Sign

by Colin Dray

  ‘For goodness sake! Enough!’ Dettie was reaching back, slapping her hand on the back seat. ‘Shut up, damn it!’ Her palm thumped on flesh. ‘Listen to your brother!’

  Sam was clutching the doorhandle. He could feel the tension in his chest, the urge to cough. He would have been screaming too if he could. His eyes were screaming. He couldn’t afford to dissolve into a hacking fit. He squeezed Katie’s hand and refused to let go.

  The clouds parted momentarily to show a lacework of fire eating the scrub. Katie thrashed and shrieked, and it was gone again.

  Dettie shuddered behind the wheel, squinting. Her lips were pressed tight, coughing into her neck. Her whole body leant with each turn, the car lurching. Katie’s tears tracked black lines through the ash on her face.

  Everything was gone. The road. The sky. Everything beyond the window was white, and eerily bright. Almost luminescent. Sam was wheezing. His stoma felt raw and torn. His eyes stung. For a moment it was like being back there. Like waking after his operation. The white. The sweat. The pain. No shadows. Fluorescent bulbs. Just whiteness and blur. He blinked his eyes into focus. Squeezed Katie’s hand until she turned and looked in his face.

  He nodded.

  The clouds swelled, and Dettie swerved to miss a charcoaled branch on the road. She yelped, and Katie shrieked. As Sam was thrown against the door the wind was knocked from his chest.

  63

  They came through it, bursting out of the cloud all at once, just as they had gone in. The sky was still blotted from sight, and in the distance the glow of flame was so intense it was like watching the sun itself tip over and collapse among the bush. There was a strange calm all around them. A quiet had settled all along the empty road. Everything they could see of the landscape was black. Tree branches stripped bare. The ground dusted with ash. It was as if the world had just stopped somewhere behind them and this was all that remained. And yet it was strangely beautiful. With a soft haze lingering in the air, the sky was split with shafts of blue sunlight.

  Dettie was laughing, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘I told you,’ she said. ‘See? We’re fine. We made it.’

  The car sounded heavier, the engine straining a little more, the clatter of the fan belt grinding even louder, but they were still in one piece. The edges of the windows and all around the air vents were stained black.

  Sam realised he’d been chewing on the inside of his lip when he tasted the blood. The feeling stung his eyes, but he was enjoying, in an odd way, the rusty taste that soaked his mouth. He thought again about the dead kangaroo, its stiff limbs and the dried patches of fluid on its fur. The blood he could taste now was fresh. When he sucked at it, and swallowed, he felt new warm blood taking its place. And there was something vital in that, something making it taste almost sweet. His blood. His life. And he felt it pulsing on quietly while Dettie sat up front, chuckling to herself, her gaze sweeping the landscape, with no idea of the sensation in his throat.

  Far ahead of them two square shadows emerged from the blur. Vaporous in waves of heat, they eventually resolved into red metal. A pair of fire trucks, parked sideways across the road, blocked any oncoming traffic. As the car drew closer Sam could see a group of firemen rolling up the hoses on the truck. It appeared that they had just contained a burn and were now stacking their helmets and packing away their gear. One of the men looked up from splashing the ash off his face, and when he noticed their car approaching, he leapt up and started to wave.

  Dettie was slowing down, a weary groan easing from her chest, but as more of the firemen began turning and calling out, gesturing for her to stop, she started looking around frantically for a way to get by the trucks. The car swayed as she swerved back and forth across the asphalt, speeding and slowing in jerks. When one of the closest men—Sam could clearly see the moustache on his face—dropped his bag and stepped forward, holding up his hands, Dettie swept off the side of the road just in front of him, skidded over the loose dirt and tried to thread her way around the truck on the left. But as she mounted the dip the wheels kicked burnt sand into the air, the tyres slipped, and the wheel snapped out of her hands. Growling, the car spun and slid into a mass of twisted bushes. They jerked violently to a stop, and the boomerang tied to their mirror whipped against the window and shattered into sticks.

