This Strange Hell

by C. J. Sutton

  “Who the fuck is Aaron? Cop calls me, and I get nervous, y’know? Figured it had to be you.”

  “I told them my name was Aaron, play along. Aaron was a neighbour, and I doubt that guy survived. He took half a door to the forehead.”

  “You look like a burrito, boss, don’t mind me saying.”

  Mason pulled up a chair and sat alongside a heavily bandaged arm. He stared at the news report, which was still recording live from the remains of Barron Tower.

  “Gotta admit boss, I thought you were done for when I saw the news. Those people jumping from fifty floors up put me off my breakfast.”

  The burned man snorted, and it hurt his nose.

  “Says the man who cuts off people’s fingers for a fucking living. What are you doing about Brady?”

  Mason used the remote to turn up the television, reaching a volume that irritated the burned man’s ears.

  “Nobody’s seen him. His face is everywhere and it’s all anyone is talking about. Haven’t seen a manhunt like this since…what was that gangster’s name, the fat one?”

  “We need to lead this chase. Make sure everyone is looking for him.”

  A grainy piece of vision recorded on a mobile phone played on the screen, where a woman entered the blaze and rescued a child and his yapping puppy. This then dissolved into a live interview with the woman, who sported a jagged gash on her cheek. She wept as she told the cameras about the child now being without a family.

  “Brady could be anywhere by now. He could be interstate for all we know,” said Mason, assessing his own fingers. “How the fuck did you let the press know? You can barely move your head.”

  The burned man’s face was in the direct line of sight to the television, but he’d been watching this same telecast since his eyes opened after the blaze. All this did was make him fidgety.

  “That prick down at Channel Six has a hard on for me. I gave him all the details he needed. The funny thing is, he’s done more about this than you have. You’re supposed to be my second-in-command, Mase. My signal to you was getting Brady’s fucking head on every screen in the country. Here you are, a day late, checking out your manicure and watching news reports! Find Brady’s family. I want addresses. Someone must know where this prick is. People can’t hide anymore.”

  Mason shrugged, and the burned man saw red. This upstart thought he was now in charge of a multi-million-dollar drug syndicate that controlled Melbourne’s underworld? He wiggled his fingers, lifted his knees and shook his head.

  “Easy there, boss. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “Shut the fuck up. I’m going to be out of here soon, and when I am, I swear to fucking God heads will roll if there are no leads on Brady’s whereabouts.”

  “I dunno,” scoffed Mason. “You look pretty stuck.”

  With drugs removing much of the pain, the burned man broke his right arm free of the support beam and found a grasp around Mason’s neck. His skin seared with heat, but his fingers dug into throat and he felt the intricate tubes within. Mason didn’t fight, and the burned man stopped.

  “The doctor will let me out when I tell him to let me out. I’ve got a cop I can use as long as she doesn’t know who I am. You better be ready.”

  The nurse entered with a tray of food and noticed the burned man’s arm had broken free.

  “Progress,” she smiled. “We can feed you by mouth now, if you’re feeling up to it.”

  “Of course, Jennifer. Mason was just leaving.”

  The second-in-command nervously rose, fearful of the man in the bandages. And the burned man felt in control once more. No drug was as satisfying as power.

  “Mason, I’ll be watching,” he said, nodding at the television.

  As the nurse removed the bandage covering the burned man’s face, the rescued child spoke to reporters on the screen. He did not cry. There was a flicker of hate in his young eye, and the burned man knew that once the grieving was complete this would be the eye of every person in Melbourne. They would march through the city, the suburbs, the towns and beyond with pitchforks and flames to find Brady Lockhart for a public hanging. The man’s life now depended on who would find him first, not when.

  “Do you think they’ll catch him?” asked Jennifer, a small pink tattoo sneaking a peak out of her sleeve. The burned man looked to her. He saw the slight wince as she took in the parts of his skin now open to air. He liked this.

  “You can’t disappear from the world anymore. It’s as though all the hiding spots have been found. Everyone has a camera in their pocket. Soon enough Brady will lift his head for air.”

