Pandora Jones: Admission

  First published in 2014

  Copyright © Barry Jonsberg 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from

  the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 811 9

  eISBN 978 1 74343551 9

  Cover & text design by Astred Hicks, Design Cherry

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters Australia

  For Jodie Webster

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  Prologue

  It took slightly under eight hours for Melbourne to die.

  When Pandora Jones thought back to that day – something she did often – there were large holes in her memory. She definitely remembered sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast and listening to the news on the radio, her mother bustling about and packing lunch for her brother Danny.

  ~~~

  The reporter’s voice droned in the background, but she wasn’t paying attention. Danny was complaining that he wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to go to school. His voice was rising in indignation as his mother insisted he would. They had been through this many times before. Danny often didn’t want to go to school, and he had a limited imagination when it came to thinking up reasons.

  ‘I’ve got a sore throat,’ he pleaded. ‘And a bad cough.’

  He coughed to lend weight to his claim. Pan thought it was a pathetic attempt and didn’t sound in the least convincing.

  The reporter was talking about the election of a new Pope and relaying reactions to the appointment from prominent Melbourne clerics. Pan zoned out and pushed her cornflakes around the bowl.

  ‘Not a chance, bucko,’ said Pan’s mum. ‘The last time I swallowed that excuse, you spent the whole day playing games on the computer.’

  ‘Not the whole day.’

  ‘Yes, the whole day,’ said Mum. ‘You forget, Daniel, that I can check exactly how much time you were online. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Now go and get ready for school.’

  ‘I’m sick!’ But he went, stomping up the stairs, demonstrating an energy at odds with his supposed illness.

  Pan’s mum raised an eyebrow at her daughter and Pan smiled. Her attention was caught by the words ‘breaking news’ on the radio, but even then she didn’t listen closely. Not at first. She took her bowl to the sink and washed it, placed it on the drainer. Then she opened her school bag, retrieved her diary and checked the timetable for the day. Pan knew she had double maths, but couldn’t remember whether it was first up. The words from the radio drifted into her consciousness.

  . . . from the eastern seaboard of the United States. Maine and Pennsylvania have confirmed cases and there are reports that parts of New Jersey are also particularly affected. More on this story from our North America correspondent, Mark McAllister. Mark.

  Thanks, Jeanette. I’m in New York City where hospitals have reported significant increases in admissions. This flu virus – and I must stress that no formal identification of the virus has yet been made – seems to be spreading at a rate that has authorities alarmed. The Mayor has appealed for calm.

  Are there any reports of fatalities, Mark?

  Nothing official as yet, Jeanette, though it is strongly rumoured that a number of people have died in Maine over the last few hours and it’s clear that authorities are taking the situation very seriously.

  What is known about this virus?

  Very little. It appears to have raised its head in a few areas of New England and spread rapidly. Fewer than twenty-four hours have elapsed since the first patient was admitted, so tests at the moment are necessarily inconclusive. We’re in a developing situation and I’ll bring all the news as it breaks.

  Thanks, Mark. And look after yourself.

  Mark coughed. Just once.

  ~~~

  Pan couldn’t remember anything else about that broadcast. She didn’t recall her mum’s reaction to the news, whether Danny actually went to school or not. She couldn’t even remember leaving home. The more she tried, the harder it became. It was like a void, a stubbornly featureless blank.

  The next thing she remembered about that day was walking to school from the station, though she could recall nothing of the train journey. She remembered a man following her through a pedestrian precinct a kilometre from her school. She remembered that it had started with a curious itch between her shoulder blades, a sense that someone was watching her. The feeling was so intense that she had stopped and turned, but at first could see nothing. Then she spotted him. A nondescript figure, moving no faster or slower than anyone else. A man in his early thirties, short-haired, wearing a suit, white cords snaking from his jacket pocket to his ears. Nothing in the least unusual in his manner. His eyes were cast to the ground and his head nodded slightly to a rhythm only he could hear. He didn’t even glance at Pan, but she knew something about him was wrong. The difficulty was pinning down exactly what.

  The precinct was crowded at that time in the morning. Retail workers were opening their stores and businessmen and women hurried past, takeaway coffee cups in hand. No harm could come to her with so many people about. She wasn’t overly anxious, but she stopped and sat on a bench and opened her school bag. She rummaged into its depths, but kept one eye on the man as he walked past. He didn’t break stride. He simply strolled past. Not too fast, not too slow. Didn’t glance at her. She gazed at his back as he threaded his way through the throng, but he didn’t turn. Within moments the crowd had swallowed him.

