The Crocodile Nest (15 page)

With every stroke, Luke expected something to happen. He tried not to think about what that something might be, but images of the egret’s fate kept coming into his head, and each time he came closer to panicking.

Fifty metres wasn’t all that far to swim—he’d done it many times in a pool. Yet now it seemed to take ages. Maybe the current was holding him back? What was the tide doing last night? Was it coming in or going out? He couldn’t remember. But if it was going out, then he could be swimming forever.

He was twenty metres from the island when a dark shape appeared in the water. It was on his right, drifting slowly towards him. For a moment he froze. Then panic set in. He abandoned the breaststroke and started swimming as fast as he could. Faster than he’d ever swum before. Every time he took a breath, he could see that the thing was getting closer. Yet still it drifted, making no move to attack. Surely it must have seen or heard
him? He was splashing so much that everything in the creek would know he was there.

Ten metres to go. He took another breath, and this time couldn’t see the thing. It must have gone under, getting ready to strike. Five metres, and still no chomping teeth. Then his hand touched the roots of the mangroves. Desperately he grabbed at them. He had to get out of the water. He hauled himself up enough to put his feet on the ground. That was a mistake—he sank deep into the mud. Again he hauled on the roots. One foot came out and found a firm place, then it was easy. Seconds later he was clambering through the roots towards the bank of hard ground that formed the island.

The bank was a metre or so high and vertical: steeper than any crocodile could climb. Now that he was out of the water, his limbs seemed next to useless with fatigue. Yet he discovered enough energy to get up the bank. Immediately, his body wanted to collapse on the ground, but his mind said to check whether the crocodile had followed him onto the shore.

He looked down at the water—and there it was, back on the surface, still drifting. A big one. Bigger than the one that had taken the egret. Big enough to attack a human. As he watched, it rolled a little, exposing a leg.

Hang on…that was no leg. It was a branch!

That’s when Luke finally collapsed on the ground, not out of exhaustion, but in a fit of hysterical giggling. There was no crocodile, just a drifting bit of wood. He’d panicked because of a piece of driftwood.

He was still giggling when the silence of the estuary was
pierced with a scream. He jumped to his feet, eyes searching the shoreline. It could be Chizza. Then the sound of a shot, loud and not far away. More screaming, followed quickly by two more shots. Now Luke had the direction: it was coming from the water not far from the shore. It
was
Chizza, and he was under attack.

The water was foaming near Chizza’s legs. From a distance it wasn’t clear whether it was an animal or Chizza’s kicking. It must have been an animal, though, because Chizza was on his back, holding the gun in one hand trying to point towards his feet. He fired again, and a piece of something flew into the air. Another shot. Nothing flew up this time, but the screaming took on a new intensity. Four more shots were fired in quick succession. Then nothing—nothing but screaming. The foaming stopped, to be replaced by a spreading stain in the water. Even from his distance, Luke could see that the stain was red. And something was floating in the middle of it. Something that began to drift downstream with the discoloured water.

Surprisingly, Chizza was still alive. The screaming changed to a low moan, barely audible across the water. He tried to swim still holding the gun, but with just one arm and no legs he was barely staying afloat. Next thing, the gun was dropped and he began to make progress.

Less than a minute later, he was at the shore—that’s how close he’d been to safety when he’d been attacked. As Chizza hauled himself out of the water, onto the mud, Luke could see that he still had both legs but they seemed to be useless. What remained of his trousers was stained bright red.

It took ages before Chizza made it safely to solid ground and collapsed. Judging by the amount of blood around the place, Luke figured that the man was probably dying. Certainly he wasn’t going anywhere. The vehicle was a long way downstream, and the boat had disappeared somewhere up-river.

Luke gave a wry smile: maybe there was some justice in what had happened to Chizza. He’d laughed about Luke feeding the crocodiles, now it seemed that it had happened the other way around.

Lora and Beth were back in their room. Beth was waiting for a meal from room service while Lora was composing a text to Luke, although that was difficult with Beth talking all the time. She was still bubbling with the excitement of the meeting with the oldies.

‘Did you get that bit about the toilets?’ Beth asked.

‘Yes, Gran,’ said Lora with a sigh. ‘And I recorded that sphincter muscles get tired with age.’

‘We’ll have to have a public toilet,’ said Beth. ‘Even though it will add to the cost, it will bring people into the shop.’

‘More cleaning bills,’ added Lora.

‘I don’t mind cleaning up after old folk. I got used to that when I was a nurse.’ A pause. ‘That’s something else we must provide. Some sort of medical support, especially if they lose their pills. Maybe I can come to some arrangement with a local pharmacy. I’ll need a doctor as well, I suppose…’

As Beth went on thinking out loud, Lora completed her text,
asking Luke how Crazy Hazel was, and reminding him that their dinner was at eight and if he was going to be late then now was the time to say so.

