I haven't had AI write anything for me yet, but I'm using it for proofreading and cover art. My chances of being traditionally published in these times are remote, and because of my other commitments, I'd say they're nearly impossible.
So, I've been posting this thriller, called Left, that I wrote during the first lockdown, in parts. Each part gets around 3,000 readers. That's okay—in fact, it's humbling and exciting and encourages me to write more. Maybe the future has a place for humans after all, if only briefly.
“She finds the woman's skeleton. She is lying in the middle of the untouched bush where gravity has all but pulled her into its earth. The top bones of her left hand are still breaking through the baked dirt as if they were trying to hold onto one last grasp of time. Her spine is long buried, but the final peaks of her ribs, stripped of any clues of her existence, are still exposed and have been soiled by years of weather and dust storms. Most of her skull is now under the ground, too, but her life-peeled face is here, packed tightly on all sides by the dirt. It's as if, despite the current's inescapability, she had broken back through the surface of the world and stolen one last breath. Now stuck, her eyes, which are now caves, are forever staring pointlessly up at the changing skies that have and will always ignore her.”
Face turned away, Sonya uses her good hand and the tomahawk to smash out the rest of the glass stuck in the frame of the windscreen. Jarrod wants it all gone.
As she finishes, the brothers drop the first log through the windscreen. It has a rope tied around it, and both men are wearing their safety ropes, which are tied to the bumper.
To get out of the way, Sonya sits in the driver's seat and watches them pass, then follows them as they descend via the rear-view mirror. The brothers are working quickly and in silence. It is as if they are speaking an older language, one that doesn't require words. They aren't even aware that she's watching. On the other side of the mirror, the ravens are circling, all of them in silence.
"Ok, untie it," she hears Jarrod say, and when she looks back, Steve is untying the log. Behind Steve, Martin is emerging. The rope she tied around his neck is still there. From the darkness in the shaft, he is glaring up at her. His eyes are deeper than the hole, and he is slowly climbing up the wall, towards her. And he's smiling. It is the smile of someone who knows what's going to happen. Then his mouth opens, and from his bowels an eel flies out...
"Are you ok?" asks Jarrod as he climbs back up with Steve following.
"What?" she goes, then blinks back to the present. "Yes."
Steve finds her eyes next, and they watch each other all the way, until he moves up and out of the hole. But even there, with Jarrod already out and tying the rope to the second log, Steve looks back in, at her, and finds her waiting. And then he is gone.
She looks back down the hole via the rear-view mirror. The hole is black, and Martin is gone, but his absence is what holds her eyes. Then she sees her brace herself before looking over her shoulder.
"Look out below," says Jarrod as they come down with the next log.
Steve is leading, and as the brothers head on down, she grabs Jarrod's wrist.
Jarrod looks at her hand, then at her. His face is burnt. "What?" he asks, for she won't let go.
The first iron sheet slides down. Its ragged edges catch on the top of the driver's seat. Jarrod is below, trying to pull it through. Swearing and force are all they have time for. Steve is above, pushing it down, and Sonya is on the edge of the hole, holding the rope that's tied to the iron sheet.
It passes through the vehicle, and Jarrod lays it down on the logs' foundation, then ties one end to one of the logs with a smaller length of rope.
"Next," says Jarrod.
The second sheet replicates the journey of the first. As Sonya looks down, the darkness of the hole is being curtailed by a corrugated curtain of rusted iron.
She grabs the third sheet as the brothers finish installing the second one, leaning it against her body as she attaches the rope.
The third sheet of iron is obedient, and so is the fourth. When the brothers reach the surface and Sonya, the success of this stage is a communal contradiction in all their burnt and damaged faces.
"Ok," says Jarrod. "Let's do the bonnet."
This is harder. Heavier. Jarrod is below. Steve is above. Gravity wants the bonnet to plummet, to smash into Jarrod and then through the base they have installed.
"Remember, don't stand on the sheets," says Steve.
"I'm trying not to," says Jarrod.
