The Silent Invasion

by James Bradley

  She didn’t look at me as she sat down, just leaned back against the wall behind us and folded her arms.

  ‘Is it true?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That your father infected himself?’

  I looked at her in surprise.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  Edie snorted. ‘I didn’t think so. They all talk shit.’ I didn’t reply. A moment later she continued. ‘Have they been avoiding you?’

  I nodded. Edie turned to look at me, and all at once I was aware of something savage in her.

  ‘Don’t let them feel sorry for you,’ she said. ‘They only do it so they can feel better about themselves.’

  I hesitated, expecting her to say more. But instead she just looked away again. Following her gaze I looked out over the playground. On the other side a group of girls were trying not to look like they were watching us. One of them – Sophie Yu – was meant to be my best friend, yet that morning she’d carefully avoided my gaze as she passed me on the stairs. Watching Edie I felt something shift inside me, my confusion replaced by anger, yet also by something liberating, a sense that what I was feeling made sense for the first time. For several seconds Edie remained seated, her eyes on me. Then she gave a small nod and stood up.

  ‘Any time you feel like talking let me know.’

  I hesitated. ‘Thank you,’ I said at last, but Edie didn’t answer, just turned and headed off across the playground, small and angry and alone.

  I never did talk to Edie, and a few weeks later she and her brother were gone anyway, whether taken by the Change or moved away, nobody seemed to know. But the way her ferociousness sustained her came back to me as Matt and Gracie and I left Tran’s house: if I was going to survive – if Gracie was going to survive – I had to learn some of that same determination.

  Tran had suggested we head toward King Street, where people often arranged rides from the courtyard opposite the train station, and so once we had eaten and dressed we set off through the narrow streets toward Newtown. Although Gracie had slept until almost nine she was tired, irritable, a little feverish, and as we walked she dawdled, meaning I had to pull her after me or carry her for long stretches of the way.

  After our brush with Quarantine yesterday I was wary of areas where we were likely to encounter large numbers of people, a caution Matt seemed to understand without needing to be told. I was still unsure exactly why he had agreed to help us, especially when he could be arrested for travelling with us if it could be shown he knew about Gracie’s condition. And I knew there were things he wasn’t telling me about his past, and his brother.

  As we drew close to our destination the streets grew busier. Anxious that somebody might bump into Gracie I lifted her onto my hip and held her close.

  The place Tran had mentioned was outside the old fire station, a triangular space fringed by people selling fruit and vegetables and broken electronics on blankets. Along the street side a line of minivans and minibuses stood, people milling around in front of them or talking to the drivers who sat in their cabins or stood leaning against the doors.

  Unsure which to approach, we moved slowly along the line, trying to look inconspicuous. As we passed a couple of the drivers came up to ask if we were looking for a ride and I had to resist the impulse to hug Gracie to me, to hide her from them.

  Eventually, halfway along the row, a thickset man with Papuan features and greying black hair asked if we were heading north. This time we stopped.

  ‘Why?’ Matt asked. ‘Are you?’

  He grinned. ‘To Port Macquarie.’

  ‘Have you got room for three of us?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘How much?’ I asked.

  He named a price, and I suppressed a wince. It was more than half the money Claire had given me.

  ‘When do you leave?’ Matt asked.

  ‘As soon as you’re ready,’ he said.

  Matt and I exchanged a glance.

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  The driver’s name was Koni, something he told us as if this might reassure us. As we clambered in and took our seats I forced myself to smile at the other passengers. Next to Koni in the front seat was another, younger man who also looked Papuan – a friend of Koni’s, I assumed, or perhaps a relative – while in the back with us were an older woman and a nervous young couple who looked Indonesian.

  As we wound our way out of Sydney our fellow passengers were largely silent. Although we’d not had much choice about which seats we sat in, I’d been careful to arrange us so I was between Gracie and the person next to me, meaning she had the window seat.

  It was hot in the van, and gradually people grew drowsy and nodded off one by one. Stuck in the middle seat I had to sit up straight, meaning I wasn’t able to fall asleep, so within an hour of leaving Sydney Koni and I were the only ones left awake.

  I was glad, in a way, because it left me alone to watch the passing countryside. I’d never been this far north, and so I was fascinated by the landscape outside, the rolling hills broken here and there by sandstone bluffs, the vast swathes of bush.

  Since the Change it had grown warmer up here, wetter, and it showed in the thick profusion of the plant life, the crowding weight of it on every side. Here and there the trees were broken by patches of scorched ground or the shattered bulk of a burnt-out car abandoned near the remnants of some kind of campsite. It was difficult not to feel there was something slightly sinister about the facelessness of the green, a sense in which its blank sameness threatened to swallow all that surrounded it.

  An hour or so outside Sydney the road sloped down into a valley and across a huge river. I leaned forward and asked Koni what it was; he looked back with a grin and told me it was the Hawkesbury.

  A little while later we pulled into a roadside area flanked by a line of stalls selling fruit and food and bottles of drink. Over to one side an old petrol station could be seen, the sign with its red and yellow logo of a shell still rising up above it.

