The Maloort Plain lay in front of us, a spread of burnt paddocks stretching as far as we could see. To the north, to the south, to the west, nothing but ash and ruin. The highway rocketed through the centre of it, a silver ribbon cutting through the great emptiness. Nothing broke the flat, dead plains; they soaked up the moonlight, gave nothing back.
‘Look on my works, ye mighty…’
It overwhelmed us—it was impossible to know where the earth ended and the sky began. We took slow steps, transfixed. Red and Blue appeared as pale shadows, stalking across the coal-black paddocks. The sprawl of burnt grass fooled me into thinking that the plains were completely flat, completely empty. When I looked again, I saw an occasional something break the illusion—a reef of rock pushing out of the ground, another earthen ridge tracing another empty river, the blackened foundations of a shack that fell to the fire, tree stumps cracked and split. Wrecked vehicles sometimes blocked the road ahead; they were burnt out as well, long ago caught in firestorms they couldn’t outrun, tombs for those who died in futile attempts at escape.
We had been walking a while—I’m not sure how long—when Tobe dropped his pack without warning and veered off into the great empty land to the south. The land consumed him; only seconds later, he had disappeared completely. I stopped walking, grateful for a break—the usual stiff joints and aching muscles of a long hike were already settling in. I looked around. There was nothing different about that particular stretch of land. The highway, the scorched earth, the sky—they had been the same for miles.
‘Tobe!’ I shouted.
No reply. I shouted again. This time, Red and Blue heard me. They ran to me, sniffed at me, their tails wagging. They slobbered, gave me a friendly lick, and then lay down on the blacktop, panting, staring at the land that had swallowed Tobe whole. I dropped my pack, shuffled it behind me, leaned back, and had a long drink. Red looked at me, the saddest expression on her face. I straightened up, pulled my pack toward me. You can’t let a thirsty animal stay that way.
Something wet and sticky met my fingers.
‘What?’
I already knew the answer, the red blood was bright in the moonlight. I jumped to my feet, saw a trail of it leading from the cracked blacktop to the cindered grass. I followed it.
I couldn’t see anything; the land ahead of me was as black as the bottom of a mine.
‘Tobe?’
No answer. I raised my rifle, cocked it, flicked off the safety. ‘Now isn’t the time to mess with me!’
Nothing. Sudden panic. I started sweating, the sour sweat of fear. I felt like a little boy alone in the dark.
‘Last time.’ I turned left, turned right, saw nothing. I fired a shot into the sky. ‘Okay then.’
I stepped forward. Tobe immediately rose up in front of me, pushing himself off his belly and onto his feet in one fluid move. I could see flecks of burnt grass sticking to his shirt from where he had been lying in wait. He reached out faster than I could really see, faster than my surprised panic, pushing down on my rifle until it pointed at the ground.
Another shot rang out. I hadn’t even realised I had squeezed the trigger. Tobe didn’t flinch.
‘Keep your pants on, Bill,’ he said. And then he laughed.
He turned away and reached behind him, picking up a shapeless mass. It was the size of a child on the cusp of becoming an adult. It dripped with blood. It seemed to be forever folding in on itself, as if some essential part that helped it keep its form had been snatched away.
Tobe rearranged his double-fisted grip, to stop it spilling from his hands. ‘Here, catch.’
He threw it to me, threw it at me. I took a hasty step back, almost tripping on my feet. It hit my chest with a dull, wet thud, almost knocking me down. It fell to the ground. I righted myself, looked at it properly, trying to work out what it was, what it had been.
Excited by the copper-stink of blood, Red and Blue ran over.
‘Get out of it!’ Tobe roared.
They backed off, but didn’t stop staring at the raw-meat thing. Tobe reached into the sodden mess, pulling bits of it one way and then the other, moving on, repeating the process. The thing slowly assumed a shape under Tobe’s nimble fingers. The powerful V of back legs made for jumping rather than running, the tapering whipcord of a muscular tail, forelegs outstretched and grasping.
Tobe finished with a flourish. Something unspeakable flopped onto the thing’s broad chest. Pale eyes glared at me. Below jaws that hung open in a frozen scream, there was only a bloody ruin, most of its neck reduced to a haze of ruined meat.
‘Poor bastard,’ I said.
‘Yeah, I guess I’m getting rusty,’ Tobe said. ‘I meant to put one in its eye, not in its neck. I didn’t want it to stagger out here to die—I wanted it to be quick.’
I couldn’t speak.
‘You hungry yet?’ Tobe asked.
My stomach rolled; I tasted bile in the back of my throat. When the time came, I knew that I would eat. Happily, too. But right then? Looking at the roo’s matted fur, at its limp body, looking anywhere but in its dull, accusing eyes, I decided to pass.
The things we had to do sometimes disgusted me.
‘Suit yourself.’
Tobe pulled a knife from his boot. Without hesitation, he gutted and skinned the roo. Its organs and head went onto the blacktop, food for the scavengers, a snack for the dogs. Tobe carried its hide down the highway, came back with a long length of metal that curved inward at both ends. The wrenched-off bumper of a wreck, I guessed. Tobe dropped the bumper next to the roo, pulled a bail of twine from his pocket, and started threading it around the bumper and roo’s back legs. I would have offered to help, but he looked like he knew what he was doing. Besides, I was feeling a little sick, the smell of dead animal steadily growing stronger.
I rolled some bush tobacco to help cover the smell, rolled some for Tobe as well, struck a tiny fire, lit them both, and passed one over.
‘Cheers.’
He took it with a hand covered in gore, and kept threading the twine. The bush tobacco hung from the corner of his mouth, smoke drifting into his eyes. I wondered how he could see anything.
He started coughing, tears running down his cheeks. He wiped them away, leaving streaks of blood behind. He ground out his bush tobacco, tucking the butt in his pocket. I didn’t really see the point, considering where we were. But old dogs and all that.
Tobe stood up, bracing one foot on the road, the other on the bumper. He grabbed hold of the roo’s forelegs and pulled hard. The bumper shifted slightly, the twine held. Satisfied, he turned to me and smiled.
‘Shall we?’
My stomach rolled again.
I slung my pack on my back, deciding to get it over and done with. I shouldered my rifle, ground out my bush tobacco, flicked it away, and didn’t care in the slightest. Tobe frowned at me as he retrieved his rifle and his pack. He squatted down at one end of the bumper. On the count of three, we lifted it high, settling the ends on our shoulders. The skinned roo hung between us, swaying lazily on the end of the twine. A torrent of blood erupted from its neck, slowly trailing off to a trickle.
‘You okay?’ Tobe asked.
The weight of the bumper and the roo settled. It didn’t seem too much to bear.
‘No worries.’
We moved awkwardly at first—I took it easy, Tobe strained at the bit. The need to walk faster—to be done with the road—was evident in his tight smile. We finally settled on a step that suited us both; I picked up my pace, Tobe slowed a little. The highway unrolled beneath us and the plains stayed the same, the burnt-out black of them featureless and flat. Occasionally, another burnt-out wreck appeared ahead. Something about the first one we approached caught my eye; as we drew closer, I saw the dead roo’s hide stretched across the bonnet. The wreck’s bumper was missing, and I looked at what I was carrying and couldn’t help but smile. We skirted around the wreck, once again choosing not to look inside.