She knew she had to create lust in her own mind to play the part convincingly. She must not rush the scene, to let his desire build and make him careless.
As she made her plan she felt as if her mind detached from and moved outside her body. She observed herself, as if from a great distance. She was a second Susan, one who watched and waited as another Susan, her body double, acted out her part. It was as if her mind had now occupied a separate reality to her body.
Seen from afar Susan felt surprise at how simple it was to set her plan into motion.
Mark released her body double when she asked. She walked away and relieved herself looking out across the water.
Then she said she needed to wash and asked for a basin of water, a washer and soap.
He unlocked the other Susan’s hands and gave her a washer and soap. This Susan walked away again and stopped at the place she had chosen. Mark poured warm water into a basin and carried it over to where she stood.
She watched as this Susan took the basin and placed it in front of herself standing alongside the stick. She understood it was best to have it close by, just in case.
Mark stepped back a few paces. He watched her closely as she took off her clothes and got ready to wash. She hid any view of the knife with her body as she took it out and lay it on her pants, covered by her top with just the tip of the handle visible.
As she began to wash a sudden wrench pulled her mind back into the body below. Now it was just her and him and she was really scared again. She knew she had to do this all by herself; she could no longer hide away from the reality of the actions she must take.
Mark seemed distracted, but once Susan started her wash down she could feel his eyes on her. She thought of their lovemaking on the Robinson River and let it arouse her body, while keeping her mind locked away in a place of cold rage.
She spared a glance over her shoulder, Mark was watching her intently, and she could see a bulge in his pants where his arousal was growing.
She waved the washer and called out, “Could you come over and wash my back please? She could hear a husky sound in her voice, throaty arousal blended with her fear, giving a tremulous quality.
Mark walked over. She passed him the soaped washer, and then rinsed her hands for a good grip. She took the metal blade in her stronger right hand, knowing that her body hid it from his view. She could feel her hand shake as she held the knife. She forced her mind to become calm again and her hand steadied.
She felt the washing cloth, his firm but gentle strokes, working down and lingering on her buttocks. She felt his other hand reach around and fondle a nipple, god that felt good.
With her mind in a totally detached place she turned slowly towards him, her breasts almost brushing him as she came around. His free hand stayed on her breast; she could feel his panting lust. His eyes were totally on her erect and pointy nipples. His second hand was now caressing her bottom.
She brought her elbow in under his arm. It was now or never. She focused all her attention on the one movement she must make. With her eyes turned down she looked at her target, that soft skin just below the left side of his rib cage.
She took a deep breath. With all her force drove the blade in.
It was harder than she thought. Her wrist twisted and buckled with the impact. But she saw the knife go in, almost all the way.
She felt the huge flinch of his body as he arced back, bringing his hands up in shock. It seemed to all happen in slow motion, a slowed silent movie without sound. His hands were grasping for the knife point, she knew she must do more.
She ducked below his arms, looked to the side to locate the stick. Grasping it with her left hand, she turned and started to swing, then adding her right hand for more power.
If he had been quicker he could have blocked her. But his two hands were grasping the short end of the blade that protruded, as if he would pull it out. At the last second he looked up and saw what was coming. He looked to throw up a hand, but it was too late.
There was a look of puzzlement on his face, as if he could not comprehend how it had come to this. A trace of a smile creased his eyes, something like admiration. His lips started to move but the word died unsaid.
The wood hit the side of his head with a dull crunch, it sounded like something had broken, whether in the wood or in his head she did not know.
Mark fell backwards, onto the ground.
He did not move.
Susan looked down at Mark; she felt an awful horror at what she had done. She did not know if his injuries were terminal, or if she had killed him, but it couldn’t end like this. She couldn’t just leave his body lying there.
Suddenly it came to her. He would take her place with the crocodiles. Perhaps his crocodile spirit would bring the big one out of hiding and his body would be its feast. It was awful to contemplate, yet fitting. Susan looked at him again; he hadn’t moved.
There was a trickle of blood from his head and ear, and some more blood around the knife end, but not much. Was he still alive? She didn’t know, she hadn’t seen him breathe, but he was still pink.
Susan felt like she was carrying the weight of four dead girls on her shoulders, she was acting on their behalves, as well as her own.
It was about five metres to the water’s edge. She lifted Mark’s feet in her hands and tried to drag him without success. He was too heavy to pull that way; her hands kept loosing their grip on his thick ankles.
Susan came to his head and lifted him to a half sitting position. She was terrified he would wake up and grab her. Should she hit him again to be sure? No, that seemed too horrible.
She passed her arms under his shoulders. Knotting her fingers together on his chest, with his head lolling against her, she used her legs and pushed herself backwards, moving them both a few inches, then a few more; dragging him slowly. Now she was within a metre of the edge. She twisted and rolled his body until his legs were in the water. Then she pushed his head and shoulders with her feet until two thirds of him was in the water, but his head and shoulders still lay on the bank.
