Wake by Elizabeth Knox Page A

Jacob spotted a car parked up there, with two people in it. He called to them, and a slim, grey-haired woman got out. Jacob mimed driving around the road to join them. She raised both hands and set them as if flat on the air above the car. She was showing them where the thing was. Jacob signalled for her to try climbing down. He shouted something about safety in numbers. But by that time an old lady had stepped out of the car too, and they all realised that the job of getting her down the slope should not be undertaken so late in the day.
    It began to rain, and the two women took shelter in their car. The four retraced their steps back to the road.
    Lily Kaye was running beside the inlet to the east of Kahukura. Late on a weekday morning the road was quiet. So quiet that she’d just seen an M-class Mercedes do a leisurely U-turn across both lanes.
    When the survivors were first identified and spoken about, people would always single out Lily, who was already a celebrity. She was twenty-eight, and for the past several years hadn’t placed any lower than fourth in the world in her sport, ultra marathons. Sometimes she was fourth, and laboured over the finish line in the muted shame of almost . There were always cameras, and the news services of her country—usually mildly congratulatory, mildly consoling. And she’d have to say that, yes, she did feel she’d given it her best but this time the competition was simply in better form. They’d ask her about her knee. She’d exonerate her knee, and, along with her knee, her doctor, her trainer, her physiotherapist. Other times she’d come first. She’d cross the line in a storm of light.
    Lily reached the top of the cutting over the base of Matarau Point. She saw a long sweep of clean, pale sand, smoothed by the retreating tide. She saw Kahukura’s waterfront reserve, its cobblestone track, and flourishing plantings of flaxes. She saw the long concrete pier with white-painted piles, and, to complete the picture, one fishing boat on its way in.
    Lily shortened her stride. She would slow down, and then warm down. She’d do her stretches on the beach, and then have a protein shake and a bit of fruit salad at the Smokehouse Café. She’d call her fiancé and ask him to come and get her.
    Lily was doing everything properly, and minding her knee, when she spotted something ahead of her blocking the road, a senseless, tangled mass.
    What appeared to have happened was this: the old people had all tried to climb the fence, a stretch of chain-link along the top of the steepest bank of the cutting. They had clambered over one another, piling up in a pyramid against the fence until it hauled stakes and slid down the bank to the road, where it lay collapsed, a fishing net full of gasping fish. Many of the tangled bodies were in robes and pyjamas, and one woman wore an elegant bed jacket with swan’s-down trim. Above the filmy flounces the woman’s face was smeared with blood from a raw rip in her scalp.
    It was impossible to say how many there were. They were bent at odd angles, most were bloodied, and some were clearly already dead. None were moaning or crying out, but they were making a sound.
    Lily approached, her hands out before her, as if just by reaching she’d divine what to do. She tried to make sense of the sound.
    â€˜ Ma ma ma ma ,’ was what the old people were saying. A man with a broken tooth piercing his lip moved his mouth to utter that single syllable, musing and melodious, like a baby in its cot singing to itself on waking.
    Lily shucked off her hydration pack and pulled her phone from its pocket. It showed no bars. Lily moved it about, as though a signal were an invisible butterfly she hoped to net.
    One of the old men began to choke. Blood dribbled down his chin. Lily swooped on him, grappled him upright, but couldn’t free him from the pile. His left arm flopped, as multi-jointed as one of those bamboo