by Mark Mann
Or what? I try not to think about that. Be positive. In my mind I run through the plan for tonight’s raid on Blaster’s. Hiding downstairs. Sneaking past Blaster. But I remember what Blaster did to the security guard, Frankie, and it’s hard to be positive.
I try to clear my mind by focusing on my breathing. It sort of works.
***
It’s late afternoon and the sun is low when Noah and Jack come back from Blaster’s. Jack looks like he’s in shock. His face is a ghostly white and he can hardly speak. Even Noah looks nervous. He says there are two hand grenades inside his backpack. One for Jack to throw into the Spiders’ headquarters, and one for Noah, to get anyone who chases Jack out of the gate. That’s what Blaster meant when he said Noah would have an extra little gift.
We all feel pretty spooked. Noah says the hand grenades can’t go off unless you pull out the pin, but what if one of them is faulty? Or maybe they’re booby-trapped? What if there’s no Spiders party and the grenades are meant to take us out? Noah says he wouldn’t put that past Blaster.
Just in case, Noah leaves the pack outside in the yard.
Noah’s plan is to let off the bombs in an abandoned house near the Spiders’ base, for two reasons. Firstly, Blaster will expect to hear the explosions from that direction. Secondly, the blast will bring the Spiders crew out onto the streets to investigate. Noah reckons Blaster will have some of his men up there to finish off any survivors. With luck they’ll get into a fight, which will distract Blaster’s men while we’re trying to get across town on our way to the Stone Gate.
Noah turns to Sara and me. “Blaster will find out pretty quickly Jack didn’t blow up the Spiders’ headquarters,” Noah says. “He’ll realise we’re up to something. So you need to be out of Blaster’s place before the bomb goes off.”
Which means the clock is ticking.
Jack is meant to detonate the bomb at seven o’clock. It’s six now. We’ve got an hour to get to Blaster’s, get the crystal and get out. Then we’ll have an hour and a half to get up to the Stone Gate before the portal opens.
The timing is tight. Too tight for my liking. For a start it takes an hour to get up to the Stone Gate. In theory we’ll just make it—as long as nothing goes wrong.
“Okay, time to go. Meet us back here as soon as you’re out of Blaster’s,” Noah says.
Noah looks down at his pack, with the hand grenades in it.
“In a few hours we’ll be out of Baytown forever. Who knows where we’ll end up. And all because of your crazy story. Alternative realities? It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. Yet we must believe you or we wouldn’t be doing this.”
“It’s not too late to pull out,” I say. “You don’t have to do this for us.”
“No,” Sara replies. “It is too late. Like we said, this is Blaster’s test for Noah. If we stay here we’ll be sucked into Blaster’s world. Turned into his killing machines. Whatever future we’ve got in Baytown is not worth having. It’s time for us to leave.”
Noah taps his watch.
“We’re wasting time,” he says. “You’ve got to get to Blaster’s now.”
***
Sara and I walk out of the gate. The sunset sky is pink and orange. I catch Sara’s eye.
“You okay?” she asks. I nod, but I’m not okay. I feel light-headed. The short walk to Blaster’s seems to take twice as long as normal. It’s as if the streets are covered with glue, sticking my feet to the road, making each step a struggle. I tell myself to fight it.
One last effort.
Sara, perhaps preoccupied with her own thoughts, doesn’t seem to notice I’m struggling. That’s a good sign. It means I must be walking normally, even if it doesn’t feel like it from the inside. Maybe I’m just nervous.
We reach Blaster’s front gate.
“Ready?” Sara asks.
“No. But let’s do it.”
“Okay. Remember, once I press the buzzer we can’t talk. I can’t even look at you. It has to look like I’m on my own.”
Sara presses the buzzer and gives a little wave into the security camera. The gate unlocks with a sharp click. Sara pushes it open and we walk through the yard and get buzzed in at the front door of the house.
Inside, the downstairs corridor is flooded with water and we walk across the raised planks. There’s my door. I open it and slip inside. I’m to wait here until I hear Sara sing. That will be my signal that it’s safe to go upstairs. (Safe, in this case, being a relative term.)
