That’s why Sanford doesn’t worry about Dave the way he worries about Horace and Gladys and George, who aren’t allowed to go anywhere unless they’re accompanied by another, more reliable vampire. Gladys, for instance, has to take Bridget with her everywhere. Sanford and Dave are meant to be keeping a close eye on George and Horace. Casimir was always a special case; he wasn’t supposed to appear in public unless he had at least two sponsors in attendance. (That was the rule, though he obviously wasn’t following it before he died.)
As for me, I was always the odd one out – because I’d never even been tempted. And when you’ve never been tempted, you’re treated like an unexploded bomb.
You get people looking at you the way Dave looked at me that night, under the blazing lights of a service station in the middle of nowhere.
‘Well … I dunno,’ he said. ‘There won’t be much to see. Just lollies and junk. Maybe a couple of stale meat pies …’
‘Five minutes. That’s all I want.’
But Dave shook his head.
‘It’s the sunnies,’ he objected. ‘Both of us wearing sunglasses, in the middle of the night. They’re going to think we’re here to rob the place.’
‘No they won’t. They’ll just think we’re wankers.’
‘Wankers can cop a lot of flack, mate. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.’
‘Oh, come on.’ I was getting annoyed. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, you could easily pass for a junkie after a bad week in jail.’ Seeing him swallow, I added, ‘Not that I’m any improvement, but let’s face it: you don’t need me to attract attention.’
‘We’ll ask Father Ramon,’ he decided, then reached over to jog the priest awake.
‘What? No!’ I tightened my grip on Dave’s arm. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘Nina—’
‘Just check out that bloke over there!’ I said, pointing. ‘He’s much stranger than we are. If anyone looks like an armed robber, it’s him.’
The truck driver in question was huge, bald and wearing only a fox-fur waistcoat on his top half. A skull was tattooed across his scalp, and pictures of jellyfish adorned his bulging biceps. One narrow thread of beard ran along his left jawline, up over his top lip, and around to his other ear.
As he vanished into the shop, I offered up my final, clinching argument.
‘Anyway,’ I declared, ‘you can’t leave me here by myself. Not without a sponsor.’
‘Father Ramon—’
‘Might have a nosebleed,’ I finished, in triumphant tones. ‘It’s against the rules, Dave. You know that.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Dave sighed. ‘I’m too tired to argue. Let’s get this over with.’
He climbed out of the truck, and I followed him. It was unexpectedly cold; I found myself jigging from foot to foot while I waited for him to fill up the tank. Believe it or not, the changing numbers on the petrol pump fascinated me. So did the tyre-servicing equipment, and the window-washing squeegee, and the cage full of gas cylinders. It doesn’t take much to interest a person of my limited experience.
When I finally entered the shop, I was drawn first to the magazine rack, then to the rather impressive muffin display. Until that moment, I hadn’t realised that cranberry and walnut muffins even existed. It was also hard not to exclaim over the vast array of iced teas in the fridge, but I managed to restrain myself.
I didn’t utter a single word until Dave had finished paying the bleary-eyed man behind the counter. This man was obviously so exhausted that I doubt he would have raised an eyebrow if a T. rex had walked in and purchased a bag of popcorn. Two pallid vampires wearing sunglasses didn’t faze him in the least.
‘Wait,’ I said, as Dave began to nudge me towards the door. ‘Look. It’s an inflatable neck pillow. Do you think Father Ramon might need a neck pillow?’
‘I think he might need a neck brace, if we’re not careful,’ Dave warned me – and I soon saw what he meant. The bald trucker, who had preceded us out of the shop, was now standing near our bright orange van. His arms were folded, and there was a frown on his face. With him was another huge truck driver with grey hair and a beer belly. The two men were engaged in a muttered conversation as they stared at the back of the van.
Father Ramon was still asleep.
‘Don’t stop,’ Dave advised, under his breath. I had pulled up short at the sight of Baldie’s glower, and Beer Belly’s broken nose. ‘Let me do the talking.’
‘No,’ I whispered, ‘let me. They won’t punch me.’
‘Shh!’
