We Call It Monster

by Lachlan Walter

  “Yeah, yeah, very funny.”

  “You’re welcome,” Susie said with a laugh.

  Sammy waved her phone around. All she could see was a half-empty underground car park, the untold tonnes of concrete invested in it seemingly protecting it from the thing’s wrath.

  “Okay, now we can rest a minute.”

  Truth be told, Sammy didn’t have a clue what to do next. Her only thought had been to keep them safe: the possibility of them being trapped in a mausoleum for automobiles hadn’t occurred to her. She wandered back and forth, still waving her phone around. Susie sat down next to one of the parked cars. She leaned against it, shuffling around trying to make herself comfortable.

  Sammy started wandering determinedly, finding a corkscrew exit ramp that spiralled up and presumably ended at street level and was likely blocked by rubble, an emergency exit that was rusted shut, and a set of locked elevator doors.

  “I’m thirsty,” Susie said. She wasn’t complaining, she was merely stating the fact.

  “I hear you,” Sammy said under her breath.

  She gave up on her search for a way out that didn’t involve returning to street level and facing the thing, if they could even dig their way out in the first place. She didn’t know what she had been hoping to find – access to the rail lines that tunnelled beneath the city, a ventilation shaft that was conveniently large enough to allow them to get away, anything that would let them escape. Instead, she turned her attention to the parked cars that surrounded them.

  “Susie? Could you give us a hand?”

  “Could you give us a hand, please.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You forgot to say please.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. Could you help, please?”

  “Sure,” she said, and slowly got to her feet.

  Sammy took a few steps, until she was standing in the exact middle of the car park. She waved at the cars to her right.

  “You take that lot. Have a look inside, see if any of them are unlocked, see if there’s any food or water. Even better if the keys are in the ignition, then we can get some better light.”

  “Why?”

  Susie’s question took her aback. She didn’t really know why this was the course she had chosen. All she had was hope, that the army would defeat the thing, that a search and rescue would begin, that someone would eventually find them if they could only wait it out. She told herself that help would come. It had to come.

  “Why are we doing this?” Susie asked again.

  “Because we’ve got no choice but to wait. And so we wait.”

  “I guess.”

  This is Not a Test

  Every resident of every apartment building in the city knew the klaxon-blare of the alarm. Countless drills had disturbed lazy Sunday afternoons or broken the hubbub of weekday mornings; innumerable practice-runs had roused the residents from their sleep or interrupted their dinners or caused them to be late for work. What none of them had ever heard were the words accompanying the alarm:

  Evacuate now, this is not a test. Evacuate now, this is not a test. Evacuate now, this is not a test. Evacuate now, this is not a test.

  The words spoken were in a woman’s voice, her soft tones and calm delivery an attempt at preventing panic. It was a magnificent exercise in futility – all across the city, in hallways and corridors and stairways, people were already jostling, shoving and pushing, doing whatever they could to get themselves and their loved ones to the safety of an underground bunker. Floor Marshals did their best to maintain a semblance of order, barring the crowds that had begun gathering by elevators that were already packed to overflowing, valiantly attempting to direct teeming masses of humanity at its worst and most hysterical. For the most part, the Floor Marshals were simply unable to cope with the surge of bodies.

  In certain older apartment buildings, their infrastructure broke down as quickly as most people’s ability to maintain a cool-head. Stairways collapsed; fires broke out; overcrowded elevators either came to a dead stop or plummeted to the ground as their cables snapped. In the most derelict apartment buildings, entire floors gave way.

  ***

  In one particular apartment building, an old man still lay asleep, dreaming of the past and of people long gone. He twitched and moaned as his dream soured, began speaking under his breath, saying the word “no” over and over again.

  The klaxon-blare of the alarm went on and on, the words repeating ad nauseam.

  The old man woke with a start, his eyes full of the surprise that comes when sleep is snatched away suddenly. Without even thinking about it, he reached towards the bedside table and fumbled around, scooping up his glasses and slipping them on. Slowly and painfully, he sat up. Everything ached: his knees, his back, his feet, his chest, his teeth and his head. He groped around and found his walking-stick that had seen almost as many years as he had. He swung himself out of bed, leaning heavily on his stick. He plucked a tattered dressing-gown from a hook on the back of the bedroom door. He pulled his hearing-aid from one of the pockets of the dressing-gown, looked at it thoughtfully then tucked it away again. He shuffled to the toilet, slowly weaving through the apartment. He tried to do his business, straining and grimacing. He cursed his prostate, as he did every morning.

  He finally managed to pee.

  He shuffled into the kitchen and flicked a switch on the wall, drenching the room in light. Sitting next to the sink was a tin of instant coffee, a cheap electric kettle, and a chipped sugar bowl. Long ago, when he had been a young man with enough time on his hands to worry about trivial things, he had considered anything but espresso coffee an abomination. But years of smoking and drinking had taken their toll, deadening his taste buds and killing his sense of smell.

