Turn off the Lights

by Phillip Gwynne

  And suddenly I felt angry, angry that The Debt had cast these two as my enemies.

  Because, in a way, I admired them.

  And now I had to take them out.

  As they approached, gliding across the ground, I got ready.

  This part of Plan Moneypenny had always been the most unsatisfactory. If I’d been Taliban, or an Iraqi insurgent, or a professional fighter, the son of a professional fighter, himself the son of a professional fighter, possessed of all that accumulated knowledge, I was sure I’d be standing behind the tomato stall, mobile phone in my hand, ready to remotely detonate my IED.

  One press of the hash button and kaboom!

  But I wasn’t, and I hadn’t been able to work out how to do it, so here I was, lighter in my hand, about as non-remote as you could get.

  I waited a couple more seconds until I could make out the eco-ninjas’ faces, before I told myself Now! and lit the fuse.

  It glowed red but it didn’t take, and for a second I thought I’d been had, that what I’d seen a hundred times on YouTube had been some sort of practical joke. But then there was a loud fizzing sound – the fuse had taken! – and I had to get the hell out of there.

  This next part of Plan Moneypenny really depended on one thing and one thing only: leg speed, on me getting to my scooter as quickly as possible.

  Being a runner, I thought I had that covered.

  But now I wasn’t so confident; even walking here, watching my every step, I’d stumbled twice.

  I took off.

  Not in a straight line, because I didn’t want to pass the eco-ninjas coming the other way.

  So I ran in a sort of arc, cross-country technique: toes pointed, legs pumping high, arms swinging hard.

  Miraculously I dodged the rocks and managed to stay upright.

  When I reached the road, I realised my arc had brought me really close to the Fiends of the Earth panel van.

  I wasn’t too worried, though: Mandy was in a wheelchair, what could she do?

  Well, she could turn the headlights on high beam.

  Which was exactly what she did.

  Dazzling the hell out of me.

  She could lean on her horn.

  Which was exactly what she did.

  Scaring the hell out of me.

  And she could try to run me over.

  Which, again, was exactly what she did.

  Revving the engine, she dropped the clutch. The handi-capable freak!

  And dazzled, scared as I was, I just stood there as the van, gathering momentum, came onto me.

  From the direction of the transmission tower came a sound, more than just a sound, a mega-sound, an almighty kaboom! Which was enough to shock me into action.

  I leapt to one side, and the van, lights still dazzling, horn still blaring, thundered past.

  A couple of commando-style rolls and I was back on my feet.

  The transmission tower was now incandescent, an enormous roman candle, sparks showering skyward.

  For a second I thought I’d overdone it, that I’d actually taken the tower out, but I had to remind myself that my IED wasn’t really an IED. Yes, it was definitely I for improvised, and it was definitely D for a device, but it wasn’t E for explosive, it was just a whole bunch of sparklers bought at different shops bound closely together with layers of electrical tape. Really, it was just an ID.

  Just as I reached my scooter the sirens started.

  SATURDAY

  GETTING OFF EVEREST

  It’s not getting to the top of Mount Everest that kills people, it’s getting off it. So what’s my point? Exactly that. I’d climbed Everest – sort of – and now I had to get off it.

  I’d spent hours and hours in front of my computer, zooming in and out of Google Earth, planning an escape route, memorising the safest way off Everest. It’d seemed straightforward then, but now that it was dark, with sirens blaring from all directions, it didn’t seem so simple.

  Stick to the plan! I kept telling myself, especially the part of me that just wanted to keep going flat-chat on the road I was on.

  I passed over the bridge, and there it was: a dirt road leading off to the right. I took it, turning off my lights as I did. I had to slow right down but at least I was moving away from the main road. The sirens were less audible here, and I was getting more confident that I’d made my escape.

  I approached another bridge, but it wasn’t there!

  I remembered it clearly from Google Earth: a normal, everyday bridge, nothing fancy, nothing ornate. But it had done – in Google Earth, anyway – exactly what bridges were supposed to do: take the road from one side of the river to the other.