The bonnet slips.
"Shit," says Jarrod. "Hold it. Hold it!"
"I'm trying," yells Steve.
Jarrod's footing slips. There is nowhere to go but down. The safety harness absorbs some of his weight, but not all. His booted foot ends up landing on the iron.
"What are you doing?" asks Steve.
Jarrod tries to pull himself up, but the bonnet won't let him. The wood foundations creak.
"Get off the sheets," says Steve.
"I'm trying," says Jarrod, but the bonnet is blocking his safety rope.
As Sonya looks down, she can feel Martin lurking beneath. Is he pulling down on the wood? Is he digging out the support holes? She looks up through the sheltering ravens and finds fleeting glimpses of the sky. Did God finally give Martin the strength he needed to come for her? To make things right?
She looks to the island of untouched bush. She gets called to look at it. The woman who ran from the mine is there. The birds took their time. They crashed into her, one at a time, over time, taking breaks and then dropping onto her again and again from ever greater heights. But then she broke; lay there under the moon on the edge of life. By then she'd given up trying to stop the birds as they plummeted from the dark. Was she the shadow Jarrod saw? The disturber of the birds?
The bonnet is down. "Look," Jarrod says. He is standing on the bonnet. It's strong enough to hold him.
When Jarrod gets back up, Sonya is waiting next to the jerry cans.
"Careful," she says. "They're hot."
"Good," says Jarrod. "Then they should be ready to blow."
Steve ties the rope to the first jerry can, and he and Jarrod cart it to the hole. Then Jarrod takes off his t-shirt and uses that to hold onto the can as he lowers it down to Steve.
"Shit," goes Steve as he burns his hands on its metal.
"You good?" asks Jarrod.
"Just keep lowering it," says Steve as he taps it one way, then another, as he guides it down.
"Ok, it's down," Steve says, and as he unties the rope, Jarrod goes and grabs the next can.
"I don't get it," asks Jarrod as he looks around at the birds. "Why don't they try to stop us?"
"I don't know," says Sonya.
Jarrod just looks at her.
"I don't," she says.
The second jerry can slides down to Steve, and then the third and the fourth.
Steve expected the fourth jerry can to fall in and explode, but it didn't. It is here before him. They are all lined up and waiting. This is my luck, he thinks. He looks up to the gas bottle that's coming down on the end of a rope and sees the circling birds. This is my luck. It's going to work. He's going to get out.
The gas bottles are in place. Now to seal the gap beneath the wheels.
"We need more wood," says Jarrod, and as one, the three of them look at the untouched island of bush.
"I'll go," says Sonya.
"I'll come too," says Jarrod.
"No, just me," she says.
"But how will you get the log back?" asks Steve.
"I could drag it."
"Ok," says Jarrod. "We need one thick one or two thinner logs the length of this." He holds up a length of rope. "Or longer. Longer is better. We can always cut it down to size."
He gives her a length of rope as Steve converts one of their safety harnesses into a harness for dragging logs. The end has two loops on it.
"See if you can find somewhere on the log to loop these onto, then pull them tight. That's it," Steve says.
"Are you sure you can do this?" asks Jarrod as Sonya looks up and studies the circling birds.
"Sonya?" he asks again when she doesn't reply.
The birds can't be a nightmare, Jarrod knows, as he watches her head to the island of bush, for there are far more of them than a nightmare would need.
"She's getting stronger," says Steve. "Last night she was dying. Now look at her."
Jarrod goes to say something, but he watches her instead as the birds on the burnt branches watch her too, and the birds overhead circle as they try to block out the sky or prevent God from seeing.
"If we do get the truck out," says Steve, "we should leave her here."
Jarrod looks at his brother.
"I'm serious. Think about it. They'd buy it. She's already killed one husband, and she did it like this. All she did was change water for land."
Dena has a cup of coffee. Boris is leaning back with his hands behind his head.
"Would you run that by me again?" asks Dena.
Steve, with the hole in his face, and Jarrod, with his partially melted face, are sitting together on the other side.
