Roadman Read online

  He rested the Remington against the granite rock and picked the shovel out of the fire that Jade had dropped. He was gonna need it for later. The shaft hadn’t burnt too badly, but he doused it anyway with what water remained from the waterbag. Then he bent down behind Sal, wrapped his arms completely around her tiny waist, locked his wrists together and heaved her backward with a mighty jerk. He totally overestimated her weight, tripping over the heels of his boots and sprawling onto his arse. Hell, the roo he’d carried up the slope before all this shit began weighed more than she did. Sal’s dead body flopped on top of him, forcing the wind out of him, and for just a brief moment the horror of what he’d done flashed across his mind, causing his gut to spasm and shoot its contents into the back of his mouth. He fought the spasms, which kept raiding the back of his throat in waves of burning pain, but it wasn’t until the third or fourth effort of holding them down that the threat of throwing up finally relented, for now at least. The throbbing in his pants was now tiring into an exhausted quiver and deflating almost as quickly as it had arisen. He figured throwing up and hard-ons were just too fuck’n incompatible to be bed partners, like him and ex-fuck’n wife.

  As little as she weighed, Sal’s dead weight was still a crushing force on his chest, making it difficult for him to take a breath. He tried to wriggle out from under her, but as he jerked to and fro, to his alarm, he again caught movement beyond the roo carcass and the drying rack. This time he saw more than he would’ve liked. No stray animal wandering past the campsite this time. Was definitely human, a boy. Had been standing there, silent and still like a fuck’n mannequin, just watching, staring at him near the mantrap which Jade had set off with his makeshift walking stick.

  Max stopped twisting in his efforts to wriggle out from under the bitch’s body and just stared back. Fuck knows how long the kid’d been standing there. Hadn’t made a fuck’n sound, which was kind of fuck’n eerie. But what put the willies up him most was not the fact that someone was witness to his crime, but the boy’s eyes, lifeless and vacant like Jade’s, as though he were staring at a ghost. There was a familiar look to him, too. The boy was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, but in the dimness of the twilight-zone beyond the ring of firelight it was difficult to tell much more than that. Then the kid just seemed to vanish into thin fuck’n air. Was staring at him one second, then gone the next, extinguished like a spark from the campfire into the darkness.

  Max figured the kid had taken off behind the humpy. He wiggled out from underneath Sal, half-rolling her across his stomach and over his left hip. As he stood, Sal’s right leg flipped across her left leg making some kind of clinking noise. Ignoring it, he rushed across to the drying rack, wiping his lips with the back of his sleeve to get rid of the metallic aftertaste of bile in his mouth. He checked the bushes behind the roo skins and behind the humpy, but there was no sign of the kid. Not even any footprints.

  “HEY!” he called into the darkness. “HEY KID! I’M NOT GONNA HURT YA!”

  There was no response. Not even the mocking laugh of a kookaburra or the whispering rustle of the trees and bushes. There was no breeze. Just the occasional crackle of coals in the dying campfire behind him. He called out several more times without response.

  Maybe it was just your fuck’n imagination, he thought after nearly a minute waiting for the kid to emerge. God knows you’ve got a pretty fuck’n good one.

  But there was something about the kid that really put the fuck’n spooks up him. Something about the way he looked. The odd, elliptical-shaped head; the nose, turned up at the end like a pixie or elf; thick, arching eyebrows that flung themselves toward one another but stopped just short of embracing in one continuous mono-brow; the short, dark hair that looked like it had been cut by his mother or aunty in a rush to get out of the house and off to her fuck’n bingo night with the girls. And those eyes. Large, dark orbs that stared at him across the campfire, neither accusing nor judging, just staring, just saying, “I know what you’re doing, but don’t worry, I ain’t gonna tell nobody. Your secret’s safe with me. I can keep secrets.” Holy fuck’n moly, it was like glancing at a real-life statue of himself as a ten-year-old kid.

  Max shook the image out of his head and returned to the dead bodies next to the campfire. Tonight’s little hunt was doing strange fuck’n things to the grey bits behind his eyes. Had to get back to think’n straight. Had to fuck’n get these bodies under cover and get to the dam and do something about their car.

