Sarah cringed back. ‘It certainly wouldn’t help me feel any better.’
Ned decided to keep it to himself.
Around the fire that night, James made a speech. He was very proud of his family. He was proud of what they had achieved. Even if they did not cause enough damage to permanently shut down production, they sent a clear message today to the invaders: we are here. Quakers were never going to acknowledge their existence unless they proudly made themselves known, and now that it was known, their species could no longer be underestimated. They were fighters. They were game-changers, and it had become apparent now that nothing was going to change unless they enforced it. They may not have gotten back Andrew, but in many ways they had gotten back their national pride.
Michael, whose leg wound was still recovering beneath a series of bandages, caressed a gun as he said, ‘Andy won’t be properly avenged until I find that faggot Suit and put a bullet between his eyes.’
‘One day at a time,’ James said. ‘There will be more battles. Now more than ever, we have to be ready for them.’
In the days following, effort was spent on constant vigilance more than any other task. The settlers took shifts on patrol for storms, Quakers, and Suits. When they rested, they slept beneath the water tarp in the basement. Mealtimes were spent in silence. Ned sat in front of the fire with his rifle on one side and Moonboy, glowing green, on the other. Around him, the faces of his family were hardened, worn, smothered in soot and scars. The loving tenderness they once felt for each other had switched to war-like comradery. Seldom did they spend their days playing baseball and swimming and falling in love anymore; now it was about preparing the next attack, practising their escape routes, and learning to fire straight. All this, undoubtedly, was choreographed by the red-eyed James, and as the new warden of the camp, he enforced his strict disciplines onto them all. Michael’s leg was still healing and Munroe was too old to perform these stunts, but every other abled body was expected to play their part for their share of the food. Some enjoyed it more than others. Ned saw both the good and the bad in starting a war with Skyquakers. For one, the frustration of Andrew’s murder and this planetary invasion in general was often enough to get his patriotic heart thumping and his bloodlust raging; he wanted to see them as worn, defeated, and as exhausted as he had become. On the other hand, he was terrified of getting shot, and antagonising the guys with the bigger guns and the electric prods was not going to end well. Each day was another test of survival; one day he would accidentally let down his guard and be killed. He had nightmares about those scenarios. They all did.
The family argued a lot more now. There was becoming a shortage of food and people were becoming possessive of their things – a pot, a t-shirt, a round of bullets, a lemon – causing petty fights daily. Elizabeth and James didn’t speak much anymore, except to argue. She was powerless though to stop his regime; he took the students where he wanted, when he wanted, and forced them to harden up by learning to shoot and running for cover. She had to obey him if she wanted her rations, and if she was caught comforting one of the students, counselling them with motherly tenderness like she used to, both of them would get a hard yelling for their display of weakness.
Michael had become increasingly cold as well. He wanted to go hunting for Suits, but he was still limping and sore. Despite all of Violet’s gentle touches and affection, his mind was now only hell-bent on revenge. It was all he ever talked about: that Suit, the young, cocky guy who murdered his best friend. He was going to pay; Michael would make sure of that. Eventually Violet stopped trying, and so Ned watched that love affair die as well.
As for Sarah, she was just as paranoid and brittle as ever, but had become even more so since the ambush. Ned spotted her lurking around Zebra Rock late at night every now and then. With Moonboy by his side, glowing green, he eventually decided to track her and followed her to the bank of the river, where he found her crouching behind a hollow tree.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
Sarah gasped and jumped back. ‘Ned, it’s just you. You scared me.’
Ned crept closer to see Sarah had a backpack hidden in the nook of a grey tree trunk and in it she was stashing water bottles and canned foods. She looked at him with wide, terrified eyes and scratched her elbow with guilt.
‘What is all this?’ he asked. ‘Why are you stealing food?’
‘Please don’t tell James. He’ll go crazy.’
‘Are you going somewhere?’
Sarah gave a nod and shifted her feet. ‘I’m leaving.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s not safe here anymore. I hate it here. I can’t do this. I’ll never be like the rest of you: I’m not made to kill things.’
