by Paul Taylor
SHADOWVILLE
by Paul Taylor
Published by stealth productions
Copyright © 2015 by Paul Andrew Taylor. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited. The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about it, to help spread the word.
Thank you for your support.
for Phoebe & Rosita,
my puppies always.
And that little black thing, who showed me you can care about cats.
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CHAPTER ONE
The crisp darkness of the countryside drew down around the glowing cocoon of the speeding car. Unlike summer, when the sun stained the sky like a child's butterfly painting as it sank beneath the horizon, in winter it just got dark. One second the sun was in the sky and it was daylight, the next instant, the sun was gone and the world enveloped by the pale blue of evening. Then the sky steadily darkened until a myriad of stars fired into life like candles.
The roads were busy at this time of day with dozens of workers whizzing along the highway out of town, back to their country homes to put in another good hour's work before going inside for dinner. Without question, nearly all the cars coming would be from the Meatworks, or the Cassino Abattoir, to give it its proper name. It was the only major employer of unskilled workers in Casino, and prospects for skilled workers were very thin on the ground in any case. Most young people who wanted decent work had to leave town for the greener pastures of Brisbane or Sydney.
Cows chewing cud in the dark paddocks glanced up disinterestedly as the long, brown Valiant purred toward town, travelling in the opposite direction to the workers. The driver, wrapped deep in his own concerns and worries, lay back in his seat with one hand propped on the steering wheel and the other digging through a centre console full of audio cassettes. His hand seized hold of one and brought it up like a diver discovering secret treasure. He held the tape close, squinting at the title and, apparently satisfied with it, he jammed it into the tape deck. Santana filled the car, rolling out of the stereo like summer thunder from the back seat.
The car rolled down the highway like a long, brown snake, startling rabbits out of the grass with its deep, thrumming engine.
Out of the gathering dark loomed a Service Station, a small island of light with a bright Ampol sign standing out against the sky. With an impulsive flick of an indicator, the Valiant slid off the edge of the road and into the service station's lot, pulling to a halt beside a vacant bowser with its inky, black shadow trailing out behind it.
The driver remained in the car for a moment, leaning forward with his hands laced over the steering wheel and staring into the fluorescent depths of the servo. It was mostly deserted, still too early for any truckers, and the only other vehicle was a brown Holden station wagon. The only people inside were a young man who looked about ready to leave, presumably the owner of the station wagon, and an old woman behind the counter who looked like she'd be hard-pressed to even recognise her own face, never mind his.
Waiting until the young guy was almost at his car, Ben Reilly climbed out of his Valiant and strolled into the Ampol Shop. The old woman glanced up at the ding of the electronic door, barely acknowledging him. She did not return his smile.
The shop contained the same arrangement of junk food, groceries and crappy novelty items that he'd seen almost a dozen times in the last two and a half days. Despite his desperation to get out of the city, away from the newly segregated friends his break up had created, Ben had taken the trip from Sydney slowly. He stopped overnight outside of Taree in a quaint little bed and breakfast and took the time to follow down whatever interesting sights he saw, discovering along the way a dozen fascinating places he'd never even known existed. Ben had stopped and explored each and every one of them, turning an eight hour drive into a thirty-six hour one. If anyone had been following his progress, they would have been struck with the distinct impression that he was trying to avoid arriving at his final destination. Which was only partly true. He wanted to ease back into it, was all.
The woman still wasn't paying any attention to him as he strolled to the back of the store and grabbed a bottle of coke from the cool fridge. Twisting the top off, he drank a mouthful and looked around for something to eat. It all looked pretty enticing; chips, Kit Kats, Mars Bars, Picnics, mixed lollies, but after a few minutes of standing indecisively in front of the shelves he decided he didn't really need any of it. The sickly-sweet smell of petrol permeated the shop and lay under everything like a dirty secret, killing his appetite. The nerves fluttering inside his stomach like hyperactive butterflies did little to help.
Stopping by the magazine rack, he picked up a copy of that day's Northern Star and leafed through it, giving each page a cursory glance. He folded the paper and stuck it under his arm. Jennifer Lopez stared out at him from the cover of that week's NW, sometimes it seemed between her and Jennifer Aniston they had the market for women's magazine covers cornered. They'd been all Ben had ever seen when Jessica used to bring home her stack of gossip magazines every Monday, shamelessly addicting Ben to the filth they pandered to the masses. They'd curl up on the lounge after dinner and leaf through them, Jessica bitching about the skin and bones celebrity women and Ben quietly checking out pictures of his starlet-of-the-month.
Ben stuffed the magazine back onto the rack and went to the counter. Those memories were still too fresh to be anything but painful.
"Hi," he said to the woman when she finally looked up at him.
"Owyergoin?" she asked, swiping the coke across the laser scanner and typing in the price of the paper. Up to eighty cents now, Ben noticed. It had been twenty-five when he left.
"Good thanks," he said. "I'm actually just back in town for my first visit in ages."
"Mm-huh. That'll be two dollars seventy, thanks," she said. "How long since you were last 'ere?" she asked as he handed over the exact money.
