by Ashley Capes
“Oh God.” How were they going to survive?
She snatched a pillowcase from the bar and soaked it in the sink, tying it over her mouth and nose. She took another bucket and climbed the ladder, squinting through the smoke and blinking against pummelling heat. Was her mouthguard dry already? Through the tears she could make out wobbly splashes of flame glowing in the ceiling – too far for her to reach.
“How bad is it?” Robert shouted. He had the ladder in his grip, his own face covered.
“It’s above the bar itself but I can’t get to it without climbing up. It’s about a thousand degrees,” she said.
“Bruce!” Robert cried.
The publican rushed into the room. He glanced at the roof. “Where is it?”
“Over the bar.”
“Get the axe,” he said, un-slinging his tank and pointing behind the bar. He hauled the tank over to a tap and started to re-fill it. “And any other buckets.”
“You’re going to break through from below?” she asked as Robert ran for the storeroom.
“Can’t climb up there.”
When Robert returned, he hopped up onto the bar and glanced back at her. “Here?”
She waved him further along. “Hurry.”
He swung at the ceiling, hacking through the plaster. White crumbled around him, filling the haze as he swung again and again. His blows were a little slower than if he’d been swinging downwards, but fire gleamed in the ceiling when he broke through. Bruce shot his hose at the hole, causing more hissing steam. The fire-front outside was a roaring beast, seeming almost angry at their attempts to stop it devouring the pub and those inside.
Robert kept hacking at the roof, exposing beams and flaming insulation. When he fell back it was to switch axe for bucket – handed to him by Ted. He cast the water into the ceiling then called for another. Bruce was still hosing it down.
Some of the flames had escaped.
“Towards me,” she shouted.
Bruce climbed up beside Robert and changed direction of his hose, the water soon dousing the new flames. “I’ll keep an eye on this,” he said. He wasn’t shouting as loud as before. “Check the rest.”
She climbed down and headed for the guest rooms where she paused. It was quieter outside. No more roaring, just a crackling from beyond the walls.
Had the front passed? Already?
Was it safe? She charged back to the bar and tested the front door handle with part of the towel, whipping her hand back as the heat stung through the fabric. Idiot.
“Lisa?” Bruce paused in his work.
“The front’s passed – can’t you hear it?”
“Be careful, don’t rush.”
She tried again, re-arranging the towel, and turned the handle to pull it open slowly, a wave of heat rushing over her skin. Beyond waited blackened land. The edges of flame curled around the garden and nearby properties. If they could put out the fires left after the front had passed, maybe they could save the pub.
Beyond the blasted earth lay other blazes and columns of smoke – charred houses as far as she could see. Chambers Street was too distant and cloaked in smoke to know whether her house had survived. The homes she could see were skeletons, twisted heaps of smouldering tin – or in some cases – smoke-scorched but still standing, often surrounded by wreckage of rooves, fences or cars. Powerlines had fallen into tangled piles; everywhere there was black, black, black.
Sirens screamed in the distance and she exhaled a shuddering breath that scratched at her throat.
“Bruce.”
He joined her.
Tears poured down her cheeks. “We have to put out the smaller fires. We have to check for embers.”
He rested a gloved hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be right now.”
Chapter 27.
The pub was saved, but so much was lost.
Ronnie’s bakery. Half the general store and others she couldn’t even recognise. Dozens of homes, cars and things she’d never expected to see melted – like the red post box on the corner of the little park on Main Street, where she’d seen the white roo.
The oval had become a city of tents. CFA trucks rolled through the ash-choked road often – one allowed her to hop onto the back, dropping her at Chambers Street, seeing as the ute was ruined. People might have died but no-one would tell her. Or maybe they didn’t know yet. She couldn’t find Gerry or Karen or even Detective McConnell and her phone was flat. Instead, she dragged her aching feet up her street, stirring the char. Sweat mingled with ash on her skin beneath the clearing sky.
Mrs Anderson’s house was a blackened stump.
Beside it smouldered a heap that had once been Lisa’s home. Nothing standing – just twisted tin and charred wood and the hints of her possessions. She stopped at the very edge of the wreckage, tears stinging her eyes, smoke burning her throat anew.
Everything still stood right at her feet – within reach, but gone. She might as well have never owned a single thing. Clothes, books and paintings – right down to the cutlery Steph gave her as a housewarming present – her feather-top bed, the filing cabinet and the things Mum left behind. The little yellow scarf Lisa had never let herself wear – the one Mum bought with her first pay from her job at the corner store as a teenager.
“God damn it,” she screamed.
Lisa kicked the rubble, again and again, letting out some of her rage before turning to run for Ronald Street. Her shoes kicked up more ash as she thundered down the road, leaping over a fallen street light and pumping her arms harder. When she reached the blackened sign for Ronald Street she slowed, breathing hard, but she smiled too.
Dad’s house had survived.
Somehow, most of the street had avoided the onslaught of the fire front. Embers glowed on the concrete path at the empty house on the corner, but Dad’s place was okay. She dashed into the yard and uncoiled the hose, prowling the yard for embers but found none at the limits of the hose.
She hosed the place down anyway, climbing up the fence to check the gutters.
