Fear Of The Dark (a novel by Joe Lake)
So far: Robert and Julie are stalked by someone wearing a mask. They find it to be a blonde woman who runs away. They go back to their Winnebago on Cooee’s beach, where someone is pushing at the van. Robert takes the shotgun but trips and falls backwards and becomes unconscious. The police come, the gun goes off accidentally. An ambulance takes him to the hospital. Julie follows them on the Winnebago’s little scooter. At the hospital they’ve never heard of Robert and when she gets back to the beach, the Winnebago is gone. She calls 000.
“Hello, emergency? Could I have the police?” She is told that there has been no emergency in the last few hours.
She puts the mobile back into her handbag. She sits on the scooter which is on its stand. She has the engine running and the headlights shine onto the ever rolling waves into the night, illuminating the white crests.
It was now 10 o’clock. There were two other caravans parked on the spot - with the lights off and another Winnebago, similar to theirs which also was not showing any lights. It was spring in Tasmania. It gets dark early. She’d have to ask the police to question the people in these two vans. She didn’t have the strength herself. She was still shaking. Her mind was spinning round and round.
She pushed the two-wheeled scooter off its stand and drove past the abattoir and all the way up along the dog-exercise beach, onto the Bass Highway and into town. She found Wilson St and the police station.
She parked the scooter and walked up the steps to the main entrance. There was no one behind what looked like a box-office window. A few minutes later a middle-aged policewoman appeared. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but something most peculiar has occurred and I’m not sure whether I am losing my mind.”
“You’d like to lodge a complaint?”
“Yes - No! I don’t know.”
“Just tell me. I’ll take a statement.”
“Yes, well, the situation is this: My husband and I were parked on Cooee beach in our Winnebago. We’re from Sydney originally. Then we confronted a stalker in the park...”
“A stalker?”
“Yes, no, a woman wearing a mask. I think she was not, how do you say, the full quid? She ran away. Then, later in the motor home, there was someone outside and Robert, my husband, got his shotgun - he has a licence - which went off and he fell backwards and hurt his head and I called the police and ambulance. They came. The gun may have gone off after he fell. I can’t remember. They took him to the hospital and I went after them with the van’s scooter. When I got to the hospital he
wasn’t there. I went back to the Winnebago and it was gone. Now I’m here. There were two policemen attending the accident. Could I speak to them?”
“No one left the station this evening. What was your name again?”
(to be continued)
