The newbie looked away, afraid to meet Sal’s eye. “Sorry, Sal.”
Sal shrugged it off. “It’s alright. Just don’t do it again.”
The newbie’s behaviour was to be expected – it was her first shift, after all, and they’re always the worst. When else are you going to find yourself digging your way out of a dead monster? All in all, she was coping well, hadn’t freaked out once.
“Thanks, Sal.”
“No sweat. Now, go take five – I’ll get you when I need you.” Sal turned away, and then suddenly turned back. “Actually, Newbie, there is something you can do for me. You can go find me a megaphone, that’s what you can do. There’s always one somewhere on site.”
“You got it.”
“Good one. Come and get me when you’re done, I’ll be…” Sal waved around vaguely, “… over there somewhere.”
“See you in a bit,” the newbie said as she started her hunt.
Sal made her way to the middle of the beast’s belly. As usual, that’s where the crew had dumped their empty crates and cases, and a modest box-hill rose three or four metres above head-height. Ringing this box-hill were empty rectangular crates: makeshift tables and benches. On one sat a portable urn, chipped coffee cups, jars of sugar and tea and coffee, sachets of powdered milk, and half a dozen tarnished teaspoons.
Sal was pleased to see that the crew had made themselves at home.
She made herself a cup of instant coffee and then perched awkwardly on one of the crates, her legs dangling in the air. The coffee was foul, sporting an oily-sheen, military-grade stuff through and through. Sal could always tell, there was just something about it.
While she sipped and grimaced and sipped and grimaced, she looked over the crew to make sure that everything was okay. Geordie, Dipa, Pearl, Pete, Ugly Alex, Sissy, Thabo, Max, Dolly, they were all working alone performing variations on a theme – drill a hole in the wall, carve out a tight space for a canister of reagent. Jack and Gill – Jackson and Gillian, you wouldn’t believe it – were atop a miniaturised cherry-picker, carving into the flesh-ceiling with a customised chainsaw, carving vents intended to let the reagent seep into the rest of the beast’s body. Uncle Bob was working with Big Kev, standing back-to-back, wrangling jackhammers, drilling matching holes into the floor. As Sal watched, they hit their intended depths simultaneously, high-fived each other without looking, took a few steps forward then began the process anew. Ruby, Ruth, Tiny Tina and Rajat followed behind them, packing reagent into the holes they had just dug.
“You got a minute?” Sal shouted when she caught Johnno’s eye.
“Sure.”
He took his sweet time waddling her way. Not much made him move in a hurry, not even the fact that Sal was his boss. But then, he was the almost exact opposite of the newbie: a seasoned veteran who had been with Sal from the beginning.
Johnno played up his waddle, dragging his feet. Sal smiled despite herself. It was an old routine.
“How’s it going?” Sal asked him when he finally made it over to her.
“Couldn’t be better.”
Sal raised an eyebrow and he smiled.
“Another day in paradise, eh?”
“That’s the one.”
They both laughed a little. It was another old routine.
“Okay, now listen up,” she said to him, suddenly serious. And then she spotted the newbie half-running her way, carrying a megaphone. “Actually, just stay close, Johnno – I might need your advice.”
He smiled quizzically at her, but nodded nonetheless – they had worked together a long time, and he knew better than to second-guess her.
***
The newbie handed over the megaphone. Sal thanked her brusquely, before clambering up the modest box-hill of empty crates and cases. Johnno watched as she awkwardly climbed using only one hand, the other clutching tight to the megaphone. Johnno smiled to himself in an almost resigned way, while the newbie stared at Sal like she had just gone over Niagara in a barrel. When Sal made it to the top of the box-hill, she realised that even up there the roof was still beyond reach.
She stood there, her hands on her hips and her chin jutting out, looking over the crew from on high. She saw that Johnno was shaking his head as if he was embarrassed for her. Even the newbie had looked away. She smiled at them, dropped her pompous pose then raised the megaphone.
