Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

middle of the road to talk to her as she passed in the ute, his greedy eyes matching his greedy gut. Definitely not her type.

Lorcan had just stepped into the tunnel when she caught up with him.

‘Lorcan.’

‘Shit!’ The torchlight scrambled around the hole as he stumbled down the last few steps. The light turned and shone in her face. ‘What are you doing here, Nee?’

‘What are you doing here?’

His voice turned insistent. ‘If that lot can use the equipment, then so can I. It’s not rocket science.’

At this he turned and started to creep down the tunnel. It was an attempt to lose her but she tiptoed down the steps and caught up with him.

‘Don’t do it, Lorc.’

‘I have to try. It’s better than the alternative.’

‘What’s the alternative?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

She wondered what he meant. The stench of sneakiness. Cryptic and mysterious.

‘Do you even know how to work the machines?’ she asked, staying low so as to not crack her skull on the rock or beams overhead.

‘No, but again, it’s hardly rocket science. I just need to do this for a couple of nights. A week at the most. Get us in the black. Then we can move. Somewhere with running water, electricity and an indoor toilet. Get back on the ladder. That’s what you want too. Deep down. I know it.’

There he was again, trying to put words in her mouth. But she wasn’t that person anymore. Still, there she was as ever, blindly following him down a deep, dark tunnel.

After ten minutes they reached the end, the light from the torch focusing on a pair of odd-looking machines, Lorcan yelping in glee as if he had just won the jackpot.

She watched on as he went to work, feeling his way around them as if he was the Fonz, searching for the sweet spot to jolt the machines miraculously into life.

‘Face it, you don’t know what you’re doing,’ she said, feeling the desperate urge to leave but needing the torch.

A flick of a button and the generator burst into life, filling the tunnel with a rumble she could feel in her sternum. Another button and the red barrel machine started to hum, a symphony building. Another minute and the arms of what must have been some sort of grinding machine went to work, adding the final falsetto to the piece, the brutal crunch of rock.

Her pleas to leave now fell on soon-to-be deaf ears. Her head quickly began to pound as she watched her husband check the conveyor belt at the end of the barrel before shovelling more crushed rock into it, the jet of water washing the material, sifting and sorting before being recycled.

He bent down and checked the conveyor belt again, the torchlight reflecting off something. Grabbing it he held it up to the light. It was a chunk of gold, a tiny nugget. The light caught his ear-to-ear grin. She hadn’t seen him this happy in a long time and a part of her didn’t want to ruin his moment but this was crazy and dangerous. Ian, Mike and Stevie would not abide this.

She smelled the smoke first. It was impossible to see in the darkness of the tunnel, Lorcan’s torch focused on the conveyor belt and feeding rock into the crusher. At first she thought that it might have been the stench of pulverized rock but there was a distinctive oily aroma to it. Then in that instant a second source of light appeared in the tunnel, the crusher spouting a burst of flame from underneath.

‘Lorcan!’ she cried but hearing anything in the riotous tunnel was impossible. His focus was on the belt, holding up another nugget, gloating. Then he saw the flames. He stood up, a good six inches taller than her, his face suddenly obscured by smoke.

Cutting the generator, with the flick of a button he moved towards her. And he didn’t stop, pointing behind her urgently. For a moment she had a sinking feeling of childhood dread that a monster lurked behind her. Turning there was nothing but a darkness that was soon dispersed by the torchlight. They fled, the smoke drifting out with them, hoping to not make a wrong turn.

84

Naiyana

They made it out into the fresh air, coughing up the darkness from their lungs. The town was silent. And not just because her ears were ringing.

‘Are you okay?’ Lorcan asked her, his voice dulled, as if she was at the top of a mountain and he was shouting from the bottom.

She was far from okay but she was alive.

‘I told you!’ Her shouting brought on another coughing fit.

He didn’t respond. Maybe he couldn’t hear her. She shouted louder.

‘Another failure. How much did you get?’

He dug the tiny nuggets of gold from his pocket but Naiyana was far from finished.

‘First you build a wall that collapses on us. Then you try and choke me to death. What next? Are you going to shoot us with that rifle?’

Lorcan put the gold away and turned on her. ‘At least I’m trying.’

‘I’m trying too.’

‘Why did you lie about seeing the school?’

Naiyana felt her breath jam in her chest. She wondered how he knew this but he wasn’t finished.

‘Where were you, Nee? You’re always off doing something. Never around here helping out.’

‘Maybe the same place you are when you’re supposed to be off getting materials. Accompanied by a few tinnies.’

‘Only one or two. It’s not as if there is any entertainment at home.’

‘What do you want? A bloody nightclub? We gave all that up.’

‘But we don’t have to,’ he said, the anger turned to pleading.

‘What? Is Nikos Iannis just going to go away? Is Chester Grant? Are BS Foods?’

It was a shouting contest in the middle of an empty street in an empty town. No winners. Just losers.

85

Mike Andrews

Mike tried but failed to waft the smoke from his face. The crusher had caught fire overnight. Switching it on, nothing happened. Something had melted within the motor