The Last Girl Read online

  My stomach twisted with guilt. These people wouldn’t be inflicting themselves on the bereft world if it wasn’t for me and Nathan. But Ray, my Hawaiian shirt guy, wouldn’t let me succumb to despair because, of all of them, he had really changed.

  Ray was walking east, determined to make it to his wife’s apartment in Strathfield and make amends. Christmas morning had been his first chance to see the twins since he was paroled and his big opportunity to talk Lyn around and convince her that the anger-management classes in prison had worked. Ray vowed not to stuff it up. But hanging around the halfway house on Christmas Eve, listening to the tinny TV sounds of men alone in their rooms, was too much to handle, and so he and Benny from the next cubicle had pooled their meagre resources and bought six bottles of cheap wine. There was no harm—they just drank and laughed and listened to music until the dawn sky was as pink as their eyes.

  But when Ray woke to the plane exploding into the bridge it was like a nightmare chasing him into the day. Horrible visions, sounds, feelings, sensations jumbled through him—a riot in Silverwater Jail, suburban mums and dads baying for blood, jolts of pain as bones broke and skin split in a bus tumbling across a bridge—and then Ray was with Liam and Doc as they wailed amid Christmas wrappers at their frantic mother.

  Don’t-yell-Mummy-I’m-scared-So-loud-Where’s-Daddy?

  Lyn screamed—at the boys, at herself, in his head—and her fear and fury rippled through him so violently he vomited over the side of his narrow cot.

  Shut-up-boys-Be-quiet-Can’t-think-Ray-you-bastard-Drunk-Always-drunk-here-I—

  Then she was gone—like Ray had accidentally changed a television channel—and he was in Benny’s head next door as the poor gimp blasted Led Zep on headphones and pounded a bottle of port. Ray’s mind raged randomly through intoxicated and insane minds in other rooms and out into surrounding streets that were like war zones. Inside his own skull was worse than any prison cell. But at least he could escape his room. So he bolted from the halfway house to the LiquorBarn. The place was a shambles of broken glass and booze and blood-soaked bodies. Wild-eyed freaks surged in and out, grabbing whatever they could. Ray was one of them until he got his hands on two bottles of wine.

  Ray staggered clear, guzzling warm chardonnay as he weaved between people. The first bottle didn’t really help. The second one made his legs so rubbery he had to sit down. His mind tripped to his family again. Lyn huddled with their twins in the empty bath. Like this was an earthquake.

  Mummy!-Please!-Don’t-want-to-die!-So-loud!-Ray-where-are-you?-Everything-pushing-Love-you-Liam-Doc-but-get-away-shut-up-no-no . . .

  Lyn hugged the boys even as she tried to repulse their minds. Then it was like the tub beneath them caved in and they were tumbling into the abyss.

  ‘No!’ Ray protested from his pawn-shop doorway but he was going down with his family into the enormity of the earth.

  Ray replayed his mistakes relentlessly as he walked east. ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’—he remembered reading that on the ceiling of a cafe where he’d asked about a dishwashing job. That connection tugged at me and made me wish I could reach out and reassure Ray everything would be all right, tell him his renewed lease on life was helping me believe things might be okay. As he climbed around the remains of a burned police car, I felt proud when Ray mentally gave thanks to whoever had given him a second chance to be the man he should’ve been the first time around. By God, Ray was going to save his family—and then he would revive as many people as he could and really pay back his debt to society.

  Ray couldn’t hear me but he wasn’t alone. Minds out there helped him where they could. Ravi and Jackie weren’t quite a GPS but between them they knew these suburban backstreets better than he did. Their advice meant he avoided a few dead ends. But it was more than that: they gently kept him on the right path whenever he thought about finding just one drink. These guys, these strangers, were better than any Alcoholics Anonymous group. They could see past everything to the good person he really was.

  ‘Ray?’ Nathan said in the dark.

  ‘Ray,’ I agreed.

  ‘There’s hope.’ He briefly found my cheek with his hand in the darkness. ‘I’m so glad we found each other.’

  As I lay there, I gave thanks for Nathan. But I felt sick for him when I remembered what he had started to tell me before Cassie had rudely interrupted him. The night shift. Of course: medical students interned in hospitals. As bad as my flight from Beautopia Point had been, Nathan had probably had it worse. Patients, doctors and nurses battling their own and each other’s demons in wards and waiting rooms. I wondered how long Nathan had tried to save others before he realised he’d be lucky to save himself.