  He remembered the old tarpaulin he used to hang between the branches as a tent before he erected the humpy all those fuck’n years ago. It was still stored in the army trunk, if his memory wasn’t playing games with him. Had a few holes and patches in it, which leaked every time it’d fuck’n rained (and was the very fuck’n reason he’d decided to erect something more permanent and sturdy), but it’d do the trick for now.

  He hurried to the trunk and unlocked the padlock, then removed the tarpaulin and unrolled it across the patch of ground next to Jade. Then he grabbed Jade’s legs and pulled him onto it, sliding him into the middle. Before he did the same with Sal, he checked Jade’s pockets just to be sure the limp dick hadn’t been lying about the keys, finding only his wallet and a dirty hanky.

  “Fuck!” Max said, removing the cash. The son-of-a-bitch had almost three hundred bucks in notes and loose change, more than Max earned in a week on the construction site, after the fuck’n government had grabbed its fuck’n share of the spoils that was. He thought about pocketing the credit cards, then thought better of it. Seen enough CSI on the telly to know how fuck’n easy it was to trace, so he tossed the rest of the wallet and hanky into the campfire.

  Max then got up and went over to the limp dick’s bitch, rolling her over onto her back. Again he heard the clinking noise as her right boot flopped across the dirt. Something else, though, drew his attention. Sal’s silver locket had slid out from between her perfect cleavage, dangling on its chain across her perfect silky neck.

  Prob’ly worth a bit, he thought, resting it across his fingers for a better look, maybe four or five hundred bucks if he were lucky.

  Closing his fingers, he tugged the locket toward him, wrenching the chain loose from around her still warm neck. He shoved the prize into his jacket pocket and grabbed the mouthy bitch by the boots. Just as he lifted her legs in the air and was about to drag her backwards onto the tarpaulin, something fell out of the rolled up cuff of her right trouser leg and clinked onto the dirt.

  “Fuck me!” Max whispered, snorting a laugh. A set of car keys glinted in the firelight. He laughed again. Stupid bitch had had them all along and didn’t fuck’n know it. Must’ve fallen into her trouser cuff when she’d done her leg and ol’ fancy pants had helped her get up. Or had she seen them fall out of his pocket and hid them deliberately? Made her useless fuck’n boyfriend carry her for miles through the valley as payback for breaking her ankle? He wouldn’t have put it past her. Fuck’n bitches were capable of all kinds of spite, and didn’t he fuck’n know it?

  “Didn’t do ya no fuck’n good in the end, did it?” he said, and let go of her legs, which thudded to the ground. He picked up the keys, holding them up in front of his face. There were only two on the key ring. One for the front door of the house, he assumed, and one for the car. Which, as he’d guessed, was a Mercedes, going by the three-pronged motif embedded into the key ring.

  He continued to hold the keys up to his eyes and stare at them, not yet able to believe his turn of luck. Then he felt his cheeks wrench into the biggest grin he’d had since Sarah packed her bags and walked out the fuck’n door. The gods were with him! Huh! After all these fuck’n years, the gods were actually dealing him a fuck’n decent hand. No pathetic, good-for-noth’n seven-two off suit. No fuck’n sir-ee. This was pocket fuck’n aces and he was going all-in on this hand, just him heads-up against the whole fuck’n world. Now he was the one holding the best hand. Now he was the odds-on favourite to scoop the pot. He threw his head back and laughed. He
laughed so fuck’n loud his throat hurt.

  “Can you believe it?” he shouted to the starry skies. His headache seemed to have vanished along with the kid behind the humpy. “CAN YOU FUCK’N BELIEVE IT?”

  Max kept staring at the keys, admiring his unbelievable fuck’n luck. Now all he had to do was dispose of the car, but how? He’d already ruled out driving it into the lake, and he certainly wasn’t gonna drive it back to his house in Adelaide and park it in the garage. He supposed he could drive it further south to Yankalilla, or even to Victor Harbor, and leave it parked down a dark alleyway or in some abandoned yard. But what would that achieve? He still had to get back here and do something about the bodies. When the police started snooping around, it wouldn’t take too long to track down the driver of the bus he’d have to catch back to Serena, or the truckie he’dve hitched with. Not to mention all the fingerprints and forensic evidence he’d leave behind. Nah, disposing the car that way was too fuck’n risky. There was only one real option, wasn’t there?

