📖 The Ghost of Emily - Chapter 7

In which a mausoleum as sanctuary becomes an anteroom to tragedy.

[← PREVIOUS CHAPTER] [SWITCH TO AUDIOBOOK] [NEXT CHAPTER →]

A white-blue haze swallowed Jake Thorne’s arm as he reached forward to touch the blinding orb that was suggestive of a head. Though its face lacked any features, the vaguely outlined slope down from the orb that scooped up into a shoulder made him feel certain that he was reaching for a person. With his other hand he reached for his own eyes, placing his knuckles between them and the object of his grasping, to shield them from its piercing glare.

As he touched the side of the figure’s head, he heard a voice, low and without emotion. It was male, but at the same time, it was genderless - without a clear definition of pitch or timbre, just as its head was without definition of facial contour or marking.

The voice filled Jake’s ears and poured into his head, down his spine and into the cavity of his chest as warm liquid, surrounding his heart and embracing it firmly, without any threat of force. It was not an intrusion in his body, rather a welcome penetration of his sacred inner sanctum. Jake’s anxiety melted into its stream, filling him with a sense of stillness as the liquid’s ripples expanded in rings around his heart, each smaller in size, until they diminished completely into a surface like glass without texture or imperfection. The words of the voice became clear in Jake’s mind, as if the sensation inside his body had translated them into communicable thought.

“You are alive,” the voice said. As they resounded in Jake’s mind, the light dimmed and he looked upon the slowly forming face of a man. Two eyes appeared through the haze, glimmering with a sharp focus, seeking connection with their object. Jake’s eyes widened as the still surface of liquid in his chest began to crystallise, as did his recognition of the face. In the moment that he almost fully realised the identity of this figure before him, a burst of blue light flickered in the corner of his eye and he turned abruptly to catch it. The sharp spin of his body threw him into a dizzy plunge, as if the ground had collapsed beneath him and his stomach turned as he fumbled, desperately trying to find a safe footing or something to grip. It was too late, he was falling. Falling away from the light. Falling into empty blackness.

He awoke with a jolt, rising sharply in the rocking chair, his rifle laid across his lap, and for a moment he was empty-headed, clueless as to his whereabouts or his own identity. A sense that he was a child, with his mother in a tent, and they had fallen asleep in the midday warmth reading together. But this was not the tent. He was alone here.

The objects in the room became clear and he recognised the living room of the house near the clock tower, where they had bunkered down a night. He remembered how old he really was.

But something is different.

He rubbed his eyes.

The elephant! It’s gone!

His brow creased in concern at the absence of the carving that had stood on the coffee table. It had been the object of his gaze as he’d drifted into unconsciousness to the improbable world of his dreaming mind.

He looked out the window next to him. The moon was high and the sky that earlier had been patchy with small isolated rainclouds was clear. Bright white beams shot outward from the moon, refracting through the subtle moisture of the midnight air, splashing hints of rainbow colours in the periphery of Jake’s vision. His mind replayed its record of the hours before he fell asleep.

As the children had hurried through the door of the abandoned house, followed by their faithful four-legged guardian, they came to an almost immediate halt at the sight of the living room before them. Both children had stood, travel packs and weaponry still weighing heavily on their weary shoulders, in gaping awe at the cornucopia of trinkets, and objects of beauty, wonder and mystery. The objects had been placed with the most deliberate aesthetic around the living space that once was occupied by a body - or several - with living minds. The minds that had lived here were neither stagnant, nor captive. Despite the alien permanence of this abode, Jake had immediately sensed a lightness in how it was decorated. Though anchored to a single place and to objects of no practical value to the matter of corporeal survival, the minds that lived here were more free than the nomadic and relatively unencumbered minds of Jake’s family.

“It’s okay kids, have a look around. There’s no one here. No one has been here for years.”

Having received the permission they needed, they leaned their chattels carefully against the already dirty boot chest by the door, showing their respect to the creator of this sacred place. A creator that Jake knew was likely dead.

Gus and Maisie slowly stepped around the perimeter of the space, moving in opposite directions and gradually spiralling in to the centre. The walls were lined with ceiling-high bookshelves, strewn with dusty books of all size, shape and content. The letter symbols printed across their spines were as meaningless to the children as they were to Jake, none of whom could read them. Jake considered that they were even less meaningful to Nimrod, whose basely perceptive brain could not distinguish the letters from the books, and could not distinguish the books from the room, and who could only sense in his perception that this place was safe and dry and inedible.

