Leon leaped up and took off again because he knew Kurt would quickly be after him. Like a startled wallaby, he ran, smashing through shrubs and wattles, somersaulting over a log. Somehow his knee was still working. His feet flew and he stayed upright, riding on adrenaline. Kurt would be running too; there was no point worrying about noise.
A shot bit a tree behind him and he thrashed through bushes, ducking, dodging, trying to stay out of sight. At the edge of another logged area, he paused. In the empty wasteland, three trees stood like soldiers, and the ground was bundles of bark and branches. He had no choice—he had to run across that raw open space. Committed, he sprinted, completely exposed, barrelling wildly over the terrain, stumbling and falling. If he made it to the forest he would gallop downhill, try to find the track back to his car.
Air sighed around him, and down came the rain. It sounded like a river pouring from the sky, water rushing over stones. He was drenched in seconds.
He saw the edge of the clearing and strained to reach it. He was sodden, clothes glued to his back. Leaping into the arms of the bush, he slithered and fell, catching on sticks and tangling in a snarl of grass. His right leg folded, caught in a web of bark, and his shoulder slammed into a log: the pain wrung a cry from him. Staggering, he forced himself up and thrust on downhill. He would make his body work and to hell with the agony.
Through the rain, he heard shouting. ‘You bastard, where are you?’
Then Leon broke from the bush onto the track and ran, pumping his arms despite the wrenched shoulder, rain streaming down his face. Thank God for the footy training. His legs were hard and his mind was strong. But once Kurt hit the track, he’d be fast too.
As Leon ran, he found a rhythm of sorts, puffing with each stride. Through the curtain of rain, he could hardly see where he was going. Any time now, Kurt would be out of the bush and shooting at him.
A loud crack from behind kicked up mud at his heels, and Leon launched sideways, diving like a goalkeeper into the bush. He churned uphill, windmilling as he shoved aside shrubs. Wire grass tore at his skin and caught round his legs, slowing him like fishing line.
Twenty metres uphill he hid in a patch of daisy bushes, buying time and breath. At first he could only hear his own rasping inhalations and the patter of raindrops on leaves. The downpour provided cover of sorts and he was thankful for it, but how long would it last? He had no idea how far he was from the Toyota, twenty metres or two hundred. And now he’d stopped, the cold began to eat into him and the shivers took hold. He was wet, torn and bleeding, bits of bush in his hair, leaves down his back, bracken in his boots, a leech in his eye. He plucked it out: swollen and oozing blood.
Kurt must still be on the track. Shouldn’t he have appeared by now? But time had become strangely warped since Kurt had first shot at him, and Leon couldn’t tell how long that lunatic had been chasing him.
As he waited, he had a feeling of being outside himself. He was an eagle up in the canopy, looking down at his filthy tattered self, hunched on the ground. He saw his own terror as if it belonged to someone else, right down to the blanched look on his face and the spots of blood from the leech bites. Visions spiralled and flashed in his head. He was sea-kayaking on the calm channel near Bruny Island, dipping his paddle and weaving between swans. He was riding the ferry across the water—no, he was a cormorant skimming low over waves. He was fishing off the rocks below Fluted Cape. He was sprawled on a blanket on the Cape, losing his virginity to a young woman, her kisses like butterflies on his face. He was kicking footballs on the beach with his dad. He was at the lighthouse looking out over the great Southern Ocean. He was up on the cliffs, yelling into the wind.
Then a flash of red snapped him back into his body—Kurt was creeping along, far too close. Slowly, Leon eased through the bushes, wiping water from his eyes. Branches pulled back, dousing him as they recoiled. He stopped. Between bundles of grass, he watched Kurt searching the forest. Then Kurt swung his way, and Leon breathed through his teeth, telling himself to hold, hold …
A racket came from upslope, directly in line with his hiding place. Probably a wallaby. Such rotten bad luck. Kurt trained the rifle and took a shot. It smacked into a tree. ‘Move again, you bastard,’ Kurt yelled. ‘I’m going to get you.’
Three more shots, then Leon heard him reloading. Now it was time to go. If Kurt came into the forest, he would be an easy target. But how to shift without drawing attention?
