by Lois Murphy
In the kitchen the only food is a few broken remnants in the bottom of a sack of dog food, too few to bother packing when we left. They’re stale and awful now, but Gina is obviously famished, and chomps into them with forbearance. ‘Tomorrow,’ I tell her, ‘tomorrow we’ll celebrate big time. A meat pie each. And yep, you can have sauce.’ I ruffle her undamaged ear and she leans her head back into my hand, her mouth stretched into a grin of contentment.
I take another look at her side – the bottom half of her coat is dark and matted with blood. I’ll have to try to clean the wound, ascertain whether it needs stitches. She hates baths.
But first, I pull out my phone and key in Alex’s number. I need to share the news of Gina’s survival, the one joy in an ongoing sequence of disasters. But the phone has gone dead again; instead of a dial tone there is only that same faint, snowy static. I sink onto the couch with frustration. There’s no chance of the landline still being connected, but I pick it up anyway, just to be sure. There’s the same snowy, distant crackle. I’m just pondering it when I hear the noise outside. The sound of an approaching car.
No. Not car. Cars.
I grab the rifle and throw myself full-length onto the floor, sidling on my belly to the large window. I use the gun barrel to shift the curtain minimally on one side, creating a tiny slit. It enables me to see the driveway, which is awash with the approaching beams of headlights.
I realise that I’m not breathing and take in a large gasp of air. I can feel my blood pumping manically. The logical explanation is that Denham has come after me, bringing reinforcements. He’d never come on his own. If they think I’m going to come out, they’re going to have a long night. I’m only beginning to register what this could mean when the vehicles come into view.
There are five. All grey, all tinted so it’s impossible to see within, all with their powerful engines humming slowly. One by one the oversized 4WDs turn slowly in front of Milly’s house and glide to form a line out the front. The effect on my bowels is instant, and the knuckles clutching the gun are almost pure bone. But I’m inside, locked in. I’m safe, I keep telling myself as I struggle to keep my breath slow and deep.
The cars sit idling outside the window, in no obvious hurry to do anything. None of the engines stop and the doors remain closed, the tinted windows impenetrable. It’s like watching a huge, coiled predator.
The cars have been there so long I’ve started to cramp across my shoulderblades when without signal or warning the first car begins to move slowly forward, closely followed by the rest of the convoy. Each vehicle turns at the side of the house and continues at funeral speed around to the back.
Seriously frightened, I scramble to my feet and stumble into the back bedroom. Using the gun’s barrel again, I shift the curtain just enough to give me a view of the vehicles. God only knows what they are up to.
Or where they are. They’ve gone. Between the front and the back of the house, the five cars have vanished.
Just like the last time.
I wheel back to the front room and kill the light, taking up position at the window with the gun cocked and ready. The adrenaline rush has well and truly kicked in now and I don’t have to fight to control my breathing anymore; it’s slow, measured and rhythmical. I’m geared up and utterly, utterly calm.
As it is outside. The faintest of breezes has sprung up and the trees are gently rustling, as if expecting rain. The peacefulness of the night is mesmerising, the sort of night it wouldn’t surprise you if fairies appeared, dancing delicate circles in the overgrown grass. The air has the charge of magic, extenuated by the appearance and disappearance of the strange uniform convoy. I’m intoxicated with the gentle emptiness of the scene outside, the thought that it could – maybe, possibly – finally be over.
Unwilling to be lulled into letting my guard down, I loop back to the bedroom. It’s always possible the mist could be luring me, seducing me at the front of the house. I stand to attention to the side of the bedroom window, my back to the wall, watching carefully. And I have the feeling that something is out there.
I’m only in position for a short time when I pinpoint the source of my suspicion. A clump of native grass is swaying, jerking in a way unnatural for wind. I’m wondering what on earth the mist is up to when the grass splits to the side, and the shambling form of a tiny echidna waddles into view. It pauses, its snout twitching, before carefully making its clumsy way along the side of the garden bed, snuffling into patches of foliage before finding something of interest and crashing back into the undergrowth.
