Walking to the Stars (18 page)

"Where are the other animals?” Samuel asked. “And the bodies? Obviously no one has attempted to clean up here, so shouldn't there be corpses?"

Nick looked around him and shrugged. “You're right, there should be feral dogs and cats, at least. As for the corpses, all there'd be left after twenty-five years would be teeth, if the person died outdoors. Indoors, there might be remains, what the rats couldn't eat."

"Cats and dogs taste good, if you're hungry enough,” Talgerit pointed out. “Easy to be that hungry."

"Could there be people left?” Samuel asked, looking around worriedly at the shattered house nearest to them.

"Bound to be,” Nick said. “Maybe not out here, but down in the city."

During the afternoon, through the rain, the cause of the damage became obvious, with a completely flattened and blackened area that covered an entire hillside. “Guess the bombers missed the city,” Nick said. “Probably a good idea to go around the area, just in case there's any unspent fuel."

"Bad place,” Talgerit said. “Can we run?"

His dog whimpered, from where it was waiting ahead of them, beside a charred car body, and they broke into a run, around the edge of the blasted area, skirting twisted wreckage of houses and more cars, over the brow of the hill and down into the valley on the other side.

Over the top of the next hill, after even Talgerit conceded that he was out of breath, Samuel asked between pants, “How far... to the... city?"

Nick clutched onto a broken brick wall that had once obviously graced the stucco pile of rubble that was now covered in creepers.

"Forty kilometers,” he said breathlessly. “If we keep going today, we might get within sight of the city."

It was a struggle, keeping going, but they used the roads when they could, and clambered over destroyed fences and through backyards. The houses, or what was left of them, got closer and closer together, the nearer to the city they came.

They found one area, marked on Samuel's map as Hovea, where the blast damage had left the old trees standing, and where a few houses still remained. When the sounds of birds returned, Talgerit said, “Cockatoos are here, we can stay here, too."

A truck rumbled by, the sound of its motor and wheels echoing through the valley they were in, sending the black cockatoos above them squawking and circling against the lilac sky, and Nick said, “Don't think we can risk a fire."

"We can make a fire without smoke,” Talgerit said. “Using rubbish."

"No fire, no food,” Samuel said. “There's enough flour still in my bag to make damper, if there are no rabbits."

"No food,” Nick said. “We'll need the damper tomorrow, and we really don't want to show up on an infrared scan of the area any more than we have to."

They were up and moving at first light the next morning. Apart from the dampness left by the rain, and an uncomfortable night without a fire, Samuel was too jumpy to sleep anymore.

He'd peered at the map, late the day before, found a twisted street sign, then found the street on the map. They were so close, Perth couldn't be more than one or two hills away from the gully they'd slept in.

A creek ran at the bottom of the gully, so Samuel drank deeply, and went off to piss, and when he went back to where he'd left Nick and Talgerit, they were both awake.

"Reckon we find a house tonight, eh?” Talgerit said. “Somewhere warm, where we can have a fire?"

"We can try,” Nick said.

It was still early, with the sun rising behind them, so their shadows bobbed ahead of them when they came over the last hill.

There, across a partly washed away road, was a parapet, and the city was spread out in front of them, stretching all the way to the ocean, a sliver of blue in the distance.

A river wound through the city, from somewhere below them, past the shattered remains of skyscrapers in the middle distance, shining dark and green in the morning light.

Down the last of the hills, down hundreds of metres of scarp face, suburbs of houses jostled right up against the hillside. Some of the houses looked intact, roofs still in place, some were nothing more than piles of rubble, and a lot of the city looked blackened and cratered, where trees hadn't regrown.

Scattered across the metropolitan wasteland were patches of smoke rising, too small to be spontaneous fires, too far apart to be evidence of a military encampment.

"That's Perth,” Nick said. “And it's not unoccupied."

They made their way down the scarp slowly and carefully, slipping and sliding on the loose gravel soil, slithering into the trees, spiking themselves on the balga plants.

When Samuel slammed particularly solidly into a balga tree, Talgerit leaned over and steadied him, then reached across and squeezed the top of the plant, so milky liquid oozed into his hands. He licked the liquid off his hands and said, “You try,” to Samuel.

