The Dark and What It Said Read online

  By slow degrees alarm subsided. They spoke little and that in whispers. Sleep slipped back and caught Andrew unawares. Sitting on his sleeping bag, the lamp between Rudy and himself, he seemed to nod for an instant, and opening his eyes he found that the light from the lamp was wavering, had taken on a reddish tinge. He’d fallen asleep and the lamp’s reservoir of kerosene was nearly spent. Opposite was Rudy’s sleeping bag, empty. Yet it was still warm to the touch, so he couldn’t be long gone or far away. A quick check of the tent showed he wasn’t there.

  Andrew lifted the dying lamp against the encroaching dark and cast about its flickering rays.

  “Rudy?” he called, but not too loudly. The forest didn’t seem the place nor the night the right time for a raised voice.

  A gleam of torch light flashed at him from up the slope, within the trees close by. To Andrew’s immense relief Rudy stepped into view from behind the branches and scrub half hiding the body of the car.

  “Just taking a closer look at this,” he said. He kicked the car a solid blow, causing a yell of outraged metal to echo around the trees.

  “Leave it alone, Rudy. It’s probably crawling with snakes.” Andrew lowered the failing lamp to the ground and began to work its plunger, pumping its last drops of kerosene up into its mantle.

  Rudy shone his torch through the passenger side window and peered into its dark interior. “I don’t know why you want to go bush walking if you’re so shit-scared of snakes.“

  “I’m not scared of … yes, all right, I am. But at least I don’t go putting my hand into hollow logs or shove my face into places where they might be. Your grandpa was wrong, Rudy. Snakes -- ghosts too -- are not overrated.”

  Ignoring his friend’s warning, Rudy crouched in front of the car and probed his light through the tarnished chromium of the grill. “I think you’re right about it being a stolen car. The engine is here. The number plate too, but it’s too rusty to read.”

  Andrew, working the lamp’s plunger, snorted a non-committal noise at this vindication of his suspicion, but said nothing. Where they were was one of the loneliest parts of the mountains. Why should anyone haul a wreck all this distance? No, it had to have been stolen: driven to this mountain, along that dirt road and parked, deliberately left up there among the trees. Many reasons for this crime loomed in his imagination, none of them he liked. He continued pumping. The lamp was burning again but not strongly.

  Rudy stood and came around the side of the car. He pushed back a branch growing across the roof and shone his light in through the passenger side window again which had been rolled down, not smashed out. “You’d’ve thought any half-decent thief would’ve taken the radio, but it’s still there by what I can see … hey! I think it’s a CB unit. I can see a microphone or something dangling by its flex. Weird, eh,” he said over his shoulder. “Steal a car, drive it into the mountains, but don’t even bother levering out the radio.”

  “Who’s to say it was a crime of profit?” Andrew held aloft the lamp, its light diminishing. For a moment, before it began flickering again, he saw Rudy plainly, the car too, standing out for a second edged in red. “Rudy, whose pack has the kero bottle? This needs refilling.”

  “The kero bottle? It’s in --”

  A guttural, grunting voice cut across his words. Rudy gasped, half in surprise, half out of curiosity and stared closer into the dark inside the car. Andrew saw his friend’s dim form, partly silhouetted by torch-light, stoop to the car’s side window in a sort of listening attitude. “It is a ghost!”

  “Rudy!” Andrew said, fearing for him, not knowing why. “Leave it alone!”

  “I want to find out what it’s saying. If I can --“

  The grunt came again, unintelligible to Andrew. Then Rudy barked a laugh of surprise. “So that’s what it is. Hey, Andrew!” he called, his voice tight with excitement, “Andrew! I’ve worked it out! I know what this car is!” He inclined his head further towards the window, shining the light at the driver’s seat. The grunting, guff voice spoke once more from out of the dark of the car. Rudy, pushing his face in through the window, said, “Yes. I am.”

  A rusty ratchet clicked inside the car. The torch fell to the ground with a dull bump and went out.

  Andrew peered up the slope as the lamp in his upraised hand began to flicker badly.

  “Rudy?”

