Chapter 27
The next night, they come for him.
And my brother goes. Willingly.
The black utility truck pulls silently onto our shitty lawn. Headlights off. Waiting. There’s something predatorial about it, a shark on the hunt.
Heath pulls the front door closed behind him, stalking past the lounge room window, just another shadow in the night.
I’ve seen this so many times before. Hushed voices walking off into the darkness.
Only it was always Dad and Terry. I crouch at my bedroom window, calves tight, squinting through the dark.
My nose pokes the windowsill as I stare at the blond driver, heart tight.
It’s Luke.
Heath slinks into the passenger seat, head down.
Luke half turns, arm hanging lazily from the wheel, watching Heath buckle himself in.
Quietly, he pulls the car out, and I duck lower, race to the kitchen, and snatch up my car keys.
When I’m sure the truck has pulled away, I peek through the blinds and make a break for the door.
My jaw clenches when I slink into my car, shut the door, and start the engine. Headlights off, I follow.
—
It’s a warm, clear night, cloudless, but I can barely see Luke’s car. He speeds down the main street, merging with the darkness, and I trail carefully behind. This is going to be a long, tense ride.
But it’s not.
Less than ten minutes later, I raise my chin in surprise when the truck turns sharply. I drive past, noting the sign: Neptune Road. I count to sixty and when I can’t see his taillights, I turn the wheel, looping back.
Neptune Road is a wide-open country strip stretching into a humid horizon.
Cows munch behind barbed-wire fences, and a stray napkin flutters past bits of shredded tire and crushed beer cans.
The road is lit only by a crescent moon and the flickering headlights of a flurry of cars pulling into a shack of a house.
I squint ahead, searching for Luke’s car, but I don’t find it. I pull slowly into a winding driveway, gasping when a red Holden swerves in front, cutting me off. I go to slam my palm into the horn, but stop just in time, glaring instead at its taillights.
The yard is the size of a football field. It’s sunbaked and potholed, crammed with cars. They’ve parked everywhere, blocking the driveway, nudging the mailbox, front bumpers so close the noses kiss. I parallel-park on the shoulder, facing the road, then kill the engine and wait. Watch.
Men lurch out their cars, red-faced and sloshing beer.
They greet one another loudly, slapping backs, embracing drunkenly.
There’s an everyone’s shitfaced at the pub energy thrumming in the air.
That weighted atmosphere where beefy men start to get spitty and shovey, and women and children feel the need to tiptoe around them. Like me.
Uneasy, I count over forty cars, most of them utility trucks with enough Aussie pride stickers to start a shop: A frowning koala waving an Aussie flag that reads, Fuck off We’re Full.
Yellow-and-green maps of Australia and nestled inside, the Southern Cross and a kangaroo mid-hop.
Victorian license plates, mainly. I jot down their numbers and the handful of out-of-state plates. NSW. Queensland—
People stomp in and out of the squat house, past a kelpie dog tied to the porch, panting in the heat. Men carry icy coolers stuffed snugly with beer. Solemn women slump in deck chairs, balancing toddlers and swatting at mosquitoes.
But mostly…I lean forward, squinting. Mostly they ignore the house like they don’t even see it. Like that’s not what they came for.
My eyes follow a pack of staggering men, five of them, so drunk they’re holding one another up. They stumble past the barking kelpie tied to the porch, swearing aggressively at it before disappearing around the corner.
I tap my index finger on the steering wheel, scanning for Luke’s black vehicle, but I can’t find it anywhere.
Still, the cars keep pulling in with rowdy men in groups of two or three.
All of them bypassing the house, stomping impatiently to the backyard.
I watch with interest as a purple Holden glides in, pop music echoing out the car window.
A pink-and-white decal on the bumper reads Cute but Crazy.
And taking up nearly the entire back window are two stick figures, a woman kneeling in front of a man, mouth in his lap, declaring, Nice Girls Suck!
What is it with these people and their car stickers? I watch five women spill out, late twenties, bubble skirts, rose tattoos. One of them carries a box of cask wine, and from the way they’re all walking, it’s clear they’ve been sampling it.
