The Ice-cream Man (13 page)

13

Rick had been battling the bush and its biting, stinging occupants for the past two nights and he’d had enough. His stomach had ceased rumbling ages ago and was now a living thing with teeth. He’d found some berries yesterday that he’d managed to keep down, but they had only quietened the beast for a short time. All morning he’d searched for grubs because those survivalist types on TV always insisted you could eat stuff like that. But in the end just thinking about it was enough to make him gag, so he threw away the few worms he’d managed to dig up. Rick would have gladly traded his soul for a fat, juicy steak sandwich. He’d have traded it for a peanut.

After finding his mother’s lifeless body and then hearing the ice-cream man out the front of his house, Rick’s only thought had been to let the freak have him. Why fight when no matter what he did he could never win? He couldn’t stop his father dying, couldn’t stop his mother. Fate always had other plans. But when he’d got outside his feet had a plan of their own and he ran into the night like he’d never run before – all the way to the billabong.

He bent to the billabong now and scooped water into his mouth. It tasted like mud, but at least it was cool. There had been plenty of time to think with only the trees for company. Thinking was about all he had done for the past two nights. There’d been no sleeping for him. He had to get home, had to find out where his mother was. The cops had probably traced his triple-0 call by now and found her. What if they’d buried her already?

Rick’s throat locked and he coughed, spraying water from his nostrils. For two nights he’d lain awake mentally beating himself up for running out on his mother. In one way or another he’d been running out on her since his father died and now it was too late. But maybe it wasn’t. He wouldn’t let it be too late. He would go home and face whatever had to be faced. No more running.

Rick rubbed his bleary eyes and got to his feet. He breathed in the smell of the bush. It was quiet today. No doubt the cloud cover had fooled the birds into thinking that nightfall was near and had tucked themselves up in their nests. Or perhaps they could sense an approaching storm. Rick gazed up at the blanket of grey. If a storm was brewing he didn’t want to be here when it hit.

Something rustled in the bushes behind him. Rick spun around, almost overbalancing and slipping into the billabong. His arms windmilled madly then he took a step away from the water’s edge. The sound came again and this time he saw the leaves tremble. An image of the mythical bunyip flitted through his sleep-deprived mind, a dog-faced beast, all fangs and shining eyes. What had Marty said? Something about them eating people? A dry laugh escaped him, falling like a stone on the still air. After the horror he’d seen inside his own house, here he was letting himself get wobbly over an imaginary creature.

He took another step towards the screen of foliage, intending to part the branches and reveal whatever lay beyond – probably only a blue-tongue lizard, or maybe a bird – and a low growl stopped him dead. Lizards and birds didn’t growl. Animals with teeth growled. There was something there all right and it wasn’t happy to see him.

Rick slowly backed away, his eyes not leaving the patch of bush for a second. He edged along the bank until he saw the shadowy hulk of the VW out of the corner of his eye and then got it between himself and whatever was watching him from the scrub. Man, he so didn’t need this.

Another growl, this time louder, came from the bush only a couple of metres from where he stood. Rick’s heart slammed into his ribs. Had the creature followed him or were there two of them? His head spun from fear and hunger. He leant against the rusting body of the VW to steady himself. If he passed out now he was a goner. If he wanted to get out of here in one piece he had to think.

He looked into the scrub, eyes straining, alert for the slightest movement. Whatever was in there wouldn’t wait forever. Without moving, he looked the other way at the billabong and an idea struck. If he lowered himself into the water and swam to the far bank, he would surely get a good head start before the creature realised where he was going.

Bunyips live in billabongs
, his mind whispered.
It will

follow you and drag you under. You won’t stand a chance.
Rick tried to ignore the voice and slid over the edge of the bank and into the water.
Bunyips don’t exist, bunyips don’t exist
, he kept telling himself over and over. The water closed over his chest and he kicked off, on his back, from the bank. His view was now obscured by the car, but as far as he could tell nothing came rushing out of the trees.

Taking a deep breath, Rick ducked and swam underwater to the other side. When he reached the far bank he raised his head, blinking water from his eyes, and scanned the trees. Still nothing. Eagerly he sucked in a fresh breath. Without the benefit of the sun for guidance he’d have to trust his instincts to find his way back to the lagoon. But no, he couldn’t go that way because the creature was waiting for him in that direction. He’d have to enter the bush on this side of the bank and follow the creek. If he crossed it and then walked far enough he should eventually reach civilisation.

Rick placed his palms on the rocky bank and then eased his body out of the water. Stealth would be a waste of time if the creature was watching, but it couldn’t hurt. Resisting the urge to scream for help, he stumbled into the undergrowth.

Marty was in his chair and speeding down the middle of the road in the time it took to draw a breath. His shoulder muscles screamed as he drove his wheels forward. He wanted to look back, to make sure the feet thudding on the road behind him were Aaron’s, but to look back was to risk losing momentum. He took the corner so sharply the chair spun onto one wheel before thudding back onto the road again.

‘Knock on . . . someone’s . . . door. Gotta get help,’ Aaron panted at Marty’s back.

Relief washed over Marty. Good old Aaron could obviously move that big butt of his when he wanted to. ‘No, he said, ‘Gunner will see where we’ve gone and say we’re making it up ’cause we broke into his house. The school’s up ahead. We’ll lose them there.’

The police station was several blocks in the opposite direction, so there was no point going that way. They were bound to tire before getting that far. If they could get to the school there were dozens of places they could hide until Gunner and the ice-cream man gave up looking for them.

As Marty flew across Bateman Drive, all the while praying he wasn’t about to end up as road kill, Aaron called out: ‘The ice-cream man . . . has fallen back. Gunner’s stopped to help him.’

