“This is it. The last stop before we leave the map.”
Leaving the map was how Ashley described it. What she meant was that between this last dot on the map and the next was a wide expanse devoid of names. She craved it. The idea she might be the first and only person to set foot in a place gave her an unmatched thrill.
We hadn’t seen a town or even a house for at least half an hour. Only the monotonous expanse of flat red desert stretching to the horizon. Up ahead a handful of fragile structures were clustered together, isolated and abandoned.
If there ever was a sign bearing the name of the town, it was gone. Carried off as a souvenir, or stolen by a passer-through, or burned by the last resident to leave. The name exists now only digitally, beside a small circle misplaced on the screen by a few hundred metres.
Silverton is two dirt roads forming a cross. The red of the roads matches the surrounding desert. Six houses and a small shop with the faded moniker General Store are all deserted and decaying. Salt bush encroaches in former front yards. Pock marks cover the corrugated iron roof of the old store where rust has eaten through the metal.
We walked the street, kicking up the red dirt of the road. It was hot. The warm air circulating over the sun-baked land turned my mouth dry. I smacked my lips and it didn’t help.
“Look out there,” she said, pointing through a gap between two houses, “it’s an old mine shaft.”
A low stone structure stood beside a lone desert oak. Prospectors had found silver in the area and a few fortune seekers came, but the ground did not produce. They abandoned the town soon after, everyone leaving poorer than when they started.
Ashley stopped outside the house at the end of the town. The steel mesh of the front fence lay twisted on the ground. A timber stump that once supported a letter box stood askew, the end splintered and frayed.
“Shall we go inside?” she said.
“Do we have to?”
“What else are we going to do?”
“Drive on.”
“We’re here now.”
She stepped onto the timber framed porch. Discoloured white paint peeled from the timber siding. The knob was missing from the door. She pushed and it did not give. The window beside the door was smashed, leaving behind jagged shards of dirty glass.
“I’ll try the back,” she said.
The door opened with a loud and sudden crack. I straightened and took a step back. Ashley appeared in the doorway smiling, auburn hair spilling over her tortoise-shell glasses.
“Did I scare you?”
I didn’t answer. I followed her inside.
The house was simple – two rooms at the front, a small bathroom, and a kitchen and living room at the back. All the furniture was gone except a dust covered table in the kitchen.
A sudden clattering came from the adjacent room. My head swung around and I looked through the doorway and then at Ashley. She stood and looked for a beat before turning to me and smiling. She had thrown a loose bolt she found on the floor.
“Why are you so nervous? There’s no one here.”
“Can we leave? This place gives me the creeps.”
“I like it. Maybe we can stay here tonight?”
“How about we don’t.”
I caught a shape in the corner of my eye and gave a yelp. A huge black spider stuck to the wall just below the roof, its hairy black legs sprawled out to the size of a fist.
Ashley scoffed. “It’s only a spider.”
I kicked at the skirting at the base of the wall. Below the dust were scratch marks in the timber. Mice, I figured. I bent down and removed a strip of dirt with my thumb. It was writing.
“Come here,” I said.
“What is it?”
“It’s hard to read. It says: there’s something down there.”
“Something down where?”
I pointed at the skirting. “Someone has written it. Look.”
Ashley bent at the waist. “There’s something down there,” she read aloud. “Something down where?”
I shrugged. Out the back window the desert stretched to the horizon. The only landmark was the mine shaft.
“The mine,” I said.
“What’s down there? They didn’t find silver, or they wouldn’t have left.”
“Strange.”
I checked my phone. It flickered between one bar of reception and no service. Ashley wasn’t happy unless we were outside phone range. I held it up to her. “I still have reception.”
“Then we move on.”
We turned to leave. I caught something in my periphery, a flicker of a shadow out the window. I snapped my head around. Only the desert and the mine shaft.
“What is it?” Ashley said.
“I thought I saw something. It moved.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. A shadow.”
“There’s no one here.”
