‘Yes!’
‘You’re trapped in there?’
‘Do you have a phone?’ the girl asked. ‘Can you call the cops? Please. I’m not supposed to be here. I can’t get out.’
‘Who are you?’ I demanded, tried to pull Dodge away. He was pressed against the hedge now, already getting himself caught in blackberry vines, trying to tug his sleeve free. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I’m okay. I just need to get out of here.’ The girl’s voice broke into sobs. ‘Can you please just call the cops, please, before he comes!’
‘Just wait right there.’ Dodge’s words were fast, frantic. He dropped down, tried to see if he could squeeze beneath the hedge. Must have caught a razor-sharp strip of it against his cheek and reeled back. ‘We’ll get you out. There must be a gap somewhere.’
‘No, no, no.’ I tried to grab for my partner, but my fingertips brushed fabric and nothing else. Dodge had already taken off, close to the hedge, looking high and low for a gap. ‘Dodge, wait, will you!Wait! We’re not going in!’
‘Ashley? Ashley?’
‘I’m here!’
‘Follow my voice!’
‘Dodge, for fuck’s sake! Stop!’ I was running now, Dodge’s shape moving fast through the moon shadow. My boot caught on a rock. I felt the sandstone cut straight through my jeans into my shin. I went down, was up again fast, barely maintaining a grip on my weapon. ‘Dodge,wait!’
I looked up and saw Dodge dart through a gap in the hedge. I was seconds behind him, but wasn’t there to see the fall. I heard the sickening crunch of a large metallic thing as it snapped shut on something soft. Dodge let out a howl that was stifled by another massive crunching, crashing sound, louder than the first, an explosion of bracken and leaves and the sound of a body thudding onto hard earth. My brain said that a mighty tree had fallen. But Irounded the corner to find Dodge had been swallowed by the ground itself. I came into the gap in the hedge and, through the mottled moonlight, I saw a great hole in the earth and no sign of my partner.
Or anyone. I wanted to call out, to go to the edge of the deep pit, but my training had taught me to go quiet and still in the face of uncertainty. I froze there in the gap, then remembered the silvery, moonlit field behind me and stepped sideways and pressed into the hedge, winced against the pain as a thousand shards of blackberry immediately stabbed at the back of my neck and arms. I knew I was bleeding. The vine gripped every piece of fabric available. I felt it plucking at the back of my shirt as I breathed.
‘Oh, fuck.’ Dodge huffed a low moan, sounded like he was stifling another howl of pain. ‘Russell? Russell?’
‘I’m here,’ I called, watching the blackness. There was only bushland around the hole Dodge had fallen in. Dense and unmoving. No sign of ‘Ashley’ or anyone else. ‘You hurt?’
‘Fucking bear trap,’ he huffed. ‘It’s clamped on my leg. You okay?’
I didn’t answer. Thought I saw movement to my right. The darkness was swirling in my vision, ink-black and emerald-green, my eyes struggling to assess depth, failing. Another movement. A twig snapping. I raised my gun and pointed it at the blackness.
‘Police!’ I barked. ‘Put your hands—’
A thunderous noise, like a hundred heavy doors slamming. The bush was set ablaze with white light that exploded into my vision, as painful as a punch, blinding me instantly. The floodlights were attached to trees that stood all around the hole Dodge was in, a dozen shining suns pointing downward, humming with electricity. The lights were on for a second, no more, before they snapped off, and any night vision I’d managed to gain was completely destroyed. Green and red fireworks swirled and billowed before my eyes. I heard the crack of a rifle, felt the breeze of the gunshot passing my right temple, the sonic whine of a bullet that had just missed me. Branch. It took strength to take my hands down from my blinded eyes, to form a plan. My body wanted to freeze. But athought came to me clearly, panicked and fear-riddled but clear:Do the unexpected.
I bolted forward. I knew the blinding lights, the bear trap that had taken Dodge and the mimicked voice that Branch had used to lure Dodge and me onto his property were all carefully planned aspects of some sick game, and, whether I liked it or not, I was now on the game board. I figured I was supposed to run back out the gap, into the moonlit field or down the side of the hedge, where there was no cover, and Branch could fire at me at will.
Instead I ran forward, skirting where I remembered the edge of Dodge’s hole was and went onward into the maze. I hit a tree, bounced off it, kept running, hit another, felt blackberry or razor wire slash at my arms and neck and face. The lights came on again with a deafeningca-thunk, not exactly around me as they had been the first time, but close enough. I found the nearest tree and put my back to it, slid down, my breath hammering in my chest.
EVAN
Acrash, heavy and echoing, like a tree falling over. Then a god-awful thump, like a distant canon booming: a sound I felt in my chest. Lee and I stopped in our tracks, listening for more. We were at the side of the Branch property in the dark, weapons drawn, the bright moon overhead picking out a long, wide strip of mown grass edged on one side by the towering hedges and on the other by sparse, still bushland.
‘Sir.’ Lee’s voice was low. ‘What the fuck was that?’
‘I know as much as you do right now.’
‘Did you hear someone cry out?’
‘I only heard the two bangs.’
‘Just before the first one. Like a howl.’
I turned back towards the front of the property, started running there with Lee. A feeling like a stretching rubber band was being pulled directly from my chest into the property. I wanted to run through the hedges after my brother. My heart told me he was in there. It was him that Lee had heard cry out. Fry was at the cars, his gun drawn as well. We all ran to the other corner of the property. Looking up along the hedge line, there was no movement. No sign of my brother and Dodge.
‘He said we weren’t going in!’ Lee was out of breath. She swiped at her brow. ‘What the fuck, sir!’
