Night Lights, page 7
Nika clapped like it was a clever trick. We all flinched at the sound, like kindling popping in the wood heater. It snapped us out of our collective daze just as Mum poked her head out of the sliding door further down the verandah.
“Bath time,” she called.
Dad set his empty bottle down on the plastic chair and hoisted Nika and her sleeping bag into his arms. As he passed Marty, his tone was mocking. “So what the hell was that, Professor Smartarse?”
Marty clutched the wooden railing, his face still turned skyward. He gave a weak shake of the head, his silence more unnerving than any explanation.
CHAT
Seven days ago
Erin: So, on a scale of one to murder-house, how creepy is your cabin?
Owen: Hey! Wow, can’t believe I’ve got a tiny signal.
Erin: Hold very still. Don’t move or breathe.
Owen: Yeah, it probably won’t last.
Erin: It really is in the middle of nowhere, then?
Owen: I wasn’t exaggerating.
Erin: That diner sounds cool. Have you been to the museum yet?
Owen: Not yet. But since we’re on the subject …
Erin: Yeah …?
Owen: Do you believe in UFOs?
Erin: Of course.
Owen: Really???
Erin: People have been recording images of them forever. Since the 1870s or something.
Owen: Like flying saucers and little green men?
Erin: Well, no. But UFOs are unidentified flying objects by definition. Who knows what they are?
Owen: Do you think they could be extraterrestrials?
Erin: Possibly. I don’t think we’re all alone in the universe, do you?
Owen: I dunno what to think.
Erin: Scientists say there are something like two trillion other galaxies in the universe. There has to be other living creatures out there somewhere.
Owen: Do you think they visit us?
Erin: Maybe. Although I think most of the stuff we hear about are hoaxes. Or have other explanations.
Owen: Like?
Erin: Secret military stuff. Space debris. Glitches in army and naval instruments.
Owen: What about alien abductions?
Erin: Who’d want to study human beings? We’re basically awful.
Owen: Seriously though.
Erin: If advanced beings from another galaxy had the kind of tech that enabled them to visit us, the human race would be like microbes in a petri dish to them. We’re just not that interesting.
Owen: What if I told you I saw something weird tonight?
Erin: I’d say you’ve gotta stop flexing in the mirror.
Owen: Hilarious.
Erin: Go on, then. What was it?
Owen: Lights in the sky.
Erin: I think you’ll find they’re called stars.
Owen: I’m serious. I watched a moving light break into three.
Erin: Probably a rocket separating. Ever seen footage of those?
Owen: The lights all shot off in different directions.
Erin: Oh, definitely UFOs then.
Owen: You reckon?
Erin: No! I don’t reckon! Come on, O. Do you think maybe the little UFO town might be messing with your head?
Owen: To be fair, this is all I have to keep me entertained.
Erin: Well, if aliens come to visit you, remember to take a selfie.
Owen: Will do. I’ll report back tomorrow.
Erin: Try not to get probed in the meantime.
Owen: Can’t promise anything.
NOW
Despite the clear sky and winter sunshine, Cooee Cabin sags against the sodden mountainside like something washed up after a flood. The leaf-clogged gutters are dripping, the raw weatherboards still damp from last night’s downpour.
The first indicator that the cabin is empty is a lack of smoke from the chimney. There are no fresh tyre tracks in the mud, no wet footprints leading across the verandah into the house. The front door is wide open. And from my vantage point in the passenger seat of Zoey’s hatchback, I can’t see anybody – or anything – moving around inside.
As we climb out of the car, there’s a strange sense of calm in the air. A light breeze flutters the leaves around us just enough to shimmer like confetti. Somewhere behind the house, a whipbird draws out its long distinctive call.
The cabin’s verandah appears different somehow, though I can’t pinpoint why that is. I’m deflated when Scout doesn’t come bounding out of the house to greet us.
“You okay?” Zoey says, opening the car’s rear door for Nika. “You look queasy.”
