The Peco Incident

by Des Hunt

  As we moved forward, the light from the fireworks faded until we were walking in near darkness. We dared not run for fear of stumbling onto an albatross. After a time I couldn’t be sure if we were still moving in the right direction. Then I heard the diseased-barking sound I’d first heard at Allans Beach: the sound of a spray pump.

  I grabbed hold of Nick. ‘Stop!’ I whispered. ‘She’s right there.’

  He stopped, and together we listened to the pumping.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked.

  ‘Attack her!’

  ‘We don’t have the gas masks,’ I said.

  ‘Doesn’t worry me’ came his reply.

  ‘OK. But we’ll need her out where we can see her.’

  The pumping stopped. Next, there was a brief hiss from the spray jet. And then we could see her. She’d moved out of the shadow of the hill to approach a couple of albatrosses on the slope just below us. Now we could see that the black outfit was a wetsuit. Apart from the spray unit she was carrying, she had what looked like a stick slung over her back.

  That was the moment when we should have attacked.

  We didn’t. Instead we watched in shock as she walked up to an albatross, aimed the spray nozzle, and fired. The bird never moved as it was coated with the misty spray. She moved on to the next one and did the same thing.

  Her actions were so heartless that it was beyond scary. Already the virus would be inside the lungs of each bird. It might take a week before they died, but they were effectively dead from the moment the spray hit their nostrils.

  I had no doubts that Brio knew exactly what she was doing — she just didn’t care. In her mind, the deaths of the albatrosses were necessary: they had to die, because her twisted mind thought it would make a difference.

  For a while, the horror of what we were seeing stopped us from attacking. And by the time we recovered, it was too late.

  She’d finished that set of birds and was looking around for more when she saw us. Without knowing it, we had shifted out of the shadows into the last of the moonlight.

  ‘Well, hello, boys,’ she said in a sexy-sounding voice. ‘I thought there was somebody nearby. Why don’t you step a little closer, so I can see you more clearly?’

  Nick and I looked at each other. This could be our chance. We moved forward, separating so that we could attack her from each side.

  ‘Stop!’ she ordered. ‘Get closer together or I’ll shoot.’

  We stopped. The object I’d thought was a stick slung over her shoulder was now in her hands. It was not a stick; it was a rifle — one that was pointed directly at me.

  CHAPTER 30

  You’d better believe me,’ said Brio, ‘I will shoot.’

  Nick and I moved closer together as she had ordered.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said, but she didn’t shift the rifle any. It was still aimed at my chest.

  ‘Sit down!’ she demanded.

  ‘No,’ said Nick.

  I stared at him. This was not the time to argue with her.

  She swung the rifle until it was pointed at Nick. ‘I told you to sit!’

  ‘No!’ Nick repeated. Then he stared straight into her eyes and said, ‘You won’t shoot.’

  ‘I will,’ she responded, showing signs of anger.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said Nick. ‘That rifle doesn’t work. It’s one from inside the fort and they’ve been disabled.’

  An evil smile spread over her face. ‘But I’ve enabled it.’ She then lifted the bolt on the rifle and moved it back before slamming it shut again. ‘And now it’s loaded,’ she added.

  Was it a bluff? Had she fixed the thing so it could shoot? I certainly wasn’t prepared to take the risk.

  ‘Then prove it,’ said Nick. ‘Shoot it into the air.’

  Brio shook her head. ‘No — I’m not falling for that. If I shoot, it’ll bring everyone. I’ll shoot only if I have to.’

  Nick took a step forward. ‘Then you’re going to have to,’ he said.

  ‘Stop!’ she shouted.

  When Nick took another step, I felt as if my heart would jump from my chest. ‘Don’t, Nick!’ I cried. ‘She’ll kill you!’

  He took another step. And another.

  Then Brio stepped backwards. He’d called her bluff and won.

  As he took another couple of steps, she reversed the rifle until she had it by the barrel. Now it was a club and almost as dangerous as if it had been loaded.

