The Last Girl

by Michael Adams

  My tablet gave me no comfort. Updates, feeds, posts, comments, tweets: they were at a trickle and that made horrible sense because our networks were now really peer-to-peer with no intermediary needed. Those who sent messages mostly replicated the mind-to-mind mashup: pleas for help, accusations, apologies, threats. But amid the mania I saw enough—

  MoroccanMalia: Sisters all dead! Brother killed them 4 dishonr think. At my door now. Heard me 2.

  GazaDove: War of all against all. PRAY!

  LondonResist: Social media’s been weaponised to suppress.

  Amy777: Montmartre on fire. Repent.

  DCDemocrat111: @NPR@NYT Gunfire at 1600 Penns Ave!

  —to know that it was happening everywhere.

  My timelines should’ve been filled with chatter and photos. Not one of my friends and acquaintances, near and far, real and never met, had posted anything—and many were people who usually didn’t draw breath without letting the world know.

  But when I scanned minds I saw how many were trying to disappear into other digital distractions. They had Shades on, faces buried in phones and tablets, noses up against plasma screens, earbuds pushed in so far they hurt. The music and movies and games barely made a difference except now the panicked thoughts came augmented with deafening sounds and dazzling vision. Letting myself drift into those heads it was hard to know which gibberish was people going mad and which was echoed jingles, which carnage was real and which was beamed from minds immersed in 3-D first-person shooters.

  I went back to the Captain’s Nest. Searching for hope in any direction. Everywhere black thoughts swirled so densely I was surprised they weren’t visible, like ever-shifting flocks of starlings staining what was left of the sky. The vigilantes who’d slashed Harry to ribbons now slaughtered each other for their sins on his front lawn. Streets all around were full of people scattering and cars burning rubber with stereos blaring. Up on apartment balconies loners hunched over handhelds and belted booze and snorted stuff. Along the waterfront people were literally spaced out as they kept their distance from each other and tried to lose themselves in their devices. Unfortunates who’d escaped without a phone or tablet or Shades clamped their hands over their ears and shut their eyes tight and shouted crazily against what they couldn’t help but hear and see. The sad, the mad, the bad: fragments of all their minds sprayed in all directions. I deflected them as best I could.

  Amid the frenzy there were also terrifying stillnesses. So many people had crashed out. Just on the promontory there were a dozen who looked like their power cords had been pulled. Most were sitting or sprawled, but one woman stood on the breakwall with her arms out like she was expecting a hug. When I tried to find her mind she was as blank as the others. More and more went offline every moment. In the space of seconds a string of people screaming along a path dropped one after the other, as if they’d been roped together and pulled into the same psychic sinkhole.

  The city had turned sepia. Like the start of The Wizard of Oz. Brown funnels of smoke rose like tornadoes. Everywhere my mind flashed, more fires were starting: spreading from dropped cigarettes, abandoned frying pans, smashed cars with ruptured fuel tanks, toppled power poles whose cables snaked in showers of sparks. Firefighters were helpless. Even if they had the presence of mind to get to stations and vehicles, there were far too many blazes and too few open roads. Whole streets were burning. Some people ran for safety but many were too consumed by arguments or devices to flee the flames and fumes. A terrified group of refugees disappeared in the orange flash of an exploding petrol station, its whump reaching me across the river as fire showered down to consume an entire block. The city was becoming a crematorium.

  I scanned Beautopia Point’s headspaces—amazed how quickly this new sense had become instinctive. My neighbours weren’t fighting fires yet. Only themselves and each other. Booze and drugs and screens provided some diversion. But those thin defences would disappear when bottles and baggies and batteries ran dry. Then there’d be nothing to distract anyone from everyone.

  Evan and I couldn’t be here then. Or when fires broke out nearby. My mum’s place. It might be safe. Shadow Valley was one hundred kilometres west. Trying to get there seemed a suicide mission. Staying here was a definite death sentence.

  We had to go.

  The BMW and Mercedes were in the garage. But I didn’t know how to drive. Even if I managed to get us going it’d be a miracle if I could keep us on the road for long. Born-again Christians said the Rapture would create traffic hell when Jesus’s biggest fans were sucked from their cars into heaven. What was happening was worse than that. A few motorists had pulled over. Were going mad in relative safety. Most were shouting and honking and freaking out. Slamming brakes. Jamming accelerators. Grinding cars. A demolition derby: multiplying exponentially in every direction.