I study the roofline, the downpipe, the soggy ferns near the front bedroom window. The cabin looks so mundane now compared to the terror of two nights ago.
“Yeah,” I tell Zoey. “I’m all right.” Which somehow sounds a lot more convincing than it feels.
The front door creaks on its hinges, coaxed forward by the breeze, before thumping back against the wall.
“Is somebody here?” Zoey asks me as she and Nika fall in beside me.
I shake my head. “Doesn’t look like it.”
There’s no sign of our car. And if anyone was home, would they be letting the cold in by choice?
We all hesitate at the verandah steps, listening for signs of life. I’m torn between wanting to hear movement inside the cabin in the hopes it’s Marty or my parents, and not in case it’s … something else.
“Marty?” I call, slowly advancing up the steps. “Mum?”
Nika takes my hand. Something feels very wrong, and she senses it too. Zoey turns her head towards the trees like she’s heard something. I strain to listen for twigs snapping, branches quivering, the tinkle of metal tags on Scout’s collar.
It’s disconcertingly quiet.
“Come on,” Zoey says, striding forward. I almost reach for her arm, but instead I clutch Nika’s hand tighter, reassuring her with a nod as we follow Zoey into the cabin.
At first, I’m too distracted to notice that things don’t look the way we left them yesterday. I’m busy scanning the cabin for people: Mum in the kitchen, Marty in the armchair, Dad shoving logs into the wood heater.
Nobody’s here. Not even a steaming cup of tea to indicate they’ve just stepped out.
The fire has long since extinguished, and the temperature is frigid thanks to the front door welcoming the outside in all night.
What else did it invite in?
My gaze darts into corners, through doorways, up into the rafters.
“What happened here?” Zoey says, moving to the dining area. The white plastic table is upended. Monopoly pieces are scattered across the floor, an orange five-hundred-dollar bill snagged in the woodpile and flapping in a draught.
In the kitchen, every cupboard door and drawer hangs open. Our cereal bowls are upturned, mugs smashed, all of our food swept off the shelf and onto the floor. The rust-speckled fridge has been yanked away from the wall and abandoned, the door hanging open.
“What the hell…?” I mutter, stepping over a smashed beer bottle. I crouch in front of Nika and offer her a piggyback so she doesn’t step in any glass. Her arms clutch my neck instinctively, as though she knows this isn’t any place for a kid.
“This might be a silly question,” Zoey says, “but did you leave it like this?”
The way I described my family’s hasty departure, it’s not far-fetched to think something went down here that caused us to run. I mean, it did. Just not in the way Zoey thinks.
“Nothing was trashed like this when we left yesterday,” I say. “My dad and uncle were arguing, but nobody threw anything. Except the table. My dad flipped that over.”
Zoey shoots me a look. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” I jostle Nika higher on my back. “He’s been in a bad mood ever since we arrived. And in the last few days he’s been acting … bizarre, I guess.”
Zoey angles her head. “Define ‘bizarre’.”
“Lashing out at us. A loose cannon, you know?”
“Erratic,” Zoey says, more of a statement than a question. “Not like himself.”
There’s understanding in her tone, like she’s witnessed Dad’s behaviour firsthand. I can tell she wants to press me for more details, but her gaze drifts to Nika’s head peeking over my shoulder, her stuffed bunny pressed between her face and my neck. Zoey returns her focus to the mess in front of us.
We cautiously pick our way through the debris towards the hallway, the crunch of glass underfoot. There’s no sign of Marty in the bedroom he’s been sleeping in. The mattress is overturned and his suitcase is emptied out, his carefully folded checkered shirts in crumpled piles all over the floor.
“It’s like a big wind came and whooshed it all up and down,” Nika says.
Zoey pokes her head into the main bedroom, bringing the back of her hand to her nose. “Interesting smell.”
