Unbidden Read online

  Contents

  Unbidden Part I: Mortal Thoughts Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Unbidden Part II: Killing Swine Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Unbidden Part III: The Sleeping & The Dead Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Unbidden Part IV: Rarer Monsters Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Unbidden Part V: Sleep No More Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  UNBIDDEN PART I: MORTAL THOUGHTS

  Chapter One

  Doug Mulcahy always wanted another smoke before he’d finished the last one, more to feel a cigarette between his lips than nicotine in his lungs. An oral fixation, his ex-wife used to call it, usually earning herself a smack. The only oral fixation he ever admitted to suffering was how to shut her smart mouth.

  Gripping the wheel with both hands, searching for the turn, he saw a black snake standing on its tail in the distance down the road, swaying like a charmer’s trick in the midday rising heat.

  Getting closer, the snake became a pair of black, stretch denim jeans, long blonde hair, a backpack – and the potential for female company. But then sharper focus revealed scrawny shoulders wider than the hips, a lack of arse and an unfeminine stride.

  The snake stuck out a thumb.

  “Good fucking luck,” growled the man seated beside Doug.

  The truck didn’t slow. In the rear-view Doug saw the hitchhiker hawk and spit in their direction, never breaking stride.

  Enjoy the walk, smartarse.

  A sign ahead showed their destination writ large in faded letters: Mirribindi Aerodrome. As Doug slowed for the turn, an oncoming white Ford Falcon hurtled past back toward town. Sporting an ostentatious bullbar and radio antennas like fishing poles, it was the kind of vehicle endemic in country areas, favoured by the landed gentry. Its tyres kicked up a stone which cracked hard against Doug’s windscreen.

  Doug thought he disguised his reaction, but his passenger chuckled.

  Prick.

  Both knew he’d never enjoyed the loud, sudden bangs that punctuated their line of work.

  ***

  The white Falcon passed the truck and then swung back to the centre of the road, holding its line. But as the hitchhiker came into sight, the car slowly started to drift.

  The hiker glanced up briefly to register the approaching vehicle, then returned his gaze to the verge and his trudging feet. It wasn’t going his way.

  He continued ignoring the car until it was almost upon him, raising his head and leaping sideways in almost the same movement. The Falcon missed him by a whisker. A flash of a gleeful, bearded man’s face in the window, trailed by uproarious laughter a second later. The hitchhiker was enveloped inside a choking whirlwind of dust, cursing holy hell between coughing and spluttering. He flipped the long-gone Falcon the finger, jabbing the air so furiously the dust cloud should have cracked.

  ***

  “Aerodrome” was technically correct, albeit a touch glorified. “Flat, dirt field” was a better description. The main building, with its large plate-glass front windows, looked like a cross between a control tower and convenience store. The large aluminium shed adjacent was a prefabricated deal, its doors chocked open, an uneven trestle table at the entry displaying the guts of a plane. Close by, a dispirited windsock knocked against a peeling pole. Two parked cars nudged the side of the shed, hugging the shade.

  Doug drove onto the crazy quilt of bitumen and cement slabs in front of the main building. He parked alongside the plate-glass windows, effectively cutting the view to the airfield. That would get their attention. He was in a hurry and was never one for waiting in line. Fetching his clipboard, he got out of the truck. His passenger – his co-worker – exited the other side.

  Doug was a man of few vanities, but was conscious of his appearance in company uniform. Starched, wide in the leg, his reflection in the window looked faintly ridiculous, like an action figure wearing a jumpsuit. In a different context it could give him a military demeanour, putting people on their guard.

  He removed his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes, adjusting to the glare off the tarmac. He blinked at the shadow that appeared alongside his own. Doug wasn’t a tall man, though he was sometimes wrongly remembered as one. He was stocky and square, like a dependable wall. Any fat on him was evenly distributed and made him look approachable, a cloak to the hard muscle carried beneath.

