by Steph Matuku
This was unfortunate. Idelle didn’t like being laughed at.
Idelle knew from moving the other corpses that Theo was going to be a lot heavier than he looked. She didn’t want him in the tent, though. It was her tent. She’d put it up. She grabbed his feet and dragged him out, panting and grunting with the effort. The mud didn’t help, either. Sticky and heavy, it clung to Theo’s body, weighing him down.
With a mammoth effort she tugged him broadside across the slope and kicked him solidly in the ribs. He didn’t move. She got down on her knees and pushed hard. He flopped over and carried on rolling, down the slope and into the river, the current sweeping him away downstream.
Idelle didn’t watch him go. She stripped off her muddy clothes, left them where they lay, and let the rain cleanse the blood and mud off her body. There were dry clothes in the tent, mostly from Awhina Thomas’s immaculate collection of ’60s’ vintage clothing. Mrs Harlow had flipped when Awhina had told her she’d rather die than wear activewear, even for camping purposes. Ironic, really.
Back in the tent, she shivered from cold and adrenaline. Theo had messed up the tent with all his crying and struggling, and there were phones and things scattered everywhere. She clicked her tongue in exasperation as she dressed. Her mother had always maintained that pigs had better manners than men, and for once, Idelle agreed with her.
20
Jahmin shook his head violently. ‘No way.’
‘I know what it sounds like, but I saw him. I saw him.’
Liam peered through the hanging vines. The pounding in his head and the dim, grey light made his vision swim.
He drew back into the shelter, back to Jahmin’s wide-eyed confusion. Away from the outdoor glare, his headache backed off, leaving his mind clear. ‘He’s after us. He’s after me.’
‘You said he was trapped. He would have drowned.’
‘No. He got out, and he’s been hiding, following us.’
‘Why the hell would he do that?’
Liam’s answer was simple. ‘To pay me back.’
Jahmin opened his mouth to argue and immediately shut it again. Something was wrong with Liam. He was too excited, too jittery, too … something. And his pupils were so dilated that he looked like a cartoon character. Was it medication withdrawal? He placed a gentle hand on Liam’s arm and spoke slowly and calmly.
‘Look, bro. It’s just stress. You’re probably just hungry. What say we go find some yummy huhu grubs or–’
Liam grabbed Jahmin’s shoulders and shook him hard. ‘You weren’t there! You don’t know! I left him to die on purpose. And now he’s come back to get me! I don’t care if you don’t believe me. But it’s true.’
Jahmin pushed him off, his temper rising. ‘Okay, so Eugene has come back from the dead to get you–’
‘He’s not dead!’
‘Okay, okay! What do you want to do? Fight him? Hide? Try and justify why we put our survival over his? What?’
Liam looked Jahmin dead in the eye. ‘I’m going to kill him before he kills me.’
Jahmin blinked.
Liam’s words tumbled out. ‘Okay, listen, okay? Eugene tried it on with Beth. Shoved her, groped her.’
Beth was Liam’s little sister. She was thirteen. She had a mouth on her, but she was a good kid. Eugene was a dick and a bully, but Jahmin wouldn’t have thought he’d do something like that.
‘He ripped her dress and everything. Lucky Dad had taught her a few moves. She smashed Eugene in the nuts, socked him in the face and took off. I was trying to figure out how I could nail him without getting sprung. And then the chance came, and I took it. I left him there.’
‘No, Liam. I know you. You didn’t do it on purpose. We were going to die. You’re blaming yourself, but you don’t have to. It wasn’t your fault.’
Liam cut him off. ‘No, man. I know what I did. And I reckon he deserved it.’ He looked at Jahmin sharply. ‘Is that murder or manslaughter?’
‘What?’
‘What do you reckon I’d get? Murder or manslaughter? I’ve been wondering that heaps.’
‘I dunno.’
‘Doesn’t matter, anyway. Bastard’s alive. So I’m going to get him for real this time. Before he gets me. And there’s no teachers or cops or anyone around to stop me.’
Jahmin’s head was spinning.
Liam was now talking quietly, urgently. ‘You head up to the crash site. I’ll meet you there.’
