The boys continued their journey, crossing the road and peddling past the tiny token of a cinema that merged with the tourist information centre. Behind the row of buildings was the picturesque park with its trees and the crystal-clear creek that flowed through the middle.
They kept riding, through the park and down dirt tracks that flowed through the pine plantations. Eventually they reached the base of Bugger’s Hill, crossing an access road covered in meadow grass that separated the pine trees from the native wilderness.
The boys road along the track for a few minutes before entering a track that led into the native forest, leading up to the slopes of Bugger’s Hill. It wasn’t long before the boys were in dense scrub, far from the artificial sense of security of the town below. They cruised past a series of signs for tracks heading left, right and straight towards the summit.
The boys rode straight ahead, steadily behind their friend Woodford as they travelled along the Beyond the Black Stump track. It was used by casual bush walkers, overnight hikers and mountain bike riders.
The narrow trail was rocky and riddled with the roots of trees that were already old, long before the arrival of Europeans in Australia. Off the trail, the bush was dense, unrideable and impenetrable. It was an old growth forest, stretching back for millions of years. It shrouded ancient hills, mountains and cliffs. Peaks of limestone rose from the forests. Every now and then, a tourist or a backpacker would foolishly venture off the trail and disappear.
Sometimes they were found exhausted but alive, having spent a few nights exposed to the elements and claustrophobic isolation of the old growth trees and dense undergrowth. Other times belongings or clothing were found and maybe a body. On rare occasions, someone would lose their way after leaving a track and would simply disappear off the face of the Earth. This was still, very much wilderness, wild, untamed, haunted and largely unknown.
With his ear buds in, listening to , Woodford glided effortlessly along the track, jumping over stones, tree roots and logs. He knew the track well and enjoyed traversing it alone. He would pump his pedals and risk it all with every jump, shift of body weight, twist and turn. It was a rush and he felt alive.
It was a simple escape from the ogre of his household – an alcoholic stepdad with all the baggage and abuse that came with it. And then came the night he kicked Woodford’s cattle dog Bowser for the crime of barking too long. At least Bowser stood his ground and bit him back. But in retaliation, Woodford’s stepdad booted Bowser again, and again, until the dog stopped barking and started yelping. After a few more boots, Bowser fell silent.
While his stepdad slept it off, Woodford found himself in a field under a blanket of stars, wiping tears from his cheeks as he dug with a shovel. On the way back to the farmhouse, the lantern illuminated his face. His expression with those dead eyes filled with fury said it all. He was hell bent on using that shovel again and throwing a severed head into the dam. To be gnawed by eels, to bloat and float before sinking into the mud to rot. But he found his mother waiting for him.
She gave him a hug and like Stockholm’s bride she had said, “He’s not that bad,” and “he’s a good provider, he warned you Woodford about that dog. He told you to stop Bowser barking.”
“There was something out there in the fields mum, Bowser barked at night because he knew it was there.”
“Let it go son,” she had replied, “there was nothing out there in the fields. You should have controlled Bowser’s barking. You know your father warned you.”
“He’s not my dad,” Woodford had replied, “my last name is Ronch-Reefa, you know right? It’s a hyphenated surname that combines Dad’s surname with your maiden name. You remember my real dad, right?”
“Oh, just stop,” his mother had said, looking away with shame and denial.
“You know mum,” Woodford had sneered, “the guy who built that treehouse in that ghost gum over there,” he pointed to the shadow of a tree that stood solitary in a paddock, “you know, the same guy who had a closed casket funeral because he rode his Fat Boy head on into a truck?”
“I told you to stop,” his mum had replied but as Woodford remembered that night, her pleas had meant nothing.
“And you know why he grinded himself into the grill of that truck, don’t you?”
“Woodford, stop.”
“Because Dad knew you were already with that monster upstairs.”
Woodford remembered the first slap and what he had said straight after, “he’s not my dad,” he had sneered, “just some drunk who stole my mum.”
She slapped him again, but harder that time. Even now, months later, riding up this hill with his mates, Woodford could still feel that throbbing sting on his cheek.
It was what he said next that he knew had truly broken his mother, “No wonder Mary moved to Melbourne and died from an overdose.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He had dropped the shovel and walked away from his mum. He left her sobbing on the porch.
It was then that she had said it, like some unholy genie out of a bottle, “Woodford,” she began, “that man upstairs, is your father.”
He had continued walking towards the cubby house. That night and every night since, it had become his fortress of solitude. He even hooked up several solar panels with batteries to fence posts to power a series of WIFI boosters.
The memory of that night, like so many others, cut deep into his sternum. Woodford funnelled the pain into his pedals, racing forwards up the track.
Johnny followed close behind. He didn’t know the track as well as he knew the streets around Wattle Creek or the makeshift skate bowl, but his Mongoose was well weathered and top notch. He backed it up with natural talent and Zenlike, fearless detachment.
Further down the track, Dave and Himbo rode with considerable effort.
Dave’s purple BMX simply wasn’t designed to tackle such conditions and neither was Dave. The behemoth kid was more suited to a wrestling match than cross country push biking.
Himbo was doing his best and may have kept up with Woodford and Johnny, except for the fact that his bike was a heavy piece of cheap crap.
On the other hand, Shane was way, way back on the track. He’d long given up on trying to ride up the steady incline and chose to walk while he pushed his bike instead. The chunky lad huffed and puffed, sweat drooling from his oily forehead to form streams that rolled over his freckled, hamster-like cheeks.
By the time Shane reached the other boys, they were sitting on large rocks with their bikes learning up against a large boulder.
