LEFT, A thriller in parts. Part 4
Cafe Locked Out
“How can you trust the only person who can help you, if that person is your murderer.”
This novel was written in the lock down. I’d had the idea for years but finally found the time, thanks to Covid.
Now trying to find a publisher who would back me as a writer, with my activist work, is never going to happen, so I’m sharing the piece in parts here, allowing the piece to attract its own audience, if it’s good enough.
If you are enjoying it, perhaps you could consider making a gold coin donation, here.
Or taking out a subscription.
Michael
Dena watches her coffee, which she has just stirred, spin, then she looks up to Sonya, Jarrod, and Steve, who are all sitting on the other side of the table. "So," says Dena, "Steve just went crazy and shot both of you, for no reason at all?"
"That's right," says Sonya.
"Bullshit," says Steve. "They left me here to die."
"Is that right?" Boris asks Jarrod.
"No. We just... No."
"They left me here to die," says Steve.
"Okay," says Dena. "And then, when they came back, and I'm sorry, but why did you come back?"
"We never came back because we never left," says Sonya.
"They did. They left me."
"Okay," says Dena, "and so, as I was saying, when they did allegedly come back, in order to escape the fact that you were shooting at her, Sonya reversed the truck, accidentally into an open mineshaft?"
"I couldn't believe it," says Sonya. "I thought I was going to die."
"They left me," says Steve. "I am the victim here."
Dena rocks back and forth for a while, then she looks at Boris.
"I don't understand," says Boris. "Why were you shooting at them?"
"Why else?" says Steve. "It was self-defense."
"But they didn't have a weapon," says Dena.
"Yeah, but they had the truck."
"Uh-huh," says Boris. "The truck that is now stuck in a mine shaft."
The three of them say nothing, then Dena leans forward and, after taking a drink of her coffee, asks Steve, "When we found you, you were lying at the bottom of the mineshaft, broken. Why?"
"I was trying to get us some water."
"Us?" asks Boris.
"Yeah," says Steve. "Like I keep telling you, I am the good guy here."
"The good guy," says Sonya. "If you hadn't have shot us, any one of us could have gone down the shaft."
"Yeah," says Steve, "but if you hadn't have left me, none of us would have had to."
"Left you," says Sonya. "Pfft. What the fuck are you talking about?"
"She's lying," says Steve. "Look at her. She's lying. They are both lying."
"Yes," says Dena. "So you keep saying. But the trouble is, they have wounds and you don't. And the one thing we know about bullets is that, unlike people, they don't lie."
"She's correct," says Boris. "Someone fires them, someone gets hit."
"Oh, this is bullshit," says Steve. "It's just bullshit."
Dena leans back and, after studying Jarrod for a while, she says, "You're very quiet."
Jarrod looks up at her, then he looks over her head. "What the fuck."
Before Jarrod and Sonya, the lessening of distance allows the dark smudge to transform into what it actually is: a murder of ravens. And as they near, they begin circling the camp, and as they do, the ravens already perched here ark up and then the flying ravens join them. Everything becomes cawing. Round and around the new murder flies as Jarrod and Sonya turn to watch them, moving closer to each other as they do.
Steve is on his back, splayed upon all their camping gear. Inside his body, all his nerve endings are reporting in, each checking their sector for damage. Above, the light, thick with dust, is shafting through the truck, and the caws are reverberating down here like a choir of dark angels celebrating death.
Expecting to be injured, he finds that he's not, thanks to their rolled sleeping bags catching him.
The ravens caw.
"What's going on?" he calls. "What is that sound?"
"Jarrod hears. Steve! You're alive! Thank God," he says, and then the encircling ravens fall silent.
After turning to look at them, Jarrod finds Sonya looking at him. "Thank God?" she says. "Are you serious?"
The birds fly around in silence, and as the couple watch, the new ravens begin to land quietly in the branches of the bloodwoods and the desert oaks and the paperbark tree, to which the wire from their winch is still attached.
Down the shaft, the sudden silence is louder than the cawing.
Steve is still looking up when Jarrod yells down, "Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Can you see the end of the rope?"
"Yes, it's about five meters above me."
"Shit. Is there any chance you can climb up and grab it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I just fucking can't!"
Up top, Jarrod looks back at the ravens.