‘Sarah, none of us are,’ Ned said. ‘We didn’t plan for this to happen. This isn’t what we want to do; it’s just what we have to do.’
‘No, it’s what you want to do.’
Ned felt offended and attempted to counter her argument, but then he thought of Andrew again and nothing came out.
‘I can’t stay here,’ she said.
‘But where will you go? We’re still in the middle of a desert – where else is there to go?’
‘I don’t know, but I’ll find somewhere safer,’ she said. ‘Just don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t want you to get in trouble for me, and I don’t want anyone to come chasing after me.’
‘But they will catch you.’
‘Soon enough they’ll catch all of us. Go back to bed, Ned. Thanks for being a good friend, because that’s what you are: you’re one of the good ones. Please keep safe.’
Ned was torn, but waking James and telling him of this breach was not going to benefit anyone. So, with a last goodbye, he turned his back on Sarah and went back to bed. The next morning, they all woke to find her gone. She had left a note explaining the situation and her feelings under her pillow in brief. They searched for her for an hour or two, but there was no way to tell which direction she had gone. Ned kept the secret hidden. Later that day in confidence, Tim said to him, ‘She spoke about running away weeks ago. I never thought she’d actually do it.’
Ned asked him, ‘Are we killers?’
‘Why, is that what Sarah said?’
Ned was torn. He shook his head and stared at his feet. ‘I have no idea what we’re even doing anymore.’
16
FALLEN
Part way through March, Ned started listing all the things he knew he’d never get to do in life: graduate from high school, go to university, drive a car by himself, go skydiving, see how everyone on The Walking Dead turned out… All these dreams and desires were irrelevant now. He had very little left to look forward to other than the basic needs which sustained him: a meal tonight, some rain hopefully this week, his bed still where he left it and a sky clear of ominous storms. At least he still had Moonboy, who was entirely immune to the tragedies and woes of his human companions. Dogs were impartial. Unconditional love, they called it. Ned found more comfort in his alien hybrid than most humans these days. Moonboy did not judge him for his actions; he did not care how he used his gun, whether for good or for evil. He never called Ned a killer, or weak, or irresponsible; all these conflicting opinions which he now reserved for himself. Moonboy still snuggled up to him on the end of his mattress at night, still chased him around the fields and played catch with him when everyone else was too worn out, and still smiled with a dopey grin, his green tongue dangling from the side of his mouth, as he reclined on the gallery veranda. Ned spent time with his dog when the companionship of the settlers had dried up. He whacked baseballs into the fields with his bat and let Moonboy fetch them again, or dedicated time to teaching him to roll over and shake paws. He was a quick learner. It was still a mystery how he disappeared so suddenly, only to wind up days later on the roof of the gallery, in a tree, or on the other side of the Ord, but these days he responded well to Ned’s call. With a short, sharp whistle, Moonboy could be summoned almost anytime, any place.
It was a sign of loyalty, he declared, and a sign of love.
One morning, the storm cloud rolled in as dawn broke. Skyquakers. Ned casually swung his bat and heard the echoing crack it made against the baseball. Moonboy ran off into the long grass, like a leaping black fuzz-ball in a sea of orange. He then noticed the wind turn unusually strong. The darkness loomed over. Thunder clashed once or twice, without any lightning. Moonboy stopped running and started barking at the sky. Ned held his bat casually against his shoulder and watched the atmospheric phenomenon drift overhead. He knew they couldn’t see him, a tiny speck on the face of the Earth all the way down there, and even if they did, he would not be worth their energy to chase. Long ago he would run and dive into the nearest fridge or body of water when he saw the storm, but there was this mutual understanding between him and them now, so it seemed.
You can’t get me and I can’t get you.
He whistled for Moonboy, who came leaping back over the grass to his side again. Ned patted his head. His long, curly alien ears were still poised and alert, and soft, little whimpers came from his mouth. ‘Don’t worry, boy. They’ll move on sooner or later.’
