Xenoflight, p.1
Xenoflight, page 1
Xenoflight
NEAN MCKENZIE
Xenoflight
First published 2022 by MidnightSun Publishing Pty Ltd
PO Box 3647, Rundle Mall, SA 5000, Australia.
www.midnightsunpublishing.com
Copyright © Nean McKenzie 2022
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers (including, but not restricted to, Google and Amazon), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of MidnightSun Publishing.
Cover design by Kim Lock
Internal design by Zena Shapter
Typeset in Bradley Hand, Britannic Bold, Courier and Helvetica Light.
Printed and bound in Australia by Ovato. The papers used by MidnightSun in the manufacture of this book are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable plantation forests.
For Wendy and Rex
Cryptozoology:
the study of hidden creatures
Xeno:
other, different
CHAPTER 1
Nessa Santiago put one foot on the steel rope that ran between her bedroom window and the sturdy branch of a nearby gum tree. Fernando, her pet ferret, pattered across the wire in front of her. It was 6.30 in the morning and still dark, but Nessa was too excited to sleep. She took a deep breath of the familiar smell of eucalyptus and seaweed and stepped out onto the rope, trying to remember what Auntie Carla had taught her.
‘Walk tall,’ she would say.
The brisk breeze ruffled Nessa’s rather messy black hair and brought the sound of crashing waves up from the Wye River beach below. She kept her head high and her chest up. The balance was tricky with her shoes looped around her neck, but she managed after an initial wobble. She looked straight ahead, feeling where to put her bare feet on the wire. It was always a bit uncomfortable.
Holding her arms out to the side, Nessa made her way across, swinging one foot in front of the other. About two thirds of the way along, the wire started to sway. Starting small, the wobble increased in size, tipping her off sideways into a bush below.
‘Ow.’ Pain shot down her arm to the ends of her fingers as she landed on her elbow.
Fernando climbed down the tree and to her side. He put his little nose against her neck. Nessa cuddled him, burying her face in his brown and white fur with its musky scent. As usual, Fernando made everything better. Nessa put on her shoes and stood up.
‘Let’s go, Petito,’ she said.
She grabbed the metal detector off the front porch and they went down the steep hill towards the beach. The muffled ocean noises grew louder as they passed dark, quiet holiday houses. A sleepy koala grunted and Nessa zipped her thick jacket up further against the chilly air. Her toes were already numb inside her shoes but she tried not to notice.
Once they reached the sand, Nessa and Fernando headed towards the rocks at Separation Creek. Nessa stared out towards the horizon as it grew lighter and for a moment, she saw something out of the corner of her eye – a large shadow in the sky. She turned her head but nothing was there. A distant call of a seabird came in on the wind, straight from Antarctica and Nessa shivered. She set to work, looking for coins in the sand, one thought in her mind. Today she was going to meet her father.
There was a golden glint in the sand as the sun peeped over the horizon. Nessa fell to her knees and sifted through, finding two-dollar coins, five … six of them. It would definitely add to her secret emergency stash. She dug through the sand but there were no more. She sat back and transferred the gritty coins to the pocket of her jeans.
La única persona en la que puedes confiar es en ti mismo as Auntie Carla would say. The only person you can rely on is yourself.
A gust of icy wind whipped up, blowing sand into Nessa’s eyes. She half covered them with her hand and noticed a piece of newspaper flitting across the beach towards the water. Jumping to her feet she chased after it and scooped it up just before it reached the wet sand. There was nothing worse than litter on the beach, getting into the ocean and destroying the lives of tiny sea creatures. Nessa straightened out the paper which was a few days old and frowned.
CRYPTID HUNTER FINDS DROP BEARS IN TASMANIA
There was a photo of the Cryptid Hunter underneath. He looked like he was on some sort of outback expedition in a khaki shirt, shorts and big boots. He was unsmiling. Nessa read underneath.
