The Worm King Page 20

  It is very cold and the lights in our room come on and off at funny times. The hotel man who was delivering our food said it is only 4 degrees outside and he was the one who got us the cards but today a new man bought our food and he wouldn’t talk at all.

  Natasha

  Chapter Thirty

  Fort

  On the fourth day of living under the rubbish skip a rat tore off most of Winston’s left ear. It’d been the size of a cat, and not a small cat either. The plastic cigarette lighter Melanie gave him had run out, so he never saw the rodent, and at first actually thought it was a cat when trying to knock it away. Then he’d felt the tail. Cats don’t have tails like that! The sinewy length of bristly gristle was the thickness of a garden hose and he’d grabbed hold of it just as the creature went to move. A fraction of a second later his mind registered, and brain screamed Let go you fool! Too late. The rat twisted and bit him on the ear and clawed feet raked his neck leaving a deep, painful scratch, then it let fly with a high-pitched, unpleasant squeal and ran off.

  The rubbish skip was perched on a low platform at the rear of the hotel, near what he assumed to be the kitchen. Every so often, maybe half a dozen times every twenty-four hours, someone came out and stacked another bag next to the skip. The skip itself was already full to overflowing. Winston figured the platform must be so trucks could conveniently slide it onto their rear. Underneath, just enough room existed for a single layer of bags, with a double sheet of heavy cardboard on top, then Winston, then another three layers of cardboard above for insulation. He’d wedged cardboard around the sides for walls, and cut a small entrance tunnel through the corner nearest the hotel, with an even smaller bolt-hole on the diagonal corner opposite the hotel, just in case. You’d almost call it cozy. Salubrious? Perhaps not until the bidet went in. The dripping tap next to the skip had an empty tin under it, which he emptied periodically into a larger tin, stored within easy reach inside the Fort. Sustenance was provided by the many and varied treats in the bags.

  As is usually the case with accommodation of this nature, it’d started off as a very temporary affair. More a desire to get out of the rain; rain which somehow gave Winston the worst sunburn he’d had since passing out on Bondi beach last February after half a bottle of Jim Beam. This time there’d been no sun, or sand, or bourbon. Just the rats, and the rain. At least he hadn’t encountered any more snakes. Probably too cold, because the temperature seemed to have dropped markedly in the last few of days. He found a tossed-out, stained, chef’s smock which fitted perfectly, once he’d stuffed it with scrunched-up newspaper. The other encouraging development was a brief shaft of murky sunlight two days ago, although strangely not the following day, nor today. Now Winston had doubts it’d even appeared at all. He’d lost his watch, so estimates of time were pure guesswork, and often on waking it was hard to tell whether he’d been asleep two minutes, or two hours.

  After arriving at the rubbish pile . . . four?—yes, let’s say it was four days ago—the first order of business had been to quench his thirst, which took more than an hour laying under the drip. The taps handle looked to have been sawn off, perhaps to lessen the chance of water leakage, or theft, but leak it did. Then he’d made for Astrid’s room, creeping around the outside of the hotel with the intention of tossing a clod of dirt at the window to get their attention. The room lights were all off and when he got to that side, it was quite obvious there’d be no way of telling one room from another. Winston paused, considering his next move, when one of the room lights did come on, some fifty meters distant. Past where he suspected Astrid’s room was, but it’d illuminated something else: another person lurking under an alcove less than twenty meters away. When the light hit the man (or women, although it looked too tall for a women) they’d promptly stepped sideways, back into the shadow. The height and profile had been disturbingly similar to Harelip. Even a bandage perhaps, wrapped around his head. Winston crawled away on all fours, very slowly.

  At least four guards appeared to be constantly circling the hotel grounds and he was 99% certain they would’ve been told to watch out for someone of his stature. If they managed to nab him, and he got handed over to Harelip, there’d be no second chance at escape. Despite this, it kept running through his mind he may be well off the mark, and these people meant him no real harm. Maybe Harelip just wanted to be friends, and it was all a huge misunderstanding? At one point in desperation he’d almost decided to go around to the front gate, and simply talk to them, explain how it was all a big mistake:

  ‘Look, I’m truly sorry I gorged your man’s eye out, but you know, these things happen. I’m sure we’ll all laugh about it down the track.’ Winston tried saying this out loud, shuddered, and decided to wait a bit longer before showing himself.

