Desert Demon (Foley & Rose Book 7)

by Gary Gregor

  Adalhard had an open-ended tourist visa, courtesy of his father’s contacts within the German Immigration Department and he was in no hurry to return to the world he left behind, and that included Anneliese. There were times when he lay awake at night when he thought of her. She was very pretty, and the sex was good, but he needed more in his life than just a pretty girl and good sex. He didn’t know what “more” was until he arrived in Australia and started his killing spree.

  Killing was not a sexual turn-on for Adalhard; it was not something he had to do to get his rocks off. It was way more than that. Killing put Adalhard on a high unlike anything he could get from sex, or booze, or even drugs. The only downside to killing was the coming down from the high afterwards. No sooner had his blood pressure and the adrenalin rush settled, he wanted to do it all over again, taking even more risks every time. The cop’s wife was the biggest thrill so far and now he wanted to better that.

  A woman would be nice, he thought. He hadn’t been with a woman since Anneliese and sometimes he felt the familiar stir of lust deep in his groin. The feeling seemed to arise more frequently in recent times. It had to be a power thing, he supposed. He remembered reading somewhere that “ultimate power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” and the power that surged through his body every time he killed someone was tantamount to that. Perhaps he should take a pretty young woman next time. The young woman at Chambers Pillar was pretty, he recalled, but that was early in his killing spree and the power lust had not yet fully developed. Now that it had, perhaps he should appease the monster and take a woman. He could bring her into the isolated desert somewhere and keep her for as long as it took to satisfy the urge. When he was done with her, then he would kill her. No one would ever find her body out in the wilderness. Probably wouldn’t even have to bury the body. The sun and the desert creatures would quickly dispose of any remains.

  Adalhard had never raped a woman. He never had reason to. Every woman he had ever slept with had been a more than willing partner. And why wouldn’t they be willing? He was young, very fit courtesy of the military, and he was considered by every woman he had been with, and many he hadn’t, to be a very good-looking catch. It also helped that his family was wealthy, and he had access to plenty of money. He knew it was the military uniform and the buckets of cash he threw around with undisguised abandon that attracted him to the women he bedded, probably more so the money than the uniform, but it didn’t matter to Adalhard. He was getting laid regularly and the money was never going to run out.

  Anneliese was different than all the others. She didn’t seem to care about his obvious wealth, something he was never afraid to broadcast to anyone who cared to listen. She was more about falling in love and eventually getting married and having a family than she was about meaningless, unromantic one-night stands. She was an extremely attractive young woman and Adalhard was a handsome man; their children would be gorgeous, she believed, and she was anxious to get started on producing them, but only as Mrs Jaeger. Marriage would come, she thought, perhaps sooner rather than later now that Adalhard had left the military. She knew that Adalhard was destined to follow in his father’s footsteps, at least that was his father’s plan for him. What a great life they would have. There was a lot to be said for the benefits of wealth and privilege, she thought.

  When Adalhard announced to her that he was going to Australia, she was excited. What could be more romantic than travelling, Fist Class of course, to the other side of the world? To a land she had only ever read about. Where her romantic musings came adrift was when he told her he was going alone. Why? Why would he not take her with him? She loved him and he loved her, or so she believed. The news of his intended solo travels broke her heart and when the time came for him to catch his flight, she couldn’t go to the airport to see him off; it was more than she could stand. Anneliese stayed in her bed and cried until she thought her heart would literally stop beating.

  Adalhard pushed himself to his feet and moved to the other side of the tree at which he had been resting. He unzipped and relieved himself onto the hot, dry sandy creek bed. When he was done, he zipped up and looked down at the damp patch at his feet. The sand had swallowed the moisture before it had time to pool, and now there was only a small damp patch to indicate anyone had ever been there. He stood beside the river red gum and looked up and down the creek bed. He felt so alone out here in the Outback; he could almost imagine that some huge apocalypse had wiped out every living thing on the planet except for him. For reasons he could not fathom, that imagery filled him with a warmth like he had never felt before.

  The Australian Outback was simply the most fascinating place Adalhard could ever imagine. It was threatening. It was dangerous. It would entice you into its arms and then kill the unprepared in a heartbeat. It showcased a silent and profound beauty that he doubted existed anywhere else on the planet. Enter it with naivety and ignorance, however, and you might just as well get your affairs in order before you did.

  Adalhard felt a part of all that now. The Outback was not his own; it would never be his own. No one could own the Outback—the Outback owned you the minute you stepped into it. It would seduce you with its charms and attractions, and then take your life before you had time to even think about claiming it as your own. Adalhard was nothing but a visitor to this wonderous, deadly place and that was all he would ever be. That was okay with Adalhard, though. He could visit anytime he wanted and stay as long as he wanted. He respected the power of the Outback. In return for his respect and admiration, he believed the Outback gave him power like he had never known. It renewed him. Reinvigorated him. It prepared him for his next kill. It stirred the ashes of his killing desire until it flared into a raging fire deep within him. There was nothing he could do to quell the flames other than to kill again.

