Pursuit

“Mate, how ‘bout that time at the bakery?  I asked for a sliced loaf and you filled your coat with everything you could lay your hands on while her back was turned and then hit the shelf in the hurry to get out the door.  You were picking the cold mince and cheese out of your phone for months.”

Troy leans back and looks up at the sky, the limitless galaxies providing more light than his cell phone which coldly declares itself to be down to the last eight percent of its battery. Propped up against a rock, his head cradled in his hands, Mike doesn’t say much; the matted hair around his forehead disguising a burgeoning lump and a deep cut, the severity not fully realised in the darkness.  Troy looks and feels ridiculous, his puny frame is inflated with handfuls of leaves and anything that he could scrounge in the dwindling light, certain that there must be ants, wetas or centipedes crawling over his skin causing the itching.   Last week the AC/DC shirt had kept him plenty warm enough in the congregation of black tee shirts at the cake tin or maybe it was the several bourbon pre-loaders but the shirt wasn’t providing any insulation against the misty rain now.

“Wha shit ahhrre you toorkin about Troy?,” Mike says with a tongue that seems to be acting like a sheep in a drafting gate, bouncing off the sides of his cheeks and making his words much thicker. 

It was only a simple transgression but the fight or flight response took over and with the police on their tail, the car launched over a bank and was swallowed up by the vegetation, the initial euphoria of evasion replaced by the realisation that they were lost. 

The last time they had spent a night in the bush was at a school camp, the sounds in the darkness completely foreign to a couple of townies. Mike had bought marshmallows and a hip flask on that occasion, this time the only thing they had between them was a muesli bar, a pack of cigarettes with enough for three each and four sticks of juicy fruit gum. 

Troy gathers what dry foliage he can and with trembling hands sets the cigarette lighter to a crumpled supermarket receipt.  The dry bracken sparks and cracks, he’s transported to Opiti beach, Jasmine is there and he remembers seeing her face for the very first time, illuminated by the fireworks.  The flames grow and smoke starts to billow, he is on his hands and knees feeling his way amidst the black smoke to locate Mike in his bedroom when they were nine.  They made it out then but his gut instinct tells him that this time it’s different.  Troy uses the phone to send out one last text before it too expires. 

Searchers discover the campsite three days later along with traces of blood and clothing.  The bush has closed around them like a fist. 

Andrew Hawkey