The Worm King Page 6

  ‘Canberra,’ said Dick. ‘I speak with people at the Mulloolaloo weather station. They’ve got seismic measures, the whole works. We can find out what’s happened. We have to go inland.’

  ‘Hey dude,’ protested Leroy. ‘I told you. I gotta get back to my flat. We be—’

  ‘Listen Leroy, you live in Cronulla. That’s on the beach, which is not the direction to head right now.’ Dick spoke patiently but firmly. Like a surgeon explaining a complicated disease to a heavily retarded child.

  The twins began crying. One blubbered, ‘We’ll get in trouble if we go to Canberra. Our Dad said they’re all ratbags there.’

  ‘We will get in trouble too,’ the other agreed.

  ‘Where do you live?’ asked Astrid.

  ‘Vaucluse,’ they replied at virtually the same time.

  She raised her eyebrows at Āmiria. ‘Manly,’ the girl said quietly. ‘But Dad’s in Tamworth for ten days. He’s a builder. Me aunties at home though. And uncle Tamahere.’

  Astrid had a sudden wave of panic about her Jack. But how dare she! Fretting over a two-year old blue crested budgie when these girls might’ve lost their parents? She also felt a guilty tinge of sadness that the only thing she did have to worry about in Sydney was a creature that didn’t even know her name and did nothing apart from eat, chirp and poo all over its cage.

  The girls were her main responsibility now, at least until she could track down their parents. Or next of kin. What an awful expression that was? Next of kin. She’d used it a million times in news stories but thankfully it’d never cropped up personally. One of those phrases you only use when something’s gone really pear-shaped. The station loved them: the more you could cram into a story the better. Words like “genocide” and “massacre” and “carnage”. They’re all hard to fit into a happy story and happy stories aren’t news. When they got home from the genocide, Betty baked a sponge. Life never happens like that.

  She didn’t even know the girls names properly. They were Natasha and Krystal, but for the life of her she couldn’t tell which was which.

  She took a stab: ‘Krystal, once we’re in Canberra, we’ve a much better chance of—’

  ‘I’m Krystal!’ protested the other. Astrid looked back and forth. Natasha had one eyebrow much smaller but apart from that they were two peas in a pod. She wouldn’t be surprised if someone had deliberately shaved the brow off, in order to tell them apart.

  ‘Mr Snow?’ pleaded Natasha, ‘do you think Mum and Dad will know to look for us in Canberra? When will we come back?’

  ‘They’ll end up there for sure honey. Soon as we get there we’ll track them down. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.’ Astrid stared at Dick, appalled. This seemed an out-and-out lie, but Natasha immediately brightened so perhaps it was the right thing to say.

  Dick continued: ‘I’ll show you around the station. You can do that . . . what was that competition you showed me earlier in the truck?’

  ‘No, it’s our weather badge,’ she retorted, reaching into the front pocket of her uniform with one hand and pushing her sister’s shoulder with the other. ‘And she just asked you about it because she likes you!’

  Krystal pushed her sister back but not very hard. ‘Do not! You do!’

  Astrid hurriedly took the page from Natasha.

  Girl Guides Weather Badge

  1. Keep a daily record of the weather in your area for a month. Use the weather maps given in the daily press. Note the official forecast for each day, then observe and note down what actually happened.

  2. Be able to recognize some visual weather signs for your area and to explain some of the influences, such as mountains, seas, etc, on weather in your area.

  3. Explain what is meant by isobars, cyclones, anticyclones, cold fronts.

  4. What sources of information are used for the drawing of weather maps?

  5. Do one of the following:

  (a) Construct a simple rain gauge and keep a daily record of the rainfall in your area.

  (b) Explain the formation of four of the following: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog, hoar-frost, dew.

  (c) Be able to recognize and name three different cloud forms and explain about their formation.

  She skimmed over the page barely registering what it said. ‘Oh yes, they’ll be able to help you with this at the station. They’ve got . . . all kinds of things that measure this stuff, don’t they Dick?’

  Dick nodded and both girls looked happier. At least it might take their minds off their parents for a while.

  ‘Could I see please?’ asked Azziz. Astrid passed him the sheet. His pudgy fingers took it delicately by one corner. ‘Thank you.’ He read carefully. ‘Perhaps I can assist,’ and without waiting for a reply handed the page back to Natasha, got to his feet then pulled up the garage door and disappeared into the drizzle.

