Run Beautiful Run, page 24
Where the hell was Maddison?
Forty-seven
Maddison ran through the rain, past the calving shed and around the rear of the homestead. She had to get Eric away from Glenda and Earl in the house.
She made a sharp left at the fence line and aimed for the main shed with Eric in hot pursuit.
Mud splashed her legs, her dress stuck to her skin, and the rain was blinding. She tasted perspiration mixing with fresh rain and that all too familiar metallic taste of fear.
Dodging her way through the fencing barricades, she fled past the cattle pens, loading ramps, and assorted machinery to shove open the rear door and dash inside the main shed.
‘JOE.’ Her words were muffled by the pouring rain that pounded on the tin roof. She wiped the hair, sweat, and rainwater from her eyes, searching for someone, anyone.
But no one was there.
What was she thinking? This burden was hers to carry alone. She couldn’t afford to rely on anyone and certainly didn’t want to put anyone else in danger.
Her pulse raced as her blood boiled, her breath so shallow it burned her throat, with her energy depleting and fast. Where could she go?
She spotted the quads facing the front doors and jumped on the nearest one. She turned the key, gunned the accelerator, and kicked it into gear.
‘Maddison, stop.’ Eric burst into the shed aiming his revolver at her.
BANG.
Maddison screamed, releasing the clutch. The bike lurched through the open doorway and into the stinging rain, scared she was going to flip it. In a blind panic, she sped through puddles, sending muddy water in all directions. But she couldn’t stop because the further she ran the safer it would be for everyone.
Forty-eight
‘Maddison?’ Joe rushed through the front doors as Maddison sped past on the quad with the second goon in close pursuit.
Joe aimed his rifle at the goon’s back, but with the angle he had he might accidentally shoot Maddison. ‘Dammit.’ He let out a warning shot, hoping Maddison heard it to spin around.
Both riders flinched, but the two bikes kept racing down the eastern track.
Was Maddison deliberately ignoring him to draw the danger away from his family?
He had to have faith in Maddison. She was much stronger than she realised, hoping she’d use that inner strength to keep going until he could help her.
‘Dad, keep him tied up with your shotgun aimed on him at all times,’ said Joe over his shoulder. ‘Shoot him in the leg if he tries anything.’ That man, Tom, was not only taller he was stronger and more streetwise than his baby brother and father combined. ‘Greg, get your own gun and back Dad up.’
‘Where are you going?’ Greg asked, coming from the kitchen.
‘I’m going for Maddison.’ Joe ran through the rain with rifle in hand toward his ute. Before the driver’s door had shut properly, he sped out of the shed.
He flicked on the spotlights that lined the roof of the cab and the bull bar, hoping Maddison would notice them. But visibility was poor through the rain.
His large vehicle slipped sideways in the track’s sludge and he punched the cab’s roof in anger. ‘Bugger.’ He’d just remembered Greg had filled both quads, so they were running on full tanks, with twice the amount of fuel Joe had in his ute, with the rain washing away all of their tyre tracks.
Forty-nine
The rain whipped against Maddison’s face blurring her vision. Her teeth chattered as the wind chilled her to the bone. She struggled to not only breathe, but to keep a grip on the handles.
Peering over her shoulder, she saw Goon One was gaining on her.
‘Not fair.’ She desperately searched ahead for a solution. All she saw was the floodplains and nowhere to hide.
She flew over a rise in the dirt road, skidding in the slippery mud. The wheels bounced over the track and she held on for dear life, scared of rolling the beastly bike she’d only learned to ride a few days ago. Yet, the way Eric was gaining on her, he seemed the more experienced rider.
Maddison screamed out her frustrations and lack of skills, gunning the bike harder. She would not surrender.
Then she spied ahead on her left the giant’s graveyard. Dead Man’s Gully.
It was her only hope.
Maddison skidded the bike to a halt, then on her toes, she sprinted, praying the ground would support her.