"Six years," he said, the words echoing in his head. Could it really have been that long? "I actually used to live here."
"Well," she said. "You haven't missed anything."
Should be Casino's tourist motto, thought Ben. You Haven't Missed A Thing.
Back on the road Ben drove more slowly, watching the evening lights of Casino loom larger in his windscreen as he approached the town limits, his heart tightening with each kilometre. He couldn't let it be the same now, a lot of years had passed since he'd left, a lot of water under the bridge, and a lot of excess kilos shed. Everyone he went to school with might still be the same but Ben was determined he'd be different. He had to be. Otherwise, it nullified the whole point of leaving in the first place.
As he crossed the town limits, though, it began to seem that the town was going to resist his best efforts to change. For it had remained as solid and unchanging as a rock. On his right as he drove in was the Casino Showground, still with the same high brick walls around the sides and three small grandstands inside. The Rodeo for the yearly Beef Week festival had always been held there and Ben remembered the last one he'd come to, not long before he'd left. People he'd gone to school with were getting around in large groups, getting on the piss. Despite being underage, and being there with his parents, Ben felt sadly left out. He'd tried to join in, but Neil Bryce, ever the practical joker, had deliberately bumped into Ben, spilling a plastic mug of beer al
l over him. The laughter of the assorted guys and girls had echoed in his ears as they walked off, leaving him to explain to his parents exactly why he reeked of alcohol.
As he drove on into town, Ben saw more things that jogged his memory, not all of them unpleasant. There was the Charcoal, where he used to go out with his small group of friends (all of whom he'd long since lost touch with). They'd start their Friday night at the Charcoal, sitting out on the veranda drinking schooners of Tooheys and scoffing down the complimentary boiled potatoes and fish cocktails. Past that, there was the small block of shops that formed the shopping district of Casino's southern half was the Richmond River, on the banks of which he'd almost gotten into a fight with a drunken Aborigine after mistaking the man's drunk, passed out girlfriend for a dog.
Ben had already made up his mind where he was going to stay until he bought a house. It was a Motel straight off the far side of the bridge called the Blue Bayou. He'd stayed there once with his parents when he was only little and he fondly recalled its stucco white beach walls and surrounding palm trees. The name itself had always conjured a sense of far off mystery but, sadly, before he'd left town the name had changed to Beef Capital Motel, apparently to cash in on the "success" of Beef Week, the town's annual celebration of cattle. In Ben's absence, it had changed names again and was now called the Richmond Settlers Motel, but it appeared that had been the only thing to change. All the palm trees still stood arrayed about the building like loyal soldiers and it's facade was still the craggy white stucco of a beach house.
Ben eased his car into a parking spot and went inside with his single suitcase, not bothering to lock the car. Those country habits came back easy.
The woman behind the reception desk was exactly the same model of woman who'd tended to him at the service station. Only this one had a pall of smoke encircling her head and was much more lizard-like in appearance. She hacked out a long, rattling cough as Ben walked in and she stubbed out a cigarette beneath the counter, rapidly fanning the air.
"Hi," said Ben, putting down his small suitcase.
"G'day," rasped the woman. "What can I do for you, dearie?"
"I was just looking for a room, Mrs, uh, Driscoll," he said, grimacing at her breath as he peered at the nameplate on the counter.
"Please," she flapped a withered old hand at him. "Call me Mavis."
"Okay, Mavis," said Ben. "I'd like a room for a couple of days, please."
"Sorry," she said. "This is our busy season, we're full up." She grinned, which only increased her reptilian appearance, and choked out a dry, rusty laugh. "I'm kidding, look around. This place ain't never full except for Beef Week."
She squinted at him through layers of eye-shadow that matched her blue rinse hair. "You're not here with them other folks, are you?" she asked.
"Nope," said Ben. "I'm all on my lonesome."
"Handsome young fella like you shouldn't be on your own, dear. It ain't natural."
"Thanks," said Ben, "but I've had enough of relationships for now."
"Just come out of a bad one, hey?"
"Sort of," said Ben. "I'm sorry, could I just get a room, please?"
"Of course you can, dear," said Mavis. "You'll have to excuse me, we don't get a lot of business here and I do enjoy a bit of a chin wag."
"That's all right," he said, smiling at her.
"Now," she said. "If I could get a look at your licence there?"
"Sure, no worries," he handed it over to her and she started typing in his details.
"A city boy, ay?" she said as she typed.
"Originally a country boy," he said.
She fell silent as she brought all her concentration to bear on typing in his details on the creaky old computer. While he waited, Ben turned to look at the reception area.
Somewhere along its last couple of name changes, someone had taken a half-hearted stab at redecorating the motel to a more traditional country-style and succeeded only in making it look like a beach-themed motel trapped in a country nightmare. It had been decorated to suit the old Blue Bayou name and it was this motif that still dominated.
The original style had included dark blue walls, various stuffed fish hanging on the walls, including ye olde trusty swordfish, and fish tanks built into the walls, all rising out of a plush, blue carpet. The stuffed fish had been removed and replaced with cow skulls and wood panelling now covered the lower half of the walls. The blue paint remained, as did the dingy lighting. It was supposed to be soft lighting to make the place look classy but it came off looking like a seedy pub.
