Ridge Creek (4 page)

To achieve his ‘step up’, he started working high paid jobs
for a local crime boss.  The nature of Tony’s exact involvement in their
business I will never know.  I did however soon work out that it didn’t take
him long to move high up within their ranks.

It was at this point he started the violence.  Little
blowups here and there that would end with a slap or a punch that left me in
tears but not too worse for wear.  He would usually storm out after these
episodes and not return until the next day.

As his temper (and his income) increased, he convinced me to
close the doors on my business and stay at home as a kept woman.  Wishing to
avoid further violence, I agreed.

Within a few short months I was nearly going out of my mind
with boredom.  Tony was however settled, although he often spent long periods
away from home.  It was these long absences that eventually led me to beg him
one night to let me go back to work.  To my shock he agreed. 

On one condition.

I build a website for
him
. 

It seemed simple enough.  He just wanted me to pull together
an online ordering system for several Fish and Chip shops that he had
‘interests’ in across the suburbs. 

With great gusto, I happily got to work and designed ‘the
online ordering system’ to end all online ordering systems for Fish and Chips
in the country.

I was happy, Tony was happy. 

We were happy.

Until the day I noticed something odd about the data showing
in reports on the ordering system.  A whole new series of voucher codes were
starting to show in the databases that I did not design, nor enter as values
myself.  Being the sole administrator for the system, alarm bells went off. 
Someone else was accessing my database.

Approaching Tony about the inconsistencies, I was met with
outright fury that I would question any of the codes on the site and told to
‘just fucking ignore them’.

I wish I had.

Unable to sit idly by while this weird anomaly appeared to
be escalating on my own website, I tracked code and soon discovered there was a
hacker on my site.  Tracking the hacker back by using another hacker friend I
met during my time at University, I was horrified to discover my hacker was a
woman.

Similar in age to me, and even worse, similar in looks. 

But that was not the worst of it.

The worst of it came to a head one night while Tony was out
‘on business’.    This particular night my hacker friend and I decided to
‘stake out’ my website hacker’s house.  We had planned to do this in hope that
we could hack into her private home network and do some damage of our own. 

It was to my absolute horror that I discovered on arrival
that her network may have been secure, but her window furnishings were not. 

As clear as day, I had the pleasure of watching my boyfriend
Tony giving it to her doggie style on her couch, in her front living room. 

I was shattered.

Driving me home, my friend had tried to insist I just let it
go and leave him.

Again, I wish I had.

Confronting Tony about his affair with my hacker led me to
darker days.  Through various explosions and beatings, Tony gradually let slip
a few details explaining how he and his hacker girlfriend had set up a huge gun
and prostitute ordering system through my Fish and Chip website. 

I was gutted.

He had turned my baby into a filthy whore.

And that’s how I ended fucking this all up.  Mortified that
my ‘ordering system to end all ordering systems’ was being abused, I waited for
Tony to leave the house one afternoon and got down to business.

I shut down every single page of my website and deleted
every single file from all my servers. 

Backups included.

There was no way I was going to continue to let my baby be
abused by filthy pimps and gunrunners.

I had barely finished my massive clean-up when the front
door slammed and Tony stormed in to see me sitting innocently at the kitchen
table.  I had just finished my system rollback and was closing my laptop.

“What the
fuck
have you done?” He roared.  His face
red, every vein popping up purple and threatening to explode through his skin.

Thinking it was a bright idea at the time, I calmly
explained it to him.  It wasn’t until I had finished my prizewinning little
speech that I realized the error of my ways. With deadly calm, Tony turned his
back on me and walked away.  I was stupid enough to believe that this was good
and the matter was done with.

No.

Returning less than a minute later, I found myself staring
smack bang into the barrel of a large, shiny silver pistol.

Fuck.

“Put it all back,” were the only words I heard as he swung
the pistol and clocked me across the face.  That was the first injury that
closed my right eye over.

Staring at him blankly, my senses reeling, I calmly advised
I couldn’t.  It was all gone.  Covering me in spit, he roared into my face at
full volume, “Do you realize what you have just fucking done?  You’ve killed us
both.”

