Lost In Kakadu (12 page)

Not impressed with his tone of voice, she glared up at him. “There’s no need to yell at me. I’m right here.”

“But you don’t understand.”

She unclenched her jaw. “I understand our situation fully. My husband is dead, I’m half way through digging his grave and I haven’t showered, slept or eaten anything decent for days.” She put her hands on her hips. “And I still don’t like mushrooms.”

Mackenzie grumbled under his breath, spun on his heel and stomped away. He pushed past a long thin branch and it flicked back like a whip.

Abigail ducked away from the branch just in time. “Ha! You missed,” she yelled, smiling to herself.

Mackenzie’s angry pace ensured he progressed further and further ahead of her, but she was confident she could easily follow the path. She took her time, absorbing her surroundings. The only noise she heard was Mackenzie’s grumbling. The thick air was suffocating and she found it a little difficult to breathe. Sweat burnt her eyes as it trickled off her forehead. A large log lay across the path ahead, its rough bark a spectrum of light and dark green. She cringed as she dusted the log with her fingers. Then she sat on a section clear of moss, removed her handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed sweat from her forehead.

As Abigail breathed in she felt the tightening in her back from the injuries she sustained in the crash. It had been four days since Toni knocked her out. For a fleeting second she felt pity for the young woman, but then it was gone. Abigail had already suffered a lifetime of emotions since the crash and with the way things were going, it didn’t look like the agony was going to end any time soon.

“Four days,” she said aloud. She looked up through the dense canopy in a half-hearted search for a rescue party. She wondered, and not for the first time, if Mackenzie had imagined that helicopter. After all, she hadn’t heard it. Surely, it couldn’t be the only search party they’d send. Her mind drifted to her friends back home and how much gossip would be going on over her disappearance, but then she realised they weren’t even expecting her return for three more days. She sighed.

Movement above caught her eye and she watched several birds skipping along the branches high in the canopy flashing red underwing as they flew amongst the trees. Then as if a switch had been turned on, she heard their musical call. The harmony reminded her of the piped music in the elevator at the Palazzo Versace Hotel, sweet and peaceful. She closed her eyes and imagined she was back home, surrounded by her friends. They’d all be completely engrossed in every intricate detail of her horrific ordeal. Of course, some details wouldn’t need to be mentioned.

Suddenly a heavy object flopped into her lap and she froze. A giant brown frog with enormous eyes perched upon her knee. It was the size of a bread plate and its belly was a swollen, grotesque balloon. She gasped as she jumped up and the frog landed with a dull plop on the rotting leaves ahead of her. A scream tore from her throat and as she ran through the bush a barrage of branches blazed long, red welts along her arms. Mackenzie materialised before her with fear moulding his features and she crashed into his chest wrapping her arms around him.

“What happened?”

She gripped him like he was a life buoy. “A giant frog attacked me.”

“What?” He chuckled.

“It’s not funny. It was bloody huge. It landed on my lap.”

Laughing at her was exactly what Spencer would do, but when Mackenzie stroked her hair she realised this was different, he wasn’t judging her. “It’s okay. It’s just a frog,” he said.

“It wasn’t just a frog.” She pulled away. “It was huge, on steroids or something.”

Mackenzie laughed louder.

She began to giggle. “It was huge.”

“Do you want to show me? Maybe we can eat it.”

“Ooh, I like frog’s legs.” Abigail narrowed her eyes.

Mackenzie doubled over; his laughter echoed about them. “Oh my God.” He laughed. “You’re so funny.”

She grinned at him. “Why?”

“You don’t eat mushrooms, but you’ll eat a frog.”

She shrugged. “They taste like chicken.”

His dark eyelashes clung together with tears of laughter and small wrinkles gathered by his eyes as he smiled at her. “Come on.” He nudged her ahead. “Let’s keep looking for water.”

“Okay, but don’t walk too far ahead of me this time.”

They arrived at the back of the plane and Abigail shuddered at the thought of the body inside.

“We should get him down from there.” Mackenzie must have read her mind.

The air was thick with the foul odour of death. Abigail covered her mouth and followed Mackenzie into the wreckage but stood back from the body. Mackenzie glanced at her and she could see him wrestling with his own horror. His Adam’s apple visibly moved several times and she realised he was fighting nausea too. She looked away, still holding her breath and tried to calm her stomach.

