Dead Lemons The Far South Series By Finn Bell
About the Author: Finn Bell grew up in Africa. He has worked in night shelters, charities, hospitals and prisons meeting interesting people along the way. Most of the things in his books come from what those people have told him. He loves writing and his cat. He has had what he calls a life-time dose of bureaucracies and politicians. Which has lead him to freely admit that most of the world makes no sense to him and the bits that do are mostly just annoying. He now likes fewer people more often and more strongly but also most others more frequently much less. He lives in the far south of New Zealand which is the very best place anywhere and forever. Where he is now trying to be a better person in return. (Please buy his books so he can eat.)
About the Far South Series: The Far South Series are books about people doing very bad things in the far south of New Zealand. Everything that happens in them is true and every place is real. Although not always all at the same time. Try it. You might like it. Contact: Website: finnbellbooks.com Facebook: @finnbellbooks Twitter: @finnbellsays
CHAPTER 1 June 4, PRESENT DAY... Who says I am not under the special protection of God? Adolf Hitler, Speech 1933 Murderball. Murder. Ball. Just the name sounded cool but actually doing it, even better. As sports go it had a ball and rules, but they were really just there to channel the aggression, help harness the violence of it, not limit it. The people who played it well were different being willing to hurt people was only the beginning. What really mattered was not caring whether you got hurt in the process. That s what people never understood about us that we needed that. It wasn t about the pop psychology crap of still wanting to be manly or vent our anger it was just about feeling, feeling anything intensely. I still remember what Tai said to me after my first game. I was busy straightening a finger I hadn t even noticed I d sprained, loud people in wheelchairs rolling around all about me. The floor slick with sweat. It s because your dick doesn t work anymore, he said, a big stranger smiling at me from his wheelchair. Massively muscled arms etched with Māori tattoos folded across an impossibly large chest. Not being able to walk anymore sucks, but it s not being able to fuck that changes you, bro, he continued. That got my attention, and I couldn t help but smile back. What? I said, already knowing it was true, feeling the ache of realising just how true it was begin to seep into me. That s why you liked the game not because it felt so good but because it felt so strong, strong enough that you forgot everything else while you were doing it, forgot yourself, hah like sex, see? he said.
You just don t know how much I agree with you, I replied. We ve been friends ever since. The game is basically a mix of basketball, rugby, and bumper cars played by people in wheelchairs with a mentality that s half-hockey and half-kamikaze. It s reckless and powerful everything we re not supposed to be anymore. For the more fragile cripples among us, it can be downright dangerous. I loved it from the very first moment. Murderball. That s what got me into all this. Got me hooked into living again. And was probably going to get me murdered this Tuesday. Tuesday or about then depending on the weather, really and at the very bottom end of New Zealand, closer to Antarctica than most of the world, you didn t really want to make bets on the weather. Could be Tuesday, could be tomorrow. The Zoyl brothers were on a crayfish boat, working along the coastline to Fiordland. If the weather held they d be back on Tuesday. It wouldn t take them long to find out what I did. Figure out what I knew and then they d come for me. Four days from now. All because of Murderball. Funny the things that go through your head when you hang upside down long enough. At first I thought I d pass out, but it didn t happen. I tried shifting, getting myself out, but there s not a lot of room to move, and everything looks different when you re upside down and I was scared. When you re a cripple suspended upside down about eight meters above the crashing waves and sharp rocks, maybe you re not as confident in yourself as you could have been, either. The wheelchair saved my life, got caught between two boulders, trapping my leg as well. I didn t feel a thing; still doesn t hurt now as I gently dangle from it. The upside of paralysis from the hips down... yeah. Darrell, eldest and ugliest of the three Zoyl brothers, had pushed me out here to the rocks by the sea. I think he wanted to make it look like an accident or suicide, who knows. I came out to their farm because I had to know, had to
