Wicked Bindup

by Paul Jennings

  Rory didn’t relax. He gave a gasp.

  ‘It’s Dad,’ he said. ‘Over there. Dad.’

  He was pointing to a red car on the other side of the road. The windows were tinted and I couldn’t see the driver too well, but he certainly looked like the photos I’d seen of Rory’s dad.

  I blinked and peered and tried to see more clearly.

  ‘Dad,’ yelled Rory.

  The guy turned and stared at us. Suddenly he didn’t look anything like Rory’s dad. Rory’s dad’s face was pretty ordinary and this guy’s features were all lopsided and he had a moustache.

  I felt Rory sag behind me.

  ‘I thought it was Dad,’ he mumbled.

  I could feel his heart thumping in my back.

  Poor kid, I thought. At least when a parent’s dead you know you’ll never see them again. When one just nicks off, you’re always hoping.

  Which made me think of my dad and whether I’d see him again.

  When my eyes had stopped stinging I noticed someone else was staring at us. The bloke in the grey car behind us. He was pretending not to, but I could see his beady eyes in my rear-vision mirror.

  It was Mr Kinloch from the Wool Growers’ Association. He’d been to our place heaps of times ’cos he and Dad both collected wool samples.

  ‘Get ready for a chase,’ I muttered to Rory. ‘I think he’s recognised my socks.’

  My guts clenched and Rory’s arms tightened round my waist. I wondered if a bike could go faster than a car. Probably not when the person driving the bike didn’t know how to get into fourth gear.

  The light turned green.

  I revved the bike and we screeched away.

  Once the front wheel was back on the ground and my heart was back in my chest, I glanced into the mirror. Mr Kinloch was turning down Station Street.

  We headed out of town, me hanging on to the handlebars weak with relief, and Rory hanging on to me muttering about the wear on his mother’s tyres.

  We didn’t know it then, but they were about to get even more worn.

  It started when we were out on Bald Mountain Road. I’d just got the hang of fourth gear and we were rocketing along. Rory’s helmet clunked against mine again.

  ‘Stop the bike,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t look down.’

  His voice had the same fake squeaky fear he’d used in the school play when he was a dying general. His acting hadn’t been real good then either.

  ‘Stow it, peabrain,’ I yelled, and carried on trying to find fifth gear.

  That’s all I need, I thought, Worm Boy playing stupid tricks to get his own back for the wheelie at the traffic lights. Has the cretin forgotten this is an emergency?

  I found fifth.

  ‘Stop!’ screamed Rory. He wasn’t acting.

  Then I saw it. Crawling out of the hollow handlebar where the stopper had fallen off.

  The biggest slobberer yet.

  It was the size of a human poo and I could see its wet veiny body pulsing and its slimy tongues darting and its green eyes glaring.

  I screamed and took my hand off the handlebar. The bike wobbled and started to slow down.

  The slobberer slimed its way along the metal and flopped onto my jacket.

  I screamed again.

  Others were following it. Slithering out of the handlebar and dropping onto me. Crawling up my chest.

  I tried to knock them off. My bike glove slapped against slobbery rubbery muscle. They didn’t budge. Their angry eyes just got bigger and glared up at me.

  It was like they’d noticed me for the first time.

  They started jabbing their tongues into my vinyl jacket. I almost fainted. I waited for them to suck me dry like the magpie.

  Then I noticed the tongues were stabbing into the vinyl but not going all the way through.

  Relief flooded through me.

  ‘Look out!’ yelled Rory.

  Suddenly I realised we weren’t on the road any more. Branches and leaves were whipping my face and the bike was airborne.

  Then we were through the scrub and in the clear, crashing down, the bike on its side, skidding in a shower of dirt and twigs towards a huge sheet of metal.

  Metal?

  No, water.

  I let go of the bike.

  As I rolled painfully over grass tussocks and dried sheep droppings and Rory’s knees, I heard a loud splash.

  As soon as I stopped rolling I tore the jacket off. I checked every centimetre of it and my whole shaking body. Only then did I see that, like the slobberers, the bike had vanished.

  Just ripples on the surface of a large dam.

