by C. M. Ewan
I glanced to my left and felt a hollowness open up in my gut as I saw the bright dazzle of the industrial torch bouncing and flaring in the dark. It looked like one of the men was racing down the driveway. He was yelling for us to stop and cursing and swinging the beam in through the trees, but I didn’t think he could see us. The beam arced and jagged and probed the woods around us. It flashed only once on Rachel, then was gone. But the look of terror on her face pierced me.
The two men shouted to one another, asking each other if they’d seen us, where we had gone. They sounded panicked and furious. Based on the way their voices carried, I was pretty sure one of them was somewhere in the trees behind us. Hard to know for sure. The woods and the wind seemed to distort all sound. I looked behind me but all I saw were the rows of pines, the endless darkness, and then Holly flinching and shrieking as a branch scratched her face and tore at her hair.
Maybe I should stop. Maybe I should hide. If I found a place where I could duck behind a tree trunk, it was possible I could wait and jump out on the man who was following us. I had the screwdriver in my pocket. If I was quick enough maybe I could jab it in his neck, his side, anywhere soft and vulnerable. Maybe I could get hold of his gun.
Those guns. Whatever this situation was – whatever had caused it – one thing was clear to me now. When the men had shot at us, they hadn’t been aiming at any of us in particular. Their bullets had sprayed us indiscriminately. They could have hit Rachel or me or Holly. I had to believe – no matter how much I didn’t want to – that their intention was to kill us all. And that meant that if we couldn’t get out through the gate or the fence, then either we had to hide somewhere there was no chance of the men finding us or, somehow, I had to try and stop them.
But crouching behind a tree? Taking that chance? It seemed like too big a risk right now. And I didn’t want to leave Rachel and Holly on their own. I wanted to make certain I’d got them away from these men.
We ran on. Something crunched into my chest. It stopped me in my tracks. It felt like I’d been hit with a cricket bat. I teetered backwards and went down on one knee. Breathing was difficult. There was a stabbing pain in my ribs.
I’d run into a tree.
Holly clattered into me, almost falling. I put my hand on her back, urged her on, staggered after her from behind.
My breathing grew funny. I was starting to pant, and not just from my man-on-tree incident. I’m not all that fit. I don’t go to the gym on a regular basis or jog around my neighbourhood. My stamina was starting to let me down and my legs were doing that rubbery exhaustion thing. I got a stitch in my side.
I wouldn’t stop.
Then, out of the dark, fractals of light shimmered through the trees to our left. The lodge. It was coming up fast, the outdoor lights shining around it in a wavering blue orb, getting nearer, brighter, until the dark husk of the carport flashed by in the night.
We ran on. The trees started to thin. I could hear and smell the sea. Another glance behind me, back to the driveway. And a strange, empty sensation, like looking into a black void in the night.
There was no sign of the man with the torch. I couldn’t spot the beam at all. Had he come into the trees after us? Had he stopped further up the driveway because he was being cautious, afraid we’d doubled back? Or had he switched off his torch to sneak up on us?
‘Watch out.’
In front of me, Rachel grabbed for a tree trunk and yanked herself to a stop with a pained cry. Holly skidded and slid down onto her side on a ledge of hardscrabble grass next to the shore. I pulled up into a stagger, clasping my aching ribs, sucking down air. It didn’t help. There wasn’t enough oxygen in my lungs. It felt like I’d been inhaling helium from a balloon.
Sea spray showered us. It was icy cold. The tide was high. A major storm surge. Frenzied waves clashed and collided, throwing up twisted ropes of foam. Immediately below us was a cluster of boulders, black and waxy in the moonlight. More waves burst against them, spray hammering down.
I spun and looked at Rachel. Her face was clammy and grey. Behind her I could see the decking in front of the lodge, lit starkly by the outdoor lights, and the yawing hole where I’d left the fire pit uncovered. More lights glowed from inside the towering wall of tinted glass at the front of the living room. Boiling surf gushed in under the deck, coiling around the sunken pilings and girders that supported the structure.
