BACKWOODS RIPPER: a gripping action suspense thriller (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

Paige tasted something in her mouth. Dry and gritty, it reminded her of falling off the monkey bars when she was in year three. She’d landed on her stomach and the wind had been knocked out of her like her tummy was a paper bag that had been blown up and then popped. She’d opened her mouth to cry, but couldn’t get enough breath out, instead she sucked in a mouthful of sand.

She raised her hand to wipe the grit out of her mouth and heard crunching in her ear. She opened her eyes and winced at the bright light that shone down on her. The car door came into focus and she became aware of her surroundings. With awareness came panic. Instinctively her hand went to her belly and found the bump.
I shot her. I shot Lizzy and the kickback hit me in the stomach
, the memory of gun in her hands, and the tearing pain when the butt jerked, flooded back like a bad dream.

Grunting and struggling, she pushed herself into a sitting position. Something crunched against her ear. She touched her hand to the side of her face and pulled away dried leaves, crumbling them and letting the bits fall into her lap. Her body felt strangely pain free or maybe she was too numb to feel anything.

The driver’s door stood open and the light from the car’s interior circled her. She wanted to stand, but didn’t trust her legs enough yet. Before her mind had time to formulate questions, she saw Lizzy’s shoes. Rubber soles visible in the outer circle of the light. The shoes were sitting at an almost perfect right angle, toes pointing skywards.
I blew her out of her shoes
, Paige thought crazily. For a second it seemed plausible, until she heard the noises and realised the shoes were attached to legs.

“Huck … Heek.”

One shoe moved and slid out to the left, dragging crackling leaves behind the heel as a boat drags white water. The sight of that foot sliding its way across the dirt track got Paige moving. She grabbed the wheel arch on the driver’s side of the Ford and pulled herself into a crouching position. She was aware of a wet slippery sound. Above her knees where her dress had ridden up, she saw blood on her thighs.
No. No, the baby’s okay. That’s my blood.
Yes, the baby had to be okay. If she could just get help
everything
would still be okay.

She managed to stand by clinging onto the open door. She winced at the pulling sensation in her abdomen, it felt like the muscles had shrunk and were being stretched. Now upright, she could see Lizzy sprawled on her back. The woman’s head moved, tilted up and fixed her gaze on Paige. In the shadows, Lizzy’s eyes looked like empty sockets and her cheeks bleached white by the edges of the light. For a moment, they regarded each other.

“D… don’t take my b… baby.” A singed area on the right arm of Lizzy’s shirt, just above the elbow revealed the impact of the shot. The fabric was shredded in blackened strips and the skin underneath looked dark and wet.

When Paige pulled the trigger, the shot must have clipped her, peppering her upper-arm with tiny lead pellets.
Finish her off
, the dark voice ordered, and Paige’s eyes fell on the shotgun a metre or so away. It lay half buried in leaves. It was empty, she knew, yet for a second she considered picking it up and bashing the woman’s head in with the butt. She even managed to conjure up the satisfying crack the heavy wooden stock would make when it split Lizzy’s skull open.
Do it or she’ll come after you.

Paige moved forward, she didn’t think she could bend from the waist so she crouched down and picked up the shotgun. The stretching sensation in her belly came again only this time it was accompanied by a shaft of heat in her groin.

Lizzy’s leg shuffled through the leaves and drew up towards her body. Her gaze still fixed on Paige, she raised herself up on her left shoulder and flipped onto her side. She dragged herself towards the trees. Paige couldn’t see the woman’s eyes, only the dark sockets as they looked over her shoulder.

Paige advanced on Lizzy, the barrel clenched in her hands.
Hit her, put an end to it; it’ll never be over while she’s still alive
, the urgency in the voice edged on excitement, encouraging her to stop the nightmare once and for all.

“Don’t. Don’t.” Lizzy’s voice was high and wavered with fear.