  Instead, there were piles of sand and piles of gravel and huge concrete blocks and earthmoving machines and a sign that said We’re Building You a Better Gold Coast! Please Use Detour.

  Right then, I hated Google Earth, hated Google anything. But I had no choice, so I took the detour. I knew exactly where it was taking me. I knew because I’d done everything I could to avoid this route.

  I could smell it even before I got there.

  The smell of finite existence.

  And when I did get there, to the stone wall, to the looming shapes beyond, I forced myself to look the other way. There were two kilometres of Necropolis to get past, two kilometres of galloping coimetrophobia to deal with.

  I heard them first – a distant thwocka thwocka thwocka – before I saw their sweeping searchlights. Helicopters!

  I was so angry with myself: I’d seen enough action movies, why hadn’t I factored in helicopters?

  The anger quickly became concern, because they were approaching rapidly. I needed to find cover. To my right there was nothing but open fields. I forced myself to look left. At the unbroken stone wall. I almost felt relief: there was no way in anyway.

  Thwocka! Thwocka! Thwocka!

  Suddenly, an entrance. I slowed down, wheeled over to the gate. Pushed against it.

  Surely it would be locked, I thought. I hoped.

  It wasn’t.

  Thwocka! Thwocka! Thwocka!

  I was inside the Necropolis.

  ‘Hey, did any of you guys here order pizza?’ I said.

  Nobody laughed.

  Not even me.

  I rolled down a path, on either side of which were row upon row of gravestones.

  No cover there.

  Thwocka! Thwocka! Thwocka!

  The helicopters and their sweeping searchlights were getting closer.

  I kept going, looking for somewhere to hide.

  But when I found it, I wish I hadn’t.

  It was the Tabori family crypt.

  There were Taboris at my school, twins. One played cello, the other violin in the school orchestra.

  As I pushed against the door with the front wheel of my scooter I wondered if this was their family crypt, whether one day, after the final note had sounded, they would both end up here. The door creaked inwards, and my scooter and I disappeared inside.

  If you wanted to destroy somebody who has arachnophobia, what would you do?

  Stick them in a cage full of spiders.

  Somebody who has altophobia?

  Stick them on the top of Everest.

  Somebody who has coimetrophobia?

  Do this to them. Stick them in a crypt at night.

  The pressure was intolerable – it was building in my head, my whole body. I had to get out of here.

  I tried to reason with myself. What was coimetrophobia, after all? It was just a word some mint-sucking psychiatrist had written on a piece of paper with an expensive fountain pen, that’s all it was.

  But there was no reasoning. The pressure was increasing, the terror was increasing. Every fibre, every atom in me was screaming: get us out of here!

  The thwocka thwocka thwocka was overhead, however. I could almost feel the whirring rotors as they shredded the night sky.

  Harsh light entered through a high-set window, illuminating the inside of the crypt. Th
ere were plaques on one wall, with photos of the residents, the deceased. One of the faces was familiar, somehow. Who was it? Then it came to me: it was one of the twin boys in the photo I’d found in the bottom drawer of Gus’s desk.

  It’s the coimetrophobia, I told myself. It’s playing tricks with your mind.

  Then I saw the rat.

  Miranda used to have a rat called Madonna that had pink eyes and white fur and would only eat unsalted cashew nuts. This rat had black fur and black eyes and was looking straight at me, a quizzical look on its rat face, like it’d never seen a human before. And maybe it hadn’t. Not a vertical one, anyway.

  The light disappeared and the rat was sucked back up by the darkness.

  The thwocka thwocka thwocka moved away.

  I knew I had to stay here, that the helicopters were probably following some sophisticated searching algorithm that would bring them sweeping over the same place several times. But I couldn’t. Coimetrophobia was not just a word written on a piece of paper.

  I backed the scooter out of there, and then I took off, flying down the path, through the gate and back onto the road.

  Fortunately, the helicopters didn’t return and I was able to finish the detour and get back to my planned escape route, a series of small tracks that went this way and that, past farmhouses and milking sheds.

