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Monica and the Black Fortress

by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)

(story continues from Monica and the Black Fortress)

Chapter Fourteen  –  The Grave in the Forest - Trish’s Story

We ran up the gently sloping hill to where the forest met the long grass.  The grass was slick from the rain and our boots slipped out from under us more than once.  I was clutching the old blanket around my shoulders, following Mary’s near-naked figure, noting the awful; bruises and welts on her body from the beatings dished out by Bennelli.  We were cold and wet, but the rain had now stopped.  The leather discipline hoods, locked in place, at least protected our heads from the cold, while perhaps marking us look like two bizarre mannequins on the loose.

We had just reached the edge of the trees when there was a shout from down the slope.  Our escape had been discovered!  Moments later there was what sounded like a dull bang, and a flutter of tree debris rained down.  My God!  He was shooting at us!  It must have been the shotgun he threatened us with at the time of our capture.  My heart raced as we plunged into the undergrowth on the edge of the woods.  

The shotgun really scared me.  It was a sawn-off piece, and was probably only accurate within a short distance, but the fact that he was prepared to use it suddenly changed the game.  Bennelli was not interested in ever letting us go.  He was prepared to kill us now rather than have us escape to the outside world.

Under cover of the trees the wind and rain seemed to vanish.  It was still and quiet save for the dripping of the water from the leaves.  Everything was wet, and cold fronds brushed across our naked bodies as we pressed forward.  It was old forest, with a high canopy of mature trees underscored with tree ferns and minimal undergrowth.  The long grass was left behind and we were pushing though low level growth with the forest floor thick with leaf debris and humus.  Our footfalls were muffled by the wetness underfoot and the most noise seemed to come from our panting and the pounding of blood in my ears.

Mary was forging ahead.  I was amazed at her strength and resilience, though I guess I shouldn’t have been.  Mary has always been the strongest of us emotionally and physically.   Well, perhaps Jill is the real physical one, but she’s considerably younger than Mary.  Mary was almost out of sight when my foot caught on a root and I tripped, tumbling down a small embankment.  By the time I’d got to my feet and gathered the blanket, I’d lost her.  Shit!  I’d also lost my sense of direction.  The light was grey and misty under the canopy and there was no sun casting any shadows.  It was a creepy place and I was suddenly alone in it.

“Mary!”  I hissed.  “Mary – where the hell are you?”  I was scared to raise my voice for I knew Bennelli couldn’t be too far behind, and the last thing I wanted was to bring him down on me by announcing my position.  I looked around, uncertain of which way to go.  The forest seemed to have levelled off into a series of dips and hollows, with no obvious overall rise or fall.  Concluding I couldn’t just stay there, I moved off, straining my ears for other noises that might have been Mary, or might have been Bennelli.  

Overhead something screeched and flapped away noisily.  I saw the flash of bright colour of a rainbow lorikeet but my heart had already been through its palpitations by then.  I had gone maybe fifty metres when a chilling voice reached my ears and I looked behind me to see Bennelli standing on a slight rise about twenty metres behind and to my right.

“Just stop there, Trish, and you won’t get hurt.”  He had the shotgun pointed in my direction.

I don’t know why I ran at that point.  Something inside me told me that his words were lies and that if I ever let him get his hands on me again, it would be the last time.  

I ran blindly, panicking, the old blanket discarded.  There was a boom and the small bushes beside me exploded in a welter of shredded leaves.  I dodged and weaved between tree trunks, as some more foliage disintegrated under a second impact.  I felt some stinging on my back and buttocks but I was too terrified to care.  There was a curse and a crashing of a body through the undergrowth in pursuit.  Bennelli was after me with a vengeance.  My panic grew, and my boots with their smooth soles and high heels were totally unsuited to the wet and slippery ground conditions.  I crested a small hillock and slid down the other side through the leaf litter and a muddy puddle in the hollow.  The eyeholes of the hood restricted my peripheral vision and I found myself blundering into things and tripping over roots.

Bennelli was gaining on me.  I could hear the thud of his feet as he ploughed through the bush like a juggernaut.  He was in his element.  He was a guy, probably used to hunting and camping out, wearing appropriate footwear and clothing, carrying a gun, and being the pursuer rather than the naked pursued.  

He was only metres behind now.  My breathing was a series of ragged gasps struggling past the open zipper of the hood.  I thought I could hear his own panting and it probably should have come as no surprise when I tripped for the last time and he came down on top of me.  I found myself with the muzzle of the gun jammed under my chin.

The impact of his body on top of me left me winded, and I lay there just struggling to breathe.  Even had I been able to move, the presence of the gun was terrifying, and I knew he was prepared to use it.  I could do nothing as he knelt on top of me and wrenched my arms behind my backcrossing them and tying them brutally tight with cord.  He was breathing hard and calling me all manner of abusive names in between his own laboured breaths.  Wayne Bennelli was seriously pissed off and clearly I was to be the one he took it out on. 