The fish-tanks remained (a half dozen fish drifting desultorily around in them) but, unfortunately, the piece de resistance, the centre piece of the whole Motel, the beautiful reception desk, scalloped to look like a clam, had been replaced by something that looked like a couple of fence palings slapped on top of a stand of corrugated iron.
The place certainly had a distinctive, if not overly cohesive, look about it.
"Orright," said Mavis, a fresh fag had appeared in her mouth as if by magic. "I reckon we're good to stick you in a room."
"So what brings you back to our delightful little neck of the woods, Mr Reilly?" asked Mavis as she led him outside and around to his room. No smoking, no drinking and no women after ten p.m., proclaimed a sign by the door.
"You mean what could possibly have happened to force me back to this out-of-the-way country backwater?" he said, smiling.
"That's about the gist of it," she replied. "I don't know how long it is since you were here last but Casino's about as exciting as a sack race with no sacks."
"Oh, that's good," Ben laughed. "I was worried it might have gotten worse."
"The pace might not match the city but we're getting the crime rate to match."
"Really?" said Ben, genuinely surprised. "You get a bit here?"
"Yeah. Yeah we do," said Mavis. "Not quite as much as in the big smoke but we do all right. Mostly car thefts and minor break-ins, little bit of vandalism. Most everyone blames the blacks, like white-skinned people don't have crime. Well, let me tell you, who committed the first crime? Adam and Eve! And I ain't never seen them referred to as black, have you, dear?"
"Can't say as I have," agreed Ben.
"There's been kids going missing too," Mavis said in a low voice, as if she was afraid someone might overhear.
"Yeah?" said Ben. He hadn't heard anything about it.
Mavis nodded. "Mm-huh. No one knows what happened to 'em. Two or three so far, vanished almost from under their parent's noses."
"Shit," murmured Ben, suitably impressed.
"Exactly," said Mavis. "And if you ask me, I reckon it's got something to do with these fellas from out of town."
Ben nodded, not quite sure what response was required of him. He glanced around as they crossed the parking lot, the only sound, other than Mavis's droning voice, was the gravel crunching under their feet.
"That's right," Mavis went on as if he'd answered her. "These weirdos show up, they're in Room Seventeen - you might want to stay clear of it - and all of a sudden three kids go missing. Pretty suss if you ask me. And there's been all sorts of people from town showing up at their room at odd hours, they're up to no good, I tell you." She lowered her voice again to a conspiratorial whisper and said to him, "I reckon they're selling drugs.
"Here we are," she said suddenly, and that seemed to be an end to the conversation. "Room Nineteen, it's all yours." She unlocked the door and dropped the key into Ben's hand. "Enjoy," she said. "Don't forget to take in the sights," she added with a rusty laugh, and walked off across the parking lot.
More than anything, thought Ben as he tossed his suitcase onto the bed, he wanted to eat. The smell of the Chicken Express, just two doors down from the motel, was driving his stomach nuts. First he had to check his e-mail for any abusive messages from his boss asking him what the hell he was doing, or from Jessica telling him what a bastard he was. As it turned out, there was neither. Just a bad joke about a Polar Bear fr
om a workmate and the weekly Paranormal Newsletter. Ben opened it and glanced at it briefly. He'd read it later and maybe go and check out their web-page as well. It was always a good read.
The Paranormal Newsletter was the offshoot of the About Paranormal website. It came once a week and always made for an easy distraction from work. It was little more than a listing of new articles and links to any interesting sites the moderator had discovered, with a few readers' stories thrown in. That X-Files shit fascinated him, always had, ever since he was at school and before X-Files had turned unexplained phenomena into another fad. Ben skimmed quickly through the message before closing it down, as fascinating as it was, right now his mouth was watering for Chicken Express.
Fifteen minutes later, walking across the orange, Martian landscape of the parking lot and carrying a bag of chicken pieces and chips, Ben came across a man outside Room 17, a few doors down the veranda from him. The man was jiggling the key in the door, trying to lock it.
As Ben approached, the man solved the key dilemma and turned to walk across the lot. He was wearing sunglasses, Ben noticed. Sunglasses at night? Whatever, he supposed. He'd done the same thing when he was a teenager, although this gent looked as though the last of his teenage years were a fair stretch behind him.
Mindful of Mavis's paranoid ravings Ben smiled at him. "How you goin?" he said.
"Fine," said the man, short and to the point. His face was queer and alien in the glow of the orange, arc-sodium lights. Ben supposed he looked the same.
"On holiday are you?" said Ben.
"No," said the man. Standing there, calmly surveying Ben, evaluating him. A small smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.
Before Ben could think of anything else to say, the man spun on his heel and strode away across the parking lot. As the guy turned, Ben had a fleeting image of something whirling through the air behind, almost like a cape. It was there and gone before Ben could be sure it was anything other than a flicker of his eye. The guy was definitely off, there was no question of that, and Ben saw why the receptionist was leery of him. He was damn creepy.
CHAPTER TWO