  ‘I’ll smash your head in,’ she said in a way that left no doubt that she would.

  Nick stopped.

  ‘Now, move back.’

  He hesitated for a couple of seconds. Brio raised the rifle higher until Nick finally got the message and moved back, much to my relief.

  ‘Now what?’ he asked.

  ‘Now we—’ The sentence was never finished. Her head snapped towards the hill behind us. I turned and saw several torches approaching. It was the reinforcements. I smiled: now we had her.

  But when I turned back, I saw the rifle lying on the ground and Brio sprinting towards the cliff. Nick was following a few metres behind.

  They raced down the steepening slope without any regard for personal safety. I followed, but without the courage to move in the same reckless manner.

  It was probably just as well, because suddenly both of them were on the ground and sliding towards the edge. A moment later I, too, felt my feet slipping on the dew-wet grass. I slowed to a crawl, wondering if I should go on.

  Somehow Brio stopped herself. She was so close to the top of the cliff that her feet dangled over the side. Nick was several metres above her, still sliding down. If he held that path he would hit her. Then I realized that he wasn’t trying to stop. He was using his arms to get more speed. He wanted to crash into her. He wanted to force her over the edge.

  I cried out, trying to stop him: to warn him that he would go over, too. But it was wasted breath. He was hearing nothing. And anyway he was past the point where he could stop in time. The collision had to happen.

  He hit head-first, with his hands raised to give her an extra push. Brio lifted her arms in a last attempt to save herself. It made no difference. Nothing could change things. An instant after the collision, she silently disappeared from view.

  Nick ended up parallel with the edge. His hands and feet scratched at the surface, clutching at anything that might hold. Nothing did, and soon he, too, was over the side. But not silently. I heard two grunts, and then the screaming started. Piercing screams of pain that lasted long after he’d reached the bottom.

  I crawled across the slope, keeping well clear of the place where they had gone over. Instead, I headed towards the lighthouse where the cliff face was mostly rock. For some of the time, that area was well lit by the flashing light.

  By the time I started my descent, Nick’s screams had been replaced by groans. There was still nothing from Brio.

  They’d gone over in the centre of a curved cut into the headland. From my position at the side, I could see that the drop was far from vertical. Ancient lava flows had formed layers, some harder than others. The drop where they’d disappeared was just a few metres to another slope. This one was bare rock and much steeper than the grassy slope above. It ended in another short drop to a ledge-like layer. That was where Nick seemed to be. Below that was a very steep fall of several metres to the rocky platform that formed the shore.

  The climb down was uncomfortable rather than difficult. The sharp rocks cut my hands and pierced my clothing. But I’m sure my pain was far less than Nick’s. He’d stopped groaning and was now expressing his pain using words — many of them unrepeatable. Strangely, I found the swearing reassuring: at least he was alive and conscious. Then he must have caught a glimpse of me in one of the flashes of light.

  ‘Danny!’ he called. ‘Over here!’

  I waited until the next flash, hoping there was enough light to see him. But the ledge remained in shadow.

  ‘I’m coming,’ I said. ‘I
’m almost on the ledge. Keep talking so I can find you.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Where’s Brio?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s absolutely black here. She could be right beside me and I wouldn’t know. Not unless she stinks, which she probably does, because she’s such a rotten person and rotten things usually stink, don’t they? Maybe she is beside me, because there is a smell of some sort. If it is her, then I think she should …’ And so he continued, rambling on about Brio, her body odour and how rotten she was, until I was close enough to make out his shape in the faint light.

  ‘You can stop now,’ I said. ‘I’m here.’

  I felt his hand touch my leg. ‘So you are,’ he said, more brightly than I would have expected.

  ‘What’s the damage?’ I asked.

  ‘My leg is broken.’

  ‘You sure?’

  He gave a little laugh. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure. I’ve done it before.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Not anymore. It’s numb. It feels as though it’s not there.’

  I didn’t know whether that was a good sign or not. I lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘Do you really not know where Brio is?’

