The Worm King Page 34

  The panorama of light and sound slowed to a dead crawl and the pounding in his chest faded. He became acutely aware of every infinitesimal sensation. The acrid odor of burnt timber and the gunpowdery musk of flares; the gritty feel of the face-soot he’d rubbed on to block out pasty skin; an eddy of breeze over the top of the wall and flashing beams, shouting, trampling feet and breaking glass. A far-off door slammed in the direction of the safe-house. He pulled the scarf down away from his mouth and the cold air cut through his dry, cracked lips. He gave them a lick, savoring the wetness of tongue. Beside him Winston’s jagged, raspy breathing came clear as a bell on a crystal night.

  Finally, he saw it: what they were doing. The soldiers were working the other side of the road, going through the houses, while the men with headlamps will’ve been instructed to clear this side. There’d been no more firing, and that was because they’ll have orders not to shot unless absolutely imperative because of the fuel. That’s why Snow’s given half the poor bastards only sledgehammers, while the soldiers are clearly trying to rely on cold steel, going in with bayonets on like that.

  Glass crunched to the rear.

  ‘Hey! Hey! Hey!’ Winston tugged urgently at Forsyth’s leg. ‘You hear that?’

  A headlight appeared inside the warehouse on the far side near the main door. More glass broke. They needed to make their way through to the rear of the warehouse then go next door to the depot workshop, where the fuel truck was. From there, they could draw the enemy in, and take them on.

  He crouched down next to Winston. As quietly as he could, told him what they needed to do was:

  Zigzag down our path to the back of the warehouse and on the way, kill that man we can hear moving there now. Come on! Don’t let me down here! We need to get to the fuel tanker before the soldiers come over, so we only have to deal with the ones with the sledgehammers. Your axe’ll be perfect. Go for their shins. I’ll use my knife and save the glocks for last resort, then we’ll hunker down with the tanker—hopefully the others have got there too—because that’s what they want and they won’t want to blow it up, or they wouldn’t all be crawling around out there like that in the first place, so if we stay close to—

  ‘Holy fuck!’ the dwarf exploded. ‘That’s the best you’ve got! I got shit-all interest in that plan, I’ll give you the big tip!’

  Ssssshhh!’ Forsyth jammed his hand hard over Winston’s mouth.

  Despite Winston’s initial reluctance, the strategy came to pass much as expected. It degenerated into a series of stumbling, brutal encounters, each more desperate and frenzied than the last until both men felt literally drenched in gore.

  Wiremu and his Tamworth team managed to hold the sledgehammerers at bay from the fuel truck using an assortment of shovels, iron bars, pickaxes and chains, for the loss of three men. Forsyth shot five of the attackers, getting four in the stomach before the others scarpered to regroup. If you go for the belly they’ll scream like mad and it ensures a second man’s usually tied up carrying off his comrade, although all would’ve died anyway. A glock 9x19mm slug only weighs 8 grams but when it’s travelling 1,300 feet per second it makes a real bitch of a mess at close range.

  In the early stages, as they were fanning out, the soldiers killed three of Francesco’s eight men. They were caught within the confines of Pedros and only Francesco, Zelda and two others managed to flee through a kitchen window then dash over the road to the depot workshop. The two Yass guards, who Forsyth gave chocolate less than two hours previously, regrettably decided to make a run for the safe house and fell victim to sledgehammers. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Their .22 lay beside the bodies, its five-shot cartridge empty. He’d never even heard it go off, which could’ve easily faded into the overall background noise.

  One unfortunate from Dick’s team tripped and fell in his haste to retreat. The unsheathed knife in his belt spiked through the femoral artery at the top of his thigh and he died eight minutes later and twelve liters lighter. The opposition hadn’t counted on the ferocity of a Tūhoe warrior charging whilst yelling a war cry and swinging a pickaxe, so several of those with sledgehammers simply dropped their cumbersome weapons, turned tail, and bolted.

  Wiremu managed to grab one of the soldiers, and cut his throat from ear to ear. As the man fell, bubbling, another Māori bludgeoned him over the head with an industrial tire iron, first smashing off the helmet then pulverizing the top of the skull, hitting him again and again and—

  That’ll teach him

  Until it was just neck, with an unshapely lump of meat wobbling and squirting on top.

