The Last Girl

by Michael Adams

  As the roaring subsided, it wasn’t Mum I needed to worry about first.

  ‘Dad?’

  Dad’s eyes blinked open and he instinctively rolled away from the terrible noise and straight into Stephanie’s body and the pool of her blood. As he scrabbled away he remembered the blind hatred that had seized him as he attacked her. Then there was nothing. He figured he must have suffered a murderer’s blackout.

  Oh-my-God-I-killed-her.

  Dad’s head hurt. But it didn’t just hurt. It seethed with voices.

  Oh-my-God-He-killed-them-all.

  The horizon was ablaze. It couldn’t be a coincidence. He wasn’t a forty-something marketing guy anymore. He was a biblical sinner whose blood crime had triggered the end of days. He could hear the heavenly host screaming its Last Judgement.

  Killed-them-all-Bastard-Why-did-he—

  ‘Dad!’ I shouted. Dad!

  He didn’t hear my voice over the whirlwind of noise and he couldn’t hear my thoughts. When I struggled to get up, my legs were like wet spaghetti.

  Dad saw the police lights strobing against the lounge-room windows and heard the mob of angry minds clamouring in the street outside.

  You-can’t-escape-Pay-what-you-did-to-your-daughter-String-you-up . . .

  Terrified, stunned, Dad thought the worst.

  ‘Danby?’ he cried. ‘Evan?’ Danby? Evan?

  Without realising he was doing it, his mind searched for me and for Evan. I wasn’t there. Evan was in darkness. Dad thought he was responsible. That he’d killed us in his fugue state.

  ‘No!’ I was on my feet, staggering to the stairs.

  Dad had the wall-safe open. Unwrapping the .45 he’d bought during his brief dalliance with club pistol shooting. Kept because Stephanie feared home invasion.

  I stumbled down the stairs. He’d have to hear me now.

  ‘Don’t, Dad, don’t!’

  But Steve was revving his cop car and blasting its sirens to scatter the mob. Dad didn’t understand what was happening. He just wanted it to be over.

  Pull-the-trigger! A troll voice surged out of the thoughts. They’ll-rip-you-to-pieces-You-gutless-bastard.

  So-sorry-Robyn-Steph-Evan-Danby.

  Another millisecond and Dad might have processed that it was me tumbling off the landing, that the cop car was burning rubber away from our house, that the mob wanted to murder someone else. But he pulled the trigger. I experienced my father’s exit from life before the gun’s blast reached my ears, before the wisp of smoke escaped the scorched hole in his skull, before the abstraction of bone and blood sprayed onto the white wall behind him. Dad was there. Then he wasn’t.

  ‘No! No! No! No!’

  Dad’s body sagged and twisted and bumped off the couch as the gun spun across the floor and came to rest by those novelty socks. I stumbled backwards, heart shattering, fell against the stairs, barely able to breathe through choking sobs.

  ‘Dad!’ I couldn’t even be alone with my shock and grief because the suffering and horror from the bridge smashed into me ceaselessly.

  Can’t-get-seatbelt-off-Door-won’t-open-God-help-Can’t-see-So-much-smoke . . .

  People had been peeled and chopped and crushed. Scorched victims staggered amid burning luggage and beneath corpses hanging like hellish laundry from twisted girders. The roads had been punctured by debris and ripped by the shockwave. Survivors crawling from shattered cars found blazing fuel blocking what might’ve been escape routes. The only way off the bridge was to climb the walkway fences. Brave the barbed wire. Summon the courage to jump. But below them the harbour was on fire.

  Gotta-let-go-Can’t-jump-Can’t-burn-Oh-God-not-this-Not-ready-to-die!-Not-like-this!

  Almost as awful were all the unconcerned minds in unscathed bodies spread out across the city and suburbs.

  Trivially focused. Got-it-all-on-camera-Gotta-upload-Get-a-million-views-it’ll . . .

  Told-ya so-ing. Always-said-this-was-gonna-happen-Check-my-blog-I-knew . . .

  Thinking ahead. I-don’t-care-this-is-my-chance-to . . .

  Enjoying themselves. Awesome-like-best-special-effects-ever . . .