  I radared from head to head around the hood, tried to find a way through. Beautopia Point’s streets were clear enough. But the avenues around our gated community were a maze of road rage. Bolder drivers made progress amid the chaos by mounting footpaths, mowing down fences, shunting aside other vehicles.

  Escape was still possible. Just less likely with every second. Thousands of people were climbing into their cars. Some wanted to lock themselves in with a stereo. Or run the engine with the garage door down. Most were like me: ready to risk the only option that remained.

  We had to hit the road.

  But just as I resolved to drive out I heard someone else planning to break in.

  EIGHT

  Number-three-is-empty!

  That’s what he thought as he ran towards our front yard.

  Kieran, I remembered. He’d been the guy at The Grocery who hadn’t said his pregnant girlfriend, Patty, was going to get fat. Only now did I realise that her and me and the bus kids and Troy had all been glimpsing different tips of the same iceberg looming up ahead, the submerged juggernaut of each other. When she’d been given the full view of her boyfriend and everyone else, Patty had locked herself in the bathroom and turned the shower up to scalding. Kieran had fled their home to try to clear his head.

  Distance didn’t help. He couldn’t avoid her doubts about the baby’s paternity any more than avoiding eye contact and maintaining personal space stopped other street-wandering minds from smashing into his. Kieran wished he’d escaped with his phone—something, anything—and he’d been about to wrestle a tablet from a catatonic when angry voices—Looter!- Thief!-It’s-mine!—sent him running towards the waterfront.

  Kieran needed to plug into something with a screen and a volume control. But when his mind searched the row of McMansions it was repulsed each time.

  My-house!-Got-a-knife!-Doors-locked-Step-in-here-you’re-dead!

  Until our place. Kieran couldn’t sense my mind. Evan’s registered only as the faintest blip of robots and boogers.

  Number-three-is-empty!- Get-in-there-now!

  As soon as Kieran thought it, so did a dozen other people.

  Number-three-Empty!-Place-where-guy-killed-family-Then-himself!-Stereo-headphones-Booze-Go-go-go!

  Mouths went dry and muscles twitched but the first person to make a break after Kieran was a bruiser named Boris.

  House-is-mine!-Kill-anyone-who-tries-to-get-in!

  Boris was a taxi driver who’d been dropping a blonde at Goldrise when suddenly she’d known he was picturing her naked.

  Christmas-present-for-you-honey!-How-about-you-pay-the-fare-in-trade?

  She felt the repulsive wave of lust and fled from the taxi. Since she’d gotten away Boris had drained his whiskey flask and been greatly amused by the misery around him. Gay sons, cheating wives, gambling husbands, sick daddies, suicidal husbands, vigilante cops, murderous crowds: it was like reality television beamed right into his head. That towelhead flying his plane into the bridge had been even better—like a movie but heaps gorier with better special effects—and that’s when screaming idiots had started deserting their families and fancy houses. Anyone who got too clos
e to Boris felt his fist or boot. Same went for anyone who thought shit about him. He loved that he could feel their fear and the pain he inflicted. But as awesome as this berserking was he needed a breather. All the stuff pouring into his brain was exhausting and he needed to blot it out.

  Number-three-is-empty!

  From the Captain’s Nest, I saw Boris sprint along the waterfront, shoulder charging people out of his way.

  Kieran felt him coming. Oh-shit-oh-shit-that-guy’s-an-animal.

  My adrenaline surged. I was in both minds—predator and prey—as Boris brought Kieran down with a flying tackle on our lawn.

  ‘I am an animal!’ the bully roared. ‘I’m the dog of war!’

  Boris’s first punch broke Kieran’s nose.

  I was flooded with fight or flight chemicals. Kieran would’ve left our house if I’d so much as shouted at him. But if Boris got in here I’d be better off dead.

  Fight: it’s all I could do. I sped down from the Captain’s Nest, feet barely skimming the stairs. When I reached the lounge room, I snatched up the .45 and trained it on the front door with shaking hands.

  Boris sized up our house, recognised where he was.

  The-gutless-shit’s-place!-Pull-the-trigger-Ha-ha.

  Him! He was the troll who’d been in Dad’s head, urging him to kill himself out of nothing but pure malice. My fear turned to hate.

