September

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘That’s the plan,’ she said with a smirk that was barely visible in the darkness.

  ‘So what are we looking for?’ I asked.

  ‘A gold 2002 BMW,’ she said, ‘with cream and tan upholstery. And with a little something extra on the upholstery in the back.’

  ‘Something extra?’

  I saw a series of expressions move across her face—love, sadness, anger and determination.

  ‘I’ll show you if … when we find it.’

  I slipped an arm around her. ‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘You start here, and I’ll go up the rise and start working down towards you,’ I pointed to the further pile of cars on higher ground.

  ‘Deal. We’ll meet up somewhere in the middle.’

  I wandered away, trailing behind the light of my torch.

  It wasn’t a difficult search, but there were a heck of a lot of cars. Many of them were still in pretty good condition and their paintwork was clearly visible by torchlight. Others had been crushed and compacted into rectangular shapes—their colours and makes were more difficult to identify. I didn’t waste time on any vehicles except the gold ones.

  Sometimes, I had to get down on my hands and knees to check cars on the bottom of the piles. All sorts of vehicles were there: family sedans crushed and rusting, utes with murky water collected in the corners of their trays, truck cabins and the occasional trailer, all squashed together without any sort of order.

  At one point as I worked my way through, moving my torchlight ahead of me, I found a mother cat with three kittens on the back seat of a very old Ford. I was about to call out to Winter—I thought she’d like to see the kittens—when she called out to me herself.

  ‘I found it! Cal! It’s here! It’s here! Mum and Dad’s car!’

  I jumped down from where I was and as I landed an automatic light came on nearby, flooding the area. Now I could clearly see Winter on her hands and knees, peering into the wreck of a car, completely oblivious to the fact that the light had just come on.

  ‘Over here, Cal! Quick! I found it!’

  I ran over to her. She’d jumped up now and was anxiously shining her torch through other car bodies and peering through them. ‘It’s not going to be easy to get to. We’ll have to somehow crawl through those old cars in front to get to it.’

  ‘How do you know it’s the one? It has no plates, nothing. It could be anyone’s car.’

  ‘I just do!’ she said, stopping to look up at me. Her face was shining with joy and hope.

  ‘OK, let’s find a way in.’

  I was just about to duck down to join her, when I saw a huge shadow separate itself from the darkness behind the office building.

  The sensor light, and probably Winter’s shrieks, had alerted unwanted company.

  ‘There’s someone coming!’ I said, reaching for her boots to pull her out. ‘Get up!’

  ‘But the car, it’s right here!’

  The huge shadow was racing up behind us, growing with every second.

  I grabbed both of Winter’s boots and pulled her out of the wreck. ‘We have to run!’

  As we both got to our feet another automatic light switched on.

  My jaw dropped.

  It couldn’t be!

  It was impossible!

  I’d seen him fall out of the bell tower and into the sky! I’d seen him lying dead in the splintered cactus plants out the front of the convent! Zombrovski had broken his neck when he messed up his attempt to kill me!

  ‘Zombie Two,’ I heard Winter whisper. ‘Run!’

  Winter was closer to Zombie Two and he was about to pounce on her. He lunged, knocking the torch out of her hand. It skidded with great speed out to the side.

  Zombie Two’s massive hands went for Winter’s throat, and I instinctively hurtled myself at him, jumping onto his back and trying hopelessly to drag him away from her.

  He flung me off his back like he was flicking a bug.

  I tumbled to the ground.

  Zombie Two released his grip on Winter and came after me.

  He loomed over me as I scuttled backwards. He picked up the wayward torch and shone it right in my face.

  His face began contorting with fury as recognition registered in his mind.

  ‘It’s you!’ he hissed in a thick, foreign accent. Winter was right: Zombie Two was even bigger and uglier than his brother! I never imagined it could be true. His eyes bulged, as if his anger was making them explode out of his head. He leaned back, nostrils flaring. ‘You kill my brother!’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘You kill my brother!’

  ‘But I didn’t! He—’

  ‘You,’ he shouted, like he was possessed, ‘kill my brother!’

