Beyond Fear

by Jaye Ford

  Jesus, maybe they were graves.

  No, they weren’t big enough. He straightened a little, looked at Travis and Kane’s handiwork. Three piers in a row, three rectangular pits in front of them. Travis pointed with the torch to the next row of piers.

  ‘Get over there and dig. One hole each,’ Travis ordered.

  Matt looked at the light bouncing off the piers and wondered about the positioning of the pits. He checked left then right. He couldn’t see a thing but he could smell the vague sandiness of the brick and mortar in the piers all around them. It was a big barn, it needed a lot of piers. After standing derelict for years, maybe the renovators had had to add a few more to prop up a sagging floor.

  Matt felt his swollen lip turn up at the side. It would be hard to find one particular pier in the blackness. Especially if you hadn’t been down here in a while.

  He started to move forward but Jodie pulled on his arm.

  ‘Matt, no,’ she whispered. ‘That’s five holes. There are five of us. I’m not digging a grave.’

  ‘Move it! Now!’ Travis shouted.

  Matt caught her under his arm, hauled her forward. ‘It’s okay.’

  She struggled against him, twisting her shoulders as she tried to break free. ‘No. We have to run. Now.’ Her leg banged into his bad knee and he grunted in pain but he held onto her. Travis had the gun and the torch. Now was not the time to run for it. The torch swung around, lit them up like a spotlight.

  ‘Get the fuck over there,’ Travis yelled, walking towards them.

  Matt gripped Jodie by both shoulders and shook her. ‘Keep it together.’

  ‘We have to do something.’

  ‘We do what he says. Both of us.’

  Then Travis was on them. He ripped Jodie away, flung her to the ground and put the pistol to Matt’s forehead. ‘I said dig, Wiseman.’ He looked down at Jodie. ‘Get up, bitch.’ Travis watched as she got to her feet then turned back to Matt. ‘Keep her under control or I’ll beat the shit out of her. Now move.’

  Before she turned and walked, Jodie gave Travis one last glance, her eyes dark with loathing. When she looked at Matt, her mouth was a harsh line and her shoulders were rigid with hostility. Let it brew, babe, Matt thought, and warned himself to keep out of the firing line when she let it go.

  He checked the first pit as they moved past. There was nothing in it. He guessed there was nothing in the others, either. Guessed that’s why they were starting two new pits. A couple of pickaxes were propped against the first brick pier.

  ‘So what’ve you lost?’ Matt said. ‘Your pocket money?’

  Travis shoved him in the back with the gun. ‘Get a pick and dig.’

  Matt lifted one, felt the weight of it in his hands. Nice hefty handle, chunky metal head. Gun still beat pick. ‘Your dad’s good citizen medals? Oh, that’s right. He didn’t get any. Used you for punching practice then beat up some other guy and went to prison.’

  ‘Shut up and dig!’

  The floor was a little higher above their heads here but Matt still couldn’t stand upright. He raised the axe awkwardly over his shoulder and drove it into the earth. Pain stabbed his knee but he wasn’t going to let Travis know. ‘Or maybe you lost your best marbles down here, huh? Heard you were pretty good at those in juvie.’

  ‘Fuck you, Wiseman.’

  Travis stood a couple of metres back from them, forming the top point of a wide triangle, holding the torch high to cast light near both piers. Jodie looked at Matt as she raised the pick to her shoulder. No surprise she knew how to swing it.

  ‘Or maybe it’s that mangy dog you used to drag around,’ Matt said. Rumour back then was that the father had taken to the mongrel with a brick. ‘You want to dig it up so you can buy it a nice headstone?’ As the last word left his mouth, the Old Barn flashed across his memory. How it was seven years ago. Broken windows, holes in the roof, an intact floor. No verandah. Matt’s pulse quickened. He lifted the pick, drove it deep. No, it didn’t make sense. Why would they come back for her? A sudden urgency made him attack the soil at his feet. The dirt was dark, friable farming soil but dry and hard packed. A sweat broke out on his back as he widened the hole, dug deeper. How many secrets had Travis and Kane buried?

  One pier over, Jodie stopped digging. As Matt looked up, she straightened her legs and bent a little lower to peer into the pit. Her trench was maybe half the size of Matt’s, probably ankle depth if she was standing in it. She turned the pick head on its side, scraped away some dirt.