"Can you see the water?" asks Sonya.
"Bitch," grumbles Steve.
"Can you see the water?" asks Jarrod.
Steve looks around. In the dimness, their gear is everywhere. The sleeping bags he landed on are piled upon tents and camp chairs and tent poles. Three suitcases, one broken open. Jarrod's clothes are spilled everywhere, as if a burglar had gotten angry after finding nothing of worth.
He finds a small daypack. He checks inside it. It's empty. Jarrod must have had it stored in his case for hikes. Perfect, he thinks, and pulls it onto his back.
Two 8.5-kilo gas bottles and five metal jerry cans are piled like discarded bombs.
"Shit," Steve mutters. In the dim light, he checks all the lids of the jerry cans. They are sealed. For safety, he lines them up together on one side with the gas bottles.
There are heavy pieces of wood down here that must have once been used to brace the mine. He can see where they had been hewn to fit.
Then he finds the first of their four twenty-five-liter plastic bottles of water. He lifts it, but it's empty. One corner is cracked. That edge must have landed on the rock floor and broken open wide enough to let the earth reclaim its water.
The cup or so that is left inside he drinks, and his body rejoices. When he'd first gotten back in the truck, the water had tasted so sweet it felt, as it moved down inside, as if parts of his body were crying. Now his body is crying again with the same joy. His cells and organs are junkies for more.
He kicks through the piled gear and finds another. It is a quarter full. It was the one they'd been using. He looks for the last two. Only one is here.
"Have you found the water?" Sonya calls.
"Shut up."
He hesitates. He can see it's not full but knows that it should be. He lifts it. It has some weight. There is water in it, but as he lifts it, the water pours from a hole in its side. He rights it. It's a bullet hole, and his bullet is still inside the container. Had the bullet entered higher, there would have been no problem, but to enter near the base... How is that amount of bad luck possible?
"Fuck," he mutters, rights it, then licks the water off its side. He takes another drink, and the water takes a ticker-tape parade through his vitals.
But where's the last container?
His eyes are acclimating to the dimness, but there are still places that he can't see. He moves to his left and then tumbles back to avoid falling into another shaft. On all fours, he comes around and peers over to where it drops away like a greater dark question.
"Shit."
Picking up a tent peg, he drops it in. It bounces off the sides a few times, all out of his sight.
Was that the bottom? He can't tell. But it's deep, and the water must be down there.
An instinct turns him. He turns in time to see the rope he fell from heading back up.
"Hey, what are you doing? Answer me! What are you doing?"
He gets no reply. He loses it. He kicks things around. He picks up an enamel cup and throws it up as far as he can, but that's not that far, then it bounces off the wall and falls back, rolling to a stop near his feet.
But the rope keeps going until it is gone.
Sonya is looking up at the ravens as though she is expecting one or more of them to talk or to explain or to threaten or to laugh like devils. She runs her swelling tongue over her lips and finds them bone dry and peeling, and the sun will not relent. She can feel that her face is already burnt.
As Steve continues yelling up from the bottom of the hole, she asks Jarrod,
"Have you ever seen crows acting like this before?"
"They're not crows," says Jarrod. "Australia doesn't have crows. They're ravens."
"I don't care if they're fucking ostriches. Have you ever heard of them doing anything like this before?"
Jarrod looks around at the ravens who are now perched all around them and watching. "We're miles from anywhere. Who knows what they get up to out here?"
"What are you doing up there?" Steve yells.
"Do you still have that knife?" Jarrod asks Sonya.
"Why?"
The bloodied front of Sonya's shirt is yesterday's battleground where the vultures are flies. The effort it takes to keep swatting them away is waning, and she knows too that her back must be black with flies, but there is nothing she can do about that.
What she needs is shade, but every emaciated tree that offers any is heavy with the ravens. Silent ravens. Ravens that are watching.
She looks around and picks up a rock with her good arm and approaches a tree with several ravens in it. Once close enough, she throws the rock at the raven perched on the lowest branch.
The rock falls far short, and Sonya cries out and stumbles from the pain, then struggles to stay on her feet.
The ravens don't move, then Jarrod's head appears out of the hole. He'd crawled back into the truck and now he's asking her, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I'm fine," she says, panting back to stability and glaring back up at the birds. Then behind them, a section of the surrounding murder caws and then takes to the air.
