Arrival (19 page)

Peter shot her an exasperated look. ‘Jordan – don't
do
that!'

‘Do what?'

‘Don't go running off into the bush without us!' he said. ‘You could have been –'

‘I'm fine,' she said dismissively. ‘Just having a look further down.'

‘And?' I said.

‘I can't see any way in,' she said with a shrug. ‘And I can't find the end either. Whatever this thing is, it's big.' She leant back against the wall and stared up into the trees.

‘So is that it?' said Peter hopefully. ‘Are we done here? I mean, if we can't find a way around this thing…' ‘Yeah,' said Jordan, ‘I guess we'll have to go over it.'

‘See anything yet?' I called.

‘Not yet,' said Jordan. ‘Nearly there, though.'

It had taken her about fifteen minutes to find a tree she was happy with, but now Jordan had almost climbed up high enough to look over the top of the wall. Slung over her shoulder was the big coil of rope that had been taking up half the space in her backpack all afternoon. She'd been smart to bring that stuff with her after all.

I stood at the bottom of the tree, holding Jordan's bag and shining the torch up at her so she could see where she was going.

‘Are you okay?' I asked. ‘Can you see?'

‘Yeah, fine.' She squinted as the beam flashed across her face.

‘We don't
all
have to climb up there, right?' I said to Peter as I flicked off the torch.

‘After everything that's happened today, you're worried about climbing a tree?'

‘No,' I said. ‘I'm worried about
falling
from a tree.'

I peered up. Jordan crouched on a branch that was level with the top of the wall, and found the end of her rope. Leaning against the tree like she was giving it a hug, she passed the rope around between her hands and tied it off in a big loop around the trunk. She pulled at the rope, testing that it was secure, and then stood up again.

Just watching her up that high was enough to turn my stomach.

The branch Jordan was standing on ran all the way to the wall, its leaves splaying out across the concrete. She began slowly edging away from the trunk, eyes fixed on her feet. She held the rope with both hands, releasing it a bit at a time as she went along.

As she stepped out further from the trunk, I noticed the branch beginning to wobble slightly under her feet.

‘Careful,' I called up.

‘Yeah, good,' muttered Peter. ‘Bet she hadn't thought of that.'

Jordan continued along the branch until she was right up against the concrete. She slung the rest of the rope back over her shoulder and reached one hand at a time up to the top of the wall. With a grunt, she hoisted herself over the edge and out of sight.

I stood back, staring up into the air. ‘Jordan?'

There was a long silence. Then Jordan's head appeared over the top of the wall.

‘What do you see?' Peter asked.

‘This thing is like two metres thick!' she called. ‘There's no way anything is –'

She broke off, gazing out between the treetops.

When she spoke again, her voice was hollow. ‘Guys, get up here.'

I craned my neck, staring up through the mess of branches. ‘I don't know if I can –'

‘No. Seriously. Get up here.'

I looked at Peter.

‘C'mon,' he grunted, pulling himself up onto one of the lower branches.

I pulled Jordan's backpack up over my shoulders.

‘All right,' I sighed. ‘But if I break my legs, you're carrying me home.'

I navigated my way up the tree much more slowly than Jordan had done. My mind kept flashing back to the snapping branch back at the warehouse that had almost killed us all, and I tested each foothold three times before I put my full weight on it.

Peter started out pretty confidently, scrambling up ahead of me like we were having a race. He peered down at me through the branches, grinning smugly, and I got the feeling he was trying to make up for all the arguing before by impressing Jordan with his tree-climbing ability.

He slowed down as he hit the narrower branches though, and got to the top only a little way ahead of me. Grabbing hold of the rope, he started shuffling towards Jordan. I pulled myself up onto the branch just as Peter climbed off the other end.

‘No,' he whispered, standing up. ‘How can that – there's no way…' His voice was low and shaky.

I turned around to see what he was looking at, but I still wasn't up high enough. ‘What is it?' I called to him.

