Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

“Give us the fucken shipment!” the man yelled.

“Jesus, Dace, whatever it is, just give it to them!” Sasha said.

“Whatever it is?” the other boat driver said, his voice strangely high. Then he laughed. “You don’t know what your boyfriend here is doing?”

“He’s not my–”

“Just give us Carter’s weed, you fucking loser,” the gunman said.

Sasha turned a shocked expression to Dace. “ Carter’s fucking weed?” she exclaimed. “You idiot, why do you have anything to do with that guy?”

The gunman laughed, loud and deep. “S’a good fucken question, dickhead! But don’t answer it now. The stuff, quickly.”

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Dace muttered, trying desperately to think of a way out.

The shotgun boomed into the air and he flinched. Sasha screamed and dropped to the floor behind the dash and low windscreen, curled up tight.

“All right, all right!” Dace shouted. He moved to the back and pulled out a 30-litre plastic storage tub with a clip-on lid. It was lined with newspaper, concealing the contents. But Dace knew it held around seven and half kilos of high-quality bud, grown on Carter’s farm above the south side of The Gulp.

“Just put it on the front,” the gunman said, gesturing.

Dace hefted the tub over the windscreen, shoved it forward. The driver of the other boat started his motor and nudged in. The one with the shotgun hopped over and grabbed the tub, the shotgun held one-handed, but trained on them the whole time. If he fired it like that, Dace thought, he was liable to lose it from the recoil. But he’d still have fired it and no way would a shotgun miss at this range.

“Can’t believe you made it so easy for us,” the gunman said. “We were going to run you down before you got to Enden, then here you are floating about like a pair of complete fuckwits.” He dropped the tub into his boat and jumped down behind it, the shotgun still aimed right at Dace.

The driver lifted a hand in a wave as he gunned the motor. “Don’t you fucken follow us,” he said. “You let this end here and no one gets hurt.”

No way does this end here , Dace thought. He had to go back and tell Carter he’d lost the shipment. Carter would kill him. He needed something, some clue to give over so they might make this right.

But before he could say or do more, the other driver carved a tight turn, spraying Dace as he roared away, back towards The Gulp. There wasn’t a single identifying mark on the boat, the whole thing plain white with a Yamaha outboard like a hundred others. He might recognise it again, but it was entirely likely he wouldn’t.

They bobbed in the wake of the thieves and Dace stared, dumbfounded. Then he tipped his head back and yelled, “FUCK!” at the indifferent stars.

Sasha got up from the floor of the boat, looking daggers at him. “You can take me the fuck home right now.”

Dace nodded and sat down on the driver’s seat, started the engine. He had to go right back to Carter anyway. No way he could put off telling the man. He pointed the boat back towards The Gulp wondering what the hell he was going to say when he got there.

Twenty minutes later he tied up at Carter’s point on the harbour. Sasha hopped straight off the boat, glared down at him.

“I was looking forward to the gig tonight,” she said. “Thought you’d be fun to hang out with.”

“I would be. Still can if Carter doesn’t kill me.” The dick wants what the dick wants, he thought to himself.

Sasha shook her head. “No way, man. I’m having nothing to do with anyone connected to Carter. You’re fucking mental to think it’s worth dealing with that psycho.”

“You were happy to come out with me in his boat.”

“I thought it was your boat, you fucking moron.”

Dace stopped, stood up to yell at her. “Yeah, so you only looked twice at me when you thought I had money, that it?”

Her mouth fell open. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t be after my money, you cunt. Half the blokes ’round here see a girl with a job and expect to mooch off her. I thought maybe you wouldn’t be like that.”

“Well, I’m not. I’ve got my own money.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Nah, you take Carter’s money. That’s entirely different. Anyway, best of luck. I’ll keep my eye open for the ‘Have You Seen Dace’ posters to start going up.”

She turned away and stalked off before he could reply. He hoped to hell she wasn’t right. He needed to get in the car and up to Carter’s place right away. Come clean and figure out a way to make it right. He wouldn’t say the bit about stopping for a joint and getting snuck up on. Those arseholes had said they intended to run him down. And they had a shotgun. That’s the story he’d tell Carter.

Once he was sure the boat was secure, he walked across the small car park to his battered old Mitsubishi and climbed in. It started first time, something it never usually did. Dace decided to look on that as a good omen.

He drove south out of town, up the hill where the houses got a little bigger and spaced further apart. He passed the industrial area where big aluminium sheds housed mechanics, a metal machine shop, half a dozen other blue-collar industries, then he turned onto a narrow road with a No Through Road sign at the start. A couple of larger properties had their drives left and right, then the road climbed even steeper, switching back on itself, and became a dirt track. Carter’s battered post box stood on a weathered wooden post beside a cattle grid, his name stencilled on the side. Dace’s hands shook as he gripped the wheel and pointed the car up the track. It doubled back on itself a couple times as it rose through thin bush, The Gulp falling away behind. Then it levelled off onto a natural geological shelf that housed the Carter property. Some two hundred acres, if he recalled correctly, cleared and farmed right when The Gulp was first settled, before it even had its name. Ostensibly a cattle farm, Carter kept cows and horses, but made his money in variety of other ways.

As Dace drove through the night towards the house, his mouth became dry. He’d left the water bottle on the boat and lamented that oversight. Then he shook his head. He’d worked for Carter for more than ten years, they knew each other well. As well as anyone could know Carter anyway. He would explain, the man would give him a glass of water, they’d figure it out.

He parked behind Carter’s Toyota Hilux and sat in the quiet car for a moment, gathering himself. Then he took a deep breath and climbed out. Carter stood on the veranda, hands on his hips.

“Trouble tonight, hey?”

Dace jumped, not expecting the man to be there. How did he always seem to know stuff? “Yeah. I’m sorry, Mr Carter, it’s not good.”

“In you come, son.”

Dace followed Carter inside and into the large kitchen. Chrissy sat at the kitchen bench, sipping a drink. It looked like a gin and tonic. She smiled and nodded at Dace.

“Hey, how are you?” he said.

“I’m good. You wanna talk privately, Daddy?”

Carter kissed her soft and long on the lips, then nodded. “You don’t need to worry about this.”

She stood and strolled off towards the lounge. Dace heard the TV click on.

“You want a drink, Dace?”

He turned to Carter, determined to be chill. “Sure, got a beer?”

Carter pulled a couple of bottles from the fridge, opened both and handed one to Dace. “So what happened? You should be in Enden by now, and I should have had a call about a successful transfer of merchandise.”

Of course, that’s how he knew stuff. Dace turning up here, no call from the contact. “I was robbed, Mr Carter.”

“Fucken robbed?”