Should Have Killed The Kid (13 page)

12.

Later, he got an apology from the cops for the rough treatment. Back at the station, after a few frantic hours had passed and things had started to be pieced together, Detective Bernard Green had formally apologised while he'd handed over Dave’s cell phone. Apparently they’d tracked down that he was the one who dialled emergency. That, combined with the kid’s testimony had been enough to put Dave in the clear and finally allow him to get some medical attention for the gash Monty had left in his head.

‘We owe you a great deal of thanks,’ was how Green had phrased it. ‘If it wasn’t for you there would be an extra body piled up down there.’ A comment that had left Dave trembling as he’d replayed his actions down in the strange room. Sitting in the austere surrounds of the interview room holding wadded gauze to his head, he'd found it near impossible to believe he’d ever worked up the courage to deck Monty.

Disbelief that stayed with him all through the following week after he was transferred from the police station to a nearby motel to “assist with the investigation”. Every time he awoke screaming into his pillow, it was waiting. Each time he closed his eyes and was transported back to the horrible bluestone room, it was there.

The cops set him up an appointment with a shrink because of the nightmares. Talking about it seemed to do diddly squat though and meds weren't presented as an option. The shrink said he didn’t need them, though Dave reckoned that they just didn’t want him flying when it came time for Monty’s arraignment. Same reason they did their damnedest to keep him away from the paper’s and TV – though enough of it filtered in for Dave to know that the case had hit in a big way. Glimpses of front page splashes and the occasional breaking news bulletin were enough for him to glean the gist of things. It was the biggest recorded instance of systematic slaughter in Australia’s history and the papers were having a field day.

All the while Dave tried his best to write off the strange whirling cone as a figment of his imagination. He tried to block out Monty’s words too but they were harder to keep down. They just kept floating through his head at different times of the day.
Old debt requires old magic… They’re coming through… I can’t do another… it was never ours to begin with…

Always leaving that little hint of lingering doubt no matter how quickly he rushed to quash them.

Did I do the right thing?

Of course I did, don’t be fucking ridiculous, he was just a nutcase.

He only learned of his celebrity when he'd had to contact his boss.

‘Wow, you’re like a hero. It’s all over the paper,’ Amanda Jenkins, his usually staid superior had raved down the phone before pretty much forcing him into a month of paid leave. To help him cope with the stress of what had happened, apparently.

Dave didn’t complain.

Although after that call his checks of his mobile became more frequent – he’d kind of held out hope that she might see his name in the paper and make contact – but Naomi never messaged. In his more deluded fantasies he pictured explanations of how wrong she’d been. That she was on her way up to be with him during his time of need. But the only voicemails he received were from reporters and he quickly learned that replying to them was a bad idea.

Then just over a week later, after the abrupt decision that his testimony wasn’t necessary, Dave had been sent on his way. His only explanation his minder had told him was, ‘Probably means there’s plenty of physical evidence, then,’

And that had been that. A little bemused at the waste of time and money but once again uncomplaining Dave had headed home. He’d not been looking forward to facing those eyes again, even if it would have been across the safe confines of a court room. The one snap he’d glimpsed of Monty had been the standard loony fare from the newspapers. And though there’d been some satisfaction at the bruised and swollen right side of Monty’s face, the image had still chilled Dave to the core.

Not a single peep of protest exited his lips even after he was informed that the Tiida had been impounded as evidence – Monty had used it to shift both Dave and the child to his forest shack just down the road from the Gallo’s hotel. He just accepted the keys to the rental for the trip back to Melbourne.

Despite the mobile silence, a small part of him had still hoped that Naomi would be waiting at the apartment when he arrived but once more he was disappointed.  The only thing that awaited him was a mailbox overflowing with junk mail and a couple of inquisitive neighbours who previously hadn’t seen fit to say boo to him since they'd moved in.

The ninety seven messages on the home voice mail told him that the attention wasn’t just isolated to his neighbours. Dave didn’t bother checking them – though a small voice niggled,
maybe it's Naomi
. He merely wiped them all and then immediately did the only thing he could think of. He didn’t bother calling the number the police shrink had given him for “a colleague you can talk to down there”. The couple of interviews he’d had already were painful enough and he had no desire to repeat them.

He just made one excruciating, double-take ridden trip out to stock up and then he holed up inside the apartment, hoping that it’d all blow over soon…

* * *

'... well this one's been languishing for years now. A few climate issues but nothing really major that'd stand in the way of a discerning man such as–'

'No,' John cut Dean off before Jess' uncle even got started on the details. Just the same as he'd done for the last thirty properties he'd been shown.

