Pedal to the Portal

"Gladys drives the way she approaches most problems—with terrifying confidence and minimal regard for consequences."

Jamie had always hated being a passenger in Gladys's car.

The memory surfaced unbidden as we pulled onto the road in pursuit of Adrian's ute, and I immediately understood why. The seatbelt cut across my chest at an uncomfortable angle—too tight, adjusted for someone with different proportions—and my hands couldn't find anywhere natural to rest. I ended up gripping the edge of the seat with my right hand and bracing against the door with my left, my body instinctively preparing for impacts that hadn't happened yet.

Gladys drove with the particular confidence of someone who had either never had an accident or had decided accidents were other people's problems. The car lurched forward as she accelerated, throwing me back against the seat, then jerked sideways as she took a corner with more enthusiasm than the road conditions warranted. The tyres protested audibly, a squeal of rubber against bitumen that set my teeth on edge.

My foot pressed against the floor where a brake pedal should have been, the phantom motion accomplishing nothing except to highlight my complete lack of control. The car's interior smelled of old air freshener and something floral, and the combination with my growing nausea wasn't helping.

Through the windscreen, Adrian's ute appeared in the distance, a white shape against the grey-green blur of passing bushland. Relief loosened something in my chest. He hadn't gotten far. The roads here were quiet—winding rural routes that didn't encourage speed—and he seemed to be observing the limit with surprising discipline given his earlier haste to escape.

Then his brake lights flared briefly before the ute surged forward with renewed purpose.

He'd spotted us in his mirrors.

"He's seen us," I said, unnecessarily. Gladys was already adjusting, her foot pressing harder on the accelerator, the engine's pitch climbing as we gave chase. The speedometer crept upward—eighty, ninety, numbers that felt excessive on roads this rural—and still Adrian's ute pulled away.

The landscape blurred past the windows, eucalyptus and fern giving way to open paddocks and back to bush again. Each bend in the road brought a fresh surge of anxiety as Gladys navigated with more confidence than the conditions warranted. The car's suspension groaned over potholes and rough patches, the whole vehicle shuddering in ways that didn't inspire confidence in its structural integrity.

"He's going left," I said, pointing toward the highway as Adrian's indicator began to flash. "Keep following him."

Gladys nodded, her jaw set, her hands steady on the wheel. She shifted lanes with ease, merging onto the highway behind Adrian's ute as the road widened and the traffic—such as it was—thickened around us.

The change in venue seemed to embolden Adrian. His driving became increasingly erratic, the ute weaving between lanes with the desperate energy of a cornered animal. I watched him nearly clip a four-wheel drive in the adjacent lane, the larger vehicle's horn blaring as its driver swerved to avoid contact. Through the four-wheel drive's window, I caught a glimpse of a passenger's face twisted in fury, their mouth forming words that were probably anatomically impossible suggestions.

"Maybe we should stop." The words escaped before I'd fully processed them, a concession to the growing recklessness of our pursuit. We were on a highway now, surrounded by other vehicles, other lives, other consequences. Whatever happened here would have witnesses.

Gladys eased off the accelerator slightly, the car's speed dropping—

"Wait!" The urgency in my voice startled even me. Gladys's reaction was instantaneous and entirely disproportionate—her foot slammed down on the accelerator with a force that threw me back against the seat, the seatbelt cutting into my shoulder.

"Jesus, Gladys!"

But my irritation evaporated as I registered what had caught my attention. Ahead, Adrian's ute was slowing, its indicator signalling a move toward the road's edge. The brake lights glowed red against the grey sky, and the vehicle drifted leftward with the particular hesitation of someone making a decision they weren't sure about.

"He's pulling over."

We followed suit, the car rolling to a stop behind Adrian's ute on the gravel shoulder. Through the windscreen, the sky had darkened considerably, clouds massing overhead with the heavy intensity that preceded Tasmania's winter storms. The first drops of rain spattered against the glass, fat and widely spaced, harbingers of the deluge to come.

"Stay in the car," I told Gladys. My voice left no room for discussion, though I wasn't sure what authority I thought I had. Thunder rumbled overhead as if to emphasise my point, a deep percussive roll that seemed to vibrate through the car's frame. "Things are going to get messy."

What am I doing?

The question surfaced as I opened my door and stepped onto the road's gravelly shoulder. The gravel shifted beneath my feet, unstable, each step requiring more attention than it should have. Rain spattered against my face—cold, sharp, carrying the electric smell of approaching storm. Ahead, Adrian's ute sat silent, its engine still running, exhaust rising in white plumes that the wind immediately scattered.

Approaching him seemed inadvisable at best. He was clearly agitated, likely still impaired, definitely hostile. The combination didn't inspire confidence in any kind of productive conversation. But the alternative was letting him drive away with knowledge of the portal, with memories that might surface at inconvenient moments, with expertise that Bixbus desperately needed.

I moved toward the ute with caution, my steps slow and visible, my hands positioned where he could see them. The gravel crunched beneath my feet, announcing my approach.

The driver's door swung open before I'd closed half the distance.