  ‘Fucked if I’m going to Canberra,’ grumbled Winston.

  ‘Me neither,’ agreed John Fat.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ shrugged Dick.

  Azziz was only gone a few minutes, returning with a plastic shopping bag tied loosely at the top. He shook water off the bag, untied it then removed an exercise book, a handful of ballpoint pens and an old plastic thermometer. He passed the stash across to Natasha then reached into the bag again, this time taking out a packet of chocolate biscuits which went to Krystal. ‘Some materials for your studies and nourishing food.’ Astrid thought this sweet of him, although his idea of “nourishing” left a little to be desired. It wouldn’t surprise her if all they ate in this place were biscuits, baked beans and beer.

  The old man mumbled some more, looking at the roof. She realized the rain was stopping and suddenly it’d become very quiet.

  Dick looked up too. ‘It’ll be light in an hour and a half. Then we should go.’

  Astrid cocked her head, listening.

  ‘That can’t be good,’ said Winston. The others could hear it too.

  It began as a subterranean rumble but unlike the sound during the earthquake, it came more in stops and starts. The noise strengthened, finding form and evolving. Rising in waves and evolving into a series of deep, rolling BOOMS!

  Dick scrambled to his feet and hauled up the garage door. The sound was louder with the door open but not by as much as Astrid would’ve thought. She reluctantly stood. She’d been loath to come into this filthy bunker three hours ago; now it seemed a haven. The twins followed Dick outside.

  The volume increased perceptibly with each step until she stood clear of the garage. BOOM! BOOM! It sounded as if it were coming from all around? BOOM! BOOM!

  Āmiria shone her torch straight up into the air, then down at her feet. ‘Is it coming from the sky or ground?’

  ‘Sky,’ confirmed Dick. ‘Hard to tell the direction though.’

  Astrid couldn’t figure out any particular direction either.

  ‘Guns?’ suggested Winston. ‘Quite big guns,’ he added uselessly.

  ‘Maybe a volcano?’ guessed Astrid. ‘I didn’t know there were any around here though?’ BOOM! BOOM! ‘What do you reckon Dick?’ BOOM! Maybe two or three seconds between each but it was hard to tell whether they were constant. BOOM! . . . no, that gap was definitely longer. BOOOOM! And seemed louder too. ‘Dick?’ He didn’t answer.

  Further up the road other torch beams darted around. More people had emerged, drawn out to discover what this new sound tolled for. In five minutes it ended as abruptly as it’d begun.

  ‘What I reckon,’ said Dick ‘is that we shouldn’t wait till dawn. We should take off right now.’ This time Leroy didn’t argue.

  Winston had changed his mind too. ‘Can we tag along after all?’

  ‘Alright.’ Dick looked at Lord Brown with extreme distaste.

  Winston lifted the blanket from the floor, gave it a shake then wrapped it around Āmiria’s shoulders. He had to stand on tiptoes because the Girl Guide was taller.

  As dawn approached, they fled the city.

  .

  NIGHT
/>   Chapter Eleven

  Servo

  WEATHER BADGE DIARY

  Mr Snow says an isobar is a place where the air is heavier than the bit next door to it. He said there are shit-loads of them piled up right now, just above us. Krystal went outside but couldn’t see any. Winston who is part-dwarf said they are green with horns and a long tail but we think he only said this to make Mr Snow angry. We are worried about our parents. It was exceptionally dark all day today except for the lightning. Astrid the bossy-britches got mad when we went out to look at it. Our temperature gauge says 34 degrees centigrade.

  Natasha

  The twins had wanted a picnic, so a picnic they were a-having but it was hard to get enthused because today there’d been no sunrise.

  Winston wondered if he might be the first person to ever see a day utterly without sunrise. He’d seen seriously dark, overcast days before; Queensland days, when swirling bushfires met thick, black tropical storms to completely blot out the sky. Days when you’d imagine someone had teleported Niagara Falls to pour directly onto the Fires of Hell. But this was a different kind of darkness: soupy, without the faintest hint of light. It felt like you could taste it.

  He shook his head and slapped himself lightly across the cheek. What was he thinking? Eskimos do this every winter!

