by Justin D'Ath
‘What’s going on back there?’ asked Hayley.
The driver switched on the interior lights and turned around.
‘Huh?’
Both stretchers were empty. The rear doors were open. And two discarded surgical masks lay in the middle of the floor.
Nobody on the wharf noticed them. All eyes were on a group of people gathered near the front of the ambulance. Someone was lying on the ground surrounded by police officers, security men and rat cops. About twenty holocam operators, VN photographers and journalists formed a circle around them. There was even a small, remote-controlled helidrone getting live HV footage from overhead.
‘Hurry, Colt!’ Birdy hissed.
He staggered along behind her, holding his oversized pyjama pants up as he ran. But he wasn’t running! His feet weren’t moving properly. It was like trying to run underwater. He didn’t know what was going on.
Lots was going on behind him. The driver couldn’t get his door open because the crowd was pressing against it. Hayley slipped out on the other side and came running after them. She was catching up.
They reached the edge of the wharf. There was nowhere to go. Colt peered over the side. It was totally black down there. He seemed to have lost his night vision. But he heard the slosh of waves against the EcoCrete piles that supported the wharf.
‘Will we jump?’ Birdy asked.
Colt hesitated for a moment. He couldn’t see anything below them. But Hayley was getting close. ‘Okay,’ he said.
Holding hands, they jumped.
It was a long way down.
Splash!
The water closed over their heads like a sheet of black glass. Colt lost Birdy’s hand in the swirling darkness. It was seriously cold. But the sudden temperature drop had a positive effect. It shocked him out of the strange, drowsy state that had made it feel like he was running underwater. Now he was underwater and he felt like he could run. But he swam, instead – up to the surface.
Birdy bobbed up a couple of metres away. Her head twisted this way and that. Her eyes looked wide and startled.
‘Colt?’
He realised she couldn’t see him. But he could see her. His night-vision was back.
‘I’m here,’ Colt said. He swam over to her. ‘Shhh!’
Hayley was about five metres above them, peering blindly over the edge of the wharf.
‘Follow me,’ he whispered.
Swimming next to her shoulder, Colt steered Birdy in under the wharf. There was a narrow EcoCrete ledge just above water level. They scrambled up onto it.
‘That was scary,’ whispered Birdy. She looked at him. ‘Your eyes are doing that glowing thing.’
They had begun shining like a pair of LED beams. It was one of his superpowers that Colt couldn’t control. But it was pretty useful at times like this. He checked out their surroundings. They were right underneath the wharf, surrounded by tall EcoCrete piles encrusted with sea-slime and barnacles. Some of the piles rose directly out of the water, but a line of them were connected to the ledge. It ran the length of the wharf, ending at a blank, stone wall about thirty metres from where Colt and Birdy sat.
‘We need to get away from here before they come after us,’ he whispered.
Birdy pulled her wet nightie tight around herself. She was shivering. Her teeth had started chattering, making it hard for her to talk. ‘They don’t kn-know we’re h-here.’
‘Hayley saw us jump.’
‘She might not t-tell. She’s a d-doctor, not a r-rat cop.’
‘She works for DoRFE,’ Colt said. ‘And I think she drugged me.’
Birdy’s eyes went big. ‘What?’
‘Did she give you some orange juice when you woke up?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
‘She gave me some. It tasted funny. And ever since then I’ve been feeling really strange.’
‘Why would she d-drug you?’
‘Officer Katt knows I’m Superclown. I think she ordered Hayley to give me something to make me weak so I couldn’t escape from the ambulance. That’s why they strapped us in so tight.’
Birdy was silent for a few moments. ‘H-how are you f-feeling now?’
‘A bit better. But I’m pretty cold.’
‘M-m-me too.’ Birdy’s skin was covered in goosebumps. ‘I’m n-not going b-back in the water.’
‘You mightn’t have to,’ Colt said. He was looking over her shoulder. ‘Where did you come from?’
Birdy seemed confused. ‘The same place y-you did.’