Paige swung the butt of the gun and knocked Lizzy’s right arm out from under her. The woman splayed forward, her face hitting the track in a spray of twigs and gravel. Paige fixed her eyes on the back of Lizzy’s scalp and raised the gun over her head.
One last hurdle. One last thing to do and then everything would be quiet
, Paige told herself.

She would’ve done it. She would have killed the woman who’d driven her past pain and past humanity to the edge of reason where the only thing that made sense was brutality. But at the last minute, just before Paige brought the butt of the gun down on the woman’s head, Lizzy flipped over. The moonlight landed on the woman’s face and drove the shadows out of her eyes. What was left was fear and madness, a fretful shifting, pitiful and frightening at the same time.

The dark voice urged Paige on, but the excitement had dissipated turning it into nothing more than a hollow echo. Paige lowered the gun and saw Lizzy flinch. The fear on her tormentor’s face gave her no pleasure or satisfaction, just a numb distaste for Lizzy and herself.

“Stay down.” The flinty growl in those two words made Lizzy flinch again.

Paige turned and walked back to the car. When she reached the driver’s side, she realized the shotgun was still in her hands. Repulsed by the feel of it against her skin
and
what she’d almost down with it, Paige tossed it onto the track and pulled herself up onto the seat. The heat in her groin remained, making every other feeling seem distant and unimportant.

The car started the first time. Paige felt neither joy nor relief, just a fatigue seeping all the way to her bones. She clicked the headlights on and the Ford rolled forward, loose stones and twigs crunching under the wheels. She glanced in the wing mirror and saw Lizzy sitting with her head in her hands. The woman’s reflection grew smaller and then darkness enveloped her. Paige looked back at the track and flicked the headlights to high.

Chapter Twenty-four

“We need to get outside.” Hal pointed at the front door and looked back over his shoulder. The foyer sat mostly in darkness except for the light from the other side of the sitting room. He guessed it came from the kitchen.

Soona swayed from left to right and then shuffled around the wheelchair towards the door. She seemed reluctant to touch the handle, her hand fluttered towards it and then back as though it was too hot to touch.

“I need to get outside. Paige is coming for me and I have to be out front.” Hal didn’t know if the woman understood what he was saying or if his words were even coming out coherently. A blanket of sweat covered his body and his lungs felt as if they were being squeezed. The thought of being outside with the cool night air touching his skin seemed as appealing as leaving the house.

“Please, Soona, just open the door?”

The woman was dressed in men’s blue striped pyjamas, very similar to the ones Lizzy had put on Hal after the amputation. It occurred to him that the two of them looked like they were escapees from a mental hospital. He would’ve laughed if it hadn’t been so close to the truth
and
if his lungs didn’t feel like someone held a naked flame under them.

“Open the door,” he croaked, hoping a simplified instruction might be more effective.

Soona mumbled something that sounded a bit like, “Don’t touch” and turned the handle. The door swept inwards and a gentle breeze played over Hal’s face. Like plunging into a swimming pool on a stinking hot day, the cold shocked him at first and then brought sweet relief. The air smelled fresh and clear, tinged with the sour smell of vomit rising up from his lap.

“Good girl.” It came out as a gasp. He was finding it difficult to catch his breath. “You did … good. Wheel me … out.”

Soona didn’t need any more prompting, she hustled back to the chair and wheeled him over the doorstep. The wheels bumped and a shaft of pain rocketed up his leg before jumping behind his eyes. He groaned as a wave of nausea hit. He retched a few times but nothing came out.

The wheelchair stalled just outside the house, and as his eyes adjusted to the moonlight he saw they were on a raised veranda. Just how high up was difficult to tell.
How the fuck am I going to get down,
he thought and his head began to drop forward again.

A light flickered on overhead. The sudden brightness of its glare snapped him back to awareness. Soona grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and turned him to the left. He could see the enormous wrap-around veranda jutted at least two and a half metres off the ground. He experienced a moment of panic, imagining Soona taking him down a flight of stairs one painful drop-step at a time.

