by Claire Zorn
‘Wait! I left something around here. You haven’t found . . . something, have you?’
He doesn’t say anything, but he stops.
‘C’mon man, you know what it’s like out here. We don’t have a chance without it.’
He takes the handgun from under his jacket and chucks it at my feet. He stands watching, rifle in his hands, as I pick up the handgun and get to my feet. When I walk away I can feel his eyes on my back and I know his finger is on the trigger.
They are awake when I get back to the car. I catch Lucy’s eye, she has a pale, hollowed-out look to her, she tries to smile when she sees me. Max is eating from a packet of red frogs. I knock on the window and Lucy unlocks my door. I slide into the driver’s seat. Behind me, Noll is reading a book propped against his knees.
‘Where’d you go?’ he asks
‘I left something behind.’
‘What?’ asks Max.
‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter, I found it. We should get moving.’
‘What was it?’ Noll asks.
I swallow. If I tell him about the gun now I’m pretty sure he’s going to be: a) pissed that I risked going back to get it myself; b) pissed that I’ve kept the fact that we have a gun from him all this time; and c) pissed that we have a gun – not just any gun, but the gun belonging to the guy we robbed.
‘Nothing.’
He holds my gaze in the rear-view mirror.
‘What you reading?’ I ask.
‘Psalms.’
‘Sarms?’
‘They’re like poems, like prayers.’
‘You read the bible?’ Max asks.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Tell me about it,’ says Noll.
‘Anyone feel like breakfast?’ asks Lucy.
We sit, parked on the street, among the grid of what used to be suburbia: telegraph poles, letterboxes, Colorbond fences. But no lawns, just patches of brown grass among the snow. And no barking dogs. We eat dry Nutri-Grain, passing the box around like a packet of chips. Twice we see a figure emerge from a house about two hundred metres down the street. It looks like a woman. She stands on the driveway and looks in our direction, then goes back inside the house.
Max opens a packet of Fantales and passes them around. Lucy gets Nicole Kidman and I get Harrison Ford. Max gets Paul Newman, whom no one but Lucy has heard of. Noll doesn’t have a Fantale because he says he doesn’t like lollies, which is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.
The woman comes out onto the street for the third time and walks toward us. I don’t think anyone else has noticed. I start the car and begin to pull away from the kerb.
‘What are you doing?’ asks Noll.
‘Up front.’
‘Oh.’
The woman breaks into a run and yells out. As I pass her she rushes to the side of the car and thumps on the window. Her cheeks are concave, sunken, and again I can’t tell how old she is. Her eyes meet mine as we drive past. I see her in the rear-view mirror, standing there behind us. I stop the car and wind down the window. Nobody objects. In the mirror I see her jogging toward our car.
‘Thank you! Thank you!’ When she gets to my window she is breathless. ‘Do you . . . Do you have any food?’
‘Yes,’ answers Lucy.
The woman peers in at us, hugging herself in the cold. Her fingernails are all bitten, almost torn from her skin. Like she has started to eat herself.
Lucy gets out of the car, goes around and opens the boot. She gives the woman a box of cereal. The woman hugs it to her chest and watches as Lucy gets back in the car.
‘Are you going to try and get through the barrier into the city?’ she asks.
‘My mum is there,’ I tell her.
‘There must be a gap somewhere. My neighbours went and they must have got through because they didn’t come back.’
I think of the cars smashed up against the barricade.
‘We’re going to find a way through,’ Lucy says.
‘Well, take care,’ says the woman.
Noll passes me the bag of caramels from the backseat and I hold them out the window to her. ‘Go on. We’ve got enough.’
She hesitates then reaches out and accepts the packet. She rolls the top of it down tightly, sealing in the precious contents.
We pull away.
She is like a mum waving her kids off to school.
Thirty
In the light of day we can see that on the far left of the barrier that blocks the highway, there is a gate, just wide enough for a car. Two soldiers pace along the barricade. They each hold assault rifles and as we drive toward them they slow their pacing and watch. One of them stops as I roll down the window. His face is expressionless.
‘You can read the sign. Documents.’
‘Three bottles of whisky. One box of food.’
He looks at me with that same empty expression and I wonder what the penalty is for attempting to bribe military personnel.
‘Any smokes?’ he asks eventually.
I shake my head.
‘Two boxes.’
‘One.’
‘No deal.’
I call his bluff, start to wind up the window.
‘Wait.’ He looks through at Max, who smiles widely and displays a bottle of whisky like he’s a game-show assistant.
‘Show me the food.’
‘Put your gun down.’
He sighs, sets the rifle down at his feet. Next to me, Lucy opens the lid of the box that sits on her lap. We have put together a nice little hamper of canned soup, breakfast cereal, potato chips, rice, dried apricots, cheddar cheese, and toilet paper.
‘There’s no chocolate,’ says the soldier.
‘Jeez,’ says Lucy.
‘You wanna get through or what?’
‘Fine. Noll?’
Noll leans over the backseat and rummages through the boxes of food in the boot. He pulls out a Kit Kat and hands it to Lucy.
