I shook my head. ‘No. I was with my sister and a friend. We got separated.’
‘Perhaps it is better if you don’t find them.’
I paused, surprised. ‘No. I have to find them.’
Amalia didn’t reply, just nodded and kept on chopping.
19
The next morning Agus drove me westward. I wasn’t sure exactly where to direct him, but he let me guess, and eventually I found the road we’d been on when we ran into Travis. He talked as he drove, telling me about the country around here, the slow emptying of it as people fled southward, away from the Change. Before we set off from his house he had given me a backpack, an old sleeping bag, food, water, even a creased paper map, and part of me knew that if I asked him to come with me to help find Gracie and Matt he wouldn’t hesitate, even if that meant placing himself at risk.
Eventually we passed Travis’s property; the sight of it making my stomach twist and knot as I fought the urge to sink back in my seat and hide, the feeling lingering even after the compound had disappeared in the rear-vision mirror.
I didn’t have much to go on, just the knowledge I couldn’t go back, and that I needed to find Gracie and Matt. With the map Agus had given me I tried to work out where Matt might have gone after we were separated, and how far they might have got. Although it seemed a lifetime it was only three nights, and I doubted they’d been moving quickly. It was possible, of course, that they were out there in the forest still, lost or injured, but I had to believe they had found their way back to the road and continued heading north. Yet which road? There were several, not just the highway but also two smaller roads and various tracks. Eventually I decided I would follow the road closest to where I thought we had been when we were separated, and showing Agus, had him pull over and drop me.
I got out and he climbed down as well. I could see he wasn’t happy about leaving me here.
‘Are you sure I can’t drive you further?’ he asked, but I shook my head. I couldn’t bear the thought of Quarantine stopping him with me in the car after he had been so kind to me.
‘You’ve done so much already. I’m so grateful.’
‘Be careful,’ he said.
‘I will,’ I said, and thanked him again.
It was hot, the sky overhead glassy and blue, and as I walked I quickly grew sweaty, my leg throbbing with a deep, dull ache. I knew what I was doing was hopeless, yet I also knew I had to do it, that I had no choice, a feeling I was becoming used to. Yet as I walked up that road it was difficult not to feel the enormity of what I was attempting bear down on me. I was on foot, alone, searching for two people who could be anywhere. But I also needed to believe it was possible I might find them, that Matt and Gracie were okay, that even if I didn’t find them they might make it to the Zone.
As the day wore on I felt the emptiness begin to seep into me, hollowing me out. From time to time I passed houses or buildings of one sort another, many of which were burned out or in ruins, yet every time I approached one, calling out or knocking on the door to see if it was occupied, all I had in reply was silence. Each time I passed a track I turned up it as well, marching out into the forest or across the fields and calling out at the top of my voice.
Toward midday I passed through a long line of banana plantations, the green leaves weirdly incongruous – too green, too tropical – and after them a small town, its buildings standing empty and abandoned, where I sat beneath the verandah of an old store and ate some of the rice Amalia had wrapped for me, along with a couple of the painkillers she had put in my bag. Afterwards the road began to rise again, the bush closing in on either side.
As the afternoon wore on I saw no sign of habitation, only trees and the crowding bush. Occasionally I passed areas torched by Quarantine, great scars that exposed the earth and rock, but for the most part it seemed to spill on forever.
By the time darkness came I realised I wasn’t going to find a building to sleep in, so I found a spot a little back from the road and unrolled my sleeping bag.
In vids and stories people sit by fires in the wilderness and look like explorers, but I didn’t feel like an explorer. Instead I felt lonely, isolated, uncomfortably aware of the darkness around me, of the movement of the wind in the trees, the cries of the animals in the distance. Time felt shapeless, immense, as if I might lose myself and disappear into it.
The next day was little better. All morning I passed through forest, followed by plantations of bananas and sugar cane. Once or twice a car or a truck passed me – each time I had enough warning to step away, out of sight, emerging only to watch the vehicle disappear down the road – but for the most part I was alone. Here and there amongst the bananas and the cane I glimpsed sheds or even houses; every time I approached them, checking for any sign of Matt or Gracie, every time I was disappointed.
In the middle of the day I found a space under a tree and ate some more rice and rested for a while, looking out across a field of cane. According to the map Agus had given me there was a town about thirty kilometres ahead, but I knew Matt was unlikely to have made it that far with Gracie in tow, which meant that if I was on the right road and I kept walking I would catch up with them. But as the afternoon wore on and my leg and hand began to ache more and more I started to worry I had chosen the wrong road, or that even if I was on the right road they had been sleeping or resting when I passed, and I had missed them.
That night I slept in a shed that stood a little way back from the road. The ground was dirty, the earth stained with some kind of fertiliser and the stink of diesel, and as I tried to sleep I was painfully aware of movement in the darkness around me, the sound of small bodies moving. Not long after I fell asleep something ran across my face, startling me awake with a cry; grabbing for my torch I flicked it on in time to see a huge grey rat disappear behind one of the bags at the end of the shed.