“Charming, isn’t it?” I say. The living area may have been aired out for half the night, but the bedrooms are as pungent as ever. “My mum thinks there might be mould growing inside the walls.”
Zoey grimaces. However, she takes her time in every room, almost like she’s looking for something in particular. At one stage, she bounces up and down on the floor like she’s testing for loose boards.
“Was there anything here when you first arrived?” she asks.
“Like what?”
“Any items that may have belonged to the previous tenants?”
I shrug. “Not unless you count this crappy furniture and a gaping hole in the wall.”
I point out the baseball-sized opening in the dining area. Zoey scrutinises it for a long time.
“Where’s my iPad, Owee?” Nika asks in a hopeful voice. “Am I allowed to have screen time?”
“Where’d you leave it?” I say, leading her back towards the living room. I direct her to sit in the armchair while I have a hunt around.
I come up empty after another circuit of the house, returning to the dining area to help Zoey rotate the table to its upright position.
“My phone’s gone,” I tell her. “And my backpack. My wallet and gaming console were inside.”
Did Dad come back to retrieve our valuables? Or have we been burgled?
I glance across the room at Nika, her gumboots tucked up onto the armchair beside her. Her black hair hangs lank around her face, though some colour is returning to her cheeks. Her deep-brown eyes are curious as she takes it all in.
“We should go,” I murmur to Zoey. “It doesn’t feel safe.”
She nods in agreement.
I head over to where my sister is seated, using Bunny as a pillow against the arm of the chair. She sits up when she notices me coming.
“Don’t step in the sauce, Owee.”
“The what?”
She indicates a spot in front of the couch that I can’t see from this side of the room.
“Don’t move,” I tell her, hurrying over to check there isn’t a broken sauce bottle near her feet. I lean over the back of the couch and scour the floor for shards, noticing a dark patch the size of a dinner plate.
A crimson stain is soaked into the rug.
“Shit.”
Nika gasps, awestruck. “Naughty word, Owee!”
Zoey rushes over, her arm knocking into mine. I hear her suck in a breath.
“That’s not good,” she says, her face mirroring my alarm. “Where did it come from?”
I swallow. “I don’t know.”
Is this Marty’s blood? Shit, shit, shit.
At the edge of the rug, a lone block of wood has been discarded on the floor several metres away from the woodpile.
Zoey starts to say something else before we’re both distracted by Nika shifting in the armchair. Zoey takes hold of my arm and gently steers me away to face the front door.
“We should call the police,” she says in a low voice. “And we need to leave. Right now.”
I nod on autopilot while my mind races, my gaze darting between the kitchen, the verandah, the large patch of blood on the rug. Did Dad lie to us when he said Uncle Marty wasn’t in the cabin when we left here yesterday?
Has Dad hurt him?
Uncle Marty must be okay though, right? He walked out of here, didn’t he?
Or he was taken.
Maybe he cut his hand. Or bumped his head. It only seems like a lot of blood.
Because it is.
“We’ll have to call from town,” I say. “I don’t have my phone and you might not get a signal on yours.”
Zoey pulls out her phone and confirms it’s not showing any bars. “Come on, let’s go. This place gives me the creeps.”
“Sorry to ask you this,” I say, “but could you please take a photo of that.”
I motion towards the rug.
Zoey waits until I’ve taken Nika by the hand and led her to the front door before her phone camera clicks several times. As an afterthought, I quickly fill Scout’s metal food dish with kibble and leave it outside the cabin’s front door alongside a bowl of clean water.
We all bundle into Zoey’s hatchback again in silence. Nika refuses Zoey’s phone and earbuds this time, so we can’t talk openly in the car. Zoey tries to give me a reassuring smile, but I can tell she’s rattled by what we’ve seen.
I turn away and peer into the side mirror, watching the cabin’s reflection shrink smaller and smaller as we pull away. And then it comes to me, what it is that looks different about the cabin’s verandah.
The wheelbarrow is gone.
