A Killing Frost

by John Marsden

  Kevin seemed to take five minutes to understand the question, five minutes more to respond. Then he slowly nodded. "We stuffed my work clothes with pillows."

  "And what happened?"

  Kevin spoke like an old man, a tired old man. He was slurring his words. "It worked. They looked down there with a torch and they saw it all right. Then they tried to lower one of my mates on a rope, but he started yelling about the fumes and acting all crazy, and they had to bring him back up again."

  "Good," Homer said. "That's perfect. Quick, everyone, help carry this guy. Fi, you bring his gun, then come back here and clean up the area, so there's no sign of a struggle." Because we were too slow to move he got angry with us. "Come on, damn you all. Get a bloody move on."

  We shambled towards the body and struggled to get a grip on different parts of it. Kevin tried to help but turned his face away in revulsion and let go of the feet which he had been holding. The four of us struggled with the ghastly stinking thing into the little courtyard. With Homer directing, we manoeuvred it towards the well. It had been left open but our problem was to get it down the shaft without falling in ourselves. He was a lot heavier, and a more awkward shape, than the sheep. Just as we nearly had it in the right position, Homer missed his footing and had to let go of the man's head. It dropped onto the rotting stonework with a horrible crack that must have almost split it open. I had the sick thought that if he hadn't been dead already we would have killed him again by doing that. Robyn gave a sob and lost her grip. Homer was furious. He'yelled at her. "It doesn't matter," I said. "Pick him up again." When we were all sure of our footing we gave it a heave. It slid forward over the brink of the well, caught for a moment by a bit of clothing, then came free, and with a floppy rush, kept sliding and went over the edge, dropping into the depths.

  I waited for the splash but it didn't come.

  "It might have jammed halfway down," I said.

  "Do you know where there's a torch?" Homer asked Kevin. Kevin thought for a moment, then nodded. "OK, go and get it. Hurry!" he veiled, when Kevin moved away too slowly. Homer turned to us. "Now," he ordered. "We've got to make it look like he slipped and fell in. Fi, chuck his gun on the grass here, like he threw it forward when he felt himself falling. Then go back and clean that spot where ... where we ... where we had the fight with him. Lee, go and check the route we brought him in by. Clean up any tracks, any mess we might have left."

  "Let's fake it here," I said, pointing to a place where the stonework was especially bad. "If we deliberately collapse a few stones into the well, like they broke away when he stood on them..."

  "Yes, good."

  Kevin reappeared with the torch. I took it from him and lay full length on my stomach to peer down the shaft. It sure was a deep one, much deeper than any around Wirrawee. Even with this strong torch I could only see, in the distant black depths, a couple of vague bulky shapes that could have been human. The fumes were weaker than they had been, but they were already starting to make me dizzy again. I pulled back.

  "Well?" Homer asked.

  "Well well well," I said, remembering an old joke. Why was I the only one who ever seemed to want to make jokes at times like these? I must have been sicker than even I thought. Homer just looked at me like I really was sick.

  "It's not bad," I said quickly. "I think the soldier's landed on Kevin's pillows. It's hard to see but I guess the sheep's under all that."

  "Sheep?" Kevin asked, staring.

  "We dropped a dead sheep down there yesterday," I explained, "to provide a nice smell in the coming days. Otherwise they wouldn't get sucked in by the dummy. Plus it'll discourage them from trying too hard to get you out."

  He gave a little grin, probably the weakest grin I've ever seen, but it cheered me up to see that much.

  Lee and Fi came back. "All done," Lee said quietly. "We found this." He produced the soldier's cap.

  "Good," Homer said. He put the cap on the grass just beyond the decayed stonework. "Think it'll work?" he asked Kevin.

  Kevin nodded slightly. "Probably. This bloke was such a drop kick. It's the sort of dumb thing he would do, go peering down the well for a thrill. And because the other sentries thought he was a drop kick, they mightn't waste much time investigating. They all hated him."

  "It's out of our hands now, anyway," Homer said flatly. "There's nothing more we can do. Put the torch back and we'll get out of here."

