Ghost Byte

by John Larkin

  ‘Well, it can’t be a very big one,’ said Bob, ‘cause I ain’t heard of it.’

  ‘It’s not,’ said Brendan. ‘It used to be a one-horse town, but the horse moved.’

  Bob laughed. Brendan reckoned that you’d get to develop a fairly sophisticated sense of humour being alive for the best part of a century. He sniffed the air. You’d also get to develop a fairly sophisticated smell.

  Brendan quickly wound down his window.

  ‘Sorry about the pong, boys. It’s my granddaughter’s wedding today and I was a bit heavy on the aftershave. That reminds me of the war when me and Davo McDaniels …’

  Brendan and Brains sat back and genuinely enjoyed listening to Bob’s war stories. They weren’t sure which war he was referring to, but they listened eagerly anyway. Brains reckoned it was the Boer war, while Brendan settled on the Napoleonic wars. He was off to Bourke and could take them as far as Nyngan, which would put a pretty good hole in the New South Wales leg of their journey.

  As Bob’s Morris Minor struggled up yet another hill, Brendan glanced behind them and saw a line of traffic stretching back a couple of postcodes. He then sat back and relaxed—they were in good hands after all.

  Chapter 24

  ‘She’d better be a bloody good sort,’ said Bob as they got out of his car in Nyngan, ‘dragging you across the country and all that. Anyway, all the best,’ he added as he screeched away from them at about fifteen kilometres an hour.

  Not only isn’t she a she, thought Brendan as the cold hard facts of what they were doing came pouring over him, she isn’t even alive.

  Brendan slung his backpack over his head. Helen was about five hundred k’s behind him, Brains was doing some major damage to what must have been his fifth Mars Bar, and they were going cross country to help a ghost perform an exorcism. Perhaps he’d been wrong: maybe he was crazy after all. All the evidence pointed towards the funny farm.

  ‘C’mon!’ Brains was pulling Brendan by the arm and spraying bits of chocolate in his face. ‘This looks like a truckers’ resting place.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ said Brendan sarcastically as they raced towards where the fourteen or so trucks were parked.

  ‘Just a hunch!’

  They both ran yelping excitedly down the road.

  Brendan edged nervously towards the bar like a dolphin approaching a Japanese fishing trawler.

  ‘Is there a lady in here called Bertha?’

  The guy behind the counter looked Brendan up and down in what could only be described as distaste. He nodded his head in the direction of a side table. Words were obviously not his strong point.

  Groups of truckers stood round drinking and playing pool and generally trying to out-bull each other.

  Brains was waiting outside. Brendan had lost the toss and there was no point both of them being killed in a barroom brawl.

  ‘Is your name Bertha?’

  ‘Nope.’ The woman was sitting by herself and drinking a cup of coffee.

  ‘It’s just that I was looking for the owner of the truck outside, the one that says Bertha’s Perth Haulage.’

  ‘That’s mine.’

  ‘So who’s Bertha?’ said Brendan, a bit confused.

  ‘Me,’ she said between sips.

  ‘Your name’s Bertha?’

  ‘No. Sandra.’

  Brendan hated conversations like this. They didn’t appear to help anyone. He seemed to be having a lot of them lately.

  ‘I use Bertha cause it rhymes with Perth. “Sandra’s Perth Haulage” just wouldn’t sound the same, would it now?’

  Brendan reckoned it wouldn’t. But then again, he didn’t really give a rat’s. He just wanted to get a lift, not go into business with her.

  Fifteen minutes later Brendan and Brains climbed up into the cabin. It was huge. Brains quickly bagsed the sleeping compartment, and in no time was catching some heavy zzzz’s.

  Pretty soon they were blasting along the highway making a lot better time than they had with Bob.

  ‘People,’ said Sandra, ‘get tired of living in Sydney all their lives. It’s a rat race, see. Only the rats are winning.’

  Brendan couldn’t see what he’d done to provoke such heavy trucker’s philosophy only ten minutes into their journey, but he was just glad for the ride. And besides, he would have eagerly listened to Fred Nile’s view on teen sex if it had moved him a couple more kilometres west. Sandra was easy.