No answer.

Gritting my teeth, I clutched the rope and stepped out from the tree. There were no other strong branches within reach, nothing to hold onto for support except the rope. I edged my way along, much more slowly than the others. Something was shaking. I couldn't tell if it was me or the branch. Balance has never been my strong point and by the time I got up on the top, my body was so flooded with adrenaline that I had to grab Jordan's arm for support.

What I saw next didn't help.

It was dark by now, but not dark enough to disguise what this wall was or just how far it stretched out on either side of us.

The wall was big. Impossibly big. And it wasn't the side of a building. It was a barrier. A blockade. It stretched around the bushland in a giant ring, kilometres across. There were no gaps, no breaks, no doors.

Just one massive, unbroken circle of three-storey-tall, two-metre-thick concrete.

And Phoenix was right in the middle.

Chapter 27

S
ATURDAY
, M
AY
16
89
DAYS

‘This is … not possible,' Peter muttered, sitting down on top of the wall.

‘Yeah,' I said shakily. ‘Except we're looking at it.'

I peered over the far edge of the wall, hoping desperately for some sign of life – a road or a town or even a beaten-down old farmhouse. But there was nothing out there. Nothing but barren, rocky wasteland as far as I could see. Even the trees seemed to fade away on this side of the barrier.

I felt sick.

We'd known from the beginning that Phoenix was isolated. And getting in touch with the outside world had never seemed like an easy prospect.

But this was different. We weren't just isolated. We were trapped.

Even if we got down there – even if we packed food and supplies and somehow got our bikes over the wall – chances were we'd starve to death before we hit civilisation. And there'd still be the small matter of the end of the world to deal with.

I watched Jordan, standing with her hands on her hips, looking out at the sunset. She had a defeated expression on her face that I'd never seen before, and I suddenly realised how much my own confidence had been depending on hers.

‘What do you want to do now?' I asked her.

For a long time, she didn't answer. She just stared out into the wasteland.

‘Jordan?'

She balled up her fists and made a noise like an angry lion. ‘What was the point of sending us out here?' she shouted. ‘I thought we came out here to find
answers
to all of this!'

‘We got 'em,' Peter murmured from his perch on the wall. ‘They just weren't the answers we wanted.'

He was staring down at the town, but his face was blank, like he didn't have enough energy left to even focus his eyes.

He'd finally cracked. He'd finally found something that was just too big for his denial. The truth that Jordan and I had been trying to get our heads around bit by bit for the last week and a half was all crashing down on him at once.

The wind was starting to pick up. I sat down too, afraid of being blown off-balance, and gazed back over Phoenix. I could see a glow coming up from among the trees in the middle of the circle, but only the Shackleton Building reached above the tree line.

I'd been right about the road, I realised. Not that I could see much of it from here, but Phoenix was far too close for us to have been riding out from it in a straight line all this time. They must have built the road in a spiral out from the town, deliberately making it as long as they could to keep people from coming out this far.

‘It's not just Calvin, is it?' I said. ‘It's not just a few people who are planning all this. This wall – I mean, Calvin didn't just build it all while the rest of the town wasn't looking. This Tabitha thing goes all the way to the top.'

Peter nodded, his face white.

I guess I'd halfway figured that out already. But it was one thing to suspect it, and another thing altogether to have the truth sledge-hammered into my face like this. My mind raced in circles, trying to come to grips with everything that had happened today. But it was all just a blur. Just noise. Too much to process.

I closed my eyes, trying to block it all out. But unfortunately,
there's no place like home
doesn't work in real life.

‘What do you reckon this is?' said Peter hoarsely, bringing me back to reality.

He was running his hand across the concrete in front of him. A metal groove, maybe ten centimetres wide, ran along the length of the wall, dividing it down the middle. As far as I could tell, it went all the way around the circle.

‘Some kind of reinforcement, maybe?' I suggested. Not that there was anything in Phoenix that two metres of solid concrete needed reinforcing against.

