Skyquakers (8 page)

Under the beat of the Aussie sun, an old man sat under a
shady veranda with his feet kicked up, hands folded, and his brimmed hat
lowered over his resting eyes. His round gut rose and fell as he snored. A fly
buzzed around his nose, making him twitch and moan. He swatted it, and stirred
awake only to see a man and a boy standing in front of him.

‘What the bloody – who
–
huh
–
how did
ya
—
?
’
He was so startled by Ned and Jackrabbit
’
s sudden
presence that he almost fell off his chair. He hoisted himself up, rocking his
tubby gut as he stood. He was in his sixties, well-rounded, with wild, white
hair and a thick moustache crawling down his face to form a fuzzy beard. He was
an outback Santa Claus, dressed in a flannelette shirt and old jeans, held up
by a giant brass belt buckle in the shape of Australia.

Jackrabbit shook hands with the gentleman.
‘
Good
to see you, Munroe.
’

‘Well, blimey, it’s Jack! Didn
’
t expect to
see you around here again.
’
He looked down at Ned.
‘
And
who
’
s this?
’

Ned was grinning from ear to ear. Words simply escaped him.

‘You
’
ve dragged in another from the
wild, I see,
’
Munroe said.

Jackrabbit nodded down at the boy. ‘This is Ted.’

‘Ned.’

‘This is Ned.’

The old man shook hands with him.
‘
Nice to
meet you, young man. Welcome to Zebra Rock.
’

There were thirteen settlers in total at Zebra Rock, most of
which formally knew each other before the storm. They all currently lived
together in an abandoned art gallery on the banks of the Ord, in a small
one-storey shed made of orange bricks and tin roofing, sleeping on old
mattresses and cooking over open fires outside. The gallery was called Zebra
Rock because of the unique black and white striped stones used here to sculpt
beautiful animals, bowls, vases, pendants, and knick-knacks. The bizarre rock,
embedded with stripes of both brilliant white and charcoal black, were quarried
from Argyle Lake down south, from a mine which was equally as famous for its
diamonds. The little gallery was a small museum of rare delicacies made by
local artists, but since the settlers arrived, it had been redesigned into more
of a home for wandering lost souls like Ned.

Munroe owned the gallery with his elderly wife and artist,
Deborah. He was driving home in his truck when he saw his gallery be beamed by
the sky, and he raced home to find sweet Deborah gone. Being so remote,
surrounded mostly by farmland and bush, beams were infrequent during those
first days and before long, Munroe found himself alone. He had a storm shelter
with food, water and fuel stored up, wary of hurricanes and floods, and had
hardly budged an inch in the four weeks since the disaster. He drove his truck
into Ivanhoe once or twice, searching for people, but with no luck. The only
one he found was Jackrabbit, passing through from the Never
Never
.
The two camped out and spoke of the situation involving the sky, and Munroe,
too old and fat to go trekking the Top End from one coast to another, told him
to spread the word that he was here with open arms if any survivors were ever
found.

In the early afternoon, under the shade of the gallery
’
s
veranda, all the settlers, including Munroe and Jackrabbit, pulled up chairs
and surrounded Ned with absolute fascination. They had plenty of food to go
around: homemade breads and canned fruits, Doritos and soft drink and enough
beer to last weeks. Ned savoured fresh bread lathered with Vegemite, as well as
sliced oranges and long life milk. By the banks of the Ord River, there was a
cool breeze, a blue sky, and shady greenery all around them. It was a beautiful
place, and for the first time in many weeks, Ned, surrounded by people once
more, felt complete again.

As well as saving Ned
’
s life,
Jackrabbit had rescued the other settlers as well. He spent a week tracking
what appeared to be a large group of wanderers lost in the
Kununurra
.
He found twelve of them, dehydrated and on the brink of collapsing, and steered
them south along the Ord. The twelve were all marine biologists and research
students of Darwin University, ranging in age from early twenties to late
forties. They were all scuba diving on Veteran
’
s Day when
the storm came, examining the coral reefs, and emerged only to find all their
crewmen gone and their boats abandoned. They returned to shore to find the
startling vacancy of the city, instantly void of 130,000 people and amuck with
the littered remains of chaos. Like Ned, they spent their first week in a state
of confusion. They tried radios and phones to contact help, but all lines were
dead, and once the electricity went out, they were stranded. Like Ned’s
situation in Wyndham, the biologists, alone in a vast city, had every resource
at their disposal, so food, water and shelter were plentiful. They too had
gathered non-perishables and formed a small fort for themselves inside a local
yacht club, close to the safety of the water. But unlike Ned, they were forced
to leave the city following a second round of attacks by a different invading
force.

‘Suits,
’
Ned said gingerly.

‘They burned down the city, the whole city,
’
said Elizabeth, known as Dr Lizzie. She was one of the leading
biologists of the team, a doctorate-level scholar who lectured at Darwin
University. She had been in charge of the field trip which had kept her
students from being beamed.
‘
My god, I have never seen
anything quite like it.’

Dr Lizzie described these ‘flying ships’, like fighter jets,
but rounder, which broke off from the massive storm cloud and hovered over the
city. She spoke of enormous bulldozers the size of skyscrapers – an entirely
unexaggerated statement – crushing everything to rubble. From the
hurricane-like storm in sky, they launched missiles of pink light at the bay,
burning down every marina, warehouse, jetty, and beach box as though it was a
direct target. Darwin began to crumble and burn, forcing the biologists to flee
for their lives, but on the ground, they were ambushed by a strange new threat:
humans. Little human people – boys, girls, old and young – dressed in suits,
appeared from the sky armed with weapons. They began firing on their own kind.

