He was hot. He wound his window down a bit and rubbed his face. After one of the train trips and a near panic attack, he had some good green stuff. It was a reward, like after a workout at the gym or a run when you stuff your face because you deserve it. His reward for staying off the dope was to use a bong, which he normally avoided because he smoked too much and it soaked up his money. He got stoned quickly using the bong and the voices returned. They were having a party and Lucas had joined in. The party guests still remained.

He sat staring straight ahead, arguing with a voice in his head. The voice wanted him to zap Mackenzie and then she was all his. But Lucas was thinking of the deformities. She’s such a pretty thing—what would happen if something went wrong? Would he still love her, still want her, if she was deformed? He lit a smoke and wound the window down further.

Lucas stared out the front windscreen, his eyes heavy. He checked the time. She was like clockwork—she would be walking past soon. Right on . . . she came into view. Lucas threw his cigarette out the window and wound the window up. He had the computer on his lap with the transfer app loaded. She paused and started rummaging through her bag. Had she forgotten something? At that instant Lucas decided he wanted her, deformities and all. He looked at the screen, and found what he needed to tap.

<°)))><

Mackenzie found her phone. It was a text message from Paul. She looked up the street and saw an elderly lady walking towards a car. On the other side of the street, a man with a yellow t-shirt was trying to drag a golden Labrador away from something it was sniffing. The dog had moved on and soon was happily sniffing a message left by another dog.

Mackenzie looked back at the car. Something was not right. 

Mackenzie returned to her phone, put it back in her bag and started walking off again.

<°)))><

A loud knock on the driver side window startled Lucas. He turned to see huge eyes staring at him, magnified by glasses, and a mouth moving like it was chewing grass.

Lucas was confused. He wound the window down.

“What ya up to mister? You trying to start a fire or something?”

Lucas heard scratching and saw her leg moving, a twisting motion—obviously emphasising that she was putting out his cigarette butt.

The lady continued. “You better get out of here or I’m calling the police.”

Lucas stared at those eyes. They blinked, waiting for a response. He thought of his mother. Be nice, he said to himself. He turned and looked back down the street. Mackenzie was gone. Be nice.

“I’m sorry, lady. Best you stand back.”

He drove off. He looked back in the rear-view mirror. A hunched-over figure watched him drive off. She threw her arms up in the air, like she was shooing him away, and then turned back towards her castle.

No Mackenzie. No deformed Mackenzie. That was good. He thought of his mother. No, he would never use the technology on Mackenzie.

<°)))><

Was it right to be disappointed that the message was from Paul and not Aaron?

She had hoped it had been Aaron; she wanted to hear that all was okay. Since he’d been gone, he’d communicated with Mackenzie on what he called a ‘welfare phone’. Only a few calls, and he would always use video chat software. It was like Aaron was monitoring her well-being. She was fine, and no, there were no strange men chasing after her. She was starting to think war was making him paranoid. But she hadn’t heard from him for a while, and then Aaron’s mum told Mackenzie about the incident.

A car drove past. It was the car that was parked up the street. The driver was rubbing the left side of his face. He had such big hands, they covered half his face. It looked like he was stressed out about something.

She’d been told Aaron was okay, a minor injury but he would be transferred home now. The injury made him unfit for overseas duty.

Mackenzie got a message notification as she made her way up the stairs to the gym, then another. The first one was from Aaron and said, ‘The eagle has landed’, which sort of made sense. The next one was from Paul and said, ‘I love you’, which made a lot of sense.

It was okay to be disappointed. She loved them both, just differently.

Part 3 - The Vanishings

Chapter 14

June

IT WAS A DAY of firsts: the first day of winter, and the first day of the working week. Neither event generated a great deal of enthusiasm, as displayed by the passengers’ faces on the morning train coming in to the city on the Ipswich line.

Mackenzie heard somebody cough. She looked around the train carriage looking for the culprit. Was it the lady with the brown and green scarf? It wasn’t an overly cold day. Mackenzie pictured germs and other invisible things floating around in the carriage. Was she developing some kind of phobia? Hopefully not, although she was washing her hands a lot more these days. Mum always said to let the body’s immune system harden up, then Dad would chip in that you can’t really build up good muscles without doing exercise. It had taken her a while to work out the relevance of that one.