Dragging me from my chair, he threw me down on the kitchen
floor.  Clipping the table with my shoulder on the way past, my shoulder
dislocated.  Not happy with my shrieks of pain, he laid into me with his pointy
leather boots, breaking three ribs with his effort.

It was then that I found myself grabbed by my hair and I was
dragged into our lounge room.  With complete savagery, Tony lost his mind and
started screaming at me about being a whore.  Dazed and confused with all the
pain, I didn’t understand what he was about to do when he ripped my pants down
to my knees, knelt on my stomach and jammed his gun inside me.

Screaming in agony, he ignored my pleas to stop as he
pummeled me bloody with both the butt and the barrel of his gun.

At some point during all of this I stopped screaming and I
stopped fighting.  I was praying for death.

Finally calming down slightly, I watched as he slowly rose
off my smashed body and started pacing the room.  Slowly and without saying a
word, I pulled my pants back up.  There was blood everywhere.  I stared at the
blood with a blank mind.  I was past caring.

After a couple of minutes of pacing, Tony finally stopped
and stared at me.  “They won’t kill me if I kill you first,” he announced
slowly.

Even this statement didn’t move me enough to care.  I simply
closed my eyes and waited patiently to die.  This was it.  A bullet would
finish me and it would all be over. 

Thank God.

The next thing I knew, Tony’s hand was wrapping itself in my
long hair and I was dragged by out the back door and into his car.  One armed,
smashed and brutalized, I did not resist.

He drove like a madman to one of his Fish and Chip shops. 
At the shop he dragged me out of his car, told me he planned to shoot me in the
head and then drop me a mineshaft.  He then shoved me into the back of a
delivery van and we were off.

We had been driving for what seemed like
hours. 
I
had spent the entire time imagining my final moments knelt in front of a
mineshaft as he held his bloody gun to my head and pulled the trigger.  It was
then that the divine intervention happened.

The roller door at the back of the truck popped up.  Just
like that.  We hit a bump and
pop
, it was up.

It took me a few minutes of staring at the dark forested
road disappearing in front of my eyes to realize I had a chance at freedom.  It
took me a few more minutes of deliberation before I made my decision.  But in
the end what did I have to lose?

So I did it. 

I threw myself out the back of a fast moving delivery van
and prayed to god that I survived the fall.

I did.

And now, looking over at the tired, sexy biker man who saved
me from the side of the road, I realise I still need to
run.

Even Crying Hurts

Looking slowly around me, I try to decide what looks
‘stealable’ to wear.  I’m currently naked and I’m sensing there wasn’t much of
my own clothing left on me before they undressed me anyway.  Even in my current
pain ridden state, I look around the filthy room and decide I can’t wear
anything that is lying on the floor.  It would just be insanitary.

Noticing a large tallboy covered in more ‘crap’ over to the
side of the room, I decide it is the best place to start my search for clean
clothes.  Grimacing as I move, I feel the Fires of Hell descend on my back and
ass as I start to slide myself towards the edge of the bed.  Clenching my fingers
against my palms, I stifle the urge to cry out as I finally shuffle my way
carefully to the edge of the bed.

It is as I start swinging my feet to the floor that I hear a
snuffle and the snoring stops.  Instantaneously alert and terrified Jake is
awake; I freeze and turn slowly to see what he is doing.  Studying him
carefully, I watch as his chest continues to rise and fall in a steady rhythm
and I realize he has only stopped snoring.  He’s still asleep.

Thank God.

Gently placing my bare feet on the floor, I feel more
burning and pulling across my back and left ass cheek.  My ribs grab and my
shoulder twangs.

Great.

With another snuffle, Jake resumes his snoring again.   Even
though it is a sound that right now I
want
to hear, it still makes me
jump.  My nerves really are shot.  Standing slowly, I am pleased with myself
for having made it this far.  Turning around, I gingerly pull a blanket from
the bed and wrap it around myself for cover.

With one final check that Jake is still snoring, I start
shuffling my way slowly towards the tall boy.

Reaching my destination I pull the top drawer open and
almost do a happy dance on the spot.

Clean
t-shirts.

Grabbing the first one available, I quickly drag it over my
head and let the blanket drop to the ground at my feet.  The shirt is about
thirty sizes too big on me and built for a Hulk.  It hangs to my knees.  It’s
also black and soft cotton and I dig the big Harley Davidson logo on its
front.  This shirt’s a keeper.

