Sam woke with a start, his heart fluttering in his chest and his brow moist with sweat.
As he looked around, he could see a pair of eyes peering back at him, drawing closer. He wanted to cry out, to yell and shout and lash out at the darkness that surrounded him, but he was stopped in his tracks as he felt himself being enveloped.
“Shhh. It’s OK…”, whispered the pair of eyes, and the person attached to them. He felt a hand slip into his own, and suddenly the darkness around him seemed to recede, his body beginning to loosen.
“You just had another bad dream…”
Sam sighed in frustration as he settled backwards, his heart still racing. The body pressed against him soon returned to slumber, the sound of garbled breathing filling the room once again, but he lay awake well into the night. He wondered to himself if these dreams would ever end, or if they’d linger on the edges of his mind forevermore, coming and going as they pleased. He never could remember them - they always seemed to slip away before they could coalesce fully in his mind, and that much he was grateful for. He knew deep down though, what they represented.
Those days seemed like an eternity ago, but no matter how many years passed between then and now, through all the sorrow and joy and contentedness that life had given him, he could never escape the long shadow they cast.
Those days of muffled footsteps and darkened rooms, of vulnerability and a little boy’s fears so great that they seemed to take on a life of their own, shifting and flourishing and growing alongside him - fears borne not of ghosts in sheets or other fancies of imagination, but of something much more sinister and something much, much closer to home.
Stripped bare, the wind at their naked backs, the two girls peered downwards - past the cliff face, past the edge of the rock and into the sea below. The grey ocean crashed and swelled with great ceremony, its roar echoing into nothingness beneath a sky that threatened to open at any moment.
Jump rock, as it had always been known, was a rocky outcrop that jutted out from the headland into a deep, dark pool. On a clear day, it was easy to make out the submerged rocks that lay kept sentry below; now, they were obscured beneath the roaring tide, covered over by whitewash.
Yesterday this leap of faith had all seemed like a great idea, as such things usually do when you’re young and have the world at your feet. To face their fears together as sisters, to be brave and to overcome everything that had transpired over the last month - the last year - and shaken them both to their foundations.
Now, they weren’t so sure. The younger of the two were girls looked around; she felt a sudden unease at being so exposed, but thankfully, the headland around them was deserted save for the two of them.
“Tammy, I’m scared….”, she said, taking a backwards step. “It’s a lot higher from up here…”
“Yeah…well…we can’t chicken out now Kayla. We both agreed - after mom went, we’d jump, ‘member? together, like we said we promised.”
Kayla looked upwards as the sky began to rumble, as if searching the rapidly darkening clouds for something, anything - a sign, something to tell her that everything would be alright. The first raindrop fell on her face, cold and heavy; bare to the wind, she began to shiver, her hands now wrapped around herself. She wished she’d remembered to bring her swimsuit before the two of them had taken the moment upon themselves and rushed off, away from the quiet silence of home.
As she stared into oblivion, she knew her sister was right - if she backed out now, if she changed her mind and went home she’d never forgive herself, and she knew her mom wouldn’t either. Deep down, Kayla wished she was brave she had always been. She would have looked into the crashing waves and grinned, and she would have faced them the same boldness and spirit that had carried her through so much in her short life and kept her going even in the hardest days.
“Come on Kayla, I can’t do it by myself…” said Tammy, her voice slipping beneath the roar from below. For the first time, Kayla realized her sister was scared too, even if she didn’t show it. Then again, she’d always been braver. She peered downwards once more, and regretted it immediately as her head began to spin.
“It’ll be OK. We just have to jump right out, past the rocks - if we both get a run up we’ll land in the right spot. On three.”
Kayla gulped in quiet resignation as the sea below jeered and thrashed, spurring them on.
“One…”
Before Kayla was ready, her sister grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the cliff face. She could feel the loose rocks beneath her feet, sharp and hard as the edge approached.
“Two…”
There was no way out now; nothing but the past and shared grief above and cold white oblivion below. Tammy nodded slowly in her sister’s direction, and then they jumped.
“Three!”
The world around them seemed to hang for the briefest of moments, before dropping away entirely beneath them.
The water below rushed upwards with a quickness; the two girls slammed into it feet-first with force, the cold whitewash knocking the wind out of both of them and filling their mouths, their noses, invading all their senses and drowning eveyrthing in swirling white.