  Boris stomped up our path, radiating fury to keep others away, feeding on their fear of him. Whatever had happened to the world was just fine in his book—if he could just shut up some of these pricks in his head. But I was the one prick whose thoughts were not in his head. Boris had no idea he was walking into an ambush. I saw how it’d play. When he bashed down the door, I’d pull the .45’s trigger. Shots would ring out. He’d stumble back. Fall down dead on the lawn. Anyone else thinking about taking the house would get the message.

  Someone-in-there-Can’t-hear-them-Shot-him-down-Cold-blood-No-way-I’m-going-in-Number-three.

  But I was full of shit. I wasn’t a killer. I was a scared kid. I didn’t need to take a stand. I needed to run like hell back up the stairs and hide with Evan in the cupboard. Problem was, even as it dawned on me that I’d left the door unlocked after letting the cat out, even as Boris’s big bruised fist closed around the handle, even as my every nerve-ending prickled with electricity, I still couldn’t move.

  Boris yanked open the door. Stood there hulking and snorting. Backlit by hellfire on the horizon. I was right there on the other side of the lounge room. In seconds his eyes would adjust and my painful departure from this life would commence. Boris slammed the door, as if that could shut out the world, and stalked into our house.

  ‘There you are,’ he sniggered. ‘What a loser.’

  I saw what he saw: my dead father and dead stepmother.

  I saw what he didn’t see: me.

  I was in plain view, not a dozen feet away, playing freeze tag for my life. All I could think was that Boris was like some fierce predator with bad eyesight that tracks prey by scent or vibrations. Because he didn’t detect my thoughts he didn’t perceive me.

  I flashed to an experiment we’d done in a psychology module at school. Our science teacher Ms Carlson told us we were going to watch a short video and our job was to count how many times basketball players passed a ball back and forwards. The clip ran for about a minute as team members ducked and weaved and threw the ball this way and that. When it was done, Ms Carlson asked for our answers, which ranged from eight to sixteen.

  ‘Anyone see anything peculiar?’ she asked.

  ‘The guy dressed as the gorilla,’ class geek Cybele offered timidly.

  Everyone guffawed until Ms Carlson rewound the video. There he was: a man in a monkey suit, strolling through the scene, stopping to beat his chest with his glove-paws. All but one of us had been concentrating so hard on what we’d been told was there that we hadn’t seen what we didn’t expect. But as soon as we knew the gorilla was there, we couldn’t help see it. Surely my invisibility had similar limits. If Boris suspected my presence, he’d perceive me. If he decided to go upstairs, he’d walk right into me.

  Boris stabbed at the TV remote angrily until he found a music channel to blast the house. Even the Fred Myers Experience yelling, ‘Hell Is Other Peeps’ wasn’t enough to banish people completely from his head—and some of them wanted to take the house from him. Boris tried to respond with bellicose threats:

  Come-in-here-Peeps-yo-tear-you-to-pieces-Peeps-yo-I’ll-Hell-is . . .

  What I tuned from Boris and the shared mind was—

  Hell-is-other-peeps-yo-gotta-get-something-to-drink-Gotta-get-the-boat-out-to-sea-Player-one-game-over-Can’t-stop-the-bleeding-Starts-New-Year’s-Day-In-cinemas-and-VOD-Get-into-Number-three-Take-Boris-out-All-natural-sugar-free-Mum-always-used-to-say-That-chopper’s-going-down-Only-Global-Finance-offers-interest-free-Can-out-run-the-fire . . .

  —a desperate kaleidoscope of emotions and thoughts and memories and plans spinning with commercials and jingles and choruses and scenes. Mass distraction was amplifying the mental confusion.

  Boris clutched his head—Shut-up!—and shouted so loud his lungs hurt. ‘Shut up!’

  I couldn’t help but startle. Boris sniffed the air like a dog. I stood as stiff as an obelisk. After a moment he went back to threatening—Stay-out-you-Hell-is-pricks-or-I-swear-I’ll-peeps-yo—the invaders out there who wanted in, wanted his TV, wanted him.

  Gotta-be-booze-here. Boris spun up unsteadily and lurched towards me.

  I didn’t breathe and tried to will my heart into not beating as he passed a few feet from me and disappeared into the kitchen. When I turned to creep up the stairs, Boris registered my movement like a drop in air pressure. He froze by the open fridge. Someone-in-here-Hell-is-Wow-vodka-brilliant-No-they’re-still-outside-gutless-peeps-yo-Kill-you-all-yo.

