At that time of day, he might expect to find his dad worked on his rusting Holden Station Wagon. Or else, he would be repairing an equally ancient diesel generator he kept in the garage.
He knocked on the back door and hollered out. There was no reply He was getting used to that. He found the house key under a jar in the corner of the veggie garden. Good old Pete and his habits.
The unmade bed in the spare room looked inviting and overwhelmed by tiredness he threw himself onto the strewn blankets and fell fast asleep.
Early in the morning, before sunrise, Storm pulled the kitchen calendar off the wall and flipped it over on the tabletop. He found a pen and began to write. He told Pete about the caves Aunty described, and he carefully set out the route they would take to reach them. When he was done, he signed it 'love Storm’, and he leant the calendar against the salt and pepper shakers with the message facing out. That way his dad would see it first thing when he walked into the kitchen.
Champ nearly bowled him over when he stepped onto the porch. The mutt barked out of sheer joy and jumped up to lick Storm's face. When he told the pooch to settle down, it rolled onto its back to get a stomach rub.
“I bet you're hungry, aren't you?” Storm asked.
He hadn't thought about breakfast, but having company even if it was only the dog somehow made all the difference. He opened the refrigerator door and found a block of cheese, a chunk of butter on a plate, a moldy loaf, and a small paper-wrapped package from the butcher's. He threw the bread into the trashcan and unwrapped the slices of beef. He sniffed at the meat and satisfied it was not going to poison him, he popped a slice in his mouth, and then another. It tasted pretty damn good. He chewed slowly, standing in the doorway, watching the dog gulp down the remainder of the meat off the boards of the porch.
Clouds ran in long, narrow furrows above him. They stretched as far as his eye could see. Another weird sky and it was luminescent again. This time there though it had an intense orange quality to the light. On an ordinary day, he would have figured it was a clear sign of a weather front about to roll in, but the wet scent of rain was missing. In fact, there was the same acrid stench hanging in the air he had smelled the previous day when he drove into town.
Sitting behind the steering wheel of Stella's car once more, he bowed his head, closed his eyes, and turned the key.
This time the engine started.
He looked up and thought he caught the smallest movement in a side window of the neighbor's house. It was only a flick of a curtain, but he was sure he had seen it. A thin finger that held up the edge of the bleached green fabric. It was only for a moment, and the curtain fell back into place.
He got out of the car and walked up the steps. From behind the peeling red back door came the sound of a chair leg scraping the floor, or it might have been a walking stick. He called out but there was no reply and he didn't feel like trying again. If the old man wanted to be left alone, then so be it.
He got back in the car and rubbed Champ's shaggy head. The dog gave a plaintive whine.
“We'll find Dad,” Storm told the dog. “Even if we have to keep coming back until we do.”
He was pulling out of the driveway when he braked hard at the sight of two birds perched on the rail fence across the street. The fence belonged to Mrs. Sedgewick and so did the pair of Rainbow Lorikeets that sat on it. The two birds bobbed and bowed their bright blue heads like two old friends engaged in a lively conversation.
“They aren't going to last long sitting there,” he told the dog. “A cat’s going to have them for breakfast quick smart.”
He felt a chill down his spine. Mrs. Sedgewick must have set them free, and she would never have done that unless she knew she wasn't going to be back.
41
Sky Pressure
Storm shouldered the sports bags and walked up the path to the entrance to the surgery. He kept his head down to avoid seeing the sky because it was giving him the creeps in a bad way. It looked worse than the flame-reddened haze he was more used to seeing when the area was hit by bushfires.
He tapped the digits into the keypad. It hardly mattered if the alarm went off. Alarms were doing that all over town. What was one more among a hundred? Still, it did feel like he was breaking into the clinic. The lights flashed to verify the correct sequence and the lock mechanism disengaged. He turned the key and sprang through the door, quickly pulling it closed behind him.
The storage room was right where Franchette said it would be. He dropped the bags on the floor. This wasn't going to take so long after all. That was his first thought. But, his heart sank when he gazed at the shelves filled with neatly arranged boxes bearing multiples of scrawled labels; long words he didn't recognize, and each box differentiated by type and measure. There were too many boxes on too many shelves. Finding everything on the list was going to be much more difficult than he had imagined.
He told himself the less time he spent in town, the sooner everyone would be safe in a shelter, and that he would do his best. He decided to start with the largest items. At least the oxygen tanks were easy to find. It took longer to find the regulators, the masks, and hoses and carry holsters. Once he filled the sports bag with the heavy breathing equipment, he dragged it into the reception. Back in the storage room he looked at the rest of his list and groaned. He was only getting started.
More than three hours had passed by the time he decided he was done. He saw that he had crossed off almost everything on the piece of paper Franchette had given him. He gazed down the list of pills, potions, lotions, vials, bandages, syringes, and scalpels. Good enough, he thought. It was not everything she requested, but he had given up on finding any more. It was going to have to do.
Outside, the sound of rumbling was building in intensity, the sonic booms shaking the lightly built clinic and rattling the windows.