“Everyone, gather around and listen up. Except for Jack and Gill.” Sal pointed to the cherry-picker they were riding. “You guys just listen up.”
The crew stopped working in fits and starts, finishing the job at hand if they couldn’t leave it. They started gathering together, filling the floor below Sal. “What’s up?” someone shouted. “What’s gone wrong?” the same someone then asked, once again shouting their question.
Sal shielded her eyes and scanned their faces. She spotted the problem – Rajat was the one worrying so much. It was always Rajat. He was so jumpy… Sal smiled sourly. If he hadn’t been such a hard worker, if he wasn’t such a machine, she would have fired him a long time ago. All he did was give the others the heebie-jeebies.
“Nothing’s wrong, Rajat,” she said, singling him out, hoping to embarrass him even if only a little. “But there’s something you all need to know.” Rajat shut up at that, and no one else said anything either. “So, what’s happened is that the nerds have discovered something that might – might, mind you, only might – put us in danger.”
No one smiled at her use of the crew’s favourite nickname for the tech team. Instead, they were all looking at her hard. With just a single glance, Sal could tell that most of them were angry and concerned in equal measure: angry at once again being treated like shit-kickers and expected to just accept their fate, and concerned for their own safety and that of a crew that had become something like a family. Faint curses could be heard. Some of the crew just stared at her flatly or badly tried to downplay their frustration – this wasn’t the first time that a routine job had suddenly become something much more.
“I know, I know, I know,” Sal said, looking from face to face. “I’m as pissed at the situation as you are. I’m down here too – don’t forget that. But right now, we need to focus on what the nerds discovered.”
“Which is?” Johnno asked.
“Well, Paris was attacked last week. The army brought it down in the end, and good for them. But only a couple of hours ago, another beast showed up.”
Some of the crew groaned. Some of them looked away. Some of them swore quietly.
“That’s not the worst of it,” Sal continued. “For some reason, this second beast decided to chow down on its dead mate, while a clean-up team was still inside it. And so…”
“And so we should get the fuck out of here,” someone yelled, finally interrupting Sal. “I mean, another one of these fuckers could already be on its way here. They don’t pay us enough for this shit, we need to haul arse.”
Sal scanned the crew, and spotted the panic merchant. It was Pete. Sal smirked – it was such a typical response, he was a coward to the marrow. “Settle down, Pete. What we need to do is take a vote. So, the obvious question is, what do you guys reckon? Do we stay or do we go?”
A few members of the crew started to speak up, and then everything turned to hell; people started shouting back and forth, those who wanted to stay yelling at those who wanted to go and vice versa. They need to thrash it out amongst themselves, Sal decided, and so didn’t bother trying to corral them. She caught Johnno’s eye and shrugged. He frowned, looked around the beast’s belly then started to clamber up the box-hill of crates and cases.
“G’day,” he said as he joined Sal at the summit. He gestured for the megaphone, and she happily passed it over. “Alright, you lot, settle down,” he said into the megaphone, addressing the crew.
Their volume didn’t drop.
“I said settle down!” Johnno yelled into the megaphone, letting loose a squeal of feedback.
Everyone finally gave him their attenti
on.
“Now, considering the rate we’ve been working, I reckon we’ll be pretty much done in a couple of hours or so. I mean, come on – do we really want to give up when we’re so close?”
“I’ll give up anything to avoid being lunch for a beastie,” someone shouted.
“I hear you,” Johnno said. “But think about it – we’ll get some kind of warning. It’s not like one of those things is gonna turn up out of nowhere. Someone will notice if one appears on the beach or starts flying towards the city. And they’ll let us know, and give us plenty of time to clear out. You with me?”
A couple of people half-heartedly agreed with him.
“Sal, back us up here, would you?” Johnno asked.
She took the megaphone from him and the crew soon settled. Even Pete the Coward stayed quiet.
