by JM HART
“You know you have to wear protective gear next time!” Amy yelled.
“What about me?” Sophia called.
Casey circled back. Sophia was grinning with excitement and hopped on as soon as he pulled up. This time she put her arms around his waist. Butterflies danced in his stomach, his face felt like he had stepped into a sauna. Anxious to have the wind cool his face he put the bike into first and turned to ride back to the front gate. Another great feeling; being on a motorcycle, he thought. It couldn’t get better than this.
Having fun was energizing. After the adults finished playing with the bike Casey and Sophia had one more turn, then parked it in the garage. Casey kicked an old coaster under the stand after he positioned the bike just right.
Sophia waited and fiddled with the odds and ends in the barn. “While I was on the back of the motorcycle,” she said, “I saw us riding again. We weren’t alone, and I don’t mean Joe and Terry. Those from the other side of the world are going to have a turn on your Bonneville. They are coming to us.”
*
It had been a long day. After spending last night in the basement, Casey was extremely tired. He didn’t want to sleep, though, and he was worried that when he woke, Sophia would be gone and it had just been a dream. But his eyes were not going to stay open unless he pinned them to his eyebrows. They were all sitting in the lounge room and he had his legs flung over the arm of the chair next to the bookshelves. Amy and Terry had their legs curled up on the sofa. Father McDonald and Joe sat in the armchairs facing them. Sophia was only an arm’s length away, the coffee table with the lamp on it between them; it was the only thing separating the pair. He tried to focus on the conversations. He grew more and more tired. The lights started to flicker, he floated into a restless sleep, and was unaware Amy and Terry were now standing by his side.
The Emerald Tablet: Convergence
1
Intrusion: Kevin. Australia.
“Why have you got a backpack on, K?” Alex asked, hanging upside down on the sofa.
“We’re hiking up to the lookout,” Kevin said, adjusting the straps.
“Can I come, pleeeassse, can I come?”
They were gathered in the front room that overlooked the driveway, waiting for Daniel. The room was filled with light and the house smelled of sage and lemongrass. Kevin missed his nanna. Even though he felt her presence, she was always just out of sight. With his backpack ready and strands of his hair caught in the corner of his mouth, he said, “No. You can’t come.”
Daniel walked into the room. “Get your hair out of your mouth. You will be coughing up fur balls like a cat.” Shaun and Tim laughed at the same time and they both cleared their throats.
“Dad, can I come? Pleeeease?” Alex stretched his neck as far back as he could looking up at Daniel. “Please, please.”
“No, buddy, it’s just the big boys this time. Maybe you can come next time.”
“But she’s going and she’s not a boy. Why does she get to go?”
“That’s enough, Alex. We need a man to stay back and look after the girls.”
Jade huffed and put her hands on her hips.
“What?” Daniel said, looking at her pose.
“That was two sexist comments in a row.”
“Alex, you are getting me into trouble here, buddy,” Daniel said.
Jade stepped towards Alex and put her hand on his shoulder, crouching down to his height. “You can’t come because we have long legs and you would have to run to catch up with us and that would make you very tired. Then you would have a miserable time and want someone to pick you up. Do you understand?” Jade said.
“Yep, you don’t want me to come because I am small,” he said, stomping away.
“Don’t you think that was a bit harsh?” Daniel asked.
“No, he now knows the truth. It’s just logistics; there is nothing emotional about the decision.”
Shaun, Tim and Daniel headed out the door with Jade and Kevin bringing up the rear.
They started heading for the green paddock where a couple of cows were grazing. They all jumped over the white fence, ignoring the cows.
“Hold up,” Daniel said. “Shaun, take off your pack. Kevin, I want you to carry it.”
With a smirk on his face, Shaun dropped a strap off one shoulder and then the other, and handed the pack to Kevin.
“What? Daaad, what gives?” Kevin said, taking the straps.
“Take yours off and give it to Shaun to carry.”
