by TJ Park
“You’ll do it,” Doug said. “You’ll do it.”
Not looking anywhere in particular, Warlock finally gave a tiny nod.
Doug nearly made it easy on him, to call it a mercy killing. A favour. But then anger welled up. Fuck him. Let him pay his dues like the rest.
Warlock nodded again, but while saying, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
Not a flat-out refusal, but an appeal, as if the job was beyond human capability.
Doug shrugged.
“I won’t make you. But no-one else here is going to take up your slack.”
Then he gave Warlock an example of what he could expect, turning his back. Mick picked up on Doug’s cue, even Cutter joined in with a nasty smile, not one to pass on making someone else a pariah.
They ignored Warlock while making their final preparations to leave the plane, collecting their arsenal and the crate of opal – the only items left untouched in the air dump. Things they would not jettison even in exchange for their lives.
Limply holding the shotgun, Warlock watched them pack. They didn’t speak, not even to curse him, or order him stand aside as they moved past. Within minutes they were done, ready to leave, ready to leave him behind.
Unnerved by the growing exclusion, Warlock shook with sudden resolve and dashed into the cockpit. The co-pilot had shifted lower in his seat. Was he conscious? It was impossible to tell. Warlock planned to sneak the barrel into the crease between the pilot’s arm and his side and shoot him in the armpit, but he couldn’t bear the thought of those pulped fruits in the man’s face opening to peer at him at the last moment.
He couldn’t pretend the co-pilot was dead. His horrible, dragging respiration was just too loud and regular. So he told himself the man’s brain was gone. It would be just like turning off a machine. He stepped behind the co-pilot and pointed the shotgun into the back of the seat, level with where he guessed the man’s heart would be. He averted his eyes and pulled the trigger. Pulled hard.
Then he opened his eyes again, and clicked off the safety. Grimacing, he pulled the trigger more awkwardly, tentatively.
The shotgun blast roared in the close confines of the cockpit. Warlock was spun around by the recoil as smoothly as if he’d been thrown a medicine ball in a long pass. Tatters of material from the chewed hole in the co-pilot’s seat seesawed through the air.
The others paused, satisfied, and then renewed their work, sharing glances amongst themselves.
The shotgun suddenly went off again, causing fright.
The hole in the seat had become a crater. Specks of blood and seat stuffing were stuck to the outer areas of the cockpit. Warlock stumbled out through the door and down the aisle, carrying a deep gouge in his right forearm. He wasn’t aware of it, or the shallow cut along his cheek, nor the thickening ruby-earring that swung off his right earlobe.
“It exploded!” he cried, holding the gun away from him as if it might attack again.
“Shrapnel,” Doug said.
“That’s what you get for shooting into the seat instead of the man,” Mick admonished. He paused. “I knew someone who had his eye taken out by a piece of someone’s fibula once. Mind you, that happened in a crash.”
Warlock had discovered the injuries to his arm and face, and he wiped at them tentatively to assess the damage.
“You’ll live,” Doug told him.
The young man scrambled from the plane, cursing as he went, cut short by a volcanic bout of heaving. Doug didn’t feel so good either. The crash had left him with a sense of dislocation that made him grab the occasional handhold to stop from swaying. His footing seemed distant and uncertain, his head loosely tethered and the rest in between seemed subject to a centrifuge spinning in all the wrong places.
A sense of déjà vu, a far dark corner of his mind suggested. You’ve felt this way before, while running across a barren plain, racing to beat a storm. He tried to hang onto that vague notion, but the idea he could have internal injuries was more pervasive.
They all took a good look at where they were.
It wasn’t too promising. Low, abraded hills. Thirsty, emaciated trees with roots stapled to parched ground, and scratchy stubble underfoot that stood in for grass.
A large dam of brown murky water was the only evidence man had ever sought to influence the place. The watering hole had shrunk from a long period without rain. Thick, cracked plates of dried mud exposed on the steep bank somehow worked to sap Doug’s spirits.
