Blood

by Tony Birch

  ‘It wouldn’t make any difference. As long as we had some blood.’

  ‘What about if I lost all my blood, in a car smash or something like that?’

  ‘Well, then you’d be dead, Rachel. So it wouldn’t matter.’

  ‘Tell me about that day again, Jesse. When we cut ourselves.’

  She was frozen to the spot with fear. The sun was sinking below the treetops. There wasn’t a lot of daylight left.

  ‘I’ll tell you the story, but only if you promise to climb down with me as soon as I finish. Do you promise?’

  ‘I promise,’ she said, as she looked through the cage and down at the ground.

  So I told the story again, as quickly as I could. Although she knew it word for word she acted as if she was hearing it for the first time: screwing her face up in pain when I talked about slicing the top of her thumb, and smiling when I said we’d never be half and half again.

  As I retold the story I watched a large bird off in the distance, gliding through the sky. It might have been a falcon, or maybe an eagle. It stalled above the silo and flew into the air by moving its wings just a fraction. It flew towards mountains in the distance. They were almost hidden in mist and dark clouds that were moving our way.

  ‘Is that the end, Jesse?’ Rachel asked, when I reminded her of how our thumbs had got stuck together with blood.

  ‘Yeah. That’s the end. We have to go back down now.’

  She looked towards the town in the distance. ‘Jesse, do you think she’ll come back?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure. ‘You know how she gets the wanders. Whatever happens, she’ll find her way back in the end. She always does.’

  ‘But if she doen’t? If we never see her again, what will happen to us?’

  ‘Nothing will happen to us.’

  ‘Wouldn’t we get broken up? Like the time she was sick and you were put in the home?’ Her voice cracked as she spoke.

  ‘No, we wouldn’t get broken up. Never. We’d go away. If they tried to separate us, we’d go where no one could find us.’

  ‘Where?’

  I had no idea. Right then it didn’t matter anyway. I heard a terrible sound, deep and low and heading our way. I told Rachel to be quiet while I listened. There was no mistaking what it was, but I wasn’t sure how far off it was or the direction it was coming from. I listened again, lifting the binoculars, and searched the road leading away from the town. I picked up a trail of dust and the flash of a car speeding along the road, coming our way. It was the Camaro. I pulled Rachel by the arm and forced her down on the platform.

  ‘I need you to lie here and keep real quiet.’

  The Camaro drove into the yard and slowly circled it. I could see Ray and Limbo in the front. There was no sign of Gwen. The car pulled up between the Commodore and the container.

  They opened the doors of the Commodore and searched inside. While Ray sat in the front passenger seat, Limbo went through the boot. He threw the cases and the jerry can on the ground and started chucking everything else behind him. The blankets, toilet rolls and rubbish flew across the yard. He emptied Gwen’s case and then ours. When he couldn’t find anything, he picked her case up and hurled it across the yard.

  Ray got out of the car and pulled something from his boot. It was his knife. He slashed the back of the passenger seat open and pulled out the stuffing. He moved around the outside of the car and did the same to all the seats. Pretty soon the yard was covered in large balls of white padding from the guts of the seats. Limbo searched under the seats of the Camaro and pulled out a short crowbar. He stuck it behind the padlock on the container and snapped it off. He had trouble getting the door open so he wedged the crowbar behind that as well. When he got it open he screamed out, ‘Fucken empty’, and threw the crowbar on the ground.

  By the time they’d finished searching, the yard looked like a cyclone had gone through the place.

  Ray put the knife back in his boot and took a long slow look around. His eyes stopped at the shed. He lifted his head and looked up at the silo. I closed my eyes and held my breath. I could hear footsteps in the gravel, coming closer. I looked across at Rachel. Her eyes were looking directly into mine.

  ‘Keep still, still,’ I mouthed.

  She couldn’t work out what I was saying and frowned.

  The footsteps stopped right under us. I peeped through the crack in the board. They were standing at the shed door. Ray opened it and walked inside.

