by Tim Curran
He caught himself this time. Drifting off with the door open. Stupid! He whirled, but neither Shane nor the kangaroo were there. The road ahead of him was glowing again, diffuse and white now. Was he getting worse? He closed the door and watched the play of phantom light grow brighter and brighter, then resolve itself into four glaring orbs. There was a low buzzing or droning in his ears. He shook his head gingerly to try and clear it. The droning stopped, but the lights remained, appearing to hang over the road. Something tapped hard on the window.
He jolted away, expecting the kangaroo. But it was a person. Shane. The door was opening. He lunged for the handle and pulled, but she was too strong for him. A flood of night poured in to consume him. That was wrong, it wasn’t allowed in here. Someone was speaking to him, loudly, insistently. Not Shane. It was a man, staring in at him like a grizzled owl.
“Jesus mate, look at your head. Ya have a prang?”
Was this real? He nodded.
“Anyone else with ya?”
He started to nod again, then shook his head. The man looked momentarily puzzled, then shrugged.
“Well, Jesus, ya'd better come with me eh?”
He allowed himself to be helped out of the car - “Steady. Steady. Ya right mate?” – and led across the road towards a ute with an array of rooftop spotlights. He broke away from the man to circle behind the ute, towards where he'd last seen the kangaroo. He got to the back and a gamey musk of blood and shit froze him.
The tray of the ute was full of dead foxes, draped haphazardly across each other as though frozen in mid spring. Inanimate furry muzzles pointed in false innocence. Tongues trailed like scraps of organs from between mindlessly bared teeth.
He wasn't going to get in there. He decided to return to his car. At least there he'd be safe, and could wait for a more appropriate rescue. He turned away and began walking.
“Where ya going mate? What's the problem?”
He pointed towards the tray.
“What's that? You need something?”
Clearly he needed to explain himself further. “Foxes,” he said, pointing again.
The man too looked back. “Yeah,” he agreed. “What about em?”
“I can't... I won't go with them.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“It's dangerous.”
“It's all right mate. They're dead.”
Of course that didn't make any difference. If anything, it just made things worse. He shook his head mutely.
“Look, they're bloody dead. I bloody shot 'em.”
He had reached the car. The handle of the door was cold in his hand. It was still open. Could the kangaroo have gotten inside while he’d been distracted? That stopped him. He peered intently through the splintered window.
“Jesus. OK, Jesus. Bloody hell.”
He heard the sound of metal slamming behind him, and turned to see the man unloading the tray of its burdens. They flexed limply in the air and hit the ground with solid meaty slaps. The last one bounced writhing off a tree, and only then did he gingerly approach the ute. He investigated the tray to make sure there was nothing left, then climbed into the cabin. A rifle was scabbarded between enormous front seats. A christmas tree hung from the rear view mirror.
They got underway. He closed his eyes, safe at last. He was glad they had gotten rid of all the foxes, but anxious about leaving them strewn on the side of the road. His consciousness drifted away to visions of the road covered in mangled furry bodies, broken forelegs trembling, shattered heads thrashing, spines flexing and undulating as though trying to rise.
THE RISING.
By Hayden Williams.
It was a kind of spell that came over the land, something to do with those Southern lights, the aurora australis that hovered at times high over the ice of Antarctica and were visible in winter from the southern extremities of New Zealand’s South Island. The penguins got edgy. At night you could hear the seals roaring for hours at the haloed moon, which for some reason became unusually bright. There were bergs breaking off that hidden continent regularly now, floating right up the east coast and not melting till they got as far as Christchurch. The whales were returning too, their backs breaking the surface near shore like bobbing black olives, like pupils dilating in a milk-green eye, as if even the ocean was becoming conscious of it, this sinister magic that approached.
