The Worm King Read online

  A variety of tools were attached neatly to the garage walls on clips, or stacked at various points around the floor. Nathan stopped before an upright rack, in the corner opposite the door.

  He picked out the biggest axe and walked slowly back to the boat.

  WEATHER BADGE DIARY

  Today we got back from Goulburn and the roads were frozen so we slid into the ditch twice. Mr Snow got angry at the man driving who started crying.

  Canberra smells like the barbecue Uncle Eric always has on Australia Day, except in the dark and we can hear people shooting.

  Krystal lost our rain gauge. Cumulonimbus clouds are the ones you have to watch for rain. Mr Snow said they are like big anvils with low, black bottoms and tall fluffy tops and cause all the thunderstorms. Without the sun you can’t see them but he said they are still there.

  Mrs Sheng said our parents are sure to turn up at one of the checkpoints soon.

  Natasha

  Chapter Eighteen

  Narrandera

  What happened at Narrandera? Winston was trying to figure out exactly when everyone became so gloomy. Astrid especially.

  The Hat scratched the side of his head. ‘Narrandera? Yeah, I remember. Jeez, it was nothing, I swear. You were having a kip and I was driving. Astrid went up to this house that had a light shining in the window, then she run back to the van like she had a greyhound up her arse. I told her not to be such a blouse and get back in there, and find out if they had any water, and she hasn’t spoken a civil word to me since.’

  By Narrandera they’d driven three-quarters of the way from Mulloolaloo to Griffith. This was after staying at the observatory for five days, waiting. Waiting for the sun to appear, the power or phones to come back on . . . any word from anyone? Anything? Nothing. The storeroom duplex Dr Zoy had put them in subtly morphed into a pair of stark, fetid prison cells. A type of Bangkok Hilton, custom-built for science geeks: no rats, only deathly boring file-filled computer boxes where the sole privilege was a torturous daydream about the impossibility of pizza. By day five at the observatory, Astrid had persuaded them all to head for Griffith, and with the temperature outdoors having fallen to more bearable levels, they’d driven away in Leroy’s van which the Zoymeister had been kind enough to refill with gas.

  When they arrived in Griffith a day and a half later, via Narrandera, it was already decidedly cool.

  ‘So it was either the greyhound comment, or maybe it was because I told her about what you did at Kenny’s keg party earlier this year.’

  ‘Bastard. That wouldn’t have helped. Why’d you have to tell her that?’

  The Hat shrugged.

  ‘What did he do, may I ask?’ inquired Lord Brown. Azziz propped himself up on one elbow. The dog lay on the floor next to Azziz, but slightly closer to the lantern, while Astrid, her parents and Āmiria were asleep in the bedrooms.

  ‘I don’t think we need to go through that now,’ protested Winston.

  The Hat ignored the request. ‘Kenny kept telling us to turn the stereo down, and eventually he hiffed us out, so Winston left him a top-decker with a serving of chilli peas.’

  ‘Is a kind of burger?’ asked Azziz. He hadn’t been invited to Kenny’s little soirée.

  ‘Sort off,’ explained the Hat. ‘It’s probably got bits of burger in it. A top-decker is when you take a dump in the toilet cistern. They’ll flush and flush and flush, and never work out where the smell’s coming from. By the time they do, it’s usually just easier to sell the house and fuck off from the place. A true artist. Chilli peas is when you do a tinkle in the ice cube tray. Gives your g&t a whole new flavor.’

  ‘Quite limey’ reflected Winston.

  ‘I rather fancy a slice of lime in my g&t,’ admitted Lord Brown.

  The Hat grimaced. ‘Old limes though.’

  ‘Rotten,’ confirmed Winston.

  ‘An artist indeed,’ decreed the Lord.

  ‘Thank you, Master.’