  ‘Where’d they go?’ Rachel whispered. ‘Are they coming up to get us?’

  I put my finger across my lips to get her to shut up. If they did come for us we were gone, unless we jumped off the top. And then we’d kill ourselves anyway.

  We could hear a lot of banging coming from inside the shed. Right then, I was praying they’d find the money and go and leave us alone. If I could be sure they wouldn’t hurt us I’d have called out to Ray and told him where the money was myself. But he wasn’t like that. He’d kill for his fifty thousand dollars. And maybe just for fun too. I heard the shed door open. I looked through the crack again. They’d come out empty-handed. Ray walked to the fence line behind the silo. He called Limbo over.

  ‘Get her out and give her some water and we’ll take off. They won’t have got far.’

  Limbo opened the boot of the Camaro, laughed out loud and lifted Gwen out. Her hands were tied and she had something in her mouth. Her red dress was drenched and she had a mark across her face where she’d been bleeding. Rachel had closed her eyes, which was good for both of us. I reckon if she’d looked down and seen the state Gwen was in she’d have screamed out for her.

  Limbo propped Gwen against the side of the car and pulled a piece of dirty cloth from her mouth. He looked across to see where Ray was before he grabbed hold of one of Gwen’s breasts and kissed her on the mouth. He took a plastic milk container from the boot, unscrewed it and lifted it to her mouth. She took a long drink then coughed and spat some water out. Limbo stood back and threw water over her face and laughed. Gwen tried wiping her face with her hands. She was sobbing.

  ‘Who’s making that noise?’ Rachel whispered.

  ‘Be quiet. No one.’

  Ray picked up the jerry can and shook it. He opened the lid and sniffed at the can as he looked at Gwen. He stood in front of her and lifted the can above her head. She started shaking from side to side and fell to the ground, crying. Ray threw his head back and laughed at her. Right then I wished I had the revolver in my hands so I could aim it at Ray, and if I was lucky, blow his head off. He threw the keys to Limbo.

  ‘Put her in the back and move it.’

  Limbo grabbed Gwen by the arm, dragged her around to the side of the Camaro, and threw her in the back seat. He got into the car, circled the yard again and stopped at the edge of the road.

  Ray grabbed a few pieces of the scattered clothes and seat stuffing and threw it in the Commodore. He splashed petrol from the can inside the car and over the roof and bonnet. He lit a ball of the seat stuffing with his cigarette lighter, stood back and threw it in the car. He jumped as the car burst into flames.

  As it burned, Ray walked across the yard, leaned against the Camaro and talked to Limbo. He stuck his head in the back of the car a couple of times and spoke to Gwen, smiling all the while, like he was having a great time. When the car was well alight they sped off, in the direction of the highway.

  I waited until I could hear no trace of the engine before ordering Rachel to get going.

  She wasn’t ready to move.

  ‘Maybe they’ll come back.’

  ‘Maybe. But they took off in a hurry. Probably looking for us out on the highway. We’ve got to find some place to hide before they decide to come back.’

  I grabbed her by the hand and started running down the stairs. She crashed into me an
d we tumbled over. I looked up at the sky. For a second I thought I’d fallen over the rail and was about to die. The binoculars fell from my neck. I turned and looked through a gap in the stairs just as they smashed to the ground below. Rachel was lying on top of me. She looked over my shoulder at the ground.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jesse. Your Christmas present.’

  ‘Too late for that now. Get off me.’

  I reached the bottom of the silo and kicked the shed door open. The plastic drums had been knocked around like bowling pins. I picked up the one closest to me and shook it. It was empty. The next one was full of powder. I must have gone through almost every drum until I found mine. Rachel was running across the yard, towards the burning car.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I screamed out. ‘You’ll get blown up.’

  The heat had not only stripped the paint from the car, but from one side of the shipping container too. The heat stopped Rachel in her tracks. She was about to run back to me when she spotted something in the corner of her eye. She ran and snatched something from the ground. It was Comfort. She hugged him to her chest as she ran back to me.

