by Kovacs, Jase
Wood chips fly and someone screams, more in surprise than pain. The bullets are deadly, but Larry is right. None come low enough to find us on the ground. But this knowledge does nothing to the base part of my brain that knows there is something very wrong about supersonic pieces of lead flying overhead, and I have to work very hard to resist the urge to dig a hole with my teeth.
A fountain of sand leaps up in front of me and splatters my face with tiny hot pins. "Shit!" I roll away, registering the afterglow of a second, small muzzle flash off to the right of the machine gun. I roll twice until I come up hard against a table, its leg barking me painfully in the ribs. "Shit!"
Larry is right next to me. "Did you just swear?"
My ears ring like bells in the lull. "They've got a rifleman. At least one. Just took a potshot at me. Shit!"
"Hear that Matty?"
"What?"
"Zac reckons they've got a sniper."
"Yeah, makes sense. Everyone hear that? Keep out of the doorways and windows. Abella, how's Ian?"
"I am working, shut up!" Something spurts, and Abella swears in Spanish. Then, "Get it! Abby, put your finger there. YES! Good."
"Abigail, any idea how these bastards got a machine gun?" says Matty.
"She's working," says Abella. "I said shut up!"
"Who’s here? Sound off your names!"
"I'm here, lady! Molo too! We ready!"
A voice as deep and as calm as the lagoon. "Solomon."
"I'm here. It's me, Auntie! Behind the bar, with Apo and Robbo."
"Yeah, me, by the doorway."
"Who's that?" says Matty, annoyed.
"Fuck's sake, it's me, Jarrod."
"Where’s John?"
"Haven’t seen him since Ian knocked him for six."
"Is that everyone?"
"Where's Alfred?" I shout.
Her reply is drowned when the machine gun opens up. It tears chunks out of the wall. The mural sprouts a hundred new stars. A post bursts and the roof sags in that corner.
I have plenty of time to think while it chews the building to pieces. Pinned down by a machine gun. Dolf is dead, Ian is dying, Kev is down, and who knows what else. How did this go so wrong so quickly?
Because it was a trap, you idiot, I answer myself.
Damn it. God damn it. I'm meant to advise Matty. To guide her. And this where we have ended up. How can I answer to this? How can I answer to anyone?
When the firing ceases, Matty says, "They're going to bring this place down around us. Alfred?"
"He went with Rod. Into the little house," says Robbo.
"Rod, you all right out there? Not too lonely?"
His voice is muffled by the wall and the distance. "Nah, got a mate with me."
"Does anyone have any idea what happened to Jacka and his sailors?"
Larry twists around, so he can see Raz, who sits against a pillar, his eyes gummy, and his mouth trembling. "What about it, mate? What happened the crewies?"
"Fucked off. Went bush."
"He's lying!" shrieks Blong. "Lying!"
"Jacka and all the sailors? When?"
"When Jacka had a blue with Michael."
"They were arguing? What about?"
"Locals wanted to piss off. Leave you behind."
"Yeaaaahhh," says Matty, drawing out the word sardonically. "I don't believe that for a second. Was this before or after you pissheads got drunk?"
Raz shuts his mouth and shakes his head. He looks like a prisoner who has just incriminated himself and lacks the wits to ameliorate his situation.
"Blong, what happened?"
"The old pissheads drink lots. Jacka got cross and they had a big fight! Jacka said he was going to get you. He took the canoes and left."
"They sailed after us?"
"Yes! Did they find you?"
There is a pause before Matty says, "Sure did. They're getting help right now."
"What do you reckon they’ll do?" says Larry, meaning the machine gunners.
"Well, it's an hour till sunset. They’ll keep us pinned down in here until its dark, then swarm us with masalai.”
“We don’t have an hour!” says Abella. She leaves the second half of her sentence unspoken: Ian and Kev are dying.
After a decent pause, Larry asks, “Pinned down for an hour?”
“I’m assuming they brought plenty of bullets for that thing. Zac was right. Rueben is smart and he’s evil. He’s got us bottled up good and perfect.”
“So what are we going to do?"
