Our Home is Nowhere (The Borrowed Land, Book 1) (5 page)

9

Blood leaked from Ben’s leg all over the front porch of the townhouse. He leaned against the wall beside the door trying not to look at his soaked jeans while Fin remained in the car out on the road, keeping lookout. With all the blood he’d lost, Ben didn’t know if he could make it to the Wall, much less to the flats where Tesh was waiting to pick them up.

Jen opened the door and he practically fell inside.

‘Ben,’ she gasped.
‘Oh no! Damn it, Ben, why did you come back here? Why are you bleeding?’

‘Gunshot.
I gotta be stitched up. Where’s Merrill?’

Jen glanced nervously back at the nursery. ‘You need to leave, Ben.’

‘Not without bein’ stitched up. I’ll bleed out.’

He groped his way to the kitchen and sat down heavily on one of the chairs. He leaned down, wincing, and rolled his pants leg up to the knee. The bullet had sliced the side of his calf, tearing open the skin, leaving an open, oozing gash. Blood crusted over his leg hair in dark red clumps. With a careful thumb, he grazed the side of the wound. ‘The bastards shot me.’

With one hand on the tabletop, Jen dropped down beside his knees and said softly, ‘Ben, you’ve got to leave. They’re in the house.’

As the weight of her words hit him, the nursery door swung open and the obese man they’d seen at the Playground stepped out. Ben staggered up, knocking over the chair, and whipped out his pistol.

The obese man held out a massive hand. The flesh on his fingers sagged and wobbled. ‘I wouldn’t pull that trigger. Not until you weigh the consequences.’

Behind the fat man appeared a Paranat, Caut Bat dangling at his hip and clutching Timothy by the back of his onesie and holding him in the air as if he were holding a pup by the scruff.

‘No!’ Jen shrieked. She leapt towards the Paranat, who easily swept her aside with his one free arm. Her hip cracked against the tiles. Slowly, she eased herself up with both hands not taking her eyes from Timothy who was wailing helplessly.

‘Don’t hurt him,’ Ben said, holding an open hand out to them.

The obese man glanced back at Timothy, then to Ben, and said, ‘What we do with him depends on what you do with that gun.’

Timothy’s bawling filled the room. His face was red and contorted as spittle bubbled from his plump lips. His huge eyes were swimming with tears that streamed down his cheeks. Ben lowered the gun to the ground.

‘Smart decision,’ said the fat man, stepping forward and picking up the gun. He handed it to the Paranat who holstered it. Turning to Jen, he said, ‘Your contribution to the safety of New Gravity will be rewarded. If only the rest of our citizens were as loyal as you.’

Jen, still on the floor, half-sobbing, looked at Ben and shook her head, mouthing
I’m sorry
. She floundered on the floor, helpless and broken, her sorrowful eyes flicking from Ben to Timothy.

‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ Ben said.

‘Take him out to the yard,’ the obese man commanded the Paranat. ‘We’ll show him the only fate that befalls traitors.’

The Paranat nodded and stepped past the man’s wide frame, dropping Timothy on the kitchen table as he went by. Jen was on her feet, scrambling past everyone like they didn’t exist, and snatched up Timothy, cradling the weeping child in her arms.

Ben walked towards the front door with the Paranat’s rough hand on his shoulder. ‘Move,’ came a muffled voice from behind the Paranat’s black mask. Their shadows fell across the floor. Trying not to tremble, Ben opened the door into the cool night air, lit only by speckles of lamplight along the street. He stepped over the bloodstained porch that reminded him of his pulsing wound, and began down the steps. He could hear the Paranat and the fat man follow him.

When he reached the lawn, a gunshot lit up the night. Ben jerked forward, ducking and spinning around, expecting to die at any moment. Behind him, the fat man thudded onto the porch, a bullet hole between his eyes. Blood sprayed the door like a Rorschach blot. The Paranat watched him go down, dumb with shock. Seeing his chance, Ben ripped the Caut Bat from his side and swung it with both hands against the side of the Paranat’s head. A crack shivered across the black mask. Ben swung again even harder, bringing the Paranat to the ground. Blinded with rage and anger and fear, he stepped over the Paranat and drove the bat down again and again onto his helmet until it shattered into a pile of black, glassy shards. A hand stopped the bat in mid-flight. ‘He’s dead,’ said Fin behind him.

Ben panted, shoulders hunched over, anger subsiding. Fin slipped the bat from his hands, put it between a belt loop, and handed Ben the pistol. ‘It’s time to go.’

Ben replied with a nod. Before getting into the stolen hovercar, he took a last look at the townhouse. Jen held Timothy against her chest, shielding his infant eyes from the carnage that encircled them.

