‘Hang on,’ said Graham. ‘What’s that?’
Chris had been reducing speed as the track became more and more uneven. Now he halted, sizing up the old Ford XP ute that sat facing them about twenty metres away. It was white, with an alloy roo bar.
There was no one in it.
‘Okay . . .’ said Chris softly. He peered about, then tapped the horn. Alec winced. He didn’t know if it was a good idea, drawing attention to themselves with such a strident parp-parp. His instinct was to keep his head down – suss things out quietly.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said. But the brothers ignored him.
‘Can you get around it?’ asked Graham.
‘Do we need to?’ Chris responded. ‘There must be someone nearby.’
‘I’ll check it out,’ Graham said. He exited their own vehicle awkwardly, limb by limb, and left the door open. Hitching up his khaki pants, he loped over to the ute, inspecting first its interior, then its tyres, then its rear end. He tried a door handle, but it wouldn’t yield. Chris kept the Land Rover’s engine idling. Alec found himself glancing repeatedly to his right and left, and over his shoulder. The sound of the horn had met with no response; no one had appeared suddenly from behind a mulga, zipping up his fly.
It occurred to Alec that this abandoned ute was not, in fact, a very encouraging development.
Graham returned to the Land Rover, a frown puckering his freckled forehead. He draped himself over the front passenger door, which was still ajar.
‘Nothing,’ he said ‘A few tools in the back. All locked up.’
‘Locked up?’ Chris repeated. ‘Hmmph.’
‘Like they were going to be gone a while.’ Graham scratched his scalp. ‘Could they have run out of petrol?’
Chris sighed. Alec cleared his throat.
‘Maybe they went back to the house,’ he said.
‘Maybe,’ Chris replied. Graham folded himself up and got back into the Land Rover. His door slammed shut. Slowly, cautiously, Chris steered their vehicle around the obstacle that lay in its path, bumping over ruts and rocks, flattening saltbush, churning up dust. When they were back on the road again, Alec said: ‘Should we be lookin for tracks?’
‘Eh?’ Graham was rubbing his eyes.
‘They mighta gone off into the bush, for some reason.’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Could you track them if they did?’ Chris queried, and Alec heaved a sigh.
‘No,’ he admitted.
The silence that followed was as expressive as any amount of comment. Alec chewed his lip. They proceeded along the choppy surface of the road for another ten minutes or so before it occurred to Alec that they were approaching a dry creek bed. He knew it instinctively, perhaps because a thick line of trees lay ahead, perhaps because he recognised one or two of these trees as eucalypts. Chris swore, and then they were suddenly down on the creek bed, rocking and bouncing, thrusting up the opposite bank with a great roar of changing gears. Dust billowed out behind them. There was a spring-shaking shudder and all at once they were on a level surface again, heading for a shallow incline. Several large bushes were now close enough to the road to cast pools of shadow.
Graham reached out and patted the dash.
‘Good job,’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘Good buy, Chris.’
‘Mmmph,’ Chris responded. He was trying to steer around some massive potholes, worn smooth by years of passage. Graham turned his head. He addressed Alec.
‘We were hoping to get up to Queensland,’ he began. ‘We’re on a Burke and Wills tour –’
‘FUCK!’ Chris stamped on the brake with such force that they all nearly hit the roof. Graham banged his elbow on the glove box. Alec yelped. Chris said: ‘Oh fuck. Oh my fuck.’
There were people on the road – people and blood. A mound in a floral sundress, its skirt stained bright red, lay with one tanned leg clearly visible. (The head was in shadow, and not so horribly exposed.) Another motionless body, some distance beyond the first, lay with its trousered legs pointed towards them and a large, dark patch underneath its back, as if it had collapsed onto a crimson picnic blanket.
Graham began to make peculiar gasping noises.
‘Oh no. Oh no,’ his brother whispered.
They stared and stared. The details began to sink in: a brown purse lying on the road; a spiralling cloud of flies; a grey shrub gleaming reddish near its base. Dark patches on red-gold dirt. The glint of something small and metallic beside the woman’s foot.
She was wearing a sandal – a white sandal, coated with dust. Alec thought numbly: It looks like one of Janine’s.