  No, it wasn’t Kenny’s. And it wasn’t only Astrid: Winston felt different too. Ever since Narrandera it felt as if someone were watching him. You know that creepy-crawly feeling you get sometimes on the back of your neck? When the darkness is so thick and oppressive you’d think you’ve been swallowed whole, and things inside the belly of the creature that’s gobbled you up are reaching out . . . touching, with cold slimy fingers. He’d even tried that meditation technique, when you close your eyes real tight, screwing them shut and concentrating like crazy and telling yourself this is all completely illogical, and nonsense, and it’s just a matter of focusing the mind; dropping to a fresher, clearer level; a thinking level where you can—

  No, someone is definitely watching. Even down here. Winston snapped his eyes open, looking in a hundred directions at once but seeing nothing, except Peanuts. The spaniel slumbered in the sickly, insipid glow of the twenty dollar lantern from which their puny lives dangled. Peanuts was the only one smart enough to sit right next to it, soaking up the pathetic amount of warmth on offer. Astrid had warned them not to turn the lamp up because once the fuel ran out, that’s it. “That’s it” had carried an ugly, desperate tone like she’d pulled it straight from the chorus of some long forgotten Gothic pyre dirge.

  Satan will come. You’re all buggered. That’s it.

  ‘I’ll just turn it up a smidge,’ said the Hat. ‘She’ll never notice. Sitting in the dark all the time like this, it’s giving me the shits, I’ll tell ya.’

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Winston. However, he was torn. Torn asunder, apart and into disarray. Big head over stumpy legs into disarray. Their relationship . . . was it called that already? No. But whatever it was, it might struggle with the strain of another infringement by the Hat.

  Perhaps darkness made the connection between people tighter? Maybe you could read their thoughts? Astrid had been withdrawn since Narrandera, watching over her shoulder all the time, jumpy and nervous even inside the house. Obviously not happy with the Hat either. The creepy-crawly feeling he’d developed said it was more than just the Hat’s jokes, and poor personal hygiene, which were the usual culprits when it came to the Hat and shelias.

  Winston remembered how his mum always said he could read minds. She’d thought this must be the case (surely?) when he was so vertically cursed. There had to be some other yet to be revealed superpower balancing out the blight inflicting him. Could her boy fly!? If he took his mind way, way back there was the faintest glimmer of this memory from so long ago it might’ve been before he was even walking, and he’d been laughing at her, not understanding the question she’d just asked but loving the way her arms went flappity-flap. Then when he’d failed to take-off, this heartrending sadness crossed her face and he’d noticed a wisp of grey hair and creasy lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there before. What’d he done? Hang on, maybe he could melt stuff with a single glance, or, with a flourish of his W-emblazoned cape, become invisible! Where’s Winnie gone! Flappity-flap.

  His mum might’ve liked Astrid.

  When it became clear he could neither soar skywards nor miraculously disappear, in actual fact there’d only been mind-reading to fall back on. After all, you can always simply take a stab at that and you only need to get it half-right once or twice, and you’ve got them hooked.

  Azziz was also troubled, and sombre as a judge. Winston could smell his despondency from a mile off. The Egyptian had even turned down a fantastically valuable unopened packet of deep-fried pork crackling three hours ago, instead giving it to Āmiria. Three hours? What did that mean anyway? Without the usual night-day cycle, time had lost all meaning. Life had become a series of black gaps, interspersed with bleak, deteriorating events.

  ‘When did that happen?’ someone might ask.

  ‘It happened about half-past when the baked beans run out.’

  Kenny’s birthday shindig now seemed an awfully long time ago. The date today is seven months and fifteen days past the last top-decker. He made an attempt to steer the conversation in a happier dir
ection. ‘So what’s the party scene like in Griffith?’

  Azziz lay wrapped in a fluorescent pink sleeping bag on the floor, using a cushion pulled from the sofa as a pillow. ‘Order is breaking down. No light is making people jumpy and unpredictable. And violent, much more so. Seeing things too.’

  ‘Yes, Montabelli mentioned there were problems in Canberra like that.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean the government or the civil problem. With the people themselves. The darkness. She is making them go strange.’

  The Hat gave Winston a concerned glance. ‘She? They giving you enough time off at the hospital there, Bigboy?’

  ‘You are right,’ grunted Azziz, changing position on the floor so his sleeping bag crinkled loudly until the ponderous movement ceased. ‘Is more a “He” I think.’

  ‘It can’t be healthy,’ reasoned the Hat. ‘I thought only bad things come out of the dark: your werewolves; vampires; Dracula and that lot. They’re all night critters.’

