by Anna Willett
Her boots struck rock. “Nearly there,” the sound of her voice was little more than a dry croak.
The stony ground set her off balance. She slowed her pace. If she fell and landed on her broken arm, she wouldn’t be able to get back up. The thought of coming so far only to lie dying among the barren rocks brought tears to her eyes. A blast of wind blew her hair back and filled her nose with the tang of salty air. She picked her way forward, face tilted up to the breeze.
Something shifted in the distance. Her heart thudded, sending a tremor through her chest. She stopped moving, eyes trained on the movement. Could he have circled around and got ahead of her? It was possible, she’d been so focused on keeping her balance. He could have passed her at a distance. There were still snatches of vegetation, he could have been ghosting her the whole time.
Chapter Seventeen
He moved from tree to tree, stepping around twigs and fallen branches. Sweat ran down his forehead and neck in warm streams. He paused and sniffed the air, imagining himself as a wolf hunting its prey. He’d heard her before. Of that he was certain. There could be no mistaking her terrified footfalls darting through the bush. He was close.
He licked his lips. His mouth felt sandy. Blondie’s fault. When she managed to wriggle out of his grasp, he’d left everything and took off after her. Now he couldn’t risk going back for water, not when he was so close to finding her. When I get hold of her, I’ll take her back with me. I’ll enjoy her more after I’ve had a drink. He rubbed his forearm against his mouth. Yeah, he liked that plan.
It didn’t take a genius to guess where she was heading; back to the trail. Looking for help, an obvious move. But clever little Blondie had somehow managed to head in the right direction, that’s what surprised him most. He tapped his fingers against his thigh. She was starting to irritate him. He could feel the blood whooshing around in his veins. Blondie was supposed to be an easy mark. An added bonus to the main event, but thanks to her ducking and diving, he could think of nothing else.
He felt a surge of helplessness. If she reached the trail, he could lose her. Everything he’d planned and dreamed of would go up in smoke. No, he told himself. I’m the one running this circus. No one fucks with me and gets away with it. His mind threw up an image of Allan – meaty hands, like ham hocks stroking his face. He pushed the memory away. And focused on how Allan looked years later when his foster son returned.
* * *
“It’s good to see you, kid.” He stood in the doorway of the shit tip he called a house. There was fear in the restless shifting of his eyes. It felt good to see him that way. He’d seemed so big all those years ago, but time and heavy drinking had shrivelled him into a trembling old man.
He pushed past Allan and walked into the house. The stink of cigarettes and piss nearly made him gag. “So you came back to visit old Allan, did you?” He gave a nervous laugh that turned into a phlegmy cough.
He watched Allan shuffle over to his chair. Grunting with the effort, he lowered himself. His watery eyes darted around the room as if looking for something.
“You look like shit.” He spoke for the first time. The old man winced then tried to laugh it off.
“I’ve been sick.” He patted his chest with yellowed fingers. “It’s my lungs. Doctor says I should give up the smokes.” He reached out to the side table next to his chair where a blue clay ashtray overflowed with butts. He pulled a cigarette out of a battered pack and shoved it between his lips. “Old habits.” He sniffed and lit the smoke. His fingers shook.
“Problems with your lungs?” He made his voice soft and concerned.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Allan regarded him through a cloud of smoke. He looked relieved. “I’m not in a good way. But it’s good you came to see me.” He coughed and then pulled a filthy rag out of his jeans. He spat something into the square of fabric and stuffed it back in his pocket. “But I’m supposed to have a visit from the health nurse.” He made a big show of looking at the clock over the fireplace. “She’ll be here soon.”
He nodded as if believing Allan’s story. “If you’re expecting a visitor, we’ll have to be quick.” He watched the old man, letting his words sink in.
Allan’s eyes, small and buried in folds of grey skin widened. “What… what do you mean, kid?”
He reached behind him and pulled the knife out from its sheaf. For a moment he just held it, giving the old man time to get a really good look at the size of the blade.
