Nowhere Boys (3 page)

Andy took a running leap and careered down the slope. He skidded fast, his backside scraping against mossy rocks, his arms getting scratched on fallen twigs. It was painful but exhilarating at the same time. His pack bounced against his back, eventually catching in a tree branch as he made his descent. He landed on his back with an almighty thump.

Andy wasn’t sure if he could move. He gingerly lifted his left leg and then his right. Seemed okay. He lifted his head.

The other three were sitting glumly on the ground. Andy followed their gaze. The slope they’d fallen down looked almost vertical from this angle. There was no way they would be able to climb back up.

Andy sat up. ‘Did you find the map?’

Felix shook his head.

An eerie silence filled the bush. Andy noticed there was no birdsong. He looked around nervously.

‘Okay, so we call Mr Bates. He’ll be able to track the call via GPS.’ Andy pulled out his phone and stared at it. ‘It should at least have SOS reception.’

The others all lifted their phones to show him their screens. They’d obviously already tried. Nothing. Not one bar of reception.

Andy stood up. Strangely, he didn’t feel sore at all.

‘So what do we do now, freak?’ Jake asked.

Felix looked around, clearly unsure.

‘What Bear Grylls would do is find running water,’ Andy jumped in.

‘So he can get naked and eat a slug,’ sniped Jake.

‘No,’ said Andy. ‘So he can follow it back to civilisation.’

Sam looked up at the darkening sky. ‘I don’t think running water is going to be a problem.’

As if on cue, deep rumbles of thunder sounded above them, and a bolt of lightning flashed through the dark sky. Rain began to fall in solid grey sheets.

The four boys stumbled through the thick undergrowth. Andy could barely see where he was going, so heavy was the downpour.

‘Over here,’ Felix yelled.

Andy followed his voice, pushing his way through the scrub to a small clearing. He stopped and looked around. Through the rain he could see the trees that bordered the clearing had strange objects hanging from their branches. Andy looked closer. The objects were clearly man made. And bizarre-looking.

Jake shuddered. ‘Where are we?’

‘It’s like some weird
Blair Witch
remake,’ muttered Sam.

Andy touched one of the dangling objects. It was like a spider web made out of bark and wool. He’d never seen anything like it before. The sky suddenly cracked open and an angry gash of lightning lit up the boys’ scared faces.

‘We need to get away from the trees,’ yelled Andy.

‘There’s a rock ledge over here,’ called Felix, heading towards it.

The boys huddled together under the ledge. The rain still blew in around them but they were at least slightly protected.

Sam shivered. ‘Man, I’m so hungry I could eat my own arm.’

Andy shook his head. ‘You can’t eat your own flesh, it’s indigestible.’ He looked at the others, who were all staring at him. ‘What?’

‘Helpful information, dude,’ said Sam.

‘So what do we do now?’ asked Jake.

‘Bear Grylls would light a fire,’ offered Andy.

‘Good idea,’ said Felix. ‘If we could find some dry twigs.’ He searched around for something they could use as kindling.

‘They’ll wait for us, right?’ asked Sam.

‘Bates will send a search party,’ said Jake.

‘Might not be till morning, though,’ said Felix, making a little pile of leaves and twigs.

Andy looked around. ‘Bear Grylls can get a spark going with a spindle. If there’s a long stick around …’

Felix produced a plastic lighter and lit the twigs.

Jake looked at him, impressed. ‘Good thinking, man.’

Andy felt put out. He’d actually had matches
and
firelighters in his backpack.

‘We’ll probably starve to death before we’re found,’ said Sam.

‘We’ll be like those footballers who crash-landed in the Andes,’ said Felix, blowing on the twigs.

Jake looked at Felix. ‘What footballers?’

Andy watched as the twigs finally caught fire.

‘Oh, never mind,’ said Felix.

‘Come on,’ urged Jake.

‘You know. They got so hungry they were forced to eat each other,’ said Felix.

Nobody said anything for a minute.

‘Alive?’ Andy whispered.

‘No. The ones that were already dead.’

Sam looked at Andy. ‘So you can digest other people’s flesh, just not your own?’

Andy had never thought about that. ‘Not sure. I’ll have to ask my dad.’ He looked into the miserable, barely burning fire and thought about his family. They’d been right after all. He’d give anything for his
nai nai’s
floral poncho right about now, and as for the lunchbox of
xiaolongbao
they’d left lying abandoned on the path …

‘How about a song to cheer us up?’ Felix was holding up his phone. Without waiting for an answer he hit play.

Andy listened in disbelief as the most miserable, tuneless song started to play.

Water, fire, earth and air
Elements that we all share.
Water wash our sins away
Earth guide us to a place
…

Andy shuddered. He wasn’t into modern music. He always listened to Schubert when he was studying and occasionally he’d listen to his dad’s Wings LPs. But this? Could you even call this music?

‘That’s supposed to be cheery?’ asked Sam.

But Felix had his eyes shut and was singing along.

‘
Wind brings with it fear
Flames of fire
…
’

The song went on but Andy wasn’t listening anymore. What had seemed like a great adventure was now just making Andy feel miserable and, honestly, scared. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination but it seemed like the storm had become even heavier since Felix had started playing his awful music. It was dark and wet. The wind changed direction and the rain sheeted down at the perfect angle to completely extinguish the fire.

felix:
there’s no place like home

Felix opened one bleary eye. Early morning sunlight glimmered through the trees. His whole body felt stiff and cold. He put his hand on his chest. His T-shirt was sodden. In fact, all of his clothes were completely soaked through.

