Stedman got back in. ‘Totally scrambled, Jack,’ he said. ‘Apes would be fucking insulted to be related to these idiots.’
He engaged reverse. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.
I breathed out, a full breath. It was going to be all right, there was going to be a way out of this.
My door opened, two hands grabbed my head, pulled me, I had no resistance, went sideways, fell to the ground, hands dragged me away from the vehicle, I felt a huge weight on my chest, someone sitting on me.
‘This is the end of this crap,’ said Stedman. ‘Fucking circle closed. Look in his pockets, Chokka. Keys.’
Hands groped me, found Linda’s keys.
I couldn’t breathe, I tried to fight, the weight was overwhelming, schoolyard bully weight.
‘Cheers, Jack,’ said Stedman. ‘The boys’ll look after you. Great tradition of hospitality out here, not so, boys?’
The men made spitty, guttural noises.
‘Don’t fuck him without foreplay,’ said Stedman. ‘Grease him up with the WD40.’
‘Bagga fucker,’ said Chokka.
40
They pulled a bag over my head, my shoulders, dragged me by my feet, twenty, thirty metres over hard-packed dirt, through a doorway, handcuffed me to something.
‘Have a sleep,’ said Chokka. He pulled the bag off me. ‘Getting up fuckin early, right, Jimbo?’
Jimbo laughed, a high-pitched nasal sound, somehow both childlike and chilling.
They left, slammed a tin door. Jimbo was still laughing and the dogs were still barking. I didn’t move for a while, lying on my back, hands held behind my head, elbows at eye level, fear and self-pity pushing everything out of mind, shutting down my brain. Then I began to feel the cold — fierce cold, the ground beneath me, the air.
Suit pants and a cotton shirt, thin socks. I would die of cold before any other fate could befall me.
I could see my breath. There was light from a small window, just four panes, smeared, cobwebs moving.
Light from where?
Moonlight, it was just off full moon. You didn’t always notice the moon in the city, it wasn’t a city thing, the moon, superfluous to city requirements.
What were they going to do to me?
Kill me.
I felt the thing I was handcuffed to. The leg of something, I could make it out, a bench of some kind, steel pipe legs. I wriggled away until I could slide the cuffs down to the ground. If I could lift the bench…
The leg didn’t terminate. It curved. The legs were one length of pipe, bent upwards to meet the top. I wriggled back and ran my hands up. There was a flange: the pipe was bolted to the top, two bolt heads.
I wasn’t going to escape. I was going to freeze to death or I was going to live until they came for me and killed me.
No.
I got my palms under the benchtop, pushed, I didn’t know what I was trying to do, I was trying, that was all that mattered.
I could not move the benchtop a single millimetre.
What else?
I squirmed around and tried to get my legs under the bench, use the strength of my legs to do I knew not what. I couldn’t. There was something in the way.
Think.
I thought.
I tried things, hopeless, pointless, stupid things, my wrists were painful, I thought I could see blood staining my shirt-sleeves. I ached everywhere.
At length, I stopped trying to free myself, lay, shivering, teeth clicking. A kind of numb peace came upon me and I slept, dreamed I was lying on the ground and someone was kicking me in the side. I tried to sit up and couldn’t.
I opened my eyes, felt another kick, higher, in the ribs.
‘Fuckin wakie wakie,’ said Chokka. ‘Bag him.’
Jimbo lifted my head by the hair, pulled a plastic bag down to my shoulders. I panicked, shouted, inhaled, exhaled, smelled my stale breath.
The handcuff was off my right hand.
‘Geddup, fucker,’ said Chokka. ‘Gotta shotgun here, any shit I blow your fuckin balls off.’
I stood up, my hands were cuffed again, behind me, someone pushed me. I walked, collided with something, the door probably, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, feeling the plastic being sucked in, moist air in the bag, something jammed against my spine, a gun muzzle. I walked, stumbled on something, a hand pushed me sideways, changed my direction, no idea of distance covered.
My collar was gripped from behind, stopping me, the bag pulled off my head.
Air. So sweet, so clean.
Dogs barking, close, metres away.
The muzzle in my back.
‘Said to just fuckin shoot ya, bleed ya, crush ya in the stampmill, chuck ya bits in the acid,’ said Chokka. ‘Gotta acid bath here.’
‘How much,’ I said, ‘to let me go?’
He laughed, a choking sound, ending in coughing, hawking, spitting. ‘Howsabout fifty?’ he said.
‘Fifty’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to fifty grand.’
The terrible ruined laugh again. ‘Nah, mate,’ he said. ‘Fifty fuckin million, mate, how’s that? Go to that, fucker?’
I was seeing now, the moon, cloudless sky, was it near dawn? It was freezing, my whole body seemed to be shaking. We were on a level surface, concrete, between sheds, a dark hill opposite. The ground sloped away sharply. A machine to the right, the height of a truck. This was a mine perhaps, long ago.
Jimbo came around the corner to my left, two dogs on short leashes. One was big, white, it could eat from a kitchen counter, the other was below knee-height, brindle, broad, round head, low centre of gravity, some kind of pitbull cross. The dogs pulled away from Jimbo, came back, collided, the big one snarled, I saw teeth.
‘Big boy’s not blooded proper,’ said Chokka. ‘Just roos. Little fucker’s the killer. Bought him off a fuckin slope, killed so many dogs the other slopes won’t let him fight anymore. Turns out he’s also a fuckin tracker, gets a scent, nose fuckin down, he’s off. Go anywhere too. Run up a tree after a possum, straight fuckin up like he’s goin up stairs, the fuckin poss looks back, big fuckin eyes. Bang. They fall out of the tree, he’s got it.’
Jimbo brought the dogs up, let the small one sniff my legs, held the big one back. It bared its teeth at me, widely spaced fangs like a fish trap. I stepped back, felt the muzzle press.
Jimbo laughed, the deranged child sound.
‘Happy, boy?’ said Chokka, the voice of a father. ‘More fun than the girl he brung, hey? Whadya reckon, Jimbo?’
Jimbo dropped his head shyly, long strands of filthy hair covered his face. When he raised his chin, threw back his hair, he was looking sideways, embarrassed. Snot was running from his nostrils and he put out a long reptilian tongue and licked it into his mouth.
I felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature, cold in the core of my body.
‘Was the girl still alive when he brought her?’ I said.
Jimbo looked at me, head tilted. I could see the whites of his eyes.
He was smiling. He nodded. ‘Smelt nice,’ he said.
My arms were pulled back by the handcuffs. I heard the snick, they were free.
‘Run, fucker,’ said Chokka.
I didn’t know what to do.
‘Five minutes’ start,’ he said. ‘Howzat? See if you kin run faster’n these fuckin dogs. Fair go, hey, mate?’
Jimbo squealed with sexual pleasure.
Chokka kicked me in the base of my spine. The shock went into my skull. I stumbled a few paces, fell to my knees.
‘Go, fucker!’ Jimbo screamed. ‘Go! Go!’
I got up and ran into the dark, downhill, down the bare slope, there was a path, slippery, leather-soled shoes, I fell, got up, slipped, fell, rose, ran, got off the path, there was grass beside it, it was less slippery, a terrible pain in my left knee, it was of no consequence whatsoever.
The dogs wouldn’t kill me. They would maul me. I would be alive when Chokka and Jimbo arrived.