Snake Typhoon! (2 page)

Surveying the pilot, I diagnose that he’s in shock. I fling open the hatch that has a big red cross on it and look around for something to quell his nerves. Nothing is marked as such, so I take a punt and pick up the red vial. The first thing we were taught in first aid training was Red Stops Dead. I attach the syringe and then push the pilot over. Difficult because he’s as stiff as a taxidermist’s pet tiger, and there’s no room in the cockpit. I raise my arms above my head, holding the syringe, and keep my thumb on the plunger. I aim for his heart, and count.

“One, two…three!” I say, piercing his thick skin with the shiny needle, pushing the crimson liquid straight into what I hope is his bloodstream. He lets out a spine-chilling scream, and I expel a breath I don’t realise I’ve been holding.

He convulses, and froths at the mouth just as the manual describes, the stress and fear bubbles up and out, which will enable him to focus when he comes to. With him taken care of, I feel able to take over from The Button and fly the chopper myself. I sit in the pilot’s seat and put my belt on. Safety first, check. I push a few knobs and focus on the view outside, only to see the most alarming sight. A powerful flurry of wind and rain is whipping up in a frenzy right toward me. I lean forward and wrinkle my nose. It can’t be, it really can’t be... My heart hammers in my chest as I see them.

“
Holy fucking shitballs
.” Sweat breaks out over my body, and I feel an urgent need to pee. I’m stuck in limbo between extreme fear and hysterical laughter. This cannot be happening. Millions of slithery, scaly, russet-brown bodies squirm and writhe in a seething, gorging mass, their tongues lashing outward like darts. Their whip-like tails sound like rattlesnakes and, as they rollick towards me, I see flashes of their yellow bellies. They’re fucking taipans. One of the deadliest snakes in Australia, and they’re heading towards me in what, a typhoon?

Holy fucking shitballs
.

It’s a snake typhoon!

I whack the heel of my palm onto every knob I can, grab the joystick and desperately plunge it upwards as I try to direct the helicopter away from the mass of deadly snakes. They must be telepathic, because they speed up and sense where I’m going before I do. One mammoth, ominous grey cloud covers the sky, and we’re thrust into semi-darkness. Thick sheets of rain lash the chopper sideways, gusts of water so loud they sound like the devil himself.

“How the fuck are they flying like that?” the pilot screams, foam and froth still oozing from his slack mouth. I can’t help noticing his hands are cupped like he’s got frostbite. The temperature
has
dropped dramatically. I look down and see the ocean floor rising to meet us. Wait a minute! Why is the sea so far inland? Waves crash into buildings and the force of the typhoon wrenches the chopper downwards. “We’re going to smash into a building!” Panic takes over; we’re so close I can see the people’s terrified gazes through the glass.

Yanking the joystick for all I’m worth, the chopper slowly rises, the engine grunts, and an alarm on the dash screeches a warning. What? Oil pressure? There’s no time to think! With gale-force winds buffeting the yellow metal bird, I realize I have to radio my team. It’s clear this is no longer a one-woman job. I try to ignore the churning in my stomach about the thought of leading a mission as important as this. Maybe it’s a test, and I just have to show them I’m capable.

Torrential hail blankets us, and visibility reduces to nothing. At least I can’t see the taipans. Holy fuck, I can’t see them! I nod towards the pilot and yell, “You’re going to have to fly us outta here quick as you can. I need to contact my team.” I square my shoulders and try to ignore the erratic beat of my heart. The only thing I can do is get us to safety. My mind is sizzling with ideas but, first, I need to report back. Now. I hope to God that my boss doesn’t regret sending me.

“Keep her steady!” I say, manoeuvring out of his seat, but the pilot stares straight ahead, catatonic and useless. I spot some cigarettes in his shirt pocket and reach over to take one. I light it, ignoring the “No Smoking” signs, and the fact I don’t smoke. This is an emergency. Holding the cigarette in my teeth, I push the pilot forcefully down into the chair, his bones crumpling into submission. I place his cupped hands on the controls, and pray he’ll switch on. Then I grab his shoulders and try and shake the sense back into him. Nothing. Maybe I gave him too much anti-shock? Tears fall down my cheeks and, angrily, I wipe them with the back of my hand. There’s no time for a sob-fest. With one hand on the volume control, I use the other to place the headset over my ears, and try to connect with the control tower.

