Homer's

Tomorrow, When the War Began

Rewritten, extracts from pages 55-57 

The dogs were dead. They had to be. Ellie's house was second to my own, I'd seen these dogs grow from pups and not one of them did still. Not in the way they were now. In all my years on the farm, I'd only glimpsed a dog like that once. It was some tourist's chihuahua, forgotten in a boiling car. That's the closest I could compare Ellie's dogs with. They didn't have the fast death of breathlessness, the five of them dying slowly over several days while water ran out and they baked in the sun. Still heaving against their chains in death, both paws high in some twisted dance with death. Froth blanketing all-too-still, a death mask long since gone cold.

That night in Hell, we figured something was off, and this was a sign? The thoughts, calculations, came in a rapid-fire torrent, a symphony of loud crashes and bangs, threatening to overwhelm. In the instant we'd all be standing around, shell-shocked and scared, Ellie had bolted like a dog out of a truck towards the Linton's house, sitting silent and foreboding against a backdrop of bushland and sheep. Looking back over her shoulder only once, to call for Corrie. One of the dogs must've still been alive, the older one- May? - because Corrie picked up on her message right away and got Kev to do something. I dumped my pack and ran to the house. It was silent. Deathly still, bar Ellie and Corrie in the hall. Kevin was inside now, pushing past to get to the girls. Turning her face, eyes panicked and all-too-calm at once, Ellie's vacant gaze drifted to the dog lying prone in Kevin's arms. "Get her some food from the coolroom."

Grunting the affirmative, I went, hauling open the heavy white doors to get the meat inside. Only, instead of a cool draft, I was greeted with a blast of hot, pungent stink. The power was off, and it stank terrible. But even with a blackout, all the properties out here had generators with enough fuel to last several days. Therefore, if the coolroom was out, that meant the fuel had been used. And there'd been no one to stop the generator. I leaned into the confines of the stinking box; hair instantly plastered to my face by a moist sheen of sweat. In the dim light from some out-of-sight vent, I could vaguely make out the racks of festering meat, the puddles of blood and meltwater mixing on the floor. In the distance, I could hear Ellie wearing a channel through her mother's favorite carpet. What about my mother? Was she alright? Was anyone in this newly turned hellhole still alright? Turning on my heel, I headed back to the others, figuring we needed to plan how we were going to do this. Survive this. After our talk last night, I just hoped we all would.