Mick was casting around for suggestions. “Which way?”
“North,” Cutter said, “the way we’re supposed to be going.”
“We’re better off going east,” Doug countered. “We’re more likely to find somewhere populated toward the coast.” He did not speak of another possibility – that they could die out here and anyone who survived would welcome being picked up by the law. It was a clear fact that didn’t need airing.
“This is a total fuck-up,” Cutter said.
Gripped by a sudden overwhelming rage, Doug could not disagree.
They decided on a northward trek. There seemed no point in overstressing a direction. One looked as good as another. They took only essentials: water, guns, and the crate. Any empty plastic bottles they found in the plane, they filled with brown water from the dam, just in case.
“How do we know it’s safe to drink?” Warlock asked.
“We get you to try it first,” Mick replied. “If you live, we’ll drink it.”
He said it without a trace of humour.
It was also Mick who recommended wrapping damp shirts loosely around their heads while they hiked, even if they reckoned it wasn’t that hot. He said if it came down to a choice between carrying the crate or someone who dropped of sunstroke, there’d be no choice at all. Doug expected Cutter to knock back the suggestion, but the larger man didn’t baulk for a second.
It remained only to decide which two would take first turn carrying the crate, but Cutter answered before he was asked. Bending down, ignoring his injured hand, he worked his grip until he was satisfied, then, exhaling sharply, jerked upward like a power-lifter, hauling the heavy crate off the ground single-handed. He finished leaning way back, the crate resting against his pelvis to relieve the weight. Doug was unmoved by the display, having seen him do something similar with the vending machine, but the others were humbled. Doug didn’t care for Cutter’s grandstanding; he wanted the crate carried, and if Cutter exhausted himself doing it, all the better. In a way it was a shame he’d proved so useful; with his hands full there was a perfect opportunity to take him out.
They started trooping north in a loose line. The terrain wasn’t kind, the uneven stubble as awkward to cross as loose stones in a riverbed. At the rate they were going, they would be exhausted before they’d gone a kilometre. They reached the top of a small rise, one they knew would be the first of many, and there it was … less than two minutes after they had started, waiting for them in the lightly wooded valley below. It waited there as if it was always their intended destination. A shack.
“Ah, you wouldn’t believe it …” Mick said wonderingly.
Doug looked back the way they’d come, still frankly disbelieving. The downed plane was in plain sight, only a short hike away.
“Yes!” Warlock shouted. He did not sound surprised at finding refuge so quickly, like it was their due. Cutter never broke his stride, trudging around the others and winding his way down the slope. Doug decided that Cutter would keep. The distant house could be too good to be true. It might be deserted or derelict. Or more trouble.
He started down with the others, invigorated by a chill that was not wholly excitement. A superstitious vestige in him could not help but think that the house had been set down there deliberately, like a sign from God.
But not in reward.
Chapter Four
It took them the better part of an hour to reach the homestead. In that time Cutter never relinquished the crate. He didn’t ask anyone to take over and
no-one offered. Mick kept pace with him while Doug and Warlock scouted ahead. Doug cautioned Warlock not to work too hard at avoiding being spotted; if any property owners were to see them coming, they should look like they were in trouble, not the likely cause of it.
Doug’s mood lifted as they drew closer. The house might be empty, but it definitely wasn’t abandoned. The others caught up to find him and Warlock crouched behind a low leafy thicket, observing the front of the dwelling from less than forty-five metres away.
It was a ramshackle cottage with an uneven front porch and bowed tin roof. An oversized chimney at one end – more like a castle turret than a smokestack – threatened to overbalance the whole lot. The wooden boards had wormy runnels, yet the place appeared well maintained. The yard was trimmed back. Holes in the roof and walls had been patched. The glass in the windows was intact.
It was quiet. The tinkling of wind chimes hanging next to the steps carried to the men. A porch swing creaked. Orange hens clucked inside a wire pen smothered in vines. A well-fed tomcat stalked a chirping grasshopper along the log border of a vegetable garden.
