The Last Shot

by Michael Adams

  The chopper rises with foothills and zooms across gorges.

  Clearview tilts into view, Minions darting between tents on the oval, carting stuff from trucks into houses.

  My heart falls as I feel relief blow through Tregan and Gary like a cool breeze.

  Like-a-UN-camp-command-outpost-Yeah-this-might-be-okay . . .

  ‘You saw and heard what Danby and Nathan did and said,’ Damon says as they touch down on the school’s soccer field. ‘But we want you to see with your own eyes what’s really happening, okay?’

  Nathan looks at me, eyes red rimmed, mouth set in a grimace.

  ‘At least they’re not dead,’ he says.

  We might be better off if they were. But I try to see the bright side. We’re a long way from all of them.

  Nathan looks on as I plot our position on Tajik’s phone.

  ‘We’ve covered about twenty-seven kilometres,’ I say.

  Marv and Tajik offer smiles.

  Oscar sits by me. ‘May I?’

  He takes the phone, zooms out from our green spot, points at the territory east of us, touches it to create a yellow dot.

  ‘Tregan and Gary were picked up here,’ he says, zooming again, using his thumb and forefinger to draw a line back to Penrith. ‘Right at the edge of his radius.’

  The thought is sobering. A few more minutes and they would’ve been clear.

  Oscar’s laugh breaks the silence. ‘Oh, smell that.’

  We all inhale deeply. The cooking aromas are so strong they’re almost chewable. Damon’s leading Tregan and Gary past the catering tent. Bacon, sausages, onions, eggs, toast, coffee.

  ‘I’d kill for a fry-up,’ Oscar says, licking his lips. ‘Bastards.’

  Christ-I’m-starving Gary thinks.

  Tregan hungers for more than just breakfast: These-guys-they’re-in-control-of-the-situation.

  I know how she feels when she sees people our age cooking and dozens of others eating and chatting and reading at plastic tables. It’s like a team breakfast for dedicated aid workers before they get back to saving the world. Somewhere a boombox plays a song whose chorus reckons it’s best not to worry and instead be happy.

  ‘Wow, really?’ Oscar says with a grin.

  Nathan cracks a smile again. ‘If that’s what they have to listen to I’m glad I’m—’

  Marv groans. His face is as bloodless as a fish’s belly. ‘No, please,’ he says, lips flecked with spit. ‘No.’ He clutches his chest.

  Heart attack—that’s what I think in the instant before I see what he sees: a handsome middle-aged woman and a slender tween girl approaching Tregan and Gary.

  ‘Guys,’ Damon says. ‘This is Jane and her daughter Lottie.’

  Marv lets out a sob as his wife offers her hand to the new arrivals. ‘We’re glad to have you here,’ she says, voice cracking, tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘I hope you can—’

  Jane shakes her head, squeezes sad-eyed Lottie to her. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t—’

  Damon hugs mother and daughter to him.

  ‘You leave them alone,’ Marv seethes, fists clenched. ‘I’ll kill you, you bastard.’

  Damon smiles grimly at Tregan and Gary—at us . . . at Marv.

  ‘Jane’s husband, Marv, helped to get Clearview back on its feet,’ he says softly. ‘But now he’s—how to say this?—in a difficult position.’

  Jane straightens, wipes her eyes angrily, looks searchingly at Tregan and Gary. ‘That girl,’ she says, ‘she lied to him. To you. To us. To everyone. Marv’s got a big heart. Probably thought he was helping. Doing the right thing. But now I—we—think he’s being forced to stay with them.’

  Marv’s head slumps, his shoulders heave as he sobs and swears. I get up to go comfort him but Nathan shakes his head and Oscar gently takes my wrist. I sit back down. They’re right. We don’t know where this is going. Only that it’s out of our control.

  ‘I want my dad to know I love him,’ Lottie says, sniffling, blinking, doing her best to be brave. ‘I want him home. We need him.’

  ‘That’s what we want too,’ Damon adds. ‘Marv—and Tajik and Alex—they’ve done nothing wrong. We want them to come back before they get hurt.’

  Alex beams—‘toldja so’ written all over his smug face.

  Marv sits up, twists to us, a smile surfacing through his anger and sadness.

  ‘They’re okay,’ he says, wiping tears off his cheeks. ‘Jane and Lottie. They’re okay.’

  Oscar and Nathan and Tajik and I trade glances.

  ‘We can’t believe them,’ I say. ‘They’re trying to trick us.’

  Marv stiffens like he’s been slapped. ‘You don’t know that.’