  ‘You never told me,’ I said, ‘what it was like for you?’

  Nathan sighed in the darkness. ‘I’ll tell you everything in the morning,’ he said. ‘I promise. I’m just so tired now. Goodnight, Danby.’

  I felt him roll onto his side.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  A moment later Nathan was snoring lightly.

  We’d saved some people. Now they were saving each other. Our plan wasn’t perfect but it was working.

  What I wanted to know was how many other people were out there like us. If the ratio was 1 in a 1000, there would be 25,000 people in Australia. Even with a dismal percentage like that there’d still be eight million survivors worldwide. From Mr Mooney’s history class I recalled that the global population had been around that at the start of recorded history. But this wasn’t the new 4000 BC. I had found Nathan and he had known about Lorazepam. Others would be doing the same thing. Tens or even hundreds of millions would survive.

  The big challenge in these early days would be finding each other. Without transport and telecommunications, it was like the world had been wound back. People who were suburbs away might as well be in other states. But that was where the telepathy might work in our favour. They didn’t know it but the Revivees were already our radars. If they ran into anyone like us then Nathan and I would know about it. But we would also be frustratingly unable to communicate our presence. What we needed was to revive someone who would stay with us—and whose mind wouldn’t drive us crazy. Through them we’d be able to broadcast to other Revivees.

  Before I fell asleep, a chilling calculation occurred. If the sample of me, Nathan and the Party Duder held true across the wider population then 33.3 recurring per cent of those who were immune would also be psychotic murdering rapists. I was sure that civilisation couldn’t survive that.

  SEVENTEEN

  When I awoke my eyes were inches from beige carpet. I didn’t know where I was. Rolling over, I saw Evan with his IV. Everything came back. We were in the accountant’s rooms. This was the reception area.

  ‘Nathan?’

  The place was so small that if he was in the office or the kitchen or the bathroom or even on the balcony he would’ve heard me.

  A note was stuck to the wall. I stood up and peered at the scrawl.

  4.30 a.m. Evan has fresh IV. Gone to help someone.

  Back as soon as I can. Hope we’ll still be friends.

  I looked at my phone. Just before seven. Nathan had left me in the dark. To help someone. I flashed to me asking him if he had anyone. He’d deflected with the joke about the share house. ‘Someone’ meant someone special. I wasn’t jealous. Just angry. That he hadn’t told me. Mum was my priority. He could have his. But now he’d abandoned me—us. Anything could go wrong and I wouldn’t know it. If he brought her back here, how would we cope with a shared mind?

  I sent my senses wide open out there. I skipped over Cassie and her friends, coming around after a night on the needle in a pub. I saw Ray, thirstier than ever but still sober and within striking distance of Lyn’s place. I flitted past Jackie, still searching for Tony. Other minds spun through mine—Traci, Ravi, Cory, Anne and the rest of our Revivees and the people they’d woken up—but no one had eyes on Nathan.

 
Then I locked onto a girl named Tregan and dropped straight into her experience in a bush clearing. Her head lolled. Her brain ached, her heart beat heavy in her temples. Her tongue was sluggish, her skin flamed with sunburn and insect bites. But she barely felt the pain for the exhilaration.

  I’m-back!-I’m-alive!-I’m-alive!

  Then Nathan came into view and she felt only fear.

  ‘Slowly,’ he said, cupping her neck, holding a bottle to her parched lips. ‘Tregan, drink slowly, it’s electrolyte, I’ve already hydrated you, you’re going to be okay.’

  ‘You,’ I heard her say, looking from his sweaty face to the empty IV bag among the weeds. There was a syringe, too. ‘What—what—what—?’

  Flashes hit Tregan: driving with Gary on the Great Western Highway, their minds overlapping, the argument, the plane screaming over the city, her fiancé slamming on the brakes to avoid a flipped tow truck, her throwing open the door to stumble into the bush, the weight of the world caving in on her.

  ‘Nathan,’ she said. ‘What have you done to me?’

