by Scot Gardner
The bell pinged as I entered and a cloud of delightful food aromas buffeted my sense of sniff. Hamburger, bacon, eggs and frying onion. My gut decided that my mission to investigate the Lost Head Diner was going to include some takeaway. The place was immaculately clean and modern inside – all stainless steel and glass. One entire wall was covered with baseball memorabilia – signed photographs, caps, mitts, toy cats named Baxter, bats and balls, all arranged lovingly as art. Something wasn’t quite right. It was supposed to look normal – disappointingly normal – but it was too clean. Too orderly. The inside didn’t match the outside.
A man the size of a small bus was taking orders. His head gleamed like an oily bowling ball and the smile never left his face. Behind the big man were two women – who must have been sisters and could have been twins – tending hotplates and frying vats. Above their heads, exhaust fans hummed.
I realised there was no place to hide a kidnapped girl in the Lost Head Diner. It must have been a cover.
‘How can I help you, boy?’ Big Baldy rumbled at me.
He spoke like a kindergarten teacher but paced behind the counter like a professional wrestler. His outside didn’t match his inside, either.
‘Could I please have a triple bacon burger with extra bacon and a vanilla milkshake.’
I put a ten-dollar note on the counter.
The man stuck out his hand.
I jumped.
‘I’m Doug,’ the big man said, and I reluctantly let my own hand be swallowed in a bear’s-paw shake.
‘Doug DeGraves.’
‘I’m Michael,’ I squeaked. ‘Michael Jordan.’
‘Nice to meet you, Michael Jordan. I must say you have an interesting accent. Where are you from? Canada?’
I almost said Australia, but if this was the place then Doug DeGraves was probably a kidnapper in disguise. ‘Yes, Canada. The land of the . . . maple leaf . . . flag . . . red and white.’
Doug stared. ‘Canada? Which part?’ He was still crushing my hand.
‘Um . . . the left-hand side. Yes. A little town called . . . Poopipant . . . Island.’
‘Really? Never heard of it.’ Just then another customer came up, so I retrieved my hand and took a seat, glad to be out of the spotlight.
A few minutes later my triple bacon burger with extra bacon arrived. My fears about the big bald man were eclipsed by the prospect of food.
The burger was unique. Enticing. Delicious. Heavenly. My tongue – not to mention the rest of my body – had a little party and in no time, all that was left of the burger was a few crumbs.
A truck engine growled. The windows vibrated. I briefly caught sight of the metal monster as it left the shed at the rear of the diner.
I followed the family of travellers as they left the shop, moved across the road and tucked myself behind the boulder to puzzle some more about the Lost Head Diner.
I watched the shed. The shed was the key. The trucks came and went all day. They drove in the shed and they drove out of the shed some time later. The drivers never appeared in the diner. If they were eating at all, it was in the shed. Plenty of room back there for a kidnapped girl.
As the sun set, I stole from boulder to boulder and across the road to a vantage point behind a large cactus. I had a clear view of the shed doors and the back of the diner.
As darkness swamped the desert and stars flickered to life above, I saw the faint forms of Doug DeGraves and the two women leave the diner and enter the shed through a side door. I could hear their laughter – cut neatly by the closing door – then silence. Big silence. Massive silence. The humungous silence of the still desert in the night. I crept from my hiding spot and jogged across to the shed, holding my nose at the rotten pong from the diner rubbish bins. The shed door was locked. Locked from the inside.
I pressed my ear to the cool metal. I could hear nothing but the low rumbling of an approaching truck. I crouched behind the rancid bins just as a bank of blazing headlights illuminated the weathered wall of the diner. The huge doors opened as if by magic, the truck entered and the doors closed.
I had the briefest glimpse inside the shed. It was dark – only lit by the truck’s headlights.
And it was empty.
No Doug DeGraves. No women. No chairs or tables, just metal walls and a cold concrete floor.
Things were certainly not as they seemed.
If three grown-ups could vanish in there, Crystal could too.
