I smiled at Tobe, excited, wanting to let it all out. But something in his face told me not to bother.
‘Dinner’s ready,’ he said.
‘But …’
He waved my demand away. ‘Save it. Now, shift your arse.’
Out of the blue, the sickly sweet smell of cooking meat drifted by on the wind. My stomach rumbled; I started to salivate. Food! I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten properly.
‘No worries,’ I said, happy to give in.
Tobe led us back to camp. We skirted the wall a while; it occurred to me that I had forgotten to ask him something.
‘Seen the girl?’
‘Nope. You?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Huh.’
Her presence out on the plain already seemed so much more ordinary.
We walked on in silence. More flies buzzed around, attracted by the scent of burning flesh. I bitched about them, pathetically trying to wave them away. We tramped on. My mouth wouldn’t stop watering.
‘Ta-da,’ Tobe said as we drew up to camp.
He had managed to drag enough wood from the guts of the wall to start a good-sized fire, its coals already glowing red.
‘Nice one.’
‘Cheers. Roo’s pretty much done, by the way.’
It was sickly pink in some places, scorched black in others. Tobe had found a metal pole somewhere and run it straight through the roo, so that it dangled over the fire, with both ends propped on piles of rocks. Red and Blue were tied up by the wall, straining at the frayed twine of their leads. They looked at me, their eyes wet, pleading. I somehow resisted, walked over to the roo, picked up a rag lying next to it, wrapped my hand and started to turn the pole. Tobe had even managed to shape gullies in the rock, hemmed in by capstones, so the roo could be rolled.
‘You’ve been busy.’
‘And you’ve been lazy,’ he said, hanging the dead rabbit from a shard of wood jutting from the wall. ‘Now, come on, eat up. We’re burning the light.’
‘All right, all right.’
I squatted, drawing my knife. A lighter patch in the scorched flesh told me that Tobe had already eaten his fill. I got to work, carving off strips of the gamey meat. It dripped with a clear fluid that sizzled when it hit the hot coals. I ate with my hands, sitting in the dirt, the clothes on my back all that separated me from the animals of the land.
‘Did you say something?’ Tobe asked.
I caught myself groaning. I was in heaven. Food … I was almost delirious.
Meat juices dripped from my hands and stained my beard. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, licked my fingers, and just kept eating. Swallowing my last mouthful, I burped loudly and smiled wide.
I was full, actually full. I felt like screaming it to the heavens.
‘Are you done?’ Tobe asked, denying me the opportunity.
‘Just give me a minute.’
I beamed for a moment, drank some water. I pulled out my pouch, rolled some bush tobacco, lit it off the fire. A magnificent lethargy settled over me. Tobe squatted by the cooked roo, drew his knife, cut away a dozen strips. He carried them over to Red and Blue, dropping them in the dirt.
‘Sit!’
They reluctantly sat. Tobe untied them.
‘Wait.’
They waited. He gave them a scratch.
‘Good dogs.’
They wolfed the meat down. They didn’t even stop to breathe. Tobe turned, looked at me darkly, started to pace back and forth.
‘Okay, I get it,’ I said, flicking my butt into the fire.
‘About time …’
I stood up, started to pull on my pack.
‘Leave it. But bring your empties, it’s a fair bet we’ll find some water in the Borough.’
I clipped a full canteen to my belt, clipped two empties next to it. ‘Lead on, MacDuff.’
‘It’s lay on, dickhead, lay on. How many times can you get it wrong?’
We headed north, which surprised me. For some reason, I had figured that we would head back the way we came, to either look for the girl or check out what I had found. But as always, Tobe was one step ahead. More than one, really more like thousands.
We followed the wall, staying in its shadow, glad to be out of the sun. Red and Blue trotted behind us, taking their time now that their bellies were full. In this new direction, the section of wall we had made camp next to soon gave way to a section made of these things I didn’t recognise. Squat and metallic, four or five feet wide but only a foot or so high—they were stacked tall, one on top of the other. Behind rust and dirt lay the remnants of paint—blue, red, black, yellow, white, green, grey. Each pile was jammed hard against the next, this new section of wall stretching on, the ground littered with broken glass.
