Skylight (Arcadium, #2) (6 page)

The tennis
court is faded blue, with yellow weeds growing in miniature forests
around the edge and pushing up through cracks. The net is still
hanging, though a little lopsided these days, and we’ve found
enough equipment inside the house to start a post-apocalyptic
tennis club. I’ve never been good at tennis but I get the feeling
I’m going to be an expert one day.

As soon as we
rope up the tennis court gate, Trouble and I do a sweep of the
garden to make sure it’s infected free. Only then can we relax.

Liss runs
around like a bird trying to fly that can’t quite get off the
ground; arms out, blonde hair billowing, making all sorts of cheery
sounds. She’s wearing a purple dress we ransacked from one of the
houses, and a pair of someone’s old chunky school shoes (since
sadly we lost our Doc Marten boots at Arcadium). She was wearing a
straw hat with a white ribbon too, but that fell off pretty much as
soon as we got through the gate.

Kean and Henry
disappear into the garden shed where we keep the tennis stuff, plus
tinned food and blankets just in case we get stuck here for some
reason.

Trouble stays
on the tennis court, swinging his cricket bat like it’s actually a
piece of sporting equipment for once and not a weapon to crush
infected skulls. Sometimes when he swings, his grey t-shirt sleeve
rides up and the very bottom of his tattoo is visible. It’s a
tattoo of his baby daughter’s birth date; a memorial he carries
with him every day.

I watch him for
a while, and then I watch Liss buzzing around in the background,
twirling and dancing in the wide-open space — something we can’t
really do on our balcony.

Eucalyptus
trees creak and sway, their leaves shuffling and whispering and
glittering in the sun. Rusty coloured bark peels off their almond
coloured trunks. I can hear a few wasps buzzing about.

Trouble looks
over and gives me a smooth nod and grin combo. I can’t help but
grin back. The wide open space and fresh air seem to lift away the
bad stuff that’s always pushing down on us, even if the relief is
only temporary.

I pretend to
bounce a cricket ball in my hand and then rub it on my leg the way
they used to on the TV. I wind up for an over arm bowl. We both
watch the imaginary ball flying and Trouble tees off with the bat.
At exactly the same time we lift our hands to shield our eyes and
watch it’s pretend journey.

We burst out
laughing and this attracts Liss. She comes running over and stands
with her hands on her hips, trying to catch her breath.

“What’s going
on?” Her eyes flick between us.

“Go fetch the
cricket ball if you like,” I say. “Trouble hit it somewhere over
there.”

Liss crosses
her arms and stares at me with narrowed eyes for a few seconds.
“I’m not stupid. It’s not even real.”

With perfect
timing to break up our sisterly descent into bickering, Kean and
Henry emerge from the garden shed, dressed head to toe in white
tennis outfits with full sets of outrageous neon sweatbands,
laughing their heads off. Liss collapses dramatically on the ground
in a fit of giggles. Sometimes I wonder if she would make a good
actress… or rather would
have
made a good one. You know,
when careers still existed.

Henry has a
pile of tennis rackets on his lap and Kean hands them out. It ends
up being Liss, Trouble and me versus the fashion trendy brothers.
Even though my team has the upper hand in the three to two ratio,
in no way is it unfair because Liss has the coordination of a
newborn lamb, and if I have to be honest, I’m not that far behind.
Only when it comes to tennis, though.

Kean and Henry
work so smoothly together, it’s awesome to watch. Sometimes Kean
gives Henry a boost push to reach the ball, but mostly they’re
waiting for Liss to try and hit it over the net. Henry was in a
tennis club before the apocalypse and Kean must have practiced a
lot with him because they know exactly when to leave a shot for the
other person and when to go for it.

Trouble, of
course, is epic at tennis. He saves all of our swing-and-misses and
scores all our points.

And we do keep
score for a while, but soon with all the laughing and practice
shots and the re-dos, we forget how many points we have. Then we
just try to see how long we can keep the ball in play. Our personal
best today is eleven hits in a row and then, feeling like we’d
really achieved something we retire for a picnic in the shade, down
by the stream.