As I slowly gathered my senses I became aware that he had laid down the shotgun beside me and dumped a small day pack on top of it.  With my wrists secured I was now under control, and he rummaged in the pack to produce a sponge ball that looked like the one I had endured up until that morning.  I did not want to be gagged again, and tried to plead my way out of it.

“Look, I’m sorry…please don’t do this… I’ll do whatever – nnnnooffph!  Urrrgh! Ungh!”

He pulled my head back with one hand around my forehead and stuffed the ball through the zippered opening in the hood, before zipping it closed.  That was the end of my pleading.  He sat back for a couple of minutes, obviously getting over the exertions of the moment himself, before he pulled another length of rope from the pack.  He had clearly had some idea for a further torture when he had come back to the tank and found us running for our lives.  I guessed that particular torture was now going to be put in place – except that Mary was still free and hopefully running for her own life.

My face was pushed into the damp leafy floor, and I couldn’t see what he was doing.  All I could take in was the weight of his body pressing my breasts into the ground.  Then the weight lifted, and I was hauled to my feet.  He dangled a rope noose in front of my eyes, complete with hangman’s knot.

“Ya see this?”  I was too scared even to nod.  “Guess where it’s goin’?”  I didn’t have to, and he didn’t make me wait.  It went around my neck and he pulled it tight. He slung the pack over his shoulder and picked up the gun, ejecting two shell cases and reloading it.  I realised then that the two shots he had taken at me had emptied the gun and that after those he had been chasing me with an unloaded weapon.  Not that it made much difference, but I filed the information for future reference – assuming I ever got the chance to use it.  I had an awful feeling that such a chance wasn’t very likely at all.

He stood still for a moment and looked around at the silent trees, then raised the gun and fired upwards.  I jumped - the noise was deafening this close.  A few twigs fell to the ground from the overhead canopy.

“Maaarrry!” he roared.  “I’ve got your friend!  She’ll be for the long drop unless you show yourself!  You have five minutes!”  He fired the other barrel and I winced from the noise. If it scared me before, his attitude now made my blood run cold.  It was like he had been pushed too hard, too often, and now was going to deal with us once and for all – or more particularly, deal with me.  I watched as he loaded the gun again.  There was blood all over his trouser legs, and I realised with a shock that it must be mine.  I was now conscious of stickiness and pain on my back and bottom, and realised I must have caught some of the pellets from the near miss while I was running.  I tried to see what the damage was, but all I could see was smeared blood streams running down to the tops of my boot on my left leg.

“Better follow, Mary!” he yelled to the forest.

With more ammunition in his gun, he moved off, dragging me behind at the end of two metres of rope, the rest of which he carried in a coil over his shoulder.  I prayed that Mary was far enough away that she hadn’t heard the ultimatum, but I was sure the gunshots would attract her.  I had known Mary too long to think that she would leave me.  The thought of her making her escape – regardless of how logical it was – would not enter her head, and I was sure Bennelli knew it.

We walked for perhaps ten minutes.  I sensed the ground starting to slope downwards, and the canopy overhead was becoming less dense.  I had the feeling that we were heading back to the farmhouse.  I thought I had detected the edge of the forest just ahead, when we stopped in a shallow dip in the ground.  There was a large fallen log here, and then – to my absolute horror, I saw the hole in the ground.  

It was a couple of metres long by a metre wide, and was as deep as I was tall.  Beside it was an untidy pile of earth that looked as though it had been there perhaps a week.  A thin layer of fallen leaves covered the dirt and the bottom of the hole.

“This is where it ends, honey,” he snarled at me.  “This is where I have the final pleasure of watching you depart from my life – and this life – once and for all.”

He had planned this whole thing well in advance - that I could tell.  The grave was located under a tree bough, over which he tossed the rope and gave me a shove.  I saw the position of the rope centred over the grave, and as the rope tightened I had no option but to move towards the hole.  I resisted, making muffled noises of protest, pleading, terror – call them what you will, but the ball stuffed in my mouth reduced them all to an incoherent nasal mumble.

As he pulled on the rope I had no choice but to take small steps towards the hole, eventually forced to spread my legs to stand astride it.  I was so scared I was almost wetting myself, terrified that my foot would slip on the muddy edge of the hole and I would drop to feel that fatal tug of the rope just before my neck snapped.

“Nnnn!  Nnnn! Nnnn…” The sounds I was making were a series of barely audible moans.   I was hardly conscious of making them, so focussed was I on maintaining my balance.  I could feel the muscles of my thighs begin to quiver as my legs stretched across the width of the hole, the heels of my boots digging into the soft earth.  