  ‘I saved him!’

  The burning car lit up the yard and the silo. I slung the sports bag over one shoulder.

  ‘Follow me, Rachel. And keep up.’

  ‘How are we going to get away?’

  ‘Haven’t worked that out yet. But we’ve got to hide until there’s no more light.’

  We ran back along the track we’d taken earlier in the day until we reached Carson’s World in Miniature and slipped through the fence. We walked downhill until we reached the Dutch windmill.

  ‘This might be a good place.’

  The windmill had no door. I threw my backpack through a small window and then the sports bag. I gave Rachel a boost up by putting both hands against her bum and pushing as hard as I could. She fell through the window and crashed to the floor inside. The fall must have hurt. She wasn’t making a sound. I hoped she hadn’t knocked herself out.

  ‘Are you all right in there?’

  ‘I think so. It’s dark and I can’t see nothing.’

  I boosted myself up, squeezed through the window and closed the wooden shutters. It was so dark I couldn’t see her at all.

  ‘You there, Jesse?’

  ‘Yep. I’m here.’

  FIVE

  A clap of thunder shook the windmill, quickly followed by another. It was shorter, and sounded like a shotgun blast. I opened the shutter, just wide enough to take a look outside. It was pitch black. The wind was roaring through the trees and branches were crashing to the ground. I pulled the shutter and felt around the floor until I touched Rachel’s leg. She was curled up in a ball on the floor. I shook her.

  ‘Rachel. Time to move.’

  She moaned, threw her arms back and slapped me in the face with her hand. I shook her again, a little harder.

  ‘Rachel. You’ve gotta get up.’

  I felt her sit up. I could hear her crawling across the floor, away from me.

  ‘Where you going now?’

  ‘Comfort. I can’t find him.’

  ‘Bad luck. We’re leaving.’

  ‘I’m not going any place without him. I saved him from blowing up and he’s coming with us.’

  I unzipped the sports bag and searched inside. I gripped the barrel of the revolver. Careful as I could to not touch the handle or trigger, I took it out of the bag and put it in the front section of the backpack. I took out the jackets, Rachel’s jumper, the bottles of water and the last packets of biscuits and laid them on the floor. I slowly felt for and counted each roll of the money as I moved it from the sports bag to the backpack. As I was counting I thought about what we might do next. We’d have to stay off the road as best we could, but I knew the only place we could go from here was back to Pop’s, if we were ever to be safe again. I just didn’t know how we were going to get there with Ray searching for us along the highway. When I’d emptied the bag I put Rachel’s jumper and the bottles in the backpack and zipped it up.

  ‘I’ve got him,’ Rachel called out.

  ‘Lucky for you.’

  Outside the windmill, I handed her a jacket. ‘Put this on. I think it’s gonna rain.’

  I put my jacket on, zipped it up and hitched the pack to my back. I waited and listened for any dangerous sounds, but could hear nothing but the roaring wind. Clouds had blocked the moon, and I could hardly see Rachel standing in front of me, even though she was so close I could smell her breath. I heard another deep rumble in the distance. I twitched, thinking it was the Camaro again. But it was more thunder. A streak of lightning lit up the Great Pyramid and the Eiffel Tower. I decided to head in the opposite direction.

  ‘We’ll go this way.’

  ‘I can’t see. Which way is this way?’

  ‘Just stay close and keep quiet.’

  I listened as hard as I could as we walked on. I thought I heard a sound behind us. Maybe a snapping twig? I grabbed Rachel by the arm and ordered her to stand still.

  ‘Quiet,’ I whispered.

  ‘Why? Is someone there?’

  I didn’t want to frighten her. ‘No. I’m just checking where we are.’

  I listened again, and could hear nothing but the thunder and roaring wind.

  We soon reached the far side of the park. The wire fence had just about fallen over in the wind. We’d walked to the edge of a thick forest of trees. Rachel sniffed the air.

