“For now.” Windsor’s phone rang. He picked it up and looked at the number. “My son . . . excuse me for a moment.” He got up and walked out on to the veranda through the squeaky flyscreen door.

A short time later the door squeaked and Windsor walked back in the room. Lucas thought he looked pale. “Something’s happening.” He was shaking his head. “My son was the driver who hit that girl. That dead girl. He killed that girl. Something’s at work here. My son’s devastated.”

Lucas agreed there was something strange going on. He remembered the two workers at the department’s outpost making claims about evil things. Lucas wondered if they were venturing into something unknown and causing events. 

He thought he heard a chuckle.

Chapter 7

AARON WAS ON HIS way to do some fishing. He finally burst through the city traffic. His mum’s car radio kept him up-to-date with the day’s events—the accident this morning was mentioned briefly in the news and then discussed on talkback shows. Apparently the victim had walked straight on to the road, ignoring the pedestrian signals, totally preoccupied with her phone.

And of course the stories came in. A lady told of seeing a person fall down a manhole while texting, another walking into a street sign, and another with a broken nose after someone texting walked straight into them.

A sign advertising the greatest-tasting coffee in Brisbane caught Aaron’s attention. Good advertising? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it was just that he needed a caffeine hit. One sniff of the air as he entered the café told him they made good coffee here. The café had a number of small tables with cane chairs and a jar with a floating frangipani centred on each table. A few tables were occupied. The breeze from a large free-standing fan in the corner had the palms in pots dancing.

Aaron ordered. They handed him a little stand the shape of a pelican with number seven attached to it. He grabbed a newspaper and sat outside so he could see the river. He thought of his dad. They loved fishing together.

He started from the back of the paper as he always did. The Australian batsmen were making lots of runs in the cricket Test, but there wasn’t much else happening in the world of sport. He flipped the paper over to the dreaded front page, where the major headline stated ‘Australians addicted to speed’, as some 21,000 motorists were fined for speeding in the past week and police were at their wits’ end trying to curb this blatant breaking of the law. Fines and police patrols weren’t working.

His thoughts went to the man that he helped that morning. How did you recover from something like that? The man had kept saying that his dad was going to kill him for this. What did he mean by that? Maybe his dad was in a position of power. Maybe it was his car.

Just as a heading caught his attention, his coffee and breakfast arrived. He thanked the server; she said he was most welcome. He smiled and watched as she walked off. She was nice.

The table was a good size for both a plate and a newspaper. He returned to the article that caught his attention. It was about the homeless in the city. They were talking about vanishings that have been happening over the past few weeks. People just disappeared and then reappeared a short time later. They were all saying the same thing: they heard a humming noise then found themselves in some kind of tunnel before ending up in a white room for a short period, then reappearing back where they were before the disappearance. Authorities had not been convinced of the vanishing stories, or putting it down to a number of things including mental illness, alcohol and drugs, paint sniffing, copycat behaviour.

Aaron stopped reading and stared at the river. But what if it was true? How frustrating for those telling their stories. He heard a putt-putt noise and saw a man with a black and yellow life jacket and dark sunglasses cruise past on his Jet Ski. Aaron sensed something going on in his head. What was it? Thoughts jumping around, trying to connect to each other, trying to sort out all he had been bombarded with over the past few weeks, trying to untangle the mess. Vanishings. Is this what happened to Dad? He disappeared, but didn’t reappear back at the same spot. How were the people transported? Loud revs—the man on his Jet Ski shot off, gone.

He told himself to chill. The eggs were to his liking and the coffee too. He was tempted to order another one, but the river’s calling was stronger. Pessimism sells papers. It made him wonder why he bothered reading them. He folded the paper, pushed his chair back, stood and placed the newspaper back where he retrieved it from. He thanked the staff for a nice breakfast and headed out, brushing a palm tree on the way.

<°)))><

The Brisbane River is a majestic river meandering through the city of Brisbane. The river had a glow about it this morning. The fish were waiting for him, ready to latch on to his bait. A few pelicans rested on top of the pier poles—he wondered why the poles didn’t bend with their weight. Aaron retrieved his fishing gear from the boot of the car. He watched a canoeist drift past.

