The Hunter Inside (43 page)

The dryer
continued to shake violently, clanging against the side of the freezer in the
kitchenette, and she had to cross her fingers and hope it didn’t wake Tucker.

When he woke in
the night, he always asked for his father. But there wasn’t nothing she could
say to him. She just had to do the best she could with what God gave her. If Ross
appeared in the doorway now, she was pretty sure all she’d be able to do was
burst into tears. Because it didn’t feel like a whole year since he’d gone. It
didn’t even seem like a day had passed. Fifteen years together, and yes, maybe
he stayed out late. Maybe he drank too much, and maybe sometimes he raised his
hands to her. But she missed him. Missed him like hell.

Jessie Cooper
had told her Tucker looked just like his Dad. That had been almost two weeks
ago when she had been shopping at Ellen Shawcross’s store on Main (if a row of
six stores could be called Main). Just walked over and ruffled his hair like he
was a toy. Linda hadn’t even remembered who Jessie Cooper was for a moment, and
him standing there grinning like a loon and breaking her heart open all over again.

The dryer
finally began to wind down until it silenced completely, only to be replaced by
the ticking of the clock. At least it hadn’t woken Tucker.

She hadn’t been
able to go back to Ellen Shawcross’s, not after dropping her grocery basket and
rushing from the store, dragging Tucker behind her in hysterics.

It wasn’t right.
Living in poverty with a fatherless child. Crying every day. Every single day.
Just working a shitty job to survive. Scrubbing that schoolhouse every day. It
wasn’t right that her Mom had been taken from her, not when she needed her so
bad. Daddy wasn’t as strong as her Mom – he’d only been in the army to get away
from her – and that wasn’t right either.

Nothing was
right. Nothing at all.

But how was
anything ever going to change? It wasn’t, she was certain of that. One thing
she knew for sure was that she didn’t want another man. Not that there were
many to pick from in Camberway anyhow. She wasn’t ready, and even if she was,
she knew Camberway probably didn’t have a decent one to offer.

Peter Delore and
Tony Evanson were just about the only two single men in Camberway. Without
them, Miller’s would have a whole lot less money and a whole lot more whisky,
and that hussy Louise Miller wouldn’t have such a big smile across her make-up
plastered face.

The cup of tea
she had made had long since lost its warmth, much like the wet and windy night
beyond the small, dirty windows. This was as bad a winter as she could
remember. Except for the one they called the Popovich winter, that is. She had
been forced to pawn her engagement and wedding rings to pay for a new boiler
when the old one gave up the ghost a week after her Mom had died, but that
didn’t really matter. She knew he wasn’t coming back. All she needed was her
Daddy and Tucker now. And Samuel, she couldn’t forget Samuel. That dog was the
only thing that really made any of them smile lately.

A tear broke
loose and found its way down her cheek, dripping from her chin into the cold
cup of tea on the counter in front of her. It was quickly followed by several
more. She looked again at the clock.

Midnight, and
still her Daddy wasn’t home.

*

Just the other
side of the old-growth Coast Redwood trees that bordered the west side of
Camberway sat the (not quite so old) John Clifton Centre. Housing 32 patients
at various levels of psychiatric imbalance, life within the walls of the centre
was a stark contrast to the free-flowing Kennedy River that the patients, or
inmates as Nurse Stevens liked to think of them, were never likely to see.

Nurse Holmes had
called in sick, again, and that meant it had been left to Nurse Stevens and the
rookie, Nurse Campbell, to complete their rounds a man down. It had taken them
an extra hour and a half to box off their psycho-session.

Now, not a half
hour after finally sending Nurse Campbell to keep watch over the Suicide Crew
and settling down with her latest bodice ripper in the wing she called Land of
the Loony-Tunes, she was up and running down the corridor, wiping biscuit
crumbs from the corners of her mouth as she went.

‘Woo. Yeah.
Wooo.’

Every night was
the goddamn same. Midnight, on the dot and without fail, he started whooping
and hollering at the top of his voice. Well, maybe not always at the top of his
voice, she reflected as she rounded the corner and nearly went flat on her face
over a mop, but tonight it sure as hell was.

‘Woo, I seen em.
I seen em.’