  ‘Hey. It smells like the Christmas tree we had at Pop’s.’

  ‘If it is Christmas trees, there must be a lot of them. We’ll climb through the fence here. Be careful not to trip.’

  ‘I’m hungry, Jesse. Can I have another biscuit?’

  ‘We’ve only got two packets left. You eat a pack now and it might be all you get for a while. You still want it?’

  ‘What about all that money in the bag? We could buy lots of stuff with that. Anything we want to.’

  ‘Maybe, if we can find somewhere to spend it. You still want the biscuits?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  I unzipped the pack, found the biscuits and got her to sit down next to me. She talked as she munched on a biscuit.

  ‘Where are we going to, Jesse?’

  ‘We have to find a way to get to Melbourne. I don’t know how, exactly, but I’m gonna get us back to Pop’s. He’ll take care of us.’

  ‘What about Gwen? Was she in that car with the men? I think I heard her voice.’

  ‘I didn’t see her,’ I lied. ‘But maybe she could have been.’

  ‘So what’s your plan to get us to Pop’s?’ she asked, louder than she needed to.

  I put my hand across her mouth. ‘No more talk, Rache. Not a word. I can’t plan with you yapping all the time.’

  But I didn’t have any plan. Maybe we could hitch a ride, but we’d have to be careful.

  I took the gun out of the backpack. I felt for the safety catch. I wasn’t sure if it was locked or not. I laid the gun on the ground and took out one of the bundles of money. I peeled off a hundred-dollar note and put it in my front pocket. The rest I rolled up, retied with the rubber band, and stuck down the front of my underpants.

  The wind was getting stronger and colder. Rachel’s teeth were chattering. I opened the backpack again and took out her woollen jumper.

  ‘Put this on, under your jacket.’

  I waited until she’d reorganised herself and took off my jacket.

  ‘Here. Put this on over yours. It’ll keep the wind out.’

  ‘But won’t you be cold?’

  ‘Do what I say. Put it on. Let’s go. And remember, no talking.’

  We hurdled the fence into the forest and walked over soft ground between two long lines of trees. It took about another ten minutes
before Rachel broke the silence, which was just about a record for her.

  ‘Can I say something, Jesse?’

  ‘As long as you keep your voice down.’

  ‘Do you think this is sort of like those kids in the mockingbird film, near the end, and they’re trying to get home in the dark?’

  ‘Yeah, a little bit. But without the boogieman, I hope.’

  ‘I hope too. Do you think all these trees go to people’s houses for Christmas?’

  ‘I don’t know. That would be a lot of trees.’

  ‘And millions of presents to go under them.’

  She went quiet for a bit. I knew she would be thinking about something she just had to ask me.

  ‘Jesse?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Did you like it when we had Christmas at Pop’s house, with the presents and the roast chicken and the tree?’

  ‘Yeah. I liked it a lot. Just about more than I’ve liked anything, even sitting under that pier with the fish and chips back in Adelaide.’

  ‘That was good. But I liked the Christmas better too. I would like us to stay with Pop until next Christmas, so we could get another tree. A big one. Just like these. We could decorate it. Have you ever decorated a Christmas tree?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Me either.’

  I felt a drop of rain on my head, and a few steps on, another one, and then another. We’d come to the end of the forest, and were standing on a ridge overlooking a road. The rain was getting heavier. I shouldn’t have given up my jacket so easily.

  ‘What road is this, Jesse?’

  ‘Not sure. Maybe the highway we were on last night. Stand under a tree or you’ll get soaked.’

  She wasn’t paying me any attention. Something back along the highway had caught her eye.

  ‘Hey, Jesse. See those lights shining up there, what do you think that place is?’

  Three lights winked at us, through the trees on a bend. One red. One white. One blue. We crawled along the ridge, me first and then Rachel, until we were across the highway from the flashing lights. It was a truck stop. Rachel tapped me on the back.