  Her imagination was working overtime – not for the first time. This was something her mother and her teachers knew only too well. ‘Pandora is gifted with a fertile and formidable imagination,’ her last English report had read. ‘But she would be well advised to exercise fuller control over it.’ There was truth in that. She had to admit it. But she also knew an overactive imagination didn’t explain everything.

  She had experienced things like this before. Feelings. Intuition. Hunches. Pan had no name for it that quite expressed the way it felt inside. Maybe it was a heightened ability to read faces, body language, situations, the environment. But she couldn’t pretend her ability didn’t exist. There was too much evidence. Like the time she knew her best friend, Joanne, had sp
lit with her boyfriend. Pan knew before Joanne told her. Or when she could picture where her mum’s misplaced keys were. And her maths teacher last year. He appeared the picture of health – always running to school. He’d even competed in the London marathon and finished in the top hundred. Yet Pan had sensed, as he stood at the whiteboard one day, that there was something . . . broken inside. She had gone to his funeral, just one pupil among many. But she was probably the only one present who had not been surprised by his sudden and catastrophic heart attack.

  It didn’t always work. Sometimes these hunches, these intuitions, proved groundless. Yet she wasn’t altogether convinced that just because no evidence came to light, she was wrong.

  Pan sighed. There was no point going over all this. She had to trust her own feelings. The guy had been watching her. The fact that his eyes never appeared to fix on her didn’t change that. Perhaps he was simply a freak, someone who got off on watching sixteen-year-old schoolgirls. That happened.

  Pan picked up her school bag. Through the crowd a face appeared, smiled. Joanne waved and Pan waved back. She got to her feet and joined her friend.

  ~~~

  Another break. Another void. Pan was sitting in class, but she had no idea which one. There was a relief teacher, a large woman with a prominent mole on her right cheek. Pan hadn’t seen her before and she thought she knew all the relief teachers her school employed. The woman was talking at the front of the class. Pan gazed around the classroom. So many students were away. Her classes normally included twenty-five students, but today there were no more than six or seven present. Later, when she tried to recall their identities, she drew another blank.

  ‘Turn to page one hundred and forty in your textbooks and read the chapter. Then answer the questions that I will write on the board. Write in your . . .’ The woman coughed. She brought her hand to her mouth and coughed again. She bent over slightly as she did so and placed her other hand against her chest. The class was silent. The woman drew a deep breath and straightened.

  ‘I’m sorry. As I was saying . . .’

  The next coughing fit was more violent. This time she put both hands to her face, which had turned a pale shade of blue. Her eyes bulged. The coughing was tearing her apart. She stumbled forward and sat down heavily on a chair in the deserted front row. Pan stood, unsure whether the teacher needed help or whether the paroxysm would pass of its own accord. It didn’t. Each cough racked her body and the woman was clearly having difficulty finding breath. Her complexion darkened and her body doubled over so far her face nearly touched the ground. Pan rushed to the front of the class. She was dimly aware that no one else had moved. What were you supposed to do in these circumstances? Pat her on the back and hope it would pass or go for help from the front office? She wasn’t sure. The woman toppled from the chair and lay on her side, still coughing violently. Pan knelt at her side. The teacher’s eyes were wide with fear. She took one hand from her mouth and reached out for Pan as if for aid or comfort. Pan grasped it. It took a few moments before she realised the hand was wet and sticky. Instinctively, she tried to withdraw it, but the woman’s grip was too strong.

  It didn’t seem possible, but the coughing increased in violence and frequency. The side of the woman’s face was badged in blood. Her other hand fell away from her mouth and it too was covered in a thick film of red. Pan felt sick, but she couldn’t move. The woman was holding on so tightly it was like she was trying to draw Pan into a kind of perverse embrace.

  The final cough wasn’t as violent as the others, but it sent a spray of fine red droplets into Pan’s face and hair. She recoiled and this time the woman’s grip broke. Pan held her own hands up before her face, saw the blood. When she looked down, the teacher’s eyes were wide open, as if astonished, glazed and staring through her.

  ~~~

  Another gap. Pan walked down a city street. There were shops and cafes, seating areas along the pavement, bright with canopies and umbrellas. Birds hopped onto tables and pecked at plates. Most of the tables were deserted, only a few people sitting alone and curiously still. Pan put a hand to her forehead. She was feeling hot and her hand came away damp with sweat. There was something wrong with her vision as well. The world had a curious cast, as if she was somehow distanced from what was going on around her. It was difficult to focus on anything and her peripheral vision swam with lozenge-shaped forms, like bacteria swimming under a microscope. Was she sick? She seemed to remember that someone else had been very sick recently, but she couldn’t pin the memory down. Her legs felt heavy and she had to physically force her body to take one step after another.

