Getting Home

by Angus McLean

  ‘It’s true,’ I said. I turned my attention from Clyde to the rest of the group, raising my voice so they could all hear. I made eye contact with as many of them as I could while I spoke – this was a message they needed to hear.

  ‘Martial law means that the military are basically in charge now, not the civil authorities. Looters may well be shot. Things are in such shit state that the Government has effectively handed over power to the military.’ I paused to let that sink in. ‘That means that the Prime Minister has acknowledged she doesn’t have the ability to get the country out of the shit and govern properly, at least in the short term.’

  ‘Shoulda done it years ago,’ Bevan said.

  ‘This has never happened in this country before,’ I said. ‘But it has happened overseas. Usually it doesn’t go too well. ‘

  ‘So we can expect the Army to come round and take our guns,’ Bevan chipped in.

  ‘Take a breath,’ I told him firmly. ‘Maybe, maybe not. I’d say it’s unlikely, at least right now. With no power on, there’re no reliable records of anything, so they won’t know who’s got guns and who hasn’t. I’d expect there to be some pretty bad rioting and looting and general lawlessness for some time, though.’

  Clyde’s wife burst into another wail and he gave me a reproachful look as he tried to comfort her.

  ‘There’s no need to scaremonger, Mark,’ he said. ‘I think you’re overdoing it a little.’

  I sighed. I’d had enough. ‘I don’t think so Clyde, but time will tell. I’ll be more than happy if I’m wrong, but until that happens I suggest you don’t sit around pontificating and singing Kumbaya. You need to get yourselves sorted for the long haul and keep yourselves safe.’

  ‘What can we do?’ someone asked.

  ‘Store water. Plant seeds for vegetables. Use your fuel sparingly. Protect your stock. Use every bit of food, don’t waste anything.’ I looked around them all. Eyes were wide and faces were sombre. It seemed the message was finally sinking in. ‘Look, you all live out here because you have some kind of skills and all of you have some kind of animals. It’s time to stop being a hobby farmer and take it seriously. You’re a lot better off than most people in the cities.’

  ‘It must be chaos in there,’ someone said.

  I nodded. ‘I’d say so. My wife is in there somewhere, hopefully making her way home.’ I felt my gut tighten even as I said the words. Hopefully.

  There were a few murmurs around the group. I’d said enough and I had stuff to do.

  ‘Take care of yourselves,’ I said, ‘and look out for each other. It’s more important to be a good neighbour now than ever before.’

  I stepped away from the group and Rob came with me. As I started up the driveway I glanced over at the Macklin house next door. There had been no activity there the last couple of days and I had no idea where they were. The Macklin family owned a good-sized farm but weren’t hands-on farmers, preferring to let others do the dirty work for them.

  Bevan had access to their place and I’d seen him over there recently.

  Bevan.

  I turned and spotted him still lurking on the fringes of the group. He caught my eye and I looked pointedly over at the Macklin house, then back at him. He gave me nothing back and sifted away from the group, moving back down the road towards his own place. His AR-15 was still slung over his shoulder and he wore camo pants under his khaki jacket.

  Something about him unnerved me.

  Seven

  The mood in the community centre was angry and Henry Roimata was struggling to keep a lid on it.

  He hadn’t slept since getting home last night, they’d had the dead to deal with, and he’d had a shitload of explaining to do. The missus, the families of the boys who’d been killed – even though some of them had been on the raid anyway – and everyone else who wanted a piece of the fuckin’ action.

  They were all gathered now, mid-morning, and the air was getting thick with smoke – tobacco, dope and crack. No one gave a shit anymore. Two days down and no one gave a shit.

  Not that anyone in the Roimata family had ever given much of a shit. With pockets of the family spread all over South Auckland and North Waikato, barely a job between them, it was a constant procession of Roimatas to the various jails around the country. At one stage Henry had been just down the road in Spring Hill with two of his brothers, one son and four cousins.

