Blood Red
Patty Jansen
Smashwords Edition
Two scary stories set in Australia
Note to US readers: this work follows UK/Australian spelling and punctuation conventions
Copyright 2011 Patty Jansen
Cover design by Patty Jansen
Find more works by this author: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/pattyjansen
Quarantine
Originally published in Dead Red Heart, anthology of Australian vampire stories, published by Ticonderoga Publications.
‘Hello? Helloooo?’
Rob’s voice resonates in the general store.
Wan light casts a silver glow over the shelves with flour, cans of tomatoes, toilet paper, and other such life’s necessities. A bay of fridges hums peacefully against the back wall.
There is no one behind the checkout and there hasn’t been since he came in. It hadn’t worried him; he knows where the photocopier is and doesn’t need help to start fixing it. But now he needs someone to sign his worksheet.
‘Helloooo? Olivia?’
He picks up his box of tools and walks into the car park, disturbing a family of bush turkeys. Clawed feet go scratch, scratch, scratch in the dirt as the birds run into the nearby scrub. His car sits surrounded by puddles of ochre-hued water, diamond drops of humidity on the roof.
A wall of rainforest looms on the other side of the road. Wisps of mist hang over the tree tops. To the right, the road snakes down into the rainforest. To the left, the asphalt is cracked and overgrown with weeds. The Exclusion Zone boundary is just a few k’s from here.
Signs on the shamble of buildings behind him proclaim the Paluma General Store--that’s where the photocopier is--Paluma Real Estate, Rainforest Inn. The latter has been boarded-up for months.
Where the fuck is everyone? ‘Hellooo?’
He goes back inside, clutching his worksheet book. Past the checkout into the door that leads to Olivia’s house. The light is on in the kitchen. A copy of the local newsletter is on the table, a photocopied rag on two pages. Rob notices how crisp the ink is. Not bad for such a rickety machine, eh?
‘Olivia--’
As he walks around the table, his foot connects with something soft, like he’s accidentally kicked the cat, only bigger, and more inert.
Like somebody’s meaty arm.
Attached to a body.
Shit. ‘Olivia!’
She's wearing her usual striped apron; her face is relaxed and bears no signs of a fight.
Rob drops to his knees and runs his fingers over the cold flesh of her neck. First place to check with these freaks around. There are no bite marks.
On the floor of the store room is another body, a man in shorts and work shirt with a courier logo. The checkout girl lies half over him, a couple of newsletters spread over her prone form. Both are cold, too. No bite marks.
He runs outside.
‘Hellooo? Is anybody here?’
Through the window of the real estate agency, he can see the secretary, face down on her desk.
And he hears the silence, rainforest sounds amplified to match the roaring in his ears. Whipbirds calling, a catbird wailing, and the musical croaks of frogs.
Fuck the worksheet. He wants the police.
Of course his phone doesn’t work. There has never been much reception here, and when the Exclusion Zone boundaries went up, other things took priority over phone reception.
Rob gets in the car, turns the key, revs the engine, and guns out of the place, fast.
Into the rainforest.
He’s trembling, his sweaty hands on the wheel. It’s a good 70k back to Townsville. The first twenty or so down a narrow and windy rainforest road. It starts raining. Tyres slide on the wet asphalt. Boxes of cartridges rattle around in the back. Hairpin bends pass in a blur, walls of rainforest turn shades of smudged green.
* * *
The young woman runs onto the road as if coming out of nowhere. White skin, black hair plastered to her face.
‘Fuck!’ Rob slams the brakes.
The car skids sideways.
Misses the girl.
Crosses onto the wrong side of the road.
Slides into the soft road verge and stops there. Steaming.
‘Oh, fuck!’
Rob clutches the wheel, immobilised by the seatbelt locked across his chest. The sound of the engine is like a roar. In the rear vision mirror, he sees the girl scramble to her feet and examine her knees.
He releases the seatbelt, heart still thudding, and opens the door. Steps into the squelching mud.
‘Are you OK?’
Rain falls on his head. The girl is brushing mud off her dress. Behind her, the wet grey ribbon of road winds around a sharp bend and vanishes into the rainforest. Somewhere out of sight a waterfall roars.
The girl looks up. Black eyes in a pale face, wide with fright. Skin almost translucent. One of them.
‘Oh, shit.’ Rob scrambles back to the car. Opens the back door. Fumbles through his stuff. Bags, boxes of toner.
His hand closes on metal. He points the rifle. ‘Not a step closer.’
She freezes. ‘I don’t want to harm you.’ She looks about twenty but sounds younger.
‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’
‘I’m serious. I need a lift.’ She hesitates, wiping hair out of her face with a long-fingered hand. ‘Please. I have to get out of here.’
She is trembling. Black liquid oozes down one leg. That isn’t mud; it’s blood. Vampire blood. Hand prints on her thighs. Smudge marks of fingers. There is blood on her dress, too. A rape victim.
‘Please, help me. He’s going to kill me.’
Shit.
‘Where…’ He clears his throat. ‘Where do you want to go?’ Never mind who 'he' is. Rob doesn't think he wants to know.