“He’s right,” Sal said. She tried to look everyone in the eye, trying to instil in them a confidence that she honestly didn’t really feel. “The nerds promised me that they’ve got an eye out, and that the military are backing them up. There are soldiers out there too, don’t forget – I doubt they’ll be hung out to dry.”
The crew’s mood didn’t seem to shift, although a couple of them looked like they were thinking it over.
“Alright, alright, alright. I tell you what, how does overtime-pay sound? From right now until we set foot in the barracks, not a second less.”
“The brass won’t approve that,” someone said. “Pull the other one…”
Sal wasn’t so sure. She had a lot of sway, and it wasn’t like many other people could do their job. But maybe a little more incentive was needed. “Overtime and a half, then. How’s that?”
Someone laughed long and loud. “You must be desperate,” Uncle Bob said, his booming voice full of humour.
“I’m not desperate, Uncle. I just want to see the job done.” He looked her in the eye, hard and cold. She smiled thinly. “And I can’t stand the sight of this fucking thing. The sooner we get rid of it, the better. I’m sick of them, sick of all of them, sick of what our lives have been reduced to.”
Sal lowered the megaphone and looked away from the crew. She knew in her gut that her real reason had convinced them. After all, that’s why they did what they did – it helped them make some sense of a world gone mad.
Uncle Bob saved her the need for any more words. “Well, I’m in, I could do with a few extra quid.”
And then he walked away and got back to work.
The rest of the crew soon joined him. It was as easy as that. It was as if all they had needed was a push. Suddenly, Sal was standing alone atop the box-hill of crates and cases, looking at no one.
***
Sal got stuck in, lending a hand wherever it was need, helping out in any way she could. She drilled holes so that others could plug them with reagent; she stacked long slabs of flesh that had been removed from the ceiling; she assembled equipment and fetched tools, loaded trolleys and packed crates. None of the crew were joking around or having a laugh or making chit-chat. Now that they had a good reason to hurry, they were focused and determined, trying to finish their work as quickly as they could.
But even so, to Sal’s relief, no one was skipping steps in their haste and no one was rushing blindly.
Time dragged. Time flew. Time passed. Sal kept looking at her watch. She kept expecting her radio to crackle. She kept expecting a static-filled voice to tell her that another beast was on its way.
The crew kept working.
After a while, Sal decided to take a break. She stretched her back and drank some water. She made a cup of instant coffee and looked over the crew as she sipped at it. We’ll be done soon, she told herself – Jack and Gill had started disconnecting the tools attached to the ceiling, Uncle Bob and Big Kev had stowed their jackhammers, Johnno was breaking down tools and equipment, Pearl had steered the digger back through the tunnel, and everyone else looked like they were almost done.
“Clear below!” someone yelled.
Sal looked around – Jack and Gill’s cherry-picker was slowly lowering them to the floor. Before it had even settled, they were out of the cage and starting to dismantle it, unbolting struts and supporting beams and dismantling the modular engine, placing all the bits and pieces in their respective cases and crates.
Sal helped them out, taking hold of the nearest full trolley and guiding it onto the tracks fixed to the tunnel floor. She pushed it outside, hurrying down the tunnel, heaving the trolley over the tunnel lip and onto the street. The sun was just beginning to set, the ruined buildings and piles of debris bathed in shadow, the clear blue sky slowly turning bruise-purple.
Sal left her trolley with Pete the Coward and Rajat, who had elected to stay outside and stow them in the trucks.
“You’re not out here because you’re a little bit chicken, right?” Sal asked with a smile, addressing them both. Now that they were finally loading the truck, now that they were almost done, the mood was beginning to lighten.
“No way,” Pete the Coward said, too quickly and with too much enthusiasm.
“I’m not ashamed to admit it,” Rajat said. He wouldn’t stop looking at the sky, looking to the horizon, looking over his shoulder. “I’m chicken through-and-through.”
At least he wasn’t lying to anyone.