“Emergency! We have a Code Black, does anyone copy? Over.” All I hear is the crackle and static, and my own voice, disconcertingly repeating back. I smash my palm into the dash, there’s no fucking signal! I try to keep the desperation from my voice, “Extreme state of emergency, I repeat we have a Code Black. Over.” Or is it Code Red? Or is that just hospitals? I damn the pilot who sits slobbering next to me while tears fall from his glassy red rimmed eyes. An overwhelming feeling of grief takes over. I don’t want to die like this! I’m either going to get bitten to death or plummet to my grave in a fuel-soaked fiery ball of steel! I picture my skin melting and feel nauseous… I was not trained to die on my first mission. I scream into the microphone, “MAYDAY, MAYDAY!” But still all I get is a crackling, static-y version of my own voice.

I throw down the headset as large
thwacks
ring out overhead. There’s still no visibility, and cold fear rips through me. When I hear glass splinter, the fear is replaced by a surge of adrenaline. If I can manage to fly out of the storm, I can get us to the secret government department before the snakes get there, and then I can make a plan of attack.
The snakes are the storm, the storm are the snakes!
I just need to fly outta the storm before the engine burns out.

The chopper swings dangerously from side to side, red lights shriek from the dashboard. The taipans are back with a vengeance. I hear them tear themselves apart on the rotor blades as they give a long, human-like screech of protest. Holy mother of God. I see their venomous fangs, their tongues dart forward as they launch into the helicopter windscreen, killing themselves in force to smash the glass. Taipans, with the distinctive angular brow, look at me menacingly before the blades make mincemeat of them. I check our GPS. We’re approximately fifty kilometres from Uluru. The power of the typhoon has swept us so far west, there’s no chance of help from Brisbane.

The pilot slowly comes to. “We’re gonna die,” he mutters groggily.

“Dude, you’re not helping!” I roar, as I root around the cockpit for a manual on how to land this thing.

His eyes snap open, and he sits bolt upright. “We need to get the bird down pronto! Look at the gauges, shit! There’s no oil pressure, no fuel, we’re losing altitude…”

“And,” I interrupt, “The rotor blades sound like they’re the size of chopsticks!” I’m no expert on aeronautics, but I know if you don’t have blades, you don’t fly. The chopper vibrates, and alarms wail.

Cold air melds its way through the cabin. The glass is fracturing. Web-like patterns colour it opaque. The snakes are so close to breaking the windscreen wide open, I can smell their foul breath flow in, a mixture of earth and waste.

“OK, can you land the bird? Or should I?” I ask urgently.

“I’ll land,” he thunders.

We might just make it.

“Tape!” he grunts. “Tape up the cracks. Don’t let them in. We need the cabin pressure to stay as constant as we can!”

Rummaging through the console, I find a circle of black gaffer tape. Ripping lengths off with my teeth, I stick them over the ever-expanding gaps in the glass.

We begin to descend and the engine groans and stutters, shuddering us silly. Snakes slither and slide into view. Fucking taipans. Never liked them much. It’s like one giant rope of snake, and I wonder how the hell we’re going to get out without being eaten alive.

Think.

Think!

What would the manual say?

The engine falters, which spurs me into action. I flick switches to stop the incessant flashing, and shout, “Down, down, down! As close as you can to the secret government department.”

Ditching the tape, I sit quickly and click in the seatbelt. The chopper lurches into a death roll and we plummet towards the ground, battering winds pulling the big bird so far to the left we’re almost upside down. I scrunch my eyes closed as our bodies are thrown every which way as our seatbelts expand, struggling to hold us in.

My eyes open again and I listen for the sound of the snakes. The inky, vast blackness has gone. “Where are they?” I whisper, leaning on the glass, making out trees and plants, lots of red dirt and a big red rock. The squally winds stop as quickly as they came, and sunshine pokes through the bloody, pulped mass of dead taipans on the windscreen as the chopper hovers a few metres above the ground.

“What? What the hell?” the pilot says. “Where did they go?” he flips switches, and tries to control the dying engine.

“OK, OK,” I say, speaking fast. “The storm hasn’t hit here yet. The taipans are trapped in the snake typhoon. We can make it,” I say above the grumbling rotor blades which don’t whoosh so much as creak now. I scan the horizon for the building we need to get to. It must be miles away I can only see a glint of silver in the distance.