  ‘Great,’ yelled Rory, his voice cracking. He had a cut on his face. ‘Now we’ll never save them. You’re as hopeless as your mother.’

  I was shaking so much I could hardly get my hands into fists. But I managed it.

  And I’d have managed to pound them into his sneering mouth if I hadn’t seen the sun glinting off something way down the hill, past the lower paddock, on Ravine Road.

  The windscreen of a car. A parked car. A yellow car with a blue door, which was the only one the wrecker had available after Mal Gleeson backed into us at the speedway.

  Dad’s car.

  Getting down there took a while because we were both limping.

  By the time we got close it was almost dusk. The car was half in shadow and at first I couldn’t see inside.

  All I could see was that the front doors were wide open. The engine was running. The bonnet was crumpled against a tree.

  Nothing seemed to be slithering over the car. Not on the outside anyway.

  ‘Dad,’ I yelled.

  ‘Mum,’ yelled Rory.

  No answer.

  Sobs wanted to come out of my throat. I didn’t let them.

  Rory handed me a long stick. He was holding one too, like a spear. ‘Thanks,’ I said, grateful that even cretins have good ideas sometimes.

  We looked at each other, then crept towards the car.

  Inside the car was the most revolting thing I’d ever seen.

  Splattered over the seats, floor, dashboard and roof.

  Lamb stew.

  Holding our breath, we prodded the lumps of meat and the globs of soggy potato and the dripping upholstery with our spears.

  No slobberers.

  And no Dad and Eileen.

  SIX

  They must be dead. Mum and Jack.

  That’s all I could think when I saw the mangled car. I had to look in that car – but what would I find? Smashed and crushed bodies? I stared inside. Lamb stew was splattered everywhere. There was blood on the seats. But the car was empty. With trembling hands I reached in through the driver’s open door and turned off the ignition.

  Frantically Dawn and I started to search through the bushes. My legs didn’t want to go but I forced them forwards. I didn’t know what we were going to find. It could have been the most awful thing ever. Your worst nightmare.

  No. Don’t think it. Put it out of your mind. Mum and Jack might be lying there under the bushes. Scared but okay. Smiling and glad to see us. That’s what I told myself anyway. That’s what I hoped for.

  We ran from bush to bush shouting wildly.

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘Dad.’

  In the end I didn’t find my worst nightmare. I found my second worst.

  They were gone.

  ‘Murderer,’ screamed Dawn. ‘You put those stinking worms in the stew. They must have come out. Like on the bike. And now what’s happened. They probably – ’

  ‘Stop,’ I yelled. ‘Stop, stop, stop.’ I put my hands over my ears. I didn’t want to hear the next bit. I was trying not to think about the sucked-out fish. And my mouse. And the magpie.

  ‘They’re still alive,’ I said, hoping – oh, hoping so badly that I was right.

  ‘How do you know?’ Dawn shrieked.

  My voice came
out in a scratchy whisper. ‘No skins.’

  Dawn fell silent.

  Everything fell silent.

  In the surrounding bush there was not a sound. Not the croak of a frog or the call of a bird. Not the rub of a cricket’s legs. Not even the sound of a leaf falling to the rocky ground.

  The whole forest was frozen with terror.

  We whispered. Not knowing why.

  ‘I’m going to the cops,’ said Dawn.

  ‘No,’ I hissed. ‘I think my dad’s involved with this.’

  ‘What’s he got to do with it?’ she said. ‘That wasn’t him back in town.’

  I couldn’t tell her about the worm spelling out Dad’s name. I just couldn’t. So I said nothing.

  Dawn and I faced each other in the silent twilight.

  Until …

  A sound. Far off. A soft, fearful whooshing. Coming from somewhere off to the left. A slushing, slurping noise. Like a hose in reverse. Sucking up water.

  A cold shiver ran over my skin. We stared at each other for a fraction of a second. And then, trying not to scream, we both started scrambling up to the road the way we had come.

  We reached the road and started to run downhill. If only a car would come.

  My bad leg slowed me down and Dawn disappeared round a bend. She could run so much faster than me even with her bruised leg. Why didn’t she wait? Did she hate me that much?

