BACKWOODS RIPPER: a gripping action suspense thriller (16 page)

“We’re going to make it. We’re going to be okay,” she said and put her hand to her belly. “Do you hear me, baby?” She felt tears on her cheeks and laughed. “I’m getting you out of here.”

She pointed the phone at the bush around the strip of fabric and realised she was standing at the opening to the trail.
It’s not far
, she thought and then something that had been skipping along the edges of her consciousness all afternoon clicked into place. Something Wade said just before Lizzy blew him off his motorbike. She remembered having mentioned what a long drive he had but he’d said, “It’s not that f-”. At the time, she’d been too horrified to take it in, but now she thought he was trying to tell her that the roadhouse wasn’t far.

The shotgun grew heavier against her body, but she ignored the discomfort. The roadhouse and, more importantly, people and a phone were not far away. Her heart fluttered and her hands trembled. Could it be possible that help was close by? Lizzy had said the roadhouse was a two-hour drive,
but Lizzy is a fucking lunatic.

Paige forced herself to keep the excitement building in her chest under control.
First things first
, she reminded herself.
Get to the car
. She tucked the gun into her side and started along the trail. The looseness of the ground forced her to walk slowly and with care. Only a few steps and the smell of eucalyptus and wattle filled the air. The trees blocked out the moonlight plunging her back into almost total darkness. It didn’t matter though, as long as she kept the faint blue light on the ground ahead of her and walked straight, she’d hit the Ford within minutes.

Finally things are going right for us
, she thought and then another cramp hit her. This time it seized her back
and
her thighs. The pain surged up with a tremendous grip sending her lurching forward. Her mouth fell open in shock. She let the gun slip from her grasp. It hit the ground with a dry crunch. She tried to massage the pain away with her right hand, just as she’d done before. This time the cramp squeezed with an intensity she’d never experienced.

Paige took deep breaths, forcing her lungs to sweep air in and then release it in a steady pattern. The cramp loosened its grip and she started to straighten up when understanding dawned and a heavy blanket of panic covered her.

“I’m having contractions,” she said into the darkness.

Chapter Twenty

Hal gave up on trying to sit. About half an hour ago the pain in his stump began became unbearable. He slid down in the bed, his broken leg grinding in protest, and put his sweat-soaked head on the pillow.

At first, he’d convinced himself the increase in pain was most likely the result of his little sailing trip to the window, but the steady pulsing in his stump told him otherwise. This new agony brought the unmistakable throbbing-burn of infection. His skin felt hot and clammy, and his mind jumpy. He could feel the infection taking hold and not in baby steps like a cut on the finger. No, this was a monster and right now, its ugly head started to rise. Pretty soon, it would lift its neck and then the snarling would begin.

He felt around under his pillow and found the scissors. The cold feel of the metal in his hand reassured his failing senses. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and drew it out; it slid against the pillowcase with a satisfying whoosh, as if he unsheathed a sword.
If I had a sword
,
I’d cut off the bitch’s head
. That made him laugh – a chilling sound in the darkened room.

Outside the wind picked up, making the panes rattle in their crumbling putty; he was amazed they’d lasted so long in the ancient frames. For all he knew, the whole house could be consumed by wood rot. Maybe the floor would collapse under him and he’d end up in the entrance hall still lying in his bed. His thoughts became increasingly scattered. He slid the scissors under the sheets and laid them along the side of his thigh.

Satisfied they were within easy reach, he wiped his face with the edge of the sheet and focused on Paige; she’d been gone for at least forty minutes. Or had it been longer? He found it difficult to keep track of time in the dark with no watch. When she’d first left he’d tried to count, keeping track by minutes, but by the time he reached ten, invisible screws in his stump turned ever tighter.

If it
had
been forty minutes, he had another twenty yet to wait. The thought of swinging his legs out of the bed sent cold shivers down his spine. He’d been so sure he could keep up his end of the plan.
That’s before the monster woke up
, now all bets were off.

He’d never considered himself a cowardly man; he been in shit storms before his visit to Mable House. He’d done things that would terrify some people, but now thinking about getting his legs out of bed made him quake.

The mixture of cold sweats and hot fear reminded him of Afghanistan. The smell of cordite and the dry heat. There were times when he’d felt the cold fingers of terror wrap around his heart while his body remained drenched in sweat. He closed his eyes and could see the bone-coloured sand in the streets and hear the shouts. Voices raised in high pitched panic, their fear clearly recognisable even though their words were foreign.