  Drug-like-Datura-DMT-could-cause-hallucinations-Bastard-kidnapped-me-God-has-he-hurt-Gary?-Sick-he’s-sick-but-I-never-thought—

  Nathan stepped back, hands raised.

  ‘Tregan,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for everything before. But this isn’t what you think.’

  When-people-say-that-it’s-always-exactly-what-you-think.

  ‘When people say that it’s always exactly what you think,’ Nathan said.

  How-did-he-do-that?-Bad-dream-has-to-be . . .

  ‘It’s not, Tregan,’ Nathan said, crouching down. ‘I wish it was a bad dream.’

  Made-himself-smaller-less-threatening.

  ‘I crouched because my legs are aching,’ he said. ‘I’ve been riding and looking for you.’

  Better-play-along-crazy-psycho-stalker. ‘How’d you find me?’

  ‘Soon after it started I could see flashes of you and Gary,’ Nathan said. ‘Enough to have an idea where you were.’

  Be-clinical-Tregan-He-thinks-he’s-telling-the-truth. ‘You’re crazy,’ she said. Shit-not-helping-Wrong-thing-to-say-Sorry—

  ‘I’m the one who’s sorry,’ Nathan said. ‘For everything that happened before. I was sick. You helped me see that. I got help. Got meds. I’m still on them. I promise.’

  God-where’s-Gary-If-you-hurt—

  ‘I didn’t do anything to him,’ Nathan said. ‘For godsake listen to me!’

  Get-out-of-my-head-Leave-me-alone!

  ‘I need to tell you something.’

  I need to tell you something.

  For Tregan, those words brought back everything frightening about Nathan. I didn’t want to share her memories. I wanted to avert my mind. But I had to know who he really was.

  At first Tregan’s shy classmate had just seemed to come out of his shell as a really brilliant and funny guy. She was glad to have him as a friend and study partner. But then he started talking about sleep being for the weak and how they were soul mates meant to save the world. Classic manic episode. Gary, who was in third year, agreed with her diagnosis. Nathan had no insight into his condition, couldn’t see that he was a walking DSM-VI entry. Talking to him about getting help only played into his paranoia. When Tregan ignored his ceaseless social media entreaties he would appear outside her apartment at all hours. She finally got a restraining order and Nathan disappeared from her life—after one last belligerent online rant. Title: I Need To Tell You Something. Last she’d heard, via another student, he’d gotten a medical deferral, had sought treatment and was working nights at a convenience store.

  ‘Please listen to me,’ Nathan said.

  Tregan backed away from him. ‘You—you—drugged me.’

  Nathan shook his head. ‘Lorazepam.’ He tossed a bulging RSK in front of her. ‘I revived you. Everyone’s in a catatonic state.’

  Tregan flashed to the moments before everything had gone black. Too much information. People falling into nothingness. She’d followed them. Already she was theorising. Social-defeat-in-mice-can-result-in-catatonia-Lorazepam-Remember-those-studies—

  Tregan looked at Nathan sharply, aware he was hearing her.

  ‘It’s all in there,’ he said, ‘Everything you need to help Gary and other people.’

  Is-he-telling-the-truth?

  ‘I am, you know it,’ he said. ‘Hear those people out there?’

  She could. Echoing minds. Easier to focus than before. People injecting catatonics. Reviving them before it was too late.

  ‘We woke them up the same way,’ Nathan said. ‘Tregan, you want to save lives, here’s your chance.’

  Other Revivee minds saw and heard all of this through Tregan.

  This-guy-Nathan-He’s-the-one-who-woke-us?-Can’t-read-him-He-can-hear-her-She-thinks-he’s-psycho—

  ‘I’m going,’ Nathan said, standing up, offering his hand. ‘Find Gary, revive him, do whatever you can.’

  Tregan took the bag—but refused his hand.

  Stand-on-my-own-two-feet-you-crazy— ‘Can you really hear me?’

  Nathan nodded.

  Worst-thing-ever-stalker-inside-my-goddamned-head-Oh-Nathan-no-I’m—

  ‘Just like you can hear them out there,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tune out. I’ll leave you be.’

  When Nathan picked his way back through the bush, Tregan followed at a wary distance.

  When she emerged from the trees, Gary’s car was where it had been, one of scores of vehicles strewn across the highway. Tregan saw her fiancé behind the wheel.

