Tunnel Vision

by Andrew Christie

  Billy turned and kept following the farm track down the other side of the hill. After a while, the twin ruts made by the wheels of vehicles faded, and a single track continued across the slope towards the foot of some wooded hills. According to Rash, this was the start of Mount Jerusalem National Park; from here it ran all the way back up into the mountains.

  As Billy approached the next small rise, thinking he should probably head back to the shed, he noticed another overgrown track emerging from the valley at the edge of the forest. It was straight and level, and it took a moment for him to realise it wasn’t a track—it was a railway line. Mostly overgrown, with rusty steel tracks visible every now and again between the weeds. To the right it disappeared behind the lower slope of the hills, and to the left it ran along the valley until it was hidden behind a line of trees down by the creek at the bottom of the valley.

  A railway line. He wondered where it went and why it wasn’t being used. He wanted to explore it, find out where it went, but he knew he shouldn’t leave Rashmi alone too long. Maybe they could come back up here after lunch. Use the quad bike. He wished he’d thought to ask Dave if it would be okay.

  When he got back to the sheds, of course Rashmi knew all about the railway line. “It’s been closed for years. Since before Grandpa bought the place. Runs from Byron Bay, up north to Murwillumbah. There’s a couple of tunnels under the range; they go back through to Burringbar.”

  “Cool. Will you go there with me?”

  “I suppose. We could take the quad bike if it’s okay with Grandpa. Or he could take us in the Landy. He can drive along the tracks. We’ve done it before.”

  Billy liked the idea of driving on the railway tracks, but it would be more fun on the quad bike. “I’ll ask him,” he said. “When did he say he’d be back?”

  “After lunch. There are glowworms in those tunnels,” Rash said.

  “Glowworms?”

  “In the top of the tunnel. They’re like little grubs, and they glow in the dark. Like tiny stars.” She smiled at him. “There’s bats too, in the niches along the walls.”

  Billy raised an eyebrow. “What are niches?”

  “They’re like holes in the tunnel walls, for the railway workers, so they could get out of the way if a train came along. The bat’s hang upside down in them.”

  “What sort of bats? Fruit bats?

  “Vampire bats. They come out at night—that’s why we have to sleep locked inside the shed.”

  “Bloodsuckers!”

  “You can hear them at night, scrabbling at the corrugated iron.”

  “I heard them last night. Trying to get in.”

  “They could smell you. Fresh meat. New blood.”

  Billy laughed. “Okay, it’s a good idea to wait for your grandpa.”

  “Yeah. He knows how to handle them.” Rashmi stood up, taking her weight on her crutches. “Come on. Let’s make some lunch.”

  Billy didn’t move at first. He was imagining Dave shooting at vampires.

  Chapter 21

  Hadn’t Missed

  The first thing John was aware of was the pain in his head. Two distinct layers: a sharp, hard jab of pain that went right through and a throbbing dull baseline that wrapped up the world. As consciousness seeped into him, he became aware of other islands of pain. His wrists, the skin burning. His shoulder too. And his knees, his ankle. He opened his eyes but couldn’t focus. Darkness and light were merging into each other. He felt something rough under his cheek. He blinked. His head pounded, but nothing came into focus. He blinked again. More pounding, but the world became a bit sharper. He tried to move. His legs twisted. His head roared, and the pain in his wrists flared. He closed his eyes again.

  The next time he opened them, the room was filled with light, and the pain in his head was worse. He lay with his eyes open, waiting for them to focus on something. A table lamp lay on its side on the floor in front of him. He tried to lift his head, but pain and waves of nausea made him stop. He lay still and tried to figure it out. His hands were tied tightly at the wrist, tethered to a leg of the bed.

  He tried to move his head again, slowly this time. Trying to stay just below the waves of nausea, he moved his head gently to one side so he could see more of the room. Sunlight was making the curtains glow. The door was closed, and his clothes and backpack were in a heap in the middle of the floor. He listened, tried to work out if there was anyone else in the room.