Though the books’ markings were meaningless to Gus, he already recognised the letters A, P and R on some of them, as he had seen moments ago on the calendar across the road. He also knew from their form, confirmed fully when he picked one up and opened it, that they were called books, and they contained written knowledge of men. He knew this because he had watched his father scribing with dented pencils in the small leather-bound notebook he kept in his pocket. Gus had not forgotten his father’s promise to explain his personal system of counting days, and as he flicked through the brown pages of a potentially ancient book that carried markings of no significance to him, he felt elated at the prospect of seeing his father’s writings and learning their meaning.

After stepping out a timid path through the room, too overwhelmed to touch anything that she did not recognise, Maisie made it to the middle where, sitting on a low coffee table next to the wooden rocking chair, was a small, white, carved object that captured her undivided attention, and her imagination. She knelt down and drew her face in to it, as close as she could get to fill her vision with the object, but not to obscure it beyond her shortest focal range. It was some kind of beast, she knew. Four legs like a dog, deer, pig, or fox. But these legs were thick stumps, round and only slightly tapered at the base to form not a foot as such, but a flat pad upon which toe nails had been stuck as an afterthought. The body of the beast was rotund and weighty, which seemed to rationalise the immensity of the four thick posts on which it stood. Its tail was so tiny that Maisie smiled when she looked at it, recognising something absurd about it relative to the other properties of this strange animal. Its head was large and bony, with huge ears like wings and small wise eyes that seemed to exude some manner of personhood. Not as much as her father did, but more than Nimrod did. The defining features she forced herself to examine last. One was its nose, a long snake-like protrusion that curled up into the air as if grasping for something. The other, two strange spears poking out either side of its mouth, each strangely cut short.

Jake, who had now removed his travel pack, rifles and jacket, knelt beside her. “It’s called an elephant, Maisie.”

“What is that?” she asked, in bemused wonder.

“It’s an animal. A very large animal.”

“But... it’s so tiny. And so still - is it dead?”

It occurred to Jake that Maisie had never held a carving, or owned a toy. The only likeness she had ever seen was her photograph of Emily. It had belonged to Emily’s parents, perhaps the last photograph they had ever printed before leaving their farm and taking to the woods with Alexandra and her seventeen-year-old son, Jake. They would have abandoned hope and succumbed to the same fate as their neighbours had it not been for Emily and her determinedness to follow the young man with whom she shared a powerful, adolescent desire. In a sense, Jake had thought, Emily’s lust for him had saved her parents, for a time, from their own desire to cease existing.

“It’s called a carving. Or a statue. Somebody made this with their hands. It’s like a picture of an elephant, but a lot smaller. It’s meant to make you remember what an elephant looks like, if you’ve seen one before. It’s like your picture of Mama. It’s a reminder.”

She nodded, accepting the logic.

“Have you ever seen a real elephant? How big are they really?” asked Gus.

“No, I haven’t. I think they were enormous. They lived a long way from here. Most of them were in a land across the ocean called Africa. But they all died before I was born. My mother told me that men had hunted them to gather their tusks - these things," he pointed to the broken spears on the face of the carving. “Men hunted too many of them in some places, and in other places there were too many elephants, they bred too fast and ended up destroying their own food supply, and killing themselves. Some people blamed the humans, some people blamed the elephants.”

“What did they want the tusks for?” Maisie asked.

“They were used for a lot of things. They were shaped into buttons, into statues, into plates and things. Some people even just wanted the tusk whole as it had come off the elephant. Unlike this carving, elephant tusks grew even longer than this and came to a sharp point at the tip.”

“What happened to this elephant’s tusks?” she asked, running the tip of her finger along the flattened end of the short tusks on the carving.

Jake considered the irony of the answer he had to offer. “Well, it’s only a carving. But this picture tells of an elephant whose tusks were taken to be made into something else.”

There was a pregnant pause as they all considered the story of this fictitious beast. Jake felt he heard the next question before it had been spoken.

“What’s the carving made of, Papa?” asked Gus.

Jake’s lips stretched sideways, not in a smile or a smirk, but in an awkward acquiescence to the brutality of the truth he had to now speak. “It’s made of elephant tusk.”

Tears silently rolled down Maisie’s cheeks. Gus looked at the carving grimly.

“They’re all dead?” asked Maisie, her face showing the despair of a tragic new concept. The concept of extinction.

“I think so," replied Jake, “although I did hear a story once.”

Maisie’s head jerked up to look at her father.

“When I was little, only about your age Maisie, my mother and I were travelling a long way. We had a few people with us. We’d all left the city together. I don’t remember much about the city we came from, but I remember parts of the long journey we took.

