Epilogue Read online

  Epilogue

  Edited by Tehani Wessely

  First published in Australia in 2012

  by FableCroft Publishing

  http://fablecroft.com.au

  This anthology © 2012 FableCroft Publishing

  Cover design by Amanda Rainey

  Design and layout by Tehani Wessely

  Typeset in Sabon MT Pro and Cracked

  A memory trapped in light © Joanne Anderton

  Time and tide © Lyn Battersby

  Fireflies © Steve Cameron

  Sleeping Beauty © Thoraiya Dyer

  The Fletcher test © Dirk Flinthart

  Ghosts © Stephanie Gunn

  Sleepers © Kaia Landelius

  Solitary © Dave Luckett

  Cold comfort © David McDonald

  The Mornington ride © Jason Nahrung

  What books survive © Tansy Rayner Roberts

  The last good town © Elizabeth Tan

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry (ebk)

  Title: Epilogue / edited by Tehani Wessely.

  ISBN: 978-0-9874000-5-5 (ebk.)

  Subjects: Short stories.

  Fantasy fiction, Australian.

  Science fiction, Australian.

  Other Authors/Contributors: Wessely, Tehani.

  Dewey Number: A823.01

  The editor gratefully acknowledges the generous assistance given by Joanne Anderton, Elizabeth Disney, Stephanie Gunn, Amanda Rainey, and the amazing authors, particularly those who stepped up and stepped in. Thank you also to Stuart Ash, who came up with the title (via Twitter).

  As always, Tehani would like to thank her ever-enduring husband and children for their patience and support, and for keeping her away from the computer when she should be.

  ALSO EDITED BY TEHANI WESSELY…

  One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries (FableCroft Publishing, 2013)

  The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton (FableCroft Publishing, 2013)

  To Spin a Darker Stair (FableCroft Publishing, 2012)

  After the Rain (FableCroft Publishing, 2011)

  Australis Imaginarium (FableCroft Publishing, 2010)

  Worlds Next Door (FableCroft Publishing, 2010)

  New Ceres Nights (with Alisa Krasnostein, Twelfth Planet Press)

  Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #4, #16, #27, #31, #36 (with Lucy Zinkiewicz) & #37 (Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Co-operative Ltd)

  Shiny #4 and #5 (with Alisa Krasnostein and Ben Payne, webzine, Twelfth Planet Press)

  Table of Contents

  Introduction by Tehani Wessely

  Sleeping Beauty by Thoraiya Dyer

  A Memory Trapped in Light by Jo Anderton

  Time and Tide by Lyn Battersby

  Fireflies by Steve Cameron

  The Fletcher Test by Dirk Flinthart

  Ghosts by Stephanie Gunn

  Sleepers by Kaia Landelius

  Solitary by Dave Luckett

  Cold Comfort by David McDonald

  The Mornington Ride by Jason Nahrung

  What Books Survive by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  The Last Good Town by Elizabeth Tan

  Contributor Biographies

  Introduction

  For me, anthologies begin in dreams. I woke in the early hours one morning with the idea for this book fully fledged in my mind. I immediately emailed myself from the phone on my bedside table, to ensure it didn’t escape me when I slipped back into slumber, and that day, started writing the submission guidelines for the book.

  The original idea was simple — doom and gloom is pre-eminent in our fiction; dystopias abound, future predictions are dire. We are over-populating and polluting the planet. Water and natural resources are a critical issue. The state of the environment weighs heavily upon us, and upon our children. Natural disasters appear to be increasing. Science and technology are moving faster every minute — how long until there is an event that is world-breaking?

  These issues are often grist for the story-making mill of our best writers, but I wondered one step further beyond the likelihood of the impending apocalypse, along the considerations of the bible story of Noah and the flood — could there be an after the apocalypse? What would happen after the end, when the world as we know it shattered? Could there actually be hope to spring from despair?

  For the first time, I opened submissions up to international authors, and this doubled the number of stories I received for consideration. Interestingly, a large proportion of writers seemed to struggle with the idea of what would happen after the end of the world, with many focussing on the apocalyptic event itself, rather than perhaps exploring the future beyond. Many interpreted the guidelines as those for a horror story, and while some of the stories in these pages contain horrific ideas, the focus I sought was for an eventual sense of hope (the working title for the book was Apocalypse Hope).

  The stories you’ll find within these pages are not all set in a grim vision of a future Earth. The apocalypse of each is different. The characters inside face diverse challenges, some solitary, some not. But in each story, seek the “what next”, the “after”, the hope for a future beyond the end — I did.

  Tehani Wessely, Editor

  April 2012

  Sleeping Beauty by Thoraiya Dyer

  It’s time for me to go into the earth.

  I feel that imaginary, frigid wind blowing across my skin, even though I’m protected by dozens of metres of steel and double-glazed, bulletproof glass. Before I go, I want to finish my chocolate pudding. Cream slides down its steep sides like the doomed terminal face of a melting glacier turning to forked streams over volcanic soil. My mouth waters.