Beyond Silverton we turned off the paved road and onto a dirt track. The van drifted a little on the loose red soil and I slowed the speed. Ashley put her legs up on the dashboard and checked her phone.
“We’re off grid,” she said. “We have left the map.”
A sense of dread can befall sailors when they lose sight of land. The same dread courses through my body when we leave the map. For Ashley it is the opposite. It relaxes her. She closed her eyes, her mouth upturned in a smile.
When you leave the map, there is no specific destination to which you aim. Ashley looked into the area before we left. We knew there were some tracks created by prospectors and cattle ranchers, but they would soon stop beyond Silverton. After that the path was unknown. We would go as far as we could.
We reached the end of the dirt track with about an hour of sunlight left.
“Go a little further,” Ashley said. “I want our first night to be out where we cannot see any signs of civilisation.”
The land beyond was firm enough – hard red earth. I weaved a path between the sporadic saltbush, keeping to where the ground was level. Twilight had set in when I stopped and put my head out the window and looked back.
“Can’t see the track,” I said. “Can’t see Silverton either.”
“Perfect.”
I unfurled the awning on the side of the van and hammered the pegs into the ground. The soil was softer than I expected. We built a small fire and unfolded our deck chairs. When the fire was hot we put our sandwich irons on the coals and made dinner.
“What do you think happened to them?” she said.
“Who?”
“The people who lived in the house.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“I tried to imagine the last one to leave. The store failed. The neighbours left. His wife took the kids back to the city. But still he keeps going down that shaft every day looking for silver until one day he dies down there.”
“Don’t be morbid.”
“Maybe that’s what the message meant. The something still down there is the ghost of the last man standing.”
“Are you winding me up?”
She smirked. “Or what’s down there is whatever killed our last man.”
“Stop it,” I said and threw a bottle cap in her general direction.
Out in the dark something moved.
“There’s someone out there,” I said.
She laughed. “A kangaroo. They move around at night.”
-——
The rumbling sounded like it vibrated up through the earth. I pulled back the small curtain at the rear of the van and lightning flashed in the distance. If it came any closer I would get up and pull in the awning. I went back to sleep.
-——
The van pitched and rolled. I sat up in bed. The van thrust forwards and I sprawled over Ashley. It was still dark. A clap of thunder, much closer now.
“What is it?” Ashley said.
“A storm. I need to bring in the awning.”
I climbed over her and swung my legs over the edge and the van tilted and then righted itself. I opened the door and the rain started. Heavy, drenching rain.
My feet sank in the soil. A wave of water crashed against my bare legs. Lightning streaked across the sky and by the light I saw the van carried a few metres by the water before it tipped onto its side. Ashley screamed.
I climbed up on the side of the van. The movement had slammed shut the door. From within Ashley beat the door and cried for help. The side of the van – now pointing to the sky – was slippery from the rain. I fumbled to find the latch and when I did I could not get the door to open. I stood on the side of the van and tried and failed again. The door clicked and when the sky lit up I saw Ashley’s hands emerging from the inside of the van. The lightning faded and in the dark I found her hands and pulled. She grabbed my shoulders and I overbalanced and we tumbled to the ground. A torrent of water flowed ankle-deep.
In the dark we clasped hands and moved away from the van and sought higher ground. A bolt of lightning cleaved a nearby desert oak in two and cast sparks into the night sky, soon extinguished by the rain. A split second later thunder clapped and I loosened my grip on Ashley’s hands and brought my own to my ears. I cried out and found Ashley again and we crouched and huddled together in the rain.
The storm lasted another hour. Lightning forked high above and moved off towards the horizon and the thunder grew softer and more distant. The rain kept on until dawn when it slowed to a drizzle and then stopped.
By the morning light we confronted our mistake. We had parked in a dried riverbed turned raging torrent in the storm. The van lay on its side with the two wheels closest to the ground buried below a layer of sand kicked up by the water. The sliding door was wide open and inside pools of water lay at the bottom.