"Something spooked them," she tells Jarrod, then realizes Jarrod is no longer there. He's dropped back into the truck.
The disturbed ravens are arching above those trees like a small black wave crashing above them.
She heads there slowly, but the few trees don't offer anyone or anything any cover. "Hello... Hello!"
She reaches one tree now empty of ravens, and as their dark and flying shadows cut across the earth, she rests against the tree and searches the land for anything. She recalls the dingoes. Perhaps it was a kangaroo. Did Jarrod see someone? Why won't they show themselves?
But the view offers nothing she hasn't seen before, and she is too weak to keep looking. With her back to the slender trunk, she rests against it and slides down until she is sitting and watching the shadows of the ravens as they land back in the tree.
When she looks up, eight of them are looking down at her, and when she looks forward, hoping to see Jarrod, all she finds is a hole in the ground like a drain in the world, preparing to suck her and all of them down.
Steve is clawing at the hard dirt and rocks. He has managed to scrape his way a little way up the wall, but despite his anger and determination, he is too physically weak to get far.
Finally, he slides down and lands back next to their gear. He is snorting like an angry bull, his burning eyes glaring at the truck above.
"Steve."
Steve does not reply.
"Steve, can you hear me?... Steve!"
"When I get out of here, I'm gonna..."
"Steve?"
"Of course I can hear you."
"Okay. Hold on, okay... Just hold on."
The rope starts to return, but something ungraceful is hanging off the end of it. As it gets closer, it reveals itself. It is several cut-up seatbelts linked together by their buckles. Steve goes to grab it, but then just out of reach, it stops.
"Keep it coming." And then he has it.
"Okay," says Jarrod, "if you've found it, attach the stronger rope."
As Steve does, Jarrod asks, "Did you find the water?"
"Yes."
"Okay, attach it now, and I'll pull it up."
"Yeah, right."
"I can't pull you and the water up at the same time, and you can't attach it once you're up here."
"Fuck," Steve grimaces. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."
"We also need the shovel."
"What the fuck for? I'm already in my fucking grave?"
"The water, the shovel, and more rope."
"And how the fuck are you going to pull me out?"
"I'll drag you out."
"Yeah, right."
"I can do it. You're not heavy. You're my brother."
For a brief moment, Steve laughs at this, as does Jarrod.
"Don't you leave me down here," says Steve.
"We can't. Like it or not, we're each other's only chance."
"Alright then. Hold on."
Steve removes the lid off the water container with the bullet and carefully pours what's left into the only other container. Then he fixes the lid back on that one and ties the end of the seatbelt-rope to its handle. Then he attaches the thicker rope to this and starts looking for the shovel.
"Are you ready?" asks Jarrod.
"I can't find the shovel. It's too dark."
"Alright, wait on," Jarrod says, then already in the car, he turns the key till the dash lights come on, then he shoves the vehicle into reverse.
Steve squints as the reverse lights harshly illuminate the shaft.
"Be quick," says Jarrod. "We don't want to flatten the battery."
The sides of the hole look like they were aggressively ripped out of the earth. As though each chunk was a battle that the earth fought to save. White roots of plants dangle in from the eviscerated sides like disemboweled intestines and ripped-out capillaries.
Steve turns to look for the shovel. He can't see it. He searches through their gear and pulls across one of their open sleeping bags. "Fuck me!" he yells, then staggers back.
"Steve?" calls Jarrod. "Steve, what is it?"
The skeleton has its back to the wall. It looks as though it had sat down, exhausted and died there. It is dressed in worn but old-style clothes. The dark green shirt looks like it could be made from hemp. It has a red cotton scarf around its neck. There is no gristle on the bones. No mummified skin. Everything has been picked clean.
"Steve, Steve, are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. Two secs."
The skull's eyes are dark and deep, and its mouth, with its two missing teeth, is laughing. Its legs are still wearing heavy denim jeans that are dirty, and there are two rips in its shirt, each of which is the center of a patch of long-dried and dark stains.
"Blood," says Steve. He looks around for a knife that could have caused it but finds none.
Laying on its legs is their shovel.
"What the fuck happened to you?" Steve whispers at the skeleton.
The shovel, Jarrod calls. "Did you find the shovel?"
