Ahead of us, above us, below us is only infinite blackness. We’re out of range and sight of the Jacks, churning our way through dark water, Nathan holding onto me and squeezing Evan between our bodies. It’s like we’re tiny creatures on the back of something huge, barely visible mites on a vast black beast that might flick us off at any moment. It’s enough to make me ease back on the throttle.
‘All around us,’ Nathan says in my ear. ‘It’s here.’
I glance over my shoulder. There’s enough firelight from Port Macquarie to see his expression. He looks how I feel. What we’re sharing is beyond words. Not telepathy. Common awe and terror.
‘Shit,’ he says.
I see why.
Boats with searchlights are thumping out of the river. Even this cosmic immensity can’t stop Jack from coming after us.
I turn the throttle and the jet ski roars and sputters and dies. I try it again. The engine catches, I crank it and we shoot forward across the water for a few seconds before it conks out. Months out in the elements, exposed to sand and salt and rain, it’s a wonder it started in the first place.
‘Goddamnit,’ I say.
I can’t even swing it around so we can shoot at them. Not that we’d have a chance of hitting anything from a bobbing jet ski with guns filled with sea water. We’re sitting ducks.
Speedboats churn towards us, spotlights streaming closer across the waves. Behind them, there’s that last chopper, wounded but not destroyed, sweeping in just above the waves.