  Winded, Sam felt the seatbelt against his chest and the vent almost wrenching from his neck. He looked up through the burnt twigs littering the windscreen. There were more flames peeling into the sky ahead of them and the wind pushed ripples of heat in their direction. He could hear the firemen’s shouts and their boots approaching across the gravel. They’d stopped. The car had stopped, and gradually the rattle in the engine slowed and settled to silence. Dettie had dark tears streaming down her face, but she wouldn’t wipe them away. Her foot was still pinned to the accelerator. Her hands stayed hooked on the steering wheel. It looked to Sam like she might never let go.

  64

  The fireman’s voice was muffled through the window. ‘Hey! Are you right? You okay?’ The crackling of the leaves and branches sounded heavier as they slid down the glass, tiny embers tumbling in their wake.

  The fireman’s glove was resting on the windscreen as he kicked away the scraps and charred foliage from under the front wheel. ‘I think you’re all right!’ he was shouting. ‘It’s not a blow-out.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Can you hear me?’

  Dettie was staring straight ahead at the palm of his hand on the window. The glove was filthy. Even on their streaked glass it left a print. She was panting, and there was a slight squeak in her throat like something was caught there.

  ‘I said, can you hear me?’ He leant down to look through the side window. He tried the doorhandle. It was still locked.

  Katie was stirring, groggy, as though she’d forgotten for a moment how to talk. She was pointing up at his face. Sam scrambled for the sign at his feet. It had been knocked forward, under the front seat.

  The fireman tapped on the window. Dettie was stiff, her chest heaving. Slowly, she nodded, and jangled the keys in the ignition between her fingers. There were more firemen milling around the car, looking it over. Even covered in soot and ash their orange uniforms seemed to shimmer in the light.

  The man by the door tapped again. Harder. He gestured for her to roll down her window. ‘Lady!’ he said.

  Dettie raised a hand and waved, still focused on the edge of the fire truck and the trees. Measuring the gap with her eyes.

  There was a loud clanking. The fireman had knocked that time with an axe, and was still holding it against the glass. ‘Lady. Roll down your damn window!’ he said, his voice sounding distant.

  Dettie turned to face Sam and Katie. ‘Are you kids hot?’ She was forcing a smile. ‘I might just give us some air for a minute, okay? So you sit tight while I talk to the nice man.’

  Turning back, Dettie opened her window a few centimetres. ‘Oh. Hello,’ she said.

  ‘Hello?’ The fireman looked mystified, glancing at one of his companions, shaking his head. ‘Is there anyone hurt in there?’ he said again, louder than he needed to.

  ‘Oh, no, we’re fine. Thank you for asking.’ Dettie was trying to be cheerful, smiling, but her throat was raw. It made her voice sound thin and hoarse.

  With the window down Sam could hear the distant roar of the bushfire. It grumbled, like a long, slow peel of thunder. He could taste the steam in the air and the smell of melted tar. He unclipped his belt to get more reach and scratched around beneath the front seat.

  ‘Well, if no one needs any help, you should turn around and head south,’ the fireman said. ‘Drive back about thirty kilometres or so—’

  ‘Yes, yes, we would,’ Dettie hiccoughed, ‘but we just have to get through.’

  ‘You’re not going through anywhere,’ the man with the axe said. ‘That’s what I’m saying. No one’s going that way. It’s a nightmare up ahead.’

  Dettie hummed and ran her fingernail along the steering wheel. ‘Yes, well, we
have to get through. So if you could just—’

  ‘Jesus, lady.’ The fireman bent down to get a better look in the car. ‘It’s no access through this road.’ He was speaking slowly, one word at a time. ‘You shouldn’t be here. There were signs all over the place. Road blocks.’ He thumped twice on the roof. ‘You’ve gotta turn your car around, and go back. Now.’

  Sam brushed aside stray lolly wrappers and dishevelled maps. He stretched his arm as deep under the front seat as he could. More of the firemen had started wandering back to the truck. One laughed while another was squeezing a hiss of water over his face from a water bottle. Sam felt cardboard on his fingertips.

