Desolation Game

by Greg McLean

  Contents

  About the Authors

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  About the Authors

  Greg Mclean’s 2005 debut feature film, Wolf Creek, delivered one of Australia’s most memorable and horrific characters, Mick Taylor (played by John Jarratt). Mclean also wrote, directed and produced the thriller Rogue (2007) and was executive producer of Red Hill (2012) and Crawlspace (2013). He is the author of the four-part comic book series Dark Axis: Secret Battles of WW2 and the graphic novel Sebastian Hawks: Creature Hunter. He wrote, directed and produced the long-awaited sequel to his first feature, Wolf Creek 2, for release in 2014.

  Brett McBean is an award-winning horror and thriller author. His books, which include The Mother, The Last Motel and The Awakening, have been published in Australia, the US and Germany, and he’s been nominated for the Aurealis, Ditmar, and Ned Kelly awards. He won the 2011 Australian Shadows Award for his collection Tales of Sin and Madness. Along with a strong interest in music (he has an Advanced Diploma in Music Performance from Box Hill College) he is an avid film buff and owns a vast (and ever-growing) movie collection. He lives in Melbourne with his wife, daughter and German shepherd.

  PROLOGUE

  Western Australia

  December 1967

  The tunnel reeked of death. Not the suffocating stench of the recently dead; that kind of sweet, rotting vegetable-type smell that burned your nostrils and took up residence inside your head. No, this was the smell of old death.

  Musty, like a disused shed that hadn’t been aired in over a hundred years.

  It was cold, too. A biting chill crept through his skin and gnawed on his bones.

  And the cold intensified the dull ache that throbbed inside his skull.

  Mick stopped crawling.

  He swiped a forearm across his face. His forehead was hot, although the sweat that seeped from his skin was like ice.

  He swapped the torch to his left hand and wiped the palm of his right on his shirt.

  Settle down, Mick. It’s like you’re nervous or something. What the hell have you got to be nervous about?

  It wasn’t like he had any enemies to worry about. Even though he could hear the occasional scurry of rats – the sound eerily similar to the scurry of the Viet Cong – he knew these tunnels were empty.

  Well, devoid of human life, anyway.

  There were plenty of dead bodies, although the pits filled with the sludge of decaying corpses seemed to be contained in the other tunnel, the one that led outside. This tunnel, with its gradual descent and lack of fresh air (not to mention lack of traps, such as spring-loaded spikes) appeared to be heading deep underground.

  He put his jittery disposition down to claustrophobia, and with the torch back in his right hand and the beam lighting the way, he pressed on down the passage.

  He crawled with well-practised efficiency, the .243 rifle gently slapping against his back. As he commando-crawled along the hard-packed earth, he recalled a part of a song his fellow grunts had liked to listen to on the radio. A popular one by that black-sounding rock’n’roll group, the Rolling Stones.

  I see a red door and I want to paint it black . . .

  The other soldiers had always turned up the radio every time it came on. Mick wasn’t particularly fond of it. Country music was more his bag. Still, as he continued down the narrow tunnel, a tunnel reminiscent of the ones in Vietnam, he thought about the lyrics. He wasn’t a songwriter – hell, he could barely write, period – but by making a slight tweak to the lyrics, he could learn to like it.

  I see a black door and I want to paint it red.

  Yep, that was more his style.

  He sang the new and improved line over and over while he crawled, and by the time the tunnel ended, he’d stopped shivering. He eased out of the tunnel and, with joints stiff and sore, stepped onto the reddish-brown soil. He waved the torch around.

  ‘Well, I’ll be buggered,’ Mick muttered.

  Although the light wasn’t strong enough to reveal the full extent of the cavern, Mick could see enough to be impressed. It was like some massive underground house, made entirely out of red and brown rock. The part of the ceiling he could see resembled lumps of playdough that some kid had stuck on haphazardly. Some sections dipped so low that Mick would have to get down on all fours in order to see what was beyond. A small pool in the middle of the cavern looked clean and inviting.

  He caught a hint of sweet minerals in the cold air, although overwhelming that was that smell of old death. It was stronger down here. He didn’t find the odour unpleasant.

  Mick stood by the tunnel and breathed in deep.

  His considerable stature extended as his chest inflated and he grew another couple of inches. But it seemed his lungs didn’t fancy the cold, musty air down here. He doubled over in a coughing fit, spluttering, spitting mucus across the blood-red floor. The sound echoed like ten men coughing at the same time.

  When he finished, he wiped his mouth with a sleeve and straightened. ‘Must be all that shit I inhaled in ’Nam.’

  Starting to feel dizzy, Mick lowered his head, closed his eyes, and waited for the nausea to come. He had been having bouts of sickness lately, along with the headaches, and usually he puked when the dizzy spells came on.

  This time it passed without him bringing up his lunch.

  ‘Strewth,’ he muttered, and strode over to the water.

  He crouched by the edge of the pool and cupped his right hand into the still lake. The water was frigid. He scooped a handful of the water and brought it to his nose. It smelled alright – a little coppery, but that was to be expected, what with all the iron in these hills. He took a sip and the water tasted good. He cupped some more and slurped, and it sloshed down his dry, dusty throat. Then he splashed his burning face and neck.