Kurt moved first and continued along the track, passing just a few metres away. On his back, Leon squinted into the falling rain, almost hysterical with relief. His hands were trembling and his chest was tight, his nerves shredded. He crawled uphill, dodging sticks and rustling through grass.
Then he slipped and fell on a branch with a sudden sharp snap. Through the tumbling rain he heard the thud of running footsteps on the track—Kurt was onto him.
A loud crash pinpointed the moment Kurt plunged into the bush. Then a volley of gunshots hit a tree trunk just downslope. The wallaby startled from its hiding place, scarpering frantically along a runway to Leon’s right, hind legs beating the ground. Kurt veered Leon’s way.
Frantic, Leon scrambled uphill, pushing through clumps of grass that raked his neck and flayed his hands. He managed to stay ahead and out of sight while Kurt cast back and forth, firing into patches of undergrowth. Each rifle crack made Leon flinch.
As Kurt progressed uphill, Leon started down again, staying low over rocks and fallen logs, nests of sticks and grass. Ahead the bush thinned; he saw an opening and drove himself towards it. He was noisy now, relying on a delay before Kurt broke after him.
Then he was out on the track. But he’d come too far! Past where he’d parked the Toyota. And Kurt was following fast.
He bolted along the trail. No one could catch him on the footy field, and he had never had more motivation than now. The only thing he couldn’t beat was a bullet.
The tall tree loomed ahead, Miki’s tree. But Kurt’s ute was parked on the track, and there was no way Leon could get the Toyota around it. He was gutted—he would have to go bush again.
Then it occurred to him to check Kurt’s car in case he’d left the keys behind. He jerked open the door. The keys were in the ignition. With racing heart, he clambered in and turned the key, and the engine roared to life. But he had no choice other than to drive towards Kurt and the gun; the Toyota and trailer were blocking the track in the other direction.
Leon shoved the ute into reverse and swung it round so he could get the hell out of there. Grinding it into first, he revved the engine, his foot slipping off the clutch. The ute jerked forward, and he crunched it into the next gear, gaining speed. He rounded a corner.
There was Kurt, crouched on the track, rifle aimed at him. Huddling behind the wheel, Leon floored the accelerator. He had to drive straight at Kurt; he couldn’t stop now. The shot smacked—not through the windscreen, as he’d expected, but into a tyre—and the vehicle faltered and swayed, slewing sideways. Leon tried to correct, but the wheels were slipping.
He felt a sickening thud as he hit something before slamming into a tree trunk at the side of the track. The vehicle tipped. Glass tinkled. The side door sheared off. Leon slumped in the driver’s seat, disoriented by the sudden halt and a blossoming pain in his ribcage. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move; he could die here. But instinct propelled him out through the torn door and into the scrub.
On hands and knees, and buckled over with pain, he crawled uphill, trying to distance himself from Kurt and the ruined ute. Eventually, he stopped to inspect his injuries. He was a wreck: lacerations everywhere, a massive abrasion on his abdomen where he’d rammed into the steering wheel. Was he bleeding internally?
He couldn’t hear Kurt, so he lay down among dripping bracken fern while the trees spun in a vortex above. The rain eased, and he still couldn’t hear anything. Had he escaped? Why wasn’t Kurt following him? Had he given up, or was he being deliberately silent, planning to ambush Leon if
he headed back to the Toyota?
With a sick feeling, Leon realised it was possible he’d hit Kurt on the track. But he couldn’t think about that now. He couldn’t go back. If Kurt was waiting for him, there would be no second chances.
He hauled himself to his feet because that was what he had to do. He couldn’t stay here. It was quiet now, but Kurt might still come for him. He stumbled forward on rubbery legs. He had to get through the forest and find another way out.
44
It was Max who saw the white Toyota go past. He was in the playground at recess, hanging out with Lily Moon down by the fence during a break in the rain. They had just seen a helicopter fly over, and then Leon’s LandCruiser swung into the street. ‘Hey,’ he said to Lily when he saw the Parks logo on the driver’s side door. ‘Here comes Leon.’ They climbed onto the fence to wave, but Leon didn’t wave back. He was bent over the steering wheel and driving fast, so maybe he didn’t see them. But Max thought it was weird. Leon always waved to him, and he and Lily had been easy to see, jiggling like crazy on the fence.
