Old friends reunite

Events moved swiftly over the course of the evening and the following day. And as is the way in this inter-connected world of ours, where information streams in invisible packets through the very air we breath, where something that happens to an individual is known by millions seconds later, the best laid plans went awry.

The element of chance came into play, the ball that was bouncing toward the big sticks took a leg break that nobody could have predicted, trundled over the line and the game was lost. Fate occurred, life happened. As a result, a man who would have otherwise have lived died, and others faced broken careers and ruined futures

“There she is, there’s the little bitch”, spat Sam as Johnno piloted the big car through the casino carpark.

Rebecca sensed something was wrong the minute the car pulled up next to her. Who was this other person with Caroline? Was it even Caroline?

Johnno got out quickly, clutching the bucket of acid. He wasn’t comfortable with disfiguring a woman he’d never met, but thought it a price worth paying to stop the monster Dew before he ruined the country’s fragile ecosystem.

But then as he approached the woman, he realised he did know her. The slender figure, the long brown hair.

He put the bucket down.

“Rebecca?” he asked.

She looked over.

“Johnno?”

The two rushed to one another. Johnno had been the very first patient Rebecca had ever seen when she was studying speech pathology back in Perth. It had taken a year, but she’d finally been able to help him remove the stutter that had blighted his speech and as result, he’d been able to present convincingly in interviews and get his dream job at the zoo.

“What the bloody hell is going on,” shrieked Sam from inside the car, “Why haven’t you thrown the acid over her yet?”

“Johnno, what’s going on?” asked Rebecca.

“Well, Sam here is pissed off because you’ve been playing fanny bangers with Caroline, and I want revenge on Stewart Dew because he ate my crocodiles so we did a deal where I’d chuck this acid on you if she helped me get Dew’s address so I could teach him a lesson about sustainable wildlife management,” replied Johnno.

Rebecca absorbed it all.

“Johnno, that’s madness, she’s just using you. You could go to jail for this. Don’t think she won’t drop you right in it to save her own little skin,” she said.

They looked over to the car where Sam’s face, twisted into a hideous mask of hate and bitterness, was pressed against the glass like a kid from the special school on the bus home.

“You’re right Rebecca, but what should we do?”

“The first thing we should do is call the police and get this crazy woman arrested,” replied Rebecca, dialling 000 as she spoke.