For the first time, Ben understood. He couldn’t be Timothy’s father and he couldn’t be Jen’s lover. Violence followed him, no matter where he went.

10

They ditched the car two miles away from the Wall and headed towards it on foot. Blood leaking from Ben’s leg tailed them like a red snake over the flats. He’d tied off his calf with a strip of cloth, but it had little effect on the blood flow. Every hundred feet or so, Fin stopped to help Ben hobble feebly along, encouraging him with words he felt sure were lies. ‘We’re gonna make it. Once we cross the Wall, it’ll be no problem. Tesh will be waiting. He’ll get you to a doctor, and then home to rest. Look, I can see lights from the Wall up ahead.’

They really struggled for the last mile. Ben, despondent, dizzy, and growing colder by the minute, wanted nothing more than to sleep until he was home with his leg patched up and finished with the smuggling life. He looked at the bloodstained cylinder clutched in his hand; he’d risked so much for a couple of sheets of paper, though he knew that the blueprints weren’t the real reason he’d accepted the job.

He’d thought he knew Jen. Maybe she
had
changed. Maybe the old Jen really didn’t exist—not anymore.

The Wall, hostile and impenetrable, stood a hundred yards away with one sentry tower in sight, all twisting metal stretching upward like a demon on stilts. Ben and Fin hunkered down in a small outcrop of trees and searched the tower for any sign of a guard.

‘If we’re quick enough we can get to the Wall, cut through, and reach the woods before anyone’s the wiser,’ Fin whispered.

Further along, workers had begun fortifying the chain-link with concrete. From where Ben and Fin were, the Wall looked like a half-finished papier mâché project.

Ben nodded lazily, unable to think of a better plan. At that moment, he didn’t care if he lived or died, just so long as sleep came soon. Fin hoisted Ben to his feet. ‘I need you to find one last burst of energy. Got it?’ He shook Ben when he didn’t respond.

‘Got it,’ Ben muttered, hoping the adrenaline would kick in soon. Blood was squelching around inside his boot, weighing him down.

Fin pulled out the Caut Bat, then the pistol, which he almost handed to Ben before thinking better of it. ‘I’ll do the work. Just keep up.’

Ben nodded.

Together, they ran across the flats towards the tower lit by massive floodlights in its rafters. Ben glimpsed a Paranat’s head skulking beneath the lights, not yet aware of their presence. Sharp spires curved from the tower’s head like a crown, dull red lights blinking incessantly at the tip of each spire. By the time they reached the silver legs of the tower, the sound of sirens and a man’s shouts filled the air. Fin aimed wildly and fired; the bullet rang shrilly against the metal. They ran beneath the tower; Fin shot up into the floorboards, and when they reached the other side, only twenty feet from the Wall, he turned and fired again, the bullet clinking against the tower’s metal body.

Fin unhooked the Caut Bat and used it to cut through the thick chain-link. It glowed orange-red as slivers of metal fell into the dirt like severed fingers. Ben slumped against the side of the Wall, the chain-link sinking with his weight. Sirens roared all round them, deafening, shearing the night in half as spotlights broke the darkness. Ben took the gun and fired drunkenly towards the tower, keeping the Paranat at bay. It took two
minutes of slicing at the Wall before Fin created a hole large enough for them to squeeze through.

He threw the bat aside and shoved Ben towards the hole, pressing his head down and pushing his buttocks with both hands. ‘Go,’ he said through his teeth.

Ben clambered through, fingers digging into the dirt and grass, crawling on his belly, ignoring the pain shooting through his entire body as the world spun before him, when Fin screamed and everything went sharp and clear. Ben stopped and turned, face to face with Fin’s pained grimace. It was the expression of a man who knew his fate. Then Ben noticed the two barbs protruding from Fin’s heel, attached to which were thick silver tethers that ran up to the sentry tower.

‘Get to Tesh,’ Fin called out and turned to pull the barbs from his heels. But the tethers went taut. Fin froze,
then turned to look at Ben, his eyes glistening and his face showing only regret, pained regret.

Ben lunged back towards the hole and grabbed Fin’s forearms, holding him tightly as the tethers tugged his legs. ‘Fin,’ he pleaded, ignoring his own pain. ‘I got you.’ But Fin’s arms slipped through his fingers, his skin slick with sweat. Ben dug his nails in, leaving red track marks down Fin’s forearms as the tethers jerked again, more forcefully than before.

