Red Centre (18 page)

Roy made his way slowly along the veranda
towards the door. Unarmed and furious, he wanted to make it inside
and arm himself.

Frank repositioned his fingers around his
gun. He wasn’t keen on going head to head with a military
man—especially one almost twenty years his junior. His eye started
to twitch. He had a gut feeling that things were about to go bad,
fast.

Chris had the advantage. He most likely knew
they were here. But they didn’t know where he was.

He was trained. They were not.

Frank gave a concerned, lowered yell. “ROY!”
His voice scratchy. “ROY!”

Waving a hand, he called for Roy to return
to the truck. Roy shook his head, continuing his pursuit to get
into the house to at least get a kitchen knife. Frank clenched his
teeth. “Fat bastard,” he said under his breath.

Moving further into the light, Roy squinted,
his hand giving a gentle push on the front door. It slowly creaked
open. The house dark and still. He glance quickly back to Frank,
wary of entering.

He carefully placed his boot just inside the
door. Holding his breath. The last thing he wanted was to be shot
by his own gun in the chest.

Frank quickly surveyed the surroundings,
making sure Chris wasn’t sneaking up on them. His eyes snapped back
as Roy disappeared into the darkness.

Cautious steps—slowly—one after the other,
Roy walked. The veranda light had jacked his natural night vision.
He was moving in blind. He took another step—directly into a set
fox trap. Sharp pain ripped up his foot and through his body. Roy’s
scream echoed out into the front yard, startling Frank. Frank’s
small fox trap had captured a new victim. Its rusty, razor sharp
teeth clamped around Roy’s foot like a powerful dog bite with
lockjaw. The side of his boot was pierced. Blood trickled inside
it, soaking his sock.

We’re under attack! A panicked thought
filled Frank’s mind. He had to do something. Crouching low, he
scuffled towards the house, gun locked to his shoulder, itching to
fire.

Suddenly Roy crashed through the front
doorway landing on his back, rolling in agony—both hands attempted
to pry open the trap’s jaws.

Frank snapped his gun into position, taking
aim at the door, ready to shoot at anything following Roy.

He watched as Roy winced and struggled with
the fox trap. Frank hadn’t used the trap in years, and now Chris
was using it against them.

A cell phone alarm rang out to Frank’s
right, somewhere in the dark yard.

He didn’t wait to see what it was. Hyped up
and ready to shoot, he blasted both barrels in the general
direction, without aiming.

Frank quickly cracked open the gun to
reload. His old hands shook, desperately trying to jam in two new
shells.

Then the distant sound of a gunshot echoed
through the air. Frank’s left thigh blasted sideways with the
impact of the shot. Severe pain ran through his leg as hot pieces
of metal pierced it.

He crashed to the ground on his back,
wrenched in pain, wounded leg outstretched. Trying to ignore the
pain, his only thought was to re-arm himself and return fire.

Hands shaking more than ever now, he was
unable to chamber the shells.

The pain too much, he let the gun lie in the
dirt, grabbing his leg to ease his wound, slow the bleeding.

Soon, Chris’ black, boot-polished face came
into view. The whites of his eyes looked pure white against the
black. His eyes wild and crazy. He closed one, bringing the shotgun
level against his shoulder, taking aim at Frank’s face.

Frank winced, his breathing labored—cursing
himself how foolish it was to unload the double barrel at an unseen
enemy. Son of a bitch.

He raised his arms in surrender.

Chris kicked Frank’s gun away.

He glanced up to the sound of Roy freeing
himself from his entanglement. Roy quickly got to his feet and
hobbled off the veranda towards the truck. He was so preoccupied
with pain he hadn’t seen Chris holding Frank at gunpoint near the
truck.

He halted in his tracks. Red dust swirled in
front of his feet. He had almost made it back to the front of the
truck when he saw Frank lying in the dark, then Chris, barely
recognizable. He froze, not sure whether to try to help Frank or
make a run for it. The selfish bastard chose the latter.

Chris snapped the gun directly on him. “Eat
the dirt, fat bastard.”

Roy didn’t want to comply, but he didn’t
want to take a bullet in the back. He knew Chris wasn’t
playing.