"Troubleshoot this son of a bitch," says Matty. "Auntie, you guys are at the bar? Hold still; I'm coming to you."
The sand is cool against my cheek. My ears ring like a tuning fork holding a single perfect high note. The gun is silent. What are they doing out there? I hear the wet ugly sound of a man breathing through holes he's not supposed to have. Keeping low, I scoot under it to where Abella and Abigail lie with Ian. The sand around his head is black with blood. Abella and Abigail are covered with gore up to their elbows, and Abigail's face is half crimson from where she was sprayed. They're working hard to slide a saline needle into his arm.
"Anything I can do?" I ask.
"You got O negative blood?" says Abella around a piece of rubber tubing she has clenched in her teeth. To Abella she says, "Got it. Open the valve."
"I don't know," I reply.
"It was a joke. He's lost a lot of blood. He needs a transfusion. The best I can do here is fill him with saline, keep his pressure up."
Ian's eyes are wide-open but he stares at nothing. He emits a horrible groan, made worse by the way it leaks through his wound.
"Why is he making that noise?" Jarrod’s face is as pale as the moon, and his lips tremble with unspoken prayers. Both of them worked at the solar plant. They must have been close; Jarrod is losing it. "Can't you give him some pain killers or something? Give him some morphine for Christ's sake."
"Idiot," spits Abella. "My last vial of morphine went off ten years ago. All our drugs are gone. History. All I can do is stop the bleeding, keep his blood pressure up and pray."
"It's not bloody good enough," says Jarrod. "You hear me? It's not bloody good enough."
Abella takes a deep breath as she searches for self-control. Quickly I say, "Jarrod, mate. Kev's over there. Abella says he's stable. He needs someone to talk to him though. Can you do that for me, mate?"
Jarrod looks pitifully grateful. "Yeah. I can do that. Someone's gotta look after him. Yeah."
When he's gone, Abella says, "They don't know when they're not helping, do they?"
"He's just scared."
"We're all scared."
"Yeah. He just doesn't know how to hide it yet."
Abigail and Abella share a quick, cryptic look. "Not that one," says Abella. "Watch out for him."
"What do you need?"
"What I need is an operating theatre. What I can do here? Not much. I need time we don't have. I need to get him onto Fidelio then somewhere calm so I can operate. Dry land is best."
Matty joins us. "Both these guys are stretcher cases, right?"
"Yes."
"What can you do for Kev?"
"Not much right now. I'm pretty sure he has a depressed skull fracture but need to keep him under observation and see. He may have subdural hematoma."
"You know when Enzo and I are talking about technical yacht things and you're all at sea?"
"He has bleeding in his brain, Matty. There's not much I can do about that."
Abigail has been sitting back, her eyes unfocused, her lips moving in a silent prayer. But now she leans in and says, "We could perform an emergency craniotomy."
"You have got to be joking," says Abella.
"It's the only practical way we can relieve the pressure."
"I'm not drilling a hole in his skull."
Matty glances at me, as if to say, I was only asking. "First things first. Can we use the tables as stretchers to carry them out?"
"To the anchorage? Yes
."
"You've got about ten minutes." Matty sits with her back to the wall. She seems to be counting to herself. She closes her eyelids, and I can see her pupils flickering back and forth rapidly under there, as if she was dreaming. Where do you go, at night, Matty? I want to ask. Who do you meet in your dreams?
I am afraid of the answer.
Then her eyes snap open, and she looks at me and smiles. "Hey, Zac?"
"Yes, mate."
Her smile is sad, and her eyes seem distant in a way that makes me suddenly afraid. "You're a bloody dumb ass."
I return her smile, and I feel sad and distant too. "You've mentioned that once or twice."
She winks. "Let's get this party started." She edges around a pillar to peek outside. "Rod?"
"Yeah?"
"Kill those assholes and then get in here."
His rifle speaks immediately. He must have been holding the shot. Then another ringing blast and another. A door slams back against the wall. I cringe, expecting a volley of machine gun fire to take him down. But he dives headlong through the door, followed a second later by Alfred, both of them grinning widely. For a moment, I can't place where I've seen those grins before, then it comes to me: on the faces of the children running from the power station. A simple day seemingly years before.
