Storyland

by Catherine McKinnon

  The oval is bare except for way over on the far corner where there is an army helicopter. Armed soldiers stand guard. Esther grabs my arm, her eyes fixed on the helicopter.

  ‘But it’s not flying,’ I say.

  To the west I see men, women, and children, all with bags over their shoulders, or rucksacks on their backs, trudging along the edge of the water. It’s the easiest way to leave. The escarpment is steep on this side of the mountain and the mess from the landslides must be keeping people from reaching the top ridge and hiking along it as we have just done.

  Can you get to the medical centre?

  We have to take our time slip-sliding our way down, but yes, we can get there. The land beneath our feet feels aerated, like it might cave in at any moment. We drop to our knees to crawl through branches stuck in the soil and finally reach the gym roof. Using a drainpipe, we climb down to a narrow alley at the side of the building. As we stroll into the quadrangle we pass a queue of people snaking out from the front entrance of the gym. We’re covered in mud by now but everyone here is dirty. Those standing in the queue look thin, weary.

  Two elderly women, scarves around their mouths, are slumped on the ground, resting against one another, back to back.

  No one pays them any attention.

  People eye us warily as we walk by.

  If a moment earlier I felt joy, now I’m cautious.

  It doesn’t feel safe down here. We halt at the doorway to the gym and look in.

  What do you see?

  Two basketball courts, stadium seats at either end. To our left, the queue we’ve just passed by splits into smaller queues that lead to individual desks. Maybe twenty desks. There are two soldiers behind each desk. One, writing information down, the other, doling out food supplies. Behind the desks, supplies are stacked on the stadium seats – sacks of something, must be rice, and also boxes, probably of tinned food. Soldiers with semiautomatic rifles guard the supplies. I think about joining the food queue but it looks like a slow process. The Marsoral is more important. I need to get it back to Ben. And the possibility of the river rising is on my mind. We’ve enough stocks for two more weeks, three if we are prudent. I can hike back here next week. Several people standing in the queue start to mutter but it’s only when an elderly man speaks to me that I realise the problem.

  ‘You can’t push in,’ the man says. ‘Back of the queue. That’s where you go.’

  ‘I don’t want food,’ I say.

  The man stares at me. He has a large scab on his forehead that he scratches at.

  ‘I’ve enough,’ I explain.

  The man puts a finger to his lips. ‘Don’t say that out loud,’ he whispers. ‘Where have you come from?’

  ‘Across the river,’ I say.

  He points to the food supplies. ‘That only arrived yesterday and there’s been trouble ever since.’

  In the middle of the gym is another desk. Above it hangs a sign: Evacuations. Most in the queue are elderly.

  To our right, in front of the stadium seats down that end of the gym, medics sit at tables. Each table has an esky beside it. In the far corner there’s an enormous cool-room. I can hear a generator humming. Armed soldiers, each with their own guard dog, stand behind the medics. Before the medics – rows of chairs filled with sick people. Some hunched over, covering their mouths with cloth and coughing. One man is whimpering, the sound like a dog in pain. A soldier, holding a rifle he looks ready to shoot, patrols in front of the chairs, directing people to specific medics. Each time someone leaves the first row to go to a medic, someone from the row behind moves up to the front.

  A female soldier marches over to us. Her dog patters along beside her. She’s about thirty. Neat hair, cut short. Her khaki uniform is crumpled and stained. She has dark circles beneath her eyes.

  ‘Sharp left for food distribution, centre desk for evacuations, right for medical.’ Her voice is formal but friendly enough. ‘Don’t push in. I’ll evict anyone disruptive.’

  ‘Are you evacuating from here?’ I ask.

  ‘On foot only. Run out of fuel for now. If you need airlift you can put your name on the waiting list.’

  ‘Where are you evacuating to?’

  ‘Canberra,’ she says, but there’s a slight hesitation in her voice.

  ‘Can I call my mother from here?’ Esther asks.

  ‘Communication is still down,’ the soldier says.

  Esther looks like she might cry. ‘When will it be up?’ she asks.