I had to get inside. Crouched low, I scrambled around to the other side of the shed to the exit doors. I’d have to time my entry well. With my back against the side wall, I waited. And waited. And waited.
I could feel the shed vibrating before I could hear the truck’s engine. Suddenly the door was opening and the truck was driving out. I saw the red tail-lights and ducked inside, hanging close to the wall. The door shut with a resounding clunk.
Total darkness. Not even a pin of light.
I held my breath.
Absolute silence. Not a sound.
I felt my way along the smooth wall to a corner, then along another featureless wall to another corner. I did a lap of the inside of the building, returning to the door I’d come in by. I found no switch, no other handle, and no other bump on the smooth metal walls.
Half a moment before the darkness and silence had creeped me right out, the entry doors opened. Headlights sliced up the darkness. I shrank into the shadows. A truck entered and the door closed behind it. The truck idled.
Just as the words ‘Now what?’ formed in my head, there was a clunk and the floor began to move, lowering me and the truck deep into the earth.
CHAPTER 13
AS SUDDENLY AS it had started, the floor stopped moving. We had ridden underground on a sort of giant lift. The engine revved and the truck lurched into motion. I ran, jumped on the back and hung on for dear life.
The truck and I and were soon thundering along a smooth, flat-bottomed concrete pipe some distance below the surface of the desert. I watched fluorescent tubes strobe past with a growing sense of unease. Where were we going? How long could one underground tunnel be? How was I going to get out of here?
The truck droned on at high speed for several minutes before it began to change down through the gears. I remembered all the action adventure movies I’d ever watched and decided to get off the truck just before it arrived at its destination. Just a couple of cool steps into the shadows. Unfortunately, I misjudged the speed of the vehicle, and fell. I came apart like a Charlie Potato Head thrown from a moving car window, my limbs rattling along the tunnel like garbage. My head skipped and rolled under the truck into a brightly lit loading bay and came to rest face-up at the feet of a man dressed in a shiny black suit.
He didn’t seem surprised at all. He looked at me as if he played soccer with people’s heads all the time. He spoke into his wrist.
‘We have a security breach in Bay Thirteen. I repeat, security breach in Bay Thirteen. Lock it down.’
Lights flashed. Sirens wailed.
My head moaned.
CHAPTER 14
MY HEAD WAS carried in a rough fabric bag and emptied through a clear Perspex door into a small cell. The rest of my body was dumped on top and I fumbled through my clothing and cobbled myself together as quickly as I could. The Perspex door snibbed shut and locks slid home on the other side of the thick plastic.
I banged at the clear wall. ‘Let me out! You can’t lock me in here . . . I didn’t do anything! Hey! Crystal! Crystal!’
‘They can’t hear you,’ came a croaky voice. ‘Might as well save your energy.’
I turned to see the face of an old man poking from beneath a grey blanket on one of the two bunks in the room. Had he seen me reassemble myself ? Too bad if he had. I was too angry . . . too frightened to care. The only other fitting in the room was a stainless steel toilet without a seat.
‘Pardon?’ I said.
‘The walls are shock-proof, bullet-proof, acid-proof, pizza-proof, laser-proof and
explosive-safe . . . oh and sound-proof. You may as well save your energy for more important things, like sleeping.’ With that, the old man rolled to face the wall. ‘Do me a favour will you, Sunshine, and tuck my blanket in. I’m freezing here.’
‘What?’
‘Make yourself useful and tuck me in. I’d do it myself only . . .’ The old man sat upright and punched his stumpy wrists at me. ‘They took my hands!’ he wailed. ‘The scumbags took my hands!’
A detachable. I’d finally met another person that officially came apart at the seams. He flopped back onto his bed and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. It was as though I’d met a relative I didn’t know existed.
‘Who took your hands?’ I asked, and pushed the grey blanket around the old man’s shoulders.
He snuggled deeper under the cover and sighed. ‘Those folk in the shiny suits.’