  Spring Hill was still locked down for now, but it was only a matter of time before the screws were forced to open the gates and let the inmates out. Henry knew they would only have enough food for maybe one more day. When those gates opened, his family numbers would swell again. Manukau was home to a men’s prison, a women’s prison and a youth justice secure facility. They would open up too and the area would be flooded with more hardened criminals than ever before.

  ‘You gunna fuckin’ get on with it, Henry?’ The voice belonged to Jake, the next youngest Roimata brother. He was the only one that Henry would ever let talk to him like that, but he gave him a scowl all the same.

  ‘Yep.’ Henry pushed up from his folding chair on the stage of the community centre and walked slowly to the front. A hush began to fall over the residents of Meremere and they waited for him to speak.

  Henry waited until they were all quiet, concentrating hard on getting it right. He got it right, he’d be all good. Get it wrong and he was fucked.

  He’d seen people do this shit on TV before, preachers and politicians and the like. They stood up there lookin’ all statesman-like, serious and contemplative, like a lot was runnin’ through their head and they were workin’ through the options. It inspired confidence in their people, made them realise just how smart the big kahuna was, why they needed him so bad.

  Henry tried to channel that up on stage, even subconsciously sucked in his gut. Off to the side, Jake rolled his eyes and wished his big brother would get the fuck on with it and stop playin’ with his dick. He hadn’t spent a day travelling down here from Pukekohe – where he’d been tending to two of his boys who got fucked up by some arsehole cop with a baseball bat – to listen to Henry pretending he was Winston fuckin’ Peters.

  ‘Last night…catastrophe struck our whanau (family),’ Henry started. ‘We went to speak to a man who had assaulted two of our mokopuna (children), to set things right. He was a violent man and we lost some of our brothers to his hand.’

  There were angry murmurings among the crowd. Jake watched them, sussing out who the angry ones were, the rabble-rousers.

  ‘We barely made it out alive, I have to say,’ Henry said. ‘I feel lucky to be here today, speaking to you.’ He put his hand to his chest and looked to the sky as if the gods were looking down on him. ‘The last bullet fired by that man…missed my own head by a millimetre. I looked in his eyes and I knew he was gonna kill me, right there and then.’ He gave a full-body shudder and shook his head. ‘I felt the heat of the bullet as it went by. I tell you, whanau, if I hadn’t moved at the last split-second, I’d be dead too.’

  Jake suppressed a grunt of derision. He’d heard a different version, but it was typical of Henry to talk it up.

  ‘Fuck him!’ someone shouted from the crowd. ‘That cunt needs to fuckin’ die!’

  Henry held out his hands to calm the rising agreement. ‘I agree, brother, I agree. He brought harm to our whanau, and we will strike back ten-fold. That motherfucker is gonna pay for his sins with blood.’

  Jake raised his eyebrows in surprise. This was more like it. This he could work with.

  ‘We will take the fight back to this pakeha (white European) invader, we will reclaim our mana (pride) and our land, and we will avenge the deaths of our brothers.’

  The crowd cheered as one, fists pumping and feet stomping on the wooden floor. Henry rode the wave, his chest swelling with pride, and even Jake cracked a grin.

  ‘But we need to be smart.’ The crowd shushed again, hoping this wasn’t going to be some kind of chicken-shit approach to gaining their revenge.
‘We need weapons to do this properly, and we need weapons to defend ourselves. I guarantee you one thing.’ Henry raised his hand in the air, one finger pointing skyward. ‘I guarantee you one thing…the pakeha will resort to their old ways of killing the indigenous people and taking our land. They did it before, and they will do it again!’

  The crowd cheered again, angry now, knowing his words to be the truth. They all knew the history.

  In the front row of the crowd, an old lady frowned and chewed on her gums. She was listening and hearing, if not quite comprehending it. It was not what she wanted to hear.

  ‘They will take the opportunity of a lawless state to violate our rights and disregard the treaty! Te tiroti o Waitangi (the treaty of Waitangi), which guarantees us certain rights as the indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand), will mean nothing. And we won’t stand for it.’

  Henry half-turned towards his brother, and Jake gave a quizzical frown.

  ‘My brother here, he has access to what we need. He can get us what we need, so that we are ready for what’s coming.’

