Simone Kirsch 03 - Cherry Pie

by Leigh Redhead

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Holly lifted the axe above her head, yelled and charged, and I instinctively blundered back, hit the twigs and plunged straight through. Half a second later I hit hard packed earth, jolting my already sprained ankle and landing hard on my shoulder and ribs. The torch bounced from my hand and the light snuffed out.

  I looked up. Holly had switched on a torch of her own and in the ambient light from the beam hovering above I could just make out where I was. The hole I’d stumbled into was narrow, about three metres straight up, and the chamber a couple of metres across. At first I thought I’d fallen into an ancient pit toilet but it was too deep, too far from the house and the floor was hard and rocky—not that I had a clue what hundred year old feces might feel like. There was a musty smell though, mingling with the dank scent of earth, and as my eyes adjusted I made out a shape across the cave and drew a breath, thinking it was Andi’s body. I stretched my leg and nudged it with my foot and to my relief felt something hard and brittle. Probably just twigs fallen down from the pile.

  Above me, Holly swore and I heard her throwing sticks aside before the torch light came dancing into the hollow, bobbing along the walls and tracing the floor. I lay still and closed my eyes, thinking playing possum might give me an advantage. The torch light rested on my eyelids, making them glow red inside.

  ‘I know you’re not dead.’ Her voice echoed slightly as she called down the hole. ‘I can see your chest moving and I am not falling for that one again. Could have sworn the other slut was a goner when I took her to meet her little friend, but the bitch must have climbed straight out. With a broken leg, if you can believe that!’

  Little friend? Holly sounded like she’d totally lost it. I kept my eyes closed, hoping she’d think I was knocked out.

  ‘Anyway, you’re not escaping. I won’t make the same mistake twice.’

  The light left my face but I stayed still, just in case. I heard her clomp around, then a scraping sound, and even with my eyes shut I could tell the cave had gone pitch black. I opened them. She’d placed something over the entrance to the hole and was throwing stuff on top. It sounded like rocks hitting metal and each clang was more chilling than the last. Then the banging stopped, her footsteps receded and the silence was infinitely more terrifying than the noise had been. It wasn’t quite as bad as being buried alive but it wasn’t far off and I had to use all the mental strength I had to stop myself collapsing into a quivering heap. Think of Chloe, I told myself. If you don’t get your shit together and get out of here Holly will find her and chop off her head with that goddamn axe. The thought was enough to make me sit up and feel for the torch until my fingers curled around the hard plastic handle.

  Working by touch I tightened the components, jiggled it and the light flickered then steadied. Yes!

  I directed the beam upwards. A sheet of rusted corrugated iron lay over the top of the hole. My chances of scrambling up there were virtually nil, even without the metal to contend with, so how the hell had Andi managed, and with a broken leg? I brought the beam down and swept it slowly around the walls of the cave and when I got to what I thought was the pile of twigs, I screamed.

  It was a body, slumped against the wall, and the grinning skull stared straight at me, eye sockets hollow and dark. For a split second I thought it was Andi before I realised the corpse was long dead, bone mostly, with only a few shreds of desiccated flesh holding the skeleton together. Clothing remnants hung in rotting ribbons and the cranium was peppered with tufts of curly blonde hair. A plastic bag seemed to be stuck to its chest and another had fallen into its pelvis. I forced my trembling hand to steady the torch and I inched closer. My god, they weren’t plastic bags, they were silicone breast implants, perfectly preserved while the rest of the body had decayed.

  I suddenly realised what Holly had been talking about when she referred to Andi’s ‘little friend’. It was Melody, had to be, but I didn’t have time to wonder how she’d got there, I had to find a way out of the cave.

  I swept the light around the rough hewn walls and found another hole behind me, a lot smaller than the one I’d fallen in. What was the place? An old mine? Andi couldn’t have climbed up the shaft and must have dragged herself out the back way. I crawled over, shone the torch down the opening and swallowed. Maybe not. The tunnel angled down until it dropped out of sight and, worse than that, it narrowed the further it went along. Could a person actually squeeze through? Surely you’d become trapped and at that steep angle there was no way of inching back up. The thought made my heart trill. No way was I getting stuck down there, I was leaving the same way I came in.