  I’m at least relieved that Tregan and Gary aren’t sold.

  Feel-sorry-for-them-but-what-if-what-Danby-said-is-true-They’re-being-controlled?-Exactly-need-to-be-careful-Shit-do-you-think-this-guy-can-hear-us?

  As Damon whispers reassurance to Jane and Lottie that they’ll do everything they can to bring Marv home, Tregan unleashes a torrent of f- and c- thoughts and Gary joins in with his own Tourette’s-like blast of vile curses.

  I grab Nathan’s hand. He holds my fingers tight. I don’t know what we want. For Damon to crack and give himself away? If he does he might decide he needs to kill them both—and Jane and Lottie.

  But Damon is deaf to the insults. Or Jack’s making it seem that way.

  ‘We’ll come back so you can have breakfast in a minute,’ Damon says to Tregan and Gary. ‘This way.’ They leave Jane and Lottie and cross the park to another tent. ‘It’s probably best you see this before you eat.’

  Don’t-think-he-heard-any-of-that-Don’t-know-what-to-think.

  ‘Why did Danby and Nathan do what they did?’ Tregan asks.

  I could hug her for her skepticism but I hope it’s not the death of her. Damon eyes her sadly outside the tent.

  ‘You know about Nathan’s mental problems?’ He face-palms. ‘Of course you do, you’re the one he stalked, right?’

  How-does-he-know-that-unless-he-can—

  ‘How do you know that?’ Tregan says, voice laced with doubt.

  ‘Jack told me he heard it from you,’ Damon says smoothly. ‘And from talking to the girl, Danby, he found out she’s not right in the head—like he said just before she went berserk on the bridge.’

  Damon rubs the back of his neck. ‘Before all this happened, she had a mental disorder. That’s what she told Jack on the way up here. Then she finds her mum dead and she needs to blame someone. So she decides Jack’s the bad guy, who’s somehow using us—me, Jane and Lottie back there, maybe you guys, everyone—like puppets or something. You heard her. Crazy?’ Damon looks at Tregan with sympathetic eyes. ‘I think she and your friend Nathan started with the best intentions. But they’ve been feeding each other’s delusions. And they’ve been pretty ruthless with whoever doesn’t fit into their new world order.’

  Tregan and Gary don’t get it.

  Neither do I.

  I’m not crazy.

  I kinda wish I was.

  ‘You saw what they did?’ Damon continues. ‘The Biker, Cop, the others, killing people in Parramatta. We think they were acting on Danby and Nathan’s orders. Getting rid of people they had second thoughts about reviving.’

  I hear a sick groan and realise it’s coming from me.

  Tregan and Gary trade recollections: Ray-was-a-drunk-and-crook-Cassie-was-a-drug-addict-She-threatened-Danby-Tim-was-a-survivalist-heavily-armed-Jackie-she-might’ve-vowed-revenge-But-Nathan-seemed-scared-he-was-the-one-hunted.

  Tregan frowns. ‘So why did Nathan say people were after him?’

  ‘Jack and me,’ says Damon, ‘when we and some others arrived on the scene, Nathan and the Biker opened fire on us. There was a lot of shooting. He got away wounded before they left Danby for dead. At that stage we thought she’d been his hostage. We had no idea they were in it together until she showed her true self. I guess he went on reviving people in the hope he could tu
rn them against us.’

  Tregan and Gary are spinning towards belief.

  Why-would-Nathan-revive-people-revive-me-then-try-to-scare-people-into-stopping?-Because-he’s-crazy-Babe-you-know-that-You’re-right.

  Damon shakes his head. ‘You need to see this. I’m sorry in advance, okay?’

  Tregan and Gary nod as Damon pulls back the tent flap. Inside are four trestle tables, each covered with a bloodstained sheet.

  ‘Stay there,’ Damon says as he steps inside. ‘It’s pretty smelly.’

  He lifts the first shroud to reveal Max’s shot-up body. Tregan and Gary gasp.

  In the grandstand, Alex looks at us accusingly. I wonder how much he believes of the bullshit he’s just heard.

  Then Damon shows the body of the teenage boy.

  ‘You might’ve seen these guys on the bridge,’ he says. ‘They made the mistake of going after Danby and Nathan and trying to talk reason. They were unarmed.’

  Damon lifts the next sheet to reveal Louis’s bullet-ridden corpse.

  My eyes well up. I put my hand on Oscar’s shoulder. Feel his muscles locked under his denim jacket. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Eyes glassy, he nods at me.