  No-one would ever mistake the size of the man beside him. If Doug was a stone wall, here was the full brick shithouse – the kind that came in two storeys. The coarse body hair peeking from his collar and sleeves gave him the look of a circus bear wearing human clothes. The truck’s cab, built to fit three men, had felt like a squeeze.

  Doug stared up at Cutter with hard eyes, if a little watery around the edges. “Take off the damn sunnies. You look like you’re about to rob the place.”

  Cutter slid his shades off, blinking unevenly. Doug preferred him that way. He appeared slow, instead of mean.

  The door to the building burst open and two men in non-matching clothes shot out with such force, Doug almost raised his hands in surrender.

  “Move that truck,” said the taller of the two, his neck as wide as his head.

  Doug was just as curt. “Sure. And on behalf of Quik-Vend we apologise for the delay. Now, where do you want it?”

  “Away from the front of the building. Over there.”

  Doug turned and saw the indicated parking space, a bare plot of cement poked by weeds. He turned back. “No, I mean where do you want the drink dispenser?”

  The two other men swapped looks of confusion.

  “The Coke machine,” Doug suggested gently.

  “A vending machine?” asked the taller man, obviously in charge. “Like, you put money in?”

  Doug nodded, but couldn’t hide his look of someone who smelled a cock-up.

  “There’s a mistake. We didn’t order any soda.”

  “Gives me gas,” the shorter man said, speaking for the first time. He sported a moustache thicker than a table ledge, trying to hide a pronounced overbite.

  Doug shrugged. “I just make the deliveries.”

  Cutter ignored the conversation altogether. He went to the back of the truck, opened the rear doors and slid the ramp planks out.

  The two men pursued him, Doug following.

  “Hey, hang on!” said the taller one, who Doug had silently christened “Neck”.

  Cutter climbed inside, lost in the gloomy interior. The others peered at him, eyes adjusting to the dark, watching him untie furry loops of rope securing the lone piece of cargo. It could be mistaken for nothing but a vending machine, the bright logo and colours forceful even in the dark.

  “I think you should save yourself the trouble,” said the lackey. Doug dubbed him “Duckbill”.

  Cutter ignored them, wrestling the machine onto a trolley and down the ramps. It looked a heavy bastard to keep steady, but the only sign of strain was the jumping veins in his neck. The trolley hit the tarmac in a smart stop. But the machine kept going and tipped onto its front with a crash. Doug’s teeth rattled but he was too late to stop it.

  “Christ! Damn it! That’s a valuable piece of property!”

  Cutter did not register the reprimand, but simply bent over to right the machine. Doug went to help, the other two men slower to do so. Cutter motioned them bac
k. In a shameless display of strength, he stood the machine upright. If he had to put his back into the effort, it didn’t show. He dusted the machine off, then gave it an amiable slap.

  “No harm done.”

  “I’m more concerned with what’s inside,” Doug growled.

  Cutter shrugged, smiling at some private idea.

  “Want to open it up and take a look?”

  “Take it inside,” Doug said. “Can you manage that? Or should I do it?”

  The other men had fallen silent to watch the tension, but mention of moving the machine brought Neck back into play. “No, you’re leaving that thing right there.”

  “It’s alright. I understand,” Doug said reasonably. “You’re not to know. You weren’t told. Happens all the time. Can I talk to whoever’s in charge?”

  “I’m the one left to sort out the shit that happens around here,” Neck snarled. “And I didn’t order a bloody drink machine.”

  “Hey, fine,” Doug said. “No drama. Sign for it and we’ll go. If you still don’t want it we can swing back in a few weeks and pick it up again. I get paid the same.”

  Neck was not a man easily led, despite a head that looked built for the chopping block. “You can take it back now! And I’m not signing anything!”

  Doug resisted. “That won’t do. I need a signature to prove we were here.”

  Duckbill inspected the machine. “There’re scratches down the front of it.”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t,” Cutter winked. Even a friendly gesture from Cutter seemed to imply violence. Duckbill didn’t like it, backing away.