  Oh-baby-please-be-okay. She hugged the RSK to her chest. Tregan wanted to run to her man as much as she wanted to flee. She knew what could have gone wrong for him: shock, dehydration, infarction, aneurysm, desperate self-harm or the mindless violence of some passing maniac. What if she couldn’t revive him? Or if she did, only for them to pick up their awful telepathic argument where they left off? Whatever happened had to be a private moment—or as private as it could be in this public world.

  Nathan didn’t need to be told once. ‘I’ll get going.’

  Tregan watched him climb onto the mountain bike. He’s-really-going-Don’t-know-if-that’s-better-or—

  ‘Are you with someone?’ she asked. ‘You said “we”?’

  Nathan met her eyes. ‘I’ve got a . . .’

  Girlfriend.

  ‘Friend.’

  God-even-he’s-got-someone-What-if-Gary-won’t-wake-up—

  ‘Do you want me to wait?’ Nathan asked. ‘Just in case.’

  Stop!-Stop!-Stop-listening-to-me-I’d-rather-be-alone-than—

  I saw Nathan flinch, knew her every thought was hurting him.

  ‘No.’ Tregan forced a smile. ‘Go.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nathan said. ‘For everything. Good luck.’

  She watched him disappear into the maze of traffic.

  I was about to tune away when Tregan’s thought hit me like a shotgun.

  Better-her-than-me.

  Her was me.

  I paced the reception area, clenching and unclenching my fists, stomach heavy with the dread that I’d replaced Tregan as Nathan’s obsession. A shiver danced through the hairs on my arms as I thought about the times we’d held hands and hugged.

  ‘I’ve got a . . . friend.’

  Tregan had thought he was going to say ‘girlfriend’. So had I.

  Jesus.

  Nathan had said he and I were saving the world. Did he think all this horrible stuff had happened to throw us together? What would he do if I tried to leave? I had time to escape. I couldn’t carry Evan far but even if I got us into another building a few blocks away Nathan wouldn’t find us easily. I knew how to change Evan’s IV. I could try Lorazepam again. If that didn’t work, I could revive a doctor—a real doctor—who could rig up an electroshock. All of that sounded possible—but terrifying because I didn’t want to be alone.

  I had to calm down. Look at Nathan through my own eyes instead of Tregan’s.

  He had
n’t actually lied to me. Technically he was still a medical student—he’d merely omitted the more recent bit about being mentally ill. All he’d said was that when the Snap happened he was coming off the night shift. My imagination had provided the picture of him valiantly battling to save humanity in an emergency ward. Before he’d gone to sleep he’d promised to tell me everything in the morning.

  Now he had. But Nathan had gone further than just telling me the truth—he’d consciously shown it to me in a way that went beyond words. He could have injected Tregan and been gone before she woke up. Nathan had stuck around. He’d wanted me to see him through her eyes and know the worst. He’d wanted me to have the chance to get away. As for him holding my hand or giving me a hug: it was what normal people did in even mildly distressing situations, let alone in the aftermath of the apocalypse.

  What I knew about Nathan for certain was that he’d saved my life. Without him I’d be dead and worse at the hands of the Party Duder. Without him Evan would be wasting away in Starboard. Without him a few dozen people wouldn’t be up and walking around. And that included Tregan.

  I looked at his note again. He’d known what I’d think. He’d wanted to reassure me.

  ‘Hope we’ll still be friends.’

  We would be.

  But I knew what my friend had been looking for in the DrugRite after he’d gotten the Lorazepam: his medication. I had to make sure he kept taking it. And then I realised, who was I to talk? I hadn’t brought my prescription with me—

  I rummaged excitedly in Nathan’s stuff. Found two boxes of pills. But he wasn’t on Lucidiphil. What he was taking was Lithium and Lamictal. How different could they be? These drugs had to be at least a contributing factor to our immunity. Our anti-psychotic meds had reacted with our brain chemistries just enough to set us apart from everyone else. I laughed nervously at what that might mean. The lunatics had taken over the asylum—with me as an honorary member.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Nathan when he got back. It could be the start of something. Maybe we could give people drugs like these to stop them broadcasting thoughts. If people didn’t send there’d be nothing to receive. We might be able to do more than revive people. We might be able to reverse the telepathy.