The Silent Invasion Read online

  ‘Would he have been safe there?’

  Claire shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Then why do it?’

  She shrugged. ‘Because Quarantine won’t follow you there. Because it’s better than being dead. Because when you’ve got no other options even the worst option begins to look good.’

  Seated there on William and Lizzie’s couch I found myself remembering Claire’s words. And as I did I knew what I had to do.

  3

  Dusk was gathering as I slipped out the back door of William and Lizzie’s house, the sky fading toward dark. Their backyard was as temporary as the inside, a pair of bikes leaning against the building, a disused barbecue by the wall, a few boxes piled under the eaves.

  Standing there it was difficult not to be struck by how quiet it was. Normally at this time of night you would hear some of the kids in the street shouting, sometimes the sound of music or a screen, but tonight there was nothing. Keeping low, I headed down the side of the house toward the street, relieved to see that William and Lizzie and the others were gone, no doubt looking for whoever had broken into the Hamers’.

  I didn’t really have a plan, all I knew was that I had to get Gracie somewhere safe before Quarantine arrived. I looked up at the sky: overhead a few stars were already visible against the high cloud, and a point of light moved quickly, a satellite, or perhaps the old space station Janus. There was still too much light for me to risk the street, so, moving quickly and quietly, I went back up the side and ran down the path by the back fences.

  When I reached the back fence I leaned against it and took a breath, attempting to prepare myself for what was to come. Images of what might go wrong kept going through my mind. What if Tim caught me and tried to stop me? What if Quarantine turned up as I was trying to get away? The whole idea was crazy, I knew that.

  I slipped quietly past the back of the garage and over to the doors that opened onto the patio. Inside I could see Vanessa seated at the table, Tim beside her. Although her face was turned away from me, I could tell she was weeping, that he was comforting her; as I watched he said something and her shoulders convulsed. I willed myself to breathe, to be calm, then, hoping neither of them happened to glance around, I shot past the sliding doors to the far side of the house and the laundry door.

  There wasn’t much up here: the spare water tank, a hose, and a space for drying clothes. During the daytime, when Vanessa was in and out all the time with washing for Caspar, the door was usually unlocked, and as I turned the handle I was relieved to find it was unlocked now.

  The house was quiet save for the sound of Caspar humming to himself out the back. Did any of this mean anything to him, I wondered. Would he even remember Gracie and me? Probably not, probably we’d just be a story, an absence he accepted as he grew older. He yipped suddenly; I felt tears well up and fought them down.

  Taking a deep breath to steady myself I headed up the stairs, careful to step over the step that squeaked. The bedroom door was closed; I turned the handle slowly and pushed it open.

  I don’t know what I expected to find. I think perhaps I thought it would have been pulled apart or stripped in some way, but other than the fact the light was off, it looked pretty much as it had when I’d left this morning, except that Gracie was lying on my bed.

  Gracie didn’t move as I entered, so at first I thought she was asleep. But as I closed the door behind me she sat up and I felt something twist inside.

  She was still wearing the same dress, and here in the half-light I could see the phosphor of the Change on the skin of her arms and neck, shimmering like the luminescence of plankton in the summer ocean. But it was her eyes that made me fall still, because as she looked at me I saw motes of light flare inside them, the colours deep and shifting, like the flash of opal. I stood, staring, frozen to the spot until she said my name, and kneeling down in front of her I put my finger to my lips.

  ‘We have to go,’ I said in a whisper. ‘Quickly.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Away,’ I said. ‘Somewhere you’ll be safe.’ I stood up and grabbed my rucksack, started stuffing a few bits of clothing into it.

  ‘What about Mummy?’

  I dropped onto my bed and, reaching behind it, pulled out the tin in which I kept the odd bits of cash I had managed to save. Trying not to think about how little there was, I pushed the notes and coins into the pocket of my jeans. ‘Not Mummy. Just us.’

  ‘But you’ll get in trouble,’ she said.

  I knelt down and pulled on her shoes. ‘That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I get you somewhere safe.’ Seeing Bunny on the bed next to her I picked him up and stuffed him in the bag as well. Gracie began to protest but I shook my head. ‘No. You can have him when we get there. Now come on. We have to get out of here.’

  Opening the door I looked out into the hall. Downstairs I could hear Caspar howling. I ushered Gracie out and closed the door behind us as quietly as I could, then motioned to her to follow me.

  We made it down the stairs easily enough, but as we reached the bottom I heard Vanessa say something and glimpsed her with her back to us in the kitchen. For now she couldn’t see us, but if she turned she had a clear line of vision to the laundry door. Tim was nowhere to be seen.

  Lifting a hand I gestured to Gracie to stay silent. Vanessa was bouncing Caspar in her arms, trying to settle him, and although she was occupied I knew she could turn around at any second. And then an even worse thought occurred to me. What if she decided to go upstairs? Taking a breath I told myself we couldn’t wait any longer, and grabbing Gracie’s hand I pulled her down the hall toward the laundry door and dropped back against the wall beside it, just out of view of the kitchen.

