by John Marsden
I started groping underneath me, using my hands to work out what was there. It seemed like the spare tyre was held in place by a bolt with a thread, and a bracket that screwed down onto the bolt. I had no trouble getting the bracket off, but the problem then was to get the tyre out of the way. The Falcon boot was small, the tyre was heavy, I was exhausted, and the air was getting worse all the time. I started trying to raise it, lying above it and pulling it up with a short quick lift, using just my arms. The first three tries didn’t work, just left me panting and feeling weak. I lay on top of the tyre for a few minutes. Then I gave it the big charge. A tennis player grunt and the knowledge that I wouldn’t have the energy for any more tries: this was all I had left.
And it worked. I got it. I balanced the tyre on top of the bolt while I took a breather.
The only trouble was that it’s difficult to take a breather when there’s not much to breathe.
I pushed the tyre a little further to the side, as far as it would go, then shoved my hand into the pit and had a hunt. The tools were scattered around. Bad sign that: the owner was pretty sloppy. Dad would not have been impressed. I could feel a spanner, which wasn’t a lot of use, and a foot pump, then a pair of pliers and a jack. And a tyre lever.
There was something very comforting about that tyre lever. My hands closed around it and gripped it. It made quite a good weapon. Anyone I hit hard enough with it would stay hit. With a good backswing I could rip a head open like a pumpkin.
I took another rest, then gritted my teeth and attacked the lid. I stabbed at the metal again and again. I had to take the risk that there’d be people outside, ready to pounce on me. I hit as hard as I could. I pounded until I was wet with my own sweat, wheezing like Fi’s little sister, so drained of energy that I couldn’t lift the lever again, let alone hit with any force.
That metal was tough stuff, tougher than it looked. I suppose though, the real trouble was that I was lying on my back, I had no room to swing and I was too tired to hit hard. For the boot it was probably like me being beaten up by Fi’s sister: her little fists would rain on me with a gentle pitter-patter. ‘Gee the flies are bad today,’ I’d tease her. I had a horrible feeling that my bashes on the boot lid weren’t much harder than the pitter-patter of the flies on the outside.
Thinking about that made me wonder about the flies. Would they be starting to buzz yet? Was it daylight? When I looked at the rear corners of the boot I could see some grey spots: fuzzy, but such a contrast from the complete black I had been enduring for so long that I felt some joy and excitement to see them.
I looked more closely. Then felt with both hands. On the right-hand side in particular the grey spots were part of the bulge that must have been the tail-lights. They seemed like they weren’t very well fitted. That gave me an idea. I lined up the tyre lever again, drew it back as far as I could, and rammed it into the tail-light. It went all the way through. I heard the tinkle of broken glass and plastic hitting the concrete floor of the machinery shed. That sound, and the stream of soft fuzzy light suddenly pouring in, was like a beam of comfort. The light was followed by a stream of warm fresh air.
If you could kiss air I would have done it then. Instead I closed my eyes and let it blow into my nostrils.
There wasn’t time to rest though. The little bit of oxygen gave me strength. I gripped the tyre lever and used it to widen the hole, poking out the rest of the glass and plastic. I was half – more than half – expecting that at any moment the boot would be thrown open and a savage hand would reach in and grab the lever and whack me with it. But I had to keep going.
When I’d cleared the little hole right out I started wriggling around. It was difficult to get into the best position. With daylight arriving I suspected that they’d be coming for me soon. I had to give myself the best possible chance.
I was contorted into an excruciatingly painful position, but I started squeezing my hand in. If only I were Fi! With her long slender arm there would have been no problem. She would have pushed it gracefully straight through. With me there was a problem, especially as the hole got narrower towards the end. I felt my skin being grazed, then pushed back, as I got it to the outside. But I didn’t care about that. The important thing, the exciting thing, was that it was out in the fresh air. If anyone had been standing there I could have waved to them. They could have grabbed my hand and shaken it.
But that wasn’t enough. I started reaching to the left. My fingers were moving across the smooth metal. I had to find the centre point, low down, the other side of the lock mechanism.
