knows the dark’s come and he wants out. I’ve got a fair idea what he’s saying. Terry, open the fucking box. There’ll be that for a few more k, then Teresa, love, sweetie, please open the box. Please let me get some fresh air. It’s cold in here.
I leave it just until I sense he’s about to move to threats, then I reach behind, keeping my eyes on the road, feel around on the back seat, find the cooler and flip the lid off. It lands on the floor with the sort of noise only falling polystyrene can make, both offended and humble, a sort of squeal like it’s not happy but doesn’t want to bother you.
“Thank fuck for that!” Barry’s got quite a voice on him for someone currently without lungs. “Are you deaf?”
“Couldn’t hear you, Barry. Engine’s too noisy.” And the machine doesn’t make a liar of me—it rumbles and protests like an old man with emphysema. It’s been a long trip.
“Well, this thing better keep going, I can’t afford to get stuck out in the middle of nowhere in this state.”
Barry’s “state” has been a cause of concern for a couple of days now. There have been gang fights on the streets of Sydney—not the usual sorts, not the drug peddlers or the slave traders, not the gunrunners or the money launderers. Not this time anyway. Rival gangs of bloodsuckers, all trying to survive, to reach the top of the tree. All trying to be the big dog and negotiate with the breeders, those few Warm who are in the know (even with the current state of societal decay, there are some things you don’t want the general populace to find out). But there are those who understand the night isn’t a safe place, never has been, not since the First Fleet came and nicked the nation from under the nose of the indigenous population. That even on those ships, the greatest enemy wasn’t scurvy or the lash, it was the things, just one or two, that roamed the lonely hours picking off the weak so as not to draw attention to themselves. Those who slept nestled in hidden compartments until the daylight passed.
Barry was one of them. Nasty bastard by all accounts (I’ve read the diaries my grandmothers kept). Didn’t make too many of his own kind initially, just found a thin girl, none too bright, pregnant and fearful, someone he could bully and boss, someone who could do what was needed when the sun ruled the sky and who thought his protection worth the price of her liberty. Minnie: my ever-so-great-grandmother, a silly little pickpocket too slow to not get caught, who sold all our freedoms with her one stupid decision.
She couldn’t read or write, but her daughter could, so Minnie told the story and her girl wrote it down. And so on and so on—we’ve all kept notes of some kind, some more literary than others. The Singleton women have quite a collected work now.
After Minnie’s dimness, Barry decided we’d be more useful if educated, so fancy schools for his girls, university if you wanted it (I have a science degree for all the good it did me). He never turned any of us, just keeps us, generation after generation, like family retainers . . . or pets. We don’t run. I asked my Mum why, but she just gave me that sleepy junkie smile. In her own way she did run—she just found her escape at the pointy end of a needle.
I’ve thought about it a lot in the years since and I reckon we stay put because we’re told from the cradle there’s nowhere else to go. How do you outrun the night? How do you go on living when closing your eyes means you might wake with a weight on your chest that doesn’t go away? It’s easier to live in the eye of the storm than to try and outrun it. And, ashamed as I am to say it, the protection of the devil you know is preferable to being meat to something else. There are worse things in the dark than Barry.
Of course there’s always the theory that girls without fathers will attach themselves quite willingly to father-figures. Barry’s a bad dad if ever there was
I leave it just until I sense he’s about to move to threats, then I reach behind, keeping my eyes on the road, feel around on the back seat, find the cooler and flip the lid off. It lands on the floor with the sort of noise only falling polystyrene can make, both offended and humble, a sort of squeal like it’s not happy but doesn’t want to bother you.
“Thank fuck for that!” Barry’s got quite a voice on him for someone currently without lungs. “Are you deaf?”
“Couldn’t hear you, Barry. Engine’s too noisy.” And the machine doesn’t make a liar of me—it rumbles and protests like an old man with emphysema. It’s been a long trip.
“Well, this thing better keep going, I can’t afford to get stuck out in the middle of nowhere in this state.”
Barry’s “state” has been a cause of concern for a couple of days now. There have been gang fights on the streets of Sydney—not the usual sorts, not the drug peddlers or the slave traders, not the gunrunners or the money launderers. Not this time anyway. Rival gangs of bloodsuckers, all trying to survive, to reach the top of the tree. All trying to be the big dog and negotiate with the breeders, those few Warm who are in the know (even with the current state of societal decay, there are some things you don’t want the general populace to find out). But there are those who understand the night isn’t a safe place, never has been, not since the First Fleet came and nicked the nation from under the nose of the indigenous population. That even on those ships, the greatest enemy wasn’t scurvy or the lash, it was the things, just one or two, that roamed the lonely hours picking off the weak so as not to draw attention to themselves. Those who slept nestled in hidden compartments until the daylight passed.
Barry was one of them. Nasty bastard by all accounts (I’ve read the diaries my grandmothers kept). Didn’t make too many of his own kind initially, just found a thin girl, none too bright, pregnant and fearful, someone he could bully and boss, someone who could do what was needed when the sun ruled the sky and who thought his protection worth the price of her liberty. Minnie: my ever-so-great-grandmother, a silly little pickpocket too slow to not get caught, who sold all our freedoms with her one stupid decision.
She couldn’t read or write, but her daughter could, so Minnie told the story and her girl wrote it down. And so on and so on—we’ve all kept notes of some kind, some more literary than others. The Singleton women have quite a collected work now.
After Minnie’s dimness, Barry decided we’d be more useful if educated, so fancy schools for his girls, university if you wanted it (I have a science degree for all the good it did me). He never turned any of us, just keeps us, generation after generation, like family retainers . . . or pets. We don’t run. I asked my Mum why, but she just gave me that sleepy junkie smile. In her own way she did run—she just found her escape at the pointy end of a needle.
I’ve thought about it a lot in the years since and I reckon we stay put because we’re told from the cradle there’s nowhere else to go. How do you outrun the night? How do you go on living when closing your eyes means you might wake with a weight on your chest that doesn’t go away? It’s easier to live in the eye of the storm than to try and outrun it. And, ashamed as I am to say it, the protection of the devil you know is preferable to being meat to something else. There are worse things in the dark than Barry.
Of course there’s always the theory that girls without fathers will attach themselves quite willingly to father-figures. Barry’s a bad dad if ever there was
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