The most noteworthy aspect was the open shed next to the cottage. Enclosed by rusty corrugated tin, the shed had one side open to the elements, and room within for two vehicles. One of the parking spaces was furrowed by the heavy tread of the tractor that currently stood in the yard, while the other space was lined by some smaller vehicle’s tracks. The source of those tyres was nowhere in sight, but the promise of its return could be seen in the carefully arranged garden tools and fuel cans set around the walls – a tidy vacancy waiting to be filled.
While the others watched through the thicket, Cutter sat on the crate, flexing his shoulder joints to work out the stiffness.
“What are we doing?” Warlock asked.
Mick told him: “You’re shutting the fuck up.” He leaned conspiratorially toward Doug. “What are we doing?”
Doug shook his head. “Wait, just wait.”
The front door banged open and a woman fell out of the cottage. A folding camp chair next to the door was dragged along with her across the porch.
“Watch out!” the woman shouted as she staggered along, a large glass slopping over in her hand.
In the thicket, the men tensed.
Then the girl – too slight for a woman – regained her balance, laughing at her mishap, elbow sticking out to steady a mug of beer. She managed to save some of the froth on top from spilling.
After she took a few over-careful steps to reach the edge of the porch, Doug realised she had spoken to her own clumsiness, not to anyone else. She stood at the railing, giving short bursts of giggles in between sips. She didn’t appear drunk, only light-hearted, perhaps nervous. She spent a long while looking out at the vegetable garden. She had a thick head of hair, and looked young, no more than twenty, wearing a long, faded denim skirt, and an extra-large men’s green polo shirt. Neither could quite disguise her petite figure. Blissfully unaware of anyone watching, she idly reached up under the shirt, hiking it up to expose her stomach, rubbing at a spot between her breasts, lazily tracing a line there.
“I’m dead,” Cutter murmured. “Died in the plane crash and went to heaven.”
The V-parting of the girl’s cleavage was bared to the sun and something twinkled there like a centrepiece – a pendant on a chain. Her hand, tucked up under her shirt, played with it, making it flash over and over again so watching eyes could not help but be drawn back to the shallow vale between her breasts.
The longer she continued with her private contemplation the more Doug felt like a pervert. The feeling was not helped by Cutter’s occasional salacious comments, replete with smacking lips. Doug turned on him, but was speechless at the sight of Cutter using his bloody hand to massage the crotch of his pants, producing a dark shine.
The young girl continued to drink her beer, her gaze ranging over her surroundings, when, without warning, her eyes stopped and stared hard into the thicket where the men were hiding. Doug later tried to convince himself they had intuitively known not to panic and duck, that the wiser choice was to keep still. But, in reality, all of them just froze without thought – even Cutter – at having been seen.
The girl continued to stare right at them, coolly taking another sip of her drink. Hers was a calm and knowing gaze that declared she could see right through them. She knew every one of their petty secrets and dreams, and that they amounted to nothing. Then her gaze moved elsewhere and the men realised they hadn’t been discovered.
Doug waited for someone to come out and join the girl on the porch. It was a moment to be shared. But no-one came. The girl drank a little more from her glass, any good humour in her face slipping away. She frowned as if recalling something unpleasant, then turned about and straightened the folding chair against the wall before re-entering the house, closing the door behind her.
Doug huddled with the others. “It looks like she’s alone, but I want to make sure she hasn’t got the local footy team holed up inside, or a gun and a phone within reach. One of us should go down there and suss out the situation.”
“I’ll do the honours,” Cutter said.
“The fuck you will.”
Doug nodded at Mick.
“You’re going. You’ve got the face for it.”
Mick grimaced. “Is that another way of saying I look toothless?”
“Horses for courses, mate. When was there ever a bird you couldn’t charm?”
Mick considered it, stroking his chin. “Oh, there must’ve been one.”