I cram a cap on and follow. We sidle past a drunken teen sitting cross-legged on a car bonnet, chomping hard on an ear of corn.
Past the panting kelpie. One of the girls coos at it, thrusts the back of her hand up to its muzzle.
It licks the back of her palm, and I hover behind them and freeze.
This is the pub dog. The ancient kelpie that hangs around the courtyard.
The one that rolled in the magpie carcass when I first arrived in town. I know whose dog this is.
Pulled up to a shattered back window is a black truck. Luke’s. Empty. I keep walking, following their drunken steps, breathing in the peachy tang of the wine. But we don’t get far. Ahead of us is a traffic jam of men, impatient and yelling over one another.
I rise up on my tiptoes, peering over the head of the girl clutching the cask wine, scorpion tattoo on her neck. There’s an angry huddle waiting outside an industrial steel shed.
Someone snarls, “What’s the farken holdup?”
“Hold ya horses, mate!”
I sink back to my feet, uneasy. There’s a weight in the air, something cruel and carnival-like.
I inch forward with the drunk girls until we’re sweating outside the open mouth of the shed.
A hefty man with a face like porridge waves us through, winking hard at the girl carrying the cask wine, who ignores him.
“Farken slut,” he mutters.
Inside, it’s cave-like and dirty, crowded as hell. There’s a hundred people, at least, packed in tightly, restless and loud and waiting for something. Mostly men except for a handful of women cowering behind them, arms looped nervously through theirs, as if trying to hold them back. Calm them down.
From what?
I squirm through the feral crowd, cheeks filmy with sweat. It’s windowless and humid, smells like body odor and meat. A Yamaha fishing boat is tucked in the corner, dripping. The Titan.
An elbow clips my shoulder, but I keep inching forward, pulling my cap lower, eyes on the floor.
I squeeze through until my chin is inches from a man’s shoulder.
I try to step around him, but I’m smushed in.
A tall man in a high-vis shirt smeared with oil stains pushes past me, shoulder bumping mine.
He shoves his way through, and a beer-clogged voice snarls, “Watch where yer farken going, mate!”
The oil-smeared man gives him the finger. I stand on tiptoes, watching him settle at the far front of the shed. I blink in surprise when I see what he’s standing in front of.
A stage. I narrow my eyes, staring at it. The elevated stage is scuffed plywood, the backdrop, three plastic shower curtains strung together. There’s no special lighting or sound equipment, only five black steps leading up to the silent rectangular stage.
I try to step back but can’t. Behind me, a fight breaks out. Two beer-soaked voices, a crash of fists, and a woman’s pained cry. “He’s drunk,” she pleads.
I can’t see her, but I bet she’s desperate and exhausted, placing herself between the brawling men and her raging husband.
Leave him, I want to tell her. It won’t get better. It’s in his blood.
My ears throb with the noise that’s growing louder and louder like someone turning the radio up. I want to run. Want to stay.
The men shift or sway in their spots, arms crossed or palms flat on their meaty stomachs, irritable. On edge. What are they all waiting for?
I’m stuck behind the man in front, sandwiched between sweaty limbs, the bridge of my nose brushing his black T-shirt. I’m drowning in the air, breathing through a sweaty sheet.
For a moment, I’m twelve years old, back in Heath’s cabin, watching the blood boys slice kangaroo meat into marbled strips while Heath hovers behind, grim-faced and silent.
As the blood boys grew, something began to shift.
You could feel it. Something knocking inside their skulls, anxious to get out.
A power struggle commenced, a bloody tug-of-war.
I watched the blood boys battle for control, and Heath battle to keep it.
Some days, I felt sandwiched between them all, guns pointed in every direction.
I feel it now. Here.
The man stumbles onto the stage, clutching a beer can in each fist. I rise up on my toes again, watch him trip up the final step, landing hard on his left knee. He raises the cans in the air, victorious and bellowing, “Didn’t spill a drop!”