But the storm clouds lingered. They swirled around, creating a thick vortex of grey and white. Streams of cloud coiled in and out, twisting around and forming angry ripples in the sky, as though to be fighting with itself. The wind picked up stronger. A gap between the clouds began to open up, forming a tunnel through the thick mass. The eye appeared. Ned knew what came next. So did Moonboy.
‘Oh, shit.’
He latched onto his dog and curled up into a ball as the beam struck them both from the sky. The tunnel of purple light thundered down with the force of jet turbines, pounding into the earth and swirling around them like a tornado. The beam sparked with energy, giving off a powerful, almost blinding light in a single vertical streak.
But after a few seconds, Ned and Moonboy were still there. Gradually, Ned unfurled himself and found he was still sitting in a grassy field with his barking alien dog. He was directly inside the beam, inside a pillar of wind and light. The tunnel was five metres wide, infinitely tall, and yet he did not dissolve into glittery dust and vanish; he was still one solid mass of flesh and bone and hair.
He stood and looked up, covering his eyes from the glare with his hand. Something was coming down. He saw the shadow of something falling, falling slowly, floating down. As the shadow was lowered from the sky, it gradually moulded into the shape of a person: a human girl. She had long, mattered hair, dirty denim shorts and a ripped t-shirt, and her entire body, head to toe, was covered in mud and grime. Ned stood in amazement and watched the angelic being gently float down towards him. As she got closer, he held out his arms, as though to catch her. She drifted down slowly through the purple light, as though to be sinking through water. Ned was there, arms out, waiting to take her, but then the beam switched off, and suddenly gravity returned to normal.
The girl collapsed with full force onto him, and Ned, not anticipating the weight, was crushed underneath her.
‘I’m so sorry! Ow, ow…’ He pulled himself from under her limp body and stood, rubbing his shoulder which had taken much of her weight. He looked back down to see the girl was quite young, not much older than himself, but was frail and malnourished, muddy, reeking of urine and compost, and was unconscious. He did not recognise the face.
Staring at this body of a girl, it took a moment to realise where she had truly come from and what her sudden arrival implied: this was the first human being to return from the sky in more than three months.
‘Oh my god,’ he muttered. Moonboy stood hesitantly by his side, whimpering a little. Ned did not know what to do. He wanted to touch her, to see if she was real, but it was all too bizarre. The first to return: he had dreamt of this day since he woke alone in a fridge all those months ago.
The girl coughed and stirred a little. Ned fell to his knees and began shifting her body into his arms. He turned back to Zebra Rock and shouted over the fields, ‘Help! Somebody help!’
Ned came walking through the fields with the girl in his arms, shouting for help. Heads turned from the vegetable crops, from the gallery, from the fire pit, to see the muddy body in his arms. Moonboy danced around his feet, barking at her. The rolling clouds overhead thundered, but then began to part and drift away.
‘What the hell?’ James cried.
Ned could not hold her weight much longer and fell to his knees in the dirt. Elizabeth, Munroe, James and the students gathered around him and stared down at what he had found.
‘She fell from the sky,’ he panted. ‘A beam… it hit the fields and… and she came down…’
Munroe checked under her eyelids and held his fingers on her wrist to feel her pulse. ‘She’s not in a good state,’ he declared. ‘Help me get her inside.’
‘She came from up there and you want to take her inside?’ James roared. ‘No!’
But no one listened to him. The girl was hoisted up and carried inside to a mattress. James watched them disobey him. His red, scarred eye twitched. He spun back to Ned, who was still panting and staring in disbelief as the body of the girl was carried away. James sneered at him and his dog suspiciously before he followed the others into the gallery.
They lay the girl down and gave her water. She coughed it up at first, but then she began taking small sips.
‘She’s filthy,’ Violet sneered.
‘She stinks too,’ said Tim.
Munroe snapped his fingers and tried to open her eyelids, but the girl only responded with moans. ‘I think she’s been drugged,’ he said.