  He made a cup of black coffee and sat at the kitchen table. He felt the desire for a cigarette – even though he’d quit half a lifetime ago, nothing had changed.

  As he did every morning, he looked around the empty apartment and couldn’t stop himself from thinking about what he had lost. His wife was gone, his daughter was gone, his son didn’t care to know him. What a way to grow old… Nonetheless, he smiled to himself, a sour little thing. People had always called him a survivor: how right they were.

  After the attack on the city that he and his wife had called home their entire lives, their daughter had suggested that they move in with her. For the first year or so, it had been beautiful – their son had visited often, bringing his wife and children; communal dinners with the whole family and half the neighbours were a regular occurrence. And then one morning their daughter had been hit by a car. By that afternoon, she was dead. Six months later, his wife died of what could only be called a broken heart, leaving the old man all alone in his dead daughter’s apartment. His son had blamed him for their deaths – he was as crazed with grief as his father was, and just needed someone to blame. They had fought and argued; their world had shattered. Eventually, his son convinced his wife and children that they should move to the other side of the country, and told the old man that he would never see his grandchildren again.

  Left behind, the old man decided to stay in his dead daughter’s apartment, surrounded by his wife’s things. In doing so, he knew that he was choosing to be haunted by their ghosts.

  The desire for a cigarette grew too strong. The old man fished a half-empty packet from one of the kitchen drawers. Living alone, there was no one to force him to watch his health so there was no need to hide them. But still he did. He lit one up, took a long drag, started coughing, ground the cigarette out, kept coughing, couldn’t stop. He spat something thick and bloody into the sink, washing it away without looking at it.

  He shuffled across the room. He turned the television on but left the subtitles off. The early-morning news was full of horror: war and devastation, crowds fleeing, people running in terror, military vehicles pulling into formation, a sky full of jets and helicopters. The old man barely looked at them, turning away instead and sitting back down at
the kitchen table. He drank some more of his coffee, and once again pulled his hearing-aid from the pocket of his dressing-gown. He decided that it was as good a time as any to start the day, and turned the hearing-aid on and slipped it in place.

  He was confronted with the klaxon-blare of the alarm, which had been sounding the whole time. He heard the woman’s voice, heard the words being repeated again and again. He was taken by surprise, almost dropping his coffee.

  “Damn,” he said, as some of it spilled down his front, joining the other motley stains and smudges and grease-spots marring his dressing-gown.

  He wiped the spilled coffee away before plucking the hearing-aid from his ear and tucking it away in a pocket of his dressing-gown. He leaned back in his chair and plucked another cigarette from the half-empty packet. He lit up, staring at the coils of smoke. He finished his cigarette then lit another – he hadn’t believed that this day would come, and now that it was here, he didn’t know what else to do, and so damn his health.

  About the only thing he did know was that he was old and tired– his days of rushing and hurrying were only a memory; he had earned the right to do things at his own pace.

  He decided to have another cup of coffee.

  ***

  After a while, the old man realised that an alert-light built into his telephone was flashing. This had been happening for some time, but he had dismissed it as just a function of one of the many electronic gadgets that filled his dead daughter’s apartment.

  He slowly got to his feet and shuffled across the room. The caller-ID panel showed the words unknown number. The old man smiled to himself, imagining a bored pencil-pusher in an office somewhere far away, listlessly working through a database of the old and infirm, making a perfunctory phone call to each of them to check that they had been evacuated. He imagined how tedious this pencil-pusher must find their job.

  These thoughts made him feel guilty – at least someone cared about him, even if they were paid to do so.

  As he was about to answer the telephone, it stopped ringing. The old man shrugged; it wasn’t meant to be. He threw a dirty tea-towel over the telephone, so that he wouldn’t have to feel guilty about disappointing anyone else who might be worried about him.

  Something on the television caught his eye: a flash of a razed landmark that he recognised. He lowered his weary body onto the couch and found the right remote-control. Channel after channel was devoted to the news: blurred clips of an enormous black shape swimming underwater, computer simulations of what the city might look like if the shape made landfall, shots of panicked people being ushered into underground bunkers across the city, interviews with talking-heads who speculated on what the shape might be, mobile-phone footage of tanks and troops amassing on a pristine strip of beach, on-the-scene eyewitness reports, illuminated maps showing directions to the bunkers scattered around the city.

  The old man brought the subtitles to life. Bold white letters on a black background unfurled at the bottom of the television’s screen:

  This just in: the Unknown Biological Organism spotted in the bay earlier this morning has just made landfall at Altona, and is now heading towards the city.

  The old man changed the channel.

  Authorities are urging anyone in its path or still in the city to seek shelter in the nearest bunker. I repeat: anyone still in the city or still in its path should seek shelter in the nearest bunker.

  The old man changed the channel.

  All major roads leading away from the city are at a virtual standstill.

  The old man changed the channel.

  We are, one and all, in shock. And our shock is made worse because this attack, this unmitigated disaster, has come so soon after the attack on Sydney. And yet, even though we have already lost so much, we must stand strong.

