Should Have Killed The Kid (17 page)

'I am trying to save everyone.' Monty hissed through gritted teeth and rose. He did look a lot healthier.

'What the hell does that mean?' The soldier's voice rose in volume. 'What the hell
are
you?!'

'Wait,' Dave's addled brain managed to latch onto something. 'You can see him?' He asked the soldier who replied with a look that made Dave wish he'd never opened his mouth.

'I had to appear in a little more substantial form this time, Dave. The magic won't work right otherwise.'

'But... but why did I pass straight through you...'

'Look, there's no time to explain – for either of you – therefore I'll make this very simple: either shut the fuck up or I'll leave you behind. How's that sound?'

Dave shut his mouth with a click. The soldier looked like she was going to complain again but seemed to think better of it and shut her mouth too. Though it was clear her silence didn't mean she was happy about it. As she stared around the dome, muscles clenched and jumped in her jaw and her eyes blazed with anger that had Dave avoiding her glare, worried that if he made eye contact she might attack him in lieu of the insubstantial Monty.

'Fine, good. Now how about we keep on moving?' Monty said and lobbed the guttering flame on his palm into the air. It floated up to the apex of the dome and stayed there, burning in mid air while Monty rubbed his hands together and looked expectantly at Dave.

Slowly Dave eased himself up. His muscles were already seizing even though they'd only been immobile for a few minutes. He winced while he forced them back into action.

He started to stretch, realised that was probably a mistake and instead limped over to where the kid now stood tapping against the barrier in a call and response pattern to the plinks that sounded all around them. He tried his best to ignore the soldier's wilting glare as she tracked him across the dome and fought back bile when he saw the mummified husk the other one had been reduced to.

'C'mon,' he said as gently as he could, his breath finally settling to a point where he could speak with relative ease. He expected streaming tears when the boy turned to face him. Huge, great big wracking sobs that had already started to make Dave feel uncomfortable even though they hadn't yet eventuated. The kid's glassy moon eyes still stared at Dave when the boy turned though and Dave had to give a wry grin. Looking around at the soldier who now stared around and shook her head in disbelief, and, feeling how his own cheek seemed to have developed a tic that kept his right eye blinking, it seemed the kid was handling things the best out of all of them.

The kid stepped across and put his small hand into Dave's larger, shakier one and Dave limped into position to stand behind Monty, doing his best to ignore both the desiccated husk on the ground and the fuming soldier. Dave was glad she had lost her gun somewhere along the line.

'Everybody ready?' Monty already looked a little more pained and Dave felt a little alarmed at how quickly the fresh intake of blood appeared to have worn off.

He was thankful when he heard the soldier move into position behind him and then Monty slowly started forward, one hand raised up to the roof of the dome he'd erected.

Dave did his best to block out the scraping noise as the husk of the other soldier was dragged along with them.

16.

Weariness didn't come close to describing Dave's condition as they turned into Sussex Street and headed for his flat. Bone tired was closer but Dave even thought that missed the mark. Each shuffle forward sent agony lancing up through his feet and legs. Each stumble a miracle when he discovered he was still on his feet once it passed. It felt as though he'd been walking for days rather than the two or so hours it had been.

The only consolation was that no matter how bad he felt – and he ached like he'd never ached before – Monty looked infinitely worse. The old man hobbled along just ahead of him, wheezing steadily and dropping into the occasional coughing fit while he flickered in and out of existence. The gap between disappearing and reappearing had stretched out to a couple of seconds but Dave didn't have the energy to worry about what he'd do if on the next flicker Monty didn't return. It had bothered him at the start but now he was beyond caring.

Being shredded by the fucking things seems like a better option at the moment,
Dave thought, throwing half-arsed glances around. As far as he could tell his street seemed clear of any huge patches of deeper black. It
was
crisscrossed with shadows because the streetlights were out and the radiating glow from the burning CBD wasn't quite enough to illuminate between the densely packed flats. But they didn't seem to have that oily look that was the tip off.

Though even if the shadows weren't currently present, judging by the destruction that ran down the adjacent Copeland Street, they'd been in the vicinity at some point.

More's the pity–

'Coast seems clear,' the soldier called from over his shoulder, her voice completely free of fatigue. Dave eased around to stare at her. She was carrying the kid again – something she'd done on and off throughout the walk – and even though her free arm was doused in a thin sheen of blood from her injuries, she didn't appear even mildly puffed. Dave couldn't help it. He felt a little spike of hatred as he watched her trudge along, peering about alertly.

He had no idea where her energy came from. He'd been knackered by the time they'd made it to the bottom of the skyscraper and exited through the basement car park. And that was
before
the ten k's or so they'd trekked to reach their current destination.

At least I'm not the only one suffering.
Dave turned his attention back to the flickering Monty, leading the way. The strange dome the old man had conjured to aid their escape was long gone now. Perhaps because the shadows had disappeared too – though Dave suspected that Monty could no longer sustain it even if they had still been around.

Fortunately they'd started dropping away once they'd exited the car park, breaking off to join the hordes of other shadows swarming up and down the other skyscrapers. They'd had to pause for a second as
that
sight had become clear, lit up as bright as day by the surviving spotlights. The entire length of Collins Street had been filled with buildings transformed into giant rectangles of swirling blackness filled with glinting. Muffled gunfire and screams still rung out to the backing track of shattering glass but mercifully the veil of shadows hid the horrors of the other buildings.