  But the soldier is already walking away. ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ she calls over her shoulder.

  We sit at the back of the medical area. Esther’s lips are pressed tightly together.

  ‘You’ll get home eventually,’ I say.

  ‘When?’

  ‘We have to give the government time to get things running again. Could be a month.’

  I think it will take longer – three months maybe – but I want to comfort Esther.

  It’s sticky in the gym. Efficient-looking people walk about with insect repellent, spraying mosquitoes. Others, with buckets of soapy water and wet rags, wipe down chairs and desks. They work quickly and without looking up. The smell of disinfectant is strong. A man and a woman, both unusually tall, walk into the gym. They both have shaved heads. The man has a thick neck and a face like a bulldog. The woman is all sharp angles but muscular. They wear jeans and tee shirts. Both have a piece of red cloth tied around their right arm. I have no idea what it might signify. They look fit and healthy, and I only realise now that this is how Esther and I must look too. Whereas most people here are malnourished.

  Silence.

  You are in the gym. You are waiting to see a medic.

  Esther and I have reached the front row. A group of boys and girls saunter into the gym. I turn to watch them. They’re young; only twelve or thirteen years old. They each have a piece of red cloth tied around their right arm. The teenagers walk close together, each carrying a coat or jacket or what looks like an instrument case of some sort. Perhaps they’re going to put on a concert? The kids form a tight circle in the centre of the gym – like singers, huddling to get their note. The people in the food queue watch them closely. Everyone else looks away. I’m about to look away too when I see one boy turn out from the huddle. He is tall and bony, like a wading bird. He has round eyes that seem too large for his head, and orange hair. He’s a strange-looking kid. There’s a fragility about him that is both beguiling and frightening. I see him yank a rifle out from beneath his coat and aim it at those in the food queue. Quickly, the others in the huddle all drop their coats or jackets or open their instrument cases to reveal their weapons too. In seconds there are about twenty semiautomatic rifles aimed around the room.

  There’s a collective inhale, like a single breath from a giant animal.

  The bony orange-haired boy has his finger near the trigger of his rifle. He stares at the people in the food queue.

  The only sound in the gym is people breathing.

  The boy closes his eyes, squeezes the trigger.

  The bullets sound like rain on a corrugated iron roof. A man at the front of the food queue steps forward, thrusts out his hand as if he intends to halt the bullets midair but the bullets shoot through him and he shudders to the ground.

  Stillness.

  Breathing.

  Someone screams.

  Rat-a-tat-tat!

  The other teenagers start shooting.

  Rat-a-tat-tat!

  The soldiers guarding the food supplies fire back.

  Rat-a-tat-tat!

  The noise – deafening.

  Four boys from the huddle drop to the ground, one after the other, their thin bodies pumped with bullets.

  Screaming. Scrambling.

  Nearby, a thick-necked soldier slumps against an esky, a bullet through the side of his head.

  I grab Esther’s hand, pull her to a desk, kick it over so we can crouch behind. At my feet, the female soldier we spoke to earlier, dead
. Blood trickles along her neck, slips down and pools on the cement. Next to her, a blood-splattered medic moans. He’s been shot in the chest. I reach out, catch hold of his leg, drag him to cover. Eyes wide, he stares at me, then, in an instant, his eyes go flat and he is dead.

  Frail-bodied teenagers, toting guns, stream into the gym, shooting randomly. They run towards the food stores. It’s food they want. The soldiers guarding the food shoot the teenagers. Bodies fall.

  Tables clatter to the ground as people take cover.

  More teenagers come running into the gym chanting, ‘Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!’

  Anyone moving is a target.

  Rat-a-tat-tat!

  Esther and I press our bodies flat to the ground. The tall man and woman from earlier are now standing off to my right, calling instructions to a pimple-faced boy wielding a gun.

  ‘Shoot, shoot,’ the boy shouts in response, as if he has no other words, and he starts to shoot.

  I look for another doorway out of the gym but there is none. Two kids are guarding the front entrance. They face away from us, but block our exit. Both have semiautomatic rifles that look as big as they are.