When she looked at him again, Mackenzie was stretched up, fighting with the buckle on Tom’s safety belt. She nearly threw up as she realised the stiff fabric of the belt would be embedded in the bloated body. Mackenzie squeezed his eyes shut. Black flies formed a shifting, buzzing cloud around his face and hands.

He jumped back and the body fell with a sickening crunch. Mackenzie dashed out of the plane and threw up in the bushes. Abigail squeezed her hands over her ears, wishing the new round of horror to be over. She couldn’t resist a glance at the body, but instantly regretted it as she too escaped the wreck. Grotesque images burnt into her mind that she knew would haunt her forever.

She leant against a large tree, sucking in short, shaky breaths, fighting nausea.

Mackenzie finally approached her. “Are you okay?”

A dam of built up emotion released and she sobbed into her hands. She knew she couldn’t cope any more. Confronting death was bad enough, but having to handle the bodies both alive and dead was insane. It all had to be a nasty nightmare. No-one should go through this.
Why did I survive and not Spencer? He would cope with all of this.

She fell into Mackenzie’s chest and welcomed his arms around her.

Mackenzie stroked her hair. “We have to bury him.”

“I won’t touch him.” She heard his heart beating through his chest as she waited for his response.

“I’ll see if I can find something to cover him first.” Mackenzie released her, walked back to the wreck and disappeared inside.

She rubbed her sore eyes and wiped her sweating palms onto her skirt as she listened to the plane creak under Mackenzie’s weight. After a series of indecipherable noises, Mackenzie finally emerged from the wreck. He bent over his knees and she noticed his chest rising and falling with deep breaths.

She walked toward him. “Are you okay?” It was her turn to ask.

“I found a parachute. Wrapped him as best as I could.”

“So what do we do now?”

Mackenzie looked up at her. His eyes replicated the exhaustion the rest of his body showed. “We have to look for water.”

They stepped over the shredded wires, into the cabin and were forced to step over the parachute-clad body. Abigail avoided looking at the dried blood as she crept along the creaking cabin. Although she tried not to breathe, the smell of death, cloying and repulsive still invaded her nostrils.

At the back of the cabin, she read the upside down sign on the toilet door. “What about the toilet?”

“What about it?”

“It must have a water compartment somewhere.”

Mackenzie punched the air. “Abi, you’re a genius.”

She smiled and didn’t bother correcting her name. Mackenzie stuck his head into the small cubicle and moments later crawled back toward her. “Clever girl.” He touched her shoulder. “Come on, I need your help.”

She was stunned. No-one had ever called her clever before. His praise boosted her spirits.

“We need to roll the plane over, so we have to take him out.”

Despite the protection of the parachute, she still cringed as she grabbed onto the shoulder of the body. Mackenzie gripped the other shoulder. The sight of Tom’s rigid feet sticking out from beneath the colourful parachute somehow seemed worse than seeing his hideously swollen face, hidden just inches away. Abigail felt like she was involved in an evil plot to dispose of a murder victim. She couldn’t believe how heavy he was. The term
dead weight
rolled around in her mind and now she had every appreciation of how appropriate it was.

Tom’s heavy boots dredged parallel trails in the dirt as they dragged the body further from the wreck. He seemed to get heavier with each step backwards.

“That’s far enough,” Mackenzie said between ragged breaths.

Abigail dropped the body and rubbed her hands vigorously on her filthy skirt, praying she would never touch a dead body again. Mackenzie went back to the side of the plane and placed his palms onto the curved metal. “Just place your hands like this, okay, and we’re going to push it over.”

She followed his lead.

“Ready?”

She nodded.

“Push,” he yelled. His arms stiffened and the veins in his neck bulged.

Abigail planted her feet and put her weight into it too.

The plane rolled away from them, but promptly rebounded back.

“Again,” he urged.

They rocked the plane back and forth. Each time it rolled just a fraction further over but then came straight back.

“Keep going,” Mackenzie yelled. The wreck teetered on an invisible precipice and Mackenzie ran under it to give it one last shove. Finally, with a loud crunch it completed the roll and the red painted tail now pointed back toward the sky.