  Zombie Two was going to kill me, no question. He grabbed my throat. He was crushing the air out of me. I could smell his stinking breath as he glowered over me, roaring. His hands were tightening remorselessly around my throat, and he was pinning me to the ground with his huge bulk.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I could see Winter coming up behind him.

  ‘You kill my brother—now I kill you!’ he screeched. ‘You break his neck—I break yours!’

  But before he knew it, something struck Zombie Two on his back!

  He roared in pain and fell forward. His hands dropped from my throat.

  Winter stood behind him, awkwardly clutching a massive steel bumper bar! She looked as shocked as I was. I rolled away from Zombie Two and climbed to my feet.

  ‘Run!’ Winter suddenly screamed, dropping the bumper bar on the ground. It clanged and clattered as we both bolted.

  I drew in rasping, pain-filled breaths, clutching my bruised throat as we both ran.

  Headlights flashed at the double gates. I heard the sound of voices shouting. I grabbed Winter’s arm. ‘Come on! Down the other end through the gate in the fence!’

  She didn’t have to be told twice. We both took off, ducking and weaving through the piles of cars, racing towards the back gate in the fence through which we’d escaped on the very first night we’d met.

  Behind us, the sounds of Zombie Two’s groans and curses faded as we pelted away.

  105 days to go …

  ‘We have to go back, Cal,’ Winter said between puffs. We’d just made it back to her house. ‘We have to go back. Now that I know the car is there!’

  Wearily, I straightened up. ‘We will,’ I said, hoping, for her sake, that it really was the car she’d been searching for. ‘But not right now, OK?’

  ‘I’m not crazy!’ she said. ‘I can’t believe I found it! I knew it was there! I just knew it!’ Winter gave me a friendly shove on the shoulder.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Oops, sorry. Give us a look,’ she said, motioning towards my neck.

  I lifted my head up as she examined me by the light of a lamp.

  ‘That’s nasty,’ she said, prodding my throat. ‘Zombie Two got you good.’

  ‘Nearly,’ I said. ‘How’s yours?’

  ‘OK, thanks to you jumping on him. Any longer and I think he would have crushed me.’

  ‘Yeah, it could have turned nasty back there.’

  ‘Turned nasty? Any more nasty and you’d be dead, Cal Ormond.’

  She was right, although I didn’t want to admit it. She’d saved my life in the car yard. Twice.

  ‘Wanna crash here tonight?’

  ‘Sure. Thanks. Do you think Zombie Two realised who you were?’ I asked Winter. She’d had her hair tucked away, and most of her face was covered, but we sure didn’t want Zombie Two reporting back to Sligo that he’d found her prowling around the car yard. Or, worse, that she was helping out the enemy.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ she said dismissively. ‘Hope not,’ she added.

  I woke to gentle knocking on the door, and instantly pulled my blanket off me and jumped up from the couch.

  ‘Winter?’ came the voice from the door. It was Boges!

  I approached the door slowly, just to make sure.
/>   ‘Winter, it’s Boges,’ he said.

  ‘Well, hello, Bodhan,’ I said, opening the door, in my best Winter impersonation.

  Boges jumped back. ‘Yikes, I’ve heard of people not looking their best in the morning,’ he joked, ‘but wow, Winter, this is extreme!’

  ‘Get in,’ I said, pulling my friend through the door and closing it again.

  ‘Boges!’ said Winter excitedly from her bed.

  ‘Hi, I was hoping you’d both be here. I have a message to give you from Gabbi,’ he said to me.

  ‘Yeah?’ I said, excited to hear from my sister. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said she misses you and that she loves and would you please hurry up and solve the Dangerous Mystery of the Ormonds so that you can come home again?’

  I smiled. Winter’s mobile started ringing. She snatched it up.

  ‘Yes?’

