Max’s hands are bloody. It’s smeared on his face and all over his clothes. His jeans are soaked through as if he’s been kneeling in the snow.
‘What happened?’ I pull open his jacket and look over him. His jumper is soaked crimson. ‘Where are you hurt? WHERE ARE YOU HURT? Fuck. FUCK.’
He shakes his head, pulling his jacket closed. Rosa is hysterical, shrieking. I actually push her out of the way. Some people come over to see what is going on; one of them brings a blanket, wraps it around Max, saying something about shock. I pull off Max’s beanie and tilt his head forward, back, side to side. There doesn’t seem to be any cuts. He’s looking at me like his eyes aren’t quite focused, like he can’t see me properly.
‘What’s happened? Where are Noll and Matt? Max, talk to me.’
Lucy is next to us, God knows how she got there. It’s only when she tells me to try to calm down that I realise I have been shouting. By the time we get Max to the car there is a small crowd of people gathered around us.
‘Where are they, Max? Just tell us where they are.’
When I was ten, I left my bike in the rain. The wheel spokes turned orange-brown with rust. It got on my hands, it got on my clothes.
The snow that Matt and Noll lie on is the same colour. There is an army truck a few metres away, the driver’s door is open. Next to it is the dark shape of a body on the ground. Someone has covered Matt’s face with a towel and from the bloom of colour around his head I know there is no point looking under it. I go to Noll. His eyes are open, staring up into the sky. I kneel on the snow beside him. He is so still I think he is already gone, but his eyes shift and look directly at me. I yank the gloves from one of his hands and grip it in mine. He blinks at me and opens his mouth. It’s then that I see the bullet hole in the chest of his coat. Deep red pooling on the heavy fabric. I tear off my jacket and press it down over the hole, that’s all I can do.
‘Noll, Noll, don’t leave us. Hang on.’
The expression on his face is more of mild curiosity than anything else. Surprise more than panic. He says something and I lean closer to him to hear.
‘I’m going home.’
‘Noll, no, no. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.’
He is still looking at me. But he is not there. There is nothing left in him. I feel for his pulse.
There is nothing.
I sit in the snow. I don’t know for how long. Eventually I get up, go to the body next to the truck. It is face down, head turned to the side, eyes closed. It is a woman in army fatigues. I stand there looking at her, then kneel down to see if she has a pulse. She doesn’t. I look around. Nothing, but still, silent black. I turn and as I am walking back, past the end of the truck, I see it, clipped on the back door. A fuel container. As I grasp the cold handle and lift it from its bracket I can feel the weight of it. Full.
Lucy doesn’t cry. Neither do I. Shock. She doesn’t ask about the fuel. Max watches wordlessly as I fill up our car. He is white and has vomited onto the concrete twice. His hands shake too much to hold a cup steady and Rosa comes over, crouches next to him and holds a cup of warm tea to his lips. Lucy opens the back of the car and starts pulling things out. Noll’s things. She unzips his bag, riffles through it, pulls out two thick woollen jumpers, some pants, and the most crucial of all items, socks. She places them in our bags.
She sorts through the rest of Noll’s possessions, leaves them in his bag. Except for his bible. I take it from her and turn it in my hands. The cover is worn and scratched, most of the gold lettering worn away. Inside, the delicate pages are scrawled with notes: Noll’s writing crammed into the narrow margins. I put the book under the front seat of the car.
Lucy and I help Max to his feet and I begin to peel his clothes off him: coat, jumper, shirt. He starts to cry and the sound of his sobbing is unbearable. His head hangs and the tears run down his chin. I have a memory of him, as a child, a toddler in a bib holding my mother’s hand. When there is only one layer of clothing left he reaches around to the back of his jeans. Then he holds the gun out to me.
We leave soon after. I retrace the route Noll and I took from Mr Effrez’s house. The three of us are silent in the car, until a few blocks from Effrez’s house, when Max speaks.
‘We got to an army truck in the park. Matt told us to hang back behind a wall. He went up to the driver’s side and the driver got out. I couldn’t hear what Matt said to her. I could only see because there was a light in the cabin. Whatever Matt said, she mustn’t have fallen for it. He pointed his gun at her. That’s when Noll yelled out. He told Matt to stop, ran toward them and pulled the handgun out. He didn’t even point it at her, but the army woman, she didn’t hesitate… she… she shot Noll…’ Max’s body starts to shake, tears tracking down his cheeks. He shakes his head like he is frustrated by the crying. ‘I guess Matt shot her then. She fell in the snow. Matt looked over to me. Then he put the gun to his head and shot himself.’
I grip the steering wheel hard to stop shaking. I can’t. I can only see Noll in primary school, standing among the shards of glass, blood dripping from his forehead.
I stop the car out the front of Mr Effrez’s house. It’s pretty clear that Max is too much of a mess to get out. Lucy stays with him and I go up the path to the front door. I can’t help but worry that I’ll find Effrez dead as well, it seems to be my new habit. My luck isn’t quite that bad, though. Effrez opens the door and gives me a wide smile, something I have never witnessed before.
‘You came back,’ he says, leading me into the lounge.
‘Yeah’ is all I can manage to say. He must have noticed the defeat in my voice because he stops and turns around.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Noll. He’s dead.’
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stands there looking at me. Then he turns around and walks through to the lounge. He motions to a seat and I take it.
‘Well, that’s… that’s just appalling news.’
Effrez crouches down and opens a small cupboard beneath the window. I realise it’s a safe. He pulls out a bottle and takes a glass from the cabinet that stands where most would have a television. He pours a glass of the thin, golden liquid and hands it to me. I take a sip, it scorches my throat.
‘What happened? Did he get sick? He seemed well when he was here.’
‘No. I don’t know exactly. He was shot.’
‘Shot?’
I tell Effrez what happened, about our search for fuel and Max running back covered in blood.
‘This just happened?’
I nod.
‘Where is your brother?’
‘He’s in the car, out front.’
‘And you’re going to go south? Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re in shock. You’re not driving. Bring Lucy and your brother inside. You will stay the night, sleep. Go in the morning.’
His offer is not negotiable.
Effrez brings a double mattress into the living room. It fills the entire floorspace. The three of us will squish together on it, with some cushions stuffed down the side for extra width. I don’t know if it’s his mattress or where he plans to sleep if it is. I imagine him hanging upside down from the ceiling like a bat.
He heats two cans of spaghetti over the fireplace in his bathroom sink. He has cheese, which he grates over the top and it’s the most delicious thing any of us has eaten in months. The three of us sit cross-legged on the mattress. Effrez doesn’t talk, just watches us eat and then takes the bowls away when we are done. He returns with a notepad and pen.