The Last Girl (18 page)

Ching.

‘Right,’ he said.

‘Well, why would we develop an ability that’s about to make us extinct?’

Nathan shrugged. ‘Like you said, maybe we fast-forwarded evolution, developed this power or sense or whatever, way before we were ready for it. If prehistoric man had moved from fire to gunpowder in the same day, do you think we’d even be here?’

I slowly rolled up the metal security shutter. Nathan started assembling the glass-cutter from HomePlace. We’d decided it was smarter than smashing our way in. The last thing we needed was to draw the attention of any other Party Duders.

‘So, why us?’ I asked, hunkering down beside him. ‘You and me?’

‘Why could we tune into other people but they couldn’t tune us?’

I nodded.

He shook his head. ‘Beats me.’

‘Did you crash out for a second?’ I asked. ‘Go into that nothing place?’

Nathan looked at me. ‘Yes, right at the start. It was horrible.’

‘It was,’ I said. ‘But we both bounced back. We’ve got that in common.’

‘True. But it’d make sense for that to be a function of our immunity—or whatever you’d call it—rather than a cause.’

I went quiet for a moment as he worked. ‘Before this happened, did you have any flashes?’

Nathan listened as I quickly described the odd occurrences leading up to Christmas. My sanitised version of Mollie’s party stopped at me hearing thoughts. I left out my freak-out and my diagnosis as a mental case. I didn’t want to scare off my new friend. My
only
friend.

Nathan shook his head. ‘I didn’t have anything like that.’

But I’d come up with a new brainwave.

‘I know!’ I said. ‘A few weeks ago I went off all screens, all social media, all devices, everything. It was only for six days. But maybe that had something to do with it?’

Nathan grinned as he stuck the cutter’s suction cup to the plate glass. ‘If that was the reason then we’d be surrounded by babies and senior citizens. As for me? I was on screens 24/7 right up to when it started.’

‘Well,’ I harrumphed, officially out of theories. ‘I’m a Virgo.’

Nathan’s eyes widened. ‘Wow, me too!’

I’d been joking. ‘Really?’

‘Gemini,’ he said with a smile. ‘You’re on the right track. There has to be a reason—or maybe several contributing factors—but right now with just you, me and the dead guy we don’t have enough of a sample to tell us anything.’

Nathan extended the cutter’s arm enough for the blade to slice a circle the size of a manhole.

‘Here goes nothing,’ he said.

We didn’t know whether the DrugRite had an alarm with its own power supply. He turned the blade through a screeching circle. Together we used the suction handle to lift free a large glass disc. No siren or flashing lights.

Nathan smiled.

We crouched down and stared into the dark pharmacy.

‘So,’ I asked. ‘Who goes first?’

‘Rock, paper, scissors?’

I laughed and nodded. It wasn’t a game two telepaths could use as a decider.

Climbing into the DrugRite was like passing through some air-lock portal into a space station. The daylight behind me seemed distant, Nathan talking was a far-off transmission and dust motes drifted as if in zero gravity. I breathed deeply. The atmosphere wasn’t sour with smoke or decay but scented with the calming citrus of carpet cleaner. This place was exactly how it’d been preserved three days ago: a time capsule. It made me want to curl up in a ball and wish my way back.

‘Danby, a little help?’ Nathan said.

I snapped out of my daze. He handed the backpacks to me through the hole and carefully stepped into the DrugRite.

We switched on our flashlights, played the beams across the aisles, headed to the back for the hard stuff. Nathan strode behind the pharmacist’s counter and scanned the shelves.

‘Jackpot!’ he said, holding up a yellow-and-white box. ‘There’s at least fifty boxes of Lorazepam here. Twenty tablets in each.’ He scooped them into his backpack. I moved to join him. ‘Let me get this and the IV equipment,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you get the other stuff we talked about?’

As I browsed for electrolytes, painkillers and first-aid kits, I glanced back at Nathan. His flashlight was still darting as he searched the drug shelves.

‘He’s dead,’ Nathan said as he stepped into Starboard.

My heart thudded. ‘Oh, no.’