Brushing myself frantically, I leapt up trying to rid myself of the sensation of the rat on my skin. Shining the torch around I saw rats everywhere, their eyes shining as they scuttled along the walls and across the floor and around my feet. Convulsively I grabbed my backpack and sleeping bag and stumbled back, almost tripping as more darted away around my feet, then I turned and fled out the door and into the night.
Nerves jangling I paced around in the field outside the shed, trying to decide what to do next. Overhead the stars were bright, although on the ground it was so dark I could barely see my hand in front of my face. I knew I couldn’t go back into the shed, but I didn’t know where else I could go, so finally I shouldered my bag and walked a small distance until I found a hollow of some sort and lay down, trying to ignore the rustling in the leaves around me.
I woke at first light, tired and aching after a night of disturbed sleep on the hard ground. As luck would have it the spot I had chosen in the dark was clean and dry, but as I stood up I had to brush stones and sticks and leaves from myself. Taking out my pack I ate the last scraps of the food Agus and Amalia had given me, and swilled the dregs of my water.
Overnight I had decided that if Matt and Gracie were still free they must be behind me somewhere, or perhaps on a different track, and with this in mind I began to retrace my steps, wandering back along the road. The heat was especially oppressive that day, the air singing with humidity, and as I walked my thirst grew more intense with every passing hour. In the middle of the morning I stopped at an abandoned house with an old water tank in its backyard. Trying to ignore Matt’s warnings about drinking unboiled water and my own concerns about contact with spores I drank thirstily, splashing the water over my face and head in an effort to cool myself before I refilled my bottles. On my way back to the road I passed a passionfruit vine tangled across an old shed and hungrily picked an armful of fruit, ripping them open with my fingers and teeth and sucking down the sweet, acidic pulp and slick black seeds.
Around midday I reached the outskirts of the forest in which I had spen
t my first night, and for a time I considered waiting out the afternoon where I was in order to avoid spending another night under the trees, but in the end I decided to press on, telling myself that if the worst came to the worst I could just keep walking in the dark until I came to some kind of shelter. By the road I found a banana tree; the clustered bananas were woody and green, but I was hungry so I ate them anyway, stuffing them into my mouth greedily.
By the time I reached the far side of the forest it was dark, so I trudged on, looking for somewhere to sleep. This time I was lucky, coming upon a house a small distance back from the road which stood empty. I broke in by torchlight and although the rooms were dank and smelled of mildew I slept on an old sofa I found in one of the rooms.
The next morning I woke with cramps in my belly; feeling shaky I hurried for the door and crouched under a tree, trying not to pay attention to the thin, watery mess that came from me. I had read somewhere green bananas were meant to stop diarrhoea, but the ones I had eaten last night seemed to have caused it. Afterwards I cleaned myself as best I could, gathered my things and continued back down the road.
According to the map there was a second road, ten kilometres through the bush to the west. Although there was nothing marked on the map I had seen a path running off in that direction the first time I passed this way, so rather than walk back to the nearest cross road I thought I might take the track, and cut across that way.
My stomach was still tight and uncomfortable by the time I reached the track, which ran off by a bend in a small valley. It was narrow and overgrown – presumably it had originally been a fire track or something similar – and as I followed it the trees seemed to close in around me.
I walked for two or three hours, until at last the track petered out. For a while I stood in the high grass, staring at the trees and broken ground ahead of me; then, tightening my grip on my bag, I began to walk again.
Without the track I went more slowly, looking for some sign of the road I thought must be somewhere ahead. But by mid-afternoon I was beginning to grow worried. Had I misunderstood the map? Was the road not where I thought it was? Or was I simply walking in circles or lost? As I struggled on I could feel panic beginning to rise in my chest, a feeling that only grew worse when my water began to run low again. After an hour more stumbling through the bush I decided I needed to turn back, but by the time the light began to fade I still hadn’t found the track again, and I realised I was facing the prospect of another night outside with little water and almost no food.
At first I tried to push on, but as the light drained away I realised I had to stop or risk becoming even more lost than I already was.
Forcing myself to be calm I made camp on a patch of clear ground by a rock face. The encounter with the rats was still fresh in my memory and I checked the area around me as best I could, poking the bushes with a stick and making as much noise as I could. Once I was done I settled down and, taking off my shoes, drew my sleeping bag around myself. The ground was hard and lumpy, but I was so tired I didn’t really care. For a time I thought the pain in my belly would keep me awake, but eventually I slept, slipping down into a shallow, restless sleep filled with dreams about horrible things I could not quite remember.
At some point, perhaps around midnight, I woke to the sound of something shrieking in the dark, the sound so eerily human I felt my breath catch, but then it came again and I realised it was some kind of nightbird. Without a phone or a screen I had no way of knowing what time it was: I might have been asleep for an hour or six, but eventually I slept again, this time tumbling into a deep, dreamless slumber.
I woke just before dawn. At first I was not sure what had woken me: there was no sound. While I had been asleep the wind had shifted; now it came in warm gusts from the north, rustling the leaves. Overhead the stars had disappeared, blocked out by cloud; to the east I could hear the rumble of thunder.