* * *

His breathing came faster, in rough pants, like a dog too long in the sun. A little boy, a toddler in a yellow T-shirt walked towards the truck, his small legs sticking out from under long shorts like two twigs. The air felt charged and alive as if lightening might strike. The boy picked up speed, his little legs pumping, he turned to look over his shoulder at someone. Hal could see the child’s face in profile; a smile lit his small chubby features and his dark hair sprang up and bounced on his small head.

Hal’s eyes moved rapidly under closed lids and a moan slipped past his open lips. The boy turned back towards the truck. The vehicle was some sort of covered van, dented and crusted with sand. Hal felt the hairs on his arm rise and he called to the boy to stop. On the other side of the street – if the sandy track between rows of crumbling buildings could be called a street – the sound of empty cans tumbling into a cart rang out.

The boy reached under the truck and touched what looked like a red ball. Hal could hear himself calling for the boy to stop, but it sounded long and hollow like yelling through a tunnel. Breaking into a run, he stopped short when someone grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked. Then the blazing sun disappeared and his vision filled with orange spots, all sound sucked from the air.

When his hearing returned, sound bombarded him: metal tearing, glass shattering and, above everything, screaming. Hal tried to blink the dust out of his eyes and realised he lay on his stomach. He pushed himself to his feet and staggered forward.

“Don’t mate. Don’t.” He heard someone say. Later he realised the warning came from Lindsey, Donald Lindsey his commanding officer. But at the time, the words made no sense. He pushed forward and his boot hit something soft, limp. He stumbled and almost fell on the body. If he hadn’t pulled himself back he would have fallen and a sheet of metal, crusted with sand, would have impaled him. The jagged sheet rose out of the child’s chest in a vicious point. The yellow T-shirt had been torn from his body to reveal his small torso. The child’s tiny frame was almost carved in two. His skinny legs curled around at an impossible angle so that his bare feet – no bigger than Hal’s thumb – almost touched his shoulder.

He heard a scream behind him, unmistakably a woman’s. In the bed, Hal twisted the sheets between his hands. He didn’t need to understand her words to know she was the child’s mother. Her voice rose higher until her shrieking grew so loud he had to cover his ears to block out the anguish.

“Where is she? Where the fuck is she?”

* * *

Light filled the doorway and sent blazing circles of yellow spiralling in Hal’s eyes. He tried to blink away the sudden blindness and make sense of what he saw. His heart pounding from the images invading his mind, made it take a few seconds for him to recognise his surroundings.

“Where is she? I’m not going to keep asking.” Lizzy’s voice came from the doorway. The light from the landing behind her made it impossible for Hal to see more than her outline, but the shrillness in her voice made it clear she was enraged.

Hal reached into the bed, the sheets were bunched up around his waist making it difficult for him to push his hand towards his thigh. Lizzy didn’t bother with the overhead light. Either she thought she didn’t need it or she’d gone past noticing that apart from the light that spilled in from the landing, the room remained dark. She stalked over to the bed, her feet pounding the boards like a military band on the move.

His fingers found the scissors, but they were the wrong way around. He fumbled to turn them and keep his hand concealed. If she saw the scissors, he’d lose the element of surprise and something told him he’d only get one chance at this.

She leaned over the bed, not close enough to grab, but within striking range. Suddenly the thought of
her
hitting
him
on his infected stump seemed worse than death. He could actually visualise the pain; it would be white. Startling and exquisitely clear white, it would swallow him up.

He twisted the scissors in his damp palm and found the handle. Her face loomed above him. A shaft of light from the door fell across her right cheek. Her eyes looked like big balls of yellow glass, shiny and bulging in their sockets. Her lips were pulled down in grimace that made her chin jut out like a cartoon witch.

“Where did she go?” She screamed with so much power, he was sure his hair blew back while the smell of sour milk covered his face.

The movement of her right arm drew his eyes away from her face. He saw her fist rise and knew what that meant. The pain would be bad, but not as bad as the other leg. He almost relaxed and let her hit away, but in that fraction of a second he saw Paige’s face. Not as it was on the beach in Bali, but as it had been that afternoon – haunted, raw with fear. In that instant, he wanted to kill Lizzy. He wanted it more than he wanted to escape or find relief from the pain.

He shot his left arm out and batted down Lizzy’s fist then grabbed her shoulder. He drew her into him. Her mouth opened in a circle of surprise and a rush of air blew out. She fell forward, her doughy bosoms mashed against his chest.

“Let go!” Her voice sounded uncharacteristically high-pitched and panicky.

Hal would never admit it, but her fear pleased him more than he cared to acknowledge. He pulled the scissors from under the sheet with his right hand and stabbed them into Lizzy’s neck. He felt them cut through skin and hit something solid. She gave an ear-piercing screech but continued to struggle.

