Blood & Dust (17 page)

Kevin must've fallen asleep, because it was uncomfortably light in the room,
sunshine leaking in around the edges of the spaceship-decorated curtains, and Kala was gone. Hunger
gurgled in his stomach. He crept down the hall. The scent of blood and human waste hung heavy in the
air, so thick it made him gag. The bodies lay lined up on the floor. He stepped over to pull the hem
of the girl's torn nightdress down to hide her wounds. Stiff and grey, she stared up at the ceiling,
unseeing but still looking scared.

He washed his face, poured a glass of water but could barely drink it. His stomach heaved at the first touch. He was shaking, from his hands to his feet, and his back pained from his 'icing'. The fridge opened and it took a moment to realise it was his hand on the handle. Bloody memories swam in front of him, gauzy and horrible; blood and screams and gore, and…

It's a smorgasbord

I love this women's tennis

Bleed that boy

The container on the bench - how did that get there? And hands, his hands, opening the top, and that scent floating out like invisible tentacles drawing him down into the blood. The hint of vinegar reminded him of the poached eggs at the café in town.

He sobbed, and the plastic rim was against his lips.

The blood, cold and thick, slid past his teeth, coated his tongue.

He spat into the sink; the scarlet stain stared back.

He wiped the residue from his lips.

Maybe if he microwaved it.

You are a plump little dumpling

He heaved, bringing up bile, and washed the whole mess down the sink.

Kala came to him, standing with her hip against his, an arm around his shoulders. Her neck was
marked with red blotches. Her hair, her breath, smelled of Taipan. 'Hey, early bird.'

He slammed the container's lid shut. 'Hey. I was just-'

He was caught in the act; shame choked off his explanation.

'You don't really want to drink that, do you?'

'No,' he said.

She took it from his hand and put it back in the fridge. 'Here.' She offered her wrist. 'Better
than decant.'

'I can't. Not from you.'

'If not me, then who?'

Blood pumped through the purple veins in Kala's wrist, dark tributaries under dusky skin. He
could smell it, hear it, taste it. Hunger seized him with the sudden ferocity of a shark. His fangs
emerged unbidden, his mouth flowed with saliva. She smelled of the earth and blood; she smelled of
life, and not even Taipan's stench could quench his thirst.

His fangs sliced into her flesh. Severed the veins. Blood squirted into his mouth. He sealed his
lips around the cuts and gulped her down until she moaned for him to stop; until she pushed him
away. He sagged to the floor, carried under by Kala's lifestream. The hammer of her heartbeat
pounded in his ears. Her life whirled through his veins.

He wiped his mouth, licked his lips, the back of his hand.

She'd bound the wound with a tea towel, had slid down beside him while he zoned out.

'Will you be all right?' he asked.

'Sure. Once the wound closes.'

'How long will that take?'

She unfurled the bloody towel. A series of cuts still oozed blood, making his hunger stir anew.

'Dribble some of your blood on this.'

'What?'

'Use a knife if you're shy. Or let me do it.'

He held out his hand and she sliced his palm with a dagger from her boot. He jumped at the sudden
pain. 'Chicken,' she chided, then closed his bleeding hand over the wound on her wrist.

'What now?' he asked.

'Voila,' she said, and slowly removed his hand. The skin of her wrist was unbroken, just a few
pale dimples showing where he'd bitten her.

He held up his own hand. There was no sign she had ever cut him, just a smear of blood, which he
licked off as though it was chicken grease. 'You heal like us?'

'Faster than normal. Vampire saliva makes wounds bleed. Your blood cancels it out.'

'All this blood-'

'You don't need to worry. There isn't a disease yet that can overcome your systems.'

'Wow, what a comfort.' He jerked a thumb at the living room. 'Is it always this way?'

'Not always.'

'I can't stay with him. These people.' A surge of emotion, the hot burn of tears, stole his
voice.

'I know,' she said. 'It was the main reason I left him.' She passed him a tea towel. 'You should
know that Tai finished them, all of them except the boy.'

'I'm happy for him,' he said as he wiped his eyes, his cheeks. The material came away smeared
with the slightest touch of pink; his body had all but absorbed the tears, unwilling to even let
that much sustenance escape its pores.

