‘I can do anything I want,’ the ice-cream man snarled into the phone.
‘If you hurt him I swear I’ll kill you!’ Aaron yelled.
The ice-cream man laughed and with a click, the line went dead.
The night dragged. Aaron spent the hours between midnight and dawn watching a trail of moonlight crawl across his bedroom floor. Visions of Rick being tortured played over and over in his head. Had he pushed the psycho over the edge? He shouldn’t have yelled at him. Negotiators never yelled at crazy people on TV. Aaron had a bad feeling the ice-cream man had completely lost the plot. Everyone knew that when someone crossed that line they were capable of anything.
By nine on Saturday morning the clouds had rolled back in again, causing the temperature to rise another couple of notches. Aaron worked in the shop until he saw Marty rolling up the path. He ran outside to meet him.
‘Man, it’s hot,’ Marty said, reaching under his chair and pulling out his water bottle.
‘Sure is. Dark, too.’ Aaron glanced up at the leaden sky. ‘It’s finally going to rain. Can you smell it?’
Marty nodded. His expression turned grave. ‘I wasn’t able to reach Rick. There’s no answer at his house.’
Aaron walked over to the wooden bench beside the doorway and sat down. ‘He rang me last night – not Rick, the ice-cream man. I think Rick’s in bad trouble.’
‘Great. This whole situation is totally screwed.’ Marty squeezed water into his mouth and swallowed.
‘What did he say?’
‘It’s not what he said, it’s what he didn’t say that worries me. You should have heard him, Marty, he went right off his nut. I got most of it on tape, so at least we’ve now got something to take to the police.’ Aaron grunted as he got to his feet. ‘I’ll go get it.’
‘I want to hear it first. There might be a clue on it,’ Marty said.
‘Like what?’
‘I dunno. Maybe a sound in the background that will tell us where he was ringing from. Maybe if we listen hard enough we’ll even hear Rick’s voice.’
‘I don’t know about that, but at least now the police will take us seriously.’
Aaron ducked his head through the doorway.
‘Marty’s here, Mum. We’ll be upstairs if you want me.’ He led Marty through the gate at the side of the shop and around to the stairs. ‘Er, maybe you’d better not climb the stairs with that knee. I can get the tape and we can play it at your house if you like.’
A flicker of annoyance crossed Marty’s face. He gripped the rail and pulled himself out of the wheelchair. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, wincing as his foot hit the first step.
When Marty reached the top, Aaron brought the chair up. ‘Go through,’ he said, dropping Marty’s chair in the doorway. ‘There’s a machine over there we can play the tape on.’
Aaron did a quick check of the house to make sure his step-brother wasn’t lurking anywhere. Roger had taken Bernie to the races, so there was no need to worry about them listening in. He collected the tape from his room and hurried back to the lounge room.
Marty listened to it twice, his face screwed into a mask of concentration that bordered on constipation. Then he asked Aaron to play it back one more time. His head jerked up. ‘Geez. I can’t believe I missed it.’
‘Huh?’ Aaron glanced from Marty to the answering machine. He reckoned he could recite the conversation word for word by now. There was nothing there.
Marty pulled the machine towards him and rewound the tape. ‘Listen.’
‘No can do, buckaroo.’
‘Stop playing games and just tell me where he is you weirdo, or I’m going to hang up right now and ring the police.’
‘Now listen to me, mister, I’m the one in control here, not you. You’re nothing. Got that? NOTHING!’
Marty hit the stop button. Aaron frowned. ‘So?’
‘Didn’t you hear it? He said: “No can do, buckaroo” and then he called you “mister”. There’s only one person I know who says stuff like that – Mr Gunner. The day Rick and I had detention he used both those words.’
‘But that doesn’t make sense. We’ve seen the ice- cream man and it isn’t Mr Gunner.’
Marty considered this. ‘Ye-eah, but that doesn’t mean the guy on the phone is the same man, does it? He never actually called himself the ice-cream man. He said he was the Grim Reaper.’
‘So, you’re saying we don’t have one psycho after us, but two? What are the odds of that?’
