by Charlie Nash
“How much longer, Dave?”
“Nearly done.”
“Good. You hear about pit four?”
“What about it?”
“New ore type. Geo’s excited.”
Dave grunted. Didn’t take much to excite guys who were into rocks. This was the Pilbara. Rocks every-bloody-where. “So what?”
Troy’s voice rung with excitement. “You’ll see, Dave.” Then the radio had crackled on the sign off, like laughter of the mad. And Dave had cut his hand on the hydraulic line.
Later, Dave had seen the black ore. Touched it with his bleeding hand. It was sticky like pitch and shot with iron-loaded red, nothing like the yellow clay stuff coming out of the other pits. The Geos sampled it with their gloved hands, but standing by the sample pile, Dave and his crew had crumbled it in their fingers. It was odd stuff. Soft like graphite, until you squeezed, and then it would harden, like a fist of ball-bearings. And it infected him with unease. He began to think of arguments he’d had: union meetings, old girlfriends, guys he’d picked fights with when he was juiced. And these wrongs ran into something deeper, beyond himself, as if the ore was after a payback, come to collect something he could give.
The loader operator hadn’t touched it, but he crossed himself and didn’t turn up next shift. The super cursed the superstition, but Dave envied the guy. He’d had it right. He knew a bad thing when he saw it. But by then, too late. The haul trucks had dumped two hundred tons of it into the ROM hopper, and the black ore went down to the crushers.
Dave has the wasted tire off now. He shoves it towards the road shoulder where it crunches down the hill. It vanishes amongst the silvery grass and topples, leaving a black mass in a silver sea.
He regrets that. Black mass in the grass, black like the ore. It looks like the pictures in his head now, the ones he’s had since he touched the stuff. Of black shapes lying silent in the town streets, in their car seats, by the road like roos … silent because they were dead.
The black ore had gone down into the crusher, and like rocks could bleed, it broke open with splashes of oily black and ruby red. Land blood, Dave had thought. Something that should not have been dug up. Something come to claim a price.
The crusher jammed. And control was on the radio.
“Fault in the belt and the number two screen. Check it out.”
Dave’s team was meant to go in there, the usual crew: him, Johnno, Troy, Casper and Rob, the apprentice. Dave and Casper had cut the power and locked the crusher out, done the clear and trial. The lights on the switch had gone out; Dave had seen it, Casper’d checked it. Then Dave had watched Casper push the start, and the crusher’d sat, quiet and dark and jammed with the black ore. Power confirmed off. Clear to go.
The radio had crackled; another downed haul truck on the pit road and no one else available. Dave was called away. So Johnno, Troy and Rob had gone in with the breaker bars. And Casper had stood, a silent and surly sentry, as Dave had been going down the stairs.
That was when the crusher started. Dave had flown back up the stairs, following the black chute of unearthly screams. The crusher door was locked, fused around its seams; they couldn’t get in. Casper had yelled over the din until his voice broke, the radio crackled that there wasn’t any power, and what the hell? Dave had staggered. Nothing to do but reel. The crusher had eaten his boys alive.
Dave grips the new tire tight, ready to throw it if he needs to. His own feet crunching on the gravel is too much now; he holds himself rigid. But silence too eats at sanity. He must get on. He can’t miss the flight.
He feels for the bolt shanks, pinches another finger between the new tire and the wheel arch. By now, his fingers are painful stubs. He fumbles for the nuts. One, two … three are enough. Three. Three men in the crusher. Terror chases his hands. He tries not to think about Casper. But he sees him in his head sometimes. Along with the other dark, dead bodies. The ones that start to move again.
Casper was meant to be on the next night shift, but he hadn’t come. Dave got the call on the radio. The super swore between crackles; they were already three men down. Get out there and find him. So, Dave had taken a car and gone back to Mount Tom Price. Casper’s room was in the donger block, quiet in the day, al-foil in the windows against the sun. Dave had knocked for no answer. Knocked harder. And the door had popped off its catch.
Dave grabs fistfuls of hair, as if he can pull the memory out by the roots. Those black shapes in his mind are getting up now, the dead walking, toes dragging on the highway. Grit comes down from his scalp, trickles down his collar. The touch of it undoes his efforts; he can’t help but see how Casper ended. Strewn, deflated and boneless, mouth and eyes choked with the black ore, blood still flowing from fingernails and ears, black where it touched the covers. The earth had eaten him. Then, one of those fingers had moved.
Oh. God.
Dave slaps at the grit under his collar. It runs down his back like tiny spiders. He wants to have a fit, rip his shirt off and scream his lungs out. But the grit catches in his waistband and the trickling stops.
He throws the nut wrench aside and spins out the jack. Two fingers throb, one on each hand. Sweat stings his eyes and makes icy tracks against his cheek. His breath blows white; the pink glow on the horizon grows. He kicks the jack over under the car; no time to repack it. He bolts for the driver’s seat.
The breeze whips and yanks the door wide on its hinges. Dave yelps, straining to pull it closed. He turns the key instead. The wind whines. He hears it even as the engine turns over, then he grabs the door and slams it shut.
He jams into first and floors it. The tires bite the shoulder gravel and the Prado lurches onto bitumen.
The impact surprises him. Dave catches a blur of white before the Prado snaps sideways. His head collects the door window with a wet smack and the world spins over. He leans against the door and finds it open. Tumbles onto the road. Walks a few paces, then falls by the bull bar. Upside down, he sees a ute pointing into the gutter forty meters up the road, left bumper caved in, engine ticking. Fuck, he’d forgotten to check the mirror. Collected a car coming past, probably the one he’d heard before, perfect rotten timing.
In the Prado’s headlights, the ute door opens and a man comes trotting over.
“Christ, mate, you ok?” he says, leaning down.
Dave hears himself groan. He puts his hands up to find the damage, feeling grit through warm blood.
“Jeez, Dave? Is that you?”
The voice is familiar. Craig, another bloke from the mine. Big hands pull him up, urgent. There’s a rushing sound in Dave’s ears. The ute turns right way up. Craig drags Dave towards it, insisting they have to get out of here. And maybe they can make it.
Then the road shoulder cracks, splitting like a lightning-struck tree, and from the rent comes a shape, half-man, half-earth, shedding soil from suggested arms and shoulders.
In the headlights, its red-dust skin splits like a sun-dried lake pan, the substrate black and oily. His eyes are Casper’s, but the rest isn’t a man at all. Earth come alive, and hungry.
Craig drops Dave and tries to run for it, but the thing is faster. One moment, Craig is on his feet, crab-stepping, and the next he is swallowed, leaving only a lingering cry. The ore thing remodels; in its bulk, a suggestion of a face, an eye socket, a row of teeth, shifting, reversing and nothing more.
Dave’s head spins and he crashes to his knees. He wants to run, but he doesn’t know which way is up. And then he realizes he is moving.
The thing has his foot. It drags him from the road, down into the scrub. The silvergrass scratches his back and his boots fill with stones. He struggles, but the hand on his boot crumbles down his pant leg. The grains burrow into his skin, and black ore comes tumbling down his chest, drawn on his breath. Sunlight won’t save him, Dave knows this. Nothing will save him now.
He is filled before he can scream.
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With many thanks, Charlie.
More from Charlie Nash
Men and Machines I:
space operas and special ops
Four original science fiction stories, including the award shortlisted “Dellinger”. Available in print and digital.
Men and Machines II: punks and postapocalypticans
Four original stories of cyberpunk, steampunk and post-apocalyptic inspired fiction, including the award shortlisted “Alchemy & Ice”. Available in print and digital.