‘Alright, drive up to the gate. Pass the stuff out and I’ll open her up.’
‘You let us through, then we give you the food.’
He looks less than keen on the idea.
‘Come on, if we try and drive off you can just pepper the shit out of us, get the food anyway.’ I hope I haven’t just given him an idea.
‘Drive up to the gate.’
I follow his instructions. He opens the gate and as we are driving through I hear shouting behind us. In the rear-view mirror I see several people on bicycles riding toward the barricade. The other soldier has his rifle pointed at them and is shouting at them to stop. They keep pedalling toward the gate. I accelerate through, two of them right behind the car. The soldier shouts again. The sound of gunfire, like firecrackers, punches the air. I see both riders fall. Lucy screams and covers her eyes. Noll has his hand over Max’s eyes.
I stop the car as the first soldier closes the gate behind us. He comes up to my window.
‘Hand it over then,’ he says, as if nothing has happened. Lucy hands me the box and I pass it through the window to him, my hands shaking. Noll passes through the three bottles of whisky. I give them to the soldier.
‘Hope you got more of them,’ he says. ‘They’re doing random checks for documents on this side. You wanna hope they’re thirsty.’ He walks away from the car.
There are more people on the streets here than on the other side. They congregate on corners but don’t give us more than a glance. They mustn’t be as hungry. The streets are icy but drivable, walkable. My mother’s apartment is in Annandale, a suburb close to the centre of the city. I weave the car around blocks of houses and apartment buildings.
It is incredible how much things have degenerated after three months without proper infrastructure. The most noticeable thing is the rubbish, piled o
n the footpaths outside apartment buildings: discarded drink bottles and plastic food packaging spilling onto the street. The most elite inner-city suburbs have become swamps of rubbish, abandoned cars and mounds of grey slush. I count four half-starved dogs wandering the streets and three more lying dead on the side of the road – family pets turned away from homes where food is too scarce to feed them. I also start to notice bright yellow posters taped to the telegraph poles and glued to the side of buildings. I slow the car to look closer at one. It reads:
If you notice people sheltering in unusual places, like bus shelters, warehouses or in vehicles, you must alert the authorities. If you know of anyone harbouring people whom you suspect are not residents of the inner district, it is for your own protection that you notify the authorities. These people are unauthorised refuge-seekers and are a threat to YOU and YOUR FAMILY. Speak up, it’s for your own good.
‘Lovely to know we’re welcome,’ says Lucy.
I try to pick up the pace.
The last time I had been to my mum’s was Christmas Eve. Max and I had sat through the world’s most awkward lunch with Mum, her new boyfriend Steve, and his two kids: a girl and a guy, both at university. The conversation didn’t really progress beyond ‘Can you pass the rolls?’ If I had known it would be our last Christmas under (somewhat) normal circumstances I probably would have made more of an effort.
Lucy and Noll wait in the car while Max and I make our way past the rubbish that is piled up out the front of the building. We walk up the path through what was once garden but is now just dead shrubs. We go through the front doors of the apartment building into the little tiled foyer. A glass security door blocks the stairs leading up to the apartments. I hit the button on Mum’s intercom, even though I know it is pointless. Max pulls at the handle of the locked door.
‘How’re we gonna get in?’ Max asks.
I go back outside and tilt my head back, looking up in the direction of the third-floor balcony.
‘MUM!’ I scream. Max follows and does the same. We stand there screaming like idiots for way longer than is necessary. The thought that she might not be here had visited me from time to time, but I had put it in the ‘I’ll worry about that when it happens’ category. I give up yelling and take to ramming the glass door with my shoulder instead. It’s more painful and about as effective.
‘We need something heavy,’ I say. Max points to a large terracotta pot with a dead shrub in it by the door.
‘If you take one side and I take the other, we can swing it into the door,’ I say.
‘It’ll break the glass,’ says Max.
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Cool!’
Together we lift the pot and shuffle over so we are in front of the door.
‘On three, yeah?’
Max nods.
‘One, two, three.’ We hurl the pot toward the glass. It connects and the door shatters with a splintering popping sound. We pick our way across the glass-littered foyer and head up the stairs. Apartment doors open, people come out, looking down the stairwell at us.
‘Oi!’
‘What the hell are you doing?’ yells one of them.
‘Sorry, we broke your door,’ says Max.
‘Yeah, you should be!’ yells someone else.
‘We’re looking for our mum,’ I tell them. Most drift away. One guy stares at us as we come up the stairs.
‘You shouldn’t ’ave done that,’ he growls. We ignore him and he goes back inside, slamming his door shut.
We reach Mum’s door. I bang on it with my fist.
‘Mum!’
Max joins in. We wait, both of us out of breath from breaking the door. I pound on the door again. ‘Mum!’ We wait. And we wait. Both of us stand there for a long time, well beyond the point when it’s obvious she is not there. I glance at Max, his forehead is creased with worry.
‘What are we going to do, Fin?’
I have no answer.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
His voice hardens. ‘You said we would find her.’
