Carrier (5 page)

It had been years, too many years, since Alice.

I swallowed hard, drew in a deep breath, and turned the door handle.

The air was breathable; stale, but breathable. The windows were boarded up so it was dark, but with torchlight I was able to see enough.

A lump came to my throat. My cousin's room spoke and laughed out loud in Alice's voice. She had posters on the wall of strange, plastic-looking men and women wearing dark eye make-up and broody, sexy poses. I found them fascinating but kind of stupid looking.

Everything about the room was so familiar, yet I hadn't been in here for nearly ten years. The crimson bedspread with once white (now orange) lotus flowers on it, the silk love-heart pillow and the teddy bear wearing sunglasses reclining against it, all seemed to be waiting for Alice to return.

Books lay scattered across the room, tossed about in Alice's impatient style. I could see her, pacing the worn wooden boards, opening a book, reading the first few sentences and then tossing it aside impatiently because it had bored her.

Alice had always wanted experiences. She'd known the world before Y-Carrier, so in a sense, she had suffered more than me. She hated the silence, hated the dust, hated all the creepy crawlies and the flies and snakes.

My fingers reached out to stroke the hems and sleeves of the clothes that hung in Alice's wardrobe. Everything once vibrant had been worn away, threadbare and tainted with that orange stain around the collars and cuffs that you couldn't escape in the outback; even somebody as obsessed about their appearance as Alice.

For a long time I stood there with a soft smile on my face, picturing my cousin wearing each and every one of these outfits — until I noticed one was missing. I remembered it well, though the bloodstains had tainted the memory somewhat. It had been Alice's favourite dress. White with little purple flowers embroidered in it. The dress had showed off her long tanned legs.

Even as a seven year old I remembered staring up at her in awe and wondering if I was going to grow up half as tall and as beautiful as Alice.

I clutched at a random shirtsleeve and buried my face into it, but it didn't smell like Alice anymore. It smelt old, like the mothballs Mum had put in there. It was a poor substitute to the strawberry perfume Alice used to wear.

The sound of Mum coughing travelled down the hallway and into the room. I needed to get a move on if I wanted to find the journal without Mum snooping around.

The bottom of the wardrobe, where Alice had kept some shoe boxes, turned up nothing but old socks and several spiders. Next I searched her dresser, but to no avail. Finally, after checking her bookcase, I looked in the most obvious place, between the bedsprings and the mattress and couldn't believe it when my fingers brushed against something hard and rectangular shaped.

Its cover remained a glossy black, with vivid red roses painted on it. However, several cracks had split the surface from use.

My legs gave out and I collapsed on the end of her bed. With shaking hands, I opened the book and traced my trembling fingers over the swirly, bubbly writing.

Alice's Journal
, she'd written in black ink.

Keep out, Lena
, was also written in bold red.

Forgive me
, I whispered, and turned the page.

Just Another Day...

Dear Journal,

I'm writing to you because I am bored out of my fucking mind!

The whole rush to escape the city with my baby cousin and my uncle and aunty had been exciting at the time; the idea of all the females in our country perishing at the hands of a disease and us being the only survivors — that had been exciting too. I imagined our faces in the newspaper as being the only Australian survivors and that the entire world's population would invite us to live in their safe, disease-free countries. We would live like the rich and famous. All of my favourite singers and actors who I love would invite us to their concerts and parties — but even that all sounds stupid now, just a silly twelve year old girl's dreams.

Now, five years on, I am bored out of my brains. I miss TV and movies. I miss my friends, I miss boys. I miss life with Mum and Dad — I miss them full stop.

Sometimes I wonder if there is life after death and imagine that they are waiting for me in some better place. Perhaps I should just go and get Aunt Alex's gun and blow my head off.

But then there's little Lena to think about. What if she found me dead? It would scar her for life, that's what. No. I couldn't do that. But, dear journal, I have to do something...very soon.

