Crossings

by Ashley Capes

  “It’s fine. Really. Are you okay?”

  “They’re doing tests for diabetes. Maybe now we’ll know why I crave all that juice, hey?” He waved a hand. “Don’t worry about me though. If it’s diabetes, it’s diabetes. I’ll work it out. Just tell me what’s going on here.”

  “I found a lot of skin on a blue tarp down there. It was bloody, like it’d been removed on purpose.”

  His face paled. “Skin?”

  “One patch had a tattoo of the southern cross, just like Ben.”

  “You should call Gerry.”

  “No – he’ll have to tell McConnell.”

  “And he thinks you’re responsible?”

  She nodded, filling him in on the visit and the shadowy figure that locked her inside. “McConnell is running out of suspects.”

  He shook his head. “This is crazy.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, I heard Ronnie gossiping. Says that Karen told him about Lindgren.”

  “What about him?”

  “His wounds were all made by an animal – so unless McConnell thinks you trained a kangaroo, I don’t think he’ll be charging you with anything.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

  He leaned beside her on the car. “What about Ben? Do you think he locked you in?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know...how much skin can a person cut off and survive?”

  “How much was down there?”

  “A lot.”

  “Sounds like someone did something to him.” He paused, as if unsure of his next words. “I know this isn’t right to say, but I don’t think you should be too upset. He was no good, Lisa.”

  “I know,” she said softly.

  “But if someone did that to him – you have to ask, who’s out there?”

  She stared at the smoke building along the skyline. “Maybe it is Ben, somehow.”

  He frowned. “You think he removed his own skin?”

  “Or just his tattoo, as a decoy – and the rest is from someone else.”

  “What? You mean his mum and dad?”

  “Sounds stupid, doesn’t it.” She rubbed her eyes. It was all ridiculous. Hideous. And none of it made sense, no matter how she tried to explain it.

  “We can find out. Or tell Gerry and they’ll test the blood left on the skin. Or call them, do you have their number?”

  “I don’t know if I can go back in there,” she said. “It turned my stomach.”

  “I’ll go in, if you like,” he said, pushing from the car.

  She caught his arm. “No.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said.

  She opened her mouth to tell him that something was wrong. The sense of it. The oily sensation, the ancient skull, the white kangaroo and the vision. But even Robert wouldn’t believe that. “Let McConnell find it himself. He’ll be back soon enough.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I just want to go home and have a shower. Try and forget about it for a while.”

  “All right, if you’re sure. Give me a call if you need.”

  “I will.”

  She climbed into the car and drove around the owl statue before following Robert back into town. She tapped the steering wheel with both thumbs and leant her head against the glass of the driver’s window at the lights. When she finally turned into Chambers Street and then her driveway, it couldn’t have come a second sooner.

  Inside, Lisa threw her clothes to the floorboards and leapt into the shower where she turned the hot water on hard and scrubbed herself, sighing as she did. There had never been any oil on her skin but the water blasted away the memory.

  Didn’t do the trick for the image of skin piled on a blue tarp.

  Or the kangaroo skull.

  Was it Ben? If it was, who’d do something that sick? Not Robert. He hadn’t been too upset but still, not Robert. And not Gerry either – he might have been happy to rough Ben up, but he wasn’t going to skin him. Dave? Not likely. No-one would. No sane person, anyway.

  “Admit it, you’re still the best suspect,” she told the frosted glass.

  Later, she forced down dry crackers and water before calling the hospital. Dad was undergoing more tests but he’d been awake since she left, which was something. Next, she tried Ben’s parents as she paced the lounge. If Jennifer or Paul answered – or they didn’t answer – which would be worse? But neither did and she didn’t leave a message. They were probably travelling – not unusual for the Drummonds to spend a month in Europe. And she couldn’t really tell them anything for certain anyway.

  Instead, she slumped in the old creaking armchair and listened to updates about the fires – no progress toward Yarsdale – until she finally swore and stood.

