Skyquakers (9 page)

Jackrabbit sat up to address the settlers. He began with a
word:
‘
Suits.
’

Ned slept for twelve hours on his first night. He woke at
dawn, but Jackrabbit was already gone. He didn
’
t even say
goodbye.

The settlers lived at Zebra Rock for more than three months.
During that time, all of summer passed, as did Christmas, the New Year, the
national holiday, Valentine’s, and a couple of birthdays in between. By autumn,
fourteen strangers had moulded themselves into a close-knit community of
brothers and sisters.

From the abandoned suburbs of Wyndham, to the vacant
farmland of central Australia, Ned’s idea of sustainability and survival had to
be dramatically rearranged. His days of scavenging pantries and grocery stores
were over. Besides Ivanhoe, there was not another township within hundreds of
kilometres of Zebra Rock and homes were too few and far apart to rely on for
food, shelter, and basic needs over the long term. The biologists had not
brought much with them when they escaped Darwin and Munroe
’
s
emergency supplies ran out within the first few weeks of their arrival, but
they were sitting in the dead centre of unoccupied farmland, so it was common
sense to take advantage of it. Munroe knew what grew around here and helped
devise a basic map of the lower Ord and southern Ivanhoe region: mangos,
bananas, melons, sugar cane, chickpeas and pumpkin were the main crops in this
area, and much of it was completely unaffected by the abrupt disappearance of
humans. Perhaps a few sprinklers had not been turned on, but the sunlight still
beat down and the December rain made the Ord run thicker than ever. It was
funny how nature was perfectly capable of taking care of itself in the absence
of the human race.

The settlers took on the challenge of caring for thousands
of hectares of produce and became self-taught farmers. Very few had any
agricultural experience, but the marine biology students were at least somewhat
aware of wetland and freshwater flora. Their daily duties mostly involved
planting, weeding, watering and harvesting. Of course, these farms were large
enough to feed a third of the state, and under the summer rain they were
overwhelmed with produce. A lot went to waste, unpicked and left to rot on the
ground; fourteen pairs of hands simply could not care for so many fields and
fourteen mouths could not eat that much. They simply made sure to prune the
branches and keep them well-watered, so that next season there would be more to
pick.

Life on the Ord was serene, both because of the beautiful
land surrounding them and the company of each other. Work days were short and
most of the afternoons were usually spent napping, exploring the red caves,
telling stories, reading, playing cricket, and swimming in the river. There was
really no need to ever leave. There was a warehouse a kilometre west which used
to sell farming equipment, tools, wheelbarrows, fertiliser, pesticides; enough
to last
them
years. Nearby homes were further away,
but were useful to find little items such as washing detergent, basic medication
and feminine hygiene products, bedding, clothes, gas for the stove, spices and
canned foods, and fishing rods. Two of the students raided a nearby home and
found baseball equipment in the garage
–
bats and
gloves and baseball caps
–
and the settlers formed
competitive teams which played at least once a week out in the fields. It was
the little things which made life more enjoyable and full of purpose.

For the first few weeks, Ned was unsure of himself and his
surroundings. The transition from being alone to being in this large family of
fellow humans was a big shock, and he found it difficult to reconnect to
others, as though he had been severed from the world for many years. He worked,
ate, and slept without protest, listened and obeyed any decision, and rarely
participated in stories, jokes or games. He was still locked in ‘survival
mode’, and he felt any shortcomings would have dramatic effects on their
continuity. In actuality, it was quite the opposite. The remoteness of the
gallery, its pastoral wilderness, and the impenetrability of the surrounding
Kununurra
almost made their stronghold impregnable from the
ground, and the brutally hot sun made passing storm-like phenomena rare. The
storms which did pass did so briefly, with little or no interest in what it saw
below. The settlers were too few in number, too scattered among bushland, and
too uncaring of their presence to warrant any action against them.