‘I’m not talking to you,’ he said. He pointed. ‘I’m talking to that guy.’
She looked where he was pointing and let out a little yelp of fright. A big white rat was sitting on the ledge behind her.
Colt didn’t blame Birdy for being scared. The night before last, a ghost rat just like this one had nearly killed her. But that wasn’t going to happen again. He rose slowly to his feet and stepped across her, placing himself between it and Birdy.
‘Show me how you got here, rat.’
The animal rose up on its haunches, facing him. Its eyes were creepy. Their pupils had contracted almost to nothing in Colt’s bright gaze – they looked like sightless white beads. But the rat wasn’t blind; it seemed to be watching him closely. And there was something quizzical in the way its long, wet nose quivered, and the way its naked, pink-veined ears twitched.
As if it was trying to understand what Colt wanted.
He helped it out. ‘Shoo!’
The ghost rat turned and went scuttling off along the ledge.
Colt followed it, holding up his droopy, wet pyjamas with one hand. He had to be careful because the ledge was slippery, but he no trouble keeping up – the animal didn’t seem in any hurry. In fact, twice it looked back at him, as if checking that he was still following. They skirted two towering EcoCrete piles – the ledge widened to go around them – then the rat went scuttling ahead towards the dark, stone wall where the wharf connected to the shore.
It looked like a dead-end.
When it reached the wall, the rat scurried over to one side of the ledge. It paused there for a moment, muscles tensed, leaning out over the lapping black seawater. Then it jumped.
Colt flicked his eyes after it, but the animal had vanished. Where had it gone? He hadn’t heard a splash.
It was only when he came closer that the pale beams from his eyes lit up a large, circular opening in the black stone about thirty centimetres out from the ledge. It was the mouth of an ancient concrete pipe – a drain of some kind. Greenish-brown water dribbled down into the sea. Colt hoped it wasn’t a sewer. Anyway, there were rusty iron bars to keep anything larger than a rat from getting in.
But he was Superclown.
He went back looking for Birdy and found her halfway between the two last piles, feeling her way along the ledge on her hands and knees. She looked cold and wet. And very cross.
‘Well, thanks for leaving me in the dark!’
Colt noticed her teeth had stopped chattering. Did being cross with someone warm you up?
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve found a way out.’
He led her to the pipe.
‘No way!’ Birdy cried.
‘We’ve got to,’ he said. ‘They’ll catch us if we don’t.’
He’d been right about Hayley. She must have told the others. Hand-held lasers, spotlights and powerful torch beams were flicking back and forth across the sea on either side of the wharf. And further down, where the ship had docked, a Zodiac was being lowered into the water.
‘The pipe might be full of rats,’ whispered Birdy.
‘I can deal with rats,’ Colt said.
But could he deal with the iron bars? He was beginning to feel woozy again from the drug Hayley had put in his orange juice.
Perhaps another swim would fix it.
Slipping down into the freezing black water, Colt pushed himself over to the pipe. He reached up and grabbed hold of the two middle bars. Then he hes
itated as he thought of something.
‘Birdy . . .’
‘What?’
‘If I pass out, will you jump in and save me?’
‘Don’t you dare pass out!’
It wasn’t something he could control. The drug had already weakened him, and using his superpowers might tip him over the edge into unconsciousness. But he and Birdy had to get into the pipe.
‘Here goes nothing!’ he muttered.
And tugged against the bars.
The iron bars must have been 50 years old. Half a century’s exposure to whatever came out of the pipe – and to the seawater outside – had rusted them nearly all the way through. Colt barely had to use his superpowers.
Crunch! Snap!
The pipe was barely big enough to crawl through. A coating of slippery, brown slime clung to its wet concrete walls. The air smelled mouldy and dank.
‘Where does it lead?’ asked Birdy.
Colt was in front. He couldn’t see more than a few metres ahead. It was like crawling into the centre of the earth. ‘Away from the rat cops.’
‘What if they come after us?’
‘They’ll never look in here,’ he said. ‘Anyway, an adult wouldn’t fit.’
