The Amber Trail (25 page)

More insects crawled near his
ears, their tiny feet dancing across the helmet and buzzing so
loudly it seemed they were burrowing into his canal.

But he kept walking, step by
step, holding the torch ahead of him, trying to maintain sight of
the tracks, leaning into the whining, stinking headwind that seemed
to grow stronger with each step.

The tunnel straightened, and
through the storm of insects he spotted a circle of light on the
base of his vision. He recognised the old timber signal box hanging
on the ceiling, housing the swarming blackness of the
nest.

His heart raced and blood pounded
in his ears; stars danced across his vision. He realised he was
breathing too fast, and he forced himself to slow his intake until
his vision returned to some type of normality.

The buzzing whine of the hive
increased to a fevered intensity. A dark cyclone of insects swirled
in the air above it. Then, as he moved within spitting distance,
they came at him.

In an instant he was
enveloped—his vision blanked out by a threefold layer of hornets
squirming across the visor. He felt them digging at the fabric
around his neck, squeezing into the gaps between his toes, and
covering his body in a writhing heavy weight that felt like a
thick, warm layer of screaming fury.

Dig moaned through gritted teeth,
but the noise was drowned away by the insects swarming around his
ears—a sound that had moved beyond a buzz or a whine; it was the
sound of a screaming engine redlining into overdrive.

Dig lifted the torch to his face
and his vision momentarily cleared. He spotted a glimpse of rail at
his feet and pushed on, one step at a time, until he was again
aware of the circle of light ahead of him, down to his right, on
the side of tracks. He waved his torch toward it, and through the
cloud of insects he saw a glint of bent steel tubing and rubber
tyre. It was the motorbike, lying upside down with the wheel rims
buckled.

He pushed past the bike to stand
at the base of the weathered timber cabinet. Nestled in the top of
the cabinet was the cylindrical mass of the overflowing, fibrous
hive. A dark hole punctuated its base, and a ferocious sea of
hornets poured out.

Dig lowered his torch and stepped
forward again, and the light passed a patch of pale skin on the
ground. He returned his torch to it, and took a sharp intake of
breath.

Jules’ pink face stared up,
blotched and swollen, with vacant eyes and a thick purple tongue.
Parallel tracks of rutted, dried blood ran from cheekbone to chin,
with a limp hand lying beside; the fingernails were matted in red
and choked with clumps of skin.

She lay on her back with her legs
sprawled. Her shirt was hitched up, exposing a swollen midriff
covered in raised purple welts and small black puncture marks of
dried blood. One foot was twisted sideways at the ankle—likely
broken. Bile rose in Dig’s throat, and he gagged.

When he regained his composure,
he glanced back at her. Through the clouded lens of his helmet he
saw some form of shadow moving on her face, but he couldn’t
pinpoint its nature.

He wanted to run, but instead he
moved the torch in closer to get a better look—and through the mass
of flying insects he realised it was more than a shadow—there was a
lump moving behind her cheek.

The lump tracked slowly to the
corner of her mouth, then Jules’ upper lip curled away to reveal
two murky brown eyes set against an oversized bright orange head.
Sharp mandibles hung from the maw of the creature, and they opened
and closed like a pair of jagged scissors.  

An icy chill ran down his spine
as the insect studied him, and Dig sensed what it was. It was a
hornet, but this one was bigger and meaner than the rest of the
swarm. It was the queen.

He again felt the urge to run—to
leave the tunnel and never come back. But he couldn’t. His grip
tightened on the torch until his knuckles ached, and he bunched his
shoulders over Jules’ body. A hot flush of rage rose through the
back of his neck, blinding him of any logical thought.

Memories flashed across his mind.
Memories of sitting at the waterhole while his father choked the
wasp from his mouth to the rock platform, changing his life
forever. Memories of pain and fear as he was stung on the elbow
while he sat on the roof of the house. Memories of terror as he
steered the motorbike through the wall of writhing hornets a few
days before.

He leaned forward and waved the
torch toward the queen. “Get out of there!” he shouted, his voice
muffled inside the helmet. Insects churned around him, flying
kamikaze into his head, bouncing off his visor.

The queen watched him, her
mandibles opening and shutting, then slowly extracted herself from
Jules’ mouth. The long black wings emerged first, and a bulbous
orange and black striped abdomen followed. She climbed to the
bridge of Jules’ nose, stood on her hind legs, and extended her
wings wide, seemingly taunting him.

Dig pulled the torch back, then
thrust it forward like a fencing sword; it struck the queen and
knocked her from her perch. The insect dropped away in a blur of
wings and turned an upward arc toward his head, then ricocheted
solidly off the centre of the plastic visor.

Dig cried out and waved his torch
in front of his face. The queen vanished amongst the swarm before
thumping into his visor a second time. Dig gritted his teeth and
swiped at the air again—and felt the impact of a glancing blow. She
landed heavily on the base of the hive, stretched one shaky wing,
then crawled back into the depths of the nest.

The timber cabinet framing the
nest was splintered and pocked with termite holes. Dig panted, arms
heavy from the layers of insects writhing across them, and pushed
the torch up to the base of the frame. The flames flickered and
then caught, and rose up the rectangular box toward the
hive.

A flurry of hornets flew around
him in a thick wave of panic, their wings beating manically like an
aircraft jet firing up for takeoff. Insects lifted from his body
and flew directly into the flames, catching alight and dropping to
the floor in writhing balls of fire.

Dig took a few ragged breaths,
then waved the torch down to his feet and found the tracks again,
re-orientating himself. He started to walk.

He took a few steps before he
remembered Jules’ body, lying alone beside the burning cabinet. He
winced, then stepped back to crouch beside her. Heat from the fire
radiated through his clothes. From the hive, a high pitched whine
increased in intensity, like a kettle coming to the
boil.