  Jake felt a kick of adrenaline. As a patched member of the Bandits gang, he had access alright. Fuck yeah; now his brother was talkin’.

  Shit was about to get real.

  The old lady turned and weaved her way through the crowd. She needed some fresh air.

  Eight

  The wind felt good on Gemma’s face as she got some downhill momentum, easing off the pedals for a bit and letting gravity do its thing.

  Alex was beside her, gripping the handlebars for dear life. She wondered if there was any kind of physical activity that he was comfortable with. But for all his lack of experience, he was constantly surprising her.

  In only two days he’d gone from being just an IT geek from work who asked if he could tag along with her on the way home, to being her constant companion. He’d foraged for supplies, he’d saved her from a beating, he’d been beside her when she literally fought for their lives.

  ‘All good, Alex?’ she called out.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her with a smile, but the smile quickly faded as eh looked past her. ‘Don’t know.’

  Gemma wobbled as she looked behind her, scanning the street they’d just raced down. The school was only a few hundred metres back and their bike journey had barely begun.

  ‘Oh shit.’

  Two dirt bikes, haring across the school field on a beeline towards them. She didn’t know who was on them but she knew it was trouble.

  ‘Go for it!’ Alex shouted, pumping his knees hard and hunching low over the handlebars. Gemma followed suit but she knew there was no way they could outrun the dirt bikes. She could hear them now, the high tinny whine of their engines getting closer.

  ‘Down here!’ Gemma swerved hard right into a side street, spotting a playground in a park a hundred metres further down.

  Alex came after her, perilously close to losing it before he got his balance and pedalled hard. A shot rang out behind them, then another.

  ‘Keep going!’ Gemma panted. ‘The alley!’

  They hit the footpath and were into the park, racing towards the alleyway on the other side. It was partially blocked by a concrete bollard to stop cars going down it, and it gave Gemma a flash of an idea. She went first, crashing into the tin side wall of the alley before pushing off and away.

  The whine of the dirt bikes was close now, but she could hear that they’d split up. Good move on their part; bad for her and Alex.

  She came out the other end of the alleyway, cut left and skidded to a halt. Alex did the same, looking at her in confusion.

  ‘Whaddayadoin’? he gasped, his eyes wide.

  ‘Grab this.’

  Gemma yanked the tow rope from her bag and thrust one end of it at him. She darted across the mouth of the alley, ducking down beside the side wall as the first dirt bike arrived at the far end. Alex realised what she was doing and gave a nod, gripping the loose rope in both hands.

  The bike raced down the alley, the engine echoing loudly in the narrow passage, and all too soon it was on them.

  Gemma jerked her end of the rope up to chest height, Alex was a split-second slower, and the rider collected it at an angle across his chest. His bike kept going and he hung in the air for a moment before hitting the pavement on his back. His skull impacted with a sickening wet smack.

  The bike lost momentum, wobbled and tipped over with the engine still running.

  Gemma started pulling in the rope, transfixed by the sight of the rider on the ground. His mouth was moving but no sound was coming out. His limbs were twitching. He was a solidly built young guy with dark hair.

  ‘Jesus,’ Alex said.

  The sound of the second bike bore down on them and they saw it racing around the corner into the short cul-de-sac they’d come to. The rider gunned it towards them.

  Alex legged it into the property next door and Gemma dropped the rope and raced straight back up the alleyway. Her bag was bouncing on her back and she was struggling to get her arm out of the straps.

  When they’d started off on the bikes she’d moved the Glock into her bag, because it was too uncomfortable in her waistband and she was scared it would fall out. It was a decision she was bitterly regretting as she wrestled with her bag and also tried to get out of the alleyway.

  She reached the park and ducked off to the right, yanking the strap off her shoulder and scrabbling with the top opening. One more second.

  The impact of a boot in her side was like getting hit by a cement mixer, and it threw her sideways to the ground. The bike hit the deck and the rider was there before she could even try to get up. She took another boot to the ribs, flipping her over again, and she caught a glimpse of a tall, lanky young guy over her as she tried to get to her knees.

