The Road by Catherine Jinks
‘What have you done?’ Linda yelped. ‘Peter, weren’t you watching?’
‘Lin, please, it’s not Peter’s fault,’ Noel warned, just as Peter himself made a discovery. Having reached Rosie first, he had been able to assess the situation, and had concluded that the blood wasn’t blood at all.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘It’s dirt.’
‘What?’
‘Look.’ He pointed. Where Rose had been digging, a kind of dark, gluey stuff was evident. Peter couldn’t tell whether it had seeped out of the earth or whether Rose had perhaps created it by mixing red dust with spit, or water.
Water, perhaps – not even Mongrel had that much spit in him.
‘You’re not hurt, Rosie?’ Noel demanded, hovering over her.
‘No.’
‘What have you been doing?’ Linda shrilled. ‘How did you make this kind of mess?’
‘I didn’t!’ Rosie’s bottom lip began to tremble. ‘It wasn’t me!’
‘You didn’t tip water onto the dirt?’ asked Peter.
‘No!’
‘I don’t like the look of that,’ said Ross, with decision. ‘That looks like it might be some sort of chemical.’
Linda gazed up at him fearfully. Blinking, Peter recoiled slightly from the dimples and gullies that Rose had dug, which were all slimy and sticky with – what? It looked almost like honey or golden syrup, except that it was the wrong colour.
‘A chemical?’ Noel asked, worried. He had left Col’s car, much as Ross had; the focus of attention was no longer on Col. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘What’s up?’ Del queried, apparently reluctant to abandon her post by the ute in case Col decided to speed off. ‘What is it?’
‘Some kind of stuff,’ Ross replied. ‘Seeping through the dirt.’
‘Some kind of chemical,’ said Noel. ‘Was there any mining out this way?’
‘Dunno. Could be.’ Del didn’t seem particularly interested. ‘Better leave it alone.’
‘Come here, Rose, I’ve got to wash you down,’ Linda ordered. ‘Why do you always manage to find the one place where you shouldn’t be?’
‘But it was an accident !’
‘Don’t be cross with her, Lin.’
‘Here,’ said Verlie, ‘I’ve got an old washcloth we could use . . .’
Suddenly, to Peter’s surprise, he was alone. Linda and Verlie had hustled a whimpering Rose into the caravan. Ross and Noel were talking to Del again. Ambrose was hanging around the ute, peering nervously at his girlfriend, and Louise had wandered back to Ross’s car, the headphones clamped firmly over her ears.
Peter couldn’t believe it. Why wasn’t anybody more interested? This red stuff wasn’t normal, surely? It looked grotesque. Not only that – it was seeping out of the ground. He could see it spreading, like oil or water. Could it be oil?
Petrol was sort of pinkish, he knew that. Could oil be sort of reddish? A very, very dark red?
Like stop motion photography of a vine growing, the watery goo began to branch out, trickles of it slowly welling across the soil, gathering dust, heading towards Peter . . .
He jumped back, and collided with Alec.
‘Oh!’
‘Watch it.’ Alec grabbed his arm.
‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’
‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘I dunno. Sorry.’ But on second thoughts, Peter decided that someone should be informed. ‘That stuff,’ he said. ‘It’s coming out of the ground. It is. You can see.’
Alec stared at him for a moment. Then, with narrowed eyes, he examined the smeared and trampled scene of Rosie’s excavations. Standing some distance away, Peter realised that the scratches in the earth now looked extraordinarily like open wounds.
‘It’s as if the ground is bleeding,’ he whispered, with horror.
Alec turned on his heel, abruptly. He strode towards the ute. ‘We’ve gotta get out of here,’ he announced. ‘We’ve been pissin about for too long. We’ve gotta get goin.’
Peter knew how Alec felt. But he also found that he couldn’t drag himself away from that slow, insidious seepage. Not until he was forced to. Not until his mother called him into the caravan, so that she could check his skin and clothes.
‘You keep away from that stuff,’ she scolded. ‘Do you hear me? That stuff is probably poisonous.’
