by John Marsden
I glanced in the wing mirror, and saw the headlights. There seemed to be two vehicles.
'How far to go?'
'Two k's. Maybe three.'
'Start praying again.'
'Did you think I'd stopped?'
I had my foot pressed so hard to the floor my arch was hurting. But they were gaining so fast we might as well have been standing still. Within another block they were fifty metres behind us.
'They're firing,' said Robyn. 'I can see the flashes.'
We roared through a stop sign, doing 95 k's. One of the cars was now right on our tail, the headlights glaring into my mirror. Then the mirror disappeared. Even though I was looking right at it I didn't see it go. But it definitely went.
The stop sign didn't give me the idea; I'd already vaguely thought of it as a possible tactic. But the sign seemed like an omen, appearing when it did. I decided to follow its advice. I just hoped Lee would survive.
'Hold on real tight!' I yelled at Robyn, then hit the brakes with everything I had. I used the handbrake as well as the foot brake. The truck skidded, went sideways, nearly rolled. It was still skidding when I heard the satisfying crump of the car behind hitting us on our rear right side, then saw it spinning out of control away into the darkness. Then it rolled. We came to a stop and sat there, rocking heavily. The engine stalled again and for a minute we were a perfect target. I furiously wrenched at the key, so hard that the soft metal actually twisted in my grip. The second car was braking and almost stationary, but about a hundred metres away. The truck started. I rammed it into gear. More flashes of gunfire came from the second car, and suddenly there were two bangs from underneath me. I swung the truck onto the road and hit the accelerator, but the truck was tilting and sluggish, wallowing all over the road and bumping badly. 'What's wrong?' Robyn said. She looked scared, unusual for Robyn.
'They've shot some tyres out.' Robyn's mirror was still there and I glanced at that. The second car had started again and was coming on fast. Robyn was looking through the little rear window.
'What's in the back here?'
'I don't know. I didn't look.'
'Well there's something there. How do you operate the tipper?'
'That blue lever I think.' Robyn grabbed it and heaved it down. The second car was now trying to pass us. I was swerving all over the road to prevent him, a process made easier by the punctured tyres. Then something did start pouring out of the back, with a slow sliding noise. I still don't know what it was, gravel or mud or something. In Robyn's mirror I saw the car brake so hard it nearly stood on its head. A minute later we were at Three Pigs Lane.
I slewed the wheel around and blocked the lane with the truck as we'd agreed. For a moment I couldn't see Homer. I felt sick. All I wanted to do was fall on my knees in the dirt of the lane and vomit. Robyn had total faith though. She was out of the truck and running to the shovel, helping Lee to stand. Then I saw Homer, backing dangerously fast, without lights, towards us. I jumped out of the truck and ran at him as he brought the car to a wobbling halt, just a few metres away from me and in the gutter. Everyone seemed to be reversing tonight, and not very efficiently. I heard a bang, and another bullet whirred past me, somewhere in the darkness. Homer was out of the car. It was a station wagon, a BMW, and he was opening the tailgate and helping Lee in. Robyn left him to it and ran to the front passenger door, opening it, and the back one for Homer. A bullet hit the car, smashing a hole in the rear passenger door. Only one person seemed to be firing at us, using a handgun. It was quite possible that there'd only been one person in that second car. Homer had left the driver's door open and the engine running. I clambered in, out of the gutter, and looked around. Lee was in, Homer was getting in, Robyn was in. Close enough. I pushed it in gear, not adjusting well after the truck, and using too much force on the clutch and the gearstick. We kangaroo-hopped out of the gutter. There was a cry of pain from the back of the BMW. I put the clutch back in and tried again, this time getting a smoother takeoff, then lost yet another side window and windscreen, to a bullet that must have angled past me.
We'd been lucky, but when anyone's shooting at a wildly moving target in the dark the luck should favour the target. I knew that from hunting trips. Sometimes I'd have a shot at a hare or rabbit that the dogs were chasing. It was a waste of ammunition, and dangerous for the dogs, but fun. I only ever got one, and that was a fluke. These guys had actually done pretty well in their attempts at us. They weren't to be underestimated Some of them might be undertrained, like Mr Clement had said, but they'd given us a hard time.