Her shoulders sag. ‘I don’t know.’ She is crying now. ‘I don’t know anymore. I thought we were safe, but...’
'But what?' In the Exclusion Zone, safety is but a commodity to be traded for other essentials, like food. To her, Rob is food.
'I don't know. They came out of nowhere and started killing everyone.'
'Hang on.' That doesn't make sense. None of the bodies he saw showed signs of violence. 'Who was killing who?'
'The dominant men from the camp were killing the others. Younger men. Women. Children.'
Rob didn't know there was a vampire camp up here, but then again, they usually keep quiet. They live in family groups, and have lots of children.
Rob contemplates his options, but he can't refuse a woman in distress. Not when she's been violated. Not even a vampire. Damn it. ‘Get in.’
He has a feeling this is one incidence of chivalry he’ll regret.
She slides into the seat, tears running down her cheeks. 'Thanks.' She wipes her face with the back of her hand, spreading blood. ‘My name is Gloria.’
Rob nods and slips behind the wheel. Tyres slip in the mud. A smell of singed vegetation permeates the car, but the foray into the muddy road verge seems to have left no damage.
He concentrates on driving for a while.
‘So,' he asks finally, ‘Do you know what happened?’
She shakes her head. ‘All our hosts are dead. The men are going crazy. That’s why…’ She spreads her hands. 'We're all hungry.'
‘How long ago have you fed?’
‘Two days ago.’
Rob slams the brakes and the car skids to a halt for the second time. ‘Get out.’
‘No.’ Her eyes are wide and pleading.
'Get out,' Rob repeats, more forcefully. ‘I am not a host and I have no intention to become one--’
‘I won’t, I promise.’
Rob does his best I don’t believe that stare. He thinks of his rifle, powerful enough to shoot crocodiles, but which he's left in the back of the car, out of reach. Damn. His father always said he would never make a soldier.
‘I promise, honest. I have a host on the highway. At the petrol station. Take me there.’
Shit. ‘OK, then. To the petrol station. No further.’
‘Deal.’
Vampires don’t kill people. They can drink only human blood, and humans are not in infinite supply. For that reason, vampires don’t turn humans into vampires either. If a vampire bites, it injects an addictive drug into the blood stream. Addicts, usually young men, become uncommunicative, interested only in encounters with ‘their’ takers. Sexual encounters, of the no-contraception type. Remember that they have many children? They are born infected with the vampirism virus. That is how it spreads.
* * *
Rob says nothing all the way down the mountain. He’s driving as fast as he can, casting occasional glances at Gloria. He wonders how she will feed on this poor sod he's taking her to. From what he’s heard, vampires feed often in small portions. She could easily bite him. He's also heard that it doesn't hurt, and that the sex is amazing.
And he so doesn't want to think about stuff like that right now.
He pulls up his left shoulder as if to shield himself. The exposed part of his neck feels larger-than-life.
She’s trembling, clutching herself, and occasionally she tightens her arms about her waist. He wants to ask if she’s pain, but he can’t think of a way to do that without sounding interested. Bad things come from being interested in vampires, not the least of which losing his job.
If I spot you with one of them, you’re out! Mal says, and Mal’s toner and photocopier business is one of the last in town that’s still pure. Hates vampires, Mal does, even though they’re fast becoming his most important customers.
Rob’s already breaking that rule, and jobs are hard to come by in the Exclusion Zone. Too many people, not enough money to pay them. No one leaves, no one comes in. It’s the classic response modelled on the pest containment models used by the Department of Agriculture. Used on fruit fly. In fucking pawpaws. Once the vampirism virus is eradicated and the boundaries lifted, maybe he’ll move elsewhere. Go to Brisbane or something.
If he ever gets out of sharing a car with a hungry vampire.
If there’s anything of the country still left.
It’s not until he’s well onto the highway that he realises Gloria isn’t saying anything. She’s shivering worse than ever, her arms clenched around her stomach.
In an impulse, he touches her arm: slick with sweat. He’s never touched a vampire before and is surprised her skin feels alive. But too cold.
God, where else did this bastard hurt her?
* * *
By the time they get to the petrol station, she’s slumped against the passenger door. A man comes outside when Rob stops the car. At the sight of Gloria, he freezes. A woman comes up behind him, her hands on her husband’s arm.
‘Please, go away,’ the man says. ‘We have nothing for you here.’
Gloria is getting out of the car. The hem of her dress is stained with black blood. Rob feels sick.
‘The host… My son is dead,’ the man continues; his voice wavers. ‘We found him this morning in the shed.’
Gloria moans, mumbles something while steadying herself on the car door.
A heavy silence hangs between them. Everyone knows what will happen if vampires become too hungry.
The woman steps forward. ‘Take me.’
Rob shakes his head. ‘It has to be a man.’ He knows that much, and he knows he should volunteer - these people have already suffered too much - but in the brief moment he hesitates, the man says, ‘Take me.’
Gloria totters towards him and takes his hand.
The boy’s father straightens up. ‘You better know what you’re getting yourself into, lady. I’m going to kill you.’
The woman presses her lips together, and nods, as if when her husband fails, she will do the job.
Rob feels even more awful.