  “It hurts me to see you like this,” Pete says, his buttoned overcoat, grey cuffs and gunmetal timepiece swimming into my peripheral view. I don’t ask him to sit at my table but he sits. His grey eyes fasten pitifully onto my face over the football-sized pudding that waits on my plate.

  If only that were true, I think, irritated. It would make me happy to see you hurt.

  “Like what?” I say innocently, carving into the pudding with my spoon. Steam and liquid chocolate erupt from its centre.

  “Like this. There was a time I thought you were smart enough, strong enough, to be in the parliament instead of on the sidelines. But look at you. One setback and you’ve gone to hell. You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”

  “You care about my heart, Pete? That’s so sweet.”

  Not as sweet as this sweet, sweet pudding.

  His pity is gone now. Only anger is left in his eyes. Pure, white hot anger. He’s heard what he expected to hear, confirmation that I’ve tripled my body weight over the past six months to punish him for rejecting me. Even though I’ve admitted to nothing of the sort.

  He stands.

  “Eat yourself to death, then. You’re only hurting yourself.”

  “That’s not what you just said.”

  I smile at him as he walks away. People in the food court watch him go. He’s on television, they whisper to one another. The new anchorman. He must have been pumping that woman for information. She’s one of the Minister’s science advisers. She knows about the meteor, the one that’s coming close enough to cast a shadow over us.

  That woman, they say, or sometimes, that fat woman. Despite decades of experience, I can’t say exactly where the tipping point is between that woman and that
fat woman. A certain amount of extra weight is expected in a desk job. Obesity becomes ever more common. But there is a point where the invisibility of the unattractive woman becomes the behemoth impossible to ignore. Instead of skimming over you, the eyes stop, and they ask themselves, Where does she buy those enormous jeans? What size underpants does she wear? How does she get out of bed?

  It is my bedtime. I can’t even taste the pudding, now; it’s just a floury pressure in my mouth; in my gut. My gorge is rising. Only a few more spoonfuls to go.

  When I go to the front counter to pay for my pudding, the waitress says, “See you tomorrow, Miss Mennin?”

  “No,” I say. “I’m going overseas on an assignment.”

  “Oh, how long will you be away?”

  “Six months.”

  “Smart move! You’ll be missing the Canberra winter.”

  I have always missed it. Sometimes, when I wake, there’s still enough snow, and I’m slight enough, to go skiing for a week. More often than not, though, what’s left is a thin, transparent crust of ice, split by the scarlet lignotubers of snow gums, their yawning and stretching already begun.

  ---01100101---

  The basement holds the smell of apples.

  Apples haven’t been stored here for twenty years, but the earthen walls won’t let the aroma fade; they’re passing judgement on me for replacing the apples. I am no autumnal keeper of seeds, sun-warmed slice of the seasons, but a sleeping infertile abomination; unnatural accident; hidden shame.

  Despite that, after all these years I’ve attained a kind of rapport with the apple seeds in jars and the sacks of old grain. It used to be a game with my mother, to guess which seeds were still alive. We’d split them to see the green inside or the ashy layers of the dead ones.

  Back then, I used to cheat by feeling the weight of them in my palm. Life is heavy.

  But now I can tell without touching them. Somehow, I can smell the life in them.

  My mother bought the orchard, and with it, the barn, when I was six years old. I told her I couldn’t sleep properly in my bed. I felt cold. I wanted darkness and dirt all around me.

  She cried, that first time. Stayed beside me and cried and waited for me to wake. She cries a lot, since it happened. I should phone her laboratory, now, to let her know I’m tucking myself in for the long sleep, but she’ll only cry and apologise, and there’s no point in it.

  It’s done.

  She was trying to invent a cure for obesity, a one-off hibernation that would melt the fat away. When she couldn’t get approval, she decided to test it on herself. It was her own DNA that she used to make the virus target-specific; to make it safe, she thought.

  Only, her DNA is in me, too. It’s these little unintended consequences that always catch them out. Why is that? When any normal, not-smart person could have picked the fatal flaw? Her immune system fought the virus off, much to her dismay.

  But I was only six years old.

  The apple press and the copper still are long gone. No more bottles of cider rest on the racks. If I live long enough, maybe my essence will seep into these walls.

  Maybe the basement will smell of me, long after I am gone.

  ---01100101---

  I dream of fire.

  ---01100101---

  When I wake, for a moment I believe that a forest of mushrooms has grown up around me. I can’t see them, in the dark, but I smell them.

  Why is it so dark?

  When I open the trapdoor, there’s no longer a barn to block out the sky. Only fetid, rotting humus. And the sky is grey, grainy, like an old black and white television set refusing to tune.

  The city is gone. I stare down from my hilltop at a plain devoid of anything green or growing.

  I can think of only one explanation. The meteor did not pass by. Dust from the impact has blocked solar radiation and caused the death of all plants. The death of animals that feed on plants. The death of animals that feed on animals that feed on plants.

