'Yeah, you're alive,' Taipan said, still pointing the pistol at Kevin. 'Lucky you.'
'Tai,' Kala yelled. 'That's enough!'
Taipan flicked the safety and returned the weapon to its place against the small of his back. 'That girl there, she'll look after you, eh. She plenny good at that.' Taipan shouted at Kala, 'Keep your eyes peeled, they'll be lookin' for us,' then walked around the corner of the building. A motorcycle shattered the quiet.
Kevin lay helpless, seething with impotent rage as the tail lights vanished. Kala arrived. She must have taken the stairs. He ignored her and finally was able to sit up. He felt his chest, and his fingers came away sticky and dark with blood. The sight made his throat constrict, his gut lurch. Jesus, it burnt, inside, like needles being stuck in his heart. A heart that had just had a bullet put through it at point-blank range.
'Was he for real?' he asked.
'What do you think?'
He eyed the blood on his palm, then wiped his hands on the ground, on his jeans, but he couldn't get them clean. The pain in his chest was fading. It didn't hurt so much to breathe.
'I guess,' he whispered.
She offered her hand and he let her pull him up.
Kevin eyed the beam overhead, the roughly Kevin-shaped depression in the dirt. 'Where'd he go?'
'Who knows? We're on our own for now.'
'I want to go home,' he said.
'It's not safe for you. Not for your folks, either.' She walked toward the Monaro. 'C'mon, you're gonna need somewhere to spend the day.'
'So the sun part's true, eh?'
'Yeah,' she said. 'Kind of.'
EIGHT
Kala nosed the Monaro into a rickety timber garage and cut the engine. The silence seemed almost solid, as though the world had changed with the turn of the ignition key. They had driven an hour or more, off the highway and along dirt tracks, until they'd idled over a grid and down to a farm house. Motes glittered in the headlights. A Sandman was parked in the bay beside them, a covered surfboard amongst the baggage strapped to the roof racks.
'Nice,' Kevin said. The panel van was fully tricked out with dolphins diving through sunset surf. The bright paint job seemed incongruous against the rough timber walls lined with cobwebbed hoes and rakes, coils of rusted wire, tin cans hanging on nails.
The headlights flicked off, plunging the garage into darkness. His eyes responded quickly, moonlight turning the doorway into a grey rectangle behind him. 'I know this farm,' he said. Kala sat quietly. Her breathing seemed loud in the quiet; fragile. 'The Crawfords'. You friends of theirs?'
'Never met them.' She opened her door, the cabin light making him flinch. 'We should get inside. It'll be more comfortable there.' She touched his hand. 'You'll be fine. I'll be with you.'
He pulled away. 'Like you were back at the house? At the silo?'
'We didn't have to save you, y'know.'
'Save me from what?'
'It was an accident, okay? None of this was meant to happen.' She stepped out and bent to look at him. 'You need something to eat, that's all.'
'That's all?'
She shut the door, leaving him in darkness again. He reluctantly levered himself from the car, then waited outside as she pulled the garage door shut. Timber slammed on timber, making Kevin jump. 'Taipan?'
'Nope, he'll be gone till tomorrow night at least, I'd say.' Kala kept her voice low. 'Don't worry. They know you're with me.'
The house loomed, dark and silent. Kala led Kevin up the few steps to the veranda. He paused at the top step as a bald, solid man stepped into the moonlight. He held a shotgun and wore a knife in a long, curved scabbard on his belt.
'This the bloke from the garage?' the man asked.
'Yep. Taipan made him.'
'Poor bastard.'
'Kevin, this is Budgie.'
The man answered with a nod.
'Who else is home?' she asked.
'Acacia, Hippie. Nigel. They might still be sleepin'.'
'We'll be quiet.'
'Reg and them went to keep the boss company. The others have already headed back to the nest.'
He opened the door for them. The back of his leather jacket bore the Night Riders' logo - a red-eyed skull with bat wings for ears. They went inside and down a central hall, passing several closed doors. There were pictures on the walls, a cabinet, but Kevin's focus was on Kala and whoever else might be here. The house smelled of dust and detergents and there was an undercurrent of something stale, something rancid - morning breath or mouldy cheese. Something else registered on Kevin's nose. 'Pizza?'
'Probably. Hippie's a pizza junkie.'
'I didn't think, you know-'
'We're not all vampires, Kevin.'
'Oh.' The word 'vampires' jarred. Despite Taipan's demonstration, Kevin still couldn't relate to it. The silos, Meg, Mira, his father: it was like a nightmare, no more real than a movie. Yet here he was, talking about pizza with these weirdos rather than sitting down to dinner at home. Tears burned in his eyes but he refused to let them fall.
'You can have some, if you want,' Kala said. 'It's not like you can't eat.'
'I'm not hungry.'
'Really?'
He shrugged. He was starving, but damned if he was going to admit it.
'I'm gonna get you something, anyway,' Kala said. 'You want a shower?' Her gaze lingered over his clothes, her nose wrinkling.
'Yeah, a shower'd be good.'
Male voices came from the kitchen, one whining, the other older, the drone of a hovering bee.
Whiny said, 'I'm tellin' ya, dude, we should be on the road. VS will be comin' hard after this.'
'No argument from me, man, but Taipan's the boss.'
'He should be bringin' us in, makin' us full blood. We aren't gonna be much use if the big kahuna sends his Gespensten-goons.'
'Hey man, I ain't in no rush to give up the sun. This fuckin' wolfbite's about all I can handle.'
A guillotine of silence fell as Kala and Kevin entered a large room with a lounge suite and dining table. Ammo boxes and guns - a motley tumble of assault rifles, sub-machineguns, handguns, sawn-off shotguns - cluttered the table; the area stank of gunpowder and gun oil. Leather jackets with the Night Rider logo hung from the chairs.
'This is Hippie, feeding his hairy face, as usual.'
