JOURNAL OF A COFFIN DODGER CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I

A glowing cigarette marked the stealthy movements of two figures as they emerged from the shadows of a spreading Moreton Bay Fig Tree.

The dark-clothed figures, with cloth caps pulled low over their faces, moved through a full moon's gentle light towards a derelict building. Their shadows slithered alon the tire tracks which scarred the ground leading to the ash-smeared ruins.

The glowing cigarette fell to the ground as the figures drew closer to the blackened shells of two vehicles, while a third figure stood still in the shadow of a munted brick wall.

The third figure began writing in a notebook as harsh voices slashed the silence of the brisk night air.

'Two weeks since the fire, Bill, and any talk of what caused it?'

'I've heard nothin' since I've been away or since I returned to Sydney.'

A rusty wheel hub screeched as it scraped against a jumbled heap of blackened bricks. A rusty vehicle shell swayed in the moonlight.

Bill's voice snarled.

'Look at me bloody hand from touching that wreck. Covered in soot. A joy to drive that Riley Pathfinder. I'll kill the cunts who did this to it and the Holden. But I'll torture the bastards first for what they did to Mick.'

'What are you getting at, Bill? That Mick would still be with us if someone hadn't deliberately torched the building?'

'For bloody certain.'

'You know how I know? Well, I'll tell ya. But keep it to yourself. OK!'

A hacking cough interrupted the conversation.

Bill continued as the coughing ended.

'The bitch we were with, a good fuck, a real good fuck, was acting strange that night. When Mick started nodding off, I wondered if she had done something to our drinks. I wasn't feeling the best myself.'

'But when smoke swirled into the room we was in, I had no bloody doubts. That bitch moved out of that room, steady as a rock. But I was as unsteady as a dunny in a gale as I followed the slut out.'

'I was right behind her, about to grab her round her lying bitch's throat and choke the friggin' life out of her when I tripped and sprained me fuckin' ankle.'

'Flames and shit were falling like confetti at a wedding as I crawled out of that flaming mess. Jesus Christ! It was a near-fucking thing.'

'Poor bloody Mick, though.'

'I wanted to attend his funeral, but sticky-beaks stopped me from going.'

'You see, I didn't want to give those nosey parkers opportunities to ask me questions about stuff they have no right to know about. However, from what I've been told, Mick's buried out at Rookwood. I'll go over there sometime and visit his grave.'

'Yer, you're right, Bill. From what I saw at the funeral service, some of the asylum's chief busybodies went to that service. People, women mainly, who didn't know Mick. It was a wise move to stay away.'

'And you're spot on about Mick's death. It was a hell of a shame. He was a top bloke. But thank Christ! You got out.'

A sneeze paused the conversation.

'But you didn't hang around for the cops, eh?'

A chuckle drifted across the site.

'Not on your fucking life. They're only in the job for what they can get out of it. Like a pay-off. So, nah! I didn't stay around to talk to them because I don't trust the bastards.'

'So, what do ya reckon? The bitch had help?'

'I'd bet my life on it. Typical slut. Beddable, but no brains. Couldn't have done something like that without assistance.'

'Have to be a woman, though. You know where you are with blokes. They're upfront about what's happening. Women are sly and devious. Real snakes in the grass.'

'Any ideas who?'

'I've got some. My sister, Clare, shares a house up on the North Coast with one of the nurses from the asylum. I’ve asked Clare to dig around; I’ll chew over what she finds out and take it from there. The nurse is a good lookin' sort. Keeps her legs shut, though. A real ice maiden.'

'You're lucky, Bill, that you've found a woman you can trust. The ones I've met, their trust goes only so far as the last of my money.'

'Oh! Yer! Clare and I trust each other. We are close, real bloody close, have been since we were kids.'

A match flared, and a cigarette glowed as the figures slunk through the site. They stopped at the far end as moonlight cast a long, mournful shadow along the interior of a cold, green enamel bathtub.

'What a fucking awful way to go, eh? Poor bloody Mick. Trapped beneath a bloody, upturned bathtub. One day soon, I'll fix those bitches.'

Cigarette smoke spiralled towards the heavens, where a shooting star's flickering demise darted across a cloudless star-spangled sky.

'Come on. I've seen enough. Let's piss off.'

The glowing cigarette moved along the edge of the site as the third figure ceased writing.

Wayne returned the notebook to the pocket of his coat and leant against the ruined brick wall. His knees wobbled like a bowl of jelly as the two dark-clothed figures disappeared into the shadows of the Moreton Bay Fig Tree.

'Thank Christ! Mate! You found a place to hide,' I said to Wayne as I handed the typewritten transcription to Anne. She took the transcription and began reading as she sat in a lounge chair.

'Yer, I've never met Bill, but he sounds like a dangerous bastard. Not the sort of person you want to meet on a dark night,' Wayne replied as he looked at me while sitting on the sofa.