The smile fell from Shaun’s face. Together they all walked in silence until a brush turkey ran in front of them. It did a random dance and then took off into the bushes.
“Why do you always have your hand in your pocket?” Tim asked Shaun. “You playing with yourself?”
“You’re disgusting! It’s none of your business.”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” Tim said.
Kevin and Jade had a bird’s-eye view walking behind them. His dad looked at Shaun as if waiting for an answer too. He handed Tim the binoculars to carry. Shaun was ignoring Tim, but he pulled his hand out of his pocket, adjusted the straps on Kevin’s backpack and kept walking. Kevin could feel his dad’s tension, Tim’s excitement and the sadness in Shaun, plus the cogs in Jade’s head were spinning faster than the rest of them put together.
“What are you thinking?” he asked. “You really want to know?”
“Sure.”
“About S = k log W. Entropy, it’s a mathematical formula for a concept measuring from order to disorder and it can’t be reversed because of the arrow of time, which is the direction of events that always moves forward. Like an apple fallen from a tree can never levitate itself back onto the tree, but we could make apple pie. If we take broken colored bottles and, for instance, glued them together they will never be the same, but the fragments can be turned into a stained-glass window creating a beautiful new state of order — perhaps … to create order from disorder lies within our thoughts. Order is there but our perception only sees the disorder until we create a sense of order. But we can’t go back to the original state.” Why not, why can’t we go back in time or forward for that matter? Jade stopped talking, aware she was lost in her own train of thought. She looked at Kevin and smiled, wondering what he thought of her mental rambling.
“And why is this important to you?” he asked.
He had been listening. She felt excited. “Because I believe we can change what is happening to the world. If we know at what point it shattered — I mean, like when the virus first manifested itself, which is the cause, we can create a new reality — order from the disorder, like the broken glass bottles. The world won’t be the same after the virus — think of it as humanity’s visit to the brink, hopefully no more than that — we will begin to grow and rebuild again.”
“What are you talking about back there? Come on. Catch up, ketchup.” Tim laughed at himself. “You know the story of the slow turtle … I suppose you had to be there.”
Ignoring Tim’s sick joke Kevin immersed himself in Jade’s theory, which was hard to grasp. “We can put humpty dumpty together again, he will just be in a different state of being. Okay, so we can somehow change the global mess we are in if we find out how it all started and fix it.”
“Well, yes. Simply put, we have to find the pieces that created the disorder. This didn’t just happen. This was the effect of something. We have to change it, put it back somehow.” They reached the mountain a few minutes behind the others who were leaning casually on the railing and looking outward. No one was moving.
“What is it?” Kevin asked as he approached his dad, although he didn’t need any explanation, because he could see everything from the mountains to the ocean. Most of the waterfront apartments were halved and smoldering. Out at sea, coal ships were on fire and three massive giant demons were forming and unforming, breaking down into smaller versions of themselves into what looked like a flock of birds or a swarm of bees. Nobody moved. Kevin felt like
he was in a cyclops movie. Instead of dumb and clumsy, these were an intelligent negative life force of death, an abomination. “A fresh southerly wind is blowing north-east. That’s why we weren’t getting any smoke,” his dad said.
“Look over there, ten o’clock.” Tim pointed to the west where the lake met the trees. Five figures, all men, stepped from two four-wheel drive vehicles. Tim handed the binoculars to Kevin.
“What do you think they’re doing?” Jade asked. “If we wave, do you believe that we can get their attention? I can barely see them.”
“We don’t want them to see us,” Kevin said.
“Why not?”
Shaun took the binoculars from Kevin. “He’s right,” Shaun said and handed the binoculars to Daniel. In the distance, the car door slammed silently. Daniel peered through the glasses and could see clearly, as if the five men were mere yards away. One reached into the back of the car and dragged someone out, throwing him to the edge of the lake. Seconds later, Jade drew in a sharp breath. Gunfire echoed across the valley.