"You got the sniper too, right?" Matty asks.
"You told me to kill the assholes," retorts Rod. "I figured you meant all of them."
"Auntie, now!" yells Matty.
Auntie, Apo and Robbo run from behind the bar and across the room. In their hands they hold bottles of spirits. Rags have been stuffed into the necks of each one. They reach the windows as Matty pulls an emergency flare from her belt rig and strikes it. Brilliant crimson light fills the room. She swipes the flare across the rags, igniting them.
"HURRY!" Auntie shouts. They throw the bottles out the windows and door. Two smash against the storehouse just vacated by Rod and Alfred, another against a hut to the side of the doorway. Matty throws the flare for good measure. Flames burst into wild life, leaping up the wooden walls and rising to catch the palm frond roofs. A single shot comes from the south, but Auntie and the others have already ducked away.
"Everyone keep your heads down," shouts Matty. "Things are about to get hot."
A minute goes by. Flames crackle outside, spreading across the huts, spilling across their roofs and seeking the contents inside.
"Rod, those wankers weren't lying, were they?" asks Matty. "That storeroom was really full of booze—"
The rest of her sentence is cut off as the storehouse dissolves into a slow ball of flames. The fireball rolls through the building, turning it into a roaring pillar of flame. Glass pops as bottles explode one by one in the intense heat. A thick cloud of black smoke rolls out, filling the air and rising into the sky.
"There," says Matty, satisfied. "If that doesn't get the fleet to come in, nothing will."
"Why don't we just run now," I ask.
"Cause any second now they're going to—"
Again, Matty seems to have timed it perfectly as the machine gun opens up. This time it fires continuously for a minute, pausing only to reload. Wood and glass and palm fronds fall down on us like ash. When finally they pause, she says to me. "They don’t know what they're doing. They're going to overheat firing like that. It's going to jam. The fools. The stupid idiots."
"Yeah, they're idiots," I say. "Idiots with a machine gun. What's next?"
"We'll have some cover as soon as this smoke thickens. The wind is from the east, and they're to the west. In a minute they're going to be choking. But we've got to take that gun out. Disable it. Rod, you got your pig sticker?"
"Yep."
"Fix bayonets."
Rod draws the old foot-long blade and locks it under the barrel. "Ready!"
"Solomon and Alfred, you're with us. Everyone else, get ready to carry the litters down to the landing. Zac, I'm going to take Rod and the lads to destroy that machine gun. We’ll flank left, through the smoke, get into the treeline and clear from left to right. When you hear my whistle blowing, I want you to take that Ruger and fire into the machinegun nest as fast as you can to cover our assault—"
"MATTY! ARE YOU IN THERE?! COME OUT, MATTY!"
The shout comes from across the village, from the machine gun position.
"DON'T BE A BAD SPORT, MATTY! COME OUT AND PLAY WITH ME!"
Matty has a feral gleam in her eye. Not caring about the snipers or the machinegun, she rises in the window and, despite my fear, I stand with her.
If she can stand, so can I.
"What are we doing?" I say out the corner of my mouth.
She has her shotgun held loosely in her hands. "Improvising."
Through the smoke, through the fire, he comes. Just as Matty said: naked, tattooed, a gleaming samurai sword in his left hand. White hair and pale furious eyes, Rueben walks across the bare ground. "Yes, Matty. And Zac too? This is a blessed day. I trust you will be sportsman-like? It would be uncouth to shoot me down, after all we've been through."
"What do you want, Rueben?" asks Matty.
"What I've always wanted." He smiles a mad grin and, of course, he has pointed teeth. He was horrific before, back on Woodlark, when he was one of many zealots in the Lost Tribe. But now he has become a monster of tattoos and filed teeth, beyond petty concerns of life and death. "I want you to come and see."
My skin pricks with goosebumps but my voice is steady. "And what then? What of my friends?"
"I have no interest in them. Nor does our Lord. They were only a barrier between him and what he wants." He lowers the sword to point at Matty. "You. Come with me, now, and I will let all your friends go. Or you can wait for half an hour until..." He nods to the sky behind him, where the volcano clips the sun. Already the jungle shadows reach out to swallow the village. Shapes move in the trees, where they are safe from the sun's burning touch.
