Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

10

Naiyana

The bed was uncomfortable, the mattress nothing but foam covered in a man-made fibre that stuck to her skin like glue.

In an attempt to foster some marital order Lorcan had pushed the camp beds together but the thick metal poles left a large crevice in the middle.

She lay back and stared at the ceiling. After unloading the ute, sweeping and tidying the house she had expected to be tired but sleep was miles away and not helped by Dylan in the other bedroom. He was complaining of noises, rattling from above and rumblings from below. She put it down to first-night nerves, the adjustment period she had feared. At least there weren’t any neighbours to gripe about the crying.

As a result she was awake as Lorcan read her a bedtime story using the battery-powered lamp. A history of the town. Disappointingly it wasn’t brief.

‘In 1893 they discovered gold and started mining. By 1896 the town site was declared by the government and gazetted a year later. Back then the only way in and out was a bi-weekly coach from Hurton to Wisbech and on south to Kalgoorlie.’

She tried to drift off but Lorcan’s chuckle woke her.

‘They named the first mine “The Dark”. And the second “Rattlesnake” after one of the discoverers apparently. By 1899 both were operating ten-head stamp mills, pounding the rock to extract the ore.’

As she fought for sleep against the sound of his voice, she learned that at its peak in 1905 Kallayee had a population of 1,016 people, including three pubs, a bank, a post office, a small school and two brothels. She wished some were still open. Even the brothel. For company. Someone else Lorcan could bore with this history lesson. She’d even pay the prostitutes at this stage.

‘The well dried up so they capped it and built a rotunda over the top. Dropped another out near some place called Orange Lake and transported the water back to town. I’ll try there first. Then I’ll try uncapping the well in town. The water should be fine for washing clothes at least.’

Naiyana didn’t respond, willing sleep upon herself.

‘Then in 1921 there was a fatal fire at Rattlesnake. Twenty people were killed. Mining halted for three years, so people drifted away to the nickel mines at Leonora and Gwalia. That was it until increasing gold prices in the late seventies made gold mining economically viable again. But not here. So Kallayee faded into a silent existence.’

He paused. The history lesson was over but he wasn’t finished.

‘Do you think that the noises are ghosts?’

She swivelled around to look at him, his face itself ghostly in the pale light.

‘Let’s not mention that in front of Dylan.’

Lorcan nodded. ‘Good idea.’

But as if he had somehow sensed that he was being talked about there was a sharp cry from the other bedroom. Naiyana stared at her husband. Neither of them said anything for a moment.

‘Your turn,’ said Lorcan.

‘You’re closer to the door.’

‘By about a metre.’

She paused to see if chivalry would surmount discomfort. It had in the past. Young love.

‘I’m tired,’ she said.

‘So am I.’

‘You dragged us out here.’

It was the same blunt club she would continue to swing until it became ineffective. As much as Dylan needed time to settle in, so did she. Lorcan believed it was all worth it but she remained unconvinced. Maybe even less so than when they had left late last night to drive all the way out here.

From the other room Dylan began to cry. For Mummy. For Daddy. For anyone.

She glanced at Lorcan in case gallantry won out but his nose was back in the tablet. Reading up on more history. Or better yet, how to install a bloody window.

Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, she entered the other bedroom, goosebumps on her flesh, her senses heightened.

Dylan was tossing and turning as she perched on the edge of the bed, pulling him close, trying to comfort him.

After half an hour his twisting stopped and she went to leave. If she could get a couple of hours before the sun came up that might get her through tomorrow. Life was to be taken a day at a time at the moment, future plans thrown out of non-existent windows.

As she tried to sneak out of the room Dylan woke again. The deep brown eyes that he had inherited from her spoke of a disquiet, even fear.

‘It’s rumbling again,’ he said, quietly as if afraid to awaken a monster.

‘What is, honey?’

Dylan didn’t answer. But in the silence she heard something too. A rumble like something was stirring in the belly of the earth itself. Hungry to eat. Closing her eyes she tried to identify the source but almost as soon as she did it seemed to disappear, leaving her wondering if she had imagined it entirely.

11

Emmaline

The rest of the house was clean. Of blood or excessive bodily fluid at least. Nothing that random daily existence couldn’t account for.

After that it was a case of inspecting the rest of the town for evidence that something untoward had taken place. At present, the case remained a misper. Times three.

The team had increased by one. Anand, another constable from Leonora, had been dragged in from two days’ leave to help, wearing a sour expression as befitted the rapid change of plans. They spread out like ants, using the Maguire house as the nest.

From what she had read, Kallayee was a goldrush town that had given up a modest few veins. Like a heroin addict’s arm they had been stabbed relentlessly, gold transported out and opiate transported in, something greatly appreciated with nothing else to do in the evening but reminisce about lost opportunities.

Gwalia, a town beside Leonora, had the only real claim to fame. It had once been visited by an American president. Back then Herbert Hoover had simply been a young geologist, sent there to develop his company’s latest find into a working concern. He had eventually become manager of