Protest poster in West End, Meanjin.
Day Two.
3.04am
IT was ol’ Mangled Jizzy that found those kids, the very first ones, y’know.
Young Donk Cowie’d parked his old man’s RAM – bloody ridiculous vehicle for a dentist – down by the flood marker off Crooked Stream Lane. Jizz told us it looked like the silly bugger’d been trying to get into young Shelsta Gabbatt’s knickers when they’d been taken.
By that I mean he found her knickers, soiled, and a half unrolled French Letter, if you catch my meaning.
The ‘paper, well, the ‘paper’s Facey page, The Coffin Creek Investigator, didn’t really get much into the details, barring that the cops were “treating the situation as suspicious”, “appealing to the public for information” that “parking in a flood zone is hazardous” and to “please welcome investigating officer Constable Ray Fistwell to The Creek”.
That sort of D-grader city journo bullshit.
Ol’ Jizzy may have been as mad as three cut snakes in a Whirlpool, but he’d also been a pretty handy snapper in the day.
He had The Eye, didn’t miss a bloody thing, much to our occasional chagrin.
That means it pissed us off, kid.
Anyway, we’d been shouting Jizz a round or ten when he’d spilled his guts on all the spilt guts.
“Looked like a feral pig what done it, lads. Pulled them kids out the cab before poor ole Donk had a poke, let alone a sniff of his fingers. Not right. Blood and shit and hair and all sorts everywhere. No bodies but. What squealer does that? Drags two kids off and… disappears? ”
Well, none of us had had a fucken clue, and the bastard 4G internet was out again, so we – we being town quack Doc Liversedge, me missus Narelle and Jimbo Paddock… yes, the Mayor (don’t get too excited, kid, that was 10% of Coffin Creek’s population there at the bar) – decided to leave the mystery to the no-doubt exemplary deductive abilities of the new town copper, Fistwell.
For now.
7.15am
Wasn’t long before them deductin’ skills were back in demand, neither.
You’re loca – you’ve heard of Snake Marks, right? Nope?
Bloody hell, seriously, you kids – Snake, actual Christian name lost to the vapours of Creek lore, was Mayor ‘round here well before Jimbo’s time (not to mention me and ‘Relle’s).
This was back in the eighties, when state government spooks were scuttling around the valley, rattling gates.
You know, natural gas and all that? It was a dodgy business then and it still is, kid.
Anyway, I read up on Snake before ‘Relle and I decided to shift out here from the Goldie – his steampunk reimagining of Che’s life sealed the deal, t’be honest.
Yep, Snake was a capital ‘c’ Communist, and that drove the East Coast establishment mental. He’d really put it up ‘em when he was elected to state parliament, but Snake was also a capital ‘p’ Pisshead that all ended real quick, with broken limbs and a few less than exemplary headlines to boot. Disgraced anywhere with a population over 500, Snake moved back out to the Creek, bought the pub and spent the next thirty-odd years cranking out revolutionary tracts.
It was a life lived like a deadset bloody legend, a real town luminary, until about a week back, when I found one’ve Comrade Snake’s size-13 cowboy boots on my morning run. The blood on it was black, the other one gone.
Snake’s hip flask was thirty yards up the track, en route to his camper, bone dry.
The 4G was barely 3G that morning, but I got a sketchy line through to Constable Fistwell, who took his sweet bloody time getting there.
Valé Snake and all that…
Read the entire story in BLACK PILLS: 7 TALES TO ASTONISH & CONFOUND, out now!