She hit the wipers and the water-spray button. Nothing came out of the water spray and one of the wipers seemed to be broken.
The other worked and cleared a narrow arc in front of her face.
Visibility zero on the passenger side.
If they were impaled here against the side of the bank, it would be the end of them.
She looked in the rearview.
They were still on her ass.
She shifted down to low gear mode and pushed the start button. “Brace yourselves, kids!”
The car shuddered.
She pushed on the gas pedal until it was nearly on the floor. “Come on!” she said.
The engine growled and the Porsche seemed to understand what she wanted. Its front wheels struggled for purchase in the trench, churning mud and then slowly getting a grip. When she had sufficient momentum, she aimed for the far wall, and the Porsche began to climb over.
It climbed at a thirty-degree angle and she wondered if they were going to flip onto the roof.
Another bullet hit the back of the car with a clang and a terrifying ricochet through the side window. Glass splinters struck her on the right cheek.
“Come on, baby, you can do this, you ugly piece of shit!” she said, and thus encouraged, the Porsche crawled up over the trench and onto the heath again.
She switched back to drive mode and glanced in the rearview. She watched the Toyota disappear into the trench and held her breath for three seconds until she saw it struggle out again.
“Shit.”
Only a quarter of a mile clear run to the ocean now.
The ground was boggy but the Porsche didn’t mind. She heard it ascend through the gears. Third gear. Fourth.
Another bullet dinged inside the cab and punched a hole through the windshield. This time, the entire windshield cracked.
She couldn’t see anything.
She tried hitting the glass out with the flat of her hand. It didn’t move.
“I can’t see!”
Olivia smashed it with the butt of the rifle, and the windshield collapsed, spraying them with glass.
The walkie-talkie fizzed to life. “Give it up, Heather! You’re going to get yourself and the kids killed! Nobody wants that!” Matt said.
Olivia looked at her. “Do you want to answer?”
“Don’t worry about that. You just keep your head down.”
“I can answer him from down here.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Heather, please, pull over before anyone else gets hurt. We can talk this over. Ma agrees with me that this has gone on long enough. We can go back to the original plan,” Matt said.
She drove through the boggy grass and stole a look at the Hilux. The Toyota had much higher wheel arches and was making easier progress across the terrain.
But it was not so far to the sea now.
Another bullet sang past the car. She flinched after the bullet had already missed. Olivia sat up. Heather pushed her head down again.
Heather grabbed the walkie-talkie. “If we’re going to negotiate here, Matt, I suggest you stop shooting at us.”
There was a pause before Matt came back on. “We’ll stop shooting if you pull over,” Matt said.
“You stop shooting first and then we’ll talk.”
“Where are you going, Heather? This is pointless. There’s nowhere to go.”
“How much gas you got, Matthew? How’s that transmission?”
“We’re doing fine.”
Maybe they had enough gas for one car but not enough for the rest of the family to follow.
She looked in the rearview again. The Toyota was five car lengths behind them now.
She was hitting fifty miles an hour. A ridiculous speed on this terrain.
She hadn’t heard from Owen in thirty seconds. “Owen, are you OK back there?”
“Yeah.”
They hit something; the whole car shook and went up on two wheels for a second and then came down with a heavy thud.
Rearview.
Kate driving, Matt riding shotgun. With an actual shotgun. Ivan squeezed in there too. Ash from the bushfire they’d started falling now like snow.
Matt leaned out the truck’s window.
“Everyone down!” Heather said.
Birdshot tore through the Porsche.
Olivia was thrown forward into the dashboard.
“Kids!”
“I’m OK,” Owen said from the floor of the car.
“Olivia? Olivia? Olivia?”
Olivia wasn’t saying anything.
“Owen, get up here and take the wheel!”
“What?”
“Take the wheel!”
Owen grabbed the wheel as Heather bent over Olivia.