  And that was something he wasn’t relishing one fuck’n little bit. He’d have to bring the car back here where he could keep close tabs on it until the heat wore off. Would have to camouflage it somehow. But how the fuck d’you camouflage a car, and one that was probably as big, or bigger, than his own?

  He pocketed the Mercedes’ keys and glanced over at the dark silhouettes behind the humpy. The crop of gum trees wouldn’t be much use. Car would stick out like a country barn. Chopper pilots would see it a mile away. Nah, he’d have to come up with someth’n better, something that’d hide it from the air for a long fuck’n time. Unfortunately, there weren’t any sheds at the old farmhouse he could park it in. Anyway, someone’d eventually stumble upon it like they eventually stumbled on his humpy, wouldn’t they? So, really, there was only one thing that made fuck’n sense—he’d have to bury it.

  He baulked at the idea. At best guess he’d be here until this time tomorrow night, even if he slaved through the rest of the night and the whole of the day. Which, thankfully, was Sunday, which meant he wouldn’t have to sell some bullshit to his boss as to why he didn’t make it to work.

  Mulling over his options, he eyed the two bodies; Jade dumped in the middle of the tarpaulin like some victim of a freakish circus accident; Sal rolled halfway over, prostrate like a slave-girl that had thrown herself at his feet begging for mercy. At least burying the car would kill two birds with one stone, if ya pardon the fuck’n pun. He’d have to dig a grave big enough for both of them, in any case. Still, first impressions might fool a novice around these parts. Might look like a fuck’n farmer’s delight here but dig a foot or so beneath the topsoil and you hit a wall of clay that went all the way down to hell. Even so, what else could he do? Hole had to be dug. Now it’d just have to be a little bit bigger, that’s all.

  He bent down and grabbed Sal’s ankles, dragging her onto the tarpaulin next to her useless fuck’n boyfriend. Then he took each corner of the tarpaulin and draped it over the bodies, covering them completely. Next, he went over to the roo carcass and grabbed it by the tail, hauling it on top of the tarpaulin to hold down the loose edges.

  As an afterthought, he picked up the shovel and tossed several loads of loose topsoil onto the campfire to smother the coals. Then, before embarking on what he figured would be a three- to four-hour round trip, he locked the Remington and shovel in the rear of the Cherokee. He briefly considered grabbing the torch from the humpy, then decided against it. The night was still young. Along with the moon, Venus and her party gals would provide enough light for what he needed to do. Besides, the last thing he fuck’n wanted was to attract attention on the road.

  And you can never be too careful, can ya? he thought, and headed off toward the lake.

  Friday, 13th June 2008

  Dear Diary,

  Is that how things start, “Dear Diary”? I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. I feel kind of silly, really, Bridget Jones kind of silly if you ask me. Writing was never my kind of thing, especially journals and notebooks and stuff like that. Always felt it was like talking to yourself. In a way, it is, isn’t it? And you know what they say about people who talk to themselves don’t you? I might be lots of other things, but I don’t think I’m mad. Not yet (ha ha!). Then again, Bridget Jones wasn’t mad was she? And if you think about it, things kind of worked out for her in the end, found her true love, her Prince Charming, and all that. So maybe this diary thing has something in it for me too. No harm in trying. That’s what dad always says, “No harm in trying. You’ve got to be in it to win it.” So here goes…

  Geez, what’s wrong with me? I’ve been staring at these blank pages for over ten minutes thinking how to put into words what I want to say… and nothing! Absolutely nothing. I guess I’ve got what people in the writing world call “writer’s block.” Not a very nice feeling, I must say. You know you’ve got so much to tell and write about, but your hand stays frozen like a statue (oops, that’s probably what my old English teacher at Seaview High called a mixed metaphor!) and, well, the upshot is that I now know what the tin man in The Wizard of Oz felt like when Dorothy stumbled upon him in Wonderland (or was that Alice, or have I gotten my stories completely mixed up again?). Anyway, not that I need a new heart in my empty chest (or maybe I do, because this one seems awfully heavy and fragile at the moment), only that when it comes to saying what I really want to say my body seems to be full of rust. I need some kind of oil—some kind of emotional lubrication, I guess—to free up all the stickiness in my mouth and hands and mind.