By the time the text had been sent, Beth’s dinner had arrived and she had finally stopped talking. Lora filled the spa bath, added a scented bubble-mix, and lounged back to dream of the lovely evening ahead. Beside her was her cellphone, which she checked almost every minute, worried that she might not hear the chime because of all the bubbles. Each time was a disappointment—Luke had not replied. Surely he wouldn’t ignore her message? Not on the night of their first date? She knew that the creek area got a signal, because she’d checked her phone several times during the spotlighting trip.

Maybe he couldn’t hear the phone because of the noise from the motor? Yes, that would be it! She’d get a reply as soon as they reached the shore again. She settled back into the water, determined not to let anything destroy what was going to be a wonderful evening.

However, even then she couldn’t resist checking the phone every minute or so, and each time the result was the same—still no reply.

The sun had gone behind the Great Dividing Range. Soon it would be dark. Luke’s watch had got smashed as he was dragged out of the boat. He figured that it must be about six o’clock, not that he really needed to know the time. Unless a miracle happened, he wouldn’t be making it to his date with Lora.

She was his lifeline. When eight o’clock came, she was sure to wonder why he hadn’t made it. She knew he was with Chizza and where they’d gone. Sooner or later she’d start getting suspicious, and then people would come to search for them. It might take a couple of hours, but Luke was certain he wasn’t going to have to spend the night on the island. Just in case, though, it would be best to take a look around while there was still light.

Reluctantly, he left his place on the bank to push through the undergrowth. He found it easier to move bent over, as there were fewer plants close to the ground. It was almost as if some animal had made a—Instantly, he was more alert: there was only one animal that might live in this place.

It was soon clear that the island was flat and not very big. Although the ground was reasonably dry, tide marks on the plants indicated that at some time in the past it must have flooded. The trees were bigger as he moved away from the water. All of them had funny roots that poked out of the ground. Some looked as if they might be reasonably easy to climb, and he wondered whether that might be a better way of checking things out.

His path soon had him at the shore again. Here, it was a gentle muddy slope. It would have been much easier to get ashore if he’d landed in this spot. Then, as he studied the mud, his stomach began to churn. This was no ordinary muddy shore. This was a crocodile slide—a very fresh crocodile slide.

Luke’s eyes followed the path that led from the slope, through a tunnel of branches and into an area clear of trees and undergrowth. In the middle was a heap of twigs, earth, leaves, and dug-up roots. It was a crocodile nest, but, unlike the one he had seen the night before, this one looked as if it had recently had some attention. It had to be Crazy Hazel’s nest. He’d finally got to see it.

Before Luke had fully grasped the significance of what he was seeing, he heard a hissing sound, as if air was rushing through a hole. It was difficult to judge the direction it was coming from, but soon it didn’t matter—the source of the sound was right in front of him. It was Hazel. She seemed to have appeared from nowhere and was now standing on the other side of the mudslide. Her mouth was open, and again Luke heard the hissing sound. Then her jaw slammed shut, almost like the slamming of a door. Without doubt, Luke was being warned to stay away. He needed no further warning—he turned and ran.

He crashed through the branches, hoping that Hazel would want to stay by her nest. If he could get back to where he’d climbed ashore, he might be far enough away for her to ignore him. It was probably as far away from the nest as he could get on the little island.

However, he soon found that Hazel wasn’t called crazy for nothing. The island was hers, and any intruders had to be driven away or attacked. When Luke took a quick look behind, he found that she was following, running with her body raised off the ground and far faster than he’d ever imagined a crocodile could move. Faster than he was going. He pushed himself harder.

When he came to the place where he’d landed, he just kept running. If he stayed there, the only way out was into the water, and that was the last place he wanted to confront a crocodile. His best hope was to stay on the land. If he kept going, he might find a safe place. But he couldn’t keep running for much longer; nor could Hazel—he hoped. Yet she was still behind him, although not getting any closer. Then he saw the nest again. They’d circled the island. He’d seen it all, and there was no safe place.

Hazel seemed to get new energy at the sight of the nest, for
once again she was gaining. This time Luke just couldn’t go any faster. Something had to happen soon, before it ended in disaster. He was so tired that his feet were stumbling. Any moment he would fall flat on his face and it would be all over.

A tree! That’s what he needed. A decent-sized tree that he could climb. He’d seen one earlier, and it was just a short way ahead. Could he make it that far?