  ‘We should eat,’ Matt said as I clambered out. I nodded, fingering my purse in my pocket.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ I asked Gracie, who was leaning against me, her head pressed against my side, but she didn’t answer. Although she had been okay when she woke up, as the morning had progressed she had grown more withdrawn, her manner glassy, disconnected.

  ‘Gracie?’ I asked again, trying to detach her from my leg. This time she just shook her head. Looking up I saw a stall selling plastic bottles of water and juice.

  ‘Would you like a juice?’ I asked, attempting to shift her in its direction, but it was difficult walking with her clinging to my leg. I was afraid to make a scene in case we attracted too much attention, and as I ordered her a juice, mentally calculating the effect on our cash reserves, I smiled brightly, willing the man behind the stall not to look too closely at the two of us.

  We sat down in the shade of a tree to drink, and Matt reappeared, several skewers of chicken wrapped in paper in his hand.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing me one. Next to me Gracie sucked on her juice and stared at the stalls.

  ‘How’s she doing?’ he asked, and I shrugged.

  ‘Okay, I suppose.’

  Matt nodded, tearing at the skewer. ‘If we can get to Port Macquarie by tonight we can get her off the road.’

  ‘And you can find your brother?’

  Matt shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’ As he spoke I felt him tense. I looked up and saw that a pair of black vans with Quarantine markings had pulled into the rest area and parked between us and Koni’s van. As the engines cut out the doors opened and two officers emerged from each.

  Tightening my grip on Gracie I got ready to run. At least for now they didn’t seem to be in any hurry, adjusting their jackets and clipping weapons to their belts.

  ‘I don’t think they’re here for us,’ said Matt. I didn�
��t reply. Of the four, only one was a woman; as she buckled her gun onto her belt she was already scanning the area, her manner poised, watchful. Once she was done she waited for her partner to finish then began walking toward the food stalls and us.

  I didn’t move, just sat, my head turned slightly away so it wouldn’t look as if I was watching her. As they approached us her partner pointed at something in the other direction; she glanced around for a moment and said something I didn’t hear, then turned back and looked directly at the three of us. Although the top half of her face was largely obscured by the metallic goggles Quarantine used to access their systems, she was younger than I had initially thought, probably no more than twenty-four or twenty-five, but with an air of authority that made her seem older.

  Afraid to look like I was trying to avoid her gaze, I met her eye and smiled. Seemingly noticing me for the first time she hesitated, staring at me as if I reminded her of something.

  For several seconds nobody moved. I tightened my grip on Gracie’s arm, tensing to run. Next to me Matt had gone still as well. And then, just as I thought she was about to say something or approach us, her partner asked if she was coming and she turned away, resuming their conversation.

  I breathed out, only realising then that I’d been holding my breath.

  ‘Ow,’ said Gracie next to me. ‘You’re hurting me.’

  Looking down I saw my hand was still clenched around her arm.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ I said, and Matt nodded.

  ‘We should go now, while they’re over by the stalls,’ he said.

  I nodded, still watching the Quarantine officers. ‘What if they stop us?’

  ‘Hopefully that won’t happen,’ he said. Something in his voice made me turn to look at him and I saw that he had gone very pale.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, reaching over to adjust the neck of Gracie’s T-shirt in case her skin was visible.

  Koni’s van was parked on the far side of the rest area, which meant we had to walk past the stall where the officers were ordering skewers and noodles. As we approached, the woman turned to watch us, and although this time I was careful to avoid her eyes, I could feel her staring at us, her face unreadable behind her goggles.

  If it had been difficult walking past her, walking away was even worse. I felt as though her eyes were boring into my back and my legs began to shake. I had to will myself to stay calm and to keep my eyes focused on the open door of Koni’s van. But as we reached it I heard a voice call out behind us.

  ‘Hey!’

  At first I didn’t move, couldn’t move, but then, Gracie’s hand still in mine, I slowly turned to find her standing behind us.

  ‘You dropped this,’ she said. Numbly I realised she was holding Bunny in one hand. Next to me Gracie leaned toward me and hid her face in my side.

  The officer stared down at Gracie. Then she pushed up her goggles and knelt down, Bunny in her outstretched hand. Beneath the goggles her eyes were startlingly blue.

  ‘Go on,’ she said gently. ‘Don’t you want him back?’

  Gracie looked at me. I nodded, trying to force myself to smile, to ignore the way the other three officers were gathering not far behind her.

  ‘Go on,’ I said, aware of how false my voice sounded. ‘Don’t be shy.’

  A second ticked by, then another. And then, just when I thought she wasn’t going to move, Gracie extended a hand and took Bunny. The officer smiled, her eyes not leaving Gracie’s face.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

  As she spoke I suddenly realised our names would be in Quarantine’s system.

  ‘Tara,’ I blurted. ‘Her name’s Tara.’ I squeezed Gracie’s hand, willing her to keep quiet.

  The officer nodded. ‘Pretty name. Where are you from?’

  ‘Melbourne,’ I said. ‘We’re on our way to see our aunt in Port Macquarie.’