The BMW was flying. It was a dirt road, but straight, and smoother than most. 'Nice car,' I said to Homer, glancing at him in the rear vision mirror.
He gave an evil grin. 'Thought I might as well get a good one.'
'Whose is it?'
'I don't know. One of those big houses by the golf course.'
Robyn, beside me, turned and looked to the rear of the car.
'You OK, Lee?'
There was a pause, then Lee's quiet voice, which I felt like I hadn't heard in a year. 'Better than I was in that bloody truck.' We all laughed, loudly, like we had a lot of nervous energy.
Robyn turned to me, took my helmet off and started inspecting my forehead as I drove. 'Don't,' I said. 'Too distracting.'
'But there's blood all over your face and shoulders.'
I don't think it's anything.' I certainly hadn't felt a thing. 'It's probably just a bit of glass. Head wounds always bleed a lot.'
Already we were approaching Meldon Marsh Road. I slowed down and turned the lights off, leaning forward to concentrate. Driving at night without lights is horribly hard and dangerous, but I figured we'd lost the element of surprise that we'd had with the trucks. These guys would have radios. We had to rely on concealment now.
To drive directly to my place would have taken about forty or fifty minutes. But we still had a couple of hours of darkness left, and we'd agreed when making our plans, back at Robyn's, to use that time. It was a choice of two evils. To go straight home would make it too easy for them to track us. To stay on the roads would expose us to enemy patrols. We could have hidden up somewhere and gone to my place the next night, but we figured that with every passing day, the grip these people had on the district would tighten. And after the damage we'd just done to them they might well bring in more troops by the next night.
Besides, we all wanted so desperately to get back to Fi and Corrie and Kevin, and to the sanctuary of Hell. We couldn't bear the thought of another day so far away from it. We wanted to get as close as we could. It took all our self-control to take a roundabout route now.
Homer'd had the time, as he sat silently waiting in the BMW, parked in the shadows of Three Pigs Lane, to work out a rough route, and now he started calling out instructions from pencil marks he'd made on a map. 'This takes us past Chris Lang's place,' he said, as we drove as fast as I dared along Meldon Marsh Road. 'We'll change cars there. If the keys aren't in the cars, I know where they'll be.'
'Why are we changing cars?' asked Lee's tired voice from the back. I think he was dreading another painful move.
Homer explained. 'Our plan is to go up to Hell in four-wheel drives and hide out there for a while. The Landrover'll be packed and ready, at Ellie's. That means we'll be dumping whatever car we've used to get there. Now if, a day or two later, a patrol arrives at Ellie's and finds a shot up BMW, that they've been searching the district for ... well, some very nasty things could happen to Ellie's parents.'
There was a pause, then Lee said, 'Chris's parents have got a Merc.'
'That did cross my mind,' Homer admitted. 'And they're overseas, so the Merc's probably in the garage, not at the Showground. I don't think Chris has got his licence yet. If we're going to have a war we may as well have it in style. Next left, El.'
We arrived at Chris's ten minutes later, racing straight past the house to the garage and sheds, about a hundred metres away. We were getting tired, not just with physical ex
haustion but with the emotional intensity of the last few hours. We climbed stiffly out of the car. The others went looking for the Merc while I went to the back of the BMW to talk to Lee. I was shocked by how pale he looked; his hair was blacker and his eyes bigger than ever. He smelt even worse than we did, and there was a new dark red stain on his bandage.
'You're bleeding,' I said.
'Only a little. I'd say a couple of stitches probably came apart.'
'You look awful.'
'And smell it too. Lying there sweating for twenty-four hours, I wouldn't recommend it.' There was a pause, then, self-consciously, he said, 'Listen, Ellie, thanks for getting me out of there. Every minute of the twenty-four hours I could hear the footsteps of soldiers coming to get me.'
'Sorry about the wild trip in the truck.'