  Everyone’s everythink piled up and up—

  Will-this-affect-the-post-Christmas-sales?-No-way-I’m-going-back-to-Iran!-Leave-me-alone!-Get-out-of-my-mind-Gotta-get-headphones-What’s-going-on?-But-you’re-my-brother-So-much-noise-Make-it-stop-Get-away-from-me-Car-stereo-Can’t-hear-myself-think-Shut-this-out-Can’t-breathe-So-much-blood-Oh-no-Please-please-wake-up-This-can’t-be-real-Not-possible-I-have-to . . .

  —and pushed me down, down, down.

  Down through the stairs, through the house’s foundations, through the dirt beneath and the clay under that, through the crust of the earth.

  Killed-Danby-then-shot-himself-I-can’t-believe-it-It’s-true-Lock-myself-in-TV-room-This-is-my-house-You-get-out-Don’t-take-the-car-They’re-my-insides-coming-out-You-wouldn’t-stab-I’ll-freaking-kill-you-Can’t-stop-the-bleeding-Where-is-she?- Can’t-see-Hurts-so-much-Just-swallow-those-pills-and . . .

  The thoughts followed me into the hole—

  Help-us-please-Oh-my-God-She’s-dead-I’m-bleeding-to-death-Better-this-way-How-dare-you?-Not-my-fault-Turn-the-volume-up-block-it-out-I’m-falling-I’m—

  Not-like-this-not-like-not—

  —and then they were gone and so was I.

  Everything ended in the void. Moments passed like millennia. Maybe it was the other way. It wasn’t light or dark. No macro or micro majesty. Stars didn’t blaze and burn out with the grand turning of galactic gears. God particles didn’t spark brilliantly reconfiguring cosmic building blocks. I was a fossilised grey bacterial speck. The merest shadow of the most marginal and meaningless life form. Embedded in a tiny dying planet. Forgotten and adrift forever in the frigid and infinite nothing.

  Then there was the word—echoing across all of time and space—and the word was . . .

  Chocopops!

  SEVEN

  Chocopops!-Chocopops!-Chocopops!

  Evan’s appetite often came on suddenly and now the purity of his hunger jolted me free of the endless static sea. I opened my eyes and gasped as though surfacing from deep under water. Across the room Dad’s fingers twitched. I’d only been in that nothing place a few seconds. Seeing Dad like that hurt so much I wanted to go back.

  Chocopops!-Chocopops!

  I tuned into Evan upstairs, safe in his bedroom cupboard, oblivious to anything except the emptiness in his stomach. My little brother had shut out all the light and noise by burrowing into Big Bear and Sandypants and his other soft-toy guys. That was the darkness and silence Dad had mistaken for him being dead. Now he’d come up for air. Hugging his guys helped him block out the scary sounds outside and the strange scary voices that seemed to be inside him. But there was no way he could ignore the grumbling in his tummy. Mummy said breakfast would be after presents. It must be time now for Chocopops!

  Dad’s gun glinted at me from across the floor. It seemed to beckon me to do what he’d done. I knew he hadn’t suffered. The bullet had ended his pain. It could be the same for me. Over in an instant. Countless others were killing themselves—swallowing pills, slicing veins, fashioning nooses—so they could be free. But I couldn’t leave Evan behind to fend for himself any more than I could shoot him and turn the gun on myself.

  Chocopops!

  What I realised was that Evan was now out front of the million other minds. It was like being able to zero in on a single person speaking at a loud party. Tuning into him turned everyone else down. That gave me hope this thing might subside enough for us to survive.

  I stumbled into the kitchen, trying to be single-minded like Evan, and concentrated on filling a plastic cup with the brown cereal and getting him the bottle of milk he’d use to wash it down.

  ‘Evan?’ I said softly, opening the cupboard door. ‘Chocopops.’

  He blinked up from Big Bear’s embrace.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked.

  I knew he was. The deep
grooves of his mind had so far protected him from the worst of what had happened.

  ‘I brought your Shades too.’

  Chocopops-Snotbots!

  ‘Chocopops!’ he said. ‘Snotbots!’

  When Evan reached for his treats, I caught him in a hug. The closeness enveloped me, ushered me deep into his safe place, banished extrasensory sights and sounds. But it was more than that. In that moment I was somewhere that was the opposite of the lonely abyss. Connectedness, oneness, unity. It was a glimpse of what this phenomenon might offer—if only we could resist the power of negative thinking.

  Chocopops-Snotbots-Let-go-squashy.