Allan started to stand. “Look, if this is about all that stuff when you were a kid.” He shook his head. “You know I was drinking a lot.” He dropped the cigarette. It bounced on the threadbare carpet. “I’m sorry, kid. Don’t do anything crazy.” His voice was high, almost a squeal.
“You got problems with your lungs?” He smiled and crossed the room. “Let’s get them out and take a look.”
Allan fell back into the chair as if all the strength had been sucked out of him. His mouth opened and a wheezy croak burst through his few remaining teeth. Before the old man had time to suck up enough breath to protest, he was on him.
* * *
He blinked.
He hadn’t realised he’d stopped moving. How much time had he lost? Around him, birds chattered. He looked up. A pair of multi-coloured rosellas watched him with dumb curiosity. As much as he enjoyed reliving his last moments with Allan, he had more pressing business. As if by magic, he spotted movement between the trees.
He got a blurred glimpse of something pale darting behind a copse of trees. “There you are.” He pulled the knife out from its home against the small of his back. She couldn’t be more than five minutes ahead of him. His heart rate quickened and he felt a tingle run up between his groin and navel.
Chapter Eighteen
Harper turned and checked behind her. Spindly grey native shrubs shuddered in the breeze. No sign of movement. She turned her attention back to the shifting figure in the distance. In the seconds since she’d turned away, it had progressed south. She took a couple of steps and squinted trying to make out any details.
The shape coalesced into a clear human form. Harper took another step, quick like a square dancer. Her eyes picked out some detail. The figure appeared tall, but that could have been an optical illusion created by the angle and the distance. He held something in his hand. A knife. She quickly dismissed the idea, the object appeared long and thin, reaching from the man’s hand to the ground. A walking stick.
“Please, please, please,” she muttered willing the figure to be anyone but him.
Harper stumbled forward trying to keep her eyes on the person and maintain her balance at the same time. Now, less than thirty metres away, she could see his outline clearly. Thin, slightly stooped, using a long walking stick – definitely male. He was moving at a steady pace. From this distance and in her weakened condition, she’d never catch him.
She snatched another look behind. Nothing but scrub and stone. When she turned back, he’d progressed farther south. His outline began to blur. Harper fought back panic. If she tried to run, she risked falling. The man would disappear from view without ever seeing her. Her only option was to call for help and risk attracting the wrong attention.
With time running out, Harper let out a wail. “Help!” A plea that sounded more like a weak groan.
The figure continued moving. Harper licked her lips and took and deep shuddering breath, “Help!” This time louder. “Help, please!” She raised her uninjured arm and waved it above her head.
Across the expanse, the figure stopped walking. Something fluttered near his head. His form turned, the stick poised over the ground as if frozen in motion. Harper took another step and waved her arm, this time in a wide arc from her side then up and over her head.
“Help,” she stretched the word out into one long call, until all the breath left her lungs.
The figure seemed to be standing still but somehow growing bigger and clearer until Harper realised he was jogging towards her. The walking stick beca
me a long, blue, narrow walking pole. The fluttering around his head, a red legionnaire’s hat. The figure turned into a tall elderly man dressed rather comically with long bony legs visible below overly baggy shorts.
Harper’s cracked lips drew back into a pained smile. She staggered to a large pink slab of rock and sat down. I made it. If she wasn’t so exhausted, she’d have laughed with relief. Her head drooped forward until it nearly touched her knees. She’d come so far, but the thought of standing up to greet the stranger seemed harder than the hours of walking.
“Hey? Are you hurt?” His voice rang clear and high with concern and curiosity.
In front of her, Harper saw two scuffed, mustard coloured boots topped with red socks. She looked up. Her first impression had been correct, her saviour was an elderly man – mid-sixties, maybe older and shaped like an overgrown stick insect.
He crouched in front of her. Harper raised her head, chin wobbling. His eyes were green, buried in a nest of wrinkles. Up close, his skin looked thin, like greyish parchment. She could smell Palmolive soap and something sweet, maybe humbugs.