I glance around. I’m in some sort of store room. The floor is covered with sandbags, with murky water seeping around their edges. It smells damp. It’s full of old furniture and boxes piled on top of the sandbags. I stand on a sandbag just inside the door and listen.
I hear Sara’s footsteps, climbing the stairs. Then Blaster’s voice. “... I wasn’t expectin’ to see you tonight,” he says. But he sounds relaxed, not annoyed. Then I hear Sara, saying how she just wanted to see Blaster. Sounding all casual.
I strain to hear. Blaster says something. I can’t make it out. I listen for other voices. I can’t hear anyone else. My mind is racing. Surely Sara wouldn’t be talking like that if someone else was in the room? But there must be a guard in the control room, unless Blaster buzzed us—Sara—in himself. But then Blaster wouldn’t have been surprised to see Sara, so there must be a guard.
Sara and Blaster are still talking but I can only make out the odd word. Blaster saying, “... teach ‘em to mess with me ...” and “... the boys will finish off any survivors ...” and so on. And Sara talking about relaxing and taking his mind off things for a while. Flirting.
Suddenly there’s a rustle next to me. It startles me. But it’s only a rat, scurrying for cover. I don’t mind rats. They get a bad press. I can feel the room spinning slightly. I blink and tell myself to fight it. I’m not going to faint. Not now. I can’t afford to. But Sara had better hurry up.
Now there’s the sound of footsteps in the upstairs corridor. Sara is talking to someone else. It must be the guard. Her voice sounds louder so I guess she’s out in the corridor rather than in a room. “Blaster and I just need a little privacy,” she’s saying. I imagine her giving the guard one of her winning smiles. I hear a door shut. Then a silence that seems to last forever.
Then I hear it. Sara singing.
“You’ve got the love I need ...” I don’t recognise the song. It probably doesn’t exist in my world.
The singing stops. I keep listening for a moment just to be sure (or maybe because I’m scared). Now everything is quiet. All I can hear is my heart thumping. I tiptoe out of the room and start to climb the stairs. A stair creaks and I freeze. I can hear Blaster and Sara’s voices but they sound faint and muffled. I can hear laughter. Otherwise, nothing. Slowly, gently, I start to climb again.
At the top of the stairs there’s another long corridor with five doors. They’re all shut. On the left are the guard’s room and Blaster’s room. On the right there’s the main living room, where Blaster and his men hang out and watch television. Then there’s a bathroom. Then, at the far end of the corridor, the office.
The crystal is in the safe in the office.
I edge forward. I’m totally exposed now. If Blaster or the guard come out of their rooms I have nowhere to hide. I need to move quickly, but quietly. The door to the guard’s room is slightly ajar and I can see the back of the guard’s shaved head through the narrow opening. He’s sitting in front of three television screens showing images from the security cameras. I hold my breath and step past the door.
I’m outside Blaster’s room now.
Boom!
Jack’s hand grenade! It must be. Noah must have detonated it. Then there’s another blast. The second hand grenade.
But it’s too soon. Sara and I should have been out of Blaster’s place before the hand grenades went off. Has Noah set them off early? Or are we behind schedule?
Things will kick off now. Any moment now one of Blaster’s men wi
ll call Blaster and tell him the hand grenades didn’t destroy the Spiders’ headquarters. And then Blaster will know ... so we need to be out of the house before that happens. In any case, Blaster will have heard the explosions. Will he stay in the bedroom with Sara, or come out to take control of operations?
Inside the bedroom, I can hear Blaster laugh. Sara speaks too, but too softly for me to make out what she’s saying. I take two more steps and I’m outside the office door. I turn the handle. The door swings open. I take two more quick steps across the room to the safe. I kneel down and turn the dial on the lock. My hands are shaking.
Sara has given me the combination.
5-0-9-7-6-6.
Click.
The door springs open. Inside are piles of bank notes, envelopes, some guns and a box. I open the box. It’s stuffed with rings, necklaces and so on. Gold, silver, diamonds.
Then a familiar shimmer catches my eye.
My necklace. With the maala crystal!