  He found killing was like the first time he jumped out of an airplane. As a commando in the German Army, he had parachuted from a plane many times. He remembered the first time he jumped out of an airplane at 12,000 feet. It was the waiting for his turn to jump that excited him most. Standing in single file, moving one place forward as the man at the front of the line jumped. Beyond the large, yawning opening created when the landing ramp was lowered, there was the vision of nothing but blue sky and the very loud sound of the huge engines driving the big, bulky craft through the air. Adalhard’s emotions swayed back and forth, from sheer unadulterated terror to mild trepidation, to a thrilling sense of anticipation the closer he moved to the front of the line.

  The jump itself became almost an anti-climax. Sometimes his parachute was deployed by a static line and other times he had to free-fall for several thousand feet before deploying the chute himself. There was the rush of air, the sound of the wind rushing past his face as he plummeted towards the earth rushing up to meet him. Once his chute was deployed, there was absolute silence as he floated serenely to the ground to join the others of his unit. Immediately after his first jump, he wanted to do it again. It had to be the ultimate, most fear-filled thrill he could imagine—until he killed for the first time.

  Killing was like that for Adalhard. The minutes leading up to the pulling of the trigger were a blend of terror and excitement. There was the ever-present possibility that someone would see him. Because his victims were randomly chosen innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time, he never really knew if there might be a witness, perhaps more than one, somewhere close by that he had not seen. It was like waiting to parachute jump, with sweaty palms, drastically elevated heartbeat, and a dread of the unknown. What if something was wrong with his chute? What if the static line became entangled? What if he threw up on the floor of the plane, in full view of his commando comrades? Then he pulled the trigger, a stranger died, and suddenly everything was alright with the world.

  Adalhard wasn’t sure when he first suspected he was no longer alone. It was a sensory thing more than a knowing. He sat on the open tailgate of his vehicle, eating instant noodles and occasionally sipping from a mug of hot c
offee. He sensed a presence rather than saw or heard anything. Slowly, he lowered the cup of noodles to the tailgate and silently shifted his hand to the weapon laying at his side. He stared into the distance, across the shallow, dry creek bed and then up and down its length. There was nothing there. He turned and looked through the side window of the canopy. From his position, he could not see the ground close to the vehicle through either of the windows. Something or someone was there. The feeling was strong. As silently as he could, he slid forward on the tailgate until his feet touched the ground and then he stood.

  The dingo came from nowhere. First, Adalhard was alone in the remoteness of the Outback, enjoying the solitude, and then he wasn’t. He took one silent step to his right and looked around the left-hand side of his vehicle. The animal stood motionless on the passenger side, just below the canopy window. Adalhard stopped and stared at the wild dog. Their eyes locked together in a bizarre staring match. The dingo was skinny, probably half-starved Adalhard thought. It must have smelled the food he had been eating.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Adalhard raised the pistol and aimed at the dingo’s face. The dog did not move. Its mouth hung slightly ajar and a string of drool hung precariously from its bottom jaw. It was then that Adalhard smelled the animal. It was a strong, wild animal smell. Wafting on a gentle, rare puff of breeze. Probably had every disease a dog can get, Adalhard guessed. Comes from eating carrion and scrounging for food scraps wherever he could find them.

  Adalhard pulled the trigger. The dingo’s head exploded in a mist of red. Pieces of fur, skin, and brain tissue flew backwards and sideways. Adalhard watched as a large piece of bloody tissue slid slowly down the side of his vehicle, leaving a thin trail of red. He watched until it reached the bottom of the vehicle, hung suspended by a thin thread, and then plopped to the ground alongside the dingo’s shattered head.

  It was a good shot, Adalhard thought, even though he was almost within touching distance of the animal. It was a good, clean shot to the head. The feeling flushed through him, leaving him wanting more. It was time, he thought, to move on and find another victim. Maybe a pretty young woman he could keep for a while.

  23

  Someone meeting Samantha Love for the first time could be forgiven for guessing her age at about thirty years rather than forty. Samantha had a look about her that suggested she kept herself in shape, ate all the right quantities of foods from the recommended health food groups, retired early to bed, rose early, and ate a nutritiously healthy breakfast of fruit and nut muesli sprinkled liberally with chlorella. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  Samantha had a metabolism like very few other forty-year-old women. It was almost like she was burning unwanted body fat simply by thinking about it. It was not that she adhered to a strict low-fat diet regime, quite the opposite. She loved junk food, sugar-laden soft drinks, and as much cake as she could lay her hands on. Not only did she have a body shape the envy of women half her age, but she was also surprisingly fit. She knew the lifestyle and eating habits she enjoyed were not particularly conducive to a long life free of health complications, but she felt good now and, for Samantha, now was the most important time in anyone’s life. It was what you did with the now that counted.

  She worked on her fitness somewhat casually, with irregular gym workouts and occasional long runs, knowing full well that the little exercise she did do was never quite enough, but it made her feel better about herself. Running in the oppressive heat that baked the landscape of central Australia demanded that pursuits such as fitness running should be followed in the early hours of the day, before the sun had begun to heat the day, or at night, after the sun had completed its work and slipped once again below the horizon. But these were times when she was either snug in her bed, warmed against the chill of the early morning, or preparing to go out for an evening of wining, dining, and dancing.

