The Worm King Read online

  The seat’s warm!

  Who cares. Provided they were ready to go as instructed, he ort to be able to pull up, collect them and continue on in one smooth movement. If you’re going to bluff, do it properly old son. The key felt cold and wet in the ignition. The moisture on the metal must’ve come from the condensation of the driver’s final breaths. He turned it, and the sound was loud enough to wake the . . . where are those headlights? There! Dazzling shafts of light flooded the drive. He ground the gearstick into first, did a u-turn on the concrete then steered across an abandoned flower bed and over a dead lawn straight towards the shack, driving by no means fast but steadily, with purpose.

  The passengers piled in surprisingly quickly. Less than forty seconds all up in the LZ was Forsyth’s guess. Toot! Toot! A light went on at the front gate. Francesco finally lurched himself aboard, hauling his bulk into the front passenger seat, and they were off.

  “The pipes, the pipes are call-ing,

  From glen to glen . . . ”

  Two men stood guard at the gate, one either side.

  Was his singing soothing everyone? He could feel himself slipping into that strangely narcotic battle calm: where you know some bad niggle’s possibly looming, and you’re trying to stay relaxed with one hand on the wheel and the other on your glock, ready to pull it out so fast it’d make that fucking guard’s head spin, but in the end, it was all completely unnecessary.

  ‘Evening,’ said the guard, casually waving them on. The Captain returned a half-arsed salute and cruised straight through. No one followed, and for another ten seconds the lights of the hotel gradually diminished in the rear-vision mirror, until they disappeared.

  * * *

  Dick watched the Captain take the Mulloolaloo 4WD and was actually glad to see it go. They’d finished up at the rubbish pile because it’d been damp and the fire went out, although most of it’d burnt by that stage anyway. He stood beside Bob at the corner of the hotel, barely fifty meters from where the requisitioned 4WD had been parked.

  For one thing, it had been red, and he found red cars ostentatious. Whenever Dick purchased a new car—and he’d bought seven over his illustrious career—they’d always been green. To his way of thinking, green simply had a lot more class than other colors. This was partly in remembrance of his distant Irish heritage, which certainly impressed some people. Also, you could usually twist it into some “green image” environmental angle. There are plenty out there stupid enough to make that link. “Global warming? Of course, I jolly well hate it, but they don’t make this type of Porsche to run on ethanol, so I got a green one instead.” However the best thing about a green car is you can park up at rest stops, and on isolated patches of highway, and it’s much harder for others to see you. Dick far preferred the 1986 V8 Falcon he had parked around the back under a covered garage. That was green.

  They’d be back.

  On the subject of green, Bob’s eye seemed to be getting better because he kept rubbing it all the time, which meant it must be itchy, and therefore on the mend. Hopefully his obsession with the dwarf would peter, now the creature had either been fried, or in all probability hadn’t been there in the first place. The trouble was, people like Bob need a lash or two themselves every so often, to keep them in line. Otherwise they’re just random missiles of insanity, and nobody wants to set that off. So you feed them little treatsies and scraps every now and then: more and more, and then wallop!! As a training method it couldn’t be beat, but even if it didn’t always work quite as intended, was usually an enormous amount of fun.

  ‘Move the twins back into 237,’ Dick instructed.

  ‘Yeth.’ Bad Bob walked away.

  Dick trod like a panther over to the body. A shoe lay next to it and one foot was bare, but no sign of the missing sock. He turned the dead man’s head gently, with his boot, and saw the raw hole in the temple. He got down on his haunches and turned the pale face towards himself, doing it carefully because he knew the man’s name was Justin, and sure, he’d had a wee drinking problem, and yes, at times he could be a bit gruff, but he’d only been twenty-six and was from Perth with a pregnant wife and he got there in the end, and did eventually do something useful. Never mind that it’d been twenty-five years, three hundred and sixty-three days of non-stop screw-ups prior to this; in the end, he made it. Dick could say this with some accuracy, for he happened to know that today was Justin’s birthday. Yes! There’d been drinks with the boys earlier. A dribble of blood was smeared around his nose and both eyes were closed. Maybe it’s only a really bad nosebleed, and he’s just having a nap? He did look almost peaceful, as though dreaming about something neat he did when a kid on a long-forgotten picnic. Dick stood, and lifted his steel-cap boot high then STOMPED on the head, so hard the sharp edge of his heel crunched clean down through skull bone and the top eye popped rudely open, bulging grotesquely. A jet of creamy fluid squirted out the nose.

  Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!

  Then there was this beautiful sucking noise, as he wrenched out his dripping boot. The sound resembled a live, skinned cat going down a drain. He did that to a cat once, when he was twelve.

  What a pity Bob wasn’t still here! Justin’s eye would’ve scared the fudgepack out of him.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Twins

  Natasha groped blindly, both arms outstretched. ‘I’m sure it’s our old room,’ she whispered to her sister. They’d pulled off their blindfolds but it was impossible to tell. The odor: it definitely smelt like their old room; a mix between disgustingly rotten salami and dog poopy.

  ‘Yes, here, give me your hand. It’s alright, I think he’s gone now. Feel the wall, up here. It’s where we tore the wallpaper off. Wait on, what’s this?’

  ‘It’s the chair,’ whispered Krystal.

  Natasha grasped the top edge of the back of the chair and dragged it across the carpet until it seemed in about the right place, got onto it, and felt around until she found the hole drilled in the wall. Then she knew for certain it was their old room. They leant against the wall for support, breathing heavily. Krystal shivered. ‘Let’s sit down,’ said Natasha and they slid to the floor. A thought occurred: is someone else in the room? How would they even know! She felt exposed. ‘No, let’s get on the bed,’ she whispered in Krystal’s ear. They worked their way to the bed and climbed on. Still no sound from the rest of the room, and Natasha realized she was just being silly: if anyone else were here, they’d say hello or make a noise. The mattress felt all crusty and there weren’t any blankets but they didn’t care and crawled up until reaching the headboard, then sat facing blindly back into the room.

  Without warning, a crack of light appeared at the bottom of the door. Only the faintest of glimmers, but by the way Krystal’s hand tightened on Natasha’s arm, you’d think a whole heap of New Years Eve fireworks had gone off right beside the bed. Then a noise out in the hall: a heavy thud, followed by something weighty being dragged in short bursts with a grunt of effort each time.

  ‘What is it?’ whispered Krystal. Neither had been scared of the dark before all this happened. Krystal, especially, was upset because she’d liked Mr Snow most, and now they both thought he’d been telling a pack of lies about their parents. To top it off, their backpacks were gone too.

  “Take the backpacks, just in case.” These were the last words Natasha remembered her mother saying, the day they’d left Sydney. Their next-door neighbor Mr Richards worked in the Blue Mountains and he’d offered to take the girls, and was honking his horn in the driveway. Just in case. Their last afternoon in Sydney. Well, the last afternoon, that is, apart from the nightmarish trip to the dwarf’s house, which had been out on the edge of the city anyway as far as she recalled. Just in case? Natasha was pretty sure her mother would’ve also said, “Goodbye darling,” or something to that effect before they finally left, but she couldn’t recall it because she’d been busy thinking: in case of what? At the time, the backpacks contained only raincoats and drink bottles, both
of which the girls subsequently lost. Their mother was right though, the backpacks had been awfully handy. When the man with the funny lisp took them they’d been crammed with spare clothes but also held a pack of cards and two little designer toilet bags with the hotel emblem on the sides, which looked very posh. The weather diary had been in Krystal’s backpack. It wasn’t so much what was in them: it was the bags themselves; they were the last link to their mother.

  Natasha missed her so much.

  The man with the lisp had just walked in behind Mrs Sheng like he owned the place. ‘Thowee about thith. Thickuwitty pwecauthin.’ Then he’d snuck around behind Krystal and tried to tie a blindfold on. What a nerve! She’d bolted.

  He immediately gave chase and there weren’t a lot of places to run. The girls screamed in unison, cowering behind Mrs Sheng who held up her hand. ‘Is ok! Is ok! No ploblem.’ Her face was red and blotchy under a dense layer of makeup, as though she’d been crying. ‘Is like spy film. You know? I make sure you alrighty.’ She paused, tapping her nose and giving a secretive nod. ‘It so if anyone ask which room you in, you can’t say. It for your plotection.’

  ‘His face looks really yucky,’ muttered Krystal, pointing at the man. ‘I don’t want to get close to it.’

