Getting Home

by Angus McLean

  ‘Be all set,’ he said. ‘Get the boys, get the guns, go back and bust that shit up. Be a thousand badass criminals out on the streets again.’

  ‘And they all owe us a favour,’ Little Dog said. ‘In our debt, see?’

  Jake nodded. He saw alright. The Bandits’ numbers were about to swell more than tenfold. With a thousand foot-soldiers, they could wreak some havoc.

  ‘Ain’t nobody stop us then,’ he said.

  Little Dog exhaled smoke towards the heavens. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Ain’t nobody.’ He raised his fist in the air. ‘Forever Bandits,’ he said, meeting Jake’s eye.

  Jake raised his own fist, a kick of adrenaline running through him. ‘Bandits forever,’ he said.

  Forty-Nine

  The Honda smelled of old lady’s perfume and pine air freshener and had a nodding dog stuck to the dashboard.

  Gemma took the wheel and navigated her way from the farmhouse to a side road that ran up into Bombay. They reached the top of the hills and turned right, heading down towards the settlement itself – a school, a rugby club, and houses. No shops.

  ‘Keep your eyes open,’ she said, more to feel busy than because she thought Alex wouldn’t. She was feeling jittery now and was anxious to get the last leg of their journey over with.

  They dropped down through the settlement and headed towards the service centre at the motorway junction. Straight ahead took them towards Pukekohe, left towards the south and right towards Auckland. They passed a gas station, a fast food joint and another gas station as they went left and merged onto the motorway. There were no other motorists on the road, but a few cars were stopped at the side of the road.

  Gemma dropped over the Bombay hills and took a left onto State Highway 2, heading east towards the Coromandel and the Bay of Plenty. It was quicker this way than continuing on down to Mercer, and she figured they were less likely to see anyone.

  ‘You think they’ll be home?’ Alex asked suddenly.

  Gemma frowned and looked at him. ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘I just thought…you know…’

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Mark said he’d be there, and that was always the plan, anyway.’

  ‘The plan? You had a plan for this? Why am I not surprised?’

  She saw he was smiling. ‘Be prepared,’ she said. ‘The plan for any kind of disaster was always to get home, and for our family to come to us.’

  ‘Because of safety in numbers?’

  ‘Yeah, and our folks are older, too. We didn’t want to leave them to fend for themselves if things went wrong.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ A pensive look crossed his face. ‘I hope my Mum’s okay.’

  ‘I’m sure…’

  ‘Oh shit.’

  She followed his gaze to the wing mirror and saw the red and silver truck bearing down on them from behind. She cursed herself for getting distracted.

  ‘Look out!’

  They heard thuds as bullets struck the back of the car, and Gemma put her foot down. The turn-off was coming up fast and she stayed in the fast lane, hoping to throw them off. The speedo needle was hovering around one-forty and she doubted it would give her much more. More bullets hit the car and, at the last moment, she leaned hard left. The tyres screeched and protested and for a horrible moment she thought she was going to flip it. The Honda hung on though and she took the off-ramp with millimetres to spare. The Ford truck locked up behind them in a cloud of tyre smoke. Gemma raced down the off-ramp, round the small roundabout at the bottom and went right, cutting under the highway.

  ***

  Curtis was out of the truck and running to the side of the highway with the BAR before the truck had even stopped rocking on its shocks.

  He threw the butt into his shoulder, seeing the white car emerge beneath him. He was certain it was them – they’d seen the car at a distance back in Bombay and chased it hard. Nobody else on the road – hadda be them. Dice had opened fire with his shotgun from the truck bed while they were still moving, surprising everyone by actually hitting the damn car. Now it was Curtis’ turn and he was going to make the most of it.

  He triggered the first shot through the roof of the car, saw it swerve, and fired again. As the car slowed to take a curve, he went for gold, emptying the magazine in seconds. The noise was ferocious and the recoil slammed his shoulder but he saw pieces flying off the vehicle and windows exploding before it disappeared from view behind some trees. He grinned to himself as he ran back towards the truck, waving at Dice. They had them now, he could feel it.