‘Not much further now.’
We kept walking. At some point, I saw a metallic badge hanging from one of the piles by a rusted thread. I stopped, stared at it. Three lines met in the middle of the badge, splitting it cleanly.
I kept staring as an old memory thawed.
‘Tobe? Are these …’
‘Yep,’ he said, cutting me off. ‘They must have got a crusher working. I wish I’d thought of it.’
I pushed against one of the piles as hard as I could. I might as well have been pushing against a reef of rock or the earth itself.
‘Come on, mate, stop piss-farting around.’
Tobe was ahead of me, walking fast, almost running. Red and Blue started after him, leaving me behind.
‘Hang on!’
They caught up to Tobe. He bent down, gave them a good scratch. They gave him a slobbery lick in return and then bounded into the wall.
‘Come on, Bill.’
I reluctantly started running. Tobe was smiling wide, bouncing on the soles of his feet.
‘Shift your arse, mate.’
‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’ I hurried on, breathing hard. ‘Shit.’ I stopped before a gap in the piles, a long corridor wide enough to drive a truck into. It was maybe fifty feet long, blocked at the far end by a tangled mess of yellow steel. Sunlight drenched an open floor blanketed in dust, flakes of rust, broken glass. Red and Blue were already sniffing at the mangled wreck, tails wagging, barking occasionally, and presumably caught up by the scent of some wild animal.
Tobe waved me forward. ‘After you.’He was boisterous, filled with an edgy joy. It wasn’t a good sign. I took up my rifle, flicked the safety off. Tobe did the same. We stepped into the gap, the refuse under our feet cracking like dead leaves. The piles on either side were maybe ten feet long, the bottom layer of each sinking into the dirt. Beyond them, on the left, was a gap barely wide enough to squeeze through, sealed in by a new pile of jagged wood, scrap metal, lumps of concrete. To the right, a tottering pile of broken bricks and rocks butted hard against the immense pile of crushed cars. Past that, another gap barely wide enough to squeeze through opened up.
‘Bugger me. It’s not a wall, it’s a …’
‘Yeah, it’s a maze. I figured that out ages ago.’
We headed ten feet down the corridor, then fifteen, then twenty. We took it easy, slowly growing closer to the wreck of yellow steel. Red and Blue ignored us completely, still snuffling at it. The piles on either side were enormous. Only the occasional gap led deeper into the guts of the wall. I took off my glasses and cleaned them on my shirt, more as an excuse to look away.
I couldn’t help looking back.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me …’
That deep into it, the sheer amount of stuff that made the wall possible was staggering. I saw some of the same things I had seen earlier—broken furniture and whitegoods. But there was so much more, all equally ruined: garden tools, car parts, appliances, office furniture, road signs, industrial equipment, farm machinery, the very stuff that houses are made of. And still more: a department store mannequin, a pew, a wheelchair, a set of goal posts, a pram, an ironing board, a claw-foot bath, a mangled pushbike, a life-sized crucifix.
I tried to say something but nothing came out. Tobe kept walking. A low moan disturbed the eerie quiet, the great weight in the walls shifting and settling, shifting and settling. A grey cloud settled on me; I had to fight the urge to sit down, to pack it in, to give up. Tobe stopped at the wreck and gave Red and Blue a quick pat. They ignored him, still trying to get at whatever they had found.
Tobe leaned on the wreck. He looked at me without really seeing me, waving around at what we had found.
‘What you reckon?’
I didn’t answer, unable to tear myself from the exposed workings of the wall. So many lives must have gone into it, were still evident in it, were still trapped inside it. Only the people themselves were forgotten, not what they had done to fight off their fears. That would be preserved for all time: a monstrous wall of junk strung across a burnt-out plain in the middle of nowhere.
‘What a waste.’
‘Yeah, this shit’s rooted. Think of it—even just a ute-load, if it was in good nick, you’d be set up for a good while. Too bad, eh?’
I looked at him, my eyes dead. ‘Yeah, too bad.’