But you can’t kill a vampire. They’re much stronger than humans. All that garlic and sunlight stuff is rubbish. Vampires laze about the park during the day. When all you need is blood, there’s no need to work; humans do it all for you. All you need to do is fuck and make babies, and vampires are doing plenty of that.
Gloria and the man disappear into the house.
Rob can’t bear to watch, or meet the woman’s eyes. He’s a coward.
He follows her into the shop, a shabby sort of place with lino floor, fluoro lighting and plastic chairs. The windows are dirty and there are specks of gecko shit on the chipped formica tables.
‘Not seen you here before,’ she says.
‘No,’ Rob says, while guilt piles on. He’s never bothered to stop here and it looks like the place could have used his patronage.
The woman nods, although it’s not clear why. To take her mind off what’s happening to her husband, maybe. There are cries from elsewhere in the building. The woman’s face remains blank, but her eyes tell a different story. ‘Come from town today?’
‘I left early this morning.’ Rob shrugs, feeling stupid. In fact, this entire conversation is stupid.
‘Seen anyone on the road?’
Belatedly, Rob notices anxiety. ‘Why?’
‘There’s been no traffic.’
‘No traffic from town at all?’
She shakes her head, listens. ‘Wait--can you still hear them?’
The house has become eerily silent.
Rob goes into the next room, the son’s bedroom, empty. The next room: a storage area for the shop. The owner is on the floor, slumped on top of a bundle of newspapers. Dead.
Rob whirls at a small sound behind him. Gloria stands in the doorway, completely naked.
She looks from the owner to Rob, her expression genuinely shocked. ‘What happened?’ There is a softness to her voice he hasn’t heard before.
‘I don’t know. I found him here.’
‘I was looking for him. He gave me blood, but he... didn’t collect his payment.’ The look on her face leaves no doubt about the nature of the payment.
Rob feels even more wretched. Not only did the owner sacrifice himself, he honoured his marriage to the very last. He killed himself rather than give in to her.
‘Do you want to--’ Gloria begins.
‘Go fuck yourself.’ Rob is surprised to find how much effort it costs him to say that.
‘Really.’ She drapes herself against the doorpost, arching her back so that her small breasts push forward. She’s perfect, and virtually begging. Rob knows that this is what the vampire girls do, but still feels blood stirring in him.
‘Fuck it, Gloria, haven’t you got anything better to think of? The guy and his son are dead.’
‘Yes, so it looks you’re going to be it.’
Rob staggers back from the doorway, blood roaring in his ears, and runs. The dank corridor, the shabby shop, are no more than blurs before his eyes.
‘Go out to the car!’ he yells at the shop in general.
There is no reply. The boy’s mother lies face down on the table, also dead, her head on the newspaper.
Newspapers. The cashier at Olivia’s shop had a couple of newsletters across her body. Olivia had a newsletter on the table. The owner lay across those same stacks of newspapers.
Hasn’t he read something about vampire blood used as ink?
The only blood associated with vampires is the human blood they drink. No one ever talks about a vampire’s blood, the blood that stains the hem of Gloria’s dress. Mal once said something about vampire blood.
* * *
The streets of town are deserted, the shops dark.
At the park along the beachfront, a group of young vampires is about to cross the road. Young men, one woman, thin and pale like Gloria, and very, very pregnant.
‘Here’s your mates,’ Rob says. But he feels uneasy. Normally, the vampires lounge in relaxed fashion. There is nothing relaxed about these ones. A man is holding the pregnant woman, who struggles to free herself. She’s scratching at his bare arms, black blood under her nails. Then she stops, clutching her stomach with her free hand. The way she stands there, her legs apart, her knees slightly bent makes Rob feel sick. She’s bearing down hard, perhaps minutes from giving birth.
He should do something and tell the brute to leave her alone. But he’s not strong enough. The man will bite him. Hell, she might even attack him.
‘They’re not my mates,’ Gloria says. Her voice is weak, her face sweat-sheened, her eyes wide.
‘Don’t you want to help her?’
Another man is now holding the woman’s free hand. She’s fighting and kicking and screaming. ‘That’s no way to treat a woman.’ Not even a vampire.
Gloria shakes her head. The woman is bearing down again, and now a lot of others are rushing to the scene. Men start fighting each other. The woman is screaming.
‘We have to do something!’ Rob half-opens the car door.
Gloria clamps hands over her ears. ‘Take me out of here!’
‘But they’ll kill her, or the baby.’
‘Take me out of here!’ She’s hysterical.
Rob pushes the accelerator. He turns the corner and stops again.
Next to him, Gloria is coughing and trembling. A trail of saliva runs from her mouth. ‘That’s what they did to...’ She coughs into her hand, gulping breath, her shoulders heaving. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to...’ Her next cough is wet. A stream of frothy vomit dribbles between her fingers onto her lap. She sways, and for a moment he’s afraid she will faint.
God. He adds up the facts. That’s what they did to her. Almost ripped the baby from her womb. Killed it, drank all its blood.
* * *
In the bathroom of his house, Rob cuts his wrist, holds a cup to catch the dripping blood until it’s filled up. It makes him feel sick and dizzy. He applies a pressure bandage to his arm.