I reached the centre of the grave and the rope around my neck momentarily eased, but I saw Bennelli tie the other end of the cord around the big fallen log.  He had me where he wanted me and I was no further problem.

“Maarrryyyy! Come and see your friend now!  You have two minutes or she does the long drop!”  He bellowed the ultimatum to the trees, following it up with another blast from the shotgun, the noise from which almost caused me to lose my balance.

The silence descended on the forest and I felt the blood pounding in my ears as I concentrated on maintaining my position.  I had been in some awful bondage positions before, but never one where my life would be ended in a split second if my foot slipped or if my muscles could not cope with the strain.  I could feel them starting to tremble from the load and knew that I could not maintain this severe position for very much longer.

“One minute, Maryyyy!” Bennelli yelled, his voice starting to sound increasingly manic.  There was another thunderous boom of the gun.  I thought about closing my eyes and just ending it, pushing myself off from the bank and not giving Mary a reason to come back.

Bennelli had his back to the edge of the forest.  I could see him and the lighter space beyond that was the valley.  There was a crashing in the undergrowth somewhere off to the left, and Bennelli turned with a grin.  Mary appeared over the edge of the hollow, a leather hooded and booted naked figure that looked like something from a bizarre movie, her body marked with dirt and sporting the welts and bruises inflicted by Bennelli.

“Let her go, you shit!”  Mary demanded.

“I will once you get down here,” he snapped.

No, Mary!  Don’t be stupid!  Run for your life, I willed her.

Mary took in the scene and quickly advanced down the slope.  God, what was she thinking?

I realised that in fact Mary was thinking that Bennelli had to be taken out once and for all, and her advance turned into a sudden mad rush as she launched herself at Bennelli in a mad welter of naked limbs and high heels.  

Mary was not stupid – that much was evident when there was a click of the trigger and nothing happened.  She had realised it was a two-shot weapon, which was just as well, because Bennelli – in a momentary panic – had obviously been prepared to blast her to pieces at that moment, as his instincts overcame his logic.  Mary was also skilled in self-defence, as were most of us at Bilboes, to some extent or other, for it sometimes was necessary to deal with clients who fancied they could rough us up a little more than we agreed to.  In this instance Mary didn’t fancy herself as some sort of Charlie’s Angel, though there was no doubt a kick from a high-heeled thigh boot would have done an enormous amount of damage in the right place.  

In this instance she aimed for Bennelli’s groin, a one-shot, no-prisoners play that had seen him felled when he first invaded Bilboes one night.  In that instance it was Steven with a piece of wood on a firm floor.  In this case the heel on one of Mary’s boots caught on a fallen branch and she stumbled.  It was just enough of a mistake to allow Bennelli to bring up the butt of the gun to catch Mary on the side of the head.  There was a sickening crack and Mary was lying unmoving on the ground.

Bennelli was seething.  He kicked Mary in the ribs and swore at her prone figure, before rolling her on her stomach and binding her wrists palm to palm behind her.

“I’ve had a shitload of you two!” he muttered, partly at me and partly at Mary, who was making groaning noises now.  I was immensely relieved to see her move her head, and it later occurred to me that the leather hood may have saved her life by deflecting and absorbing some of the blow.

Mary gasped as Bennelli sat on top of her and roughly bound each leg, ankle to thigh, before pulling her into a kneeling position.  Mary swayed, slowly coming to her senses, but unable to do anything while Bennelli pulled another long length of cord from his pack.  This, too, he fashioned into a noose, slipping it around Mary’s neck and tossing it over the same bough as I stood under.  Mary was a couple of metres off to my left, a little away from where my left foot wobbled, bracing me against the edge of the grave.

“Because of that, you’re going to get the slow end,” Bennelli snapped viciously at Mary, pulling on the rope.  The noose tightened around Mary’s neck and she found her body now taut upright, but unable to rise further because of the bonds at her thighs and ankles.

“Not much fun, is it, bitch!”  Bennelli sneered.  “Should have thought of the consequences when you shipped me off to your bikie friends in Sydney, shouldn’t you, bitch!”  The rope was tightening around Mary’s throat and I could see her struggling for breath.  Her breasts were rising and falling rapidly as she fought to stay conscious as the air supply was slowly cut off.

“Nnn!  Nnnn!”  I cried, weakly beneath my hood, feeling the despair of tears as they welled in my eyes and slid out to be absorbed by the leather covering my face.  The world was a rotten place, and for a moment I was glad it would be all over quickly for me, as I decided I couldn’t watch Mary die this way.  I would at least prevent Bennelli having the pleasure of making me watch Mary die.  I would drop into the grave beneath me and it would be all over.

