On the Run

by Tristan Bancks

  How will it end? Sometimes the hero realizes that the bad guy is inside him. Maybe Sydney’s toughest cop is the zombie thief. Maybe Ben Silver, the cop, in some weird way, is trying to arrest himself, to save himself?

  Dad and Pop, no matter where I go, are inside me, in my blood. Is it possible to outrun the blood you have inherited, to become somebody else?

  Ben looked out the window, confused. Light and breeze flowed in. The relentless whir of traffic on the highway out front. His room at Nan’s was smaller but brighter than in the old house. And he had to share with Olive, but that was okay.

  Every day for the past three months, part of him had missed being in the wild. Not the storm or the hunger or the ants or eating leaves and grubs but the air and the openness and the lack of straight lines.

  A knock at the door.

  “Yeah?”

  Nan popped her head in. “Your mum’s leaving soon.”

  Ben followed Nan into the hall. Mum was in the bathroom doing her hair. She wore high heels, knee-length skirt, white shirt.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine, and you look gorgeous,” Nan said.

  “Thanks,” Mum said, looking at herself, puffing her cheeks, exhaling stress in a long, thin stream.

  She turned to Ben and gave him a look that was part-smile, part-apology. This had become her favorite look since everything happened. Ben did not like it much because he felt guilty too.

  She kissed Ben on the cheek and brushed past, heading up the hallway. She grabbed her handbag from the hall stand near the front door, checking her hair again in the mirror.

  “Wish me luck,” she said.

  “Luck,” Ben said.

  “Olive, love, your mum’s going!” Nan called.

  Olive ran in from the backyard. She was covered in dirt from her new veggie patch. “I want to come.”

  “Not today,” Mum said.

  “Where are you going again?” Olive asked.

  Mum bent down to her level. “To court. You know that. Remember?”

  “Why are you going to court again?”

  This had been explained to Olive at least seven times.

  “Because I did—”

  “Because you did the wrong thing and you’re going to face the consequences but then you’re going to come home to us and everything will be okay forever,” Olive finished.

  Mum let a smile creep onto her lips. “Yes,” she said. “That’s it.”

  “Will Dad go to court?” she asked.

  Mum squeezed her hands. “If they find him. Yes.”

  Mum stood. Nan and Ben hugged her, and she opened the front door.

  Olive ran off into the backyard. “Love you!”

  “It’s still not too late for me to come with you,” Nan said.

  Mum shook her head. “I got myself in…”

  She squeezed Ben’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. “Whatever happens today … I know I’ve made bad decisions, but I will try to make it up to you. I will try to be better.”

  Ben held her gaze and then she turned away. She went down the steps and along the front path in the sunshine, looking confident even if she did not feel it. She climbed into her rusty red hatchback, started the car, put her blinker on, waved, and disappeared into the flow of traffic on the old highway.

  “Is she really going to be okay?” Ben asked.

  “I hope so,” Nan said, wistful. She sat down on the stoop. “I’m going to sit awhile, wait for her.”

  “Won’t she be gone for hours?”

  “Possibly,” she said.

  Ben watched Nan for a moment and left the door open. He headed for the backyard, guilt and bad feelings weighing on him.

  He went down the veranda steps. He had replaced the old ones with off-cuts from the lumberyard. It was a slightly wonky job, he thought, but at least they weren’t rotting anymore. He walked down through the yard to the chicken coop. He picked up the shiny claw hammer Mum had bought him from the hardware store a few days earlier and he continued with the job of dismantling the chicken coop. James and Gus had come over and helped him with some of it. It was one of the first things he had vowed to do when they decided to live with Nan. He did not need to be reminded of that day.

  Ben had already taken down the chicken wire, removed the roof and the sides. Now he knocked out sections of the frame, the rusty nails squealing as he prized them out of the timber and threw them on a pile.

  As he worked he prayed for Mum. If she wasn’t okay, if the ruling went against her, then Ben would have to reveal his secret. He knew that.

