The Worm King (9 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Dinosaurs

‘O
ne million, two hundred and eight thousand, five hundred and
twelve,’ Lord Brown mumbled, grabbing the dark girl by the arm and pulling her
close. The stomach cramps were killing him. Eating might help.

‘Food?’ he pleaded. She shook her head.

He fumbled in his coat pocket, finding the
remains of a mangled bacon and egg sandwich. Before it reached his mouth she
struck his hand, sending the sandwich flying.

‘No!’ She frowned.

Evil. It was all around. Something of enormous
consequence was happening but a groggy haze hung over, obscuring and confusing
and leading him down false paths. Astray. The park. The park? People there had
been tense and angry, but then again, the people around him now are . . . what
time was it? He lifted his arm and saw only bare wrist, the worn strap finally
having given way.

‘Mickey!’ he shouted. The muscles in his
face tightened which felt refreshingly good so Lord Brown shouted again, louder,
‘MICKEY!!’

Anger flashed in the girl’s eyes. She picked
up a piece of wood, an old chair leg by the looks, and shoved it hard against
his head. A warning. She obviously meant to club him if there was any more—

More what? He wasn’t crazy; no more than anyone,
but it always helped if they thought he
was
a little bit. Then they
ignore you and you can listen, and that’s how one learns. But for the next
fortnight he wouldn’t be doing much listening because he’d be crook. Oh yes. Crook
enough to . . . perhaps die? Probably not. Had there really
been a wave?

Lord Brown had been through alcohol withdrawals
many times before and knew it took at least two weeks. Two weeks, then he’d start
springing right, sure as coconuts. One point two million seconds and counting. It
wouldn’t all be plain sailing though, oh no. Often, he’d crack, falling to
another brutal low, desperately in need of that crisp, soothing, amber fluid.

‘Drink?’ he whispered.

She shook her head.

‘One million, two hundred and eight
thousand, four hundred and . . . ’

Āmiria undid the top button of the old
man’s shirt. He kept mumbling, eyes all stretched out wide and face bristly as
a hedgehog. She could smell him, and it wasn’t a pleasant smell.

When doing her First Aid badge there’d been
quite a list of things to remember. Nothing sprang to mind from the list that might
help with this. In the test the question she’d done best on was: “Explain how
to recognize and treat fractures, sprains and dislocations. Improvise and apply
splints.”

She couldn’t work out where the splint
should go. Perhaps one on his head, which appeared to be giving him a lot of
trouble. Then another long one for the rest of his body. He probably needed
food more than anything but they had none left. Maybe she should’ve just let
him eat that sandwich, despite clearly having runny shit plastered down one
side of it.

The splint was repositioned against his neck.
Amongst Leroy’s gear she found a piece of rope which seemed the perfect length
to tie the splint on. She wrapped the rope twice around his neck then an extra
loop around his head to be safe.

For some reason, Lord Brown looked frightened.

Mrs Sheng gave them two storage rooms but first
they had to move a stack of boxes from the rooms and out into the corridor. ‘Can
use one for boy, one for girl.’ She’d been especially pleased to see the van. ‘They
still trying to get our cars working. Engine all fly.’

John the Hat pushed the final carton from
the room. ‘Fly?’ He straightened and stopped in front of her.

‘No. All flied. Not lurking.’

‘Shorted,’ explained Dr Aaron Zoy, the
station manager overseeing the relocation. He was as bald as a beetroot and had
been unfortunate enough to be born with no chin whatsoever. Almost a perfect
curve from his bottom lip to his neck. ‘The electromagnetic surge circled the
globe many times. It certainly caught our systems out and we had a few more
hours notice than most. It shorted transistors, computer chips, fairly well
everything. The circuitry on the vast majority of cars; probably on any vehicle
from the mid-1980s on we believe. We could only get one car to start here. Darren
in systems support has a lovely old mustang and had no problems starting it at
all. He’s gone into Canberra to find out what’s going on.’

‘Where did it land?’ asked Winston.

