“Guys like you will never stop,” she said, gasping out of breath.
He forced his burning eyelids open through the pain. Blurred and fuzzy, towering above him like an Amazon woman about to deliver a death blow, the girl was holding a thick eucalypt branch the size of a large axe handle above her head. Her arms seemed to quiver, either under the weight of it or in doubt of what she was about to do.
“Go ahead!” he said, actually welcoming the thought of ending it all right here and now. It was, after all, all over now, wasn’t it? “Do the world a favour.”
“My pleasure,” she said, and swung the branch down onto his skull.
Somewhere above, the kookaburra laughed again.
Tuesday, 25th November 2008
Dear Diary,
I’m so pathetic. I’ve just been over to Max’s house to plead with him to reconsider our relationship. I know, I know. I’m weak. I’m a glutton for punishment. I deserve to be ridiculed. Heaven knows what Georgina would’ve said if she knew I’d gone over to his house begging like a lapdog for scraps of food. Most likely something along the lines of, “Where’s your pride, girl? Have some respect for yourself! There’s plenty more men out there. Get a grip on yourself.”
But in a way I’m not sorry. I still love him despite what he said. I think I’d love him no matter what he did or said, actually. Is that weak? Is that being a pussy? Or is it just what love does to you? Makes your heart ache, makes your head hurt, makes every bone in your body cry out in pain? I guess it’s why they say love is a drug. It’s an addiction. When it’s gone, when it’s no longer available, you go into withdrawal.
Because that’s the state of affairs at the moment, isn’t it? I’m in Max withdrawal, and love makes you lose yourself and do things you wouldn’t normally do in a fit state of mind.
It’s probably a good thing that he wasn’t home, now that I think about it. I went over there with the hope he’d take me in his arms and tell me how sorry he was and everything would be back to the way it was. But if he had shut the door in my face and told me nothing could ever be the same again I’m not sure how I would’ve reacted. A blubbering mess on his doorstep most likely.
Which was one less humiliation I had to go through. He wasn’t there, so I wasn’t rejected. I can still hope, I guess. I can still cling to that. Along with faith that everything will turn out okay in the end, that everything will be as it is meant to be.
And that, really, is all I have, isn’t it. How does it go in Corinthians? “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
I wonder where Max is.
CHAPTER 15
Max was amazed to find himself still alive when he woke up. He’d been through this before in the hospital. It was the pain that told him he hadn’t passed on to the other place. The pain was always a dead giveaway. The pain sucked.
The pain, in fact, was fuck’n everywhere, not an inch of his body didn’t have some sort of screaming complaint about the current state of play. The side of his face abutting the wet earth felt cool and damp and slightly numb. That was probably the best part of his whole body. He’d also been drooling. The other side of his face, his cheek especially, felt swollen and aching. He didn’t bother touching it to confirm his assumption.
The bitch has definitely broken it.
Besides the world’s worst fuck’n headache, the middle of his forehead also felt swollen and achy. It also felt sticky. Probably where she had brought down the tree branch down onto his head, he figured, the blow he’d hoped would end his miserable fuck’n days. The useless bitch couldn’t even do that properly.
He moaned, as much in pain as in despair. You picked the wrong fuck’n chick this time, Maxy boy, he said to himself. Shit!
Capsicum spray? Why the fuck hadn’t he thought about that before? A lot of chicks carried it. Why hadn’t it crossed his mind before?
Because you’ve got shit for brains, Maxy. Born stupid and you’ll die stupid. The old fucker was right about that.
His inbred stupidity wasn’t the only thing this whole scenario had proved fuck’n obvious. She’d also been taught self-defence by someone who knew how to incapacitate an attacker, that was for fuck’n sure. The karate kick to his balls proved that beyond a doubt.
