Dark Confluence (26 page)

She paused as she listened to the interview of the journalist. What was his name again? That’s right, Bill Anders; that name rang a bell. It took her only a moment to remember that he had quite a distinguished career as an Australian news correspondent, who had in the past reported from some of the world’s most dangerous trouble spots. So now, he was here, reporting on Emerald Hills. She walked into the kitchen to hear better, it seemed that the body found was a member of EHGAG. Bill stated that in time, more information would be revealed. However, for the moment, it was a police matter and he could not say any more.

Jen nodded, of course, EHGAG! They were the activist group that Tom and Matt had been talking about weeks earlier. Perhaps Bill had been able to join the dots and work out that EHGAG may have been instrumental in getting the power underground. Perhaps, Bill suspected that the power was the problem all along.

Jen now knew who should be the recipient of her second envelope. She walked over to the phone and opened the local phone directory. Thumbing through the pages, she quickly found the number for the radio station, and within ten minutes, she had a postal address for the television company that employed Bill Anders. A moment later, Jen had addressed the envelope.

*

Jen closed and locked the front door behind her. It was time to leave. Going by the radio reports, the last quadrant of underground power to Emerald Hills was to be switched on this evening at a special ceremony. If she was going to attempt to stop it, she only had an hour remaining to do so. Jen still had no idea how she was going to accomplish this thing. However, she drew comfort from the fact that both her lover Fionn/Ion
u
in and the spirit Anna, both seemed confident in her ability to do so.

She walked down the front stairs and to the car. The mist seemed deeper, heavier than ever and the rotting grass felt slimy under her shoes. Goosebumps lifted on the back of her neck and she looked out into the mist to see, once more, the strange hooded and robed woman staring at her. It was the closest she had ever come, and Jen now recognised the figure as the one from her car accident months before.

“I know what you are,” she said levelly to the figure, which in turn undulated slowly in the mist. “I know what must be done, and I understand what may happen.”

The figure nodded and drew back her hood to expose a face beautiful, yet mournful. Dark hair fell about her shoulders and grey eyes matched the pallor of her skin. She held as usual, cloth in her hands, cloth that perpetually dripped water. She was the BanSidhe, the Fae herald of death. She opened her mouth as if to speak, yet no words came, just a low mournful wail that drummed within Jen’s blood and made the ground about her shudder and tremble.

Jen, her purpose set and mind steadfast, lifted a hand in farewell to the woman of the Fae, got into the car and drove away into the mist.

*

It was late when Jen drove into Cromhart and opened the post office door. At that hour, only a few customers remained in the queue, so it did not take long to complete her business there. A short while later, Jen stood outside on the street, as if having second thoughts about her course of action. She looked about her at the reassuring normalcy of the neighbouring town, and thus decided, dropped the two stamped letters into the post box. One letter would go to Channel Eight in Brisbane; the other lengthier one was addressed to Matt Delany and his family. Information had to be passed on, as well as ownership of her house. She figured that Fiona would be a worthy beneficiary. She hoped that she had provided enough legal documentation for the process to be straightforward.

Since the meeting with Anna at the cemetery, Jen had known she was fated to die. Oddly, she did not fear death, but she did fear the manner of her own passing and understood why her own stomach now churned and roiled, and why her own eyes were moist with unshed tears.

She leant heavily on the post box and closed her eyes, trying to settle her heaving stomach. The cleaning and organising back at home had allowed her for a time to push, what was now confronting her, to the back of her mind. Now that it was time to confront it, she had to act.

This was the only way. She knew that now. It was necessary in order to save the town, and for the children to be returned. When she had driven from her house to Cromhart, she had seen that the mist had grown. Once spared areas, had now been consumed. Even the Delany property was now engulfed by the mist, along with everything malignant that came with it. Jen innately understood that once the earth power pooled here, then it would grow and consume the region. Who knew where it would end? With the metallic taste of vomit sour in the back of her mouth, Jen straightened with effort, and went back to the car. She had no idea what to do, but it had to be done, now.

Back in the car, Jen gripped the steering wheel with palms clammy with cold sweat. Her heart was beating an unsteady rhythm against her ribs, and she fervently hoped that she had the strength to complete this deed.

She leant back against the seat and closed her eyes, and then with an effort of will, turned the key in the ignition. The car purred to life. She glanced at the dashboard – damn, she was almost out of fuel. She wanted to get this over, yet even now, there were disruptions, inconveniences, and distractions.

Jen angled the car out of the post office carpark and into the light stream of late afternoon traffic. She remembered there was a petrol station just outside of Cromhart - it would have to do.

*

Jen turned into the petrol station and drove up to the nearest free bowser. She released the catch on the petrol cap of the car and got out to fill her vehicle. As she stood there at the bowser, the petrol hose in her hand, a large petrol tanker drove in. It was one of the regular vehicles used by the petrol companies to refill the massive underground tanks at the station. She watched it draw up into the parking space and saw the older driver get out and head into the office.

