Free The Tankermen by Margo Lanagan

you to hospital, no?’ the driver said nervously, risking short glances at Finn’s body stretched out shaking on the back seat.
    ‘No, it’s okay,’ Finn said weakly. ‘I’m going to my friend’s place. He’s a doctor—he’ll look after me. I’m sorry, though, for messing up your seat.’ He waved a bloody hand.
    ‘Is okay. All plastic; it wipe off.’ The driver cheerfully flapped a rag at him, then swerved and swore with fright. ‘I nearly run dat bloke over!’
    Finn laid his head on the seat and passed out.

5
On the Case
    He woke up a couple of times, but not properly—once when Jed, the taxi driver and one of Jed’s mates were manhandling him up the stairs to the flat, muttering instructions to each other, and once when Jed extracted the piece of debris from his thigh. Then he yelped and began to shake, feeling terribly cold. He felt Jed’s big hand firm on the middle of his back. ‘It’s okay, mate. You just rest a bit now, hey?’ And he sank away again as a blanket was spread over him.
    When he surfaced again the room was empty and incongruously beautiful. There was a big tree outside the open window, and a couple of birds were sitting in it somewhere, unravelling a complicated duet in the afternoon light. Sunbeams moved about in the floating dust of the room and lit up circles of the crimson carpet.
    Finn lay still, his eyes open but the rest of his body totally relaxed. He could feel a crowd of thoughts hovering at theedge of his brain like Christmas-sale shoppers waiting for the doors to open, but for the moment he refused to let them in. He stared at the leaves moving near the window and listened to the sounds beyond the room, the murmurous traffic, the scratchy sound of a voice on a radio, the footsteps of two people passing on the pavement below. There was the odd shift and thump of someone moving around the flat. Jed?
    Finn turned his head on the arm of the sofa and his body woke up, stiff and cranky in every joint. He tested both legs, lifting and twisting the foot of each in turn, and discovered that it was the right one that was injured—it felt as if the whole back of it was sheered off and raw, but when he put his hand to it there was only a narrow strip of bandage around it. Someone had taken his jeans off to get to the wound. He pushed the blanket aside and twisted around trying unsuccessfully to see the damage.
    Every skerrick of blood had been sponged away from the back of his leg. He looked at the carpet, but could see no darker blots on the crimson that might be blood. He couldn’t see his jeans anywhere, either. It was as if nothing had happened—except for the pain, of course.
    And except for the fact that he was here, back at Jed’s. Thank heaven for Jed, or he’d have had to get that taxi to take him to Strathfield, or, worse, to hospital. He’d be lying there now with cops all around him firing questions, for sure. But he was left in peace—or in as much peace as anyone could expect after seeing the things he’d seen.
    There were footsteps outside the door and Finn hurriedly pulled the blanket back over himself. Jed’s head appeared.
    ‘Oh, you’re back in the land of the living, are you?’ He grinned. ‘How you feeling?’
    ‘Okay,’ Finn said uncertainly, feeling the doors in his brain open and the shoppers flood in. ‘Seen my pants anywhere?’
    ‘Yeah, they’re in the dryer. I’ll go get ’em.’
    The jeans were spotlessly clean and hot, with a neat tear a couple of centimetres long in the back of the right thigh. ‘What was it?’ said Finn, poking his finger through the hole.
    Jed produced a sharp little grey stone from his pocket. ‘This. I kept it for you.’
    ‘Hey, gee, thanks.’ Finn rolled his eyes and grinned. He fingered the stone and then spoke with an effort. ‘I s’pose you want to know what happened.’
    ‘I already do. It’s been on the radio since before you got back.’
    ‘Yeah? What are they saying?’
    ‘This happened round