Gloria’s eyes are half-open. He slides an arm around her shoulders, shivering where his skin touches hers, and puts the cup to her lips.
She drinks. Slowly, blood staining her mouth. Her eyes remain half-closed, but she empties the cup. Rob puts it on the table, watching adhering blood slide down the glass, not sure if he’s done the right thing, not sure if it was enough.
She’s asleep now, and he watches her perfect face and pale neck. Her mouth is slightly open, and he can just see her pointed teeth. Knows that if not today then tomorrow or the day after, she will sink those teeth into his neck while he fucks her. He becomes hard just thinking about it. Wants to fuck her right now. Wants to feel the pain of her bite in his neck. What a way to hold onto your lover. Pain and sex, that most exquisite combination.
But then he will be a host, and possibly the only adult host in town. His blood can keep two or three vampire girls in good health, but maybe as many as ten clinging onto life. Not only that, he will get the girls pregnant. They will feed on the children. Not all will grow up to be vampires. That way, vampirism will not die out.
He goes and stands by the window, looking over the empty street.
At a soft rustle behind him, he turns.
Gloria stands there. ‘You fed me.’
He nods, shrugs, hopes she won’t ask him why, because he has no idea. He turns back to watching the empty street.
‘Thank you.’
Her hand touches his shoulder. It’s surprisingly warm through his shirt. He turns around again, and finds that she has shed her dress.
‘Look, don’t--’
‘It’s only fair,’ she says. ‘I can’t pay you any other way.’
Resistance is futile.
* * *
Mal is in the office. Rob almost cries when he sees someone still alive, but Mal looks tired, and smells of sweat.
His desk is a mess, packed with the ever-present tangle of invoices, toner cartridges and scientific papers.
‘So, there you are,’ Mal says. His expression is dark.
Rob feels that Mal can see through him, that he knows Rob has sat beside Gloria while she slept, that he knows about the crumpled bed and the smell of sex in the room.
‘What’s this?’ Rob asks, but he recognises the black substance in a small bottle. Vampire blood.
‘You want to get rid of them, eh?’ The tone of Mal’s voice is loaded with meaning Rob can’t fathom. Mal is an ex-epidemiologist who lost his job when the Exclusion Zone went up. Isolate the problem, that was how the Agriculture Department dealt with diseases.
Rob nods, failing a better reply. He does want to get rid of them, but more importantly, he wants to know what killed all the non-vampires, even those who weren’t hosts.
Mal laughs. ‘The only thing that’s strong enough to kill a vampire is another vampire. The only way to make them kill each other is to make sure they’re hungry. The only thing they eat is human blood. So what’s the answer to the puzzle?’
Rob shrugs. None of the possible answers sound pleasant. All involve killing Gloria.
Yet he knows you can’t form a relationship with a vampire without becoming dependent. Gloria might be happy to drink blood from a cup for now, but sooner or later he will have to pay. In fact, the thought of it fills him with morbid fascination.
But he forces himself to think rationally.
And reason tells him that people must leave the Exclusion Zone. And they can’t, because they could be carrying the virus, that’s what the zone is for. Which means people must die. Because only when there are no people left will all vampires die.
He looks at the text in the book open on Mal’s desk.
There the quote Mal has shown him before, in small cursive script: Those who have to misfortune of being the first to read a text written in vampire blood will die the most terrible death.
Mal sells toner for printers and photocopiers. More importantly, he sells ink for the Bulletin. That’s Rob’s task: keeping the machines supplied.
Hot anger rises to his cheeks. ‘And you sent me around spreading this stuff?’
‘You want to get rid of this vermin? You gotta make sacrifices! The department thought that they would isolate the problem and it would go away, but vampires make more vampires. You know that a vampire can become pregnant two days after giving birth?’
Rob knows. Belatedly, a thought comes to him. ‘But why doesn’t the print kill me?’
‘Oh, it would have killed you, had you done your work properly. But you never tested your replaced cartridges, did you? So now I’ll have to deal with you in a different way.’
He reaches under his desk and brings out his crocodile-shooting gun.
In a few steps, Rob is at the desk and tips it upside down on Mal’s lap. While Mal tips backwards, the gun goes off with a deafening bang. Ceiling plaster rains down. Mal scrambles on the floor for the gun. Rob picks up a golf club from the corner, and hits Mal over the head as hard as he can.
Mal flops down on his belly, and doesn’t get up.
Rob leaves the office feeling sick.
But there is a group of vampires waiting near his car. Female, hungry.
They’re too strong to overwhelm, too many to outrun. He doesn’t want to run; he wants to fuck them. They will fall pregnant, like Gloria, and they’ll survive, because of him
He goes back into the mess that’s Mal’s office. Takes a cartridge from the box. Puts it in the photocopier. Places the front page of today’s paper on the glass.
He hits ‘print’ and picks up the sheet that comes out the side.
It says: Quarantine to be lifted within a month.
* * *
Clouds of Fancy
Bluey’s brand new toy: one Connex21 Personal Communication Device, shiny black, fitting neatly into his hand, picked up from the post office this morning.
Power: on. Camera: on.