  I rested the torch on Melody’s brittle femur so the beam angled up, positioned myself under the entrance and for the next ten minutes tried my damnedest to scale the steep walls, hoping to use thin tree roots and minute corrugations to gain purchase. It didn’t work. My boots slid off and the roots snapped in my hands. In desperation I attempted to claw my way up but a couple of fingernails ripped off and I crumpled into a heap on the ground, sobbing in pain, frustration and fear.

  The only other way out was the tunnel. Just thinking about going in there made my head spin and bile rise to my throat.

  I couldn’t, but if I didn’t then Chloe was going to die. Who knew how long the cops would take? It could be morning before they arrived. I was just thinking that things couldn’t get any worse when they did. The torch light flickered and died.

  I’d never known such total blackness. It was so dark that I started seeing things, shooting stars and colours dancing in front of my eyes. I tightened the torch again and slapped the casing and when that didn’t work I carefully removed the back, twiddled the batteries, screwed it together and … nothing. The thing was kaput. Fear rushed back and I started hyperventilating, thinking that any second I’d hear a rattle and scrape and feel Melody’s gnarled finger bones dig into my shin.

  Terror actually overcame me and I curled up on the ground with my knees tucked under my chin, covered my face with my coat and cried. It wasn’t just the skeleton, it was the tunnel, because I knew if I was going to have any chance of saving Chloe I’d have to go down there, and if I went down there I would probably get stuck and die. Sure, I’d wanted to kill myself earlier that night, but drowning was one thing. Being stuck underground, wedged fast and unable to move forward or back … but if Chloe died because of me …

  I pulled myself to my knees and crawled through the darkness, sobbing and choking, to where I thought the tunnel should be, felt around the opening with my hands and inserted my head and shoulders. My bulky coat brushed against the narrow walls so I sat back, ripped it off, threw it behind me and forced myself in.

  I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open or closed, the darkness was so absolute. I managed to move forward by stretching out my arms, wiggling my hips and digging my elbows in when my body caught up to my hands. The further along I went the more terrified I became, and though I tried to control my breathing it was coming out in fast, panicky gasps. After about a minute the tunnel sloped down so sharply that I actually slid for a metre or so and knew there was no way in hell I could inch back. I’d reached the point of no return.

  Panic spiralled and it was all I could do to get air into my lungs and keep pushing myself forward. The tunnel narrowed until there was no room to dig my elbows in and I had to squirm forward with my arms out in front of me. I inched along like some blind, burrowing worm until my searching fingers hit wet dirt. There had been some sort of collapse. The passage was blocked.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  I wanted to scream but there wasn’t enough air and my throat constricted. I heard my heartbeat throbbing in my ears.

  I thrust my hands into the loamy earth as far as I could but all I could feel was more dirt, going on forever. Thrashing against the compressing walls I suddenly realised that hell wasn’t a place of flames and pitchforks, it was dark and claustrophobic and icy cold, and I was there. I knew I was going to die and I’d just start
ed to give up and go limp when a tiny spark fired in my panicked brain. I had to plunge straight into the dirt.

  There was the smallest chance I’d get to the other side and if I didn’t at least I’d die faster in the complete absence of air.

  I took a deep, final breath, squeezed my eyes shut tight, moved my hips and plunged face first into the soft moist earth.

  I was doomed. The soil compacted as I struggled blindly through, cold dirt cramming into my nostrils, ears and eyes and forcing its way into my clothes. My whole body was encased and my lungs strained as I pulled harder, but it was hopeless, there was no end to the dirt and I had no breath left. My mouth opened involuntarily, my nose and throat filled with grit and as I convulsed, about to pass out, I stretched my arms in front of me as far as they would go and thought I was hallucinating.

  I felt empty space, cold air on my fingertips, and with my chest and head about to burst I writhed forward one last time, pushed my head out of the tunnel and sucked in dirt and air in one huge wheezing breath. Somehow I pulled my body out and then I was tumbling and rolling down a steep, rocky slope, until I slammed into a tree and came to a sudden stop.