  “Maybe someone on the council ordered it?” he said to Neck. “You’re always telling them to do up the place.”

  Neck distractedly brushed at his thinning pate, now as red as his face and beading with sweat. “Look, let’s see if we can sort this out inside, under some shade.”

  “The machine shouldn’t be left in the sun,” Doug said. “Not good for it.”

  Neck was fed up. “Then put it back in the truck!”

  “Can we choose what comes out of it?” Duckbill asked hopefully. “Like, juice?”

  Neck was on his way to becoming a beaten man. “Oh, for … come inside and we’ll figure something out.” He pointed to a corner of the building. “There’s cover over there. You’ll have to leave it outside. You’ll see why.”

  ***

  The one-room office was a tight fit, shaped into narrow corridors by desks, radio equipment, kitchenette, filing cabinets and an antique photocopier. A wall-mounted fan oscillated back and forth, achieving little more than shifting the hot air around. Occasionally, for no discernible reason, it emitted a loud, ripping fart.

  There was a small, lifeless waiting room glimpsed through a partition door, crammed high with sagging cardboard boxes. Neck explained that a delivery was overdue to be collected. Normally the boxes would be left undercover outside, he told Doug, but thieving had worsened lately. Doug readily sympathised.

  There was one other notable feature of the office, and since entering Cutter had barely taken his eyes from her: a young, pretty woman sitting at the corner desk laden with paperwork. She wasn’t introduced, and after initially looking over the visitors, went back to working on her computer and fussing over a stray twist of hair, picking at her clothes, brushing her bared skin self-consciously. Whenever she glanced back up at Cutter, he answered her increasingly shy looks with an unwavering smile.

  Duckbill scanned Doug’s clipboard while Neck directed the young woman to scroll through old emails, looking for any sign of the order.

  The sound of the whirring, farting fan rose sharply for a moment before its pivot began to slow, the dusty blades becoming visible in their cage, slowing to a halt.

  “Great,” said Neck. “Open the windows will you, Sonya?”

  “They are open.”

  “Open them wider.”

  It was through the windows they heard it first – the distant droning of an approaching plane.

  Duckbill bumped into Doug and Cutter in his rush to get outside.

  “No-one’s due this morning,” Neck muttered for everyone’s benefit. “Sonya, get them on the radio. Ask them who they are and their flight plan.”

  Doug spied Sonya rolling her eyes as she went to the radio.

  The droning dropped to an abridged roar as a low-flying plane buzzed the building. Its shadow flitted past the windows.

  “No, let me,” Neck insisted, elbowing Sonya aside.

  Duckbill came back, stopping in the doorway. “It’s circling.”

  Neck turned from fussing with the radio, his cheeks and Adam’s apple a heated pink. “Get that truck out of the way!”

  “Sure,” Doug said congenially, “right after you sign the invoice.”

  Neck clicked the radio repeatedly. “It’s not working!” He ducked under the desk. “For god’s sake … don’t tell me it’s not plugged in!”

  “Maybe it’s blown a fuse,” Duckbill suggested.

  Neck stood again, rubbing his ear furiously having clipped it on the edge of the desk. “Does it look like it’s in trouble?” he asked Duckbill as he reached for a mobile phone lying nearby.

  “From what I could see, it’s flying fine,” Duckbill said.

  Doug was closer to the mobile. Reaching to pick it up for Neck he bunted it away instead. It slipped down between the wall and desk.

  “Whoops. Sorry.”

  Neck pushed past Doug and Cutter, heading outside, glancing down at Doug’s nametag. “Just get out of the bloody way… Russell.”

  The plane’s engine noise began swelling again. Duckbill skipped aside as Neck passed through the door. Doug looked over at Sonya, shrugged and gestured, “Ladies first,” yet she declined to exit until he and Cutter went ahead. Doug wasn’t offended. It wasn’t about him. It was Cutter. He made anybody nervous.