It was nearly noon.
So now he knew for sure.
Blood from the ground? He knew whose blood it was. He may have left her in a pool of it, back at the farm, but it was coming up here, now. It had followed him here, all this way. It was pursuing him.
He should have known that this would happen – that even death wouldn’t finish her. You don’t rub out power like that with a gun and a hatchet and a filleting knife. You probably couldn’t do it with a silver bullet. He almost laughed aloud – a wild, despairing laugh – but folded the laugh away behind his tongue. No one would understand. None of them knew what they were dealing with, here.
Only he knew. Only he had seen that kangaroo, leaping out of the darkness towards him. She had sent that kangaroo. Somehow, for some reason, she had commanded it to wreck his car. She was the one who’d caused his dog to turn on him. She had called on all the black forces at her disposal, and tried to dismantle his life. God knows what she had told his boss – what she had done to his mate Trevor. One by one, they had fallen to her noxious spells. No doubt this lot would do the same.
He would have to watch them carefully. Some of them might not be people at all. She could do that. She could send emissaries in disguise. That girl with all the make-up – she could be a black snake. Or a crow. There were lots of crows around. One of them might be Grace. Now that he had freed her spirit, she could be anywhere and everywhere. She’d even got into his dog, in the end.
He wondered if the whole lot of them were really black spirits. That one there had a gun, though. So that one couldn’t be her creature, because machines were the product of civilisation. The rest of them looked pretty harmless, but how could you tell? Grace had looked pretty harmless too.
Gazing around at them all, at their sweaty faces and flapping mouths, he felt the rage boil up in him again. He had to shut his eyes and take a deep breath, folding his hands into fists, so that no one could see them shaking. Why hadn’t he used his gun on that old fool, while he’d had the chance? He could have hijacked the ute and continued on alone. Why hadn’t he realised? Even at that stage, he’d been feeling safe enough to use camouflage, like a lizard. He’d been half-convinced that he was to blame – that he’d misread the map. Misjudged the distances.
He had been doubting his own powers of logic.
That’s what she had done to him. For so long she had undermined his faith in his own reasoned judgement. Now, however, he knew the truth. Who but she could have closed her fist over space and time? Only now did he understand the full extent of what she was. That frail body had been nothing but a shell, a shell that had fooled everyone – even him. He had thought himself the lone target of her malice. He had never believed that anyone else would be caught in her trap. That was why he had hitched a ride with Col. It hadn’t occurred to him that, in her desire for revenge, she would carelessly ensnare these others as well.
But he would find a way out. He had to.
And it didn’t matter how.
CHAPTER 14
Alec ended up in Ross’s car.
It had been decided that Col should lead the way, with Del’s car following and Ross’s bringing up the rear. The Fergusons were travelling with Del, while Alec, Ambrose and Georgie shared the back seat of the Harwoods’ sedan. No one much wanted to ride with Georgie, but as Del had pointed out, the Fergusons needed to stick together, and Col’s ute could only comfortably fit two people.
So John, the skinny bloke with the crooked nose, copped the choice spot up front, in the lead vehicle. And Alec found himself sitting next to Ambrose, because Georgie wanted a window seat, and also wanted Ambrose beside her.<
What Georgie wanted, it seemed, Georgie always got.
Alec couldn’t place her. He had been racking his brain, but could not recall that he had ever laid eyes on Georgie around Broken Hill. If she was a local girl, he thought, she must have got out at a pretty early age – or she had changed a lot since leaving. That was more than possible. In her current rig-out, with all that make-up, and the nose stud, and the dyed hair (it was a strange, purplish-black colour) she probably looked very different from the kid who had played hide-and-seek at Sturt Park.
On the other hand, she was a few years younger than Alec. Maybe he just hadn’t noticed her. Broken Hill was a big town – not like Cobar, say. You didn’t necessarily recognise everyone you saw walking down Argent Street.
‘It’s very kind of you to give us a lift,’ Ambrose remarked, for perhaps the fourth time. (He was addressing the Harwoods.) ‘We’re very grateful.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Verlie.
