Beyond Fear

by Jaye Ford

  ‘Oh, dear, that’s not nice,’ she said to him. ‘I can call her a bitch but you can’t.’

  Kane kept his eyes on Jodie. ‘You’re the prickteaser from the pub.’

  Jodie’s heart pounded. She was angry as well as frightened now. She had no idea what her friends were thinking, couldn’t pull her eyes away from him to gauge it, but it didn’t matter. Breakdown or no breakdown, no one spoke to her like that. ‘You can leave now.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jodie. Can’t you take a joke?’ Corrine tittered.

  ‘No, I can’t and they need to leave.’

  Kane smiled slowly. ‘But we haven’t had our dinner yet.’

  No one moved.

  Fear squeezed her chest. If they chose not to leave, how would she get them out? ‘Fuck dinner.’

  Kane stepped casually out of the U of sofas. From the corner of her eye, she saw Travis do the same from the other side of the fire. ‘Oh, dear, that’s not nice,’ Kane said, smiling, copying Corrine’s words as he walked behind Hannah.

  Jodie moved back a pace. She looked quickly across the room, saw Travis moving behind Corrine. She took another step and stood behind Louise, the wine bottle and glass still in her hands.

  Kane stopped a couple of metres from her, smiled, like they were great mates, like she hadn’t just told him to fuck off. His pale eyes were flat and cold. ‘Come on, Jodie.’

  ‘A meal isn’t too much to ask, is it?’ Her head swung around as Travis spoke. ‘Then we’ll get our stuff and get out of here.’

  Kane let his arms drop to his sides, took a step closer. ‘Unless you’re interested in a bit more fun.’

  ‘Look.’ Louise stood up. ‘I think …’

  Jodie didn’t hear what she said. It was just background noise as she reversed even further, her eyes moving between Kane and Travis. They took a couple more steps towards her, still smiling, genial. They were solid, muscular men. It felt threatening. But she wasn’t sure.

  Then Kane laughed. Not like he thought it was funny or awkward, not like he might if he was trying to take the heat out of the situation. He laughed at her. She saw him flick a look at Travis and two thoughts flashed through her head – she was right and it was too late.

  Her fingers tightened on the wine bottle. She had a weapon in her hand. She could defend herself. But she hesitated too long. As she raised the bottle, Travis smacked her hard across the face with the back of his hand.

  An explosion went off in her head. Her feet came off the floor and she dropped hard. Pain shot up her arm, the air was knocked out of her lungs. It took a second for her to think past the burning on her face, the roar in her ears, the fact she was sprawled on the timber desperate to draw breath. She opened her eyes, saw two dirt-crusted workboots and jerked her head up. A second later she moved with a speed she hadn’t thought possible the moment before.

  Travis had a gun and he was pointing it at her face.

  It was a handgun and it looked huge. He must have had it the whole time. Did they both have guns? She wanted to see if Kane was pointing a gun at her too, but all she could do was scrabble backwards, reverse crawling, her boots slipping on the polished timber, something sharp crushing under the palm of her hand. She kept going until the wall was at her back, her knees on her chest and her heels pressed into the right angle between the floor and the skirting board. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps as Travis lowered the weapon and touched the cold metal to the cheekbone he’d just hit.

  Her body went still. She closed her eyes. And she was no longer in the barn.

  She was seventeen again. Waiting to die.

  It wasn’t her life that flashed before her eyes but the night she’d waited for death. As though the vacuum pack that had compressed those memories into a tight, almost unreachable package had been ripped wide open. A strobe of pictures and sounds flashed through her head. Angela’s terrified eyes. Cruel laughter. Feet scuffling on a gravel path. Dirt grazing her face. Brutal, guttural grunting. Angie sobbing. Run, Jodie, run. The pounding on her stomach. Blood dripping on her bare feet.

  ‘Fucking bitch!’ Kane shouted the words in her face, the wet spray of spit on her cheek dragging her from the nightmare of her past to the nightmare she was in. She opened her mouth and air rushed in on a huge gasp. There was movement close by. She squeezed her eyes tighter, hearing for the first time Corrine screaming, and waiting for another blow. Or for the shot that would rip her head apart.

  ‘Get the others,’ Travis said.