  ‘Retiring to Perth, that’s what they’re doing,’ said Sandra, getting to the point of her discussion. ‘Need their stuff moved, don’t they? Nice little niche market for me. One run a week I do—regular as a high-fibre diet.’

  After about three hours of listening to the droning engine and the droning Sandra, Brendan began to feel as if someone had attached Arnold Schwarzenegger’s weight set to his eye lids. His head kept nodding forward.

  ‘Brains!’ said Brendan, crawling through into the sleeping cabin. ‘Your turn up front.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ yelled Sandra, ‘there’s plenty of room back there for both of you—head to toe mind you.’ She stuck on a Kenny Rogers tape.

  They were on their way all right. The open highway, Kenny Rogers. Brendan began to feel as if it was time to make an investment in an Akubra hat. He pulled his walkman out of his backpack and hit the play button. He didn’t think Guns ’N Roses could soothe anybody to sleep. He was wrong.

  Chapter 25

  After an overnight stop in Adelaide, Sandra had got them up pretty early and by about eight the following morning they were blasting along the highway again.

  It was weird. Brendan had thought that truckers would either sleep in their cabins or some rundown hostel on the outskirts of the city. He didn’t think they spent their overnight breaks in five-star hotels.

  ‘Cause most truckers aren’t rich,’ Sandra had said after room service had brought up their dinner.

  ‘You’re rich?’ said Brendan.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sandra. ‘Family money mostly, but I do all right by myself.’

  ‘So why d’you drive a truck?’ said Brains.

  ‘Everybody’s gotta do something. Don’t fancy no racehorse studs or television stations. Look at that Willesee fella, loads of money but he’s still on telly now and then. Why’s he do it? Same as me, I guess. Everybody’s gotta do something. My husband got killed in the Vietnam war, you see. He didn’t know what he was fighting for, and got himself blown up defending a town that he couldn’t even spell. Driving the old rig here keeps me sane, I guess.’

  Sandra went to bed early in the separate bedroom, while Brendan and Brains spent the night watching in-house movies and clearing out all the chocolate from the mini-bar. Brendan had won the toss and got the trundle bed. Brains had to make do with the lounge suite.

  They finally got to sleep at about three in the morning and were seriously tired when Sandra got them up at seven the following day.

  ‘So why are you two humping your skinny little arses all the way to York?’ said Sandra as they blasted along the Eyre highway.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Brendan. Brains was crashed out again in the sleeper. They were in danger of becoming nocturnal.

  ‘It’s a long trip,’ said Sandra.

  Hmmm. If he told her about Nick, she might think they were loopy and chuck them out. Brendan didn’t fancy being stuck in the middle of nowhere. And despite the infinite number of drink bottles and Mars Bars that Brains seemed to have in his backpack, they would definitely be in big trouble out here.

  ‘My dad and brother live there. I’m trying to get them to come home.’

  ‘Dad did a runner, huh?’ said Sandra sympathetically.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Men!’ said Sandra. ‘Can’t live with ’em; can’t live with ‘em.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Brendan gestured to the back where Brains was snoring his nose off. ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘What about you?’ said Sandra. ‘You got yourself a girl? Is there a little Miss Right
waiting for you back home?’

  ‘Little Miss Wong, actually.’

  ‘You miss her?’

  ‘Heaps. You got any Dolly Parton in here?’ Brendan was hoping to change the subject and started sifting through Sandra’s cassette collection in the glovebox.

  ‘Yeah, plenty.’

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of. You got anything by anybody who isn’t wearing a cowboy hat and boots on the cover?’

  ‘I like country music.’

  ‘Do you know what happens when you play a country and western song backwards?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Sandra.

  ‘Your dog comes back from the dead, your wife and kids come home, you stop drinking and smoking, and start winning at cards.’

  They spent the next couple of days telling jokes and alternating between country and western and Brendan’s Guns ’N Roses tapes. By the time they reached Kalgoorlie, Sandra knew by heart the words to ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ and ‘November Rain’, while Brendan and Brains could recite, on demand, the complete works of Charley Pride and the Oakridge Boys. But it was not something they were prepared to brag about.