‘I suppose adversity brings out the best in people.’
‘Mmmm.’
‘We have a mobile, you know, but it doesn’t seem to be working.’
‘It won’t, out here,’ Ross explained. ‘None of them do. They’re not within range of the network.’
‘Well, isn’t that stupid.’ Ambrose spoke fretfully. ‘Out here is where you really need them. Someone should do something about that.’
There was no reply. Alec was studying the country as it rolled past, trying to work out if it was changing. Too soon to tell, perhaps. White posts flashed past in an hypnotic rhythm. Beyond them, the grey-green thickets and yellow clumps of grass wove an irregular pattern against the red earth.
‘So where do you come from, Ambrose?’ Verlie asked, obviously making an effort to be polite. Up ahead, Del’s station wagon swerved to avoid a kangaroo carcass.
Alec frowned. Road kill? He didn’t recall seeing any road kill, lately. Not since that roo yesterday, near the Pine Creek crossing.
‘I’m from Melbourne,’ Ambrose offered.
‘Oh, yes. We’re from Sydney, Ross and I. We don’t know Melbourne very well, though we did live there at one stage.’
‘Oh.’
‘Are you on holiday?’
‘Not really. We were at a funeral. Georgie’s grandmother died.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’
As Ross skirted the bloated corpse of the dead kangaroo, Verlie craned to look over her shoulder. Her expression was sympathetic. But Georgie was staring mulishly out the window, disassociating herself from everything that was taking place inside the car.
Alec followed her example. After a quick glance at his fellow passengers, he fixed his attention on the road again – just in time to see more carnage. Something small and brown and furry was plastered across the bitumen. Not a kangaroo – definitely not a kangaroo.
Alec’s spirits rose a notch. He hadn’t seen anything like that since crossing Pine Creek.
Could they actually be getting somewhere?
‘Ross and I are on a long trip,’ Verlie was saying. ‘Three or four months, it’s going to take us. Revisiting old haunts.’
‘Ah,’ said Ambrose.
‘We spent some time in Broken Hill. When we were younger. That would have been . . . which years, Ross?’
There was no immediate reply. Ross had his gaze fixed on the vehicle ahead, which had slewed across the road suddenly. Alec saw why; another dead kangaroo lay smack in the middle of the left-hand lane.
‘Christ,’ said Ross.
‘We’re gettin somewhere.’ Alec tried to keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘I don’t remember these. These are new. Which means that we must be gettin somewhere.’
‘But what could have hit them?’ Verlie wondered. ‘Who’s been through here, lately?’
‘Whoever they were, their car must look like an abattoir,’ said Ambrose. ‘Hey – what’s that? Is that . . .?’
‘The track!’ Alec exclaimed. He leaned forward, feasting his eyes on the ribbon of pale dirt that was shooting towards the highway. ‘We are! We’re movin! Thank Christ!’
‘Are we turning?’ asked Ross, of no one in particular. But Del’s car didn’t slow as they approached the modest intersection. It looked very much as if Col and Del intended to keep to the highway after all.
‘I thought we were turning off?’ Verlie asked, in bewilderment.
‘Why bother?’ Ambrose sounded faintly patronising. ‘If we can get to the back road, then we can get to Broken Hill.’
Alec was alarmed. He didn’t think it wise to ignore this God-given opportunity. ‘Don’t count on it,’ he said. ‘We reached Thorndale too, remember. Didn’t mean that the highway was goin anywhere.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Ross’s tone, when he addressed Alec, was more respectful than it had been before their visit to Thorndale. Clearly he had changed his mind about Alec, for some reason. ‘But we should at least give it a try, don’t you think?’
‘Oh dear,’ said Verlie. Del’s Ford had swerved again, this time narrowly missing two large smears of pulverised tissue. The station wagon was threading its way between them, as it would have threaded its way between a pair of speed traps. Alec caught a glimpse of Col’s ute some distance ahead.