Kayla couldn’t breathe; she could no longer see or feel or hear, and in the whitewash she’d lost hold of her sisters hand. Panic rose in her chest as she began to fight, to struggle, buffeted by the waves. She was alone now, without her mother or her sister to help her.
Above her, the waves roared on, now a deafening cadence. The current was strong, far beyond her control, and she felt herself being pushed sideways, her ribs colliding with an unseen group of rocks, sharp and rough. She opened her mouth to cry out, and in doing so sucked in water; It burned and stung and ached, a kind of pain she’d never felt before, but through it all she knew she knew she needed to find her sister, to make sure she was OK. The problem was that she couldn’t seem to find the strength - her thoughts were clouded, as if they were somebody else’s echoing in her - her sister’s, her mother’s. Her body weak now; she could feel herself slipping downwards, but she didn’t quite know what to do about it.
Suddenly she felt herself being pulled upwards, something gripping her hair, almost pulling it out by the roots. With a sharp intake of breath she broke the surface of the water, gasping and coughing and spluttering with everything she had. She could see her sister’s face, grinning at her from above the waves.
“See? Told you it’d be OK.”
Kayla panted as the air returned to her body; the sky had opened now, rain stinging her face, but despite everything, for the first time in a long time she smiled. She couldn’t help but grin back at her sister, and the two of them began to whoop and cheer, alive again with long-forgotten exhilaration, the sound of their voices rising for the first time above the crashing waves, and above the noise and the pain and the grief and the uncertainty that had weighed so heavily on their young shoulders for so long now.
The two girls didn’t how proud of them their mother truly would have been; as sisters, and for facing their fears together.
To those who read this letter, likely long after I have passed beyond - I do not ask for forgiveness or for absolution. My days continue to draw to a close and I am ill of health, but in the face of it all I am at peace within myself.
I know that with this I will face the ire of a few and the judgement of many, but some things cannot go unwritten in perpetuity. I write this so that there may be absolutely no doubt as to what occurred in June of 1937, to wit: a thing so heinous in nature that records of it are, at best, extremely difficult to find and likely no longer exist.
———————
I was a man of the law then, under the auspice of the New South Wales police service - as I was for near-all of my working years. Specifically, at that time I was a Sergeant. It may be hard to imagine, but the late nineteen-thirties were good times. Hard times to be certain - the depression had left its mark on us all in some form or another - but by and large we all got by without a lot of ado. There were troublemakers of course who were dealt with with as the law saw fit, but rarely did it proceed beyond a harsh word or a swift kick up the backside._
In those early years I imagined that there was a measure of goodness in every man. However, I have long since learned that is not the case. The day I encountered Robert James Farden, I knew at once that he was guilty of each and every one of the heinous crimes he had been accused of. To pass judgement on a man’s innocence - or lack thereof - may have been an improper judgement from somebody of my station, however to this day I remain steadfast in my convictions.
In all my years, I have scarcely forgotten young Annie Dixon. As I recall, she came from good stock - a working class family of fine morals, a father who tilled the earth and a mother who devoted herself to her family and the church. They were of meager means but that never seemed to darken their horizons.
I was, in fact, the officer who first received word via telegram that she had not returned home. At first it was thought to be a simple incident of misadventure. That perhaps she had gotten herself lost, as children are wont to do - that she may have wandered into the the thicket of bush surrounding her homestead. It was not until some time later that she was found, on the edge of the Dixon’s property. I loathe to put into this writing the things that I witnessed on that day, but suffice to say that for all of my years I have never again seen such cruelty and malice.
I can still recall the unease that seemed to overcome the townsfolk - as if a darkness had descended on us all, myself included. The response was swift of course. We were all angry - something had to be done, and we couldn’t let such a thing go unpunished. Times might have changed, but an eye for an eye was how the world worked in 1937.
I first met Robert Farden on July the 12th of that year, and from that day forward I knew he was the individual who had committed such a shocking and unthinkable act. He seemed to be a drifter, which wasn’t uncommon at the time and certainly didn’t raise suspicion initially. I soon discovered, however, that he had been living in the bush that surrounded the Dixon’s property. He also matched the description of a man who had been seen several times loitering near the local primary school; not only that, but he also possessed a criminal record for improper conduct with a minor. I wasn’t able to glean exactly what that entailed, however I had no doubt that it was something very unpleasant to say the least.