‘Maybe . . . Oh geez, I don’t know. This is all too weird.’ Marty said.
Aaron shook his head. ‘Nah, Mr Gunner can’t be involved. That’s ridiculous.’ Aaron didn’t know Mr Gunner that well, but the relief teacher seemed okay, certainly not the type to make threatening phone calls and kidnap kids.
Marty sighed. ‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but the more I think about it the more I reckon that voice on the tape sounds just like Gunner.’
‘Okay, we’ll take the tape to the police and let them figure it out.’ Aaron took the tape out of the machine and pocketed it.
‘How about we look up Gunner’s number in the phone book and give him a call? That way I’ll know for sure if it’s his voice on the tape,’ Marty said.
‘He’s only been at the school a month. Would his name be in there?’
Marty shrugged. ‘It’ll only take a sec. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?’
Aaron crossed the room and grabbed the phone book. It only took a few seconds to see there wasn’t a listing for Gunner.
‘We’re out of luck,’ Aaron said, slapping the book shut.
Marty held up a hand. ‘Hang on, I just remembered something. I saw Gunner leaving school the other day. He walked past me towards Turner Street. What’s the bet he lives down there?’
‘Good, we can tell the police.’ Aaron picked up the phone.
‘Hang on, why don’t we walk to the police station? They’re only gonna tell us to come down anyway. And on the way there we can take a little detour.’ Marty gave Aaron a grin. ‘Come on, mate. Maybe we’ll be able to rule Gunner out and that’ll save the cops some time, won’t it?’
‘Are you kidding? What if Mr Gunner is involved? He could be dangerous.’
‘All the more reason to get there soon. Rick might need us and by the time we explain everything to the cops and they get round to his house, it might be too late.’
Aaron licked his lips. ‘Yeah, yeah, all right. Let’s go.’
12
Marty knew the odds of finding Gunner’s house weren’t good. After all, he only knew the street the teacher had been heading for the afternoon he’d seen him. Gunner could live in any one of a dozen streets in the area – or none of them. Aaron was right, they should go straight to the cops, yet Marty couldn’t shake his overwhelming need to somehow gain control of the situation. After all, he’d started this thing, not Aaron, or Rick, so it should be him who finished it. If only he hadn’t slam-jumped the ice- cream man, none of them would be in this mess.
The fight Marty had with his mother that morning only fuelled his determination to make things right.
‘Your father and I have decided you should go into hospital for surgery as soon as possible,’ she’d announced over breakfast, in that smug, it’s all for the best so don’t argue voice of hers.
Marty had almost choked on his toast. ‘You’ve decided? What about me, huh? You obviously don’t care what I think.’
Right on cue his mother had rolled her eyes.
‘Honestly, Martin, don’t be so melodramatic. It needs to be done. You do want to walk again, don’t you?’
Marty had pushed himself back from the table, causing his mother’s cup to rattle on its saucer. ‘If you mean shuffling around on a walking frame like some half-dead old fart, then no, I don’t.’
‘Martin!’
‘Stop trying to fix me, Mother. Take me the way I
am, or don’t take me at all!’
Marty ground his teeth
at the memory. He couldn’t do anything about his mother, but he could at least try to do something about finding his friend.
He wheeled his chair along Bateman Drive towards the school. Aaron rolled alongside on his bike. ‘Up on the left is Turner, where Gunner went the other day,’ Marty said, puffing slightly. The road angled towards the kerb and it took all he had to keep the wheelchair from veering into the gutter. He shook his head, spraying the air with beads of sweat.
‘I really don’t know what good this’ll do,’ Aaron said. ‘What exactly are we looking for?’
Marty swung around the corner, glancing from one side of the street to the other. ‘I don’t know
– anything.’ He didn’t have to look at Aaron’s face to know he hated the idea. Disapproval rolled off him in waves.
They continued along Turner Street until it joined with Sovereign Court. Marty stopped and drank deeply from his water bottle. ‘You go straight ahead and I’ll look down here,’ he said, wiping his mouth.
‘You’ve got two minutes then we’re going to the police station.’ Aaron didn’t wait for a reply.