‘Ok, so this is the rainmakers’ car,’ he said, looking at the image on the screen, and lowered his voice, because it was kinda stupid to stand here talking to himself in the dusty main street in front of the hotel. ‘A white van, one of those--uhm--solar powered cars.’
He’d never seen one of those newfangled things before, only on tv, when he was little, when tv was still publicly broadcast to the country.
‘There’s a sticker on the door. It says--uhm - Robertson Weather Consultants.’
He walked around the car. Grilles on the windows had a coating of wings and legs of grasshoppers, black panels on the roof frosted with dust. Held the Connex21 up to the rear window. Suitcases, boxes, a portable fridge. Nothing weird.
He slid the device into his breast pocket so that the camera’s ‘eye’ stuck over the rim and entered the pub.
‘Hey Blue.’ Grazza behind the bar pulled foamy beer a glass. He jerked his head. ‘That’s them.’
The group in the corner needed no introduction. Half a dozen men with city hair - spiky, bleached or in ponytails - wearing black shirts. One of them, a lanky fellow who looked like he could use a bit of sunlight, stared at Bluey with hollow, black eyes.
From the midst of the blackshirts rose a man with a moustache like a Harley Davidson’s handlebars. ‘Paul Dawson?’
‘Yeah, Bluey for short.’
‘Mick Robertson. Sit down.’
Bluey did, feeling the gazes of locals prick in his neck.
Mick introduced the other blackshirts, Keiran, Morgan, Harrison, city names. The guy with the zombie eyes was Colin. Couldn’t he stare somewhere else?
There was a woman with them, lean and lithe like an actress in a foreign language film. Hair in tiny ringlets, like Uncle Bobs’ prize-winning angora goats only black and shiny and tumbling all over her shoulders.
She held out a fine-fingered hand. ‘I’m Claudia. The pilot.’
‘Bluey.’ Her hand was cool and soft. ‘Uhm--are you the one who’s going to be shooting stuff at clouds?’ God, his cheeks glowed.
She laughed; curls danced around her face. ‘You’re funny.’
‘Well, I haven’t met any girl pilots--’
‘Did you get the key to the Department of Agriculture labs?’ Colin asked, still staring.
‘Yep.’ Bluey didn’t know where to look.
‘Can you take me there? We’ve got some things in the van that need to go in the cool room.’
‘Don’t worry. Put them in the ute, and I’ll do it on the way home.’
‘No. I look after the chemicals.’
‘Right, mate.’ Keep your hair on.
* * *
‘Hey Blue.’ Mick’s van came to a halt in a cloud of dust.
Bluey let the wire cutters slip from his gloved hand. The fencing wire twanged back into its coil. ‘What, anything wrong?’
‘Nah,’ Mick got out of the van, turning the engine off but leaving the door open. ‘Nice job.’
Bluey picked up the Connex21 and aimed the camera at his work. ‘I’ve made three of these weather stations.’ He patted the rain gauge; his hand showed up on the screen. ‘You reckon we’ll need it?’ He pointed the lens at Mick.
‘You bet. Listen to this.’ Mick reached inside the car and turned up the radio. It produced a flood of unintelligible crackle. He grinned. ‘Electrical storm, mate, and Claudia’s just gone up. See?’
Bluey pointed the lens up into the sky. The screen went all white for a bit until it settled. To their left, a bank of grey clouds moved across the afternoon sky, like big billowing cauliflowers. ‘We’ve had a lot of those clouds lately. All show and no bloody action.’
Mick was looking at the Connex21. ‘Haven’t seen one of those things out here. I thought… nobody here could afford this kind of stuff.’
‘I can’t.’
Mick frowned.
‘I did some work for Grazza, and I figured if I put the money in the bank, it’d just vanish.’ Into the whirlpool of debt owed by the farm. That’s what he should have done. That was why Dad was angry with him. Bluey, if you waste money like this, you’ll never make a good sheep farmer.
Well, where was Dad six months ago, when Bluey mustered the last of the sheep, those emaciated skeletons no one would buy, to a hole he’d dug and shot every one of them? Where was Dad when he sat over the account books and all he could do was cry? Where was Dad when he went for a rare drink in Pymberton, he met a nice girl whose expression would turn to ice as soon as he said he was a sheep farmer?
‘Do you get reception?’
‘No roaming, but I can plug it into the phone and access the web there.’ He felt good knowing those city words. ‘You know it measures heart rate and air and water quality? And it has video. I’m making a report of this rainmaking, you know. I pushed for Tinania to apply for the money so we could do this. A bit of rain will make the world of difference to us, mate.’
‘Sure,’ Mick said, as if he saved towns every day and he couldn’t care less.
A tiny glittering speck moved in the sky, the buzzing of the engine no louder than that of a mosquito.
Bluey rubbed his chin. ‘So - what’s she gonna do?’
‘Well - to put it simply - when she’s up there, she shoots the rockets at a cloud, and it starts raining.’
‘Simple as that?’
‘Simple as that, mate.’
Bluey leaned back on the fence, staring into the sky, remembering the closed and taped-up boxes Colin had taken into the cool room. The labels were full of long words that meant nothing to him. ‘What’s actually in these rockets?’
