed through the door back out into the hall.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘How do I get to the taxi rank?’
‘You want to go back downstairs?’ she asked.
‘My friends might be down there,’ I replied.
Rachel sighed and looked like she actually regretted saving me.
‘Remember that staircase at the end of the hall on level twenty?’ she asked.
I nodded.
‘It’s a fire escape. Take it all the way down to the last floor and push the door open. You’ll be outside. The taxis will be out there somewhere,’ said Rachel.
‘Thanks,’ I replied.
‘Don’t lock yourself out,’ she said. ‘I’m not trudging up those stairs twice in one fucking day.’
She turned and walked away from me down the big, lonely hall.
‘Did you find your kids?’ I asked.
She paused and turned back around. Her eyes were stony and fierce.
‘They’re sporty. Not arty,’ she replied, and disappeared back into her room.
I bolted down the fire escape for what seemed like forever before exiting onto a concrete landing on the south side of the building. Lawn and trees stretched away peacefully into the distance. Most of the smoke had cleared, replaced by a bright and breezy Perth morning. I took a gulp of the freshest air I had ever tasted and took off around the building.
The taxi rank was static and empty. I jogged past the cars and back into the foyer where I had meant to be waiting. There was nobody in there. I looked around for signs that Taylor and Lizzy had been back. Everything seemed the same. My backpack on the floor. The empty bottle of water beside it. A heaviness was already growing in my chest when I saw the note.
It was central on the help desk. A faded yellow post-it that should have said something like Cereal or Pilates. Instead – Where are you Nox? I have to go back out there. T.
I read it once and turned away.
Taylor hadn’t found them. She had come back for help, but I wasn’t around. Now both of the Finns were gone.
I dashed back outside and down onto the grassy embankment at the front of the building. It was wide and barren. I called out for Taylor, then Lizzy, then Chess. My voice sounded loud and shrill, but somehow disconnected from reality. The grounds and suburbs swallowed it easily and offered nothing in return. I passed the Pink billboard and kept on until I reached the highway and found the lonely frames of our abandoned bikes. They were there where we had left them. Where Taylor and Lizzy had bickered before I led us blindly towards the casino. I looked around and yelled some more, then felt dizzy and got a bizzaro flash of Luke Skywalker dangling alone from the edge of Cloud City.
It hit me then. Taylor and Lizzy were gone.
Back in the foyer I sat on the floor and cried noiselessly. Month upon month of balled-up emotion finally reached a precipice, then crashed down with numbing force. The taxi. Stuart. Peter. The gnomes. Rachel. Rocky. The dome. The writing. My family. Their house. The fires. Tommy. And now, Taylor and Lizzy. The weight of it all felt like it might crush me then and there.
For a long time I lay foetal beside my backpack. Getting up and going on felt like something I might do in another world or life, but not this one. Eventually I reached over to the backpack and pulled out the contents. I looked past the clothes and shoes until I found my iPod. It still had a whisker of charge. I put in the earphones and played the Taylor & Lizzy album.
At the end of this I sat up, then stood and moved back to Taylor’s note. I found a pen and wrote beneath it. I’m upstairs. Will check in here every day at 7 and 7 until you’re back. Nox. Then I gathered my things and made my way back up to the penthouses.
15
The following day Rachel woke me up to run through the hefty list of conditions to staying on her penthouse level. The backup generators that kept the top floor powered during a blackout had run out of diesel some time ago. However, Rachel had an undisclosed store of diesel that she used to top them up. She didn’t tell me where this was nor how much she had, just that it would run out quick if I started screwing around. She only used power for four hours a day. Once when she got up in the morning – which, for Rachel, was almost midday – and once at night. This routine was designed to eke out the diesel and also to keep her fridges cool. When the power kicked in she ran them at full blast for the two hours. They would frost over, chilling the hell out of everything inside, before cutting out and slowly thawing until the next blast.
The toilets still drained, but had to be flushed manually with a bucket. For water Rachel carted up fifteen-litre bottles of artisanal drinking water from a storeroom on the lower levels. With this she bathed, flushed toilets, washed clothes and made ice for her rum-and-Cokes. If I wanted to do the same I would have to cart it up myself.