He baited up and threw his fishing line in, concentric circles rippling out from where the line hit the water. As he watched the circles, he wondered if ‘street people’ was the correct term to use. Many didn’t live in the streets, but in shelters or special housing. What if there was an element of truth in their disappearing? In time, people would start mocking the street people. They would say it was aliens: alien spaceships coming at night-time, zapping the street people up to their spaceships and conducting experiments—the perfect guinea pigs. No one was going to believe the street people. But this needed to be taken seriously, because he was starting to suspect a connection between the vanishings and his dad.

Seagull squawks caught Aaron’s attention. He looked around and saw a small colony of gulls gathered on a small sandy beach on the other side of the river. A few had taken off flying in Aaron’s direction, coming to check out what he threw in the water. They would be disappointed—it wasn’t food. He pictured a man humped over a large garbage bin looking for food, isolated and alone. Yep, maybe there was an element of truth with the street people story.

A nibble on the line signalled he had a bite. He jerked the rod back hoping to hook the fish. The line went tight. He had hooked something and started reeling it in and saw flashes of silver as the fish got closer to the surface. The fish was too small, so he threw it back. He put some more bait on the hook and cast the line back in—ripples again, squawks again. Aaron turned his head towards the Gateway Bridge. Marvelled at the cleverness of man—what holds these things together? So much concrete hanging so high in the sky. He often wondered what would happen if an element that was part of the formula holding these things together was removed—bridges would collapse, skyscrapers would fall. He supposed we should be grateful for the forces that do hold these things together. He was once told that God sustains all things . . . he wondered if that was true.

Aaron fished and kept thinking. Triggers . . . he recalled an event that happened a few years back on a crossroad just before the Gateway Bridge. Some idiot cut in front of Aaron, he tooted and got the ‘finger’. Rage took control of Aaron and there was a dispute. He was victorious in his eyes but lost in Mackenzie’s eyes. They broke up not long after that. She said they were on different roads. It was a bad time of Aaron’s life. He had already lost his brother, his best mate. Now he’d lost Mackenzie, his soul mate. He joined the army not long after that.

No more bites. Aaron wound in his line. The bait was still on the hook, so he removed it and threw it in the water. He watched as some toadfish came to inspect what had just appeared in their environment. Toxic things they are, a bit like his life was back then. The small brown spots over the back of the toadfish reminded him of Mackenzie. She had a small band of freckles across her cheeks. She was always in his thoughts. He would always watch out for her.

His fishing urge was satisfied for the time being. He would do some more fishing next week. He threw his fishing gear in the boot of the car, jumped in the car and wound the windows down to get some air circulating. He felt a bit tired so he reclined the seat and laid back. A short snooze was on the cards.

He was out, dreaming. Thirty minutes later, he woke up. He wasn’t sure whether a truck or the large boat cruising past on the river woke him. It sounded like a horn. Stretching, he thought of his dream—it was a strange one. A caterpillar and death. The caterpillar did not want to die. But he was told he had to. Something great and wonderful awaited, but he had to die first.

Part 2 - Bulimba to the City

Chapter 8

LUCAS KNEW THE AREA pretty well. The minister didn’t live far from here and there’d been a few pick-ups and drop-offs at his house. Now they were at the house of the lady who lost her husband in the ‘accident’. The minister wanted to drop in and pay her a visit.

Windsor told Lucas that they were in the clear. No one had been able to establish a link between their technology and the death. Lucas was surprised that Windsor knew the couple so well. He wondered about the event—he wished he could remember the evening of the accident better. Cutting back on the green stuff had helped his thinking clear up a bit. He had a vague memory of Windsor suggesting he try the park for their first live test. It was a secluded area with no security cameras operating. It had all made sense at the time, although Lucas’s senses were duly wacked.

