The Buried Ark

by James Bradley

  I drew my knees up to my chest. ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  Ben straightened and stared at me. ‘Why didn’t you tell us sooner? That they were after you?’

  ‘Would you have believed me?’

  ‘I don’t know if I believe you now. What aren’t you telling me? Or is this all some kind of trick?’

  I looked at him. He had stood up and was staring at me. His air of uncertainty was suddenly gone and I realised he was angry.

  ‘I’m not lying. I came here with my sister. I found my father who was supposed to be dead but had become one of them but not one of them. He told me he’d given both of us a vaccine he was working on, and that he thought he might be able to come up with a cure.’

  ‘But that’s not all, is it?’

  I looked away. ‘While I was there, with my father, I saw some things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘A nest. There were people . . . growing in it.’

  ‘Growing?’

  ‘In pods.’

  Ben stared at me.

  ‘My father, he must have been one of them. Or at least the . . . thing I thought was my father was one of them. Not real. A copy.’

  ‘But he knew you?’

  I nodded. ‘He . . . it . . . had my father’s memories.’

  ‘But you didn’t know that when you first met him?’

  I shook my head. ‘I only put it together later.’

  ‘But that’s not a reason for what happened before. There must be more.’

  I hesitated. ‘When I came north there was somebody else. A . . . friend. His name was Matt.’

  ‘And he was Changing as well.’

  I gave a small nod.

  ‘And?’

  ‘When you found me, it was him I was trying to get away from. Or the thing that used to be him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He – it – wanted me to go with him. He said they wanted to understand what I was, what my father had done.’

  ‘Then it is you they’re after.’

  I nodded. ‘There’s something else,’ I said. ‘Before, when they attacked, I saw him.’

  ‘Who? Matt?’

  I nodded.

  Ben looked back the way we had come. ‘We need to keep moving. Whatever else happens, we have to get out of the Zone before they find us again.’

  ‘Then what?’

  He looked at me. ‘Then I take you to Quarantine. What happens after that is up to them.’

  By dawn we were both exhausted. As the glow of the trees began to fade we stepped out of the forest onto a patch of open land. A little way off a clump of the pandanus-like trees stood at the top of a small rise.

  Ben pointed at them. ‘There,’ he said. ‘We’ll be able to see if anybody is following us.’

  I looked up at the lightening sky. Ben followed my gaze.

  ‘We need to assume they know where we are already.’

  I nodded miserably, trudging after him across the open space toward the trees. Once we were seated he opened his pack and handed me a bottle of water.

  ‘This isn’t about either of us,’ he said once I had finished drinking. ‘You know that, right? I have orders, and if this thing of your father’s has some way of stopping the Change, we have to let people know.’

  I didn’t reply. I could see he was trying to convince himself as much as me, but I didn’t care. Whenever I closed my eyes I could hear those last screams and shouts as we fled into the forest, see the faces of the commander, Mandel and Mahid, even Truong, each of them coming back to me in a jumble of disconnected images and feelings. And with this came a wave of hopelessness that had been building since before I lost Gracie and which threatened to pull me under with it.

  ‘I need to sleep,’ I said at last. I turned away and lay down on my side, my eyes closed. Behind me I could feel Ben watching me.

  When I woke the sun was high, the air thick with heat. Blinking in the glare I sat up. Ben was behind me, his back against the tree.

  ‘How long was I asleep?’ I asked stupidly.

  ‘Four or five hours.’

  Following his gaze, I stared back toward the edge of the forest. ‘Any sign of movement?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Did you sleep?’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Do you want to?’

  He looked at me, considering the question of how far he could trust me. Finally he looked away.

  ‘I’ll sleep later. For now we need to get moving again.’ As he spoke he hesitated and, kneeling down, brushed his hand against a plant near where I had been lying.

  The plant looked a bit like an aloe vera: thick, slightly serrated spiked leaves radiating up and out from its base, their undersides covered in white spots. Although a few of the leaves were still healthy, most were wilted and blighted, their tips curled in on themselves or splitting and rotting.

  ‘It looks . . . sick,’ Ben said.

  ‘So?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve never seen Changed organisms like this before.’

  He leaned back and pointed at a clump of grass nearby. It was yellowing and dry.

  ‘There as well,’ he said. ‘And there.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s some kind of disease.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said. He stood up and looked around again. ‘We should go.’

  We walked fast and hard, trying to put as much distance between us and the site of the attack as possible. Although neither of us said anything, we both knew the Change must know where we were, and that it was unlikely we would have long before it caught up with us.

  Eventually we came upon a back road, which we took despite the greater risk of encountering the Changed.

  Although I had understood the stakes when I first fled, it was different now. Only a few weeks ago I had thought I knew what was right and what was wrong, but as the people I loved had been taken from me one by one I had begun to realise it wasn’t that easy. Watching Ben, it was obvious that what he had seen had begun to alter him as well. Not fully, not yet. His anger and grief were still controllable; they had not consumed him. But still, they were part of him now and always would be. For me it was different. Although I wished I could go back to the way things were I knew that could never happen, the person who had lived in that house with Vanessa and Tim was gone.