  Evan nudged me out of his sphere and took the cup and bottle and Shades and retreated into his cave. He’d eat the little sugary pellets one by one as he replayed the game he’d mastered months ago. While he was occupied, I had to figure out what the hell I could do about whatever the hell was happening.

  ‘You stay in there, okay?’ I said, closing the door, wishing I could hide in there with him.

  Through Evan’s bedroom window, Sydney was much worse than it had been just minutes ago. Whatever was left of the bridge was lost inside smoke. When I sent my mind there I couldn’t see or hear anything. The people had burned up, bled out or jumped into oblivion. But there was suffering across the city. The spectrum ranged from simple loneliness, swampy sadness and family anger to neighbourhood brawls, car crash agonies and house-fire horrors. Skipping around, like changing channels, brought weird flashes. The zoo maintenance guy running elatedly ahead of the frenzied chimpanzees he’d just set free. The nurse weeping with her own bravery as she switched off life-support systems. The professional clown slathering on make-up because he could surely save the world with a chain reaction of laughter.

  Off Beautopia Point, the river was being swallowed up in a sooty haze. Bitter fumes stung my nostrils. But there was something worse underneath the synthetic smoke. Something charred and greasy. Then I knew. I was breathing people particles. My gut heaved and I spewed out the window until my stomach was empty.

  I straightened up, wiped my mouth, staggered away from the smell and into my own room. I slumped onto my bed, sent my mind into the cloud of crazy for signs of sanity. They were there—people beaming care at family and friends, good Samaritans pleading for calm to strangers—but they could barely be heard above the human tabloids broadcasting the worst about themselves and others.

  ‘Jacinta,’ I said, trying to clear everything from my mind so I could find her. Jacinta.

  My best friend was hiding under her bed, freaked out by much more than just her parents’ confession and the plane hitting the bridge. In the chaos she saw my dad see Stephanie dead on the floor and think he’d killed her and me and Evan before he killed himself. Jacinta didn’t want to believe I was dead but she couldn’t find me anywhere. She couldn’t believe her downstairs neighbour had sealed himself in his apartment with the gas turned on. She couldn’t believe guys were stripping off in front of mirrors so everyone could see.

  Jacinta started laughing. It was funny because none of it was real. She wasn’t adopted. The bridge hadn’t been blown up. Me and my family weren’t dead. People weren’t killing themselves. Perverts weren’t using the mind-sharing to expose themselves. Jacinta knew what this was: a nightmare. She just couldn’t wake up. She put on her Shades and figured if she couldn’t stop the dream she’d fill it up with so much noise and light that nothing else could get in. Hellbanga Live In Rome blasted her ears and eyes. It helped only a bit. Even the three-dimensional pyrotechnics of the wimpled superstar belting out ‘Papa La Nal’ couldn’t quell the thoughts rioting in my friend’s head.

  I grabbed my phone and messaged Jacinta.

  I’M NOT DEAD popped up in a speech bubble from my profile photo hovering over Hellbanga.

  Oh-thank-God-dream’s-changing-Everything’s-gonna-be-okay-Dan-why-can’t-I—

  I followed with: NOT A DREAM

  ‘Message,’ she said to make the Shades do their thing. ‘What’s happening, Dan? This is so—’

  Even as the speech-recognised words flashed onto my screen I heard her thoughts going elsewhere.

  If-this-was-real-then-Dan-would-know-about-Finn-and-she’d—Jacinta felt sick about going back into Mollie’s party after the paramedics had left.

  Oh, you bitch! My stomach roiled reflexively. I was so glad she couldn’t hear my mind. This was the stupid shit that was spiralling out of control and making people insane. But it was easier for me to take the high road: Jacinta wasn’t in my head and ferreting out that I’d been the one who dobbed her in for smoking last year.

  DONT CARE—I sent the message, fighting to keep focus.

  It appeared on her lenses. Jacinta felt relief—then more guilty panic for agreeing with Emma and Madison that I could be a self-righteous bitch.

  SOMETIMES I AM! I tapped.

  I sent my mind after Emma. Nothing. Her family had gone to Aspen. I couldn’t find Madison. She was in Cairns with her mother. I got the sense this thing was like a wi-fi signal that weakened over distance. Either that or my friends were dead.

  This-is-what-happened-to-you-at-Mollie’s. Jacinta’s thoughts burned helplessly across Beautopia Point. You-you!-You-were-patient-zero-You-infected-everyone.