'Yer! Not the sort of person you want to tangle with.'

I said as I sat in a lounge chair at the other end of the sofa from where Anne was sitting. Who stood up while holding the transcription and walked to the end of the farmhouse's front veranda.

After he had picked up the phone and he and I had pleasantries, I said, 'I am phoning to ask if I may borrow your lovely Burnt Orange Kombi? I'll pay for the petrol.'

'No need,' he replied, 'what's the purpose?'

'A rescue mission,' I replied.

'Why am I not surprised?' Wayne chuckled. 'Who is it this time?'

'Two people,' I said, 'who I haven't met. Clare, who entered the asylum as a pseudo-inmate...'

'Yep,' Wayne interrupted, 'sorry for butting in. I heard about that social experiment from friends at uni. So, Clare was sprung?'

'Yes, the extent of her punishment, beyond incarceration, I am yet to find out.' 'So, what, you're not at the asylum?' 'I started annual leave today. Therefore, I don't know in which ward Clare is imprisoned. But I know where the other person, Jane, is incarcerated.' 'Jane is locked up because...?'

When I phoned him and told him about the pseudo-inmates and the rescue mission he was stoked. He felt conflicted that he was not able to join Samantha and I in rescuing Clare and Jane.

He was only too pleased, therefore, to lend me his Burnt Orange Kombi on a night for a fervid imagination to conjure up yarns about ghosts.

That night clouded over as Samantha peered through the windscreen of the parked Kombi towards the windows of a ward.

I flicked on my torch and turned towards the back of the van and shone the torch over Clare.

She remained zonked out on the mattress.

The drool had stopped dribbling from her mouth, and her breathing rate was regular.

I turned back towards the front of the Kombi and switched off the torch as Samantha said, 'that light is still moving around.'

I shook my head and whispered, 'wonders will never cease. Like I said, this was beyond my expectations. I did not expect delays from a diligent night nurse doing a ward round.'

I looked through the windscreen at the light moving through the second storey of the ward.

'But aren't nurses meant to be doing ward rounds on a night shift?' Samantha asked.

'Yes,' I replied, 'but night nurses have a tendency to be plastered and zonked out, like the ones in the ward where we rescued Clare. Or not doing rounds because they are having it off with someone.'

'Like the male Night Charge Nurses in the Admin. Office who are supposed to patrol the grounds of the asylum at night.'

'God! I feel sick. This place is a never ending chapter of horrors,' Samantha replied.

'Anyway,' I said, 'let's give it a go. The nurse might have stopped their round by the time we reach the back door to the ward.'

Samantha nodded.

She opened the front passenger door and clambered out as I opened the driver's door and stepped out into the night.

I didn't dare mention my prays that male nurses hadn't stripped Jane and dressed her in an asylum nightie.

Samantha and I switched on our torches and made our way to the ward as a damp mist, carrying a whiff of a foetid swamp, swirled around us.

 We stopped at the door to the back entrance while I scanned the ward windows.

'The light has stopped moving. There is one light at the far end of the second storey. That's the night nurse's station.'

'Keep your fingers crossed Jane is not as bombed out as Clare,' I said to Samantha as I unlocked the door.

'Gawd! I pray she isn't,' Samantha replied. 'On top of what has happened to Clare, I don't want to think about that.'

I pushed open the door, and we stepped into a musty corridor.

As I had worked overtime shifts in this ward, I knew my way around it. Therefore, I knew of the other passageway that led off this corridor.

That one led past the Single Rooms.

Samantha was walking behind me as we walked along the musty corridor when, at the point of turning into that second passageway, I stopped.

A sudden shaft of light lit up the corridor that led past the Single Rooms.

A female voice called, 'is anyone there?'

'Hell! I whispered to Samantha, 'A conscientious nurse! Let's scoot'

Samantha clamped her hand over her mouth as, with careful, quick steps, we turned around and returned to the back entrance.

We walked through the doorway, which I had left open as I didn't expect anyone apart from Samantha and I, to be walking around the asylum.

I locked the door behind us.

We walked beside a cold stone wall away from the doorway towards a corner of the building.

The corner was a short distance from the doorway.

We ducked around the corner, switched off our torches and crouched down.

I was nearest the corner and peered around it as torchlight shone through the doorway as another female voice called out, 'is everything all right, Fiona?'

'Blimey!' I whispered to Samantha, crouched down beside me, 'two conscientious asylum nurses! What's the world coming to?'

'We'll next see Jesus Christ himself, walking across the water from Manly to Circular Quay if this keeps up!'

Samantha grinned and dug me in the ribs.

She whispered, 'stop making me laugh. Not now. It's not fair when I have to keep as silent as possible.'

A second beam of light joined the first.