  ***

  They made it outside in time to see the medium-sized plane – a twin-engine propeller – finish banking beyond the far end of the runway and level out for its approach.

  After the build-up, the landing was almost a disappointment, strictly by-the-book. Two light skips and the plane was smoothly riding the packed dirt like it was asphalt. It taxied to the cement quilt in front of the office.

  A corporate logo was displayed on its fuselage, the lettering as particular as the name, all swirls and flourishes: Del Rossi Mines, Coober Pedy, SA. Props winding down, the plane eased to a stop before the impromptu welcoming committee.

  Doug peered through the glare sparking off the cockpit glass. Two pilots, apparently in a hurry. The men could be seen hastily unbuckling their seats, almost colliding with each other as they vacated the cockpit. It could have been the tinted glass, but their expressions looked grey, as if they had just averted a major disaster.

  A hatch was released in the side of the plane, a flash of arm foisting it open and then causing the stair to unfold. After that, the hatchway was left standing empty. Neck and Duckbill trotted over to it, mindful of the props winding down. A sharp command from inside made them nearly trip over their own feet.

  “Stop! Back off!”

  They halted, but otherwise didn’t, or couldn’t, move.

  The same barking command: “Back off! Now!”

  A hunched, heavyset man backed out of the plane. He wore a fawn uniform with the Del Rossi logo on the back. Eyes downcast, he descended the stair while hauling one end of a heavy crate. The back of his neck glistened with sweat. He was a security guard judging by the large black utility belt and gun holster he wore.

  When the crate was struck by full sunlight, it dazzled; a shiny lead crisscrossed with silver bands, it looked more like a safe than a crate, and just as heavy.

  A second guard emerged toting the other end. He looked like something recently used for target practice, his ginger flat-top hair matted with blood and sweat. And as befitted a wounded animal, his nerves were on edge, his eyes darting across these new surroundings, jumping from one pers
on to the next.

  The two guards struggled with the crate, sliding and thumping it down the stair. The first guard slipped and dropped a corner on his foot, barely raising a grunt. Their hearts clearly weren’t in it. An untrained eye might have missed the empty holsters flapping at their hips, but Doug saw things quickly. Both of them had been disarmed.

  Two more men followed the guards: the pilots Doug had glimpsed in the cockpit. Airline crew never appeared to wilt, even under duress. Their white short-sleeved shirts remained crisp, the Del Rossi logo looking smart on their pockets. At a guess, the older, thicker-set fellow with the salt and pepper mane was the pilot. The more serious younger one, skinny and standing a head taller, his deputy. Their hands were held out to their sides, like men easing themselves into cold water.

  Last to exit was a third guard, holding a pistol aimed at the others as he marched them onto the tarmac. There he halted, breathing purposefully, staring at Doug and Cutter and the ground crew as if implying the next move was theirs. But no-one thought to run, to make a break for the parked cars. They could have, since they were too loosely gathered for one man to cover effectively. Doug knew that Neck, Duckbill and Sonya could never have prepared for anything as unlikely as a hijacking.

  He and Cutter, however …

  He shot his partner a look that said time to move.

  “Listen!” Doug shouted, as he and Cutter retrieved hidden pistols from their overalls. “This is a hold-up!”

  It didn’t seem quite right for the situation, but Doug stuck with what he knew. The ground crew spun to face him. If previously they were shocked, they were utterly dumbstruck now. The men carrying the crate paused. Cutter kept his gaze and gun firmly on the armed security guard, who curiously didn’t react.

  “You lot,” Doug said, motioning Neck, Duckbill and Sonya together with his pistol, “get friendly. Snuggle.”

  The trio hesitated, then Doug stepped toward Neck, raising the pistol into his line of sight, confirming this was really happening. The big man began moving stiffly and the other two followed.

  “That’s it. Keep together. Stay nice,” Doug said. He herded them away from Cutter, creating separate targets for the guard with the gun.