‘What the bloody hell?’ Jackrabbit sneered. ‘That the same mutt?’
‘I think so. Here, boy!’
‘No!’ he snapped. ‘Ain’t no Walker mongrel ghost-dog getting anywhere near us!’
‘Oh, come on. He’s just a lost dog.’ Ned met the innocent alien creature. He was friendly. Ned patted him on the head and he enjoyed the stroke of his hand. He tried to give basic commands: ‘Sit. Shake.’ The dog simply kept panting. ‘Maybe he only knows alien commands.’
Jackrabbit did not like it. ‘How the fuck d’he get here?’
‘Who cares? Come on, boy. Let’s go.’ Ned tried to get the dog to follow them, but each time he took a step towards Ivanhoe, he barked again. He began to whimper and trot in anxious circles. ‘Come on, boy. No time for playing. We need to get out of this heat.’
He turned to walk again. Again the dog barked, louder, whimpering, crying almost.
‘It dun’t wanna come. Good,’ said Jackrabbit.
‘Come here, boy! Come on!’ Ned cooed. He eventually got the dog to come with him. He walked by him and Ned patted his furry black head. Those round alien eyes looked up at him so lovingly as he whimpered some more. ‘I’m not that smelly, am I? Let’s go, come on!’
Jackrabbit followed cautiously, keeping a few paces back from Ned and the dog. The two ran and frolicked together as they joyfully skipped towards the river. They could see the farms, the surrounding green fields of former wineries and crops, all divided into elegant rectangular segments and neat rows. It was all so green, so inviting, and yet it was void of all life, intelligent or otherwise, like all the other places in the world.
They crossed a wooden bridge over the river and by this time it was getting late. They found a large farmhouse, a two-storey home overlooking crops from every window, mostly wheat fields, with an adjacent shed where the wheat was ground up by machines and stored in vats. Jackrabbit told Ned to stay at a safe distance while he inspected the place. He went inside, checked every room, checked the sheds, even assessed the soil around the house, and eventually returned saying there was no one here, nor had anyone been here in many weeks. The occupants had been beamed, and there were no signs of unwanted intruders either. Satisfied that it was safe, Ned and the dog raced inside. Ned collapsed on a floral-patterned couch and kicked off his sandy shoes, revealing the orange-brown state of his sweat-drenched socks. He laid back and just stared at the roof, breathing slowly, letting his aching muscles sink into the soft cushions of the couch. At his side, the hybrid dog licked his hand. Ned giggled at the wet touch.
‘That tickles, boy!’
The gas stoves still worked, seeing that the house had its own manually-operated tanks, but there was no running water or electricity. The food in the fridge had gone off, but with water from the river, they boiled some dried pasta and rice, and mixed it with a can of baked beans and some spam found in the cupboards to make a sloppy mixture of fairly satisfying food. A good meal, Jackrabbit declared. Afterwards they ate Anzac biscuits from a tin and lounged in the living room on the couches, feet elevated up on cushions, candles lit all around them as outside the sun began to set. Ned played Lonely Lily on the radio in the corner, letting her music fill the air. For much of the evening, they just sat there. All the electrical items were dead: the fan on the roof and the television sat idle around them, and without the noise of cattle or birds or tractors outside, the farm was incredibly silent.
Ned, who had not seen another human being besides Jackrabbit for nearly a month, tried to imagine who had lived in this house before him, based on the pictures hanging on the wall. But when he passed by them, he swore he saw, from the corner of his eye, demonic reptilian heads in place of the human faces in every photo and portrait. He had to look at them all twice, each time seeing the head of some fictional hybrid creature quickly switch back to the porcelain stares of expressionless people. The way the animals were changing, mutating; Ned felt as though it was happening to them too, and in the photographs he could see the history of mankind slowly being rewritten by the manipulation of a force which had taken them all hostage.