know finally and for certain. I didn t expect any of them to be here. Saw their crayfish boat chug out of the harbour that morning. Saw the big brothers sorting on the deck. Their yellow waterproofs bright in the morning sun. I should have counted them. When he saw me, Darrell didn t do anything, didn t say a word, no change in expression. We just looked at each other and he knew. He ran forward, blocked me midway as I was turning my wheelchair and started kicking. Irrationally, that pissed me off even more a kicking fight with a guy in a wheelchair. The chair went over and he kept going. I think I blacked out, because the next I knew I was back in the chair, my ears ringing. Darrell s hand was on the back of my jacket collar, keeping me from sliding off as he roughly pushed the wheelchair out over the paddock towards the ocean. We were heading up the hill, not a big drop from the edge, maybe ten, twelve meters, but big enough with rough seas and rocks at the bottom, and that s if you had working legs and were still alive. I shut up and hung limp, hoping he thought I was still out. It was creepy; his head was down right next to mine as he pushed. I could feel the heat of his face next to mine, his breath down my neck, smelling of soured beer. The timing of it was just luck, just instinct. When we were near the top the ground evened out and he suddenly sped up, pushing with great heaves. I opened my eyes fully and saw the edge right in front of us. I grabbed for his arm, not really planning anything, just not wanting to go over. He must have stumbled because I felt his weight crash against the chair, felt him yanking, trying to free his arm but that s one thing about people in wheelchairs; our arms do the job of your legs every day, they re strong. When we grip something, we decide when to let go, nobody else. And so Darrell went over with me. There was a confusing moment of scraping and rushing air and then I was upside down, staring at the sea below as Darrell hit the water. He came up spitting foam and looking straight up at me. Then he tried to grip the rock face as another wave crashed on him. My hope flared briefly but he resurfaced almost immediately and went for the same rock, got both hands on it before the next wave hit, clung on this time, and looked up at me again.
That s the strange thing. It s not like they show it on TV; he was trying to kill me and I had been fighting for my life, but neither of us had said a word to each other. I guess there s nothing left to say when you come to this point. He was getting further up the rocks, legs out of the waves now, when my brain finally started working again. I needed to get away before he climbed all the way up here. I eyed the rock face. If he could... maybe it would be too hard, I thought with vain hope. Then I remembered that it was high tide. All he needed to do was wait for the tide to go out and walk back around, or even risk the swim to the beach side right now. He had some scrapes that were bleeding but he looked fine I was a cripple dangling upside down from my dead leg, which looked, by the angle of my foot, to be broken, too. That s when I remembered the gun. Frantically grabbing for my jacket, I felt the heavy lump of it right there. God, it was still there! I had been reaching for it when he attacked me and then once it all started just forgot about it it was my first time being killed. I got it out with both hands shaking. Darrell was about three meters below me when I pointed it at him. He was focussing on his handholds but when he looked up, he stopped moving. He looked at the gun and then our eyes met, and we held the stare for a long moment. His eyes started to tear up. He closed his mouth, bit down on his lip and just nodded slowly several times, real calm. Then he twisted slightly and leaned back into the rock and looked out to the sea and said, just loud enough for me to hear: OK. That s when I shot him. The bullet struck on top of his shoulder close to his neck. There was one, big, spurting gout of blood and then nothing. I could still clearly see the red hole as Darrell s body jerked and he slumped against the rock. He didn t fall or scream like I thought he would, just slowly slid down until his legs settled on the waterline, the waves crashing and foaming up around his feet. He took two deep and sighing breaths, his head slumped down to his chest, and then he went still. I m not sorry. I don t know how long it s been. I lost my watch somewhere up there during the struggle or during the fall; lost my phone, too. I m still shaking so maybe a few minutes, maybe half an hour, I think. Darrell s body is still there, his blood making pink streaks in the sea foam, and it s hard not to keep staring at him. I
saw his leg move and my heart jumped but then I realised it was only the waves moving it. It s just a body now Darrell Zoyl isn t here anymore. Four days until Sean and Archie come back, maybe. I still had the gun. Carefully I put it back in my jacket pocket and buttoned it up, my hand involuntarily straying to feel the reassuring weight there every few seconds. But really the gun was a fool s hope. I wasn t going to survive out here for four days; probably wouldn t survive the cold tonight, and that s only if my leg held out and I didn t end up in the ocean. No. Making it four days without food or water? No. Even then, if I survived all of that, was I going to fight off both brothers when they came for me from my current position? No. Looks like Darrell actually did kill me, too. I didn t mean to do it that way, but when it hit me, when I started accepting that I was going to die out here I looked out at the sea, nodded, and said, OK, too.