The biggest problem was the angle. If I could have bent my arm ninety degrees, so it was straight across the outside of the boot, the whole thing would have been easy. But limbs aren’t that flexible. I had to come at the button from quite a way off. I don’t have a very long arm and I definitely don’t have a hinge on my elbow. My mind flashed the thought, ‘What if they locked the boot?’ I didn’t remember any sound of it being locked, but I was in such a state that I mightn’t have noticed anyway. And maybe you can’t hear a sound like that from the inside. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘if it is locked you won’t be able to do a damn thing about it. Just keep going and hope God’s on your side.’
I stretched and stretched. My fingers scrabbled around, desperately searching for the button. I was staring at the inside of the boot, opposite where I thought my fingers were, as though I should be able to see them through the metal. I could feel nothing, just the smooth skin of the car. My hand, getting tired, slipped down without my realising it, until I felt the seam where the boot fitted into the body of the Falcon. I realised that was no good. I went up again, and stretched even further, as far as possible. The tip of my middle finger touched the button. It gave me such a shock it could have been electrified. But at the same time I felt awful frustration. I just couldn’t stretch further. My arm was already as good as out of its socket. I could get an extra millimetre maybe, but I needed a couple of centimetres. I groaned out loud. ‘Come on,’ I told myself, ‘oh come on, you’ve got to do it.’ I reached and reached. I felt as if sinews would tear, bones would crack, joints pop. As my strength finally gave out I made a last desperate lunge. It was all or nothing. I hit the button as hard as I could. It was much stiffer than I’d expected. For a moment I thought I hadn’t hit it hard enough. For an instant I felt total despair. But then as I kept pressing it scrunched all the way in. And the boot lid slowly swung open.
I couldn’t move. It was a combination of everything: the paralysis of my body, the emotion of feeling fresh air again, the shock of the dawn light on my eyes, and the fact that my arm was stuck painfully through the little tail-light hole. Slowly I withdrew it, wincing as my grazed skin got grazed all over again. I looked anxiously out at the machinery shed. There was no-one in sight. I started to unknot myself, half-rolling half-crawling out of that hellhole. It took a full minute, but at last I was on the concrete floor. My head pounded, my back ached, my arm stung, and I couldn’t stand up straight. But I felt wonderful.
I looked around. The place seemed innocently quiet. The house too was quiet. After the excitement in the middle of the night they were probably sound asleep. I hoped so. Trying to ignore the aches and pains I stumbled around to the front of the Falcon. No keys in the ignition. Damn. I checked the other vehicles. The same. Only the Ag bikes had their keys. I kept looking around, more and more desperately. I had to find something fast, not just something I could use to escape, but something that would help me get to the other three.
Then something weird happened. I was going past the last car, the old Renault, when I thought, ‘I could have sworn that car moved.’ Not move, like drive itself away, but shake and shudder, like its engine was running on a cold winter morning. I stopped and stared. Was I imagining this? I couldn’t afford to stand around gazing at a car, but on the other hand anything unusual might help me. As I stood there, it happened again. It shivered. I walked towards it, nervously, worried that I was wasting time but knowing
I couldn’t turn my back on this. When I was just a couple of metres away I heard a faint thumping noise. My brain must have been numbed by the lack of oxygen from my time in the boot, because I still couldn’t make sense of it. Then suddenly I understood. I leapt at the car. For a moment I couldn’t open it, then I found a sort of lever-handle under the lid, which pressed to the left. Up it came, out came a breath of bad air, and there was Fi, blinking in terror, shrinking away, expecting violence and worse.
I didn’t even wait to see the expression on her face change, let alone help her struggle out. I was already on my way to the other car, the Alfa. It had a boot with no button. I had to open the driver’s door and find the lever down on the floor and jerk that up. Lucky the driver’s door wasn’t locked, because when I rushed back to the boot I found a white-faced trembling little kid.
‘What kind of bastards are they?’ I asked myself.
I helped Gavin out, as Fi staggered up to me. We had a bit of a hug, all three of us, but at the same time we knew we couldn’t stand around bonding.