I was barely aware of the two loud bangs from nearby.  Instead I registered the splotch of red on Bennelli’s neck.  He crumpled on the spot, releasing the rope around Mary’s throat.  She slumped sideways and lay there gasping for air beside the motionless body of Bennelli.

The strain on my legs was becoming desperately hard to fight, and I felt my right foot slipping against the bank.  A handful of earth splattered damply on the leaves at the bottom of the hole beneath me.  I didn’t know what was going on – my mind was numbed by the suddenness of the events and was confused even more so as there was a cracking of branches to my right, and Jillian and Emma, followed by Shannen O’Donnell carrying a rifle, rushed from the cover of the undergrowth.

Emma and Jill each grabbed one of my bound arms just as my foot began to slide on the edge of the hole, and together they supported me while Shannen undid the other end of the rope.  Then, very carefully, they helped me to firm ground, where my legs collapsed and I sobbed under the hood.

While Jill untied my wrists and helped remove the ball from my mouth, Emma untied Mary, and the four of us hugged each other and cried.  The awful hoods were still locked in place, until Shannen retrieved a bunch of keys from where Bennelli lay.

“Is he dead?”  Emma asked, apprehensively.

Shannen nudged him with her foot.  

“Yeah.  I can’t believe I missed with that second shot,” she said dispassionately.

We sat side by side on the big fallen tree trunk.  Mary and I were shaking, mainly with the reaction to our ordeal, but partly with the cold.  Jill and Emma had taken off their jackets and given them to us, but they could still not prevent the shock setting in.  Not only had we nearly died ourselves, but we had seen a person killed in front of our eyes.  Jill and Emma were hugging us, but they, too, seemed overwhelmed by what had happened.

Shannen was the only one who seemed to be unfazed.  

“What are we going to do with…the body?” asked Jill of nobody in particular.

“I would have thought that was obvious,” said Shannen.  “There’s a hole missing an occupant here.”

“But you can’t do that!” Emma said.  “People will come looking.”

“Who’s going to look for this fuck?” Shannen demanded, her voice harsh in the stillness.  I saw that she was dealing with the problem in her own way, but also with a certainty which the rest of us didn’t have.  “There’s only his sister, and she wants nothing to do with him.  All she wants is her car back.”

There was silence from the rest of us.  Perhaps we were all thinking about how our lives had been turned upside down in the last two days, and how things had now been done which could not be undone.  Perhaps we were thinking about police, about trial by media, about the end of our peaceful lives in Bilboes, and about how it would effect every one of us, even Monica, Leila and Steven, currently sunning themselves in India.  

Nobody seemed to have a better plan.  Shannen had pulled the trigger, but none of us was rushing to turn her in.  Decisively, Jill stood up and squatted over the body, feeling in the pockets for identification.  She extracted a wallet, but that was all she found.  She looked up at Shannen and inclined her head questioningly towards the hole.  Shannen nodded and the pair of them rolled the body into the hole.  It dropped to the bottom with a soft thump.

Shannen picked up the gun and dropped it in after the body.

“I’ll come back with a spade and finish the job,” she said.  “Let’s get these two back to the house.”

*   *   *

While Emma made us a cup of tea on the gas camping stove as we huddled in the kitchen of the farmhouse, Jill and Shannen searched the place and removed all traces of Bennelli, piling his few clothes into a bag along with other belongings that would either be burnt or end up buried at the rubbish tip.

When Jill and Shannen went back up the hill armed with a shovel, Emma told us the story of how Shannen had helped them track Bennelli to his sister’s house, then how they had eventually found their way to the farmhouse based on his sister’s directions.  They had arrived in time to hear the first shots and had tracked us down just in time.

“Where did you get a rifle from?” I asked.

“That’s Shannen’s Dad’s.  Her folks are overseas on holiday, so we took the liberty of borrowing it.  Shannen grew up on a farm with four brothers.  She used to shoot kangaroos with them until she decided the sibling rivalry and the country mentality was too much and left for the bright lights of the city.”

*   *   *

Mary and I were sitting with our arms around each other’s shoulders, dressed in our leather and pvc clothes which we had retrieved on return to the farmhouse, when Jill and Shannen returned.  They both wore sombre expressions.

“You can hardly see it now,” Shannen said.  “The big log is over the top and it’s covered in leaves and dead branches.  Nobody will miss him, nobody will find him.”

“What will Monica say?” I ventured. “She’ll see our bruises.  Monica will know.”

“Monica will back us up,” Jill said.  “I’ll bet my life on it.  She’ll support all our actions – whenever she decides to come back from her luxury holiday, that is.”  She tried to put a little levity into her voice, but it was tinged with concern that she couldn’t disguise.  “I’m still wondering why she hasn’t phoned, though… “

*   *   *

21.02.05

story continues in Monica and the Black Fortress

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