  The elderly man with the scab, who whispered advice when I first came into the gym, is crouching opposite the kids, his back to the wall.

  His eyes lock on mine – bewildered eyes, and mouth slightly open, as if taking a last gasp of breath.

  A piercing scream.

  Rat-a-tat-tat!

  I smell shit.

  I’m distracted by two women who were in the queue. They’re hiding behind a desk. A kid with a gun is walking towards them, so they stand and run. Their ragged dresses balloon out. Shots hit their backs. Their bodies shudder before they fall, arms flapping, like hens trying to fly.

  I pull Esther closer to me. She tucks her head into my arm, not wanting to look. Her warm breath on my skin. I spy a medical esky tipped on its side. The word Marsoral, printed on the lid. I reach over, unlatch the top, pull out the seven packets of Marsoral that are inside and shove them into my backpack.

  A man hiding behind a nearby table sees me take them. He glares. I want to take Marsoral back for everyone: Ben, Steve, also Tom and Bill, and one each for Esther and me. But I’d like two for Ben. The man is still staring. There are other eskies, further away. I gesture that way but he shakes his head.

  ‘Get your own,’ I call.

  He shakes his head again. He has a nasty look in his eye. I take out one pack of Marsoral and roll it across to him. He grabs it with a snarl but that’s all I’m giving up.

  The elderly man I spotted before now slides up the wall. He makes a sign to two old men crouching near him. They slide up too. The kids guarding the door are turned away from them. The elderly man points to the doorway. The three men sneak along towards it, but the kids guarding the doorway turn and see them.

  Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat!

  The old men stumble backwards, one on top of the other. Blood squirts out from their bodies and splashes onto the cement.

  The two kids begin to holler, as though horrified at what they’ve done.

  They sprint towards the food piles.

  ‘Follow me,’ I hiss to Esther.

  We crawl to the entrance and scramble outside. In the centre of the quadrangle there are tottering children. Teenagers, all with bits of red cloth tied on their arms, circle them. They have rifles aimed either at the children or at parents who stand at the edge of the quadrangle. The parents are screaming; the children, crying. The gun-toting teenagers are jittery. Another bald-headed adult stands with the teenagers. Red cloth tied on his arm, two long scars across his forehead.

  ‘Hold fire,’ he yells at his crew. ‘Let these people get their kids and then we’ll go into the gym.’

  The teenagers lower their rifles and the mothers and fathers run into the centre of the quadrangle and grab their children. One man, running back, a child held close to his chest, trips and falls onto one of the armed teenagers.

  The teenager only stumbles, but his mate nearby turns and shoots the man. The man falls, the child with him, and the child is pinned beneath his body.

  The other teenagers start shooting.

  Bodies fall on the concrete.

  People flee. A young boy rescues the dead man’s child.

  One brave woman, perhaps to divert attention from the rescue, begins to shout abuse at a big-boned boy who is holding a rifle.

  The boy points his rifle at the woman.

  ‘Leave the quadrangle!’ he calls to her.

  The woman keeps walking forward, finger jabbing in disgust.

  The scar-faced adult shouts at the woman. ‘Shut it, you mad cow, and leave.’

  But the woman keeps shouting abuse.

  A man, tattoos over his face and body, holding two young girls behind him, stands near one of the schoolhouses. ‘Kristie, get out of there,’ he shouts.

  The woman called Kristie turns to him. ‘Are the kids safe?’

  ‘Yes. Come back now,’ the man calls.

  The woman begins to walk back.

  One of the young girls slips around the man and cries out, ‘Kristie.’

  The man grabs the girl by the arm, drags her behind him. Kristie turns back to the boy. He has his rifle aimed at the tattooed man now.

  She shouts at the boy, ‘Put that rifle down.’

  The boy points the rifle at her.

  She shouts again.

  The boy shoots her.

  Kristie staggers back and falls.

  Soldiers, who have sprinted the distance across the oval from the helicopter, now run onto the quadrangle. They shoot the boy down.

