The Worm King (35 page)

Zelda was first to take a cup. ‘Urrrghh!’ She
shuddered and passed it to David. Wiremu and Āmiria took a half-cup each.

His daughter sipped it, leant in close and
whispered confidentially, ‘Hey dad, that’s bloody horrible!’ He couldn’t help
laughing.

‘Come on girl, we’ll see how Jerry’s going.’
After swallowing the last of the soup he passed the cup back to the Hat so it
could be reused, then got to his feet. When they stepped away from the fire it
became noticeably colder so he decided to grab a blanket from the bus. Back on
board, Wiremu unzipped their bag and pulled out one of the two blankets they owned,
not the heavy one in case it got damp. The two remaining hand grenades were
tightly wrapped in rags and stored in a side compartment. They’d broken the
zip-puller off that particular compartment so you could only get at them now by
cutting through the canvas, or spending ages fiddling with the zipper. With the
blanket over his shoulder, he began to start down the stairs then noticed the
flour sack of garbage stacked up from earlier, which could be contributing to
the smell, so he picked it up and tossed it though the front door. It landed
with a thump right at his daughter’s feet. She looked up. There it was again: that
utter terror. He really was a bad father, he finally knew that now. Must be. His
daughter was scared stiff of him and he’d no idea why.

Wiremu jumped down and kicked the rubbish
away then knelt before her. He held her arms tightly, ready to try anything to
ease her fear. Absolutely anything. They think he’s strong, but he’s not; he
has no idea what’s happening. And now there was only one thing left in the
whole world that he knows is true. Just one.

So he told her to repeat after him:

‘I am Tūhoe!’

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Stratagem

T
he five men stood around the squat, rust-speckled pump. Forsyth had
seen one exactly like it in India, so asked Nathan if that’s where it originated.

‘You know your bore-pumps Captain,’ he replied
somewhat surprised. The machine in question protruded from the muck and consisted
of a metal shaft the thickness of a fence post, with a rectangular box-like
arrangement on top which in turn had another narrower handle-type pole jutting
horizontally from one side. The whole contraption was centimeter or so shorter
than the dwarf, who conveniently happened to be standing right next to it.

Murray held the lantern and Doctor Azziz stood
beside him. Inside the house were Nathan’s wife and Astrid plus the kiwi couple
and their child from the front lawn of the Hyatt.

‘Can’t be much above freezing and I’m not
sure if they’re made for the cold. It’s an Afridev,’ explained Nathan. ‘This
Indian bloke sold a bunch of them around New South Wales ’bout ten years back,
when they started bringing in the super-tight water restrictions. Reckoned we
could keep a big garden watered with one even if there was no power, and we
were getting the occasional power cut back then too.’ He stamped his foot on
the soggy ground around the pump. ‘There’s a shallow aquifer under the property
at eighteen meters. It’s not big enough for commercial irrigation and the water’s
terrible to drink, as you know, so no one’s bothered about it before. Anyway,
the bloke said it’d be great exercise too, which is one of the things that
convinced the wife in the end. He was right about that! It’s damn hard work. In
India they use them in schools and community centers and whatnot. Most of the
time we just rely on the mains supply for watering and the pump never got used
much. Funny thing is, I always looked on this as one the worst investments I
ever made. Now it’s the only thing keeping us here.’

Nathan’s house was an old homestead subdivided
from a larger farm and converted into a roadside tearoom. The main farm was 2
km to the west but their water supply got polluted early on, so the owners moved
into Griffith several weeks ago. The cafe attached to the front of Nathans had
a small adjoining kitchen, currently being used as sleeping quarters for Forsyth
and Murray, while Winston, Azziz and the three other Kiwis slept in the lounge
where it was slightly warmer.

‘The reason I got you out here—and I didn’t
want to mention this in front of the shelias—is someone else’s been using it. The
handle’s been left in a different position from where I always leave it.’

Forsyth unconsciously fingered the grip of his
glock. The lanterns glow seemed far too weak. He had a small penlight in his
pocket but was reluctant to draw it because batteries were worth their weight
in gold these days. Nathan continued: ‘I thought about bringing out a stick or
something, in case they had a go, but there’s not much I could do and it’d
probably aggravate them more. There’s plenty of water anyway. It could be
anyone. My guess is it’s this bloke who knocked on the door looking for food
about five days back. I could only give him a tiny handful of rice and he
wasn’t real happy. I took him out here and gave him a drink, so he does know
where the pump is. He had a few swallows then the ratbag just swore at me and
raced off that way, without even a thank you.’ Nathan pointed vaguely towards
the west.

‘What
is
that way?’