  ‘What?’ Travis said.

  She backed off a step, glanced briefly at Matt, her eyes puzzled and wary.

  Travis started towards her as Matt sent his pick into the dirt again. The thunk of metal that sounded under his axe made Travis swing the torchlight around.

  ‘Clear the dirt away,’ he ordered. He stomped over, aimed a bright circle of light into the bottom of the hole. ‘Hurry up! I haven’t got all night.’

  Good to know, Matt thought. He’d had enough of having a gun at his back. He pulled clumps of dirt up and out of the pit, exposing the top of a large, flat, rectangular object. When there was only a loose layer of earth left, he dragged the long edge of the pick head across it. The hollow, scraping sound it made seemed to linger in the darkness. Travis’s circle of light grew brighter and sharper as he stepped closer. It illuminated a painted metal surface scored with rusted scuff marks.

  A scatter of loose dirt made Matt lift his head. Over Travis’s shoulder, in the dim light thrown up from the pit, he saw Jodie’s pale face and the sleeve of her white sweater as she twisted her body to the side. A second later, there was a meaty thud and Travis jerked forward, stumbling into the pit. Matt pulled back a fist, ready to knock him to the ground, but Jodie followed Travis in and whacked him hard across the back with her pick handle. Travis’s head hit the brick pier with a crack. He crumpled to the ground and the torch went out.

  Blackness closed in around them. A snapshot of Jodie – face determined, body in full thrust – stayed lit on Matt’s retinas. Action figure Jodie. He could hear her stumbling around close by, slipping and gasping as she tried to fumble her way out of the pit. He grabbed for her, closed his hand around her sweater, pulled her out and away. She was shaking, breathing hard. He wanted to crush her against him.

  ‘Where is he? Where is he?’ she hissed.

  ‘Out for the count.’ As he spoke, a double beam of light sliced through the darkness from under the front verandah. The gurgle of V8 twin exhausts broke the silence of the night. He remembered Jodie had heard a car in the night. This morning she’d thought it was The Beast. ‘Kane’s back. Find the gun.’ Matt dropped to his knees, bumped shoulders with Jodie as she crawled about. He patted at the earth, felt around Travis’s still body.

  ‘Jesus, I’ve killed him,’ Jodie said.

  ‘No, he’s just out cold.’ Matt had no idea whether he was dead or alive but he didn’t want Jodie freaking out about it. Not now. Kane’s headlights turned, pointed directly at the verandah, lighting the underfloor of the barn like a football field.

  ‘Shit,’ Jodie said. She was on all fours, looking up at him from the other side of Travis’s body. The lights went out. ‘Fuck. We need the torch.’

  ‘There’s no time to look.’

  ‘I can’t see a damn thing.’

  ‘Head for the hole in the floor.’ Matt heard her move. He followed suit, crawling on hands and one knee, dragging the bad one behind him.

  ‘Where are you?’ she whispered.

  A car door opened and the faint glow of the interior light was enough to see her. She had her back pressed into a brick column, one pier over and one ahead.

  ‘I’m behind you,’ he whispered.

  She looked back with huge eyes. Then the light went out and they were in blackness again.

  Trying to remember where she was, Matt got to his feet, limped as quickly as he could across the darkness, arms straight out in front. A hand grabbed him by the shoulder of his jacket and
pulled.

  ‘Come on,’ she whispered.

  His other shoulder slammed into a pier, flung him sideways. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Move.’

  ‘I’m moving.’

  ‘Faster.’ Her voice was gravel in her throat. Her feet were scrabbling in the dirt but she held onto him. Then their heads were pressed to the underside of the floor at the jagged edge of the hole, just outside its ring of light.

  A thud sounded on the front steps.

  ‘Go.’

  ‘Now.’

  Matt stood to full height, his head and shoulders in the lounge room, the light blinding after the darkness underneath. He cupped his hands in front of his thighs. Jodie took a huge stride, stepped into his palms and hoisted herself cleanly up into the room. As heavy footfalls sounded on the stairs, he heaved himself up on his hands behind her. Jodie grabbed at his jacket, dragging him over the lip of the floor, pulling at his arm before he had both feet on the timber. He was running before he was upright, taking long, loping steps, following her, trying to ignore the pain in his knee. Outside, the footsteps got louder as Kane hit the verandah.