  When I’d reached the main road again, I pulled over into a stand of trees. I changed back into my clothes, shoving the delivery boy’s uniform into a plastic bag.

  My instinct was to rid myself of the bag there and then by burying it under some rocks, or by climbing up a tree and wedging it between some branches. But I’d already been through this in my head. If I did this, it would still be evidence, evidence rich in DNA, evidence that somebody, some day, might find. No, I had to take the uniform with me.

  I took the can of black spray-paint and gave the scooter a quick and dirty spray job, obliterating any mention of Big Pete’s Pizzas. I did the same with my helmet. Satisfied that I looked a lot less like a pizza delivery boy that maybe had an alert out on him, I got back on the scooter.

  I imagined I could hear the freeway’s roar now. Almost see it, the river of noise and light. Freedom, I thought, because surely once I got on there, I would be anonymous again.

  Headlights appeared from towards Diablo Bay, and then a panel van moved slowly past. Strapped to its roof rack was a collapsible wheelchair.

  They’d gotten away!

  Not possible, I thought. Because I was sure I’d brought a world of trouble down on them, a world of roadblocks and buzzing helicopters and trigger-happy anti-terrorist squads. Still, now they had managed to get away, I figured it was better just to let them go. There was no way the reckless zealots were going to bring that tower down now.

  But then I thought of Mandy.

  The way she’d run over my feet, my delicate runner’s feet, in her wheelchair. The way she’d almost run over all of me, the delicate all of me, in her panel van.

  Not only that, it seemed like I hadn’t finished the job. That I wasn’t doing Plan Moneypenny the justice that it – she? – deserved.

  So, killing my lights, I took off after them.

  Fortunately for me they weren’t going very fast, obviously going for the we’re-not-running-from-anything look, the we’re-just-on-a-drive-in-the-country-at-night look. So it didn’t take me long to catch up with them and as I did I worked out a plan, my third one for the night.

  Now I had a problem, however; a classic catch-22. In order to execute the plan, I needed to pass them, but if I passed them they’d immediately be onto me.

  But as soon as this catch-22 appeared, so did its solution.

  Rest Stop Ahead said the sign, and I remembered how on the day of the excursion we’d pulled in here so all my over-caffeinated classmates could relieve themselves.

  The panel van continued straight ahead, and I veered to the left, onto the gravel road.

  As I did I twisted the throttle as far as it would go.

  Okay, there was no way this scooter would have come second to the great Valentino Rossi in the Italian Grand Prix. The great Valentino Rossi probably wouldn’t even want his Ham and Pineapple delivered by such a thing. But it was surprisingly powerful, and as it flew across the loose gravel, both my hands and thighs gripping tightly, I had the sensation that I was no longer in control.

  That I was being hurtled forward by forces far greater than me.

  And all I could do was what I was already doing: hold on tightly.

  And maybe it would all end then; the tyres would lose traction and the bike would slide out from under me and we’d both smash into a tree. Or maybe not.

  Suddenly the gravel road ended and I was back on the main road.

  I glanced over my shoulder, to see the twinkle of headlights far behind me.

  I’d done it.

  I kept the throttle at maximum until I came to the place where the bus had stopped for the cows that day.

  I pulled the scooter off the road, killed the engine.

  I couldn’t see them but now I could hear them: moos, moos and more moos. They sounded quite agitated and I couldn’t blame them. All those blaring sirens, all those thwocking helicopters, would’ve stirred up anybody.

  I hurried towards them. Now I could smell them, and their poo, feel the warm fug of their collective breath.

  ‘Hello, girls,’ I said, opening the gate. ‘Time to get a move on.’

  They stayed where they were.

  ‘Come on!’

  No movement.

  I ran across the road and pushed the other gate open. There was a loud creaking sound. Almost immediately, the cows started moving across the road towards me.

  I let a couple through the gate, but then I did a very mean thing: I closed the gate. Then I ran across the road and did another very mean thing: I closed the other gate.

