Beyond Fear Read Free Page A

as Jodie passed luggage up to Hannah and Louise in the truck. When Jodie closed the door, more than half the cases were still on the dirt at her feet and everyone, including the driver, looked unhappy about the arrangement.
    Brilliant bloody start to the weekend, Jodie.
    ‘Don’t worry. We’re fine,’ she said. ‘See you in Bald Hill.’ She shooed them off, waving about the torch the driver had given her and smiling like she and Corrine were already having a ball.
    She stood in the centre of the road and watched the truck’s headlights flare into the night sky as it crested the hill, then disappear as it dropped over the other side. She thought of the tunnel her own lights had carved in the darkness not so long ago and felt a chill at the black and lonely place she was now standing in.

2
    ‘Better save the batteries,’ Jodie said and flipped off the torch. Night wrapped itself around them like a black shroud.
    ‘Christ, it’s freezing.’ Corrine’s voice sounded deeper than usual in the silence of the wide-open space.
    Jodie turned away from the road, strained her eyes in the darkness, thought she could see the faint glow of Corrine’s blonde hair. ‘And dark. It’s bloody dark.’
    ‘The cold’s worse.’
    ‘No way. Dark like this gives me the creeps.’ She stepped cautiously in the direction of Corrine’s voice, not wanting to stumble into the luggage, willing herself not to flinch at the feeling that the night was breathing down her neck. ‘We should have borrowed the fluoro vest the tow truck driver was wearing.’
    ‘Are you kidding? That colour would look terrible on me.’ Corrine’s face suddenly appeared, lit in blue by Hannah’s mobile phone – it was the only one that had found reception. ‘Okay, it’s seven-thirty-two. We give the taxi ten minutes before we start yelling down the phone.’
    Jodie grinned as Corrine looked up at her. ‘God, you look like something out of a ghost story. A decapitation victim whose head haunts the highway, terrifying drivers, causing unexplained accidents.’
    Corrine moved the phone under her chin so the light made her look like a glowing blue skull. ‘Could this face do anything but inspire a lifelong trust in good skin care?’
    Jodie laughed, heard Corrine’s husky chuckle and was glad her friend had decided not to stick with the huffy silence over having to wait behind. ‘Thanks for staying with me.’
    The light slid downwards and disappeared as Corrine dropped the phone in her pocket. ‘I guess that’s what I get for having a strong bladder and a warm coat.’
    She said it laughingly but Jodie got the message – it was the short straw, not a good deed. ‘Sorry about all this.’
    ‘It’s not your fault that driver tried to run us off the road.’
    ‘Did you get a look at the car?’
    ‘Briefly. I was opening the champagne.’
    ‘I thought it was one of those big, chunky utes. Black or something dark. With lights mounted on top. Floodlights or something.’
    ‘I think it had a sort of frame over the tray section,’ Corrine said. ‘Fat, silver posts. Or maybe they were white. I only got a glimpse.’
    Jodie flicked the torch on, walked the five paces to the edge of the road, looked right to the crest of the hill then left to the bend.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Corrine asked.
    ‘I don’t know. Just looking.’

    ‘The view’s the same from here, you know.’
    Jodie swung the torch around, lit up the bags and Corrine and the bush at her back. ‘Yeah, I know. But walking and looking feels better than standing still.’ She left the light on as she made her way around the luggage, flicked it off, folded her arms tight across her chest. Beside her, Corrine’s boots shuffled about on the roadside gravel. She could smell Corrine’s perfume. Something far off made a birdlike sound. The light from the phone appeared at waist-height, briefly lit Corrine’s manicured hand, then disappeared again.
    The sound of an engine began like a