Seven and a half murders
It’s been three weeks since Tash disappeared. They said she was a runaway. After all, she was seventeen and rebellious. She always had big ideas about what she would do after we escaped this town once we’d finished school. She hated this town as much as anyone who had lived here their whole lives. Port Lion has had a population of around Three and a half thousand since the 1950s. It is completely isolated; situated on the coast of Australia with at least 150 kilometres to the nearest city. Sometimes Tash and I would take the bus up to Koa Bay. It took us nearly three hours each way, leaving only a short amount of free time before we had to head home. I liked Koa bay. It was busy, with lots of things to do and so many people from all walks of life. But it was never a place I could see myself living. Tash, on the other hand, was the polar opposite. She loved the diversity and the crowded streets. She thrived in the environment with music from people busking in the street and the sound of trams and cars as people headed to work or grabbed their coffees from their favourite coffee shop. And when we left, I could always see the longing in her eyes as the city slowly faded behind us and the rugged seaside appeared.
But I knew Tash. We met in Kindergarten. We were both misfits. We never played chasey or football with the others. We only had each other once we reached high school. That was until we met Alex. Alex was never as close with Natasha as she was with me yet we formed an unbreakable trio. I had known her for almost thirteen years. I know that despite how much she craved the city life, she wouldn’t run away from the people she loved. From me. Her best friend.
A year ago Port Lion’s local serial killer had made their last kill. It was surreal. No one could fathom that a real life serial killer had passed through this small town, which wasn’t even on the map. For months we were in a lockdown. We were told not to leave our houses after eight o’clock and to keep our houses locked at all times. And yet that did not stop the killer. They made their way through our town, killing people at what seemed like random. Furthermore, the murders went unsolved. Each crime scene was spotless; each victim found with a single bullet to their head and a beautifully written description of their last moments typed and pinned to their chests with a single drawing pin. It is enough to make your skin crawl. After the seventh murder, they left. Now, nothing but radio silence. But now that Tash was gone, there had to be a connection. That was my theory at least.
Today is Tuesday. If Tash wasn’t missing we’d be listening to true crime podcasts while Tash made notes, I sketched, and Alex made friendship bracelets. We just work like that. Tash is the writer, I am the artist and Alex is the crafter. Tash is an amazing writer. She was always making notes and studying people to create complex characters for her writing. Since the killer tore through our town leaving in its trail a cluttered path of death, mourning and loss, I can’t bring myself to listen to another podcast. It’s just a little too close to home.
Now I sit with Alex in the dunes at Penguin Cove. I look over the water, feeling the soft cool sand beneath me and listening to the waves roll gently in. The sea is calm and grey. And, although it is quiet except for the occasional screech of a seagull, I have come to realise that you almost never feel completely alone by the ocean. The winter sun warms my back in contrast with the cool breeze. I can smell the salt in the air. Comforting, familiar. I turn to Alex next to me who is squeezing into her already damp wetsuit. Alex swims every day, even in winter.
“Do you miss her?” I ask casually “Tash I mean”
Alex was always closer to me than she was to Tash. I remember one time when we were younger and she and Tash had had a disagreement about something I can’t seem to remember, she told me that I was the glue that kept our friendship together. I couldn’t tell whether that was a compliment or not. I took it as a compliment.
She pauses for a moment and fiddles with the blue and white friendship bracelet that she made for the three of us just before Tash disappeared.
“Do you want me to be one hundred per cent honest with you?” she asks carefully.
I nod silently, somewhat fearing the answer.
“I do miss her”
I let out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding.
“In a sense...You see; I miss us all being together of course but I’m not totally sure I miss Tash completely. I mean, I hope she’s okay but she was sort of weird sometimes, you know?”
I laugh. She is joking... I think. She puts a hand on my shoulder.
“You know; you can’t hold onto her forever. Maybe she doesn’t want to come back. Maybe she’s living out all her dreams in a big city”
And before I can reply she runs off. I watch as she sprints to the water, her hair streaming behind her like a gold silk scarf. I shiver as she dives in, though I am not cold. A flash of blue catches my eye and I lean forwards to pick up the piece of blue sea glass. There is a crack so deafening that I almost can’t hear it. It makes my ears pop and my heart stops for just a second. What feels like a small rock hits me just below my rib cage. I turn to see what hit me but I see nothing. I feel a searing heat under my ribs and I clutch at it, holding my breath. When I remove my hands, they are covered in dark red blood. For a couple of seconds, I am in denial. It could have been a rock. But there was no one else here. Maybe a golf ball…? But the nearest golf course was fifteen minutes away. My brain searches frantically for another option and when it can’t find one, reality hits me like a bus. It was a bullet. It feels like I have been crushed by something that weighs fifty tons, yet everything is silent. As I lay in the sand, drifting in and out of consciousness and my ears ring and my vision blurs, I see a streak of blue and white. Alex came back! I think in relief It’s okay, everything is going to be ok...