  After a while, he tried to lift his head again. Ignoring the pain and the heaving in his stomach, he eventually he got himself up so he could lean back against the bed, his body twisted where his hands were tied to the leg. Electrical cord. The bedside lamp was still attached to the other end.

  John worked his way around slowly, twisting his body until he was kneeling against the bed. It took three goes, but he managed to lift the bed without passing out. Supporting it on his knees, he pulled the loop of cord out from under the leg. Then he lay back down again, waiting for the blackness to pass.

  He heard voices outside and sounds from the street. Gulls and cars. Someone walked past the room, their shadow sweeping across the window and the floor. John checked his watch: 7:41. What time had he come back to the room? He couldn’t remember. After the band had finished, whenever that was. He lifted his hands to his face, dragging the lamp across the floor as he did, and worked on the knots with his teeth. It seemed to take forever, tearing at the PVC coating on the cord, but eventually he loosened the knots enough to slip his hands out. His fingers came away red with blood after he used them to explore the back of his head. Not willing to risk standing yet, he crawled across the floor to the bathroom and threw up into the toilet. Whoever had hit him hadn’t missed.

  How much money had been in his wallet? He remembered going to an ATM before he went to the pub and taking out two hundred dollars. Dinner and beers had probably cost fifty or so. He washed his face and dabbed gently at the back of his head with a wet towel. Probably going to need stitches, he thought. Concussion certainly, but he thought he’d be feeling a lot worse than he was if his skull was fractured. He pushed himself up off the toilet and got himself to a standing position, holding on to the doorjamb while he waited for the world to steady.

  He made it back to the bed without falling or throwing up again and counted that as a win. Lying on the bed with his eyes closed against the glare from the windows, John tried to take stock. His wallet would be gone. What about his keys? The ute? Possibly. He’d have to report it to police. And he’d need to find a doctor. Where was the nearest hospital? Byron Bay probably. He’d have to tell the hotel too. The thought of all the endless explanations he was going to have go through made him feel like throwing up again. He wanted to find who had hit him, but first he needed to shut his eyes for a moment.

  “You should have killed the bloody thing straight off.”

  “It didn’t look dangerous, did it? How was I to know?”

  “It’s a damn dog. Just kill it on suspicion, you idiot.”

  “Yes. Okay. You were right. I was wrong. Happy now?” Manny winced as he pulled back the blood-soaked handkerchief he had wound around his left hand, revealing a long jagged cut across the back. When he turned his hand over, he saw a row of oozing puncture wounds across his palm. “Fucking thing looked like it was too old to even scratch itself.”

  “Dogs are bastards. You can’t trust them—they’ll turn on you as soon as look at you.”

  “Well, it’s dead now.” Manny’s hand was swollen and red. He dabbed at the blood with a wad of toilet paper as he sat on the bed in their motel room. He hadn’t seen it coming; he’d been too intent on watching the dreadlocked man.

  “Too late. That hand’s going to need stitches.”

  “No. It’s all right,” Manny said. “Just get some antiseptic and bandages. We’ll do it ourselves. Don’t want a doctor asking awkward questions.”

  “What about rabies? You’ll need a shot.”

  “They don’t have rabies in Australia
.”

  “How do you know?”

  Manny shrugged. “I just do.”

  “All right. It’s your hand.” Ruth picked up her handbag and opened the door, letting a blinding rectangle of morning sunlight into the room.

  Manny squinted. “And get some pain-killers too.”

  “All right.” She pulled the door closed, plunging the room back into its comfortable gloom.

  Manny leaned back against the pillows. He had tried to shoo the dog away with his free hand. Stupid. The blooding thing had latched on, wouldn’t let go. Not till Ruth stuck a knife in its throat. Enormous fucking jaws. Manny was sure some of the bones in his hand were broken; he tried to make a fist but didn’t get far. It hurt like hell, but at least he could move all his fingers. He leaned over, grabbed the remote control from the side table, and turned on the television.