The Cryptid Hunter is here! The international organisation HARNESS has announced rewards for authentic sightings, of any creatures not proven to exist (cryptids) in Australia. Following a sighting in Tasmania, $20,000 rewards for these creatures will be given, but first they need to be verified by a team of HARNESS experts. These cryptids will be transported to the Cryptopark, in an undisclosed location. ‘It is for everyone’s safety that these creatures are removed from human contact,’ said the Cryptid Hunter in a recent interview. ‘Both the safety of the cryptids and the humans.’
Nessa screwed up the piece of paper in disgust and shoved it in the pocket of her jeans.
‘Fernando!’ She looked around and saw him, frolicking around near the rocks as the early morning light glinted off his white fur. He ran to Nessa with his peculiar looping stride. She scooped him up and held him close, feeling the little bumps on his back. ‘Let’s go back,’ she said. ‘Before Auntie Carla gets up.’
thwupp, Thwupp, THWUPP …
Nessa heard it, faint at first in the post-dawn stillness, then it grew louder. A throbbing noise in the sky. Nessa turned back towards the sea and saw it. Like a giant dragon fly, a black helicopter lowered itself down, swaying from side to side. It disappeared out of her sight behind the rocks towards Wye River. Nessa kicked off her shoes and put Fernando down on the sand. They ran towards the rocks.
It didn’t take Nessa long – circus training with Auntie Carla kept her fit and fast. She clambered between the rock pools, her small, calloused feet not noticing the roughness. As luck would have it, the tide was out, meaning she didn’t have to wade through freezing cold water in her jeans. Nessa rounded the point and stopped.
The helicopter was on the beach. Sand whirled around it in the wind, whipped up by the propeller blades. Auntie Carla stood near the door, grey curls swirling around her face, her head ducked low. Beside her was a stocky man with grey hair and a moustache.
‘Auntie Carla!’ Nessa tried to yell but the thump of the propeller blades and the whine of the engine drowned out her voice. Auntie Carla climbed inside.
‘No!’ Nessa started forward, but she was too far away. The helicopter heaved itself upwards, the rotors spinning faster and faster to get it into the sky. As Nessa ran in its direction, it turned away and flew out to sea.
‘Auntie Carla!’ Nessa yelled. She waved her hands above her head as she jumped up and down. She dropped to her knees on the sand and watched the helicopter fly away over the ocean, the white letters on its side clearly visible.
HARNESS.
Nessa’s mind whirred with confusion. Should she go for help? She picked up Fernando and stumbled across the Great Ocean Road towards the general store. Her brain couldn’t quite process what had just happened. Auntie Carla had said she was going away, but why had she gone with HARNESS? It didn’t make sense.
Nessa realised she had left her shoes and the metal detector on the beach at Separation Creek but she didn’t turn back; she just wanted to get back to the house. She ran past the Wye Beach Hotel up the hill, hardly noticing how steep it was. At the top, she turned off down a small road, through densely planted trees. A white cockatoo shrieked and flew away. Nessa unlocked the door of the small wooden house with shaky hands and went straight up to her room.
It stank of ferret. Fernando trotted over to the bed and curled up on top of some dirty clothes. Nessa sank down next to him. What had just happened?
‘I have to go away for a while querida mía,’ Auntie Carla had said the night before, stacking up the plates at dinner.
Nessa stared at her. ‘Where?’
Her aunt didn’t meet her eye.
‘It’s complicated.’ She sat down beside Nessa and tucked a grey-black curl behind her own ear. ‘Your father is coming. It was going to be today, but he was delayed. We wanted it to be a surprise.’
Surprise was an understatement. Nessa couldn’t say anything. In all of her thirteen years, she’d never met her father. She hardly knew anything about him. Whenever she brought him up, Auntie Carla changed the subject. But lately she’d been asking more questions.
‘Why?’ was all she managed this time.
Auntie Carla got up and carried the plates over to the sink. ‘He wants to be the one to tell you everything, so I can’t say. But you will get along, I know.’
‘Tell me one thing about him.’ Nessa needed something. She couldn’t wait.
