The Hunted

by Gabriel Bergmoser

  Allie coughed. She backed down the stairs, away from the smoke. Heat was closing in around them. In less than a minute, it went from a wisp to suffocating. Frank moved back down the stairs, joining Allie on the concrete floor. He took the gun from the waistband of his jeans.

  Greg held on to the tray. His ears rung. The gunshots around him sounded muffled and miles away. His lips moved in a silent prayer, almost unconsciously. He had never believed in God, but he would give anything to be out of this now. Anything to be far away, the memories burned out of him.

  Maggie swerved again, a bullet pinging off the side of the car as she did. Her eyes moved to the rear-view mirror. She could stay ahead of them as long as the car was intact, but it could only take so much more.

  She reached for the kerosene bottle. Put it between her legs and unscrewed the lid. The pungent smell filled her nose. Another bullet struck the back of the car.

  She opened the glove compartment and felt around. Her hand found a lighter. An old Bic lighter. She took it. More bullets. Trying to aim at a moving target while moving yourself was difficult, but all it would take was one lucky shot. There wasn’t time to waste.

  Keeping one hand on the bucking wheel, she grabbed the hem of Kate’s shirt and pulled it up. She ignored the taste of blood as she put the fabric in her mouth and tore hard. A strip. All she needed. She pulled it away and dipped it in the can, pulling it up when it was mostly soaked.

  Another bullet scraped the roof. Battered metal sang and screamed.

  She let the strip of shirt hang over the lip of the can and screwed the lid back on. The wheel was tugging hard to the right. She grabbed it with both hands and straightened it. A bullet seared across the top of her shoulder. She dropped the lighter. She grabbed the wheel and swung back onto the road. Then—

  A louder, closer bang. The car jerked and a scraping, metallic whine filled the air. It was harder to keep the car straight now. They’d hit a tyre.

  She picked up the lighter and flicked it on.

  This was dangerous; beyond dangerous, suicidal. All it would take was a slip, a jerk, a second’s mistiming. But she couldn’t think about that. She put the flame to the fabric wick. It caught fast. She dropped the lighter, grabbed the can and as fire consumed the strip of shirt, she threw the can backwards out the window just as another tyre blew and the car careened off the road into the grass.

  Frank knew how to follow instinct. He’d been doing it all night. He could react in an instant to a sudden change in circumstances. But now, as smoke filled the cellar and his lungs started to seize, he paused. He only had one working arm. It would take everything he had to get the outside cellar door open from below. Anyone outside would see it happening and in the time it took him to get the gun raised, he and Allie would be dead.

  ‘They might not be outside,’ Allie said. Her voice sounded thick, choked. ‘They might . . .’ She trailed off, coughing.

  ‘But if they are—’

  Allie took his hand. ‘We have to risk it. We’ll push the outside doors together. Hard and fast. One each. Once they’re open, we go back down the stairs, as quick as we can. If they start shooting, we’ll know they’re there.’

  ‘I don’t even know if they’ll open,’ Frank said. ‘They’re covered in dirt, they’ve been that way for years—’

  ‘We have to try.’ The hardness of Allie’s grip, the urging in those eyes. Frank couldn’t believe this was the same girl who’d arrived hunched and sulking just weeks ago. He knew then with startling clarity that if he was here alone, he wouldn’t bother. He’d put the gun to his head before the fire or the knives could reach him. But if there was a chance, even the slimmest chance, that he could get Allie out of here, get her back to the life she deserved, then there was no question about what he was going to do.

  Frank could hardly see the outline of anything now. The smoke was thick.

  ‘I can do it,’ Allie said. ‘We both can.’

  There was no more time to waste. They climbed the stairs together, until the double doors were right above them. Frank gave himself a moment to listen, to try to gauge if there were any voices outside. But a moment was all he could afford. He put the gun between his teeth, hating the metallic taste. He placed his right hand and shoulder against one of the two doors. Beside him, Allie did the same.

  ‘Count of three,’ she whispered.

