Wake (25 page)

All along that road were sodium street lamps, high on their concrete stems. Oscar hurried across and plunged into another hedge. He paused, held his breath, listened, and continued on his way. He skirted one house. In the fingers of orange radiance coming through the hedge, Oscar saw its windowsills were black with dead flies.

He made his way through several properties, parallel to the road, scaling fences. But that was too noisy, so when the street dipped down, out of the long reach of the sodium lamps, he returned to the footpath. He stood still and strained his ears. Then he set out, heading for Haven Road and the supermarket. He made his way from gate to gate, drive to drive, ducking out onto the path then back into the shadows of front yard foliage.

When Oscar reached the supermarket he traversed the carpark by darting from car to car. He reached the glass doors and peered through them. Holly had switched off the overhead fluorescents, but there was still light gleaming through the glass fronts of the cabinet fridges and in the freezers, shining out from under the rims of their fuming interiors. Oscar went inside. The place smelled of spice and plastic and dry goods, and a musty smell from the emptied fruit and deli trays. Holly had wiped everything down, but still, there it was, the smell of mildewed lemons and sour milk, and the dirty dog smell of old luncheon sausage.

Oscar found the aisle with pet food, and left the supermarket, his jacket stuffed with cans and rattling faintly. He stuck to Haven Road where the streetlights were off for two-thirds of its length, put out by the crashed truck and subsequent fire. There was no light to see by, but it was easy going, the footpath wide and even, kerbs indented at each crossing. Oscar kept his eye on his reflection in the glass fronts of the shop—checking that it
was
his reflection. Then the plate glass came to an end and he was going by houses—a splash of red paint on the path before all those the burial teams had cleared. Now and then he looked back, and once, when he did, he thought he saw something move, a long shadow intruding onto Haven Road from one of the side streets. Someone with a streetlight behind them was walking towards the intersection—in the middle of the street, not bothering to hide themselves, to blend their shadow with other shadows.

Oscar flung himself back into a bush, then poked his head out to take a closer look. The long shadow was motionless now, and featureless. It had seemed to have a distinct head and arms, but now it might as well be cast by a street sign. Oscar waited, watching till his eyes watered, but nothing moved. He was mistaken—he must have been. Still, it was some time before he was able to relinquish the shelter of the shrubbery. He continued on his way, running now.

He had left the porch light burning, knowing he'd be back. He let himself in and didn't turn on any of the indoor lights, only stood a while in the patch of radiance that came in through the pebbled glass of the front door. He waited till his cat came to find him, chirruping, eager. She ran at him and butted his legs, her back arched and long tail trembling. He picked her up. She wiped her jaw along his, talking the whole time, delirious and scolding.

‘Sorry, sorry,' he said.

The morning after the night the power went off, while Bub and William were rounding up the dogs, and Jacob was raiding the pharmacy, and Theresa was going slowly around the streets in her patrol car, hailing whoever might hear, Oscar went home to fetch his games, and to feed Lucy, his family's svelte caramel-coloured Burmese. He'd been back almost every day since. Holly and Kate knew he took his bike out and rode around—getting some exercise, they supposed. But nobody knew that, of all Kahukura's orphaned cats, summoned every day to the boat ramp feeding spot, only Lucy got personal service. Oscar fed his cat at home so she'd
stay
home, because, if she didn't, he thought his heart would probably break.

Lucy had always been a homebody; she stayed indoors or in the yard, though she liked to climb the trellis on the back porch, cross the spine of the roof, and clamber down onto the front fence. Sometimes now she'd be sitting on the fence waiting for him and would scramble down and trot along to meet him, making her way as he did, confidently in the centre of the road. It was amazing how quickly she had adapted to the lack of traffic.

