“Everyone out,” he said. “I hope this thing has a winch.”
Pat circled the vehicle. “There’s one on the front. Nothin’ on the back.”
“Typical. All right, I guess we winch forward.”
“Can’t do that,” Bell told him. “You’ll rip the guts out of the car.”
“You got a better idea?”
“How about we push and you try to reverse?”
“OK, let’s give it a try,” he relented. There was no point making the situation worse by pretending he knew better.
“But stay away from the front of the car. I don’t want to run over anyone. It’s a long crawl to the nearest hospital. Push on the doors.”
Luckman stuck it in reverse and revved slowly as the others heaved. The car didn’t move.
“Let’s pack some rocks under the wheels,” Pat suggested.
After 20 minutes of heavy lifting and careful packing under the front tyres, they gave it another go.
“Let me drive this time,” Mel suggested. “That way you can push.”
“Beautiful and smart,” Luckman told her. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
She hopped behind the wheel. “You grunts think a woman’s only good for one thing.”
“She means cooking and cleaning,” he replied for the benefit of the others.
“That’s two things,” Bell pointed out.
“Now don’t gun it,” Luckman warned her. “Take it slowly.”
Mel smiled disarmingly. “Bit late for that, soldier boy.”
She waited for them to take their positions then slowly depressed the throttle and let out the clutch. The car began to crawl backwards a centimetre at a time and in a couple of minutes all four wheels were back on solid ground. Released from their exertion the men stood back from the car to catch their breath, stretching sore back muscles and wiping sweat from their foreheads as they congratulated one another. Luckman pointed to the hillside above them where Dog was holding his ground.
“He’s marking the trail for us,” said Pat.
Luckman threw the keys at Bell like an admission of defeat. “You drive.”
Bell shook his head. “You put me behind the wheel and I’ll be driving back the way we came.”
Luckman frowned. “I think they still call that insubordination in the Army.”
“So court martial me Billy, I don’t wanna be a hero.”
Luckman pinched the pilot on the cheek. “Where have you been? I’ve missed you.”
He took the keys back and hopped back into the driver’s seat. They reversed about 100 metres before starting to move forward again. Luckman noticed a tree was obscuring the point where the trail broke off to the right. He had simply missed the turn. The wheel ruts in the terrain indicated they were back on track.
“Follow that blackfella,” Pat cackled.
The road twisted and curved through the next line of hills and Luckman noted from the relative position of the sun that the trail had shifted further to the south-east. It cut neatly through a tight knot of trees.
He checked the rear-vision mirror and spotted a motorbike on the trail about a click behind them. “Someone’s following us,” he told the others.
“The plot thickens,” said Mel.
“One of the cops maybe?” Bell suggested.
Luckman took it slowly in order to get a better look at the landscape. He had begun to notice a problem with his peripheral vision. He was having trouble focusing and could feel himself slipping into a sort of fugue state. It was like being awake and dreaming at the same time. He wound down the window, hoping the rush of warm air in his face would prevent him from falling asleep at the wheel. The trees parted and the road began to widen to the left of another hilly incline. He brought the car to a halt.
“What’s wrong now?” Bell demanded.
“Dog’s up there on top of that hill,” Luckman told him.
“But the trail goes around the hill,” Bell replied.
“I can see that. You wanna argue with the spirit man?”
“Dog hasn’t led us astray yet,” Mel pointed out.
“Look at the trail,” Bell insisted. “It’s wider and smoother here than it’s been anywhere behind us. It makes no sense to leave the path now.”
“Should we take a vote?” Pat suggested.
“It’s not a bloody democracy,” Luckman bellowed. “We follow Dog.”
“Go on then,” Bell sighed wearily.
“How are your guts feeling?” Luckman inquired.
“I’m trying not to think about it.”
The hillside was rougher than the trail but the 4WD managed the ascent without a problem. From the top of the rise, they saw what they had just avoided – the track below was under water. A small lake covered the area where the trail cut through the ridge line, easily two metres deep at its low point. There is no way they could have made it through.
“I guess that’s two-nil to Dog,” Bell admitted.
The dust plume from the dirt bike on their tail was still visible, although he could no longer see the motorbike itself. More disturbingly, the blur in his peripheral vision had intensified to the point where it seriously narrowed his line of sight. He now had trouble seeing anything that wasn’t right in front of him.
He looked at his watch. He was running out of time.
Forty-Six
Luckman was relieved to find they were able to descend quickly back to the trail as it continued along open, flat ground. They continued in silence for another few kilometres, passing a crossroad where a much wider and more clearly defined dirt road bisected the trail.
“It’s no good to us, is it?” Bell sighed.
Luckman had slowed down to make sure but he shook his head. They needed to traverse the final line of ranges – and there was a clear pass through the mountains directly in front of them. Somewhere beyond that pass lay the creek bed that would mark a course change.
They came to notice a change in the quiet hum of the desert, imperceptible at first, like the thrum of a cicada. But it began to build upon itself, rising slowly like the tide until they realised they were immersed in a harsh electronic howl that reminded Mel of a horror movie sound effect. There was something old and familiar about the sound. It was exactly the noise you might conjure in your imagination to represent a hideous monster stalking you across the landscape. It screamed “Stay Away” in all languages and all religions. It was the embodiment of human terror, and second by second it was becoming louder and more terrifying.
“We need to stop,” Bell yelled.
The motorcycle had reappeared on their tail. It was getting closer.
“No,” Luckman screamed back at him.
They leapt forward violently as Luckman pushed the car faster to get them there as rapidly as his failing eyesight would allow. They tore past the ruins of a house alongside the trail to their left. It looked like it had been bombed.
The Pine Gap perimeter fence appeared a few hundred metres ahead of them as the 4WD thumped off the trail and onto the dry creek bed. Luckman turned the wheel westward without slowing and the vehicle lurched violently.
The awful scream rattling through their skulls had devolved into the chorus of a million souls screaming in torment. Luckman began to picture the faces of the dead who came to him in nightmares.
Were they urging him to stop or to keep going?
The motorbike was a dark smudge in the dust cloud pluming behind them as the car roared along at a reckless 90 kilometres an hour. Luckman felt panic stabbing its way through his guts and guessed this was a taste of what had been gripping Bell. He searched desperately around the cabin for water. Mel instinctively reached forward with a bottle. He snatched it from her gratefully and voraciously gulped down the contents.
“Where are the military police?” asked Bell.