‘Okay,’ Chris said hoarsely. ‘O-okay.’
Graham pushed open the front passenger door.
‘Hey!’ cried Alec, in alarm. ‘What are you doin?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t get out, there might be someone . . .!’
Graham fixed him with a blank gaze, as if he was talking gibberish. Chris put a hand on his brother’s arm.
‘Hang on.’
‘Chris!’ Graham’s voice cracked. ‘They might be alive!’
‘I know. Hang on. Wait . . . let me think.’
‘Do you guys have a gun?’ asked Alec. It seemed a sensible enough question to him, but Graham reacted as if doubt had been cast upon his sanity.
‘A gun?’
‘We don’t have a gun.’ Chris pressed a few fingers to his brow. ‘Uh – we have an axe. For wood.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Up top.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Alec muttered.
‘We can’t stay in here,’ Chris said. ‘Someone has to get out and see if . . . if . . .’
‘I will,’ Graham declared. He sounded grim, even angry, but the perils of their situation had obviously sunk in, because he instructed his brother to ‘keep the motor running’. As he dropped onto the road, Chris said: ‘Get the axe, Gray. Alec can check ’em. Make it fast, eh? Alec? Quick.’
For a moment, Alec just sat. He was stunned. Get out of the car? He couldn’t do it.
‘Alec!’ Chris barked. ‘Get a move on!’
Alec obeyed, all the while thinking resentfully: What makes him the bloody boss? This budding sense of animosity was just enough to take the edge off his fear. It allowed him to put one foot in front of the other until he was ahead of the four-wheel drive, his pace picking up the further he went. He didn’t even look at the first body until he was almost on top of it, because he was too busy scanning the roadside. Then he trod on something and glanced down, moving his foot.
It was a cartridge.
‘They’ve been shot!’ he said loudly, without thinking.
‘What?’ Someone’s voice – Graham’s, probably – was raised above the rumble of the Land Rover’s idling engine. But Alec didn’t repeat himself. It suddenly struck him that they shouldn’t be shouting.
Now that he was close to her, Alec could see what he had missed from the car. There wasn’t a chance in hell that this woman still clung to life. She was sprawled on her stomach, and she smelled, not of meat gone bad, but of blood and urine. There were flies everywhere. And blood – so much blood! The back of her head was a hairy, glutinous mass. The ground beneath it was soaked – blackened – muddy with more blood than Alec had ever seen in his life. Someone had nearly severed her hand from her arm, with a weapon that had chopped cleanly into her shoulder and back and legs, leaving the most dreadful, bloodless gaping wounds, like axe marks in a tree-trunk. But they weren’t the only wounds. There were holes everywhere, deep punctures and shallow cuts, torn fabric, weird gouges, a crushed finger . . . this woman had been practically torn to pieces.
Alec staggered backwards, gagging.
‘Ah . . . ah . . .’ He swung around, tears springing to his eyes. He swallowed. There was a clattering noise from the Land Rover, which suggested that Graham had dragged the axe off the luggage rack.
She was dead. She had to be. But though
he was practically reeling from shock, Alec realised dimly that he would always be haunted in days to come unless he made absolutely sure.
So he edged towards the ghastly, fly-blown thing, swallowing repeatedly, groping with an outstretched hand, shooting quick glances in its direction, until he finally made contact with her wrist – the wrist that wasn’t dangling on the end of a strand of sinew. It was inert. Sticky. Not cold (how could anything be cold, at this hour of the day?) but not warm either. It had a strange, flaccid feel to it.
Alec gulped in air, averting his eyes. He pressed down on the yielding flesh, but could find no pulse.
It didn’t surprise him. He dropped the arm as he would have dropped a live centipede, wincing at the way it hit the ground. For a minute or two he had completely forgotten the risk that he was running, but his fear came flooding back now, like nausea. Dizzy and panic-stricken, he staggered over to the next body, which was about ten metres off down the road. Drawing closer, he saw that it belonged to an old guy with grey hair, lying on his back, arms flung wide. Alec couldn’t help slowing. He knew that he would have to look at a face, and he didn’t relish the prospect. Oh fuck, he thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The old guy had lost his hat, which was sitting on the ground nearby. He had also lost a slipper – one foot was bare. His sleeves were rolled up. The front of his shirt was red, soaked in blood, most of which looked pretty dry (though Alec wasn’t going to touch anything). Blood had spread out beneath the body, seeping into the desiccated earth, but there only seemed to be one wound. No stab marks. No severed limbs. The face . . .