  Azziz told them he was more concerned about some group that’d emerged opposed to the council. The Businessman’s Militia they called themselves. Water shortages were nudging critical and everyone was living on canned food, which would only last so long. Dysentery was rife and worse lay on the horizon. Scurvy. Rickets. Scrofula. None of the news from the hospital sounded good.

  ‘No sense going anywhere yet though,’ asserted Winston. ‘I mean, at least till it’s easier to see and the powers back on?’

  ‘I know why you want to stay here, you crafty little mongrel,’ said the Hat slyly.

  Francesco was back with the latest update from Canberra. Winston watched the councilman take a seat on the sofa while Nathan’s wife bustled into the kitchen to rustle up weak tea and homemade biscuits. She’d run out of flour and her biscuits were of very poor quality indeed.

  Griffith. If you believed brochures, it was the oasis of the Riverina. The fruit bowl of New South Wales they called it. A town of 17,000 people soaked in Italian romance and culture; a merry old wine town, propped up by alcohol in the heartland of a nation that lives and breathes grog in one form or another. But sneak a peek through that window and all you’ll see is darkness, and if you’re stupid enough to go outside, the wind and bitter cold will suck the romance right out of you in seconds.

  ‘Water is problem now,’ said Francesco. ‘All the farms here, they use much irrigation. No power, they all stop. No sun, so plants die anyway but people still taking the water from Main Canal. This is dirty even after straining many times.’ He shook his head and scowled, rubbing his stomach. ‘Taste very bad. Runs.’

  ‘You said you had news from Canberra?’ prompted Astrid.

  ‘Yes, yes. A car arrive before I come here.’ He prodded his finger at the floor. ‘With two policemen, from Canberra. We think they bring assistance but they not even have enough petrol to get back. Now we have to look after them.’ Francesco smiled but his battered lips and dangerous nose didn’t go along for the ride. ‘So, I am leaving for Canberra. Soon. The Council, they want me to find out about the water. And when the power could be back again, so I go to do this.’

  ‘Can I go too?’ asked Astrid. ‘I could go to the Channel Six office, and at least check if the twins are there, or maybe we could find Dick.’ Francesco nodded.

  Winston had a suspicion he may’ve engineered the Canberra trip simply because he knew Astrid wanted to get there. A surge of bravado rose in his chest and before he knew what he was doing, the words had poured out: ‘I’ll come along too if you like, help you look for them. If there’s enough room, that is?’

  Francesco shrugged. ‘Sure. No problemo.’ Winston was surprised how quickly he agreed and immediately began to regret his offer.

  ‘Can someone take me to Tamworth too then? demanded Āmiria. She sat on the floor by the lantern with the dog in front of her.

  Astrid shook her head. ‘I thought we agreed that—’

  ‘I’d be happy to take her,’ cut in Lord Brown. ‘If we had a car and another driver it would be no problem at all . . . ?’

  ‘No—’

  The Hat put up his hand. ‘I can drive! I’ve never been to Tamworth. I’d be keen as mustard. That’s where they have that C & W festival isn’t it? When’s that on again? We’ll take the dog, he’ll keep us honest.’ Astrid looked far from convinced but Winston could see she’d already lost the argument.

  Azziz said he’d prefer to remain in Griffith and help out at the hospital. Ten minutes later he crawled out of his sleeping bag and left with Francesco, who said he’d return in two hours to collect Astrid and Winston.

  An hour later it hadn’t gotten any lighter or warmer or cheerier, and Winston, the Hat and Astrid were the only ones left in the lounge. She’d turned off the lantern so they sat in pitch dark. Her parents had been upset by her decision to leave and gone to their bedroom.

  As the darkness enveloped them, Winston felt himself sliding into a funk again. His mind drifted back to Narrandera, once more trying to pinpoint the source of the melancholy. An idea began to form. It occurred that it might not be anything specific that’d actually happened at Narrandera, it could be more about the time spent in the dark. He realized that by Narrandera, he’d been almost exactly a week in the dark, which was longer than he’d ever spent in his life. He’d had multi-day benders on the sauce before, where he hadn’t seen the sun for four, maybe even five days, but definitely never seven days on the trot. It all began to make sense. If Astrid also confirmed that nothing specific had happened at Narrandera, this would, at a minimum, be partial confirmation. So maybe it was only the darkness getting him down, and in reality there was nothing to actually be frightened of!