  ‘Jesus fucking …’ Kane started, an edge of excitement in his voice.

  ‘Get the others,’ Travis bawled, pushing the gun harder into her bruised cheek.

  No. No. ‘No!’ She tried to shout the word but it came out as barely more than a whisper. Memories flashed in her head. Louise and Hannah and Corrine mixed up with Angie and the blood and the terror.

  She forced her eyes open.

  The gun was silver with a black handle and was pushed so hard into her face that the flesh of her cheek half blocked the vision from her left eye. She could smell Travis’s sweat and stale cigarette smoke and alcohol, something a whole lot stronger than their white wine. Whatever it was, he’d drunk enough to make his clothes reek of it. And now he had a gun on her face. Stone-cold fear lodged itself in her chest. She made herself look past it, to find her friends.

  She was pressed to the wall somewhere between the front door and the hallway. Over the top of the sofa, she could see Louise and Hannah huddled together near the fireplace in the safety of the U of furniture. She couldn’t see Corrine but as Kane moved across the room, Louise stepped forward and pulled her up off the floor, dragging her limping to where they stood.

  Jodie watched helpless as Kane stormed towards them. They clung to each other, shrinking past the mantelpiece, up against the window. Louise held out a hand. ‘No,’ she cried. Kane grabbed a handful of Corrine’s long hair and pulled so hard her head snapped sideways. She shrieked, stumbled forward to the floor, disappeared from Jodie’s view again. Hannah bent to help her but Kane shoved her roughly away.

  ‘Get over there!’ he yelled. He pushed Louise in the back. ‘Move!’ He reached down and Corrine let out a short, sharp scream. ‘Get up, bitch!’

  Louise and Hannah helped Corrine to her feet then the three of them hurried forward, trying to keep clear of Kane. He shoved Louise again and she staggered, taking the other two with her as she fell.

  Kane rammed his heel into her shin. ‘Get over by the wall.’

  Lou held her leg, shuffled back, the other two pulling her in by the arms, by the collar of her shirt. Then Jodie couldn’t see them. They were right beside her, a metre away, pressed in tight against the wall but out of her view. Her head was pinned to the wall, face forward, the gun on her cheek like a tack holding a page to a corkboard.

  She wanted to see them. Wanted to fill her vision with them before she died. The argument didn’t matter now. They were her best friends. She rolled her eyes as far as she could to the right, till the muscles behind them felt like they’d tear. Corrine was crying, mascara running down her cheeks, her face crumpled and trembling. Hannah was ghostly pale and she looked at Jodie with a sickening mix of horror and realisation. Louise was still, frozen, knees hugged to her chest, gripping the shin Kane had kicked, her green eyes wide open and moving in short, sharp jerks from the gun to its owner and back again.

  Jodie’s vision blurred with tears. She blinked hard and fast, frightened of the images in her head. Frightened of the ones in front of her. She should have ignored Hannah. She should have done something before it got to this. She’d trained for this, taught others what to do. Shit, shit, shit. Think, Jodie. What are you meant to do? She should know what to do. She breathed hard through her nose. Her cheek hurt. She wanted to cry. Focus, Jodie. But she couldn’t see past the horror replaying in her mind or the fear that paralysed her. Travis didn’t need a gun to hold her against the wall. She couldn’t move if she tried.

  ‘Four fucking bitches!’ Kane
was strutting back and forth in front of them, hyped up, a wild energy coming off him. ‘We’ve got our work cut out for us now, bro.’

  Bro? Were they brothers? Or was it street slang, like the boys at school used? She wanted to think about it, figure it out but she couldn’t get two thoughts in line. It was all happening too fast. Beside her, one of the girls whimpered and Corrine let out a long, wailing sob.

  ‘Shut up!’ Travis yelled at Corrine, pushing the hard metal further into Jodie’s cheek. One of the others shushed her urgently and she fell silent. He adjusted his stance, moved over Jodie a little more, brought his other hand up to the handle of the gun in a double-fisted hold. ‘Find something to tie them with.’

  Kane bounced from one foot to the other. ‘It’s no fun if they don’t fight.’

  ‘We tie them then we do what we came for.’ He shot Kane a brief, hard look. ‘Move!’

  Still leering, Kane turned and headed towards the kitchen.

