Night Lights, page 3
“Eeeaaaaoooowwww.”
I stiffened and turned to Marty, wide-eyed. “Hear that?”
It wasn’t close. Somewhere deep in the bush.
“Yeah.” Marty frowned at the black expanse of trees. “What do you reckon it was?”
“An animal? Maybe a bird?”
We both fell silent, listening.
“Should I cooee again?” Marty asked.
“No way!” I chuckled nervously. “Don’t draw it any closer.”
Marty sniggered, finishing the last of his tea. We listened for a minute longer, until I jerked my head to indicate that we should go inside. As we moved into the house, Marty slid the door closed behind us and paused at the glass. The inky night transformed the window into a mirror, and I could see that my uncle’s smile had vanished.
“Seriously, though,” he said. “What sort of animal makes a noise like that?”
“I have no idea,” I replied. “But I’m telling you right now: there’s no chance I’m sleeping in that sunroom.”
NOW
A low rumbling sound wakes me, like a wary dog’s warning. I sit bolt upright, a trail of drool tickling my chin. Swiping at it with the sleeve of my hoodie, I cock my ear towards the noise.
Scout?
My pulse trips over itself as I scour for movement in the shadows. I hold my breath and listen for scratching at the base of the door.
Is it back?
Don’t let it in!
I twist in the chair, blinking into the gloom. My head pounds as I will my brain to make sense of where I am. One by one, shapes in the room become familiar: the sunset painting on the wall; orange tiles in the kitchenette; a Nika-shaped lump beneath the bedspread. For a fleeting moment, I feel relief. Then dread creeps in, an uncoiling snake in the pit of my stomach.
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want Nika to be here.
Our parents are still missing.
And Uncle Marty … well, I just don’t know.
At some stage during the night, I ended up back at the table, nodding off with the motel phone centimetres from where my saliva has pooled on the Formica. The crick in my neck suggests I’ve probably been hunched here for hours. Easing the thick curtains open a fraction, I squint into the early morning glare to locate the source of the rumbling. A middle-aged woman in a power suit is wheeling her suitcase across the motel car park, her breath billowing around her face in the cold.
I tiptoe to the bathroom so as not to wake Nika. The longer she sleeps, the less time she has to spend feeling hungry. I hunch over the sink and splash my face with water. Icy from the pipes, it stings like a thousand needles. A dribble slides down my wrist and under the cuff of my hoodie, and I press my sleeve against my skin to soak it up. A sharp pain makes me suck a breath through my teeth.
I shove my sleeve up to find that those three weird bruises just below my elbow have now turned a deep shade of purple. I still don’t know how I got them.
Back in the room, I pull on my shoes, sit in the chair by the window, and wait. Will Mum and Dad turn up this morning? Where did they spend last night?
Have they gone back to Wooralla? Should we?
I think of Dad’s final words before he hurried out of here only minutes after checking us in.
Don’t leave the room.
Don’t talk to anybody.
Stay away from the windows.
Check-out is 10 am. That gives me two hours to come up with a way to pay the bill. Maybe Dad prepaid with a credit card. I’m pretty sure that’s what you do when you book accommodation online, so it could be the same when you turn up in person. Dad must have had his wallet when he paid for petrol in Moe. There’s every chance Nika and I can simply hand back the room key and stroll out of here.
Except I’ve made phone calls. Lots of them. I’ll have to pay for those, because motels have a way of seeing how many calls you’ve made and how much you owe.
And none of this addresses the question of where we go once we check-out. I don’t have money for a bus or train home to Melbourne, and I don’t have keys to let us into our house once we get there. I can’t pay for a taxi back to Wooralla, and hitch hiking’s never an option.
I’ve never felt so useless.
And the worst part is, it’s probably true to form.