  Mrs Sheng giggled, then stopped abruptly, covering her mouth. She lowered her hand and the smile had gone. ‘He can hear you, you know? He name Bob. I put on, if it bother you. It only for couple of minute, to go back to room down hall.’ She reached out and Bob reluctantly passed the blindfolds.

  It’d occurred to Natasha that maybe he wanted the blindfolds on so they’d look more like him. The grubby rag he’d tied across one eye and up around his own head was totally gross. But the thing that’d creeped Natasha out most, was the way he’d been staring at Krystal, when he first tried to tie the blindfold on. Despite saying “thowee” he obviously wasn’t the least bit sorry about doing it. He’d looked eager; almost hungry; starving even, and it was frightening in a way vaguely familiar, although she couldn’t put her finger on it. Bob’s unbandaged eye seemed much . . . larger, or different than people’s eyes normally are. Like an owl? No, owls are nice. A lizard? Closer.

  Mrs Sheng told them to pack up their backpacks, which they did, then she put the blindfolds on herself, leaving them so loose Natasha could easily see through a gap at the bottom if she furtively tilted her head back. Bob picked up their bags just as the blindfold slid down a fraction obscuring her view, and that was the last she saw of Bob or bags.

  Their clothes came from the hotel’s lost-and-found. “Those Girl Glide uniform, they nearly fally off,” Mrs Sheng had told them shortly after they’d arrived at the hotel. An hour later she returned with a bundle of assorted garments and they’d happily discarded their tatty uniforms, swapping into the upmarket Hyatt castoffs. It was much better having Mrs Sheng delivering meals than the hotel waiters, who weren’t very friendly at all. Natasha thought Mrs Sheng must be borrowing clothes for herself too, because lately she’d turned up in fancy, expensive dresses. Krystal said she looked like a Chinky Cinderella, but they didn’t tell her that.

  How much time had passed? Natasha had no idea. Occasionally, there’d been sounds out in the hall as if furniture were being dragged around, followed by rushed footsteps. Then a door might slam nearby, and more running feet; hushed voices; a frantic thumping on the wall and a muffled scream in the distance, or perhaps from another room. Knock! Knock!

  ‘Hello!’ called Krystal. ‘We’re—’

  Knock!

  ‘Wait!’ Natasha whispered urgently. Soft footsteps faded away. There’d been an unusually long pause between each knock, and Natasha realized it was only someone rapping on the door as they walked slowly past in the dark.

  She remembered where she’d seen Bob’s eye before. On an American Funniest Home Movies clip on TV that the family watched a few months back, in the middle of winter. The story was about this night camera they set up on some guy who kept sleepwalking. He got up, and walked to a window and waved, despite it being pitch dark outside, then went back to bed. Apparently did it every night. The room was bathed in this creepy, greenish light which Natasha thought must’ve come from the camera. When she asked her Dad about it, he said no, it was just the tiny spec of light that’s always there, and the camera simply magnifies it.

  So that green light’s there all the time. The man sleepwalking had strangely enlarged eyes, like huge black saucers, with evil little white circles in the middle. Later that night Natasha lay in bed thinking: I have those eyes now, and it really scared her. If it’s always dark, like it is now, everyone must look like that all the time.

  Even back then, she hadn’t thought the video clip very funny.

  The door opened without warning. A dazzling beam whipped around the room, settling on the bed. Natasha must’ve been dozing because she hadn’t heard footsteps.

  ‘Lakey, lakey,’ said Mrs Sheng. The intense light made it hard to make out anything apart from silhouettes. She raised a hand, shielding her eyes and squinting. The waft of hot noodles swirled across, then the beam shifted towards Krystal, so Natasha plainly saw Bob with his bandaged eye, gripping the torch beside Mrs Sheng. ‘Roodles again. I solly.’ Her Chinese accent sounded more pronounced, with a thick nasal undercurrent like she was getting a cold, but when she put the two bowls down on the little table attached to the head of the bed, Natasha could see her nose was all swollen and puffy and bruised.

  ‘Where’re our parents?’ demanded Krystal, holding up her palm to block the beam. It reminded Natasha of being in hospital getting ready for an operation, with the bright lights and masked faces staring. She’d had her tonsils out when she was eight so knew what it was like.