"Yeah, two secs."
Steve picks up the shovel, and the skeleton doesn't react despite looking like it might. Then he ties the shovel to the rest of the parcel and yells, "Go."
The reverse lights go out as Jarrod returns to pulling the parcel up.
Steve bends to the skeleton and checks its pockets for a wallet but instead finds, as the skull laughs at him in its forever-frozen joke, a small pouch fastened by a pull string.
Steve opens the pouch and pours the contents into his palm. Eight pure gold nuggets. The largest is the size of his thumb.
"Holy shit."
He slides the nuggets back into the pouch, pulls the cord tight, then goes to slip the pouch into his own shirt pocket before stopping and looking up.
What if they fell out? What if the others found them?
No.
Instead, he slips the pouch back into the skeleton's pocket, then looks around.
No antique picks or shovels.
He comes back to the skull and whispers, "Is this shaft yours? How did you dig it, and where did you find this gold?"
The skull laughs.
When the water comes up, Jarrod drinks from it frantically. He can't believe his desperation, but it feels like every swallow descending is an extra hour of life stolen.
Then he lifts it out of the truck and brings the container to allow Sonya to drink.
"Not too much," he tells her. "Not until we get more."
She nods, then says, "Get me out of here."
"First, we need to get Steve up," he says.
Using the longer, stronger rope, Jarrod, acting like a mule, makes a new shoulder brace. Then, after tossing the other end down to Steve, he leans forward to the task and, grunting with the effort, drags his brother up and out of the pit.
When Steve emerges, the view of the waiting ravens stills him.
Thirty meters away, Jarrod is on all fours, exhausted from the effort, while Sonya is sitting under her tree next to their water container, watching Steve.
But the ravens are all around them. Steve estimates forty, maybe more.
"Where's the rest of the water?" asks Jarrod, who has now turned over and is resting on his elbows.
Steve glares at his brother.
"What?" asks Jarrod.
"That's all there is," says Steve, walking towards the container.
"But that's what, says Jarrod. Four maybe five liters between three people. That's not enough. Nowhere near. Especially seeing what we have to do."
Steve picks up the container and drinks, and the water tastes like dreams.
"I don't get it," asks Jarrod. "Where is the rest?"
"Two containers are broken, and the other two are missing. I think they may have fallen down a deeper second shaft. I couldn't see them."
"Well, we'll have to go down and look for them," says Jarrod.
"You go down," says Steve, then he remembers the gold. "Later, Steve says. I'll do it later. Maybe."
"How do we get out of here?" says Sonya.
"Looks to me," says Steve, "like you're about to get out of here without going anywhere. Tough luck."
Sonya grimaces and looks away.
"What are those?" asks Steve. "Tears. You can cry? Wow. Careful, you're going to need that water."
"Knock it off," says Jarrod. "I have a plan."
On the dirt and in an insubstantial parcel of shade, Jarrod is using a stick to draw a diagram. It is a side view of the mineshaft, and he is using a rock as the truck that is stuck in it.
Sonya is resting against the tree. She has dragged over her own long stick to use as a weapon against the ravens. She notices Steve glancing at her now and again as Jarrod draws.
"Here," says Jarrod. "The diagram shows a ramp dug down like an upside-down triangle to the base of the truck. If we can dig a ramp into the earth, here," says Jarrod, "eventually the truck will fall forward onto its wheels. Once it does, we check the engine, and if that's okay, then with the winch's help, we just drive it out."
"You're going to dig a ramp," says Steve, "that deep into this ground, with this?" And he holds up the small camp shovel.
"Well, someone dug that hole," says Sonya.
"We'll have to dig carefully," says Jarrod. "Keep the angle clean, otherwise the blade will bend. It's already cracked."
"I know how to dig," says Steve.
As Steve, shovel in hand, watches on, Sonya tries to stay awake as Jarrod uses a stick to mark out the actual area where they will have to dig. As he scrapes the earth, two ravens goosestep along the ground as if they were foremen keeping pace.
"If we start here," says Jarrod, as he stands near the hole, swiping at the flies lambasting his face, "we can toss the dirt into the hole. That should also allow us to judge how we're progressing. But it'll be hot, thirsty work, so Sonya, you won't like this, but I suggest that the diggers get the lion's share of the water."