He gave Doug an impish smile, then stood into a taller crouch, so he could tuck his pistol under his shirt.
“Wait a minute.” Doug scooped up a handful of dirt and patted a large stain on Mick’s pants leg, the result of knocking against Fatboy on the plane. He fussed with it until it looked like it came from a fall in the mud. “There, you’re set. Good luck.”
“Won’t need it.”
Mick moved away from them bent-backed, listing a little, but still trotting nicely for someone who had been involved in an armed robbery and a plane crash on the same day. For a curious moment, he went back the way they’d come, before veering round to join up with a dirt track leading to the house. He approached the place like a humble visitor, not a trespasser, not like someone with evil intent.
As Doug watched Mick head for the house, his chest steadily tightened with something more ominous than straightforward anxiety. He had to clamp down on the impulse to call the old man back, unable to shake the growing certainty that in some way Mick was being sacrificed; put out in the open, about to be cut down. But there was no evidence for such a fear, only the charged feeling that told him so. Before Doug could sort out what it was rattling him so badly, Mick was at the front door, knocking.
If they were to compare notes later, Mick would have told Doug he might not have been imagining things. Only a few steps along the dirt track he experienced a sudden dropping sensation in his stomach, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. His ears went hot, his chest cold. It was like being hit with a spotlight. Caught out by someone in the cottage, and the entire world. Who he was and what he was doing was common knowledge.
A few steps further and he wanted to turn and run. He felt an inexplicable dread rise up in him. It made him even more afraid to realise he had no idea where the feeling came from. It was more than the fright of the unknown. It was as if the heavens had cracked open and God’s Eye had fallen upon him and was displeased with what it saw.
Mick soldiered on; in another couple of steps something seized him around the innards and squeezed. Heart attack? Stroke? Not that surprising. Too much excitement in the last few hours. But it didn’t seem to feel like a heart attack or stroke should feel: no tingling down the left arm, no chest pains or the sudden headache doctors had spoken of. Only the hand of God about him. Crushing. Mick knew if he didn’t turn back now, if he ventured further, that same unrelenting grip would twist his guts inside-out.
He jammed his hands in his pockets to stop their shaking. In one his fingers wrapped around an opal he had snuck from the crate earlier. He had pocketed it without any of the others seeing, including Doug, just to see if he still had a deft hand. Its presence immediately soothed him, and when he tightened his hold on it, like one of those stress-relief squeeze toys, the grip seizing his innards loosened and fell away.
To anyone watching he barely paused in his stride.
He stepped onto the porch, reluctant to let go of the opal, but he had to show how harmless his hands were while knocking on the door.
***
The door went unanswered for too long and Doug’s ugly gut feeling returned. The girl must have seen them when she was out on the porch earlier, and was bright enough not to give away the fact. And, right now, she would be behind the door with a loaded gun in one hand and a chattering phone in the other.
After a few more moments of standing around, Mick started to turn in the direction of the thicket, but checked himself. It was obvious to Doug that Mick was also harbouring grave doubts. Doug examined the house for any visible phone wires, but could see none.
Mick knocked again with a less certain hand. Still no response. He moved over to the curtained window beside the door and rapped the glass.
“Hello?” he called. “Anybody home?”
Mick went back to the front door with an urgency that matched the churning in Doug’s stomach. Doug nearly considered breaking from cover to charge the door, but just then the tom cat reappeared. It bounded lightly onto the porch and went to Mick, rubbing against the back of his legs. Mick was startled by it. He struggled not to boot the animal in response.
Mick’s agitation put a brake on Doug’s own. It was too soon to panic.
The plump, grey moggy did an about-turn after the first pass and swept along the front of Mick’s legs. Then it stopped and lifted its head with a regal air, waiting. Mick reached down and scratched roughly behind its ear, the cat arching its back. Doug did not have to hear to know the cat purred loudly while Mick muttered low, foul curses.