"What's wrong?" asks Boris. "Are your tongues tied by cats?"
Still, Steve and Jarrod say nothing.
"So," says Dena, "miraculously you got the truck out, and then the pair of you left a wounded and defenseless woman to die out here all alone of exposure?"
"No," says Steve. "Her body is in the rear of the truck."
"With a bullet wound," says Dena. "Fired from your rifle."
The tent and the detectives are gone, and the men are back, watching Sonya approach the island of untouched bush.
"Maybe not," says Steve.
Sonya reaches the island of untouched bush. She looks back at the shaft and the brothers who are watching her. From here, the nightmare is capped by a high, cloudless blue populated by circling ravens. It is a view yet to be painted by an artist falling forever into hell: Birds perched like dead fruit on burnt trees, wisps of smoke rising from isolated and slumbering fires, the last remaining time-broken bones of what was once a mountain.
She finds the woman's skeleton. She is lying in the middle of the untouched bush where gravity has all but pulled her into its earth. The top bones of her left hand are still breaking through the baked dirt as if they were trying to hold onto one last grasp of time. Her spine is long buried, but the final peaks of her ribs, stripped of any clues of her existence, are still exposed and have been soiled by years of weather and dust storms. Most of her skull is now under the ground, too, but her life-peeled face is here, packed tightly on all sides by the dirt. It's as if, despite the current's inescapability, she had broken back through the surface of the world and stolen one last breath. Now stuck, her eyes, which are now caves, are forever staring pointlessly up at the changing skies that have and will always ignore her.
Sonya looks around at the landscape, in which there is nothing soft, then she drops to her knees and uses a small, strong stick to attack the ground, breaking it up into usable clods of dirt. She then gently pulls all this dirt over the dead woman's face.
Standing, Sonya turns back to the untouched bush and the job of looking for the required log.
A single raven leaves a nearby tree. As Sonya walks through the island, her gut instinct makes her aware of it. It is the only raven flying close to the ground. Its heavy wings are thumping the air louder than all those flying above. She keeps an eye on it as she searches.
Dead leaves and sticks crackle under her feet.
The lone bird is circling her. It's watching her as it thumps the air. She looks around and finds a longer, solid stick. Picking it up, she shows it to the bird.
The single bird is on its second rotation. Always it is watching her.
Sonya finds a log that will work and attaches the loops from the rope to it. She attempts to pull it, and it moves.
Turning back, she heads to the shaft and the waiting brothers with the log dragging behind her like a plough.
The bird is turning. It is in front of her now and heading this way. She lets go of the log and raises the stick like a club. Still the bird comes. It is only a meter or so above the ground, skimming over the burnt spinifex, and it is silent.
Sonya prepares to hit it when a second bird she hadn't noticed smacks into her side. Grunting, she falls that way as the other bird flies over her head and is gone.
Groaning, she gets back to a seated position, then defensively looks around for other birds. When she finds none, she looks over at the brothers. They are already moving this way. The ravens in the trees start cawing. Some take to wing. She raises her hand for the brothers to stop. They do, and the ravens stop cawing. Then the ones that had just lifted into the air circle back and land again, as those above them all circle.
She looks around. The raven that hit her is staggering about and shaking its head.
"Are you ok?" Jarrod calls over.
She gives him another wave, then gets back to her feet. She touches her bullet wound. It is throbbing, but nowhere near as much as her side.
"What the fuck was that?" Steve asks Jarrod.
"I don't know."
"What are you doing?" yells Steve.
She waves at them again, then grimaces.
"I think you've cracked my rib," she informs the bird, then picks up the stick.
The bird tries to get away. It caws and caws, then turns and looks up at her.
With her good arm and determination, she bludgeons it several times.
The brothers watch. When she throws the stick aside, they look at each other, each wearing the last expression of that bird.
More cawing. This time it is coming from the ravens circling above her. When she looks back, the brothers are looking up.
