ALICE TURNED THE page of Declan’s diary and continued to read out loud. “After the attack we were too afraid to continue in same direction. Once the Roogas have your scent, they stalk you until they can lay an ambush at their convenience. We won’t last a day travelling in the direction of the Gash. We have no alternative but to try and find a way through the subway.
“There was a light beam, so I used a glass to light a fire while the guys scavenged for components to make torches. We expected to need them to navigate the dark subway tunnels. Two of us carried burning torches, while the rest carried spares.
“We found the shops on the first level. I knew there were three levels: the original station had northbound and southbound platforms on the city circle line, and two newer levels: the airport line and the western line. Fortunately, being the eldest, I remembered the Sydney subway system well — I had been a train commuter in my younger days. If the train line is intact, we should be able to get close to the Gash and bypass further Rooga ambushes.
“We entered the subway and started up the line. Initially all seemed well. But by the time I reckoned we had to be near the Gash, which lay near what was formerly Park Street, we were down to our last torches. So the question is: is there a way back to the surface from down here? As the last torch sputtered out we were surprised that we could still see. Either our eyes had become accustomed to the dark or light was seeping in from somewhere.
“We arrived at the end of the line, at least for us: the tunnel is cut off by a huge chasm that must be the Gash. We need to find a way up to cross it. Half of Hyde Park and then St. James Subway Station must be on the other side.
“I found a service exit that would have been used by railway linesmen. It was a narrow winding staircase that I guessed would lead up to a manhole. I was right, but getting it open was a problem. After rummaging around for a battering ram, we found a broken sleeper and used it with much exertion to knock the manhole open.
“We have come out right on the edge of the Gash. I’m looking down into it now, even as I write. At a guess, it’s more than a hundred metres deep. Jacob just dropped a rock into it and we counted fifteen seconds before it landed. At nine point seven metres per second, say ten, it must have fallen around one hundred and fifteen metres. I can see a massive hole about half way down, among all the broken pipes and cables, that must be the continuation of the northbound subway tunnel. I must stop. Aaron has recognised something…
“I’ve just returned from Aaron showing us the crossing he found last time he was here. The width of the Gash is consistently thirty metres across, but at the most westerly end, where it butts against the cliff face to the canopy, it’s only five or six metres across … too far to jump, but not too far if we could find something to bridge it. We saw just the thing in the subway.
“We’ve been back down below and retrieved a six-metre length of planking that was shoring up a wall. It was a struggle getting it up the manhole, but we managed it with nothing more than a few splinters.
“We’ve got the plank to span the Gash, but it’s only five centimetres thick. I think it will bow in the middle under our body weight when we’re trying to cross. A fall into that abyss is too much even to contemplate. But we have no choice. We’re giving it a go. Being the lightest, skinny Sam has volunteered to cross first. We’ve found a coil of rope below and tied it round his waist. We’ll anchor it to the trunk of the nearest tree as a safety harness.
“I write with sadness … poor Sam only made it half way across. The bridge snapped under his weight as I’d feared, and down he went. The rope held, but when we were hauling him up it rubbed against the jagged edge of the cliff face and frayed through. Sam screamed and screamed as he disappeared into the void.
“I sat at the edge of the Gash for an hour with my head in my hands, punishing myself for trying the impossible against my better judgement. In retrospect, it was never going to work, the plank was just too springy. Two of us dead now, and we haven’t even made it past the Gash. While I’m sitting here writing and regretting my bad decisions, Aaron, Billy and Ahmed have gone below to search for another way to solve our problem.
“They’ve just come back with another plank, this one way shorter than the last one and even springier. I can’t believe it!
“Billy completely blew me away when he told me what he planned to do. He would fix one end of the plank under the exposed root of the big old Morton Bay Fig tree nearest the Gash, the one we’d fastened the rope around before, and point it out into the Gash. The he’d bounce on it, using it like a diving board to spring across. It’s madness. I’m not prepared to lose another man. I want no part of it.
“Youth is impulsive. The three of them have outvoted me. Billy, the most athletic of us and the originator of the idea, volunteered to make the jump. We have fastened a new, thicker rope around his waist, and the plank is firmly jammed under the tree. He’s about to give it a try.