  She nodded her innocent, snow-like features and continued watching the live feed. And the burned man watched her; the way her jaw muscles tensed when Brady Lockhart’s face appeared on screen.

  The doctor walked in, no longer flanked by his cop daughter. His serious face was known to the nurse, and she left the room with the food still sitting on the bedside table.

  “Time to remove all these bandages. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

  One Step Back

  The suited man ran from the smouldering building. This time it chased him, a giant machine driven by a frightful face. Limp bodies were tossed towards him like grenades on a battlefield, bursting into guts and showering the suited man in blood. And the blood sizzled his skin. Soon he was a suited skeleton dashing through the alleys of Melbourne’s Central Business District. The giant machine-tower followed. It didn’t swerve, it didn’t fear; it smashed through all other buildings and aimed for its target. Blocking out the light of the moon, Barron Tower fell in the suited man’s direction…

  He sat up with a jolt, wet and hot, as flies buzzed around his face. The white sheets stuck to his bare skin. The only pieces of clothing remaining were the two pairs of underwear purchased from a balding kid in a town he’s not sure existed. Spots of dried blood were everywhere, with more flies examining the scene like homicide detectives.

  The light shining through the window took a moment of adjustment. The man had no idea where he was. This was not a hospital. His clothes were hanging from a chair opposite the single bed, cleaned and crisply ironed. His head throbbed and felt double in size. The man swung his feet out of the bed groggily and found a bedside mirror. He gasped.

  His eyelids looked like giant clams protecting a pearl within. His forehead was bandaged, and blood had soaked through to form a red cloud on a white backdrop. His jaw clicked as he opened his mouth, another tooth missing. His nose bent at an obscure angle and was puffed. And the colouring of his skin around the wounds had become a blueish purple, resembling a port-wine stain. The man felt exposed, so he put on his clothes and found a toilet. The piss lasted four minutes. He then stepped out onto the veranda.

  The view in morning light was refreshing. Green mountains were the backdrop, dipping and rising like the path of a rollercoaster. All land was covered in leafy trees to block out the seeing eyes of the world. There were clusters of banksias to the left and a paddock with cows and sheep to the right, all grass maintained below the ankle. Cool air brushed against the man’s face and lowered the temperature caused by the wounds, and for a fleeting second this haven seemed like paradise. The man questioned whether he had died, then heard an approaching creak of floorboards behind him.

  The burning building.

  Bruce the truck driver, the knife and the news report.

  Brady Lockhart. Brady Lockhart. Brady Lockhart. A cursed name.

  Sharon and the mini-van. Billy Corden. Mick Thomas.

  Sulley Ridge.

  Little Sammy Pritchard seated on the logs.

  The Ginger Bastard.

  Local ale.

  The old man Wallace Randall.

  You need to fight. You need to fight. Get hit.

  More local ale.

  The fists and feet of Mick Thomas.

  The blur…

  A chilling touch, a gunshot. A woman’s voice.

  “Excuse me, sir?” said a chirpy tone, adding t
o the serene scene before the man.

  “You need to sit and have this.”

  The man turned to see a woman handing him a glass of fizzing orange liquid and two pills. He accepted and nodded despite the beating in his head.

  “Thanks…”

  “Lilly.”

  “Thanks, Lilly,” said the man, swallowing the pills followed by the full glass of liquid. He realised he could’ve had three more glasses.

  “Last night really got me, hey,” he said, feeling awkward standing next to this woman with her hair in a bun and an apron covered in flour. Her skin was bronze, a life of time out in the sun.

  “You’ve been in and out of it the last three days. I think you mean Saturday night. Today is Tuesday.”

  The man was shocked to realise how much time he had missed. Was his face still circulating every screen in the country? Did Mick Thomas want to finish the job?

  “My old man brought you here. You were unconscious. This is our house, basically serves as a clinic of late. I’m a nurse,” she continued, as though to explain her presence.

  “Wallace?” asked the man, remembering the bushy old fellow he had made multiple deals with. He swatted a fly on his face, wincing at the pain on connection.

