The Peco Incident (5 page)

There was no sign of Nick anywhere along the route we’d travelled the previous afternoon. We found out why when we got to the gates of the chook farm. My bike was lying on the ground, almost blocking the gates. He’d made no attempt to hide it.

‘Pick it up and dump it in the back,’ said Dad, his voice exposing how tense he was.

After that was done, he backed the ute into some bushes until it was mostly hidden.

‘Take me to the gap in the fence,’ he ordered, climbing out of the cab. ‘I bet the stupid fool is already in there.’

We stopped at the place where we could see down into the compound. There were no security lights, but there were lights on in the two big sheds.

‘Do you think Nick has turned them on?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Dad. ‘They have lights on at night to make the chooks lay more eggs.’

After a while, when we hadn’t seen any signs of humans, we continued moving along the fence.

There was no doubting that Nick had gone into the place. The netting had been pulled back, forming a much bigger gap than we’d seen in daylight. Without hesitation, Dad held up the wire and ushered me through. Now we, too, were trespassers and breaking the law.

I led the way towards the nearest big shed. When we got down to the paths, the noise of gravel crunching under our feet sounded like bursts of machine-gun fire. Surely anyone in the buildings would have heard our approach? Then, as we got closer, we became aware of a much louder noise: the cackling of frightened chooks.

One of the big doors at the end of the shed was ajar. I was about to enter when Dad pulled me back.

‘Put this on,’ he said. He held out a disposable dust mask that he’d picked up in the workshop before we’d left. I put the elastic bands over my head, adjusting the length until the breathing pad was tight over my mouth and nose. After Dad had done the same with his, he nodded to go inside.

Straight away I wished that we’d thought of bringing earplugs as well. Next, the heat of the place hit me, followed quickly by the stink, which somehow managed to filter through the dust mask. It was more than the smell of chook poo; at a higher level again was the stench of death. We soon found out why.

The cages were stacked four-high on either side of the aisle, staggered so that the droppings fell to the floor and not on the chooks below. It was hard to say how many birds were in each cage, because they were so tightly packed they scarcely had enough room to move. Some had their heads through the front netting, feeding from a trough that ran along all the cages. Below that was a wire net to catch the eggs.

Those that still had feathers were a pleasant brown colour. Many were unfeathered, with pink skin. Then there were
the ones blackened by death. They were mostly stuck to the bottom of the cages. Some were so rotten that body fluids dripped onto the floor.

Not all the birds were making a noise. There were those too sick to do anything except wait for death. Soon they would be trampled down by the remaining birds, who, no doubt, would welcome the extra space. That was until they, too, got sick and died.

And the chooks were not the only dead birds. Shreeves might have cleaned up most of the dead sparrows outside, but nothing had been done inside the shed. They were all over the floor. Some still lay in the food troughs where they had hoped for an easy meal; instead, they’d ended up with a deadly disease.

We had walked almost the entire length of the first aisle before I remembered why we were there and began looking for Nick. Unless he’d climbed under the cages, he wasn’t on the aisle we were in. When we got to the end, Dad and I split, taking half of the shed each. My aisles were a repeat of the first — each one a nightmare of misery and death. Plus there was no sign of Nick, which meant we would have to do the same thing all over again in the other shed.

I was following Dad out through the door when, suddenly, he pulled back, almost knocking me over. Before I could complain, he had his hand over my mouth.

‘Shhh,’ he said into my ear. ‘People! Security guards!’

Cautiously I peeked around the edge of the door. There were two of them: big, overweight men with a swaggering walk, heading for the other shed.

After they’d gone inside, I turned to Dad. ‘What now?’

‘We find somewhere to hide — and quickly.’

The somewhere was behind a small metal shed that sat between the two chook houses. From the shadows, we would see the guards when they moved from one place to the other. That’s if they ever did. If they found Nick inside, then no doubt they’d take him back to their office. What would happen after that was too unpleasant to think about.

But clearly they didn’t find Nick, for a couple of minutes later we saw them swaggering across to the shed we’d just left. We stayed hidden until, a while later, we saw them heading back to the administration building.

‘Where’s Nick?’ I asked.

‘Must have gone back to his bike while we were looking at the chooks,’ Dad replied. He thought for a time. ‘Still, I think we’d better take a look in there, just in case.’

The second shed had the same layout as the first — and the same chamber of horrors. Again we split up in order to search the place quicker. I was the one unlucky enough to find Nick.

It happened as I turned into my third aisle. Part-way down was this creature, covered in chook poo. Black slime was dripping from its hair. The only hint that it was human was the face that had been wiped clear of poo and slime.

‘Hi, Danny,’ he said cheerfully. He held up his phone. ‘I got the evidence.’

‘How did you get like that?’ I asked.

‘Aw this,’ he said, flicking off some of the poo. ‘Some security guards came, and the only place to hide was down in
the shit.’ He giggled. ‘They never thought of looking there. Walked right past me.’

That’s when Dad turned up. He took one look at Nick and said, ‘Right — let’s get out of here.’

Back at the ute, Dad made Nick sit on the deck with the bike.

As we moved off, I asked, ‘Are you going to punish him?’

He gave a little chuckle. ‘Punish him? How do you punish someone who thinks it’s great to be covered in chicken shit? You’d think that would be punishment enough.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘We’ll have to hose him down when we get back. Chloe will go ape if he goes inside like that.’

We drove in silence for a time.

‘What worries me most,’ said Dad, ‘is that black slime. That’s come from those dead animals. Whatever’s causing the sickness will be in that slime.’

‘You think Nick might get bird flu?’

