Matt Eaton - Blank

Bell checked out another one. “This one’s had his head caved in.”

“No-one touch a thing,” Pollock ordered, turning to the constables. “Cordon off the area, and get the scientific unit out here.”

Warigal and Pat were hanging back near the creek bed, examining the dirt track that led up to the compound. “You two – found something?” Pollock inquired.

“No fresh tyre marks apart from ours,” said Pat. “Whoever did this came by air or they came in from the other direction.”

“Or it could be murder-suicide,” suggested Constable Athol.

“That’d cut back on the paper work wouldn’t it?” Mel snarled facetiously.

“What now detective?” Luckman asked Pollock.

“This is as far as I go. I’ve got a major crime scene on my hands.”

“They’re probably just Blanks, poor buggers,” Mel decided.

Luckman nodded in agreement.

“What’s a Blank?” asked Athol.

No-one bothered to answer.

“I’m going to need your car,” Luckman told Pollock.

“Like hell.”

“Look, you can shoot me or you can give me the damn car. If it makes you feel better, I’ll commandeer the bloody thing under martial law.”

Athol and the other constables looked somewhat alarmed by the implication as Pollock lobbed the keys at Luckman a little harder than necessary. “Warigal stays with me,” Pollock insisted.

“But he’s the one who knows the trail,” Luckman complained.

“You’ll be right,” said Wozza. “Just keep going south.”

“What could possibly go wrong?” said Mel.

The corpses were probably just a group of unfortunates who didn’t get picked up when the town was evacuated. They went Blank and died of exposure and desperation like billions of others the world over. But Luckman’s paranoia wouldn’t allow him to dismiss the idea that they’d been murdered and left here as some sort of medieval-style warning.

Assuming, of course, the hallucinations hadn’t already begun.

“Go on then, get out of here before I think better of it,” Pollock told them. “But for Christ’s sake, drive back and around the houses, not through my crime scene.”

A breakaway trail led them past the compound and onto the main track heading south toward the ranges. Luckman quickly began to feel as if the landscape was about to swallow them whole. Nausea and uneasiness hit each of them in turn, the pain intensifying the further they travelled.

“Probably a good thing we left that fat copper behind,” Bell concluded. “He’d be giving up by now,” he added, just before he stuck his head out the front passenger window to throw up.

Luckman was driving. Mel placed her hand gently on his shoulder from the back seat. “I don’t want to alarm you, but this is starting to feel awfully familiar. No police reinforcements – just the four of us. Again.”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” he murmured.

It was only about a half kilometre from one side to the other in the first line of ranges, but it took 10 minutes of slow, methodical driving. The trail was littered with rock falls and in several places small garden beds of weed or spinifex had spontaneously sprouted in the middle of the tyre tracks. No-one had used this trail in a long time.

“I feel like I’m coming down with the flu or something,” Mel complained.

“Me too,” Bell admitted.

“Yeah, same,” said Pat. “Mind you, all that back there was enough to make anyone lose their lunch.”

“Your spirit man – what do you call him?” Bell asked suddenly.

“Dog,” Luckman replied.

“Or Perrurle,” Pat added.

Bell pointed to a hill on their right. “That him up there?”

A naked Aboriginal man painted head to toe in white stood like a sentinel on the ridge line above them. “Yeah, that’s him,” Luckman confirmed.

“Just so we’re on the same page, that’s the same fella you were seeing on the Gold Coast?”

“Yep.”

“So you weren’t losing your marbles after all.”

“The jury’s still out on that one,” Luckman admitted.

“We can all see him now,” said Mel.

“What I mean is, after this morning how do any of us know what’s real?” Luckman asked her.

“For one thing, Dog’s not shooting at us this time,” Pat pointed out.

“True,” Luckman admitted.

The car moved through the ranges and onto an open plain. The second line of hills was about a kilometre away, but the road in front of them suddenly vanished. On a whim, Luckman turned the 4WD left to follow a line of trees along flat terrain, figuring their roots would keep the ground stable.

“There he is again,” Bell cried. “Off to the right now. You’re going the wrong way.”

Luckman grimaced and had just begun to slow down when the nose of the car dipped sharply as the front end fell into a ditch and the car bottomed out. Luckman hopped out to see how bad it was. His worst suspicions were immediately confirmed.

“Stupid bastard,” he yelled at himself.

The car was perched on a large rock embedded in the sand, leaving the front wheels spinning in the air. The rear wheels alone wouldn’t shift the car without damaging the drive train.

“Everyone out,” he said. “I hope this thing has a winch.”

Pat circled the vehicle. “There’s one on the front. Nothin’ on the back.”

“Typical. All right, I guess we winch forward.”

“Can’t do that,” Bell told him. “You’ll rip the guts out of the car.”

“You got a better idea?”

“How about we push and you try to reverse?”

“OK, let’s give it a try,” he relented. There was no point making the situation worse by pretending he knew better.

“But stay away from the front of the car. I don’t want to run over anyone. It’s a long crawl to the nearest hospital. Push on the doors.”

Luckman stuck it in reverse and revved slowly as the others heaved. The car didn’t move.

“Let’s pack some rocks under the wheels,” Pat suggested.

After 20 minutes of heavy lifting and careful packing under the front tyres, they gave it another go.

“Let me drive this time,” Mel suggested. “That way you can push.”

“Beautiful and smart,” Luckman told her. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

She hopped behind the wheel. “You grunts think a woman’s only good for one thing.”

“She means cooking and cleaning,” he replied for the benefit of the others.

“That’s two things,” Bell pointed out.

“Now don’t gun it,” Luckman warned her. “Take it slowly.”

Mel smiled disarmingly. “Bit late for that, soldier boy.”

She waited for them to take their positions then slowly depressed the throttle and let out the clutch. The car began to crawl backwards a centimetre at a time and in a couple of minutes all four wheels were back on solid ground. Released from their exertion the men stood back from the car to catch their breath, stretching sore back muscles and wiping sweat from their foreheads as they congratulated one another. Luckman pointed to the hillside above them where Dog was holding his ground.

“He’s marking the trail for us,” said Pat.

Luckman threw the keys at Bell like an admission of defeat. “You drive.”

Bell shook his head. “You put me behind the wheel and I’ll be driving back the way we came.”

Luckman frowned. “I think they still call that insubordination in the Army.”

“So court martial me Billy, I don’t wanna be a hero.”

Luckman pinched the pilot on the cheek. “Where have you been? I’ve missed you.”

He took the keys back and hopped back into the driver’s seat. They reversed about 100 metres before starting to move forward again. Luckman noticed a tree was obscuring the point where the trail broke off to the right. He had simply missed the turn. The wheel ruts in the terrain indicated they were back on track.