Beyond Carousel (19 page)

After a few hours riding I spotted the highway. The houses had thinned and the streets widened. Tracking east–west was a four-lane path through the suburbs. I detoured to an entrance-ramp and climbed up onto the debris-free bitumen. It was exposed and windy out there, but other than a couple of stalled freight trucks it was clear and empty. I picked up some speed and crossed back over the river as the sun sank fast behind me. Airport signs popped up almost immediately.
Domestic. International. Long Term. Short Term. Qantas Club
. The domestic terminal was nearest to where I was entering so I decided to head that way first.

Before I got too close I stopped and took some insect spray out of my backpack. This entrance was much more built up than the Bull-infested bushland the Finns and I had stumbled across in the summer. It was reassuring to a point but, really, the Bulls could be anywhere now and I wouldn't be outrunning them with all of the gear I was carrying.

There were more cars at the airport than I had seen anywhere since the Disappearance. Bay upon bay of dirty, abandoned vehicles. Fuel gone bad in their tanks. Batteries deader than dead. Parking debits spiralling into
the thousands. Like casinos, airports could be populated at any time of the day or night. This was particularly the case in Perth, where flocks of miners flew in and out on weekly rosters to sites in the desert. As the sun had peaked that morning two long years ago, the airport had been frozen mid-stride.

I slowed down and rolled quietly under the cover of the terminal. A curved glass awning ran the length of the building. Beneath this was a walkway and scatterings of lonely, abandoned luggage. I weaved past them, looking for a way inside. Further along I found an electronic door that was propped open on a suitcase, which had been passing through with its owner at the time of the Disappearance. The doors must have triggered shut when the power cut. I leaned over the suitcase and peered inside.

The long and static spread of an empty check-in foyer. Blank departure screens. Vacant help desks. The flutter of some birds nesting in the ceiling. It didn't look inhabited, but this was just the entrance and I knew a much larger area existed at the rear of the building.

I lifted my bike and bag awkwardly in over the suitcase, then squeezed through myself.

‘Hello?' I said in a half shout.

Nothing came in reply. The space felt giant and imposing. Luggage was strewn everywhere. Carry-on bags toppled forward where their owners once walked. Suitcases upright and ready at check-in counters.

A cluster of matching bags in a semicircle where a family had gathered.

I walked the bike along the length of the terminal until I reached the sparser arrivals area. There was nothing to be found. I needed to head up to the shops and lounges on the second level, but this meant leaving my bike behind. I wheeled it over to a Hertz island and hid it behind the counter.

Backtracking, I found a security check at the end of the departures area. I stepped over some queuing ropes and trudged up the escalators that led to the departure gates. I surfaced into a hall of tourist stores and bathrooms. There weren't any windows, but it was definitely lighter up there.

I passed some more stores, resisting the urge to detour in for some fresh shoes and clothes. Eventually I reached an intersection and the source of the light. An atrium connected the hallway to others heading off to departure gates and eateries. It had a frosted glass ceiling that was pulling in the last of the afternoon sun and radiating it outward. The place had a lot of food outlets and it didn't smell so great. I circled around and headed for the departure gates, keen for a look at the tarmac.

It was almost dusk outside. A Virgin jet stood ready and waiting by a gangway. I stepped up to the window and looked at it closely. The tops of the wings had a slightly brown tinge that, from a distance, looked like dirt or dust. Otherwise it still looked ready to board.

At gates five and six I found a jet in the process of refuelling, and another that had begun to taxi away for take-off when the pilots and passengers disappeared. Now it hovered nervously, neither part of the city, nor gone from it. Past this, the empty tarmac spread away into the murky daylight.

Nothing seemed to have been touched in the entire terminal and it was starting to freak me out. Maybe Cara was wrong about an Artist community being here. Or maybe there used to be Artists here, but somehow they had left. I just assumed that Lizzy had come to the airport to hang out. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe she had come here to find a way home.

‘Hello?' I yelled. ‘Lizzy?'

Nothing.

I took off my bag and paced over to a newsagent. I grabbed a water and riffled through the chocolate bars for something that was close to code. When I turned back around I noticed that a Lufthansa jet was coming in to land on one of the far runways. I wandered over and watched it for a moment or two before my brain did a backflip.

