Lachlan Walter - The Rain Never Came

I couldn’t help looking back.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me…’

That deep into it, the sheer amount of stuff that made the wall possible was staggering. I saw some of the same things I had seen earlier—broken furniture and whitegoods. But there was so much more, all equally ruined: garden tools, car parts, appliances, office furniture, road signs, industrial equipment, farm machinery, the very stuff that houses are made of. And still more: a department store mannequin, a pew, a wheelchair, a set of goal posts, a pram, an ironing board, a claw-foot bath, a mangled pushbike, a life-sized crucifix.

The detritus of a lost world.

I tried to say something but nothing came out. Tobe kept walking. A low moan disturbed the eerie quiet, the great weight in the walls shifting and settling, shifting and settling. A grey cloud settled on me; I had to fight the urge to sit down, to pack it in, to give up. Tobe stopped at the wreck and gave Red and Blue a quick pat. They ignored him, still trying to get at whatever they had found.

Tobe leaned on the wreck. He looked at me without really seeing me, waving around at what we had found.

‘What you reckon?’

I didn’t answer, unable to tear myself from the exposed workings of the wall. So many lives must have gone into it, were still evident in it, were still trapped inside it. Only the people themselves were forgotten, not what they had done to fight off their fears. That would be preserved for all time: a monstrous wall of junk strung across a burnt-out plain in the middle of nowhere.

‘What a waste.’

‘Yeah, this shit’s rooted. Think of it—even just a ute-load, if it was in good nick, you’d be set up for a good while. Too bad, eh?’

I looked at him, my eyes dead. ‘Yeah, too bad.’

‘You all right?’ Tobe asked.

I whispered to myself: ‘I wish.’ Then I barked, loud enough for Tobe to hear, ‘No worries.’

I did the best I could to shake my black mood, trying to accept the fact that I was too far into our walk to back out, that I wasn’t a good enough survivor to make it home alone. Shit. I gave in and ambled over to Tobe, dragging my feet. Red and Blue ignored me, kept snuffling. Tobe smiled, his eyes shining.

The wreck was only a little taller than we were: an evil thing, sharp edged, lined with vicious teeth, a giant tin can that had exploded from the inside.

We looked up at it.

‘Any idea what comes next?’ I asked.

‘None at all.’

‘No shit?’

‘No shit.’

‘Well, how about that? Action man doesn’t know everything.’

‘Fuck you.’

The wreck loomed over us. Rusted strips peeled away, patiently waiting to scratch us. I didn’t want to climb it; it would be death by a thousand cuts. Catching the look on Tobe’s face, I figured that he didn’t want to climb it either.

He reached out, took a hold of a piece of wreckage and pulled hard. It didn’t move.

‘Here we go.’

He took it easy, moving slowly. Before too long, he was done. I looked up at him. Back-lit by the afternoon sun, a halo of golden light surrounded him. Poseur idiot. I wondered again whether he deliberately chose these times and places for their dramatic effect.

‘Nice view?’

‘Come on up and see for yourself.’

I pulled on my gloves, shook my rifle free, picked up Tobe’s, flicked both safeties on. ‘Here.’

But he wasn’t listening, his back to me.

‘Tobe?’

No reply.

‘You ‘right?’

He turned, looked at me, reached out, took hold of the rifles. He lay them down, reached out again. His grip was strong.

‘Yeah, she’s ‘right. It’s beautiful, that’s all.’

I didn’t say anything, just braced my feet against the tangled mess.

‘One, two, three.’

He heaved. I took a step up, my arse sticking out, my boots leaving dusty footprints behind. I found another foothold, took another step. Tobe heaved again. I scooted around, avoiding the ragged rusty steel, and made it to the top.

The wreck stretched on for another twenty or thirty feet, and then gave way to a bare-earth plain maybe a mile long. Beyond that lay withered bush. From our new vantage point the curve of the wall was easier to see: to the north and south this bare-earth plain followed it, the occasional blurry shape the only break in the monotony.

The far end of the wreck curved up and away from us, a rusted wave, higher than we were tall. I realised that we stood atop a bombed-out bulldozer. The floor under us was cracked, riddled with holes. Steel plates scraped against each other, rending the quiet. We moved carefully, stopping whenever we felt a tremor. I didn’t dare look up, eyes fixed on my feet, on the increasingly unsteady surface I trod.

‘Fuck this for a joke.’

I snapped from my spell, looked up to see Tobe hotfooting it away. He hit the steel wave at speed and scrabbled at it; its surface too slick to offer any purchase, he simply slid down, ending up in a foetal ball at the bottom.

I laughed. ‘Need a hand?’

Tobe didn’t answer, his cheeks reddening. ‘Watch your feet,’ he warned.

‘You’re one to talk—you should have seen the look on…’

Without warning, the plate under my feet slid away, clattering down into the belly of the beast. I almost followed it, treading on empty air. Tobe was back on his feet quick-smart, grabbing my hand, saving my arse. In the process, I somehow dropped my rifle, watched it slide toward the hole and the darkness. Tobe kicked out his leg then caught the strap with his foot and started reeling it in.

‘Cheers.’

We looked up at the rusted wave. It curved away, its crest only a few feet over our heads.

Tobe cupped his hands and bent his knees. ‘After you.’

I groaned, but stepped into his hands anyway and he boosted me up. I reached out, stretched further, found a handhold, pulled myself up, slithered onto my belly, almost slid over the edge.

‘You ‘right?’

‘No worries.’

I reached for the rifles, slung them on my back. Tobe hoisted himself up with a noticeable lack of effort and took a seat next to me.

We clung to our perch like two cockies up a dead tree.

The sun shone bright off the bare-earth plain. The bush beyond it warped in a heat haze. Only a few feet below us, the last section of wall stretched out, barely ten feet of cracked wood and broken furniture.

‘Right, no use sitting here all day,’ Tobe said.

I would have been perfectly happy to do so.

Tobe unclipped a canteen from his belt and tossed it onto the pile below us. The wood creaked but held; the canteen bounced along, rolled over the far edge. Tobe pushed himself off, landed heavily. A cloud of dust billowed up. The wall groaned. For a moment, it seemed like Tobe was about to fall through and get swallowed up.

He started jumping, the wood bouncing beneath his feet.

‘Come on, Bill, what are you waiting for? Bloody Christmas?’

I pushed myself off.

‘That’s my boy,’ Tobe said, catching my arm.

I turned and looked back at the rusted wave. We had somehow propped ourselves at the top of the bulldozer’s monstrous blade. Pushed hard against the blade, the pile of wood was splintered, broken. But it seemed to have done its job; the bulldozer had stopped dead, all the mechanical might in the world reduced to scrap.

I turned back. Tobe was already ahead of me, about to drop over the side.

‘Tobe?’

‘Look, mate, I’ve no idea how it got here.’

And over he went.

I pulled off my glasses and tucked them in a pocket before sliding the rifles off the edge and following them down. I landed hard, but nothing felt broken. I slowly got to my feet, put my glasses back on, picked up my rifle and checked that it was okay.