“Well, get on with it then, the sooner these are packed the sooner we’re on our way.”
Rajat took the trolley and started wheeling it up the ramp and into the truck, while Sal turned away and head back down the tunnel. She ran into Tiny Tina, Alice and Max, who were all pushing trolleys in the opposite direction. Flattening herself against the tunnel wall, Sal gave them enough room to squeeze through, and then hurried back into the belly of the beast.
She took hold of another trolley and started pushing it outside, moving fast, getting into a groove.
“It’s good to see you getting your hands dirty,” Johnno said, following her with a trolley of his own.
“Piss off.”
They both laughed. They left their trolleys with Pete the Coward and Rajat. They headed back, took another trolley each, wheeled them outside. They did this again and again and again. Everyone else seemed to be pushing trolleys as well, and more teams of two had formed outside in order to get the trucks loaded quicker.
And then they were done.
“Good job, everyone,” Sal said to the crew. “Thanks again. Now, take five before we get on the road. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”
People laughed. People cheered. And then something roared.
Up on the Hill
Some people say the best place to find wisdom is on top of a mountain. You know the cliché: solitude, nature, stillness, peace and quiet, yadda yadda yadda. I tell you what, though – just because something’s a cliché, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. You know what I mean? I guess that’s why I love my job. Loved, sorry. I guess that’s why I loved my job.
Okay, okay – the grounds I looked after sat on the side of a big hill rather than a mountain, but you get my point.
You were a gardener at a public park, correct?
That’s the one… So, yeah, like I said, it was a nice place to work. It wasn’t the most glamorous park – it wasn’t sculpted and prettified like the Botanical Gardens, or running wild like some of the parks out of town. But there was lots of wide-open grassland, shaded by enough trees to make the city disappear. The whole park rose gently, gently enough that the sharp rise to the peak came as a bit of a surprise. I always looked over my shoulder when I trudged up those last few hundred metres. Always. I just couldn’t help myself. One minute, you’re dwarfed by old gums. The next, you’ve climbed high enough to see over the canopy, and there’s the city and the northern suburbs laid out like a brick-and-mortar blanket.
I’m sorry, Mr Johnson, but I’m going to have to interrupt you. We have all this on file, there’s no need to give us any more background detail. We’re more interested in what happened.
Alright, alright, keep y
our pants on.
Thank you. Please, continue…
Okay, so, it was just an ordinary day at work. I turned up just before nine, and it was already as hot as buggery, it being the middle of summer and all. I said g’day to the rest of the crew and sat down for a cuppa as we divvied up the day’s jobs. I slip-slop-slapped, loaded up the buggy then headed out to the stand I was in the middle of replanting. A couple of hours passed – I finished my replanting, gave everything a good water, had a smoko and a cuppa while watching some cockies picking through the turned-earth.
Like I said, it was just another day at work.
I was halfway through reloading the buggy when the roar of a hotted-up engine broke the peace and quiet. I figured it was just some hoons tearing up and down one of the roads bordering the park. You know, some dickhead showing off in front of his mates or some stupid kids. They’re the only ones left, right? The stupid, that is – everyone else has gone inland. Well, the stupid and the crazy. And the sick and the old and the poor and the not-so-poor. You know, there are actually a lot of them left.
Sorry, a lot of us left.
Mr Johnson, please, if you could get to the point.
Right, sorry… So, the roar of this hotted-up engine starts getting louder, and a minute later this piece-of-shit Commodore comes racing up one of the access roads to the peak. Of course it was a Commodore, what else would a young idiot drive? Now, this access road was only about a hundred meters from the stand I’d just replanted, and so I hurried over to the roadside. Even though it’s not the prettiest park, families still come and kids still play, and there isn’t a harsh enough punishment for rev-heads who treat the park like a racetrack.
I’ve witnessed one bad accident in my life. That was enough, thank you very much. Whoever was inside that Commodore deserved an earful.
We Call It Monster Page 7
