Incurable

by John Marsden

  All the lights went out in the hairdresser’s straight away. Half-a-dozen people near the clothes shop scattered and went skidding away to the right and left. A bell started ringing, like the world’s biggest alarm clock. My insides were suddenly cold and twisted, like a doctor with hypothermia had grabbed hold of my large intestine. I ran forwards, bending at the waist, straight towards the mall. People started pouring out of a side exit like a million ants who’ve just heard there’s a jam spill at the factory up the road. Not very intelligent of them but who thinks clearly at times like these? I could see them pushing each other to try to get people to go faster. But for me the automatic doors at the front opened perfectly, inviting me in. There were people still moving normally at the far end, like it hadn’t yet registered on them. I kept running. My insides felt wet and mushy now, no longer cold and twisted. I had a sudden memory of the men in the barracks at the airfield, the men I’d shot, and how they’d looked like road kill. I definitely didn’t want to kill anyone here. These people had just popped in to pick up their Sorbent and their Sanitarium and their Napisan. I fired at the ceiling, four shots, as I ran straight ahead. Suddenly people were diving for cover. Bags of groceries lay all over the floor, in among the deserted trolleys. There were spilt coffee cups, dropped ice-creams, an overturned pram. I deliberately shot out the front glass in a chemist’s shop, on the left, and then the same to another clothing store, on the right. The panes of glass slid down like water over a waterfall. It was almost calming to see the smooth rush of glass.

  I was at the supermarket. Now I did have a plan. Not much of one, but a plan. I swung left and raced in there. I think they’d probably turned off the main lights but some kind of security lighting had cut in and everything was dull and dim but visible. I went straight through a checkout lane. No-one asked to inspect my bag. I could see movement all around. I wasn’t stopping to do a survey, but there was a glimpse of an old man to the left, a shop assistant to the right, and a young woman behind a rack of bread. She wasn’t too smart hiding behind bread. The dog food might have been better. The cans of fruit maybe. Boy, you’d get some dramatic ricochets if you started firing near the cans of fruit. I ran past the potato chips. Some foods in this place I didn’t recognise but potato chips must look pretty much the same in any language.

  A guy in a suit suddenly popped out at me as I passed a stack of bottled water. He’d been hiding behind it. He wanted to be a hero. He grabbed at me, at the same time turning his face away, like he didn’t want to be hit. His eyes were almost closed. His arms were strong, though, and he got quite a good grip. I got such a shock that I nearly dropped the rifle. But it was like he didn’t quite know what to do. If he did fight me he risked being killed. He was like a softball player who’s stolen a couple of bases but is too scared to run home on a hit. But just as I realised he wasn’t totally committed, he realised I was a girl. He’d stolen a look at me and his eyes widened and he got a stronger grip. He had me around the waist in a face-to-face hug and I knew I had to break his grip or I was done for.

  How funny that after everything I’d been through it could all end here, suddenly, in a moment, in this dingy supermarket, among the bottled water and the bags of rice, killed by a man with a forgettable face, a man in a suit and a boring blue-grey tie.

  He was trying to pull me over. We struggled wildly. I still had the rifle and the first thing I did was get a finger to the trigger and squeeze off a shot. I knew it was pointing upwards, so it wasn’t going to kill anyone, but I also knew it’d give him a helluva fright and that might give me the advantage for a moment. I was used to the noise but he wasn’t and it really was loud, especially in this place with a low roof. When it went off the man gave a jerk so violent that for a moment I thought I really had hit him. He did loosen his grip on me, and I shoved hard and sharply, hoping to send him off balance. He went backwards, letting go of me, his arms flailing like a player in netball trying to stop you passing. I moved in fast and pushed him again, deliberately aiming him at a stand of cans of something, I don’t know what they were. Tomatoes maybe? He went into them with his back and his bum and the whole thing kind of exploded around him. I picked up a can as it rolled towards me, threw it at him, missed, grabbed another one and threw it hard into his head. I saw red stuff fly. It was like it was a can of tomatoes and it had burst open and the tomatoes were splattering everywhere. But the can hadn’t burst open. It was the other red stuff I was looking at. He put his hands to his face and turned sideways. I didn’t know if he was still conscious but I had to assume he wouldn’t be a threat for the next few minutes at least.

