The Worm King Read online

  Lord Brown struggled upright, knocking over his empty plastic cup in the process. ‘I need to go for a leak.’

  ‘Me too.’ Wiremu rose in a single fluid movement which took him from cross-legged to fully erect in the blink of an eye. Tamati and Hemi began to stand too, but he patted the air once with a flat hand and suddenly they weren’t getting up after all, only adjusting the stuffed burlap sacks they sat on.

  The old man weaved his way through the crowd. Most people didn’t even look up. Some stared, like stunned mullets with glazed expressions, and one or two unhealthy faces were more questioning, actually eyeballing him. Where’re you going? Why have you got somewhere to go? Yes, you! Mutter, mutter.

  On the other side of the gym the main door swung open and four . . . no, five new figures entered. One hundred and forty-four. Hard to tell from this distance, what with having to step around people all the time, but the one on the left looked like Tim, so that was probably Sgt Kevin alongside him. The Mason descended from his platform. Lord Brown would’ve been keen to see who the other arrivals were, but Wiremu had already made the exit. Why wasn’t anyone interested? No wonder they never got the Two-Up off the ground!

  Outside, Wiremu let the door close and switched on his torch. The beam spiked down the path, immediately finding the row of three yellow port-a-loos. He clicked the light off. ‘Better save these batteries. Here, give us yer hand.’ The gym had a row of small windows inset high on the wall, just below the eves. They weren’t enough to see by, but enough to navigate if you were desperate. Presumably that was why they put the loos on this side.

  Now, he found himself being led onwards through the dark. Your classic hangover deterioration, and Lord Brown was fully prepared for it. One minute you’re sitting around, guzzling liquor, having a tremendous old time: next thing you’re out in the dark being led to an unsavory toilet by a disturbingly muscular Māori. ‘Sequenso predictûm,’ he muttered.

  ‘What’d you say?’

  Before he could answer came a hollow knock as Wiremu rapped on the side of the port-a-loo. The vibration of it tingled delicately up through Lord Brown’s held hand. He expected the torch to come back on, so they could enter and mount their respective thrones, but instead he was dragged on, continuing past the port-a-loos and further away from the gym.

  ‘Hate using them things,’ complained Wiremu. ‘They stink like buggery. Anyway, after a man’s had a couple of beers, he’s got a right to take a slash in the open. Only natural. Bloody constitutional. Orta be anyway.’ At last they came to a halt and the torch flashed back on. ‘This’ll do.’ It must’ve been lawn once, but was now just mud with occasional flecks of grey, dead grass and bits of stick trampled through. The light went off and Lord Brown’s hand released. He heard the plasticy rasp of a zip, followed by a grunt, then urine splattering unevenly onto the mushy turf.

  Wiremu spoke quietly: ‘We all leav’in come sun-up. Next time there is any sun, that is. Us and the boys. Maybe before, if it suits. I know this place is dodgy, you don’t have to tell me: they’re just using us for doin’ the clearin’ up work they don’t wanna do themselves and givin’ us all their scraps for tucker. Jerry and Ken said they’d take us south.’ His flow of urine petered for a second, then resumed. ‘Thing is, I’ve already had a quiet word with Sergeant Kevin, who seems alright, but he doesn’t reckon they’ll just let us go for nothing. Want the food they’ve been giving us back or something. Being wankers, if you ask me. They don’t wanna lose us to do all the crap work. So we gunna get some grief, but Kev thought we’d swing it alright.’ Wiremu’s flow finally spluttered to a close.

  Lord Brown remembered why they were standing there, and began to fumble with his trouser zip. His withered penis eventually emerged, and he let go, making considerably less splash than Wiremu’s healthy gush. The muscles around his groin and hips quivered loosely and he hoped he didn’t shit himself. ‘Holy mother, that’s a relief! What about the other hundred and thirty-three? And you know the sergeant’s in there now? He arrived with some others just as we walked out.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw them arrive. They’ll keep. The hundred and . . . you mean the rest of them in there?’

  ‘That’s correct.’ A small dollop of faeces trickled uncomfortably down his inner thigh.

  ‘When I’ve told the Mason we’re off, I’ll put the word out and anyone else who wants can come. Jerry said we’d squeeze fifty in his bus at a pinch, but I don’t think anything like that will wanna go. The useless buggers seem happy to just sit here.’