  Toward dusk we came to a small town.

  ‘We should go around,’ I said, slowing to a halt.

  Ben looked at me. ‘Through the forest? We don’t have time.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s too risky. There will be Changed in the town. They’ll be looking for us.’

  Ben looked at the weatherboard buildings in the failing light and seemed to consider my words. ‘What if there are Changed in the trees, or we get lost? We’re better off on the road.’

  I took a breath and closed my eyes, reaching out into the space of the landscape with my mind. The buzzing in my head was stronger than before, the Change’s presence like a charge in the air, not yet fixed on us but growing in intensity. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘I need you to trust me. We don’t have time to waste arguing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I hesitated. Although I had come to accept the whispering was the sound of the Change in my mind the idea of saying it out loud sickened me, almost as if by speaking the words I made it real. ‘The vaccine my father gave me, it’s connected me to the Change somehow. I can feel its presence.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s difficult to explain. Sometimes it’s like lots of voices all talking at once, but so quietly I can’t hear what they’re saying. Sometimes it’s just a feeling, a sense it’s aware of me.’

  Ben stared at me. ‘That’s impossible. We scanned you: there was no sign of the Change in your system and definitely
no sign metamorphosis had commenced.’

  ‘I’m not Changing and I won’t. But the engineered version of the Change that I was vaccinated with reacted to being in the Zone. It did something to me.’

  Ben was about to say more but I just shook my head. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘We don’t have time. They’re coming. I know it.’

  Wary of getting lost in the failing light we moved quickly; me in the lead, Ben behind me.

  As I drew away from him it occurred to me I could just speed up, disappear into the forest, and for a moment the possibility was dizzying. But almost as soon as the idea struck me I knew there was no way I could do it. I was his prisoner, but if I left him here it was possible he would meet the same fate maybe the others had, and I couldn’t let that happen.

  Eventually we emerged from the undergrowth onto one of the paths that wound through the forest. I checked for any sign of danger then gestured to Ben to follow me.

  Although I did my best to ensure we were moving parallel to the road, it was difficult to be certain and after a few minutes I began to worry we had lost our way. I came to a halt and looked around. The glowtrees were flickering into life, filling the space around us with their pale light, while things chirruped and called in the branches. Ben looked pale and nervous.

  ‘Where should we go?’ he asked.

  I peered along the path, then back through the trees. Despite the light of the glowtrees it was difficult to be sure, but I thought I could see open ground ahead.

  Ever since we left the road the whispering in the back of my skull had been growing more urgent, the certainty the Change knew where we were closing on me like a vice. I shivered.

  ‘What is it?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I lied. ‘We have to hurry.’

  The sound in my head was rising in intensity, growing angrier, buzzing like a swarm of bees as we raced on through the trees. But it was only as we reached the edge of the trees and saw the road ahead of us, its dark line snaking away through the soft glow of the forest, that I noticed the line of figures making their way toward us. I threw my arm up to stop Ben, and for a moment it seemed they hadn’t seen us, but then they turned in our direction.

  I grabbed the front of his shirt. ‘This way,’ I said, dragging him back into the trees, slipping and scrambling as we fought our way back toward the path.

  ‘We need to get ahead of them again,’ I said. ‘Find some way of evading them.’

  Ben nodded quickly. ‘What if there are others?’

  ‘If we stay away from the roads, we can avoid the centres of population, so there will be fewer of them. But it will be slower going as well.’

  ‘You don’t think they’ll just move around and cut us off?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll deal with that if it happens. For now we need to lose the ones behind us.’

  Ben nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But, Callie?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you hear them . . . in your head . . . you have to tell me.’

  I looked at him. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I will.’

  We scrambled on, following the line of the land upward. As the terrain rose the vegetation changed as well, the glowtrees giving way to long filaments and root-like structures that snaked upward, toward the crest of the hill. As we pushed our way past them I tried not to think about what might be above them, what its purpose might be. The longer I spent in the Zone the more I became aware of the complexity of the Change, the degree to which its interwoven elements seemed to be pursuing ends of their own, altering not just plants and animals but reshaping the landscape, transforming the Earth into something new.

  Eventually the ground began to slope down again, and after a few minutes I glimpsed a break in the trees, the glimmer of stars. Ahead of me Ben began to run faster, pushing through the trees. I could feel the Change getting closer, its focus tighter now. Gritting my teeth to block it out, I raced after him, until all at once we burst out of the trees. I had time to register the Milky Way, its impossible brightness, before I realised something was wrong and almost without thinking reached out to grab Ben’s shirt and pull him back. He began to protest but then his words trailed off. In front of us the ground ended, falling away into darkness.

  My heart still beating fast I released my grip on his shirt. He took a step back.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said in a small voice.

  I nodded and stepped away from the edge of the gorge. Down below, water was visible.

