“With backpackers, when they come out here they go every which way, they rarely know each other’s names and yet they feel safe in each other’s company. So, provided they don’t know who you really are, or where you are going, it is real hard for anyone to connect you to their disappearance.
“And, of course, lots work illegally and choose to disappear for their own reasons. So it’s hard for the cops to know where to start. I’ve picked up and made trips around with maybe twenty backpackers in the last five years
“Most have been great fun, had a blast; quite a few still send me the odd postcard, to one of my alias addresses. A couple have even come back for a bit more on the side when husbands and boyfriends did not know. So people get used to seeing me with girls around the traps and after a while one girl looks much the same as another.
“Some girls want to spread it around a bit, try miners and stockmen and the like. I reckon good luck to them and the lucky bloke. But when it happens I just leave them with their gear and wave goodbye. They are usually too busy with someone else to complain and if they did who would listen? They’re someone else’s problem.
“Only the odd one has been trouble, usually silly things. One demanded I stop the trip right there in the middle of the Queensland outback and take her back to Cairns even though it was a thousand kilometres away. I said I was happy enough to let her off at the next town. She said that if I tried to do that she would go straight to the police station and cry rape and abduction.
“With most of these girls I use a condom so they don’t get up the duff and try to claim paternity. But this one also said she was on the pill and not to bother. Now she was saying she wasn’t really on the pill, that she might be pregnant and would demand a DNA test to prove it was me.
“I think she thought she could trap me into staying around with her and make me do what she wanted. I told her to stop being stupid, but she spat at me, so I belted her across the face with a backhander. Then the silly girl tried to stick me with a big cooking knife, so at that stage I just hit her, extra hard, and she didn’t get up again.
“I dropped her body down an old mine shaft, there were dozens in the place. Then for good measure I dropped a stick of jelly on top to bring down some rocks and make sure she was well covered. Then I took all her gear and put it in another mineshaft a few miles away. No one was likely to find it but again I used a rock fall to cover it.
“To be honest I have got much more selective over the last couple years, I don’t really want to get into these situations. Now I just take the occasional one I really like for a trip and try to show them a good time. I am a bit sad to see some go but then another sweet young thing comes along, full of desire to see the real outback. Usually by a week they are ready to head on and I am ready to be on my own again.
“But then you come along and it is different. The same in parts, the sex is good, you want to see the outback, but different as well; you try to find out who I really am underneath it all. I think, hey, she’s starting to fall for me big time, and I am hooked too. You are the best person I have been with and I want to make it really special for you, maybe even try and find a way to keep you around.
“But I know it is not going to work because I am one of those people who aren’t good to stay around, bad things happen, and I don’t want bad things to happen to you.
“In another life maybe we could have met like ordinary people, I could have got a regular job and we could have made babies together and lived happily ever after. But this is the only life we’ve got and I don’t see how we can get to that place from here.
“Deep down I am one of those selfish people who doesn’t want to give up the good things I have got. I know one day I’ll make a mistake and someone will take me down. But I don’t want it to happen yet. I’m not going to spend my life in jail with a whole lot of other perverts and sad bad bastards. A year in reform was enough; I’m not going back again.”
As Susan listened she could feel this story split her mind and emotions into two parts, one which was horrified at his callous disregard for other people and their lives, and another part which was filled with compassion for this man who had never had a proper chance to be other than a monster since a child.
She hadn’t said a word as Mark had talked and talked. She didn’t understand it all, but she got the picture, he had killed people, lots of them, including some young backpackers
It didn’t sound like he set out to do this deliberately, but when he was in a corner, or got angry, killing someone was the easy way out. He lacked any apparent remorse for what he’d done. She could sense there was a great evil in him. The way he felt that a person’s life could be so easily extinguished and that there wouldn’t be any consequences. Each death, each person was just left to one side and his life went on.
But then, wasn’t that what people did in war? They killed people because it suited their country’s interest, or sometimes just their own interests, and then when it was done they returned to their lives and families, and continued, just as before. Sure, a few got shell shock or PTSD. But, for most, the killing was left behind and life went on. Were these people bad people? Was Mark any worse than them?
He had just worked out how to do the killing easily and efficiently, without others knowing. As a kid he never really had a chance, no parents or other role models to give guidance and affection, no love to anchor his life to. If she had lived a life like that would she be any different? She thought not.
She had also seen what appeared to be another side to Mark, genuine and decent, his affection for his friends in the remote bush camps of the outback, his unsolicited gifts of meat and friendship with aboriginal communities. She knew that there must be something else in there. She needed to find it, the part where the decency, kindness and compassion lived, if buried deep.
She needed him to tell her about what was special to him, what he loved, what gave him real joy.
“Mark, tell me a time when you were really happy, something that makes you feel warm and smile inside.”