  Around lunchtime on their fifth day together Sandra dropped them off in Northam. ‘You only got a bit further to York. It’s only about thirty k’s from here. You should get a ride, no probs.’

  Brains jumped down from the truck and Brendan turned to look at Sandra.

  ‘Thanks for everything,’ he said. He felt a bit nervous, as if he was on a first date.

  ‘Hope everything works out with your dad. If you ever need anything lugged across the country,’ said Sandra, pulling a business card out from the glovebox and handing it to Brendan, ‘give me a call.’

  Man. Brendan reckoned if Helen hadn’t been such a babe, and he’d been about twenty years older with a tattoo and heavily into Kenny Rogers, there’d be no way he’d get out of this truck.

  Quick as a flash Brendan leant over and kissed Sandra on the lips. ‘You’re a babe,’ he said, shouldering his backpack. ‘A total and utter spunk rat.’

  Brendan leapt down out of the truck and waved Sandra off. She roared down the street, tooting her air horns. They could still hear the sounds of Guns ’N Roses coming from her cabin even when she was about a kilometre away.

  About half an hour later they were in the front of an old red Dodge truck, trundling their way to York. They’d been prepared to walk the thirty or so kilometres left but about twenty minutes after heading out of Northam they were picked up.

  The driver was called Tom and they liked him immediately. He had a red moustache and a friendly round face and looked like he had to be physically restrained from going out and farming things.

  ‘Ben,’ yelled Tom. A dog was racing around the back of the truck at a million miles an hour. ‘Sit down or I’ll come back there and rain some blows on you!’

  Brendan didn’t know how Tom could have lived up to his threat while the truck was moving, but it seemed to do the trick and the dog settled down.

  ‘Where you boys from?’

  ‘East,’ said Brendan, not wanting to give too much away, but not knowing why.

  ‘Merridin?’

  ‘Further.’

  ‘Kalgoorlie?’

  ‘Sydney,’ said Brains.

  ‘Sydney? What are you doing coming to York? There’s not much here this time of year, you know. I was coming back from Northam once and blinked, and before I knew it I was in Albany, in the fishing business.’

  About half an hour later, Tom dropped them at the edge of town.

  ‘Where are we gunna stay, Brendan?’ said Brains as they retrieved their backpacks from the truck.

  Now there was a problem. Nick had only told Brendan to meet him. They hadn’t discussed the sleeping arrangements. They couldn’t stay with Brendan’s dad. Even in his loopy state he’d be sure to phone home and then Brendan would be in serious trouble. ‘Maybe we can do this quickly, and head off back tonight.’

  They found a barbecue table in a park and sat down.

  ‘Let’s fly back,’ said Brains, chomping on a Mars Bar.

  ‘Where we gunna get the money?’

  ‘Well! My family’s got this account that we all have access to in an emergency. Nobody’s had one yet so there’s probably a bit in it. You’ll have to pay me back though.’

  Brains had money for them to fly back? Unbelievable! ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before we set off? We could’ve flown over as well.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to go across the country. Get some adventure and all that.’

  ‘Adventure?’ said Brendan, totally exasperated. ‘Living in Sydney is enough adventure. I mean, it’s an adventure just going into town and not having your Reeboks stolen. I didn’t need this adventure. I did it cause I had a deal and I don’t want to spend the next couple of years communicating with a mad ghost.’

  ‘You should’ve said.’ Brains licked the last of the chocolate off the wrapper and threw it in the bin.

  ‘Brains?’ said Brendan, pulling the laptop out of his backpack and putting it on the table. ‘Go over to that tree, tie your arms together and beat yourself to a pulp. It’ll save me doing it myself later on.’

  Totally annoyed, Brendan flicked on the laptop.

  >

  Now where the hell was Nick?

  Chapter 26

  Brendan approached his dad’s shop nervously like a snail slithering towards a French restaurant.

  Fifteen minutes earlier Nick had caught up with them in the park, and while Brains went to arrange train tickets to Perth, Nick explained the situation to Brendan.

  ‘So the other ghost,’ said Brendan, still a bit spaced, ‘is in the shop with Dad?’

  > IN YOUR DAD.

  ‘Wha …?’

