Claire Zorn - The Sky So Heavy

‘They feeding you much?’

‘We have rations. Why do yer think I’m still fucking doin’ this?’

He shoves the rest of the chocolate bar in his mouth and chews.

‘You know, they’ve abandoned everyone on this side of the barricade. No more rations, we’ve been left to starve.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Dude, why do you think people are willing to get shot trying to get to the other side? That’s why we left; it’s the only chance we’ve got.’

He gives me a sideways glance, still chewing.

‘Have you heard from your family recently?’

‘Yer don’t know shit about my family.’

‘No, I don’t. But, all I mean is, if they’re out west they’re going to be in the exact same position.’

He doesn’t respond to that, just sits, arms slung over his knees, looking out into the distance.

‘Yer don’t need to risk getting shot at to get through,’ he says after a bit. ‘All you need is some booze. Or smokes.’ Then he takes a switchblade from his pocket, grabs my wrists and slices through the plastic tie. He wipes his sleeve across his mouth and stands up. I can see his eyes now. He looks maybe twenty at the most.

‘Piss off outta here,’ he says and begins to walk away.

‘Wait! I left something around here. You haven’t found… something, have you?’

He doesn’t say anything, but he stops.

‘C’mon man, you know what it’s like out here. We don’t have a chance without it.’

He takes the handgun from under his jacket and chucks it at my feet. He stands watching, rifle in his hands, as I pick up the handgun and get to my feet. When I walk away I can feel his eyes on my back and I know his finger is on the trigger.

They are awake when I get back to the car. I catch Lucy’s eye, she has a pale, hollowed-out look to her, she tries to smile when she sees me. Max is eating from a packet of red frogs. I knock on the window and Lucy unlocks my door. I slide into the driver’s seat. Behind me, Noll is reading a book propped against his knees.

‘Where’d you go?’ he asks

‘I left something behind.’

‘What?’ asks Max.

‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter, I found it. We should get moving.’

‘What was it?’ Noll asks.

I swallow. If I tell him about the gun now I’m pretty sure he’s going to be: a) pissed that I risked going back to get it myself; b) pissed that I’ve kept the fact that we have a gun from him all this time; and c) pissed that we have a gun – not just any gun, but the gun belonging to the guy we robbed.

‘ Nothing .’

He holds my gaze in the rear-view mirror.

‘What you reading?’ I ask.

‘Psalms.’

‘Sarms?’

‘They’re like poems, like prayers.’

‘You read the bible?’ Max asks.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s weird.’

‘Tell me about it,’ says Noll.

‘Anyone feel like breakfast?’ asks Lucy.

We sit, parked on the street, among the grid of what used to be suburbia: telegraph poles, letterboxes, Colorbond fences. But no lawns, just patches of brown grass among the snow. And no barking dogs. We eat dry Nutri-Grain, passing the box around like a packet of chips. Twice we see a figure emerge from a house about two hundred metres down the street. It looks like a woman. She stands on the driveway and looks in our direction, then goes back inside the house.

Max opens a packet of Fantales and passes them around. Lucy gets Nicole Kidman and I get Harrison Ford. Max gets Paul Newman, whom no one but Lucy has heard of. Noll doesn’t have a Fantale because he says he doesn’t like lollies, which is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.

The woman comes out onto the street for the third time and walks toward us. I don’t think anyone else has noticed. I start the car and begin to pull away from the kerb.

‘What are you doing?’ asks Noll.

‘Up front.’

‘Oh.’

The woman breaks into a run and yells out. As I pass her she rushes to the side of the car and thumps on the window. Her cheeks are concave, sunken, and again I can’t tell how old she is. Her eyes meet mine as we drive past. I see her in the rear-view mirror, standing there behind us. I stop the car and wind down the window. Nobody objects. In the mirror I see her jogging toward our car.

‘Thank you! Thank you!’ When she gets to my window she is breathless. ‘Do you… Do you have any food?’

‘Yes,’ answers Lucy.

The woman peers in at us, hugging herself in the cold. Her fingernails are all bitten, almost torn from her skin. Like she has started to eat herself.

Lucy gets out of the car, goes around and opens the boot. She gives the woman a box of cereal. The woman hugs it to her chest and watches as Lucy gets back in the car.

‘Are you going to try and get through the barrier into the city?’ she asks.

‘My mum is there,’ I tell her.

‘There must be a gap somewhere. My neighbours went and they must have got through because they didn’t come back.’

I think of the cars smashed up against the barricade.

‘We’re going to find a way through,’ Lucy says.

‘Well, take care,’ says the woman.

Noll passes me the bag of caramels from the backseat and I hold them out the window to her. ‘Go on. We’ve got enough.’

She hesitates then reaches out and accepts the packet. She rolls the top of it down tightly, sealing in the precious contents.

We pull away.

She is like a mum waving her kids off to school.

In the light of day we can see that on the far left of the barrier that blocks the highway, there is a gate, just wide enough for a car. Two soldiers pace along the barricade. They each hold assault rifles and as we drive toward them they slow their pacing and watch. One of them stops as I roll down the window. His face is expressionless.

‘You can read the sign. Documents.’

‘Three bottles of whisky. One box of food.’

He looks at me with that same empty expression and I wonder what the penalty is for attempting to bribe military personnel.

‘Any smokes?’ he asks eventually.

I shake my head.

‘Two boxes.’

‘One.’

‘No deal.’

I call his bluff, start to wind up the window.

‘Wait.’ He looks through at Max, who smiles widely and displays a bottle of whisky like he’s a game-show assistant.

‘Show me the food.’

‘Put your gun down.’

He sighs, sets the rifle down at his feet. Next to me, Lucy opens the lid of the box that sits on her lap. We have put together a nice little hamper of canned soup, breakfast cereal, potato chips, rice, dried apricots, cheddar cheese, and toilet paper.

‘There’s no chocolate,’ says the soldier.

‘Jeez,’ says Lucy.

‘You wanna get through or what?’

‘Fine. Noll?’

Noll leans over the backseat and rummages through the boxes of food in the boot. He pulls out a Kit Kat and hands it to Lucy.

‘Alright, drive up to the gate. Pass the stuff out and I’ll open her up.’

‘You let us through, then we give you the food.’

He looks less than keen on the idea.

‘Come on, if we try and drive off you can just pepper the shit out of us, get the food anyway.’ I hope I haven’t just given him an idea.

‘Drive up to the gate.’

I follow his instructions. He opens the gate and as we are driving through I hear shouting behind us. In the rear-view mirror I see several people on bicycles riding toward the barricade. The other soldier has his rifle pointed at them and is shouting at them to stop. They keep pedalling toward the gate. I accelerate through, two of them right behind the car. The soldier shouts again. The sound of gunfire, like firecrackers, punches the air. I see both riders fall. Lucy screams and covers her eyes. Noll has his hand over Max’s eyes.