  WITHIN THE WOODS

  Ben flew steeply downhill, dodging rough, chocolate-brown tree trunks, heavy boots sinking into pine needles and rich black soil beneath. Sun lit him in sharp bursts as he thundered into the valley. The water-rush became ever louder as he descended, filling him up.

  The river looked just as it had—sun hit the surface in patches, revealing muddy brown rocks beneath. Downstream was the waterfall that he and Olive had rafted over. And, soaring above him, the sheer sandstone wall on the opposite side of the river.

  It was a year since he had been here. Just over. He had thought about this place every day, every minute for a year. Yesterday, Friday afternoon, all Ben could think of as he sat in his classroom was the cabin, the river, the trees, the feeling of this place. When the bell rang, he did not go to his locker. He walked to the front of the school where Mum was waiting in her old red hatchback. They drove till late, staying in a motel, then started out early.

  He sank the shovel blade deep into the earth. He had buried it beneath the small pyramid-shaped boulder so that it might be safer. But he had done the deed at midnight and a lot can happen in a year. What if robbers had dug it up? He pushed hard, dug around the edges of the rock, and rolled it away. The soil was damp, easy to dig. He took off his jacket. It was early spring, lunchtime, and the air was hot and thick with the roar of cicadas.

  Ben’s shovel hit something hard. A chink of metal on tin. He dug and scraped till he could see the rusted green metal. He worked quickly to excavate his treasure, unearthing the trunk and pulling it up out of the ground.

  He sat and looked at it for a minute, breathing heavily with the effort. He had waited this long. No rush now.

  Open it or I will, he heard Olive say in his mind. But he sat there and looked at it for another minute or two before he slowly raised the lid to reveal the rotten gray nylon sports bag with the black handles. He smiled, the guilt of what he had done fluttering away for a moment.

  Nine hundred and thirty-two thousand three hundred dollars.

  He looked up the hill to see if Mum was there. She had promised to stay in the car in the clearing, to wait for him. He picked up a wad of cash, bruising the notes with the black soil from his fingers. Was it so bad for a kid in his situation to have put aside an insurance policy for him and his sister? He had told a lie. A big lie to his family, to the police. He had not lost the money at the bus shelter. But didn’t he and Olive deserve the money after everything that had happened to them? Even now, after telling Mum and agreeing that they would give the money back, he wondered if they could keep just a little of it.

  He held the money, felt the river flowing by and the cabin up the hill looming over him.

  River, cabin, money.

  Like grandfather, like father, like son. Was it really possible to escape what was written in his genes?

  A great rush of wind blew through the gully, a wind that rustled the leaves on every tree and sent birds squawking in formation across the river and high up over the rock wall. Ben looked around and breathed it all in. He had missed this place. He felt mosquitoes take his blood and he pulled his boots off, digging his toes into the cool soil beneath.

  He dropped the money back into the trunk and made his way down over the rocks to the river. He cupped his hands, dipped them in the water, splashed his face. It felt crisp and good, waking something inside him.

  Ben thought of the night that he and Olive
had run away from the cabin, from Mum and Dad, and of the deep hunger and pain and despair he had felt in those days coming up the river. He thought of Olive lying, half-dead, in the darkness just downstream from here. And he should have felt bad about the place, but he didn’t. He knew now that everything bad would pass, and everything good would pass too. A neverending stream. The river flowed on.

  He splashed his face again and sat back on a rock, closing his eyes. He sat there for a long time, becoming so still he felt as though he had disappeared or had turned into one of the boulders he was surrounded by. Rocks that had been here forever. There was no “I’m me.” “Me” seemed to disappear and this feeling was better than the money. Better than a trunk full of cash. This would have seemed ridiculous if it didn’t feel so true.

  His pulse was the pulse of the place, and he knew, deeply, as the moments passed, why he had come back. He felt something beyond money and family, beyond himself. And he knew that he would not run. He would give all the money back like he had promised Mum. He would leave it outside the police station in Kings Bay and walk away and never look back. The police would never know who left it there.