It halted abruptly, as if Adrian had thought better of emerging, his silhouette visible through the window. Then it burst open again with renewed force, slamming against its hinges with a metallic protest.

Adrian climbed out with the coiled energy of someone who'd moved past fear into something more dangerous. His eyes were wild, whites visible around the irises, his jaw clenched tight enough to make the muscles stand out beneath the skin. His fists were clenched at his sides, knuckles prominent, and his whole body carried the particular tension of violence looking for a target.

I raised my hands instinctively, palms outward, the universal gesture of peaceful intent. My feet carried me backward, establishing distance between his obvious anger and my rapidly escalating concern.

"Hey... Adrian," I began, forcing calm into a voice that wanted to crack. "Let's just—"

The sound hit me before I understood what was happening.

Engine roar. Tyres screaming. A blur of motion in my peripheral vision that resolved, too late, into Gladys's car surging forward.

Adrian's face transformed. The fury drained away, replaced by something more primal—the pure, crystalline shock of a man watching death approach and finding himself unable to move. He spun toward the oncoming vehicle, arms raising in futile defence, his body beginning the motion of a dive that would never complete.

The impact was more startling than violent.

A thud of metal meeting flesh, Adrian's body folding forward over the bonnet. His hands slapped against the car's surface to catch himself, his face inches from the windscreen, half-standing, half-collapsed, his expression shifting from rage to bewilderment in the space of a heartbeat.

What the fuck, Gladys!?

The words screamed through my mind but never reached my lips. I stood frozen, watching Adrian push himself up from the bonnet, watching Gladys's hands fly to her mouth behind the windscreen, watching the situation deteriorate beyond any hope of salvage.

Then instinct took over.

I ran—not toward Adrian, but around him, skirting the front of Gladys's car in an awkward arc that probably looked absurd. My eyes scanned the surroundings desperately, cataloguing and dismissing options in rapid succession. I needed a surface. A wall. Something vertical and solid enough to anchor a portal. But the roadside offered nothing—just gravel and grass and the grey curtain of rain that had begun to fall, the world reduced to surfaces that couldn't help me.

Adrian's ute. The thought cut through the panic. Get inside. Get control of the vehicle. Figure out the rest later.

I changed direction, feet slipping on wet gravel, nearly going down before catching myself on the ute's side mirror. The driver's door was still open, swinging slightly in the wind, and I half-fell through it, my shin connecting sharply with the doorframe as I scrambled inside.

"Fuck!" The pain was bright and immediate, radiating up my leg in waves that made my eyes water. But it was secondary—background noise against the deafening urgency of the moment. I pulled my legs in and slammed the door shut, fingers fumbling with the lock until it engaged with a solid click.

The keys were still in the ignition. Adrian had left them there, engine running, in his haste to confront me. Small mercies.

What the fuck am I doing?

The question echoed through my skull, unanswerable. I gripped the steering wheel with hands that were shaking, partly from adrenaline and partly from the cold rain that had soaked through my clothes. My breath fogged the windscreen in rapid pulses, each exhale leaving a spreading patch of condensation.

A violent rattling at the door handle shattered what remained of my composure.

The window shuddered under impact—Adrian's fist, I realised, as his face appeared beyond the glass. His eyes met mine through the rain-streaked glass. Whatever he saw there—fear, probably, or the particular desperation of someone who'd lost control of a situation—seemed to enrage him further. His fist drew back for another strike.

I gestured frantically toward the passenger side. Get in. Please. Let me explain. The motion was instinctive, absurd, born from some part of my brain that still thought this could end in conversation.

The passenger door burst open with a violence that rocked the whole vehicle.

"Get the fuck out of my ute!" Adrian's voice was raw, scraped bloody by rage, his body half-inside the cabin as he reached for me with hands that promised nothing good.

My foot found the accelerator.

The ute lurched forward, tyres spinning on wet gravel before finding purchase, the sudden acceleration throwing Adrian off-balance. He scrambled desperately, his upper body already inside the vehicle, his legs kicking against the doorframe as he tried to either pull himself in or throw himself clear—I couldn't tell which.

The vehicle fishtailed as I steered onto the road, overcorrected, nearly clipped a car before finding the lane. Adrian had collapsed into the passenger seat, still cursing, his hand finally finding the seatbelt and yanking it across his chest with the particular urgency of someone who'd just realised how precarious his situation was.

The Brooker Highway stretched ahead, grey and rain-slicked, the wipers beating a frantic rhythm against the deluge. Behind us, Gladys's car had fallen into pursuit, her headlights visible in the rear-view mirror like a pair of watching eyes.

For several minutes, neither of us spoke. Adrian sat rigid in the passenger seat, his breathing ragged, his hands braced against the dashboard as if expecting another collision at any moment. The blood from the cut on his forehead had begun to dry in a dark streak down the side of his face, but he made no move to wipe it away. His eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, or perhaps on nothing at all—the thousand-yard stare of someone whose reality had cracked open and shown him something impossible.

I turned off the highway onto Berriedale Road, the familiar route toward home and then towards Collinsvale, unwinding before us. The wipers worked overtime to keep the windscreen clear. Gladys maintained her position behind us, close enough to follow but far enough back to avoid another incident.