Now Hazel was so close that he could hear her breathing, a rasping sound that was almost like snoring. The tree came into sight less than ten metres away. Luke gave a final spurt and launched himself at the roots that protruded from the trunk. He scrambled up them, knowing that they would not be high enough: he would have to find the energy to climb the trunk. By the time he’d got to the top of the roots, Hazel was at the base of the tree. If she’d leapt up at that moment, she would have got him. Instead she raised her snout upwards, opened her mouth and hissed.

A foul smell of rotten flesh hit Luke, spurring him to get higher. The only handholds were a few knobbly bits of bark, but they were enough. Soon he was out of her reach, even if she jumped. Then he was within grasp of the first branch. He wrapped his arms around it, and held on for a moment to catch his breath. Somehow he had to get up on top of it.

When he was ready, he hauled his body clear of the trunk so that he could swing up with his legs and wrap them around the branch. For a while he was hanging like a sloth, getting ready for one last effort. If he messed up at this stage, then…

He glanced down and saw that Crazy Hazel was standing at
the base of the tree, her head pointed skyward, with the mouth open as if anticipating what was about to happen. He took a couple of deep breaths and did it: he let go with one arm and leg and hauled himself over the branch with the others. It was not as hard as he’d thought it would be.

After a time to get his breath back again, he moved so he was sitting astride the branch with his back to the trunk. For the first time since arriving on the island, he felt he could relax. No crocodile could get at him up here. It was just a matter of waiting until Lora raised the alarm and help came. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be long.

Hazel must have sensed that he was no longer a threat, for after a few minutes she waddled back to her nest, which Luke now saw was closer than he’d thought. Perhaps he should have chosen a more distant tree? For a while she tidied things, scraping a few more bits and pieces onto the heap, before carefully arranging her body so that it was facing Luke’s tree. She settled as if there was all the time in the world, leaving Luke with the impression that if it ended up being a waiting game she would be the one who would win.

Lora waited in the lounge part of the bar where she’d arranged to meet Luke. Even though there was still no reply to her text, she’d expected him to be waiting when she walked in. She’d intentionally been ten minutes late so that she didn’t have to sit nervously by herself. And now that’s just what she was doing. It was infuriating.

For the gazillionth time she checked the phone for a message—nothing. After a moment’s thought, she pressed a few buttons and lifted the phone to her ear. While he might be able to ignore a text, she felt certain that he wouldn’t miss a call. The connection went straight to his voicemail; no ring sounds, just the message that she’d helped record months ago.

‘Damn him!’ she cried. ‘He’s turned it off.’ She disconnected and slammed the phone down on the coffee table.

‘Troubles?’ said a voice.

Lora looked up and saw that it was the bar waitress. They’d
talked before. She nodded. ‘I think he’s turned off his phone.’

‘Is that this Luke who you keep talking about?’

‘Yeah. We were going to have dinner together.’

‘Oh,’ said the waitress, sympathetically. ‘When?’

Lora looked at her phone. ‘Half an hour ago. I’ve been texting him all afternoon, reminding him.’

The waitress rolled her eyes. ‘Men! They’re all the same. They get involved in male things and lose track of time. He’s probably playing a computer game or something.’

Lora shook her head. ‘No, he’s gone to look at a crocodile nest.’

‘Crocodiles don’t nest this time of the year,’ said the waitress, puzzled.

‘This one does—apparently she’s crazy or something. Anyway that’s where he’s gone. Obviously she’s more important than I am.’ Lora felt her eyes fill with tears.

The waitress put a hand on Lora’s shoulder. ‘Look, he’s probably just held up a bit. He’ll come. I bet he comes within the next half-hour. He’ll rush in all apologetic and you’ll end up having a nicer evening than if he’d arrived on time. In the meantime, why don’t you have a drink? I’ll make you a delicious mocktail. You’ll love it.’

Lora accepted the drink, and yes, it would have been lovely if she hadn’t been so upset. Twice more she phoned Luke, only to get the voicemail again. Nine o’clock passed. Nine-fifteen. By nine-thirty, she knew he wasn’t coming. She’d been stood up. On her very first date, she’d been stood up! And, what’s more, stood up because of a crazy crocodile. It was so humiliating.

Angrily, she stomped out of the lounge, not even seeing the waitress’s little wave and sympathetic shaking of the head. She wasn’t hungry anymore. Anyway, she couldn’t sit in the restaurant eating by herself, could she? That would be telling the whole world what had happened. All she wanted was to be in her room where nobody could see her, where she could cry all alone.

Except she didn’t make it to the room before the tears began to flow, streaming down her cheeks and dripping all over her special dress. She started running, as if running would leave the tears and memory behind. But it didn’t. When she got to the room, they were still there. And they were still there when she threw herself face-down on the bed. If anything, they were stronger and it seemed that they would never stop.