Shivering, I climbed into the van and located our luggage. Our clothes were wet through. I took a shirt and shorts and hung them to dry from a branch of a nearby tree. Ashley did the same.
“Let’s see if we can right it,” I said.
We went to the roof side and I put my shoulder against the cold and wet metal and pushed. The van did not budge.
“Find the phones,” I said, panting from the effort.
Ashley climbed in the van and after a few minutes returned with our mobile phones and the satellite phone. The mobile phones turned on, but we had no reception. The satellite phone had a cracked screen and water dripped from the inside. It did not turn on.
“What now?” Ashley said.
“How far do you think it is back to the main road?”
“We drove a bit more than an hour from Silverton I think. Walking you multiply that by ten at least. More. Did you tell anyone where we were going?”
I ran a hand through my wet hair. “My boss knows I was going, but he didn’t know where. Did you tell anyone?”
“No.”
“They say to stay with the car. We have some food and water.”
“We could be here a year before someone else comes. Longer.”
“What should we do?”
She looked out to the horizon. “It will be cooler now with the clouds. We should try to get back to Silverton. We can pack water and food. You had reception there, right?”
“Yes.”
“Ok. Agreed?”
I sighed and nodded.
-—–
It took only an hour for the clouds to break. The unhindered sun was welcome at first and warmed our clothes and our bones, but soon we suffered as the heat intensified. Black flies stuck to our backs. Saltbush and spinifex scratched our bare legs. The ground was damp and softened by the rain and the going was tough.
There was no sign of civilisation. No houses, no fences, no livestock. This was the big empty of the red interior of Australia.
We stopped for lunch beside a lone desert oak. We huddled together in the scant shade. I sat and then quickly stood after a swarm of ants scurried onto my hands and legs. I flicked them off furiously as they bit into my skin.
“You would think this place had no life,” I said.
“There’s always something. Nowhere is truly empty.”
“I need to take a piss.”
I watched the stream form a small pool between my feet. A shiver ran up my spine and I sucked in a big gulp of the dry desert air.
In the corner of my eye something moved. A dark shadow off to the right. I thought it must be a bird and searched for it between the sporadic smattering of salt bush. There was nothing there.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a bird all day. Strange. I zipped up and was about to turn away when there was another flurry of movement. A blurry flash of black and then it was gone. Using the salt bush for scale I guessed it to be about the size of a basketball, but rather than flying into the sky like a bird would, it scurried across the red earth like a crab on fast-forward. The shape and movement were so unnatural it gave me an unnerving feeling.
I took a couple of steps to where it had been, a good stone’s throw away. Ashley called after me.
“I saw something,” I shouted back.
“Saw what?”
“I don’t know. Some sort of..” I trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence.
“Are you imagining things again? Pull yourself together. It’s time to go. We want to make it to Silverton by dark.”
I kicked at the thin layer of red sand and turned back, convinced she was right. The sun must be getting to me.
The afternoon sun beat down from a cloudless sky and the wind blew in hot from the north. We walked in a giant oven. Sweat turned our skin and hair so wet we could send droplets flying with a simple shake, much like a dog emerging from the ocean.
I watched the horizon with growing anxiety. The sun was sinking and soon it would be dark and Silverton lay out of sight. I willed my legs to move faster but the cramps had started. Ashley was struggling too.
“We won’t make it,” she said.
I stopped and bent over and let the accumulation of sweat on my forehead drain onto the dirt track. “No, we won’t.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Rest. Wait for the sun to go down a bit and start again.”
“And walk through the dark?”
“What choice do we have? Besides, there’s nothing out here. It’s not like we’ll fall off a cliff edge in the dark. It’s flat desert for miles in all directions.”
“I guess we can use the torches on our phone to follow the track.”
“There you go.”
I sat, or rather collapsed, onto the ground. My legs and back ached. I dug around in my bag and pulled out the water bottle. At least we had plenty of that. I took off my shirt and rang out the sweat and draped it over my head. There was no other shade. The last tree had been over an hour ago.