  ‘Haven’t seen her, heard her or smelled her,’ he replied.

  ‘Do you think she’s dead?’

  He gave a snort. ‘Not her! She’s probably—’

  A voice interrupted us, calling from above. ‘Danny! Nick!’

  It was Dad.

  ‘Down here!’ I yelled back.

  A spotlight came on, shining from the side opposite the lighthouse. A circle of light moved along the ledge. Just short of us, it stopped. No more than five metres away, in the centre of the circle was Brio, sitting with her back to a rock.

  ‘Let there be light,’ she said in her little-girl voice. ‘And there was. And it shone all around.’ Then in her normal voice, ‘Which is just what I need.’ She crawled to the edge to peer at the drop down to the shore platform. ‘Bye, boys. This time we won’t meet again.’ With that, she stretched a leg over the edge, and within seconds had gone from view.

  ‘You’ve got to go after her, Danny,’ said Nick, urgently.

  ‘Why? She can’t go anywhere from down there.’

  ‘Yes, she can,’ he said. ‘Why do you think she’s wearing a wetsuit?’

  I closed my eyes, annoyed at my stupidity. I’d thought she was wearing it for camouflage.

  ‘She’s going to swim around the coast,’ said Nick. ‘You’ve got to stop her!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he cried, shaking his head. ‘Just do it! You’ve got to go now!’

  ‘What about you?’ I asked.

  ‘They’ll find me,’ he said nodding in the direction of the light. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Go and get the bitch.’

  So I went.

  CHAPTER 31

  Although the climb down to the shore platform was steeper than the earlier slope, the smooth rock and many cracks made it much easier. It got even better when the spotlight began following me.

  I looked up and saw that there were now two lights. The original and a smaller one that was being carried across the grassy slope; hopefully it was a group going down to rescue Nick. I waved my arm to indicate that I was all right and was going down to the shoreline. In return a hand gave the thumbs-up in the beam of the spotlight, suggesting that they approved of what I was doing.

  Below me, Brio was finding it just as easy, and I could see the gap between us increasing. It looked as though she’d be down and swimming off into the night before I touched the rocks at the bottom. I wouldn’t be able to stop her, and, even if I did catch up, I doubted there was much I could do. Not only was she bigger than me, but she’d shown us before how vicious she could be when cornered. It would be an unequal match, and I would come off second-best. And yet, despite that, I continued climbing down.

  It was not until I was halfway and she was touching the bottom that I thought I might have a chance. The smell drifting up from the rocks told me that we were not on our own. There were seals down there, possibly a colony of them. And if there was any one thing I was sure about Brio, it was that she hated seals.

  I moved sideways to follow a better route, and also to avoid arriving on top of her. A little cry from below told me she’d seen the seals. I paused to look down. It was a seal colony. Not a big one — maybe half a dozen mothers with their pups — but more than enough to freak Brio out.

  They were plainly upset by the spotlight disturbing their sleep. Some of them already had their heads in the air, roaring a warning. Brio was flattened against the cliff face.

  Now was the time for some payback.

  ‘Scary, aren’t they?’ I yelled down at her.

  ‘Shut up!’ she snarled

  ‘These ones won’t run away, you know. They’ve got pups: they’ll defend them to the death.’

  ‘I said: shut up!’

  I moved down a bit more until I was close enough to the platform to jump if need be.

  ‘Even if you go in the water, they’ll follow.’ I didn’t know whether that was true, but it seemed like a good thing to say.

  This time Brio swore at me. The sound of her voice seemed to upset a mother seal that was nearby. The cow hauled herself towards the woman. Brio hurled a string of swear words at the seal, before sidling along the cliff face towards me. The seal followed, with another two moving forward a little to see what was happening.

  ‘See! They’re ganging up on you now,’ I said. ‘They’ll all be at you in a moment.’

  She shuffled along some more.

  ‘They give terrible bites, and their mouths are full of disease. They’ll give you rabies.’

