Should Have Killed The Kid (22 page)

But Sally only nodded as she shot him another look.

He felt as though her gaze slapped a sticker across his forehead. One that read:
Prick.

A beat passed while Dave squirmed.

'So here's my issue...' The soldier changed tack once more. 'I think I can buy that story. As ridiculous as it sounds. With what I've seen and what was reported about the murders. With what's happened since. Yeah, I think I can buy it. What I'm having issues with is your vagueness about what exactly these things are. Why they're here. What they want. Where they came from. The old guy seemed like he knew and seeing how you and him were just so chummy – which, on its own, is a little strange taking into account your story  of what he did to you – I've got to thinking that maybe you might be able to shed some light on what these actual creat-...
things
are.'

Dave swallowed hard and reached for another cigarette. He lit it with shaking hands before he continued.

'See.. It... I don't really know.' After a few false starts Dave finally managed to ignore the soldier's crinkled brow and get started. 'See none of this makes sense to me either. I was just fucking minding my own business and then...' Words failed for a moment. 'Then it just snowballed.' It was the only word Dave could come up with though he didn't think it fully conveyed the momentum he'd been caught up in. 'I didn't ask for any of it and there just hasn't been time to work things out. It's not that Monty ever sat me down and said, right, okay, here's the scoop on what's going on.' Amazingly, Dave felt his voice tinge with anger the longer he spoke. A building fury coiled deep inside at the sheer unfairness of it all. 'Everything I know is what I've guessed from some fucking oblique remarks and references that Monty said. That's it. I have no idea what those things are. All I know is that we all apparently owe them some gigantic debt or some shit. Apparently that's what Monty was doing. Trying to keep them at bay so they couldn't collect and we... he failed  because he asked something that he had no fucking right to ask and now everything is fucked and I have no idea what the fuck happened or why anything is happening. All I know is I have to take the k...' Dave trailed off, biting back his anger as he almost slipped up and revealed all to the soldier. '...All I know is that I know nothing,' he finished lamely and immediately went to work on his cigarette, doing his utmost to avoid the soldier's eyes.

He screwed his face up as the soldier immediately asked the question he really hoped she wouldn't.

'So, what about the kid.'

Dave rubbed hard at his brow while he tried to think through the tiredness and anger for some sort of excuse.

'I mean you still haven't explained why you've got a kid who's not your own in the back seat,' the soldier prompted.

As Dave floundered for an answer, the kid chose the worst possible moment to finally break his silence.

'He took me from my mum.' The crying made the kid's voice muddy with emotion and each syllable came out cracked and tremulous, barely audible over the buffeting wind.

'What?' The soldier hitched up in her seat so she could see the kid in the rear view mirror.

Dave swivelled to look over his shoulder too.

The kid sat with one leg tucked under him while he gently brushed broken glass from the back seat.

He sniffed a few times then realised that eyes were on him and looked up, his large moon eyes red-rimmed now.

'What did you say?' the soldier asked again, her voice softening a little though still laced with an awkward enough vibe that Dave suspected talking to kids wasn't her forte either.

'She was sick, though,' the kid said and then lowered his eyes and looked at his hands again. Dave turned back to the front and stubbed out his second smoke in the ashtray even though it was only half finished.

'What do you mean, sweetie?' the soldier asked but the kid remained mute, knitting his fingers into increasingly complex patterns. 'Sweetie?' she asked again but when she still didn't get an answer seemed to give up. She turned her attention back to the road as the paddocks started to give way to the occasional house. Ahead, a small town loomed.

'I'm not dumb,' the soldier spoke softly after a long moment of silence.

'Wha–' Dave started to protest but then thought better of it. He just nodded and awkward silence reigned once more as they approached the signpost reading Bulla.

19.

'You need to turn just off here.' Dave pointed out the road as they exited the rubble. He was grateful to leave it behind. Although an excellent distraction from the awkward conversation that had taken place as they'd approached, the complete and utter destruction that had hit Bulla had left Dave's nerves screaming. Several cars and other debris had littered the road and forced Sally to slow down. He'd seen lurking shadows everywhere and the trip through the remains of the town had been one stifled scream after another. 'This street'll intersect with the Calder. Turn right there and then it's straight on for hours.'

The soldier gave no indication she heard him but a second later the car slowed further and she grunted in pain as she yanked the wheel around one handed and set off down the new path.

'Do you want me to drive?' Dave asked, trying to gauge Sally's demeanour but only received a snort of derision in reply.

Out the window, the surrounding landscape morphed to scrabbly scrub and with the sun shining and the pristine land surrounding him, Dave could almost pretend that the world wasn't ending. Apart from looking a bit browner, the surrounds were the same as they'd been on his last trip up.

The silence stretched on and Dave fidgeted nervously. He couldn't stop shooting glances over at the soldier, certain that at any moment she was going to explode with anger once more. But each time, Sally just seemed to be thinking, her brow creased and her jaw working slowly as though she was chewing gum.

He wanted to say something but he couldn't find the right words to clarify what she'd meant by that last line before they'd hit the shattered town.

I'm not dumb...

The words left Dave feeling as sick as he had when he'd needed to make his decision back in the skyscraper. The seconds seemed to pass like hours until he couldn't hold back any longer.

'What did–'

'Shut up.'

Sally's curt reply cut him short and they lapsed back into silence while he built up the courage for a second attempt.

His cheeks flushing, Dave fumbled for the bag at his feet. The cigarettes had left his mouth parched and his unease had only dried it further. He scrabbled through and pulled out one of the bottles he'd stashed inside earlier. He drank a few quick mouthfuls, winced as his stomach rebelled but managed to keep it down in the end.