  As the man with the axe stepped away from the door he noticed Katie wrestling with her seatbelt in the back seat. The man seemed puzzled, and as he crouched to look in closer, Sam, who had just popped back up, met his gaze with wide, pleading eyes, waving his piece of cardboard and mouthing the same word over and over. Sam set the cardboard in his lap and made a thumbs-up sign, stamping it pointedly on his palm. Again and again. Deliberately. Mouthing the same word. The fireman looked him over. He saw Sam’s lips shaping out the message.

  Help.

  The fireman read the cardboard sign, a fusion of black texta and green pencil:

  Help Us! Kidnapped!

  He glanced again at Katie, turned to get a better view of Dettie, and then darted his eyes back in at Sam. He wiped a smear of ash across his face. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said. ‘You’re—’

  He leapt up and shouted to the other men. ‘Tim! Wayne! Move your arses! Get over here!’

  Dettie’s elbows were shaking. The squeaking in her throat was rising to a loud, choking sob.

  ‘We’re fine,’ she hiccoughed. ‘You can see we’re—we’re fine.’

  Katie had slumped against the door and was running her hand across the glass.

  ‘Now, I’m not trying to alarm you,’ the fireman was saying loudly, but gently, ‘but I think there are some people looking for you.’ His arms were spread wide, inching closer to Dettie. ‘There’s nothing to be worried about,’ he said. ‘Just some people want to talk, that’s all.’

  Dettie bowed her head. She exhaled.

  Suddenly, the fireman leapt at the car, hooking his right arm through the top of her window. He was making a grab for the lock, and Dettie shrieked, slapping at his glove and winding the gap smaller, squeezing his shoulder. Then the car was surrounded—orange suits were knocking at the doors, blocking off the rear bumper. Dettie twisted away from his elbow and tried to fire the car’s ignition, but it spat and died. A man with a beard was whispering to Katie by her door, trying to get her to undo her lock. There was another man beside Sam, clearing out the branches in his way.

  Finally, the doors were open and Dettie was wheezing, hugging the steering wheel to her chest. The horn blared. As they pulled Sam from the car, she reached back, snatching at his wrist, her nails digging into his skin. ‘Sammy, no!’ she shrieked. ‘Don’t you! Not you! Sammy, stay! We don’t break! We’re not broken!’

  Katie was already in a fire-fighter’s arms, squealing back at her aunt, telling her to stop. Calling her a liar. Dettie’s face was damp and bright red, her jaw speckled with spit. Her hands shook. Her lips, thin and white, were seized in a sneer, yellow teeth exposed. She was incoherent. Wild. Thrashing about in the firemen’s arms. Her grip twisted the last of Sam’s sunburn into a scalding sting. As she turned, forcing a desperate smile, he had one last flash of a cartoon zombie, and someone tugged his arm free.

  After they’d taken her keys and radioed the police, it took three firemen to lift her from the car. They had to pry her fingers loose as she kicked and scratched and bit. One of the men—the one with the moustache—led Sam and Katie to the back of a truck to get them some water. As they walked, he steered them by the shoulders, shielding them from their aunt’s view with his body as she yelled instructions to them, telling them to stay strong—that they’d be with their father soon.

  ‘Sam!’ she called out. ‘Sammy, you’ll tell them the truth! You tell them where we’re going!’

  65

  The police station was yellow. The desks and windowsills were a lime green, but the yellow seemed to bleed over them and everything else. On the table in front of him, Sam had a mug of hot Milo that the officers had made, and even the cup was soaked in yellow, showing up the cracks in the porcelain. Everything looked old: the large grey typewriters that filled the air with clacking, the withered papers on the noticeboards. Even the officer they were sitting with looked years older now than she had driving over with them in the squad car. Her badge said Barnes, but when she introduced herself to the children it turned out her name was Sam too.

  Sam had refused to let Katie out of his sight from the moment they had been led from Dettie’s car. He hugged her and shared his water with her while they waited for the police to arrive, shielding her from the sight of Dettie ranting and screaming over at the next fire engine. He’d held her hand throughout the entire ride with the police officers. Across several dozen more kilometres of blackened earth, past signs warning of extreme weather conditions and total fire bans, to a town called Merredin, where a small police station sat in the shadow of the boxy courthouse next door.