“Once again, I have to say: I can’t believe it! Billy stepped out onto the plank to test its springiness. We all held our breaths. Looking back, he said: ‘I better make the first jump the best one, there’ll be no room for seconds.’ Always the joker.
“Billy walked back to the anchored end of the plank. Then, with a hop, skip, bounce and a huge leap of faith, he flew through the air and landed safely on the other side. Boy, we let out a cheer. We figured it was so loud you probably could hear us back at the Memorial!
“Billy tied off the rope, so that if one of us failed in our jump, we could at least be hauled up the other side. Aaron went first, followed by Jacob, then Ahmed, then it was my turn. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought. Once I got out to the end of the plank, it didn’t seem such a huge distance to the other side. Pity we hadn’t thought of it before we lost Sam. We had to leave the plank in place, but it’s unlikely a Rooga would be smart enough to use it as we did. But we took the rope with us, in case we need it.
“This is the first rest we’ve taken since a long, hard trek through rugged terrain: concrete blocks, twisted iron and wreckage everywhere, all of it tangled with thick vegetation. There are a lot more rusted, smashed and partly-melted vehicles on this side of the Gash — cars, buses, even a couple of trucks. When we reached the end of the cavern, there wasn’t as much left of the park as we’d expected. My aim was to reach the entrance of St. James Subway Station, but we found it was blocked with rubble.
“I remembered that in Market Street, opposite the station, there was an entrance to a massive series of subterranean shopping malls, connected up all the way to the Town Hall. But when we looked it wasn’t there … all we could find was a massive cliff face. It was frustrating. Then I remembered the entrance to the Domain Underground Moving Footway wasn’t far from the Archibald Fountain, which is up this end of the park somewhere. So we headed in that direction. Because it was underground, I expected the footway might have survived and would continue through the wall of the eastern side of the cavern. If it did survive, then the underground parking facility it linked with could be a way to the surface.
“We have found what remains of the Archibald Fountain with its classic depiction of Theseus and the Minotaur, with Apollo watching them from above. The wonderful bronze figures have melted into an amorphous blob. But at least I know where I am … it’s not too far from here to the moving footway. Even though the cliff face on the eastern side of the cavern is near, I have a gut feeling the entrance to the footway might still exist.
“We had to remove a lot of bush and debris, but we eventually found the entrance to the footway. It’s getting dark, so we’ve set up camp just inside the entrance. I’m writing this in the hope that tomorrow we will find a route to the surface.
“Day 3. We started today full of hope, but only got a little way before finding an obstruction. Part of the ceiling of the moving footway has collapsed, totally blocking us. We had to make a choice: clear it or go back. We voted to go on, and set to work making a hole big enough to squeeze through. It took most of the day but eventually we succeeded. Now we’re hoping there aren’t any more collapsed ceilings.
“We entered the footway. It was full of cobwebs — huge cobwebs. We’re worried about where the spiders that made them are. We found a human skeleton, then a little further along we got the shock of our lives as a disembodied voice spoke to us from a speaker on the wall, giving us directions. I figured it was a recorded message from someone living nearby. We moved quickly along the footway in case the voice was from an enemy, and came to a crossroads at the end. We had to make a decision: left or right, up or down. We chose to go right and up. I was against taking directions from the recorded voice. We agreed to ignore it and follow our instincts — that’s what had got us this far.
“I’ve stopped to write this note. I think we are near the surface. Since we entered the footway yesterday, we’ve found two staircases that took us up, then an elevator shaft we had to scale. By the time we broke through another huge obstruction, we figured we were only one level down. We’re pushing for the surface soon.
“I’m back where I made the last entry, a level below the surface. We lost Ahmed and Billy up there. It was terrible. All we want now is to go home. The surface is no place for us now — there is nothing there for us, only desolation, heat and predatory monsters far, far worse than Roogas.
“My hand shakes as I write, but I need to record what happened in case only this dairy survives. When we broke through onto the surface, something the size of a small dog, with stumpy legs and a dragging tail, waddled around the base of a tangle of metal and sat on its rump, staring at me. Its pale-furred body rather resembled that of a squat rodent, and it had similar chisel teeth.
“It makes sense that radiation might, over time, have caused mutations in the sort of creatures that would have survived, like rodents, snakes and cockroaches. This one also had a round tail, overlong for its body, and only holes where its ears should have been. Its eyes were small, buried deep in its head, like a platypus. Billy, curious, went for a closer look.