  She nodded a few times, said ‘OK,’ then hung up. She looked up at both of us, her brows drawn together in a frown. ‘Sorry, guys, but you have to get out of here. Right now. That was my tutor. I have fifteen minutes to revise the subjunctive mood in French.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Never mind. She’s on her way. Please, just go, Cal. You too, Boges. I’m sorry to rush you out, but I have to.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, quickly gathering up my things. ‘I’ll just go back to the beachside mansion.’

  I was hauling my backpack over my shoulder when I noticed the look on Boges’s face.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell me … It’s off limits?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ he said. ‘That’s what I also wanted to tell you. The owners are finally coming back, so Uncle Sammy and I have a couple of days to clean the place before they show up.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry dude, maybe this will help a little.’

  He passed me a fifty dollar note. I nodded my thanks to him and pocketed it.

  ‘Out! Out! Out!’ said Winter, frantically herding us to the door. ‘Please, take it outside. I’ll have to catch up with you later!’

  ‘Where will you go?’ Boges asked. We were outside on the street and were about to go our separate ways.

  I’d had enough of living in drains or trying to sleep in squats and doorways. I knew where there was one safe hideout …

  ‘I think I’ll try Repro’s,’ I said.

  Avoiding eye contact and keeping my head down, I hurried towards the disused railway buildings and slipped through the collapsed fence, heading to the old deserted yard where three large filing cabinets quietly rusted against the rock face behind them.

  I hadn’t seen Repro since our raid on Sligo’s place when we finally laid our hands on the Ormond Jewel. I wasn’t sure what sort of reception I’d get from him, but I was keen to find shelter in a safe place, and also to catch up on his news about what had been happening with him since. I sure had plenty to tell him.

  I’d grabbed a couple of toasted ham and cheese sandwiches on my way, and hoped that’d help soften him up.

  After checking no-one was around, I walked up to the centre filing cabinet and began knocking inside. I opened the paper bags the sandwiches were in, enough to allow the delicious smells to waft through the cracks and into Repro’s nostrils.

  ‘Repro,’ I called in a low voice. ‘It’s Cal. Can I come in?’

  I heard him grumbling and harrumphing and muttering to himself.

  ‘I’ve brought us something to eat,’ I said. ‘How about you let me in and we’ll set the table?’

  ‘What do you want?’ he finally asked. ‘I seem to end up in all sorts of trouble whenever I get mixed up with you.’

  ‘I just want to talk.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘How about we discuss it over breakfast?’

  I could hear more grumbling and muttering behind the wall, and didn’t like my chances.

  Finally I heard the sound of him releasing the wall.

  I pressed against it and it swung open, letting me in. I stood once again looking around at the strange, dim room in which Repro lived among his ever-expanding collection.

  He was wearing the same dark green suit with the too-short sleeves that he had been wearing the very first time I’d seen him. His wispy hair had become thinner and today he was wearing a thick pair of rimless glasses that magnified his possum’s eyes.

  ‘Ha! You’ve grown two inches since I saw you last, bailing out of that truck. Two inches!’ His eyes shone behind the thick spectacles. ‘What a day that was. I hope you’re not going to try and involve me in something like that again!’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, wondering whether I really had grown that much. ‘What happened to you that day? We pulled up in the truck and then I couldn’t see you anywhere. Vanished into thin air?’

  ‘I wish that was something I could do,’ he said with a grin. ‘That would be an exceptionally handy talent to have.’

  ‘Sure would,’ I agreed. There had been endless times I’d wished I could vanish.

  ‘But there’s no magic in these bones, I’m afraid,’ he said with a disappointed sigh. ‘Except for in these safe-cracking fingers!’ he said, wriggling them wildly in front of me.

  He pulled out a chair for me and cleared the table, shoving a box of key rings with little snowmen on them to the side.

  ‘I ran into the long grass,’ Repro explained. ‘I called out for you to follow me, but you stopped and went the other way! To the cliff! This kid’s done for, I said to myself. Done for! I ducked down, watching, waiting to see what you were going to do … and then I saw you take off into the sky!’

  ‘I landed it!’ I said, proudly, recalling my flight in the glider. ‘Didn’t think I was going to, but I made it!’