  Wiremu flicked on his torch. ‘Over here.’ He illuminated a wooden seat with a metal rubbish bin alongside. They sat. His beam probed out in a semi-circle, not reaching far and only picking up soggy ground and one dead tree so he switched it off. ‘A joker who used to work at the school took me for a walk around, a few days ago. There’s a big row of jacarandas straight ahead, just outta range, with a footy field on either side.’

  A lengthy pause followed. ‘What a fucking shambles.’ He didn’t say it with desperation, or anger: more a banal statement of fact. Lord Brown could see where Āmiria inherited her quaint turn of phrase.

  The seat buckled as Wiremu shifted position. The boards hadn’t seemed wet when they sat, but the dampness now leached up, soaking into his strides.

  ‘The girl said you’ve been kind to her, so I’m much obliged.’ His tone was thankful, yet still somehow managed to carry a threatening edge.

  Another shorter pause. ‘You know Geoff, that big fūlla in there who works with me?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I took him on about six months ago, when me and the girl were last back home. He’d just done five years in Paremoremo and needed a break, so I gave him one. Got nicked for pinching undersized pauas. Well, that and aggravated armed robbery. Anyway, he came around to Monty’s place straight after he got out, and I watched him drink a dozen pretty quick that morning, but it was nothing on how fast you just slotted those beers in there. And all that bloody Windowleen!’ He stared at Lord Brown. ‘You aren’t gunna to be holding us back are you?’

  ‘No!’ he replied with as much assurance as a man with wet poo down his leg could muster. ‘I’m absolutely chipper.’ A change of topic seemed appropriate. ‘When we were travelling up here, Āmiria told us you used to drive monster trucks, out west?’

  Wiremu laughed. ‘No, that’s what she called them. I run a gang of chippies now, but for about seven years before that, used to work in the Pilbarra at an iron mine on the western edge of the Simpson. Drove an excavator. A Liebherr 9800. She could shift 42 cubic meters in one bite and had a shovel that at full stretch was the size of a three-story house. Tyres the height of a bus. Air con, tinted glass, kick-arse stereo. Was a beaut machine to drive, that’s for sure. Been in Aussie nearly fifteen years now. Came over just after the girl was born. Making plenty a wedge, but who knows if it’s bin worth it? We usually go home at least three or four times a year, visit the whanau, get out in the bush, but she’s growing up more Aussie than Māori.’

  ‘What do you do in the bush?’

  ‘Hunting.’ Wiremu sniffed the air noisily, snorted, then slid further away down the seat.

  Lord Brown realized this must be standard, run-of-the-mill, tribal edification. This is why the girl is like she is. He didn’t know the exact, finer intricacies of Māori culture, so couldn’t be certain, but he didn’t need to know because it was obvious where all this was heading anyway, under sequenso predictûm rules. At the current rate of accelerating deterioration, it was only a matter of time before Wiremu sets him loose in the dark, with no food or torch, and gets his daughter to hunt him for sport.

  * * *

  Āmiria desperately wished her father would return.

  ‘The dog’s got to go, we can’t feed it,’ the Mason insisted, his arms folded, determined. He’d strutted over with Sgt Kevin and three others just as her father went outside with old Brownie. Tim and Sgt Kevin didn’t look happy about the decision, but then again, they weren�
�t disagreeing either. She felt deserted.

  Surprisingly, feeding the dog hadn’t been too much of a problem so far because on the bus trip they’d found enough roadkill, and when they first arrived at the gym, Peanuts found two dead cats on the back porch of an abandoned house less than a hundred meters from the school gate. She was stretching these out, so he didn’t woof them all at once. One tabby was now gone, and the second wrapped tightly in plastic which she’d convinced Lord Brown to keep at the bottom of his bag, partly to keep it away from the dog so he didn’t grab it, and partly because it was a bit stinky and she thought it’d draw less attention in his stuff since there was already a substantially wider gap around his sleeping area anyway.

  Tim tapped his father on the arm. ‘I know where a bag of dog biscuits are?’

  ‘Do you?’ Sgt Kevin looked surprised. ‘Where?’

  ‘One of the classrooms here. It’s my form room. They gave them to us on a farm trip and Mr Swanson didn’t know what to do with them, so they’re still sitting in a cupboard. At least I think they are.’

  He nodded, pleased with his son, and turned to the Mason. ‘I suppose there’s no reason she can’t keep it then, while the dog food lasts?’