Of course he was thick with denial. I posited the question of his culpability to him directly, and was met with nothing but a sneer. Despite my certainties things had reached an impasse, and all we had was suppositions. The days continued to pass, and I knew something had to be done. When Annie Dixon’s meager belongings were later found amongst his personal things, no more than a kilometer from her home, there was no further doubt in the minds of the townsfolk that he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
As time went on, I began to see him as something less than human. He never did confess, but in the end it didn’t matter. After a swift but eventful trial, Robert James Farden was found unanimously guilty and was sentenced to be hanged on the seventh day of September, 1937.
Some - likely most - would say I went beyond my position as an officer of the law. Some things, however, are so far beyond the bounds of decency and goodness, that they shouldn’t be permitted to stand; such moral turpitude must not be permitted to prosper, lest it spread like a cancer.
I did what I thought was just and right and moral, and I have never wavered in that belief.
It seemed as if the entire town had turned out, filling the council chambers and spilling out onto the street, chattering in anticipation. It hadn’t been since the days of the war that the sleepy town of Mundurah had seen such turnout.
The crowd fell silent as the Mayor began to speak. Such a thing was unusual in itself, but this wasn’t a normal day.
“It is the decision of this council that bylaw 571, with regard to development planning, has received majority support and will come into effect. I know there is many of you who oppose this, but I ask that you try to look to the future and see the benefits - this town has a bigger, brighter future ahead of it and it isn’t going to be 1960 forever.”
The mayor was soon drowned out by boos and jeers, his voice faltering in front of the crowd. The decision had been made 5-4 - not exactly decisive, but in the end it didn’t matter. Bylaw 571 gave developers the go-ahead to build high-rise apartments along the town’s foreshore where for decades there had previously only been small holiday homes, and for the local estuary to be dredged and deepened to allow boats to enter.
There was those who opposed, those who continued to fight, the shared memories of endless days spent paddling in the estuary bed as youngsters, of feeling the salt on their skin still strong in their minds. Time would march on, progress would be assured, and own day those memories would be lost for good, covered over in estuary silt.
I told you we should have gotten on that other bus”, said James. “I told you - now I don’t even know where we’re going.”
“…How many times have you said ‘I told you so’ since we left? I dunno what happened, I must have misunderstood the map or something”.
“Well, we’re lost now”, said James.
“Looks like it”, said Riley, peering out the window and yawning into the day. Squinting from bleary eyes, he realized he didn’t recognize a single name on the street signs that passed by at a rapid clip through the grimy window. He was far from home now - further than he’d ever been in fact.
“How can you be so relaxed about all this?”
Riley shrugged. “Iunno. As long as we’re going somewhere and it’s not back right?“
“…Yeah I guess. But, I just don’t know where we are. What if we get caught or something…or-“
“Shhhh. It’ll be OK, don’t stress yourself. We’ll work it all out.”
James opened his mouth to argue, but was stopped when he felt the gentle weight of Riley’s head on his shoulder. A gnawing anxiety remained, but for a brief moment it was assuaged. He soon felt Riley’s breathing slow, and although a lingering worry remained, he felt his own eyes becoming heavy. He could feel the rattle and hum of the bus, and soon he drifted into a restless slumber.
Riley felt a shudder as he jolted awake, his head thumping painfully against the window.
“End of the line boys!” shouted a hoarse voice from the front of the bus.
“Crap, now what. Come on, we gotta get off”, said James, nudging - shaking - Riley awake with great effort.
“Wha…what’s going on…”
“The driver says we gotta get off here.”
“…where are we?”, said Riley, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The suburbs had all but gone now, replaced by dry scrub and neither of the two boys had any idea where they were. They werent sure how long they’d been asleep, and for all they knew they could have been in the middle of the outback.
“Disneyland - how the hell should I know?”
“Come on you pair - haven’t got all day you know. Time waits for no man.”
“Alright alright, jeez - hold your horses _old man”, _muttered James under his breath.
“I heard that.”
With a glare towards the front of the bus, James helped Riley to his feet and the two of them made for the exit, stumbling in weary resignation into the heat of the day.
“Do you know where-“, said Riley, but his voice was muffled by the door of the bus closing and the roar of the engine as it rumbled into life once again, rough and indifferent.
“Wanker.”