Fumes from the burning engine fill the cabin. I cough as we hit the ground with a thud, puffs of dust clouding the chopper. “Quick,” I say, unclasping the pilot’s belt for him, then my own, before hurdling out. We stumble from the wreckage, hands up, shading our faces from the blinding sunlight. I’m about to run, when I remember my bag which is full of supplies.

“Keep going,” I say to the pilot. “I’ll catch up.” I grab my backpack and the medical kit, and look for anything else that may be of use. A trickle of fuel leaks from the undercarriage right beside a cluster of burnt-out wiring. The acrid stench of melted plastic is making me dizzy. I hear a sizzling sound from the tail end and jerk my head towards it to make sure it’s not a taipan when something tells me to run. I sprint away with my bags as fast as I can before I realise why; the fuel and the shorted-out wiring make a lethal combination. “RUN!” I shout to the pilot, waving him on. “It’s going to―” Before the words are out of my mouth, I’m lifted into the air by force and a boom so loud my insides shake. Heat singes the hair on my legs as I’m propelled higher. The pilot swivels to watch me and I see the flames reflected in the whites of his eyes. As quick as I’m thrown up, I come down again. The red dirt comes screaming into view and I throw my backpack on the ground and curl myself into a ball before I land smack bang into it. I somersault off it all in one swift move.

The pilot shakes his head. “Oh my God, how’d you learn to do that?”

I double over, winded from the fall. “It was…in the manual.”

“Just…wow,” he says, his gaze softening.

I look over my shoulder to the flaming wreckage of the helicopter. Pieces of metal and debris are shooting out from it, like fireworks. It’s a remarkable sight, but we don’t have time to dilly-dally.

“I’ll see if I can get mobile signal here.” I half run, half walk while I call. The phone cuts out, so I type a message instead: Snake typhoon. ESOE. Meet me at the Red Centre.

I press Send and hope to God the signal is strong enough to get the message to my team.

The heat bears down on us as we run. Well, I run, and the pilot hops and drags his dead leg beside me. “What did you give me?” he asks.

“Anti-shock. For the shock,” I say, only half-listening while I pull him down beside me to assess the sky for taipans. “Rest for a sec,” I say.

“We don’t have anti-shock in the medi-bag. What colour was it?” he asks, rubbing his chest where a small bubble of skin swells out.

“Red. Look, can we focus on the job at hand here?” Never mind that he hasn’t said thank-you.

All I can see is a bunch of parched skinny-trunked trees. The infinite orange-red dirt makes me gulp. What if we don’t find help? Sweat drips from my forehead and I shake it off, then stand up. The pilot’s eyes are closed, and he’s back to rubbing his moustache. I can’t give up, not yet. Biting my lip, I squint as I look up and take note of the position of the sun. “Right, according to my calculations, we have to head due east. You’re going to need to hobble as fast as you can, got it?”

“Got it,” he says.

“We need to get inside and get help before the typhoon gets here.”

Without giving him a chance to respond, I drag him by the hand as I run through the trees. I swipe at branches with the other hand and wince when I hear them ricochet back on the pilot’s face. He grunts and moans as we race forward.

Cobwebs cling to my face as I propel myself forward. Huntsmen spiders land and clutch onto me with their hairy legs. I squirm and flick them off, stepping on them as I go. They squish easily under the weight of my boots.

The pilot puffs and pants behind me; for a fit guy he’s really struggling. “Keep going. I think I can see something.”

Everything is dehydrated and dry, sticks and branches crumbling when we stomp on them. Flies bother my face, swarming around my eyes.

Brown-speckled goannas stare lazily at us as we pass. Sweat trickles down my back and I wonder how much longer we can keep this up when the secret government department rolls into view.

Thank God. We’re almost there.

We pause just in front of the huge metal structure so the pilot can catch his breath. I hand him a canister of water from my backpack and he chugs it down with a grateful look on his face.

“Thanks.” He places his hands on his knees, bends over and heaves air into his lungs. I close my eyes and let the bright sunshine burn my face. Sunshine means no typhoon. No typhoon laden with venomous taipans…

“Oh God,” the pilot screams. “The sky!” I snap my eyes open and look to where he’s pointing. A fat grey cloud is moving at a worryingpace and, as it moves closer, a loud drone buzzes towards us. The fucking taipans.