A bucket was next, as she completed the full circuit of the yard. Nothing was amiss...still. Sticking around wouldn’t hurt. All it would take would be a wind change and something might flare up.
Inside, the house remained just as she left it, save for the scent of ash. Only the radio was quiet and Dad wasn’t in his chair. She moved into the kitchen and took a drink from the fridge, snapping the ring pull open on soft drink – creaming soda. She leant against the bench and sipped at it, paintbrush tightening her jeans pocket. Bubbles from the soft drink weren’t all that soothing on her throat but it was cold. And the sugar hit...she needed it.
“What now?” she croaked.
The tap gave no answer. Nor the sink or the dish-rack or the tea-towel with its faded picture of The Big Pineapple. Robert would be salvaging his shop – it had partially survived. Bruce was keeping an eye on Ted and hopefully Gerry was safe; he’d be off helping someone somewhere. And Steph and Dave, had they left? Was their cafe okay? Were they okay?
She dragged herself to the phone and dialled Yarsdale Hospital.
Come on, work. Work.
No dial tone.
Were the lines cut? If the fire moved west in a zig-zag instead of continuing south, Yarsdale would be in trouble.
Maybe if she tried again in a little while. She completed another circuit of the house before heading back inside to call the hospital again – but no luck. Next, she called Steph’s mobile – network busy. Maybe heading back to the pub was the best choice. Bruce had a satellite phone somewhere too.
The oval was too chaotic.
She snorted.
Too chaotic. Yet, she wanted to be around people. Maybe just a few, rather than half the town. She locked up and headed out, checking on the house and the neighbouring properties one last time, then crossing the stre
et. No-one around. Like a ghost town. A faint wind stirred, curling little black tornadoes that soon dissolved. She kicked at the ash, scuffing black marks along the paler bitumen.
At a stronger gust she turned away – and froze.
The bloody kangaroo waited at the end of the street. It merely stood, watching her. Too distant to be sure; but its skin and fur seemed darker. Burnt. Yet it was upright. Was it Ben driving the body into the streets? Or, the roo itself? Was there even anything left of Ben inside? Had there ever been anything of him in there? Was it simply feral? No. Stupid. It was beyond feral. More than human, more than animal.
Whatever. Didn’t matter. Not anymore. Just...why couldn’t it leave her alone?
“What do you want?” she called.
No answer.
Lisa crossed to the side of the street and the roo moved, keeping a parallel course. It matched her speed when she broke into a swift walk, angling closer. With little in the way of cover, she couldn’t hide and couldn’t lose the creature either.
She picked up speed. The kangaroo matched her again. Maybe if she made a break for it when the roo entered the maze of half-standing homes, she could reach the pub. Maybe. If nothing else, she’d have shelter – and one of the guns – hadn’t Robert brought them inside?
At an intersection, with the pub’s dark-tiled roof in sight, Lisa broke into a sprint.
The kangaroo leapt into the first yard, crashing through the blackened walls. Lisa’s chest burned as she ran. Glancing back once, she saw the roo burst from the thin frame of the last house, flinging charred planks and beams into the air.
She pushed through the wobbling in her limbs but she was already slowing. Too long awake, too long tense, too long fighting the fire – she was stuffed. She stumbled down to a jog. The thump of the kangaroo neared. Somehow, she crossed the road and began to climb the driveway, sooty shoes crunching on gravel and then concrete. Lisa turned halfway-up; the roo bore down on her.
She screamed as it leapt but fell into a crouch, slipping down the steps.
The roo crashed into the cement above her. It cracked the stair. She scrambled back, edging toward the side of the pub. Ben – or the kangaroo – whatever it was, stepped down one at a time. An awkward, unnatural movement that only made it more terrifying. She continued her slow retreat, the beast stalking her. Where it stepped, smudges of blood and charred skin remained behind. The chest heaved, glimpses of pink visible through the fur. An ear had melted down to a stub and blood trailed from the mouth. One arm looked a little longer than the other, its claw stunted. How was it alive? How was it staying together? A huge tear exposed muscles in its leg; amazing that it could still hop.
Did flesh wobble? Bone even peeked through one shoulder. And yet, its eyes blazed with some rage, some conflict. The claws might be battered but they would still kill her if she was careless.
On she walked, never taking her eyes off the creature.
She waved a hand behind her, navigating still-warm posts and stump-like shrubs until she drew level with the blackened decking of the verandah and then down the lawn, stumbling over the melted end of the pump’s hose, down the sloping grass – every blade now nothing more than a crunching corpse of char.
Until a small fence stopped her at the water’s edge.
Ash floated down the river, choking it, muting even the sparkling sun it tried to reflect.
The roo followed.
She knew what to do.
The water.
The vision – the white kangaroo hadn’t meant for the river as a place of refuge, but something else. As a weapon – hadn’t she? Lisa stepped over the fence and splashed into the shallows.
“Follow if you want me,” she said.
The kangaroo shuddered. Its jaws snapped as it leapt. She fell into the sluggish current as water exploded in a grey wall. The roo burst forward, jaws agape but she twisted. Its body crashed into her, a powerful forearm swiping down at her leg. She cried out but caught the roo by the neck, dragging it into the water.