Murray began to have nightmares. He dreamed of his long-dead working dogs, favourite old horses that died years ago, and relatives returning from the grave with warnings they seemed desperate to communicate. But silence was another quality of this insidious sorcery. The apparitions that filled his sleep were all mute. Their urgent signing eventually became furious – their bodies writhed and jacked, their eyes big like they were deep under water and drowning. That’s what it was sort of like – like being under water. Both the land and the sea were labouring under this alien force that weighed everywhere and filled everything with an urge to rise up above it, an urge to inhabit the air and breathe again. Others experienced similar nocturnal visions and were deeply shaken, but hardly anyone dared speak of it throughout the days. It was the community’s ‘elephant in the room’. And then, after the first meteor shower, it became the ‘evil in the forest’.
Possum trappers and deer hunters began seeing these ancient creatures reconstituting themselves from the rot and mud that stinks under ferns. They’d come back from the dark interiors of the bush and tell their stories, sitting in shacks under storm lanterns, one eye on the door as they tried to get it straight without coming off as crazy. Sucking rolled cigarettes down to their brown burnt fingers, their stubbly necks moving in peristalsis as they chugged back whisky. Big men used to the cold, trembling like greyhounds. Their faces like the faces of timid abandoned children. The bravest listeners scoffed, swaggered with machismo, stocked up their jeeps, went off to investigate and never returned. There was a silence settled in with a pall of fog that hung about a metre from the earth. Occasionally it was broken by screams, and the unnatural blood-freezing cries of unknown animals.
Then people started actually seeing these things for themselves, right there in the street – giant flightless birds supposedly extinct for centuries, ripping open trash sacks and shoving their heads inside to feed. Giant moa, like over-grown lethal ostriches, splayed three-toed feet the size of tennis rackets. They stood high as stovepipes, broad backs like the backs of horses. They were supposed to be long dead, but here they were, herding through Murray’s back yard. He could see the vertebrae tearing through the disintegrating skin. Their feathers clung in patches, dripping black ooze like murdered ink quills. Trails of filth dropped from the undersides of their bellies and gaps in their exposed ribs wherever they went. Their treacly bodies boiled, alive with maggots.
“This is impossible,” said his wife, Martha, as together they watched some kind of long-forgotten, Gondwanaland marsupial drag itself along with the loop of its neck. The abomination – whatever this creature once was – now lost one of its eyes as it struggled along beneath their bedroom window. They locked all the doors and windows and in the typically laconic southern way said no more about it. They spent a sleepless night in bed, listening to the shuffling and groaning of unspeakable things moving through the silver of the moonlit fields of their farm beyond the drawn curtains.
There was no choice but to leave the sheep out in the top paddocks overnight. They bleated until dawn, could be heard high up, moving quickly across from one side of the hill to the other. They’d be frightened as hell; the lambs would miscarry or come out stillborn in spring. It seemed ridiculous, worrying about it. But farming was all Murray new and in this situation he was clinging to it. It was unbearable, not being able to understand what was going on and not being able to do anything. He couldn’t even sleep. The dog, Bess, had been allowed inside and lay at the foot of their bed, whimpering and growling low all night. In the morning, Bess seemed as keen as her master to get out there and do something.
Heading up
to the top fields, Murray pounded a fist against the roof of the truck’s cab:
“Quiet down, Bess!” he roared, to no avail. Bess continued barking wildly as she chased back and fore along the truck’s open bed behind. Probably she could smell or hear mountain bikers using the track that snaked through the bush-covered foothills, bordering the fence-line about forty yards to the right. Perhaps it was simply nothing more than that. Mountain bikers always drove her mad as a meat-axe, and normally Murray wouldn’t have minded: he hated mountain bikers too – they rarely moved over to allow him to pass more easily, and they were always worrying sheep in the lower paddocks as they sped along the roads dressed in their bright ridiculous stretch-suits. So he would normally never have dissuaded Bess from barking at them. But now he was sure the guy on the radio was talking about farming in New Zealand’s South Island. That was enough to get his interest. Then he realised they were talking about sheep and cattle stations in Eastern Fjordland, Southland and the Maniototo, which concerned him directly. A spokesman from the department of conservation was ‘gravely concerned’, and someone from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Farming was talking about mass culls. He had just used the word ‘epidemic’. The plague of zombie creatures was causing mass panic and spreading some kind of virus as well.