When it went dark, the two reclined in big wooden chairs out on the porch and watched thousands of stars open up over the fields. After a meal, a bath, and finding fresh clothes, both Ned and Jackrabbit relaxed to the sound of the Ord River and felt the cool air fill their lungs. Jackrabbit declared the worst was over: Zebra Rock was just a short trek south of here, and with the rocky cliffs and desert sands replaced by trees and farmland, the Kununurra was long behind them. Ned could not believe he had made it to Ivanhoe. He was almost in the Northern Territory; that was how far they had gone in three days.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
Jackrabbit made a series of grunts and grumbles under his stubbled beard. They would probably find some wine around here, he then suggested. Ned agreed and went hunting for the cellar. He came out with a few bottles and read their French titles with very poorly-slanged pronunciation. Unobligated by monetary values anymore, they popped the corks and shared the bottle between them. Ned found it rather bitter, but he supposed it was much better than his night on the scotch.
The dog was lying on the grass in front of the porch, snapping occasionally at mosquitos. The way he watched the fields so silently, he must be a sheep herder, Ned thought. They argued whether the alien mutt would attract Quakers, perhaps looking for their lost guard dog, but neither had seen the sky’s stormy mass draw near in a long while now: they seemed to be distracted with their warehouses and other massive projects to care for the happenings of two lost wanderers in the desert.
The moon appeared from behind some scattered clouds, and that was when the dog showed his true colours: the white of his fur suddenly began glowing green, florescent, making his whole body illuminate in a soft aura. The border collie’s tongue, ears, and underbelly burned with brilliant green incandescence. It made him look radioactive, and it was quite startling for Ned and Jackrabbit to witness.
‘Whoa. Did the dog just… or am I…?’ Jackrabbit checked how much he had drunk.
‘That’s so freaking awesome! Look at him! He’s glowing!’
Ned ran out onto the grass and began rolling around with the dog, playfully tackling him and letting him bite his sleeve and lick his face with his glowing green tongue. The fur of his belly didn’t feel any different when it shone, but the vibrancy of the colour was incredibly striking; a beautiful spectrum of light in an otherwise bleak and gloomy world. Moonboy, Ned called him. He ran about with him in the dark for hours, captivated by his green glow. They played fetch with a stick in the fields, and Moonboy – who could never be lost in the dark – returned loyally each and every time, until eventually he tired Ned out. After that, Ned went back to sitting on the porch and the dog sat by his side, always facing the fields, keeping watch over them.
Ned turned to Jackrabbit. ‘We’re keeping him. He’s a glow-in-the-dark dog. We are definitely keeping him.’
‘You’re keeping him,’ Jackrabbit corrected, then he declared he was going to bed.
FIRE
At the crack of dawn, the dog was barking again. He was in hysterics, scratching at the door, howling and wailing.
Ned and Jackrabbit slept in separate bedrooms upstairs that night, cosy in the abandoned sheets of someone else’s home. It was the best night’s sleep Ned had had in weeks. With his new alien pet at his feet, he felt safe enough to not need a fridge within three steps, and he was exhausted enough to sleep undisturbed all night.
Until morning, when Moonboy woke them both with a start. Ned sat upright in his bed only to hear Jackrabbit announce loudly from a distant room, ‘FIRE!’
Ned hastily pulled his clothes on and ran downstairs. He arrived at the front porch, where Jackrabbit and Moonboy were standing, and gasped at the sight.
‘Holy shit.’
All the fields were on fire. Roaring red flames and thick, black smoke rose on all three sides, destroying hundreds of hectares of wheat crops, an
d the blaze was drawing near. He could already feel the heat and smell the smoke. If they stayed here much longer, the fire would trap them in a ring and engulf them.
‘Bushfire!’ Ned cried.
‘Ain’t no bushfire. This manmade.’
‘What? By who?’
‘Get your shit. Go!’
They rushed to collect their things. Moonboy, back to his normal colours under the rising sun, was still barking at the flames. Ned hurried to get his shoes on, grab his bag, and steal some cans from the cupboard. He heard Jackrabbit yelling for him outside. He emerged onto the porch, but then cried, ‘Lily!’ and ran back in.
‘No, don’t!’
Ned clumsily scurried back into the living room. The fire was right in their front yard now, the flames burning up everything in their path. The air was becoming thicker, smoky, and hard to see through. Ned coughed and covered his face with his singlet. He seized the radio and shoved it in his bag; he was not losing Lily, the only girl left in the world who understood him.