I am surrounded by the sounds and smells of primary school. With a shock, I realise I am surrounded by my memory of the first day of school. I spot the six-year-old versions of Tash and me and make my way over, trying my hardest to dodge all the other six-year-olds. I stand in front of our desks and watch as Natasha lines up her eight crayons in rainbow order and places her eight exercise books in her locker which she has stuck on a sticker of the number eight. As I watch her, I begin to notice how obsessed she is; lining up everything so precisely that if even one thing is not quite right, she takes five minutes to fix it. If it isn’t clear by now, Tash’s favourite number was eight. She was born on the eighth day of the eighth month. Even her last name started with H, the eighth letter of the alphabet to be exact. In fact, one of our only fights involved the number eight. The memory spins; a blur of every colour. I find myself in Tash’s room. The walls are painted a dark shade of red and the smell of dinner wafts down the hallway. In this memory, we are ten years old and it is Natasha’s birthday sleepover. I realise it is just after we had had one of our first arguments. I watch as Natasha opens the notebook I have given her. She hugs me and thanks me.
“Oh my god Madeleine! This is so pretty! I love it so much!”
But then she opened the set of seven pens I had given her. I watch as her face falls into a frown as she realises that there are only seven pens.
“But Maddie, there are only seven pens,” she informs me.
“Yeah, I know! They are pretty colours, aren’t they? Do you like them?” I ask, smiling cheerfully.
She shakes her head.
“No, Maddie. You don’t understand. There are only seven pens”
I watch myself shrug.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t matter because they look cool, right?” I laugh.
“No Madeleine! There has to be eight!” she screams and throws them across the room.
I watch myself apologizing profusely, remembering how I felt so stupid and that I should have realised she would have wanted eight, not seven. But now I look back on it and wonder why it was such a big deal. It wasn’t stupid to buy her a set of seven pens. Her overreaction makes me realise how explosive she could be. How did I not notice this?
Again the memory spins. Now We sit in the park as she stares at a girl, about two years older than us. With a jolt, I realise she is one of the seven people that were murdered. I watch my younger self lean over to look at Tash’s notebook.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m studying!” she laughs at the bewilderment on my face. “for my story you know! I need more characters for my story” she points to the girl “Lily is perfect. She’s one of eight you know”
As yet again the memory spins away, I can’t shake the feeling of dread settling over me like mist on a lake in spring. As I watch my memories swirl by I sit in horror. I see Tash studying each victim of the killings; taking notes and staring with a malicious intent in her eyes that I never noticed. I watch myself laugh as she gives me a detailed description of her grandfather’s unregistered gun and how she could use it to kill someone if she wanted to. I witnessed myself shrug off all the feelings of unease, reassuring myself that she was my closest friend and yeah, maybe she was a little weird but everyone had their differences, right? And I see Tash. But not the Tash I thought I knew. A Tash who is beautiful, but twisted, emotionless, and obsessive to the entire degree.
Slowly but surely my mind begins to connect the dots. She was psychopathic, obsessive and cruel. Each victim was associated with the number eight, whether it was a birthday, house number, or they were one of eight children like Lily; the list goes on. She wasn’t studying people for stories, she was plotting their murders. Each person was found with a beautifully written description of their death. Natasha was a writer. We used to listen to true crime podcasts and I, her best friend, was her eighth and final murder. But instead of standing still, I bent over to pick up sea glass and she missed. And because Alex was only two hundred meters away, she didn’t have time to finish me off.
My stomach drops and I scream through the silence. I scream at her though I know she can’t hear me.
“I loved you! We were friends...we made promises! We planned our lives together! You lied!”
I am sobbing now; my voice is hoarse.
“I was besotted with you” I whisper. A storm cloud of emotions rages inside me, yet I can barely identify one. Pain? Anger? guilt? Betrayal? Horror? I close my eyes, taking in everything. A faint beeping sounds in the background and when I open my eyes I am in a hospital bed, connected to a dozen wires and drips. I cough, my throat is as dry as sandpaper.
“Mum, dad-” I choke.
In seconds I am enveloped in a teary hug as doctors and nurses rush in. I wince as I realise my bullet wound hasn’t miraculously disappeared. Dad finally pulls away blinking back tears. Now his eyes are serious.
“Madeleine, this is really important. Who did this to you?”
I grit my teeth and lift my chin. Finally, what I have been wanting to say!
“Natasha”
Dad turns to Mum and I watch as her face crumples into a mix of pity and concern.
“Oh Maddie, I don’t know if you remember but Tash is missing. She can’t have done this”
“No mum-” I start. I can finally tell them but they don’t even believe me!?
“Shhh…. it’s okay you can rest now”
Doctors fuss around me as I try to get a word in but suddenly the door bursts open and Alex rushes in, throwing her arms around me.
“Oh, Maddie! I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there quicker! I didn’t even see who shot you!”
I frown in confusion.
“But Alex, you were right there after I fell. I saw your friendship bracelet”
She shakes her head.
“I was two hundred metres away and I’m not that fast. Oh and that reminds me” She pulls another blue and white friendship bracelet out of her pocket and hands it to me “You must have dropped this when you fell”
But I shake my head, a grin forming on my face, because I know this is what I need. I lift my wrist to reveal mine and she lifts up her sleeve to reveal hers. And here we are. Two friends and three matching bracelets. The final puzzle piece falls into place. Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open as she whispers her name.
“Tash”