‘But Liam–’
‘It’s okay. It’s for Beth. And everyone else he stepped on. Maybe they’ll call it self-defence.’
‘But Liam!’
But Liam had gone, swallowed up by the bush.
21
‘We have to get to higher ground,’ said Devin. She was only saying out loud what everyone already knew, but someone had to make it official. ‘And we have to go now.’
‘But what about Rocky? He can barely walk,’ said Eva, looking without enthusiasm at the deluge outside.
‘But what about Evs? She might melt in the rain,’ said Rocky sarcastically. He was fed up with his leg. He didn’t need Eva going on about it.
Devin darted outside, grabbed the fishing spear and found a suitable stick that would help Rocky to keep his balance. She collected a few lightweight branches and long sticks, bundled them up and dived back under the shelter.
Eva and Rocky were still bickering. Devin listened with half an ear while she lashed the sticks together with the remains of the flax they’d used to bind the roof together.
‘We’ll have to float down,’ said Eva. ‘There’s cliffs all around. We’re not billy goats. Especially not old Limpy here.’
‘So you want us to slip on our togs and sunnies and gently drift downstream, merrily, merrily, in a raging torrent of water to God knows where?’ said Rocky.
‘Well, we can’t swim upstream. The current’s too full on,’ said Eva.
‘I think we need to head back to where the bus came down.’
‘We can’t swim upstream! It’s too full on!’
‘But what’s the point of going downstream?’
‘It’ll be easier on your leg for a start–’
‘I’ll decide what’s easy on my leg, thank you very much.’
‘–and eventually we’ll get to the sea.’
‘The sea? How long are you planning to be in the water for? A month?’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Eva furiously.
‘You shut up!’ Rocky said, just as furiously.
‘Can you guys take off your clothes and stick them in the bag?’ Devin stood in front of them, goose pimpled in beige bra and ladybird undies, proffering the backpack. ‘We should get going.’
‘Well, that’s the point!’ said Eva crossly. ‘Where the hell are we going?’
Devin looked surprised. ‘Back to where the bus fell in,’ she said, as though it were perfectly obvious.
‘We can’t go upstream! The current’s too–’
‘Too full on, yeah, yeah,’ interrupted Rocky. ‘You’re a bloody broken record.’
‘I’m staying. It can’t rain forever.’ Eva chucked the bag hard at Rocky. ‘Here. Get your gear off and get out.’
‘Don’t look, then. You might stop being gay.’
‘As if!’ shouted Eva.
Devin coughed, cleared her throat, ‘Okay, hi. Hi?’
Eva and Rocky glared at Devin. She flinched a little in the face of their mutual resentment, even though she knew it wasn’t directed at her. Flinching was just from habit.
‘We need to go. All of us need to go. There might be flash floods.’
‘Oh, of course. Just another bloody thing to have to worry about,’ snapped Rocky.
Devin hesitated for only an instant, but then continued with renewed determination. They needed to take this seriously.
‘All this rain is running down all the hills for miles around. That’s why the river’s gone up so quick. We’re not safe. We can’t climb the cliff or go upstream–’
‘Thank you,’ said Eva, crossing her arms and glaring at Rocky.
‘–and there’s no point going downstream. The searchers will be where the bus went off. We need to cross over to the other side. The current should take us downstream, to where it’s flatter. See how the cliff slopes down over there? We’ll head into the bush, find shelter, and then Eva and I can hike upstream and get some help. Now come on,’ she said, tying the last lash in place, ‘before the river gets any higher. Chop, chop.’
Eva and Rocky blinked. When you have an image of someone in your head for a long time, it’s very disconcerting to have that image jerked away and replaced with something else. Still, thought Rocky, it was much nicer to have someone exceed all your expectations than go the other way and disappoint you. He pulled his hoodie over his head. Eva struggled out of her pants. There was no need to argue. There was nothing more to say.
22
Idelle opened her eyes. She’d had a lovely little nana nap and felt much better. Her head still ached, but the relentless throbbing had eased.
She looked around for Theo. He wasn’t there. Idelle frowned. The geek wasn’t in any condition to go wandering in the rain. Perhaps he’d gone to the loo?