  I raced towards the back door, the one into the storage area. Glancing behind me I saw a few people putting their heads up from their hiding places. They looked undecided. Will we chase her or what? She’s only a girl. And there’s only one of her. But she’s got a gun.

  It was a double door, a heavy thing made of rubber and/or plastic or something. It was partly transparent. As soon as I burst through it I entered another world. No more fancy displays or canned music or ladies handing out little samples of tofu, like we get in Wirrawee. This was even darker than the dim supermarket; the floor was concrete, hundreds of boxes were in big stacks everywhere. It smelt different too, but nice, like biscuits at the very first moment when you open the pack.

  I saw one guy, a young employee who looked about my age. He was paralysed by fear, I think, backed up against a big refrigeration unit, staring at me. Nothing but his eyes moved. I thought it was probably safe to ignore him, so I kept running.

  Further out the back were the loading docks. There were no deliveries happening – too late in the day, I guess – so it was all closed up and very dark indeed. I jumped off the dock and ran to the big roller door. There had to be a way to open this mongrel thing. I glanced around frantically. A whole length of new chain lay on the ground, along with tools and a big tin of grease. Looked like they were about to fix or replace the doors. I hoped they were still working. On the side was a big red button with a dirty old notice in English, on a bit of cardboard, saying Press twice to open. I pressed twice. The door started to clank up, slow and heavy and noisy. Jesus, it would take half an hour. Panting, I looked behind me. Had they organised themselves yet? As the door ratcheted up I heard rifle shots, close. Seemed like I was opening the door onto a shooting gallery. The door was up to my waist. I ducked under and stayed low, looking around madly. Where was the danger? Which direction? Quick quick, find it before it finds you. Then, thank God, I saw Homer and Jeremy. They were behind the dump bins, like I suspected, both turned slightly away from me and lying low, like me. As I saw them they both fired, almost simultaneously. I couldn’t see the others but I saw flashes of flame which made me think they were further to the right. I hoped it was them anyway.

  Also to my right, but down on the road were four vehicles, three of them utes and the other a small truck with an open back. There seemed to be people on the road, using them and the rocks and trees as cover. I hissed to myself as I realised how bad it was. Although these guys had the disadvantage of being downhill, there were more of them and they looked pretty well-protected.

  To the left, around the perimeter of the car park, the news seemed better. I started to pick out soldiers again, maybe the guys I’d seen before, but now they had swung their point of attack to the front of the mall, like I’d meant them to. I thought that it probably gave us half a minute or so of relatively clear ground, both ahead and to the left.

  In the darkness the weapons were like little flamethrowers, with the constant leaps of hot orange-yellow-white from the barrels. It made it easy to see where people were, but the problem was to work out who those people were. I realised for example that at least two people were shooting from inside the fruit shop, which was now in total darkness. I assumed these were not people who were there to pick up avocadoes.

  Crouched low, I started running to Homer and Jeremy. As I closed in on them I couldn’t resist calling, ‘Hi guys.’


  It was the second nearest I’d come to being shot. The nearest was when I was shot. You can’t get much nearer than that. Jeremy swung around and lifted the rifle to his shoulder. His expression was that of a guy who is so hypnotised you could ask him to be a chook and he’d immediately lay an egg or stick his head through the wire. I realised he wasn’t going to see me in time but even so I screamed out, ‘Jeremy!’ and raised my hand to cover my face from the shot, not that my hand would have done much good. I owed my life to Homer. He didn’t have time to say anything, just took one look, lunged and pushed the rifle away as the shot went off. The bullet howled past me like a banshee, except that I don’t know what a banshee is, let alone what sound it would make. But something about the word ‘banshee’ makes me think that a screaming bullet wouldn’t be far wrong.

  Jeremy went white when he realised it was me. He looked like he’d seen a ghost and he looked like he’d become a ghost. He just stood there staring. Homer, on the other hand, was as calm as ever. His natural brown skin didn’t lose any colour. He shook his head and said, ‘Seen any shops you like?’