The roundabout at Marys Hope Road appeared ahead, and I navigated through it with more care than I'd shown thus far, conscious of the wet conditions and the fragile equilibrium that had settled over the ute's interior. Adrian's silence was almost worse than his earlier rage—a pressure building beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to erupt.

The road climbed after the roundabout, winding up the hill toward Collinsvale proper. Bush pressed in from both sides, eucalypts and ferns dripping with rain, the landscape growing wilder as we left the suburban sprawl behind. Each bend in the road brought us closer to the Owens' property, closer to a place to open the portal, closer to ending this disaster.

My phone rang.

The sound was jarring—mundane against the tension of the moment—and I grabbed it with one hand, thumbing the speaker while keeping my eyes on the road. "Gladys."

"We can't go back to the Owens'." Her voice was clipped, urgent.

"Why not?"

"Police are there."

"Shit!" My grip tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles going white. The Owens' property had been the plan—get Adrian through the portal, contain the situation, end this nightmare. Without that option, I was driving blind, literally and metaphorically.

"The Owens' sounds like a fucking great idea to me," Adrian interjected from the passenger seat, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

We were close now—too close. The turnoff to the Owens' property flashed past, and in the brief glimpse I caught, I saw vehicles parked near the cottage. Police vehicles. Gladys was right.

Then we were past, the property’s turnoff receding in the mirror, and for a moment I thought we might have slipped by unnoticed.

"Shit! The police are behind us!" Gladys's voice crackled through the speaker, panic threading through the static.

The mirror confirmed her words. A car had pulled out from the Owens' property, falling into line behind Gladys, and as I watched, its lights began to flash—blue and red strobing through the rain. The siren's wail reached us a moment later, cutting through the engine noise and the steady percussion of rain on metal.

We wove through the wet roads, each turn a gamble, each straight section a race against the closing pursuit. Collinsvale Road, then Collins Cap Road, the route dictated more by instinct than planning. My hands were slick on the wheel, sweat mixing with rain, and every correction felt delayed, the ute's weight working against me.

"Myrtle Forest! Go to Myrtle Forest." Gladys's voice cut through with sudden clarity.

"Oh, hell no!" Adrian's protest was immediate and visceral, his body pressing back against the seat as if he could physically distance himself from the suggestion.

I veered onto Springdale Road, executing a turn that should have been impossible at this speed. The ute's rear end broke loose momentarily, fishtailing across the wet bitumen before the tyres found grip again. Adrian swore creatively, his hands braced against the dashboard.

"What am I going to do at Myrtle Forest?" The question burst from me.

"Where've the fucking cops gone?" Adrian twisted in his seat, scanning every direction. The flashing lights had disappeared from the mirror, the siren's wail vanished. But I knew better than to hope we'd lost them.

"The toilet block," Gladys said through the phone, her voice strained. "At Myrtle Forest. It's big enough."

For a moment, the words didn't register. Toilet block. Myrtle Forest. Then the pieces clicked into place—a public amenities building, brick construction, solid walls. A surface large enough to anchor a portal. Large enough, perhaps, to drive a ute through.

That could actually work.

"What about you?" I asked, sudden concern breaking through the tactical calculations. "Are you coming too?"

"I can't." Her voice cracked on the second word.

"There's no time to go back now. You'll get caught."

"Shit!"

The forest materialised through the rain, dark shapes resolving into trees as the road narrowed and the wilderness pressed in from both sides. The dirt carpark appeared ahead—a muddy clearing hacked from the bush, puddles reflecting the grey sky, empty except for the structure I was searching for.

There.

The toilet block. Brick and concrete, positioned against a backdrop of dripping ferns and towering eucalypts. Not ideal, but it would have to work.

I accelerated toward it, the ute's tyres churning mud as we crossed the carpark. Adrian's elbow connected with my ribs—intentional or accidental, impossible to say—as the sudden change in direction threw him sideways.

"Fuck!" The word tore from both of us simultaneously.

The window. I needed the window down. My right hand fumbled with the control while my left kept the wheel steady, the glass descending in jerky increments to admit a spray of cold rain. The toilet block loomed ahead, filling the windscreen, and I was already reaching for the Portal Key, already focusing my intention on the wall rushing toward us.

The colours erupted against the brick—swirling, brilliant, impossible. The portal opened across the structure's surface like a wound in reality, edges flickering and dancing, large enough for the ute.

"I'm going in!" I shouted toward the phone, toward Gladys, toward whatever connection still remained.

"What do I do?" Her shriek came through distorted by panic and static, the words barely recognisable as human speech.

"Gladys... Run!"

The portal swallowed the ute whole. Colour and motion exploded around us—purple and blue and green spiralling through the cabin—and the phone connection died the instant we crossed the threshold. Gladys's voice cut off mid-breath, replaced by static, then silence.

I closed the portal behind us before the dust had settled, the swirling colours collapsing into nothing—severing us from Gladys, from the sirens, from the rain-soaked chaos inevitably unfolding on the other side.