She waited, cosy in a nest of sleeping bags. A tiny light flashing on and off, almost strobe-like in the stuffy gloom of the tent, caught her eye. It was coming from beneath the pile of gadgets stacked neatly in the corner.
She crawled over and picked through the heap, taking out a battered Samsung. Theo must have fixed it while she was sleeping. She smiled and checked the screen. There was something wrong with it. First a white screen, almost blindingly glary, then a barrage of heavy black dots, then a collection of emoticons, then back to dots, then numbers. Over and over.
She pressed all the buttons, banged the phone in her palm and swore at it, but it kept flashing, on and off, on and off. She growled, exasperated, and as if in reply, a series of musical tones sounded. The Game Boy, face-down in the pile, had turned itself on. JAHMIN WORTHINGTON was painted carefully on the back in overdone red, yellow and green Gothic script.
Idelle sniffed. Trust Jahmin to bring a Game Boy. It was in pristine condition too, considering it was practically an antique. She bet he’d paid through the nose for it at some vintage technology auction or something.
Idelle had been at the same school as Jahmin ever since the first day of primary. Jahmin’s nanny, driving a silver Beemer, had dropped him off with a carefully packed lunchbox containing whitebait fritters and tomato relish. Back then, he went by his given name of Joshua, and his hair swung in brassy ringlets. The rumour was his olds had sent him to Kōtuku to get a taste of the real world. Well, it had worked. By the last day of intermediate, he had killed off Joshua for Jahmin, had swopped the BMW for a skateboard, ditched the ringlets for the G-fro, and had chalked up more detentions than any other kid in the history of the school.
His parents didn’t seem to care. They weren’t around much. His dad was a wheeler-dealer for Seddon Corp, while his mother rushed around throwing fundraisers for charity. Idelle had never seen Jahmin’s olds at any sports day or parents’ meeting or prize giving or anything. He was lucky like that. A sour recollection of the last school gala floated into her mind, of her own boozy, overly tanned mother giggling coquettishly at the principal and actually squeezing his bicep.
She turned the Game Boy over. The screen turned itself on and off, that irritating sequence of notes sounding every time it powered up. She stared at it, perplexed, and then jumped as another phone beeped, and another started flashing, and then they were all going mad with lights and ring tones, watch hands spinning lazily, digital readouts spinning through numbers, the radio spitting out bursts of static between snatches of foreign languages and music.
Idelle put her hands over her ears and backed out of the tent, into the rain.
‘Theo?’
He was nowhere in sight.
‘Theo! Where the hell are you?’
If he’d fallen or was unconscious somewhere, she’d be alone. She didn’t want to be alone.
‘Theo!’
She rounded the edge of the tent and stopped in surprise. A massive slip had sent half the hillside into the river, creating a little pool by the bank.
Idelle was confused. When had all of this happened? While she slept? Surely she would have heard it and woken up? She tried to think back, but her mind was foggy. The last thing she remembered was talking to Theo. She had a very clear image of speaking to him, but she couldn’t remember what they’d talked about. Nor could she recall making a little nest out of the sleeping bags and going to sleep, either.
She shook her head in the hope it would make her brain work properly. A stream of blood arced into the air and spattered on the ground. Her nose was bleeding. She lifted a hand to wipe the blood away and stopped. There were scratches all along her arms. Deep, red welts that looked like they’d been made by fingernails. Her hands were clean, but her nails were choked with dried blood and sticky grey stuff.
She noticed something else, too; something she should have seen when she’d woken, but she’d been too busy mucking about with the phones.
What the hell am I wearing?
Idelle didn’t often give in to panic. But something was writhing, hot and rancid, deep inside her belly, needing to be released. And when she saw Theo’s head bandage in the mud, torn to shreds and covered with hair, blood, and mushy grey stuff that looked like brains – looked exactly, in fact, like the stuff under her fingernails – it finally burst free.
Idelle screamed, loud and long, her flowered dress plastered wet to her thighs, the contrasting crochet cardy hanging limp, the blood from her nose patting gently onto the mud.
