Tracks of the Missing by Hakea Hustler

Tracks of the Missing by Hakea Hustler

Author:Hakea Hustler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magabala Books


8

MURDERERS, MONSTERS AND MANIA

To my horror, Grandfather begins walking towards the sound.

‘What are you doing?’ I whisper urgently, trying to grab Grandfather’s hand. ‘We have to go back! Get help.’

‘It could be something to do with your cousin,’ Grandfather replies calmly. His breathing is deep and slow, considered, brave and strong. I feel ashamed of my fast-beating heart and the fact that I have lied about the second person I am out here to find. The fact that I have not told my grandfather about my fears with the tyre prank.

‘Let’s get the police!’ I whisper urgently. I want to help them and back home in the town I’d run as fast as anyone to help a Countryman but Grandfather’s talk of supernatural has got to me. Plus, the fact that the police aren’t sure if there is a murderer hiding out here has added to the lump growing in my stomach. We need backup here. An old man and a teenager are no match for a killer … or a monster. ‘We can’t help anyone if we are dead!’

‘We can sneak up on kangaroos in the bush, you’ve got stealth,’ Grandfather responds. ‘We’ll just see what it is. Bush sounds, your schoolmates, the murderer or a monster. Either way, the police aren’t here and that noise sounds urgent.’

Monsters? As Grandfather mentions monsters again my mind fills with the images from the stories he told me as a child. My imagination is good. The images cruelly distorted, dark. I can’t think. Adrenaline surges through my body. Conflicted, I want to run in the opposite direction. Grandfather’s talk of monsters is starting to get to me. And that scream sounds close enough to be in my skull.

I picture a monster of Grandfather’s Dreaming biting into Jenny’s soft neck … the same neck I kissed that one night at the party. The neck I am forbidden from kissing like I did by Law. I find my courage again. We need to do something.

I tug off my backpack and reach into the survival kit. My hand finds the UHF radio.

‘Officer Thomas? Do you copy?’ I yell into the handset but there’s only a loud crackle on the other end.

I am angry. At myself for not remembering to radio for backup earlier and at him for not coming back to help yet. He is probably walking around clueless back at the camp site or, even worse, has given up looking for two blokes gone walkabout and headed to the main camp site on the main track into the park. Or just headed back to the crash site and dumped us out here.

‘Mayday, mayday!’ I repeat into the radio. ‘I think someone is hurt … we can hear crying out …’ Or monster, I think to myself, letting go of the speaker button.

Still nothing. The thick bush and hills must be blocking out the signal. We’ll need to find higher ground.

‘Be quiet,’ Grandfather commands.

I realise the screaming has stopped. The forest is quiet, other than the loud crackle of the radio.



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