‘God, it’s a bloody obstacle course,’ said Ambrose. ‘Where do all these animals come from, that’s what I want to know. You never see them until they suddenly appear on the road, do you?’
‘They come out at night.’ Once more, Ross felt constrained to take the lead in transmitting any facts that might be required. He clearly had an overwhelming need to appear well informed. ‘It must have happened last night.’
‘There’s another one.’
Alec was astonished. He had only once before seen this much flattened wildlife in such a small area, and that was on a stretch of outback road which ran between two high, steep sandy banks. The animals, mostly roos, had been caught like spiders in a bath. They hadn’t been able to escape the slaughter.
But there were no steep banks lining this road. The fences hadn’t come any closer, nor had the ditches grown any deeper. It was inexplicable.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Ambrose. ‘Is that another one?’
‘I don’t think so. I think it’s part of the left-hand one.’ Ross, however, seemed unsure. ‘What is it? A kangaroo?’
‘Looks more like a bloody whale, the size of it.’
‘This is gross,’ said Georgie.
Ross couldn’t avoid the next patch of gore; he passed over it with a bump. Del had done the same thing – Col too, presumably. Alec noticed crows rising up in front of Del’s Ford, and deduced that Col’s ute was scaring the birds off yet more road kill. Squinting out of the window, he spotted a flyblown pile of meat and hair in the southbound lane, too badly pulped to identify. The funny thing was, it looked pretty fresh. All the carcasses had looked pretty fresh.
What the hell was going on here?
‘It must have been a whole herd or flock or whatever kangaroos travel in,’ said Ross, who had been forced to reduce his speed. But Alec shook his head.
‘That wasn’t a roo, back there. Too small.’
‘Perhaps it was just a piece of one,’ Ambrose suggested.
‘Or a joey,’ said Georgie – almost with relish, Alec thought. Verlie wondered aloud if someone had perhaps been shooting at a group of kangaroos crossing the road – someone who wasn’t entirely stable. There was a brief pause.
Alec, who had seen the handiwork of an unstable personality with a gun, swallowed convulsively.
Then Ambrose, in a bland voice, raised the possibility of kangaroos flinging themselves onto the highway (and into the path of certain death) much as whales beach themselves when misdirected by an errant pilot, or by cockeyed magnetic fields. He was being facetious, but Alec’s attention was caught nonetheless. Magnetic fields?
He had been inclined to blame magnetic fields from the very start.
‘This is ridiculous,’ Ross muttered. W
This one smelled. Alec rolled up his window hastily, alarmed at the size of the thing. It looked like a railway accident. Like a meat-packer’s bad dream. It looked as if a butcher’s shop had collided with a road roller.
The air above it was alive with flies – large black flies like bullets. They bounced off the windscreen with audible thumps.
‘Oh, what’s going on here?’ he moaned.
Ambrose was sitting forward, gripping Verlie’s headrest. His eyes were invisible behind those wanker’s shades, but his expression was worried. Turning to Alec, he asked: ‘Is this normal?’
‘No.’ Alec was emphatic.
‘We’ll have to go around,’ said Verlie. ‘Ross? We’ll have to –’
‘I know. I can see that.’
‘Man oh man,’ Georgie remarked, in reverent tones. ‘The world’s biggest hamburger.’ Ambrose giggled.
Ross was concentrating on the task before him, which wasn’t an easy one. With the caravan dragging at his rear end like a ball and chain, he had to ease his car off the bitumen, guide it over a shallow ditch, and then get back on the road again. While he accomplished this manoeuvre, Alec watched Del’s Ford. It was all over the place. So was Col’s ute. The two vehicles were weaving back and forth between piles of mashed animal guts.
The white centre line was imprinted with bloody tyre marks, where it wasn’t dyed red.
‘God help us,’ Alec breathed. With a bone-jarring lurch they roared back onto the tarred surface, skidding a fraction when their right front tyre hit a slippery clump of fat or sinew. Stubbornly, Ross ploughed on. He was grim-faced, stiff-shouldered, intent on his driving. Ambrose and Georgie were both giggling now.