Lucas sat there waiting for the minister to conclude his visit. With the window down, a breeze found its way into the car making the cardboard air freshener flap—there was no scent as it was well past its use-by date. He heard some peaceful music, and turned to see a car pull up beside him, windows down. He thought he was dreaming. It was that girl again. The breeze carried her scent into his car. Or maybe he just imagined that. He closed his eyes to take it all in. He heard the revs in her car increase as she turned into the driveway. The girl lived, or maybe stayed, over the road from this house.

Her number plate was one of those personalised ones: KENZIE93. What sort of name was that? Well, anyway, maybe he now knew the year she was born.

He continued to be amazed at how this girl kept coming into his life. He was energised and decided he needed a stretch and a quick stroll. The car window screeched as he wound it up. He sat there for a moment thinking about her. The name Mackenzie popped into his head.

<°)))><

Mackenzie Gordon needed a break. She was shocked when she found out that the accident she witnessed had involved a girl from work. The ensuing spiritual battle that took place at work had worn her out.

She took Thursday and Friday off.

The traffic lightened once everyone got to work. Mackenzie had taken advantage of this to go visit her mum. And, secretly, she was also hoping to see Aaron. He called her on the weekend and said he was in town, busy with a training course, but he would be taking some time off—starting around about today, she believed.

Mackenzie had just parked her car, and Mum came running down the porch stairs. Could Mackenzie go and get some milk. Of course she could. Mum hadn’t yet worked out the benefits of mobile technology—she could have called before Mackenzie arrived. But that was okay, Mackenzie wouldn’t have answered anyway, not while she was driving. Mackenzie was a model citizen, or trying to be. A good old-fashioned girl. That’s what her workmates called her—a good, old-fashioned, boring girl.

Mackenzie reversed out of the driveway. She noticed a white car parked outside Aaron’s place and was surprised she didn’t notice it when she drove in. Her mind must have been elsewhere. It had a government look about it except the windows were dark. It made sense—the dark windows must give the occupants privacy. She could just make out the outline of somebody sitting in the driver’s seat.

She hoped Jill was doing okay.

<°)))><

With the milk sitting beside her, she turned on the indicator and waited for an oncoming car to pass. She noticed the white car still parked there, but the dark shadow in the front seat was no longer there.

She started to turn into her parents’ driveway but paused to let a man pass. He gave her a thank you wave. She thought he just needed a leather jacket on to make a good biker, and then told herself off for stereotyping. Why did a goatee and a moustache make a man a biker? She watched him walk off, and noticed that he turned back to look at her. It made her feel uneasy, but she brushed her thoughts aside and parked the car.

Mackenzie got out of the car. The driveway had been upgraded—there were no large cracks anymore. Must have been done in the last couple of weeks, since the last time she was here. Or maybe she didn’t notice it then. She smiled, thinking about how the cracks used to bug her dad so much. He kept saying they were going to get bigger and bigger and the kids will fall through to one of those underground gorges. His stories about the underground realm used to scare Mackenzie and her sister. She smiled, and looked forward to seeing Dad later that evening.

Mackenzie started heading up along the path up to the front door. Just as she started walking up the steps she heard a dog barking. She looked over towards Mr Smith’s front yard and saw Jethro on the front balcony, tail wagging.

“Hello, Jethro.”

The Border Collie acknowledged her with another bark. She heard the front door open.

“Hello love,” her mum said. Kathy Gordon had on her favourite kitchen apron, plain and black, with her glasses hanging around her neck on a black cord. Mum turned and looked in the direction of Jethro. “I don’t think that dog will ever forget you . . . come in.”

The apron told Mackenzie that Mum had been cooking. She followed her down the passage, taking a quick glance at the family portrait on the side table. “It was just those walks I used to take him on. He really used to look forward to getting out and sniffing out his territory and anything else that he came across.”

“And Mr Smith appreciated you doing it, too.”

“Least I could do. How’s he going?”

“He’s doing fine. I think it’s been five years since his wife passed on. He’s active in the local church and still keen on his golf. But he does miss his darling. He takes the dog for long walks now, so there’s fewer holes under our fence.”