He grinned. 'I couldn't believe it. Towards the end there, when you hit the brakes, I actually got thrown out, but I did a sort of roll and landed back in. That's when I bust a few stitches I think.'
'Yeah, I'm sorry. We needed to get rid of a car behind us.' I wiped my face. 'God, I can't believe the things we've done.'
'A couple of bullets hit the shovel. They didn't go through it, but the noise they made! I thought I was dead. But I don't think they knew I was in there, or they would have sprayed it with bullets.' Homer came backing out of the garage in a large olive-green Mercedes. Lee laughed. 'Homer hasn't changed.'
'Yes he has.'
'Has he? I'll be interested to see that. He's a pretty smart guy, Homer. Listen Ellie, there's one problem here. If we leave the BMW sitting where it is, and a patrol finds it, they'll think there's a connection between us and Chris's family. They might burn his house, or if they've got Chris as one of their prisoners, they might do something to him.'
'You're right.' I turned to the others, who were getting out of the Merc, and repeated what Lee had said. Homer listened, nodded, and pointed to the dam.
'Can we do that?' I asked. 'To a nice new BMW with only a couple of bullet holes?'
It seemed that we could. I drove it to the upper side of the dam, put it in neutral, got out and gave it a good push. It was a light car and moved easily. It ran down the slope, holding almost a perfect line, and went straight into the water. It floated out for a few metres, getting lower and lower, then stopped floating, leaned to one side and began sinking. With a sudden gurgle and a lot of bubbles, it disappeared. There was a small cheer from Robyn and Homer and me.
And it was the noise of that small cheer which brought Chris out from his hiding place.
He looked funny, dressed in pyjamas, standing there, rubbing his eyes and staring at us. But we probably looked funny to him, like scarecrows in shock, staring back at him in astonishment. He'd come out of their old piggery, which these days was just a row of old sheds, so obviously abandoned and derelict that it was a good choice for a hiding place.
Time was getting short. We had to make some quick decisions. It didn't take Chris long to decide he wanted to come with us. For a week he'd had no contact with anyone, just watched from a tree, and later the piggery, as patrol after patrol came through the property. The first group had taken all the cash and jewellery; Chris had buried the other small valuables after that, but had spent the rest of the week in hiding, emerging only to check animals and pick up supplies from the house.
His story, told from the back seat of his family Merc as we cruised the side roads, made us realise how lucky we'd been to avoid ground patrols. His house was closer to town than ours, and much grander and more conspicuous, and he'd had daily visits from soldiers.
'They seem nervous,' he said. 'They're not into being heroes. They stick close together. The first few days they were really jumpy, but they're more confident now.'
'How did it start?' I asked. 'Like, when did you first realise something funny was happening?'
Chris was normally quiet but he hadn't talked for so long that now he was the life of the party.
'Well, it was the day after Mum and Dad left for their trip. You remember? That's why I couldn't come on the hike with you. Murray, he's our worker, was taking his family into the Show and he offered me a lift, but I didn't want to go. I didn't think it'd be much fun without you guys, and I'm not heavily into that kind of stuff anyway.' Chris was a lightly built boy with intense eyes and a lot of nervous habits, like coughing in the middle of every sentence. He wouldn't be into Commem Day or woodchopping competitions; he was more into the Grateful Dead, Hieronymus Bosch, and computers. He was also known for writing poetry and using more illegal substances than you'd find in the average police laboratory. His motto was 'If it grows, smoke it'. Ninety per cent of the school thought he was weird, ten per cent thought he was a legend, everybody thought he was a genius.
