Lachlan Walter - The Rain Never Came

‘Tobe, you know that I don’t want to be here when the Creeps show up. I love this place, I can’t watch it burn. So if you’ve got a plan, well, that’s more than I’ve got. But not now, no way.’

He was almost bouncing in his chair. ‘But…’

‘I’m not interested, won’t be until after I’ve had a decent kip.’

He slumped. ‘Okay… I’ll come get you some time before midnight. That all right?’

‘No worries.’ I made it out of the transport. ‘Catch you later.’

Tobe threw me a salute and revved the engine. It roared loud enough to shake the trees. A shadowy shape—some night time animal—raced across the paddock that stretched before me. The roar of the engine built to a scream. Tobe took off in a cloud of dust. I smiled.

Another wave of exhaustion crashed through me.

I steeled myself, took a shuddering step. I somehow started walking, slowly following the driveway.

Something broke my dreamless sleep, a shapeless light that steadily grew brighter. The darkness slowly split, and then I was awake. The light drenched my bedroom. It moved, dipped, disappeared completely. The gloom returned. I sat up, felt around for my glasses. Without warning the light came back brighter than before. I rushed across the room, made it to the window and opened the threadbare curtain. The transport was parked right outside, headlights drowning me in their cold blue beams. I shielded my eyes and had a better look.

Tobe was sitting cross-legged on the roof, the girl next to him.

‘What?’

I dropped the curtain, turned away, got dressed in the same clothes that I had worn to the Borough. I felt my way into the kitchen, struck a flame, lit a lantern. I groaned, barely aware I was doing so—the pain of my earlier shock had left me heavy and slow.

‘You get a cuppa on?’

I turned at Tobe’s voice. He still wore his body armour, was still a deadly shadow. All my nagging questions and suspicions returned, only to be blotted out by the sight of the girl trailing behind him. Someone had found an over sized pair of coveralls for her, the sleeves cut off. She was still barefoot. Someone had also taken the time to bathe her; her skin was copper brown tinged with red, her jet-black hair full of tangles.

She could have been an ordinary girl.

‘G’day, Tobe.’

I looked at the girl. ‘And, yeah, g’day.’

Nothing. I gave up, led them into the kitchen and poured three glasses of cloudy water.

‘Here we are then.’

I ignored Tobe. I knew that it would be the last time we would start a ridiculous adventure from the comfort of my kitchen, knew that it was time to leave forever. Never again would I look over the valley or laze under the veranda or sleep under my own roof. All those years waiting, it didn’t seem real now that the time had come.

I couldn’t speak for fear of breaking down.

I picked up the lantern and left Tobe and the girl behind. Thankfully, they let me be. I sleepwalked from room to room, absently touching knick-knacks and trinkets, drifting through the house, trying to take it all in.

I took my time saying goodbye to the old girl.

‘You ‘right?’ Tobe asked when I was done.

I nodded. I didn’t look at him, didn’t want him to see me cry. He patted me on the shoulder, a feeble but sincere attempt at comfort. The girl stared at me, expressionless. I had no idea why she had tagged along. I also didn’t care—my grief welled, threatened to swamp me.

‘Fuck this.’

I knocked off my water and sat the cup down. I knew that would be the last time I would ever drink from it. For some reason, that hurt.

‘You guys should strip the garden. I’ll give you a hand to drain the tank when I’m done.’

My voice was hollow, the words coming automatically. I left Tobe and the girl to it, limped through the house, found my spare pack, crammed in some clothes, gathered up whatever ammunition I could find. I left my tools behind, hoping that Tobe hadn’t done the same. I dithered, decided against taking any more mementoes. I was saying goodbye—a clean break seemed right.

I couldn’t help myself and packed a few keepsakes.

As always, my hat was in its usual place, hanging on the rusty nail that had been hammered into the wall long before I had been born. I plucked it from the nail, put it on, pulled the nail itself from the wall and stuck it in my pocket.

It’s funny that the little things are sometimes the ones that affect us the most.

‘Are you done?’ Tobe was next to me, as sneaky as a spider. There was nothing but sorrow on his face.

‘Yeah, I reckon I am.’

‘Sorry, mate.’

I smiled softly. ‘Thanks.’

We walked outside—he headed for the transport, I shuffled off to the barn. The girl was squatting in the garden, digging in the dirt. She scooped out a handful of earth, rooted through it, and fished out a worm and a grub, then tucked them in her pocket. She completely ignored me. I made a mental note to ask Tobe what was what and why she was with us, and then shuffled on. I opened the barn, hung the lantern from a rafter, hurried over to the tank. I wasn’t sad about seeing the end of that place; one less reminder of bad memories is a good thing.

A roar echoed around me.

Tobe was already backing the transport in. A fog of exhaust had me coughing. The roar stopped but I kept coughing. Tobe jumped out and passed me a canteen.

‘Cheers.’

He was already dragging a hose out, connecting one end to the tank, hauling the other to the transport.

‘Anything I can do?’

‘Give us a hand here, would you?’

He jammed a broken pinch-bar into a latch on the side of the transport. We wrenched on it. Metal shrieked. The latch finally sprang open with enough force to throw us on our arses.

Tobe was already on his feet, feeding the hose into the space we had opened up.

He started the pump. Eventually, a dribble of water splashed back. Tobe was on it quick smart, pulling the hose from the transport and filling a dozen battered jerry cans he had found. When that was done, he hustled onto the transport’s roof.

‘What are you waiting for? Bloody Christmas?’

I passed him the first jerry can, my body creaking like a rusty windmill. He strapped it down. I passed him another.

‘Why do I always get the shit jobs?’

‘Shut your yap, we’re almost done.’

After a while, Tobe secured the last jerry can and jumped down to the ground. He flung open the transport’s side door. I stuck my head in—the girl sat on the floor, sorting through the meagre efforts of my garden. Cactus paddles, prickly pears, desert limes, leathery figs, shrunken fruit, the snake I had killed a few days earlier, some berries from the bush behind the house that I hadn’t realised were edible.

It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

‘How’s it going?’

The girl looked at me, didn’t speak, got back to work. The transport’s interior was packed with crates, strongboxes and more jerry cans. The tang of gasoline was strong. The tools I had been relying on Tobe to remember were strapped against the wall: a fence of shovels, axes, picks, saws.

‘Is the kitchen sink in there too?’

He didn’t laugh.

‘Did you get any sleep?’ I asked.

‘A couple of hours, enough to see me through.’

Typical… I looked at the girl again. I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I had been dying to ask. ‘What’s with you two?’

Tobe frowned. ‘First things first, her name’s Ruby. And you shouldn’t worry about her—she was out in that wasteland a long time, I’m sure she’ll be fine riding in the back.’

‘She spoke, did she?’

‘A little.’