He sat up with a start. It wasn’t a dream. They really were in the forest. Lost. He looked around and saw the other three were still asleep. Andy had his mouth open and his shirt pulled across his face to protect himself from mosquitoes. Sam was curled up in a ball and Jake was sleeping sitting up, his head against the rock ledge.

Felix rolled into a sitting position and looked around. He was pretty sure he’d found the right place, but without the map it was hard to be absolutely certain. He knew it was down a steep ravine and that there was a clearing with a stone ledge and a ring of trees.

He looked up. Now that the sun was shining, the strange things dangling in the trees almost looked like budding flowers. They swung in the breeze. Felix took his charcoal pencil out of his bag and began to draw them. Somehow it seemed important to have a record. Surely they were a sign that he’d found the right place?

He stood up, accidentally bumping into an overhanging branch and causing a cascade of perfectly formed water droplets to land on Andy.

Andy woke up with a splutter.

‘Sleep well?’ asked Felix.

Andy took his shirt off his face and looked around. ‘At least we weren’t eaten by the panther that lives out here.’

Felix smiled. ‘You really believe that story?’

There was a loud crack in the bush nearby. Felix jumped. Andy grabbed a nearby stick.

‘What was that?’

‘I don’t know.’

There was another cracking sound, like a beast was moving towards them.

Sam and Jake woke up and jumped to their feet.

Jake rubbed his eyes. ‘Oh man, I was hoping this was a bad dream.’

Felix looked around nervously. ‘I think we should leave.’

‘Why haven’t they sent out a search party for us?’ asked Sam.

‘They probably have,’ said Andy. ‘Visibility is pretty low. We need to get to higher ground so the helicopters can see us.’

From somewhere in the trees nearby came an almighty splitting sound, like the earth was opening up.

‘We need to get out of here.
Now!
’ yelled Felix.

‘How do we know which direction to go?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Felix, led the way out of the clearing as quickly as he could, knocking at branches to create a path. The sooner they got away from here the better. ‘Come on!’

The thought of a panther didn’t scare him. But whatever was back there sure as hell did.

‘Do we actually know where we’re going?’ grumbled Jake.

‘Just out of here,’ said Felix, without slowing down.

Sam looked up at the sun. ‘My dad reckons if you point the twelve on your watch at the sun, north is halfway between the hour hand and twelve.’

He looked at his watch. It was digital.

Felix stopped for a moment and looked at Sam. ‘Helpful,’ he said, before returning to his bush bashing.

On the map there had been a dirt road not far from the clearing. He just had to find it. He wasn’t sure they’d cope with another night out here with no supplies. He owed it to the others to get them home. Even
he
wanted to get home and, in all honesty, that wasn’t something he’d felt for a very long time.

He pushed aside a branch and there it was.

‘It’s a road. Come on,’ he yelled back to the others.

Behind him he could hear them whooping and yelling. Felix grinned. They’d done it. Disaster averted. They would be home having hot breakfasts and even hotter showers before they knew it.

The others scrambled up behind him.

‘Okay,’ said Felix. ‘I’m pretty sure if we follow this east, it will take us into Bremin.’

‘Where the news cameras will be waiting to welcome the heroes,’ said Jake, pumping his fist in the air. Then he stopped dead.

Felix turned to follow Jake’s line of sight. Down the road from where they were standing, a strange dust cloud was spinning. Only it wasn’t a cloud. It was too close to the ground. And it seemed to be moving along the path towards them.

‘What the hell is that?’ asked Jake.

A sudden wind blew up around them. Sticks, leaves and small stones blew into the air. They formed strange patterns for a moment before falling to the ground like hard rain.

Felix felt paralysed by fear. The dust cloud was moving towards them. It whipped up into the air, spinning quickly, gaining intensity and speed like some strange sort of tornado.

He shook himself into action. ‘Run!’

They turned and ran, with the twister or whatever it was now hurtling along the road towards them as if it was hellbent on sucking them up into its centre.

Felix’s heart pounded in his chest. He looked over his shoulder, terrified. The thing was gaining on them, and gathering speed. They could never outrun it.

‘Off the road!’ he yelled to the others. He careered off the road into thick bush. Branches quivered and cracked as he pushed his way blindly through them. He could hear the others not far behind so he knew they’d followed him. He had no idea where he was going, but he knew they couldn’t go back by that road.

Bursting breathlessly out of the bush into a clearing, Felix found himself standing in front of a makeshift campsite. He stopped short. There was an old Holden car, a tent – and a wild-looking man standing in front of the tent brandishing a wooden nulla-nulla. Felix froze. The others stumbled into the campsite behind him. The guy looked feral and mad. He waved the nulla-nulla in the air and stepped aggressively towards them.

‘Don’t attack us!’ Felix put up his hands.

The man narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re attacking me, aren’t you?’

Sam jumped in. ‘No way, man. We’re totally lost and we’ve just been chased by a tornado.’

The man lowered the nulla-nulla. ‘A tornado out here? I don’t think so. So still this morning I couldn’t even get my wind farm working.’ The man gestured to his system of mini windmills, their blades as still as the hands on a broken clock.

Felix was suddenly aware of how still it was. There was not so much as a breeze in the bush. Nothing. Just the sound of quiet birdsong filtering through the trees. What was going on?

‘But there was a massive wind and this twister was chasing us down the road,’ said Jake breathlessly.

The man grinned. ‘Not everything out here can be explained, boys.’ He put his hand out. ‘Roland.’

The boys shook hands and introduced themselves.

‘You fellas hungry?’