“Are you hurt?” The surprise had left his voice, he sounded calm.
Harper nodded and touched her injured arm.
“Alright. I’m going to move your sleeve so I can have a look. I’ll be very gentle and I promise, I won’t hurt you.” He had a slight accent, English. She heard kindness in his tone and a level of reassurance that brought tears to her eyes. If she could have stood, she’d have fallen into his arms sobbing. Instead, she hiccupped out a sob and bobbed her head.
“My name’s William by the way. William Walterson.” He waited a beat for her to respond.
“H… Harper.”
“Alright then, Harper.” He touched the edge of the fabric and raised it above her skin.
Harper’s stomach clenched and she clamped her teeth together in anticipation of what she was about to see. William swept the sleeve towards her upper arm slowly and with an unexpected deftness. If he was shocked by what he saw, he showed no sign. Harper caught a glimpse of the wound. Purple flesh, puffy and streaked with red surrounding a lump of what looked like blackcurrant jam. A shaft of white protruding from the sticky mess.
William moved his head so his red legionnaire’s hat blocked her view of the injury. “This is quite nasty. A grade two open fracture, I’m afraid. Surgery.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Probably two surgeries and a lengthy rehabilitation, but nothing a strong young woman like you can’t manage.”
Harper nodded. “Are you? I … thank you.” She didn’t know how to respond. The pain and fear of the last twenty-four hours seemed to descend on her all at once. Her body shook and her teeth began to chatter.
William slipped out of his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. It was a smooth movement, like something a dashing gentleman might do in an old movie. He pulled a water bottle from a small grey pack near his feet. He unscrewed the cap with long graceful fingers and pressed it into her good hand.
She didn’t need to be told, Harper drank. The water washed over her parched throat like rain hitting a shrivelled sponge. The sweetness of the cool clean water was beyond anything she’d imagined. William placed a restraining hand on her forearm.
“Slowly,” he cautioned. “Small sips or you’ll make yourself sick.”
Harper forced herself to slow down and breathe between sips. She watched William rifle through his miniature pack. He’d pulled her sleeve back down and covered her wound. The way he’d spoken about her injury, calmly and with medical knowledge made her wonder if he was a doctor.
“Are you a doctor?” She knew she should be telling him what happened to her, warning him. Yet, his presence calmed her and she found herself asking stupid questions.
“Yes. I’m an orthopaedic surgeon.” He looked up from his pack. “Retired.” He held up a very early model iPhone. “Here it is. My late wife made me promise I’d always carry a phone when hiking.” He pulled off his hat revealing a head of wispy white hair. “Now, I’m going to telephone the police and give them our location. I’ll need to know if you’re part of a group and if so, where your friends might be.”
The police. Her friends. The words galvanised her and her story started tumbling out. “I was with a group. There was an accident. My friend fell. She’s hurt. My girlfriend’s with her. We’re all in danger, a…”
William’s fingers hovered over the screen. “Danger? What sort of danger?”
Harper shook her head. “Call the police, please. Just call them.” She tried to stand, but William put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t try to get up. You’re experiencing shock.”
She could see the screen, he’d pressed zero. “Call the police,” her voice cracked. “He’s out there. There’s no time.”
“Who’s out there?” William held the phone, his finger poised over the screen. “Is it one of your friends?”
“Yes. I mean no. It’s …” dizziness swamped her and William’s green eyes swam in a watery soup. His voice sounded hollow, the words long and exaggerated. He spoke again and Harper felt as if she’d been jerked back to the sound. The cool sea breeze, the sound of birds crying all rushed in with a sudden blast.
“I think your friend’s coming now,” William said, looking over her head.
“What?” Harper felt like she was a beat behind, trying to keep up with what was happening. She looked up at William and saw his eyes widen then narrow. He fumbled with the phone.
