Aftermath, p.13
Aftermath, page 13
My girls died, of course. I don’t know any details, or where their bodies are. I guess someone, somewhere put them into a mass incinerator, the way they had in ‘22 and ‘24. Within days, the news was full of pandemic death and horror — and death statistics which I consumed with a sort of mortified fascination. Mass burnings of the deceased, hospitals choking, international crisis. Before long there were too many bodies and not enough burners, so the bodies lay where they fell and choked the city streets and even our little town was a reeking mess. Then the news slowed down to a trickle, then it stopped altogether. Within a month the power went off.
I took a drive about six weeks after my birthday and raided the supermarket. Between the rats and the rotting mess of once-fresh produce, I hauled out trolleys full of gas canisters, candles, tinned food, grains, cereal, anything dried or stable enough to last indefinitely, then I went home and holed up, waiting for God only knows what.
I got sick the next day. I knew what it was and I welcomed it. The thing I’d started by visiting my neighbour had sent humanity into what appeared to be its final spiral and I was ready to take my place in it. Blue swirls appeared on my arms, my throat swelled, and my breath came in gasps. I pulled a chair onto the veranda, got a glass of water and sat down to die. I faded in and out of consciousness for what seemed like days, and that was where John found me.
He pulled me into the house, poured cold water over my emaciated body and wiped the crusts of vomit from my face. He fed me soup until I came to and then he put me to bed. Day after day he tended me until I could walk again.
That was last summer. John, myself and four other households in a town of around three thousand had survived: a grand total of eighteen people. There was no way of knowing who else was alive, but there was nothing to give us hope either. No planes, no cars, no smoke on the horizon. Over the months the world seemed to creep in around us. We watched the stars at night, planted vegetables by day, ate root-soups and pumpkins and things from tins at night.
Then came the day I woke up to find a woman stealing my pumpkins.
After giving her the vegetables, I curl up on the couch, arms around my legs. God I’m skinny, just bones and loose skin hanging off them. I can feel myself shaking but it’s not until I feel wet on my knees that I realise I’m crying, silent tears pouring from eyes sharp as salt. Children! I hadn’t seen a child in over a year except for the teenage brothers from the other side of the river and I only see them every couple of weeks at trade day when we meet in town, or what remains of town, to swap whatever produce we’ve got and have cautious conversations. Those boys, what future is there for them?
John arrives with tinned fish, rice and dried peas for our supper. Wiping my eyes, I greet him and his offering as enthusiastically as I can. He’s a good man and it’s great to have food and friendship, but man does tinned food get boring!
We’re munching away placidly, a couple of old cows chewing cud in silence, when a dust cloud rolls up the road and Anahera’s old ute pulls into the drive, rattling the disintegrating bitumen into meal.
She and a bunch of kids spill out, four of them, brown and rumpled as nuts. She drops a box on the veranda, the same one I’d given her earlier, and in it — heavens above, a chicken! A fire-roasted chicken, potatoes and chunks of golden baked pumpkin.
Sitting down with a sigh, she pulls a leg off the chicken and offers it to me. Grease drips off the smoky drumstick and down my chin. The children tumble into a comfortable pile and attack the food.
A pair of kererū fly over, their wings beating the air like mini drums. I look up at the twilight sky and can’t stop smiling. John reaches over and takes my hand in his.
Somewhere deep inside a small thing slides into place.
Been awhile since I saw that many pumpkins in one place. A good feed for a village, or a few families for the better part of a year, maybe. Seeing those purple rings, though — that set me back a bit. Lost my wife that way. But that’s nothing, they say, compared to seeing your city drown before your eyes. Grab an oar and help me slide that row-boat into the water, would you? Mind your feet, the water’s hot.
Thermal Images
by Deryn Pittar
“Turn it down,” some grump bellowed over the music coming from the speakers on the stage.
“Don’t be such a spoil-sport,” I called out. “Come and join us.”
Heads were shaken, grumbles were heard, chairs pushed back and the last of the revellers left us to it. “What a lot of party poopers,” I commented and Paul nodded his head, looking like a wise man. His balding head with its stray wisps of hair looked out of place above his large white beard, which was immaculately trimmed, despite its bulk. The song selection finished and I turned off the casting app on my phone. It appeared not everyone had enjoyed my taste in music.
Through the windows of the lounge, the moon walked its beam across the lake toward us. Like an inviting path it beckoned, broken only by the occasional ripple. A beautiful, still evening hid the plundered city and heat buried below its surface.
“Hard to believe how the lake has crept inland, isn’t it?”
“Scary stuff,” Paul replied. “You never know what nature’s going to throw at you.”
After a few moments of silence, he continued. “Did I ever tell you the story about my grandfather and what lurks in the geothermal area beneath this lake?” I shook my head. He told lots of stories, but I hadn’t heard that particular one.