The sun sank excruciatingly slowly. As it kissed the horizon I stood and put on my shirt. The wind had died down and the sting of the sun was fast evaporating. I massaged my tired legs.
“Let’s go.”
Ashley got to her feet. “How far do you think it is?”
“I don’t know.”
We trudged together in the twilight watching the last of the sun disappear. The sky turned a deep purple and then the stars began lighting the sky. I turned on the torch on my phone against the growing darkness.
Our pace slowed in the dark. The almost new moon cast scant light. I kept the torch trained in front. A flash of light streaked across the sky and drew my gaze upwards. A shooting star. I was about to say something about the clear skies out in the desert and how there were so many stars when Ashley grabbed my arm. She made a small jump and let out a yelp.
“What was that?” she said.
“What was what?”
“Shine over there. Something moved.”
“A kangaroo,” I said and nudged her with my elbow.
“It wasn’t a kangaroo.”
I swept the light from the phone across the ground. “I don’t see anything.”
And then I did see it. A black, shiny body reflecting back the light. The thing skittered away into the darkness. I jogged after it, trying to capture it again in the light.
“Where did it go?”
Ashley didn’t respond. I had left her behind on the track. I swung around the light and searched, but she was not where I left her.
“Ashley?”
I called her name again and again. I turned a circle and ran back and then forward. Fear gripped my stomach. I swept the torch light wildly across the ground, desperate to locate her. If this was some kind of prank like she had pulled in the house at Silverton.
“This isn’t funny,” I said, unable to hide the desperation in my voice.
I expected her to creep up behind me and grab my shoulders and yell ‘boo’ in my ear. Instead she screamed. High pitched and shrill, so loud it caused a sharp pain in my ears.
I cast the light out into the darkness and found her. She was cloaked in black, as if she had put on a dark sweater. Among the black there was movement, ripples like the surface of the ocean. Black creatures pulsed and oscillated over her body. They could have been spiders except their bodies were bigger, closer to those of a small cat. Each had dozens of thin legs that made clicking sounds when they moved.
Ashley was covered in them. Her torso writhed and her arms flailed as she tried to shake them off. With a gasp she collapsed to the ground. More of them came and black consumed the few remaining patches of skin and clothing.
I ran to her and kicked at one of the creatures thrumming its legs against the hard ground by Ashley’s feet, waiting for its chance to join the fray. Its body was hard, but there was little weight, it was like kicking an empty can. It made no noise as I sent it sprawling and tumbling into the night.
“Ashley,” I screamed.
As I reached her, the oscillating black mass in the shape of Ashley sped off over the ground. They were carrying her away. I ran after her, but even at a sprint I was no match for the team of black super-spiders. I strained to keep the light steady and then in a flash the ground opened up and she disappeared.
I slid to a stop and ran my hands frantically over the dirt, trying to find a hole or entrance underground. Nothing. How was this possible?
I dug with my fingers, scratching at the dirt. I found a soft spot and pushed at it with my fist. From the depression sprouted a thin black stem, and then another and then came the grotesque black body. One was coming back out, and then another and another.
The creatures scurried across the ground and climbed up onto my bare arms. The legs ended in points and made little pinpricks in my skin as they climbed. It might have almost tickled if it didn’t hurt so much.
I yelled out and jumped to my feet. My frantic hands tried to brush them away. I swiped one off and it somersaulted to the ground and then came back and flew back up my leg.
I grabbed my phone and ran into the darkness, kicking my legs and swinging my arms. I took off my shirt and flung it to the ground. The red fabric bulged in the middle and I slammed my boot down. With a crunch I crushed the super-spider.
I kept running. I ran until I was out of breath. Bent over I almost vomited. I brushed at my skin and a shiver went up my spine at the thought that they were still on me. But I felt nothing. They were gone. But where was I? How long had I run and in what direction?
I swung the light around. How could I find the spot where Ashley had disappeared? I searched for footprints, but there were no marks in the hard earth. Why had I run so far?
