Should Have Killed The Kid (29 page)

INTO THE DARK

23.

During the drive with the soldier, there had been many awkward silences but nothing like the one that permeated the Volvo as they puttered down the highway with the old lady behind the wheel.

Dave had endured hours of it now. Hour after hour as they ate up the miles. It gave him ample time to replay the callous murder over in his mind.

Over and over and over, Sally convulsed as she bled out on the furniture.

The bitter taste of vomit tickled the back of his throat when he looked down at the two jars nestled on his lap. Old Kraft mayonnaise jars that Marge had collected from the kitchen – though it definitely wasn't
that
condiment that sloshed about inside. Depending on the angle, it either looked like sunshine or like blood. Dave felt the bitter in his throat grow as he watched the liquid dance between the two states.

A life gone for what?
he asked himself as he fingered the two bits of masking tapes affixed as temporary labels.
All that remains of Sally...
Dave read over Marge's hurried scrawl. The jar on the left read "shield". The one on the right "bomb".
..A couple of jars that may or may not be useful...

The thought made his brain want to melt and Dave quickly looked away.

Marge's words in the aftermath still rang in his ears. The callous way she'd spoken after Sally had finally grown still.

'What? What the fuck are you complaining about?' Then the sticking point that he was still mulling over. 'What does it matter if she's dead? How exactly does that fucking impact you?'

Dave had been building up quite the head of steam until he'd hit that stumbling block. Why did he care? What had he really known about Sally? Except that she'd looked like Naomi when she smiled? It wasn't like they'd bonded in the few days they'd spent together. In fact if Marge hadn't shown up, Dave was pretty sure she would have been sending some violence his way in the not too distant future.

What did it really matter to him what happened to Sally?

If he was willing to kill the kid then really it was a small price to pay. Comparatively.

Yeah right...
No matter how often he tried to convince himself, Dave couldn't succeed. Even though he'd fallen mute and grudgingly watched while Marge had set to work in the wake of the soldier's death, none of it had sat well with Dave. Particularly once she'd emerged from the kitchen with the two jars and set about filling them from the trickle that still seeped from the soldier's neck. Clearly overkill had been involved. For the amount of blood she collected, the wound the old lady had inflicted had been way over the top. Dave couldn't help suspecting it was just because she enjoyed it so much. There was no doubt in his mind that the old lady was a nutcase. It made him wonder if the corpses tied to the rocking chairs at her house had really been as necessary as she'd claimed.

Or as voluntary.

'Now don't you move an inch,' she'd winked at him once she'd finished collecting the blood. 'I'm going to go whip a little something up. You sit there and rest.'

Wishful thinking. With Sally's corpse directly across from him, the frozen eyes fixed on him accusatorily, there had been no rest. He'd been wide awake when Marge had emerged with the two glowing jars, fuck knows how long later, and told him to rouse the kid. And of course the kid's first words when he rubbed the sleep from his eyes had been: 'Where's Sally?'

Shit, didn't even know he knew her name,
Dave grimaced when his eyes drifted back to the jars again.

He couldn't help it though. The way the liquid sloshed was nearly hypnotic and with the kid zonked out in the backseat and the uncomfortable silence stretching out between him and Marge, there wasn't much else to focus on. In fact, as the driving had dragged on and the scenery around them had started to change from paddocks that Dave vaguely remembered being full of sheep on his previous visit to long stretches of scrubby forest then back to mountainous paddocks, a strange thing had started to happen.

Dave started to get bored.

He'd been brooding so hard on the last trip up that he'd forgotten how long and straight the Calder was as you headed into the northern parts of the state. Only the occasional farmhouse broke up the monotony, and now even they were mostly just mounded rubble. He only had a vague memory of what lay ahead too. Glimpses stolen through the rain soaked windshield. He remembered a railroad running parallel to the highway, wheat fields that seemed to stretch on forever before finally giving way to grapes and orange trees up closer to Mildura. Small towns that always seemed to be preceded by a large grain silo. A couple of larger ones...
Sealake, Ouyen...
A few names floated up to him, but Dave was buggered if he could put them in any form of order.

Fortunately Marge seemed to know exactly where they were going.

Unfortunately that meant Dave, relegated to passenger, had nothing to draw his attention.

He closed his eyes and sighed but little more than a second passed before they were open again and scanning across the countryside.

He'd clearly reached the point where he was too overtired to sleep. Even though his body screamed for rest, he couldn't seem to turn his brain off. Every time he closed his eyes, a myriad of horrors awaited behind the lids. The echoing voices drifting up from the depths, barely audible at first but, even so, Dave had the impression they were amassing. Naomi, Monty, Sally, even the fucking rat-faced John Franks and Brendan Toohey from the cubicles seemed to be festering down there. Burbling away as though they were just waiting for the perfect moment to launch their attack.

To maximise the damage...
Dave thought then blinked as he realised how mad it sounded. His eyes were back on the jars and it was all he could do to resist from winding down the window and hurling them outside. It helped that the word "bomb" was taped to one of them though even that was starting to sound a little tempting now.

Quick finish,
Dave thought and let it linger as he stole a peek across at Marge.

Seated, hunched over the wheel, it was difficult to believe she was an utter psychopath. One that made Monty look like a pleasant man – Dave shuddered to think what
her
bluestone room looked like. Her lips were pursed as she whistled softly to herself, looking like the very stereotype of an old lady on her weekend outing for bowls. They even travelled at the same stereotypical grandma speed.

