PAST SHADOWS

By Edwin J McBride

MURDER ARRIVES IN BRAXTON...BUT THE KILLER IS ALREADY DEAD.

For young mother, Kimberley McIntyre, a dark past arrives to confront her with malice intent...and to threaten everything she has built for her new life...

As a near-death moment catapults Ashley McIntyre's realization that his marriage to Kimberley is over...but

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawline Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922594938

Edwin J McBride

Edwin McBride was raised in Rural NSW on a large property, where many of his early years were spent alone in the vast landscape. Edwin has been writing since an early age with over 35 years of writing experience that includes fiction and Non-fiction, magazine articles, TV/radio and film screenplays, along with hundreds of blogs and website copy. A BA in Media Law and Marketing, he is a passionate creative who enjoys learning, dining out, wine appreciation and exploring the wonders of the spirit...

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Past Shadows Copyright © 2021 by Edwin J McBride. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in Australia

First Printing: November 2021

Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

www.shawlinepublishing.com.au

Paperback ISBN-13 9781922594921

Ebook ISBN-13 9781922594938

Thank you to Kim, who passed too young and who lived too short of her own story.

The one who showed me history can matter as much as the future.

This book is for the readers…may they always do so.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PART TWO

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

PART THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

PROLOGUE

It was not the scent of the ocean water below the cliff, pounding the worn wall with unrelenting waves. The cold, salt air was still. The noise of waves rhythmical, hammering in the distance. The moonlight of the night dancing far into the horizon. It was the pungent odour of burning flesh doused by petrol that made his heart pound and his head spin. What fuelled his excitement was the raging heat from within the fire that reached towards the darkness of the night, in defiance of the sky. The fire, one he imagined every minute of the three-hour drive from Sydney, now devoured the life he left behind. As he neared the coastal mountains of solitude and the sparse ocean panorama beneath the cliffs, his excitement became his reality.

The flames red and orange, tipped with whipping, yellow streaks that lunged into the high black sky; created heat that pelted his flesh, sucking from it the moisture of his essence. The shell of the vehicle it engulfed was now a hollow of fire and a crumbling of destruction. The crackling rage of the fire was like an untamed symphony in perfect, chaotic harmony. The first flames had come from the backseat where he had thrown a lit fuel rag stuffed into the neck of an empty Jack Daniels bottle, which he’d drained of spirit earlier. Within minutes, the flames had engulfed the internal compartment of the car with hunger. One thing he admired about fire was no matter where it was, as long as it was alive, everything else would be destroyed.

The dead body of a stranger he’d grabbed as he’d fled, had burnt like plastic and chalk; the skin melting and popping like hot wax as it dripped from the skeleton. This stranger was to be his body when found; assumed he had been digested by the flame. The soul of his previous life was now in this stranger, who had unknowingly and somewhat unwillingly at first, helped to set him free. This person of no other use to anyone now, had matured in life to represent true purpose in this moment. The dark figure, lit by the orange glow, laughed out loud, spinning on his spot at the edge of the cliff with his arms out to the stars.

‘What do we do now, Lord?’ he yelled with knowing in his tone. ‘We fucking live like the devil intended! Free of rules and religions. I will make the pain of my life, the pleasure of my after-life and who’s gunna stop me?!’ more laughter throughout darkness.

Another collection of minutes and the fire’s rage had broken out of the shell and attacked the body of the stolen car. He watched it swallow the vehicle like hungry lions ravaging a helpless corpse brought down in a well-executed hunt. The fuel tank of the car exploded from beneath, flipping it into the air with a thunderous explosion and then crashing down with the crunching of steel coated in sparks and fire. The radiating glow of orange heat danced in the depths of his green eyes. The mix of the heat and the glowing light against his body made him feel free of everything that once hindered him. He had never benefited from an education, only that which life had taught yet in the moments of fire and destruction, he believed he’d found what the world sought; a true immortal state of being.

For a long time, he had waited to stand before the fires of hell and sell his soul to the beguiling darkness. The car’s flaming skeleton was homage to his freedom and a pledge that from this day forward he will strive to destroy anything that attempts to take his life away from him and burn anyone who holds any part of his past in knowing.