Sitting up I smelled rain, and a few seconds later I felt the first drops begin to fall, fat and warm at first, then heavier. I stood up and scrambled to roll up my sleeping bag and gather my things into my pack.
I headed for a tree, trying to find shelter, but before I could lightning struck, the crack of the thunder so close I felt it, and the rain grew heavier, white sheets of it pouring from the sky and soaking me.
I thought at first it would pass quickly enough, but it didn’t. Although the thunder gradually moved off, rumbling and cracking in the distance as the storm moved through, the rain kept falling, occasionally lessening slightly for a few minutes before growing heavier again. Eventually dawn came, then the morning, although it was so dark beneath the clouds it was difficult to tell.
Despite being drenched I had the presence of mind to fill my bottles, holding them under the runnels of water which thundered down off the branches above. As I drank I found myself wondering where the water had come from, uncomfortably aware of the proximity of the Zone. The thought that this water, which seemed so fresh, might be contaminated with spores gave me pause, until at last I reminded myself that you never really knew where water came from, that the spores were everywhere anyway.
Eventually I decided I was so wet there was no point trying to shelter, so, standing up, I began to slog back through the trees in search of the road, but it was hard going. The rain plastered my hair to my face, getting in my eyes and making it difficult to see. A rivulet ran down my back behind my pack, even my shoes were soaked, the fabric inside them squelching with every step.
Worse still, the landscape was even more difficult to recognise through the murk of the rain and cloud. And although it was not cold, I was beginning to shiver, my body heat leached away by the water.
After an hour or so I came to an open space, realising as I did that I was now completely lost. But as I picked my way across it I noticed a building of some kind on its far edge. Squinting through the water that coursed down my face I trudged toward it.
It was a stock shelter of some sort, a sloping tin roof open on three sides over a raised concrete floor. That it had been abandoned for some time was obvious from its general state of disrepair, but the roof was good, and if nothing else it would mean I was out of the rain.
I huddled against the back wall, rubbing my arms and trying to warm up. Everything in my pack was soaking, so I had nothing I could use to warm myself, and it was so wet there was no way I was going to get dry.
As the day wore on the rain began to ease off, settling into a steady downpour rather than the cataracts that had cascaded from the sky when the storm first hit. I suppose I should have been impressed by the sheer volume of water, but I was too cold and hungry to care, and the more it rained the more I found myself worrying about Matt and Gracie. Were they out here as well? Had they found shelter? Gracie was so small, so sick, there was no way of knowing whether she could cope with being cold and wet. Closing my eyes I breathed deeply, trying to stop my teeth from chattering as I tried to shut out the fear, to focus my mind on Matt, my faith that he would look after her as best he could. I didn’t know why I trusted him, all I knew was that I did.
Late in the afternoon I noticed the water in the field outside beginning to rise. To begin with it seemed like a small thing, the ground beneath the tall grass slowly disappearing into a grey gulf of water. But as the afternoon wore on it began to rise faster, creeping up the side of the concrete slab the shelter rested upon.
At first I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just stood staring out at the rising tide of water around me. It seemed hard to believe it could keep rising for long, or that it would be able to cover the floor of the shelter, which stood a metre or so above the rest of the open space around it. But then, some time late in the afternoon, I noticed a movement in the water, and the surface began to rise more quickly.
Peering out through the rain I tried to make out the source of the rising water. Off to one side there was a small break in the trees where the land rose slightly, f
rom which I could see water spilling in on a dirty tide, its surface broken here and there by branches and the limbs of trees.
With a start I felt water around my feet, and looking down realised it had already risen above the level of the floor. Over by the back wall my pack began to move, floating with the tide. I raced over and picked it up, and then made for the opposite side of the shelter.
The water in the field was up to my waist and rising fast as I attempted to move ahead of the rising water. Once, years before, I’d been swimming in a big surf when I lost my footing and was swept toward the gleaming wall of the oncoming wave, suddenly frighteningly aware of the sheer power of the water. This was like that except much worse because it was so relentless. I could feel the water pulling at me, trying to suck me off my feet, pull me down, and each time I took a step I knew I wouldn’t get a second chance if I slipped or tripped. Worse yet were the branches and rubble floating in the water around me.
Somehow I made it to the edge of the field, stumbling unexpectedly onto a patch of higher ground. I splashed forward, the water still rising about me. I could feel the force of the current, its pressure dragging me sideways, deep, inexorable.
There were trees around me now, the bottoms of their trunks submerged; urging myself forward I reached out for the nearest, but just before I could grab it something struck me from behind and knocked my feet out from under me. For a heartbeat I was more surprised than frightened; startled, I glimpsed a huge branch, leaves still on it, then it was on top of me and I was underwater, being dragged along, rolling and turning through the roiling water.
Even now I can feel the fear of what followed like a physical thing. Pinned under the branch in the dark muddy water I didn’t know which way was up, which was down, and no matter how I struggled I couldn’t find the surface. At some point I opened my mouth and water flooded in, the muddy taste of it choking me. Each time I thought I had regained my footing I lost it again, until at last I no longer believed I could.
The Silent Invasion Page 17