  Short of staking out the Drummond house, there was only one other way of finding answers – and even then, it was a gamble. But anything had to be better than hanging around waiting for something to happen. Or trying to go to work.

  She had to see the white kangaroo again.

  *

  Even sitting square beneath the Wildlife Centre’s ceiling fan, Sally fanned herself with an old baseball cap. “I guess we could do without it for a couple of hours.”

  “You can use the Holden in the meantime,” she said.

  She sighed – more from the heat than Lisa’s request, it seemed. “I’ve got my car too, we’ll be fine. I’ll tell Colin when he gets back.”

  “Thanks, Sal.” She accepted the keys. The vision of the ute being attacked flashed in her mind but she had an answer for her fears. Two people in the vision. One person collecting the keys now. “I’ll be back by four.”

  “Don’t stress.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sally folded her arms on the counter. “You okay? You know, with all the shit that’s been going on?”

  “I think so. It’s like the animals have all gone crazy.”

  “I know. Saw something strange myself, you know.”

  “What was it?”

  She tossed the hat onto the desk. “A line of foxes back on Stanberry Reserve. All dead, all in a row – as if they’d been following one another and simply died one at a time.”

  Her stomach twisted. What now? Ben? Something else? “That is strange,” Lisa said. Outward, she kept her composure – or so she hoped. “Maybe we need to get someone to test the creeks.”

  Sally nodded. “Might be worth it.”

  “Well, I better get started.” She headed out and jumped into the ute, adjusting the seat then heading for Pumps’ farm. She tapped her thumb on the wheel as she drove. Stanberry Reserve ran behind Chambers Street – had the foxes been heading for her house?

  Maybe the white roo could show her an answer for that too.

  It was a long shot but it was all she had.

  At least the ute would make things easier. Jennings Lane ran behind Pumps’ farm and gave access to the dirt trails like the Dump Track near the shelter. Some of the lane was pretty rough but unlike her Holden, the ute had four-wheel drive. Once she left the highway, Lisa switched on the radio. More updates about the fire. No immediate danger to the area and no embers yet – but residents were being advised to continue to monitor news stations.

  “Don’t worry,” she told the radio, ignoring the way her heart gave a flutter. The fire wasn’t that close yet. But while it was sound advice – the announcers couldn’t promise much more – radio signal could only go so deep into the bush. She’d have to rely on more than just official word.

  More eucalyptus rose alongside the road, adding to the classic, muddy green seen in every Frederick McCubbin oil painting. In Jennings Lane, tendrils of bark peeled from the older trees. Not far into the lane she hopped out to unhook a shonky-looking gate. On the other side, once she’d closed the gate, she turned a switch inside the wheel hubs, engaging four-wheel
drive.

  She continued down the road, moving slowly around jagged potholes. A steep rise appeared and she picked up a little speed then put the foot down. Once over the crest, she paused to take a drink from her water bottle.

  Trees thickened around the lane, growing closer, blocking more light. One had fallen across the road sometime in the past; the clean cut of a chainsaw had faded to grey where the trunk was shorn through. The day hadn’t cooled; dopey flies bugged her at the window and she swatted at them, easing the ute along the dirt.

  By the time she reached the dirt-bike trails, she’d tried two lesser paths branching from Jennings Lane to no avail, having to back out of some tight spots. Sweat was trickling between her shoulder blades. Branches grew across the lane. One slipped into her window, dumping a heap of wattle flowers into her lap.

  “Damn it.” She brushed at the clinging pollen and drove on, soon coming to a halt. There. The right one, finally. Entry to the Dump Track. Too narrow for the ute, but it wouldn’t be too far to the shelter, hopefully. She cut the engine and found her torch, grabbed the water bottle and slipped the keys into her pocket before setting down the trail.