Ned was still unsure. It was only occasionally that the
doubtful thought arose, often just in passing, but it still bothered him: how
long could they keep this up? How safe were they at Zebra Rock? When was it all
going to go back to normal? The others worked and lived under the presumption
that all the answers were
never
, but he did not feel the same way.

Elizabeth noticed that he was struggling. One night, she sat
with him on a log around the flickering flames and whispered low to him, ‘
It’s
okay to be terrified.’

Ned looked up. He smiled and was about to say something, but
couldn’t.

‘I know what’s going through your head,’ she said. ‘You’re
terrified of change. You don’t want to get close to people in case they all
disappear on you again. Am I right?’

Ned nodded. ‘Something like that, I suppose.’

‘We all feel like that, every moment of every day. But you
have to embrace the time you have. You have to enjoy what’s here while it’s
here.’ She nudged him with her elbow. ‘You were one of the lucky ones, like us.
You’re one of the special ones. Don’t forget that.’

‘I hid in a fridge like a coward.’ He looked down. ‘I didn’t
even try to save my mum.’

Elizabeth looked up at the stars. ‘I don’t think they’re
gone. I think they’re still alive. Somewhere. Up there.’

Ned also looked up. He used to believe that too, but it was
becoming harder to imagine that his family and friends were all okay. He softly
asked, ‘Then why haven’t they come back yet?’

Elizabeth didn’t have those answers. No one did.

Time was lost with the rolling of the sun over the horizon,
the movement of constellations, and before long, it was hard to determine the
days and weeks apart. As near to Christmas as they could estimate, the settlers
found a plastic tree and decorated it with tinsel. On New Year’s Eve, they ran
around at night with streamers, party poppers and sparklers, drawing shapes in
the night sky.

It took such time for Ned to become close to his new family,
but he benefitted from it greatly. The students took him on as their baby
brother and warmed to him effortlessly. He was not the only one who missed his
former life, his school friends, and normality in general, but he, like the
settlers, had to accept the change for what it was, and had to consider what
minute liberties they still had: at least they were free, they thought. At
least they managed to outsmart a creature – or a machine – which spanned the
width of a metropolis and carried more firepower than a military’s whole
arsenal. At least they were stationary now, able to live in peace unnoticed,
without borders, able to farm for themselves and sleep without needing to worry
if they were still being hunted. At least they had each other; this, above all,
gave Ned the greatest pleasure. If all other liberties were to vanish, if all
their freedoms were withdrawn to the point where they became shackled slaves of
the invaders from the sky, it was the companionship of others which he held
highest above all other necessities.

So Ned gave in to them, wholly and unconditionally, and
found new friendships among these lost souls. In the mornings, he picked
bananas with Tim and found they shared similar tastes in comics and movies. Tim
was not an outdoorsy guy and was having severe withdrawals from his games and
TV shows, especially the ones which left him on indefinite cliff-hangers. He
was not very sporty either and would often prefer to watch baseball from under
a tree, keeping the score in the shade and avoiding as many activities as
possible which could make him perspire. But beneath his quiet antisocial
nature, Tim was intelligent. Ned saw brief moments when he shined. It was Tim
who designed their freshwater catchment system from the Ord using ropes,
overhanging tree branches, and buckets. He took careful note of the seedlings
of crops, drawing and analysing their rate of growth in different soils. He
even created a new formula of cooking oils to use as emergency fuel for Munroe
’
s
ute
, should a speedy escape
be required.

In the afternoons, Ned swam with Michael, while Violet sat
on the banks and tanned with her oversized sunglasses. Michael and Violet had
had a crush on each other since second year Organic Chemistry, but it seemed as
though the romance which blossomed on their scuba trip had died suddenly;
Darwin had rattled them all, and the
Kununurra
had
drained them of so much energy. It was difficult to adjust to this dramatic
change and simultaneously keep up the passion. As the weeks settled into
months, the two began to feel more comfortable around each other again. They
started laughing again, flirting, with small, hinting touches on each other
’
s
arms and hands. Whenever it was Violet
’
s turn to
wash up, Michael was there to help her. Whenever the settlers decided to play a
game of touch rugby, he always wanted to be on opposite sides to her, so that
he may have a fleeting chance of getting her in his arms.