Plasma Guy was still in his prayerful pose but he’d soiled himself. The smell cut through the liniment we’d rubbed under our nostrils in the pharmacy. Evan was still breathing steadily under the booth. I peered at Nathan as he draped a tablecloth over the corpse.

‘What happened to him?’

‘Could’ve been dehydration, shock, an underlying condition,’ he said. ‘Arms raised like that, it might’ve strained his heart.’

I should’ve gotten him down. My neglect had contributed to another death. But I’d feel guilty about it later. All I wanted now was Evan awake so we could get the hell out of Parramatta.

We carefully lay Evan on a table. Nathan lifted my little brother’s eyelids and a shone a little torch into them.

‘Pupils responsive,’ he said. ‘That’s good.’

At least I’d gotten that right.

Nathan slipped a thermometer into Evan’s armpit and listened to his chest with his stethoscope. Then he wrapped a cuff around his arm and pumped it up. When the thermometer beeped, he checked its little screen.

Nathan looked at me gently.

‘I’ve seen this in the others,’ he said. ‘Evan’s pulse and respiration are really slow, his blood pressure’s pretty low and his body temperature’s two degrees below what it should be.’

My hand went to my mouth. My eyes were glassy.

Nathan shook his head and smiled. ‘No, no—it’s a good sign. It means his body’s conserving energy. Like a hibernating animal.’

He nodded to reassure me. ‘Seriously, Danby, it’s a good thing.’

I wiped my eyes, managed a smile. ‘I’m glad but I don’t want him like this for another second.’

Nathan’s eyes darted away from mine.

‘What’s the matter?’

He pushed the palms of his hands against his temples, like he was trying to squeeze something out of his head. ‘I’ve been trying to remember.’

‘Remember what?’

‘The studies,’ he said, glancing back at me. ‘They used a low dosage of Lorazepam. But—’

‘You don’t know how much to give him?’

Nathan shook his head, stared at his shoes. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s just great,’ I said. ‘What do we do now?’

Nathan looked wounded. ‘I’m doing the best I can. Ordinarily, I’d consult the internet.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ I touched his arm. ‘I’m sorry.’

He brightened. ‘Look, a low dose is anything from one to ten milligrams. We can experiment.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No, not on Evan.’ Nathan pointed past me at the street outside. ‘We try it on someone else.’

My stomach sank. Not because what he was suggesting was wrong. Because I knew any objections I raised would only be to make me feel better before I let him convince me to play god on guinea pigs. I’d save us both the time and angst.

‘Who do we choose?’

Nathan’s shoulders relaxed. ‘If we can find someone his size—’

‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘If something goes wrong, I don’t want some kid’s death on my hands.’

‘It’s a mild sedative,’ Nathan said. ‘The risk of overdose is minimal.’

‘But if it works, then we’ve got a scared child to deal with.’

Nathan nodded. ‘Do you know how much Evan weighs?’

Actually, I did. Stephanie had gotten me to take him to his last medical appointment. ‘Eighteen kilograms.’

‘What about you?’

‘About fifty-five.’

‘So, one-third,’ Nathan mused. ‘We look for a woman your size. We give her a one-milligram intramuscular injection and then another one every ten minutes. Whatever brings her around, we use one third of that dose on Evan. It should work.’

‘Should work?’

‘It will work,’ Nathan said. ‘Trust me.’

It’s not like I had a choice.

FIFTEEN

We walked from Starboard into the business district that had spooked me earlier. The shadows seemed deeper. But I felt safer. There was strength in numbers, even if we only numbered two. And we had our weapons.

Nathan paused to check every Goner with his stethoscope. I didn’t know why because none were women my size. Evan’s vital signs might be strong but the Plasma Guy’s death had spooked me. I wanted to get on with finding our test subject. Nathan let his stethoscope hang back around his neck and joined me in the middle of an intersection.

‘Doing a sample,’ he said. ‘Seeing what we’re up against.’

I nodded and led us between cars. ‘Tell me, but let’s walk and talk?’

‘There are forty people back there. Seven dead. Most of those have clear injuries or are elderly. It’s a good result.’