  In that moment he knew how his story would end. This thought drove him up off the rock, and he staggered for a moment and his head felt light and all the colors were vivid and his head pulsed with hot blood. He steadied himself and climbed up the rocks and when he was almost to the top he saw a person standing beneath one of the pines.

  At first Ben thought it was an illusion brought on by the sudden rush of blood to his head. It was a man, bearded and skinny, barefoot and wild-looking. He was holding the bag of money, the rotten bag with one broken black handle. He was holding it tucked under his arm just as Ben had done a year ago on his way upstream. Ben noticed that his left arm was heavily tattooed.

  “Hello, Cop,” the man said.

  ONE WOLF

  “Give me the bag,” Ben said.

  “Don’t think so, Cop.” Dad spat on the ground.

  The word “Cop” made anger rise up in Ben, the opposite of the feeling he’d had down by the river.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  Dad did not answer.

  “Pretty stupid place to hide,” Ben said.

  “I’ve been living like an animal,” Dad said. “Six months since I came back here and I’ve been sleeping so close to my money without knowing it.”

  “It’s not your money.”

  “You stole it,” Dad snapped.

  “Not your money,” Ben repeated.

  “You’re the same as me.”

  “I’m nothing like you.”

  “You, me, and my old man. We’re all the same.”

  Ben did not say anything. He hated the truth of it. “I’m going to give the money back,” he said. “And I’m going to tell the cops you’ve been here.”

  Dad laughed. “Is that before or after they stick you in prison for burying the money? Stupid boy.”

  He felt like a little kid again, like nothing he said or thought or did was worth anything. The difference was that Ben was almost as tall as Dad now, and after a year of lifting weights, better built. His father looked hungry, all sinewy arm muscles clinging to bone.

  Ben moved toward him, and Dad scuttled back, an animal in dirty jeans and a filthy blue T-shirt.

  Ben reached for the money, and Dad pushed him away, hard. Ben went down on his backside, then jumped back to his feet. He watched his father, the wild, crumpled figure of him, and he thought of Dad’s sneakers disappearing over Nan’s back fence while he and Mum and Olive were arrested.

  “Y’know, Mum went to court and got off on probation. Uncle Chris got in big trouble for helping you. They almost put him away. But they said it was mostly your fault and they’re chasing you. They want to lock you up.”

  Dad blinked.

  “Mum’s got a job, a good one that she actually likes. Nan and her have been paying off all your stupid debts from the wreckers.”

  “Yeah?” Dad said. “Why didn’t you give ’em some of the cash you buried?”

  Ben, angry now, moved quickly toward his father. When he came close Dad hit at his ears and his neck, awkward places, but Ben fended off most of it, head down, hands protecting himself. He grabbed the material of the bag and he pulled hard and the bag ripped but he took it from his father and he scrambled away and ran. He ran up the hill, through the trees. Dad gave chase but Ben was too quick.

  He made it to the top of the rise and into the clearing and he saw Mum waiting there in the car. She opened the door and stood when she saw him.

  “Ready to go?”

  “Dad!” Ben said, panic tearing at him.

  Dad loomed over the rise, limping toward the car like some zombie thief.

  “Stay away!” Mum screamed, a mother bear protecting her cub, but Dad kept coming.

  Ben made it to the passenger side, lifted the handle. He threw open the door, tossed the bag onto the floor, climbed inside. As he went to shut the door, Dad grabbed it, took Ben by the shoulder, pulled him up and out of the car, pressing him against the red metal, staring into his eyes. Dad was bearded, dirty, angry, saliva dripping between his hillbilly teeth, his fingers digging into Ben’s skin.

  “Leave him, Ray,” Mum said, voice churning with panic. “Leave him!”

  Dad swung a punch, but Ben dodged it and heard his father’s knuckles crack against the door’s rim. He grabbed Dad by the back of his dirty blue T-shirt, twisted it to make it tight, and dragged him away from the car. Dad scratched and clawed at Ben’s arm, digging filthy fingernails into his flesh, but Ben did not care. He dragged him over the sand and dumped him at the cabin door.