Mick laughed. ‘You should ask Colin. He’s our chemist--’
A peal of laughter drowned out the crackle on the radio. Claudia - even her name sounded like laughter. Mick pulled a face. ‘I wish Colin would stop telling her his infantile jokes.’
* * *
The first clap of thunder shook the ground barely fifteen minutes later. Bluey was on the way into town when it started to rain. Big, fat juicy drops that left dusty tracks on the windscreen. Then came the smell, years of drought released from the earth.
Bluey clamped the wheel, grinning stupidly at thoughts of fat sheep and an even fatter bank balance.
‘Now, do I go to the pub or do I go home and tell Dad I told you so.’ Talking to himself had become a habit; the Connex21 in his pocket felt like a friend. He snorted. ‘Yeah, I’d love to see his face.’
But there were more people to hear him say I told you so in the pub.
A lot of people, in fact. The main room was full; lights blazed in the beer garden, and people spilled into the street. The rain was pelting down, dripping from the awnings and over the bike rack which was overflowing with bikes. God, it looked like the entire town was here.
A cheer went up when Bluey got out of his car. There was Grazza, holding a beer. ‘Here’s to Blue, our saviour!’
‘This is kinda weird,’ Bluey mumbled into his pocket. ‘I coulda sworn Graz’d rather eat his hat than call me a saviour.’
He pushed through the crowd. Doreen and both Grazza’s daughters were busy at the bar. Bluey spilled beer over his shirt with all the people clapping him on the shoulders, congratulating him. Even sour-faced Joe Dickson was grinning like an idiot, and then he recognised…
‘Dad?’
It had been at least ten years since Dad had last set foot inside the Tinania Hotel, and here he was, at a table in the corner facing Mary, the widow from next door, who held a wine glass and was laughing. His father was laughing, too.
‘Come pull up a chair, Blue. Time for all of us to admit we were wrong.’
Apologise? His father?
* * *
It rained. The townsfolk partied. When the power went off at ten, they lit candles. Bluey left to go home after midnight, having had just a bit too much to drink to drive, but never mind because, like bank branches, doctors, regular power and regular phones, the police had left town a number of years ago.
He stood next to his car, feeling the drops on his skin just for the fun of it. He took the Connex21 out of his pocket. According to the manual, which he was still struggling to understand, it also had a ‘weather’ function. He navigated the menus. Temperature 24 degrees Celcius, humidity 87%, Air pollution: high.
He stared at that last line, blinking. Sometimes, people with sick kids moved here from the city because there wasn’t air pollution in the country. Not with all cars adapted for locally-produced biofuels. Not with townsfolk riding bikes.
He only registered that a shadow flitted from behind his car when whoever it was had grabbed him from behind, reached for his hand that held the Connex21. Bluey swung around and elbowed his attacker hard in the face.
The man swore, tripped, scrambled up and ran off down the street.
Heart thudding, Bluey picked up something the attacker had dropped: a face mask of the type doctors wore. He slid his Connex21 in his pocket, safe. Bloody hell, someone had just tried to steal it. Was that how jealous the locals were?
* * *
‘Last one.’ Mick Robertson grabbed the box from the loading tray. Bluey slammed the tailgate shut and followed Mick’s black shirt and swaying grey ponytail across the car park.
In the semi-darkness of the hangar, cardboard boxes, ten in all, lined up under the plane’s wing, where the frame that held the rockets hung empty.
‘Finally - there they are. Not a moment too soon.’ Claudia appeared from behind the fuselage. ‘Oh, hi, Paul.’
‘Not Paul - Bluey.’
‘OK - Bluey.’ She grinned, then ripped the tape off the closest box. Inside lay two brown cylinders like oversized fire crackers. She unscrewed part of the frame and jerked her head towards Bluey. ‘Here, hold that open.’
Bluey grabbed the metal. Claudia inserted the rockets in the two slots closest to the cabin. Ripped another box open. ‘Mick - where the fuck is Colin?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m about to leave. I need him.’
‘Could I help?’ Bluey eyed the plane. He had never flown.
‘Uhmm–’ Mick cleared his throat. ‘It’s complicated.’
Claudia snorted. ‘Don’t be fucking ridiculous. I position the plane, he pushes the fucking buttons. Anything else to it? I’m ready to go and,’ she looked at her watch, ‘Unless Colin turns up in five minutes, I’ll need to find a replacement. Don’t suppose you’re gonna come.’
Mick glared at her, shifted, his eyes on the plane, his moustache quivering. ‘All right, take him.’
You beauty! That would make a nice addition to his report. Maybe they’d even put it on the tv in the city about how the Rural Aid grants were well-spent. He could be a reporter. Yeah, he could live with that. No more bloody sheep.
As he helped Claudia load the other rockets, Mick fixed him with an unusually intense stare. ‘Claudia gets a bit grumpy sometimes. Tell her some jokes.’
* * *
Bluey had to crane his neck to look over the nose of the plane at the horizon, where large grey clouds towered to the heavens.
Next to him, Claudia’s hands were on the controls. Soft skin, plain nails, short and practical, no ring. Headphones disappeared in a mass of ringlets. She spoke in a business-like tone. Mick Robertson no doubt. She wore a white shirt, tight, with buttons down the front. From where Bluey sat, he could see glimpses of skin where the fabric gaped.