“My mum was looking for a place called Canberra. She hoped that we could find a transport there to get away from…” he paused, realising he hadn’t yet told the children the truth about the machines, “…away from danger. It was a long walk, many days. We had to stay away from the roads and highways to avoid being seen.

“A few days before we reached Canberra, we came across a man and his daughter, living in the woods. They had a big vehicle, a bit like the cars outside there,” he gestured towards the front door, “but it was like a small house, on wheels. It had lots of strange things on its roof. Things called aerials and...” he winced as if to dislodge a memory stuck behind his eyes, “something dishes. The man said he was a doctor, I don’t know exactly what that means. I think it means he knew a lot of things. He seemed very smart, and he was very nice, I remember. His daughter too. She was older than me, and she was very kind to me. I remember she read me a story from a book like one of these ones. My mum had told me lots of stories, but no-one I’d ever travelled with had books, and no-one ever read to me. I’ll never forget that girl. I can’t remember her father’s name, but her name was Olivia.”

The children had sat cross-legged, looking up at their father in the manner they were accustomed to when he began telling stories. He knew that the stories he told them always helped them make sense of the world around them. They always listened, only ever interrupting to probe for more detail - a practise Jake had always encouraged.

“Olivia and her father had travelled a long way, to lots of different places. They spoke with strange sounds in their voices. They didn’t sound like the other people I had met. They sounded like they were from another world. They also knew lots of things that no-one else knew. Their house on wheels was almost full of books, as well as many strange machines, and lots of food. They shared their food with us that night, all of us.

“Olivia’s father told us all a story around the fire. He said that when they had been out west they had seen a real, living elephant.”

Maisie gasped and clutched her chest, as if to contain her heart from escaping its proper position.

“They said there had been a zoo out there. A zoo was a place where animals lived and were cared for, even animals that didn’t belong in this land. They had been brought here, and people could go and look at them. He told us that the zoo, like all of these towns and cities, had been abandoned. Everyone left. He said the last person to leave had opened all the gates and cages, and the animals were free to leave too. He told us that he and Olivia were driving down an abandoned highway and this elephant ran across the road in front of them and disappeared back into the forest!

“The next morning, we said goodbye to Olivia and her father and journeyed on to Canberra. We never saw them again.”

“And what did you find there, in Canberra?” asked Gus.

Jake looked at him and frowned, shaking his head slightly. “Just more danger, Gussy.”

“Oh.”

Maisie’s eyes were an unfocused blur, as she stared through the room in front of her. Jake could tell that she was lost in imagination, likely picturing an empty road to the west, an elephant standing proudly by it, looking back at her.

Jake had discovered to his amazement that the water was running from the taps of the house, and gas flowing from the stovetop. He knew that there was no electricity, as no one was left to service the large utilities that were managed in the now empty battery plants that Jake remembered exploring with his mother when he was Gus’s age.

While the children packed logs into the fireplace, Jake filled two large stainless steel pots he found in the kitchen with water and lit the stove using matches he found in a drawer. He went upstairs and let cold water run into the large wrought-iron bathtub. He lit the room with some candles he had found in the kitchen. When he went back downstairs the children were laying across the floor on their bellies, by a crackling fire they had lit, each with a pile of books they had selected from the shelves of the living room. They were silently flicking through pages, looking for pictures or shapes of an interesting nature. They were studying the printed language of their ancestors, fascinated; hungry to learn. Jake’s heart sank a little, knowing that he would not be able to teach them. All he had was his way, but in this moment, watching his children seek understanding in their own manner, he realised he had fulfilled his most important commitment to them: I have taught them how to think.

His pots had boiled, and one by one he carried them upstairs with care and poured them into the bathtub, bringing the water to a luxurious warmth. He placed a bar of soap next to the tub and then invited the children to come up and enjoy their first ever warm bath, and their first soap wash in many months.

Jake settled back on the cool tiles in the corner of the bathroom watching his children clean their bodies and laugh with each other in the flickering candlelight. Soon they began to splash each other and giggle with abandon. When Maisie carelessly splashed some soapy water into Gus’s eye, making him flinch, Jake remained still and silent, watching Maisie halt her frenzy immediately and lean forward to check if her brother was okay. Jake loved watching his children, and how they loved one another. For a moment, Jake forgot that anything was missing from their tribe. He forgot about Emily, and about the threat of the world outside this house. He was happy.

When they had dried off, Jake wrapped them up in blankets and tucked them into a large double bed. He moved two candles in to light the room and he sat between them with his back against the large wooden headboard. He held his small leather-bound notebook in his hands, turning it over and over and fiddling with its leather strap while he considered what to say to the kids. They sat in silent anticipation.

