by Shane Carrow
She clambered awkwardly out through the trapdoor, the Browning that had recently been her own now pressed into her back. I followed quickly after. Both of us were sopping wet, but I’d been down there for 24 hours. My skin felt revolting – the fingers pressed against the trigger were pruned beyond belief. Stepping out into the cool, fresh night air felt like I’d broken out of hell.
“How many of you are there?” I said. “Apart from your dad?”
“Just the three of us,” she said. “Me, Sarah, Erica.”
“Where will they be?”
“I don’t know!”
“The codebook. That you stole from me. Where is it?”
“I don’t know!” she repeated. “You think they talk to me about that shit? I just do what I’m told!”
She’d gingerly put her broken wrist in the pouch of her hoody, and was staring at me sullenly, wet strands of hair plastered across her forehead. I looked up the side of the boat, at the lit-up windows and the slow creaking of the paddlewheel.
Well. It wasn’t the Regina Maersk. Only so many places they could be.
I made her go first, one hand on her shoulder and the other pressing the Browning between her shoulderblades. The houseboat had a second storey, casting yellow light from the windows out onto the river rushing gently by. I could see shadows shifting through them. Well – it was only a few hours after sunset. Not likely anyone would be in bed yet.
I followed Jess up a spiral staircase, onto an exterior balcony outside the wheelhouse. Now the shapes were more distinct, though we ducked down and stayed hidden. “Not a word,” I whispered to her. I could hear their faint voices, now, as we crouched below the window, Harrison’s and Erica’s…
“…what the hell you’re going to do with it? It’s not petrol, Dad. It’s not guns, it’s not food, it’s not whatever the hell else we’ve flogged off to people this year. It’s not…”
“Do you think I’m stupid? I know that. Of course it’s big. That’s why it’s a windfall. It’s a meal ticket. We do this properly and we’re set.”
“There is no ‘properly’, Dad! This is serious shit! If we try to sell it they’ll say we’re betraying New England. If we ask for a reward, they’ll say we’re betraying New England. You’ve heard them going on about this over the radio. Draeger himself – he’s fucking crazy on this. And you want to go up to Armidale and fucking haggle with him?”
“Why is it so crazy to ask for a reward for something that important, then?”
“It’s crazy to have anything to do with the army at all. You’re asking for trouble. We’re all going to end up in jail. Or worse.”
“What would you want me to do, then?”
“Throw the fucking thing overboard! Throw him overboard, too. We’re doing all right, aren’t we? What more do you want? Why go tangling with the government?”
“This isn’t North Korea, Erica…”
“Oh. Oh, you say that. Just because it’s been going all right for you so far. I told you what happened to my uni mates. I told you…”
“They shouldn’t have been rocking the boat. ‘The Resistance’? For fuck’s sake, this isn’t Nazi Germany…”
“They deserved that? You think they deserved to die? To go to jail? Dad, for fuck’s sake…”
“Draeger has kept us safe, you remember what it used to be like…”
“That doesn’t matter, you idiot…”
“I am your father, young lady!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dad, forget it.”
I’d had enough shouting matches with my own dad to know when one party was about to storm out. We were at that point then. Unfortunately, that would put Erica exiting the wheelhouse right in front of me and Jess. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. So I decided to take the initiative. I dragged Jess up, put an arm over her shoulder with the Browning levelled ahead, and pushed through the door into the brightly lit sanctum of the wheelhouse.
“Hands in the fucking air!” I barked.
Harrison and Erica both looked shocked. Erica put her hands in the air quick enough, but Harrison kept them by his side, staring straight at Jess. “You let him out? Oh, you fucking idiot, you stupid little bitch.”
“I didn’t let him out, he grabbed me!”
“I said hands in the air!”