“Don’t look,” Daniel said, but it was too late. Shaun pulled the binoculars back off Daniel. Unsure of what they had just seen, not wanting to believe it, they were rooted to the spot and watched the men get back into the vehicle. They drove off, revealing the actual carnage.
“What did you see?” Kevin asked Shaun. Shaun didn’t say anything. “What did you see?”
Shaun had his arm outstretched offering the binoculars to Daniel, but Kevin grabbed them.
“No!” Daniel said.
Kevin held the glasses to his eyes. The crimson shoreline was littered with dead bodies. The water gently lapped up against them. Kevin dropped the glasses and doubled over, his hands on his knees. His legs felt shaky, his stomach did a backflip and turned and turned and turned. He couldn’t hold it any longer and his breakfast splattered over the ground.
“Tim, Shaun, get away from the edge.” The four-wheel drives had stopped. One person stepped out onto the side rim with his own pair of binoculars and was looking in their direction.
“Guys, quickly, get away from the edge and hide,” Daniel said, pushing them down. They made their way back to the pathway and lay down on the ground.
“I think they may have seen the glint of the sun on the lenses,” Jade said.
Kevin had never seen so many dead people. “Normal people like you and me. Families dead for what? Nothing.” He wiped his mouth and felt the blood moving through his veins again.
“Do you think they saw us?” Tim asked.
“I’m not sure. We’ll just wait here until they move on,” Daniel said.
The binoculars were where Kevin had dropped them and Shaun started to slither across the ground to get them. Daniel yelled at Shaun to get back. He kept going. He handed the binoculars to Daniel and said, “How long do you think it would take them to get to us from over there?”
Daniel carefully moved into the scrub beside the path and peered down, across the valley to the lake. He saw the men were moving again. “If they wanted to get to us they could be here in an hour.”
“But it took us that long to walk up here,” Jade said.
“Then we’d better run,” Shaun said.
They headed down the path, out into the car park and started jogging down the narrow winding road. Kevin kept pace with Jade and Tim. Shaun and Daniel led the way. Jade held her side.
“You okay?” Kevin asked, jogging beside her.
“Just … just a stitch in my side.”
Tim skidded on the gravel as he turned off the road, grazing his leg. Jade and Kevin helped him up. Daniel looked over his shoulder and saw Tim on the ground and ran back. “You okay?”
“Fair dinkum, what did I do? I must have killed a thousand people in a past life.”
“Well, actually, “Jade said, panting, “if you believe in karma … then I would say you must have done something right because you haven’t been vaporized, crushed, beaten to death, shot, or even swallowed up by that,” she said, pointing to the east. “So you’re doing pretty well. Wouldn’t you say?” Jade stopped talking and rested on her knees trying to catch her breath.
“Dust yourself off, mate, it’s just a scratch,” Daniel said.
They headed off the road and across the paddock. The house was in sight and looked just as they had left it. The road was clear, no dust in the air. All was quiet.
Shaun came up to the wire fence that stretched across the paddock and held the barbed wire down for them all to climb over. It was his turn and Shaun hesitated; Kevin pulled the barbed wire down as far as he could to show him it was okay and there wasn’t going to be a surprise attack.
They jumped the white fence onto his grandparent’s property. The house was peaceful. Mixed smells of cooking and laugher filtered from the kitchen window, and waiting to greet them on the back veranda was Alex. His dad sighed with relief as he laid his hand on the screen door and Alex’s head before picking him up and opening the door fully. He stopped before stepping across the threshold.
“Okay, guys,” Daniel said. “Someone needs to always be at the far corner of the front veranda, it’s the best view of the approaching road.” Alex put his little hand on Daniel’s chin and turned his head towards him. “What’s happening, Daddy?”
“Nothing, Alex. Go tell your mother we’re back.” He put Alex down. He watched him run along the hallway with his hand under his armpit trying to blow out a tune.
