Chapter Three
Over the next few months, I did some research which reassured and terrified me in equal measure. No doubt about it, the wildlife of Australia was frightening. But, eventually, I reached the conclusion that if it were really that dangerous there wouldn’t be half as many Australians. My uneasiness over the various creatures that awaited certainly wasn’t enough to put me off. After all, I wanted to be an archaeologist; I couldn't let my fear over a few creepy-crawlies dictate my future.
Work was made much more bearable by the knowledge that the days were numbered, and I quite literally marked them off on the calendar.
Only a couple of times did I think about Greece and what I might be missing - nothing to do with Dr. Hamilton’s offer, I felt sure I was missing out on nothing there. But I was much too busy making travel arrangements, filling out dozens of forms for student loans, and finding a place to stay to really worry about the dig I wasn’t on.
And by early July, it was time to pack up my things. The university’s spring session didn’t start until the end of the month, but I wanted to get settled in before my course began. I already anticipated a big culture shock. For one thing, despite the semester being called ‘spring’, when I arrived it would actually be winter. Then again, of course, winters in New South Wales were going to be nothing like the many winters I’d experienced in Seattle or New York.
Just before flying out, I spent a week with my folks, who were understandably reluctant about my decision, but also wonderfully supportive. Then came the dreaded and very tearful goodbye at the airport with Laura and my family. A cocktail of excitement and fear made an almost nineteen-hour flight seem even longer.
I spent a couple of days in Sydney, exploring all of the tourist hot spot: The harbour bridge and the opera house.
Then, I rented a car and drove the two hours or so to Warabrook; a suburb of Newcastle, where I was renting a small two-bedroom villa. It felt strange, from the moment I walked in, to be living alone. And that was when my first hint of homesickness grabbed me. In a bid to quash the sensation, I lifted my phone from the back pocket of my jeans and wrote a brief line to Laura. However, it didn’t take long to figure out that it was still very early in morning in New York, and she wouldn’t be out of bed for some time.
For a while I tried to occupy my mind with other things. I read for twenty minutes, or rather I tried to read. I’m fairly certain that what I actually did was skim the same line hundreds of times and still didn’t quite manage to absorb it. Abandoning the book, I listened to the radio for a while. Eventually, feeling smothered by the emptiness of the small house, I swept up the car keys and headed back outside.
Muttering under my breath when I at first went to get in the passenger side, I walked around the hood muttering, “Sit on the right, drive on the left.” That was yet another facet of life in Oz that I was yet to get used to.
There was no plan in mind; no destination. In fact, I didn’t even turn the GPS on, which, I suppose, could be defined as stupidity. Then again, it’s not as though the GPS would have been particularly useful. I didn’t know any roads or landmarks in the area. So, as I pulled out of the driveway, I just determined to go wherever the mood took me.
And the mood told me to drive, and drive and drive, until I was no longer in town. Leaving the houses behind, I found myself on an old and pot-holed road, with nothing but dusty fields either side of me.
Eventually, I ended up behind a huge truck, which was going ten miles an hour or so slower than me, but I didn’t bother to pull out and go around it. Instead, I took my foot off the gas and enjoyed the fact that on my left and my right, there was not a soul to be seen for...well, it must have been miles.
Some way in the distance was a cluster of massive reddish rocks, and as the sun begun to sink, it placed itself perfectly between the gap in two jagged faces. Realizing that I was struggling to take my eyes off the sight, I slowed the car and pulled off the road. Having always lived in cities, this kind of spectacle was rare to me.
“Wow,” I whispered, the burnished color of everything around me seeming almost ablaze under the sun’s light.
Pulling the keys from the ignition with one hand, I reached blindly into my pocket with the other. Grasping my phone and wishing I’d had the good sense to bring my proper camera, I opened the door and stepped out. The coolness of the air struck me instantly. It wasn’t enough to be called cold, but it was much chillier than it had been in my solar-warmed vehicle, and I was glad of the sweater I had on.
Not bothering to close the car door, I took a few steps, while the wind caused dust to sting my face and hands. Blinking out flecks of dirt, I wasn’t going to be dissuaded from my goal. Twisting my phone width-ways, I held it in both hands and lifted it level with my face. Partially blinded by the dirt in my eyes, I snapped a handful of shots, hoping that at least one of them would do reality justice.
Then, happy to be able to finally turn my face from the wind, I moved back to the car. With the door closed behind me and the whistling wind shut out, I was once again able to see clearly. So as a shielded my cell phone’s screen from the glare through the window, I flicked through the pictures I’d just taken. I was of the opinion that they looked pretty good given the circumstances, and, pleased with myself, I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and took hold of the keys that still dangled from the ignition.
Taking one last appreciative look at the real sun, I figured its beauty was a good omen. I couldn’t define exactly why, but it seemed to bode well for the future.
Although, apparently, not the immediate future.
Twisting my right hand, I tried to start the engine again. But all I received in reply was a sluggish, strained whirring. My fingers froze. “Ahh, come on,” I muttered beneath my breath. Flicking the key back, I tried to turn it again. Just like before, all I got was a labored whir.
“Shit,” I hissed, a heavy sense of danger and dread settling in my lower abdomen. “Come on,” I urged, trying a third and fourth time. “Fuck!” I eventually shrieked, banging the heel of my left hand against the steering wheel. Clamping my eyes shut, I forced out a slow, calming breath. “It’s fine,” I told myself. “It’s fine.” With a nod of self-assurance, I peeled my eyes open again and reached for my phone.
