by Geoff Palmer
The bus picked up more speed. They hurtled past the Jones’ place as they started on the winding journey down the other side.
‘Whee!’ said Glad.
‘You need to brake,’ said Alkemy.
‘I’m trying it but it doesn’t seem to ...’ The pedal felt soft and spongy. Tim pressed harder but the bus only slowed a fraction. Adding his other foot, putting his full weight on it, his mind returned to the scattered tools. Perhaps ... but no, the bus began to slow. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then from somewhere underneath there was a audible ping and the brake pedal sank to the floor.
‘Oh-oh,’ he gasped.
‘Whoo-hoo!’ cried Glad.
‘Hey, slow down,’ yelled Ludokrus.
‘No brakes!’ screamed Alkemy.
‘Yee-hah!’ said Glad.
Coral and Ludokrus abandoned the second seat bomb and scrambled for the front of the bus but a sharp bend threw them off balance, hurling them into a tangled heap in the corner where the two seats had been. Meanwhile the abandoned seat, balanced on the edge of the shattered rear window, slipped and dropped straight down, a corner of its frame snagging on the bumper where it bounced and jolted for several seconds before finally breaking free.
Tim continued stamping on the useless brake and hauling on the wheel. Then his aching arms locked tight. He recognised this stretch of road; the flimsy fence, the hairpin bend. In his mind’s eye he saw the sheer cliff, the wild blue sky and the endless drop to the ocean far below.
Dead Man’s Bend lay dead ahead, and they were going way too fast.
43 : Dead Man’s Bend
‘Use emergency brake!’ Ludokrus screamed from somewhere down the back, but Tim had no time to hunt for it now
Alkemy vaulted over Glad — who still seemed to regard the ride as a thrilling piece of rally driving — seized the brake lever and pulled with all her might.
All four wheels locked, sending them into a sideways skid. Tim steered as best he could but the back end of the bus slewed out towards the edge, hammering against the wooden fence posts. The sound started lightly, like the pattering of rain, quickly growing to a staccato burst like machine gun fire as the weight of the bus sheared fence posts off at the ground and stretched the wire strands beyond their breaking point. A sudden jolt and a tearing rasp from underneath told them that the left rear wheel had slid off the edge and now spun uselessly above the drop.
They slowed a little, but not much. Tim continued hauling on the wheel but they were still skidding sideways at a terrific rate.
The right rear wheel inched closer to the cliff edge, then the ground beneath it gave way and it too dropped. Coral screamed, throwing herself to the floor, and in a flash Tim saw their final moments. The weight and momentum of the back end of the bus would drag the front end off the cliff. There was nothing now to stop it.
Except for Dead Man’s Pine.
‘Hold on!’ he screamed.
‘What d’you think I’m doing?’ Coral screamed back in the instant before they hit.
The rear corner of the bus slammed into Dead Man’s Pine with a splintering crunch. Windows burst in a spray of glass, the side caved in, the roof buckled, the floor folded like a concertina — but they stopped.
The sudden silence seemed strangely loud. Tim dragged himself upright, shook his trembling hands loose from the wheel, and looked about. Glad was still wedged tightly in the aisle. Alkemy was picking herself up from the entry well. Further down the bus Coral and Ludokrus were emerging from under seats.
‘All OK?’ Ludokrus wiped a hand across his cut and bleeding lip.
No one spoke. No one seemed capable of speech. Except for Glad, who giggled.
‘Well,’ Ludokrus said at last, ‘you think Tim pass his driving test?’
Outside, Dead Man’s Pine gave a mournful creak. It’s top half, dead from a lightning strike years before, slowly slumped against the roof of the bus.
There was a gentle lurch. The back end dipped, the front end rose. Coral and Ludokrus grabbed for hand-holds as their view suddenly slanted.
‘Whee!’ Glad cried. ‘See-saw!’
‘Come forward. Everyone come forward,’ Tim yelled.
Coral began to move but as soon as she did the bus rocked violently and the shattered tree gave a warning creak.