  The old man changed the channel.

  I’m currently looking at what used to be a beach side amusement park loved by children and adults alike. The destruction that you see can only be described as horrific.

  The sound of the old man snorting with contempt interrupted the almost-silence that he lived in – he could think of a lot of things that were worse than the loss of what was effectively a playground.

  He changed the channel.

  Debate has started regarding what to do with our displaced citizens, as an anonymous source in the military has been quoted describing this particular UBO as having what they call “Total Disaster Potential.”

  The old man changed the channel.

  Worst-case scenario, the city becomes a radioactive wasteland. Best case? Untold billions of dollars in damages – what the fires don’t consume will be little more than scrap and rubble.

  The old man changed the channel.

  Both the state and federal governments have pledged to begin building temporary camps for those made homeless, with military and police personnel to work together in an operation unheard of in recent memory.

  The old man changed the channel.

  Follow the information on your screen to give a tax-deductible donation to those displaced by this tragedy. Please, spare a thought for those poor souls who have lost their loved ones or will have to start all over again.

  This last one helped the old man finally make up his mind. He decided that he wasn’t going to go anywhere. His dead daughter’s apartment might not have been his home for that long, but it was still a home filled with memories, both happy and sad.

  He looked around at what he would lose if he ran. He saw the markers of his dead daughter’s success, the things she had owned, the symbols of what she had done. The things she achieved – achievements that he and his wife had devoted themselves to making possible – were more than enough to justify the toil that had dominated their lives. His dead daughter’s apartment wasn’t just all that he had left, but the summation of everything that he had worked and fought for.

  He looked again at what he would lose if he ran. Doing this only strengthened his resolve to stay. After all, he often felt that he had spent his whole life running. Long ago, when he was just a boy, he and his family had been robbed at gunpoint and force-marched off their land. Weeks on a leaky boat had come next, followed by years spent being shuffled from camp to camp before being given the chance to rebuild their lives in a country far from home.

  Maybe the moment had finally come. Maybe it was time to stop running, time to stop fighting, time to say that enough is enough. Besides, he was too old to try and start all over again, and far too proud to fail in the attempt.

  ***

  The old man came up with a plan: sit out on the balcony and greet the monster face-to-face. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t bring himself to call them Unknown Biological Organisms or any of the other ridiculous names that people bestowed upon them. They were monsters, plain and simple. No amount of jargon or doublespeak would change that.

  The old man was halfway through making a cup of coffee to sip at while he waited for the monster to show itself, when the alert-light attached to his doorbell started flashing. Cursing aloud, he abandoned his coffee, shuffled across the room then looked through the peephole built into the front door. Sally Frost stood on the other side of the door, utterly resplendent in the orange and blue uniform of a Floor Marshal.

  The old man didn’t actually know her well, beyond the fact that her job involved a lot of travel, and yet she was one of the few neighbours who hadn’t been embarrassed by his grief. She checked on him every couple of days, even if it was only a phone call from wherever her work had taken her. And here she was again, both knocking on the door and leaning on the buzzer. The old man was a fairly decent lip reader – he could see that she was calling his name, asking if he was in there.

  The old man didn’t dare answer, didn’t dare open the door. They all cared so much, but he knew that the only thing they wouldn’t care about was his choice to stay. They wouldn’t care about what he wanted, and would drag him away against his will. It wasn’t that they meant him wrong, t
hey just wouldn’t understand. And so he turned away from the door. He waited and waited. After what felt like a long time, its alert-light stopped flashing as Sally gave up and moved on.

  The old man finally made his cup of coffee.

  He shuffled out to the balcony, dusted off an outdoor chair then made himself comfortable. The sky was a shade of blue that painters only dream about; it was a beautiful sight, the city beneath it peaceful and calm. The old man drank it in, leaning back in his chair. But soon enough something began to trouble him – it was too peaceful, too calm. No matter where he looked, he saw nothing to break the stillness – there were no crowds, no traffic, no hustle, no bustle. The footpaths were empty, the roads were empty, even the pigeons, magpies, mynahs and seagulls had disappeared.

  It was as if the city was holding its breath and standing perfectly still, in the hope that the beast might not notice it.

  And then something moved.

  The old man felt his chest tighten, but he couldn’t tell whether it was because of fear or because of anticipation. He removed his glasses, wiped them clean on the tail of his pyjama-top before leaning forward and looking again. Speeding down an otherwise empty street was a car that looked no bigger than a child’s toy. It shot through an intersection before spinning out of control and crashing into an office building. At first, the old man worried that someone might be hurt, but then three people bailed out of the car and disappeared into the building, only to reappear moments later weighed down with all manner of stolen goods.

  The fight hadn’t even started and already the looters were out.

  Vultures and parasites had always made the old man sick, and he turned away and looked to the southern horizon. Barely realising it, he pulled the half-empty cigarette packet from the pocket of his dressing-gown, plucked one out and lit it up. He didn’t care anymore. If the decision had been his, he would let the monsters have the world without a fight.