Light as a feather. I’m light as a feather … Over and over in her mind. Head down, hands in fists, she ran the race of her life straight down the middle of the silent towering headstones. She didn’t dare stop, heading for the billabong at the end of the valley, less than two hundred metres away. Run.
Fifty
Eric skidded to a stop beside the deserted quad. Did Maddison run out of fuel?
He grinned, spotting Maddison running through the rain. Steering the quad off-road, he drove past tall rectangular towers of mud. He’d seen nothing like it. Irregular shaped tombstones scattered around like a giant’s cemetery.
He didn’t care, returning his focus to the female only fifty metres in front.
He pulled out his handgun, slowed down the bike, and aimed at Maddison’s back. ‘Too easy.’
Suddenly the ground beneath the front wheels of his bike crumpled. The tyres sank deep into a collapsed crater smashing into the dirt wall, sending Eric hurtling over the handlebars.
‘Augh …’ Tumbling through the air, he slammed hard against a muddy mound. Its solid shell cracked against his chest, and he fell to land on his back with a hard thud.
‘YOU BITCH,’ he screamed to the grey skies that pelted down relentlessly. He rolled over onto his knees, wiping the dirt off his tender nose.
Maddison kept running for the river ahead. Her blue dress and blonde hair a stark contrast to the grey muddy graveyard. It was like he’d landed on the moon.
Covered in grey mud, Eric searched for his gun. It lay a few metres ahead. Dragging himself up, flicking off the mud from his good shoes, Eric had never wanted to catch anyone as bad as that bitch in the blue dress.
Grinding his teeth, the hatred raged almost uncontrollably inside, he reached over to pick up his gun when the ground beneath him collapsed. He sank down half a metre into the ground.
‘What the hell?’ He’d fallen into another hole where a cloud of dry dust greeted the rain as he landed on his backside, getting completely caked.
Again, climbing to his knees, he scanned an alien scenery, devoid of life. The crusty soil with its soft edges cracked like ice and fell to expose a widening crater.
Now he understood why Maddison had drawn him here.
‘I’m going to kill you slowly, Maddison.’ Eric yelled out bitterly from his dusty hole.
You’d think, after travelling through three states, being beaten up by bikies, and then being crammed into a crappy plane with a Neanderthal, that he’d give up. Hell. No. Eric was just getting started.
With his trusty pistol in hand, he scrambled out of the hole. Wiping away the rain and grit from his face, he scowled at his shoes, now covered in cakey mud. They were ruined.
With clenched teeth he sprinted down the valley of tombstones when something itched at the skin on his leg. It was if something had become trapped with the mud among his leg hairs.
A blasting flash of pain tore into his lower leg. ‘OW.’ It burned. But he kept running, grimacing at the pain as he ran for the water twenty metres in front of him.
It was almost serene, with its vibrant green circular leaves offsetting the white lotus flowers. The calm waters reflected the cluster of storm clouds as the pelting rain relented into a hazy drizzle.
The muddy structures gave way to a wide glassy billabong. Or was it a river? And what the hell were those muddy tombstones he’d just run past?
He didn’t care. All he wanted was the wench, and it didn’t take long to spot her muddy footprints. ‘You’re mine.’
As he raced after her, something bit into his lower leg. Then another. Then another. ‘Ow.’ It was as if his legs were under a vicious attack. The pain was sharp, pure white-hot fire.
‘What the hell?’ He slapped at his legs, back, and shoulders, crying out in agony as if something was eating his flesh.
Lifting his muddied slacks, his shins were covered in white ants with large pincers that crawled all over his bloodied skin. He was being attacked.
Wiping away at them, they bit into his hand, crawled up his wet sleeves. His entire body was on fire.
Beckoning before him was the glistening riverbank.
Eric ran and dove deep beneath the murky, cool surface.
Coming up for air a good five metres from the bank, he stood on the muddy floor, chest deep in water. Facing the riverbank, he splashed at the termites, hoping to drown them.
‘I’m going to kill you for this, Maddison.’ His words echoing over the water. ‘Ow, little bastards.’ Submerging himself fully, he did a strangulating rain dance to ensure he’d rid himself of all the termites. The cool water was easing the heat of their bites.
