Stolen (22 page)

The car bounced over the land, hitting rocks and bushes. Somehow I managed to keep it straight, heading toward those distant shadows that I thought were the mine site. I should have changed gears, but I didn’t trust myself. I needed to wait until those buildings were far, far behind me first; then I could do anything. The car strained and moaned. You must have heard it, too; each desperate whine of the clutch must have torn you apart.

The cluster of buildings got smaller as I drove, and eventually I couldn’t even see your figure in the mirror anymore. I started to scream then, but God knows what I was saying. I’d done it! I was out there, alone … without you. Without anyone. I was free. I screamed with the car, whizzing across the land. I was driving into nothingness … driving toward everything.

A few times the wheels churned up the sand too much, and the car started to slow. I revved the engine hard, doing what I’d seen you do to get it moving again. Each time the car was strong enough to pull itself out. I changed gears when I smelled the engine burning. It was like the world’s quickest crash course in learning to drive. Dad would have had a heart attack if he’d been in the car with me. I looked at the gas gauge. It was half-full, dot on the middle—half-empty, too. The temperature gauge didn’t look too healthy, either; it was bouncing back and forth, edging farther toward the red section. I guess that meant the engine was overheating. One thing I did know, I was really fucking up your car.

I tried to ignore what was happening on the dashboard, and kept driving. I looked straight ahead, focusing on those shadows shimmering on the horizon. The land stretched on and on, never ending. No tracks. No telegraph lines. There was nothing to say that humans had ever been there. Only me.

I got to the shadows eventually. Only they weren’t the mine site like I’d hoped, or even a range of fertile hills. They were long, tall rolls of sand. Sand dunes, sculpted by the wind and held together with patches of vegetation. I’d realized this a long time before the car reached them, but I kept the vehicle pointed at them anyway. I don’t know why. I guess I thought it was better than heading into the flatness of everywhere else. I thought there’d be something on the other side of them. As I got closer, the dunes began to tower above me. I couldn’t drive over them. The car was already spinning and groaning, threatening to bog at any moment. I would have to drive around. I wiped my arm across my face, but it only added to the dampness. Every part of me felt hot and clammy, despite having the window open. The back of my T-shirt was as wet as if I’d jumped into a pool.

I hung my head out of the window and concentrated on keeping the car moving. The ground was getting softer. I revved the engine and the tires spun sand grains into my face. The car started to struggle, sand building up around the tires. I tried turning the wheel the other way, hoping there would be something to grip there, but that was a mistake. The tires hit the fresh sand at the edge of the track I’d made and stopped dead. I spun the wheel back, and tried again. No good. No matter how hard I pressed the accelerator, the car wouldn’t move forward any more. It just sank deeper into the sand. I kept revving until I smelled burning again. Then I got out and tried pushing. But the car was heavier than an elephant. I was stuck.

The landscape began to blur in front of me, as though I was looking at it through water. The spinifex swirled like seaweed. I shut my eyes. But everything kept spinning. I leaned back into the hot panels of the car and slid down the door. My head was throbbing, my tongue thick and dry. I curled against the tire, my arms tingling from the warmth of the black rubber against my skin. The sun was scorching me, squeezing me. Drips of sweat ran over my face and onto the tire. I reached back to the darker space underneath the car. I wondered about crawling into it. I wanted to be a small insect, something that could dig through the hot sand and find somewhere cool below. I needed water.

I threw up then, just a small dribble of nothing down the side of the tire. I wanted to do more, but it wouldn’t come. Everything spun and spun.

When I opened my eyes, the sun had moved a little. My vision wasn’t so fuzzy. I focused on the trees near me; three of them. I could hear their dry leaves scratching against each other, and flies whining around their trunks.

I dragged myself to the trunk. Before I opened it, I actually put my hands together and prayed. I never really believed in God, but right then I promised him everything. I was going to be the best God-lover in the world if only there was water and food inside that trunk, plus something to help me move the car out of the sand.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please.”

I felt for the clasp and popped it open. There was water. A two-liter plastic bottle of the stuff lay on its side in the middle. I grabbed it, fumbled the lid off, and poured the liquid down my throat. It was hot, but I gulped at it. Some of it spilled over my face and neck. I was like a sponge, soaking it all up. I had to force myself to stop, even though I wanted more. I’d already had nearly half.

There wasn’t much else in the trunk. A towel. A tin can full of gasoline, by the smell of it. And one of your big animal-hide hats. There were some tools to fix the car with. But there was no food. Nothing that would help me move the car, either. I decided God didn’t exist after all.

I got back in the car and started it again. But the wheels just spun deeper into the sand, bogging it further. I slammed my fists into the steering wheel. Then I thought of looking around the trees, maybe there were bits of wood I could put under the tires. If the car could get a grip on something, it might be enough to get it going. But those trees were tall, with branches too high up to reach. I pulled at the bark, but only small pieces came off.

It was then I saw the blood. At least, that’s what I thought it was at first … hardened, ruby-red blood dripping down the bark of the trees. I glanced around quickly but there was nothing, and no one else, about. It was as if the trees themselves were bleeding. I picked at the blood with my fingernails, and it came off in crumbling shards, staining my fingers. I smelled them. Eucalyptus. It was sap after all.

I climbed the dune. My feet dug into the soft sand, and my muscles strained. Creatures rustled in the bushes as I passed. I stopped at the top, shielding my eyes to look out. There was nothing any different on the other side. There was no mine site, no people. There was only more sand, more rocks, more trees, and again, more shadowy dunes in the distance. As far as I could see, I was the only person out there. I hugged my arms to my chest and breathed cool air onto my burning skin. If I died right there on that dune, no one would know about it. Not even you. I walked back to the car. I would sleep for a bit. It was too hot to think right then.

The moon was out when I woke. I lay on the backseat and looked up at it through the window. It was plump and yellow, like the big, round cheeses Dad got from his office every Christmas. I traced out the man’s face in it: two gouged-out eyes, then, below that the lazy smile, the craters that looked a little like beard stubble. It was a friendly moon, but so far away. The sky around it was a deep and clear lake. If there’d been an astronaut on the moon right then, I’m sure I could have seen him. Perhaps he could have looked down and seen me, too … the only one who could.

I was lying under the towel I’d found in the trunk, but I was still so cold. I rubbed my arms. They were pink from the sun, my upper arms peeling. I was too cold to sleep any more so I crawled through the space between the front seats to sit in the driver’s seat. I reached back for the towel and covered my legs with it.

I turned the key, enough so I could switch on the headlights. The sand stretched out gray and ghostlike and illuminated, a column of light leading forward. It was like something a dead person would see, a tunnel leading toward heaven. I saw some movement at the edge. There was a small, long-eared rodent digging at the roots of one of the trees. It stared at the light, momentarily blinded, then hopped away into the darkness.

I turned the key fully until the car coughed back. I pumped on the accelerator until the cough turned into a roar. The noise was so loud in that silent night. Surely someone apart from me could hear it, too? I eased off the clutch, practically willing the car forward. And it did go, a little. For a second or two the wheels strained against the sand, almost getting a grip before falling back again into the churned up pit they’d created. I kicked the pedals.

“Stupid thing!”

My voice sounded so loud, it made me jump. I lay my head on the steering wheel and hummed a hymn we’d learned at school. But nothing hummed back. That silence sat hunched around me, menacing as a wolf. I wondered what was out there, in that blackness. My body started shaking and my eyes blurred. It took me awhile to realize I was crying.