Her appearance made it hard to fathom why the urge to leap out of the car and take his chances outside had come and gone throughout the drive.

Yeah, maybe it's because I'm sitting in the very seat that she'd killed her husband in,
Dave reminded himself and shivered, remembering how Marge had unceremoniously booted the remaining husk of the man to the ground to make way for Dave.

'Take a fucking picture, mate.' Marge's profanity and icy tone helped to banish any last shreds of his stereotypical grandma thoughts. Dave quickly turned to peer at the kid in the backseat. Will still slept; his head nestled against the glass and his mouth slightly open, blowing a spit bubble as he breathed.

A quick flash of what lay ahead and Dave only had one thought.

Yeah and she's the fucking psychopath....

Dave started as the kid's eyes fluttered open and locked him in their baleful glare.

'How's it going Wil–?' Dave choked on the last word. Somehow knowing the kid's name made what had to happen infinitely worse.

Will didn't answer and Dave quickly turned back around and returned to his appraisal of the jars. Inside he tried to rationalise it.

He would have been dead anyway. If I hadn't taken him, he would have been pulped like his mother. Torn apart by the shadows that flooded the skyscraper.

But he still couldn't suppress a shudder of revulsion.

'Getting cold feet?' Marge stared at him sidelong and Dave rushed to compose himself. 'Yes? No? Hmmm?'

'I'm fine,' he replied tersely.

'Yeah?' Marge pushed, 'Sure you're not even a little frightened you'll fuck it up again?'

Dave edged a nervous glance back but Will's eyes were closed again and the kid didn't seem to be the least bit interested in the conversation taking place in the front seat.

'Yes,' he spat, 'I'm fine.' But his anger quickly fled as Marge fixed him in the side long glare again, a faint smile playing across her lips. He could tell she didn't believe him. 'Why do you need me anyway?' He tried to change the subject but instantly regretted his choice of words.

In one little starburst of clarity he realised the answer was obvious.

She didn't.

And following hot on the heels of that chestnut was another realisation. With Sally's splayed corpse firmly imbedded in his mind, the thought was impossible to avoid.
She's only keeping me around for when she needs a top up.

Once the blood she'd absorbed while filling the jars wore off, he'd be there all nice and warm and ready to supply her with some juice.

Dave felt his cheeks whitening and it was all he could do to stop from tugging open the door, diving out and probably splattering himself all over the highway. Judging by her laughter, Marge didn't miss his reaction but if she knew the slant his thoughts had taken, she didn't let on.

'Well of course I fucking need you. You fucked it. You need to fix it. It's just one of the rules.' There was no comfort for Dave in Marge's words. Mainly because he didn't believe a single one of them. 'Don't worry, Dave my boy, you're essential.' The wink and snort of derision that followed her words only added to Dave's doubts.

So much so that he found his hand gripping the door handle again.

Found he was once more on the verge of fleeing...

Until Marge abruptly slammed on the brakes and he was forced to grip tight to the dashboard to stop from head-butting the windshield.

'Fuck me,' Marge muttered and when Dave recovered enough to follow her gaze he saw the words weren't unwarranted. Even his panic about his continued personal safety melted away as he stared at what stretched out in front of them.

Marge had stopped dead, just as they'd crested a long sloping hill so they were in the perfect position to fully appreciate the enormity of the view.

For a second Dave's brain just failed to process it. His breath hitched in his throat as he stared down the dead straight stretch of road that the nearby signpost claimed lead into Ouyen.

If it still did, Dave could no longer tell. From where they'd stopped, the shadows started. More and more appearing with each metre that passed, clumping closer and closer together until nothing but black shadows spread out as far as the eye could see in front of them. The entire horizon transformed into a mass of black that glittered beneath the late afternoon sun, setting Dave's heart thundering.

'Fuck me,' Marge repeated.

Dave just stared. First at the sheer number of creatures crammed before him, then down at the two jars on his lap. Then back up again. He'd sort of expected something similar but it was still not preparation for actually seeing it spread out before him. The babble of voices at the back of his skulls rose a small, nearly imperceptible notch in volume.

It's worse than I ever imagined,
he thought and, as his hand rasped across his stubbled chin, almost burst into tears.
And we're heading right into it. And the only weapon I have is one that I don't understand.

His eyes went back down to the glass jars that Marge had claimed would protect them.

'Fuck me,' he said, echoing the old lady.

24.

The length of time that Marge spent, hunched and staring out across the alien landscape did nothing to settle Dave's unease. Though he wasn't certain how far they'd travelled since leaving her house, he knew it was nowhere near enough. With the speed Marge had been driving they'd still be quite a way from Hent.

Which meant they had a long drive through the dark ahead of them.

And it's only going to get darker,
Dave thought as he looked to the sky and saw that the sun would soon be sinking beneath the blackened horizon. The orange and red tones that lit up the sky would have probably been pretty if it wasn't for the mass of black that underpinned it. Now it looked more ominous than anything, as though the last embers of the world were slowly burning down to charcoal.

How much further is it? How many of the things were out there? Would the shield around the car hold out?
Dave didn't dare ask Marge any of the questions that rocketed through his head. The memories of Monty shrivelling into a mess of cracking leather and bone sent his mind drifting back along the lines it had been travelling before Marge had brought them to an abrupt stop.

She's only keeping me around for my blood.

It seemed even more plausible now, and Dave didn't relish the idea of being a walking, talking blood source at all.

'Why are we going in there?' Dave jumped as Will abruptly piped up from the backseat and the tense silence broke.