The Road by Catherine Jinks

  ‘We stopped at the roadhouse,’ Graham reminded him.

  ‘Yeah, but for how long? Twenty minutes? Half an hour at the most. And we left Mildura at ten thirty –’

  ‘Ten forty-five.’

  ‘We still should be there by now, eh, Alec?’ Graham appealed to the rescued truckie, who had hardly spoken since climbing onto the back seat. He had accepted Graham’s offer of a drink of water, and had revealed – upon being asked – that his payload was cement powder. But he was obviously a man of few words. Either that, or he had something on his mind. Chris suspected the latter. It was odd, the way he kept gnawing at his thumbnail and peering intently out the window.

  ‘Yeah,’ Alec said at last, as the Land Rover came to a halt on the side of the road. ‘Yeah, we shoulda been there by now.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Graham inquired, turning to his brother. ‘Why are you stopping?’

  ‘To top up the tank.’

  ‘But we’re almost there.’

  ‘That’s what we thought half an hour ago.’

  ‘But we must be, Chris, I’ve been checking the map. We crossed Pine Creek before we even picked up Alec.’

  ‘Yeah. Well.’ Chris cut the engine and folded his arms across the top of the steering wheel. He gazed ahead, at the two low, hazy peaks in the distance. As far as he could recall, they had to be the Pinnacles.

  So why didn’t they seem to be getting any closer?

  ‘Alec?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Are those the Pinnacles? Those two lumps up ahead?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is there some kind of . . . I dunno, some kind of weird optical illusion associated with those things?’

  There was a brief pause. Graham stared at Chris as if he had grown two heads. Chris turned in his seat to look at Alec, who dropped his gaze to the floor.

  ‘Nup,’ said Alec.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Graham inquired of his brother.

  ‘Mate, I dunno,’ said Chris. ‘But we’ve been driving for – what? An hour, since we picked him up? And not only haven’t we reached Broken Hill – which we should have at the speed I’ve been going – but we can’t seem to get any closer to those peaks. I mean, they’re not getting any bigger. Have you noticed that, Alec?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Alec admitted, still not lifting his gaze from the floor. Graham swung around to study the Pinnacles.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ he demanded.

  ‘You tell me,’ Chris replied.

  ‘I can’t. I haven’t been paying attention.’

  ‘Well I have. I always do. And either I’ve made a complete balls-up of my map readings, time projections and fuel consumption calculations or I’m on the wrong road. Am I on the wrong road, Alec?’

  ‘No,’ said the truckie.

  ‘Well, no offence, mate, but you’re not exactly the Pope,’ Graham pointed out, still addressing his brother. ‘I mean, no one expects you to be infallible. Anyway, we’re on the right road. Definitely. We crossed Pine Creek – there was a sign up.’

  ‘Yeah, and check the map. Pine Creek’s supposed to be about forty-five kays from Broken Hill. We must have crossed it an hour ago, Graham.’

  ‘Are you sure? Are you sure the clock’s working?’

  ‘No. I’m not sure the fuel gauge is working either. Or the speedometer. But you’d think they would be, wouldn’t you? Since it’s a brand new car.’

  The two McKenzies subsided into a troubled silence. At last Graham broke it.

  ‘Well,’ he remarked, ‘we won’t get anywhere if we sit here. Let me stick some gas in the tank, and we’ll see what happens. We’re probably just five minutes away, and we don’t even realise it.’

  ‘No,’ Alec suddenly observed. ‘No, we’re not.’

  The McKenzies twisted their necks to look at him.

  ‘We’re not five minutes away,’ Alec continued. ‘We won’t get there at all.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Chris.

  ‘I had nearly seven hundred litres in Diesel Dog. Shoulda got me to fuckin Tibooburra, let alone Broken Hill. But it didn’t.’ Alec wouldn’t meet their eyes. ‘Where you found me?’ he went on, in a hoarse voice. ‘Pinnacles looked the same from there, too. They’ve been lookin the same ever since. Haven’t been gettin any closer. I’ve watched. I’ve checked.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There’s something severely fucked goin on, in case you haven’t worked it out.’