  But it’s not quite as bad as all that, thank goodness. My hand is trying its best. It’s not its fault. Stickiness is probably not the right word. Tightness, maybe, and perhaps if I keep my hand moving the more chance that it’ll give like a piece of old elastic in a hemline that’s lost its stretch: just one more tug and then it’ll give up the ghost (oops, there I go again with my mixed metaphors!). Seems all I have to do is tell my hand one more time what it’s supposed to do—write—and all the stretch-resistance will disappear. Anyway, that’s the plan, but it would be so much easier if some bright spark invented a machine that could make thoughts jump straight from your head onto the page, wouldn’t it? Attach a few wires to your head and bob’s your uncle, a whole page of instant thoughts. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about writer’s block and rusty wrists. Now there’s an idea. Would also save a lot of time and make things a lot easier than having to write everything down and invariably get it all wrong. Especially for someone like me, you know, someone who failed year-10 English class, who’s always getting tongue-tied and never seems able to find the right words to say at the best of times (“There you go, always putting your foot in your mouth,” mum would have said!). But, after all that, here goes anyway, “Take 2.”

  So what was the real reason that brought me here to my desk and this little leather-bound book? Fear, I guess, if I’m going to be honest with myself (and that’s what diaries are all about, aren’t they, opening your heart and being honest?). Fear. Geez, I hate that word. “You have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Who said that? I can’t remember, but it doesn’t make sense, does it? When you’ve got fear, it’s usually for a good reason. Usually means somebody’s going to do harm to you, or take something away from you that you need or love. Fear is a normal emotion, isn’t it? A part of life. Only problem is, it makes your legs go to jelly. Not to mention your mind, whizzing around in panic like chickens with a fox loose in the coop. Fear makes you useless. Still, I always remember the quote from that lady who was deaf, dumb and blind. What was her name? Anne Frank. No, that was someone else. Helen Keller. That’s her. She said, “Fear. The only way out is through.”

  That’s why I knew last night while I was lying in bed, listening to dad in his bedroom racking his lungs with another one of those god-awful coughing fits, that if I didn’t resolve this today I would never do it. I had to do something. I had to walk through my fear, and if a deaf, dumb and blind woman could walk thro
ugh her fears until she was old and grey, which must have been mountainous—can you actually imagine never seeing daylight, never hearing another voice, never singing at the top of your voice?—then surely I could walk through mine. But I also knew that if I didn’t do it today—now—then nothing would ever change, and that scares me more than dad’s coughing fits, so you kind of get the picture how bad it is.

  In fact, I was awake till after two in the morning worrying about it. My mind was whirring faster than the needle on my Janome when I’ve got a client with a tight deadline to meet. I kept thinking about what mum used to say before… well, before you know what. “Find yourself a good man. Fall in love. Have kids. Money doesn’t matter. It’s what’s in your heart that really makes you happy.” And there I was, lying in bed with no man, no love, no kids, no money, and a heart that felt heavy and incomplete.

  Am I unhappy? I guess I am, in a way. Though Georgina Twelftree would shake her head and tell me that with my legs I had no right to be sad, and anyway, I had no idea what being sad really was. She’s always said blondes have more fun, ever since we used to sit under the old gum tree in the schoolyard and talk about boys and movie stars and bitch about other girls, all that kind of stuff teenagers get their panties in a twist about. I know she’s always envied my size-10 figure (“Olivia Newton John’s look-alike,” she always joked, “now piss off back to Xanadu on your roller-skates and leave me alone!”), and how Chris Jones, in that cocky, too-full-of-himself manner, used to stroll up to us while we were sitting under the gum tree and ask me out. Not that I ever said yes to him, to Georgie’s constant dismay (I always had a thing for the quieter boys, the ones that seemed to get things done while no-one else noticed, the ones that didn’t need to constantly blow their own trumpet and parade around the schoolyard as if they owned it). Yet in times like these I sometimes wonder how life’s path would’ve taken a different turn had I succumbed to the less-than-subtle advances of the captain of the football team and said yes.