The Worm King (6 page)

The Hat didn’t like it. ‘I don’t like this. There
hasn’t been another earthquake in ages. If the house is still in one piece, we
can get inside and get a bit more comfy . . . take the old boy
back and get him warm.’ He nodded at Lord Brown.

The doctor shook his head and gestured
towards the stationwagon. ‘Why his car working and all the others not? And the
power and the cars happen
before
the earthquake? We see what he’s saying,
then go back.’ The Hat reluctantly agreed.

 The man who owned the stationwagon came
from Parramatta and was in a panic. ‘We taste, is sea water. Is sea water! I
know, I taste.’ Spittle flew from his mouth. Parramatta? How could seawater be
knee-deep there? That was more than ten miles inland. So what would it be on
the foreshore, and around the Harbor Bridge and opera house?

Click, click, clickity-click
 . . . how many feet high?
Click, click
 . . . a
hundred plus . . . surely not!

The man was frantic to get away but the
policeman wanted to requisition his ancient wagon. ‘Listen mate. I need to get
back to the station an’ get some help for this lot.’ He waved expansively at the
people and trees behind him.

‘No, we go that way. That way!’ the driver
pointed obstinately to the west, away from the coast. The passenger window wound
down and a burka-clad woman peered out. A gaggle of children were crammed in
the rear seat. ‘Kul wahid ma’it! Kul wahid ma’it.’

‘Fuck mate! How about you take me to the
station and we’ll see from there.’

‘What you do? Kul wahid ma’it!’

The doctor turned to the Hat, ‘Shall we go?’
Lord Brown fell in alongside, counting each step as they walked away through
the rain.

‘Crazy mother,’ said the Hat as soon as they
were out of range. ‘That guy an Arab?’

‘Yes.’

‘What does “kul wah-head matty” mean?’

‘Everyone dead.’

Chapter Nine

Cruising

“Pick
up the phone

I’m
here alone

Call
anytime

I lead a life of crime . . . ”

A
small part of Winston regretted asking for the stereo on, but part
of him also passionately enjoyed the dulcet tones of Bon Scott so he was
content with Leroy’s choice.

‘Could you turn that down please,’ called
Astrid from the back.

‘We got a problem,’ replied Leroy, bringing
the van to a halt.

‘No, it’s too loud. I think it’s making Mr Malisovich
bleed more,’ she shouted.

Leroy turned it down then swiveled in his
seat. ‘The road’s blocked. Cars. Can see the hospital just up ahead but. See?’

The Anzac General Hospital on Highway 32 was
dotted with lights. They must have a backup generator because no other
buildings were lit. Cars choked the road. A head popped out of a hemmed in mini
and a pale face gaped back into the van’s headlights.

‘Whoa, no petrol either.’ Leroy leant
forward, staring at the needle.

‘Turn it off,’ ordered Dick.

Bon Scott died mid-chord and the
drub,
drub, drub
of the VW spluttered out. Rain smacked the tin roof and cascaded
down the windows. The glass quickly fogged over and soon they couldn’t see out
at all.

‘You go down Orient Street, on the right,’ instructed
Mr Malisovich. Astrid helped him out the back door. ‘It’ll take you behind the
cemetery, then you should be able to loop back onto the highway.’ He gasped for
air, sounding feeble.

‘Got her?’ asked Dick. Leroy held one end of
the surfboard and Dick the other, while Asha lay on top. Winston had been
relegated off stretcher duty.

Where the hell was it? He fumbled through
the pile of damp clothes. Shit!

‘Leroy!’ he called after them, ‘where’d you
say it was?’

‘Under the jocks, in the corner,’ came the
yell back.

Found it. Winston pulled out a petrol can with
a big loop of thick plastic tubing tied to its handle. He closed the back door,
leaving the three Girl Guides and dog to guard the van.

It was surprising how many cars still had
people in them. After two false starts he finally found an unlocked, unoccupied
vehicle. His first attempt on a red Mitsubishi with a single woman in the
driver’s seat was disastrous. He couldn’t see in properly, so pressed his face
against her window which frightened her virtually senseless, and despite offers
of assistance, her doors remained firmly locked.

He arrived back at the van roughly ten liters
heavier and only minutes before Astrid, Dick and Leroy returned from the
hospital. The petrol transfer went smoothly, apart from half a cup Winston
sucked down trying to get the siphon started.