He opened his mouth to tell her to stop so he could prepare himself for the frightening descent when Hal realised she was pushing him down the long, gentle slope of a ramp. If he had the strength, he would’ve turned around and kissed one of Soona’s large hands.

“Good girl. Good girl.” It was the best he could do.

Chapter Twenty-five

The headlights bounced across a tightly-packed cluster of shrubs that looked as sharp as Christmas holly but ghostly grey in colour. Paige kept the speedometer on thirty to avoid the bone-crunching dips and gouges in the old track and so that she could keep the twin ruts that marked the track in sight. Outside the orbs of light, the trees crowded out the moonlight and murky darkness surrounded the vehicle. Even with the windows up the chatter of insects and the occasional eerie calls of night birds seemed to close in on her.

The house had to be on the right of the track, and judging by the way the ruts swept to the east, she was pretty sure she was travelling in an arc that would bring her out somewhere near the front driveway. At least she hoped that’s what would happen. If she had it wrong and she ended up at a dead end … Her thinking faltered, what then?
I’ll reverse
. It sounded good in theory, but she wasn’t sure she would be physically capable of turning in her seat and guiding the four-wheel-drive all the way back. Not to mention searching the almost black wilderness for another track.

She tried to keep her mind from contemplating her physical state. She didn’t want to think about the absence of movement in her belly or that she hadn’t had a contraction since before the gun hit her in the stomach. And she
really
didn’t want to think about the blood on her thighs and the warm wetness under her ass. Paige narrowed her thoughts until the only things she could see were the ruts ahead of the headlights.

Less than five minutes later, the track sloped up slightly and the ruts ended at a gravel road. Paige let out a long shaky breath and braked. Blackness in both directions. She leaned her head on the wheel and closed her eyes. It had to be right, that was the only way that made sense. Only out here in the dark, nothing seemed normal. She lifted her head and made a decision.

“Please God, let this be right,” she muttered and turned.

Tiny stones and specks of gravel pelted the car with a constant thwack. The continuous irritating sound fed Paige’s feeling of panic. Something was wrong.
You’re being ridiculous
, she told herself. For the last four days, everything had been so far from right, she didn’t even know what right was anymore. But the gnawing feeling ate its way up her throat until she felt like she had a peach stone stuck in the back of her mouth.

The road swelled upwards and then dipped. Paige recognised the rise and fall; she remembered experiencing the same motion sitting in the bed of the old Holden. She’d had her hand on Hal’s chest trying to reassure herself that he was still breathing. Plenty of roads dipped and rose, but Paige had no doubt she was near Mable House. A flutter of anticipation awakened in her chest.

Within seconds of recognising the terrain, a light appeared as if out of nowhere. Paige drove forward, eyes wide and mouth set in a grim line. She looked very little like the woman who’d sat in the bed of the ute clinging to her husband.

The headlights picked out the main entrance, lighting up the weathered stone steps and a few metres of veranda. She leaned forward scanning the porch for any sign of Hal. Paige turned the wheel, the Ford veered to the right and sailed off the gravel. The old Holden ute blocked the side of the house like a giant alien bug, hulking and immoveable.

Paige jerked the gearstick into park with a fierce grunt and opened the door. She slid down from the driver’s seat and wobbled drunkenly to her right. Her legs felt like overstuffed bags of sand wanting to fold on themselves. She held the side of the open door for support and forced herself to remain still so she could listen. The wind had dropped to little more than an occasional puff, and beyond the chirp of insects the outside of the house was still. She doubted Lizzy would’ve made it back to the house. When she’d last seen her, the woman looked defeated; yet Paige’s heart drummed against her rib cage and the skin on her arms broke out in goose bumps.

It’s just being back here
, she told herself and let go of the door. A squealing came from the front end of the ute. Paige tensed. Her whole body reacted to the noise: her heart missed a beat and her gut clenched. She took a step backwards and felt for the knife in her pocket, silently praying she had enough strength left to use it.

