Black Glass (2 page)

They had a mobile phone too: an old cheap model, prepaid and charged, ready to go. The number was committed to memory, and the phone itself lived in Tally's pocket or under her pillow, a promise of reconnection should things unravel — not that they'd really have anyone to call, besides each other. Grace hardly ever wore clothes with pockets, Tally had argued, and you couldn't leave a phone outside in the damp: the dew would wreck it. Grace suspected her sister just liked having the gadget close to hand, but she didn't disagree. Now and again they recited the number back and forth to each other, just to check it had not given them the slip.

Tally pulled out her camera and peered through the viewfinder, but it was getting too dark to see much; beyond the black trees wavered a yellow square of light, their kitchen window.

Sitting on the bank, listening to Grace mixing their drinks, Tally knew their plans were being laid, as they were re-laid every time, in every town. But this time something seemed different; she felt a little sick, but could not tell if it was hope or nerves. The gin bottle clinked, and Grace handed her a full glass.

‘Drink it slowly,' she instructed, the older sister. ‘Just sip.'

Tally let the bitter taste of tonic sit on her tongue before swallowing. ‘You jus' sip yer darn self, ya doggone whippersnapper,' she replied, and made a gargling sound in her throat.

They sat for a long time, observing in private how night sounded when it fell in this particular location.

‘Look, a satellite.' Grace pointed, one finger dark against a  purpling sky.

Tally glanced up. ‘They stay in space forever,' she said. ‘People just leave them up there till they conk out. They just circle round and round.'

‘You sure?' Grace knew her sister often exaggerated her knowledge of things technical or remote.

‘Yep. Satellites never come down. Saw it online. Max left the box on when he went to see that Birdsville lady, the one with the big boobs.'

The Birdsville woman: one of many tightly dressed, quick-to-smile women, a brunette whose pupils had soon blown out to the same telltale circumference as all the rest. Things heated up, money got tight, there was shouting — then she was gone. In the interim, they'd called her Lucy and used her melon shampoo in discreet quantities. She was sweet, the girls agreed, but not too sharp. Max never went for the sharp ones.

‘Aww,' Grace moaned, shaking her cigarette packet. Tobacco crumbs skittered in their cardboard trap. ‘Empty.'

‘No way,' said Tally. ‘I'm not going back. I'm not the smoker here.' Her sister had a habit of roping her into these little errands, flattering her for being fast on her feet. ‘You go get them yourself. I'll look after the drinks. See you in five.'

‘Aw, Tallyho …' Grace was pulling her funny face in the dark, doing that wistful thing. ‘Pleeease?'

‘But I'm comfy.' Tally wriggled deeper into the grass. ‘Anyway, you'll get cancer and your teeth will go yellow.'

Grace didn't respond to health warnings, but Tally knew the part about her teeth would bother her: there were no film stars with yellow teeth. Still, tonight she seemed set on smoking.

‘You're quicker than me,' Grace reasoned. ‘You'll be back here before I even get halfway down the bank.'

Tally thought a moment. Her sister was persuasive, and she usually gave in, but she always tried to exact a price, however small, to remind them both that she wasn't a pushover. She hadn't tried this one for a while. She jammed her camera deep into her jeans pocket and turned to the dark, beloved shape beside her.

‘Okay. I'll go get your stinky cigarettes. But here's the deal: we got to set a date.'

The sound of insects filled the night. Grace was always reluctant to put a timeframe on anything. She was good with calculations, numbers, making plans, scraping money together from here and there. She was good at dreaming up their next life. But when it came to settling on a date to leave, she always stalled; said they should wait until the envelope was fatter, the timing was right, the opportunity rolled out of its hiding place and showed itself.

But Tally was less patient. When her sister finally spoke, she almost missed what she said.

‘Fine,' Grace said quietly. ‘Deal.'

As Tally scampered down the bank and back to the house, her blood leaping in her chest, she fought the urge to yell something huge and wordless into the night sky.

Later, she remembered her sister's voice calling after her, just two words: ‘Hurry back.'

[16 Gap Road, Belton: Tally]

Max always kept his cigarettes in the kitchen drawer. The back door to this new house creaked, so Tally opened it just wide enough to squeeze her body through sideways. The door to his spare room, just off the kitchen, was closed tight. Tally moved across the linoleum like a cat, barely breathing, then paused to listen: a gritty scraping, the plink of glass on glass, a sniff — her father's sounds. She reached the kitchen drawer and pulled it gently, praying it would not squeak; a string of unanswered calls to his mobile had put Max in a foul mood all day, a mood worth avoiding.

The carton of cigarettes was already cracked open; it was easy to slide out a new packet. The drawer made a tiny chirp as she pushed it shut. She padded breathless across the floor and edged outside.

Then it hit her: Tally was halfway across the lawn when the blast cracked the air and tossed her body up into the sky. A dragon screamed inside her head; the air burned up in searing flashes — white, orange, red.

Soaring high above everything, drifting slow as an astronaut, she thought with calm wonder: so, this is flying.

Then something dark sped towards her face; she felt a smash right in her very core, and a moment later her limbs slammed down too. Then a hole opened up in the world, and there was nothing.

[Road channel, Belton vicinity: unidentified long-haul drivers]

‘Hey. You still there?'

‘Yep.'

‘
Je-sus.
Where you at right now exactly?'

‘Just coming up past that, what's it, past the aqueduct.'

‘Slow right down through Belton, mate, go slow. You know the abattoir, then that bridge over the creek?'