Samuel squeezed the top of the plant, and sure enough milky sap flowed into his hand. He licked his hand experimentally, and the substance tasted like a plant, green and thick, but to a belly that hadn't eaten for a while, it tasted good.

They snacked their way down the hillside after that, squeezing balga plants and consuming the sap of the plant, and Samuel wasn't sure that it counted as a meal, but at least his stomach had stopped growling at him.

The first houses, balanced precariously on the edge of the hillside, looked undamaged apart from smashed windows and wildly overgrown yards, but the houses had something unsettling about them that made Samuel want to rush past. A little more destruction and fewer ghosts might have seemed easier to bear in the patchy sunlight.

Life survived among the trees leaning against sagging walls, with rabbits bounding through the undergrowth, tempting the dog to chase them, at least until the pack of feral dogs appeared.

Talgerit's dog snarled, warning the humans trouble was ahead, and a huge dog, shaggy and mangy and thin, stepped out of the waist high weeds and snarled back. The wild dog's pack followed, sliding through the wild grasses, massing behind their leader.

"Can you call your dog off?” Nick asked Talgerit.

"No,” Talgerit said, but he bent down and scooped up a lump of granite so quickly it seemed like he hadn't moved, then flung it at the huge dog, hitting it squarely in the face with a thud and crack that resounded solidly.

The dog went over, curled up and howling in pain and the pack scattered as Talgerit bent down and picked up another rock.

Talgerit's dog looked smug, or as smug as a dog face could manage, and Samuel said, “Please kill it, Talgerit."

The second rock crushed the dog's spine, and Talgerit said, “Done, Samuel. Do you want to eat the dog? It's mighty thin."

"No,” Samuel said, relieved the dog's howls had stopped, and he really didn't think he had the stomach to eat an animal he'd heard suffer like that.

"Not good eating,” Talgerit said. “Rabbits much better. Not poison."

"Do you have any idea where we are?” Samuel asked Nick sometime later, sliding his hand into Nick's and catching up with him as he strode down the obviously cleared middle of the road.

"Yes,” Nick said, and he looked so grim when Samuel glanced at him that Samuel stopped, dragging Nick to a halt.

"Are you all right?” Samuel asked. Nick looked bereft, his face deeply shadowed by sorrow.

"I used to live here,” Nick said. “Not right here, obviously, but in this city. And it's all gone."

Samuel hugged Nick hard, squashing him in his embrace. “We're nearly there,” Samuel said.

Nick hugged him back, just as hard.

Talgerit slapped Nick hard on the back, knocking both of them sideways. “It's Dr. Nick's dreaming now,” he said cheerfully. “His turn to see ghosts. Which way are we walking now, Dr. Nick?"

"That way,” Nick said, pointing toward the city. “We have to cross the river somewhere, and we might as well do it at Guildford."

Talgerit had Samuel's jacket on, and he opened it and rubbed at the Wagyl scale around his neck, between the feather shoes. “The neck of the river,” Talgerit said. “Dangerous place, by song, but I'm not scared."

He took off, long paces across the pitted and crumbling bitumen. “You two scared, eh?” he asked over his shoulder. “You should be."

"We're scared,” Samuel called back, and he took Nick's hand and started after Talgerit.

If there were other people around, they didn't see any during that day. They heard the occasional sound of a truck or heavy vehicle rumbling, but no one challenged them or tried to stop them.

Feral dogs roamed the ruined suburbs, rabbit holes riddled what had once been gardens, and they found what looked like it had once been a golf course, not far from where the map said the river was. They stopped there.

"Think we can have a fire tonight,” Nick said. “We need to eat, and there're rabbits everywhere. We should boil the water, too, no way of knowing what sort of residual biological agents are here."

"Anthrax?” Samuel asked. “Because boiling won't kill it."

"Talgerit and I are both immunized,” Nick said. “I know that. And I can't imagine you wouldn't be either. I was thinking of good old-fashioned E. coli, or something similar. There's bound to be something lingering in the Laporidaes around here."

"Eh?” Talgerit said.

"Rabbits,” Nick clarified. “And hares. Hideous creatures, if you had any idea of what was inside them, you'd never eat one again."

"Rabbits are good,” Talgerit said. “Easy to catch, quick to cook. Pigs are bad, full of worms. I'll go and catch some rabbits."