‘You all right?’ Tobe asked.
I whispered to myself: ‘I wish.’ Then I barked, loud enough for Tobe to hear, ‘No worries.’
I did the best I could to shake my black mood, trying to accept the fact that I was too far into our walk to back out, that I wasn’t a good enough survivor to make it home alone. Shit. I gave in and ambled over to Tobe, dragging my feet. Red and Blue ignored me, kept snuffling. Tobe smiled, his eyes shining.
The wreck was only a little taller than we were: an evil thing, sharp edged, lined with vicious teeth, a giant tin can that had exploded from the inside.
We looked up at it.
‘Any idea what comes next?’ I asked.
‘None at all.’
‘No shit?’
‘No shit.’
‘Well, how about that? Action man doesn’t know everything.’
‘Fuck you.’
The wreck loomed over us. Rusted strips peeled away, patiently waiting to scratch us. I didn’t want to climb it; it would be death by a thousand cuts. Catching the look on Tobe’s face, I figured that he didn’t want to climb it either.
He reached out, took a hold of a piece of wreckage and pulled hard. It didn’t move.
‘Here we go.’
He took it easy, moving slowly. Before too long, he was done. I looked up at him. Back-lit by the afternoon sun, a halo of golden light surrounded him. Poseur idiot. I wondered again whether he deliberately chose these times and places for their dramatic effect.
‘Nice view?’
‘Come on up and see for yourself.’
I pulled on my gloves, shook my rifle free, picked up Tobe’s, flicked both safeties on. ‘Here.’
But he wasn’t listening, his back to me.
‘Tobe?’
No reply.
‘You ‘right?’
He turned, looked at me, reached out, took hold of the rifles. He lay them down, reached out again. His grip was strong.
‘Yeah, she’s ‘right. It’s beautiful, that’s all.’
I didn’t say anything, just braced my feet against the tangled mess.
‘One, two, three.’
He heaved. I took a step up, my arse sticking out, my boots leaving dusty footprints behind. I found another foothold, took another step. Tobe heaved again. I scooted around, avoiding the ragged rusty steel, and made it to the top.
The wreck stretched on for another twenty or thirty feet, and then gave way to a bare-earth plain maybe a mile long. Beyond that lay withered bush. From our new vantage point the curve of the wall was easier to see: to the north and south this bare-earth plain followed it, the occasional blurry shape the only break in the monotony.
The far end of the wreck curved up and away from us, a rusted wave, higher than we were tall. I realised that we stood atop a bombed-out bulldozer. The floor under us was cracked, riddled with holes. Steel plates scraped against each other, rending the quiet. We moved carefully, stopping whenever we felt a tremor. I didn’t dare look up, eyes fixed on my feet, on the increasingly unsteady surface I trod.
‘Fuck this for a joke.’
I snapped from my spell, looked up to see Tobe hotfooting it away. He hit the steel wave at speed and scrabbled at it; its surface too slick to offer any purchase, he simply slid down, ending up in a foetal ball at the bottom.
I laughed. ‘Need a hand?’
Tobe didn’t answer, his cheeks reddening. ‘Watch your feet,’ he warned.
‘You’re one to talk—you should have seen the look on …’
Without warning, the plate under my feet slid away, clattering down into the belly of the beast. I almost followed it, treading on empty air. Tobe was back on his feet quick-smart, grabbing my hand, saving my arse. In the process, I somehow dropped my rifle, watched it slide toward the hole and the darkness. Tobe kicked out his leg then caught the strap with his foot and started reeling it in.
‘Cheers.’
We looked up at the rusted wave. It curved away, its crest only a few feet over our heads.
Tobe cupped his hands and bent his knees. ‘After you.’
I groaned, but stepped into his hands anyway and he boosted me up. I reached out, stretched further, found a handhold, pulled myself up, slithered onto my belly, almost slid over the edge.
‘You ‘right?’
‘No worries.’
I reached for the rifles, slung them on my back. Tobe hoisted himself up with a noticeable lack of effort and took a seat next to me.
We clung to our perch like two cockies up a dead tree.