  The lamp flared once, showing for a stark second the abandoned car all by itself, then went out. Darkness and silence surged in together. Surged in all around Andrew, leaving him there in the night, blind and uncomprehending, the heat from the dead lamp the only thing telling him that the world still existed. “Rudy?” he said again, softer than before. More than ever now the night forest seemed no place for a raised voice.

  A fear leapt upon him. Not of the night, nor of Rudy’s disappearance, but that he might suddenly hear that grunted, gruff voice again in the dark. He couldn’t take that.

  “Rudy! Stop playing funny buggers!” he said, louder now. No, the quiet of the forest be damned. He was going to yell if he had to, scream if he wanted. There was no way he was hearing that voice again. “Rudy!”

  No answer, not from his friend nor from anything else. The night enveloped him, seemed to press down like a weight and be taken blackly into his lungs with every shuddery breath he took. He stood with the lamp still raised uselessly, wondering what to do.

  Grope back down the slope, maybe trip over the tent ropes, maybe blunder into the tent and bring it down, maybe run into something waiting there in the darkness, try to find the kero bottle, try to find the matches, try to light the lamp in the middle of the darkest night imaginable. Or go up the slope, find what had happened to Rudy, maybe fallen by the car, maybe injured, maybe bleeding.

  The sensible part of his mind told him to find Rudy, told him his friend was in trouble, that he needed help, don’t waste time. But there was another part of him, a scared little boy part of him, that said keep away, this was wrong, weird and wrong. It was the part of his mind that feared to watch open doorways at night, hated to be alone with windows looking into empty rooms that perhaps were looking back.

  Nevertheless but none too brave, Andrew started up the slope, one small step at a time, hands outstretched. He smelt the rust before his fingers touched its roughened metal surface. Then his boot bumped against the fallen torch. He picked it up, shook it gently. It lit.

  “Rudy?” Despite wanting to yell a few seconds ago he was whispering again.

  He shone the torch about and inside the old car, saw no sign of his friend. Saw the front and back seats, both old-fashioned bench types, upholstery dirty and cracked. The steering wheel was there, mounted on a thick iron column. Intact speedo glass glinted in the torchlight. The speaker of a radio sat dirty and rusty beside it, just as Rudy had said, with a microphone dangling on a wire down near the brake pedal.

  Something clicked like a clock for a couple of seconds, tickety-tickety, now heard, now gone. He flashed the light to the top of the dashboard where he though the sound, real or imaginary, had come from. There a sort of box projected out from the other instruments, and from this box something jutted like a lever. But it was too dirty and rusty to make out clearly. All was silent in there now anyway. The inside door panels and the roof lining were cobwebby, cracked and dirty, and some brown staining blotted the fabric above the driver’s seat. But no Rudy, not the slightest sign.

  “Rudy!” He meant it as a shout. It came out as a half strangled yelp.

  The sourness of the interior came at Andrew cold against his nose, catching at the back of his throat. He thrust the torch further into the old car to look again in the back seat. He never saw that slither of shadow. A dark flicker of something sinewy. A blow, almost gentle, lightning quick striking against the underside of his left arm. Two tiny needles stinging into his flesh, there and gone.

  Andrew yelled, snatched back his hand, dropping the torch inside the car. A little blood trickled warm between his fingers clutched tight around the
bite.

  He reeled back and glared at the car. Swore at it furiously, uselessly. Watched for a few seconds as a long and scaly something, lit by the torch within, slid over the sill of the back door and plopped onto the ground.

  Andrew stumbled down the slope, tripped over tent ropes, sprawled in the dirt, sure the snake was there, right there, right behind him. His hands skidded across the nylon of the tent. Where was the flap? Why couldn’t he find the flap? The snake. Where was it? By his leg? At his heel? Rearing for his face?

  He found the tent flap and dived inside, zipping it up behind him, any second expecting his fingers to move from cold metal zip to cool scales twisting.

  He sat there trembling in the dark, hand clenched tight over the bite, mind numbed by what’d happened to him in the last few seconds: the voice, the snake, Rudy saying “Yes. I am,” and then Rudy not being there …

  Under his bloodied fingers his left arm began to ache, began to throb: up the forearm into shoulder, down into wrist and hand and fingers. Despite his grip the venom was spreading. Sobbing, he felt about in the dark for Rudy’s pack, for the first aid kit inside it.