  ‘It’s clear to the left, for a couple of minutes maybe,’ I said. ‘I think it’s your only chance.’

  Homer didn’t hesitate. ‘I’ll get the others. You two cover me. Wake up, Jeremy.’

  He slid away to the right. I was panting like a horse with wind. I peered anxiously, trying to see Homer, trying to tell what was happening. The firing down there seemed to have increased by about ten times. It was nearly continuous now. That meant they were either attacking or getting ready to attack. Whoever was down there, Lee and Jessica perhaps, and maybe even Gavin, might be overwhelmed before Homer reached them. The constant banging of the guns was getting to me. They seemed louder and louder, but I wasn’t sure if they were getting any closer. The shots drove out every other noise and every other sensation. I wished they would stop. It was like operating a jackhammer and having a migraine at the same time.

  In among all that I tried to think. At least the four of them had achieved part of what they wanted: whatever raid the soldiers were planning, it wouldn’t go ahead now. Not tonight anyway. A smart retreat was the only way for us to go, but the odds were heavily against it. Would Homer and the others have planned for a retreat? Maybe Jess, say, was back at the bikes, ready to take off in a hurry? Gavin even? Gavin would have been good for a job like that. Getaway driver.

  Did they know Gavin was around? Was Gavin around?

  I got a glimpse of Homer and fired a couple of rounds into the darkness above him. He was almost at the other bins. That was a pretty good effort, but I felt we could only have seconds left before the soldiers who’d run into the mall came spilling out again.

  I was in a tug of war, and it was all happening inside me. They say a watched kettle never boils. Knowing that, I didn’t want to keep staring at the other dump bins, using all the power in my mind and body, willing Homer and the others to reappear. Nor did I want to stare to the left, willing that area to stay clear of the enemy. Superstitiously, I thought I would make more soldiers appear if I did. The stresses on my mind and body were terrible. Jeremy still looked white-faced and had not said a word. I think we were both in posttraumatic shock, but the trauma wasn’t post yet. Then I suddenly remembered and yelled at Jeremy, ‘Have you got Gavin?’ He took a long second to work out who Gavin was – I think he was still working out who I was – and then he suddenly said, ‘No. Why should we?’

  I groaned. Things couldn’t have got any worse, and now suddenly they had. At least Jeremy’s voice sounded stronger than I’d expected. He asked me again, ‘Why should we?’ But there was no time to answer. The shots from all around the perimeter, on our right-hand side, had eased up a bit and were now just random pops. I didn’t know whether that was good news or not, but I figured it probably was, as it meant that they couldn’t have caught everyone yet, and they probably weren’t getting good targets. But suddenly the shots took off again, like an extremely rewed-up car accelerating down the main road of Stratton. I could see two soldiers coming out of the entrance to the mall. I jerked my head around to the right. What was all the excitement? Then I saw Jess do a neat zigzag from one dump bin to the next. ‘If only these dump bins had wheels,’ I thought. Actually, engines as well would be nice. I wondered how safe we’d be inside a dump bin, whether the bullets would penetrate it or bounce off. Maybe they’d ricochet and kill the people attacking us. But it would be nice to drive along in a dump bin, like a tank, feeling secure.

  A + B + C = D. That’s algebra. Algebra imitates life. Algebra is life. Or maybe life imitates algebra. A was the dump bin. B was the Toyota Landcruiser about fifteen metres to my left, with the driver’s door opened, where somebody had abandoned it in the early heat of the battle. Presumably. It was crammed with stuff. Big cardboard boxes that filled the rear section, as well as the back seat and even the front passenger seat.

  D represented a possibility, a hope, a faint chance.

  And just maybe, C was the length of chain back at the roller door.

  As a bonus, the Toyota had a tow bar.

  You have to understand that in this situation there was simply nothing else, and once I put the three objects together they burnt so brightly in my mind that I couldn’t think of anything else. We were completely cut off on the right, the mall was behind us and probably now full of enemy troops, and we would never get across the vast desert of the car park to the left without being cut off and killed. So in that situation, the Toyota, the dump bin and the chain were like a dying guy in the outback seeing a drink machine, a power point and a pile of dollar coins. The combination the three objects made in my mind was suddenly irresistible.