  No sooner said than done. The time was only 10.45. I couldn't believe so much had happened so early. We still had a full day in front of us. Gee, by five o'clock, we could have killed another dozen human beings, if we really set our minds to it.

  Kevin wanted to bring a few of his most precious things, but we were unanimous in turning him down. It was tough, very tough, but we didn't dare take the risk. "If they notice a single thing missing, then you're stuffed, or your family is," Homer said.

  "We all might be, if they come after us," I said.

  "You'll just have to hope your mates keep them for you till after the war," Lee said. That didn't seem much of an offer, to any of us, but it was all we could suggest. To a lesser degree it was going to be tough on us too, because we'd have to share precious things like food and warm clothing. We had a bare minimum as it was. Anyway, wasn't it Kevin who'd stopped us taking lots of extra stuff into Hell, when we first realised we'd been invaded? No, it was Homer. Sometimes I got worried that my memory was falling apart.

  With our packs on our backs, and only Kevin unburdened, we set off. Homer was in the lead. He set a cracking pace, but we knew why, and no one raised a murmur. There was no time for shock or horror or grief from the killing. We just had to get our butts a long long way from there, if we wanted to keep our butts attached to our bodies, which we all did. At least, I assumed we did. A couple of us looked like they couldn't care much either way.

  We didn't stop for lunch, but ploughed grimly on, no one talking, heads down, human pack-horses on a long trek. In the back of everyone's mind was, I'm sure, the thought of Kevin's family, whom we'd put at risk by our actions. No one suggested that we stay and spy on the soldiers and watch how they reacted when they found one of their number missing. It might have given us some peace of mind if we'd seen them accept it as an accident. But the risk was too great. Anyway we'd given up hope of peace of mind a long time ago.

  Late afternoon we stopped for a snack and a toilet break. I was terribly hungry and I'd been getting annoyed with Kevin because he hadn't even offered to take a pack for anyone yet. Fair enough, he was depressed—in shock, I guess—but so were we all, and these packs were heavy. So I dropped a few hints and he made a few sarcastic comments and then I told him I wouldn't let him carry my pack if he paid me and so it went on. Typical enough stuff when you're tired. I was secretly grateful when Robyn stepped in and told us to grow up, and then worked out a rough roster which meant that we'd all get an occasional break from carrying a pack.

  The bush was thinning out again'and we realised we were approaching cleared country. This was bad news for us as We would find it much harder to stay unseen, especially now that colonists had spread so far and so fast across the state. Electricity seemed to be on again everywhere, which was another problem. Every house was an island of light at night-times.

  Suddenly, at around seven o'clock, we came to the end of the scrub. Without a word being said, we all dropped our packs. We were standing on a slight rise. In the last of the daylight we saw beautiful rich green plains stretching ahead of us. The kind of country that makes your mouth water. The kind of soil you could eat. But of'course, being so productive, it was dotted with little clumps of houses everywhere, all with lights on. We could see the road that followed the valley we'd been in. About two k's further on, it joined a major road, a bitumen one, that came across country from our left. Where they met was a small village, with maybe a dozen houses and a service station. There was occasional traffic on the road: two cars and a truck during the time that we were watching. There probably hadn'
t been much more traffic than that in peacetime.

  "We're losing this war," Homer said flatly.

  "Tell me something I didn't know," Kevin said.

  I knew what they meant. Everything looked so normal, so typical, just the way it always had been. It was like nothing had changed. Oh sure, there'd been a minor hiccup, a slight change in the way things were run, and sure, different people were doing the running, but nothing important had changed. The birds still flew, the wind still stormed, the rivers still made their way to the sea. The land hadn't changed.

  "We have to keep going," Robyn said.

  I knew what she meant, too. We'd have to keep walking most of the night, maybe all of it. We couldn't travel by day in this kind of country. Darkness was the only safe time for people like us. We'd have to find somewhere safe to rest up during daylight. That would be difficult; difficult and dangerous. But we had no choice.