  He made another futile attempt to find Melanie, waiting until the guards were well past, then clambering out to the fence while doubled over to keep a low profile, and arriving exactly at the collapsed wombat hole. He scuttled under. It’d been easier than expected, and Winston felt quietly chuffed. He recalled those old World War II films, when Steve McQueen and his mates would sneak out of Nazi POW camps like it were a stroll in the park. Now he realized those movies were actually valuable training, and clearly that sort of stuff isn’t terribly hard either.

  ‘Melanie? Melanie?

  ‘Melanie?’

  After two hours of circling in the dark, softly repeating her name over and over, the chuffiness had long departed. Perhaps it was three hours, who knew. It began to rain. Using the few hotel lights as navigation, he made for the wombat hole, thinking to shelter somewhere in the rubbish pile he’d seen near the tap because he already felt thirsty again. This time one of the guards was considerably closer to the hole, and after scrambling under the fence, Winston immediately opted to crawl towards a faintly visible short tree, to hide while the man passed. It involved a wide dogleg, but seemed the sensible option. A wheelbarrow lay turned on its side beside the tree, so he dove behind this. The guard walked past, his pace quickening because of the rain, and for an instant shone his torch directly on the wheelbarrow; just enough to illuminate a corpse, slightly to the right of the barrow. A man, dead as a doornail, less than a meter away! The beam skimmed off. It couldn’t have been! Must’ve been an unusually shaped pile of dirt, spilt from the wheelbarrow . . . Winston clawed the image back: the striped shirt, jeans, sneakers, dark crusted blood around the gaping mouth. Face off-white plastic with reddish veiney blotches. Yes, you saw it alright. The guard doubtless couldn’t help checking it each time he passed. Talk about a depressing job routine. With infinite willpower, he waited; heart pounding; skin stinging and not uttering a sound until the guard was well gone. Then he ran.

  Following this, he resolved not to venture far from the rubbish pile without a profoundly good reason. No point going outside the fence again, because there was no food or water or shelter out there. A few times he half-heartedly contemplated remounting the search for Melanie, except for the niggling suspicion the body he’d seen might be that of her husband, so only gut-wrenching disappointment and grief lay down that road.

  The second day was the day of the construction of the Fort. He found a stack of flattened cardboard boxes piled against the back of the hotel which had stayed mostly out of the rain. Gathering these materials, and putting it all together, took many hours, but eventually the outcome was a pleasing one. The brief appearance of the sun did much to lift his spirits. That evening he’d dined contentedly in his new home on a piece of moldy bread, two half-eaten meat-substitute patties, and a chicken drumstick bone which had previously been well chewed but he cracked it open and licked out several sparrow-sized swallows of succulent, congealed marrow.

  The third day, which was only yesterday but seemed aeons ago, had been a low to end all lows. Hey Stumpy, how low can you go? He woke with the screaming shits and savage stomach cramps. While out relieving himself, Melanie’s lighter finally gave up the ghost and he sustained a nasty cut trying to cra
wl back into the Fort in the dark. Then he attempted to change the angle of the entrance slightly so the hotel lights cast a better glow deeper into the pile. This took four hours, and midway through the side walls collapsed, completely burying him so he had to start all over. By late afternoon the sun hadn’t reappeared and Winston was morassed in an ugly mixture of exhaustion, confusion and depression.

  He tried to regroup, concentrating and focusing; delving deep into his psyche for hope, some way out of this appalling shambles. He’d been through tough times before—life when you’re only four foot two is guaranteed its share of misery—so what would he normally fall back on, if he felt like this and was still in his scungy Sydney house, and the comet had never happened? Have a tension-breaking wank, that’s what he’d do!