The bell rang and they trudged back to class. Mum had come in for reading. She’d been doing it every week since she found out about Jaden. She said it was to make sure Max’s reading was on track, but he knew she was keeping an eye on him. It was annoying because he could look after himself. The principal was watching out for him now and the teachers were too, and he had Lily Moon for a friend, which was good because she was tough. Whenever they ran into Jaden, she glared at him and he walked away. ‘He’s scared of me,’ she would say. But Max reckoned it was Lily’s dad that Jaden was scared of, because Mooney was frightening—all the kids thought so.
Mum had brought Suzie with her to reading, and Miss Myrtle gave Suzie colouring-in to do. Mum wanted to hear Max read first, before she listened to other kids.
‘Can’t you listen to someone else first today?’ Max asked, as Mum sat down beside him. He could smell cigarette smoke on her jumper, mixed with the sweetness of her perfume.
‘Come on, Max,’ she said. ‘Let’s just get started.’
He couldn’t concentrate because he was thinking about Leon. Then Max realised—it hadn’t been Leon driving the car.
Mum was getting impatient. ‘Come on, Max. Try a bit harder.’
‘Mum,’ he said urgently, ‘Lily and me saw Leon’s work car at recess, but it wasn’t him driving.’
Mum’s brow furrowed and she shrugged. ‘There are lots of people who work for Parks.’
‘I think it was Kurt,’ Max said. ‘I think Kurt was in Leon’s car.’
Mum looked bothered then. ‘Couldn’t be. You must have got it wrong.’
But the more Max thought about it, the more certain he was. ‘Kurt shouldn’t be in Leon’s car, should he?’ Max said.
‘No,’ Mum replied. She stood up and tugged her phone from her big pink handbag. ‘I’ll call Fergus. Even if you’re wrong, he should know.’
She went out of the classroom, and Max sat staring at his book instead of reading. Why would Kurt be driving Leon’s car? How would he have got it? And where was Leon? Why had he let Kurt take his car?
When Mum came back, her face was white, even under all her makeup. She went to Miss Myrtle and they had a quiet talk. Miss Myrtle glanced at Max, then Mum came over and said she was leaving.
‘What did Fergus say?’ Max asked.
‘He said thank you, and that he was going to look into it.’
Max knew she wasn’t telling him everything. She was giving him a fake smile to make him feel good, but he could see tightness in her eyes. ‘Is Leon okay?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I’ll tell you later.’
‘No. Tell me now, Mum.’
Her face was serious. ‘He’s missing, Max. The police special operations group has gone out to find him.’
Max thought of the helicopter he and Lily had seen flying over. ‘Is Leon hurt?’
‘He might be.’
Max was worried now. ‘Can I come too? I need to know what’s happened to him.’
Mum’s eyes locked with his again. She knew how important Leon was to him. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to the teacher.’
Outside, the rain had stopped but the sky was murky. Max could smell smoke in the air. Usually rain washed all the wood smoke away, so Max wondered if there was a house fire somewhere: they happened sometimes around here. Mum said it was a bad thing in Tasmania that so many houses burned down. It was because people had open fireplaces and weren’t careful enough—not everyone had fireguards round their hearths. People knew it was a problem, but they thought it wouldn’t happen to them.
Max, Mum and Suzie were walking towards the school gate when he heard the siren go off at the fire station. He raced out the gate and looked up the road. Brown smoke was billowing into the sky.
‘That looks close,’ Mum said. ‘I reckon it might be in town.’
She picked Suzie up, and they walked fast towards the main street. Toby’s ute raced past them to the fire station. Not long after, the fire engine lumbered out, lights flashing, siren wailing.
The cloud of smoke was ballooning up into the sky, and it smelled so bad Max wasn’t sure he wanted to go any closer. But Mum was rushing as though she was being pulled by a magnet. She took a short cut across the park, dragging Suzie like a dog on a lead.
Max jogged along with them, crossing the footbridge and hurrying up the gravel path into town. By the time they reached the main street, he heard roaring as if a dragon had been let loose, like in The Hobbit. The smoke was black and seemed angry.