  A sudden shriek filled the air. Oh no. I didn’t want Dawn for a step-sister, but right then, in the middle of all that terror, she was a million times better than no one.

  I rounded the corner and found her staring at a flat dead skin on the road.

  ‘A possum,’ Dawn yelled.

  ‘Flattened by a car,’ I panted hopefully.

  ‘I wish,’ said Dawn.

  We crouched down over the possum. It was still warm. No bones or innards. Not even any blood. Slobberers.

  We stared down the road into the growing darkness. ‘They must be close,’ I gasped.

  The slurping, slushing, sucking was growing louder, ahead of us and behind us.

  ‘There’s only one way to go,’ I yelled. ‘Down there.’ I plunged off the road and into the dense bush. Dawn crashed behind me without a word.

  Maybe we would shake them off. Maybe they would rush past our trail and down the road. That was the hope that filled my mind as night began to fall. That was the hope that kept me going. Down, down, down. Clambering over logs. Stumbling. Bleeding from grazed knees and elbows.

  Slurp, slurp, slurp.

  Oh no. They hadn’t rushed past. They hadn’t been fooled. They were somewhere behind us now, not far back in the darkness. Loose, wet tongues slithering into every crack and crevice. Following our trail like boneless bloodhounds. Dragging their hungry bellies over the ground.

  Fear. Fear was numb inside me like a lump of ice. I could tell by the growing noise of the slurps that the slobberers were getting closer.

  There were so many things to think about. So many questions. But only one that really mattered at that moment.

  How were we going to escape?

  We ran and jumped and fell. But all the time, in the gum trees, somewhere behind, always within earshot, slobber, slobber, slobber. Slurp, slurp, slurp.

  ‘They’re going to catch us,’ said Dawn. She grasped her spear tightly. ‘We’ll have to fight them.’

  ‘Don’t be mad,’ I said. ‘You saw that sucked-out possum. How would you like – ?’ In the moonlight I saw her face crumple and I stopped in mid-sentence.

  ‘Maybe they won’t attack in the night,’ she said.

  I gave a snort. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Look.’

  Not far behind, dozens of glowing green specks blinked through the black trees.

  Eyes.

  Eyes were seeking us out. The slobberers could see in the dark. I was sure of it.

  We crashed onwards in blind panic. My sides ached and my bad leg was hurting. Ever since Dawn’s mum had driven me and that bus into the river I couldn’t walk or run properly. My knee was killing me.

  But it wasn’t far to the bottom of the gully. I had a plan. Desperate, but it might work. Dawn was stronger. Dawn was bigger. Dawn was faster. But I was smarter. That’s what I thought at the time anyway.

  ‘There,’ I said as we burst out of the trees. ‘The river. We must be close to the Wilsons’ jetty.’

  We stumbled along the river bank.

  There it was. A small dinghy tied up to a tree. With not so much as a word to each other we jumped in. Dawn untied the rope without even being asked and I pushed us into the centre of the stream. The bank was just dark shadows. Not even a glimmer of moonlight.

  But through the gloom it was not hard to see our nightmare. Green glowing eyes. Dozens of them. Staring out into the river from the receding bank.

  The current was strong and we drifted downstream quickly. The eyes blinked, growing smaller as we moved away. Soon they were only little pinpricks. Like a bank of unfriendly glow-worms in the dark.

  Relief flooded through me. We were leaving the slobberers behind. ‘You know what?’ I screamed into the night. ‘You guys suck.’ I laughed hoarsely.

  Dawn started to laugh with me. Hysterical laughter.

  At that very moment the eyes went out. Yes, I swear it was the exact moment we laughed. Just as if someone had thrown a switch.

  ‘We’ll call the cops,’ said Dawn. ‘They’ll get the army. They’ll wipe them out with flame-throwers or snail-killer or something.’

  This time I said nothing about Dad and the cops. We were safe for now but I had a feeling that the slobberers or the apple-man or some other nameless thing was not going to let us tell anyone. I wondered what lay ahead. Waiting in the dark.

  ‘They might be able to swim,’ I said.