  ‘This guy killed five of us last night when we tried to rescue Marv and the others,’ Damon says. ‘Recognise him? The Cop who killed that drunk wifebeater guy Ray, right?’

  Tregan and Gary nod.

  ‘We think that the Biker guy is still with them.’

  Oscar shakes his head at me. ‘I can’t believe this shit.’

  But Tregan is sold. Nathan!-I-should’ve-known!-Goddamn-all-his-fault!-And-she’s-even-crazier!-Puts-us-all-at-risk.

  Her certainty helps convince Gary.

  Their minds reach Cory and other Revivees who hope that Jack’s people can offer protection. Their new belief bounces off them and farther afield like a relayed broadcast. The message is clear: me, Nathan and Oscar, we’re an insane killer posse who may be holding hostages.

  ‘Such a waste,’ Damon says, covering the bodies. ‘I’m sick of the violence. We’ll leave Danby and Nathan and Oscar alone if they release Marv and Alex and anyone else they’ve got.’

  Tregan and Gary get it now. Their minds aren’t just being used to get this message to the Revivees—they’re being used to channel it to us if we’re still within range.

  Neither of them have a problem with that and they exchange a nod. We-need-to-help-Yeah-do-our-bit.

  I want to grab them, shake them, tell them not to be fooled. But I think how readily I believed Jack.

  ‘We want them to give Lottie back her dad,’ Damon is saying. ‘Give Jane back her husband. Our priority is saving people and rebuilding. People who can read each other’s minds, people who can’t, we’re all equal and we have to learn to live together.’

  ‘But what about what Jack said?’ Tregan asks. ‘About a war if they didn’t surrender?’

  Damon nods. ‘That was Jack’s plan. But it’s not mine.’ He crosses to the far end of the tent where a trestle table holds the last sheet-covered body.

  Angela; it has to be. But surely she’ll remind Tregan and Gary that we weren’t the only ones shooting on the bridge. That Angela shot at us—that she killed Phoebe in cold blood.

  Dark-eyed, mouth set in a mournful flat line, Damon lifts the last sheet.

  I don’t believe what I see.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Guns N’ Roses T-shirt. Black jeans. Bloodied face above a bandaged throat. Skin pale, grey against dark hair.

  Jack.

  Gasps reach from the Clearview tent to the Revivees across the city and to our Richmond grandstand.

  Dead.

  ‘What happened?’ Tregan says. ‘I thought he was okay.’

  Damon lowers the sheet and walks back to where they stand. ‘So did he. So did we. But she must have nicked his jugular. He went to sleep and never woke up.’

  Oh-my-God-that-crazy-bitch-she-really-did-it-She-killed-him-Now-we’re-all-f—

  My heart bangs against my breastbone. I tremble all over as I hold my face close to Evan, listen to him breathing, wonder if he’s free now. I want it to be true so badly. We can just let the anaesthetic wear off and then he’ll be himself again. It’s over. I want to believe. But I can’t.

  Tregan’s hatred pours out of her. All directed at me. Hoping I can hear her. You-killed-that-guy-He-made-all-this-happen-He-might’ve-been-our-best-chance-for-survival-You-stupid-stupid-bitch—

  ‘You killed him,’ Tajik says, sounding awed and afraid. ‘You really killed him.’

  I look from him to the others. Is it time to start singing ‘Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead’? Nathan shakes his head slowly.

  Marv sees his disbelief.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ Marv laughs at him. ‘Danby, you did it!’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Oscar says.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Alex looks from him to me and Nathan. ‘Jack’s dead. You saw it. I saw it. It’s over. Now you’ve got to let me go.’

  Hearing him say ‘let me go’ makes me wonder if we really have treated him like a hostage. Maybe I am one of the bad guys in this equation after all. Nothing seems knowable now.

  Back in Clearview, Damon escorts Tregan and Gary away from the tent. ‘If we’d had people like you, medically trained professionals, we might’ve saved Jack.’

  Nathan’s eyes are fierce and unblinking. ‘Damon’s lying.’

  Alex doesn’t flinch. Suddenly he has courage. ‘Lying about what?’

  ‘Everything,’ Nathan snaps. ‘You heard what he said about Louis! About how Max died, about the other—’

  ‘Hang on,’ Marv says. ‘Louis did die trying to kill them. Max and Angela and the kid might’ve come after us to talk!’

  I hold up my rifle. ‘They weren’t unarmed. She was shooting at us on the bridge. She killed that woman Phoebe. Notice he left her out of the show and tell?’