Both beams scanned the area outside the doorway as I turned my head away and settled down beside Samantha.

'I thought I heard someone moving around down here, Sue, as I came down the back stairs on my way to the kitchen. So I walked up the corridor past the Single Rooms and turned into the corridor that led to the back entrance.'

'As I didn't see anyone in the corridor, I opened the door to have a look around. But this mist makes it difficult to see much beyond the doorway.'

'Yer, wise to check Fi. We read that memo at the beginning of the shift about vehicles moving around the asylum at night and furniture missing from the wards.'

'I swear to God when we started a round I saw vehicle lights outside the ward. Not headlights, but parking lights.'

'The sort of thing I expected a vehicle to be travelling on as it moved around the grounds when it had no right to be in the place.'

'But then this damn mist closed in, so I don't know where the lights went.'

I turned to say something to Samantha.

I grinned as she hissed, 'Shush! Not a word!'

One torch beam went out as Sue said, 'Anyway, Fi, it's time for a smoke. Do you think we need to phone the Night Admin. Office?'

'Have you forgotten who is in the office tonight?' Fi replied.

'Oh! Gawd! I did. You're right. The rutting those blokes do on their night shifts in that office, I swear, leaves the rabbits in their burrows for dead.'

Fi laughed as the stench of cigarette smoke drifted through the foggy air.

'Even if we did ring, those blokes are too busy bonking to answer the phone. Let alone to come out and have a look around,' Fi commented.

'They're as bad as the male nurses in Banksia. You heard Chloe went to the pub with them the other night and they gave her a Mickey Finn?'

'Yer, I did,' Sue replied.

'I thought she knew what they were like and just how dangerous it is to go out with any of those blokes. After such nastiness, how is she doing?'

A dark shape loomed out of the fog.

It moved towards Samantha and I.

Samantha said in a shaky whisper, 'which way will we run?'

'My legs are too stiff to run,' I replied.

'Keep your fingers crossed. Let's take a chance on not having to run. I'll flick my torch on and off. Ready?'

Samantha nodded.

I pointed my torch at the shape and, with a quick movement, flicked the torch on and off.

In the brief burst of light, a possum stopped and stared towards Samantha and I.

'Oh! My God!' Samantha whispered. 'This night is turning out to beyond the scares of any Hollywood horror I have seen.'

She shook her head and said, 'What are the nurses doing? '

With my heart rate coming down, I peered around the corner.

I watched the glowing red tips of cigarettes moving near the doorway.

'Still smoking and chatting,' I said as I sat back against the wall.

Fi had the thread of their chatting as she said, 'Yer, you're right. Those Banksia blokes are a nasty lot.'

'What happened to Chloe is the stuff of any girl's worst nightmare.'

'To wake up in the morning, in an unfamiliar bed, in a strange room. Your clothes scattered across the floor and you don't know what happened the night before.'

'But Cloe says she's tough and will get over it. Time will tell, though, if she is pregnant.'

'Those blokes need to be booted out of Banksia. Why that hasn't happened is beyond me,' Sue said.

'If any of my daughters ever need the sort of help this asylum is supposed to provide, I'll scrape the money together somehow and send them to a private clinic. Anyway, that's the smokes finished.'

'And that chill in the air gives me the shivers,' Sue added. 'So, time to close the door and get our supper. Let's take it back upstairs with us and finish our game of Scrabble.'

'Bloody hell.' I whispered.

'Don't you dare say anything about conscientious asylum nurses. They are doing what they are paid to do,' Samantha said.

'I wasn't,' I protested as I struggled to stand up. 'I was just going to say, I am so stiff from crouching down, I'll need to stretch out my legs.'

The possum scurried away as Samantha stood up.

'Well, if that's really the case,' Samantha grinned, 'I feel the same.'

I leant against the wall as the circulation returned to my legs.

'Ready?' I whispered.

'Yep!' Samantha replied.

We flicked on our torches and with cautious steps, made our way to the back door.

I unlocked it and, with slow movements, pulled it open.

I shone my torch inside and said, 'it's clear.'

Samantha followed me through the doorway, and onto the corridor leading to the Single Rooms. I shone my torch along it. 'It too is clear.'

However, not one room door jutted out into the corridor.

'A human being occupies everyone of those rooms,' I whispered to Samantha. 'Locked by the nurses, in solitary confinement. That's just disgusting.'

'Anyway, I haven't met Jane.'

'So, as we walk along the corridor, shine your torch through the glass slats of the door. Let me know when you see her.'

The aroma of coffee and toasted cheese and onion sandwiches drifted along the corridor as we started our walk.

At the third cell, Samantha, shaking with excitement, whispered, 'She's here! Jane's in here.'

I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

Samantha had a quaver in her voice as she said, 'God! Give me strength. My damn legs are like jelly. But I will do this for Jane.'