Chris leveled the gun site with his eye,
yelling another order. “Get your ass on the ground.”

Dropping to one knee first, jeans slipping
halfway around his ass, Roy slowly lay face down in the dirt,
highlighted by the Humvee’s spotlights. “Bloody wanker,” he mumbled
under his foul breath, his wounded foot killing him. If he had his
gun he would start shooting, regardless of who was in the way. He
hated Chris that much.

“
What have ya done? Ya
dumb shit!” Frank grabbed at his wounded leg again.

Chris moved out of the blinding bright
Humvee headlights now that Frank and Roy were both on the ground.
The Russian sat still in the front seat, after watching the entire
saga unfold. “Stay in the truck, Pavlova.” Chris yelled to him.
“You move and I’ll cap your Russian ass.”

Pav rolled his eyes. He quietly corrected
Chris. “Pavlovich.”

“
Ya wrecked everything,”
Frank continued his verbal attack.

Chris pushed on Frank with his foot to roll
him onto his stomach. He pressed his foot hard on the back of
Frank’s neck. Frank drooled onto the red dirt.

The shotgun targeted Frank’s head, the
bright barrel flashlight highlighting the side of his face.

“
Where’s my son, you son
of a bitch,” Chris said.

“
We’re so close to getting
back ya boy.” The side of Frank’s face was pinned hard against the
rough ground. Gravel prints marked his weathered face.

Chris pushed his boot down harder onto
Frank’s neck. At that moment he felt the desire to snap the old
man’s neck right where he lay. “Where’s Shawn?” he said through
clenched teeth.

“
We don’t have ya boy,”
Roy spoke up.

With a final shove on Frank’s neck Chris
turned his attention to Roy, marching toward him. Raising the butt
of his shotgun, he whipped it down hard, smashing Roy’s face,
almost knocking him out cold. Blood pissed from a deep cut on his
face and nose.

Chris moved back to Frank, pressing the cold
barrel into Frank’s cheek.

Frank pleaded. “If we hadn’t done what we
done, we wouldn’t have the device or the creature.” He paused. “We
didn’t have a choice.”

***

Three Days Earlier

“
Are ya sure they’re
here?” Frank leaned in the truck window to talk to Pav in the
passenger seat.

Pav balanced the laptop on his lap, staring
intently at the computer screen. He nodded his head slightly.
“They’re here ... somewhere.” He tapped buttons on the keyboard.
“Move it to your left,” he yelled out in his thick, Russian
accent.

A cable ran from his computer out the window
and up to the roof of Frank’s truck, connected to a large satellite
dish. Roy stood in the truck bed and wrestled with the dish to turn
it slightly to the left. It was late afternoon and the boys were
out in the wilderness, close to
Boggy Hole campgrounds. They were slightly elevated, trees hiding
their location. They knew these parts like the back of their hand.
Frank had taken his children into the national park many times.
This was his home. His family had lived in these parts for
generations.

Frank stepped back from the truck, looking
into the bright blue sky, his double-barrel shotgun in hand.
Scratching his nose with the back of his index finger, he squinted
to see if he could see anything above.

“
Tilt up!” Pav yelled
again. “UP!”

Roy struggled to tilt the large dish up into
the sky, doing his best to do as ordered. The sun was hot and sweat
beaded his forehead; sweat soaked around his armpits and down the
back of his shirt. A warm, southerly breeze blew gently, providing
little relief. He strained to point the dish further into the
sky.

“
More!” Pav yelled
again.

Sweat ran the creases of Roy’s forehead,
into his eyes. He blinked rapidly. Wiping his forehead only seemed
to merge the beads into more trickles of stinging, salty water.

“
More, more,
more—”

“
Shut your whore mouth,”
Roy snapped at the constant nagging, dropping the dish back to the
roof. He banged the truck roof with open palm. “Just shut the frig
up! Nazi bitch.”

“
I not German ... bitch!”
Pav said insulted.

Frank shook his head slightly. He lifted his
chin and breathed in deeply. The hot wind began to blow against his
back. This wasn’t working. There had to be a better way.

“
This ain’t workin’,
Frank.” Roy was exasperated. “Ya need bait if you’re gonna catch a
fish ... or a lizard or whatever the frig these fuckers
are.”