I stood there, my breathing shallow, my heartbeat flickering against my ribs. Holly pushed up to her knees, spitting up phlegm and fear. Rachel clutched her bad arm and turned to search for the men.
My family. Under threat.
I searched the trees too, but all I could see were shades of black and near-black and the regimented grey streaks of the endless rows of pines. I needed a better angle. If I clambered out onto the boulders it might give me a clearer view of the deck and the driveway. I ducked low and crawled out on all fours. The sea roiled and rushed in at me. Foaming suds swamped my ankles and wrists, pooling under my chest. I leaned out, my elbows trembling, the tide sucking and draining away.
A stutter of torchlight. The slick gleam of white coveralls. I shuddered. The smaller man was standing towards the base of the gravel yard, between the lodge and the carport, flinging his torch around. I felt a stabbing pain in my ribs again as I saw the shotgun held down by his leg. I guessed he’d ditched the wheel wrench. Maybe he’d tossed it into the trees.
As I watched, he leaned his head back on his shoulders and shouted, ‘Do you see them?’
If the bigger man responded, I couldn’t hear him. I turned and looked back at Rachel and Holly. Fear shook me. I wanted them safe. We couldn’t stay here. We were too exposed. But I thought there was something we could do. Maybe.
‘We have to go in the water,’ I said. ‘We have to get to the other side.’
‘You’re not serious.’ Rachel pushed off from the tree she was leaning against and moved towards me, staring at me like I’d lost my mind. Holly wouldn’t look at me. It was like she was trying to hide from what I had to say.
‘We have to get back inside the lodge. We can release the gate from in there. There must be a way to make it stay open.’ I pushed up into a crouch, my upper body trembling and frozen, the salt water pushing and pulling at my lower legs. Another wave detonated behind me as I pointed to the lodge. ‘If we get inside we can get to the phone in the kitchen. We can call the police. The gate and the phone. That’s what we have going for us right now. If you want, I can try by myself but—’
‘No.’ Holly looked between us, shaking her head. From the angle she was on, I could see that my old coat had been ripped on her left side. Stuffing was poking out of it. ‘No, Dad. No way.’
I peered towards the driveway and the trees again. It bothered me that we still hadn’t spotted the bigger man.
‘One of them is by the carport,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure where the other one is but we can’t go over the deck. It’s too brightly lit. Right now they know we’re somewhere over this side of the driveway. The best thing we can do is get to the other side in a way they won’t be expecting.’
Rachel stepped closer. ‘They won’t be expecting it because we won’t make it.’
I didn’t reply.
‘It’s too rough, Tom. And I can’t swim with my arm like this. The joint’s still unstable.’
‘You won’t be swimming. You’ll be wading. If we stay close to the deck, it shouldn’t be too deep.’ I didn’t dare look at the water too closely. It was impossible to tell if that was true or not. ‘We can get to the rocks on the far side. They’ll be out of sight from the driveway. We’ll get into the pool room from there. We’ll use some of the towels that were outside the sauna to dry ourselves. We can warm up. Grab our clothes from the tumble dryer in the laundry room. Our coats. Our boots. Get to the phone.’
Rachel let go of a withering breath. She looked away from me at the waves pawing at the decking, shaking her head. I knew what I was demanding of my family. I knew
I was asking for their trust and that, maybe, after everything that had happened, I didn’t deserve it.
‘Dad’s right, Mum,’ Holly said, and I felt something shatter inside of me – something that had been clenched up for too long. ‘I think we can do this. I think we have to try.’
27
I slipped Rachel’s backpack off in a hurry and jammed the items from my pockets inside – my mobile phone, Rachel’s car keys, the screwdriver, the nail scissors. Then I zipped the backpack closed and fed Holly’s arms through the straps. Her breathing was shallow and fast, like she was having some kind of asthma attack.
‘You’ll go on my back,’ I told her. ‘I’ll carry you. OK?’
She nodded but she looked scared. I went down on one knee and waited until I felt her weight on my back, her hands around my neck. I took hold of her legs. They were shaking. From the cold or from fear? Probably both.
‘Rachel?’