‘I don’t know … don’t know much about it. But last time bird flu broke out in Asia, people died. That was the main worry. That somehow the virus had crossed over into humans. They reckoned the big flu epidemics in the past were caused by that — the ones that killed millions of people.’

D
ad rang the BIRT hotline first thing in the morning.

All he told them was that his son had seen lots of dead sparrows around the place, including some outside a chook farm. Nick was most annoyed that he wasn’t mentioned, especially since he reckoned that he’d done all the work.

After some discussion, Dad arranged for Nick and me to meet someone at the café in Portobello. He then headed off to work, but only after he’d got a promise from each of us not to mention anything about what we had done and seen the previous night.

Nine o’clock was the agreed time for the meeting at Portobello. We left Harwood with plenty of time to spare.

The woman who met us looked younger than my mum and older than Brio, which, I guess, made her about thirty.
The dark-green uniform she was wearing suggested she was someone with authority. She introduced herself as Cathy Andrews.

While Cathy sipped a cappuccino, I reported on the dead birds that we’d seen around the café and alongside the chook farm.

‘They could have been poisoned,’ she said when I’d finished. ‘Sparrows can be a real pain around poultry farms, and also around places like this.’

I told her that I’d seen poisoned ones before, and these ones behaved differently, which wasn’t really true, but I didn’t want her driving off without investigating Peco. That was the whole point of the meeting.

‘OK,’ she said getting up from the table. ‘Let’s see if this place here has still got any of those dead birds.’

After asking at the desk, she went out to her car. When she returned, she was wearing a full-face mask, white coverall, and rubber gloves up to her elbows.

Nick giggled at her appearance, whereas I was a little alarmed.

‘Is that really necessary?’ I asked.

‘Maybe not,’ she replied. ‘But it’s the rules, and I don’t want to get into trouble with my boss for not obeying the rules.’

She then led us around the side of the café, where we watched from a distance as she sorted through some rubbish bags. Five birds were located and bagged. After that, we parked the bikes behind the café before piling into her car for the trip to the chook farm.

At first, we stood in front of the gate taking in the sheds and the surroundings.

‘I bet there’re dead birds everywhere in there,’ said Nick. ‘They shouldn’t be allowed to keep animals like that.’

I gave him a dirty look, hoping to shut him up. It didn’t work.

He turned to Cathy. ‘You’ve got to shut the place down.’

Cathy studied him for a while. ‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘First, I want to look at these dead birds you said you saw around the perimeter fence.’

Once again she donned safety gear, and yet she showed no concern that we were unprotected. Maybe she assumed that we’d already been contaminated and it didn’t matter if we had further contact with the disease.

At the top of the rise, we paused to look down at the buildings. There was nothing that looked unusual — nothing to indicate the horrors that lay hidden within.

We found dead birds near the first lot of gorse: two Californian quail and several sparrows. As soon as we’d pointed them out, Cathy made us stand back while she collected samples. Again, five were enough. We then turned around and went back to the car.

While we waited to be told what to do next, Cathy walked out of earshot, pulled out a phone and made a brief call.

‘He’ll be here shortly,’ she said when she returned.

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘Bryce Shreeves, the owner.’

‘Oh, him,’ sneered Nick. ‘The killer farmer.’

Again Cathy studied him, obviously puzzled by his comments. She was opening her mouth to say something when the roar of a motor came from within the compound. A moment later a huge SUV skidded to a halt just short of the gate.

The man who climbed out was dressed more for the city than for a poultry farm. I couldn’t imagine him spending much time in the filthy sheds. His hair was receding, but styled in a way that tried to hide the larger bald areas. The most noticeable feature of his face was the complexion — it was bright pink, almost as if he were sunburnt. Then, when he spoke, I realized he was red with anger.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

‘Good morning, Mr Shreeves,’ said Cathy, pleasantly. ‘I’m here because dead birds have been found around the perimeter of the fence.’

‘Where?’ He strode up to the fence and marched along it a bit. ‘I don’t see any.’

‘They were found further around the perimeter.’

‘Did these boys find them?’ He glared at Nick. ‘Was it you? What were you doing sneaking—’

‘It doesn’t matter who found them,’ interrupted Cathy, showing the first signs of annoyance. ‘The point is that they were found, and now I must come in and inspect your sheds.’

‘No!’

‘I have the statutory right to inspect any property where there is evidence of—’

‘I said no!’ he shouted, his face now almost purple.

Cathy took a deep breath. ‘Mr Shreeves. We can do this two ways. You can let me in and I will make my inspection. If I see no problems, then it will be over in half an hour. Or,’ she added, pulling her phone out of her pocket, ‘I can call the police and they will escort me in. The problem with this second alternative is that it is very likely that the news media will discover what is happening and they will arrive shortly after the police.’ She opened her arms. ‘It is your choice. Which do you want it to be?’

It took some time before he made up his mind, and even then he didn’t say anything. He walked to the gate, unlocked the padlock, and swung it open a metre or so. Cathy picked up her mask and rushed through the gap before he had a chance to change his mind.

Nick tried to follow, only to have the gate slammed in his face. Shreeves then relocked the padlock, climbed in the SUV and drove off, leaving Cathy to make her own way down to the buildings.

‘C’mon!’ shouted Nick, heading towards the side fence. ‘I’m not missing out on this.’

I raced after him, thinking he was going for the gap, but fortunately he stopped when he got to the vantage point. We watched as Cathy approached the open door to the nearest shed. She paused long enough to put on the mask before disappearing inside.

We waited.

She took so long that I began to think something might have happened to her. When she eventually emerged, she walked some distance away from the shed, removed her mask and crouched to the ground. Then she vomited.