The cawing intensifies. Steve returns to the pit. Jarrod starts to move towards her. First he walks, then he speeds up. Now he runs.
The ravens on the trees lift as one.
"Go back, Sonya!" yells Jarrod. "It's ok, go back!"
Jarrod stops. He steps back. The ravens don't stop. They are flying towards each other, crisscrossing. How they don't fly into each other doesn't make sense. It's as if they are one. Are they one? Again they are forming a wall. It is a wall so closely compacted it's difficult to see through. Slowly it turns to encircle the island. She catches a glimpse of Jarrod running back to the shaft, and right here, as he runs away, she realizes she has never felt so alone, and yet she has spent, since the death of her dog, her entire life alone.
The encircling wall speeds up and constricts. It is a forming tornado of ravens, and the island of untouched bush is its eye.
She waits where she is. There is nothing else she can do. They are not cawing anymore. Then from above her, several start to descend. They are spiraling down like a string of DNA, a forming double helix. They continue to fall all the way to the ground, then gently the first two land. They land so close together they are less than a foot apart. There they wait. They don't move. The next two birds land on these two that are already there, and before her eyes, these four birds become the base of two short perpendicular pillars. As more join, the pillars grow, two by two, until they form human legs. Then, as more join, a torso is born, and as this grows into a chest, arms are added, then a neck, and upon that a head.
As she watches, the figure completes. It is black with soft edges. It is like a shadow missing its creator or one searching for one. It floats forward, towards her, with no need to ambulate.
There is nowhere for her to go.
It has no face. No fingers.
Sonya picks up the stick she had just tossed away, then takes a step back, and then another.
Still it comes.
"The answer is no," she says and swings the stick as a prelude to what will happen.
The wall is closing in.
Closer the shadow comes, like it was sent by death.
"I said no."
It comes closer.
"No!" she yells and swings her club.
It raises an arm before it. An arm that has no hand.
"NO!" and she swings again.
The club passes through the shadow's hand, but it does not affect it.
Sonya moves back and re-arms her club.
It is closer. It has all but reached her.
"Get the fuck away from me," she growls and aims for its head as she swings, but the club passes right through it, like it is passing through a dark mist, and then the shadow is here. The end of its outstretched arm is now touching her bullet wound with the pressure of nothing.
Then the ravens behind her start cawing. Sonya turns from the shadow and by doing so breaks herself from its touch to find the floor of the wall of ravens fracturing because of fire.
There are birds squawking. Some of them are on fire. It's the brothers. They are bursting through the wall. Both are holding a burning stick, and the bucket, which is on fire, is bouncing across the earth. After filling it with petrol, they threw this petrol over this section of the living wall and then set it alight. She can feel the birds screaming. Now, waving their burning sticks above their heads, the brothers are running towards her.
Sonya turns back to the shadow, and then, as though Sonya had sharply inhaled, it moves into her a moment before finding herself wrapped in Jarrod's arms.
"Are you ok?" he asks as he checks her for injuries. "Sonya, are you ok?"
She forcibly turns in his arms and looks. "Where did it go?" she asks.
"Where did what go?" asks Jarrod.
"It's gone. It's gone," she says, then breaking from his arms, she runs towards the shaft, then stops and frantically looks everywhere. "Where did it go? Huh? Where did it go?"
"What are you talking about?" asks Steve. "Where did what go?"
"Didn't you see it?" she asks.
"See what?" asks Jarrod.
"See what?" says Sonya. "What do you mean see what? It was here. It was right here."
"What was?" asks Jarrod.
"Holy fuck," goes Steve. "Look!"
Around them, the birds are flying back to the trees and their perches or back up to the sky, leaving the few that the brothers set on fire to writhe across the dirt while cawing in pain.
"Grab the log," Jarrod tells Steve as Sonya keeps looking around and around.
"It's gone," she says. "It's gone."
The log has been carried back to the hole, and as Jarrod cleans it and cuts it to length with the tomahawk, Steve, under the truck, prepares the support holes with the pick. This done, they use a rope, tied to either end of the log, to lower it through the truck.