  Greg saw it without knowing what it was: a small, flaming shape spinning through the air from Maggie’s car towards them. Involuntarily, he yelled. Beneath him, the car jerked hard; he held on, buffeted by the wind as he was almost thrown onto the tarmac. Whatever it was flew past his head, so close he winced. His eyes followed it as it landed hard and rolled under the car directly behind them.

  The night became fire. The flames erupted hard and fast, bursting up from the Molotov, consuming the car in a single hungry gulp. Then there were screams, burning heat surrounding them and as Trent’s car went off the road and gunned after Maggie’s, an explosion shook the ground and tore apart the night as the next car, unable to swerve in time, drove right into the inferno.

  Everything went into slow motion, playing out in nightmare clarity that Greg couldn’t look away from. The impact sent the second car, engulfed in fire, flipping over the first, soaring almost gracefully through the air as the flames ate through it and everyone inside. The smell of scorched petrol and acrid burning metal was everywhere. Greg thought he heard Trent’s snarl of fury, thought he heard yells from around him but he only had eyes for the car that hit the road upside down and skidded with a shrieking wail, leaving a river of fire behind it and turning the road they had only just escaped into a furnace that, from this distance, almost could have been a beacon.

  Frank staggered into the night. The heat from behind was scorching, but he ignored it as he stumbled forwards, gun up. A man ahead turned, started to yell. Frank pulled the trigger and the man fell amid the billowing smoke, stars blurring through it all.

  He was struggling to breathe. The smoke was obscuring his vision, but he knew it was more than that, knew that he was close to collapse.

  Then there was Allie, under his arm, holding him up as she pointed. She was telling him that Maggie’s station wagon was just ahead, in the grass where they had left it. He felt his pocket. The keys were still there.

  Maggie. The voice was loud and distant all at once. We have to help Maggie.

  They moved for the car.

  The car was done. She couldn’t control it anymore and smoke was billowing from below the hood. It had come to a halt pointed back the way she’d come. Looking out to her left she saw the approaching headlights, bright even against the flames. Only one pair. That was something.

  She grabbed the gun, opened the driver-side door and stepped out into the grass. Pain shot up her leg as if she’d stepped on a landmine, but still she forced herself into a crouch behind the bonnet. She pointed the shotgun directly at the car. Her finger tightened around the trigger. She aimed at where she guessed the driver was and fired.

  The car stopped and Trent stepped out just as a bullet went through the windshield and embedded itself in the seat where he had been a moment ago. He glanced at where it had hit then looked back at the dark shape of Maggie’s car. ‘I can’t wait to tear this fucking bitch apart.’

  ‘What are we doing, Trent?’ the skinny youth beside Greg asked. ‘We can’t just sit here shooting at her.’

  ‘We’re not gonna do that at all,’ Trent said. ‘But the bitch don’t have a whole house to hide in anymore, does she?’ He looked directly at Greg. ‘Hand me a brick then get the fuck out. Don’t want any more piss on my tray.’

  ‘A brick?’ Greg asked.

  Trent lunged at him, grabbed his throat and hit him so hard he saw dancing lights and even the pain of it seemed to be dazzled into nonexistence.

  ‘A brick,’ Trent said. ‘A fucking brick. What is so hard about that?’

  Greg took a brick and gave it to him.

  Trent let go. ‘
Out. Now.’

  Greg did as he was told. Trent walked around to the driver-side door. The other three were standing nearby, watching with sick anticipation.

  Greg’s eyes moved to the rest of the bricks.

  The road swayed and wavered through the windscreen. The shapes of cars, bright and awful in the burning night ahead. For a wild moment Frank wondered if this was hell, if somewhere in all of it he had died, and this was what came next. But Allie’s voice was beside him and the wheel was hot under his hands and he knew that somehow this long night was not quite over yet.

  Blackness at the corners of his vision. Allie yelling then, grabbing his arm. Pain, somewhere. The spots of fire in the night and the road. And Amber, in her last call before she died, her voice weak and coarse but somehow still hers, somehow as gentle and tough as it had been in the times he’d let himself love her despite it all.

  You can make it right.

  No, he wanted to whisper. He couldn’t.

