Sister Pact

by Ali Ahearn

  Still far enough to do some damage.

  Scanning the rocks below, Joni saw him. His Rambo-style camouflage gear made it hard to pick him out, but his face glowed white with fear and pain.

  He saw her at the same moment. ‘Pleeease, help me, Jonee,’ he sniffed. ‘I fell. I trip. Don’t know where Takahiro-san is.’

  Joni hesitated, wondering how far away Frankie was. ‘Can’t you use the rocks to climb up?’

  ‘My foot stuck under some roots. I need some-sing. I need to pull myself up, but there nothing here … where I am.’

  Joni peered down again. He had landed in shallow water, in a kind of sinkhole, and the walls of the creek bed around him looked to be made of some kind of slimy rock. There was nowhere he could gain purchase to lever himself out.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  He paused. ‘No, I don’t think so. I is pain, but I think from the fall. I don’t think my foot hurt. But is very stuck.’

  Joni made some mental calculations in her head. If she could just wait until Frankie arrived, her sister might be able to lower Joni down, using the rope they had in their pack. Then Joni could perhaps lower some rope to Kazuki, to enable him to pull himself free. Maybe they could even do the whole thing without having to go right down there.

  Joni raised her hands to her mouth and made an experimental bird call. She did not want to be the one responsible for Takahiro leaping out from beside some native tree and paintballing her sister between the eyes.

  Frankie’s response a moment later sounded as if she were still at least five minutes away. She must have taken a wrong turn.

  Well, Kazuki would just have to wait.

  Joni peered down again and immediately wished she hadn’t. A dark shadow was creeping inexorably across the creek towards Kazuki.

  Fuck, fuck, triple fuck.

  She was going to have to try to get him out right now. Alone.

  Working quickly, her fingers clumsy with stress and heat, Joni yanked the coil of rope from her backpack. She knotted one end around the nearest tree.

  Another Leichhardt tree.

  Joni wondered whether it were a presentiment of doom.

  She wrapped the rope around her middle and began to descend to a point where she could throw the end of the rope to Kazuki with some degree of accuracy. The scramble part of the way down took only a minute or so and, as Joni prepared to throw the rest of the rope to the trapped man, she indulged herself with a glance in the direction of the creeping shape. It seemed to be picking up speed.

  She could tell by Kazuki’s frantic squirming that he had seen it too.

  Joni decided that evasive action was required. She picked up a small rock from a loamy mound beside her and threw it in the direction of the shape, a hundred yards or so away from it, in the opposite direction from the terrified man.

  It seemed to work.

  The shape paused for a few seconds, and then turned and began to amble towards the place where the rock had fallen. Joni used the distraction to gather the remaining rope into her arms and hurl it towards the sinkhole. She missed the first time, and lost precious moments gathering the rope back towards her.

  Where the hell was Frankie?

  On her second try, Joni got the rope into the sinkhole, and had a clear view of Kazuki gathering it to himself, looking like a lost child. She felt rather than saw Kazuki work his arms up the rope and brace against it in an effort to free his trapped foot. The rope pinched cruelly against her middle. Her overriding thought was of how ridiculous the whole thing was.

  Like Bindi the freakin’ jungle girl.

  Kazuki appeared to have freed his foot and, for the first time, Joni felt herself exhale. The dark shape seemed still to be lumbering back towards where the rock had landed, so Kazuki might have a few moments to make a break for it.

  As his foot hit the top lip of the rock, the pressure around Joni’s waist became almost unbearable and, just as he heaved himself up, the knot hastily tied on the tree unfurled like a blooming flower and Joni was anchorless. She tumbled over, falling and sliding down the slippery walls of the creek, before landing in a crumpled heap in the shallows at the bottom of the ravine.

  Screaming pain caused her to swear. Why is it always the bloody shagging girl who does her ankle?

  She looked hopefully towards Kazuki, and read relief and gratitude in his eyes.

  It’s okay, he’ll come and help. It will be all right.

  Just as Kazuki picked his way across to her, something happened. Not far from where she’d fallen, Takahiro leaped from behind a stand of trees, his rifle shouldered, screaming maniacally.

