She floundered about, coughing pitifully. The smell was obnoxious.
‘Back to the bank!’ Ross panted. ‘Go on!’
‘You got a shovel?’ John demanded. ‘A jack?’
Then Georgie screamed.
She had been staggering northwards, arms flailing, dragging each naked, slime-caked foot out of the quagmire with considerable effort. Suddenly she fell, hauled herself upright, and struggled to move more quickly, without much success. She kept falling as the top half of her body outstripped the bottom half.
‘Something touched me!’ she shrieked. ‘Something touched my foot!’
‘Georgie.’ Ambrose stumbled to her side; he grabbed her arm. ‘You’re up to your knees in mud –’
‘It slithered!’
‘It was probably a stick, or something. There must be all kinds of crap in there –’
‘Let GO!’
She was sobbing now, and her pale, silky dress was smeared with greeny-yellow sludge the colour of pus. Even in the midst of her own dread and disgust, Verlie felt sorry for the girl. After all, she was very young. No wonder she was losing control.
‘It’s past the hubcaps already,’ said Ross, who was sweating and red-faced. ‘We need wood – maybe some sheets of iron –’
‘Won’t work,’ John growled. ‘Not if the springs are in it. Unless the differential’s clear, ya won’t get any traction. SHIT!’
Verlie, who was heading for the creek bank, didn’t see what had caused John’s yelp. By the time she turned, he was blundering backwards, his arms raised, an expression of terror suffusing his face.
‘What?’ asked Ross. ‘What is it?’
But John’s mouth flapped. He was speechless.
‘There’s something in there!’ Georgie yelled. She had reached dry land, and collapsed onto it. Ambrose, bringing up the rear, stumped along with his legs wide apart, grunting as he yanked each mud-covered moccasin out of the ooze. His beautiful trousers were ruined, Verlie saw.
‘There can’t be anything in this,’ he objected. ‘Nothing alive.’
‘An eel?’ Ambrose suggested.
‘In this?’ said Ross. ‘Come on. Let’s get some timber.’
But John was staggering out of the mud, breathing heavily.
‘Quick, John!’ There was an undertone of panic in Ross’s plea. ‘For God’s sake, it’s sinking!’
‘I’ll get branches!’ Verlie offered. She began to walk again, straining against the greedy mud and calling to Ambrose, who was now at Georgie’s side. ‘Get some timber!’ she instructed, gesticulating. ‘Branches! Anything to put under the wheels!’ And then she saw it.
The mud heaved slightly between herself and the bank. It rolled like a wave, twice, as if something had moved sluggishly beneath it.
Verlie stopped.
‘Wait!’ Ross cried. ‘There’s a plastic sheet in the back! John, help me!’
John didn’t reply. He had reached dry land and was catching his breath, his hands propped on his knees.
‘John!’ Ross cried.
Verlie heard something to her right – a slurping sound. Another ripple in the surface of the mud caught her eye.
‘Ross . . .’ she croaked.
‘We’ll have to walk back,’ Ambrose declared. Safe now on the creek bank, he sat with his arm around Georgie, his sunglasses pushed up into his hair. ‘We’ll never get the car out of that stuff – it looks like it’s three foot deep.’
Verlie took a step forward, and her shoe came off. Her toes hit warm sludge. Stooping to retrieve the poor, filthy pump (Diana Ferrari, it was a shame), Verlie lost her balance, so that her fingers plunged into the ghastly, pus-like stuff in which her shoe was caught. When her driving fingertips met with some resistance, she braced herself against it in order to thrust herself upright again.
But whatever she was leaning on suddenly slipped away. It wriggled from beneath her hand like a lizard’s tail.
‘Ross!’ Deprived of support, she fell forward, and found herself half submerged, with the slush up to her breastbone. ‘ROSS!’
‘Verlie!’
She was vaguely aware of Ambrose springing to his feet – perhaps moving towards her with a view to helping her up. But she only caught a glimpse of him, because she wanted her husband, she was looking to her husband for assistance, reaching for him as he made his way clumsily in her direction. He left a choppy wake – faint hollows in the viscid surface – and dragged streaks of red-tinted slime through patches of white and brown and yellow. At first, Verlie thought that he had caused the disturbance, churning up lumps in his eagerness to reach her. But the lumps didn’t slide back into the fluid depressions that he had scored through the mud. The further behind he left them, the larger they grew. He was almost within arm’s length of Verlie when one of the lumps took a definite form, rearing up to a kind of point before subsiding again. Unlike a breaching whale, however, it made no splash.
