The Last Girl Read online

  Breaking news burned from mind to mind: a rainbow river of gasoline, spilling from drums in the cargo hold of a crashed Hegira, streaming down the road under vehicles.

  It’s-on-fire-Fire!-Oh-God!-Oh-God!

  People were so parked-in they couldn’t get free. Drivers kicked at windshields and then vehicles began bucking into the air on cushions of fire.

  Rattling the gearstick, I stomped on the accelerator. We shot back wildly. Glanced off the fiery Kombi. Spun across the road until we crunched into a parked car. My face slammed into the airbag. It took a second to realise I was alive. Then I whirled to make sure Evan was okay. My little brother was cushioned by a side airbag and safe in Big Bear’s embrace. But his screams were louder than the car alarm we’d set off. Evan’s defences were crumbling.

  Scary-Danby-scary!

  ‘It’s gonna be okay!’ My shout only added to his terror. ‘Hang on!’

  The airbag deflated in a cloud of chalky dust. I shook the gearstick forward, twisted the steering wheel hard right and mashed the accelerator. We ripped down Boundary Road, side-swiping and scraping parked cars as we went.

  The inferno receded in the rear-view mirror but keeping on towards the river offered no escape. A few blocks away a young Hellwheels fan was dying in a stolen V8. We’d never get past the carnage he’d created. Even if we could, a bigger disaster waited just around the corner where a speeding truck had flipped into oncoming traffic and turned that stretch of road into a pagan symmetry of bodies and debris. Trying to avoid that chaos by ducking into the side street would deliver us to a bearded guy in fatigues spraying his automatic rifle at the body-snatchers he believed were taking over. My mind raced beyond these obstacles, through more streets and other suburbs. Even where there was no violence, roads were all but impassable. Drivers had stopped to stare into devices. Or stalled or smashed when they’d succumbed to the nothingness. Near or far, there was no way out. The clear strip of asphalt in my headlights might have been the last open road left in the city.

  Evan was still screaming. Only now did I hear what he was saying.

  ‘Home!’

  Home-home-home-home.

  I’d stopped us outside Beautopia Point.

  Back where we started. We were going home to die.

  TEN

  ‘Not on my watch!’

  Wasn’t that the sort of thing action-movie heroes always said? I swung the steering wheel and aimed the BMW back through Beautopia Point’s gates. The place had gone even further to hell. The Grocery’s banners were ablaze. Smoke billowed from Skybrook’s roof. Flames danced in Sunshower’s upper-floor windows.

  I slowed as we approached Goldrise. Searched for Jacinta. Came up empty. Heard someone else.

  I’m-coming-baby!

  The woman let herself fall from the balcony of her penthouse apartment. Thinking about her husband. How horrible it’d been for him in that fireball. My foot went for the accelerator as she screamed into oblivion against the BMW’s bonnet. All at once the car bucked and metal buckled and the windshield imploded and the headlights died as her body bounced away into the darkness. I swallowed my scream as steam gushed from the ruptured front end.

  Noisy-scary-Sleep-sleep-sleepy.

  ‘Evan!’

  His eyes were closed and he shuddered in his child seat. My little brother was going down. Sucked under by so many souls circling in their own vortexes.

  ‘Evan!’

  I shook his shoulder hard. He couldn’t hear me.

  ‘Please,’ I cried. ‘Don’t go.’

  But he already had.

  The car wasn’t going anywhere. I shoved open my door and staggered onto the road. Every panel was scraped and dented. Tail-lights smashed. Bumper and muffler prised loose. None of that mattered. What killed me was that my crashes had accordioned the boot so much I couldn’t get our supplies free. I fought the urge to scream. It wouldn’t help.

  My mind returned to our house. Kieran had gone in when we’d driven out. When he saw Boris was alive he smashed the bully’s head with the vodka bottle. As much to have his revenge as to show minds out there that he was king of this castle. Seconds later Kieran realised he was just as vulnerable in our lounge room as he was out on the waterfront. None of the screens or stereos worked: there was no way to keep the minds out. But searching frantically for something— anything—paid off with the double jackpot of car keys and the forgotten .45. Now Kieran was backing Dad’s Mercedes out of the garage, determined to use the gun on anyone who tried to carjack him and yelling along with the Astral Projectors on the stereo.