'No?' Dean sighed and closed the album with exaggerated care as though worried that anything else would just lead to him slamming it shut in his client's face. Jess stifled a giggle. He was enjoying his uncle's rising irritation more than he should. He knew it but he couldn't help it.

He wondered exactly what life lesson he was supposed to be learning from this comedy of errors.

'I don't think I'll even bother asking why,' his uncle muttered under his breath. It was difficult to blame him. Despite the pair laying their sleazy charm on thick, the previous reasons for rejection John had supplied had ranged from completely unsatisfying to the downright obtuse. Most so minor that Jess had begun to wonder whether maybe the client wasn't fucking with the two slum lords.

It's very red. Looks dry, too. Bit too bright for my tastes. That one's too damp. Well that's plain dingy... Jess ran through all the excuses he'd heard since retrieving the folders from the cupboard. It was like every one he'd heard over the course of the week working with his uncle condensed into one sitting.

It seemed strange considering that only half  an hour ago John had seemed willing to pretty much jump at anything,

But what did he know?

All he knew was that the meeting was rapidly getting tedious. And considering the roller coaster that the first half had been that was saying something.

'Well that's pretty much exhausted everything, then.' His uncle rubbed at his temples. 'All fringe properties done, if you don't like them then your only option is to veer closer to the Depart–'

'No. Definitely not,' John cut him off, shaking his head as reinforcement. 'This place needs to be as far away as possible.'

His uncle threw his hands up in exasperation.

'Well there's not a lot of other options then. What, you want me to just pluck a property out of my arse?'

'Yes,' John replied and snickered to himself.

Jess saw his uncle go a shade of red that made him think the man was about to burst something important. A brief interlude of spluttering followed before his partner, who for the last few folders had merely watched proceedings above steepled fingers, carefully leaned in and whispered something in his ear.

Whatever it was, it had an effect. His uncle immediately ceased his spluttering and his eyes widened for a second. After a long glance and nod he shared with his partner, he then studied John as though weighing something up.

A moment later he seemed to decide.

'Actually there might be one more option we haven't discussed. It'll fit your needs perfectly and it's quite a nice little property but... well... there have been some... slight tenant issues shall we say? Nothing too major but it's been in the 'too hard' basket for many years now. Still...'

His uncle whistled at Jess once more.

'Left cupboard. Right at the bottom of the stack.'

* * *

ESCAPE

13.

It’ll all blow over soon…
Dave shook his head at how wrong he’d been while he stretched to ease out the kinks from too long cramped amid the office furniture. He’d barely even had time to enjoy his hero status before the first of the news reports had surfaced. He remembered that one very well: the breaking report on the missing farmer that had interrupted the blanket coverage of the other unfolding horrors in Hent just as he’d been raising his first beer to his lips.

A beer that he’d quickly placed back on the table next to the lined up bottles of vodka as bile had raced to his throat. There it had remained untouched, slowly going warm through the many reports that followed. First the growing number of missing persons reported in the area surrounding Hent. Then the strange, tattered corpses that had started to appear.

The police had already been swamped in the wake of Monty's arrest and seemed completely powerless to stem the flood. The media had almost gone into meltdown. It was like they didn't know what to report on first. So much fodder, so little time. They'd scrambled to reach Hent, each day bringing more garish and hyperbolic headlines and near hysterical news crosses. Never even knowing that they were just heading for the slaughter.

It spread out lightning fast. A few first forays and then the main event.

And Dave had watched it all on his television, his stockpiled booze left untouched as it dawned on him what those couple of pints with Timbo might have caused. Unable to even fully process what was happening until the soldiers came knocking at his door.

And even then I thought it was because they were coming for me,
Dave thought, reaching for the bottle of water and the small trickle left inside.
That they'd somehow found out. Monty had confessed or something...

All kinds of images had assailed him as he'd headed for the front door to answer the knocking. Mainly ones of the frothing mob, burning brands and pitchfork variety.
Though that didn't end up happening,
Dave spun the top from the bottle and gulped down the last bit of his water ration. It did absolutely nothing to clear the claggy taste from his mouth. If anything it just made him even thirstier.
Instead there was the bellowing man in his immaculately pressed uniform who checked my name off his clipboard and the blur of the evacuation...