  Graham and Chris glanced at each other. The same thought crossed both their minds: he’s cracked.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ said Alec impatiently. ‘You think I’m bloody mad. But I’m tellin ya, we won’t bloody get there. Keep drivin and we won’t get any closer. You’ll end up with no fuel at all. Stranded. Like me.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Chris chose his words carefully. ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘I suggest you turn around and go back to the roadhouse.’

  Graham made a muffled noise. ‘You what?’ he said.

  ‘I dunno, Alec.’ Chris tried to be reasonable. ‘I dunno if it’s that drastic.’

  ‘It is,’ Alec retorted. His tone was bleak. He leaned forward, clutching the headrests of the front seats. ‘It is that drastic. If you don’t go back you’ll end up stuck out here. With no food, no water, no petrol, no nothing.’

  Chris hesitated. He couldn’t tell whether Alec was out of his mind on pills or whether there was something in what he said. The numbers didn’t add up, that was for sure. But natural law decreed that if you kept on driving, you had to reach someplace. It was physically impossible not to.

  ‘Are you saying that we’re actually standing still?’ Graham queried. ‘Is that what you’re saying? Because I’ve been watching the country go by, Alec. We pass things, you know?’

  Alec shook his head. ‘We’re not passin nothing,’ he replied.

  ‘Mate –’

  ‘Look, I know this road!’ Alec cried. ‘I could drive it in me sleep! Nothing’s changin! It’s all the same! The same stretch, over and over!’

  Graham spread his hands. ‘But Alec,’ he said quietly, ‘isn’t that what a desert’s all about?’

  Alec threw himself back into his seat with an explosive sigh. ‘You don’t get it,’ he groaned. ‘You dunno this country. It’s not the fuckin Simpson desert, it changes. It’s different.’

  Chris cast his mind back to the endless monotony of the drive from Coombah to Pine Creek. He lifted an eyebrow at Graham, who scratched his cheek thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, I dunno,’ said Graham. ‘What do you reckon? He is a local.’

  ‘You want to drive back to Coombah?’ Chris inquired of his brother.

  ‘Not especially.’

  Chris twisted around, and leaned into the space between the two front seats.

  ‘Alec,’ he said, ‘I’ll take your opinion on board. I see where you’re coming from. But if you don’t mind, we’re going to chuck a bit more petrol in the tank and see how much further we can get on it.’

  Alec shook his head, dolefully.

  ‘And if we’re not in Broken Hill by . . . let’s see.’ Chris checked his watch. ‘By half past four, then I’ll agree we’ve got a problem, and we’ll turn around. Okay? Or flag someone down, or something. All right?’

  Alec shrugged.

  ‘We’ve got plenty of food,’ Graham pointed out.

  ‘Yeah. And tents. And a camp stove,’ Chris added. ‘So we’ll be fine, no matter what happens.’

  Alec sighed and stared out the window. Graham went to drag a can of petrol off the roof. Chris checked his map again.

  It was very warm.

  The man had waited near Mullet’s corpse. He had waited for nearly two hours, after pretending to make a noisy departure. Stamping along in his heavy boots, grunting and swearing as the pebbles slid out from under him, he had climbed back up to the top of the ridge. He had even progressed a few metres further before very quietly removing his boots and slowly, carefully, retracing his steps.

 
There was a raised spot on the crest of the ridge from which he could look down at the mouth of the mysterious hole. After lowering himself onto this wind-sculptured vantage point (wincing with every crack of his joints) he had settled his gun between his knees and waited. And waited. The sun had moved across the sky, burning into the back of his neck and the skin of his forearms, which were uncovered. Ants had run across his thighs, up over his hands, into the folds of his socks. Flies had wheeled and buzzed about his head, attacking his eyes, his lips, the dark blood on his clothes. He hadn’t dared blow them away with puffs of air, lest he make a sound; instead he had flapped at them fruitlessly, wondering if he should have killed the dog after all. That corpse was attracting clouds of flies. They were coming in from everywhere, dizzy with excitement. Mullet’s wound was already black with them.