23
The conference room on the ground floor of the Seddon Building was packed. Griff stuck his head through the door, took one look at the assembled crowd and rounded on the man who was acting as security.
‘Moses!’ he hissed. ‘This was supposed to be press only!’
Moses, a hulking figure with ginger hair who wouldn’t have looked out of place on the door of a nightclub, shrugged.
‘I know, but you weren’t around to ask–’
‘I was held up,’ Griff interrupted. ‘You should have waited.’
‘They didn’t want to wait!’ Moses protested. ‘First the old lady, she wouldn’t take no for an answer, and then three of them saw her in there and they wouldn’t stay out either, and I just figured it was easier to let them all in than make a big deal out of it. They’re family. They’re worried.’
Griff gave an exasperated growl. Moses looked intimidating, but he had a big heart. Unlike Griff’s other right-hand man, Jesse, who appeared mild-mannered enough but who had no heart at all.
Griff entered the room just as a large woman with a no-nonsense haircut stepped up to the lectern. She tapped the microphone, sending an ear-splitting whine of feedback through the speakers.
Griff blanched. The head of the media liaison team stood to one side of the lectern wringing his hands, and Griff knew that Kathy had probably steamrolled right over him to take the mic for their first public announcement. On paper, she was a great spokesperson – Head of Exploration, a mathematical genius, used to commanding attention in any meeting. Unfortunately, her people skills were around zero, and her temper was famously short.
There wasn’t much he could do from the back of the room. The crowd was already quietening, all eyes were on her. He crossed his fingers and hoped for the best.
A couple of camera flashes went off, and she shielded her eyes. ‘D’you mind? I didn’t bring my sunglasses.’
Griff inwardly groaned and edged closer to the front of the room, just in case.
She took out a crumpled piece of paper and squinted at it. ‘Right, well. I’m Kathy Burgess, Head of Exploration here at Seddon Corp. We would like to announce that we have taken over the search for the missing students of Kōtuku High, so there’s absolutely no need to worry – yes?’
&
nbsp; An elderly Māori woman with a determined expression stood, and the cameras flashed again. Griff groaned, this time out loud.
‘I want to know why the government isn’t doing anything. How come you lot are taking over?’
There were a few murmurs of agreement, and Kathy said, ‘Oh no, well, that’s not quite right. The government is taking responsibility for the national park areas, but–’
‘But why aren’t they helping you? And why haven’t they fronted up tonight? You should be getting everyone down there! My nephew was on that bus! Our whole whānau’s packed and ready to go look, but you jokers are holding out on us! You can’t just stop us from going down there, you can’t.’
Kathy waved her hands frantically. ‘No, no, it’s just that we have experience in the area. We’ve been mining and mapping it for decades. There’s electro-radiation through there, and we don’t want anyone getting–’
The woman’s mouth dropped. ‘Radiation? You mean like cancer?’
The room erupted in a flurry of shouts from family members and journalists. Cameras flashed wildly as Kathy vainly tried to explain, her cheeks growing redder, little beads of sweat glistening on her forehead. She finally exploded.
‘Will you all just shut up!’
Unlike her staff, however, these people did not immediately cower and quieten. Instead, they surged to their feet, stabbing fingers in the air and pushing chairs aside as they shouted to be heard.
Griff waded into the melee and grasped Kathy by the shoulders, pushing her away from the lectern and into the arms of Moses, who escorted her out the door. Griff stood at the front, with his palms up in a gesture of submission.
When the room was relatively quiet, he said, ‘Please forgive us. We’re all under stress at this difficult time.’
He looked over at the members of the press. He knew them personally, and all of them owed him a favour of one kind or another. They knew Seddon was only trying to help.
‘What Miss Burgess meant was that the area under scrutiny is extremely hazardous. The terrain is difficult and there are magnetic fields that play havoc with electrical machinery. We know all this. We’re equipped to deal with it. Besides, Search and Rescue don’t have the funding or resources to cover government land and ours as well. We’re just being practical. And while we appreciate your enthusiasm, we simply can’t have inexperienced searchers in the area. It’s too dangerous. I promise you, we will keep you up to date with everything that’s going on. If the students are there, Seddon will find them.’
