Chapter 1 #2
Another rumbling roll of thunder passed overhead, and my headlights lit up a sign warning of a side road ahead.
I slowed the Rover and crawled up the road until I reached a dead end with a road leading to the right.
The sign read Storten Road—a touch ambitious for what amounted to little more than a muddy lane heading off the gravel road to another dead end.
I peered into the gloom and saw a second, smaller sign nailed to the trunk of a dying tree, adjacent to an even narrower gravel road.
Heligan Cottage
Private Property
“Shit.” I stared ahead at the dead end. What now?
The sound of another text made me jump in my seat, every nerve in my body jangling on high alert. I glanced at my phone.
Come on Thad. Just tell me you’re okay. Surely we can be adults about this.
“Adult this, arsehole.” I switched the phone to silent and leaned forward in my seat.
A thick black sky bled into the upper canopy of the forest, long snaking tendrils weaving through the branches and shutting out the dwindling evening light.
A flash of silver in the distance, and another crash of thunder shook the car, the gap longer, the sound a little to the west. Although it was still raining cats and dogs, the worst was beginning to pass over.
I could drive back down and find a hotel to stay in while I figured things out. It was better than sleeping in my car.
I swung the Rover into the muddy lane, then reversed back onto the gravel until I was heading the opposite way.
The flood across my windscreen, combined with forty-year-old windshield wipers, rendered the road ahead all but a vague suggestion.
I sat for a few seconds, took a calming breath, tightened my grip on the steering wheel, and headed back down.
I’d barely got thirty metres when a flash of white caught my eye, and something burst from the treeline to my right and dashed across the road. Golden-yellow eyes glowed in the headlights, and I slammed on the brakes. “Shit, shit, shit!”
The car’s rear end drifted sideways on the gravel, and a cry carried on the wind as I spun the wheel into the slide and the creature—a dog, I thought—disappeared into the forest on the other side of the road.
The Rover eventually straightened from the slide, but not quickly enough to stop the rear wheels from hitting the sodden verge at the side of the road and losing traction.
For a few seconds, the car gathered momentum down the slick slope before slamming into a tree and spinning around, continuing its downward run to plough bonnet-first into something that stopped it dead in its tracks.
Glass detonated over the upholstery, and the airbag hit my chest like a Mack truck, pinning me to the seat and emptying my lungs in a single whoosh of breath.
Pain exploded through my chest, then just as quickly, the pressure was gone.
I slumped forward against the seatbelt, my heart thundering against my ribs as I fought to get some air into my lungs.
“Fuck!” I gasped. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I fumbled for the keys to try and shut off the engine.
I’d never been in an accident, but it seemed the right thing to do.
When my fingers wrapped around them, I almost cried with relief.
The second the engine cut and the headlights died, everything was plunged into a gloomy wash of black and khaki grey, and I immediately wished I’d left it going.
I unclipped the seatbelt and leaned across the console, wincing as a slash of pain ripped across my chest. “Fuck! Dammit.” I rifled through the glove compartment for the tiny flashlight I kept there.
After a few false starts and a lot of shaking, it finally clicked on, bathing the car’s interior in a weak yellow light.
I did a quick check of my body, one limb at a time.
All present and accounted for. Nothing broken as far as I could tell.
A few smears of blood came off on my hands when I ran them over my head and face, but nothing to be worried about.
The result of flying glass, I supposed. It could have been a lot worse.
I sent a silent prayer of thanks into the universe and another to my father for leaving us the decrepit old Rover in the first place.
I’d likely have been going a lot faster in the Audi.
When my heart finally settled back in my chest, I turned my attention to looking for the animal I was sure I’d hit.
A beagle or a spaniel—something about that size—although what the hell a dog was doing out in this weather, who the fuck knew?
The owner needed to be arrested . . . or something.
I recalled the sign for Heligan Cottage and wondered if the animal came from there.
I couldn’t be positive I’d actually hit it, but I was pretty sure I’d heard a cry, or yelp, or something just before I lost control of the car.
