The Killing Hour

‘Did you?’


I turn away from her because she already knows the answer. I look at Landry and lean in towards him. He looks blankly back at me, still trying to hold onto consciousness.

‘Thanks for following,’ I say, looking back to Jo. ‘And thanks for saving my life. How did you get free?’

‘Does it matter? You’re just lucky I got free as he was putting you into the back of his car, and you’re equally lucky I decided to follow you to the police station.’



‘Some police station,’ I say, looking around.

‘Lucky I followed anyway, huh? You’d be dead right now if I didn’t have a spare key in a magnet box under the car, and frankly, I don’t know just how bad a thing that would be. We need to hurry. A concussion in these conditions could be deadly.’

The gun moves around in her hands; she’s either shaking from the cold or from the shock of saving my life. I check Landry’s pocket where I saw him put the keys. When I step away his legs begin to buckle and he slowly slides down and sits on the ground as if the weight of the keys was the only thing keeping him upright. So far he’s had nothing to say since being struck twice in the head. I like him this way.

The lock seems smaller than the key as I try to work the handcuffs. My hands are shaking so much that the tip of the key keeps chattering against the bracelet. Jo isn’t offering to help. I slide the key around until finally it fits into place. Then I go through the same drama with the second bracelet. When I’m free I snap them onto Landry’s wrists. He’s starting to groan. He folds his hands over the top of his head. He seems to have forgotten where he is, either that or he doesn’t care any more. He stares past me at the cave where it took a team of people two days to find a dead girl.

‘We need to get him back to the cabin,’ Jo says.

‘This guy just tried to kill me. I’m not taking him anywhere.’

‘We’re taking him to a hospital, Charlie, and then we’re going to the police.’

I look at her face and then at the gun and I like this combination a hell of a lot better than the last one. ‘I’ll be charged with murder.’

‘If you’re innocent you won’t be. Anyway what sort of murderer would bring a policeman to hospital under these circumstances?’

‘So you believe me.’

‘Let’s just say I’m more open to strange things happening.’

‘Glad you’re on my side,’ I say.

‘I’m not, but if we leave him here he’ll die.’

Then we should leave him here. I start to help him to his feet but his legs are like jelly. He can’t take any of his own weight and I can’t take all of it. I’m weak from the cold and it’s going to be hell carrying him back to the cabin. If he dies on the way I’ll dump him where he lands and hope Jo doesn’t shoot me for it.

‘You’re sure you don’t want to carry him?’ I ask.

Jo doesn’t answer.

‘Jo?’ I hoist Landry onto my shoulders. I stagger at first, trying not to slip across the wet ground. My thighs start to burn. Landry has to be at least ninety kilograms. If lifting him is this hard, carrying him will be impossible.

‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ I say, speaking louder as I turn around.

‘You’ve got that right, partner,’ the tall figure says. He wears black clothing, has dirty skin, long black hair, a scraggly beard, bushy sideburns, and he’s standing next to Jo.

She doesn’t have the gun any more. It’s now pointed at her.





25


Watching, watching, Cyris is waiting and watching, yeah, yeah, things are working out well, really well, and the rain keeps on falling in the forest but he doesn’t mind the rain. He thinks of a time when he went swimming and saw a dog drown, and thinking of the wet fur makes him start to itch. He can’t stop wondering what colour the inside of his soul would be – then wonders if he has one at all. Would it be blue or grey?

He thinks about how that wet dog felt beneath his fingers as he held it down. If the dog could talk it would tell him to look out for other dogs because sometimes they can be rabid, sometimes they can be dead. Thinking of the wet dog reminds him that it’s raining. He hates the rain. He’s wet and he’s hungry but this doesn’t worry him because he’s entertained, yeah, yeah, entertained by this hilarity, because all of this is nothing but funny, and then it becomes nothing but. The shotgun is in his hands and in his fingers and whether he uses it is up to the weatherman. Everything is up to the weatherman and that makes Cyris jealous. It makes him angry because the ability to choose who lives and dies should be up to him.