It had to work.
She clung to the neck, the roo’s head falling over her shoulder to gnash at her back but never connecting with flesh. The deeper they went the looser the body beneath her became. She hauled at the huge weight. Dark flakes filled the water, blood blackening the sludge as the red kangaroo disintegrated – pulled apart by the mild current.
As if it had never truly been connected.
The kangaroo began to shudder. She pushed on the body, fingers sliding through flesh and hitting bone. The spine came free, hooked over her shoulder, with the roo’s head acting like an anchor. She dragged it through the water as she spun, trying to keep her own head above the surface – the river growing deeper as the current tugged her further from the pub.
Toes scraped the sandy bottom.
Was the roo finished?
Lisa gripped the head, whose flesh was running, melting. A greasy sensation coated her hands and she shuddered as a yellowed, ancient skull was revealed. The basement! Before it dissolved completely, one of the eyes blinked. And it wasn’t Ben’s eye but a black orb, a black mirror. In it stood a blonde girl, alone where she waited beneath a lamppost in a pale wasteland, blushes of yellow in the earth. A wind twirled her hair.
Then nothing.
The old bone dragged her down – suddenly heavy beyond its size. Her head slipped beneath the surface and she released the skull, thrashing up toward air.
Something held her back.
She kicked but the spine had curled around her leg. It drew her deeper. Her heart thumped as she fought the tangle. No! She bent in the darkness, fingers finding vertebrae, giving them a jerk with both hands. The bones fell apart with a muted ‘click’ that should have been difficult to hear.
Her lungs burnt. She slashed at the water with her limbs, heading for the wavering glow of the surface.
And broke with a gasp.
Sunlight and air surrounded her as she drifted downstream, spluttering. Nearby, the skull surfaced. It was being borne away but seemed to face her; independent of the swirls in the water. Worse, it refused to sink, somehow the skull stayed afloat as it drifted. A light flickered in the sockets and then it slipped around a bend in the river.
Gone.
Her head slipped under again; she’d stopped treading to watch the skull. Bursting free once more, she swam for the shore, closing her mouth to the ash-clogged water that splashed around her strokes.
Heaving herself up the bank to clamber onto the grass, she lay on her back. Her arms and legs – it was transmutation, they were lumps of lead! She breathed in, air rasping as high above, the contrail of a jet streaked across a blue sky now free of smoke.
Who was the girl?
Why did the kangaroo want her to see it?
And was Ben truly gone? Had he saved her in that first encounter, or had he driven a kangaroo to madness? It was just as possible that the skull devoured Ben. If so, where was it now?
She closed her eyes. Most likely she’d never know the truth.
And maybe it didn’t matter anymore.
Chapter 28.
Detective McConnell strode into the pub, his face smudged with ash. Lisa waved for him to join her at one of the tables she’d managed to collapse into. Her jeans still dripped into the puddle on the floor. Bruce was no-where to be seen. Knowing him, he’d be helping others, now that his old pub was safe. She’d have to mop the floor for him later.
She crushed a cigarette butt into a tray.
“Glad to see you’re alive,” he said as he sat. It was almost satisfying to see soot covering his face, hands and shirt. A weariness lined his features, deep beneath the skin – he was human after all.
“I wish I had something clever to say but yeah, me too.”
He chuckled. “But you’re not glad to see me safe?”
“Depends on wh
ether you’re still hell-bent on arresting me for murder.”
“Murders.”
“And?”
“I’ve decided something,” he said with a long sigh. “I’ll never know exactly what’s gone on here.”
She glanced over his shoulder to the river. “Me either.”
“Did you feel like a swim?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you all right?”
Impossible to know the answer to that. “Just worried about Dad.”
“If you can help me one more time, we’ll go see him.”
“What about the jack-knifed truck?”
“SES cut a path.” He stood. “I hear that the hospital is fine and that the patients are being returned. What do you think?”
She exhaled. Tension flowed from her shoulders as they slumped. Finally, some good news. If Dad had been hurt... “Thank you. What do you need?”
“I want to meet Gerry out at the Drummond’s residence.”
“Why?”
“We’ve found something that doesn’t make sense. Could use your opinion again.”
“Now? What about the town?”
“Best to let the folks who know what they’re doing handle that. And this won’t take too long.”
“All right.” Lisa followed him to the silver sedan, shoes squelching at every step. “Sorry about this,” she said. “It’s going to ruin your car seat.”
“Don’t worry – my side is all ash and dirt.”
He set off at a fair clip, engine humming. Trees lining the road were burnt, some to cinders. In others, red embers glowed from within black husks like slitted, evil eyes. CFA volunteers in their yellow gear spread along the roadside, hunting for embers.
“Is everyone okay?” she asked.
“Mostly. Lots of livestock is gone – Healy’s sheep farm was hit bad. And Lidelson lost two residents to the fire. Gerry knows their names, I can’t remember right now, sorry.”
“Oh.” Who? Once again, the unfairness of life.
He hesitated. “There is one question I want to ask you. I can’t promise anything, Lisa, but I’ll say this much – I don’t think you’re a killer.”