Rachel was less forthcoming about her food stores. There were obviously mini-bars full of snacks and drinks all over the place. And Rachel directed me to a kitchen a few levels down where she said I might find some stuff. But I had a feeling that there was somewhere else she wasn’t letting me in on. I guess I couldn’t really blame her.
Otherwise she told me to keep my noise down and curtains drawn at night. Rachel wasn’t stupid. The penthouse level was visible to most of Perth. Lighting it up at night would be a welcome sign to the rest of the city. Loots, Artists or otherwise, Rachel wasn’t keen on visitors.
That was about it. A list of rules was as close to an invitation as you got from Rachel, and I took it gratefully. The weeks on the road had left me thin and sickly. I boiled kettles for a bath in my room. By the time I rose out of it the water had turned deep brown with dirt, smoke and who knows what else. I wrapped myself in a bathrobe and trudged downstairs to the kitchen Rachel had suggested. I brought back cans of tuna and asparagus and ate them with water crackers. At the first hint of night I drew the curtains and watched the city lightshow sneaking in through gaps to bounce around my giant bedroom. But mostly I slept. And I dreamt.
Of Taylor and Lizzy in some beautiful city warehouse, where artists, press and PAs flitted about them as they chatted about their album and all they had endured to bring it to fruition. Talk of moving on and future projects. Nothing about the young guy they had spent the last two years with.
I dreamt of taking my family to see my new girlfriend Molly’s band play. The four of us standing up the back of a dingy pub like awkward second cousins. Mum and Dad’s concern as Molly avoided us at the end of their set. Danni pretending not to notice and feigning hunger so that we could leave and she could shield me from further embarrassment.
I dreamt of being back in Carousel. Sheltered by its comfort and familiarity. An old man now. With giant plants and notepad after notepad full of ramblings. Settling down to write some more when abruptly the doors opened and hundreds of shoppers co
nverged on my settlement.
The dreaming was intense and draining, but waking was far worse. I had been fastened to the Finns for so long that being alone felt foreign and disorientating. Before Carousel I was a borderline loner and happy to keep it that way. Now it suddenly felt like I had full-blown separation anxiety.
I set alarms on the barman’s watch and kept up my promise to check the foyer twice daily. It was a long walk down and an even tougher one back up. I charged my walkie-talkie and took to scanning the channels while I waited. Outside, the smoke had cleared from the city for as far as I could see, but still the Finns didn’t come. Again I searched the casino grounds. But Burswood was quiet and deserted. Just how Rachel liked it.
On my fourth day in the suites Rachel banged on my door and told me to come over that night for a barbeque. She left before I could answer but I was lonely as hell and all out of tuna, so it was a pretty good offer.
After my seven pm visit to the foyer I took another bath and dressed myself in a tacky casino club shirt and a pair of shorts I had found in somebody’s luggage. I left my suite, then stopped as I realised I didn’t have anything to bring with me. Do people still bring stuff to barbeques after the apocalypse? It was the type of question Lizzy and I could normally bullshit about for hours. But now I was alone and lingering weirdly in the hall. I returned to my room and took a bottle of sav blanc from the fridge. I felt stupid but thought whatever.
Rachel didn’t answer the door so eventually I just let myself in. She was out on the balcony and held her drink up slightly in greeting when she saw me by the door. I made my way over.
Rachel’s pride in her penthouse was obvious. The space was giant but clean and dust-free. She had brought up an array of plastic plants from other floors and polished the leaves back to a high gloss. They stood in jungle-like clusters above lounges and rugs. There was a framed picture of Pink in one of the TV areas that looked like a recent addition. Out on the balcony was an exercise area with a bunch of fluorescent aerobic equipment and a stereo. There were also lounges, spa baths, a fully stocked bar and, in the corner, a giant gourmet barbeque with actual seafood sizzling on top. The smell of it made me dizzy with hunger.
Beyond Carousel Page 8