  As I spoke I tried to keep smiling, hoping Gracie wouldn’t say anything to contradict me. The officer stood up slowly and stared at me, the moment stretching out.

  ‘Be careful then,’ she said, and with a last glance at Gracie she turned back to her companions.

  Back in the van I sank into my seat, but as I did I noticed Koni watching me in the rear-vision mirror. Although he didn’t say anything, I could tell he’d been watching the whole encounter. I smiled, but he didn’t smile back.

  We drove on through the morning and into the afternoon, the landscape scrolling past outside. In the years since the Change most of the population had headed south, away from the exclusion zones. As a result the people up north tended to be those who could not afford to leave or refugees and illegals who had no choice but to take work picking fruit or working on those farms that were still operating. There were others up here as well, of course, people who didn’t want to be found, or preferred to live away from the cities, but as we passed the half-empty towns and abandoned petrol stations it was difficult not to feel the passing landscape was already abandoned.

  As the afternoon wore on, our progress became slower, held up by broken-down vehicles and damage to the road. Just after lunch we passed a roadblock, black-suited Quarantine officers scanning the trucks and their loads for signs of infection, trucks and cars backed up along the road behind them. As we approached it, panic gripped me, my eyes focused on the woman standing in the middle of the road flagging down the traffic; only as we reached it and I realised they were only stopping the traffic heading south did I relax.

  The roadblock was not the only sign of the battle being fought to hold back the Change. As we went further north the patches of scorched earth along the roadside and scattered across the fields beside the road grew more common. Sometimes they were small, no more than a couple of hundred metres across; sometimes they were larger, stretching a kilometre or more: each one recording a site where evidence of Changed biology had been detected and the ground sterilised.

  It was almost seven by the time we reached Port Macquarie. The air smelled of smoke as we stepped out into the heat. To the west the sun was low, its orb swollen and huge through the haze. Along the main street cars and scooters were parked here and there, but the shops were mostly closed, boarded up and abandoned.

  For the last hour of the drive Gracie had been restless and whingy, struggling in her seat and demanding to know when we would arrive. In a way I was happy: as the times when her attention drifted and she was distant and uncommunicative grew more frequent, any sign of her behaving like a normal five year old was welcome, but still, it had been difficult not to lose patience with her. Now we were out in the street she clutched my hand and whimpered each time a scooter roared past.

  ‘She doesn’t like loud noises,’ I said to Matt, who was watching her.

  He nodded but didn’t answer. I could see that he, like me, was uncertain of where to go next, confused by the straggle of the street. Beside the van Koni was watching us; suddenly certain we needed to put some distance between us and him, I tightened my grip on Gracie’s hand and pulled her toward a side street.

  Off the main road, the shops gave way to blocks of flats and old weatherboard cottages, many of them seemingly abandoned or hidden behind gardens overgrown with long grass and lantana.

  ‘Do you think he’ll report us?’ I asked.

  ‘Hopefully not,’ Matt replied. ‘After all, it’s not like he knew anything for sure. And he may have his own reasons for staying clear of Quarantine.’

  I nodded, unconvinced. Something about the way Koni had been looking at us as we left the bus made me wonder whether he had alerted somebody about his suspicions.

  ‘We need to find somewhere we can rest,’ I said, glancing up and down the street.

  ‘If we get away from the centre we might be able to find an empty house somewhere,’ Matt replied.

  I didn’t like the idea of breaking in but I also didn’t like the idea of
wandering the streets all night or trying to book into a motel.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s head north and see what we can see.’

  As we moved away from the centre of town the houses grew more rundown, the streets less well tended. Once or twice we passed houses with burnt-out cars on the front lawns, or with dogs that leapt snarling against the fences as we passed. Occasionally music could be heard, or the sound of voices on a screen, but for the most part it was quiet. Finally we came to a cul-de-sac where half-a-dozen houses stood seemingly empty, their fronts mostly hidden behind thick vegetation. Although it was now fully dark, none had lights on.

  ‘Wait here,’ Matt said. Dropping his bag he slipped down the drive of the nearest house and peered through a window. After a moment he stepped back and peered down the side again, then gestured to us to join him.

  ‘Shall we try the door?’ I asked as we drew level with him.

  ‘Somebody might see. Let’s try around the back.’

  The backyard was overgrown with banana trees and creepers. As we approached something shrieked and crashed somewhere inside the mass of vegetation, and Gracie gave a cry.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘It’s just a bat.’

  Matt tried the back door without success.

  ‘Shall we try next door?’ he asked.

  I looked at the fence between us and the next place then shook my head. ‘Wait here,’ I said. I let go of Gracie’s hand and crossed to the nearest window. I tried to slide it up but it was shut tight. I moved to the next one. This time it worked, the window sliding up with a loud squeak.

  Taking the torch from my backpack I clambered in. It was pitch dark and smelled closed up and musty, but when I switched on my torch there were no signs of habitation. I tried the door but it was deadlocked, so heading back to the window I motioned to Matt. He passed Gracie to me and then followed himself, and together the three of us made our way through the empty rooms.