  There were now at least thirty cows on the road: a bovine roadblock.

  I found a good hiding place behind a tree.

  Lights went on in the farmhouse. And headlights appeared on the road.

  The panel van arrived first.

  Perhaps another type of terrorist, a member of the Taliban, for example, might have just barrelled through, knocking cows helter-skelter like skittles. Not the chook-liberators, however.

  They stopped, they dimmed their lights, and Thor leant out of the window and said, ‘Let’s work through this, people.’

  There was the flash of a torch and the dairy farmers arrived.

  They were both short and round, both wearing dressing-gowns and gumboots, and one of them was carrying a double-barrel shotgun.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ she said, pointing it straight at Thor.

  ‘I reckon we might have just caught ourselves some terrorists, Ducks,’ said the other dairy farmer, taking out a phone. ‘Might just give that number they gave us a call.’

  ‘Ladies, you’ve got this wrong,’ said Thor.

  ‘For a start, we’re no ladies,’ said the dairy farmer called Ducks. ‘And secondly, let us be the ones to decide if we’ve got it wrong or not.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said the other dairy farmer to whoever was on the other end of the phone. ‘We’ll be waiting for you.’

  ‘They’ll be here in ten minutes,’ she said after she’d hung up.

  ‘Go!’ said Thor to Mandy, but she was already going.

  There was a crunch of gears and the van started reversing, the engine whirring, towards where I was hiding.

  Ducks took careful aim with the shotgun and blew out the front tyre.

  The panel van veered sharply to the right, but kept going.

  Ducks took aim again, and blew out the other front tyre.

  The panel van came to a stop.

  Time for me to make an exit, I thought.

  I got back to the scooter, started it up, and was about to take off back down the road when I had a thought.

  I delved into my backpack and brought out
the plastic bag with the Big Pete’s uniform inside.

  Taking careful aim, I tossed the bag. Looping through the air, it landed on the roof rack, right next to the wheelchair. I heard a siren, and headlights appeared in the distance, from the direction of Diablo Bay. I got on my scooter, and fifteen minutes later I was just another freeway user.

  When I’d planned the escape, my descent from Everest, I’d been reluctant to include Preacher’s Forest, but it was too perfect – a buffer zone between rural and urban, the ideal way to introduce myself back onto the city streets.

  It had other advantages too.

  I took one of the larger paths that led to the lake, stopping close to the edge. The water looked inky, sinister.

  Perfect.

  I started the scooter up, aimed it towards the lake and ran alongside it until I neared the edge.

  Now I was feeling regret: the bike had served me well; it didn’t deserve this.

  I had no choice, however.

  Twisting the throttle, I let go of the handlebars. The riderless scooter wobbled this way and that before it flew off the edge and smacked into the water.

  Inky. Sinister. Perfect.

  ‘These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them!’ came a voice.

  The Preacher!

  Was he responding to what I’d just done, or was this one of his customary nocturnal ravings?

  I wasn’t going to hang around to find out. I started running. Away from the lake, away from the Preacher, and away from any pursuers. Towards the city with its bright lights still twinkling. Not for much longer, I told myself as I checked my watch. Not for much longer.

  As I left the park, the Preacher’s words, ‘Blackest darkness is reserved for them!’ echoed, again and again, in my mind.

  SATURDAY

  DEARTH HOUR

  By the time I got off the bus near Taverniti’s and walked over to where the Earth Hour people had set up a stage, the adrenalin that had been pumping through my veins had subsided and my heart rate was back to something like normal.

  A band was playing – acoustically, of course – to a sparse crowd and people were handing out leaflets explaining climate change. But all around filaments were burning, neon gas was glowing, electricity was flowing – lights were ablaze. Office buildings had floor upon floor chequerboarded with lights. Restaurants shone like beacons, customers, moth-like, fluttering inside. Each cinema was a cathedral of light. And the Manny Hans sign still blazed MANNY HANS MAKES LIGHTS WORK.