“It went like this: years ago Granddad went to Geysercon, a gathering of Speculative Fiction fans. He shared a room with some guy called Hendrik who said he was from off-planet. It turned out he’d arrived on his pet quonk. He’d tethered the creature in the bushes behind the hotel, and in the dead of night Granddad went with this guy to feed it. Never having seen a quonk, he couldn’t resist the opportunity. They walked the creature to the Pōhutu Geyser, where it munched on the sulphur rock and pranced among the steaming vents. When Hendrik tried to recapture it, the animal swallowed him whole, elongated itself into a narrow tube and then slid down Pōhutu’s vent. Grandad wondered if he’d hallucinated the whole thing until the geyser spat out Hendrik’s trainers. Apparently, quonks don’t eat shoes. He never told the authorities and was too scared to retrieve the shoes in case the quonk emerged and ate him, too. Granddad always said if that animal bred with a taniwha then we’d be in all sorts of trouble.”
“Did he drink, your Granddad?”
“Nah, reckoned he was stone-cold sober at the time. But who would believe him? He reported his room-mate missing the next morning and the police found the shoes, but Granddad never breathed a word of what actually happened.”
“Do you reckon it’s a true story?” I asked.
“Might explain why the geothermal area beneath the city has collapsed. Perhaps the quonk has eaten the cavern walls away,” Paul offered, his answer to the lake’s invasion of the city.
And on that sobering thought, we took the lift to the top story of the old hospital and went to bed. It was a very basic setup, but the previous hotel accommodation was no longer available.
The next morning, I peered over the side of the boat into the waters of the enlarged lake as we floated above the ruins of Whakarewarewa village. In the crystal waters the ridge of the marae’s meeting house roof reached toward the surface and looked almost within touching distance. My hand hovered over the water until common-sense made me pause. I had no idea of the water’s temperature, and burnt fingers weren’t in today’s plan. The boat drifted over to where the scalding cooking pools once sat amongst the stones and concrete slabs where bubbles streamed up and broke on the surface as the springs continued to expel their hot breath into the water above.
Further over, Pōhutu, the famous geyser, was playing. Although submerged, it managed to puff and spout its boiling water and steam through the lake’s surface with a splendid display of suppressed energy. No longer as impressive as when it stood on its sulphur rock promontory, it still did its best each day, as if to echo the undefeated spirit of the drowned city.
The catastrophic collapse of the geothermal system on the lake’s edge, from Ōhinemutu marae through the central city to Whakarewarewa, had left Rotorua hospital perched on its hill, an island of mercy in a sea of destruction. The catastrophic event had happened over the course of a few days, creeping ever southward as residents, shopkeepers, moteliers and government employees vacated premises, and hospital patients were ferried away.
A few foolhardy souls lost their lives trying to retrieve personal possessions and valuables, but the lake showed no mercy. Everywhere the ground gave way, the lake rushed in to level out its surface.
‘A National Disaster,’ the papers screamed, and indeed it was. As the centre of a thriving tourist business, the thermal area of Rotorua had provided heat and sustenance to its inhabitants and income to many. The city’s heart had been swallowed, drowned. Years previously, when the hot water levels dropped from excess withdrawal, all of the bores had been compulsorily sealed. The thermal activity rebuilt to magnificent proportions until — boom, hiss, fizz — it had burst at the seams and the subterranean chambers had collapsed, allowing the lake to fill the void.
That was the theory.
We’d been hired by the Rotorua Tourist Bureau to survey the area and find something, anything, to attract tourist dollars. The outlying thermal fields still operated but the heart of the city, submerged and depressingly wet, continued to dampen the city’s soul.
The authorities were desperate, and Paul and I had a reputation for finding imaginative solutions to no-hope situations.
This morning, we were considering whether trips to view a submerged village would bring tourists in, but it was an uninspiring sight. Certainly not something you’d pay good dollars to view. I peered into the blue tinted depth, certain that I’d seen movement and wondered if the trout population had already settled in these warmer waters. Trout springs were a bit passé. People said, ‘If you’ve seen one trout, you’ve seen them all’. Wisps of steam drifted across my vision, blurring visibility.
Was that a gigantic trout? A fishy snout protruded from the entrance of the sunken meeting house. It looked like a crocodile’s nose, but we don’t have crocs in New Zealand. I waved my hand at Paul as he moved to start the outboard motor.
“Don’t,” I hissed. “There’s something down there. The motor might scare it. Have a look.”
He moved to stand beside me, nearly tipping the small craft. I gripped the side and turned my head to whisper in his ear, “Careful. Look over the other side. The meeting house is beneath us. Watch the entrance.”
We sat in silence with only the slap of the water on the dinghy’s hull and the call of the birds in the high bluff above. Caught in an eddy, the boat turned and swung in a circle. The smell of sulphur drifted in the steam around us. The breeze dropped and the water’s surface mirrored the sun.
Thank goodness I had my sunglasses on or I’d have missed it. Yes, there it was again.
“Do you see it?” I whispered.
Paul inhaled, “My God, it’s huge.”
Floating out of the doorway below us, an ugly head protruded. It slid from the building, followed by its slowly emerging length of scaly flesh. At least a metre wide, the thing’s body seemed endless. It must have been curled tight inside the meeting house, but what was it?
Then I realised its possibilities — a taniwha! Supposedly mythical, there were many versions of what they were supposed to look like, but the real thing below encompassed only some of the imagined traits. As I watched, its tongue stretched out and circled, as if smelling the water. It stiffened, and then shot away to our left, out of sight.