Harrison ignored me, and looked over at Erica with equal contempt. “You left her in charge of watching him? Why the hell would you do that, you fucking idiot? Jesus fucking Christ…”
I was tempted to shoot him in the head right then. The look on Erica’s face suggested maybe she wouldn’t have minded. But he struck me as exactly the kind of person who might have hidden the PAL codebook away in some secret nook without telling his daughters where. And I was anxiously aware of the fact that the third daughter was at large somewhere on a very small houseboat, with four people now having a slanging match in the wheelhouse.
“Shut the fuck up,” I said. “Just shut the fuck up. Where’s the codebook?”
“It’s not yours,” Harrison said, staring me down, still not putting his hands up.
“It fucking well is.”
“Property of the US government, isn’t it?” he said.
“There is no US government anymore,” I said. “There is an Australian government and an Australian military and a bunch of people who are trying to nuke the fucking alien base in Ballarat so the zombies stop happening. This is bigger than you, you stupid fucking redneck.”
“Sounds like you’ve been listening to too many dipshits on the radio,” Harrison said. “Alien bases? You actually believe that crap?”
“Look…” I said. I glanced outside, down the stairwell. No sign of the other daughter. “Look, I don’t have time for this shit. Erica thinks you should just throw me and the codebook overboard so you don’t have to deal with Draeger and all that shit. She’s right. I agree with that. But leave me alive. Give me the codebook, I’ll leave, I won’t shoot any of you, everybody’s happy. Okay?”
“No,” Harrison said. He still didn’t have his hands up, and his face was getting angrier. Infuriated, in fact, in a way I’d rarely seen. “You’re a fugitive. You’re a criminal. You’re a…”
“A criminal?! What crime would that be?”
“Shut the fuck up!” Harrison barked, even as Erica, hands in the air, tried to calm him down. “Sarah! Sarah, get up here, we’re under attack!”
I turned my head nervously, glanced down the outer staircase – no movement – turned back in, just about ready to shoot both of them, maybe all three of them, and be done with it. It was the “just about” that did it. Erica was closer than Harrison, and as I turned back towards the interior of the wheelhouse – just the briefest of glances – she launched herself at me.
It all happened very quickly after that. I got one shot off, which drilled through the wheelhouse roof. Erica had tackled right at me, through Jess, knocking all three of us out the door and back towards the staircase. I was still struggling with the gun but Erica had got her hand around it and jammed a finger through the trigger guard, preventing me from firing, even as we came to the edge of the stairs and then tipped down them, a thrashing and struggling bundle of limbs, somebody’s skull knocking against mine, a steel stair against my bad knee, Jess screaming in agony from her broken wrist –
And then we were down on the lower deck, Erica had wrenched the gun from me, but I jabbed my other hand into her neck and now I heard gunshots, coming from above, Harrison standing at the edge of the wheelhouse catwalk and firing down at us with a handgun, the absolute piece of shit, not caring if he hit his daughters, just wanting to neutralise the threat. Jess was screaming, Erica was gurgling, I’d wrenched the gun back off her and fired blindly at Harrison – bullets whining into the air and zinging off the metal railing – something from above slammed into Erica’s body, her gurgling silenced in an instant, body dropping to the deck – Jess was still screaming, more in terror than pain now – and I looked up and saw Harrison slotting a new cl
ip in and levelling at me.
I was at the edge of the boat. Erica, it seemed, was dead or very badly hurt. Jess had curled up onto the deck. There was one way to go.
I dropped backwards, into the cold black water of the Gwydir River, even as Harrison fired and my left shoulder lit up with an explosion of pain. Another second earlier and he might have got my throat.
From the moment Erica had lunged at me to the moment I’d hit the water had been maybe seven or eight seconds.
I stayed under the water for as long as I could, striking out in the opposite direction from the underwater hum of the boat’s engines. Came up, gasping for air, shoulder throbbing and lung burnings and eyes blurry with water. I could still see the houseboat, emblazoned with light, the only vivid thing beneath a dark sea of stars. A pair of flashlight beams sweeping out from the boat across the water – Harrison and Sarah, I guess, since I could hear Jess screaming furious recriminations at her father.