‘What the hell,' I whispered.

The jet was just about to touch down. The familiar growling of the engines filtered in through the glass.

I looked around the room for somebody to share my shock, but I was still alone.

The tyres touched down with a squeak and the
spoilers came up. The fucking thing had landed.

I rubbed my forehead. I was getting bizarro inner flashes from my first big overseas trip. I had gone on Contiki in Europe, then stopped in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. I saw a snow-covered landscape from the window of a plane. A cobbled square with the statue of a man on horseback. Dusk light across a messy, sleeping dormitory. Backpacks shuffling in a line through forest. Each image was vivid and arresting.

Then I saw myself touching down in Europe at the start of the trip. Leaving Perth I had acted all cool and worldly. Unfazed by the journey ahead. But stepping out of the airport into that frigid, bustling air brought a dread I had no answer for. I wandered, overwhelmed and aimless, until an old guy helped me find a shuttle. Then spent the ride freaking out about all of the people I was about to meet. How they would be young and cool and have stories that I didn't.

I shook off these random memories and forced myself to think. What should I do? Go out there? Who the hell could be arriving on a plane? And what about the Bulls?

The jet slowed and neared the end of the runway. In the last of the daylight I watched as it started taxying my way, before it disappeared, in an instant, into nothing at all.

I blinked, wondering if I had just lost it in the dark. But I hadn't. The plane was gone.

Suddenly something caught my eye at the other end of the tarmac. There were lights coming out of the international terminal. A whole bunch of them. They were torches.

‘Your first time at the Auroraport and you saw a full landing. That's pretty amazing, man.'

I was talking to a shortish girl wearing overalls and a head torch. There were others behind her that I couldn't make out in the darkness.

‘Where did that plane go?' I asked, still breathless from my dash across the tarmac.

‘It was an aurora,' she replied, as if it were obvious.

‘I don't get it. I heard its engines and everything,' I said.

‘I know. It was beautiful, wasn't it,' she replied.

I looked past her to the others. They were looking up at the sky and soaking in the air as if there had just been a thunderstorm. There were lights scattered across the upper levels of the terminal behind them.

‘Are you guys part of the airport community?' I asked.

‘Never heard it called that before,' replied a guy I couldn't really see.

Some of them were drifting back inside now. It was
all but dark and the wind was freezing out there on the tarmac.

Something touched my leg and I jumped backwards.

‘Whoa. Easy,' said the girl. ‘The ions are intense hey,' she added, drifting her hands through imaginary water.

‘Something touched my leg,' I replied.

I felt it again and reached down to find a dog nuzzling me.

‘Chessboard?' I said.

‘Nox?' said a voice out of the darkness.

I looked up to a torch shining right into my face.

‘Lizzy?' I said.

‘Holy fucking hell,' said Lizzy.

Lizzy shot out of the darkness and leapt at me with a giant bear hug.

‘Hey,' I said.

She buried her head into my chest.

‘Way to blind me,' I said.

Eventually Lizzy sniffed and surfaced to look at me properly. Chess was hovering by her side.

‘What are you doing here?' she asked.

‘What are
you
doing here?' I replied, a little sharply.

‘I don't know. We had to leave the Collective. It seemed kinda obvious to come here,' she replied.

‘Why didn't you come back to the casino?' I asked.

‘I did. Rachel said there was nobody there,' she replied.

‘Wait. You saw Rachel?' I asked.

‘Yeah. So random. She is totally living in that place,' said Lizzy.

‘I know. I was living next door to her,' I said.

‘No way!' said Lizzy.

‘When was this?' I asked.

‘Like six weeks ago. Me and Chess stopped in there on our way here,' said Lizzy. ‘We were snooping around the lobby when Chess started barking and Rachel turns up in her fucking bathrobe. No hello or anything, she was just like, “You can't have a dog in here.” Like it really matters.'

I was rubbing my head, trying to grasp the idea that Rachel has done this purposefully.

‘I was waiting there for months,' I said.

‘She totally blanked when I asked about you,' said Lizzy.