Oscar didn't just feed Lucy and leave. He'd sit with her. He had carried his console and games off to the spa but, at home, he was rereading all his favourite books—
Harry Potter
and
Ender's Game
and
The Bartimaeus Trilogy
—but not
Sabriel
because he couldn't cope with the idea of walking corpses. He'd sit for an hour or two most days with Lucy curled in the crook of one arm and a book in his other hand. He'd put on one of his dad's CDs. Nothing with vocals in English, because if he could understand the lyrics he'd listen to them instead of the phantom reader who always appeared somewhere at the back of his skull whenever a page of print was in front of his eyes. Oscar played his father's music. He washed the duvet on his parents' bed when the gritty hollow where Lucy slept each night got too oily and dark. He came home because it had to still
be
his home. He fed his cat so she'd stay put and hold a place for him, for his mum and dad, for when they'd all be home together.

Lucy was acting normal, so the house was safe. Oscar left the lights off, went into the kitchen, gathered up the cat bowls, wiped the floor, and put down fresh water and food, canned and dry. He put the bowls in the dishwasher and turned it on to rinse—then immediately turned it off again. He needed to be able to hear. There would be no music tonight, and he didn't dare turn on a light to read. Instead he pulled the duvet off his bed and settled on the couch where he could see the front door. Lucy sat in the middle of the living room and washed, all the time making her bubbling pot purr. Then she jumped up onto the couch, climbed on Oscar's chest, tramped about in a circle kneading for a minute, and settled, her nose nearly touching his chin.

Lucy purred as Oscar patted her sleek head and pulled her cool ears. Her purring seemed to spread a pool of sleep over him and, after a few minutes, his eyelids began to droop.

Then someone knocked on the door.

Lucy launched herself off his chest and ran under a chair. Oscar clutched his duvet and peered at the figure behind the pebbled glass. He held his breath. The knock came again. This time Oscar saw the hand, knuckles pale against the glass. Pale, not black.

‘Oscar?' said the person, who was female.

Oscar got off the couch and went to the door. ‘Who is that?' he said, feeling stupid for not recognising the voice.

‘Sam,' said Sam.

Oscar let her in. She dropped into a crouch and extended her hand to coax Lucy out from under the chair. Lucy emerged, minced over and smooched Sam's fingers.

‘You won't tell Theresa?' Oscar said.

Sam looked up at him, and Oscar noticed the darkening along her jaw. A fresh bruise, still showing distinct finger marks. Seeing it like that, out in the open, was, for Oscar, like being the recipient of some shocking intimacy. William had hit her
again
.

‘Why would I tell Theresa?' Sam asked.

‘Because of the curfew.'

She nodded. She picked Lucy up and switched on the living room light.

Oscar quickly switched it off again. ‘I had them off for a reason,' he said.

‘And what was that?' Sam had her back to him now. She was carrying Lucy into the kitchen. Oscar found himself noticing her ankles, strong, lean, smooth-skinned. She looked back over her shoulder. Oscar knew she was really quite young—early twenties—but at that moment she didn't look much older than he was. ‘Where would I find tea?' she said.

‘In those dusty boxes by the kettle,' Oscar told her.

Sam put Lucy down and filled the kettle. ‘Do you want some?'

‘Sure. So—you followed me?'

‘I wondered where you were off to in the middle of the night. Also—' Sam didn't finish her sentence. The kettle began to bump and roar. It sounded as noisy as a car alarm to Oscar. ‘I've been trying to keep quiet,' he said.

She was looking for cups and a teapot. ‘In the cupboard above the fridge,' Oscar told her. Then, ‘I'm sorry there's no milk.'

‘I'm making green tea.' Sam inspected the leaves in a patterned tin. ‘Or perhaps this is one of those fancy white teas—the leaves are whole and screwed up into little balls.'

It was Oscar's mum's Iron Goddess of Mercy. His mum never let him try it, said he wouldn't like it, though Oscar had guessed it was one of those things his parents wouldn't be able to afford any more if he were to decide he liked it too.

The kettle finished boiling and switched itself off. Sam filled the teapot and carried it and two cups back into the living room. ‘Are you sure we can't have a light?'

‘He's still out there. I only came out myself because I had to feed Lucy.' Oscar was angry with Sam for looking so unafraid, and graceful, and pretty. And for wearing her bruise without shame or defiance, as if it was just another part of her face. And he was angry with her because she'd found him out, camped here with his cat, a custodian of his old life.