  ‘Sorry, Dan, don’t mean it!’ Jacinta said and that message hit my screen even as she thought, Why-can’t-I-hear-you?-This-isn’t-fair.

  I called her.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Jacinta cried in a ragged voice. Am-I-going-to-die? ‘I’m so scared!’

  ‘I don’t know!’ was all I could say. ‘I don’t know.’

  How frightened I sounded to her wasn’t helping. This echo chamber could drive you crazy in no time. I tried to avert my mind from hers. Listen only to what she was saying out loud.

  ‘I can’t wake up!’ Jacinta yelled. ‘It’s all too much.’

  She was struggling to hear herself above the torrential updates flooding her head. Her dad wishing he’d never even gotten married. Finn protesting to her and other girls that he wasn’t a user. Mollie screaming at her mum at the rehab resort. The woman next door chanting ‘Begone Satan!’ as she held knives like a crucifix. The old fart downstairs hoping the gas cancelled him quickly.

  ‘Jacinta, focus!’ I said, trying to fake control. ‘Don’t worry about what other people are thinking!’

  Generations of mums had offered it as standard operating advice. It applied now more than ever.

  ‘There’s nowhere to hide,’ Jacinta whimpered. ‘They’re inside my mind! They know everything!’

  ‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about—’

  ‘I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!’ Jacinta screamed, barely able to hear herself over everything. ‘I can’t take this!’

  She quit the call and disappeared back into her Shades with total blocking enabled.

  ‘No!’ I yelled.

  COME OVER HERE! I messaged.

  I saw it didn’t get through. But I also saw Jacinta was having trouble seeing and hearing Princess Hellbanga. My friend was lost in what everyone else was thinking.

  Leave-me-alone-Rapture’s-not-coming-The-oven’s-on-fire-Gotta-staunch-bleeding.

  She’s-so-scared-Don’t-care-Nothing-matters-Stab-anyone-who-comes-in . . .

  Our-Father-who-art-Petrol-tank-is-only-half-full-Won’t-get-far . . .

  At-least-food-in-fridge-Those-poor-people-on . . .

  Swallow-this-and-it’s-done-Sinking-down . . .

  Might-be-okay-I’m-falling . . .

  No-can’t-let-go . . .

  No-No-No!

  Then Jacinta’s mind went.

  ‘No!’ I shouted uselessly.

  I called. Voicemail.

  ‘Jacinta, please call me, please!’

  I couldn’t get through to her now and I couldn’t get to her place without leaving Evan. All I could do was hope my friend rebooted as fast as I had.

  I tried to find Mum again. Nothing. I called her landline.


  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘. . . you’ve called Robyn.’

  Shit. I waited till the message finished.

  ‘Mum, it’s Danby!’ I sobbed. ‘Please pick up! Please! Dad’s . . . oh God . . . Dad’s . . . he’s dead! Stephanie too. I don’t know what’s happening. Everything’s going crazy. I don’t know what to do! Please call me! I love you!’

  I didn’t know what it meant that she hadn’t answered. What I hoped was that Shadow Valley wasn’t being affected. I let out a dark little laugh as I imagined Mum out in her garden and oblivious to what was happening. Her pride at being so ‘out of the loop’ wasn’t looking so loopy.

  I wondered how far this thing had spread. Maybe other cities weren’t affected. Maybe they were coming to help. ‘On,’ I said to my television and my tablet.

  We’d taken it for granted that the apocalypse would be televised. In every scenario I’d ever imagined, when the end was nigh it was on every channel. Hazmat workers would torch plague victims as epidemiologists gave their terminal prognosis. Officials would tell us to duct-tape ourselves inside as the airborne toxic events claimed more capitals. Riots cops would shoot looters as the asteroid became bigger than the sun in the sky. Valiant news anchors would promise to stay on air until the very end. Yeah, there was none of that.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’m hearing about the crisis,’ shouted a red-faced host on the local news. She was only half in shot, framed by unfilled green screen, railing at an unseen someone. ‘I’m hearing you’re replacing me because I’m too—’

  Another channel showed a live stream from inside a cathedral where churchgoers scuffled amid the pews. The national broadcaster had an unblinking grey-haired man whose spit-flecked lips made him look demonic. On Fox News two beefy blowhards slugged it out with Santa Claus. A CNN a journalist blubbered into his hands while the BBC’s screen was simply empty.