Matt Eaton - Blank

The chilled predawn light offered just enough illumination to negotiate Canberra’s streets without headlights, but the progress was slow. The sheer volume of domestic flotsam that had migrated from the abandoned yards of Yarralumla made driving a hazardous prospect. If the car broke down or a tyre punctured, Maxine Warrington might quickly find herself in danger and no-one would be rushing to her assistance. The physical risk didn’t particularly worry her. Of greater concern was the prospect of failure – a distinct possibility if she faced any major delay. She drove cautiously past the Chinese Embassy and was keenly aware of the armed guards manning the front gate.

Being so far inland, Canberra had been untouched by the Flood, meaning many areas of the city were disturbingly intact. The militarised zone – the areas around Capital Hill and the ASIO headquarters to the north – had been heavily fortified since the early days of the crisis. Inside the barricades where life had continued almost as normal there were no obvious signs of decay. But that was an illusion. The parameters of normal had been reset. The Sunburst – the first of the twin calamities to strike that December day – had dismembered the world they had known like a circular saw through butter.

This was the first time Max had ventured outside the safe zone. The parlous state of the streets in the diplomatic precinct was almost a comfort. It was a tangible indication of what had befallen them. But she saw now why Yarralumla had been designated a no-go area for all but essential travel. Her route avoided the large US Embassy compound, which was now more akin to a medieval fortress. But she knew they would be watching all local movements.

She turned the car into Forster Crescent and cruised past the New Zealand High Commission. The road wound through bushland that kissed the city fringe. Here the landscape was pock-marked with destruction. Trees stripped of leaves, branches ripped from tree trunks, saplings torn from the ground. A funeral pyre smouldered in a clearing. The Army had been busy overnight. She became aware of the smell of burning human flesh languidly wafting toward her on the morning breeze. It reminded her she was hungry.

Though she tried not to look her eyes were drawn toward the fire. This was the Army’s ‘dead of night’ policy at work. Bodies were gathered and burnt in the hours of darkness on evenings when no strong winds were forecast. This pyre was small, just a handful of corpses, as the soldiers were no doubt trying to prevent a bushfire. Canberra was perennially a city at risk from bushfire but the necessity of dealing with the dead was deemed worth the risk. Whether it was good management, luck or the sympathy of the gods the fire had remained within its containment lines.

She couldn’t make out age or sex. A hand extended from the fire, its fingers moving as if beckoning for help – the twitching of tendons contracting in the heat.

Max continued to drive slowly past the turnoff to Perth Avenue, noting the nearby Malaysian High Commission, gates torn from their hinges, its car park strewn with shards of wooden furniture.

Kindling.

She turned right into Hunter Street. It looked disturbingly normal. Cars were still parked on the roadside. The large front yards of luxury homes looked as if nothing had befallen them a lawnmower couldn’t fix. On a whim she pointed her car up a long driveway leading to a single-storey bungalow. There was no sign of life through its dark windows. She was still several hundred metres from her destination, but leaving the car here made her presence harder to detect from the street. She was still a sitting duck to satellite surveillance, but she planned to be in and out before anyone had time to challenge her.

She removed her Browning L9A1 pistol from its shoulder holster and for the third time that morning checked the magazine. She tapped herself down and felt reassured by the two fully loaded mags in the vest pockets. She popped the car keys under the driver’s seat and set off, pulling herself over a brick perimeter wall and into the yard next door, noting the neighbours’ plush stone kitchen, now decorated in a mosaic of broken crockery and the once-comfortable living room ripped apart, most likely by a scavenger’s desperate search for food and water.

Max made her way along the side of the house toward the street front but was careful to keep herself out of view. She crouched for a minute, scanning the road and listening for movement. Confident no-one was watching, she walked briskly across the road to the front steps of the house opposite. The front door had no handle. She kicked it open, swallowing the urge to yell: “Honey, I’m home!”

She closed the door behind her and looked around. The house was remarkably well ordered. No looters had made it in here. There might still be tinned food in the cupboards. She moved through the living room toward the kitchen, the spot offering the best view of her target’s home. It was safe to assume the Americans were likewise watching Wu Yaoqing, but she was counting on the likelihood they had chosen a surveillance point in front of his house. It was the easiest way for them to monitor comings and goings.

Wu Yaoqing was a nobody, the office manager of the Chinese defence attaché. He held no power or sway within the embassy. But he was a loose end, which made him an easy target.

The attacker’s ear-piercing howl caught Max so completely off guard that she almost failed to get out of the way. The creature’s wildly swinging arm missed her face by centimetres. Max retreated to the dining room, grabbing a chair to fend it off. It was a woman, maybe late 30s, the madness in its eyes driven by fear as much as fury. Max swung the chair in front of her in a bid to warn the creature to stay back, but it wasn’t to be deterred. Once more it howled like an alley cat and lashed an arm at the chair. Max pushed it to the ground and jammed the chair over its torso, pinning its arms by its side. The creature screamed in outrage and wildly swung its body back and forth in a fruitless bid to break free. The noise was appalling. It would almost certainly attract attention.

Max sighed. She pulled the revolver from its holster and shot the woman in the head. It was insanely loud in the confined space and the sound reverberated in her skull for a long while after it had faded from the air. If the Americans were using audio surveillance they would certainly have detected it.

A child’s cry arose from a nearby room of the house.

She cursed under her breath. Suddenly the creature’s frenzy made sense – it was a mother. But how had mother and child stayed alive all this time? Max launched herself toward the source of the crying, scanning rooms for any further signs of movement. Main bedroom, empty. Second bedroom, same. Bathroom – neat, ordered, bath tub full of water.

Who had done that ?

Wu. He had been taking care of them.

She found the child in the third bedroom. It was a young boy, maybe two or three years old. He cowered in a corner, but it was shyness more than mortal terror that kept him there. Were children this age still Blanks? Weren’t their minds already empty? Did they retain a capacity to learn? She didn’t know.

She shooshed the boy gently, sat down on his bed and stroked his hair. He quietened a little, but was glancing anxiously toward the hallway beyond his bedroom door, clearly suspecting something had happened to his mother. No words of comfort sprang to mind on that front.