Crocodile Attack

by Justin D'Ath

  ‘Just make sure you don’t shoot me!’ I cried.

  And lifted my foot.

  As soon as I moved, the snake reared up and struck. Clearly, terrifyingly, I saw its long curved fangs bury themselves into the toe of my sneaker.

  I’d been bitten by a snake!

  I lurched backwards, lost my balance, and toppled over the side. A skyful of heavy black clouds wheeled momentarily above me, then floodwaters closed over my head like a cold brown door.

  Invisible currents tugged at my clothes. They spun me dizzyingly around. For a few panic-filled moments, I felt myself being swept away. Then my shoulder bumped against something solid. I made a blind grab. My fingers clutched metal. The strong current pushed me sideways, but I held on. I dragged myself to the surface and spat out a mouthful of water. One of the ute’s tail-lights loomed above me. I was clinging to the exhaust pipe. Grabbing the bumper with my other hand, I pulled myself around behind the tailgate. Sheltered from the full force of the current by the ute’s wide body, the water was calmer there. My hip nudged against the submerged termite mound. By digging one foot into it, I was able to raise myself slightly in the water. I hooked my right hand over the top of the tailgate and hung there, gasping, trying to regain my breath.

  Something moved in the brown water next to my shoulder. A small scaly head rose above the surface. The snake! It must have fallen out of the ute when I did. I suddenly remembered that it had bitten me. Already its deadly venom was working its way through my veins towards my heart. I would probably be dead within half an hour. But that didn’t make me any less terrified as the evil-looking reptile flickered its forked tongue at me. Its head was centimetres from my nose. I was almost cross-eyed trying to keep it in focus. I couldn’t move. I simply watched as the snake slid up onto the bumper and slithered across my bare left forearm. It felt like wet leather. Its scales rippled past my eyes. Now it reached my right arm, the one that gripped the tailgate. Instead of going over it, the snake wound underneath my right elbow and came up around the other side, high up near my wrist. It was long. About a metre of it still dangled over my left arm. I could feel its wide belly scales flexing against my skin. There were goose bumps running up and down my arms, and – I swear this is true – every hair on my head was standing straight up like needles. When the snake’s head reached my right hand, it stopped, turned and looked down at me. Silhouetted against the roiling storm clouds, it flickered its tongue. Then it continued up across my hand and over the top of the tailgate into the tray.

  About half a metre of it was still sliding up my arm. As its scaly black tail twirled past my eyes, I thought of Nissa. I had to keep the snake away from her! It had already bitten me, so what did I have to fear? You can only die once. Without really knowing what I was going to do, I wrapped my left hand around the tail. Quick as lightning, the part of the snake that was in the ute came looping out over the tailgate, doubling back on itself, its pink mouth wide open, striking at my face. But I was no longer scared. It was as if someone else was holding the snake, not me. With a flick of my wrist, I flung the reptile into the air. It sailed over my head, twisting against the low grey sky like a piece of rope, and splashed into the swirling water several metres away.

  ‘And don’t come back!’ I called after it.

  I hauled myself over the tailgate and fell gasping into the sloping tray. The water inside the ute was level with the water outside now. The tray was awash. Almost the entire cab, including the lower half of the window opening, was submerged. The robber had managed to drag himself partway out, though his lower body and paralysed legs were still inside the cab. In one hand he held the shotgun.

  ‘Where’s the kid?’ he asked.

  The world stopped. I flicked my wet hair out of my eyes. The robber and I were the only people in the ute.

  8

  GONE

  Scrambling to my knees, I scanned the raging floodwaters downstream of the ute. My heart hammered.

  ‘Nissa!’ I screamed, sudden tears blurring my vision. ‘Nissaaaaaaaaaaa!’

  There was no answer, just the low mournful howl of the wind.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ the robber said behind me. ‘She’s … gone.’

  I turned on him. ‘It’s your fault!’ I yelled. Sliding down the tray, I wrenched the shotgun from his grasp and hurled it into the roiling floodwaters. ‘If it wasn’t for you, she’d still be here!’