  ‘Noooooooooooooo!!!!’ An answering cry from Kazuki.

  Joni closed her eyes. Oh fuck.

  And then, just as she had foreseen, the blow came. Takahiro was a good shot – the paint blast struck her right on the forehead, and the force of the pellet slamming into her was so great it felt like she had been shot with a real bullet.

  She recalled the rules, as explained in laborious detail by an almost orgasmic Stapler.

  No head shots.

  Kazuki was level with his master now, staring across and down at Joni, as if unable to believe what he was seeing. She raised a hand to her spinning head and looked at the purple paint on her fingers. In the acoustic prism created by the ravine, she could clearly hear Kazuki screaming furious Japanese at Takahiro.

  Joni could see, through the whirling daze and flashing filling her vision, that Kazuki was shaking his head in wonder. Takahiro was muttering something to him but Kazuki’s head was still moving restlessly from side to side.

  She heard one word clearly. ‘Crocodile,’ he insisted in disbelief.

  Hurry up, Joni thought, get the betrayal scene with Kazuki over and come get me, before that croc does.

  Joni tried to stand, so she could start the climb back up the incline, but her ankle gave way immediately. She wasn’t going anywhere without a solid crutch. She almost smiled. So what’s new?

  Kazuki took a long look at Joni as Takahiro laid a hand on his arm. ‘I sorry, Jonee.’

  Then they were gone.

  She was too sore and tired and afraid to feel angry.

  Just as Joni had resigned herself to dying alone, she heard the single bright song of a chaffinch very close by. She screamed out to her sister and, within seconds, saw Frankie at the lip of the ravine. She looked good enough to dip in bronze.

  But so far away.

  Maybe it was the precariousness of the situation, but the sight of Frankie standing up there, her face grey with concern, so near but so far, sheeted home a memory of another time.

  Coventry railway station.

  Joni had been fifteen and Frankie seventeen when their parents had finally euthanased their terminally ill marriage.

  And Joni and Frankie had been saying goodbye.

  For the first time ever.

  As different as they were, had always been, they had never been apart.

  But this time it was for real.

  Their father had taken an apartment in London and Frankie was starting at the London School of Economics, so she was going to go with him. Joni was staying with her mum. He had said she could go too, but Joni had known he hadn’t meant it. And someone needed to look after Lizzie. They had all known that.

  They had stood there, the four of them, in two stiff, awkward pairs. Frankie had been standing with their father, straight-backed and formal but looking sad and afraid.

  Joni had been standing by her mother, feeling sullen and resentful as hell. She had wanted to reach out to her sister, to touch her face. To fold her in her arms and say goodbye.

  She was so close, it would take only a few steps to be near her again, smelling Pantene and vanilla and all the good things of Frankie.

  But she was afraid that she might never be able to let go.

  ‘Joni!’ Her sister’s voice was shrill and flaky.

  ‘I’m here. I’m hurt. My foot.’

  ‘Bugger. Why is it alwa
ys the bloody shagging girl who does her ankle?’

  Joni smothered the laugh that rose in her throat.

  ‘Have you still got the sat-phone?’ Frankie said, obviously pushing herself to be businesslike.

  Joni looked around at where she had fallen. Her backpack had come loose and was floating in the mucky shallows beside her. She extended her hand as far as she could and groped for the pack, finally grabbing one bungee cord and hauling it towards her. She fished for the sat-pack and dragged out the sodden apparatus. A few seconds of frantic button-pushing yielded nothing. The phone was dead.

  And then, because things were apparently not quite bad enough, she was sure she saw the dark shape again, to her right, maybe only a hundred yards away.

  And she knew just how Leichhardt must have felt.

  ‘Exactly how late are they?’ Lex’s voice could have frozen hot tea.

  ‘Sixteen minutes.’ Sally Staples was going for gung-ho. ‘You know what they’re like. They probably lost track bitching at each other.’

  ‘Right,’ Lex breathed. ‘So they rang in exactly on the minute six times previously, but not this time. And not one minute late. But sixteen.’