Dave had moved through that in a daze, shunted from uniform to uniform until he was on a bus bumping his way into the CBD. That's when the fear really kicked in. The one that never left him: that someone would suddenly do a double take and a finger would jut his way and words would be spat in his direction.

'THAT'S HIM! THE ONE RESPONSIBLE!'

The one responsible...
Dave dropped the empty bottle and his pad to the floor as he shook his head in disgust.
Like I could have known,
he thought.
Yeah but you do now, don't you? And you also know what needs to be done to fix it,
a little voice spoke up, mimicking Monty.

I can't do another, I just can't. Nononononono you should do it.
Monty's gibbering echoed around in Dave's head and he grimaced, trying to force it all away again. But it just wasn't working as well as it had previously. The images still played through his head while he squeezed himself out of his cocoon of office equipment and stretched again, feeling his spine pop from being in the same position for so long.

How long have I been sitting there?
Dave wondered to cover the little voice as it continued to chatter away:
you know there's no excuse not to do it, don't you?
You know that... PROBABLY TIME FOR FOOD RATIONS,
he raised his mental voice blotting out the other one and set off toward the door even though he wasn't feeling particularly hungry. It was difficult to build up an appetite while the memories of his brief stay in Hent made his stomach roil. Naomi still gone, most likely slaughtered now. The Gallo's dead. Bruno's brains spread out across the top of the bar. The mounds of decaying bodies in the bluestone room. The sheer quantity of small bodies stacked up all around...

Not to mention the fucking weird cone of blackness stretching out from the wall, reaching forward, something glinting away, deep in its churning shadows...

They are coming.
Dave shivered as he remembered Monty's words and paused at the threshold of
Ciamantti’s Corporate Affairs
. He fought down the urge for another cigarette – mainly because he thought he might vomit if he indulged – and instead briefly cupped his face in his hands, rubbing away to try and clear his thoughts. Strangely he found himself wishing for Monty to return, if only just to help him with the decision. To put him in another situation where he had no option but to choose again.

But would you choose right this time?
Dave deliberately didn't answer that question.

When he heard the first bellows echo down the nearby stairwell and then the sound of scuffling that followed, he quickly latched onto the welcome distraction – he'd just started to ponder
why
Monty wasn't reappearing. And what that might mean in combination with his final words up on the roof.

He dropped his hands and turned to see an older guy in a bedraggled suit being dragged from the stairwell by a couple of soldiers, stripped bare to their waists. A giggling teenage girl followed hot on their heels. Bile washed away his relief as he watched the soldiers drag the screaming man into the corridor leading to the toilets. In its place, the sickness doubled as he briefly imagined what might be awaiting the man when he reached his destination.

Burbling laughter from the teenager rang in his ears as he pushed through the frosted glass doors and trudged slowly back to his cubicle. His passing glimpses showed the same shell-shocked faces that had greeted him when he'd exited in the wake of Brendan's bashing. The few people that were moving around the floor did so in desultory manner. Eyes downcast with a shuffling step. Dave scanned across the floor and halted when he saw the group of soldiers congregated around the entrance to his cubicle. Although their huddled bodies blocked their actions, Dave had no desire to be any nearer than was absolutely necessary.

He paused and immediately regretted it when it dawned on him where he stood. Just outside the cubicle where the kid always stared up at him.  He risked a glance and sure enough there he was, in place next to his sick mother, the pair surrounded by a moat of carpet as the other inhabitants of the cubicle hugged the walls, seeking as much distance from her illness as possible. Staring up at Dave with those wide, saucer eyes just like the one in the bluestone room had as Monty held out the knife...

Dave's breath hitched in his throat as he briefly imagined accepting the blade from the old man. Imagined what it might have been like if he'd just let the sharp edge slice through the soft skin of the child's throat...

The spray of blood was only in his mind but he still gagged as he pictured the sound of it pattering across the bluestone floor.

He quickly turned his attention to the child's mother. She looked worse than ever. The thick sheen of sweat glittered on her pasty skin. Her face little more than a skull, the skin pulled taut. The thinning black hair patchier than ever. The rise and fall of her chest so slight as to be almost imperceptible.

Dave had no idea what was wrong with her. She been in the same position ever since he transferred to the floor, but he had to admit it was kind of bitterly amusing that he'd wasted so much time drafting her letter.
As if she would be in any condition to read it,
he thought which in turn got the little voice piping up again.