The masalai gather.
Matty snorts. "That's what it always comes down to, doesn't it? You, your master, the Pale King. Just a pack of creeps, wanting to own me."
"You have power beyond your imagining, Matty. Do you think you defeated the Pale King with luck? With skill? No. Your destiny is greater than the concerns of these petty mortals. Come with me now and embrace that—"
Matty's shotgun roars and a smattering of crescents appears on Reuben's chest. He steps back, his sword dropping, looking down at himself in disbelief. She fires again, and he falls back into the smoke.
"That's what I love about you guys," says Matty. "You never know when to shut up."
CHAPTER TEN: MATTY
I allow myself a moment of grace as the smoke wraps me in tendrils of night. I close my eyes and lose myself in the serene eye of the storm. Flames crackle as embers dance from eave to eave like a swarm of fireflies.
A presence at my shoulder; Rod, his rifle sporting a foot-long steel tooth under the barrel. "Wait," I say, touching him on the arm. Black smoke rolls out, spreading towards the machine gun in a screen. The chaos swirls around me like surf on a reef. I wait for the moment of action. I wait for my wave.
Once I was young and weak. The Pale King took advantage of that. He cloaked his corruption with a faerie glamour, and I saw beauty where there was nothing but decay. I walked into his arms and he held me, and I loved him. It was for only a minute, but what is time in matters of betrayal? An instant of weakness leads to a lifetime of regret.
A stray bullet cuts a shaft of stillness in the turbulent smoke. Rod flinches and I nod to him. An eddy of wind opens a hole and Solomon and Alfred join us.
Rueben's look of surprise when I shot him filled me with a deep satisfaction. Denials and refusals mean nothing to men like him. Violence is the only currency they value. I let the warm glow flow through me. When it reaches the tips of my fingers and toes, I smile.
This is my wave.
I charge.
Buildings loom and pass. Some already aflame. The machine gun opens up, over to our
right. Firing blind into the smoke. Wood shatters and a bottle explodes in the storeroom. I push left, edging out and around to flank them. Keeping clear of the fire lane between the gun and the bar.
Solomon coughs and I catch a glimpse of Rod, his rifle tucked under his arm like a spear, his eyes streaming tears. Strangely I don't feel the smoke's harsh touch.
A man, swinging a machete high, charges out of the mist. Rod drives his steel into the man's fresh weeping tattoos and between his ribs. The man grabs the rifle with both hands as he falls, crawling down the blade and snapping his sharpened teeth at Rod's neck. Alfred's machete flashes and the man goes slack. Rod twists the rifle to break the wound's suction and withdrawals.
I fire at another shape and a naked man ploughs headlong in the dirt before me. I leap over him and run on. Behind me I hear wet blows, but I don't look back as trees suddenly loom overhead like the statues of ancient kings.
The machinegun opens a cone of thunder not ten feet away. A long tongue of fire spits streaks of light. I don't know why the gunners have switched to tracer rounds. It's not like they can see the fall of their shot in this smoke.
Blood drips from Solomon's blade like old oil seeping from an engine's sump. I plunge forward into the trees — trees, ferns, the sting of a thorn is a passing distraction — and then I'm on the gun crew. The gun is something old and heavy, as malignant as a parasitic wasp. It is mounted on a tripod festooned with cogs and toothed bars to adjust elevation and traverse. A man crouches on the other side of the weapon, a long tray of bullets poised in his hands to feed the beast. His eyes widen with shock before my shotgun blasts a ruin of meat and bone.
The gunner is pale and young and thin, her cheekbones and eye sockets black with soot and her hair matted to dreads. She hunches behind the machine gun as if sheltering in a storm. Before I can rack the shotgun, she springs at me, her face a feral snarl, a long wicked blade in her hand. I sweep the shotgun around, but she ducks under my blow and comes in close.
Her knife flashes towards my belly, and I arch away from its pitted edge. Rod lunges in and drives his rifle's stock into her ribs. She falls with an outraged screech, and I grab Rod to stop him bayoneting her.