‘I know where they put Homer,’ were Fi’s first words.
‘So he’s alive? Is he OK?’
‘I don’t know about OK. But he was alive.’
I didn’t like the way she said ‘was’.
‘Where is he?’
Fi pointed to the left end of the house, in the original homestead. ‘There’s a little room down the end of a long corridor. It’s a bit like a cell. It might have been a pantry or something in the old days: there’s no window or anything. They were going to put me in there too, then someone decided we should be separated.’
‘How do you get to it?’
‘It’s through that grey door. Then you’d turn, um, let me think, left, go down to the end, go left again, and that’s the long corridor I was talking about. The door’s facing you, at the very end.’
I stood there, making my brain work, forcing it to accelerate to maximum revs. It still hurt from the hit on my head, but that was bad luck for my brain. After a minute I said to Fi, ‘You take Gavin and get out of here. I’ll meet you at the bottom of the track to Tailor’s Stitch. If we’re not there by midnight don’t worry about us, go on into Hell.’
I gestured to Gavin. ‘You go with Fi. Homer and I’ll meet you tonight.’
They both paused, looking at me. I could see from their eyes what was happening. They were realising that I was right. They didn’t want to admit it, but they were slowly having to face the fact that this was the way to go. If all three of us got caught again it would be terrible – too appalling to think about. Unforgivable. And the cool hard fact of the matter was that Fi and Gavin weren’t going to be a lot of use from now on. This was not the scene for either of them and I think deep down they both knew it.
‘Quick,’ I said to Fi, ‘get going, they’ll be coming out soon.’
She looked at me, made a sad face, grabbed my hand, squeezed it, grabbed Gavin and off they went. I didn’t bother giving them any ideas about what to do, how to escape. I had to give all my attention to Homer and myself. God knew, I’d need every last skerrick of concentration I possessed to get us out of this one.
About three ticks later a guy came out of the house, took a few steps into a herb garden, unzipped his fly and gave the lavender a good hosing down. My worst fear looked like being realised: the house was going to stir into life too early. Those few moments getting Fi and Gavin organised might have been fatal for Homer and me.
I stepped lightly to the left. I didn’t have a plan, just a desire to get out of sight of the guy in the herb garden. Things quickly got worse. As that guy zipped up, another man came out yawning, then a woman. A teenager opened a door up the other end and came half out, then turned and started talking to someone inside the house.
When this place came to life, it really came to life.
I was right next to the motorbikes when they saw me. The man and the woman who’d just emerged both saw me at the same time. They pointed, cried out. The fact that I was beside the motorbikes decided everything from then on. Talk about coincidence. I looked around desperately. Right next to me was a big Yamaha Triton. Naturally the Whittakers would have the best. I took three steps to it, flicked out the kick-start, swung my leg over the bike and rammed the kick-start down. It felt good having a bike between my legs again. I felt a sudden surge of confidence. I don’t think the bike shared it though; it didn’t start. I kicked down again, and it roared into life. I swung it around. I don’t quite know why I did that. Ahead of me had been the back of the shed, open to the weather, and beyond it the paddocks and hills and open blue sky. Once I turned it around I had nothing in front of me but captivity and death.
Chapter Ten
I rode straight at them. That at least gave me the element of surprise. I didn’t have a clue what to do. I just wanted to scare them with the bike I think: get them out of the way a bit. I opened the throttle and roared down the slope.
The looks on their faces were pretty comical. They couldn’t wait to get out of my way. Two of them fell over each other, into the lavender. I hoped they landed in the section where the guy just pissed.
Before I knew it, I was going full-on at the door, the grey door Fi had pointed to. It was open and I didn’t seem to have left myself with any choices. I went through.
Inside felt weird, sort of warm and intimate, even through the fumes of the motorbike. Weirdest of all though, was that I was riding a bike in a house. The Whittakers would never forgive me. The noise was scary: bouncing off the thick old walls, so I felt I was in an echo chamber. It didn’t help my headache, not that I was thinking too much about that. Instead I was trying desperately to remember what Fi said. ‘Turn left, go down the end, left again.’ Trouble was, while I was thinking about this, I was manoeuvring the bike through a tricky arrangement of little rooms that Fi hadn’t mentioned and which didn’t seem to have any function: they just opened up into each other. They were a waste of space. A few mahogany tables and chairs were scattered through them, that was all.
