Desperate Need (Completed)

Chapter 24

My phone runs out of charge on Tuesday.

No charger.

No care to be contacted.

The phone remains dead on the kitchen counter while we spend our days making love and fucking like animals, exploring the block and cuddling up watching movies, simply living in joy of being together where no one can find us.

Our food starts running low on Thursday.

I take a quick trip on the back roads out of town to a supermarket about an hour away where the cops hopefully won't see me and catch onto my vehicle. I pay with cash and keep my cap on the entire time I'm in the small supermarket.

I take the dirt roads back to the block and stock up our pantry once again. We will be fine for another week now.

The clothing situation starts to become an issue on Saturday.

Running low on clean clothes with no washing facilities other than the kitchen sink I spend the day handwashing garments and Ashleigh hangs the items on a makeshift clothesline in the sun.

Our wardrobe is once again clean and ready to use by the end of the day.

The bush around us seems to grow tighter as our isolation extends into the week.

I hear noises that I haven't heard before as I sit in the crisp morning sun on Sunday and enjoy my morning coffee solo. Ashleigh still sleeping after the intensity of our love making the night before, the day before, the week before.

A stick cracks.

A bush rustles.

Somewhere off behind the van a few hundred meters. There must be an animal scavenging.

I hear a vehicle some way off, probably on the dirt road that serves as a back road to many of the bush blocks in this area. Un-gazetted, un-marked, the only way to find it is if you know it, and not many people know it. In the large area there are 7 different bush blocks all set far away from one another and all very large so 'neighbours' and 'visitors' are not a thing.

As I drain the last of the coffee in my cup I hear an odd buzzing noise, so faint it's barely audible, like a mosquito in the distance. But mosquitos don't buzz around in the mornings. Tilting my head to the blue sky I look around for what it might be but see nothing suspicious.

In fact I see nothing at all other than the expanse of blue sky and the green treetops all around.

"Cabin fever," I whisper to myself as I wonder if I actually heard the noise at all or if it was just my imagination.

Walking around the open space in front of the van I look out into the thick expanse of bush surrounding us like a blanket of protection. The trees tower tall, stretching to the sky like monuments of history that they have survived deforestation. The bushes and scrub fill the undergrowth like a fencing system between the trees, ensuring no space goes unfilled. Creating a wall of safety from the outside world who might want to peek in on our private arrangement. Wildflowers scatter across the ground providing splashes of colour to the backdrop. Pure natural perfection.

Far off in the distant bush the sunlight reflects and glimmers for the shortest second, bouncing off something metallic and for a moment my heart turns to ice. There is nothing metallic in the bush around here. There is nothing for the sun to be glinting off like that.

'Unless a bird found itself a shiny prize and is building a nest?' my higher reasoning suggests. Knowing there are many different birds living in this bush land and that many birds do indeed hunt shiny objects in order to find a mate I allow myself to relax again, knowing that we are safe and my imagination is simply overacting on things today. Maybe it's because I'm due back at work tomorrow and I've had no contact with the outside world for a week.

'Yes, that must be what is going on,' I convince myself.

Realizing that I have to return to work tomorrow I start calculating what I will need to do in my head as I walk back to the van; 'charge my phone and get in touch with Benjy, check voicemails, no doubt there will be shitloads, speak with Dan, check in with Stella and let her know I'm still around, make sure I've got a uniform for tomorrow – shit – uniform – I left the washing in the machine on Monday while the raid was going down and I didn't return to dry the clothes – Ashleigh's uniform was in the machine.' "Fuck," I say out loud to myself as I realize the police may now have possession of Ashleigh's uniform, the only clothes she wore to my house that night, and would have questions about what clothes she had on when she left my house on Sunday morning.

"Fuck," I say again as I realise they will want to ask me why I was washing it, why didn't she take the uniform with her.

"Fuck," I repeat once more as this new gravity hits me.