  ‘You drive,’ he shouted, deafened by the throaty boom of the big .308. ‘And make sure you catch those fuckers.’

  ***

  ‘Holy shit,’ Alex yelled, twisting in his seat to look behind them. ‘You okay?’

  Gemma nodded, concentrating on keeping the car on the road. They’d been showered with shards of glass when the windows went in, and the nodding dog on the windscreen had been blown away. At least he was the only casualty.

  She had no idea how many rounds they’d taken but it had felt a bloody machine gun hammering at them.

  ‘You okay?’ Alex yelled again.

  ‘Yes! Just make sure you shoot the bastards if you see them.’

  ‘Here they come.’

  She checked the mirrors. The truck was a few hundred metres back but coming fast. She estimated they were a couple of kilometres from home. Hopefully Mark would hear the shooting and come running. In some ways it seemed like madness to take this fight right to their door, but she knew that she and Alex couldn’t outgun or outrun these people.

  To stop now would be suicide. At least if they got close to home they’d have a fighting chance of getting out of it alive.

  She checked the mirrors again. The truck had closed the gap further. She gassed the little Honda as much as she dared, throwing it down the country road, using the whole road to get through the twists and curves. She would never dare drive like this on a normal day, but today was not normal. Nor, she promised herself, would it be their last.

  ‘Shoot back,’ she said.

  ‘It’s too far,’ Alex said, turning round to kneel on his seat. With the back windscreen blown out he could see clearly.

  ‘Give the bastards something to think about,’ she shouted.

  He didn’t argue, just fired a couple of shots. He couldn’t see where they went and the truck didn’t stop. If anything, it accelerated.

  ‘Keep going,’ Gemma shouted over the howl of the wind through the car. ‘We’re nearly there.’

  She could see the turn into their road coming up. They were nearly home.

  Fifty

  The whine of a car being wrung out carried across the fields and my head snapped up before I’d even registered what the sound was. It was mixed with the roar of a gruntier engine, and even over the two engines I could hear the pop of shots.

  I grabbed Archie’s hand and we were off and running, Jethro bounding along as if it were a game.

  ‘What’s going on Dad?’ Archie wanted to know. We reached the gate and I bundled him through, securing it behind us.

  ‘Inside,’ I said, ignoring the question. ‘Rob!’ I shouted towards the house. ‘You guys, out here, quick!’

  I got Archie into the sleepout and unslung the Rossi. ‘Stay here,’ I told him.

  The three older folk came hurrying across from the house, Rob with his Lee Enfield in his hands. The engines were getting louder in the background and I could hear more shooting.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Rob said.

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. You guys stay in here and stay down. Anyone tries to get in, shoot them.’

  I shooed Jethro inside and shut the door behind him, then set off at a run down the drive. It sounded like a real gunfight and the engines were definitely coming towards us. One of the guns shooting was a big semi-auto, maybe a .308 or .30-06.

  I reached the end of the driveway as a white Honda came screeching round the corner, t
he tail sliding out. It fishtailed, corrected and gassed it towards me. Close behind it was a big red and silver truck. I could see a figure standing in the back, shooting over the roof of the cab. Fortunately for whoever was in the fleeing Honda the truck was bouncing and swerving all over the place.

  I hunkered down by the fence with the Rossi aimed over the top, sighting on the Honda as it flew towards me. It jinked a couple of times, making it hard to sight in, but I caught a glimpse of the driver. I focussed hard, not quite believing it.

  Gemma was in the driving seat, her hands taut on the wheel. She was looking towards me in between checking the mirrors. In the front passenger seat was a guy I didn’t recognise.

  I shifted my focus to the truck, seeing a huge man behind the wheel. Beside him was a skinny girl who was hanging out the passenger window, firing a short-barrelled weapon at the Honda. Leaning over the top of the cab was another big guy and the weapon he had looked like a magazine-fed automatic rifle. He was still firing and now I could see that the Honda had definitely taken some hits.

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ I muttered.