Colt could hardly fit – he kept bumping his head.
Behind him, Birdy was trying unsuccessfully to keep the front of her nightie from dragging through the slime. It was already sopping wet with seawater. ‘Maybe we should have stayed in the ambulance,’ she said.
‘No way,’ said Colt. ‘You heard what Hayley said – they were going to lock us up.’
‘Only for a week.’
‘At least a week,’ he said. ‘Knowing Officer Katt, it would have been closer to a month. We have to get back to the circus before she kills all the animals.’
‘But the circus is, like, hundreds of kilometres away,’ Birdy said.
Colt paused to hitch up his saggy pyjama bottoms. They were just as wet and filthy as Birdy’s nightie. ‘I wish I’d got to talk to James.’
‘Was that him who stopped the ambulance?’ Birdy asked.
‘Yeah. Did you hear what he was shouting?’
‘Something about saving someone?’
‘I think he meant you,’ Colt said. ‘He must have heard the rumour about you catching rat flu.’
‘It wasn’t a rumour,’ she said. ‘I did catch rat flu.’
‘But you got better. I don’t think James knew that.’
‘Does he really know how to cure rat flu?’ she asked.
‘It sounded like he did. And Mum wanted me to talk to him.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, it’s too late now, anyway,’ Birdy said. ‘Did you see all those police and rat cops?’
‘I hope they didn’t hurt . . .’ Colt mumbled, then forgot what he was about to say.
His eyelids were growing heavy. It was becoming a struggle to keep them open.
‘Are you okay?’ Birdy asked behind him. ‘It keeps going dark. Your freaky torch eyes must’ve stopped working.’
‘Sorry. It’s that drug, I think.’
‘Please don’t go to sleep!’
‘I’ll try not to,’ Colt said. He needed food. Food stopped his body from shutting down after he’d used his superpowers – it might help him to fight off the drug, too. But how was he going to find food down here? They were somewhere beneath the city, in a narrow concrete drainpipe, crawling deeper and deeper underground.
And suddenly it was completely dark.
‘Colt! Colt! Wake up!’
He opened his eyes. They produced a tiny glow. Birdy’s face was just centimetres from his. She looked wide-eyed and scared.
‘Did I go to sleep?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘Only for a couple of seconds. Can you roll over?’
He was lying on his side in a pool of cold, slimy gunk that had collected around him in the lower curve of the pipe. His body acted as a kind of dam. Part of his head and one ear were submerged. When he tried to lift his head clear, his muscles wouldn’t cooperate. He lay there like a blob of wet clay, barely able to swivel his eyes, totally weak. It was tiring just to breathe.
What is wrong?
‘You know what’s wrong,’ he rasped, his voice little more than a sigh.
Birdy’s face came closer. ‘Who are you talking to?’
‘You,’ he whispered, struggling to stay awake. ‘You asked what’s wrong.’
‘I didn’t say anything.’
If it wasn’t Birdy who’d spoken, then who was it?
Is it dying? the voice asked.
‘No. I just need food.’
‘Colt, you’re talking to yourself again,’ Birdy said.
He tried to shake his head, but didn’t have the strength. ‘Did you hear a little voice?’
‘I didn’t hear anything.’
Perhaps it was some kind of hallucination, an after-effect of the drug Hayley had put in his orange juice. Or a dream. Had he fallen asleep for a couple of seconds? He couldn’t afford to nod off again – it might be hours before he woke up.
The first time he used his superpowers – several months ago now – Colt had slept for three whole days and three nights!
‘Can you help me sit up?’
Birdy heaved him up into a sitting position. She was pretty strong for someone so tiny – a result of all the training she did for her circus high trapeze act. But it would take someone a lot stronger than Birdy to get him out of the pipe.
‘Lean me against the wall,’ he said. ‘I need you to go and find me some food.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Birdy. ‘Where would I find food? Anyway, I’m not leaving you here.’