  The soldiers and the remnants of Dick’s men made one unsuccessful bayonet charge but in the end, for the soldiers, it became less a strategic-training slash motivational exercise and more a fight for survival, so exactly forty-two minutes after their arrival, the trucks departed. And so endith the tactical, rolling maul, in-the-dark version of hand-to-hand combat. A game the whole family can play. Difficulty level: Savage. Quarter given: Zip.

  Dr Azziz, the gentle Egyptian, bent to help an injured man and for his troubles was stabbed up through the ribs by a sergeant of the 3rd regulars dossed out in full battle regalia. The bayonet gouged into his left ventricle and Azziz died within seconds. The cricket playing chaps, Nigel and Alistair, declined to wait in the bus because it smelt and as a result both died violently. Alistair sat in Zelda’s sofa-chair and when they lifted him off and laid him on the ground there was a wide, soppy stain over the seat and back and armrests and all down the sides, so they had to chuck the chair outside. Now the only furniture in the safe-house was the empty beer crate, and even that had splatter on it.

  Old Pedro got shot in the forehead. Not bayoneted, as they’d obviously done with Alistair and Nigel, showing a modicum of compassion you’d have to say.

  Oh happy day.

  One has to be grateful for small mercies.

  Dick and Bob left without the tanker and the soldiers never found the bus, parked well out back. They didn’t bring the twins. Shop mannequins: dressed up in kid’s sweaters, blonde wigs and woolly hats. One mannequin was much further up the road than the other so they’d obviously tossed them at speed. The second one had a gigantic kitchen knife stabbed through its plastic forehead. Francesco said the knife definitely hadn’t been there when the Falcon first drove past and pulled up in front of Pedros, meaning Bob took the time to do it as they roared off. The mannequins were naked from the waist down.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Watermelon

  It was so quiet and still in the hotel room that Natasha began to worry everyone in the whole world might’ve died because of something else really bad that’d happened, even worse than the comet, and maybe they were the last two kids left alive anywhere.

  No food or water had been brought for ages, and they’d banged and banged and banged on the door but no one came so eventually they gave up. She hadn’t seen Mrs Sheng, or the man with the funny lisp, for a long time, although it was impossible to say exactly how long because you couldn’t tell day or night and they didn’t have a watch and even if they had one, you wouldn’t be able to see it. Once she’d seen a blind man in some film (which she didn’t remember the name of) telling the time by feeling the hands on his watch. Natasha supposed that if they had a watch they could’ve busted the glass off and felt the hands too. But then how would you know whether it’s eleven o’clock in the morning, or eleven at night? Everything seemed so upside down and around about that it was impossible to work out what’s what.

  She was so hungry, but more than anything, thirsty. Was that a noise outside, in the distance? Someone shouting. ‘Did you hear that?’ she whispered.

  A lengthy pause. ‘No?’

  Must’ve imagined it. Many hours ago—or maybe it was days ago?—they’d heard lots of yelling, and popping sounds like a car backfiring but hadn’t been able to tell where they’d come from. Definitely outside, rather than in the hallway, although whether from the front or back of the hotel they d
idn’t know even with ears pressed against the window.

  The feeling they were being watched came, and went; Natasha grew to realize this simply couldn’t be. It was so dark in the room though, you couldn’t tell.

  Her mouth felt dry as a bucket of sand and she’d a splitting headache. An evil little elf kept trampling around up in her brain going thumpity, thump, thumpity thump, thumpity, thump.

  All they could do was snuggle under the solitary blanket, and wait. A horrible stink came from the toilet in the bathroom. Someone had done number two’s in there—quite a few times by the look of it—and the flusher didn’t work. It was like being locked up in a big stinky box: like a coffin, and she instantly regretted letting her mind wander down that darkest of paths.

