The Last Girl (22 page)

‘I crouched because my legs are aching,’ he said. ‘I’ve been riding and looking for you.’

Better-play-along-crazy-psycho-stalker.
‘How’d you find me?’

‘Soon after it started I could see flashes of you and Gary,’ Nathan said. ‘Enough to have an idea where you were.’

Be-clinical-Tregan-He-thinks-he’s-telling-the-truth.
‘You’re crazy,’ she said.
Shit-not-helping-Wrong-thing-to-say-Sorry—

‘I’m the one who’s sorry,’ Nathan said. ‘For everything that happened before. I was sick. You helped me see that. I got help. Got meds. I’m still on them. I promise.’

God-where’s-Gary-If-you-hurt—

‘I didn’t do anything to him,’ Nathan said. ‘For godsake listen to me!’

Get-out-of-my-head-Leave-me-alone!

‘I need to tell you something.’

I need to tell you something.

For Tregan, those words brought back everything frightening about Nathan. I didn’t want to share her memories. I wanted to avert my mind. But I had to know who he really was.

At first Tregan’s shy classmate had just seemed to come out of his shell as a really brilliant and funny guy. She was glad to have him as a friend and study partner. But then he started talking about sleep being for the weak and how they were soul mates meant to save the world. Classic manic episode. Gary, who was in third year, agreed with her diagnosis. Nathan had no insight into his condition, couldn’t see that he was a walking DSM-VI entry. Talking to him about getting help only played into his paranoia. When Tregan ignored his ceaseless social media entreaties he would appear outside her apartment at all hours. She finally got a restraining order and Nathan disappeared from her life—after one last belligerent online rant. Title:
I Need To Tell You Something.
Last she’d heard, via another student, he’d gotten a medical deferral, had sought treatment and was working nights at a convenience store.

‘Please listen to me,’ Nathan said.

Tregan backed away from him. ‘You—you—drugged me.’

Nathan shook his head. ‘Lorazepam.’ He tossed a bulging RSK in front of her. ‘I revived you. Everyone’s in a catatonic state.’

Tregan flashed to the moments before everything had gone black. Too much information. People falling into nothingness. She’d followed them. Already she was theorising.
Social-defeat-in-mice-can-result-in-catatonia-Lorazepam-
Remember-those-studies
—

Tregan looked at Nathan sharply, aware he was hearing her.

‘It’s all in there,’ he said, ‘Everything you need to help Gary and other people.’

Is-he-telling-the-truth?

‘I am, you know it,’ he said. ‘Hear those people out there?’

She could. Echoing minds. Easier to focus than before. People injecting catatonics. Reviving them before it was too late.

‘We woke them up the same way,’ Nathan said. ‘Tregan, you want to save lives, here’s your chance.’

Other Revivee minds saw and heard all of this through Tregan.

This-guy-Nathan-He’s-the-one-who-woke-us?-Can’t-read-
him-He-can-hear-her-She-thinks-he’s-psycho—

‘I’m going,’ Nathan said, standing up, offering his hand. ‘Find Gary, revive him, do whatever you can.’

Tregan took the bag—but refused his hand.

Stand-on-my-own-two-feet-you-crazy
— ‘Can you really hear me?’

Nathan nodded.

Worst-thing-ever-stalker-inside-my-goddamned-head-Oh-
Nathan-no-I’m—

‘Just like you can hear them out there,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tune out. I’ll leave you be.’

When Nathan picked his way back through the bush, Tregan followed at a wary distance.

When she emerged from the trees, Gary’s car was where it had been, one of scores of vehicles strewn across the highway. Tregan saw her fiancé behind the wheel.

Oh-baby-please-be-okay.
She hugged the RSK to her chest. Tregan wanted to run to her man as much as she wanted to flee. She knew what could have gone wrong for him: shock, dehydration, infarction, aneurysm, desperate self-harm or the mindless violence of some passing maniac. What if she couldn’t revive him? Or if she did, only for them to pick up their awful telepathic argument where they left off? Whatever happened had to be a private moment—or as private as it could be in this public world.

Nathan didn’t need to be told once. ‘I’ll get going.’

Tregan watched him climb onto the mountain bike.
He’s-
really-going-Don’t-know-if-that’s-better-or—

‘Are you with someone?’ she asked. ‘You said “we”?’

Nathan met her eyes. ‘I’ve got a . . .’

Girlfriend
.

‘Friend.’