I went to the door and watched the guards – pale-skinned men in black vinyl suits like the guys who’d bagged me after the accident. Probably just like the men who had taken Crystal. They wheeled trolleys along the hallway. Some of the trolleys were stacked with plates of food, some carried linen, and some were loaded with large sacks that wriggled like Boy Scouts stuck in sleeping bags. I recognised those sacks.
The old man appeared at my shoulder. He gave me a fright.
‘Scary, isn’t it?’ he whispered.
‘What is this place? What do they want with us?’
‘They call it the Hive,’ he said, and held out his right stump. ‘I’m Wilkin Meadows.’
After a moment of feeling a bit yuck about doing it, I shook Wilkin’s stump. ‘John Johnson.’
‘We’re a long way underground and if you ever get to look outside that door without your head in a bag, you’ll understand why they call it the Hive. It’s just cells like this as far as you can see, filled with poor coots like you and me who were nabbed by those suits. Hundreds of us. Probably thousands.’
‘What will they do to us?’
‘Dunno. I’ve heard that they’ll pull us apart and sell us as spare parts. You know, a leg to a war veteran, an arm to someone mangled in a car accident.’
‘That’s awful!’
‘I’ve also heard we’ll get our heads scrambled.’
‘Scrambled?’
‘You ever noticed when you rest your head against someone you can read their thoughts?’
‘Not really, no,’ I said, but the more I thought about it, the more I remembered. When I was little, and scared, I sometimes slept in Nick’s bed. I had strange dreams. If our heads rested together during the night, I had Nick’s dreams. I know they were Nick’s dreams because they were often disgusting and a bit demented, like my brother in his waking state. Also, when I snuggled with a dog or a cat or a guinea pig, I could hear the animal’s thoughts and flick through its memory like files in a filing cabinet. While that might sound cool to begin with, I can tell you there are things animals think about that humans are just not meant to understand. Rolling in poo, for example, licking your own bottom and sniffing each other’s private parts are things humans just aren’t meant to think about in any great detail. So the whole memory-sharing thing seemed normal to me. Gross at times, but normal. ‘Actually, yes, I do.’
‘Well, in this establishment, apparently they join your head to a stronger head and mash your memories. Chop them all up so you don’t know if you’re Arthur or Martha. Get in there and mess around until . . .’
‘Okay, I think I get the point,’ I said. ‘Why would they do that?’
Wilkin shrugged. ‘So you don’t know where you’ve been, I guess. So you don’t go looking for your lost hands.’
He looked at his stumps. ‘Who’s Crystal?’ he asked.
‘Crystal’s my friend. She was kidnapped. They brought her here.’
‘She comes apart, then?’
‘No. She’s Normal.’
‘Normal? Never heard of a Normal person in here, other than the guards of course.’
‘Well, she’s here. She’s the reason I’m here. She must be here somewhere. I’ve got to get out. I’ve got to save her.’
‘Look around you, John. You won’t be getting out of here without help, will you? Unless . . .’
‘Unless what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Unless what?’
‘Well, I had this idea . . .’
Wilkin Meadows whispered his plan into my ear.
While it was risky, it was a plan.
‘Do you think it will work?’ I asked.
Wilkin shrugged and rested his stump on the back of my hand. ‘It’ll have to.’
‘Your accent,’ I said. ‘Are you from Australia?’
Wilkin nodded. ‘Born and raised in Upper Cumbucta West and as soon as I’m free of this place, that’s where I’ll be going. Home sweet home.’
Wilkin chatted about his life outside the Hive. He told me the sorry tale of his journey into custody that began with him trying to save a dog that was about to be hit by a car in a lonely Melbourne back street. The dog was saved but unfortunately Wilkin went under the front wheel and fell to pieces. The dog ran off in fright – with both Wilkin’s hands hanging on for the ride. Unfortunate also for Wilkin was the fact that the car that struck him was carrying two men in vinyl suits, not unlike the car that had run me down. They bagged him and the dog and sent him off to the Hive handless, no questions asked.