I struck out for shore. It was shallower here, upriver, than the cliffs where I’d dropped in. Pulled myself up onto a pebbly shore, dragged myself up into the trees, looking back for fear that Harrison might ground the boat and come after me – I’d lost the Browning when I dropped into the river.
The houseboat was fainter now, a disappearing blot of light, moving further and further upriver. I squatted in the trees for a moment, soaking wet, my shoulder on fire, Aaron pushing at the edge of my mind.
The houseboat was going. The PAL codebook was going with it.
I groaned and struggled to my feet and began pushing through the undergrowth at the edge of the river, following the boat.
I’m not sure how long I did that. I was cold, I was hungry, I was exhausted. I was bleeding from a bullet hole in my shoulder, and even as I went, feeling my own skin, I could tell there was no exit wound. I knew that would be bad, in the long-term. Or the near-term, really.
I was on the river, though. Wherever they were going, it was upriver. They couldn’t exactly leave it. So I couldn’t exactly lose them…
I don’t know whether I followed them for twenty minutes or two hours. My mind was reeling. But that was why I decided it was all right for me to just lie down in the dead leaves below a gum tree for a moment, and go to sleep…
When I woke up it was the grey light of dawn.
I’d had the presence of mind to patch my wound, at least – didn’t remember doing it, but I must have, before I went to sleep, taking my shirt off and tying it around my shoulder and then putting my jacket back on over the top. Soaking wet, anyway. A wonder I didn’t die of exposure. Maybe I still would. I didn’t feel too crash hot.
I pulled the jacket off and gingerly removed the shirt, now encrusted with dried blood. (I had a sinking, awful feeling that going to sleep meant I’d lost Harrison’s boat and now he was off upstream and Draeger had the PAL codebook - but first things first.) The skin around the bullet wound was horribly red and inflamed. I optimistically hoped that maybe last night I’d missed the exit wound – but no, there was still nothing, and in fact if I moved my shoulder in a certain agonising way I could feel the misshapen lead rubbing against muscle. “Fantastic,” I said, tying the shirt back up.
I leaned against the tree trunk again, feeling faint. Pushed at my mind in a certain direction – it was getting easier and easier, really, soon it would be like pressing a button on a mobile phone – and summoned up Aaron.
Are you okay? he demanded. What the fuck happened last night?
Good news, I said. I’m not on the boat any more. But the codebook is.
Fucking hell, Aaron said. What happened?
I took an opening. Point is, boat has the codebook, boat’s gone upstream… I’m not on it. I’m out here in the fucking bush.
What happened to you? My shoulder’s killing me.
Yeah, they shot me.
What!
Relax, I said. It was a flesh wound. Only… bullet didn’t come out the other side.
Oh, fuck, Matt! That’s bad!
No shit. Look – I’m going to keep following the boat. There’s one river, they can only go one direction. I think they said the town was Bundarra? If I go after them… I don’t know. Maybe I can get it back.
Aaron was quiet for a moment. Matt… he said. You did your bit. You went out the plane. You grabbed the codebook. That was fucking brave. That was more than anyone could ask. But maybe it’s time to pack it in. Just start heading south.
And how long before this bullet wound gets infected and I die? I said. Oh, I mean, shit, there’s some sticks around, maybe I can get the bullet out with a stick.
Matt…
Seriously, I said. I know this isn’t good. But it’s not just about the codebook. I’m being hunted here. I need medical help. And yeah, okay, I want the codebook.
You’re hurt, Aaron argued. You’re tired. You’re sick – or you will be sick soon. And you want to go break into some town and find this boat trader asshole again and get the codebook back?
Well, one at a time, I said. Look – what do you want me to do? Head south? I’ll be dead or captured in a couple of days.
Aaron didn’t say anything.
Yeah, you’re not saying anything because you know it’s true.
Just be careful, all right? Aaron said. Just… I don’t know. I’m sorry this happened. I’m sorry you’re up there. I wish we could trade.