  However, whenever she did run and it came to choosing either the day or night option, she elected the early mornings, before the heat of the coming day could gain a foothold. Running at night in Alice Springs was not something that appealed to her. Although she loved Alice Springs, it was, she thought, still very much a pioneer town, despite council and government seemingly constantly spending millions on infrastructure and attractions aimed at drawing tourists to the area. Crime in Alice Springs was not out of control, but it was on the rise, mostly due to the abundance and misuse of alcohol. Desert heat generated thirst. Quench the thirst with alcohol as opposed to water, add the searing temperatures, and you had a recipe for trouble.

  Samantha held a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cultural Studies from the University of South Australia and was currently working towards her master’s degree. Forty years old was probably ten years older than the age she should have started studying for a master’s degree, but she wanted to travel and see the world before she continued her studies. Then, there was the time she spent living in remote aboriginal settlements, gaining valuable hands-on experience of the aboriginal culture. She found the cultural divide between aboriginal Australians and white Australians to be alarmingly wide and narrowing way too slowly, and the historical backstory of the aboriginal race’s presence on the Australian continent to be fascinating, albeit filled with a lot of speculation and supposition.

  Financially, it was not easy to live, eat, and enjoy life to the extent that Samantha did on little money. She worked casually at three different cafés and restaurants dotted along the Todd Street Mall, in the heart of the Alice Springs CBD, stayed at a youth hostel on the edge of the city centre which was, as many such places were, not even rated on any international star-rating system. But it was cheap, and she was lucky to have found a room where she did not have to share. Mostly it was quiet, and she was able to shut herself in her tiny room and study. She had already been in Alice Springs for two months and would soon have to return to South Australia to complete her degree.

  She came to central Australia to study the aboriginal race more closely. She visited many cultural sites sacred to the Aborigines and was now waiting to go to Uluru, Ayers Rock and Kata Tjuta, the Olgas. Both places offered some of the best insight into the existence of the aboriginal race in Australia. Culturally rich, Samantha was excited about her upcoming visit to the area. An archaeological conference was scheduled for Yulara and the surrounding area and, by pure chance, she met someone while dining in one of the cafés in the Mall who just happened to be an archaeologist and was in Alice Springs for the express purpose of attending the conference.

  Samantha could not get a place at the conference without having booked several months ago her new friend announced. There was, however, a couple of vacancies as two people had cancelled just days earlier. If she could make her own way to Yulara and find the money she needed to join the group, she might be able to persuade the organisers to offer her a place. It was not cheap, and Samantha did not have at hand the kind of money they wanted for four days in Ayers Rock Resort; her parents, however, did.

  Adalhard’s food and water stocks were low and he decided on Stuarts Well to re-stock. The closest roadhouse to where he was camped, Stuarts Well, was just 90 kilometres south of Alice Springs. There was, at the rear of the roadhouse, a small caravan park Adalhard had noticed the last time he was there. He would have much preferred to stay away from such places, but without food and water he could not survive more than a few days in the desert.

  There was no specific rear entrance road to the caravan park, no gate, and no fences. But he had travelled across country, overland from the west, across open desert country where there were no formed roads and he’d never really expected to find a road, or even a track, that would take him directly to the caravan park area. He drove down one side of the roadhouse and entered at the rear. He parked behind a small ablution block, out of sight from inside the roadhouse. He did not intend to stay longer than was necessary to re-stock his supplies, and then he would leave.

  By now, Adalhard was perhaps even edgier than he was just befo
re a killing. No one knew where he was, but he knew they were searching, and lingering longer than was necessary in a populated place was flirting with danger. He figured every cop in the Northern Territory was on the lookout for him.

  Stuarts Well was not a township but a simple roadhouse on the Stuart Highway and, other than the live-in management, there were no permanent residents. Being located only 90 kilometres from Alice Springs, there was little reason for travellers to stop, unless it was for a coffee or restroom break. Still, people did come and go, albeit in small numbers, on a reasonably regular basis and the risk of being seen by any one of them was omnipresent in Adalhard’s mind.

  The woman was at the front counter inside the roadhouse when Adalhard entered. She was pretty, he thought. He allowed himself a surreptitious, lingering look at her before he took up a small shopping basket from a stack at the end of the three-aisle shopping area and slowly made his way along aisle one, selecting items from the shelf and dropping them into his basket as he went. As he slowly made his way along the aisle, he looked out through the expansive front window of the reception area, onto the re-fuel apron and parking area beyond. There was not another vehicle anywhere. Perhaps the woman worked here?

  Did he dare? Could he possibly grab this woman and get away from the roadhouse with her without being observed, or at the very least, raising suspicion? The other woman in the shop-front, serving behind the counter, was elderly; she would be the manager, Adalhard believed. She would be no threat, he decided. But did she manage this place on her own? Was there a husband somewhere he had not seen yet? There had to be other staff somewhere, he thought. Perhaps he should just forget the pretty woman, collect his supplies and be on his way; that would be the sensible thing to do. Unfortunately, common sense seemed to be mysteriously absent whenever Adalhard was afflicted by the urges.