Nine
The sun shone bright off the bare-earth plain. The bush beyond it warped in a heat haze. Only a few feet below us, the last section of wall stretched out, barely ten feet of cracked wood and broken furniture.
‘Right, no use sitting here all day,’ Tobe said.
I would have been perfectly happy to do so.
Tobe unclipped a canteen from his belt and tossed it onto the pile below us. The wood creaked but held; the canteen bounced along, rolled over the far edge. Tobe pushed himself off, landed heavily. A cloud of dust billowed up. The wall groaned. For a moment, it seemed like Tobe was about to fall through and get swallowed up.
He started jumping, the wood bouncing beneath his feet.
‘Come on, Bill, what are you waiting for? Bloody Christmas?’
I pushed myself off.
‘That’s my boy,’ Tobe said, catching my arm.
I turned and looked back at the rusted wave. We had somehow propped ourselves at the top of the bulldozer’s monstrous blade. Pushed hard against the blade, the pile of wood was splintered, broken. But it seemed to have done its job; the bulldozer had stopped dead, all the mechanical might in the world reduced to scrap.
I turned back. Tobe was already ahead of me, about to drop over the side.
‘Tobe?’
‘Look, mate, I’ve no idea how it got here.’
And over he went.
I pulled off my glasses and tucked them in a pocket before sliding the rifles off the edge and following them down. I landed hard, but nothing felt broken. I slowly got to my feet, put my glasses back on, picked up my rifle and checked that it was okay.
‘It’s time to get real,’ Tobe said, his rifle already raised, serious and shit-scary yet again. ‘Once we’re out there, we’re completely in the open.’
He waved to encompass the vast emptiness. I stared at it, reluctant to go any further, jumping at every shadow.
‘Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut and move like shit off a shovel.’
I nodded pathetically. ‘Okay. But what about the dogs?’
Tobe’s face crinkled. ‘Shit, I forgot.’ He called their names. Red howled, Blue barked. ‘Come on!’
We rested in the shade, waiting for them to conquer the maze-like innards of the wall. After a
while they appeared, darting out of a gap between two piles. They trotted over, happy and curious.
‘Shall we?’
We set off, almost running, dust trailing behind us. We kept our rifles up. The tree line in the distance seemed to grow no closer. Occasionally, Tobe would look down the sight on his rifle.
‘Bill, mate, check this shit out,’ he said at some point.
He wavered from the straight line we had been holding, hooking left. I shot him an ugly look, hating every minute out there. I was panicked—we were so exposed, so small. Reluctantly, I followed Tobe. Red and Blue ran with me, loving the exercise.
I saw what was drawing Tobe in, and I shut my mouth—a squat black thing was sitting ahead of me, one of the blurry shapes that were the only break in the monotony.
Tobe was walking around it, nudging it with his boot as if trying to rouse it from its sleep. In one hand he held a length of metal he had found. He climbed on top of the thing, started pounding on it. Dull thunder split the quiet air.
‘Oi! What are you doing?’
He didn’t hear me, just kept whaling away. I started walking around the thing. I had no idea what it was; it was an enormous tangle of black metal and piping, with fractured steel plates peeling away. It was vaguely square, maybe nine feet high, fifteen feet long.
I rounded the thing. ‘Tobe!’ I screamed, loud enough to make him stop whatever he was doing.
He threw the length of metal away and jumped down to meet me. ‘Yeah, I already saw it. That’s why I was trying to get inside—thought we might find some goodies.’
‘Shit.’
‘Shit is right.’
Painted on what I assumed was its bonnet, in letters bold and white, the dreaded initials: CRP. I sagged. Creeps … Tobe started to circle it, taking wide steps, trying to get its measure. I watched, wanting him to give up his quest, wanting him to lead the way home.
But I said nothing.
He wrenched a length of metal off it, turned it over in his hands, dropped it to the ground, rubbed his palms together. Soot and flecks of rust flew. He pulled his pouch from his pocket, rolled some bush tobacco, pulled his lighter from a different pocket, lit up.
The Rain Never Came Page 8