  Officer Samantha had let Katie and Sam have showers in the locker rooms. When they were both washed up and the nurse they called had helped clean Sam’s stoma with antiseptic and ointment, Samantha gave them each a change of clothes from the station storeroom. Katie’s T-shirt, PCYC written in huge letters across the front, hung down past her knees. Sam’s was an aqua colour and had a drawing of a constable on it. The cartoon cop had a huge grin and sunglasses, and he was pointing out from Sam’s chest, saying, Cops are cool. It looked like the officer who was over at the front desk speaking on the telephone, the one whose Adam’s apple kept bobbing above his collar.

  On a table beneath the window, the clothes Sam had been wearing for the past few days were packaged into piles. He could see his Australia singlet folded up inside a plastic bag that said Evidence. In another bag beside it was his old shirt, the one he’d thrown up on—the one Dettie had been washing when she cut herself on the sink and bled. The pale brown stain left in its fabric was exposed, and glowed almost purple under the fluorescent lights. Katie’s clothes were folded beneath the window too; even though they were sealed up with tape he could still smell the petrol.

  Sam reached for his Milo and took a slow sip. His hands still trembled, and as he set the mug back down he could see long red marks on his arm from Dettie’s fingernails. The hollow sensation was still in his belly, and the warmth of the Milo didn’t reach it. It reminded him of the moment before a roller-coaster first tips downhill. He was burping like he needed to throw up and his skin was clammy. It felt strange to be in the one place for so long, not moving. It sent a relentless tingle through his muscles—as though after driving for so long he now had motion sickness from keeping still. He almost missed the rumble of the car beneath him. To be sitting in a crowded yellow office where nothing on the desks rattled, and no trees flashed by, seemed unnatural. He tightened his fingers on the two paddle-pop sticks he’d managed to grab from the car. The others were probably still scattered on the dashboard, but he could press the two of them together and recall the shape of the boomerang.

  Officer Samantha opened a packet of biscuits and cleared a space on her desk for them. Katie grabbed two and dunked them in her drink.

  ‘Do you guys know what’s happening now?’ Officer Samantha asked, leaning forward in her chair, her elbows on her knees.

  Katie was tapping her heels together. ‘I want to talk to Mummy,’ she said with her mouth full.

  ‘Of course, sweetie. We’re doing that. We’re trying to get her on the phone now. See that officer over there?’ Samantha pointed at the man at the front desk, the one who looked like the picture on Sam’s T-shirt. ‘Soon as we get in touch with her, you’ll be the first to hear about it. So don’t you worry about that. But
that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about your Aunty Bernadette. Do you know what’s happening to her?’

  Katie shook her head. Sam shrugged. He had watched two officers lead Dettie into the second squad car back on the road. She was still shouting things at them that Sam couldn’t hear, and they seemed to be listening to her and nodding their heads. One of them was even writing things down. But since they’d arrived at the station they had kept her in another room, somewhere out the back.

  ‘All right, guys,’ Samantha said, ‘well, it’s like this.’ She dragged her chair closer and the wheels squeaked. ‘Maybe you realised, or maybe you didn’t, but your Aunty Bernadette isn’t very well.’ She tapped her fingertips on the table. ‘Your mother explained all of this to the police in Sydney. She said that your aunty needs to take medicine because sometimes she gets very sad.’

  Katie was nodding.

  ‘Now, she’s done that for a long time,’ Samantha said. ‘But your mother says—and we all think she’s right—that it’s likely your aunty hasn’t been taking her medicine for a while. That maybe that’s why she decided to take you guys on a trip without telling anyone. Even your mum.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Katie said. ‘I knew she didn’t tell Mummy.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Samantha said, touching Katie lightly on the knee. Sam felt himself tense, but Katie was fine. ‘Your mum came home and you guys weren’t there,’ Samantha said. ‘There wasn’t even a note or anything. So for a long time she didn’t know what had happened. She was very worried. She contacted her local police. They let all of us other police officers know, and we’ve been looking for you ever since.’

  Katie was breathing heavily. ‘Does Mummy know now?’

  ‘She will soon. If she doesn’t already, I promise, she will very soon. So don’t let that concern you. She knows you were with your aunty. She knows that you guys were heading this way.’