Dig placed his torch on the
ground, then grabbed Jules beneath her armpits, hoisting her to a
sitting position. A black lump of fabric lay behind her—his pack.
He blinked rapidly as an idea formed in his mind, then he pulled
the bag open and fished out his water bottle. He tipped out the
contents and swiped the open bottle through the cloud of insects,
closed it tightly, and replaced it in the bag.

After swinging the pack over his
back he hoisted Jules’ body over one shoulder, pushed up to his
feet, and stepped away from the burning hive.

Dig struggled to balance her
weight. His chest wheezed and sweat tracked down his ribs beneath
the layers of clothing.

Behind him, the hive emitted an
ear piercing wail, and something crackled and popped, then fell to
the tunnel floor with a crash. Dig trudged onward with the muscles
in his back cramping and the inside of the helmet visor near
clouded over with moisture. Finally, the semi-circle of the tunnel
exit appeared ahead of him. He lumbered towards it.

When he reached the opening, the
sunlight bit at his eyes and he threw the torch to the floor. He
stopped and lowered Jules’ body to the ground, just inside the
shade of the opening, seating her against the tunnel
wall.

He ripped the helmet from his
head. His hair was matted in sweat and his face flushed. He dropped
his hands to his knees, panting, trying to recover his
breath.

After a while, he straightened
and stared into the depths of the tunnel. The wind was gone, the
air still. Smoke drifted out of the crown of the tunnel and floated
into the sky.

Dig wiped at his face with the
back of his arm, then unzipped the overalls and peeled them off his
body. He turned to Jules, still propped up against the wall of the
tunnel, her head tilted sideways and staring at the sky—and his
brow furrowed.

He walked over to stand beside
her. After a moment, he cleared his throat.

“
I’m going to leave
you here for a bit,” he said. “But...someone will back for you
later on.” The echo of water trickled down a wall within the
tunnel. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For everything. It wasn’t supposed
to end like this. But I’ll go and find Chook now. I promise you
that.”

He scratched at the back of his
neck, then turned, picked up his pack, and stepped out of the
tunnel opening into the sunlight. The breeze cooled the sweat
across his temples.

Ahead of him, the rail line
followed the ridge as it eased down toward the river. A flock of
white birds tracked across a hazy sky, and thunder rumbled behind
the clouds. On the river’s edge, nestled amongst the trees, stood
the boxy shape of the brewery and the small rectangular house. To
his left, the rail embankment dropped steeply down to the wide
expanse of hop fields across the meadow.

He retrieved his water bottle
from his bag. It vibrated in his grasp—the trapped hornets fighting
to get out, before he pushed it carefully into the pocket of his
shorts. He then fished the two
E
pipens
out of his pack—the same ones his mother had given him as he left
Australia—and slotted them into the opposite pocket.

He dropped to his rear and slid
down through the loose rocks of the ballast shoulder until he came
to a stop at the first rows of leafy green hops.

The vines climbed high above his
head, supported by stretches of regularly spaced cable that spanned
out across the field. Heart shaped leaves with finely toothed edges
spread evenly up the vines. Deep green hops sprouted from the base
of the leaves, filling the air with a sweet, musky, bitter
fragrance.

He stepped into the field of
plants, and with leaves tugging at his shoulders he walked deep
into the centre of the crop—heading for the house.

THE GROUND BELOW THE VINES
was loose
and loamy, and sunk under his feet as he moved between the plants.
The vines blocked out the sky, but he kept his bearings by walking
parallel to the rectangular grid of crops. The bitter aroma of the
hops enveloped him, triggering memories of the refrigerated storage
area back home. He stopped often to regain his breath and maintain
his composure. Was it possible the smell of the hops alone was
making him lightheaded?

Eventually, the cables supporting
the vines dropped to the ground in a long straight row at the edge
of the meadow. Dig approached the boundary carefully, hopping
amongst the shadows from vine to vine until he could make out the
rectangular shape of the house, not far past the edge of the crop.
The building was nestled amongst the line of banyan trees that grew
on the bank of the river. From behind the house, he could hear the
trickle of flowing water.

A group of motorbikes were lined
up at the house, and three men sat at a table near the front
door—talking, drinking and playing cards. Dig recognised the
silhouette of Shiv sitting against the house, facing him. The bulky
frames of the thugs sat before him.

Dig crept back into the depths of
the crop, then flanked the edge of the house, out of sight of the
men.

From there he skipped across the
dirt and jumped into the cool shadows of the banyan trees by the
river. Hidden frogs croaked in a steady rhythm beneath his
feet.

He checked for activity at the
house before creeping along the water’s edge behind the trees, his
feet leaving liquid filled footprints in the wet sand.

The curtains on the rear glass
doors were pulled back, exposing the pale cement walls and timber
ceiling beams of the living room and kitchen.  

Raj sat at the stone kitchen
counter with his back to Dig, writing on a pad of paper, talking.
His father, Girish, stood on the opposite side of the bench.
G
lass tumblers w
ere
lined up on the table. Girish’s nose wrinkled as
he crouched and poured measured amounts into the cups from an
unlabelled bottle in his hand.

A rasping female voice echoed
through the house, and Raj and Girish turned to the hallway as
Maxine sauntered into view. Dig’s stomach clenched as he spotted
her.

She stood with a tight jaw and
her arms folded. Her lank hair was pulled back behind her head, but
tracts had broken free and hung loosely down the side of a greasy
face.

Girish scampered over to her,
placed a hand behind the small of her back, and led her to the
kitchen bench. She scowled and tried to turn back, but Girish
gestured again toward the glasses on the table.

Maxine rolled her eyes and
dropped into a chair, then lifted a glass to her lips.