by Greg McLean
Alone again, Jewel felt scared, torn up about Amber and Matt’s fate, but she was again starting to push the emotions away, in favour of dealing with the immediate fight to survive. They had some weapons, they had a plan. She prayed to god Cindy could make it work.
By the time Mick stepped out of the mine shaft with the blonde slung across his back, the rain had eased to a mere dribble.
He looked up at the night sky and frowned.
‘Ah well, it was good while it lasted,’ he said, and the girl groaned.
She’d woken a short time ago but was still groggy. He’d make her wake up properly soon enough.
He trudged through the muddy ground towards the main shed.
Inside, he dumped the girl on the floor near the drum that still contained remnants from the fire. He stretched his back and shoulder muscles. He thought about what he’d need next. In the back room, he had coils of rope and a bunch of tools: a pair of pliers, a hacksaw, a monkey wrench and a hammer. Yeah, he had special plans for his captives. His pants tightened at the thought of the fun he would have.
Just had one more of ’em to find, and then he’d be gold. Where was that Yank bitch hiding?
He went to the back room to get the stuff, but stopped at the doorway. He was sure he’d left the light on. And could he smell . . . sweat?
Mick reached over to the light switch and flicked it on.
He froze at the sight of the large handgun pointed at his face. His johnson sagged.
‘Drop your rifle,’ the Yank woman said.
The revolver’s barrel was long and silver – the gun looked like a Magnum, perhaps a .44.
‘Come on, put that down,’ Mick said, seeing she had the hammer cocked. ‘You won’t shoot me.’
The woman placed her finger on the trigger. ‘Wanna bet?’
Mick drew in breath. There were certainly rounds in the chamber. Shit. Where the hell did she get that fucken thing?
‘Steve was a soldier, remember? He taught me how to shoot. I won’t hesitate in putting a bullet through your face.’
Mick recalled that she had, in fact, been the best shot out of the group. Not exactly at sniper level, but she wasn’t bullshitting: this woman knew how to shoot. And she had a finger on the trigger of a loaded gun pointed at him.
The question was: could she kill?
Mick placed the rifle carefully down on the table and straightened up. The woman reached out and picked up the gun without her aim wavering or taking her eyes off him.
Mick licked his unusually dry lips. Tasted fresh rain.
The woman shouldered the rifle and nodded to him to back out of the room. ‘Let Jewel out.’
How did she know about that? Shit, where had she been hiding?
Figuring it was best to do as she asked – at least for the time being – Mick turned around and walked out of the office and over to the workbench. He could feel the barrel of the revolver pointed at him, boring into his skull.
The woman gasped at the sight of the little blonde slumped on the floor. ‘Amber! Honey, are you okay?’
‘She’s peachy,’ Mick said.
‘Shut up!’
Amber didn’t move, said nothing. Mick stopped at the bench.
‘Okay, move it and let Jewel out.’
Mick sighed, gave her a salute, then pushed away the heavy bench, uncovering the manhole. He bent down and gripped the cover. He paused. He wondered whether he could manage to swing the heavy concrete cover and knock the woman out before she pulled the trigger.
The Yank seemed to read his thoughts. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
‘Think about what? I was just going to pull the fucken thing up. If you don’t want me to —’
‘Cut the games. Just let her out.’
Mick lifted the cover and put it down next to the hole.
‘Move aside,’ the Yank ordered.
Mick stepped away from the bench and watched as the girl with the short hair climbed out of the hole. She was covered with muck, looking a little worse for wear.
‘Fucker,’ she spat at Mick.
The Yank handed her his rifle. The pretty girl took it and held it like she was holding a snake.
Mick could tell she wasn’t used to holding firearms. And she hadn’t taken part in the shooting the other day. This was promising. She wouldn’t know how to use a bolt action.
That meant he only had the Yank to worry about.
‘Look, ladies, I think this has all been a misunderstanding.’
The Yank straightened her aim of the Magnum at Mick, a finger twitching against the trigger. He could tell she was getting more anxious the longer this went on. Her eyes blinked rapidly. ‘I’m going to ask you two questions,’ she said. ‘Answer them both truthfully and I might let you live.’