‘Slowly!’ he screamed.
Inching on her hands and knees, timing each movement to the swaying of the bus, Coral suddenly froze. They all did. In the distance they heard the sound of an approaching motorbike.
* * *
‘yog mght drtkroy thpm immxdiatzly!’
The error-correction circuits were overloaded but there was no doubt about the message.
It had taken several minutes to right and restart the motorbike. The front wheel was buckled, making steering difficult, but apart from that it was a remarkably robust machine.
The lack of dust indicated that the bus had drawn far ahead. The Emissary accelerated, its sensors showing the approach of a banked corner. It calculated the fastest line around it, factoring in everything from the planet’s puny gravity to the friction coefficients of the tyres. Audio sensors scanned for sounds of approaching traffic (none) and weather sensors considered the possibility of wind gusts (low), but none of its impressive array of predictive calculations considered the likelihood of encountering another discarded bus seat in the middle of the road. Or a piece of coiled wire.
The bus seat lay where it had fallen. The wire — stretched and spiralled like a spring as the fence gave way — hung at ankle height above the road.
In spite of the damage the Emissary had sustained its reactions were impressive. It swerved around the seat, grazing it with a foot peg, and could have dodged the wire too if it hadn’t been distracted by the sight of the teetering bus ahead. It had just begun to brake, realising its targets had all but done its work for it, when the stray strand of fencing wire was snapped up by the motorcycle’s chain, wrapping itself around the wheel. The bike stopped dead. The Emissary didn’t. And for the fourth time that afternoon it was unseated by inferior life forms. But this time the ground was a long way down. A very long way down indeed.
* * *
The bus rocked again as Coral scrambled forward and Ludokrus saw the Emissary hit the rocks below. A fatal smash this time, he had no doubt of it. Bits flew in all directions, bouncing off the jagged rocks to be swallowed by a surging wave.
‘Game over,’ he muttered.
The others were now huddled as far forward as they could go, crowded round the driver’s seat. Ludokrus stretched out a hand but the weight from the shattered tree shifted and the bus lurched and rocked again.
‘No good,’ he called. ‘Balance too fine. Move forward more.’
‘We can’t,’ Coral cried, leaning back against the windscreen, even that small movement making a difference to the angle of the tilt.
‘Further out. The bonnet maybe. Break the glass.’
‘What with?’
Ludokrus felt around for the mechanic’s tools, found a heavy ratchet and threw it up towards them. The bus rocked precariously in protest. The ratchet landed with a crash and Coral hooked it with her foot.
It took three solid blows before the windscreen shattered, then bits of safety glass like tiny slabs of crazy paving cascaded inwards.
‘Oh no!’ Alkemy cried.
Tim sprinted out across the bonnet in an effort to counteract the weight of the falling glass. He grabbed the hood ornament, lowered his feet to the bumper and had the uneasy sensation of it rising up to meet him.
Coral followed, moving more carefully, while Alkemy guided Glad through the broken window. Tim and Coral grabbed her hands, dragging her towards them.
‘Better now,’ Ludokrus called.
Alkemy hesitated, looking down the bus towards her brother.
‘Go. Go,’ he gestured. ‘You will be enough.’
As she scrambled out, the rocking ceased and the front wheels touched the ground. Ludokrus began to m
ove, but the changing angle had weakened the top of Dead Man’s Pine and it slumped more heavily against the roof.
There was a crack like a pistol shot. One of its stunted branches burst a side window, showering Ludokrus with broken glass and causing the back end of the bus to dip sharply once again.
Everybody screamed.
‘Jump! Leave me!’ he croaked as the front end pitched wildly into the air and the bus began its final, fatal slide.
44 : The Strange Boy
‘All fixed.’ Albert set the microwave down on the kitchen bench.
‘You’re priceless, mate!’ Frank said, clapping Albert on the shoulder. ‘This man deserves a beer,’ he called to Em.
Colouring with pleasure, Albert added, ‘I’d have dropped it in sooner but I had to go to Queenstown and left early. I’m just on my way home.’