Kean’s brought
some leftover barbecued damper bread and we dip it in a jar of
strawberry jam that I think the old owners of our house must have
made themselves, because they have about a million of these jam
jars with hand written labels.

I lie on my
back for a while, watching the clouds float past the gaps in the
trees, and afterwards we all stand barefoot in the freezing cold
stream trying to cool off from the afternoon heat.

“What’s the
deal with Jacob and the infected this morning?” Henry asks. He’s
sitting on the bank with his feet dangling in. “You never tell us
anything.”

“Yeah,” Liss
joins in. “You guys never tell us anything.”

I cut a glance
at Liss. “You saw it, I didn’t need to tell you about it.”

“Where’s he
taking them?” Liss asks.

“Umm.” I look
to Kean for help, but he just shrugs. “I don’t know. I think he
might be leading them away before he kills them, so he doesn’t have
to get rid of the body.”

“Wow,” Henry
says. “That’s kinda creepy. Smart, but creepy.”

I wiggle my
toes and watch them distort under the burbling water.

“Name game!”
Liss says.

Kean smiles. I
groan. Trouble just looks blank.

This is a game
that Liss has been trying to play for some time now without any
success. The aim of the game is to discover Trouble’s real
name.

Liss taps her
collarbone. “Liss,” she says.

Henry points to
himself. “Henry!”

Kean puts his
hand over his heart. “Kean.”

I pull a pained
smile and I point to myself. “Florence.”

We all look at
Trouble.

Trouble
blinks.

“Your turn,”
Liss says, pointing to his chest.

Trouble looks
at Liss, and then puts his hand flat on his chest. “Trouble,” he
says.

Liss scrunches
up her face. “No! You’re supposed to say your name!”

Trouble looks
around and he grins. Liss never gets any further than this.

“Okay, try
again,” Liss says, pointing her fingers at her temples. “Liss,” she
says.

My eyes move to
her arm. “What’s that?”

Liss looks at
me. “What’s what?”

I wade over to
her. “That. On your arm. Did you scratch yourself?”

She turns her
arm over and lets me inspect it. There’s a drop of blood in the
middle of a small grazed patched on her elbow, probably from her
dramatic giggling collapse on the tennis court earlier.

Liss looks at
me with unsure eyes.

“It’s fine,” I
say instantly. “We’ll patch it up. Just don’t touch it.”

“Why?”

“Just in case.”
I lower her arm and look at Kean. “Do we have any Band-Aids or
antiseptic?”

“Yeah.” He
wades out of the stream and checks the shed. He comes back a few
seconds later. “Actually, no. I thought I put a tube of Savlon in
here, but it’s actually burn cream. Sorry. I’ve got Band-Aids.”

“I really want
to find some antiseptic. Just in case. You never know. Put it on
before the bandages. I want it to heal quickly.”

“Sure, yeah,”
Kean says. “Maybe in the house?”

Instead of
keeping all our supplies in our home, we stockpile them in little
hidey-holes in the surrounding houses.

“We might as
well all go and look and then we can head home. I’m tired.” And
nervous. I don’t want Liss out in the open with a wound.

No one
complains, especially not Liss but that’s only because she’s
preoccupied with the cut on her elbow and keeping it as far away
from her body as possible. She knows as well as I do, one drop of
infected blood is enough to contaminate. Which is a nice way of
saying it’ll kill her and turn her into a flesh eating crazy person
that wants to eat my brains.

Kean and
Trouble put away all the tennis gear and pack up the picnic stuff
so the garden looks as abandoned as it did when we arrived, then we
head up to the house in search of first aid. Normally I wouldn’t
worry so much, but this is my little sister. Antiseptic could save
her life, and I am not overreacting.

The ground
floor of our park house is never secure because of all the broken
windows, but the first floor has a kiddy-safe gate over the top of
the stairs so there’s not much chance of finding any infected up
there. There’s no way they could open a doorknob let alone a
complicated anti-kid system. Plus they don’t have the smarts to
just climb over it. They’re rubbish climbers.

Trouble and I
sweep the ground floor and then Kean follows him upstairs to check
out the first floor. Of course Liss follows them, so I don’t have a
choice about look out duty. I stand in one of the broken
floor-to-ceiling windows with a perfect view of the road. Henry
rolls to the stairs and looks up for a while, probably wishing he
could just get up out of his chair and follow the others, then he
rolls over the broken glass and kind of stands on watch with
me.