He stood beside the cash register and stared at the phone; surprised at the courage it was going to take. Perspiration dripped from the tip of his nose onto the Formica counter. The droplets quivering on the polished surface.
He picked up the receiver. He had a dial tone. With electricity and phones still available the situation was not as bad as it had seemed only minutes before. He told himself to calm down. It took only a single ring before it was picked up. The voice at the other end was Martyn’s, only he didn’t sound quite the same.
“Mr. Boas?”
“Hello again, Storm.”
There was no longer a familiar local twang to the voice. It sounded remarkably free of an accent of any kind. It sounded as the creature looked—colorless.
“I need to ask you a question,” Storm said.
“Go ahead,” Martyn replied.
“Is that the plasma you were talking about that's lighting the sky today? Because it doesn't look right.”
The telephone line crackled, and he thought for a terrible moment he had lost the connection.
“I have already told you everything you need to know,” Martyn said.
Outside, the air was reverberating to the sound of loud booms. Each arblast came in quick succession. Another meteor shower, only louder than Storm had heard them before. These were much bigger than the bolloid that stopped Shane’s car dead in the center of the road.
“You are wasting time,” Martyn told him.
“Tell me what's happening.”
“You would like me to say everything is going to return to normal. Once they turn off the sound and light show. Isn't that so?”
“You didn't tell me the end of the world would start the day I left Canberra!”
“Earth’s defenses have weakened. The planet’s electromagnetic shield has greatly diminished,” Martyn said.
“We aren't ready! I'm not…” Storm let a sob escape and the sound startled him. He bit his lip until he tasted the copper of his own blood.
Martyn’s voice came as if from a great distance. His words were muffled, and his sentences incomplete. Storm pressed the receiver into his ear.<
br />
“I—I can’t hear you.”
“You need to drink something,” Martyn repeated.
“Okay,” Storm said, struggling to hold himself together.
“Switch on the intercom system and leave the receiver next to the microphone,” Martyn told him. “And breathe normally.”
Storm stepped back from the counter and spotted the small console beside the cash register. He flicked the switch on and heard the speakers crackle into life in the corridor that led to the doctors' rooms'. Somewhere in the circuit was a loose electrical connection. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered to him except getting out of the building and out of Coona.
He saw that the office opened into a small kitchen. In a corner, a single sink stood against the wall. He turned the taps as far as they would go. They sputtered and coughed. He looked back at the waiting room and saw there was a water dispenser.
The large upended blue flask was empty but when he rocked it to and fro he heard liquid sloshing about inside the container. He held a paper cup beneath the tap and pulled the machine twenty degrees. There was enough water trickling out to fill his cup to the brim.
Martyn's voice came over the speaker. “It's time to leave!”
The first gulp went the wrong way, and he coughed until he cleared his windpipe. The remaining water in the cup spilled over his chest. He pulled on the machine again. This time he was only able to half fill the cup, but he was able to swallow the contents.
“You haven’t told me yet what comes next,” Storm said.
“I have told you all you need to know.”
“Tell me again!”
“I expected too much of you—”
Martyn’s voice dropped away. And for a while Storm thought he had lost him “Hello-hello? Mr. Boas? Martyn?”
“I'm here, Storm!”
“All right,” Storm shouted. “So, I'm slow. I didn't get that you explained everything.”
“I don't have exact times. I know the orbit of objects within the system is at this time taking them closer to Earth. You know enough to save yourself and your group. Each hour you spend on the surface lowers your chance of survival You have two days to find shelter. One more sunrise. The next few days is a practice run for the main event. If you survive them.”
Storm took a deep breath and steadied himself.
“One more thing.”
“Why not?”
“Davenport was going to make sure I told no one anything, wasn't he? That was the plan, wasn't it?”
“No.”
“You planned to have me killed before I talked to anyone. Like what happened to the others in the observatory. That's right, isn't it?”
“You're smart. You have gifts—your talents. And now you show me you are as stupid as the rest of them—Davenport is dedicated and as such he is useful. No, he was not planning to hurt you, and I never told him to do that. Do you really think I would expend all this energy on you only to have you killed on the way back home? Davenport's time here is almost over. Yours is not. You and I may meet again. But if we do—no—when we do, we will both be nearing the end of our allocated time. Until then, Storm.”
Storm gathered the backpacks. The bloody oxygen tanks were as heavy as hell! Shouldering the bags, he launched himself through the open door. The orange light reflected off the sheen of sweat on his arms, just as it did off of the white paint on the walls of the clinic. He dared not look up as he stumbled, half dragging the bags toward the car.
A droning noise was building to an incredible pitch. The sound was similar to one he had heard months ago. The whole region heard it. Some said it sounded like a stick run around the rim of a large bronze bell. Others said it was more like a colossal Tibetan singing bowl. It was loud. Loud enough it must have been amplified by the firmament itself.
His legs were shaking when he reached the car. Martyn's final words were echoing in his head. “Keep moving. Make haste to your sanctuary.”
The awful grinding ceased as suddenly as it began. He let the bags down gently to the ground, not wanting to break the vials he had collected, and fumbled with the keys. There was the rumble of another meteor passing over the town. He lifted the bags onto the back seat and closed the door.