In her panting efforts she had almost forgotten the danger that crocodiles might pose to her, so near the water’s edge.
She looked up. There, watching her, no more than ten metres away, were two nostrils poking out of the water, and a little further back a pair of eyes. It was definitely interested.
Susan backed up, back to the place where she had stabbed Mark. She looked to the crocodile, then to Mark. Was it her imagination or did his chest just rise and fall? There had definitely been some sort of movement in the water where he lay.
But she knew it was too late to worry. The crocodile was swimming purposefully over to investigate. It nudged its nose alongside Mark. It was big, she thought, around five metres, not quite as big as the one on the Robinson but a good half-tonne. The crocodile bit at, and shook Mark’s legs a couple times with its mouth, then moved farther up the bank, now standing over his body, on raised forelegs.
It twisted slightly sideways, and grasped Mark around the abdomen, pulling him farther into the water. Now Mark was floating free, limbs lolling about. The crocodile released its grip and manoeuvred his body in the water, turning him parallel to the bank. Then it opened its huge mouth and closed it down over his chest.
Snap, then crunch as ribs gave way.
With almost leisurely ease the crocodile swam away trailing the upper body to one side and the legs to the other. It was half way back to where it started when there came a sudden swirl. Another large crocodile, similarly sized, had come alongside and grabbed Mark’s head.
They were now tearing at his body pulling in opposite directions. Blood stains were spreading in the water as Mark was torn open.
Just when it seemed that neither could win, a huge splash and swirl came crashing into both their bodies. A new crocodile grabbed Mark’s protruding waist and flung him in the air, half lifting the two other crocodiles from the water as they hung on. Now there were more tearing and rip
ping noises. Pieces of muscles, organs and blood floated in the midst of a thrashing and swirling cauldron. None would give a quarter but weight was with the big one.
Susan knew this was the big one that Mark had talked about. It dwarfed the other crocodiles, half their length again, and double their combined weight. It was clear who would win.
A leg was pulled free and one swam away with its spoils. Then there was a mighty tearing contest around the head and upper body. First the head disappeared, now there remained only a mangled torso, which the two crocodiles tore at.
With another loud rip, an arm and shoulder came free. The second crocodile abandoned the contest, departing with its prize.
The remaining crocodile, contest winner, cruised around the just floating body, pushing it a bit this way and that. Then, with the upper torso just in front of its nose, it opened its mouth, grasped and flipped the body into the air as it tipped its head back, mouth open wide. The body disappeared with a single huge swallow.
The crocodile did a leisurely circuit of the area, a victory lap, it seemed. Then it submerged and was lost from view.
The water was still.
Chapter 22 – Hiding the Shame – Day 29
The crocodiles were gone. She could no longer see blood and body pieces in the water.
Susan felt the mind-numbing horror recede a notch. Rising up to meet it was an overpowering feeling of shame. She had thought, when she came to this country, she was too smart for the backpacker abduction trick; that she wasn’t one of those silly girls who took lifts with strangers, or put herself into vulnerable positions. Yet she knew, with an absolute certainty, that if she hadn’t found that old blade she would have joined that list of ugly statistics.
She was disgusted with herself. She had indulged in an orgy of sexual pleasure even after she had good grounds for suspicion about this man. Not to mention that she had the chance to escape on at least two occasions and had done nothing.
Then there was the small matter of her conspiring to conceal evidence. From the time that she had found the passports she had, within her power, the option of taking them to the police. She could have brought an end to uncertainty about the fate of these girls for four sets of anguished parents.
Yet she had done nothing, preferring to hope for an alternative truth about the man who had captured her mind as much as her body. Only when her own life was a millimetre from extinction had she acted. That was only for self-preservation; that wasn’t real courage.
She looked at the morality deep inside herself. It was wanting. She had looked askance at those Germans who during Hitler’s time saw nothing, did nothing and said nothing—despite the evidence right in front of their eyes. Susan was no better; when the test of her moral core came, she’d failed it, utterly.
So here she was now, reaping the whirlwind of her own actions. Despite Mark’s awful deeds, she was not entitled to be his judge and executioner.
She could justify using the metal blade to escape; perhaps hitting him was also defensible. But when he lay on the ground, unconscious, she knew neither whether he was alive or dead.
How could she justify pushing his body into the water for the crocodiles to finish? In her heart of hearts she knew he might have lived. She could have taken the car, driven for help, or called the police if she did not want to return herself.
But the real reason she hadn’t was that she simply didn’t want to face reliving her own part in this. Susan did not want to be part of a police investigation into this hideous man.
In her heart and soul she had wanted him dead.
Partly to pay him back for her humiliation, partly to let it end, but mostly because she didn’t want to have to give evidence, to describe his exploitation of her naivety, then her sexual and physical entrapment, which she had actively aided and abetted.
She wanted the whole ugly story to vanish; she didn’t want to have to tell her parents or friends of her cowardice and abject foolishness, not to have testimony splashed over the tabloids, Australian and British; British Slut, Murderer; Killer Feeds Man to Crocodile.