Verlie gaped.
It was Georgie who found the breath to scream.
‘There! Oh my GOD!’
A flurry of movement. Even Ross saw this, because he turned just in time. The disturbance reminded Verlie of trout feeding on a fish farm: there was the same surge of thrashing, tightly packed bodies; the same sudden frenzy that was over so soon; the same sort of writhing, indistinct shape, which at a fish farm was invariably formed by a massed school rising up, engulfing the scattered food pellets, and sinking again, leaving only a slight disturbance on top of the water.
‘Get out,’ Ambrose panted. ‘Ross! Verlie! Get out!’
‘What – ?’
‘There!’
Another glutinous shape – huge, amorphous – thrust itself into view, labouring against the elastic pull of the mud. It was as big as a dog; no, as big as a dolphin.
‘A croc!’ shouted Ambrose. ‘Get out!’
‘No,’ John gasped. ‘It can’t be . . .’
Ross hauled Verlie upright with a strength that would have surprised her, had she been concentrating on it. Instead, all her thoughts and energies were focused on the creek bank. Her destination. Her refuge.
She and her husband dragged each other towards Ambrose, who was flapping his hands wildly.
‘Come on! Come on!’ he cried.
Verlie felt something curl around her ankle before it flicked away, and all at once she was on solid ground. She dropped to one knee, groaning. She was plastered with filth – stinking of it. Pebbles bit into her palms. Kneeling on all fours, like a dog, she tried to get her breath back, conscious of her racing heartbeat.
This can’t be good for me, she thought dazedly. This can’t be good for me at all.
Georgie’s howl nearly burst her eardrums.
‘OH MY GOD!’
‘Look out!’ yelled Ross.
Verlie was slow off the mark. Struggling to turn, she saw another muddy form rise up from the slough behind her.
And then, because her blood pressure was already through the roof, she lost consciousness.
At first, Ambrose thought that someone had shot the thing. One minute it was there – a Morlock, a nightmare, a half-formed mud creature. The next, it had exploded. It had blown apart. A shower of mud rained down on John Carr with such force that he fell to his knees. Splat-splat-splat! Semi-liquid chunks of matter, none larger than a tennis ball, hit the dirt like soggy hailstones.
After that, there was nothing. Silence. And Ambrose realised that he hadn’t heard any gunfire – that the mud creature had simply vanished. Like the Man of Flies. Even the bog looked utterly unchanged. It lay unmoving in the afternoon sun, while a thin cloud of flies danced over its sticky surface.
Ambrose, however, had changed profoundly. In that instant of horror, he had experienced a transformation that toppled his values and cracked the thin shell of his scepticism.
He was reduced, converted and completely overwhelmed.
‘Christ. Oh Christ.’ John was on his hands and knees, shaking. Ross was crouched over Verlie, who was lying
still. Ambrose was on his feet, poised for flight. He didn’t realise it at first. He didn’t even know he was standing. But as he scrutinised the creek bed for further signs of trouble, he became aware of an irritating, high-pitched keening – like the whine of a power tool – and looked down, and saw that Georgie was clinging to his leg. Clinging and screaming, her eyes screwed shut.
She had him trapped like a ball and chain.
‘Let go!’ he cried hoarsely. ‘Get off!’
‘Fuck this,’ John was saying. His legs still shook as he hauled himself up on one knee, then stood erect. He turned to check the car. ‘Fuck,’ he groaned, his voice cracking.
The car was up to its wing-mirrors in mud. Ross hadn’t noticed; he was slapping his wife’s cheek, very gently.
‘Verl!’ he implored. ‘Sweetheart!’ His pleas were almost inaudible beneath Georgie’s wailing.
‘Shut the fuck up, you slag!’ John roared at Georgie, who burst into tears. Ambrose’s only reaction was: thank God for that. He hadn’t been able to think for the noise.
