A rasping wind was all I could hear. I took a deep breath, coughed hard, and felt a cracked rib twinge. Everything flooded back—leaving home, saying goodbye to Louise, driving through the bush, riding out the collapsing bridge, seeing Red and Blue die, watching Tobe fight.
I had no memory of what happened after I threw myself at the bastard that killed Tobe’s dogs.
I forced my eyes open. I had no idea where I was.
I managed to sit up. My cracked rib twinged again, and was soon followed by a choir of other pains. I took stock of myself as best I could. Someone had stripped me of my tattered clothes, replacing them with a pair of ragged coveralls. Bandages covered my punctured leg, a splint strapped next to them. I reached up, felt bandages swaddling my head. I unbuttoned my shirt; my chest was a shiny bog of bruises.
‘Ugh.’
Lanterns hung from the wooden ceiling beams. Threadbare curtains covered the windows. Everything was dusty. Somewhat incongruously, I was surrounded by stainless-steel stands laden with plastic bags of fluid. They swayed slightly, like some kind of obscene foliage, the wind forcing its way through the innumerable cracks in the wooden walls. A motionless figure—a bull-roo of a man, his face covered in bandages—lay strapped to the trolley next to mine. Tobe lay on the next trolley along, snoring loudly.
I was relieved, despite all the trouble that he had caused me.
Tobe wore a stranger’s clothes as well. His left arm hung in a sling. One of his eyes was so puffy it had collapsed in on itself. He snorted in his sleep. He reached down and scratched his crotch. He rolled over, ending up on his injured arm.
‘Ah, fuck!’
He was instantly awake, rubbing his arm gingerly. I tried not to laugh but I couldn’t help myself. This time it was my turn to cry out, my cracked rib giving me one last chance.
‘Shit!’
‘Bill, mate, is that you?’
I laughed again, softer this time. My broken body allowed me that much.
Tobe jumped off his trolley, as easy as can be. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.
‘How do you reckon?’
‘Mate, you’re not the only one who got the short end of the stick.’
I looked at him properly. Bruises mottled his skin. He wheezed every time he took a breath. He seemed to have trouble focusing on me, his good eye glassy. But at least he could walk.
‘You okay?’ he asked again.
Despite our presumably dire predicament, I wasn’t actually feeling too bad. The fact that it was once again the two of us against the world comforted me, no matter our injuries and setbacks.
‘I’m getting there. How about you?’
Tobe smiled. ‘You know me.’
‘Good one. So, how long was I out?’
‘About a week, give or take,’ he said, his voice trembling slightly.
I met Tobe’s eye. He looked like he was about to cry.
‘We weren’t sure that you were going to wake up,’ he said. ‘Fuck, mate, you had me worried. Bill, it’s good to see you …’
I was touched, but I didn’t want him to see my embarrassed smile and I didn’t want to see his tears. I turned away, looked around the room. Something was missing …
And then it clicked.
‘Hey, where’s Ruby?’
Tobe quickly pulled himself together. ‘She’s ‘right, mate, she’s out doing her thing. You know, it’s all part of the adventure.’
He laughed, parked himself on the edge of the trolley next to mine, ignoring its occupant.
‘She’s just a kid, Tobe, and one of those bastards shot your dogs right in front of her. That doesn’t sound like much of an adventure to me.’
This time, he wouldn’t meet my eye.
‘I know she’s just a kid, but she’s been through worse. You don’t give her enough credit, mate—she’s tough, tougher than us.’
‘But …’
‘Drop it, Bill, okay?’
And so I did. For a moment, neither of us spoke.
‘Where are we?’ I finally asked.
Apart from the three trolleys and their hanging gardens of fluid bags, there was no other furniture bar a stainless-steel cupboard and sink. The cracks in the walls let in shafts of light; dust motes filled the air. The wind blew. The whole room seemed to sway.
‘Well …’
A knock at the door interrupted Tobe’s answer. He somehow smirked and looked sad at the same time.
‘I think I’ll let the doc answer that.’
The door creaked open and a stooped figure shuffled in. The shocking white of his coat was made brighter still by the sheer darkness of his skin; his hair was as white as the coat he wore; wrinkles spread across his face like cracks across dry earth.
Tobe and I stared. He smiled at us, drew up to the windows, threw open the curtains. Sunlight flooded the room, hot and bright.
‘Ah, William, so good to see that you’re awake. Tobias, how are you?’ He drew up next to us, held out his hand.
‘I’m good, now that our boy’s awake,’ Tobe said, shaking his hand. ‘Thank fuck for that, eh?’
The doctor arched his eyebrows, his disdain for Tobe’s gutter mouth obvious.
‘Shit. Sorry, Doc.’ Tobe smiled innocently.
The doctor shook his head, feigning exasperation. ‘William, how are we on this fine day?’ he asked.
