Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 11, Issue 6 by Deborah Biancotti

Author:Deborah Biancotti
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781922171689
Publisher: Review of Australian Fiction

We watch the ship descend until it seems to be just over our heads.

‘You got a plan, Soon?’ Efran asks.

I shrug.

The strange light has gone from his eye, but his skin is pasty and grey under its blood-mask. I think maybe Hubert won’t have to shoot Efran after all. But I also think there’s no way I’m going to spend the rest of my life with Hubert.

‘Well, you better have a plan,’ Efran says. ‘We can’t get out of here without—’

Swift and sudden, Hubert swings upside-down into the cave entrance, hinging at the waist and holding his pistol out. He must’ve been right above us for ages, inching forward on his belly.

Efran is sitting with his gun between his knees, pointing at the concrete ceiling. Hubert has come down on the side where Efran’s eye still works. Hanging upside-down, Hubert’s a bigger target than Efran is when he’s sitting. All Efran has to do is tip the rifle an inch forward to hit Hubert in his centre of mass.

But Efran still hesitates. I never thought he would.

I fire at Hubert almost lazily, without even thinking about it, hardly taking my eyes off Efran.

Hubert jolts and goes limp. His pistol fires off a few rounds without him, then it hits the ground under his dangling head.

After the echo dies down, it’s quiet in the cave. There’s a thudding pain all down my left side where I instinctively leapt sideways into the wall. There’s a stinging pain along my thigh. I know what it means, but I don’t want to look.

So I watch Hubert instead, swinging in the cave mouth with his knuckles brushing the ground. Which seems pretty thematically appropriate for a Neanderthal like Hubert.

His face is as blank as when he was alive. Blood beats a path from his chest to his fingertips and onto the ground in arcs of colour. He fills the space like a red curtain. It’ll be hard to get by him to leave the cave. The cold part of my brain—which is almost all of my brain now—reminds me that we better get out of here before Hubert’s rigor mortis blocks us in.

I finally look at Efran. He’s writhing tightly, his whole right side a burnt black and red mess. When the ringing in my ears drops a couple of decibels, I realise the cave isn’t quiet at all. Efran is screaming.

Out of habit, I isolate the weapons first, pushing both of them behind me. My leg is pulsing blood, but it’s nothing compared to what’s going on with Efran. It hurts like hell, though.

‘Anything mortal?’ I ask.

I mean, ‘any mortal wounds’. I have to say it twice more, louder, before Efran responds. He’s spitting as he screams, dribbles of saliva hitting his chest and the concrete walls. He rubs away tears with a bloody thumb.

‘Yeah,’ he tries to get the hysteria out of his voice. ‘All of it. He killed me. Freaking Hubert killed me.’

He could be right, there’s too much blood to tell. But the real worry is that it’s coming out of his mouth in fresh, dark rivulets like oil.

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