Upon approaching our van, we quickly realised why it had attracted an audience. Now that the petrol pump beside it wasn’t humming away, the shrill piping of distressed guinea pigs could be heard quite clearly. I have to admit, it did sound odd.
Beer Belly seemed only mildly intrigued, but Baldie was scowling. ‘They’re guinea pigs,’ Dave explained, with a sickly grin.
Beer Belly retreated hurriedly; I had a feeling that he was embarrassed. Baldie sniffed.
‘They’re fine,’ I assured him, before Dave could continue. ‘It’s a big cage. They just don’t like travelling, that’s all – they’re very neurotic.’ Hoping to persuade this hulking, tattooed animal-lover that the guinea pigs were cherished pets (rather than tomorrow’s breakfast), I added, ‘They’re mine. Their names are Torquil, Huntingdon, Arabella and … um … Sanford.’
Perhaps I came across as being a bit odd, what with my sunnies, my bleached complexion, and my list of romance-writer names. The trucker peered at me as if I’d just told him that I had two hearts.
‘Come on,’ said Dave, who’d pulled open the driver’s-side door. He didn’t exactly shove me back into the cabin, but he certainly applied a lot of pressure to my elbow. ‘The sooner we get going, the sooner we can let ’em out, eh?’
I was astonished to see that Father Ramon hadn’t moved. Sliding into the seat next to him, I was assailed by a sudden, terrible fear that he might be in a coma – or worse – and shook him furiously.
He woke with a start, mumbling something about rosters. Then his eyes focused.
‘Nina,’ he croaked. ‘Are we there yet?’
‘No.’ I glanced into the rear-view mirror just as Dave joined us, slamming the door behind him. Like me, he peered up at the mirror.
We saw that Baldie was walking away.
‘Thank Christ,’ said Dave, and slumped against the steering wheel. In a matter of seconds, all the nervous energy seemed to drain from his limbs; his head drooped, his shoulders sagged, his lungs deflated as he heaved a great sigh of relief. ‘That could have been a disaster.’
‘What could have been a disaster?’ the priest demanded, and I had to explain that someone had heard our guinea pigs.
‘But it’s okay now,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it, Dave?’
‘I guess.’
‘Nobody’s going to call the RSPCA, or anything. It’s not illegal to put guinea pigs into the back of a removalist’s van.’ When Dave didn’t rally – when he remained with his forehead propped against the steering wheel – I regarded him with some concern. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked him, conscious of a nauseous sensation in my own stomach. ‘Are you feeling sick?’
‘I’m feeling wiped out.’ He raised his head to address Father Ramon. ‘Can you take over now? I need a break. I didn’t realise how tiring this would be.’
‘Yes, of course,’ the priest replied. And he swapped seats with Dave, while I watched Baldie drive away in his enormous semitrailer. I was concerned that he might be heading west, and that we might continue to encounter him at other petrol stations, or on the kind of narrow, lonely, two-lane roads that you often see in horror movies about serial killers.
We were lucky, though. When he reached the highway he turned right, and I saw that he was heading in an easterly direction.
We turned left, continuing on towards Cobar.
9
Dave was soon feeling well enough to drive again. But he wasn’t behind the w
heel for very long. We were already through Dubbo when I checked the time, and realised that we had less than half an hour in which to protect ourselves from the deadly approach of sunrise.
So we pulled off the road before clambering out onto the dry red earth.
As we opened the back of the van, the guinea pigs warbled accusingly. They were in a foul mood. Father Ramon suggested that their cage be moved to the front seat; he wouldn’t mind the noise, he said, because it would help to stop him from dozing off.
‘We could put a towel underneath them,’ he added, but Dave shook his head.
‘It’s all right, Father,’ Dave replied. ‘They won’t keep us awake. Nothing ever does.’
Fortunately, the sleeping-bags were already unrolled, and tied down like cupboards or pianos. Had they not been secured, Dave and I might have bounced around like ping-pong balls every time the van hit a bend or a pothole. We might never have reached our destination in one piece. But we emerged unscathed from the final leg of the trip, which ended outside a place called the Miner’s Rest Motel.