‘Why would she do that?' I asked.

‘Rachel is a total weirdo, Nox. You know that. She probably wanted to play house with you in there forever,' said Lizzy.

‘Didn't you see my note?' I asked.

‘Your note? No. We didn't see any notes,' replied Lizzy.

It didn't make sense. Nothing did anymore. I felt dizzy and took a few breaths. Lizzy looked at me and welled up again.

‘I'm so sorry, Nox,' she said. ‘When you weren't in the city we just figured you must have gone home to check on your house or find Tommy or something. Taylor said
she screamed that casino down before heading back out to look for me.'

‘I got lost in the gaming room. I went in there to find water and my torch cut out. By the time Rachel found me Taylor had been and gone,' I said.

Lizzy put a hand on my shoulder.

‘Do you know where she is?' I asked, suddenly remembering what I was doing there.

‘No idea. The beach, somewhere,' said Lizzy.

She sounded casual but I could see the simmer behind her eyes.

‘We need to find her,' I said.

‘Why?' asked Lizzy.

‘So we can get back to Carousel before September second,' I said.

‘Why would we go back to Carousel, Nox?' asked Lizzy.

‘Because I met the Curator,' I replied.

She looked at me carefully.

Before I could continue there was a shout from behind us. ‘Bulls!'

‘Shit,' said Lizzy. ‘Come on. This place is crawling with those fucking dogs. We need to get inside, stat.'

She pulled me and Chess back towards the terminal. Others were doing the same. I looked over my shoulder at the dark spread of the tarmac.

‘What did she mean, Auroraport?' I asked.

‘The planes aren't real. They're just images from
our past lives. The atmosphere is all crazy out here. Sometimes particles from the past can ripple through. Kind of like an aurora,' said Lizzy.

She was picking up speed and I had to run to keep up with her.

‘But that plane was from Germany,' I replied.

‘Doesn't matter. They're not flashbacks. They're memories,' said Lizzy. ‘Like what we saw in Carousel.'

‘Have you seen the Air Canada plane again?' I asked.

Lizzy didn't answer. People were disappearing into the darkness of a building in front of us. We were the last ones to reach it. Lizzy glanced behind us, then led us around a corner to a door that was propped open with a traffic cone. She pulled it open and kicked away the cone. Chess and I moved inside. As the door shut I heard the scrape of claws on the concrete outside.

The Auroraport community was more of a gathering than a party. A few dozen random Artists taking refuge in the plush, upper-level lounges of the international terminal. They lazed around, worked on their art and gazed out the windows at the mysterious aurora jets. Most of them had come from the Collective like Lizzy. The leaking gas had slowly driven Artists to all corners of the city. The airport terminals offered food stores, shelter and a whole bunch of convenience items such as eye masks, paperbacks and mouthwash. It wasn't the worst place to spend the winter.

There were also those who had been in the terminal for a long time now. Lizzy introduced me to a photographer named Kirk who had lived there since completing his Residency at an airport hotel just weeks after the Disappearance. Kirk had spent almost two years photographing the aurora jets and working in a darkroom he had built in a room designed for drug searches. Others had joined him in the months
that followed. They had been drawn to the airport by sightings, rumours and the far-flung possibility of escape. Some had stayed, captivated by the phenomenon and fuelled with inspiration for their art. As well as Kirk's photography, Lizzy showed me giant abstracts painted onto the walls of the lounges and a room full of sound recording gear and editing equipment where two engineers had been capturing audio of the aurora jets and turning them into epic scapes.

Lizzy and Chess had reached the Auroraport from the south a bit over a month ago. She told me how they had arrived at sunset and camped out in a nearby hotel, watching for signs of the Bulls.

They were easy to find.

With dusk the meaty frames surfaced in ragged clusters along the fringes of the airport. Moonlight bouncing off their dirty white coats. The empty streets and bushland echoing every snarl and wheeze. They seemed to have an uneasy truce with each other. Food was scarce now and it was better to hunt things like cats and kangaroos as a pack. That first night Lizzy had heard them chase and corner something in one of the car parks. She shivered when she told me of the noises she heard next.