  “Give it to me,” Dad said, sitting up and rubbing his neck where the T-shirt had dug in.

  Ben backed off. Dad drew himself off the ground and moved quickly toward him again. Ben tried to move away but he was too slow and Dad wrestled him to the ground in front of the idling car, pinning him.

  Ben had a flash of the last time the two of them had fought on this ground: when Dad had taken his notebook, mocked him, owned him, like some overgrown school bully. Ben had been an unfit, jam-doughnut-eating twelve-year-old then. Had not known who he was. Now, a year on, he was leaner, more muscular, while Dad had halved in size.

  Ben twisted sharply and, in one motion, flipped his father over and sat on him, holding his wrists to the sand. Dad struggled and flopped but Ben held him. After a minute or two Dad stopped bucking and writhing. Ben stared into those red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes and he saw something he had not seen there before—defeat.

  “I’m going to let you go, okay?”

  Dad did not respond.

  “Okay?”

  Dad gave the slightest nod of his head. Ben let go of his father’s skinny wrists. He stood and backed slowly toward the car.

  “Ben, let’s go,” Mum said. “Get in.”

  Dad pushed up off the ground and stood like a lame dog. Ben continued to the car, wary, as Dad ran at him again with a growl. Ben raised his forearm in defense, and Dad bit him hard. Ben shoved him away.

  There was blood on Ben’s arm. His own or his father’s, he did not know. “Go!” he shouted, like he was speaking to a vicious dog, and his father retreated. He recoiled and tripped and stood again at the cabin door.

  “Ben!” Mum called. “Now. Leave him. It’s over.”

  Ben held his arm and wiped the bite. It felt deep. He opened the passenger door. “I’m sorry,” he said, and in his mind he heard his father say, Don’t say sorry. It’s weak.

  He collapsed into the seat, slammed the door. The figure stood in the doorway of the cabin. Mum accelerated quickly across the clearing, and Dad chased. He beat on the front passenger window. He ran alongside the car and beat the window hard, leaving a smear of sweat and blood. He did the same to the rear passenger window, smashing on the glass. Dad clutched the edge of the window frame for a moment, but Mum yanked the wheel sideways and he fell away.

  They dro
ve. Ben checked the side mirror and saw Dad in the clearing. Standing, screaming at them, in front of Pop’s cabin. Then the trees swallowed the car and they turned the corner and all Ben could see was dirt road, empty, ahead and behind. Mum turned another corner, powered up the hill, swerving around ruts and rocks. They drove on with Mum saying, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”

  She flipped open the glove box, pulling three tissues from an old plastic packet.

  “Put these on it.”

  “It’s okay,” Ben said.

  She gave him a look, and Ben took the tissues.

  They drove for ten minutes and eventually emerged from the gully and into the sunshine on the edge of the paved road. Mum brought the car to a stop, kicking up a cloud of dust.

  Ben wound down the window. He could not hear the river but he heard the trees swirling gently around him, whispering, and he felt grounded again for a moment. He sat and breathed. Mum held his hand, and he clutched hers. She sobbed very quietly, and Ben dabbed at his bite mark, noticing the crookedness of the indent made by his father’s teeth. For some reason he hoped that the bite would scar him, a permanent tattoo to remind him of where he had come from.

  After a few minutes more, Mum put the car in gear and said, “We better go finish this.”

  Ben nodded, and they rolled forward. Mum turned right, toward Kings Bay. They coasted down the hill, windows open, wind roaring through them, feeling the enormity of what they were doing. Ben grabbed his old notebook out of the backpack on the floor of the car. Carved into the inside of the leather cover were the words “Culpam Poena Premit Comes.” Ben had found the translation of it in a book—“Punishment follows closely on the heels of crime.” It had proven true but it was almost too simple and neat for Ben now, too black-and-white.

  On the first page of the notebook were the sums Pop had written in smudgy blue ink, probably for some dodgy deal gone wrong. Ben flicked to the back of the book and read that quote one last time.

  Two wolves inside him. One good, one bad. A terrible battle.

  Which one would he feed?