‘It’s Bill. Just Bill. Who are you?’
He smiled. ‘Dr Ishra Khan. But please, call me Ish.’
He took my arm. Methodically, he started removing the various tubes that connected me to the fluid bags. He took a grimy cloth from his pocket, uncorked a dirty bottle, tipped some foul-smelling fluid onto the cloth, wiped down each puncture mark.
His old-man hands didn’t shake in the slightest.
‘So, William, how do you feel?’ he asked, completely ignoring my earlier request.
‘I feel like a million bucks, Doc. I feel like I could run a bloody marathon. Far out, how do you think I feel?’
‘Bill, please.’
It was Tobe. My mouth clanged shut.
‘Bill, mate, bear with the Doc, all right?’
I nodded dumbly.
‘Cheers.’
Ishra made a show of checking an antique watch he wore. ‘I might have a suggestion,’ he said. ‘Tobias, if you would be so kind as to gather William’s things and meet us at the platform—we don’t have that long now.’
I looked at him quizzically.
‘You chose a good day to wake up,’ he said. ‘I was worried that we might have to carry you aboard.’
I frowned, completely lost. He ignored me, turned back to Tobe.
‘Ruby should be there soon, if she manages to work that old watch I gave her. If not, would you mind fetching her?’
‘No worries. But, Doc, try and be gentle with the big stuff, okay?’
I watched their exchange with incredulity, so far out of my depth that I couldn’t even see the bottom.
‘Bill, mate, try and take it easy.’ Once again, Tobe was somehow smirking and looking sad at the same time.
‘She’ll be ‘right,’ I said.
Tobe looked doubtful. I didn’t really believe my own words.
‘I’ll catch you later, then.’
‘No worries.’
He walked away, slamming the door behind him. Ishra joined me after a moment. At first, he seemed unsure where to start.
‘William?’ he asked tentatively.
‘What?’
‘Please, relax.’
‘Huh.’
‘Please. If your friend Tobias can trust me, surely you can too.’
I thought it over. ‘Okay, then,’ I said, knowing that I would regret it.
But what choice did I have?
‘Thank you. Now, it’ll be easier to answer your questions if we walk and talk, that way you can see for yourself. And that poor leg of yours needs a little exercise, otherwise it might lock up. Do you think you can manage that?’
He smiled warmly and I gave in. He took my hand. Despite his age, he had no trouble hauling me to my feet. My thigh burned. I steadied myself on the edge of the trolley. I waited an interminable moment while Ishra shuffled to the cupboard, pulled out an old-fashioned walking stick, shuffled back, passed it over.
I tested my weight, took a wary step.
‘Lead on, MacDuff,’ I said.
‘I believe you mean “lay on”, though I hate to presume.’
He smiled softly. He turned away and walked out the door, swallowed alive by the white-hot sunshine. I shielded my eyes, hobbled after him, and crossed the threshold.
‘Bullshit,’ I said, not knowing what else to say.
Ishra didn’t criticise my choice of words. Fair enough, too—we were facing a concrete plain that stretched for hundreds of metres, enclosed by a semicircular jumble of ruined houses. Faint lines and arrows marked the concrete, almost lost beneath the dust. A few wrecked vehicles were all that broke the emptiness. The heat was stifling.
Nothing natural caught my eye, not even a fly.
‘I call it home,’ Ishra said bitterly.
I looked back at the building we had left. The makeshift sickbay was nothing more than a worn-out weatherboard shack. On either side of it, more shacks interspersed with rough wooden sheds formed an incredibly long wall of derelict buildings. They were all on the way to ruin, ready to fall down and return to the earth.
‘What is this place?’
Ishra gestured for me to follow him, skirting the derelict buildings. He shuffled, I limped—we complemented each other perfectly.
‘This remarkably ugly complex is officially known as CRP Transfer Station 14. Unofficially, like I said, I call it home … And I’m sorry to say that you and your friends are my guests. It’s a much more polite word than prisoner, don’t you think?’
‘Now hang on a …’
‘Please, William, if you don’t mind …’
I nodded begrudgingly. I shut my mouth. The look on Ishra’s face was so pleading I couldn’t do otherwise.
‘This place wasn’t always so empty. Not that I’m glad for that. At the height of the troubles, it teemed with life. Creeps, refugees, holdouts, support crew—they all called it home too.’
I couldn’t help notice his use of the word Creep.
‘As you can see, they weren’t happier times.’
We had stopped outside an enormous steel shed, a building that was almost a warehouse or a hangar. There were no windows. The door was unlocked. Ishra pushed—it gave with a harsh scrape and we stepped into darkness. The heat was incredible. Ishra fumbled at the wall. Nothing happened. I stood speechless. Electric lights built into the ceiling slowly flickered on, revealing an enormous, cavernous space. Filling the space were rows of cells, dozens of them, each cell only ten feet square. There must have been hundreds of them in total; they were all empty except for a steel bench and a sink.