‘We have to go back,’ he croaked. ‘Now. Quickly.’ He waggled his leg, trying to detach his girlfriend. ‘Come on,’ he said, yanking himself out of her grip.
She crawled after him, sobbing. Ambrose was still confused – confused and terrified. He wanted to get back to Del, and the gun. He was afraid that something was going to leap out of the bushes at him, something made of fire or wasps or animal guts . . . something awful. A gun would at least provide protection. And whatever was happening, they weren’t supposed to go on. That much was clear. They weren’t supposed to leave.
‘We have to get back,’ he said roughly, talking almost to himself. ‘There’s food back there. Water.’
‘Wait!’ It was Ross’s voice, calling to him. But Ambrose didn’t stop or look around. He was heading down the track, towards the others. How long would it take to walk back? An hour? Maybe less – they hadn’t exactly been racing along in that car.
He would make it back before night fell; that was the important thing. He didn’t want to get stuck out here in the dark.
‘Ambrose!’ Georgie cried. He felt her snatch at his arm, and he turned. She was walking now, though not with any comfort. She kept hopping, wincing, because her feet were bare and soft. Stupid fucking bitch, he thought savagely.
‘Why didn’t you bring any shoes?’ he snapped.
‘Wait! Stop!’ Down by the bog, Ross was waving at him – at him and John and Georgie. But John was following Ambrose’s lead, marching grimly down the track, wiping thick mud off his face and neck. He didn’t even slow when he heard Ross’s cry.
‘Give me a piggy back!’ Georgie pleaded. ‘Please, Ambrose!’
‘Oh, for Chrissake!’ If only she would stop talking! To shut her up, Ambrose hoisted her onto his back. (She wasn’t very heavy, being so small and brittle-boned.) As he did so, he saw that Verlie was moving. Good. No problems there.
He hurried after John, who had already passed him. The brush on either side was slightly higher than both of them, dense, impenetrable. No birds chirruped in its thorny depths. The sun beat down, the flies buzzed, the pebbles skittered before Ambrose’s mud-caked shoes. He kept stepping over dollops of reddish goo that had dropped off John Carr. The guy was leaving a trail of mud. As Ambrose trudged along, he counted the clumps. One, two . . . seven, eight . . . thirteen, fourteen. Georgie’s foot thumped against his thigh, marking time. He had lost his sunglasses – in the bog somewhere, probably. A brand new pair of sunglasses, swallowed up by the bottomless ooze. And he couldn’t check his watch, because his arms were twined around Georgie’s knees.
He couldn’t flap the flies from his lip, either. So he puffed at them, and jerked his head.
On and on he walked, Ross’s cries fading to silence behind him. Sweat trickled down his ribs. There was no breeze down between the hedges of scrub, and he was starting to bake; he could feel the tips of his ears burning. (Why hadn’t he brought a hat?) His head ached. His mouth was dry. Though his thoughts were sluggish – still affected by shock, perhaps – it occurred to him that he could easily die of thirst out here. They all could. Had Verlie brought the water with her, when she left the car? He couldn’t remember. There had been so much noise and movement . . .
Ahead, the track twisted and turned, often concealing John from sight. A gap was opening between them; Ambrose could see that. John wasn’t lugging fifty-odd kilos of drooping girlfriend with him, the lucky bastard. He could afford to pick up the pace. How long had it been, now? Five minutes, since they left the creek? Six? Seven? Ten, perhaps. (It seemed like a century.) And nothing of an alarming nature had overtaken them, though the track did seem to be getting narrower. Or was that just a figment of his overwrought imagination?
‘What’s happening?’ Georgie blubbered. She was getting spit and snot all over his collar.
‘I don’t know,’ he gasped.
‘What have we done? Why can’t we get out?’
Breathing heavily, Ambrose said nothing. What was there to say? He was beginning to feel her weight now; he didn’t have the energy to talk. His soles slapped against the dry earth, hot air whistled through his nostrils, flies bobbed and weaved around his head. What was he doing here? Here, in the middle of nowhere, with this sociopathic girl? He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that he had ever found Georgie even remotely attractive. It was like awakening from a dream, and finding himself in a nightmare. For Christ’s sake, if it hadn’t been for her, he never would have gone to Broken Hill.