  Half an hour later, Ruth let herself back into the room, juggling a shopping bag and a cardboard tray with coffee in paper cups.

  She covered his hand with brown antiseptic and used a whole packet of butterfly strips to hold the edges of the jagged wound together, then wrapped his whole hand in a bandage.

  “I’ll do the driving,” Ruth said, picking up the keys. “We should get going before McPhedran goes somewhere else.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Not till I’ve had some sleep.”

  “But we’ll miss him.”

  “Maybe. I don’t care. We’ve been up all night, and my hand is killing me. I need some sleep, and I need the pain-killers to kick in.” Manny slid down on the bed and rolled onto his side. “You go if you want. I’m going to get a couple of hours of sleep. And then I’m going to get something to eat.”

  Ruth stood by the door, watching him, jiggling the key fob in her hand. Manny knew she wouldn’t go without him.

  Chapter 22

  Nothing Like This

  When John woke again, he managed to get to the door of the room, scaring the shit out of a pair of young German women who were sitting on the veranda, deeply immersed in their mobile phones and first-of-the-day cigarettes. They called the hotel manager, who called the ambulance and police.

  “I reckon it’s going to need stitches,” The day manager, Allan, was short and stocky, with a moustache that looked like he’d borrowed it from someone else. An unopened first-aid kit sat next to him on the bed as he looked at the back of John’s head. “Better wait for the ambulance.”

  The two German girls and a tall skinny man with an afro were peering in through the open door, watching them.

  “Did they take much?” Allan asked.

  “Phone and wallet, I think.” John winced. “Not much else to take. This sort of shit happen often here?”

  Allan looked offended. “Never. We have very few problems with our visitors. The occasional drunk wanting to pick a fight downstairs, we get that, but we’ve got good security. Never had anything happen like this. I can’t even remember ever having a robbery. Nothing like this. Plenty of stuff lost. Phones, wallets, passports. But lost. Not stolen.”

  The police arrived first. Two uniforms, both young. They shooed away the backpackers then asked the same questions the manager had been asking: What time? Who had he been with? How much had he drunk? Had he taken any drugs? What was missing? Did he see anything? John went through the story again until the ambulance arrived. The paramedics greeted the cops by name as they came in the room. They took a look at the wound and checked John’s reactions. “I think you’ve got a concussion,” the senior paramedic said. “And that wound will need stitches. How much did you drink?”

  “Three schooners, I think.” One of the cops was writing in a notebook; the other was talking to the German girls out on the veranda.

  “Any drugs?”

  “No. No drugs.”

  They took John to the hospital in Byron Bay, where a tired-looking young doctor checked him out, asking most of the same questions again. At least he gave John some paracetamol.

  They x-rayed his head but didn’t find any fractures, and then they stitched up his scalp and sent him off with the cops.

  At the police station, he had to give a statement. This time he was talking to a detective who wasn’t as sympathetic as the young uniforms had been. Apparently the cops had looked up John’s record, which included his proximity to a number of violent deaths.

  “What are you doing in Brunswick Heads, Mr. Lawrence?”

  “Looking for a friend. He’s supposed to be staying up here. But no one was home. So I went to the hotel.”

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “His name’s Billy Sheehan.” John had decided not to mention Rashmi. It was an unusual name, and he didn’t want to set off alarm bells, especially if they’d heard about her stunt back in Sydney; it had made national news, after all.

  “So why would anyone want to clobber you, John? What have you been up to?”

  John looked back at the detective and ran his fingers along the curved line of stitches across the back of his skull. He was going to need a lot more paracetamol before this was over.

  When he walked out of the police station, the day was hot and sticky. No wind, no clouds, no relief from the sun on his scalp where the doctors had shaved the back of his head. The collar of his T-shirt was stained with blood; all in all, he looked worse than some of the freaks on the street. The cops had offered to give him a lift back to Brunswick Heads, but there were things he needed to do first.