Sometimes I lie in bed at night and imagine scenarios where I do something life-changing and epic. My dad and brother and those douchebags from school suddenly see me in a whole new light. “Never knew he had it in him,” they’d say in awe. It’s embarrassing how cheesy I can make these little fantasies, like leading my fellow students to safety after a fire breaks out in the science lab. Or resuscitating a cute Year Ten girl who’s hit her head mid-tumble turn at the swimming carnival.
In reality, I wouldn’t be that guy. I’m more likely to be the dude who freezes up or flounders, getting in the way of selfless heroes who jump in without hesitation. I’m not fearless. I’m that indecisive geek in a horror film who gets killed off first.
Which explains why I spend the next half an hour staring at the TV with the volume down, chewing my fingernails ragged.
When my sister wakes, the first thing she asks for is breakfast, which means she must be starving; normally the first thing she’d ask for is Mum. I can’t stall her any longer. I feel a rush of fury at my parents for putting us in this situation. It’s easier to be mad at them right now than paralysed with worry.
Easing the door open, I study the motel car park for ages. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. The doors opposite our room are closed, and the curtains are pulled across all of the windows. There’s nobody on the upstairs landing.
Still, the skin on the back of my neck prickles.
It’s not logical, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being watched.
As I take a tentative step outside, my foot knocks into something on the doorstep. My heart leaps.
A package? A note from Dad?
My shoulders sink as I realise it’s only a free local newspaper. Every other doorstep has one as well.
An unmanned housekeeping cart is parked outside a room two doors down. It’s full of clean towels and toilet rolls, and perched on top is a large box containing coffee sachets and biscuits in small plastic packets. I could sneak up there and swipe a few things while nobody’s around. Would that be stealing?
Grow a pair, my dad would say. Zach would do it!
I dither for too long. A female staff member walks out of the room and tugs the door closed behind her. I start backing into our room at the same moment she makes eye contact.
“Morning,” she says, tucking her frizzy grey hair behind both ears. “Need any help, love?”
“Oh. Uh—”
My mouth is suddenly dryer than sandpaper.
Yes! I want to say. Please help us. I’m so tired I can’t think straight. I can’t even begin to explain the things we’ve seen.
How would those words sound here in the forecourt of Motel Tropicana, with its faded paint job and droopy pot plants, the mundane gurgle of the pool’s filter box drifting across the car park?
“No, I’m fine,” I lie. “We’re fine.” I quickly crouch for the folded newspaper and snatch it up. “My dad asked me to grab this.”
The woman smiles, jostling the cart one room closer.
“Looks like it’ll be a lovely day,” she says, reaching for a fresh set of towels.
Inevitably, my gaze is drawn skyward. I don’t think I’ve looked up as much in my whole life as I have in the last nine days.
I back into our room, almost bumping into Nika.
“You told a lie, Owen,” she says as I’m closing the door. I slide the security chain across for good measure.
“I know,” I say, tossing the newspaper onto the table by the window. “Sometimes you have to tell a fib for the greater good.”
“What’s a fib?”
“It’s like a teeny tiny lie,” I say. “One that doesn’t really hurt anybody.”
“Like when Uncle Marty told me there was no thin man, even though there was?”
My head snaps around. I gape at her for a second before answering.
“What?”
“The one we saw through the window,” my sister says.
I guide her to the end of the bed and sit down beside her. “What do you mean? What did Uncle Marty say?”
She bumps one foot against the bed base. “I told him there was a thin man hiding behind the tree, and Uncle Marty said, ‘No, there isn’t, kiddo.’ Then he put me in the bathroom and told me to lock the door.”
My pulse races. “What happened next? Did Uncle Marty come and find you?”
Nika angles her head while she thinks. “No, Dad did. Remember?”
“Wait. You’re talking about yesterday?”
She shrugs. “I think so.”
I’m struck by a sudden wave of dizziness. Was someone else at the cabin as we scrambled out of there?
Something?
Did Mum and Dad know this – and leave Marty there anyway?
I stand up and pace in front of the bed. “We need to go back.”
“Back where?”