"And if I die," says Sonya. "How will you explain that?"
"Oh, I don't know. How about, 'she died'?" says Steve.
"Whoever works harder will dehydrate quicker," says Jarrod. "Especially in this heat. But if they don't drink, they won't be able to work, and the truck will stay where it is, and so will we. The best thing you can do is stay where you are and rest."
"Hey," says Steve. "Who died and made you the boss? Can you even dig?"
"Hand it out," Jarrod asks for the shovel. Steve hands it over, and Jarrod takes it to the edge and, using his good hand to grab the handle, stabs the earth a few times to break it up, then placing his foot on the edge of the blade, he pushes it in. But the earth is strong, and the dirt has been and is being baked into stone. What dirt he shovels up, he throws down the hole, and then he repeats this while always being careful of the angle.
Steve moves to another minor pool of shade. Above him, there are ravens. He studies them, and each one looks identical, and they are all watching Jarrod.
Jarrod digs, but no matter how careful he is, the action sends pain shooting through his damaged hand. Still, he continues despite the sun glaring down like a lasered hammer pounding its anvil.
Time passes, and sweat drips down his face, leaving him blinking. His eyes are burning, and because the ground is so tough, the shovel's tip slides forward more often than digging in, and when it does get purchase, the ground just chips.
"We need a pickaxe," says Jarrod, as he stops to wipe the sweat from his face, "or even a crowbar."
"Yeah, well, we don't have one," says Steve. "So keep digging." Then he rests against the tree and closes his eyes.
"Here," says Jarrod, as he hands Steve the shovel. "Careful... It's already cracked."
Unaware that he'd briefly slept, Steve spends a moment coming to terms with the reality of the view, then he snatches the shovel off Jarrod and wonders how long he slept. "Hey," he says. "You didn't even do anything."
"The ground's rock hard," says Jarrod. "Maybe once we get deeper, the dirt will get softer."
Steve can see Jarrod's hand is bleeding through the bandage, and his lips are dry despite his face being covered in sweat.
Jarrod glances at Sonya, and they transfer to each other the same frightened look.
Jarrod drinks.
"Hey," says Steve. "Don't drink it all."
Jarrod stops. The ravens watch. Steve starts to dig, and with each thrust, his digging becomes harder and faster. It's like he's attacking the ground.
"Slow down," says Jarrod.
"Don't tell me how to fucking dig."
"If you don't, you'll break the blade," says Jarrod.
"And if I don't get somewhere, we'll never get anywhere," says Steve. Then, after giving Jarrod the evil eye, he sees in his mind the gold in the skeleton's pocket and, after looking away, he starts digging again. He is slower now, more in control.
But the earth does not discriminate, as it refused to open to Jarrod's shoveling, so it does with Steve. And as each failure to remove a healthy chunk of dirt lets them all see the futility, it also removes another battery from Steve. To keep going, he tries to imagine his children. His daughter is now on her bed, watching who knows what on her tablet, then she looks up and waves as though nothing is wrong as his son, in his own bedroom and with headphones on, battles with friends over an exploding landscape. Then he is teaching his son how to drive, admiring how well his son is processing the road while steering the car. "That's good. That's very good," but these images fade into the view of his brother's unit with its dimly lit bedroom, where these two are fucking, and as the sheets lift and lower to Jarrod getting ready to enter Sonya, so too the shovel tries to dig into the earth. The faster they fuck, the faster Steve digs. Then he sees her phone ringing on Jarrod's bedside table. It's his name on the screen, his smiling face illuminated as the phone vibrates, then he is back here and Jarrod is looking down at Sonya as she looks up at him in that look reserved for secret lovers. "You fuckers," Steve says as he digs and digs, each thrust slightly deeper as he sees her hand grab his brother's arse and pull him in deeper. "Dig and dig as her phone vibrates. How long, huh? How long?" Steve yells at Jarrod before striding over and smashing the shovel against the side of his brother's head, then, once Jarrod is down and dazed, Steve brings the shovel down and down again until Jarrod's forehead opens like a cracked watermelon.
"Fuck you!" says Steve, as he keeps on pounding. "Fuck you," as Jarrod falls into and joins the forever-silenced, then, covered in the thick spray of his brother's blood and globules of brain matter, Steve raises the shovel and, as his phone vibrates and vibrates, he goes to bludgeon Sonya as she defensively and hopelessly raises her one good hand as an inadequate shield.