  He gazed down at the black water trickling down his shirt and arms. No doubt he was filthy, like a coal miner after a hard day’s work, having spent the last couple of days exploring the mine site – his mine site, now.

  This was the first time he had been out this way since arriving home. The mine was just as he had left it.

  The tow truck he had taken from the brothers was sitting near the main shed. It had collected a nice coating of red dirt, but the engine still turned over. The four bodies – the Others – were now rotting corpses, barely recognisable as the kiddy-fiddler, the cop and the two brothers. The large bowie knife and the good rifle were also right where he had left them, near the decomposing bodies far down one of the tunnels.

  Not that he expected anything to be missing. The Bardoch Mining Company, far out in the desert and well hidden from the road, was a lonely, forgotten place.

  Mick had managed to score a ride from Newtown with a fat, greasy trucker. When he’d asked to be let out in the middle of the flat, scrubby desert, miles from anything, the trucker had given him a strange look. Mick told him he was planning on doing some gold prospecting in the area.

  Once he’d retrieved the stash of spoils from the mine tunnel, he’d set about burning or burying everything else associated with t
he paedophilic killer. In a matter of a few short hours, Mick had obliterated all trace of the mine’s previous occupant.

  Along with the sheds and trailers, he’d explored all of the mineshafts. This second tunnel that ran under the main shed was the last area left to investigate.

  Now he had, he’d discovered it led to this huge cavern. A wonderful hideaway; a great place to store items of worth, maybe even keep some special trophies if the need should arise.

  A dark grin cut across Mick’s wet face.

  The grin fell away at the sound of whispering.

  Foreign, like the harsh tones of the Viet Cong.

  He snatched the rifle from around his shoulder and whirled around, prepared to shoot some nogs. But the torchlight revealed nothing, only the ochre-rich cavern. He half-smiled.

  His mind was still in the thick green jungles of South Vietnam, even though he had left there nine months ago and was now in a wide open desert over three thousand miles away.

  But he was sure he could hear a voice: soft, like the gentle howl of wind slicing through a tunnel. ‘Who’s there?’ he barked, his voice strong, but with a quiver that annoyed him. ‘Who’s fucken there?’ he said, and the whisper faded.

  He shook his head and the pain rattled around the skull. He gritted his teeth.

  I must be going mad. Hearing things, seeing things.

  But as he stood there, squinting into the darkness beyond the reach of the torchlight, he thought he could see something that shouldn’t be there. An unnatural pattern.

  He shifted forwards, maintaining his firing position: rifle level and steady, torch aimed dead ahead, and came upon a sight that was most definitely not natural.

  Behind a bizarre rock formation – two long and thick tentacles that curved down from the ceiling and almost touched to create a circular hole – was a small alcove. Within it was an impressive collection of bones, dusty and laced with cobwebs.

  Old death.

  At first Mick thought these were more victims of the pedo: but there were a hell of a lot of dead bodies here, animal as well as human, and besides, they were arranged too orderly for a mere dump site. A group of human skulls adorned a rock shelf that sat just a fraction higher than Mick’s head. Running down from the shelf, first in a straight line and then branching off to form a large inverted V, were lots of variously shaped animal skulls – including dingo and roo.

  Flanking this strange bone mosaic were long leg and arm bones, and within this rough circle were other smaller bones such as collar, finger and broken ribs. Old, hand-crafted candles were stationed at various points in and around this bone altar, their wicks blackened.

  What kind of voodoo shit is this? Mick wondered.

  He waved the torch around and saw markings on the wall behind the altar. They were unmistakably Aboriginal; child-like in their simplicity and painted with bold colours. There were many different scenes, although most of them had faded over time. However, there was one large painting, directly above the altar, that was still vibrant: a crude portrait of a man standing above a desolate brown landscape. The man was within a mountain, his arms outstretched, with lots of white lines joined to a row of smaller figures.

  Mick knew a bit about Aboriginal culture from his time living in one their camps, years ago. He guessed this was supposed to represent the god of the land, and the power the land has over the people. Maybe this was some kind of sacrificial altar to the land itself. It was an unusual painting: there was a darkness about it, almost a sense of fear. Did the people who once inhabited this area fear something within these tunnels and cavern?

  Mick also noticed a slab of black underneath the human figures: like a sea of darkness running under these hills.

  The large streak of black – more a dark grey when he brought the torch closer – fascinated him. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he could see something within it: something tiny, like a solitary figure, almost like the painters had added a lone human down beneath the hills before painting over the figure with a final coat of black paint. Only after who knows how many years, how many centuries, had passed had the paint faded and revealed the indistinct figure.

  Mick was peering in close at the painting when he heard the whispering again.

  Strangely, the voice wasn’t coming from behind him, but in front – from the altar.

  At first the voice was indistinct, hazy, like a radio not quite tuned to a station. The foreign tongue soon became clearer, and then, finally:

  ‘Heya, Micky.’

  Mick blanched. He hadn’t been called that name for a long time. His mother used to call him Micky. But this wasn’t his mother’s voice.

