© Colin Palmer, 2017

ISBN 978-83-8104-574-2

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Chapter One

“The Beast Within…”

The soft thud of wood connecting with flesh, human flesh, was immediately dulled by the sharp crack of breaking bones. Blood danced a merry stream down her now shattered face and silenced the imperceptible moans she had involuntarily uttered up unto that point. She’d never had a chance to scream. The sound of gargling and bubbles of bloody froth escaped from her now unrecognizable mouth and nose. Her once bright blue eyes were wide open but no longer capable of sight and the fear they displayed moments before was now clouded over and speckled with her own blood.

She lay on her back in the sandy dunes. Her once white dress

bunched up to her partially exposed breasts. Her underwear

ripped, lay to one side of her youthful tanned hips. The blood that stained her clothing, her body, and the droplets on the bleached white sand up to 10 feet from her still form stood out starkly against their background, almost appearing luminescent and testimony to the force with which she had been struck. And struck not just once or twice, the coroner said later, but at least 30 to 40 times. The stains on the sand faded quickly, in time with her own internal life ardour.

The aroma was oppressive but it did not emanate from her. A face looked down at hers, contorted and grotesque, teeth bared and snarling like a wild animal, yet soundlessly, waiting for more signs of refusal. It squatted over her still body, the mallet handle raised, waiting, waiting. The aroma permeating the air in the immediate area was sickly sweet but it didn’t seem to notice. And she was unable anymore. Still it waited, the mallet handle swaying in time with each breath. One of her unseeing eyes twitched, in death, but still threateningly. The handle rose and fell again, and again, and again…

Chapter Two

“Aunt Bec”

“Do you want to come to the beach with us?” The tiny voice was filled with wonder, and a compassion only the young and innocent exude. After a moments hesitation, “Auntie Bec, do you?” she repeated, accompanied this time by tugging on her sleeve.

Auntie Bec looked out over the verandah of her sisters’ home, watching the waves rolling in toward the beach in their inexorable goal of crashing to the shore. It was late summer and still warm. She was dressed in shorts, sandals and a light blouse, one sleeve of which right now was apparently being flapped in the inevitable sea breeze. She had one leg crooked under her body as she sat and the smooth softly tanned skin belied her age, as did the radiant but sad features on her face. Her sadness slipped away like the night.

“Oh, I’m sorry Hon.” She turned to face her young niece and the smile was as bright and genuine as a summer day. “What did you say sweetie?”.

“Mom said we can go down the beach; are you ever gonna come with us?”.

She emphasised the word ‘ever’ with a mock exasperation just like she had seen her Mom and her Aunt do many times before.

Becs’ vivid blue eyes lost their focus and once again, saw a time when she was young and innocent and oblivious to the horrors of the real world. Right now, she wished she could go back to that time and share the wonders of life once again with her youngest niece, in fact, with all of her family. She faced the ocean again, her eyes wide and unseeing, and her niece shrugged her shoulders and walked away.

She had seen her Aunt do this many times before as well and knew, even at the tender age of five (‘nearly six’ she’d have corrected), that it would be useless to try and get her attention away from the sea. What she didn’t understand was why her Aunt could sit out there, look at the beautiful blue ocean and the white sand and not want to actually go and play in it. It was so much fun, except when the waves knocked her over, or if it was really windy and the sand hurt her legs. Maybe Aunt Bec had been on the beach on a really windy day? She almost turned to go back but, one glance at her Aunt sitting there, looking lost, and she grabbed the screen door and ran inside to grab her towel and her body board instead.

“Auntie Bec’s not coming Mom” she yelled.

“You okay Beccy?”

A pretty face framed by the same blonde hair and similar piercing blue eyes looked along the verandah. She was older than Bec by nearly eight years but she looked 20 years older. The family resemblance was marked, they could never be anything other than sisters but the look in their eyes were different. They had been through the same pain, but had dealt with it in their own individual ways, and truth be known, Bec probably had the worst of it ‘coz she’d had nobody to depend on. April had been married when they had all found out the truth, so she, at least, had her husband and three children to help her recover. Dad never got over his daughters loss and passed away a year after it had happened. Mom had died over 9 years ago, so as a family, tragedy looked to be a curse. A curse hopefully over now. But Beccy still took it hardest. After all, it was she that had found out the truth. Accidentally, but almost to her peril as well. So April and her husband had taken Bec into their home, because that’s what families do. As soon as she heard her daughters’ voice booming throughout the house she had poked her head out through the french doors leading from the lounge to the verandah.

“Bec?” No response. “We’re just taking the kids down the beach for awhile. Bec?”