  Of course Robyn, being Robyn, was talking about more than how long we should walk.

  In a sense, though, this night travel suited me. I was feeling more comfortable at nights, the longer the war went on. I'd always associated the darkness of night with scary things. It was the time of foxes and dingoes and feral cats. It was the time of witches and goblins, of vampires and werewolves and ghosts. It was the time of evil.

  That was why it suited us.

  On the other hand, on this particular night, it didn't suit me at all. I was so very tired, so utterly exhausted. I was all in. I knew I couldn't go another'step. I hated Robyn for saving that we had to. I waited for someone else'to say something, though: I had too much pride to be the one. Then I realised no one was going to say it. Either they had as much pride as me, or else they weren't as tired as me. Grimly, hating them all, I shouldered my pack.

  "Not 'yet, Ellie," Homer said gently. "It's still too early."

  "You're unbelievable, Ellie," Fi said, in quite an admiring voice. "I don't know how you do it. I couldn't walk another step. I've got to have a rest."

  "Ellie could walk all week," Lee said, in the same tone Fi had used.

  I did feel a bit better then. I didn't confess how wrecked I was. Let them keep thinking I was super-woman if they wanted. I knew- the truth.

  We waited another hour, not talking, each alone with our thoughts. It was no secret what we were thinking about. I stole a glance at Kevin. He was staring into the distance, lips trembling, as though he were reliving every moment of it in his mind. I wondered about his reactions. How did we seem to him now? How much had we changed? I knew we'd changed a bit, of course, but after seeing the expression on Kevin's face when we killed the soldier, I began to wonder if we'd changed more than we realised. He'd looked at us like we were creatures from another planet. Well, at least I knew that wasn't true. We weren't creatures from another planet. We were just creatures from Hell.

  Eventually I was the one who got everyone moving again. It was because of those dumb comments about my being so strong—I wanted to live up to them now. Plus there was another reason. I never liked it when Homer took command too much or for too long. I always had to assert myself when that happened. It's always been that way, even when we were little kids.

  Lee and Robyn were asleep, but they got up when I prodded them. That was one advantage of our way of life—We'd become used to sleeping in short snatches and breaking our sleep to do sentry duty. Everyone except Lee shouldered a pack, and away we went.

  That was the start of a horrible night. Fair enough really, to follow a horrible day. I don't know that I've ever been so tired. We just went on putting one foot in front of the other. Minute by minute, hour by hour. First my feet started hurting, then my calves, then my back and neck. My head dropped lower and lower. I soon gave up the' occasional effort at conversation. Plod, plod, plod. My muscles ached, my joints ached, my bones ached. I must have spent an hour just thinking about what I could sacrifice from my pack to lighten it. It became a wonderful dream, the thought of having a pack that was two kilos lighter. It seemed that life could offer no sweeter promise, no greater hope. I weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of every item I carried, trying to decide what I could dump. I was sure I'd be able to find something, but really there was nothing. Everything had its uses. I couldn't bear to think of doing without any of them. So I kept going.

  Eleven o'clock came and went. We walked on. Hours later I looked at my watch. It was 11.12. I could have cried with disappointment. I felt so cheated. Eventually midnight passed and we staggered into the next day. "That was three hours of my life just gone," I thought. "Three hours I'll never have again. I'm three hours closer to mv death, and all I did in those three hours was walk."

  I knew my steps were getting shorter and I knew it would be to my advantage to take longer steps. If I could cover an extra twenty centimetres with each step I'd be less tired. I knew that. But I couldn't do it. Instead of mv steps getting longer, they got shorter still. Light rain started falling and at first I welcomed it, because it felt refreshing. But then my clothes got damp and sticky and heavy. I got too cold; the first trickle of cold water down mv neck was horrible, as though an icy snail was slipping down my bare skin where I couldn't reach it. I think I started crying with exhaustion but I couldn't tell because of the raindrops. I did hear Fi sobbing behind me and I ignored her because I needed all my energy for myself. I didn't dare spend it on anyone else.