Jake had spent the next hour showing the children the inside of his precious notebook, explaining his markings and what they meant. Gus was captivated and hungry to learn more. Jake had promised to show both of them how to start their own notebooks in the light of morning.

When he closed his book, he saw Maisie looking up at him, silently. Sadly. For a moment, in the candlelight, her face looked just like Emily’s. Jake’s stomach turned in knots as he opened his lips to explain. “Maisie. The woman you saw the other day, she looked a lot like your mother, almost exactly like her. But it was not your mother. She was what people call a ghost. I told you a bit about the spirits people used to call ghosts, but these things are not spirits. You can touch them. They are strong. They move like us. But they are machines. I don’t know who made them, or how. They act like us, but they aren’t people like you and I are.

“They started appearing when I was a child. Towns like this used to be full, but people started to go missing. And then ghosts would come back, looking just like them and talking like they did, and they would convince their friends and family members to leave with them. Those people would never be seen again, but they would come as ghosts too. It went on and on until there were no people left in any towns, anywhere. These ghosts never hurt anyone, not that we ever saw. Once the towns were empty, the ghosts never came back. The towns have just sat here like this one ever since, falling apart.”

“Where did everyone go?” asked Maisie.

“The truth is, I don’t know. I know what that thing has told me. She’s come to me before. The first time was the day after your Mama left us. She wanted to go and find out what it all meant. I begged her not to go, I knew that I would never see her again, that she would be killed. But she didn’t believe me. Her parents, your grandparents, had left a few months earlier and they had come back and spoken to her. They said things to her that made her believe that if she went and joined the machines she would live forever. That her mind would join her parents in some kind of paradise. That she would be... free.

“I begged her for your sake and Gussy’s not to go. But she left. And I’m telling you Maisie, that machine that visited us... that machine is not your mother. I can’t explain fully how I know it. I know for sure that the body is not hers. I know that she glows like no human should. I know that she cannot be killed. Her body is not… not vulnerable in the ways that we are. These machines are evil, kids. They are taking people and leaving ghosts behind. And they want us. We have to keep running until they can never find us again.

“My mother told me that the machines - different ones, big ugly ones - lived in the city when I was born and they stopped people from leaving. They were getting them all ready for something. But my mum and some friends of hers escaped, with me only a little kid like you, Maisie. We got out and ran. And we kept running. My mum taught me how to stay alive, and I’m teaching you. We hunt, we fish, we hide our spare guns, and we keep moving.”

“We keep moving," the children repeated in unison, as if it were a mantra they had said countless times. Maisie’s cheeks were aglow with the reflection of candles in the tracks of her tears.

Having offered up the only explanation of the frightening truth Jake knew how to give, he had sat with the children in the candlelight and held them against his chest until they both slept. After kissing each of them on the head and pulling up the blanket, he blew out one candle and invited Nimrod to come and lie on the floor next to their bed and watch over them, as he took the other candle and stepped down the stairs into the lounge, where he soon fell asleep in the rocking chair.

Jake was hurled back into the present moment after his flash recall of the hours before his sleep. He pulled his eyes back from the window to look at the coffee table one more time. “No...” he gasped under his breath. He scrambled towards the table which was lit only by the beams of moonlight pouring in. The candle stump sat on the edge of the wooden surface, drips of hardened wax streaked down its glass holder. Jake thrust his hand across the table as if reaching for an object that should have been there, but wasn’t.

“The elephant!” he grunted, his voice cracking with disbelief, and panic. His swiping hand confirmed the message his eyes were sending him - that the small ivory carving of the folkloric beast was gone. Jake’s heart exploded into his throat as he lunged his body violently towards the stairs and ran up them as fast as he could.

The thunderous clamber of Jake’s ascent had jolted Gus into wakefulness. He sat up and rubbed his eyes as Jake burst into the room and leapt onto the bed, patting the spot where Maisie had been lying. Gus looked at him, confused and foggy. Nimrod whimpered, and Jake could see that he had been leashed to the bed, hindering his ability to follow Maisie.

He didn’t bark, Jake thought in the serene background of his otherwise panicked mind, that means Maisie left on her own.

Jake bolted out of the room again, back down the stairs and frantically checked each room of the house, chanting “No, no, no!”

Finally, he reached the front door and he saw that it was - by only the width of a hair - ajar. A thin blade of moonlight sliced through the crack in the open door, and lit Jake’s body. He felt as if it were cutting him in two.

He pulled the door open and ahead of him in the blue glow he saw a dead clock tower at the end of an empty street. Silence flooded his ears as he screamed.

Maisie was gone.