So really what are you worried about? It's not like the kid has anything worth living for here. Shit, his mum will be dead soon and it's not like he's going to last very long in the skyscraper on his own... Really, you'd be doing him a favour... And maybe saving everyone to boot.

Dave felt all jittery as he stared back at the young boy holding his mother's hand.
Could I..? Could I really..? To save everything. Now that I know, would I still be unable?

Dave didn't think it possible to feel any worse but the thought made him feel even sicker. He swayed dizzily and lent against the cubicle's partition for support, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing from the very depth of his being that he had never set foot in Hent. Had never laid eyes on the Gallo's Hotel and never met the crazy old man at the bar who kept his coins in a sock.

You know it has to be done.
Monty's voice sounded so clear in his ear that Dave's eyes sprang open, brief hope surging through him. It was the first time he'd been disappointed to find the haunting glare missing when he opened his eyes.

Instead of Monty, the soldiers headed his way. They drew nearer and he saw the cart they pushed was mounded with buckets and bloody rags. He looked back at the staring kid and opened his mouth to speak but absolutely no words came to mind so he swiftly closed it again. He'd never been the best at talking to children. Even under far more optimal conditions.

Dave quickly scurried away as the soldiers neared, ducking past with his head down and blood thumping in his ears. He felt certain they knew exactly what he was thinking. Exactly what he'd been considering and while their paths crossed it felt like every single one of their eyes focused in on him. He was just waiting for one to cry, 'You sick fuck!' and then to look up and find he was staring down the large black barrels of their guns.

But he passed them by without incident and arrived at his cubicle to find the red patches that were all that remained of Brendan Toohey covered with the white dust of carpet cleaner. No one inside the cubicle was making eye contact. That suited Dave fine though he couldn't help noticing that the space Toohey had occupied had already been subsumed by the other occupants. Now you'd only know someone was missing from the cubicle if you'd known he'd been there to begin with.

The bang of a door and then the squeak of wheels let him know the meal cart was on its way. Its trek always started from the opposite stairwell that had been cordoned off strictly for military use. Dave snuck a peek and almost giggled at the absurdity of the sight that greeted him. Six heavily armed soldiers, their uniforms in various states of undress huddled protectively around the meal cart like overzealous flight attendants – as though a bloodthirsty mob circled them rather than the sad bunch of people sitting around and doing everything in their power to avoid eye contact. It made him wonder why they went through the ordeal of having separate water and meal runs. Rumour-mill had various reasons, most bordering on the absurd. The only time he'd worked up the courage to ask one of the soldiers about it he'd just got a stern, 'What? You got something better to do?' in return. He'd left it at that.

Dave looked back to his waiting blankets but then decided against it. Picking his way through the others just seemed like too much effort at the moment. Instead he moved over to the window while he waited for the meal cart to make its indeterminable journey and peered out at the destruction.

He noticed the blood stains across the window of the opposite building immediately and felt something form in his throat that made it very difficult to swallow. Running across the panes were large splatters that made it look like someone had exploded in close proximity.

Staring at the stained window, Dave had to once more wonder what was stopping him. Why he wasn’t just grabbing the kid and doing what Monty suggested.
I mean what am I gonna lose? Leave all this behind?
Dave scoffed at the idea.

Yeah, because what Monty wants is just so simple, isn’t it? Piece of piss, really. Just steal a kid, head across Victoria – never mind that it's teeming with those creatures – head right on back to where the bloody things came from in the first place. Step right into their stronghold and then…

'...
You know what to do.’ Dave’s voice sounded exhausted as he murmured it under his breath, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the cool glass for a second. He could hear the squeak of the trolley drawing near and knew he’d have to head for his mattress soon. But before he did, he took one last look down to where the little ant bodies were splattered across the blood stained roads.

Old debt–
Monty’s words started to circle in his head once more but cut off with a sharp intake of Dave’s breath. Down in the street a shadow eased its silky way between two of the army buses still parked out front.

Shifting light? Or something else?
Dave felt a jittery burst of adrenaline as his eyes bore into it, trying to pick up the telltale glint.

It was impossible to see though and as the heavily guarded trolley arrived, Dave had no option but to drag himself away. It was that or miss his meal entirely.

He winced as he darted past the soldiers and into his cubicle. A quick glimpse of their wide eyes and the nervous way they kept swiveling their guns let him know that sudden movement near them might have been a mistake. He kept his head down as he felt the congregated gun barrels dart up. But at least the fear of a bullet in his back managed to momentarily clear away the swirling mess of thoughts in his head.