The face wasn’t too bad. It hadn’t been mutilated. It was spattered with blood, but at least the eyes were closed. The mouth was open, and a set of false teeth seemed to have been knocked askew. Alec averted his gaze from that bizarre, damaged grimace and picked up an arm. The hands were like rough chunks of old tree root, dyed yellow around the finger tips. He couldn’t feel a pulse.
On his way back to the Land Rover, Alec saw that Graham had retrieved the woman’s purse, and was peering into it. An axe lay discarded on the ground beside him.
‘Well?’ said Graham, looking up at Alec’s approach.
Alec shook his head, breathing deeply. One breath. Two breaths. He felt cold, despite the heat.
‘Both dead?’
Alec nodded.
‘Did he have a wallet?’
Alec stared.
‘For identification,’ Graham explained.
Alec’s long-suppressed anger flared up. ‘How – how the fuck should I know?’ he stammered.
‘You didn’t look?’
‘No I didn’t fuckin look!’
‘I’ll look.’ Graham moved forward, rifling through the brown purse and ignoring the axe. Alec called after him: ‘They’ve been shot, mate, you wanna watch yourself!’ Climbing back into his seat, he heard Chris say something, but couldn’t make out the words. His head was still fuzzy. When he shut his eyes, a bloody image of destruction imposed itself upon the darkness – so he opened them again.
‘What?’ he muttered.
‘I said, if there was someone still around, he probably would have tried to shoot us already,’ Chris pointed out. ‘You did say they were shot. Is that right?’
‘Yeah.’ Alec winced, and swallowed. ‘I saw a cartridge.’
‘Was it done recently?’
‘Dunno.’ Alec hesitated. ‘Most of the blood looks pretty dry.’
‘Where’s Graham going?’
‘He – he wants to see if he can find a wallet.’
‘Well he shouldn’t.’ Chris leaned out the window, gesturing frantically. ‘Gray!’ he shouted. ‘Come back!’
Graham spun around. Chris saw the purse in his hand.
‘Shit,’ he murmured. ‘Graham! Come back! Don’t touch anything!’
Alec suddenly understood what Chris was getting at. The place was a crime scene. You weren’t supposed to disturb crime scenes. He wondered if he had kicked the cartridge aside, or scuffed through any tell-tale footprints.
‘You shouldn’t be disturbing anything,’ Chris said sharply, echoing Alec’s thoughts. He was speaking to his brother, who had just reached the Land Rover’s factory-fresh roo bar. ‘There might be fingerprints on that bag, Graham.’
‘Oh shit.’ Graham’s eyes widened. ‘What an idiot! Now my fingerprints are on there!’
‘Get in,’ said Chris.
‘What shall I do with the . . . ?’
‘Bring it. Too late now. And don’t forget the axe.’
‘Sorry. Jesus, what a fool.’
The axe was shoved through Alec’s window, and left in Alec’s care. A hunted-looking Graham crawled into the front passenger seat. Everyone looked at the purse that he was carrying, which was made of cheap, thick leather, scuffed and stained. A lot of the stitching had unravelled.
‘Well?’ said Chris, his foot still planted on the brake.
‘There’s a screwdriver in here,’ Graham murmured. ‘A bloody great screwdriver, look.’ He dragged it out; it was old and rusty.
‘Anything else?’ Chris wanted to know.
‘Tissues. Receipts. Wallet.’ Graham laid down the screwdriver and produced the wallet. It, too, had a worn and battered appearance. ‘Let’s see . . . Visa card. Medicare card. Civic Video card. All belonging to Grace Stone . . . oh.’ He swallowed. ‘There’s another name on the Medicare card. Nathan Bryce.’
‘Shit,’ Chris breathed.
‘Twenty-five bucks. Couple of stamps. What’s this?’ He unfolded it. ‘Prescription. Antibiotics for Grace Stone. Oh, man.’