‘Oh!’ Alice appeared in the doorway, leaning against it casually — though she seemed out of breath. ‘So you didn’t get my present?’
‘Present?’
‘It was nothing really.’ She waved a hand. ‘I just made a batch of wholemeal pikelets and took some over to you.’
Albert smiled. ‘I shall look out for them when I get back.’
‘If there’s any left,’ Em muttered.
Albert glanced at her then looked about, noting the absence of the children for the first time.
‘The bus went straight past so they must’ve got off at your place. Little monkeys. They’ve got chores waiting for them here.’
It was another half-hour before Albert managed extricate himself. The Townsends were pleasant company but his thoughts kept straying to the car boot crammed with treasures. He was keen to start sorting them out.
He hummed an old Eltherian ditty as he drew up beside the caravan. There on the wooden box they used as a step was a plate of pikelets covered with a tea towel, just as Alice had promised. And that struck him as curious. Why hadn’t the children taken it in?
He got out and moved around the car, noting the stillness. The place was undisturbed — now — but it hadn’t been. There were skid marks on the grass where a vehicle had stopped and then taken off at speed.
He ran to the spaceship.
The protection fields were still in place but he could sense their strength was diminishing. And though the ship was intact, a harsh red light spilled out when he lifted the hatch. He’d no time to examine the strange boy curled up on one of the gel pads. Instead he hurried to shut down all non-essential systems to try to keep the child alive a little longer.
Switch must have been active for hours, and working at some distance too. What on Eltheria were they playing at?
He checked the power consumption and calculated that the switched creature was somewhere within a three kilometre radius. But where? At the present rate of drain it had only fifteen minutes left. He must find it and get it back here before the power cells ran completely dry. But where to start?
Uneasy at leaving the ship unprotected, he hurried back to the caravan in search of clues. There was a gushing note from Alice tucked amongst the pikelets but he only spotted Tim’s when he picked up the plate. A gust of wind snatched it away and he chased it across the reserve. When he finally caught it and read it, he dropped the pikelets and sprinted for the car. It said;
Help! Sentinels at school. Others captured.
Tim.
* * *
‘No!’ Alkemy screamed as the bus rocked backwards, its slipping underside tearing clods of earth from the cliff edge and sending the four figures huddled on the front bumper soaring high into the air. For an instant she glimpsed the jagged rocks below as the surging surf swept over them.
‘Jump,’ Ludokrus called feebly, fearing that even the weight of his breath might be enough to send them plummeting over the edge. ‘Save yourselves.’
In spite of his insistence, no one moved. They clung to the bonnet, wedged into the furthest corner where their combined weight had the greatest effect.
Tim looked about desperately. If there was only something he could reach, something to hold on to, some extra weight they could add. But it was just them and the teetering bus. He knew they had only seconds left.
* * *
Alice Jones eased herself over the fence, tiptoed across a broad shallow stream, and paused. This must be it. The reserve.
She took a deep breath. She knew what she was going to say. She was out for a stroll. Perhaps he’d care to join her? It was such a wonderfully dramatic coastline, didn’t he think ...?
Ahead she spied the clearing where the caravan was parked and heard the sound of a car engine. She’d got there before him. No, wait a minute. The car was driving off. At speed.
She sprinted after it in time to see the big black Cadillac disappear up the road to Rata.
Blast!
Then the fluttering edge of a tea towel caught her attention. It looked like the one she’d used to cover the pikelets. She went to inspect it and found her pikelets strewn across the grass, the willow-patterned plate on which they’d been carefully arranged shattered on a stone. She stared in disbelief. So that’s what he thought of her efforts!
Fighting back her disappointment she gave a determined sniff and marched away.
* * *
‘We have to jump,’ Tim yelled, ‘or we’ll go with it.’
Coral glanced inside the bus. Ludokrus, spread-eagled on the floor, was no longer visible, which was just as well. She couldn’t do it, she simply couldn’t ...
Tim took her arm then looked at Alkemy. Weeping, reluctant, she nodded slowly.