“Am I hallucinating?” Paul asked. “That thing is must be ten to fifteen metres long? Could it be an eel?”
“I don’t think they grow that big,” I said. “Let’s just sit quietly and hope it comes back. Get the camera ready.” It returned a while later, a fat trout protruding between its sharp teeth. It wasn’t a beast you’d want to bathe with; cancel ‘swimming with a taniwha’ as a tag line on a brochure.
Paul passed me the underwater camera. I attached the control rod then slipped it over the side and into the water. I tried not to cause a disturbance as I aimed it in the direction of the meeting house. I shot a couple of stills but doubted I’d been in time to catch the beast’s tail before it retreated into its lair.
“Let’s hope it moves again. We need proof, or no one will believe us.”
“If we’d had a sensible early night they might, but our noisy evening won’t have gone unnoticed.” Regret tinged Paul’s voice. It’s not every day you see a taniwha.
An hour passed, but neither of us was prepared to leave without solid evidence. We missed its exit but the split in the water’s surface and the rearing of the animal’s snout shocked us into action. I aimed the camera, Paul held up his phone and then with a splash it was gone. It streaked past the boat, turned in a circle and headed back toward us. Fear ached in my throat, my pulse thundered in my ears as I stood and faced it down in the rocking boat, positive it would ram us and equally determined someone would eventually find the camera and look at the shots to see how we’d died. All a bit over-dramatic really, because it stopped, nudged the boat a couple of times, then reared up to have a good look at us.
Its breath reeked of fish and sulphur. Its gaze caressed us. Its repulsive head with a double row of sharp teeth loomed above us. My heart stopped and I swear it was sizing up the taste of the boat. To our great relief it slid back into the water and swam around, turning on its back, inviting a tummy scratch. We declined, even though we had a set of oars available in case the outboard motor broke down. We could have obliged. Honestly, it seemed quite friendly, as if it wanted to talk.
The camera ran out of storage space, as did Paul’s phone. Even the sound of the outboard motor didn’t chase it away. It followed us for a few hundred metres before turning, slapping the water with its tail and disappearing into deeper water.
“You know,” said Paul, breaking the strained silence, “that could be a quonk; or a taniwha crossed with a quonk. Seemed to be able to stretch itself into various lengths.”
“It might be the same quonk, and not a taniwha at all,” I offered.
“Could be, and probably is. The story of the quonk has been a family secret for so long, it’s a bit late now to try and convince people it actually happened. Who’s going to believe in an off-world visitor and his pet?”
“Point taken; we’ll stick to the taniwha label then.”
And that’s what we did.
Today you’ll find the old hospital building converted into a luxury tourist hotel. The taniwha tours that depart daily from the jetty sustain the city. The commercial district is rebuilding around the edge of the lake, and a taniwha has replaced the city’s previous logo of a geyser.
We are the envy of the world. The legend of the Loch Ness monster has faded into insignificance. Our ‘taniwha’, immense and visible, is the greatest attraction ever. It seems tame; rises and cavorts for visitors, but because I know the story of the quonk that disappeared down Pōhutu’s vent, I never trust it. There could be more of them beneath the earth’s crust, waiting to emerge as the geothermal field collapses. This one stretches like a quonk, yet people believe it’s a taniwha. What do you think?
Our private tourist launch displays the sign:
“Feeding the Taniwha is forbidden. You could be its next meal.”
People laugh. They think it’s a joke, but you and I know the truth.
You know, the further we go, the less upset I am about all this destruction. Yeah, it’s terrible and all, but maybe it’s also an opportunity. A chance to do things differently this time around. What would you change if you could do it all over? Yeah? Me too.
Whakatikatika
by Bing Turkby
Hemi came to see me this morning, like he does every day now.
“How you doing, old girl?” he asks.
“Give it a rest,” I croak. “I’m not that old.”
“You’re older than most of your people.”
This is true. Ever since the timequake disaster Pākehā have been having a rough time of it, health-wise. Our life expectancy is now ten years less than that of Māori and there’s no way to know if it has stabilised, or if there are more surprises to come.
I struggle up from my table to make a cup of tea for Hemi. As I move shakily to the kitchen counter I belatedly realise he’s brought someone with him. They’re lurking outside the doorway, standing on the porch. My eyesight isn’t so good now, but I can make out the long dark hair and lanky teenage form of Hemi’s niece Arataki.
She’s leaning on a rail, arms crossed, looking out over the Turakina Valley as the sun kisses the tops of the trees.
My house isn’t much more than a rough hut but the view is astonishing. It’s all about location, as the real estate agents used to say. Back when we had real estate agents.
‘Don’t lean too hard on that rail, dear,’ I call out. ‘I built it myself. It’s not exactly up to health and safety standards.’
Hemi chuckles, mainly for my benefit, I think.
He keeps saying laughter is the best medicine and since he’s the only healer tohunga in the immediate vicinity and is struggling under the workload he’s inherited from the timequake, it’s one of the few medicines he can prescribe in abundance.