  Sally swallowed visibly and nodded. Lex continued.

  ‘Grab the extraction crew. Tell them to fire the chopper.’ A nerve jumped in his clenched jaw.

  ‘No.’

  Lex raised one of his famous eyebrows at her. But Sally stood her ground.

  ‘If we do that and there’s no problem, the whole day will have been wasted. We’ll need to do it over. And the weather is about to break. The delay will add days, at hundreds of thousands of pounds, to the schedule. Are you ready for that?’

  Lex looked carefully at the young woman in front of him.

  And she took the fight right up to him.

  ‘Because you know if you do, that’ll be the end of things for you. You’ll be just another washed-up director, strung out on too many pills and with too few ideas.’ Sally leaned into him, so close that he could smell CK One and determination. ‘You’ll be fucked.’

  Lex stared at the ground, and then at his watch.

  Chapter 17

  Joni

  ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  The women were perhaps ten feet from each other, but the angle of the slope and the slippery jaggedness of the banks made it feel like eighty.

  Joni petted Des with heavy fingers as she continued.

  ‘But don’t do it. Don’t try to come get the rope, Frankie. It’s too dangerous. The slope. Two of us have slipped now. And there’s a croc down here. If you slip, we’re both well and truly shagged. You need to go and get some help.’

  Even from where she was lying, Joni could see Frankie slowly shaking her head and looking at her as if she were mad.

  ‘Are you mad?’

  Frankie’s eyes shone like those of a nocturnal creature in the semi-dark.

  ‘If I go, there is no way you can stop that –’

  Joni’s eyes flicked over to where she thought she had seen the crocodile. It would know she was trapped. It knew Joni was his.

  ‘– thing from getting you.’

  Joni opened her mouth to protest. Someone from the crew would see them on one of the hidden cameras soon. Frankie would have the best view of the creature from her position up on the ledge and if she stayed put, she could keep an eye on him. And she might be able to distract and confuse him, so he wouldn’t come and eat her.

  ‘Okay, but don’t come down here.’

  ‘Oh, I’m coming down,’ Frankie argued. ‘I’m coming right now.’

  ‘No,’ Joni insisted more firmly. ‘Lex will come, I know he will.’

  She could not have Frankie risking her life on the slippery incline, with that thing stalking them. She would rather anything else.

  ‘Joni.’ Frankie sounded like she was dealing with a recalcitrant child. ‘Lex has no idea how to step up. He’s the locket tosser, remember? He just doesn’t have it in him.’

  Joni bit back a wave of agreement and tried to scan the swamp from her not-very-effective vantage point. ‘If you come, I’ll bloody well drag myself over to where I saw the thing. It can have me.’

  ‘You wouldn’t.’ Frankie was already moving.

  ‘Remember the Bentley.’ Joni’s voice was quiet and calm, but the words stopped Frankie in her tracks.

  ‘The Bentley,’ Frankie repeated. ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘You know I would. I have form. Remember, Frankie. I warned Dad, just like I’m warning you.’

  Frankie stopped.

  ‘I told him that if he returned Thoreau, I’d drive his car into the river. And he did it anyway. Even though he knew how they treated him.’

  ‘Oh, Joni.’ Frankie sighed exasperatedly. ‘He’s not such a monster, you know. He was just sick of the animals everywhere, all the time.’

  ‘It’s not the point now,’ Joni insisted. ‘I said I would do it and I did it. And I did it even though I knew what it would cost me.’

  ‘God, Joni. How long did it take you to pay him for the damage?’

  ‘Four years. But it was worth it.’

  Joni saw Frankie closing her eyes and probably deciding that she, Joni, was just about crazy enough to throw herself to the crocodile to make a point.

  Whatever the hell that point was.

  ‘Okay, right.’ Now resigned, Frankie was all business.

  Joni closed her eyes, wiping at the purple paint streaming into them.

  Frankie cleared her throat. ‘So, you said you threw rocks to get it to turn away from that traitorous little prick Kazuki, yeah?’

  Joni nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘Okay, here goes.’

  Frankie shouldered what looked to Joni, in her anxious state, like some kind of boulder and heaved it down the slope in the vague direction of the oversized lizard. It landed way off target.

  Joni shut her eyes. ‘Not even close,’ she groaned.

  When Frankie spoke again, it was as though she were trying her hardest to barely move her lips. ‘Joni, I don’t think you should talk any more.’

  Joni’s insides immediately turned to liquid. She was suddenly glad she was lying in shallow water so Frankie wouldn’t notice when she lost control of her bladder.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think he can hear you.’

  Frankie set to work immediately, volleying a suddenly accurate barrage of rocks into the area below and away from Joni. When that seemed to have no effect, she shouldered one mean-looking paintball gun and started trying to shoot the predator with it. But even with all those lessons from their father, the distance was too great to enable a solid hit. Joni crossed herself and thought, God, I hope Dad’s not watching. She’ll never hear the end of it.

  The creature was not to be deterred and lumbered inexorably closer. Joni tried not to think about how he had looked. Old and battle hardened. And very scary.

  Joni felt slick fear squeeze the breath from her. She saw herself being torn apart in front of her sister.

  No more chance for a different ending for them.

  ‘Joni, I’m coming.’

  ‘No.’ She sniffed back tears. ‘You’re insane.’

  Frankie laughed. ‘No, Joni; this is the sanest thing I’ve done in seven years.’

  She started to push down the slope towards her sister, shooting as she went, but the footing was unstable, and she slipped within the first few feet. Joni’s stomach lurched and her heart was dancing like a B-boy on acid.

  ‘Don’t come, don’t come,’ Joni sobbed. ‘I’ll do it, I’ll really do it if you come any further.’

  ‘Joni,’ Frankie said in a harsh whimper. ‘You’re. My. Sister. My … my little sister. You’re Joni. With those stupid green curls. And all those stupid shagging animals. And that bloody Bentley. If you make me watch you die, I’ll …’ her voice softened, ‘… I really will be the most fucked-up person I know.’

  Frankie clambered over rocks and said, ‘Joni, listen to
me, you crazy girl. I’ve got to tell you something. You must listen to me. You must.’

  Frankie paused, and Joni was sure her sister probably expected an argument, was steeling herself for a dose of Joni-logic. But Joni had nothing to give her.

  ‘Go on then.’ Joni’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘What do you want to tell me?’

  Frankie said calmly, ‘I want to tell you that I don’t care.’ She shook her head, as if to underline her words. ‘I don’t care about what happened seven years ago. None of it matters. I just love you. I want things to be like they were. I want you back. I just don’t want you to die.’

  Something seemed to snap in Joni. ‘You want me back because I’m going to die? You’ve realised you can’t have me and now you want me? Great bloody timing.’

  ‘No!’ Frankie yelled down the incline at Joni. ‘No, it’s not just now. I mean … I know I’m saying it only now. But … I’ve known it for a while. I’d forgotten so much.’

  ‘Maybe some things are best forgotten,’ Joni replied, sounding choked.

  But Frankie would not be distracted. ‘Stop it, you silly cow, before I reach down there and throttle you myself.’

  She paused, as if waiting for an eruption. Joni sniffed but said nothing. When Frankie started speaking again she had the edge to her voice that Joni knew well from many years of being the only one who would watch The Karen Carpenter Story with her. The edge that said she was seconds away from a full-blown snot cry.

  ‘I need to tell you something.’

  Joni started to feel panic rising in her throat. ‘Get the fuck on with it then, hey?’

  Frankie spoke quickly. ‘I just wanted to tell you that I get it. I really do. I know Edward’s been my crutch. Like Dad, I guess. I don’t … I don’t blame you for … anything.’

  She was openly sobbing now, the words coming out between stiff little hiccups as she scrambled painfully slowly down the slope.

  Joni replied, ‘Jesus Christ, Frankie, stop. You had me at “Why is it always the bloody shagging girl who does her ankle?”. You of all people know I’ve never played hard to get. Just get down here. The bloody thing’s getting closer.’