Then a corridor appeared on the left, and I swung into it.
The moment I did a man came out of the first room on my right, about three metres ahead. And I was accelerating. He held out a hand, not to try to stop me, just as a reflex. He looked like he’d swallowed a hand grenade. I tried to duck under his arm but failed. I slammed against it pretty hard as he fell backwards. I got another stinging blow to the head, but I think he might have broken his arm, because I heard a crack and it seemed to go limp suddenly. He let out a hell of a scream. I just kept accelerating.
The noise in this narrow corridor was enormous. The old house was too solidly built to start shaking, but any lesser house would have vibrated like a kite in a gale. It was a roar; there’s no other word for it. I hoped Homer, if he was alive and awake in his cell, would hear it and be alert, ready for me.
All too soon I was at the end of the corridor, braking hard, braking violently, swinging the rear wheel out and planting my left foot for the turn. As I made the turn I glanced up and saw the last thing I wanted. A young guy with the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen was lifting a rifle. His eyes were big because they were wide with fear and excitement and his determination to kill me. He was dropping to one knee to get off his shot. Impossible to miss at that range. I would have filled his sights; for him it’d be like looking at a whale through a magnifying glass. It became a race. Could I run him down before he got off his shot? I opened the throttle as wide as it would go. There was a hiccup, a gulp, before the carburettor got the message from the throttle. That moment seemed to last forever. I felt like I was in a vacuum, not moving, while the young guy continued to lift his rifle. I remember his shining eyes. Then I ran over him.
The motorbike was like a wild beast then. It was trying to climb over this guy, still at full throttle, kicking and bucking and falling sideways, while I struggled to stay on it and get control. I didn’t think about the young man, except to be relieved that he was unconscious. He m
ay have been dead, I don’t know. I know his head hit the wall hard when I wiped him out.
In the end I had to walk the bike over him, and I lost valuable time. But at last that precious door, the door Fi described, was in front of me, about fifteen metres ahead. It was a solid, strong old white door, curved at the top, set into a thick stone wall. It had no handle, just a keyhole. And it had no key.
Until that moment I hadn’t thought about how to get the door open. I hadn’t thought about anything much. Just acted on impulse. I suppose I sort of assumed it’d open magically for me. Or I’d crash the bike into it. Or something.
I pulled up and stared at the door, my brain going off like a fireworks display. I looked around for a tool I could use. Nothing. I looked behind me.
Yes, there was the answer. I didn’t have time to put the bike on its stand so I leaned it against the wall and ran back to the guy on the floor. His rifle was under him. I tried to lift him but he was too heavy. So I grabbed the butt of the rifle and worked away at it, twisting it backwards and forwards then levering it up.
The fumes from the bike were filling the corridor so quickly that it was as bad as being in the car boot. Carbon monoxide mixed with petrol and oil. Sweat stung my eyes and my hair was getting wet. I had to wipe it away, to stop myself being blinded. But I got the rifle. I was a bit horrified to see that the safety catch was off. It could easily have fired while I was prising it out. But I left it off.
I ran back to the motorbike. As I did I glanced behind me. Someone turned the corner into the corridor at that exact moment. I couldn’t see if it was a man or a woman, young or old, but I saw their rifle. I swung around and fired from the hip and they ducked back as fast as they’d appeared.
My problem now was that Homer might be crouched by the keyhole and he mightn’t be able to hear my voice through the thick door. The noise of the motorbike didn’t help. I couldn’t afford to turn the bike off in case it didn’t start again. I knew there was a risk that I was about to shoot my best mate, but I had to take the risk. I yelled through the door, ‘Homer, I’m going to shoot the lock,’ and I pressed the end of the barrel to the keyhole. I pulled the trigger. It only made a little hole but it seemed to have blown away the vital bits. I kicked the door open.