“No mention of what was on the shoreline, and tonight we will need to reduce the amount of lights. Go around the outside of the house and take the bulbs out of the sensors. If you see a light on in the house turn it off. Make sure all blinds are closed. Keep the noise down and we should take turns during the night watching the road for approaching lights, just in case. Any questions?”
“Yeah, why don’t we just get the hell out of here?” Tim asked.
“There isn’t anywhere else to go.”
*
Kevin could hear, inside the house, Kath and Molly laughing at Alex who was making sounds from his armpits. The smile on his mother’s face disappeared as he walked through the kitchen doorway. She looked at his dad, Shaun, Tim and Jade, then back at Kevin.
“You look like you all ran back. Is everything okay?”
He challenged his own urge to hide and pretend she wasn’t seeing their worry. “You’re right, mom,” he said.
“Oh, God, what happened, who’s dead?”
Daniel looked at Callie, and then back to Kevin.
We must look to him as if we’re having a silent conversation. But I’ve said nothing, she just knows.
Her hand went to her mouth and she turned back to the sink. Her voice was a little shaky. “Okay, we have made a jug of lemon juice. There was an old cake packet in the cupboard that was only out of date by three months. It will be out of the oven in five minutes. Clean yourselves up, then we can talk about what you all saw.”
Kevin moved to the sink and without turning around she said, “Not here, all of you upstairs.”
Kevin waited until everyone had gone upstairs before he looked up and down the hallway. The kitchen smelt wonderful from the fresh chocolate cake baking in the oven, and the sound of laughter mixed with lemongrass and sage. He could see out the front door and out the back door, both leading onto the veranda. A gentle breeze banged the back door, which hadn’t quite latched. “Nanna, are you here?” He stood still using his peripheral vision and caught a whisper of light that passed him by.
“I knew you were here keeping a watch. Ask God to send the crows and let us know if anyone approaches, please.” He breathed in and closed his eyes, breathed out.
“Kevin, who are you talking to?” Callie asked, stepping into the hallway.
What do I say? Kevin opened his eyes, meeting his mother’s. “Nanna.”
“I feel her too.”
Cautiously, he asked, “Can you smell her?”
“What does she smell like to you?”
“Lemongras
s and sage.”
“Is that so? I’ve been smelling sage since we arrived,” Callie smiled. The oven beeped, the cake was ready. For a moment, they stood there awkwardly.
She’s changing. “I’m going upstairs,” Kevin said and walked off after the others. He stopped at the top of the landing and looked out the arched window. The road was clear.
2
Extraction: Shaun. Australia.
Shaun could hear Jade in the next room, crying. He tried to ignore it. Something else had woken him. He looked over at Alex and the little fellow was snoring. The bedside digital clock in bright red announced it was 4:44 a.m. Shaun threw back the sheet and sat on the edge of the bed, mopping his brow. He was covered in perspiration again. He had been dreaming of Rachel and they were in a cave. She had grown into a young woman, standing fearlessly before a giant blazing black dog surrounded by a firestorm. It swiped at her, stabbing her with its claws. He could still feel the heat as he had tried to save her. Then something woke him up.
He pulled on his jeans, quietly opened the door and stopped and listened. He went into Kevin and Tim’s room. Tim was snoring and Kevin was half hanging out of the bottom bunk. Shaun then looked into Jade and Kath’s room, where Kath was fast asleep, oblivious to Jade’s sobbing. He gently poked Jade in the shoulder, trying not to startle her awake. Her eyes shot open, and she stared with a lack of recognition. He had seen that look a thousand times in his father’s eyes, but it didn’t last long with Jade. She looked puzzled.
“You were crying in your sleep,” he whispered, as Kath started to stir. Moonlight was streaming into the room.
Jade looked out the window; a crow crashed into the glass and she gave a little shriek. “Crows don’t fly at night,” she said, alarmed.
Kath woke in fright and screamed. Shaun slapped his hand over Kath’s mouth, frightening her. She struggled and bit his hand.