‘Nothing at all, Captain. Not a thing. A few
fences, dead grass and trees and the odd hill.’

‘What would he eat?’ asked Azziz.

‘Only thing I can think of is the Carmichael
farm on the other side of the highway. It’s no more’in a kilometer away. They
always kept a big paddock of sheep and might’ve missed a few when they were
trying to round them up in the dark because the smell when the breeze was
coming from their place the other day was fearful. If he’s eatin those, he’ll
be crook as a dog, but that’s all I could think of.’

‘Yes, the rotten meat, she is not good,’ the
doctor said knowledgeably.

‘Have you asked the city council, or
whoever’s running the place, for some protection?’

‘No?’ replied Nathan, like the question came
from la-la land. ‘What could they do?’

Forsyth had a gnawing feeling Councilor Montabelli
was conning him. On arrival two days ago, Francesco immediately went into town
to fetch his boss Montabelli, the doctor, and a twenty kilo bag of rice. Then Montabelli
and Francesco drove off to fetch the Mayor, saying they’d be back in less than an
hour, and here he’d waited: almost two days later and no sign of the swine. They
must be stalling. His big mistake was in showing them the Order of Darkness
prematurely. The councilors had wanted to take the legislation and show the Mayor,
but he’d said no, so Montabelli offered to fetch Mr Mayor forthwith. Thus
Forsyth had been outmaneuvered. However Montabelli’s short visit was revealing
in one respect, by the disturbing question he asked regarding the authorities
in Canberra: “Captain, do you think they are keeping it bad on purpose?”

Politics had never been his strong point. He
should’ve simply put his foot down there and then, re-requisitioned the 4WD and
buggered of. But they convinced him to wait. That was his main problem half the
time: an easy touch.

In the normal course of events he’d walk
into Griffith, retrieve the vehicle from either Francesco or Montabelli and
continue on his merry way back to Duntroon. Against this, was the fact that they’re
right out on the fringe of town here and he’d be leaving these folk with little
more than sharp cutlery when suspect individuals were clearly lurking. Even now,
he wasn’t overly happy about standing around in the open carrying just two
handguns and a few knives. Then again, just how many was he supposed to protect?
And why this lot? They weren’t as perturbed about their situation as he
might’ve imagined, and the dwarf seemed absolutely confident Francesco would
return.

The doctor’s prognosis on the city council
had also been surprisingly positive. Apparently they’d locked down two sizeable
warehouses of food and several smaller ones destined for supermarket chains on
the coast. The council had a particularly large stash of rice in a warehouse
fifteen kilometers to the other side of town. Forsyth had asked if there’d been
any opposition and Azziz thought a “businessman’s militia” initially sprung up
but this hadn’t lasted long and was stamped out, or absorbed. Or disappeared or
something. The doctor believed the council had appropriated most of the
available fuel reserves. With fuel, they were able to keep the remaining food
distributed and wait it out. The majority of the council’s time was taken up
ensuring all households had some form of emergency lighting, even if it were
only a rechargeable battery to use for a couple of hours a day in order to eat
and do the essentials, or a spot of lantern fuel. Just enough to get sorted
because as Dr Azziz said, if people just sit there in the dark all the time
they won’t be able to find food or drink and eventually, they curl up like the
leaves out there and die. No attempt as yet had been made to restore power onto
the grid, although this was supposed to be the next step.

Forsyth’s subsequent inquiries uncovered
that Azziz wasn’t strictly speaking a doctor at all, but a final year medical
student who lived in Sydney with the dwarf. After a week at Griffith hospital
they’d upgraded him to full doctor status, which sounded a slightly shaky
qualification, still, who was he to talk, waving around Order of Darkness
papers. Azziz brought with him three liters of lantern kerosene from the
hospital and a half dozen fully-charged rechargeable 12-volt batteries, plus
the rice. The 20kg bag was expected to last ten people a week, or eight, nine days
tops. That equated to 1 cup of uncooked rice per person per day, which cooks up
to 2.5 cups of cooked rice per person per day. Virtual starvation rations.

Azziz had been blunt. ‘Everybody very
lethargic. Only reason scurvy isn’t starting more, is the cans of fruit the council
is handing out.’ Forsyth couldn’t recall getting any fruit with their rice and
asked why, but the doctor hadn’t known. ‘Maybe they run out already.’ He’d
rattled off a comprehensive list of symptoms to watch out for, if you happen to
be living on a rice-only diet, which means almost zero fat. Apart from being
hungry all the time and getting extremely skinny, there’ll also be
irritability, muscle cramps and twitches, restlessness, insomnia and profuse
sweating. Azziz said he tried to institute exercises at the hospital, so people
weren’t just sitting in the dark wasting away, but they’d refused to have a bar
of it and what could he do? ‘You cannot just beat the people, to make them do
the push-up and the dumbbell!’ The dwarf had disagreed, saying you could, and Forsyth’s
experience with the army was that you definitely could too.

