Read Online Beyond Life by Deb McEwan - Free Book Online Page A

and would soon wake up. When the child realised that the nightmare was the reality of her existence, all hope disappeared and she sat on the bed sobbing her heart out. The memories of her family’s murder came back to her, but before that she remembered the face of the group’s leader who had raped her, and slapped her when she screamed with the pain. Her insides ached just thinking about it. She had scurried back to her family and now in her mind’s eye she saw the picture of her mother being violated by a number of men. First by the one who had ruined her and then the others one at a time, while her father had been forced to watch. She could still hear the laughter of the others as they watched and Mary had had to bite her fingers until they bled, to stop herself from screaming out loud. They were all flung on top of each other like rubbish bags, after the men had finished, and bullets were fired as their attackers watched and laughed. And now, just when she thought she might have had a chance at a decent life, they wanted to turn her into an underage sex slave. Strange men would prod and poke her and she would have to perform for them and commit acts that she could never have imagined doing, until Tamara had slowly and calmly explained it all. And if she refused, they wouldn’t feed her or allow her to sleep and she would die of starvation and exhaustion. There was one small consolation that if she kept secret would ruin their evil lives as much as they would ruin hers. She didn’t dwell on that information because the personal consequences were too frightening. Mary’s final thought before her body collapsed into a fatigued sleep, was that she must be a really evil child to be punished so much before she even had a chance of reaching adulthood.
    *****
    ‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ Claire said out loud. She’d seen and heard enough and wanted to get back to safety to process the niggling thoughts in the back of her mind about this latest child abuser. The spirits that hadn’t appeared to notice her presence before turned away from their human and looked directly at her. Claire knew she was in trouble and hoped she’d be able to return to Cherussola before they caught up with her.
    *****
    Marion had been crying again but gave herself a good talking to about pulling herself together. Val was dying to know what had happened while she’d been out in the bush but remained calm and quiet until Marion was ready to explain. Seeing how upset she was, Val knew it must have been something awful and let Marion talk at her own pace, without interruption.
    ‘A lion attacked and killed Mary and they think that’s what happened to the other girls,’ her hand covered her mouth as she thought of the awfulness of the situation. ‘But how could? When...’
    ‘When you were out sightseeing with your...’ Marion looked down, refusing to make eye contact with Val, but the disgust showed on her face now that she’d regained her composure.
    Val had had enough. ‘I’ll have you know that the Land Rover broke down,’ she stood up and banged her fists on the chair arms, both women chose to ignore the clouds of dust that jumped from the chair and slowly floated back down. ‘We would have been back much earlier and trust me, it wasn’t fun out in the bush, wondering if we were going to survive until the morning.’ That wasn’t strictly true but Val wanted to make her point. She leaned toward her friend, her face inches away from Marion’s. ‘If you weren’t so bloody jealous, maybe you’d have noticed that before this awful news, I was the happiest I’d been in ages.’
    ‘Jealous! Jealous! Me?’ For God’s sake, Val, you can’t seriously think...’
    ‘This conversation is over, Marion. My focus now is to look after the children and ensure their safety. I thought we were meant to be friends but obviously...’
    ‘Is now a bad time?’ neither of them noticed that Gary had entered the room.
    ‘No,’ said Marion and Val