Blood & Dust. Jason Nahrung
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make out around a campfire. This was the first time he'd been scared. He reached the beam and hesitated. The ground was a head-spinningly long way down, even if the beam was wide enough to sit on.
'C'mon,' Taipan said. 'Wotcha 'fraid of?'
Kevin gritted his teeth and inched his way along. The ground twirled. His guts tightened, hungry or nervous or both, making him dizzy.
Taipan sniffed as Kevin sat down beside Kala.
'You burn ya dinner, Kay?' Taipan asked. 'Stop for a sausage sizzle?'
'Bit of a mess at the house, but I got there in time. Just.'
'That blood part of the mess?'
'A girl got bit. But she's still kickin'.'
Taipan sniffed, patted his stomach. 'Makes a man peckish.'
'Shut up: you've been fed.'
His hand brushed her cheek and she pulled away.
It made Kevin nervous. The bar wasn't that wide. He wished they'd just sit still, damn it.
'VS was watching the joint,' Kala said.
'Them Hunters who picked me up at that old bitch's place?'
'Hippie didn't think so. A woman, he thought.'
'And no sign of them Hunters?'
'There was a four-wheel-drive; it followed the wrong car.'
Taipan gave a malicious chuckle. 'That Hunter, he ain't bin havin' a good day, has he?'
'You gonna tell me what this is all about?' Kevin asked.
Taipan took a packet of tobacco from his pocket and set about rolling a cigarette. Kevin watched with increasing frustration as the biker licked the paper to seal the cylinder, then tamped the end with his lighter before lighting up. Taipan offered the cigarette to him. Kevin waved it away. The biker's nose twitched. He asked Kala, 'This fella smell funny to you?'
'All I can smell is that stink you're so fond of.'
A curlew called, the high-pitched cry sending a shiver up Kevin's spine. The iron felt cold through his jeans, the air fresh but thin as he fought for breath.
'Kala, why am I here?' Kevin asked. It was as if the biker could tell what Mira had done to him. Like he was just trying to decide the easiest way to kill him. He gripped the beam. 'What, what are you guys talking about?'
She turned to Taipan, but he just stared straight ahead through another noxious cloud of smoke.
'One of you, please - tell me what's going on!'
'You're a vampire,' the biker said finally.
'Piss off,' Kevin said.
'You're a vampire and nothin' can kill you,' Taipan told him. 'Nothin' much, anyways.'
'Yeah, right. And pigs can fly.'
'Pigs maybe. Not you.' Taipan reached behind Kala and shoved Kevin between the shoulder blades.
Kevin pitched forward, screaming all the way to the ground. He landed on his back. The impact knocked the wind from him, left his head ringing and his vision hazy. He could still hear, though, over the buzzing in his ears.
'Good one, Tai,' Kala said. 'What if he'd landed on something?'
'Like what? A wooden stake? That whitefella has to learn and learn quick if he's gonna make it. Not that I'm convinced that he should.'
'You can be such an arsehole.'
'You teach him, then. Maybe there's a bit more of the whitefella in you than the blackfella, eh?'
'That's not fair.'
'No, it ain't. You shoulda learned by now that nothin' is. Let me know when you've made up your mind.'
Kevin drew a deep, pain-filled breath and opened his eyes. Abstract shapes flitted across his vision like speeding clouds crossing the stars. He made out Kala and Taipan, standing on the beam.
'Take that whitefella to the farmhouse,' Taipan said. 'I gotta go pick up some gear, then we'll head for the coast. Somewhere with a bit'a cover till we shake VS off our tail.'
Kala's voice dropped, so low Kevin could only just hear. 'What about Willa?'
'She made her point.' Taipan rubbed his chest.
'Tai, be serious. After all of this, you're just gonna walk away?'
'Just leave it be.' He pointed at Kevin with his glowing cigarette. 'It's bad enough we got excess baggage.' He jumped and landed easily, on both feet, near Kevin. 'How you feelin' there?'
Kevin tested his vocal cords, the words coming out hoarse but gaining strength. The pain in his back and chest had subsided, making it easier to breathe. 'I'm okay. I'm alive.' Amazement burst into anger. He struggled to get to his feet. 'What the bloody hell did you think you were-'
Taipan pulled a pistol and shot Kevin in the chest.
Kevin slammed back into the ground, his hearing reverberating with the blast. He lay there, chest burning, gasping for air like a beached yellowbelly.
'Yeah, you're alive,' Taipan said, still pointing the pistol at Kevin. 'Lucky you.'
'Tai,' Kala yelled. 'That's enough!'
Taipan flicked the safety and returned the weapon to its place against the small of his back. 'That girl there, she'll look after you, eh. She plenny good at that.' Taipan shouted at Kala, 'Keep your eyes peeled, they'll be lookin' for us,' then walked around the corner of the building. A motorcycle shattered the quiet.
Kevin lay helpless, seething with impotent rage as the tail lights vanished. Kala arrived. She must have taken the stairs. He ignored her and finally was able to sit up. He felt his chest, and his fingers came away sticky and dark with blood. The sight made his throat constrict, his gut lurch. Jesus, it burnt, inside, like needles being stuck in his heart. A heart that had just had a bullet put through it at point-blank range.
'Was he for real?' he asked.
'What do you think?'
He eyed the blood on his palm, then wiped his hands on the ground, on his jeans, but he couldn't get them clean. The pain in his chest was fading. It didn't hurt so much to breathe.
'I guess,' he whispered.
She offered her hand and he let her pull him up.
Kevin eyed the beam overhead, the roughly Kevin-shaped depression in the dirt. 'Where'd he go?'
'Who knows? We're on our own for now.'
'I want to go home,' he said.
'It's not safe for you. Not for your folks, either.' She walked toward the Monaro. 'C'mon, you're gonna need somewhere to spend the day.'
'So the sun part's true, eh?'
'Yeah,' she said. 'Kind of.'
EIGHT
Kala nosed the Monaro into a rickety timber garage and cut the engine. The silence seemed almost solid, as though the world had changed with the turn of the ignition key. They had driven an hour or more, off the highway and along dirt tracks, until they'd idled over a grid and down to a farm house. Motes glittered in the headlights. A Sandman was parked in the bay beside them, a covered surfboard amongst the baggage strapped to the roof racks.
'Nice,' Kevin said. The panel van was fully tricked out with dolphins diving through sunset surf. The bright paint job seemed incongruous against the rough timber walls lined with cobwebbed hoes and rakes, coils of rusted wire, tin cans hanging on nails.
The headlights flicked off, plunging the garage into darkness. His eyes responded quickly, moonlight turning the doorway into a grey rectangle behind him. 'I know this farm,' he said. Kala sat quietly. Her breathing seemed loud in the quiet; fragile. 'The Crawfords'. You friends of theirs?'
'Never