Once they have positioned it against the back of the rear tires, they use the interior panels off the rear doors as wedges to block any gaps. When the explosion blows through here, the force will try to blow the panels through these gaps, but hopefully, instead of pushing them through, it will offer the truck even more upward thrust.
"Perfect," says Steve.
"Not bad," says Jarrod. "We're ready."
When they reach the surface, it's early afternoon, and Sonya is standing there looking at the birds.
Steve looks past her and the birds and focuses on the distance. If they do get the truck out, how long will they be able to drive without water?
Jarrod checks that the hook of the winch is securely connected to the paperbark tree. There are ravens in the tree's branches. They are quiet and watchful. He lays a hand on the tree trunk and in a whisper asks it to hold.
Steve is tying ropes to the bull-bar for himself and Jarrod. Their harnesses lay in wait on the burnt ground.
"Now for the foil," says Jarrod. "But we can't do it out here. It'll have to be done in the truck."
"You sure this will work?" asks Sonya.
"Well, it's a bit late for that now," says Steve. "The real question is, will they do something to stop us?" He is talking about the birds that are now quiet and docile.
"What happened over there?" Jarrod asks, but Sonya does not reply.
"I told you, she's a vault," says Steve. "Now, wrap her up."
Jarrod rolls the first roll of foil out onto the back seat, then asks Sonya, "Are you ready?"
"Just one layer?" she asks.
"Just for your back," he says. "The seat should absorb most of the blast, and we have to make sure we have enough foil."
"You don't have enough foil?" says Sonya.
"No, no, we do," says Jarrod, "as long as we ration it."
"Ha," goes Steve, and Sonya glares at him.
"Are you ready?" asks Jarrod.
Reluctantly, she sits back on the single piece of foil. "What about my hands?" she asks.
"The left hand we'll wrap up against your body," says Jarrod. "You won't need it. The right hand you'll need to start the engine, so we'll wrap that up separately. Once the engine starts..."
"Will it start?" she asks.
"Yes," says Jarrod.
"Oh, it'll start," says Steve. "I know it."
"Then after it does," says Jarrod, "bring your right arm back and hold it against you. You won't need your hands to steer. If it works, before you know it, the front wheels should be in the air, and once it's on the ground, it shouldn't matter which way the wheels are facing, just as long as they are turning. Then, once it is out, you can break out of the foil and steer."
"Like a butterfly," grins Steve, who is sitting on the edge of the shaft.
"No, like a phoenix," says Jarrod.
"What about my face?" she asks.
"We'll wrap it up," says Jarrod. "Several times."
"That's it?" says Sonya.
"That's it," says Jarrod. "And there won't be any air holes because you could breathe in the fire."
"Then how do I breathe?"
"There'll be air already under the foil, but when we seal you in the mask, we'll make sure we move fast. Very fast, so you should be out before you run out of air."
"Should?"
"Yes," says Jarrod.
She thinks about this, then says, "So once I am all wrapped up, you're going to blow up everything that's behind me?"
"Yes," says Jarrod. "Which will shoot you out like a bullet."
"You do know," says Sonya, "that this is crazy?"
"Crazy is all we have left," says Steve.
Sonya says, "Sonya, look at me. It'll work."
"Do you promise?" she asks.
"Yes," says Jarrod.
"But," says Steve, "before we progress, we really need to talk."
From a distance, in the burnt landscape, the interview tent could be mistaken for a tiny church. Dena Proudfoot and Boris Pasterneck look baffled. Opposite them, Steve, with his missing eye and ripped face, Jarrod with his face's grotesque melted wound, and Sonya, wrapped head to toe in charred foil, apart from her face, which is singed, are sitting together with Sonya in the middle.
"So you're saying that you dropped the rifle?" Dena asks Steve.
"Accidentally," says Steve.
"And when it hit the ground, it fired," says Dena, "then this one bullet passed through Sonya's shoulder, severed your brother's thumb before hitting him in the side of his face?"