  The same sandy, salt-and-pepper ground underfoot. The air tasted faintly of smoke – either that or she was imagining it. The bush was too dense to see much of the sky, but further up into the high country the fire would be raging. And somewhere up there the fire-fighters everyone depended on would be fighting it. Risking their lives.

  “Stay safe,” she murmured as she stepped over a twisted tree root.

  She sipped from the water as she walked.

  When she found the stand of trees growing up the sides of the shelter, half an hour had passed. In daylight, the red of the door was easier to spot but it was still concealed heavily by branches, even if some were bent from her last visit. She pushed through and tried the door.

  It slid open with less resistance than before. The same stench hit her upon entering. She lifted the Maglite and this time daylight added its touch to the white kangaroo, though the interior remained dim, turning the fur grey.

  Lisa knelt by her again. Nothing moved in the eye.

  How did she even address the kangaroo? “Can you help me?”

  No change.

  “I need to find Ben. I need to know what’s happening. Is he alive? Who locked me in the basement?” She rested a hand on the soft fur. “Can you show me?”

  Still nothing.

  “Please?”

  The blood had dried to black in the sandy floor beneath her chest. The eye did not blink, no images flashed within. She was truly gone. Lisa’s shoulders slumped. She’d come for nothing. Shouldn’t have been surprised. ‘Slim’ barely described her chances. “Sorry to disturb your rest.”

  Lisa headed from the shelter. What now? She’d have to find Ben somehow.

  She started back but stopped, cocking her head. Beneath the scent of distant smoke something else lurked. Just like the first time she visited. Something off, not unlike the smell in the shelter. Only worse. It grew as she walked. A dead wombat. Or another roo? She patted her shirt pocket. Her pouch would be close to empty – but even a few grains were worth sharing. She pushed through the branches, twigs cracking and the swish of heavy leaf-cover loud.

  Beyond the screen stretched trampled ground, littered with bones and corpses – kangaroos. In heaps and pairs or lying alone, legs twisted, tails bloodied and worst of all, bones showing, flies buzzing.

  Lisa cried out.

  Something had been eating them.

  The nearest animal had been stripped of flesh, gnaw marks on the thigh bone. Head and torso were still covered in fur. Some were even missing whole limbs. Torsos or heads.

  No salt could remedy what lay before her.

  She moved deeper with trembling steps – old bones peeked from the leaves everywhere she turned. She passed the skeletons of smaller animals; bilbies, wallabies and even the decomposing frame of a goanna. To her left was a wombat – a pair of koalas, their paws missing, to her right.

  In the centre of the boneyard she stopped, tears stinging her eyes.

  Scores of them.

  Leaves rustled and she spun.

  A kangaroo stood on the edge of the clearing. Too tall. Too broad – like the white kangaroo – only its fur was a deep red. Crimson, streaked with black clots and tangles. As if blood had seeped through the fur and stained it permanently. A growl rose from its throat but it didn’t approach. Forepaws twitched.

  She took a step back.

  “What are you?” Lisa whispered.

  The tail thumped once and it padded forward. Its breath was ragged. Lisa took another step. The great roo snarled until she stopped. She had nothing, no weapon but the torch. Yet when the blood-red kangaroo approached, when it neared her, she didn’t run. She couldn’t.

  Its eyes were human.

  Chapter 22.

  The kangaroo’s face glistened red. Rank breath passed over the jagged teeth where the beast towered above her. Its black nose had been sliced open at one point, healing poorly. Even the fur was knotted with dried blood. But it was the eyes that caught her. Human, somehow they were human. Larger than natural, the eyes were spread across the dark face, but undeniably those of a man; whites showing. Not the normal brown of a roo.

  “Ben?”

  The kangaroo snorted, shoulders trembling.

  “Are you in there?”

  Its head snapped forward. She threw her arm up and gnashing teeth clamped down – not hard enough to break skin. Saliva pooled on her forearm as the great jaws locked her arm between gaps in the teeth. She strained against it but the kangaroo held tight. The stench of death washed over her.