Aunt Alexandra has turned into a right bitch (sorry but its true!!!) since Uncle Richard died. Okay, so I feel sorry for her a bit, but now she knows what it's like to be like me and not to have any males around. And it's been years, anyway, and she acts like she's suffering when it's really her kid, Lena, who's got it tough.

The poor dumb kid knows nothing about life or anything. When I tried to tell her what boys and girls did together to make babies she just stared at me with her big huge koala bear eyes — pretty eyes, but wasted on a kid so dumb and naive. I mean it's not her fault, and I love her to death, like a sister almost, but jeez, she frustrates me sometimes.

Apart from her dad she hasn't even seen a boy before. Imagine that? Imagine not knowing what a boy was like? She's only little, but it's pretty scary to think she is going to live her life not knowing a boy...ever.

God I hope not, because that means I'll never see one again. At least I have my memories though. Of Taylor up in the Moreton Bay fig tree at school and the time we sat out the front of my house in my mum's car and fooled around. Over and over again I replay those memories, but sometimes it's not enough.

Sometimes I just want to knock Aunt Alex over the head — just to knock her out (I'm not a murderer, okay) — so I can leap over the fence and run free...and perhaps find somebody...some people...some sort of civilisation.

Please, God, if you're still there. Send something, or someone, good my way.

I read on, Alice's voice clear in my head.

Another Hellhole Day...

I almost did it. I almost escaped.

Bloody Aunty caught me and you know what she did? She slapped me! Slapped me across the face! She's not even my mother. I spat at her and scratched her cheek. She's nothing to me, now. Anyway Lena's dad and my mum were brother and sister, so Aunty isn't my own blood, thank God, but Lena...poor Lena. She cried and put her little skinny arms around me after I fell to the ground from the force (Aunt is a hardcore toughass, I'll give her that) and you know what? The little mite, she blasted her mum — told her that she wasn't going to let her hit me again.

Oh, I was wrong about the little tacker — she's not dumb at all. God, the love I feel for her now, the sweet little kid, it makes me cry now that I'm going to leave her and run away.

I would take her with me, but what in the hell am I going to do with a seven year old? Sure, she's already pretty good with a knife and can almost skin a rabbit all by herself, but still. I can't have anything or anybody weighing me down. I need to be fully free, like a bird, when I soar over that shit-ugly fence. (Sorry journal, for my foul language, but I am at breaking point and yeah, a lot of stuff is ugly around here, like the snakes and wild animals and especially those abandoned dingo pups that Lena is befriending and chucking food to over the fence line. So gross with their long little fangs and skinny ribs protruding through their skin.

I would have left them for dead. Well, at least I know the kid will have some company when I'm gone.

Anyway, goodbye dear journal — I may or may not have time to write to you in a while. And hey, if all goes well and I find some normal, un-diseased people or even find that the country is okay now and disease-free now, I won't have to write in you anymore because I won't be bored to death.

I'll be LIVING!!!

The sound of shattering glass dragged me out of Alice's head and thrust me back into the present.

Mum was awake. A quick check to see that everything was as it had been before I entered, and I was out the door with the book stuffed down the waist of my pants, pressing against my lower back.

The door handle of Mum's room rattled and turned and I shoved the lump of keys into my back pocket before she stepped out into the hallway. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. Reading about the way she'd slapped Alice reminded me how out of control Mum's temper could be when she was disobeyed.

‘Mum, you're up.'

She smiled at me. Some colour had returned to her cheeks, tinting them pink.

‘Accidentally dropped my glass of water,' she said, shrugging before her brow fused together. ‘Lena, you look like you've seen a ghost, love.' She rushed over and checked my forehead, her palm cool. ‘You're warm.' She looked into my eyes. Hers were clear, better than before, but the dark shadows below them remained.

She must have noticed me assessing her because she sighed and offered me a sympathetic half-smile, her ‘sorry' smile that she normally used after an argument.