So now she was here, she cold bloodedly gave this man his death wish with crocodiles. She could imagine his eyes had opened and awareness returned in those final seconds, as the crocodiles tore his body apart.
The worst part was that despite the shame that tore at her soul, much of her remained glad of what she had done; she had judged he was not fit to live, and acted on it.
Then Susan’s mind twisted in another direction of relief and rationalisation. Here she was, alive. Only she knew what had transpired. There was really no need for anyone else to know. Nothing would be served by telling the mothers, fathers, sisters or brothers of those other poor girls about their fate, destroying their remnants of hope.
Now her mind saw a way out. Her plane did not leave until tomorrow morning. She could make the whole thing vanish. No one had seen her and Mark here. She knew he had driven here in the night, coming from the other side of Katherine, with no stops. This was to avoid anyone else seeing him or connecting him to her disappearance or to this place. So that could work to her advantage, she was even more unknown than him.
The chance of his body being discovered after the crocodiles finished was remote. The crocodiles had eaten the main parts, and the fish would finish off any scraps that remained.
The car need not remain here, where it was connected with this place. All the residual contents of their trip together could vanish, into the bottom of some billabong.
She understood about DNA and forensic evidence, her lab did that sort of work and she knew how to make detection difficult, if not impossible. And, without a basis for suspicion, who would even look?
All she needed was a few hours, with no one else in sight, and she could pull it off. Even if someone came now there was really almost nothing to show, nothing to arouse suspicion, and there was plenty more she could do to hide the traces.
What she needed was a careful plan that she followed. She felt energised, her shock and lethargy was pushed back by the need do something decisive.
First she found a notebook. She made a list of what she needed to do and tried to think of all the sources of future problems and of their solutions.
The campground—she needed to remove all traces of blood from the edge of the water and where she had hit him. She would have to ensure there were no items that could be connected with either of them left lying around. She would do her best to get rid of footprints, tyre tracks, soil on the car or other things that may link the vehicle and this place.
The car—it needed to be abandoned somewhere, somewhere that had no connection to this place. Perhaps it could take her to the airport then be dumped.
His personal effects—the clothes, food and personal items could be burned. The heavy items, firearms, camping gear and tools could go into the bottom of a billabong. Not here, but if she took them and spread them out, up and down river, the likelihood of anyone finding them and or connecting them seemed remote. As the guns had serial numbers, that might trace to him, they should be dumped somewhere else.
Her own things—she realised that her backpack and clothes would have his DNA all over them and it would be hard to ensure that it all vanished. So, all but a handful of her things must go, either burned or thrown into rubbish in various places. The few things she needed to take home could be dealt with back in England.
The car would have to be thoroughly cleaned to remove all traces of her presence, and all other identification, either of her or the other girls. There would just be an empty car. She couldn’t get rid of the cage or cooler box, but a good clean should see most traces gone. The cooler box would have to be cleaned extremely thoroughly, considering her time in there. No doubt bits of her skin, hair, blood, urine and more would be in there.
She would have to clean the car a second time after she got to her destination to ensure her DNA from the final trip was not evident in it.
Perhaps once she neared Darwin she cou
ld find a shop selling garbage bags, cleaning gear, and unworn clothes to change into for her final leg.
She would have to play some of this by ear. But each extra step was another level of separation and security. Susan wanted every trace of him out of her life.
Before she could do anything, she needed to make it difficult to recognise or identify the vehicle if anyone turned up while she was still here. She retrieved some mud from the bank and smeared it on and around the number plates, confusing threes, eights, and other numbers with strategic dabs of mud. For extra cover she splashed the number plates with water and extra dirt to make them as near to illegible as was possible. Then she took the swag cover and a ground sheet, and draped them over the cool box and cage on the back, to make these less visible and identifiable.
With her plan made Susan started her clean-up; she added branches to the smouldering coals of last night’s campfire to create a big fire, with plenty of heat to burn all the things that could burn.
She did a thorough walk around the site, picking up all loose items, along with any rubbish, and piling them next to the fire. She took a shovel and dug up the bloodstained soil. Susan threw this in the water, then levelled off this patch and covered it with some loose dirt and leaves. If someone looked hard one could see a disturbed area but it wasn’t obvious. She was happy that this dealt with the most immediate evidence.
Now she started with her own things, it was easier to begin with these. She removed all her things from her pack and separated what she knew she needed for her trip home. These she put it in her small overnight bag. Then, one by one, she placed all her other clothes on the fire and watched them burn to ash. There was something cathartic about destroying links to this trip and this place.
She went through the cabin of the car and emptied out all the compartments, under and behind seats and all the other compartments and spaces. She made two piles: what couldn’t be burned and what could. Piece by piece everything that would burn went into the fire. She kept adding wood, and stirred the fire with a stick, to ensure that no charred bits remained.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 22