I stuff the necklace into my pocket. The combination has to be reset to keep the door shut so Blaster doesn’t notice. I begin to turn the dial through the numbers.
5-0 ...
A voice in my head is telling me to forget the safe and run, but for some reason I can’t tear myself away. I can hear Blaster’s voice from the other room. Any moment now, Sara and Blaster will walk out into the corridor. Sara will—at least, this is the plan—kiss Blaster goodbye and head down the stairs. By which time I need to be down there waiting for her.
9-7 ...
I’m starting to panic. My hands are shaking. This only makes it harder to work the dial on the safe. We must have been mad to think we could walk into Blaster’s house and steal the crystal from right under his nose. But what other choice did we have? We need the crystal.
I can hear Sara saying goodbye. I have to get out before Sara opens the door. I abandon the safe and run towards the door of the office. Behind me, the safe door swings open.
As it does so, the hinges squeak.
“What was that?” Blaster’s voice. Then the sound of a door opening.
The door to the corridor. I’m too late. Blaster is in the corridor. I’m trapped inside the office.
I look around frantically, wondering what to do. But before I can think of a plan the door flies open. And there, towering over me, blocking my escape, is Blaster.
We gape at each other in shock.
“What the bloody hell ...” Blaster bellows. His face turns red with rage. He grabs my throat with one of his giant hands and pushes me back into the room, lifting me almost off the ground. I can’t breathe. I paw at Blaster’s arms, trying to break free, but I might as well be a fly for all the impression I make on Blaster’s granite forearms.
“Rip me off? Think you can outsmart me?” Blaster roars, pressing his face right into mine. I can feel his grip tightening around my neck. He’s choking me. I can’t breathe.
I feel the room spin. I’m starting to black out.
I’m fighting for air. It hurts.
Everything is fading.
I can’t breathe.
All of a sudden, Blaster’s grip relaxes and he slumps forward on top of me.
Blaster’s weight sends me tumbling backwards. I hit the ground with a thud. Blaster’s limp body falls on top of me and pins me to the floor. I gasp and suck down some air. I feel something wet running across my forehead, trickling into my eyes. I wipe it away and see my hand is covered in blood.
Then, above me, over Blaster’s shoulder, I see Sara. She’s holding a baseball bat.
And behind Sara in the doorway ...
“Look out,” I scream. Sara spins around, bringing the baseball bat with her in a fast wide circle that connects flush on the security guard’s jaw. He’s unconscious long before he hits the ground.
It takes both of us to roll Blaster’s giant body off me. Blood is oozing from the back of his head. He groans as he thumps onto the ground. So he’s still alive. Sara looks down at Blaster for a moment and hesitates.
“Have you got your crystal?” she asks. I nod.
“Good, let’s get out of here before he wakes up.”
We race down the stairs, across the planks in the downstairs corridor and out of the front door, then through the front garden. Sara grips my hand.
“Can you run?”
I nod. My neck hurts where Blaster grabbed it. I’m collecting bruises like they’re going out of fashion. We run out of the front gate into the street.
“Oi!”
It’s Blaster, at the front gate. His shaved scalp is streaked with blood.
“You devious bitches. No one steals from me. No one! Not even you Sara. You’re dead! Do you hear me? Both of you.”
“Good to see he’s okay,” Sara mutters. She tugs me into an alleyway. We can still hear Blaster, but his voice is fading. He doesn’t appear to be chasing us. Maybe it’s the blow to his head, or maybe he’s afraid to go outside. Agoraphobia, Noah called it. Funny to think of someone like Blaster being scared like that.
We emerge from the alleyway onto another deserted street.
“Hey, Sara.”
A man blocks our way. He too has cropped hair and arms covered in tattoos. He looks at us curiously.
“I just got a call from Blaster. Sounded pretty upset about something. Told me to find you and ...”
Sara doesn’t skip a beat.
“Yeah, Jez. Blaster’s injured. Fell on some glass. Freak accident. But he’s cut bad. Really bad. I think he’s severed an artery. Look.” Sara holds up her hands, red with Blaster’s blood. “We tried to stop the bleeding. Terry’s still with him, but we need a doctor. Fast. We’ll try the Baytown doctors. You try North Bay surgery.”
