September (18 page)

The boarding house reminded me of the St Johns Street dump I’d camped in a while back. The grounds were nothing but dust and prickles, the timber of the upstairs verandah sagged, and the front door hung crookedly on its rusting hinges. I stepped inside and was grateful to find that it was much cooler out of the sun and the heat of the day.

I went up the creaking staircase and walked along the top landing, passing several rooms
without doors. Inside the rooms were small
cobweb
-covered beds and cupboards.

At the end of the hall I found one room that looked a little cleaner than the others, apart from a pile of stuff in the old fireplace. I ignored the bad smell, knowing that I wouldn’t be here long enough for it to bother me.

I carefully pulled my sneakers off. The
mysterious
letters and numbers on my ankle worried me. What did they mean? I decided it could only have been Kelvin who put them there. But why had he done it? I was too exhausted to think. I leaned back on the bed and fell asleep.

I woke up shivering. It was a cold night, the opposite of what the day had been like. I pulled the crusty blanket off the bed and draped it over me. I noticed that there was half a tin of beans on the small table next to the bed—Snake must have brought it in for me.

The sound of scratching pricked my ears. I froze, trying to peer into the darkness.

Rats. There were dozens of rats squeaking and scuttling around. They were too close. I could hear them rustling and fighting in the rubbish piled up in the old fireplace. The thought of rats running over my sleeping figure made me sick.
I’d slept in a stormwater drain with fewer rodents.

All of a sudden the tin of beans went
flying
, spilling on the floor. The rats went crazy. I moved back to the furthest corner of the bed. I couldn’t wait to get out of this place.

Despite my tiredness, I put my sneakers back on over the strange indelible message written on my skin, and prepared to leave. I looked out the broken window. High above, dark clouds
scudded
past the moon, hiding its light. I hoped the clouds would clear because I needed moonlight to help me travel to the main road. Hoisting my backpack up onto my shoulders, I crept to the landing.

I could hear sounds from downstairs, the old prospector moving around. I’d have to wait until he went to sleep. I didn’t want him knowing that I was leaving. There was something about him that was very, very … disturbing.

I’d heard about prospectors going crazy out in the desert, talking to themselves and
seeing
things that weren’t there, and I wondered if Snake and Jacko had been affected. I looked around for something to use as a weapon—I wasn’t even sure why, but the atmosphere in this broken-down boarding house had spooked me. I tried to put the scurrying rats out of my mind
and looked over the rubbish near the fireplace. I saw something long and white, and I picked it up and looked at it in the pale moonlight.

It was a bone.

Was it human? I didn’t intend to stay around to find out.

One foot at a time, testing my weight on every step, I crept down the dodgy staircase. A couple of times I froze when the stair creaked, but nothing happened, and after a few moments I continued until I was safe at the bottom.
Flickering
candlelight was coming from a room nearby which I imagined was the kitchen, and inside it, Snake was moving around. I could hear what sounded like heavy coins or something being dropped into a tin box. Was he counting his money like some old miser, at this hour?

I’d need to be very cautious getting past the door without him seeing me.

I paused for a second, just beyond the half-closed kitchen door, when I heard him speaking.

Was Jacko there too? I was puzzled and peered in. Back turned away from me, Snake was talking on a mobile! They lied to me about the phones!

‘He’s sound asleep right now,’ Snake was saying. ‘Hasn’t any idea we’re onto him. Just
thinks we’re a couple of crazy old moonshiners.’ He gave a wheezy chuckle. ‘Crazy I might be, but I know reward money when I see it walking around! I’ll tie him up now and sit on him till the cops arrive.’

Right at that moment, the door I was pressing against creaked open and Snake spun round to see me staring at him. A thick coil of rope sat on his lap.

The prospector and I eyeballed each other for a shocked split second. Then he sprang at me, raising his arms, the rope stretched between his hands.

I charged at him and he staggered backwards, then we both crashed into the kitchen table. He was amazingly strong and wiry and I fought hard to hold him down.

Struggling, trying to get up, I grabbed the kitchen table, but I only succeeded in pulling it down. It collapsed and splintered, crashing down.

Flying off in all directions from the tabletop, a heavy shower of rocks bounced off me.

Huh?
A shower of gold?

Gold! Nuggets bounced off my shoulders, covering the old prospector’s upturned face, skidding around the floor, falling into his open mouth, filling the pits of his eyes.

He thrashed around, trying to rid himself of the golden lumps, spitting them out of his mouth, shaking them from his face. I fought him as hard as I could as I sensed him getting weaker.

But then his hand flew to his belt as fast as the snake he was nicknamed for and I saw the glint of a long, slender skinning knife in his hand.

There was no way I was letting him use that on me!

I fought back with all my strength, grabbing his knife-hand around the wrist, crushing it as hard as I could. He howled, dropping the knife, sending it flying out of my reach.

Any moment Jacko would arrive and I’d be overpowered.

Still straddling the heaving prospector, I leaned forward as far as I dared without letting my body weight lift off him. My scrabbling
fingers
connected with the knife.

Stretching as far as I could, and risking losing my hold on Snake, my
fingers
closed around the knife. I snatched it up, swung it back, close to his nose.

He went limp immediately; looking at the knife cross-eyed, then up at me with his
desertreddened
eyes.

‘You can always count on the kindness of strangers,’ he said with an evil smirk.

‘That’s enough!’ I said. ‘I’m going to stand up and leave this place, and you’d better not come after me.’

Without taking my eyes off him, I felt around on the floor nearby with my free hand, and gathered up as many nuggets as I could, before stuffing them into my pockets.

I jumped up and ran out the door. His voice thundered after me.

‘You can run but you can’t hide! Sniffer will get you wherever you are! Me, Jacko, Sniffer and me sawn-off shotgun! We’re all gonna come and get ya!’

I ran through the black desert, never
wanting
to stop. Dead or alive, they were determined to get me.

A quick glance behind me revealed torches flashing, slicing through the dark.

I heard Sniffer barking and the voices of the two bounty-hunting prospectors, stalking me, hungry for my blood.