  Allie again, shaking his arm. Frank, come on. You have to. Behind the car, Maggie watched. They weren’t coming any closer or firing. Which made nervousness spike. She only had a few bullets and she couldn’t waste any more on random shots, but if they had a plan . . .

  ‘Everyone away from the car,’ Trent barked.

  His three cronies backed towards Greg. Trent was crouched by the driver-side door, one arm inside. Then, very fast, he pulled his hand free and jumped clear as if it were on fire. For a second Greg was confused, then the car started forward, faster and faster – as the brick pushed down the accelerator.

  The headlights were getting closer. Fast. Too fast. Maggie fired, again and again. She knew she was hitting the windscreen, knew she was hitting the driver, but the car didn’t stop and the headlights filled her vision and—

  Trent’s car slammed into Maggie’s with a wail of crunching, tearing metal. Wrapped around each other, the two vehicles rolled several metres before coming to a halt in the grass, thick black smoke pouring up into the clear night sky.

  For a moment there was no sound.

  Trent put his hands on his hips. ‘Reckon that’s done for the bitch?’

  The others whooped and cheered. Greg closed his eyes.

  And then it all vanished. The fear, the desire to save himself, the disgust. It all slipped away like water down a drain as he opened his eyes. He was holding another brick. He looked at it, heavy and rough in his hand. He thought of Phillipa and the kids. He should have answered their calls. He should have turned around. He should have done a lot of things differently.

  He looked directly at the nearest man, then slammed the brick as hard as he could into his face.

  A stunned silence, just long enough for Greg to attack the second man, to feel his skull cave and splinter as he brought the brick down on the top of his head.

  The third raised his gun and fired. Greg’s stomach burned but he still managed to swing the blood-stained brick and find home. The brief cry ended in a wet crunch.

  Greg swayed. He saw the stars. Saw the smoke from the cars. Felt the heat of the night closing around him.

  For a second, just one second, Greg McRae was alive. For just one second, he wanted to roar with triumph.

  Fuck you, Keith.

  The bullet tore through his brain and came out the other side in a fountain of thick blood.

  Frank was motionless. An icy, wild panic was grabbing at Allie. No, not now, he couldn’t be dead, not after everything.

  The car wasn’t moving. Frank had stopped it on the grass, off the side of the road, away from the burning cars and the dying screams. He had slumped back in the seat, closed his eyes.

  ‘Please!’ Allie cried. She could still taste smoke. Her mouth was dry, her throat burned. She shook Frank, hard. ‘Please.’

  His wrist. She had his wrist. She made herself focus. Made herself find his pulse. And after a moment—

  It was there. It was steady. He was alive.

  She felt like she was about to come apart. The fear was still there, pounding at her flimsy defences, ready to burst in and take over and bring her down for good. But something else too.

  Maggie.

  The pistol was on the dashboard. She picked it up gingerly. She opened the car door and stepped out into the hot night. The mingled stench of burning rubber and petrol, the sounds of crackling blazes, behind them now. And the expanse of grass ahead, with the distant shape of a tree.

  Fear rose. It reached for her.

  The least I can do, the absolute least I can do, is not let them know how fucking scared I am.

  What did she have?

  Maggie stretched out one hand. Found dirt and pulled. Scraped her body along the hard, dry ground, through grass that scratched at her face.

  She had jumped clear of the collision, but the bonnet of the stolen car had just caught her hip, an impact that had raced through her body in hot waves as she stumbled and fell in the grass. She didn’t know if anything was broken and it didn’t matter either way. What mattered was moving. What mattered was ignoring the far-off yells and the single gunshot that ended them. What mattered was putting one hand ahead of the next and trying, even though she knew with cold certainty it would be impossible to pull herself to safety.

  Through the pain and the panic, one thought was clear. She could not give up. Not after what she had already survived. Not after the lives that had been lost because of her. The night would be over soon. The sun would rise and she would be alive to see it and—

  Something seized her hair and then she was moving faster, dragged across the ground, the pain in her hip and leg soaring with every rock and bump. She reached up and tried to pry away the hand. Tried to dig in her fingernails but something impacted her face with a force that made her taste blood and see flashes of dancing light.