Fin’s fingers meshed into his. ‘Take care of her, Ben,’ he said, his voice sounding frantic now, panicked. Then the tethers yanked him across the dirt and upwards, halting several feet above the ground, suspending Fin upside down in midair. His arms hung down beside his head, his shirt spilling over his face to reveal his stomach heaving in and out, gulping down air as blood from the barbs ran down his legs.

At last Ben got the adrenaline shot that he needed and he bolted upright, forgetting all about his pulsing wound and loss of blood. He sprinted as fast as he could away from the Wall and the North that only brought death. Through his blurred vision, he saw the dark mass of forest in front of him, and the moon smudged in the sky like God’s thumbprint. A prop plane cut through a dark cloud.

Ben sobbed as he ran, blocking out the noise of the roaring sirens, unable to control himself. He sobbed for the loss of Jen and his own son, and for Missy and her child that would grow up without its father. He sobbed because he knew he was to blame for everything.

Act II

11

Joe’s nose dripped with blood as he shoved shirts, pants, socks, and an extra pair of shoes into his tattered backpack. With a hand clamped over his nostrils, he returned to the door and listened to his mother and her boyfriend talking in the living room. He tightened his lips, trying to keep silent; his heart pounded in his chest; his face ached.

His mother was crying
, consoled by Terrance, her boyfriend of six months, who spoke quiet words into her ear. Joe leaned closer to the door, placing his forehead flat against the half-rotten wood, shuffling his feet sideways.

‘He’s gotta go.’ Terrance’s voice carried clearly through the thin layer of wood, even though he was whispering into Sarah’s ear. ‘He’s nineteen…’

‘Eighteen,’ Sarah sobbed.

‘
Still
too old to be in his mother’s house, livin’ off her kindness. He’s gotta go out and, you know, make a name for himself. It’s for his own good,’ he urged.

‘I know,’ she said between sobs. ‘I know he needs to leave.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I’ll tell him.’

‘What will you tell him?’

‘I’ll tell him.’ Her voice quailed before regaining some of its strength. ‘I’ll tell him to leave. I’ll tell him to get out of my house.’

Joe stepped back from the door, wincing and grinding his teeth. He grabbed his bed sheet and pressed the cloth against his nostrils. When he brought it away, the sheet had two splotches of bright red blood that blended perfectly with the sheet’s other stains.

An hour ago, he’d come home to find Terrance unloading a new baggie of drugs—serratone, judging by its milky color—from his pocket onto the kitchen table. His mother had been standing watching him, like a muted ghost, her thinning hair hanging down by her cheeks, framing eyes that craved something she hadn’t had in years.

‘What the hell is that?’ Joe had asked, tossing his tool belt on the couch and pointing at the baggie full of powder and small milky bulbs.

‘What d’you think?’ Terrance mumbled absently, not paying any attention to him as he examined one of the bulbs with a shaking hand.

‘Did you buy that with our money?’ Joe knew the answer to the question before he asked. Money didn’t come easily, and he was lucky if he could find an odd job each day, and even luckier if the employer paid him for his work. They needed all they could get for rent, food, and clothes.

‘What’s it matter? They’re bought. It’s done.’

Joe had looked into his mother’s frightened eyes. He knew she wasn’t frightened of the drugs that had become commonplace when Terrance moved in; she was afraid because she knew her son wouldn’t let go of something that bothered him, and because she knew Terrance had a temper, especially if he was being corrected.

‘You want drugs, why don’t you go out and earn your own money. I’m tired of feeding your habits,’ Joe had said. He’d turned to his mother. ‘How can you settle with this? Don’t you remember Dad.’

‘I…Joe…’ his mother had begun, but her voice died pathetically in her throat.

‘Please, Mom, we need to get back to how things used to be.’

His mother had looked away from him, watching her feet and worn hands, dusty bones inside ragged flesh. Joe thought he saw a tear roll down her cheek, then realized it was only a trick of the light.

Terrance had risen to his full height, zipping up the baggie so the white bulbs wouldn’t slip out, and put a hand flat on the table, his eyes full of anger. Joe recognized that look from the times when Terrance would come home drunk and start throwing chairs and glasses against the wall, screaming that he wasn’t appreciated by anybody in this hellhole of an apartment. Joe had seen Terrance’s strength, the ease with which he hurled objects so forcefully that they shattered on impact. And he was tall—at least three inches taller than Joe.

‘Sarah, I don’t like the way your son’s speakin’ to me. This boy oughta learn his place.’

‘Terrance,’ she whispered. ‘Please…’

‘Not this time, Sarah. It’s about time me and this boya yours settled our diff’rences.’

