Catherine Jinks TheRoad (33 page)

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.’