  As one o'clock approached I kept gazing greedily at mv watch. It was just luminous enough to give a reading. I thought that if I could make it to one o'clock something special might happen. Nothing did.

  My boots started squelching as the waterproofing began to fail. I tried singing "Ten Thousand Green Bottles" in my head but got bored with it. At some point Robyn tried to get everyone singing: she did a solo of "Are You Lonesome Tonight", which was too depressing, then a solo of "Smoke Curls up Around the Old Gum Tree Trunk", then she started "Not for the First Time", then she gave up. We stopped not long after that so Fi could go to the dunny, then I realised I had the toilet paper and I didn't know where in my pack it was. It seemed to take half an hour to find; I dug deeper and deeper in the pack, getting everything messed up, letting the ram get in, before finally realising it was in a side pocket. Misery-soaked through me and I threw back my head and howled. No one seemed interested; no one seemed to care. "Can't we camp here somewhere?" Kevin whined, peering around him in the darkness.

  "No way," Homer said. "We're still in wide open country. We've got to press on."

  There was a grim silence. When Fi came back we picked up our packs and got going again.

  The further we went the colder I got. I lost feeling in my feet. All I knew was that they were terribly heavy and seemed to take more and more effort to pick up and carry forward. My head ached and my nose was running continuously. Sniffing didn't stop it and the snot got mixed up with the rain running down my face. My legs were numb, too. I didn't have the energy to lift my arm to look at my watch and it probably wouldn't have been readable anyway. The further we went, the more trouble I had keeping a straight line. I was vaguely aware that I was wandering all the time but didn't seem able to do much about it. I had no idea who was leading but assumed it was Homer, who had a compass. For once—for one of the very few times in my life—I couldn't match it with him.

  When we stopped I was too tired to feel any relief, too tired to feel anything. I stood there waiting to be told what to do. For all I knew or cared we might have run into a patrol. After a few minutes Homer came out of the darkness and reached for my hand. I gave him the wet cold heavy thing. It must have been like picking up a dead fish. "Come on, Ellie, old mate," he said wearily. I let myself be led like a helpless child. We walked for about five minutes to a building. I realised suddenly that it was a wheat silo, one of the big concrete ones. I didn't care what it was, but I remember thinking that it was a good choice of shelter, because colonists wouldn't be interested in it until harvest time, in mid-summer.

  Seven

  One trouble wi
th the war was that we had no medicines. We'd had the basic odds and ends but we'd used them up pretty quickly. Now we were down to half a packet of Band-Aids and a bottle of Alka-Seltzer. And after that terrible trudge across the plains we were tired, depressed, and wet to the skin; hair soaked and boots full of water.

  We were cases straight out of the medical textbook, in perfect shape to get sick. We got sick.

  Robyn, Kevin, Fi and I all went down without a murmur. That only left Homer and Lee, and they weren't too good themselves. We started off with colds, sneezing and dripping, then we got coughs, then we got in serious trouble. We didn't have a thermometer but it didn't matter. You don't always need a smoke alarm to know your house is on fire. One look at the two red spots in Fi's white checks was enough. We burned, we shook, we panted, we tossed and turned. I hallucinated so strongly that they had to tie me down. I thought I was the Great Primer or something; I knew that I held a giant pair of clippers and my job was to go from poplar tree to poplar tree, cutting them into shape. Each tree was OK near the ground; it was the high bits that were the problem. I constantly had to stand on tiptoes, or even to jump with arms outstretched to grab the branches with the shears and haul them down. More and more I realised that the bits to be trimmed were like people; some were beautifully sculptured human forms. It was not very pleasant cutting them in half but I knew it was my duty so I forced myself. Then they would distract me by turning into real people, and I would watch them for a while, before going back to the trees.

  It was during the times that I was being the Great Pruner that Homer and Lee had the most trouble with me. They said it was like watching a sort of mad aerobics, with me leaping up and down, grabbing at nothing then struggling and whimpering when they tried to wrestle me back to bed. They had so little energy themselves that they had to go find some rope to tie me up.