‘Can we sit up front now?’ asked one of the
twins.

‘Why not,’ answered Winston sullenly. ‘Maybe
I should just run along behind.’ He spat on the ground, trying to get the taste
of petrol out of his mouth but it stuck in there like glue.

“Dirty
deeds, done dirt cheap

Dirty deeds and they’re done dirt cheap . . . ”

Astrid was angry with Dick. ‘Did you have to
just dump them like that?’ He ignored her, staring intently at the road. ‘The
doctor said they’d been on the radio to Canberra and the power was out there
too, but nothing from Sydney at all.’ Astrid sat next to Āmiria against
one side of the back while Winston and Peanuts sat against the opposite side. ‘When
we get back to the station we’ll be able to track your parents down,’ she
promised, half-shouting so the twins in front could hear.

‘Can you drop me at my place on the way?’ asked
Winston.

‘If you insist.’

He did.

The atmosphere in the van became damp and
musty. Winston peeled off his wet jacket.

Āmiria shone her torch on his lower arm.
‘Neat tat. Is that Popeye?’

‘Yep.’ He turned his forearm slightly so she
could better see the badly drawn portrait of the indestructible sailor.

‘Wait on . . . ’ Āmiria
bent forward for a closer inspection. ‘What’s “Syphich”?’

‘It’s supposed to be “spinach”, but I’m not a
hundred percent sure. I got it done at a full-moon party on Koh Phan Ghan
Island in Thailand two years ago. It was just there when I woke up the next
morning. Thought it meant “spinach”, but the funny thing was, a fortnight after,
I nearly got syphilis so maybe it stands for that. You know, one of those spooky
ESP things.’

‘God almighty,’ said Astrid.

‘I don’t think it actually was syphilis. Well,
for a while I was worried, I’ll tell ya. There was definitely
something
wrong down there, but seemed to clear itself up in a couple of weeks.’

‘Didn’t you go to a doctor?’ Astrid asked,
appalled.

‘Hate going to those bastards. Already got
enough problems they can’t fix. “Hey Doc, I’m only four foot fucking two tall
and now me knob’s falling off too!”’

Astrid didn’t see the funny side of that.

‘What’s syphilis?’ called one of the twins
from the front.

No one answered. Āmiria eventually switched
off her torch. ‘Are you a dwarf?’ He couldn’t see a thing but it didn’t take a
genius to tell she was speaking to him.

‘Only half. My mother’s side’s all Pixie,
except for a couple of uncles who are Leprechauns.’

She laughed. ‘Must piss you off eh bro? Just
yankin’ your chain, don’t worry ’bout it.’

‘Doesn’t worry me in the slightest. I’m
bloody lucky. Things could be heaps worse.’

‘No way!’

‘I could be a Māori?’

“
 
Gettin’ robbed

Gettin’
stoned

Getting
beat up

Broken
boned

Gettin’
had

Gettin’
took

I tell you folks . . . ”

Rain lashed the windscreen. Leroy drove
slowly, easing the van gently down the eastern flank of the Blue Mountains, weaving
his way between broken down cars.

‘Mr Snow?’ It came as barely a whisper,
slipping mysteriously to him through cracks in the pounding rain and heavy
metal.

‘Yes?’

‘My sister likes you.’ One of the twins
whacked the other on the arm.

‘Tell her I like her too,’ replied Dick.

‘We’ve got a present for you.’ She held out
her hand.

A Girl Guide badge dropped into his palm.

Oh yes.

“ Well
it’s a dog eat dog

Eat
cat too

The
French eat frog

And
I eat you.”

Chapter Ten

Boom

T
he house was decrepit, Astrid could see that plain as day. Nineteen-seventies
brick housing commission, thrashed by welfare tenants for twenty years, then
turned over to students to re-thrash for another twenty. A sofa had been dumped
on the lawn and one of the front windows taped up with plastic.

Leroy parked the Volkswagen in the driveway.
The dwelling itself was dark although a dull glow lined the edge of the semi-attached
garage’s roller door. ‘Wonder why they’re in there?’ murmured Winston as they
piled out the back of the van. ‘My room,’ he pointed at the broken window. ‘The
love nest.’

Astrid shuddered. Occasionally he came
across as roguishly attractive, in a way, with a sort of raw appeal she
couldn’t quite put her finger on. Just not very often.