  Jodie yanked Matt sideways, heading for the bedrooms.

  He hauled against her, the smashed glass door in his sights. ‘This way,’ he hissed.

  ‘We have to go back for the others.’

  He caught her wrist. ‘No.’

  The footsteps stopped. Jodie’s head swung to the door, swung back to Matt. She took his forearm in a double-fisted grip, heaved against him. A tug of war and he was the rope.

  ‘No,’ he said again.

  The door rattled and as it started on its inward arc, Jodie broke the tension on his arm so fast, he stumbled backwards. Then she was suddenly dragging him towards the back door.

  The front door crashed open against the wall. They were halfway across the room. A voice roared behind them.

  Kane.

  Matt willed his knee to work. Ground bone against mashed cartilage. Jodie was ahead of him, running almost side-on as she pulled him through the wreckage of the room. Kane’s boots thundered on the floor behind them.

  They made it to the smashed door, thumped across the verandah. Jodie hit the steps first. She was halfway down when Matt reached the top one. He should have shuffled his good leg to the front. He should have gone down two at a time, dragging his bad leg behind. But he didn’t. And his knee collapsed underneath him. He fell like a sack of apples. His shoulder hit the timber, his forehead followed, then the rest of him rolled over the top. The howl of pain as his knee twisted under him shattered the night.

  30

  Jodie didn’t pause. She just hauled on his arm.

  In the lounge room, Kane was skidding on broken glass. Something heavy was sent flying. He was cursing them, shouting for his brother.

  ‘C’mon!’ Jodie yelled.

  Matt was on his back in the dirt. His knee was one long, screaming pain. He tried to move it, to push himself up but the message wouldn’t reach his leg. Jesus, he was going to get her killed.

  ‘Go, Jodie.’

  She flung his arm away, straddled his chest, grabbed the lapels of his jacket in both fists and dragged him to a sitting position.

  ‘Go!’ he said.

  ‘Get up, goddamn it. Get up!’ She stepped back, heaved some more. She was adrenaline-fuelled. She lifted all six-foot-two of him to his feet.

  Matt got his good leg under him, tried to walk. The bush was twenty metres away. He was never going to make it. ‘Save yourself.’

  She jammed a shoulder into his armpit, wrapped an arm around his waist, got a grip on the top of his jeans. ‘Shut up and move!’ She didn’t give him a choice. She was a steam train on a track, hauling him forward, taking his weight, keeping him moving and upright.

  Kane’s feet pounded onto the verandah. His voice was like thunder. ‘I’m going to fucking shoot you.’

  Travis had the gun. Travis was under the house.

  Matt heard the distinctive crank of a pump-action shotgun. Shit. He hunkered over, pushed Jodie’s head down as he did.

  ‘Get down,’ he said.

  ‘Run,’ she said.

  Kane said nothing. He let a shotgun do the talking.

  A single boom rolled down the slopes of the hill and ricocheted around the dark valley. Jodie screamed without breaking step. They were ten metres from the bush, light from the house fading behind them. Matt was going as fast as he could but he was holding her back, slowing her down. His leg was agony and he didn’t know how much longer it would hold his weight. If it gave up, he couldn’t hop the distance and there was no way she could carry him. On current performance, she’d try – and she’d probably give it a good go. She was strong but she wasn’t The Hulk.

  ‘I’m gonna to kill you, Wiseman.’ There was no lunatic menace in Kane’s roar. It was just brutal, resentful fury.

  Matt didn’t know how good a shot Kane was. With the spray of pellets fired from a shotgun, he didn’t have to be any kind of marksman. And right now, Matt couldn’t afford to bet against him. Right now, Matt, you’re the guy who’s going to get Jodie killed. Who gets to live this time, Matt?

  He put his hand on the centre of her back, tried to push her ahead of him, already feeling the relief that would come with turning around and facing the arsehole on the verandah. ‘Run for it, Jodie.’

  Her response was a war cry. A guttural blast of sound that seemed to rise from way down deep inside. Her arm around his waist became a front-end loader, not pulling anymore but pushing. Pressing him relentlessly forward, heedless of his useless knee. Man, she was unstoppable. He was a weak, pathetic bastard and Jodie was The Hulk. On steroids. Any second now she was going to tuck him under her arm and carry him away.