  ‘And find something better to drink than this wine shit,’ Travis called.

  Kane disappeared from Jodie’s line of sight. He was going to tie them up. Deep in her belly, something shifted, like the epicentre of an earthquake, and her body shook violently.

  ‘What do you want?’ Louise’s voice was clear and firm and angry.

  ‘Shut up,’ Travis snapped.

  Jodie looked up, past the muzzle of the gun, along the powerful arm that held it, saw Travis’s dark eyes dart tensely to the other side of the room and back.

  ‘There’s nothing valuable here. We just came for the weekend,’ Louise said. She was still hugging her legs to her chest, her eyes were wide but her lips were pressed tight.

  ‘Shut up, bitch.’

  ‘We would’ve given you all the damn food if you’d asked nicely.’ Louise’s voice sounded dangerously sarcastic. One of the other girls whispered a shhh.

  The side of Travis’s mouth turned up in a nasty half-grin. ‘Oh, we’re not just after food, ladies. We’re going to take whatever we goddamn want. And you’re not going to enjoy it. All you need to know is that you chose the wrong fucking weekend to come here.’

  Jodie’s spine turned to liquid. The barn was her idea. An isolated cabin on top of a hill, kilometres from anywhere and anyone. She should have known better. This was her fault.

  ‘Hey, Trav,’ Kane called from the other side of the room. ‘I found their phones.’

  Jodie swung her eyes to the right. Kane must be at the island bar. She still couldn’t see him from where she sat but she knew what was there. A big, handcrafted glass bowl they’d used to store miscellaneous bits and pieces – sunglasses, cameras, Lou’s mints, Corrine’s hairclip, their mobiles. Kane came back, the phones in his hands.

  ‘There’s only three,’ Travis said. ‘Whose is missing?’ He looked over at Louise, Hannah and Corrine then back at Jodie. ‘Whose is missing?’

  Oh God, it was hers. It was in her handbag. She tried to open her mouth to say something, to own up to it. But there was a gun pressed to her face. Would he just pull the trigger if she said, ‘It’s mine’? Would they be her last words?

  19

  A phone clattered to the floor. ‘Whose is this?’ Kane said.

  ‘It’s mine,’ Corrine’s voice was tiny. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a phone. It was a shiny, silver BlackBerry with internet access, five-megapixel camera and a gazillion other functions.

  ‘Nice phone,’ he said and smashed it with his heel.

  Jodie flinched at the casual destruction. It felt like a demonstration of intent.

  ‘Whose is this?’ He dropped a flip-top one on the floor.

  ‘Mine,’ Hannah said.

  He slammed his boot down and ground the ball of his foot into the debris. ‘Whose is this shit-box?’ He dropped a battered old Nokia.

  No one spoke. Jodie looked at Louise. She was staring at Kane, eyes blazing, mouth set.

  Jodie took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut and thanked whoever it was that gave her a friend like Lou. ‘It’s Louise’s.’

  In the moment Kane broke it apart, Travis changed the angle of his gun and pushed so hard on Jodie’s bruised cheek that she cried out in pain. He bent to her face and shouted, ‘Did you think we wouldn’t figure it out, you stupid bitch? Where’s your phone?’

  ‘In … in my bag. My handbag.’

  ‘Where?’

  She couldn’t think where she’d left it. She swung her eyes towards the front door. It wasn’t there.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I … I … on the bench. On the kitchen bench.’

  ‘Get it,’ he told Kane. Over at the bench, Kane up-ended the bag and the contents spilled across the floor. Purse, keys, lipstick, camera, loose change, a couple of tampons. No phone.

  A small choking sound escaped her lips.

  ‘Where’s your phone?’ Travis shouted.

  ‘I … I don’t know.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I put it there this …’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It was there when …’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. If it’s not in my bag, I don’t know where it is. Maybe it fell out. It must have fallen out. It might be in the car. I don’t know.’ Travis loomed over her, dropped one hand from his gun grip, raised the weapon as though he was readying to …

  ‘I DON’T KNOW. I don’t fucking know.’

  Kane laughed, bouncing from foot to foot. ‘I think she doesn’t know, bro.’

  Travis lowered his elbow and the pressure eased a little on her cheek. ‘If that phone turns up later, I’ll put a hole in your head. You got that?’

