Claire Zorn - The Sky So Heavy

‘You want your brother? You have your brother when I get my food back, yes? Or maybe I just kill you. Maybe I eat you!’ He laughed again. My cheek slammed once more into the wall. I couldn’t feel it any more, only the warmth of my blood on my skin and a creeping tingle up the back of my neck.

‘You think you are the first to try this? You think I am not waiting for you?’ He drove the muzzle of the gun against my scalp. ‘I need to make example of you. I am not—’ he pulled my head back, ‘—charity,’ he said and slammed it forward into the bricks.

I was very, very tired. Sleepy. I didn’t care if he killed me. I just wanted to go to sleep. I felt my body relax.

I closed my eyes.

I see my mum’s face lit by candlelight. She leans over the pirate birthday cake.

‘Big breath, Finni! Blow out the candles!’

I am running my thumb over the smooth glob of plastic at the end of the rope on my toboggan. My fingers are pink with the cold.

I am watching the baby sleep. I am not supposed to be in his room but I like to stand next to his cot and watch him breathe. I like him better when he is asleep.

I am lying on my back on the grass looking up at the sky listening to my iPod.

Lucy crosses her ankles in history class.

I am running.

It’s his foot that brings me back. A boot to the soft part just below my ribs. I open my eyes and try to take a breath but it’s a bit like someone pulling your face out of the water only to shove it under again. He seems furious that I passed out. From where my head is on the ground I can see his boots and hear them snuff over the concrete floor. They are Blundstones, I think, steel-capped things. Fun.

‘Wake up, pussy! You think you can take my food? You think I am stupid?’ He punctuates his sentences with his foot. Maybe he’s not going to shoot me after all. Perhaps he’ll just kick me to death. But no, he stops kicking me. I hear a click and I turn my head just a little to look up at him. Starvos is perfectly still, pointing the gun down at my head. I close my eyes and think of God, only I’m not sure what I want Him to do.

And then there is a sharp cracking noise and my last thought before the enormous black weight comes down on me is of a backyard cricket match the last summer Mum and Dad were still together.

It doesn’t sound like a gunshot. But then if I’ve been shot in the head, my perception of these things is probably off.

I can still smell tobacco and sweat. And the bitter scent of blood, stronger now. Mine?

I don’t think I am dead. But I am underneath something very heavy and my lungs hurt too much to breathe and don’t seem to have room to expand anyway. I need to find the strength to move my arms and push the weight off me. I try to think about my arms, about where they are. I move my fingers. I am not dead. I cannot move much else though. A breath manages to work its way into my chest and the feeling is like having your diaphragm stabbed with a blunt object. The weight moves, it rocks and I am sure I can hear the sound of someone groaning in effort. The pressure is off my arms a little, I can move my right arm, I can push with it and I do and then cold air finds my face. I gasp and it hurts like hell but the weight is gone and I can see the arches of light on the walls cast by the torch from where I have left it on a box. Two faces come into my line of vision: a man and a girl. They are pooled in shadow; my eyes try to adjust. The expression on the girl’s face is of panic, wide eyes. Even in my near-dead stupor I notice they are very nice eyes. My vision blurs. I close my eyes and open them again. Dark indigo beanie pulled low over the ears, big coat and an expression that changes from fear to absolute relief and warmth. She touches my face.

‘Fin? Fin. Are you okay?’

She is holding a cricket bat. She drops it to the floor where it lands with a clunk. She crouches down beside me and for a moment I let myself believe that it is her. Just go with it, Fin, accept a few moments of bliss before you come to your senses . I close my eyes and open them again. A lock of dark hair falls over her shoulder.

‘Lucy?’

She puts her hands on my cheeks, her palms are cool and soft.

‘Fin?’

I would laugh, but it hurts too much.

‘Holy shit, Fin, he was going to kill you.’ She takes her hands from my face and covers her mouth. Next to her, the man is crouched down beside a human mass. The human mass is definitely not moving, definitely not conscious. He is on his back with his face turned to the side.

‘Well, I’d say you got ’im, Luce,’ says the man. I sit up and a jarring pain rips through my ribs. I touch my fingers to my cheek and they come away wet with blood.

‘Is he okay?’ she asks.

‘He’s not dead. He’s gonna have the mother of all headaches when he wakes up.’

Lucy puts my arm around her shoulder and her arm around my waist, the man comes to my other side. Slowly they help me up. The room spins.

‘Where’s Max? Where’s my brother?’

‘Was he the young kid?’ asks the man. Is he Lucy’s dad? He doesn’t seem old enough.

I nod.

‘Starvos hit him before he came inside for you. There was another guy, a guy in a car?’

‘Noll.’

‘He came running. We put the kid in the car. I told him to get out of there. I also told this one to stay outside. Instead she comes in swinging a cricket bat.’

We hobble outside. The man stops.

‘Go get the gun,’ he says to Lucy.

She frowns.

‘Pick up the gun. We should keep it.’

The street is an ocean of dark. Lucy and the man steer me across and as we get closer I see light coming from inside Lucy’s house further down the street. The flesh on my side feels like it is tearing away from my ribs. We go up Lucy’s driveway and then up some stairs. I see a woman standing in the doorway, she is maybe mid-fifties. She sees me and presumably the condition of my face and rushes forward to help me inside. That’s the point when I pass out.

Awake. I think.

The strong, tangy scent of metho. Warmth – a fire. I touch my fingertips to my cheek and feel the papery film that holds cotton wadding to my face. Breathe in. Breathe out. Stabbing, stabbing, stabbing in my side. Hunger. Memory.

‘Where’s Max?’ I don’t even know if there’s anyone there to answer me. I try to move my head to the side, to see around me but my neck is too stiff. There is blood in my mouth.

‘Hello?’ Must stop passing out. Waking up again is terrifying.

Footsteps. ‘Fin? Fin, you’re awake.’

Am I?

‘Can you hear me?’ Lucy. Her face hovers over me and she examines me like I am a puzzle. I can’t help but smile at her.

‘Hi.’

She smiles.

‘Where is my brother?’

‘He’s with Noll, remember? More to the point, who is Noll, exactly?’

‘Arnold Wong. We kind of teamed up with him.’

‘From school? That’s random and unexpected.’

‘I know.’ I try to sit up, but my muscles won’t let me.

‘You need to stay still,’ says Lucy.

‘I have to get back to Max.’

‘I know, but you need to lie down. Fin, listen to me. You’ve got concussion, your brain needs to reboot.’

I close my eyes, giving in.

The couch I’m lying on has been padded out with blankets and pillows. Lucy explains to me that her family went to stay with her aunt and uncle further up the mountains not long after the missiles. They figured they were better off sticking together early. She had come back that night with her mum and her uncle to get more food and clothes.

‘In the middle of the night?’

‘My uncle thought it would be too dangerous in the day – people might try and take our food.’ I open one eye and see her arch an eyebrow. ‘He was kind of right.’