The shovel is on the interview table, and Steve looks like a blood-filled balloon has just been popped in front of his face.
On the other side of the table, Boris Pasternak is carefully studying the shovel while Dena Proudfoot evaluates Steve.
"For most of their lives, people take it for granted that they are a good judge of character. Then, when they are betrayed, they think they're angry at the person that betrayed them. But they're not. They're angry because they know they will never be able to trust anyone again, not completely. And because they can never trust anyone again, completely, they know they will never be able to love anyone again, completely. That's why small dogs are so popular. People who are too scared to love deeply can pour all their love into their little dog, right up to the day when they have them put down... They are more than dogs; they are love sponges. I believe you, Steven, what's more, I want to believe you. The trouble is, I also own a Shih Tzu."
"There is blood," says Boris, pointing at the blade, "and there is skin, and there are brains."
"So can you explain to me," asks Dena, "how a man who shot two people and then bludgeoned them to death, is the victim?"
"I was trying to stay in control," says Steve, "but before we left, he hugged my children in front of me. My daughter told him to take care of me, and he promised her that he would. And all the time he was planning to kill me? This was my brother."
"Is," says Dena.
"Is?" asks Steve.
"Think," says Boris. "If Jarrod is dead, how will you get the truck out?"
"Steve!" yells Jarrod, pulling Steve back to the real view of the shovel's blade snapping along its crack.
To the muted crack of the shovel's blade snapping off completely, the world stops and falls into the complete silence of the waiting murder.
As Sonya lowers her head, Jarrod slumps against the same tree, and then Steve, after glancing at the silent but watching ravens, yells "Fark" and hurls the handle at the nearest one.
All three are stunned as the raven squawks and falls backward out of the bloodwood.
On the ground, it half-flaps around, its one unbroken wing trying to do the work of two.
"Come here," Steve says and strides towards it.
"No," says Sonya. "Let it suffer."
But their moment of gloating is no longer than that, for, like a black wave, the other ravens descend, squawking and fighting each other as well as they tear into and then apart this injured raven.
The wind has picked up, and Jarrod is sitting in the shade beneath another tree. Between his legs, ants are attacking a cricket. Each leg is being held by one ant or more as the cricket struggles to break free. Its wings are open, but with so many ants covering it, they are too heavy for the cricket to escape into the air.
Sonya is sitting under her tree, and the afternoon sun is creating longer shadows, and these shadows are how she is monitoring the ravens.
"I knew you were dangerous," says Steven. "But I never once thought you were stupid."
Sonya doesn't reply.
"I mean, this was a brilliant plan. Truly. I mean, I am so impressed. Even when I was here, alone, I thought that. Of course, I hated you too, but at the same time, I admired the simple savage genius of it all. But then you fucked it up by overestimating him."
"She loves me," says Jarrod.
Steve laughs, and it takes him a while to stop. "Is he right? Do you?"
Sonya says nothing.
"It's a simple question. Is he right?"
As Jarrod watches the cricket spin and kick, Sonya looks up at Steve and raises her hand, which is covered in blood. "Shut up."
"Perfect," says Steve. "And now we're going to become bird seed."
Steve walks away, then remembers quickly that there's nowhere to walk off to. "You," he says.
Jarrod looks up.
"Did you tell anyone where we were headed?" asks Steve. "Anyone at all."
Jarrod looks back down. "Did you?"
"Yes, my kids."
"Well, then we just have to wait for them to raise the alarm," says Jarrod.
"My kids?" laughs Steve. "Plus, even if they did, they only know we were coming to this desert. I never gave them specifics."
Sonya laughs. "Even if you had, they wouldn't have listened. Not to you."
"Fuck you," says Steve. "Why don't you do us all a favor and hurry up and die."
Sonya smiles.
"You know, if I wanted to, I could kill you right now," says Steve.
Jarrod looks up.
"You already did," says Sonya.
"Shit," says Steve. "Shit," and then he wanders to the edge of the hole and stands there, looking down at the stuck truck.