He stood in the amber glow, dressed in the stranger’s long overcoat and wearing a dead man’s baseball cap. Parked over by the deserted roadside was another blue Falcon, as arranged by a fat-fuck named ‘Schultz’. He would not have to report to his parole officer on Thursday, as he was now dead. He had easily two weeks’ grace before the police figured most of this mess out; discovering he was not the victim of the fire; he would complete the rest of his preparation by this time. Next thing to do was get the money from his dead mother’s estate, which she’d left him years ago when he had her and her dickhead third husband murdered in their sleep. Never again would there be anyone to tell him he was a no-good loser, or to burn him with cigarettes until he screamed in agony over his welting flesh. There will be no governor telling him to behave like a good prisoner as his guards smashed his face and broke his bones. No, there would be nothing to stop him from being free; to deter him from doing what he had to do. Women who had once declared love or poured out lies like honey on bread; women who had betrayed him and left him alone in the pit of hell to fend off his warders and fellow inmates with the only thing he had left; his rage. They will all die. Women are not fit to be loved, only fucked and fowled. Once bred with, they should be killed.

His hand had worked quickly along his shaft with expert practice as he thought about the death and pain of those he would kill. He felt the tremor of orgasm ripple through his muscles as he came, sending pulsating fluid into the cold air of the night; the visions and passions of his bloody fantasy lingered in his mind as his body trembled with pleasure. He tucked himself back into his jeans, wiping his hand on his shirt and leaned against the blue car, reaching into his newly borrowed coat and removing cigarettes. As he lit one, with smoke filling his chest, he felt the sensation of power build within him. He looked down at the sand, seeing his white semen glowing in the orange firelight. He raked his foot across the sand and buried it. He wasn’t overly concerned, as tomorrow Schultz had a truck coming to push the car over the edge and tip fresh soil across the ridge. He hated police.

He had spent too long in a cage, and he would never be trapped again. He will literally die before he is imprisoned again by anyone and kill anyone who tries to take him there. He will punish those weaker than him and those who previously punished him. He will become what so many before him had tried to be but failed - a cancer on humanity. He had the perfect plan; more money than he dreamed, and most of all, he had the utmost contempt for every living thing, even himself.

PART ONE

‘Your past is always your past.

Even if you forget it, it remembers you…’

— Sarah Dessen

ONE

The bushes whipped at her body constantly thrashing her tender flesh. She tripped, skidded into the coarse earth. The pain of her grazing escaped her lips in a soft cry. She lifted herself, legs barely able, and began dragging forward. She didn’t want to die. She wasn’t a bad person. She’d seen the news; the stories of a killer stalking nightclubs and bars for young women. She’d heard of the two prostitutes found raped and murdered last week; and then there was a fifteen-year-old found strangled in the woodlands a fortnight ago.

Would she become one of these foolish girls? No pity given her. Another victim who deserved her fate, by a cynical public of hypocrites who judge the world of tragedy and sadness from the false illusion of security in their own lives; thinking it would never happen to them. She hadn’t always been a prostitute. She’d gone to Braxton High School, had great friends, yet it’d been washed away in a pain she knew only as a husband. A horrible, narcissistic man who held her more as a prize than a person. He beat her, starved her, until she had escaped him. Leaving his torment for the humility of the streets. Unable to face friends and family, feeling always alone and scared. She never wanted this, never wanted to get pregnant when she was nineteen and marry the devil. Her father had always been good to her. It was his love and support after her mother had died that made her want to do well in life. She studied hard at school and gained good grades, enough to be accepted into university to get a teaching degree. She’d never told him what she was doing for work now. As far as he knew, she was a real estate receptionist, yet he would soon learn the truth. All her life would be exploited as a lie; he would not understand anything about the little girl he thought he knew. Her foolish pride had led her here.

She would never have asked her father for help. She wanted to show him she could do it on her own. Maybe she hoped she’d never have the need to tell him. That she would get her shit together. Dear Lord, him knowing was suddenly worse than her fear of dying; a hopeless vision of her father shaking his head over her grave, asking to the sky, why? His pain and guilt so desperate to understand and one thing she never wanted him to feel. She cried out in sudden rage at herself; at this situation and all its unbearable outcomes. Her voice sounding distant; not her own, as if she was in a terrible dream where this was not real and she would wake up safe in her father’s arms, assured this bad place was nothing more than a true nightmare. She slowed her running, feeling her breath short and cutting in her chest. She wiped her face; the sticky dryness of her blood smeared across her cheeks and up into her damp hair.