‘It is time,’ a voice whispered into her ear.

She looked around and saw nothing, but the voice was familiar. Jen nodded, understanding what she had to do. She lifted the petrol hose away from her car and replaced the nozzle back into the bowser. With a click of her key, she locked the car and turned instead to the tanker.

It was dusk and with this area being free of the mist, the late afternoon sun streamed low over the horizon, its glare obscuring the vision of the two men in the office. With some difficulty, Jen clambered into the driver’s seat of the tanker and shut the door. She had no idea how to drive such a massive vehicle with its complicated gear system. With her hands sweating on the steering wheel, she called out a name. Immediately, he was beside her, his smile sad.

“I can’t do this alone,” she said. “I don’t know how.”

“I will help you,” he whispered, his hand closing over hers. Despite the absence of the key, Jen felt the engine of the truck shudder into life. Without knowing how, her feet reached the pedals, and she instinctively knew which gear to choose. Slowly, she pulled the massive tanker out of the petrol station. She dimly heard raised voices behind her, and in the rear vision mirror, saw the two men running out of the office, yelling and
gesticulating
angrily, shouting at her to stop. One tried to run in front of the tanker, waving her down. She spun the wheel and clipped a metal sign, sparks flew and he dodged out of the way.

Out on the road, she methodically worked her way through the gears until the tanker was barrelling along at sixty. She glanced across at Fionn, who sat next to her, his face enigmatic, his cool hand covering hers, lending her his power to do this thing. Far away in the distance, she could hear sirens gathering behind her.

Finally, she reached the intersection, slowed and braked, and then read the sign, Hinterland Electricity Sub-Station, and then below it, Authorised Personnel Only. Trespassers will be prosecuted.

Fionn nodded, and gently pressed her hand, “This is the place, my Jenny, I will be with you to the end.”

Jen shuddered, her skin clammy, her eyes brimming with tears and not trusting her voice, nodded. She turned the tanker off the man road and increased its speed as the winding side road lead down a bit of a hill and to the small valley below.

Jen felt the accelerator depress under her foot and the tanker turned a corner at speed, rocking on its suspension. Jen struggled to control the vehicle and Fionn’s grip upon her hand grew stronger, holding the wheel where she could not. The tanker’s wheels squealed in protest, but the vehicle stayed, swaying on the road. Ahead was a steel barrier, a simple boom gate preventing casual entry - the tanker ploughed through the impediment as if it did not exist, trailing wire, steel and sparks in its wake.

Ahead, in a blaze of light was the sub-station itself. Jen had read enough on the ‘net’ in the last few hours to know where damage would be most effective, so she angled the tanker away from the unoccupied building and to the great array of wires, transformers and other devices beyond. She floored the accelerator and barrelled, first through the wire security fence, which when impacted, buckled and tore around the tanker. Then, the vehicle crashed through sundry metal poles that scratched and scraped at the steel skin of the tanker, to stop suddenly and with intimidating force into the massive transformers at the heart of the complex. Jen was flung forward against the steering wheel, losing her glasses and even the airbags that thrust open, did not prevent the tearing and breaking of her ribs. In a cacophony of pain, Jen lay dazed against the steering wheel, coughing up frothy blood, and watching dully as sparks erupted all around her. Then, all at once, there was a deafening clap of sound, almost like a thunderclap, and she felt the tanker suddenly lift up and thrusted into the air as the fuel leaking from damaged fuel lines and the torn skin of the tanker, met the sparks from the damaged sub-station. Everything suddenly went searing white, then scarlet red. Instantly air was sucked from her damaged lungs and violent heat seared her face and charred her skin. She screamed in heartrending pain, until the heat robbed her of even her voice.

The very last thing Jenn felt before falling into blissful darkness was Fionn’s arms encompassing her, holding her close.

*

Chapter 23

The great, mushroom shaped fireball that erupted from the Hinterlands sub-station could be seen for many kilometres around, bathing the entire area in a sickly red light, before it too finally dissipated into roiling black smoke. The automatic sprinkler system installed at the sub-station partly subdued the immediate fire. The ground rocked and trembled from the force of the explosion, and residents far away, were suddenly and explicably, plunged into complete darkness. They thought for a moment that there had been another earthquake.

Those who remained in Emerald Hills saw nothing except a far brilliant light arcing up into the dusk sky, and then they heard and felt nothing, but a faint rumbling and a juddering of the ground. Then the instant and immediate darkening of their town as every light, every appliance and every electrical item stilled into darkness and silence.

*

Jen stood on the wooded ridge with Fionn and watched the conflagration of the sub-station below. She turned to him with one question on her lips.

“Am I dead?”

Fionn smiled and held her to him, kissing her. “Yes, and no, my Jenny,” he replied. “Your mortal shell did not survive the great fire, but your spirit-essence remains safe and in my care.”

She looked down at herself, “So how is it that I have a body still?”

“You instinctively created yourself one, with the same power that I create mine. Have you not guessed what you have become?” he asked smiling at her.

She shook her head.