Needless to say, I was unconscious long before our arrival. I missed the unforgettable sight of a desert dawn. I missed the kangaroos that fled from our approach, their grey backs bobbing above the sandbanks. Though I heard about these things later, from Father Ramon, I might have been six feet underground for all the impression they made on me. Lying in the back of the van, with my alpine sleeping-bag zipped up over my face, I must have listened to about ten minutes of rattles and jingles and high-pitched squeaking before I blacked out.
Next thing I knew, we weren’t moving any more. Silence reigned.
It can often take a minute or so to recover your wits after a day’s blackout. But the instant I heard Dave groaning, I knew where I was – or at least, where I should have been. And I began to struggle out of my sleeping-bag.
The guinea pigs were still with us, scratching around in their cage. It was very dark, and very cold; the only light came from my wristwatch. In its pale-green glow I could see that the van’s double doors were tightly shut, and that my suitcase was still sitting where I’d left it.
Beside me, Dave coughed.
‘Are you all right?’ he whispered.
‘I think so. What about you?’
‘No worse than usual.’ He certainly didn’t look his best, as he peered at me with bloodshot eyes through a tangle of hair. ‘Should I ring Father Ramon? Or should we have breakfast first?’
I was startled by this suggestion. Our original plan had been to use Father Ramon’s motel bathroom for our meals; we had even brought our own cleaning equipment, and a set of burgundy towels that wouldn’t show bloodstains.
‘I figure we could probably hose all this off,’ Dave continued quietly, gesturing at the sheets of black plastic that surrounded us. ‘Instead of trying to sneak animals into a motel room.’
‘Let’s just work out where we are first,’ I replied, and he shrugged.
Then he fumbled for his mobile phone.
I can’t pretend that I wasn’t anxious as we waited for a response to Dave’s call. There was no telling what might have happened during the past twelve hours; for all we knew, the van might have been impounded by the police, or parked outside a pub, or abandoned on an outback highway. We couldn’t be sure of anything until we had spoken to Father Ramon.
Luckily, he answered on the first ring.
‘Yeah, it’s me,’ Dave rumbled. ‘Yeah, we’re fine … no … yeah … okay. Good.’ He broke the connection, his face a mask of relief. ‘We’re right next to the motel room, and there’s no one else around,’ he reported. ‘We’ll be out of here in a second.’
He had hardly finished speaking before a creak and a thump announced that Father Ramon was unlocking the back of the van. All at once the doors swung open. I groped for my sunglasses as artificial light flooded our dingy compartment.
The guinea pigs immediately began to complain, in very shrill voices.
‘Get them inside, quick,’ muttered Father Ramon, who was standing in front of a blue door with a number on it. ‘We don’t want anyone to see.’
‘I was just thinking – about breakfast—’ Dave began. The priest, however, wouldn’t be delayed.
‘Hurry!’ he begged.
So I grabbed my suitcase, ignoring a slight touch of dizziness as I scrambled out into the fresh air. Dave threw a towel over the guinea pig cage. But he had his own luggage to carry, and it was Father Ramon who finally smuggled the guinea pigs into our motel room, with many a nervous backward glance.
Because the door of the room was positioned directly behind our van, we didn’t have a long way to go. As far as I could see – from my fleeting glimpse of it – the Miner’s Rest Motel was just a long line of rooms facing a car park, with an office at one end and a small, fenced-off pool at the other. But I wasn’t given a chance to inspect the place very closely. Within seconds I had been hustled into a shabby sleeping area that boasted red brick walls, a brown carpet, and two queen-size beds sitting under a framed photograph of the Eiffel Tower.
My heart sank as I gazed around at the wood-veneer cupboards and the broken vertical blinds. This was the first motel room that I had ever experienced, and it was a grave disappointment. After watching so many lifestyle holiday programs, I had been expecting a spa bath, at the very least.
‘Is this all?’ I said. ‘It stinks.’
‘It’s better than the back of the truck,’ Dave rejoined, dumping his bag on the carpet. ‘Do you want to go first, Nina?’