‘Well, he is very kind to animals.’ Auntie Carla rested her hand on top of Nessa’s head. ‘He even has a tattoo of a cartoon cat called Felix on his arm.’ Auntie Carla shook her head and smiled. ‘Your mother hated that tattoo.’ Her smiling eyes suddenly grew sad.
Nessa glanced at the framed photo of Gabriella, her mother, sitting on the bookcase. She’d died years ago in Spain when Nessa was just a baby. Her eyes were dark, like Auntie Carla
‘You’ll be going to his house,’ said Auntie Carla. ‘But I will see you when I get back, I hope.’ She handed Nessa a medium-sized black book with dog-eared pages. On the front was the title A Compilation of Cryptids (from around the world) by Sheridan Fugue.
Nessa frowned. What did she mean, she hoped?
‘It may seem a little strange,’ said Auntie Carla. ‘But I want you to read this book. Your father’s address is inside, just in case there are any problems.’
‘What problems?’ said Nessa.
But Auntie Carla moved into the laundry and it seemed the conversation had finished.
Written on a scrap piece of paper inside the book were the words Nessa had longed for. Her father’s address, in Myrtleford, northern Victoria. There was no phone number, but that wasn’t surprising. Auntie Carla didn’t have a phone. She didn’t believe in them.
‘You never know who could trace it,’ she always said.
Nessa put her father’s address under her pillow that night. She left the book on the floor of her room to read later.
Now, Nessa retrieved the book from her floor and sat cross-legged on her bed to read it. As she opened the cover, Auntie Carla’s scent wafted toward her – a combination of honey and smoke. In the quiet house, tears sprang to Nessa’s eyes. When would she see her auntie again? She wiped her eyes impatiently and turned the page.
A Compilation of Cryptids was an A-Z of the strangest creatures Nessa had ever seen. Divided up into countries, there were pictures and detailed descriptions of anything from a Stronsay Beast (a weird type of shark) in the Orkney Islands in Scotland, to an Ahool (a monstrously large bat) in Indonesia. Nessa turned to Australia and found bunyips, black cats, river monsters and even a Gunni, a kind of wombat with antlers. Nessa frowned. Did this have anything to do with why Auntie Carla had gone away with HARNESS? Surely she didn’t agree with capturing creatures. Nessa just couldn’t believe it.
Nessa closed the book then rummaged around in the carpet of clothes on the floor for her backpack. Fernando sniffed it and tried to get inside but Nessa pulled him away.
‘Not yet, Petito.’
Inside the bag she put warm clothes, a sleeping bag, her spare pair of shoes, a set of juggling balls, a well-folded letter, a torch, a couple of nut bars, her lock-picking kit and A Compilation of Cryptids. Then she went downstairs to wait for her father. She reached into her pocket for the money she’d found on the beach – still sandy – and put it into the bag along with the photo of her mum.
Waiting is not much fun at the best of times, but it’s doubly frustrating when you’re waiting for your long-lost father. Nessa began to wonder if he was even coming. She tried to memorise all of the creatures in the cryptozoology book and wondered why it was important that she had it. Auntie Carla must have given it to her for a reason.
The day wore on. Well after lunch, Nessa went up to her room, yawning. She’d been up since before dawn and could barely keep her eyes open. She lay on the bed next to Fernando, who already snored gently. Nessa closed her eyes. The roof creaked as it cooled down after the sunny afternoon. Parrots scratched around, pecking at seeds then using their beaks to crack them. In a few minutes, Nessa was also asleep.
High up in the air, looking down on the spires of a cathedral the colour of sandstone. Intricate decorations over every inch of the immense structure, partly covered by scaffolding. Swooping low to get closer, almost close enough to touch the top of the spires. Tiny people on the ground point and peer upwards.
Nessa woke. It was dark – she must have slept longer than she’d thought. And she’d had another strange dream. But there was something more important. A sound. There was a person downstairs, trying to open the front door.
Auntie Carla had said her father would come. But wouldn’t he knock? Nessa leaned out over the window sill, to see who it was, her heart in her mouth. Then she froze.