  ‘I wasn’t the one … who fell over the side … with the kid in my arms,’ the injured man gasped.

  ‘You made me lift my foot!’

  ‘I was trying to … shoot the snake.’

  ‘But you didn’t shoot it, did you?’ I cried.

  ‘How could I shoot it?’ he asked. ‘It was … wrapped around your … shoe.’

  I lifted my sneaker out of the rain-pocked water that slopped about in the tray. I wasn’t in pain. Perhaps the fangs hadn’t penetrated the reinforced rubber on the toe. I really didn’t care. All I could think of was my cousin. Little Nissa. I’d promised to take her back to her mother. She had trusted me. Now she was gone. I would never see her again. It did not seem possible.

  I sat on one of the wheel-arches and steadied myself against the side of the gently rocking ute. I sniffed back a tear. ‘I must have just let her go.’

  ‘It was an accident,’ the man said, his words all but lost in the wind. He blinked the rain out of his eyes. ‘Could you … help me … please? I don’t feel … so … good.’

  I glared at him. I wished he was the one who’d been swept away. ‘She’d still be alive if you hadn’t kidnapped us.’

  A strange expression crossed his face, a look halfway between surprise and fear. Then his eyelids fluttered closed and he collapsed.

  ‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘Are you okay?’

  It was a stupid question. He was jackknifed through the narrow window, his ginger hair floating around his head in the water at the front of the tray. I grabbed his upper arms and lifted his face out of the water. His body was limp. It was like carrying a sack of cement. But somehow I managed to drag him out of the cab. I lay him on his back near the tailgate. The water was only a centimetre or two deep at this end. His eyes were still closed and his face was so pale it looked almost blue. It made the livid red and purple swelling on his forehead seem more shocking.

  Using my body to shelter him from the lashing wind and rain, I searched one of his wrists for a pulse. After a few nervous moments, my fingertips detected a faint beat. My own heart pumped with relief. Much as I despised the robber, I didn’t want him to die. I didn’t want to be left alone in the middle of the river, with Cyclone Kandy bearing down on me.

  Not that I expected either of us to live for much longer.

  Wherever you are, Nissa, I thought, gazing up into the bruised sky, I reckon I’ll be joining you soon.

  9

  THE WORST DECISION OF MY LIFE

  The first time I heard it, I thought it was the cry of a waterbird. A jabiru, or a duck. I didn’t know much about birdcalls, but the plaintive shrilling note, barely audible in the raging wind, sounded like a bird to me.

  The robber opened his eyes. ‘What was … that?’

  ‘A bird,’ I said. ‘How are you feeling? You lost consciousness for a couple of minutes.’

  He rolled his head one way, then the other. His bloodshot eyes settled on me. ‘Where … am I?’ he asked weakly.

  I explained to him what had happened and how I had pulled him out of the cab.

  ‘I guess I owe you,’ he said. The cry came again and he frowned. ‘That’s a weird-sounding bird.’

  He was right. There it came again, a high, strange sound. It sounded almost human.

  Could it be …?

  I peered over the tailgate. The cry seemed to be coming from the direction of the floating baobab. It was still caught in the branches of the half-submerged gumtree thirty metres downstream.

  Squinting through the rain, I thought I saw a movement. Yes! There it was again! Something small an
d white was waving among the clump of exposed roots. It looked like a tiny hand.

  ‘Nissa!’ I screamed.

  I leapt to my feet and was nearly blown out of the ute.

  ‘Hey, watch yourself!’ growled the robber, reaching with one hand and dragging me back down into the tray.

  ‘It’s her,’ I said, my skin prickling. ‘It’s Nissa. She’s alive!’

  ‘Where?’ asked the robber. He rolled onto his stomach and dragged himself up to peer over the tailgate. A slow smile broke over his face. ‘Plucky little kid,’ he said.

  The current must have washed her under the baobab. She had caught hold of it somehow and climbed up among the roots. I began unlacing my sneakers.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked the robber. He sounded worried.

  I dragged off a sock. ‘Going after her.’

  ‘Are you crazy? You’ll never make it.’