‘What?’
Graham held up a photograph – a headshot, cropped to fill a credit card pocket. The kid in the picture was very small, with brown eyes and missing teeth. Alec judged him to be about four or five; older than Janine’s son Ronnie, at any rate.
‘Don’t tell me there’s a kid out here somewhere,’ Graham moaned. ‘Jesus, Chris.’
Chris tugged at the gearstick. He strained to look behind him, ignoring Alec, squinting through the rear window. The four-wheel drive began to roll backwards.
‘What are you doing?’ Graham demanded.
‘We’ve got to go round,’ said Chris. He tapped the brake, changed gears, adjusted his position. ‘This machine might be tough, but I don’t want to mess with that tree, if you don’t mind. I’ll go through the scrub, here.’
‘Hey!’ Alec exclaimed. He leaned forward. ‘We can’t keep on! We gotta go back!’
‘I told you, we can go round. This is a four-wheel drive –’
‘I don’t bloody care what it is! Stop the car!’ Alec reached across Chris’s shoulder to grab the steering wheel. Graham knocked his arm aside.
‘Piss off!’ Graham was more astonished than angry. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What am I doin? What are you doin?’ Seeing Chris spin the wheel, Alec became frantic. ‘There’s a bloody killer around! We can’t stay here!’
‘We can’t just fuck off,’ Graham objected. Bump, bump, bump; the Land Rover lurched onto an ungraded surface, all saltbush and loose mineral. ‘There might be a kid in the house.’
‘There might be a bloody gunman in the house! For Chrissake, you don’t even have a phone! We gotta get help! Someone with a rifle! Chris, stop the car! Stop the car!’
The car did stop, abruptly, and Alec’s nose hit Graham’s headrest. Chris glared into the rear-view mirror. ‘You want to get out, Alec?’ he inquired.
Alec stared at him, mutely.
‘You don’t happen to know something about this, do you?’ Chris went on, and Alec’s jaw dropped. ‘Because if you do, you’d better tell us. Now.’
Alec struggled with a sense of outrage that pushed the hot blood into his face and deprived him, for an instant, of the power of speech.
‘Fuck off !’ he spluttered at last.
‘Your truck’s parked up the highway. We don’t know you from Adam. You could be involved.’
‘Get fucked !’
&nbs
p; ‘Chris,’ Graham warned, ‘he’s got the axe back there.’
‘He could be fleeing the scene of the crime. It’s possible.’
‘Are you outta your minds?’ Alec squeaked. ‘This is the fuckin Twilight Zone and you’re blamin me? I ran outta fuckin petrol!’
‘Well I dunno,’ Chris said quietly. ‘I dunno what to think.’
There was a long silence. The air seemed taut. Alec was speechless. At last Chris sighed and said: ‘There’ll be a phone at the house. We can call the police from there. We should call the police.’
‘What we should do is get out,’ Alec reiterated, flatly. ‘We should call the police from Coombah.’
‘But someone might still be alive up ahead.’
‘Yeah. The guy with the gun.’
‘Like I said, Alec – if you want to get out, mate, we won’t stop you.’
Chris was calling the shots again. Alec sensed that Graham might be ambivalent about abandoning anyone at the site of a massacre (his eyelids fluttered as he slowly, pensively, turned the photograph in front of his downcast gaze) but Graham wasn’t about to challenge his brother. Not in front of an unknown quantity.
Not when Chris had clearly been a bit dubious about Alec from the very beginning.
‘Right,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll walk back to the truck, then. Get a lift to Coombah.’ He was furious, tired, frightened. He gripped the door handle. ‘You got some water you can lend me?’
Graham and Chris exchanged another of their telepathic glances.
‘You can stay here,’ Graham finally proposed, in conciliatory accents. ‘We can pick you up when we’re done.’
‘Sure,’ Alec snorted. ‘If you don’t get shot first.’
‘We won’t get shot,’ Chris said firmly. ‘This can’t have just happened – you told me the blood was dry. Whoever did it won’t be hanging around waiting to be found. He’ll have pissed off.’
‘Unless he’s run out of petrol,’ Alec finished. He accepted a half-empty bottle of mineral water from Graham, and prepared to make an exit.