  So Winston lay on his side, eyes squeezed tightly shut, jerking frantically on his todger in the midst of the bleak, dark, stinking rubbish pile with only the sound of scurrying rats to set the beat. Focus was a definite problem. Eventually the image of Astrid came: naked, bent over, lace panties down around her ankles so he could spy bulging vaginal lips and a moist pink crack winking right at him. He climaxed untidily, feeling a warm glob splat under his chin.

  Seconds later—and this time his body clock was spot on, it was merely seconds—waves of guilt flooded over and he ratcheted down to a fresh low: the all-timer, a gruesome, slopping lake of evil, filthy depression from which there seemed no conceivable way of climbing out. When all energy was utterly spent he cried himself to sleep for the first time since he was ten.

  What was that? Something woke him. Bang! Was that a gunshot? Bang! Bang! Yes.

  Winston’s neck and ear remained sore from the mornings giant rat attack, but confidence much improved after a few hours sleep. He was determined to regain the initiative, and take action, and this decision felt invigorating. It was either that, or lay here in the rubbish until the day he died, and if the rat had its way, that won’t be far off. Firstly, he had to find something to drive Ronny the Rodent off should it revisit. Given it scored a free mouthful of ear last time, it’s a dead cert to be back. He needed a weapon: preferably light and sharp rather than heavy and blunt. There wasn’t room in the Fort to swing anything big. Where could he get one? Then he needed to find Astrid and Francesco; see if they were even still here. If they weren’t, the grim reality was there’d be no reason to stay. Already, dry newspaper was becoming harder to find amongst the rubbish, and eventually he’d pick up some kind of nastier disease. He would have to strike out for the centre of Canberra and hopefully find food and shelter there, although this option filled him with dread.

  Bang! It came from around the front of the hotel. That made at least ten shots in the last five minutes. He lay in the bolt-hole entrance, looking out towards the fence. Since the shooting began there’d been no sign of the guards walking past, although it was entirely possible he’d missed them, especially if they didn’t have torches on. He needed to discover why they’re shooting, and with the guards absent, the time to do that was now. While around the front checking that, he’d have the opportunity to see if Francesco’s truck was still there. If the truck is there, chances are they would be too.

  Winston tried not to think of other permutations which arrived at the same conclusion. Maybe the truck will be there, but only because they’d been taken out another entrance, dealt to, and the truck simply forgotten? He could probably find a whole bunch of maybes to fit pretty much any scenario . . . no, best cover off the most likely options first, see what drops out the mix and take things from there. A modicum of chuffiness reappeared, and he made ready to exit the Fort.

  The truck was still there! Clear as day, parked exactly where Francesco left it, not far from the entrance. A spotlight had been mounted next to the gate illuminating the first fifty meters of road, making it impossible for any unwanted strangers to sneak up. It also meant they surely knew the truck was there, so to his mind raised the chances Astrid and Francesco remained safe inside. From the corner of the building where Winston hid, he counted seven men standing behind the spotlight, all except two holding rifles. They faced away, and he couldn’t distinguish individual faces, but guessed by their profiles they were the guards. It wouldn’t surprise him if they’re simply shooting at anyone approaching who they didn’t like the look of.

  The front lawn was different, somehow. When Winston first came around four days ago, there’d been at least six tents scattered over it, but now they’d all gone bar one. Twenty meters from the side of the hotel he could make out the outline of four poles sticking in the air, spaced a few meters apart with scattered debris between them. He slithered out to take a gander. As soon as he touched the debris he knew what’d happened: the tents had disintegrated. He focused on the one remaining tent. It stood a quarter of the way towards the front gate and had chinks of light twinkling from its corners. Beside it lay an uneven mound, which from its shape, could perhaps be an old rock garden. The guards were probably using that tent, which was obviously made of some non-dissolvable canvas. There must be someone inside, given the light, and if he could get to the rock garden he might be able to hear what they’re saying.

  After a short doubled-over dash he discovered the mound was indeed a disused rock garden, although the structure wasn’t a tent at all. It’d been constructed of corrugated iron. A women inside spoke in a hushed, barely audible voice. Bang! She stopped. The men at the gate laughed but the shack now blocked Winston’s view so he couldn’t see what was going on. The shot sounded significantly louder than from around the back of the hotel. Winston pressed himself down into the muck and slithered from the edge of rock garden, getting as near as he dared to the wall of the shack.