  Hunger rises in me. I am awake. I need food.

  There are mushrooms. Valleys of edible fungi. I pluck them; suck them from wooden surfaces. I dig for them in the soil. My clawed fingers emerge, triumphant, tangled with worms. I swallow the worms whole, unwilling to taste them, but unable to discard them. My choices are few.

  The sky brightens and darkens and brightens again. I don’t see the sun. I don’t feel its warmth. For an instant, I don’t want to obey my disgusting urge to eat; what is the point of living when everyone else is dead?

  My life was always lonely. I had my mother’s love, but that was all. I loved them, though. All those unique and imperfect people. I showed my love by writing the best reports I knew how to write; doing the best research I knew how to do. My warnings didn’t protect them.

  It turns out there was no point to me then, and no point to me, now, but perhaps I am more animal than I know, because my rational mind is not able to override my instincts.

  I use the worms to bait snares for carrion-eating birds. Their meat is dark. I eat it raw. The spring is colder than any spring I’ve ever known. The bird skins with their glossy black feathers, I make into a blanket to keep warm, stitching them together with wooden slivers; a blanket of blunt needles.

  My mother is dead. She must be dead. Everyone is dead.

  I can’t stop eating, even when I’m bawling my eyes out.

  ---01100101---

  The next time I wake, the world is a little brighter.

  “I miss you,” I say to the smell of my mother that lingers even after my eyes are all the way open.

  If she hadn’t done this to me, I’d be dead, too. But I know I’m not able to reproduce. I’m no saviour of the human race. I wouldn’t be, even if there was a man hibernating beside me. I loved Pete because he seemed like an uncaring husk, but I could sense the seed of compassion inside him. It never got a chance to grow. His corpse is here, somewhere. Worms, mushrooms. Perhaps I have eaten organic material that was once part of him.

  “Peter Samford,” I say to the clear sky, “I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last man on Earth.”

  Sunlight warms my skin. Immediately I feel optimistic.

  Are there others?

  There are always others.

  We’re like cockroaches.

  Once the worst of my hunger is sated, I set off to find them.

  I walk down the hillside, wrapped in my raven cloak. Underfoot, ferns are busy uncurling. Moss is beginning to spread. My clothes, my shoes, are too big, but I’ll grow into them.

  I stop to eat. Worms, mushrooms. Like knowing which seeds are viable, I know which mushrooms are safe. It wasn’t always the way; I’m like a human pig, now, sniffing for truffles. Have my cells been instructed to manufacture pig proteins as well as grizzly bear ones? Only my mother would know.

  My mother’s gift; the gift that keeps on giving. She used to pick the mushrooms off her pizza. It was the texture, like slugs, she said.

  I have eaten slugs and I disagree.

  I eat dandelion shoots and pigweed. I gobble sour, under-pollinated blackberries and the sweet heads of kangaroo grasses. I catch birds and the now abundant frogs. There are streams of clear water. I drink from them.

  There’s nobody in the scorched, flattened remnant of the city. No secret tunnels. No footprints in the ash.

  Cold catches me before I can walk to the coast, to the next, bigger, second city. I dig a tunnel and reinforce it. I sleep.

  ---01100101---

  It takes most of my waking months to walk the rest of the way.

  I smell the snow-in-waiting, think: It’s three years since I sat at the parliament house cafeteria, eating chocolate pudding.

  The second city, too, is burned to the ground, but roofs of rubble have been erected over entrances to underground car parks. Footprints mark the ground between the cracked, patchwork concrete slab that the city once stood on and the freshwater sources that slide curious fingers around it.

  When I see the
dark silhouettes moving, I stay low. What bestial depths have these people sunk to? I don’t care to know. Not now.

  Not when snow is coming to old Sydney Town, too early and too deep. If I don’t dig a shelter now, it will be too late, too difficult to break through the ice.

  I take a last, deep drink from a subzero stream, and hear a voice that belongs to memory.

  “Kate,” says Peter Samford, aghast, stumbling back from the water’s edge, upsetting his wheelbarrow full of water bottles. “Kate Mennin?”

  His head is a skull. His eyes are sunken. I see his ribs at the open collar of his shirt.

  “You’re not real,” he shouts at me. “You’re not real.”

  He is starving. Yet he has survived. In my pre-hibernation condition, I am four times his mass, though he remains taller than me, a shivering skeleton.

  “One more winter,” I say. “Make it through one more winter and the earth will be returned to you, Peter Samford.”

  He runs away, leaving his wheelbarrow behind.

  ---01100101---

  Deciding to leave it hidden, I gently fold my raven-feather cloak.

  My clothes? I can’t take them off. They’re the only ones I have. Four years in the same clothes. The abandonment of my normal hormonal cycles to the grizzly’s fat storage and hibernation mechanisms has meant no menstrual blood to musk them, but they reek, all the same, of soil and sweat and sorrow.