The garage door began rolling up with a rusty,
grating clatter and insipid light flooded out onto the weedy, gravel drive. A
tall, skinny man in his twenties heaved it up as far as it’d go, then peered
under the edge of the door, grinning at them. Beside him stood a much older man
with long hair and an overcoat. The older man’s face was streaked with dirt and
his hair matted. In the middle of the sparse, concrete-floored room, a keg
rested on an empty crate. Next to the crate were three cans of baked beans. A
larger, middle-aged man sat up rubbing his eyes; presumably he’d been asleep. A
torch dangled from a length of rope tied to the roof, hanging almost directly
over the keg and beans.

‘Well, it’s not much,’ announced Winston, ‘but
I call it home. Come on in.’

At first glance the grossly overweight Middle
Eastern man who’d been asleep looked at least forty, although Astrid now realized
he could be more late-twenties. He introduced himself as Azziz and turned out
to be the only one of the bunch to show any modicum of hospitality, fetching a
rug and pillows from the house for the girls to sit on, along with a flask of
water even though it was tap, not bottled. The Girl Guides were struggling to
stay awake.

‘Me and Azziz had a stroll down the park. Met
the Lord,’ drawled the skinny man whose name she hadn’t quite caught but it might’ve
been John Fat. He didn’t look at all Chinese though. ‘When we got back, part of
the kitchen wall had caved in and some of the bricks in the lounge looked a bit
‘iffy, so we decided to move in here.’

They’d all been drinking, that was pretty
obvious. The old man sat in the corner with his knees hunched up, rocking back
and forth. He kept muttering about trees, and watching the girls in way Astrid
found extremely disconcerting. The trees? What on earth was the old fool
talking about . . . ?

Dick had a plan: ‘I’ll go with Leroy, get
help.’

Leroy: ‘Say what?’

Winston: ‘Like those people you helped at
Katoomba?’

‘Listen everyone,’ reasoned Dick, ‘this
earthquake’s shut down the power, maybe right across the country. It’s certainly
done something unusual to, well, anything apart from older cars. Probably hit a
main transmission junction causing a big power surge which beams out in a pulse
effecting vehicle electrics and everything within this . . . geometric
radius.’

‘Is that beams like they use on Star Trek?’ asked
Winston.

Astrid had watched Dick prepare for camera
many times and
that
was not the sort of insolent question you should be chucking
at him. Sometimes he reminded her of an animal going through a metamorphous: starting
with this brooding, unpredictable man who frightened many of the women at the
station—men too, if truth be told—then this magic switch was flicked and a
second later he turned into an eloquent, compassionate advisor to millions.

‘I don’t think this is a time for jokes. People
out there could be in dire trouble,’ Dick replied gravely.

The old man continued to cackle but at least
he was now watching Dick, and not the girls. He appeared to be the drunkest of
the three. Dribble ran freely from one corner of his mouth and it had an odd color,
almost a greenish tinge. Something inside him must be really off. Trees hungry?
Why on earth would the trees be hungry? What was he raving on about?

2.45am: Dick and Leroy had gone “exploring”
and Astrid began to wonder whether they’d even come back. She’d probably have
to wait here until daybreak, and hopefully more cars will be back in action, and
then make her own way to the station or her apartment in Leichhardt. No,
definitely the station—these girl’s parents will be going spare with worry.

‘You think they’ll be back?’ John Fat asked Winston.

So they also thought . . . 

‘Snowballs chance in hell,’ replied Winston.

Typical! She’d been left in the lurch. The dangling
torch was beginning to fade too. At least the rain seemed to be easing so at a
pinch she might be able to walk back into town although it’d take ages. The old
man had started muttering again and looking up at the roof. Still on about tree
hungry, the nutty old coot.

Āmiria followed his gaze, puzzled. She hobbled
across the garage floor on hands and knees, getting closer to listen. ‘Three hundred!
That’s what he’s saying!’

‘Three hundred what, Lord?’ asked Winston.

‘Feet,’ he replied with disturbing clarity.

Dick and Leroy returned in a bit less than two
hours. They’d only made it as far as Penrith before being stopped by a policeman
who said he’d been informed a huge wave had washed all the way up the
Parramatta River. Because of the earthquake apparently, and phones and radios
were patchy. His one didn’t work anyway. He’d been told to stop anyone going east
towards the city, and no way was he going to let them past, according to Leroy.

‘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.