Jez looks confused. “No. Blaster said ... bring you to him.”
“No, he said bring a doctor to him. This is serious Jez. We’ve got to act fast. Blaster could die. For heaven’s sake, get moving!”
Sara starts running again, pulling me with her.
Jez hesitates, not sure if he should grab Sara or do what she says. Then he makes up his mind. He starts running in the opposite direction. Suddenly, Sara stops.
“Hey Jez, wait.”
The man stops.
“Go to 230 Concord Street,” Sara calls out. “Jana. She’s a nurse. Try her first. She’s closer.”
Jez nods again and sets off again at full pace. I look back in time to see him disappear round the corner.
“Hey, nice work. He totally bought it,” I say. I’m impressed.
“Thanks,” Sara says. “It’s lucky for us that most of Blaster’s boys aren’t too bright. He could have just phoned Blaster to check.”
We sprint the remaining few blocks back to Noah and Sara’s house. A few people glance up as we run by but no one challenges us.
I struggle for breath. I’m running on empty.
Just one more hour. That’s all I need.
We’re almost back at the house.
“Sara. Kaya. Over here.”
We spin around to see Noah and Jack hiding in an alley.
“Blaster’s men are at the house already,” Noah says. “Turning it over. We heard them coming and got out the back. We need to go.”
“What about our stuff?” Sara asks.
“I got the knife and one of the packs. We’ll have to forget the rest. Quick, this way.”
We start to run. The alleyway goes between two houses and comes out in the next street. We keep running until we’ve put five or six streets between us and the house. Noah pauses.
“Did you get it?”
“Yeah.” I feel in my pocket for the crystal, just to be sure.
“And ... how are you feeling?”
“Good,” I say. Suddenly I do feel better.
“Blaster’s men were round pretty quick,” Noah says. “I thought something must have gone wrong.”
“He caught us,” Sara says. “I’ll tell you later. Let’s just say I’m not Blaster’s favourite girl any more. Not since
I reshaped his head with a baseball bat.”
“Is he still alive?”
“‘Yeah, unfortunately. I should have finished him off but ... I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“Blaster’s boys will be crawling the streets looking for us,” Noah says. He points to the moon. “It’s half past seven. We’ve got an hour to get to the High Plateau.”
The moon sits just above the houses. It looks yellow and big, the way a full moon does when it’s still low in the sky. High above us the electric lights of the Fortress begin to glow, like a hilltop castle in a fairytale. People shuffle past us with their hoods up and eyes down, hurrying home to safety before night sets in. The low moon gives them long shadows.
Each time we come to a new road, Noah scans the street carefully.
“Avoid anyone who doesn’t look scared,” he says. “Most people keep their heads down at night, but Blaster’s men walk around like they own the place. The Spiders are the same.”
Noah waves us forward. “Walk slowly. Hoods up and avoid eye contact,” he says.
We cross Ocean Road. A car speeds by and screeches round a corner. Then a group of men run past us. We turn down a side street. We can hear more cars. And shouting. Then a series of sharp cracks.
“Sounds like gunfire,” Noah says. “Things must be kicking off between Bad Boyz and the Spiders.”
That’s good. That’s what we’d hoped for. The more Blaster’s men are distracted, the less time they’ll have to look for us. But then Noah stops.
“Those are Blaster’s men ahead,” he whispers. “Turn round slowly and go left.” I lift my hood a faction and peek ahead. Three men are standing in the middle of the road. They’re staring at us. Now they’re coming towards us.
“Shit, they’ve recognised us,” Noah says. “Run.”
He sprints down an alleyway. The rest of us follow. My legs feel like they’re made of stone. I can’t keep up. Blaster’s men are about thirty metres away, getting closer.
“This way,” Noah says, pointing to another alley. The men are so close I can hear them puffing as they run. They’re big men, built for power not speed.
“Oi, Sara, Noah,” one of the men puffs.
We burst out of the lane into another street and run straight into a gang of about a dozen men. Men with shaved hair and spider web tattoos on their foreheads.
The men look up in surprise just as Blaster’s men emerge from the alley.