God-even-he’s-got-someone-What-if-Gary-won’t-wake-up—

‘Do you want me to wait?’ Nathan asked. ‘Just in case.’

Stop!-Stop!-Stop-listening-to-me-I’d-rather-be-alone-than—

I saw Nathan flinch, knew her every thought was hurting him.

‘No.’ Tregan forced a smile. ‘Go.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Nathan said. ‘For everything. Good luck.’

She watched him disappear into the maze of traffic.

I was about to tune away when Tregan’s thought hit me like a shotgun.

Better-her-than-me.

Her was
me
.

I paced the reception area, clenching and unclenching my fists, stomach heavy with the dread that I’d replaced Tregan as Nathan’s obsession. A shiver danced through the hairs on my arms as I thought about the times we’d held hands and hugged.

‘I’ve got a . . . friend.’

Tregan had thought he was going to say ‘girlfriend’. So had I.

Jesus.

Nathan had said he and I were saving the world. Did he think all this horrible stuff had happened to throw us together? What would he do if I tried to leave? I had time to escape. I couldn’t carry Evan far but even if I got us into another building a few blocks away Nathan wouldn’t find us easily. I knew how to change Evan’s IV. I could try Lorazepam again. If that didn’t work, I could revive a doctor—a
real
doctor—who could rig up an electroshock. All of that sounded possible—but terrifying because I didn’t want to be alone.

I had to calm down. Look at Nathan through my own eyes instead of Tregan’s.

He hadn’t actually lied to me. Technically he was still a medical student—he’d merely omitted the more recent bit about being mentally ill. All he’d said was that when the Snap happened he was coming off the night shift. My imagination had provided the picture of him valiantly battling to save humanity in an emergency ward. Before he’d gone to sleep he’d promised to tell me everything in the morning.

Now he had. But Nathan had gone further than just telling me the truth—he’d consciously shown it to me in a way that went beyond words. He could have injected Tregan and been gone before she woke up. Nathan had stuck around. He’d wanted me to see him through her eyes and know the worst. He’d wanted me to have the chance to get away. As for him holding my hand or giving me a hug: it was what normal people did in even mildly distressing situations, let alone in the aftermath of the apocalypse.

What I knew about Nathan for certain was that he’d saved my life. Without him I’d be dead and worse at the hands of the Party Duder. Without him Evan would be wasting away in Starboard. Without him a few dozen people wouldn’t be up and walking around. And that included Tregan.

I looked at his note again. He’d known what I’d think. He’d wanted to reassure me.

‘Hope we’ll still be
friends
.’

We would be.

But I knew what my friend had been looking for in the DrugRite after he’d gotten the Lorazepam: his medication. I had to make sure he kept taking it. And then I realised, who was I to talk? I hadn’t brought my prescription with me—

I rummaged excitedly in Nathan’s stuff. Found two boxes of pills. But he wasn’t on Lucidiphil. What he was taking was Lithium and Lamictal. How different could they be? These drugs had to be at least a contributing factor to our immunity. Our anti-psychotic meds had reacted with our brain chemistries just enough to set us apart from everyone else. I laughed nervously at what that might mean. The lunatics had taken over the asylum—with me as an honorary member.

I couldn’t wait to tell Nathan when he got back. It could be the start of something. Maybe we could give people drugs like these to stop them broadcasting thoughts. If people didn’t send there’d be nothing to receive. We might be able to do more than revive people. We might be able to reverse the telepathy.

My mind went out to see if I could track Nathan’s progress back to me through Revivees. No one could see him, but flitting from mind to mind confirmed how well our plan was still working. Lovers and siblings and parents and children had been restored to life. Cuts and bruises had been tended, fluids and simple meals given, and people were venturing into the dawn to find pharmacies and resupply themselves. The evolving mental collective was sharing knowledge about how to measure doses, which streets were impassable, where fires were burning out of control. People were thinking about how to help more family and friends but some were also planning to assist strangers. If this kept growing exponentially then thousands of people would soon be revived.

But I still couldn’t help seething at the selfish ones out there. Annie was boozing in her stolen mansion. Cassie and her crew were preparing more heroin. Cory now claimed a fancy department store as his property. Sadness swamped me when I saw that Robert had changed his mind about euthanising his wife and kids only to discover they had burned when every house on his street had been incinerated. I wished I could tell him how sorry I was that we’d revived him to face this horror.