Don’t fucking say that. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you again soon, okay?
Okay. Good luck.
Trading places. Jesus Christ. Aaron wouldn’t last five minutes up here.
5.30pm
The river was snaky. The landscape around here is hilly, and the Gwydir – while deep – loops leisurely back and forth through the contours of bushland and paddocks. Early on, from the top of a rise, I could see a glimpse of it laid out before me like a map.
Well, that was good. I could angle to follow it in one direction and keep a straight line. Harrison and his boat, meanwhile, would be zigzagging.
Of course, they had a headstart and a diesel engine, while I had my own two legs and low calorie reserves. But you take what encouragement you can get.
I pushed on through the day. There was nowhere else to go, anyway. Nothing but the river. At least I didn’t see any helicopters, though there was still a smudge of black bushfire smoke along the horizon off the north-west. Obviously Harrison had taken me quite a distance before I busted out.
It was mid-afternoon when the trees cleared and I found myself looking down from a ridge at the town of Bundarra.
It reminded me a bit of Collie, the town where Aaron and I had been held and robbed at gunpoint back in the early days, by men emerging with rifles from behind a loose barricade of wrecked cars, tyres and timber. This was a bit what Collie would look like if it survived another six months. (Who knows? Maybe it has.) A proper thick wall ringing the entire town, built of brick and timber, an irregular pentagon with five watch towers. There was only one road through the town, crossing over a steel truss bridge, and there were heavy gates where it bisected the wall. In the hours I watched, I saw single vehicles and convoys coming and going. When they’d put the wall up it looked like it had included a bit of spare space at the edges, but that had since been filled, with tents and lean-tos and makeshift huts. Refugees, people coming in from countryside, I guess. Or people coming in from further afield than New England.
The most interesting point was the river entry. The walls stopped at the edge, there was no boom chain or anything, but sentries were posted by the river. When boats came or left – not nearly as many of them as the road traffic – nobody seemed to challenge them.
And there, tied up along the distant river wharf in the centre of town, I could just make out Harrison’s houseboat.
So. The question now is how to get in. The sun’s going down; the cover of darkness will most definitely be the way to do it.
Looks like I’m going to have to get wet again.
September 7
6.
45am
Clouds had been gathering through the afternoon, and as I sat on the rise watching the town, it began to spit with rain. Just lightly at first, and then heavier, a steady insistent soaking down through the leaves of the trees.
That was good. Firstly, because it woke me up – I’d been feeling weak, finding myself nodding off, despite the dull throbbing of the bullet in my shoulder. Secondly, and more importantly, it would give me a bit of cover. I imagined the sentries up in their watchtowers, underneath plastic ponchos, the wind blowing the rain in through the gaps, hands tucked into their armpits, wishing their shift would hurry up and finish so they could go home and dry off. How much attention would they be paying to the river, especially after sundown?
With the cloud cover it was impossible to tell where the sun was anyway, but it must have been about six o’clock when it started getting darker and gloomier. And then, in a stroke of luck, I saw another boat coming from upriver.
It was a big flat barge, with loads of timber strapped across it. Just a single wheelhouse at the back, a pinprick of light, chugging its way across the inky water. There were still a few bends in the river before it even began to approach Bundarra. I stumbled to my feet and started pushing my way down the hill, through the wet undergrowth, slipping and smearing myself with mud, scrambling to reach the riverbank before the barge went past.
I got to the water maybe fifty metres ahead of it. Pushed through the reeds, slipped into the river – warmer, surprisingly, than the rainwater. Sculled out into the middle of the water, shoulder flaring, and watched as the barge came down towards me.
For a moment I thought I might have made a terrible mistake – that I might be caught in its wake, pulled beneath it and drowned – but no, there were tangles of wharf rope and chain lashing rubber buffers made from split tyres down its length, and I reached up and grabbed one near the prow, finding myself suddenly pulled along in its wake, and with the last of my strength I dragged myself up onto the rusty deck, panting for breath.