“Cooee Cabin.”
I touch the pocket of my jeans where Zoey’s phone number is tucked inside. I don’t want to ask her for this favour, but I’m completely out of options.
I encourage Nika to take a shower so I can make my phone call. I don’t want her overhearing things I need to tell Zoey. Once the water’s running steadily, I seat myself at the table and reach for the phone. As I fish for the receipt in my pocket, I’m drawn to the newspaper I’d tossed aside. A bold headline is boxed into a column at the bottom of the front page.
MYSTERY STILL ALIVE: NIGHT LIGHTS OVER WOORALLA.
My mouth drops open. I stare at the headline for so long the letters seem to hover above the paper they’re printed on. I don’t know how much time passes while I sit with the phone in one hand and Zoey’s number in the other, transfixed by a single thought.
The lights were real.
NEWSPAPER
MYSTERY STILL ALIVE: NIGHT LIGHTS OVER WOORALLA
On Sunday night, local authorities received multiple reports about an unidentified flying object in the sky above Wooralla. The former gold-mining town is no stranger to UFO claims, all of which are well documented in the town’s very own UFO Museum, most notably the 1974 Picnic Point Incident, where an unidentified craft was said to have landed in a clearing behind the Picnic Point Lookout.
Ellen Roberts, of Geelong, witnessed the phenomenon on Sunday night with her husband Geoff from their caravan at Wooralla Campground. “An object appeared over Wooralla Ridge,” she claimed. “It was moving quickly at first. Then slowed down and appeared to hover. It was too dark to make out any features, but the lights were incredibly bright and pulsating.” Geoff Roberts added, “We watched it for several minutes before it rose into the sky and disappeared over the mountain. Everyone in the campground saw it. We were amazed.”
Tourists flock to Wooralla year-round in the hope of glimpsing unusual activity in the sky. UFO Museum owner, Graeme Ramsay, explained it’s because Wooralla is a famous UFO hotspot many visitors hear about online. “This is the second sighting in two weeks,” Ramsay said. “We keep the public updated via the museum’s social media pages, and they travel here from all over. These are never isolated incidents.”
A spokesperson from the Australian Defence Force denied any of their aircraft were in the area at the time and explained that if local police considered these sightings a threat to national security, it was their duty to report them. “We have received no such reports,” the spokesperson said. “In all likelihood, it was a light aircraft.”
DAY TWO
Eight days ago
On Monday morning, the sun broke through as we left the cabin for breakfast. Uncle Marty’s phone started pinging with messages as soon as we hit the main road into Wooralla. I re-sent my text to Erin from the previous day with the photo of Cooee Cabin. This time it went through.
“Do you think they’ll have pancakes?” Nika asked, her face pressed against the car window in the hopes of spotting the diner any second. So far, all we’d passed was a bus stop, two rusted old cars, and an antiques store on the outskirts of town. “I love pancakes.”
“Me too, kiddo,” Marty said. “And waffles with ice cream. And apple pie. And those banana muffins with a dollop of cream cheese icing.”
“Don’t eat your feelings, Oops,” Mum said from the front seat. “Too much crappy food will make you feel worse.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Marty said, knocking his knee against Nika’s leg. He was wearing one of his new checkered shirts, collar popped, cuffs neatly buttoned at the wrists. He’d bought four of them especially for our two-week country getaway so he could, in his words, “blend in with the locals.” I wasn’t sure how many locals were French-tucking their shirts into the front of their jeans, though.
I shook my inhaler and sucked in two puffs. Mum leaned around her seat to look at me.
“Still wheezy?” she asked.
I held my breath and nodded, hoping the inhaler would get on top of the tickle in my chest. I’d been wheezy from the moment I’d woken up, and hadn’t yet figured out what triggered it. My asthmatic episodes were pretty random and fickle – anything from pollen to food additives could set it off.