  Marv rubs his temples. ‘Heat of the moment. I don’t know. But Danby, we all just saw Jack there on the slab.’

  ‘All I saw was a dead guy,’ Oscar says. ‘Could’ve been anyone.’

  Alex cackles. ‘You’re shitting me, right?’

  Thoughts swirl out there. As angry voices clamour in the grandstand, I block Oscar and Alex and Marv and Nathan and Tajik out, focus on what Damon is telling Tregan and Gary.

  ‘. . . definitely he made mistakes. But he had remarkable power and maybe it was from God. All I know is his touch and words restored one thousand people to life. I was one of them. I knew then I had to use the gift of life to help other people. That doesn’t change now Jack’s gone. Care for each other. Work together. That’s what we have to do.’

  All that self-righteous speechifying sounds very Jack.

  ‘Danby,’ Nathan says, pulling my mind from the scene, ‘do you think that Jack’s really dead?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Jesus,’ says Marv. ‘You don’t believe your own eyes?’

  I ignore him, look at Oscar. ‘Do you think Damon is like you?’

  Oscar shakes his head. ‘From what he says he remembers being woken up by Jack. I don’t remember that. Or anything else that happened. I can tune people’s minds. He supposedly can’t. Our experiences, they’re totally different.’

  ‘Well, excuse the world for not being you,’ Alex says mockingly. ‘Revived, raised up, who’s supposedly controlled, who’s now free, who’s hearing who, who’s immune or whatever. You can’t tell me you—any of you—understand how all this works.’

  Oscar’s hands are tight around his rifle. ‘You wanna go back and hope you’re right?’

  Alex nods. ‘You wanna fight a war for no reason?’

  Oscar blinks. Alex puffs up a little.

  ‘Danby, maybe it’s good news?’ Tajik says peaceably. ‘Jack dead means Evan will be all right now.’

  How I wish that was true. ‘Jack isn’t dead,’ I say. ‘He’s playing us.’

  Alex lets out a hyena laugh. ‘Shit, you’re paranoid.’

/>   My fists clench. ‘And you didn’t just spend a night being chased?’

  ‘They were chasing you!’ Alex says. He shifts his gaze to Nathan and Oscar. ‘And you and you.’ He looks back at me. ‘All this stuff about mind control? You’re the only one who’s supposedly seen it.’

  ‘Jack told me.’

  ‘Says you.’

  ‘You saw Jack speak through Evan,’ I say.

  He shakes his head. ‘I saw a freaky little kid—and then Nathan here knocked him out.’

  Nathan glowers. ‘You’re calling Oscar a liar?’

  Alex looks at Oscar. He’s smart enough to know he doesn’t have to push this too hard. ‘Oscar admits he doesn’t remember being under Jack’s control or whatever.’

  Oscar gives me an apologetic glance.

  ‘Tajik,’ I say. ‘You saw it, you said they were like the Taliban.’

  Tajik nods. ‘Yes, the Taliban, but I don’t know if Jack was using them like puppets.’

  ‘How about you, Marv?’ I say. ‘You said Jane and Lottie weren’t themselves.’

  ‘They were fine just now,’ Marv says. ‘They just want me home.’

  I can see how much he needs to believe that. ‘You saw how they reacted when I stabbed Jack on the bridge, how they all went into spasms.’

  ‘We saw and heard something,’ Marv allows. ‘But even so, Jack dead means it’s over. That was why you attacked him, right?’

  ‘Jack’s not dead.’ I push the palms of my hands into my temples because if I don’t my head might explode. ‘All we saw was a dead guy with the same colour hair and the same T-shirt!’

  I realise how I sound. Like a crazy person who can’t let go.

  ‘What about the injuries?’ Alex says. ‘C’mon, even you have to admit that it’s a pretty big coincidence.’

  What I don’t want to admit is that he’s right.

  ‘You’re not serious?’ Nathan has my back. ‘With thousands of bodies to choose from, how hard would it be to bandage a lookalike?’

  ‘You’re as nuts as she is,’ Alex spits back. ‘Why? Why pretend he’s dead?’

  Suddenly it all makes sense. First Jack taunted Nathan by seeming to put Tregan and Gary in danger. Then he tugged at Marv with Jane and Lottie. He’s tried to make Marv and Tajik and Alex feel like hostages. He’s goaded Oscar by calling him a murderer and showing him Louis’s body. He’s convinced everyone I’m a psychotic killer. Now what he’s trying to do is make me believe I have actually killed one person: him.