  ‘Nissa made it,’ I said. ‘The tree’s directly downstream. All I’ll have to do is keep my head above water and the current will do the rest.’

  ‘How will you … bring her back?’

  ‘I’m not bringing her back.’ I pulled off my other sock and studied my toes. There were no signs of punctured skin. The snake hadn’t bitten me after all. ‘I’ll stay there with her.’

  ‘What about me?’ asked the robber, fear in his voice.

  I couldn’t look at him. ‘You should be all right. The ute’s stuck on a big termite mound. I don’t think it’ll move.’

  We both knew I was lying.

  Barefoot, I slid one leg over the tailgate.

  ‘Please,’ the robber said to my back. ‘Please … don’t leave me.’

  ‘She’s only two years old,’ I said. ‘She won’t survive on her own.’

  ‘Take me with you.’

  I looked at the foaming water that tugged at my foot and ankle. I wished he hadn’t asked. This was the man who, less than an hour ago, had pointed a shotgun at me and threatened to take my life. It would have been simpler if he had died when he cracked his head against the windscreen.

  ‘I’m not a very good swimmer,’ I said. ‘We might both get sucked under.’

  ‘I can help … stay afloat,’ he said. ‘My arms are … okay. I tell you what – if I start … dragging you down, you can let me go.’

  I wondered if he would let me go. I’ve heard of drowning people dragging their would-be rescuers under and drowning them in their panic.

  Just then a grinding noise came from below. The ute trembled and sank about five centimetres in the water.

  ‘Please!’ the robber begged.

  I sighed. ‘Okay.’

  I hoped I hadn’t made the worst – and last – decision of my life.

  10

  BAD MAN

  Here goes nothing! I thought, and pushed out and away from the ute.

  I had seen a lifesaving video once but had never actually tried carrying another person while swimming. You were supposed to swim on your back, dragging the disabled person behind you. It worked for about two seconds, then the current caught us. Everything became a whirl of clouds and spray and water. Once I glimpsed the rear of the ute fly past in the distance, another time the blurred top of a tree. Mounds of heaving brown water broke over us like ocean waves. There were coughs and grunts and loud choking gasps. Someone’s hand clawed at the spinning sky overhead. We went under, came up, went under again. We were completely at the flood’s mercy, as helpless as two socks in a washing machine. I knew we were going to drown.

  It was the robber who saved us. If he hadn’t reached out and grasped one of the baobab’s branches, we would have been swept right past it. He was holding me now. He could have let me go, but he held grimly on and slowly dragged both of us in among the tree’s trailing foliage. Finally, I managed to grab hold of a branch of my own. Then, side by side, floodwater churning over us, the robber and I hauled ourselves into the thicket of whipping, splashing leaves. Close to the grey wall of the baobab’s trunk, I found a large, thick branch that projected out parallel to the water’s roiling surface. I clambered up onto it. Using just his arms, and with a bit of help from me, the robber hauled himself up beside me. Our combined weight caused the tree to roll slightly, dipping us up to our thighs back into the floodwater. Above us, the baobab’s trunk loomed against the sky like a wet stone wall. At the far end, a small pink-clad figure huddled in the shelter of the broken-off roots. She was sucking her thumb.

  ‘Nissa!’ I called.

  She stood up uncertainly, gripping one of the up-flung roots for support.

  ‘No, stay where you are!’ I yelled, worried that the wind would blow her into the river. ‘I’ll come to you.’

  It was easier said than done. The fat bottle-shaped trunk was smooth and slippery looking, and there were no branches for most of its length. I would have to crawl across, fully exposed to the gale, or else lower myself into the flood and drag myself along the waterline. Neither was possible if I was taking the robber with me. And I couldn’t leave him on his own. The effort of getting this far seemed to have sapped his remaining strength. His eyelids were closing again, his head nodding.

  ‘Hey. Are you okay?’ I said.

  He blinked, his eyes only half open. ‘ … sleepy,’ he murmured.

  ‘Stay awake!’ I shouted. He was sliding back into the water. ‘Don’t go to sleep!’ I yelled, grabbing hold of him.