  ‘Fucking Eskimos,’ he muttered.

  Astrid gave him a puzzled look. ‘I don’t think you’re in a position to criticize minorities.’

  They were holed up in a BP service station on the Hume highway south of Sydney. Not very far south either, it’d taken six hours on back roads via Warragamba to get this far. You’d probably still call it Sydney fringe. They didn’t belong here. Fringe dwellers in a gloomy, broken shadowland. No one belonged, but they had to hole up because ten people and a dog in a 1978 combie van get way too close after six hours. Especially when the journey is crammed with an action-packed lecture from Dick Snow on weather hydrology. And someone had been dropping guts that could’ve peeled paint. He’d blamed Astrid.

  Winston had watched enough gangster and cowboy films to know this was definitely a time to “hole-up.” And he’d always wanted to give holing-up a go anyway, so when they passed the servo he said, ‘let’s hole-up here a spell.’

  ‘You can be a bit of a dork sometimes, can’t you?’ said Astrid.

  But Dick agreed: ‘We need a break and a feed too. It’s still a fair way to Mulloolaloo.’

  The twins had thought this rather funny. The little shits.

  Thunder ripped through the sky above the servo. A long, grinding crack ending in an explosive bang that seemed to originate right on the roof. Winston scratched the back of Peanut’s neck. The dog trembled.

  ‘Doesn’t like this much,’ said Leroy, tossing a glob of corned beef that hit the rug and mutely splattered stuck. The dog sniffed the food then ignored it, continuing to stare at the roof and flinching each time the heavens roared. ‘Got him from the pound half an hour before they were gunna put him down.’

  ‘Lucky dog,’ said Winston.

  Dick licked corned beef fat from his fingers. ‘Exceptional. That was a truly exceptional meal.’ He and the twins had pilfered widely from the shelves, gathering cans of the mushy beef, stale bread rolls and bottles of fizzy-pop for the picnic. Four tartan travel rugs were spread on the floor. Three kerosene lamps, also courtesy of BP, cast an eerie glow around the shop. The lamps stank but another smell drifted in the air too, even more off-putting . . . what was it? Sulphur? Winston couldn’t quite place it, but it sure wasn’t cheeseburger.

  The sky fizzled with lightning.

  ‘Someone’s there,’ said Azziz quietly, pointing at the front window.

  When Winston looked he saw only black glass. A second later a flash of lightning illuminated a man’s face with his nose practically touching the pane on the outside. Blackness again. Winston glanced around—everyone else had seen it too—then another fork of lightning but the face had gone.

  ‘You think he wants to come in? asked Leroy nervously.

  Dick got to his feet and went to the window. ‘I hope not. Did you lock the van?’ Leroy had parked just off the road at the entrance to the servo because three abandoned cars blocked the sheltered section of the forecourt directly outside shop.

  ‘The locks don’t work.’

  ‘If anyone pinches it, we’re going to be shafted right up the k’ganga.’

  ‘I’ll take Peanuts out for a wiz. We’ll wait in me van for a while.’ Leroy stood, then immediately bent over, placing his hands on his knees. He straightened slowly and rubbed his stomach. At his feet lay three empty cans of corned beef. He’d also skulled a 2 liter bottle of warm caramel milk and woofed an entire jumbo bag of pineapple lumps. He walked to the door and opened it, letting a gust of hot wind blast in which knocked over a postcard stand. He paused momentarily, about to step back and re-stand it but the wind was howling in so he slid the door closed and disappeared.

  Simple electrical storm!! Sydney always got its fair share of thunder and lightning, Winston knew that, but surely this was more than a simple . . . what the fuck was he going on about now? Dick had been explaining opposing air pressure systems and isobars to the Girl Guides. The noise rolled overhead in a continuous roar although it didn’t sound as loud as earlier, suggesting it may be coming from further away.

  John the Hat sat cross-legged on the floor next to Winston who lay flat out on his back, staring up at the roof. The Hat bent low, getting right down near Winston’s ear. ‘The door, see the one going out the back?’ He nodded towards the rear of the shop. ‘It just moved.’

  Winston came up on one elbow. The dim light made it hard to focus but gradually he began to make out a set of fingers on the door, wrapped around the edge just below the handle. Then the dark crescent edge of a head protruded slowly, growing and stretching into a shadowed face.