  Bedding.

  Hats.

  Plastic water bottle …

  Rudy’s bag. He opened it. It still smelt of Rudy somehow, an indefinable something. Andrew plunged his hand in, felt his friend’s belongings, his spare T-shirt, sox, rain jacket, deck of cards …

  Rudy was gone and he didn’t know why.

  … packets of dehydrated food, map, shaving brush …

  Rudy had said, “Yes. I am,” and then Rudy wasn’t there.

  The first aid kit bumped against his swelling fingers. He had to let go the wound and use his right hand to open the kit. The fingers of his left hand no longer flexed. He smeared antiseptic about the wound, then with a roll of bandages bound it tight, as tight as he could stand, down around the fingers, up to the elbow. Keeping the left arm immobile he felt again inside Rudy’s bag with his right hand and found the kero bottle. Good. Now to fill …

  “Shit!”

  The lamp was still up there by the car. In the dark. Where the snake was. Where the voice was. He’d put it down when he’d picked up the torch. Now the torch was gone too.

  He felt about in his own bag and found a box of matches. But without so much as a candle they weren’t much good. A fire? What wood he might find would probably be wet. And what if the first branch he picked up twisted scaly in his hands and bit again? Anyway he couldn’t go scrambling about; he had to keep still if he was to stop the poison from circulating in his blood. So walking out was not an option. If he were to survive help would have to find him.

  Bind the wound and keep still was about all he knew of treating snake bite. Though he also knew that not all snake venom was alike, just as all bites didn’t always inject a full fang’s worth. If what had bit him was something like an olive whip snake his body could probably fight off the poison in a day or two. And even if it was something deadly like a black snake or a tiger snake it might not have fanged him with a full dose. In which case the worst of it might eventually pass if only he could keep still. If however it was a tiger or black snake and if it was a full dose Andrew knew he’d be dead by sunrise.

  He couldn’t feel his left arm anymore. As he lay there, breathing coming just a little faster now, he had to stop himself from striking matches to see that the arm had not dropped off. He didn’t want to see; he could well imagine his blackened, swollen arm from fingers to shoulder. Yet again and again these compulsive thoughts came, and again and again he had to fight them off. It was, he knew, the beginnings of delirium. And he was losing. As his body grew hot and cold in dull rhythmic pulses he felt his mind slipping away. Time and reason unravelled. He was back on the train taking them to Ferndale in the foothills, though now all alone in the carriage. He was tramping up the mountain tracks again, but where was Rudy? All around the trees swayed violently back and forth, back and forth with a loud wind like a grunting guff voice saying something not quite understood. He felt a great fear that the trees must surely snap. This fear, this anticipation he could not bear. Out ahead the road was alive with snakes. They wriggled and squirmed and turned their heads towards him and grinned to show their gleaming fangs.

  Somewhere in the distance, far down this road, he could hear a car coming nearer, getting louder, while all around the trees swayed and swayed, back and forth, back and forth, harder faster madder, and he knew their rhythmic wrenching would surely pull the Earth off its axis, harder faster madder, wobble it out of orbit, and closer came the car, its purring engine like the sound of a gruff grunting wind in the swaying trees, oh how could those trees stand such movement, how could the Earth resist their harder faster madder tugging --

  Lights shone through the tent walls, first dimly then with closer intensity, and the world rocked and spun.

  Was this rescue or more delirium? Could he hear a car coming down the track? He couldn’t tell anymore, couldn’t even be sure if the car still neared, whether it now idled just outside, whether he could hear it at all. His mind was humming a tune all askew.

  He waited and watched the tent flap, expecting something, not sure what. The tent flap quivered. The lights still shone, brighter now, brighter, but he still couldn’t tell if it was real or not.

  Yet Andrew waited and watched the light strengthening, watched the tent flap in a sort of dread at what he might see suddenly unzip the opening. Concentrated so that the dead weight of his arm was forgotten, the delirium mellowed. He watched for what seemed a long time, but nothing happened. Then out of the noises in his head came the sound of the car again, clear and precise. Definite this time. Coming down the track. In seconds it would pass the tent.