Despite the sheer quantity of them, as the group had made their way down Collins Street, the shadows paid no attention to them whatsoever. By the time they'd turned onto Spencer, heading down toward the rubble of Crown Casino, the dome had been pretty much clear. Dave had felt safe enough to turn to Monty and whisper. The first words the group had spoken since they'd paused on the stairwell.

'Why aren't they attacking?'

Monty's answer had been less than forthcoming, 'Because I've made it so they can't see us,' he whispered. Then, when Dave queried further, the old man had held a finger to his lips and then hissed, 'They can still hear though.'

After that, there'd only been the relentless scrape, scrape, scrape as they'd trudged along; the soldier's corpse unable to escape the confines of the dome. Dave had done his best to not think about what had just happened to the inhabitants of the skyscrapers. Despite his best efforts though, snippets kept slipping in as he'd staggered along.

More deaths because of me...
The guilt had weighed heavily and in the end Dave embraced his fatigue to escape it. He just focused on putting one foot in front of the other until Monty led them onto the deserted Citylink.

The steep entry ramp to the freeway – which had passed nearly unnoticed the three of four times Dave had driven up it – nearly killed Dave, but once they'd ascended there'd been good news. The last lingering shadows had opted to stay behind, finally giving them some breathing space.

Standing on top of the freeway, staring across as the entire CBD joined the rest of the city in flames, Dave had needed to remind himself that night had fallen. The glow from the fires had lit the surrounds like it was broad daylight. As he'd scanned the destruction, despite the stare it garnered from the soldier, he'd been unable to hold in a short bark of laughter. He remembered the fuss that had been made of the freeway's opening. How everything had been an issue. Staring across the wasteland of a city, the tolls and the rules and the delays in construction had all seemed hilariously unimportant.

All that wasted effort, for what?
He'd thought and then laughed again; the only thing he could think of to stop his brain from exploding.

They'd trudged on, crossing the Bolte Bridge and hooking onto the freeway heading out of the city. The occasional shadow they crossed triggered panic – especially once Monty dropped the barrier an hour or so into the trip – but otherwise Dave simply watched his footprints form in the layer of ash and dust that coated the road, his growing exhaustion not at all helped by the oppressive heat of the surrounding fires. Especially once they were further out and the
real
infernos began.

Dave hadn't realised where Monty was leading them until they were right on the verge of Sussex Street. Even once they took the Moreland Rd exit it hadn't twigged. He'd been too busy staring around at the haphazard destruction that had befallen first Essendon then Brunswick West. Seeing some streets reduced to complete rubble while others stood untouched except for the film of grit from raining ash. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. No discernable pattern to the destruction. To Dave, that made it all the creepier.  Same as how the shadows leaving the survivors penned in the skyscrapers for so long did – especially when they'd just proven it wasn't because of the army's fortifications. It gave him the feeling that a mammoth plan beyond his comprehension was being acted out around him. One he could never hope to understand.

He'd been reeling by the time he figured out their destination was his flat. Monty's voice had been a weak rattle when Dave had asked why.

'What? Were you planning to walk all the way to Hent?'

That had shut Dave up quick smart. The realisation dawning that he hadn't even considered that far ahead. He hadn't pondered anything beyond the decision to take the kid and even then he'd been unable to make up his mind before Monty had taken the issue out of his hands. Dave had felt a trickle of something cold race down his spine as he'd thought about that. The pulsing command in his head, driving him forward...He'd deliberately dropped back a cautious few steps from the old man as they'd headed down Sussex Street.

If he can make me do that then...

Dave decided that thought wasn't worth finishing.

A part of him wanted to ask Monty exactly what he'd done to him but he was too tired to think of the right words. And deep down he wasn't certain that he even wanted to know the answer.

Instead, as the group headed down the driveway and stopped outside his flat, Dave did his best to ignore the enormity of the undertaking ahead.

It was easier said than done. As Monty waved a flickering hand in front of his door and effortlessly popped the lock, Dave felt it weigh on him like a crushing beast.
There's just no way,
he thought, squinting through the gloom to see the rental still in his car park, covered with the same layer of dust and ash as the driveway and flats.
Travelling that far through country swarming with them.
Even with a car it seemed impossible.

'Come on,' Monty rasped and Dave followed. He pretty much collapsed over the threshold but managed to catch himself on the beige wall of the hallway before he hit the matching beige carpet. He swayed after Monty as the soldier led the kid through and pulled the door shut behind them. For the first time Dave felt thankful his flat was akin to a postage stamp. A few steps and the short hall swelled out into an open plan lounge, kitchen and dining room area. Dave made a beeline straight for the couch, almost tripping over the coffee table lined with the bottles of booze he'd left sitting there when he'd evacuated.

He was too exhausted to even think about them now. Naomi's disapproving voice barely started up in his head before he wrote it off. He suspected one shot and he'd be out for the count anyway. He'd learnt long ago that drinking when tired was a recipe for disaster. Not that it seemed to bother the soldier. She knelt and placed the kid on the floor and then made a beeline for the bottles. She snatched a Smirnoff from the pack, nestled the bottle in the crook of her injured arm then spun the cap free and took a long, long swallow as she plonked down on the couch next to Dave.

For a long time the three of them held their positions, their harsh breathing the only opponent of the silence that gripped the flat. The kid on the floor stared off at nothing in particular. The soldier stared down into the depths of the vodka bottle whilst she smeared blood all over the couch's white fabric  Dave stared at Monty, his brow creased in concern and confusion while he watched the flickering old man dart across to the window and run a finger around its edges. A glowing red line trailed in his finger's wake as though Monty was sealing the crack with thin neon tubes.