  “That’s him. He’ll be back soon.”

  They stood on the veranda looking out at the rays of light brightening the crops and showering the animals in heat. Lilly’s brown hair curled in ringlets, a stamp of innocence in Sulley Ridge. Her eyes rested on a grazing cow.

  “Dad told me who you are,” she said, less chirp in this sentence. “He said you’re the man they’re all talking about on the news. He also told me that the wounds are his fault.”

  The man didn’t know what to say. Wallace had either brought him here to keep him hidden, or he was currently fetching police from the closest town to have him locked up. All at once the man tensed up and resumed his cautious state. He squeezed the glass and feared it would break. A pair of magpies landed on the veranda railing, their thick beaks able to cut open a head in one swift swoop. The black and white birds warned the man with beady stares, as though protectors of Lilly and her home.

  “Relax, sir,” said Lilly, pointing to a wooden seat that overlooked the fields. “Sulley Ridge has foul men crawling through the streets nightly. I stitch them up or I hide in my room. I don’t fear you. And I also have a shotgun.”

  Lilly walked away, her skirt and black top also covered in flour from behind. She moved care free, and the man believed her when she said she didn’t fear him. You do not turn your back on someone you fear. As he assessed this gesture, she picked up a copy of Gone Girl and removed the bookmark, nestling into a rocking chair. He knew that book well.

  The roar of an engine and the crackle of tyres on gravel alerted the man. He ducked beneath a hanging plant and peered at the black car, which moved with force up the driveway. Only one head was within, and despite the swirling dust the man could see Wallace Randall.

  “Ah!” he yelled, the engine still running as he stuck his head out the window. “You’re finally up, you soft cock. Look like a busted arsehole. Come over here.”

  The man took a deep breath, expecting a parade of cars to rattle down the driveway. But nothing else happened. He stepped off the veranda, walked past colourful garden beds growing tomatoes and sunflowers, and watched the old man get out of the Ford Falcon.

  “Jesus, she given you any cream for that?” asked Wallace, wincing at the sight. “I said take a beating, and damn you took a beating. Not even your own mother would recognise that face.”

  “Probably worked then,” said the man, his throat barely opening enough to do so.

  “So, what do you think?” said Wallace, whacking the bonnet of the car.

  The man analysed the Ford Falcon XR6, guessing it was an early 2000s model. He noted that white paint scratches were clear across the doors, the tyres were as bare as Billy Corden’s balls and the engine had a clear run.

  “This is perfect,” he said, more to himself.

  “Four thousand.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Boy, this car that has a bit of juice and blends in with most other pricks around town. You’re paying for the ride, my fee in getting the ride and the ability of the ride to keep you insignificant.”

  “Very well,” said the man, as a cold chill split through his spine. His backpack. He hadn’t seen it since waking up…just under one million dollars free of his grasp.

  “Relax, Greg,” said Wallace, as if reading his mind. “Your belongings are in the back, untouched. I’m not that sort of bloke. Now, let’s go.”

  “Where?” he asked, eager to check the contents.

  “You wanted a car, and you wanted a home. My car is at your joint, so would you give this old bastard a lift? I ain’t walking.”

  The man nodded, still wondering if this was part of an elaborate plan to catch him in the net. Was Lilly calling the police? The man entered the Falcon – the name he had decided to attach to his car – and the strong smell of mint found a way through his destroyed nose. Unlike the city, the man didn’t have to check his mirrors to swing a reverse and leave Lilly and Wallace’s sanctuary in the background. Cattle moved freely before him and slowed down to avoid death.

  “What have I missed?” asked the man, trying to open his swelled eyelids wider to see all before him. The flies had followed him within.

  “The hunt continues. I think they’re more concerned with finding you than respecting the fallen if I’m completely honest. And that’s probably because despite the fact the nation looks for you, they can’t find you. Someone who hides that well looks both guilty and dangerous. You’re on some video footage outside a kebab shop that night, stealing a jacket.”

  “Any news on how my name got out there?”

  The old man shook his head.