Marty grimaced. Hopefully the freak was having a heart attack.

The school gates were locked.

No! No! No
!

‘The corner,’ Aaron said, charging past. ‘There’s a . . . gap in . . . the fence.’

The gap was only wide enough for someone to walk through. Marty jerked to a stop and dived through it, landing painfully on his knees and elbows in the dirt. ‘Aaron, get the chair!’

The wheelchair crashed over the fence and bounced twice before landing the right way up. Marty scrambled into it an instant before Aaron thumped into the back of the seat and drove him forward. ‘Go, go, go. Gunner’s coming!’

With Aaron pushing from behind, Marty crossed the grassed area, past the teachers’ car park and the bike compound, and headed for the undercover area situated at the centre of the school. Paths led away in several directions. If they were fast enough they might be able to lose Gunner.

‘You can’t escape me!’ the teacher yelled, as though reading Marty’s mind. ‘Stop now!’

An ominous rumble of thunder shook the sky. Marty swung onto the wide expanse of pavement.

Which way? He shot forward and then decided to hit a hard left and went down the path behind the home economics block with Aaron hot on his wheels. The path led to a large garden containing two curved rows of fruit trees and a vegetable patch.

Safely hunched in his chair behind an overgrown guava tree, Marty carefully parted the foliage and peered down the pathway. Gunner was standing in the undercover area, hands on hips, looking for them.

‘Is he . . . ?’ Aaron said from behind. Marty motioned for him to be quiet.

Gunner decided to go straight ahead and Marty lost sight of him. He let the branches fall back into place and turned to Aaron. ‘He’s heading for the gym.’

Aaron got to his feet. ‘Good. We’ll go over the side fence onto Donovan Crescent. As long as Mr Gunner doesn’t go around the other side of the gym, he shouldn’t see us. Chances are he’ll double back when he doesn’t find us.’ Aaron jogged around the vegetable garden and stopped at the end of the building to see if the way was clear. He waved Marty forward, then planting his palms on his friend’s back, pushed him out into the open.

Before his chair had time to stop rolling, Marty threw himself at the chain link fence. He scrambled over it, taking a layer of skin off his ribs in the process, and fell head first onto the ground.

The wheelchair thumped into the dirt beside him, and Aaron followed. As he was straightening up he froze, staring at something over Marty’s head. His eyes widened. ‘Oh no!’

Marty got painfully to his knees, pulled the chair towards him and climbed in. ‘What now?’

‘It’s the car we saw in the ice-cream man’s drive- way,’ Aaron said, pointing towards Bateman Drive.

Marty squinted. A white Holden sedan that looked like it belonged in a junkyard cruised along Bateman Drive, towards Donovan. ‘Geez, that’s gotta be the ice-cream man. And he’s going to see us any second.’ Marty bounced the wheelchair over the kerb and took off up the road in the opposite direction.

‘Go into one of those houses on the next block,’ Aaron panted from behind.

A peal of thunder echoed through the clouds. The first drops of rain fell, leaving steaming dark spots on the road.

Marty fixed his sights on a two-storey brick house on the next corner. His arms pumped, sending tiny shocks of pain into his neck and spine, but he didn’t dare slow. The road sloped upward just enough to make the going tough. He glanced at the school grounds to his right. The back of the gym and the car park behind it came into view. A movement caused Marty’s head to turn all the way around and he saw Mr Gunner jogging through the car park, headed for the fence.

‘Forget the house. No time,’ Marty wheezed. Aaron’s feet pounded the bitumen. ‘But . . . we

have to . . . get help.’

A blue Ford ute cruised through the intersection ahead. Marty raised an arm and yelled, ‘Hey!’ but the driver didn’t see them.

‘Straight ahead, near the corner there’s a lane. If we’re quick Gunner won’t know where we went,’ he told Aaron.

They crossed the intersection. By Marty’s calculation they had maybe a four-hundred-metre lead on the teacher. ‘Where’s the Holden gone?’

The only sound from Aaron was his ragged breathing.

Then came a yell from behind them. The words were swallowed by another growl of thunder, and on its heels the roar of a car’s engine. The spit in Marty’s mouth turned to ash.

They reached the laneway, partially concealed behind a camphor laurel tree, and Marty swung into it, bumping over the uneven ground. He skirted a pile of rubbish, eyes alert for broken glass, and veered around a ditch. The prospect of shredding his tyres on a broken bottle filled him with a sick dread.

When he reached the end of the lane, Marty stopped and looked around to see where Aaron was. His friend didn’t look as though he’d be able to go much further. His face was the colour of blood, and his shirt was stained with sweat. Lightning sizzled overhead, imprinting purple-white zigzags on Marty’s retinas. Still the rain came down in spits and spots.

‘Hopefully we lost him,’ Marty said, sucking in huge lungfuls of air. He moved cautiously out of the laneway and onto the next street, which ran downhill all the way to the football field. From there it wasn’t far to the billabong.

Aaron stood on the kerb and mopped his dripping face with his shirt. ‘Seems like years since I met up with you and Rick down there,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the field. ‘Can you believe it’s only been a week?’

‘Yeah,’ Marty said, not really paying attention. A sudden screech of tyres made him jump. The white Holden was on the next corner. He saw the ice-cream man hunched over the wheel, and beside him, Mr Gunner. As the car started to turn in their direction, both men looked directly at Marty and Aaron.

‘See that bar on the back of my chair,’ Marty said.

‘Kneel on it. Make sure you lean forward otherwise we’ll flip. And for God’s sake, hang on.’

Aaron thudded onto Marty’s back. His fingers dug into Marty’s shoulders hard enough to raise bruises.

‘Omigod, you’re going to get us both killed!’ Aaron screamed, as the wheelchair began to roll down the hill.