‘You’re a tough broad, ain’t ya? You ever think about signin’ up for the army? They could really use you in ’Nam.’
‘Shut up!’ she screamed.
Mick put his hands in the air. ‘Okay, okay. Just relax.’
‘Jewel, see how Amber is. Make sure she’s okay.’
The short-haired girl darted over to her filthy friend. She fell to her knees and looked the blonde over. ‘Her ankle is hurt. I think it’s twisted.’
‘But other than that?’
‘She seems okay.’
The Yank glared at Mick. ‘First question: where are the keys to your truck?’
‘They’re in the office.’
The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’d better not be bullshitting me.’
‘I swear. They’re hanging up on a key rack in the office. I can get ’em if you like.’
‘Stay where you are. Jewel, go and see if the keys are there.’
The little diamond rushed into the office. She came back a few moments later. ‘Got them.’
‘Good,’ the Yank said and then addressed Mick again. ‘Okay, second question.’ There was a pause as her lips began to tremble. ‘Where is Steve?’
Mick grinned. ‘Ah, Stevey. You’re hoping he might still be alive.’
It was clear the woman was fighting hard to not cry. ‘Where is he?’
Mick tipped his head towards the manhole. ‘Down there.’
‘That’s crap,’ the shorthaired girl said, firmly. ‘There’s no one down there.’
‘Don’t you lie to me!’ the Yank bellowed at Mick. Her firing hand started to shake.
Shit, Mick thought. He had to find a way out of this, and fast. ‘I ain’t bullshittin’ ya. He’s down there. He’s hurt pretty bad, but like I said earlier, he was alive when I left him about an hour ago.’
‘There’s just a pit down there,’ the girl said.
‘There’s tunnels. Two of ’em. I swear. He’s down the one on the right. It leads to a cavern. He followed me down there and we had a fight. I shot at him and hit him three times: once in the shoulder and twice in the legs.’
‘That must have been the shots we heard,’ the girl said.
‘I thought I’d killed him, but as I went to leave, I heard him groaning. I was out of ammo, but I figured he’d die in a few hours. Anyway, he couldn’t walk, so there was no chance of him escaping out of the tunnel. So I left him there.’
Tears finally came and streamed down the American’s face. ‘You’d better not be lying. If you are, God help me, I’ll stick this gun in your crotch and blow off your balls.’
Mick swallowed and felt his nuts shrivel. ‘I ain’t lyin’, promise. He’s down there.’
‘I don’t trust him, Cindy. Why don’t we tie him up and then drive his car out of here to the nearest town?’
The Yank seemed to consider the girl’s suggestion. ‘No,’ she said, after a beat. ‘I can’t just leave Steve down there.’
‘What about him?’ the girl said, pointing at Mick.
‘He can come with us. Don’t worry, he won’t try anything. Will you?’
Mick stared at the Magnum and shook his head.
‘Okay,’ the girl sighed. ‘Amber?’ s
he said, more softly. ‘Will you be okay staying up here?’
There was silence. Then the blonde croaked: ‘I’ll be okay.’
‘Okay, good,’ Cindy said. ‘Let’s go.’
Mick had never been in this position before. He was used to crawling through tunnels, and ones a lot narrower than this one. Tunnels so small that his knees and elbows had been rubbed raw by the time he came out the other end.
But he had never been held prisoner before. Never had two guns behind him, ready to fire if he even so much as farted.
He didn’t much like it.
He hated not being in control, and he didn’t trust the two women. Shooting a person deliberately in the heat of battle was one thing; shooting a person because you forgot to take your finger off the trigger and accidently blew the top off their head when you coughed was another matter entirely.
Hell, it wouldn’t be his head that got blasted – his arse would get the full brunt of the Magnum’s force. A decidedly humiliating way to go.
He couldn’t believe he’d been caught by a woman. The VC couldn’t get him, his platoon couldn’t get him, but a measly woman managed to get the better of him. And a Yank, to boot. Christ, he must be rusty.