  If everything goes in threes, I also knew that there were at least three major problems. And they were major major major. On the Richter scale they would have rated a nine. I knew from talking to the bloke who emptied our dump bin at home that they weigh six hundred kilos. Of course I had no idea what else was in the dump bin. It could have been full of concrete blocks that some bloke had chucked out from the building site. So, first problem, the bin might be too heavy.

  On the other hand, Toyota claimed that these vehicles could pull anything. Elephants up Everest.

  I also knew that bullets might penetrate the steel wall, in which case the people inside would be dead, dead, a thousand times over. And the third thing: I knew that the person stupid enough to do the driving was extremely vulnerable.

  On another hand, one person in the car was a much better risk than five people in the car. I didn’t know what was in those boxes, the ones that filled the Toyota. If they contained inflated balloons for a party, they were not going to be much help. But if they had pillows or china plates or TVs they might just act as bullet-resistant barriers. The best thing of all would be books. Oh how I hoped they were books. I’ve always liked reading, but at this moment I felt an attraction for books more powerful than ever before. I hoped that whoever owned the four-wheel drive was equally keen on them.

  At the same time, my sitting at the wheel of the Toyota was going to leave me highly exposed. I wouldn’t be much of a challenge to a marksman. Or a markswoman. Or a markschild. Even a marksbaby.

  D, in my equation, represented what? Beyond a faint chance, beyond hope, it represented escape, safety, getting out of here. D would need a lot more than A, B and C. It would also need roads we could use, roads free of traps and ambushes and flying bullets. But that would have to wait. This was all about short-term solutions. This was about the here and now. I’ve never been any good at games like chess, where people can think five or ten moves ahead. On yet another hand, in farming, you do that all the time, so maybe I’m selling myself short. Anyway, there was nothing I could do about the long-term while I was in the car park at that mall. I yelled at Jeremy, ‘Cover Homer, I’ll be back,’ and took off for the roller door.

  Chain is terrible stuff to carry. This one was heavy. These weren’t the roller doors they put in subu
rban garages; this one was serious. But it wasn’t only the weight of the chain that caused me problems. Chain is like picking up a boa constrictor. It slithers and slides and gets away from you and tries to escape, and just when you get a grip on one section another part manages to run off.

  I grabbed armfuls, as much as I could manage, and set about dragging it all backwards, to the dump bin. I was sweating like a very anxious pig. In twenty or thirty seconds I was almost clear of the roller door, having made an excellent five metres of progress. Great! I should be back at the Toyota by Christmas.

  Feeling desperate, I looked up and nearly dropped the chain again. Three soldiers had simultaneously appeared on the loading dock. They were in a line across the dock. Weirdly, they were like dancers in a theatre. Their movements seemed to be so synchronised. And these guys wore uniforms. Somehow Homer and Lee and Jeremy and Jess had stumbled into half an army.

  At that moment I was dead. At the next moment a series of shots roared behind me, bullets no doubt whistled past me, but I was too deafened from the explosions to hear them. One of the soldiers went flying backwards into the storeroom as though he had been king-hit by the heavyweight champion of the world. The other two bolted back into the darkness.

  I turned around. Lee. He was kneeling. He had evidently dropped to one knee as he had fired. Before he could get up again I said, ‘That’s the way I like to see you.’

  He got up quickly when I said that, although I doubt if he heard me – I couldn’t hear myself after the noise of those bullets. He grabbed half of the chain I was trying to hold, without even asking why I needed it. Trust Lee. In fact, Lee was all about trust, except when he was with girls. With two people the boa constrictor gave up its fight, and we were back at the dump bin in seconds.

  At least everyone was there. Everyone bar Gavin. Jeremy, Jess, Homer. That was an improvement in the situation. They were all pale. We tried to smile at each other. But it was pretty much impossible. I’d noticed before how when things get really frightening and dangerous I lose the ability to smile. It’s because of the tension in my face. The whole face locks up, and I have the feeling that if I look into a mirror I’ll see shiny pink skin, like someone who is recovering from burns. It gets too stretched for smiles. The others seemed to be the same. The smiles were in the eyes.