  When the girls were eight their grandfather died, and Natasha had to go to the funeral without Krystal who was in bed with the flu. Their mum said everyone had enough on their plates without getting the flu so Krystal had to stay home and be looked after by Aunty Emily who was always grumpy, and never let them watch TV when they wanted. Natasha didn’t want to go to the funeral either because she’d always been a little scared of their grandfather who was even grumpier than Aunt Emily. She thought if he was scary when he’d been alive, he’d be a lot scarier to look at when he wasn’t. She’d said goodbye to her sister on the morning of the funeral and rubbed her face all over Krystals, hoping to get the flu as well so she wouldn’t have to go but it totally didn’t work.

  Prior to Granddad, the only funeral she’d been to was when Dad buried their cat Mindy in the back garden after she got run over by a car going past the house. That’d been awfully sad, but at the time Dad explained how Mindy was now in this enormous cat heaven with heaps of mice to chase, then afterwards they went to Burger King and had cheeseburgers and chocolate ice cream sundaes, so the day ended up being sort of okay. However there was nothing happy whatsoever about Granddad’s funeral. As she watched the casket being lowered into the ground, a terrible reality struck that this would happen to her one day too, and for a few moments was more scared than she’d ever been in her entire life. Being buried in a dark, wet hole forever must be the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. Fear rolled over in giant waves like at the beach but instead of saltwater, this thick black sticky stuff, giving her a huge stomach cramp and seconds later she began shaking uncontrollably and burst out crying, so her mother had to take her back to the car before the priest who was standing at the head of the grave had finished his talk. On the way home, her parents had an argument and Natasha got the impression Mum hadn’t even wanted her to go to the funeral in the first place.

  The day after this, she did get the flu, and had to stay in bed for three days which made her miss a school field trip to Maroubra beach which she’d really been looking forward to.

  There it was again . . . that feeling someone stood there . . . watching. Her mind must be playing tricks. If she were wrong about that, maybe it was wrong to just sit around and wait for help to arrive too. When Francesco was there he’d spoken with Astrid about unscrewing a leg from the bed and using it to smash the window, then scale down to the ground with the blanket after tying knots in it. He said it probably wouldn’t work because he’d seen men outside with torches and they’d get nabbed before they could all get out the window, let alone run away from the hotel. But the girls hadn’t spotted any lights outside for quite a while, so maybe it would work now? On the other hand deliberately smashing a hotel window might get them in even more trouble than they were already, so Natasha was reluctant to resort to this. She missed Francesco. She even missed Winston, the foul-mouthed dwarf. More than anything she missed her Mum and Dad and wondered again for the zillionth time where on earth they were, and why they hadn’t come.

  Someone was at door: whispering.

  Without saying anything they edged off the bed and felt their way over. Krystal held her arm so tightly Natasha could feel fingernails digging into her flesh.

  ‘Do wu want thum watermewon?’

  A watermelon! Choice! It was the man with the lisp and weird eyes who they didn’t like, but a watermelon! She couldn’t imagine anything better.

  ‘Get back fwom da door, I’m not awowed in. Wight back, against da far wall.’

  They moved away as instructed, until touching the wall by the window.

  ‘I’ll weave it in a bag,’ he said, louder. ‘And a wittle torth for wu too. Don’t towel anyone dough.’

  Natasha heard the door being unlocked then opened. No light came in, so it must be dark in the hall too. Plastic rustled. A few seconds passed, the door slammed shut and the lock clicked. Silence.

  They scuttled over, each with an arm outstretched feeling the way. Natasha found the torch first and switched it on. The batteries were so flat they barely worked. She picked up the bag. It was about the right weight, but didn’t feel like a watermelon: kind of soft, and not completely smooth and round like a melon ort to be. She opened it while her sister eagerly tugged at the edges.

  Mrs Sheng’s severed head stared up sightlessly.

  A chuckle came from the other side of the door and Krystal screamed.

  Natasha fainted.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  God

  At wake for Azziz the Hat’s head lay bare. The bald patch made him look like a Monk. John the Monk? Strictly speaking a ring rather than a patch, where the slouch hat normally sat. He seemed uncomfortable and Forsyth realized it was the first time he’d actually seen it off. It rested uneasily in his lap. He fidgeted with the brim and any second it looked ready of its own volition to pounce back onto his head.