Should have packed something a little stronger,
Dave thought as he pictured how wonderful the numbing bliss of alcohol would be at the moment.

The soldier shook her head before he even had a chance to fully extend the bottle in her direction. Instead, Dave eased himself around and looked at the kid. The boy had managed to clear most of the glass from the backseat and now sat dry eyed in the middle, the wind from the shattered window swirling his hair.

'Here, you thirsty?' Dave couldn't resist peeking at the soldier to see if she was watching how kind he was being to the kid. He didn't know why but somehow he thought it might help things. Her eyes stayed on the road though and Dave sighed as the kid snagged the bottle.

'Thanks,' he mumbled.

'Not a problem.'

Polite one,
Dave thought as the kid greedily gulped down a few mouthfuls. Watching him quickly became unbearable though. The knowledge of why the kid was with him wouldn't stay down and Dave turned back to the front so at least he wouldn't have to see the doe eyes peering at him around the top of the bottle.

Fuck!
Dave returned to the view out the window as he cursed. An expletive not really directed at anyone or anything in particular. Just at the entire situation he was in.

He jammed his knuckles into his mouth when a sudden sob threatened to escape. Tears blurred at his eyes, stinging and reducing the surroundings to a hazy blur until he could wipe them clean.

He drew a shuddering breath that transformed into a bizarre hiccupping belch as the car zoomed past a thick stand of trees. The tears left his eyes with perfect timing for him to lock onto the shadows that's lay thick beneath the branches. Glinting away.

'What?'

Dave barely even heard Sally's question. All sound was sucked from the air as the glinting played over and over and over in his mind. There was no mistaking them for normal shadows. Yet his brain, unwilling to believe otherwise, still made a brief attempt to convince him that they were.

No no no no no no nonononononononono...

Dave's jaw dropped wide as he spun in his seat, staring past the kid and out the back window.

'Wha–' Sally asked again but her query died off into a mumble. Dave assumed she'd caught a glimpse of what he was seeing in the rear view mirror.

His horror must have showed in his face. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the kid blanch pure white; the bottle he'd been suckling on topple to the ground, spraying water over the seat, some of it even splashing Dave though he barely felt it. He was too riveted to the scene behind him. The loop not stopping in his head.

...no no no no no nonononononononononono...

As the slick black tide emerged from beneath the trees to engulf the road behind them, rocketing along in their wake.

...no no nonononono no no nonononono...

His panicked glances left and right showed more kept pace between the trees, some even starting to draw ahead.

... no no  nonononononononono...

He suddenly realised what they were doing, that the things on either side sought to out pace them, get ahead and then cut across, wrapping the car in a circle of black.

He doubted the vehicle would fare well crossing the shadows. They'd pry the car open like a tin of sardines.

'HANG ON!' Sally roared but there was no time to react before she floored it. Dave only caught a glimpse of the kid toppling from the backseat into the foot-well and then he was thrown off balance and slammed back into his seat.

He winced as he rebounded and the seat-belt bit deep then reached out an arm to brace against the dashboard.

The rust-bucket of a car shot forward, the engine rattling alarmingly as its roar transformed into a high pitched whine. It got them ahead of the flanking shadows but not far enough for comfort. The slick black mass still raced along next to them like a trailing predator just waiting for them to tire and trip up.

Which Dave could see happening in the very near future. The way the car shook and shuddered as the needle crept toward one-thirty made him grit his teeth. At any second he expected a loud bang and then billowing smoke from beneath the bonnet.

That's if we stay on the road long enough.
He almost screamed when the back end started to slough while Sally tried to steer one handed.

Behind him, the kid began to bawl and that, mixed with the roar of the wind and engine, blocked whatever the soldier roared at him as she wrestled with the wheel.

All he saw was her wide eyes bulge while the shaking needle on the speedo edged toward one-forty. Then the sweeping bend in the road ahead engulfed his vision and Dave felt his own features mimic Sally's.

There's no way we are going to make...

Dave squeezed his eyes shut as the screech of tires filled the air. Without the visual stimulation, everything went into freefall while time stretched out. The squeal of the tires slowed to one long grinding note as gravity dragged Dave over toward the door and he had to brace hard to stop from being pushed into it. He wanted to scream but his mind couldn't keep up with what was happening around him. He wasn't even sure if he managed to get his mouth open.

The second stretched on and on and Sally's slowed-down voice boomed all around him.

'FFFFFFfffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkk...'

Then the squealing stopped and Dave jolted backward and forward as the car skewed left then right then left again. His head smacked the side window and the taste of blood filled his throat as his teeth gnashed down on his tongue and briefly there was darkness...

It didn't last.

Black dots littered his sight as he snapped back and stared around the car in shock. The fragments he caught didn't make a whole lot of sense. The kid in the footwell. The red of blood on the boy's face; no way to tell how badly his tumble into the glass had cut him. The soldier wrestling one armed with the wheel. Tears streaming down her face. Jaw clenched with the effort.

Dave felt disconnected from it all as something red and stinging crept into his own vision. Even when he raised a hand up and wiped at his brow and his fingers came away red and sticky, Dave couldn't quite make sense of it.

'What?' he mouthed and looked out back where the horde of shadows closed the gap. His heart felt like it was about to beat straight through his chest as he saw that their numbers had swelled since the last glance. A gigantic black mantle now swallowed up the landscape as though the earth itself was being erased in their wake.