  For a moment or two I just stood there, my breath coming in long juddering gulps. Next to me Gracie was silent; glancing down I squeezed her hand then shifted forward slightly to look back down the hall. In the kitchen Vanessa still had her back to us; so, keeping my eyes fixed on her, I leaned past Gracie and, opening the door, motioned for her to go ahead.

  Gracie slipped past me and out, but as I moved to follow, Vanessa turned. I froze, terrified she had seen me, but she was still distracted by Caspar, so, frightened even to breathe, I backed slowly out and drew the door closed behind me.

  It was dark outside, the only light that from the windows. From somewhere further down the street I could hear voices, the sound of engines, but they were too far away to tell what anybody was saying.

  I knelt down and touched Gracie’s face. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘I need you to be a brave girl for me and do exactly as I say.’

  Gracie nodded, and I looked over my shoulder toward the street, trying to think what to do next. If we went out the back way we ran the risk of being seen by Vanessa or Tim, but if we went out into the street we might encounter one of the neighbours, or worse, Quarantine. But if we were quick we might also be able to make it to the bush at the end of the street. I knew I was taking a chance but I decided the street was a better option.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, and moving Gracie ahead of me I hurried toward the front of the house and then stopped and looked around. At the end of the street, where the bush began, it was dark over by the park, but there was a couple of hundred metres between us and that sanctuary. Placing a hand on Gracie’s shoulder I told her to run for the park.

  ‘But what about you?’

  ‘I’ll be right behind you,’ I said, but as I spoke I heard a noise behind us. I turned in time to see Tim appear around the corner from the backyard.

  I still don’t know what he was doing there. Perhaps he had heard something or was heading out to see if Quarantine had arrived. But whatever the reason he stopped dead in his tracks.

  At first he didn’t move. But then his eyes settled on Gracie behind me and I saw him realise what was going on.

  Tim and I had never really gotten along. I s
uppose I was at least partly to blame for that; certainly it can’t have been easy taking a teenage girl you didn’t know into your home. But although he had always been good to me and Gracie in his own way I also knew what letting us go could mean for him, what the penalties for helping the Changed evade containment were. He could be arrested, imprisoned even; he could lose his job. He must have known all that as well: I’m not sure he would have agreed to give Gracie up if he hadn’t. Which is why what happened next surprised me. Because instead of chasing after us or calling out, he just let his arms fall to his side and tightened his mouth into a sort of smile.

  For a long moment I didn’t move. Then I gave him a nod, and, turning, hustled Gracie out toward the street.

  I knew the first thing we had to do was put some distance between us and the house, so I led Gracie toward the bush at the end of the street, thinking we could take cover there. Once we had done that I could try to come up with a plan, perhaps use my phone to find a way to get north. But at the thought of my phone I felt a sudden chill and swore at myself for my stupidity.

  ‘What?’ Gracie asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket.

  ‘Is your phone broken?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I was so used to carrying the thing it hadn’t occurred to me they’d be able to track it. I stared at it, trying to think what to do. If I just dropped it here they would know which way we’d gone, which meant that once Quarantine arrived and realised Gracie and I were missing, we’d only have a few minutes before they were after us.

  ‘Wait here,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Gracie said. ‘I want to come with you.’

  ‘I’ll be right back.’

  ‘But I’m scared,’ she said, grabbing hold of my T-shirt.

  ‘I know, I’m scared too. But I have to go back for a minute and I can’t take you with me.’

  ‘I want to come.’

  As I attempted to disentangle her hand from my T-shirt I heard sirens in the distance. Gripping her wrist I pulled her behind a tree, then knelt down and squeezed her arm. ‘Just stay here,’ I said. ‘Don’t go anywhere. And if anybody comes, hide. Okay?’

  At first she didn’t speak. Then to my relief she nodded, her face pale and serious.

  ‘Good girl,’ I said.

  I really wasn’t sure whether they could track my phone while it was off, but the last thing I needed was to leave them anything that might help them work out which way we’d gone, so I ran back around behind Tim and Vanessa’s house toward Lizzie and William’s. But as I reached their back gate I paused, struck by the thought that if finding the phone somewhere would give Quarantine a place to start looking, perhaps I could do one better and leave it somewhere that would lead them in the wrong direction. Looking up past William and Lizzie’s I saw the outline of the empty place at the end of the row. If we had been travelling in the opposite direction that would have been the last place we passed so, bending low, I ran toward it and, opening the bin by the back gate, threw my phone in. Trying to ignore the sound of approaching sirens I turned to go, only to glimpse lights approaching across the rooftops.

  I froze, too terrified to move. Then, my legs shaking, I backed away and, crouching low in case somebody happened to be looking, took off back toward the reserve.

  I’d only been gone a few minutes but it took me a moment or two to find Gracie in the darkness. As I reached the first trees I called her name quietly, and was relieved when she called back. I found her sitting stock-still in the darkness beneath the tree. It looked like she’d been crying. Probably I should have tried to comfort her but all I could think of was getting away so, reaching down, I hoisted her onto my hip and stumbled away into the bush.