  I sighted in on the driver and put a round into the windscreen. It careened off without shattering the glass, and the guy didn’t even flinch. The Honda was nearly up to me. I worked the lever and put another round into the windscreen. The guy noticed this time and flinched slightly.

  I worked the lever, shifted aim slightly and blew the wing mirror off in front of the girl. She pulled back inside and the guy hit the brakes. The guy in the back was thrown forward and nearly lost his weapon – I could hear him cursing from where I was – and Gemma braked hard. She overshot our driveway and went into a skid, smoke pouring off the tyres.

  Turning back towards the truck, I saw that it was coming to a stop about thirty metres away from me. Three baddies and an auto rifle – way too close for comfort. I needed to even the odds.

  The scope wasn’t necessary at this range; instinct and experience took over.

  I worked the lever, took a quick bead on the girl who was opening the passenger door with a submachine gun of some sort in her hands, and pumped a round through the open window. She took the hit in the chest and was thrown back against the pillar, her weapon discharging into the air in a fast burst.

  Lever, shift. The guy in the back was steadying himself but didn’t have his weapon up yet. I moved again, cracking the windscreen with my next shot. I wasn’t sure if I’d hit him or not but the man mountain rolled out the driver’s door and dropped from my sight.

  More shooting sounded from my left and I glanced that way. Gemma and the guy had bailed out of the Honda, which was slewed across the road past our gate. They were tucked down behind it, Gemma firing a pistol over the bonnet, the guy a rifle, both pumping rounds towards the truck.

  As I turned my attention back, the big rifle opened up and I was taking fire. A chunk was blown out of the fence beside me, another round cracked past my shoulder and I threw myself sideways to the ground. The rifle was deafeningly loud so close up. Bullets continued cracking my way as I rolled and got on my belly, getting the Rossi into my shoulder. In a split second, the world around me ceased to exist and it was just me and him.

  I could see the guy clearly, standing up in the tray of the truck with the big rifle at his shoulder, pumping rounds my way. I could see the puffs of smoke, the recoil into his body, even some of the ejected shells spinning through the air. I stared down the barrel at him for what seemed like a long moment before the thump of a bullet into the fence railing above snapped me back into reality.

  My finger curled around the trigger and I squeezed through. A miss. Lever, aim. Another miss. Lever, aim. My last round knocked one of his legs out and he fell awkwardly in the tray. I rolled to the side further and snatched a handful of shells from a pouch, thumping them into the tube as fast as I could, dropping a couple in the dirt. It occurred to me that a selective fire weapon would be very handy.

  I could hear more shooting from the direction of the Honda, and a shotgun from the truck, presumably the huge man. I crawled under the fence into the paddock, scrambled up and ran doubled over along the fence line towards the road.

  Fifty-One

  The volume of fire was incredible and Rob knew that Mark was in the shit. ‘I’m going out to help him,’ he said, and Sandy grabbed his arm.

  ‘No, you can’t go out there,’ she said, desperation in her voice. ‘Please.’

  ‘He needs my help.’ He started for the door, but she held onto his arm.

  ‘Rob, please. What about…’ She indicated with her head towards Archie, who was huddled against Jenny, his eyes like saucers.

  Rob frowned, torn. The gunfire continued outside.

  ‘What about upstairs, Poppa?’ Archie said. ‘Dad said you can shoot from up there.’

  Rob’s gaze shifted to the ladder up into the man-hole, and he nodded. ‘I’ll go up and have a look,’ he said.

  Sandy let him go and he carefully clambered up the ladder with his rifle. He stepped over to the hatch and realised Archie had made a good call. There was an excellent view of the front of the property. He could clearly see a white car across the road to the left and two people shooting from behind it towards a red and silver ute to the right.

  There was a body on the ground beside the ute, a man crouched in the back of it with a rifle beside what looked like a bundled tarpaulin, and Mark lying down on the driveway behind the fence. He grabbed up the binoculars hanging on a nail by the hatch, and scanned the scene. He could see Mark loading his rifle then saw him crawl under the fence into the paddock.

  There looked to be someone else on the far side of the ute and he could see puffs of smoke as that person fired. The two behind the white car, also mostly out of sight to Rob, were trading shots with him.