  ‘Then why didn’t they jump into the river after us?’

  ‘Maybe they’re going to cut us off somewhere.’

  We both shuddered.

  ‘There must be somewhere we can hide,’ I said. ‘The water will be covering our trail.’

  Dawn didn’t answer. She was funny like that. Sometimes it was really hard to know what was going on in her weird mind. She was probably thinking everything was my fault.

  As we drifted silently in the darkness my thoughts turned to Dad. He gave me that apple-man.

  Was Dad behind all this? Was he a crook? Why did he and Mum bust up? Just because he had gone off didn’t mean he’d stopped loving me. Did it?

  I didn’t care. I loved him. He was still my dad no matter what he might have done. He couldn’t have sent the slobberers. Not to suck out his own son. Dad’s face floated into my mind. His kind, laughing face. The one that watched me so proudly when I rode my dirt bike. The one who always called me mate and told weird jokes.

  I missed him.

  I thought about how Mum had taken all of Dad’s photos out of the family album. She said she didn’t want to hurt Jack’s feelings. But what about mine? All I had to remind me of Dad was my little apple-man in my pocket. And the slobberers. Had they been part of Dad’s present? Nah, they couldn’t be. They killed animals. They were dangerous.

  Why had Dad gone, leaving just me and Mum?

  I didn’t even have her to myself. She had fallen in love with Jack. Then I really only had half a mum.

  And now I had no mum at all. She was gone. Dead for all I knew. Unless I could find her.

  And how could I do that? I was only a boy.

  I cried silently and hoped that Dawn couldn’t see my tears in the night.

  SEVEN

  I cried silently and hoped that Rory couldn’t see my tears in the night.

  Oh, Dad. Please. Not you too.

  If Dad was dead, there was just me.

  Well, as good as.

  I tried to imagine life with Gramps and Worm Boy. One person who didn’t know which planet I was on and one who didn’t care.

  As I stared at the black water swirling round the little boat, another awful thought
wormed its way into my guts.

  Perhaps we were cursed. A horrible family curse that Mum and Dad didn’t know anything about. Perhaps one of our ancestors did something really bad and as a result two wonderful people had to die in the prime of life. With all their teeth. With hardly any wrinkles. With sparkling eyes that could spot me pinching a biscuit from a hundred metres …

  I made myself stop.

  Don’t give up, that was Dad’s motto. In my head I could hear him. ‘Don’t give up till you’ve searched the back paddock.’ It was an old farmer’s saying he used when a mob of sheep or a can-opener went missing.

  Don’t worry, Dad, I said silently. I’ll find you if I have to search every back paddock in Australia.

  ‘Aaghhh!’

  Worm Boy was yelling.

  Our boat was drifting close to the river bank. Overhanging branches were nearly taking our heads off.

  ‘Push,’ he shouted.

  We rammed the oars into the roots and heaved ourselves back out into the main current. Rory peered anxiously into the dark trees.

  ‘That was close,’ he panted. ‘We’re lucky we didn’t end up with a boat full of slobberers.’

  He looked so small and frail and anxious sitting there, eyes big in the moonlight. Suddenly I wanted to make him feel better.

  ‘Don’t be a dope,’ I said. ‘We’re miles downstream. Slobberers can’t travel that fast.’

  Oh, how wrong I was.

  How very very dead wrong.

  Even as I was pretending to roll my eyes at Worm Boy’s dopeyness, I saw the green specks of light overhead.

  Not in the trees.

  In the black sky.

  I must have gasped. Rory saw them too. We stared up, gripping the sides of the boat.

  ‘They’re just stars,’ I said. ‘They just look green ’cos of atmospheric conditions.’

  I wanted to believe it, but my neck was killing me and I would have crawled over sheep’s poo for a curried-egg sandwich.

  ‘They’re moving,’ croaked Rory. ‘I think they’re watching us.’

  ‘As if,’ I said. ‘Slobberers can’t fly.’

  Wrong again.

  Something splashed into the water.

  I gripped my oar as hard as my shaking hands would let me, ready to make slobberer schnitzel. But it wasn’t a green-eyed slime-slug floating next to the boat.