  More shuffling.

  ‘That’s their revenge for all the disease you’ve been spreading. You’ll die like all those birds you killed. Your insides will rot and your brain will turn to mush.’

  That got a reaction, but not the one I was anticipating. She leapt across the short distance between us, grabbed my leg and pulled. I was down on the rocks before there was any chance to respond.

  Then she started kicking me. Not random kicking, but systematic blows, designed to make me move away from the cliff and into the group of seals. The kicks hurt nevertheless, as she didn’t so much care where she hit, so long as they forced me between her and the seals.

  And they did. I slithered over the stinky surface, scrambling to get out of range.

  ‘Now you can feel their bites,’ she said. ‘And you can get their disease, and die a horrible death.’ Again she was gloating, and with reason. I’d so enjoyed taunting her that I’d let my guard down — something she would never do.

  I could sense the seals moving near me. Their breathing came in hissing snorts against a background of rumbling growls. How long would it be before they attacked?

  Then one of them moved until it was right beside me. It was a pup, gazing at me with its cute big eyes. Except those eyes didn’t look so cute stuck right in my face. I felt that even this little fellow could do some damage if he wanted to.

  But that was not his intention. He was only being inquisitive, trying to work out what this funny white-faced thing might be. After a moment, he turned away from me and flipper-walked towards Brio.

  The little fellow posed no serious threat, and yet Brio responded as if he were a charging bull. She lashed out with her foot. The pup squealed as he was bowled over onto his back. Then he started crying. It was the cry of an infant in pain — a cry that no mum can ignore.

  His mother launched herself at Brio, slapping my face with her hind flippers as she rushed by. For a moment, Brio’s eyes opened as wide as the pup’s. Then she started moving backwards, unable to take her eyes off the angry animal. Faster and faster she went, continuing even when the seal had slowed. A foot hit a gap. She staggered, trying to regain her footing. But she had run out of rocks, and lost balance. She toppled backwards into one of the deep pools surrounding the colony.


  If it had been anywhere else on the edge of the platform, she would have been all right. Her problem was that, at that particular spot, just a metre from the edge, a small rock stuck up through the kelp forest. It was at exactly the right position to smash into her back as she fell.

  She didn’t scream or yell or make any noise. Shock registered on her face before she slipped to the side, off the rock and into the pool. Her wetsuit bubbled as it filled with water. For a time, the floating kelp formed a bed that supported her. But not for long. Soon, she began to sink.

  By then I was standing at the edge looking down at her. The seals had retreated until they were no longer in the glow of the spotlight. We had the stage to ourselves. In a play or movie, I would have been the winning hero looking down at the defeated villain wondering how it had come to an end like this. And Brio — the villain — would, in her last seconds of life, be showing signs of remorse for all the hurt and pain she had created for others.

  But it wasn’t like that at all. She showed no remorse. Nothing was said. She just lay limply in the water. If she showed any emotion, it was one of surprise.

  Even when the water covered her face, there was little change except for a brief gurgling sound. Her eyes remained open, staring up at me.

  Suddenly, the anger I’d felt over dinner came back with full force. This wasn’t right. She was going to die without ever knowing what she’d done to Murph and Harriet.

  ‘No!’ I screamed. ‘No!’

  I leapt into the water. Kelp vines wrapped around my arms and legs, but they were no match for my anger. Nothing was going to stop me: I was going to do this no matter what it took. I had to do this for Murph.

  Lifting her head out of the water was easy. A spluttering sound came from her open mouth. At least she was breathing again. Apart from that there was little to indicate she was alive. Her arms and legs were as lifeless as those of a rag doll.

  Hauling her up onto the rocks was always going to be difficult, considering the difference in our sizes. Matters weren’t helped by the slime on the rocks, the clinging kelp, or her unresponsive body. Nonetheless, soon we were both lying on the edge of the platform. While I puffed noisily from the exertion, there was just the faintest of gurgles as her chest moved in and out.