I turned to her. Her jaw was locked. She was rocking forwards and backwards on her toes as she focused on the sea, like she was trying to psych herself up.
A shout ripped through the dark.
‘If you come out, we can talk. We can help you.’
It was from the smaller man. I inched forwards with Holly on my back and peered towards the carport. He was staring blindly into the trees. He had no idea where we were.
‘If you keep hiding you’ll just make it worse on yourselves. We can let the girl go.’
‘He’s lying,’ Rachel whispered.
I thought so too. I knew that if I had to lay down my life to save Holly right now, I’d do it, no question. But not if I didn’t believe she’d be safe. And there was no way I could trust the word of these two thugs.
I waited for the smaller man to say something more, but instead he stiffened and pushed his face forwards into the darkness. He stared for several seconds, then bolted into the trees with his torch. Maybe he thought he’d heard something or seen something. Maybe the bigger man had signalled to him.
Time to go.
‘He’s gone into the trees,’ I told Rachel. ‘We can’t stay here.’
I rose up and stalked out onto the rocks, picking my way between them, slipping and teetering with Holly on my back, venturing as close as I dared to the edge of the lighted deck. Black water swelled up towards me, circling my ankles. Rachel was close behind us, shaking her head.
‘Two minutes, Hols. Then it’s done.’
Holly squeezed my hips with her quaking thighs by way of answer and I plunged in, hearing Rachel splash down and cry out to my side.
At first, the cold was so brutal and immediate I felt almost nothing. Then it bludgeoned me. A terrible numbing chill that stole my breath and coursed up through my gut and spine as an incoming swell washed in, swamping Holly’s legs. She whimpered and clung to me tighter.
‘It’s OK. It’s not too deep.’
A lie. The icy wash was already as high as my chest. A black wave rushed in, the swell much deeper than I’d anticipated. My feet scrambled for grip on the vanishing seabed. We were pushed towards a metal girder braided with rivets. I thrashed and kicked my legs, twisting at the waist. Then the wave washed out and I bounded forwards in its wake. Holly pressed one hand onto my forehead, half covering my eyes. Her teeth chattered close to my ear.
Another wave raised us up and tipped us. We were only a few metres across with a long way to go. Rachel appeared at my side, splashing forwards with an awkward kind of scissor kick, using her good arm to scoop handfuls of water ahead of her. She looked clumsy and desperate.
I was the one who’d made us do this. What if it was a mistake? I was afraid we’d be washed under the decking and pummelled against the metal girders. That the men would appear on the shoreline and spot us.
The water nudged my chin. It had to be close to Holly’s shoulders. Any deeper and we’d be forced to swim for it. Holly still had my coat on. That wouldn’t help. But with my next leap forwards the seabed sloped up a little to greet me. My toes scrabbled for grip.
The tide washed out, dragging at my waist and legs. Rachel kicked and flailed at my side. I heard her gargle something. She spat and pointed. I turned.
And froze.
A huge black wave was rolling in.
It hurtled towards us. Rising up. Cresting over.
I turned sideways on to it, clamping down on Holly’s thighs with my arms, bracing my feet.
No time left.
The wave barrelled into us, thundering and raging, almost peeling Holly away from me while her fingers clutched at my mouth and eyes. I took two involuntary steps backwards, holding fast to Holly’s legs. I staggered. Dipped. The water rushed and gurgled in my ears and mouth. I struggled to stay upright. Lights flashed in my vision.
I saw Rachel go under, vanish, fight her way back to the surface, spluttering and spitting. I snatched one hand away from Holly and reached out to Rachel, clutching her fingers. I gritted my teeth and strained to hold on to them both.
The wave rushed on, swamping the underside of the deck with a terrific gushing roar. And with it, I saw something rise up in the dark behind Rachel. A slick, grey shape, like a whale breeching the surface.
My pulse spiked. I let go of an involuntary gasp of surprise.
That sound from the deep well of my dreams.
The keening, buzzing whine like a tumble dryer thrashing around on a fast spin. Like a chainsaw felling a tree.
I knew now what it had been.
An outboard motor.