The idea that I might have injured or even killed the poor thing initiated a wave of panic that coursed through my body, and bile rose in the back of my throat.
It would be the shittiest end to the crappiest day ever.
I scanned the gloomy forest but saw no sign of the animal.
I swore, because one thing was for sure: I couldn’t leave without at least making sure it wasn’t lying hurt somewhere close by.
The teaming rain had eased to a drizzle by the time I got my brain working well enough to grab my phone, car keys, flashlight, and suit coat. But when I tried to open the door, it wouldn’t budge, and no amount of pulling and shoving and swearing made the slightest difference.
“Oh, come on! Give me a break.” I slammed the base of my fist into the useless thing, considered the passenger door on the other side, and sighed.
“For fuck’s sake.” I clambered over the console, swearing at the top of my voice when the passenger door also resisted.
A few hefty shoulder shoves later, it finally gave way, and I tumbled out of the car and onto the reason for the Rover’s abrupt stop, the flashlight flying out in front of me.
I scrambled to my feet and wiped my muddy hands down my trousers.
Then I paused and sniffed the air. No, not mud.
“Oh my God!” I lifted my hands to my face and gagged.
“Jesus Christ.” I reeled at the rank stench.
It was definitely shit of some description.
I searched the ground for my flashlight, shook it a few times, and then took a closer look at my surroundings.
The Rover hadn’t ploughed into a tree or a bush at all.
It had spun down the bank, across a gravel driveway that led to a large agricultural machinery shed secured with padlocked double doors, and into a fucking mountain of manure.
One of three mountains of manure, to be exact, each the size of an average car.
I ran the flashlight over my filthy hands and groaned, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” I glanced woefully at the thunderous sky, blinking against the spotty rain.
“You figured I needed this too, huh? Very fucking funny.”
I walked to the closest patch of grass and cleaned my hands as best I could, then aimed a kick at the back door of the Rover and yipped with pain when the shudder ran through my aching chest. I glared daggers at the car, flipped my collar up in a vain attempt to stop the rain trickling down my neck, and contemplated the vehicle’s damage.
Well, shit.
It was a lot worse than I’d imagined. The sputtering yellow light revealed the front half of the Rover buried too deep in the manure to simply push out.
Even if I had been able to move it, the rear panel on the driver’s side was staved in, leaving the tyre at an odd angle and useless to drive.
If the tree had connected with the driver’s door instead, I wasn’t sure I’d be standing there at all.
The realisation sent a cold chill through my body.
One thing was certain: I wouldn’t be driving the damn thing out of there anytime soon.
Which still left the question of the dog.
With wet socks sucking to my feet inside my shoes, my trousers heavy with muck, and still a little jittery on my feet, I shrugged into my equally filthy coat and wandered cautiously back to where I’d last spotted the animal.
I scoured the vegetation at the side of the road but found nothing except a narrow muddy walking path leading deep into the forest. There were no paw prints that I could see, but that didn’t mean much in the weather, and it was still the most likely route the animal had taken to escape or lick its wounds.
Thunder rang in the distance, out toward the Cook Strait, and I hoped that signalled the worst of the rain had passed.
Not that you’d know it based on the irritating showers of water that landed on my head from the tree canopy above.
Thank God it was spring and I wasn’t completely freezing my arse off as well. Small mercies, I supposed.
The flashlight sputtered, then winked off and I whacked it against my thigh. It flicked on and off and on again, and I aimed the weak light up the narrow trail. Nothing but trees and bush and thin tendrils of mist snaking in and around the tree trunks like ghostly fingers.
I gave a heavy sigh and glanced back toward my car. It was a dry place to wait for a tow truck, if nothing else. I’d tried to find the dog, right? No point in getting myself into a worse state by chasing it into the forest.
That decided, I was making my way back to the Rover when two spots of gold flashed further up the path. There and gone in an instant. Just like eyes. A possum, most likely. But what if it wasn’t? The dog. It could be the dog.
Or a possum, idiot.
Jesus Christ.