‘Yeah,' said Peter, unconvinced but not really seeming to care that much. ‘Maybe.'

‘We should go,' said Jordan, finally turning to face us. ‘Get back down, try to get to our bikes. Should be easier to get past the guards now that it's dark. We'll still have the security in town to deal with, but –' ‘Jordan, look!' Peter had suddenly jumped to his feet. He grabbed Jordan's arm and pointed down into the wasteland beyond the outside of the wall.

Two bright spots, moving side by side.

Headlights. There was someone out there.

‘They're coming closer,' said Jordan, and I could hear the life rushing back into her voice. ‘We've got to get down there!'

She bent down and started pulling off her shoes. ‘Get your socks,' she said frantically.

I stared blankly at her.

‘For the friction.' She pulled off her socks and started putting her shoes back on over her bare feet. ‘Your hands'll get ripped to pieces otherwise.'

Not the most helpful explanation.

‘Why would I –?'

‘Just hurry up and do it!'

She laced up her shoes in about two seconds, and started pulling her socks on over her hands. Then she picked up the coil of rope, threw it down over the far side of the wall, and I finally figured out what she was doing.

‘No, Jordan, we can't,' I said weakly, but I was ripping off my shoes at the same time.

Jordan grabbed the rope with both hands, pulling it tight, and leant out away from the tree, feet perched on the far edge of the wall. I looked out past her feet, but it was too dark to see the ground. The wall below her faded away into black.

‘Are you sure that rope is strong enough?' I asked, my eyes darting back to the tree.

‘Should be,' she said, giving it another tug. ‘We'll find out in a minute though, huh?'

Grinning a bit at the look on my face, she glanced into the darkness below her, crouched low, and stepped down over the edge.

I heard a series of grunts and shuffling noises as Jordan slid down the rope, then a dull thud and a loud, ‘Wh– ?
Oomph!'

Then nothing.

Peter grabbed the torch – which I'd completely forgotten was shoved into the side pocket of my jeans – and shone it down over Jordan.

‘You okay?' he called down.

‘Yeah,' said Jordan, getting to her feet and squinting back at us. ‘Rough landing, though. Rope's not quite long enough. Here, throw that and my bag down to me, will you?'

She held out her hands to catch the torch, flipped it round, and shone it up into our faces.

‘Come on – quick!' she said, throwing a glance out behind her. The headlights were still there, still coming closer. But there was nothing to stop them veering away again at any moment.

Wrapping my socks around my hands, I grabbed onto the rope and sat down on the edge of the wall. Another gust of wind blasted past, almost knocking me off. I steadied myself with the rope, my heart hammering in my ears.

‘Just slide down,' said Jordan, halfway between encouraging and impatient. ‘You'll be fine as long as you don't let go of the rope.'

‘Uh-huh,' I murmured, wondering whether passing out might not be such a bad idea after all, because at least then I'd be unconscious when I hit the ground.

I closed my eyes and slipped down over the edge with my back against the wall.

It was all over in seconds. I gripped the rope as hard as I could, but still couldn't keep it from running away through my hands. I slid down toward the ground, bumping into the wall as I went, concrete pulling up my shirt and scraping against my back. And then suddenly I was at the end of the rope. I fell through the air for half a second, crashed down hard into a scraggly bush, then rolled away and staggered to my feet just in time to keep Peter from landing on top of me.

‘Next time, we bring a ladder,' he muttered, standing up and examining the scratches on his arms.

‘Where are they?' I said.

Jordan spun me around and I saw the headlights moving along to our left. They were close now, maybe a hundred metres away, but it was still hard to tell whether they were purposely headed for Phoenix or not. The vehicle moved slowly, twisting and turning as it navigated its way across the rough terrain.

We took off at a run, chasing after it, Jordan out in front with the torch. There was no time to think, no time to do anything but keep running after those two beams of light – the closest thing to a sign of hope that we'd seen since we set out.