‘It’s as if they were hunting me,’ Wilkin said. ‘As if they’d followed me for days, months even, just waiting for the chance to run me down.’
That was not a comforting thought. It was easy to imagine the accident that started this whole mess not being such an accident at all. ‘You know, they could have been hunting me, too. I thought it was an accident but . . .’
‘Shh! Here he comes,’ Wilkin whispered. ‘Are you ready?’
My limbs shook. ‘No . . . I . . .’
The guard was at the door with a stainless-steel trolley.
‘You can do it, John. I believe in you,’ Wilkin whispered. ‘Fists of fury.’
I stood awkwardly on my wonky foot and pushed my head hard onto my neck. Wilkin hooked his blanket over his stumps as if he was preparing to make his bed.
The guard unlocked the Perspex door and entered, carrying two trays of food.
‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Tonight we have our chef ’s specialty . . . a selection of nuts . . . and bolts seasoned with broken glass. Ha! Do enjoy.’
‘Now!’ Wilkin barked as the guard laid the first tray on his bed.
I wound up and threw both my clenched fists with all my strength. Like rocks of flesh they spun through the air directly at their target – the guard’s head.
The guard ducked.
My beautiful hands – those fists of fury – thudded uselessly into Wilkin’s outstretched blanket.
Wilkin wrapped the hands and grinned at the guard. ‘Did you see that, Mr Paulson?’ he sang. ‘That young fellow had a go at you. I wouldn’t stand for that. Send him to maximum security.’
My stomach turned. I’d been hoodwinked!
The guard straightened. ‘Come on, old man,’ he growled. ‘It’s a small cell and there are only the two of you. Give him his hands back.’
‘Not on your Nellie, smelly. I’m hanging on to these feelers for safe keeping.’
The guard placed the remaining tray on the end of my bunk, and shook his head.
‘You should shift me to another cell,’ Wilkin protested. ‘That’s an idea, eh? It’s dangerous in here. C’mon.’
The guard shrugged, and locked the door as he left.
I felt the rage bubbling in my joints – a good anger that fortified my body and made me feel huge. At least I hoped it was rage bubbling in my joints. There’s nothing worse than breaking wind at a tense moment and blowing both your legs off.
Wilkin dug through the folds of the blanket and emerged with my hands attached to his own stumps.
‘Now, don’t try anything silly,
John. You wouldn’t want to take a beating from your own hands now, would you?’
I stood in the middle of the cell and puffed.
Wilkin clapped and pranced and shadowboxed, beckoned me with my own fingers.
He looked stupid. He looked more than stupid. He looked silly.
I giggled.
‘Wot?’
He looked ridiculous.
I chuckled.
‘Wot? I’ll have you!’
He looked pathetic.
I couldn’t hold it any longer and I opened my mouth and laughed out loud.
‘Stop it!’ Wilkin screamed. ‘I’ll pound you. I’ll pound you into a mess with your own flipping hands!’
I shifted the tray of food on my bunk with my wrists and lay down. I folded my arms behind my head and laughed quietly at the ceiling.
I only had to wait for the opportune moment.
The guard was right. This was a small cell.
CHAPTER 15
ALL I NEEDED to do to stay awake was think about Crystal. I wondered how she’d coped with being carried halfway around the world in a bag. If she was stuck in a cell by herself, she would be lonely. Lonely and hungry. I hoped the men in suits realised she ate twelve meals per day. With snacks at twenty-minute intervals.
I lay motionless on my bunk waiting for Wilkin to begin snoring. It wasn’t a chainsaw snore, just a little bubbly snort on the in-breath that told me for certain he was asleep. I slid off my bunk and crawled across the floor. At first I was just going to reach under the blankets and take my hands back, but I had a sudden and mischievous desire to join heads. I wanted to know if it was real, if I really could read minds, and I wanted to know how much – if any – of what Wilkin had told me was true. I gently lowered my forehead against the greasy grey hair at the back of the old man’s skull.