Something appeared low to the ground ahead of the ute’s front right tyre. The tyre and the object were just beyond the field of the Ford’s headlights. Paige had a startling vision of Lizzy crawling all the way back from the dirt track on her hands and knees. Her shirt ragged with grime, drenched in blood, and her mouth hanging open in a hungry snarl. The image, eerily vivid, forced her to pull the knife from her pocket and hold it in front of her.

A dragging squeal followed by a thump issued from the far end of the car. Paige’s face trembled with the combination of fear and weakness. The knife waved from side to side, her hand battled to keep a steady grip on the handle.
No more, please. I don’t think I can take any more,
she thought or said; she wasn’t sure which.

The wheelchair emerged from the shadow of the ute. Hal slumped in the seat, head on his chest and hands in his lap. Paige’s eyes moved from Hal to Soona. She didn’t realise she was moving, yet somehow Paige was in front of the wheelchair – touching her husband’s hair.

He remained unmoving and slumped. Paige drew her hand back,
was she too late?
He looked shrunken and lifeless.

Paige put her hand on his face and the heat coming from him was both a relief and a jolt. His skin burned with fever.

“Hal?” She pushed his hair back and pressed her lips to his forehead. “Hal, I made it.”

Slowly, an almost imperceptible movement, his chin lifted and his eyes opened. A husky breath escaped his lips.

“I never doubted you,” he croaked, and the corner of his mouth twitched as if he were about to smile.

He lost consciousness again so quickly, Paige wondered if he’d really spoken. She could hear him breathing now, shallow and laboured as if there was something in his throat blocking the flow of air.

“Soona, help me get him in the car.”

Soona’s big brown eyes met Paige’s for less than a second and then drifted away. The woman’s hands tightened on the handles of the wheelchair and she began pushing it forward towards the Ford.

“Quick,” Paige said over her shoulder as she pulled the back passenger door open. “Help me get him in the back.”

Soona grabbed Hal under the arms and locked her hands around his chest. She hauled him up and out of the chair with a guttural grunt. She stood for a moment, backing into the car with Hal dangling like a scarecrow in her arms. Paige hesitated, in awe of the woman’s strength.

“Its eyes are balloons,” Hal muttered and then groaned.

The pain in her husband’s voice snapped her attention back to the urgency of the matter. Paige slid one hand around Hal’s ankle and used the other to grasp just above the bloody bandage on his severed leg. She tried to touch him as gently as possible, only guiding his legs over the wheel arch and into the car. But it seemed no matter how she held his legs, he jerked and groaned in her hands.

“I’m sorry, Hal. Not much more. It’s nearly over.” At the sound of his name, Hal’s eyes snapped open and the frenzied look in them cut through her heart. The rawness and confusion was more terrifying than the searing heat coming off his skin.

Soona slid backwards across the seat, arms still locked around Hal’s chest. When she reached the far door, she hoisted his head across her lap and patted his forehead.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Paige leaned into the back seat. “Thank you for helping us.” She wanted to say more, but Soona’s big dark eyes drifted away from her.

Paige wouldn’t allow her eyes to linger on Hal. The thick raspy sound of his breathing was enough to tell her they were running out of time. She reversed herself out of the back seat and closed the door with a
thunck
. Wobbling towards the driver’s door, she managed to climb back in. With her husband in the car, she felt her body running out of strength. The heat in her groin spread to her lower abdomen with an intensity that threatened to blossom into a full-blown fire.

She put the Ford in reverse. Turning in her seat was nearly impossible so she craned her neck and backed away from the house. When the tyres hit gravel, she moved the gearstick back into drive and turned in a wide arc. In the rear view mirror, Mable House looked like a colossal grey monster rising up to snatch the car and suck them all back into its belly. Paige almost expected the house to pull out of its foundations and thunder towards them, dragging the veranda behind it like a long, cracked tongue.

That didn’t happen. The Ford crackled over the gravel and within a minute, the house shrank to a distant spot of yellow light. Paige lowered the window a crack and let the night air whistle through the car. In the back seat, she could hear Hal’s laboured breathing.
Whatever happens now, at least we won’t die in that house.