I put my hands up to my head ready to scream at the stars. And then I saw it. On the horizon to my left were dark shadows blocking out the stars. The outline of buildings. Silverton? It must be. If I could get back into phone range there might be a chance I could save her. I ran as fast as my tired legs could go.
A shape rose up out of the desert. Small and cylindrical. The shaft of the mine we had seen from the house in Silverton. The inscription on the skirting board in the house came back to me. There’s something down there. What if they had found these things while they were digging. What if they had tunnelled into their lair. Could it lead me to Ashley?
At the shaft I checked my phone. One bar of reception. I called the emergency number. After explaining where Silverton was, I asked how long until the police or the fire department, or anybody could get here. At least half an hour was the response. Ashley might not have that much time.
I put the phone in my mouth and clambered onto the rusted ladder leading down the shaft. The light did not reach the bottom. The ladder shook as I descended into the inky darkness, the fixings to the shaft wall cracking and straining after years of decay. I tilted my head and pointed the light down and the bottom was finally there. I reached a leg down and felt solid ground.
A single shaft cut horizontally into the earth, barely big enough for me to fit. I took one last look at the small slice of sky directly above and crept into the shaft. Unlike the red earth above, the walls of the shaft were almost white and reflected back the light from my phone.
It was cool in the shaft and there was a faint sense of dampness. Ahead the single shaft expanded into a larger opening. Abandoned short tunnels dotted around the edges. I played the light around the room and right ahead something glittered. A long and thin smudge of brilliance embedded into the otherwise monotone white. For a brief moment a feeling of giddiness distracted me from the task at hand. They had found something down here.
As I ran my thumb over the precious metal exposed on the wall, my head swung around at a faint sound. A tatter-tatter like rain on a sheet metal roof. It was their little legs against the hard rock. It echoed off the walls and made it impossible to find the source.
I skirted the perimeter of the room. Dark shafts extended into the earth at irregular intervals. At each I stopped and listened. Each time the sound of their legs grew softer when I ventured a pace or two down the shaft. Until I found the source. The sound amplified down the tunnel like a speaker.
The shaft did not extend far. At the end was a mound of crushed rock almost to the top. It could have been a collapse, or an attempt to seal off the tunnel. I clambered up the slope. At the top was a gap barely big enough to fit my head. I held the phone beside my right eye and thrust forwards into the gap.
Beyond was a wide open space, the torch struggled to reach the far walls. I swept the light down to the floor. It was a sea of black, oscillating and pulsing as the super-spiders clambered together. There were hundreds of them. But where was Ashley?
I moved the light across the walls and found her. The team of super-spiders that had carried her down under the earth carried her still. They pushed her along like a crowd surfer at a concert. Ahead, perched on a small platform of rock, a bigger version of the creature sat waiting. It had to be five times the size of the others. The Queen. And the worker bees were following protocol. The Queen eats first.
Ashley’s head swung around at the light. Her glasses were gone and her straggled hair spread out like a fan trailing her head. She let out a whimper. She was still alive.
It struck me. Ashley had reacted to the light. None of the super-spiders had. They lived their lives in the dark. They couldn’t see. They must navigate using sound and touch alone.
I slid carefully back down the slope. I needed a weapon. I searched the tunnels. At the end of one of the longer tunnels I found what I was looking for. A hard hat, a musty old leather boot and a pick axe. Left here by someone taken by the super-spiders who cared only for flesh and not wood or metal.
I picked up the pick axe. The desiccated handle splintered and warped in my hand. It wouldn’t be good for much more than one full swing. I made a half practice swing and it felt awkward. I never was the most coordinated person. I took a deep breath. Come what may I had to try.
I climbed back up the slope, careful to make as little sound as possible. At the top I used the metal pick to sweep away enough of the rubble to squirm through. I took off my shoes and socks and held my breath and pushed through into the subterranean cavern.