But Ray kept my hopes up. He had reached the strip of shops near Lyn’s apartment building. The pharmacy on the corner was intact. It was a miracle because the deli, bakery, cafe and liquor store had all gone up in flames. Ray felt sad for the dead drunks burned around the entrance but was glad that the inferno had boiled away temptation—almost.

Maybe-a-beer-at-Lyn’s?-Just-one-won’t—

‘No!’ I said. ‘Don’t.’

I couldn’t help Ray but the support from elsewhere—
One’s-
too-many
-
You’re-doing-so-well-You-don’t-need-it
—helped him set aside his thirst.

Ray stepped into the pharmacy and shone his flashlight around. I yelped with him when the circle of yellow light fell on a round blue face. A young dude had tied his arm and injected himself with too much of something. For a fraction of a second Ray—and all of us with him—worried this was Lorazepam gone wrong. Then he shone the torch on the packet of morphine tablets beside the corpse.

Steadying himself, Ray went behind the chemist’s counter. A helpful thought materialised in his mind.

It’ll-be-on-the-last-shelf
.

That was Gary. He had tuned into Ray while helping Tregan make up syringes of Lorazepam from the RSK that Nathan had left.

Ray found the Lorazepam where Gary said it’d be. Eight boxes. He didn’t have the maths to know how many people that’d help.

Enough-for-maybe-two-hundred
, Tregan chimed in.
Thing-
is-to-act-quickly-Dehydration’s-the-killer.

That was another thing Ray liked about the shared mind. It could make you a better person at the same time it made you a smarter person.

I heard the music when Ray heard it. He froze, wondering if he was imagining things, and I froze with him, remembering the Party Duder. But this was different. Jangly guitar. Mournful singing. Ray thought maybe he was hearing it from someone else’s head. Maybe one of his comrades in consciousness was listening to Bob Dylan on a boombox. I was a step ahead of Ray. A quick scan told me that everyone else was hearing it via him and were just as puzzled. I searched for a mind behind the song. I couldn’t tune into whoever it was. Neither could anyone else.

Ray thought maybe it was that guy, Nathan, who he’d seen through that girl, Tregan. He knew the fella was a bit mixed up but he wanted to thank him anyway.

I knew that wasn’t right. Nathan would be on his way back here. Regardless, he didn’t strike me as the troubadour type.

‘Ray, be careful!’ I shouted uselessly to the dreary little office.

I wished he could hear me. He was listening to everyone else.

Someone-with-answers-Go-see-so-we-know-who . . .

They weren’t afraid.

They hadn’t been subjected to the Party Duder.

Ray stepped out of the pharmacy and blinked into the glare of a uniformed police officer. He was a youngish specimen, face bruised, thinning hair matted with blood, torso broad beneath his dirty blue shirt.

I sighed with relief. But Ray was shitting himself. Even now a cop was his worst nightmare. He couldn’t read this man’s mind but he didn’t need to. He knew the type. Had all his life. His soul shrivelled in the pig’s stare. He felt like a prisoner again, powerless before the Man. Ray let his plastic bag of pills and syringes drop to the glass-strewn footpath and raised his hands. Smashed pharmacy, stolen drugs, a dead junkie inside. This looked bad. He could kiss parole goodbye. But that didn’t make any sense, not now, surely. Ray was just doing what he had to do.

Don’t-do-anything-stupid-Just-tell-him-the-truth-Law-
doesn’t-apply
: Ravi, Jackie, Tregan—they all shared my relief and the belief that this would be okay.

‘Officer, I wasn’t—’ Ray said.

The Cop stared.

‘I was just getting dru—medicine for my family,’ he continued.

Inscrutable
, that was the word to describe this policeman.

The Cop certainly wasn’t playing the guitar and singing. Ray could still hear the song nearby. But he didn’t see anyone when he risked a nervous glance along the cluttered street. Maybe when the muso came into view he could help talk sense into this meat head. Ray recognised the tune now. Not Bob Dylan at all but Johnny Cash’s ‘The Man Comes Around’.

Bang-bang-bang
—someone joined in with a drum. Ray flinched, turned back to the Cop, wanted to say something but only had enough breath to wheeze out: ‘Oh’.

The Cop stared blankly but he had his service revolver drawn. Ray looked from the smoking muzzle to his Hawaiian shirt. Hibiscuses bloomed dark blood as burning burrowed in his stomach. Then Ray’s legs went and he was at the man’s feet, head twisted at a strange angle, no feeling anywhere.