Luke was tired, stiff, sore and miserable. He had no idea how long he’d been in the tree, but it was long enough for the light to have gone, the stars to light up, and for the bats to come out. Plenty of time for Venus to shine brightly in the evening sky above the Great Dividing Range, and to have now disappeared behind them.

At first he’d felt quite positive about his predicament, especially when it was still light and he saw that the boat was nearby. It had travelled only a short distance upstream before running into a copse of mangroves that jutted out from the shore. If and when someone came to rescue him, they should have no trouble climbing aboard the boat and zipping across
to his island. The rescue from this hell would take only a few minutes.

The other discovery was that Chizza was alive. At first Luke thought he’d been mistaken when he saw the body further from the water than he’d remembered. Then an arm had moved. Next Chizza had pushed up on his hands and bum-crawled a few more paces away from the creek. Obviously he’d wanted more distance between him and the crocodiles that would soon be patrolling the dark waters.

Now the crocodiles would certainly be out, and Luke was no longer optimistic about his future. The tree which had seemed such a wonderful place when he’d first climbed it had become a torture chamber. The problem was that the branch was too narrow, scarcely thicker than his leg. It was almost impossible to sit in any place for more than a minute or two. He’d tried lying on the branch, sitting so that he was hugging the trunk, and various positions of standing. Easily the best was standing, but in the pitch-black of the night he quickly lost his sense of balance, and so after nearly tipping off the branch a couple of times he’d given that up.

If the tree was a bad place to be, he knew that the ground would be worse. He’d never imagined that mangrove swamps could be so full of life. The noises never stopped: popping, crackling, scraping, splashing, slithering. There was no telling how big the animals were, but Luke imagined huge crabs, giant scorpions, snakes…Every scary thing he could imagine was down there. Including Crazy Hazel. She had returned to the tree twice already. Maybe she was just checking that he was still
there, or perhaps she was trying to scare him. If so, then she was being very successful. He’d got to a stage where he dreaded hearing her hissy breathing as she lumbered towards him. And yet it did have one good effect: it helped him tolerate the pain of his cramped position, for he knew that below him awaited pain beyond anything he could ever imagine.

Ham and Ellie were the last to be sitting at the tables. The mood music had been switched off and replaced by the sound of vacuum cleaners. Although it was after midnight, Ham had just started his dinner. The Nest had been so busy that they’d had to turn customers away. This was the first rest the chef had taken in the past ten hours. He looked exhausted.

‘Thanks for staying up to keep me company,’ said Ham. ‘You didn’t have to.’

Ellie reached over the table and touched his cheek. ‘I wanted to.’ After a pause she added, ‘Anyway, I’ve caught up on a lot of work that needed doing before the bosses come up.’

Ham’s stomach sank at the mention of the owners’ visit. ‘Do you think there’ll be trouble over my fake diploma?’

‘No!’ replied Ellie. ‘They will want you to stay. That’s what I did tonight: I analysed our restaurant profits for each of the chefs. You bring in almost as much money as the other two put together. The bosses will not want to lose you.’

Ham gave a little smile. ‘That’s good.’ He ate silently for a while. ‘What about this business with Chizza? That’s likely to blow up before they arrive.’

‘I’m taking care of that first thing tomorrow,’ said Ellie. She then brought Ham up to date with what she and Luke had done during the day, finishing with: ‘Even if I get no reply from this Brian in the morning, I will contact the police.’

Ham grew increasingly concerned as he listened to the story. ‘What has Luke done with the disks he copied?’

‘I don’t know. He will have made them safe. He is a smart boy—I don’t think he will take risks.’

That didn’t dispel Ham’s fears, though. ‘Yes, but you don’t know Chizza the way I do. If he knows that he’s about to get caught, he’ll do anything to stop it happening.’

‘Do you want to go and wake Luke?’

‘Do you think we should?’

‘Yes! If you’re concerned about it.’

Ham studied the tabletop for a while, before glancing up at the clock. ‘No,’ he decided, ‘he’ll be sound asleep by now.’

‘Did he come and see you when he got back from his date?’

He shook his head.

‘Me, neither.’

Ham chuckled. ‘Dating! My son has started
dating
—it makes me feel incredibly old.’

Again Ellie reached out and touched him. ‘I don’t think it’s a date the way we have dates, Hamish.’

‘We haven’t had one yet,’ said Ham with a smile.

‘We will,’ replied Ellie, softly. ‘We will have many of them, even if they are just like tonight.’

After that the conversation became more personal and Luke was all but forgotten.