  ‘Incredible. Incredible,’ Repro said, washing his hands in his small sink.

  ‘What’s with the thick glasses?’ I said, pulling out our sandwiches and placing them on the table. Repro dragged an ancient armchair over, removed the cartons and boxes from it, then sat down.

  ‘It’s an image thing,’ he replied. ‘I read a very informative article in a magazine.’ He pointed to a towering pile of magazines and lifted his glasses off before repositioning them, blinking through the lenses. ‘I think they give me gravitas,’ he said solemnly.

  ‘Gravit-ass?’ I repeated. ‘Sounds like it might be uncomfortable to sit down.’

  ‘No, no. Gravitas,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Dignity, nobility, grave seriousness, that sort of thing.’ He paused for a moment, posing, looking over the tops of the glass. ‘The problem is,’ he added, slowly sitting down, ‘they lend gravitas, but I can’t see through them all that well.’

  Regardless, his vision seemed to be spot on when it came to the sandwiches. His long, bony fingers whisked one off the table and down his throat with great speed.

  ‘The other problem,’ he said, taking a pause from munching on his sandwich, ‘is that no-one’s ever around to see just how dignified, noble and gravely serious I look!’

  All the food was well and truly finished by the time I had filled Repro in on my latest adventures.

  He leaned back in the old armchair. ‘You mean to tell me after all my hard work with these,’ he rubbed and twirled his fingers so fast they blurred, ‘that you’ve gone and lost the Ormond Jewel?’

  ‘I didn’t lose it, Repro. Like I told you, I had no option.’

  He grunted, nodding, peering at me again over his new glasses. ‘So what do you intend to do now?’

  ‘Get them back. Then work out how we can get ourselves to Ireland.’

  In turn, Repro told me what he’d been up to. He’d been ‘borrowing’ more and more objects from the trains before they were collected and locked up by Lost Property.

  ‘You’ll never believe what I found packed away in a box!’ He jumped up from the armchair in excitement, stepping behind the central bookcases. ‘All nicely strung together.’

  ‘Umm,’ I said, trying to guess, ‘a pearl necklace?’

  Suddenly the light went out and I was
sitting alone in the darkness.

  ‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Boo!’ he called out. I nearly jumped out of my skin as Repro danced out from behind his bookcase, switching the light back on to show he was holding up a full skeleton.

  ‘Say g’day to Mr Bones!’

  ‘Repro!’ I yelled. ‘Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’

  ‘What do you think? He has to be worth a few hundred dollars! Crazy thing is, he’s the second skeleton I’ve found! Mr and Mrs Bones I call them.’

  I sank back down on my seat. My heart was pounding. ‘You should pay me the few hundred dollars as compensation for taking years off my life!’

  I heard his chuckle as he disappeared again, returning Mr Bones to wherever he’d come from.

  ‘The least you can do now,’ I said as he plonked down in his crooked armchair, ‘is offer me shelter here for a little while …’

  Repro threw me a sneaky sideways glance. He ignored my suggestion.

  At least he hadn’t said no.

  The two of us sat around all day and well into the night talking. I told him all about the Zombrovski brothers, the fatal fall of the younger one, and how Zombie Two, even meaner and tougher than his dead brother, was just one more killer enemy I had to look out for.

  ‘There are some mean people around,’ said Repro. ‘I saw a pair of young terrors just a couple of days ago when I was out getting supplies. They were hanging around, looking like they were up to no good. One guy looked like a pirate with a bandana; the other had a finger missing.’

  Three-O and friends? No way!

  ‘I know those guys,’ I said, frustrated to be hearing about them. ‘They are very bad news. Keep away from them.’

  I got up and collapsed into Repro’s sagging couch. ‘Ah,’ I said, stretching my legs out. ‘It’s so comfortable here.’ It was an obvious attempt to convince him to let me stay. I crossed my arms behind my head and yawned loudly.

  He picked up an army blanket and threw it at me.

  ‘OK, OK,’ he said, with a grin. ‘You can stay.’