  ‘What now?’ he asked.

  I tried to blot out the buzzing of the Change, to concentrate, but it was difficult. ‘We go down,’ I said.

  He looked down dubiously. ‘In the dark?’

  ‘You have a better idea?’

  He glanced over his shoulder at the forest. ‘Can you feel them? Are they near?’

  I tried not to let my panic show. ‘Near enough.’

  Ben stepped forward, looked down again. ‘Okay,’ he said.

  I went first. I had to feel my way with our fingertips, sinking them into the crevices in search of a solid grip. It was hard work, and each time my fingers slid into a crack I had to steel myself against the fear there might be some biting or stinging thing, a snake or a scorpion or some Changed creature waiting to latch onto my battered fingers. Although Ben was taller than me he was also heavier and less agile, so as we lowered ourselves down the rock face I had to keep stopping until he caught up.

  Finally the slope levelled out. Letting go, I began to slither toward the bottom, trying to stall myself so I didn’t lose control. After a few seconds I heard the water below, but then Ben gasped above me and with a shower of stones he crashed down, slamming into me and sending the two of us tumbling down the rock face and out into the darkness.

  We were only airborne for a second or two, but it was long enough for blank terror to overtake me, a sudden intimation of what it would be like to strike the rocks below, of shattered teeth and broken limbs. But then I hit the water, and a split-second later, stone, the first breaking my fall enough to save my life but not enough to prevent me hitting hard and painfully before I sprawled forward. Scrambling to my feet, I stared around wildly.

  ‘Ben,’ I hissed. ‘Ben!’ But there was no reply. Unable to make out anything in the dark I called his name again, and this time I heard a groan a metre or two away. I lunged toward it, groping in the water until my hands closed on his suit and I pulled him upright.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  He lurched sideways, and for a moment I caught sight of his face outlined in a shaft of pale light from the top of the gorge, his eyes dark above his mask. His forehead was black with blood.

  ‘I think so,’ he said, but then he shifted his weight and cried out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My foot. It’s stuck.’

  I looked down. In the darkness all I could see was the water, the occasional thread of phosphor moving through it. But as my eyes adjusted I saw there was light elsewhere around us, Changed organisms nestling in the rock face and sprouting everywhere. The Changed were very close now, I could feel it.

  ‘Can’t you pull it free?’ I said, trying not to let my fear show.

  He reached down, grunting and shoving, before shaking his head. I plunged my hands into the water and groped around in the darkness. I could feel his leg, the gap in which it was caught, but the rocks that had it pinned there were smooth and slick and I couldn’t get a purchase on them.

  ‘I can’t get a grip,’ I said. As I spoke there was a sound above us. I looked up and saw figures at the top of the gorge. Beside me Ben stiffened and I knew he’d seen them too. Dropping to his knees he began to scrabble under the water again.

  I closed my eyes, trying to block out the sound of the Change in my head. Opening them again, I knelt beside Ben.

  ‘Perhaps if we undo your boot . . .’


  ‘It’s too far in.’

  ‘Can you twist it sideways?’

  He shook his head. From above there was a scraping sound, and a moment later a small shower of stones tumbled into the water, the sound echoing along the space of the gorge. Ben looked up again.

  ‘You have to go,’ he said.

  I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ll get you free.’

  ‘They’re too close.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ As I spoke I stood up and stared around. A few metres away a branch protruded from the water. I slid through the dark water toward it. The branch was wet but strong, and as I dragged it back to Ben I could see him staring at it, his face pale in the darkness.

  ‘Here,’ I said, jamming it into the space beside his foot. I lifted myself to full height and then dropped my body’s weight onto it.

  The branch refused to budge, so I tried again. For a brief moment I thought I felt movement, but then the branch slid sideways. Thrown off balance, I fell awkwardly into the water and Ben stifled a yelp of pain. The movement overhead was closer now.

  ‘Please,’ Ben said. ‘You can’t stay. They’ll catch you.’

  I didn’t answer. Picking myself up, I jammed the branch in again. Overhead there was a slipping sound, and more stones, larger this time, rained down around us. I grasped the branch and tried one more time to lift my weight onto it. At first nothing happened, but then something shifted.

  ‘It’s moving,’ I gasped. I dropped my weight onto the stick again, and for a second time I felt something give.

  ‘Pull, now!’ I said. Ben winced. I pushed harder. All at once the rock came free. I tumbled into the water, striking the heel of my hand and my elbow on the rocks, while Ben stumbled backward.

  I scrambled to my feet and looked up the cliff face. In the darkness I could see shapes on the cliff, not far above.

  ‘What now?’ he asked.

  I looked up at the cliff face on the other side, then along the line of the gorge.

  ‘This way,’ I said, pointing along the creek.

  13

  The creek bed was slippery and treacherous, and as we ran we tripped and fell more than once, striking the rocks hard. Above us the walls of the gorge rose high and dark, framing the astonishing light of the stars, the soft shine of the glowtrees, the light a ribbon leading us on.