  It took a while, but eventually the bank gave him access to his money, cancelling his old cards and arranging to send replacements to his home address. Next he saw about getting his driver’s license replaced. With some money in his pocket again, he bought a cheap phone and a clean T-shirt, and then he went in search of coffee and something to eat. On the main drag, he found a café with a girl busking outside. She was small and pretty, with feathers plaited into her hair. The guitar she was playing looked enormous on her, like she could hardly get her arms around to strum it. As John downed a couple of espressos and picked at a chicken sandwich, the busker leaned her head back and sang with her eyes closed. John didn’t recognise the song, but he appreciated the girl’s passion. He dropped five dollars in her guitar case as he left the café, and went looking for a haircut.

  He found a barber down a side street, sitting in a big old-fashioned chair, reading the paper. The man looked up, as John pushed the door open. “Jesus, mate. What happened to you?”

  “Someone hit me. Had to get stitched up. Can you shave my head? Might as well have it all off now.”

  “Yeah, sure. Here, sit down.” He stood up stiffly and guided John to a chair before flicking out a cloth and draping it around him. “So what happened?”

  “Someone hit me.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve got a hell of a headache. Do you mind just doing the haircut?”

  “Sure, mate. Whatever. You’re the one paying.”

  I sure am, John thought, as the barber went to work with the clippers, carefully skirting around the stitches. Behind him, in the mirror, John watched tourists walk past the window.

  When the barber had finished clipping his hair to a short stubble, John found a taxi to take him back to Brunswick Heads. By the time he got back to the hotel, his head was pounding again.

  “I locked it up after the police finished here,” Allan said, handing John the key. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you another room, but we’re booked solid.”

  John told him the same room would be fine; he just needed to sleep.

  His belongings were still in the room, including his keys, but fingerprint dust was everywhere—on the doorframe, the lamp, even his backpack. As he lay back in bed and closed his eyes, he decided the cops would probably have bugger all chance of tracing prints from a room that had different people in it every day.

  Chapter 23

  Very Helpful

  For lunch Billy and Rashmi ate peanut butter sandwiches. Sitting outside on the bench, watching the clouds o
ver the hills, hardly talking.

  Afterwards, Rashmi went inside and lay down on the mattress with her book. Billy stayed outside, watching the cows. It was another hot day, and the cows were all lying down in the paddock. Billy wondered why they didn’t move over to where the trees along the fence offered some shade. Maybe the cows didn’t feel the heat.

  When he went back inside the shed, Rashmi had fallen asleep. Billy watched her for a moment, wondering how she managed to sleep so much. He lifted the ring of keys for both sheds off the nail near the door.

  The machinery-shed door creaked as he swung it open. Inside, it was stuffy and hot, with a strong smell of fuel and oil. The black-and-electric-blue quad bike sat in the middle of the concrete floor, between the old, olive-green Land Rover and a little orange tractor that had a kind of mower on the back. The quad bike was bigger than the one Billy had ridden with John. The seat was big enough for two people, with carrying racks at the front and the back. He climbed on, stretching a bit as his hands and feet found the controls. The front tyres scraped the concrete floor of the shed as he twisted the handlebars back and forth. He unscrewed the fuel cap and smelled petrol; then he moved his head to the side till he saw light reflecting on the surface. Nearly full. He imagined starting the engine and driving the bike out around the yard. How fast would it go? It was pretty big but didn’t look like it was built to go fast. More for carrying stuff. The tyres were covered in big knobs for rough ground. The key was in the ignition. Billy turned it. One click. Lights came on in the gauges: red, yellow, and green. When he pressed the starter button, the engine whined as the starter motor turned the twin cylinders over. Billy took his thumb off the button. This was silly; Dave would be pissed if he took the bike out without asking. Rash had said he didn’t want it being used when he wasn’t around. He turned the ignition off, thinking what a pity it was. Riding the quad bike would be fun, and there was nothing else to do out here.