DAY FOUR
Six days ago
“Looks like we’re walking,” said Uncle Marty.
He shrugged on his waterproof jacket as I finished rinsing suds off the breakfast bowls. The view through the cabin’s kitchen window was grey and sombre, and getting caught in a downpour was almost a certainty. For this reason, we’d hoped to drive into town rather than walk, except Dad wasn’t back yet with the car. He’d headed to Hadley almost two hours ago to hunt down some electrolyte ice blocks for Nika since she’d barely touched her last two meals.
“I’ll text him again,” Mum said. “You know Mick – he never looks at his phone.”
“Distracted by Lady Luck perhaps,” Marty murmured.
Mum gave him a confused glance. “Huh?”
“There’s a TAB in Hadley,” he replied. “I saw it when we went to the medical centre. He’s probably putting some bets on the horses.”
“No.” Mum shook her head firmly. “We have an agreement. He promised me he’s not going to do it anymore. He knows we can’t throw money away like that.”
“And Mick’s so good at respecting your wishes,” Marty said dryly.
I sensed a look passing between them as I pulled the plug out of the sink and rinsed my hands.
“Oops, can I have a word, please?” Mum said in a tight voice.
I turned to see her stalking towards the verandah. My uncle followed with his head down, sheepishly sliding the glass door closed behind him. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Mum massaged her temples a lot and motioned inside several times, and Marty countered with quick responses, his hands placed defiantly on his hips. By the end of the conversation he held them up in surrender, then reached out and squeezed Mum’s shoulder. She patted her own hand on top of his, seemingly coming to some sort of an understanding.
“Ready to rock and roll, O-man?” Marty said as they came back inside.
Mum forced a bright smile. “Checking out the UFO Museum today?”
“Umm … yeah,” I said, keeping up my end of the facade. “Should be fun.”
If Mum thought she was managing to shield me from Dad’s bad habits, she was very mistaken. But I’d play along for now if it meant less stress for her. We were all stuck in this cabin for another week and needed to make the best of it.
“See if you can find something fun to bring back for Nika,” Mum said to Marty. She removed some money from her purse and tried to hand it to him.
“I will,” he said, folding Mum’s hand in his and gently pushing it away. “And maybe something to cheer you up as well.”
As soon as we’d exited the cabin, it was clear my uncle had no intention of dwelling on what happened inside. He began limbering up in a comical way like we were about to run a marathon.
“We can do this,” he said, staring down the gravel driveway. “Mind over matter.”
I smirked. He was obviously as thrilled at the prospect of exerting himself as I was.
By the time we made it out to the road, a light rain was already falling. We pulled our hoods on and zipped up our jackets, sharing a dramatic groan. A car was parked a short distance down the hill: a black SUV with personalised numberplates and a window tint so dark it couldn’t be legal. I didn’t think much of it until the car’s engine started as we approached. It seemed an odd place to park since Cooee Cabin was the only house for several hundred metres in either direction.
I elbowed Marty as the SUV’s headlights came on. He was already watching the car, and raised his hand in a friendly wave. If anyone returned the greeting, we couldn’t see them through the dark glass. The SUV idled for a moment, then pulled away from the shoulder and did an abrupt U-turn in front of us before rolling down the hill towards town.
“Weird,” I said. “What was that about?”
“Maybe it was the men in black,” Marty joked. “Coming to quiz us about those strange lights we saw in the sky.”
“Somehow I don’t think government cars are going to have personalised numberplates like WILKO1,” I said. “Kinda ruins the stealth mode, don’t you think?”
“Won’t they wipe our memories afterwards, anyway?”
I chuckled. “True.”
“Now, if Mulder and Scully turned up,” Marty added, “it would be a different story.”
“Please tell me you’re not about to bore me stupid with X-Files trivia.”
“How dare you,” he said, grinning. “You’ve now earned yourself a detailed breakdown of the alien cover-up storyline.”