Sam put the teapot and cups on the coffee table and sat cross-legged on the floor. Oscar went back to the couch and pulled the duvet onto his lap. A moment later Lucy was there too, happily tramping.

‘The packet said it should steep for five minutes,' Sam said.

‘It said “steep”?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you get “steep”?'

‘Yes, Oscar.'

For a moment Oscar only fumed silently, and then he broke out. ‘You're horrible! And I've been feeling sorry for you! Even if you're not lying like William thinks, you still have this alternate personality who is like some kind of human shield, and you're
hiding
behind her. It's creepy.'

Sam watched him rage. She listened with sympathy, and warmth. It made Oscar even more furious. His eyes filled with tears. It was as if someone had topped him up past his high water-level mark. He tried to wipe them surreptitiously, but his nose started to run, and the low light wasn't going to be any cover.

Sam gave him a moment. She poured the tea before it was ready and got up to hand him his cup. ‘I need you to talk to me, Oscar,' she said. ‘I've got a pretty high tolerance for being in the dark, but there are things I must know.'

Oscar dried his eyes on his cuff, then sipped the scalding tea. ‘You followed me to talk to me?'

‘Yes.'

Despite himself Oscar felt pleased that he'd been chosen—that someone had finally given him something to do—that is, apart from the almost impossible thing he'd been doing so far, which was constantly reassuring everyone that he was all right.

The tea was grassy water and Oscar couldn't see why his mother bothered paying for it. ‘Do you actually like this?' he asked.

‘Yes. But Sam wouldn't,' Sam said. She said it quite matter-of-factly.

Which provoked Oscar into another outburst. ‘I can see why William's pissed at you! Maybe you deserved to be thumped!'

Sam gave a little laugh. ‘William feels cheated because he had supposed he was sleeping with some innocent. He's the victim of false advertising, the poor man.' Sam sounded self-possessed. She didn't seem crazy, but Oscar was suddenly scared of her. He didn't renew his complaints and, after another minute where the only sound in the room was Lucy's soft rumbling, Sam said, ‘Why don't you feed your cat in the daytime?'

‘Because of Theresa's curfew, and the man in black. You know all this.'

‘Let's just suppose I don't.'

‘You want me to play along?'

‘Go on, indulge me.'

‘Fine. Okay. Theresa and Dan and William and Bub have spent the last week hunting for the man in black. There's a picture of him up in the reserve, a rock drawing from like four hundred years ago, of him and the No-Go. And it turns out that the people who lived here then had buried a lot of bodies in their storage pits, because they were survivors and there were only a few of them, not enough to dig all the graves. Like us with the swimming pools. And at some point those people tried to tell their story by painting it on the cliffs up in the reserve. They painted themselves testing the No-Go. Apparently rock drawing experts thought the figures had tails, were kind of anthropomorphic. But of course the tails are actually ropes they've tied to themselves so they can pull each other out of the No-Go, like we've had to. And, in the middle of the drawings, there he is—our black man in black clothes. We all think he's the same man from four hundred years ago.'

Sam's face was glowing with interest. Oscar had never seen anyone look more alive. It made him feel a little less stupid for sitting there telling her things she was pretending not to know. He said, ‘Theresa and that are out every day looking for him—with guns. To ask him questions. Theresa says they don't want the rest of us wandering around while they're hunting because they're keeping an eye out for movement. So I've been sneaking out to feed Lucy. No one knows I come here. I've been coming every day since the beginning.'

Now Sam was looking sympathetic. Oscar wanted to thump her, though he hadn't hit a girl since he was about four, and everyone had made it pretty clear to him that, being the size he was, he shouldn't ever hit anybody. Oscar kept looking at Sam and seeing someone who wasn't an adult. ‘You look younger when you're not pretending to be stupid,' he said.

‘I am. Younger, I mean. Sometime ago I decided to let her go first.'

‘Who?'

‘Sam. I'm letting her go first. She feels lost on and off anyway, so the discontinuity is worse for her. And besides, maybe I want to see who's right about global warming.'

‘Huh?' said Oscar.