  It certainly appeared to be an authentic, felt, military-issue slouch hat. They’ve been made in Australia for the forces by the Akubra Company for many years and have a uniquely distinctive shape to them. Could even be a genuine Grade One. He had to give him credit, the crown was nicely creased. A lovely square at the front and excellent indents on the top and side corners. He’d even got the tricky half-indent correct, the one on the side of the crown towards the lower front which holds the leading square firmly in place.

  That’s about where the similarities ended. Usually there’d be a regimental Rising Sun badge pinning the left-hand brim up against the crown (so rifles could be shouldered without brim damage) however John’s badge read: “Lose Weight Now—Ask Me How!” A number of Australian units such as the cavalry and light horse wore an emu plume behind their Rising Sun, dating back to World War One when they’d chase down emus and pluck out feathers as a mark of riding skill, as you do. John’s inserted feather was a tatty, off-black affair with tines missing and bent, possibly from a crow or raven, but no way emu. Around the torso of the hat would normally be wound a seven-band puggaree representing the six Australian states and territories. Instead, he’d half a dozen winds of orange day-glo insulation tape. You couldn’t see the right-hand side of the crown, where a soldier’s unit color patch would normally be, but if Forsyth remembered correctly there was nothing there anyway, just more tape.

  John raised the Hat and eased it back on, heaving a sigh of relief. He lifted his glass.

  They were holding the wake at an abandoned furniture shop on the main street of Yass. Lord Brown possessed a wino’s nose for sniffing out liquor: he’d unearthed a bottle of Bundaberg rum, two of gin, and one of Mexicanõ de la Squealer, complete with pickled worm. The owners had left the showroom reasonably well decked out and clearly when the catastrophe struck, people opted to track down food rather than a free sofa. How very bouché of them. It was the wake for Azziz!

  It was the wake for Azziz, and others who died in the Battle of Yass. Or would you call it Battle of Yass, Part One? You can never really tell unless you kill every single one of the other guys, plus their families, and acquaintances. Anyone that even looks like them. Otherwise it just becomes an ongoing struggle fading into a multi-family niggle and gradually forgotten only when long generations pass.

  ‘My great, great uncle Bill wore one exact
ly like it at Tobruk, in 1941. He was at the siege.’

  ‘What siege?’ asked Āmiria.

  ‘Siege of Tobruk. It lasted two hundred and forty-two days.’ He looked far more comfortable with the Hat back on. One might say proud even, although that could be because it covered up the balding, ring-patch arrangement he had going on up there, which the insidious hat created anyway. ‘He ran in the Benghazi handicap, when Rommel chased the 9th back from El Agheila to Tobruk with his panzers. Uncle Bill got killed taking on a kraut machine gun nest by himself at Ed Duda ridge three days before the siege ended. When I was fifteen, my Dad took me to his grave in Libya and I’ve worn one like his ever since.’

  Winston held up his glass in a short-armed salute. ‘Haven’t stopped drinkin either!’ The Hat appeared to take this as a complement, nodded, and drank in return.

  As an afterthought the Hat raised a toast of his own: ‘Here’s to Azziz and me great, great Uncle William the Hat!’ A staggered chorus of “Azziz, mumble, mumble . . . the Hat!’ erupted from the fifteen or so mourners scattered around the drinks table.

  Lord Brown, Winston, Astrid, Wiremu and his daughter, and Sgt Kevin and his son reclined with the Hat on a huge, eight-seater, L-shaped leather sofa. Opposite them Geoff, Tamati, Rangi, Hemi and Murray lounged on a luxurious merino couch. A least two dozen others were scattered around the showroom: from Griffith, Tamworth, Peak Hill and a couple from Yass who didn’t have anywhere else to go. Four electric lanterns lit most of the room apart from the darker corners. These were charged up periodically on a petrol generator run from the fuel truck, now parked out behind the showroom. Forsyth’s own Grandpa-style chair with adjustable footrests and lumbar support faced the back of the room, where he figured any surprise attack might come from, not the windows at the front because others would see that quicker than him and raise the alarm. Facing the rear also lessened the chance of catching a sneaky pot-shot from the road.