Wondering what I will find in the next drawer, I slowly
slide the top drawer closed and start working on the second drawer.  It is as I
am slowly inching the second drawer open that I hear a deep rumbling voice
coming from near the bed.

“Good idea sweetheart, but don’t think gettin’ dressed means
you’re leavin’.”

Fuck.

“I have to go,” I mumble to the tall boy drawer as I
continue to slide it open.  Finding various shades of blue jeans, I slide it
shut again.  There is no way I am going to be able to fit into Hulk jeans.

Grabbing for the next drawer, I yank it open a little more
desperately and find jumpers.   This is starting to get annoying.

Still hoping I might find some tracksuit pants or boxer
shorts in the fourth drawer, I start to bend down.  Unfortunately I hit a point
where the pain of the skin stretching on my back makes me yelp in agony and I
am forced to stop.

“Get back in bed woman,” Jake’s gravelly voice slices
through the air.

“I have to go,” I announce again, despair etching my voice
this time.

Thinking that I might be able to squat down to get to the
bottom drawer, I start to flex my knees and find another yelp escapes my lips
as my left ass cheek catches on fire.

Fuckity. Fuck. Fuck.

Tears of frustration hit the back of my eyes and I feel more
pain and burning behind the eyelid that is swollen shut.  With the tears unable
to escape, more fiery pain overtakes the right side of my face.

“Fuck.  I can’t even cry!” I shrill as I raise my left hand
to my face and feel the great balloon that is my face.  “Even crying hurts too
much so I can’t even do that.”

Swinging back to face Jake who is sitting up in his chair
watching me with a blank expression on his face I find my voice raising another
octave as I screech out, “Why didn’t you just let me fucking die!”

 
I watch as he cringes slightly but recovers quickly. 
Starting to rise out of his chair slowly, his green eyes are intense but his
face is once again blank.  I hear a soft click and look towards the door to see
Ellen poking her head inside, a look of confusion on her face as she stares at
the empty bed.  Frantically swinging her eyes around the room, she finds me
near the tall boy and her face softens.

“I’ve got this Ma,” I hear Jake rumble as he starts to
approach me where I am standing near the dresser.

“Please don’t touch me.  It hurts,” I moan softly as I start
backing slowly towards the tall boy.  “I have to get out of here.  It’s not –
safe.”

“I know it hurts sweetheart,” Jake murmurs softly to me as
he keeps approaching.  “I just want you to get back into bed.  You’re safe
here.  You don’t need to run, he won’t find you here.  You can stay here as
long as you want.”

A glimmer of hope sparks in the back of my mind.  I start
running through all the events of early this morning.  Working through each
scenario, I decide there is no way for Tony to work out where I currently am. 
As long as I don’t go anywhere public, he
won’t
know where I am.  He
couldn’t possibly know that I got on the back of a biker's Harley and ended in
a small town called Ridge Creek yet could he?

Perhaps Ridge Creek could be a safe place – for now?

I need time to heal.  Days, weeks, probably even months.  I
need somewhere to lay low while I recover.

“I can’t stay here, I need a place to heal,” I whisper the
words as I jam my eye shut and my mind and my mouth continue to rocket along. 
“I need to get to my money.  I can rent a place and hire a nurse or bodyguard
or something.  I need to buy another laptop.  I need to make sure that he
hasn’t somehow worked out how to turn my baby into a whore again.  I need to
get a big mother fucking dog.  One of those Dogue de Bordeaux’s or some other
heavyweight breed.  A massive Hooch dog that will be able to pin that mother
fucker down when he eventually finds me.  Which I know he will.  He’s got contacts
everywhere and he’ll already have put a bounty on my head.  I’ll also need a
gun.  Because after my Hulk dog pins that mother fucker down I’m gunna shove
my
fucking gun in
his
face.  Then I’m gunna smack him with it, twice. 
Hard, like he did to me.  Then I’m gunna shove that fucking gun right up his
arse. 
Then I’m gunna pull it out again and shoot a bullet laced with shit right
into his mother fucking mouth…”