“The creature began gnawing on a strange-looking plant, its teeth grinding. It was only an arms length from Billy when there was a loud crunch as its broad skull cracked, and its body slumped, barely twitching. A tendril from the plant had whipped around the creature’s head and cracked it open like a nut. We recoiled with shock, but Billy, ever curious, leaned closer.
“The tendril had penetrated the creature’s earhole, and appeared to be gorging itself on the brain. Suddenly, another tendril emerged from the body and wrapped about Billy’s wrist, pulling him along the ground. We couldn’t believe its strength.
“Billy didn’t panic. He pulled a knife from his belt and quickly severed the tendril to cut himself free of its grip. But as soon as he made the cut, a dark green liquid squirted out. The tendril whipped around on the ground like a snake with its head cut off, spraying the stuff everywhere. Some of it got in Billy’s eyes. He fell to the ground, rolling around and screaming in agony. We were struck, frozen, not knowing what to do to help. When he looked our way his eyes were gone.
“Ahmed was nearest him and rushed to help. But yet more tendrils sprouted out of the ground and wrapped around Billy, as though the owner had sensed its next meal. Ahmed suddenly let out a scream — more and more of those terrible tendrils were shooting out of the ground all around him. It was like a field of octopus tentacles. We were trapped. Every exit was blocked.
“Next thing, the ground shook. A great, bulbous head broke through … it was like nothing I’ve ever seen or could imagine. Like the head of an octopus, except a metre and half high and a metre round. It was a ruddy brown colour, with two deadpan eyes … all of the tendrils were attached to it. When it lifted them to attack, we could see a monstrous, ugly beak underneath. It was a carnivorous predator, clearly lurking under the surface away from the searing heat of the day, while its tentacles searched for food.
“A tendril stabbed into Billy’s stomach and lifted him off the ground, waving him about like a rag doll then emerging from his mouth. I knew it was over for him. I screamed at the others to go back, and we ran for the elevator shaft. When we got there we were only three, Ahmed was nowhere to be seen. I told Aaron and Jacob to wait while I went back to check for him.
“I crept out from the landing to the elevator shaft and immediately saw Ahmed being lifted in the air by half a dozen tendrils, which had punctured all parts of his body. The giant beast was gorging itself on his bodily fluids. There was nothing I could do.
“After serious deliberation we have agreed to return home.
“DAY 4. Today we blocked the footway entrance we’d opened. Unlikely as it is that we’ll ever come back this way, at least this diary explains the route in case someone else is brave enough to try again in the future.
“We reached the Gash and were faced with the same problem as before. We’d seen so many horrors that we’d become almost immune to fear. Aaron tied the rope around his waist and jumped. He landed on the plank and somehow kept his balance long enough to bounce onto the other side. We didn’t cheer — there was nothing to celebrate. Aaron tied off the rope and we all rappelled across.
“We are not far from home. We have set up what should be our last camp. It will only be a few hours before we’re reunited with our families. I dread the thought of having to account for our losses. We can hear Roogas moving in the dark…”
Alice put down the book. There was nothing more to read.
“Those were my grandfather’s last words before he was attacked,” said Zule, so softly that Alice barely heard her. “Only Aaron made it back home. He took the journal from Declan’s partially-eaten body. I remember vividly his story of how Declan and Jacob had been torn apart by three Roogas.”
Alice and Zule sat in silence for a moment, thinking of the enormities Declan and the others had endured.
“How terrible it would have been for the families when Aaron returned with the story,” Alice said, sorrowfully.
“He died from his wounds only a few days later,” Zule said. “Over time the Roogas got all the men.”
“But you say now there’s only one Rooga left?”
“We think so. He’s red, so he’s easy to remember. Did you learn anything from the diary?”
“Yes, I did,” said Alice. “Declan talks about radiation and what’s left of Sydney. That tells me it was some sort of nuclear attack. But the main thing is that there’s someone else out there that might have the answers to my questions.”
“Who?”
“Whoever spoke to Declan in the moving footway.”
“But he said it was a recorded message, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but it still needed power for the message to play, didn’t it?”
Just then, a Vixen head poked around the corner of the doorway and said with urgency: “You better come quick!”
They rushed outside and found Vixens crowded around someone on the ground. The mob opened to let Zule and Alice through.