  ‘Fuck you, Wiseman. Fuck the both of you.’

  Gunfire roared into the night again. A metre ahead, leaves were shredded as shotgun pellets tore into the bush. Two more steps and they were at the edge of dense native bush that looked like a solid chest-high hedge in the dark. They went in headfirst, arms outstretched to fend off the branches that scraped at their faces. Behind them, Kane’s boots pummelled down the steps then fell silent as he hit the dirt.

  They dropped to the ground, Matt landing heavily across her thighs. She pushed at him, rolled out from under. They were in darkness again. Not as dark as it was under the barn but still too dark to make out much more than the mass of shrubbery around them.

  ‘Stay down and head left,’ Matt whispered. He heard her take off, move quickly away and attempted to follow. But his knee was hopeless in a crawl and he dragged it behind as he clawed his way through the dirt and undergrowth.

  ‘You two are dead. You hear me?’ Kane yelled, his voice still too far away to be at the line of bush.

  Matt tried for a forty-five degree angle away from the barn, moving deeper into the brush while aiming for the back corner of the lounge room. There was a rustling nearby, slightly ahead and a little further into the scrub. He hoped it was Jodie and not some sharp-toothed nocturnal animal ready to defend its patch.

  Kane’s voice was closer this time. Maybe close enough to be at the edge of the bush. ‘I can see you. You’re going to be dead in a second.’

  There was no way Kane could see them, Matt told himself. The direction of his voice was too far to the right but his scalp tingled with alarm anyway. He wanted to get up and run. Find Jodie and charge deep into the bush, not stop until they were in the valley below. For a second he tried to tell himself his tortuous limping would be faster than crawling around blind. But that was what Kane was hoping he’d do – give him a head to take a pot shot at.

  He stopped instead, lay flat on the ground. The nearby rustling stopped too. Good girl, Jodie. Stay down. The smell of eucalyptus filled his nostrils, crisp dry leaves cut into his face, dirt and stones pressed at his hands and knees. Over the sound of his own breathing, he heard the soft thud of footfalls on grass. Coming their way. Jesus, if Matt could hear Kane’s footsteps on the cleared ground, an
y movement in the bush would be like holding up a target.

  ‘I’m lining you up for a head shot so get ready to die.’ Kane was close now, the menace creeping back into his voice, like he was starting to enjoy the hunt.

  There’d been no bush-rustling from Kane’s direction so he was probably walking along the perimeter of scrub, hoping to catch sight of them before charging in. Matt had no idea how deep into the bush they were but he guessed it wasn’t far enough to outrun Kane. Definitely not outside firing range. If he stood up, gave Kane something to shoot at, it might give Jodie a chance to run.

  Then what? Even if she got away, there were more hostages in the barn. A stockpile of them. Saving one out of three wasn’t good enough.

  Matt looked off to the left. Jodie was ahead of him. It was possible Kane was guessing the direction when he’d walked their way. Maybe it was time the guy had something to shoot at.

  Matt skimmed his palms across the dirt, patting at lumps of clay and small stones until he found what he wanted. Then he rolled on his back, aimed high and wide, crossing his fingers the chunk of sandstone didn’t ricochet off a tree straight back at him.

  It landed with a thunk and rustle of underbrush a good ten metres away. Matt had no idea if it fooled Kane, didn’t bother to consider it when he heard Kane hit the bush at a run. As foliage thrashed behind him, Matt pushed off the ground with his good leg and loped towards the last place he’d heard Jodie, hoping she’d taken off already and found somewhere safe to hide. Hoping he’d find her again.

  ‘I’ve got you, you fuckers.’ Kane was trying to sound triumphant but the grunting and puffing as he tore through the undergrowth took the edge off it. So did the direction of his voice. He was heading away, shouting abuse, not listening for them.

  Matt kept moving forward and to the left, standing higher than he should, daring to call out to Jodie in a loud whisper.

  Behind him, the bush fell silent and Matt hit the ground again.

  ‘You think you’re smart, don’t you, Wiseman?’ Kane was out of breath, treading slowly through the scrub now. ‘You’re not. You’re an arsehole.’