“Took your time, bacon rind,” complained Dave with overtly blunt sarcasm.
“Get stuffed Dave,” replied Shane between puffs and heaves, “hope you step on a rusty nail, get tetanus and die.”
“Ooo … that hurt my feelings,” replied Dave, “oh, how’s your cat Elmo going? Probably Yowwwee poo-poo or Bunnnyip doo-doo by nowww.”
“Why,” puffed Shane, ignoring the barrage, “ah, why … are we all the way up here … for, Woodford?”
“I don’t want to say,” replied Woodford, “it’s incredible, like I said back in town, you have to see it for yourselves.”
“Well, are we ready to go see what it is now?” asked Johnny, he was reserved but was growing mildly impatient.
Woodford stood up, “Leave your bikes here fellas, we got to go on foot from here.”
The boys left the safety of the boulders next to the track and headed down the slope through patchy trees and undergrowth. From this height they had a good view of Wattle Creek. They could see homes, shops, the pub and even their school.
Woodford led his friends deeper down the slope. The patchy trees and undergrowth rapidly thickened as they moved towards a small gorge. Within minutes they were deep within thick trees. Exposed rocks and boulders allowed them to travel with relative ease through the bush. Eventually they came across a small stream.
“This stream flows downhill to the creek that flows through town,” said Woodford, “I came up here this morning just before dawn to watch the sun rise from where we left our bikes. You know that head lamp I nicked from Noel’s Army Disposals? Well, I was trying it out this morning, riding up the hill before sunrise. It’s not bad.”
“So, then what happened?” asked Himbo.
“Well, after dawn, I made my way down these rocks, just exploring and stuff.”
“So that’s it?” stated Dave, “you dragged us up and then down to this place to show us a bunch of rocks covered in moss and lichen and this trickle of water?”
Woodford turned his head and smiled, “Nah Dave, something disgusting, really disgusting, it aint right, just keep moving, you have to see it for yourself.”
The boys followed Woodford as he climbed and leapt across boulders that flowed beside the stream. There was a gradual and then abrupt change in the sounds of the bush. There were no birds or chirping insects. It was silent, too silent. The silence coincided with the brash introduction of a strong, overwhelming stench of death.
“Jeez, what’s that smell?” complained Shane.
Dave grinned and replied, “Your mum’s sofa.”
“Here we are,” said Woodford as he stopped on the edge of a very large boulder.
Johnny walked up to the ledge and stood beside Woodford. He raised a sleeve of his denim jacket to cover his nose. Himbo, Dave and Shane reached the ledge as well…
The five boys stood motionless. Each stared in a mixture of shock, horror and disgust at the rotting spectacle of gore below. All of them, with the exception of Woodford, covered their noses in an attempt to prevent the smell from invading their nasal cavities to trigger projectile vomiting … too late, Shane leaned over the ledge, put both hands on his knees and vomited two bowls of Fruit Loops, four pieces of toast with vegemite and a jug of orange Tang, plate of bacon, sausages and eggs and also French fries smothered in tomato sauce, into the grotesque mound of death below.
It was a pile of animal carcasses in various states of decomposition. Various examples of native wildlife, livestock and domesticated pets. A strange green carpet of fungus grew in between and over the carcasses.
It was Dave who noticed it first, “Hey Shane,” the big lad said as he pointed to the carcass of one cat in particular, “that’s your cat, isn’t it?”
Shane wiped the gastric residue from his chops. He was still leaning over but followed the line of Dave’s index finger … and there he was, his beloved Elmo, lying lifeless on the top of the green fungus.
“Yeah, that’s my Elmo,” Shane replied.
“There’s got to be hundreds of animals down there,” commented Johnny.
“Someone or something did this,” added Shane, his tone was surprisingly stoic for such a serial sook and hinted at quiet rage and the formation of resolve. He rose in defiance with his man boobies poking out, grinding his teeth like some blockbuster action star, making the decision to seek justice and take out the bad guys, “Something killed my cat … and it chose the wronnng guy to mess with.”
“You’re an idiot,” said Dave.
And then they saw it. What was misidentified as just another mass of dead brown fur, stood slowly. It was massive, seven, perhaps eight feet tall, heavily muscled, ape … no, humanlike. It looked up from the gorge with two, very humanlike eyes and a sad and somewhat alarmed expression on its humanish, apelike face.
Shane’s wide gaping mouth was almost as round as his face, his eyes bulging from their sockets.
“Holy Martian Jesus,” he pointed, “that’s a yowie!”
“Right,” stated Dave, sensing a blown paradigmatic fuse between his ears, “I’ve seen enough crap for one day, I’m going home.” The boy trudged away.
“Dave,” said Himbo.
“Said I’m going home, stuff this crap.”
Himbo looked at Johnny, Johnny looked at Woodford, Woodford looked at Shane, Shane looked at the creature. The creature looked at Shane. Himbo looked at Woodford, Woodford looked at Johnny, Johnny looked at Shane, Shane looked at Elmo’s carcass, the creature looked at some kind of device on its wrist, typing something furiously, appearing frustrated like his tech wasn’t working.
The boys all screamed, turned around and ran, leaping over rocks and heading like buggery towards the direction of their pushbikes.
The creature made a series of hand gestures, sign language perhaps? It was then that the device on its wrist finally switched on and spoke in a warm American Southern accent, “Why I say, every time I am compelled to come back to this Bloke forsaken, back-of-the-wood’s planet, the locals just pile up their pants with pudding and run.”
He sighed before putting his massive fur covered mitts on a high-tech utility belt that he wore around his waist.