'Don't be. He's got them in here, now.' She touched her forehead. 'Maybe here as well.' She
pointed to her heart. 'Every time he shuts his eyes, he'll see them - what he did to them, what he
took from them. They live in him, now.'

'I don't think that's much comfort to them,' Kevin said.

'It's more than most get. He could've just let them bleed out, or used a knife. He didn't have to
take them with him, but he always does, despite the risk. His way of thanking them, I guess.'

'You know how sick that sounds?'

'I guess it's all how you look at it. But what else can you do, Kevvie? Von Schiller is on your
arse and we're the only friends you've got.'

With the sun on the other side of the house, Kevin found a spot on the veranda
shaded by a screen of bougainvillea vine. Kala had gone back to bed, but he couldn't sleep; not in
there.

Hippie regarded him from the other end where he kept a yawning look-out. 'You aren't thinking of
running off, are you, man?'

'In this heat?'

Hippie laughed, then said, matter-of-factly, 'He'd find you quick smart.'

'I gathered. Nah, thought maybe I could give you a break if you wanted to rest up.'

'He'll have my hide if you piss off on my watch.'

'He's got the car keys and taken care of the phones. What can I do?'

'You checked, though.'

Kevin sat on the veranda all afternoon, preferring the discomfort of the slow boil of ambient
daylight to the fetid atmosphere of the house. He fought off sleep, tried to keep the dreams at bay.
Taipan's life, Kala's, so many others: secrets he didn't want to know, revealed in red-washed
snippets, nonsensical and confusing, invariably horrifying. He clung to the day. He welcomed the
prickling pain of daylight, of wolfbite, as a distraction to the alternating disbelief and panic
he'd felt as he considered his options.

Shadows deepened. Twilight fell, chill on his skin. The Night Riders would be stirring. His time
was up.

Kevin rode on the back of Reg's bike, following Kala as pinion with Taipan. Penny
took point. Acacia and Hippie had left in the Rover, headed for a place called Mother's Nest that
he'd never heard of and no-one was inclined to tell him about. Hippie's last act had been to torch
the house; the poisonous reek of burning hair and petrol clung to him.

They pulled up after an hour or so to refuel at a rundown servo that reminded Kevin of his
family's. He stayed quiet when the girls went in to buy snacks, standing out of the waft zone as
Taipan and Reg lit up.

'You been pretty quiet, boss. What's the go?' Reg asked.

Taipan stared out at the road. 'Where are the VS, Reggie? They had me twice and lost me twice,
and we bin leavin' a trail a noseless Alsatian could follow. It's not like that mob to give up so
easy.'

'Hasslin' Budgie, maybe? Or Acacia - VS got a good look at the Rover. They might be on her tail.'

'They might,' Taipan agreed, 'but don't go knockin' the Landy. It ain't the fastest, but it'll go
where those modern jobs won't. Plus, a half-decent mechanic like our pup here can keep it on the
road with nothin' more than a ball of string and some sticky tape. Ain't that right, fella?'

'They're good vehicles, all right,' Kevin said.

'Nah, I reckon they ain't chasin' coz they already know where we're goin'.'

'You reckon Bhaggy set us up?' Reg said.

'Maybe. He's the one that told us 'bout Jasmine headin' west to be a cattle grower, eh.'

The women returned bearing plastic bags. Kevin smelled meat pie kept too long on the rack. Both
Kala and Penny looked weary.

'Okay to drive?' Kevin asked Penny as she slipped her shopping into a backpack.

'I had a coffee; that mud would keep an elephant awake.'

'Straight to The Farm, Penny,' Taipan told her. 'Over the range and up the guts. Keep your eyes
peeled, eh?'

She frizzed her hair, then slipped her helmet on. 'I hope Bhaggy's got breakfast ready. I could
eat a horse.' The skin around her eyes looked sallow where it showed through the slit in her helmet.
Her eyes were lit with a red-eye glow, feral, hunted. A dog expecting kicks, not pats. She kicked
her bike into gear, didn't bother to check with the others before she laid down rubber and sped off,
leaving them swallowing her smoke.

'Meals on wheels,' Reg said with a whoop. He revved up and took off after her, jarring Kevin into
a tighter hold.

They slid over the range and down onto the coastal hinterland. They stopped only to refuel, and
there was no conversation other than about the time of night and pushing on. There was no feeding,
the vampires apparently still sated from the butchery at the farmhouse.