But where was Maddison?
There was a flash of blue high on the bank, the colour of Maddison’s dress.
Gotcha.
Fifty-one
Maddison had run to the edge of the billabong where her first instinct was to dive in and swim for the other side. But then she remembered the crocodiles. And this was their breeding ground. Joe had warned her the right side of the billabong was home to the mother of all crocodiles, so Maddison turned left and went upstream along the soft grassy bank.
When she skidded to a halt, gasping, with her heart in her throat.
There, in the mud, lay the largest crocodile Maddison had ever seen. It had to be three times her size and four times her width.
It was a massive land-dwelling prehistoric monster. From the gnarly tip of its tail, over the scaly leather ridges along its back, through to the deadly teeth that protruded from its snout. Then its eyes opened, to roll and peer straight at her.
Maddison swallowed the biggest lump in her throat and stepped back slowly.
Her eyes widened at not just the enormous crocodile, but the five other smaller crocodiles that basked beside her, camouflaged by the mud with their snouts facing the water.
They were all bigger than Maddison. And they all stared at her.
It was as if time slowed as the rain stopped, and nothing moved in the thick muggy air.
‘I see you, Maddison.’ Eric’s laughter came from behind her.
Maddison didn’t move, staring at her more immediate danger—the six man-eating crocodiles.
Joe had warned her they could tear a massive bull to pieces in seconds. What would they do with her?
Run for the trees. It was as if Joe was whispering in her ear.
Olive-leafed gum trees waved on the crest to her left, and she ran as one of the smaller crocodiles lunged for her, snapping at her heels.
She jumped, running in a zigzag pattern in pure blind terror. She ran around the smaller trees, leaped over fallen logs that scratched her knees, and headed for the biggest tree she could find.
Heavy thuds, snaps, and snarls followed close behind her as the crocodiles bashed through the brush.
She didn’t dare look back.
There before her, shining in the sun’s rays, stood a towering solid ghost gum. She leaped high into the air, reaching for a sturdy branch. She then scrambled up its smooth bark that scraped against her skin.
A sound like a crashing truck smashed its way behind her as the ground shook beneath the tree as another large snapping noise came within a hair’s breadth of her feet.
Something slammed into the tree’s trunk, and the whole tree shook.
She screamed, swinging her legs up, scrambling higher up the slippery trunk. Bark and twigs fell, embedding into her skin, but she still climbed higher.
Below her, a menacing guttural growl echoed. The sinister sound made the hair on her arms rise.
Her grip slipped as she reached for a higher branch. But she didn’t dare look down. Joe had told her to keep her focus in her driving lessons, that when in a panic aim for what you want. Keep your eye on the prize.
Powered by the memory of his words, she reached for a stronger branch and kept on climbing, higher and higher. Until she straddled a thick branch and hugged the trunk in a secure grip, and only then did she dare look down.
She was at least ten metres high, while three crocodiles stood directly beneath her. Three! They’d surrounded the tree trunk, staring up at her with wide-open mouths full of razor-sharp teeth.
She couldn’t take it. Her body trembling in terror, trapped in a tree, she screamed at the horror of the monsters beneath her.
‘What are you screaming at, you stupid girl?’ It was Eric, only fifty metres away, standing waist deep in the billabong.
‘Help. P-please help,’ Maddison whimpered, tasting the tears that mingled with the sweat streaming down her clammy face. Her heart hammered in her ears, as she tightened her grip on the tree trunk that swayed on the edge of a billabong with three man-eating crocodiles lying in wait beneath her.
‘I’ve got you now.’ Eric aimed his pistol at her.
‘Oh, no.’ Who would kill her first? The crocodiles or the man with the gun?
Either way, she was a dead woman.
Fifty-two
With an evil smile, Eric aimed at the woman with her legs and arms wrapped around the top of a swaying tree trunk and pulled the trigger.
The trigger’s click echoed off the water.
But nothing happened.
Only the breeze.