  But I was grateful to be in Kieran’s mind as he stole our car. That’s because as he reversed down our driveway, the Mercedes’ headlights lit on our possible salvation hanging on the garage wall. I waited until he’d roared past us and then yanked open the back passenger door.

  ‘Evan?’ I said softly.

  No response. I took a moment to control my shaking and put my ear and hand to his nose and mouth to hear and feel his breath. Physically, my little brother was fine. Mentally, he was gone.

  I grabbed my skateboard, set it down to the road. Unbuckled Evan’s child seat, hefted him out of the car and into a fireman’s carry. I planted one foot on my deck. It bent under our combined weight. But this was how we had to roll. I took the other foot off the ground and gravity began its work.

  We picked up speed down the hill and I used Evan’s arms and legs to keep us balanced. A woman watching from her upstairs window saw us as a six-limbed creature whirring through the dusk at supernatural speed. In an instant her vision of a giant insect alien sent a fresh wave of panic bristling through the suburb. A guy on an apartment balcony concurred we were a blurry extraterrestrial streak and let loose at us with his hunting rifle. Bullets whizzed off the bitumen but I kept us upright as we raced off the road and along our driveway.

  Leaping from the board, I carried us into the shadows alongside the house and set Evan softly on the lawn. I crept across the yard. Knelt by the cabana. Peered through the lattice that divided the waterfront into dark diamonds. There weren’t that many people between us and the river. I guess gunshots heralding a war between humanity and telepathic space cockroaches really helped to clear an area. Those still in the vicinity were fending each other off from inside their tablet trances or offline and oblivious like Jacinta and Evan. The one wild card was our next-door neighbour Doug. The bastard was oscillating along the waterfront. But he was so wrapped up with berating the world that I didn’t think he’d notice us.

  I grabbed Evan under his armpits and dragged him across our lawn and out the gate. No one saw me pull him down the breakwall’s stone steps and onto the sand by the water’s edge. With my little brother safe in the shadows, I hustled back to our garage. What I needed—what I’d seen through Kieran—was the lightweight kayak Dad had used for a month or so before he’d relegated it to a rack. I lifted it from the wall. It was built for one adult but Evan and I would have to squeeze into the cockpit. I hauled it up over my head and hustled across our lawn.

  I was nearly at the water when someone grabbed my boot. Jerking away from the hand of a lady who’d crashed out made me stumble just enough that the kayak’s hull dipped and banged against the promenade.

  Thoughts sprayed from Doug as he whirled around.

  That’s-no-giant-cockroach-Someone-carrying-canoe.

  Across the river, something exploded bright enough for him to see me.

  Danby-I-heard-you-were-dead.

  I threw the kayak off the breakwall and jumped down after it onto the little beach.

  ‘Hey! Hang on!’ he shouted, running after me, trying not to think Get-her! ‘Danby, it’s me, Doug!’

  I grabbed Evan and plonked him in the cockpit. My phone! I couldn’t let it get ruined by seawater. It’d be vital when the network came back so Jacinta and Mum could find me. I wrenched it from my jeans pocket and tucked it inside Evan’s jacket.

  Splashing alongside the kayak took me into thigh-deep wa
ter and then I used the little boat like a kickboard until I couldn’t touch the bottom.

  Come-back-here!

  Doug waded behind us.

  ‘Danby, come on, you know me,’ he said. ‘Just hear me out.’

  That was the problem—I knew him and I had heard him. Doug didn’t really want the kayak. Reckoned that if he couldn’t hear me then I couldn’t hear him. Keeping me with him might be the way to not go crazy and crash out. We could be good together.

  I kicked hard, churning the water, and clung to a buoy. Hanging between it and the kayak, I looked back at Doug.

  ‘Hey,’ I panted. ‘Some crazy shit, huh?’

  ‘You got that right,’ he said. I’ll-have-to-ditch-the-retard. ‘We need to stick together.’

  Doug took another step. The water lapped his chest. He’d have to swim unless he could coax me to shore.

  ‘We can help each other,’ he said. ‘You should come back.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘Just let me do this first.’