Frank turned back to look at Roy. He knew
exactly what he was thinking. He rubbed his half-shaven face. He
wasn’t sure if he could go through with what Roy was suggesting.
But what about Emma? It hurt to think about her, what they might
have done to her.

Experiments and shit.

He had to get Emma back, whatever it took,
whatever the cost. If she was even alive; if she was the same.

He was done. Done with life, done with
bullshit. He wanted her back. He wanted life/retirement to be
normal. The way it was. He had worked hard all his life. Fixing
cars, working the farm. It wasn’t meant to be like this. Life owed
him. God owed him. God owed Emma.

They lived in the quiet farm house, away
from any cities and most civilization and technology. Just a small,
close-knit community. They stayed out of trouble all their lives,
apart from the odd pub brawl in his youth.

That’s how they liked it. He didn’t need
much: a block of land, shelter, food ... Emma.

He needed her.

Otherwise, what was the point? He might as
well point the shotgun to his head right now, squeeze the
trigger.

***

“
We called them that
night,” Frank said with some anger in his voice. “Ya ungrateful son
of a bitch. Ya wouldn’t even be here, if it wasn’t for
us.”

“
I wouldn’t be here if you
didn’t take my son!” Chris yelled back.

“
We didn’t take ya son!
Why would we take your son?” Frank let out a cough, the pressure on
the back of his neck slowly wearing him down. “The gray in me shed
proves it wasn’t us.”

Chris glanced up at Roy’s shit wagon. “You
brought those poor people in on your twisted, sick game. How do I
know you didn’t use Shawn as bait?”

Frank turned his head to the other side,
half his face covered in dirt, small pebbles stuck to his face like
thorns. He knew he wasn’t getting through to Chris. “What’s ya move
now, city boy?”

Chris pushed off from Frank, moving back
towards the Humvee. He leaned in to look at Pav. “Give it to
me.”

Pav shook his head.

Suddenly Pav’s head jerked sideways as Chris
grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled it. The Russian slowly
removed the oval object from his pocket, holding it out for Chris
to take.

“
Don’t try to follow me,”
Chris said as he removed the keys from the Humvee. He pocketed them
and the oval object. “I’ll use deadly force if I have
to.”

“
Ya have no idea what
you’re doin’.” Frank gave a last ditch effort to stop
Chris.

The men watched as Roy’s shit wagon
fishtailed as it tore out the driveway, heading into the dark
wilderness. Chris glanced back at the gray, lying motionless in the
bed. He hoped it wasn’t too late.

Chris stood alone on a small dirt road in
the middle of Finke Gorge National Park, clumps of trees sparsely
scattered around him. The wind blew hard against his back, wrapping
loose clothes around his body. Dust flew into the cool night air.
The temperature dropping. Chain lightning speared across the night
sky, highlighting thick, dark clouds.

The truck’s headlights shone from behind,
encompassing Chris. His right arm stretched to the heavens above,
the oval object nestled in the palm of his hand. His fingers danced
around on top, pressing different symbols, trying to activate
it.

After a moment of nothing, Chris slowly
brought the object level to his mouth. His eyes darted around. He
ran his tongue over his dry lips. “Hello?” He glanced around to see
if anyone was watching. “Anyone there?”

Silence. Only the howl of the wind and
distant thunder.

Discouraged, he dropped
his arm by his side, breathed in deeply and peered into the night
sky. Tapping a thumb on the alien device, he looked down at it with
frustration.
This is crazy shit. What am I
doing here? Where the hell is Shawn?
His
mind was racing. He glanced back at the truck and squinted, the
truck’s lights blinding.

All the answers to his questions lay in the
back of the truck. He just had to work out how to get them out of
it.

The tailgate dropped down. Chris looked over
the gray's lifeless body in the back of the dark truck. He opened
the blade of a small pocketknife he had commandeered from Roy’s
glove compartment. Slowly he slid the blade under the thickly bound
tape wrapped around its legs. He paused, hesitating to free this
thing. Lightning flashed, lighting up the creature’s face from the
darkness—for just a moment. A shiver rippled down his spine and up
over his head. He shuddered, shaking off the shiver.