"I know," says Steve. "We couldn't believe it either."
"But how did the truck end up stuck in the mine shaft?" asks Boris.
"That was an accident too," says Sonya. "It should have had a sign. Warning: Open Mine Shaft."
"It does have a sign," says Boris. "We found it. It had fallen down."
"Well, there you go," says Steve. "There's your problem right there."
Dena and Boris ruminate.
"And while you went looking for Lasseter's Reef," says Dena, "which you didn't find," says Steve, "you actually found an even richer seam of gold," says Dena.
"Yes," says Sonya. "That's correct."
"Oh, which," says Boris, "you now own equal shares?"
"It's only fair," says Steve.
"Plus the remaining ten percent will go to a charity," smiles Sonya.
"Which charity?" asks Boris.
"We're yet to choose one," says Steve.
"Uh huh. Ok, well it sounds like you've had quite an adventure, but I just need to be clear," says Dena. "Do you want to press charges?" she asks Sonya.
"What for?" says Sonya. "We survived. That's all that matters."
"Well how about you?" Boris asks Jarrod.
Jarrod is looking down at where his thumb used to be.
"Jarrod?" asks Dena.
The blood has dried all down his wrist.
"Jarrod?" asks Sonya.
He rolls his hand over and looks at his palm. Blood is here too; it is dried in the grimy lines. They're supposed to mean something, these lines. A blueprint for his life that he can't read. Engraved for whom, then? Huh? Engraved for whom?
"Hey, Jarrod," asks Steve.
Jarrod looks up to find what's left of his brother's face, waiting.
"You ok?" Steve asks.
"No," says Jarrod as he turns to the detectives. "It's all good. What can you do? Accidents happen."
"I have another question," says Steve. The three of them are back in the shaft. Sonya is sitting in the driver's seat, waiting to be wrapped up.
"After we get the truck out," says Steve, "she'll be at the wheel, with the engine running, and we'll be outside. How do we know she won't just drive away and leave us here?"
"Wouldn't that be a bit difficult with both of you tied to the front?" says Sonya.
"How?" Steve asks Jarrod.
"Because if she does, she knows she'll never find her way out," says Jarrod. "This country is huge. One wrong turn and you'll be lost. The truck could break down, and with no water, well, you don't have time to get lost. Despite everything, the best chance we still have of getting home is together."
"Not only that," says Steve, "but if you do leave, then you can forget about the gold. Because I'm leaving a note. Maybe a few, or better still, loads of them spread all around here, which might make it a bit tricky for you when someone from your mining company finds one."
Sonya looks at Steve for a long, long time.
"Not to mention trying to explain away our bodies," says Jarrod.
Then Sonya looks at Jarrod and, leaning towards him, she smiles one of her secret smiles and says, "Shall we go?"
Jarrod begins wrapping her legs in layers of foil, then he leans her forward and wraps her wounded arm around her entire torso. He wraps her neck, then he constructs the rear part of her mask out of foil and leans her head back onto that. Her right arm is left uncovered.
The sleeping bag is unrolled, then carefully pulled up over her body from her feet until it reaches just below her shoulders. Then he pulls the back up so the sleeping bag's hood covers her head. Then Jarrod and Steve use all their strength to push the driver's seat as close to the pedals as possible before Jarrod slices the bottom of the bag open so her feet will be free to work the pedals.
The ravens that can't find a perch are still circling and darkening the sky with their numbers.
"Are you sure you're ok?" asks Jarrod.
"Is that a trick question?" asks Sonya.
The brothers move down to the rear of the truck.
"The glass in the rear doors is fine," says Steve, "but the lock is broken. We could tie them up, but we only have nylon string, and in an explosion, that will melt in a second."
"I know what we can use," says Jarrod. "Stay here." After crawling back out of the truck, he grabs something, then drops back in and looks at Sonya as he does. When she sees it, she smiles.
"Perfect," she says.
"We can use this," says Jarrod, and hands Steve the broken shovel.