The mud-spattered truck continued slowly up the steep rutted track that lead to the highest fields of his farm. The radio was drowned out by the noise of the creaking suspension as he crashed in and out of potholes, and the sound of Bess’ insistent barking. Murray caught the tail end of the radio debate:
“But if the virus that seems to be spreading outwards from the centre of these attacks is indeed – as some experts have suggested – airborne . . .”
“As I said, we don’t want to assume anything at this early stage . . .”
“IF it IS airborne, minister, then what use are road blocks going to be? What assurances can you give farmers that their livestock are going to be protected, and how will you compensate farmers like Terry McIntyre, whose entire herds have already been wiped out?”
“The government will look into compensation for affected farmers shortly, but at the present moment our priority has to be containing these creatures and bringing them under control. As I said, we have the best people working round the clock to determine what’s going on and how this is happening. Until then we will be putting a freeze on all meat exports and expecting South Island farmers – especially those in the Fjordland and Central Otago areas – to cooperate by quarantining all animals including household pets.”
The radio host thanked the minister for his time and began the next topic just as Murray reached the top of the ridge. Murray switched off the radio and let out a sigh. He’d heard of the McIntyres – they were a big wealthy family operating several large-scale farms in valleys less than two hundred kilometres away to the West. This was serious. He’d have to drive both his flocks down immediately and contain them. He’d split them into six different groups, he decided, and pen each group as far away from the others as possible. The heavy snows last winter had cost him, and as it was, he’d barely recovered from the summer’s worth of drought the year before that. Over the past five years it had become a vicious circle, having to borrow more from the bank just to keep the farm from going under. If on top of all this weirdness a virus hit the area then he’d likely be finished.
Bess was still barking. The sun was up, the fog had cleared, and in the green valley below, the river was reflecting light like a bright kink of wire. He felt better up here. The air seemed fresher, less in the net of that mysterious gravity. Wee McCusker – the dwarf who owned the neighbouring farm – was out in his top field too. McCusker’s sheep dotted the brown hills on the other side: Murray could see them moving down in a wide funnel, see the chrome of Mcusker’s quad bike flash suddenly in the morning sun, and then the tiny black fleck of his dog moving back and fore at the opposite end of the field. The morning shadows were long and purple, the higher clouds turning orange as lower cloud – grey and rain-thick – began flowing in from the east. The way the valley changed colour and the way the light played across it was beautiful. It would be heartbreaking to have to leave.
Murray thumped the roof of the truck again:
“Quiet down, Bess!”
Cloud shadows ran across the fields on the other side, moving fast. Then the first ragged wisps of vapour began to hide the tussock grass and lichen-covered stones that surrounded him. There was a freakish gust of wind that rocked the truck. Bess was suddenly silent.
“Finally,” he mumbled to himself. “She’s stopped her yapping.” He fished his cell phone out of the breast pocket of his fleece-lined tartan jacket. Someone had been trying to ring, and there was a text message waiting. It was from Martha. ‘Come down at once or get to cover’ was all it said. The message unnerved him. Martha wasn’t the kind of woman to be insistent unless there was a real problem. What did she mean by ‘get to cover’? She’d probably be looking up from the farmhouse below. Perhaps she could see some seriously bad weather moving in, or more of those . . . things.
The first wave of incoming rain-cloud cleared. In a gap of light, Murray watched a cloud shadow race along the face of the hills across the valley. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, but stopped – the cloud shadow began to wheel around, began to race back the way it had come. It must be a plane, he thought. But why couldn’t he hear its engine? He hunched forward over the steering wheel and squinted to study the shadow’s shape, but just then a second wave of rain-cloud rolled in, and the truck was swamped in cloud vapour.