Samantha crept into the cell and bent over the bed.

'Can you wake Jane?' I asked.

'Yep, but she's a bit tipsy,' Samantha replied as she helped Jane climb out of bed.

'She's dressed in her own clothes?' I asked.

Samantha nodded as she held Jane steady as they walked out of the Single Room.

'Thank Christ!' I muttered.

'Right! Let's save the intro's for later.' I said.

'If you're ok with walking Jane to the back door, I'll meet you there. When you reach the end of the corridor, wave your torch and keep walking.'

'I'll walk to the other end and keep watch. I'll meet you at the back door. Ok?'

'Yep,' Samantha said as she and Jane, with slow, cautious steps, began Jane's journey out of the asylum.

As the smell of frying bacon and burning toast meandered through the damp air of the corridor, I strode towards the end of the passageway.

When I reached there, I peered around the corner, towards a light at the end of a long corridor. The sound of a radio playing a pop song and the smell of tobacco smoke and alcohol drifted around me as I turned around.

I faced the corridor with the Single Rooms and noted Samantha's and Jane's progress along the passageway.

When I peered around the corner again, the sound of a radio had stopped.

Two advancing shafts of light had now replaced the extinguished light at the end of the long corridor.

Two torch beams, moving in my direction, now lit up that passageway.

With my heartbeat racing, and my breath coming and going in gasps, I turned towards Jane as she waved her torch.

I signalled with mine, and with a sense of relief, strode back past the six Single Rooms, closing Jane's cell door as I did so.

As I reached the end of the corridor, Fi's voice echoed along the passageway.

'We forgot to check the Single Rooms when we were down here earlier. Will we do it now?'

During the pause that followed, I stopped and held my breath until I heard Sue's slurred reply.

'Nah! Let's do it later, after we have our supper.'

I took several deep breaths as I resumed walking towards Samantha and Jane at the back door.

I left the door unlocked as I followed Samantha and Jane through the doorway.

Standing on either side of Jane, while holding her arms, Samantha and I walked Jane towards the Kombi.

When we reached the vehicle, I opened the sliding door.

With Samantha’s help, Jane climbed in and settled onto the mattress.

Before Samantha climbed in to join her, I said, 'I'm going to double back and finish unlocking the down stairs doors of the wards where we rescued Jane and Clare. I'll also drive to a couple of other wards and do the same.'

I smiled and said, 'later, I will narrate the ghostly story behind this deed.'

'Apart from that, this action will create confusion and cover our tracks.'

Samantha nodded, climbed into the van, and lay down on the third mattress beside Jane.

I closed the sliding door and returned to the ward.

After I opened the downstairs doors, including the five remaining Single Rooms, I returned to the van as a playful, cool breeze worried the fog, scattering it into the night.

I climbed onto the driver's seat and drove to the ward where the male nurses had imprisoned Clare.

In that ward, I not only unlocked the remaining downstairs doors, but the upstairs dormitory doors as well.

I unlocked the downstairs doors of two other wards, then drove the Kombi back to the asylum’s back entrance and switched on the headlights.

With a sigh of relief and tears of happiness glistening in my eyes, I drove out of the asylum, up a laneway and onto Victoria Road.

The distant lights of the city never looked better as Victoria Road led the Kombi over the crest of Gladesville Bridge.

As the van descended the other side of the bridge, I headed through Drummoyne and onwards to Vaucluse, home, and safety.

When we reached our place in Wentworth Avenue, I parked the van on the front lawn near the porch, switched off the ignition, and doused the lights.

I heard the sliding door rattling open as I climbed out of the front of the van.

I met Samantha standing at the open back door of the van.

'We did it! We did it! We did it!' she said, with tears in her eyes, hugging herself and jumping with joy.

'You betcha!' I replied. 'We rescued both of them. I'll go inside, put on lights and turn down the sheets on the bed in the downstairs bedroom. We'll bed Clare down in there, OK?'

Samantha nodded.

When I returned, Samantha and I lifted and dragged Clare out of the Kombi and into the house. We entered the downstairs bedroom and put Clare on the bed.

I took off Clare's sandshoes and socks and placed them under the bed while Samantha loosened Clare's jeans.

I then rolled Clare onto her side, with her head on a pillow, and drew a sheet and blanket over her.

Samantha and I then returned to the Kombi, where we helped Jane climb out of the van.

Hand in hand, with slow, steady steps, Samantha and Jane walked into the house and upstairs to Samantha's bedroom.

I switched off the porch light and closed the front door behind me as I returned to the van.

After closing the sliding door, I climbed onto the driver's seat and drove the Kombi round to the back of the house.

I switched off the engine and said a prayer of thanks for Wayne lending me his Kombi. Reimbursement of petrol money for the journey to show my thanks was on my mind as I climbed out of the Kombi.