She was always told how beautiful she was, even from those who didn’t pay her for the privilege of her body. She was always her father’s princess; he made her feel special. She was tall and slim, with long muscular limbs. She worked out at the gym twice a week; knowing her body was her money-maker, yet now she had no strength left to even breathe. Her large brown eyes were puffy and blood-shot, and everything ached with trembling fear. Yet, her heart pounded in her chest like a V8 engine at full throttle, and this meant she was still alive. The decision in her mind made; to force her body to run again, and faster, there came the certain thumping of footsteps. Large and heavy steps crushing the foliage of the earth beneath them. It was followed by a steady, strongly focused breathing that made the beating foot work a melody of concentrated stride.

It was the killer the papers wrote about. And she was his prey. He’d picked her up on the street hours ago. He was dark featured, with deep red hair and a thick beard cut short along his jawline, and he was tall and thick. Large hands controlling the small car he drove. He smiled and talked calmly. He didn’t give her his name, and even if he had, she wouldn’t have believed him; most guys gave her fake names. He’d driven her here; to a house in secluded woodland. She’d felt a tingle of discomfort as they’d pulled up, yet he was offering her six hundred dollars for the night. She needed the money. He’d let her inside the weather-beaten old farm house. It smelled musty and stale, as though it had been closed up for years.

Why had she followed? Strangely knowing then she should’ve run. Her fear had been confirmed when he’d hit her so hard, her head felt like it had fallen off her neck. She crashed to the solid wood floor completely dazed, tasting blood flowing from her cheek, gasping for breath amongst the dust about her. He stood over her, shadowed in the dim light of the house. He grabbed her and lifted her, hit her again and again before releasing her to stumble back and collapse more dazed against the wall. She slid to the floor as he came at her again. She shook her head, waved her arms in limp protest as he scooped her up with ease.

He’d torn her clothes off. She’d wanted to scream, but knew he’d have beaten her unconscious if she’d made a sound. She just had to let him finish with her, and then she’d get out somehow. He’d raped her so hard, long thrusts stabbing into her chest. He’d hit her repeatedly before he finally trembled within her. He’d placed himself in her mouth after tearing himself from inside. The taste of blood and semen engulfed her tastes. He’d driven himself into her throat, gagging her, but she’d closed her eyes; forced her breath through her bleeding nose as best she could. He came again into her throat and then smashed her face several more times with his large fist. The whole time he’d been yelling at her, calling her names and profanities. Everything was blurred and filled with painful affliction that she had no focus or sense of anything happening.

For a second, he’d turned from her. Her chance to escape; she’d thrashed out her legs, connecting his groin with her feet. He’d doubled over; screamed at her as she’d scurried across the floor toward the door. He’d come at her, clawing at her on the floor. She’d kicked at him wildly, screamed as he’d fallen away. A cry no one would hear. She’d run out into the night. Naked, dazed, hurting, as she’d fled for the streetlights across the bushes. She was nearly there, in the safety of the light before her. Her nose was broken, she was sure of it, and as she took a deep breath; the pain of it was filled with the smell of lavender about her. She slowed her stride; a stitch in her side, tearing across her back and hips. She stooped, tried to keep going. She knew only metres before the road; her hunch confirmed as a car flashed past with headlights blazing the woods with brightness. She called out in desperation, but the sound of the car vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She stopped, listening for his steps, for his breathing as he bounded behind her. She looked, but there was darkness, silence. Had he given up?

Then suddenly, he was before her, his large hand striking her face before she could scream in shock. Fresh blood splayed across her swollen face and delirious pain riveted through her skull. Her legs weakened and buckled beneath her. He was standing over her, looking at her like the most pathetic person on the face of the earth. She could feel him smile down at her battered and beaten body sprawled before him. She shook her head weakly, starting to crawl back from him. This is not how she wanted to die. She pleaded aloud; her words barely distinguishable through swollen lips.

She wanted to run, but her body was unresponsive. The gashes from the sprint through the woodland were drying, becoming tacky blood clots over her body. She continued scrambling backward, her eyes wide and unblinking; two white bulbs staring out through a mask of dark blood that veiled a once beautiful face. Large, swollen eyes fixed on him as if he were the embodiment of all her terror.