  The eyes had rolled back to brown.

  She screamed. Its head jerked, tossing her to the ground where something sharp bit into her thigh. Lisa scrambled back, hands fumbling over fur and bone. The red kangaroo leapt after her, ground vibrating when it landed. The tail whipped around and crashed beside her. Bone fragments flew, stinging her cheek, and warm blood trickled down her jaw.

  The kangaroo’s eyes rolled again.

  It turned to bound away, and she scrambled to her feet. Her shoulders stiffened when she caught a glimpse of five stars – the Southern Cross – pink against the red fur.

  And then the roo was gone, crashing through branches.

  Lisa moaned. Ben was the creature. Ben was the figure in the vision – the man with the rifle who’d fallen down to undergo a transformation into a blood-red kangaroo. Ben was the one who’d shed skin in the basement of his own home. The blood stains on his jeans, the blood in the sink, the droppings, the carpet...the skull.

  Run. Just run. Get out of the boneyard.

  Back to town; find help.

  Out of the graveyard and her feet pounded dirt as she charged back toward Jennings Lane. She ran until her lungs seared and her throat rasped, finally stumbling up to the ute. The afternoon sun had tinted it orange and she let out a strangled cry when she saw it, relief turning her limbs to jelly.

  Beautiful – it could take her away.

  She fumbled for her keys, wincing when she twisted – her jeans were unbroken but the flesh of her thigh was tender. She climbed into the driver’s seat and when she turned to reverse out of the lane, she winced again. In the first run-off she made a three-point turn, checking the mirrors.

  No sign of the red roo.

  At least now, facing the direction she was travelling, she could pick up speed. She tried to slow her breathing, to focus on the turns and overhanging branches.

  Instead, she gripped the wheel hard enough for the leather to squeak.

  How had it happened? Ben was gone. He was the bloody kangaroo now, keeper of an animal graveyard. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. Could it?

  But why not?

  The white kangaroo was real.<
br />
  On her forearm, saliva covered her skin, hairs sticking together.

  The red kangaroo was real too.

  And it saved her. Or Ben did.

  When the eyes rolled from white, that had to be whatever dark force possessed him, right? The red giant had attacked and Ben had held it off. Didn’t he? She groaned as she accelerated out of a bend. Would it always be so? Or would the kangaroo – the thing of death – would it consume him?

  If it hadn’t done so already.

  Or she was fooling herself? A shiver ran across her shoulders. Since when had Ben wanted to protect her? Maybe he’d given himself up willingly; he’d been a hate-filled man before. He’d been responsible for so much pain and death, and he’d killed the white kangaroo. But why? As a claim to fame? Perhaps he’d found out what Pumps was up to and tried to steal his thunder.

  Maybe it was all the red kangaroo. Maybe the red kangaroo had existed before Ben, maybe it took his soul? Maybe that explained the skull in the basement.

  Shit, was it really even him? How could a man even become that...that thing? Maybe she was insane.

  “Enough,” she shouted. Too many questions and no real answers.

  She’d never know how it happened. Whatever ‘it’ was.

  Just head back to town. Get away.

  No-one was in at the Wildlife Centre so she swapped the ute for her Holden and headed home. This time her clothes went into the bin and her shower was quick. She grabbed her phone and called Gerry.

  “Lisa? Are you okay?”

  “No, I just wanted to ask. Did you or McConnell find Ben yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Damn it.” She knew why.

  “I’m just at the pub, if you want me to –”

  “Actually, I could use something to eat. I’ll be there soon.” Perfect – somewhere with hot food and lots of people. Somewhere normal.

  At the pub, she paused in the doorway, letting the conversation and clink of cutlery wash over her. Normal. Beautifully normal. Bruce waved from behind the bar, halfway through pulling a drink. She moved in, nodding to the regulars, who didn’t appear all that pleased to see her; thanks to the rumour mill, she supposed. She found Gerry and sat beside him at the end of the row.