  ‘Come on, keep going, she’ll be right,’ said a man inside with a strong Kiwi accent.

  The woman spoke again, also a Kiwi. ‘So Little Red Riding Hood finished the plate of fush and chips, and went into the bears bedroom to take a—’

  ‘No! The bears might get her mummy!’ The girl sounded scared, even Winston with his limited knowledge of kid-rearing could tell that.

  ‘It’s okay, they don’t. Red Riding Hood is taking a nap and—’

  The male voice broke back in, then a second male replied. The two conversations jumbled together and it became difficult to tell what was what. It didn’t matter anyway, he’d heard enough. These people weren’t part of the guards, he was fairly confident of that. At a pinch, if he really needed help, they might be his best bet.

  He began to work his way back to the Fort.

  Time to rustle up dinner. Yesterdays food poisoning had passed and he was ravenous. A fat, juicy sirloin with a mountain of shoestring fries and big dollops of tomato sauce, that’s what he’ll have. Whenever Winston got crook from a hangover, as he came right he always had this craving for steak. It must be some complicated thing to do with the protein, and the body being leached out by liters of lager, but then why the chips and tomato sauce? Metabolism is a strange thing. He lay in the bunker entrance wrapped in a square of shredded canvas and wearing the filthy smock stuffed with newspaper over jeans, his torn polo-neck sweatshirt, two cotton T-shirts, two pairs of polyester socks and a pair of cheap running shoes. It seemed unlikely he’d stumble across a plate of steak and fries around here, but it never hurt to let the fantasy run a little longer. In a way, dreaming about food is quenching in itself but as soon as you stop, and reality settles in, you realize you’re even hungrier than before and it all becomes self-defeating. Reality slaps you back every time.

  One more job to do before dinner. No sense bringing food in, if it attracts that rat again, so find a weapon, then dinner. He reluctantly peeled off the canvas, shivering as the cold air cut through the cotton and newspaper, scouring his warm skin. A weak light shone from a small window beside the back door of the hotel, providing enough illumination to almost read, if you had a book, and the inclination, of which he had neither. Winston scurried around in the rubbish. It didn’t take long to ascertain there w
asn’t anything weapon-like on the hotel side, although the search proved useful because he found a quarter-loaf of extremely stale bread jutting from a ripped bag. The rats had obviously had a crack, but he wasn’t feeling too fussy. He stuffed the bread under his smock amongst the newspaper then worked his way around the other side of the pile, the darker side. What’s this? His fingers ran along a rough strip of wood; he tugged, freeing it from the rubbish. A partially broken packing crate. That might do. He crawled a few paces back to where the light was better, dragging it along. Then he put both feet inside to push, while pulling the broken plank on the opposite side. He thought it would snap, but instead it gave a loud squeak and the plank simply bent around. He levered it back and forth several times until it wrenched free. Holding it up to the light, two large spikes stuck out at one end. Brilliant, the nails had stayed in. He touched the ends lightly and they didn’t budge, rusted firmly in place.

  Without warning the back door of the hotel opened and an explosion of light flooded out. Winston threw himself into a crack between the bags, and froze.

  ‘How much you got left?’ a man said

  ‘Only enough for a couple,’ replied another.

  Winston hoped they’d stay close to the door, but they didn’t, walking a dozen paces and stopping barely four meters from him. He lay only a meter from where the bolt-hole emerged, but making for that was bound to attract their attention.

  A lighter sparked up. One man was older, with a handlebar moustache, while the other younger, perhaps early twenties. Both wore kitchen aprons. The lighter went out, leaving only the orange glow of a cigarette and moustache sucking greedily at the other end.

  ‘Christ, that’s good.’ The orange glow darted down and across, then up to the second man’s face. As the younger man sucked at the fag, he looked back over his shoulder at the open door.

  ‘Want me to close that?’