  As he swung the rifle up, the shivering was back, as was the sweating, but rather than feeling cold, he now felt hot and stuffy. The headache pounded inside his skull, and as he stared at the bone altar, he half expected one of the skulls to start yapping its white jaws.

  ‘Where . . . are you? Who is it?’

  ‘Long time no see, eh?’

  The voice was both inside Mick’s head and outside it. It was like a warm gush of wind flowing through his ears and circling overhead.

  It was vaguely familiar too, and it took Mick a few beats to recognise his childhood friend, Eddie. He hadn’t immediately recognised him because the voice was of a young adult, and he had only known Eddie as a kid. But there were still the same inflections and nasal quality, only now it was deeper, more rounded.

  Mick lowered the rifle. His mouth was dry again. ‘Eddie?’ he said, swallowing a lump of dirt. ‘Eddie Boong?’

  ‘Course it’s me. But don’t call me “Boong”. All the kids called me that growing up. I always hated that name.’

  Mick felt like he’d been kneed in the gut. ‘Holy shit!’ he hissed. ‘It really is you.’

  Not only had Eddie Taylor been his closest childhood friend, but Mick had taken on his family surname when he was shipped off to the reservation after the unfortunate death of his parents. The last time he had seen Eddie was ten years ago when Mick left his home town of Eribli.

  And now Eddie was here, down in this cavern beneath a disused iron ore mine, all the way over on the other side of the country.

  That must mean . . .

  ‘I died about three years ago, Mick,’ Eddie said, as if reading Mick’s thoughts. ‘Car accident.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ Mick said, feeling a heaviness in his chest. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Eddie.’ It was funny, but Mick had always thought that Eddie would die in a car crash. ‘I bet you was drinking, huh? Had a belly full o’ grog and a leg full o’ lead?’

  ‘You know me too well, Micky.’

  ‘Shit. Dead . . . But why are ya here?’

  ‘To tell you about the power of this land. It was no accident you was brought here. This land has amazing powers. The ancients knew it, and even those before them.’

  Mick glanced at the wall painting, at the strip of darkness. Despite the headache, despite the hot sweats, he felt a calmness sweep through him.

  ‘That’s right,’ the spirit of Eddie Taylor sang. ‘That’s the power. Always lying in wait for that special person to come along. Someone who knows how to harness the darkness. That’s you, Mick.’

  Mick looked at the bone temple. He could almost picture Eddie’s face in one of the human skulls. The young, thin, black face with heavy eyebrows and thick, pug-like nose. He could also see the bruises, and it made him think of Eddie’s bastard of a father, which in turn made him think of his own.

  He clenched his fists around the torch and rifle stock.

  ‘That’s it. That’s the kind of power that’s inside you. That’s inside this land. Use it, but don’t let it control you. You control it. And the more you control it, the stronger it becomes. Do you remember me telling you about the ancient practice of the skinning of flesh?’

  Mick nodded. He remembered. He remembered all too well.

  ‘How taking the skin of another gives you their power? Well, it’s the same here, Mick. You give bac
k to the land, the land gives you its power. Only the land needs the life force to survive, to quench its thirst. It needs blood, Mick. Human blood. You can keep the skin, but the land wants the rest.’

  Mick blinked.

  The pounding in his head was fierce, but the voice of Eddie Taylor was clear. It was almost as if the spirit was inhabiting his body and speaking to him from within.

  ‘You want the power, don’t you, Mick? You want the land to help you? To make you stronger, faster, better?’

  Mick grinned, and in that one frightful moment, his face mirrored the white skulls that stared at him, silent but speaking a thousand whispers.

  When Mick spoke, his voice sounded flat, dead. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  1

  Western Australia

  February 1968

  ‘Christ, it’s dusty!’

  The cry came from the back of the Kombi. Bruce Eckhart glanced up at the rear-view mirror and looked at Sam – a dumpy forty-something with Coke-bottle glasses, short mousy-brown hair and chequered shorts. His tongue was poking out and his face scrunched.

  ‘I can feel clumps of dust sticking to my throat and tongue,’ Sam said. ‘I’ve been spitting red phlegm all morning, and my hanky looks like I’ve had a permanent blood nose.’ He coughed.

  Bruce looked at his friend and business partner sitting in the passenger seat beside him, and rolled his eyes. Duncan Michalski grinned.

  ‘We’re in the desert, Dad,’ Sam’s son, Matt, said. ‘Of course it’s dusty. What did you expect?’ The teenager shook his head, and his long dark hair swished in front of his pale, acne-ridden face.

  ‘I didn’t expect it to be this dusty. I thought we would stick to sealed roads, not these dust bowls.’

  ‘Well then, close the window.’ Matt sighed.

  ‘It’s too hot to close it. Christ, it’s only ten-thirty in the morning, and already it feels forty degrees.’

  And it’s only going to get hotter, Bruce thought, and allowed himself a furtive smile, before killing it, in case Mr Cranky-pants back there happened to see him.

  There was always one like Sam. In the fifty or more tours he and Duncan had conducted over the past two years, they had always had one client who complained about the dust, the heat, the lack of bathroom facilities, or the food.