The wind is reaching a point where they are all becoming aware of it. The trees are swaying, and here and there, the birds are lifting their wings to assist their grip. Regardless, the cricket spins and spins, lifting ants into the air until it ends up upside down, where it continues to fly in circles on the rock-hard earth until Jarrod picks it up by its legs and starts pulling the ants off one by one, absently dropping them to where they curl around their injuries. Eventually, the cricket is free, and he throws it in the air, where it finds its wings and flies off, carrying Jarrod's eyes with it until a raven flies out of a tree and steals it from the air, then lands and stands on the dirt near Steve and throws its head back as it swallows it.
"Get the fuck out of here," Steve says as he throws a kick at it. Lazily, it flies off, leaving Steve glaring at that section of the birds.
Then Jarrod stands. "Let's start a fire. Someone might see it. Maybe. We've got to get lucky sometime."
The men are on the far side of the truck, evaluating the wind as though they can see it. As though it is a fast-flowing current.
"We could also use the fire to scare off these birds," says Jarrod.
"Not here, though," says Steve. "Let's build it further away. The last thing we need is to be choked by smoke."
"Sonya," Jarrod calls, "we'll be back. We're going to start the fire."
Sonya nods but remains where she is.
Together, the men walk out into the landscape. They walk separately and in silence, then stop at a fallen tree. The tree's debris is everywhere. They choose a place without breaking their silence and together start kicking and piling the sticks and branches into a pyre.
"Shit," says Steve, sucking on his finger. "The splinter is deep."
"When we get back, we'll get it out," says Jarrod.
Steve nods, then the two men stop because they find they are looking at each other. A look broken by a dual nod that sees them both return to work.
Behind them, none of the ravens have followed.
"Have you heard of ravens acting like this before?" asks Jarrod.
Steve shakes his head.
"I'm sure I saw a shadow," says Jarrod. "When you were out here alone..."
"Left here, by you, you cunt."
"Did you see anyone?"
"No, just you coming back."
"Well, how about sense? Did you sense anyone?"
Steve shakes his head, and Jarrod nods, then says, "Even if the smoke is seen, it could be hours before anyone comes. Days. We're going to need more water. If we don't find any, we'll die."
"Let's just start the fire. Do you still have that Zippo lighter?"
Jarrod takes it out.
"That was Dad's," says Steve. "And he gave it to you. You, who doesn't even smoke."
"Neither do you."
"So?"
After a moment, Jarrod flicks on the flame and lights the pyre.
The dead leaves ignite instantly. The dry sticks catch fire just as fast as the leaves, and then the branches offer no resistance. It's like they have just unleashed a living, dangerous thing, a demon.
The sun is still hot enough without standing near a fire. They move back and watch the flames explode through the small pyre as though they'd poured an accelerant upon it. The wind accepts it. Burning pieces of tinder, mainly leaves, are now being carried forward like gifts, and upon landing on the dead earth, the floating flames celebrate by igniting another spot fire.
"Shit," says Jarrod. "The whole area could go up."
"Who gives a shit," says Steve. "Let it burn. The bigger the fire, the bigger the chance someone will come and check."
Jarrod nods to this, then grabs four long, bone-dry sticks and rests the ends of them in the fire. Once they are burning, he hands two to Steve, and they carry them back to the truck like revolutionary beacons.
As Jarrod limps into the camp, he approaches the closest bloodwood and shoves the burning end of the stick at the ravens. As one, they lift and fan out and away from the tree, cawing as they leave. Steve attacks the birds in another tree. Those birds do the same, and then those birds in the trees that neither of the men have yet approached take to wing and fly off while also cawing.
"And stay gone, you bastards," Steve yells as he waves his burning sticks in the air. Jarrod smiles as he waves his burning sticks at the leaving birds.
Sonya looks up; the sky is all ravens cawing and leaving. Some try to land in other trees only to have the men approach them before they've found a perch. When she looks to her left, the flames from the fire are already as high as the tree she is sheltering under. One of these trees, a gum, explodes. In response, the men duck, and the last stubborn birds squawk in fear and fly off.
"Yes!" says Jarrod as the murder scatters in the opposite direction from the flames.
To celebrate, they all drink water. Only a liter and a half is left.
Steve uses the tweezers from the first-aid kit to pull out the splinter, which is shudderingly long, then they all watch the fire bringing its form of life to the land. Smoke billows up as great cumulous clouds are born.