The bus lurched and began to lumber into the distance, the red tail lights shimmering and soon vanishing completely. Neither boy knew quite what to do or what to say, but it was James who eventually broke the silence.
“Crap.”
“Yeah I know - I know I messed up and probably read the map wrong, and we shouldn’t have gotten on that bus. Im sorry OK?”
“No…it’s not that.”
Riley looked at James quizically. “What is it then?”
“….the backpack - it was on the bus.”
“What? That had all our money and the stuff we bought with us in it. I thought you had it.”
“I thought you did.”
“Nope.” Riley kicked at the dirt below, frustration in his voice. “Well, it’s gone now - what are we gonna do?”
This time, James didn’t have an answer. “I’m sorry….”
It was a misunderstanding, and a costly one, but in their weariness they couldnt find it in themselves to be angry at each other.
Riley flopped down in the dirt, pulling his knees to his chest, looking around at the desolate expanse of road that seemed to stretch forever in both directions like some dark creature snaking towards the horizon and back.
“Well, now we’re lost.”
**
Beneath the shade of a ghost gum, the two boys sat in quiet contemplation, their damp backs pressed against the cool trunk. Riley’s t-shirt lay around his feet, cast aside in a futile effort to combat the languid heat. James stared into the day, eyes cast ahead for any signs of life.
“Which way do you think home is?”
Snapped out of his this thoughts, Riley shrugged.
“Iunno. We came from…that way didn’t we?”
“I’m not even sure. It’s weird - I didn’t think we’d come so far. It’s like we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yeah I know.”
The two boys fell silent once more. For two kids who had grown up in the suburbs, the flatlands around them felt strange and unfamiliar. The only shadows that could be found were those of the dry gums looming in quiet repose, their branches ghostly white beneath the ceaseless sun.
“Do you think they’re looking for us?”, said Riley.
“Our parents? Yours maybe. Mine, definitely not.”
There was something in James’ voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago - a deeper sadness that seemed to have come from within. Riley wasn’t as adept as James at putting such things into words, but he could sense something beneath the surface.
“Maybe we should just…go back”, he said softly. “I mean we don’t even have any money.”
“What do you mean - like, home?”
“Well…yeah. I know what happened with your mum and dad but they can’t be angry at you forever can they?”
“Yeah - they can. I heard what they said. You don’t know what they’re like. Sorry for being a jerk earlier, but if you wanna go back I’m not gonna hate you for it”, said James gently.
“Well I’m not if you’re not. I’m not gonna leave you on your own.” There was a new strength to Riley’s words that were reflected in his eyes. He’d never been so sure of anything in his life.
“Besides, if I went home now my dad would ground me until I was 18 anyway. Probably longer even.”
“…I guess we just keep going then.”
“Yeah, I-“
“What?”, said James, waiting for Riley to finish his sentence. His gaze was fixed on road ahead at a distant object barreling towards them.
**
“What are you boys doing out here all by yourselves? Lost or something?”
The man peering from behind dark glasses through the window of the beaten-up ute spoke slowly, his words a lazy drawl. As he spoke, he drew back on a cigarette. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry. When neither boy answered, he took it upon himself to fill in the silence.
“Must be - all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. Where you two headed?”
Riley and James shared a glance, and both knew they were thinking the same thing. The man had been nice enough to pull over, but still neither of them were sure how much to tell him.
“We’re headed to town, that way”, said Riley, pointing towards what they thought was the opposite of where they’d come from. “whichever towns the next one.”
“That’d be Mudgeribah - long way off though - ‘bout an hour give or take.” The man laughed, a throaty chuckle. “You boys really aren’t from around here are you?”
Riley shrugged.
“Well look, I’m just passing through - headed that way myself if you want a lift.”
The ute rattled and clicked beside them, but neither of them was certain about the man’s offer.
“You think we should?”, whispered James.
“I mean he said he was going the same way. I don’t know though.”
“Yeah me neither...” James thought back to a book he’d read a while back, about a man who stalked the outback in a black four-wheel drive, abducting anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path. The LandCruiser of doom, or something equally ridiculous.
“What if he’s….you know?”
“What if he’s what?”
“Like…a bad guy.”
“Oh. I mean he seems OK?”
“Yeah I guess . I dunno. We can’t just stay here either. Could be ages before another car comes.“
“Yeah I guess.”
“You boys need a lift or no?”, said the man’s voice from inside the cab of the ute, louder now.
