The Island(64)

The machete sailed through the nothingness. Unbalanced, she slipped and almost fell.

She righted herself.

She and Jacko were three feet apart now. He’d been drinking but he didn’t look drunk. She could smell his fury. He, no doubt, could smell her terror.

He tried to get the gun off his back but she was too close so he changed his mind and punched her in the face. A fast, little bony rabbit punch that connected with her cheek and hurt like hell.

She staggered backward and scraped her ankle on a piece of rock.

Jacko swung at her again with a right hook, but this one missed and overbalanced him now. Jacko, however, had been fighting with his brothers and cousins since he could walk, and he recovered quickly. He kicked Heather in the left kneecap.

She’d been watching his hands and hadn’t expected a kick.

It caught her unawares, sending a shooting pain up her entire left side. It was like his feet were made of iron. Her left foot gave way; she went down and she knew she wouldn’t get up in time to prevent him kicking her again.

He didn’t do that.

Instead, he took three steps away from her and then, carefully, he took the rifle off his back and pointed it at her.

“Now, you just sit right there, sweetheart,” he said. “Drop that blade you got.”

She shook her head and tried to get up.

The pain in her knee was horrific.

She had to save Olivia, she had to keep going, this was the only— “I said stay still! Don’t you bloody move a muscle. This is a Lee-Enfield Number Four. Me granddad killed three men with this at Tobruk. At this range it’ll split your head in half. You get me?”

She nodded.

“Drop the blade!”

She dropped the machete.

“Take three steps back.”

“I don’t think I can get up.”

“On your arse, then, backward, away from the blade.”

She did as she was told.

“Now, you just sit there on the ground and don’t do nothing.”

Olivia groaned behind him and tried to move. She’d been hit hard and her mouth was bleeding. Jacko stepped on her back, shoving her into the sand. He took a little yellow walkie-talkie out of his pocket. “Ivan, are you there?”

Static.

“These things are terrible,” Jacko told Heather. “No range. Toys, really.” He pressed Talk again. “Oi! Ivan! Are you there?”

Static.

He gave the walkie-talkie a shake. “Oi, Ivan, are you bloody there?”

“We’re here…we were just checking the body of the Kraut woman,” Ivan said through a blizzard of hiss.

“You won’t believe what I done now,” Jacko said.

“What?”

“I’ve only gone and caught the Yank woman too, haven’t I.”

“No, you haven’t!” Ivan said.

“I have. She come running at me with a bloody great knife and I knocked her on her arse,” Jacko said, licking his lips and leering at her triumphantly.

“Serious?”

“Fair dinkum, mate. She tried to get the drop on me and I got the drop on her!”

“Well done, mate! And you got both kids too?” Ivan asked.

“Her and the girl.”

“Ask her where the boy is,” Ivan said.

“Where’s the lad?” Jacko said.

“We separated. I told them to hide somewhere. I don’t know where he is,” Heather replied.

“Bollocks! Where is he?”

“We separated. I thought we’d have more of a chance.”

“Balls you did. You wouldn’t leave the bloody kids.”

“They’re not really my kids. They’re Tom’s. We’ve been married less than a year. I told them to hide and I’d get help. I didn’t mind separating. The kids hate me,” Heather said.

She said this with such passion that Jacko went for it for a few beats but then smiled a horrible graveyard smile and shook his head.

“Nah. It’s not you. Is he in the bush over there?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

Jacko put the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “Listen, mate, she says the boy isn’t with her. If you send a couple of lads over in the Toyota and bring one of the dogs, we’ll soon flush him out. We’ll have all of them in one bloody swoop.”

“Did you really get them or are you pissing us about?” Ivan asked.

“I got them! I saw the girl and ran her down, clobbered her, and this one comes at me with a knife. I got ’em both!”

“Well done, mate. We’ll be there. Over and out.”

Jacko put the walkie-talkie in his pocket and lifted the rifle and looked down the sight at her. “Tell the boy to come out or I’ll blow your bloody tits off.”

The Lee-Enfield was pressed against his shoulder. He was squinting at her with one eye closed, his finger on the trigger.

She shook her head.

“Big mistake. You know what we’re going to do with you? We’re going to rut you. Every man and boy on this island. Me first. And then it’s Terry’s anthill.”

Heather caught her breath as she saw Owen stand up from the undergrowth. He was holding a long tree branch in his hands, one of those brittle, dry eucalyptus branches that looked as if they would snap in half if you gripped them too hard. He was going to try to use it as a club or spear.