‘They looked…
hypnotised
,’
she said, ‘and yet… and yet I think they knew what they were doing.’

‘They knew
exactly
what they were doing,’ said another settler, James. James was a mid-thirties
tanned, rugged man, who had been the scuba diving instructor on Elizabeth
’
s
trip. Ned was interested in the bandage around his face, covering one eye. He
could see the skin of his cheek and neck was red and peeling, as if from burns.
James explained that Suits were to blame for the permanent damage to his
vision. ‘This was a
planned
ambush.
We weren’t the only ones who got cornered. We saw other survivors here and
there, raiding shopping centres for food, sleeping in their own bunkers. I saw
what those bastards did to them: they chased them, they burned them,
they
shot them in the back while they were trying to escape…
There was no remorse on their faces, but behind those shades, they knew what
they were doing. Those fuckers drove us into the desert and roasted the rest
alive. Got me good too.
’

Ned stared in horror. ‘How many people… did they kill?’

‘We have no idea,
’
said Dr Lizzie.

‘They
’
ve probably burned down the
other capitals too by now,
’
James hissed.
‘
May
as well target the biggest cities if you want to kill off as many as possible.
’

‘No, you half-wit, it wasn
’
t for that,
’
said Munroe.
‘
It’s because of all the
barracks.
’

‘Barracks?
’

‘The navy and air force bases. Darwin has plenty of them.
They were probably burning
them
, not you lot. You all just got in the
way.
’

‘In the way?
’
James snarled at the old man.
‘
These little pricks come storming
my
country
and killing
my
countrymen and you say I
’
m just
in
the way
? Did my face just get
in the
way
, huh?
’

‘Calm down,
’
Elizabeth said.
‘
We
’
re
safe now.
’

James, a frustrated patriot, aggressively snapped open a
beer. It kept him quiet for now.

Elizabeth turned back to Ned.
‘
You poor
thing. You
’
ve been out there all alone this whole time?
’

‘I hid in a fridge.
’

Munroe arched his white, bushy eyebrows.
‘
Well,
that
’
s new.
’

A student of Dr Lizzie’s, a young university boy, said,
‘
Oh
please, Indiana tried that in the fourth movie and
Mythbusters
already declared that a fridge could not possibly save you from a blast of
gamma radiation.
’

‘Then it isn
’
t gamma rays,
’
argued the student next to him.
‘
It
’
s
something else.
’

‘And Indie was in a
nuclear
bomb
. These are just beams of light,
’
said
another.

‘I still say it
’
s the Chinese,
’
said a fourth.

‘No,
’
said Ned,
‘
it
’
s
al
—’

‘Let
’
s not get into the
five-hundredth argument of what ‘it’ is and isn
’
t,
’
Elizabeth sighed.
‘
Let
’
s just be
grateful that Jackrabbit found us another survivor.
’

‘You
’
ve come a long way, son,
’
said Munroe. He patted the boy on the back.

With a mouth full of bread, Ned mumbled,
‘
Thanks
to him, of course.
’

‘Bah.
’
Jackrabbit waved it off,
cracked another beer, and gulped down.

Elizabeth smiled at the Aboriginal wanderer and said,
‘
I
thought we
’
d never see you again, Jack. Will you stay with us
this time?
’

‘Nah,
mai
. I
’
ll
be gone by morning.
’

‘But where to?
’

‘He may find others like this one out there,
’
said Munroe.
‘
There could be hundreds of
people still lost in the middle of nowhere. You
’
re bloody
lucky, kiddo.
’

‘Ah-huh.
’
Ned looked around.
‘
Hey,
where
’
s
Moonboy
?
’

‘Who
’
s
Moonboy
?
’

‘
Ergh
,
’
Jackrabbit snorted.
‘
If he
’
s gone,
leave him. No one wants that mutt here.
’

But Ned was worried. He left his chair and went looking for
him, calling out for his dog, searching in bushes and paddocks around the
gallery for the hybrid critter.

When he was gone, James turned to the other settlers.
‘
What
do we think?
’
he asked.

‘What do you mean, what do we think?
’
Elizabeth
snapped.

‘Well, I just think we should start being a little more
cautious about who we meet. We shouldn
’
t just open
our arms to every wanderer who comes by, begging for food. No offense, Jack.
But I mean, we
’
ve been ambushed by Suits
before. How do we know this kid isn
’
t a spy or something?
’

‘Christ, James!
’

‘Lizzie, we just have to be careful. We should start
fortifying this place, keeping watch, making sure we don
’
t get
jumped again like we did in Darwin. There could be thieves and murderers and
God-knows what else lurking around here.
’
He turned
to Munroe.
‘
I think we should start considering protecting
ourselves, mate.
’

‘Well my wife didn
’
t like guns, so I don
’
t
know how I can help you,
mate
,
’
the old man grumbled.
‘
You can go off and be a
one-man army if you want, but I
ain
’
t
turning down a lost boy.
’

‘No one is turning him down,
’
Elizabeth
said boldly, particularly to James.
‘
Now more than ever, we need to
learn to get along.
’

James gave up and rested back in his chair.

Munroe looked to Jackrabbit and tried to steer the
conversation elsewhere.
‘
So, tell us, what
’
ve
you seen out there, other than the kid?
’