‘Five,’ Marty yelled after him. He replaced the bottle and spun his wheels, scanning each house as he passed. What sort of place would Gunner live in? He’d struck Marty as a total nerd, so he’d probably have a neat house, clipped lawns, pruned hedges, probably garden gnomes. Marty laughed to himself. Yeah, people like Gunner loved stuff like that.
Then he saw it, the second house from the end of the cul-de-sac. It was a low-set weatherboard, painted white with yellow trim. A white brick fence ran along the front of the property, framing a row of neatly clipped rose bushes. And over by the front steps stood a clan of garden gnomes. While all of this was just as Marty had imagined, it wasn’t what stopped him in his tracks and had him staring open-mouthed in disbelief. Parked at the end of the driveway behind the house, beneath a jasmine-laden carport, was a pink and white van with the first part of the word FREAK still plastered across its rear end in glossy black paint. Someone had scrubbed off half the ‘E’ and all that remained of the last two letters were a few random black dots.
Tearing his eyes away from the van was almost painful. Marty checked the end of the street. No sign of Aaron. Should he go and find him, or check out the house? Indecision froze his hands to his wheel rims. Then a ball of heat exploded in his stomach and he was able to move. By some incredible luck he’d found the mongrel who’d made their lives a misery for the past week. He’d found the ice-cream man!
Marty rolled through the open gates and down the driveway. He stopped and stared at the van, the thing that had filled his heart with dread in the hours between dark and light, and realised it was simply a shell – the ice-cream man’s skin. The real object of his dread was elsewhere. Before he had a chance to consider what he’d do if he were caught, Marty swung his chair towards the back of the house. Find Rick! was the only coherent thought in his head.
A laundry was located at the back of the house, a small fibro box, more of an afterthought than part of the main building. Inside the small room two steps led to the back door. Marty dropped to his hands and knees, wincing as his injured limb connected with the concrete floor, and waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dimness of the laundry. He scanned the room, washing machine, dryer, concrete tubs, and then his eyes drifted upwards to the screen door. Not a sound came from inside, but that meant nothing. How was he going to get in there? Rick was in the house somewhere, he knew it. Gritting his teeth, Marty crawled up the steps and pressed his face to the screen.
The main door stood open. Maybe he’d be able to gain access after all. With one hand clutching the doorframe and the other hanging on to the wall, Marty managed to get to his feet. White-hot fire shot through his right knee. It almost buckled under him. In desperation he made a grab for the door handle. Of course the screen door was locked. Just as well, really. If it hadn’t been he would have gone flying backwards and landed on the concrete floor. The gods of good fortune were smiling on him it seemed, for a moment later he discovered (after tearing a hole in the screen with his fingernails) that the door hadn’t been key-locked. All he had to do was flip the latch and he was inside. He dropped to the kitchen floor and then massaged his knee. If the ice-cream man had been watching while Marty broke into his house, now he would pounce.
When nothing happened Marty let himself breathe again. His heart hammered so hard it would be a miracle if his insides weren’t a mass of bruises. The house smelt stale and had an unoccupied feel about it. On the other side of the kitchen the refrigerator hummed into life. And somewhere else a clock ticked. The ice-cream man mightn’t be here, but that didn’t mean Rick wasn’t.
On hands and knees Marty crossed the kitchen and dining area. He paused at the doorway leading into the hall, head cocked and ears alert to the slightest sound. He saw and heard nothing alarming. There was a bedroom to his right and another across the hall. To the left was, Marty guessed, the bathroom, a toilet beside that and then a closed door – probably a third bedroom. The lounge room came next at the end of the hall.
From where he knelt, Marty could see that the two bedrooms at this end of the house were empty. The room directly opposite didn’t even contain a bed. Empty cardboard boxes littered the bare boards, and beside the far wall beneath the curtainless window stood an exercise bike.
The bedroom to the right was filled with all the usual stuff and held little of interest for Marty. The room with the closed door was the one that beckoned.