Talgerit left them sitting under a grove of eucalyptus and headed off into the dusk with his feather shoes on, becoming almost invisible immediately so that they would never have seen him if they hadn't known he was there.

Nick lay back on the thick layer of grass and held his arm out for Samuel.

"I stink,” Samuel said, but he crawled over the scratchy grass anyway and curled up with his head on Nick's shoulder.

"Me, too,” Nick said. “Thought I might treat myself to a wash in one of the ponds around here."

"The ones I saw had scum on them,” Samuel said. “Not sure that's good."

"Probably not,” Nick said, and he kissed Samuel's forehead. “We're going to have to swim the river tomorrow, that'll be cleaner. I really want to kiss you, but I'm horribly aware that I haven't brushed my teeth in days."

"Me either,” Samuel said, and he lifted his head and smiled at Nick. “I think if we both stink, then it's fair."

Nick was heavy over Samuel, pressing him down into the grass, so that snails crunched under his back and small things scurried around him. Samuel wriggled his precious bag of papers and maps off his shoulder and wrapped his arms around Nick and opened his mouth.

There they were, surrounded by a devastated city, supposedly avoiding the military and the remnant human population, and all Samuel's body could do was scream how long it had been since Lake Grace, and how much he needed this kiss.

Nick was hard, the length of his cock pressing urgently through the layers of filthy clothes they wore, and they had just gotten to the interesting stage of fumbling with clothing, trying to get more skin contact, when Talgerit's dog yipped.

"You,” Talgerit said, and Samuel took a deep breath and unwound his arms from Nick's neck. “Where's the fire?"

"No fire,” Nick said, and he lifted his weight off Samuel.

Talgerit flopped four rabbit carcasses down on the grass and said, “Eh?"

"Because you can start it with magic, and I'd have to find two rocks to hit a spark off,” Nick said. “Rabbits didn't take much time to catch."

"Too quick, unna?” Talgerit said, chuckling. “Not enough time.” He waved his feet at them, still clad in the feather boots. “Rabbits don't see me. Easy to just pick them up and kill them."

They had roast rabbits, and water boiled in old tin cans which they found among the grass and filled from a creek then propped in the fire.

"Save the flour,” Nick said. “We might not be able to catch rabbits tomorrow, and we'll need damper then."

"If we die tomorrow, then we'll wish we'd eaten damper now,” Talgerit said. “When the Wagyl eats us."

"I was hoping not to get eaten,” Samuel said. “Not tomorrow, not any day."

"Me, too,” Nick said.

In the dark, Samuel felt safer nestled in the thick undergrowth, Nick's arms wrapped around him, than he had for quite a few nights. He didn't think anyone could sneak up on them, not with Talgerit's dog audibly gnawing on rabbit skins and bones, just a few meters away.

They were out of sight, not cold, not hungry, and when Nick pulled at the buttons of Samuel's trousers, he slid them down willingly.

It wasn't ideal, with no oil, and no one had touched Samuel for months, but it still felt amazing, once Nick had worked his way inside.

Samuel whimpered, just once, and curled his hand around his cock and began to stroke himself steadily. If they did die the next day, at least they would have had this, just once.

Talgerit bent over and nudged at something with his bare toes, and small yellow and cream shapes appeared in the dirt. “Teeth,” Talgerit said. “People died here."

Nick bent over, too. “Lots of them,” he said, and sadness welled up in him. “Not from the initial blasts, the teeth aren't blackened. They must have died from radiation poisoning after."

Samuel looked around the area, the houses were relatively intact, walls and roofs still standing, but the entire area was littered with broken glass and torn metal. “Why didn't anyone help them?” he asked. “Why weren't they even buried?"

Nick stood up again and looked around. “See how the bitumen has bubbled? Over there?” There was an area ahead of them where the trees and undergrowth hadn't yet claimed back the ground, and where a road had once been. The bitumen there had been melted, the surface bubbling and running, burning off the paint marks and leaving the road looking like rippled liquorice.

"Yes,” Samuel said. “I can see."

"There was a blast within a short distance of here, a kilometer at the most. These people had no chance. If help had arrived, if this happened early enough in the bombings that the military had responded, they just would have shot any survivors, as a matter of mercy."