Bell shrugged. “As good as anyone else.”
“Get up to the front of the car. Get the nuts off that rim. If I can get a spare out we might have a chance of backing the fuck outa here.”
“But we’ve lost both front tyres.”
“This bitch is rear-wheel drive, it’ll manage on three wheels in reverse.”
Pat leapt into the back seat and began tearing through the crap piled in the wagon compartment in a frantic search for the spares. He found a spanner set and threw it out to Bell. Bullets were still flying but he blocked the danger from his mind. They were dead anyway if he did nothing to hasten their retreat.
Sure enough, under four old towels and a range of random spare parts was one good spare and another bald one.
“I was right, there’s two of them,” he called out. He noticed Luckman crawling past the back door to the rear of the car as he yanked out the best of the spares and rolled it across the back seat and onto the sand. He half rolled, half pushed it to the front of the car. Bell had three nuts removed but was struggling with the fourth and had slumped on the ground in defeat.
Pat wasn’t ready to give up quite so easily. “Give me a minute, I can fix it,” he yelled at Bell, who looked very much unconvinced.
“Get Mel in the car,” he whispered in the pilot’s ear. “I’ll have this wheel on in no time.”
When Bell failed to move, Pat grabbed him by the shoulders. “Wake up Australia, your country needs you.”
Bell managed a grim half smile and began crawling toward where Mel was lying in the sand.
From the corner of his eye, Pat saw Luckman stand up, arms raised. It was the bravest and the dumbest thing he had ever seen.
“Don’t shoot,” Luckman yelled at the gunman. “I’m coming out. Don’t shoot.”
Pat tried his best to focus on the job at hand, but he could hear the bullets still flying. The fourth wheel nut was a total bastard but eventually it shifted. After that effort, digging the sand out from under the car was easy. In less than a minute he had created enough room to fit the spare. To his enormous relief it slid into place with ease. He tightened the nuts and then grabbed whatever he could find to jam into the hole behind the wheel for traction.
The gunfire had stopped.
“How’re you doing?” Bell called to him.
“I’m done.”
“Stone’s been hit,” the pilot informed him as he snaked his way into the driver’s seat and tried to start the car. Amazingly, the engine fired.
“OK go,” Pat yelled. He began pushing on the wrecked front end with all his strength. It rocked back and forward a few times then began reversing toward the road. There was a terrible scraping noise coming from the diff but the old Ford wasn’t beaten yet.
When he knew the tyres were on bitumen Bell swung the tail of the wagon toward the guardhouse, hoping the rear door would offer them some protection from the gunfire.
Pat caught sight of the gunman standing over Luckman, who was sprawled on the road in a pool of blood.
The car ground to a halt. He guessed Bell had just seen the same thing in the rear-view mirror.
For an awful moment no-one moved. Then the guard stepped over Luckman and began advancing on them. He lifted the rifle to open fire.
The car didn’t move. Pat was totally exposed. The guard kept walking, firing off another round. It pinged off the tail gate. Pat caught his first proper glimpse of the attacker’s face. But it was a violation, an impossibility.
Bell began to rev the car loudly as if to taunt the guard who fired again and again as the station wagon started roaring backwards straight toward him. The sniper seemed so ridiculously sure of himself he didn’t even attempt to get out of the way. The wagon struck him hard and Pat heard a sickening squelch of flesh and bone being rent by steel. The guard was thrown backwards through the air, the rifle torn from his grip. His broken body hung in space for a moment then slapped down on the tarmac like roadkill.
The wagon had stopped less than a metre from where Luckman lay on the road. Pat was at his side almost before the guard’s body had hit the ground. He was still breathing but he’d been shot in the neck and had lost a lot of blood. He was too heavy for Pat to carry on his own. Bell grabbed his legs and together they carried him back to the car, placing him up next to Mel, who had ignominiously folded over on herself, her head in her lap. She looked dead. They sat her up again and leaned her on Luckman’s shoulder. His eyes were open and he was snatching breath in blood-curdling gasps. Bell climbed back behind the wheel and he floored it as soon as Pat joined him in the front passenger seat.
“They need a hospital,” said Pat, feeling sure he was stating the obvious.
“We won’t get far on three wheels,” said Bell.
“Get us down the road a bit and I’ll pull out the other spare.”
Within a few hundred metres the guard house had disappeared from view. The car complained bitterly and the going was slow but at least they were moving. Pat was aware the car could give up the fight at any moment but he wanted more distance between them and their attackers. If anyone gave chase now they’d be sitting ducks. He’d said it, but at the time he hadn’t believed it with quite this much conviction.
“No sign of anyone,” Bell confirmed. “Should we stop?”
The Stuart Highway turnoff was still a few clicks ahead of them but Pat figured they had to risk it. They would move much more quickly with four wheels.
“OK, but stay on the bitumen.”
“Mate, I’m keeping the engine running.”
Pat hopped out to take a look at the driver’s side wheel hub. To his utter astonishment, the wheel was undamaged.
It made no sense at all.
“Dog! No.”
It was Luckman’s voice.
Forty-Two
Luckman was sitting bolt upright in the back seat. His face was caught in an expression of horror. Bell was trying to placate him.
“It was Dog who shot me,” he repeated.
“Calm down mate, you’ve been wounded.”
But before he had even finished speaking, Bell was not so sure. Luckman was clean, even though moments ago his fatigues and the rear of the car had been soaked in his blood. Now that blood was gone.
Pat tore open the back door. He examined Luckman from head to chest. There wasn’t a mark on him. All of his fingers were intact.
At that moment Mel – slumped against the door – lifted her head and turned slowly to face them. Both men cried out in horror like they were witnessing the rising of the dead.
The lady herself was unperturbed. “Is everything all right?” she asked.
Pat swallowed his fear and touched her neck and then her forehead. Her injuries had likewise vanished.
“Turn your head,” he urged.
She turned from one side to the other then rolled her head in a slow circle.
“Does that hurt?”
“Not at all.”
“Was I dreaming?” Luckman asked.
“I was just asking myself the same thing,” Bell replied.
Pat looked at Bell in utter bewilderment. “How about you get us out of here?”
Bell nodded. “That’s a great idea.”
By the time they reached the highway they had determined that everyone had experienced the same hallucination – it was the only word to describe it.
“How is that even possible?” Bell wanted to know.
“It’s a psychic defence system,” Mel decided.
“That’s the only thing it could possibly be,” Luckman agreed.
“Which would explain why Pat and I both saw a dead kadaitcha man shooting at us with an automatic weapon.”