He ran out and met Jackrabbit. The dog ran ahead. They followed the hybrid, knowing he probably had better survival instincts than they did. Moonboy managed to weave through flames, finding clean routes, occasionally halting when he came across a barricade, a wall of fire, or a fallen tree. They ran back to the river, towards the desert again; they would be safe on that side, as the winds were sweeping the blaze the other way.
At the river, Moonboy halted dead. Ned ran in, waist-deep, while Jackrabbit trudged through the muddy water and swam for the other side. Ned turned back and cried, ‘Come on, Moonboy! Please! Come on!’
The dog seemed to dislike the water and would not budge. He danced around the bank, whimpering and trotting on his toes.
‘Let’s go!’ Jackrabbit was on the other side already. The flames were scarily close and the smoke was beginning to engulf them.
Ned went back for the dog. He picked him up in his arms and carried him across. He ran into the water as, behind him, the flames rose and formed a wall of heat and smoke along the bank. He had to swim a little, forcing Moonboy to crawl up his neck and almost onto his head, petrified of getting wet. On the other side, Jackrabbit was waiting with his hand out. He helped drag the two of them back onto the banks.
‘Never seen such a cowardly mutt in my life!’ he cried.
Ned was on his back, panting, but Jackrabbit did not give him any time to rest; they had to get far away from this place.
They were forced back into the desert again, to the edges of the Kununurra, and from the same rocky cliffs where they had admired Ivanhoe upon their arrival, they looked down at the farming town again to watch it burn. Everything was gone. In less than an hour, the town and surrounding farmland had been reduced to blackened earth. The great Ord kept the blaze from crossing over to the other side, and from their high post atop the rocky cliffs they were all well out of danger anyway, but it had been a frighteningly close call. Ned and Jackrabbit sat and coughed until the smoke was expelled from their lungs. Even Moonboy sounded a little phlegmy. Over the cliff’s edge, they watched the fires burn it all down: the farms, the homes, all of Ivanhoe, in a single angry cloud. The black smoke rose high into the air, smothering the blue sky. Ned watched his hopes burn and shrivel up in an angry red storm.
‘My mum’s going to come here one day, thinking I’m here, and see nothing but ashes,’ he said. ‘How is she going to find me now?’
Jackrabbit was angry, very angry.
‘Fucking assholes!’ he roared, and he kicked the sand. ‘I hate ‘em! I hate ‘em all!’
‘Who?’
‘Suits!’ he shouted. ‘They did that! That’s what they go about doing! Smoking people out of their towns, burning shit down; and they clear it too, for their asshole Walkers to come in and make a new farm or something. That’s what they do. That’s what they’ve been doing from here to Never Never!’
Ned looked back down at the flames and caught on; this was what the Skyquakers were here for. Like the farmers before them, they were clearing the land of all the native plants and animals to make way for their own; humans included. Ned and Jackrabbit and the seven billion others who once populated this planet were merely inconveniences to their master plans. As for these Suits, he could not understand them. He could not imagine any human who would want to help the invaders, help burn down towns, hunt those last remaining survivors; what good could come of this widespread destruction? This invasion was gradually showing its true ugly form.
Beside him, Moonboy was still making little anxious noises. He had seen the dangers in that place long before they had.
Ned patted him to calm him down. ‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘Good boy.’
Jackrabbit was eager to reach the settlers at Zebra Rock now more than ever. He had to warn them that Suits were nearby. The settlers had come from the north, from somewhere along the coast, and they had witnessed the likes of Suits once before, narrowly avoiding their path of destruction. The Ord River ran south from here. Somewhere half a day’s walk along its banks was their settlement. With the burning town of Ivanhoe now behind them, they carried on. They weaved along the banks, following unpaved roads and goat tracks with the water lapping at their feet. There was evidence of where others had camped along this same route: Jackrabbit pointed out a former fire the settlers had made two weeks ago when they came through here. Moonboy sniffed around, picking up interesting scents.