  ‘You fuckin’ bitch,’ he was screaming. A third boot to the side. ‘You fuckin’ cunt-whore, you fuckin’ killed my little brother...’ A stomp to the shoulder knocked her flat. ‘You fuckin’ slut, I’ll fuck you up you cunt.’

  Gemma wheezed, unable to get any air into her lungs, her fingers digging into the dirt, her eyes watering. This was it. He was going to kill her.

  Gunner slammed his boot into her hip, flipping her onto her side and exposing her front. He aimed a kick at her face but she moved at the last moment, so instead of taking her head off it just opened up a cut on her cheekbone.

  The sky was above her. Clouds, puffy and white, a bit of grey. The dirt bike engine had died. All Gemma could hear was her own wheezing and the blood pounding in her head. She was in agony and she knew she couldn’t beat this guy. She couldn’t even get up.

  Gunner kicked her hard in the gut, causing her knees to fold up belatedly to protect her. She wretched like she was going to vomit.

  He cocked his leg again and Gemma saw it coming. This was it. He was about to kill her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Fuck him, I won’t give up. She dug her fingers into the dirt and gave it everything, pushing herself up.

  She didn’t hear the hollow thump as a fence paling smashed into Gunner’s back, but she took the full impact of him collapsing across her and knocking her flat again. She felt the follow-up hits to his torso as Alex hit him again and again, and she heard his groaning in her ear.

  Then his weight was gone and Alex was helping her up to her knees.

  ‘Are you alive?’ he was asking. ‘Jesus Christ that was brutal, I thought he was going to kill you.’

  ‘Urrggghhh.’ Gemma did her best to get air into her lungs but it felt like her own body was fighting her every step of the way. ‘Unnhhhh.’

  She stayed on all fours for a long time, drooling onto the grass as she tried to get herself working properly. Everywhere hurt. It felt like she had broken ribs and she could feel her cheek puffing up.

  ‘We need to get going,’ Alex was saying somewhere in the distance. ‘There’s people around.’

  Gemma held onto him while she eased herself to her feet. He poured water on her face and
gave her a drink. She looked down at the guy who’d beaten her. He was lying prone, not moving.

  ‘Is he…dead?’ She put her hands on her hips and took a full breath. She arched her back and heard a joint crack, then another. ‘Ahh, shit.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Alex went over and nudged him with a foot. The guy didn’t move. ‘I hit him pretty hard.’

  ‘Good.’ Gemma wiped her face. ‘Thanks.’

  She staggered over to her bag, got the Glock out, and shoved it in her waistband. From now on she wouldn’t be without it. She looked at the young guy again then at his dirt bike. ‘He’s got a gun.’

  She undid the bungy cord that held the Marlin carbine to his handlebars, and took the gun.

  ‘We need to go, Gemma. There might be others.’

  ‘Take that belt off him.’ She pointed to the camo-pattern bum bag he wore, bearing several pouches. ‘Must be ammo.’

  Alex rolled the guy onto his back, recoiling when he saw the blood coming from his mouth. The guy was unconscious but his chest was rising and falling. He quickly undid the belt and passed it to Gemma, who secured it around her own waist. The guy was lean enough to be a near-enough size for her.

  She took another few moments to find the safety and the magazine release on the carbine – it was not too different to Mark’s little .22 rifle. The magazine held a dozen rounds, and the pouches held four more magazines and two boxes of 9mm ammunition, the same calibre as the Glock. She realised what a great find it was, to not only get a second weapon but also spare ammo in the same calibre. It went some way to alleviating the pain from the beating the prick had given her.

  ‘D’you know how to ride a motorbike?’ she asked.

  Alex shook his head.

  ‘Bummer. Me neither.’

  ‘I’ll get our bikes.’

  While he did so, Gemma caught her breath and looked down at the lanky young guy.

  ‘You fuckin’ prick,’ she muttered, feeling a sudden surge of anger. She stepped in and have him a hard kick to the ribs. The movement caused a sharp pain through her own side and she gasped, gingerly touching her ribs. She looked up to see Alex arriving with the bikes, watching her.