  Andrew struggled up from the bedding, and a long, dull ache pounded through his arm. He fell forward to the flap and without hesitation opened it.

  The car, smeared in a soft light that had little power to pierce the darkness, was moving slowly past the tent -- a dirty, rusty sedan growling past though its tyres were flat and did not seem to be turning. Rudy was there in the passenger seat, looking through the window at him. He seemed to be saying something but Andrew couldn’t catch a word. Beside Rudy, driving, was an ill-defined figure wearing what might’ve been a peaked cap.

  The vision glided on in a weird slow rush and Andrew tumbled from the tent.

  “Rudy!”

  Though seeming barely to be moving the car was already past the tent and well down the road, out of reach.

  “Rudy! Wait!”

  Rudy put his head out the window and looked back with an expression on his face Andrew could not decipher. And as distance and darkness swallowed up car and face Rudy yelled something about a ride and Yes I am and cost. Or had he said lost? Andrew had no idea. He was looking again at an empty road -- or rather the pitch black dark where the road was. Nevertheless he began to run down it, heedless now that he would be pushing poison through his body. He had to find his friend, sure that Rudy was in some greater danger.

  But he’d made hardly any dark distance when it seemed to him the road twisted and humped up like a snake. He blundered into bushes, collided with trees. He called again, “Rudy! Rudy!” but Rudy never answered. Pain returned in his arm, and pumped by his quickened heartbeat spread into his body. What light he could see were coloured specks racing before his eyes, swirling and swirling. Holding the matchbox clumsily in his bandaged left hand he lit one, then another and another, fighting to keep them in his trembling fingers. Featureless scrub was all that confronted him in its brief glare.

  Where the hell’s the road?

  He tripped on something, fell among a heap of sticks and what felt like strips of old leather. It smelt musty, sour. He struck another match and before it sputtered out he glimpsed white bones. Three matches struck together gave a longer light, for some seconds showing a skull, empty eye sockets dark and staring, and broken at the back by two large holes. Nearby half buried in the dirt was the tattered remains of a
peaked cap.

  The matches went out.

  Ignoring the pain, the growing nausea, Andrew stumbled off into the dark.

  Find the road. Find the tent. Get me outta here!

  From some direction he couldn’t tell where exactly came a voice, a thin telephone voice. Andrew followed it through the dark, through thick bushes, clambering around dense stands of trees. He could not tell what it was saying, but he knew he was closer now and it was almost certainly Rudy speaking. He did not call out, but crazed in his mind decided stealth was what was needed now. Yet he blundered on through the bush, pushing through scrub and crashing swearing into trees.

  The voice was clear now. A radio voice. Rudy’s voice. It came from the car sitting half covered in branches and bush, rusty, dirty, tyres flat and a haven for snakes. He weaved his sick way to the passenger side window where the fallen torch still shone, showing a clean interior, no dirt or cobwebs or brown stains on the roof. He stooped his head inside, though it cost him some effort. Lost Rudy’s voice came from the two-way radio, its microphone clipped onto the dashboard, a drone of words sapped of all warmth and emotion. And Andrew understood now what the car was and why Rudy had said what he had said.

  The figure in the driver’s seat, the peaked cap on its shattered head, turned toward him, and Andrew wondered if he were still in a delirium or if it really did have no face.

  “Are you the fare?”

  A gruff, grunted voice he had heard before.

  “Yes. I am,” he said without thinking.

  The driver reached a thin hand out for the dashboard to ratchet down the lever on the old taxi meter tickety tickety, and Andrew waited still stooped by the window for what would come next.

  Anningley Hall, Early Morning

  The cart with its two occupants bumped to a stop beneath the oak tree from which depended a rope. The hangman, a large fellow whose normal employment was that of a blacksmith, pulled the prisoner to his feet. He was a smaller man with something of a defiant air about him, despite being bound by cords. He stood upright and steady in the cart, eyeing the surrounding crowd with an almost superior expression, hardly seeming to notice as the noose was looped over his head.