Ignoring the sudden pain in his knee, he gripped the doorframe with both hands and hauled himself to his feet. Using the wall for support, Marty edged down the hallway, hamstrings straining, his wounded knee a roaring inferno. Finally he reached the closed door and stopped to catch his breath. Thanks to his atrophied muscles the short walk was akin to an able-bodied person’s two-hundred-metre sprint. Pressing his cheek to the door, Marty hissed. ‘Rick, you in there?’ A moment later it occurred to him that Rick might be bound and gagged and unable to answer. With a quivering hand, Marty clutched the doorknob.
Aaron figured he’d been waiting on the corner at least five minutes. He should have guessed Marty would take his sweet time. Aaron had a clear view to the end of Sovereign Court and there was no sign of him. He had a good mind to leave Marty here and go to the police station on his own. After a moment’s consideration he realised he couldn’t do that. They were mates now, for better or worse. He would have to go down there and find him.
The street was quiet, too quiet for a Saturday. Aaron supposed the hot stormy weather was keeping everyone behind closed doors. If he hadn’t agreed to this wild goose chase, that’s exactly where he would be right now.
He scanned the last few houses at the end of the cul-de-sac and was about to turn his bike around when he saw a flash of pink out of the corner of his eye. He braked so hard he almost went over the handlebars. Aaron backed up until the end of the long driveway came into full view again. He gasped. It was the ice-cream man’s van. Aaron rode down the driveway, the possibility of danger strangely absent from his mind.
He didn’t waste time checking out the van. He dropped his bike in the backyard, and made his way to the rear of the house, ears and eyes alert. Nothing stirred, which wasn’t as reassuring as it should have been. Movie characters never saw or heard the monster before it grabbed them, did they? For all he knew the ice-cream man could be breathing down his neck.
Aaron shuddered and forced himself to put one foot in front of the other. When he saw Marty’s empty wheelchair at the bottom of the back steps panic seized control. He shoved it out of the way and ran blindly into the house.
‘Marty? Rick?’ he yelled, blundering through the kitchen and into the hall. Let the ice-cream man come at him, he didn’t care, as long as he found his friends. Then he saw Marty sitting on the hallway floor, his back to a closed door.
‘Get over here and kick this door in, will you?’
‘What? Are you mad? We’ve
got to get out of here.’ Aaron rushed forward and dragged Marty to his feet.
Marty shook him off. ‘No, Rick’s in there and it’s locked. You’ve gotta kick it in.’
‘But, I –’
Aaron looked into the lounge room. He could see part of the street through the parted curtains. Nothing stirred. They’d already entered a house illegally. Forcing a door wasn’t likely to get them into any more trouble than they were already in.
‘Move out of the way,’ he told Marty. With all his strength he raised a foot and planted it on the door. After a second kick there was a sharp crack! as the lock gave way. Aaron kicked it again and the door flew open, rebounding against the wall.
Marty dived inside, almost getting knocked off his feet as the door bounced closed. He fell against it, pushing it open, and then stumbled forward two steps and collapsed onto the bed. As Aaron stepped into the room, Marty turned towards him. His eyes were huge in his pinched face. ‘Geez, you’ve gotta see this, Aaron. Man, I think the nut-job has killed them all.’
Aaron didn’t want to look. He wanted to run, but his feet were bolted to the floor. ‘Come out of there now,’ he said with effort, each word a leaden weight on his tongue. ‘We have to get out of here before he comes.’
‘Just look at this.’
‘No, I don’t want to.’
‘Just look!’
Like a robot, Aaron took another step past the edge of the door and slowly turned to look in the direction Marty was staring. He didn’t know what he’d expected, a dead body maybe. He was almost relieved when he saw the wall. It contained two large corkboards covered with pictures of kids of all ages, most of them wearing a variety of school uniforms.
‘See that?’ Marty said, pointing at the board nearest the window.
At first Aaron didn’t know what Marty was talking about. More photos of kids, every one different. Then with a jolt he realised that three of them were familiar. ‘Oh geez, that’s us,’ he said, and clapped his hand to his mouth. And if that wasn’t bad enough a piece of paper had been pinned to the board above the photos of Rick, Aaron and Marty. On the paper, written in black marker: Beware the Grim Reaper!
The Ice-cream Man Page 11