“Yeah, we did it.” He wrapped his arms around her, panting with exhaustion.

Abigail leant into his heaving chest and smiled as she listened to his pounding heart.

They went back inside the plane. The toilet door was wide open and the toilet seat dangled beside the empty bowl. Mackenzie opened the small cupboards under the sink and removed the contents -- more toilet paper, hand towels and soap.

“Hey, a first aid kit!” Mackenzie picked up a small white bag marked with a red cross and unzipped it to reveal an assortment of bandaids, ointments, gauze and bandages. He held up a packet of Panadol. “This is great. Charlie’ll need pain killers. He’s going to have one hell of a hangover.”

The toilet was secured to a square edged compartment. “The water must be behind here,” he said. After undoing the screws with the army knife, Mackenzie lifted the front of the compartment away. The rubber lining squeaked as he wriggled it free.

“Yes! We have water. Grab the bottles.”

Abigail fetched the pack and handed the bottles one by one to Mackenzie.

“This’s good. I’ll boil it up when we get back.” Mackenzie stuffed the bottles into the backpack. “And there’s enough water to fill these again.”

“I hope my friends never find out.”

“Find out what?” Mackenzie slung the heavy pack over his shoulder.

“That I drank toilet water.”

“They’ll just be happy you survived.”

“You don’t know my friends.”

Mackenzie shook his head. “I don’t think I want to.”

Abigail twisted her diamond ring, refusing to respond. As she followed behind Mackenzie, the heated air trapped within the dense foliage squeezed sweat from her pores. Never before had she felt so disgusting. Even her best friend Maxine wouldn’t recognise her, though Maxine never did miss much. At last year’s polo tournament, Maxine was the first to notice Charlene was wearing the same dress she’d worn the previous year. The fact that the dress would’ve cost a fortune and that Charlene looked flawless in it didn’t matter. It became a huge scandal.

Abigail laughed out loud. “My friends would disown me if they saw me now.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

Abigail recalled how that dress choice caused Charlene eight months of hell. And it wasn’t until her husband donated a hundred thousand dollars to their fundraising committee that Charlene was back on the invite lists. “You don’t understand.”

“So tell me. We’ve got plenty of time. Start with what you do.”

“Do?”

“Yeah, what do you
do
?” He said it slowly as if it would help her understand.

She’d never really been asked this before and had to think about it. Although she was always extremely busy, there wasn’t just one thing that she did every day. “Well,” she said, “I’m involved in several fundraising committees. I play tennis and I’m also training my horse, Avalon, for polo.”

“So you don’t work.”

“Yes, I work very hard.”

“Right.” Mackenzie shook his head.

“I do.”

“Yes, I’m sure you do. But you don’t work to earn money.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t work,” she snapped.
Why did it always have to come back to money?

* * *

Mackenzie was grateful when a eucalyptus tree provided an opportunity to change the subject. “I saw a sugar glider sucking the nectar from these flowers.” He cut several red blooms and smelt the sweet aroma.

“What are you going to do with them?” Abigail raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged. “Eat them.”

They arrived back at the clearing and Mackenzie unloaded the backpack, placing the water bottles into the suitcase. The fire had burnt down to wisps of smoke and Charlie was still resting in the same position he’d been in when they left hours earlier.

While Mackenzie stoked the fire, he surveyed the half dug grave and knew they weren’t anywhere near completion. The hole measured only about one and a half metres long and just thirty centimetres deep. It would need to be at least three times that size. The fresh cut earth had lightened to almost grey as it dried out and when he kicked at the dirt pile beside the grave it crumbled under his foot.

He took the mushrooms and eucalyptus flowers out of the backpack and sat cross-legged on the grass by the fire, trying to get comfortable.

The mushroom flesh was chalk white and the brown skirt underneath had dozens of folded layers of flesh. It smelt good—woody and rich. He knew the dangers of eating poisonous mushrooms, but without any alternative the only way to confirm if it was edible was to eat it. Unable to resist any longer he nibbled off a small portion and noted its earthy freshness. He tossed the mushrooms into the pan with a little oil and a handful of eucalyptus flower pipes and stirred them with a debarked twig.