George stood on the sandstone wall in front of his house and stared down the dusty street.
The rooftops, the shells of abandoned houses, the dead trees were all the same drab shades of beige and brown. No cars, no people, no sound.
No sign of Dad.
High above, a hint of blue fought its way through the pink haze of the sky. George wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. He hacked out a cough.
He heard a car in the distance. The engine spluttered. The wheels spun and screeched at the half-buried roundabout at the bottom of the street. George watched the dark shape drive up the hill towards him. It weaved around the sand-drifts.
A cloud of fine grit swelled behind the car and dwarfed the ragged houses on each side of the road. George swatted at the flies that sucked at the corners of his eyes.
Beneath the grime, the car was red. That was the wrong colour. It was the wrong shape too. A station wagon. George was ready to run back inside his house and hide. But the car turned right halfway up the hill and headed north.
George jumped off the wall and jogged to the house, past the remains of the hedge and past the fishpond, which was filled to the brim with sand. He went inside, checked on Beeper, still fast asleep in the front bedroom. Then he hurried back to the front wall, his feet sliding around inside his sweat-filled shoes.
‘Come on,’ he said, picking at his wet T-shirt to pull it away from his skin. ‘Come on, Dad.’
The sound of the car-engine faded. The plume of dust lingered in the air.
‘You can’t be too far away. Just held up somewhere, that’s all.’
On the other side of the hill, to the west, the sky was darker than normal. George spat as he looked towards the ghostly outline of the sports stadium, two or three kilometres away. Further beyond, through the dust-clouded air, were the foothills of the Western Ranges.
Tree stumps lined the road. He willed one of them to move, to somehow be Dad. He swatted more flies. Shifted his feet to stop ants climbing up his legs. Then he stared at the house across the street. It was missing its roof, doors and windows. It looked like a skull.
For a moment George thought he saw a pair of eyes peering above one of the window ledges. ‘Just a trick of the heat,’ he said to himself. He was starting to sway on his feet, to have strange thoughts. Negative thoughts. He shook his head and spoke aloud the names of the people who had lived there until two years ago. ‘Hugo, Christopher, Jacinta …’
He glanced at the house next door, with its metal front door and KEEP OUT signs. Old Mr Carey stood behind one of his upstairs windows, staring down through the filthy glass. George quickly turned away.
Goosebumps began to dot George’s arms and legs. The temperature was dropping. The flies vanished. The sky to the west darkened further. The heat of the midsummer afternoon disappeared. That could mean only one thing.
George scowled at the sky and spotted it taking shape. High above the rooftops in the distance. Emerging from the haze like a range of mountains. The mountains swallowed everything as they silently advanced towards the hill.
The biggest ‘sandblaster’ in months was minutes away. There had been no warning, no sirens.
George knew what to do: sprint inside, check the windows and doors were locked tight, block the gaps with rags, grab Beeper, then hide in the bathroom with their masks and goggles on.
Yet he froze.
The blaster moved over the stadium. It was black at its centre, and ringed with an orange glow. George didn’t want to go inside the house. Not with his father still out there.
‘Please come home. Please, please, please. Quickly.’
A flock of birds flew ahead of the wall of angry wind and flying dirt. A few rabbits bounced and twitched along the roadway in a panic. The sandblaster devoured the houses, the leaning telegraph poles, the skeletons of trees further down the road. It began rolling up the hill towards George, choking everything in swirling dirt. Still, George remained on the wall, waiting for a miracle. Waiting for his father to appear somehow from the midst of all this.
George realised there was no time left. He jumped off the wall and over the dead hedge as he was hit by the rush of air pushed ahead of the blaster. He landed a few metres from the front porch and lost his footing. He crawled towards the front door. The silence turned into a roar. George held his breath and closed his eyes to keep out the dirt swirling up from the ground. Dragging himself to his feet, he knew he had only seconds to make it inside before the full force struck. He found the door handle with his outstretched fingers and pushed it down. The door flew open as if it had been kicked in. George crawled inside and slammed the door behind him.
A second later, daylight vanished. Walls shook. The front door burst open again, knocking George further into the hallway. His arms, legs and face stung with the hot sand and dust that surged through. He ran to the door and shoved at it with both hands.
‘Beeper!’ he croaked. His mouth felt like a burning pit. He forced the door shut and fumbled for the steel security bar. He grabbed it and jammed it firmly into its brackets.
‘Beeper,’ George croaked. ‘Beeper! Where are you?’