  It was no good. His eyes closed and he sagged against me, blacked out again by another spell of concussion.

  I was stuck. There was nothing I could do but stay with the unconscious man and support him until he regained consciousness. As long as the tree did not roll further, and as long as I held on, we would be safe. But I was worried about Nissa, crouched next to a big Y-shaped root at the other end of the baobab. She was wet and cold and scared. A picture of misery. My arms should have been wrapped around her, not around our kidnapper.

  ‘Hey, Niss! How’s it going?’ I called. Only about four metres separated us, but I had to shout to make myself heard above the howling wind.

  She said something that I didn’t quite catch. I think she was asking when I was coming to get her.

  ‘Soon,’ I yelled. ‘When the man wakes up.’

  I almost said bad man, but I’m glad I didn’t. It’s true that he had got us into this mess. But a short while ago he had saved my life.

  11

  EMPTY FINGERS

  I’m not sure how much time passed. My watch had stopped, and the robber wasn’t wearing one. It felt like hours. The branch was not much thicker than a baseball bat. It dug into me. Soon I had lost all feeling in my backside and legs. A crocodile could have come along under the water and bitten off both my feet and I probably wouldn’t have known about it until I started to pass out from loss of blood. I didn’t think there was much danger of that happening. Even though it was called Crocodile River, and there were crocodiles in it, the bad ones – the salties – hardly ever came this far inland so early in the wet season. The water was normally much too low. All that had changed in the past twenty-four hours, but I doubted that crocodiles could swim upriver in the swift floodwater. It was amazing how fast the river was flowing, and how quickly it had risen.

  I wondered how close Cyclone kandy was. The heavy-bellied black clouds raced so low across the sky that it felt like I could touch them, and the wind seemed to be growing stronger by the minute. When a huge gust rocked the baobab and nearly blew Nissa off the top, I shouted at her to climb right in among the roots.

  ‘Nitta frighted,’ she whimpered.

  ‘It’s okay, Niss, I’m here,’ I called.

  She was only four metres away but there was nothing I could do to help. My hands were full. Literally. One was wrapped around the unconscious man, the other clung to a big branch above our heads. If I let go with either hand, one or both of us would be sucked away by the floodwater.

  Nissa said something about a car.

  ‘What was that?’ I shouted.

  �
�Car come,’ she said, pointing.

  For a moment I had a ridiculous thought. They’ve sent a search party and found us! But when I looked through the screen of baobab leaves, all I saw was the ute. It had pivoted around on the termite mound and was facing us. Only its roof and the tip of the tailgate remained clear of the water. Nissa was right, though – it was coming in our direction. Slowly, centimetre by centimetre, the ute was sliding off the termite mound. With a final shudder, it broke free. I watched it come spinning towards us through the swift current, sinking as it came. In a few seconds it crossed the thirty metres between the termite mound and the baobab. It swept beneath us, a wide pale shape in the murky depths. There was a massive jolt and a cloud of bubbles erupted on the surface. Nissa screamed. I found myself falling backwards as a frenzy of branches came windmilling down out of the sky, plunging me into the flood.

  I don’t know how long I was underwater. It was probably only five or six seconds, but it seemed like fifteen minutes. I was tangled in a net of invisible branches, being pushed down and down and down. Then, miraculously, I was above water again. Being lifted up.

  Later, I realised what had happened. The ute had dislodged the baobab from the gumtree that had been holding it. Suddenly freed, the bloated trunk had swung out into the current and rolled like a performing seal. It had rolled through 180 degrees, its branches dragging me and the robber around with it. I didn’t understand this at the time. All I knew was I’d been dunked beneath the surface and lifted out again.

  The robber groaned. He coughed up water. We were both suspended in a hammock of branches a few centimetres above the flood. The baobab had stopped rolling. It was now swaying back and forth in the current, dipping us in and out of the water.

  ‘What … happened?’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I gasped, relieved that he was conscious again. I gripped a branch and twisted myself around on the flimsy platform. A flurry of rain stung my eyes. The robber said something else but I didn’t hear what it was. I was looking at the roots, which clutched at the sky like the hand of a drowning man.