Getting Home

by Angus McLean

  It was Little Dog’s turn to nod and look thoughtful. ‘Uh-huh.’ He licked his lips then raised a finger to his nose. He inserted it into a wide nostril, dug around, and extracted what he was looking for. He wiped it on his jeans then blocked one nostril at a time and snorted the other, emptying the contents onto the floor. He wiped his nose on his forearm and looked back at Jake. ‘Whaddaya thinkin’?’

  Jake sat back. Time to get down to business. ‘Machine guns. Grenades. More Steyrs. Shitloads of ammo.’

  ‘Gotta outgun them,’ Little Dog said, getting into it. ‘You gotta make sure when we hit ’em, we do it right first time, eh?’

  ‘Yep, for sure,’ Jake said. ‘Go all out you reckon, LD?’

  ‘Fuck yeah. We ain’t fuckin’ around here, bro. They gotta know the Bandits come to play.’

  Jake grinned. ‘For sure, for sure.’

  Little Dog nodded again, but Jake wasn’t finished yet.

  ‘Rockets’d be good,’ he said. ‘Explosives.’

  Little Dog’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. ‘The fuck you gunna do with them?’ He gave his sidekicks an incredulous look, laughed, then turned back to Jake.

  Jake held his gaze. ‘Blow shit up,’ he said. ‘It’s a prison. It ain’t like breakin’ into a house. We gotta take out the fuckin’ soldiers outside, we gotta take out the fuckin’ soldiers inside, then we gotta bust out the boys. Might be locked in with steel doors’n shit.’

  Little Dog stared at him for a moment, and Jake could practically hear the cogs turning in his head. Maybe he’d pushed it too far. Maybe Little Dog wouldn’t go for it.

  ‘Plus,’ Little Dog finally said. ‘We gotta cap all them screws in there. Can’t let them cunts get away. Plus any other fuckers we might find.’

  Jake nodded and grinned. It was a fair point. All the gangs were mixed inside; this would be a great opportunity to take some payback. Looked like Little Dog actually was on board.

  ‘When’re you thinkin’?’ Little Dog said.

  ‘Soon as we get the gear to do it,’ Jake said.

  Little Dog turned to Dion. ‘You know where to go,’ he said. ‘Take some boys and get what we need.’

  Dion stood and left without a word. Jake and Little Dog grinned at each other across the table.

  ‘Just like old times, Jakey,’ Little Dog grinned.

  ‘Never had this much fun in the old times,’ Jake said.

  Forty-Five

  The hum of a bee caught Curtis’ attention while he watered the weeds at the side of the road. Not wanting that near him while his pecker was out, he cocked an ear and zeroed in.

  Over to the side, floating gracefully between wild flowers, busy doing its thing. Not the least interested in the big man with the shotgun over his shoulder, doing his own thing. Curtis shook, zipped up, and turned away. He opened the door of the Ford then stopped.

  Listened again.

  Listening to people had never been one of his greatest skills, but he was damn good at listening for unusual sounds. Unusual sounds usually meant either the cops were creeping up on him, or someone was trying to rip him off or attack him.

  He stood stock still for a few moments, sure he’d heard gunfire. Not close, more over to his left and further south. The eastern side of the motorway, towards Bombay. Shavaunne and Dice should be over there, and if they were, that meant they’d found their prey.

  ‘Fuck yeah,’ Curtis murmured to himself, hearing another decent shot. He climbed into the truck and fired it up again, placing the Beretta shotgun on the seat beside him. The BAR was leaning in the footwell. He was ready to rock’n’roll.

  He shifted the big truck into gear and hit the gas.

  ***

  The road was coming up and Gemma started looking for a way across the creek.

  It ran parallel to the road, gnarly old trees lining the low banks, and there was a gap of a few metres the other side before the road. It continued down to the right as far as she could see, going around a bend in the road. To the left it seemed to narrow a bit so she moved that way.

  ‘Shall we jump it or go through it?’ Alex asked, looking at the gap tentatively. It was a couple of metres or so wide and was moving pretty well. ‘How deep is it?’