I went feet first and felt around until my toes brushed against the floor. My feet took the weight and I slipped silently into the cavern. The congregation of super-spiders started a few paces away. They arranged themselves in front of their Queen, forming a rough oval. This left a narrow path at the edge of the space direct to the Queen.
Each step was slow and deliberate. I pushed down my foot slowly and ramped up the weight until I was sure that it would make no sound, and then repeated.
The Queen was closer now. I trained the light on her. She fluttered her legs and they rattled against the hard rock. Her minions oscillated at the sound, happy they had pleased her. Ashley sobbed as the train took her closer. The mouth of the Queen opened and shut in anticipation, exposing jagged rows of teeth and a sickly red tongue.
I wasn’t going to make it. They would deliver Ashley to the Queen before I got there. Ashley implored me with wide eyes to do something. I put the phone in my mouth and shone it on the Queen. With both hands I raised the pick axe above my head. I said a little prayer and heaved the axe at the Queen.
It missed. The pick axe swung end on end and passed harmlessly over the top of the Queen. My heart sank. The pick axe continued on its merry way and clattered to the floor. At the sudden burst of noise, the gathered congregation raised themselves and bustled over to where the axe fell, to quell the threat and protect the Queen. Soon there was a grotesque mound of them, each searching for whatever creature had made the noise.
It was as if the seas had parted before me. I now had a direct path to Ashley, propped up by a few of the super-spiders. The Queen, now distracted, cowered against the wall. For once my incompetence had paid dividends.
I skipped over to Ashley, who had already half-stood when I got there. I grabbed her hand and put my finger up to my lips to tell her we had to be quiet. We crept away, the bulk of the super-spiders still concerned with the pick axe.
At the entrance I lifted Ashley up and into the tunnel. With her help I raised myself and followed her. I gave one last look into the cavern. We hadn’t been followed.
I pushed away from the edge, and as I did, a stray rock slipped from the top of the mound and landed with a click in the cavern. I cursed under my breath.
“Hurry,” I whispered.
I led Ashley to the ladder. At the base I stopped and shone the light back down the shaft. One of the super-spiders had followed us into the shaft. It skittered around the tunnel, listening for any sound. All it would take is this one to find us and the cavalry could be called. We watched it get closer in the light from my phone. The light flickered and went out. The battery was spent.
I hugged Ashley close. The thin circle of stars shone above us, but to get there we had to climb the ladder and that would make noise.
I listened. The tatter-tatter of the legs against the rocks told us this super-spider had not given up the hunt. I willed it to turn around, to give up and go back to its Queen and leave us be.
The tatter-tatter grew closer. The tunnel was a full and impenetrable dark. Sound was my only clue to where this thing was. A little to the left. Now a little to the right and closer than before.
Ashley shook herself from my grasp. She lowered herself and tapped softly on the ground. I wanted to scream at her. What was she doing?
“Come here,” she whispered.
It was almost upon us now. The click of its legs so close it could have been standing on my foot.
“Come here.”
A flurry of clicks and then Ashley stood and brought her hands up to her chest. In the dull light cast by the stars the super-spider dug its claws into her arms, but Ashley did not scream. She exhaled calmly as she crushed its body with her bare hands. There was a subtle and muffled crumple. She placed the corpse at her feet.
“Let’s go,” she said.
We climbed the ladder, careful to make as little noise as possible. We sat by the entrance, waiting for any sign of more following. None came. We felt our way through the dark to Silverton and sat on the porch of the house we entered the day before.
We went to the road when we saw the flashing lights. A local police officer had come to check on my distress call. During our drive back to civilisation we told him our story. Had he been less polite he may have laughed in our faces. It was the ramblings of two dehydrated and delirious kids who had managed to get lost in the desert. The scratches all over Ashley’s body gave him pause, but it didn’t stick.
We left the van out there. We didn’t want to go back. A few weeks later the council had it towed. The guys who went up there didn’t see anything and came back unscathed.
We know what we saw. It wasn’t some fever dream brought on by dehydration. Ashley still has scars on her arms.
There is something out there.