  Once or twice the man nearly sighed, or sniffed. He barely managed to stop himself. After about an hour, a crow came down to have a look at the dead dog, eyeing the dog’s master with one wary eye. Then another crow came, and another. But they didn’t approach the rapidly cooling meat. They didn’t seem to trust the man, or his motionless vigil. They remained at a distance, sometimes pacing, sometimes pruning themselves, always watching.

  The man watched, too – he watched the hole. He would stare at its dark threshold until he was cross-eyed, and had to blink and look away. Sometimes his gaze swept the horizon, noting the position of the sun, the length of the shadows. Sometimes he would check his watch and frown. It was getting late. Too late. He had things to do.

  He had to get back to the house. Clean himself. Pick out a change of clothes. The plan was there – all laid out – and it would protect him, as long as he completed each step faithfully before proceeding to the next. Logic and organisation would see him through this, like a charm against the forces of chaos ranged against him, but not if he faltered. Not if he let his enemy set the agenda.

  He thought he heard a sound coming from the hole – a soft scraping sound – and he leaned forward, eyes narrowed. He knew that the kid was in there. He could feel it; the air was practically singing with tension, and the hole was the source of that tension. But if Nathan was in there, he was playing possum. The way he used to back at the house, when he hid in the garage or the laundry basket like a fucking cockroach. He wasn’t a kid, he was a little brown cockroach.

  Grace had probably taught him to hide. She knew all the boong tricks, and would have passed them on for sure. A kid like that, with her blood in him – who knew what he was capable of? Lying low. Burrowing into the landscape. That was the way they worked it. Watching. Waiting. Black shadows, weaving their spells in the dark.

  Not any more, though. She wouldn’t be fucking up his life any more. The curse was lifted.

  At last he got sick of waiting. He couldn’t risk hanging around any longer. He had to get out before something bad happened – before the dark forces of her will regrouped, somehow. She was dead now, but he still didn’t trust her. He was half-afraid that he had failed to destroy her poisonous spirit, despite all his efforts. What if he had simply released it into the air, or into the soil? Suppose it managed to strike back at him in the usual way, by turning the world against him?

  It might happen yet, if he didn’t stay with the program. His plan, his program, was all he had. He had fashioned himself a defence against her witchery using measurements and machines and timetables and all the other products of civilisation with which mankind had harnessed the natural laws of the universe. And he had won. For all her secret knowledge, she had been fooled and defeated.

  Reaching for his boots, he dragged first one on, then the other, jerking at the laces as if he wanted them to snap. His hands were bony and long-fingered, crawling with knotted muscle, splattered with dried blood. There was blood under his fingernails.

  With a groan of relief he finally stood up, stretching and flexing, wrinkling his nose as the first faint whiff of meat reached him. It wasn’t too bad yet, but it would be. In this sun, Mullet would start to rot without delay. His guts would ooze and his belly would blow and the maggots would crawl up his arse.

  Mullet’s master found some satisfaction in contemplating this prospect, which was all that Mullet deserved. Hot rage suddenly erupted inside him like a haemorrhage – like lava oozing, thick and sulphurous, out of a crusted fault-line into his blood. He stamped hard on Mullet’s head, four or five times, feeling the small bones splinter. Then he whirled around, squatted, and poked the barrel of his gun into the mouth of the hole.

  ‘Say good night, ya little fuck!’ he spat. When he pulled the trigger, the hole exploded.

  There was a flash, a roar, a spray of dust. The man laughed and reloaded, pulling at the bolt, allowing the next bullet to spring into the chamber. As he pushed the bolt back into place, he thought he heard something – a faint squeak? Maybe.

  But his ears were still ringing.

  He fired again, and again. He fired until his magazine was empty, because he had more ammo. Lots more. He even had another gun – a fuck-awful old thing that he had lifted off the old man. Looked like a piece of rubbish, but it did work, as long as you weren’t a half-blind geriatric. He had to laugh, when he thought of that doddering idiot. Carrying his ammo in his pocket like a packet of mints. Shuffling along in his slippers.

  A sitting duck.