  Gemma shrugged. ‘Don’t know, but I don’t want to wait around for that guy to catch up. Let’s just jump one at a time. If we get wet, we get wet.’

  ‘I can’t swim,’ Alex said, and Gemma shrugged off her pack.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go first. If it’s too dangerous we’ll find another way. But we can’t muck around.’

  She handed him her bag, checked for the best place, and took a running jump. She landed on all fours on the opposite bank and scrambled to her feet. Alex threw her bag across the gap then his, followed by the Marlin. Gemma waited while he got himself ready to jump, crossing her fingers that he wouldn’t end up in the drink. So far, his experience of the country wasn’t going great.

  ‘You can do it,’ she said, ‘you’ll be fine.’

  He sprinted, leaped and hurtled across the gap with a terrified expression on his face and his arms and legs flying. He landed with all the grace of a drunk, but he was safe and dry.

  He was grinning when he got to his feet, but the grin immediately fell and he muttered, ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘Don’t move, you arseholes,’ a man shouted.

  He stepped out from behind a tree ten metres away, his rifle trained on them. His blue and black hunting top told them who he was.

  ‘Put that gun down,’ he told Gemma, and she did as she was told. ‘Get your hands up.’

  They raised their hands. ‘We were just cutting through,’ she said. ‘We’re trying to get home.’ The rifle looked fearsomely lethal so close up, and the man behind it was angry.

  ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘It’s my property. The last few days, I’ve had pricks stealing my shit, trying to take my cattle, all that. Bad luck for you that you got caught. You’re lucky I didn’t bloody shoot you back up there.’

  ‘We’re not looking for trouble,’ Gemma said, her voice quavering. ‘We’re just trying to get home. My son is waiting for me. They don’t know if we’re even alive.’

  She felt a sudden rush of emotion and her vision blurred. Her cheeks were hot and her heart was racing. They were so close to being home and now this; it was unfairly cruel. The guy sounded like he was just going to shoot them and be done with it.

  The guy paused, considering what she’d said. ‘You tried to kill me,’ he said, as if he was just realising.

  Gemma almost screamed at him. ‘Because you shot at us! What’d you think we’d do, stand there and let you kill us?’

  He jabbed the rifle towards her, slowly advancing a metre or so. ‘Hey, stop yelling at me. You’re trespassing on my property and I’m the one with the gun, remember?’

  Gemma had had enough. She wasn’t going to stand here all day and argue with this idiot. She was tired and sore and scared and just wanted to get home. ‘Then just shoot us, you miserable bastard,’ she shouted. She took a few steps towards him, waving her arms. Tears were running down her cheeks and she was struggling to form words. ‘I’ve had enough of people trying to kill me…you wanna do it, then fuckin’ hurry up and do it.’

  She stopped and dropped her arms, crying properly now. The guy stared at her, confused. Alex stayed where he was, hands still in the air, uncertain what to do. Gemma dropped to her knees, her shoulders shaking as she cried. ‘I’ve had enough,’ she sobbed. ‘I just want to go home.’

  The guy lowered his rifle. ‘Go,’ he said, waving them away. ‘Just go. But don’t come back.’

  Gemma looked up at him through her tears, a background noise registering somewhere in her brain. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  The noise got louder and they all turned to look behind the farmer. A lowered black car was flying down the road towards them.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Alex said, ‘it’s them.’

  Gemma scrambled back towards him, getting her f
ooting and snatching up her bag at the same time. Alex picked up his bag and the Marlin carbine, but was rooted to the spot.

  The farmer stood transfixed, not sure what was going on.

  ‘Run,’ Gemma screamed at them both, ‘run!’

  ***

  Shavaunne saw them up ahead, the two they were chasing and some other guy with a gun. He looked like a hunter.

  Beside her, Dice readied the Winchester shotgun in his big paws. ‘It’s on,’ he grinned, ‘like Donkey Kong.’

  Shavaunne boosted it, closing he gap rapidly, but the hunter guy was raising his gun. The other two were moving. A shot sounded and a bullet cracked the windscreen in front of her.

  ‘Cunt,’ she muttered.