‘Really?’ I looked at Nathan in disbelief. ‘A good result?’

He nodded. ‘Thirty-three people in reasonable health. It’s better than good. It’s remarkable. Some have probably been offline since Christmas Day but everyone’s been down at least since the Big Crash.’

I stopped on a corner where a large lady in a polka-dot dress sat serenely in front of an unplugged vintage television. ‘Big Crash?’

‘About six o’clock yesterday morning?’

That dream of the world screaming. ‘It woke me up.’

‘You
slept
through that?’ Nathan smiled—and then shivered. ‘Everyone pulling each other into nothingness. The only thing worse than the noise they made was the silence they left behind.’

‘Christ.’ I had no idea it’d happened all at once. Just like I didn’t yet know who Nathan really was or the extent of the horrors he’d been through. ‘It sounds awful.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But my point is that these people all seem okay. If they’re in some sort of hibernation mode, they might last a lot longer than we’d ordinarily expect. We might be able to help hundreds, thousands if the Lorazepam works.’

Saving the multitude was secondary for me when my mum might be on that same clock. But this wasn’t the time to bring up my selfish aims. Instead I nodded and pointed.

‘How about her?’

The girl had wanted to stand out from the crowd. Now it might save her life. Pink hair flaring against the granite facade of an insurance building. Brightly inked arms folded defiantly. Fishnet-stockinged legs and purple boots thrust out from a lime-coloured tutu.

We crouched either side of her. Nathan set his nail gun on the ground and listened to her heart and breathing, checked her pupils, temperature and blood pressure.

‘Yeah, she’s good,’ he said. ‘Sit by her.’

I felt ghoulish, a disaster tourist posing for a photo, as he stepped back to check us out side by side.

‘You’re the same size,’ he said, adding a smile. ‘You girls could share a wardrobe.’

Nathan shrugged off his backpack. He took out the Tupperware container he’d filled with loaded syringes back at Starboard. In the kitchen, he had popped two five-milligram Lorazepam tablets from their blister pack into a soup ladle and then carefully measured fifty millilitres of bottled water into the stainless-steel container. He used a candle to bring it to the boil, stirring until the pills dissolved. He then dropped a ball of cotton wool into the mixture and spread the solution evenly over ten syringes. Nathan carefully talked me through the ratios several times. I understood first time around but I humoured him. His nervous patter about the process was as much for his own benefit as for mine. Talking about it clinically made it sound closer to medical science than junkie quackery.

I guessed we’d find out which it was now. Nathan removed a syringe’s orange safety cap, flicked air bubbles upwards.

‘Swab a spot on her upper arm,’ he said.

I tore open the little packet and dabbed the girl’s bicep with the sterile wipe.

‘Okay, one milligram of Lorazepam in a five-millilitre solution,’ he said, as though someone somewhere was taking notes.

Nathan slid the needle into the girl’s flesh.

I expected her to flinch. She didn’t.

‘Time,’ he said.

I pressed ‘start’ on my phone’s countdown timer. ‘Go.’

He dropped the plunger in a fluid movement and the drug disappeared into the girl.

Watching the digits drop from 10.00 gave me time to tell Nathan about the compromise I’d come up with that served my needs
and
the greater good.

‘If this works,’ I said, ‘I want to wake Evan up and get going to my mum’s place as soon as I can.’

Nathan looked at me dejectedly. ‘I was hoping you’d help me to—’

I nodded. ‘I think we might be able to save tens or even hundreds of thousands of people.’

There was a touch of condescension in his weary smile. ‘Danby, even working around the clock we—’

‘You had your maths moment back there,’ I said with a smile. ‘Now it’s my turn. Pop quiz hotshot: what’s ten to the power of five?’

Nathan blinked, surprised, calculated. ‘One hundred thousand.’

‘So what if every person we woke could wake other people up?’ I said. ‘We start here and head west to my mum’s, setting off a chain reaction as we go.’

Nathan’s eyes shone with the possibilities. ‘There are hundreds of pharmacies that’ll have Lorazepam! If every person we wake up wakes up just one person. And each of those people wakes up just one person and it keeps on like that, it’ll equal—’