‘Right. Over and out.’ She shoved the headphones down and looked at him, into the screen of his Connex21.
‘You’re really keen with that thing, aren’t you?’
‘Yup. I want to make a report. You know, learn about these computer things.’ He slid the device to the familiar spot in his pocket. Somehow, he felt important.
‘You’re not really as grumpy as he says, aren’t you?’
‘No.’ She frowned. ‘I have no idea why he said that. Usually Colin comes along and he just tells stupid jokes. I haven’t been with Mick for long, in case you were wondering.’
‘So - how do you come to work as a pilot for these guys?’
‘Something’s got to pay the bills. Aerobatics won’t.’
‘Aerobatics?’
‘Competitions, all over the world. It pays a bit, but not enough.’
‘Just like sheep farming.’ He tried to picture her doing loop-de-loops in a plane. ‘But a lot more fun.’
‘Hey, you could learn to fly. It’s not hard.’
Bluey sighed. ‘Can’t. No bloody money. That’s sheep farming for ya–‘
‘You really hate it, don’t you?’
He stared at her. Shrugged. ‘Does it show? God, I wish I’d learned stuff, finished school and all that. But… the farm, you know. Dad’s family has had the land for years.’ She shrugged. ‘I know what it’s like. My parents are Italian. They’ve always had a grocery store, but it’s a lost cause. With the big supermarkets--there’s nothing in it but heartbreaking work.’
That sounded familiar. ‘I thought everyone in the city had plenty of money.’
‘Keep dreaming. My parents never did. When I said I wasn’t interested to take over the shop, they...’ Her eyes focused on the horizon. ‘My parents aren’t speaking to me.’
For a few long seconds, he met her black gaze.
She turned her attention back to the instruments. ‘You know you look cute when you blush?’
Oh hell. His knees became very interesting. Old jeans, full of stains - he should have thought to dress better. When had he last made out with a girl? Especially one his father would so totally not approve of? He snorted.
‘What’s funny?’
‘You are. I am. Bloody hell, I feel like an idiot.’ No, he felt like a sixteen year old on his first date.
‘You’re not an idiot.’
In a roar of blood in his ears, he lifted his hand. She stopped him just above her knee. ‘Uh-oh. Not now. I’ve got a plane to fly. And you should push some buttons.’
Right. Buttons.
* * *
Bluey stopped the car in front of the hotel and turned off the engine. Rain drops pattered on the roof.
‘Well…’ Claudia said. She shrugged. She hadn’t looked at him once since… well, since what had happened in the dark corner of the hangar. And there was something odd about that, because he didn’t get the feeling she had enjoyed it very much. Too late, he realised that he’d left his Connex21 on during all of it. There was something he’d needed to learn: how to cut bits of the recording out.
‘I’ll buy you a drink.’ Clutching at straws. This was some crazy fling; there was no way it would ever work, yet he wanted… he wanted…
She shook her head. ‘I better not. Mick said he wanted to talk to me. He’ll be furious if I’m late.’ She stepped out of the car. ‘I better go, before he locks the other door.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The pub’s closing.’
‘No way. It’s only nine-thirty.’
But it was true. One of the doors was already shut. Against the frosted glass window in that door stood two people in an--uhm--embarrassing situation. A woman with read hair, and--God - the grey of Grazza’s mane.
‘No, wait.’ Whoever the redhead was, it wasn’t Doreen, Grazza’s wife. This was all very weird. Yesterday was fun, with all the people cheering and giving their apologies, but it was still weird. Dad and old Joe Dickson would normally rather die than admit they were wrong. And then the guy who had tried to rob him. In Tinania, where everyone left their doors unlocked?
He wanted to say, Come with me, for all the good that would do. There was no way his father would let her inside the house, and he wasn’t going to let her know that his father had so much influence over him.
But Claudia was already gone, across the footpath, into the other door. Grazza and the redhead behind the window didn’t even flinch.
He turned off the Connex21.God, this was embarrassing.
* * *
A candle burned in an old jam jar on the table, flickering its orange light over two empty beer bottles and Mary’s knitting. Bluey flicked on the veranda light, harsh on his dark-adjusted eyes.
‘Dad?’
Nothing.
He stomped down the hall. Total darkness. His father must have gone to bed. Forgotten to blow out the candle, however unlikely that sounded.
Voices. His father’s low grumble and Mary’s giggle through the door to his father’s bedroom, and the creaking of his father’s bed.
That was it. That was definitely it.
* * *
The Department of Agriculture building lay shrouded in darkness. Bluey’s footsteps sounded hollow in the deserted corridor.
Quick. The lab, the thick door of the cool room, the shelf where Colin had put his boxes... There was only one left. He grabbed the box and took it into the lab. By the light from the screen of his Connex21, he opened it. There was a bottle inside with sloshing liquid. It didn’t have an official label, just a white sticker with a hand-written word Fancy. Secret chemicals, eh? He wasn’t stupid. That sounded more like some kind of party drug.
And all of a sudden, Colin’s hollow-eyed stare made sense.