The man had sandy-grey hair. She knew who he was at once. She’d seen him before on TV and in all the papers. It wasn’t her father at the front door. It was the Cryptid Hunter.
CHAPTER 2
Nessa had no idea why the Cryptid Hunter had turned up at her house, but it couldn’t be a good thing. Especially since he was trying to break in.
‘We have to get out of here.’ Nessa picked up Fernando, who gave her finger a sleepy bite. He woke up when Nessa put him on the tight rope and made it across to the tree easily. Nessa climbed out of the window, hanging from the sill by both hands. Her shoulder still ached from this morning and she let go, landing just next to a prickly shrub. The Cryptid Hunter was nowhere in sight. He must have gotten inside. Beside her, Fernando nipped her ankle gently. Together they stole through the trees, down the hill, avoiding the roads. When they reached the beach, Nessa hesitated for just a moment. Then she heard the sirens.
Police. Nessa ducked down behind a rubbish bin and peered into the darkness. The blue and red flashing lights lit up the night, as a car screeched to a halt just beside her. She shielded her eyes from the high beams of another vehicle and crouched down further. The door opened and the Cryptid Hunter got out. He walked over to the police car and shook hands through the window with the cop. Nessa sucked in her breath.
Even the police were in league with HARNESS. Auntie Carla had always told her to keep away from them. Nessa tried not to breathe as she and Fernando crept in the direction of the sand dunes. She kept as low to the ground as she could, then ran and dived into the ti-trees. Underneath the twisted trunks were gaps that a girl, who was small for her age, and a ferret could squeeze into. If they didn’t mind the smell of dog wee.
Nessa wasn’t in a position to be fussy. She crouched, backpack still on. Her legs prickled with pins and needles, then grew numb. Scratchy ti-tree leaves tickled her cheek and she moved away, ever so slightly. She was almost blinded by an incredibly bright torch light. She closed her eyes and picked up Fernando, holding him close.
‘Nessa Santiago!’ She heard the Cryptid Hunter’s weird Scottish accent. ‘Come out if you’re there. I’m not going to hurt you.’
Nessa frowned. How did he know her name? Did it have something to do with Auntie Carla going off with HARNESS? She stayed as still as she could and kept her eyes shut. He was definitely not to be trusted.
Fernando wriggled. He’d been asleep for most of the day but seemed to have chosen this moment to be wide awake. Nessa put a comforting hand on him.
‘There’s something over there!’ It was the police officer’s voice. Nessa opened her eyes. Fernando wriggled harder, desperately trying to get out. Nessa hugged him close, trying to restrain him. He gave her a nip, through her jeans.
‘Stop it,’ she whispered ‘Do you want him to catch you?’
But Fernando was on a mission and he wouldn’t stay still. Heavy footsteps grew louder, and Nessa crouched, barely managing to keep hold of her squeaking ferret. She peered out through the gaps in the branches but all she could see was light, focused on exactly where she was. Should she get up and run? She wasn’t sure her legs still worked. But she was going to have to do something.
Rark!
A sound that was strange and familiar at the same time. Loud. Close.
‘My God!’ The Cryptid Hunter’s voice sounded hoarse. ‘It’s the Drakenbird.’
The torch lights were suddenly gone and Nessa was back in darkness. She crouched, hardly breathing. Fernando was finally still. He seemed to be listening too.
Rark, rark!
‘Get the helicopter!’ The Cryptid Hunter’s voice was urgent.
Nessa risked a look over the bushes and saw him over by the car. Was he on a phone?
‘Now! I don’t want to lose it.’ He paused. ‘I’ll be back Nessa,’ he called. ‘Just stay at the house. I won’t be long.’
As if. Nessa couldn’t believe it. She was getting as far away from here as possible. Car doors slammed and engines started up.
Nessa found she could move again and sat up. She gazed out and saw the cars, already driving along the road to Lorne. The police car’s blue and red lights flashed in the dark night. Out to sea, a large orange moon was just coming up from the horizon. Silhouetted against it she saw massive wings, a pointed head. A bird. But no bird could be that big.