“Shouldn’t have slept in the same room as the wood heater,” Dad said, bumping the car across a wooden bridge. A narrow creek passed beneath us, shimmering in the weak winter sunshine. “All the soot and smoke. You would have been better off in that sunroom.”
I gritted my teeth and turned to face the window. He was still going on about finding me curled up on the couch earlier in my sleeping bag. Once we’d set up the TV last night, I claimed I wanted to stay up and watch music videos for a while after everyone else went to bed. Mum and Uncle Marty knew I wasn’t going to sleep outside, but I don’t think they minded the charade. Dad had drunk four or five beers by that stage and would have been primed for battle.
“Amazing to think that gold was hidden away in these hills,” Mum said as we passed a brown tourist sign marking the direction for Mine Tours. “Apparently Wooralla was home to around four thousand people back when it was founded as a gold-mining community.”
“When was this?” I asked, glancing up into the mountains around us. There were only a handful of miners’ cottages dotted here and there among the trees. It was hard to imagine this place could accommodate a population that size.
“The 1850s or sixties, I think,” Mum said. “What’s that, a hundred and sixty years ago? More?”
“Maybe there’s still some gold here,” Nika said. “Can we look for some?”
“How about we find breakfast first, pumpkin?” Dad answered. He and Mum shared a rare private smile. Deep creases formed around Dad’s eyes, his ruddy complexion more aged down the right side of his face due to years of driving trucks in the beating sun. “In a couple of days we can go on a tour of the old gold mine.”
As we rounded a bend, a collection of buildings popped into view, some of them quaint timber houses with tin rooftops and picket fences, others old-fashioned shopfronts with bullnose verandahs and decorative stonework. They were all painted in heritage colours: ivory weatherboards and terracotta trims; grey-green walls with dark green window frames and roof spires. It almost looked like a movie set from a studio backlot, like these buildings were empty shells propped up from the inside.
“There’s the diner!” Nika squealed, flattening the tip of her finger against the window.
On the corner opposite the town’s newsagency was an old service station. There were two vintage petrol pumps out the front, the hoses removed to make it obvious they were now ornamental. A wooden sign was attached to the curved awning overhanging the shopfront. It was the same painting of the smiling cup and flying saucer we’d seen on the billboard the day before.
Dad eased the station wagon to the side of the road and we all scrambled out. Mum opened the back door of the car and clipped Scout’s lead to her collar.
“I’m desperate for coffee,” Marty said, massaging his temples. “It’d better be ‘out of this world’ as promised.”
We crossed the road, and I noticed Mum’s gaze sweeping left and right even though there wasn’t any traffic.
“No supermarket,” she said to Dad. He craned his neck to see what else the string of shops had to offer. Scout strained against the lead, keen to explore.
“Hang on a sec,” Dad said, before ducking inside the newsagency. We all lingered on the street corner for a moment. I nudged Uncle Marty when I noticed the faded vintage Bushells Tea mural on the side wall of the building. He couldn’t pull his phone out fast enough to take photos.
Dad trudged out of the shop shaking his head. “No supermarket or general store. We have to drive to the next town over. Bloke says there’s an IGA a few doors down from Hadley Police Station.”
“How far’s that?” Mum asked.
“Twenty-five, thirty minutes?” Dad brought his hands to his hips, his fluoro polar fleece tight across his belly. “Let’s go now and get it out of the way.”
Mum gestured towards the diner. “What about breakfast?”
“Leave Marty and Owen here. We’ll pick them up again on our way back through.”
Mum sighed. “Fair enough. I’m not really hungry anyway.” She turned to me. “We’ll take Scout with us. Dad and Nika can walk her while I’m buying groceries.”
“But I want to go to the diner!” my sister whined, taking a few steps towards it.
“Nika can stay with us, Janey,” Marty offered. “She’s gotta eat something.”
“Okay,” Mum agreed. “Just don’t let her have loads of sweet stuff.” She looked at us both sternly. “You two might be able to handle all that junk food, but she can’t.”
