Background crackle made Lucas look up to the sky, but there was no hint of a storm, no dark clouds. Lucas gave a silent shake of his head as he listened to the musical introduction to the news. That jingle must be as old as the radio station itself. Lucas hated the news. He had dark memories of having to sit through the news while his parents fought. But he could grin and bear it, let his mind float elsewhere while the minister found out more about the happenings of the world. Just before his mind floated off, he heard the news reporting on the IED incident.
“Hear that, Lucas? Aaron Fitzpatrick. His father was the one who died. It looks like he’s going to be okay, and he’s on his way home.”
Lucas’s mind came storming back. So that was his name. And what? He was on his way home? He’d been away? Voices spoke to him: It’s all a lie. That man’s not injured. He’s faking it so he could get back to Mackenzie. Can’t let that happen, Lucas, better do something soon.
<°)))><
Lucas had driven the minister to church a few times but hadn’t seen Mackenzie. The minister rarely went on Friday nights, so Lucas reckoned this was the service Mackenzie must attend. Anyway, his preference was to stay away from church. He felt he stood out in that environment. He tracked Mackenzie down elsewhere.
He found she lived on the other side of the city to her mum. In his opinion, it was a bad choice, because the traffic was worse and life seemed much more cluttered. Trains ran to Mackenzie’s suburb, but not to her mum’s. It was only a short train trip from Mackenzie’s apartment to the city, and things being more cluttered, more busy, helped Lucas.
Lucas had followed Mackenzie a few times. He didn’t enjoy trains—he felt trapped when the doors closed. He positioned himself in the last carriage so he could see which station she got off at. Once he had the station, he put the jigsaw pieces together. He ‘borrowed’ some letters from her mum’s letter box, found out her surname, did some Google work, and he had her address. He just needed to establish her routine. That took a few weeks.
She was such a law-abiding citizen. She would stand at pedestrian crossings and wait for the ‘walk’ signal. Most people would just cross, but she just stood there, waiting. Her mate was just as bad. Lucas hadn’t worked out who she lived with, but knew it wasn’t the man that hung around with her. The man stayed late sometimes but never stayed the night. Strange. There was no way Lucas would leave that girl.
This mate of Mackenzie’s didn’t bother Lucas, not like the army bloke did. There was some kind of connection between Mackenzie and the army fellow. Lucas couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the voices in his head were threatened by soldier boy.
He hadn’t followed Mackenzie today, but the notes in his lap told him she would be walking past soon. He had parked on a tree-lined street that looked down on Mackenzie’s street, so she wouldn’t be walking directly past him. Yep, here she was, right on time. She looked up towards Lucas’s car, but only a fleeting glance. She’d be back in twenty minutes, on her way to the gym. He was going to do it then.
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.