‘Hath ma’cy! Why’th’re ya dointh thith? I donth wanth to die’th!’ she screamed into silence, a muddled plea of horror. The warmth of urine flowed down her thighs; the salty essence stinging her open cuts. The trembling of her legs became spasmodic as he leaned down to her. Her lungs released a scream; one that burned in her throat. Her scream choked in his hands. The large and powerful instruments grabbed her throat. He lifted her to him. She could smell the haunting odour of his fresh sweat. It choked her desperate gasp for air. This was it. She was to be a statistic. Fear left her suddenly and a tranquil calm fell over her. She closed her eyes. If this was it, then let it happen quick. He jolted her eyes open, speaking with words that spat hate into her face. She could not make sense of anything he said, only smell the decayed scent of cigarettes on his breath. There was the snap of sudden death and a small cry as he broke her neck.

He released her. She fell at his feet. Dead, twitching slightly with death’s last acknowledgment as he stood looking down at her with satisfied smugness. He waited for the seconds to pass; her body at his feet, then still. He leaned down and lifted her soulless flesh onto his large, rounded shoulder. The wetness of her blood flowed down his back as her head bobbed freely against his middle back. He ignored the smell of her urine and the feel of her clammy skin. He focused on where his next new victim would be found. He would leave a trail for the police to follow, yet they’d never get close to him. He was already dead. He had no existence but in the obscure memory of another lifetime almost long forgotten. The pain of which filled his new life with power and told him he would make the past pay for his pain.

Tomorrow he would resume his role as a dutiful mortal man at the shitty job he carried out to protect his power, and to harness money for the fulfillment of his purpose. Then at night, he would be reborn to wreak havoc on the world that had judged him. The world that had incarcerated him. And to make all the sluts that abandoned him pay the penance they deserved. The sluts who’d said they’d loved him, but then just left him. He would be more than those before him, and the bitches will know his hate, since no love was ever shown for him.

TWO

Ben flicked his zippo. Staring at the flame as it rode across the top of the lighter with little effort. The smell of the kerosene wafted about him with a pleasing sense of history. He’d given up smoking ten years ago and had honestly thought he’d lost the lighter he held. As he looked at it, he had the same strange desire to have a smoke again, even after all this time. He shut the lighter and tossed it back into his drawer. He rubbed his face slowly, hoping the stretched skin would not wrinkle any further. He hated fighting with her. They seemed to be arguing more often, so much so, it had become easier not to say anything at all. Yet this morning, when the dreaded four am call woke him, Maxine had risen with him; making him aware the conversation of last night was to be resolved before he left for the day.

Detective Inspector Ben Doherty watched his beautiful wife of seventeen years, Maxine as she spread toast by the sink in the kitchen of their four-bedroom home. Her knuckles white as she held the knife hard. She whacked it down on the counter and shoved the toast in her mouth with the conviction of a starving child. He sipped his coffee and smiled weakly at her when she glanced over to him, leant up against the bench. He knew what it was about. Maxine had received a call from Adam, their only child, and given Adam’s unsettling circumstance, Maxine had a right to be annoyed with Ben.

‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked her coolly, placing his coffee on the counter, straightening his tie in order to keep his composure. He would often get anxious when Maxine was on the offensive.

‘Nothing, Ben. Nothing at all.’ she answered, her words muffled by a mouthful of food. ‘He’s your son, why would you want to say anything?’

‘He’s our son and he’s also twenty-four years old. He should’ve known better.’ Ben said, taking a sip of his coffee when he didn’t really want to. ‘Look, he did something stupid, he will learn from this.’ Ben realised as he said it, how futile it had sounded. Maxine looked at him, her eyes moistened with tears.

Ben’s first wife had been killed in a car accident nearly twenty years ago, and for quite some time he and Adam had been left on their own to fend the unknown world of single parenthood. Ben had worked hard, leaving young Adam with grandparents and care-givers alike. It was when Adam started primary school that Maxine came into their lives as Adam’s teacher. Ben never spoke to anyone about his wife’s death, or how lonely he’d been, struggling with raising Adam on his own. Maxine asked Ben out for dinner following a meeting at the school about Adam. She’d said she wanted to talk to him privately about Adam and his schooling; he had been having trouble fitting in. They’d met for dinner, and before either of them knew what was