‘… Yeah.'

‘Just past that bloody creek, stream, whatever, to your left.'

‘… Yeah?'

[inaudible]

‘Come again?'

‘
Bang.
Whole fucken house on fire, roof blown off. Flames and smoke everywhere, two fire trucks, the whole deal.'

‘Wh—?'

‘Whole roof gone, flames shooting up.'

‘Hang on. Coming up the hill now.'

‘Go slow. Have a look. You can smell the burning.'

[kkkrrkkkrkk]

‘… Whoa …'

‘Nasty, hey.'

‘What happened there?'

‘Who knows, mate. Nothing'd survive that, not with the fucken roof gone.'

‘Mmmm. Looks pretty suss.'

‘Everyone just standing round, staring?'

‘Yeah. Ah, cop car too. Got that plastic tape up. I heard — '

[krkrk—krkkk]

‘You're breaking up.'

‘Said I heard some certain cooks get the recipe wrong, there's a big bang blows the whole place to smithereens.'

‘Yeah?'

‘That's what I heard.'

‘Right, got ya. So. You sleepy at all?'

‘Not a bit, mate. Not at all. Batteries fully charged.'

‘And me.
Bing!
You going the whole way through tonight, mate, straight run?'

‘Yep. Rent to pay, cream load, no point stopping. How about that. What a bloody sight.'

‘Tell me 'bout it. Keep your eyes on the road, eh. Catch ya.'

‘Not if I catch you first.'

[Interstate Highway, The Regions, 1608 km to Southern border: Tally]

When the first flash of the truck appeared in the heat-blurred distance, she knew it would stop.

It began as a silver dot but soon became something shuddering and huge. Tally steadied herself, felt the gravel shift minutely beneath her bare feet, her head still fuzzy. The drone of the engine sounded familiar, almost comforting, but she knew this was a foolish thought to have on the side of an empty road.

Now the dusty air was filled with red and silver. The truck's bulldog face hung low to the ground like it was following a scent, the gleam on the grille almost blinding. She could see the driver's shoulder working, hear the growling descent of gears as he changed down, down, down again, as the braking distance was eaten up.

But the mass of the thing was too much. Tally stepped back quickly as it overshot her, left her swaying there in her bare feet, dizzy from the smell of hot rubber spinning off the wheels.

When she looked up, the truck was waiting in the curve of the road, tail-lights blinking in the sun. She started to run towards it. There would be time to read his eyes before she got in.

[Recorded interview, digital AV format, uncut version: Damon Spark | Sergeant Jeff Peel]

‘… this thing, because it's new. Right. Could you just say something, a test run?'

‘Like?'

‘Like testing one, two … your name, whatever. Thanks. Go ahead.'

‘Peel, Jeff, Sergeant. Enough?'

‘Great, just checking the light, bear with me …'

‘I've been interviewed live several times.'

‘Don't worry, this will be edited, it's not live.'

‘Edited is what I'm worried about. I've done this before. Is that thing turned on?'

‘I just need a few shots. If you could start by describing the scene … Sorry, time's a bit tight.'

‘I hope I'm not going to be mis-edited here.'

‘—'

‘It happened a while back. The word
morons
was used.'

‘Morons ...?'

‘Look — will you cut that word out? What I just said?'

‘Morons?'

‘Yes. Last time it got used completely out of context, in a story about bike gangs. Certain parties were less than delighted.'

‘Don't worry, I can't afford to mis-cut you, I cover this whole area. We'll meet again. It's an opportunity, four million viewers, let's just relax a bit. You could start —'

‘Yes, yes, I've seen your face plenty of times. On that
Scoop
show. Damian Stark,
News from the Sidelines
. I'm familiar with your work.'

‘
Spark
.'

‘Pardon?'

‘It's Spark. Damon Spark. And it's called
News from the Margins
. Not the sidelines.'

‘Oh right. Sorry.'

‘Don't worry about it. Let's come back to what's happened here. You could start by describing the damage?'

‘What are you going to ask me after that?'

‘Ah, say … damage, fatalities, survivors, probable cause, bit of a round-up. In that order. Feel free to add some colour. Okay?'

‘Okay. So I'll start now. Right?'

‘Great. Here we go.'

‘There was a loud explosion around nine last night. The blast could be heard two kilometres away, on the far side of town. The fire service arrived before the flames reached the overhead powerlines. But this wasn't a normal fire, as you can see.'

‘Gesture over behind you.'

‘What? Oh right. Like this? Okay. As you can see the entire house was gutted by the sheer force of that initial blast, rather than the fire that followed it.'

‘That's excellent. So what do we know about the residents?'

‘Looks like a family was living here, renting — a father and two teenage daughters, very recent arrivals, a week at the outside. No contact with neighbours. And the girls weren't in school.'

‘Chin down a bit. That's better. Descriptions?'

‘No details yet.'

‘Fatalities?'

‘So far we have one fatality confirmed. Adult male. Due to the force of the blast we can't say for certain yet if that's a final count.'

[inaudible]

‘… doing an interview, be with you in a few minutes, Jim. No, just go over there, thanks, don't say anything, the camera is still … Thanks. Sorry.'

‘No problem. Any names?'

‘No. We don't know who these people were.'

‘Is that unusual?'

‘Well, the Regions are full of people like that, people who are hard to identify, people on the run. Undocs everywhere. As you'd know.'

‘What's the likely cause of an explosion like this?'