  ‘No. We might need that later anyhow.’

  ‘What? The dog food! You must be joking!’

  ‘What’s up?’ Wiremu said, stepping lightly around the Mason and Sergeant, and was suddenly in front of her, tussling her hair. Lord Brown appeared beside the Hat. She was surprised he remained upright because he sure drank a lot. He looked sheepish rather than pissed, and Āmiria guessed her father might’ve had words with him.

  She began telling him about the dog but he held up his hand, cutting her off, and turned to the Mason: ‘You don’t have to worry about it. We’re leaving as soon as there’s any light in the sky. My blokes and the other lot who arrived with me daughter. And the dog.’

  ‘Well, that’s no problem then,’ Sgt Kevin nodded, glancing at the Mason who just scowled. ‘Of course. Where’ll you go?’ Āmiria was of the understanding that neither knew the whereabouts of the stashed bus, and she’d been given strict instructions not to say a word to Tim about it.

  ‘South. Anyone else who wants can come too.’

  The Sergeant had a thought. ‘Reckon you can wait till tomorrow lunchtime? I have to head out to the southern highway soon, and I’m sure it’s still closed at the moment anyway. They’ve had a spot of trouble there and the road’s been closed.’ He turned to the Mason for confirmation. ‘That’ll be okay, won’t it?’

  ‘Not up to me,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, tomorrow’s fine,’ her father replied.

  She knew he’d get it all fixed! Fixed almost too quickly, if truth be told, because she’d probably rather not leave that soon. Maybe Dubbo had done that to her? She definitely didn’t want to go through there again. They’d spent far too much time in Dubbo just sitting around in the dark. It’d been depressing, and made her think of horrible things. It used to be only when she was asleep, but now, often out of nowhere, she’d get this terrifying image flash across of frigid waves crashing against the rocks in the black of night on Murawai beach, and she’d be tumbling down and down and down into the water. Āmiria shivered. Get a grip! No, it’s not just that: it was better here with a few more kids her age too. Like Tim, who was staring at her . . . saying something?

  ‘Shall we go and get them now?’ He swept his long fringe back, frustrated that she didn’t even seem to be listening. ‘Can I use a torch dad?’

  He had to flick his hair back often, which looked kind of cool. She wondered what the torch was about.

  ‘For the dog biscuits!’

  Sgt Kevin frowned. ‘Hang on. I’ve got to head south now?’

  ‘I’ll be right here, won’t I? Jimmy told me earlier he was going with you?’

  The sergeant eventually agreed, so Tim stayed.

  The classroom had a musty, rotting smell with a distinctly different aroma from the gymnasium. The gym had plenty of musty, and a degree of rotten, but the rotten in here was out of this world.

  ‘I thought we might have to eat them ourselves too, that’s why I didn’t mention them to anyone earlier. Dad’s real strict about what me and me sister eat, so even now he wouldn’t be keen on us eating them probably. Now it’s getting light, I don’t suppose we need to save them so much.’ He shone his father’s torch on the jumbo bag of Dingo Meaty Chunkettes in the cupboard behind the teacher’s desk. Peanuts whined softly, nosing the bag. Āmiria had him on a rope lead.

  ‘Where’s your sister?’

  ‘Sydney. Mum and dad got divorced last year and Bridget lives with mum down there.’ Tim hauled the bag out. ‘Wait a minute, I’ll just check the fish.’ He left the chunkettes leaning against the teacher’s desk and walked towards the back of the classroom, between the neat rows. She followed, pushing one of the desks as she passed and it moved slightly out of line. How had they all stayed so orderly? Tim’s beam fell on the half-filled aquarium, then the pile of dead weed on the carpet, then back on the aquarium. That’s where the smell was coming from: someone had taken everything out. Even the small plastic filter had been removed and dumped unceremoniously on the floor alongside the weed. With no fish in the tank, the water had settled into a translucent, greenish-yellow gunk.

  ‘Damn! The pump wasn’t working, obviously, but goldfish are real hardy so they’d been strugglin’ on. I still gave them some food every few days when we were here.’ He shone the torch around the tank, bending in close to the glass and Āmiria could see he looked sad. ‘This was our form room, and I’m supposed to be the class expert on goldfish. Did you do class experts?’ She shook her head.