Holly flailed towards me and tightened her grip around my neck as I turned Rachel to see.
A rubber dinghy was moored to the timber steps leading from the deck into the water.
28
I boosted Holly and Rachel into the dinghy, then heaved myself up and rolled in after them, with both of them pulling on my arms. I was drenched. My ribs hurt. I was stunned and breathless from the cold. But I felt another small hum of elation. A boat. We could get out of here now.
The dinghy rocked beneath us, bumping against the mooring post. Rachel was cradling Holly to her. Their clothes and hair were saturated. Their faces and lips were blue. They shivered. Holly had lost one of her shoes in the water. They looked so scared, so broken and lost.
Night steam wafted up from our bodies and clothes. When I raised my hands in front of my face, my fingers were numbed and bloated. It was difficult to form them into fists.
Brodie’s words came back to me again. It’s easy enough to kayak in around the coast. Stupid. We should have thought of looking for a boat before. And what else? Something about the boat. A loose thought I couldn’t quite grasp jangled in my mind.
‘Dad? Can we go?’
I held my clawed hands in front of me – a bit like a surgeon who’d scrubbed in and was waiting for a nurse to slip on some gloves – as I stumbled past Rachel and Holly to the outboard motor at the stern. I’d never operated a dinghy before, but in my head it was going to be straightforward. We’d start the motor like we were cranking a lawn-mower engine, then we’d race away. Even if the men heard us, we’d be gone before they could stop us.
I should have known better.
The moment I looked at the engine I felt a terrible knocking in my chest. There was a keyhole for an ignition key. But there was no key to be seen.
Panic swelled in my lungs. Did one of the men have the key in a pocket of their coveralls? I ducked to search beneath the engine. Nothing.
‘What is it?’ Rachel asked.
The fear in her voice cut me on the inside. I thumped a deadened hand off the engine casing and told her. She said nothing. She was stunned. I told them both to help me search for oars.
We got on our hands and knees and felt all around us. Nothing. Holly found a metal equipment locker tucked into the prow of the dinghy. It was probably where life jackets and flares were stored. But it was secured by a padlock. No way of opening it.
‘Wait here,’ I said.
‘Tom.’
‘Just tru
st me, Rachel.’
I eased up to my feet, the boat swaying beneath me, and gingerly raised my head. I had to squint because the light shining on the decking was so bright. My eyes stung and watered. I shielded them with my hand. I couldn’t see any sign of the men beyond the deck. I couldn’t see the light of their torch. I hoped they were still searching the woods. Maybe they’d headed back up to the gate.
I crabbed sideways, placing one foot on the wooden steps. A blue rope had been looped around the mooring post. Next to it, Brodie’s plastic leaf rake had toppled in the wind. I freed the rope, grabbed the rake and jumped back aboard the dinghy, pushing off from the steps with my foot.
‘Will that work?’ Rachel asked.
Hard to say, but it was worth a shot. I got down on my knees and started using the rake as an oar. If we could somehow get the boat out to sea without being spotted we could work our way along the coast. And even if the men did spot us, as long as we got enough distance between us and the shore, I hoped we’d be safe from being shot at. I didn’t think they’d swim after us. The waves were too violent, the tide too strong, the water too cold. We’d only waded a short distance across the inlet and I was almost completely spent, my body bucking and cramping from the intense frigid chill.
‘Help me.’
Holly reached over the side and paddled with her hand. Rachel stood with her head bent low and clutched the timber deck with her good hand, grimacing and shivering as she pushed us along.
We nudged into the swell. A wave slammed in, buoying the front of the dinghy, knocking Rachel off her feet. She crashed onto her back, jarred her shoulder, cried out in pain.
Holly and I watched her. She winced and nodded that she was OK. We splashed on. We couldn’t afford to stop. We were in danger of being pushed under the decking and getting beached down there.
It didn’t help that the rake made for an unwieldy oar. The plastic blade was about three times as wide as a typical spade. It was designed to be flexible, which made it flimsy in the water. It kept being bent and snatched sideways by the shifting tides. Plus, of course, my hands were numb.
