The Worm King Read Online Free PDF

his feet and followed.
    A heavy wooden desk from the floor above had
dropped on Peter’s head. The edge of it had torn a gaping hole in his forehead
and a mushy lump of brains was exposed. His eyes and mouth were wide open and his
head tilted back at a disturbing angle. Winston had never seen brains before but
felt pretty sure what sat in that hole was not usually meant to be showing.
    Paul didn’t look much better, but at least
was alive. He lay on the other side of the smashed desk, moaning, eyes closed
and propped against a piece of masonry. A coil of grey, eel-like guts poked out
a jagged tear across his stomach. He cradled it, trying to nudge it back in. A
small amount of blood seeped from either side of the wound but less than
Winston might’ve expected.
    The Māori was right, they didn’t look
so good.
    ‘What’s your name sweetheart?’
    ‘Āmiria.’
    ‘Hold that light a bit closer Āmiria.’ Paul’s
torso jumped into sharp focus. ‘Spot on. Right. Should be OK. Riiiihhht. You can
move that back now.’
    Winston felt like dry heaving. He’d never
seen anything that awful.
    The ground jolted again and the brickwork
Paul leant on shifted. His eyes snapped open and his mouth stretched into a
scream which turned into a gurgle then the lids fluttered back down. They had
to get him outside.
    ‘Hey Astrid, can you take Āmiria and
the twins out? Dick and I’ll bring Paul. Where’s the old bloke?’
    ‘Got some glass cuts and went out. Think
he’s alright. He said he’d wait by the truck.’
    Winston sat with Paul for a few minutes,
brushing his hair back from his face and telling him they had to lift him; really,
really had to, and it shouldn’t hurt much, and wouldn’t take long. But when
they picked him up he screamed, and each of them held penlights in their mouths
and it was hard to see, and raining, so Dick stumbled and dropped him hard. They
picked him up again and moved on. When they eventually laid him down by the
satellite truck he was dead.

Chapter Six
    Lazing Around
    ‘W e have to go into Katoomba,’ said Astrid.
    Winston wasn’t so sure. ‘I thought that
visitor centre was kind of new. If it looks like . . . that,
what do you reckon Katoomba’s going to be like?’
    ‘Closed,’ stated Dick.
    ‘Flat,’ added Āmiria.
    ‘I’ve got a sister in Katoomba,’ said Malisovich
from his seat on an upturned rubbish bin next to the truck door. The twins were
tight-pressed behind him holding an umbrella.
    Winston, Dick, Astrid and Āmiria stood
in the rain while the fat drops came hammering straight down. The concrete had
a blue-grey sheen as the puckered rippling water raced steadily downhill, running
away innocently before gliding over the razor edge of the lookout. A hop, step
and a whoooooo, plunging hundreds of feet and tumbling end over end into the
black valley before smacking into the rocks far below. Winston shivered.
    Astrid had hauled the spotlight from the
side compartment where Paul stacked it less than two hours ago. It was obvious
she’d done it before, and in a flash had it hooked up to the battery and
repositioned by the truck’s door.
    Only one corner of the visitor centre remained
upright and this fortunately sheltered Dick, Astrid, Malisovich and the girls
plus the lantern and pile of penlight torches. Āmiria bought out the
lantern and four of the torches. Malisovich fell through his own shop window
and sustained a nasty cut on his arm.
    Winston squinted at Astrid. ‘Shouldn’t we
head straight for Sydney? At least then we can get, well, home.’ Āmiria was
shining her torch in his eyes so he brushed a hand in front of his face and
said, ‘don’t do that.’ Her beam darted away, did a quick circuit of the group
then came to rest on Paul. A Channel Six publicity banner was the best they
could find to lay over him but it became drenched immediately and now clung
revealingly to every bulge. Winston wished they’d laid him further away from
the door, or that they