  I coughed and spat until I thought I was vomiting up my lungs. Dirt crunched between my teeth, tore at my sinuses and felt like it had been forced into my brain. I didn’t care. I was out of the tunnel, alive and in the grip of a near-death adrenaline rush more profound than I’d ever experienced before. Despite the fact that I was freezing in my t-shirt, my whole body shivering with cold, I felt invincible. I was alive. Holding on to the tree I pulled myself to my feet then staggered up the slope, clutching at vines, barely registering my injured ankle and the bladey grass slicing my fingers and palms. I was going to save Chloe and I was going to find Andi. And Holly was going to pay.

  I reached the crest of the hill, saw the clearing and slowed, trying not to make too much noise. The shed doors were open and the four wheel drive was parked inside, headlamps spilling light. I pulled the phone from my back pocket and wiped dirt from the screen. Still no signal, but if I could get to the top of the house … It was the highest point around and had to be where Andi had called me from. Maybe she was still there.

  As I lurked by the trees Holly stomped out of the shed, carrying her torch and the axe and heading for the house.

  Change of plan. If I snuck to the car I could drive on out of there, bash through the gates and pick up Chloe on the way.

  Holly creaked onto the listing veranda and as soon as she disappeared inside I dashed across the clearing to the shed, hopped in the car and felt for the keys, but they were gone. Shit.

  I swivelled in the seat and looked around. Jesus, her baby was asleep in the back. I considered grabbing the infant, threatening to harm him for leverage, but what if she realised I wouldn’t go through with it and called my bluff? Instead I looked for something I could use as a weapon, spied her hockey sticks and decided they were better than nothing. I reached across the back seat, slid one from its cushioned sheath, left the shed and crept toward the house.

  I padded onto the veranda and slipped through the open front door, made out a staircase in front of me and glimpsed flickers of torch light in a room to my left. Holly was in there, muttering, swearing and clicking open ancient cupboard doors.

  I glanced at the phone. Still nothing, but when I lifted it above my head my heart leapt—one signal bar flashed on the screen.

  Soon as I brought it down to my mouth, though, the bar disappeared and I knew I had to get up those stairs. I dashed lightly across the floorboards, which were spongy with rot, climbed the first two steps. On the third the stair disintegrated, my foot smashed through and splintered wood bit my calf.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Holly popped out of the doorway, torch in one hand, axe in the other, and ran toward me. I pushed on the step above with my free hand and as my leg slid out felt ragged wood tear the flesh from the back of my knee right down to my ankle.

  Glancing over my shoulder I saw the axe swoop down and I squealed, but she couldn’t control it with only one hand and the weapon went wide, missing me by half a centimetre and lodging in the wood. As she struggled to extricate the blade I ripped my foot out and clambered up the stairs, sticking close to the edge and gripping the wobbly banister, praying it wouldn’t collapse.

  At the top I came to a mezzanine level that looked over the ground floor of the house and turned and headed right, still clutching the railing, afraid of plunging through rotting floorboards. I passed through the door at the end of the corridor, closed it and, finding no lock, scanned the room for something to use as a barrier. In the half-light I made out an old bed frame and a chest of drawers. I tipped the drawers over and pushed them in front of the door then backed to the far side of the room where looping reams of insulation material spilled onto the floor from a hole in the wall.

  My heel hit the lip of some sort of metal bowl and I almost tripped as it upended, clanging and splashing water on my jeans. I checked the phone, hand shaking. Yes! The bar was back and I pressed triple 0 and held the phone to my ear. Come on, come on, I thought, the whole house shuddering as Holly thundered up the stairs. I became aware of a rotting smell as I waited for the phone to connect, not musty like the cave but sickly sweet and acute, and I remembered the odour from our old house in the bush when marsupial mice got trapped in the walls and died.

  Holly bashed on the door and I edged to the window, looking for an escape route. The glass was already broken and I used the hockey stick to smash out the few remaining shards.

  The window sashes remained intact though, and I was just wondering if I could squeeze through when my call was answered.

  ‘Triple 0. Police, fire or ambulance?’