‘Near the Azores. It was twenty-two kilometers
or so across at its widest and sort of peanut-shaped we believe. Would’ve been
mostly composed of black ice, some carbon and a mixture of trace elements. It blew
up as soon as it hit the earth’s atmosphere, ten kilometers above sea level and
was travelling at nearly fifty kilometers a second which is really moving, even
for a comet.

‘The Azores?’ said Winston incredulously. Āmiria
had never heard of Azores and wondered exactly where it was, but would’ve guessed
either very nearby, or far away, given his reaction.

Astrid also seemed surprised. ‘How could
something only twenty kilometers big have that effect here!?’

‘When it hit the earth’s atmosphere and
exploded, it sent an enormous shock wave into the crust. The crust’s very thin
under the oceans, so this wave went through into the mantle which is liquid,
and bounced to the crust on other side. Here.’ Dr Zoy pointed his finger at the
floor. ‘This caused earthquakes in lots of places that don’t normally have them,
like Sydney. Because of this, large sections of the edge of the continental
shelf have collapsed, causing massive underwater landslides.’ Zoy shook his
head. ‘Sydney is very close to edge of shelf, so was hit by a series of big tsunamis.
At least three massive ones over about an hour. That’s according to the husband
of one of the scientists here, who arrived from there not long before you folks.
Radio contact’s still out everywhere.

‘Anywhere on the coast will be the same. Melbourne
may not be quite so bad, because the shelf’s further out, but they’ll still have
had earthquakes which they’re not really prepared for. All those old brick
buildings down there won’t have fared too well and they don’t have power, or
transport and not likely to for, well . . . and obviously
it’ll still be pretty dark.’

Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. The
guard poked his head around the door of the girl’s storeroom where they were assembled.
Lord Brown was the sole occupant of the boy’s room next door. ‘Dr Zoy? Barney’s
asking for you in com’s.’

‘Right,’ replied Dr Zoy, turning for the
door. ‘Of course. Li, if could you organize some food, that would—’

‘Before you dash off,’ interrupted Winston. ‘When
was this spotted? Why didn’t we hear about it earlier?’

‘How about I return and give you a rundown
with dinner? But just quickly, the first hint of it was six days ago. Most of
the next three days were overcast here, so we couldn’t do a lot. Unusual for
this neck of the woods, happens though. We thought it had less than a fifty-fifty
chance of hitting earth until four days beforehand, and then knew more or less exactly
where
it would land only twenty-four hours before. People certainly knew
about it; our understanding was it was going through the channels, so to speak.’

Winston: ‘So you were watching it?’

Mrs Sheng: ‘Yes. Make big bang. You hear? Yes’aday
morning.’

Āmiria: ‘That must’ve been really loud
for the people in Azores. Is that anywhere near Tamworth?’

She was glad her father was a long way from
Sydney, where the main trouble seemed to be, but maybe Tamworth wasn’t far away
enough either! And what about her Aunty and Uncle at home? Āmiria hoped
they’d know how to get out of the way of a tsunami, because their house at
Manly wasn’t far from the beach. They would’ve been watching telly, to see her
when she came on. She wanted to ask Dr Zoy if there’d been a warning on TV and
then remembered she’d actually
been
on telly at the time and there had
been no warning that she recalled in Mr Snow’s weather report. Dr Zoy and Mrs
Sheng had left anyway, with Mr Snow hot on their trail.

Astrid was miffed. No one had bought any
food and everyone felt parched. The room seemed hotter too, and Āmiria
doubted the air conditioning even worked. When they’d arrived the vent in the
corner had a trickle of cool air seeping from it but now when she held a loose
thread pulled from the hem of her skirt against the grill, it dangled limply.

‘How could it take three hours to organize
food?’ complained Astrid. ‘I mean, you could just about grow it yourself in this
time, honestly.’

Āmiria stood. ‘I’m going to the loo.’ It
was the third time she’d been in the last hour.

Astrid squinted suspiciously. ‘Again?’