Kevin envied them; hunger plagued him like ticks on a bullock. Coke and a few mouthfuls of
chocolate bar just didn't cut it. They drove all night, carving north through fields of small crops,
brown-grassed hills spotted with cattle, eye-blink villages locked up and dark for the night, small
towns with only a few cars parked in front of the pub.

They drove all night and no blood was spilled. That was something.

They were winding through hills somewhere near Mt Morgan, the eastern sky still
securely dark, when Penny slowed, then pulled up sharply near a simple T-shaped timber sign.
'Brahman stud', it said, with only a couple of rusty nails to show where it had once had more to its
name.

'Bloody near missed it,' she said as they stopped next to her.

'Off,' Taipan told Kala. 'Hold the bike while I suss things out.'

He closed his eyes and slumped in the saddle. After a few minutes, he woke up again. It reminded
Kevin of the way his dad would take power naps in the afternoon, just ten or fifteen minutes. A cup
of tea or two and he'd be good for the rest of the day.

'Looks all right, but I'm not takin' any chances. Kay, you double up with Penny. I'm goin' up on
me lonesome. I'll flash the headlight if it's safe to come on up. If I don't, split, ring the
hotline and tell Mother what's goin' on. Okay?'

'You really think Bhaggy sold us out?' Reg asked as he drew a gun from his saddle bag.

'Dunno, but let's play it smart. You get so much as a sniff of VS, you hit the road.'

Kala stood beside Penny's bike, looking like a schoolgirl whose mother hadn't arrived to pick her
up. Kevin wanted to throw her on a bike and take off. Why couldn't they? What was to stop them, if
this was a trap and Taipan didn't come back? That'd be some kind of justice, wouldn't it? Some kind
of compensation for everything Kevin had lost?

He tried to do the mathematics as Taipan rode up the hill, slow and careful. By the time Taipan
arrived at the homestead, its windows lit and now its veranda light shining, he still hadn't arrived
at a solution. How did you balance the loss of your father and your livelihood, your whole life?
What would it take to make that right?

'Thank Christ for that,' Reg said, and Kevin realised a light was winking at them from the house.
Reg holstered his weapon and kicked the bike into gear. 'Smoko.'

The withered remains of an orchard lined the driveway; the rows of bare trees gave the impression
of a graveyard as they climbed the hill and parked next to Taipan's bike. Kevin dismounted,
stretching his stiff legs and sore shoulders. The homestead had seen better days. Paint peeled from
the timber walls; its peaked corrugated iron roof was stained with rust. A Moreton bay fig towered
over one side of the building. A frayed rope dangled from one of its thick, gnarled branches,
probably where a swing had once hung but looking too much like a broken hangman's rope for Kevin's
liking. Outbuildings were scattered farther up the hill.

Taipan stood at the top of the front stairs with two men and a woman. One of the men wore a
loose, collarless shirt hanging to his knees over his strides; the other two strangers wore jeans,
long-sleeve shirts and Blundstone boots: farmers' uniforms. As Kevin followed the Night Riders up
the stairs, he realised he was looking at a vampire and a red-eye couple, and any sense of normality
took a swerve to the left.

Budgie appeared behind them, beer in hand, smiling broadly. 'What took you so long? We're down to
the last carton.'

They crowded inside, the Night Riders and their three hosts.

'Any word from that cockatoo of ours?' Taipan asked.

Acacia's old nickname jagged Kevin's attention like a parrot's squawk, and he was relieved to
hear she'd been in touch to say that she and Hippie had arrived safely.

There was greeting and talking, hugs and thumps on backs, then showers and a change of clothes,
and while cattle lowed in the background, they were ushered into the dining room and served cups of
warm, pink-foamed blood that stilled the hunger but failed to ease a deeper-seated need; it was
water where beer was called for.

Kevin sat alone, a stranger slumped over his schooner at a local bar, surrounded by the Night
Riders but not talked to. The red-eyes, Kala included, had retreated to the kitchen. Delicious
scents of meat and pasta wafted through along with a burble of voices. Staff in the kitchen, Kevin
thought, while the masters sat at the table.

Bhagwan had long hair, a full beard, sharp teeth protruding over his lips, a quick, ferret-like
expression. Kevin had expected a man with that nickname to be more relaxed. The guy got more nervous
when Taipan suggested Kevin should stay.