The Killer of Oz by Chelsea Field
Author:Chelsea Field [Field, Chelsea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780648253228
Publisher: JFP Press
Published: 2019-01-04T22:00:00+00:00
An hour later, we’d eaten damper and drunk billy tea, preceded and followed by alcohol. The night was cool enough that the heat from the fire was almost nice. So long as you were in shorts and a T-shirt. The group of us sat encircled around the fire, staring at its dancing flames in a kind of semi-inebriated trance.
Connor waved away another drink Gerrie was offering. “I have to drive.”
“Pfft. Why don’t you let your preggo friend drive?”
My head snapped up. “What? How’d you know?”
“Well, she’s either pregnant or a teetotaler, and she swears too much to be conservative.”
Lily snorted. “I could be a recovering alcoholic.”
I was amused she might prefer the nomads to believe she had a crippling addiction rather than an unborn child.
We lapsed into silence again, listening to the crackling flames and the crashing of waves we could no longer see.
Etta shifted in her chair. “I can’t decide whether Australia’s living up to my expectations or not. I’ve read about so many cool and dangerous things, and yet then that poor girl goes and gets drowned driving to the airport.”
I glanced at Norma in concern, but she merely sipped her wine.
“I told you, Etta,” I reminded her. “It isn’t that dangerous. I don’t know anyone personally who’s been killed by some dangerous Australian element.”
“Well, actually,” Misti mused. “Maybe it’s something about getting old and driving all over the place, but we know a few people who’ve died. Last year there was this tourist we met from Denmark. He talked about this four-wheel-drive trip he was going to take in the outback, then a few weeks later we hear his car broke down and he died out there.”
Yikes. It was hard to grasp just how large and harsh and desolate the interior of Australia really was until you heard stories like that—or the horrific misadventures of so many early explorers. On the flip side, Aboriginal peoples had survived in that same harsh landscape for sixty thousand years.
Ginger chimed in with her own story. “And a couple of years ago, this other nomad we’d met left the screen door of her motorhome ajar and didn’t notice a tiger snake had gotten inside. She came home late, maybe after having a drink or two, felt a sting that she thought was just a scratch, and went to bed. She woke up feeling awful and called an ambulance, but died in hospital a few days later.” Ginger shuddered at the memory.
Ray switched his empty beer bottle for a new one. “Pfft, I’ve been living out of my motorhome for fifteen years, and I didn’t know nobody who’d died in the first ten. Australia isn’t getting any more dangerous. Young people are just getting more stupid.”
Misti flapped her hand in her husband’s direction. “He counts anyone below seventy as young. Plus he seems to have selective memory loss around the foolish things he did in his earlier years. One of the few blessings of growing old, I guess.”
Ray was squinting at her. “What’s that about your abscess?”
Misti glared at him.
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