had been boarded up with cardboard and duct tape. Too easy.
Twenty-three
Midnight. We were in the living room, nervous as hell. We gazed, quiet, at the last smouldering remains of a dining chair. The rest of the wood from Arnold’s house was loaded in the back of the station wagon now, along with a bag of clothes, a heap of bottled water, some bedding and a hose for syphoning fuel. Arnold had also packed other things we thought might come in handy: gaffer tape, rope, a Swiss army knife. Things that almost made us believe that we knew how to survive without the comforts of home. We would leave as soon as the job was done. The Job – as if we were about to rob a friggin’ casino.
Noll’s forehead was furrowed in concentration. ‘I’m still not convinced this is a good idea,’ he said.
‘It’s too easy: we go in, we get the food, we leave.’ I was trying to convince myself as much as him.
‘It’s wrong.’
‘I don’t see what choice we have. We will starve if we don’t do something. Who knows how long it’s going to take to find Mum.’
‘I still don’t like it.’
‘Neither do I. But we don’t have to like it. If we don’t get there first someone else will.’
‘Survival of the fittest?’
‘Exactly.’
Max liked the plan. He was pumped, sitting, bobbing his head with his hood up like he was friggin’ Snoop Dogg or someone. I thought of that cop in our kitchen trying to get our food. We were different to him, weren’t we? I had Max to worry about. Starvos would have heaps of stuff in there. Heaps. More than enough.
We were ready to go, dressed in the darkest clothes we had – which seemed kind of dumb, it wasn’t like anyone was going to see us. There were no streetlights. I held the Dolphin torch.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Let’s go,’ Arnold agreed.
I realised that I hadn’t been outside at night since the bombs. I hadn’t experienced the swallowing blackness. The little light in the car illuminated the yard for a few moments when we opened the doors. Then we shut them and were in the blackness again. I heard the key scraping around next to the steering wheel while Noll fumbled around for the ignition. I opened my door a fraction so the light came back on, he put the key in and started the car. The sound seemed loud enough to wake up the whole street.
‘Go, go, go,’ I said.
We drove up the street and Noll stopped the car about a hundred metres from the shop and turned off the ignition and the headlights.
‘Noll, I know this is dramatic,’ I said. ‘But if someone busts us, don’t worry about me, get Max out of there.’
I thought maybe he would protest and say something about solidarity and all for one and stuff, but he just nodded.
I propped the Dolphin torch on the dashboard and it shone a thin stream of light onto the road ahead of us, so we could partially see where we were going. Max and I got out of the car.
‘Max, this is serious, yeah? Don’t do anything dumb. Stick to the plan.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
We began to push. The idea was that without the engine running there was less chance of anyone hearing us. The only sound was our breathing and the soft mulch of ice beneath the tyres. In my imagination it had been a stealthy move but in reality it was bloody hard work and took freaking ages. The soles of our shoes kept slipping on the ice.
We pushed the car along the kerb until we were about fifteen metres away from the shop. Max would stand outside the shop and keep watch. I would go in, get the boxes of cans and pass them to Max, who would run them down to the car. We wouldn’t take everything, but we would take as much as we could fit in the boot.
Max and I walked up the street to the shop.
‘If someone comes you yell out and then run. Don’t wait for me, just run like hell to the car and go.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll deal with it. No one will see us anyway. It’ll be cool. You got your torch?’
‘In my pocket.’
‘Cool.’
We reached the corner and I turned to glance back to where the car was. We stopped at the shop door. I took the Stanley knife from my back pocket and pushed the blade up. Max shielded the torchlight with his hand and concentrated the beam on the cardboard panel by the doorframe. I gripped the knife and plunged the blade into the cardboard. It made a muffled popping sort of noise. Working the blade back and forth I cut a flap in the cardboard, then slid my hand in and felt around for the back of the deadlock. My fingers located the cold ball of the metal switch, I turned it and repeated the process for the bolts at the top and bottom of the door. It was easy. I nodded at Max and went inside.
I swung the beam of the torch around the room and down the mouths of the aisles, illuminating items on the shelves: laundry detergent, soap, razors, garbage bags. I shone it behind the counter to the doorway that led to what I guessed to be the storeroom. I went in. It was a small room with brick walls and no windows, just like a tomb. There were cartons piled up all over the place. I ran the torchlight over them: copy paper, laundry detergent. Useless. Two-minute noodles. Bingo. I set the torch down on one of the boxes so it threw enough light around the room for me to see my way. I picked up a box and carried it out to the front door. I gave it to Max and he turned and ran with it toward the car and I went back for another box. There didn’t seem to be any soup left. More noodles, I took them, they were good because they were light, then I got breakfast cereal, cartons of soy milk, nuts. More noodles. Max said the boot was nearly full. We only had room for a couple more boxes. I got more cereal and ran it out to Max but he wasn’t there. He must have been down at the car. I couldn’t see his torch and I figured he had probably got the hang of going without it. I put the box down at the doorway and went back into the storeroom. I pushed a box of dog food aside with my foot and found a carton of Weet-Bix. As the box scraped along the concrete I thought I heard a brief shadow of a noise. I froze. I listened to the silence. Waited. Nothing. I turned, crouched down to lift the carton of Weet-Bix and that’s when I felt a hand take a fistful of my hair, almost tearing it from my scalp. I didn’t have time to yell out. My cheek was smashed against the brick wall and all the breath left me.
I pressed my palms flat against the brickwork and tried to push backward, tried to stop my cheek making such a rough connection with the wall. It didn’t really work. The guy was bigger than me. It was the grip of someone well fed. My head was pulled back and slammed once again into the wall and I saw stars, twinkling, dancing stars, which was ironic; I’d wondered when I’d see those again. Then I was still. He didn’t pull me back, but left me pressed with my cheek against the wall. I moved my hand back toward my pocket, to the knife. And then I felt a hard object press into the back of my skull.
He yelled at me in a language I didn’t understand, but I knew the voice. My nose was filled with the sourness of his sweat and what I guessed to be my blood. Sweat? How could anyone sweat in this cold? Then he brought the gun around and showed it to me. He pressed it into my temple and laughed great wheezing rasps like he’d just told me a joke. He yelled again, moved his fingers down to my neck and jammed the pistol into the base of my skull. I heard him say Max’s name.
‘Where’s Max?’ I managed to croak.
He pulled my head back again. He said something.
‘I can’t understand you,’ I moaned. He laughed again and then shoved my face back into the bricks.
‘You want your brother? You have your brother when I get my food back, yes? Or maybe I just kill you. Maybe I eat you!’ He laughed again. My cheek slammed once more into the wall. I couldn’t feel it any more, only the warmth of my blood on my skin and a creeping tingle up the back of my neck.
‘You think you are the first to try this? You think I am not waiting for you?’ He drove the muzzle of the gun against my scalp. ‘I need to make example of you. I am not—’ he pulled my head back, ‘—charity,’ he said and