  I don’t know how long I ran, all I know is that every time I thought I couldn’t go any further I would slow down, then look back and start running again. In the dark the track down to the creek was difficult to see, the ground under my feet uneven and treacherous. Carrying Gracie only made it worse: although she was small for her age she was heavy and awkward, and every time I slipped or missed my footing the weight of her would make me stumble.

  I was pretty sure Quarantine would have drones equipped with infra-red, which meant the two of us would stick out a mile away. And they’d be silent, so for all I knew they had us already and were simply hanging somewhere overhead, keeping tabs on us. Every time I looked up I felt a wave of fear. The stars were bright, huge, a mass of light stretching across the sky; occasionally something moved against them, a shooting star or a plane high above, and each time I felt sick.

  Even when we reached the creek, and turned along it until we came to the drainage ditch, I still couldn’t shake the fear they were there, above us. But I knew we couldn’t go back, so I kept going, until finally I saw the shape of the culvert ahead of us, two circular pools of deeper darkness marking the entrance to the pipes. Lowering Gracie to the ground I bent down and clambered in, then reached out to pull her in after me. The air was cool and slightly foul, but as I lay back against the curved wall of the pipe I didn’t care, all I cared about was that we were safe, at least for the time being.

  4

  The night the Change arrived there was nothing to suggest the world was about to be transformed forever. I was six, and I remember my father waking me in the middle of the night and carrying me outside. In our backyard he knelt down and pointed upward. From horizon to horizon green traceries of light filled the sky, flaring and fading like shooting stars.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, but my father only shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know. Some kind of meteor shower, perhaps. Or a solar storm.’

  I was too young to hear the hesitation in his voice, the suggestion he knew it wasn’t either, but I was old enough to recognise the look on his face when he put me back to bed a few hours later.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, but he only smiled, brushed my hair away from my face and told me it was nothing.

  But it wasn’t nothing. Later we would realise the lights had been the seedpods that bore the Change to Earth igniting and releasing their contents as they hit the upper reaches of the atmosphere. My father was a scientist, a geneticist with an interest in divergent biologies, and even that first night he knew that what was happening in the sky was not normal, that it had to be caused by something man-made – a weapon, perhaps – or something even stranger. And so, when we woke the next morning to find what looked like drifts of gossamer spiderweb spread across the trees and streets outside our house he was not delighted but alarmed. To me they seemed beautiful, magical, and I longed to be able to run outside, grab handfuls of them as I could see other children doing. But he locked the door and told me to stay inside, his voice tight and hard as he called his colleagues in search of somebody who might understand what was going on.

  He wasn’t the only scientist concerned by the arrival of the spores, but for every scientist suggesting we had to take their arrival seriously there were a hundred loud-mouthed conspiracy theorists ranting about alien invasions and nerve toxins and the coming of the End Times, and their clamour drowned out the more sober concerns of people like my father.

  And at first it looked like it hardly mattered anyway. For as that first day wore on, in many parts of the world the spores shrivelled and died, their glistening filaments blackening and withering. Standing inside I watched through the window as my father gathered samples, saddened by the sight of something so beautiful fading before my eyes. Within days the world began to forget, the arrival of the spores already little more than a passing wonder, a weekday marvel.

  And then, a few weeks after the spores appeared, there began to be disturbing reports from the rainforests of Colombia and Brazil, Asia and Africa. At first these stories seemed almost fanciful: strange phosphorescent fungi that clung to the trees like scales, weird black flowers and mosses that moved. Many were sceptical, even when confronted
with images of the local people holding these wonders.

  Before long, though, other reports began to emerge, stories of animals altered in bizarre ways, of cattle that no longer slept but circled their paddocks making unsettled, almost human sounds, as if struggling to speak, of birds behaving in confusing and inexplicable ways, of fish that crawled from the water, their fins transformed into limbs, only to drown gulping in the air. And with them came other stories, rumours of people altered not just physically but mentally, of men and women convinced their wives or husbands or parents or children were no longer themselves, of whole villages transformed into something that was no longer fully human. And alongside these reports came other, more frightening stories, of people burning the forest, trying to destroy these new organisms, of massacres in villages afflicted by the transformations, of whole towns found deserted, as if their inhabitants had simply disappeared into the jungle.

  Alarmed, governments in Asia and Africa and South America began to cut off the regions affected, denying journalists access even as they scrambled to contain the spread of something they barely understood. But it was too late. For almost overnight hundreds of millions of people had begun to flee north and south, clambering into boats and thronging roads as they sought to escape whatever it was that was happening in the equatorial regions. Frightened they would be infected, or simply overwhelmed by the numbers, governments in the north and south closed their borders, refusing to accept the refugees, leading to armed conflict and disease, and later, as borders began to give way, to waves of insurrection and violence. Economies collapsed as whole countries vanished, becoming little more than lines on maps.