"Surely someone's going to see that," says Steve.
Jarrod looks behind them. The birds are all gone. "Maybe we should climb the hill to see if we can see if anyone is coming?"
Steve nods, then studies Sonya. Her shirt is covered in dried blood, and the blood is covered in flies. Her head is lowered as though she was sleeping. Jarrod comes to her. He checks the wound, and the bandages are thick with a mix of dried and fresh blood.
"She's finished," says Steve.
Jarrod grabs the first-aid kit, and as Steve watches, Jarrod changes her bandages. As he does, she looks over at Steve. Her weary eyes don't blink.
Another gum tree explodes. The fire is now trying to open the gates of hell. Even from here, Steve can feel its heat, and its smoke is reaching the sky.
"Someone is definitely going to see that," he says.
Wound redressed, Jarrod hands Sonya a small branch which she can use to fan the flies away.
"Someone will see it," says Steve. "Someone will definitely see it."
Then Jarrod stands and evaluates the spreading furnace. He has seen fires before, but never one that traveled as fast as this one.
"We need more water," whispers Sonya.
"She's right," says Jarrod. "Even if someone does see it, it's so remote out here, it could be morning or even later before they send someone to check it out. By then, we'll be dead."
"If you can manage the rope," says Jarrod, "I'll go down and look for that water."
"No," says Steve. "I'll go. You do the rope."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Okay," says Jarrod. "Then let's do it."
In his peripheral vision, the shape moves. "There," says Jarrod, pointing away from the fire. "I saw them. Hello," he calls and limps as fast as he can. "It's okay, don't be afraid."
Steve follows. "What did you see?"
"Hello," calls Jarrod. "Oh come on, please show yourself."
"Where were they?" asks Steve.
"There," points Jarrod, who is still running. "They were there behind that tree."
Steve watches the few trees that Jarrod is pointing at. None of their trunks appear wide enough to hide a person.
"Hello," says Jarrod as he reaches the tree. "Hello?"
Steve stops. He looks back at the camp, then at the fire raging and moving away beyond it, then he turns back to Jarrod. "There's no one here."
Jarrod looks behind another tree, but there is no one there either. "Hello!... Helloo!"
He runs to another.
"What did you see?" asks Steve. "Tell me."
"A person... I think."
"Well, what did they look like?"
"It was too quick. I just saw them duck behind that tree."
Steve walks to the tree Jarrod was pointing at and checks the hard ground. There are no footprints here.
"They were here. And that was the second time I saw them. Why would I lie, and I'm not hallucinating. I saw them."
"Saw who?"
"Them."
"Them who?"
"I don't know... I don't fucking know," then Jarrod moves to another tree. "Hello? Hello?"
There is no one here. There is no one anywhere. "You must have been seeing things."
"They are here. I know what I saw. Hello," he says and runs off to look. "HELLO!!"
Transfixed by the leaving flames and its great clouds of churning smoke, Sonya leaves the landscape to travel deep into her body. She has never practiced meditation, but now she is traveling down through nerves she never knew she owned to reach the edge of the wound.
"You are not dying here," she says.
She is trying to force her body to heal. She is telling it to seal the wound, to produce more blood. Her tongue is dry and swelling. Her lips are cracked. She has never experienced this degree of thirst.
"Don't move," she says. "Moving removes moisture."
But the hole. The hole is real.
She looks at the hole in the ground. She can't even see the truck from this angle. The broken shovel is lying where Steve threw it at the raven. The shovel is the only clue to what has happened.
She is regulating her breathing, and she is tired. She is so tired she feels like she hasn't slept in days, in years.
"Sleepy?" says Dena.
Sonya opens her eyes, and she is back in the interview tent, sitting in her chair across from the detectives.
"Was it worth it?" asks Boris. "Dying out here, all alone."
"I'm not dead yet."
"But Steven is right," says Dena. "It's very unlikely that you'll survive the night. Regardless of the blood loss, there's the infection."
"Do you feel cold?" asks Boris.
"Freezing," says Sonya.
"That's your immune system," says Dena. "It's fighting."
"So I'll ask you again," says Boris. "Was it worth it?"
Sonya ruminates, then lifts her weary head and asks, "What can I do?"
The detectives look at each other, then at her.
"We're not sure," says Dena.
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