Joe stood his ground, even when Terrance had him by the hair and slammed him against the counter, bringing a fist down so hard against his eye that Joe thought he might be permanently blinded. Sarah screamed and sobbed at the same time, backing into a corner of the room, her mouth webbed with spit. Joe kicked and swung as hard as he could against Terrance’s face, but even his strongest punch couldn’t deter the giant of a man. Gasping for air, dripping blood over the carpet, Joe had retreated to his room and locked the door, an interloper in his own home.

He checked his reflection in a mirror. A thick purple and yellow ring enveloped his bloodshot eye. His disheveled hair stuck out on the left, the spot where Terrance had almost lifted him clean off the floor. Terrance was right: Joe needed to get out of here. Home was no longer home. Hell Paso had nothing to offer him anymore. His mother had changed. Terrance had filled her mind with lies and her body with drugs. The memory of Joe’s father had been evicted: all his pictures had been removed from the wall when Terrance moved in; they lay in a pile in Joe’s room.

The only relationship he really had was with his mother. It was certainly the only one of any importance to him. Now she had abandoned him for this druggie slacker. Ever since his father had gone off to war, she had been slipping bit by bit, distancing herself from Joe. He wasn’t sure why, and when he asked, she wouldn’t give him a straight answer. Eventually he had stopped asking, in the hope that she would come round. Now he saw clearly that she wouldn’t. She was lost, lost, lost, and he was sick of trying to find her.

Joe went to his dresser and pulled out his brown leather jacket. It fit snugly when he zipped it up to his neck. Slipping off his tennis shoes, he replaced them with boots, sliding the jeans over the faux alligator skin. His tool belt still lay on the couch. Joe desperately wanted to retrieve it, but that would mean going into the living room, seeing Terrance and his mother, and that wasn’t an option. He would find tools somewhere else. Maybe he could steal some from an auto shop on the way to Slushland. The other day he’d seen a job advertisement in the paper; someone there was looking for a new mechanic:
Experience a must. Hard working, a necessity
. Joe thought he fit the bill and had already considered giving it a shot. This fight had been just what he needed to help him make up his mind.

He heaved up the crooked window, letting a draught of cold air waft through the room. He leaned out and took a deep breath. One story down, the near empty parking
lot was flooded with damp yellow light, while jaundiced trash eddied around. Joe pulled his head back into the room and grabbed his backpack from the bed. He was dismayed to find that all his useful possessions—his entire life—fitted into that backpack.

He could hear raised voices and creaking chairs in the living room as Terrance and Sarah moved around; the rusted couch springs groaned as someone sank into its stained cushions.

Joe slid his arms into the straps of his backpack, secured the buckle around his chest, and checked he had the keys in his jeans pocket. He crawled through the open window, easing his foot onto a drainpipe that wobbled beneath his weight. His other foot found a small ledge, barely more than a crevice, and he began lowering himself, shimmying down the pipe. A displaced bird’s nest tumbled over his chest, leaving a dusty stain on his brown jacket.

Soon, he reached the bottom, his boots thudding on the concrete. The wind had picked up again, the blustering dead winds of Hell Paso that wound in from the empty vastness of Mexico. The town had nothing left to offer and he had nothing left to give. It was time to go.

Joe gripped the handlebars of his motorcycle. That it was
his
motorcycle was, at that time, a contested idea, at least in Terrance’s mind. Joe’s father had left the motorcycle behind when he went to war. When he didn’t come back, Joe took to rebuilding it until it ran like a top and roared like a bull. But Terrance had claimed the bike after he started going out with Sarah. He didn’t see the bike as something Joe inherited from his father. Instead, he saw it as Sarah’s ex-husband’s, just another of the dead man’s relics that was up for grabs.

Joe pushed the motorcycle across the parking lot to the street so they wouldn’t hear the roar of the engine. He thought of his mother, acknowledged how difficult it must have been for her to raise a kid without a husband. It probably was a relief to have a man around the house again, even if he was filth. Life would be easier for her without having to worry about her boyfriend and her son fighting each other. Joe leaving was best for everyone—he had to believe that, or else his plan wouldn’t stick. Once he was gone, he was gone.

He mounted the motorcycle, fumbled the key into the ignition, and turned it. The engine rumbled beneath him, filling the cool air with a low growl. Silhouettes moved behind lighted curtains; moths beat against the bulbous floodlights; the trash carried on rolling like urban bindweed. Leaning to one side, Joe put his foot onto the pedal and took a good look around. He’d thought about this moment for a long time. Now that it was finally here, he found himself choking down all his second guesses. With a silent goodbye, he pulled out of the parking lot into the dark, pockmarked street and rode off.