‘It’s one of the shops,’ Mum said.
Across the road, people were standing on the footpath, watching the fire. Max felt a jerk in his guts like he’d been shot. Miki’s takeaway shop was burning, flames whipping and clawing like a wild beast, dancing in the windows, pouring from under the roof. The fire engine was in the middle of the street, and Toby and the other volunteer firemen were rushing around hooking up hoses.
‘Is anyone inside?’ Mum called out. ‘Has anyone thought about Miki?’ She had Suzie perched on her hip, and Suzie was crying but you could hardly hear her above the noise of the fire.
Shocked faces turned to Mum: Trudi, her eyes as big and sad as an owl’s; Lily’s mum, Liz. Other people too.
‘She might be inside,’ Mum yelled. ‘Kurt locks her in.’
‘No one’s alive in there, luv,’ a man said.
‘Why aren’t the firemen going in to save her?’ Max asked Mum.
Her face was dreadful when she looked at him. ‘They can’t go in yet.’ She laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
Everybody was staring at the fire in horror. It was hot and terrible. Max held on to Mum’s hand.
Toby and the firemen had the hoses set up now, and they shot jets of water and foam onto the shop. Max heard glass breaking, water hissing, flames roaring. He wished he’d stayed at school. He wanted to hide his eyes, but he couldn’t look away—it was like he was hypnotised.
A fireman was putting witches hats on the street to stop people getting too close. Then the local police car pulled up. Fergus and his assistant Ken got out.
‘Why are they here?’ Max asked Mum. ‘Shouldn’t they be helping to look for Leon?’
‘A special squad has gone out to find Leon,’ Mum said. ‘Fergus and Ken aren’t trained for that.’
‘What sort of special squad?’ Max asked. But Mum didn’t answer.
Fergus and Ken made people move further away from the fire so no one would get hurt. Max’s heart thumped. When were they going to save Miki? Mum was crying. Did that mean Miki was dead? He didn’t want to think about it. There was a knot in his throat, and tears like a sea waiting to come pouring out.
Up the street near the hardware, a pale-blue car stopped on the side of the road. Max knew that car—he knew all the cars in town. It belonged to the lady from the visitor centre. He saw Miki leap out, but she was staggering like a drunk, and her face was al
l swollen. One of her eyes was half-shut and she had a big red bruise on her cheek.
Mum had seen Miki too. ‘Oh, thank God she’s alive!’ she breathed. ‘But Christ! Look what he’s done to her! That bastard.’ She gave a small sob and shoved Suzie at Max. ‘Look after your sister. I’m going to help.’
Max held on to Suzie while Mum rushed over to Miki. Suzie was like an octopus in his arms; she wanted to stick with Mum, so she hit him and it hurt, but he didn’t let go. He saw Mum put her arms around Miki and say something to her, but Miki stared at Mum like she was a stranger, then pulled away and ran towards the shop.
Toby blocked her, clamping the hose under his armpit while he used his other arm to stop her. Miki scanned around like a wild animal. Max wanted to go to her but he was stuck with Suzie, who was screaming now. He was glad when Mum looked towards them, because he knew she was coming back for Suzie, so he dropped his little sister to the ground and took off after Miki.
She was heading downhill to get around all the people. She stopped near Trudi and Liz, staring at the fire. Further down the street, Max spotted Leon’s Toyota.
And there was Kurt, limping up the hill, shoulders hunched, face hard as nails. He looked terrible. His trousers were bloody and torn, and he had a gash on his face, and blood in his hair and all down his neck. Max was the only one who had seen him. He saw Kurt grab Miki’s arm and drag her down the street like a ragdoll. She didn’t want to go: Max could tell by the way she leaned back, like she and Kurt were in a tug of war. But even though Kurt was hurt, he was still strong, and he made Miki go with him.
Suddenly Max knew what to do. He squeezed between all the people, pushing them out of the way. Past the witches hats he felt the heat of the fire against his skin, the flames leaping at the sky. He was looking for Fergus, screaming his name so loud his throat felt like it had been scraped by one of the rasps in Dad’s shed.
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