  ‘Hey!’ yelled Dick. The door slammed open and a heavyset man jumped into the room.

  ‘Whatayadoinyanotsposetabeere,’ the stranger hollered, wildly waving a thick, silver wand in the air. Dick jumped to his feet; Astrid and the twins screeched.

  ‘Whoa!’ shouted the Hat.

  Winston rolled away, trying to squirm beyond reach but the intruder loomed directly over him in a flash. He held a spanner, not a wand, and was a big bloke too. Most people looked big to Winston but when they’re towering over you, angrily waving a 30 ounce forged-steel Viking-class clubbing spanner, they look especially big. He curled into a ball, clutching his arms around his oversized head and pulling his knees up tightly in preparation for the rain of blows. Instead the yelling petered, fading, until the only shouting came from Āmiria, then silence. Winston risked a peek.

  Dennis the service station assistant manager stared at the twins. He’d stopped shouting several seconds ago and finally closed his pudgy mouth. The raised arm came down and the spanner smacked his fat thigh with a slap. Anyone breaking into his place didn’t seem likely to have two identical blonde teenagers in brown uniforms as part of their gang. He paused, confused, and scratched his itchy hip where the belt beneath the dirty green overalls dug into his skin. ‘Mr Lee said I gotta keep it locked up till he gets back.’ Dennis spoke slowly and his face was thickset and pale with large round eyes and Neanderthal brow ridges.

  Winston uncurled. He suspected there might be some kind of mild Down’s syndrome going on with Dennis, and Mr Lee must be the owner: the mastermind who’d dished out the dungarees emblazoned Dennis–Assistant Station Manager. A second badge lower down read: “TrainEE”.

  ‘I live over the road. Saw the lights.’ Lightning lit the forecourt and wind belted the glass giving it a distinct wobble. Dennis looked out nervously. ‘Guess you should be alright to wait a while if you want.’ He didn’t seem that keen to go back outside himself. Winston could hear a dog barking, coming in muffled snatches between gusts.

  Denis stared at Dick. ‘My name’s Dennis. You’re on telly! I like telly.’

  Dick grinned. ‘Tha
t’s right. Good to meet another Channel Six fan.’

  They shook hands like old friends. Winston would’ve been surprised if Dennis usually watched anything more complicated than The Wiggles.

  ‘Can you hear that dog barking?’ asked Astrid.

  Āmiria cocked her head. ‘I can.’

  The keen Māori had already made it halfway to the door when Astrid called her back sharply. ‘No! Wait here, I’ll go.’ She walked to the front window, shining her torch out for a few seconds but seeing nothing, then turned to Dennis. ‘You got a dog Dennis?’

  ‘Nup.’ A long pause. ‘Mr Lee does but.’

  ‘Does it sound like that?’

  ‘No.’ Dennis frowned, concentrating. ‘He took it with him.’

  It must be Peanuts.

  Astrid couldn’t get her penlight beam any further than the cars immediately out front and the van was parked at least seventy meters away, on the other side of the forecourt. She pulled the sliding door back and stepped through the gap. The wind raced in lifting the edge of the floor rug and re-scattering the postcards Leroy left.

  Winston made a snap decision to follow and reached the door just as Astrid slid it closed in his face. He dragged it open and went through, noticing Azziz and the Hat close behind. As soon as they were outside he flicked on his torch but could hardly see past his feet because the batteries were nearly shot and the servo had been cleaned out of new ones prior to their arrival. Neither the Hat nor Azziz had a torch so he waited while Azziz fumbled with a lighter, using his bulky frame as a windbreak to get a cigarette started.

  ‘Holy mother of God, I needed that!’ Azziz sucked the smoke in greedily with his eyes closed and head tilted back.

  Something hooked onto Winston’s shoe and he pointed the torch down to see a white plastic supermarket bag wrapped around his ankle. He bent awkwardly to unhook it; when you’re that much closer to the ground, getting tangled up in rubbish seems to happen more often. The Hat and Azziz waited. On the other side of the pumps an empty can tumbled and clattered across the forecourt. The dog barked again. They could see Astrid already at the van, working her way towards the front when her beam began waving erratically.