‘If I don’t eat something soon, I might fall into a co–’
A loud scream interrupted him. Birdy was staring wide-eyed down the pipe. A ghost rat came scurrying towards them out of the darkness. She screamed again.
Tell it to stop squeaking, it said.
Colt wondered whether he was awake or dreaming. A talking rat! He turned to Birdy. ‘Stop squeaking.’
‘I wasn’t squeaking!’ she said indignantly.
‘Whatever.’ He tried to shrug, but didn’t have the strength. ‘The rat wants you to calm down.’
‘The rat does?’
‘It told me to tell you.’
Birdy dragged her eyes from the approaching rat just long enough to give Colt a pitying look. ‘Rats can’t talk!’
A minute ago he would have agreed with her. Now he wasn’t so sure. ‘Look, it’s got something in its mouth.’
It was a small crescent of pizza crust with all the topping gnawed off. The rat placed it carefully on Colt’s thigh. His mouth watered. ‘Is that for me?’
‘I certainly hope not,’ said Birdy.
‘Shh! I’m talking to the rat. Is the food for me?’
The animal seemed to nod. Is enough?
‘No. I need a lot.’
We bring more, said the rat, and went scooting off into the darkness.
Colt tried to reach for the crust, but his arm felt boneless and too heavy to move. ‘Birdy, can you help me?’
‘Help you how?’
‘Help me eat. I can’t pick it up.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Birdy stared at the piece of crust as if it was the most revolting thing she’d ever laid eyes on. ‘It’s been in a ghost rat’s mouth!’
‘It’s food,’ said Colt. ‘I need food.’
‘But what about germs?’ Birdy leaned closer. ‘Eew! It’s got teeth marks!’
‘I don’t think germs are a problem for superheroes.’
‘Well, I’m not a superhero,’ said Birdy. She gave a little shudder. ‘I’m not even going to touch it.’
‘I saved your life yesterday,’ Colt reminded her.
Birdy said nothing. She didn’t move.
‘If we don’t get out of here,’ he whispered, ‘Officer Katt is going to kill all the circus animals. Even Lucy.’
B
irdy still didn’t respond.
‘Even Lucy’s baby,’ Colt added.
Lucy’s baby was due any day. And Birdy loved all babies (except, maybe, baby rats).
Screwing up her nose, she reached across Colt and gingerly picked up the pizza crust in just her fingertips, then poked it quickly into his mouth. She spent the next fifteen seconds madly wiping her hand back and forth on her nightie.
Colt spent the next fifteen seconds chewing. The crust was stale and not very tasty, but it was one of the most delicious things he’d ever eaten.
‘Yum!’
Birdy looked disgusted. ‘If you ever get a girlfriend, Colt, don’t ever tell her what you just did.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’ll never want to kiss you.’
He smiled. ‘If she’s a real girlfriend, she’ll probably kiss me anyway.’
Birdy rolled her eyes. ‘Here comes dessert.’
This time the rat brought half an apple. It wasn’t much more than a core, really, and dark brown with age, but Colt ate all of it – even the pips.
Is enough food? asked the talking ghost rat.
‘Not nearly,’ said Colt.
‘Not nearly what?’ asked Birdy.
‘I’m talking to the rat.’
‘It’s just squeaking.’
‘Well, I can understand it,’ Colt said. ‘And it can understand me.’
It must have been connected in some way with his superpowers. They always seemed to be changing. He always seemed to be changing. Lately, his senses had grown sharper. He could smell things that other people couldn’t smell. And since he and Birdy had been to Plague Island, he could see in the dark.
He’d started hearing things differently, too. Hearing animals and understanding them.
It had begun a few months back with the circus gibbon, Caruso. He had made a series of grunting noises and Colt had heard . . . well, not words exactly, but a language he understood.
Animal language.
A similar thing had happened with Lucy. She’d made a deep, elephant rumble – or that’s how it had sounded to Birdy – and Colt had heard a voice.
But neither animal, gibbon nor elephant, had spoken as clearly as this ghost rat. And Colt hadn’t been able to talk back – at least not in any language that they understood.