‘I feel like a bitch for neglecting you, Lena.' She chewed on her pinkie finger, the only fingernail she allowed herself to destroy. ‘I shouldn't have drunk that crap. It sets a bad example. Luckily it was our last bottle.' She stared at the floor, as if ashamed, but then raised her head suddenly and stared down at me without blinking once.

My feet shuffled around on the spot and my hand reach up around my waist to press against the solid journal cover.

‘I promise I won't lock myself up like that again. There's no excuse.' She moved closer, as though she was actually going to hug me and I stiffened, recalling the slap she'd given Alice. For some reason I'd repressed that incident, but after reading about it just now, it felt as fresh as if it had happened only minutes ago. How could Mum have done that? Didn't she have sympathy for a young teenage girl who'd been ripped from her old life? A girl who'd lost both of her parents?

‘Why are you all tense?' Mum drew back, hurt hardening her face. She shook her head and spat, probably a piece of her fingernail, on the floor. ‘You're so like your father, carrying things around for ten years. Well, if you expect me to feel guilty about getting drunk for one measly night, don't. I did it, I'm sorry and now I'm ready to return back to my routine, to our routine.'

I opened my mouth to speak, but she put up a hand.

‘I've been thinking about you turning seventeen soon. Perhaps tomorrow I'll take you hunting outside the property.'

She smiled warmly at me, as if we'd just shared a touching moment. But why did it feel so wrong? Last week, if she'd announced this, I probably would have danced around the house and then ran outside to shout my joy to the world, making birds flee the trees. But right here, right now, her offer felt like nothing. If anything, it felt like another rule, another barrier. And it was.

Now that Mum had emerged from her self-induced coma, it meant she'd be back on intruder alert. There was no hope in meeting Patrick tonight, and, even worse, no way to get in touch with him and warn him not to come, warn him that if my mum caught him too close to the fence, she'd shoot him on the spot.

I pressed the flat of my hand against the diary and Alice's words returned.
Sometimes I just want to knock Aunt Alex over the head — just to knock her out (I'm not a murderer, okay) — so I can leap over the fence and run free...

I met Mum's eyes and my face flushed with heat, ashamed that I could even think about it. Thank God she couldn't read my mind.

‘You look like you're coming down with something, Lena. It's this change of weather. I'd say a storm is coming in the next day or so.'

Mum's concern made me feel cold with guilt for even considering knocking her out. Maybe I
was
coming down with something.

Cold wind blew through the crack beneath the front door and I shivered.

‘Lena, are you okay?'

I nodded, my body still trembling. A vision of Patrick waiting for me at the fence tonight filled me with fear for his safety, and a heavy sadness.

‘No you are not. Go and get into bed and I'll fix you up a bowl of my famous soup.' She grinned. ‘It's so famous that
four
people have eaten it.' She was cracking a joke, trying to lighten the heavy air between us. But somehow it sounded more morbid than funny, seeing as the other two who'd eaten the soup were dead.

From somewhere, deep in the back closet of my emotions, I managed to rummage up a smile. But it wasn't a true one — I was too worried about Patrick for that.

‘Okay.' The only reason I went willingly to my bedroom was because I needed more privacy and time to work out what to do next. If I told Mum about Patrick, there was no question that she'd shoot him. If I didn't tell her and she caught him out there herself, she would still shoot him.

The mattress groaned beneath me when I threw myself onto my bed. As I stuffed Alice's journal beneath my pillow, Jeffery C fluttered out and landed on the floor. Within seconds he was resting over my heart and I was silently pleading with him for advice, as though the picture could talk.

Then it came to me — a letter. I needed to plant a letter on the fence, at our little spot.

Springing from the bed, I seized my pocketknife from my bedside drawer and began picking at the nails that supported the boards covering my window. It was too dark and depressing in here and I needed some light to write.

Finally, after nearly five minutes, one of the boards gave way and swung down so that it hung lopsided and allowed a triangle of light into the room, making my eyes squint.