The dense bush flew by in a crowded rush of silver and black. Cold air blasted through the window blowing her hair back off her face. After four days of stagnation, Paige felt like she was flying. The stars were startling spots of light against the velvet night. She glanced over her shoulder. Soona held Hal’s head cradled in her lap, patting his hair as if he were a kitten. His pale face glowed in the dim of the car as if it had been stained with grey reflective paint.
He’s dying
, Paige thought, and resisted the urge to pull over and wrap herself around his frail body.

She looked back at the road and caught sight of a dark blur dart out of the trees. She reacted instinctively, hitting the brake pedal without thinking. The Ford skidded, losing traction on the loose dirt and rocks that blanketed the road. For a millisecond, it seemed to leave the road and float above the bitumen as if it were flying. Paige took her foot off the brake and then stomped it back down. This time the wheels caught and the car shuddered to a stop, jarring her forward. The seatbelt snapped back across her belly sending a fresh dagger of pain burning, not on the surface, but deep in her womb.

A curtain of mist played in front of Paige’s eyes and her head tipped to the left. She felt her hands slipping off the wheel.
I’m blacking out
, she felt no alarm in the thought just surprise. Her jaw felt loose and her lips numb, as if she’d just come from the dentist. She was aware of Soona’s voice, it sounded echoy and distant. Paige tried to understand what she was saying, but the effort seemed too great.
Easier to just rest
, her mind told her. And then a tingling sensation spread through her arms and legs, the feeling not unpleasant just foreign. She wanted to fold into the feeling and let it smother her with warmth.
If only the noise would stop
, Paige thought.
If it was quiet, I could rest … Just for a minute.

“Paige.” Hal’s voice, pained and desperate broke through the blackness.

Paige’s eyes flew open. Her vision was dark and grainy. For a second, she thought she’d gone blind and panic gripped her. Then, the feel of the steering wheel against her forehead and the pull of the belt across her body told her she was slumped forward looking at the steering column.

“Paige, are you hurt?” Hal’s voice from the back seat was urgent yet weak.

She drew in a breath and shivered. The air from the open window, blessedly cool on her neck and cheek. Paige pulled her head back and sat up in the seat. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing. Fifteen metres ahead on the road, surely no more than twenty, the thing that had stumbled out of the trees crouched in the road.

“Paige?” Hal’s voice faded away to a whisper.

“I’m okay,” she muttered, her eyes fixed on the thing in the road.

Even before the shape unfolded itself and stood, Paige knew with discomforting clarity that it was Lizzy. She knew, with a deep certainty that coiled itself around her heart like a black hand, it wasn’t over.

The dark mass lurched up and forward, coming into the arc of the car’s lights. Her face, a loose mask lined with blood, showed red streaks that looked as dark as oil in the yellow glare. Lizzy listed to one side, her shoulder hanging at an impossible angle. Her clothes bloody and torn, she was barely recognisable as human except for her eyes. Those bulging shark-eyes shone in the moonlight like huge, watery, glass balls.

“Everything’s okay, Hal,” Paige said absently, her gaze fixed on Lizzy.

The engine ticked rhythmically and the sound of insects chirping out night calls drifted in through the open window. Lizzy raised her left arm and held it in front of her, palm up, fingers curled towards the night sky. It almost looked like she was asking for help, but Paige knew better.

“Don’t touch. Don’t touch,” Soona began to shriek.

Lizzy moved forward. Even over Soona’s cries, Paige could hear the sensible rubber soled shoes sliding across the road. The woman’s mouth opened and closed, mouthing words. Not
help
. No, even from ten metres away, Paige could see the same word forming over and over on Lizzy’s lips:
baby
.

It’s not over. It’ll never be over
. Lizzy was like an unstoppable machine and she meant to have what she thought belonged to her. Paige realised that some part of her had known what she had to do all along. Maybe even from the moment she picked up the phone in Lizzy’s kitchen and heard that flat empty silence.