  ‘I don’t know. I solly.’ Mrs Sheng seemed upset about something and shook her head, pointing at the bowls. ‘Careful not to spill.’ Bob threw their backpacks on the bed then both turned without another word and left.

  The girls gobbled the noodles in the dark. They drank the liquid first by tilting the bowls, which was tricky to do without spilling, then ate the rest by hand. After this, they felt through their backpacks.

  ‘I think it’s all here,’ said Natasha, relieved. Her toilet bag had been opened because she distinctly remembered zipping it up, although she didn’t mention this to her sister.

  ‘My underwear’s missing!’ cried Krystal. The weather diary had gone too.

  Hours passed.

  Or maybe only minutes? There was just the dark, and the cold. They attempted to cheer themselves up with a game of I Spy.

  ‘I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with . . . “S”,’ said Krystal quietly.

  ‘Stinky!’ exclaimed Natasha. They’d already had this one, in an earlier round, because the room sure was stinky.

  ‘No,’ Krystal whispered.

  Natasha concentrated. For some reason, Sandman popped into her head. ‘Sandman!’

  ‘No,’ repeated Krystal, voice barely audible. ‘Can’t you hear it? That sound?’

  Yes, Natasha could hear it now. To begin with, they thought it came from outside, so crawled to the window to listen. Still couldn’t see a thing out there. Eventually they worked out it must be coming from the room next door, and crept back to the bed.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Natasha. Suddenly an image flashed into her head of herself, sitting up against the headboard, craning her neck to work out the sound. It was as though she were floating around the room up by the ceiling and looking back down at herself. She had those enormous black eyes, with the little white middles. A thick, greenish mist surrounded both her and Krystal. Her sister lay next to her, holding her arm tightly and staring up into her face, like a lizard. Exactly where she lay now. A man stood in the corner of the room. They must’ve crawled really near him, when they tried to see out the window before. His hand was down near his waist, stropping back and forth but she couldn’t quite see what he held.

  Zzzzzzzzzssssssshhht!


  Zzzzzzzzzssssssshhht!

  He just stood there, staring at them.

  Zzzzzzzzzssssssshhht!

  Zzzzzzzzzssssssshhht!

  Zzzzzzzzzssssssshhht!

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Tūhoe

  Wiremu Ruarangi was Tūhoe.

  He walked over to the fire where Alistair and Nigel were talking about a cricket game Alistair once played at Adelaide oval. Alistair was a left-arm spin bowler, taking 5 for 22 on an ultra-hard wicket one stinking hot day in February. The other side even had a couple of ring-ins who’d played for Surry.

  ‘Crickets a damn tough game!’ said Nigel. Alistair agreed. It wouldn’t surprise Wiremu if both of them were poofs.

  The bus had broken down in Peak Hill, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it country town a hundred-odd clicks southwest of Dubbo. Halfway as the crow flew between Tamworth and Griffith. They’d been expelled from Tamworth exactly thirty-seven hours ago, so it’d been a long, slow haul. Geoff, Hemi and Rangi also sat at the fire, along with Zelda, Lord Brown, David, Ken, John the Hat and . . . perhaps seventeen others from the Tamworth gym, plus three more they’d picked up along the way. He thought there might be a couple of extras too, who’d snuck in from the darkness of Peak Hill in the three hours they’d been stuck here. About a third of those present wore strips of damp material tied around their mouths, but most discarded the protection because it wasn’t comfortable and you couldn’t talk with it on. Tamati had gone out wandering the neighborhood with Sgt Kevin and two of his mates, looking for food and fuel.

  His daughter was helping fix the bus.

  Just before they lit the fire, a general consensus was arrived at that a glow might be visible in the sky, and the sun may finally be breaking through. Then the wind sprang up and it disappeared. It is the opinion of Lord Brown that minute particles high in the stratosphere will gradually settle and as they do, they’ll create side-draughts which “murky” it all up again, so the clearing process can be very staggered. It is his view that it could get worse before becoming completely “clarified”. Personally, Wiremu couldn’t envisage a “worse,” so he pretty much ignored the warning. He was more worried about Āmiria. The weather would take care of itself, and those strangers who may have snuck in, well, he could just walk over and ask them if he had a mind. Which he didn’t. They looked harmless enough. But his daughter, that was a more troubling issue.