  Barnacles tore through my jeans as I shimmied up the buoy. With a boot, I pulled the kayak closer and lowered myself into the cockpit behind Evan.

  ‘You bitch!’ Doug shouted.

  He dived into the inky river.

  I yanked the paddle free of its bungee cords.

  Doug popped up a few feet from the hull and I smacked the blade hard into the water beside his head.

  ‘Danby, don’t make me hurt you,’ he said, treading water. ‘Be reasonable.’

  My impromptu weapon was six feet long. If he came closer, I’d slice open his skull.

  ‘I killed my parents and Boris!’ I blurted. ‘You can be next if you want.’

  Doug didn’t believe me. He knew Stephanie had fallen, that Dad had shot himself and that Kieran had finished Boris. But as he was about to open his mouth to call bullshit I felt his blackest fear bubble up inside him.

  ‘I’ve got my period,’ I said. ‘You’re swimming in my blood.’

  What?-Oh-you-dirty-Is-she-serious?-Oh-shit.

  Doug froze as he helplessly imagined sharks zero-ing in on him. I quickly paddled into deeper water. Doug raced back to the beach.

  ‘You can’t get away!’ He could barely hear himself over the minds pushing him down like plunging waves. ‘You’re gonna die.’

  As I steered us away, Doug slumped down onto the sand as he was sucked into oblivion.

  Paddling the kayak around Beautopia Point, my mind radared through the smoke on the water. No one swam towards us. We weren’t in the path of a frantic speedboat. But the river was far from empty. Dinghies and yachts and cruisers skudded crazily as people climbed masts, hid in cabins and jumped overboard to escape each other. Solo skippers hoped their distance from other people would mean freedom from the madness, hoped they could hold out long enough to get past the bridge’s ruined iron stalactites and reach the open ocean. I was heading the other way even though I knew the Parramatta River dwindled after it left the city that bore its name. But at least if I got that far I’d be fifteen kilometres closer to my mum.

  A tide of boats swept towards me. I skipped across minds that overlapped like the choppy waves. I found no threats but my head filled with screams as the river flared, and shock and heat and spray pummelled the kayak.

  ‘No,’ I gasped. ‘Please.’

  But I knew. The explosion was Goldrise. Jacinta’s building.

  I sent my mind searching and looked back at the burning tower through stinging eyes.

  Thank-God-I-got-out.

  It wasn’t Jacinta. It was 5C. Grateful he’d remained outside his building after he tried to take the car from me.

  No-way-anyone’s-getting-out-Stupid-suicidal-bastard.

  I understood 5C’s bitter conclusion. Jacinta’s downstairs neighbour had turned on the gas to kill himself. But he’d set a time bomb that had turned Goldrise into an inferno.

  There was no saving Jacinta. My best friend was dead. Gone. I didn’t know how to go on—only that I had to or we’d die next. I paddled us forward mindlessly.

  I don’t know how we didn’t run aground. Or go under the bow of some out-of-control boat. Next thing I knew, I had to stop and catch my breath. As we bobbed in the muck, I wiped my eyes and stared back at Sydney. All the skyscrapers had dissolved into the smoky horizon. Some harbourside suburbs still had power so that lights shone from windows and streetlamps warded off the daytime darkness. But swathes were blacked out from shore to hillside or only aglow at the mercy of unchecked blazes.

  ‘Shit!’ I snapped out of my stunned state.

  A panicked weekend sailor spinning his wheel to avoid a phantom trawler looming from another mind put him on a direct course for us.

  I paddled frantically. Got us out of his path. The man and his boat speared across the river behind us. Disintegrated amid a jetty’s thick pylons.

  Adrenaline rushing, fully alert, I paddled hard, pushing us upriver into fresh tortures. Every westward inch brought us in range of more people coming apart at the seams. Steering straight for them was insane. The only thing crazier would’ve been to stay put.

  What maybe went in our favour was that we were invisible. Minds on the shores, and in other boats, couldn’t tune into me or Evan and the kayak melted into the smoky mess of sky meeting water. But that could work against us if another boat came our way. All I could do about that was keep close to the shore where we were less likely to be hit.