  She caught glimpses. The stars. The grass. The dirt. The tree, getting bigger and bigger. The silhouette of the man who pulled her along. Simon. Rope. Frank. The barrel of a gun. Allie. A noose. Her mother. The dark shape of a nearby dam.

  Her face hit the ground. He had let go of her. She tried to force herself up but the pain in her hip coupled with a boot in the gut brought her down again, struggling for air.

  ‘Shoulda just torched the joint,’ Trent was saying. ‘Shoulda ended it soon as we knew you were inside. Stupid. Fucking stupid, all of it. How many of my family are dead now? And all cos of you. Cos you tried to run.’

  His hand was around her neck. His face in hers.

  ‘You shouldn’t have run,’ he said. ‘Look at you. What you’ve done. You’d’ve fit right in. You would’ve been a top fucking hunter. Coulda felt the hot blood and heard the screams and been a part of something.’ He hit her in the stomach again. Darkness clouded the edges of Maggie’s vision. She tried to breathe. He wasn’t holding her neck anymore but something else was. She felt the coarse bite of rope.

  ‘This country is a beautiful, wild fucking place,’ he said. ‘Needs beautiful, wild people. People like you and me. People who know the land and love the hunt.’

  A grunt of exertion and what little air Maggie could suck in vanished as the noose tightened around her neck and she was pulled hard upright. Her feet scrabbled for purchase and then were dangling above the ground as her throat closed and buzzing filled her ears then—

  She found the ground. Drew in air. Her vision returned. She saw the dark figure of the man, holding the rope he’d slung over a branch, stark against the night and the dam beyond and—

  He pulled the rope. Maggie was up again, feet kicking, hands clawing at the noose. No air. Her neck burned. The ground returned. She could breathe again. She was standing. She met the man’s eyes.

  ‘Should be honoured,’ he said. ‘Hung like Ned Kelly, like a true-blue Aussie, with a view of the sunburnt majesty of it all.’ He looked out past the dam, across the grass. ‘Beautiful, eh?’

  He pulled the rope again. Pressure built in Maggie’s head. Her neck was about to cave. She kicked and swung, searched for
ground with her toes, but there was none . . . Until there was, and then she was gasping again . . . but the rope went tense and her neck was twisted, her skin tore, her lungs went on fire as they begged for air that couldn’t reach them.

  She was on the ground. She tried to speak but all that came out was a rasp.

  ‘This is better than you deserve,’ he said. ‘You should be grateful. Are you grateful? Tell me. Say, “I’m grateful, Trent.” Go on.’ He grabbed her by the chin. Made her look at him. Leaned in close. ‘Say it.’

  Maggie forced in air. ‘Fuck you, Trent.’

  Trent grinned. ‘Still tough, eh? Well, I’ve got all fucking night. I can make this last just as long as I damn well please. You’re not going quick, Maggie. Might hang you for a bit, then drag you back to town. Then, who knows? Everyone left is gonna want a go at you. And they’ll fucking get it too. Reckon we’ll keep you alive for a while. Yeah. You’ll be a special fucking case.’ He stepped back. ‘And let me tell you, I’m gonna—’

  Gunshot. A black hole appeared in Trent’s forehead. His eyes bulged in a final moment of shock as he dropped.

  The rope came loose. Maggie wrenched it away, sucking in beautiful air. She tried to take a step but staggered and fell sideways just as Allie caught her and they went down together.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The stars were winking out. A touch of light had crept into the sky, black becoming a dark blue. Frank sat on a rock by the tree. His shoulder ached, but then that was hardly surprising. He felt extremely weak and lightheaded, but he was alive. Allie stood beside him, eyes on the road, alert. She still held the pistol. In the water of the dam behind them, Maggie washed away the filth and the blood.

  Frank looked at his granddaughter. She seemed okay. As okay as anyone could be after what had happened that night. Not the kind of thing anyone wanted to live through, but they had lived through it and that was all that mattered.