He called out for Bess but there was no sound at all. Winding down his window, he stuck his head out and listened. At first there was nothing, not even the hiss of the wind in the tussock. Then he heard the first few drops of rain over the roof of the cab. A droplet landed in his hair. It felt warm. Murray called for Bess again and this time adjusted the rear-view mirror to look. The truck bed was empty, and beyond that there was nothing but grey-white vapour as thick as his morning porridge. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection and froze. Blood was slowly moving down his forehead. He touched it and saw it on his fingertip.
“What the – ?”
He listened again and this time heard something: the sound of someone running towards him. It was hard to determine direction but the footsteps were getting nearer. Murray saw the luminous yellow of the mountain-biker’s stretch-suit before he heard the strained breathing and coughing. The mountain-biker emerged out of the mist from the direction of the bush to the right. His muscular legs were marble white and dripping with dark red blood. The mountain-biker – now, for some reason, a bike-less mountain-biker – was pressing his right hand flat against his left collarbone, like someone swearing allegiance. The hand was dark red too, and it covered a terrible wound that was spilling red down the man’s chest. His chin was covered in blood as well, and his cycle helmet had somehow been split almost completely in half, a large section of it flapping lose at the back of his head. The man stopped abruptly when he saw the truck. His eyes – full of terror – locked with Murray’s.
Murray watched, amazed, as the mountain-biker changed direction and started running towards the truck instead. At a distance of about thirty feet, Murray could see the blood pulse from the man’s gasping mouth. At twenty feet he heard the bubbling and wheezing of what he now realised were supposed to be cries for help. Raised a Catholic in a very easy-going manner, Murray was surprised that the next thing he heard was the sound of his own voice reciting the Hail Mary. It seemed to be the only action he was capable of: mumbling this long-redundant prayer he’d been made to memorise all those years ago. Aside from that he couldn’t even blink – couldn’t take his eyes from the approaching stranger’s agonised face, which suddenly looked up into the sky and cringed.
The mountain-biker halted his stumbling dash towards the truck with only about ten feet left to go. He stood stock still, his eyes shut tight and squeezing out tears. M
urray was so transfixed by the sight of the wounded man that he hardly noticed how the cloud-mist began to swirl, fanned by powerful currents. The prayer stopped dead the moment Wee-man McCusker slammed into the left wheel-arch and coughed a lung-full of blood across the bonnet of the truck in a broad crimson stripe. Murray had the briefest glimpse of the giant talon relinquishing its grip of Wee-man’s head, allowing the dwarf’s stoved-in body to slide down the dented side of the truck.
Now Murray was moving. His heart spiked adrenaline through his entire body. At just five feet away, the mountain-biker crumpled, waving his one white hand like a flag of surrender as he began to pass out from blood loss. Murray shook as he wound up the driver window. He could hardly keep his hand still enough to turn the key and start the ignition. When he did, he revved the truck into life, slamming his boot down on the accelerator repeatedly, panicking when he realised he wasn’t even moving. He remembered the hand-break and disengaged it. The truck bounced forward and stalled.
The cloud-mist cleared for an instant and he saw it – gliding on thermals high in the air above the valley, its broad wedge-shaped tail twitching as it turned abruptly for another run of attack. It was impossibly large: an eagle, black and white like a magpie, but with a wingspan of at least nine feet. It stuck out its red-crested head and began to speed forward, its talons drawn up to its body like raised landing gear on an aircraft. At fifty feet Murray saw its wings were tinged yellow-green nearer the tips. Gore falling from its belly made it look as though it was spraying crops. At thirty feet the truck restarted. At fifteen feet the eagle opened its beak and let out a single piercing screech that echoed down the valley. The next second Murray was screaming in reply and pressing his face into the vinyl of the passenger seat. He looked up in time to see the creature’s monstrous talon punch out from its body as it hurtled over the truck: the windscreen puckered into the impact and popped, showering him with cubes of glass.