  > I HAD CHASED CAMPBELL TO SYDNEY A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO. THOUGHT I HAD HIM, BUT HE FOUND SOMEONE WHO WAS A BIT DEPRESSED AND JUST TOOK HIM OVER …

  ‘My dad?’ interrupted Brendan.

  > EXACTLY.

  Now it all made sense. His dad hadn’t totally flipped, he’d been possessed—that’s why he’d done all that stuff like playing the bagpipes, abseiling and what not. He hadn’t been himself. Just like Nick had taken Brendan’s body surfing, this ghost had got into Brendan’s dad and wasn’t letting go.

  The plan was for Brendan to just walk into the shop, up to the counter and demand some service. If it all went well his dad would recognise him enough for Campbell’s grip over him to slacken just a little. That’s where Nick would come in.

  If, on the other hand, things didn’t work out and the ghost remained in total control, then his grip would get even stronger and Brendan would never see his dad again.

  Brendan opened the shop door as quietly as he could. It creaked like a footballer’s knee after a hard career, but fortunately Brendan’s dad didn’t look up from his paper. Ducky must have been at uni.

  Brendan looked at his dad. He looked sad and lost. Well of course he did: he had a ghost in him, and it was time to give it the flick.

  Brendan’s pocket was full of sand. If his dad recognised him he’d throw the sand in his face to temporarily blind both him and the ghost. Nick would take things from there.

  ‘Hey, buttlick,’ said Brendan to his dad. ‘How about waxing my surfboard and then doing my maths homework?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ He didn’t even bother looking up.

  Oh no! It hadn’t worked—his dad hadn’t recognised him and now Campbell would get an even stronger grip.

  Brendan was about to turn around and walk out.

  ‘And another thing,’ said his dad, looking up at last. ‘I’ve told you time and time again not to call me buttlick, Brendan.’

  Brendan’s eyes bulged as the shop exploded into a mass of energy.

  A cyclone engulfed the shop and Brendan was thrown against a bookshelf with such force it almost knocked him out. He staggered to his feet, but the force of the wind threw him against the wall. Nick had told Brendan to get a good g
rip if things worked out. Brendan had assumed he was talking metaphorically. But whatever Nick was doing, he was not mucking round. Hurricane Nick had come home.

  Just when the energy in the shop seemed to reach a peak, it pushed on further upwards until the shop literally exploded. Brendan hurtled across the street about a metre off the ground like a—well, like a teenager hurtling across the street about a metre off the ground. He landed in the doorway of a bookshop, but luckily the Mills and Boon stand cushioned the impact.

  ‘Looks like the Stevens’ shop just exploded,’ said the owner of the bookshop matter of factly. ‘Probably the heat.’

  Brendan picked himself up off the floor, made sure that he didn’t have any broken bones and raced off to the train station. Whether Nick’s plan had worked or not, he wasn’t hanging round. Nick had either saved his dad or atomised him to oblivion and beyond. Whatever the outcome, Brendan knew he had to get out of there and lie low until the dust had settled. York was probably one of those places with obscure local laws that stated that juveniles could be hanged for blowing up shops and and trashing Mills and Boon stands.

  ‘Did you get train tickets?’ Brendan was almost out of breath.

  ‘No!’ said Brains, lying against a wall and setting a new Australian record for Mars Bar consumption. ‘There’s a coach leaving for Perth in ten minutes—we’re on that.’

  Brendan looked around the fairly deserted station. ‘Are you sure it isn’t a stage coach?’

  ‘What happened with Nick?’

  ‘Dunno. I didn’t want to hang round in case I got arrested. I’m gunna go back now, though, to see if Dad’s okay. I’ll put my sunnies on. Hopefully nobody’ll recognise me.’

  When Brendan got back to the spot where his dad’s shop used to be a crowd had begun to gather. It could hardly be called a swelling throng, but any gathering of five or more people in York signified a crowd.

  ‘What happened?’ said Brendan to the man who seemed to have set himself up as the senior member of the crowd.

  ‘Well, it could be this, and it could be that.’ His tone and movements were so slow he was like a slug on Valium. ‘But I think we have to consider the possibility that the shop has just blown up.’