At least his testicles had returned to their normal place of abode. His hand was resting on his groin, but he couldn’t feel them because the whole of his arm on which he was lying had gone dead numb. He knew his baby makers were okay though. He could sense his boys were in their proper place, much like he knew how many cans of West End were in the fridge back home without needing to look. Two. He figured his scrotum would be swollen and bruised from the vicious intercourse with the bitch’s foot, but although he wanted to inspect the damage he put it to the back of his mind for later. For now, he was just happy they were still in one piece.
At least his eyes had lost much of their sting, but he could still catch the reek of spicy fly spray all over his clothes and face. He blinked his eyes open and propped himself up on his good elbow to assess the situation. Night had not yet descended in total darkness. Despite the dimness, he could still make out the trees and bushes around him. As well, no stars were yet visible in the darkening sky and the local fauna had yet to complete their habitual changeover from dayshift to nightshift—the koalas weren’t growling in the eucalypts, the possums weren’t scuttling through the branches, the owls weren’t hooting—nonetheless the silence was profound. He figured, therefore, he’d been unconscious for maybe thirty minutes, three quarters of an hour at most. Which meant the girl was probably still making her way through the bush to the billabong.
The girl, shit! She’s still out here.
The urge crossed his mind to head out after her again, and he actually stood and walked a few proppy steps in her direction, but reason stepped in and squashed the emotion like a cockroach under his heel. Tracking her down in the fading light was next to impossible. That’s if she hadn’t already made it to the road and flagged down a passing car. It was pointless.
You’re too fuck’n late, Maxy boy. She’s gone you stupid fuck.
Staring at the bushland in the dim light, he armed the drool from his mouth, considering his options. He tentatively touched his swollen cheek, which screamed in protest, confirming his initial diagnosis. He also examined the crusted wetness in the middle of his forehead and wasn’t too surprised to feel an open wound, which he figured needed cleaning up and suturing at some point, something he’d have to do himself at a later point tonight.
He glanced back at the spot at the base of the eucalypt where he’d been ambushed, running through his mind the sequence of events that had led to this moment. He threw his aching head back and moaned, wishing to hell he was anywhere in the fuck’n world but here, wishing most of all he was back in Lorraine’s house snuggled up with her on the couch watching TV.
How the fuck has it gotten to this?
Notwithstanding the blows to his head, his memory was remarkably intact. Vivid, almost. He remembered watching the top of the bitch’s head disappear below the crest of the hill and savouring the last few minutes in anticipation of the hunt. Before he headed after her, though, he’d had second thoughts about the Remy. This was not going to be just another roo shoot. This was fuck’n personal, and it called for a personal weapon, his hunting knife.
He had set the rifle down in the back seat of the Cherokee, located the knife in the humpy and then followed the bitch down the hill to the creek line. Following her tracks in the wet soil had been easy until she entered the creek. For most of the year the creek was nothing but rocks and sand and fallen branches, however the recent rains had meant the overflow from the dam was now a constant stream down the valley toward Serena. Which in other circumstances was fine, but not today. Today was not fuck’n fine at all. The clever bitch had worked out he wouldn’t be able to track her footprints if she stuck to the stream. It might slow her progress, but it would slow his even more
because he’d have to continually check the banks of the creek to see if she had taken a different course.
You’re a smart little tart, aren’t you? he recalled thinking at the time.
At that point though, it hadn’t annoyed him, only aroused him even more.
He considered tracking her downstream but decided against it. Some gut instinct told him she’d headed upstream, although there was no evidence whatsoever to support his conviction. In the end he was proved right. To his good fortune, he struck her spoor about fifty minutes into hunt. Her houndstooth jacket, its sleeves torn, several buttons missing, its collar ripped, was clinging to a rock in the creek where it had either drifted down the stream or had jammed where it’d been dumped. One hundred metres further upstream a small wattle branch had been snapped, caught in its splinters a strand of long black hair. Then movement. At first he mistook her for a roo climbing out of the creek line, but no roo wore black stockings and a skirt did it?
You’re mine now, sweet pea, he said to himself, grinning.