She shrugged and stepped over the Hat making
for the door. Thankfully there weren’t any more questions and three seconds
later she was out. The toilet lay at the end of the corridor, not far past the entrance
where the guard appeared to normally wait.

Instead of turning towards the toilet and
guard, she headed left. Twenty meters away a more dimly lit second corridor branched
off the main one and she thought it’d be interesting to see what was down there.
The problem being the guard could easily look around his little corner anytime and
he’d spot her for sure. The cardboard boxes stacked along the wall varied in
size and the boys had done a shoddy job of stacking them. The pictures on the
sides suggested they’d once contained computer screens, or something computery.
Maybe they still did? She pushed a carton tentatively but it didn’t budge. They
definitely held something weighty.

Āmiria stopped. A few paces to the left
the boxes had a gap between them which it’d be easy to slither into, then she’d
be able to get down to the second corridor with virtually no chance of being
seen. She poked her head in, seeing another hole existed between the cardboard
stack and the wall. Perfect! If she could just—

‘Hey! What’re you up to!?’

Āmiria managed to turn her head,
despite the tight fit, and smile at the guard. ‘I was just playing boxies. Yaaay!’

He didn’t look convinced.

‘The lady in there said I could!’

‘Come on, get outta there.’ He waggled a
forefinger and Āmiria obligingly scrambled out.

The guard escorted her back and as soon as
they got in the door he looked accusingly at Astrid. ‘We’re still working on
the electrics and it’s dangerous in some places, so don’t let her wander around
like that please.’

‘I thought the electrics were all shorted?’ retorted
Winston.

‘That’s why we’re working on them.’

‘When’s Dick coming back?’ Astrid snapped.

Yep, she’s pretty miffed alright.

Mrs Sheng arrived with dinner. Or it could
have been lunch, or even breakfast; the stew in the pot she carried would’ve
been equally yuck at anytime of the day. Mr Snow returned with her and fortunately
he brought a bottle of tomato sauce. A healthy squirt lifted the gloopy mess to
something approaching food.

‘You not eating?’ Winston asked Mr Snow.

‘I just had a bite with the mechanic
outside. They wanted a look at our engine. Zoy thinks they’ve just about got
their 4WD going. He’s out with the mechanic now but he’ll be in in a minute.’

Mr Snow and Mrs Sheng remained standing in
the doorway, watching everyone eat. Lord Brown was still asleep by himself in
the boy’s room next door and Āmiria wondered if she should go and get him,
before all the food went. Soft footsteps in the corridor announced the arrival
of Dr Zoy. ‘Here he is!’ said Mr Snow, stepping aside to let him enter.

Things obviously hadn’t improved for the
station chief. She could see bright red streaks running through his eyeballs which
hadn’t been there before and his shoulders were more stooped. He seemed taken
aback to see so many people squeezed in the one room. Āmiria shuffled
along slightly, pushing into Winston so Dr Zoy had a space to sit if he wanted.
Slightly to her surprise, he immediately stepped over Azziz to the spot she’d
vacated and slid down next to her, looking pleased to be off his feet.

‘Yes, making progress, certainly,’ he said,
although no one had asked him a question.

‘Have you nearly got it all fixed?’ asked Āmiria
hopefully. She took a guzzle from the plastic drink bottle, grimacing at the
murky, off taste.

He smiled. ‘Nearly.’

‘Is the power back on? asked Azziz.

‘No. That’ll soon be the biggest problem
too, when the diesel for the generator runs out in a fortnight.’

Another two weeks! Surely it won’t be dark
that long? From the startled expressions Āmiria could see the others were
surprised too.

Dr Zoy elaborated: ‘They’ve known for many
years any decent explosion sends out an electromagnetic pulse. But this one was
big enough to take down
everything
electrical, and with no starting
point it’s going to be hard to get anything back up. Ruddy hard. Back to square
one, I’m afraid. Still, we should’ve guessed it and I’m kicking myself now. America
was letting off high altitude A-bombs in the 1950s that shorted street lights
in Hawaii from 800 miles away, so this pulse effect has happened before and has
been widely known, just on a much smaller scale.’