He thought for a moment, “When I gave you the ring at Heartbreak Hotel, and you asked me to make love to you. When you sat beside me as we drove across the Murranji and we barely talked, but you would give me little smiles.”
She wanted to go down this path with him but it was not the answer she needed. “I feel warm and happy thinking about those things with you too. But I mean something before you met me.”
He thought again for a while and said, “Soon after I first got to the NT I got a job at the Mine at Gove. The other white mine workers didn’t have a lot of time for me, I was just a young wet kid. But there were a couple of black boys who worked there next to me. They came from a local town.
“We became friends, and they invited me to come back with them, to meet their families: all their aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters. Soon I became one of the family, going fishing and hunting with them, they taught me how to shoot kangaroos and use a spear, how to track in the bush.
“But most of all they gave me a sense of belonging. Since then I have always felt that the NT was my home, particularly this Top End country, though I love the desert too. Here was somewhere I would always be welcome. I never had a family in the city who took notice of me. But all these aunts and uncles wanted to tell me their stories each day, and, even more important, they wanted to hear my stories. I finally felt I was someone.
“The most special day came a few months later. These boys, my friends, were to have an initiation to become full members of their tribe. Even though I didn’t have the knowledge for this, they decided that, on that same day, I should get a skin name and a totem to recognise me as part of their clan.
“They gave me their own skin name, and gave me the totem of the crocodile, their totem. They told me that as the crocodile was my totem, I had to look after crocodiles and the places where crocodiles live. To help me remember they gave me that carved crocodile spirit, it is the symbol of my totem.
So,
when I shoot a pig or some other animal, I often give it to a crocodile. While I shoot and kill many animals, I try not to harm crocodiles, though I am allowed to kill them if they threaten people of my tribe or family, as even with crocodiles there are bad ones.
“That’s why I have come here; this place is really special for me. In this billabong, lives the biggest crocodile I have ever seen, until you brought out that one in the Victoria River. He is very shy and hides away but, just occasionally, he comes out. Once before he took a pig I gave him. It was my original plan, on this morning, before this all happened, to go out and shoot a pig for him. Now I can’t do that because I will have to go away from here early in the morning. But maybe I will see him still and be with him before I go.”
Only an hour had passed but it seemed like a year. It was such a complex web of good and bad. She wondered where the truth and rightness lay.
He had done so many awful things; most people would call him a sociopath or psychopath, someone who lacked the empathy to restrain his ability to harm. But there was also a good and decent place within him; a part that gave her joy and made her feel warm.
And yet there was also that other half, the psychopathic mirror—the Jekyll to his Hyde. In a strange way Susan felt this split too, there was part of her that loved him without limit, had given her promise with full commitment to be the wife, but then another part of her hated him with a violent rage for bringing them both to this place, where every choice foreshadowed disaster.
But now that he had told his story she knew she must decide what to do. In this moment clarity came into her mind. Keeping the love alive was more important, it must rise above the hatred. She knew now what she must do.
She would go away, but she could do him no further harm unless he first tried to harm her. She had made her choice, her pact with the devil. She loved him and she would not act against him, despite all he had done. While she must leave him, she would still maintain her promise to him, even when she returned home. And perhaps as time went by they could try to build a real life together out of the ashes of this day.
She talked for five minutes and Mark listened, silent, next to her. She laid it out to him as she had laid it out in her mind. It was her only way to go on without more betrayal and violence.
He was silent for a minute.
“What do you say? Can it be so?” she asked
He said, “I wish, but no.”
Susan felt like he had slapped her.
How could they have lived all this, this night of their pact together, and he not have moved on; stepped beyond now and into a future which at least had a possibility where they would both continue their lives, even if not together.
He said. “It is easy to say you will keep my secrets. But you can’t un-know what you’ve found out, and what I’ve told you. What you know now will be a cancer inside you. It will eat you slowly, bit by bit. One day you will have to speak out. So it cannot end this way.
“Now I must bind you again for this night has passed. Tomorrow must be what tomorrow must be.
Susan stood up and replaced her clothes. Then she put out her hands to allow him to replace the cuffs. He took out long chain and padlock. He passed an end between her wrists and attached the other to the bull bar.
It could not end like this, her whole being cried in outrage. How could love grow and die in the space of a night, how could a moth be let fly free then held to a flame until it wings burned away.
She did not want to beg, but she must implore him. It had to come from him, forgiveness and freeing of himself so he could free her too. He was wrong about her, so wrong; because she was determined to find the goodness at his core. She could not let it; she knew it must not end like this.
Susan grasped Mark by the arm, to stop him walking away.
He stopped and looked back at her.
She thought he would look at her with regret. But his eyes held nothing, only chilling emptiness stared back at her.
She stared back, imploring with her eyes, not just begging for her own life but begging for his soul. He maintained her stare but nothing came.
Finally she looked away. A month of her life had just ceased to exist as she would herself when the new day was come.
Mark walked away.