  One yells to the scar-faced adult. ‘Ed, don’t be a fool. Stop this now!’

  The man called Ed hesitates. The gun-wielding teenagers turn to him. He has his arm raised, ready to give a signal to shoot the soldiers.

  The tattoed man and the two girls run to Kristie.

  ‘Go,’ I whisper to Esther.

  We sprint along the front of the gym and turn into the lane that runs down the side of the building.

  I smell shit again and see a dead man propped up against the wall. We climb over him and keep going.

  Esther scrambles up the side of the gym, clinging to the drainpipe, and reaches the roof. I follow but it’s hard going with my bung arm. Esther has to climb back down to help me. At the top we crawl to a pile of branches and lie hidden, breathing heavily. I take out my inhaler and use it, then pull back leaves and branches to check out the quadrangle.

  The soldiers shoot down the scar-faced man. He falls in the middle of the quadrangle, blood seeping from beneath his body, making a liquid map around his torso. Nearby, some of the teenagers lie dead. Others have thrown their rifles down and hold their arms up in the air. The two young girls kneel beside the woman called Kristie, crying. The tattooed man takes off his shirt and presses it to the woman’s shoulder. Then he and the children help the woman up and the four hurry away from the quadrangle. A family pressed against the side wall of the schoolhouse, arms splayed like bats, turn and run.

  Beyond the quadrangle, everywhere, bodies lie in the dirt.

  A fine rain starts to fall.

  The bony orange-haired boy runs out of the gym. The tall man and woman follow, their shaved heads glistening with sweat. Teenagers carrying boxes of tinned food and rice sacks trail behind them.

  West, along a track that skirts the water’s edge, men, women and children are fleeing.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ I say to Esther.

  We crawl through the branches and up the hill. I look back. See fleeing people scrambling behind us. But the land isn’t stable. Small rocks fall on them. The climbers slide. Branches and dirt tumble after them.

  The land feels as if it is shifting beneath our feet.

  We start to climb down to help two kids and an old man who are stuck and are not sure whether to continue. We call out to them. A thundering sound from deep in the earth. Boom. The land starts breaking up. Th
e man and the kids slip back down.

  The thunderous sound again. Boom. We scramble up and are nearly at the top when I hear an almighty crack.

  We continue upwards, dodging falling branches and rocks.

  A crashing! A thumping!

  We finally reach the ridge top.

  Dirt sprays up and a thick haze envelops us.

  When it clears we see there is now a sheer drop from the ridge. No way to climb up or down. The roof of the gym is covered in rubble so it looks like a pyramid. A mountain of dirt blocks the entrance. The people inside – entombed.

  The dead bodies in the quadrangle are covered with a fine layer of dust. The whole place looks like some ancient ruin.

  I don’t cry or shout. Esther points to a place behind the school, to the southwest, where a hundred or more teenagers huddle around a boat that has been pulled from the water. The bald-headed man and woman are now hauling rifles from the boat and dealing them out. In the middle of the huddle several other adults – each with a shaved head – are issuing instructions.

  All this seems unfathomable. This is not our life. Not our country.

  This kind of thing happens in other places, in less civilised places, but not here.

  And yet, it is happening here.

  Esther’s eyes glaze over, like she’s focusing on an inner world, not this outer one. ‘Come,’ I say, and gently take her arm.

  We half-run, half-walk along the top of the ridge and take the track into the forest. Rain falls. I pull Esther into the trees, so we run alongside the track, rather than on it. We stop, now and then, to check the way ahead, to listen. In the middle of the forest it is dead quiet. Only the flat pat-pat of our boots on wet leaves.

  It is late afternoon when we sprint from the forest across the heath. Everywhere the prip prip of wrens. It’s a frightening sound when there are so many. We don’t stop running until we reach the path that we took on the way up.

  We slump behind a rock to rest.

  I slip my backpack from my shoulders and place it between my legs.

  I see that I’ve left the flap open.

  I try not to panic.

  The water bottle is gone.

  My inhaler too.

  My hands rest on the Marsoral.