  Stupid and thick-skinned Boris still felt pangs of inevitability. Out there—on the waterfront, across the suburbs and the city— were a million pricks who knew what he was about and hated him for it. Even he knew he couldn’t fight them all.

  Die-trying-Tastiest-fried-chicken-Better-to-die-on-your-feet-Limited-time-special-Than-live-on-your-knees. Boris saw Kieran recovering on the lawn. Idiot hadn’t learned his lesson. Still wanted to get in. Ready-when-you-are-Queeran.

  Boris chugged the vodka. The fire in his belly took the edge off everything and he stomped past me back to the couch. Gulped booze. Tried to find Fox News. They’d make sense of things. Except they weren’t broadcasting. Hardly anyone was. He scanned cable channels. Wasn’t sure what was on screen and what was in his mind from people outside. Dazzling toothpaste smiles. Black and white geeks in a cemetery. Number three looming like a haunted house. Princess Hellbanga strutting a stage. Blood spraying from a wrist. Fat juicy burger with fries.

  You’ve-got-to-sleep-sometime-Boris-Micro-whitening-technology-They’re-coming-to-get-you-Barbara-I-could-go-around-the-other-side-surprise-Boris-with-Papa-La-Nal-baby!-Suicide-might-be-a-sin-Two-for-the-price-of-one-Conditions-apply . . .

  ‘Shut up!’ Boris raged. ‘Shut up!’

  The world got louder and brighter.

  What-do?-He’s-taken-the-car?-Fresh-daily-guaranteed-Trapped-Got-to-be-another-way-Give-me-those-headphones-you-Burn-in-hell-for-what-you-Make-it-stop-Ha-ha-Boris-is-circling-the-drain-Hurts-so-much-So-loud-Make-it-stop . . .

  ‘So loud,’ Boris muttered, the empty vodka bottle falling to the floorboards.

  He was going, going, about to be gone. This was my chance. If I didn’t do something then Kieran or someone worse would be in here next.

  I stepped towards Boris, raising the .45 at his fat face. There was just enough of him left to see me materialise out of thin air and to be seized by panic. That was good. I needed everyone outside to see me through his prism of fear.

  I held the gun with two hands. Not shaking now. I knew the safety was off. Dad hadn’t been able to put it back on. I blamed this bully for that. I remembered you were
n’t supposed to pull the trigger. You were supposed to squeeze. Where had I heard that? Some TV show probably. It was good advice.

  The gun roared three times, kicking in my hands, making my ears ring. But I couldn’t miss at such close range and with such large targets. Boris blanked out as my first bullet hole punched the framed Ken Done original above his head. My second shot killed the plasma with a satisfying pop. The final round went through the French doors and buzzed like an angry wasp past a guy in a tinfoil hat coming through our gate.

  My theatre had the desired effect. The people outside saw me appear briefly like a gun-toting ghost girl before Boris’s mind disappeared in a volley of shots. No one could be sure if he’d crashed out or if I’d blown his head clean off.

  Gun-crazy-bitch!-Like-a-demon!-He-didn’t-see-her!-I-can’t-see-her-now!-Killed-him?-Totally-cold-blood!-Gotta-get-outta-here!

  The news burned bright, getting hotter as it radiated outwards, an instant urban myth. Bitch had two guns. Bitch killed her whole family. Bitch got killed by her dad but came back to life. Bitch fed on the souls of those who crashed out. Bitch had been controlling minds for weeks. I didn’t care. All that mattered was that people were fleeing our property. Kieran was crawling across the grass, praying I didn’t end him with a bullet in the back.

  It was like I’d put a force field around Number three. I knew it wouldn’t last. At best I’d bought Evan and me some time. I looked at catatonic Boris. How long would he be out? A glance across the suburb told me that Jacinta was still offline. As far as I could tell—out on the promenade, in the other houses—no one else had yet come back from their blackouts.

  But I’d resurfaced in seconds so I couldn’t take any chances with Boris. In a lassoing motion, I unravelled the Christmas lights from the tree. Some had been broken in Dad and Stephanie’s fight but about half still twinkled merrily. I wound the entire length around Boris, binding his wrists and ankles, wrapping him in black wire and blinking orange, red and green bulbs until he looked like a yuletide mummy.