  Darkened suburbs scrolled by. Flashlights stabbed through the darkness. I steered between yachts at a marina, through the shallows alongside a bush reserve, across the burning frontage of a waterside apartment complex.

  An iron bridge brooded from the gloaming. Its entire span was choked with cars. People cowered in smashed vehicles and tried to hide inside whatever wall of sound their stereos could conjure. Horns were honked by slumping heads. Headlights projected drivers as shadows in the smoke as they fled across cars. On the shores mobs who’d spilled from the bridge and down from the suburbs clashed in a punching, biting, kicking, cutting and bashing war of all against all. It was like everyone had decided that death was the only escape: it didn’t matter whose.

  I had to risk the middle of the river. Better to chance crashing with another boat than to go near whatever had replaced humanity inside that homicidal frenzy. There weren’t any vessels that I could see. But that didn’t mean we were safe. As we approached the middle pylons, I flicked across fevered minds, expecting to lock onto another suicidal swandiver. It wouldn’t need to be a direct hit to kill us. Waves from a near-miss could capsize the kayak. We were wedged into the cockpit so tightly we’d drown before I got us free.

  Then the horror was behind us. The river ahead was clear of boats and the industrial shoreline was uninhabited. Every muscle ached but I didn’t slow for fear of losing momentum. I set an achievable goal. I’d rest when I got to the next flashing red channel marker. But when I reached it I promised myself a break at the next one. Then I forced myself on at the next one and the next one after that. That was how I kept going.

  I paddled us past warehouses and depots. We slid beneath a disused railway bridge. Went by an eerily quiet apartment complex. The river opened into mangrove-lined Homebush Bay, crowned by Sydney Olympic Park’s arches. My exhausted mind slipped away from me. Saw people streaming around a stadium. Heard what sounded like the roar of excited fans. Maybe some sporting event was finishing. Then I realised these were discombobulated souls trying not to become crowds as they wandered Olympic Park’s arenas and boulevards.

  My neck hurt from the car crash. My abdominals felt like they might snap and my thighs were burning. I’d tried to welcome this physical pain as a distraction. Now my body screamed in unison with the universe.

  I couldn’t go on. Then I didn’t have to. I wasn’t on the river anymore. I was in deep space. Being sucked towards a pulsing red dwarf. Except that wasn’t right. In space you couldn’t hear anything and you moved without effort. But I was being pulled through noise a
nd friction. This was inner space. Had to be. Me being pumped through my own blood towards my own heart. Only I wasn’t moving anymore. I was stuck in sludge that tasted of salt and copper. Everything pulsed red and black. Was I inside my own heart attack? No—this wasn’t my death. It was the birth—of everything. Back in time, billions of years. I was part of the primordial soup being lit up by exploding lava. Lightning would strike and all life would start with me as the first organic molecule. Everything I thought I knew hadn’t happened yet. But then it had—and I slammed back into myself.

  I was Danby, dehydrated and delirious and slumped against my little brother’s back in the kayak I’d just paddled straight into a muddy mangrove flat. I made myself sit up, rubbed river water out of my eyes, took what measure I could of the landscape from the red-black pulse of the channel marker behind me. Above where I’d landed was a walking track and beyond that was dense, dark bushland. There were millions of people in every direction but I couldn’t sense anyone close by.

  When I yoga-moved out of the cockpit, my feet sank into the mud. I tied one of the kayak’s bungee cords to a mangrove branch so my ride wouldn’t be carried off with the tide. I hauled Evan up and slopped us onto dry land. I checked his respiration and pulse. He was in better shape than me. Breathing easy while I rasped for air.

  Looking around, I was met with a minor miracle: the shiny silver of a water fountain. I hauled myself up its plinth and took sips that were cold and revitalising. Then I splashed my face to wash off the salt and blood and mud.

  A sign beside the fountain said that the black bushland behind the cyclone fence was Newington Nature Reserve. It didn’t take long to find a flap of wire that’d been pulled back at ground level, probably by kids who treated this as their personal adventure park. I squeezed us through and dragged Evan into the shadows between the towering trees.

  Everything hurt, everything was unfair, everything was wrong and everything had to be turned back the way it was. There was a simple way out of this. Had to be.

  Wake up. Wake up. Wake. Up. Wake. Up.