Placing it in front of me, I wondered who to call. The car rental company; my landlady, although I’d known her all of five minutes, she was the only person I knew in Warabrook; roadside assistance, did they have triple-A in Australia? Recalling the guy at the car place told me there were details in the glove compartment, I began to lean across to it. But, as I did, I noted that the internal debate over who to call was pointless. I couldn’t call anyone.
Foolishly, I turned the cell upside down, a waved it about it a little and then lifted it toward the car’s ceiling. It didn’t change the fact that I had no service. “Oh, you’ve got to be kiddin’ me,” I exclaimed through gritted teeth.
Heart thumping uncomfortably hard, and breath coming anxiously fast, I glanced over my shoulder and the long, empty road behind me. The whole time I’d been parked, no other vehicle had passed. And I could see no vehicle on the horizon, either. My face twisting hurriedly back around, I looked again at the sun. It was still sinking, and seemed to be descending faster now. For a moment, I simply stared at it, weighing my options. However, as I sifted through them, I begin to appreciate how few there were.
And as time continued to pass, I had fewer.
“For, Christ’s sake,” I muttered, before grasping the door handle, leaping out of the car and popping the hood as I moved.
Having absolutely no clue what I was planning to do once I’d looked at the engine, I swept around the front of the car and slipped my fingers in the gap of the insect-strewn hood. I groped a little before finding the catch and releasing it. The only things I knew about cars were how to check the oil and refill the windshield washer fluid. And on this car, I couldn’t even find the dipstick.
No
thing looked amiss, but how would I even know?
Shaking my head, I muttered, “Idiot,” at myself before dropping the hood back in place and moving quickly back to the still open driver’s door. Leaning my upper body in, I took only the keys and my phone with me. Then, I slammed the door with a hefty and angry thunk, pushed the remote lock and scanned the road in both directions. There were no cars, no trucks, no nothing. Lifting my cell, I waved it around again, stretching my arm right above my head in an overly hopeful effort to get a tiny hint of signal. Unsurprising, it didn’t work.
Coercing myself to breathe slowly, I lowered my arm while I tried to remember anything I’d passed on the road; a gas station, a motel or a roadside diner. But I couldn’t recall seeing a damn thing for at least an hour. In the other direction, meanwhile, was the unknown. However, it seemed a fair bet that if nothing was behind me for an hour, than something had to be coming up ahead...didn’t it?
I simply did not know what to do for the best. But I did feel the compulsion to do something, because standing right where I was equalled lying down and accepting I would have to spend the night in the middle of nowhere, with God knows who, and what, for company.
So, keeping my phone in my hand and snatching desperate glances at it with every few steps, I began to walk away from the car - hoping that my guess about a truck stop, or something, up ahead was right.
At first, I walked with purposeful, long strides. But as dusk drew on, and glimpses over my shoulder told me that I was losing sight of the car, my feet were no longer quite so eager. And still, there was no sign of life anywhere and no damn signal on my phone.
Once I’d wandered so far that I couldn’t see the silver Prius at all, my panic returned in earnest. “Shit, shit, shit,” I mumbled, my focus flicking in every direction as I searched for something, anything that would tell me I was going to be all right. But, all I could see was dust, and rocks, a few pitiful looking trees and some clumps of desert grass.
An eerie howl rippled through the air, the sound rising and falling like a strange phonetic wave. Panic morphed into something verging on terror and I lifted the phone from my side. The words ‘no signal’ were still taunting me. Praying there was some scrap of signal from another network and now considering my situation an emergency, I tapped 000 and whispered encouragingly as I brought the cell to my ear. “Come on, come on.”
No noise hit my ear, however, and as I snatched the phone back down and stared accusingly at it. The screen told me that the call couldn’t be connected. In a fit of petrified anger, I gripped the plastic case hard. And, as helpless tears began to swell, I got the overwhelming, but self-sabotaging, urge to pitch the useless piece of crap as far as I could.
Digging my teeth into my upper lip, I quashed the desire, reminding myself that, next to driving all the way out here, that was probably the stupidest thing I could do. Blinking, I swiped a hand across my cheek bone, where a lone teardrop had strayed.
“OK,” I reasoned quietly to myself, turning to look at the sun. It was almost gone now, half sunk on the horizon. I didn’t know how much longer there would be light, but I knew it couldn’t be much longer. “OK,” I repeated, knowing that everything was very far from ‘OK’.
I could go back to the car, I would probably be back to it before it got dark. But then what? Sleep there? I could keep walking, but I had no clue whether I was getting myself into a deeper mess with every step.
Meanwhile, the wind was gaining strength, whistling hard against my ears and sweeping up dust that grazed my skin, making it raw and red. There was no doubt about it, I was in trouble. And then, I heard another howl; the creepy noise seeming to roll across the landscape. It was apparent, even to a city slicker like me, that its source was some distance away, but it was no less unnerving for that fact.
Reaching my decision, I concluded the car was the safest retreat. It would not be comfortable, and I would not feel entirely secure, but it had to be better than being completely exposed. I was about to turn back toward it when something stopped me.
“G’day!” a voice called.