  ‘So what happened at Narrandera? On the way here.’

  He felt the sofa move as she shifted uncomfortably. For a long time she didn’t say anything and he thought she might’ve gone to sleep, or was ignoring him. ‘I . . . I went in to ask for water, and saw this couple through the window. They were in their fifties I suppose, and were standing around a table. All dressed up, like they were about to go out somewhere. The man had a carving knife and the women, I guess it was his wife, was holding a white plate out. It was a big table with lots of chairs but just those two in the room.’

  She didn’t say anything for ages and eventually the Hat asked quietly, ‘What was on the table?’

  ‘A leg.’

  Chapter NinEteen

  Grange

  The Hyatt Hotel was an elegant, low slung colonial building in the Yarralumla district of Canberra, not far from Lake Burley-Griffith. It’d been erected as a hostel for politicians in 1924, and in 1987, the year of the massive stockmarket collapse, the Hyatt conglomerate converted it into three hundred rooms of opulent five-star luxury.

  Winston studied the imposing fence surrounding the hotel. It appeared to be constructed of heavy cross-hatched wire, at least three meters tall with an evil coil of barbed laced along the top. Two hotel staff manned the shonky looking gate, which seemed the only section of fence not topped with barbed wire. The pair on the gate had turned off their torches but whenever they moved it was easy to spot them against the twinkling hotel lights. Astrid had already been ushered inside to see Dick Snow and Winston was instructed to wait in the truck with Francesco.

  ‘You drink the wine? I have surprise,’ announced Francesco. It’d taken more than twenty hours to get here from Griffith: mostly travelling very slowly but in a few brief scary patches, extremely fast. ‘Is had time to sit now.’ He opened the truck door, climbed from the Ford’s cab and disappeared towards the rear, leaving the door irritatingly open. Cold air flooded in. Their supplies were stacked neatly on the tray under a tarpaulin. Winston heard the clink of bottles then Francesco reappeared, sliding a crate onto the seat then pushing it into the middle before getting back inside and slamming the door shut. Swirls of his warm garlicky breath spun around the interior. A rich aroma, thought Winston, but not rich in a pleasing, wealthy way. The gamey tang of corpulence lies rich abou
t you? Yeah.

  At least four other vehicles were parked around them, one in front and three behind, maybe more. All were older cars containing an unknown number of people who occasionally turned on torches for a second or two to get out for a leak or take a stretch. The only steady lights came from the hotel itself and three or four tents visible inside the fence between the gate and the front entrance of the hotel. Winston was pretty certain that the fence, and tents, were not part of the normal hotel architecture. A stand of burnt eucalyptus lined the immediate roadside where they waited, and past these, they could only see charred scrub. Neither man felt much like exploring.

  Francesco balanced his torch on the dash. It contained a rechargeable battery that he juiced up in the truck’s cigarette lighter whenever the engine was running. The battery was supposed to last for five hours and they even had another two fully-charged spares should that one run out before they moved the truck again. He carefully shifted the crate to the floor on the passenger side, below Winston’s feet, because the pedals didn’t allow it to fit on his own side. He opened the glove box and took out a street map then placed it on the seat between them, where the crate had been.

  As a general rule Winston stuck to beer and anything that emerged from a cask but this rule tended to be a bendy one, so he leant forward and grabbed one of the dusty bottles by the neck, smoothly sliding it out. ‘So this is wine.’ He tried to sound intelligent, going for a dash of James Bond and a touch of Lone Ranger. Shaken, stirred and lassoed. ‘Where’s it from?’

  ‘Yes. It is wine. A vineyard owner, he trade it.’ Francesco reached over and firmly but gently took the bottle Winston shook while holding it up to the light to see what moved in the bottom. ‘It is Penfolds Grange, a mixture of different years. This the most expensive wine in Australia.’ He peered at the label of Winston’s selection. ‘1981. Is a good choice, we try this then, after we have let sit for some longer. In meantime, we start on this.’ He withdrew a second bottle, placing Winston’s shaken ’81 in the gap.