  Rob scanned back past the ute and saw Bevan creeping his way down the shoulder of the road towards the scene. He was still some distance away. The binos moved back to the ute and he saw the man – a big, thug-looking man – clumsily trying to stand. Mark didn’t seem to have seen him, but the guy still had the rifle in his hands.

  Putting the binos down, Rob chambered a round in the Lee Enfield and slid the barrel through the hatch. He settled himself, sighting down the iron sights and taking a bead on the man in the back of the ute. He wished he had a scope, as his eyesight was not great at this distance.

  ***

  I got halfway down the paddock when I saw the guy rise up from the bed of the truck.

  The big rifle was pointing at me and he fired even as he was coming up. I dropped to a knee and fired, levered, fired, levered and fired again. The big rifle boomed again and again and I got a decent bead on his torso as he got painfully to his feet. Just as I squeezed the trigger a round took him fair in the face and I saw the contents of his head eject out the back in a red spray.

  He dropped like a stone, tumbling over the side of the truck. I spun and looked behind me, not knowing where the shot had come from. My eyes settled on the hatch below the roofline of the sleep out, and the barrel poking out.

  Rob had my back.

  I turned and continued forward, sliding rounds into the tube as I went. The shotgun was still shooting from the other side of the ute. I could see the girl I’d shot, motionless on the ground beside the open passenger door. I got right up to the roadside fence, only a few metres away from the truck.

  ***

  In the sleepout, Jenny, Sandy and Archie could hear occasional bullets pinging off and punching into the building.

  They were directly in the line of fire from the road, but the reinforcing that Mark had put in place kept them safe. All the same, they huddled together on the floor, keeping their heads down and praying for it to end soon. Jenny looked at the shotgun leaning against the wall, and crawled over to get it. Another bullet hit the wall somewhere behind her and she dragged the gun back to her position.

  She held it across her knees and hoped she wouldn’t have to use it again. But, hunched down beside Sandy wi
th Archie between them, she knew she would do whatever she needed to do.

  Nobody would be coming through that door to harm her grandson.

  ***

  Gemma saw the man from back of the ute tumble over the side and land on the road behind the man mountain who had been driving.

  He was too busy trying to kill her and Alex to notice. She fired another two rounds, saw the slide lock open on the Glock and she dropped down behind the car again. She ejected the empty magazine and slid in her last full one, thumbing down the slide release and letting the slide run forward.

  Beside her, Alex ducked down too, fumbling with the Marlin. He’d already changed magazines once but he wasn’t confident with it. She peeked over the bonnet and saw the huge man still crouched down beside the driver’s door, his shotgun pointing towards them. She ducked again and the shotgun boomed, this time blowing out a window on the far side of the Honda.

  ‘Jesus,’ she muttered, barely able to hear herself over the shooting. If things didn’t turn around fast, they were toast. She could hear firing from over near the gate, and guessed it was Mark. She hadn’t wanted to bring the fight home, but she knew that if anyone was going to bail them out of the shit, it would be him.

  ‘Got it,’ Alex said, satisfied as he worked the bolt and chambered a fresh round in the Marlin.

  The car rocked with another hit, and Gemma didn’t dare raise her head above the bonnet. ‘Wait,’ she said, crouching with the Glock ready in both hands.

  The shotgun boomed, the Honda rocked and she pushed up, punching the Glock out in a double-handed grip, Alex coming up beside her with the Marlin at his shoulder. The huge man was pumping the slide on his shotgun and looking their way, and she could see his eyes go wide as he realised they’d outsmarted him.

  The Glock kicked in her hands as she squeezed the trigger and kept on squeezing it. The Marlin was cracking beside her and she saw the man taking hits. His body shuddered with the impacts – she didn’t know if it was her or Alex hitting him, but it didn’t matter – and he fell back on his butt. He still tried to bring the shotgun on line but both of them kept firing and he took more hits. Gemma saw blood spurt from the side of his head and he twisted, slumping backwards, the shotgun falling from his grasp.