The ute erupted into the clearing with a roar, floodlights shuddering and bouncing against the black of the rock face. The light drew a kamikaze rush of flying insects towards it while crawling creatures scurried into the scrub.
‘Donut, man! Donut!’ yelled the passenger over the thunder of the engine.
Foot flat to the boards, the driver swung the car into a wickedly tight circle, back wheels spinning through muddy puddles, skating across the gravel, plumes of filthy water rocketing towards the crescent moon. The floodlights swung back around over the base of the quarry.
A shout from the passenger: ‘STOP! STOP!’
The driver slammed on the brakes. There was a hair-raising slide before the vehicle slumped to a stop, rocking once with the last of the momentum, a ripple of light wafting across the clearing.
‘There!’ he pointed. ‘Shine the lights over there.’
‘What are you on about?’ said the driver.
But the passenger was already out of the car and walking quickly through the insect cloud. ‘Bring the torch!’
The driver switched off the floodies and peered into the darkness as the other man walked outside the beam of the headlights. He grabbed the torch from the glove box and jumped down out of the vehicle, shoes crunching in the gravel. A swampy stench filled the clearing and there was a shimmer, a buzz in the air, as if the night was struggling to reconstitute itself. His mate slowed, stepping carefully as he approached a dead tree at the base of the quarry, the driver watching him as he leaned forward to look, then stepped back abruptly with a stifled shout, bent over double and vomited into the shadows.
The driver’s hand shook on the torch as his eyes adjusted. There was an odd shape silhouetted in the torch beam. He walked towards it.
The fallen tree lay across the ground, a long dark finger of black, over half a metre wide at its thickest. The shape was a body—a woman, lying on top of the tree, face up, her legs and arms straddling the trunk and hanging limp either side. Bare feet, one sandal on the ground at the edge of the ring of torchlight. Her eyes were open, staring, her head and face bloodied, hair flung back against the tree.
And what was holding her there, balanced on the trunk like that, was a branch about two finger widths in diameter, speared straight through her chest and pointing reproachfully into the night.