Still sitting, Harper turned from the waist. The movement felt slow and deliberate as if her whole body knew what to expect and shrank from the inevitable. He moved between the salt bushes, striding forward, wide powerful shoulders moving in a swinging motion powered by long thick legs. His body an immense presence made more threatening by the stealth of his approach and the hunting knife held loosely at his side.
“Call the police.” Harper turned back to William.
“Yes. I’m doing so, but I’m afraid we might have to handle this ourselves.” He pressed the last zero and held the phone an inch or so from his ear. The only sign of fear came from the slight tremor in his hand. “Stand up and move behind me.”
“But… He’s… You won’t…”
“Now. Without argument,” William’s voice rose slightly; a man used to giving life or death orders.
Harper clambered to her feet with energy she didn’t know she had left and scurried behind the elderly doctor. Her injured arm pulsed in time with her heart beat. She could hear the phone ringing near William’s ear. He bent with surprising agility and snatched his hiking pole up from the sand.
“Stop there!” William’s voice rang out, clear and confident as if he were addressing a lecture theatre full of medical students not a madman brandishing a huge knife. “I’ve called the police, they’re on their way.”
His approach faltered. Harper craned her neck around William watching her tormentor. For an instant, she almost believed he might stop, but then a smile drew the corners of his mouth up and he continued towards them. His black pants were dusty and ripped around one knee and his arms were stained with grime as if he’d been crawling through the dirt. He moved with the easy assurance of one who has all the time in the world.
The air smelt tangy and metallic as if charged with electricity. Harper wrapped the fingers of her left hand around a swatch of William’s shirt. From the phone came the sound of a recorded voice, female and nasal.
“He’ll kill us both,” Harper didn’t bother to whisper. She pulled on William’s shirt trying to draw him backwards even as she realised there was nowhere to go.
As the man with the knife drew nearer, William’s voice faltered. “Put the knife down.”
William allowed Harper to pull him back a few steps. They shuffled together like awkward dance partners trying to work in reverse. Harper kept her eyes on the knife. The man who’d spent twenty-four hours hunting her raised his thick forearm and brandished the blade, moving it through the air in a wide sw
eeping motion.
“You shouldn’t have dragged the old guy into this.” He looked around William and shook his head. “Shame on you hiding behind a coot like him.” His voice was full of disapproval and teasing, but his dark eyes were flat and emotionless.
William lifted the hiking pole and let his long elegant fingers slide half way down the shaft. He still held the phone loosely at his side.
“Run.” William jerked forward breaking Harper’s grasp on his shirt and putting himself closer to the knife.
Harper stumbled sideways, a high-pitched keening burst through her lips. She faltered, torn between the urge to flee and the realisation of what was about to happen. Before she could make another move, the man with the knife stepped in and batted the pole sideways with his left hand.
William grunted and dropped the phone. It hit the sand with a dull thud. He managed to keep hold of the pole even as the younger man pulled it towards him, moving William around like a rag doll. Harper saw the knife slice through the air; the man gripping it bared his teeth, his scarred cheeks creasing with the effort, as he drove the weapon into the side of William’s neck. The blade sank into the elderly man’s flesh with thick wet whack. Arterial blood spurted, bright red and urgent, in a spray powerful enough to paint the surrounding rocks in oily red splatter.
Harper tottered back a few steps, bent forward and screamed, her lungs straining with the force and volume of the cry.
The younger man held onto the knife’s handle and let gravity pull it from the wound as William’s legs folded, sinking to the ground. The gash continued to spurt in a wide arc soaking the assailant’s black pants, pooling around his boots. Before William hit the ground, his right arm shot forward in what looked like a spasm and the tip of the pole sank into the younger man’s side.
He let out a petulant howl and raised his boot, kicking William backwards. William let out a hollow breath as his body crumpled. Two more weak spurts escaped from the wound in his neck and pattered the sand like a sprinkling of summer rain. William dropped onto his back, he shuddered once and then lay still.