The boys glanced at each other and nodded.
“One of you boys can hop up front”, the man said.
Riley thought about it for a moment, but in the end clambered into the backseat next to James. As the car began to move, he realized he hadn’t asked the man’s name.
**
As the Ute rattled along, Riley stared blankly out the window, watching the flatlands pass by In a blur of brown and dull green. If the two boys were far from home before, they seemed to be even further now. Up front the man fiddled with the knob on the radio, searching through the stations over and over and over again as if searching for something in particular, to no avail; every now and then the boys would see him glance backwards, but the only thing that could be heard was an endless array of static.
James yawned, wiping his forehead on his shirt. It felt hotter inside the car than outside, even more so due to the fact that the windows didn’t seem to be stuck up, unable to be wound down at all.
“You boys alright back there?”, said the man, peering backwards.
“Um, yeah I guess.”
“Much further?”, said Riley, still not seeing any signs of life outside the window.
“Little ways yet….bit further down the road. Won’t be much longer now.”
The man cleared his throat, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. “So where you boys really off to?”
The two boys looked at each other, still not sure how much to tell the man. It was James who spoke first.
“Anywhere.”
“Lotta ‘anywheres’ out here. What, you kids runaways? Bit young to be on your own.”
The two boys shared a glance; neither of them answered, but the man nodded all the same.
“You two brothers or what? Don’t look alike.”
James hesitated for a second. He wasn’t sure what came over him, but all at once he felt a new boldness. “Were not brothers. He’s my boyfriend.”
“You two poofdas?“
“Guess so. That a problem?” Riley turned to James and smiled, his eyes shining for the first time in a while. James grinned back at him.
“Yeah well….city’s full of em. No matter - live and let live I say. You boys want some water? Think I have some up here. Bloody hot day…”, he said, rummaging around in the passenger seat and pulling out a plastic water bottle and passing it backwards. As he gazed backwards, neither boy saw the look that lingered in his eyes.
The man had given up fiddling with the radio now, and the car had fallen silent.
“Bloody thing”, he said with a grunt.
Perhaps it was the heat, or just plain weariness but James could feel his eyes growing heavy once again, as if he was having to make a conscious effort to keep them open. Beside him, Riley was weary too, but he was still focused on looking for any sign of life amongst the vastness. He could see that the land around them seemed to be changing, dry scrub giving way to yet more barren earth, tinged with red and brown.
Riley noticed something in the corner of his vision. It passed by in a flash, too quick to discern, but there was no mistaking it - a sign, something that would have told them where they were.
“Hey James - wake up. Hey - there was a sign back there. Excuse me.”
The man seemed to not hear him, staring ahead, his eyes focused forward. Riley began to wonder if maybe he’d misunderstood what the man said - that he’d drop them off at the next town.
“Hey. Hello.”
Riley shook James awake, but he seemed to linger in his weariness. Instead of slowing, the car seemed to be moving faster now; he tried once again to get the man’s attention, still to no avail.
“Riley…I think somethings wrong…”, muttered James. His stomach began to churn, over and over and over again. “I feel…sick….”
“Hey - we need to stop. He’s not OK…”
The man paid no attention. James was right; something was wrong. Panic began to rise in Riley’s chest; he thought about jumping out of the car, but he wasn’t going to leave James behind.
“Fucking stop! We wanna get out!”
He tried the door handle, but it didn’t budge. James’ couldn’t hold it back any longer; a river of vomit fell from his mouth, pooling in his lap.
“Shit - James!”
As the two boys felt the car jerk to a stop, Riley felt James’s hand slip into his.
Hundreds of miles away, John Shipton knew he had a job to do. Hat in hand, his head lowered, he cleared his throat, bracing himself.
“Look - It’s been close on a week now. We’re still doing everything we can - of course…we’re putting every resource we can spare into this.”
“What else can we do? There has to be something - we can’t just sit here. I know I haven’t been a very good father, and I’ve said some things I can’t take back. But god, I’d give anything to have him home safe and sound. This has all just been a big misunderstanding….”
“Look, these sort of family matters - these…misunderstandings - are always difficult. But, I have to be honest. This sort of situation usually tends to resolve themselves in the first 48 hours.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“Given the timeframe we’re looking at, and how little we have to go off so far, I think at this point the chances of James being found are slim.”
The woman in front of him began to crumble.