  Tears stung Jodie’s eyes. ‘Yep. Sure. It won’t. I promise.’

  ‘Kane, did you find something to tie them with?’ Travis said, without taking his eyes off her.

  ‘No.’

  He turned and looked at Kane. Thick veins down the side of his neck were swollen with anger. ‘Then do it,’ he shouted. ‘And find me something to drink.’

  Jodie watched Travis follow Kane with his eyes. She pushed her tongue around her mouth, feeling bruising on the inside of her cheek and the metallic taste of blood. Her legs ached from squatting against the wall. Her ribs throbbed. The palm of one hand burned. And she was so scared she couldn’t think straight. On the other side of the room, out of sight, Kane knocked something large and heavy over.

  Louise’s voice cut into their terrified silence. ‘Let Hannah look at her hand. She’s a nurse.’

  Jodie rolled her eyes to her. What the hell was she doing? The guy was ready to put a bullet into her brain. What did he care about someone’s hand?

  ‘There’s glass in it. I can see it from here,’ Louise said, releasing her legs from her arms.

  ‘Move again and I’ll pull the trigger.’

  ‘Just let her take the glass out.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘She’s going to bleed all over you if the glass doesn’t come out.’

  Jodie felt a rush of heat to her face. One of the girls was hurt. And Lou was going to get herself shot. Or Jodie shot.

  ‘I’ve got a wad of tissues in my pocket,’ Louise pushed.

  ‘Shut up, Louise,’ Corrine hissed.

  ‘She’ll just get the glass out, give her the tissues and sit back down again. It’ll take five seconds. The blood on your jeans would just look like mud then. You know, when you leave.’

  Jodie rolled her eyes to the other side and saw his jeans. There was a dark splotch at the front, below the knee. Suspended above it was her left hand. It was red with blood.

  Her body jerked. She saw her hands on another night. In the headlights of a car. Wet and red, blood dripping through her fingers onto her bare feet.

  ‘God. No.’ She pressed both hands to her stomach, hard, pulling in the sides, pushing against the muscles under the flesh. She couldn’t look down. Her head was still jammed against the wall by the gun. How much blood was there? When had he cut her? She felt pain. A sha
rp, intense burning. In her stomach. No. In her hand.

  ‘Five seconds.’ Louise was loud and urgent now.

  Then Hannah was beside her, trying to take her hand away from her stomach.

  Jodie pulled against her. ‘No. I need to keep the pressure on.’

  ‘It’s your hand, Jodie. There’s glass in your hand.’

  ‘What?’ She let Hannah take her hand and spread her fingers open. A piece of glass protruded from her palm just below the base of the thumb. It looked like one of Corrine’s acrylic nails, as though she’d pointed at the back of Jodie’s hand and accidentally pushed it all the way through. Where had it come from? Her eyes slid around, saw on the floor the bottle of wine on its side, a wet stain around it and the shattered pieces of her wineglass. She must have fallen on it.

  Then her head was jammed harder against the wall, the side of her mouth pushed up by the muzzle of the gun.

  ‘Five seconds are up.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Hannah was pale, her lips scrunched together, tears in her eyes.

  ‘Do it, Hannah!’ Louise yelled.

  Hannah bent her head, tried to grip the glass between her thumb and index finger. She was shaking, trembling so hard she couldn’t get the sliver between her fingertips. Jodie had never seen Hannah shake. Not even when her own daughter Chelsea ran through Lou’s glass door and was cut to pieces. But she was shaking now.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Jodie snapped her hand away as the glass came out with a sharp sting. She held it up to her face, looked at it along the side of the gun, saw a bubble of blood brew quickly from the hole and run down her wrist.

  Travis shoved his foot into Hannah’s shoulder, knocking her away. ‘Time’s up.’

  ‘Bastard!’ Louise yelled as Hannah scrabbled to her knees and pushed a wad of tissues into Jodie’s hand.

  ‘Get over there,’ Travis shouted. ‘And you,’ he glared at Louise, ‘keep your fucking mouth shut.’

  ‘I know what’d shut her up.’ Kane was back and he’d cupped his hand around his crutch. ‘She won’t talk with this in her mouth.’