They pulled into Central Station, platform six, right on time: 07.29. More people were being added to the thousands already disembarked by the rail network. Mackenzie waited for the ‘swish’ of the doors to open and then braced herself for the noise of the station. And it came, the whooshing sounds of trains coming and going, the occasional horn and whistle sounds, announcements being made, a chorus of chatter as people hit the train platform and started making their way out of the station.

Paul helped an elderly lady out of the carriage. Mackenzie smiled and smiled again as she looked at Paul’s red shirt. It was his favourite colour and it suited him. Paul took Mackenzie’s hand as they headed towards the exit. Mackenzie noticed the blind man ahead of her on the escalator with his guide dog. She often saw him and had a quiet admiration for him. He had a humble demeanour, smiling all the time. They headed towards the pedestrian crossing at the intersection of Creek Street and Ann Street.

They stopped at the traffic lights. Many people subconsciously tuned in to the slow beeping, making them pause. Mackenzie looked at the blind man and his dog, wondering how the dog decided when to go —at least dogs were obedient. Some people waited patiently for the beeping to speed up, for the red man to change to green. Others crossed when they felt it was safe—they made up their own laws. The road was clear, but the walk symbol was red, so the jaywalking started, the confident people first and then those influenced by others.

Mackenzie heard someone yelling behind her. She turned to see a tall man with a look of panic on his face, rushing towards the intersection with two police officers in pursuit. The man turned to look behind him and crashed into her. They both fell towards the road. Paul went to grab Mackenzie and stumbled as well.

The blind man’s dog started barking. A humming noise engulfed the area. Somebody screamed.

Mackenzie looked around. People were turning their heads trying to locate the source of the sound, their hands raised over their ears. The air became distorted. Mackenzie saw something coming towards her. It was like a wave but she could see through it. People on the footpath on the other side of the road had been knocked over from the wave’s force. It passed over the jaywalkers and they vanished. Vanished? It was getting closer. She moved her hands to her ears. She turned to Paul just as the wave hit him. Gone.

Now she was floating. Rising up. She looked down. A lady started screaming and yelled out. “Where have they gone . . . where have the people gone?”

Then there was silence.

<°)))><

Mackenzie picked herself up off the floor. Floor? What had happened to the road? Where was she? There were others. Where was Paul? Her heart was thumping and her head was throbbing. She looked around at the others—everyone trying to work out what had happened. She helped pick up a lady from the floor who was struggling. Mackenzie was thankful that the floor had been softened with some kind of thick flooring material. She looked around again. Where was Paul?

Some people had their mobile phones out, trying to make calls. She heard some crackling. It was coming from a speaker mounted near the ceiling.

“Hello, people. Please don’t be alarmed. You are all perfectly safe and have been transported to a holding house. We ask that you make yourselves comfortable. We will join you all soon. Please note that mobile phones will not work here.”

Mackenzie watched one man moving about, the one who crashed into her. He was like a caged tiger—she hoped he would settle down. The others looked dumbfounded.

“Did he say ‘holding house’?” someone asked.

Mackenzie confirmed this as she looked around. She did a count. There were seven of them: four men, three women. Most were dressed for work—they didn’t expect to end up on a dusty floor in a ‘holding house’. A few were still dusting themselves down. There was a table of refreshments and a stack of white plastic chairs. She heard a quiet whirring noise and looked up to see a video camera scanning the room. What is going on?

The caged tiger was the most casually dressed. Mackenzie watched him as he walked over to the only window and tried a few things. Then he went into a small room, and came back out shaking his head.

“A toilet and only a small window,” he advised no one in particular.

The man then decided to try and open the main door. He gave it a kick and then looked at Mackenzie and raised his hands.

“It’s like Fort Knox,” he said. “It’ll be difficult to get out of here.”

Time ticked by and nothing happened. One of the businessmen suggested they best stay calm and maybe take advantage of the refreshments offered on a table to the rear of the room.

Mackenzie looked at her watch. The train had arrived at 7.29. It was now eight-thirty. She wondered when their kidnappers were going to join them.