Steve laughs; they all laugh despite their dried and charred lips. Then Steve sees the ravens flying above.
"Why would they let us go?" asks Steve.
"If we get it out, how will they stop us?" asks Jarrod.
"They won't even try," says Sonya.
"What does that mean?" asks Steve.
"It means hurry up," she says. "She has never been this thirsty. She feels like a dried sponge."
It's early afternoon when Steve, with Jarrod holding his safety rope, lays one nervous foot on the upturned bonnet and turns the first gas bottle's dial to on. The hissing makes them all tense. Then Steve turns the second gas bottle's dial, and the hissing becomes stereo.
Together, the brothers gently close the rear doors.
"Whatever you do," says Jarrod as they try to seal them, "don't create a spark, or we'll end up on the moon."
Steve nods, then they use the broken shovel and a bit of rope to hold the doors closed. The hissing sounds like a great, pissed-off snake.
This complete and able to smell nothing but gas, Steve crawls up and out of the hole, stopping only to look back at Sonya as Jarrod reaches her and stops.
The gas is hissing.
"I can smell it," says Sonya.
"Are you ready?" asks Jarrod.
"I wasn't lying," she says.
"When?"
"You reached me. The only one who ever did."
"How?"
"I think it's because you saw me."
"The only reason I'm still alive, huh?"
Her nod is almost imperceptible, and her eyes are calling.
Jarrod looks back up to Steve, then he turns back and moves in closer and kisses her.
Their lips are bone dry, and their breath tastes of the desert.
"So that's what a last kiss tastes like?" she says.
He smiles, then he loses his smile to look up at Steve, who is now missing.
"Will this work?" she asks.
"Yes."
"Not that it matters," she says, "not anymore."
"What does that mean? Sonya, what does that mean?"
But her only reply is one of her secret smiles, a new one that is just as impossible to read as the rest, though this one leaves him fighting off a deep, sudden, inner chill.
"Clutch," she says, then pushes it down as he places the gear lever into first.
"Accelerator," he says, "all the way down."
She depresses the pedal all the way to the floor.
"Once I seal your mask," he says, "give me a few moments to get out and get my harness on, then start the car."
"What if by starting it, I set off the gas?" she asks.
"Then by starting it, you'll set off the gas," he replies.
"Ok," she says.
"The keys are in the ignition," he says. "Once it starts, tuck your fingers into a fist and shove it against your other arm, understand?"
"Yes."
"Then let the clutch go gently, and that's it. Off we go. Good luck, Sonya."
She nods, then he places the mask on her face. It has no eyes, no breathing holes, no holes for her ears.
"How do I breathe again?" she asks.
"We have to go, Sonya. You'll be fine," he says. "Just don't breathe too deep. Ready?"
"Ready."
He covers her face with the foil mask, then picks up what's left of the foil and, after asking her to lean her head forward, wraps her head in all the foil that is left. All the while, he can hear and smell the gas that is making him dizzy. This done, he pulls the hood of the sleeping bag over her face. She is a bright nylon chrysalis.
This complete, he checks everything one more time, then he clambers out of the windscreen and switches on the winch before climbing out of the hole.
The winch won't start until the motor starts.
Steve is waiting, watching him. "Did you have to kiss her in front of me?"
"Let's do this," says Jarrod as he pulls on his harness. "Sonya, go!"
Sonya turns the key. The engine turns over once but doesn't catch.
"Again," yells Jarrod.
The engine turns over again, again it won't start.
"Shit," goes Steve. "Just fucking catch."
"Again," calls Jarrod, then whispers, "Come on. Come on!"
Hidden in her foil, Sonya turns the key a third time, and the engine starts, and so does the winch.
"Yes!" goes Steve as the wire pulls tight and the paperbark tree creaks like it's complaining.
"Not yet, Sonya," Jarrod yells as he pulls out and lights his father's lighter.
"Do it," says Steve.
Underarm, Jarrod gently tosses the lighter into the pit...
Part 10. .. Next
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