“Today was
cool, huh?” Henry says, rolling back and forth like he’s fidgeting.
He’s still wearing his tennis outfit and wipes his brow with his
neon sweatband.

“Your stylish
outfits were the highlight.”

Henry grins up
at me. “Did you expect anything less from a fashionista like
me?”

“Of course
not.”

We both glimpse
movement on the road and freeze. Jacob is walking right down the
middle of it. He doesn’t have any visible weapons, so I assume he
has a gun tucked away. He strides casually, as if he owns the road
and has nothing to worry about. Like he’s untouchable. I guess with
a gun and his steely nerve, he probably is.

Henry doesn’t
say anything, neither do I. But Jacob must feel our eyes burning
into him because for no reason at all he turns and smiles. He looks
wild with his stubbly beard, tangled hair and super tanned skin.
His pristine white singlet is one size too small and his dark green
cargos are probably one size too big. His borrowed clothes don’t
sit right on him; they’re too clean, too perfect, like they were in
the laundry yesterday and might smell of vanilla and freesia. Jacob
takes a long slow drag of a cigarette and holds it deep in his
lungs with what looks like some kind of weird pleasure, before
breathing it all out his nose.

“Afternoon,” he
says, stopping in the road but not making any move toward us.

Henry looks at
me to see what I’ll do. I just nod to Jacob.

“Come around
any time you want,” he says. “We are neighbours after all.”

To that I don’t
say anything and Jacob kind of laughs before moving on.

“Wait, where
are you going?” I call out.

He stops and
looks back. “I have a craving for pineapple pieces. Just going to
try these houses at the top of the street. If you don’t mind, of
course.”

I shrug with
one shoulder and watch him disappear on up the road.

“That guy is
weird,” Henry says. “Weird and slightly epic.”

I feel like I
have to do the older sibling bit since Kean is upstairs. “Don’t
forget cigarettes will kill you.” In my head I add, if Jacob, the
infected, sickness, cabin fever and starvation don’t kill us
first.

Henry smiles at
my sarcasm. “What won’t?”

I shrug.
“Pineapple pieces, I guess.”

Henry laughs
and puts on a silly voice. “I have a real
craving
.”

My smile fades.
“He is strange.” Because he’s different.

Henry frowns.
“He’s too confident. No one can be like that with all the creepies
around. He almost doesn’t seem real.”

“Mmm.” I glance
up at the ceiling, my mind already chasing another thought.
“They’re taking a long time.” I listen for a moment and then call
out Kean’s name.

He appears at
the top of the stairs.

“Yeah?”

“Want to swap?
We need to get a move on and Henry can give you the Jacob
report.”

Kean comes down
stairs and kisses me on the temple. “Consider yourself relieved of
duty.”

I smile and
head on up the stairs, finding Trouble and Liss pulling things out
of the bathroom cupboards. But I think it’s an empty gesture. Any
thing of value we would have hidden already. Though I can’t exactly
remember where everything is because I haven’t been in the house
for weeks. We definitely should have recorded our hidey-holes.

I carry on into
the main bedroom and rummage through the bedside tables with no
luck. Just a bunch of personal items like celebrity magazines, an
address book, a passport, a chocolate bar wrapper and some old used
makeup. The room is clean and precise and organised like something
out of an Ikea catalogue. I peek behind the two framed pictures,
because sometimes we punch holes in the walls, fill them with
supplies and hide them behind the pictures. I try the set of
drawers pushed up against the wall but it’s just full of fancy
clothes we don’t need.

I kneel down at
the big chest at the end of the bed. It’s probably just filled with
blankets, but then again it could be where they kept a secret horde
of medical supplies, so I wrench it open.

Out in the
hallway I hear Liss giggling and for a moment I let myself be
distracted.

That’s when
something grabs me. A horribly pale mottled hand with peeling flesh
latches onto my forearm. I stare for a second, feeling its bones
pushing through its skin, and I snap my arm away, scuttling
backwards on the floor.