Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-eight
The red Ram rolled in behind Amara’s car, big and menacing—but slow, with no headlights on. Amara knew its headlights and the enormous bank of spotlights worked, which meant the driver, now approaching them like a predator who knew this land well.
Parking behind her car, the driver got out slowly, with one hand up in a frozen wave, as if trying to look helpful. ‘Bit off track for a school formal, aren’t ya?’
Her torchlight caught the man’s face as he stepped closer. Average height, in the dust-streaked clothes of a stockman, with his face half-hidden beneath a battered Akubra.
But it was his eyes that chilled her. Pale blue and haunting enough to send a creepy sensation tingling up her spine.
‘G’day,’ said Porter, all casual like. ‘It seems the missus got us into a bit of bother. I had too much drink to drive, and we were dropping off one of the stockmen from the ball, back yonder, and mucked up the mud map. The lady must’ve taken a wrong turn.’
‘I hear ya. Well, little lady, didn’t you land yourself in a powder trap?’
Trap! Was this a trap?
‘You don’t say,’ murmured Porter. Now he was playing dumb.
‘Yeah, it’s a wet season flood channel that fills up nice and neat with bulldust in the dry.
Looks harmless till it snatches your tyres and drags you down.
’ The stranger crouched down and inspected the car, well back from the edge of the dust pit.
‘You’re stuck good and proper… If I pull you the wrong way, we risk sinking the whole car if we’re not careful.
But I can get you out… for a favour.’ He tapped on his pick-up, bigger than a ute, but smaller than a truck.
‘What kind of favour?’
The guy shrugged. ‘You locals?’
‘I’ve only been here a few months,’ Amara piped in. And if Porter wanted her to play dumb, she’d do it. ‘Sorry, don’t know the roads. And obviously mud maps made by men.’
That made the two men chuckle.
‘And you are?’ she asked.
‘Siri, they call me.’ His grin just wasn’t right.
‘Logan and Amara.’ Porter shook the man’s hand. ‘We’d sure appreciate a tug and then point us in the direction back to the main road.’
‘Not locals, eh, coz none of ‘em would bother with a Land Rover like that one. Not out ‘ere they wouldn’t.’ Siri shifted a few tin buckets and a pickaxe to drag a shovel out from the back of the ute, along with some rope.
‘Like I said, I’ve only been here a few months.’ Amara tried to sound casual. ‘But I’ll be looking at getting a more suitable vehicle for the future.’
‘Yeah, looks are deceiving out here. Lots of secrets get buried under this ’ere bulldust.’ He gave a tight grin, tapping the doorframe with a calloused knuckle.
‘Some call it the Devil’s Flour, others the Outback Quicksand, or just straight-up Dust Trap.
Looks harmless—but one wrong step and it’ll swallow a whole cow or a car. Done it before.’
His gaze shifted towards her back seat. The South Australia Police logo was splashed across her work bag, half-covered by her raincoat. But not enough to hide it.
He stepped forward, his neck stretching for that better look. ‘That your bag, miss?’
Amara’s mouth dried. ‘Yeah, work stuff.’
‘What kinda work?’
Porter butted in. ‘Admin. Mining logistics. We get them free bags from the mining shows all the time. Handy, you know.’
The man’s smile didn’t move, but his eyes turned ice cold. ‘Right.’ He hoisted the heavy tow rope over his shoulder. ‘Tell you what… let’s get you outta that hole.’
Siri headed for the rear of the Land Rover. ‘How about you and your pretty dress get back in the car and put that AC on to make yourself comfortable. When your husband taps on the roof, I’ll pull you in reverse. I might need you to hit that brake pedal when you get out, eh?’
‘Sounds good.’ Amara gathered her skirts, picking her way through the soft, powdered soil that sank up to her knees, where each step was like wading through flour.
The car was holding—for now. Somehow, its width was keeping it up, like a playing card floating on powdered sugar. She just had to hope the crust held. Still, it was awful, having to dig open her driver’s door.
‘I’ll give you a hand with the rope,’ Porter offered.
‘You sure, mate? You’ll get that suit all mucked up.’
‘I’m already dirty. And dirt doesn’t bother me—not out here.’
‘Sounds like something a local would say.’
‘I’m learning,’ he said, sharing a quick grin.
Amara climbed into the driver’s seat, pushing more of that dust away from the bottom of the door to close it. Her arms ached from digging.
She clipped the torch to the dash, started the car and flicked on the lights to help the men see the back, and left the engine idling.
The cool air from the vents was a relief.
She took a drink from her water bottle that lived in her car, as her eyes flicked between the mirrors, waiting for instructions.
She pressed the button to lower the window and immediately regretted it.
The glass groaned against the frame, grinding like it had swallowed a mouthful of grit, as a high-pitched screech tore through the cabin as metal dragged against dust-clogged rubber.
Rushing inside, the acrid tang of hot dust, like sunbaked rust and scorched eucalyptus, hit the back of her throat.
‘Hell’s bells.’ Jabbing at the button to send the window back up. It shuddered as it sealed, leaving a thin red trail in its wake.
This was going to cost a fortune. Every seal, every trim, the entire interior ruined by fine red powder that had gotten into everything. It was worse than water, where it didn’t just settle—it invaded.
In the rear-view mirror, two figures moved. It was Porter and Siri, crouched at the back of her car, digging out to hook the rope underneath. She heard metal clink. A muffled laugh.
Then… nothing.
One shape stood. The other didn’t.
‘Porter?’ Amara swivelled around in her seat.
‘Righto, here we go.’ Siri waved and soon his big row of spotlights lit up, blinding her like a wallaby on the road. She had to look away and blink a few times to just see.
The Ram’s beefy engine snarled to life.
The rope snapped tight between the vehicles.
Only the Ram didn’t pull her out slowly, as expected—it yanked her car back, hard.
The sudden, brutal lurch slammed her into her seat and jolted her neck, only for the Land Rover to nosedive straight into the soft hole they’d created.
For a second, she braced, half-expecting the old girl’s airbags to fire.
Instead, the bulldust erupted into a brutal red storm, bursting through the air vents like fire smoke.
It poured across the dash, into her mouth, her nose and eyes, and forced its way in through every unseen seam, behind the floor pedals, through the door seals, even up from beneath the console, rising fast, like floodwater made of dust.
She slammed on the horn for help, just as the cabin tipped forward and the car filled with more fine red powder, sealing her off from the world. It coated everything—skin, hair, lungs. She screamed, choking for air, about to be buried alive.