The night passed slowly for Luke. He had some idea of time passing by the movement of the stars. He’d never seen such a night sky before. Almost every bit of it was crammed full of pinpricks of light. For a while he had tried counting them to help stay awake. All he’d done was prove that the stars were indeed countless…and it hadn’t stopped him going to sleep.

But he was never able to sleep for long before pain woke him and he would have to move yet again. The number of safe positions was dwindling. He didn’t dare take any position where he couldn’t wrap his arms around something or he’d fall off in his sleep. And he just couldn’t stop going to sleep. In a way, he wanted to sleep, for it gave him moments when he felt no pain or fear. The problem was that when he woke again the pain seemed to be worse than before.

Now he was sitting facing the trunk, hugging it like a koala bear. His head hung to one side, with his eyes closed. Suddenly he jerked upright, and for a moment he felt a surge of panic. Then his aching body reminded him of where he was, and he groaned in despair.

But something had woken him. It was a different sound. Behind the sounds that he now considered normal was something more continuous—the noise of a vehicle approaching.

Instantly, he was wide awake. Somebody was coming: he was being rescued. At last! Soon he would be out of this hellhole.

Cautiously, he moved until he was standing with a better view of the shoreline. Yes! There it was—the flash of vehicle
lights in the distance. Two of them, bouncing around just the way the headlights on Ham’s ute did. It had to be Ham. Ham and Lora. Nobody else would be driving down the track at this time of night.

As it got closer, the noise got louder and the vehicle seemed to be jumping all over the place. They were certainly in a hurry. Luke could imagine them panicking, not knowing what to expect.

Then, to his dismay, the lights came close together before separating again. His heart sank. It was the trail bikes. The noise was nothing like a ute. How could he have been taken in like that?

He remained standing as the bikes sped past along the opposite bank with their engines screaming. For a moment he hoped that Chizza might have made it to the road and that they would see him, but they were past there in a flash.

As the red tail-lights got dimmer and smaller, Luke sank back down to the branch, giving up all hope. There would be no help from the trail bikers. Probably no help from anyone until it was too late. He might as well fall out of the tree now and have it over and done with.

And then the unexpected happened. The scream of the bikes died away until there was only the dull putter of them idling. Next he saw headlights again. They’d turned around! They were coming back. They must have seen something.

Once again he was on his feet. It had been too early to give up. Hope had returned.

They were going slowly now, as if looking for something.
Again they stopped, and this time the lights swung around to point at something. It was hard to see through the mangroves from this distance, but it looked like Chizza’s vehicle. Yes, that’s what it would be. They’d found Chizza’s truck. Now they would know that something had gone wrong out here. They’d know that people wouldn’t be cruising the estuary at this time of night.

A short time later, the headlights came on in Chizza’s truck. They’d managed to get into it. Maybe Chizza had forgotten to lock it. Then the trail-bike lights went out and their motors stopped.

For a long time nothing much seemed to be happening, except every so often a headlight would black out as someone walked in front of it. Luke was puzzled. The only explanation he could find was that they were going to use the truck’s headlights to search the river. They might find Chizza that way, but they’d never find him up a tree on an island.

‘Help!’ he yelled. ‘Help!’

Although there was an echo from the mangroves at the shore, the sound was quickly lost in the expanse of the estuary. There was no reaction from the direction of the truck.

‘Help!’
he yelled so loudly that it hurt. ‘Help me!’

This time something did happen. The truck roared into life, bringing the headlights to full brightness. Luke’s hopes soared—they must have heard him.

Shortly afterwards, the truck started moving along the track towards where Chizza was. Maybe now that they were searching for something they would see the man, either him or the boat.

However, it was soon clear that they were not searching for
anything. The truck accelerated until it was travelling almost as fast as the trail bikes had been a few minutes before. Luke could hear the empty boat trailer bouncing around on the rutted track. It sped past Chizza’s position, past the bank opposite the island, past where the boat had run aground. At one point Luke had a brief view through a gap in the trees and saw the faint outline of trail bikes tied on the back, and the tail-lights of the trailer jumping all over the place.

He slumped down onto the branch. There would be no help from the trail bikers. No help whatsoever. In fact they’d just made it harder for anyone to help. With the truck and trailer gone, there was now no evidence that Chizza had ever been here. Someone could drive down the track and never know that there was a dying or dead man lying nearby; they would never see the boat tucked in where the mangroves were thickest; and they’d certainly not see a boy perched up a skinny tree on a small island stuck in the middle of the water. And if by then the boy had fallen out of the tree, there wouldn’t be anything left to see anyway. Probably nothing left to see ever again.