Bloody hell. Illegal didn’t describe half of it.
Footsteps. Voices, arguing.
Oh shit. Bluey looked around for somewhere to hide.
Quick, the cool room.
He scrambled inside, shut the door.
People entered the lab. Two, he thought.
‘…It’s not just him who’s noticed that something funny’s going on.’ A female voice. Claudia. ‘Did you hear the fight between the hotel owner and his wife? He’s never cheated on her and they’ve been married thirty-two years. Even I was affected. I don’t know what got into me. ’
Colin chortled. ‘Guess you just have a soft spot for stupid country oafs.’
‘It’s not funny. And he’s not stupid.’ Claudia. The click of a light switch. ‘Fuck, Colin, what happened to your nose?’
‘Nothing.’
Bluey’s elbow pricked, at the spot where he’d hit his attacker tow days ago. Colin? Why? He wouldn’t want a piece of electronic gadgetry; they had plenty of that stuff in the city.
‘Doesn’t look like nothing to me. Ah, here’s a bottle--’
Then a grunt.
‘Colin! Keep your hands off me. I wanna see what you’ve got in those bottles.’
‘You’re not getting your hands on my stuff.’
Silence.
‘Fuck, you’re kidding.’
Footsteps. Then Colin again. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Ringing the police. You gotta be kidding, Colin. That’s Fancy. That’s a fucking hallucinogenic drug.’
He laughed. ‘It pays your bills, though--I’d put that phone down if I were you. If Mick finds out…’
‘You mean Mick knows? Damn you, I’ll call whoever is responsible for this Rural Aid Grant. I’ll call the government--’
Colin laughed.
‘You mean--they know?’
‘You are so stupid and naïve, girl. Do you think anyone has the money to throw around at hopeless situations? At stupid rural towns who think they have some sort of entitlement to keep ruining this land, even though farming is no longer viable here, and perhaps never was?’
‘So you sell them an illusion.’
‘We make them happy. Or at least we did until this meddlesome oaf started recording things.’
Oh shit. That made sense.
There were more voices in the corridor.
‘Colin?’ That was Mick.
Shivering inside the cool room, Bluey clutched the Connex21 against the door, torn between wanting to come out and rescue Claudia, and wanting to keep quiet.
If he got out, what would he do? There were too many of them.
‘Yeah, we got a situation here.’
‘A situation? Fuck you. I’m resigning this stupid job. I’m--’
‘You’ll fly the plane back now.’ That was Mick.
‘The hell, I won’t.’
‘You will--Colin, take her and fill up the rockets from this last bottle.’
Footsteps receded, mingled with Claudia’s swearing.
Then silence returned.
Bluey stumbled into the lab. Empty. The corridor. Empty, too. Car tyres span in the gravel outside.
Bluey ran to the phone, punched and waited, and waited. The phone rang out. Bluey rang again until it was answered.
‘Hey, Grazz, it’s Blue--’
‘I finally get some paying customers, you piss them off, and now you dare ring me?’
‘Grazz, listen. The stuff they’ve used for those rockets--it makes us see things.’
‘Well, you’re a bit late to change your mind. They’ve gone.’
‘You should have stopped them.’
‘Stopped them? They were furious.’
God. Claudia’s laughter had made everyone stupidly happy. He’d made a pass on Claudia and the whole town had fucked their brains out. If Colin was furious--
‘Gotta go.’ He hung up.
Bluey ran outside, into the car park, and heard far above him the sound of an engine.
Too late.
He looked to his right, where the sign Welcome to Tinania stood next to the crumbling road. Calculated. It would take him ten minutes to get to town, plus however long it took to convince the townsfolk of their danger... if they would believe him at all... which was hardly likely... Lightning flashed in the distance. He guessed it would be only ten minutes before the first drops came down.
To his left beckoned the road to Pymberton, empty, dark.
A moment of indecision. Then another flash of lightning.
No time - no time.
Bluey turned left. He didn’t look back. No cars came past until he reached Pymberton, where he filled up the car using his father’s credit. Had it rained at all, Bluey asked, although he thought he knew the answer.
‘Not a single drop for months,’ the attendant said.
Bluey drove through the night. He turned off the radio when reports from Tinania started to come in. He drove and drove until at dawn, he stood at a lookout in the mountains, with the golden lights of the city spreading out towards the horizon.
For once, the screen of his Connex21 showed he had reception, and was careful to follow the manual to find the News channel’s number. When a pleasant female voice answered, he said, ‘My name is Paul Dawson. I have a report from Tinania you might find interesting.’
* * *
About the author
Patty Jansen lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. She publishes in both traditional and indie venues. Her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest and was published in their 27th anthology. Her story Party, with Echoes was published in Redstone SF.
Her novels (available at ebook venues) include Watcher's Web (soft SF), The Far Horizon (middle grade SF), Charlotte's Army (military SF) and Fire & Ice (dark fantasy).
Patty is a member of SFWA, and the cooperative that makes up Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and she has also written non-fiction.
Patty is on Twitter (@pattyjansen), Facebook, LinkedIn, goodreads, LibraryThing, google+ and blogs at: http://pattyjansen.com/