  There was something wrong about the situation but Pan couldn’t identify it at first. Something to do with sound. The birds were shrill, chattering to each other. Unnaturally loud in the surrounding silence. She forced herself to concentrate. That was it. The surrounding silence. At this time of day – she glanced at her watch to check, but there was nothing on her wrist other than a pale band of skin where sunlight hadn’t touched – there should be traffic, the constant noise of conversation, the hubbub of a city in operation. Pan stopped and looked around. Cars were parked at illegal angles. A tram had stopped in the middle of the street, its doors open, and Pan could see the shape of the driver, a dark silhouette against the sun. He wasn’t moving. Her attention was caught by a sudden movement further down the street. A person stumbled from a shop. It was a woman. She had a bundle of dresses draped over her arm. A jumble of coat hangers formed a kaleidoscope of metal that trailed behind her. The woman stopped and put a hand out to a lamppost, steadying herself for a moment. She hugged the dresses to her side.

  A sound and a movement off to Pan’s right. She turned her head but it was like forcing something that had seized up. She could feel the bones in her neck creak and click. A car swayed and swerved, though it was going no faster than twenty or thirty kilometres an hour. Sunlight blazed from its windscreen and Pan flinched as a dagger of reflected light stabbed her eyes. She couldn’t see who was driving. The car scraped along a parked car and the screech of metal against metal was another source of pain. The car didn’t stop. It bounced off the other car and sideswiped the tram. Even then it didn’t stop. It kept going down the street at the same slow pace. Pan knew what was going to happen, but she didn’t understand why she knew. The woman – a shoplifter? She wasn’t carrying any bags – stepped out onto the road. Her eyes were fixed on the other side of the street as if salvation lay that way. She didn’t glance to left or right. The car didn’t deviate either. It caught her a glancing blow and the woman flipped into the air, performed half a turn. It was almost beautiful in execution. Until Pan heard the woman’s head hit the bitumen. Even at a distance the crunch was sickeningly final. Immediately a pool of blood spread from the ruined skull and drew lazy patterns against the ground.

  Pan couldn’t move. She watched as the woman’s arm twitched and reached for the pile of clothes. Her hand clutched the dresses and then stilled. The car continued down the street for another thirty or forty metres and then veered onto the footpath. It hit a parking meter, twisting it into a grotesque angle, before ploughing into a shop window. The window crazed and then fell in great lumps of powdered glass. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The car’s door opened, but no one got out. Pan watched for a few minutes, but nothing happened. Silence returned, broken only by squabbling of birdcall.

  Pan was tired. Suddenly it was impossible to get her body to move. There were thoughts at the back of her mind, but they were slippery and elusive. She should help. She should go over to the woman, see if there was anything she could do for her. Go and check on the driver of the car. Isn’t that what people did in these situations? But it was all too hard. She needed to sit down, gather her thoughts, find strength from somewhere. Even that was difficult.

  She realised she was standing by a street-side cafe. There were metal chairs arranged under umbrellas advertising Italian coffee. She needed to sit. Just for a moment. Then she would go and
see if she could be of any assistance. Pan was already forgetting why assistance might be needed. Sit down. Just for a moment. She forced her legs to move, but it was difficult to exert control. She almost fell, had to reach out a hand to steady herself. Finally, she slumped into a chair. The coldness of the metal against her legs was delicious. Pan put her hands down on the table and tried to resist the temptation to put her forehead against the cold surface. A nagging thought at the back of her mind warned her that if she rested now she might never get up again. But she closed her eyes anyway. The light was painful and there were thoughts she needed to sort out. A destination. A place she must get to. Home. That was it. She had to get home, but she had no idea where home was.

  The hand that clasped her wrist did not even cause her to flinch. She opened her eyes and watched the hand incuriously. It was knotted with tendons and held onto her with a fierce and desperate strength. She could see her own hand blanching as blood flow was cut off. Pan followed the hand until she saw the wrist and then the arm. There was something familiar about the material of the sleeve that hovered in her vision but, once again, the memory eluded her. She turned her face upwards.

  A police officer. Of course. A small part of her was relieved. Police sorted things out. They made things better, established order. Pan wasn’t sure how she knew, but this was a situation that required the establishment of order. He was probably in his thirties and had a thin moustache. The skin on his face was pockmarked with old acne scars. But his eyes were what held her. They were wild with some emotion that was difficult to identify. Fear? Horror? His mouth opened and Pan noticed that a small trail of blood oozed from one side.

  ‘All dead,’ said the man.

  Pan tried to remember how to talk and it was surprisingly difficult. At first she just managed a croak.

  ‘Dead?’ she said finally.

  The police officer nodded vigorously and Pan was pleased she had understood. For some reason she felt it was important to impress this man with her grasp of the situation.