‘I said we could try.’
‘You said it would be okay.’ He hurls the words at me. ‘You don’t know anything.’
‘Max . . .’
‘You’re useless! You don’t know anything!’ He shoves me against the wall, catching me by surprise.
‘Max, just calm down.’
‘You calm down!’ He pummels me with his fists. I try to take hold of his arms, manage to get him in a bear hug.
‘Max, calm down.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘We’ll break in and we can stay, wait till she comes back.’
‘What if she doesn’t?’
‘It’s all we can do.’
Back at the car I suggest my plan to Noll and Lucy.
‘Did anyone see you go in?’ asks Lucy.
‘Kind of. We had to smash the security door.’
‘Right. Subtle. So we’re talking more than one person?’
‘More like the whole building.’
Lucy and Noll look at each other.
Noll shakes his head. ‘It’s too much of a risk. You saw that notice.’
‘I don’t see what choice we have. It’s less risky than sleeping in the car, that’s going to look pretty bloody suss, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not comfortable with it. We’re going to have to break down the door, unless you know how to pick locks, Lucy. Obviously not part of Fin’s repertoire.’
‘Unfortunately, lock picking is not one of my many skills,’ says Lucy.
‘Then that’s only going to mean more attention, just in case anyone missed you smashing the door,’ says Noll.
‘Okay. Let’s all start hating on Fin ’cause he was trying to find his friggin’ mother.’
‘I’m not being facetious, Fin. I’m trying to figure this out.’
‘Guess what? Me too.’
‘Do you two want to take it outside?’ asks Lucy.
Neither of us reply.
‘Right. Well, if anyone’s interested in my opinion, I think we should drive around and see if there’s another option, accommodation-wise. Somewhere we can at least hide for the night. I’m reluctant to leave all the food in the car, but if we take it all up into the apartment – which we have just broken into – people are going to see us and then we will be four kids in an apartment with a broken door and a mother lode of food surrounded by possibly starving people who may not only attack us, but call in the military while they do it. So I’m going for plan B.’
‘Which is to make another plan?’ asks Max.
‘Exactly, my friend.’
‘We would be able to defend ourselves,’ I say.
‘What? With the gun?’ asks Noll, in a sulky, trying not to be interested way.
‘How do you know about––’
‘I saw you pull it out from under your seat when we were at the barricade.’
‘Oh.’
‘Were you going to tell me you had a weapon at some point?’
‘I dunno, I thought you’d freak out.’
‘You thought I’d freak out? Who the hell do you think you are? Jason Fucking Bourne?’
‘Noll, I’m sorry.’
‘Did you know about this?’ he asks Lucy.
‘Don’t be pissed at her, I told her not to tell you.’
‘Oh, how kind. And what about Max? He know about this?’
‘No.’
‘You have a gun!’ Max can hardly contain his excitement.
‘Okay,’ Noll continues, ‘so it’s like, “We won’t tell the thirteen-year-old and the Christian – they can’t handle that kind of thing”.’
‘I’m twelve,’ says Max.
‘I thought we were on the le
vel. I took you in. I gave you food. And this is how it goes? What? You think I’d flip out and say Jesus was a pacifist and make you get rid of it?’
‘I dunno. Yeah.’
‘Do we really feel this is the best time for this conversation?’ asks Lucy.
Again, neither Noll nor I have a reply.
‘Right. So we’re driving and we’re looking for somewhere to hide. And if you two start up again you can get out and walk. I’m the driver and these are my rules. So sort it.’
Thirty-one
The night begins to close in. We have limited fuel, but if we stop we will be noticed. Lucy navigates the grid of city streets and as it gets darker, we see fewer and fewer people and definitely no other cars driving around. If we want to draw attention to ourselves we are going the right way about it. We come across a shopping centre like a monolith and the headlights catch a giant blue arrow pointing down a tunnel to the car park. A sign from above.
‘Good idea,’ Noll says as if he has read my mind.
The boom gates have already been smashed through. Lucy follows the dark tunnel down into the concrete bunker and as we drive in, shadowy figures scatter like cockroaches in a kitchen. The darkness is broken by the glow of several small campfires. They send breathing light up concrete pylons, illuminating numbers and letters. We stop in LG 2. The figures have all fled. It looks like there might be a stairwell in the northern corner of the car park.
‘Seems we’ve found people like us,’ Lucy murmurs.
We wait. My finger is curled around the trigger of the gun. In the rear-view mirror I can just make out Max’s face. He looks like he could quite possibly be peeing himself, if he hasn’t already.
There is movement in the doorway to the stairs. A group of people emerges, they get closer and I think that’s the point where I stop breathing.
‘They’re zombies,’ Max whimpers.
‘Don’t be a tool. They’re not zombies.’ I’m not entirely sure, though.
The shadows move closer to the car. Then a torch is flicked on and shone through the windscreen. We squint in the glare. The person with the torch holds it beneath their own chin, an apparition from a campfire ghost story. It is an old woman, in her sixties or seventies. She leans down, face in my window.