Crouching low so as not to give himself away, he watched her sit at the base of a eucalypt tree and examine her raw, hurting feet. She looked exhausted and resigned to her fate, which he knew was about to descend on her faster than the approaching night. Above, a kookaburra flew from out of the setting sun and perched on a nearby branch, looking down at the female intruder with curiosity. The girl then unclipped her oh-so-fuck’n-fancy Chanel handbag and removed something that he couldn’t quite make out from where he was.
You certainly know what the fuck it was now, don’t you? he said to the memory. Even then it didn’t click, did it stupid?
He then watched her crawl on hands and knees around the base of the eucalypt, presumably hiding and hoping he’d either pass straight by her in the creek without seeing her or waiting for the upcoming darkness to slip away into the night and out of sight.
Eking out the moment for as long as he could, Max edged his way out of the creek onto the bank and toward the eucalypt where he knew his prey was cowering. Careful to not step on a fallen branch or to breathe too heavily for fear of being heard, he stopped short of the tree, grinning. He’d made it. She was his. She was going to learn that rich bitches like her have to change their ways, that they were no good fuck’n brats that needed to be taught a lesson.
And the lesson was humility.
“Daddy can’t help you now, darling,” he said out loud.
She didn’t answer, although he knew damn well she’d heard.
He edged closer to the tree trunk, scraping its bark with the edge of the knife, making soft little cutting noises just loud enough to make sure she knew how close he was, how near her time was ending.
“I feel sorry for spoilt little bitches like you. You’ll never be a proper woman, a woman with a home and family to look after.”
Max began to slowly skirt the trunk, absorbing each delightful second. Then everything changed in an instant. As sudden and as vicious as a bite from a brown snake, she was in his face, spraying what felt like burning needles into his eyes and screaming like a psychotic junkie in his face, “FUCK YOUUUUUU!”
And that, as they say, is the end of the fuck’n story, he said to himself now.
He glanced at the ground where he’d fallen victim to her ambush, looking for the hunting knife that he’d dropped. When he couldn’t see it at first, he went back to search the surrounds more thoroughly. After a few fruitless minutes it dawned on him that the bitch had taken it with her, probably for protection should he follow her.
But that’s not why she had taken it. He knew that very well, and that’s what now scared the absolute crap out of him.
She had taken it as evidence.
Spurred into action, Max returned to the creek to splash water into his face and clean his reddened eyes of residual capsicum spray. The coolish water also helped to wash the grogginess from his head and get his thoughts in order. First things first, he had to destroy all evidence tying him to this place. He’d have seventy-two hours maximum before the bitch led the coppers back here. Probably less. She might not know exactly where he’d brought her, but it wouldn’t take them long to spread out their search and start snooping around the old Johnson farm and his humpy.
No fuck’n time to waste, Maxy boy, he said to himself.
He got up and headed back downstream from where he’d first started tracking the girl. Within half an hour he had climbed out of the creek and up the hill to the humpy. By then the sky was almost pitch black, with just a faint glimmer of dark crimson lining the horizon. The half-moon and stars shed some light on the ground, but mostly he could just make out silhouettes—the humpy, the Cherokee, the eucalypts, the granite boulder near the campfire. He went straight to the Cherokee and turned on its headlights so he could see what he was doing, then went to work.
To his surprise, as he gathered all his non-essential equipment and dumped them in a pile inside the humpy, he felt no emotion about what he was doing. It was cathartic, in a way. He was going to burn this and everything in it to the ground like a doctor would burn a wart off his face. Perhaps this incident with the rich bitch was what he needed to rid himself of his past once and for all. It ended here. It ended now. He’d begin everything anew, like he’d been attempting to do the day of the explosion.