He could feel her right arm pushing against his thighs and knew if he didn’t stop her, blows would rain down on his legs. He pulled the scissors out of her flesh and heard a ripping sound like an old sheet tearing in half.

“Stop! Stop.” Her screams turned into words and Hal knew he’d missed the mark on her neck.

Lizzy’s right hand slapped his stomach and the air rushed out of his lungs. She seized the opportunity and pulled away.

“No you don’t, you fucking bitch.” The words came out of his mouth, but he didn’t recognise the pitiless cruelty.

He stabbed at her a second time, the blades cutting through flesh with a wet slurp and hitting bone. Lizzy howled. She arched her back and pulled out of his grasp almost taking him off the bed in the process. Hal felt his backside rise off the mattress and then bump back down with a thud. The pain flowed through his legs like an electric shock.

He held onto the scissors and could feel his hand covered in a sticky wet substance. From the doorway Lizzy heaved laboured breaths. She leaned against the frame with her back to him. The landing light illuminated her left side. A rapidly spreading stain turned her shirt dark red. The blood flowed fast, but it was obviously not arterial or it would’ve spurted like a fountain.

He held the scissors up. The strength he’d used to pull Lizzy down had dissipated and his hand shook. If she took another run at him, he didn’t think he could stop her. Instead of attacking, she pushed herself off the door frame and staggered onto the landing. He could hear a door opening and what sounded like a tray hitting the floor.

The image of her holding the hacksaw flashed before his eyes. He moaned.
Will she get a weapon and come back for me?
No, he’d stabbed her twice,
she’s crazy, not Superwoman
. Both times, the scissors had gone deep, he’d driven them in with enough force to know they done some damage. She wouldn’t come back. If he was lucky, she’d collapse from loss of blood and die.
If I was lucky, I wouldn’t be sitting here with one leg,
he thought, and a dry gurgle somewhere between a laugh and a sob passed through his cracked lips.

He didn’t have time to ponder Lizzy’s next move, he had to get going. When she’d burst into his room, she’d been so enraged that Paige had dared slip away without her knowledge, she didn’t notice the wheelchair sitting to the right side of his bed. If she noticed during their wrestling match, she’d kept it to herself.

The chair was from the nineteen seventies, with a leather seat and big wheels. Hal reached out and grabbed the arm of it, pulling it alongside the bed. The wheels squeaked like a guinea pig.
This is it.
The part he’d been afraid of. Somehow slamming his ass into the old chair seemed more terrifying than facing a mad woman intent on chopping him up into little pieces. Or maybe what really scared him had nothing to do with pain. It was failure that terrified him. Letting Paige down when she needed help, because losing his leg really did make him less of a man.

On the landing, footsteps sounding heavy but slower than before, creaked past the door. Hal held up the scissors and waited. He heard a metallic clang and then a whirring sound as if something mechanical was winding up. His first thought, a chainsaw, and his feverish mind grasped onto it. His heart jackhammered in his chest as his ears filled with rushing blood.

He threw the sheets back and turned the wheelchair so the seat faced him and then inched his body to the edge of the bed. All the while he listened to the whirring and clanking, waiting for Lizzy to appear in the doorway.

The first attempt to swing his butt into the chair was a misfire; in his panic, he tried to lean his arms on the seat and pull himself forward, which tipped the chair and nearly sent him nose-diving to the floor. By the time he’d pulled the chair back in place, the whirring had stopped and an echoing clang came from downstairs.
The lift
, he realised. A shudder of relief passed through him.

The relief was short lived. The lift meant that Lizzy was still on the move. Maybe not able to tackle three flights of stairs, but she definitely had something in mind. Whether that something would be for him or Paige, he didn’t know. He
did
know he needed to get his ass in the chair and get going.

This time, he slid the wheelchair seat under his bed so the arms were nearly touching the top of the mattress. He used his hip and slid his infected leg over the side of the bed. With his stump in mid-air, he bent his knee and balanced on the edge of the bed with one butt cheek.

With his ass half in and half out of the bed, a wave of wooziness washed over him. For one horrifying second he thought he’d pass out. Shaking his head sent drops of sweat across the bed before he snapped his eyes open and closed. It was as if someone had smeared Vaseline on them, blurring his vision.
Come on, come on
, came the chant over and over in his head.

The sloppy vision and the wooziness only lasted a couple of seconds, and then the room returned to focus. Hal knew another wave could hit him at any time, better to be firmly in the chair than hanging out of bed. He stuffed the scissors in the top pocket of his old-man pyjamas and dropped his right hand onto the arm of the wheelchair. After a few seconds of grunting and shifting, he firmly planted his ass in place.