  ‘Mr Swanson made everyone pick a topic at the start of the year, out of this giant box you had to put your hand in. Then you had to do a project on it and presentation to the rest of the class and that. Goldfish: that’s what I got.’ He nudged his foot into the dead oxygen weed. ‘Better than Leo, who I play footy with, he got “caterpillars of Europe”. Hey! There’s one left!’ Tim bent down and touched the dead fish, its eyes sunken and mouth wide. ‘It’s dead.’ He prodded a finger into the pile of oxygen weed. ‘It’s not dried out yet, so couldn’t have been here that long.

  ‘I wonder why . . . ’ He suddenly spun the beam away, running it around the walls and probing all the corners, and hidden spots. What was he looking for? The other goldfish? Maybe they’re finally making good their escape and just taking a breather under a desk before the big push to the nearest lake. Or is he looking for the abductor of the goldfish? The starving creature sitting in the dark gnawing its prize. They’d warned her about abductors at her school, after a man tried to lure a girl into his car last year. There’d been a big assembly about it, and a policeman spoke to the whole school. The garish drawings around the classroom wall came to life under Tim’s flashing beam: jumping and leaping; distorted, misshapen faces bristling with purple vampire fangs, enormous eyes and horns, and waves rising up at her, falling . . . she grabbed his arm, breathing hard. The beam steadied, focused on the exit door. ‘Let’s get the bag and go,’ he said quietly.

  As dinnertime approached, the activity and general hubbub in the gym increased. Āmiria figured four hours must’ve passed since the drinking game, but already Lord Brown and the Hat seemed fully sober. Geoff and Tamati were slumbering, half-asleep, while her father spoke with two men she didn’t know, the three sitting cross-legged in a tight triangle nearby. Peanuts lay contentedly on his back beside her, legs in the air, digesting a ton of dingo chunkettes and shoulder of tabby.

  Zelda, Ken and the Hat were discussing the origins of Freemasonry. Āmiria didn’t know anything about the Masons, so listened keenly. Tim sat between her and Lord Brown. The old man wasn’t taking part in the discussion but kept darting glances around the room, and every so often calling out numbers. She could’ve sworn he was counting everyone, although the numbers were going up and down too much for the occasional departures and
arrivals.

  ‘If ol’ Bernie up there hears you saying that,’ Tim warned the Hat, ‘he’s gunna be pretty septic.’

  Zelda frowned. ‘I don’t think a skerrick of it’s true anyway. No way did Freemasonry start out as an Olympic event.’

  ‘Yep, it did,’ maintained the Hat. ‘And if it was a draw, the pigeon was—’

  ‘And they did all this on bikes?’ she cut in sceptically.

  ‘Sure. Obviously.’

  Tim shook his head in disbelief, then flicked his fringe. He turned to Āmiria: ‘John Hat told me before, that you’re part of some Girl Guide expedition?’

  ‘No,’ she replied defensively. ‘Well, sort of.’ Astrid had been responsible for that misunderstanding on the day they met at Katoomba:

  “It’s only a two-minute slot darling. Mr Snow won’t have time to go through the ins-and-outs of Rangers and Guides and Wizards and what-have-you, so for the sake of this piece today, we better just call you all Girl Guides, seem as though two of you actually are.”

  Now she’d discarded her uniform in favor of an old pair of grey trackpants and a blue zip-up ski jacket borrowed from Astrid’s wardrobe in Griffith. ‘I’m in the Rangers. You move up from Guides to Rangers when you’re fourteen, and I’m fifteen. The Rangers go from fourteen to eighteen and we do much better stuff. I was with these twins who were Guides though. They’re only twelve, and this dwarf we know has gone to find them in Canberra.’

  ‘Sounds loose,’ Tim nodded, pretending he understood entirely.

  ‘Yeah. Āmiria Ruarangi: Ranger; incognito by night.’

  He laughed, flicked his fringe.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Sixteen. Seventeen next April.’

  ‘Sorry I freaked out in the classroom before. Dunno what come over me.’

  ‘Yeah, know what you mean. I thought there was someone else in there too, for a minute.’ Tim paused, expression serious. ‘You know, since all this happened, it’s almost like . . . like sometimes there is this, animal I guess, out there stalking us or something. I told dad, and thought he’d say it’s all just my imagination, but he didn’t. He said we might leave Tamworth soon. I think he’s asked your dad if we can go with you guys when you leave. Reckons there’s something wrong here, with this whole place. Tamworth I mean. Don’t say anything about it though—it’s supposed to be a secret till he decides.’