Max grabbed one of the spare petrol cans inside the humpy and emptied it onto the pile of half-cured roo skins, blankets, swag, empty beer cartons, and anything else he’d found lying about inside. Even his collection of hunting knives, rabbit traps, saws, axes, and spades went onto the pile. Lastly, he sprung the mantrap on top of the old fucker’s grave using the handle of a shovel to depress the trigger plate. Its steel jaws snapped together with a ferocious crunch!, its teeth gnashing the wooden shaft like a dingo mauling the leg of a dead roo. He unpegged the chain securing the trap and threw the whole thing on top of the pile.
It’s a funeral pyre, isn’t it? he mused, stepping back and admiring his work.
As a kid, he’d often snuck out of the house on warm November nights to watch the Guy Fawkes celebrations on Serena beach. Apart from the fireworks, the traditional bonfire was always the main attraction for him, a massive pile of driftwood and logs and unwanted furniture two-storeys high. Upon it, like a would-be king, a straw effigy of Guy Fawkes was ceremoniously cremated. At its peak the flames would lick the stars, its heat so intense anybody standing within fifty metres would feel it burning through their shirts and pants and searing their skin like barbequed meat. What he remembered most was the heat on his cheeks, its residual warmth still felt hours later when he snuck back into the house through his bedroom window and climbed into bed.
Before he set the humpy aflame, he made one last trip back to make sure he’d gathered everything, then emptied the last petrol can over the rickety frame and fished a box of matches out of the Cherokee’s glove box. Without much ado, strode over to the humpy, struck a match and flicked it onto the pyre.
The bonfire erupted in an audible Whooooosh!, the flames devouring every inch of the humpy in a death shroud of glowing orange and yellow. The radiant heat caused him to take several steps back, much like those days on Serena beach. He watched for a long time as the wood crackled and the corrugated iron walls buckled and bent with the heat, until finally the humpy collapsed in on itself and the flames petered into nothing more than a comfortable campfire. Several spot fires flared up around the campsite when sparks landed on a favourable patch of wild grass or dead gum leaves, but the damp earth meant they didn’t spread and made it easy to stamp out with the heal of his boot. He thought of leaving before the flames had died down, but he needed to see this through. He needed to make sure nothing was left standing, for his own sake, to make sure he’d burned all his bridges with this place, so to speak. He needed to watch the last flame die down to nothing, to know once and for all he was never coming back.
Within an hour, the humpy had been reduced to nothing more than a smouldering heap of charred metal and dyin
g coals. It was over, finally. He felt cleansed. There was nothing more for him here. This marked the start of the New Max, the Max with no history, no past, with only now and the future to look forward to. Somehow he’d make it up to Lorraine. He’d beg if he had to. Hell, he had no shame in doing that. She was all he wanted—all he ever wanted—and he’d do anything in his power to win her back.
But only until the shit storm had blown over. And boy, there was going to be one hell of a shit storm. He’d have to bide his time for a while, hunker down low and not bring any unwanted attention on himself. The bitch would set the media on fire; that was a no brainer. Once she’d made her report to the cops, the newspapers and radio would be all over her like an unwanted boyfriend. An attractive, sexy woman who escaped the clutches of a serial killer—what journo wouldn’t sell his soul to get that story?
Which made him think. The bitch had seen his face and seen his car. He wasn’t too concerned about the description of himself she’d give to the coppers; there were thousands of men his height and build and looks. But the car was a different story. There were fuck all green Cherokees driving around the streets of Adelaide, even less around these parts. He figured she wouldn’t have had the time to note his number plate, and he was hoping she had the average woman’s sense for cars and didn’t know the difference between a Jeep and a Toyota or a Nissan. Hoped she’d just tell the coppers it was a big, green four-wheel drive, that she couldn’t be certain what kind of make it was because, well officer, it’s kinda hard to tell what vehicle you’re in when you’ve got the barrel of a Remy shoved halfway down your fuck’n throat. Nevertheless, he wasn’t going to take any chances. He’d dump the car far enough away from this place where the coppers wouldn’t even think of looking and buy himself a new set of wheels. Cash.
Roadman Page 23