‘How much longer?’ the Aussie girl said. ‘Feels like we’ve been crawling for hours.’
‘Not much further,’ Mick said. ‘Hey, Cindy?’
‘What?’
‘If we get there and Steve has, you know, perished, no hard feelings, okay? I shot him in self-defence. I didn’t kill him on purpose, remember that.’
‘We’ll just see when we get there.’
Yep, they’d see alright.
21
Vietnam
March 1967
The day before E Company are to go into the Nui Dinh Mountains, Mick walks past the empty mess and sees Sarge, Patto, Jacko and Sluggo sitting at one of the tables. They appear to be deep in discussion.
Rather than walk in and see what’s going on, Mick remains outside and watches them. There’s something especially private about the meeting, the way they are all hunched and talking softly. Whatever it is they’re talking about, it’s serious and apparently just between the four of them.
Finally the men separate and as they leave, all looking solemn, Mick moves away, his mind deep in thought.
22
Western Australia
February 1968
The rifle was slippery in Jewel’s hand. She hated holding it. She disliked guns, period, but this was worse: this was his gun. Mick had shot Steve, Duncan and Matt with this gun, and who knows how many others.
And what kind of hellish place was this underground complex of pits and tunnels? Liquefied human remains and a few bloated corpses barely recognisable as humans . . . this dark, foul mine was the gut-wrenching scene of unknown horrors. He had told them that the bodies in the pit weren’t his work, that they were the previous occupant’s victims, but she wasn’t convinced.
Jewel just wanted to leave. She didn’t care about Steve. She wanted out. She wanted to take Mick’s car and drive to the nearest town, call the police, and be done with it all. She wanted to down a bottle of whisky and forget about everything she had seen. Try to take away the rotten taste that was thick and sour in her mouth.
Instead, she was crawling through this godforsaken tunnel, descending deeper into a giant pit that was once a mining site, but was now the hellish home to some kind of Satan.
Finally, in the glow of the torchlight, Jewel saw the wide mouth leading out of the tunnel. She couldn’t get there quick enough.
Once Mick and Cindy scrambled out ahead of her, Jewel jumped down and gratefully got to her feet. She was immediately struck by the size of the cavern. She couldn’t tell how big it was – their torchlight didn’t reach that far. It felt big, though. High, too. She was also surprised to see a small lake.
Seeing the water, she licked her dry lips and thought how nice it would be to wet her parched throat.
‘Give me the flashlight,’ Cindy said to Mick.
Mick lobbed it to her and she caught it one hand.
‘Okay, where is he?’ She kept the Magnum trained on his head.
‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
Mick kept his arms up, his hands at shoulder height, turned and started walking. Jewel and Cindy followed. They traipsed further along the cavern, the red dirt thick and soft underneath. Cindy kept the light trained ahead and soon it revealed a body on the ground, near a rock wall.
Cindy gasped. ‘Oh, Steve.’
The smell of blood was overwhelming. It was pooled on the ground around the body. But it was the body itself that was more unnerving.
‘Steve?’ Cindy said as she drew closer. She sounded scared, uncertain.
The body glistened like it had been doused with glossy red paint, and there were tendons, veins and the white of muscle and bone visible. It was apparent the skin had been removed.
Despite the state of the corpse, Jewel could tell straight away it was that of Chiyo, not Steve. Her delicate features were locked in a frightfully calm pose; her mouth was almost smiling.
‘Oh my god,’ Jewel said, choking as her bile rose suddenly.
‘What is that?’ Cindy cried.
At that moment, the dark figure of Mick dashed forward and ducked into a small alcove.
Cindy fired the gun and the blast echoed around the chamber, sounding like a bomb going off.
‘What did you do, you sick fuck?’ Cindy cried and fired twice more, her body rocking backwards with the force.
Sparks flew from the bullets hitting rock, and shards were flung into the air, resembling skull and bone. The scene was too surreal for Jewel. She wondered if she was dreaming.
This had to be a nightmare, she decided. Skinless bodies and alcoves that spewed bones weren’t the stuff of reality.