After days of hiking through deserts, bushland, rocky hills and gravel tracks, Ned finally hit a highway made of asphalt: the Victoria Highway, which ran east-west across the Top End. It felt unnatural for his feet to stand on the black tar of a smooth, artificial surface. He stood there and saw nothing but the desolate Australian outback: no cars, no towns, just sand and shrubs. The road was long, flat, and abandoned. To his right, the highway ran west into the Kununurra desert, eventually taking him to Broome. To his left, it crossed the Ord River and went down towards a place called Hidden Valley, a beautiful wetland nature reserve, much like Parry’s Lagoon. The concrete bridge also served as an enormous dam, holding back the Ord to allow it to flood a manmade basin. Water gushed from open flood channels along the wall’s face. No one was operating the dam anymore, but water was still moving through. The valley below looked like some sort of hidden Eden trapped in the country’s red centre, so perfectly picturesque that it was only lacking an arching rainbow. The valley’s soft, green hills rolled down towards a large permanent lake, and the whole valley was thick with shady trees, native birds and fish, fruit-bearing flora, even a waterfall where tourists once leapt from the rocks into untouched natural waterholes. It would have been a perfect settlement for survivors of the storm if it had not been occupied already.
Ned and Jackrabbit watched the ominous sight from the rails of the dam wall. Beside them, Moonboy was growling. Somewhere in the valley below, a series of warehouses had sprung up, and tiny black dots – some humans, some Quakers – were building the fences of their future factory around their new territory. There were enormous machines helping them flatten the land, dig trenches, and erect poles, not dissimilar to manmade contraptions with the same purpose. The project looked ten times the size of the ranch they had seen in the northern Kununurra. It was rather frightening to gaze upon, to see that this invasion was very real, very tangible, and that nothing so far could stop the Skyquakers’ progressive movement across the country. Suits – humans helping Quakers – were down there too; Jackrabbit had seen them before. He had seen them lurking around this dam, inspecting it, taking small chunks of concrete from the walls to show their masters, possibly for them to understand the chemistry of the dam. Jackrabbit knew what they were doing: they were going to blow it up. They wanted the valley’s many lakes at full capacity to kick-start their farms. A silly mistake, Jackrabbit said: the Ord would run dry in a matter of weeks, turning the precious valley into a desert.
The old man sneered at them. ‘Fuckers. They’ll destroy the whole place; you’ll see. The whole goddam
ned country. It’ll be gone to those Walkers and those dicks in suits.’
‘We do have a lot of land,’ Ned said. ‘Why couldn’t we just share?’
Jackrabbit gave a sarcastic, ‘Ho-ho!’ and then marched on in big, angry steps.
10
SETTLERS
Under the beat of the Aussie sun, an old man sat under a shady veranda with his feet kicked up, hands folded, and his brimmed hat lowered over his resting eyes. His round gut rose and fell as he snored. A fly buzzed around his nose, making him twitch and moan. He swatted it, and stirred awake only to see a man and a boy standing in front of him.
‘What the bloody – who – huh – how did ya—?’ He was so startled by Ned and Jackrabbit’s sudden presence that he almost fell off his chair. He hoisted himself up, rocking his tubby gut as he stood. He was in his sixties, well-rounded, with wild, white hair and a thick moustache crawling down his face to form a fuzzy beard. He was an outback Santa Claus, dressed in a flannelette shirt and old jeans, held up by a giant brass belt buckle in the shape of Australia.
Jackrabbit shook hands with the gentleman. ‘Good to see you, Munroe.’
‘Well, blimey, it’s Jack! Didn’t expect to see you around here again.’ He looked down at Ned. ‘And who’s this?’
Ned was grinning from ear to ear. Words simply escaped him.
‘You’ve dragged in another from the wild, I see,’ Munroe said.
Jackrabbit nodded down at the boy. ‘This is Ted.’
‘Ned.’
‘This is Ned.’
The old man shook hands with him. ‘Nice to meet you, young man. Welcome to Zebra Rock.’
There were thirteen settlers in total at Zebra Rock, most of which formally knew each other before the storm. They all currently lived together in an abandoned art gallery on the banks of the Ord, in a small one-storey shed made of orange bricks and tin roofing, sleeping on old mattresses and cooking over open fires outside. The gallery was called Zebra Rock because of the unique black and white striped stones used here to sculpt beautiful animals, bowls, vases, pendants, and knick-knacks. The bizarre rock, embedded with stripes of both brilliant white and charcoal black, were quarried from Argyle Lake down south, from a mine which was equally as famous for its diamonds. The little gallery was a small museum of rare delicacies made by local artists, but since the settlers arrived, it had been redesigned into more of a home for wandering lost souls like Ned.
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