Under the veranda of the art gallery, Sarah spent most of
her days reading. She found a small bookshelf of old romances by the fireplace,
which Munroe explained were once his wife
’
s. He gave
them to her, having no use for them now, and she read every day after her
chores were done. Sarah, like Tim, was a secluded girl, but apparently this new
quiet, meek persona had only arisen after Darwin, Elizabeth explained. The
burning city and the chaotic destruction, followed by the near-death experience
of the
Kununurra
, had turned her into a passive mute.
She was terrified of the dark, of noises, of the strange animals in the bush,
even of the clouds in the sky. She was living in an endless state of panic,
constantly convinced that something was out to get her. She broke down into
tears often, collapsing into Elizabeth
’
s arms. She
said she had nightmares about the burning people, and Suits shooting them as
they ran; she imaged her family trapped in a building as the flames engulfed
it. Elizabeth often spoke to the rest of her students about these instances,
reminding them all that it was healthy and natural to feel scared, sad, and
doubtful. Ned sympathised; at times it was impossible to keep these emotions
bottled up inside.

Andrew was Michael
’
s best mate. They went through
high school and university together back in Darwin, almost inseparable, except
if Violet was around. Andrew was a happy-go-lucky clown, a slacker, a
trickster, and a nuisance at times. It was often up to Andrew to lighten the
mood, such as by telling a racist joke or pushing Violet in the river. He acted
as though this was an extended holiday, a gap year. He wanted to wreak havoc
upon the abandoned world: go into towns and loot them of all their treasures,
proclaim himself king of the junkyard left over by the departed human race. He
wanted to build a pirate ship and sail down the Ord, fighting off Suits with
ropes and swords, saving women. He was waiting for the government – anyone’s
government – to build enormous combat robots to send into space and fight off
the
Skyquakers
. The settlers liked that term,
‘
Skyquakers
’,
and adopted it from Ned. It
was far easier to say than the
‘
A
’
word.

Speaking of Quakers, Ned did not see
Moonboy
for weeks. That strange hybrid dog disappeared without a trace, only to return
out of the blue while Ned was hauling a wheelbarrow of pumpkins from the fields
to the kitchen. The sound of barking made him drop the barrow and spin.
Moonboy
ran directly into his arms, whimpering and licking
his face in excitement, as though he had only been gone since yesterday.

As for the settlers, they were startled and confused by the
hybrid dog
’
s partially-alien appearance. At first, the
one-eyed James tried to shoe him away with a rake, but Ned defended him.

‘Look at it! It
’
s one of their freaks! Get it
away!
’

‘No, he can be useful.
’

‘How?
’
James demanded.

‘He doesn
’
t like Suits either. He barks
whenever they
’
re near. He can be our guard
dog.
’

Moonboy
was discussed in length
among the settlers before a decision was made, a decision in which Ned had
little to say. Arguments carried on into the night. When the moon appeared,
Moonboy
started glowing green once more and amazed them all
with his luminescent glow. The students, amused and scientifically curious,
began discussing a similar phenomenon observed in jellyfish, and informed Ned
that the concept of gene transmutation into other animals was not new, even
here on Earth. From then on,
Moonboy
became far too
fascinating to disregard. And he was too cute, too playful. Michael played tug
of war with him with some rope. Sarah hugged him and let him lick her face in
adoration. Eventually it was declared, after extensive whining and
pleading, that
the dog could stay, on condition that if he
proved to be a threat, he would immediately be cast out.

‘Cast out? No, he
’
ll be shot,
’
James asserted.
‘
I
’
m not
putting our safety in jeopardy because the kids are amused by a glowing mutt.
’