  The man rose, breathing heavily. He glanced around, but saw only empty land; the crows had gone. There were no suspicious clouds of dust anywhere nearby. He was calm again now – serene in fact – because he had finished the job. The job was done, at last. Though a long time coming, it had been worth the wait – worth the endless, tormenting, suffocating wait. And if he felt a bit weak, a bit muddled, well . . . that was all right. That was to be expected. It was like reaching the end of a marathon – like coming up for air after a long, hard swim. Of course you were left feeling dizzy.

  He wished he could have taken a photograph, but he wasn’t stupid, no matter what everyone said. He knew better than to hang onto any fucking souvenirs. That wasn’t part of his plan. He’d have to get rid of his gun, in fact, and keep that heap-of-junk .22. He was willing to bet that no one knew anything about the .22, now that the old man was dead. It was the sort of thing that farmers found under their shearing sheds and stuck in their laundry cupboards. Fucking ancient. His own gun wasn’t registered to him, so that was all right. It had been stolen by a mate of his. Sold to him for drinking money.

  See? He knew what he was doing. He had everything under control. Everything was under control now – everything. Even that slag, that cunt, that fucking – fucking – that black bitch with her evil eye. He had put out that eye. He had smashed it into pulp.

  The very thought of her almost made him retch. His hands shook as he fumbled in his pocket for more ammo. But then he happened to look down, and see the glistening thread that was slowly, slowly trickling out of the hole.

  It looked almost black, but it wasn’t. It was a dark, doomed red.

  Satisfied, the man turned on his heel. He began to march towards the house, whistling for his dog before he remembered, and laughed a shaky, high-pitched laugh, and slapped his forehead.

  Some of the flies followed him. Most remained with the dog, and some – a few – began to explore the hole, drawn by the promise of butchery.

  CHAPTER 7

  The atmosphere in the car was as thick as pea soup.

  Verlie knew that Ross was getting anxious. After nearly forty years of marriage, she could read the signs. His posture had stiffened. He kept sniffing and clearing his throat. He hadn’t spoken for the last twenty minutes.

  Neither had Verlie. She knew that if she voiced the question uppermost in her mind, he would either snap her head off or ask her testily to stop talking, just for a minute, because he was trying to work something out.

  Cautiously she reached into her purse and produced a mint, which she unwrapped as quickly as possible.

  ‘I’ll have one of those, please,’ said Ross, ex
tending his hand. Verlie surrendered her own mint and selected another. They both sucked thoughtfully for a while.

  ‘Did we ever come down this road when we were living in Broken Hill?’ Verlie inquired at last. ‘I don’t think we did, did we?’

  ‘No,’ Ross replied. ‘We were always travelling to Sydney. We always used the Barrier Highway.’

  ‘What’s this one called? I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘The Silver City Highway.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Another long silence. Surreptitiously, Verlie studied the distance marker that seemed to come barrelling towards them as they flew down the road. To her disappointment, she saw that this one, too, was illegible. It was appalling. Surely the RTA should be fixing the signs along this road? What on earth were their taxes being spent on?

  If Ross noticed the way she craned her neck and adjusted her sunglasses, he said nothing. But when she looked down at her watch he could contain himself no longer.

  ‘All right!’ he said sharply. ‘I know! It’s been an hour and ten minutes, for your information!’

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ Verlie protested, in injured tones.

  ‘You didn’t have to. I’m perfectly aware of what’s happening, you don’t need to point it out.’

  Verlie refrained from making any reply. Maintaining an offended silence was far more dignified than quarrelling like a pre-schooler. But she couldn’t hold her tongue for long; she was too worried. The Ferguson family were preying on her mind.

  ‘Could there be a misprint on the map?’ she finally proposed, and Ross gave an exaggerated sigh.

  ‘I knew you were fretting. I knew it.’

  ‘Well, I’m worried about that family, aren’t you?’

  ‘We’ll phone as soon as we get there.’

  ‘But they said it would take two hours. It might be dark before anyone reaches them.’

  ‘It can’t possibly take two hours, it’s only three and a half hours from Broken Hill to Mildura.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Nobody had to tell me, I worked it out for myself.’