It’s hard to describe the feeling that washes over me at the sight of the little creature. It’s almost religious – or how I would imagine a religious experience to be. The wave of wonder and pure joy – that’s the only word I can think of – is engulfing. It is over. I am sure of it now. I feel as though I’m floating, released into a realm distinct from hard reality, one touched by celestial beams.
The scratching noise that reaches me as I peer into the night, elated, is coming from the back. By the time I reach the kitchen it’s stopped. The key to the back door is lying on the floor and the door is wide, open to the night. Gina is sitting to attention beside the table, facing me. She is skeletal now, her fur matted and filthy: a beast rather than a dog. She is staring at me attentively, through burning yellow eyes that are both glowing and vacant at the same time. Her tongue is lolling as she pants, the sharp points of twisted teeth just visible. She emits a long, low snarl that is beyond feral, it’s more like a rumble from the depths of the earth than something from a living being. Her claws sprawl from her paws, grotesque against the linoleum.
I grab at the kitchen door and wrench it closed just as she springs. The thud of her body against it is tremendous, like that of a large wild animal. There is no key to the kitchen door, and the thought of the open back door scares me witless. I retreat into the lounge, jamming the sideboard against the door. I just need to calm down and get my bearings. I leave the light off and cross to the windows. The car isn’t that far away, I could get out the larger window easily enough, and then it would only be a short sprint to the Land Cruiser.
But then what? I’d still have to get out of Nebulah. Or to somewhere I could lock myself in. One thing is for sure, I can hardly stay here. And I don’t have time to make plans.
And then I see it. Milly’s ute, parked right up against the Land Cruiser, so close it would be impossible to get to the driver’s door. It had arrived with no sound at all.
I sense the two figures seated on the couch before my eyes adjust to the gloom and their outlines become distinct. Milly and Gavin are holding hands. Like reunited lovers.
‘I came to find you. Yesterday. I gambled.’ Milly’s voice is a gurgle. ‘But I was too late, I didn’t get very far. But I did distract the mist for a while, gave you time to get to the pub.’
Beside her Gavin has started to giggle. He raises her hand and kisses it. ‘I reckon he owes you,’ he chuckles.
‘Huge. Debt,’ she croons back.
As they launch from the couch, I raise the gun to my mouth and pray that I am in time.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe huge thanks to Arts Tasmania and the University of Tasmania for awarding Soon the UTAS Prize for Best Unpublished Manuscript in the Tasmanian Premier’s Awards in 2015. Thank you to the judges Kate Gordon, Chris Gallagher and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart for their enthusiasm for the book, which was unexpected and tremendously encouraging. Acknowledgement must be made too, of the support of the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre and in particular the efforts of Chris Gallagher, who was instrumental in seeing the book come to print.
Major kudos is owed to Barry Scott and the team at Transit Lounge, who are a blessing to new writers and a much-needed addition to Australian publishing. Penelope Goodes, as editor, was a pleasure to work with, zealous cliché exterminator. I hope Transit Lounge get the next Harry Potter.
Personally, the divinely beret-ed Vanessa Russell has been nagger extraor
dinaire, recently dragging the equally divinely shod Winnie Salamon into the Get Your Arse Into Gear stakes. Thank you to both for the encouragement/shame.
Family of course, and in particular Adam, who has always challenged me to keep working, and celebrated any success so buoyantly, transforming trepidation into excitement. Christine Murphy’s opinion and support have always greatly mattered, in that particular way of sisters who shoot from the hip, and I would give anything to have her here to share in this.
Lois Murphy has travelled widely, most recently spending six years exploring Australia in a homemade 4WD truck, working mainly in small or remote towns, before settling in Darwin for a number of years. She has won a handful of prizes for her writing, including the Northern Territory Literary Award and the Sisters in Crime Best New Talent Prize. The majority of Soon, her first novel, was written while living in a caravan park in Carnarvon. Lois currently lives in Melbourne, Victoria.
More at https://loismurphy.wordpress.com/