‘All together. On the count of three,’ he said in a choking voice. ‘One ... two ... thr ...’
A huge black shape hurtled towards them, skidding to a halt in a shower of gravel. Even before it stopped moving a figure sprang from the open door and hurled itself at the front bumper, catching it in his hands and swinging on it like a gymnast. The old bus swung smartly back while the rotten tree stump creaked in protest. Then, with an irritated groan, it slid off the roof and vanished out of sight.
For a moment no one spoke. The front wheels settled on the ground with a satisfying thump. A second later the shattering sound of smashing timber echoed up to them, then Ludokrus was scrambling through the broken windscreen and into the arms of his sister and friends.
Albert picked himself up and dusted himself down, keeping one foot on the bumper just in case. A bedraggled woman he’d never seen before eased herself to the ground, turned to him with a slight grimace of pain and held out a hand.
‘I’m Glad,’ she said, ‘and I’m really glad to meet you.’
45 : Prisoners
Alice stormed off without paying attention to where she was heading and was soon lost in the bush. She paused, bewildered, then spied a gap. Easing past a stand of kanuka, she found herself in a low leafy clearing filled with ferns. As she pushed her way through them she made a startling discovery. Except she wasn’t sure what it was.
She knew what it looked like, of course. All her life she’d surrounded herself with books and magazines that featured stories of UFOs, alien abductions and tales of unearthly visitors. Indeed, the news reports of a brilliant shooting star in the area a few nights before had added a little spice to her weekend trip. But never in her wildest imaginings had she dreamed ...
Pacing round it warily, keeping her distance, she observed its blackened underside, its smallness, its absence of markings or a hatch.
Inching closer, she risked a touch, only to snatch her hand away immediately. The thing was vibrating gently and, as she watched, faint red flashes began to flicker round its rim.
She took a step backwards, wondering if she’d triggered an alarm, then heard an approaching vehicle; a large vehicle travelling at speed. There was no mistaking the violence of its skidding halt, the urgent cries and the footsteps pounding in her direction. She turned and ran.
As she plunged into the deepest undergrowth she could find, other thoughts began to surface. That ca
r engine sounded familiar. And weren’t those cries the cries of children?
She paused, listening, then began cautiously retracing her steps. As she approached the edge of the clearing a familiar figure strode into view: Albert Kattflapp. She could see him clearly. And his two children, and ... good heavens! Em’s niece and nephew too!
Albert glanced up as he rapped on the craft and Alice ducked out of sight. She missed seeing Norman clamber out, but heard the sounds of him being reunited with his friends and peered back in time to see him embrace a second adult who came limping after the others, supporting herself on a broken branch.
What was going on? What had she stumbled across? And wasn’t that Gladys Smith from RAGS?
She took a breath and inched a little closer. Albert was holding up a cage with something inside it: two tiny creatures that looked like ... Alice stifled a cry as she realised what had happened.
It suddenly all made sense. The shooting star the week before ... the little craft too small for humans ... Aliens had landed but something had gone wrong. Somehow Albert and his vile children had trapped them!
She didn’t see Albert reach down and flick on the Revolt-O-Ray, but she was suddenly filled with an intense desire to leave the area, and did so the quickest way possible; by running as hard and fast as she could in the opposite direction.
* * *
‘Mouth’s open,’ Coral said as she bustled past carrying a carton of old preserving jars.
Norman closed it, but not for long. This really was incredible.
He watched awestruck as the shattered windows and damaged side of Fitchett’s Flyer seemed to magically repair themselves beneath a layer of grey dust. They’d towed the old bus back to the reserve and dumped junk scavenged from the tip around it. The junk melted like butter and somehow minute machines were using it for repairs.
‘It’s nearly finished,’ Glad said, coming up behind him.
‘Mum!’ he jumped. ‘Are you ...?’ He looked her up and down.
‘I’m fine. A couple of hours ago I got shot, now I probably won’t even have a scar. Look,’ she lifted the corner of her bush shirt.