  ‘All of ’em,’ I yelled as the chest of drawers started scraping across the floor.

  ‘You can only pick one.’

  ‘Police.’

  ‘What’s your address?’

  ‘Um. Shit. Lot 444, View Glen Road, Kangaroo Ground.’

  ‘Nearest cross street?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’

  ‘No need to be rude, putting you through now.’

  As I listened to the ringing tone Holly slipped through the gap in the door and I backed up further until I trod on something squishy. I looked down and gasped. In the thin moonlight I saw Andi’s body wrapped in the insulation, her head and an arm poking out. I’d stepped on the hand. Her face was drawn, bone white and the smell was terrible. I was too late to save her and if I didn’t get out of this then Chloe and I were dead as well.

  ‘Police. What’s the nature of your emergency?’

  I looked up. Holly had put the torch down on the chest of drawers so she could hold the axe with both hands. She stalked towards me, grinning.

  ‘One dead, one injured and a crazy bitch is coming at me with an axe.’

  ‘Tying up emergency services with hoax calls is a very serious offence if—’

  ‘It’s not a hoax! Talk to Duval, Homicide. My name’s Simone Kirsch and—shit!’ I dropped the phone and clutched the hockey stick like a baseball bat. Holly was getting close.

  ‘Police are coming,’ I tried.

  ‘If they can find the fucking place. Nearest cop shop is Eltham. I’ve got plenty of time. What’s that hideous smell?’

  She wrinkled her nose.

  ‘That smell? It’s what happens when you kill someone in cold blood, you crazy murdering bitch!’

  ‘I don’t think of it as murder so much as protecting my husband from sluts like you and Andi and your big-titted friend. I was just looking after what’s mine. Anyone would have done the same.’

  ‘Protecting Saint Dillon?’ I laughed. ‘Are you totally fucking deluded? Can’t you see he’s a vain, self absorbed actor who’s only with you for your money?’

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ She raised the axe higher. ‘He’s the father of my child, and a beautiful man, inside and out. He wants to be faithful but your type’s always trying to lead h
im astray. Throwing yourselves at him, flaunting your wares.’

  Flaunting my what?

  ‘Babe,’ I said, trying to keep her talking so she wasn’t chopping at me with the axe, ‘I so don’t fancy him.’

  ‘Of course you do. I’ve seen the way you look at him, how every woman looks at him.’

  ‘Just because you like him doesn’t mean everyone else does. I can’t stand him.’

  ‘You’re lying. He’s the most wonderful—’

  ‘Like your dad?’

  ‘You don’t know anything about my dad.’

  I tried for the sympathy vote. ‘I know Rochelle killed him.

  Gave him an overdose, left you an orphan and stole your inheritance. That’s harsh. I don’t blame you for being pissed off.’

  ‘She ruined my life. Me and Daddy had the best time together until she came along. He didn’t need to work, so just painted, and I hardly ever went to school. We’d hang out in our secret garden out the back of the Villa—you know, where they put up that ugly hotel? It was overgrown and had big stone walls and we’d draw pictures and tell stories and sometimes just lie on our backs and stare at the clouds. And we’d have picnics, with custard tarts and vanilla slices and—’

  ‘Junkies do have sweet tooth’s.’ I couldn’t help myself, she was making me sick.

  ‘He wasn’t a junkie! That was his medicine. He had a bad back and the doctors wouldn’t prescribe anything strong enough. Anyway, no one’s going to take Dillon away from me.

  I’ve made sure of that. Enough talking, I know you’re trying to stall me. I’m not dumb.’ She raised the axe.

  ‘Wait! Before you kill me I just wanna know one thing. How’d Melody end up down the mine shaft?’

  ‘Rochelle found out she was in Melbourne, promised her a payoff if she didn’t say anything about what they’d done to my dad. We met up with her in that park near the St Kilda pier and had a picnic. Rochelle brought me along to put Melody at ease. I mean, who brings along a four year old to murder someone? She drugged her, drove her up here, ran her over and shoved her down the hole. I was actually in the car, pretending to be asleep. It’s where I got the idea for getting rid of Andi. Sins of the parents, huh?’