We breathed in an animal stink—the smell of blood, vomit, piss, and shit.
Absolutely overwhelmed, I couldn’t speak. Ishra turned away. He killed the lights, plunging the room back into darkness. Outside, the light reflecting off the concrete plain was almost enough to burn away the horror I had just seen.
I tottered, the pain in my thigh flaring suddenly. I was glad for the distraction.
‘Are you okay?’
I nodded, gripping my walking stick tighter.
‘Very good. Come along, then, we don’t want to be late.’
I looked at him stupidly. ‘Late for what?’
‘Ah, yes, of course. You must forgive me, age has taken its toll. The train, William, we don’t want to miss the train. After all, it’s the only reason this place is here.’
‘What train?’
‘The train to the camp, of course. There’s only one train nowadays.’
He fell silent and shuffled on. I let him be, let his lonely old-man mind take him where it needed. All I could think about was the camp.
The camp, after all this time. I hoped Tobe had a plan.
Ishra and I kept following the wall of derelict buildings, slowly approaching a grandiose townhouse that seemed in better repair than all the others in the complex. Standing at a right angle to the derelict wall, it marked one end of the semicircular jumble of ruined houses that enclosed the concrete plain.
I whistled low and limped ahead. My thigh ached, my chest burned; when I stopped by the townhouse, I almost collapsed. I rested, drank some water, and caught my breath. I had to stand on tiptoe to look through a window.
That hurt, considering the state of my leg.
The little of the room that I could see twinkled, thanks to candlelit lamps and ornate lanterns. It was also stuffed full of treasure—overstuffed leather couches, statues and sculptures, gilded sideboards, heavy-framed paintings, even a gramophone, its brass horn dull. The bookshelves groaned they were packed so full; glass cabinets held jewellery; the mantelpiece above the wrought-iron fireplace was crowded with knick-knacks. Everything was immaculate.
Precious frivolities from a time I had never known. Treasure really was the only word for it.
‘My home,’ Ishra said, catching up to me.
‘Nice,’ I replied, trying to play it cool.
‘Thank you. It’s been my life’s work.’
I didn’t bother to ask how much blood had been spilled in its name.
‘Now, please, the others will be waiting.’
He turned away, started shuffling down an alley-like gap between his home and a collapsing lean-to that capped off the derelict wall.
‘Tell me, Doc, why are you still here?’
I figured that by letting him ramble on about himself—as old men are wont to do—I might get a straight answer.
‘I’d been here almost twenty years when the flood of people slowed to a trickle,’ he said. ‘But the trickle didn’t stop—Creeps still turn up sometimes, herding the odd holdouts. Others come with the monthly train and cart them away.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Someone has to look after all those ragged stragglers.’
We entered an alley-like gap that quickly stopped dead. Ishra took a step to the left. I limped after him. We stood side by side on a narrow concrete ledge, the collapsing lean-to and a squat brick shed rising up behind us, a sheer drop in front of us. Lying at the bottom, arrow-straight railway tracks. The ledge followed the tracks in both directions; to our left, the backside of the wall cast it in shadow, while another empty concrete plain bordered it to our right.
‘What’s not to love about this place?’ Ishra asked with a laugh.
I shivered—across the tracks lay a debris-strewn wasteland.
Dozens of trenches ran higgledy-piggledy across a stretch of bare earth. Wrecked vehicles formed sturdy barricades; barbed wire formed deadly fences; deep craters revealed the existence of mines, their earthen maws hinting at the deadly potential still lying elsewhere in wait.
‘I can see why you’d want to stay.’
Ishra didn’t laugh. ‘I’m a doctor, William. I help people. I wouldn’t want to hand this place over to some unwilling conscript whose boredom and loneliness would eventually cruel him.’ His face twisted. ‘There’s been enough of that here …’
I didn’t ask, didn’t need to.
We followed the ledge, walking in single file, heading back towards the sickbay. I couldn’t catch my breath, exhausted by fatigue and pain. The backside of the wall continued; far ahead, it gave way to an open space occupied by a pair of blurry figures.
One of them waved. I heard a ‘coo-ee’ on the wind. I picked up my pace as best I could, forcing Ishra to do the same.
‘I think your friends can answer the rest of your questions, don’t you?’
He looked over his shoulder and smiled.
‘Tobias is good to you. He cares. The whole time you were asleep, all those days and nights, he didn’t leave your side. I didn’t understand why. But after a while, when he started to trust me, he told me what happened. It all made sense—such a debt cannot be repaid, all one can do is try.’
Ishra walked on. I swear that the Tobe-shaped figure in the distance threw me a mock-salute.
I muttered under my breath: ‘You bastard.’