This couldn’t be real.
Cindy stepped forward, revolver aimed ahead.
‘Where are you, you animal?’ Cindy said, voice hoarse.
Two blasts shocked Jewel. The noise was different to the revolver and it coincided with bright light dancing within the darkness of the alcove.
Cindy flew backwards. She hit the ground, blood splashing from her torso.
‘Cindy!’ Jewel screamed, and rushed over to her fallen friend.
Cindy lay writhing on the ground, blood pumping from two holes in her chest. She groaned as tears trickled down her cheeks.
Jewel sensed movement to her right. She flicked her head, and in the light of the torch, still beaming where it had rolled from Cindy’s hand, she saw Mick climbing out of the alcove. He was holding a rifle and wearing a thin coat or cape with a hood; or at least, that’s what Jewel thought it was at first.
Then she noticed that the hood had ears, long dark hair and two holes where the eyes should have been. She realised, with a sickening punch to her stomach, that the coat was Chiyo’s hide, with arms flapping by Mick’s side and legs dangling down to his calves.
Jewel doubled over and vomited.
‘Nice gun,’ Mick said. ‘Got some power. Bruce and Duncan had good taste in weapons, that’s for sure.’
With sick dripping from her lips, Jewel raised Mick’s gun, pointed it at him and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
Mick chuckled. ‘Yeah, the problem with bolt-actions is ya gotta know how to use ’em.’
Jewel looked around in a panic and saw the Magnum revolver on the ground, but it was too far away. If she went for it, Mick would surely shoot her dead.
Bolt-action. He said it was a bolt-action. Which part of it was the bolt? She ran a hand over the rifle and found a sort of lever at its side with a round bobble on its end.
‘Never mind. Maybe you can hit me with it?’ Mick said, as he stepped purposefully but slowly towards Cindy, his grotesque coat fluttering as he walked.
Jewel grabbed the lever and desperately tried to make it do something.
In the dim light she saw Mick reach down and pick up the revolver.
Come on! Jewel thought. How do you work this damn thing?
Mick slipped the revolver into his belt.
‘Me dad taught me how to use a bolt-action. He had a gun very similar to the one you’re holdin’. If I didn’t learn he’d whip my backside,’ Mick huffed. ‘Christ, he whipped me backside anyway, come to think of it. That’s why I ended up skinning the bastard. Just like I skinned that fucken nog.’
Jewel could just make out Mick kneeling beside Cindy.
‘You shouldn’t have shot at me,’ he said to her. ‘I coulda been killed.’
Cindy coughed weakly and moaned.
‘Hang on a minute, what do we have here? Another gun?’ Mick pulled out a small black and silver handgun from Cindy’s pocket. ‘A pistol. Nice. I still don’t understand where they’re all comin’ from. Ah well, I’m gettin’ a nice arsenal, thanks to you lot.’
Jewel frantically tried to work the lever, whch she saw now was attached to a long bolt along the rifle. Finally she managed to get the lever up and pulled back. A spent cartridge jumped out, and a new one appeared. That was it! She pushed the lever forward and then locked the bolt to its original position.
‘You’ve only got one bullet in there,’ Mick said, without turning to look at her. ‘Don’t miss.’
He pocketed the pistol and then brought out his large knife. He held it above Cindy’s face. ‘I’m gonna enjoy using this on you, Yank.’
Jewel raised the rifle. Her hands shook, and she tried to steady them, but without any luck.
‘Breathe in deep and gently squeeze the trigger,’ Mick said, eyes still on Cindy.
Jewel looked through the scope, but her vision was out of focus.
‘This close, it’s best to use the sights,’ Mick said. ‘They’re the little doovalackies at the front and end of the barrel.’
Mick brought the handle of the knife down against one of Cindy’s bullet wounds. He pressed on it, hard, making Cindy wail in agony.
Jewel aimed the barrel at Mick’s head and wrapped her right index finger around the trigger.
Tears filled her eyes as she jerked her finger.
The gun bucked at the blast and the butt pounded her right shoulder. The sound was deafening. She stumbled backwards.