But he stumbled forward, in a daze, because he didn’t know what else to do. The saltbush and dead finish seemed to be closing in on him. He could see red drops trickling from some of the reaching branches, and caught his breath before realising that these ominous little globes were actually berries. Red berries.
‘What if we get back, and they’ve disappeared?’ Georgie suddenly whimpered. ‘We won’t have any supplies.’
‘Shut up.’
‘What if we can’t ever get out? What are we going to do, live like the Aborigines?’
‘Shut up, will you?’
‘What if the rest of the world’s gone now,’ Georgie wailed, ‘and we’re the last ones left?’
Ambrose dropped her, so that she slid to the ground. He whirled around and cried, ‘Shut up, or you can walk!’
Her face was a mess, covered in smeared mud and mascara. She gazed up at him with swimming eyes.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she snivelled accusingly. ‘Why are you so mean?’
‘I’ll leave you here!’ he threatened.
‘Why? Because you’re afraid of the truth?’
‘Shut up!’
‘Can’t you see we’re in a horror movie? A fucking horror movie, Ambrose, we’re all going to die!’ She began to weep again, abandoning herself to despair. Ambrose gazed down at her. He felt like crying himself. He thought: What am I doing? What am I going to do?
‘I don’t even know what it is!’ she moaned. ‘What is it, a curse? A monster?’
‘Shh.’
‘Is it something Aboriginal? Like a Kadaitja man, or something?’
‘For God’s sake, Georgie!’ Ambrose’s voice broke. ‘How the fuck should I know?’
‘Do you think we’re like those people? The ones who disappear and never turn up again? Missing persons?’ Her questions became shriller, more panic-stricken. ‘Like the Bermuda Triangle? Like Picnic at Hanging Rock? Like those bodies they find, after years and years, and no one knows what happened, and everyone thinks someone killed them?’ She began to wring her hands, her gaze turned inwards. ‘It’s something like that, I just know it! Oh my God! Oh my God!’ Her face contorted, as ugly as a monkey’s. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘The right thing.’
It wasn’t Ambrose who spoke. He nearly died of fright, before swinging around to see that John was behind him. Right behind him. How long had the man been standing there, listening?
Amb
rose hadn’t noticed. He had been too distraught.
‘We shouldna left those two,’ John continued. His face was unreadable, because it was so caked with dried muck and dust. His eyes were screwed up against the glare. ‘That poor old lady – she looked like she had a stroke.’
Ambrose just stared at him, mutely.
‘I’m goin back,’ said John. ‘You two wait here.’
‘But –’
‘We shouldn’t separate, if we can help it. You two wait until I bring the others, and we’ll all go on together.’
Ambrose was torn. On the one hand, he dreaded facing that bog again. On the other, his conscience was beginning to prick him. Fright had chased it into the deep recesses of his consciousness, but now it was stirring.
‘I . . . I can’t come with you,’ he stammered. ‘I can’t leave Georgie here.’ And John frowned.
‘No one’s askin you to,’ he rejoined. ‘Just stay. Don’t move.’
‘Hurry.’
‘I will.’
Ambrose watched John Carr retreat. John’s lean figure grew smaller and smaller, until it reached a curve in the track and disappeared behind a screen of encroaching vegetation.
Nothing else moved.
Del had driven her car down to the edge of the creek, parking it under a big old gum tree. With Noel’s help, she had set up the Harwoods’ camp stove, and placed beside it two fold-out stools, a blue plastic esky, a picnic rug and a cardboard box. She had tied Mongrel to the tree with a long lead, and arranged a few items (a kettle, a bottle of water, a packet of tea bags) near the stove. She had done all this while Alec kept watch, nursing her gun, and the Ferguson kids cowered inside the station wagon.
‘Might as well give it a go,’ she had insisted. ‘See what happens. If anything does, we can always pack the stuff up again.’
Much to everyone’s surprise, nothing had happened. Linda and her children had waited inside the car for half an hour – an hour – an hour and twenty minutes, without witnessing any unexpected or unwelcome events. A light breeze had blown up, rustling the dry leaves hanging above them. A lizard had crossed from one neighbouring tree to another, moving with such lack of urgency that Del had been able to identify it as a shingleback. Mongrel had settled down for a rest, panting in the heat, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.