The good doctor thought a belief was arising
amongst those at the hospital that the earth will now die, and even if the
light did return, all the plants will be dead and all that’ll be left is red
dirt. Like Mars. Nothing will ever recover. The Captain was sceptical. He
couldn’t help thinking a lot of Australia had already been more or less like
that anyway, so would it really make much difference?

The dwarf was having a lash on the pump: after
much panting and wheezing the twenty-liter bucket parked under the nozzle stood
full to the brim. Forsyth decided to give it another twelve hours at Nathans
before walking into town. In the meantime, they’d try and cover the windows in
the house, but there were plenty, and the big ones at the front of the cafe
will be especially tricky so it’d take a while. Maybe they should start after
the next meal, when everyone had more energy.

‘Let’s get back inside.’

It was Astrid’s idea to begin dining in the
cafe. It contained four cozy tables which were pushed together to make one longer
one. Prior to this, they’d eaten on the floor of the lounge-cum-dining room and
although it was warmer back there, there was more space in the cafe. They dined
heartily on a three-quarter cup of plain cooked rice each, with a coin-sized
dab of tomato sauce on top and as many glasses of cold, metallic water as you
could force down. Forsyth managed four before feeling vaguely full and queasy
and had to stop. His stomach still rumbled.

‘Listen!’ said Astrid. ‘You hear that?’ She got
up, leant over the table and turned the lantern out, plunging the room into pitch
darkness. A car rumbled towards them, from the north. If no other lights were
showing in the rest of the house, perhaps it’d drive straight past? Headlights
appeared, two hundred meters up the road. Nobody at the table said a word. Hang
on, it wasn’t a car . . . it had the throaty growl of a
heavier engine. A truck? Thirty seconds later their table was bathed in light
as an ancient school bus ground to a halt on the gravel in front of the tearooms.

A burly Polynesian jumped off, followed by a
much older Caucasian male with a beard and overcoat. Then a tall skinny individual
in a digger’s slouch hat, waving a bottle. The dwarf let out a whoop and ran for
the door.

‘What on earth . . . ’ frowned
Astrid.

The bus headlights went off but several of
those disembarking held torches.

Forsyth rose, and slipped into the
background to appraise the arrivals. It appeared a number were drunk. This
might solve the transport problem and security concerns in one foul swoop,
although he certainly wasn’t instilled with confidence by their general demeanor.

Thirty-one got off the bus. At first glance
the only ones definitely sober were a couple of kids, the driver, and a dog. The
way the dog was bolting around there could be questions over that as well.

The dwarf reached up to slap the man in the
hat on the back. ‘Things were touch and go until ’ole Sgt Kevin . . . where
is he?’ He pushed up his brim to expose a bony bushman’s face, late-twenties, and
bloodshot eyes, possibly from the amount he’d drunk. ‘There you are!’ Then the arms
were up, waving like he were at a rock concert. ‘Woo-whooo! Go Kev!’

Others hoarsely chorused ‘Go Kev!’ and punched
up arms in unison. Kevin looked abashed; perhaps less drunk than most. As the crowd
settled, Forsyth realized quite a few weren’t actually drunk, just rowdy. He
was introduced to Wiremu, the Māori who’d jumped off first and he’d
thought to be Polynesian, and now no longer seemed intoxicated in the least.

Sgt Kevin of the Rotary had procured an
enormous stash of food (and grog) from a house in Peak Hill. Batteries and fuel
too. The considerate owner who’d gathered it all together—they thought from a
supermarket in nearby Dubbo going by the labels—appeared to have quietly expired
of a heart attack in his bed soon after.

Nathan put the new guests up in his boatshed
around the back and asked the driver, Jerry, to re-park the bus off the road. Wiremu
assigned two men to watch the vehicle and food at all times, which Forsyth
thought a smart move.

Montabelli had returned. He pulled up in an
old stationwagon and Francesco parked alongside in the red 4WD acquired from
Snow. The pair arrived precisely two hours after the bus. This rang an alarm
bell when Nathan noted that’s about how long it might take someone to ride a pushbike
into town then drive straight back out here. Probably just coincidence. They
didn’t have the Mayor with them, which could’ve inclined Forsyth toward anger,
but fortunately he’d just finished his best chow in weeks so was in an excellent
disposition.