The blood men reward him with a football-like roar. He remains there kneeling onstage, chugging hard from one can, then the other, draining both before crunching them in his fists. “Showtime’s in ten, fellas!”
The roar intensifies, a wave of sound. I sink to my feet and the crowd buzzes with anticipation.
Cheers and chants and slapping backs, elbows shoving bodies forward, itching to get closer to the stage.
I slink back, chin tucked to my chest, letting them push forward as I pull away. I peek at my phone, note the time:
1:50 a.m.
The porridge-faced man is gone. No one’s guarding the door.
No one cares anymore. The cask wine girls are sitting on the boat’s smooth hull, pouring the plastic wine spout directly into their open mouths.
The girl with the scorpion tattoo slides into the skipper’s seat, pretends to drive it.
No one tells her off. She honks the horn twice, but it’s lost in the swell of noise.
I slink outside, peering up the entire length of the shed. A drunk man leans against a blackwood, using it for support as he fumbles with his belt, unzips his jeans. He mutters to himself as he pees, and I wait until he stumbles back inside, face flushed and laughing to himself.
I disappear outside, scanning the dark yard. The edges are lined with barbed wire, the grass limp and yellowing. Lawn chairs are scattered around a fish cleaning station under the shade of a ghost gum. A rusted boat is parked next to a hammock, its hull streaked with moss, weeds, and grime.
Stepping quickly, I walk the length of the shed, looking for doors. Behind me, the crowd hums with noise.
1:52 a.m.
Not long until showtime, whatever that is.
At the far back of the squat land are two sheds tucked to the right-hand side. One shed is larger, with a wide roll-up door. I turn slightly, looking behind me, but there’s no one there.
I run, sprinting hard for the larger shed, weaving around broken beer bottles as it looms closer. I make it to the roller door, pausing once to look over my shoulder. A squat man carries a beer slab into the industrial shed, and I duck to the ground and wait.
1:54 a.m.
Six minutes to go.
I crouch beside the roller door, panting silently, lifting my head, watching the squat man disappear inside. Then I grip the door and yank it up as quietly as I can.
I peer into the darkness, blinking hard.
High ceilings equipped with exhaust fans—that’s the first thing I see.
The second is the washing machines. Four of them, silver and black, stacked side by side along the left wall.
On the right, four bathtubs in a vertical row.
I blink when I see the five gas stoves lining the back wall, four burners each in a gridlike pattern on the cooktop.
Blink again at the giant stainless-steel cooking pots discarded around the room.
I creep forward until my knee brushes the first tub rim. I look down. Then I stagger to the next, and the next.
Each bathtub is three-quarters full of something soaking in filthy, coffee-colored water. I reach in and pull one out. The shell is oval shaped, encrusted with algae, and it fits snugly into my palm. I shuck it open with my knife, the meat inside smooth and pale beige.
Abalone. A shitload of abalone. A processing facility. Illegal as hell.
I plunge my free hand in, grasping another in my fist. I rub my thumb over the slimy flesh, shaking my head. There’s easily a quarter million dollars’ worth here.
I peer behind me before slipping the abalone back into the water. Then I remove my phone from my pocket.
1:56 a.m.
Four minutes. Quickly, I pull the roller door down, gliding it smoothly down the tracks. I spend the next minute snapping photos, wincing each time the flash goes off. I find three Cryovac machines perched on a shelf, near the last bathtub.
I shake my head as I snap more photos. So they wash them, dry them, and then vacuum-seal them here, before exporting them. Is Heath involved? Has he always been?
…And do I want to be?
1:57 a.m.
Three minutes until showtime…
I pause, thinking of the stage. Is that what showtime is? Is this whole fucked-up night an illegal abalone ring? Do they go out under the cover of night, bagging it? Bringing it back, seeing who caught the most?
Got to go. Got to go.
I reach for the roller door, yanking it up a foot before crouching low and looking under. Nothing. I make a break for it, diving out, pulling it closed behind me. Then I stalk across the yard, shaking my head, thinking the night can’t get any wilder.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.