  “No, not yet. The camera crew is parked outside your sister’s house though. People have graffitied some pretty bad shit on the driveway, tossed eggs and rocks at windows—”

  “Enough,” said the man, stepping on the pedal and zooming away from the cattle. He swerved onto the road.

  “Other way,” said Wallace, and the man spun so quickly that the old man whacked his head on the glass.

  “Put your seatbelt on,” said the man. He was gripping the steering wheel so tight after the mention of his sister that his knuckles looked like icebergs in a blue sea.

  “Five minutes up the road, turn left at the sign that says Randall.”

  They continued in silence. The man didn’t want to hear any more about his sister in fear of doing something stupid. He knew Cassie was tough, tougher than he and most others he’d met. But when the public wanted answers they would string up a kitten to find the cat.

  “Fucking flies, they’re wearing me thin.”

  The trees provided shade to the black car as the sun continued to rise, blasting yellow lines through each gap in leaf and trunk. They hadn’t seen another soul since leaving Lilly. The man saw the Randall sign up ahead, an old post with a log etching. He turned onto the dirt track and followed the driveway up to a single-storey house surrounded by knee-high grass. In the distance he could see another house, and then another further off. But that was where civilisation ended. Behind there were mountains, and ahead there were trees as old as time. It would take a low flying helicopter or a person willing to drive through the heart of Sulley Ridge to spot this location, and even then, they wouldn’t bother searching this humble abode.

  The man stopped the car and they evacuated. The old man’s ute was parked on the other side of the wooden fencing.

  “Do you remember your name?” asked the old man, shielding the sun with a shaking hand.

  “Greg McDonald from Kalamunda.”

  “Good, but I’m a bit concerned. If you go back to your man-bun hipster shit, does Greg really fit?”

  “Takes a while to grow,” said the man, barely paying attention as he kicked a soup can away from his tyre. He withdrew the ba
ckpack and counted out four thousand dollars, handing cash to Wallace.

  “How much for the house?”

  “Two hundred per day.”

  The man knew Wallace was driving a hard bargain. But he also knew the laws of the land were to negotiate in some way, because what was to stop the old codger from asking for five hundred per day next?

  “One fifty a day, and I’ll pay two weeks in advance.”

  The old man sucked on his teeth and considered this, then smiled widely.

  “Agreed. You may not even last the week, so that’s a strong investment for me.”

  They walked up the steps of the veranda and Wallace produced a key. The man accepted and turned the knob.

  “People lock their doors here. Not common in the country, but with Siphon and his gang out and about you’ve gotta entertain all precautions.”

  “Who’s Siphon?”

  “Ha! Forgot you were out of it on Saturday night.”

  The old man moved through the home carefully, as though afraid he would step on something valuable. He pulled two beers from the fridge and offered one to the man. As he swigged, Wallace spoke. His face turned grim.

  “Sulley Ridge was a quiet town. We had a doctor’s clinic, a school, a police station and honest people. That’s all gone now. Siphon, Hayes and the rest of their crew started buying property, then many of the men who were once hard workers and caring husbands would disappear for days on end. When they returned, they’d be sporting cuts and bruises with half the money they had before. Some didn’t even have clothes. The local cops, they tried. But they became targets and some incidents caused them to relocate. It wasn’t safe for children. Mothers left husbands to take their young to schools in other towns. Siphon attracted these men with money. Fight clubs, gambling, drugs, animal sport, prostitution and, well, you can imagine. We’ve been labelled a lawless land, but not in a tourist kind of way.”

  They drank their morning beers as the rays of light revealed the dust floating throughout the house. It needed a clean and the furniture was stiff. But the man appreciated the place, his own world away from the one that wanted him beaten. The main lounge and the kitchen were parallel, both wide spaces with too much room for a single man. A long hallway began where these rooms ended, branching off into bedrooms, bathrooms, a study and a miniature greenhouse. The man noticed Wallace looking about the room, as if trying to picture something long gone. The man withdrew his two-week payment and handed it to his landlord, but the old man was distant.