Champ was missing.
The mutt must have slipped out when he arrived. He slammed the door shut and jabbed the key into the ignition, but he paused when he heard a wet slopping sound near his feet. He looked at the floor in front of the passenger seat, and there under the dash with its nose pressed against the firewall was Champ.
The dog rolled its eyes in fear. It licked the saliva running from its jowls and gave one long, pitiful howl.
“Hey, mate, we’re making it out of here. I promise.”
Storm knew he was talking to himself as much as to Champ, and he nodded his head to confirm as much.
Pink light seeped through the lurid cloud mass that tumbled and twisted into lengths like coils of intestine. It was darker now. As if something huge was passing above the soup of moisture and compounds between the planet and the Sun. The yellow star was struggling. It’s electrical energy, it’s very lifeblood, absorbed in ever-increasing amounts by the Dark Star. Like a bizarre parasitic twin, the closer it came the more strength it sucked from its sibling. Now, it was closing in on Earth’s orbit.
Earth's electrical field reacted too in unpredictable ways. Energy waves swept both inwards and outwards. Had Storm dared to look up once more, even with the plasma screen back in place, he would have seen small waves peel across the entire breadth of the gray mass. The rhythmic pattern resembled the pulsing underside of a living creature.
42
The Reclusive Orderly
The meteor shower had ceased for the time being. Storm no longer felt the apocalypse was upon him. The sky had returned to a familiar steel gray, but the rippling across the cloud base remained. The vast belly of a ginormous fish floated above the town. It was bearable only if he did not look up at it. That he had a target on the ground to focus on made it easier.
Black smoke scudded over the town, driven by wind bursts that made it resemble meteor trails. Most of the house fires began in the bush. The result of meteor strikes and lightning. The wind carried the embers under the eaves of the older houses where the dry wood shouldered until it ignited. Since there was no fire service, and no neighbors to come running with buckets and hoses the flames had taken hold in some parts. It looked to him as thought the town was doomed to burn.
His plan was to start with the outer ring road and work his way back toward Main Street. He saw the flames did not appear to have reached the better-heeled section of Coona. He might yet find a good set of wheels. A late model four-wheel drive with a full tank of gas was waiting for him in one of those richer streets.
He pulled up next to the curb outside a cottage on a tidy corner section. The place was well kept. He could see the lawn had been mowed only days before, and the gardens were well tended. At the end of a driveway stood a freshly painted garage with double doors that he guessed would be locked. The place looked promising.
Natural caution and simple politeness made him press the electric bell of the front door twice. He strained to hear a chime, but the house was silent. He waited a short while, but he heard no sound from inside. From where he stood on the front porch, he could see the garage had a small side window set in a side door.
He walked down the path and peered through the glass. The interior was too dark to see all that much but he could only just make out the shape of a vehicle. He decided it was the right size to be a four-wheeler and he would take it, that is, if he could find the car keys inside the house and if it had gas in the tank. First, he was going to need to take a closer look.
Storm kicked the door several times before he dropped his shoulder and braced himself to take a run at it.
The voice in his ear was soft. “Are you after my car?”
He spun around to face a large stocky man in his twenties and dressed like he was on hi
s way to the beach. The stranger stood barefoot in a T-shirt and board shorts. Yet it seemed to Storm the man did not look like someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. The short-cropped black hair, dark stubble, and purple rings under his eyes made the pale complexion even more so. He was a gamer. He looked like one.
“You want to steal my car?” The man asked again. He waved his hand in the direction of the garage. He didn't look angry though. Just plain tired.
“I was hoping to find a spare can of petrol,” Storm lied. “I thought the house was empty.”
The pale man eyed him up and down with an intensity that put Storm on guard.
“None of the pumps in town work,” Storm added. It wasn't like an explanation was necessary, but he knew if you keep talking people begin to relax. They think you aren't so smart after all. How the hell had the feller managed to sneak up on him?
The man raised his chin to regard Storm with the kind of haughty look a school teacher might use on an errant student.
“Why do you want to leave the town? It's just the same outside of Coona, isn't it?”
“What is?”
“The tornadoes, the meteors. It's all going on everywhere, right?”
Storm decided it was best to play the fool. “Ah, yeah. I guess so.”
“You guess?” The man asked in surprise.
“Look, I'm sorry for barging onto your property. Okay? I'll try another house.”
“I hid in the attic,” the man said, ignoring Storm’s apology and his attempt to end the conversation. “They didn't look up there. They probably thought old folk lived here. The hospital is only a block away.” He was speaking quickly like he knew he had little time to say all that was needed.
“Smart thinking!” Storm replied with a nod of acknowledgment. He was getting the measure of the man. The way he imagined a street fighter might size up an adversary. His opponent was taller and that meant he also had greater reach. Perhaps he should make a dash for the car. Then again, he doubted he could cover the distance before he was tackled. He gazed into the stranger's face. Mate—your eyes, he thought. Was it fear or craziness he saw in them?
Jubilee Year Page 20