‘Bugger. Gun’s jammed.’ Eric shook his gun in frustration.
But he had her, that girl was going nowhere.
‘You’re a bloody sitting duck, you know that.’ Eric laughed as he released the clip from his jammed pistol. His shoes sank into the mud, standing waist deep in the fresh water, it created a cooling effect against the stinging insect bites covering his lower legs and back.
But he was in no rush, not with Maddison stuck up a tree. Silly girl.
Now for the finale and his favourite part in this game of revenge.
‘It’s only fair that you tell me where your uncle’s notes are. I want all the photos and stuff.’ He had no clue what it was, no one did, only that they’d spotted her bumbling Uncle Bob taking photos, asking questions he shouldn’t be asking.
Now Eric was here to collect, then he could go home.
Christ, he’d been dealing with a moronic man-child playing dress-up wannabe cowboy, a woman who baked biscuits like it was the fifties, stuck in this hellhole of heat. But he finally had her.
‘Even though you’ve been a royal pain in the arse,’ he said to Maddison, ‘I’m willing to put you out of your misery quickly. And I swear to not hurt that family up there either. But you see …’ He checked the ammunition clip, shaking the handgun free of water. ‘I still owe you for what your biker boyfriend did to me in Adelaide. Yeah, Match, that was his name. What sort of dumb nickname is that?’
He slipped the clip of bullets into his top pocket and pulled back the gun’s barrel slide a few times to empty the automatic chamber. Empty, he squeezed the trigger. It clicked. Loud and clear.
Pulling the loaded ammunition clip from his shirt pocket, he shook it vigorously to remove any excess water.
‘So, because of what that biker boyfriend of yours did to my face, I’m returning the favour, unless you tell me where you hid the stuff.’ His wicked laugh bounced off the water as he slammed the clip back into the base of the gun.
‘Still, it doesn’t matter to me if you tell me where you stashed that gear, because I have four days to tear that place apart to find it. I know from personal experience that dead men don’t talk.’ He frowned at his watery reflection, raking fingers through his hair. The water rippled, distorting the image of Maddison clinging to a tree. ‘Mind you, that’s what I thought with your uncle being a dead man. But he told, and dead men normally don’t tell tales.’
Eric took a step forward to discover he was stuck in the mud with his handmade, Italian leather shoes.
‘What did you do to my uncle?’ Maddison bellowed out, high in the tree. ‘Did you kill my uncle?’
‘Yeah, okay, I’ll admit it …’ Eric flung his arms in the air as if surrendering in waist deep water and laughed. ‘Who are you going to tell? Not like anyone is going to hear my confession here in the outback. So, yes, I did it.’ Eric tried to wriggle his shoes free from the sludge as he spoke. ‘It was an easy kill too. The fat drunk was just sitting in that crappy car of his for ages. I reckoned he was waiting for someone. But I got bored waiting to find out who. To disguise my noise, I used the train pulling into the station as the perfect cover, too. So while Bob was gawking at that train, I opened the door, and bang—Bob’s your uncle. Hey, he was your Uncle Bob, too.’ Eric laughed. He was such a genius.
‘I watched you,’ he said, waving the gun at Maddison, ‘trying to revive him.’
‘To kill me?’
‘To see if he’d tell you his dirty little secrets.’
‘Why kill him, you monster?’
Good. It’s what he was after. She’d shifted past the fear and into rage. And people made mistakes when angry, giving away their secrets through their blind fury. From there they’d become frustrated before sliding into self-defeat, begging him for mercy before their imminent death.
It was all part of the game.
‘Because that’s what I get paid to do, sweetheart. To fetch and kill for the highest bidder.’
‘Who paid you? Cottillard?’
‘Listen, my little tree fairy, after all the trouble you’ve put me through, this job became personal. But I’ll be taking all that cash I found in your bag as a personal bonus. You’ve ruined that bag, you know that. It never matched that frock you wore at the racetrack, which looked better without that hat. Hey, is that where you got all that cash?’ Eric struggled to get his shoes free from the mud.