Ned skidded into the room. ‘How is she? Is she going to be okay?’
‘Not sure, matey. We’ll have to wait until she rehydrates a little.’
Dr Lizzie knelt by the girl’s side as her students stood around her with silent fascination. With a damp cloth, she wiped some of the mud away from her face, revealing her smooth, porcelain skin underneath. ‘She’s very pretty,’ she said, ‘and she’s very young.’
‘She must have escaped,’ Michael said, ‘which means the rest are still up there too.’
‘The humans aren’t dead, then.’
‘They must all be prisoners.’
‘Let’s not jump the gun,’ said Tim.
‘I think this is a bad idea,’ James hissed as he grasped his rifle. ‘Kids, don’t get too close.’
‘She’s not an animal,’ Dr Lizzie sneered.
‘She came from up there. And things that come from up there don’t come back the way they left: they get altered. Should we really trust what we’re seeing?’
‘You think she’s not human?’
‘She is human!’ Ned cried. ‘Look at her!’
The girl moaned and moved her head. Her eyes flickered opened, but then shut again. She mumbled things, but her words weren’t clear enough. Munroe said she was in a bad condition: horribly dehydrated, drugged up, malnourished, and there were old, fading bruises from restraints which once went across her wrists and ankles.
Dr Lizzie stroked her hair. ‘What did they do to you, baby?’
‘Her blood pressure is low,’ Munroe announced, with the end of a stethoscope held to the inside of her elbow. ‘We should make up some soup.’
‘You want to share our food with a complete stranger?’ James barked.
‘What do you suppose we do?’ Elizabeth said.
James boldly declared, ‘Get rid of her.’
‘No!’ Ned cried.
‘She could be one of many threats: a spy, a Suit in disguise, a Skyquaker hybrid, or she may be contaminated with all sorts of junk: viruses, poisons, spider eggs in her brain…’
‘Well, we have nowhere to quarantine her.’
‘So we shoot her.’
‘No one touches her,’ Ned said. He stood between James and the girl, defending her. ‘I’ll take the responsibility.’
‘You?’
‘Yes. I’ll take care of her and I’ll feed her, and if… well, i
f she does prove to be a threat, then I’ll…’ but he couldn’t quite say it. ‘I’ll take care of everything.’
James gave a half smile, slightly amused by the challenge. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Fine. She’s yours. If you’re all dead by the morning, don’t blame me.’ Then he left the room.
Ned relaxed a little. He turned and looked down at the girl again, the fallen angel, who was now his responsibility. She was, as Elizabeth said, quite beautiful. She was older than him, but not by much, although her protruding cheekbones and mattered hair gave her the physique of a child much younger. No one in the room had ever met her before, but she may have come from anywhere: the other side of Australia, perhaps even the other side of the world. Whatever the case, they had never seen a human in such an atrocious condition before, and it scared them. What were they doing to their families and friends up there? How many were still alive? How many were suffering too?
She had to stay, the angel. Ned could not let her leave without first getting what he desperately needed: answers.
Munroe checked on her vitals every hour, but she was still unconscious and druggy. Ned stayed by her bedside until she woke. He kept his gun next to him, just in case, although he doubted someone so frail and weak could be a threat. He stayed there all day and night, occasionally using a wet cloth to dampen her lips with water, rehydrating her bit by bit. Elizabeth was impressed by such good care he was taking and how diligently he kept by her side. He stayed there mostly so that James couldn’t get to her, and when he was asleep by her side, Moonboy was on guard.
Early the next morning, Ned heard a loud coughing and wheezing beside his ear. He woke and jolted upright. He looked beside him to see the girl had woken, and she was dry-reaching. He lunged for a bucket and held it underneath her as she vomited. Not much came out, just bile and saliva, which showed she hadn’t eaten in so long. Once she was done, she looked up to see who was holding her bucket, only to be confused by the human face smiling back.
Skyquakers Page 11