Beccy slowly turned to look down at her sister. Her eyes softened, a trace of wetness and appreciation showing at the same time. She nodded. She watched as they all crossed the road, holding hands, April and her youngest skipping and almost pulling them all off balance, their load of towels and body boards, buckets and spades making them appear like a clown act at the circus. Their laughter rang back at her and she thought she saw April glance back at her guiltily. She stood then, rested one hand on the balustrade, and waved. None of them saw her but she waved again, a solitary tear slipped slowly down her cheek

Chapter Three

“Steven”

He was fifteen, not quite had enough of school but damn closeto it. It was boring. It wasted those summer days when the beach beckoned, the swell coming in like they had just rolled across from the other side of the world. Not that he wanted the swells to be big, he was no “weed”. That was the name they used for surfies. All of them blonde. I reckon some of them deliberately bleached their hair as well, he thought, because the sun just wouldn’t do enough of a job on ‘em. But they get the chicks in that’s for sure. Every damn sheila that wanted to be known, that wanted to be a somebody, was a surfie mole. Only the virgins, and probably the really intelligent chicks (one and the same some would say), didn’t have anything to do with the surfies. And you had to like beer as well. He didn’t like beer.

Beer makes ya sick he thought as he gazed absentmindedly out the window at the school yard. A lone magpie waddled and hopped along the newly mowed grass, picking up insects to left and right just like a chicken feeds. Roast magpie he thought and conjured up thoughts of it being served at Sunday lunch with the baked potatoes and pumpkin and the peas and gravy.

“Steven, do you wanta leg?” his mother would say, standing poised over the kitchen table, the carving knife in one hand looking twice as big as the poor magpie sitting in the baking dish. “Steven?” his mother would say again, “Steven?”. Steven Terence Antony Gerald Smith; he was quite proud of his name really, his parents having overloaded him with christian names obviously to make up for the simplicity and commonness of the family name. Still, his initials meant that the other guys called him ‘Staggers’ while his friends (“Do I have any?”) called him Stag. But his mother continued to call him Steven. “Steven, Steven?” God, she was so insistent. He awoke with a start.

“Steven, what are you staring at? I’ve asked you three times for an example and you just sit there ignoring me.”

Her big brown eyes were looking at him pleadingly to help her out. He shook is head, looked slightly down and raised his eyes up at her within the same movement, knowing that the sadness he portrayed to her would melt her little heart.

“I’m really sorry Miss Hartley”. As he spoke he dropped his eyes and his head a little further to feign an even sadder attitude. “A snake got the little ducklings last night at ‘ome and when I saw the maggie outside it just reminded me, that’s all.”

Triumph! She placed a hand on his head and the other on his arm and he felt the sharp heat of her breast at it brushed almost imperceptibly against his shoulder. She softly sighed in his ear.

“I’m really sorry Steven, is there anything I can do for you?”

A quick head job would help he thought. “No, it’s okay, I’m sorry for the interruption Miss Hartley”. He looked straight at her cleavage before raising his eyes to meet hers. He had deep, dark eyes, and ever since he was a toddler he knew he could exert some sort of power over some, no, most women. And ‘though he hated it growing up he learnt to use it to his advantage. “Oh isn’t he just absolutely adorable”, he had heard it many times. It was also easier because of the total opposite look of his older, much older, brother. They doted on him like he was Jesus Christ but they would ignore his brother. Some in fact would recoil at their first sight of him. As he got older he began to appreciate that being adorable sometimes had its benefits. Mrs Harris from next door, a stunning woman in her mid-twentys, used to come over to see his mother and would sweep him up into her arms. When you were 12 years old this wasn’t exactly a cool thing; but he would bury his head into her bosom and more than once he could see down her blouse, or her husbands’ shirt tied at the midriff (why do woman wear their husbands’ clothes he often wondered?) when she wasn’t wearing a bra. He would gaze in wonder at the size of the exposed breast and the way her nipples would almost instantly become erect as he contacted them. Did I say contact he thought? Mashed is more like it, but she was in the main, oblivious to the fact that she was crushing his head to her with one hand while cooing sweet insanities about how gorgeous he was. He didn’t care. He could gaze for an eternity at those breasts. He wasn’t a big boy so Mrs Harris had no trouble lifting him, and she would probably be still doing it if they had not upped and moved away with surprising suddenness.

He recalled hearing some loud arguments between Mrs Harris and her husband a number of days in a row just before they moved. Once, he even snuck over the fence and listened beside one of their windows. He sat shaking like a leaf, frightened only because their volume meant that whatever they were arguing about was deadly serious. He recalled Mr Harris calling his wife a slut and demanding to know how many others there had been, and it was a couple of years before he knew what was meant by that. Mrs Harris cried a lot and Stag thought it was mean of Mr Harris to make her cry. They argued on for a couple more minutes before all of a sudden it seemed to him, they were producing the noises his mother and father did late at night when they thought he and his brother were asleep. Having sex. He believed then that sex was a load of crock perpetrated to undermine the sleep pattern of adults so that they could get up and yell at their kids the next day, just because they were tired. If only he knew then what he knew now, he would have slipped up the tree beside the fence and had a peek through the window. Just to see those magnificent breasts completely exposed, together at the same time instead of catching a peek down her top. These days he knew there was more to the female form than just tits.