Nurse Stevens
reached the room and peered through the window, fumbling with her keys as she
did so. There sat Earl Buckley, staring at the wall and rocking back and forth,
his hands clasped tightly together across the back of his head.

5’3 inches tall,
twenty pounds overweight, and a fuse blown in his head.

Five and a half
years she had worked at the Looney-Tunes Meat Factory. Earl Buckley had arrived
on her third night and had instantly begun his routine of rocking back and
forth (always with those hands clasped that way), and shouting either ‘woo’,
‘yeah’, or ‘I seen em’ at the top of his soprano voice.

He’d done the
same, every night since, and always on the dot of midnight. It drove her
absolutely crazy – all she wanted to do was sit at her station, eat her little
cookies that she bought at the expensive cookie stand (woman’s gotta have some
pleasures) and read her latest bodice ripper, imagining she was one of the
characters. But never the heart-broken ones. She didn’t care horseshit for
getting her heart broken. She preferred to picture herself like Madelaine
Hornby, the character in the latest one she was fantasising her fifty-year-old
fat ass through; the tall, dark and handsome Luke Steel providing stimulation
with his big strong hands and lips.

‘Yeah. I seen em,
baby.’

Nurse Stevens
snapped back to attention. Baby, he said baby. In five and a half years he hadn’t
said anything other than ‘woo’, ‘yeah’ or ‘I seen em’. Maybe in another fifty
years or so he’d manage to tell her what the fuck he was talking about.

She unlocked the
medicine cabinet that she positioned outside Buckley’s room every night at the
end of her rounds and took out the needle containing the sedative that she
prepared every night, ready for midnight.

Nurse Monica
Stevens took the cap off the syringe, unlocked the door of the padded room, and
stepped inside.

‘Seen em. Seen em
baby,’ Earl Buckley said, more quietly this time. His eyes remained trained on
the wall, Despite Nurse Stevens’ entry, and despite the view of the giant
redwoods under the stars on the other side of the four inch thick reinforced
plastic that separated Earl Buckley and the world outside.

‘Time for you to
quit buggin me, Earl,’ Nurse Stevens said as she stuck the needle into his
flabby forearm.

‘Seen, seen,
seen. Woo, I seen ‘em.’

In ten minutes
he would be seeing nothing at all. Once the sedative kicked in, she might get
some peace and quiet to eat her cookies and resume her Mediterranean cruise
with Luke Steel. That’s if the rest of the wacko farm didn’t give her any
trouble.

Earl Buckley’s
eyes were already glazed. His lips continued to mouth the words, but no sound
came out.

That’s the
way – aha aha – I like it
, Nurse Stevens thought as she exited the room and
locked the door behind her.

Earl Buckley was
now as quiet as a dead mouse.

Outside the
window, the sky sat big and black, faraway planets twinkling like precious
diamonds as far as the eye could see.

*

‘I don’t know
Luke,’ Kimberley Carter said. ‘My Mom said I had to be home by 12, and it’s
already quarter past.’

‘Aw, come on
Kim. Just a half hour? It’s really beautiful up there at this time of night.’

And it
was
really beautiful too. The view that had inspired romance (and probably a few
babies) to countless teenage couples who looked out from secluded spots along
Key Brow was certainly breathtaking. The even split between the sky and the
land, the moon hanging low illuminating the edge of a forest of vast redwoods
on one side and catching the conifers that bordered the town, and the twinkling
of lights in the smattering of houses below Key Brow, made Luke Bonalo feel
like he belonged. It made him recognise the vastness of the world in which he
lived, and although Camberway was only a small part of that world, it was
his
small part.

His brother,
Jim, had said, ‘Make sure you get your money’s worth if you’re payin. Better
still, get her to pay
and
get your money’s worth. Better still again,
get her to drive, then you can get loaded. But whatever you do, try and come
home with a limp’.

He hadn’t gotten
what he meant at first, but he certainly got it now as he looked at her dark,
flowing hair that hung across the brown skin of her permanently tanned
shoulders. It was dark inside the car, but he could make out enough of her lips
to want to feel the warmth and sensuous wetness of them against his own. A
pallid light dissected the area between her waist and her neck, and he could
just about see her erect nipples through the flimsy, sky-blue cotton dress that
she wore.

Her hands were
folded across her waist, her fingers twirling almost nervously. ‘Come on Luke.
Stop kidding around. I got to get home. I’m already going to get into trouble
as it is. Maybe next time we go out you can take me to Key Brow.’