'Well, Murray never came back that night, but I didn't realise, because their house is quite a way from ours. I didn't really notice anything unusual. There were Air Force jets racing around, but I just thought it was Commem Day stuff. Then, about nine o'clock, the power went off. That's so common I didn't get excited, just waited for it to come back on again. But an hour later it was still off, so I thought I'd better ring up and see what was happening. Then I found the phone was off too, which is unusual—we often lose one or the other, but not both. So I walked over to Murray's place, found they weren't home, thought "They must have gone out to tea", came home, went to bed with a candle—if you know what I mean—woke up in the morning, found everything was still off. "Now this is serious," I thought, went back to Murray's, still no one there. I walked along the road till I got to the Ramsays'—they're our neighbours—went in there, it was empty, kept walking, found no one at the Arthurs', realised there'd been no traffic, thought "Maybe I'm the only person left on the planet", went round a corner and found a wrecked car with three dead people in it. They'd hit a tree, but that hadn't killed them—they'd been shot up badly. Well, bad enough to kill them. You can imagine, I freaked out, and started running towards town. Around the next corner was the next shock—Uncle Al's house, which had been blown up. It was just a pile of smoking rubble. I saw a couple of vehicles coming, and instead of jumping on the road and flagging them down, which I would have done if they'd come along earlier, I hid and watched. They were military trucks, full of soldiers, and they weren't ours. So I thought "Either I've been using some very strange and heavy stuff or else this is not a typical day in the life of Wirrawee". It's been pretty weird ever since. Waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a BMW floating in the middle of the dam was just another part of it.'
Chris kept us entertained for a good half-hour by the time he'd told us what had happened to him and we'd told him our story. And more importantly, he kept us awake. But long before we got to my place Homer and Robyn were heavily asleep. Chris and Lee and I were the only ones still conscious. I don't know about the other two but it was a terrible struggle for me. I resorted to things like dabbing my eyelids with spit, which might sound strange, but it did help a bit. It was with deep relief that I saw the first soft light from the east reflecting off the galvanised iron roof of home. Only then did I realise I'd spent all that time driving the most elegant car I was ever likely to have, and I hadn't thought about it once. What a wasted opportunity. I was quite cross with myself.
Chapter Twelve
There'd been a few visitors in the short time we'd been away. Looters had come, and like at Chris's they had taken jewellery and a few other bits and pieces. My watch, some silver photo frames, my Swiss Army knife. They hadn't done much damage. I felt sick about it but was too tired to feel the full impact. Corrie and Kevin and Fi had come too—all the stuff on our list had been removed, and they'd left a message on the fridge: 'Gone where the bad people go. See you there!' I laughed and then rubbed at it till it was completely removed. I was getting really security conscious.
Homer and Robyn had Lee's dressing off and were inspecting his wound, Robyn with her newfound fascination for blood. I peered over their shoulders. I'd never seen a bullet wound i
n a human before. It didn't look too bad though. Mr Clement had done a good job, for a dentist. There were only a few stitches, but there was heavy bruising all around it, lots of interesting blue and black and purple colours. Some fresh blood had seeped out from the bottom of the row of stitches; that was obviously the blood I'd seen on his bandage.
'It looks swollen,' I said.
'You should have seen it yesterday,' Lee said. 'It's improved a lot.'
'Must have been the physio I gave it in the shovel.'
'What's it feel like to get shot?' Chris asked.
Lee put his head on one side, and thought for a moment. 'Like someone's stabbed a big hot piece of barbed wire through your leg. But I didn't realise it was a bullet. I thought something in the shop had fallen and hit me.'
'Did it hurt?' I asked.
'Not at first. But suddenly I couldn't walk on it. That's when Robyn grabbed me. It didn't hurt till we got inside the restaurant and I lay down. Then it felt like it was on fire. Really killed me.'
Homer had washed the whole wound site down with Dettol and now started putting the bandage back on. Robyn inspected my face and found a gash above my hairline that she Band-aided. Seemed like they were our only wounds. When she finished I went looking for the Landrover, and found it, neatly packed and hidden where we'd agreed, about half a k from the house, in the old orchard where my grandparents had built their first home on this land.
We had the whole day to waste before we went on up into the mountains to join the others. Sleep was everybody's first priority, except for Chris, who'd had quite a lot of it compared to us. He got dumped with the first sentry duty. And the second, third and fourth. It was too dangerous to sleep in the house, so we got blankets and set up in the oldest, furthest away haystack. I made everyone nervous by going and getting the firearms from the Landrover, but always in my thoughts now was what had happened at Corrie's and how Homer said we had to learn from that; we had to learn new ways.