She was silent, just stood and stared at the endless sky. What was out there? Was there a god who could carry her soul to a place of peace? In the predawn sky there came a tiny pinprick of light, perhaps a star. She wished she could hold onto it, and that it could help her find her own peace and salvation.
Susan lay down on her bedding, and rolled to the side to hide her face from the small but penetrating light. She didn’t feel she could stand its scrutiny, the scrutiny of a god looking into her soul.
Away from the light her mind refocused.
The only one who could save her life was she. Susan had no hope in Mark’s words or actions, and there was not deliverance from the heavens.
Her chafed wrists were bothering her. She wanted a comfortable place for them without the covers touching the raw skin. As she settled on her side, she pushed her hands out from under the covers. She found her hands resting in dirt, just past the edge of the bedding. She went to pull them back to the softness of the bed.
As she withdrew, her fingers touched something in the dirt; it was cold and metallic. She felt for it again. It was a piece of metal: flat, six or seven inches long, and an inch or two wide. It came to a sharp point at one end. The other end was blunt and slightly rounded, like the inset of a knife into its handle.
That’s what it felt like, the blade of an old fishing knife that had been dropped in the dirt long ago. Its former handle had disappeared. She got her fingers under it and picked it up. The point and edges were sharp, though pitted with age.
A thought came to her, I have been seeking a way out and now here it is. That cold bastard couldn’t return my love, so now it is time for me to fashion my own destiny.
Mark’s two different faces kept flashing across her mind, one tender and loving, putting a ring on her finger, caressing her body; and the other with empty eyes that neither gave nor received anything.
One she could not conceive harming, but the other had no life force that she could reach or touch—it was just a hollow shell.
Chapter 21 – Crocodile Destiny – Day 29
Susan didn’t know when she’d gone to sleep, but she woke in the early dawn light. Amazingly she had slept well and felt refreshed, despite the limited time and the discomfort of the handcuffs and chain. As her awareness returned, she felt a deep knot of terror in the pit of her stomach. How could this man, who had loved her so tenderly in the night, now be her executioner this very next day?
She felt like a prisoner on death row, knowing that only an hour or two of precious life remained, and there was an inexorable path forward to the end. She wondered if other prisoners still had hope at this point
She knew it would happen sometime this morning; she just didn’t know when. He would want to pack camp and be away early, before there might be others around. She wondered if he would feed her breakfast. With the bubbling terror flooding her mind she doubted she could eat.
Mark was squatting by the edge of the water looking out, his body almost motionless, but with a look of intense concentration. It seemed he was communing with the crocodiles before he offered her as a sacrifice, following an ancient ritual to placate the spirit beings.
Should she pretend sleep and try to delay the moment? But now the terror rose high, almost overwhelming her with panic. She made her mind retreat to a place of calm. She wanted cry or just die quietly in her sleep.
There was something so utterly horrid in this way. He really was a callous and hateful bastard. He could have just hit her on the head while she was asleep and she would not have had to endure this.
The anger came surging back and with it a ruthless coolness, allowing her to keep her mind in a calm place. While her nerve held she had to finish this. She must try
and create a chance. She felt to her side, having to roll her body and move both hands, handcuffed together.
There it was; that piece of sharp metal, the old blade of a knife. It gave her a thread of hope.
She now slid the knife into her knickers, laying it flat on her belly with the point facing down, sitting over her pubis. She just hoped he did not want to give her a last bang before he got rid of her, one last quickie for good measure. She didn’t think it likely. Susan sensed that his mind and body had now moved on to another place where she, the living breathing Susan, no longer existed.
She made herself sit up and rattle her chain. Mark looked her way. He seemed agitated; perhaps he was surprised she was awake so soon - not ready for her and the day, when the dawn had barely come.
She tried to smile. A quick plan came to mind.
She would ask him to release her so she could relieve herself. She would do it with her back turned but remain in view. Then, still wearing her track bottoms and T-shirt, she would say she wanted to clean up and needed the cuffs off to wash herself. She would ask him to bring a bowl of water and a washer for her ablutions.
Then she would take off her T-shirt and track pants, putting the knife under her clothes pile, and start to clean herself. She would give Mark a thorough view of her naked buttocks as she washed herself.
She knew he would watch her and she would make sure it turned him on. Then she would call him over, saying she needed his help to wash her back. She would pass him the washer over her shoulder, keeping facing away. As he began to wash her back she would take up the knife and turn to him, keeping in close, with the knife out of sight. She wanted her breasts to be in his face, let his eyes focus on her nipples.
This was her best chance, her only chance. She would drive the knife into his belly, upwards, just below the ribs.
She also needed a second weapon close at hand, should the knife not be enough, what could she use? She surveyed the site and located a piece of wood, a short piece of broken branch about a foot and a half long and three inches thick. If she could stand next to it then she would have a chance to pick it up and use it, if needed.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 21