  Dice leaned out his window with the shotgun and it boomed, but the guy didn’t move. Just stood there at the side of the road, fiddling with his gun. The gap was closing. Another shot sounded and the windscreen shattered, glass fragments slicing across their exposed skin.

  Both of them yelped and cursed and Shavaunne rammed her foot to the floor.

  Forty-Six

  Gemma and Alex got across the road into the scrub there, going for the cover of a small copse of trees, as the guy opened fire on the speeding car.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Gemma breathed, turning as the car bore down.

  The farmer was still standing at the side of the road, working the bolt on his rifle, when the Skyline reached him. There was a sickening thump, the last-second screech of tyres, then the farmer was thrown into the air. He went straight up, flipping over as he flew backwards. The car went off the road and became airborne, crossing the creek and smashing into the ground so hard it bounced, landed on two wheels, and flipped sideways onto its roof.

  The farmer hit the ground at the roadside with an ugly crunch, his legs still up in the air and his head and shoulders taking the impact.

  ‘Jesus,’ Gemma said again, her gut dropping through the floor. Nobody could have survived either of those impacts.

  Alex moved forward first, reaching the farmer then reeling back with his hand to his mouth.

  ‘Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod…’ He took two steps then threw up, unable to stop himself. Gemma arrived beside him and stopped, feeling her own stomach clench at the sight. The guy’s head was smashed like a dropped watermelon and was leaking brain matter and blood. The left side of his face was smashed in and that eyeball was popped out, hanging by pink flesh.

  Gemma lost her words and just stepped back, avoiding Alex’s puke, repulsed by what she had seen. Across the creek the car engine was still roaring and the wheels were spinning. She could only imagine what horrors that car contained.

  In the distance she heard another car now, a big engine, coming their way at speed.

  ‘We need to go,’ she said to Alex. ‘Come on.’

  ‘What about him?’ He gestured weakly towards the body of the farmer. ‘We need to help him.’

  ‘We can’t help him, he’s dead.’ She shook him by the arm and pushed him towards the other side of the road. ‘We need to go now.’

  ***

  Pretty sure they were both concussed, Curtis left Shavaunne and Dice lying where he’d dragged them and went back to the overturned Skyline. Not that a concussion would make much difference to Dice, he figured.

  He crouched down and leaned in to turn off the ignition. They were damn lucky to escaped from this wreck with nothing more than cuts and bruises – from what he could see, anyway. The roof was crushed down and it had taken some effort to get Dice out of the passenger seat. Shavaunne had been thrown clear, probably through the windscreen by the look of the cuts on her, and he’d found her lying a few metres away from the car. At least she wouldn’t be so pissed about the bullet holes now.

  He rummaged through the wreck until he found their weapons and ammo, lugged that over to where they were stirring, and gave them each a nudge with his boot.

  ‘Wake up, dickheads,’ he said.

  Shavaunne screwed up her face and looked at him, struggling to focus. ‘What?’

  ‘Was it those two?’ Curtis demanded. ‘Or just that joker?’ He jerked a thumb across the creek towards the corpse at the side of the road.

  ‘Huh?’

  It took several minutes before they had enough of their senses to start talking, and even then Curtis wasn’t convinced they were all there. He got enough out of them to come up with a plan.

  ‘Get in the truck,’ he said. ‘We’re going to that address they left. They’re not there, we’ll waste whoever is, then work our way back towards them. Either way, I’m tired of these fuckers. It’s time to end this.’

  Forty-Seven

  The cut on Gemma’s cheek had stopped bleeding and begun throbbing instead.

  They didn’t have time for first aid just now though, not with bodies behind them and other psychos somewhere close to their tail.

  They had run like hell, crashing through undergrowth without care, copping more scratches and bumps until they reached another paddock and sprinted across it. Fence after fence, through a hedge, across a trickling stream, ignoring the farm track that ran through the property and sticking the safety of the paddocks instead.

  Finally, a farmhouse hove into view.

  They finally stopped, dropping to the ground in a sweaty mess behind the second-to-last wire batten fence to check their surroundings. Gemma struggled to get her breath back as she scanned around, while Alex glugged back water.

  ‘Don’t see anyone,’ she panted. ‘Can’t hear anything.’