He could make out the lace of Miss Hartleys’ bra through her blouse, but maintained his eye contact with her after raising his head. “Can we have a talk about it later, after class?” He asked in the most innocent voice he could muster.

Once again, he had learnt that eyes and appearance weren’t everything. He had learnt a lot in his still very informative young years. If you couldn’t back up the looks with the right combination of words and tone, if your delivery was to brash or the words wrong then you may as well look like Aunt Martha for all it would achieve (Aunt Martha had been dead for about 10 years now). He hit the nail on the head this time, Miss Hartleys’ face turning even sadder as she nodded.

“Of course Steven, but you really should be talking to your parents about these things…”. Her voice trailed off and he automatically responded.

“You know we don’t talk, not the way you can Miss Hartley, you’re much more understanding and anyway, Dad is never home and Mum is always too busy”.

She nodded again in assent.

“Alright, 3 o’clock in the music room, ok? Now please, try to keep your attention inside the classroom. You may be an excellent student (the volume of her voice raised so that most of the class would recognise an admonishment) but that does not mean you are precluded from classroom activities”.

She smiled a quick secret smile at him before turning away so that he would understand that she did not seriously mean what she had said and that it was for the benefit of the rest of the class. He watched as she walked back between the desks, her nice hips and thighs swaying slightly but most of his attention focused on her arse, contained by the firmness of the mid-thigh length skirt she wore. She had one nice posterior, that’s for sure.

Peter Gillespie was an arsehole, and he sat beside Steven in English. One day you and I are going to try and kill each other Steven often thought. Gilly leaned over toward Steven and whispered with a malevolent grin. “Sticky fingers, sticky fingers, Staggers is gonna get sticky fingers”.

“Yeah, and stick your own up ya arse”. Steven didn’t even bother looking at him. He knew the leering voice would be backed up by a leering face.

“Everybody knows Staggers is trying to root Miss Hartley” said the leering voice.

“What, so someone told you? That’s the only way you’d know you moron”. Steven knew there would be no reply. Gilly knew better than to encourage Stevens’ sarcasm and besides, Miss Hartley had reached the front and turned back to face them.

“You’re the moron Staggers. We all heard, ‘you’re much more understanding Miss Hartley” he mimicked.

Steven snuck a glance at Gilly this time, not so much surprised at what he said but that he actually chose to say it when he did. He frowned heavily and glared at him, hoping he would get the point that being a moron didn’t absolve him from having to think. Miss Hartley didn’t like her ‘young adults’ talking in class. Steven liked the way she described and treated them like adults, but attractive as she was and regardless of her manner toward them, when it came to being the teacher she did not like them misbehaving. Her reaction was swift, as Steven knew it would be.

“Mr Gillespie, perhaps you would like to explain your rudeness to Mr Reinfeldt”. Mr Reinfeldt, the deputy principal and one not backwards in using the cane when it was needed.

“It wasn’t me Miss Hartley, it was Stag, er, Steven”.

She looked at Steven, the disappointment in her eyes only just misplaced by her disapproval.

“You should know better Steven”.

He took heart that her voice softened somewhat but the disapproval was still evident. She was nothing if not predictable about her behavioural standards. She wanted to treat them like adults but she also expected them to behave accordingly, which wasn’t always easy when you are fifteen. Steven looked down and knew that he wasn’t about to let Gilly spoil his day.

“Miss Hartley, I’m sorry, I was just asking him what the question was that I had missed before”.

She visibly softened and Steven hoped the rest of the class didn’t see it.

“Onomatopoeia” she spoke so softly “give me some examples of onomatopoeia”.

“Squelch, bang, splash, crash, click, crunch, um…” Steven hated it when he reached the end of a roll.

“Excellent Steven” she smiled.

Steven smiled to himself but then grimaced when he heard Gilly whisper.

“Smartarse!”

The three o’clock bell went as he was making his way across from the math’s block to the music rooms. Kids were streaming out from classrooms, first formers who still enjoyed school, they always seemed to get the fun practical subjects to end their days on before going home to mom and milk and cookies. Out of the corner of his eye he noted that there were some bigger kids coming from his left, well bigger than first formers anyway. He didn’t take much notice, thinking about Miss Hartley and keeping his appointment with her. As always, and much to his chagrin, he noticed that he wasn’t much taller than most of the other kids now milling past him, and then Gillys’ voice cut across their excited, incessant and inane chatter.

“Staggers got sticky fingers”.