Road Tripping with Pearl Nash by Poppy Nwosu

Author:Poppy Nwosu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: book, YFM, YAF052020
ISBN: 9781743058770
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: 2021-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

BANKSIA

We make it to the conservation park at the very end of the peninsula just before dark. Dusk shrouds the dirt track and Obi is poring over the map by the light of my phone, which has long since run out of reception bars.

The landscape is different here: scrubby bushes and tough grasses, small hills so you can never see more than a few metres ahead. Everything is harsh and dry and tangled. Proper bush. Sand creeps at the edges of the road, dunes rising behind curling stubby trees and piles of saltbush growing wild and tangled in the dark like barriers.

I’m driving at a snail’s pace. It’s creepy out here, the headlights shimmering over sand and plants, everything sharp and dangerous. Desolate. I don’t love it like I loved the windfarm at the top of the cliffs. But maybe it’d be scary there at night too.

It’s not helping that Obi cannot shut up about horror movies right now. He’s already told me the plot to three in a row. No matter how many times I tell him to be quiet. Now I’m certain a serial killer or a murderer or a supernatural force is going to come leaping through the tangled saltbush to strangle me.

I’m breathing heavy and my hands are sweating, the window rolled up though it’s stifling inside the cab. I notice Obi has his rolled up too, so maybe his fears aren’t far off mine. In the end I distract him from the endless horror chatter by asking him to describe the plot of Dune.

It doesn’t make me feel much better though. Something about fear being the mind-killer.

A twinkling light erupts in the distance, just visible between the hulking dark dunes, and Obi immediately goes silent. We both glance at each other and my snail’s pace descends into practically not moving at all.

‘It could be my nana,’ I say hopefully.

‘Mmhmm. It could be. Or it could be a complete psycho murderer who lives out here and hasn’t seen another human being in four years and desperately craves the taste of human flesh.’

That’s quite specific but I can’t exactly disagree. ‘Mmmhmm. It could be.’ My heart is beating hard against my chest. ‘I need to know.’

I flick off the engine and it dies. Utter silence. Like, ear-throbbing, head-humming, dead silence. Obi’s expression is panicked, the dim glow from my phone underlighting him like a shadowed ghost. ‘Whoever it is would have heard the engine! They could be crawling through the bush to come and get us!’

That freaks me out. ‘Crawling?’

‘Yeah, I think we should go.’

‘Where?’

Obi’s sliding across the bench seat toward me, seatbelt discarded. ‘Back to the highway, Nash. We’ll sleep in the car on the main road, and then come back fresh in the morning.’ He’s leaning close so he can plead with me. He’s trying to do that damn puppy-dog eyes thing again!

I refuse to let him, facing the grimy windshield and the half-lit bush beyond. ‘But what if Nana is out there?’

‘Well then she’ll still be out there in the morning, Nash.

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