  Alex wiped his mouth and put his bottle away. ‘Have a drink before you pass out,’ he said.

  She didn’t argue, and quickly drained a bottle. ‘I’m almost out,’ she said.

  ‘Same.’

  They scanned again, listening intently, and both shrugged. The house was surrounded by a well-maintained garden and neat lawns.

  ‘Old people,’ Gemma said, and Alex nodded.

  ‘Do you want to try there?’ he asked. ‘Maybe see if we could borrow a car or something?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s worth a shot. Hopefully there won’t be an angry farmer like the other guy.’ An image of his shattered head flashed through her mind and she closed her eyes, urging it away. She had the feeling that one was going to be hard to shake. ‘I’ll go first,’ she said. ‘You cover me from here, and if there’s any trouble you better save my arse. We’re too close now to screw it up.’

  She climbed the fence to the dirt track and took that down towards the house, still not seeing or hearing anything. The house was all closed up and she sensed it was empty. No cat or dog came to check out the visitor.

  She went to the back door, staying within view of Alex, and knocked. No reply, and the door was locked. A quick circuit of the house showed that all the windows and doors were secure. She checked through the garage windows and saw a white Honda parked inside. The garage was also locked.

  Gemma returned to the back door again and waved for Alex to come forward. While she waited, she checked under the pot plants and rocks closest to the door. By the time he reached her she had found the spare key.

  ‘We can’t go in,’ Alex said, looking horrified. ‘This is someone’s home.’

  ‘Seriously? After all the shit of the last few days?’ She unlocked the door and pushed it open. ‘Hello? Anyone here?’

  The air smelled musty and stale and of death. Gemma was reminded of when she and Mark had been around to her grandmother’s and found her dead, passed away peacefully in bed. She covered her mouth and nose and went in, Alex hanging back by the door, still not happy about going into someone’s home.

  She found the sole occupant of the house sitting in her armchair in the lounge, a little old lady wearing a dressing gown and slippers. Her skin was waxen and her white hair limp where it fell across her wrinkled forehead.

  Gemma turned away and went back to the door. ‘She’s dead,’ she said. ‘Looks like she passed away a few days ago.’

  Alex closed his eyes for a mo
ment as if passing a silent prayer. ‘Poor thing. I guess there’s nothing we can do for her.’

  ‘Nope. We’ll lock up and put the key back, but I do want to use her car.’

  ‘We can’t do that,’ he protested.

  The argument that ensued took less than a minute and ended with Gemma threatening to leave him behind.

  ‘We can be at my place in ten minutes by car,’ she said finally. ‘Or we carry on walking and risk whoever’s chasing us finding us. Stay if you want, but I’m going.’ She showed him the set of keys she’d found in the kitchen.

  ‘Fine,’ he relented. ‘It just seems wrong.’

  ‘We’ll bring the car back later,’ Gemma told him. ‘But the sooner we’re home, the sooner we’re safe.’

  Forty-Eight

  Little Dog passed the joint to Jake, held the smoke in his lungs as long as he could, and watched his old compadre with half-closed eyes. They were sitting in deck chairs outside the community hall. Pua stood over to the side, alert as ever.

  Aroha had been by earlier and wanted to know what they were up to with all the patches and bikes and what-not. Jake had felt bad when Little Dog sent her on her way, but he was the President and that’s how it was. She needed to learn her place – she couldn’t play the Nan card with the Bandits.

  Jake took a hit and sucked it down.

  ‘Sent two of the boys up town,’ Little Dog said. ‘Gunna get the rest of the boys an’ come down. When Dion gets back with the guns an’ shit we be good to go, my bro.’

  Jake blew smoke and nodded. He passed the joint back to Little Dog. It was just straight weed, nothing too heavy. Just a chill-out after some heavy decision-making. “Up town” meant Papakura, where the pad was. He had no idea how many of the boys would be around to bring back. As if reading his mind, Little Dog gave a lazy grin.

  ‘They gunna swing through Puke too,’ he said. ‘Pick up your bros and nephews an’ that, bring ’em all back down here too.’

  Jake felt himself grin. It would be good to have his blood around him.