‘Oh. Right. I guess.’ My gaze travelled from the quivering cage under the burgundy towel to the red brick wall behind it. ‘How soundproof are these rooms, do you think?’
‘I’ll turn on the TV,’ Father Ramon offered. ‘Don’t worry, Nina. There’ll be time enough to talk once you and Dave have done what you have to do.’
And he settled down to watch a fuzzy news bulletin.
I won’t revolt you with a description of my breakfast, or of the mess that I had to clean up after I’d finished. I’ll just say that, for once, I didn’t feel too bad about what I’d done – because the bathroom already had mouldy grouting, smelly drains and a dust-clogged extraction fan. When I complained about the housekeeping to Father Ramon, however, he simply shrugged.
‘I’ve seen worse,’ he replied. He was sitting on one of the beds, which had obviously been slept in; I soon discovered that he’d spent the whole afternoon napping, after a morning devoted to reconnaissance.
It seemed that Wolgaroo Corner was located about forty-five minutes to the north of town, along an extremely rough dirt road.
‘I went to the office and asked for directions,’ he explained, once Dave had finished in the bathroom. ‘I said that I was a friend of a friend of Barry McKinnon, just passing through. And you know what the receptionist did?’ Father Ramon paused, but Dave and I just stared at him blankly. So the priest continued. ‘She gave me this,’ he said, displaying a crumpled sheet of paper. ‘It’s a photocopy of a hand-drawn map. With Barry McKinnon’s house marked in red pen.’
I was confused by his tone.
‘You mean the receptionist drew all over it?’ I queried, wondering why he found this so surprising.
‘No, no.’ Father Ramon spoke slowly and carefully, in the manner of someone transmitting vital information. ‘I mean that she had a whole pile of maps to the McKinnon house. They were sitting under the counter.’
‘A whole pile of maps?’ Dave echoed.
‘That’s right. And when I asked her if Barry McKinnon had a lot of visitors, she laughed. And winked.’
‘She winked?’ I was astonished. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘I don’t know. The phone rang then, and she had to answer it.’ Father Ramon dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘I was so floored, I just … well, I just left. It seemed so odd. I had to go away and think.’
The priest went on to admit that he hadn’t questioned the woman again, because he’d been worried about dr
awing attention to himself. ‘So I went to have a look at the place, instead,’ he revealed. ‘I wanted to get a feel for the layout while there was still light enough to see by.’
I blinked. Dave frowned.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘You mean you drove to Wolgaroo Corner? In the truck?’
‘Yes.’
‘This morning?’
‘I didn’t speak to anyone. I didn’t even stop,’ Father Ramon assured me. ‘I just wanted to be certain that we knew what to expect before we went in there after dark. It’s always a good idea to check your exits.’
I stared at him in amazement. Sitting on the unmade bed, all rumpled clothes and untidy grey hair, he looked the same as usual. But it occurred to me that Father Ramon wasn’t your average priest. Providing pastoral care for a group of vampires requires more than just compassion and a sense of duty. It also requires a taste for adventure.
I wondered if the excitement of his early years in South America had given him a daredevil streak. I wondered if ordinary parish work was becoming a bit of a bore.
‘Wow,’ said Dave feebly. I said nothing. It bothered me that I would never, in a million years, have considered going anywhere near Wolgaroo Corner – not on my own. I just didn’t have the guts.
‘It’s a great big spread,’ Father Ramon related. ‘You can only just see it from the road.’ He explained that he had slowed down upon reaching a steel-drum mailbox and a five-bar gate; from that point, a long driveway had led to a collection of buildings and one or two trees, way off in the distance. ‘Pretty flat,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No livestock that I could see. But lots and lots of vehicles.’ He raised his eyes from the patch of carpet that he had been contemplating, then fixed them on Dave. ‘That’s what I found so odd,’ he confessed. ‘The number of cars that were parked near the house.’
‘How many?’
‘Oh – at least fifteen.’
‘Fifteen?’ I squawked. And Dave said, ‘It’s like that in the country. People just leave their old rust buckets lying around when they’re ready to upgrade—’