‘Yeah, OK,’ Luke
said. He knew that if Jim had been sitting where he sat now, she probably
wouldn’t get to go out with him again. There were girls that would give him
what he wanted. But Luke wanted Kimberley.

‘Luke, I’ve had
a great time tonight. I really have.’ Maybe he was trying to lay a guilt trip
on her but she wasn’t having it. Her mother hadn’t raised a fool, and she was
going to make him wait – see how much he really wanted it. Like Jules Carter,
her mother (and one of the most well-respected women in Camberway) said – ‘If
he’s worth it, he’ll wait. If he’s not, then Hell’s waiting for him’.

Kimberley didn’t
think Luke was going to Hell, but she was pretty sure his pervert brother and
asshole father were.

‘Anyway, with this
rain and all the clouds we wouldn’t be able to see anything of the view.’ She
leaned over and pecked him on the cheek.

He was glad his
face was covered by shadow. If she saw him blush then she saw his weakness, and
once a girl knew you had a weakness—

No, that wasn’t
him talking. That was his brother or his father, but not him. She was so
beautiful, and they connected on a deeper level. It was more than just physical
attraction. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted them to make love.

‘I know, and I’ve
had a great time too,’ he said, and they kissed properly then, their lips
fitting together as perfectly as the Earth was round.

*

He missed her as
soon as she got out of the car, and he waited until the heavy mahogany door
closed behind her before driving away.

He was taking a
chance – Jules Carter hated the whole Bonalo family with a passion akin to that
of warring generals on a battlefield. She was liable to beat him to death with
the rolling pin that was famed all over Camberway for its perfect pastry if he
ever harmed her. He didn’t intend to – every second that he spent in the
presence of Kimberley Carter made him want to be near her even more.

He drove away
from the upmarket Alveston Court cul-de-sac with mixed feelings. Maybe this was
what love felt like – a man-eating virus in his stomach – and he wondered how
he could survive the symptoms of this lovebug. But he was afraid too. Not that
he wouldn’t get her into bed, but of the possibility that something would mess
everything up and he wouldn’t get to marry her or see what their kids looked
like.

He drove with
caution, the jittery wipers on the beat up old Chevy Malibu barely able to cope
with the rain that fell. He also drove aimlessly for ten minutes, trying to
reconcile the man his father and his brother wanted him to be with the man he
actually was.

Maybe if he had
a Mom like Kimberley’s, he would be encouraged to be sensitive and caring. But
he didn’t have any Mom at all, just a father and a brother who were obsessed
with getting things for free, ripping people off, and drinking away as much of
the tiny amount of money they had as they could.

He decided to
head towards Key Brow anyway. If he went home now, Jim and his father would
still be up, probably loaded and watching porn. It was hardly the way for him
to end his fairytale night – his drunk brother desperate to know whether he’d
managed to get into her panties, and his even drunker father with his hand
pushed a little too deep in his pocket.

He could imagine
what his father would probably be saying to Jim right at that moment. ‘Probably
just a little cock-teaser. They go on about equal rights, but they sure as hell
don’t wanna do no heavy liftin’ (his father hadn’t worked for fifteen years)
‘and they sure as hell don’t mind gettin everythin paid for aswell. Let her put
her hand in her pocket, and if she doesn’t then the least she can do is give
the boy a damn blowjob. ‘Stead of runnin off to her frilly pink house at
midnight to her frilly pink bed and her teddy bears. What the fuck do they want
with teddy bears anyway?’

The voice was
almost audible to Luke inside the car as it climbed the gradient of Brow Point
Pass. But he had heard just about the same lecture from his father after each
of the five dates he’d arrived home from (what his father and brother
considered to be) early from in the past month.

His brother’s
lecture was slightly different. ‘Luke, they all want it. You just gotta
persuade them it ain’t somethin bad that they’re doin, and their panties come
off like they’re two sizes too big and their legs are covered in diesel. I’m
tellin you bro, persuasion, that’s the name of the game. Don’t let her play
games with you – act like the more she says no, the less you want it, and
she’ll give it you like a shot. Ask her does she love you. And don’t be scared
of putting a bit of pressure on either, it’s just another word for persuasion.’